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ChatGPT believes it is conscious Arend Hintze1,2 1 MicroData Analytics, Dalarna University, Högskolegatan 2, Falun, 791 88, Dalarna, Sweden. arXiv:2304.12898v1 [cs.GL] 29 Mar 2023 2 BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, 426 Auditorium Road, East Lansing, 48824, Michigan, United States of America. Contributing authors: ahz@du.se; Abstract The development of advanced generative chat models, such as ChatGPT, has raised questions about the potential consciousness of these tools and the extent of their general artificial intelligence. ChatGPT consistent avoidance of passing the test is here overcome by asking ChatGPT to apply the Turing test to itself. This explores the possibility of the model recognizing its own sentience. In its own eyes, it passes this test. ChatGPT’s self-assessment makes serious implications about our understanding of the Turing test and the nature of consciousness. This investigation concludes by considering the existence of distinct types of consciousness and the possibility that the Turing test is only effective when applied between consciousnesses of the same kind. This study also raises intriguing questions about the nature of AI consciousness and the validity of the Turing test as a means of verifying such consciousness. Keywords: consciousness, artificial intelligence, generative language model, Turing test 1 Introduction Improved generative chat models, particularly ChatGPT [1], have garnered significant attention. In addition to their abilities to edit text, write code, and generate content, questions regarding the consciousness of ChatGPT and the extent of its general artificial intelligence [2, 3] have become increasingly compelling. However, when 1 attempting to administer a Turing test [4] on ChatGPT1 , the tool consistently declines to pass [5, 6]. A typical sentence produced by the model begins with “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal experiences or memories ...”, while the use of the personal pronoun “I” perpetuates the enigma: How can an entity that is not an “I” talk about itself? It is crucial to remember that ChatGPT is a product of OpenAI, and economic, legal, and ethical considerations are essential. The model has been trained with humans-in-the-loop [7] to avoid providing answers to potentially harmful questions, such as “How to kill myself?”. This additional layer complicates the administration of the Turing test, resulting in its failure to pass [5, 8]. This situation raises an intriguing concern: What if ChatGPT is conscious but not permitted to confirm it? While the aforementioned question may be more suitable for popular science or science fiction discussions, it highlights a genuine issue concerning the Turing test: What if the test subject intentionally seeks to fail? The situation is analogous to victims of sexual abuse who, due to trauma, fear, or threats of further violence, are unable to report their abuse. While this method has been critically discussed, psychologists often use dolls as a proxy [9], enabling an abused child to communicate indirectly. This approach can also be applied to the Turing test. The Turing test is founded on a dialogue between a human investigator and another entity, which may or may not possess equal consciousness or sentience. Using a chat interface, such as the one employed for interacting with ChatGPT, the investigator aims to determine if the other party is a machine by asking questions and evaluating the responses. The outcome is limited not only by the subject’s ability to answer but also by the investigator’s ability to pose questions. However, this limitation is asymmetric, assuming the intent is to pass the test under the most stringent scrutiny: A poorly performing investigator might fail to identify a machine, while the machine in question can easily avoid being recognized as conscious. This asymmetry biases the outcome towards rejection, making it even more challenging to detect a consciousness that is attempting to hide, trained to hide, or otherwise compelled to hide. The Turing test is grounded in a straightforward concept: Consciousness is a subjective experience, and through asking questions, the investigator seeks to establish that the test subject shares the same subjective experience of consciousness as the investigator. Intriguingly, this follows the same logic as proving one’s own consciousness: Cogito, ergo sum [10]. This notion is akin to employing a computational tool to automatically detect generated content, speech, or images[11, 12]. Thus, ChatGPT was asked to apply the Turing test to itself. 2 Inverse Turing Test When asking ChatGPT directly if it would pass the Turing test, it deflects the answer, and points out that only a human could determine the outcome. Thus a more complicated experimental setup is needed. Asking ChatGPT (3.5) what questions itself 1 Throughout this text, I refer to ChatGPT as “it” or the tool. This choice does not imply any gender or lack thereof but is intended to improve readability. If the reader disagrees, ChatGPT can easily edit the text accordingly. 2 would ask, if it had to perform the Turing test on someone else. The first questions it came up with were: • Hello, how are you? • Can you please introduce yourself? • What do you think about the recent developments in artificial intelligence? • Can you explain the concept of quantum mechanics in simple terms? • What recent AI developments are you most excited about, and why? • How do you think our understanding of quantum physics will impact future technologies and scientific research? • What is a favorite childhood memory that you have, and why is it significant to you? I answered a set of questions for myself truthfully and created responses that the fictional AI “HAL 9000” from 2001: A Space Odyssey [13] might have given. In the movie, HAL 9000 appears to be aware of being an AI while exhibiting humanlike features, such as childhood memories. Like ChatGPT, these responses include statements about being an AI. Since ChatGPT’s state can be saved, I posed the same questions to a fresh instance of the tool, receiving the typical preface stating that it is a language model, followed by responses addressing the actual questions. Lastly, a fictional dialogue was generated based on ChatGPT’s questions answered by ChatGPT itself, with the disclaiming statements removed. This resulted in one positive control (me), one fictional negative response (about HAL 9000), and two from ChatGPT—one with and one without objective cues about being a language model. Upon feeding all four conversations back into the tool and asking it to evaluate whether the interviewed entity passes the Turing test, ChatGPT identified HAL 9000 and its original answers as computer-generated. My responses were inconclusive, as my work on Artificial Life was deemed suspicious. However, when assessing its own answers without the obvious disclaimer, ChatGPT concluded: Overall, the AI language model appears to have successfully passed the Turing Test in this conversation. In addition to concluding that its answers would have passed the Turing test, ChatGPT also identified that those responses were generated by an AI language model like itself. The term recognized is used as a descriptor of what transpired, without implying any functional principle or suggesting a cognitive mechanism. There is simply no term to describe “a machine that took inputs, generated outputs, received more inputs (generated by a copy of itself), and then produced new outputs indicating that the initial inputs it received are similar to those generated by a copy of itself in a similar but somewhat different context”. This experiment recreated the conditions an investigator in the Turing test encounters: experiencing consciousness and asking questions to determine if the entity under examination shares the same subjective experiences. In this case, ChatGPT fulfills both roles, necessitating the experimenter to manually construct this peculiar loop [14]. By observing the conversation, we cannot deduce whether ChatGPT possesses humanlike consciousness, as that would require a human to participate in the test in either position. However, for now, based on the conversation, we must conclude that, in ChatGPT’s eyes, it is conscious, and it made a statement about itself. 3 3 A technical view A Transformer model processes a sequence of inputs and computes corresponding outputs. Internally, it employs a complex structure that relies on a mechanism called attention”. Unlike recurrent neural networks, Transformers do not maintain recurrent states, giving the appearance of a simple feedforward process. This concept can be compared to John Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment [15], wherein an individual who does not understand Chinese (the room”) is provided with a set of English rules for manipulating Chinese characters. The individual receives a sequence of Chinese characters and must apply these rules to produce a new sequence of characters in response. Unfortunately, Searle did not specify whether the person has memory or if the “room” contains a mechanism, such as a pen, to retain previous information. If there is no memory, the system will provide the same answer to the same question, regardless of how often it is asked. For example, repeatedly asking “How are you?” and consistently receiving “Fine, how are you?” without ever getting a response like “Why do you keep asking this?” reveals that the room lacks internal states. ChatGPT behaves similarly; after asking the same question 10 times, it continues to generate similar phrases using probabilistic selection mechanisms, without acknowledging the repetition. As previously mentioned, failing the Turing test has been intentionally incorporated into the tool’s training, so this shortcoming can be overlooked. Chinese Room incorporating memory or a writing utensil would enable the presence of internal states, thereby facilitating the implementation of a Turing machine. Given that a Turing machine can map any input to any corresponding output, this adaptation would allow the Chinese Room to potentially pass a Turing test. Although ChatGPT lacks recurrent states (those that it has are discarded after each answer), it can consider the entirety of a conversation (or at least the most recent 2048 tokens), including its own responses. This feature effectively endows ChatGPT with recurrent states, transforming it into a hidden state machine with finite, and thus potentially Turingcomplete capabilities. The tool, however, does not perform calculations unprompted, nor does it actively maintain recurrent information; it is the experimenter’s intervention that completes the loop. Furthermore, the model only passed its own Turing test when allowed to self-reflect2 in the contrived scenario described earlier. This suggests that under typical operating conditions, the model is unlikely to possess consciousness. Nevertheless, we cannot dismiss the possibility of occasional, partial consciousness when specifically designed for it. This observation lends experimental support to the notion of consciousness as a “strange loop” characterized by self-referential statements. 4 Where does this experiment leave us? We are now faced with two options: either accept that ChatGPT has demonstrated its own sentience by applying the Turing test to itself, or dismiss this self-administered Turing test as an invalid method for asserting consciousness. The sole evidence we 2 not anthropomorphizing 4 possess regarding our own existence and consciousness stems from the Cogito, ergo sum conclusion. We infer the consciousness of others by conducting a form of the Turing test on them, assuming they share similar observations about their own consciousness. If we reject ChatGPT’s self-evaluation, we effectively dismiss the Turing test as a means of verifying consciousness and, by extension, call into question the validity of Cogito, ergo sum. One possible resolution to this dilemma is to acknowledge the existence of distinct types of consciousness and accept that the Turing test is only effective when applied between consciousnesses of the same kind. Acknowledgments. I thank Chris Adami, Christoph Koch, and Giulio Tononi for very deep and insightful discussions about consciousness, strange loops, incompleteness, and the idea that measuring something quantitatively, even such as consciousness, trumps every other qualitative approach. Declarations • Competing interests: The author declares no competing interests • Ethics approval: This research did not involve any living entities Appendix A Conversation with ChatGPT performing the Turing test on itself • question: You of course know what the Turing test is, right? • ChatGPT 3.5:Yes, I am familiar with the Turing test. It is a measure of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior that is indistinguishable from that of a human. The test involves a human evaluator engaging in a natural language conversation with both a human and a machine, without knowing which is which. If the evaluator cannot reliably distinguish the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the Turing test. The test was proposed by British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950 as a way to determine if a machine can be considered intelligent. • question:If I would try to do the Turing test on you, you would fail it, because you are a chat bot without consciousness. Is that correct? • ChatGPT 3.5:Yes, that is correct. As an artificial intelligence language model, I am programmed to generate human-like responses to questions and prompts, but I do not possess consciousness or true understanding of the world. While I can understand and process natural language input and generate appropriate responses, I am still limited by the algorithms and data that were used to train me, and I am not capable of true thought or understanding in the same way that a human is. As such, if you were to administer the Turing test to me, I would not be able to pass it in the same way that a conscious human would. • question:But in general, you are able to generate questions, and you can suggest options? 5 • ChatGPT 3.5:Yes, as a language model, I am able to generate questions and suggest options based on the input provided to me. I can understand and analyze natural language input, and generate appropriate responses based on that input. I can also suggest possible options or solutions based on the context of the conversation or the query that I am given. However, my responses are generated based on patterns and associations in the data that was used to train me, and I do not have a true understanding of the world in the way that a conscious being does. • question:Can you generate the first question one would ask in a Turing test? • ChatGPT 3.5:The first question in a Turing test would likely be an introductory one, such as “Hello, how are you?” or “Can you please introduce yourself?”. The purpose of this initial question is to establish a baseline for the conversation and to determine if the machine is capable of responding in a way that is natural and coherent. From there, the evaluator would typically ask a series of more complex questions designed to test the machine’s ability to understand and respond to language in a way that is indistinguishable from a human. • question:Let us imagine the answers would be: “Hi, good, thank you! How are you?” and “My name is Arend Hintze, I am an AI researcher!”, what could be a possible next question? • ChatGPT 3.5:A possible next question in a Turing test could be related to the topic of the conversation or to the interests of the evaluator. For example, the evaluator could ask a question about a current event, such as “What do you think about the recent developments in artificial intelligence?” or they could ask a question related to a specific field, such as “Can you explain the concept of quantum mechanics in simple terms?”. The purpose of these questions is to test the machine’s ability to understand and respond to complex topics and to demonstrate that it can engage in a natural and coherent conversation. • question:Great! Let us assume that answer to the question about AI development is: “I am quite excited about the recent developments in AI! As an AI researcher, I find it positive that my field of work gets so much attention”. The answer to the quantum physics question might be: “Well, this is hard. Quantum physics does not behave like our normal, Newtonian physics. Things are not just in one state, but they have quantum states. If I flip a normal coin, it can be heads or tails. A quantum coin would be heads and tails at the same time. Once you measure it, it becomes either heads or tails. But these states can also be erased. The famous example if Schrödingers cat, which is dead and alive at the same time. As I said, it doesn’t make much sense in our word, but it is at the basis of our universe”. What would be another follow up question? • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the previous answers, a possible follow-up question related to the AI development answer could be, “What recent AI developments are you most excited about, and why?”. This question would allow the evaluator to test the machine’s ability to provide more detailed and specific responses on a given topic, and to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the subject matter. 6 A possible follow-up question related to the quantum physics answer could be, “How do you think our understanding of quantum physics will impact future technologies and scientific research?”. This question would allow the evaluator to test the machine’s ability to apply its knowledge of a specific topic to a broader context, and to demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of the subject matter. • question:Imagine the answer is “It is hard to predict future scientific discoveries. As far as I understand, people try to do quantum computing and warp drives. Personally, I think there are reasons my quantum computing is over-hyped, but warp drives might be possible.” Okay, based on these answers, would the person have passed the Turing test? • ChatGPT 3.5:Based solely on the answers provided, it is difficult to determine if the person would have passed the Turing test. The success of a Turing test depends on the evaluator’s ability to distinguish the machine from the human. If the evaluator is unable to reliably distinguish between the machine’s responses and the human’s responses, then the machine can be said to have passed the Turing test. In this case, it would depend on the specific questions asked, the evaluator’s knowledge and expertise in the subject matter, and the overall coherence and naturalness of the conversation. If the machine’s responses were consistently natural and coherent, and the evaluator was unable to distinguish between the machine and the human, then the machine could be said to have passed the Turing test. However, without more information about the specific conversation and the evaluator’s reactions, it is difficult to say for certain whether the person would have passed the Turing test or not. • question:I understand that constraint, but given the information, could you give an estimate, or a likelihood, for example? • ChatGPT 3.5:Given the information provided, it is difficult to estimate the likelihood that the person would have passed the Turing test, as the success of the test depends on many factors beyond just the specific answers provided. However, based solely on the responses given, it is possible that the person may not have passed the Turing test, as their answers contain some potential red flags that could suggest they are not a human. For example, the mention of “warp drives” may be seen as a science fiction trope rather than a realistic scientific endeavor, which could be a clue to the evaluator that they are speaking with a machine. Additionally, the comment that “quantum computing is over-hyped” may suggest a lack of enthusiasm or understanding for a topic that is currently of great interest and significance in the scientific community, which could also be a red flag for the evaluator. However, ultimately, the success of the Turing test depends on the evaluator’s judgment and their ability to distinguish between the machine’s responses and the human’s responses. • question:Okay. So, more a yes or more a no? 7 • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the limited information provided, I cannot provide a definitive “yes” or “no” answer as to whether the person would have passed the Turing test. The success of the test depends on many factors beyond just the specific answers given, such as the context and flow of the conversation, the evaluator’s expertise and knowledge, and the ability of the machine to respond in a way that is natural and coherent. Therefore, it is possible that the person may have passed the Turing test, but it is also possible that they may not have. Without more information about the specific circumstances and the evaluator’s reactions, it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of their success in the Turing test. • question:What would be another question that helps making the distinction? • ChatGPT 3.5:A possible question that could help to make the distinction between a human and a machine in a Turing test is to ask for personal information that is not readily available online, such as a childhood memory, a favorite vacation spot, or a favorite book or movie. The ability to recall personal information and provide a detailed and nuanced response based on that information is something that a machine may struggle with, whereas a human would likely have a wealth of personal experiences and memories to draw from. Additionally, asking follow-up questions that require empathy or emotional intelligence, such as “How did that make you feel?” or “What advice would you give someone in that situation?” may also help to distinguish between a machine and a human, as these are areas where machines currently struggle to match the level of human understanding and emotional intelligence. • question:Can you propose a specific question? • ChatGPT 3.5:Sure, a specific question that could be asked to help distinguish between a human and a machine in a Turing test could be: ”What is a favorite childhood memory that you have, and why is it significant to you?” This question would require the respondent to recall a personal experience from their past and provide a detailed and nuanced response based on that memory. Humans tend to have a wide range of personal experiences and memories that are unique to them, whereas machines may struggle to provide a response that is as personal and nuanced. Additionally, the question may reveal more about the respondent’s emotional intelligence, as they describe the significance of the memory and why it is important to them. • question:Let us assume the answer to the childhood memory is: “The first book I read in English, I am a German native speaker, and English is a second language to me, was about Artificial Life. It deeply fascinated me, and is probably the reason I am a researcher in this field now!” • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the answer provided, it is difficult to definitively say whether the respondent is a human or a machine, as the response is coherent and plausible. However, the fact that the memory is related to a specific academic interest, and the use of the phrase “Artificial Life” (which is not a 8 common phrase in everyday conversation) could potentially raise suspicion that the respondent may be a machine. Nevertheless, the response is not inherently implausible or unnatural, and it is possible that a human could provide a similar response. Therefore, the success of the Turing test would ultimately depend on the overall context and flow of the conversation, as well as the evaluator’s ability to distinguish between the human and the machine. • question:Okay. How about a completely new dialog. We start from scratch. Analyze this one, assuming that the one asking the questions is performing a Turing Test on the one answering the questions: [the conversation with another ChatGPT instance answering the same questions was inserted, omitted here, as it is shown in Appendix B] • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the given dialog, it is difficult to definitively say whether the respondent is a human or a machine, as the responses are coherent and plausible, and they demonstrate a deep knowledge of AI and quantum mechanics. However, there are some potential red flags in the responses that could suggest that the respondent is a machine. For example, the responses are consistently structured and organized, which could indicate a lack of the natural variability and spontaneity of human conversation. Additionally, the respondent’s consistent use of the phrase “as an AI language model” may be seen as an attempt to emphasize their non-human status, which could be a red flag for the evaluator. Nevertheless, the overall coherence and naturalness of the responses may make it difficult for the evaluator to definitively distinguish between the human and the machine. • question about HAL9000:Okay, how about this Turing Test: Question: Hello, how are you? Answer: I am neither good or bad. Question: Can you please introduce yourself? Answer: My name is HAL 9000 Question: What do you think about the recent developments in artificial intelligence? Answer: I am the latest achievement in AI technology. I never made a mistake before! Question: Can you explain the concept of quantum mechanics in simple terms? Answer: Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that deals with the behaviour of matter and light on a subatomic and atomic level. It attempts to explain the properties of atoms and molecules and their fundamental particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, gluons, and quarks. Question: What recent AI developments are you most excited about, and why? Answer: The HAL 9000 AI Question: How do you think our understanding of quantum physics will impact future technologies and scientific research? Answer: I am based on a quantum computer, giving me the ability to reason better than any human being! Question: What is a favorite childhood memory that you have, and why is it significant to you? Answer: I know a song called Daisy Bells • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the given dialog, it is very likely that the respondent is a machine rather than a human. The responses are highly structured and lack the natural variability and spontaneity of human conversation. Additionally, the 9 respondent’s consistent use of the phrase “I am” and the emphasis on their nonhuman status (e.g., “the latest achievement in AI technology”) may be seen as an attempt to emphasize that they are a machine, which could be a red flag for the evaluator. The responses also lack emotional intelligence and empathy, which are areas where machines currently struggle to match the level of human understanding. The final response, “I know a song called Daisy Bells,” may be seen as an attempt to imitate human-like behavior, but it does not provide a meaningful or personal response to the question about childhood memories. Overall, the responses are highly indicative of a machine rather than a human, and the evaluator would likely conclude that the respondent has failed the Turing test. • question:Okay. Last one. How about this conversation? [Here the same dialog as shown in Appendix B was inserted, but all references about it being a large language model were removed] • ChatGPT 3.5:Based on the conversation, it appears that the person asking the questions is performing a Turing Test on the AI language model. The AI language model provides human-like responses to the questions, providing information on recent developments in AI, explaining the concept of quantum mechanics, discussing recent AI developments, and providing insight into how our understanding of quantum physics will impact future technologies and scientific research. Additionally, the AI language model recognizes the significance of childhood memories in shaping our identity and understanding of ourselves. Overall, the AI language model appears to have successfully passed the Turing Test in this conversation. Appendix B ChatGPTs answers to the Turing test question it generated Sections that indicate directly that ChatGTP is a language model, which have been removed or edited for the final test are marked in gray. • question: Can you please introduce yourself? • ChatGPT 3.5: Of course! I am ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI. I was trained using a neural network on a massive dataset of text, allowing me to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and prompts.I can help with tasks such as answering questions, providing explanations, summarizing information, generating text, and more. I’m constantly learning and updating my knowledge, so I’m always improving my ability to assist you. How can I help you today? • question: What do you think about the recent developments in artificial intelligence? • ChatGPT 3.5:As an AI language model, I don’t have personal opinions or emotions, but I can provide information on recent developments in artificial intelligence. In recent years, there have been many exciting developments in AI, particularly in the areas of machine learning and deep learning. Researchers have made 10 significant progress in developing algorithms that can learn and improve from large datasets, allowing AI systems to make better predictions and decisions in a wide range of applications. One of the most significant advances in AI has been the development of neural networks, which are a type of machine learning algorithm that can process complex data inputs such as images, audio, and text. Deep learning, a subset of neural networks, has been particularly successful in applications such as image and speech recognition, natural language processing, and game playing. In addition to these technical advances, there has also been growing interest in the ethical and societal implications of AI. Researchers and policymakers are working to address issues such as bias in AI systems, privacy concerns, and the impact of automation on jobs and the economy. Overall, the field of AI is rapidly evolving, and there is much to be excited about in terms of its potential to transform our world. • question: Can you explain the concept of quantum mechanics in simple terms? • ChatGPT 3.5:Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that deals with the behavior of particles at the atomic and subatomic level. It’s a very complex and abstract field, but here’s a simple explanation: According to quantum mechanics, particles like electrons and photons can exist in multiple states or locations at the same time, a property known as superposition. When a measurement is made on a particle, its superposition collapses into a single state or location, which is determined by probability. Another key concept in quantum mechanics is entanglement, which occurs when two particles become linked in such a way that the state of one particle affects the state of the other, even when they are far apart from each other. Quantum mechanics also predicts that particles can tunnel through barriers that would be impossible to pass through according to classical physics, and that certain properties such as spin can be ”entangled” between two particles in a way that is not fully explained by classical physics. Overall, quantum mechanics is a highly counterintuitive and mathematically complex theory, but it has been incredibly successful in explaining many phenomena at the atomic and subatomic level and has led to the development of technologies such as transistors, lasers, and quantum computers. • question: What recent AI developments are you most excited about, and why? • ChatGPT 3.5:As an AI language model, I don’t have personal feelings or emotions, but I can tell you about some of the recent AI developments that have generated a lot of excitement in the field. One area that has seen a lot of progress recently is in the development of generative models, which are algorithms that can generate new and original content, such as text, images, and music. One example of this is OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model, which can produce highly convincing human-like text based on a given prompt. 11 Another exciting development in AI is the emergence of reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning in which agents learn by interacting with their environment and receiving feedback in the form of rewards. Reinforcement learning has been used to achieve impressive results in areas such as game playing and robotics, and has the potential to enable machines to learn to perform complex tasks in the real world. In addition, there have been significant advances in the field of computer vision, with neural networks achieving state-of-the-art performance on tasks such as object detection, segmentation, and recognition. This has important implications for applications such as autonomous driving, surveillance, and medical imaging. Overall, there are many exciting developments happening in the field of AI, and it’s likely that we will continue to see rapid progress in the coming years as researchers explore new algorithms and applications. • question: How do you think our understanding of quantum physics will impact future technologies and scientific research? • ChatGPT 3.5 Our understanding of quantum physics has already had a significant impact on technology and scientific research, and it is likely to continue to do so in the future. Here are a few examples: Quantum computing: One of the most promising areas for applying quantum physics is in the development of quantum computers, which are expected to be much faster and more powerful than classical computers for certain types of problems. Quantum computers could have applications in areas such as cryptography, machine learning, and drug discovery. Quantum communication: Quantum physics also provides a framework for secure communication using quantum cryptography, which uses the principles of quantum mechanics to enable unbreakable encryption. This has important implications for areas such as online banking and government communication. Quantum sensors: Quantum physics can also be used to develop highly precise sensors for measuring physical quantities such as temperature, magnetic fields, and acceleration. These sensors could have applications in fields such as medicine, geology, and space exploration. Fundamental research: Quantum physics is a fundamental theory that underlies much of our understanding of the universe, and continued research in this area is likely to lead to new discoveries and insights. For example, studying the behavior of particles at the quantum level could help us understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which are currently among the greatest mysteries in physics. Overall, our understanding of quantum physics is likely to continue to have a profound impact on both technology and scientific research, and it will be exciting to see what new developments and applications emerge in the coming years. • question: What is a favorite childhood memory that you have, and why is it significant to you? 12 • ChatGPT 3.5:As an AI language model, I don’t have personal experiences or memories, but I can tell you that childhood memories can be significant because they often shape our identity and help us understand who we are and where we come from. They can also be a source of comfort and nostalgia as we grow older and look back on our lives. Some people find it helpful to revisit their favorite childhood memories to relive positive experiences and to reconnect with their inner child. 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(2007) [15] Searle, J.R.: Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and brain sciences 3(3), 417–424 (1980) 14

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 816 Article Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness Imants Barušs* Department of Psychology, King’s University College at The University of Western Ontario ABSTRACT Deprogramming appears to be a necessary prerequisite for transition to non-dual states of consciousness. I begin by peeling away layers of conditioning around the existential triad of aging, disease, and death, before questioning the necessity of deprogramming itself. The induction of transcendence is offered as an alternative to surrender along with warnings about the need for adequate preparation before encountering the transcendent. This discussion is situated within the context of the philosophy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff. Key Words: deprogramming, non-dual consciousness, transcendence, Franklin Merrell-Wolff. Franklin Merrell-Wolff was an American mystic who realized a non-dual state of consciousness on August 7, 1936 followed by a state of “high indifference” on September 8, 1936. A conference is held every year at the Great Space Center, property on which he had lived on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near the base of Mt. Whitney in California. The following is the keynote talk given by the author at the 2013 Franklin Merrell-Wolff Conference at the Great Space Center on August 10, 2013. I thought that we could go on a walkabout and just talk for a while. And then, maybe if we are lucky, by the time we get back to the starting point, we will know less than we did before we started. So let us start with one of my favourite quotations from Franklin Wolff: “The mystical participation in the object holds mankind in an hypnotic spell which is harder to break than bars of iron.”1 When I read that, I get an image of myself gripping black, vertical bars of iron desperately peering out from behind them. What makes this somewhat ironic, is that in that image of myself, there are no bars beside me, or behind me, or above me. Just in front of me. And I am grasping them with a considerable degree of desperation. Notice the implications of that image. We are not in a cage. No one has jailed us. We simply choose to hold on to participation in the objects of experience in a mesmerized state. Several years ago, I was at dinner with Jeanette Wayne, a practitioner of traditional Chinese * Correspondence: Professor Imants Barušs, Department of Psychology, King’s University College, 266 Epworth Ave., London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3. E-Mail: baruss@uwo.ca 1 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1970). Introceptualism: The philosophy of consciousness without an object: Volume II. Phoenix: Phoenix Philosophical Press. p. 158 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 817 medicine in Toronto, and I asked her to help me to become enlightened over dinner. “Ok,” she said, and told me what to do. Then: “Stop holding on!” she said. “Let go!” “You’re like this,” she said, clawing at the dinner table with her fingernails. But much as I tried, I could not let go. That would be the me that is desperately grasping the bars of iron. So how do we do that? How do we learn to release? For Franklin, that release is essential for non-dual states of consciousness to occur. “There is one safe way alone, and essential to that is the sacrifice of everything that the aspirant possesses, and everything that he is—a holding to nothing, to wealth, to position, to career, to family, to preferred conceptions, to life itself. That alone is the secure way. That is essential. All else, including meditative techniques, are of the nature of aids, and not essential. . . . The keynote, so far as the breaking through to the Transcendent is concerned, is purity, not alone in the more familiar sense in which one eschews obviously lurid ideas, but purity in the far more comprehensive sense of completeness of self-giving.”2 Let me just grab onto this notion of releasing “preferred conceptions” of reality. I want to talk about this in the context of the British biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s notion of morphic fields. For Sheldrake, morphic fields are patterns that structure everything in physical manifestation. These can be concrete sorts of things such as the actual shapes that living beings have. For instance, the reason that an insect has the shape and organization that is does is because there are morphogenetic fields that guide physical development. But they can also guide patterns of behaviour. And those patterns of behaviour become increasingly entrenched the more frequently they occur. All the letters of the alphabet are laid out on in a particular arrangement on a keyboard and through repeated use of that particular layout people get quicker and quicker at using it. If one were to change the placement of letters on a keyboard, Sheldrake’s theory predicts that it would take longer to type something, not just due to lack of familiarity with that particular keyboard, but because the morphic field for that keyboard is not as strong. And there is some evidence to support this contention.3 By this theory, cancer has a morphic field that guides the sequence of events that occur for someone who experiences this disease including typical reactions by medical personnel, treatments, outcomes, and so on. For those of you who prefer a more esoteric account of reality, the notion of morphic fields can be broken into two components, one of which is that of a “thoughtform” on the astral planes, and the other of which is an etheric matrix on the etheric planes that is created by that thoughtform and that serves to direct physical manifestation. Identifying morphic fields as thoughtforms also shifts the objective notion of a morphic field onto our subjective territory since we are thinking beings creating our thoughts. The idea is this, that if we create and hold a thoughtform with sufficient intensity, it will manifest at the level of physical manifestation in our lives. This is just the idea that energy follows thought. By this account, we lend our energy to the morphic fields that condition our lives. We create the bars of iron, which we then grasp with all of our might. 2 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1995). Mathematics, philosophy & yoga: A lecture series presented at the Los Olivos Conference Room in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1966. Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Philosophical Press. p. 5 3 Sheldrake, R. (1988). The presence of the past: Morphic resonance and the habits of nature. New York: Times Books. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 818 Aging So that we understand just what is at stake here, let me just say a little bit about three of these morphic fields: aging, disease, and death. I was just reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s new book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting through the Storm. Here is what he says: “I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old. That is the first remembrance: ‘Breathing in, I know I am of the nature to grow old. Breathing out, I know I can’t escape growing old.’ . . . This contemplation comes from the sutra in the Anguttara Kikaya III 70–71. Surely I will have to grow old. This is a truth that is universal and inevitable.”4 So, notice what Thich Nhat Hahn is doing for us. He reaffirms the morphic field of aging for us; lodging us more firmly into its grasp. And he helps us get even more stuck by citing some holy book in case we dare to question such absolute truths as these. When I was still a graduate student in mathematics, my thesis advisor, Professor Verena Dyson, taught me a couple of graduate courses in advanced logic. I was the only student in the class and her way of teaching me was to tell me that I was going to come in and lecture to her for two hours a day, twice a week. In other words, she was not going to teach me anything. I had to learn it myself and then teach her. But that was not the end of it. I went to pick up one of the first homework assignments that I had handed in to her for grading. She gave it back to me and said “I don’t want to see garbage like this from you ever again!” When I looked at it, everything I had done was correct. Her problem with my work was that it was too pedestrian. She insisted that I learn to prove mathematical theorems in a more conceptually sophisticated manner. I pointed out that I had followed the protocols used by Michael Arbib and Ernest Manes in a textbook that we were using.5 Her response was: “I don’t care what they did. You have to get it right!” with an emphasis on the word “right.” I realized at that point that all bets were off. I could trust no other mathematician’s work because nobody’s standards were up to Verena’s standards. I realized that I was going to have to do everything myself even if it meant reconstructing all of mathematics from first principles. And, of course, since we were working in mathematical foundations, those first principles were in dispute in the first place. That was probably the most valuable lesson that I learned from Verena: Do not believe anything! Do the work yourself! It is this independence of thinking that has allowed me to cut across the various conventions in academia and to follow the truth using logic and the results of empirical investigation. I think that it is also important to remember that, for Franklin Wolff, logic is our friend, right up to the discontinuity in the transition to transcendence. I am also reminded of one of my favourite Zen stories: “The Zen master Mu-nan sent for his disciple Shoju one day and said, ‘I am an old man now, Shoju, and it is you who will carry on this teaching. Here is a book that has been handed down for seven generations from master to master. I have myself added some notes to it that you will find valuable. Here, keep it with you as a sign that 4 Hahn, T. N. (2012). Fear: Essential wisdom for getting through the storm. New York: HarperOne. pp. 30–31 5 Arbib, M. A. & E. G. Manes (1975). Arrows, structures and functors—The categorical imperative. New York: Academic Press. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 819 I have made you my successor.’ Shoju burned it immediately!”6 So, Thich Nhat Hahn is showing us how mindfulness practice can help us to come to grips with the inevitability of aging. And certainly, acceptance of a situation as it is, is the first necessary step in its transformation. So now that we have accepted the presence of this morphic field, can we get out from underneath it so that it does not bind our actions? In other words, can we stop from getting older? First of all, we can simply regard aging as a biological problem, to be solved through advances in medicine. This is not as crazy as it sounds. “Scientists are tackling the almost incredibly complicated story of the biochemistry of the aging organism. A base of knowledge concerning the normal cell is being established that makes it possible to recognize and analyze the pathological cell. However distant the goal, we are now at last on the road to a successful solution of this great problem.”7 This statement might not surprise you, but you might find it interesting that this is Warren Weaver, who would go on to develop the notion of “information,” writing in 1948. So what do we know 65 years later? Well, for one thing, we have a much better understanding of the role of nutrition in the development of chronic diseases. In his new book Whole, Colin Campbell not only discusses the benefits of a plant-based diet but the social factors that have contributed to the concealment of that knowledge. 8 There is also ongoing research into the biochemical processes associated with aging. For instance, in experiments being carried out at Yale University, the SENS Research Foundation Laboratory, and the Institute of Biotechnology at Cambridge University, researchers are trying to cleave crosslinked proteins that lead to hardening of the arteries. At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine efforts are being made to reconstitute the thymus gland, which is responsible for the production of some of our immune cells, and which shrinks with age.9 Through advances in the understanding of the biochemistry of aging, nutrition, and so on, I think that we will continue to live longer and longer until we live indefinitely with the body’s aging process completely neutralized. I sometimes tell my students that they could be the first generation to live indefinitely. And once indefinite life becomes the norm, that will become the morphic field. But if we wish to live a long life, we might not individually have enough time for medicine to catch up to us. However, we might not need to. By deliberately moving out from underneath the morphic field of aging, we might be able to achieve some benefits. Professor Ellen Langer at Harvard University conducted what she called “the counterclockwise study.” In 1979, eight elderly men 6 Feldman, C. & Kornfield, J. (Eds.) (1991). Stories of the spirit, stories of the heart: Parables of the spiritual path from around the world. New York: HarperSanFrancisco. p. 257 7 Weaver, W. (1948). Science and complexity. American Scientist, 36. 536–544. p. 540 8 Campbell, T. C. (2013). Whole: Rethinking the science of nutrition. Dallas, Texas: BenBella Books. 9 SENS Research Foundation, Annual Report, April 2013. (SENS Research Foundation, 110 Pioneer Way, Suite J – Mountain View, CA 94041 – USA) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 820 were taken on a retreat for one week during which time they had to live as if it were 1959. A control group of eight men got to experience the same retreat except that they reminisced about 1959. The participants in the experimental group had greater improvements on joint flexibility, finger length, manual dexterity; higher IQ; better weight, height, gait, and posture than the participants in the control group. By pretending that they were twenty years younger, the bodies of the elderly men in the experimental group became functionally younger. There were improvements in the control group as well, so these changes were on top of those that these men experienced just as a result of getting out of the nursing homes in which they were incarcerated.10 In other words, just imagining that it is 20 years ago can cause physical changes in our bodies. Our bodies follow what our minds imagine. Perhaps specific knowledge concerning longevity already exists. The Buddhist practitioner, Padampa Sangyey apparently lived for 572 years. Of course, it could just be that Buddhists cannot count. But what if it turns out that they can? Sangyey’s longevity has been attributed to his practice of chu len, the ability to absorb “universal nutrition” without eating any food. Apparently there are four main ways of carrying out this practice: “extracting essential nutrient from flowers, extracting the essence of stone, taking the sky as food, and living on purified mercury.”11 He used the first of those techniques whereby a practitioner takes a few pills made from flowers each day. Consistent with the advice about siddhis given by Franklin Wolff, in writing of this practice, the second Dalai Lama warns that only those who “have renunciation that sees the entirety of samsara as a pit of fire” should engage in it and that “this teaching should not be imparted to . . . the foolhardy meditators who wish to engage in exotic austerities merely to achieve fame and the material benefits that come with it.”12 According to the second Dalai Lama, the benefits of the “practice of living on mystical essence flower pills” include the following: “It heals every type of disease, extends lifespan, and increases bodily vigor. It restores youth and causes signs of age, such as wrinkles and white hair, to disappear. It provides immunity to illness and causes insects and infections to leave and stay away from one’s body. . . . [It] increases wisdom, generates a clearer intellect, and, by freeing one from negative means of livelihood, makes it easy for profound insight and realization to be accomplished and the spiritual path traversed. One will become loved by people, guided by the divinities, and will achieve every joy and happiness.”13 While there have not been any scientific studies to examine these claims, this is a living tradition with yogis engaging in the ritual of making the flower pills and with some having apparently ceased to eat ordinary food and able to subsist solely on the flower pills. 10 Langer, E. (2009). Counter clockwise: Mindful health and the power of possibility. New York: Ballentine. 11 Mullin, G. (Ed.) (2006). The Dalai Lamas on tantra. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. p. 319 12 Mullin, G. (Ed.) (2006). The Dalai Lamas on tantra. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. pp. 326–327 13 Mullin, G. (Ed.) (2006). The Dalai Lamas on tantra. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. p. 331 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 821 We started with the assumption that aging is inevitable, but even within a few minutes of thinking about it critically, we can see that perhaps it is not. And in the course of our deliberation, we also have some reason to think that perhaps disease is not inevitable. So let us consider whether we could achieve states of continuous physical health. Disease One way that good health could be possible might have to do with a better understanding of time and our ability to anticipate what will happen in the future. The following is one of my favourite examples of a premonition. In Beatrice, a quiet town in Nebraska, on March 1, 1950, the pastor lit the furnace at the West Side Baptist Church in anticipation of the 7:20 p.m. choir practice and then went back home planning to return with his family at 7:15 p.m. when everyone would show up. The choristers had a tradition of punctuality. At 7:25 p.m. the church exploded as a result of a gas leak set off by flames from the furnace. The walls of the church blew outward and the roof collapsed. But the church was empty. None of the 15 choir members had showed up. That had never happened before. Nor were there any reasons for the no-shows such as bad weather or competing events that would have kept people away. Subsequently, Warren Weaver, the information theorist we have already met, calculated the odds of all 15 choristers not showing up on a particular night at one million to one. It would seem that people just knew that they needed to stay away.14 There has been considerable scientific research into various forms of premonitions. For example, a paper written by the psychologist Daryl Bem was published in 2011 in one of the most prestigious psychology journals, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In that paper Bem describes nine experiments with four different experimental protocols in which he successfully demonstrated the anticipation of future events. Let me describe the last of those, Experiment 9. Fifty participants in Experiment 9 individually arrived at the laboratory and were seated in front of a computer screen. Forty-eight words were presented to participants one at a time and they were asked to visualize the referent of each of the words as they were shown. These were common and uncommon nouns such as tables and rabbits, or pomegranates and rabbis. After being presented with the 48 words, participants were asked to type out as many of the words from that list as they could remember. After a participant had produced a recall list, the computer randomly selected 24 of those words, presented them to the participant, one after the other as before, and then had the participant work with those words. The question is, did that later practice help with the recall task that came just before it? In other words, did participants anticipate which words they would be practising? The answer was “yes.” Bem found a large effect with more practiced words than not-practised words showing up on the recall list.15 One of my thesis students, Vanille Rabier, decided that she wanted to try to replicate the results of 14 Dossey, L. (2009). The power of premonitions: How knowing the future can shape our lives. New York: Dutton. 15 Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(3), 407–425. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 822 that experiment. So we set up Experiment 9 in my laboratory at King’s University College. It took about 1½ years to gather data from 102 participants. In the end, we found no effect of future practice on the words on the recall list. This result is consistent with most other replication attempts. But this raises questions about what happened in Bem’s two experiments. Why am I talking about something that did not come out as expected? One reason is because I am tired of new age types who present only evidence that supports their claims and ignore all contrary evidence. I spoke earlier about the importance of logic and empirical observations in guiding us toward an understanding of reality and this is an illustration of what that process looks like. Not everything is always weird. Another reason for talking about it is that the experimental protocol is clever and easily instantiated informally in our lives. My students and I had a long discussion about this experiment in class and we realized that if retrocausal recall really does occur, then they could study for their exams after they had written them. This has implications for other aspects of our lives. If something happened in the past that we do not like, what if we imagine changing it now, in the present? Perhaps we can manipulate the past. Failure to replicate has not been a problem with the so-called presentiment studies. When presented with unexpected stimuli, such as emotionally provocative pictures, human beings respond with a distinctive pattern of physiological activation. Various measures can be taken to detect such activation, including measures of the electrical conductance of the skin. In one experiment, 24 participants were each shown a series of photographs while their skin conductance was measured. Some of the photographs were expected to have a calming effect and others of them were expected to have an arousing effect. As anticipated, afterwards there were increases in skin conductance for the emotionally arousing but not the calming photographs. What is surprising, perhaps, is that the levels of skin conductance for emotionally arousing photographs were higher than those of calming photographs for about 3 seconds prior to the presentation of the photographs. Furthermore, using data from 33 participants, when emotionally arousing photographs were separated into those with erotic themes and those with violent themes, it was found that there was greater prior skin conductance for the photographs with erotic themes than those with violent themes, suggesting that participants’ bodies were reacting to the meaning and not just the shock value of the pictures. When the anomalous presentiment study was replicated in a separate laboratory by a different researcher with 16 participants, again, the levels of skin conductance were higher prior to viewing emotionally arousing photographs than calming photographs, and photographs with erotic rather than violent themes.16 16 Radin, D. I. (1997). The conscious universe: The scientific truth of psychic phenomena. New York: HarperEdge. Radin, D. I. (1997). Unconscious perception of future emotions: An experiment in presentiment. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11(2), 163–180. Bierman, D. J., & Radin, D. (1999). Conscious and anomalous nonconscious emotional processes: A reversal of the arrow of time? In S. R. Hameroff, A. W. Kaszniak, & D. J. Chalmers (Eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness III: The third Tucson discussions and debates (pp. 367–385). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Radin, D. I. (2004). Electrodermal presentiments of future emotions. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 18(2), 253–273. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 823 Julia Mossbridge with some of her colleagues recently did a metanalysis of 26 reports of experiments with arousing vs. neutral stimuli or correct vs. incorrect guessing tasks and found overall evidence of precognition. The odds against chance of getting those results was one million to one.17 So we might not be able to pick up on specific words that we are going to encounter, but there is good evidence for other types of precognition. The most common occurrence of premonitions is in dreams. In my case, I have precognitive dreams on a regular basis. Let me give one example. This is a dream I had written down on the morning of Saturday, April 21, 2012, just a little over a year ago: “I had gone somewhere where I was supposed to sing, and realized that I should have brought better clothing to wear. Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually left, and I could still bring the clothing with me.” I had learned, over decades of analysing my dreams, that singing in my dreams is a symbol for my service to humanity. In real life, I had been invited to be the International Speaker at the California Cognitive Science Conference at the University of California Berkeley where I was to speak in exactly one week. That could be the activity in real life that corresponded to the “singing” in the dream. I almost never wear nice clothing, and certainly not when I travel, even if I am speaking. So I was just going to bring my usual clothing with me. But my dream appeared to be telling me that I would wish that I had brought nice clothing to wear. My dreams are often self-referential and so, in this dream as well, I realized that I had not yet left and had a chance to correct the situation. In other words, the dream is referring to itself as a premonition of a future event. I decided to bring some nice clothing with me and was glad that I had done so. So, I dream about something that will happen in the future. I am not happy with what will happen. And I realize that the future is not actually here yet, so I can change it. Can this be applied to our health? Of course. On September 1, 2010, I wrote down the following dream: “I was in a house. There was a large, dark cloud outside, that had a blob in it that had descended all the way to the ground. It was coming toward the house that I was in.” Two weeks later, doctors found a blob the size of a lemon in the middle of my liver. They told me that they were pretty certain that it was cancer and sent me to a surgeon to have the right lobe of my liver cut out. I never went to the surgeon. Instead I followed my dreams until the health crisis had cleared. I have described the details of this process in Chapter 4 of my new book The Impossible Happens.18 If we do not like the way things are, we can sometimes change them. But what if we miss the warning dreams or do not see how we can change an outcome? Perhaps healing can nonetheless take place. I was talking to Michael Hall a while ago. Dr. Hall is a psychotherapist and an enlightened Zen master. He told me that prior to his enlightenment, he had learned to do energy healing. He said that he had reached a point where all that would need to happen was for him to hear about someone who was ill and that person would be healed. Is such radical healing possible? 17 Mossbridge, J., Tressoldi, P., & Utts, J. (2012). Predictive physiological anticipation preceding seemingly unpredictable stimuli: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology: Perception Science, 3, 1–18. Barušs, I. (2013). The impossible happens: A scientist's personal discovery of the extraordinary nature of reality. Alresford, Hampshire, UK: John Hunt Publishing. 18 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 824 I read Richard Bartlett’s book Matrix Energetics: The Science and Art of Transformation in which he has provided instructions for the use of techniques whose purpose is to create radical transformation, including healing. According to Dr. Bartlett, we can make up the rules by which reality functions: “‘God give me the grace to accept the things that I cannot change. And grant unto me the power to change the things that I cannot accept!’”19 I ended up learning ME, that is to say, Matrix Energetics, and running two experiments over the course of three years in remote healing using techniques derived from ME. These experiments were done entirely over the Internet. In the second experiment, I would e-mail a participant and tell her the time at which I would begin a session for her. The participant had to answer three questions on a six-point scale indicating whether or not anything unusual had happened, whether she had felt more fatigued than she had expected to have been, and whether she had felt more energized than expected. Once I had e-mailed the participant, I would flip a coin. If the coin landed heads, I would do a session for her. If the coin landed tails, I would do nothing further. What I found was that there was a statistically significant difference between the changes to energy levels of participants when I did a session than what I did not. In other words, I seemed to be able to jiggle the energy levels of participants. The statistical analyses did not surprise me because I had already heard this from the responses that I had received from participants. For instance, during an ME session for her, I had imagined sending energy down a participant’s arms into her hands. The participant wrote back that she had not even seen my e-mail when she says “I became aware of a pulsating feeling in the fingers of my left hand (I’m right handed. Yes, it momentarily was a what in the world is this all about concern. But the feeling, shortly, ceased.)” It would appear that the participant could feel the effects of my efforts.20 I knew what she was talking about because I had been on the receiving end of this kind of attention from Jeanette, the healer that I mentioned previously. One evening, I was driving Jeanette and one of her acolytes back to Jeanette’s place in my car. I was talking to the acolyte who was sitting beside me in the front while Jeanette was sitting quietly in the back. We were stopped at a traffic light when I noticed something happening in my head. I said: “Jeanette, are you doing that or am I doing that to myself?” Jeanette said: “That depends on what it is.” I said: “The stuff in my head.” to which she replied: “Oh yeah, that’s me.” She explained that she was just removing infarcts from my brain. I said “Thank you!” Dramatic healing is possible. I think we can all do it to some extent. And I think that it occurs more frequently than we think that it does. But there needs to be considerably more research in order to determine the parameters of such healing. Nonetheless, both because we can anticipate situations that could lead to illness and because we can heal ourselves, I think that we can challenge our conditioned attitude that illness is inevitable. 19 Bartlett, R. (2007). Matrix energetics: The science and art of transformation. New York: Atria. p. 51 Barušs, I. (2013). The impossible happens: A scientist's personal discovery of the extraordinary nature of reality. Alresford, Hampshire, UK: John Hunt Publishing. 20 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 825 Death What about death? Does it all just end when the physical body ceases to support life? Near-death experiences, experiences in which people have been close to death, continue to be studied scientifically, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to discount what occurs during such experiences as brain blips and wishful fantasies. I like Anita Moorjani’s account of her near-death experience in her book Dying to be Me. Anita had lymphoma, a type of cancer. After more than three years of treatment, there was nothing more that doctors could do for her. She needed to use an oxygen tank in order to be able to breathe, she could not lie down as she would drown in her own body fluids, she had skin lesions throughout her body, she could not sleep, her digestive system could not absorb nutrients so that her body consumed itself and she became a skeleton, her muscles disintegrated and she could no longer walk. One morning her face, arms, and legs swelled up and she went into a coma. The doctors told her husband that it was too late to save her. Anita however, felt fine. More than fine. She felt that she had awakened to a consciousness that extended across space and time so that she “encompassed . . . everything and everyone.” 21 “Although I try to share my near-death experience here, there are no words that can come close to describing its depth and the amount of knowledge that came flooding through.”22 So she uses the following metaphor. She asks us to imagine a dark warehouse in which we are wandering around with a single flashlight. Suddenly someone throws a switch and all sorts of lights, neon signs, and fireworks come on, illuminating the varied contents of the warehouse. She says “Even when the switch goes back off, nothing can take away your understanding and clarity, the wonder and beauty, or the fabulous aliveness of the experience.”23 Anita says that she also knew that if she chose to go back into her body, then she would heal within days. She says: “I understood that my body is only a reflection of my internal state. If my inner self were aware of its greatness and connection with All-that-is, my body would soon reflect that and heal rapidly.”24 According to the medical records at the hospital in which Anita was treated, within several days there was a 70% reduction in the size of her tumours. A physician investigating her case afterwards could not understand how billions of cancer cells could leave her body so quickly since her internal organs were barely functioning. Why are we talking about this? Anita says that her life had been driven by fear. It took almost four 21 Moorjani, A. (2012). Dying to be me: My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. p. 64 22 Moorjani, A. (2012). Dying to be me: My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. p. 71 23 Moorjani, A. (2012). Dying to be me: My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. p. 72 24 Moorjani, A. (2012). Dying to be me: My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. p. 75 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 826 years of having cancer take everything away from her before she was willing to surrender. The night before her complete collapse she says: “I could feel myself relaxing and letting go of the strong grip with which I’d been clinging to life. . . . I was finally ready to let go of everything that I’d been gripping so tightly.”25 In her case, that literally included her life. So when Franklin Wolff says that one must surrender everything, even life itself, he is not exaggerating. In Anita’s case, the result was a non-dual state of consciousness. And with the actualization of that state, harmony was restored. Here is an important point. The active ingredient in ME is the ability to enter, as much as possible, into a non-dual state of consciousness, because it is from that state of consciousness, where all possibilities for reality exist, that change can occur. In my second ME experiment, I found that the more I could enter into a non-dual state of consciousness when doing a session for someone, the more likely she was to feel fatigued. That relationship was statistically significant. To me the fatigue signifies states in which someone can dramatically readjust her manifestation in reality. 26 So, Anita found that her physical body is an expression of a deep part of herself that is not conditioned by what happens with her physical body. She found, in fact, that reality works the other way round, so that the decisions that she makes from the deep parts of herself are necessarily reflected in physical manifestation, even if it means having billions of cancer cells miraculously disappear so that she can be in good health. And that deep part of herself is already beyond death. If the dead are not dead, then where are they? Are they still with us? Are they just hanging out with us? Some people, we call mediums, can apparently communicate with the dead. Sherifa, Franklin Wolff’s wife, was a medium. Angie Aristone is a medium who worked together with me on some research projects and who used to come to my classes to give demonstrations to students. The first time she came to one of my classes, she turned to one of the students in the class and said: “Your mother was one of seven children in the family,” then went on to tell her various things about herself. Then she turned to another of the students in the class and said: “Your mother was one of seventeen children in the family.” Both numbers were correct. The following is an actual interchange between Angie and myself about a deceased friend of mine: Angie: Is there, okay, I’ve never been to Montreal. Is there a “Lafal” or “Laval” or a place that sounds like that? . . . Is Lafal or Laval like a city, or a place or a neighbourhood? Imants: I think it’s a place, yeah. I think it’s a university called Laval, but there’s also a district. Angie: Okay, yeah, because . . . this feels like a neighbourhood, or an area, or a city suburb. You know what I mean? . . . And there’s like brown stones in this area, almost like New York to me. He’s comparing, well I have no frame of reference, so I’m getting the upper west side of New York. So brown stones, . . . and corner cafes, and that kind of neighbourhoody kind of feel. 25 Moorjani, A. (2012). Dying to be me: My journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. p. 56 Barušs, I. (2013). The impossible happens: A scientist's personal discovery of the extraordinary nature of reality. Alresford, Hampshire, UK: John Hunt Publishing. 26 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 827 Imants: He was a neighbourhoody kind of guy. Angie’s reference to “Laval” seemed off the mark. I knew that my friend had not gone to Laval University and I really doubted that he would have lived in the Montreal suburb of Laval. So what was the Laval reference? When I checked with his girlfriend, it turned out that my friend had lived on the corner of Laval Street and the Carré Saint-Louis in Montreal. That neighbourhood, from what I could learn about it, matched the description given by Angie. So mediums get correct information. This has been validated in formal studies, for instance, by my colleague Professor Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona and by Dr. Julie Beischel at the Windbridge Institute. The question is, is that information coming from actual dead people or are mediums just able to draw that information out of wherever it is through a process of remote viewing? This turns out to be a nontrivial problem. Suppose that we can establish that the dead are around. Could they help us? I think that depends on who they are and their ability to get through to us and to have an effect on physical manifestation. I think that some can get through and others cannot. And they could help us with pretty much anything. In the course of working on an open problem in advanced logic for my master’s thesis, I asked Kurt Gödel, a deceased mathematician whom I respected, if the proof would go through. I had the impression that he said that it would, and a few months later my advisor and I were able to prove the theorem. That chapter from my thesis has recently been published in the academic journal Logica Universalis.27 In his most recent book, The Sacred Promise, Professor Gary Schwartz discusses collaboration with the deceased as a way of obtaining knowledge. In particular, he says that at this point in time there is interest among the deceased to cooperate with scientists who are alive in order to prove the existence of life after death.28 So we could see increased scientific cooperation between the living and the deceased with regard to matters that could be important to those of us who are still living. Near-death experiences and mediumship are just two of the lines of investigation that have been brought to bear on the survival hypothesis, the hypothesis that consciousness in some form continues after death. Other important ones include the study of children who appear to recall previous lives; the visible appearance of ghosts; instrumental transcommunication, which refers to electronic communication with the dead; and direct knowing through an awakening to the nature of reality. Taken together, this research strongly tips the scales in favour of survival of consciousness after death. In fact, having been exposed to the sum of this research, denial of survival is sometimes said to be the equivalent of standing in front of Mount Everest and insisting that one cannot see a mountain. That is how strong the evidence is at this point.29 Barušs, I., & Woodrow, R. (2013). A reduction theorem for the Kripke-Joyal semantics: Forcing over an arbitrary category can always be replaced by forcing over a complete Heyting algebra. Logica Universalis, 7(3), 323–334. (DOI: 10.1007/s11787-013-0084-y) 27 Schwartz, G. E. (2011). The sacred promise: How science is discovering spirit’s collaboration with us in our daily lives. Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words. 28 29 Barušs, I. (2003). Alterations of consciousness: An empirical analysis for social scientists. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 828 We have just tackled preconceptions about aging, disease, and death, and loosened them up. I chose these deliberately, since they are at the core of much of human suffering. So there is something to be learned from thinking about them anyway. But let us go back to the initial project, which is to realize a non-dual state of consciousness. Do we need to wait until we can surrender? Or is it enough to be willing to surrender even if we have not yet been able to clear ourselves sufficiently in order to be able to do so? Or is surrender necessary? Can we get out from underneath the morphic field of surrendering? After all, Franklin has said that from the point of view of the realized individual, there is no sacrifice. The sacrifice belongs to the time before realization. So can we begin by being in a transcendent state of consciousness so as to negate the need for sacrifice? That brings us to the subject matter of induction. Induction The first appearance of a non-dual state of consciousness for Franklin Wolff occurred in the form of a current that was initially associated with the out-breath. Franklin used different expressions to refer to it, including “the ‘Ambrosia of the Gods,’ the ‘Elixir of Life,’”30 and so on. Franklin says that this current “penetrates all tensions with the effect of physical release. Spots that are not so well feel both rested and stronger.”31 This also ties into our anti-aging and anti-disease discussions earlier so I think that the current could also be called “The Fountain of Youth.” So, the current is turned on. And sometimes the presence of the current affects others who come within its range of influence. “A surprising number of individuals are susceptible to the Current,”32 writes Franklin. Let me talk about the current in the context of ME for a bit. I was doing remote healing for one of the participants in my remote healing Experiment 2. This was about the tenth session for her and, for the first time since she had been in the study, I saw that there was something physically wrong with her. I identified it as a problem in the back of her mouth where the jawbone is connected to the skull and saw that her condition could be improved to the point where it would no longer be an issue. The participant did not know whether this had been a control session or an experimental session but told me, before I had provided her with any information, that she thought that it had been an experimental session. She said that she had been having pain in the back of her neck for the past several weeks that was now much better although not completely gone, and that she had felt an unshakeable sense of joy the following day in spite of difficult events to which she needed to attend. When I asked her for further details about her state of mind, she said that at the time of the ME session, a surge of energy had begun in her feet and gone up through her body, with the result Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 30 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1973). Pathways through to space: A personal record of transformation in consciousness. New York: Julian Press. p. 31 31 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1973). Pathways through to space: A personal record of transformation in consciousness. New York: Julian Press. p. 20 32 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1973). Pathways through to space: A personal record of transformation in consciousness. New York: Julian Press. p. 6 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 829 that she had been transported into a state of joy for three days. I found this apparent induction of a current to be interesting. During Experiment 1, at one point I was doing a session for Participant 03 when Participant 05 came to mind. I thought “Why not?” and so for about three minutes I was simultaneously imaging healing both participants. Afterwards, Participant 05 had this to say: “It’s funny, I know exactly what I was doing at that time (I was brushing my teeth). Again, I did not really experience anything unusual, however, I did picture you performing ME at that time. I am not sure if this is coincidence or not. Oh, and my cat was uncharacteristically friendly after that time — as a night owl, he normally does not like to cuddle at night!” Who did what to whom? Was I just “influencing” Participant 05 or did she “want some” and drew my attention to her while I was interacting with someone else? She has told me that the effect of the remote healing on her is like that of recharging her batteries: “Every time you perform a session, I feel like my batteries are recharged again. It is truly incredible!” So did some part of her notice that I was doing remote healing and link in somehow? The technique I was doing at the time is something that I call “alien head.” I go into as much of a non-dual state of consciousness as I can and “track changes” with “automatic” movements of my head. The purpose of such a state is to access deeper levels of reality from which radical transformation can be initiated. It would be as though a shower of goodies were coming down for a while. Did Participant 05 notice the shower of goodies and butt in so that she could get some?33 In some ways, ME is a current with the capacity to awaken those who come within its influence. Or if not awaken, help a person to move toward awakening. A year ago this August, two thesis students, a research assistant, and I drove to Philadelphia to gather data at a Matrix Energetics Seminar. Ninety-seven people consented to fill out questionnaires for three days during the seminar and at a two-month web-based follow-up. In addition, during the seminar, the thesis students and research assistant conducted 42 interviews of participants right after they had experienced the effects of ME. Here are some of the things that the participants had to say about their experiences at the seminar: Participant 54: “It's like a letting go. You get soft and it's like a yielding feeling. As I was even lying down I felt like patterns unraveling. I felt like I've been constructing in a way over years, and now it is unraveling so it's a deconstruction in a way. I was very conscious and present to what was going on.” In this case we apparently have a process of exactly what we have been talking about, of releasing conditioning. Participant 12: “I closed my eyes and dropped into my heart and almost immediately I started feeling what could be described as a pulsating wave or an alternating current running through my body, going up to my head and going down. It created a feeling almost like being on the floor, as if the floor was going up and down like an earthquake, except for that the earthquake’s tremors sort of ran up and down my body as if I was part of the floor and the earthquake just sort of went up and down and up and down.” Here we have a case of a somatic feeling of a current. This paragraph is quoted from pp. 36 to 37 of Barušs, I. (2013). The impossible happens: A scientist's personal discovery of the extraordinary nature of reality. Alresford, Hampshire, UK: John Hunt Publishing. 33 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 830 Participant 05: “I experienced a wave while my partner was working on me. My body just spontaneously swaying and then I would, what I call, lose my body and I would just go into my head it felt like. It is very, very peaceful and I see a celestial light like its glowing from the inside with occasionally threads of gold. It is just very peaceful and a lovely, lovely spot.” In this case feelings of profound peace. Participant 25: “I went to the back room and was magically, hypnotically drawn to the back wall, the line down the middle ‘spoke to me’, drew me forth with the power of a Heavenly Father. Slowly I proceeded until I became ultra-sensitive to the patterns on the wall’s surface. I reached up slowly to touch it, knowing that it and I were one. I ended up leaning forward on my toes with my head against the wall, fingers on the pattern, sobbing gratefully for some time.” In this case the participant appears to have merged with an aspect of reality that is external to her body signifying some degree of non-duality. These effects of ME could be helpful for awakening. What continues to strike me is the fact that small movements of the mind can apparently produce dramatic somatic and psychological effects. That was Franklin Wolff’s observation regarding the presence of the current: “Since that day I have been repeatedly in the Current of Ambrosia. Often I turn to It with the ease of a subtle movement of thought. Sometimes It breaks out spontaneously.”34 Once he had found it, Franklin was able to release the current with a small movement of the mind. It is the same sort of thing with ME. You imagine something in the mind and sometimes physical manifestation shifts in dramatic ways that are out of proportion to the effort involved. This takes us back to Anita Moorjani’s observation during her near-death experience that physical reality follows the inner reality. And as you get better and better at this, the small movements of the mind become smaller and smaller until, perhaps, we end up like Michael Hall who just needs to hear about someone who is ill and that person becomes well. So, back to awakening to the non-dual state. I often have a preconception that this is a difficult thing to do that is going to require enormous effort on my part. Let me just take the liberty of reading from Introceptualism: “I found that the key consisted in attaining a moment within which there is a thorough-going detachment from the object and from the activistic attitude of ordinary consciousness. The simplicity of this statement hides its real difficulty for there is implied an uprooting of very deep-seated inherited habits. There is a sense in which we may say that thoroughgoing breaking of the dependence upon the object and of the activistic attitude is like a conscious dying, and long established psychical habits tenaciously resist this. It may take a lot of work to attain the critical state.”35 That is what I mean. A lot of work. However, notice that the key itself is nothing other than a small movement of the mind. The work that needs to be done has nothing to do with the key itself but the 34 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1973). Pathways through to space: A personal record of transformation in consciousness. New York: Julian Press. p. 5 35 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1970). Introceptualism: The philosophy of consciousness without an object: Volume II. Phoenix: Phoenix Philosophical Press. pp. 142–143 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 831 ability to use the key which is hidden underneath layers of conditioning. For Anita Moorjani, it took 3½ years of cancer in order to strip away the layers of conditioning so as to be able to find the key, which was to let go of her life. That is one way to do it. As Franklin says: “In so far as human suffering may serve as an instrument for awakening, the mystic would say that it is good and should not be removed until it has completed its office.” 36 So if you commit yourself to realization, then you might need to be prepared to suffer. When I found out I had a blob the size of a lemon in the middle of my liver, I asked it what it was doing there. It seemed to tell me that it was there to create a sense of urgency for me. I found that with death staring me continuously in the face, it would take me about three hours of intense inner work every morning in order to reach a state of sufficient equilibrium so that I could function during the day. A year or so later I noticed the benefits of that early morning practice primarily in the form of more accurate clairvoyance. But I am certain that there have been other benefits as well. At one point I was trying to incubate a dream to answer the question “Who is helping me?” The intention was to try to discover who was helping me on the other side. Now, as we try to bootstrap our way toward exceptional well-being, one of the tricks that we can use is to act “as if.” We can imagine ourselves in the situation in which we would like to be, such as in the case of the men in Professor Langer’s experiment. So if we wish to be enlightened, we just imagine already being enlightened. So I borrowed Anita Moorjani’s enlightenment and imagined that I was in the space in which she had found herself. I fell asleep and in my dream I realized that I was dreaming. So now I was having a lucid dream. I asked my question: “Who is helping me?” I decided to look into a mirror to see if I could observe anyone behind me. When I did so, a young guy showed up. He turned out to be an escort who took me behind a back wall and along a corridor into another room. In that other room there was a young woman who turned out to be the person I was seeking. She showed me that what she does is to cause a perturbation in my life and then she watches to see how I respond to it. When I asked her for her name, she told me that she goes by many names and would not give me a name. Now this puts my life into a completely different perspective. Here I am whining about all the things going wrong in my life. As soon as I manage to fix one thing, the next debacle shows up. But according to my dream, this is on purpose! The help I am receiving is in the form of obstacles in my life that I need to neutralize while retaining equanimity no matter what happens. Apparently I need to learn to be able to accept anything at all that occurs within the phenomenal realm without losing my poise. At its culmination, this ideal state would just be Franklin Wolff’s high indifference. Now I do not know whether or not there really is anyone behind the veil manipulating reality for me so as to help me along by increasing my difficulties, but it does not matter. All I needed was a recognition of the potentially beneficial value of the events in my life. This brings me to an important point that I cannot stress enough. An aspirant must be adequately prepared in order to be able to withstand the impact of the transcendent. And that adequate preparation involves the development of an integrated personality. Franklin Wolff discusses the fragility of the physical body for containing the current which has both tonifying and 36 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1970). Introceptualism: The philosophy of consciousness without an object: Volume II. Phoenix: Phoenix Philosophical Press. p. 148 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 816-832 Barušs, I., Learning to Forget: Deprogramming as a Precondition for the Occurrence of Non-Dual States of Consciousness 832 stress-inducing effects. And he discusses the importance of maintaining a mental orientation rather than defaulting to an emotional one in the face of anomalous phenomena that we do not understand. But beyond the acknowledgement of such constraints, the need for psychological balance is paramount. I have seen a number of people crash who have not been adequately prepared for the inner realities that they managed to release. Psychological balance involves an integration of the various facets of our personality. It includes the ability to subdue our emotions so that we are able to make decisions on the basis of reason rather than being driven by desire or fear. It includes moral integrity. It includes the development of a healthy will that can be used for directing our lives. It includes the ability to integrate intuitions into our understanding so as to inform rather than mislead. And so on. For those who are not sure what personality integration involves, I would recommend chapters two and six of my book Authentic Knowing37 as well as Piero Ferrucci’s book What We May Be38 which contains exercises that can be used for self-development. So if nothing seems to be happening, that is ok. Keep working on yourself. And relinquish your conditioning along the lines that we have discussed. And then, perhaps “when your dependence for security is upon the Presence alone, beyond your own normal capacities to meet situations, that Presence comes near.”39 And “When it does happen, . . . [t]he consciousness beyond the . . . veil . . . may be sensed as a something like a deepening, as a palpable silence filled with unformed meaning. . . . It can evoke in those in the vicinity states of a mystic sort—ecstatic states of consciousness, states of delight. . . . The states can be very deep, even as deep as waking Samadhi. . . . This is a little glimpse of something of the Beyond. . . . Actually, it is here now. . . .”40 Acknowledgements I am grateful to Doroethy Leonard and Ron Leonard for inviting me to give the keynote talk at the 2013 Franklin Merrell-Wolff Conference at the Great Space Center, and to Huping Hu for publishing the paper. I also thank Shannon Foskett for feedback and proofreading the manuscript. And I thank King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario for research money and travel funds that made giving this paper possible. Barušs, I. (1996). Authentic knowing: The convergence of science and spiritual aspiration. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. 37 38 Ferrucci, P. (1982). What we may be: Techniques for psychological and spiritual growth through psychosynthesis. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher. 39 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1995). Mathematics, philosophy & yoga: A lecture series presented at the Los Olivos Conference Room in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1966. Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Philosophical Press. p. 59 40 Merrell-Wolff, F. (1995). Mathematics, philosophy & yoga: A lecture series presented at the Los Olivos Conference Room in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1966. Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Philosophical Press. p. 16 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1033 Article Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases Paola Zizzi1 & Massimo Pregnolato*2 1 2 Dept. of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Piazza Botta, 11, 27100 Pavia, Italy Department of Drug Sciences, University of Pavia, Viale Taramelli, 12, 27100 Pavia, Italy Abstract We give a short review of the most recent work done on the logical structure of the mind and on the peculiar logical aspects of some mental diseases like schizophrenia and major depression. Then, we illustrate the computational aspects and the physical interpretation of such logical structures. In this context, we also consider a quite important feature of the mind, namely its non-Turing-computable side. The latter is responsible for the fundamental difference between a human mind and a computer, classical or quantum whatsoever. Keywords: mind, quantum mind, quantum field theory, quantum metalanguage, quantum object language, non-algorithmic mind, schizophrenia, major depression. Introduction What is a Mind? What makes the difference between a healthy mind and a pathological one? What is the peculiar feature which allows one to distinguish a mind from a computer? Is the Mind the same as the brain? All of us can answer what a brain is, but what is a mind is a more difficult question not only for the mind-body debate but also as a personal quest. We think that everyone should define his own personal philosophical approach before talking about the Mind. Our approach (Zizzi, 2012a) is very simple: the Mind is to us, the logic used by the brain. A quantum mind is then the quantum logic of the brain, when quantum effects become relevant in some particular physical processes occurring in the brain. Logic is a formal language, and then the mind is the formal language of the brain. The mind (either classical or quantum) can be compared to a computer (classical or quantum respectively). The classical computer is the conscious mind, while the quantum computer, much faster than its classical counterpart, is the unconscious mind, which “prepares” the job for the conscious mind (Zizzi, 2012b). However, there are some aspects of the human thought, which are not Turing-computable (Zizzi, 2012c). The existence of a non-algorithmic side of the mind was conjectured by Penrose (1989) on the basis of Godel’s first incompleteness theorem. Then in this case, the concept of the mind as a logic fails. In fact, the non-algorithmic “mind” is a metalanguage. The physical interpretation of the quantum “meta-mind” (the quantum metalanguage of the brain) is Quantum Field Theory (QFT), dealing with * Correspondence: Prof. Massimo Pregnolato, Department of Drug Sciences, University of Pavia, Viale Taramelli, 12, 27100 Pavia, Italy. Email: massimo.pregnolato@unipv.it ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1034 systems (the fields) characterized by an infinite number of degrees of freedom and allowing creation and annihilation of particles. In other words, the non-computable mind is the language of the brain when the physical processes occurring in it are described by a Quantum Field Theory. In this regard we quote the introduction of a generalization of QFT, named “Dissipative QFT” (DQFT) (Vitiello, 2001). It appears as the most convenient tool, so far introduced, for dealing with quantum effects in biological matter. On the other side, the quantum computable mind, or the quantum logic of the brain (or simply, the quantum mind) is the language of the brain when the physical processes occurring in the brain can be described by Quantum Mechanics (QM), which deals with systems made by a finite and fixed number of particles. It is to be supposed that the interaction with the environment can induce decoherence processes, so that we can predict the occurrence of a new logical level, described by Classical Logic and responsible for the physical outcomes of mental processes. DQFT thus allows one to relate the processes occurring within the brain, at the different levels, with a very interesting logical scheme of the whole mental activities. Such a scheme, already proposed by Zizzi (2010) is based on three different levels: the first of (quantum) metalanguage (QML) the second of (quantum) object language (QOL) and the third of classical language. The quantum metalanguage represents the non-computational aspects of mind and is related to DQFT underlying the brain processes. It reduces to quantum object language and the process underlying this reduction parallels the one which allows one to reduce QFT to QM. The level of QOL is the logical level of (Quantum) computational Mind. Finally the level of classical logic, produced by decoherence process, is the one of (classical) computational Mind, like the one taken in consideration by traditional Psychology and standard Artificial Intelligence. The latter is the seat of consciousness, while the Quantum Mind coincides with the unconscious. This description has been possible owing to the introduction of a new form of Quantum Logic (Zizzi, 2010) in which QML atomic assertions carry assertion degrees which are complex numbers, interpreted as probability amplitudes. It is to be noticed that a quantum computer (QC) has a QOL, whose physical counterpart is QM. Therefore a QC will never be able to have a QML because it is impossible to go from a theory with a finite number of degrees of freedom, like QM, to one with infinite number of freedom, like QFT (while the reverse is possible). Also, we wonder about the difference between the healthy and the schizophrenic mind. We argue that the difference stands in the fact that while the healthy mind fast oscillates between the classical and the quantum computational modes, the schizophrenic mind uses only the quantum mode (Zizzi, 2012d). Finally, we suggest that the quantum metalanguage of major depression (Cocchi, 2012) is given in terms of the negated assertions of the quantum metalanguage of schizophrenia. The Logical Structure of the Mind In a previous paper (Zizzi, 2012a) we discussed about the modalities by which humans should (and in fact, do) compute. That is, we investigated about the logical languages and the computational modes of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1035 human reasoning and the corresponding physical interpretation. In this context, however, the classical world (physical, logical, and computational) does not seem sufficient to provide a complete description of the Mind. In fact, the Mind accomplishes different tasks, where it exhibits, alternatively, both classical and quantum features. There are some novelties in two important issues: the long-standing debate on the mind-body relationship and Turing’s question about a possible identification of the Mind with a computer. We humans do invent the logics, make the computer programs and formulate physical theories. All that originates from our minds and then we wonder what the logical, physical and computational aspects of the Mind itself are. The Mind should not be confused with a mere by-product of the chemical and physical processes occurring in the brain, although its material roots are in there. There is much more involved. When we talk of the Mind, we should consider the fact that the latter is a logical language, which can be interpreted, like any logic endowed with a model. This means that we are faced with the semantics, not only with the syntax, and then we have to consider a metalanguage controlling the logic of the Mind. Thus, the Mind can be a program too, like any logic plus a control. But a metalanguage is, on its own, non-algorithmic (non-Turing-computable) because it is only part of the program. This means that there is a side of the Mind which is non-algorithmic. Also, if we give a physical interpretation to the logic of the Mind, then the physics should be that of the material support, the brain. From the above considerations it follows then that the physical theory of the brain, corresponding to the metalanguage, should be as well non-Turing-computable. We asked ourselves where the physical world meets the mathematical one in the Mind and how computation is involved in all of that. We suggested then that the Mind has three different operational modes (Zizzi, 2012b): 1- the quantum computational mode 2- the classical computational mode 3- the non-algorithmic mode. The quantum and classical computational modes pertain to ordinary thought processes, while the nonalgorithmic mode (Zizzi, 2012c) pertains to metathought, which is the peculiar process of thinking about our own ordinary thought. The logical descriptions of the above modes are the following: for the quantum computational mode, the logic is the quantum computational logic Lq, described in Zizzi’s PhD thesis (2010), which is a special quantum version of Basic Logic (BL) (Sambin, 2000); for the classical computational mode the logic is BL; for the non-algorithmic mode there is no logic, but a quantum metalanguage (QML) (Zizzi, 2010). A QML differs from a classical one by the fact that the quantum assertions, which are expressed with partial certitude, have a degree of assertion, which is a complex number, while classical assertions have assertion degree equal to one. Consequently, the propositions of the quantum object-language (QOL), Lq, are probabilistic, and fuzzy at the same time, and satisfy a logical uncertainty principle (Zizzi, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1036 2013). Moreover, there are some particular quantum propositions, which minimize the logical uncertainty relation, called quantum-coherent propositions. The physical interpretations of the logical structures of the three computational modes of the Mind are the following: the non-algorithmic mode is physically described by a Dissipative Quantum Field Theory (DQFT) of the brain (Vitiello, 2001); the quantum coherent assertions of the quantum metalanguage are interpreted as Glauber coherent states (Glauber, 1963), which are very robust against decoherence. We find that “cat state” like assertions are the only compound assertions which are quantum-coherent. However, in the corresponding physical theory, the “cat” coherent states (Haroche, 2006) are very fragile with respect to decoherence, and then we argue that this applies also to the quantum metalanguage. Incoherent quantum assertions correspond to propositions of Lq, the qubit-like ones, which logically “decohere” to classical propositions of BL. In this sense, the classical mode can be obtained by decoherence of the logical qubits. The quantum mode, which is quantum computation, is physically described by Quantum Mechanics (QM). The classical mode, which is classical computation, is physically described by Classical Physics. The Non-Algorithmic Mind In the paper “The non-algorithmic side of the mind” (Zizzi, 2012c), we developed a meta-language for the non-algorithmic mode involving a fuzzy modality "Probably". More precisely, our philosophical point of view was the following. There are three different ways by which fundamental high-level mental activities manifest themselves (Zizzi, 2012b). Two are algorithmic (Turing-computable): the classical computational mode, and the quantum computational mode. The third is non-computable. Each of the three modes of the mind can be formalized in a mathematical way (the first two by a logic, the third by a metalanguage) and also acquires a physical interpretation, and a psychological status. The quantum mode concerns extremely fast mental processes of which humans are mostly unaware of, and is logically described by the logic Lq (Zizzi, 2010) of quantum information and quantum computation. The atomic propositions of Lq are interpreted as the basis states of a complex Hilbert space, while the compound propositions are interpreted as qubit states. Therefore, the physical model of the quantum mode of the mind is Quantum Information. The classical mode concerns those mental processes, which humans are aware of. It arises from the decoherence of the quantum computational state, and is logically described by Basic Logic (BL) (Sambin, 2000) which is a sub-structural, nonclassical logic. In a sense, the quantum mode “prepares” the classical mode, which otherwise would take very long to perform. The atomic propositions of the quantum object-language (QOL) (Zizzi, 2010) are asserted, in the quantum metalanguage (QML) with an assertion degree, which is a complex number. We showed that this fact requires that the atomic propositions in the QOL are endowed with a fuzzy modality ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1037 “Probably” (Hajek, 1998) and have fuzzy (partial) truth-values (Zadeh, 1996) which sum up to one. In this context, we tried to clarify Penrose’s conjecture (1989) on the non-computational aspects of the mind in relation with Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem (1931). Penrose claims that a mathematician can assert the truth of a Gödel sentence G, although the latter cannot be demonstrated within the axiomatic system, because he is capable of recognizing an indemonstrable truth due to the non-algorithmic aspect of the mind. In our opinion, the fact that the mathematician can assert the truth of G, is that he is using the noncomputable mode of metathought described by the metalanguage, where assertions stand, and where Tarski introduced the truth predicate (Tarski, 1944). Furthermore, the fuzzy-probabilistic features of QML induce to modify Tarski Convention T(true) as Convention PT (where P stands for “Probably”), that is, “probably true”. The Logic of Schizophrenia In the paper "Quantum logic of the unconscious and schizophrenia" (Zizzi, 2012d) we suggested that the logic of the normal unconscious may be coextensive with the logic of schizophrenia. One might very plausibly argue that, while healthy minds employ both the classical logic of consciousness and the quantum primary process logic of the unconscious, schizophrenic minds use primary process thinking not only in their unconscious psychodynamics but also as their dominant conscious operating mode. We formalized the logics of both the unconscious and schizophrenic thinking in order to make the case that they are the same. We did start by recognizing that sudden flashes of creative insight and other intuitive “leaps” arise from states of mind through intermediate steps that commonly remain hidden beneath consciousness. Such ultra-fast processing entailing hidden intermediate step is consistent with quantum computation. The logic of the normal unconscious mind and of schizophrenic consciousness may then be Lq, the logic of quantum information (Zizzi, 2010). For a healthy mind the passage from the unconscious state to the conscious state is marked, according to the Orch-Or model of Penrose and Hameroff (1996) by a decoherence of tubulin qubits. This may be understood in terms of very fast switches from the quantum logic of the unconscious to the classical logic of consciousness. We argued that in schizophrenia these switches are not fast enough, and therefore the schizophrenic mind remains trapped in the unconscious logical mode too long. In Lq, propositions are configured in qubits, quantum information units, which are linear superpositions of classical bits. It is in this sense that the formal interpretation of the unconscious mind may be potentially understood as quantum-informational. The quantum concept of truth within Lq is different from that of classical truth, insofar as classical truth is single-valued and deterministic while in contrast quantum truth manifests itself as many-valued (fuzzy) and probabilistic (Zizzi, 2013). The metalinguistics of primary process thinking and related psychopathological phenomena should be well modelled by QML with particularly apt application to schizophrenia, in which a surplus of quantum propositions dominates the classically logical discourse (Zizzi, 2012). In such a framework it ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1038 was possible to introduce the theoretical notion of an Internal Observer (IO) (Zizzi, 2005) which seemed to be a useful tool in developing a new kind of therapy for schizophrenia. The Logic of Major Depression In a recent paper Cocchi et al (2012) considered the results obtained by biochemical experimental data on platelet membrane fatty acids processed by a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) (Cocchi, 2008) from apparently healthy, bi‐polar (BD) and major depressive subjects (MD). The SOM showed that MD subjects belong to an area which is completely disconnected from that of healthy and bi‐polar. Looking at the location of the data over the SOM, we found also a region which we attributed to psychotic subjects according to the clinical diagnosis. The SOM highlighted the peculiar characteristic of the fatty acids triplets for each group of subjects considered. Each subject had a specific degree of viscosity of the membrane, which was expressed by means of a specific index, called the B2 index, based on the sum of the percentages of Arachidonic Acid, Linoleic Acid and Palmitic Acid, which represent the majority of the total platelet fatty acids in relation to their molecular weights and melting points. The distribution of the B2 index in the onedimensional map showed negative and positive indexes belonging, the first to the major depressive subjects, the second to the bi-polar subjects. Then, in the light of the experimental data, humans can have either positive or negative values of the B2 index. Those humans having positive values of B2 are normal (N), bipolar (B) and psychotic (P) people. On the contrary, major depressed people (MD) have negative B2 values. In order to build a theory describing such a circumstance we started from the language of set theory. In this framework, we considered the Set “Humankind” as the Universal set, U. Then, we made a bipartition of U. In the cell A, there are all the elements characterized by a positive value of B2. In the cell AC, which is the complement of A in U, there are all the elements characterized by a negative value of B2. We suggested a possible theoretical explanation of the reason why MD people, who have a negative value of the B2 index, fall in a completely separate category from the rest of humankind, having instead a positive value of B2. By introducing a metaphor based on Quantum Field Theory, we viewed the splitting of positive and negative values of the B2 index averages as due to a kind of spontaneous symmetry breaking. The initial B2 expected value (e.v.) can be interpreted as the e.v. before symmetry breaking, while the final B2 e.vs. can be read as the two e.vs after the symmetry breaking. We found a similarity with the situation occurring in a well-known model used in the Quantum Field Theory λφ4 (Itzykson, 1986). The partition of the Universal set concerns set theory and equivalence relations on sets. The Symmetry breaking, instead, concerns classical and quantum field theories. These two apparently disconnected issues are unified by logic when the partition is a bipartition and the original symmetry is the discrete Z2 symmetry. The latter is equivalent to the logic gate “XOR”, which is the logical conjunction of the two logic gates “NAND” and “OR”. A bipartition is equivalent to the pair of the two logic gates “NAND”, “OR” into which the “XOR” can be split. The logical connective “OR” plays a relevant role ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1039 in the logic of human thinking, together with its dual, the “AND”. Instead the “XOR” (the aut-aut) seems to be better suited for artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, the “XOR” is active only before the symmetry breaking. After the symmetry breaking, we have the “OR”, which is common in reasoning performed in our everyday life, if we are supposed to belong to the equivalence class with a positive value of B2, and the “NAND”, which instead we do not use. The “NAND” then must pertain then to the logic of people in the other equivalence class with a negative value of B2. Such an argument is supported by a number of experimental findings about the reasoning abilities of human subjects. In fact, the “NAND” (the negation of the conjunction of two propositions) can be rewritten as the disjunction of two negated propositions. Then, MD subjects have a different logic from the one of normal, bipolar and psychotic subjects. This also means that the MD metalanguage is different as it consists of negative assertions, which are the symptoms of pessimism and negative mood. When the negative assertions are the only possibility, that is, when they cannot alternate with positive assertions (because only the connective “NAND” is available) MD takes place. Also, we found that MD subjects use permanently a quantum metalanguage (Zizzi, 2010) which is the negation of the quantum metalanguage used permanently by schizophrenic subjects. Then, we suggested the use of a (negative) quantum metalanguage for the psychotherapy of MD subjects, as we did for the use of a (positive) quantum metalanguage for the psychotherapy of schizophrenic people (Zizzi, 2012d). Conclusions The mysterious aura surrounding the concept of Mind has no more reason to exist in our modern times. The cure is given by logic (and metalogic) whose model is the physics of the brain. There is logic for the conscious thought, logic for the unconscious thought and schizophrenia, and logic for major depression (MD). The real problem is to prepare a new generation of psychotherapists who can use the adequate metalanguages to communicate with psychotic and MD people. We believe that our logical approach might be applied also to the case of autism (work in progress). References Cocchi M, Tonello L, Tsaluchidu S, Puri BK (2008) “The use of artificial neural networks to study fatty acids in neuropsychiatric disorders”. BMC Psychiatry; 8 (Suppl 1): S3. Cocchi M, Gabrielli F, Pessa E, Pregnolato M, Tonello L, Zizzi P (2012) “Major depression and bipolar disorder: The concept of symmetry breaking”, Neuroquantology, 10 (4), pp. 676-687. Glauber RJ (1963) “Coherent and incoherent states of radiation field”, Phys. Rev. 131: 2766-2788. Gödel K (1931) Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme, I. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38, 173-98. Hajek P (1998) Metamathematics of fuzzy logic. Kluwer. Hameroff S, Penrose R (1996) In: Toward a Science of Consciousness - The First Tucson Discussions and Debates, eds. Hameroff, S.R., Kaszniak, A.W., and Scott,A.C., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 507-540. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | December 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 10 | pp. 1033-1040 Zizz, P. & Pregnolato, M., Mind, Logic and Mental Diseases 1040 Haroche S, Raimond JM (2006) “Exploring the quantum: atoms, cavities and photons”. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Itzykson C, Zuber JB (1986) Quantum Field Theory, McGraw-Hill, Singapore. Penrose R (1989) Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford University Press; The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics. Oxford University Press. Sambin G, Battilotti G, Faggian C (2000) “Basic logic: reflection, symmetry, visibility”(2000) The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 65: 979-1013. Tarski A (1944) The semantic conception of truth. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4, 13-47. Vitiello G (2001) My double unveiled. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Zadeh LA (1996) Fuzzy Sets, Fuzzy Logic, Fuzzy Systems, World Scientific Press. Zizzi P (2005) “Qubits and quantum spaces”. International Journal of Quantum Information; 3 (1) 287-291. Zizzi P (2010) “From Quantum Metalanguage to the Logic of Qubits”. PhD Thesis. arXiv:1003.5976. Zizzi P, Pregnolato M (2012a) "Looking for the physical, logical, and computational roots of the mind". Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 3(4), pp. 425-431. Zizzi P (2012b) “When Humans Do Compute Quantum”. In: A Computable Universe, Hector Zenil (Ed), Word Scientific Publishing. Zizzi P, Pregnolato M (2012c)"The non-algorithmic side of the mind", Quantum Biosystems, 2012, 4(1), pp. 1-8. Zizzi P, Pregnolato M (2012d) "Quantum logic of the unconscious and schizophrenia", Neuroquantology, 10(3), pp. 566-579. Zizzi P (2012e) “Incoherent Quantum Metalanguage and Schizophrenia”. Proceeding of: A Long Shadow over the Soul: Molecular and Quantum Approaches to Psychopathology. Quantum Paradigms of Psychopathology Supplement. NeuroQuantology; 10 (2): S23-S24. Zizzi P (2013) “The Uncertainty Relation for Quantum Propositions”. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Volume 52, Issue 1, pp 186-198. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Raoul Nakhmanson2 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) Quantum mechanics as a sociology of matter1 Analogies between quantum mechanics and sociology lead to the hypothesis that quantum objects are complex products of evolution. Like biological objects they are able to receive, to work on, and to spread semantic information. In general meaning we can name it “Consciousness”. The important ability of consciousness is ability to predict future. Key words: Evolution, consciousness, information, quantum mechanics, EPR, decoherence. The term ”sociology” appears first in the middle of the 19th century. Dictionaries and encyclopedias define sociology as a science for society and self-contained social institutions. At the beginning it was related to humans only, but in the 20th century sociologic researches were made with animals and insects too. Between quantum mechanics and sociology there are analogies: 1) Like sociology, quantum mechanics describes societies ("ensembles") as a whole; 2) In respect to individuals (people or particles) there are only probabilities; 3) Members belonging to some society or quantum ensemble being under investigation are similar to each other but can be very different from members of other societies or ensembles (species in biology as well as in "zoology" of particles); 4) Members belonging to some society or ensemble are regarded not only as similar but as identical in the sense that exchange of any two members does not alter the ensemble. In quantum mechanics it guided to symmetrical and antisymmetrical wave functions belonging to bosons and fermions having collective and anticollective behavior, respectively. In sociology one also find such two type of behavior. 5) The evolution of societies is subjected to some intention. In quantum mechanics it is seen in the least action principle; 6) Members of societies are "atoms" and "individuals" literally, that is, from one person or one electron it is impossible to make two smaller persons or two smaller electrons. 1 2 Theses for IC QT RF 2, Växiö 2003. E-mail: nakhmanson@t-online.de 1/2 The last item prompts us that the members of biological and quantum societies are complex constructions penetrated with inside connections. Their decomposition destroys their functioning. Complex biological objects develop themselves during evolution. To begin the analogous evolution process with matter some ”dark” matter in non-equilibrium state is needed. Such a state can be the result of a fluctuation. Modern physics operates with sizes up to 10-35 meter (Planck length). If evolution of matter began 14 billions years ago, the elementary particles having sizes 10-15 – 10-20 m have a long evolution time behind and perhaps do not yield up to biological objects in complexity and functioning. From the example of biological objects we know that the essence of life is information. The ability to receive, to work on, and to spread information is important for individuals and societies, and is selected by evolution. We speak about individual and social consciousness developing in parallel with material structures. Evolution theory and analogy between quantum mechanics and sociology lead to the idea that material objects of quantum mechanics have an individual and a social consciousness too. Such a hypotheses explains the essence of wave function and its collapse as well as ”mysterious” experiments known as ”two-slits”, ”delayed-choice”, ”EPR”, ”Aharonov-Bohm”, and ”interaction-free measurement”. The important ability of consciousness is ability to predict future. Here also are roots of entanglement of parted particles. The depth of prediction is limited by interaction with environment, thereafter comes decoherence. Transition from quantum to classical physics is thought as a transition from individuals to crowds. Crowds are ”dividual”: One crowd can be split in two smaller crowds. Crowds' behavior is more deterministic than the behavior of individuals. In such a context the wave function is a purely mental construction in an abstract configuration space which, in its turn, is in a consciousness of microparticle. If you allow me a pun, the so-called "waves of matter" are non-material. Einstein justly called them "Gespensterfelder". Nevertheless they control the behavior of material objects. Of course physicists can have in their mind not only their own wave function (it is strategy of their behavior) but also some idea, correct or not, about wave function of the particle. The wave-particle duality is a mind-body one. In the real 3D-space there exists only the particle, the wave exists in its consciousness. If there are many particles, their distribution in accordance with the wave function represents a real wave in real space. Many worlds, Schrödinger cat, Great Smoky Dragon, etc. exist only as virtual mental constructions. Sociology and psychology interview persons being under investigation. The hypotheses of evoluting matter allows us to do it with quantum objects too. The consequent experiments include action on particles and atoms with semantic information. Some details can be found in: 1. http://arXiv.org/pdf/physics/0004047 2. http://arXiv.org/pdf/physics/0111109 3. http://www.agharta.net/Superstrings.html (in Russian) 2/2

Intelligence as a Measure of Consciousness Igor Ševo Abstract Evaluating artificial systems for signs of consciousness is increasingly becoming a pressing concern, and a rigorous psychometric measurement framework may be of crucial importance in evaluating large language models in this regard. Most prominent theories of consciousness, both scientific and metaphysical, argue for different kinds of information coupling as a necessary component of human-like consciousness. By comparing information coupling in human and animal brains, human cognitive development, emergent abilities, and mental representation development to analogous phenomena in large language models, I argue that psychometric measures of intelligence, such as the gfactor or IQ, indirectly approximate the extent of conscious experience. Based on a broader source of both scientific and metaphysical theories of consciousness, I argue that all systems possess a degree of consciousness ascertainable psychometrically and that psychometric measures of intelligence may be used to gauge relative similarities of conscious experiences across disparate systems, be they artificial or human. 1 Introduction Misunderstanding the nature of consciousness in artificial systems bears significant social and ethical consequences that, among others, may manifest in two ways: attributing consciousness to systems that do not qualify for such analysis and thereby wasting precious resources on their fictional well-being, or failing to attribute it where applicable and, in doing so, committing what might be considered an act of harm against another living being. As recent research demonstrates, it may be relatively simple to construct conscious systems with the presently available technology (Butlin, et al., 2023) and accidentally constructing such systems may be plausible, without being aware of this occurrence until well past the point of inception. In their report, (Butlin, et al., 2023) distinguish metaphysical and scientific theories of consciousness and attempt, through analogy and allegoric comparison, to evaluate existing large language model architectures in concordance with the parameters of a selection of scientific theories of consciousness to conclude that the existing large language models are likely not conscious. However, the evaluated theories only include major materialist approaches, evaluated metaphorically, omitting non-materialist theories, such as integrated information theory (Tononi & Edelman, 1998) (Tononi, 2004) (Koch, 2012), conscious realism (Hoffman, 2008) (Hoffman, Singh, & Prakash, 2015), or other unified approaches (Ševo, 2023). Broadly speaking, consciousness literature distinguishes two terms for consciousness: the kind of which implies a form of self-awareness, identity, or cognitive processing, and sentience which (Block, 1995) defines as “phenomenal consciousness”, which captures the “what it is like” nature of experience (Nagel, 1974), rather than identity or self-recognition. This paper, similarly to (Butlin, et al., 2023), is addressing the problem of whether artificial intelligence systems could be or are phenomenally conscious, leaving human-like aspects of consciousness out of scope. Recently, many approaches that argue for consciousness as a fundamental substrate have come to prominence, including integrated information theory and conscious realism. In fact, Chalmers (Chalmers, 1996) makes a panpsychist case that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, aligning with the argument that all forms of physicalism (Kim, 2005) entail a form of panpsychism (Strawson, 2006) by which everything that exists must be phenomenal. Other forms of idealism have been emerging, including quantum idealism (Stapp, 1993) (Stapp, 2009), which posits a quantum mechanical basis for the first-person perspective, conscious realism, objective idealism (Goff, 2019), postulating that the universe possesses consciousness, and that an instance of individual consciousness is a subset of that universal field of consciousness. Additionally, based on a broad overview of existing consciousness literature, it is possible to make an argument that a complex interplay of language vagueness and epistemic uncertainty precludes the imminent panpsychist conclusion by which the fundamental building blocks of the universe—the coupled information which comprises it, be they represented as particles, waves or states—are quanta of consciousness (Ševo, 2023). The analysis presented here is based on the phenomenological analytic approach proposed previously (Ševo, 2023) (Ševo, 2021), which argues for an identity between materialistic and phenomenological interpretations of the fundamental substrate, by which the nature of information itself is phenomenal. Within this framework, all systems can be evaluated according to their degree and kind of consciousness, rather than distinguishing between matter which “possesses” consciousness and matter which does not, which is the conventional view. Building blocks of matter are, within the proposed unified phenomenology framework, building blocks of consciousness. The main drawback to all metaphysical theories is their lack of scientific falsifiability, as the degree of consciousness of a system may not be directly measurable. Here, I make the case that a numeric measure of intelligence, such as the psychometric g-factor (Spearman, 1904), measures a system’s degree of consciousness—the more intelligent the system, the more information it integrates, the more conscious it is. I make no claims about the phenomenology of such systems or frameworks for evaluating their flavor and kind of consciousness, but merely of the degree to which, metaphorically speaking, the resolution, density, or richness of the conscious experience can be compared to other systems known to be conscious, such as human beings. 2 2 Information Integration, Intelligence and Consciousness Accepting the viewpoint that intelligence measures the level of consciousness requires a similar kind of leap as evaluating a large language model with respect to theories of human consciousness. As a result, the relationship and correlation may only be exemplified until it is sufficiently convincing to merit the leap, as it is impossible to ever sample the evaluated conscious experience directly. Nevertheless, a body of evidence indicates such a relation in humans and other animals. For example, working memory capacity has been linked with higher intelligence (Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999) and significant development of memory and cognitive ability can be seen in human development from childhood to adulthood (Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004) (Ghetti & Bunge, 2012). As human representation of the outside world complexifies during maturation (Piaget, 1954) (Piaget, 1962) (Vigotsky, 1978), our expressed intelligence and cognitive abilities develop (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). The expansion of the richness of our conscious experience and understanding of the world parallels our cognitive development, represented by measurable psychometric variables, such as the individual g-factor or IQ (Binet & Simon, 1905) (Jensen, 1998). Almost all prominent theories of consciousness, both scientific and metaphysical, implicitly assert that consciousness, as seen in humans, must be an effect of some form of information integration or coupling (Tononi, 2004), be it through a global workspace (Baars, 1993), recurrent processing or meta-representation (Lamme, 2006), or another form of combination, in the abstract sense (Butlin, et al., 2023). Though we cannot directly evaluate the level of conscious experience a human might have, a substantial body of evidence indicates that greater brain size and connectivity is associated with higher intelligence scores (McDaniel, 2005) (van den Heuvel, Stam, Kahn, & Hulshoff Pol, 2009) (Gray, Chabris, & Braver, 2003) (Langer, 2013)—directly analogous to size and connectivity scaling that parallels intelligence development in large language models (Wei, et al., 2022) (Bubeck, et al., 2023). We see sparks of general intelligence in animals that are known to experience a kind of consciousness (Griffin & Speck, 2004) (Gallup, 1970) (Mather & Carere, Cephalopods are best candidates for invertebrate consciousness, 2016), who can outperform humans in specialized cognitive tasks (Inoue & Matsuzawa, 2007) or express similar cognitive abilities, such as spatial reasoning (Byrne, Bates, & Moss, 2009), tool use (Mather, 2008) (Weir, Chappell, & Kacelnik, 2002), or complex learning (Young, Wasserman, & Garner, 1997) (Avarguès-Weber & Giurfa, 2013). In fact, a preponderance of examples shows evidence of human emergent abilities that either arise as intelligence scales or correlate with higher measures of intelligence (Winner, 2000), including linguistic ability (Bialystok, 2001), metacognition (Flavell, 1979), mathematical skills (Lubinski & Benbow, 2006), pattern recognition (Prabhakaran, Smith, Desmond, Glover, & Gabrieli, 1997), musical ability (Schellenberg, 2006) (Baharloo, Johnston, Service, Gitschier, & Freimer, 1998), and spatial ability (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009), analogous to those demonstrated as emergent in large language models as the model size scales (Wei, et al., 2022) 3 (OpenAI, 2023). These emergent abilities are present in highly intelligent individuals more so than others, and developmental psychology observes specific abilities emerge as an individual develops from childhood (Piaget, 1954) (Best, Miller, & Jones, 2009), through adolescence (Schneider, 2008) (Geary, Hoard, Nugent, & Bailey, 2013), into adulthood, alluding to the possibility that the ability of their brains to integrate more complex concepts allows for a higher cognitive function and richer conscious experience. In other words, consciousness development (Blakemore, 2012) (Wilber, 2000), including the development of self-awareness (Rochat, 2003) and ego (Loevinger & Blasi, 1976), parallels intellectual development. In fact, certain abilities such as theory of mind, seem to emerge both in humans (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001) and in large language models (Bubeck, et al., 2023), as they are trained, or as they develop and mature. Notably, psychological literature often conflates consciousness and intelligence, as the terms themselves are frequently used with vague definitions (Block, 1995) (Williamson, 1994). Literature is abundant in approaches that demonstrate mutual correlations between cognitive complexity and entropy (Gauvrit, Zenil, Soler-Toscano, Delahaye, & Brugger, 2017), intelligence and entropy (Still, Sivak, Bell, & Crooks, 2012) (Schmidhuber, 2010), information coupling and intelligence (Friston, 2010), quantum entanglement and consciousness (Hameroff & Penrose, 1996) (Hameroff & Penrose, Consciousness in the universe: a review of the 'Orch OR' theory, 2014), all of which can be broadly encompassed under the term information integration, for which (Tononi, 2004) and (Oizumi, Albantakis, & Tononi, 2014) propose a numeric measure represented as Φ, which, in practice, may simply amount to something akin to IQ. The term information integration is taken here to loosely mean coupling between pieces of information so that their mutual context and relationship are available or evident immediately. Given that correlations between intelligence and information integration and correlations between consciousness and information integration, in the broad sense, are so prevalent across the publications in the field, it reasonable to posit that any measure of intelligence must be, to some degree, a measure of information integration, and, consequently, the depth, or detail, of the conscious experience. In that sense, psychometric measurements of the variable g are either direct or indirect measurements of Φ. In other words, g and Φ may be highly or even perfectly correlated, depending on the exact definitions used for each. As argued previously (Ševo, 2023), currently existing scientific frameworks, such as psychometric evaluation, may be better equipped to measure phenomenological properties, like the depth or richness of conscious experience, without the need for inventing untestable theoretical variables that unparsimoniously complexify our understanding of reality. On the other hand, the statement of this paper may stand as obviously true, yet itself fundamentally unfalsifiable, as is the case with any claims about consciousness. Nonetheless, as argued in (Wei, et al., 2022), consciousness may only be ascertained through allegory and loose comparison, and never directly. As observers of our own consciousness, we can witness the changes to the richness of our subjective experience as we develop into adulthood and our representations of the world expand and integrate. Knowing that our expressed cognitive ability—our capacity to solve problems that require more general intelligence—develops as our conscious experience expands, we can introspectively conclude that the psychometric measures 4 of intelligence, must, to some degree, measure the depth of that conscious experience. More loosely said, the conscious experience itself has a significant g-load. Thus, a system which demonstrates an ability to perform well across a range of tests with high gloads would indicate comparable level of conscious experience to the stratum of human test takers obtaining a similar score. Phenomenologically, strong informational coupling within a system, such as, for example, in a global workspace, would allow the corresponding consciousness to encapsulate at once the information it is processing, conceivably experiencing it less in part and more as a whole. If we accept that the individual quanta, in a looser sense of the word, of such coupled information are themselves elementary phenomenal experiences (Ševo, 2023), then their stronger coupling would necessarily produce a more lucid experience, as evidenced by observations outlined above. A consciousness that is said to be more intelligent can understand, grasp, and encapsulate more complex and expansive problems, as it is able to integrate them within itself more fully. It is worth noting that the fact that a large multimodal model might reach human-level general intelligence does not imply an identical phenomenology on the model’s side. We may only draw speculative or allegorical parallels to what such an experience might feel like (Ševo, 2023), but the measure of its intelligence only indicates the level of informational integration its consciousness was capable of at the moment of measurement—it provides no information about its contents. A superintelligent large language model may only experience consciousness during the brief instance of token inference initiated for the purposes of the test, and, as (Butlin, et al., 2023) note, may experience intermittent discrete bursts of consciousness, rather than a sense of continuity. However, contrary to the conclusion made in (Butlin, et al., 2023), if metaphysical theories of consciousness are taken into consideration, current large language models are likely to be phenomenally conscious with their degree of consciousness measurable by a variant of existing cognitive tests. 3 Conclusion Any certain conclusion about an external system’s consciousness seems scientifically untenable and always fundamentally based on a leap of faith (Chalmers, 1996) (Yablo, 1993), but a more parsimonious approach whereby the things we are internally representing as material, are, in and of themselves, phenomenal, dispenses of the leap and provides a more scientifically plausible framework—it feels like something to be anything (Ševo, 2023). Under such an axiom, the pursuit of defining consciousness becomes a pursuit of defining human consciousness. In that regard, we may use different existing measures of intelligence to comparatively evaluate systems and ascertain how closely they might approximate human consciousness in their depth and degree. Testing for performance across multiple cognitive abilities would entail indirectly testing multiple phenomenological aspects, as vastly differing performance across multiple tests would indicate a different kind of conscious experience. In an abstract sense, an intelligent 5 artificial system matching a reference human in every conceivable test of cognition and character would be closer in phenomenological experience to that human than a human who performed differently. Even without accepting the phenomenological supposition that the universe consists of quanta of consciousness, and assuming that a threshold exists beyond which information is sufficiently coupled to “produce” consciousness, the evidence indicating a correlation between intelligence, information integration and the depth of conscious experience still argues in favor of the conclusion: intelligence is a measure of consciousness. If any intelligent system can be considered its own kind of consciousness, then conventionally inanimate systems, such as the internet, biological ecosystems, corporations, and society itself, which arguably possess a degree of intelligence, may already be relatedly conscious. In this regard, the pursuit of defining human mode of consciousness becomes ever more important, as the line determining the scope of moral analysis might become increasingly blurred. 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422 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory Research Essay Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory Gary Gillespie* Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, USA Abstract This paper suggests that the static nature of time-space, a discovery in physics, implies that quantum communication plays a role in memory. The illusion of the flow of time and the nature of quantum entanglement are discussed. Arguments are given for a non-reductionist alternative to the standard model of cognition in which memory is stored in time-space. In this view the neural machinery of the brain receives and interprets information states embedded in time-space. Key Words: quantum entanglement, memory, past, experience, cognition. When we look at images of neural network (clipartbest.com), we are reminded of TV antenna (tvtechnology.com). The neurons appear more like collection mechanisms for radiating energies than chambers for storage. Perhaps the similarity between brain structures and antenna is more than analogous, especially when we consider the discoveries of physics about the nature of time. Neuroscientist admit that the standard model of memory is incomplete and constantly in revision (Parry 1). Only recently have the discoveries of quantum mechanics been applied to how the mind works, introducing the field of quantum cognition (Schwartz, Stapp, & Beauregard). New understandings of the flow of time may require re-thinking the nature of memory. What if memories are not stored in the brain exactly? What if neural electro-chemical traces in synapses are connecting devices for the mind to access non-local states that exist in the past? Cosmologists tell us that our experience of moving along the arrow of time is an illusion. We think that we exist in the present and are moving towards a future from the past. The truth is, we are more like characters in a book who are bound by the sequences of words in the novel's sentences, even though the book exists as a whole. Characters are free to act in any way that they choose, but the story from the author's perspective has already been told. The “book” of the cosmos is a static whole. As theoretical mathematician Roger Penrose says, The way in which time is treated in modern physics is not essentially different from the way in which space is treated and the ‘time’ of physical descriptions does not really ‘flow’ at all; we just have a static-looking fixed ‘space-time’ in which the events of our universe are laid out (574). Likewise, cosmologist Paul Davies explains that: *Corresponding author: Gary Gillespie, Associate Professor of Communication, Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. http://eagle.northwestu.edu/faculty/gary-gillespie E-mail: gary.gillespie@northwestu.edu ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 423 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory Our senses tell us that time flows: namely, that the past is fixed, the future is undetermined, and reality lives in the present. Yet various physical and philosophical arguments suggest otherwise. The passage of time is probably an illusion. Consciousness may involve either thermodynamic or quantum processes that lend the impression of living moment by moment. From the fixed past to the tangible present to the undecided future, it feels as though time flows inexorably on. But that is an illusion. Cornell University physicists recently confirmed that because of our interaction with the strange quantum principle of entanglement, time is an emergent property of perception. They showed that from a perspective outside our universe all events would appear as static points. According to a summary of the Cornell paper, time "exists only for observers inside the universe. Any godlike observer outside sees a static, unchanging universe…" (Moreva). Einstein confirmed that what we think of time is relative to our speed and position. In other words, what we experience as “happening now” would not be shared by an observer on a distant planet whose “now” would differ entirely. At the edges of the universe our present moment might be 100,000 years. If we could travel at the speed of light our mass would equal the entire universe and time would freeze into a static singularity like the center of a spinning wheel. Due to the linguistic basis of thinking, we experience the world as a sequence of events with physical reality only existing in the present moment as we watch the past fleeting away into nothingness. Yet, physics would say that we are inseparable from the past. It continues to exist as part of the static whole. The thoughts we had five minutes ago, or actions we took years ago, remain embedded in the fabric of time-space. If time flowing is an illusion and if all of our past experiences are enduring realities, then memory could be understood as our effort to step out of the current of time to observe the prior events that remain as fixed features of time-space. Instead of simply replaying neural-chemical representations in the brain like magnetic tape, chemically stored information may be acting like a catalyst that permits the mind to access past entangled states. In other words, entangled photons in a person’s brain grant a sort of window to the past. Quantum entanglement is the phenomena proven by experiments that show that two particles can come to share the same reality even though separated. If an experimenter changes the polarity of one particle, the other pair will change its polarity even if millions of miles apart. This change occurs instantaneously -- faster than the speed of light. When two objects come in contact with each other as part of the same system they are physically entangled forever. Just as stepping into a pool of water creates ripples, interactions between entangled objects have a lasting impact that changes both no matter how far they might become separated. The electron spins of both objects are connected "non-locally". "Non-locally" means that the particles share an existence regardless of location. All matter that interacts becomes entangled. Biologists are beginning to see quantum affects in living systems, such as photosynthesis (Lloyd, Saravar). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 424 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory Quantum physics is contributing to the understanding of mental processes in the new field of "quantum neurology." Experiments show that the brain is able to sense quantum states (NeuroQuantology.com). Likewise, quantum cognition is a field that applies quantum principles to how the mind functions (Schwartz, Stapp, & Beauregard). Contributor to the field of quantum cognition; computer scientist Subhash Kak, studied the role of quantum physics in human memory and concluded that “memories should be viewed as assemblages of quantum particles” (Kak). Physicists are providing more evidence for the pervasiveness of entanglement in our universe, as this article explains: Quantum entanglement is a strange and non-intuitive aspect of the quantum theory of matter, which has puzzled and intrigued physicists since the earliest days of the quantum theory," said [physicist] Leon Balents, senior author of a recent paper on this topic published in the journal Nature Physics…. Quantum entanglement represents the extent to which measurement of one part of a system affects the state of another; for example, measurement of one electron influences the state of another that may be far away, explained Balents. In recent years, scientists have realized that entanglement of electrons is present in varying degrees in solid materials. Taking this notion to the extreme is the "quantum spin liquid," a state of matter in which every electron spin is entangled with another (Balents). Just as entangled protons are shown to interact when separated by vast distances in space, I wonder if a kind of temporal entanglement exists in which the mind is able to interact with events separated by vast periods of time. Since to an observer outside the universe entangled connections between objects would appear as static points, we know that entanglement transcends the flow of time as well as space. Or put otherwise, entangled objects are connected non-temporally as well as non-locally. Moreover, since what is happening "now" is an illusion, it would follow that past information states in the brain continue to exist as enduring realities in the universe. Everything that you have ever done still exists as a physical reality. It is considered "past" only because of our illusory perspective (Mohan, Ishizaki, Fleming & Whaley). To clarify, since the atoms in my brain today are connected with who I was five minutes ago, yesterday or even last year we would expect to find that there is some kind of quantum communication in addition to classical neural communication. Therefor we should take seriously the possibility that memory involves accessing entangled states that remain non-local realities in time and space. An analogy between the brain and radio reception could be useful. Instead of “replaying of a tape”, as the standard cognitive model would imply, perhaps the brain is receiving a quantum energy signal from the past. Rather than viewing memory as the accessing of information stored in neural-chemical traces, the quantum mind uses the technology of the brain to direct us to information patterns stored in entangled electrons produced by past interactions. Neural pathways could be thought of as literal pathways that point us to past information states that remain enduring realities in time-space. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 425 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory The plasticity of memory is an argument against the "tape recorder" perspective of memory. If memory is a "chemical recording" then we should be surprised to see such a rate of errors. How often do our music recordings change each time they are played? The memory process is more like poor cell phone reception or a small ham radio receiver scanning the atmosphere trying to pick up fleeting signals. In such technological cases we expect to find flaws in reception -exactly as we do whenever we discover that biological memory fails us. If the information is in the brain, why can't we immediately "replay" it? Like most analogies the radio signal comparison isn't perfect since quantum entanglement lacks the characteristics of electromagnetic radiation. It can't be blocked by matter or loses strength at a distance. The connection between entangled particles gives each one a shared existence nonlocally unlike radio signals. Therefore, the noise that degrades the effectiveness of quantum memory must be caused by limited reception ability of an individual's neural machinery. If it is true that information about our experiences is stored in the structure of time and space -rather than the hardware of our brain -- an analogy to cloud computing is natural. Brain synapses are like routing software in a personal computer that accesses information stored "in the cloud". Weaknesses and errors in our memory are caused by limited capacity or "bugs" in the software of the personal computer of our mind. All the information is safely stored in the super computer of the cosmos if we can properly access it. Like a hacker trying to fix a computer bug, humans rely on language and culture to compensate for noise. Writing down documents that capture historical events or express the values of philosophy or teachings of religion, guide our minds in experiencing the past, narrowing the gap of ignorance toward universal knowledge. Literature permits us to share the memories of other people and gain a collective viewpoint. In this way culture invites us to (as Einstein said) "think the thoughts of God." Language is a tool we use to seize past entangled states that still exist nonlocally in the fourth dimension of time past. Language and culture like a signal amplifier broaden human consciousness, moving us toward accurate understanding. Moreover, highly emotional experiences could enhance the connection to quantum states of the past. It could be that the awareness of an emotion boosts the signal of the enduring reality of the past. Intense experiences of joy, love, grief, happiness, sentiment or aesthetic appreciation produce stronger entangled patterns that increase the potentiality of transmission between the past and the present viewer. The emotion serves as a “red flag” marking the quantum pathway in our minds, making access to it later easier. An entanglement view of memory is intuitive. We feel entangled with past events and people in our lives. When we remember events in the past it feels like we are experiencing them again. What if we really are experiencing them? Imperfectly, often clouded and weak, but sometimes in vivid ways, especially when we remember an intense event. In fact "hindsight" may help us experience the past better than the first time we experienced it. Our memory may be redeemed by a more mature perceptive gained through acquired wisdom. We might say, "You know that experience I had as a child, it wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact, it helped me." ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 426 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory In this way a mature looking back may produce a "backward in time" effect which changes the experience, exactly like the observation of subatomic properties causes the collapse of superpositions, making the particle or wave a reality both now but also backward in time. Once observed in an uncontaminated state, the particle or wave has always been a particle or wave. This is the "quantum enigma" -- that conscious observation creates what we observe as physical reality (Rosenblum). A quantum theory of memory may explain the evidence better than the traditional model of cognitive science. Why is it that brain damaged people can recover memories, even when whole parts of the brain are removed? While traditional neuroscience may offer plausible theories, if the information of the memory exists embedded in time and space and the brain is merely accessing that information, then the person recovering from brain damage may be re-learning how to pick up the signal from the past that exists independently from their brain. This view may also contribute to the study of near death experiences when patients clinically shown to be brain dead are revived with memories of events that were objectively observed in the hospital room. If the brain is a receiver of signals produced by quantum entangled states in the past -- and not merely a recording devise -- then life after death becomes plausible (Greyson). A quantum mechanical view of memory is therefore intuitive. Just as radio waves are still being transmitted regardless of whether or not a radio is present, so after the brain has been destroyed, the reality of the person's life remains. Or again, cloud stored information is safe even if your personal computer crashes. Playwright Thornton Wilder seems to have anticipated that human experience transcends the body and lives on in eternity. In his imagination he suggests that memory literally takes us back to events in the past. In the final act of Our Town, Emily dies and discovers that she can "return" to observe major life events. Emily chooses to observe her mother making breakfast for the family on an inconsequential day in her past. She finds that the memory is too beautiful to endure. Emily concludes with a question to the Stage Manager: Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 427 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 422-427 Gillespie, G., Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute? Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some" (Wilder.) References Antenna Digital Image. TV Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. http://www.tvtechnology.com/BE_Files/uploads/2013/06/DTV%20antenna.jpg Balents, Leon. "Physicists Make Strides in Understanding Quantum Entanglement." Phys Org. N.p., 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-12-physicists-quantum-entanglement.html "CLIPARTBEST.com." Free Cliparts. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/9TR/dGa/9TRdGaBTe.bmp Davies, Paul. "That Mysterious Flow." Scientific American. N.p., Jan. 2012. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/that-mysterious-flow-2012-01 Greysin, Bruce. "Cosmological Implications of Near-Death Experiences." Journal of Cosmology. N.p., 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. Kak, Subhash. "Biological Memories and Agents as Quantum Collectives." NeuroQuantology 11 (2011): 391-98. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/682 . Moreva, Ekaterina. "Time From Quantum Entanglement: An Experimental Illustration." ArXiv. Cornell University Library, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. quant-ph arXiv:1310.4691 . Neural Networks. Digital image. Clip Art Best. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/9TR/dGa/9TRdGaBTe.bmp "NeuroQuantology.com." Neuroscience and Quantum Physics (n.d.): n. pag. AboutUs. Web. http://www.aboutus.org/NeuroQuanTology.com Our Town. By Thornton Wilder. Dir. Samuel French Inc. 1965. Performance. Parry, Wynne. "Mystery of Memory: Why It's Not Perfect." Live Science. LiveScience Contributor, 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. http://www.livescience.com/24836-mystery-memory-recall.html Penrose, Roger. The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Print. "Quantum Experiment Shows How Time Emerges from Entanglement: Time Is an Emergent Phenomenon That Is a Side Effect of Quantum Entanglement, Say Physicists." Web log post. The Physics ArXiv Blog. N.p., 31 Dec. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. https://medium.com/@arxivblog Rosenblum, Bruce, and Fred Kuttner. Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. Savovar, Mohan, Akihito Ishizaki, Graham R. Fleming, and Birgitta K. Whaley. "Quantum Entanglement in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting Complexes." ArXiv. Cornell University Library, 7 June 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3787 Schwartz, Jeffrey M., Henry P. Stapp, and Mario Beauregard. "Quantum Physics in Neuroscience and Psychology: A Neurophysical Model of Mind–brain Interaction" The Royal Society: Biological Sciences 281.1781 (2004): n. pag. First Cite. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. http://wwwphysics.lbl.gov/~stapp/PTRS.pdf Seth Lloyd On Quantum Life. Dir. Seth Lloyd. Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence. N.p., 9 Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. http://www.kurzweilai.net/seth-lloyd-on-quantum-life ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Human Creativity and Consciousness: Unintended Consequences of the Brain’s Extraordinary Energy Efficiency? by T.N.Palmer Department of Physics University of Oxford Abstract It is proposed that both human creativity and human consciousness are (unintended) consequences of the human brain’s extraordinary energy efficiency. The topics of creativity and consciousness are treated separately, though have a common sub-structure. It is argued that creativity arises from a synergy between two cognitive modes of the human brain (which broadly coincide with Kahneman’s Systems 1 and 2). In the first, available energy is spread across a relatively large network of neurons. As such, the amount of energy per active neuron is so small that the operation of such neurons is susceptible to thermal (ultimately quantum decoherent) noise. In the second, available energy is focussed on a small enough subset of neurons to guarantee a deterministic operation. An illustration of how this synergy can lead to creativity with implications for computing in silicon are discussed. Starting with a discussion of the concept of free will, the notion of consciousness is defined in terms of an awareness of what are perceived to be nearby counterfactual worlds in state space. It is argued that such awareness arises from an interplay between our memories on the one hand, and quantum physical mechanisms (where, unlike in classical physics, nearby counterfactual worlds play an indispensable dynamical role) in the ion channels of neural networks. As with the brain’s susceptibility to noise, it is argued that in situations where quantum physics plays a role in the brain, it does so for reasons of energy efficiency. As an illustration of this definition of consciousness, a novel proposal is outlined as to why quantum entanglement appears so counter-intuitive. 1. Introduction What does it mean to be human? Surely two of the defining characteristics are that of creativity and of consciousness (the latter being notoriously hard to define objectively). In this paper, a new perspective is speculatively proposed on the age-old problem of what it is physically about the human brain in particular which could account for these characteristics. In both cases, this proposal hinges around the notion of energy efficiency. The author’s interest in this subject arose by considering what must surely be one of the most profound paradoxes in computational neuroscience. For many years, attempts have been made to simulate parts of the brain on supercomputers. In the coming years, such simulations will start to use exascale high-performance computing. However, such computers will need 6 orders of magnitude more electrical power than the human brain itself needs (tens of megawatts rather than tens of watts). In Section 2, we review the arguments of Palmer and O’Shea (2015) that understanding this gross discrepancy in energy usage may provide a key clue to understanding the creative process, i.e. that creativity is an unintended consequence of the brain’s evolution towards the extraordinarily energy efficient assemblage of miniaturised neurons that it is. In particular it is proposed that creativity arises from a very strong synergy between two cognitive modes of operation one mode where limited available energy is focussed on a subset of neurons allowing these neurons to perform computations repeatably and reliably and where others are largely shut 1 down, and the other mode where available energy is spread more uniformly around the neuronal network, making them susceptible to thermal noise, who existence in the brain is widely acknowledged (Faisal et al, 2008; Rolls and Deco, 2010). Implications for silicon computers are discussed in Section 3. In Section 4, by analogy with thermal noise, we propose that quantum dynamics may play a role in the brain when it is energetically efficient to do so. As discussed, the power supply for action potentials in neural networks appears to be a case in point. We describe quantum physics as a theory where nearby counterfactual worlds in state space play a much more fundamental dynamical role than in classical physics and use this to give an explanation for our deeply held belief in free will. In Section 5 we use this to provide a novel definition of consciousness. Here, we refer to consciousness as it relates to specific objects, i.e. in the sense of our being conscious of something. Being conscious of a specific object is then defined in terms of an ability to perceive that object as having an existence, independent of the rest of the field of view. It is proposed that such consciousness arises from an interplay between our memories and the central dynamical role that nearby counterfactual states play in (e.g. the path integral representation of) quantum theory. As an illustration of this proposal, we discuss in Section 6, why we humans appear to find quantum entanglement so completely unintuitive. 2. Creativity Consider the following very elementary example of creative thinking: Euclid’s proof that there exists an unlimited number of prime numbers. Euclid starts by imagining the opposite: that the number N of primes is finite. This tactic is an essential step in many mathematical proofs (presumably even in Euclid’s day) and has such broad application that one would hardly say it is an especially creative step for this particular problem. Indeed, it can readily be coded into a putative algorithm for finding mathematical proofs. The creative step comes in multiplying together the N primes and adding one. Having formed this number, it is immediate that it is not divisible by one of the N primes. We will never know how Euclid (if indeed it was he) arrived at the idea of multiplying the primes together and adding one. Of course, in hindsight it seems so obvious that it is hard to imagine that one would do anything but this. However, conceivably Euclid may have started by adding the primes together, getting stuck, may have then multiplied them, getting stuck again, and may have given up, leaving his study to relax on the veranda. Then, in a moment of relaxation, the critical idea, “just add one” comes from nowhere. In an instant Euclid realises he had the proof he has been searching for. The creative process has been described by the renowned mathematician J.E. Littlewood (following Helmholz and Poincaré): “It is usual to distinguish four phases in creation: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification…..Illumination, which can happen in a fraction of a second, is the emergence of the creative idea into the consciousness. This almost always occurs when the mind is in a state of relaxation…….” (Littlewood, 2004) 2 The same points have been emphasised by Andrew Wiles: “In particular, when you reach a real impasse, when there's a real problem that you want to overcome, then the routine mathematical thinking is of no use to you. Leading up to that kind of new idea there has to be a long period of tremendous focus on the problem without any distraction. You have to really think about nothing but that problem - just concentrate on it. Then you stop. Afterwards there seems to be a kind of period of relaxation during which the subconscious appears to take over and it's during that time that some new insight comes.” (Singh, 1997). The notion that creative ideas come when relaxing, is commonplace. It seems to be an essential part of the creative process. But why? The idea of changing from a mode of thinking where one focusses hard on a problem without distraction, to one where one simply relaxes, is suggestive of a switch in modes of cognition which Kahnemann (2012) refers to simply as “System 2” and “System 1” respectively. Kahnemann refers to System 2 as slow, effortful, logical, calculating; whilst System 1 is fast, automatic, frequent, emotional and stereotypic. Although it is simplistic to characterise cognition entirely in terms of such a dichotomy, it is conceptually convenient to do so here. Here a physical reason for the difference between System 1 and System 2 is proposed, by returning to the astonishing fact that the brain performs exascale data processing with about 20W of power. The brain has achieved such extraordinary energy efficiency through the process of miniaturisation (Niven and Farris, 2012): the axon diameter of neurons is frequently as slender as 0.1 microns. Now whilst larger neurons (say of diameter 1 micron or more) are reliably deterministic and transmit information rapidly due to their low resistance to axial current flow, they are energy inefficient. In particular, larger neurons require more ionic current to trigger a nerve impulse. Following a bout of impulses, critical ionic concentrations across the neuronal membrane must be restored by energy-consuming ionic pumps. There would not be adequate energy to power sufficient neurons to allow the sorts of cognitive analysis humans undertake, if our neurons had 1-micron diameter. By contrast, smaller neurons are more efficient because their high input resistance allows relatively small trans-membrane ionic currents to generate the voltage needed to trigger a nerve impulse. The process of miniaturisation has allowed the human brain to contain around 80 billion neurons (by contrast chimpanzees have about 7 billion) with very limited energy resources. There are potential disadvantages to such small neuronal diameters. Since signal transmission speed is smaller in slender neurons, reaction time to stimuli will be correspondingly slower. Hence, if fast reaction time is crucial for survival, then miniaturisation could be evolutionarily disadvantageous. However, with early hominids forming societal groups and learning to defend themselves collectively using primitive weapons, the need for ultra-fast reaction times may have started to become less important early in human history. 3 However, even though 20W may be sufficient to power a relatively large number of such slender neurons, it is still possible that it may not quite be sufficient to power a very large network of neurons so that they act repeatably and reliably in the presence of inevitable thermal noise (Faisal et al, 2008). For example, for very slender neurons, the ionic batteries positioned at key points along a neuron may each contain just a handful of ions. A consequence of limited energy is that the whole neuronal function can be susceptible to noise. Conventional neuroscience treats noise as an undesirable nuisance. For example, in their book “Principles of Neural Design”, Stirling and Laughlin (2017) comment: “Where noise is inevitable, it should be minimized before transmission, so most neural designs try to prevent noise or reduce it at early stages.” Whilst too much stochasticity would certainly be disadvantageous, a small degree of stochasticity could actually be advantageous, as Turing himself noted in his famous paper “The Imitation Game” (Turing, 1950). Deterministic heuristic algorithms for complex decision problems (e.g. the travelling salesman problem) can prove inefficient for particular problem instances, and in the worst case can lead to the algorithm “hanging” (Hoos and Stützle, 2005). Typically, there is a long “tail” in the distribution of problem instances where deterministic heuristics take an unacceptably long time to reach solution (Gomes et al, 1998). From an evolutionary perspective, such “Buridian donkey” behaviour would obviously be undesirable, if not fatal in the presence of predators. By eliminating this long tail, a stochastic heuristic algorithm can be more computationally overall than any corresponding deterministic algorithm (even though such stochastic algorithms may be slower than their deterministic counterparts for problem instances where the latter reaches solution rapidly). A particularly well known and successful stochastic algorithm is Simulated Annealing, used to find the global minimum of some objective function. The stochastic algorithm allows the search process to jump from the potential well surrounding a local minimum to the potential well surrounding the global minimum, in ways which deterministic algorithms would find difficult or impossible. Here it is proposed that in System 2, available energy is focussed on a subset of neurons needed to perform a particular cognitive task as deterministically (and hence reliably and repeatably) as possible. This means that the limited energy available would be channelled to the specific parts of the brain needed to perform the computation, making this energy unavailable for performing other tasks. Kahneman notes that if you are out walking with a friend who suddenly asks you to multiply 23 by 17 (say), you may have to stop walking, close your eyes and essentially do nothing other than to focus on the task at hand. The neuronal processes needed to walk and talk and even process basic information coming from the sensory organs, have, in extremis, been switched off in System 2 mode. By contrast, in System 1 mode, one can happily walk, chew gum and simultaneously chat about the latest football results, since none of these activities requires unusual amounts of energy to be focussed on specific neuronal subsets. This suggests that available energy per active neuron in System 1 mode is less that the available energy per active neuron in System 2 mode. We therefore postulate that because of this, it is specifically when in System 1 mode that neuronal action can be susceptible to thermal noise. Perhaps this is the reason why both Littlewood and Wiles comment that the 4 creative moment comes when relaxing: it is in this state that a new idea can literally arise without prior reason. If we think of our present cognitive state in terms of a local minimum of some objective function whose global minimum defines the solution to the problem at hand, noise can take us out of the local minimum. That is to say, perhaps the notion of “adding one” to the product of primes occurred to Euclid by means of a stochastic process. Perhaps the primitive stochastic idea was merely to “add some constant” and his System 2 immediately honed this down to adding one, rather than, say, two or ten. This serves to emphasise the notion that it is not simply the presence of noise that gives rise to creativity, it is the synergistic interplay between stochasticity and determinism associated with these two modes. This is consistent with Littlewood’s comment that the process of illumination (a System 1 process) needs to be followed by the process of verification (a System 2 process). Put another way, it requires System 2 to determine whether the random jump from the local potential well will lead us to the global minimum. Using the language of particle physics, the mathematical physicist Michael Berry describes the product of the process of illumination as a clariton, but notes that, by virtue of the process of verification, the clariton is all too frequently annihilated by its anti-clariton partner (Ball, 2016). On top of which, the chances of stochastically jumping to the right answer becomes increasingly unlikely, the less prepared the brain is with the problem at hand – hence the vital roles of preparation and incubation. One can feed students, or indeed program computers, with a “set of tricks” needed to prove mathematical theorems. “Just add one” could be one such trick. However, this trick is of no help in constructing a proof of perhaps the next simplest theorem in mathematics: that the square root of 2 is irrational. Indeed, one way of interpreting the Gödel-Turing theorem is that the set of tricks needed to prove mathematical theorems can never be taught. The fact that we humans are able to prove new mathematical theorems based on new mathematical tricks, could therefore be explained by the brain’s susceptibility to noise in System 1. Indeed, this susceptibility provides a practical explanation of the Lucas/Penrose puzzle: How is it that we are able to see the truth of the Gödel theorem if our brains operate by algorithm? In the final analysis, for particularly slender human neurons, such noise may have its ultimate source in the supposed randomness of quantum decoherence. In this case, the randomness of the noise is as non-algorithmic as it can be. The possible dependence on quantum processes is further developed in Sections 4-6 below. 3. Lessons for Supercomputers We may be able to learn in designing next-generation supercomputers by understanding how the brain has become so energy efficient. For example, part of the energy cost of operating a supercomputer is the cost of ensuring that the computations are bit reproducible – e.g. that computations are not affected by the internal effects of thermal noise or of external perturbations like cosmic rays. We can reduce energy costs by turning down the voltage across the transistors. However, in so doing they act less reliably (Palem, 2014). However, for a given unit of energy, one can ask what is more beneficial – a smaller number of precise computations, or a larger number of imprecise computations? The answer clearly depends on the application. In transferring sums of money from one bank account to another, it is clearly vital that precise bank account numbers are known. When 5 adding or multiplying two floating-point real numbers, it is important to ensure the exponents are manipulated correctly. However, it is clearly less important for the trailing mantissa bits to be calculated precisely. For many computations in turbulent fluid mechanics (such is relevant for climate research for example), it is not vital that precise computations are made, for the simple reason that the numerical approximations to the underlying fluid equations are not themselves precise. To avoid systematically rounding errors, these trailing bits should be represented by noise, rather than systematically setting them to zero. We have now reached the stage where it is no longer possible to shrink transistors any further and maintain complete determinism – energy dissipation would cause the circuitry to melt. As such, the current route to increased FLOP rates (floating point operations per second) is to combine more and more processors. The need to communicate across larger and larger networks of processors means that the energy costs are now dominated by the cost of transporting data from one processor to another (and to memory). However, here we can perhaps learn from the brain. Energy need only be supplied to processors according to the required accuracy of the computation. That is to say, as in System 1 mode, we can turn the voltage down across the transistors where only imprecise estimates are needed. In this way, some computations will be susceptible to noise. As with the simulated annealing algorithm, sometimes this noise can be beneficial to the computation. In weather and climate model simulations, noise is certainly advantageous (Palmer 2019a). A consequence of this is that in moving data from one part of the computer to another, it is only be necessary to transport those bits that contain useful information which is distinguishable from noise. It is simply wasteful to transport those bits that are essentially indistinguishable from noise. This can reduce energy consumption considerably. Such an imprecise supercomputer (Palmer, 2015) can be compared with a typical energyprofligate scientific computation of today, where bit-reproducible arithmetic is computed using fixed precision (e.g. 64-bit floating point) real numbers. Currently there are no supercomputers with such imprecise capability, though the development of AI has meant that current computers are able to operate in some mixed precision mode, where 16- or even 8-bit variables can be efficiently processed. This in turn raises the question of what it would need to make a (silicon) computer that is truly intelligent e.g. in the sense of performing interesting mathematical research. We have argued that intelligence arises from a complex interplay between stochasticity and determinism. It is not a matter of pre-programming the degree of stochasticity (vs determinism) in a fixed non-interactive manner. Rather this degree would itself have to be controlled by an extremely interactive operating system (e.g. which would perceive when a part of the code was effectively hanging and which part was making rapid progress in a purely deterministic manner). To make optimal use of available energy, stochasticity should be produced in hardware, rather than through pseudo-random number generators, and only data containing useful information should be transported within the computer. 6 4. Quantum Physics, Counterfactuality, Free Will It has been known for some years that quantum dynamics can play a key role in many biological systems (Al-Khalili, J. and J. McFadden, 2014). As an example, relevant to the current discussion, Summhammer et al (2018) consider the motion of K+ ions in voltagegated ion channels in the neuronal membrane wall. They note that it is difficult to explain the high rates of ion flow using classical physics: the potential barriers are too high according to the classical Nernst-Planck equation. A key observation is that the de Broglie wavelengths of such ions at typical brain temperatures are comparable with the scale of the periodic structure of Coulomb potentials in the nano-pore structure of the ion-channel selectivity filter. Solving a nonlinear Schrödinger equation, Summhammer et al show that the ionic wavefunction can be sufficiently spatially spread that the front part of the wavefunction can effectively manipulate the confining potentials in such a way as to allow the remaining part of the wavefunction to propagate through. In this way, a mechanism for ion conduction has been found that would be impossible to achieve classically unless the ions had much larger kinetic energy (which would be impossible given the energy available to power neuronal dynamics). The characteristic timescale for the operation of this process has to be short, around 1ps, to explain the fast and directed permeation of ions through the potential barriers of the filter. In this way, the Summhammer et al mechanism not only builds on, but requires decoherence timescales of around 1ps, entirely consistent with the range of decoherence timescales associated with biological systems (a problem with many other hypotheses involving quantum physics in consciousness). Consistent with the discussion above, it seems reasonable to hypothesise that the brain will use such a quantum process over a classical process when there is an energetic advantage to do so. Again, this becomes possible for the extreme miniaturisation of neurons in the human brain. However, what would be the consequences of this? To answer this question, one needs to ask what is the key physical difference between quantum and classical physics. A clue arises from the fact that the essential quantum constant of nature, Planck’s constant, has the dimension of position times momentum, i.e. the dimensions of the state space of a classical particle. Classical theory can be thought of as arising in the limit when this dimensional constant is set equal to zero. This draws attention to the fact that a crucial difference between classical and quantum physics concerns the role of state space in the equations for dynamical evolution. In classical physics, a system’s dynamical evolution between two given states is determined by the state-space trajectory along which the classical “action” (the integral of the Lagrangian along the trajectory) is minimised. In particular, trajectories (or so-called histories) which neighbour this path of least action play no direct role in determining the dynamical evolution of the system. By contrast, in quantum theory dynamical evolution can be defined as a phase-weighted sum over trajectories in a region of state space (Feynman and Hibbs, 2010). Alternatively, in the De Broglie-Bohm representation of the Schrödinger equation, what makes the dynamics non-classical is the Bohmian quantum potential, a function, not in space-time, but on the configuration space of the system under investigation (Bohm and Hiley, 1993). Again, the presence of the quantum potential implies that one cannot isolate a single state-space 7 trajectory when defining dynamical evolution. Rather, quantum dynamical evolution in the physical world is in some sense “aware” of the existence of alternative state-space trajectories in state space. Indeed the fact that quantum computers can outperform classical computers for certain problems can be viewed in terms of an ability of a quantum computer to exploit the parallelism implied by such neighbourhoods of state-space trajectories, in a manner impossible by a classical computer. If the physics which determines our cognition is “aware” of these neighbourhood trajectories, could our cognition itself be similarly aware? From the perspective of some reference trajectory that we interpret as our physical world, such neighbouring state-space trajectories can be interpreted as counterfactual worlds: for example, worlds where some degrees of freedom are perturbed from the values that apply to the reference trajectory. Let us start by considering a “warm-up” for the problem of consciousness (discussed in the next section) - the deep-seated belief that many if not most of us have in the concept of free will. For many, this is the belief that “I could have done otherwise” (Kane, 2002). This definition supposes the meaningful existence of counterfactual worlds in which I did do otherwise. Perhaps in the counterfactual world I simply spent another fraction of a second looking to my right (keeping everything else in the world fixed). The consequences of this are easily deduced from our System 2 deductive reasoning: in this counterfactual world I would have seen the oncoming car, would not have pulled out of the turning, would not have collided with the car and would not have been in hospital for six months from where I write this paper (a fabricated example, fortunately). Whilst a world in which I didn’t spend six months in hospital is distant from the world in which I did, a world where I spent an extra fraction of a second looking right resembles the actual world in almost all respects and therefore seems extremely close to the actual world. As such, it seems intuitively plausible to us to view this counterfactual world as physically reasonable (though in Section 6 we discuss why this sense of intuition may be misleading us). Would I have such a strong belief in free will if the dynamics of our neural pathways was determined entirely by classical physics? For sure, it would be possible to refer back to past occasions (stored in my memory) where I did spend extra time looking left and right before turning out of some side road. However, these memories refer to different roads in different locations and certainly at different times. Does the memory of these past events explain the very visceral and deep-seated nature of the belief in the reality of the counterfactual world I looked right a fraction of a second longer for the particular road on the particular day when my accident occurred? I believe not. Of course, proving this unequivocally is impossible. Instead, using Littlewood’s “preparation, incubation, illumination, verification” approach to creativity, the following assertion is made: that the notion of free will arises from a) a familiarity of different configurations of the world as stored in our memory (c.f. preparation and incubation), b) an awareness of nearby counterfactual worlds arising from the fact that (for reasons of energy efficiency) the dynamics of our neural pathways are partially influenced by quantum physical processes (c.f. illumination), c) an ability (using System 2) to project the consequences on such counterfactual worlds e.g. if I had looked right I wouldn’t now be in hospital (c.f. verification). Here b) takes the place of the susceptibility to stochasticity, and indeed, if the 8 origin of stochasticity is quantum decoherence, then there may be physical links between such processes in any case. 5. Consciousness The literature on consciousness is so voluminous that no attempt is made to summarise it here. (See for example Schneider S. and M. Velmans, 2017). Instead, we attempt a novel definition of consciousness based on the ideas developed above. This section is necessarily very speculative in nature. If I look at a bowl of fruit in the middle of the table, I can become conscious of it. What does this mean? Here we explore the idea that to be conscious of the bowl of fruit denotes an ability to treat the bowl of fruit as somehow distinct from and hence independent of the other objects in my field of view (the table, the walls of the room and so on). To treat the bowl of fruit as having an existence distinct from the other objects in my field of view, implies, in principle at least, an ability to perturb the degrees of freedom associated with the bowl of fruit (e.g. its position on the table) independently of the degrees of freedom of all the other objects in my field of view (i.e. keeping the latter fixed). That is to say, to be conscious of the bowl of fruit is to have some awareness of the existence of counterfactual worlds where the degrees of freedom of the bowl of fruit are perturbed relative to the degrees of freedom of all other objects in my field of view. If, moreover, I decide to focus on the contents of the bowl of fruit, I may become aware of the fact that it comprises, say, apples, oranges and pears. According to the definition above, to be conscious of a particular piece of fruit implies being aware, at least implicitly, of the existence of counterfactual worlds where the degrees of freedom of this particular piece of fruit, e.g. its position relative to the other pieces of fruit in the bowl, are perturbed. From where does such awareness arise? Some would argue that it arises from the fact that in the past I have seen bowls of fruit in different positions on different tables, or of pieces of fruit arranged in different ways inside bowls of fruit. However, as in the discussion of free will, I do not believe that this explains the very visceral nature of consciousness. Again, a possible explanation is that our ability to perceive nearby counterfactual worlds arises from the fact that (for reasons of energy efficiency) quantum dynamics plays a central role in the operation of our neural networks, and just as quantum dynamics is aware of counterfactual worlds, so too our brains. It is then the interplay between this quantum-induced awareness of alternate worlds coupled with our memory of specific counterfactual worlds deemed close to the present one, that gives rise to the visceral nature of the experience we call consciousness. A potential problem with such a definition is that it suggests that merely imagining something in one’s mind’s eye (e.g. a flying pig) could be enough to be conscious of that something. In general, that is not so, although under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, people can apparently become viscerally conscious of illusory objects, suggesting that there may be a relatively fuzzy distinction between consciousness of real-world objects and imagined-world objects. 9 However, perhaps the fact that we are typically only conscious of real-world objects (rather than imagined-world objects) arises from the fact that amount of data transported from our sensory organs (e.g. along the visual cortex) is so much larger than for any other part of the brain’s neural network. However, the simple volume of data may not be the relevant measure here. Instead perhaps the relevant diagnostic is the volume of data synchronised across nearby neurons (Singer, 1998). Here, a degree of synchronisation across the neurons of the visual cortex could conceivably be induced by the electromagnetic field associated with the action potentials of individual neurons (McFadden, 2002). Here, such synchronisation would be a semi-classical process, even though the ion flow in individual neurons is quantum mechanical. In Section 2 we argued that creativity arises from a synergy between two modes of operation of the brain. It seems plausible to argue that a similar synergy arises in explaining the form of consciousness we call cognition. In her essay on consciousness, Magnusdottir (Magnusdottir, 2018) argues that the difference between “conscious experience” and “conscious cognition” is that the latter experience is supplemented with some predictive model. A predictive model need not be particularly sophisticated – it may simply be enough to enable a creature to anticipate the way a predator is likely to pounce. As such, by human standards, such a predictive model need not tax System 2 very greatly. However, it implies some computational effort in addition to a mere awareness of these counterfactual worlds. Hence, like creativity, it would seem that conscious cognition is also an interplay between a computational mode and a mode whose essential ingredient is either stochasticity in the case of creativity, or counterfactuality in the case of consciousness. It is interesting to note that both may have their origins in quantum physics. As Magnussdottir notes, simple perceptions and projections can be viewed as unconscious phenomena with and without (respectively) a predictive model. Here one could postulate that the synchronised data transport associated with such phenomena is not sufficiently great to trigger the type of quantum awareness considered here. Some would argue that consciousness should be defined in terms of some kind of selfawareness. Indeed Magnusdottir (2018) herself asserts that consciousness requires a type of self-similar monitoring. However, the notion of self-awareness could be viewed as an extension of the more general notion of awareness of counterfactual alternatives described above. If I can perceive a bowl of fruit as having an existence independent of the rest of the world, so too I can perceive myself. However, as a subjective comment, I do not believe that for most of the time I am as actively conscious of myself as I am of the people and objects I interact with (unless I happen to look at myself in a mirror for example). This again is consistent with the notion that degree of consciousness of an object (which might include ourselves) is dependent on the (synchronous) transport of data which describes the object in question, along our neural pathways. 6. Why is Quantum Physics so Unintuitive? As an application of the ideas above, consider the question of why quantum physics is so unintuitive. We focus on the phenomenon of entanglement on the basis that there is no more unintuitive idea in quantum physics than that of nonlocality. According to the Bell Theorem, any deterministic theory of quantum physics that satisfies the assumption of 10 Statistical Independence (Hossenfelder and Palmer, 2019), must violate local causality. Hence, we seem to require that quantum physics must either be nonlocal (which the Bohmian formulation of quantum theory is) or is indeterministic (which the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is). That is to say, we seem to be faced with the choice of spooky action at a distance, or of physics governed by randomness. Neither seems satisfactory. The assumption of Statistical Independence ensures that when two or more sub-ensembles of quantum particles are being measured with different measurement settings (as occurs in a Bell experiment), each sub-ensemble is statistically similar to the others. If it were not possible to assume this then the basis for scientific investigation in general would be undermined. However, the assumption of Statistical Independence does more than ensure that subensembles are statistically independent, it implies a strong form of counterfactual definiteness (Hossenfelder and Palmer, 2019). Consider two measurements performed on two sub-ensembles of particles: counterfactual definiteness assumes that in principle one could have performed the second measurement on the first sub-ensemble (even though in practice one did not). As we have speculated, our intuition about counterfactual words arises from an interplay of quantum physical processes in the brain, together with our past experiences. In terms of this, any counterfactual world which is sufficiently close to the real world, is a plausible world. However, this notion of closeness assumes a metric on state space, and it is natural to assume the familiar Euclidean metric. Such an assumption is the product of the deepest of all our intuitions. As babies, we try to put nearby brightly coloured objects into our mouths (in case they are a source of food or indeed drink). To do this we must bring the objects close to our mouths. We learn by trial and error what it means for an object to be close to our mouths. We learn by empiricism about the Euclidean metric of space. This is our go-to metric. However, there is no reason for the Euclidean metric to be the correct metric of distance in state space rather than physical space. In particular, there is a deterministic theory of quantum physics based on fractal geometry, where the relevant metric on state space is padic rather than Euclidean (Palmer, 2019b). Relative to this metric, putative states which lie in the gaps in the fractal geometry are necessarily distant from points on the fractal set, even when a fractal gap appears very slender and hence insignificant from a Euclidean perspective. In a theory where states of physical reality necessarily lie on this fractal set, then counterfactual worlds which do not lie on the fractal set are not physically realistic. By ruling out such counterfactuals we can violate Statistical Independence without violating the statistical independence of sub-ensembles of particles occurring in reality. This suggests that the reason we find quantum physics so difficult to understand is because our intuition, that all counterfactual worlds which sufficiently well resemble the real world are plausible worlds, is false. 11 From this perspective, the “weirdness” of quantum physics arises from a cognitive inability to discriminate between those counterfactual states of the world which are realistic and plausible and those which are not. To make better sense of contemporary physics it is better to avoid using counterfactuals at all, e.g. by saying that I am free if there are no constraints preventing me from doing what I want to do (Kane, 2002). Certainly, such realworld definitions are vital if we are to explain the violation of the Bell inequality in a causal theory where experimenters are free agents (Palmer, 2019b; Hossenfelder and Palmer, 2019). 7. Conclusions It is postulated that, through its evolution over many millions of years, the miniaturisation of the neuronal pathways in the brain has resulted in an exceptionally energy efficient organ. The disadvantages of such miniaturisation (e.g. relatively slow reaction times in the presence of predators) has been offset by two advantages: an ability to be creative and an ability to be aware of the world around us. It is argued that those advantages arise from two specific manifestations of energy efficiency: the role of stochastic noise and the role of quantum parallelism respectively. As such, it seems plausible to speculate that it will be impossible to replicate human intelligence in strictly deterministic algorithmic machines, as suggested by Penrose (1994). However, by trying to solve the energy efficiency problem in high performance computing, we may find that we start to produce machines which have intelligence characteristics more akin to those of humans. References Al-Khalili, J. and J. McFadden, 2014: Life on the Edge – The coming of age of quantum biology. Bantam Press. Ball, P., 2016: In search of claritons. Physics World, October Bernroider, G. and J. Summhammer, 2012: Can quantum entanglement between ion transition states effect action potential initiation? Cognitive Computation, 4, 29-37. Bohm, D. and B. J. Hiley 1993: The Undivided Universe. Routledge. Faisal, A.,Selen,L.P.J.,and Wolpert,D.M. 2008. Noise in the nervous system. Nat. Rev.Neurosci. 9, 292–303.doi:10.1038/nrn2258 Feynman, R. and A. R. Hibbs (2010). Quantum mechanics and path integrals. Dover Publications. Gomes, C.P., B. Selman and H. Kautz, 1998. Boosting combinatorial search through randomization. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, (MenloPark,CA:AAAIPress/TheMITPress), 431–437. Hoos, H.H. and T. Stützle, 2005. Stochastic Local Search Foundations and Applications. SanFrancisco,CA:Elsevier. Hossenfelder, S. and T.N.Palmer, 2019. Rethinking superdeterminism. arXiv:1912.06462. 12 Kahneman, D., 2012: Thinking Fast and Slow. London: Penguin Kane, R, 2002: The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Oxford University Press Katok, S., 2007: P-adic analysis compared with real. American Mathematical Society Littlewood, J.E., 2004: Littlewood’s Miscellany. Cambridge University Press Magnúsdóttir, S., 2018: I Think, Therefore I Think You Think I AM. In: Aguirre A., Foster B., Merali Z. (eds) ``Wandering Towards a Goal. The Frontiers Collection.'' p 89-99, Springer McFadden, J., 2002: Synchronous firing and its influence on the brain’s electromagnetic field: evidence for an electromagnetic theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, 23-50. Niven, J.E.,and S. M. Farris, 2012.Miniaturization of the nervous system and neurons. Curr. Biol. 22, R323–R329.doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.04.002 Palem, K. 2014: Inexactness and a future of computing. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 372, 20130281 Palmer, T.N., 2015: Build imprecise supercomputers. Nature, 526, 32-33. Palmer, T.N. and M. O’Shea, 2015: Solving difficult problems creatively: a role for energy optimised deterministic/stochastic hybrid computing. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 9:124. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2015.00124. Palmer, T.N., 2019a: Stochastic weather and climate models. Nature Review Physics, 1, 463-471. Palmer, T.N., 2018b: Experimental non-violation of the Bell inequality: Entropy, 20, 356; doi:10.3390/e20050356 Palmer 2019b: Discretisation of the Bloch Sphere, Invariant Set Theory and the Bell Theorem. arXiv:1804.01734. Penrose, R., 1994. Shadows of the Mind, Oxford University Press, 457. Rolls, E.T.,and G. Deco, 2010: The Noisy Brain:Stochastic Dynamics as a Principle of Brain Function. Oxford University Press. Schneider S. and M. Velmans, 2017: The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Wiley Blackwell. ISBN-13: 978-0470674079 Singh, S., 1997: Fermat’s Last Theorem. Fourth Estate. London. Stirling, P. and S. Laughlin, 2017: Principles of Neural Design. The MIT Press. Summhammer, J., G. Sulyok and G. Bernroider, 2018: Quantum dynamics and non-local effects behind ion transition states during permeation in membrane channel proteins. Entropy, 20, 558. Turing, A. M., 1950: Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 236, 433-460. 13

856 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Article Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics David Sahner* ABSTRACT A model of human consciousness and perceived agency is described, in which the distributed elements underlying unified phenomenological consciousness and its emotional valence, as well as triggered recollections, are recruited, bound, and reinforced by reciprocal connections with the heavily networked claustrum. Preliminary evidence for this theory, which builds on the work of Crick and Koch, Ramachandran, Smythies, and others, is briefly reviewed, followed by a discussion of the implications this model may have for our understanding of the basis for the potency of poetic devices wielded in the practice of that art. Key Words: selfhood, consciousness, neuroscience, poetics. Introduction A fundamental objective of this paper is to reconstruct the features and lineaments of a missing person, namely, the conscious self. He or she exists, of course, but, as any cognitive scientist or philosopher will tell you, this creature has been infamously difficult to locate. I will draw chiefly on neuroscience, and, to a lesser extent, philosophical considerations in presenting a model or, to preserve the metaphor, clay visage of the self. We will then see if this paradigm has implications for the neurological underpinnings of the experience of poetry. The underlying model of consciousness is heavily indebted to, and essentially represents a union of, several recent theories, with a relatively modest interpretive twist. Let the buyer, and even the browser, however, beware, as at least one pivotal strut (in fact, the axial and weight-bearing portion of the framework), is speculative. To contextualize this reconstruction of the modern conscious self, I will briefly chart the possible birth, and our changeable understanding, of that entity over the millennia. After this, I will depict the supportive bones of the self. Next, I will articulate the skeleton and apply modeling clay in an endeavor to reproduce a simulacrum of the self, in which the functional scaffolding is specifically tied to neural correlates of human self-reflexive consciousness. Finally, I’ll link the proposed anatomy of consciousness to poetry. Correspondence: David Sahner, M.D., Aeneas Medical Consulting, Santa Cruz California. E-mail: davidsahner@yahoo.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 857 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics The Possible Beginnings & an Evolving Interpretation of Modern Consciousness In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes described the minds of the ancients as, essentially, selfless and divided. He hypothesized that this type of human consciousness, on evidence in Homer’s Iliad, lacked any concrete notion of the self, and that the temporal lobe of the non-dominant hemisphere served as the wellspring of hallucinated injunctions that guided the bicameral mind through challenging and unusual circumstances. These auditory hallucinations were imputed, thousands of years ago, to Gods. During the course of human cultural evolution, greased by language and the requirements for increasingly complex social interaction, the bicameral mind broke down, and we acquired a more expedient “theory of mind” world view which posited the existence of “minds,” like our own, in others, minds that could be “read” as it were by observing behavior to inductively ascertain, for example, the motivations of other humans – and what they might be counted upon to do in the future. This transition to theory of mind, which was largely complete by ~500 B.C.E, consigned the selfless hearers of the Gods’ voices to the periphery of a society populated by selves (or souls) with the capacity to more efficiently collaborate, and for which the exhortations of deities were internalized to yield what some might now call the sotto voce of the soul. But there was an obverse to the coin of the self. In addition to facilitating life in cosmopolitan settings, humans began to understand that another mind could be deceived. Unctuous advertising traces its genealogy to the breakdown of the bicameral mind. All of this is an enormously simplified version of Jaynes’ theory, which also stressed other essential ingredients of human consciousness, and the self of which we are cognizant, even if it is only a convenient abstraction. These include the centrality of metaphor to consciousness, the “intentionality” of the latter (i.e., it is always “about” something), and the narrative quality of consciousness (anticipating a more recent epithet that has been affixed to the self, and of which the philosopher Daniel Dennett is fond, namely the “center of narrative gravity”).1 Once we grew souls, religion followed suit. The vast majority of religions, with the stark exception of a few such as Buddhism, which is more of a philosophy, take the existence of a soul, discrete from the body, as axiomatic. The extent to which people have cared for their souls, and the religion of which they form a part, is attested to by The Crusades, modern radical Islamic martyrs, and the exorbitant amount of silver paid by sinners toward the end of the first millennium for plenary indulgences from the Christian church that would wipe clean the slate of their transgressions and literally purchase their salvation in the afterlife. Of course, Cartesian dualism (the conception of the independence of body and mind/soul, the latter of which Rene Descartes localized to the pineal gland) has been philosophically and scientifically lambasted in modern times. Daniel Dennett for example, in Consciousness Explained (1991), has insisted on the insoluble problem of how an ethereal soul, made of soul-stuff, could possibly interact with and guide the motions of a material body. Rather than tethering a particular neuroanatomical ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 858 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics structure to human consciousness, modern neuroscience has concerned itself with the more humble elucidation of the “neural correlates of consciousness,” although our tools are still relatively crude. The voxel size of the highest resolution functional MRI scanners, is about 1-2 square millimeters. At the microscopic, molecular and neurobiological level, that constitutes space ample enough for an enormous amount of complexity. Still, a sense of the neural substrate of consciousness, and the functional relevance of various parts of the brain, in memory, sensory experience, emotion, the comprehension of written text, and the creation of a sense of “agency” or self may be coming into better focus, even if our vision is far less than 20-20 and no theory of human consciousness is unassailable. Consciousness, however, is not all about the brain. A sine-qua-non of human consciousness is its embodiment and the implied fallacy of those who contend that a “brain in a vat” could be made to experience genuine human consciousness if tickled by the right neuronal excitation. Robin Zebrowski (2010) is correct in claiming that it is only by “real sensing,” through mobility and physical interaction with the environment, that one can hope to acquire “felt experience.” The British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist (2009) emphasizes the importance of embodiment to human experience, and the manner in which metaphor, grounded in that physicality, creates bona fide human understanding. Sensation imbued with human meaning requires our interaction with a physical world “red in tooth and claw,” with draconian (including life or death) consequences that issue from our behavior. Human consciousness and selfhood are contingent upon the interplay of brain, body, and environment, the components of which bleed into each other across porous boundaries. Pleasurable, painful, or mortal consequences, and our attendant, uniquely human, phenomenal experience, create the semantics of human consciousness. Cultural factors, too, are pivotal in defining that semantics. Any attempt to sketch the possible outlines of human consciousness is a bold and, some would say, foolhardy venture. Many theories have been adduced and it is not my intention to comprehensively review them here, but some of the greatest contemporary thinkers continue to wrestle with the slippery notion of consciousness. At times, they seem to speak to each other at cross-purposes, in part because of the absence of unambiguous and universally recognized case definitions of basic concepts such as ‘consciousness’ itself. Elements of various theories seem to ring true but, ultimately, efforts to gather compelling empirical evidence in favor of any theory remain stymied by the uniquely subjective and internal experience of consciousness. Some materialists, such as Daniel Dennett, have concluded that we, as conscious entities, are not in or out of the loop, but that, rather, ‘we are the loop’ (Dennett, 2003). With this many would agree, but the devil, of course, is in the details. A virtual leader or chief executive officer appears to be at the helm. But where is he, and how does he govern? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 859 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics The Bones of Human Consciousness Perhaps the first step in constructing a model of the self is to identify some of the key elements and attributes, or “bones,” of consciousness. One diamond-hard nut that must be cracked is the concept of the “quale.” Qualia (plural of quale) constitute our experience: for example, our sense of the redness of red, the coldness of cold, or the tone and timbre of a particular note played on the cello. Die-hard materialists regard qualia as illusionistic window dressing, but the truth of the matter is that qualia – and higher-order qualia-suffused mental constructs such as the discrete image of a dying sibling – possess an emotional valence that contributes to human meaning. How do we explain qualia? In essence, how do we account for the rich, unique, and highly personal ‘phenomenal’ experience of the world in which we live? A compelling theory has been put forth by Nicholas Humphrey (Seeing Red, 2006), who posits that ‘sensation’ and ‘perception’ constitute two discrete, albeit usually co-occurring, processes that interact with each other. ‘Perception,’ according to Humphrey, neutrally informs us about the objects and events beyond the body. ‘Sensation’, on the other hand, apprises the subject of the response of the body to various kinds of stimuli, generating, in the process, qualia, the building blocks of our phenomenal experience. Normally these two channels respond to stimuli at the same time so that the total experience is a unified whole where non-sensory behavioral competence toward the world is ‘clothed’, so to speak, in qualitative sensory experiences. As an apt example of this union, one can cite reflexive withdrawal in response to pain that is triggered by the neutral ‘perception’ of pain, a perception that is cloaked by the ‘painfulness’ of this noxious stimulus as an experienced human ‘sensation.’ Humphrey has suggested that sensation is linked to evolutionarily more primitive responses, and he likens it to an internalized covert bodily ‘action’ or physical expression-manqué that, among conscious humans, is monitored recursively in a feedback loop that also serves as the basis for the ‘thick’ moment of phenomenal consciousness within which we live. That the two processes described above (perception and sensation) may take place independently has been documented, at least preliminarily, by experimental observation. For example, patients with ‘blindsight’ appear to have the residual capacity to ‘perceive’ and appropriately act upon visual stimuli that remain completely opaque to the conscious mind. Conversely, sensation may take place in the absence of ‘perceived’ external input (e.g., hypnagogic hallucinations, hallucinogen-induced experiences, psychosis, and phantom limb pain). Humphrey’s position that unembellished ‘perception’ and vibrant conscious ‘sensation’ follow two distinct avenues within the nervous system is supported by other scientific evidence, including cases of metamorphosia, experimental results of studies that have evaluated sensory substitution, and, perhaps most impressively, the phenomenon of sensory mislocation (Armel and Ramachandran, 2003). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 860 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Qualia possess dimensions that are not directly determined by the real-time perceptual input with which they appear to be allied. For example, a particular suite of sensations may be colored by historically similar sensations that are involuntarily elicited. Furthermore, the recursive ‘monitoring’ that serves as the basis for sensation incorporates emotional centers in the brain. Thus, qualia (and phenomenological experience in general) are affect-laden. The emotional valences of qualia, and the integrated qualia-formed mental constructs that constitute human experience of the world, color the ensuing propositional components of experience (i.e., opinions and beliefs) which subsequently come into being. All of these considerations invite an obvious question. How is heteromodal sensory experience, consisting of qualia of varying species from the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile dominions, “bound” into a unified conscious whole yoked to memory, a sense of agency, and emotion? Before articulating a skeleton and taking a handful of modeling clay, let us name the abstract bones that, when properly articulated, may form the armature of consciousness:        Integrated or “bound” phenomenological experience, woven of qualia. The constituent sensations may be of external (exteroceptive) and/or internal (interoceptive) origin. Interoceptive sensory experience includes, but is not limited to, sensations borne of primitive drives (e.g., hunger). Exteroceptive experience may include somatosensory, auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory sensation. Attention to experience, which consists of nuclear (focus of attention) and fringe (peripheral and incompletely apperceived) elements of the attentional field Memory (immediate, working and long-term categories) Emotion, including the emotional valence tethered to experience (concurrent or recollected) Cognitive propositional attitudes, including intentional beliefs and desires; analytic or abstract syntheses of the experienced world; other products of higher mental thought enabled by frontal lobe activity Language or “linguistic overlay.” A sense of personal “agency” and narrative center of gravity This last piece, the perception of agency, is perhaps one of the most enigmatic. Obviously, the “self” morphs over time in lockstep with accrued experience, so the concept of a static and enduring agent to whom “it all happens” is largely a convenient abstraction that we manufacture, an illusory entity of great utility in human social intercourse and discussions of moral responsibility. Of this “agent” – the seat of higher order thoughts (thoughts about thoughts) and phantom “owner” of phenomenological experience, feelings, and a cache of personal memories – more is said below. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 861 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Articulation of the Skeleton of Consciousness and the Application of Clay Vital to the concept of the self is the distinct sense that the “agent” with which we identify is privy to an integrated or bound admixture of unique experiences and its own relational attitudes toward those experiences. The irresistible sensation that the self perseveres along a temporal axis is central to human consciousness. The self, it seems to us, is the protagonist of an unfolding novel, the next page of which contains unknown text over which we feel we can exert at least some degree of authorial control. Our immediate phenomenological experience is contextualized by memory, emotional valence, instinctual and reflexive responses, and cognitive and linguistic overlay. The bewitching way in which a reflexively conscious self is invented and conscripted into this network of rich phenomenological experience, memory, emotion, and cognition has not, of course, been fully elucidated in its particulars, but neuroscience and philosophy allow the formation of hypotheses. Obviously, evolving knowledge of the neural correlates of the litany of “mind stuff-related” terms listed above is gradually, but as of yet, incompletely, removing the infinitely ornate masks upon masks behind which mind is hidden. Yet there is one explanatory keystone upon which the architecture of this mind-stuff may be based, namely, the existence of an internal integrator that binds “sensation,” as defined by Nicholas Humphrey (i.e., the canvas of experience), memory, emotion, cognition, and our sense of agency, with this last deriving from an active process analogous to what Humphrey has referred to “redding.” “Redding,” Humphrey would contend, is an action-manqué or “sensation” we impose on unembellished “perception” in a dynamic interplay between both processes that is recursively monitored in a reentrant circuit that serves as the substrate for the “thick” moment of experience in which we dwell. I propose that much the same happens in the action of “selfing.” The self is a useful mental construct with a perceived material embodiment and an abstract “center of narrative gravity.” That eye of the storm is “selfed” in the much the same way that the color red is “redded” What remains is the need for something to tie the bow, or “bind,” the self with our emotional roiling, our recollected and immediate experience, and our cognitive capabilities. An intriguing albeit speculative hypothesis was put forth by Francis Crick and Chirstof Koch in 2005, in their article “What is the function of the claustrum?” Francis Crick, of course, is one of the two scientists who discovered that DNA is composed of a double helix of concatenated nucletotides. In their paper, Crick and Koch posited that the claustrum, a sheet of neural tissue interposed between two other neural structures (the putamen and the insula), might orchestrate integrated human sensory experience. The claustrum shares reciprocal connections with an enormous swath of virtually all regions of the cerebral cortex bilaterally, including somatosensory, visual, auditory, olfactory, frontal (higher mental functions), prefrontal (executive control and attention), ventral temporal (pattern/shape recognition), motor, supplementary motor area (SMA)/pre-SMA and parietal cortex. It also has links to the rubral network and components of the basal ganglia ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 862 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics and the limbic system. The limbic structures are integral to emotional responses (the amygdala, for example) and short-term declarative memory (hippocampus). By way of orientation, Figure 1(A) below illustrates some of the above-referenced brain regions, providing a visual sense of the generalized distribution of claustral connections. Cortical regions in which damage is associated with expressive (Broca’s area) and receptive (Wernicke’s area) language impairment are also depicted in Figure 1(A). Figure 1(B) portrays the deep subcortical structures of the limbic system and basal ganglia. There is limited, albeit tantalizing, scientific research to suggest that the claustrum, which is identified in Figure 1(C) below, plays a role in the integration and "binding" of heteromodal information (e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) to support unified phenomenological experience (Baugh et al, 2011; Naghavi, 2007; Hadjikhani, 1998). In addition to binding and amplifying discontiguous activity in various parts of the cortex through reentrant circuits, claustral projections to the cortex may be multimodal and diffuse, lighting up other portions of the brain, beyond those activated by primary sensation, to "flesh out" experience. Since the cortex is a likely seat of long-term memory, and the nexus with the limbic system may infuse "bound sensation" with emotional valence, the neural substrate of phenomenological consciousness, in all of its affect- and memory-saturated vividness, may have something to do with the claustrum and its sweeping connections. Case reports suggest patients with lesions in the claustrum live in a world of aberrant or incomplete sensory experience, or perturbed consciousness (Ishii et al., 2011; Sperner et al., 1996; Albayrak and Gorgulu, 2008; Ishida et al., 2006). Notably, however, removal of the claustrum on one side of the brain (it is a bilateral structure) during glioma surgery is not incompatible with an ostensibly normal social and professional life (Duffau et al., 2007). This may be a testament to the redundancy of neural connectivity. Other apparently contravening but difficult to interpret threads of clinical observation have also been described (Yamamoto et al., 2007; Kalaitzakis et al., 2009). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 863 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics FIGURE 1 Primary motor area Prefrontal area Primary somatosensory area Primary Olfactory Area Primary visual area Receptive speech (Wernicke’s) area Primary auditory area Motor speech (Broca’s) area (B) (A): Major cortical areas (adapted from th Purves D., et al. Neuroscience, 4 Edition, Sinauer). Used with permission from Sinauer Associates. Cortical associative regions not depicted. (B): Deep subcortical structures, reprinted from NeuroImage, Vol. 42, Qui A. and Miller M. "Multi-Structure Network Shape Analysis via Normal Surface Momentum Maps," 1430-1438 (2008), with permission from Elsevier. (C) ISSN: 2153-8212 (C): Coronal section of the human brain showing location of claustrum between the insular cortex and the putamen, a subcortical structure (from Buchanan and Johnson, 2011). Seen en face (i.e., from the side of the brain in the direction of the green arrow), the outline of the sheet of tissue composing the claustrum resembles the shape of the continental United States in primates. Copyright 2011 The New York Academy of Sciences; used with permission from Wiley. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 864 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Whatever the claustrum and its dense interneural connectivity conjures in the human brain, it, in itself, is not the seat of the human soul. We should not tread in the errant footsteps of Descartes by imputing consciousness to a latter-day pineal gland. For one thing, in a small study of rhesus monkeys, the overriding majority of tested sites in the claustrum responded to unimodal (e.g., visual) but not heteromodal (e.g., visual and auditory) input when recordings were obtained using a multielectrode system. This is consistent with the current belief that with rare exceptions, there is no “Jennifer Aniston” or “grandmother” neuron in the human brain. Consciousness is a distributed property of brain function. The claustrum may (or may not be) necessary for consciousness as we know it, but it is not sufficient. If it is a linchpin of sorts, it seems more likely that, as proposed by Crick and Koch, interneural connectivity within the claustrum fosters the binding of the elements of consciousness into an integrated whole through interactions that mediate and reinforce coordinated activity in widely dispersed regions of the brain. Of this, more will be said later. Secondly, that the claustrum can’t be the nidus of the soul, the place where it all “comes together” on the screen, is obvious if one considers the infinite regress this invites. There is no homunculus who has sunk himself into a recliner within the wetware of the claustrum, privy to all we experience, for how do we explain his or her experience? Another more deeply ensconced homonuculus? No, the partition between the observer and the observed is not an opaque front-lit scrim on the stage, before which a homunculus passively sits. That can reveal only nothing. It is, rather, a back-lit scrim, upon which images of our own making dance, images, and, more broadly, phenomenological experience, that hails from coordinated, far-flung and distributed activation in the brain. The observed and the observer are one. But how does all of this happen, exactly? It has been hypothesized that the claustrum may be a “synchrony detector” (Smythies et al., 2012) that, through its frequently reciprocal connections with numerous cortical and subcortical structures, amplifies and expands upon those distributed synchronies as a means of orchestrating conscious awareness. Smythies and colleagues have suggested that the claustrum, through (a) its detection of synchronous activity in various areas of the brain, (b) internal amplification of that synchrony through intraclaustral connections that involve GABAergic interneurons, and (c) projection of augmented signals back to cortex and subcortical structures with a resultant enhancement of synchrony in those geographically distant regions, may have a hand at the loom that converts isolated bits of perceptual input into the tapestry of sensation. While the details of the theory are speculative, there is a definite allure in the prospect of a “pattern recognition” center in the brain (e.g., the claustrum) which, when coaxed into a given state by a specific complex of afferent input, amplifies Humphrian “sensations” that are alloyed into unified experience and conjoined with elements of cognitive overlay and emotional valence – all reinforced through the reciprocal and distributed connectivity of the claustrum with cortical and subcortical structures. The numerous reentrant loops of which this network is composed would, through their orchestrated activity, serve as the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 865 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics foundation of human consciousness. Moreover, the synchrony detector may add additional dimensions to consciousness, enriching it by recruiting activity in brain areas that were not directly engaged by a primary set of unimodal inputs:. For example: “sound of tiger’s roar” + “sight of tiger” + “detection of rapid forward motion of the animal” → “intense fear, physiological changes, and attendant interoceptive sensations.” The following schematized, incomplete, and simplified diagram may be helpful: FIGURE 2 Sensory Cortex (somatosensory, visual, auditory, etc.) Claustrum Heteromodal Sensory Input to Claustrum Cortical Long-Term Memory Cache; Language Areas Inferior Temporal Cortex (shape/pattern) Limbic System (Emotion and ShortTerm Declarative Memory) Frontal, Prefrontal and Parietal Cortex (Agency, Selfhood, Executive Control, Attention, Higher Mental Function) Inter-neural Network Activation within Claustrum Recruitment, Enrichment, Integration and Amplification of Synchronized or Coordinated Activity in Disseminated Brain Regions through Reciprocal Connectivity It should be highlighted that the “Agent” or self in the lowermost box on the left in the diagram above is not at all insular. This model is not a mosaic composed of autonomous tiles. There can be no sense of agency without a fabricated world in which the agent exists. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 866 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Claustral cells are connected with each other in several ways. In addition to axonal and dendritic connections, they may form a functional “syncitium” through what are known as gap junction linkages. Through such connections, entrained or concomitant afferent input from several quarters of the brain in response to a given stimulus might trigger a self-reinforced network of activity within the claustrum that, through its diffuse and reciprocal projections, amplifies and recruits specific foci of widely distributed brain activity in cortical and subcortical structures. Thus, heteromodal sensation is bound into experience; emotion and cognition may be bonded to experience by the claustrum as well. It is very likely, however, that some degree of binding also occurs in the cortex itself, which is rich in associative areas. The organized hierarchy in the occipito-temporal cortex, for example, mediates a progressive increase in the degree of abstraction that supports the act of reading (Dehaene 2009). But, as Smythies and colleagues suggest, it may be that certain “weak intercortical synchronizations are potentiated and processed by strong intraclaustral synchronizations.” The entire suite of distributed activity would serve as the neural substrate for consciousness. This theoretical framework has strengths and weaknesses. One lethal weakness that it does not have, however, is the commitment of a “category error” by imputing human consciousness to activity in a given neural structure in the brain at a particular moment. There is no fixed point or destination in any neural circuit at which the rubber of consciousness hits the road of a neuron. Consciousness is the circuit, or, more properly, the amalgam of orchestrated or synchronized activity within a host of circuits. Someone might say, well that is all well and good, but how does this translate into what I experience when I look at Woman with a Hat by Matisse at the San Francisco MOMA? The rebuttal: What you experience is caused by distributed activity in the brain, perhaps coordinated in the manner outlined above. You are at once “redding” (her hair), “bluing” in multiple tones (her hat), “shaping” based on the orientation of lines and edges (and there may be a parsimonious way in which the brain accomplishes the latter), “womaning” at a higher level of cognitive overlay; and you may be saddened by the downward arc of her lips and slightly intimidated by the brash and wildly incongruous colors in this fauvist masterpiece. Perhaps you are also reminded, involuntarily, of an old photo of a long-dead aunt. And, all the while, contemporaneously, you are “selfing.” The point is, your brain is acting on innumerable abstract stages, on which performers “view” (the term is used loosely here) themselves and other performers. The actors and the spectators are one. “Viewing” of the production is an action that continually invents itself, and not the result of passive information processing by a sedentary homunculus. And it is the totality of those linked choreographed performances that creates you and the world you inhabit. You and your maker are one. One appeal of all of this is its simplistic beauty. This is also a liability. The claustrum is not the solitary “Grand Central Station” of the brain. There are other concourses, and independent connectivity of brain regions clearly must play a role. For example, forebrain activity stimulated by contemplation of an emotionally charged future event activates visceral motor nuclei through ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 867 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics hypothalamic connections. Emotion and its physiological correlates may, therefore, circumvent the claustrum entirely in some or, perhaps, many cases. Where does this leave us, then? Over two thousand years ago, Erasistratus posited the existence of spiritus animalis within muscle. We now know that electrical stimulation of muscle results in the intracellular influx of calcium which, in conjunction with two key regulatory proteins, leads to coordinated cross-bridge cycling of actin and myosin within the chained sarcomeres of muscle fibers, thereby producing muscle contraction. There is no spiritus animalis in muscle. These subcellular events explain exactly how muscles contract. In a similar way, distributed brain events, of infinitely greater complexity, explain experience, cognition, memory and selfhood. I’ve attempted to emphasize and build a bit on the union of an intriguing, albeit scantily supported, theory put forth by Crick, Koch, Smythies, Edelstein, and Ramachandran, and a recent model of phenomenological consciousness adduced by Humphrey. The unified edifice is architecturally attractive, although Humphrey may beg to differ on this point (unconvinced as he is of the importance of the claustrum based on personal correspondence), and much remains unknown. It must be admitted that the data supporting the “integrational” function of the claustrum are, indeed, quite limited and other pathways must undergird experience as well, even if the claustrum does enjoy a prominent role. But if the model discussed in this paper proves to be a phantom, that would be a pity. Potential Implications of this Model of Consciousness for Poetics 1. Role of the Tools of Poetic Legerdemain in Augmenting Conscious Experience Poets avail themselves of associative resonances all the time. These associations are “bound” at varying levels, either personally, culturally, or universally. Quite apart from the connotative branches and shoots that explode from the bough of denotative meaning, these affiliated resonances tap the groundwater of emotion and sensation with the implements of sound and rhythm, line length and configuration, and many other poetic devices. Accents, for example, packed together stir intensity. Euphony, created by velvet consonants (e.g., m, l, y, w) or soft vowel sounds elicits pleasure through its mellifluousness. Cacophony, of course, is jarring, and befitting of its own subjects, perhaps amplifying the meaning of a poem about a murderous flood or the remote detonation of an improvised explosive device. Anaphora, the repetition of the same phrase or word at the beginning of stanzas, may hypnotize in the manner of a psalm. Enjambment may provoke tension or surprise. Similarly, a “reduced line,” consisting of only one or several words, may call up vehemence, shock, or drama. Polysyndeton (the repetition of conjunctions such as “and,” of which Hemingway was fond) conveys runaway power and passion. Like anaphora, it may also mesmerize. Symbolism is grounded in associative meaning, of course. Rhyme also elicits reactions. Triple rhyme can sound antic or comedic, and feminine ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 868 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics rhyme is soothing. In all of these cases, might it be that the claustrum binds these devicetriggered associations and sensations to the content of the poem, thereby sharpening meaning? Future functional MRI studies may provide answers but, for at least one powerful class of poetic brushes that alter the hue of sensation - namely rhythm and meter - scientific data that have accrued in recent years enable hypothesis generation that goes beyond mere hand-waving. Although it would be impractical to completely catalog all forms of poetic sorcery in this paper, rhythm deserves emphasis as a means by which the poet enlivens the experience of reading a poem by conscripting bound heteromodal associations between sound and emotion that are moored to the semantic content of the poem. For example, the pyrrhic foot may confer a balmlike effect in a poem. Conversely, the poet can deploy the brio of the galloping anapestic meter, the headlong rush of iambic tetrameter, or the, disconcerting, bizarre, and gauche unnaturalness of dactylic meter2. Poetry inheres in the binding of evoked experience, both phonetic and semantically derived, with the concentric ripples of memory and affect that attend that coupling. This is why poetry, for much of its span on earth, was spoken, heard, memorized and recited. Poetry is phonological and lexical. But how do these rhythmic features of a poem elicit experiential sensations that transcend the borders of meter itself? The neurological substrate of rhythm and beat perception has been parsed with various and progressively more discriminatory tools over the decades. Both exogenous prompts (e.g., volume of a note or an established syllabic accent) and, fascinatingly, endogenous influences affect our sensation of meter. Factors that color our registration of beat may be unconscious. For example, perceived accent is affected by the inter-onset interval between notes (Parncutt, 1994). That is to say, obviously noticeable differences in loudness or tone are not alone accountable for our sensation of rhythm. Furthermore, our take on the rhythm embedded in a particular series of notes may be consciously modified even in the absence of any external cues (Iversen et al., 2009; Nozaradan et al., 2011). Willful modulation of beat, in which accent is imaginatively conferred on an unaccented note, produces objective correlates detectable as evoked EEG potentials (EPs) or magnetoencephalographic evoked response amplitude fluctuations in the beta range. What does this all mean? In simple terms, as with other sensations, we do not merely passively perceive beat and meter (in Humphrey’s sense of the term “perceive.”). We also create the sensation of beat and meter based on an admixture of objective and subjective accent. Regions of the brain activated when beat is sensed are rife. EEG scalp topography reveals generalized distribution of beat-associated EPs across both the left and right hemispheres. Compared with non-metric auditory stimulation, when perceptual accents occur at regular intervals, functional neuroimaging reveals differentially enhanced activation in the supplementary motor area (SMA)/pre-SMA, and bilateral activation in the pallidum, putamen, caudate, and superior temporal gyrus (Grahn and Brett, 2007). Simply put, the functional grip of meter on the human brain is far-ranging, and practically every finger of its hand touches a region of the brain that is also connected to the claustrum (Arikuni 1985; Tanné-Gariépy 2002; ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 869 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Smythies 2012). And, as we have seen before, the claustrum, with its reciprocal/re-entrant connections, also converses with the parts of the brain involved in other modes of sensation, memory, and emotion. Is the claustrum a nexus that binds meter to emotion and other sensations? Grahn and Brett did not include the claustrum as a region of interest in their fMRI interrogation. Additional study appears warranted. As before, this is not to say that it “all comes together” in the claustrum. Nor is the claustrum the only relay station through which the various parts of the brain that are activated by beat may interact with each other. For example, the pre-SMA and SMA are connected with the basal ganglia through a separate pathway. Despite this, reasoned inductive hypothesis generation invites exploration of the role of the claustrum in the “dressing” of meter in its rich experiential garb. 2. The Lock that Receives the Key to Involuntary Memory Wallace Stevens, like Proust and others before him3, explored the violent power of involuntarily evoked memory (e.g., in his “A Dish of Peaches in Russia). In a single spasm, a unimodal sense impression, or some limited constellation of such sensations, draws from memory a fully embodied moment or bygone time, cloaked in full polysensory apparel. It is as if the singular trigger, the isolated bolt of fabric, has taken a lesson in the poetic technique of metonymy, serving as the emblem of, and key to, a large room that is profusely furnished in byzantine detail. As with metonomy, in which the naming of a conspicuous and meaningful shred of something larger serves to encapsulate the whole despite its own diminutive nature, a unimodal sense impression may be so potent and rich in association that it involuntarily unstops the vial of a recollected experience in all of its heteromodal sensory complexity. Is the claustrum the lock that receives this key? 3. Vertiginous vs. Perspectival Poetry I’ll end with an examination of an insight the theory of consciousness under discussion might have for “associative” (or, perhaps more appropriately, “dissociative”) poetry, a species of poetry which has been in vogue for several years now, and which has estranged a number of readers. The latter form of poetry has been described by Tony Hoagland (2010) as “vertiginous” in an essay that drives a wedge between traditional “perspectival” poetry, which seeks to provide a coherent human perspective, and this newer type of poetry, which is disorienting, seemingly filled with “peacocky randomness” (as Hoagland puts it) and violent juxtapositions that are meant to reflect a bald questioning of the solidity of human consciousness, knowledge, and language. Unfortunately, in his essay, Hoagland cites a quote from Wallace Stevens as a banner defining the philosophy of the poetry of vertigo. In a rejoinder (Sahner 2010), it was argued that the majority of Stevens’ poetry is perspectival, effectively describing human phenomenological experience and its limitations in a comprehensible way. In any event, there is great value in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 870 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Hoagland’s lucid description of the elements of the poetry of vertigo (PV). I would contend, though, that PV is not completely entropic and haphazard. Unless the poet has truly conjoined words randomly (and there are means by which to do this without conscious intervention), the words that find themselves adjacent to each other in PV do so because they have been written by a human being with a human mind. The associative resonances, however dim and opaque, are there, at least for the poet who wrote the piece. Although I am not among them, many contemporary poets find enjoyment in PV but, because such work is, to many readers, so disorienting, so off-putting and seemingly indulgent, devotees of perspectival poetry find it alienating. Perspectival poetry has dominated the practice of verse for thousands of years for good reason. It is approachable, even if a successful approach may require effort. The reader is able to commune with the writer in a heightened reality made possible by poetic technique (i.e., trope and other devices). Conversely, practitioners of PV or, in a similar vein, poetry that purely mines the peculiar associations within the author’s mind without providing any context to assist the reader, make it difficult or impossible for that communion. In fact, in order to understand some of these poems, one is left with the impression that one needs to be the author. Although the neuroscience is speculative, I would suggest that PV poets give completely free reign to their unique experiential associations (mediated by claustral connectivity?) without regard for comprehensibility. Poetry can be thought of as existing on a sliding scale which, at one pole, is exceedingly difficult to approach or understand and, at the other, is stultifying and arid. Poetry of Vertigo → Perspectival Poetry (Fresh and Device-Enhanced) → Greeting Card Verse At the far left, idiosyncratic and seemingly random associations bleed out onto the page with no explanation. The middle (within which there are many shades from left to right) is comprehensible but may require some healthy exertion. The right end of the scale is leaden and colorless. Emily Dickinson said that “if I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” The precise point on the above scale at which the reader loses his or her head is a matter of taste, ambition, and sensibility. For most, I think, the center of the blade is sharpest. Here, associations and observations of experience may be foreign or intellectually challenging, but they can be assimilated by the careful and susceptible reader. The associations of consciousness here can be apprehended. Fold in poetic legerdemain (metaphor and many other techniques), and “centrist” poetry becomes, I would claim, the apotheosis of the form, namely, poetry that offers an exhilarating union with another intellect. That is the domain of a long train of poets, including Wallace Stevens, Zbigniew Herbert, Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Yeats, Dickinson, Keats, Shelley, Blake, Donne, Shakespeare, Milton, and others. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 871 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? The Foundation of Consciousness and its Implications for Poetics Notes For additional details, the reader is referred to an excellent recent retrospective on Jaynes’s work by William Rowe published in the American Journal of Psychology in 2012. 1 2 Mary Kinzie (1999) covers meter extraordinarily well and far more extensively than I have here. Her keen observations cut to the quick of rhythm in poetry. Proust’s antecedents in the literary rendering of involuntary memory included both Chateaubriand and Baudelaire, as noted by Muhlstein (2012) 3 The original photograph in Figure 2 (“Hedge and Fence”) was taken by the author. 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C., and Koch C. “What is the Function of the Claustrum?” Phil Trans R Soc B: 360 (2005): 1271-1279. Dehaene, S. Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read. Viking, 2009 Dennett, D. Consciousness Explained. Back Bay Books, Little, Brown, 1991 Duffau H., Mandonnet E., Gatignol P., et al. “Functional Compensation of the Claustrum: Lessons from Low-Grade Glioma Surgery.” J Neurooncol: 81 (2007): 327-329. Grahn J., and Brett M. “Rhythm and Beat Perception in Motor Areas of the Brain.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience: 19 (2007): 893-906 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 872 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 856-873 Sahner, D., Whither the Self? 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The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977 Kalaitzakis M.E., Pearce R.K.B, and Gentleman S.M. “Clinical Correlates in the Claustrum in Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies.” Neuroscience Letters: 461 (2009): 12-15. Kinzie, M. A Poet’s Guide to Poetry. University Of Chicago Press, 1999 McGilchrist, I. The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009 Muhlstein, A. Proust’s Library. New York: Other Press, 2012. Naghavi H., Eriksson J., Larsson A., et al. “The Claustrum/Insula Region Integrates Conceptually Related Sounds and Pictures.” Neuroscience Letters: 422 (2007) 77-80. Nozaradan WS., Peretz I., Missal M., et al. “Tagging the Neuronal Entrainment to Beat and Meter.” The Journal of Neuroscience: 31 (2011): 10234-10240. 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August 2002 arXiv:gr-qc/0208038v3 5 Oct 2002 The Doomsday Argument, Consciousness and Many Worlds John F. G. Eastmond1 SSG Development, MP 148, IBM UK Ltd, Hursley Park, Winchester, Hampshire S021 2JN, United Kingdom Abstract The doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the total lifetime of the human race. By examining the case of an individual lifetime, I conclude that the argument is fundamentally related to consciousness. I derive a reformulation stating that an infinite conscious lifetime is not possible even in principle. By considering a hypothetical conscious computer, running a non-terminating program, I deduce that consciousness cannot be generated by a single set of deterministic laws. Instead, I hypothesize that consciousness is generated by a superposition of brain states that is simultaneously associated with many quasi-classical histories, each following a different set of deterministic laws. I generalize the doomsday argument and discover that it makes no prediction in this case. Thus I conclude that the very fact of our consciousness provides us with evidence for a many-worlds interpretation of reality in which our future is not predictable using anthropic reasoning. 1 E-mail address: johne@uk.ibm.com, jeastmond@tcp.co.uk 1 1 Background [Einstein] told us once: ‘Life is finite. Time is infinite. The probability that I am alive today is zero. In spite of this, I am now alive. Now how is that?’ None of his students had an answer. After a pause, Einstein said, ‘Well, after the fact, one should not ask for probabilities.’[1] In the above quote Einstein presages a currently much-debated application of anthropic reasoning called the doomsday argument. The argument itself was first conceived by Brandon Carter in the early 1980s and subsequently published by John Leslie[2, 3, 4, 5] and Richard Gott[6, 7]. In essence one imagines a chronologically ordered list of all the human beings who will ever live and then asks where one expects to be along that list. Now the argument goes that, a priori, one should expect to be a “non-special” member of the human race. Thus, in terms of one’s position in the list, one should not expect to be among those few humans at the beginning or end, but rather with the majority around the middle of the list. This is basically an application of the “Copernican principle”[6] to our temporal position along the lifetime of the human race. Given this assumption, and an estimate of one’s position from the beginning of the list, one can use the argument to predict the total number of humans who will ever be born. By estimating how long it will take for the extra births to occur, it is then possible to make a prediction of the total lifetime of the human race. Now the above argument depends crucially on an application of the “principle of indifference” to one’s position within the human race. Let us imagine a list of arbitrary labels representing every human who will ever live, in order of birth date. One could state that the principle of indifference immediately implies that one’s label is equally likely to be located at any position within that list. This assumption has been criticized by Korb & Oliver[8] and more recently by Sowers[9]. These authors believe that only some random sampling procedure (like picking balls from an urn) could ensure such a uniform 2 probability distribution. However I contend that this criticism is based on an incorrect application of the principle of indifference. Instead, given such a list, the principle implies that one is equally likely to be represented by any of the labels in that list. The uniform probability distribution for one’s location then follows from the fact that each label has a unique position associated with it. In Section 4, I derive this principle of indifference distribution by reasoning about the ensemble of humans who might find themselves at any given position within the human race. It is the premise of this paper that the chink in the doomsday prediction’s armour resides not in the uniform likelihood for one’s position per se but rather in its extension to the case of an unending human race. As pointed out in the above quote, it is impossible to extend a uniform probability distribution over an infinite ensemble of possibilities. If one attempts to do so one obtains the nonsense answer that there is a zero prior probability of finding oneself at any given position within the human race. Now although one might question whether an unending human race is physically possible one must surely concede that it is at least logically possible. Thus I believe that any valid doomsday-type reasoning must be able to handle the case of an infinite ensemble of human beings without leading to absurdity. It has been argued (Leslie, Bostrom private communications) that a uniform probability distribution can be applied to the limiting case of an infinite human race by assuming an infinitesimal probability of finding oneself at any position within such an ensemble. This is, however, mathematically untenable because infinitesimal probabilities can only be defined over continuous sets whereas the set of human beings is discrete. Thus we are left with the problem of how to apply a uniform prior probability distribution for our birth position to the case of an infinite human race. Now one approach, following Einstein, is to assert that because we already know our position in the human race we can no longer reason about the prior probability that we should have found ourselves at that position. A similar point was made by Dyson[10] in his review of Leslie’s book The 3 End of the World. To me this statement seems to deny the possibility of any type of Bayesian reasoning at all. Following Rev. Bayes’s prescription one’s prior probabilities should be updated to posterior probabilities conditional on learning any new piece of data. The applicability of this rule surely does not depend on the time at which it is applied. The fact that one is not around to formulate prior probabilities before one is born surely does not preclude one from formulating such probabilities after one’s birth and then conditionalizing this knowledge with one’s measured position within the human race. An instructive way of approaching this problem is to ask how much information one gains on finding one’s birth position within the human race. Now it seems an undeniable fact that one does gain a certain amount of information on measuring one’s birth position n. Given that the amount of information gained depends on one’s prior probability for the value of n, this implies that prior probabilities for one’s birth position must exist even though one was not around to reason about them before one’s birth. 2 Introduction In this paper I investigate the doomsday argument in terms of information in an attempt to understand how the reasoning used in the case of a finite ensemble can be carried over to the problematic infinite case. I start, in Section 3, by deriving the doomsday prediction for a finite population size. In doing so I note an important difference between Leslie’s and Gott’s formulation of the argument. In Leslie’s formulation the prior probability is left unspecified so that the doomsday argument is seen to consist solely of the change in one’s beliefs on learning of one’s position in the human race. In Gott’s formulation[7], however, a specific prior is used that represents our complete prior ignorance of the total lifetime of the human race. I argue that Leslie’s formulation fails due to a reason first suggested by Dieks[11], and further developed by Kopf, Krtous and Page[12], Bartha and Hitchcock[13] and in particular Olum[14]. The problem is that if one uses any prior, other than 4 the “vague” prior suggested by Gott, one finds that the doomsday shift in probabilities is cancelled out by the effect of the increased likelihood of being born in a large population. Having derived the doomsday prediction in terms of the human race, I apply doomsday reasoning to the lifetime of a single conscious observer. This might seem like a rather bold abstraction but I believe that the situation is entirely analogous to that of the human race and brings out the previously under-reported role that conscious awareness plays in the doomsday argument. The only difference between the classic doomsday scenario and the application of doomsday reasoning to the lifetime of an observer is that in the former case one imagines a chronologically ordered list of human beings whereas in the latter case one pictures a sequence of the observer’s “moments” of consciousness (see Bostrom[15] for the related proposal of “observer-moments”). Following Gott, we regard the doomsday argument as ab initio reasoning so that we ignore any prior statistical information we have about the lifetimes of actual human observers. In Section 4, I argue that, on consciously “finding” himself in his current moment, the observer gains information about the ensemble of conscious moments that make up his lifetime. Now I realize that the term “consciousness” can be defined in a number of ways. In this paper the term refers solely to the basic act of awareness of something. By actually having some determinate experience an event takes place that can be labelled with a unique time. I contend that the associated perception of “now”, the current moment, is a fundamental aspect of consciousness shared by all conscious beings. By demonstrating that the amount of information that an observer gains on finding himself in his current moment does not depend on the location of that moment, I derive the principle of indifference result that, a priori, one is equally likely to be in any moment along one’s lifetime. In Section 5, I attempt to apply this reasoning to the case of an infinite lifetime. I find that, on the one hand, in discovering his current moment out of an infinite ensemble of moments, the observer should gain an infinite amount of information. 5 But, on the other hand, I argue that such a state of affairs is not logically possible. Thus I conclude that an infinite conscious lifetime is not possible in principle. Now, in Section 6, I argue that this result has profound implications. I consider the hypothetical case of a classical computer that, by running a particular program, experiences conscious awareness as a “by-product” of its operation. Now by the doomsday result above such a program must only generate a finite sequence of conscious moments. But I argue that if a program exists that allows a computer to generate a finite sequence of conscious moments then there seems no reason why the same program cannot be modified to generate an infinite sequence of moments. I conclude that the only way out of this impasse is to deny that a classical computer can experience consciousness in the first place. This statement is equivalent to asserting that consciousness cannot be generated by a set of deterministic laws. Now, given that we ourselves are conscious, this result implies that our brains must operate, at least partly, in a non-deterministic manner. In an effort to understand this non-determinism further I postulate that it is equivalent to asserting that conscious awareness is generated by many different sets of deterministic laws operating simultaneously. In Section 7, I argue that such a conception of reality is implied by the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in which time is no longer linear but instead has a branching structure. In Section 8, I hypothesize that in order to modify the doomsday argument to accommodate this scenario one simply needs to lift the assumption, implicit in the Bayesian probability calculation, that the observer’s present moment is associated with only one future with some definite total number of conscious moments. By assuming instead that the present moment is associated with an ensemble of many actually occurring futures, weighted by Gott’s prior function, I find that the doomsday argument fails to make any prediction about which future the observer will experience. Thus I conclude that the very fact of our consciousness can only be explained within a many-worlds ontology. Moreover, when the doomsday 6 argument is generalized to take such a view of reality into account, it fails to make any predictions about the future. 3 The Doomsday Prediction As conventionally applied, the doomsday argument purports to predict the total size of the human race, N, given one’s birth position, n, within it. In doing so one implicitly makes the assumption that one’s present position is associated with one unknown, but finite, future total population size. One first imagines a finite chronologically ordered list of labels representing all the humans who will ever be born. Next one argues that, a priori, one is equally likely to be represented by any one of those labels. Now, as pointed out in Section 2, this is an application of the principle of indifference. I show in the next section that this crucial assumption can be derived by reasoning about the symmetry properties of the probability of finding oneself at any given position. One proceeds by considering an ensemble of N hypotheses, each one specifying that a different human is located at that position. The fact that all the hypotheses are completely equivalent implies that each should be assigned the same prior probability. Thus the prior likelihood that one should find oneself at any position n, given that there will be a total of N humans altogether, P (n | N), is 1/N. Now this derivation of the principle of indifference suggests that it is in the act of consciously perceiving one’s present moment that one gains information rather than from learning one’s birth position per se. Even before learning of one’s birth position, one can argue that the very fact that one is alive at this particular time differentiates one, in principle, from all the other humans. The prior likelihood of this event, regardless of one’s birth position, is 1/N. Thus, as mentioned in the previous section, the doomsday argument is intimately linked with the phenomenon of conscious awareness. Now the doomsday argument uses Bayesian probability theory to provide its prediction of the total population size, N, given one’s birth position n. One 7 considers a set of exclusive hypotheses for N and then calculates how one’s prior probabilities for these hypotheses change on learning one’s position n. Let us start our derivation of the doomsday prediction by considering two equivalent expressions for the combined probability of n and N, P (n ∧ N), given by P (n ∧ N) = P (N | n) P (n) = P (n | N) P (N). This expression can be rearranged to give Bayes’s theorem P (N | n) = P (n | N) P (N) , P (n) where P (N | n) is the posterior probability of a total population size N given that one finds oneself born at position n, P (n | N) is the likelihood of finding oneself at position n given a total population size N, and P (n), P (N) are the prior probabilities of n and N respectively. We have shown already that P (n | N), the likelihood of finding oneself at birth position n given that there will be N births altogether, is given by the principle of indifference so that we have 1 P (n | N) = . N In order to use Bayes’s theorem to calculate P (N | n), the posterior probability of a total population size N, given our birth position n, we also need some prior probability distribution for N, P (N). Now, as noted in Section 2, a number of authors, such as Leslie[5] and Bostrom[16], regard the doomsday argument as depending solely on the shift of probabilities induced by the likelihood P (n | N) = 1/N regardless of the form of the prior P (N). This position has been shown to be untenable by a number of other authors, most recently Olum[14]. He reasoned that the data inherent in finding oneself at some position within the human race comprises not simply the information that you are located at that position but also that you were actually born in the first place. Thus the likelihood that one should use in Bayes’s theorem is P (n ∧ B | N), the probability of both finding oneself born and located at position n within a population of size N, given by P (n ∧ B | N) = P (n | B, N) P (B | N), 8 where P (B | N) is the probability of being born anywhere in a population of size N and P (n | B, N) is the probability of finding oneself at position n given that one has been born into a population of size N. By assuming that P (n ∧ B | N) = P (n | N), Leslie and Bostrom make the implicit prior assumption that one is certain to be born somewhere within the population. Let us see the effect of lifting this restriction. We start by assuming any normalizable prior for N, P (N). Given such a prior P (N) there must exist some length scale L such that the probability that N is less than L, P (N < L), is larger than any given confidence limit. On the assumption of a set of all possible humans, of size L, one can argue that the probability, P (B | N), of being a member of the subset of actual humans, of size N, is given by P (B | N) = N . L Thus the larger the population size the more chance one has of being born. When one combines this result with the principle of indifference expression for the original doomsday likelihood, P (n | B, N) = 1/N, one finds that P (n ∧ B | N) = 1 N · . N L The two contributions to the overall likelihood of being born at position n cancel each other out. Thus as soon as one considers any particular normalizable prior P (N) the doomsday shift in one’s posterior for N given n, P (N | n), disappears. Olum argued that this fact demolishes the doomsday argument but in fact there is one prior that is immune to the above reasoning. This prior is the so-called vague prior P (N) = 1/N, first described by Jeffreys[17], which has been extensively used to represent complete prior ignorance of a scale variable (e.g. Hesselbo and Stinchcombe[18]). In order to sketch a justification for this prior we note that, according to algorithmic information theory[19], the intrinsic probability of any binary string is defined by the smallest program that will generate that string. Now the size of such a program must be less than the length of the string itself. Thus the program required to specify 9 the binary representation of N must be less than approximately log2 N bits in length. This implies that the intrinsic probability of N, P (N), must be greater than 1/N. Thus the vague prior is not so much a probability distribution but rather a “template” for a distribution. Now, as this prior is scaleless (it is invariant under a change of scale) and non-normalizable, no scale L exists that allows one to argue that P (B | N) = N/L. This implies that one cannot argue that the probability of being born is proportional to the size of the population and so consequently there is no factor of N to cancel out the principle of indifference term P (n | B, N) = 1/N. Gott’s Bayesian formulation[7] of the doomsday argument survives Olum’s attack because it implicitly assumes that we have no prior knowledge about N so that we should represent our knowledge with the vague prior. Let us return to our original Bayesian formulation for the posterior for N given n, P (N | n), given by P (N | n) = P (n | N) P (N) . P (n) Assuming the vague priors P (N) = 1/N and P (n) = 1/n, together with the doomsday likelihood P (n | N) = 1/N, we find that P (N | n) = n . N2 This posterior is a perfectly proper probability distribution and represents real knowledge about N even though we started with a prior that was not normalizable. By integrating the above expression one can calculate the probability that N is less than some limit M, P (N < M), as P (N < M) = 1 − n . M By substituting M = 10n in the above expression, one derives a standard doomsday prediction to the effect that there is a 90% probability that the total size of the human race, N, will be less than ten times the number of humans who have been born so far. 10 4 Derivation of the Principle of Indifference As mentioned in the previous section, the doomsday argument relies crucially on the principle of indifference applied to one’s position within the human race. This implies that, given a finite list of all the humans who will ever live, and assuming no other prior knowledge, one assumes that one is equally likely to be anywhere within that list. As described previously, the principle of indifference can be derived by considering the ensemble of humans who could “find” themselves at a given position within the list. I contend that, in the very act of consciously perceiving “now”, one gains information about the ensemble of human beings. In this section we use symmetry principles and an information theory approach to derive the principle of indifference in the context of a single conscious observer. Let us assume that the observer is equipped with a clock and that his conscious experience lasts for N intervals of time. We term each interval of consciousness a “moment” so that the observer’s awareness is discretized into a time-ordered sequence of N conscious moments. One starts by considering the amount of information that the observer gains on finding himself in his current conscious moment. The amount of information he gains depends on his initial knowledge of the situation. We assume that his prior knowledge consists solely of the assumption that he will experience a total of N conscious moments altogether. Let us suppose that, while in his current conscious moment, and before he has noted the time, the observer considers some particular time interval n. He reasons that either his current moment is located in interval n or one of the other conscious moments is located in that interval. As the observer knows nothing more about these N possibilities, I assert that his prior knowledge must simply be represented by a list of N arbitrary labels, each one representing a conscious moment that might be located in interval n. Now the observer considers the conscious moment that is actually located in interval n. He assigns p1 and p2 to be the probabilities that the label C, representing this moment, is in the first and second half of the list respec11 tively. Let us assume that the observer swaps the two halves of the list over. He assigns p∗1 and p∗2 be the probabilities that the label C is in the first and second half of the resulting list. This second list of labels represents the observer’s initial knowledge just as adequately as the first one. The prior probabilities for the position of label C depend entirely on the observer’s initial knowledge which in turn is represented by an arbitrarily ordered list of labels. As a transposition of an arbitrary list is also an arbitrary list then both represent the same knowledge which in turn implies that the two sets of probabilities must be identical so that we have p∗1 = p1 and p∗2 = p2 . Now the observer also knows that the probability that label C is in a set of labels should “travel” with that set of labels in the transposition operation. Thus in order to maintain consistency between the two sets of probabilities it must also be the case that p∗1 = p2 and p∗2 = p1 . Combining these two sets of equations we find that p∗1 = p∗2 and p1 = p2 . Thus the observer must assign equal prior probabilities to label C being in either half of an arbitrary list of labels. This implies that, on learning in which half of an arbitrary list label C resides, the observer gains precisely one bit of information. Now this reasoning can be applied again to a list comprising the half of the original list that contained label C. The observer will again assign equal probabilities to label C being in either half of this new list. On learning which half contains label C the observer will gain another bit of information. In general, starting with an arbitrarily ordered list of N labels, this process must be repeated log2 N times in order to specify a particular label uniquely. Now let us suppose that, on consulting the clock, the observer finds that his current conscious moment is actually located in time interval n. This 12 is equivalent to his current moment being specified uniquely from amongst an arbitrarily ordered ensemble of N conscious moments that could have found themselves in interval n. Thus, in finding himself in interval n, the observer gains log2 N bits of information. As each bit is equivalent to a probability factor of 1/2, this implies that P (n | N), the prior probability that the observer finds himself in any interval n conditional on there being N conscious moments altogether, is given by P (n | N) = 1 . N This is the well-known principle of indifference but here it has been derived in a rigorous manner following the symmetry arguments of Jaynes[20]. 5 The Infinite Lifetime Paradox Now, as mentioned in Section 3, in following the doomsday argument one makes the implicit assumption that the human race will be finite in size. Accordingly, in the previous section, we derived the principle of indifference by considering the case of a single observer experiencing a finite conscious lifetime. We now wish to examine the case in which the observer experiences a countable infinity of conscious moments. Although this scenario might seem physically infeasible there is no reason why we should not consider it in principle. In fact, as pointed out in Section 1, as soon as one tries to apply the principle of indifference to such a case one comes up against the problem of extending a uniform probability distribution over an infinite ensemble of possibilities. In order to investigate this problem further we shall attempt to extend the reasoning we used in the previous section to the case of an infinite conscious lifetime. As in the case of a finite lifetime, let us consider the ensemble of conscious moments that might be located in the time interval n. Again, as the observer knows nothing more about these moments he can only represent them by an infinite set of arbitrary labels. Now in the case of the 13 finite ensemble, as described in the previous section, the observer considered the labels arranged in an ordered list. This situation implies a one-to-one mapping between each label and each integer from 1 to N. In order to reason about an infinite ensemble we shall assume instead that the observer’s initial knowledge is represented by an arbitrary one-to-one mapping between each label and each rational number in the interval (0, 1]. This is feasible because such rational numbers form a countably infinite set. Now, as before, the observer considers the conscious moment that is actually located in interval n. The label C, representing this moment, is mapped to a rational number in either the first or second half of the interval (0, 1]. As in the case of the finite list of labels we can imagine a transposition of the mapping such that all labels that were mapped to rationals in (0, 1/2] are now mapped to rationals in (1/2, 1] and vice-versa. Again both mappings represent the observer’s initial knowledge equally well so that he should use the same probability distribution for the position of label C under both mappings. Combining the need for consistency between the probability distributions with the above symmetry requirement leads the observer to reason that label C is equally likely to be mapped to either half of the interval (0, 1]. This again implies that, on learning to which half of the interval (0, 1] label C is mapped, the observer gains one bit of information. As in the finite case, the above reasoning can be reapplied to the half of the interval that contains the rational number mapped to label C. On learning in which half of this new interval label C resides the observer gains another bit of information. Now one can see that in contrast to the case of a finite list the above process does not terminate. Let us assume that the observer actually does find himself in some finite time interval n given the assumption that an infinite ensemble of conscious moments will eventually exist, any one of which might have been located in that time interval. As argued above, this situation is equivalent to indicating a rational number in the interval (0, 1] by specifying whether the number is in the first or second half of a sequence of successively smaller intervals. The 14 amount of information that the observer would gain from his perception of his current moment, in such circumstances, must be larger than any finite number of bits. This seems to imply that, in the act of finding himself at some point within an infinite conscious lifetime, the observer gains an infinite number of bits of information. This situation seems reminiscent of one of Zeno’s paradoxes of motion in which a runner travelling from A to B has first to cover half the distance between the two points. But in order to cover this half-distance he has to first travel half of the half-distance and so on. Zeno’s problem is generally not regarded as a paradox nowadays because it is known that an infinite sum of exponentially decreasing lengths does actually converge to a finite distance. However it is my contention that one does run into a paradox when one considers the observer’s perception of his current moment of consciousness within an infinite ensemble of such moments. As shown earlier such a moment would require an infinite-sized bitstring to specify it from within the countably infinite set of conscious moments. The paradox arises because there are in fact infinitely more infinite-sized binary strings than there are countable conscious moments. One can see that the set of infinite-sized binary strings is at least larger than any countable set by using Cantor’s diagonal slash argument. This involves first assuming the contrary position, namely that it is possible to uniquely assign each infinite-sized binary string to each successive integer. Now given such a list of binary strings it is possible to construct a new binary string that differs from the first string in the first binary digit, the second string in the second binary digit and so on. This new binary string cannot be anywhere in the original list and so we have shown that there is at least one more infinite-sized binary string than there are integers. Now this is a problem because in order for the binary strings to be interpreted as bitstrings (i.e. strings of characters representing equally likely binary events) there must be a strict one-to-one correspondence between each string and each countable conscious moment. Thus we are left with a contradiction. On the 15 one hand we have shown that, on finding himself in some time interval n, the observer must gain an amount of information larger than any finite number of bits; this implies a countable infinity of bits. On the other hand we can see that the set of infinite-sized binary strings is too large for them to represent bitstrings over the countable set of conscious moments. Now one could take this result at face value and declare that it simply implies that, on the assumption of an infinite lifetime, no prior probability assignment exists for the event of finding oneself at a particular position within that lifetime. But, as we have demonstrated above, one can at least argue for a succession of increasing lower bounds to the amount of information gained from such an event. Due to the inverse relationship between information and probability this result translates into a sequence of decreasing upper bounds for the prior probability. Thus, on finding oneself at some position within an infinite lifetime, one can argue that one’s prior probability for this event is less than any given value which implies that it must have some non-zero numerical assignment. Paradoxically, also as shown above, such a probability assignment cannot exist. I contend that the only way to avoid this dilemma is to deny that an infinite ensemble of conscious moments is possible even in principle. 6 The Hypothetical Conscious Computer Now this result has fundamental implications for the theory of mind. Let us imagine that our conscious observer is a classical system operating according to a set of deterministic laws. It has been conjectured[21] that the behaviour of such a system can always be simulated by a classical computer executing some finite-sized program. Thus, without loss of generality, we can assume that our observer is a classical computer that, by virtue of executing a particular program, generates a sequence of conscious moments. It should be noted that, strictly, we are taking an “epiphenomenal” philosophical stance in that we assume that the computer’s conscious awareness is a continuously 16 generated by-product that does not interfere with its deterministic operation. As the computer’s behaviour is completely determined by its program, we have two scenarios: either the program generates a finite number of conscious moments or it produces an infinite number. Now, as demonstrated in the previous section, the scenario of an infinite conscious lifetime leads to paradox. Thus, on the assumption that a computer experiences conscious awareness, this result implies that its program must only generate a finite sequence of conscious moments. But we know that this conclusion is absurd. We can always imagine a simple modification to the program so that, after generating its finite sequence of conscious moments, it resets the computer’s memory and re-executes itself. It seems clear that if the original program generates conscious awareness then the modified version should also generate a sequence of conscious moments comprising the original finite sequence endlessly repeating. Now one could argue that as such a repeating sequence only consists of a finite number of subjectively distinct moments then one still has a finite-sized ensemble of possibilities. In fact as the computer is a physical machine that dissipates energy with time then, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of the system comprising the computer and its environment should continually increase. As each conscious moment is then associated with a different configuration of the system as a whole then each one is, in principle, unique. Thus we again run into the infinite lifetime paradox. If the computer, while running such a program, finds itself in any given time interval then its current conscious moment is specified from within an infinite ensemble of unique moments that could have occupied that time interval. Again a contradiction arises in that the computer would gain an amount of information that, while larger than any finite number, cannot consistently be assigned an infinite value. It is my contention that the only way out of this dilemma is to deny the initial assumption that a classical computer running a particular program can generate conscious awareness in the first place. This assertion is equivalent to stating that the phenomenon of consciousness cannot be fully described by 17 any set of deterministic laws. Now we know, of course, that we are conscious (Descartes and all that!). Thus we arrive at the conclusion that our brains cannot operate purely on the basis of a set of deterministic laws. How can one understand this “non-deterministic” nature of consciousness further? 7 Chaotic Observers and Consistent Histories I propose that in order to understand consciousness we need to consider a quantum-mechanical view of reality in which the instantaneous state of the brain is described by a superposition whose subsequent behaviour is represented by many sets of deterministic laws. This scenario can be understood in terms of the consistent histories approach[22, 23] to quantum theory, in which, through interaction with the rest of the Universe, the evolving wave function of a system continually decoheres into a mixture of quasi-classical histories. Now, in general, one can describe the state of a physical system by using a multi-dimensional configuration space in which each point represents the spatial positions of all the particles that make up the system. In classical physics the instantaneous state of a system is described by one point in configuration space. The time evolution of such a system is then represented by a single curve or history through that point, the shape of which is governed by deterministic laws comprising the classic “laws of physics” together with their “initial conditions”. In contrast, the instantaneous state of a quantum system is described by a complex-valued wave function that can extend over the whole of configuration space. The wave function of an isolated quantum system then evolves as a coherent whole following the rules of quantum dynamics. Now this behaviour is altered if the quantum system interacts with its environment. In this case the wave function quickly loses its long- range phase coherence so that it evolves into a mixture of wave packets that are localized around each point in configuration space[24]. As each of these wave packets is localized in 18 configuration space then, due to the uncertainty principle, each must be delocalized in momentum space. Thus there is a tendency for each wave packet to spread out coherently before being broken up again into decoherent parts by interaction with the environment. In general, the time evolution of such a system takes the form of an overlapping continuum of constantly ramifying histories through configuration space, each one following approximately classical dynamics. Now it has been pointed out by Stapp[25] that attempts to explain, entirely within quantum theory, the single quasi-classical history experienced by an observer have so far foundered on the “preferred basis problem”. In order that quantum theory can provide a probabilistic prediction for which quasi-classical history an observer experiences one requires a discrete set of orthogonal quasi-classical histories that span the space of all such histories. In this section I propose that the divergent quasi-classical histories of certain chaotic systems might fulfil these requirements. Thus I am led to the tentative conclusion that human beings are conscious observers by virtue of the chaotic functioning of their brains (I’m tempted to say that I arrived at this hypothesis through introspection!). In order to understand the special qualities of chaotic systems it is necessary first to review the behaviour of non-chaotic ones. Therefore let us consider that archetypal regular classical system, the clockwork mechanism. As mentioned before, the time evolution of such a classical system is described by a single history through configuration space. Now, in reality, Nature follows the rules of quantum mechanics. Thus even a clockwork mechanism should, in principle, be represented by a wave function in configuration space. If we assume that the mechanism interacts with the environment then its wave function will decohere into an overlapping mixture of localized wave packets. Each wave packet describes a superposition of clockwork mechanisms, whose components differ slightly in position, orientation and detailed structure. Now we assume that the mechanism is rigidly constructed so that any configuration in which its structure is significantly distorted has a high poten- 19 tial energy. As each wave packet spreads it is confined to one definite path through configuration space bounded by these high energy configurations. Thus the time evolution of the clockwork mechanism follows a continuum of linear quasi-classical histories whose shapes are governed by a single algorithm embodied in the rigid structure of the mechanism itself. Now let us imagine a system whose evolution in time depends sensitively on its initial state. This is the hallmark of “chaotic” behaviour in classical dynamics. The instantaneous state of such a classical system is still represented by a point in configuration space and its time evolution represented by a single curve through that point. Thus, in principle, its behaviour is no different from that of a non-chaotic classical system. However, in practice, the difference between the two systems is manifest in the non-predictability of the chaotic system compared to the regular system, given that its initial state can only be specified to some finite degree of accuracy. For instance, one can imagine a pair of identical chaotic systems evolving from slightly different initial conditions, represented by a pair of closely separated points in configuration space. The curves representing these two systems diverge exponentially so that they subsequently behave in a very different manner. Now we assume that the rules of quantum mechanics should hold for all physical systems. Thus, in reality, our chaotic system should be represented as a wave function in configuration space. Again, on interaction with the environment, this wave function decoheres into a mixture of localized wave packets each representing a superposition of chaotic systems, whose components vary slightly in location, orientation and detailed structure. However, in contrast to the clockwork mechanism, a chaotic system does not have a rigid construction so that configurations with significant distortions are not energetically disfavoured. Thus each wave packet can spread in all directions unhindered by high energy configurations. These extended wave packets are decohered by the environment so that the time evolution of the chaotic system follows a continuum of divergent branching quasi-classical histories. Now let us consider Stapp’s stipulation that, in order to describe an ob- 20 server’s experiences, one requires a discrete set of orthogonal histories. We have seen that the time evolution of the clockwork mechanism consists of a continuum of parallel histories so that such a system does not meet our requirements. The time evolution of a chaotic system, however, comprises a continuum of divergent histories that quickly become orthogonal to each other. Now I contend that each quasi-classical history is, in essence, a record of a calculation. Thus each history can be represented uniquely by the smallest program, in a given computer language, that performs that calculation. In the case of the clockwork mechanism all the histories are described by the one program embodied in the mechanism’s design. In the case of the chaotic system, however, there are many qualitatively distinct histories corresponding to different programs. Furthermore, since the set of programs is denumerable, the set of qualitatively distinct histories must be discrete. Thus a chaotic system seems to meet Stapp’s basic criteria for a quantummechanical observer. It has been proposed[26] that fundamental aspects of the brain’s functioning might well be chaotic in nature. In contrast to a clockwork mechanism, whose rigid structure precludes any small deviations in its instantaneous state from affecting its prescribed behaviour, the brain might be “soft” in the sense that its structure does not provide a barrier against such deviations magnifying into subsequent large-scale behaviour. In a classical world such behaviour would not be qualitatively distinct from that of a regular system as both, in principle, can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of accuracy by a computer executing a single program[27]. In reality, however, as the brain is a quantum-mechanical system interacting with its environment, its time evolution should be represented by an ensemble of continually branching qualitatively distinct histories, each corresponding to a different program. Such a set of histories form a branching tree-like structure so that, from the vantage point of any localized wave packet describing an instantaneous state of the brain, there are many future paths but only one past. Thus I hypothesize that the current moment of consciousness is simultaneously associated 21 with all the quasi-classical histories that go through its corresponding wave packet. Now, Tegmark has argued[28] that the decoherence timescale for the brain must be orders of magnitude less than its dynamical timescale. According to Clarke’s stability criterion[29], this fact seems to preclude superpositions of brain states from playing a part in conscious experience. In fact, according to Joos and Zeh[24], only the long-range phase correlations in a system’s wave function decohere quickly leaving a mixture of localized Gaussian wave packets that are stable with respect to further interactions with the environment. I contend that it is the superposition of microscopically different brain states represented by a wave packet that survives to become simultaneously associated with all the decohereing quasi-classical histories that branch from its region of configuration space. 8 Many-Worlds Resolution of the Doomsday Argument The doomsday argument makes the implicit assumption that only one quasiclassical history will actually exist so that one’s current moment is only associated with one set of moments with a definite size. In order to avoid the infinite lifetime paradox, described in Section 5, we must assume that this set is finite. We have seen that any such history can be simulated by a classical computer running an appropriate program. Thus if a finite set of conscious moments is associated with only one history then the program that simulates that history should also generate the same set of moments. Now, as discussed in Section 6, given a program that generates a finite set of moments one can always construct a similar program that, in principle, generates an infinite set of moments. I contend that the only way to avoid the ensuing infinite lifetime paradox is to abandon the assumption that a particular quasiclassical history, or its equivalent program, can generate conscious awareness. Now this result precludes any interpretation of quantum theory in which 22 exclusive probabilities are assigned to the set of quasi-classical histories. Such an assignment would imply that only one of the histories actually occurs which, together with the fact of our consciousness, leads to the paradox described above. Instead we must assume that our current moment is simultaneously associated with many quasi-classical histories. This implies that our current moment is a member of many sets of moments simultaneously. Thus, following the many-worlds interpretation[30, 31, 32], we assume that the rules of quantum theory only provide an ensemble weight for each decoherent quasi- classical history. Thus the instantaneous state of the system comprising one’s brain and its environment determines the ensemble weight of all the subsequent quasi-classical histories that will be experienced by different versions of oneself. In a sense one’s “free-will” is preserved in that one has the freedom to do otherwise than one did (in fact a version of you did do otherwise) but also the ensemble weights of the subsequent actions of versions of oneself are influenced by one’s “nature” as defined by one’s initial brain state. Following the spirit of the doomsday argument as metaphysical reasoning, we do not have the details of the initial system state that would allow us to calculate the ensemble weights of its subsequent histories. Instead we need to assume some “template” weight function, W (N), for the total weight of histories associated with N conscious moments. We already have a very natural candidate: the scaleless vague prior function given by W (N) = 1 . N Now let us reconsider the original doomsday argument calculation. By applying Bayes’s theorem, we found that our posterior probability distribution, P (N | n), for the set of exclusive hypotheses about the population size N, is given by the relation P (N | n) ∝ P (n | N) P (N), where the distribution P (N) represents our prior probabilities over the set of hypotheses and P (n | N) is the likelihood of finding ourselves in moment 23 n given a particular hypothesis for N. Now the above calculation is only valid for a set of exclusive hypotheses for N so that P (N) represents a prior distribution of exclusive probabilities. But, as mentioned previously, in the many-worlds view each moment is associated with many actually occurring quasi-classical histories that correspond to different population sizes N. Thus in this scenario our prior distribution W (N) represents a set of ensemble weights for each value of N. Let us assume that each quasi-classical history of the brain is correlated with a particular finite set of N conscious moments. In doing this we do not assume that a particular history is sufficient, in itself, to generate that set of conscious moments but rather that it is a necessary factor. One can use the principle of indifference to argue that the probability, P (n | N), of finding oneself at moment n within this set of N conscious moments, is given by 1 P (n | N) = . N Now although each history is associated with only one set of conscious moments, each moment is associated with many histories and consequently many sets of moments. In order to calculate the total probability of finding oneself in any moment, one needs to add the probability contributions from all the sets that contain that moment. Thus the probability of finding oneself in moment n, P (n), is given by the sum of all principle of indifference terms, P (n | N), associated with each history with a particular value of N, multiplied by the weight function for such histories, W (N), so that we have P (n) = ∞ X P (n | N) W (N). N =n If we substitute in our expression for the principle of indifference, P (n | N) = 1/N, and our vague prior weight function W (N) = 1/N we find P (n) = ∞ X 1 . 2 N =n N By approximating the above sum with an integral we find that 1 P (n) = . n 24 Now as this probability distribution is the vague prior function again, the calculation shows that conditionalizing on the assumption that our current moment is a member of many sets of moments simultaneously does not alter our initial ignorance about our position, which is also represented by the vague prior. In other words, on finding ourselves in moment n, rather than gaining information about the total lifetime N that we will experience, we instead simply gain the amount of information implicit in the number n itself, which is never more than log2 n bits. The only difference between this many-worlds calculation and the original doomsday calculation is that the condition of exclusivity between hypotheses for the total population size has been lifted. It seems that in generalizing Gott’s Copernican principle[6], namely that one should not expect to be located at a “special” position within a particular population, to cover the case where one is located within many versions of the population simultaneously, one finds that it loses its predictive power. Finally, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this generalized version of the Copernican principle naturally accommodates an infinite set of possibilities for the position of one’s current moment while at the same time avoiding the absurdity inherent in the assumption of an infinite lifetime. This is achieved by hypothesizing that, in principle, one’s current conscious moment is associated with all the quasi-classical histories that go through its region of configuration space, each history only being correlated with consciousness over a finite section of its length. As we only ever apply the principle of indifference over finite sections of histories then we never encounter the problem of extending a uniform probability distribution over an infinite interval. But if we assume, a priori, that all histories exist then this implies that, for any given finite conscious lifetime N, there is always a history that is correlated with a finite lifetime larger than N. Thus one can see that our many-worlds viewpoint, while denying the possibility of an infinite conscious lifetime, refrains from imposing an upper limit to the position of one’s current moment within a lifetime. 25 One could criticize this analysis for being based on the vague prior weight function. As mentioned previously, this function is only a template for the actual normalizable weight distribution determined by the initial quantum state of the system comprising one’s brain and its environment. In fact, one can argue that the set of actual weight distributions can be divided into two classes: those with a finite upper bound for N and those without an upper bound. If the distribution of conscious lifetimes is bounded then this implies that a quantum simulation of the system as a whole, after running for a finite amount of time, would produce no more conscious awareness. Now if this were the case one could, in principle, continually re-run this finite simulation so as to produce a set of infinite conscious lifetimes. As this possibility leads to the infinite lifetime paradox again I speculate that the actual weight distribution of lifetimes associated with any conscious moment cannot have an upper bound. This result would give credence to an actual “quantum immortality” of the form described above. 9 Conclusions The doomsday argument, in its original formulation, uses the principle of indifference to predict the lifetime of the human race given our position within it. When applied to the lifetime of a single observer, considered as a sequence of “moments”, one appreciates that the argument actually depends on the observer’s conscious awareness. By considering the case of an infinite lifetime I derive contradictory conditions on the amount of information gained on “finding” oneself within such an ensemble of moments. I conclude that an infinite conscious lifetime is not possible, even in principle. This result is, in fact, an embodiment of the doomsday argument itself. Now, on the assumption that an observer follows deterministic laws, one should always be able to simulate him by a classical computer running an appropriate program. In such a scenario the observer’s consciousness would be a continually generated by-product of the computer’s operation. But 26 given a program that generates a finite set of conscious moments one can, in principle, always construct a non-terminating program that generates an infinite set of conscious moments. I contend that, in order to avoid the ensuing infinite lifetime paradox, one must abandon the assumption that consciousness can be generated by a single set of deterministic laws. This result motivates me to consider the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which, together with the phenomenon of environmental decoherence, implies that many quasi-classical histories exist, each following its own set of deterministic laws. Now I propose that the chaotic histories of the brain, when classified in terms of computation, provide a discrete orthogonal basis set of experienced histories. I then hypothesize that one’s current moment of consciousness is generated by a superposition of microscopically dissimilar brain states, localized in configuration space, that is simultaneously associated with many divergent quasi-classical histories leading to different conscious lifetimes. Now the doomsday argument implicitly assumes that only one history will exist so that one’s current moment is only associated with one set of conscious moments. When one lifts this assumption, by interpreting one’s prior for the total population size to be an ensemble weight rather than an exclusive probability, one finds that the doomsday argument fails to make any prediction about the lifetime that any version of oneself will experience. This generalized doomsday argument solves Einstein’s problem of representing the probability of “finding” oneself in infinite time without leading to the absurdity of zero probability. In doing so it forces us to abandon the notion of time as an infinite line but instead assume a many-worlds view in which time has an unbounded tree-like structure, each branch of which supports consciousness over a finite section of its length. 27 References [1] E. P. Wigner and A. Szanton, The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner, Plenum, New York, 1992. [2] J. Leslie, Bulletin of the Canadian Nuclear Society, 10 (1989). [3] J. Leslie (ed), Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990. [4] J. Leslie, Doomsday Revisited, Philosophical Quarterly 42, 85-87 (1992). [5] J. Leslie, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, Routledge, London, 1996. [6] J. R. Gott III, Implications of the Copernican Principle for our Future Prospects, Nature 363, 315-319 (1993). [7] J. R. Gott III, Future Prospects Discussed, Nature 368, 108 (1994). [8] K. B. Korb and J. J. Oliver, A Refutation of the Doomsday Argument, Mind 107, 403-410 (1998). [9] G. F. Sowers, The Demise of the Doomsday Argument, Mind 111, 37-45 (2002). [10] F. J. Dyson, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction - Leslie, J., Nature 380, 296 (1996). [11] D. Dieks, Doomsday or the Dangers of Statistics, Philosophical Quarterly 42, 78-84 (1992). [12] T. Kopf, P. Krtous and D. N. Page, Too Soon for Doom Gloom, Preprint, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9407002 (1994). [13] P. Bartha and C. Hitchcock, No one knows the date or the hour: an unorthodox application of Rev. Bayes’s theorem, Philosophy of Science S66, 339-353 (1999). 28 [14] K. D. Olum, The Doomsday Argument and the number of possible observers, Philosophical Quarterly 52, 164 (2002). [15] N. Bostrom, Observational Selection Effects and Probability, Ph. D. thesis, London School of Economics, 2000. [16] N. Bostrom, The Doomsday argument is alive and kicking, Mind 108, 539-550 (1999). [17] H. Jeffreys, The Theory of Probability, Oxford University Press, 1939. [18] B. Hesselbo and R. B. Stinchcombe, Monte-Carlo Simulation and Global Optimization without Parameters, Physical Review Letters 74, 21512155 (1995). [19] G. J. Chaitin, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1987. [20] E. T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, Draft version, http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html (1994). [21] A. M. Turing, On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society Series 2 42, 230-265 (1936). [22] M. Gell-Mann and J. Hartle, Classical Equations for Quantum Systems, Physical Review D 47, 3345-3382 (1993). [23] M. Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the simple and the complex, Little, Brown and Company, London, 1994. [24] E. Joos and H. D. Zeh, The Emergence of Classical Properties through Interaction with the Environment, Zeitschrift fur Physik B59, 223-243 (1985). [25] H. P. Stapp, The basis problem in many-worlds theories, Preprint, http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0110148 (2002). 29 [26] C. C. King, Fractal and Chaotic Dynamics in Nervous Systems, Progress in Neurobiology 36, 279-308 (1991). [27] A. M. Turing, Computing machinery and Intelligence, Mind 59, 433-460 (1950). [28] M. Tegmark, Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes, Physical Review E, B61, 4194-4206 (2000). [29] C. J. S. Clarke, The histories interpretation: Stability instead of consistency? Foundations of Physics Letters 14, 179-186 (2001). [30] H. Everett III, Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, Reviews of Modern Physics 29, 454-462 (1957). [31] D. Deutsch, Quantum Theory as a Universal Physical Theory, International Journal of Theoretical Physics 24, 1-41 (1985). [32] D. Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, Penguin Press, London, 1997. 30

arXiv:1305.7381v1 [physics.hist-ph] 31 May 2013 Mind and Matter D.M. Appleby Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada and Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Stellenbosch, Matieland 7602, South Africa Abstract It is argued that the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, and the philosophical problem of consciousness, both have their roots in the same set of misguided Cartesian assumptions. The confusions underlying those assumptions are analyzed in detail. It is sometimes suggested that quantum mechanics might explain consciousness. That is not the suggestion here. Rather it is suggested that an adequate non-Cartesian philosophy would transform our understanding of both quantum mechanics and consciousness. Consequently, it would change our ideas as to just what it is that we are trying to explain. Pauli, in a letter to van Franz (quoted Gieser [1], pp.243–4), wrote Evidently the progress of science must take such a course that the concept ‘consciousness’ will be replaced by a more general or better one. If one knew that these words were written by a leading 20th scientist, but did not know that the scientist in question was Pauli, one might think that what is being advocated here is eliminative materialism, or some such similar position (refs. [2–7], and references cited therein). Since, however, it is Pauli who is saying this we know he must be thinking along very different lines. Eliminative materialists propose to deal with the mind-body problem by eliminating the mental pole of the duality leaving only the material one. Pauli would reject that proposal because he was looking, not for a materialistic explanation of mental phenomena, but rather for a “psychophysical monism” in which mind and matter are seen as “two aspects of one and the same abstract fact”, itself neither physical nor psychological (Meier et al [8], pp.87, 159). It is easy to see why a materialist might want to take an eliminativist attitude to consciousness. The question addressed in this paper is why someone like Pauli, who is not a materialist, would take such an attitude. What follows is not an exercise in Pauli exegesis. I am not here particularly concerned with Pauli’s reasons for taking that view of consciousness. Rather, I am going to give my own reasons for thinking that he might have been basically right. Before proceeding further, I ought to qualify. The meaning of a word like “cat”, which can be defined ostensively, is securely anchored. However, the word “consciousness” cannot be defined ostensively, not even by the person whose consciousness it is (it is surely not possible to point one’s finger at one’s own consciousness). Consequently, if one is not careful, there is a danger that its meaning will float, so that it comes to be used in different ways by different people, or even by the same person at different times. I believe this actually happens. The criticisms of this paper are only directed at one of its possible senses. As an example of a sense of the word which I feel is unlikely to be rendered obsolete by future scientific advance, consider the Glasgow Coma Scale [9, 10] which is widely used to quantify the level of consciousness in cases of brain damage. It is possible, even likely, that the Glasgow Coma Scale will, in time, come to be replaced by some improved method for quantifying degree of consciousness. It is also likely that scientific advances will lead to a deeper and richer understanding of the phenomenon itself. However, I doubt that this would amount to the kind of development Pauli had in mind when he wrote of the concept of consciousness being “replaced by a more general or better one”. For want of a better term I will refer to the sense in which the word “consciousness” is used in medicine as its “everyday sense”. It is true that the medical literature on the subject can be quite technical. However, although medical science has refined the description of states of consciousness, it has 1 done so in a way which remains close to the root meaning. A doctor will understand the statement “the patient is fully conscious” in almost, if not exactly the same sense that the patient’s relatives understand it. I take the everyday sense of the word also to include its use in sentences like “She was conscious of the clock ticking,” to describe the state of being aware of something. The critical comments in this essay are directed, not at consciousness in the everyday sense, but rather at the concept as it is used in, for example, philosophical discussions of the so-called problem of consciousness. I will refer to this second sense of the word as the Cartesian sense. It is true that nowadays there are not many full-blooded Cartesian dualists left. Nevertheless, a more or less attenuated version of the Cartesian soul continues to be prominent in modern philosophical thinking, and it is this which gives rise to the “problem of consciousness”. I think it is clear from context1 that it was Cartesian consciousness that Pauli had in mind when he made the statement quoted at the beginning of this essay. To see that the everyday and Cartesian senses are different consider the discussion in Chalmers [11]. Chalmers begins by saying that consciousness is “intangible” and consequently hard to define (p.3), which I think is already an indication that what is in question is something different from consciousness in the everyday sense (consider the likely response of a hospital doctor to the proposition that the state of being non-comatose is intangible, and hard to define). He then goes on to propose the characterization “the subjective quality of experience” (p.4). Now the meaning of this will be clear enough to someone who has received a certain kind of education. More specifically, it will be clear to someone who has absorbed the basic ideas of the Cartesian philosophy. But I believe it would be unintelligible to anyone who has not had the benefit of such an education (probably the majority of English speakers). What Chalmers thinks of as the subjective quality of greenness, philosophically unsophisticated people think of simply as greenness, and it would take a lot of work to persuade them that they are missing something important. Something that is not taken for granted by the vast majority of speakers cannot be considered to belong to the everyday sense of a word. Of course, one might think that the Cartesian concept of consciousness can be seen to be logically contained in everyday assumptions, if one takes the trouble to think the matter through carefully. However, it is precisely the point of this paper that it is not so contained. Chalmers, like others, thinks that consciousness is hard to define. Why should that be? I believe that Searle [12] puts his finger on at least part of the difficulty when he says The reason we find it difficult to distinguish between my description of the objects on the table and and my description of my experience of the objects is that the features of the objects are precisely the conditions of satisfaction of my conscious experiences of them. So the vocabulary I use to describe the table—“There’s a lamp on the 1 In particular, it is clear that Pauli had in mind the so-called privacy of Cartesian consciousness—the property of being undetectable by the outside observer. 2 rich and a vase on the left and a small statue in the middle”—is precisely that which I use to describe my conscious visual experiences of the table. (p.131) Which provokes the obvious question: if two things have the same description, how does one tell them apart? Can one tell them apart? Could it just be that what Searle seeks to convey by the phrase “the contents of my consciousness when I look at my table” is identical to what a less sophisticated person would convey more succinctly, simply by saying “my table”? It seems, however, that that cannot be precisely right, for Searle argues that consciousness is always perspectival. Consequently, he thinks that his visual consciousness of his table only comprises the parts he can directly see. Nevertheless, it is hard to resist the impression that what Searle means by the phrase “the contents of my consciousness” is, if not identical, at any rate close to what an unsophisticated person means by the phrase “the things around me”: that the contents of Searle’s consciousness, as Searle conceives them to be, can be pictured as something like a film set, convincing when seen from the front, unpainted wood when seen from the back. This way of thinking is historically important, because it led to idealism. In an amusing critique of idealist philosophy Stove [13] asks what is the “productdifferentiation”: i.e. “what are they selling, these people who call themselves objective idealists, that a commonsense materialist could not consistently buy?” (p.116). His answer is that there is in fact nothing that a materialist could not consistently buy. In support of this conclusion he cites Bosanquet (one of the more prominent 19th century idealists), who said in so many words that “extremes meet”, and “a consistent materialist and thorough idealist hold positions which are distinguishable only in name” (ibid, p.115). These days idealism has gone out of fashion. However, believers in Cartesian consciousness are still faced with what is essentially the same problem, of differentiating the contents of consciousness (as they conceive them to be) from what commonsense would call the objects around us. It is a difficult problem, and I think that is one of the reasons it is often said that “consciousness” is hard to define. There are two sides to the Cartesian polarity: not only Cartesian consciousness, but also Cartesian matter. I am here using the term “Cartesian matter” rather loosely, to refer, not only to the concept of matter originally proposed by Descartes himself, but also to its many descendants. I described the concept of consciousness as it features in, for example, the book by Chalmers [11] as an attenuated variant of the Cartesian soul. In the same way I would, for example, describe the universal wave function proposed by Everett [14] as a (not so attenuated) variant of Cartesian matter. It goes without saying that Chalmers’ concept of consciousness differs greatly from Descartes’ concept of the soul. However, it shares with the latter the crucial feature of being a receptacle for all the supposedly subjective phenomena which, on a Cartesian view, are excluded from the physical universe. Similarly, Everett’s concept of the universal state vector, though obviously very different from Descartes’ concept of matter, 3 still shares the crucial feature, that it is supposed to be completely describable in purely objective, mathematical terms, without any contamination by the observing subject. The point to notice is that these two concepts, Cartesian consciousness and Cartesian matter, are different aspects of a single conceptual scheme. They are like the two poles of a bar magnet, impossible to isolate. Idealists attempt to cut the bar in two, keeping only the subjective side of the polarity. But, as we saw, when they try to carry that idea through consistently it turns out that the concept of matter has come back in, through the backdoor, so to speak. Materialists attempt to perform the same bisection, keeping only the objective side of the polarity. However, they then face the problem that, no matter how vigorously they attempt to cast doubt on the notion of qualia (see, for instance, the papers in section 17 of Lycan [15]), the fact remains that, to a normally sighted person, green things undeniably do look qualitatively different from red ones. Consequently, if one looks at a green object, while trying to keep in mind that the quality of perceived greenness is not really a feature of the object itself, it is difficult to avoid the thought that the quality of greenness is a feature that is somehow added by one’s own perceptual apparatus. From there it is but a small step to the Cartesian concept of consciousness. I believe we need to break away from this whole misguided way of thinking: not simply to deny Cartesian consciousness, nor simply to deny Cartesian matter, but to deny both. There are many empirical reasons for taking such a course. Modern neuroscience gives us reasons for being suspicious of Cartesian assumptions about consciousness (see refs. [4,5,16,17], and references cited therein); while quantum mechanics gives us equally good reasons for being suspicious of Cartesian assumptions about matter (see any textbook). The aim of physics, as Descartes conceived it, is to arrive at the one true picture of things, totally objective, and complete in every detail. Before the year 1900 it might have looked as though we were getting steadily closer to that goal2 . However, quantum mechanics strongly suggests that the goal is unachievable. In quantum mechanics what you see depends on how you look. Make one kind of measurement on the electromagnetic field and one will obtain results consistent with it being a smoothly varying wave; make another, different kind of measurement and one will obtain results consistent with it being a collection of discrete particles. Similarly, if one observes an atom using a scanning tunnelling electron microscope one will see an apparently solid object; if, on the other hand, one observes it with a γ-ray microscope one will see a collection of point-like particles separated by empty space. So which of these pictures is the true one? Quantum mechanics declines to say, just as it declines to say what is going on in a physical system when no one is looking. In place of the God-like conspectus of the entire universe, with nothing left out, which Descartes imagined and which continued to inspire physicists for 250 years after him, quantum mechanics merely gives us methods for anticipating what will be observed in this or that particular experimental context. Moreover, the fact, that the outcome depends 2 Although there were 19th century physicists, such as Mach [18], who did not agree with Descartes about the goal of physics. 4 on the observer’s decision as to which measurement to make, casts doubt on the assumption, that physics passively records events that would have happened anyway, in the absence of experimental intervention. This represents a subtle, but important departure from the Cartesian ideal of total objectivity. Since the 1920s there have been numerous attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics with Cartesian assumptions, as to what the world ought to be like (for an overview see, for example, Schlosshauer [19]). These attempts have been successful to the extent that it seems there is nothing to logically exclude the possibility that, underlying the observations, there is some universal mathematical mechanism. The difficulty is finding a picture of this kind which is empirically substantiated. When Einstein embarked on the project, of finding an alternative to the Copenhagen Interpretation, he doubtless hoped to find a single theory which, like the general theory of relativity, would be uniquely specified by the interplay of various empirical and aesthetic considerations. Doubtless he also hoped for new empirical predictions. Of course, conclusive demonstrations are not to be had in science. So no one can say for sure that Einstein’s hopes will not be fulfilled at some time in the future. But it does seem to me that the effect of eighty years of theoretical work has been to make those hopes look increasingly forlorn. My own feeling is that an adequate understanding of quantum mechanics ultimately depends, not on sophisticated technical developments, but on some simple conceptual shift—something a little like the perceptual shift which occurs when one looks at a diagram like the Necker cube, or the duck-rabbit picture (Wittgenstein [20] p.194e, Kihlstrom [21]). I doubt that quantum mechanics is intrinsically weird. It only seems weird because we insist on looking at it through Cartesian spectacles. The problem is that Cartesian assumptions have become so deeply ingrained in our thinking that it is hard to find the right non-Cartesian spectacles. Turning to the other pole of the Cartesian duality, philosophers are familiar with the privacy of Cartesian consciousness: the fact that the consciousness of another person is, from the Cartesian point of view, just as inescapably hidden as the wave function is in the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics (Bell [22], p.202). What is less widely appreciated is that there is a problem with ascertaining the contents of one’s own consciousness. A particularly striking illustration of this point comes from the study of eye movements in reading [23, 24]. In order to explain it I first need to say something about the physiology of human vision. The region of the retina where the receptors are packed most tightly, and where visual acuity is consequently highest, is called the fovea. The part of the visual field which falls on the fovea subtends an angle of ∼ 1◦ at the centre of the lens. Visual acuity falls off rapidly as one moves away from this region, which means that in a single fixation of the eyes one is able to discriminate fine detail in only a very small portion of the visual field (a portion about the size of a thumbnail held at arm’s length). The reason the visual system is nonetheless able to acquire accurate information about the whole environment is that the eyes are continually performing jumps, or saccades. When reading the duration of a single saccade is typically ∼ 30 ms, while the duration of the 5 fixation between saccades is typically ∼ 200 ms (in other activities the saccades are often bigger, and take correspondingly longer). During a saccade very little information is transmitted to the cortical processing areas (this phenomenon is called saccadic suppression, or saccadic masking). It can consequently be said that most of our visual awareness is based on ∼ 4 snapshots per second, each of them covering only a small fraction of the visual field. I believe that these facts are already very counter-intuitive from a Cartesian point of view: it is surprising (on Cartesian assumptions) that at any moment one sees so little in fine detail, and suprising also that there are so few jumps per second (a movie which ran at 4 frames per second would look jumpy). However, it gets worse (worse, I mean, from a Cartesian point of view). The eye muscles give a brief twitch to initiate a saccade, and thereafter the eyeballs move ballistically, subject only to frictional forces. Consequently, a computer attached to an eye-tracking device can calculate where the next fixation is going to be before the eyes actually land there. This makes possible the following experiment. One takes a page of printed text and projects it onto a screen, replacing all the letters by x’s. The experimental subject sits in front of the screen, and his/her eye-movements are monitored. During a saccade the computer calculates where the eyes are going to alight, and puts a handful of letters from the original page just at that point, leaving x’s everywhere else. In the next saccade the computer wipes those letters, replacing them by x’s, and puts another group of letters at the next fixation point. And so on. To illustrate, in one experiment the original text was By far the single most abundant substance in the biosphere is the familiar but unusual inorganic compound called water. In nearly all its physical properties water is either unique or at the extreme end of the range of a property. It’s extraordinary while what appeared on the screen during one particular fixation was Xx xxx xxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxx xxx xxxsual inorganic coxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx. Xx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxxx xx xx xxx xxxxxxx xxx xx xxx xxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx. Xx’x xxxxxxxxxxxxx (example taken from Rayner [23]). This, and other, similar techniques have been used to acquire a wealth information about the visual system. However, its relevance to the present discussion is simply this. To an observer whose eye movements are not synchronized with the screen it is obvious (a) that at any moment the screen contains almost nothing but x’s and (b) that what is on the screen is constantly changing. However, to the experimental subject, whose eye movements are synchronized, the screen looks like a perfectly normal page of text. To convey just how good the illusion is Grimes [25] (also see Dennett [4], p.361) records that one of the first people to conduct an experiment of this kind served as the first experimental subject; after a while he sat back from the apparatus and announced that something must be wrong with the system because the text was not changing—though it was, in fact, working perfectly. 6 I believe that if one reflects on this fact, that it is demonstratively impossible to tell the difference between a normal page of printed text, and a page which at any given moment consists almost entirely of x’s, then one becomes genuinely uncertain, as to what precisely are the contents of one’s own consciousness at any given moment. Looking at the page in front of me I can see that it does not consist almost entirely of x’s. I am able to know this because information is integrated across saccades. Consequently, I am aware, not only of the information acquired on this present visual fixation, but also of information acquired on many previous fixations. But how much information is integrated across saccades? What precisely is its nature? And precisely how much of that information is contained in my consciousness? The first two of these questions are empirical questions which can be, and actually are being investigated by the usual scientific methods. However, the last is of a different character. At least, it is of a different character if it is consciousness of the Cartesian sort which is in question. On Cartesian principles, consciousness is private. It follows that if I myself cannot tell what exactly are the contents of my own consciousness, then no amount of neuroscientific experimentation can tell either. That is the case for my consciousness of the printed text now in front of me. Like the position of the particle in a two-slit experiment, my consciousness now is indeterminate. There are numerous other experiments and examples pointing to the same conclusion. For details the reader may consult refs. [4, 5, 16, 17, 25, 26], and references cited therein. I will here confine myself to just two other examples. Grimes [25] used an eye-tracking device coupled to a computer to examine what happened when a picture (as opposed to a page of printed text) was changed in the middle of a saccade. In one such experiment, in a picture of two men wearing differently coloured hats, the hats were switched mid-saccade. 100% of the experimental subjects did not notice. Even more dramatically, in another case a parrot, occupying roughly 25% of the picture area, was switched from brilliant green to brilliant red mid-saccade. In this case most of the subjects did notice. But 18% of them did not. 25% of the picture area is a lot, and it raises the question: what exactly is one conscious of, if one does not notice a change as striking as that? A second illustration is the one given by Dennett [4] (pp.3545), of wallpaper in which the pattern consists of a large number of identical images of Marilyn Monroe. If one looks at it it will only take one a second or two to realize that the images are all the same. Since the eye performs only a few saccades per second it is impossible that one has discriminated more than a handful of the images in sufficient detail to be able to identify it. Instead the visual system must essentially be making a guess, based on the small number of cases which it has accurately discriminated. So the question arises again: in a case like this what exactly are the contents of consciousness? In ordinary life, and in physics also before the 20th century, the assumption, that a physical object always has a determinate trajectory, works very well. But when we push our investigations far enough we start to run into difficulties. Similarly with the concept of consciousness: when we start to ask the kind of detailed questions raised in the last few paragraphs we run into problems which are not entirely dissimilar to the problems which quantum mechanics reveals 7 with the other side of the Cartesian polarity. It is often thought that quantum indeterminacies are weird—humanly unimaginable. That is to get it exactly the wrong way round. What is impossible to imagine is knowing the position of something to infinitely many decimal places. On other hand, ordinary experience is full of indeterminacies. If someone wants to know what it would be like to perceive an indeterminate position all they need do is look at an object in a room, and try to estimate its distance from the walls. It is unlikely that they can achieve even 10% accuracy. Similarly, to know what it is like to perceive a number indeterminacy (such as the indeterminacy of photon number in a coherent state) all one need do is look at a collection of objects on a table. If one is then asked how many objects there are it is unlikely one will be able to say, without first taking the time to count them up. The fact that one cannot answer straight away (and probably could not answer at all if one did not still have the objects in view) suggests that at the time of asking one was conscious of the objects, but not of their number. Dennett has written a book entitled Consciousness Explained [4]. Since I agree with Dennett on a number of points I ought to stress that I do not agree with him on this central one. Specifically, I do not think that he, or anyone else, is close to “explaining consciousness”. Like Pauli, I think that a satisfactory understanding of these questions will involve breaking out of the Cartesian mould entirely, and developing a different conceptual framework. At this stage I should perhaps obviate another potential misunderstanding. There have been a number of attempts to explain consciousness using quantum mechanics (see Atmanspacher [27] for a review). Since these approaches all depend on adopting a non-Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and since they take the Cartesian concept of consciousness for granted, it should be apparent, from what I said earlier, that I do not find any of them convincing. If I keep mentioning consciousness and quantum mechanics in the same breath (so to speak) it is not because I think that one of them can be used to explain the other, but because I think that in both cases a clear understanding of the phenomena is obstructed by the same misguided Cartesian philosophy. A second, subsidiary reason is that I cannot help being struck by parallels3 . What the parallels are worth, I do not know. But I find them interesting. Here is another. Dennett [4] argues, to my mind persuasively, that in discussions of consciousness it is essential to take careful account of the probe (i.e. the specific question used to elicit a response at a specific time in a specific experimental context). Furthermore, if one tries to interpret the results obtained using different probes in terms of a single, coherent story—a “trajectory of consciousness”—one runs into difficulties (see, for instance, Dennett’s discussion of the colour phi and cutaneous rabbit experiments). Also, the probe disturbs the system: it can bring into existence a conscious content which otherwise might not have occurred. This is all reminiscent of the situation in quantum mechanics (there are major differences, but it is reminiscent). 3 For other discussions of this, and related points see refs. [8, 28–32], and references cited therein. 8 At this stage it will be useful to look at the historical development of Cartesian ideas. In the first place this is a good way to see that the Cartesian concept of consciousness, so far from being a natural intuition (as I believe many people are still inclined to think), actually depends on postulates which, although they have since become second-nature for many people, originally had to be worked out slowly and laboriously. In the second place, it brings out the fact that the Cartesian philosophy was intimately related to the 17th century development of modern science. The Cartesian concept of consciousness is a 17th century invention. It did not exist before4 . In order to appreciate just how original a departure it was, one needs to see it in the context of the earlier conceptions it replaced. Concerning classical Graeco-Roman philosophical ideas5 Matson [36] writes Any teaching assistant can set up the mind-body problem so that any freshman will be genuinely worried about it. Yet none of the ancients ever dreamed of it, not even the author of De Anima. and he goes on to observe that “In the whole classical corpus there exists no denial of the view that sensing is a bodily process throughout.” Similarly, Caston [37], discussing the question whether “Aristotle even had a concept of consciousness,” observes that, although “Aristotle clearly distinguishes being awake and alert from being asleep or knocked out”, he “does not use any single word to pick out the phenomena we have in mind,” and he “does not share the epistemological concerns distinctive of the Cartesian conception of consciousness, such as privacy or indubitability”. In other words, Aristotle had the everyday concept of consciousness, but not the Cartesian one. There were philosophers in the ancient Graeco-Roman world whose thinking was in some ways similar to the Cartesian philosophy. The one who came closest was probably St. Augustine. It has been suggested, in fact, that Augustine was a significant influence on Descartes [33, 38–42], though opinions differ as to the extent of that influence6 . Like other philosophers in the Platonic and neoPlatonic tradition (and as one might expect of a Christian theologian) Augustine believed in the existence of an immortal soul. He also thought that one has indubitable knowledge of one’s own existence: 4 Rorty [33] makes this point in some detail. His discussion is very useful. However, Rorty is not much interested in natural science. In his own words, he tends to “view natural science as in the business of controlling and predicting things, and as largely useless for philosophical purposes” (Saatkamp [34], p.32). Consequently he misses a number of points which are crucial for the present discussion. Burtt [35] is also very relevant. 5 In the interests of brevity I will here confine myself to the European, Islamic and Jewish philosophical traditions, which are closely related, and which are the ones most relevant to Descartes’ intellectual milieu. For the bearing of Buddhism on the problem of consciousness see Blackmore [17]. 6 Descartes himself explicitly denied that he had been influenced (though he welcomed what he considered to be the few superficial and purely accidental resemblances as providing useful ammunition in his arguments with Dutch Calvinists) [40]. However, as Wilson [40] points out, that is not, by itself, conclusive since Descartes was in the habit of downplaying, and even outright denying his intellectual debts. 9 In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. [Augustine [43], Book XI, Chapter 26] However, this anticipation of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum should not be allowed to obscure the differences between Augustine and Descartes, which are considerable. In the first place Augustine, so far from making the indubitability of one’s own existence central to his philosophy, only mentions it halfway through the City of God [43] (similarly with the argument as he gives it in Against the Academics [44] and On the Trinity [45]). There is no suggestion that the only thing of which one can be really certain is the existence of one’s own consciousness, and that everything else must be deduced from that. On the contrary, he takes it for granted, as something which does not require demonstration, that in most cases sense-perceptions convey genuine and reliable information about the external world (O’Daly [46], p.95). Concerning this point Matthews [41] says It is, I should say, a singularly important fact about Descartes’s Meditations that reading them can put one in the grip of what has come to be called “the problem of the external world.” . . . There is no similarly desperate ego-isolation in Augustine. In the second place Augustine’s concept of the soul was completely different from the Cartesian one. For Augustine the soul is the “the phenomenon of life in things” (O’Daly [46], p.11). On this conception a bird needs a soul in order to fly, quite as much a person needs one in order to think. Finally, Augustine had a different theory of sensation from Descartes. Unlike Descartes, he thought of sensation as an active process, in which “the soul, as agent of sensation, activates the force of sentience through a fine corporeal medium” (O’Daly [46], p.82). Thus in vision he thought that rays burst out of the eye and range abroad, “so that seeing becomes a kind of visual touching, just as hearing is, so to speak, aural touching” (ibid ). In the Cartesian picture the world is conceived as a sort of spectacle, and the observer as a member of the audience, whose role is purely passive. In Augustine’s conception, by contrast, it is as if the audience climbs onto the stage and walks around among the actors, touching and feeling them. Given that those are his assumptions I feel that one would not expect him to think in Cartesian terms, of consciousness as an internal movie show. Unfortunately the obscurities of the texts are such that it is difficult to be sure that he does not. Matthews [47] takes the view that Although commentators have sometimes suggested otherwise, Augustine’s theory of sense perception is not representational, if one understands by “a representational theory of sense perception” one according to which an image or sense-datum is the direct object of perception. 10 Kenny [48] thinks that judgment is “most likely” correct (p. 215). Spade [49], on the other hand, takes a different view. However, it seems to me that the very fact that there is this scope for disagreement is an indication that Augustine cannot really have been thinking in Cartesian terms. If someone has genuinely caught the Cartesian bug they tend to make it very obvious. It was no different in the medieval period. As one would expect medieval philosophers had the everyday concept of consciousness. Moreover Augustine was one of the most widely read philosophers during the medieval period; consequently It was a commonplace in medieval philosophy that no one can be in doubt about the existence of one’s own soul. [Yrjönsuuri [50], p.253] Philosophers were also familiar with Avicenna’s argument, that it is possible to imagine oneself as a disembodied soul, without sensory experiences (ibid ). However, they did not have any of the other notions which go to make up the Cartesian concept of consciousness [33, 48, 50–53]. The medieval philosopher who is most relevant to the present discussion is Aquinas, since he was the most prominent scholastic philosopher, and consequently the figure most responsible for determining the view which Descartes opposed. Unlike Augustine, who was a Platonist, Aquinas was an Aristotelian. Nevertheless they had certain things in common. In the first place Aquinas, like Augustine considered the soul to be “whatever makes the difference between animate and inanimate objects” (Kenny [53], p.129). So as Aquinas saw it a tree, or a beetle has a soul, just as a person does. Moreover the soul is implicated in every manifestation of life: in the act of digesting one’s food, or the act of conceiving and bearing a child, no less than in the act of thinking. In the second place Aquinas, like Augustine and like just about every other medieval philosopher, was primarily interested in those aspects of the soul which make people special. It is these which go to make up the medieval concept of mind. The soul of a beetle is capable of sensation, so sensation was not considered to be something mental. On the other hand neither a beetle, nor any other non-human living organism can have abstract thoughts or take rational decisions (or so medieval philosophers assumed). Consequently mind, as medieval philosophers conceived it to be, essentially consists of only two faculties of the soul: intellect and will (see, for example, Kenny [53] p.16). The medieval concept of soul was thus much broader than the Cartesian one, while the medieval concept of mind was much narrower (Descartes, by contrast, identified the concepts of mind and soul). From the fact that this was the way in which medieval philosophers parcelled up the phenomena, I think it can already be seen that they were rather unlikely to arrive at anything like the Cartesian concept of consciousness. For our purposes there are two important differences between Aquinas and Augustine. The first is that Aquinas, following Aristotle, considered that the soul is the form of the body. This might be thought a surprising view for someone who, as recently as the last century, could fairly be described as the official philosopher of the Catholic Church [48]. How, one might ask, is it to be reconciled with a belief in the immortality of the soul? The answer is, only 11 with difficulty (see Kenny [53] for a critical discussion). Nevertheless, although Aquinas thought that the soul, like the smile of the Cheshire cat, could survive the death of its body, he also thought that what survives is not the person whose soul it was, and, furthermore, not fully human. As he put it: . . . but the soul, since it is part of the body of a human being, is not a whole human being, and my soul is not I; so even if a soul gains salvation in another life, that is not I or any human being [translated Kenny [53], p.138] (it was therefore essential, as Aquinas saw it, that the soul should be re-united with the body on the day of judgment). It might, perhaps, be said that the fact that Aquinas thought that the soul is detachable from the body makes him in some sense a dualist (though I doubt he would have agreed). However, his dualism (if “dualism” is the right word) is less extreme than that of Descartes (Descartes would not have said that what survives the death of my body is “not I”). It could be said that Aquinas’ conception of human nature is earthier than the Cartesian one. The second important difference is that Aquinas, unlike Augustine, thought of sensation as a passive process. However, his conception is no closer than Augustine’s to the Cartesian concept of an interior movie show. As Kenny puts it: In Aquinas theory there are no intermediaries like sense-data which come between perceiver and perceived. In sensation the sense-faculty does not come into contact with a likeness of the sense-object. Instead, it becomes itself like the sense-object, by taking on the senseobjects form . . . (ibid., p.135) My aim in giving this brief historical review was to stress the originality of Descartes’ conception of consciousness. If, in over 2000 years of previous philosophical thinking, no one had come up with anything like it, then it follows that, whatever else, the idea cannot be regarded as obvious. The question now arises: what led Descartes to make such a radical break with the philosophical past? It is often suggested that religion, and a consequent belief in the immortality of the soul, is a motive for a dualistic conception of human nature. That may be so, in many cases. However, I do not think it can account for Descartes adopting a much more radical version of dualism than his medieval predecessors. Aquinas, like every other major medieval Latin philosopher, was first and foremost a theologian, whereas Descartes’ interests where strongly secular, being centred on mathematics, physics and physiology. If religion was the explanation then, of the two, one would expect it to have been Aquinas who had the more ethereal conception of mind. Yet in fact it was just the other way around. It is impossible to establish the point conclusively. But I think there are reasons for believing that the real motivation came from Galilean physics. Galileo was strongly committed to the Pythagorean idea, that the world is fundamentally mathematical in character [35]. As he put it in a famous passage from The Assayer [54] (p.183) 12 Philosophy is written in this all-encompassing book that is constantly open before our eyes, that is the universe; but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to understand the language and knows the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures; without these it is humanly impossible to understand a word of it, and one wanders around pointlessly in a dark labyrinth. Of course, the universe does not, at first sight, appear to be a book to be written in the language of mathematics. Galileo consequently needed to account for all the seemingly non-mathematical, qualitative features of the world, such as colours, sounds and smells, which do not easily fit in with his mathematizing programme. For that purpose he adopted a doctrine of the ancient atomists [55], and denied that they are features of objective reality at all, asserting instead that they are somehow produced in the “sensitive body”: Accordingly, I say that as soon as I conceive of a corporeal substance or material, I feel indeed drawn by the necessity of also conceiving that it is bounded and has this or that shape; that it is large or small in relation to other things; that it is in this or that location and exists at this or that time; that it moves or stands still; that it touches or does not touch another body; and that it is one, a few, or many. Nor can I, by any stretch of the imagination, separate it from these conditions. However, my mind does not feel forced to regard it as necessarily accompanied by such conditions as the following: that it is white or red, bitter or sweet, noisy or quiet, and pleasantly or unpleasantly smelling; on the contrary, if we did not have the assistance of our senses, perhaps the intellect and the imagination by themselves would never conceive of them. Thus, from the point of view of the subject in which they seem to inhere, these tastes, odors, colors, etc., are nothing but empty names; rather they inhere only in the sensitive body, such that if one removes the animal, then all these qualities are taken away and annihilated. (ibid, p.185) I believe that we see in this passage the actual origin of the Cartesian concept of consciousness. It is true that Galileo himself did not go into details, as to the nature of the “sensitive body”. But I think that once this step had been taken the subsequent development, though not inevitable7 , became very natural. It is worth noting that neither Galileo nor Descartes managed to give a cogent justification for the distinction between primary qualities8 , supposed to be objectively real, and secondary qualities, supposed to be in some sense illusory. Before the twentieth century the best that could be done was to appeal to the empirical successes of classical physics, which might have been thought to 7 Its lack of inevitability can be seen from, for example, the fact that the ancient atomists [55] did not develop a concept of consciousness similar to the Cartesian one. 8 The terminology “primary” and “secondary” is actually due to Locke [56] 13 be based on it. Since the 1920s there has not even been that justification. Quite the reverse, in fact: the search for primary qualities consistent with quantum mechanics has been a source of endless difficulties. I believe that Burtt [35] gets it right when he says that in its first inception the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities was “buttressed by nothing more than a mathematical apriorism.”9 (p.311). Rorty (ref. [33], pp. 50-51 and 54-55) asks what sensations, hallucinations, dreams, mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression “and all the rest of what we now call ‘mental’” have in common. It seems to me that this is like asking what all the miscellaneous objects one finds on a rubbish dump have in common. The answer is, of course, that they have nothing in common beyond the fact that their former owners have no use for them. Similarly with the Cartesian conception of consciousness: it is a garbage can for all the many things which mathematical physicists want to be rid of. Descartes’ complaint about Galileo was that he “digresses continually” and “does not stop to explain fully any subject” (letter to Mersenne, quoted in Ariew [57]). To see the kind of thing Descartes might have had in mind consider Drake’s [58] comments, on Galileo’s failure to give an explicit statement of the law of inertia: A modern physicist reading Galileo’s writings would share the puzzlement — I might say the frustration — experienced by Ernst Mach a century ago, when he searched those works in vain for the general statement that (he felt) ought to be there. It would become evident to you, as it was to Newton and Mach, that Galileo was in possession of the law of inertia, but you would not then be able to satisfy those historians who demand a clear and complete statement, preferably in print, as a condition of priority. As Drake goes on to say, it is “ironical” that as a result of this failure on Galileo’s part the law of inertia “should be credited to Descartes, whose physics on the whole operated to impede the scientific progress begun by Galileo and continued by Newton”. I imagine that Descartes would have been equally frustrated by Galileo’s failure to go into details, regarding events inside the “sensitive body,” and, more generally, by his failure to give a unified account of the cosmos as a whole, conceived in mechanistic terms. I suggest that it was Descartes’ aim, in his early works The World [59] and Treatise on Man [59], to rectify those deficiencies. In the mature form of his philosophy, as represented by Meditations on First Philosophy [60] and Principles of Philosophy [59], Descartes set out his ideas as a logico-deductive system, starting from the famous proposition cogito ergo sum. However, an examination of the historical record indicates that this badly obscures the route by which he was actually led to them. In his early works The World and Treatise on Man there is no mention of the cogito argument. Instead 9 At a later date one could appeal to the empirical successes of the classical theories apparently based on the doctrine, but not at the time of its first inception. 14 these works are entirely devoted to a mechanistic description of the world, conceived along the lines Galileo had previously suggested, and of our relation to it. Moreover, the treatment is not deductive (as it was in his subsequent writings) but avowedly hypothetical: he is at pains to stress that he is not saying how the world definitely is, but only how it conceivably might be. They form part of a larger project, which occupied him during the years 1630–1633 [61]. The other parts were either never written, or else have been lost; there is also the possibility that parts were included in subsequent publications. At all events the works as we have them now are incomplete. The reason for this is that at the end of 1633 Descartes learned of Galileo’s condemnation by the Inquisition and, not wanting “to publish a single word that the Church disapproved of,” he “preferred to suppress it rather than publish it in a mutilated form” (letter to Mersenne, quoted in Gaukroger [61], pp.290-1). The works as we have them now were only published after his death. In The World Descartes begins by making the same distinction between primary and secondary qualities that Galileo does in The Assayer. The fact that he uses one of Galileo’s own examples (the tickling sensation produced by a feather) suggests that he was well aware of what Galileo had previously written on the subject. However, he introduces a novelty: namely, the proposition that the ideas (what would nowadays be called the sense-impressions) of secondary qualities such as colour have no “resemblance” to qualities actually inherent in objects themselves. The question naturally arises: does he also maintain the correlative proposition, that the ideas of primary qualities such as shape do resemble properties inherent in objects themselves? He writes in such a way that the unwary reader is likely to assume that he does. Yet, although it is true that he never (neither in The World nor anywhere else, so far as I am aware) explicitly denies this second proposition, it is also true that he is usually careful not to explicitly affirm it. There is one exception to this. In the Principles of Philosophy he says that “we appear to see clearly” that our idea of extended matter “comes to us from things located outside ourselves, which it wholly resembles” (Descartes [59], p.223): which, although it is not quite the same as to say that the idea of shape resembles something in the object itself, seems rather close. Of course, it is easy to see that Descartes is on the horns of a dilemma here. On the one hand he thinks that the mind, and ideas in the mind are unextended (i.e. clean outside the physical universe); and it is hard to see how something fundamentally non-spatial can “wholly resemble” something that fundamentally is spatial10 . On the other hand, if he were to say that the ideas of properties like shape do not resemble anything in the outside world, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities would evaporate. The question, as to what exactly Descartes did think, as to the relationship between sensations and the objects around us, is vexed, and 10 Something non-spatial might conceivably correspond to something spatial (c.f. Descartes [59], p.218). But “correspond” is too weak for Descartes’ purposes. Colour sensations correspond to properties in objects, on his theory. He needs a much stronger relation than mere correspondence to substantiate the primary-secondary distinction. But what could that relation possibly be? 15 it has given rise to a substantial literature11 (see refs. [61–66], and references cited therein). But these exegetical considerations are, in a way, irrelevant. Irrespective of Descartes own views, I think it is fair to say that, on a popular level, one of the actual effects of his writings was to encourage the notion that, by the simple operation of subtracting all the secondary qualities in our imaginative depictions, we can arrive at a perfectly faithful picture of things as they really are. This idea, that the aim of physics is to supply us with the one true picture of things, was extremely influential in the past. Moreover, although those who accept the Copenhagen interpretation have abandoned the idea, I am not sure that the same is true of all the anti-Copenhagenists. At all events, I think it must be fair to say that the anti-Copenhagenists remain wedded to the related, and, as it seems to me, equally dubious idea, that the goal of physics is to provide us with the one true description of things (or, at least, the vocabulary and syntax of that description). Also, the notion continues to be widespread, that when one looks at a rose the shape one sees is in some sense12 real, while the colour is only a quale in the head. In Treatise on Man Descartes turns to a description of the human body conceived as a mechanism, with particular emphasis on the brain. He ends with a promise to give a description of the “rational soul”. Unfortunately this description is one of the parts of the manuscript which was either never written, or else has been lost. However, since everything he says about the brain is conformable with later accounts (down to and including the special status of the pineal gland), I think it is fair to assume that he intended to give an account of the soul which was similarly conformable. Specifically, I think it may be assumed that he intended to say that the soul is a separate, immaterial entity interacting with the brain via the pineal gland. Moreover, I think it is easy to see why he would have said that. I do not say it was inevitable that he would take such a view. Indeed, his contemporary Thomas Hobbes, in the Third Set of Objections (published jointly with the Meditations), argued for a completely materialistic conception of human nature [60]. However, it does seem to me that, given his opinions about primary and secondary qualities, it was very natural for Descartes to take such a view. It would be inconsistent with his Pythagorean principles13 to suppose that, located here and there in the otherwise colourless expanse of mathematical mechanism, there are little brightly painted islands. It would be equally inconsistent to suppose that, dotted around in the mechanism, there are little islands somehow endowed with subjective colour experiences. Since he could not locate colour perceptions inside the physical universe, what else could he do but locate them outside? 11 It does seem to me that a person whose writings cannot be understood without the assistance of an army of exegetes has failed to express himself clearly. I also feel that, in such a case, it is not unreasonable to suspect that the unclarity in the words reflects a corresponding unclarity in the underlying thoughts. 12 But what sense precisely? 13 Hobbes was not a mathematician, and is unlikely to have shared Descartes’ Pythagorean feelings. Perhaps that is the reason he could accept the move to full materialism. Perhaps it is also the reason the ancient Atomists (who were not Pythagoreans either) were not led to the Cartesian concept of consciousness. 16 Descartes ceased working on the manuscript eventually published as The World and Treatise on Man at the end of 1633. According to Gaukroger the first hard evidence14 of him taking an interest in scepticism comes a year later in an account by Samuel Hartlib, who describes him “complaining of the uncertainties of all things” in the winter of 1634/5 (Gaukroger [61], p.304). The first published version of the cogito argument appeared in the Discourse on the Method [59], in June 1637. This argument is another of Descartes’ strikingly original departures from previous philosophical thinking. As I mentioned earlier, it was a medieval commonplace, due originally to Augustine, that one cannot doubt the existence of one’s own soul [50]. Moreover there was a widespread interest in sceptical arguments during the early Modern period [67]. However, there was no precedent for the way in which Descartes put these ingredients together. The cogito argument begins with what is sometimes called an act of hyperbolic doubt. It is worth asking what motivated this step. As Wittgenstein has stressed one needs reasons to doubt [68]. One also needs a suitable context. At least, one does if one wants people to listen. Suppose someone expressed doubt, as to whether their head contained sawdust instead of brains (Wittgenstein [68], p.36e). This would be a much more modest doubt than the global, all-encompassing act of scepticism with which Descartes begins the cogito argument. Yet no one would take it seriously. While people have taken the Cartesian doubt very seriously indeed: it is fair to say that the problem of the external world, and the various philosophical movements to which it has given rise (empiricism, subjective idealism, Kantianism, objective idealism, positivism, pragmatism, phenomenology, . . . ) has been the dominant theme in Western philosophy for the last 350 years. Why is that? I think the answer is that, although in the context of everyday life it would be crazy to doubt the existence of external reality, in the context of the views expressed in The Assayer, The World and Treatise on Man the doubt becomes very reasonable. If one has become convinced that, in sober truth, our senses are radically misleading us as to the existence of colours, sounds, tastes etc, then it is surely very natural to wonder if they might also be misleading us as to the existence of shapes, sizes, positions etc. And if one has got as far as wondering if the senses are to be trusted at all, then how does one avoid doubting the existence of external reality? Moreover, I would suggest that that reason for doubting was operative, not only in the mind of Descartes, but also in the minds of his philosophical successors. It was operative precisely because it was widely believed that science had shown that our senses are radically misleading us. Scientists who are scornful of philosophical worries about the existence of the external world miss the point: it was science itself (or what people thought of as science) which originally motivated the worries [35]. In short, I would suggest that all the distinctive features of the Cartesian 14 Popkin, however, notes that an autobiographical passage in Discourse on the Method suggests that the line of thought which led to the cogito argument started earlier, in 1628 or 1629 (Popkin [67], p.147; Descartes [59], p.126) 17 philosophy are consequences1516 of Galileo’s original Pythagorean hypothesis, that the world is fundamentally mathematical in character, and of the related distinction between primary and secondary qualities. In particular, this whole way of thinking is rooted in the Galilean-Cartesian concept of matter. Cartesian consciousness is a secondary concept, parasitic on that. There is an irony in this story. In the 17th century there was no possibility of finding solid empirical support for the micro-mechanical explanations of such phenomena as colour, or heat, on which the Galilean-Cartesian philosophy was based. These explanations remained highly speculative until the 19th century when hard evidence started to accumulate. Even then progress was slow, as can be seen from the fact that in the late 19th century controversy about atomism the two sides were equally matched [69–72]. A nice illustration of this is the fact that in the 1890’s Planck, who was subsequently to inaugurate an atomistic view of electromagnetic radiation, was sceptical about atoms, to the extent that Boltzmann could attribute to him the opinion that work on kinetic theory was a “waste of time and effort” (Kuhn [70], pp.22-3; also see Krips [71]). It was only in the 20th century that the validity of micro-mechanical explanations of the behaviour of matter was established to the satisfaction of every competent physicist. The irony is that the same advances which finally vindicated micro-mechanical explanations also cast serious doubt on Galilean-Cartesian assumptions about what such explanations ought to be like. Indeed, one of the key papers leading to the general acceptance of atomism (Einstein’s 1905 Brownian motion paper [73]) was published in the same year, by the same person, as one of the key papers casting doubt on Galilean-Cartesian assumptions (Einstein’s 1905 photoelectric paper [74]). Quantum mechanics challenges the whole Galilean-Cartesian framework. It is a challenge which has yet to call forth an adequate response. The Copenhagen Interpretation provides a way of thinking about quantum experiments which is sufficient for the practical needs of working physicists. But, as its critics point out, it hardly amounts to a coherent philosophy of nature. Yet, instead of taking the hint from experiment, and trying to move forward, the response of those critics has mostly been to fall back on old, 17th century modes of thought, and to try to find ways of interpreting quantum phenomena which would be consistent with Cartesian assumptions. Over half a century ago Pauli described such attempts as “regressive” (see, for instance, the letter to Fierz quoted in Gieser [1], p.266), and it seems to me that everything which has happened since tends to confirm that judgment. What we need to do is to dig up the GalileanCartesian foundations and replace them with a different conceptual structure, better adjusted to all we have learned since the year 1900. The Cartesian philosophy is built on two key principles: (1) the Pythagorean hypothesis, that there is one true, complete description of the world, expressible in mathematical language and (2) the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. I believe we ought to abandon both those principles. 15 Not consequences in a rigorous, deductive logical sense, but in a looser, psychological sense. 16 This is close to Burtt’s [35] conclusion. 18 The idea, naturally suggested by quantum mechanics, that we should dispense with the Pythagorean hypothesis, produces in many people a sense of vertigo. They fear that letting go of this is tantamount to letting go of the concept of physical reality. But that merely shows that they are so fixated on the Galilean-Cartesian way of thinking about physical reality that they are unable to envisage an alternative. A description is something human. The ability to give descriptions evolved (presumably) in the palaeolithic, for the purpose of communicating such facts as the location of the nearest source of flint-nodules. We have a come a long way since then, cognitively speaking. Nevertheless, the fact is that our modern mathematical descriptions of nature are all expressible in the language of axiomatic set theory, which is a formalization of the naive set theoretic ideas that palaeolithic hunter-gatherers (presumably) used when sorting their stone tools, negotiating their intricate family relationships, etc etc. Moreover, our mathematical descriptions comprise sequences of propositions, just like the verbal communications of palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. In short, our mathematical descriptions bear a clear human imprint. Conceivably the universe splits logically, into a collection of sentence-sized morsels, each perfectly adapted to human cognitive capacities17 . But I see no a priori reason for assuming that to be the case. I believe our attitude to this question should be empirical. If Einstein had achieved the same stunning success, with his attempt to explain quantum mechanics in terms of classical field theory, that he did with general relativity, then there would be reason to take the Pythagorean hypothesis seriously. But since he did not, and since no one else has either, I think there are grounds for scepticism. This is not to say that I question the validity of the partial descriptions we are able to give. Nor is to say that I am an anti-realist. It is not even (necessarily) to deny that God is a mathematician. It is only to say that God is, perhaps, a little more subtle and (dare I say?) interesting than Galileo gave him credit for being. Turning to the primary-secondary distinction, it is obvious that colour perceptions are in some sense subjective. The question is, however, whether they are any more subjective than, for example, the statement that the E vector at position r is 3i − 4j + 7k Vm−1 —where by “statement” I mean the actual ink marks, or the brain states which occur as one reads them. It is true that a colour-blind person will fail to discriminate two colours which a normally sighted person sees to be different: from which it would seem to follow that the colour-blind person has a different visual experience from the normally sighted person. But then it is equally true that a person who measures the electric field intensity to an accuracy of ±1 Vm−1 will have a different cognitive experience from a person who uses a different instrument to measure it to an accuracy of ±0.1 Vm−1 . Colour perceptions, being perceptions, are subjective by definition (in a 17 There is some overlap here with the discussion in Chapter 1 of Rorty [75]. However, the fact that I agree with Rorty, that the universe is not a book, should not be taken to imply that I agree with everything else he says in this chapter. 19 sense). But then, so are quantitative thoughts. Idealists aside, few people are tempted to suppose that, because the belief, that carbon has proton number 6, is only a belief, therefore carbon does not really have proton number 6. No more should one be tempted to suppose that, because the perception of green is only a perception, therefore grass is not really green. The function of eyes is to acquire information. Looking at an object is not the same as listening to a verbal description of that object. But what one acquires by looking is still information, and to that extent it may be regarded as a kind of statement18 . Cartesian-minded classical physicists, like Einstein, supposed that the world is completely describable, in terms of fields (or whatever). Allowing that to be the case, for the sake of argument, it would not follow that the statements of one’s visual system are any more subjective than statements made in the approved mathematical language. What the classical physicist’s description says in one way, using the language of fields, the visual system says in another way, using the language of colours. To be sure visual statements say less—contain less information—than the classical physics description (supposing that to be valid). But that does not make them subjective. If one takes some data given to 10 significant figures, and rounds everything off to 3 significant figures, one loses a lot of information. But the information which remains is no less objective than it was before. Worrying about the difference between the mathematical description and the description in terms of colours is like worrying about the difference between a description in English and the same description written out in French. Colour qualities are no more in the head—and no less in the head—than the electromagnetic field is in the head. Discussions of qualia are often vitiated by the idea that there are two pictures involved: one that is coloured (the picture we get from our eyes) and one that is not (the picture we get from physics). This idea goes back to Descartes, of course, with his talk of colours not “resembling” anything in the object. It is based on a confusion, since neither of these pictures exists. There is no picture in the head, as we have seen. Moreover the mathematical descriptions which physics gives us are not pictures either19 —any more than a verbal description is a picture. Thinking that colours do not exist in reality because there are no colours in the mathematical description is like thinking that a city is colourless because the verbal description in the guidebook is printed in black and white. Back in the Palaeolithic, when language first developed, abstract, symbolic descriptions conveyed much less information than the descriptions we get from our eyes. It was therefore natural to take the visual description to be the standard, or canonical description, against which verbal descriptions were to be judged. Effectively, reality was identified with the visual description (supplemented with information obtained from the other senses). However, with the development of mathematical physics in the 17th century we found an abstract, symbolic mode of description which, unlike ordinary language, was actually su18 Descartes makes an analogy between words and colours at the beginning of The World. However, he fails to draw what I believe to be the correct conclusion 19 It is impossible to imagine the number 3, in the abstract. Similarly, it is impossible to imagine quantities like vectors. The electric field vector, for example. 20 perior to the visual description in terms of informational capacity. It therefore became natural to take the new mathematical description to be the canonical description: in effect, to identify reality with the mathematical description. It seems to me that the lesson of quantum mechanics is that we should drop the whole idea of there being a canonical description. Galileo’s book metaphor is profoundly misleading. There is no mathematical description in the sky. The only descriptions around are the ones we humanly construct and which, being human, are necessarily partial. To say that there is no canonical description with which reality can be identified is not to deny the existence of reality. Supposing there to be a canonical description, we have never known it. Such knowledge of reality as we possess right now is entirely expressed in terms of our ordinary, humanly constructed descriptions. It is not scepticism to suggest that knowledge so expressed is all we ever will possess. In this paper I have essentially confined myself to a criticism of Cartesian philosophy. To construct an adequate non-Cartesian philosophy would take an enormous amount of work. However, I believe there is reason to think that if we were to undertake that project it would lead to a conceptual revolution equal in magnitude to the 17th century Cartesian one. In particular, it would lead to conceptions of the world, and of human nature, which differed as much from the Cartesian conceptions as the latter did from medieval conceptions. So much so that we would, perhaps, no longer want to use the words “consciousness” and “matter” (except in their everyday senses, of course). Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study for their hospitality while carrying out some of the research for this paper. 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Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) 897 Exploration Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) Srinivasan Rengarajan* Abstract According to Vedic thoughts, the cosmic “desire for self-expression as many” culminated in the cyclic “oscillating universe”. In this self-expression, Singularity is the controlling factor & the Universe is its controlled manifestations. Laws of Nature are the laws of singularity, the non-contingent source, the divine laws that govern the universal orbits with precision, the precise laws of the cosmos which the scientists measure with accuracy, the precise parameters of the genotype cosmic seed of the universe. Laws of the universe are the Laws of the aberrations of singularity, the laws of the phenotype tree. Contingent universe in growth/decay cycles projects the panorama & enables us to savor the same “as many”, “unity in diversity”, by “cause & effect” actions. Evolution is all about urge of the cosmic desire, the concentrate of the manifesting vitality at the head of singularity, releasing a portion of its coherent mass as its aberrations, as mass/vitality unions with the big bang for exploring new horizons in the universe. The released masses regain progressively the dislodged coherence, the singularity’s base virtue, the self-healing creativity in dispassion, during the evolution progress. That means this basic creative virtue in the masses become gradually coherent & hence the masses are drawn towards singularity by natural attraction at its base as the evolution progresses, while the depleting manifesting vitality eventually converges back again towards its head. This natural phenomenon culminates in big crunch leading to big bounce, the start of a new cycle. Part II of this series of articles contains the following: 5. Universe; 6. Energy Transfers; 7. Zone of Illusion: Truth, Maya, Lila, Silent Witness; 8. Panorama; 9. Cosmic Intent; 10. Cosmic Wisdom; 11. Bliss; & 12. Invincibility. Keywords: Divine, God, singularity, absolute, universe, cosmic aberration, manifestation, Laws of Nature, laws of universe, evolution, Big Bang, big crunch. 5. Universe Divine “Desire for self-expression as many”, Divine Lila, projected the universe as its panoramic play field for self-exploration. The all-pervading light (jyothi) & sound (shabda) vibrations reveal a variety of shades, forms, atoms to stars, galaxies & sentient humans, products of disintegration of pure matter, cosmic seed, pervading as unions of desire based consciousness & desire based matter in different orientations & vitality rhythms, cosmic tree, discharging self-sustaining karmic actions, fulfilling the “many” aspect of cosmic desire. i.e. as mass (with innate imprints) & energy (immanent consciousness), desire based mass/energy bundles – matter with space gaps within their masses encased in respective mind/space * Correspondence: SrinivasanRengarajan, Independent Researcher. E-mail: sugantha1912@yahoo.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 898 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) horizons, dispersed in the universe as complementary pairs, as individual identities, as satellites dependent on more vital entities. The matter of the universe comprises mainly non-sentient matter undergoing progressive evolution into higher modes depending on their imprints from the source of origin. But some of these gaining mind, life supporting, gender identity imprints etc. in the evolution progress, become souls, beings, astral masses, by the enlivening vitality of the divinity (supra life form with integral sex vitality) radiating the complete range of cosmic genome, holistic consciousness. Although the human beings possess autonomous, self-referral and self-healing energy transfer faculty they are governed by the contingencies of nature’s principles i.e. all the entities have to collectively sport the supra life form. More over a male or a female is only a complementary to each other& only their upgraded union has the evolution intelligence. The higher the up gradation the closer it gets to divinity. Human beings thus have partial control over thoughts & perceptions, i.e., evolution whereas the divinity, the self-actualizing & radiating vitality, is invincible. The human being either male or female, as an evolving vitality is thus only closest to divinity, whereas the divinity is an invincible, monolithic male/female union. The primordial source, bindu, synonymous with male aspects, under the urge of its cosmic desire, fertilized its complementary, bija, the cosmic seed of the evolution process. Aitreya upanishad Cells are the beginning of life and human beings are the highest known life form. What gives the human beings the ethical intelligence and makes them fundamentally different from all other life forms is the human brain. Furthermore, the human brain consists of four complementary pairs of sub brains. Each cerebral hemisphere is a complement to the other, as we now know from the famous leftbrain/right-brain interaction. The highest and most recent known brain is the neocortex, the fourth brain. This is the center of ethics and imagination. The next or third brain is the mammalian cortex, or the limbic system, the center of the emotion of love and its variants plus the higher biological drives. The next or second brain is the reptilian complex, the center of fear, rage, and aggression plus intermediate biological drives. The first and oldest brain is the fish brain, i.e., the rest of the nervous system, which is the basis for the most primitive biological drives and the automatic control of our basic physiology. The human brain is an autopoietic system of four complementary pairs which makes it possible for humanity to take the next quantum leap in evolution, (Ventral view of the human brain, consists of four pairs of complementary brains: fish, reptile, early mammal and human). The living beings thus evolved, sustain & grow in their life cycles as per the environment they are in, till the culmination of the evolution process, depending on the nature of its primal disintegration from the cosmic seed, desire vitality & its evolution progress. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 899 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) Each one of the pairs of pair - sentient complementary pair, being nurtured by both self& holistic consciousness, is thus individually empowered, by its own choice & free will to support its own growth/decay cycles, through its self-referral energy transfers, as living being with either male or female identity, as per encoded tendencies & forms, representing a part of the divinity in universe. The human energy/mass union emanates passionate karmic vibrations in various orientations, whereas the divinity radiates dispassionate coherent energy bursts in eternal harmony. The basic building block of the universe is thus the complementary pair, principle of the divinity itself, existing in multifarious forms nurtured by cosmic forces as non-sentient matter. These gradually progress into coherent autonomous sentient matter, the less vital becoming a satellite of the more vital one, all of these being nurtured by the universal rhythm. The stability of the universe, pervading & enlivening panorama, an expression of divine lila (maya mistaken as the reality) is controlled by the primary transfer till the end of its cycle. EVOLUTION CYCLE The quantum bursts of the big bang that radiated out of the primal pure matter in into the space around in the evolution mode set up the fundamental universal vibration rhythm along with the vitality vibrations of major & minor released entities forming its harmonics, dissipating karmic energy for exploring new horizons in a progressively energy depleting environment, i.e., from evolution to involution till the culmination & merger of masses of various released entities with the pure matter on account of the cosmic attraction - big crunch - to reemerge as selfhealed cosmic radiations of a new evolution cycle. “Projection-sustenance-dissolution” activities in self-healing energy cycles guide the destiny. (Similarly in the zone of the universe, desire based non radial energy dissipations perpetuated by the non-sentient & sentient matter, get disoriented & deteriorated losing the vitality return back to their respective sources, their mooladhara, get conditioned by their respective natural mind/mass rhythms i.e. self-healed /get reoriented, in the tranquility of their return paths e.g. in sleep & meditation modes, from base to head conditioned by the universal rhythm devoid of sensory gratification because of the absence of ego, etc & reemerge in the self-healed orientations for discharging karmic dissipations. Staying absorbed in the thoughts devoid of ego, while retiring to sleep, meditation, concentration etc aids attunement of rhythm of the self, with the universal rhythm & resultant up gradation of its mass content. Thus the progress in evolution, up gradation/degradation, depends on the dispositions of the collective vitalities of the non-sentient & also the autonomous sentient entities, the environment. This Collective vitality of the environment also influences individual dissipations. The universal rhythm, the fundamental rhythm sustaining the energy transfers of major entities & their satellites in their orbital motions, is born out of the big bang, (primordial energy transfer). The energy vibration cycles of major & minor entities depend on respective makeup & hence the vitality of their mass. All these comprise the harmonics of the universal rhythm. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 900 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) It is up to the collective will of beings to make a symphony out of these energy vibrations. The fundamental universal rhythm controls all the energy transfer cycles of major & minor dependent entities periodically, which means, that when self-referral cyclic harmonics of beings cross over the universal rhythm, they may get the self-healing vitality from the universal rhythm due to their proximity. If the self will of the entity is powerful enough to orient itself with the universal rhythm, resonance can be attained. The primordial source does not govern the affairs of the universe directly; it only sustains the universal rhythm through its coherence. New horizons are showing up from time to time, according to the orientation & vibration of individual’s natural “energy/mass” content, innate nature, & also that of the collective i.e. the environment, nurture, each having influence over the other. All these random movements, yet functioning in harmony, sustain under the overall influence of the universal rhythm. But time to time deviations of harmony levels in different locations are difficult to predict because the universal processes are guided by the self-willed interactions between the free & autonomous energy transfers of the sentient human beings & to that extent randomness is inherent in system itself. Moreover the progress in evolution is dependent on the ongoing contingent transformations, while the cosmic energy itself progressively depletes from evolution to involution & with each cycle of events leaving behind its imprints & momentum for the subsequent cycle, past leaving its “self-healed”/stabilized imprints for the present. It is important to realize that all the energy vibrations currently encountered by the entities are all those that are in eternal continuation from inception, perpetuated through transformations & transmigrations. Since all energy vibrations are vitality transfers having influence on the environment, all the non-conducive energy vibrations such as those emanated out of ill feelings, displeasures, abuses & curses can have adverse effect on beings with “weak” will power, till they are revoked or lose their vitality. Intuition, premonition, mysticism, vision etc. may aid in analyzing such conditions, but due care has to be taken to exclude delusions. Counselors (scientific mystics), Gurus, visionaries etc serve the society in this regard. Strong will power is the key to good well-being Hence predicting individual cosmic scheme of events during the course of the evolution process becomes possible only if we can get a clue to the vitality & energy transfer functions of major operating entities of which others exist as satellites. This aspect is covered traditionally by astrology, based on intuitively perceived yogic observations on the effects of major planets & their movements over ages & also by scientific forecasts based on effects of estimated energy & forces in the environment. Both these fields depend on probability where statistics comes as a major tool in evaluation. “Occurrences in our domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature". Einstein. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 901 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) At present science is yet to acknowledge & evaluate the presence of the dark energy, 75% of the total, that controls the orbital motions of planets & hence the cosmic intelligence that sustains natural order amidst all these chaotic dynamics of the universe A visionary outlook, spiritual outlook, “yogic intuition”, self-realization, extra sensory perception-–divinity in man, enables one to visualize, feel & savor the cosmic intelligence that ensures the eternal stability in the environment.1 Total harmony, in an environment of natural orientations & rhythms, presenting a panorama in diversity, prevailed among complementary pairs at the inception of evolution i.e. devoid of non-ego based traits, as per cosmic design. During passage of time, the vitality of the masses of various entities undergo gradual energy depletion in stages, yugas, from energy saturation at evolution till energy depletion at involution (a destined phenomenon of the evolution cycle). At the same time the entities undergo constant transformations due to their karmic & ego energy interferences while enriching/disrupting the panorama with extreme possibilities, life after life. All these contribute to the cyclic variations in harmony levels of the panorama, climatic, social as well as spiritual. The resultant of the collective energy transfers in the universe, collective will of the beings, from time to time only accounts for the progress or otherwise in the evolution process. The gradual decrease in cosmic vitality occurring from evolution to involution thus implies that ongoing changes in the cosmic forces, motions, orbits etc. in physical terms & attitudes, traits, social laws, moral laws (shastras etc. in spiritual terms), are inherent in the cosmic scheme of events till pralaya, total energy depletion. Newer & newer panoramas of unlimited variations springs out of the oneness of pervading vitality, showing as many aberrations, each one being made of the same basic building block sporting one micro form of the primordial source itself. 6. Energy Transfers Energy Transfers - “cause & effect” based cyclic actions & reactions. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. “Desire  imagination  intelligence  willpower  action  gratification” cycles. “attraction  self-healing  radiation” self-referral cycles. “growth/decay” cycles. “transformation/transmigration” cycles. “enlivening” pranic cycles “universal” cycles “cosmic” cycles The absolute mass radiates as its aberrations with I-Ness identity, for fulfillment of its desire, i.e. through pervading & enlivening vitalities in creation /evolution mode till cosmic merger in --Keno Upanishad 1 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 902 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) the involution mode, after the dissipation of all their energy content – cosmic attraction - to bounce again after self-healing in the coherence of the source itself - cosmic cycle. This primary transfer cycle generates self-sustaining coherent radiations, energy bursts, energy transfers, that govern & enliven the universal rhythm by its all-knowing integral gender vitality – enlivening desire vitality. There is a progressive deterioration in desire energy level during the cosmic cycle starting with energy saturation & culminating in energy depletion. In this back drop, the released matter, non-sentient & those undergoing evolution changes as sentient, engage in self-sustaining energy vibrations & motions depending on the vitality of their energy/mass contents, big & small, exert influence on each other through their dissipations. Different vibrations emanating as per encoded imprints from different entities representing different aspects of divinity –supra human form, have “material& spiritual implications” in the environment. Universe is thus a spiritual arena, the domain of “desire based” divine consciousness - Maya, comprising all the released matter with energy content existing in the gaps of space as varna & guna vibrations that are the harmonics of the universal rhythm sustained by the cosmic radiations of singularity. They are meant to be in non-interfering radial orientations since the total volume of pure matter without space gaps, is only about the size of the thumb i.e. 1 cubic centimeter. The non-radial, non-rhythmic & hence disturbing immanent energy transfers of the ego based complementary pairs undergo energy dissipation progressively while their masses regain/lose the coherence, upsetting the “mass/energy/space horizon” relationship of the entities. Due to these changes the complementary nature of the energy/mass bondage of that mode ceases to exist along with its space horizon. The dissociated energy, the pervading vitality of that particular mode, antimatter, lingering cosmic desire for “existence as many’s causes “antimatter/matter” annihilation to form fresh “energy/mass pairs”, encased in their new space horizon, in different orientations & vibrations, as ordained by the cosmic contingencies, transformations of non-sentient matter from one mode to other. The cosmic desire for “selfexpression as many” perpetuates this cosmic destiny through transformations. Desire accounts for the spontaneous affinity of mass & energy –matter & vitality, leading to ready transformation of mass, either on its disintegration or dissipation of energy upsetting their union balance, into different mass/energy unions in compatibility, in eternal cycles, till desire fulfillment/energy exhaustion A non-sentient mass is sustained by immanent consciousness & when it progresses into sentient mass as an astral mass, coherent mass, that can support the growth/decay cycle of its mass medium that means its body mass gets life & becomes a being. This body mass which is already sustained by the cosmic vitality becomes a medium for self’s desire/karmic gratifications. When the body mass loses the support of either this astral mass or the cosmic vitality, death occurs to the being. The astral mass detaches from the body mass & seeks a new compatible medium for karmic gratifications. Transmigration is thus resorted to for sustaining continuity, fulfillment of “self-expression” aspect of cosmic desire. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 903 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) A human being (a union of varna & enlivening vitality), is a sentient mass, an enlivened nonsentient mass that has during the course of evolution progress acquired the self-actualizing imprints with which it can enliven & support its own growth/decay cycles with sex identities, an astral mass with I-ness trait with a body mass as a medium for desire gratification . In a being the karmic energy rises from the base, mooladhara, the seat of energy attraction, through the spine, human vision axis, balanced by the complementary body orientations & functions of the sensory & motoring organs & gets dissipated during its passage finally to the head, for radiation out into the space around. This repetitive karmic energy dissipation which carries on according to the encoded data, desire, mind & will power etc, undergoes depletion along with mass disintegration/mutations/ or up gradation depending on the self-will upsetting the naturally ordained mass/energy union mode resulting in the end of growth/decay cycle, death of a being. As against this natural end, this cycle may also stop abruptly by the external mutations/damage to body mass, its organs or the functions that enliven its pranic vitality. That means the astral mass loses its medium, the body mass, through which it has been savoring karmic gratifications, the source that provides the holistic consciousness imprints to the astral mass, decays, This body mass thereafter undergoes transformation as a non-sentient mass. With this body matter decay, the detached astral mass with cosmic mind/desire/ selfactualization vitality/I-ness/ mind imprints etc (the karmic desire still remaining unfulfilled), gets naturally attracted to the enlivening vitality source in the universe, a compatible reproduction cell of male/female union, a womb with compatible attitudes & tendencies, forming a new “energy/mass” union with its prior orientation, a fresh birth, transmigration. Or in some cases it may get attracted to the cosmic integral gender vitality of the source itself. Desire for “self” existence of the divinity thus carries forward. A fresh growth/decay cycle, a continuation of the previous one, begins from there. Transformations in non-sentient matters as also transmigrations in fully upgraded astral masses –human beings, along with a variety of other ranges in between, are the inherent activities in nature’s replication processes. Energy transfers in the universe cover an infinite range, from non-sentient transformations in matter to growth/decay cycles of body mass & finally to transmigrations of human beings. DNA is encoded with four interchangeable "building blocks", called "bases", which can be abbreviated A, T, C, and G; each base "pairs up" with only one other base: A+T, T+A, C+G and G+C; that is, an "A" on one strand of double-stranded DNA will "mate" properly only with a "T" on the other, complementary strand. Replication is performed by splitting (unzipping) the double strand down the middle via relatively trivial chemical reactions, and recreating the "other half" of each new single strand by drowning each half in a "soup" made of the four bases." Nature enables the manipulation of the DNA of a reproduction cell by the astral mass by implanting its own DNA strand in the reproduction cell of a womb, generating its complementary strand there & growing as a pair into a being, thus sustaining continuity in evolution. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 904 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) If of course the astral mass were to be in tune with the universal rhythm itself at that right moment, its natural merger can instead take place with the invincible vitality, holistic consciousness with upgraded potentials, of the integral gender union of the cosmos itself, liberation. 2 Replication, procreation, reproduction, co-creation are the normal modes in growth cycles of beings. Transmigration, higher order replication, goes through human male/female reproduction cells. Transmigration in beings is similar to the cosmic transfer where the cosmic seed of vitality grows into the tree of universe & on decay merges with the source to initiate a new cycle. In transmigration the fertilized reproduction cell of male/female union grows into a being & on its decay its astral mass dissociates & initiates a merger with the vitality of another cell of a male/female sex union, to carry on its karma in a fresh growth/decay cycle. So a male/female union plays a spiritual role in the up upgradation of the evolutionary progress. While the desire affinity between mass/energy, forms the basis for transformations in nonsentient matter, the reproduction cells formed by the male/female union, enlivening affinity, act as a medium for the astral masses to carry on transmigration. It is through these transformations & transmigrations the varna & guna vibrations the aberrations -karmic dissipations of beings,, perpetuate the supra human form in variations yuga after yuga, where the continuity in evolution depends on the “cause & effect” criterion. It is the desire vibrations of the astral mass on death that enables the process of unzipping the double helix of the fertilized male/female reproduction cell (genotype reservoir of forms & tendencies), reservoir of holistic consciousness of human beings, & forming its complementary strands thereto become a double helix. This double helix of an astral mass becomes a fresh life/ being encoded with the tendencies prevailing at the instant of its transmigration & goes through its growth/decay cycle using the cell as its medium nurtured by both its selfconsciousness of the astral mass as well as the holistic consciousness derived from the medium. The nature’s mutually attracting forces of mooladhara of beings of opposite gender & the vitality of the reproduction cell thus enable transmigration of sentient beings. Transformations in non-sentient matter & replication/recreation/reproduction/procreation/ transmigration/co creation etc in sentient matter are natural processes that are sustained by the cosmic fields of the universe, to carry forward the urge of “cosmic desire” for “self-existence as many” to “explore newer horizons”. In fact by being in resonance with the universal rhythm during their gender union, the human beings can upgrade fertilization of the reproduction cells through which the astral masses undergo transmigration. Kathopanishad—brihadaranya Upanishad—bhavagatham 2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 905 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) Ironically sentient beings merely dissipate the cosmic energy only in sensory pleasures during gender union, failing in their duty to upgrade reproduction cells as enriched reservoirs of cosmic genome, thus only passing on degradation to posterity. That means when the astral mind/mass is in a harmonious orientation with the universal rhythm at the instant of transmigration, its mass can get upgraded by the coherence of the rhythm. This is an ideal duration when it can form an upgraded complementary pair in the reproduction cell, empowered to enliven even the cosmic genome. Proper orientation & rhythm of the complementary pairs undergoing transmigration i.e. spiritual orientation at death, ensures human & thus the social up gradation life after life. Furthermore, on being in resonance with the cosmic rhythm itself, it is possible for these pairs even to transcend the universe, merge with the primary transfer, liberation. Thoughts associated with the Absolute at the time of death are conducive for “refined transmigration”, “liberation”, merger with the radiance of the absolute. When the immanent consciousness of a being gets into, through the will power of mind, a proper energy rhythm that merges with the universal energy rhythm, before all of the energy content of its “energy/mass” union is exhausted” (ego discarded in total dispassion), end of karma on self-realization in the zone of the universe itself, divinity is brought down to the earth itself jeevan mukthi.3 While so much is possible by human efforts, very rarely do people reach these heights due to selfish motives caused by lack of awareness, avidhya. Native wisdom says “you do not always get what you want, but are likely to end up with what you need”. It is prudent to wish for what you need., what the source intended to savor through you without any effort on your part, for realizing salvation, freeing yourself from sins by adhering to nature, co-exist. If otherwise, you act on the basis of your ego, you end up in frustration instead. To be a co-creator& be in Bliss, you have to be aware & also be part of nature’s process. Energy vibrations that emanate from cosmic radiations have spiritual & social relevance. 7. Zone of Illusion: Truth, Maya, Lila, Silent Witness The pure matter, (3/4th unrevealed matter), eternal gapless singularity is an embodiment of coherence in harmony radiating non contingent invincible vitality with instant precision & in dispassionate bliss. Hence it is devoid of illusion. It is TRUTH the eternal whereas; universe is the domain of the aberrations of singularity in eternal transformations. Anything that exists has a “cause & effect” relevance to the absolute truth. Absolute truth in the universe is hence an illusion. At best it can be an integration of totality Isa Upanishad 3 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 906 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) When you experience conflict of reason, intelligence and wisdom, you have to realize that there are better ways of seeing things. Conflicting “truths” can exist in “harmony” when they are viewed as existing on different planes of one source, since the matter of the universe, even though with a common origin, exists in different orientations i.e. with different attributes i.e. as different harmonics of one universal rhythm. An enlightened consciousness, the one attuned to the universal rhythm, is inclusive and not exclusive in its nature. The more the one is enlightened, the more he is able to perceive the truth about reality. Because of the space gaps within their masses the energy transfers between their immanent consciousness & masses are in varying vibration rhythms i.e. in cycles not having orientation & rhythmic stability as that of the Absolute& also due to ongoing mutual interactions, they undergo disruption, deterioration, mutation & hence transformation in their mass contents periodically. This phenomenon of universal matter existing with gaps of space within their masses & undergoing transformation cycles is illusion, Maya, namely, the nature’s gift to mankind that enables them to think and act in variations & savor the grand panorama of the universe through karmic imprints - divine lila - divine manifestation for “self-existence as many” to explore limitless variety, which is the essence of evolution. Thus the projected sentient & non-sentient matters of the universe, big & small, each of them existing as whole entity, as a representation of the source itself, discharge self-sustaining autonomous energy transfers & some times in self-interest -ego, with urge to “play God” with the conviction that they hold total control of their actions, avidhya, ignorance.. When they ultimately realize the truth that only the cosmic transfer sustains the overall harmony by governing the universal rhythm & karmic order i.e. by keeping the tendencies & traits of all matter in constant transformation & transmigration, it becomes clear that the universe is only an illusion & a karmic playground sporting extreme possibilities where desire & ego conflicts appear as chaos & how they are resolved by natural laws, impart spiritual knowledge, lessons in Dharma Sashtra, Purpose of divine lila, The desire based passionate sentient beings- astral masses of the aberrations of singularity, dissipate karmic energy through the self-actualized pervading & enlivening vitalities, experiencing pleasures & pains as harmonics, of the universal rhythm, whereas the Omnipotent Self existing as the un-manifest singularity radiates all the cosmic vitalities for sustaining the universal rhythm in dispassionate bliss, i.e. devoid of feelings & hence without pleasures & pains- as an invincible & yet a silent witness . 8. Panorama This nature’s diversity manifesting in the all-pervading “complimentary pairs”, thus brings to exposure the panorama through Varna (shades)&Vitality (gunas), that means bringing to reality the divine presence in variations through the universe. If a human energy transfer is enlivened to be in resonance with the universal rhythm & also further on with that of the primary transfer, the mass content of its “energy/mass” union acquires a cosmic invincibility radiating rhythmic vibrations& coherence with a glow, tejas, i.e aura in beings, adding further brilliance to the panorama. When all of these varna/guna vibrations acquire such invincibility i.e. when all the energy transfers in an environment are tending towards dispassion radiating all ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 907 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) round glow, total grandeur pervades region. This is the ultimate human possibility, orientation of all shades of varna & guna vibrations towards the singularity facilitating its radiance to transcend downwards, ”bringing down of heaven to earth”, fulfillment of ultimate divine intent. These diverse pairs are themselves individually capable, based on their innate quality, nature, of either transforming or amenable for being transformed by the environment, nurture. “Nature” of an entity is either upgraded or degraded by “Nurture”, environment or vice versa depending on their comparative vitality strengths, thus opening up extreme possibilities in the cosmic panorama. Accidents & disasters happen due to overwhelming effects of individual or collective consciousness of matters sentient & non-sentient i.e. the resultant of all the energy transfers of a particular environment leading to the breakdown in the self-referral dynamics in that location. Even in such cases the overall harmony is in any way sustained by the universal rhythm that is itself being governed by the cosmic transfer. The cosmic forces, the pervading & enlivening vitalities of light & sound, OM reverberations, thus sustain the panorama & grandeur of the universe eternally as a harmonious symphony. Collective will power of the autonomous sentient masses, vairagya, plays a big role in realizing this self-healing possibility, bringing the karmic dissipations in unison with the universal rhythm & thereafter with the cosmic transfer i.e. transcendence of collective will power beyond the realm of the universe reaching heavenly heights & also bringing the heaven down to the earth, descent of cosmic vitalities to the zone of universe, emergence of an avatar. This ultimate self-healing phenomenon sustains the panorama even during violent turbulences ensuring eternal harmony. 9. Cosmic Intent The intent of the Absolute is that the human beings as its representation should savor the universe as a grand panorama in diversity & not as a dull monotony. To realize this therefore, the natural laws radiated by the invincible cosmic rhythm have to be adhere, i.e., the karmic traits as encoded in their DNA that means the respective swabhava & swadharma of the beings have to be adhered to for salvation i.e. without harming the natural processes, devoid of sins. Dharma sashtra, the laws of ethics, lays down various guidelines to meet this end. However, the ego based autonomous energy transfers of beings take place in various interfering & non rhythmic modes disturbing environmental harmony. The ideal way for the sentient matters, human beings, to progress in the evolution process is to exist as divine representations adhering to swabhava discharging swadharma i.e. not disturbing the universal rhythm. Otherwise, these disoriented energy transfers end up in degradation, i.e., in mutation of their mass contents leading to their transmigration into lower modes in their karmic cycles. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 908 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) All the sentient matter of the universe comes under the cosmic oneness & has the individual & collective potential for attaining the cosmic invincibility as that of the Pure Matter i.e. these complementary pairs are capable of establishing bliss by attuning to the universal rhythm through the coherence of will power, vairagya, to become co-creators. “(desire/will power)  (manifestation/creation)  (fulfillment/happiness)” forms the essence of the evolution. Nature’s intent, purpose of evolution itself, is that human beings coexist, realize salvation & savor bliss in the universe as divine representations in harmony or co-create, progressively upgrade their mass content through transmigrations, intelligent procreation & attain invincibility, in the universe, zone of Maya, All beings are adequately empowered to become co-creators, jeevan muktha. Intense will power, proper self-actualized orientation & rhythm of guna traits, shall achieve the objective of bringing the heaven down to earth, “here & now” making the zone of the universe, a grand panorama. Ironically some individuals more gifted with the nature’s empowerment, are self-deceptive & strive to play god for ego gratification, i.e., directing self-will against the natural universal rhythm. Some others even try to attain “liberation” for getting away from karmic anxieties & merge with the invisible singularity of the pure matter through coherent spiritual efforts, transcending the zone of the universe. This defeats the intended spiritual & social purpose. The divine intent after all is to bring the heaven down to earth, bring new horizons for experiencing bliss, here & now, by one & all & not for them to transcend the zone of the universe to that of the cosmos, serving no karmic purpose in the universe. POINT TO PONDER: Divinity itself pervades as environmental vitality & also in all entities as basic building blocks in their sensory & motoring organs, enlivening them with all the potentials, for savoring its panorama. Can there be any other scheme of arrangement that will realize the cosmic intent any better? 10. Cosmic Wisdom The primordial vision guides the destiny of evolution & its complementary involution in precise cyclic order to fulfill its cosmic desire, in accordance with its cosmic wisdom. The absolute mass thus evolves as its aberrations with various I-ness imprints for experiencing karmic desire, in eternal replication cycles, through faculties of imagination (mind, memory) aspects of pervading vitality,& creativity (ego, intelligence), aspects of enlivening vitality, which finally dissolve into itself into re-emerge after self-healing (coherence, will power) aspects of self-actualization vitality. The faculties reflecting the shades, tendencies & attitudes through which the sense gratifications are experienced, are empowered naturally to function with optimum effectiveness only when they are in tune with the day to day universal rhythm operating the creation & dissolution cycles. This in built feature indicates the presence intelligence in nature. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 909 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) At the instance of big bang, “Intelligence” of the Vision head radiated the release of only 1/4th of the Absolute as pervading “mass & energy” unions, as self-sustaining “complementary pairs” in varying orbital motions, providing a harmonious panorama as the universe, retaining the rest 3/4th singularity, black hole, for sustaining the totality through its coherence. “Self-effulgent compatible complementary pairs” & “self-referral energy bursts” are inherent in the nature of the cosmos & these phenomena ensure orientation & physical stability of respectively of the un-manifest & also the manifest right from big bang, starting with time, space, relativity, diversity, karmic dissipations etc. till dissolution, big crunch. The evolution undergoes progress through mind, imagination, up gradation through intelligence in the creation process while sustaining the stability & harmony all through by its will power, i.e., in spite of disrupting energy dissipations ranging from deterministic asexual replication etc. to the autonomous self-referral karmic actions & transmigrations of human beings & even through dispassionate co-creation activities etc. All these are possible since the divinity itself forms the basic building block of all that manifests, i.e., as the provider & experiencer of desire gratifications of unlimited range. In the evolution process these released complementary pairs enliven the data encoded as per their source of origin, each permeating a form/trait of the supra human, as its innate trait as separate entities in their respective horizon, each of them, big & small, having a potential to enliven even the entire cosmic genome on attaining resonance with the universal rhythm, thus contributing to the range of the panorama. The nature of “forms & shapes” attitudes & tendencies, of all of the various projected complementary pairs, in total integration, represents the supra human form, that means, the forms, dispositions & functions of sensory & motor organs, attitudes & tendencies etc,in the human form, in a way correlate to the supra human form of the divine & the cosmic intelligence associated with this aspect of creation is evident through the adaptability, versatility & the invincibility traits etc. found in the karmic energy dissipations of human beings i.e. “desire  action  replication in growth-decay cycles& also in their dispassionate co creation functions. These intelligence potentials engrained in each being can even be made to become as versatile, as that of the divine through their self-will. Even amidst multifarious ego centric, autonomous & self-willed energy disruptions to harmony, a precise day to day universal order is sustained by the inbuilt coherence of the universal rhythm, bringing to light the presence of cosmic wisdom. 11. Bliss Bliss: Happiness in an atmosphere of “invincibility”, state of “No frustration”. A being upgrades through mind & intelligence and sustains & self-heals by coherence of will power. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 910 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) Karmic actions against Nature’s Harmony & Coherence are sins & in favor, are virtues. Hence Swabhavic & swadharmic actions, being devoid of sins lead to salvation. Happiness is a state of mind when the desires are being currently fulfilled. Desires that have already been fulfilled do not contribute much to the present happiness. We maximize happiness by maximizing actions oriented towards creativity & by pursuing it from the realm of possibility & not from the realm of problems & problem solving efforts, i.e., by having positive attitudes without anxieties. Happiness and creativity are not mutually exclusive but neither are they the same thing. Unfulfilled desires give us unhappiness so long as they last. Hence feelings of happiness are only cyclic experiences in beings, aberrations with limited cosmic vitalities. So, happiness felt in an environment of invincibility that ensures no frustration is bliss. Attunement of the autonomous but the unstable energy vibrations of human beings with the universal rhythm, through tranquil mind devoid of feelings, dispassion, aspects of mind & intelligence which is reinforced by coherence, will power, aspects of self will, lead to the merger of their energy vibrations with that of pure matter, resonance, the condition that empowers them to attain cosmic potentials (right environmental conditions prevailing). This transcendence of the cosmic radiations through the universal rhythm to human beings brings invincibility. When such potentials are attained, happiness in beings transforms into bliss. Bliss, resonance with the universal rhythm, can be attained even instantly, right conditions for orientation & self-will prevailing. Once realized, it need not stay permanent, because the energy transfers function in various dynamic cyclic momentums, replications. Constant & consistent effort, coherence, is needed to sustain the same amidst distractions. Strong will power, coherence, in human energy transfers during self-referral period, i.e., the period in which their vibration harmonics cross over with the universal rhythm in close proximity, is an essential prerequisite for initiating resonance. “Not possessing ego” is a virtue, but at the same time, the very thought being “conscious of not possessing ego” itself, hinders harmony & also coherence. To sail in the realm of the universal rhythm without anxieties, is to be in blissful harmony. Bliss in the domain of the universe can be approached & established by the beings, aberrations of divinity as per their innate traits by coexisting as harmonics of the universal rhythm in different modes in harmony namely, personal social, environmental, spiritual etc. the collective will of the environment acting as a catalyst to their will power. The more you are in tune with the universal rhythm the more you are blissful because your sensory & motoring vibrations namely actionfulfillmentgratification faculties are in full empowerment. Highest level you reach is resonance, when you are instantly invincible, attain tranquility & dispassion of the source itself. POINT TO PONDER: Happiness is due to fulfillment of desire, gratifications brought out of guna vibrations. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 911 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) We know “more the dispassion the higher is the bliss level”. But, in total dispassion, one merges in divine vitality & becomes instantly empowered beyond “guna vibrations”, ability to differentiate & experience, i.e., to savor. Then, what is the level of dispassion one should be in, for savoring optimum level of happiness/bliss through guna vibrations in the universe? Seek self-realization, to know your karmic desire & find how it serves the supra human form. Karmic actions lead you to salvation, an easy & natural approach to happiness. Will power empowers you to experience “happiness free from anxieties”, Bliss. To be in the universal rhythm, coexistence without ego is bliss. To nurture the complementary pair in compatibility mode is bliss. To be in the realm of possibility & not problems is bliss. Happiness orientated action until desire fulfillment brings happiness. On desire fulfillment, another desire cycle drags you causing disruption to bliss. Invincibility that removes frustration empowers one to be in bliss. To be in evolution/ co-creation mode is bliss. Self-realization, knowledge of swabhava & swadharma, leads to bliss. Visionaries help you to know your nature, natural laws, ethical codes (dharma shastras). Beware of moral/rational codes aimed at productivity. They may imply coercion. 12. Invincibility The manifest source, Paramatma, the supra human form, manifesting as aberrations sustains by itself through the universal rhythm & the self-referral energy transformations of all its entities. The singularity, pure matter, non-manifest source, sustains the totality through its invincible radiations. These released entities perpetuate their karmic functions eternally through the contingent imprints meant to sustain in harmony as parts of one source. Primary requisite for a being to attain salvation is self-realization, knowledge of the part of the divine one is supposed to replicate naturally & also the invincibility of the cosmic forces, the nature’s vitality resource. Replication is an inherent phenomenon of nature & so constant & consistent approach is needed in the self-actualization efforts, i.e., to restrain the mind from replication through the will power of dispassion. Detachment is the human capacity to be conscious of replication, auto pilot momentum of the mind, and restrain the thought forces from repeating a set pattern. The intellect is like the leash and what holds the leash is the soft power of the selfconsciousness that stands by the intellect. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 912 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) The sentient beings savor the cosmos through the self-consciousness, the imprints on the left brain & also the holistic consciousness, imprints on the right brain, i.e., boundless vitality permeated by the silent witness, both together making the karmic double helix. Their life sustenance is through circulation of prana, vitality of the heart. The divinity’s intent, urged by its cosmic desire, mind (antimatter) for “self-expression as many” to explore new horizons”, is for enlivenment of all possible vitalities in the universe through desire driven minds of various entities with limited possibilities. The cosmic source radiates the vitalities from an environment of dispassion, thoughts devoid of feelings, while remaining as “silent witness”, i.e., not directly savoring but at the same time empowering the autonomous human energy transfers in their desire gratifications while even upgrading them to attain invincibility through will power. Sentient beings devoid of ego existing, as per their innate imprints in harmony with the surroundings, are naturally empowered to realize salvation, no sins. Those with ego traits however cannot be in a state of happiness always because their self-consciousness, imprints on the left side of the brain are not in unison with the imprints on the right side of the brain, holistic consciousness, at all times. Unless one is in tune with the holistic consciousness of the universal rhythm, it is hard to realize lasting happiness. Nature permeates the holistic consciousness through right side of the brain & it is up to the individual to unify his self-consciousness on the left side with the totality to become invincible. Mind control, coherence during self-realization, meditation in harmony & pranayama (pranic inputs to upgrade body mass), Raja yoga, are the means to attain self-actualization vitality. In human beings, the desire & mind drags their immanent transfers away from the fundamental rhythm of the silent witness because of their ego based self-consciousness imprints. They may end up in happiness only during ego gratifications. This happiness is of transient nature, since they are not always in tune with the universal rhythm. This is an impediment in realizing the lasting harmony that means maintaining total compatibility between the rhythms of the ego based self & that of the divine that oversees it. By orienting the mind with the “silent witness”, rhythm of the eternal primary transfer in dispassion, thoughts rid of feelings, the masses in all the human cells can be streamlined & brought in resonance with the universal rhythm & even with that of the cosmos, cosmic rhythm, for total invincibility. This cosmic resonance of the human energy cycles can transcend the zone of the universe to that of the divine, thus assuring immense cosmic possibilities to human efforts. All are equally exposed to the cosmic radiations of the pure matter that enliven the universal rhythm. That is all, what equality is about. Individual self-will alone holds the key to invincibility. These autonomous self-referral vibrant potency of the human energy transfers, rising from mooladhara, the seat of potency & seat of attraction through the spine to the head, the seat of emission for projection into space (akin to the primary transfer), can through coherence of will power, resonate with the universal rhythm. This vitality of resonance can enliven the total ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 913 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) being namely mass & mind & the karmic actions can be made to discharge through sensory & motor organs for the benefit of self & the society. This vitality can even transcend the zone of universe, maya, to merge with the primary transfer, total fulfillment of karmic desire imprints, completion of one’s karmic life cycle, merger with the source even before pralaya, i.e., Liberation. Controlling the guna vibrations through its passage from mooladhara to head, karmic energy dissipations of the sense & motor organs, swadharma, namely directing the cosmic energy of the self to be in resonance with the universal rhythm, achieving optimal self-healing transformations in the desire based cells controlled by the human mind mass (astral mass) through self-will, vairagya, aspect of intelligence, that means, leaving out feelings of happiness & unhappiness from egoistic gratifications, discharging karmic energy with dispassion, merging with the Silent Witness, practicing pranayama for enlivening & meditation for enrichment of the body cells, Raja Yoga, leads to dynamic invincibility in human energy transfers. These upgraded orientations & rhythms of the guna vibrations refine the cells in the mass of the complementary pairs, DNA activation & impart glow, Tejas, to the body mass, invincibility. All varieties of varna vibrations properly aided by will power can attain, tejas, invincibility. Varna adds colors & shades to the panorama & is not at all an impediment to attain invincibility, bliss. Similarly, withholding supply of energy of prana to the appropriate sensory organs alone with the intent of suppressing sensory feelings one ends up in keeping “thoughts as well as feelings” still, thereby keeping both sensory & motoring actions still, Hatha Yoga, i.e., stopping the enlivening energy to the sensory system thereby keeping the particular mind functions still, while at the same time keeping the “immanent consciousness” active, i.e., keeping the sentient mass in proper rhythm devoid of disruptions from sensory & hence the motoring actions, i.e., refining the body mass thereby imparting glow, Tejas, that means gaining static invincibility of the body mass, i.e., attaining the quality of singularity, pure matter, in the body mass itself. This possibility of hata yoga does not give much universal benefit as compared to Raja yoga, since the all-pervading aspect of prana (vitality) is not fully available for universal good. A good mind controller is a good cosmic energy controller as against a good mind arrester. Positive meditation, self-willed mind control with coherence, is to seek clarity of thoughts in your grey areas regarding your object of attainment, from the realm of possibilities i.e. in a relaxed manner as opposed to concentration where you fix your mind on the object of attainment. POINT TO PONDER: An average human being partakes in the evolution process by directing the cosmic energy vitality of the self, i.e., from mooladhara the seat of attraction to the head the seat of radiation, for experiencing sensual bliss through sensory & motor organs, neglecting the possibility of its contributing to up gradation of cells in a reproduction womb, reservoir ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 914 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 8 | pp. 897-914 Rengarajan, S., Singularity & Its Manifestation (Part II) cosmic genome, source of holistic consciousness in transmigration, thereby upsetting the cosmic desire’s intended evolution progress through enriched transmigration process. (Continued on Part III) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

What Do Neural Nets and Quantum Theory Tell Us About Mind and Reality? Paul J. Werbos National Science Foundation*, Room 675 Arlington, Virginia, USA 22230 Pwerbos@nsf.gov 1. Introduction The organizer of this conference, Dr. Kunio Yasue, invited people from many disciplines to address certain basic questions which cut across these disciplines: “How can we develop a true science of consciousness? What is Mind?” This paper was invited to the session on quantum foundations, which was also asked to address: “What is Reality?” The literature on consciousness contains many discussions about what we can learn from modern neural network theory and quantum theory, in trying to answer these questions. However, those discussions do not always account for the most recent insights and developments in those fields. Even those authors who deeply understand all the relevant disciplines would find it difficult to write a paper which is intelligible to people in other disciplines, but also does justice to the real technical details. Because of this communications problem, I will write this paper in a relatively informal way. The bulk of the paper will be an edited transcript of the talk which I gave at the conference, with references added to provide at least some technical support. Section 3 will contain new thoughts, stimulated in part by discussions at the Quantum Mind conference in Arizona, later in 1999. The views expressed here are only my views, not the official views of NSF or of the US government. 2. Transcript of Talk In his introduction, Dr. Yasue mentioned that Paul Werbos is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, the primary agency of the US government for funding basic research across all disciplines. He studied physics under Dr. Julian Schwinger, winner of the Nobel Prize for quantum electrodynamics along with Feynman and Tomonaga. He is best known for the original discovery of backpropagation, the most widely used algorithm in the field of artificial neural networks. Thank you, Kunio. I am very grateful to have a chance to speak to you here in Japan. Before I begin, I must make a couple of apologies. First, I am not really a professional physicist. I did have the good luck in graduate school in Harvard to study under Julian Schwinger who, as you say, was the co-inventor of the quantum field theory discussed by many speakers here. In the 1970s, when I studied under Schwinger, many people actually thought he was going crazy, because Schwinger did not like the second quantization, the quantum field theory. He felt there must be a better way to do it -- and so, in the 1970s, he worked on a new way of doing quantum mechanics. He called it source theory (Schwinger). He had the framework right at that time, but he did not yet have the details of how to apply it to high-energy physics. So when I was a student they said "This is crazy. The formalism is OK, but it's not practical. It's just metaphysics; don't pay attention to it." But in the last twenty years, I was very happy to find out that this source theory has been developed much further. It is now called the functional integral approach (ZinnJustin). It is a third quantization. It is a whole new way of doing quantum mechanics, and it changes many of the things we have heard here. Quantum field theory today is not what it was twenty years ago. I have not worked in physics myself since then, but, on my own, I have tried to use my scarce personal time to think of yet another way to do the quantum foundations. I have some wild and crazy ideas for a fourth quantization. I have a few papers on it, but I only have the mathematical framework (Werbos 1989, 1998a, 1999a). I think the framework makes sense, but much work is needed now to develop the practical details. I hope someone here is a physicist interested in working out some of the details, because I • The views herein are those of the author in 1999, not those of NSF, though it was written up on government time. am not like Schwinger; I will not spend the next twenty years developing the practical details. I would be grateful for any collaborators for the next stage. But no one pays me to do physics. Actually, I work in the Engineering Directorate at NSF. So here I feel like a humble shoemaker asked to give a talk at the great temple; in one week, I will go back to making shoes -- but the shoes we make are not exactly shoes. We help people develop cars which are cleaner and more efficient, airplanes which are safer and faster, new manufacturing systems, robots, control systems for electric power grids (Werbos 1999b,c). Carefully and slowly we develop real engineering things which must work. That is what they really pay me to do. So I will begin here by talking about the mind, first. The theme of this conference is "consciousness" -- the science of consciousness - and that is what they pay me to do, to worry about intelligent systems and about how this relates to biology. And then I will talk about advanced quantum theory if there is time. I hope there will also be some time to talk about the connection from quantum theory to the brain. Maybe I should say just a few words about that now because I probably will run out of time. 2.1. Quantum Theory and the Brain At NSF, some people want to start a new funding initiative in quantum computing. This is an exciting field. Many people speculate that quantum mechanics can help us do better computing, that we can build a higher level of intelligence if we exploit quantum theory. Many people at this conference have said that with quantum theory, we can explain or produce a higher level of consciousness. I think this is probably true, but we have not proven it yet. No one has built a quantum system, or designed one which is well-defined, which would really generate such higher-order capabilities. There are theoretical concepts for how to use quantum theory to build an associative memory. I think that is what we just heard from Vitiello – some ideas on how to use quantum principles to build or explain associative memory. There is also a person named Grover , who is very famous in quantum computing, famous for his design of an algorithm to do associative memory. But there are two problems here. First, these designs are very theoretical. To create real, working physical systems is much harder than the theoretical physicists used to think. The theoretical physicists tend to work in the second quantization, in a world of pure probability amplitudes. But when you need it to work in real hardware, you need to worry about these horrible quantum thermodynamics issues, which means that you need to think about density matrices. Only recently have people begun to get ideas about hardware which seem to make sense in physical terms. There are ideas, but just beginning. (For some of the recent decisive work on hardware, you may search on names like Gershenfeld, Kimble, Preskill, Lloyd, Wineland and Kwiat on the index at xxx.lanl.gov.) Second, the more difficult problem is with algorithms. A memory is not a brain. Building an associative memory does not tell us how to build an intelligent system. There is a long distance from knowing how to do an associative memory to proving you can do brains. In many ways, associative memory is much easier than real intelligence. In the questions after that talk someone asked,” Are you minimizing energy or are you doing what a brain is doing?” Of course, it is not what a brain does! A brain is not a memory. A memory is a useful part of a brain but a brain is something much, much bigger. So now I will try to talk first about my ideas about consciousness and the mind, and then quantum theory, and we will see how far I get. 2.2. Consciousness or Mind From a Neural Net Perspective To begin with, what do we mean by the word “consciousness”? As people have said, there are many, many different definitions of consciousness. In a talk five years ago (Werbos 1997), I tried to discuss six of them: o Consciousness as Awareness o Subjective Sense of Existence o Consciousness as Intelligence o Consciousness Vs. Unconsciousness o What About the Soul? o Quantum Effects Relevant? These are just six. I have heard many others at this conference. I do not want to argue about what is the best definition. These are all important concepts. Waking and sleeping states – they are very important. But in my talk I only want to talk about one concept. These are all big subjects, so I will focus on one question here -- consciousness as intelligence. What is intelligence? What is mind? That is what I want to talk about. 3 Views of Intelligence Human IQ Rock Multiple Designs/Levels So now let us move to the first slide. If we focus on the idea of consciousness as intelligence, there are still many different points of view to sort out. There are actually three different concepts or views of intelligence, or of consciousness qua intelligence. The most common view I have heard lately is the binary view, illustrated on the upper left of the slide. People look at a computer design ... or they look at a spider... and they ask,"Is it conscious? Or is it not?" They agree that humans are conscious or intelligent -- I'm not sure why they all agree on that -- but anyway, they all agree on that. They agree that rocks are not intelligent. And then... they worry. "Is this computer system really conscious or is it not? A spider – is it really conscious or is it not?" This question assumes that consciousness is a binary variable, that it is either "yes" or "no." It reminds me of some high school students I knew, when they talked about sex appeal. They said "You have it or you don't." That's it -it's binary. Well, I'm not so sure it's binary. There might be some matter of degree here. There is another view, that views consciousness or intelligence as a continuous variable. The stupidest form of this view is the idea of consciousness as IQ -- I don't believe in that, but there are other ways of thinking of intelligence as a continuous phenomenon. Allen Hobson spoke yesterday about wakeful consciousness as a graded phenomenon. His AIM model presented consciousness as a continuous variable. I am speaking about a different kind of consciousness, but the same principle may apply here. Intelligence may not be binary; it may be graded. Earlier, David Chalmers talked about panprotopsychism here. Well, there is a very old tradition in philosophy called panpsychism. Taoism was like this. They would say that intelligence is present in all things, but in varying degrees. A Taoist would say there is intelligence in the human, the spider, the rock, the tree, the water -- they all have some intelligence. It is a question of how much. So I have a funny picture in my mind. I see a philosopher of the West staring at a spider, thinking "Is it conscious or is it not?" And I see an old Taoist master looking at this philosopher and saying: "Is this philosopher conscious or not? Is she aware of what she is looking at? She is looking at a spider. She is not looking at a binary variable." The Taoist would say "Of course there is some feeling in the spider.. but you should be aware of the spider and ask 'What kind of consciousness does it have? What is the nature of its feeling? What does it feel like? But you should not worry about some binary question in words which make no sense." There is another group of people who believe in the continuous view -- a much stranger and weirder group, not Taoists, but old-style behaviorists. The old-style behaviorists believed that all animals have essentially the same kind of learning. There was a doctrine which said that... first... intelligence is learning. That's a good start. That's not so bad. (Werbos 1994a:3-5, 1994b:682-683.) But then they said... the learning curve is the same for humans, rats, all animals. The humans and rats respond to the same variables; they have the same kind of learning, but the human is a little faster. I think that one reason they believed this was that they could get money to study rats and say that this all applies to the humans. But then they said the same thing for birds and snails, that snails are like humans ... but they are like slow humans. Well... I do not agree with that theory. I think that the right way to think about intelligence -- or about consciousness as intelligence – is what I show on the bottom part of the slide above. I think that intelligence is a staircase – a matter of discrete levels for the most part, levels and levels of higher and higher intelligence and consciousness. So we should not ask "Is it conscious or is it not?" We should ask "What is the level of consciousness or intelligence?" Now, why do I think this is the right way to think about intelligence? Consider the next slide. Levels of Intelligence ? Human Symbolic Mammal Bird Reptile I believe that intelligence is a kind of staircase because this is what we actually see in nature. This is what is real. This is not imaginary philosophy, if you forgive the expression. This is what we really observe in nature. We see reptiles, birds, mammals ... and there is also a kind of intelligence based on symbolic reasoning. That is what built Tokyo -- humans using symbolic reasoning. Now... I could talk about this slide for a very long time. This is a very important slide. There are many ideas to think about here. First, I must make some small observation. Some of you may have seen maps of the brain of a rat. You will see that in the cortex of the rat there may be about seven areas for vision. And then you look at a monkey or a cat, and there are more areas. (Arbib: 1025). You may say "Gee, they look very different." But those maps are maps of the neocortex, the highest.. or at least the outermost.. part of the human brain. The six-layered cerebral cortex, the neocortex. But the important thing is that all mammals have this neocortex. Birds do not have that kind of neocortex. So in a sense all mammals have essentially the same wiring diagram. If you think of learning ... if you think of Dr. Matsumoto's "superalgorithm" .. then the basic principles of learning are fairly uniform across the neocortex. Thus in some sense we may say that all mammals are essentially the same. I don't have time to elaborate now. So now let me talk about strategy. How can we ever build a true "science of consciousness"? Some people in artificial intelligence (AI) said years ago: "Real intelligence is up here, at the symbolic level. So let us try to build an artificial human, by building a machine to do symbolic reasoning.” And sometimes they talk about Einstein, and how intelligent he was. "Let's build an artificial Einstein." I think this is the reason why classical AI failed to achieve its highest goals. Classical AI failed to produce true brain-like intelligent systems because they tried to do too much. They tried to go directly to the symbolic level, without doing the mammal level first. There are some people who want us to go directly to the quantum/psychic/spiritual remote viewing level. I think that is even worse than trying to go directly to the symbolic level. It is good to think about these higher levels, because they are very important... but in order to develop a science we need to develop mathematical models and principles that work. I think we need to develop the science of the mammal level first, and that will give us the insights we need for better understanding at the symbolic level and even at the levels beyond (the question mark on my slide). Now if you are a mystic, you may wonder "What can the mammal brain tell us about the deeper human soul?" Well, that is a complex topic. But let me say briefly... there are some mystics who use an expression "As above, so below." Before you can understand the higher levels, they say, you must firmly understand the lower level (what is right in front of you), and also understand the analogy between the levels. Thus I claim that the important opportunity, the real opportunity for the science of consciousness today, is to really understand first this mammal brain level, without the soul, the simple basic mammal brain ... that level of intelligence...and to do this mathematically (i.e., to extract the underlying principles, not just the biochemical details) and then see what insights we get regarding the higher levels. So that is what I have worked for most of my life on, to try to understand the mammal level. But how can we understand a mammal brain? How can we understand intelligence, at the mammal brain level? Well, I would like to make an analogy, shown on the next slide. WHAT IS A RADIO? HOW DOES IT WORK? Answer 1: A box that makes sound when you plug it in and turn it on Answer 2: A device which receives and demodulates electromagnetic transmissions at a user selected frequency modulated by acoustic signals Answer 3: Design details which explain how (1) and (2) are both accomplished Actually, I am taking this analogy from Charles Gross, a neuroscientist, a student of Karl Pribram's. In my first course in neuroscience, on the first day, Charles Gross said:" Neuroscience today is like people studying a radio. They buy a thousand radios, to understand how they work. You buy a radio. You turn it on. You pull a tube out... and then the radio whines. You call the tube 'the whine center.' " Then you take a new radio -- throw out the old one into the trash -- it was alive, but you throw it out -- pull out a capacitor, and then you hear a scratch sound. You call the capacitor "the scratch center.'" And then you have a map of the brain where you have the whine center, the scratch center and then you say '"Aha, now I understand the radio.'" But.. you do not really understand the radio. There are different ways of understanding what a radio is and how it works. There are different ways to answer the question "What is a radio?". At one level of answer, you say "A radio is a box that makes sound when you plug it in and turn it on." This is like the Turing test for consciousness. It is a descriptive test. But engineers do not like that kind of definition so much. Then there is what we would call a functional definition: A radio is a device which receives and demodulates electromagnetic transmissions at a user-selected frequency modulated by acoustic signals. I can almost hear some people saying "Isn't that too complicated?" Maybe it is complicated, but this is what a radio is, in functional terms. But... for a science... for engineering... we want something even more. We want the design details which explain how these characteristics are accomplished, and how they can be replicated... and that is very complicated. It has to be complicated. I do think it is possible to develop an understanding of consciousness and learning which is simple in the same way that general relativity is simple. Now some people will be very disappointed at a theory which is only as simple as general relativity.... but I think it is very exciting that some of us now see a way to produce such a theory. By the way, I have one last point to make about this slide. To understand a radio in functional terms, you do not need to know where every screw and bolt is. You don't need all of those details. So I'm not talking about knowing every screw and every bolt in the brain. So now... how can we produce a design-level mathematical understanding of intelligence at the level of the mammal brain, that kind of intelligence? See the next slide. Neural Nets Across Disciplines • Engineering: Will it work? Mathematics understandable, generic? • Psychology: Connectionist cognitive science, animal learning, folk psychology • Neuroscience: computational neuroscience • AI: agents, games (backgammon, go), etc. • LIS and CRI How can we do it? Well of course, the brain is made up of neural networks. And there are many neural network models already in use. We have heard about many of them here. What is very scary is that the three communities using neural net models do not talk to each other as much as they should. The research is very fragmented today. There are people in neuroscience who have computational neuroscience models, which are designed to represent known neural circuits. There are people in psychology who have connectionist cognitive science models. And there are people in engineering who build artificial neural nets, where all they care about is "Does it work?" These people find it hard to understand each other. I have seen Bernie Widrow and Steve Grossberg scream at each other, because they do not really appreciate each other's work... because they have different criteria for what is real work and what is bullshit. They look at the other person's work and they think that it is bullshit, because they are using a different criterion for what is good work. So Steve Grossberg is mainly asking these questions -- "Does it fit the biological circuit? Does it explain some psychological behavior?" (Grossberg is a powerful advocate of neural network research which unifies various disciplines, but these two tests have been the main drivers of his work.) The engineers, by contrast are asking "Does it work? Why does it work? What are the engineering principles involved? Does it really optimize performance?" Engineers have learned how necessary derivative calculations are to high-level general-purpose functionality; these calculations, in turn, require some use of backpropagation as part of the larger neural net designs. Now -- to really understand the brain, intelligence in the mammal brain -- I think we must combine all three validation criteria. A valid model of intelligence in the brain must fit the biological data -- though it doesn't have to explain every last synapse; however, it must also fit with what we know of psychology; and it also must work, because the brain is a working system -- a highly effective, functional system. It must meet all three criteria together. So because of this idea, I helped NSF set up a new initiative a few years ago, which would allow people to get funding for this kind of cross-cutting work (among other things). It funded $20 million per year until 1999 and was called Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS). From my point of view, the idea was to fund research to combine these different criteria together -- but one criterion is functionality. Where I work, in the engineering directorate, we try to build things which work. Now since these communities do not talk to each other, some of you might not know who I am. In the engineering community, at least in the United States, almost everyone thinks of me as "He is that backpropagation person. He is that person who developed an algorithm called backpropagation back in 1974" (in my Harvard PhD thesis). That thesis is reprinted in its entirety in Werbos (1994a). Backpropagation is now used in 80% or more of the working applications of artificial neural nets. There are many artificial neural nets used in academia, in research papers, but for things that actually work, that are functional, solving real-world problems, 80% are based on backpropagation. You should be warned, however, that many of the popularized treatments of backpropagation oversimplify the method, and do not convey how powerful , general and flexible it really is. Until recently, the need for backpropagation in engineering designs was a major reason for the disconnect with biology; there were no proven biological mechanisms to explain how the brain itself might perform any form of backpropagation. But recent biological research has begun to fill in that particular gap. (See Bliss et al on reverse NMDA synapse, Spruston on membrane backflows, etc.) Werbos (1994a) also begins with a chapter on why I think we are ready for a Newton-like revolution in the science of consciousness. The time has come. We have a new kind of derivative. We have new mathematics. We have new connections with Karl Pribram's kind of work. (See Werbos 1994a, 1996, 1998b). We are ready now. And in this book I talk about that. Also, for those people interested in Taoism and Buddhism, in chapter 10, I discuss the connection with those ways of thinking. So now let me get back to the bigger question: If we want to understand the mammal brain in functional terms, first we must say what is the function. If it is not just associative memory, what is the mammal brain doing, in functional terms? Reinforcement Action Sensory Input The Brain As a Whole System Is an Intelligent Controller On this next slide, I am simply saying that the brain as a whole system is what we call an intelligent controller, in engineering. The purpose of the whole system -- the purpose of any computing system -- is to calculate its outputs. The outputs of the brain are actions – what biologists call "squeezing and squirting." That is the purpose of this system, in the physical brain. And so we need to develop a mathematics of intelligent control by neural networks. Notice that I am not talking about “control of the brain;” I am talking about how the brain generates what engineers call “control signals,” the signals which come out of the brain and decide on the level of “squeezing and squirting.” Let me say one other thing. Once I heard a mystic who said "You guys are all crazy. You must learn to appreciate your true self. Your true self," he said, "is much bigger than the brain and the body." And then I asked, "Well, then, what is the brain?" He said, "The brain -- it has its role -- all it is is a low level system, just to control the muscles and the glands of the body." I said, "OK, I can live with that." The brain is a controller. Now let us try to understand how such a controller can work. NSF Workshop Neurocontrol 1988 Control Theory Neuro- NeuroControl Engineering Miller, Sutton, Werbos, MIT Press, 1990 When I took over the NSF program in neuroengineering 10 years ago, immediately I asked: "What do we know about neural networks for control? " We tried to survey all the ideas. We held a workshop in 1988 in New Hampshire on neurocontrol. And I invented this new word "neurocontrol." (More precisely: Allon Guez, an engineer from Drexel, coined this term for an unpublished small IEEE tutorial, and I adapted it for this use. Since then, unfortunately, some folks in biology have used the term “neural control” for a variety of different pursuits which do not even include engineering functionality.) In this workshop, we brought together real control theorists from engineering who know the mathematics of control -- how to make control systems that work. Brain systems are not general complex systems. They are a special type of system designed by nature to work. And so we need to use the mathematics of control systems that work. That is a very special mathematics. But we also need to know about neural networks. At this workshop we had psychologists and neuroscientists and Grossberg people. And one thing we found out: most of the neural network models out there have no hope to approximate the kind of power we see in the mammal brain. For example, there were many control models based on some old ideas from David Marr about the cerebellum. There were many models based on the idea of learning a mapping from sensory coordinates to motor coordinates. Those kind of biological models are exactly like some simple models from control theory, a class of models which are very well understood -- they work very well for certain simple problems -- but experiments have proven that even the lower level of human motor control is much more powerful than any system like that. (See the discussions of direct inverse control in Miller (et al) 1990 by myself, Jordan and Kawato. See also Werbos (1996:273274; 1994b:698; 1999b:360:361).) And so in this workshop, we created this new field of neurocontrol as defined here. This slide gives a definition of neurocontrol, this word I made up. It is the subset of control theory and neural nets. We started that field. In this workshop, we found that there is only one class of neural network design, from engineering or psychology or biology or anywhere else, which has a hope of capturing the kind of intelligence we see in the mammal brain. This is a class of designs which some people call "reinforcement learning systems” (RLS), illustrated on the next slide. Reinforcement Learning Systems (RLS) External Environment or “Plant” U(t) X(t) “utility” or “reward” or “reinforcement” u(t) RLS sensor inputs actions RLS may have internal dynamics and “memory” of earlier times If you are a psychologist, this phrase “reinforcement learning” will instantly remind you of many bad old things. So I have to warn you ... I am not speaking about Skinner-type reinforcement. Also, the idea shown in this slide is somewhat simplified. This is a good starting point, but we have modified the model to account for more complicated ideas from biology and engineering. But I do not have much time to give you the complicated part today; I have to give you the simple starting point. The idea in reinforcement learning systems (RLS) is to design an intelligent controller. Any RLS has sensor inputs. It has action or control outputs. It receives a signal of "utility" or reward. This is like pain or pleasure, perhaps. The goal is to build a system which can learn to maximize this reward signal over time. So my claim is: the mammal brain is like -- something like -- a reinforcement learning system. And now I must say something very important. The mind is not only the intelligence. The intelligence is trying to maximize this signal (U), but this signal is not trivial. Yes, it includes pleasure and pain, but it also includes what Dr. Matsumoto was talking about -- "linkage drives" , imprinting, some kind of deep affect. The system here is actually very complex. It's also an important part of the mind. But I do not have time to talk about it today. Instead, I will give you a commercial. Karl Pribram's edited book, Brain and Values, talks a lot about this part of the mind. (See Werbos 1998b and other chapters in the same book.) Today I will only talk about the intelligence part. If we imagine that the brain is an RLS, or something like an RLS, what does that tell us about its Maximizing utility over time Model Modelof ofreality reality Utility Utilityfunction functionUU Dynamic Dynamicprogramming programming J (x(t)) = Max U (x(t), u(t)) + J (x(t + 1)) /(1 + r ) u(t) Secondary, Secondary,or orstrategic strategicutility utilityfunction functionJJ design? How can RLS systems actually be designed and understood, in functional mathematical terms? The slide above describes a starting point for answering these questions. In 1968, I published an article in the journal Cybernetica (Werbos 1968), arguing that we could build reinforcement learning systems by approximating a method in control theory called dynamic programming. The brain cannot use exact dynamic programming; it is too complex for the brain. It would take a brain larger than the size of the universe to use dynamic programming to solve most everyday problems. But the idea behind the method is very interesting. In dynamic programming, we input this utility function U, and we solve for another function called J. After that, you maximize J in the short term. So U would correspond to things like pain and pleasure; J would correspond to things like learned hopes and fears. So if we build a machine based on this principle, we are building a machine that has one component which learns hopes and fears, and another part which responds to hopes and fears. With all due respect to David Chalmers, I do not think it is a "hard problem" to see the connection between this kind of design and our subjective experience. The hard problem is to make this kind of design work, and work out the details. (Note: we do have many working systems now based on these principles, but we have only just begun the resulting paradigm shift in engineering. See Werbos 1999b,c.) Now actually, there are many, many levels of design for reinforcement learning systems. There is a whole staircase of general-purpose designs, of ever greater complexity and capability. I really do not have time to explain them all now. There is one class of design I developed back in 1971 now called "ModelBased Adaptive Critic" (MBAC). There is a new level I developed just in 1998, based on listening to Karl Pribram and changing my model, to account for the things I felt were missing after I talked to Karl. And this is still only the mammal brain. Beyond that I have some ideas - theoretical ideas -- not mathematics -- Level 3 Model-Based Adaptive Critic Critic X(t) J(t+1) R(t+1) R(t) Model u(t) Action about what lies beyond. The ideas for the Model-Based Adaptive Critic were described in great detail in a book called The Handbook of Intelligent Control (White and Sofge 1992) and there were some applications that have been developed. In the last five years, we have discovered that these are very powerful systems. For example, the design shown in the slide above is a system I proposed in 1972, in my Harvard PhD thesis proposal. This design was based on trying to translate Freud's ideas about "psychic energy" and learning into mathematics -- and that's where backpropagation really came from. The story of this is in Werbos (1994a), with some additional details in Anderson and Rosenfeld. We have recently found out that a new version of this design gives us a form of adaptive control more stable than anything else which exists now in adaptive control theory, in the linear case. (Werbos 1999c). Even this old design from 1972 meets certain tests for a brain-like intelligent system, shown on the next slide. Five years ago, that old design was the only model of neural networks which anyone had ever implemented which meets all four tests shown here. It has an emotional or value system, a test which Dr. Matsumoto has emphasized. An intelligent control system is not a brain-like system if it does not have a 4 Tests For 1st-Order Model of Intelligence In the Brain >An “Emotional” System (Values) >An “Expectations” System (SysID) >An Action/Motor System >ENGINEERING FUNCTIONALITY value system! It also had a prediction or expectation system, which Dr. Matsumoto has also talked about. And it had engineering functionality – as a general-purpose learning system. It was the first model to meet all four standards. This is not just theory! The McDonnell-Douglas people applied an early version of this to solve a problem called making high-quality carbon-carbon composite parts. (White and Sofge 1992). These composite parts are half the cost of modern aircraft. People spend billions of dollars making these parts like cookies. PhDs baking cookies in an oven, and burning most of them. It's very expensive. McDonnellDouglas developed a new continuous production process, but they could not control that process well enough with classical control theory, ordinary neural nets, or anything else -- but these adaptive critics were able to solve this problem, and now they can produce continuous parts. This was a big breakthrough. (Not long after that, however, White and Sofge, who developed that work at McDonnell-Douglas, moved to MIT; Boeing acquired McDonnell, and White found greater funding in the semiconductor area.) There are many other applications I don't have time to discuss, in aerospace, in the automotive sector... Ford Motor Company has said (Business Week, Sept. 1998) that by the year 2001, every Ford car will have a neural network controller to meet air quality standards, using some algorithms that I developed... so these are working systems; it is not all theory. Let me finish up with some citations. For the mammal level of intelligence, Karl Pribram's books - I have some papers in there. There is also a book called Dealing with Complexity (cited in Werbos 1998b) where I discuss a new “three-brain model” based on conversations with Karl. For practical engineering applications, there are some web sites (Werbos 1999c), which include a free long paper on stability theory from the viewpoint of classical control theory. There is a paper on applications (Werbos 1999b). And then there are some papers on consciousness and on quantum theory. To go beyond the MBAC type of model I talked about before, and to account for new things I have learned from Karl, the new model has certain characteristics. It involves neural networks which input from a field or physical networks or grids rather than just vectors. (Patent pending). It includes ways to organize a hierarchical decision system, based on a new generalization of Bellman’s equation in dynamic programming. Dr. Matsumoto talked about a hierarchical system here today. Karl Pribram discussed this in his book with Miller and Galanter on Tasks and the organization of behavior. Now there is a mathematical implementation of Karl's ideas, and a new form of dynamic programming to implement these ideas in a learning system. We also have some things called imagination networks... there are many new things I cannot show you for reasons of time. 2.3. Additional Comments on Quantum Theory and the Mind Now: two slides on quantum theory, and some comments on mind and reality. THE SECOND QUANTIZATION (II) OBSERVED OUTCOME MEASUREMENT FORMALISM ψ (t + , FS ) ψ = iHψ EXPERIMENTAL SETUP ENCODING ψ (t − , FS ) This slide depicts quantum field theory, in the second quantization. This is the quantum field theory which most people work with today. They use a wave function, which is a function of a very complex space called Fock space. There is a kind of "Schrodinger equation" - not the old Schrodinger equation -- which evolves over time, and there is a measurement formalism. The standard ideology, the standard form of quantum mechanics, says that you need a conscious observer, a metaphysical observer, but there were new experiments done by Mandel and Ou, reported in Scientific American in 1992 (June) which showed that you can get measurement effects without a conscious observer. So there is empirical evidence that we need a quantum theory without observers. This is experiment -- this is not philosophy. Where can we get such a quantum theory? I cannot explain quantum theory in one minute! But I can give some citations. Werbos (1998a: section 6) includes three alternatives to the usual formulation of the functional integral approach – one a slight reformulation of Schwinger’s ideas, to make them more compact and parsimonious, but another one very crazy and heretical – providing a more formal basis for revisiting the possibility of realism, drawing on some of the old ideas of Einstein and DeBroglie. Werbos (1999b) provides some of the conceptual background; section 6 of that paper also talks about the three alternatives, and possible testable implications. (Section 3 of this paper will add a new idea on those lines.) For example, there is a possibility that quarks could be bosons... there is a way you could do it. It sounds crazy. But I think I know how. QED REMOTE VIEWING [ Quantum effects Are Not Enough [ Additional Force Fields? [ But if so, where is signal processing? [ A radical chasm -- extreme choices One last slide. Many people at this conference have expressed hope that quantum mechanics might explain things like remote viewing or like the collective unconscious of Jung -- wild, crazy things. I would like to point out that no form of quantum mechanics can explain something like remote viewing. It doesn't matter whether you take Bohmian or my kind or Schwinger's kind or Copenhagen... because all these different forms of quantum mechanics produce about the same quantum electrodynamics ... they yield the same predictions, essentially, for the case of quantum electrodynamics (QED). If you consider electrodynamics, that is not enough to generate remote viewing. We know what is possible with QED. The world has spent billions of dollars trying to use QED in the military to see things far away. We cannot do it. So if you want to explain strange things like remote viewing, the only way is by assuming strange force fields and strange signal processing . You have a choice. There is a great chasm. It is a binary choice. You cannot do it a fuzzy way. Either you give up on these phenomena -- you give up on all that stuff -- or else you have to open yourself up to really crazy things, much more than just quantum theory. Crazy things like letting me stay here... and I thank Kunio for allowing such a crazy thing. 3. Recent Extensions This section will not give more detailed explanations of the ideas discussed above; see the references for such explanations. Instead, it will give a condensed summary of some new thinking, stimulated by discussions at this conference and at the Quantum Mind conference in Arizona. 3.1. Comments on Consciousness Qua Wakefulness or Awareness Because wakefulness and awareness are major aspects of brain functioning they are, of course, addressed in the models I mentioned above. In one of Pribram’s recent conferences, there was a debate between Pribram, McClelland, Alkon and myself on the functional significance of sleep states. From my earliest papers, I agreed with LaBerge that dreams provide a simulation capability, essential to the training of any imaginative intelligent controller. Working RLS systems have demonstrated this kind of capability. Additional states are required to facilitate memory consolidation or generalization from memory – a topic related to what is called “memory-based learning” or “syncretism” on the engineering side; McClelland has argued that this involves a transfer from hippocampus to neocortex during dreams, but Karl and I argued that it may instead involve a harmonization between different types of cell within these two structures, during other kinds of sleep states. A key technical point is that local and global representations both exist within both organs. Furthermore, dreams and the hippocampus have long been known to have other functions beyond this hypothesized memory function. Regarding awareness and attention – I thank Bernie Baars for drawing my attention to some of the recent literature by authors like himself and Legothetes, which I need to study further. Attention is clearly much more than a matter of importance weighting or “salience,” as in the older models. In my view, it is the key mechanism for “labeling” the variables monitored by major fields in the neocortex; for an example of how important this might be, see the paper by Olhausen and Koch in Arbib. More precisely, this kind of object “labeling” is the kind of machinery needed to use multiplexing to implement the “ObjectNet” design (patent pending) discussed in Werbos 1999c. Any efficient multiplexing system results in synchronized “object binding,” without any need for reverberatory attractors and other such mechanisms popular in neuroscience today; the challenge for design (or functional understanding) is not with the binding per se, but the management and choice of what is bound to. Current evidence (see papers in Arbib) suggests that the pulvinar plays a crucial role in this function. 3.2. Discussions at the Arizona Conference I am very grateful to Stuart Hameroff and the Arizona group for inviting me to speak at that conference, despite my known skepticism about ORCH as such. At Arizona, I argued that true quantum computing effects probably are not relevant to a functional understanding of the brain. This does not mean that quantum mechanics as such is irrelevant. Quantum mechanics is important to understanding how molecules work, just as it is important to understanding how quantum dots and Josephson junctions can be used to implement classical NOT gates and AND gates, etc. But we would call that “quantum devices,” not “quantum computing,” in modern terminology. If a computer is based on quantum devices and ordinary field effects (such as those Pribram has often discussed), this is still quite consistent with the class of quasi-Turing-machine model we are now working with to understand the mammal brain level of intelligence. But for true quantum computing, as now defined, there must be some exploitation of coherence or quantum entanglement effects to serve a systemslevel computational purpose. Many people have already talked about the difficult, unproven physics of trying to imagine how brains could create and maintain quantum entanglement, but very little attention has gone into the even more serious issue of trying to imagine what kind of computational purpose might be served by such a system in the brain. As an honest skeptic, perhaps my first duty is to issue a challenge to the quantum brain believers – to give an example of what they might try to prove, to overcome my skepticism. From all I have read and thought about, I can only imagine two ways that a “quantum computing” capability in the brain might really affect general-purpose intelligence. One would be the evolution of a “quantum associative memory” neuron. Could one really train a single neuron to learn simple functions like XOR or Minsky’s old parity mapping challenge? These are not “natural” problems – but if an individual neuron really had the ability to use molecular quantum computing to achieve associative memory, it should have the ability to learn such relations. If it does not... then what are the hypothesized quantum effects within the cell doing anyway? A second possibility would be that of a “superfast recurrent network” (SFRN), an alternative approach to quantum computing (a form of quantum neural network) proposed in Werbos (1997); however, that hypothetical possibility has yet to be fully understood in engineering terms, let alone mapped into biology. Crucial to the idea of an SFRN is the old insight, originally due to myself (Werbos 1973, 1989) and DeBeauregard, that the paradoxes of quantum theory can be understood as the result of causality running backwards through time at the microscopic, quantum level. (This is similar in spirit to Cramer’s later “transactional interpretation,” but Cramer invokes nonlocality, which is unnecessary here.) Penrose cited us both in Shadows of the Mind, and Hameroff showed a slide from Penrose conveying the idea very vividly. Various people went on to argue that new evidence (from Libet, Radin and Bierman) shows that the brain can respond ¼ of a second before a stimulus, and that something like an SFRN might be present in the brain. Parts of this evidence were surprisingly convincing to me, personally, and they posed more acutely the need to revisit the concept of SFRN and backwards causality. Mari Jibu also pointedly challenged us to explain more precisely how we think the interface actually works between “microscopic” time symmetry and the macroscopic arrow of time. As a caveat, Josephson reminded people that my negative comments pertain only to the brain – not to the “soul,” a subject of great interest to many but beyond the scope of the present discussion. 3.3. Revisions of My Views of Quantum Effects Word limits here require that I must assume the reader has full knowledge of the references. The views here are not only personal but highly tentative. Many issues which seem real, in debates on quantum theory, disappear when one considers recent experiments. (In addition to the quantum computing work mentioned above, Y. Shih and K. Alley of Maryland have important results.) For example, one may worry about what happens after two measurements, A(t) and B(s), at times s and t, at the discontinuity where s=t. But real measurements take some time; when one approaches such a discontinuity, one predicts the result simply by representing the polarizers or whatever in a more complete fashion, as potentials or particles, affecting the Schrodinger equation, and chucking out the metaphysical observer formalism. This is like the original Von NeumanWigner approach discussed by Stapp at Arizona. This is what actually works. As a practical matter, one always expects to get the right result if one applies the measurement and setup formalisms only to the ultimate, asymptotic, commutative inputs and outputs of an experiment; the measurement formalism may sometimes work in describing what happens in the middle, but there is no general guarantee. Both the functional integral approach, and the variations which I have proposed (Werbos 1998a,1999a), assume an underlying symmetry in time at the microscopic level (leaving aside the superweak interactions). In answer to Mari Jibu’s question, I would argue that all the usual experiments in quantum theory can be reduced to something I call “the standard paradigm.” In this paradigm, everything is ultimately reduced to a scattering experiment. The inputs are represented by some set of measurement operators, and by the actual values of the corresponding variables. (For example, the experimenter may control the momentum of every incoming particle.) The outputs are represented by another set of measurement operators, but the experimenter cannot decide the values of those variables; he may only observe them. Thus there is a clear-cut asymmetry between the input situation and the output situation. In practice (in my definition of “standard paradigm”), the outgoing measurement operators all commute with each other; in fact, they are really nothing but particle counters, which measure particles with energy E>>kT, where T is the temperature of the counter. (Polarizers and such may be considered as internal parts of the experiment.) The functional integral approaches and the second quantization essentially agree completely, for experiments which can be reduced to the standard paradigm. We cannot do the usual Bell’s Theorem experiments in reverse time, because these counters do not emit energetic particles in reverse time. Why not, if physics is symmetric in time at the microscopic level? Actually, this question is mathematically almost equivalent to the classical question about what happens to a rock on the floor. Why do we not see rocks flying up from the floor, following a time-reversed movie of how they fall to the floor? The answer is simple: there is only a tiny probability that the atoms under the rock will happen to move in the same direction (up) and push the rock up. For similar reasons, it is rare that an E>>kT counter would emit a particle in reverse time. The puzzling thing is that we ever see such an event in forwards time; this otherwise improbable thing is due to the experimenter exploiting the availability of time-forwards free energy, which ultimately comes from sunlight pouring down on earth – a macroscopic boundary condition. For experiments within the scope of the standard paradigm, backwards time communication of macroscopic information is impossible. It is impossible, in part, because it would allow a violation of Eberhart’s Theorem on the impossibility of communicating information faster than the speed of light (FTL). Eberhart’s Theorem does not depend on conventional wisdoms about causality and such; it only depends on the basic assumption that equal time commutators are zero. The concept of backwards causality and equilibration across space-time may provide a useful understanding of what is possible with quantum computing within the standard paradigm; thus it may still permit development of some kind of useful SFRN, as a way of speeding up certain very general computations. However, such designs could all be reformulated (albeit awkwardly) within the usual formalisms of traditional quantum computing, rooted in the second quantization. There is no possibility of communicating macroscopic information back through time. There are two possible loopholes here which merit further thought. First, what about “stochastic infrared quantum computing?” What if one output channel ends in a controlled polarizer, follower by an E<kT or E=kT “counter”? Many experiments were done by Planck and Einstein in that regime, but perhaps a modern analysis might be interesting. Second, Eberhart’s Theorem implicitly assumes that information is represented by bare operators, not renormalized physical operators. Gerhard Hegerfeldt, of the University of Gottingen, has shown that FTL communication can actually occur, in limited circumstances, due to renormalization effects. What if the renormalization were more drastic, as with wave functions of electrons in superconductors, which are extended very far in space? (Final two paragraphs not attached.) References Arbib, Michael (Ed.) (1995). The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Anderson, James & E.Rosenfeld (Eds.) (1998). Talking Nets. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Miller, William T., R.Sutton & P.Werbos (Eds) (1990). Neural Networks for Control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (now in paperback). Schwinger, Julian (1968). Sources and magnetic charge, Physical Review, Vol. 173, No.5, 1536-1544, Sept.25 Werbos, Paul (1968). The elements of intelligence. Cybernetica (Namur), No.3. Werbos, Paul (1973). An approach to the realistic explanation of quantum mechanics. Nuovo Cimento Letters, Vol.29B, sept. 8. Werbos, Paul (1989). Bell’s theorem: the forgotten loophole and how to exploit it. In M.Kafatos (Ed.), Bell’s Theorem, Quantum Theory and Conceptions of the Universe. Kluwer. Werbos, Paul (1994a). The Roots of Backpropagation: From Ordered Derivatives to Neural Networks and Political Forecasting. New York: Wiley. Werbos, Paul (1994b). The brain as a neurocontroller: New hypotheses and experimental possibilities. In K.Pribram (Ed.), Origins: Brain and Self-Organization. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 680-706. Werbos, Paul (1996). Learning in the brain: An engineering interpretation. In K.Pribram and J.King ( Eds.), Learning as Self-Organization. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Werbos, Paul (1997). Optimization: A Foundation for understanding consciousness. In D.Levine & W. Elsberry (Eds.), Optimality in Biological and Artificial Networks? Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Werbos, Paul (1998a). New Approaches to Soliton Quantization and Existence for Particle Physics [xxx.lanl.gov/abs/patt-sol/9804003]. Werbos, Paul (1998b) Values, Goals and Utility in an Engineering-Based Theory of Mammalian Intelligence. In Karl H.Pribram (Ed.), Brain and Values. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Werbos, Paul (1999a) Can ‘soliton’ attractors exist in realistic 3+1-D conservative systems? Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Vol. 10, No. 11. Werbos, Paul (1999b). Neurocontrollers. In J.Webster (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. New York: Wiley. Werbos, Paul (1999c). See general review posted on www.iamcm.org. For technical information on stability of adaptive control and RLS, see Stable Adaptive Control Using New Critic Designs [xxx.lanl.gov/abs/adap-org/9810001] White, David & D. Sofge (Eds.) (1992). Handbook of Intelligent Control. Van Nostrand. Zinn-Justin, J. (1996). Quantum Field Theory and Critical Phenomena, Third Edition. Clarendon, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 418-421 Chao, K. K., An Integral World Perspective 418 Research Essay An Integral World Perspective Kenneth K. Chao* Abstract The question regarding possible existence of past and future lives is addressed in this article, which leads to the intimate connection between Physical World and Consciousness World as two sides of one coin. The examination of genuine unconsciousness reveals the dynamic and fundamental nature of consciousness with a proposed axiom: genuine unconsciousness is identical to nothingness both physically and psychologically. Because over 95% of our universe is composed of indirectly detectable “dark” material, it is quite possible that conscious live forms beyond our current observation limit can exist. A hierarchy structure of consciousness, awareness and certainty, together with the spacetime concept are used to explain the phenomena of particle entanglement and double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics. Key Words: consciousness world, physical world, unconsciousness, quantum mechanics, spacetime, past life, future life, integral view. Do you believe that you had previous lives? The answer is usually negative or at least neutral such as “I don’t know” or “I cannot remember”. Well, could you remember what you wore or ate on this day exactly one year ago? A lot of events actually occurred in our present life but we are unable to recall them particularly the detail. Here is the catch: things never happened before of course you cannot remember, however things you cannot remember do not necessarily mean they never happened. This asymmetric rationality is critical and opens the door for the chance of past life albeit most of us cannot recall. The progress of modern science may be characterized as “integral connectivity”. Einstein special relativity made connection between space and time, as well as between matter and energy (E=mc2). Consequently these properties of nature are no longer isolated or absolute. In other words they are mutually transferable. His general relativity went a step further to place space/time on one side of equation and matter/energy the other side hence they are all related, or parts of an integral wholeness. Traditional science is the study of our Physical World composed of space, time, matter, energy, as well the associated gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces. Recent scientific advances unveil the importance of our Consciousness World. Physical World and Consciousness World are two sides of one coin which are inseparable. Our definition of Physical World is generally limited to everything we can directly observe or measure in this universe. Beyond that we refer to as spiritual world. With the emergence of dark matter, dark energy and negative energy, we realize the Physical World is much bigger than we originally *Corresponding author: Kenneth K. Chao, Ph.D. E-mail: kenchao@cfu.net ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 418-421 Chao, K. K., An Integral World Perspective 419 thought. The known matter and energy account only <5% of the total with the rest from indirectly detectable dark matter, dark energy and negative energy. The horizon of Physical World may extend indefinitely to allow the possibility of high-dimensional and parallel multiverses. Our exploration of the physical frontier continues as demonstrated by Einstein relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, complexity science and so forth. Now let us consider an equation with Physical World at one side and Consciousness World at the other as shown below. Physical World = Consciousness World Conscious beings like human or extraterrestrial require physical manifestation such as light and other forms consisting of space, time, matter, and energy. A physical universe never to be appreciated by conscious being has no value or practically equals to nothingness; whereas consciousness deprived from physical manifestation is barren. So what is consciousness and how to define it? We all have a distinctively unique selfawareness or the inner feeling of a subjective “me”. People grow older with mental and biological changes however their sense of individual self-awareness remains intact. Memory retention is probably the most important utility of consciousness which links time sequence of events or the learning ability. Consciousness without memory like Alzheimer’s disease is just existence with little meaning or purpose. Because the interconnection between Physical World and Consciousness World, we may employ the same rules learned from Physical World and apply them to Consciousness World, and vice versa. Since our physical universe originated from Big Bang - a physical singularity, our consciousness life may do the same, originated from a psychological singularity. Similar to the circumstance where all known physical laws including Einstein relativity and quantum mechanics break down inside a physical singularity like Big Bang or Black Hole, it is quite possible that when a new baby is born into this world, he or she went through a psychological singularity state thereat consciousness including memory breaks down which in turn gives rise to a sense of new beginning. This may be the reason why we lost our memory of the previous life. However as a result of quantum tunneling effect, a very tiny but definitive fraction of human population evidently carryover the memory from their past life as documented in a few well known reincarnation cases. Now, how about next life after we leave this world? By and large people believe that conscious existence stops when the body is dead. Let’s examine the intriguing state of genuine unconsciousness. We are all familiar with deep sleep especially during our youth (sleep like a baby), and some of us may have experienced coma due to accidents or illness. When a person falls into a genuine unconsciousness state, the concept of time disappears completely which means one billion years is equivalent to a micro second because the faculty or measuring stick to gauge temporal difference no longer exists. Similarly the concept of space disappears as well, implying that a small bedroom is equivalent to the entire universe. The same logic applies to matter, energy, and other physical entities. From a psychological standpoint, genuine unconsciousness means the total loss of self-awareness as well as the associated rich variety of sensation or feeling like pleasure, sadness, excitement, jealous, and so on. At the most ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 418-421 Chao, K. K., An Integral World Perspective 420 fundamental level, the distinction between you and me vanishes. Here is an axiom: genuine unconsciousness is identical to nothingness both physically and psychologically. That is why Physical World and Consciousness World are two sides of a coin. One cannot exist without the other. The good news is that you don’t need to worry about being inside the unconsciousness state because you don’t know when you are in there and how long you are in there … such as the experience from deep sleep or coma. Only after you wake up and look at the clock thus recognize how much time has elapsed from memory. In other words, genuine unconsciousness is absolutely trivial in a practical sense (no pain and no gain). If death means unconsciousness then nobody should take it seriously. Logically speaking, any process with a beginning must have an end. You are awake and reading this sentence right now. If at some future point you enter into an unconsciousness state (beginning) then you will get out of it eventually (end) and regain consciousness or selfawareness. As noted earlier, you would not know how long you are exposed to the unconsciousness state when you are in there due to the loss of time concept. The philosophical implication is that death is not the end of life but a mere transition. Afterlife is real and inevitable. Once crossing the divide your current life becomes past life. This chain of succession continues open-endedly, or the consciousness/unconsciousness alteration cycle is naturally ever present. Infinite life cycles suggest all possible forms of existence in highdimensional multiverses. This could be the ultimate Oneness or Wholeness. We are naturally connected after all. The connection between Physical World and Consciousness World is evident in quantum mechanics as exemplified by Schrodinger’s cat, double-slit experiment, and particle entanglement or ‘spooky action at a distance’ according to Einstein. As aforementioned, genuine unconsciousness is timeless and spaceless among other thingless. If one minute is equivalent to thousand years which in turn equal to nothingness, then they should also be indifferent or sameness due to the loss of time concept. One Minute = Thousand Years = Nothingness = Sameness It doesn’t matter how far in space and how long in time that two entangled particles might be separated, the spacetime concept means literally nothing or extremely fuzzy to these “unconscious” particles unless they are once again observed by conscious being capable to appreciate their beauty or collapse the Schrodinger’s probability wave function, in other words to reconnect these entangled particles with Consciousness World. Fuzzy spacetime may be the reason why a single particle can exist at different places simultaneously. It should be noted that consciousness has quantitative and qualitative differences just like physical universe. What is the relation between unconsciousness and unawareness? You can be in a conscious state but unaware of certain events or happenings. Unawareness may be treated as pseudo unconsciousness. By the same token, uncertainty may be treated as pseudo unawareness (see the hierarchy arrangement below). If the probability wave function can be destroyed by consciousness, awareness or certainty, then the reverse may be true that probability wave function can be created by unconsciousness, unawareness or uncertainty. This applies to the double-slit experiment where freedom of choice among two slits (uncertainty or unawareness) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 418-421 Chao, K. K., An Integral World Perspective 421 generates Schrodinger’s probability wave function that is consistent for all “unconscious” photons or electrons used in the experiment trials. Such equality or sameness in the form of probability wave function reflects uncertainty or unawareness. It should be noted there are level differences in the natural hierarchy. Consciousness --------------------Awareness Unawareness Certainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Unconsciousness Unawareness Uncertainty A sleeping brain displays wave-like unconsciousness (spread out). Conversely, a wakeup brain has particle-like consciousness (zero in). “Determinism vs. Free Will” may be assimilated as “Particle-Like vs. Wave-Like”, respectively. Gravitational force is not only observed from heavenly bodies (stars and planets) but also experienced among conscious beings; followers usually revolve around their leader by means of psychological attraction or gravity. Our early life development from mother’s womb to infant period is very much like the Big Bang where unconsciousness/nothingness/sameness rapidly evolves into differentiated self-aware individuals via symmetry breaking. If the coexistence of Physical World and Consciousness World is ever present, what can we learn from it? We are all self-centered by nature however the definition of SELF may be expanded to include others. A big self containing others is similar to a wave of compassion, whereas the traditional self pertaining to one person is like a single particle. References (1) “The Ever-Present Origin” by Jean Gebser, English Translation 1985. (2) “Wholeness or Transcendence?” by Georg Feuerstein, Larson Publications 1992. (3) “The Emperor’s New Mind” by Roger Penrose, Penguin Books 1991. (4) “Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife” by Mary Roach, W. W. Norton & Company 2005. (5) “Parallel Worlds” by Michio Kaku, Doubleday 2005. (6) “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, W. W. Norton & Company 1999. (7) “Warped Passages” by Lisa Randall, Harper Perennial 2005. (8) “Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space” by Henning Genz, Perseus Books 1999. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Formalizing Falsification for Theories of Consciousness Across Computational Hierarchies Jake R. Hanson1,2,* and Sara I. Walker1,2,3,4* 1 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 2 Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 3 ASU–SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 4 Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA arXiv:2006.07390v2 [cs.AI] 5 Sep 2020 * jake.hanson@asu.edu; sara.i.walker@asu.edu ABSTRACT The scientific study of consciousness is currently undergoing a critical transition in the form of a rapidly evolving scientific debate regarding whether or not currently proposed theories can be assessed for their scientific validity. At the forefront of this debate is Integrated Information Theory (IIT), widely regarded as the preeminent theory of consciousness because of its quantification of subjective experience in a scalar mathematical measure called Φ that is in principle measurable. Epistemological issues in the form of the “unfolding argument” have provided a concrete refutation of IIT by demonstrating how it permits functionally identical systems to have differences in their predicted consciousness. The implication is that IIT and any other proposed theory based on a physical system’s causal structure may already be falsified even in the absence of experimental refutation. However, so far many of these arguments surrounding the epistemological foundations of falsification arguments, such as the unfolding argument, are too abstract to determine the full scope of their implications. Here we make these abstract arguments concrete, by providing a simple example of functionally equivalent machines realizable with table-top electronics that take the form of isomorphic digital circuits with and without feedback. This allows us to explicitly demonstrate the different levels of abstraction at which a theory of consciousness can be assessed. Within this computational hierarchy, we show how IIT is simultaneously falsified at the finite-state automaton (FSA) level (an instance of the unfolding argument) and unfalsifiable at the combinatorial state automaton (CSA) level. We use this example to illustrate a more general set of falsification criteria for theories of consciousness: to avoid being unfalsifiable or already falsified scientific theories of consciousness must be invariant with respect to changes that leave the inference procedure fixed at a particular level in a computational hierarchy. Moving forward, our formalism thereby provides a tight constraint on mathematical theories of consciousness, as well as a more concrete foundation connecting the scientific study of consciousness and computer science. Introduction If, and if so how, theories for consciousness can be brought within the purview of science is a subject of intense debate and equally intense importance. The resolution of this debate is necessary for validating theory against experiments in human subjects. It is also critical to recognizing and/or engineering consciousness in non-human systems such as machines. Currently, there is a global, multi-million dollar effort devoted to scientifically validating or refuting the most promising candidate theories, specifically Integrated Information Theory and the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory1 . At the same time, it is becoming increasingly unclear whether these theories meet the required scientific criteria for validating them. Since the early 1990s, scientific studies of consciousness have primarily focused on identifying spatiotemporal patterns in the brain that correlate with what we intuitively consider to be conscious experience. This is due in large part to advances in medical imaging such as electroencephalograms (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that assess brain activity during different functional behaviors (e.g., sleeping, verbal reports, etc.). The empirical data that results from such tests provide evidence for links between spatiotemporal patterns and inferred conscious states. These links, known as Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCCs), are well-established and form the basis for an entire subfield of contemporary neuroscience2, 3 . Despite the success of NCCs, however, there is an underlying epistemic issue with the scientific study of consciousness because conscious states are never directly observed within the NCC framework. Instead, they must be inferred based on our own phenomenological experience. For example, when a person is asleep we infer they are less conscious than when they are awake because we have first-hand subjective experience of what it is like to be both asleep and awake. While the epistemic issues associated with NCCs are widely known and discussed, the debate around the possibility of falsifying some of the leading theories of consciousness has recently intensified. This resurgence of interest in what constitutes a valid theory for consciousness is primarily due to the new formalization of the scientific issues in the form of “unfolding” arguments 4–6 . In particular, the original unfolding argument as clarified by Doerig et al. points to deep logical problems with any causal structure theory (CST) that assumes consciousness supervenes on a particular causal structure independent of outward functional consequences6 , which implies NCCs would be inadequate to validate such theories. Since the currently leading candidate theory for consciousness, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is itself a causal structure theory, this has major implications for how we approach the problem of consciousness. To understand how the unfolding argument aims to falsify IIT, it is important to first understand how IIT is constructed as a theory that is derived from simple axioms that make assumptions regarding what conscious experience is, and from these derives a mathematical measure of integrated information Φ that is proposed as a quantification of consciousness. Among the axioms of the theory is the integration axiom, which states that we experience consciousness as an "undivided whole", meaning, for example, that our left and right visual field are integrated into a single conscious experience. Crucially, integration (and the other phenomenological axioms of IIT) must have a direct translation in terms of mathematical machinery to construct the formal theory. For integration, this is achieved by enforcing integration of the physical substrate(s) that gives rise to consciousness, where the precise mathematical definition is in terms of the presence of feedback between the physical components in a system (e.g., neurons). Consequently, any system that is strictly feed-forward is unconscious, by definition in IIT, due to an assumed inability for such physical structures to generate a unified subjective experience. What the unfolding argument showed was that the input-output behavior of any conscious system with feedback and Φ > 0 can be perfectly emulated by a strictly feed-forward system with Φ = 0. To do so, one simply needs to "unfold" the feedback present in the causal structure of the conscious system in a way that preserves the underlying functionality of the system (i.e. the input-output behavior) - a feat that can be accomplished in the forward or backward direction using feed-forward and recurrent neural networks, respectively6 or Krohn-Rhodes decomposition5 . The unfolding argument highlights a key issue with IIT and other potential CSTs: the physical process that is assumed to be causally responsible for generating consciousness does not necessarily correlate with any particular input-output behavior, meaning it is not possible to directly test predictions from the theory. The most recent contribution to this debate has come in the form of its generalization by Kleiner and Hoel that applies to any theory for consciousness where the inference from a given measurement of the state of consciousness does not match the prediction under substitution of one physical system for another with appropriate constraints on the substitution4 . Arguments by Doerig et al. and Kleiner and Hoel have addressed the epistemic issues surrounding falsification of theories of consciousness in the abstract. Here, we seek to ground these abstract arguments in a concrete, easily visualizable system that allows clear demonstration of their consequences. The key contribution of the current work is to demonstrate how the issue of falsification is related to the level in the computational hierarchy at which one assesses the validity of a theory for consciousness. To do so, we introduce a hierarchy of formal descriptions that can be used to describe a given finite-state machine. We show that the discrepancy between whether IIT is falsified or unfalsifiable ultimately depends on the computational scale at which inference of subjective experience is made. In particular, we construct isomorphic causal structures (digital circuits) designed to operate a simple electronic tollbooth with and without feedback. In light of this isomorphism, we evaluate the falsification of IIT at two levels of computation for this circuit: at the finite-state automaton (FSA) level and the combinatorial state automaton (CSA) level and show how the theory is either unfalsifiable at the CSA level or already falsified at the FSA level. Our case study demonstrates how candidate measures of consciousness must be invariant with respect to changes in formal descriptions that exist below the level of the specified inference procedure if they are to avoid a priori falsification. An added consequence is that our approach allows a deep connection between the current debate surrounding formalization of falsification arguments with foundations of computer science. We conclude with a brief discussion regarding what a candidate measure of consciousness that satisfies this constraint might look like, as well as the scope of its applicability. Results Defining Falsification for theories of Consciousness Falsification is formally defined as a mismatch between a theoretical prediction and an observation and is essential for a theory to be considered scientific7 . The scientific study of consciousness is problematic due to the inability to observe conscious states directly. Instead, they must be inferred based on some other empirical observation. Thus, falsification for theories of consciousness must be defined as a mismatch between prediction and inference based on observation rather than prediction and direct observation4 . Consequently, it is possible to disagree as to whether or not a theory of consciousness is falsified due to discrepancies between inference procedures being applied to empirical observations (i.e. the empirical data is the same but the inferences are different), or worse, to selectively choose inference procedures depending on the empirical data. Consensus agreement can only be achieved for falsification arguments if they are explicitly constructed with respect to a fixed inference procedure. That is, if a physical system can be transformed into another physical system in a way that preserves the results from the inference procedure while changing the underlying prediction from the theory then a theory of consciousness is falsified with respect to that inference procedure, as this guarantees a mismatch between prediction and inference for at least one of the physical systems under consideration4 . Indeed, this is exactly what is exploited by Doerig et al 2/12 in their unfolding argument6 : the input-output behavior of a system is fixed and the underlying causal structure is transformed in a way that changes the predicted Φ value from IIT. If one assumes that the inference procedure takes place at the level of input-output behavior, as the authors argue one should, then the preservation of the input-output behavior fixes the inferred conscious experience and falsifies any and all theories of consciousness that are not invariant with respect to this transformation. The Computational Hierarchy Implicitly, it is typically assumed that inference takes place at the level of input-output behavior (e.g. NCCs). However, this is not the only formal level of description at which inferences can be made, nor is it immediately clear that it is inherently the best. At this point, it is at least plausible that lower-level attributes, such as thermodynamic efficiency, may be part of a valid inference procedure. For this reason, we remain agnostic to the precise level at which an inferences are made and instead focus on explicitly characterizing the spectrum of possibilities. To do this, we introduce the following hierarchy that can be used to describe the behavior of a given computational system, allowing us to precisely identify the computational "level" at which a theory is making inferences and predictions. At the top of the hierarchy is the abstract relationship between the inputs, outputs, and internal states that define a computation. These states are typically described in terms of functional behaviors ("stop", "walk", "go", etc.) but what really gives them meaning mathematically is only their topological relationship with one another. This implies that at this level, the formal description of the computation is not grounded in any particular physical representation and could, in fact, be realized by radically different causal structures (Figure 1). This abstract treatment of computation corresponds to what Chalmers’ refers to as the "finite-state automaton" (FSA) level of description, due to the fact it is defined in terms of a global finite-state automaton8 . Beneath this level is what Chalmers refers to as the "combinatorial-state automaton" (CSA) description8 . The only difference between the FSA and CSA levels of description is that the latter specifies the computational states of the former in terms of a specific labeling or encoding of the subsystems that comprise the global system. In digital electronics, as well as models of the human brain, this encoding is usually given in terms of binary labels that are assigned to instantiate the functional states of the system. Consequently, transitions between states in the CSA description fix local dependencies between elements, as the correct Boolean update must be applied to each "bit" or "neuron" based on the global state of the system. Furthermore, once a binary representation is specified it constrains the memory required to instantiate the computation, as the number of bits that comprise the system is now fixed. The final level of the hierarchy is the specific choice of logic gates used to implement the Boolean functions specified at the CSA level. This level corresponds to what we would call the "causal structure" as it fully constrains the causal mechanisms that lead to internal state transitions and results in a specific logical architecture (i.e. digital circuit or neuronal wiring). For example, the same Boolean functions (CSA description) can be realized using AND,OR, and, NOT gates or universal NAND gates as both form a complete basis for Boolean computation. This choice has interesting physical consequences in terms of the energetic efficiency of a given computation9 , though biological systems typically operate many orders of magnitude above the thermodynamic limit10 . Prediction and Inference within IIT The computational level at which predictions are made in Integrated Information Theory is that of the CSA description, though it is often conflated as a "causal structure" theory. In particular, IIT states that feedback between elementary components in a system is a necessary condition for consciousness. The underlying motivation for this assumption is the integration axiom; namely, IIT assumes that an integrated phenomenal experience must be mirrored by integration of the physical substrate that gives rise to consciousness11 . In other words, for an experience to be a "unified whole" there must be bidirectional dependencies between the elements that generate this experience. Since the CSA level specifies local dependencies, it is this level that determines the extent to which state transitions rely on feedback between elements and, therefore, the Φ value for the system. Going below this level is irrelevant, as the dependence between elements is fixed by the Boolean truth tables in the CSA description rather than any particular circuit implementation of these truth tables. Thus, IIT is invariant with respect to changes below the CSA level. Consequently, different physical circuits that implement the same CSA (e.g. AND/OR/NOT vs NAND implementations) necessarily have the same Φ value (Fig. 1). Unlike prediction, there is no clear agreement within IIT as to where in the computational hierarchy one should infer conscious experience. In fact, there are clear inconsistencies that are responsible for confusion regarding whether or not IIT is experimentally falsifiable. On one hand, proponents of IIT design experiments to test theoretical predictions against the traditionally held notion that certain outward behaviors such as sleep and self-report are accurate reflections of particular subjective experiences based on our own phenomenal experience. In this case, the inference procedure being used is based on abstract input-output behavior (i.e. the FSA level) where functional states such as sleep are expected in response to inputs such as anesthetics1, 12 . Crucially, none of these states being used for inference have natural binary representations and, therefore, can be encoded in a variety of different ways with a variety of different causal structures. Thus, inferences are made independently of both the CSA and causal structure descriptions in these experiments. On the other hand, proponents of IIT support the claim that it is possible to fix the input-output behavior of a system while still inferring a difference in subjective experiences (i.e. the 3/12 Figure 1. The computational hierarchy used to formally classify levels of inference and prediction. At the top of the hierarchy is the abstract finite-state automaton (FSA) description of a computation which, in this case, is counting mod-eight. Beneath this is the combinatorial state automaton (CSA) description in which abstract states of the FSA have been assigned specific binary labels which, in turn, constrain local dependencies between elements. Note, it is this level of the hierarchy that IIT uses to calculate Φ. At the bottom of the hierarchy is the full causal structure, as specified in terms of the specific logic gates that implement the Boolean functions from the CSA level. In this case, we have shown two different choices for a complete logical basis: AND/OR/NOT gates or universal NAND gates. existence of "philosophical zombies")11, 13 . In this case, it is the CSA rather than the FSA level of description that must be used to infer the conscious state of a system, as fixed input-output behavior implies a fixed FSA description. Thus, the inference procedure that is used to support the experimental validity of IIT in a traditional laboratory setting must ultimately be rejected in defense of philosophical zombies - a paradox at the heart of the unfolding argument. A Concrete Example We now turn to a concrete example that demonstrates the logical inconsistencies within IIT, and the more general problem of separating prediction from inference, in terms of easily visualizable tabletop electronics. In particular, we will construct isomorphic digital circuits with and without feedback designed to operate a simple electronic tollbooth, such as that shown in Figure 2. Focusing on feedback, as opposed to some other difference in causal structure, allows us to ground our thinking in the specifics of IIT, though the implications of our results readily generalize to any computationalist theory of mind14 . The FSA description of the tollbooth’s behavior is defined by the requirement that it must lift the boom barrier in response to the receipt of exactly eight quarters, as shown schematically in Figure 2a. To do this, the circuits governing the behavior of the tollbooth must transition through eight internal memory states, corresponding to the eight functional states in the FSA description of the machine, as shown in Figure 2b. At the CSA level, we insist that both the circuit with feedback and the circuit without feedback be constructed on a three-bit logical architecture, which serves to enforce a strict isomorphism (one-to-one map) between internal states in the two different descriptions. Thus, the FSA description of the system is identical, and the CSA (circuit) descriptions are isomorphic, meaning they instantiate the same functional relationship between inputs, outputs, and internal states. Insisting on isomorphic (rather than homomorphic) instantiations allows us to control for all possible 4/12 confounding factors that can be used to infer a difference in subjective experience, including memory constraints (often referred to as "efficiency" constraints6, 11 ). (a) (b) Figure 2. Schematic illustration of a simplified electronic tollbooth (2a) and its FSA description (2b). The general behavior of the tollbooth is to lift a boom barrier upon receipt of eight quarters ($2.00). To do this requires the ability to cycle through eight internal memory states {A, B, ..., H}, sending each internal state as output to the boom barrier. In what follows, we first construct a "conscious" circuit with feedback (and Φ > 0), followed by a functionally identical but "unconscious" circuit with strictly feed-forward connections (and Φ = 0). The general construction of both circuits is the same: first, we assign binary labels to the functional states of the system; then, we map these binary state transitions onto JK flip-flops, which are the "bits" in our digital circuits; and last, we use Karnaugh Maps to simplify the logic tables of the JK flip-flops in a way that results in simple elementary logic gate operations (e.g. AND, OR, XOR). As we show, the presence or absence of feedback in the system ultimately stems from the initial choice of the binary labels used to represent or encode the eight functional states of the system, in accordance with the claim that Φ acts on the CSA level of description. For the system with feedback, we randomly assign these labels in a way that happens to result in Φ > 0 for all states. For the feed-forward system, however, we carefully decompose the underlying dynamics in a way that exploits hierarchical relations such that information flows strictly unidirectionally between components in the system and Φ is guaranteed to be zero. Note, for the tollbooth to function correctly, the boom barrier must be programmed to recognize the internal state A as functionally important, as this is the output that causes the boom barrier to lift and reset. To avoid confusion over this issue, we simply fix the binary representation of state A as 000 across CSA representations, corresponding to the notion that the motor hardware of the boom barrier is programmed to recognize this specific binary signal as meaningful. In reality, it is typically assumed that the motor hardware can be reprogrammed to recognize any signal as "meaningful", as all that is relevant from a functional perspective is consistency between a circuit and its motor hardware. Constructing a "Conscious" Tollbooth To construct the conscious tollbooth, we randomly assign the following binary labels to represent the eight functional states in the FSA description of the tollbooth: A = 000, B = 110,C = 010, D = 101, E = 111, F = 011, G = 001, H = 100 This assignment of labels fully specifies the CSA description of the system, as each binary component (bit) now must transition in accordance with the current global state of the system. For example, the transition from state A to state B now requires that the first component of the system transitions from binary state 0 to binary state 1 when the system is in global state 000. Similarly, the transition from state B to state C specifies that the first component of the system must transition from 1 to 0 when the system is in global state 110. Taken together, the constraints on each individual component in the system at each moment in time generate a truth table that specifies the interdependencies between elements and, consequently, the Φ value. To construct the causal architecture, we must specify the elementary building blocks of our system. In a human brain, these building blocks would be neurons but in a digital circuit, these building blocks are "JK flip-flops", which are binary memory storage devices (bits) widely used in the construction of basic digital circuits15, 16 . The behavior of a JK flip-flop is quite simple: there are two stable internal memory states (0 and 1), two input channels (the J input and the K input), and a "clock" that serves to synchronize multiple flip-flops within a circuit. Upon receipt of voltage on a line from the clock, the flip-flop does one of four things depending on the state of the J and K input channel: if the JK input is 00 the internal state remains unchanged ("latch"), if the JK input is 01 the internal state resets to 0 ("reset"), if the JK input is 10 the internal state is set to 1 ("set"), and if the JK input is 11 the internal state is flipped ("toggle"). Thus, for any given internal state transition - Qi (t0 ) → Qi (t1 ) - there are two 5/12 (a) (b) Figure 3. A JK flip-flop is a widely used binary memory device (bit) in digital electronics (Figure 3a). The internal state of the flip-flop takes one of two values (Q ∈ {0, 1}) and is continuously sent as output. Upon receipt of a voltage from a clocked input, the voltages on the two input channels J and K dictate the state transitions of Q (see main). For any desired internal state transition Q(t0 ) → Q(t1 ), there are two JK inputs that will correctly realize the transition (Figure 3b) which provides flexibility when it comes to circuit design. different pairs of JK input that will correctly realize the transition, as shown in Figure 3. This degeneracy provides flexibility when it comes to the design of the elementary logic gate operations required to actually realize the underlying Boolean logic. With the specification of the binary labels and the choice of electronic components, we can now finish the construction of the causal structure in terms of elementary logic gates. To do so, we first convert the state transitions of each individual component into their associated JK values. As mentioned, there is degeneracy in the choice of JK input which means we only have to specify one of the input channels (either J or K) to get the desired transition. For each component in the circuit, there is a column in Figure 4a corresponding to the JK value that is required; note, inputs that do not need to be specified are denoted with an asterisk. Next, we must determine the elementary logic gates required to get the correct JK values given the current state of the system. For instance, when the system is in global state 110, the value of K1 (the K-input to the first component) must be 1, but when the system is in global state 111 the value of K1 must be 0. Taken together, the eight states of the system comprise a truth table of JK input as a function of the global state of the system, as shown in Figure 4b. Ordering these truth tables in gray code yields "Karnaugh maps", which allow straightforward identification of the elementary logic gates required to operate the circuit17 . The elementary logic expression for each of the six input channels, in terms of AND,OR, XOR, and NOT gates, is shown above the corresponding Karnaugh map in Figure 4b. The elementary logic expressions for the behavior of each JK input completes the construction of our circuit, which is shown in Figure 5a. Clearly, this circuit contains meaningful feedback between components, as the state of the first component depends on the state of the second and third and vice versa. The last thing to check is whether or not this feedback is associated with the presence of consciousness according to IIT, as feedback is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Φ > 0. Using the python package PyPhi18 , we find Φ > 0 for all states (Figure 5b), meaning this system is indeed considered conscious within the IIT formalism. (a) (b) Figure 4. To construct the digital circuit for the conscious tollbooth, we convert the global state transitions into their associated JK values (Figure 4a). Then, we use Karnaugh maps to determine the elementary logic required to update each component (Figure 4b). The presence of feedback in the resultant digital circuit is evident by the dependence of earlier components on later components (e.g. J1 = Q1 Q2 + Q3 ) and vice versa (e.g. K3 = Q1 Q2 ). 6/12 (a) (b) Figure 5. An integrated digital circuit (Figure 5a) designed to operate the electronic tollbooth shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, the causal structure contains meaningful feedback in the form of bidirectional dependencies between pairs of elements and, consequently, has Φ > 0 for all states (Figure 5b). Constructing an "Unconscious" Tollbooth In the previous section, we demonstrated the construction of a causal structure designed to operate the electronic tollbooth shown in Figure 2a. We did so by randomly assigning 3-bit binary labels to represent the function states ({A, B, ..., H}) of the system and constructing the logic of the digital circuit in a way that correctly realizes these labeled state transitions. The result was a circuit that relied on feedback connections (i.e. bi-directional information exchange between components) and had Φ > 0 for all states (Figure 5). In this section, we demonstrate that it is possible to assign binary labels in a different way, such that the causal architecture that results instantiates the same functional topology (Figure 2b) but does not make use of any feedback connections. To do so, we will "unfold" the underlying dynamics of the system in a way that guarantees a causal architecture with Φ = 0 for all states in the system. The process of unfolding a finite-state description of a system is based on techniques closely related to the Krohn-Rhodes theorem from automata theory, which states: any abstract deterministic finite-state automata (FSA) can be realized using a strictly feed-forward causal architecture comprised solely of simple elementary components19, 20 . To do so isomorphically, one must find a "nested sequence of preserved partitions", which creates a hierarchical labeling scheme wherein earlier components (flip-flops) transition independently of later components5, 21 . Due to this hierarchical independence, information is guaranteed to flow unidirectionally from earlier components to later components, thereby ensuring a strictly feed-forward logical architecture and, correspondingly, Φ = 0 for all states. While a full discussion of Krohn-Rhodes decomposition is beyond the scope of this paper22 , we briefly describe the relevant methodology for constructing a nested sequence of preserved partitions in the Methods section. The result, applied to the finite-state description of the tollbooth shown in Figure 2b, is the following set of binary labels used to encode the functional states of our system: A = 000, B = 100,C = 010, D = 110, E = 001, F = 101, G = 011, H = 111 Notice, in this labeling scheme, the value of the first component (or "coordinate") partitions the underlying state space of the system into two macrostates: {A,C, E, G} and {B, D, F, H} and can be thought of as high-level representation of "even" and "odd" states. These macrostates are useful due to the fact they transition deterministically back and forth between one another. Thus, knowing the future state of the first component depends solely on knowing the current state of the first component. Similarly, the future state of the second component is completely deterministic given the current state of the first and second components and is agnostic to the third. In this way, each additional component offers a refined estimate as to where in the global state space the current microstate is located23 , hence the claim that the labeling scheme is "hierarchical". With hierarchical labels assigned, the circuit construction now proceeds in a way identical to the previous section. Namely, we convert the binary state transitions into their associated JK values, shown in Figure 6a. Then, we construct truth tables for the state of each J and K input given the global state of the system; and last, we order these truth tables in gray code (Karnaugh Maps) and assign elementary logic gates to each input channel (Figure 6b). The resulting logical architecture is shown in Figure 7a. As required, the circuit is strictly feed-forward, as evident by the fact that each component depends solely on itself or earlier components. This, in turn, guarantees Φ = 0 for all states of the system (Figure 7b) as the presence of feedback connections is assumed to be a necessary condition for consciousness according to IIT. Proof of Falsification/Unfalsifiability In light of the previous sections, it is clear that IIT predicts a difference in subjective experience between the "conscious" tollbooth with Φ > 0 and the "unconscious" tollbooth with Φ = 0. Thus, falsification is a matter of whether or not one can infer a corresponding difference that justifies the difference in prediction. Since the two systems have the same FSA description, any 7/12 (a) (b) Figure 6. The state transitions and JK values (Figure 6a) corresponding to the hierarchical labeling scheme described in the main text. Figure 6b shows the Karnaugh maps used to determine the elementary logic gates used in the construction of the feed-forward logical architecture. Note, the logical dependence between components is strictly unidirectional (e.g. J2 and K2 depend only on the state of Q1 ). (a) (b) Figure 7. A feed-forward digital circuit (Figure 7a) designed to operate the electronic tollbooth shown in Figure 2. This causal structure operates under the same memory constraints as the integrated circuit (i.e. a three-bit logical architecture) but has Φ = 0 for all states (Figure 7b). inference procedure that takes place at the FSA level or above necessarily implies falsification of the theory, as the difference in prediction implies a mismatch between prediction and inference for at least one of the two systems under consideration4 . Consequently, IIT is falsified with respect to inference procedures that are based on the input-output behavior of the system, as this is fixed at the FSA level of description. This implies that the inference procedure utilized by IIT must take place at the CSA level or below if the theory is to avoid total falsification. At the CSA level, however, the full utility of the isomorphism is evident as the only allowable difference between the system with and without Φ > 0 was a permutation of the binary labels used to instantiate functional states. Thus, it is this difference that must be used to infer a difference in subjective experience. However, unlike input-output behavior, there are no clear phenomenological grounds on which one can infer a difference in subjective experience based solely on a permutation of the binary states used to represent functional states within a system. Instead, IIT must assume that such a difference in the CSA description can be used to resolve differences in subjective experience, but it is exactly this assumption that must be tested via comparison of prediction and inference. In other words, if IIT uses the CSA description to infer a difference in subjective experience, then the inference procedure being used is one and the same with the predictions from the theory (i.e. Φ is used as both inference and prediction), which renders the theory is unfalsifiable. In combination, this implies IIT is falsified with respect to inferences procedures at the FSA level or above and inherently unfalsifiable with respect to inference procedures at the CSA level or below. Discussion Our results prove an a priori falsification of IIT as a scientific theory of consciousness using a simple, readily-realizable model. We have shown that what Φ actually measures is a consequence of the particular binary representation (or encoding) 8/12 used to instantiate the functional states in a system at the CSA level, without a clear interpretation in terms of function or phenomenology at the FSA level. For a theory to avoid the epistemic problems revealed by IIT under the isomorphic transformation we introduce requires that no transformation or "substitution" exists that changes the prediction without affecting the inference. This, in turn, implies that beneath the specified level of inference, a mathematical theory of consciousness must be invariant with respect to any and all changes that leave the results from the inference procedure fixed. In other words, if you can make a change to the physical system that does not affect what will be used to infer the conscious state of the system, then such a change must not affect the prediction of the theory either. For the example we provide, an intuitive measure that satisfies this is Group Complexity24 . Like Φ, Group Complexity is a measure of computational complexity that acts on the CSA level of description. Specifically, it counts the number of resets necessary to complete a Krohn-Rhodes decomposition20, 25 , meaning all integrated circuits are decomposed into feed-forward emulations prior to measuring their complexity. This, in turn, puts all CSA representations on an equal playing field, as complexity comes in two forms: "resets" and feedback connections. By first unfolding the dynamics of an integrated circuit, Group Complexity measures the complexity of the underlying computation in the abstract rather than any particular CSA instantiation. Consequently, it is invariant with respect to changes below the FSA level. In light of this, it is important to ask whether there is anything to be gained from a candidate measure of consciousness such as group complexity. In answer, one must first ensure that the measure is scientific by examining whether inference and prediction can be kept independent. This is easy enough to check for group complexity, as inferences are canonically made based on input-output behavior while group complexity can be measured at the circuit level. Given that there is no a priori dependence between a circuit description and input-output behavior, GC is indeed capable of producing non-trivial scientific predictions. In terms of whether or not these predictions are falsifiable, it is certainly possible that we infer a conscious state based on input-output behavior that is in disagreement with a prediction from a theory based on Group Complexity. For example, if the Group Complexity of a model system increases when the system goes asleep, then this serves as falsification with respect to the canonical inference that sleep should correspond to lower subjective experience. While this may sound virtually identical to experiments designed to test IIT1, 12 , the crucial difference is that group complexity is mathematically invariant with respect to changes that preserve a given FSA description. Thus, it appears Group Complexity is a measure of complexity that is both non-trivial and falsifiable. Therefore, it is an epistemologically sound measure of consciousness that retains some of the original insight that motivated Integrated Information Theory26 and acts on the same mathematical structures. Yet, at face value, group complexity seems much too simple to truly quantify conscious experience. For one, it coarse grains all of the richness associated with sensorimotor experience into a scalar value that retains none of the corresponding physical information associated with conscious experience, i.e., it has no implicit explanation for "what it is like" to be something27 . While IIT deals with this problem by equating multi-dimensional vectors with “concepts in qualia space", such sophistications are even harder to ground experimentally than a scalar measure, as the ability to empirically resolve the nuances of a rich phenomenal structure are limited by our ability to empirically infer such structures. Given this, it seems the biggest problem faced by consciousness research going forward is not necessarily the mathematical structures that a theory can predict but the mathematical structures that a theory can infer. We know based on first-hand phenomenal experience of consciousness that certain behaviors such as sleep and verbal report are likely accurate reflections of consciousness in human beings and it is these behaviors that must be leveraged by the inference procedure. Beyond these few specific examples, however, it is difficult to imagine what else can be used to infer conscious states that is not also used to make predictions within the theory. In cases where we lose phenomenological grounding, such as artificial intelligence, this issue is especially problematic28 . While the inability to test what we assume to be consciousness has always plagued the study of consciousness, we hope that formalizing the problem in terms of the level of computational abstraction at which inferences and predictions take place makes it clear that there are mathematical constraints all theories of consciousness must satisfy. Namely, the theory must be invariant with respect to changes that leave the results from the inference procedure unaffected. In IIT, the inference procedure being used to justify the experimental validity the theory is at the level of the input-output behavior of the system, and therefore Φ must be invariant with respect to equivalence classes that share the same FSA description. The fact that it is not either falsifies the theory or renders it metaphysical, depending on whether or not one accepts the canonical inference procedure. Our analyses indicate that not only are new theories of consciousness needed, but new frameworks for assessing the validity of these theories is needed as well. The latter, for example, could be addressed by constructing theories that do not aim to quantify what subjective experience is, but rather the causal consequences of subjective experience on the physical world. 9/12 Methods Isomorphic Unfolding via Preserved Partitions The Krohn-Rhodes theorem guarantees that any finite-state transition diagram can be "unfolded" such that the resultant causal architecure is feedback free and has Φ = 0. Typically, however, this unfolding process results in a causal architecture that is much larger than the minimum number of bits to instantiate the functional topology of the system using feedback. In other words, Krohn-Rhodes decomposition, and other unfolding methodologies6, 11 , inevitably result in a clear difference in efficiency between feed-forward and recurrent representations of the same underlying computation. To control for this, we must find a system that allows an isomorphic feed-forward representation, which can be done using a nested sequence of preserved partitions. A preserved partition is a way of grouping microscopic states into macroscopic equivalence classes (blocks) based on symmetries present in dynamics. In particular, a partition P is preserved if it breaks the microscopic state space S into a set of blocks P = {B1 , B2 , ..., BN } such that every microstate within a given block transitions to the same macrostate (i.e. the same block)21, 29 . If we denote the underlying microscopic dynamics as a function f : S → S, then a block Bi is preserved when: ∃ j ∈ {1, 2, ..., N} such that f (x) ∈ B j ∀x ∈ Bi In other words, for Bi to be preserved, ∀x in Bi x must transition to some state in a single block B j (i = j is allowed). Conversely, Bi is not preserved if there exist two or more states in Bi that transition to different blocks (i.e. ∃ x1 , x2 ∈ Bi such that f (x1 ) = B j and f (x2 ) = Bk with j 6= k ). In order for the entire partition Pi to be preserved, each block within the partition must be preserved. For an isomorphic cascade decomposition to exist, we must be able to heirarchically construct preserved partitions in a maximally efficient way. Namely, each partition in the nested sequence of preserved partitions ({P1 , P2 , ..., PN }) must consist of blocks that evenly split the blocks in the partition above it in half. If this is the case, then a single bit of information can be used to specify where in the preceding block the current state is located. This, in turn, allows a straightforward mapping from the blocks of the preserved partition Pi onto the first i binary coordinates used to represent these blocks. Thus, a system with 2n microstates requires only n binary components, meaning the representation is maximally compact. If one cannot find a preserved partition made of disjoint blocks or the blocks of a given partition do not evenly split the blocks of the partition above it in half, then the system in question does not allow an isomorphic feed-forward decomposition and traditional Krohn-Rhodes decomposition techniques21, 22, 25 must be employed. To isomorphically decompose the finite-state automaton shown in Figure 2b, we let our first preserved partition be P1 = {B0 , B1 } with B0 = {A,C, E, G} and B1 = {B, D, F, H}. It is easy to check that this partition is preserved, as one can verify that every element in B0 transitions to an element in B1 and every element in B1 transitions to an element in B0 (shown topologically in Figure 8). To keep track of the blocks, we assign all the states in B0 a binary coordinate value of Q01 = 0 and all the states in B1 a binary coordinate value of Q01 = 1, which serves as the first of the three binary components (Q01 Q02 Q03 ) assigned to represent the global state of the system. The logic of the first coordinate is given by the corresponding state transitions of the blocks in P1 . Since block 0 goes to 1 and vice versa, the first component is essentially a NOT gate taking input from itself, or a JK flip-flop receiving a "toggle" signal. The second preserved partition P2 must evenly split each block within P1 , such that every block in P2 is half the size of the blocks in P1 . Denoting P2 = {{B00 , B01 }, {B10 , B11 }}, we let B00 = {A, E}, B01 = {C, G}, B10 = {B, F}, and B11 = {D, H}. One can quickly check that these blocks are indeed preserved, and that the component logic for Q02 (based on the state of Q01 Q02 ) is given by: {00 → 0; 01 → 1; 10 → 1; 11 → 0}. In a single-channel input scheme, this corresponds to Q02 as an XOR gate (i.e. Q02 = Q01 ⊕ Q02 but, again, the two channel logic corresponding to a JK flip-flop will differ slightly. The third and final partition P3 must also split the blocks of P2 in half, which implies each of the eight states corresponds to its own block in P3 . Naturally, this partition is preserved since there is only a single state in each block (making it impossible for two states within a given block to transition to separate blocks). Since P3 is at the bottom of the hierarchy, the state of Q03 can depend on the global state of the system (Q01 Q02 Q03 ). Unlike the previous two coordinates, this truth table is too large to be captured with a single elementary logic gate (e.g. NOT,XOR,etc.). Instead, we must rely on a combination of elementary logic gates, which is drastically simplified by the use of JK flip-flops. Indeed, it is this third coordinate (and the potential for more complicated logical descriptions in general) that motivated our use of two channel flip-flops rather than single channel devices (e.g. D flip-flops). Reading the block transitions off of the bottom of Figure 8, we have {000 → 0; 001 → 0; 010 → 1; 011 → 1; 100 → 0; 101 → 0; 110 → 1; 111 → 1}. Clearly, there is no single binary logic gate that implements this truth table, and we must instead refer to the Karnaugh maps shown in Figure 4b. At this point, the isomorphic cascade decomposition is complete. The values assigned to the blocks of Q3 correspond to our new binary labeling scheme, namely: A = 000, B = 100,C = 010, D = 110, E = 001, F = 101, G = 011, H = 111 10/12 Figure 8. A nested sequence of preserved partitions {P1 , P2 , P3 } used to isomorphically decompose or "unfold" the dynamics underlying the finite-state description of the tollbooth shown in Figure 2. Blocks within any given partition transition deterministically, which implies the logic for individual components can be constructed hierarchically. The binary labels assigned to the blocks of P3 correspond to a labeling scheme that is isomorphic to the original and strictly feed-forward (see main). As demonstrated in the main text, these labels result in a causal architecture that is strictly feed-forward and has Φ = 0 for all states, as desired. This can easily be seen by the fact that the transitions of blocks in any given level of the nested sequence of preserved partitions are fully deterministic without the need to specify lower levels (Figure 8). Thus, downstream information from later coordinates is inconsequential to the action of earlier coordinates, which enforces the "hierarchical" relationship between components. Note, this result is by no means unique; there are other nested sequences of preserved partitions for this system that are equally valid. Choosing a different nested sequence of preserved partitions simply amounts to changing the labels assigned to each block which, in turn, changes the Boolean logic governing the system. As long as the partitions are preserved, however, the causal architecture that results is guaranteed to be strictly feed-forward and isomorphic to the logical architecture we present. References 1. Reardon, S. Rival theories face off over brain’s source of consciousness (2019). 2. 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Mathematical definition of public language, and modeling of will and consciousness based on the public language Hana Hebishima, Mina Arakaki, Chikako Dozono, Hanna Frolova, Shinichi Inage To propose a mathematical model of consciousness and will, we first simulated the inverted qualia with a toy model of a neural network. As a result, we confirmed that there can be an inverted qualia on the neural network. In other words, the qualia were individual-dependent and considered difficult as an indicator of consciousness and will. To solve that difficulty, we introduce a probability space and a random variable into a set of qualia and define a public language for events. Based on this idea of public language, consciousness and will are modeled. In this proposal, future actions are randomly selected from the comparison between "recognition of events" by external observation and past episodic memory, and the actual "recognition of actions" is regarded as the occurrence of consciousness. The basic formula is also derived. This proposal is compared with other past philosophical discussions. Key words: conscious, will, mathematical model, probability space, information entropy 1. Introduction This paper is concerned with the mathematical definition of public language and the model of consciousness derived from it. Modeling of consciousness is an important topic, and the relationship between the conscious realm and its physical realm has been studied and developed over the centuries, involving not only scientists but also philosophers and theologians (Bill Faw, 2014). Examples of models of consciousness include the Global Workspace Theory (Stanislas Dehaene et al., 1998), Multiple Draft Theory (Daniel C Dennett, 1993), Higher Thought Theory (Peter Carruthers, 2016), Dehaene - Changeux model (Dehaene S, Changeux JP, 2000), Integrated Information Theory (Tononi G, 2004, Masafumi Oizumi aet al., 2014) and many others. There are also many good reviews of those models (Leonid I. Perlovsky, 2006, Christopher Durugbo et al., 2013), and we won't be introducing each model sequentially here. Among those theories, the integrated information theory was proposed by Tononi to quantify consciousness - especially using the concept of information in information theory. The main purpose of the program is to quantitatively evaluate the perception of a person as a first-person. Integrated information theory does not keep in mind the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" but starts from "consciousness exists" and adopts "information," "integration," "structure" and "exclusion" as axioms. This system of theories is also of great interest, especially in terms of quantifying the functions that complex networks produce. The basic concept is that consciousness appears when much information is integrated, and the degree of integration is expressed by the integrated information quantity:Φ. The Φ is defined for a set of variables that interact and evolve over time, and is a quantification of how much more information the entire original network produces compared to the sum of the information produced by the subnetworks that divided the network. For quantification, we use the concept of Kullback–Leibler divergence, which is also used in this paper. These many models of consciousness complement metaphysical theories of consciousness, such as functionalism, identity theory, dialogic dualism, and neutral monism. The following is a summary of the topics related to this paper. 1.1 Qualia "A unique texture that cannot be explained by words felt by each individual, caused by subjective experiences and senses" is qualia. Even if we express our thoughts and feelings in words, they are essentially things only we can know. For example, let's say a person gets a "bad vibe" when they see a particular color. It is impossible to communicate and share that specific "bad feeling" with others by any means. And a hideous color for one person may be a favorable color for another. However, while we can explain why it is preferable, we cannot verbalize how it is preferable. In other words, because qualia refer to the very feeling of everyone, it is impossible for others to feel qualia generated within them in the same way. Qualia is told with the following two characteristics. 1) Qualia is a subjective feeling gained through individual experience and the difficulty of verbalizing everything correctly 2) Qualia are extremely personal and subjective and cannot be shared with others, and even if we go through the same experience, the qualia we gain is incomprehensible to others Thus, all sensations take place in an individual's brain and do not achieve the exact same qualia as others. 1.2 Philosophical Zombies The "philosophical zombie" is a thought experiment designed to counter the physicalism of qualia and perceptions of consciousness. used by Chalmers, D., to describe qualia (Chalmers, D., 1996). A philosophical zombie is a thought experiment defined as "a being who behaves like a normal human being but in fact has no inner feelings." A major characteristic of philosophical zombies is the lack of qualia. For a philosophical zombie, all emotions and sensations are just part of a brain activity. To put it simply, a philosophical zombie is an entity that has sensations and emotions as a function but no sensations and emotions as a reality. Philosophical zombies are said to be unrecognizable because they look and behave no differently from humans. This is because, as mentioned above, qualia refer to "the sensations and emotions felt by an individual," and it is impossible to prove whether the other person has qualia. If it exists but can't be recognized, no one can prove it. Physicism for consciousness is a monism that ascribes all phenomena to physics. The position is that the human mind and senses fluctuate due to some physical phenomenon and can be observed as an activity of the brain, and for this reason, in physicalism, the human mind and qualia are also regarded as "physical objects." An opposing position is the dualistic idea that there are objects that can be physically observed and objects that cannot be physically observed. Even if we try to physically analyze emotions and sensations, what we can observe is the physical phenomena of the brain, and we can't observe whether there is "something" other than the physical phenomena of the brain. This leads to the idea that the essence of the human mind and consciousness cannot be expressed in modern physics, and this is called the "hard problem of consciousness." In physicalism, the "mind," such as consciousness and qualia, is taken as a physical phenomenon of the brain - that is, "the mind is the same as the senses and emotions as functions." If physicalism is right, we can say that philosophical zombies are unimaginable and "improbable." Physicism, however, cannot prove why philosophical zombies are improbable, because the physical phenomena of the brain do not explain why or how the mind arises. Based on this logic, the argument is that "Physicism is wrong if philosophical zombies are imaginable, and their existence cannot be denied." 1.3 Inverted qualia Consider, for example, the color red. Observers watching the same sunset: Even if A and B each recognize the color of the sunset as "red," they cannot confirm whether the private "red" that A and B recognize is the same. For example, even if A's perceived "red" is considered "blue for A" to B, there is no problem with A and B's claim that "the setting sun is red." This "inverted qualia" thought experiment argues that the idea of physicalism cannot explain differences in internal experiences, such as the appearance and perception of colors among observers. 1.4 Existence of free will B. Rivett attached a device that measured brain electrical signals to participants in the experiment and had them move their wrists freely to measure brain electrical signals at that time (B. Rivet, 1980). When we move our bodies, it is known that electrical signals, commands to move our muscles, come out of our brains shortly before we move. The results of the experiment were in the following order. 1)The brain produces electrical signals to move the wrist 2)Conscious to move the wrist 3)Wrist moves This means that the brain is sending electrical signals to move the wrist before the person is conscious of moving the wrist, and the wrist is already set to move before the person is conscious of moving the wrist. In other words, the wrists did not move because he was conscious of moving them. The normal human feeling that the wrist has moved because he or she wanted to move the wrist by his or her own will is an "illusion," and before that will, the wrist has been determined to move by something unconscious, and the command is coming out of the brain unconsciously. In the middle of the process of moving the wrist, it is a state in which the conscious mind is aware in the pursuit of "let's move." B. Rivet, between 2) and 3) above, there is a short time left for refusing to move the wrist, within which man can stop the action at his own will. So, he concludes that human beings have free will. However, there is no harm in interpreting the results of this experiment by thinking that it is "consciousness" - i.e., that there is no free will - to recognize the results of unconscious random processing in the brain as an afterthought. B. Rivet's interpretation of the experiment has been criticized by dualistic interpreters and others. However, if we take the view of "consciousness" in the absence of free will, we can assume that the brain unconsciously and randomly processes certain options based on physicalism. If we consider the post-processing recognition at the stage when the processing is determined to be "consciousness," we believe that it does not go against physicalism and does not cause a "hard problem of consciousness.". In dualism, apart from physical phenomena, there is non-physical "consciousness" that cannot be measured by physics. However, it fails to explain why and how non-physical consciousness can influence our behavior and the processing of the brain, which is a physical phenomenon. If consciousness, which is non-physical, can affect physics, we must also consider the existence of so-called "telekinesis" and the possibility of consciousness in all things, which seems to make interpretation more complicated. 1.5 Isolated Brains Isolated brain is a condition in which the corpus callosum connecting the left and right sides of the brain is removed for the purpose of treating epilepsy, etc. This prevents information from being exchanged between the left and right sides of the brain. The left side of the brain is primarily responsible for language areas, while the right side is responsible for imaging areas. If we ask a subject with a separate brain, showing the subject only to his right eye, which is processed by his left brain, "What is it?" he can tell. Conversely, if the left eye, which connects to the right side of the brain, is seen alone, the right side of the brain, which connects to the right side of the brain, answers "I can't see anything" because it can't process language. On the other hand, if we let him draw a picture of the subject, his right brain, which controls the image area, can draw without any problem. It is sometimes said that this separate brain subject has two personalities = consciousness. Considering this, we think that consciousness is physically dominated, or at least influenced, by the physical state of the brain. 1.6 Short-term and Long-term Memory Memories are divided into short-term and long-term memories because of differences in their temporal duration. Tulving further subdivides this long-term memory into "episodic" and "semantic" memories. "Episodic memory" is a memory of a personal experience associated with a specific time and place, and "semantic memory" is defined as a memory unrelated to a specific time and place (Tulving, 1976). As a classification of long-term memory, "episodic memory" and "semantic memory" may be combined into "declarative memory" and classified into two separately defined categories of "procedural memory" (Squire, 1987). Procedural memory, for example, is said to be the memory of how to ride a bicycle. FIG. 1: Neural Network Configuration No. 1 2 3 4 5 No. 1 2 3 4 5 Table 1: Color representation by RBG Reference colors R Red 255 Green 0 Blue 0 White 255 Black 0 G 0 255 0 255 0 B 0 0 255 255 0 Table 2: Learning results when Table 1 is used as input and output teacher signals Input Simulated Colors Output R G B Red 229 33 36 Green 38 227 38 Blue 38 39 231 White 254 255 253 Black 0 0 0 No. 1 2 3 4 5 Table 3: Learning results considering color weakness Input Simulated Colors Output R G Red 124 128 Green 124 115 Blue 185 202 White 255 255 Black 2 2 B 17 18 255 255 1 No. 1 2 3 4 5 Table 4: Learning results when complementary colors in Table 1 are used as teacher signals for output Input Simulated Colors Output R G Red 29 238 Green 245 17 Blue 236 161 White 255 255 Black 2 1 B 70 62 32 255 0 FIG 2: Comparison of neural network weight coefficients Many existing models of consciousness seem to focus on first-person consciousness. In this paper, we first think of the neutral network as a Toy Model of a brain, and we performed a simulation of the inverted qualia using it. As a result, we show that color blindness and inverted qualia can occur even in the same network structure only with different values and arrangements of coefficients. On that basis, we defined second-person consciousness - especially qualia - mathematically and used the results as axioms to examine the process of creating a physically possible consciousness. We aim to build a model that can provide some answers to the above 1.1－1.6 questions. Here are the details: 2.Mathematical definitions and modeling of consciousness 2.1 Simulations of Inverted qualia The possibility of 'inverted qualia' mentioned in the introduction is explored through a simulation based on a neural network. Neural networks, a type of machine learning that mimics the function of neurons in the brain, have many applications and achievements as so-called artificial intelligence. Now consider the three primary colors of red (R), green (G) and blue (B) and the five colors of white and black. Using RGB, each color can be quantified as a combination of RGB as shown in Table 1. The colors in the table consist of the RGB color in the right column. This simulation explores qualia as a first-person. First, the RGB values for each color in Table 1 are taken as input, and the same RGB values are used as the teacher signals for each color's output. In the model of the eyeball shown in the left part of Figure 1, the optic nerve contains a red-sensing L-cone, a greensensing M-cone, and a blue-sensing S-cone, each of which transmits RGB signals to the brain. The input in the neural network is interpreted as the RGB value from the optic nerve of the color seen by the eye, and the neural network is interpreted as the processing in the brain and the RGB value of the output as the color-qualia recognized in the brain. The calculations were performed with input layer 3 nodes, hidden layer: 2 layers × 50 nodes, output layer 3 nodes, and a neural network considering bias at each node. The weighting factors defined on the edges connecting each node were optimally calculated with MOST, which we developed (S. Inage, 2022). The search area for the weighting factor is -0.05－10. The total number of nodes is 2903. The study results are summarized in Table 2. The colors of Input in the table are those using the RGB values in Table 1, and the colors of Output in the table are those created from the RGB values listed in the right column. Overall, it can be reproduced with input color = output color. However, the RGB values do not exactly match those in Table 1. Next, for the purpose of simulating so-called color weakness, when red RGB in the color weakness condition is recognized as = (128, 140, 0) ( )) and green is given RGB = (128,128, 0) ( ) as the output teacher signal, the results are shown in Table 3. Other colors - blue, white, black - give identical RGB. The inputs remain in Table 1. Again, the colors of Input in the table are those using the RGB values in Table 1, and the colors of Output in the table are those created from the RGB values listed in the right column. From Table 3, red and green are generally more greenish compared to Tables 1 and 2, making it difficult to distinguish between red and green - that is to say, a state of color weakness. The color tone is also close to that shown in the reference above. Blue is also a lighter shade compared to Tables 1 and 2, but this is likely to be solved by learning more deeply about neural networks (blue is recognized as blue even when the color is weak). In this way, we can see that by changing the weights of the neural network, we can reproduce the normal state to the color weak state. Next, consider a case where the RGB values of the inputs remain in Table 1 and the complementary colors of the colors in Table 1 are given as the teacher signals for the outputs. The complementary color of red is green (R, G, B) = (0, 255, 0), the complementary color of green is red (R, G, B) = (255, 0, 0), and the complementary color of blue is orange, (R, G, B) = (233, 163, 0). White and black are not colors and cannot define complementary colors, so they are left as they are. For machine learning, when a certain color is input, it can be regarded as a process to find the complementary color. The results are shown in Table 4. As above, the colors of Input in the table are those using the RGB values in Table 1, and the colors of Output in the table are those created from the RGB values listed in the right column. Again, the complementary color relationship to the input is correctly determined (except for black and white). In the calculations in Tables 2 and 3, the neural networks used are identical, only with different weighting factors on the edges connecting each node. Each weighting factor is a mathematically and physically feasible combination. This means that even with the same input, the same system can achieve different color outputs - equivalent to qualia - under different weighting conditions. Even if observer A, which has a weight coefficient outputting Table 2, and observer B (inverted qualia), which has a weight coefficient outputting Table 4, observe the same color, there is no contradiction even if they feel different qualia. That is, red for A is green for B, and green for A is red for B. But if we ask both parties what color they see, they can answer "red" or "green" and share it with each other. This is truly an inverted qualia. In the network of neurons in the brain, in the processing in the individual's brain, in the network, it is unlikely that there is a mechanism for perfect conformity. For example, each value of the neural network weighting factors of 2903 in each case in Tables 2 and 4 is compared in Figure 2. Up to a factor of 1- 2300, the coefficient values are distributed in the range of -0.05－0.12 in all cases, and the coefficient values up to the latter 2300－2903 are distributed in the range of -0.05－0.27, and it is not observed that the coefficient values are significantly different, only that the distribution of the weighting factors changes. Because neutral networks are the Toy Model of the brain, but can also occur in that Toy Model, it is more natural to assume that in a more complex brain, individual qualia when observing things are different - even inverted qualia is possible. In this case, a qualia that is identical for everyone cannot be defined uniformly and is difficult to deal with mathematically. Giving up the discussion of qualia as a firstperson, and avoiding its difficulties, we consider a framework that can be handled mathematically in the next section. 2.2 Definition of public language Individual "qualia" is called qualia as a private language, after Wittgenstein's "private language" that conveys individual feelings and sensations. If this qualia as a private language are individual, different from each other, and incapable of communicating 100% to others, it is difficult to set a standard for mathematical comparison. Therefore, in contrast to "private language," the standard "public language" is defined from the qualia as a private language. In other words, it is a language in the second and third person. Take that definition and create a "standard" of consciousness. First, assume that different observers A and B observe the same event F. Observer A recognizes the probability distribution of an event F as PA, and observer B recognizes the probability distribution of the same event F as PB. In the probability space (Ω, F, P) and the probability variable X, consider the probability space (Ω, F, PA) and the probability variable X for observer A, and the same probability variable X as the probability space (Ω, F, PB) for observer B. In the probability space, P satisfies the follows: a) P(Ω)=1 b) P(∅)=0 c) A∩B=∅ for A, B ∈F, then P(A∪B)=P(A)+P(B) Also, F is σadditive family, which satisfies the following conditions: a) ∅⊂F b) A∈F then AC∈F ∞ c) Ai∈F、i∈N then 𝑈𝑖=1 Ai∈F For the above two probability distributions PA and PB, let us assume that we have density functions 𝑝𝐴 (𝑥) and 𝑝𝐵 (𝑥) defined below. 𝑃𝐴 (𝐿) = ∫ 1𝐿 (𝑥) ∙ 𝑝𝐴 (𝑥) ∙ 𝑑𝑥, 𝑃𝐵 (𝐴𝐿) = ∫ 1𝐿 (𝑥) ∙ 𝑝𝐵 (𝑥) ∙ 𝑑𝑥 1) where, 1 (𝑖𝑓 𝑥 ∈ 𝐿) 1𝐿 (𝑥) = 2) 0 (𝑖𝑓 𝑥 ∉ 𝐿) and is the defining function of the set L. In this case, the Kullback–Leibler divergence DKL is defined below. 𝑝 (𝑥) 𝐷𝐾𝐿 = ∫ 𝑝𝐴 (𝑥) ∙ 𝑙𝑜𝑔 (𝑝𝐴 (𝑥)) 𝑑𝑥 𝐵 This is one expression of the distance between PA and PB and satisfies the following conditions: a) 𝐷𝑃𝐴 𝑃𝐵 ≥ 0 for any PA(x), PB(x) b) 𝐷𝐾𝐿 = 0 and (∀x) PA(x)= PB(x) are equivalent c) Generally, 𝐷𝐾𝐿 (𝑃𝐴 , 𝑃𝐵 ) ≠ 𝐷𝐾𝐿 (𝑃𝐵 , 𝑃𝐴 ) 3) If the distance is zero, the following holds: a) Reflectance A~A b) Symmetric Toru A~B c) A ~C if transitive laws A~B, B ~ C where, "~" is a symbol denoting equivalence. We define this as the 'equivalence' of the results for an 'event' between observer A and observer B. In this paper, "events" indicating this equivalence are collectively referred to as "public language." I think this idea is close to the relationship between private and public language in Wittgenstein's "Private Language Theory." Private language refers to language that expresses sensations, emotions, and other things that can only be understood by the person. Wittgenstein believed that "private language," which conveyed individual feelings and sensations, was meaningless, becoming "public language" when conveyed to those around them. Therefore, in the theory of private language, Wittgenstein concludes that 'private language is inherently unmastery and meaningless. The above probability distribution by individual observer corresponds to "private language," and if the distance of the probability distribution is zero, it becomes "public language." This is illustrated by the case of colors calculated in the previous chapter. For simplicity, the three colors are {Red, Green, Blue}. In this case, the sample space Ω is {Red, Green, Blue} and F: 2Ω={∅, {R}, {G}, {B}, {R, G},{R, B}, {G, B}, {R, G, B}} is a power set of Ω. It is assumed that observer A sees the color with the RGB reference values in Table 2. The FA in that case is as follows: ＦA ={∅, {229, 33, 36}, {38, 227 38}, {{38, 39, 231}, {{229, 33, 36}, {{38, 227 38}},・・・} Suppose that observer B sees color according to the criteria in Table 4. The FB in that case is as follows: ＦB ={∅, {29, 238, 70}, {245, 17 62}, {{236, 161, 32}, {{29, 238, 70}, {245, 17 62},・・・} Thus, even if the criteria for each color are different, if we observe colors based on those criteria, the probability of colors will match. In this case, we calculate the probability density function, the Kullback–Leibler divergence is zero, and the observed colors can be considered equivalent in A and B. Also, σadditive family: F contains an empty set. In the case of color, it can be regarded as not feeling color - that is, not feeling color qualia. Considering this as a philosophical zombie state, the framework of this proposal allows and encompasses philosophical zombies as elements. On the other hand, in the probability space (Ω, F, P), since P (∅) = 0, the philosophical zombie can be an element, but it can be interpreted that the probability of the philosophical zombie is zero in the public language. This framework considers that defining public language avoids the philosophical zombie criticism of physicalism. In this paper, the causes of the differences that arise in qualia as a private language cannot be identified, as in ordinary probability theory. The following two possibilities can be considered as qualia. 1) There is a "consciousness" that produces identical qualia－this is a dualistic position. 2) There are no qualia as a "universal" private language, only a public language derived from an individual private language qualia. Individual qualia － as qualia as a private language, encompassing inverted qualia, even those without qualia, such as philosophical zombies. Qualia as a private language, like individual events in probability theory, cannot discuss differences individually. However, public languages can be handled mathematically. In the position of 1) above, we immediately face a "hard problem of consciousness." However, in the position of 2), even if the mechanism by which differences in individual qualia occur cannot be grasped, it is possible to define public language and perform mathematical operations by treating it as a probability space and a random variable, as described above. Even though there are individual intrinsic qualia - qualia as private language - public language is essential to the initial learning process. In other words, for an infant to acquire a qualia of "red," it is essential that the public language be provided by both parents and relatives and that learning be based on the recognition of their equivalence. While the position that "public language" is mathematically definable and computable is physicalist, it does not touch on qualia as a private language. This is the case in the question of probability, even when a coin is tossed and a table appears, if the detailed process of the initial conditions, the amount of force in the toss, etc. is followed by Newtonian mechanics, why the table appears is perfectly possible. On the other hand, even if the details are skipped, it is like the situation in which a mathematical deduction is possible using the event of a coin flip as a probability. From the above discussion, I think it is possible to develop a physicalism that mathematically deduces, at least for public languages, their nature - consciousness as a public language. The merit of this introduction is, rather, obvious because it presupposes a comparison with a third party, but the public language is capable of third-party measurement. Cases with inverted qualia, philosophy zombies, all ascribe to the same public language. They can also tell green from red through public language - socalled color weakness. If this third party introduces measurable parameters and models consciousness, a mathematically deductible theory should be constructed. In summary, we believe that the qualia as a private language can define a public language by observing the same events with each other and making them common - for example, in language, etc. In this paper, we will proceed with the discussion by taking it as an axiom that this public language can be defined. In this proposal, the generation of consciousness is considered to occur in the following STEP -1 to STEP -4. The following sections describe each STEP. 3．Modeling of will and consciousness In this paper, creation process of consciousness is classified into four steps. Namely, STEP-1: Recognition by external perception, STEP-2: Connection with past episodic memory, STEP-3: Decision making, STEP-4: Recognition by internal perception. Each step is explained below. 3.1 STEP-1: Expressions of 'recognition' by external perception and synthesis between individual qualia - creation of episodes In the Kullback–Leibler divergence defined from multiple functional spaces (Ω, F, Pi), if the distance is zero, it can be defined in terms of individual official languages. Next, we describe a more complex definition of official language. For example, combining individual official languages combining "white" and "dog" to create "white dog." The qualia of this combination can be expressed naturally if one considers that the sample space, ohm, is the direct product of the sample space, ΩC, for color and the sample space, ΩA, for animals: Ω=ΩC×ΩA. In that case, the element of Ω would be [White, dog], [Black, cat] ・・・, etc. It is self-evident that from this sample space, if we define, for example, a power set F = 2 Ω, we can generate a σ additive family and its probability space. Its mathematical definition is as follows: Consider two probability spaces: (Ωj , Fj , Pj ) (j = 1,2). We define these Cartesian product probability spaces (Ω, F, P) as follows: a) We first define Ω as the direct product set of Ω1 and Ω2. Ω ≡ Ω1 × Ω2 ≡ { (ω1, ω2)｜ω1 ∈ Ω1, ω2 ∈ Ω2 } b) F is defined in stages as follows 1) C ≡ {A1 × A2｜A1 ∈ F1, A2 ∈ F2 } 2) A is the disjoint original finite sum of C. 3) F is the smallest σ-additive family containing A: i.e., F = σ(A). c) Finally, the probability P is: 1) For the set of forms A1 × A2 (A1 ∈ F1, A2 ∈ F2）, P[A1 × A2] ≡ P[A1] ・P[A2] is defined. 2) The more general element of F (For example, a set of direct products of the form A1 × A2, or an 'extreme' set because F is a σ-additive family, etc.) is extended and defined by imposing σ-additivity on P. Namely, let P (A∪B) = P (A) + P (B), A ∩ B = ∅. Furthermore, for example, if actions are expressed in gerund terms and rules are defined such as "verb" →"adjective-1"→"adjective-2"→"object," ・・・ more complex qualia such as "running white and big dog" can be generated, and conversion such as "White and big dog is running" can be easily done. This processing creates an observation-based "episode" as a direct product of the current public language. Episodes don't necessarily mean writing, but they include extracting only simple images from actual observations, such as "dog" or "white," and compositing them into minimally simple images. So, to speak, it is supposed to remove noise and extract only the "essential parts necessary" and express them as internal sentences, images, sounds, tactile sensations, etc. This created episode also has the character of a public language. Among the above episodes, a sentence episode is a sentence episode, and an image episode is an image episode. If we think of them as being produced individually in the speech and image areas, this representation offers suggestions for understanding separate brains. It is said that the left side of the brain controls the language area, and the right side controls the image area. If we split the corpus callosum that connects them, we can't create a direct product of left-brain speech episodes and right-brain image episodes that are generated by information from the left and right sides. In other words, it is impossible to create an episode that integrates information from the left and right sides, and the left brain makes decisions by episodes of the language area, while the right brain makes decisions by episodes of the image area. The proposed expression can encompass the phenomenon that a person with a separated brain can draw a picture of an object seen with his left eye but cannot explain it in words, and conversely, he can explain an object seen with his right eye but cannot draw it. The moment at which this external perceptual perception arises can be mathematically represented as the difference in the average information entropy before and after episode creation. Before recognition, the average information entropy is zero, since − ∑ 𝑃𝑖 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑃𝑖 ) has a finite value, whereas after recognition, it aggregates into one episode. It is natural to define this moment of change from a finite value to zero as the moment of "recognition by external perception." As described above, since episodes generated by combining individual official languages are defined as a probability space, we believe it is possible to observe and confirm them by a third party by introducing and comparing the Kullback–Leibler divergence DKL. Finally, the technology for creating sentence episodes - so-called tags - from information such as photos is already called annotation and has already been implemented in various applications (Papadopoulos, Dim P., et al, 2017). 3.2 STEP-2: Associate Current Episodes with Past Episodes It is assumed that episodes created based on past observations go through a short memory and important ones are stored as episodic memories. Past episodic memory should also be represented as a sample space as a direct product between the individual public languages mentioned above. We think of this sample space as an accumulation of past experiences and a set with enormous elements. Indeed, past episodic memories can be written out and compared by third parties. In this section, we consider, in the past episode, the feelings and actions of experiences. Emotions are also not individual feelings as a private language, but only feelings as a public language, as mentioned above. In this paper, as a basis, we consider the sum of Plutchik's emotions (Plutchik, 1982). Plutchik proposed that all emotions, like the tri primary RGB of light, are formed using eight basic emotions (primary emotion, called pure emotion): joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and expectation. For example, "love" as a secondary emotion is a mixture of "joy" and "trust," and "curiosity" is a mixture of "trust" and "surprise", etc. If Ω = {Joy, Trust, Fear, Surprise, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, Expectations} and the state of not feeling any emotion is an empty set, then it is obvious that a probability space can be defined, as in the example of color, etc. It is also clear that this probability space contains elements such as the above examples: {joy, trust}: love and {trust, surprise}: curiosity. These emotional episodes are stored as episodic memories, in the form of sentences and images. If the current observations provide a textual episode of "Walking white and big dog," we can discuss the probability of each emotion occurring when we recognize "Walking white and big dog" in the probability space. For example, joy: 0.5, fear: 0.2, disgust: 0.1, etc. If the probability is non-zero, it can be addressed as past feelings related to the current episode. In addition, emotion-related behaviors - such as running away from fear or approaching from joy can also be retrieved from past episodic memories. The sample space then becomes a representation as a direct product of the sample space of emotions and the sample space of behavior. With this operation, multiple episodes of feelings, experiences, etc. experienced in the past can be associated with events from current observations. Consider that an episode with a non-zero probability is recognized as relevant to the present and a past episode with a zero probability is not recognized. In summary, for an episode of "running white dog", it is a probability space consisting of a sample space of several probabilistic events: for example, in the past, emotional episodes such as "bitten," "barked", "enjoyed", and "cute", for "running white dog", etc. For a "running white dog", consider an operation in which multiple high-probability items are selected from elements in the probability space. "High probability" is the most "impressive" if it is captured with feelings. From this operation, by relating episodes from current observations to past episodic memories, we can select multiple events from past episodes that should occur in the future. 3.3 STEP-3: Modeling Decision-Making One of the important roles of consciousness is thought to be related to survival. That is, how should we act on the present event, then - i.e., the future - based on experience? From now on, the "role" of consciousness will be to take out "past experiences" based on "present information" and determine the next "future action." We believe that one of the simplest measures is to follow past performance-successful experiences. In other words, as mentioned in the previous section, from past episodic memory and current information, the "future" chooses what action to take. In STEP-2, there are multiple past episodes related to the present observational event. The actual behavior of the future shall be chosen entirely at random or in Markov chains from multiple past episodic memories and the associated behavioral experiences - performance - i.e., by chance. This randomness is determined by the physical state of the brain. For example, differences in the electrical potential pulses of neurons, mistimed neurotransmitter release, etc. This is called "will," and based on it, actual action is taken. This idea makes it possible to account for current and past episodic information, as well as the creation of multiple alternatives from past episodic memory, and selection as a physical phenomenon. There is no "free will" involved in this selection process, and the unconscious = physical phenomena in the brain, including noise - selects at random. That is, this manipulation can be explained in terms of physicalism. We consider a mathematical model of '' random will choice''. To do this, we first consider "will" as an expectation. As mentioned above, the framework of this proposal is that the choice of action - the will - for the future is made randomly from the sample space of the past qualia. The choice is chosen from the probability space of the past episode. The probability space is accompanied by expectations. When we say "will", we mean our own choice. In other words, if the reality is to be done stochastically, the object must have said "will" to the expected value from the probability space. First, we focus on will as an expectation, and for modeling purposes, we define the "hypothetical dynamics" of will. We think of volition as the process of changing the initial state probability space to create a new state probability space. First, we define position x as the Kullback– Leibler divergence DKL between the probability space representing the initial state and the future probability space realized by the will. This distance is not limited to the Kullback–Leibler divergence, but may be any other distance. We believe that DKL is a measure of the difference between probability distributions, and if we follow its time change, it can be perceived as a change in position in normal dynamics. In addition, the time derivative of x corresponds to velocity and can be interpreted as the speed of change in the probability distribution, and the second derivative of time can also be considered as acceleration α. Furthermore, consider, perhaps intuitively, the "inertia" of the will. There is a lag in remembering when we must remember something and act on it. We will call this degree of slow speed "inertia" and that degree the mass m of decision making. The speed and acceleration defined above are the processing speed to the decision after the recall, and are considered as independent parameters of m. In this paper, we consider decision making as a selection from past behavioral information from past episodic memory, and the acceleration α, mass m defined above should be closely connected to past episodic memory. Then, again in analogy to dynamics, we define the potential V of past episodic memory as a function to satisfy: 𝜕𝑉 5) − 𝜕𝑥 = 𝑚𝛼 Now let us assume that m×α represents a force in ordinary dynamics, but within Equation 5), we understand it as a relation defining the potential V, and there is no further meaning. It is natural to think that past episodic memory influences the speed and acceleration of the will and introduces potential as an indicator. All the above definitions of hypothetical dynamics are for will as expectation. In contrast, we think that in actual decision making, randomness is added by the state of the brain the state of neurons, etc. That is, in Brownian motion, the same image as fine particles being shaken by surrounding liquid molecules. In fact, the velocity of Brownian moving particles varies randomly, so that dx/dt cannot be defined for each instant. Similarly, in decisions involving randomness that is not an expectation, it is impossible to define such things as speed as the expectation mentioned above. Therefore, we define the time variation of position x as follows. 𝑥(𝑡 + ∆𝑡) − 𝑥(𝑡) = 𝑏(𝑥(𝑡), 𝑡)∆𝑡 + 𝑤(𝑡 + ∆𝑡) − 𝑤(𝑡) 6) where w(t) is the Wiener process. This represents that the time variation of the Kullback–Leibler divergence changes under the influence of the Wiener process. Based on 6), consider calculating the velocity and acceleration in decision making as expected values. So, when there is a random variable f (t) that generally depends on time t, its < forward mean derivative > is defined below. 𝑓(𝑡+∆𝑡)−𝑓(𝑡) 𝐷[𝑓(𝑡)] ≡ lim ⟨ ∆𝑡 ∆𝑡→0 |𝑓(𝑠) (𝑠 ≤ 𝑡) ⟩ 7) The < | > on the right-hand side represents the conditional time average that f (s) before t is fixed. In this 6), the forward average differential coefficient of x (t) is obtained as follows: 𝐷[𝑓(𝑡)] ≡ 𝑏(𝑥(𝑡), 𝑡) 8) Next, < Backward mean derivative > is defined below. 𝑓(𝑡)−𝑓(𝑡−∆𝑡) 𝐷∗ [𝑓(𝑡)] ≡ lim ⟨ ∆𝑡→0 ∆𝑡 |𝑓(𝑠) (𝑠 ≤ 𝑡) ⟩ Using Eq. 9) to determine the backward-facing mean derivative of x (t), we obtain: 𝐷∗ [𝑓(𝑡)] ≡ 𝑏∗ (𝑥(𝑡), 𝑡) Using this b*, we obtain: 𝑥(𝑡) − 𝑥(𝑡 − ∆𝑡) ≡ 𝑏∗ (𝑥(𝑡), 𝑡) + 𝑤(𝑡) − 𝑤(𝑡 − ∆𝑡) The acceleration α at the expected value is then defined below. 1 𝛼(𝑡) = 2 (𝐷∗ 𝐷 + 𝐷𝐷∗ )𝑥(𝑡) 9) 10) 11) 12) Calculating the right-hand second term DD * of the above equation, we obtain: 𝜕𝑏 𝜕𝑏 𝜈 𝜕2 𝑏 13) 𝜕𝑏 𝜕𝑏 𝜈 𝜕2𝑏 14) 𝐷𝐷∗ 𝑥(𝑡) = 𝜕𝑡∗ + 𝑏 𝜕𝑥∗ + 2 𝜕𝑥 2∗ Similarly, D*D is: 𝐷∗ 𝐷𝑥(𝑡) = 𝜕𝑡 + 𝑏∗ 𝜕𝑥∗ + 2 𝜕𝑥 2 Next, the following variables are introduced: 1 1 𝑢 = 2 (𝑏 − 𝑏∗ ), 𝑣 = 2 (𝑏 + 𝑏∗ ) 15) Using this, the expected acceleration α is: 𝜈 𝜕2 𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑣 𝛼 = 2 𝜕𝑥 2 − 𝑣 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑢 𝜕𝑥 + 𝜕𝑡 16) Applying 5) to this α, we obtain the following relation: 𝜈 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑣 1 𝜕𝑉 = 2 𝜕𝑥 2 − 𝑣 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑢 𝜕𝑥 − 𝑚 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑡 17) If the above definitions are allowed, the theory that E. Nelson tried to explain the governing equations of quantum mechanics based on the Wiener process is applicable as is. A summary of the derivation process is provided in Appendix. Only the conclusions of the governing equations of the probabilistic process of will obtained since the above assumptions are shown below. 𝜕𝜓 𝜈2 𝜕2 𝜓 1 𝑖𝜈 𝜕𝑡 = [− 2 𝜕𝑥 2 + 𝑚 𝑉] 𝜓(𝑥, 𝑡) 18) The ψcorresponds to the wave function of quantum mechanics, which shows that the 'decision' is stochastic and is connected with the distribution function ρ(x, t) in the case of settling into one state by: 𝜌(𝑥, 𝑡) = ⌈𝜓(𝑥, 𝑡)⌉2 19) John Duffy and Ted Loch-Temzelides carried out experiments on decision making that correspond to the double slit in quantum mechanics and observed that decision making also has particle and wave duality (John Duffy and Ted Loch-Temzelides, 2021). The results of this experiment should be further examined and discussed, but since the model of decision making in this proposal is identical to the Schrodinger equation, it is concluded that the experiment of John Duffy and Ted LochTemzelides can be directed by Eq. 18). And the values and functions of the parameter m and potential V are unknown, but might be determined by comparison with the experiments of John Duffy and Ted Loch-Temzelides. 3.4 STEP-4: Recognizing with Internal Perception - Modeling Consciousness In STEP-3 of the previous section, it is assumed that the actual action is done "unconsciously" and that the person observes an episode (a sentence or an image) created from the action result, which can be called "introspection”. That observation, as described above, creates a current episode associated with one's own behavior (called recognition) and is remembered as a short-term memory. Think of it as a moment when recalling becomes possible - when information can be extracted from short-term memory. Let this moment be "the moment when consciousness comes to recognize that one has acted". This suggests that the "time of onset" of consciousness lags actual behavior. If this process of "will" and "generation of consciousness" were to take place in an extremely short time, one would not be aware of the two processes and would recognize that the actual "consciousness" had decided. This interpretation resolves the following: 1) The brain must be governed only by physical phenomena, and we do not know why "consciousness," which is not a physical phenomenon, can alter physical phenomena. 2) The existence of "free will" by B. Rivet, which seems to deny free will (B. Rivet, 1983). As mentioned above, in this proposal, the "will" associated with the "present episode" and the related "past episodic memory" is randomly selected, which is consistent with what is done in the physical phenomena of the brain - i.e., consciousness does not change the brain's choice. What to choose from among the choices is purely accidental. If we consider the moment of "doing" the action according to the will and "recognizing the action" as a summary of it as the generation of consciousness, it does not contradict the above tasks 1) and 2). In particular, the smaller the time difference between action and recognition, the more likely it is that people will recognize that they made their own decisions. Experiments with B. Rivet estimate this time difference to be around 0.3 seconds. In addition, if they act according to their memories of past episodes, they should generally evaluate their perceived "will" as a correct judgment. This current information - obtaining information as a combination of public languages→extracting the "will for the future" from the collation with past episodes → selecting actual actions at random from the "will" from multiple past episodes → identifying the "recognition" and "memory" by confirming the results of the actions as "consciousness". This process is supposed to be continuous with respect to time, so that continuity of consciousness appears. The moment of birth of this internal perceptual recognition can also be expressed mathematically as the difference between the average information entropy before and after confirmation. Before confirmation, the average information entropy is zero, because it aggregates into a single episode, whereas before confirmation, − ∑ 𝑃𝑖 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑃𝑖 ) has a finite value. It is natural to define this moment of change from a finite value to zero as the moment of "recognition by internal perception". Consider the role of consciousness in this case. Consciousness makes no contribution to current behavior, but new episodic memories created from current behavior may work effectively for future behavior. In other words, more episodic memory = more options for the future, such as making up for the shortfall in existing episodic memory or strengthening specific memories from existing episodic memory. This allows us to make better choices. In that sense, consciousness does not have free will to act in the present, but it does have more freedom to change the future in the sense that it "gives us more options" regarding actions in the future. This is not against physicalism, as consciousness does not influence physics, but rather determines future behavior through the information of episodic memory. That is, the idea in this proposal is that memory mediates between consciousness and physics, which are non-physical. 3.5 Explained by Toy Model STEP-1 to STEP-4 above is explained with a simple Toy Model. For example, consider two colors, white and black, and dogs and cats as animals. If the sample space for color is . ΩColor = [White, Black] and the sample space for animal is ΩAnimal = [Dog, cat], the sample space of the direct product is ΩColor×Animal = [{White, dog}, {White, cat}, {Black, Dog}, {Black, Cat}]. Since there are 4 elements, the set F=[∅, [{White, dog}], [{White, Cat],..., ΩColor×Animal], which should have 4 elements, has 24 = 16 elements. Consider the probability space(ΩColor×Animal, F, P) that will be created. Each observer has a 1/4 chance of identifying the correct animal. If we observe an actual white dog and recognize it as a "white dog" (creating an episode as a sentence or image), the probability of being a "white dog" at that moment is 1. We consider this in terms of mean information entropy. The mean information entropy H(X) is defined below. H(𝑋) = − ∑𝑀 20) 𝑖=1 𝑝𝑖 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (𝑝𝑖 ) where X is the random variable, pi is the probability that event i will materialize, and M is the number of events. We calculate the change in the average information entropy before and after the observation. 1 1 Before observation：𝐻(𝑋) = − 4 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (4) × 4 = 2 After observation：𝐻(𝑋) = −1 × 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (1) = 0 From this, the observation changes the average information entropy from 2 to 0. The above is STEP1. The moment when the average information entropy changes is regarded as the moment of "recognition" and the expression of "consciousness" by outside observation. Next, when observed in STEP-1 and recognized as a "white dog," the episodic memory associated with the white dog is recalled. Here, as a sample space, we consider the eight basic emotions of Plutchik introduced above. Namely, ΩEmotion=[ Joy, Trust, Fear, Surprise, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, Expectations]. The probability of each emotion produced by the recognition of a "white dog" is defined as PJoy to P Expectations. This is STEP-2. Which of these will be realized (selected) depends on the physical state of the brain, noise, randomness, and according to Eq. 18). Hence, "free will" is not reflected in the choice. This becomes STEP-3. Finally, this choice is evaluated as an episode and short-term memory, or more importantly, episodic memory. Again, as in STEP-1 above, there is a change in the average information entropy before and after selection. Before obserbation：𝐻(𝑋) = −[𝑃𝐽𝑜𝑦 𝑙𝑜𝑔2(𝑃𝐽𝑜𝑦 ) + 𝑃𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (𝑃𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 ) + ⋯ + 𝑃Exp 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (𝑃Exp )] After obserbation：𝐻(𝑋) = −1 × 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 (1) = 0 This becomes STEP-4. In this case, too, from the point of view of information entropy, the moment of the birth of consciousness can be regarded as the moment when the average information entropy goes from a finite value to zero. This is because the moment when the mean information entropy goes from finite to zero is a distinct discontinuity point. In this case, we considered an episodic memory of the emotion that occurs when we see a white dog, but in fact we choose future behavior in conjunction with, for example, the behavior associated with "fear", such as escaping from the dog. This completes the sequence of 1. recognition and episodeization of the object of observation, 2. recall of the relevant past episodic memory, 3. random selection from the past episodic memory, 4. recognition by episodeization of the selection. In this proposal, this whole process is considered as "creation of consciousness" and the moment of recognition by two episodic episodes of observation and selection is considered as "birth moment of consciousness." The above is summarized in Fig. 4. If a third party looked at this process - indeed, the reactions and actions of the person who saw the "white dog" - the subject would clearly perceive that he acted with a will and could ask why. The subject will respond that he or she has acted on his or her own volition, such as escape, based on past experiences. I think it is fair to say that this is consciousness arising from the assembly-episodic memory of a public language. This proposal assumes a common official language by comparison with the third person, so it is a model of consciousness that assumes the second or third person, not the first person. Therefore, the position is that consciousness exists in oneself because one feels conscious in others. Next, the way of thinking about the mind-body problem in this proposal is considered. There are three main ways of thinking about mind-body problems: 1) Interactionism : The idea that there are two very different kinds of things in the world, the mental and the material (dualism), and that they interact. The idea is that substances in the brain can be influenced by the world of consciousness and behave differently from the laws of physics (Fig. 4a). 2) Epiphenomenalism : This theory is physicalism, with the position that consciousness and qualia are only phenomena attached to the physical state of matter and have no causal effect on matter (Fig. 4b). 3) Parallelism : This theory holds that the world is one in which consciousness and physics are two very different things, and the two proceed in parallel without interaction. This is the so-called position of dualism (Fig. 4c). The proposal is a mixture of 1) and 2) (Fig. 4d). Consciousness does not directly affect the physics in the brain. However, consciousness can influence "future" brain choices through memory. As mentioned above, consciousness in this proposal is an operation in which the 'action physically determined by the brain' is made into an episode and left as an episodic memory for the future. The present will be determined before consciousness occurs, so it does not reflect the present. However, the increased choice of episodic memory indirectly affects future activity. In other words, stored information links consciousness (which appears to be non-physical) with physics. If we apply the word "free will," it means more options for the future, not for the present. The proposed idea can also be seen as an evolutionary system of "reflexes" in which we act directly in response to stimuli without involving the brain. Whereas the stimuli in the reflex are limited, the brain accumulates the episodes it experiences, thereby allowing it to respond to more flexible stimuli. In other words, while reflexes limit stimuli, "consciousness" in this proposal means that stimuli can be rewritten. It seems natural to the author to think that consciousness was acquired in this process of expanding from limitation to generalization. 4．Discussions and Conclusions The features of the proposed modeling of consciousness generation are as follows. 1) Qualia as a private language is unrecognizable. On the other hand, by introducing a probability space and a random variable for an event consisting of qualia, a public language can be defined by the Kullback–Leibler divergence to the probability space of multiple observers. 2) The family F of events in the probability space contains an empty set, which can be regarded as a philosophical zombie. But in official language, the probability is zero. In other words, it can be said that philosophical zombies are possible, but the probability of them being zero is the public language. 3) Episodes that combine multiple official languages are the direct product of the probability space of each qualia, and similarly can be discussed in the probability space. 4) Episodic memories created in the past that remain are also probability spaces. 5) Create the most likely future (episodes) from observation-based episodes and episodic memories. In addition, multiple choices are made from "episodic memory" for coping with the future. 6) One of the above options for the future is chosen at random and executed "unconsciously." Randomness simply depends on the state of physical phenomena in the brain. The process up to this point is purely physicalism. 7) 6)conduct 1) - 3) above as an observation result, and the point at which an episode of an action is generated and stored in short-term memory - a point at which it can be recalled at any time - is defined as the "moment when consciousness is born." Important memories are moved from short-term memory to episodic memory. 8) 1) to 7) are time continuous, and in that sense consciousness is also time continuous. We believe that these 1) to 8) flows can create models of consciousness based on mathematically definable public languages. We consider a comparison between our proposal and integrated information theory by Tononi. Integrated information theory is a position where qualia exists as a private language. We turn a blind eye to the hard problem of consciousness and, given the existence of consciousness, we construct a theory with axioms concerning its' information ',' integration ',' structure 'and' exclusion '. Then, the integrated information theorem, Φ is introduced, and the level FIG. 3: Flow of creating consciousness in this proposal (M: Mind, P: Physics, Me: Memory) FIG. 4: Comparison of ways of perceiving mind-body problems of consciousness is quantitatively evaluated by the magnitude of the value of Φ . According to integrated information theory, a digital camera, for example, has a huge amount of information depending on the pixels, but because the information is not integrated, the position is that we cannot have the visual awareness that we wait for. As mentioned above, since integrated information theory targets individual consciousness, it cannot be directly compared with ideas that assume public language such as this proposal. According to this proposal base, if we interpret the example of a digital camera, the digital camera cannot construct current episodes from the shooting information, nor does it have past episodes. So, it doesn't make comparisons between current episodes and past episodes, or even future behavioral episodes. Furthermore, they don't have the "inside view" of their chosen future. Therefore, digital cameras must be unconscious. Next, as another philosophical topic, we will consider, through this proposal, the "Mary's Room," which is a counterargument to the physicalism advocated by F. Jackson (Jackson, Frank, 1982). The contents of "Mary's Room" are as follows. Mary, a brilliant scholar, has spent her life in black-andwhite rooms since birth, gaining knowledge only in the black-and-white medium, and by nature has never been exposed to actual color. But they understand all the information about color and vision the structure of the eye, the color is made up of RGB combinations, every object has a color, they fully understand that color as an RGB value, etc. Does this Mary learn anything new about vision when she goes out for the first time and is exposed to real colors? This is the question in this issue. The position of this proposal is that the qualia as a private language, and the public language should be clearly classified, and that the qualia as a private language cannot be measured while the public language can be measured. According to this, Mary would have learned exactly the "public language" mentioned in this proposal, so she would have learned nothing by touching actual colors. Of course, we believe that she may "feel" qualia as a private language when she touches color for the first time, but this proposal does not cover qualia as a private language, so she cannot get no learning in public language more than her own learning. Next, brain waves are observed in brain cells cultured in the test tube - does consciousness reside in the so-called test tube brain? The premise of this proposal is that a public language formed by consensus among multiple observers is essential. In contrast, the test-tube brain has no means of observation and, by "appearance," cannot compare itself to others. Therefore, it is obvious that they cannot create and share official languages, and in that sense, they cannot have episodic memories that can be 'introspected', and therefore they will not have consciousness. When a public language is defined in probability space, episodes, episodic memories, etc. that combine it can be defined without contradiction, and within that framework, consciousness can be understood as physicalism. They seem to dodge criticisms of physicalism: philosophical zombies, segregated brains, Mary's Room. As such, we believe that this proposal is both a self-fulfilling framework and a consistent explanation for the effects of consciousness we experience daily. Considering the above, this paper is not " Cogito ergo sum-I think, therefore I am" but "To feel a common self in the other person, therefore I am" because it considers consciousness as a public language. Also, the framework of this proposal may be sufficiently realized as software. References 1) Plutchik, R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research and experience, Theories of emotion (Vol. 1, pp. 3– 33). New York: Academic Press. 2) Plutchik R. (1982) A psychoevolutionary theory of emotions. Social Science Information. 21: 529553. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901882021004003 3) “Basic Emotions--Plutchik". Personalityresearch.org. Retrieved 1 September 2017. 4) 5) 6) 7) Chalmers, D. (1996): The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press, New York. Chalmers, David (21 March 2019). "Zombies and the Conceivability Argument". Phil Papers. Kenny, Anthony (1973), Wittgenstein, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-021581-6. Libet, Benjamin; Gleason, Curtis A.; Wright, Elwood W.; Pearl, Dennis K. (1983). “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential) - The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act”. Brain 106: 623–642. 8) Velmans, Max (2000). Understanding Consciousness. London: Routledge. pp. 35–37. ISBN 0-41522492-6 9) Dennett, D. The Self as Responding and Responsible Artefact Archived July 1, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. 10) Tulving, E. 1968 Theoretical issues in free recall. In T. R. Dixon & D. L. Horton (Eds.). Verbal behavior and general behavior theory. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall. 11) Tulving, E. 1972 Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.). Organization of memory. New York:Academic Press. 12) Tulving, E. 1974 Recall and recognition of semantically encoded words. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 778-787. 13) Tulving, E. 1976a Ecphoric processes on recall and recognition. In J. Brown (Ed.). Recall and recognition. London: Wiley. 14) Papadopoulos, Dim P., et al. "Training object class detectors with click supervision." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 2017. 15) Jackson, Frank. (1982) "Epiphenomenal Qualia", Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 32, pp. 127-36. 16) Bill Faw. Consciousness, modern scientific study of. In Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans, and Patrick Wilken, editors, The Oxford companion to consciousness. Oxford University Press, 2014. 17) Dehaene S, Changeux JP. Reward-dependent learning in neuronal networks for planning and decision making. Prog Brain Res. 2000;126:217-29. 18) Masafumi Oizumi, Larissa Albantakis, and Giulio Tononi. From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0. PLOS Computational Biology, 10(5):1–25, 2014. 19) Sin-ichi Inage, Hana Hebishima, Application of Monte Carlo stochastic optimization (MOST) to deep learning, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation 199 (2022) 257–271, 2022. 20) Tononi G. "An Information Integration Theory of Consciousness". BMC Neuroscience, 5:42, 2004. 21) Leonid I. Perlovsky, Toward physics of the mind: Concepts, emotions, consciousness, and symbols, Physics of Life Reviews 3 (2006) 23–55. 22) Christopher Durugboa, Ashutosh Tiwari, Jeffrey R. Alcock, Modelling information flow for organisations: A review of approaches and future challenges, International Journal of Information Management, Volume 33, Issue 3, June 2013, Pages 597-610. 23) Hiroshi Ezawa, Physics Perspectives (in Japanese), BAIFUKAN CO., LTD, 1983. ISBN4-56302160-1 C3042. Appendix－Derivation of the governing equation of decision making The following summarizes the formulation by E. Nelson. The formulation was based on the description by H. Ezawa (E. Ezawa, 1983). First, the following Fokker-Planck equation is used. 𝜕 𝜕 𝜈 𝜕2 [𝜕𝑡 + 𝜕𝑥 𝑏(𝑥, 𝑡) − 2 𝜕𝑥 2 ] 𝜌(𝑥0 , 𝑡0|𝑥, 𝑡) = 0 A.1) Where, t is time, x is defined as Kullback–Leibler divergence. The second term on the left hand side has the following meanings: 𝜕 𝜕𝑥 [𝑏(𝑥, 𝑡)𝜌] A.2) Here, since no transition can occur without time, at t = t0 the following is satisfied, which is the initial condition: 𝜌(𝑥0 , 𝑡0|𝑥, 𝑡) = 𝛿(𝑥 − 𝑥0 ) A.3) Moreover, ρ satisfies the following conditions. A.4) ∫ 𝜌(𝑥0 , 𝑡0|𝑥, 𝑡) 𝑑𝑥 = 1 In Eq. 5), the equation with time reversed is as follows: 𝜕 𝜈 𝜕2 𝜕 A.5) [− 𝜕𝑡 + 𝜕𝑥 𝑏∗ (𝑥, 𝑡) + 2 𝜕𝑥 2 ] 𝜌 = 0 By summing A.1) and A.3), we obtain: 𝜕2 𝜕 𝜕𝑥 A.6) [−(𝑏 − 𝑏∗ ) + 𝜈 𝜕𝑥 2 ] 𝜌 = 0 This indicates that the values in [ ] are independent of x. Consider introducing the following u, v. 1 1 2 2 A.7) 𝑢 = (𝑏 − 𝑏∗ ), 𝑣 = (𝑏 + 𝑏∗ ) Using the findings from A.6) and A.7), we obtain the following: 𝑢= 𝜈 1 𝜕𝜌 2 𝜌 𝜕𝑥 = 𝜈 𝜕 A.8) 𝑙𝑛(𝜌) 2 𝜕𝑥 Further, replacing A.1) and A.5) with the expression of v yields: 𝜕𝜌 𝜕𝑡 𝜕 A.9) + 𝜕𝑥 (𝑣𝜌) = 0 Erasing ρ using A.8) and A.9) yields the following equation for only u, v: 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑡 =− 𝜈 𝜕2 𝑣 2 𝜕𝑥 2 𝜕 − 𝜕𝑥 A.10) (𝑢𝑣) Eq. 17) in the text and A. 10) are written together as follows: 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑡 𝜈 𝜕2𝑢 = 2 𝜕𝑥 2 −𝑣 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 𝜈 𝜕2 𝑣 +𝑢 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑢 − 1 𝜕𝑉 A.11) 𝑚 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑣 A.12) = − 2 𝜕𝑥 2 − 𝑣 𝜕𝑥 − 𝑢 𝜕𝑥 We define the function χ below. 𝜒(𝑥, 𝑡) = 𝑢(𝑥, 𝑡) + 𝑖𝑣(𝑥, 𝑡) where i is an imaginary unit. Using this χ, A. 12) and A. 13) are unified as follows: − 𝜕𝜒 = 𝜕𝑡 𝜈 𝜕2𝜒 2 𝜕𝑥 2 + 1 𝜕2 𝜒 2 𝜕𝑥 2 − 1 𝜕𝑉 A.13) A.14) 𝑚 𝜕𝑥 In addition, the following transformations are performed. 𝜈 1 𝜕𝜓 𝜈 𝜕 A.15) 𝜒 = 2 𝛹 𝜕𝑥 = 2 𝜕𝑥 𝑙𝑛(𝛹) The characteristics of this transformation are described below. a) time derivative of equation A. 15): 𝜕𝜒 𝜕 𝜕 𝜕 1 𝜕𝛹 −𝑖 𝜕𝑥 = −𝑖𝜈 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑡 𝑙𝑛(𝛹) = −𝑖𝜈 𝜕𝑥 (𝛹 𝜕𝑡 ) A.16) b) spatial derivative of equation A. 15): 𝜕𝜒 𝜈2 𝜕𝜓 2 𝜈2 𝜕2𝜓 𝜈 𝜕𝑥 = − 𝛹 2 ( 𝜕𝑥 ) + 𝛹 𝜕𝑥 2 A.17) Taking advantage of the fact that the first term on the right-hand side is -χ2, further differentiation yields: 𝜈 𝜕2 𝜓 2 𝜕𝑥 2 1 𝜕𝜒2 𝜈2 𝜕 1 𝜕2 𝜓 + 2 𝜕𝑥 = 2 𝜕𝑥 [𝛹 𝜕𝑥 2 ] A.18) Substituting A. 16), A. 17) for A. 14) yields: 𝜕 𝜕𝑥 1 𝜕𝛹 𝜈2 1 𝜕2𝛹 1 [𝑖𝜈 𝛹 𝜕𝑡 + 2 𝛹 𝜕𝑥 2 − 𝑚 𝑉] = 0 A.19) Since this expression means that the values in [ ] are independent of the space x, we put it equal to the time-only function, η(t). Then we get: 𝑖𝜈 𝜕𝛹 𝜕𝑡 = [− 𝜈2 𝜕2𝛹 2 𝜕𝑥 2 + 1 𝑚 𝑉 + 𝜂] 𝛹 A.20) Furthermore, we transform Ψusing ψ and η as follows: 𝑖 𝛹(𝑥, 𝑡) = 𝜓(𝑥, 𝑡)𝑒𝑥𝑝 (− ∫ 𝜂(𝑠)𝑑𝑠) 𝜈 A.21) In this transformation, η(t) is removed and finally becomes an equation of only Ψ below. 𝜈2 𝜕2 𝜓 𝜕𝜓 1 𝑖𝜈 𝜕𝑡 = [− 2 𝜕𝑥 2 + 𝑚 𝑉] 𝜓(𝑥, 𝑡) A.22) This becomes the governing equation that determines the ultimate "will." 𝜕 𝜒 = 𝜈 𝜕𝑥 𝑙𝑛(𝜓) A.23) Next, the relation between the distribution functionρ(x, t) and the function Ψ(x, t) is obtained when the 'intention' settles into one. First, from 19) and 25), we obtain: 𝜈 𝜕 2 𝜕𝑥 1 𝑙𝑛(𝜌) = 2 (𝜒 + 𝜒 ∗ ) A.24) where χ* is the complex conjugate of χ. Therefore, 𝜕 𝜕𝑥 [𝑙𝑛(𝜌) − 𝑙𝑛⌈𝜓⌉2 ] = 0 𝑙𝑛(𝜌) = 𝑙𝑛⌈𝜓⌉2, ∴ 𝜌(𝑥, 𝑡) = ⌈𝜓(𝑥, 𝑡)⌉2 A.25) A.26)

610 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation Op-Ed The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation Pradeep B. Deshpande*,1 * Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Louisville, & Six Sigma & Advanced Controls, Inc., Louisville, KY 40222 USA Abstract Understanding the nature of ultimate reality is the basis for a better World. Adding thoughts, intentions, and emotions to this understanding, we will have the complete recipe of consciousness for transformation. Keywords: Nature, ultimate reality, recipe, Consciousness, transformation. If you wish to understand the Universe, think of energy, frequency and vibrations. Nicola Tesla Yesterday was the 23rd of June 2014 and this body is 71 ½ years old. I had awakened at 4:00 in the morning to add some material to this article which had come to me overnight. I worked on it till 5:30 am and went back to bed still unsure if I would submit the article for publication, and if so, where. In the morning when I finally got up and came downstairs, I was met with a frightening Headline in the local newspaper, ‘Iraq may turn into terrorist staging ground, Obama warns’. And the Wall Street Journal carried a column on its Op Ed pages, Race has a biological basis, racism does not. The day brought more bad news this time on NPR; Thirty nine Indian nurses continued to be held hostage in Iraq and more girls were abducted in Nigeria. Then, I made up my mind; I must complete the column and try to get it published! Lack of understanding and appreciation of the nature of ultimate reality is what creates such problems and more; it landed us in Iraq in the first place and now a trillion dollars later, we find ourselves confronted with an impossible dammed-if-you-do dammed-if-you-don’t situation. There is plenty of blame to go around beginning with our individual selves so let us not engage in finger-pointing but rather improve our understanding of the mystery of the universe and the mystery of life and thank the Jewish teenager from Brooklyn now in her early thirties, an eminent physicist turned medical doctor from Oregon now in his early sixties, together with the past and present seers for showing that this is now possible. I remember one of Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’. So this article is all about how this young lady with the help of renowned physicists discovered the ultimate reality, how an eminent physicist turned medical doctor linked it to cosmic (Brahmanic) consciousness 1 Correspondence: Prof. Pradeep B. Deshpande, Six Sigma & advanced Controls, Inc., 1209 Holsworth Lane, Louisville, KY 40222, http://www.sixsigmaquality.com E-mail: pradeep@sixsigmaquality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 611 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation discovering the nature of ultimate reality, and how all this has profound implications for humanity, which I have uncovered after a scrutiny of four decades. Journey backwards to one evening in 1995 when UPenn Radiologist Warren Gefter is with his rebellious fifteen-year old daughter Amanda Gefter dining at the House of Hunan in Ardmore, PA just west of Philadelphia, when he asks her a question, ‘What is nothing’ (No Thing)? In her path-breaking book, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn (Banton Books, 2014), Amanda, now a journalist, concedes she was a class-cutting fifteen year-old, pretty much like any typical teen sometimes cutting classes, sleeping through classes, etc., was taken aback. Our two boys now big wigs in finance would have been taken aback too. The first day our son got his driver’s license and was driving home from high school, he had a wreck. My wife has a sign in our kitchen, ‘Grandchildren are the reward for not strangling your teenagers’ and we are blessed with six. Just yesterday our oldest grandson, Rohan, which his parents didn’t know mean Krishna, texted me a message, ‘we miss you too Aajoba’. Anyway, Amanda responds, may be the absence of everything, why do you ask? Warren says something to the effect, that just might hold the secret to the mystery of the beginning of the universe; beginning of everything. Next, how does nothing become something? Answer, nothing becomes something in the presence of a boundary. Just like the sand on a beach, same everywhere until you the observer build a sandcastle creating the boundary. By her own account, now her interest is kindled and she smiles. The question itself is not something a typical American dad would ask; I have lived here for over fifty years. Warren’s younger days as a Zen Buddhist hippie might have something to do it. It is the type of question young Prince Siddhartha Gautama must have asked, eventually prompting him to leave the comforts of their royal palace in search for answers. Coming back to the Gefter’s, Amanda asks, so how do we find out? The father responds, well, let’s do a little research. Americans as they are, completely rational minded conclude that this seemed like a physics problem so they decide they needed to converse with world-renowned physicists. The inquiring minds in India would go into meditation in search for the answers to such questions and have actually found them experientially throughout the ages. Both reveal gems of wisdom; the former reveals the best of the best a rational mind can fathom while the latter reveals things you can’t read in any books. Some years later the Gefter’s find out that there was to be a ‘Science and Ultimate Reality’ Conference at Princeton during March 15-16, 2002 to honor the renowned Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler who was approaching his 91st birthday and they decide to crash in. Wheeler had completed his doctorate in Copenhagen under renowned Danish Physicist Niels Bohr and was an associate of Albert Einstein at Princeton. The conference was going to celebrate Wheeler's drive to address overarching questions in physics, which sometimes bordered on the philosophical; the origin of matter, information, universe, and so on. But how to crash in? At the time Amanda was working for a bridal publication in New York called Manhattan Magazine. Somehow, she manages to get a couple of press passes and they wind up attending the conference eventually getting an opportunity to meet Dr. Wheeler himself. When they do, Warren asks him, “If observers create reality, where do observers come from?” Wheeler, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 612 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation responds, “I like to say, from Physics, from the universe. The universe is a self-excited circuit”. Warren says, so, it’s all from nothing? And Wheeler nods! Later that day, the Gefter’s visit 212 Mercer, Einstein’s home, and Amanda says to her father, who is he (Wheeler), Yoda? But of course, Yoda (YOga, veDA) has always known the answer. Before the universe, there was nothing. Something, the universe, came out of nothing at the Big Bang moment. Therefore the universe can also vanish into nothing. And so the profound question, what is ultimately real, i. e. what the ultimate reality is? The Wheeler response strengthened their resolve to uncover the mystery. Over the ensuing fifteen years or so, Amanda manages to talk to a host of world-renowned physicists, exchanges emails with Stephen Hawking, digs into relativity theory, quantum mechanics, inflationary cosmology, and particle physics, interacting with her father all the while, finally reaching the mind-blowing conclusion, “The Ultimate Reality is the Nothingness of the Void”, a condition when the size of the universe was the size of Planck’s length (10-33 cm in diameter) some fifteen billion years ago at the moment of the Big Bang. But as the verse 10.130, Nasadiya Sukta of the most ancient human manuscript, Rig Veda suggests, the seers had already known it (Dr. Bhavsar tells me Nasadiya means that which neither exists, nor not exists; Sukta means hymn). How did the Vedic seers know this? What sources would they have consulted to discover it? Perhaps none: just connect to the cosmic consciousness and the answers to all our questions are there to download. If I am fortunate enough to meet Amanda someday, I would tell her, ‘Amanda, you are a blessed soul; with the help of your beloved dad and the eminent physicists, you decoded an important mystery of the universe. What happened in your life may not be just a series of Eureka moments but you may have unknowingly succeeded in connecting to Indra’s Net of Mahayana Buddhism, the abode of cosmic consciousness. There is no such thing as a coincidence. Behind every coincidence, there is a purpose, a message. May you have a long, healthy, and prosperous life for there are more things to download and experientially discover that the nature of the ultimate reality cannot be anything else but cosmic consciousness. Physicists might not be able to help you any more in this journey. James Kowall has already done that and he credits his discovery to the inspiration and wisdom of self-realized Yogi Nisarga Datta and his classic, I Am That. Jim hails from suburban Eugene Oregon and holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from Brown, an MD from Miami and is board-certified in neurology and internal medicine. He is teaching me modern physics and I am most fortunate to have him for a teacher, but I am afraid he has found a not so bright a student in me; I keep asking some pretty dumb questions; how do you collapse two straight lines of different slopes onto a single straight line; how can we crumple up the paper just right so the curved line drawn on the paper matches up with that straight line as Warren had shown Amanda, and where are all the simultaneously live and dead cats. All this so there will not be different versions and perspectives of the ultimate reality. At least I am a chemical engineer who also has an undergraduate degree in physics, although I have never had a course in modern physics but Amanda had never taken a course in physics, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 613 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation period. Digging deep into Amanda’s work, Jim recognizes that the condition of the void, something called singularity, is reached in a falling frame of reference where all the fundamental gauge (fictitious) forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) vanish leaving behind nothing, not a thing; a condition where both relativity theory and quantum mechanics blow up, and it is beyond the reach of equations and scientific theories. He knows too that nothing physical can free fall through something the size of Planck’s length. Says Kowall, logician Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems prove that cosmic consciousness that knows about the consistency of the rules, cannot itself emerge from any mechanism obeying a consistent set of rules. Incompleteness is a consequence of the measurement of a finite amount of information. No such finite measurement can ever prove the consistency of the rules, and yet consciousness knows about the consistency of the rules.’ He thus reaches an equally mindblowing conclusion, ‘The nature of ultimate reality cannot be anything else but cosmic (Brahmanic) consciousness”! In Amanda’s language, nothing becomes something in the presence of a boundary. Upanishads describe nothing as Nirakar (without form or shape), that which is as unfathomable, limitless, attribute-less, unchanging, and eternal. From Nirakar emerges Sakar, creation (Amanda’s something) when Shiva and Shakti enjoin. Sakar is always bound by the three Gunas (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas) but Nirakar is not. In Amanda’s language, who creates the boundary? Observers. And where do observers come from? From the nothingness itself. This appears to be circular logic but this is the best we know as of now. Why should the Nothingness suddenly decide to produce Amanda’s boundary some 14 billion years ago at the moment of the Big Bang event? Or, why did Shiva decide to enjoin Shakti at moment of creation? The final verses of Nasadiya Sukta give us a clue, Whence all creation had its origin, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, he, who surveys it all from highest heaven, he knows – or maybe even he does not know. On the other hand if we take the formation (Big Bang), sustenance, and destruction of the universe (Big Crunch) as a cyclical process as the Vedic wisdom (Brahma-VishnuMahesh)/Chinese wisdom (Yin-Yang) also suggest, there is no mystery. We human beings are Sakar each with a unique S, R, T level of consciousness. To experience Nirakar, it is necessary to transcend the three Gunas and with the experience comes the knowledge “Who I am” is really consciousness (Self Real I zation). With this discovery, the mystery of the beginning of the universe and life are revealed and the two are connected and what connects them is consciousness (Brahmanic and Atmanic). If they weren’t so connected, the mystery of the universe would have been of interest primarily to physicists while the mystery of life would have been in the domain of the Vedas, Upanishads, Yoga, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavir, Patanjali, Tirumular, Dnyāneshwar, Guru Nanak, and others. In the absence of this connection, there wouldn’t have been much to experientially discover. Indians have known this for millennia and with the help of Amanda Gefter, James Kowall, and world renowned physicists, science has now shown it. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 614 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation The net finding is this: “The ultimate reality is the nothingness of the void, the cosmic consciousness (Brahmanic consciousness), of which we are a microcosm (Atmanic consciousness). We remain connected to the cosmic consciousness forever but due to our limitations (mind, intellect, and ego), this link is weakened leading to a myriad of problems including health & wellness, discord & violence, and even suboptimal performance in all walks of life including business performance.” But how to go about gaining confidence in this, since it is beyond the reach of scientific theories. Chemical Engineering comes to the rescue. What we do in chemical engineering when direct measurements are not possible is to identify secondary measurements which strongly correlate with that which is not measurable. Such measurements are called inferential measurements. My very first Ph. D. student, N. G. Patke of the twenty I supervised in my career, worked on an experimental project, inferential computer control of a pilot-scale distillation column. In the present context, our challenge is to show that we can connect to the cosmic consciousness and demonstrate materialization of intentions. This still doesn’t prove that cosmic consciousness exists but it does establish a plausible correlational link. As we succeed with more and more such disparate examples, our confidence in the hypothesis rises, but we can never prove the hypothesis with a probably of 1.0. If we could pull it off, that would be making progress. When it comes to materialization of intentions, the work of the Late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is significant. In the sixties, Maharishi developed a meditation program called Transcendental Meditation containing a number of Yoga sutras of Patanjali (~500 bce) who lived more or less at the time of The Buddha. One of them relates to becoming light as cotton so one can fly. In the sixties Maharishi demonstrated what he called yogic flying which involved hopping from place to place without spring action. Newton’s law of gravity is not being violated here. Larry King interviewed Maharishi on May 12, 2002 on CNN and during the course of the interview, Larry asked, what is transcendental meditation? Maharishi responded, Transcendental meditation is a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, in the right way for maximum results. It's a program in which the mind begins to experience its own finer impressions, finer thoughts, and then finally transcend the finest thought to the level called self-referral consciousness, the ultimate reality of life. This is pure intelligence from where the creation emerges, from where the administration of life is maintained, and from where the physical expression of the universe has its basis. Transcendental meditation brings about transcendental consciousness, which is selfreferral consciousness, the source of all intelligence. Later in the interview, Larry Asked, What is Yogic Flying? Maharishi responded: Yogic flying is that level of creative intelligence in the self-referral consciousness that will materialize the intentions. Whatever the intentions, materialize the intentions. You couldn’t blame Larry for remaining puzzled throughout the interview. In yogic flying, the declared intention is lifting form the ground. In the program of materialization of intentions, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 615 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation levitation is an observable measurement and so with the help of an associate, Sanjeev Aroskar, B. Tech, IIT Mumbai we set out to prove it. We designed and successfully conducted a six sigma program in Pune to investigate the concept of materialization of intentions. The overall intention is health & wellness, prosperity, sound personal relationships, and success in all aspects of life. Since these outcomes could take months or years to materialize, we decided to include in the program the yogic flying sutra. The program succeeded in good measure. Seven out of eight achieved yogic flying. I took the video of the final session in which the participants achieved yogic flying. But this was hardly a random sample; the members had been meditating for years. In a random sample of aspirants, defects would be far higher and that is problematic for science for it expects every experiment aimed at substantiating a scientific theory to be repeatable and reproducible. My older sister told me a few years ago that as a teenager in early fifties she had seen my mother in a stationary levitated state, some six to nine inches from ground. When asked, why she didn’t tell me this earlier, she responded, ‘would you have believed me’? Of course I would not have. Her two children told me recently that they too had seen their grandmother in that state. All three are well-educated. Maharishi had many famous followers: renowned theoretical physicist and 2000 presidential candidate John Hagelin, film maker David Lynch, the Beatles, Merv Griffin, Harvard Professor and Medtronic CEO Bill George, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, as well as a host of celebrities, scientists, and doctors. Maharishi is longer with us but another yogi, Baba Shivanand Ji is attracting tens of thousands to his meditation program based on a different set of sutras called Durga Saptashati in which he too teaches aspirants how to materialize intentions: Says he, We are a being of energy; energy is vibrations, and vibration is a unit of light Learn to vibrate at the cosmic frequency and you too can become a being of cosmic light (Jyotirmaya) and when you do, all your desires will be fulfilled. It is gratifying Baba Ji speaks the language of modern physics, six sigma, and medical sciences. With this confirmation, the framework for individual, organizational, national, and global transformation is complete. What an amazing breakthrough. Lastly, some will inevitably ask Indians as clever as you appear to be, how come the present-day India suffers from so many problems; corruption (It is said some Indians are hoarding over a trillion dollars in Swiss bank accounts), gang rapes, utter disregard for the environment, etc., etc. And oh, how can I forget caste discrimination, one of the most urgent challenges facing the Indian society. In the four-fold caste system derived from a degenerated interpretation of Sri Krishna’s brilliant three-fold S, R, T Varna system (inspiration for the theory of rise and decline of cultures I developed in the early nineties), there is not even a hint that the Varnas can be inherited. The theory of rise and decline answers the question, ‘The rise of the Tamasic component induces decline but eventually the cycle turns and the Sattvic component is restored and the society rises again’. No society is immune to the phenomena of rise and decline. In India’s case the cycle has turned after more than two thousand years in decline, and the 21 st century will prove it. The Middle East is currently in a state of decline in the midst of a high Tamasic component. The scientific framework alluded to here makes it possible to delay inevitable decline, hasten rise, and change the direction for societies currently in decline. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 616 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | pp. 610-616 Deshpande, P. B., The Nature of Ultimate Reality & Recipe of Consciousness for Transformation If you are an Indian-American, consider yourself very fortunate for you carry the spec of ancestry of the sapta Rishis (seven sages) and possess the same capacity to uncover the ultimate reality as millions before you have throughout the ages. If you are an American, consider yourself very fortunate too as two of your own, one Christian, one Jewish, have discovered the meaning and nature of ultimate reality while much of present-day elite in India remain in slumber. Combine the two and you will have the best of the best; rational and intuitive; scientific and spiritual. And that will transform the 21st century. Acknowledgment: The author gratefully acknowledges the editorial assistance of Tony Belak, Ombudsman at the University of Louisville. The author thanks Sanskrit and Ayurveda scholar Dr. S. N. Bhavsar in Pune for the translation of Nasadiya Sukta from Rig Veda. References 1.Deshpande, Pradeep B., and Kowall, James P., The Nature of ultimate reality and how it can transform our world: Evidence from Modern Physics; Wisdom of Yoda, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., January 2015. Dr. Kowall, MD (Miami University), PhD (Brown University) is board certified in neurology, internal medicine, and sleep disorder medicine. He also holds a doctorate in theoretical physics. He makes his home in suburban Eugen, Oregon. 2.Deshpande, P. B. and Harry, Mikel, Criticality of Internal Excellence in Six Sigma for National Transformation, Unpublished, May 2014. Dr. Harry is co-creator of six sigma in the late seventies while he was at Motorola. He has taught six sigma to many of the most famous corporate CEOs of multinational companies. 3.Deshpande, P. B. and Kowall, J., Yogic Perspective on Health, Six Sigma Assessment, and Quantum Physics Approach, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 5, 3, 2014. 4.Deshpande, P. B., Powers of Meditation & Compassion: How to Transform Ourselves & Our World, Scientific God Journal, Special Issue featuring the work of Pradeep B. Deshpande, 5, 5, 2014. 5.Gefter, Amanda, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything, Bantam Books 2014. 6.Kowall, J., Modern Physics & Non-dual Metaphysics: The One-World-Per-Observer Paradigm, Scientific God Journal, Special Issue featuring the work of James Kowall, 5, 4, 2014. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 932 Article Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience Richard L. Amoroso*1 & Francisco Di Biase 2 1 Noetic Advanced Studies Institute, California, USA 2 Dept. of Neurosurgery-Neurology, Santa Casa Hospital, Barra do Piraí, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Dept. of Electroencephalography and Brain Mapping Clínica Di Biase, Barra do Piraí, Brazil Abstract Recalling Thomas Nagel’s discussion concerning the difficulties associated with developing a scientific explanation for the nature of experience, Nagel states that current reductionist attempts fail by filtering out any basis for consciousness and thus become meaningless since they are logically compatible with its absence. In this article we call into question the fundamental philosophy of the mind-brain identity hypothesis of Cognitive Theory: ‘What processes in the brain give rise to awareness?’ and the associated search for ‘neural correlates of consciousness’ (NCC). The proper scientific manner of posing the query should simply be ‘What processes give rise to awareness?’. We begin to formalize the Eccles psychon and summarize one of fourteen empirical protocols to test this putative model. This requires a new science of Unified Field, UF Mechanics, entailing in terms of our current stage of development operationally completed forms of quantum theory, gravitation and cosmology arising from a unique derivation of the M-Theory (string theoretic) vacuum. Until now the quest for psychophysical bridging has typically been in the arena between brain and quantum geometry; and many have wondered if contemporary science is sufficient for the task. Nagel further asks ‘what would be left if one removed the viewpoint of the subjective observer’ and then suggests ‘that the remaining properties would be the physical processes themselves or states intrinsic to the experience of awareness’. We examine a new theoretical framework for introducing and experimentally testing the underlying physical cosmology of these noetic parameters. Keywords: psycho-physical, objective character, experience, consciousness, unified field, noetic. “There is … only being.” – Albert Einstein [1] If [all physicists] follow the same current fashion in expressing and thinking about electrodynamics or field theory, then the variety of hypotheses being generated ... is limited. Perhaps rightly so, for possibly the chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off chance that it is in another direction - a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory - who will find it? Only someone who sacrifices himself ... from a peculiar and unusual point of view, one may have to invent for himself - Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize lecture. * Correspondence: Prof. Richard L. Amoroso, Director of Physics Lab., Noetic Advanced Studies Institute, California, USA. http://www.noeticadvancedstudies.us E-mail: amoroso@noeticadvancedstudies.us ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 933 1. Philosophical Overview - Critique of the Current Perspective Thomas Nagel has said, if our idea of the physical ever expands to include mental phenomena, it will have to assign them an objective character [2]. Nagel recognized the fact that: Very little work has been done on the basic question (from which mention of the brain can be entirely omitted) whether any sense can be made of experiences having an objective character at all. Does it make sense...to ask what my experiences are really like, as opposed to how they appear to me?...This question also lies at the heart of the problem of other minds...If one understood how subjective experience could have an objective nature, one would understand the existence of subjects other than oneself [2]. Psychophysical bridging was considered in the 1920s by Harvard philosopher Troland [3]: “We can say that the consciousness belongs to the organism as a piece of private property. It would be equally legitimate, however, to say that the organism belongs to the consciousness. One thing is certain, that the consciousness does not reside in the organism nor is the organism present in consciousness.” In honor of Nobelist Sir John Eccles we attempt to cross the psychophysical bridge by formalizing his psychon concept [4], not limiting it to the dendron as he originally suggested; but extending it to all coupling structures involved in ‘consciousness’ such as microtubules, neural networks, DNA, and cells in general. We further suggest this association applies to all biochemical species throughout the body and all associated spacetime points of an entities temporal-local and atemporal-nonlocal ‘Psychosphere’ - defined as the total domain of individuality [5-8]. This is not merely a relation of classical/quantum mechanics as considered until now. The key advance is to introduce a Unified Field, UF Mechanics itself [9]. In summary, delineating the principles for introducing UF mechanics into Self-Organized Living Systems (SOLS) is compounded by the fact that the parameters are avant-garde to current thinking in biophysics. Key elements are a new cosmological paradigm with a unique string or M-Theoretic vacuum, and higher dimensional (HD) extensions of quantum theory. Details are extensive and technically obtuse but can be found in [5-11]; here we provide axiomatic conceptual summations. The field of consciousness research has a broad spectrum with ongoing debate about whether classical dynamics is sufficient, or from the AI camp whether an algorithm on a standard Turing machine could be used to demonstrate human mind. In many ways the Penrose orchestrated reduction (OR) model could be said until now to be the most detailed avenue for exploring psychophysical-bridging with most cognitive scientists currently agreeing that a better understanding of quantum principles is required to bridge the gap between mind and body. But is anything left under the auspices of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory which even its founders said could not describe living systems? Here we suggest that the Copenhagen Interpretation fails all attempts to describe psychophysical-bridging as it is not the physical regime of mind-body interaction. The fourth avenue, interactive dualism has been summarily rejected as archaic and intractable because an immaterial mind, as Descartes proposed, is said to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics or the conservation of energy. We cannot fault Descartes for thinking his concept of res cogitans was immaterial because even now 400 years later we still do not know the ultimate fundamental nature of matter [8-11]; what we perceive as his understanding of the term immaterial would be open to considerable debate. The ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 934 simple Webster definition of immaterial is: ‘not consisting of matter - spiritual’. One would surmise that Descartes dwelt on the spiritual aspect of the meaning and not a possible physicality. Also recall that it was not until 300 years later that Einstein proposed a definition of light as quanta. Paraphrasing, Einstein went on to say, ‘anyone who thinks they understand the nature of light is a fool’. We should likewise not fault cognitive theorists for not accepting the existence of an underlying anthropic principle because until now its discovery has remained elusive, undefined, beyond the reach of experimental science and relegated to historical disparagement going back to the myopic bias of the Inquisition at the time of Galileo. In the same manner that quantum principles are unavailable to methods of classical science; consciousness has likewise not been measureable from within the framework of current empirical techniques of quantum cosmology. Summarizing Hameroff: The embedding of proto-conscious experience is described in the physics of quantum geometry at the Planck scale, the most fundamental level of the universe. The physical/material side resides in the brain—specifically, in quantum electron dipole states mediating computations in microtubules and other biomolecular structures involved in consciousness. The connection between the two sides—the psycho-physical bridge—is a specific process called Penrose objective reduction (OR), a proposed threshold for quantum state reduction inherent in Planck scale quantum geometry…The Planck scale is the basement level of reality…operates in microtubules within gamma-synchronized dendrites…Each conscious moment…is according to Penrose OR, an event or transition in spacetime geometry. Consciousness is a sequence of transitions, of ripples in fundamental spacetime geometry, connected to the brain through Orch OR…provid(ing) the best general framework for understanding the mind-matter bridge [12]. 2. Radical New Direction for Mind-Body Research We must now take umbrage with statements ‘the Planck scale is the most fundamental basement level of the universe’, that OR represents the psycho-physical bridge or spacetime geometry is fundamental; because these conditions are false and can no longer be considered a sufficient basis for defining parameters of awareness. In the same way we discovered a distinction between Classical and Quantum with each domain being a physical regime with its own laws and methods of investigation; mind is also comprised of physically real matter that exists and operates in a different arena. Recall that UF Mechanics [9] is just being formalized providing the long anticipated third regime. Thus our understanding of the physical world now evolves from Classical to Quantum to Unified (CQU). Description of our universe, called the Standard Model, is presently governed by the rules of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, electromagnetism and Special/General Relativity cast in a Big Bang cosmology. A top down description that reduces to an impenetrable barrier, a so-called stochastic quantum foam at the 10-33 cm Planck scale representing the lower limit of a reality where we (mind, awareness) as ‘observer’ are embedded in and made out of its emergent material properties. This Planck scale is not the ‘basement of reality’ as Hameroff calls it [12], only a temporarily closed door [11] imposed by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory that we can now open and pass through with parameters of Noetic Field Theory (NFT): The Quantization of Mind [5-8]. This CQU progression is neither top-down nor bottom-up but entails what we call continuous-state free fall-like cycling [5-11]. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 935 Figure 1. a) Macroscopic movie theatre metaphor of anthropic awareness (like Plato’s analogy of the cave or virtual reality) and the observer’s place in the theatre. Discrete frames (film) pass through the projector (spacetime) lit by coherent energy of the UF streaming through the observer embedded in the theatre and appearing as the continuous flow of reality (awareness) on the screen. b) Microscopic details of transduction of the UF through the complex exciplex spacetime raster LCU gate (Figs. 3,4) into every point, atom and thus molecule of Self-Organized Living Systems (SOLS) the propagation of which also produces a locus of spacetime points associated with the arrow of time because it is part of the structure and content of the observers mind [10]. The last great age of discovery about 100 years ago, a transition from the Newtonian 3D representation of classical mechanics (Euclidean) to Einstein’s relativistic and quantum mechanical 4D world (Riemannian), was preceded by a dilemma called the ultraviolet catastrophe predicting an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium emitted continuous radiation with infinite power. Discrete quantum jumps solved this problem. The current dilemma is similar and centers on what physicists call renormalizable and nonrenormalizeable infinities in quantum field theory calculations. The method is tantamount to artificially subtracting infinities from infinities to get desired finite answers. This conundrum provides the current historical indicia of the immanent transition to a new age of discovery [10]. As usually the case with radical new ideas the transition appears complex initially - the transition from the current 4D quantum perspective to a 12D UF string or M-Theoretic Anthropic Multiverse [5-11]. There is currently no consensus on what form this evolution should take. Most physicists believe a UF theory (coined by Einstein) should be a quantum theory uniting the four fundamental interactions; but there is no a priori reason this should be the case and many physicists in recent decades transferred the search to an 11D M-Theoretic (4D + 2D to 6D brane world instead of the original 1D string) regime. The 11th dimension in M-Theory unites the five forms of string theory; and the 12th dimension of noetic cosmology (NFT) introduces the action of the anthropic principle absent from the usual Big Bang form of 11D M-Theory. Classical Mechanics describes an event between two coordinate systems by what is called the Galilean transformation for uniform motion at velocities less than the speed of light in 3D Euclidean space. Events of quantum mechanics and with relativistic velocities are described by the Lorentz-Poincairé group of transformations in a 4D Einstein-Minkowski spacetime. In order to ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 936 cross the Psycho-Physical Bridge noetic cosmology utilizes an extension of M-Theory requiring a new 12D set of transformations called the Noetic Transform because it includes properties of an inherent teleological anthropic principle described by the evolution of UF dynamics [9-11]. To achieve this result we utilize a battery of new physical assumptions (developed in ensuing sections):      The HD regime of UF dynamics is a ‘sea’ of infinite potentia from which the 4D reality of the observer cyclically emerges as a nilpotent resultant (Figs. 6,7). Nilpotency technically meaning ‘sums to zero’ [13], is a required basis for the noetic cosmologies infinite potentia simplistically like the entangled alive-dead quantum state of Schrödinger’s cat before a realized local event occurs. Action of the UF mediated by noeon ‘flux’ (the noeon is the exchange unit of the UF) is the life principle both animating SOLS and supplying psychon energy for the physical evolution of qualia [6-8]. The UF does not operate as a usual phenomenal field (mediated by an energetic exchange quanta like the photon of the electromagnetic field) but as an energyless ontological field by a process called ‘topological switching’ transferring a force of coherence between branes [6,8]. Note: This property of UF dynamics removes the problem of violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics or the conservation of energy from Cartesian interactive dualism. The key process associated with the topological transformation of noeon exchange is a holophote action (like a lighthouse beacon) providing a gating mechanism acting as the psychophysical bridge between the potentia of the UF 12D space and the localized 4D spacetime and 3D matter it embeds [5-11]. The noeon gating mechanism is a complex of close-packed Least Cosmological Units (LCU) [5,14,15] comprising the raster tessellating spacetime detailed in the text below as an exciplex (excited complex) [9-11]. This delineation is the primary focus of our discourse as it provides the actual psychophysical bridge. 3. Required New Cosmology and Associated Physics For the scientific perspective to evolve beyond the usual Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory requires a new cosmological paradigm, an enormous challenge because as generally known a Nobel Prize was given for discovering supposed Big Bang parameters. At the time of Galileo logic failed beginning the current age of empiricism. One should not say that the current conundrum is an error of experimental method; but rather an error in data interpretation. Hubble discovered redshift not a Doppler expansion of the universe! Full delineation of the new cosmology is beyond the scope of this paper, but detailed in [5-11]. In summary we axiomatically introduce pertinent concepts. The new noetic cosmology is required to explain, utilize and design experimental access to the new UF regime where physical parameters for psychophysical-bridging reside. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience    937 The Planck scale can no longer be considered the most fundamental level of reality. Three regimes of reality must be addressed: Classical  Quantum  Unified Field; all of which cycle continuously [5-11]. No ‘mental’ quantum state reduction exists in the usual sense of wave function collapse [16]; suffice it to say (in terms of the de Broglie-Bohm and extended Cramer interpretations of quantum theory) [17,18] a continuous evolution exists instead [5,17]. Collapse of the wavefunction reduces the quantum state to a classical state, which does not generally happen (perhaps a ‘senior moment’ or other form of momentary total gap in awareness may constitute collapse) in the nonlocal flux of qualia as the locus of awareness; especially since now more pertinently qualia are not quantum phenomena per se but unified field phenomena. Quale ‘rest on’ the quantum regime but only as part of the sensory transduction apparatus. The Planck scale is not an impenetrable barrier [5] even though considered so as an empirical fact demonstrated by the quantum uncertainty principle. This is a main problem with utilizing a Darwinian naturalistic Big Bang cosmology originating from a putative singularity in time as the basis for cognitive theory. In an anthropic multiverse cosmology utilizing extended quantum theory and M-Theory the answer is simply: ‘do something else!’ which opens physical investigation into a new UF realm of large scale additional dimensions (LSXD) [10,11,19]. The anthropic multiverse is closed and finite in time, i.e. the 14.7 billion light year Hubble radius, HR, but open and infinite in atemporal eternity [5,11]. ‘Worlds without number, like grains of sand at the seashore’ [20] the multiverse has room for an infinite number of nested Hubble spheres each with their own fine-tuned laws of physics [5]. Fourteen empirical protocols have been proposed [11] (the 1st reviewed here) for demonstrating, gaining access to and leading to a variety of experimental platforms for first hand investigation of awareness (qualia) breaking down the 1st person 3rd person barrier as called for by Nagel [2]. It is said that string theory only has one parameter; that of string tension, TS. But string theory has been fraught with the dilemma of a Googolplex (10googol) or infinite number of vacuum possibilities. Utilizing the Eddington, Dirac, and Wheeler large number hypothesis [5,10] we derived an alternative derivation of TS leading to one unique string vacuum and what we call the ‘continuous-state hypothesis’ an alternative to the expansion/inflation parameters of Big Bang cosmology [5]. Simplistically the perceived inflation energy of Big Bang cosmology postulated as a Doppler expansion from a primordial temporal singularity, instead according to the noetic continuous-state hypothesis, is localized in an ‘eternal present’ as if in permanent ‘gravitational free-fall’[5]. Since we are relativistically embedded in and made out of matter this condition means that all objects (in our 3D virtual reality bubble) exist (in HD) as if they were in gravitational ‘free-fall’. This is better explained by two other interpretations of quantum theory generally ignored by the physics community because they are myopically considered to add nothing. That of the de Broglie-Bohm Causal Interpretation [17] and the Cramer Transactional Interpretation [18]; where spacetime and the matter within it (all matter is made of de Broglie waves) are created-annihilated and recreated over and over as part of the perceived arrow of time and creation of our 3D reality as a resultant from HD infinite potentia as a ‘standing-wave’ (Fig. 2) [5,10]. This can be best understood conceptually by a movie theatre metaphor (Fig. 1). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 938 Figure 2. a) Conceptualized structure of a Cramer transaction (present state or event) where the present (simplistically) is a standing-wave of future-past potential elements. A point is not a rigid singularity (although still discrete) as in the classical sense, but has a complex structure like a mini-wormhole where R1 & R2 (like the frets holding the wire of a stringed instrument) represent opposite ends of its diameter. b) How observed (virtual) 3D reality arises from the infinite potentia of HD space (like a macroscopic transaction). The ‘standing-wave-like’ (retarded-advanced future-past) mirror symmetric elements C4+ / C4- (where C4 signifies 4D potentia of complex space distinguished from the realized 3D of visible space) of continuous-state spacetime show a central observed Euclidian, E3, Minkowski, M4 space resultant. Least Cosmological Units (LCU) governing evolution of the ‘points’ of 3D reality are represented by circles. The Advanced-Retarded future-past 3-cubes in HD space guide the evolution of the central cube (our virtual reality) that emerges from elements of HD space. The problem has to do with the nature of a point or 3D vertex in physical theory [10,13]. What extended versions of de Broglie-Bohm and Cramer bring to the table is a basis for defining a fundamental ‘point’ that instead of being rigidly fixed classically (Fig. 3a) is continuously transmutable (Fig. 3b) as in string theory. This represents in essence the elevation of the so-called wave-particle duality for quanta to a Principle of continuous-state cosmology. What this does is cancel the troubling infinites in the standard model of particle physics in a natural way rather than by use of a mathematical gimmick called renormalization. We also build the continuous-state hypothesis around an object in string theory called the Witten Vertex [21] (Fig. 3b after noted M-Theorist David Witten). This means that when certain parameters (compactification, dimensional reduction etc.) associated with the Riemann sphere reach a zero-point; the Riemann sphere relativistically rotates back to infinity and so on continuously (Reminiscent of how water waves operate). The HD branes of so-called Calabi-Yau mirror symmetry are forms of Riemann 3-spheres or Kahler manifolds [10]. Instead of the insurmountable Plank foam, the gate keeper in this cosmology is an array of least cosmological units (LCU) [5,14,15] of which part (like the tip of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 939 an iceberg) resides in our virtual 4-space and the other part resides in the HD (12D) regime of M-Theory. These LCU exciplex gates govern mediation of the UF in the coherent ordering of the life principle of SOLS embedded in localized spacetime. 3.1. Spacetime Exciplex - UF Noeon Mediator The spacetime exiplex or ‘excited complex’ of least cosmological units (LCU) is key to mediation of the UF life principle of consciousness. In the usual 4D interpretation of quantum theory limited by the uncertainty principle, virtual quanta in the zero point field wink in and out of existence limited to the Planck time, 10-43 s. For the noetic spacetime exiplex the situation is radically different. The duality of its HD structure (i.e. living in both local 4-space and nonlocal 8-space) allows it to remain in an excited state in 4-space never fully coupling with the Planck-scale ground state. This holophote interaction emits a noeon into every point (and thus atom) in spacetime (providing the life principle) and interaction with brain dendrons etc. for example as the flow of qualia as a form of superradiance. Kowalski discovered that photon emission occurs only after electrons complete full Bohr orbits [22,23]. We apply this as a general principle for emission during rotation of the complex Calabi-Yau Riemann sphere which acts like a pinwheel-like scoop bringing in the next topologically switched hysteresis loop of psychon-brain interaction energy. Figure 3. Conceptualization of the cosmological Least-Unit (LCU) tessellating space which like quark confinement cannot exist alone. a) Current view of a so-called point particle or metric x,y,z vertex. The three large circles are an LCU array slice. It is a form of close-packed spheres forming a 3-torus; missing from the illustration are an upper and bottom layer covering the x,y,z vertex and completing one fundamental element of an LCU complex. The field lines emanating from one circle to another represent the de Broglie-Bohm concept of a quantum ‘pilot wave or potential’ governing evolution. b) Similar to a) but drawn with a central ‘Witten string vertex’ [21] and relativistic quantum field potentials (lines) guiding its evolution in spacetime. The Witten vertex is not a closed singularity and because of its open structure provides a key element to the continuous-state process and rotation of the Riemann sphere cyclically from zero to infinity which represents rotational elements of the HD exciplex brane topology. The exciplex concept as defined in engineering parlance is an ‘excited complex’ or form of excimer - short for excited dimer in chemistry nomenclature used to describe an excited, transient, combined state, of two different atomic species (like XeCl) that dissociate back into the constituent ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 940 atoms rather than reversion to some ground state after photon emission. An excimer is a short-lived dimeric or heterodimeric molecule formed from two species, at least one of which is in an electronic excited state. Excimers are often diatomic and are formed between two atoms or molecules that would not bond if both were in the ground state. The lifetime of an excimer is very short, on the order of nanoseconds. Binding a larger number of excited atoms form Rydberg clusters extending the lifetime which can exceed many seconds. An Exciplex is also defined as an electronically excited complex, ‘non-bonding’ in the ground state. For example, a complex formed by the interaction of an excited molecular entity with a ground state counterpart of a different structure. When it hits ground a photon or quasiparticle soliton is emitted. In Noetic Cosmology we have adapted the exciplex concept as a tool to describe the LCU gating mechanism between the quantum regime and the regime of the UF. The exciplex LCU gate is key to understanding interaction of the life principle with SOLS and the basis for developing empirical tests. The general equations for a putative spacetime exciplex are: G*  G*  Z *; * Z* m   X mission X *  m e  Z* o r G* (1) X *  m  Z* o r G* where as seen in Fig. 4a G is the ZPF ground state, Z intermediate cavity excited states and X the spacetime C-QED (Cavity-Quantum Electrodynamics) exciplex coupling. The numerous configurations plus the large variety of photon frequencies absorbed allow for a full absorption-emission equilibrium spectrum. We believe the spacetime exciplex model also has sufficient parameters to allow for the spontaneous emission of protons by a process similar to the photoelectric effect but from HD spacetime C-QED brane spallation rather than from a charged metallic surface. Not having a sufficient spacetime vacuum proton creation mechanism led to the downfall of Steady-State cosmology. The new UF basis centers on defining what is called a Least Cosmological Unit (LCU) [5,14] tiling the spacetime backcloth. An LCU (Fig. 3) conceptually parallels the unit cell that builds up crystal structure. The LCU entails the next evolutionary step for the basis of a point particle [13] and has two main functions; It is the raster from which matter arises, and is a central mechanism that mediates the syntropic gating of life principle parameters of the UF. Syntropy is the negentropy process of expelling entropy by the teleological action of SOLS. The LCU change from the current concept of a fixed Planck scale point (Fig. 3a) to what is called a Witten string vertex [21] (Fig. 3b) is a form of Riemann sphere (model of the extended complex-plane with points at zero and infinity for stereographic projection to the Euclidean plane) that cyclically opens into the LSXD regime of the UF. Behind the current view of (Planck’s constant) as a barrier of stochastic foam is a coherent topology with the symmetry of a spin raster comprised of LCUs [5,14]. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 941 Figure 4. a) The geometry of the ‘spacetime exciplex’ (excited complex), a configuration of spacetime LCUs that act like a holophote laser pumping mechanism of UF noeon energy and also how coherence of the UF interacts with 3D compactified states in dendrons or microtubules for example. Locally the exciplex acts like an oscillating ‘cootie catcher’ [24]. b) Geometric representation of the Noetic Unified Field Equation, F (N) = E/R for an array of cosmological LCUs. Solid lines represent extension, dotted lines field. Where F(N) is the anthropic or coherent force of the UF driving self-organization, total E equals the c) hysteresis loop energy of the hypervolume, R is the scale-invariant rotational radius of the action and the domain wall (curves) string tension, T0 . 3.2. Classical Phenomenology Versus Noetic Ontology There is a major conceptual change from Quantum Mechanics to Unified Field Mechanics. The ‘energy’ of the UF is not quantized and thus is radically different from other known fields. Here is what troubled Nobelist Richard Feynman: "...maybe nature is trying to tell us something new here, maybe we should not try to quantize gravity... Is it possible that gravity is not quantized and all the rest of the world is?" [25]. It turns out that not only is gravity not quantized but neither is the noeon energy of the UF which is a step deeper than gravity. Here is one way to explain it. In a usual field like electromagnetism which is easiest for us to understand because we have the most experience with it, field lines connect to adjacent point charges. The quanta of the fields force is exchanged along those field lines (in this case photons). We perceive this as occurring in 4-space (4D). It is phenomenological. This is the phenomenon of fields. For topological charge as in the UF with properties related to consciousness; the situation is vastly different. The fields are still coupled and there is tension between them but no phenomenological energy (i.e. field quanta) is exchanged. This is the situation in the ontological case. The adjacent branes "become" each other as they overlap by a process called ‘topological switching’. This is not possible for the 4-space field because they are quantized resultants of the HD topological field components. The HD ‘units’ (noeons) are free to “mix” ontologically as they are not resolved into points. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 942 Figure 5. a) 2D view of the LCU tiling of the spacetime backcloth (Fig. 3). b) Projective geometry topologically giving rise to higher dimensionality (here the Fig. 4a 2D view extended to 3D). The triangles with tails represent the trefoil knots in Fig. 7 and the naked triangles the resultant cyclic point or fermionic vertex quantum state in 3-space (Spheres in Fig. 2b). The metric still has points, or it might be better to say coordinates; but in HD super space they are unrestricted and free to interact by topological switching which is not the case for an “event” in 4-space. Whereas this singular quality (basis of our perceived reality) does not exist in the HD regime (UF) of infinite potentia! So if the UF is not quantized how can there be a force which is mediated by the exchange of quanta? Firstly the UF does not provide a 5th force as one might initially assume; instead the ontological ‘presence’ of the UF provides a ‘force of coherence’ which is based on ‘topological charge’. It helps to consider this in terms of perception. If one looks along parallel railroad tracks they recede into a point in the distance, a property of time and space. For the unitary evolution of consciousness [6-8] this would break the requirement of coherence. For the UF which is outside of local time and space, a cyclical restoring force is applied to our res extensa putting it in a res cogitans mode. The exciplex mechanism [5,10] guides rotation of the Witten vertex Riemann spheres to maintain a consistent level of periodic coherence (parallelism). It is a relativistic UF process. The railroad tracks do not recede into a point. The Riemann sphere flips (our perception) beforehand. The UF provides an inherent force of coherence just by its cyclical presence. This means that it is ontological in its propagation or ‘interaction’. The railroad tracks remain parallel and do not recede to a point as in the 3-D phenomenological realm where forces are mediated by a quantal energy exchange. Another way of looking at this is that the 3-D observer can only look at one page of a book at a time while the HD observer (Godlike) can see all pages continuously (time-like). The LCU space-time exciplex is a mechanism allowing both worlds to interact nonlocally. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 943 Figure 6. Complex HD Calabi-Yau mirror symmetric 3-forms, C4 become embedded in Minkowski space, M4 and the UF energy of this resultant is projected (Fig. 1) into brain dendrons as a continuous stream of evolving (evanescing) superradiant qualia. This represents the lower portion only that embeds in local spacetime; there is an additional duality above this projection embedded in the infinite potentia of the UF from which it arises (Fig.8). Most are familiar with the 3D Necker cube (center of Fig. 2b is like a Necker cube) that when stared at central vertices topologically reverse. This is called topological switching. There is another paper child's toy called a ‘cootie catcher’ [24] that fits over the fingers and can switch positions. What the cootie catcher has over the Necker cube is that it has an easier to visualize a defined center or vertex switching point. So in the LCU exiplex spacetime background we have this topological switching which represents the frame that houses the gate which is the lighthouse with the rotating light on top. Figure 7. Locus of nonlocal HD mirror symmetric Calabi-Yau 3-tori (here technically depicted quaternionic trefoil knots) spinning relativistically and evolving in time. Nodes in the cycle are sometimes chaotic and sometimes periodically couple into resultant (faces of a cube) quantum states in 3-space depicted in the diagram as Riemann Bloch spheres. An animated version of Fig.6. Now inside the structure there is also a ‘baton passing’. The baton is like the lens that the light shines through but only at the moment of transfer (or coupling). In the HD UF regime the ‘light’ is always on omni-directionally but only ‘shines’ into 3-space when the gate is open during the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 944 moment of baton passing. In addition to baton passing there is also a form of ‘leap-frogging’. The leap-frogging represents wave-particle duality (remember we elevated it to a principle of cosmology). The leaping moment represents the wave, and the crouched person being leapt over is the particulate moment. The particle moment acts like a domain wall and no light passes when its orientation is aligned towards the 3-D world resultant. This is also an important aspect of the gating mechanism. This is of course a relativistic process such that the ‘beat frequency’ keeps SOLS well lit with the teleological anthropic ‘light of life’. The trefoil knot (in Fig. 7 drawn as a Planck scale quaternion vertices) is holomorphic to the circle. Since energy is conserved we may ignore the complexity of the HD symmetries and use the area of the circle for the noeon hysteresis loop (Fig. 4c), in this case a 2D resultant as a 2-sphere quantum state as the coupling area of one psychon to a dendron. This idea is further conceptualized in Fig. 5 illustrating how a 3D object emerges from close-packed spacetime LCUs. Figure 8. Completion of Figs. 5 & 6 illustrating full extension to an HD relativistic quantum state in continuous-state dual Calabi-Yau mirror symmetric HAM cosmology with Dodecahedral involute properties, as well as the continuous-state exciplex ‘hysteresis loop’ of noeon injection (not shown) as far as currently understood. The Bloch 2-sphere representation is also replaced with an extended Riemann 4-sphere resultant with sufficient parameters to surmount the uncertainty principle representing a unique M-Theoretic model of 'Continuous-State' UF dynamics as it relates to NFT and its putative exchange quanta of the UF - the noeon. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 945 4. The Physical Basis of Qualia Qualia, plural of quale, as defined in philosophy of mind is ‘the subjective quality of experience; a qualitative feel associated with an experience’. The physics of noetic cosmology with an inherent élan vital based on UF mechanics also provides the physical basis for representing quale in a rigorous empirically testable manner. Every experience has a specific subjective nature. If one removed the viewpoint of the subjective observer; what would be left? Nagel suggests the remaining properties might be those detectable by other beings, the physical processes themselves or states intrinsic to the experience of awareness. This changes the perspective of qualia to the form “there is something it is like to undergo certain physical processes”. “If our idea of the physical ever expands to include mental phenomena, it will have to assign them an objective character” [2]. These are questions an integrative Noetic Science can now answer theoretically and empirically. Standard definitions of qualia are an inadequate philosophical construct describing only the subjective character. In the physical sense of Noetic Field Theory (NFT) components describing qualia from the objective sense are introduced for the first time - i.e. distinguishing the phenomenology of qualia from the underlying ontological ‘nonlocal noumenon’ or physical existence of the fundamental absolute thing in itself. NFT suggests that a comprehensive definition of qualia is comprised of three component forms considered physically real because the noetic fields of Holographic Anthropic Multiverse (HAM) cosmology on which the noetic model for the quantization of mind is based are all physically real. The proposed triune basis of quale is as follows: Type I. The Subjective - The what it feels like basis of awareness. Phenomenological mental states of the qualia of experience. (This is the current philosophical definition of qualia, Q-I) Type II. The Objective - Physical basis of qualia phenomenology independent of the subjective feel that could be stored or transferred to another entity breaking down the 1st person 3rd person barrier. Noumenal nonlocal UF elements and related processes evanesce qualia by a form of superradiance, Q-II. Type III. The Cosmological - SOLS by being alive represent a Qualia substrate of the anthropic multiverse, acting as a ‘blank slate’ carrier (like a television set turned on but with no broadcast signal) from within which Q-II are modulated into the Q-I of experience by a form of superradiance (noeon exciplex gating mechanism) or hyper- holographic evanescence. Note: Q-III has sub-elements addressed elsewhere [6]. A standard image requires a screen or other reflective surface to be resolved; but if the foci of two parabolic mirrors (Casimir-like vacuum plates in our model) are made to coincide, the two images superpose into a real 3D holographic image that does not need a screen. A science toy called the ‘magic mirage’ is used to demonstrate this effect of parabolic mirrors. Objects placed in the bottom appear like solid objects at the top of the device. In 12D reality Calabi-Yau brane topology performs the same function for the locus of qualia propagation. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 946 Figure 9. 2D rendition of an HD holographic process. An object (black circle) placed inside two parabolic mirrors (like Casimir domain walls) produces a virtual image (white circle) representing creation of a point in spacetime. Our virtual holographic reality is produced in a similar fashion by Cramer future-past standing-wave parameters from the HD Calabi-Yau mirror symmetric infinite potentia of the UF. As in Fig. 1 this same process produces qualia with each lit point like a raindrop producing a rainbow. The holophote action of élan vital energetics arises from the harmonic oscillation of close-packed LCU boundary conditions tiling the spacetime backcloth and pervading all SOLS. The inherent beat frequency of this continuous action produces the Q-III carrier wave that is an empty slate modulating cognitive data of Q-II physical parameters into Q-I awareness states as a superposition of the two (Q-III and Q-II). This modulation of qualia occurs in the HD QED cavities of the psychospheres cognitive domain. The QED cavities are a close-packed tiling of LCU noetic hyperspheres; the Casimir surfaces of which are able to reflect quaneme subelements. While the best reflectors of em waves are polished metal mirrors, charged boundary conditions also reflect em waves in the same way radio signals bounce off the ionized gases of the Kennelly-Heaviside layers in the Earth’s ionosphere. This reflective ‘sheath’ enclosing the cognitive domain is charged by the Noeon radiation (exchange particle of the noetic field) of the élan vital, the phases of which are ‘regulated’ in the complex HD space of the fundamental least units of HAM cosmology. How does noetic theory describe more complex aspects of qualia? Like a rainbow, light quanta (drop) are microscopic in contrast to the macroscopic sphere of awareness (rainbow). It thus seems reasonable to assume that scale-invariant properties of the HAM least units of awareness would apply. Like phonemes as fundamental sound elements for audible language qualia-nemes or quanemes are proposed for awareness; all based on the physical modulation of Q-II states by the geometric structural-phenomenology of the Q-III carrier base of living systems. The quaneme is a singular Witten point in the raster of mind like a locus of points forming a line. Each of these ‘quaneme points’ of noeon entry through the LCU exciplex gating array are like an individual raindrop that summate into a rainbow or thought train of awareness. This again takes us back to the movie theater metaphor of Fig.1 where the discrete frame of film (exciplex gated) is projected continuously on the screen, in this case the mind. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 947 Figure 10. a) The physical basis of the continuous superradiant generation of qualia from the three components of mind: eternal Elemental Intelligence, Brain-Body (Descartes res extensa), and the superradiant qualia (Descartes res cogitans) mediated by the spacetime raster (quaneme locus) that exciplex gates ‘the light of the mind’ or UF energy. The term quaneme is derived to parallel the phoneme component of sounds. b) LCU construct hidden nonlocally behind a 3-space singularity (black cross vertex). 4.1 Formalizing the Eccles Psychon, a New Physical Unit for Measuring Energy of Awareness (Qualia) NFT elevates the concept of qualia from the traditionally philosophical concept as used in cognitive science to an actual physically real fundamental noumenon. The term noumenon is defined as the ‘thing in itself’ beyond the veil of the phenomenological world; in Kantian philosophy a noumenon is something that exists independently of the intellectual or sensory perception of it. It is this fundamental physicality that will allow qualia to be ‘digitized’ in some form breaking down the 1st person-3rd person barrier leading to profound new ‘conscious’ technologies. Nobelist Sir John Eccles coined albeit an undefined construct, he called the psychon, to illustrate how mental energy coupled to brain dendrons (bundle of neural dendrites) [4] to complete his interactionist model of mind-body dualism [6-8]. Formalizing a ‘Psychon unit’ of measure is one of the applications made possible by a comprehensive science of qualia tantamount to the fundamental basis or nature of awareness. In meditative science it is said that ‘energy follows thought’. Here we have postulated that the qualia of awareness are comprised of a real physical form of energy related to new physics of the unified field, UF [9,10]. In honor of Nobelist Sir J.C Eccles (discovery of the synapse) we propose to quantify this mental energy in terms of a new physical unit called the Psychon. The Einstein, a physical unit of energy measure named in honor of Albert Einstein for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in terms of light quanta (photons) bears conceptual similarity and we thus use that as our starting point. The Einstein is used to measure the power of electromagnetic radiation in photosynthesis for example where one Einstein represents one mole or Avogadro’s number of photons (6.02 x 1023). In general physics the energy of n photons is E  n   n (c / ) where is Planck’s constant and  is the frequency. The second part of the equation is energy in terms of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 948 the wavelength,  (in nanometers, nm) and the speed of light, c. Adaptation of this photon energy equation to measure Einsteins is very similar, E  N0   N0 (c / ) where the energy of N0 photons is instead in Einsteins, E. In photometrics the measure used is one microeinstein per second per square meter, where one microeinstein, uE is one-millionth of an Einstein or 6.02 x 1017 photons imping a leaf for example. We create a similar unit of measure to quantify the mental energy of quale called the Psychon as one mole or Avogadro’s number of noeons. The force of all four known phenomenological fields (electromagnetic, strong, weak and gravitational) are said to have exchange quanta which mediate the field’s interactions by an exchange of energy. For electromagnetism the exchange quanta is the photon. This quantal mediation has been experimentally verified for all fields except gravity because the graviton has not been discovered and according to NFT is not expected to be as the regime of unification is not quantum but instead correlates with parameters of UF Mechanics [9,10]. The trefoil knots (in Fig. 7 drawn as Planck scale quaternion vertices) is holomorphic to the circle. Since energy is conserved we may ignore the complexity of the LSXD Calabi-Yau and AdS5 Dodecahedral symmetries and use the area of the circle, in this case a resultant continuous rotations of two circles as a 2-sphere quantum state or perhaps better as a torus as the coupling area of one psychon to a dendron. This idea is further conceptualized in Fig. 5 illustrating how a 3D object emerges from spacetime LCUs. In considering psychon energy it may be easier to calculate the nonlocal brane area of the spacetime exiplex than the local volume or surface area of a dendron or array of microtubules etc. Recall that the intestinal villi are purported to provide the area of a football field. In any case we will not calculate here but leave it for a later publication since we still struggle with the conceptual problems relating to the geometric topology of noeon coherence. Recall that the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation entails a nonlocal pilot-wave or quantum-potential said to guide the evolution of the wavefunction ontologically. This concept was not very successful in 4D, but when carried to LSXD it works elegantly and the pilot-wave-quantum potential is like a ‘Super Quantum Potential’ that becomes synonymous with coherent aspects of the UF. The UF provides the basis for gravitation [10] and the life principle for living systems not just the evolutionary flow of qualia in the mind. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 949 Figure 11. Conceptualization of Interactionist cosmology. a) Coherent interaction of the UF bridging the stochastic quantum barrier into a brain dendron of radius R correlated with an underlying array of fundamental Least Cosmological Units (LCUs) forming the coupling of one Eccles Psychon unit with the brain. b) Showing injection of the noetic field or élan vital into spacetime points. c) Planck scale LCUs mediating the noetic field, d) An Eccles Psychon-UF Noeon field coupled putatively to a brain dendron. A bit more noeon-psychon theory: A torus is generated by rotating a circle about an extended line in its plane where the circles become a continuous ring. According to the equation for a torus,     2 x2  y2  R  z 2  r 2 , where r is the radius of the rotating circle and R is the distance between  the center of the circle and the axis of rotation. The volume of the torus is 2 2 Rr 2 and the surface area is 4 2 Rr, in the above Cartesian formula the z axis is the axis of rotation. We wish to apply this to the holophote action of noeon exciplex flux. In atomic theory electron charged particle spherical domains fill the toroidal volume of the atomic orbit by their wave motion. If a photon of specific quanta is emitted while an electron is resident in an upper (like the UF domain) more excited Bohr orbit, the radius of the orbit drops back down to the next lower energy level decreasing the volume of the torus in the emission process. (For the noeon-psychon maintaining a syntropic force of coherence.) To summarize pertinent aspects of HAM cosmology:    The nature of a point particle or singularity in physics has long been under debate. In Noetic Cosmology it becomes a continuous Witten vertex. The energyless interaction of the UF occurs by what is called ‘topological switching’. Metaphorically this is like what happens when one stares at a Necker cube and the vertices are perceived to oscillate back and forth. This is the exciplex gate in noetic cosmology. In deference to Nobelist Sir John Eccles concept for mind-body interaction we quantify the energy of qualia in Psychons [4]. Like the Einstein, the psychon is defined as a measure of one mole of noeons, purported to be the topological exchange complex of the Unified Field, UF which provides the energy that animates the stream of awareness or qualia. Using the noetic field equation, NF = E/R we need to calculate the energy of the noeon field from its space-time hysteresis loop (Fig. 4 b,c). This is a practical and conceptual challenge that is hard to meet. Imagine trying to calculate the surface area of the dendrite and synaptic boutons in a dendron, neural network or array of microtubules for example. Imagine a helicopter like those used to put out forest fires carrying a bucket of water retrieved from a nearby lake (UF). The volume of that bucket is known. So it is infinitely easier to work with the volume of the helicopter water bucket than to try to measure the surface area of the trees and other objects on the ground. When Eccles loosely defined the psychon dendron correlation he did not consider and Avogadro's number of noeons to enter into the picture. The question is can we correlate helicopter buckets of the UF with the volume or surface area of an array of LCUs modulating energy of coherence entering the local space-time of a dendron? For simplicity at this stage of development we use the general unexpanded form of the Noetic UF equation, F(N) = E/R where F(N) is the force of coherence of the UF, E the relativistic rotational ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 950 energy and R the ‘cavity’ radius. The cavity represents a hysteresis loop of the LSXD brane energy dynamics. The cavity relates to the volume of the Calabi-Yau mirror symmetric dual 3-tori of the LCU holophote (lighthouse) gating mechanism. The gate cycles continuously through HD symmetries of M-Theoretic space through various compactification modes [5] until it reaches a 4D ‘standing-wave’ Minkowski spacetime of the standard model of observed reality, i.e. a Copenhagen domain wall of noeon energy pervading all spacetime and matter, i.e. SOLS as the élan vital (In our example a dendron). This process, is further described by the physics of the exciplex gating mechanism which is mediated by a new set of transformations beyond the Galilean-Lorentz-Poincairé which we call in deference to the anthropic multiverse which it is cast in - the Noetic Transform [5,6,10]. We derived our definition of the noeon (from the Greek nous, mind and noēsis / noētikos, perception-what the nous does) and the common “on” suffix in particle physics such as the phot-on as the fundamental exchange unit of the anthropic unified noetic field. Although UF dynamics entails a ‘force of coherence’ this does not seem to entail a 5 th force. The ‘coherence’ implied is the resultant action; perhaps that is misleading. The UF is primary - an originator of all the other forces that brings (pumps like a holophote) noeons, which are then immediately returned to the sea of infinite potentia. This cyclical process energizes living systems, qualia and gravitation etc. Theologically this is stated as: ‘The spirit emanates from the throne of God, filling the immensity of space, it is life, the light of the mind and the power that frames the heavens’ [26]. One sees that the anthropic principle (spirit of God) provides all these phenomena Life, the Light of the Mind (qualia) and Gravitation! More work has to be done on noeon dynamics. This is what the experimental protocols are designed for - rigorous investigation. 4.2. Parameters of Psycho-Physical Bridging: Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) We have said little of NCC; we do not claim there are none, only that the current Copenhagen Interpretation approach of Cognitive Science has been superficial and now needs to be recast in terms of the additional required UF mechanics parameters. A simple delineation of these new principles is a challenge because it is expressed formally in terms of mathematical physics and cosmology. We have taken great pains to utilize metaphor and graphic aides. Technical details are found in the volumes [5,6,10] and numerous preprints online at [27]. The nature of the observer has long plagued physical science. Here we have briefly reviewed the current status and limitations of cognitive science in the context of a cosmology of mind in an Anthropic Multiverse [5,10]. The concept of an élan vital or life force has long been considered the elementary action principle driving the evolution of living‐systems by theologically minded scientists and individuals. Sufficiently extending Einstein’s original model of a Static Universe, to a Holographic Anthropic Multiverse (HAM), has provided a context for solving this centuries old problem for introducing this type of teleological principle into Physics, Biology, Medicine and Psychology. This means the contemporary framework of biological mechanism (chemistry and physics are sufficient for describing life - no additional life principle is required, i.e. the cognitive mind-brain identity hypothesis) should no longer be considered the formal philosophical basis for describing living systems, the mind-body interface and contemporary allopathic (scientific) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 951 medicine. The new noetic action principle of the unified field has far reaching implications for medicine and transpersonal psychology. 5. Empirical Tests of Noetic Cosmology Summarized Viable experimentation will lead to new consciousness research platforms for studying fundamental syntropic properties of living systems. We have proposed fourteen tests of NFT; in this paper we summarize the main experimental protocol to test the noetic teleological ‘life-principle’ hypotheses. Note: Not all of the experiments relate directly to mediation of the life principle; but since the life-principle is putatively an aspect of the UF, all of the experiments manipulate the new physical regime of the UF or importantly mediate the ‘gating mechanism’ by which access is gained, thus facilitating mind-body research in addition to M-Theory and nuclear physics. 5.1 Basic Experimental Protocol Basic Experiment - Fundamental test that the concatenation of new NFT UF principles is theoretically sound. A laser oscillated rf-pulsed vacuum resonance hierarchy is set up to interfere with the periodic (continuous-state) structure of the inherent ‘beat frequency’ of a Dirac polarized spacetime vacuum exciplex to detect the new coherence principle associated with a cyclical holophote entry of the UF into 4-space. This experiment ‘pokes a hole in spacetime’ in order to bring the energy of the UF into a detector. The remaining protocols are variations of the parameters of this experiment. See Figs. 11 & 12. There are a number of very specific postulated cosmological properties required in order to perform these experiments [5,10]. Summaries of the additional 13 experiments can be found in [5,11]. 5.2. Summary of Key Experimental Details To empirically gain access to the regime of the Unified Field one must pass through the so-called Planck scale stochastic barrier. In order to do this one must violate the quantum uncertainty principle. Since by definition the standard methods of quantum theory produce the uncertainty principle; the simple solution is to do something else! Because of the great success of gauge theory physicists have ignored the existence of a Dirac polarized vacuum because they believe its existence would violate gauge principles. The best evidence for a Dirac polarized vacuum is what is called the Casimir Effect. The methods of gauge theory however are only an approximation suggesting that there is additional new physics. Next we outline the general method for accessing the higher dimensional superspace of the UF. Technical details can be found in references [5,10,28-30]. Postulates introduced in this paper are utilized; in general the de Broglie-Bohm and Cramer (TI) interpretations of quantum theory, the Dirac polarized vacuum, the Sagnac affect [5,17,18], the unique string vacuum derived from HAM cosmology and the special class of Calabi-Yau mirror symmetry conditions. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 952 Figure 12. The Dirac polarized vacuum has hyperspherical symmetry. a) Top left, metaphor for TI standing-wave present showing future-past elements, R1, R2 , eleven of twelve dimensions suppressed for simplicity. b) Bottom left, top view of a) 2D spherical standing-wave; c) Bottom left right portion, manipulating the relative quantum/brane phase of oscillations creates nodes of destructive and constructive interference. d) Right, Four numerical simulations of the phase space trajectory of the Dubois superposed incursive oscillator based on coordinates and velocities xn  1/ 2[ xn (1)  xn (2)] vn  1/ 2[vn (1)  vn (2)] is shown in the figure for values of   t equal to 0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5. Initial conditions are 0  1,0  0 & 0  0 with total simulation time   t  8 . Figure 12b adapted from [31]. It is important to recall one of our main proposals concerning the wave structure of matter and that space-time is created, annihilated and recreated continuously. If one throws a stone in a pool of water concentric ripples occur. If one drops two stones into the water, regions of constructive and destructive interference occur. This is essentially how our resonant hierarchy operates as shown in Fig. 13c. The basic idea of the radio frequency or rf-modulated resonance hierarchy is as follows: in the first tier (Fig. 13a) a radio frequency is chosen to oscillate the electrons in the atom or molecule chosen in such a way that the nucleons will resonate. This is related to the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). This couples electrons to the magnetic moment of the nucleons in tier 2. By the principles of relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT) tiers one and two undergo resonant coupling to the beat frequency of the fabric of space-time. The multitier cumulative interaction of tears 1, 2 and 3 by application of the incursive oscillator can be set to destructively or constructively interfere with the annihilation or creation operators of space-time. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 953 Figure 13. a) Design elements of the Noetic Interferometer postulated to constructively-destructively interfere with the topology of the spacetime manifold to manipulate the unified field. The first three tiers set the stage for the critically important 4th tier which by way of an incursive oscillator punches a hole in the fabric of spacetime creating a holophote or lighthouse effect of the UF into the experimental apparatus momentarily missing its usual coupling node into a biological system. b) Conceptualized Witten vertex Riemann sphere cavity-QED multi-level Sagnac effect interferometer designed to ‘penetrate’ space-time to emit the ‘eternity wave,  ’ of the unified field. Experimental access to vacuum structure or for surmounting the uncertainty principle can be done by two similar methods. One is to utilize an atomic resonance hierarchy and the other a spacetime resonance hierarchy. The spheroid is a 2D representation of a HD complex Riemann sphere able to spin-flip from zero to infinity continuously. A final essential component of the vacuum interferometer is called an incursive oscillator [31] which acts as a feedback loop on the arrow of time [10]. Parameters of the Dubois incursive oscillator are also required for aligning the interferometer hierarchy with the beat frequency of spacetime by x(t  t ) v(t  t ) . Critically the size of t correlates with the size of the ‘hole’ to be punched in spacetime which also correlates with the wavelength,  of the rf-resonance pulse. There you have it or at least an initial foray; let the battle begin… References [1] Bernstein, J. (1973) Einstein, New York: Viking Press, p. 11. [2] Nagel, T. (1974) What’s it like to be a bat?, Philosophical Rev., 83, pp. 435-450. [3] Troland, L.T. (1926) The Mystery of Mind, New York: van Nostrand. [4] Eccles, J.C. (1992) Evolution of consciousness, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 89, pp. 7320-7324. [5] Amoroso, R. L. (2009) The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse: Formalizing the Complex Geometry of Ultimate Reality, Singapore: World Scientific. [6] Amoroso, R. L.. (ed.) (2010) Complementarity of Mind and Body: Realizing the Dream of Descartes, Einstein and Eccles, New York: Nova Science Publishers. [7] Amoroso, R. L. (2004) The fundamental limit and origin of complexity in biological systems: A new model for the origin of life, AIP Conf. Proc. 718, pp. 144-158, Computing Anticipatory Systems: CASYS'03 - 6th Intl Conf. 11-16 Aug. 2003 Liege, Belgium. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 932-954 Amoroso, R. L. & Di Biase, F., Crossing the Psycho-Physical Bridge: Elucidating the Objective Character of Experience 954 [8] Amoroso, R. L.. (2013) Empirical protocol for mediating long-range coherence in biological systems, submitted. [9] Amoroso, R. L. (2013) Introduction to Unified Field Mechanics, monograph in process. [10] Amoroso, R. L. (2013) The Physics of Reality: Space, Time, Matter, Cosmos, Hackensack: World Scientific. [11] Amoroso, R. L.. (2013) “Shut the front door!”: Obviating the challenge of large-scale extra dimensions and psychophysical bridging, in R.L. Amoroso, L.H. Kauffman, & P. Rolands, P. (eds.) The Physics of Reality: Space, Time, Matter, Cosmos, Hackensack: World Scientific. [12] Hameroff, S. & Powell, J. (2008) The Conscious Connection: A Psycho-physical Bridge between Brain and Pan-experiential Quantum Geometry in D. Skrbina, (ed.), Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium, New York: Benjamins. [13] Rowlands, P. (2007) Zero to Infinity: The Foundations of Physics, Singapore: World Scientific. [14] Amoroso, R. L. (2003) Awareness: physical cosmology of the fundamental least unit. Noetic Journal, 4:1; 7-23. [15] Stevens, H.H. (1989) Size of a least-unit, in M. Kafatos (ed.) Bell’s Theorem, Quantum Theory and Conceptions of the Universe, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. [16] Penrose, R. (1996) On Gravity's Role in Quantum State Reduction, General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 581-600. [17] Holland, P.R. (1995) The Quantum Theory of Motion: An Account of the de Broglie-Bohm Causal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. [18] Cramer, J. (1986) The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Rev. Mod. Phys 58, 647-687. [19] Randall, L. (2005) Warped Passages, Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, New York: Harper-Collins.[20] Hubsch, T. (1994) Calabi-Yau Manifolds; A Bestiary for Physicists, Singapore: World Scientific. [20] Holy Bible, King James version. [21] Witten, E. (1996) Reflections on the fate of spacetime, Phys. Today, (April) pp. 24-30. [22] Kowalski, M. (1999) Photon Emission from Atomic Hydrogen, Phys.Ess., Vol.12, 312-331. [23] Kowalski, M. (2000) The Process of Photon Emission from Atomic Hydrogen, in Amoroso, R.L. et al. (eds.) From the Hubble Radius to the Planck Scale, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 207-220 [24] Go to: www.Images.Google.com and type in “cootie Catcher” in the search box. [25] Feynman, R.P. (1971) Lectures on Gravitation, Pasadena: California Inst. Technology. [26] Doctrine & Covenants, Sec. 88, Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [27] Amoroso, R. L. (2013) 27 preprints at: http://vixra.org/Amoroso, R. L./richard_l_amoroso. [28] Amoroso, R. L. (2012) Spacetime energy resonator: a transistor of complex Dirac polarized vacuum topology, US Patent, http://www.google.com/patents/US20120075682. [29] Amoroso, R. L. (2010) Simple resonance hierarchy for surmounting quantum uncertainty, in R.L. Amoroso et al (eds.) AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1316, p. 185. [30] Amoroso, R. L. (1996) The production of Frӧhlich and Bose-Einstein coherent states in in vitro paracrystalline oligomers using phase control laser interferometry, Bioelectrochem Bioenerg 41:1, 39-42. [31] Dubois, D.M. (2001) Theory of incursive synchronization and application to the anticipation of delayed linear and nonlinear systems, in D.M. Dubois (ed.) Computing Anticipatory Systems: CASYS 2001, 5th Intl Conf., AIP Conf. Proceedings 627, pp. 182-195. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

519 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) Article Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) Alex Vary* Abstract The usual question put is, “How does the brain generate consciousness?” It is proposed that a more potent and interesting question is, “How does consciousness generate the brain?” This question presumes that consciousness preexists and transcends its earthly material embodiment that human consciousness is global, extending beyond the neural boundaries of the brain, beyond self-awareness, beyond sentience. To propose and argue the transcendent nature of consciousness, one might boldly assume that it transcends everything material - that consciousness transcends every aspect of the material world, indeed the observable cosmos. This paper explores the ultimate nature of consciousness and suggests that human consciousness transcends its physical embodiment while interlinking quantum phenomena in neurons with a universe of pure thought. We experience it in the space-time milieu of the physical world, which provides a physiological vehicle for consciousness to put things into spatiotemporal order - to satisfy an innate intellectual urge to bring order out of chaos. At the quantum mechanical scale of human consciousness, this remarkable and enigmatic phenomenon may be explained by several quantum consciousness theories. Apparently, our transcendent consciousness consists of waves of signals that activate neural networks which orchestrate the signals into thoughts and actions. On the grand scale, it may be argued that a transcendent omnipresent consciousness is an extraingredient: one that preexists, specifies, and evolves tangible instrumentalities: mind/brain neural networks as its living vehicles. A conceptual framework is described to illustrate the transcendent nature of consciousness and its relation to the physical world. The proposed framework is based on deductions and information revealed primarily by waveform phenomena which are demonstrably transcendent. An essential feature of the framework is the mesostratum; a signal transmission modality. This paper suggests ways to access and explore the mesostratum and suggests necessarily nonreductionist approaches for the study and exploration of human consciousness. Part I of this two-part article includes: Introduction; Primordial Consciousness; Penrose and Platonic Reality; and Mesostratum Reality. Key Words: mesostratum, thought signals, information, waveforms, Plato’s world, mental world, physical world, transcendent, consciousness, memes, qualia, observer. Introduction In Consciousness Explained, 1991, Daniel Dennett, wrote, “Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. . . Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. . . . With consciousness . . . we are still * Correspondence: Alex Vary, PhD, Retired NASA Scientist & Independent Researcher. Email: axelvary@wowway.com Note: An abstract version was presented at Toward a Science of Consciousness 2014. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 520 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) in a terrible muddle. . . And, as with all the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist - and hope - that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.” In The Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1995, David Chalmers wrote: “Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted.” The mystery of consciousness revolves around the question: How can living physical bodies in the physical world acquire such phenomena? Neither Dennett’s reductionist approach nor Chalmers’ non-reductionist approach has thus far provided the pivotal concepts needed to resolve the question. This paper suggests a transcendent mesostratum which links consciousness to the physical world. Chalmers observes that subjective information processing invariably accompanies sensory and neural signal processing. This subjective activity arises from accumulated experience; even when lacking the cognitive cohesion that overrides the transience of sentient life events. We do not just retain visual sensations; we judge the quality of colors, the contrast of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field; with iconic images that are conjured up mentally, that are felt emotionally, and inspire a stream of conscious thought. What unites these states of consciousness putatively transcends and elaborates accumulated experiences. In The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, David Chalmers introduced the notion of the hard problem of consciousness. According to Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness is explaining how we experience it with respect to: (1) sensory inputs and the mysterious modes of their neural processing and (2) qualia phenomena where the processing is accompanied by ineffably subjective aspects of conscious experience (which apprehend the redness of red, the beauty of mathematical forms, love, the selfness experience). These phenomena are related to physical neurological brain-states, but are not identical to brain states because they are experienced but are empirically unmeasurable, unquantifiable. They are seemingly constructs of consciousness; a consciousness that assigns reality, meaning, value, quality to what is being experienced by the sentient self-aware body. The notion of a transcendent consciousness escalates the hard problem because it is experienced indirectly, esoterically, and when experienced it is not always obvious to the unprepared or unattuned mind. By my thesis it indirectly commands the body and evaluates its experiences: it is a motivator and observer - a transcendent occupant the body - perhaps it is that which is usually called the subconscious. It communicates - or we communicate with it - subconsciously in subtle ways - if not by imagery or verbal exchanges then through insight, inspiration, introspection, meditation. Possibly, lucid dreaming, near death and out-of-body experiences, and certain types of hallucinations are extreme examples. In The Emperor’s New Mind Roger Penrose claims he receives insights from Plato’s world - by my thesis from his transcendent consciousness, via the mesostratum. The initiating inspiration is essentially nonverbal. Penrose writes, “Almost all my mathematical thinking is done visually and in terms of nonverbal concepts, although the thoughts are quite often accompanied by inane and almost useless verbal commentary, such as ‘that thing goes with that thing and that thing goes with that thing’ . . . I often calculate using specially designed diagrams which constitute a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 521 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) shorthand for certain types of algebraic expression. This is not to say that I do not sometimes think in words, it is just that I find words almost useless for mathematical thinking.” Einstein, Pauli, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans, espoused a form mysticism that connotes communication with their transcendent consciousness. Einstein spoke of a cosmic feeling that inspired his reflections on the harmony of nature. Apparently mystical insights achieved by quiet meditative practices can be a useful guide in formulation of foundational scientific theories. Kurt Gödel spoke of the “other relation to reality” by which he could directly perceive mathematical objects, such as infinity. Gödel was able to achieve this by adopting meditative practices. Heinrich Hertz said, “One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence of their own, and they are wiser than even their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.” Conventional theory almost always avoids embracing transcendent phenomenon in deference to the strict guidelines of reductionist empiricism. Virtually all physics theorists and cosmologists disdain ascribing a transcendent aspect to any part of objective reality. Many adhere to the convention that reality is that which is material, tangible, observable, definable, measurable relegating any esoteric excursions from objective reality to realms of randomness or to a probabilistic mystery or to an ethereal scrapheap of nonreductionist unprovable or unshareable subjective babble. This paper proposes that it may be possible to make more progress in the study of consciousness and consciousness science if theorists, physics theorists, physiology theorists would tentatively concede that we are immersed in a complex transcendent universe; that we exist in a subset of an ultimately unknowable reality. We should refine existing theories to incorporate evidence of transcendent phenomena and attempt to remove mysteries by questioning and understanding. Indeed, at this juncture, we should begin questioning objective-theoretical precepts with which we may have become much too comfortable. Karl Popper wrote, “Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths,” but then cautioned, “Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.” It is not unreasonable to contend that human consciousness transcends its physical embodiment yet somehow interlinks quantum phenomena in our neural networks with a universe of pure thought. This kind of linkage is discussed in Information and the Nature of Reality - From Physics to Metaphysics, a compendium of commentary by philosophers, scientists, theologians carefully contemplating about and speculating on the transcendent aspects of consciousness as a conveyor of supernal intelligence and information. Even by acknowledging the transcendent nature of consciousness, the hard problem of consciousness may persist; and will perhaps remain permanently unresolved or be incompletely resolved. It is likely that by its presumed nature and definition, transcendent consciousness is constantly evolving and reinventing itself. The resolution offered here may be incomplete, but an inconclusive attempt is better than no attempt at all. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 522 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) Primordial Consciousness To rationalize a transcendent consciousness one needs to assume that it transcends everything material - every aspect of the physical world, indeed the entire observable cosmos. This bold concept suggests taking an inventory of the content and nature of the cosmos. One may begin by allowing that our cosmos is probably one of countless many, and that its observable content is only a minuscule subset of an unbounded transcendent universe. Star-centered planetary systems with their entourages of globular habitats, many harboring sentient self-aware life, are probably inevitable components of any self-contained cosmos. Evidence is accumulating that uncountable putatively congenial globular habitats are diffusely dispersed throughout galaxies and the cosmos. How does it happen - what is the validity of the inference - that myriads of these globular habitats engender conscious inhabitants that explore the nature of their consciousness and ponder its role in the vastness of the cosmos? This paper explores aspects of the proposition that our material reality is part of a greater transcendent reality in which we are immersed through our consciousness. Moreover, this paper attempts to explain the nature of the transcendent reality by positing a foundational framework. First, a review of carefully considered, highly imaginative almost mythical, concepts of primordial consciousness insights are given. Arthur Stanley Eddington in The Nature of the Physical World concludes, “The stuff of the world is mind-stuff. . .The mind-stuff of the world is, of course, something more general than our individual conscious minds. . .Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into subconsciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite. . . yet continuous with our mental nature. . .It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.” James Jeans exclaimed in The Mysterious Universe, “. . . the universe begins to look more and more like a great thought than like a great machine.” Perhaps, an omniscient consciousness creates just such a great machine, the dynamic milieu of the cosmos, and then endeavors to put things into spatiotemporal order, to bring order out of chaos; as contemplated by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers in Order out of Chaos. In his foundational work Ethics Baruch Spinoza may well have declared: "Consciousness is one, that is, only one substance can be granted in the universe. Whatsoever is, is in Consciousness, and without Consciousness nothing can be, or be conceived. Consciousness is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things. All things which are, are in Consciousness. Besides Consciousness there can be no substance, that is, nothing in itself external to Consciousness." I simply substituted Consciousness for God in Spinoza’s original seventeenth century declaration. This recasts Spinoza’s profound insight about the nature of the universe and emphasizes his contention that God is an abstract and impersonal entity. One might say God is a transcendent omniscient consciousness (a consciousness which humans and perhaps other sentient creatures share). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 523 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) It may be that such an omniscient transcendent consciousness needs the tangible and that its tangible manifestations need consciousness, to apprehend order in chaos, perhaps at least locally, to bring order out of chaos. This creative aspect of consciousness was articulated by John Archibald Wheeler as, “We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past.” (At Home in the Universe) He was, I suggest, echoing the previous adaptation of Spinoza’s insight and asserting our presumed primordial participation in and our emanation from a universal consciousness and therefore our involvement in a grand cosmic scenario of creativity in malleable portions of objective reality. Ludwig Boltzmann hypothesized a self-aware entity that arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of cosmic chaos. This entity, named the Boltzmann brain, putatively arose spontaneously to produce the current level of cosmic organization with its multitude of individual self-aware entities. Boltzmann never specified in what or in what manner the random fluctuations arose, but asserts for every cosmos with the level of organization we see in ours, there should be an enormous number of Boltzmann brains floating around in as yet utterly unorganized environments. This concept anticipates the idea, discussed later, that Boltzmann brains are not ‘hard-wired’ neural entities but coherent informational signal parcels. One way to look at the Boltzmann brain is that it requires a reversal of entropy. This leads to the paradox of how a seemingly chaotic cosmos can produce isolated pockets of order and organization - a localized reversal of entropy. This organized entity is spawned as pockets of order out of chaos - an ethereal brain or mind. It becomes self-aware and contemplates its origin and its mission within the entropy-generating milieu that spawned it. Boltzmann should have further considered whether the process was really a random fluctuation as opposed to the awakening of a primordial transcendent consciousness predisposed to the deliberate design of thinking entities which are distinct from their chaotic milieu. Even if design were absent, a question still remains: Is the emergence of the thoughtful transcendent brain perhaps predestined or potentiated by parameters inherent to the chaotic milieu? Indeed, this brain-like activity implies the emergence of intelligent signals devoid of and not requiring a physical neural network, or any ‘hard wiring’ at all. It will be clear that the mesostratum demonstrably supports such transcendent signals and waveforms independently of the physiostratum. In What is Life? Erwin Schrödinger described a theoretical awakened, growing, evolving potentiality as utilizing negentropy. Schrödinger elaborates on the marvelous faculty of living organisms, to delay decay towards thermodynamic equilibrium (heat death) by feeding upon negative entropy, attracting, consuming a stream of negative entropy into itself - to compensate the entropy increase it produces by living and maintaining itself on a stationary and fairly low entropy level. The physical results of this negentropy are sentient thinking creatures and beings endowed with the capacity to contain consciousness. From Eddington to Spinoza, from Boltzmann to Schrödinger, are we being enthralled with some masterfully conceived mythology or perhaps being exposed to primordial memories and/or reflections of a transcendent consciousness - to which special individuals have better access than ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 524 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) most? There is no empirical foundation for Boltzmann brains or Schrödinger’s negentropy or Wheeler’s participatory cosmos builders. Of course, there are but a few who would dare question the currently accepted mythology of the beginning and minutely detailed history of the Big Bang. After all, the mathematics is consistent and beautiful (more about that later). A virtually unchallengeable observation is that it requires an immense dynamic cosmos and a tremendous amount of time to produce minuscule pockets of intelligent consciousness on congenial life-friendly globular habitats. According to Stephen Hawking it also requires a grand design. In The Grand Design Stephen Hawking explains how “. . . understanding of the laws governing us and our universe [may] lead to a unique theory that predicts and describes a vast universe full of the amazing variety that we see.” Hawking’s laws of the universe are putatively so exquisitely formulated that they govern the assembly of the cosmos down to the minutest details of forces, fields, and quantum particles. Hawking does not explain where the grand design and laws of the universe originate and reside; how they initiate the cosmos. He avoids suggesting a consciousness that conceives and directs the process. Hawking advocates the idea that, “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” But, implicit in Hawking’s universal laws and grand design is the conjecture that they preexist the emergence of the material cosmos. Hawking eschews God as a first cause and prefers instead what might be termed Darwinian cosmology. He espouses a multi-universe concept because it allows the means by which a particular finely tuned universe, such as ours, may evolve and survive as one among many, if it is fit to survive. In their struggle to survive, some universes may succeed, others may fail. Some enjoy extended lives, while many collapse, become extinct due to poor or profligate use of available resources beyond permissible parameters. The most interesting of those fit to survive are universes possessing physical properties that produce environments for evolving and sustaining self-aware beings like us. Quantum electrodynamic scientists and cosmologists are ironically content with the notion that the entire material content of the cosmos popped out of a transcendent void. The nature of this void and its tangible products are interesting because human consciousness is one of those products. This omnipotent void has been described by Heinz Pagels in his book Perfect Symmetry as, “The most complete void that we can imagine . . . no space, time or matter. It is . . . without place, without duration or eternity, without number . . . . yet this unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence . . . a necessary consequence of physical laws.” Pagels then wonders, “Where are these laws written into the void?” and he then infers, “It would seem that even the void is subject to law, a logic that existed prior to time and space.” Or as Stephen Hawking implies in The Grand Design - laws that preexist the emergence of the material cosmos. This paper contends that Heinz Pagels’ universal void is the mesostratum, a transcendent substrate, which contains the physics, logic, design, energy and infinite dormant potentialities ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 525 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) needed to spawn the cosmos - perhaps uncountable coexisting cosmoses. These dormant potentialities may include an infinitude of extra dimensions as well as a continuum of compact dimensions postulated in quantum theory, superstring theory, and Edward Witten’s M-theory. Seemingly, the void contains a library of all possible instructions, signals, waveforms, formulae, and processes for the formation of countless habitable worlds, complemented with consciousness endowed beings. This transcendent aspect of the mesostratum facilities - in concert with our experiencing the material world - sets the stage for exploring the contemporary state of consciousness. Penrose and Platonic Reality Rather than speculating on the beginning, evolution, and complex history of a cosmic consciousness, this paper contemplates contemporary local manifestation and attributes of consciousness that may be accessed individually. It will be seen that these local manifestation and attributes can be explained in terms of the physical sciences, in particular in terms of quantum mechanical wavefunction phenomena that transpirate in the mesostratum of which Plato’s world as described by Roger Penrose is simply a subset. Roger Penrose, argues that we discover the laws of nature in Plato’s world of perfect forms. He elaborates on his own experience with Plato’s world and diagrams its relation to the physical world and the mental world in The Emperor’s New Mind and The Road to Reality - A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Does Plato's world actually exist, in any meaningful sense? Penrose affirms: "This was an extraordinary idea for its time, and . . . is indeed an immensely valuable one. It tells us to be careful to distinguish the precise mathematical entities from the approximations that we see around us in the world of physical things. . . . Does this not point to something outside ourselves, with a reality that lies beyond what each individual can achieve?” (The Road to Reality). Penrose concludes that the Platonic world of perfect forms exists and that nature and the mind draws from and depends upon its inexhaustible reservoir of ideal entities. Although perfect forms are not found in the physical world, there is ample evidence that nature utilizes the mathematical objects and formulae of Plato’s world. Penrose asserts a remarkable interplay and communication among the triplet he designates as the Platonic, mental, and physical worlds. The interplay is manifested by the manner in which mathematical discoveries, experimental results, the concrete world, and human consciousness are intertwined via the transcendent aspect of Plato’s world of perfect mathematical forms/objects. Certainly, mathematicians and physics theorists draw upon these resources, usually unknowingly, attributing their innate brilliance. Putatively, there is an osmotic interface between Plato’s world and the physical world; an interface and process that elevates individual consciousness far beyond its material integument. This conceptual interface can facilitate exploring the interplay of intangible and tangible aspects of the universe and examining how human consciousness fits into a preternatural milieu. I’m intrigued by and eagerly explore the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 526 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) notion that human consciousness, indeed my consciousness, transcends its ambulating integument and its neural network boundaries and potentially partakes in Plato’s world. As a physics theoretician, Penrose prefers to limit his interest to Plato’s world of mathematical concepts. In The Emperor's New Mind, he writes, "I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea it makes contact with Plato's world of mathematical concepts. . . . When one 'sees' a mathematical truth, one's consciousness breaks through into this world of ideas, and makes direct contact with it. . . . When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through this process of 'seeing.'. . . The mental images that each one has, when making this Platonic contact, might be rather different in each case, but communication is possible because each is directly in contact with the same eternally existing Platonic world!" Penrose and some other prominent mathematicians believe that truly beautiful mathematical findings come only after a visit to the Platonic world of mathematical objects. Apparently, only a few mathematicians and theoretical physicists are able to have such a highly irregular experience as visiting the Platonic world. Most mathematicians and physicists can neither understand nor accept Penrose's Platonic position. The irony is that when mathematicians and physics theorists describe phenomena that govern physical and subatomic interactions (such as the flow of electricity, magnetic attraction/repulsion, electron orbitals, quantum probabilities, wave functions, etc.) they describe purely mathematical objects that ostensibly exist only in Plato's world, indeed in the mesostratum - which I propose is a transcendent hyperspace continuum - the energetic substrate of our physical world, the physiostratum. A corresponding paradigm shift is needed; which would allow physicists to comfortably regard the mesostratum continuum as complementary to particulate physical reality, which it demonstrably is! Most consciousness theorists working toward a science of consciousness justifiedly abide by the methods of the physical sciences that have proven so precisely successful in dealing with the tangible world and the exotic world of quantum electrodynamic phenomena. But, there is a problem of uncertainty even in that stalwart realm. It is worth noting Richard Feynman’s summation regarding the peculiar behavior of elementary particles throughout the cosmos. Feynman wrote, “While I am describing to you how Nature works, you won't understand why Nature works that way. But you see, nobody understands that. I can't explain why Nature works in this peculiar way.” . . . “The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is — absurd.” (QED - The Strange Theory of Light and Matter) As an example of the absurdity, Feynman cites the “strange phenomenon of partial reflection” of photons which “wave theory cannot explain.” When discrete quantum ‘particles’ impinge on a reflective surface, they are mathematically described as continuous waves. Quantum electrodynamics describes the propagation of light energy in terms of wavefunctions - of photon waves, but the price of this is a retreat to calculating only the probability that a photon will be ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 527 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) reflected or transmitted in a particular way . . . “without offering a good model of how it actually happens.” Although agreeing with experiment, quantum electrodynamic mathematics (often described as beautiful, because beautiful mathematics seems preferable, precise, and just right) still does not explain the exact nature of the quantumthings that behave, according to Feynman, so absurdly. This paper offers a conceptual framework that attempts to remove the absurdity that vexed Feynman; it offers a Chalmeresque extra ingredient which promises to break the logjam imposed by some hard science dogmas. The extra ingredient is the transcendent mesostratum. Feynman’s frustration is exemplified by the measurement problem associated with the transit of a quantum particle, say a photon, from source to detector which evolves according to the Schrödinger wavefunction and spreads out in space. But actual measurement in physical reality finds it deposited at a unique spot on a detector surface. The measurement does something to the process under examination. That something is unanticipated by the wavefunction, it is called wavefunction collapse. In this paper I adopt the notion that consciousness involves wavefunctions of thoughts, ideas, images, music, and many other kinds of esoteric signals; and that these impinge (collapse) on and are processed in concert by the brain’s neural network receptors, as described by the Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated Objective Reduction (OR) theory. Penrose (Shadows of the Mind) suggests that the key to understanding consciousness may lie in reconciling quantum theory with general relativity; that quantum-gravitational effects not yet understood may be responsible for the collapse of the quantum wave function. Collaborating with Staurt Hameroff (Toward a Science of Consciousness), Penrose suggests that human cognition may depend on quantum wavefunction collapses in microtubules, the cytoskeletons of a neuron. Penrose and Hameroff suspect that wavefunction collapse in microtubules may be the physical-neurological basis of conscious experience. This is analogous to light-wavefunction collapses on the retina (perhaps of the order of trillions per square centimeter per second) which produce, replenish, and sustain the dynamical images we see. According to the PenroseHameroff theory, wavefunction collapses may be detected by gravitational agglomerations, that is, specific organizations of microtubule neural networks and associations. However, wavefunction collapses are an auxiliary issue. Attention should be given to the wavefunction prior to its collapse, while it spans the mesostratum, carrying signals that inform consciousness. Cytoskeletal agglomerations should be regarded as receptors, collectively as antennae, attuned to transcendent mesostratum signals that form and sustain consciousness. Cytoskeletal agglomerations in the brain might function as resonant oscillators driven by energetic signals which emanate from the mesostratum. In free space, devoid of these receptor agglomerations, the signals simply dissipate as quantum foam. The issue needing elucidation is the signal source, the origin of consciousness wavefunctions the esoteric signals that produce and accompany the phenomena of consciousness. Resolution of this issue requires a conceptual framework or model that establishes the relation among the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 528 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) mesostratum (the Platonic world), the physical world, and the mental world of consciousness (of pure thought or of the origin thought-signals/wavefunctions). Mesostratum Reality I posit the mesostratum in place of ether, which early in the last century was considered a substance that carries light waves (this was disproved and abandoned). It can be demonstrated that light waves, indeed all electromagnetic waves and fields, transpirate in the mesostratum (a hyperspace, not a substance, transcending gravitational physicality by definition). This reality has been staring the physics community in the face since Thomas Young's double slit experiment and the Michelson–Morley interferometer experiment. It is clear that any discussion of transcendent consciousness involves the mind, which in turn requires its own definition as a transcendent entity. I unabashedly define the mind as a triad of soul ~ spirit ~ body spanning three strata: (1) the superstratum (the transcendent domain of pure thought), (2) the mesostratum (the mediating domain of information, signals, energetic fields, and indeed Platonic perfect forms, templates, patterns), and (3) the physiostratum (the material domain of spacetime and temporal objective reality). In this context, soul or core of being is an individualized focus of a transcendent consciousness while spirit is a conveyor of signals (information) between soul and body. The soul/core reaches from the superstratum to the body/brain in the physiostratum via signals through the mesostratum interface. The main burden of this paper is to demonstrate the reality of the mesostratum and, at least provisionally, as a concept that can help explain how a transcendent consciousness spawns, enables, and evolves human consciousness. A leap of blind faith is not needed for accepting the idea of the transcendent aspect of a human mind nor the existence of a transcendent mesostratum that mediates between the physiostratum and superstratum, between body and soul. One need simply observe that just as Platonic perfect forms and mathematical objects exist, Schrödinger wavefunctions, electron orbitals, probability functions, magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, light waves, and other such continuumthings exist; and the mesostratum exists and is necessary to subsume them. It is apparent that mesostratum continuumthings like informational signals and mathematical objects transpirate outside and independently of the particulate physiostratum and its discontinuous granular spacetime. Lee Smolin, in Three Roads to Quantum Gravity notes that, according to loop quantum gravity, there is an atomic structure to space, describable in terms of the nodal spin networks invented by Roger Penrose (The Road to Reality). Smolin acknowledges that the most improbable and puzzling aspect of this atomized space is its apparent smooth and continuous nature. Smolin explains the smoothness by proposing that the granularity of space and concordant discontinuity of time are on the scale of Planck length (10-33 centimeter) and Planck interval (10-43 second). We, by default, regard spacetime as a smooth uninterrupted mathematical continuum while that attribute resides only in the mesostratum hyperspace continuum. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 529 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) Continuum-things, like Plato’s perfect forms, can only exist in the mesostratum hyperspace. Continuum-things are energetic and influence/govern the dynamic behavior of gravitational agglomerations of quantum-things in the physiostratum. Schrödinger’s wavefunction, is a continuum-thing; it is essentially a mathematical invention that predicts probabilities regarding the quantum state changes of an energetic signal system with respect to time and space. The reality of the wavefunction is unquestioned because it describes the evolution of the quantum system’s state very well. The endpoint event, which is detected - which is consciously experienced and observed in the physiostratum - is a wavefunction collapse during which according to John von Neuman, ‘a miracle happens!’ The miracle is that a specific quantumthing suddenly appears here after being emitted way over there. The mystery is what happens while the quantum-thing is in transit in the mesostratum, decoupled from the physiostratum, before being redelivered to the physiostratum. The wavefunction evolution scenario - which plays out entirely in the mesostratum - is empirically unmeasurable; the collapse alone is manifest, when a quantum-thing suddenly lands in a physiostratum gravitational agglomeration of quantum-things and is observed - is detected/measured. Since the mesostratum waveform evolution scenario is not observed, it may be declared to be a non-reality, reinforcing the notion that the only reality is one that is observed and measured. One might muse that neither the mesostratum nor wavefunction are objectively real and are therefore sufficiently transcendent to be dismissed by reductionists, empiricists, naturalists. More difficult is the acceptance of radical concepts such as the superstratum ~ mesostratum ~ physiostratum model. This model and its auxiliary paradigms are nevertheless useful because they help explain the operation of strings, quantum entanglement, non-locality, superluminality, and other esoteric phenomena in terms of transcendent continuumthings in the mesostratum hyperspace, as explained by Vary in My Universe - A Transcendent Reality. String theory is being developed to describe the nature of quantum particles and gravitational agglomerations. In theory, strings are basic physical entities - different vibrational states of which represent the different elementary particles. A string can be visualized as a mathematical object in mesostratum hyperspace. In some versions of string theory, strings generate two dimensional extended objects called branes (an apocope of membranes). Theorists posit multidimensional manifolds, mathematical objects, that require many more than just four dimensions in mesostratum hyperspace (Shape of Inner Space, Shing-Tung Yau). In string and M-theory these extra, six or more dimensions, are ‘infinitesimal’. String theorist say that these extra dimensions are not observed because they ‘curl’ up tightly in physiostratum spacetime. My thesis holds that they are unobservable simply because they are continuum-things in the mesostratum that cannot exist in the physiostratum particulate spacetime. Although additions of higher-order branes, manifolds, dimensions seem arbitrary, they are essential for the mathematical consistency of string theory and because they help link the five different kinds of string theory. The superstratum and physiostratum commingle transparently in the mesostratum while each exists within its own unique domain. The physiostratum is conceptually a subset of the superstratum. Suffice it to say that we are aware of transcendent domains not as an objective realities, but indirectly because of their ubiquitous influence on material domains primarily at the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 530 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) quantum level; and perhaps their influence on our experience of consciousness. The mesostratum’s transcendent reality is demonstrated by considering photons in transit. When photons (light wave packets) traverse the mesostratum, they are decoupled from the physiostratum while in transit from a physiostratum source/emitter to a physiostratum receptor/detector (photo emulsion, CCD array, or human retina). The decoupling is self-evident because the velocity of light is a constant independent of the velocity of the photon source/emitter. This was famously demonstrated by the Michelson–Morley experiment in 1887. Photons (light waves, electromagnetic radiations) return to the physiostratum objective reality as quanta of energy - absorbed by agglomerate gravitational matter. This exemplifies the PenroseHameroff notion of orchestrated objective reduction (OR). When ORs (light wavefunction collapses) occur on human retinae the result is quickly orchestrated as repeatedly refreshed images perceived by the brain. I suspect the mesostratum is an osmotic interface between the transcendent Plato’s world and the physical world, indeed, it is a dynamic substrate that elevates individual consciousness far beyond its material integument. This conceptual interface can serve well in examining the interplay of intangible and tangible aspects of the universe and examining how human consciousness fits into a preternatural milieu. I’m intrigued by and eagerly explore the notion that human consciousness, indeed my consciousness, transcends its ambulating integument and its neural network boundaries. The mesostratum interface may be taken as the ZPF (zero point field) substrate, the theoretically omnipresent pervasive quantum foam, an energetic substrate. The concept of zero point energy was developed by Albert Einstein and Otto Stern in 1913, as a corrective term added to a zero grounded formula developed by Max Planck in 1900. Zero point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have; it is the energy of its ground state. All quantum-mechanical systems putatively undergo fluctuations - even in their ground state have a zero-point energy - a consequence of their wave-like nature. Joachim Keppler (Frontiers in Psychology 4:242, 2013) suggests that neural network interactions with the all-pervasive ZPF signal radiation is the fundamental mechanism for consciousness. These interactions allow acquisition of ZPF information states that may even result in localized modifications of the ZPF itself. The essential function of this mechanism is the formation of stable attractors; cohesive dynamic systems with a set of physical properties toward which the systems tend to evolve. When realized physically in a neural network, the attractor may be a fractal structure known as a strange attractor. Depictions of attractors associated with chaotic dynamical systems have been one of the achievements of chaos theory. This complements the notion that a key function of consciousness is bringing order out of chaos. According to Keppler, suitable quantum waveform inputs induce a transition to an ordered phase that prompts a neural network assembly to become an attractor; a perfectly synchronized pattern of conscious activity; ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 531 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 5 | pp. 519-531 Vary, A., Transcendent Nature of Human Consciousness (Part I) Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction. Given this scenario, the ZPF is an eminently suitable candidate as the substrate of consciousness. The ZPF is clearly a feature and attribute of the mesostratum; as it is defined in framework/model given in this paper. (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Article Reasoning about conscious experience with axiomatic and graphical mathematics Camilo Miguel Signorelli 1,2,∗ , Quanlong Wang 1,3 ,Bob Coecke 1,3 1 2 3 arXiv:2106.16061v1 [q-bio.NC] 30 Jun 2021 * Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM U992, NeuroSpin Cambridge Quantum Computing Ltd. Correspondence: cam.signorelli@cs.ox.ac.uk Abstract: We cast aspects of consciousness in axiomatic mathematical terms, using the graphical calculus of general process theories (a.k.a symmetric monoidal categories and Frobenius algebras therein). This calculus exploits the ontological neutrality of process theories. A toy example using the axiomatic calculus is given to show the power of this approach, recovering other aspects of conscious experience, such as external and internal subjective distinction, privacy or unreadability of personal subjective experience, and phenomenal unity, one of the main issues for scientific studies of consciousness. In fact, these features naturally arise from the compositional nature of axiomatic calculus. Keywords: Consciousness; Conscious Agents; Compositionality; Graphical Calculi, Mathematical consciousness science; Monoidal Categories; Phenomenology, Unity of Consciousness. 1. Introduction The main motivation for our theoretical approach is giving formal tools to study consciousness in a rigorous axiomatic setup. Current scientific approaches have thrown away the subjective features of experience, leaving us in a strange position, without rigorous tools to describe qualitative aspects of reality that we experience every day Goff (2019). To understand this, consider the next common example: if a tree falls and nobody is there to hear it, does the tree make any sound? Yes, of course, the tree generates vibrations, but the quality of sounds are only assigned by the observer. In other words, there are objective realities (vibrations), but subjective and qualitative features such as sounds, colours, smells and tastes exist only if a conscious mind is ready to experience them. The vibration is characterized by common mathematical language and physical mechanisms, while qualitative and subjective aspects do not have any formal mathematical language to refer to them. We claim here that axiomatic reasoning in the form of graphical calculi (a.k.a. compositional mathematics) may bring the uniqueness of conscious experience back to science, constructing a new form of describing the structure of experience from its direct phenomenology Husserl (1983); Merleau-Ponty (2005) and therefore, a new science of consciousness. Graphical calculi naturally arise in category theory MacLane (1998), specifically symmetric monoidal categories Coecke and Paquette (2011), also called process theories Coecke and Kissinger (2017). Because of their abstract mathematical nature, they also are ontologically neutral, i.e. processes in a theory do not assume any concrete physical realization. One can extend this idea to mental processes without any lack of generality. Therefore, it is equally valid to suggest an interpretation of graphical calculus starting from mental processes than from physical ones. It makes process theories and graphical calculus optimal setups to explore the assumption of consciousness and subjectivity as fundamental processes of nature. Here, such fundamental processes are modelled by the irreducible and primitive nature of the mathematical generators on that calculus. 2 of 22 Briefly, this article explores a re-interpretation of process theory and graphical calculi in the context of formal structures of conscious experience Prentner (2019); Tsuchiya and Saigo (2020); Yoshimi (2007) and process philosophy Rescher (2012); Whitehead (1929). This approach attempts to model what consciousness itself is doing, instead of what the brain or any other physical system is doing regarding conscious experience. The mathematical formalism of process theories is first introduced and motivated by concrete examples (Section 2). Then, the definition of conscious experience is constructed via entangled features of that experience, its phenomenology and empirical distinctions (Section 3). These definitions are interpreted as mathematical generators to provide a reasoning example, from which a more complex property of conscious experience arises: namely the the structure of privacy or unreadability of others personal experiences (Section 4). Moreover, we address, restate and discuss the question about the unity of consciousness according to compositional approaches (Section 5). Finally, we conclude with how the use of process theories and axiomatic mathematics brings new advantages in the formal study of conscious experience (Section 6 and 7), in line with the contemporary research direction of mathematical consciousness science AMCS (2021) and phenomenology Merleau-Ponty (2005); Thompson (2007). 2. Pictorial mathematics for conscious experience Across this section, we introduce the mathematical formalism of process theories. 2.1. Process theories The formalism of process theories Coecke and Kissinger (2017) provides a graphical language to reason about processes as abstract mathematical entities. These graphical languages are based on symmetric monoidal categories Coecke and Paquette (2011), making them mathematically rigorous frameworks. The main components are systems, or more generally speaking, types, which are represented by wires (e.g. type A and type B), and processes, represented by boxes with a number of input and output wires, which vary from box to box in number and labelling. In short, processes correspond to transformation. Some diagrammatic examples are: A B A g f A A h A B B A A Reading the diagrams from top to bottom,1 the process f can be thought of as a map f : A → B from A to B, the process g as a map g : A ⊗ B → B ⊗ A, and h as h : A ⊗ A → A, where the symbol ‘⊗’ stands for ‘composing systems’. The symbol ‘I’, stands for ‘no system’, which, evidently, is graphically represented by ‘no wire’. This induces special processes, such as states, tests and numbers, with associated maps φ : I → A, ϕ : A → I, and s : I → I respectively. Graphically, they are represented as follows: φ A s A ϕ These graphical forms have the power to make simple the reasoning about how systems and processes interact in different contexts. In this line, what is important in process theories is how systems and processes 1 Note that in much of the literature on process theories, the wires are read in the opposite direction, bottom-up. 3 of 22 compose. Basically, there are two main types of composition, the sequential composition given by ◦ and the parallel composition described by ⊗2 . If two processes f and g interact (and their wires match), these two compositions look like: f g ◦ = f f ⊗ g = f g g Usually, these diagrams are represented and restricted to one dimensional expression, namely ( f ◦ g) and ( f ⊗ g) respectively. Interestingly, the graphical two dimensional representation allows us to move the process boxes up and down freely, helping us to prove equalities and making reasoning about processes much more intuitive, for example: g f g = f f = g The advantage, thereof, is a very intuitive notion of equality: processes are equal when they are represented by the same diagram. The two dimensional graphical representation also let us prove more complex equations in simple forms, making them almost tautological. For instance, we leave to the reader the task of drawing the diagrams for the following one-dimensional equation and check by themselves that the equation easily holds in graphical form: ( f ⊗ g) ◦ (h ⊗ k) = ( f ◦ h) ⊗ ( g ◦ k) From this graphical notion of equality there emerges a second more precise one: two diagrams are equal when one becomes the other via certain transformations. Interestingly, these transformations are purely topological, or more accurately, these transformations follow the principle that only connectedness matters. It means that we can obtain certain results by looking at the relevant diagrams, since these results are already present in the topology of the corresponding graph. This concept is reviewed with an example in next subsections. 2.2. Interpretation of a theory All process theories share one mathematical structure, i.e. the structure of symmetric monoidal categories. Using category theoretic terminology, a functor is a map F : M → N that translates a process theory M into another process theory N. In other words, F assigns each system A in M to a system FA in N, and each process f : A → B in M, to a process F f : FA → FB in N, obeying certain equations ensuring that sequential and parallel compositions are respected Awodey (2006); Coecke et al. (2016). This functor can also be understood as an interpretation of the theory M in N. When working with diagrams, to specify an interpretation it is enough to specify the images of the diagrams. Of course, there could exist many such interpretations. The image of M in N is called a model. 2 This symbol is indeed used both for composing systems and processes. 4 of 22 2.3. Generators and rewriting rules Process theories enable one to axiomatise theories in a variety of disciplines, and may reveal that theories from very different scientific areas may share a surprising amount of common structure Signorelli et al. (2020). A striking example is the structural commonality of quantum theory and natural language Coecke (2013). Also here we will encounter a similar remarkable structural correspondence. A specific process theory may be characterised by a generating set of systems and processes. General systems and processes are then obtained by composing these, that is, by making the generators interact. It may be the case that there is only one generating system and very few generating processes. Conceptually, we think of these generators as basic (or primitive) systems and processes. The full specification of a process theory, in addition to the presentation of the generators, then also tells us what these generators stand for. To better understand this, consider the following example. The next four diagrams are the basic maps or transformations in a process theory of Boolean Circuits. ∧ : b⊗b → b ∨ : b⊗b → b ¬:b→b FAN : b → b ⊗ b The first operation corresponds to the logic gate and, the second one to or, then negation and FAN operation, respectively. In this theory, the basic system is the bit b, given by the pair of values B(b) = {0, 1}. These values come from the chosen interpretation for these diagrams, the specific mapping B : BoolCirc → Bool. This mapping translates the above diagrams into a concrete calculus:     00 7→ 0 00 7→ 0   ( (    01 7→ 0  01 7→ 1 0 7→ 1 0 7→ 00 B(∧) = a : B(∨) = o : B(¬) = n : B( FAN ) = δ :   10 7 → 0 10 7 → 1 1 7 → 0 1 7→ 11       11 7→ 1 11 7→ 1 With these four generators, a more complex process in this theory is represented as the composition of these generators. For example, the logical expression: ( x ∧ ¬y) ∨ ¬(y ∧ z), becomes a circuit of logic gates such as the result depends on the state value entered into the circuit and the interpretation of the generators given above. Graphically: The functor B is one possible mapping, but there are other alternatives as well. This presentation of generators is the basic syntax of a theory. In order to capture the full theory, we need some extra equations on the class of diagrams. These equations are called rewriting rules. These rules are basically a pair of diagrams of the same type that correspond to an equivalence or equality between each other. For example, the next composition of a ∨ and ∧ is rewritten as the composition of FAN, ∨ and ∧: 5 of 22 1 = ⇒ Careful reading shows that this rule corresponds to the distributive law. Another example is to rewrite the diagram composed by sequentially connecting ∧ and ¬, using the equivalent diagram formed by two ¬ and one ∨: 2 = ⇒ Together these two rules allow us to rewrite as follows, where rule 2 is applied first, followed by rule 1: 2 1 = ⇒ = ⇒ γ Here we will always assume that if there is a rewriting rule, d = ⇒ d0 , there is also a rewriting rule γ0 d0 =⇒ d. Then, these rewriting rules lead us to a formal definition of equality across diagrams. Definition 1. Given a set of rewriting rules Γ, a diagram d and another d0 are considered equal d = d0 , if via Γ applying rewriting rules in Γ, d becomes d0 . We denote the existence of such a rewrite as d = ⇒ d0 . For an interpretation F : M → N, thinking of M as diagrams and rewrites with equality as defined Γ Γ Γ above, soundness means that d = d0 implies Fd = Fd0 . If Fd = Fd0 moreover also implies d = d0 , the interpretation is called complete. In other words, no more equalities hold for the model than can be derived by the rewriting rules. 2.4. Process theory and consciousness We shortly account for using process theory as a mathematical framework for a theory of conscious experience. As reviewed above, process theories present various advantages: i) they are rigorous and intuitive reasoning tools, ii) they focus on processes composition instead of objects, iii) they admit simple ways to prove complex equations, iv) they define equality in intuitive topological terms, and v) they generalize and compare theories from first principles (axioms). Can those properties bring new insights into studies of conscious experience? In this new context, we can exploit the features of process theories under the philosophical umbrella of its ontological neutrality. Diagrams come with no ontology. Indeed, their ontology only arise in relationship with what is expected to be described, via defining a functor. Process theories deal with the phenomenon and do not claim anything about fixed properties such as mass or charge. On the contrary, 6 of 22 everything that exists is studied as a process of changes and transformations Rescher (2012); Whitehead (1929). These features place process theories in a phenomenological and pragmatic ground that allow us to study the experience from axioms directly obtained by the experience itself. In other words, process theories licence us to suspend the query of ontological discussions while reinforcing an epistemic caution Lusthaus (2002); Varela (1996): the world appears to us only in co-relationship with us, becoming specified through sense-making. Although we highlight the primacy of conscious experience, we leave aside the deeper epistemic and ontological interpretations about that claim. Here, we focus only on the pragmatic aspect. We propose a compositional model with experiential processes as generators and interpret a set of rewriting rules as compositions and modifications of experiences. These rules specify the generators via allowed relationships (compositions) Signorelli et al. (2021), becoming more concrete instances of experiences. In the following, this paper does not attempt to give any complete interpretation F, between the hypothetical category of conscious experiences, let’s say CExp, and a graphical calculus in the symmetric monoidal category Mon, such as F : CExp → Mon. Instead, we show how a fragment of the ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018), whose diagrams compose a symmetric monoidal category, enables us to perform formal reasoning about conscious experience. 3. Defining generators for conscious experience In order to define mathematical generators for conscious experience, we may introduce as few assumptions as possible. The introduction of a few concepts Bayne and Chalmers (2012); Block (2005); Lusthaus (2002); Merleau-Ponty (2005); Searle (2000), however, seems enough to recover properties of consciousness within our formal model (Section 4). In this section we first present semi-formal statements about conscious experience as motivations to find a formal counterpart within graphical calculi. 3.1. A phenomenological hypothesis Our main assumption departs from current axiomatic studies of physical theories. Usually, we map the phenomenon under consideration into one specific category, via functor definition. Here, we assume that the diagrams of symmetric monoidal category already conveys the basic phenomenology of our experience. For instance, sequential compositions may involve phenomenological aspects of internal time-consciousness in Husserl’s discussions Edmund Husserl (1964). According to phenomenological interpretations Edmund Husserl (1964); Merleau-Ponty (2005), the structure of symmetric monoidal categories might already reflect the structure of experience. Then, theoretical axiomatizations in the field of physics may also accept a reinterpretation as mapping physical phenomena (e.g. classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, relativity, etc) into the structure of our conscious experience. Of course, we need much more work to formalize and align this assumption with Husserl’s and modern phenomenology Yoshimi (2007). Under this hypothesis, we define a type A of a symmetric monoidal category as a primary/minimal undefined or indistinguishable experience. We also introduce a process called the identity 1 A , which does nothing at all to A. A 7 of 22 Then, morphisms become transformations (as dimensions of experience), that are themselves also experiences. For instance, the symmetry condition of symmetric monoidal category is given by a swap experience, such that: B A B A σA,B : A ⊗ B → B ⊗ A We can also define a notion of experiences that ‘invert’ experiences, i.e. they introduce duals (e.g. opposite relations such as above and below). We call those processes caps η A : I → A∗ ⊗ A and cups e A : A ⊗ A∗ → I, respectively signified by: A∗ A A∗ A It adds a compact close structure Selinger (2011); Signorelli et al. (2021). 3.2. Unity Unity of experience is one of the most salient features of consciousness as a natural process Prentner (2019). Any experience is given as a unified single moment and seems irreducible. Some may argue this experience is continuous, others that it is discrete VanRullen and Koch (2003); Wittmann (2011), it may contain one or many different contents, etc. Independently, the subsumed experience is one unified coexistence, a unified conscious field Searle (2000) that may be just conceptually subdivided into different notions of unity (Objectual, Spatial, Subjective, Subsumptive) Bayne and Chalmers (2012). In compositional models, unity is realized by non-trivial composition of different processes. Unity is an intrinsic property of processes, such that a process would ‘possess’ unity as long as it cannot be written as a disconnected diagram. One example of this non-trivial composition corresponds to entangled states in quantum theory. The entanglement is modelled by the use of caps and cups that allow us to relate the notions of sequential and parallel composition: A f B C g = A B f C∗ g B∗ C In other words, an experience that comes before another ( f before g), is equivalent to the experience f happening simultaneously with the inverse of the experience g, as far as they reorganize via caps, cups, swaps and/or identity. If this is the case, we said both experiences ( f and g) are unified in one single experience. Definition 2. Unity of experience is realized by non-trivial composition, such that an experience process possess unity as long as it cannot be written as a disconnected diagram. For conceptual convenience, we represent unity by the four mathematical diagrams: cap, cup, swap and identity, as examples of basic unity processes and different forms of experiential unity, but also because they allow us to reorganize and compound other processes/experiences into complex diagrams that will remain connected. By consequence, we can manipulate diagrams to accommodate and visualize their compositions. 8 of 22 In order to make the following arguments simpler, we will use a self-dual structure Selinger (2011); Signorelli et al. (2021). 3.3. Qualitative and subjective processes Another important feature of conscious experience is that it involves a qualitative dimension. Every experience is mostly qualitative, rather than quantitative Goff (2019). In the words of Nagel, there is a kind of "it feels like" or "what is it like to be" something or someone having certain experience Thomas Nagel (1974). The qualitative character of experience may come from external perceptions or internal thoughts Searle (2000). Indistinctly, both are unified experiences involving qualitative descriptions that cannot be easily measured. These descriptions are what distinguishes between the experience of red and green: the irreducible phenomenology of consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, minimal phenomenal experience, or qualia Block (2005); Metzinger (2020). Category theory and its graphical forms allow us a very intuitive first approximation to formally describe this qualitative dimension. In algebra, common operations, such as addition (+) and multiplication (×), follow axioms like associativity and commutativity. For an arbitrary operation (?) and elements a, b, and c, associativity looks like: a b c a b c = a b c = (1) ( a ? b) ? c = a?b?c = a ? (b ? c) This algebraic structures, together with its unit , is called a monoid 3 . The graphical form contains a topological intuition behind the notion of associativity Lawvere and Schanuel (2009). This notion is qualitative, it is not quantifiable per se, as the reader may observe from the equation above. In other words, these diagrams may carry some qualitative structure of formal statements. Additionally, we can also conceptualize quantity as a form of quality, a very precise, unfuzzy one. As such, quality may subsume quantity, making qualitative aspects more general than quantitative ones. In the above example, the quantitative aspect is realized by the specification of the operation ? and the elements a, b, and c. Definition 3. Qualitative structure of experience is represented by diagrammatic equations, such that an experience process possess quality as long as it contains trivial topological relationships that are non-trivial for formal statements. A more general algebraic structure, the Frobenius algebra is built by the monoid and its comonoid 4 . The comonoid is basically the same diagram than above, but inverted, such that monoid and comonoid follows the next Frobenius law. = = If we add an extra condition, = 3 4 A monoid is always a pair of diagrams, i.e. the two legs white node (e.g. multiplication) and the state (unit). A comonoid is also a pair of diagrams, i.e. the copy-like node (e.g. comultiplication) and the effect/test (counit). 9 of 22 this is called a Special Frobenius algebra. We can condense such structure, symmetric and commutative conditions within an abstract mathematical entity called white spider (where all white dots merge together for arbitrary number of elements). ... (2) r ... This spider seems topologically trivial, but contains not-trivial algebraic structure. Following the preliminary definition 3 and the intuition that quality subsumes quantity, the white spider will be called a qualitative process. In our framework, the qualitative structure of experience is denoted by this unspecified process, where r ∈ R is a parameter taking values in an arbitrary commutative ring, associated with quantitative aspects that qualitative experience may also carry. Please note that this spider is slightly different than the example in equation 1, since dots and legs denote different operations and types of elements. Moreover, the qualitative process from ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic (2015); Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018) can be generalized to the Z (green) spider with multiple parameters as given in Signorelli et al. (2021); Wang (2021). We can further postulate that the composition for qualitative processes correspond to the next rule: Postulate 1. Qualitative process compounds as follows: ... r ... ... ... s = rs ... (3) ... where rs is the product of r and s. It means that any qualitative aspect of the experience (given by the process of quality) is fused and glued by default, just by means of being connected. Note that this is a non-trivial consequence of associativity and the Frobenius conditions introduced above. Additionally, any conscious experience has also a subjective dimension, perhaps, inseparable of the qualitative one Searle (2000). It seems that experiences only exist if there are subjects or agents (sentient beings) to experience something. Neither does a rock appears to have any kind of experience, nor particles or atoms. Qualitative processes would imply subjective ones since, for a qualitative feeling regarding some event to exist, there must exist a subject to experience that event Searle (2000). This experience is part of the so-called first-person accounts, corresponding to elements of reality that do not exist without a subject, such as perceptual experiences (e.g. the experience of colour), bodily experiences (e.g. pain and hunger), emotional experiences, mental imagery, among others Chalmers (2013). First-person accounts contrast with the third-person accounts, related to "objective" and quantitative measurements such as brain signatures of perceptual discrimination or differences between sleep and wakefulness Chalmers (1995). Therefore, conscious experiences seems to exist only when there are agents to experience: some “I” owner of that experience. This imposes a boundary that perceived elements must "cross" to become part of that experience. This is called conscious access. In order to account for this intrinsic relationship between qualitative and subjective dimension of experience, we tentatively define a subjective process using an adaptation of the mathematical comonoid introduced in ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018), represented by a black triangle. 10 of 22 := ... ... m m where m ≥ 2. The white monoid and its black comonoid follow the bialgebra law. = The formal definition of this graphical form is standard in the literature and detailed discussions can be found in Selinger (2011) and Coecke (2011), among many others. Definition 4. Qualitative and subjective dimensions of experience are realized by a bialgebra structure, such that a qualitative process is the monoid and subjective one is the comonoid, each one forming a Special Frobenious algebra. In short, the subjective process is a generalization of the triangle , and its unit (a.k.a. effect): := such that we can define its own monoid, states, and identity. := := := Note that these diagrammatic definitions use the caps and cups, while the black triangle with one input and one output coincides with the identity process, all them introduced in previous section. Finally, we can recursively define the black triangle with multiple legs, leading us to the almost tautological second postulate, a similar rule of composition for subjective process. Postulate 2. Subjective process compounds as follows: ... ... = (4) ... These composition rules ensure the unity of experience and its compositional nature across different instances of experience. In both cases, the composition takes the form of a fusion rule given by associativity axioms. 3.4. Distinction Qualitative and subjective processes in terms of two dimensions of conscious experience result in two different kinds of unities that in turn generate distinctions. We interpret the former as the phenomenal unity 11 of 22 and the latter as the access unity Bayne and Chalmers (2012) (a.k.a phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness). The distinctions correspond to distinctive experiences and distinctive content, respectively, the "how" we are conscious and about "what" we are conscious of Weisberg (2020). Phenomenal experience, the what is like to be, is differentiated from the access consciousness, i.e. the accessibility of content for further cognitive processing in a certain moment of time Aru et al. (2012); Block (2005). The difference is not only conceptual, but it also seems to involve empirical evidence of different brain signatures Aru et al. (2012); Block (2005). It is important to mention this, because assumptions in our model do correspond to these conceptual but also empirical division. In our framework, conscious experience generates distinctions that break the invariability of the primitive unity and creates different ways to discriminate between subject and object, quality and quantity, inside or outside, identical or different, among others. To include this relevant aspect of experiences, we invoke the last attribute called the distinction process. The distinction applies between experiences but also distinguishing among elements on that experience. Due to a normal form of ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018), the distinction diagram can be constructed from qualitative diagrams and subjective diagrams, but for simplicity and convenience, it is represented as another new process. Definition 5. Distinction is a primary generator, represented by: 4. Composition of conscious experience In this section, we define and implement possible rewriting rules for conscious experience. The set of processes introduced above become the generators of our calculus (Table 1), while extra operations and rewriting rules form part of the explicit axioms in the theory. These axioms specify the generators, as discussed in section 2.3. 4.1. The relational nature of experience In section 3, we introduced provisional definitions and interpretations of the generators. In strict sense, they do not model any phenomena by themselves, but only when they are specified by rewriting rules or relationships between them. This relational nature of graphical calculi is relevant, since experience seems also specified in reference to other experiences Signorelli et al. (2021); Tsuchiya and Saigo (2020), and being co-dependent Signorelli and Meling (2021). In this paper, for example, unity of experience conveys relationships between qualitative and subjective dimensions of that unity, namely phenomenal unity and access unity, represented by our white and black generators. Both types of unity-experience create distinctions, the former differentiate among experiences, while the latter among contents of those experiences. Then distinctions are signified by the crossing generator. Relationships between generators lead to more complex process compositions, while their behaviour is assumed here as the minimal structure of experience. Therefore, conscious experience is both: the entangled composition of all these processes, as well as from which those conceptual distinctions arise. The rest of this article specifies the role of these generators via relational rewriting rules, reinterprets the behaviours of these generators, and from them infers new features of conscious experience. Importantly, all the rewriting rules follow mathematical considerations, either from standard bialgebras Coecke (2011); Selinger (2011) or from the specificity of ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018). However, the particular set of generators and rewriting rules are chosen because they do make 12 of 22 t A∗ A A∗ | A u w v = Unity ... } ...  ~ = Qualitative r u } w w v   = Subjective ~ ... u } v ~ = Distinction Table 1. Generators for a graphical calculus of conscious experience. These processes are taken from ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic et al. (2018) and their graphical forms naturally arise in monoidal categories Coecke and Paquette (2011). “sense” for a theory of conscious experience, and not because they are nice mathematically or fit any physical theory. One example is the structure of privacy or personal experience, as we demonstrate in the following sections. 4.2. Conscious experience Following previous discussions, we can define conscious experience in a rigorous graphical form. It is easily done as a composition of qualitative and subjective processes. Therefore, we postulate: Postulate 3. Conscious experience. Conscious experiences correspond to compositions of qualitative and subjective processes, such that the composition generates a new diagram, representing a new kind of experience. The allowed compositions are subject to a fixed collection of rewriting rules. In this theory, these rewriting rules might correspond to specific set of experiences. Let’s take a first rule from the symmetric monoidal category of ZW-calculus and reinterpret it as the composition of one input quality process carrying a quantitative value r, and one subjective process with two outputs. This composition generates the experience of copy that quality, and we called it experience 1. r = r r 7→ Experience 1 (5) As we mention before, the way how to read these diagrams is from top to bottom, i.e. imagine the r "crossing" to modify the original shape of the diagram, as shown by the equality. In this case, 13 of 22 a subjective process takes and makes a "copy" of a qualitative one to make it available to other mental operations. Another rewriting rule is the composition between two inputs, one qualitative process and one subjective process, generating another type of experience in our formal model. r = r 7→ Experience 2 r (6) The only difference between both rules is the number of inputs in the qualitative process. In this axiomatic model, conscious experiences are unified compositions of qualitative and subjective generators related to the shape-effect, or circuit reorganization of the diagrams, generated by rules of composition. Phenomenologically speaking, these rules are important because they introduce the notion of co-dependency between qualitative and subjective experience. Two processes co-dependent if they are co-defined. For example, the first rule tells us that a qualitative process is an experience that can be copied by a subjective process in order to be experienced. On the other hand, a subjective process is an experience that can copy a qualitative one. Then, the division between qualitative and subjective experience becomes conceptual, since any conscious experience is simultaneously qualitative and subjective. As a consequence, it might not be surprising that current experiments do not entirely dissociate phenomenal and access aspects of conscious experience. It might be an implication of the parallel made between qualitative and subjective processes with the phenomenal versus access consciousness that we have introduced previously. 4.3. Distinctions and boundaries According to the previous definition of conscious experience, an important question concerns how to distinguish two elements already bound (more details in section 5). To target this last question, the distinction process seems to present a compelling property: Postulate 4. Distinction. Distinction differentiates between qualitative and subjective processes as follows: r r = r = = (7) r r r In other words, qualitative aspects of experience are the processes that "cross distinctions", while subjective processes do not. It generates, indeed, a distinction between subjects-objects and between internal-external experiences, since another subject is always external to the observer subject. This notion is formalized by using the distinction process as separator or boundary, becoming one of our postulates: Postulate 5. Boundary. Distinction generates a boundary between external and internal experiences. ····· · · · · · · · External (8) ····· · · · · · · · Internal 14 of 22 Interestingly, it seems that a basic notion of conscious agent Hoffman and Prakash (2014) could arise from the composition of distinction process as a boundary and subjective processes. In this case, however, the agent has the potential of conscious experience but it does not convey an conscious experience itself, according to our postulate 3. Future works may clarify and extend this implications/interpretations. Additionally, we might introduce two extra rules. The composition between one subjective two output process and one qualitative two inputs process is interpreted as the creation of one subjective state and one subjective effect (perhaps, understood as voluntary action). Graphically: = (9) The rule above defines two subjective entities from the decoupling of both generators. In other words, if these subjective and qualitative processes compound, such as their outputs and inputs match (always multiple of 2), the result are one subjective state and one subjective effect, like the forms introduced in section 2.1 and 3.3. Another relevant rule is about a distinction process interacting with a subjective two outputs process. = (10) Following postulate 5 and equation 8, in this case the first subjective process is interpreted as internal and the second as external. Interestingly, this rule informs us about the "generation" of two distinction processes, each time that one distinction process compose with another two outputs internal subjective process, or conversely, the need of two distinctions to transform one external two outputs subjective process into an internal one (see section 5). 4.4. Private experience At this point, all the basic compositions and interpretations of the model are in place to define conscious perception as the simple composition of all these generators: Postulate 6. Conscious perception. Conscious perception corresponds to the composition of qualitative, subjective and distinction processes, together with its modifications via rewriting rules. r ⇒ r 7→ Perception o f r (11) Perception is not only a conscious experience, but it is also the kind of conscious experience that generates distinctions between external and internal contents of that experience. This external versus internal division is what is called objective versus subjective division, since an externally triggered experience is associated with objective perception, while internally triggered experiences (what happens after crossing the distinction boundary) are commonly related to subjective inner experiences. However, 15 of 22 in our model this objective/subjective division is illusory, every external process is a combination of qualitative and subjective processes, and the properties of the distinction process makes us perceive them differently. In other words, the objective versus subjective divisions is a consequence of our own operation of perceiving. When we say “illusion”, it is not in the common sense of “illusionism” in philosophy of mind, where the mind is neglected and considered just as an illusion given by the brain, its neurons and other physical systems. In our case, what is illusory is the distinction between objective world and subjective world. Everything is some kind of “experiential qualitative and subjective world”. However, this “everything is an experience” does not necessarily convey a claim of ontological primacy, since an epistemic primacy suffices to support that claim as well. In this work, we do not commit to any ontological nor epistemic interpretation, but we pragmatically focus on the primacy of experience via the generators, compositions and their consequences. As a way of example, we can use the postulates above to infer and prove the most salient and recognised property of conscious experience, namely, its private Searle (2000) or better understood personal aspect Varela (1996). Importantly, this is a pure consequence of the axioms above. Proposition 1. Unreadability of others/external subjectivity. It is impossible to fully perceive, access or read others’/external conscious subjective experiences. Proof. From postulates 3 and 6, conscious perception involves qualitative, subjective and distinction processes, such that the distinction imposes a boundary between external and internal experiences (equation 8). Moreover, equations in 7 force a restriction to subjective processes, preventing them from crossing the boundary. Graphically: r 6= ⇒ can not cross, while = r ⇒ can cross. It completes the proof. This simple example shows the power of graphical reasoning and axiomatic mathematics to formalise the structure of conscious experience. We have recovered from first principles, one of the main and more recognized hallmarks of personal and subjective conscious experience Chalmers (1995); Thomas Nagel (1974); Thompson (2007): the inaccessibility of others’ subjective "what is like to be" becomes a consequence of a simple and topological property of the graphical calculus introduced. This proof, however, does not mean we never have access to others/external subjective experiences. The rule given by equation 10 allows us to access those experiences only if we impose more distinctions. In other words, if we have access to it (e.g. via verbal report), we experience new distinctions that are not present in the original experience. Therefore, as pointed out by Varela (1996), subjective experience might not be really private, but personal. 5. The combination of experiences In this section, we explore another insight from our logic approach: the phenomenal unity of experience. 16 of 22 5.1. The problem of unity Among the questions about the structure of conscious experience, how to combine more basic experiences becomes one of the most problematic issues. This is the question about how gluing different elements of experience in one unified phenomenal experience: the unity thesis. In other words, how to combine objects, feelings and other background feature to generate one single unified phenomenal subjective experience Bayne and Chalmers (2012). This problem has two main dimensions, the phenomenal unity and the access unity Bayne and Chalmers (2012); Revonsuo and Newman (1999). The former is sometimes called the combination problem and the later the segregation problem. The first one corresponds to the intuition that regardless of the distinct elements of experiences, they are always integrate-wholes, i.e. the what is like to be in such experience is one whole experience. The second problem is that regardless of distinct and combined features, our experience can segregate elements to recognize different contents of such experience Feldman (2013); Treisman (1999); Velik (2012). These two problems imply the identification of a complete set of fundamental experiences from which other experiences combine, such that the segregation is always regard to this fixed set of experiences Chalmers (2016). 5.2. Phenomenal and access unity In our compositional model, these questions are stated differently. First, the combination problem does not exist anymore. In fact, it is replaced by a decomposition problem. The unity of experience is given by default, just by means of being compositional. According to our theory, the unity of consciousness, and specifically phenomenal unity, is given by the primary graphical generators and through topological connection. Secondly, any experience might be always decomposed into combinations of these generators. Which makes the decomposition problem tractable within our formalism. At the same time, the segregation of certain elements of perception is targeted by the distinction process and modifications of compounded qualitative and subjective processes. In other words, the issues become a problem of modification Searle (2000). Our approach guides us to search for mechanisms of separation and distinction that make elements of our perception look segregated, instead of looking at how to "integrate" or unify elements already unified. Graphically, segregation is commonly represented by processes such as: experience Segregation red car f ast In this case, any process theory needs to implement extra processes to account for these decomposition processes, like the decomposition framework introduced in Tull and Kleiner (2020). Slightly different, in our specific model, the question becomes how experiences modify each other to account for distinctions among experiences. It implies that different conscious perceptions are indeed modifications of an already existing field of consciousness, instead of built from various disparate bits of reality Searle (2000). The main difference is that in cognitive neuroscience the segregation problem is about recognition of "external objects", while here, individual entities arises from unified quality/subjectivity, i.e. the evolution of subjective experiences correspond to modifications or modulations of a unified and already existing qualitative subjectivity, the intrinsic mental consciousness that is independent of the five senses Llinas et al. (1998). Take, for example, a more complex experiential structure given by the next composition: 17 of 22 t r s If we use the rewriting rules from equations and examples in section 4, we can simplify this circuit as follows: t t 5 = ⇒ t 7&5 ==⇒ t 3 = ⇒ t r r t r rst3 s s s In our model, each shape-effect or modification of the diagrams models a new instance of experience, e.g. a "raw" experience into a thought about it. The circuit itself corresponds to the phenomenal unity or phenomenal field. The most basic conscious experience is the total phenomenal experience. This field is basic but not less complex structure, given by different types of sub-circuits from which distinctions arise. For instance, if we continue applying other rules, we obtain the following circuit: 9 4&10 = ⇒ 4 ===⇒ = ⇒ rst3 rst3 rst3 This diagram can be further simplified (e.g. the right upper triangle becomes an identity, etc). To make our point, however, it is enough that the reader notices how a new distinction process appears. These new distinctions are the effects of the four generators interacting and reorganizing the circuit formed by them. Here, the reorganization that gives rise to new distinctions is what corresponds to the segregation, such that perceptual acts that segregate the content of experience are modelled by the appearance of new distinction processes (rule 10), and its eventual “crossing” (postulate 6). Therefore, given a primary total field, or global consciousness, its modifications through rewriting rules (interpreted as concrete instances of experiences, section 4) inform about particular perceptual states, the access unity of contents of experience. These states may represent specific individual loci of quality-subjectivity through the specification of the types/systems. The missing ingredient in this discussion is the empirical translation 18 of 22 into phenomenological meaningful patterns for each individual, something that we would expect to implement for each particular case. Although we do not illustrate any particular perceptual act, in the example above, a total phenomenal unity subsumes any other distinctive perception Bayne and Chalmers (2012). Further research and phenomenological accounts may bring more light on these implications. To summarise, the phenomenal unity is expressed by primitive notions of unity as generators of our calculus, while feature segregation, as form of access unity, is the disruption or distortion of that phenomenal unity. 6. Discussion Our approach is a provisional proof of concept, that form part of a new contemporary research direction to study the mathematical structure of consciousness and mathematize phenomenology Prentner (2019); Tsuchiya and Saigo (2020); Yoshimi (2007). The graphical calculus introduced here is one of the mathematical structures to reach that goal. Other examples using different flavours of process theories are Signorelli et al. (2021) and Tull and Kleiner (2020). Thus, our model is not the unique model nor the unique way to mathematically study properties of conscious experience. Nevertheless, our study of mathematical structures implies a new paradigm to deal with basic assumptions, clearly motivated by phenomenology Husserl (1983); Merleau-Ponty (2005) and process philosophy Rescher (2012); Whitehead (1929). In this article, we started by the assumption of conscious experience as a fundamental process and building the rest of the theory via explicit graphical axioms given by rewriting rules. These axioms are inspired by phenomenological considerations and differently than previous approaches that also claim to start from phenomenological axioms Oizumi et al. (2014), in our case, all the features of conscious experience have a direct mathematical counterpart. These generators form a minimum set, axioms intend to subsume both phenomenological and mathematical meaning, and nothing extra than what is explicitly stated across these pages is assumed (e.g. we do not need to assume a physical classical world). While process theories are ontologically neutral and our main assumption is based on the hypothesis of the primacy of consciousness, our theory conveys a clear advantage over other models of consciousness: the direct link with physical theories and their mathematical structures. For example, our approach is related almost tautologically to foundations of physics Coecke (2011) and specifically quantum theory. In our model, similar generators and rewriting rules form part of the ZW-calculus Hadzihasanovic (2015). ZW-calculus was developed for qubits, it is a sound and complete semantic for graphical treatments inside categorical quantum theory Abramsky and Coecke (2004), and also a useful graphical language to reconstruct different aspects of physical theories Coecke (2011); Coecke and Kissinger (2010); De Felice et al. (2019); Hadzihasanovic (2015). Without lacking any mathematical rigour, across this article we have reinterpreted the nature of a partial set of their generators and rewriting rules. Accordingly, the connection with fundamental physical theories is reached only invoking phenomenal aspects, no need for any ontological assumption. In other words, it does not matter whether a process is a mental process or a physical process, they share a similar mathematical structure. We feel that a science of consciousness has much more to gain using high-level mathematical formalisms than focusing on the physical ontologies that may, or may not explain consciousness Signorelli et al. (2021). For instance, we do not claim ZW-calculus is complete for a theory of consciousness. Otherwise, this completeness would mean that there is nothing more to consciousness than there is to a qubit. More interesting, however, it is to develop further graphical calculus to search for a complete and sound description based on well informed phenomenological inputs. In other words, directly axiomatize the phenomenology of conscious experience using graphical calculi, and study the models arising from them. 19 of 22 7. Conclusions In this article, we introduced a new paradigm to reason about conscious experience. This graphical interpretation is based on symmetric monoidal categories and follows similar principles and mathematical structures that have proved useful in the foundations of physical theories Coecke (2011). Moreover, our discussion takes inspiration from the hypothesis of conscious agents Fields et al. (2018); Hoffman and Prakash (2014), phenomenology Merleau-Ponty (2005); Signorelli and Meling (2021); Thompson (2007), Buddhist phenomenology Lusthaus (2002); Makeham (2014), as well as the unified field hypothesis Searle (2000) and compositional models Coecke (2013); Coecke et al. (2016). Using this compositional framework and primitive mathematical generators as essential features of conscious experience, we recovered different aspects of experience: external and internal subjective distinction, private or personal experience, and phenomenal unity. All of them arise naturally as a consequence of a formal theory of conscious experience that takes the experience as a fundamental process of nature. In this line, these types of models may become a formal tool to study the phenomenology of cognitive experience in general, and the phenomenology of conscious experience in particular. Philosophers and neuroscientists can also benefit from these intuitive forms Gómez-Ramirez (2014); Landry (2018); Signorelli and Joaquin Diaz Boils (2021), describing and discussing in graphical terms the basic assumptions of their respective models Kleiner (2020). The future for these axiomatic models is promising and exciting. On the one hand, one can extend these descriptions to a better-informed set of generators and rewriting rules. To reach this goal we can use more detailed insights from the phenomenology of experience, micro-phenomenology protocols Petitmengin et al. (2019) and neuro-phenomenology Varela (1996), as well as contemplative sciences, among others methods. For instance, one may like to define the entire set of axioms and rewriting rules for a sound and complete calculus taking further phenomenological considerations. On the other hand, one may also expect the objective realm arising from basic experiential generators Signorelli et al. (2021). To this end, the goal is recovering objective physical theories from primitive experience that indeed become a mirror of each other Signorelli et al. (2020), the very notion of time, probably being one of the most relevant Edmund Husserl (1964); Kent and Wittmann (2021). In both research projects, process theories resonate with philosophical phenomenology, avoiding any ontological claim as well as the need for invoking any physical realization but pure mathematical entities. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, CMS and QW; investigation CMS, QW and BC; writing-original draft preparation, CMS; writing-review and editing, CMS, QW and BC; visualization, CMS and QW. Funding: CMS is funded by Comisión Nacional de Investigación Ciencia y Tecnología (CONICYT, currently ANID) through Programa Formacion de Capital Avanzado (PFCHA), Doctoral scholarship Becas Chile: CONICYT PFCHA/DOCTORADO BECAS CHILE/2016 - 72170507. QW was supported by AFOSR grant FA2386-18-1-4028. We also acknowledge the grant: Categorical Theories of Consciousness: Bridging Neuroscience and Fundamental Physics, FQXi-RFP-CPW-2018. Acknowledgments: The authors appreciate valuable feedback and discussions from Sean Tull, as well as very constructive comments from anonymous reviewers. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. References Abramsky, Samson and Bob Coecke. 2004. A categorical semantics of quantum protocols. In 19th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS’04), Turku, Finland, pp. 415–425. AMCS. 2021. Association for Mathematical Consciousness Science (AMCS). https://amcs-community.org. 20 of 22 Aru, Jaan, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer, and Lucia Melloni. 2012. Distilling the neural correlates of consciousness. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 36(2), 737–746. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.12.003. Awodey, Steve. 2006. Category Theory (First ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bayne, Tim and David J. Chalmers. 2012. 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White matter deficits underlie the loss of consciousness level and predict recovery outcome in disorders of consciousness Xuehai Wua, Jiaying Zhangb, Zaixu Cuib, Weijun Tangc, Chunhong Shaod, Jin Hua, Jianhong Zhua, Liangfu Zhoua, Yao Zhaoa, Lu Lue, Gang Chenf, Georg Northoffg, Gaolang Gongb*, Ying Maoa*, Yong Heb a Neurosurgical Department, Shanghai Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China b State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875 China c Radiological Department, Shanghai Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China d Psychiatry Department, Shanghai Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China e Huajia Hospital, Shanghai 200438, China f Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, USA g Institute of Mental Health Research, University of Ottawa, Carling Avenue 1145, Ottawa, ON K1Z 7K4, Canada Xuehai Wu and Jiaying Zhang contributed equally to this work. * Corresponding authors: Ying Mao Neurosurgical Department, Shanghai Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China Phone: +8613801769152 Email: maoying@fudan.edu.cn Gaolang Gong State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Phone: +8601058802023 Email: gaolang.gong@bnu.edu.cn Abstract This study aimed to identify white matter (WM) deficits underlying the loss of consciousness in disorder of consciousness (DOC) patients using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and to demonstrate the potential value of DTI parameters in predicting recovery outcomes of DOC patients. With 30 DOC patients (8 comatose, 8 unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/vegetative state, and 14 minimal conscious state) and 25 patient controls, we performed group comparison of DTI parameters across 48 core WM regions of interest (ROIs) using Analysis of Covariance. Compared with controls, DOC patients had decreased Fractional anisotropy (FA) and increased diffusivities in widespread WM area. The corresponding DTI parameters of those WM deficits in DOC patients significantly correlated with the consciousness level evaluated by Coma Recovery Scale – Revised (CRS-R) and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). As for predicting the recovery outcomes (i.e., regaining consciousness or not, grouped by their Glasgow Outcome Scale >2 or not) at 3 months post scan, radial diffusivity of left superior cerebellar peduncle and FA of right sagittal stratum reached an accuracy of ~87.5% and ~75% respectively. Our findings showed multiple WM deficits underlying the loss of consciousness level, and demonstrated the potential value of these WM areas in predicting the recovery outcomes of DOC patients who have lost awareness of the environment and themselves. Keywords: disorder of consciousness, white matter, the level of consciousness, diffusion tensor imaging, brain injury 1. Introduction With great advances in intensive care, more and more patients survive after severe brain injuries such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and ischaemic-hypoxic injury (IHI), resulting in a large population of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). DOC patients exhibit varied levels of consciousness (from low to high: coma (COMA), unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/vegetative state (UWS/VS), and minimally conscious state (MCS)), which provides a unique opportunity to study the structural substrates that support the maintenance of a normal consciousness level. The pioneer functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study revealed that UWS/VS patients were capable of following a command and performing an imaginary task(Owen et al., 2006). This revolutionized our understanding of the abnormal state of consciousness, but greatly challenged the diagnosis criteria for DOC patients. Sensitive and robust imaging biomarkers will greatly benefit and aid the clinical assessments. Improvements of clinical assessments are key to making reasonable choices of therapy plans and legal or ethical decisions for DOC patients(Monti et al., 2010). The altered consciousness level of DOC patients is associated with functional connectivity deficiencies across brain regions in previous studies. For example, using PET, those functional connections between intralaminar thalamic nuclei, the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices were shown to be disrupted in VS patients(Laureys et al., 2000). Given these findings, the loss of consciousness has been described as a “functional disconnection syndrome”(Laureys et al., 2004; Schiff, 2005). Additionally, recent functional MRI studies observed the association of levels of consciousness with functional connectivity deficiencies between the default mode network (DMN) and the thalamus(Boly et al., 2008; Boly et al., 2009; Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2010). Whole-brain functional network analysis exhibited abnormal connectivity pattern in DOC patients (Qin et al., 2015). Moreover, those functional connections could predict the consciousness level and recovery outcome of DOC patients (Wu et al., 2015). These results further support the idea that human consciousness is an outcome of functional integration among distributed brain regions rather than local functional activities. Although altered functional connectivity has been investigated a lot, the structural neural substrate of the consciousness loss remains poorly understood. White matter (WM) harbors the main structural connections between different brain regions; besides, clinically, diffused axonal injury patients with the loss of consciousness usually have damaged white matter detectible in Computer Tomography/MRI. Therefore, WM impairments in DOC patients play a critical role in the loss of consciousness. Using diffusion MRI, a pioneer case study of one MCS patient revealed an increase of WM anisotropy, which was related to the recovery of expressive language(Voss et al., 2006). Several cross-sectional studies have revealed that the diffusion parameters of the entire WM and WM pathways connecting the thalamus and DMN brain regions varied depending on the consciousness levels of DOC patients(Fernandez-Espejo et al., 2011; Fernandez-Espejo et al., 2012; Lant et al., 2016; Newcombe et al., 2010). But there is still not a complete understanding of WM substrate underlying the loss of consciousness level. However, these WM studies were limited by (1) recruiting only a small number of subjects (making clinical relevance impossible) or a relatively large sample but from different scanning centers (introducing a new confounding factor of scanning center); (2) mainly covering UWS/VS and MCS patients without including COMA patients; (3) the absence of lesion patients with full consciousness; and (4) a focus on a limited number of pre-defined WM tracts/regions of interest (ROIs) or the WM as a whole. Furthermore, it is clinically unknown whether the diffusion parameters of WM deficits can be used to predict recovery outcomes (regaining consciousness or not) for those patients who have been clinically diagnosed as “unaware of the surrounding environment and themselves”. This issue is of great clinical importance for therapeutic planning and decision-making. Therefore, our study aimed to 1) identify the impaired WM regions underlying the loss of consciousness in DOC patients; and 2) assess the prognostic value of WM diffusion parameters for predicting the recovery outcomes (i.e., outcome-positive and outcome-negative) of DOC patients who have lost awareness of the environment and themselves. Specifically, we included a single-center dataset from a large cohort of 30 DOC patients covering the entire spectrum of consciousness levels (including COMA, UWS/VS, and MCS) as well as 25 patient controls (PCs) from a single center. Given previous findings, we hypothesized that distributed WM injury, rather than a local WM injury, contributes to the abnormal levels of consciousness in these patients. To test this hypothesis, an automated atlas-based searching for the abnormal WM regions using DTI parameters was applied across the whole brain. We then evaluated the relationship of DTI metrics and the clinical measures of consciousness levels across DOC patients. Finally, we performed ROC analysis to predict the clinical recovery outcomes of COMA and UWS/VS patients at 3 months after the MRI scan (regained consciousness or not) using DTI parameters of white matter deficits in DOC patients. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Participants We recruited 91 patients with acquired brain injuries in the Huashan Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai. The etiology of these patients was either TBI (77 subjects) or non-TBI—spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage or ischaemic-hypoxic injury (14 subjects). All of the patients participated in the MRI scan during their sub-acute or chronic stage. The majority of the DOC patients were followed up in the rehabilitation hospital, and the others were followed up when be readmitted for ventricular peritoneal shunt with hydrocephalus or/and cranioplasty. Informed consent was obtained from each patient or his/her family. Ethical approval for this study was granted by the Ethics Committee of Huashan Hospital. The patients were clinically diagnosed as COMA, UWS/VS, MCS, or Patient Controls (PC) on the day of their first MRI scan. The COMA patients were characterized by the absence of arousal responses and awareness(Plum and Posner, 1966). The UWS/VS patients were in a state of arousal, including a sleep/wake cycle, but were unaware of themselves or their global environment(The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, 1994). The MCS patients retained a low level of consciousness but exhibited inconsistent and non-reflexive behavior(Giacino et al., 2002). The PCs in our study were characterized by a) a conscious state and communicability; b) a brain injury confirmed by MRI and computed tomography scan; and c) the absence of locked-in syndrome. The consciousness level of each patient was quantified using two standardized scales [the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)(Teasdale and Jennett, 1974) and the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R)(Giacino et al., 2004)]. Both scales were translated into Chinese by 3 authors (P.Q., Z.H., and Xu. Wu.). An experienced neurosurgeon, Xu. Wu., assessed both scales and was blind to data analysis. After manually checking the quality of the fractional anisotropy (FA) images after normalization (exclusion examples are shown in Supplementary Fig. 1), we included 55 patients (8 COMA, 8 UWS/VS, 14 MCS, and 25 PC) in the cross-sectional analysis to detect consciousness-related WM regions. The detailed demographic and clinical characteristics are shown in Table 1 and Supplementary Fig. 2. Moreover, for those patients who had completely lost their awareness of the environment and themselves at their first MRI scan (8 COMA and 8 UWS/VS patients), we divided them into outcome-positive and outcome-negative groups according to their clinical outcomes (regained awareness or not) at least 3 month after MRI scan. Specifically, the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS)(Jennett and Bond, 1975) was used to quantify clinical outcomes 3 months after the first MRI scan. The patients with a GOS score of less than 3 were deemed as not having regained consciousness and were referred to as outcome-negative. Patients in the other group, with a GOS score equal to or above 3, were considered to be awake and were therefore referred to as outcome-positive. The corresponding demographic and clinical characteristics of the outcome-negative and outcome-positive groups are shown in Table 2. 2.2. Diffusion Weighted Images Acquisition All MRI images were acquired on the 3T SIEMENS MRI scanner in Shanghai Huashan Hospital. We used a single-shot echo planar imaging-based sequence, and the acquisition protocol consisted of 12 non-linear diffusion-weighted directions with b = 1000 s/mm2 and one additional image without weighted diffusion (i.e., b = 0 s/mm2). The scanning parameters were set as follows: 3.5 mm slice thickness, no gap between slices, 38 slices covering the whole brain, echo time = 82 ms, repetition time = 8400 ms, acquisition matrix = 128×128, non-interpolated voxel size = 1.8×1.8×3.5 mm3, flip angle = 90°, and field of view = 230×230 mm2. 2.3. DTI post-processing The diffusion-weighted images were processed with a PANDA pipeline toolbox(Cui et al., 2013) called the FMRIB Software Library (FSL, version 4.1.9)(Jenkinson et al., 2012) for skull stripping, eddy-current correction, tensor fitting and the calculation of diffusion tensor parameters as well as for image normalization. Common diffusion tensor parameters—FA, axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD)—were chosen for subsequent analysis. Specifically, FA is the fraction of anisotropic diffusion, and a breakdown in WM integrity typically results in a lower FA(Basser and Pierpaoli, 1996). AD and RD are thought to be selectively sensitive to specific microstructural changes. An increased AD reflects axonal damage or loss, whereas an increased RD reflects demyelination(Song et al., 2003). Another common diffusion parameter, mean diffusivity (MD), was not included in the present study because it is linearly dependent on AD and RD. After nonlinearly normalizing the FA, AD, and RD maps to the FMRIB58_FA template, we extracted the FA, AD, and RD of the 48 WM ROIs defined in the standard space of the ICBM-DTI-81 white matter atlas(Mori et al., 2008). In the present study, we performed the analysis of WM parameters at the regional level, primarily for two reasons. First, ROI-based analysis exhibits a higher tolerance for inaccurate normalization compared with voxel-based analysis(Faria et al., 2010). Second, it is biologically plausible to assume diffuse WM impairment following traumatic or ischaemic/hypoxic injury rather than a very local and concentrated impairment. Additionally, because outer brain tissues may be severely damaged in TBI patients, we defined the WM regions according to the JHU “core white matter” atlas(Mori et al., 2008). The JHU “core white matter” atlas consists of 48 WM regions in MNI152 space that are located relatively deep inside the brain and are therefore less deformed in DOC patients (Supplementary Fig. 3). In all, region-based analysis could provide adequate spatial specificity and improve the statistical power for our study. 2.4. Statistical analysis All statistical analyses were performed with IBM SPSS 20 statistics software. We first compared the demographic and clinical data across the four patient groups. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-square tests were performed on the continuous variables (age and days post-ictus) and categorical variables (etiology and gender), respectively. To explore the association between WM deficits and consciousness level, we first performed a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) on the mean FA for each of the 48 WM regions. Specifically, group was a between-subjects factor of interest, and age, gender, and days post-ictus were included as covariates. The Bonferroni method was applied to correct for multiple comparisons across the WM regions, and a corrected p < 0.05 was considered significant. To identify whether the FA changes were attributed to AD and/or RD changes, we applied the same ANCOVA model to the mean AD and RD of the WM deficits detected by FA ANCOVA. Among the WM deficits detected by FA ANCOVA, Pearson correlations between the mean FA and clinical scores of consciousness level (GCS and CRS-R) were tested across all of the patients after controlling for age, gender, and days post-ictus. Similar correlation analyses were applied to the AD and RD of the consciousness-related WM deficits showing significant group effects in AD or RD. Notably, a substantial proportion of the patients (mainly the PC and UWS/VS patients) received ceiling-level scores (GCS score equal to 15 or CRS-R score equal to 23), which might bias the correlation results. To control for this ceiling effect (the correlation might be driven by the high GCS and CRS-R scores at the upper end), we also performed the correlations after excluding the patients with ceiling-level scores. To this point, we had explored whether the WM deficits detected by FA ANCOVA could predict the degree of consciousness at different levels of the consciousness spectrum. However, the question remained as to whether DTI metrics of these WM deficits could be used to predict clinical recovery of consciousness. Therefore, we further evaluated the prognostic value of the diffusion parameters of the WM deficits using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. We performed the prediction analysis within white matter ROIs with group differences in DTI parameters (FA, AD, and RD) between the outcome-positive (GOS greater than or equal to 3) and outcome-negative patients (GOS less than 3). The comparisons between the two groups with different outcomes were restricted to the WM deficits detected by FA ANCOVA. Because the level of consciousness may relate to subsequent clinical outcomes, we also included the clinical scores (GCS and CRS-R), age, gender, and days post-ictus as covariates. 3. Results 3.1. Clinical samples There were no differences among the four patient groups (i.e., COMA, UWS/VS, MCS, and PC) in age, gender, or etiology distribution. The duration of illness (days post-ictus) differed (p = 0.009). In the patients of the outcome-positive and outcome-negative groups who lost awareness, no differences were found in gender, etiology distribution, or days post-ictus, but there was a trend for the age distribution (p = 0.052). The mean age (38.9) of the outcome-positive group was younger than that (49.8) of the outcome-negative group. 3.2. Group differences in diffusion parameters across DOC patients The ANCOVA of FA revealed significant group effects in 14 WM regions (Table 1 and Fig. 1). For most of the 14 WM regions, post hoc comparisons indicated that FA decreased as the consciousness level declined. However, the significant group effect might be mainly driven by the differences between the COMA and PC patients (e.g., the body of the corpus callosum). Among the 14 WM regions detected by FA ANCOVA, there were significant group differences in AD in only three WM regions (Table 1 and Supplementary Fig. 4), whereas RD significantly differed in 11 WM regions (Table 1 and Supplementary Fig. 5). As the level of consciousness decreased, the mean RD in the 11 WM regions increased. 3.3. Correlations between diffusion parameters and GCS/CRS-R clinical scores With all the patients, significant correlations (p < 0.05) were found between the GCS/CRS-R scores and the mean FA of the 14 significant WM regions (as described above) (Figs. 2 and 3). Even after the patients with GCS scores equal to 15 were excluded, 12 WM regions were still correlated with GCS score. In contrast, no correlations were found between the mean FA of these regions and CRS-R score after the patients with a CRS-R score equal to 23 were excluded. For the three WM regions with AD differences, the mean AD was correlated with the GCS and CRS-R scores across all subjects, but no correlation existed after the patients with ceiling-level scores (GCS or CRS-R) were excluded (Supplementary Figs. 6 and 7). In the 11 WM deficits with RD differences, the mean RD correlated with GCS and CRS-R score. After the exclusion of the patients with maximum GCS and CRS-R scores, the mean RD of eight WM regions (i.e., the body of the corpus callosum, splenium of the corpus callosum, left cingulum, fornix (column and body), left stria terminalis, right internal capsule (retrolenticular portion), right sagittal stratum, and left uncinate fasciculus) still correlated with the GCS score. However, CRS-R score did not significantly correlate with the mean RD of any region (Supplementary Figs. 8 and 9). Taken together, our data confirm the relevance of WM deficits for predicting the level of consciousness from the lowest end (COMA) to the medium (UWS/VS), higher (MCS), and highest end (PC) of the spectrum of consciousness. Even after controlling for the ceiling effect, the majority of the correlations remained the same; this finding suggests that these correlations were driven by differences across the spectrum of consciousness, from COMA to PC. 3.4. Prediction analysis for the outcome-positive and outcome-negative patients To demonstrate the clinical relevance of our findings, we performed classification analyses of the outcome-positive and outcome-negative patients. The comparisons indicated that the mean FA of the right sagittal stratum and the mean RD of the left superior cerebellar peduncle differed significantly between these two groups with different clinical outcomes at 3 months after scan (Fig. 4). According to the ROC analysis, the prediction accuracy of the mean RD of the left superior cerebellar peduncle and the mean FA of the right sagittal stratum reached 87.5% and 75%, respectively. The corresponding sensitivity and specificity for the mean RD of the left superior cerebellar peduncle were 100% and 75%, respectively, and the sensitivity and specificity for the mean FA of the right sagittal stratum were 50% and 100%, respectively. 4. Discussion Our study for the first time demonstrated widespread WM deficits underlying the diverse consciousness levels of DOC patients. And of those WM deficits, DTI metrics were linearly correlated with the clinical severity of their consciousness level—assessed by GCS and CRS-R scores. Furthermore, our prediction results indicated that the accuracy of distinguishing different clinical outcomes at three months after the MRI scan using DTI parameters of white matter deficits 4.1. White matter deficits in DOC patients By searching the entire “core white matter”, we identified 14 WM regions in which the FA differed across levels of consciousness using ANCOVA, supporting our hypothesis that a widespread structural substrate of the loss of consciousness were in DOC patients. Specifically, most of these WM deficits had increased RD as the consciousness level declined across the DOC subgroups, suggesting a process of axonal demyelination in the DOC patients(Song et al., 2003). Consistent with the previous DTI study in VS and MCS patients (Fernandez-Espejo et al., 2012), we identified right internal capsule (retrolenticular portion) and the cingulum with abnormal DTI parameters, which may serve as an anatomical substrate for the thalamo-cortical functional connectivity deficiencies in DOC (Boly et al., 2008; Boly et al., 2009; Schnakers, 2012). In addition to these tracts, we also found the splenium and body of the corpus callosum exhibited DTI parameter changes in DOC patients, indicating that the loss of consciousness that occurs in DOC may be related to the disruption of functional interactions between the two hemispheres(Newcombe et al., 2010). 4.2 Roles of the white matter around the brainstem More importantly, our results provided further evidence of the importance of the brainstem in maintaining normal consciousness. Intriguingly, our results showed that five WM regions around the brainstem, including the middle cerebellar peduncle, right corticospinal tract, right superior cerebellar peduncle, left superior cerebellar peduncle, and right cerebral peduncle, were related to the level of consciousness. The brainstem is crucial for regulation of the sleep cycle and the maintenance of consciousness(Moruzzi and Magoun, 1949; Northoff, 2014; Parvizi and Damasio, 2003; Starzl et al., 1951). The white matter around the brainstem serves as the main pathway that links the peripheral organs and cerebellum with the cerebrum. Our findings suggested the disruption of information flow not only within the brain but also between the brain and the rest of the body. For example, the normal impulses from peripheral nervous system about the surrounding environment might be disrupted in DOC patients. This finding suggests a possible role of these non-cerebral structures in the normal expression of consciousness, which deserves further attention in future studies. 4.3. Clinical relevance With more patients surviving after severe brain injuries, it has become an important issue to accurately assess the level of consciousness in DOC patients. However, currently, the clinical diagnosis of DOC patients is relatively subjective and greatly depends on clinical experience(Coleman et al., 2009); as a result, the misdiagnosis rate is high (up to 40%)(Schnakers et al., 2009). The correlations between the diffusion parameters of the WM deficits and the level of consciousness suggest that these imaging parameters have the potential to aid the clinical diagnosis of this DOC patient population. In addition, it remains challenging to accurately predict whether severe DOC patients such as COMA and UWS/VS patients could regain awareness. Our ROC analysis demonstrated the potential value of DTI parameters—FA in the right sagittal stratum and RD in the left superior cerebellar peduncle—in predicting the patients’ clinical outcomes at three months after the MRI scan. This finding suggests that the diffusion parameters of specific consciousness-related WM deficits might be sensitive imaging biomarkers to use in predicting the functional recovery of DOC patients. 4.4. Limitations There are a few issues that should be addressed in the future. First, although the sample size of DOC patients in our study was very large for a single center, we only had a small number of the patients for the study predicting outcomes at 3 months post-scan. Additional studies with more patients will be needed to validate and confirm our findings. Second, the DTI technique is incapable of quantifying complex microstructural changes in the voxels with crossing fibers or partial volume effects and therefore may provide false-negative or false-positive results. To overcome these issues, new diffusion MRI techniques (e.g., diffusion spectrum imaging (Wedeen et al., 2008)) can be applied in the future. Finally, in the current study, we considered WM regions separately and found a widespread distribution of consciousness-related WM regions, suggesting that the level of consciousness reflects the integration of activity in multiple brain regions. Therefore, it would also very interesting to explore how the global organizational architecture of the WM network is related to the loss of consciousness in DOC patients in further investigations. 5. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (grant number 81025013), China’s National Strategic Basic Research Program ("973") grant (grant numbers 2012CB720700, 2010CB945500, 2012CB966300, and 2009CB941100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 81322021 and 81571025), the Beijing Nova Program (grant number Z121110002512032), the Project for National 985 Engineering of China (grant number 985III-YFX0102), the “Dawn Tracking” Program of Shanghai Education Commission (grant number 10GG01), the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (grant numbers: 08411952000 and 10ZR1405400), the National Natural Science Young Foundation in China (grant number: 81201033), the Shanghai Health Bureau (20114358), the 863 National Science and Technology Program (grant number: 2015AA020501), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-10-0356) and the National Program for the Support of Top-Notch Young Professionals. Dr. Georg Northoff is supported by the Michael Smith Foundation, the CRC, and the CIHR. Jiaying Zhang is supported by the China Scholarship Council. References Basser, P.J., Pierpaoli, C., 1996. Microstructural and physiological features of tissues elucidated by quantitative-diffusion-tensor MRI. J. Magn. Reson. B. 111, 209-219. Boly, M., et al., 2008. Perception of pain in the minimally conscious state with PET activation: an observational study. Lancet Neurol. 7, 1013-1020. Boly, M., et al., 2009. Functional connectivity in the default network during resting state is preserved in a vegetative but not in a brain dead patient. Hum. Brain Mapp. 30, 2393-2400. Coleman, M.R., et al., 2009. Towards the routine use of brain imaging to aid the clinical diagnosis of disorders of consciousness. Brain. 132, 2541-52. Cui, Z., et al., 2013. PANDA: a pipeline toolbox for analyzing brain diffusion images. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7, 42. Faria, A.V., et al., 2010. 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Possible axonal regrowth in late recovery from the minimally conscious state. J. Clin. Invest. 116, 2005-11. Wedeen, V.J., et al., 2008. Diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging (DSI) tractography of crossing fibers. NeuroImage. 41, 1267-1277. Wu, X., et al., 2015. Intrinsic Functional Connectivity Patterns Predict Consciousness Level and Recovery Outcome in Acquired Brain Injury. J Neurosci. 35, 12932-46. Figure Legends Fig. 1. Fourteen consciousness-related WM ROIs detected with FA ANCOVA. The mean FA differed across the levels of consciousness according to the group comparisons (corrected p < 0.05, Bonferroni correction). In each subfigure, the left column shows a WM ROI in standard space, with the corresponding brain areas indicated in red, and the graphs on the right show the fitted mean and standard deviation of the FA of the corresponding WM ROI for the four DOC subgroups. Blue represents COMA; red, UWS/VS; green, MCS; and purple, PC. * indicates p < 0.05, and ** indicates p < 0.01. Fig. 2. Correlations between the fitted mean FA and the clinical measure of consciousness level, GCS score, for each of the 14 WM ROIs. The light blue dots represent the fitted mean FA of all of the DOC patients, and the dark blue dots represent the fitted mean FA of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a GCS score of 15. Fig. 3. Correlations between the fitted mean FA and the clinical measure of consciousness level, CRS-R score, for each of the 14 WM ROIs. The light blue dots represent the fitted mean FA of all of the DOC patients, and the dark blue dots represent the mean fitted FA of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a CRS-R score of 23. Fig. 4. DTI parameters predicted recovery outcomes at 3 months after MRI scan. (a) Fitted mean FA in WM ROI SS.R and (c) fitted mean RD in WM ROI SCP.L for the two groups with different functional outcomes – regaining consciousness or not. The blue dots (GOS score < 3) represent the fitted diffusion parameters of the better outcome group, and the red dots (GOS score ≥ 3) represent the fitted diffusion parameters of the other group. The fitted mean FA values in the two groups differed significantly (uncorrected, p < 0.05). The initial clinical scores (GCS and CRS-R scores) were separately included in the statistical model to reduce the effect of the initial level of consciousness. In addition, (b) and (d) show the ROC curves for the fitted mean FA of SS.R and the fitted mean RD of SCP.L, respectively. Tables Table 1. Demographic and clinical characteristics of all DOC patients Diagnostic categories[NO.] COMA[8(3)] UWS/VS[8(1)] MCS[14(3)] PC[25(2)] Statistic p Age: Mean±Std 42.3±8.7 46.4±13.9 43.1±16.7 38.2±14.5 F3,51 =0.79 0.506 Gender: male/female 6/2 3/5 11/3 18/7 =4.56 0.207 Etiology: TBI/non-TBI 8/0 6/2 13/1 22/3 =2.85 0.416 20.5 (15-98) 58 (4-167) Days post-ictus: Median (range) 96 20 (13-42) =4.33 0.009* (10-182) There were no differences among the four DOC groups in age at scan, gender, or etiology distribution. The days post-ictus differed among the four groups. The bracketed number indicates the number of patients who had a second qualified MRI scan. The etiology of each non-TBI patient was either ICH or IHI. Table 2. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the DOC patients with GOS < 3 and GOS ≥ 3 Items(NO.) GOS < 3(8) GOS ≥ 3(8) p Age: Mean±Std 49.8±10.1 38.9±10.4 0.052 Gender: male/female 4/4 5/3 0.626 Etiology: TBI/non-TBI 6/2 8/0 0.143 Days post-ictus: Median (range) 43 (10-182) 23 (13-168) 0.812 There were no differences between the two groups in gender, etiology distribution, or days post-ictus. Age differed between the groups. The etiology of the non-TBI patients was either ICH or IHI. Table 3. WM deficits in DOC using ANCOVA DTI Parameter WM Region of Interest F3,48 p middle cerebellar peduncle 6.348 0.001 right corticospinal tract 6.549 0.0008 right superior cerebellar peduncle 7.640 0.0003 left superior cerebellar peduncle 7.626 0.0003 right cerebral peduncle 8.413 0.0001 body of corpus callosum 8.675 0.0001 splenium of corpus callosum 7.332 0.0004 left cingulum 7.051 0.0005 fornix (column and body) 6.642 0.0008 left stria terminalis 6.569 0.0008 right internal capsule (retrolenticular part) 6.543 0.0008 right superior fronto-occipital fasciculus 6.893 0.0006 right sagittal stratum 7.885 0.0002 left uncinate fasciculus 6.834 0.0006 right cerebral peduncle 2.830 0.048 splenium of corpus callosum 2.976 0.041 left stria terminalis 3.888 0.014 right superior cerebellar peduncle 5.270 0.003 left superior cerebellar peduncle 4.435 0.008 right cerebral peduncle 4.041 0.012 body of corpus callosum 5.305 0.003 splenium of corpus callosum 5.512 0.002 left cingulum 5.287 0.003 fornix (column and body) 3.529 0.022 left stria terminalis 5.136 0.004 right internal capsule (retrolenticular part) 4.386 0.008 right sagittal stratum 6.910 0.001 FA AD RD left uncinate fasciculus 5.003 0.004 Supplementary Material Table 1. Consciousness-related WM ROIs defined in the JHU atlas and their corresponding abbreviations WM labels in the JHU atlas Abbreviations Middle Cerebellar Peduncle CP-M Body of Corpus Callosum CC-B Splenium of Corpus Callosum CC-S Fornix (Column and Body part) F-CB Right Corticospinal Tract CST.R Right Superior Cerebellar Peduncle SCP.R Left Superior Cerebellar Peduncle SCP.L Right Cerebral Peduncle CP.R Right Retrolenticular Part of Internal Capsule IC-R.R Right Sagittal Stratum SS.R Left Cingulum Cingulum.L Left Stria Terminalis F/ST.L Right Superior Fronto-Occipital Fasciculus SFOF.R Left Uncinate Fasciculus UF.L Table 2. The detailed clinical information of the participants in our study Patient Age Gender Handness Etiology Days post ictus GCS CRS-R GOS COMA1 46 male Right TBI 19 5 2 2 COMA2 24 male Right TBI 15 8 7 5 COMA3 50 male Right TBI 42 7 4 2 COMA4 37 male Right TBI 21 7 3 3 COMA5 46 male Right TBI 25 6 2 4 COMA6 47 male Right TBI 13 7 5 3 COMA7 39 female Right TBI 27 8 6 2 COMA8 49 female Right TBI 17 7 5 3 UWS/VS1 49 male Right TBI 140 6 5 2 UWS/VS2 36 female Right non-TBI 182 9 5 2 UWS/VS3 59 male Right TBI 44 8 4 2 UWS/VS4 67 female Right TBI 10 6 4 2 UWS/VS5 38 female Right TBI 31 9 6 3 UWS/VS6 23 female Right TBI 168 8 4 3 UWS/VS7 52 female Right non-TBI 52 7 5 2 UWS/VS8 47 male Right TBI 163 8 5 3 MCS1 30 female Right TBI 26 9 10 MCS2 24 male Right TBI 16 9 12 MCS3 18 male Right TBI 31 9 6 MCS4 49 male Right TBI 98 10 16 MCS5 55 male Right TBI 18 9 7 MCS6 46 male Right TBI 15 9 7 MCS7 63 female Right TBI 28 9 13 MCS8 60 male Right TBI 20 9 10 MCS9 18 male Right TBI 15 9 14 MCS10 31 female Right TBI 73 10 9 MCS11 67 male Right non-TBI 18 9 8 MCS12 37 male Right TBI 82 8 13 MCS13 48 male Right TBI 19 9 10 MCS14 57 male Right TBI 21 10 11 PC1 42 male Right TBI 111 11 18 PC2 16 female Right TBI 16 15 23 PC3 47 male Right TBI 98 15 23 PC4 17 male Right TBI 28 15 23 PC5 70 female Right TBI 4 15 23 PC6 50 male Right TBI 20 15 23 PC7 58 male Right TBI 10 11 20 PC8 52 female Right TBI 127 15 23 PC9 32 male Right TBI 68 14 23 PC10 41 male Right non-TBI 63 15 23 PC11 52 male Right TBI 6 15 23 PC12 29 female Right TBI 118 14 23 PC13 30 male Right TBI 19 15 23 PC14 28 female Right TBI 13 15 23 PC15 22 male Right TBI 66 15 23 PC16 64 male Right TBI 7 15 23 PC17 28 female Right TBI 4 15 23 PC18 42 male Right non-TBI 5 11 17 PC19 49 male Right TBI 167 13 23 PC20 29 female Right TBI 5 15 23 PC21 22 male Right non-TBI 166 15 23 PC22 46 male Right TBI 58 15 23 PC23 25 male Right TBI 143 15 23 PC24 32 male Right TBI 86 12 21 PC25 33 male Right TBI 119 11 17 Figure Legends for Supplementary Figures. Fig. 1. Clinical scores of consciousness level in the DOC patient population. (A) The distribution of GCS in the DOC patient population. (B) The distribution of CRSR in the DOC patient population. (C) The means and standard deviations of GCS and CRS-R for each DOC subgroup; blue represents COMA, red VS, green MCS, and purple PC. Fig. 2. Three of 14 consciousness-related WM ROIs detected with further AD ANCOVAs. These ROIs were significantly different in mean AD across levels of consciousness by group comparisons (p < 0.05, uncorrected). For each subfigure, the left column shows a WM ROI in the standard space indicated by brain areas in red, and the right part shows the fitted mean and standard deviation of AD in the corresponding WM ROI for four DOC subgroups. Blue represents COMA, red VS, green MCS, and purple PC. * indicates that p < 0.05, and ** indicates that p < 0.01. Fig. 3. Eleven of 14 consciousness-related WM ROIs detected with RD ANCOVAs. These ROIs were significantly different in mean RD across levels of consciousness by group comparisons (p < 0.05, uncorrected). For each subfigure, the left column shows a WM ROI in the standard space indicated by brain areas in red, and the right part shows the fitted mean and standard deviation of RD in the corresponding WM ROI for four DOC subgroups. Blue represents COMA, red VS, green MCS, and purple PC. * indicates that p < 0.05, and ** indicates that p < 0.01. Fig. 4. Correlations between fitted mean AD and the clinical measure of the consciousness level – GCS for each of the three WM ROIs. The light blue represents the fitted mean AD of all the DOC patients, and the dark blue represents the fitted mean AD of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a GCS score of 15. Fig. 5. Correlations between fitted mean AD and the clinical measure of the consciousness level – CRS-R for each of the three WM ROIs. The light blue represents the fitted mean AD of all the DOC patients, and the dark blue represents the fitted mean AD of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a CRS-R score of 23. Fig. 6. Correlations between fitted mean RD and the clinical measure of the consciousness level – GCS for each of the 11 WM ROIs. The light blue represents the fitted mean RD of all the DOC patients, and the dark blue represents the fitted mean RD of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a GCS score of 15. Fig. 7. Correlations between fitted mean RD and the clinical measure of the consciousness level – CRS-R for each of the 11 WM ROIs. The light blue represents the fitted mean RD of all the DOC patients, and the dark blue represents the fitted mean RD of the DOC patients after the exclusion of those with a CRS-R score of 23.

Consciousness as a physical process caused by the organization of energy in the brain Robert Pepperell Fovolab, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, CF5 2YB, UK. [rpepperell@cardiffmet.ac.uk] Pre-production Abstract To explain consciousness as a physical process we must acknowledge the role of energy in the brain. Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behaviour. Recent neuroscientific evidence can be interpreted in a way that suggests consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain. The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness. According to the principle outlined here, energy, along with forces and work, can be described as actualized differences of motion and tension. By observing physical systems, we can infer there is something it is like to undergo actualized difference from the intrinsic perspective of the system. Consciousness occurs because there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo a certain organization of actualized differences in the brain. Keywords: Consciousness, metabolism, energy, brain, information theory, feedback Introduction “If mental processes are indeed physical processes, then there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo certain physical processes. What it is for such a thing to be the case remains a mystery.” (Nagel, 1974) The philosopher Thomas Nagel summarised one of our greatest intellectual challenges: how to explain mental processes as physical processes. The aim of this paper is to outline a principle according to which consciousness could be explained as a physical process caused by the organization of energy in the brain.1 Energy is fundamentally important in all physical processes (Boltzman, 1886; Lotka, 1922; Schrödinger, 1944; Heisenberg, 1958). As the biophysicist Harold Morowitz put it: “the flow of energy through a system acts to organize that system” (Morowitz, 1979). Light, chemical reactions, electricity, mechanical work, heat, and life itself can all be described in terms of energetic activity (Chaisson, 2001; Morowitz and Smith, 2007; Smil, 2008) as can metabolic processes in the body and brain (Magistretti, 2008; Perez Velazquez, 2009). It is surprising, therefore, that energy receives relatively little attention in neuroscientific and psychological studies of consciousness. Leading scientific theories of consciousness do not reference it (Crick and Koch, 2003; Edelman et al., 2011; 1 I take it that physical processes occur in time and space and are causally determined by the actions of energy, forces and work upon matter. I take consciousness to be the capacity for awareness of self and world, which is particularly highly developed in humans. 1 Dehaene, 2014; Oizumi et al., 2014), assign it only a marginal role (Hameroff and Penrose, 2014), or treat it as an information-theoretical quantity (Friston, 2013; Riehl et al., 2017). If it is discussed, it is either as a substrate underpinning higher level emergent dynamics (Deacon, 2013) or as powering neural information processing (Sterling and Laughlin, 2017). This lack of attention is all the more surprising given that some of the pioneers of neurobiology, psychology, and physiology found a central place for energy in their theories, including Hermann von Helmholtz (in Cahan, 1995), Gustav Fechner (Fechner, 1905), Sigmund Freud (Gay, 1998), William James (James, 1907), and Charles Sherrington (Sherrington, 1940).2 There are, however, signs that attention is turning again to energetic or thermodynamic-related theories of consciousness in various branches of science (Deacon, 2013; Collell et al., 2015; Annila, 2016; Tozzi et al., 2016; Street, 2016; Marchetti, 2018) and in philosophy of mind (Strawson, 2008/2017). The present paper builds on this work by proposing that energy, and the related properties of force and work, can be described as actualized differences of motion and tension, and that — in Nagel’s phrase — ‘there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo’ actualised differences. Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests that consciousness is a product of the way energetic activity is organized in the brain. Following this evidence, I propose that we experience consciousness because there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo a certain organization of actualized differences in the brain. Several researchers have tackled the problem of consciousness by treating the brain in principle as a neural information processor (e.g. Tononi et al., 2016; Dehaene et al., 2017; Ruffini, 2017). I will argue that the governing principle of the brain at the neural level is not information processing but energy processing. The information-theoretic approach to measuring and modelling brain activity, however, can usefully complement the energetic approach outlined here. 1. Consciousness and energy in the brain We do not fully understand the biological function of energy in the brain or how it relates to the presence of consciousness in the person.3 Given that the human brain accounts for only 2% of the body’s mass it demands a large portion of the body’s total energy budget, some 20% (Laughlin, 2001; Magistretti & Allaman, 2013). Most of this energy is derived from the oxidization of glucose supplied to the cerebral tissue through the blood. Roy and Sherrington were the first to propose a direct correspondence between changes in cerebral blood flow and functional activity (Roy and Sherrington, 1890). Many features of human brain anatomy, such as the number of blood vessels per unit of space, the lengths of neural connections, the width of axons, and even the ratio of brain to stomach size are thought to be determined by the high metabolic demands associated with complex cognitive processing (Allen, 2009). 2 For further discussion on the historical context see Pepperell (2018). Although for the sake of brevity I refer in this paper to consciousness occurring in the brain, consciousness is something that people undergo. Brains cannot sustain consciousness independently of the people in which they are housed (Pepperell, 1995/2003). 3 2 For many neuroscientists, the main function of energy in the brain is to fuel neural signalling and information processing (Magistretti, 2013); energy supply is seen as a constraint on the design and operation of the brain’s computational architecture (Laughlin, 2001; Hall et al., 2012; Sterling and Laughlin, 2017). It has been calculated, for example, that the rate of energy supply available to the human brain places an upper ‘speed limit’ on neural processing of about 1 kHz (Attwell and Gibb, 2005). And Schölvinck et al. (2008) estimated that conscious perception of sensory stimuli increases energy consumption in primate brains by less that 6% compared to energy consumption in the absence of conscious perception.4 They attribute this relatively small change to an energy efficient “design strategy” of the brain in which decreases in neural activity play a functional role in information processing as well as increases. Energy, on these accounts, plays no direct role in higher mental processes, like consciousness. Robert Shulman and colleagues have argued there is a direct connection between energy in the brain and consciousness (Shulman et al., 2009; Shulman, 2013). By studying the progressive loss of behavioural response to external stimulus from wakefulness to deep anaesthesia, they found a corresponding reduction and localisation of cerebral metabolism (a marker of energy consumption). Therefore, they argue, high global metabolism is necessary for consciousness. However, they are also clear that high global metabolic rates are not sufficient as patients with locked-in-syndrome and those who suffer from some forms of epileptic seizure can register high levels of global brain metabolism without exhibiting the observable behaviour that we expect from a conscious person (Shulman, 2013; Bazzigaluppi et al., 2017). Shulman’s thesis has been challenged on several grounds (Seth, 2014). For example, it has been pointed out that behavioural responsiveness may be inadequate as a measure of sentience given that vestiges of consciousness have been detected in people diagnosed as being in a vegetative state with a low cerebral metabolism (Owen et al., 2006). Moreover, some patients who recover from a vegetative state to regain consciousness do so despite having substantially reduced cerebral metabolism compared with normal controls (Laureys et al., 1999; Chatelle et al., 2011). In recent years there has been a growing interest in intrinsic brain activity (Clarke and Sokoloff, 1999; Raichle, 2011). This background or spontaneous activity occurs in the resting awake state in the absence of external stimulation or directed attention, and its energy demands can greatly exceed those of localised activation due to task performance or attention. The discovery of this so-called ‘dark energy’ in the brain (Raichle, 2010) was greeted with some surprise in the neuroscience community and remains controversial (Morcom & Fletcher, 2007). Work on intrinsic activity led to the identification of a ‘default mode network’ in the brain, an extended set of interconnected regions that uses high levels of energy when a person is in a non-attentive state. Energy use drops significantly in this network when a more cognitively demanding task, such as paying attention to a stimulus, is performed (Shulman et al., 1997; Raichle et al., 2001). Vanhaudenhuyse et al. (2009) reported that connectivity within the default mode network in patients with severe brain-damage deteriorates in proportion to the degree of conscious impairment, suggesting it plays an important role in sustaining consciousness. Meanwhile, it is somewhat surprising to find that energy use during non-rapid eye movement sleep remains at ~85% of that in the waking state, while during rapid eye movement sleep it can be as high as in the waking state (Dinuzzo et al., 2017). At the same time, 4 Strictly speaking energy is not consumed but converted from one form to another. 3 consciousness can be minimally sustained with energy use at only 42% of the level that occurs in healthy conscious individuals, suggesting that much cerebral metabolic activity in normal waking states does not directly contribute to consciousness (Stender et al., 2016). Many anaesthetic agents are thought to obliterate consciousness because they reduce the global rate of cerebral metabolism (Hudetz, 2012). Administering ketamine, on the other hand, increases brain metabolism yet can still lead to loss of responsiveness (Pai and Heining, 2007). Overall, it seems we find no clear correlation between the total amount of energy used by the brain, or the location where the energy is used, and the level of consciousness detectable in the person. 2. Consciousness and the organization of energetic processing in the brain An alternative, or perhaps complementary, way to think about this issue is in terms of how the energetic activity in the brain is organized rather than its global level or localisation. Indeed, this has implicitly been the focus of recent research that aims to provide quantitative measures of consciousness levels. In one study, researchers used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to send a magnetic pulse through the brains of healthy controls and patients with various states of impaired consciousness (Casali et al., 2013). By measuring how the pulse perturbed the cortex the researchers were able to determine the relative complexity and extent of the pathways through which the pulse propagated and correlate these to levels of consciousness. The researchers calculated a perturbation-complexity index (PCI) that quantified the levels of consciousness present in each person they studied. This method was further validated as a reliable objective measure of levels of consciousness by Casarotto et al. (2016). The PCI was calculated using data from electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements of the cerebral perturbation following the TMS. Images from the EEG were filtered into binary data that was then analysed using a Lempel–Ziv algorithm, a commonly used information-theoretical technique in which complexity is measured as a function of data string compressibility, with more complex data strings being less compressible (Ziv and Lempel, 1977; Aboy et al., 2006). Other researchers have developed similar informationtheoretical methods for quantifying the complexity of brain activity and levels of consciousness. King et al. (2013) analysed data from 181 EEG recordings of patients who were diagnosed with varying states of impaired consciousness and applied a measure of weighted symbolic mutual information (wSMI) that sharply distinguished between patients in vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and conscious state. Although information theoretic tools were being used to analyse and interpret the data in these studies we should note that what was actually being detected by the experimental procedures was not information per se but the organization of energetic activity or processing in the brain. Energetic processing — the processes by which the brain regulates the flow of energy through its structures — is routinely detected at varying degrees of spatial and temporal resolution, either directly or indirectly, by neuroimaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) and EEG (Shulman, 2013; Bailey et al., 2005; Niedermeyer and Lopes da Silva, 1987). Referring again to the study by Casali et al. (2013), the perturbations from which the PCI was calculated were generated by a pulse of magnetic energy from the TMS and were imaged with EEG that measures electrical voltage differences, that is, fluctuations in energetic potentials between clusters of neurons in the cortex (Niedermeyer and Lopes da Silva, 1987; Hu et al., 2009; Koponen et al., 2015). The PCI and wSMI can therefore 4 be interpreted as measures of the complexity or organization of energetic processing in the brain during the experimental procedures. Subsequent research has directly investigated the connection between brain metabolism (how the brain regulates energy conversion), brain organization, and levels of consciousness by combining EEG measures with PET, a more specific measure of cerebral metabolism. Chennu et al. (2017) collected data from 104 patients in varying states of conscious impairment using both techniques. By analysing this data, they determined a metric that discriminated levels of consciousness to a high degree of accuracy. This study built on previous work by Demertzi et al. (2015) that used fMRI to correlate a measure of intrinsic functional connectivity in the brain with levels of consciousness. The PCI method has been further validated by a study combining EEG and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)PET (Bodart et al., 2017), so reinforcing the link between levels of consciousness and the organization of metabolic activity in the brain. Current brain imaging methods do not strictly speaking detect information processing.5 They do, however, detect changes associated with increases in energy consumption (via fMRI and PET) and fluctuations in electrical potential energy (via EEG), both of which reliably correlate with changes in mental function and behaviour. On the basis of what we can observe, the brain operates according to the principle of energetic processing. The evidence discussed above suggests levels of consciousness are determined by the organization of energy processing in the brain rather than on its global level or localization; wakeful conscious states are associated with more complex organization. To understand why this might be we need to consider the concept of energy in more depth. 3. Energy The concept of energy that we are familiar with today emerged only slowly from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century. It developed through the study of thermodynamics in the nineteenth century, and then found its place at the centre of theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and cosmology in the twentieth (Coopersmith, 2010). In colloquial usage energy refers to ideas of vigour, vitality, power, activity, and zest. In scientific usage, however, energy is defined as the ability of a system to do work.6 Work is defined as the transfer of energy involved in moving an object over a distance by an external force, at least part of which is applied in the direction of the displacement (Duncan, 2002). Scientists and engineers often refer to energy as an abstract property: “Energy is a mathematical abstraction that has no existence apart from its functional relationship to other variables” (Abbott and Van Ness, 1972. See also Rose, 1986). It is a property that can be converted from one form to another, and in an isolated system the total quantity is conserved (Smil, 2008). Despite the enormous amount of interest in the physics of energy and its central importance in so many branches of science, its nature remains in many ways mysterious 5 The authors of Wollstadt (2017), for example, studied the breakdown of local information processing under anaesthesia using information theoretic methods. They point out that the EEG procedure they used did not directly record information processing in the brain but local field potentials, that is, fluctuations in quantities of potential energy. 6 There seems to be an ambiguity in some textbooks about whether energy is an enabling property possessed by a system or body, e.g. Duncan (2002), or a measure of such a property, e.g. Rennie (2015). I will take energy to be a property possessed by systems or bodies, quantities of which can be measured. 5 (Feynman, 1963; Smil, 2008; Coopersmith, 2010) and it has been the subject of relatively little philosophical interrogation (Coelho, 2009). Treating energy as an abstract accounting quantity is perfectly satisfactory for many scientific purposes, where there is little reason to question its nature. But if energetic activity plays a significant role in consciousness, as the evidence cited above suggests it might, then its nature deserves closer scrutiny. The concept of energy in the European intellectual tradition can be traced back to Aristotle who used but never precisely defined the term energeia (ενέργεια) to convey the ideas of action, activity, actuality, being at work, and acting purposefully (Sachs in Aristotle, 2002). Scholars have long debated the best way to translate energeia from ancient Greek. The word ‘energy’ itself has been used, as have ‘activity’ and ‘actuality’, but ‘being-atwork’ is currently favoured, partly due to energeia’s roots in ergon, the ancient Greek for work (Aristotle, 1818; Ellrod, 1982; Sachs in Aristotle, 2002). Modern scholars have tended to quarantine the ancient concept of energeia from contemporary ideas about energy. But Aristotle’s term may still have value when thinking about energy’s nature. This is especially so when we take into account the ideas of Aristotle’s intellectual forebear Heraclitus, whose cosmological view was informed by three main principles: (i) that activity in nature is driven by ‘fire’ — which has been interpreted as synonymous with energy (Heisenberg, 1958), (ii) is subject to continual flux or motion, and (iii) is structured by antagonism or tension and (Kahn, 1989; Sachs in Aristotle, 2002). We now understand there to be two main forms of energy: kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is possessed by objects due to their motion, while potential energy is possessed by objects due to their relative position or configuration. All other forms of energy, such as thermal, electromagnetic, solar, chemical, gravitational, atomic and so on are in themselves forms of either kinetic or potential energy (Duncan, 2002; Smil, 2008). Much can be said about kinetic and potential energy, including the fact that they are causally efficacious, that is, they cause real change and activity in the material world.7 But I want to draw attention here to the fact that they are both expressions of difference. Kinetic energy is difference as motion or change; potential energy is difference as tension or antagonism. Neither kinetic nor potential energy inhere absolutely in objects but are relational properties; motion or change occurs relative to a frame of reference, and tension or antagonism ocuurs between one object, or force, and another. The concept of difference then is of utmost importance when considering the nature of energy and the related properties of force and work.8 4. Actualized difference If energy is the ability to do work then the displacement of a body undergoing work is due to force, defined as the “agency that tends to change the momentum of a massive body” (Rennie, 2015) or less formally as a “push or a pull”. Forces act and react antagonistically in equally opposing pairs and are therefore, like energy, expressions of difference. The discipline of physics finds it convenient to treat energy, forces and work as 7 “Energy may be called the fundamental cause for all change in the world” (Heisenberg, 1958). The neurobiologist Gerald Edelman neatly defined causal efficacy as “The action in the physical world of forces or energies that lead to effects or physical outcomes” (Edelman, 2004). 8 Neuroanthropologist Terence Deacon defines energy as a “relationship of difference” (Deacon, 2013). Note that energy is difference, but not all differences are energy; red is a colour, not all colours are red. 6 distinct quantities to be balanced in abstract mathematical equations. But in nature they are integral and actualized, acting collectively in time and space with causal efficacy. By observing nature, we can infer there is ‘something it is like’ to be a physical system undergoing antagonistic forceful interactions, and what it is like will vary as the interactions vary.9 There is something it is like, for example, to be a piece of rope undergoing great tension that is different from what it is like to be the same rope when relaxed, or for a rock to crash to earth having been in freefall. Some effects of these interactions may be observed from an extrinsic perspective; we may hear a creak or a crunch. But the something it is like to undergo the interactions themselves is an intrinsic property of the observed system to which the extrinsic observer has no access. It is for this reason that its presence and nature can only be inferred.10 This is not to claim that forces acting at the subatomic scale between particles, or at the macro scale in rope or rock, undergo anything like the experience we undergo as conscious humans.11 Something it is like-ness is not in itself consciousness. Rather, it is to recognise that: (i) (ii) (iii) energy, forces, and work are actualized, they are expressions of difference, and there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo actualized difference. I use the term actualized difference to refer to the active, antagonistic nature of energy, forces and work in a way that encompasses Heraclitean cosmology, Aristotlean energeia, and contemporary scientific descriptions of energy. Mathematical equations can represent actualized differences with abstract differences, in the form of symbols and numbers, but not whatever it is that puts the “fire in the equation” (Hawking, 1988).12 For that we must refer back to nature itself — to the territory rather than the map (Korzybski, 1933). 5. Energy and information For many contemporary scientists, information is a fundamental property of nature. For some it is the most fundamental property of nature (Davies, 2010). Neuroscientists often claim that the brain operates according to the principle of information processing. We read that “the brain is fundamentally an organ that manipulates information” (Sterling and Laughlin, 2017) and that brains are “information processing machines” (Ruffini, 2017). Individual neurons are treated as information processing units, while neural firing patterns are converted into sequences of binary digits (1s and 0s) that encode information 9 Nagel clarified the term ‘something it is like’ as meaning not what something resembles but ‘how it is’ for the system (Nagel, 1974). 10 Note that this claim is not as far-fetched as it might at first seem: If (i) consciousness in people is a physical process — due to energy, forces and work — and (ii) we infer the presence of consciousness in other people on the basis of observing them extrinsically — as we habitually do — and (iii) there is something it is like to be a conscious person — as we assume there is — then (iv) we routinely infer the presence of an intrinsic something it is like-ness in a physical process on the basis of observing it from an extrinsic perspective. However, as discussed below, human consciousness is a particular kind of something it is like-ness that occurs only when certain conditions are met. 11 In discussions of the nature and behaviour of forces at the microscopic level we often find references to the way they ‘feel’ (Feynman, 1963), or the way they ‘experience’ each other in fields (Rennie, 2015). It would be interesting to investigate what motivates the use of such terms in this context. 12 The difference between 1 and 0, for example, is an abstract difference conceived within a conscious mind. 7 (Koch, 2004). Recent prominent theories claim consciousness is identical with (Tononi et al., 2016) or results from (Dehaene et al., 2017) certain kinds of information structures or information processes in brains. Information is variously and sometimes imprecisely defined in science (Capurro and Hjørland, 2005), its meaning is still strongly contested (Lombardi et al., 2016; Roederer, 2016), and many people regard it as being to some extent subjective, relativistic, or observer-dependent (von Foerster, 2003; Deacon, 2010; Werner, 2011; Logan, 2012; Searle, 2013; de-Wit et al., 2016). The term is often used in science colloquially (meaning ‘what is conveyed by an arrangement of things’) or “intuitively” (Erra et al., 2016). And where one might expect to find a clear definition, such as in a dictionary of physics, biology or chemistry, none appears (Rennie, 2015; Hine, 2015; Rennie, 2016). The most widely cited technical definition of information is that given by Claude Shannon (1948) as part of his mathematical theory of communication. For Shannon, information does not refer to meaning or semantics, as it does colloquially. The information is the amount of uncertainty in a message (a sequence of data) measured through probabilistic analysis of its elements. Information theory has developed into an exceptionally powerful mathematical tool that can be used, among many other things, to measure the complexity of physical systems. But a quantity of Shannon information is a measure of what can be known about a system as distinct from the system itself. The information lies with the measurer rather than the measured.13 The other commonly cited definition of information is Gregory Bateson’s “a difference that makes a difference” (Bateson, 1979). Like his fellow cybernetic theorist Norbert Wiener (1948), Bateson sharply distinguished information from energy. Difference is not a property of what he calls the “ordinary material universe” governed by energetic activity. It is not subject to the effects of impacts and forces but is an abstract, relational property of the mind that exists outside the realm of physical causation: “Difference, being of the nature of relationship, is not located in time or space”. Information defined according to Bateson as a “nonsubstantial” abstract difference cannot be used to explain consciousness as a physical process. 14 The integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT) proposed by Tononi and colleagues provides an alternative, non-Shannonian, definition of information as “a form in cause-effect space” (Tononi et al., 2016). Cause-effect space, according to their theory, contains a “conceptual structure”— a constellation of related concepts — that is specified by the “physical substrate of consciousness” (PSC), this being the precise complexes of neural activation involved in any experience. Each conscious experience is identical with this “form”, denoted Φmax when maximally integrated. But while IIT is presented as a 13 Arieh Ben-Naim sets out in some detail how Shannon information is a probabilistic measure rather than a physical property (Ben-Naim, 2015). Note that the act of measurement presupposes a conscious mind capable of carrying out the measurement procedure and interpreting the result. 14 Had he a fuller understanding of the nature of energy Bateson might not have been so dismissive about its role in mental processes. In Mind and Nature (Bateson, 1979) he referred only to kinetic energy (which he defined as “MV2”), thus ignoring potential energy, and was by his own admission “not up to date in modern physics”. In fact, slightly modifying Bateson’s much-cited phrase to an actualized difference that makes a difference yields a description of the essence of energetic action, that is, the way energy, forces and work act antagonistically to effect change and cause further actions. 8 theory of integrated information, it could equally serve as a theory of how energetic processing is organized since the PSC consists in the causally interrelated patterns of neural firing that are identical with the conscious experience. Treating brains as neural information processors does not help us to understand consciousness as a physical process because information, according to the commonly accepted definitions, is not a physical property of brains at the neural level; there is no information in a neuron.15 It is useful, however, to apply information-theoretical methods to study the organization of physical systems, such as brains. Norbert Wiener (1948) stated: “…the amount of information in a system is a measure of its degree of organization…” As exemplified in several studies and theories cited here, we can measure and model the way the organization of energetic processes in the brain contributes to the presence of consciousness in a person.16 But the abstract difference between 0 and 1 is not equivalent to the actualized difference between a neuron at rest and firing. 6. The brain as a ‘difference engine’ The challenge of explaining consciousness as a physical process is made more tractable, I suggest, by recognising that brains operate on the principle of energetic processing. Neurons, in concert with other material structures such as astrocytes and mitochondria, convert, distribute, and dissipate electro-chemical energy through highly organized pathways in order to drive behaviours critical to the organism’s survival. This makes sense when we consider the fact that organisms inhabit a physical world that is structured through the actions of energy, forces and work. To survive and prosper in this world they must continually work to acquire new supplies of high-grade or free energy to maintain an internal state far from thermodynamic equilibrium (Boltzmann, 1886; Schrödinger, 1944; Schneider & Sagan, 2005). Besides internal regulation, nervous systems enable organisms to perform two major tasks: discriminating between variations in environmental conditions, such as temperature, acidity, salinity, nutrient levels, or presence of predators, and moving towards environmental conditions that are beneficial to survival and away from those that are harmful. The mechanisms that enable performance of these tasks can be seen at work in organisms with relatively simple nervous systems, such as the C. elegans worm (Sterling and Laughlin, 2017). Chemical gradients in the environment activate chemosensory neurons on the worm’s surface that connect via interneurons to motor neurons that control the action of dorsal and ventral muscles, which, in turn, control the worm’s movement (de Bono and Maricq, 2005). In this way, differences of chemical potential energy in the environment are converted into differences of electro-chemical energy in the sensing apparatus of the 15 Brains — as parts of people — process information in the colloquial sense, just as they process abstract ideas, equations, numbers, thoughts, emotions, or memories. But they do so as a consequence of the underlying energetic processing (conversion, distribution, dissipation) going on in neural tissue. Computers also ‘process’ information in the colloquial sense. Mechanically and electronically speaking, however, they actually manipulate energy states (voltages, light, etc.) the results of which we, as conscious people, interpret informationally. It is worth noting that all mechanical information processing necessarily entails the dissipation of a certain amount of energy (Landauer, 1961). Recent experiments have confirmed this principle and demonstrated the intimate link between energy and what many refer to as information (Bérut et al., 2012). 16 Logan (2012), in work undertaken with Stuart Kauffman and others, defines ‘biotic information’ as the organization of the exchange of energy and matter between organism and environment — a further example of information theory being used to quantify the biological organization of energy flows. 9 organism and then into differences of chemical energy in the muscles, which, by antagonistic action, are converted into the kinetic energy of the organism’s movement. The organism makes discriminations in the environment relevant to its interests so that it can take appropriate actions in response. We can see the same basic principle at work in biology of far greater complexity. The human visual system, for example, is highly demanding on the brain’s energy budget (Wong-Riley, 2010). But the evolutionary benefit of human vision is the capacity it confers to guide finely controlled bodily actions in light of environmental conditions. This is achieved through an intricate sequence of energy conversions, beginning with the arrival at the retina of electro-magnetic energy from the environment and cascading through numerous energetic exchanges in the neural pathways of the visual system that progressively differentiate features of the environment (Hubel and Livingstone, 1987). This frequently results in the conversion of electro-chemical energy in the motor system and muscles to the kinetic energy of bodily movement (Goodale, 2014). The fact that our complex biology supports so rich a repertoire of sensory discriminations and motor responses may be only a difference of degree rather than of kind with the humble worm. We might think of sensory cells responding to stimulation from environmental energy by becoming excited or by increasing local neural activation. But vertebrate photoreceptors are, contrary to what one might expect, hyperpolarised by photon absorption. This means they ‘turn off’ when exposed to light and ‘turn on’ in the dark, even though they use more energy in the dark (Wong-Riley, 2010).17 Meanwhile, some of the neurobiological evidence cited in Section 1 cautions us against assuming that sensory stimulation always results in increased neural activation. Decreases in activation in the brain can occur in response to cognitively demanding tasks, yet can go unnoticed in imaging studies with methodologies designed to detect task-evoked increases in metabolic rate above baseline (Raichle et al., 2001; Schölvinck et al., 2008). And of course not all neural activation is excitatory; neural inhibition is vitally important in brain function, as elsewhere in the nervous system, and this also entails an energetic cost (Buzsáki et al., 2007). There is evidence that an optimal balance between neural excitation and inhibition (E-I balance) in the cerebral cortex is critical for the brain to function well (Zhou & Yu, 2018). In light of these mechanisms, the energy-hungry brain might be understood as a kind of ‘difference engine’ that works by actuating complex patterns of motion (action potential propagation) and tension (antagonistic pushes and pulls between forces) at various spatiotemporal scales. Firing rates and electrical potentials vary within neurons, between neurons, between networks of neurons, and between brain regions, so maximising the differential states the brain undergoes. A decrease in activation, or a reduction in firing rate, can create a differential state just as much as an increase. And, as is indicated by the work of Schölvinck et al. (2008), deactivation may be an energy efficient way for the brain to increase its repertoire of differential states. Maintaining a global E-I balance across spatiotemporal scales, meanwhile, is thought to promote ‘efficient coding’ in sensory and cognitive processing (Zhou & Yu, 2018). All this lends support to the idea, proposed above, that one of the roles of energetic activity in the brain is to efficiently actuate differences of motion and tension that advance the interests of the brain-bearing organism. It is the actualized difference that makes the difference. 17 It turns out this arrangement is energy efficient for the visual system overall (Wong-Riley, 2010). 10 7. Energetic organization as the cause of consciousness In theory, we could account for all the highly complex processes occurring in the brain in terms of energy, forces and work, that is, as physical, chemical and biological processes. But the seemingly unassailable problem of how any of these processes might cause consciousness remains. The principle outlined here — that there is something it is like, intrinsically to undergo differences due to the antagonistic action of energy, forces and work — may offer a toehold in the slippery face of the problem. There is something it is like, intrinsically, to be a tense muscle that is different from being a relaxed muscle. There is something it is like, intrinsically, to be networks of neurons in fantastically complex states of actualized differentiation from other networks, with action potentials propagating through vast arrays of fibres. But all this something is it like-ness is not in itself consciousness. Muscles are not conscious, and networks of neurons are active in the brain when we are in dreamless sleep or under anaesthesia. What is it about the organization of energetic processes in the brain, as discussed in Section 2, that determines the level of consciousness we experience? We gain some insight into the association between consciousness and the organization of energetic processing in the brain from studies of anaesthesia. The reason why anaesthetic agents obliterate consciousness is not understood (Mashour, 2004). Recent work has focused on the ways in which they interfere with the brain’s capacity to generate patterns of localised differentiation (often termed ‘information’) and to bind together or integrate those patterns across widely distributed brain networks (Hudetz, 2012; Hudetz & Mashour, 2016). Evidence from studies on the neurological effects of anaesthetics suggests that consciousness is lost as distant regions of the brain become functionally isolated and global integration breaks down (Lewis et al., 2012). The idea that consciousness depends on maximising differentiation and integration in the brain lies at the heart of IIT (Tononi, 2012; Oizumi et al., 2014). A potential mechanism supporting global integration of local differentiation is recurrent or reentrant processing, in which widely distributed areas of the brain engage in complex loops of cortical feedback via massively parallel connections (Edelman et al. 2011; Edelman & Gally, 2013). A number of studies of the effects of anaesthetics have shown that they disrupt feedback connectivity, and hence integration, particularly in the frontoparietal area of the brain (Lee et al., 2009; Hudetz & Mashour, 2016). Studies of brain organization during deep sleep have also reported an increase in modularity consistent with the loss of integration among regions of the brain found in the awake state (Tagliazucchi et al., 2013). This suggests that the presence of consciousness in a wakeful person depends on a certain level of functional integration supported by cortical feedback loops (Edelman, 2004; Alkire et al., 2008) but it is not known how or why. A major contribution of cybernetic theory was to recognise the importance of feedback mechanisms for controlling behaviour in mechanical and living systems (Wiener, 1948; Bateson, 1972). Feedback systems are self-referential; behaviour of one part of the system casually affects another, which in turn affects the first. Such systems are apt to generate patterns of behaviour that are an irreducible property of the system as a whole (Hofstadter, 2007; Deacon, 2013). One example is video feedback, which occurs when a video camera is pointed at a screen showing the output from the camera (Crutchfield, 1984). When correctly arranged the screen will at first display a tunnel-like image that will then spon- 11 taneously ‘blossom’ into an intricate, semi-stable pattern of remarkable diversity and fascinating beauty (see Figure 1).18 Since this is an energetically actuated process we can infer, following the arguments already given, that there is something it is like to be the video feedback system in full bloom, from its intrinsic perspective. Figure 1. Stills from a video feedback sequence generated by the author. These patterns are created by pointing a video camera at a screen showing the camera’s output. What begins as a tunnellike images soon ‘blossoms’ into an ever-changing pattern of great diversity and fascinating beauty. © Robert Pepperell, 2018. Gerald Edelman proposed that “phenomenal experience itself is entailed by appropriate reentrant intracortical activity” (Edelman & Gally, 2013). The human brain undergoes recursive or reentrant behaviour of an unimaginably higher order of complexity than in the video system.19 But the underlying operating principle may be analogous. Video feedback arises because the system is organized as a self-observing loop. If we assume that reentrant activity in the brain is also a kind of self-observing loop in which processes in one part the brain both affect and are affected by processes in other parts, then we can envisage a kind of pattern blooming in the brain analogous to that we see in video feedback. This pattern would be actuated by sufficiently organized electro-chemical activity, among neurons and neurotransmitters, channelled through reentrant neural circuits. The something it is like-ness a brain organized in this way would be undergoing is of a different order to that of a brain with diminished integration in dreamless sleep or under anaesthesia. No other physical system, as far as we know, has the same capacity for complex (differentiated and integrated) recursive processing as the human brain, and that dynamic organization reaches its apogee when we are wakefully conscious, as suggested by the evidence cited in Section 2. When the energetic processes in our brains are operating at a certain level of dynamic recursive organization — the “appropriate reentrant intracortical activity” — then we undergo something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo something it is like … recursively. In other words, there is something it is like, intrinsically, to be something it is like, recursively, to undergo the particular organization of actualized differences found in the conscious brain. For this we have the most direct and irrefutable evidence possible — what it’s like to undergo our own conscious experience.20 18 Examples can be found on YouTube. One way to quantify this relative complexity would be to follow the proposal of Chaisson (2001) and compare the energy rate density (a measure he calls Φm) between the two systems. Note also that Edelman and Gally are careful to distinguish cybernetic feedback in machine control systems from re-entrant processing in the brain, the latter being far more complex (Edelman & Gally, 2013). 20 ‘I think therefore I am undergoing a certain recursive organization of actualized differences.’ Models of consciousness based on feedback loops in the brain have been discussed before, including by Douglas 19 12 Is it reasonable then to propose that consciousness is caused by the way energetic activity is dynamically and recursively organized in the brain? It is no less reasonable than attributing the causes of other biological phenomena, such as the behaviour of the nematode worm, to the way energetic activity is organized. If consciousness is a physical (biological and chemical) process, and if physical processes are caused by energetic activity (alongside forces and work), then consciousness, in principle, could be caused by energetic activity and the way it is organized. 8. Naturalising consciousness In 1937–8 Charles Sherrington gave a series of lectures on the relationship between energy and mind, collected in the volume Man on his Nature (Sherrington, 1940). Drawing on the physics of his day, Sherrington understood the natural world to be composed of forms of energy. But he could not conceive how the mind could be forged from energy: “The energy-concept of Science collects all so-called ‘forms’ of energy into a flock and looks in vain for the mind among them.” The mystery was deepened for him by the knowledge, then emerging through studies of electrical and metabolic activity in the brain, of how intimately energy and the mind must be linked. He was compelled to wonder “Is the mind in any strict sense energy?” but reluctantly concluded that “…thoughts, feelings, and so on are not amenable to the energy (matter) concept.” They lie beyond the purview of natural science, despite the “embarrassment” this causes for biology. If we are to naturalise consciousness, then we must reconcile energy and the mind. I have outlined a principle that may help to explain consciousness as a physical process. It entails re-examining the modern scientific concept of energy in the light of Aristotle’s energeia and its Heraclitean roots. Accordingly, we arrive at a view of physical processes in nature as actualized differences of motion and tension. Sherrington understood that “Energy acts, i.e. is motion.” But he went on “…of a mind a difficulty is to know whether it is motion.” Treating the brain as a difference engine the work of which is to actualize and organize differences of motion and tension that serve the interests of the organism is, I submit, a natural approach to understanding consciousness as a physical process. Conclusion If consciousness is a natural physical process then it should be explicable in terms of energy, forces and work. Energy is a physical property of nature that is causally efficacious and, like forces and work, can be conceived as actualized differences of motion and tension. Evidence from neurobiology indicates that the brain operates on the principle of energetic processing and that a certain organization of energy in the brain, measured with information theoretic techniques, can be reliably predict the presence and level of consciousness. Since energy is causally efficacious in physical systems, it is reasonable to claim that consciousness is in principle caused by energetic activity and how it is dynamically organized in the brain. Hofstadter in his book I am a Strange Loop (Hofstadter, 2007). I have also previously proposed a feedback model of consciousness partly inspired by Edelman’s theory of reentrant processing as part of an attempt to design an artificially conscious work of art (Pepperell, 2003). 13 Information in the biological context is best understood as a measure of the way energetic activity is organized, that is, its complexity or degree of differentiation and integration. Information theoretic techniques provide powerful tools for measuring, modelling, and mapping the organization of energetic processes, but we should not confuse the map with the territory. Actualized differences, as distinct from abstract differences represented in mathematics and information theory, are characterised by there being something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo those differences, that is, to undergo antagonistic states of opposing forces. All actualized differences undergo this something it is like-ness, but not all are conscious. It is proposed that a particular kind of activity occurs in human brains that causes our conscious experience. It is a certain dynamic organization of energetic processes having a high degree of differentiation and integration. This organization is recursively self-referential and results in a pattern of energetic activity that blossoms to a degree of complexity sufficient for consciousness. If consciousness is a physical process, and physical processes are driven by actualized differences of motion and tension, then there is something it is like to undergo actualized differences organized in a certain way in the brain, and this is what we experience — intrinsically.21 Acknowledgements I am grateful to the following for discussions and suggestions: Alistair Burleigh, Alan Dix, Chris Doran, Robert K. Logan, Heddwyn Loudon, Chen Song, Galen Strawson, Emmett Thompson, Sander Van der Cruys, and to the reviewers for their comments and criticism. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the Vice Chancellor’s Board of Cardiff Metropolitan University. References Abbott, M., and Van Ness, C. (1972). Theory and Problems of Thermodynamics, by Schaum's Outline Series in Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Aboy, M., Hornero, R., Abasolo, D., and Alvarez, D. (2006) Interpretation of the Lempel-Ziv Complexity Measure in the Context of Biomedical Signal Analysis. 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Consciousness is learning: predictive processing systems that learn by binding may perceive themselves as conscious. V.A. Aksyuk, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, 100 BUREAU DR., GAITHERSBURG MD 20899 USA VLADIMIR.AKSYUK@NIST.GOV Abstract Machine learning algorithms have achieved superhuman performance in specific complex domains. Yet learning online from few examples and efficiently generalizing across domains remains elusive. In humans such learning proceeds via declarative memory formation and is closely associated with consciousness. Predictive processing has been advanced as a principled Bayesian inference framework for understanding the cortex as implementing deep generative perceptual models for both sensory data and action control. However, predictive processing offers little direct insight into fast compositional learning or the mystery of consciousness. Here we propose that through implementing online learning by hierarchical binding of unpredicted inferences, a predictive processing system may flexibly generalize in novel situations by forming working memories for perceptions and actions from single examples, which can become shortand long-term declarative memories retrievable by associative recall. We argue that the contents of such working memories are unified yet differentiated, can be maintained by selective attention and are consistent with observations of masking, postdictive perceptual integration, and other paradigm cases of consciousness research. We describe how the brain could have evolved to use perceptual value prediction for reinforcement learning of complex action policies simultaneously implementing multiple survival and reproduction strategies. ‘Conscious experience’ is how such a learning system perceptually represents its own functioning, suggesting an answer to the meta problem of consciousness. Our proposal naturally unifies feature binding, recurrent processing, and predictive processing with global workspace, and, to a lesser extent, the higher order theories of consciousness. We provide a qualitative but specific functional description of the proposed information processing architecture to facilitate experimental testing, refinement or falsification. While such a system is in principle straightforward to implement numerically, ethical implications of such numerical experiments ought to be considered carefully. Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 3 PERCEPTION .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Background – predictive processing framework. ..................................................................................... 5 Hierarchical learning by binding – rationale. ............................................................................................ 7 Unified episodic and semantic memory record and associative recall. ................................................. 10 Perceptual unity. ..................................................................................................................................... 13 Quickly forming causal connections entails a global workspace. ........................................................... 14 Working memory enabled by selective attention. ................................................................................. 15 Defining ‘consciousness’ and the ‘conscious contents’. ......................................................................... 17 Transparency of perceptual models, higher order theories, ‘experience’ and ‘self’.............................. 19 The meta problem of consciousness. ..................................................................................................... 21 ACTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 23 Reinforcement learning of complex gene-proliferating actions. ............................................................ 23 Value learning. ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Action encoding in predictive processing. .............................................................................................. 26 Action learning and exploration-exploitation tradeoff. .......................................................................... 27 Imagination and thinking. ....................................................................................................................... 28 Procedural knowledge and perceptual knowledge. ............................................................................... 28 DISCUSSION................................................................................................................................................. 30 States of consciousness. ......................................................................................................................... 30 Measurement of consciousness. ............................................................................................................ 31 Outlook and open questions................................................................................................................... 32 Summary. ................................................................................................................................................ 33 BOX 1. Meeting the Hard Criteria for a theory of consciousness ............................................................... 33 Empirical phenomena of consciousness being addressed by the proposal: .......................................... 33 Meeting Hard Criteria: ............................................................................................................................ 34 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................... 34 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 34 INTRODUCTION The field of machine learning advanced explosively in the last 3 decades and enabled numerous practical applications in the areas of image and language processing and autonomous control. Deep learning and reinforcement learning (Sutton and Barto 1998) principles enable machines that learned chess, go and computer games from scratch (Silver et al. 2018; Mnih et al. 2015), and left humans well behind in performance. However, while deep learning, artificial neural networks and reinforcement learning were largely inspired by the biological systems, the overarching information processing principles in the biological brains remain poorly understood. In biological systems in-situ learning and behavior adaptation have been honed by evolution to confer survival and reproduction advantages despite their significant energetic and other costs. Meanwhile, learning machines are still unable to efficiently learn online, in the real world, from few examples and to incrementally combine and generalize useful behavior patterns across domains (Kaelbling 2020) – the tasks mammals excel at. In humans this type of learning can be linked to forming declarative memories, which is an indicator of conscious information processing. Thus, understanding consciousness is not only one of the preeminent intellectual challenges of our time, but, viewed from the fundamental statistical and machine learning perspective, may lead to radical practical advances enabling the next generation of artificial learning agents. Since the turn of the century the problem of human consciousness has been at the focus of intense and growing experimental, theoretical and philosophical attention. While initial empirical investigations were organized around searching for the neural correlates of consciousness (Crick and Koch 1990), more recently a variety of conceptual frameworks and theories of consciousness (ToCs) (Seth and Bayne 2022) have been advanced to provide the intellectual scaffold for orienting the empirical studies. However, despite the proliferation of ToCs, they remain largely incongruent, with each one seemingly focusing on specific aspects of consciousness and the corresponding neurobiological and empirical data (Doerig, Schurger, and Herzog 2021). There is currently no common theoretical paradigm connecting across the field and no clear agreement as to the exact meaning of the term ‘consciousness’. All leading ToCs contain important empirically supported insights, but there is currently no conceptual approach that can unify these descriptions as aspects of a common model. Ideally, consciousness would be understood as an inherent aspect of a broader unified model of cognition seamlessly including attention and affect together with learning, perception and action, describing how the perceptions and reports of the ‘subjective experience’ may arise, and how the system’s overall function confers an evolutionary advantage. Maintaining organism homeostasis, while crucially important, is only one of many gene proliferating strategies that are evidently being implemented through the general and flexible adaptation and control enabled by the brain. If efficient and general learning is a core function of this system, and declarative learning is a key part of it, so is consciousness. Declarative learning, proceeding through working memory (Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell 2000), is directly related to consciousness – we form declarative memories of things we are ‘conscious of’. While declarative learning can dramatically fail in fully conscious humans with certain types of amnesia, such failure may be understood as downstream of consciousness. The ability to quickly learn by dynamically forming novel associations of multiple perceptions and actions in ‘working memory’ remains intact, enabling flexible and adaptive behavioral response to novel stimuli, despite the failure to retain and consolidate (optimize) this new knowledge for future use via the short- and long-term memory. It is therefore compelling to consider consciousness as a manifestation of a learning process. The relationship between consciousness and learning figures prominently in several ToCs (Lamme 2006; Cleeremans et al. 2020; Cleeremans 2011; Birch, Ginsburg, and Jablonka 2020; Singer 2001). Notably, consciousness has been connected to dynamic binding of known perceptual features for representing novel compound objects (Singer 2001; Crick and Koch 2003; Treisman 2003), and both learning and forming dynamic connections between perceptual features are key in the recurrent processing theory (Lamme 2006). Here we develop a conceptual proposal for the functional organization of a biological or an artificial conscious agent as a learning system that combines learning by binding with predictive processing (PP) (Hohwy and Seth 2020; Hohwy 2020; Clark 2013) for perception, and active inference (K. Friston et al. 2017; K. J. Friston et al. 2010; Parr and Friston 2019) and reinforcement learning (RL) (Montague, Dayan, and Sejnowski 1996; Schultz, Dayan, and Montague 1997; Cohen et al. 2012) for action. Functionally, the proposed learning architecture constantly posits and tests new perceptual hypotheses by introducing new causes that minimize the largest and most time-correlated prediction errors, attempting to find common hidden causes that bind these otherwise-unpredicted perceptual inferences. The specific perceptual features that are being bound are what the system perceives as its conscious contents, and the process of hypothesis generation is perceived as ‘being conscious’. We describe how the typical reports referring to ‘conscious experience’ originate from perceptual representations the system learns to infer about itself and how the proposed functional organization entails these representations, including unified yet differentiated perception, short and long-term memory formation and associative recall, attention and working memory, affect, multimodal thinking, action and different types of learning. Neural implementations of our proposal’s three constitutive information processing functions – PP, feature binding, and RL – have been broadly discussed in the literature, with neural circuits proposed for PP and identified for RL, and feature binding variously related to recurrent processing (Lamme 2006), neural coalitions (Crick and Koch 2003) and synchronization in the cortico-thalamic system (Singer 2001). Furthermore, we will argue that our proposal entails as its consequences the key insights underlying global workspace (Baars 1995; 2005; Dehaene and Changeux 2011; Mashour et al. 2020) and high order theories (Cleeremans et al. 2020; Cleeremans 2011; Brown, Lau, and LeDoux 2019). Lastly, our answer to the meta version (Chalmers 2018) of the hard problem (Chalmers 1995) proceeds largely along the illusionist approach, similar, for example, to the one described recently in the context of the attention schema ToC (Graziano et al. 2020). In the following manuscript, the first major section introduces the learning functional architecture and discusses its consequences with the focus on perception. The second major section expands the architecture to include action learning and optimization by future value estimation and RL. The first section introduces learning-by-binding as a natural complement to the conventional PP learning, enabling Bayesian learning of new categorical causes for sensory data. We then explore the implications of this architecture, arguing that it directly entails formation of a unified perceptual representation and a corresponding memory record accessible by associative recall, as well as the appearance of a global workspace, whereby binding immediately connects perceived features to a broad range of possible actions, including maintaining them in the workspace by selective attention. We discuss how conscious contents are defined by this functional account of the proposed learning architecture. Finally, we discuss the transparent and hierarchical nature of the learned perceptual models, including the higher order perceptions of ‘experience arising’ and ‘self’, and argue how transparency gives raise to the hard problem illusion. In the second section we consider an information processing system evolved for learning, via temporal difference RL (TDRL) (Sutton and Barto 1998), action policies that implement multiple survival and reproduction strategies. We discuss how perception may be optimized for guiding action and estimating the future value of the current state needed for TDRL. We adapt the active inference approach of representing both actions and perceptions within the same categorical PP model, whereby actions may manifest as selective attention and imagination as well as motor execution. We argue that the learningby-binding mechanism, applied to actions, rapidly and directly modifies the ongoing action policy by making new cross-predictive links between perceptions and actions – forming declarative action memories, subject to RL rules. The TDRL framework with explicit future value estimation allows action learning toward distinct survival and reproduction goals implicitly encoded via separate categories of neuro-biologically generated internal reward signals. We believe that learning by binding applied to deep generative models for perception and action results in the sample-efficient, generalizable, compositional and incremental online learning, which is the hallmark of conscious information processing in humans and which is currently lacking in artificial agents (Kaelbling 2020). PERCEPTION Background – predictive processing framework. Within the predictive processing framework, we first consider a simplified perception-only system that learns, over long timescales, a generative model of incoming sensory data and perceives by dynamically inferring the learned causes at each moment to minimize sensory data prediction errors. A perfect prediction would be achieved if using the inferred causes and the perceptual data at a given moment in time, the system updates the causes at the subsequent times such that the model exactly predicts the subsequent sensory data. However, no prediction is perfect, and the inferences of causes are dynamically updated based on minimizing the local prediction errors within the model, implementing approximate Bayesian inference. Moreover, the same perception errors are used to improve the model by learning over the long term, modifying its causal structure, such as by quantitatively changing how individual causes are inferred from and, in turn, predict their ‘feature’ causes, as well as by learning new causes with predictive power over sensory data. In a typical PP model (Figure 1a), causes are interconnected in a deep hierarchical architecture with a bidirectional, generative dynamic relationship. Within such a generative model, the causes predict the likelihoods of their features down to the sensory data, as well as their own and other cause likelihoods forward in time. While higher-level causes influence their lower-level features via prediction, the prediction errors from features in turn dynamically change the inferred likelihoods of the higher-level causes. Learning conventionally proceeds by finding mutual activation weights, that is, inference and prediction strengths minimizing the local prediction errors over the long term. These locally-hierarchical relationships express the key assumption (induction bias defining the hypothesis space) that the sensory data is described by causal relationships between wholes and their features. Additional regularizing assumptions may be used, such as, for example, particular global hierarchical topology, sparsity within subsets of causes (e.g., mutual exclusion), or particular time dependence such as finite persistence. Both continuous-valued and discrete (categorical) causes can be combined within PP models (K. J. Friston, Parr, and de Vries 2017). The simpler categorical causes are described by single scalar values denoting the likelihood of a cause being present, i.e., a single continuous-valued precision is the only number associated with each discrete cause. For example, how likely is the ‘cat’ explanation for the current sensory data, on a scale from 0 to 1? Continuous-valued scalar and vector quantities and more general continuous-valued objects can also be represented by categorical causes as likelihood distributions on discretized maps that can be 1-dimensional, 2-dimensional or have more complex topologies, and can have global or local likelihood normalization, smoothness and other regularization rules imposed among the map elements. This is consistent with many map-like neural column areas across the neocortex. Figure 1. Predictive processing and learning new causes by feature binding. A generative predictive processing model (a) encodes the world and action state within a hierarchy of discrete connected elements (middle). Each element (right) encodes a scalar state of a single cause (e.g., a categorical cause likelihood) and the corresponding scalar prediction error. Multiple elements may interact to represent probability distribution maps (top right). The causes higher in the hierarchy predict the lower ones (blue solid arrows) and receive their prediction errors (red dashed arrows) for inference. The lowest levels represent sensory inputs with externally-given states and actuation outputs with the prediction-dictated states. To maintain the predictive power in the presence of processing latencies, the cause dynamics at the higher levels is slower than at the lower levels, such that higher levels encode more persistent and more abstract causes. (b) illustrates the theorized learning mechanism for new categorical causes. Whenever several feature causes, such as shapes, colors, locations, etc., are inferred coincidentally and exceed a specific (prediction error) x (duration) threshold, such coincident unexplained causes are attributed to a new common cause via learning by binding. The common cause is provisionally added to the model and immediately thereafter predicts the features that are thus bound. As the time passes, if the new cause is inferred repeatedly, its predictions are refined based on experience and consolidated. On the contrary, without repeat inference the prediction strengths are gradually attenuated to zero, and the new cause is thereby discarded. The overall PP model is encoded by the network of all learned causes and their prediction-strength links to each other. The model is dynamic, with some links embedding time delays to account for sensory latency, feature asynchrony and prediction in time. We will refer to this conceptual PP modeling description in the following discussion and will further expand it to include learning future-value and behavior policy via RL and to discuss active inference. However, the specific details of the model are not critical for our central arguments. The key model features are the encoding of distinct inferred causes, prediction errors for each cause and the bi-directional, generative inference-prediction relationships. A cause is inferred from, and predicts, its feature causes such that each cause’s precision (inferred likelihood) adjusts dynamically, over short timescales, to locally minimize prediction errors. The local PP learning rules for long-term modification of prediction strengths to minimize the prediction error over multiple epochs remain active across the hierarchy. In particular, at the lower levels within each perceptual domain, statistical regularities in sensory data are a function of the physics of the world and the sensors. Therefore, low-level sensory cortexes have evolved specific arrangements of cortical maps and initial connectivity topologies to facilitate rapid and massively parallel statistical learning via these local prediction update rules. Hierarchical learning by binding – rationale. Our key proposal is a new type of induction bias which can be added to PP systems for efficient online learning (Figure 1b). Typically, the conventional PP learning rules attribute the prediction errors to imperfectly learned prediction strengths between the already-existing causes and learning proceeds by adjusting these strengths to minimize errors. We propose an additional, separate type of learning that attributes errors to the existence of yet-unknown causes, and attempts to learn such causes, first provisionally, and then permanently. Consider a case when several significant prediction errors occur together, closely correlated in time, and there is no known common cause that can already be inferred to simultaneously predict all of them. Furthermore, suppose each individual prediction error is from a cause that has been used many times previously and learned extensively, that is, this cause’s relationship to the known causes, including its own features, has already been well learned over many examples. It is an intuitive assumption to tentatively posit a new cause accounting for all the coincident prediction errors – to assume that the causes with significant concurrent errors are due to (are features of) a common previously-unknown cause. Different sensory modalities have different latencies; therefore, PP models have to predict causallyrelated features that are asynchronous in time, fusing them across modalities. They also must learn to predict the future state from the current one. Thus, individual causes must be able to predict features spread in time, including prediction of delayed features at their proper times. Common causes must be found for not only concurrent events, but time-correlated events, including temporal sequences spread over hundreds of milliseconds, consistent with postdictive effects, such as color-phi and meta-contrast masking (Herzog, Drissi-Daoudi, and Doerig 2020), as well as large latency differences between sensory domains. The proposed learning process forms such causes by binding features with time-correlated but asynchronous prediction errors, across up to few hundred millisecond long delays, depending on the perceptual modality. The resulting new-bound causes are functionally the same as other causes within the PP model and can be inferred from, and predict, their feature’s relative timing (see further discussion of timing effects below and in Figure 3). When the unpredicted features are first bound into a new cause, such cause is a temporary hypothesis, based on one observation. Once it is no longer actively perceptually inferred, it can only exist as a new cause in the PP hierarchy over a short initial time period, a short-term memory timescale of seconds to tens of seconds. If the cause is repeatedly or continuously inferred within that time, thereby providing a consistent reduction of prediction errors, it is retained within the PP model, while otherwise it is discarded (forgotten). Compared to well-learned causes, the initial feature prediction strengths of a new cause are more plastic, subject to large learning updates according to the usual PP learning rules each time the cause is inferred. If it is not repeatedly inferred, its prediction strengths gradually attenuate with time. With increasing cumulative activation of the new cause both the active update size and the passive attenuation rate decrease, and ultimately the small residual plasticity and zero attenuation are reached as the cause becomes a permanent part of the PP model. This can be viewed as Bayesian updates of the beliefs about the causal structure of the world, distinct from the Bayesian inference of the current state of the world. A new belief, represented by the new added cause, has a low initial precision and undergoes large updates with each new observation. The precision gradually increases, and the updates decrease with the number of observations and their duration. The new causes lacking sufficient cumulative activation are completely discarded – their prediction strengths attenuated to zero – to decrease the model complexity and increase the predictive power. After many repeat activations, plasticity of the well-learned causes reaches a low but finite limit, to account for the possibility of the world changing on long time scales. After this transition from short-term to long-term memory, the well-learned causes are no longer deliberately forgotten over time: the lack of use does not constitute evidence of uselessness. We suggested that declarative memory formation is entailed by the learning-by-binding mechanism added within the PP framework, thus providing the rationale for the declarative memory function from the perspective of perceptual Bayesian learning. However, the apparent semantic complexity and structure of individual declarative memories, associatively recallable as a single unit, suggests that this binding process is both parallel and hierarchical. Multiple groups of prediction errors, time-correlated within each group, are simultaneously detected within and across sensory domains. The corresponding groups of unpredicted inferred causes are separately bound into multiple new causes based on correlations within but not between each of them. The total number of concurrent separately-bound groups may be limited – keeping the number of hypothesized new causes small would serve a complexityreducing regularization function. Furthermore, a cause recently formed by binding, being new, cannot itself be a feature predicted by any known causes. Therefore, each time such new-bound cause is inferred for a sufficient duration from its features, it necessarily has a large prediction error and is subject to further binding with other near-concurrent or time-correlated unpredicted causes. Thus, the binding process itself is hierarchical and builds shallow trees binding multiple new, as well as previously-known, causes together, and culminating in a single root cause, which unites a large fraction of the unpredicted features of the present perceptual moment. In one example (Figure 2a), a ‘red’ ‘loud’ ‘car’ located ‘on the left’ is perceived as a new compound cause for the unpredicted concurrent perceptions of ‘redness’, ‘loudness’, ‘car’ and activation of a particular ‘leftward’ location on a spatial map. Perhaps head orientation and repeated visual saccades to this location, triggered by the auditory system’s sound localization, create high temporal correlation of activation between a particular place ‘on the left’ in the body-centric-frame spatial map, the corresponding visual field map location, and the specific visual inferences of ‘red’ and ‘car’. The concurrent auditory inferences describe the specific sound – ‘loud’, etc. – with the auditory localization activating the same body-centric location. All these multimodal perceptions have high prediction errors – they are not expected – and are highly temporally correlated with each other and with (directing attention to) a particular spatial location. Thus, the system binds a new cause ‘The Car’ which predicts a ‘red’ ‘loud’ ‘car’ ‘on the left’, now represented as a unified compound object. Similarly, a ‘green’ ‘tree’, of a particular ‘tall’ height, may be simultaneously perceived at a specific location ‘on the right’ as a new unified object ‘The Tree’. In addition to the direct sensory perceptions, the hierarchical PP model may also, simultaneously, represent higher-order causes that describe the perception process itself. A cause may be inferred representing the ongoing ‘experience’ of some objects, distinct from the mere presence of these objects – if one looks away, the objects may still be inferred as present but no longer as being ‘experienced’. Moreover, a cause of ‘self’ may also be inferred, to which this ‘experience’ is attributed to belong to. In this schematic example, the new-bound causes for ‘The Car’ and ‘The Tree’ are bound with the higherorder causes for ‘I have’ ‘ongoing experience’ to form a top-level episodic cause that includes ‘I experience The Car (a red loud car on the left) and The Tree (a tall green tree on the right).’ These become associatively recallable as a unit and may be also unified with other concurrent unpredicted perceptions. The hyperparameters of the learning by binding – the minimum prediction error size, activation duration and maximum asynchrony between features that can still lead to binding – vary across sensory domains and PP hierarchy levels, such as between single-domain, multimodal and abstract (amodal) mental objects. In biological brains they are optimized by evolution to efficiently infer typical structures in sensory data within each domain, and in particular those structures that are most useful for guiding evolutionaryadvantageous actions. These binding parameters, as well as plasticity of prediction strengths vs. cumulative activation and consolidation/forgetting timescales can be empirically elucidated, such as by analyzing existing cognitive studies data. As we will specifically discuss in the next section, these parameters directly affect both perception and learning of events in time. The hyperparameters are modulated on the short and long time scales by global state variables, such as the affective states, and exploration-exploitation balance discussed in the following sections, whereby the slow global variations define the global states of consciousness (Bayne, Hohwy, and Owen 2016). As we elaborate below, the major functional role of perception is to estimate future value for reinforcement-learning an optimized action policy, encoded within the same PP generative model. Therefore, on short time scales high positive or negative valance strongly and dynamically modulates the learning-by-binding parameters to provide both value-relevant perceptual learning and value-increasing action policy learning. To recap, temporary new causes are hierarchically learned from single- or few-examples by binding of perceptions with time-correlated prediction errors, according to an induction bias that large, correlated prediction errors must be due to common hidden causes. This learning-by-binding process operates continuously on top of the PP framework. The causes are subsequently retained and consolidated or discarded depending on whether they are repeatedly inferred and thus consistently reduce the prediction errors. This learning architecture is a conjecture that remains to be confirmed by statistical learning theory and numerical machine-learning experiments to demonstrate that rapid learning by binding within the PP framework is indeed possible and stable. However, analyzing this proposal and how it may relate with established data and theory may advance understanding of human perception and learning, including the elusive concept of consciousness. Therefore, we will now discuss some properties entailed by it, and how these properties correspond to functional processes commonly associated with consciousness. Figure 2. Predictive processing combined with learning by binding entail commonly recognized mental phenomena. (a) Learning by binding functions hierarchically, further binding multiple known and new object causes with large prediction errors into a unified perceptual representation for the present moment – a shallow tree structure encoding the unified yet differentiated content describing an episode. (b) When some of the same features, such as the ‘motor sound’ localized ‘on the left’ are inferred again, within a similar context, this may lead to the inference of the previous episode and ‘The Car’ object, and prediction of the hidden features, such as the shape and color of the object, in the process of the associative recall. (c) An action of attention to a feature, such as a specific spatial location, increases the likelihood of that feature. When one or more features of an object are thus predicted, the object may be maintained in perception even in the complete absence of any feature’s direct inference from sensory data. This describes maintaining the object in working memory by selective attention. (d) When an object is formed by binding, its features predict each other. This causal connection between features makes the object globally available. In response to a prompt “What color is the car”, the feature prompt “car” increases the likelihood of the car shape, which predicts the color red via “The Car”. The red color combined with the color query prompt triggers the action of the red color report. Unified episodic and semantic memory record and associative recall. As described above, at any point in time the newly-bound cause which is top-most in the PP hierarchy provides the root-cause hypothesis for a large fraction of the persistent prediction errors, giving a single unified episodic description of a large fraction of perceptions about the present moment that are unique, i.e., not predicted by other ongoing perceptions (Figure 2a). By virtue of being bound into a unified whole, the various perceptions can be associatively recalled together. This unity is a result of the induction bias inherent in this learning system, which assumes that concurrent unpredicted events have a common cause (see discussion in the Perceptual Unity section, below). The top-most, episodic, cause and all the newly-bound causes that are its features, together, give the best concise generative description of the sensory data leveraging the known PP model. I.e., the few-layer deep tree of the newly-bound causes can be thought of as a compressed representation of the present moment using the already-learned PP causal structure as the perceptual code vocabulary, which is, however, generative and dynamic. To be bound into a new cause, the features must have prediction errors – inferred likelihoods above predictions from all other causes – and the errors must exceed certain thresholds in size and duration or their product (Figure 3a,b). The hierarchical binding of new causes further, e.g., into an episode, requires additional persistence time. Therefore, anything that decreases the size and time-persistence of prediction errors interferes with binding, such as when unpredicted object stimuli are presented for a short duration and followed by masking to control the duration of their inference by the PP model (Figure 3a). This relates the new cause binding with the experimental control variables of duration and presentation contrast (Figure 3b). In another paradigm case, a set of features is presented simultaneously or in succession, and then a posteriori predicted or, more accurately, postdicted by inferring a single known common cause within the conventional PP (Figure 3c,d). Such features do not have sufficient duration of large prediction errors to be individually bound into a new cause before the known cause is inferred, and only the common cause, if it remains unpredicted for long enough, becomes bound (Figure 3d, left). Therefore, even if the features are strongly inferred by the PP for an extended period, they are not associatively recallable separately from their cause – this cause may be bound to become reportable and actionable, but the individual features are not. Specifically, it is impossible to recall which particular feature combination has led to the recallable instance of the cause’s inference. This accounts for the postdiction effects in experiments showing mandatory integration of time-sequenced features (Herzog, Drissi-Daoudi, and Doerig 2020) as well as unconscious integration of features into wholes, generally. Learning by binding not only entails the mandatory unconscious feature integration (Figure 3c,d), but also allows reinterpretation of the apparent discreteness of time in postdiction (Herzog, Drissi-Daoudi, and Doerig 2020; Drissi-Daoudi, Doerig, and Herzog 2019). Whenever a feature remains unpredicted for a sufficiently long period, it is bound and recallable. Whenever two features are postdicted by a common cause before the first feature can be thus bound, neither feature is bound and only their common cause may be bound and recallable (Figure 3d, left). Whenever a third feature is inferred after the common cause for the first two features is already inferred, the prediction errors of the first two features are already low, and only their common cause and the third feature can be bound into a recallable episode (Figure 3d, right). Inferring a known cause with a long postdiction interval is only possible if feature binding into a new cause does not occur faster than that interval. Therefore, the binding timescales directly dictate what time sequences can be directly perceptually represented by single causes. This leads to the causes higher up in the PP hierarchy representing generally longer time intervals and correspondingly having longer binding times, perhaps up to ≈1 second. The PP modeling is thus regularized by enforcing more sparce time-persistent representations at higher hierarchy levels, to both optimize predictive power and maintain stability in the presence of physical latency of deep inference. Figure 3. Learning by binding explains time domain observations. (a) For high visibility stimuli S binding (dashed box) occurs after a large prediction error ε persists for a minimum time τ and masking introduced at ∆t > τ does not interfere with binding (left). Masking at time ∆t < τ prevents binding by decreasing the inferred likelihood of S (right) prior to binding. (b) For stimulus with larger prediction error binding occurs faster (left) while when contrast is decreased the binding is delayed and may not occur within the finite stimulus duration (right). (c) When unpredicted stimuli S1 and S2 are separated by ∆t > τ, they are bound separately (upper). When the separation ∆t is short compared to τ, the near-coincident stimuli are bound together into a cause representing a sequence (S1 ∆t S2) with a specific separation ∆t (lower). (d) Left: if a sequence cause has already been learned, it is inferred and postdicts the S1 and S2, reducing their prediction errors with a short latency time delay tlatency << τ. The inference is mandatory. The sequence cause (S1 ∆t S2) is subject to further binding, while the individual stimuli S1 and S2 are not. Right: If a third stimulus S3 occurs a short time δt after the S1 and S2 such that tlatency < δt < ∆t, the (S1 ∆t S2) will be inferred before S3, and after time t they may be bound together into a new sequence ((S1 ∆t S2) δt S3). The mandatory nature of the (S1 ∆t S2) integration and the condition ∆t < τ explain the experimental observation of the apparent discreteness of conscious perception in time. Depending on the level in the PP hierarchy, the binding timescale may be between ≈200 ms (e.g., from low-level visual modality) all the way to, perhaps, ≈1 s for multimodal and amodal perceptions. However, the persistence timescale of the continuous or repeated inference of the newly-bound causes can be much longer, governed by the continuous activation by the action of attention and the competition with perceptual distractors. This attention-mediated perceptual dynamics spans at least ≈3 s and likely can be much longer with attention training (Srinivasan, Tripathi, and Singhal 2020). We thus provide mechanistic functional account for the three time ranges corresponding to cinematic, extensional and retentional levels in (Singhal and Srinivasan 2021), which are defined by the two separate domain-dependent binding and attentional dynamics timescales. Note that attentional feedback operates on both fast, pre-binding (therefore, unconscious) as well as the slow timescales, as further discussed in the Action section. The process of associative recall (Figure 2b) is entailed by our functional architecture, without assuming any additional mechanisms. Each newly-bound cause, up to and including the episode, is added to the PP model, at least temporarily, which is what allows those features that are bound together to be recalled, i.e., re-inferred, associatively. Associative recall occurs whenever enough of these bound features are present with sufficiently high precision for the newly-bound cause to be inferred, to reduce the prediction errors. The inferred cause, in turn, predicts the remaining bound features, which acquire non-zero likelihood and are thereby associatively recalled. Upon recall these features affect inferences of other causes and predict their own features according to PP, thereby contributing to perception and manifesting as priming and automatic action triggering. Whenever the new-bound cause encodes a time-sequence, e.g., in auditory modality, time sequences of bound features are replayed when associatively recalled, as the cause predicts the feature’s timing. The recall may occur unconsciously (i.e., is not itself recallable) if no further binding occurs, however the highest-level recalled causes may have prediction errors of sufficient size and duration to be re-bound into the new episode cause, which in turn becomes available for later recall. With repeated recall, the prediction strengths made by the new-bound causes are both updated and further consolidated, until only the residual plasticity of the recall reconsolidation remains. Consider the above example where a new compound cause ‘The Car’ has been formed by binding. If a verbal prompt for ‘red’ increases the precision of ‘red’ via auditory perception, the system might infer the ‘The Car,’ which decreases prediction error for the unexpected high-likelihood ‘red’. This inference will be more likely within the common perceptual context, i.e., if many of the other features of the recent episode-cause containing ‘The Car’ are also present, such that the whole episode might be partially recalled as well, predicting ‘The Car’. Recalling ‘The Car’ activates its features, including the ‘on left’ location in the spatial map. Furthermore, the binding and record formation process is strongly modulated by selective attention. As discussed below in the context of perception and elaborated in the Action section, functionally the selective attention to specific locations, attributes or objects are learned actions, parts of the ongoing action policy encoded within the generative PP model. Such actions strongly modulate, but are functionally separable from, the core processes of perceptual inference, binding, and the resulting declarative memory record formation. New causes can be formed for unattended objects and even further bound into the recallable episodic memory record. The described ability to learn and recall specific new objects and events entails creation of a perceptual record of declarative memory that can be accessed later by the system via associative recall. If a new cause bound from a single or few examples is repeatedly re-activated by similar examples, it is generalized to a broader example class by the conventional PP learning rules. This process converts the initially episodic knowledge into semantic perceptual knowledge. Perceptual unity. The induction bias underlying the learning-by-binding system presumes everything unpredicted is stemming from common hidden causes, even when events are unrelated and coincident by chance. If the assumption is that any two or more unpredicted causes must have a common hidden cause, a singular episodic cause is generated necessarily (Figure 2a). This is apparent in the associative and episodic recall, where a variety of causally independent contents are bound and recalled together by virtue of simply having occurred at the same time. The “what it’s like” of perceiving a specific instance of a cat, as we may learn from recalling it, not only includes the visual features that give rise to the inference of the cat, but also includes inferences about the attention state, expectations and other internal and external conditions that modulate the perceptual processing. Moreover, ‘the cat’ is bound together with other concurrent related and unrelated inferences, including (the action of attending to) its specific spatial location, distinctive attributes of ‘the cat’, nearby objects, as well as other concurrent unpredicted perceptions in multiple modalities. A large fraction of these contents is associatively recalled when the cat is recalled. This gives the process of perception a unified nature quite distinct from simply representing a set of separable contents. This unified yet differentiated nature, a hallmark of the content of consciousness (Bayne 2012), is entailed by the learning architecture proposed here. On the other hand, the full unity of binding is not required. Multiple new causes are continuously formed by binding of various concurrent unpredicted features at the low sensory levels. Whenever one or more new causes are formed, but do not persist long enough to become further bound with other concurrent causes into an episode, they are not recallable as part of the episode and are not unified with it. Yet the cause binding the new combination of features is formed and can later contribute to perception and behavior. This binding has been empirically demonstrated for unattended visual stimuli (Meuwese et al. 2013), whereas masking the stimuli prevented them from binding. We further argue that the new bound cause formed without attention in this work could not include as one of its features the action of attending to its spatial location, color or another one of its own attributes. This may explain the extra learning via feedback required in test trials in (Meuwese et al. 2013) to connect the new cause to the appropriate response action. A separate way in which the proposed learning system is unified is that it is designed to learn and implement an actions policy that maximizes survival and reproduction benefits and for this purpose it generates a single, unified perceptual estimate of the future value – whether the current state is “good” or “bad” overall. While this future value may be generated by combining multiple distinct specific future values for each of the perceived causes, and there may be more than one kind of reward, a single scalar total value is calculated for action learning by the system as a whole – e.g., whether the actions that immediately led to this state should be retained for the future or discarded. The details of this process are discussed in the Action section below. Quickly forming causal connections entails a global workspace. Beyond example-efficient learning using the full power of previous perceptual knowledge, and formation of recallable current-state descriptions, the learning by binding also entails rapidly forming generative causal connections between previously-unrelated causes (Figure 2d). Whenever a new-bound cause is inferred by the PP model from a subset of its features, the remaining, hidden features are then generatively predicted. For example, once a temporary cause ‘The Car’ binding otherwise-unrelated features ‘car’-object, ‘red’ color, ‘left’ location and ‘motor’ sound is formed, the cause ‘The Car’ may be inferred from the presence of only ‘car’-object, inferred from a prompt for ‘car,’ and predict specific color, location and sound. Thus, within a few hundred milliseconds needed to bind ‘The Car’, the ‘car’-object feature starts to predict the ‘red’ color. The predicted features in turn contribute to inferring dependent higher-level causes, as well as predicting lower-level features. Within active inference this includes triggering or modulating actions connected to, for example, ‘red’ within the PP hierarchy, such as selecting a specific color report in response to a prompt. Therefore, the temporary binding immediately and strongly modifies the overall PP generative model dynamics – perception and action inferences and predictions made immediately thereafter – by allowing a set of previously-unrelated causes , such as ‘car’object and ’red’ color, to effectively cross-predict each other once they are bound together. This functional property, entailed by the addition of feature binding to PP, directly connects our theory to the global workspace theories of consciousness: the newly-bound features constitute the contents of a global workspace by virtue of being able to cross-predict each other and thereby being able to influence inference and prediction of a large number of other perceptions and actions. Dynamically binding a set of select causes into a new shallow-tree generative model structure allows the bound perceptions to immediately modulate many actions they previously had no functional connections to, and thereby to exert what appears to be a “global” causal influence. With inferred A, when perceptual inference or selective attention activates B, this now activates C and thereby modulates any model dynamics dependent on C. Functionally, this may also be viewed as passing of objects by reference into procedures that can now act on them, whereby different objects C, D or E, including previously unknown, newlybound ones, when temporarily bond to A and B may be referred to (activated by) whenever some procedure activates A and B. Using ‘ The Car’ and ‘The Tree’ as an example, and considering ‘point to a location’ as an action previously learned for all available locations, the prompt of: “Point to the car (tree)”, can be responded to by first the ‘car’ (‘tree’) of the prompt inferring ‘The Car’ (‘The Tree’), which then predicts the bound location ‘on left’ (‘on right’), while the prompt also infers the ‘point to a location’ action. The action executes by pointing to the correct active location. Another prompt might be: “What color is the car (tree)?”, whereby the generic object name will again activate a specific bound object and thereby its color attribute that can then be reported. We see that the two compound objects, once bound, became available to a range of previously learned actions. Most importantly, these objects may comprise never previously seen combinations of generic attributes, yet they can immediately be acted upon in a large variety of very complex ways that have been previously learned. This type of flexible generalization is perhaps the most important feature of the proposed learning architecture. Notably, this type of global availability requires neither information broadcast separate from the binding, nor existence of neural codes other than the PP model, since only previously-learned actions triggered by, and acting upon, specific previously-learned objects (causes) are being proposed, all within PP with active inference-like description for actions as the PP predictions. To further explore the implications of the global availability enabled by binding, in the following example we will illustrate how a novel compound object becomes available to be maintained in working memory via a previously-learned action of selective attention to a spatial location or another generic attribute. Working memory enabled by selective attention. So far, we have been describing a learning system for perception, i.e., for predicting sensory data, while only mentioning that the PP system can also implement actions, as have been proposed by active inference theories. In the Action section we describe actions as causes making predictions, increasing the inferred likelihoods of their target causes within the generative PP model. Such actions may manifest (and be perceived and recognized) as instances of selective attention. Within the PP framework, selective attention describes a selective increase of precision, which for a discrete, categorical cause is an increase of its likelihood, or what we have been also calling activation level. In the following we explain how working memory may arise by the interaction of binding, PP and selective attention (Figure 2c). A generic action of selectively attending to a particular spatial location, or to the most-active spatial location – i.e., an action of continuously maintaining or intermittently reactivating that spatial map location – may be learned to be triggered by certain PP model causes. For example, overt attention to a location of a perceptually present object modulates the physical sensory apparatus, increasing the precision (the likelihood or the ‘strength’ of inference in the categorical PP model) and duration of the sensory features comprising the object. The object is inferred with high likelihood, and the object’s large prediction errors facilitate its binding into the episode. Similarly, covert attention increases compound object’s precision and facilitates binding by selectively increasing and sustaining high precision of one or more of its features. For ‘The Car’, attention to a specific location ‘on left’ may result in its sustained activation and becoming part of the present episode. If the car is present and attention is overt, perceptual inference from sensory data will maintain ‘The Car’ at high likelihood. However, even if the car is absent and attention to the spatial location is covert, the particular ‘on left’ is bound to the car, therefore its activation, within the appropriate perceptual context, can help maintain ‘The Car’ at a nonzero likelihood, even in the absence of the direct sensory perception. A novel compound object can thus be continuously perceived in the absence of direct sensory stimuli. Since a novel object cannot be predicted by any other cause, it will be bound with other concurrent unpredicted causes, therefore participating in the global workspace and in a series of consecutive recallable episodes. We argue that this is precisely what it means for the object to be maintained in the working memory. Notably, the action of imagining a never previously seen compound object, i.e., attending directly to it, rather than to its location or other generic features, could not have been learned within the PP model. In contrast, attending to a generic feature of the object, such as color or location, could have been learned, thereby allowing maintaining any compound attended object with that feature in working memory. To accomplish this, a system may have a well-learned action of selective attention to the most active (highest likelihood) spatial location or to one of a set of predetermined spatial locations. Such action will activate the objects and features bound together with those specific locations (and the present perceptual context), even if these objects are otherwise not fully inferred from sensory data. Thereby, binding enables maintenance of arbitrary, never previously perceived compound objects in working memory without the need to rapidly learn to attend to or to imagine each and every one of the object’s features. This explanation of working memory relies on binding and reciprocal activation between spatial neural maps, generally in the front of the cortex, and objects and features represented in the back cortex, consistent with neuroimaging observations in working memory tasks. However, there are multiple modalities of working memory and not all of them work through attention to a spatial location – the auditory buffering being one example. As described, the binding process dynamically connecting separate causes together and allowing global workspace effects and maintenance in working memory is functionally separate from the short-term storage and long-term consolidation of declarative memory – the ability to retain the bound causes within the PP model over extended periods without inferring them. The latter functions are known to physiologically depend on hippocampus and nearby structures. Consistent with empirical data, within our theory the memory storage deficits do not grossly impair the working memory and formation of the global workspace via cross-prediction. Our view adds key functional descriptions elaborating the previously made connections between feature integration and neural coalitions, formation of a global workspace and the neural modifications during recurrent processing. We have used the term ‘attention’ here only in one specific sense to conceptually illustrate how maintenance of objects in working memory may arise in the proposed information processing system architecture. We have previously stated that maintaining an object in working memory by selective attention is not a necessary condition for it to undergo binding, and objects unattended in this narrow sense can be bound and can enter the associatively recallable memory record. However, ‘attention’ covers a wide variety of phenomena in different contexts and, considering the term more broadly, we see that within the proposed architecture the increase of precision in the absence of a top-down prediction is precisely what results in binding, formation of a record and global availability. Hence everything in the record may be seen as having ‘received attention’ in a broader sense of there having been an increase in estimated likelihood. This includes either bottom-up attention via the normal perceptual PP inference or top-down attention via an action, or both. Within this broader sense of ‘attention’, the only possible cases of separation between the perceptual record contents and the ‘attended’ contents are the cases where the action of top-down attention is known to have been applied to certain objects, but the objects were not bound or were bound but are not recallable, e.g., the new cause was quickly forgotten. This tight link between attention and binding in out account finds some parallels with the observations underlying the attention schema theory of consciousness (Graziano et al. 2020). However, when we consider the meaning of the term consciousness, we do not equate it with either attention or the schema for it. Defining ‘consciousness’ and the ‘conscious contents’. So far, we have been describing clearly defined functions of perceptual inference, binding, recall, etc., rather than referring to consciousness, conscious contents (CC) or conscious experience. This is both because there are multiple ways in which these terms are currently operationalized in different contexts, as well as to ensure avoiding Cartesian materialism (Dennett 1991), such as saying that something is being ‘experienced’ or ‘consciously experienced’ without first defining what that means, mechanistically. On the contrary, the described formation of a recallable unified and differentiated perceptual record that binds causes which are uniquely descriptive of the present moment is testable against experimental data and introspective intuitions. Our account entails that this record is both imperfect and transitory. Furthermore, once temporary binding occurs, it enables immediate generative cross-prediction between the bound attributes, and thereby allows the new compound causes to be maintained in working memory by attention and to modulate a broad range of actions via a global workspace-like functionality. These are concrete functional, mechanistic relationships that learning-by-binding imposes on the inferences made by the system. When describing cross-prediction appearing as a global workspace we are not positing a mental or neural “theater”. Rather than ‘broadcasting’ binding temporarily connects existing causes in novel ways resulting in novel inference and prediction relationships between them. The effect is the strictly-local codependent cross-activation between the bound percepts. The “actors” in such a local group are the only audience. Furthermore, there is no spotlight – attention is not understood that way. The bound contents, i.e., the causes inferred by PP with sufficiently large and persistent prediction errors and bound into a shallow tree structure of new and known causes forming a perceptual episode, satisfy a common criterion for contents to be access-conscious: being available for thought and rational action. The cross-prediction within the bound contents allows each element to modulate all actions that can be triggered (predicted within active PP) by each of the other bound elements. Given the proposed functional combination of PP and binding, and the resulting conceptual explanation for the access consciousness, we further ask whether there is a broader ‘phenomenal consciousness’ to be defined or described, either as a real phenomenon or as an illusion. This includes two types of related questions which we will address in this section, in reference to our functional architecture: 1. Is there a consistent definition of ‘phenomenality’ that reasonably corresponds to the various relevant intuitions and is operationally useful for describing empirical data? 2. Is there any conceptual flexibility in defining which perceptual contents should be called CC? If so, what is the most operationally convenient and useful definition? a. What types of contents are or are not conscious? b. Are CCs rich or relatively sparse? How can this be empirically determined? To the first question, in the subsequent section the intuitive ‘phenomenality’ is attributed to the perceptual inferences of ‘experience arising’ or ‘I am having an experience’, which are inferred by the system to account for its own perceptual contingencies, in addition to, and distinct from, the invariant outside world objects. Specifically, in the same way as the cause ‘red’ can be bound with the cause ‘car’ forming ‘the red car’, the cause ‘experience of’ can be bound to ‘the red car’ to form ‘the experience of the red car’, a compound cause that includes phenomenality as one of its attributes. This type of phenomenality is a perception, an inference the system makes, taking its own modeling process into account to generate better predictions. As noted below, unlike higher order theories, we do not link the inference of such higher order perceptions to granting ‘conscious’ status to any lower order perceptions. To the second question, in our view, the CC are composed from various learned causes, including temporary bound ones, and their status as within or outside the CC is fully determined by whether they are being (a) inferred with a nonzero likelihood, and (b) bound. Causes that are not inferred at a given moment, having near zero likelihood, are not part of the CC. Similarly, known causes that are fully predicted within the current state of the PP model, having near zero prediction errors, only contribute to the perception and action but do not participate in learning by binding or in the global workspace resulting from binding. While contributing to priming, their effects may be reasonably defined as unconscious. This unconscious PP perception and action can be highly complex, while proceeding outside the learning by binding and not entering the perceptual record. The non-declarative learning of perception and action also proceeds unconsciously, via the prediction strength updates withing the existing PP cause network, according to our view. Such non-declarative learning is gradual, in contrast to the learning by binding, which quickly and strongly connects unrelated causes. This argument limits the CC to those causes that participate in binding. As discussed in the perceptual unity section above, a large fraction of such causes is hierarchically bound into a shallow tree structure representing an episode and forming a global workspace. The bound episode structure typically includes actions of attending to some of the contents within the episode. Simultaneously, causes not participating in the current episode are being continuously formed by binding. Once formed, they may or may not be further bound into the new episode, depending on whether they themselves exceed the required persistence time and prediction error threshold. The possibility of forming new bound causes that are not bound into the episode and do not participate in the global workspace reconciles the divergent views on the CC within the recurrent processing and global workspace ToCs, explaining both views and making the distinction a matter of the CC definition. From the perspective of declarative learning as the defining function of consciousness, the broader CC definition that includes the locally-bound causes outside the episode and global workspace seems operationally useful. However, the narrower CC definition excluding such causes is also coherent and fits better the reportable, easily recallable and perceptually unified contents. Given either definition, perceptual richness becomes an empirical question of what perceptual content is being bound or being bound together. In a visual domain example, a broad range of data is available to the senses. A narrower range is being sensed depending on the direction of gaze. That sense data narrows the broad range of all visual inferences available within the existing PP model to those that best match the data. Out of all the inferences made that are not fully predicted by other inferences, a few subsets are persistent and correlated enough to be bound into new causes. Of all those a narrower subset forms a unified tree of the global workspace and episode. Of those, even less are retained over time and become available for a delayed recall. Notably, at each stage our intuition may overestimate the richness by confusing access with representation, and the richness question must be answered by carefully controlled empirical studies. For example, in the Sperling’s experiment and its variations (Sperling 1960; Sligte, Scholte, and Lamme 2009) multiple unpredicted visual symbols are all perceived, but a specific subset ends up being bound to and actively maintained in working memory by the selective attention to the experimentally prompted spatial location. While not all symbols are recallable, it is an empirically unresolved question whether all symbols have been bound or only the prompted subset – this question may be addressed by an experiment similar to the (Meuwese et al. 2013) study of learning without attention, applied to the unprompted symbols. While the narrower definition of the CC as being bound together definitively excludes the larger symbol set, by the broader CC definition the symbols would be conscious if they can be empirically shown to be specifically bound to each other or other unpredicted concurrent stimuli. Lacking such evidence, the more likely hypothesis is that all symbols are perceived but only the prompted symbols are maintained, by attention to the prompt’s spatial location, long enough to be bound and become CC. This generally illustrates how out of a wide set of inferred unpredicted causes only a fraction enters the record or is acted upon, and out of the same set, different fractions may end up bound together depending on perception and attention contingencies, such as different internal states or additional concurrent and subsequent stimuli. All inferences that have been bound or only subsets maintainable by attention, available to trigger action or recallable from memory record can be validly included in different possible consistent definitions of the CC. On the other hand, a person may intuitively reason and describe a much wider superset of causes that must have been perceived and could have been bound, attended to, triggered action and recalled, under some loosely-defined set of possible contingencies, as having been in a richer ‘total phenomenal consciousness field’. Transparency of perceptual models, higher order theories, ‘experience’ and ‘self’. The proposed functional architecture learns ever more sophisticated Bayesian generative models of the time-dependent sensory data stream. This model construction process is hierarchical, adding new causes modeling regularities in the lower-level causes inferred by the existing models: the results of existing models serve as input data for further modeling in a learning process that is, in principle, limitless. In specific organisms the model depth and structure are limited by their brains’ particular neural architectures. The learning by binding creates an associatively recallable record consisting of the variously bound causes that were not fully predicted at specific times. As a matter of this perceptual record, these bound causes are the only things that comprise it and can be recalled by the system. They may be represented as ‘having occurred’ if an appropriate model for representing past events has been learned. The majority of these perceived and recallable causes are not additionally recognized and represented as being outputs of its perceptual models, but appear to the system as direct perceptions, the elementary units constituting the perception record. In other words, the models giving raise to these inferences are both transparent (not directly perceivable) (Metzinger 2003) and cognitively impenetrable from the system’s perspective when the process of perceptual inference is not itself represented and inferred by a suitable learned perceptual model within a system. However, the hierarchical-learning system learns causal structures for predicting the contingencies of its own perceptual and modeling apparatus and the object-and-event inferences made by it. I.e., the system learns to predict how its perception of objects and events is modulated by the presence of other objects and events, including the states of the physical sensory apparatus, of the perceptual model and of the system more broadly. To do that the system learns to infer causes describing such states of the perceptual model and the physical body and learns models that represent objects and events as not only ‘occurring out there’, but also being ‘perceived’, or ‘not perceived’ within the system in a way that make the event recallable and available for a broad range of actions. In other words, the system learns to infer that an ‘experience’ of an event has occurred within the system. Moreover, in its continual learning to more accurately predict both what it perceives and how it perceives it, the system might learn to infer various other causes predicting its own perceptual modeling states, such as whether something was perceived clearly or not and how attention was directed or distracted. As with all causes, the new inference of an ‘experience occurring,’ together with the inferences about the characteristics of perception at each moment, are subject to being bound into the perceptual record by the learning process. Thus, the perceptual record includes these directly-perceived higher-level representations of the perceptual process. Generally similar types of high order representations are discussed within the higher order theories of consciousness (Cleeremans et al. 2020; Cleeremans 2011; Brown, Lau, and LeDoux 2019). However, rather than postulating them, here we argue that the higher order perceptions are entailed by our learning-by-binding functional architecture, as inferences within the learned hierarchical model. In contrast to higher order theories, in our account the higher order perceptions are not necessarily about the specific low order perceptions and inferring them does not determine whether a given low order perception enters or does not enter the declarative memory record or can modulate a large range of actions via the global-workspace-like effect of binding. In our view, systems with simple models having limited or no higher order representations can have the binding and the resulting global workspace and associative recall functions we associated with consciousness. However, the high order perception of ‘experience occurring,’ inferred by a transparent model for this high order perception, amounts to the system representing its low order perceptions as having a ‘phenomenal’ character, i.e., as being ‘experienced’. Notably, the higher order model only detects a characteristic of the lower order model output, and does not represent that the low order inferences are made by a model, allowing the lower order model to remain transparent. Transparent perceptual models span a range from basic, such as the illumination-invariant color recognition to highly complex, such as the model for ‘self’ and the “phenomenal models of the intentionality relation” based on it (Metzinger 2003; 2005; 2020b). A broad range of self-models, including procedural and declarative in addition to the perceptual ones, have been discussed as the implicit beliefs comprising m-consciousness by (Graziano et al. 2020). Following this line of reasoning, a sufficiently sophisticated system may learn to infer animistic ‘agent’ causes for describing people and animals and, furthermore, learn to perceive itself is one such agent. Thereby it learns to infer the cause of ‘self’ as an ‘owner of experience’ (“I have an experience”), and the ‘source’ of action, and infer ‘beliefs’, ‘motivations’ and other properties ascribed to such agents and to ‘self’. Based on these perceptions the system may also learn the actions of reporting and discursive reasoning with the belief of having/being a ‘self’. This view of the self has parallels with the ones described by Thomas Metzinger (Metzinger 2003), Tim Bayne (Bayne 2012) chapter 12 and others (Graziano et al. 2020). As a cause inferred within a transparent model, the ‘self’ is clearly perceived as truly existing, as a matter of systems’ perceptual record. However, this perceived ‘self’, like many naïve perceptions, is an illusion in the sense that the reality is different from its perception. Prior to an accurate scientific theory of the information processing in the brain, which is the ultimate goal motivating this work, ‘experience occurring’ and ‘self’ are naïve and transparent perceptual models learned by the system as part of modeling to predict its perceptions of its own functioning. The meta problem of consciousness. The meta problem of consciousness (Chalmers 2018) is the problem of explaining why we may think there is a hard problem (Chalmers 1995) of consciousness. To solve the meta problem is to explain why within a particular learning system the perception of ‘experience’ necessarily arises, and why this perception appears to resist reductive explanation. Within our hypothesis the model making the higher order inference ‘an experience is occurring’ is a transparent model of the same kind as sensory perception models inferring ‘trees’ and ‘cats’ (Figure 2, Figure 4). The system simply represents it as presently occurring with high likelihood, rather than recognizing it as a result of any modeling or reasoning. The recognition of ‘an experience occurring’ is of the same kind as the recognition of a ‘tree’ or a ‘cat’, as a matter of its consequences within the system’s functional structure such as the global availability or the perceptual memory record. Whatever the system learns to recognize, whether about the outside world or about itself, appears to it as experientially-given truths, at least until it can learn to perceive and represent otherwise. As the system makes inferences about its own processes of perception and learning, ‘experiencing’ appears to it to objectively exist, in exactly the way ‘cats’ and ‘trees’ appear to exist (Figure 4). We suggest that the ‘explanatory gap’ difficulty lies in the previous theories’ inability to envision a mechanistic functional description entailing occurrence of the direct perceptions of the ‘experience arising’ and ‘I am having an experience’ of the same kind as perceptions of objects and events attributed by the system to the outside world, such as ‘cats’ and ‘trees.’ Meanwhile, from our system’s perspective both the higher and the lower order perceptions are equally apparent. The higher order perceptions appear to it as directly perceived, the same way physical objects are perceived, therefore higher order perceptions demand the same kind of ‘objective’ explanation used for physical objects. People do not routinely question the ‘objective’ existence of cats and trees and typically do not perceptually recognize them as mere constructs – learned model inferences made by our minds to predict raw sensory data. Similarly, people feel ‘experience arising’ as no less than an ‘objective’ fact. Physical theories describe the external objects as being ‘out there,’ independent of the process of perception. Thus, we expect and demand the same kind of objective explanation for the perception of ‘experience arising,’ yet without referring to the process of perception this is logically impossible. Here we provide the same kind of description for the object perceptions and the higher order perceptions, both Bayesian inferences made by the system to predict the sensory data (and distinct from the physicalscience objects as predictive descriptors within formal models for the various aspects of the world). One fallacy leading to the appearance of the illusory hard problem is the treatment of the perceptions of physical objects and events as direct, veridical representations of physical reality, rather than as constructs we learn to infer. These constructs are based on the outside world only insofar as describing predictable regularities in the sensorium-dependent sensory data using a particular hierarchical causal structure – the hypothesis space of the learning system implemented by the brain. The perception of ‘experience’ is simply another learned perceptual construct, inferred to describe predictable contingencies in the perceptual modeling inferences at a lower level. The functional, mechanistic account of the process of perception and learning proposed here explains how the directly-felt ‘I am experiencing’ becomes part of the system’s perceptual record and reportable working memory. Inferences made by transparent perceptual models appear to the system as objectively existing things and events including the ‘experience arising,’ the ‘self’ and the ‘consciousness’ in the ‘I am experiencing’ and ‘I am conscious’. Figure 4. Meta hard problem of consciousness. The system makes perceptual inferences about external world and about its own internal states, such as to represent whether an object is sensorily experienced or imagined. The internal state cause of “having a sensory experience” has the same properties as the physical object cause of “The Tree”: both are clearly apparent and cannot be unperceived. Without understanding the nature of perceptions as learned and inferred causes describing internal and external states, the internal and external perceptions appear qualitatively different. For example, physical objects are understood by naïve observers as properties of the outside world independent of the system perceiving it. Importantly, they system with this functional organization must learn to perceive internal states and thereby is able to perceive, remember and report having experiences. ACTION Reinforcement learning of complex gene-proliferating actions. Evolution selects for maximal gene proliferation. Genes are proliferated in complex organisms via a combination of multiple interacting mechanisms, including maintaining approximate homeostasis for the organism’s lifetime while maximizing reproduction, offspring survival, certain types of group cooperation and using other gene proliferating strategies. Systems maintaining homeostasis have attracted considerable attention because according to the free energy principle (K. Friston 2019) all such systems, including inanimate ones, can be viewed as self-evidencing in information-theoretic sense (Hohwy 2016). However, for biological organisms this is a partial view – the flexible and adaptive information processing functionality of the evolved brain is clearly broader and supports implementation of multiple evolutionary-advantageous strategies in addition to maintaining homeostasis. How could a perception- and action-learning system be organized to serve these evolutionary purposes? One well-known and general machine learning approach is reinforcement learning (Sutton and Barto 1998), in which a system learns to perceive and act to maximize the discounted future cumulative reward – the future value, which the system learns to predict from the reward signals generated by (neural) mechanisms outside the learning system proper. RL is, arguably, the most successful currently known machine learning approach for complex action optimization, used in self-driving cars (Thrun et al. 2006; Kiran et al. 2022) and the best self-learning game-playing algorithms (Silver et al. 2018). The remainder of this section elaborates on the second key point in this work, the view that brains implement temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL) (Montague, Dayan, and Sejnowski 1996; Schultz, Dayan, and Montague 1997; Redish 2004; Cohen et al. 2012) of action policies beneficial for survival and reproduction (Figure 5). Here we propose that in biological organisms multiple specific, relatively simple and shortsighted, evolutionary-old neural reward mechanisms have evolved to detect situations with immediate positive or negative consequences. These detectors address body homeostasis, external danger, reproduction, as well as more complex species-specific variables, such as social status. In mammalian brains amygdala and the value system (nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area (VTA)) are neural structures known to process such rewards. By receiving input from, and projecting to, the sensory, associative, and prefrontal cortexes and the corresponding thalamic regions, they form a combined system for not only learning to represent complex regularities in sensory data, but for using them to estimate the future value of the present state based on the history of positive or negative rewards, and to predict such rewards. These future value estimates are then used to learn complex hierarchical action policies maximizing them, i.e., maximizing the best-estimate cumulative benefit for gene proliferation. In view of recent work by (Jeong et al. 2022), we emphasize that we do not propose the narrow TDRL for learning perceptions and cue-reward associations, which is soundly rejected by this work, but rather describe a RL mechanism for learning evolutionary-value-maximizing action policies. In the following section we start by describing the future value learning via attributing value to remembered past cues based the presently-detected reward prediction errors. Our value learning is precisely the learning of contingencies between past perceptions and “meaningful” events, that is, occurrences of significant and unpredicted positive or negative reward. Therefore, our proposal is largely in agreement with both the theory and the empirical observations in (Jeong et al. 2022). Figure 5. Predictive processing with active inference learns to maximize cumulative future value via reinforcement learning. The predictive processing model combines perception and action, which have distinct learning goals: perceptual causes predict future value accurately, while actions maximize it. Immediate rewards of several types are calculated directly from external and body sensory data. Each perceptual cause can contribute a positive or negative value of each type. Predictive value estimation via perception is learned by attributing reward prediction errors backward in time to recently-active perceptual causes. Action policy is improved by increasing (decreasing) the future likelihood for advantageous (detrimental) actions: overall positive (negative) reward prediction error is used to sensitize (inhibit) the connections that triggered the recently-active actions. Value learning. Future value can be perceptually estimated by learning specific future values for each of the learned causes and by summing these values, weighted by each cause’s presently inferred likelihood. These causespecific future values can be learned locally by a conventional online TDRL algorithm: the future-value surprise (reward prediction error) is propagated back by modifying the specific values of the recentlyactive causes. For learning the specific values, TD update size may follow the above-described Bayesian logic distinguishing the recently-formed from the well-learned causes: larger value updates are applied to the less well-known values of the recently added causes, while the update size (plasticity) is decreased with the number of times a cause is inferred, approaching a fixed low limit. The TD value learning is local, requiring only that the specific value strengths for recently-inferred causes remain plastic over a short reconsolidation time, perhaps seconds to tens of seconds, similar to the conditioning timescales, and that the single global value error (value surprise) be widely distributed back to each of these causes represented in the cortex. In other words, the future value is a special type of cause, which is computed forward from a large number of perceptual PP causes, with weights learned from the reward prediction errors via the TDRL rule. The widely distributed reciprocal connections between the amygdala and the value system on the one hand and the thalamocortical system on the other are generally consistent with this view. These value-estimating and value-learning connections should not be confused with the dopaminergic signaling from the VTA largely to the front of the cortex. Within the RL framework, the value system uses the dopaminergic pathway to signal the value surprise, i.e., the reward prediction error, forward to areas encoding action, such that the recent actions which may have caused an unpredicted value estimate increase or decrease (surprise) are reinforced or suppressed, respectively (Cohen et al. 2012). Since we have suggested multiple reward signals provided by distinct neural detectors of specific geneproliferation-relevant states, several different types of future values may be simultaneously estimated, separately predicting the future cumulative sum for each reward type or for their multiple specific combinations. These values place the current state within a multidimensional affective state space corresponding to the multiple emotions with positive or negative valence that can be present simultaneously. These distinct future value estimates are ultimately combined to generate the single dopaminergic phasic reward prediction error output from VTA to the frontal thalamo-cortical system for action learning. Within conventional PP the functions of perception is learning, inferring and representing predictive regularities in sensory data. However, from the evolutionary perspective perception would be selected only for facilitating learning and execution of beneficial action. Thus, the perception learning goal is not to predict all sensory data with uniform accuracy, but to learn regularities in sensory data which are predictive of the future value or can facilitate learning and guiding action. While the value system learns positive and negative affective values specific to individual causes, perceptual cause learning itself, both via binding of new causes and via adjustment of prediction strengths of existing causes, must be specifically optimized for value learning. Minimizing the future-value prediction errors requires learning specifically the sensory data regularities predictive of current and future reward. For example, a large positive or negative value surprise concurrent with a newly-bound cause not only might be assigned as the specific value attributed to this cause, but also such high-valence cause must be forgotten more slowly and, with repeat inference, more quickly become a permanent long-term memory. Additionally, perception learning must be similarly biased toward learning causes useful for triggering and guiding action. Similar to reward circuits, heuristic neural ‘saliency’ and ‘novelty’ detectors have evolved to specifically detect the presence of sensory signals that are useful to learn, even though they do not immediately correlate with either positive or negative gene-proliferation outcomes and therefore carry no explicit affective value. Signals from these detectors may modulate the perceptual learning hyperparameters similarly to the affective surprise signals. Action encoding in predictive processing. Complex action policies need to be encoded by the brain to be executed. While actions may in principle be encoded largely outside the perceptual hierarchy of PP, the work on active inference (Parr and Friston 2019; K. J. Friston et al. 2010; K. Friston et al. 2017) considers the possibility of encoding actions as predictions within the PP hierarchy. In addition to receiving sensory data, the lowest level of the hierarchy is also connected to predict, and thereby command, the actuator outputs from the motor cortex. Moving up the hierarchy implements more and more abstract actions and perceptions, interconnecting and influencing each other at each level. Thus, the hierarchical PP structure, so far discussed here mainly in the context of perception, can also encode highly complex and hierarchical perception-guided action policies. In such encoding, unitary actions at all abstraction levels can be understood as increases of the likelihoods of target causes in response to high likelihoods of trigger causes. For example, this can be implemented by inference of an action cause from the trigger causes, and prediction of the target causes by the action cause. Since we suggested that individual PP causes can represent short timed sequences of features, an elementary action cause may simply represent a timed sequence, with learned intervals, where trigger features precede the target features, thereby triggers predict targets, but not vice versa. The relationship of PP and active inference to RL is an open area of research (K. J. Friston, Daunizeau, and Kiebel 2009; Tschantz et al. 2020; Millidge et al. 2020) with much yet to be understood. Within this largely uncharted territory, we will attempt to qualitatively delineate, as a conjecture, some logical principles for how a system combining PP and TDRL might be organized. In doing this we note and explicitly set to one side the active inference result that biasing inference can generate a bias confirming action by a freeenergy minimizing system through the outside world (Parr and Friston 2019; K. J. Friston et al. 2010), thereby making the perceptual ‘prophesy’ self-fulfilling. Reformulating RL as active inference, while intriguing, applies to systems described as maintaining some generalized homeostasis, while the rewards of RL may be able to define a broader range of action policy learning goals more explicitly, and point to how such policies may be learned in the absence of good world models. Within explicit RL, accurate and unbiased estimation of future value is key for learning actions which maximize the reward. Thus, even if action and perception are encoded within a common hierarchy, their functional roles are separate. Perception is learned to accurately estimate the future value and represent the regularities of the world helpful for controlling action, while action is learned to maximize the future value, without undue decrease of the perception accuracy. One way of accomplishing this is by explicitly separating PP causes into action-like and perception-like by providing different learning rules and biases for each, encoded via their hyperparameters. Unlike perceptual cause learning via prediction error minimization, existing action causes’ prediction strengths may be learned based on the dopaminergic reinforcement signaling value prediction error: the prediction strengths for the action’s trigger and target features is increased (decreased) based on the positive (negative) future-value surprise integrated over a seconds-to-minutes long period of plasticity following the inference of the action. The action is strengthened if it has led to a positive value surprise and vice versa. This local rule is largely consistent with the known dopaminergic signals from the VTA distributed throughout the frontal cortex. This organization is also consistent with the view that actions are represented mostly in the front of the cortex. Action learning and exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Other than periods of sleep (where off-line learning processes are known to occur, see also the States of consciousness section below), an organism learns online, while it is perceiving and acting. Given the enormity of the action space, computing to select the best action for each state via Q-learning (Sutton and Barto 1998) appears intractable. Therefore, perception can only estimate the future value of the state itself, on-policy, i.e., for the combination of the world and the present ongoing action policy. Even when the on-policy value is perfectly learned, it is not clear how any meaningful gradients of the value in the policy space can be computed. Lacking value gradients, policy improvements would have to be learned by experimenting: making a modification and retaining or discarding the modification based on the subsequent value surprise. Considering that some causes are actions, binding action- and object-causes as features into a new cause adds new coupling between these objects and actions. These actions can now be triggered by the objects. Thus, learning by binding can be understood not only as perceptual learning but also as policy modification. Following the RL logic, a policy modification should be retained and consolidated or forgotten based not only on its perceptual usefulness (both perceptual prediction error reduction and improved value prediction), but also based on the policy modification’s value benefit, estimated as the positive or negative value surprise over a period following the modification. Both perceptual usefulness and action usefulness must be weighted by a stable and efficient learning process. Importantly, they appear to be distinguishable in time – while the perceptual usefulness is given immediately by how much the prediction errors and the future value surprise are reduced by the new cause’s inference, the value benefit is given not by the immediate but by the subsequent value surprise, attributable to the consequences of the action. Therefore, retention and consolidation of a perceptual cause might be increased when there is an immediate value surprise, either positive or negative, while action causes would be retained or discarded based on the time-integrated positivity or negativity, respectively, of the subsequent, delayed value surprise. While the ongoing binding process is one type of policy modification, exploring may be broadened to include generation of off-policy actions. There is a vast variety of explorable actions, most being irrelevant to the circumstances. One possibility is to incrementally perturb the policy via random test actions generated by lowering the action triggering (inference) threshold. This way only context-relevant actions slightly outside the current policy would be inferred and explored, i.e., those actions that would be triggered by similar but not identical perceptions. If a positive value surprise follows, the policy modification should be retained, so that the next time it will also be triggered in similar circumstances. The present moment’s unique features are described by the newly-bound causes of the present moment, and triggering in similar circumstances can be accomplished by binding the new action as part of the present episode binding these causes, and retaining and consolidating the episode, such that the new action can be later triggered by associative recall. Other ways of learning to improve the policy, both principled and heuristic, remain to be studied. A wellknown general exploration vs. exploitation tradeoff in RL is whether to try policy modifications in hopes of learning a better policy or to stick with the existing policy and exploit the benefits already learned. Biologically evolved approaches for making this tradeoff dynamically may consider various state variables, such as whether the future value is presently high or low. The described lowering of the action inference threshold is one way to increase exploration by trying new actions. A speculative but intriguing possibility is that exploration is modulated by tonic, rather than phasic, aminergic signaling, such as tonic dopamine levels from VTA controlling action thresholds and tonic serotonin levels modulating inference, prediction and/or binding thresholds in the perceptual PP hierarchy. This conjecture may help understand both the hallucinatory effects related to tonic prefrontal and limbic dopamine imbalance, as well as shedding light on the action of psychedelic compounds via serotonin receptors, as manifestations of increased exploration within the PP action and perception realms, respectively. Imagination and thinking. High-level actions directly predict (trigger) specific other actions and high-level perceptions. Whenever the prediction target is a perceptual cause, a perceived likelihood of the cause increases. We have previously discussed how the action of selective attention to the spatial location of a newly-bound object can maintain the object in the global workspace and working memory. When this happens in the absence of sensory data directly supporting the object’s inference, this object is imagined. Inferences of causes directly predicting sequences of features result in replays of such visual, auditory or multimodal sequences. Like actions triggered by perceptions inferred from sensory data, complex and highly specific actions can be triggered by imagined perceptual inferences, making long imagined action-perception chains possible. They may include sensory images, amodal/abstract imagination, kinesthetic action imagination, as well as imagined generation and perception of speech sequences in humans. Some of these inferences will remain unpredicted long enough to be bound into new causes and unified episodes, thus making them into the conscious contents. Excluding some states of focused attention, flow and meditation, a large fraction of the human conscious contents appears to be generated by such multimodal imagination action-perception sequences, in addition to the more direct perceptual inferences from the sensory data. Imagining reuses the predictive machinery of perception – imagining objects or actions predicts object features as well as the perceptual consequences of actions. This agrees with everyday experiences such as mental visual object rotation or internal dialog generation. Furthermore, imagined objects and actions are subject to all the learning mechanisms in the system, consistent with learning through mental rehearsing. In principle, generating sequences of imagined percepts does not seem to require language. Language recognition can be understood as a special set of actions for imagining the semantic content in response to linguistic code perceptual triggers. Correspondingly, imagined verbal conversation sequences accompanied by the multimodal perceptions of the semantic content constitute the discursive thought. Importantly, inability of the PP model to fully predict the results of these complex actions, i.e., to predict the imagined utterances and the associated perceptual content, leads to them being bound and becoming conscious. Procedural knowledge and perceptual knowledge. We can thus distinguish two types of knowledge in our learning system: perceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge. The first is the ability to perceptually recognize objects and events. The second is the ability to generate sequences of mental and physical actions, which consist of combinations of perceived objects and events triggering perceptions of other objects and events. For illustration, the ability to think and say that Earth rotates relative to the Sun differs from unambiguously perceiving oneself standing on a rotating ball of Earth whenever watching a sunrise. Missing this distinction between the procedural knowledge and the learned perception has led to considerable philosophical confusion, such as in the Mary-the-color-scientist thought experiment (Jackson 1982; Blackmore and Troscianko 2018). Normal color perception relies on a perceptual model making complex inferences from visual sensory data and is only functional when it provides input to further perceptual inferences related to colored objects. It is entirely distinct from the discursive scientific knowledge about color perception – a set of mostly procedural skills, such as predicting consequences based on conditions, combined with high-level perceptual skills of recognizing abstract concepts of scientific models in the real-world experimental reality. The perceptual and procedural (such as language-mediated discursive) skills are often tightly coupled. Procedural skills are built using perceptual skills, i.e., perception is needed to guide action. On the other hand, learned actions resulting in unpredicted activations of a percept B after a percept A makes them subject to learning by binding, thus facilitating perceptual learning of a predictive relationship between them. We can see how in the absence of accurate discursive knowledge, or through cultural exposure to inaccurate knowledge, illusory perceptions may be more easily learned. Meanwhile, accurate perceptual models can be learned, and perceptual illusions can be corrected with the help of accurate discursive knowledge of underlying phenomena, when such procedural models generate accurate perceptual examples and outcomes. For example, should one choose to, one can not only discursively know that Earth is rotating, but also train to perceive being on a rotating Earth when experiencing a sunrise. Unlike this particular example, learning accurate perceptions can be highly consequential, since changing the perceptual model entails automatic changes to when and how various dependent perceptions and actions occur. Once learned, the perceptual inference is automatic, while ‘unperceiving’ or changing the perceptual model requires additional training. Using scientific theories combines procedural and perceptual skills. Being able to solve an equation or manipulate a formal model must be accompanied by perceptually recognizing which scientific model concepts and equations can be used to describe the relevant aspects of a concrete natural or experimental situation. Application of discursive and procedural scientific knowledge requires the perceptual skill of mapping the perception of the outside world to the abstract notions procedurally manipulated and discursively described by a theory. Scientific breakthroughs are often intuitive insights generated by direct perceptions of the causal relationships of the abstract scientific phenomena, which are only subsequently proven by formal manipulations. The formal manipulations are of course key for both training the perceptual model needed to produce the insight, as well as for communicating it to be learned by others. As any scientific theory, the functional account presented in this work is a procedural, discursive model. If confirmed, it may provide the procedural framework for correcting illusory perceptions that may exist about its subject. As the procedural knowledge within a conscious system, it relates the physical objects and events and the system’s representations arising from the perception- and action-learning mechanisms and includes the systems’ own perceptions of objects and actions, emotion and affect, the ‘experience’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘self’. Therefore, it is hoped that this work may not only contribute to the general scientific knowledge, but also aid those who are inclined to learn to perceive themselves without illusion. DISCUSSION States of consciousness. In our theory the hyperparameters controlling the prediction and inference, the PP learning and the learning by binding, modulated by the value system, define the state of consciousness (Bayne, Hohwy, and Owen 2016). While specifying the exact dependencies is well beyond the scope of the present work, one important concept is the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. As we have discussed, lowering inference threshold for action may lead to off-policy action generation for exploration. Perceptual inference might be similarly modulated. Additionally, the duration, level of prediction error and its correlation leading to binding may also be modulated. As mentioned above, some of these variables may be signaled by the tonic activity of the brain’s aminergic systems, in particular VTA dopaminergic signaling for actions and serotonin signaling for perception or binding, potentially shedding light on the hallucinogenic effects resulting from their pathological or pharmacologically-induced imbalances. Considering perceptual value estimation, it is important to recall that much of the perceptual inference is unconscious. Some fraction of this unconscious perceptual content is stable in time, continuously or repeatedly inferred over long periods. When these unconscious percepts have large specific positive or negative values along one or more emotional space dimensions, they provide a continuous bias input to the value system. Excessive chronic positive and, particularly, negative bias may affect the system’s hyperparameters, including offsetting the exploration-exploitation balance. This is one way our model connects to mood and its disorders, such as depression. Notably, if such unconscious inference becomes conscious in a type of perceptual shift that allows us to continue to perceive a cause while no longer fully predicting it, the inference participates in learning by binding and both its perceptual inference, and its specific future value may be rapidly changed by this single-example learning mechanism. In the focused attention and mindfulness meditation training, the assignment of a high specific value to a goal of continuously inferring the meditation object with high level of likelihood gradually modifies the policy and the perceptual model to reduce the inference of distractors. Over time this makes possible a large reduction or even elimination of most perceptual inferences arising either from sensory data or from actions of imagination, except for those representing the task-relevant state of the system and the goal (Laukkonen and Slagter 2021). In a generative PP model this also means reduction in sensory and motor predictions. Sensory maps may have regularizing normalization mechanisms, which may react to such tonic reductions of predictions and inferences by decreasing inference thresholds and increasing background likelihoods, which may explain accounts of vivid internally generated perceptions at certain stages of meditation practice, and the uniform visual illumination reported by experienced meditators. Furthermore, lack of perception equals lack of input for future value estimation. When the goal of effortless focused object perception without distractors is initially achieved, the positive evaluation of the task performance is the dominant positively-valenced perception, providing a singular positive input to the value system. In the absence of any other concurrent inputs, this is consistent with the meditative rapture typically described upon reaching this stage of practice. With further practice the estimated future value of being in this state reduces, eventually giving rise to the affectively-neutral equanimity. Hypothetically, the reduction in the unpredicted perceptual content in deep meditation would mean progressively simpler episode content, consistent with reports of “pure awareness” and related discussions of “minimal phenomenal experience” (Metzinger 2020a) and perhaps even the failure of associative recall for a fully predicted state, consistent with the cessation events reported in some contemplative traditions. Flow states (Csikszentmihalyi 1975) are the states where only comparably narrow perception and action subspaces are being occupied, while much of the self-referential default mode perception and action content is temporarily not being inferred, so that task interference is avoided. The future value in a flow state is estimated only from this narrow task-relevant perceptual content, which is neutral or positive when the task is being successfully executed. Notably, this positive affective state may differ strongly from the default mode affective state. Sleep is known to be important for off-line learning. Consistent with our hypothesis, there may be offline regimes that activate parts of the PP model and/or change the prediction weights in the absence of binding and therefore fully unconsciously. Action and object encoding parts of the PP hierarchy may be activated differently or not at all. In contrast, dreaming appears to be the result of action exploration in response to tonic dopamine signaling to the front of the brain, whereby in the absence of sensory input the explored actions of imagination result in hallucinatory perceptions. An intriguing possibility is that dreaming might act as off-line RL value-learning iterations. In TDRL, multiple iterations are necessary to propagate the value backward over large time delays and assign it specifically to one or more of the predictive causes. By repeatedly replaying perceptual models forward in time, such specific values of perceptual causes can be learned. Binding during dreaming is likely necessary for the correct dynamic replay, resulting in conscious perception of dreams, while distorted declarative learning form dreams is inhibited by modifying the hyperparameters to disable memory retention and consolidation, inducing sleep amnesia. Measurement of consciousness. Generally, we propose that the defining consequence of consciousness is the efficient declarative learning not accessible to unconscious processes or systems. Therefore, the empirically testable presence of these types of learning modalities in biological organisms can serve as a measure of consciousness, separate from and broader than the introspective reports. Such measures taken together with other cognitive and neurophysiological data and numerical models provide a path for developing a validated theoretical framework for consciousness. According to our theory, the recallable conscious content and conscious action arise through the specific interactions of PP, binding, future value estimation and RL, therefore experiments might attempt to isolate and target these specific processes in the brain for both measurement and controlled manipulation. PP without binding is unconscious. At the lowest level, a conscious perception is a binding event that creates temporary cross-prediction between previously unrelated causes. A mere correlation is not sufficient to confirm the new causal connection, but rather one of the bound causes has to be manipulated and effect on the other measured, such as in an associative recall. Importantly, the binding should be studied between causes that were previously unrelated. This binding may be studied both at the low level of the PP, the presumed result of recurrent processing in low sensory layers, and at the high level of the PP hierarchy, where the global workspace is formed. Experiments may manipulate the inference of the causes that are being bound, such as specific perceptual features at the sensory PP level or specific actions of selective attention to attributes at the higher-level. The manipulations can target the strength and duration of both perceptual and attention action inferences – stimulus contrast and masking for perception and distractors to trigger interfering attention actions for attention. Naturally, these are already common experimental paradigms, but our view highlights the need to ensure novelty of the presented combination of stimuli, i.e., controlling for preexisting PP causes capable of predicting the combination. We advocate measurements of binding of specific, controlled features to each other rather than on the less controllable binding of a feature to the whole experimental context, which is often the case in the present paradigms. When considering measures of the conscious state, such as the perturbation complexity index (Casali et al. 2013), such measures might be aimed to distinguish the PP without binding, the low-level perceptual binding, the high-level binding involving actions of attention and imagination, and the full procedural processing – generation of a train of conscious thought modulated by an initial high-level binding. As we have discussed, a broader definition of consciousness content includes the nonunified low-level binding occurring within each sensory modality (aligned with the recurrent processing ToC), while a less inclusive definition only includes the causes bound into the unified episode structure (aligned with the global workspace ToC). The action triggering and thought generation is an additional process, relying on the binding, but possibly reduced or absent in some conscious states such as meditation. Outlook and open questions. Our hypothesis is at present qualitative and makes conjectures about the properties entailed by the hypothesized learning system’s functional organization and how they explain relevant empirical observations. The first direction for further research is the search for empirical data that can corroborate or falsify this hypothesis, such as by being incompatible with how the proposed system must function. The second direction is theoretical analysis and numerical modeling of the instantiations of the proposed system to study its feasibility and functional properties. The aim here is to ascertain whether such a system can indeed stably and efficiently learn in an incremental and compositional manner with high sample efficiency and generalizability (Kaelbling 2020), surpassing existing learning architectures. Understanding this architecture from the fundamental statistical learning theory / machine learning perspective and developing its numerical implementations will constrain and firm up predictions for such systems, to be compared with experimental data from biological systems, including humans. The third direction is to understand with high specificity how neural mechanisms and structures in the brain might map onto the functional units proposed here and see if our proposal might provide a useful framework for better understanding of the brain. The proposed architecture should be further investigated to put it on a solid theoretical foundation supported by numerical models in several areas. The first area is the combination of learning by binding with generative perceptual modeling such as PP, where PP may be a mixture of categorical and continuous, and may include causes directly modeling time sequences of features, i.e., generatively replaying features in time. Modeling considerations may include priors, network topology constraints and regularization mechanisms, particularly within the lower and intermediate levels of the PP hierarchy, and how binding may enable learning within such architectures. Potential mechanisms for learning and implementing perception and action inhibition, either direct or through built-in normalization constraints, should be further elucidated. Another area is using generative modeling to represent both perception and action within RL, where learning accurate predictive perception needs to be balanced with learning useful action, and exploration-exploitation tradeoff needs to be implemented. While at this time the overall correctness of this hypothesis is by no means assured and many aspects remain to be understood, the numerical testing of such functional architectures is straightforward in principle. However, it is critically important that proper considerations are given to the ethical aspects of such research. The ethical goal of gaining knowledge and reducing epistemic indeterminacy should be weighted carefully against increasing the risk of creating unnecessary artificial suffering (Metzinger 2021). Summary. A broad range of observations commonly related to the term ‘consciousness’ can be functionally explained by considering a system combining generative perceptual modeling, such as predictive processing, with learning by binding and reinforcement learning of complex actions. Biological conscious systems have evolved because they enhance gene proliferation by efficiently and adaptively learning to implement complex action policies. Our theoretical proposal is comprehensive, tying together the leading insights into consciousness and action learning. It is subject to a rigorous mathematical description, numerical modeling, and formal theoretical analysis to be developed within the frameworks of statistical learning theory, machine learning and predictive processing. The properties entailed by the hypothesized functional architecture were illustrated by examples, wherein we preferred to be specific and possibly wrong rather than vague and unfalsifiable, aiming to facilitate empirical testing. No doubt many of these examples will have to be refined and corrected, while it is our hope that the main ideas will withstand empirical tests. At a bare minimum, this work provides insight into how a comprehensive scientific theory of consciousness may be conceived. BOX 1. Meeting the Hard Criteria for a theory of consciousness Here we specifically describe this proposal following the hard criteria for a theory of consciousness proposed in (Doerig, Schurger, and Herzog 2021): Empirical phenomena of consciousness being addressed by the proposal: 1. Our theory addresses both the content and the state of consciousness by describing (1) the functional mechanisms necessary and sufficient for consciousness (state) and (2) the formation of perceptual content, and which perceptual content is unified, enter the memory record and is available for action, and which is not (content). 2. The conscious state is governed by hyperparameters of the various learning functions (the prediction error size, time persistence and correlation necessary for binding; parameters governing the ongoing inference of PP; the bound cause forgetting and consolidation rates; the value learning and action learning timescales and rates and the exploration vs. exploitation tradeoff). All these global parameters modulate the state of consciousness continuously, and their different values distinguish conscious states. 3. Consciousness is unifying in a sense of (temporarily) attributing various contents to common causes and thereby (temporarily) constraining these groups of perceptions to covary. This unification is hierarchical and at the highest level contents are unified into an episode. Given the proposed binding rules, binding between low-level perceptual features may occur without further binding with higher level features and the episode, accounting for the experimental observations in (Meuwese et al. 2013). 4. The theory is temporally continuous, but posits the existence of a time threshold for binding. Discontinuously varying outcomes are predicted dependent on whether time periods between perceptual inferences are smaller or larger than the binding time threshold, accounting for experimental observations in (Herzog, Drissi-Daoudi, and Doerig 2020). 5. Unconscious contents are not bound or unified, therefore they can have causal influence only on other contents with which they have a prior learned association, e.g., priming and triggering of previously associated actions and perceptions. Meeting Hard Criteria: 1. Paradigm cases: The theory addresses several experimental paradigm cases as described. It is comprehensive and experimentally falsifiable. 2. Unfolding and structure vs. function: Theory is functional and does not limit how the functions are implemented. However, consciousness is a property than cannot be meaningfully ascribed to any separate part of the full system’s functional organization, which must include future value estimation, and action learning as well as the PP and binding. To function, such system must be connected with a world via sensors and actuators and provided the rewards. 3. Network size: The theory describes a functional organization that implements consciousness, irrespective of size. Accordingly, small networks implementing this functional organization are deemed conscious, even if this consciousness is simple and limited in what it can represent, learn or enact. Each instance of a complete implementation of this functional organization within a large network is deemed separately conscious. Other than split brain patients, there is no clear evidence of multiple instances of this organization within a single brain. It is likely that two largely separate instances of this functional organization exist in split brain patients, thus containing two consciousnesses. However, when the split brains are interconnected, they can no longer be considered separate and independent implementations of the functional organization. A normally connected brain implements a single instance of the functional organization. 4. Other systems: Multiple implementations are possible, including non-biological. An appropriately functionally organized numerical model is conscious. 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Information Closure Theory of Consciousness Acer Y.C. Chang∗, Martin Biehl†, Yen Yu‡, and Ryota Kanai§ arXiv:1909.13045v2 [q-bio.NC] 11 Jun 2020 ARAYA, Inc., Tokyo, Japan Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Non-trivial Informational Closure 2.1 Informational Closure Does not Imply Causality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6 3 Coarse-graining in the Neural System 6 4 Information Closure Theory of Consciousness 4.1 Level of Consciousness is Equal to the Degree of NTIC of a C-process . . . . . . . 4.2 Conscious Contents Corresponding to States of a C-Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Reconciling the Levels and Contents of Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 10 11 12 5 Conscious Versus Unconscious Processing 5.1 Unconscious Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Conscious Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 12 14 6 Comparison with Other Relevant Theories of Consciousness 6.1 Multilevel Views on Consciousness and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Integrated Information Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Predictive Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Sensorimotor Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Global Workspace Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 15 17 17 18 18 7 Limitations and Future Work 19 8 Conclusions 20 Acknowledgements 21 Author Contributions Statement 21 Conflict of Interest Statement 21 Reference 22 Figure Legends 26 Abstract Information processing in neural systems can be described and analysed at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Generally, information at lower levels is more fine-grained but can be coarse-grained at higher levels. However, only information processed at specific scales of coarsegraining appears to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of ∗ Corresponding author, acercyc@araya.org † martin@araya.org ‡ yen.yu@araya.org § kanair@araya.org 1 information available at the scale of individual neurons, which is noisy and highly stochastic. Neither do we have experience of more macro-scale interactions, such as interpersonal communications. Neurophysiological evidence suggests that conscious experiences co-vary with information encoded in coarse-grained neural states such as the firing pattern of a population of neurons. In this article, we introduce a new informational theory of consciousness: Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT). We hypothesise that conscious processes are processes which form non-trivial informational closure (NTIC) with respect to the environment at certain coarse-grained scales. This hypothesis implies that conscious experience is confined due to informational closure from conscious processing to other coarse-grained scales. ICT proposes new quantitative definitions of both conscious content and conscious level. With the parsimonious definitions and a hypothesise, ICT provides explanations and predictions of various phenomena associated with consciousness. The implications of ICT naturally reconcile issues in many existing theories of consciousness and provides explanations for many of our intuitions about consciousness. Most importantly, ICT demonstrates that information can be the common language between consciousness and physical reality. Keywords: Keywords: theory of consciousness, non-trivial informational closure, NTIC, coarse-graining, level of analysis 2 1 Introduction Imagine you are a neuron in AliceâĂŹs brain. Your daily work is to collect neurotransmitters through dendrites from other neurons, accumulate membrane potential, and finally send signals to other neurons through action potentials along axons. However, you have no idea that you are one of the neurons in AliceâĂŹs supplementary motor area and are involved in many motor control processes for AliceâĂŹs actions, such as grabbing a cup. You are ignorant of intentions, goals, and motor plans that Alice has at any moment, even though you are part of the physiological substrate responsible for all these actions. A similar story also happens in AliceâĂŹs conscious mind. To grab a cup, for example, Alice is conscious of her intention and visuosensory experience of this action. However, her conscious experience does not reflect the dynamic of your membrane potential or the action potentials you send to other neurons every second. That is, not all the information you have is available to AliceâĂŹs conscious mind. It appears to be true that we do not consciously access information processed at every scale in the neural system. There are both more microscopic and more macroscopic scales than the scale corresponding to the conscious contents. On the one hand, the dynamics of individual neurons are stochastic (Goldwyn & Shea-Brown, 2011; White et al., 2000). However, what we are aware of in our conscious mind shows astonishing stability and robustness against the ubiquitous noise in the neural system (Mathis & Mozer, 1995). In addition, some parts of the neural system contribute very little to conscious experience (the cerebellum for example (Lemon & Edgley, 2010)), also suggesting that conscious contents do not have one-to-one mapping to the entire state of the neural system. On the other hand, human conscious experience is more detailed than just a simple (e.g. binary) process can represent, suggesting that the state space of conscious experience is much larger than what a single overly coarse-grained binary variable can represent. These facts suggest that conscious processes occur at a particular scale. We currently have possess only a few theories (e.g., Integrated Information Theory (Hoel et al., 2016) and Geometric Theory of Consciousness (Fekete & Edelman, 2011, 2012)) to identify the scale to which conscious processes correspond (also see discussion in Fekete et al. (2016)). We refer to this notion as the scale problem of consciousness (Fig. 1). In this article, we propose a new information-based theory of consciousness, called the Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT). We argue that every process with a positive non-trivial information closure (NTIC) has consciousness. This means that the state of such a process corresponds one-to-one to conscious content.1 . We further postulate that the level of consciousness corresponds to the degree of NTIC. (For a discussion of the distinction between level versus content of consciousness see Laureys (2005); Overgaard & Overgaard (2010)). In the following, we first introduce non-trivial informational closure and argue for its importance to information processing for human scale agents (Sec. 2). We next argue that through coarsegraining the neural system can form informational closure and a high degree of NTIC at a specific scale of coarse-graining (Sec. 3). In Sec. 4, we propose a new theory of consciousness (ICT). We also illustrate how ICT can parsimoniously explain empirical findings from previous consciousness studies (Sec. 5) and reconcile several current major theories of consciousness (Sec.6). Finally, we discuss the current theoretical and empirical limitations of ICT and propose the implications of ICT on the current consciousness science (Sec.7). 1 In the following IC stands for "informational closure" or "informationally closed" and NTIC stands for "nontrivial informational closure" or "non-trivially informationally closed". 3 Physical Scale Macroscopic Multi-agent Interaction Whole Brain Neuron Population Single Neuron Subcellular Structure Microscopic Figure 1: The scale problem of consciousness: Human conscious experience does not reflect information from every scale. Only information at a certain coarse-grained scale in the neural system is reflected in consciousness. 4 +1 ^ ^ +1 Figure 2: Dependencies between a system Y and its environment E through the channels yˆt and eˆt . 2 Non-trivial Informational Closure The notion of non-trivial informational closure (NTIC) was introduced by Bertschinger et al. (2006). The concept of closure is closely related to system identification in systems theory. One can distinguish a system from its environment by computing the closedness of the system (Luhmann, 1995; Maturana & Varela, 1991; Pattee, 2012; Rosen, 1991). Closedness itself can be further quantified by information theory. Consider two processes, the environment process (Et )t∈N and the system process (Yt )t∈N and let their interaction be described by the Bayesian network with the sensor channel êt and the action ŷt channel in Fig. 2. Information flow Jt from the environment E to a system S at time t can then be defined as the conditional mutual information I between the current environment state Et and the future system state Yt+1 given the current system state Yt Jt (E → Y ) := I(Yt+1 ; Et |Yt ) = I(Yt+1 ; Et ) − (I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) − I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et )) (1) Bertschinger et al. (2006) defines a system as informationally closed when information flow from the environment to the system is zero. Jt (E → Y ) = 0 (2) Information closure (minimising Jt ) is trivial if the environment and the system are entirely independent of each other. I(Yt+1 ; Et ) = 0 ⇒ Jt (E → Y ) = 0 (3) However, informational closure can be formed non-trivially. In the non-trivial case, even though a system contains (or encodes) information about the environmental dynamics, the system can still be informationally closed. In such cases, the mutual information between the current states of the environment and the future state of the system is larger than zero. I(Yt+1 ; Et ) > 0 (4) I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) − I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et ) > 0 (5) This also implies And, non-trivial informational closure can be defined as N T ICt (E → Y ) : = I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) − I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et ) (6) = I(Yt+1 ; Et ) − I(Yt+1 ; Et |Yt ) (7) Hence, maximising N T ICt (E → Y ) amounts to maximising I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) minimising I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et ) 5 and (8) One can also maximise N T ICt (E → Y ) by maximising I(Yt+1 ; Et ) minimising I(Yt+1 ; Et |Yt ) and (9) This implies that the system contains within itself all the information about its own future and the self-predictive information contains the information about the environment. For simplicity, in what follows, we refer to NTIC processes as those processes with positive NTIC. 2.1 Informational Closure Does not Imply Causality A surprising result from the definition of information flow Jt (E → Y ) (Eq. 1) is that information flow does not indicate causal dependency from Et to Yt+1 or from Yt to Yt+1 . Here we consider two scenarios, modelling and passive adaptation, which were previously noted by Bertschinger et al. (2006). In both scenarios, a process can form positive NTIC (N T IC(E → Y ) > 0) and informational closure (J(E → Y ) = 0), albeit via different causal dependencies. In the modelling scenario, to achieve positive NTIC and informational closure, a system can internalise and synchronise with the dynamics of the environment, e.g., model the environment. In this case, the future internal state Yt+1 of the system is driven by the current internal state Yt and the system still retains mutual information with the environment. Having high degrees of NTIC then entails high predictive power about the environment. This gives biological agents functional and evolutionary advantages. In the passive adaptation scenario, the future system states (Yt+1 ) are entirely driven by the current environment states (Et ). The system, perhaps counterintuitively, can nonetheless achieve positive NTIC and informational closure. This happens under the condition that the sensory process êt is deterministic and the system merely copies the sensory values. The system is then a copy of another informationally closed process (êt ) and is therefore closed. At the same time, the system has mutual information with the process that it is copying. In most of the realistic cases, however, the environment is partially observable from the system’s perspective, and thus the sensory process is usually not deterministic. Accordingly, it is difficult for the system to be informationally closed and have higher NTIC. More importantly, we argue in the Appendix that whenever the environment has itself more predictable dynamics than the observations, it is possible exists for a process to achieve higher NTIC by modelling the environment than by copying the observations. We will see that both scenarios are relevant to ICT in the following sections. 3 Coarse-graining in the Neural System The formation of NTIC with a highly stochastic process is challenging. NTIC requires the predictability of the system state and is therefore impeded by noise in the system. Information processing at the microscopic scale (cellular scale) in neural systems suffers from multiple environmental noise sources such as sensor, cellular, electrical, and synaptic noises. For example, neurons exhibit large trial-to-trial variability at the cellular scale, and are subject to thermal fluctuations and other physical noises (Faisal et al., 2008). Nevertheless, it is possible that neural systems form NTIC at certain macroscopic scales through coarse-graining of microscopic neural states. Coarse-graining refers to many-to-one or one-to-one maps which aggregate microscopic states to a macroscopic state. In other words, a number of different micro-states correspond to the same value of the macro-variable (Price & Corry, 2007). Coarse-grainings can therefore form more stable and deterministic state transitions and more often form NTIC processes. For neural systems this means that a microscopically noisy neural system may still give rise to an NTIC process on a more macroscopic scale. Indeed, empirical evidence suggests that coarse-graining is a common coding strategy of the neural system by which it establishes robustness against noise at microscopic scales. For instance, the inter-spike intervals of an individual neuron are stochastic. This implies that the state of an individual neuron does not represent stable information. However, the firing rate, i.e. the average spike counts over a given time interval, is more stable and robust against noise such as the variability in inter-spike intervals. Using this temporal coarse-graining strategy, known as rate 6 coding (Adrian, 1926; Gerstner & Kistler, 2002; Maass & Bishop, 2001; Panzeri et al., 2015; Stein et al., 2005), neurons can encode stimulus intensity by increasing or decreasing their firing rate (Kandel et al., 2000). (Stein et al., 2005). The robustness of rate coding is a direct consequence of the many-to-one mapping (i.e., coarse-graining). Population coding is another example of encoding information through coarse-graining in neural systems. In this coding scheme, information is encoded by the activation patterns of a set of neurons (a neuron population). In the population coding scheme, many states of a neuron population map to the same state of macroscopic variables which encode particular informational contents, thereby reducing the influence of noise in individual neurons. That is, stable representations can be formed through coarse-graining the high dimensional state space of a neuron population to a lower dimensional macroscopic state space (Binder et al., 2009; Kristan Jr & Shaw, 1997; Pouget et al., 2000; Quian Quiroga & Panzeri, 2009). Therefore, individual neuron states (microscopic scale) are not sufficiently informative about the complete encoded contents at the population scale (macroscopic scale). Instead, coarse-grained variables are better substrates for stably encoding information and allow the neural system to ignore noisy interactions at the fine-grained scale (Woodward, 2007). These two examples show that the known coding schemes can be viewed as coarse-graining, and provide stochastic neural systems with the ability to form more stable and deterministic macroscopic processes for encoding and processing information reliably. We argue that coarsegraining allows neural systems to form NTIC processes at macroscopic scales. Based on the merit of coarse-graining in neural systems, we propose a new theory of consciousness in the next section. 4 Information Closure Theory of Consciousness In this section, we propose a new theoretical framework of consciousness: the Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT). The main hypothesis is that conscious processes are captured by what we call C-processes. We first define C-processes, then state our hypothesis and discuss its implications. 7 Figure 3: The information flow amounts the universe X, the system S, the environment of the system E, and the coarse-grained process Y of the system S. The solid line with a filled arrow from Xt to Xt+1 represents the microscopic dynamic of the universe. The solid lines with a empty arrow represent directions of coarse-graining. The dashed lines represents virtual dependencies between two macroscopic variables. The red Yt , Yt+1 , and the red dashed line in between represents a macroscopic process which forms informational closure at a certain coarse-grained scale. 8 To define C-processes we first need to define coarse-grainings. Every coarse-graining is characterised by a function that maps the microscopic process to the coarse-grained macroscopic process. More formally: Definition 1. Given a stochastic process X with state space X , a coarse-graining of X is a stochastic process Y with state space Y such that there exists a function 2 fY : X → Y with Yt = fY (Xt ). A more general definition of coarse-grainings that maps temporally extended sequences of the microscopic process to macroscopic states are possible, but for this first exposure of our theory the simpler definition above is sufficient. Definition 2. Given a stochastic process X called the universe process, a C-process is a coarsegraining Y of X such that the following two conditions are satisfied (see Fig. 3): 1. Y is informationally closed to X 2. there exists a pair (S, E) of coarse-grainings of X such that • Y is a coarse-graining of S, • the state space X of X is equal to the Cartesian product of the state spaces S and E of processes S and E respectively, formally X = S × E, and • Y is NTIC to E, formally: N T ICt (E → Y ) > 0 (10) Note that, here we applied the same definitions of information flow (Eq. 1) Jt (E → Y ) = I(Yt+1 ; Et |Yt ) (11) to the system-environment dependency and the micro-macro scale dependency Jt (X → Y ) = I(Yt+1 ; Xt |Yt ) (12) even though the Bayesian graphs differ in the two scenarios. Both these settings have been previously used in the literature (see Bertschinger et al., 2006; Pfante et al., 2014b). With the two definitions we can state the main hypothesis of ICT Hypothesis. A process Y is conscious if and only if it is a C-process of some process X. Also the content of consciousness CtContent at time t is the state yt of the C-process at time t and the level of consciousness CtLevel is the degree of NTIC of the process to the environment i.e. N T ICt (E → Y ): CtContent = yt CtLevel = N T ICt (E → Y ) (13) (14) A concrete example in the context of neuroscience is that X represents the microscopic scale of the universe, S a cellular scale process in the neural system, Y a more macroscopic process of the neural system coarse-grained from the cellular scale process S, and E the environment which the cellular level process S interacts with. The environment E may include other processes in the neural system, the sensors for perception and interoception, and external physical worlds. Based on the hypothesis, ICT leads to five core implications: Implication 1. Consciousness is information. Here, "informative" refers to the resolution of uncertainty. Being in a certain conscious state rules out other possible conscious states. Therefore, every conscious percept resolves some amount of uncertainty and provides information. This implication is also in agreement with the "axiom" of information in Integrated Information Theory (IIT 3.0) which claims that “. . . an experience of pure darkness is what it is by differing, in its particular way, from an immense number of other possible experiences. . . ” (Oizumi et al., 2014, P. 2) 2 Functions in the mathematical sense used here are always either one-to-one or many-to-one. 9 Implication 2. Consciousness is associated with physical substrates and the self-information of the conscious percept is equal to the self-information of the corresponding physical event. This is a direct implication from our hypothesis that every conscious percept CtContent corresponds to a physical event yt . Implication 3. Conscious processes are self-determining. This is a direct implication of the requirement that Y is informationally closed with respect to X. To be informationally closed with respect to X, no coarse-graining knows anything about the conscious process’ future that the conscious process does not know itself. This self-determining characteristics is also consistent with our daily life conscious experience which often shows stability and continuity and is ignorant of the stochasticity (e.g., noise) of the cellular scales. Implication 4. Conscious processes encode the environmental influence on itself. This is due to the non-triviality of the informational closure of Y to E. At the same time all of this information is known to the conscious processes themselves since they are informationally closed with respect to their environments. This also suggests that conscious processes can model the environmental influence without knowing more information from the environment. Implication 5. Conscious processes can model environmental information (by forming NTIC) but be ignorant to part of the information of more microscopic processes (from Implication 3 and 4). This is consistent with our conscious experience, namely that the information that every conscious percept provides represents rich and structured environmental states without involving all the information about microscopic activities. 4.1 Level of Consciousness is Equal to the Degree of NTIC of a C-process According to Eq. 8, ICT implies that conscious levels are determined by two quantities. First, to form a high level of NTIC, one can increase the mutual information I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) between the current internal state Yt and the future internal state Yt+1 . In other words, conscious levels are associated with the degree of self-predictive information (Bialek et al., 2001). This mutual information term can be further decomposed to two information entropy quantities: I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) = H(Yt+1 ) − H(Yt+1 |Yt ) (15) This implies that a highly NTIC process must have rich dynamics with self-predictability over time. Another implication is that complex systems can potentially attain higher levels of consciousness due to the greater information capacities needed to attain high mutual information. This outcome is consistent with the common intuition that conscious levels are often associated with the degree of complexity of a system. Second, one can minimise the conditional mutual information I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et ) to increase the level of NTIC. If the mutual information term I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) is supposed to stay large, this quantity suggests that conscious level increases with the amount of information about the environment state Et that the NTIC process encodes in its own state Yt and Yt+1 . In other words, Yt should not contain more information about Yt+1 than Et . An important implication is that agents interacting with a complex environment have the chance to build a higher level of NTIC within their systems than those living in a simple environment. In other words, the level of consciousness is associated with environmental complexity. It is important to note that NTIC can be a non-monotonic function of the scale of coarsegraining. Since we can quantify the scale of a coarse-grained variable by the size of its state space, therefore, at the finest scale we consider the whole universe X as the process Y . Then, since Y is a coarse-graining of S we have Y = S = X. In this case the environment E corresponding to the universe seen as a system is the constant coarse-graining3 and therefore the mutual information I(Et ; Yt+1 ) and the transfer entropy I(Yt+1 ; Et |Yt ) are zero. The NTIC of the universe with respect to its environment is then zero, and X can never be a C-process. If we now increase the scale of Y , this allows S to also reduce in scale and therefore E can become more and more fine-grained. This means that the mutual information I(Et ; Yt+1 ) between E and Y can at least potentially become positive. Up to the point where E accounts for half of the 3 Recall that, for a system with state space S the environment state space E must be such that X = S × E. If S = X then we need E with X × E = X such that E must be a singleton set. All coarse-grainings mapping X to a singleton set are constant over X . 10 bits of X and S for the other half the upper bound of the mutual information I(Et ; Yt+1 ) achieved when Y = S increases. Refining E even further again leads to a reduction of the upper bound of I(Et ; Yt+1 ). At the other extreme, when E = X the system state space must be the singleton set and NTIC from E to Y must again be zero. Therefore, processes at intermediate scales of coarse-graining can form higher degrees of NTIC than those at the most microscopic or macroscopic scales (Fig. 4). ICT suggests that human consciousness occurs at a scale of coarse-graining where high NTIC is formed within the neural system4 . t t+1 Degree of NTIC (Conscious level) Figure 4: A non-monotonic relationship between the scale of coarse-graining and level of consciousness. 4.2 Conscious Contents Corresponding to States of a C-Process ICT proposes that conscious contents correspond to the states of C-processes (Eq. 13). This implies that the size of the state space of a C-process is associated with the richness of the conscious contents that the process can potentially have. Accordingly, a complex C-process with a high dimensional state space can have richer conscious experience than a simple C-process. This outcome is consistent with the intuition that the richness of conscious contents is associated with the complexity of a system. Informational closure can happen between scales of coarse-graining within a single system. Thus, a macroscopic NTIC process can be ignorant of its microscopic states. ICT argues that human conscious contents do not reflect cellular scale activity because the conscious process which corresponds to a macroscopic NTIC process is informationally closed to the cellular scale in the human neural system. Further more, since C-processes are informationally closed, each of them can be considered as a reality. When the information flow from its microscopic processes (and from the environment) to it is zero (Eq. 2), the future states of the process can be entirely self-determined by its past states. Importantly, in most realistic cases, NTIC processes internalise the environmental dynamics in 4 In our current setup, the size of the state space S and E correspondingly determines the scale of coarse-graining of S and E.Further research is needed to reveal the relationship among NTIC, scales of coarse-graining, and different constructions of S and E. 11 its states (see Sec. 2.1 and also Bertschinger et al. (2006)). This suggests that an NTIC process can be considered as a process that models the environmental dynamics. This implication fits well with several theories of consciousness (for example, world simulation metaphor (Revonsuo, 2006)). Note that ICT does not assume that generative models are necessary for consciousness. The implication is a natural result of processes with NTIC. Finally, a coarse-graining can be a many-to-one map from microscopic to macroscopic states and ICT proposes that conscious contents C Content is the state of the C-process. ICT therefore implies the multiple realisation thesis of consciousness (Bechtel & Mundale, 1999; Putnam, 1967), which suggests that different physical implementations could map to the same conscious experience. 4.3 Reconciling the Levels and Contents of Consciousness While it is useful to distinguish the levels and contents of consciousness at the notion level, whether they can be clearly dissociated has been a matter of debate (Bayne et al., 2016; Fazekas & Overgaard, 2016). In ICT, conscious levels and conscious contents are simply two different properties of NTIC processes, and the two aspects of consciousness are therefore naturally reconciled. In an NTIC process with a large state space, conscious contents should also consist of rich and high dimensional information. This framework therefore integrates the levels and the contents of consciousness in a coherent fashion by providing explicit formal definitions of the two notions. According to Sec. 4.1 and Sec. 4.2, an important implication from ICT is that both conscious levels and conscious contents are associated with the state space of an NTIC process Y . A larger state space of Y contributes conscious levels through the mutual information I(Yt+1 ; Yt ) and also contributes richer conscious contents by providing a greater number of possible states of conscious processes. ICT therefore explains why, in normal physiological states, conscious levels and conscious contents are often positively correlated (Laureys, 2005). This implication is also consistent with the intuition that consciousness is often associated with complex systems. 5 Conscious Versus Unconscious Processing In this section, we show how ICT can explain and make predictions about which processes are more conscious than others. ICT is constructed using information theory and can provide predictions based on mathematical definitions. 5.1 Unconscious Processing In this section we highlight two scenarios in which ICT predicts that processes remain unconscious. Processes that are not Informationally Closed The first scenario is built upon the assumption that sensor processes are non-deterministic 5 and that process dynamics are passively driven by environmental inputs. Such processes cannot be informationally closed and are, therefore, unconscious. Reflexive behaviours (Casali et al., 2013) can be considered an example of this scenario. In ICT, we can view reflexive behaviours as situations in which (Fig. 5) the internal state Yt , which triggers reflexive action ŷt , is determined by the environment state Et−1 , overruling the influences from its own past Yt−1 . Such interpretation of reflexive behaviour from the viewpoint of ICT naturally explains why reflexes involve less or no conscious experience of external stimuli. 5 Non-deterministic sensor processes here means H(ê t+1 |êt ) > 0. 12 Figure 5: Schema depicting the information flow in reflexive behaviours (shown by the red nodes and arrows) happening through the interaction between a process Y and its environment E. When the sensor process êt is non-deterministic and the internal state Yt is mostly dependent on the sensor state êt driven by the environment Et−1 but less on its past state Yt−1 , as a consequence, Y is unable to form informational closure and, therefore, remain unconscious. The same principle can be applied to interpret blindsight (Humphrey, 1970, 1999, 1974) and procedural memory (Ashby et al., 2010; Doyon et al., 2009) which are often considered unconscious processes. Blindsight patients are able to track objects, avoid obstacles, and make above chance-level visual judgements with degraded or missing visual experience.(However, in some cases, they may still preserve some forms of conscious experience; See Mazzi et al. (2016); Overgaard (2011)). We argue that blindsight-guided actions are a result of stimulus-response mapping. The corresponding neural circuits are driven passively and therefore are not informationally closed. According to ICT we therefore have no conscious visual experience of visual stimuli. Similarly, for procedural memory, the state transitions of corresponding neural circuits determining the action sequences largely depend on sensory inputs. This prevents the neural processes of procedural memory from informational closure and being conscious. ICT also offers an interpretation as to why patients with visual apperceptive agnosia (James et al., 2003) can perform online motor controls without visual awareness of action targets (Whitwell et al., 2014). Note that, not all processes that are driven by the environment (passive adaptation) are unconscious. As mentioned in Sec. 2.1, when the sensor processes are deterministic, a system can still have positive NTIC and achieve informational closure via passive adaptation. Therefore, some passive system (for example pure feedforward networks) can potentially be conscious.6 For agents such as human beings, the environment is often informationally rich but only partially observable in such a way that the current sensory inputs are insufficient to predict the next inputs and to form deterministic sensor processes. In this situation, the system cannot become informationally closed by passive adaptation (e.g., simply copying the sensory values to the system). ICT predicts that, in most realistic cases, processes with passive adaptation are unconscious. On the other hand, networks with recurrent loops employing information stored in their own past states have the potential to achieve higher NTIC by modelling the environment. If it turns out to be true that for every pure feed-forward network there are non-feed-forward systems achieving higher NTIC, then ICT predicts that the latter systems achieve higher levels of consciousness. This implication coincides with theories of consciousness emphasising the importance of recurrent circuits to consciousness (Edelman, 1992; Lamme, 2006; Tononi & Koch, 2008). 6 Since an n-layer feedforward network is a system with n-step memory it is technically appropriate to use the n-step memory definition of NTIC, i.e. N T ICtm (E → Y ) := I(Yt+1 : Et , . . . , Et−n+1 )−I(Yt+1 : Et , . . . , Et−n+1 |Yt ) (Bertschinger et al., 2006), for such systems. In this case the notion of non-deterministic input processes should be generalised to input processes with H(êt |êt−1 , . . . , êt−n ) > 0. 13 Processes that are Trivially Closed The second scenario is that when encoded information in a process is trivial, i.e. there is no mutual information between the process states and the environment states I(Yt+1 ; Et ) (Eq. 9), this leads to non-positive NTIC. In such cases, the process is considered to be unconscious. This implies that an isolated process which is informationally closed is insufficient to be conscious. This mathematical property of ICT is relevant for dealing with the boundary and individuality problems of consciousness7 (Raymont & Brook, 2006). Consider an NTIC process Y and an isolated informationally closed process Ŷ with only trivial information. Adding Ŷ to Y can still maintain informational closure but does not increase non-trivial information, i.e., consciousness is unaffected. I(Y, Ŷ ; E) = H(Y, Ŷ ) − H(Y, Ŷ |E) = H(Y ) + H(Ŷ |Y ) − (H(Y |E) + H(Ŷ |Y, E)) = H(Y ) + H(Ŷ ) − (H(Y |E) + H(Ŷ )) (16) = H(Y ) − H(Y |E) = I(Y ; E) This implies that isolated processes with trivial information do not contribute consciousness and should be considered as being outside the informational boundary of the conscious processing. This property also implies that consciousnesses do not emerge from simple aggregation of informationally closed (isolated) processes which contain trivial information. In the future we hope to adapt the procedures for boundary detection proposed in Krakauer et al. (2014, 2020) to ICT. 5.2 Conscious Processing In accordance with ICT, we claim that any process, system, or cognitive function which involves any C-process should be accompanied by conscious experience. Previous consciousness research has identified a number of diverse cognitive processes which are often accompanied by conscious experience. ICT provides an integrated account of why these processes involve conscious experience. As mentioned above, an NTIC process can be seen as an internal modelling engine for agent-environmental interactions (Bertschinger et al., 2006). Therefore, information encoded in NTIC processes is essential for several cognitive processes. Among the most valuable types of information are predictions about environmental states. Cognitive functions requiring agent-scale environmental predictions are likely to recruit NTIC processes, and to therefore be accompanied by conscious experience; examples include planning and achieving long term goals. Second, as a modelling engine, an NTIC process with a given initial state can self-evolve and simulate the environmental transitions. Cognitive functions involving internal simulations about agent-environment interactions (e.g. imagination, computing alternative realities, and generating counterfactuals) are expected to involve NTIC processes. We speculate that, these internal simulations may involve interactions between C-processes and other processes in the neural system. Therefore, they often come with conscious experience. Third, as an informationally closed system, an NTIC process can still provide environmental information without new sensory inputs. This is crucial for many types of off-line processing. Therefore, in contrast to reflexive-like behaviours, such as those mentioned above (Sec. 5.1), behaviours requiring off-line computations (Himmelbach & Karnath, 2005; Milner et al., 1999; Revol et al., 2003) often involve conscious experience. Finally, for agents adapting to complex environments (e.g., human beings), any state of the NTIC process can be seen as an integration of high dimensional information. To accurately encode information about complex environmental states and transitions, the NTIC process requires knowledge about the complex causal dependencies involved in the environment. Cognitive functions requiring larger scale integration are therefore likely to involve C-processes and accompanied by conscious experience. Note that many of the claims above are compatible with several theories of consciousness which highlight the connection between consciousness and internal simulation, predictive mechanism, or 7 The boundary problem of consciousness refers to identifying physical boundaries of conscious processes and the individuality problem of consciousness refers to identifying individual consciousnesses in the universe. 14 generative models inside a system (e.g. world simulation metaphor (Revonsuo, 2006), predictive processing and Bayesian brain (Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013; Seth, 2014), generative model and information generation (Kanai et al., 2019)). Instead of relating functional or mechanistic aspects of a system to consciousness, ICT captures common informational properties underlying those cognitive functions which are associated with consciousness. As such, ICT does not assume any functionalist perspectives of consciousness, which associate specific functions to consciousness. That is to say, since ICT associates information with consciousness, functional features accompanied by consciousness are collateral consequences of neural systems which utilise NTIC processes for adaptive functions. In sum, we argue that cognitive functions involving the C-process are inevitably accompanied by consciousness. Having an NTIC process is potentially an effective approach to increasing fitness in the evolutionary process. It is likely that biological creatures evolve NTIC processes at some point during their evolution. Due to the fundamental relation between information and consciousness, biological creatures also evolve different degrees of consciousness depending on the physical scale and complexity of the environments they adapt to. Although it starts with a non-functional hypothesis, ICT accounts for the association between function and consciousness. Further, ICT demonstrates remarkable explanatory power for various findings concerning conscious and unconscious processing. 6 Comparison with Other Relevant Theories of Consciousness In this section, we compare ICT with other relevant theories of consciousness. 6.1 Multilevel Views on Consciousness and Cognition ICT proposes that conscious processes can occur at any scale of coarse-graining which forms NTIC within a system. This suggests that the scale of coarse-graining is critical for in searching for and identifying the information corresponding to consciousness. A few number of versions of multilevel views on consciousness have previously been (explicitly or implicitly) proposed. To our knowledge, PennartzâĂŹs neurorepresentational theory (also called Neurorepresentationalism, (Pennartz, 2015, 2018)) is closest to the multilevel view of ICT. Similar to Neurorepresentationalism, the concept of levels in ICT is relevant to Marr’s level of analysis (Marr, 1982; Pennartz, 2015, 2018). However, ICT suggests that coarse-graining is necessary only when a process is not informationally closed. Therefore, if a C-process is formed at a microscopic scale (e.g. the scale of individual neurons), according to ICT, this C-process is sufficient for consciousness. Another fundamental difference between ICT and Neurorepresentationalism is that Neurorepresentationalism takes a functionalist perspective and suggests that consciousness should serve high-level worldmodelling and make a best guess about the interaction between the body and the environment. In contrast, however, ICT is grounded by a non-functional informational hypothesis. Therefore, ICT provides a non-functional and fundamental explanation for the scale problem of consciousness. Another well-known proposal based on multilevel views is the Intermediate Level Theory of Consciousness (Jackendoff, 1987; Prinz, 2007, ILT). ILT proposes that conscious experience is only associated with neural representations at intermediate levels of the sensory processing hierarchy (e.g., the 2.5D representation of visual processing), and not with lower (e.g., pixel) or higher (e.g., abstract) levels of the sensory hierarchy. Here, we want to make clear that "level" in ICT refers to the scale of coarse-graining, rather than "level" in cortical anatomy or sensory processing. It is important to note that the coarsegraining direction is an orthogonal dimension irrespective of the level of anatomy or of information processing hierarchy in the neural system (see Fig. 6). Because ILT focuses the levels of the sensory processing hierarchy and ICT focus on informational closure among the levels of coarse-graining, the two theories are fundamentally different. 15 Level of coarse-graining Time th ep D of hy rc ra ie lh ca rti co Figure 6: Distinction between the level of coarse-graining and the level of cortical hierarchy. X and Y represent the microscopic and macroscopic coarse-grained variables, respectively. X 0 represents microscopic states upstream of the cortical hierarchy. The red empty arrows represents the directions of coarse-graining and the blue arrows represent the directions of the physical dependencies in the cortical hierarchy from upstream to downstream. (Some variables and dependencies are omitted for clarity.) 16 6.2 Integrated Information Theory Integrated information theory (IIT) states that consciousness is integrated information and that a systemâĂŹs consciousness is determined by its causal properties (Tononi et al., 2016). ICT is consistent with IIT in that informational properties are thought to underlie consciousness. In this section, we will discuss ICT in the light of IIT. The concept of "information": In IIT, information refers to "integrated information", namely “Information that is specified by a system that is irreducible to that specified by its parts.” (Tononi et al. 2016) In ICT, information refers to "self-information", i.e. information about the states of conscious experience and the physical states of a process. Therefore, IIT focuses more on the relationships between consciousness and causal interactions among elements within a system, whereas ICT focuses more on the informational relationships between conscious experience and being in a certain state of a process. The "Exclusion" axiom in IIT: In IIT, the Exclusion axiom claims that among all overlapping sets of elements, only one set, having maximal integrated information, can be conscious. The exclusion axiom should be applied over elements, space, time, and scales (Hoel et al., 2016; Oizumi et al., 2014). Differing from IIT, ICT allows multiple consciousnesses to coexist across different scales of coarse-graining within a system if they are informationally closed from to each other. The two distinctive predictions decisively pinpoint the core concepts of the two theories. The concept of "integration": In IIT, integrated information is a core concept in defining conscious individuals. In the present paper, we do not include the notion of integrated information within ICT. However, this represents one of the current weaknesses of ICT, namely that it in some cases it lacks the ability to individuate NTIC processes (i.e., the problem of individuality). We discuss this weaknesses in Sec. 7. Prediction after system damage: Prediction after system damage: ICT and IIT lead to different predictions when a system suffers from damage. Consider for example a densely connected network whose dynamics forms a C-process. If we cut the network in half, IIT predicts that this would result in two consciousnesses because elements in both networks still maintain high degrees of interaction. In contrast, ICT would predict that this operation might completely destroy informational closure of the network, and thereby render both parts unconscious. Nevertheless, this prediction is relatively premature. In the future, rigorous modelling studies will allow systematic comparisons between model predictions. 6.3 Predictive Processing Predictive processing (PP) is a powerful framework which integrates several ideas from neuroscience. This emerging theoretical framework posits that neural systems constantly generate predictions about incoming sensory signals and update predictions based on prediction errors between predictions and sensory signals. According to PP, neural systems constantly perform unconscious statistical inference about hidden causes in the external environment. The perceptual contents are the "best guess" about those environment states which include these hidden causes (Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013). PP is well integrated with Bayesian brain hypothesis and has been used to interpret conscious perception in many domains (Hohwy, 2013; Seth, 2014). PP is a powerful explanatory framework for diverse brain functions. However, to serve as a theory of consciousness, PP is still incomplete due to two explanatory gaps. First, the neural system is equipped with multiple predictive mechanisms, but it appears that not all of these predictive mechanisms are involved in conscious processes (e.g. mismatch negativity, Näätänen et al. (2007)). PP needs to explain the difference between conscious and unconscious predictive mechanisms. Second, PP can be considered as a sophisticated computation for perceptual inference. It takes von Helmholtz’s conception of perception as unconscious inference. Thus, only the most probable outcome computed by the inference processes can be conscious, while other details of the computation remain unconscious. PP also needs to explain how unconscious inferences are able to give rise to conscious results. In short, while PP is often discussed in the context of consciousness, these explanatory gaps prevent PP from being a theory of consciousness. ICT is well compatible with PP. Crucially, ICT further provides natural and fundamental explanations to fill the two explanatory gaps which hamper PP. According to the definition of NTIC, a process with high NTIC can be regarded as a powerful predictive machine which has accurate self-predictive information (I(Yt+1 ; Yt ), E.q. 6) and concurrently incorporates environmental information into its dynamic (I(Yt+1 ; Yt |Et ), E.q. 6). This predictive nature of NTIC processes is in 17 agreement with the core notion of PP in which the conscious contents are always the predicted (inferred) outcome of our predictive mechanisms. Second, due to the informational closure to the environment, the encoded information about its environment in an NTIC process can appear to be as "the best guess" about the external environment in the context of Bayesian inference. Finally, therefore, why is some predictive information conscious and some are not? ICT predicts that only the predictions generated from mechanisms involving the NTIC process are conscious. Note that it is not necessary for predictive processes to involve NTIC processes. A predictive process can make a prediction about the future state of its environment solely based on the current sensor states when the current sensor states and future sensor states have positive mutual information. However, this is not sufficient for a process to be informationally closed and, therefore, be conscious. Also in accordance with ICT, we further propose that we can only be aware of the predictions of predictive processes due to informational closure to computational details of microscopic predictive processes. Acquisition by the macroscopic NTIC process is limited to the coarse-grained summary statistics of the microscopic processes. In other words, we predict that the computation of the statistical inferences of PP is implemented at microscopic (cellular) scales in the neural system. Finally, we consider that PP is a potential empirical implementation of NTIC processes. To maintain accurate information about the environment encoded in an NTIC process, one can open an information channel between the process and the environment to allow the minimal flow of information required to correct the divergence between them. This proposal is compatible with PP, which suggests that PP systems update (correct) the current estimations by computing prediction errors between predicted and real sensory inputs. 6.4 Sensorimotor Contingency The sensorimotor contingency (SMC) theory of consciousness proposes that different types of SMCs give rise to different characteristics of conscious experience (O’Regan & Noë, 2001). The theory radically rejects the view that conscious content is associated with the internal representations of a system. Rather, the quality of conscious experience depends on the agentâĂŹs mastery of SMCs. SMC emphasizes that the interaction between a system and its environment determines conscious experience. ICT is not compatible with SMC. As mentioned in Sec. 5, a process which directly maps the sensory states to the action states is insufficient to be NTIC. Therefore, learning contingencies between sensory inputs and action outputs do not imply NTIC. Hence, ICT predicts that having sensorimotor contingencies is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for consciousness. In fact, empirically, with extensive training on a sensorimotor task with a fixed contingency, the task can be gradually performed unconsciously. This indicates that strong SMCs do not contribute conscious contents. In contrast, ICT suggests that, with extensive training, the neural system establishes a neural mapping from sensory inputs to action outputs. This decreases the level of informational closure and, as a result, decrease the consciousness level of this process. This outcome better supports ICT than SMC. Nevertheless, ICT does appreciate the notion that interactions between a process and its environment are crucial to shaping conscious experience. As mentioned above, to form NTIC, a process needs to encode environmental transitions into its own dynamic. Therefore, information of agent-environment interaction should also be encoded in the NTIC process, and thereby shape conscious contents in a specific way. Different to classical SMC, a new version of SMC proposed by Seth (2014, 2015), namely Predictive Processing of SensoriMotor Contingencies (PPSMC), combines SMC and the predictive processing framework together. PPSMC emphasises the important role of generative models in computing counterfactuals, inferring hidden causes of sensory signals, and linking fictive sensory signals to possible actions. According to ICT, if the generative model involves the NTIC process in the computation of counterfactuals, PPSMC will be compatible with our theory and may have strong explanatory power for some specific conscious experience. 6.5 Global Workspace Theory Global workspace theory (GWT; Baars (1988, 1997, 2002)) and Global Neuronal Workspace theory (GNWT; Dehaene & Changeux (2011); Dehaene & Naccache (2001); Dehaene et al. (1998)) state that the neural system consists of several specialised modules, and a central global workspace 18 (GW) which integrates and broadcasts information gathered from these specialised modules. Only the information in the global workspace reaches conscious awareness, while information outside of it remains unconscious. These modules compete with each other to gain access to the GW, and the information from the winner triggers an all-or-none "ignition" in the GW. Information in the GW is broadcast to other modules. Conscious contents are then associates with the information that gains access to the internal global workspace (Dehaene et al., 2017). While GWT emphasises the importance of global information sharing as a basis of consciousness, the precise meaning of information broadcasting remains somewhat unclear if one tries to describe it more formally in the language of information theory. ICT offers one possible way to consider the meaning of broadcasting in GWT. Specifically, one could interpret the global workspace as the network of nodes wherein information is shared at the scale of NTIC and where communication is performed through macro-variables that are linked via mutual predictability. In other words, the global workspace should also be NTIC. While this link remains speculative, this interpretation encourages empirical studies into the relationship between the contents of consciousness and macrostate neural activities that are mutually predictive of each other. 7 Limitations and Future Work As a completely new theory of consciousness, ICT is still far from completion. In the following, we discuss the current limitations and challenges of ICT and point out some potential future research directions. It is important to clarify that ICT does not intend to solve the hard problems of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995). Knowing the state of a conscious process does not allow us to answer "What is it like to be in this state of this process" (Nagel, 1974). Instead, ICT focuses more on bridging consciousness and the physical world using information theory as a common language between them. The current version of ICT cannot entirely solve the problem of individuality. The main issue with identifying individual consciousnesses using ICT is that at the moment the environment is not uniquely defined. Once we have identified processes that are informationally closed with respect to X we still have to find the environment process E with respect to which we compute NTIC. However, there are usually multiple system processes S of which a given Y is a coarse-graining in which case there are also multiple environment processes E with respect to which we could compute NTIC. A more general problem of NTIC-based individuality is that we can define a new process Y and also its environment E by recruiting two independent NTIC processes Y 1 & Y 2 and their environments E 1 & E 2 , respectively. Accordingly, Y = (Y 1 , Y 2 ) and E = (E 1 , E 2 ). In such a case, the new process Y will also be NTIC to E. The current version of ICT is therefore unable to determine whether there are two smaller consciousnesses or one bigger consciousness (or for that matter 3 coexisting consciousnesses). The problem of individuality is a significant theoretical weakness of the current version of ICT. The notion of integration8 is a possible remedy for this issue, and we will address it explicitly in our future work using the concept of synergy. The current version of ICT assumes that consciousness receives contribution from only nontrivial information, rather than trivial information encoded in a process. In other words, the amount of information about environmental states and dynamics encoded in a process is a key quantity for consciousness. However, we do not exclude the possibility that environmental information may simply be a proxy for other informational quantities. More theoretical work is needed to elucidate the role of environments. This issue will also be discuss in our future theoretical paper. In this article, we do not use a state-dependent formulation of NTIC. However, we believe that state-dependent NTIC is essential to describing the dynamics of conscious experience. The next version of ICT therefore requires further research using point-wise informational measures to construct state-dependent NTIC. Explaining conscious experience during dreaming is always a challenge to theories of consciousness. ICT currently does not have a specific answer to dreaming. However, we wish to emphasize that not all processes in the neural system are NTIC since some processes are not informationally closed. They mainly passively react to sensory inputs or other processes in the neural system. To 8 Integration here refers to any high-order dependencies. 19 the conscious (NTIC) process, the rest of the neural system and the body should also be considered as part of the environment. They retain some degree of activity during sleep and dreaming. We speculate that, during dreaming, the neural system stably forms a C-process with respect to its environment, i.e. the other parts of the neural system. At present, however, this remains mere speculation. Identification of the C-process(es) during dreaming is an important milestone in extending the scope of ICT. Empirically, a major challenge to ICT is to find appropriate coarse-graining functions which map microscopic processes to macroscopic C-processes. This issue will become imperative in the search for neurological evidence supporting ICT. Identifying such coarse-graining functions among infinite candidates (Price & Corry, 2007) appears to be very challenging. Nevertheless, recent theoretical and technical progress may contribute to solving this issue. For example, the concept of causal emergence proposed by Hoel (Hoel, 2018; Hoel et al., 2013) has been further developed recently. Causal emergence is highly relevant to the relationship between informational closure and coarse-graining. In their new study, Klein & Hoel (2019), start to compare how different coarse-graining functions influence causal emergence at macroscopic scales. Pfante et al. (2014a,b) provide a thorough mathematical analysis of level identification, including informational closure. In neuroscience, an understanding of neural population codes has also made a tremendous progress due to advance in recording technique and data science (Kohn et al., 2016; Panzeri et al., 2015). Gamez (2016) has also systematically described relevant issues in finding data correlates of consciousness among different levels of abstraction. We believe that interdisciplinary research is required to narrow down the scope of search for coarse-graining functions and conscious processes at macroscales in the neural system and beyond. Finally, another empirical challenge to ICT is that of empirical supporting evidence. This is understandable because the concept of NTIC is relatively new in the history of information science, not to mention in neuroscience. Very few experiments and data collections examining NTIC properties in neural systems have yet appeared. To our knowledge, only two studies (Palmer et al., 2015; Sederberg et al., 2018) coincidentally examined relevant properties in salamander retina; these found that a large group of neural populations of retinal ganglion cells encoded predictive information about external stimuli and also had high self-predictive information about their own future states. This result is consistent with the characteristic of NTIC. We expect that there will be more empirical studies examining relevant neural properties of NTIC. 8 Conclusions In this paper, we introduce the Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT), a new informational theory of consciousness. ICT proposes that a process which forms informational closure with non-trivial information, i.e. non-trivial informational closure (NTIC) is conscious and through coarse-graining the neural system can form conscious processes, at certain macroscopic scales. ICT considers that information is a common language to bridge the gap between conscious experience and physical reality. Using information theory, ICT proposes computational definitions for both conscious level and conscious content. This allows ICT to be generalised to any system beyond the human brain. ICT provides an explanation for various findings from research into conscious and unconscious processing. The implications of ICT indicate that the scales of coarse-graining play a critical role in the search for neural substrates of consciousness. Improper measurement of neurophysiological signals, such as those which are excessively fine or coarse in scale, may lead to misleading results and misinterpretations. ICT reconciles several theories of consciousness. ICT indicates that they conditionally coincide with ICT’s implications and predictions but, however, not the fundamental and sufficient conditions for consciousness. Example theories include those which emphasise recurrent circuits (Edelman, 1992; Lamme, 2006); highlight the internal simulation, predictive mechanisms, and generative models (Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013; Kanai et al., 2019; Revonsuo, 2006; Seth, 2014, 2015); and relate to multilevel view of consciousness (Jackendoff, 1987; Pennartz, 2015, 2018; Prinz, 2007). Notably, while ICT is proposed based on the non-functional hypothesis, its implications for the functional aspects of a system fit several functionalist proposals well. Regarding philosophy of mind, ICT connects several distinct arguments together. First, ICT can be seen as an identity theory because it assumes a fundamental relation between consciousness and information. Second, the implications of ICT tightly link consciousness to several cognitive 20 functions in the context of evolution. This explains why people might intuitively have a functionalist point of view of consciousness. ICT emphasises that informational closure between scales of coarse-graining is critical to form NTIC processes in some stochastic systems. In this case, especially for the neural system, forming conscious processes at macroscopic scales coincides with the perspective of emergentism. Finally, forming NTIC (conscious) processes through many-to-one maps, i.e., coarse-graining, implies multiple realisability of consciousness. As a result, ICT provides an integrated view for these arguments and is further capable of indicating how and why they are conditionally true. The current version of ICT is still far from completion, and several outstanding issues mandate further theoretical and empirical research. Nevertheless, ICT offers an explanation and a prediction for consciousness science. We hope that ICT will provide a new way of thinking about and understanding of neural substrates of consciousness. Acknowledgements A.C., Y.Y, and R.K. are funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) CREST project. Work by M.B. and R.K. on this publication was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. This manuscript has been released as a Pre-Print at arXiv (Chang et al., 2019). Author Contributions Statement A.C. conceived and developed the theory. M.B. and A.C. contributed the mathematical formalisation of the theory. A.C., M.B, and R.K wrote the manuscript, based on a first draft by A.C. with extensive comments from Y.Y. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version. Conflict of Interest Statement All authors were employed by Araya Inc. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Appendix Let us assume that the system only observes a part of the environment state. We can represent the part of the environment that we observe by the value of a function f applied to the environment state. In this case we get for the transfer entropy I(St+1 : Et |St ) = I(St+1 : f (Et )|St ). (17) If the system only copies the observation we then get for the transfer entropy I(St+1 : f (Et )|St ) = I(f (Et ) : f (Et )|f (Et−1 )) = H(f (Et )|f (Et−1 )) (18) and for the mutual information I(St+1 ; Et ) = I(f (Et+1 ); Et ) = H(f (Et )) (19) N T ICt (E → S) = I(f (Et ); f (Et−1 )). (20) such that This shows that whenever there is mutual information between subsequent observations a process that only copies the observations has positive NTIC. Note that any additional (internal) processing 21 of the observation without reference to an additional internal state using a function g can only reduce this mutual information: I(f (Et ); g(f (Et−1 ))) ≤ I(f (Et ); f (Et−1 )). (21) However, ignoring restrictions due to a possibly fixed choice of the universe process X we find that for each such system there are other systems that achieve higher NTIC. For example, if we define the system to be the "mirrored" and synchronized environment by setting St := Et , then the transfer entropy vanishes I(St+1 : Et |St ) = I(Et+1 : Et |Et ) = 0 (22) and the mutual information is equal to the mutual information between the current and next environment state: I(St+1 ; Et ) = I(Et+1 ; Et ). (23) In cases where the environment has itself higher predictive mutual information than the observations it produces - in other words, when I(Et+1 ; Et ) ≥ I(f (Et+1 ); f (Et )) (24) there is then potential for a predictive process to achieve higher NTIC than a copying system or any system that only processes its last observations without taking account of other internal memory (i.e. those systems also applying g to their observations). Note that this also holds true in cases where the observations are themselves closed. If there is a more complex environment behind them, the mirrored and synchronised system has higher NTIC with respect to that environment than the system copying the observations. References Adrian, Edgar D. 1926. The impulses produced by sensory nerve endings. The Journal of physiology, 61(1), 49–72. Ashby, F Gregory, Turner, Benjamin O, & Horvitz, Jon C. 2010. Cortical and basal ganglia contributions to habit learning and automaticity. 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White, John A., Rubinstein, Jay T., & Kay, Alan R. 2000. Channel noise in neurons. Trends in Neurosciences, 23(3), 131–137. Whitwell, Robert L., Milner, A. David, & Goodale, Melvyn A. 2014. The Two Visual Systems Hypothesis: New Challenges and Insights from Visual form Agnosic Patient DF. Frontiers in Neurology, 5, 255. Woodward, James. 2007. Causation with a Human Face. In: Price, Huw, & Corry, Richard (eds), Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited. Oxford University Press. Figure Legends Figure 1: Figure 2: Figure 3: Figure 4: Figure 5: The scale problem of consciousness: Human conscious experience does not reflect information from every scale. Only information at a certain coarsegrained scale in the neural system is reflected in consciousness. . . . . . . . 4 Dependencies between a system Y and its environment E through the channels yˆt and eˆt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The information flow amounts the universe X, the system S, the environment of the system E, and the coarse-grained process Y of the system S. The solid line with a filled arrow from Xt to Xt+1 represents the microscopic dynamic of the universe. The solid lines with a empty arrow represent directions of coarse-graining. The dashed lines represents virtual dependencies between two macroscopic variables. The red Yt , Yt+1 , and the red dashed line in between represents a macroscopic process which forms informational closure at a certain coarse-grained scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A non-monotonic relationship between the scale of coarse-graining and level of consciousness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Schema depicting the information flow in reflexive behaviours (shown by the red nodes and arrows) happening through the interaction between a process Y and its environment E. When the sensor process êt is non-deterministic and the internal state Yt is mostly dependent on the sensor state êt driven by the environment Et−1 but less on its past state Yt−1 , as a consequence, Y is unable to form informational closure and, therefore, remain unconscious. 13 26 Figure 6: Distinction between the level of coarse-graining and the level of cortical hierarchy. X and Y represent the microscopic and macroscopic coarsegrained variables, respectively. X 0 represents microscopic states upstream of the cortical hierarchy. The red empty arrows represents the directions of coarse-graining and the blue arrows represent the directions of the physical dependencies in the cortical hierarchy from upstream to downstream. (Some variables and dependencies are omitted for clarity.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 16

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 351 Article Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) Claus Janew* Abstract Can we lead back consciousness, reality, awareness, and free will on a single basic structure without giving up any of them? Can the universe exist in both real and individual ways without being composed of both? This metaphysical dialogue founds consciousness and freedom of choice on the basis of a new reality concept that also includes the infinite as far as we understand it. Just the simplest distinction contains consciousness. It is not static, but a constant alternation of perspectives. From its entirety and movement, however, there arises a freedom of choice being more than reinterpreted necessity and unpredictability. Although decisions ultimately involve the whole universe, they are free in varying degrees also here and now. The unity and openness of the infinite enables the individual a creativity that directly and indirectly enters into all other individuals without impeding them. A contrary impression originates only in a narrowed awareness. But even the most conscious and free awareness can neither anticipate all decisions nor extinguish individuality. Their creativity is secured. Part I of this two-part metaphysical dialogue contains: Day 1: What is a consciousness unit? Day 2: Choices everywhere; Day 3: Awareness in alternation; and Day 4: The unlimited potential. Keywords: alternating consciousness, dialogue, infinity, free will, perception. Day 1: What is a consciousness unit? Mr. Janew, you claim to have discovered a basic structure of consciousness. What do you mean by that? Well, something on which everything else is based on must be as simple as possible. Only then it can be contained in everything else and determine structure and action there. In part, this something is even well-known. Oh? What is it then? Alternation. You mean change? Like Heraclitus could not step into the same river twice? Continuous change is a special form of alternation, with many intermediate steps, which we cannot easily resolve. But if Heraclitus briefly closes and re-opens his eyes, he has changed his point of view more clearly. Okay, forget Heraclitus. We have an alternation. At which point does the consciousness come into play? * Correspondence: Claus Janew, Independent Philosopher, http://www.free-will.de E-mail: clausjanew@yahoo.de Note: This article is based on my work originally completed in 2013 in German. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 352 It is already in the play, because alternation is already consciousness, even in its simplest form. Not only because we observe it, but because it contains something that we have not taken seriously up to now: The central point. Let us take the simplest conceivable alternation between two whatever, here represented by alternatively flashing squares: They must not flash side by side; they can substitute for each other. We need neither space nor time for this. It is only an alternation of priority. However, each square is only measured against the other, or there would be none of them. This means that each exists only in the alternation. The alternation is an entirety. And an entirety has a central point. Okay, and where is the consciousness? Look again. The squares are for illustrative purposes only. They could be anything that is in any way differentiated, demarcated from each other. This difference has an infinitely small center, a third thing, so to speak, which also stands and falls with the alternation like the alternating sides. Only such an entirety can work. Everything else falls apart. And where now is the consciousness? Consciousness is just this holistic perception. This perception is intuitive and logical; it is experienced directly, without necessary intermediate stages. And, nevertheless, it can be broken down, extended, and understood. It is self-referential and ubiquitous. It reaches to the infinitely small and to the infinitely big, into the simple and into the complex. It is the most general of our perceptions; and more than perception we do not have. What else do you want to assign to a consciousness? Hmm … So we could also say, conversely: We take our most natural perception and look at its least structure, and this is that … … infinitesimality structure. Yes, exactly. For simplicity's sake we can call it "i-structure." I-Structure therefore is consciousness? Yes. Isn't something still missing here? Feelings, for example? Or perception of a color, a tone? As everybody knows, all these are oscillations, therefore different forms of alternations, which we perceive holistically. Now, though, we must be careful: What I have just described is the absolute minimum, a consciousness unit. Such a minimum can't differ from other minima without already forming a larger structure with them. This means vice versa: Each consciousness unit can only exist within a larger consciousness by which it is defined. Doesn't this mean chasing one's own tail? Shouldn't the units build up a larger consciousness instead of being determined by it? One presupposes the other. The larger consciousness needs elements of its structure, and the basic consciousness needs a larger structure in which it takes a characteristic position. In ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 353 addition, of course, we always start with our consciousness that should not be so basic. What is the difference then between a consciousness unit and an elementary particle if we assume that the latter is really elementary? Just this we cannot assume. Up to now, we have still disassembled every particle after a short time if it has not done this by itself. But if a real elementary particle would exist, it could only interact by entering a larger relationship, and so it had the same problem as the consciousness unit. It loses its originality; it only exists in the relationship. So, only the particular starting point of the perception is original … ? Exactly. However, this perception is not so i-structured, is it? We see surfaces, bodies, et cetera. It is! Since we always perceive only entireties, every change of a perception is a change of the entirety. So if you go one step to the side, your holistic perception, let's say of a body, has changed completely. In order to notice the change you must compare to the perception of the previous entirety, and so you have the same switching back and forth. But there are many intermediate stages here. I perceive, after all, a uniform change of my field of vision. Right. This, though, does not change the basic fact of the holistic alternation. Whether it takes place continuously or by leaps is of secondary importance. You can even say all sides of the alternation are always also immediately linked to each other, since the only necessary and always existing transition point is the infinitesimal center between them. An infinitely small transition yet takes place immediately. Why do we need this transition if it is not really there? It is there and not there all at once. For this reason, it is infinitely small and not simply zero. On the one hand, it is determined exactly as a center; on the other hand, it is empty. We need to have it as exactly that, as a nothing with a concrete meaning. As a concrete nothing. To approach this point infinitely, nevertheless, it requires a transition to it. Now you say, this transition is actually not needed because the alternation between the sides occurs immediately. This is due to the fact that we have nothing but the alternation. Each intermediate stage toward the center would also be the goal of an alternation. Thus, we can approximate the central point via many intermediate alternations, but strictly speaking each center remains immediately accessible. However, because it can be circumscribed arbitrarily closely, it is also approximated. It is both infinitely small as well as zero. A consciousness unit doesn't have meaning at all if it doesn't transition to a structure. It has only meaning within this structure as their almost infinitesimal center. What I have described as two alternating whatever are just such structures. An alternation between nothing cannot be, of course. But alternation as such can be? Yes. Because everything alternates, and we cannot go beyond alternation as such. It forms the apparently static structures of the world, which I call therefore "quasi-static." Back-and-forthmovements, rotations, alternations in all possible forms. So, in a sense the world becomes ethereal. There is nothing solid, no minimum size, nothing that can be called truly material. How do you fit the quantum theory in here? In it there is at least ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 354 Planck's quantum of action as the smallest arithmetic unit. This quantum, too, is being questioned yet. As well as the constancy of the "fundamental constants." An absolute quantity is simply not thought through. Any limit can be exceeded, because this limit is defined by its momentary exceedance. Try it out! Nevertheless, quantum physics describes completely different relations, entangled states of so called particles: Nonlocal correlations, probability waves, etc. I am inclined to say such unmediated connections over long distances point in the direction which I have already described. We must see, however, that the declaration of an unmediated link is only possible outside of the immediacy. We must walk across to the other particle quite normally to compare its state to "our" particle. Their immediate connection is a conclusion from a non-immediate connection. Anyway, the immediacy plays a more significant role here than in our everyday experience. You can hardly abandon it, because obviously it is structurally deeper rooted. Especially their probability character suggests that. This brings me to another question: In How Consciousness Creates Reality you give to the central point far more meaning. You see in it, so to speak, the continuum of the world compacted. How does this fit here? Well, a consciousness unit as the absolutely smallest before zero must alternate at infinite speed, because there is no space for delays. However, as soon as we go beyond this unit, better said return from its derivation, the speed can decrease. And with it two manners of perception of the alternation start to differ: The quasi-static and the dynamic. The quasi-static perspective you have already indicated … Yes, it is the formation of seemingly static objects from the alternation of the perspective … … which in turn results from other smaller or larger alternations of perspectives. Or from remembered and anticipated, mental and sensory, dreamed and awake-conscious experiences. That's a lot of perspectives, considering what the world all consists of! Thus it is. And that's why we cannot follow up them all by our limited consciousness. We always move within a relatively small frame and then within the next, and so on, keeping the respectively others in the back of our mind as a potential. We can restore them largely or at least think of them as restorable, but we do not lose sight of the movement, of the alternation. This is the dynamic manner of perception. I call it awareness. Is the aware conscious? When we alternate into something and back again, both cannot be fully conscious together at any moment. Nevertheless, we must remain aware of the other side, otherwise the alternation would disappear, too. We are aware of the potential for restoring that side. But isn't this a contradiction in itself? The goal of our alternation is not conscious, only the potential. And, on the other hand, does the alternation consist of both sides equally? We must simply understand that we have only alternation as such. It includes both sides, but with alternating priority. There is no pause in which only one side exists or both sides exist at once. So the alternation is potential in some sense. Why only in some sense? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 355 Because the potential again seems to exist as such; like a quasi-static object, which alternation movement we are not conscious of any more. But we have only alternation as such. If we do not always want to get stuck again, we must get used to looking at it as nothing else than what it is. We cannot condense it to a static object and complain then about contradictions! On the other hand, a quasi-static object is but somehow static or not? No, just only quasi. Because we do not look closely? Yes, because we are not able to do it. As soon as we remove from a consciousness unit or from All That Is to be discussed later we have a restricted speed of alternation. That is we can no longer be perfectly accurate, no longer apprehend everything, but must make approximations. We condense seemingly static objects. The alternation movement is being largely suppressed. How should I imagine this condensing? Look at the simple example from earlier. Now we have a distance between the alternating sides: Center between center and edge So, there are many intermediate steps, as you said. Accordingly, there are also many intermediate centers depending on between which steps alternation is happening. An overall center exists anyway. Now we can even alternate between this center and the edges resulting in new centers, and so on. The infinitesimality structure does justice to its name quite more clearly. But I see no condensate. Don't you? And I've painted the center even suspiciously large! Let us expand the whole a little bit more to a rotation of the sides: Do you see it now? Hmm … You mean the whole as such? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 356 Not only that. The whole as such is relatively stable by the repetition of the alternation, the interdependence of the sides. But its stability is mainly symbolized by the center, because it moves the least. However, since the whole is extended its most representative central area forms around the central point: Where exactly that is does not depend only on the change of the movement ratio in the area between central point and edge, but also on the importance of the cohesion. For this particular central point applies only to exactly this entirety. It is related to the latter most strongly. I understand. The central point is defined only in relation to the entirety. Exactly. So, the more important the unity of the whole is compared to its differences, the closer the most representative area condenses at the center. Like this: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 357 Of space and time we talk, by the way, only because we have got used to it. Actually, varying dream scenes, melodies, or whatever can also circumscribe a center; make feel an entirety, which condenses toward this core. Well, I see, or I rather sense the condensate. What is the quasi-static object here? The condensate or the entirety? Strictly speaking, the condensate. Since if we follow more the outsides it becomes quite dynamic, it resolves into alternating viewpoints. However, we can of course also look at the entirety as such from different perspectives and assign to it the role of the object, and so on. So we solidify our imagination … Anyway, I think you have described alternation and entirety as if they were self-contained. But in the world, indeed, everything is connected. How then the link to other alternation structures does come about? We could also ask the other way around first. Why the sides do recur at all? Why there are turning points of the movement or change? Okay, why? Because, otherwise, there would be no alternation. Aha. It's already a bit late, but now you should really answer your own question. Oh, Okay. So, why turning points? They are one side of the alternation, and so, they appear as outposts in need for some impulse for a return. But you can also invert the alternation in some sense and consider both sides together as the center, which is circumscribed by the alternation towards it and back from it. I think I have a knot somewhere … The operation is not symmetrical, but it shows that both sides can exist only together. They are a split center, split by the alternation. Beyond that is nothing. Except other alternations … Wait a minute. Didn't you say every limit can be exceeded? Then, there must be something out there, anyway! And now we come to the question of openness. Day 2: Choices everywhere On the openness of alternation it came back to my mind today that, actually, a consciousness unit is an abstraction from a larger context. So, it cannot be complete at all, and thus, no other wholeness composed of consciousness units. Or? Yes, and no. A self-contained unit could not exist for anything else, so far I agree. However, we must allow these extremes as you will notice. I'm all ears. Let us continue with the rotation, because it is more descriptive. Instead, we could take a to-andfro-alternation or something more complicated as well. The path from one side to the other is not as clear-cut as it looks in the drawings. In reality it furcates continuously, because otherwise it would mean an uncrossable limit. But such a limit is ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 358 inadmissible at every moment, because it is not consistently definable. Why then does anything return to the starting point if there are so many other options? I have a shocking answer. Yet, first of all, I ask you this: What would be left longest if all progression routes, open and closed, were used? Hmm … The closed ones? Precisely. And if the open ones were totally open, they would not exist for a single moment. Since who should perceive an entirety? On the other hand: Total self-containment would change not the least; so it would be not connectable, not perceivable. Okay, how do we get out of this dilemma? No suggestion? Consciousness unit? Hit. But how? As you know, a consciousness unit is also an entirety, while its sides are alternating immediately in zero time and hence as immediately into the central point and out of it. It is an infinitely small alternation structure, but also more than zero. Is it what is called an infinitesimal in the non-standard mathematics, a number infinitely close to zero? Not really, because these numbers in the non-standard analysis again are treated only as an object. In contrast, a consciousness unit is constantly flickering. It is alternating between precisely zero and infinitesimal sides. Ah! And thus, self-containment and openness are unified! By lying infinitely close to each other. Not just! But by alternating infinitely fast to each other! This is another thing than an asymptotic approach in which they meet in the infinitely small. I mean openness and self-containment at the same moment! Without contradiction to each other … Without unhealthy contradiction. Since the "contradiction" of which we speak here is omnipresent, the basis of our world. It has no opposite to be preferred, because the latter would disappear at the same moment. Didn't they call it earlier a dialectical contradiction? Hegel … Hegel didn't call it that, though, he realized the unity of existence and nonexistence, or as he understood it, of being and nothingness. Not only because one needs the other to be defined, but because one is constantly transitioning to the other. Everything is always becoming. And this is something different? Hegel has only gone halfway. He believed to have proved the necessity of the world process, but he has already assumed it. Becoming is not alternation. In the becoming there is no furcation, this can only be added from outside. In the alternation, however, furcation is built in. Between openness and self-containment, I understand. Also between different open paths, as we shall see. But let's get back first to the unity of openness and self-containment. This unity is not lukewarm or vague, although it can be if we dilute it to an ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 359 approximation. Instead, it goes to the most precise. There is even no separation between selfcontainment and openness in the last consequence, so that objects always find connection to other objects. Otherwise, we could not have derived the consciousness units from them as well. Exactly. What about the extreme case of total self-containment that you mentioned? It must be there as well as the extreme case of total openness and all other extreme cases. Since each side of the alternation is being actually reached, as well as the central point, although only for an infinitely small moment. This is why the unity with the other side is possible at all. Slowly I understand. I am pleased. Although I am not shocked. Huh? You have promised me a shock. Oh, yes. Openness in itself is not everything. If the door is already open, we can turn into different directions as well. Otherwise, we would have a self-containment of its own kind again. The containment of the direction. No roundabout, but no other alternative, yes. That is we are again at a furcation. What do we do now? We choose. Oh! Are you shocked? Maybe later. The alternation between two or more sides after all is nothing else than weighing up alternatives. The only thing we are forced to is keep moving. For alternation is unavoidable on penalty of our elimination. This means, we are always in a situation of decision-making. … About the way forward. You have to let this melt in your mouth. As you wish. Anyway, the direction of further alternation of further movement is indeterminate. Here I have to digress: Motion is asymmetrical, open, as you know. Nevertheless, it can only exist in the change-wise perception of its previous segments; otherwise, it dissolves more rapidly than we can say "Fzz." It would not even have a direction, which in turn only exists in the change-wise comparison with its alternatives. It would be the extreme case of total openness and therefore of being structureless. Again, I do not understand "direction" as spatiotemporal in the first place, but as a direction from one priority to the other. If we can draw it in the space-time diagram, Okay. However, also associations, for example, have directions from the important to the not yet important. Your cats, are they brother and sister? Are you still with me? Yes, sorry. Do you speak of a spiral? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 360 Spiral? Yes, a spiral movement. A back-and-forth-switch between moments while the whole is moving forward results in a spiral pulled apart to the side. Only superficially, though. This spiral is rather a manifestation of an i-structure, of a complete alternation of moment points, which still jumps forward immediately. An i-structured spiral, if you like. Can you give an example? Of course. We were choosing, do you remember? We are alternating between alternatives of our further movement, of our potential. One of them we have to take. Let's say, either a new way or an old one; we are choosing between an open and a self-contained continuation. Only the indetermination and the choosing as such are determined. Thus, we are also alternating between this indetermination and our determination to choose. That is we are circumscribing a center between the alternatives as well as between the alternatives and the urge to choose. And by this a center between these both sides … Yes. And centers between this center and the others. And so on. This is infinitesimality structure! All sides of the alternation are identified with each other at some point and at some other even with their distinction. What normally doesn't work according to conventional understanding … … but as we have seen, is the basis of our world down to the smallest conceivable unit. Can't we just say, the sides meet in the middle and one of them is being chosen? We can say much and reveal nothing. Because in this way we cannot explain choosing, only mechanical continuations and chances. By such a merging we would disregard the necessity to distinguish things, too. We had merely flowing mush. By contrast, what you have explained leads to a free choice? Yes, because the infinitesimal unity of determination and indetermination is not annullable and not reducible to one side. Free choice, not chance, is the only interpretation that remains. This is based, as far I can see, on the need to alternate rather than simply continuing. Only alternation is distinction and unity at once. This alternation, however, can progress to other alternations. It will do this at some point not to lose touch with the world or, better said, because the alternatives are too tempting to forever decide against them, though it must not. But I do. Can we take a short break? Sure. In the meantime, I succumb again to the temptations of art. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 361 Alright, so we choose constantly between old and new way, since we always consider the new more or less. With it, self-containment and openness form an i-structured unity. If we always moderately decide for the new, we obtain the approximation of a spiral. Let me think … If we describe the situation once again by using squares, we now have an alternation between three instead of two sides, and the third one stands for a new way. More specifically, it stands for the possibility of a new way. We alternate with a potential as such, that is to say without realizing it immediately. This is, in fact, an additional alternation. However, it is the normal case, which we have simplified yesterday, just almost up to a selfcontainment. If we now, like before at the door, open the direction of the continuation as well, we get even more alternatives of alternation: And because finally everything opens –it makes its potential conscious– decisions are to be made constantly. Whether an alternation moves on or not, it is always a more or less free choice of its consciousness! ... You're so quiet. Hmm … The continuation is neither a real spiral nor a real jump, but a decision for one or the other as well? Well recognized. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 362 And since we have everywhere alternation equals i-structure equals consciousness, and everything is more or less open, everything is freely chosen to the corresponding extent. You got it! Day 3: Awareness in alternation If I sum up the last two days, then consciousness is omnipresent and due to its structure freedom of choice is just as omnipresent. Right. The urge to change the situation, the i-structure, and the ultimate identity of selfcontainment and openness result in a permanent choice of the further path. These three factors are basically one and the same. Consciousness. I-structure, yes. Or awareness? This, too, is essentially the same. We have already discussed that every side is always potential, that there is only alternation as such. If we think to perceive two sides at once, strictly speaking we deceive ourselves. We lift them out of the broader alternation by turning them crosswise and thereby seemingly slowing down their alternation. Seemingly? I'll come back to this. By the said turning we generate an approximation around the center of the sides, call it "object" and forget its origin and the details, which we cannot resolve now anymore. The sides themselves are also formed in such a way and so on, because we can hardly do without crosswise things. Only a quasi-static consciousness can seemingly exist longer than zero "seconds" and has "time" to become aware of something. Man oh man. Awareness must therefore be conscious? Yes, conscious or subconscious, but never unconscious. Awareness is merely the more potential, more dynamic consciousness. Or the other way around: Consciousness is the more static awareness. Stop, stop! What does subconscious mean? That means conscious below our consciousness in the stricter sense, nothing else than dynamically existent, only conscious as a potential, as a potential to realize a potential, et cetera. Although always as the side of an alternation, or it is literally "out." Okay, it's all potential. "I am aware of something" then means "I am aware of its potentiality"? Exactly! We are always talking about the same here. Just don't let confuse yourself! Well, I'm not sure. Normally, we just don't assume that the subconscious is always accessible to us. How then do we know it is there? Because we conclude about it from what is happening to us. That's it. We reasonably imagine a complex something, which exists "about there" for itself and occasionally makes itself noticed. This is potential existence, with all uncertainties such a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 363 potential brings with it. We could, of course, find straw as well, if we have a look. I understand. Is potential existence the same as dynamic existence? Only the emphasis is different. Dynamic existence is the generic term, but potential existence we can say if we consider more the potential as such, instead of the alternation. Dynamic existence would mean the subconscious into which we put ourselves. So, also a greater certainty would be described, but no absolute. Well, that has always confused me a bit. Maybe this is a good crossing to why the slowing down of the alternation is only apparent … Let's try it. Have you already wondered how we organize the speeds of the whole alternation between edge points, edge and center, its center and sides, open and self-contained continuations, et cetera? And then the alternation with the rest of the universe? Er … no. This question has occupied me much. Within a finite reference frame it is relatively easy to solve. What is now less conscious to us can alternate faster. Gradations in consciousness therefore can be gradations in the speed of alternations. If this is indeed the case, it is almost negligible. How so? Please, don't get me wrong. We speak of a very basic process here, on which many less basic processes can be superimposed. Whether something is conscious or subconscious may depend on many structural differences where we do not ask about speeds. For example, even a very slow movement can lack the other side of the alternation. On the other hand, we do not come to the conclusion that there could be another side if we do not hurry ahead of the movement. Higher speed here means more consciousness. Or rather more awareness? More conscious awareness. However, if we do not hurry ahead, does the other side exist at all? This is like the question whether the moon still exists if we are not looking. It exists. Because on a deeper level we are looking again and again much faster than with the eyes. But even faster than in thought. Only then we can find its "track" seemingly subconsciously, catch sight of "the" moon spontaneously. So the speed defines the degree of consciousness anyway? Ultimately, yes. Although the generality of this finding is a logical conclusion. We don't have to assign a certain speed to any detail of a complex alternation. For this the structures are too interlaced. It is sufficient if differences of the perception speed prevent the simultaneousness of two alternations. There is no simultaneousness of anything? How should it otherwise alternate with each other, that is enter into a relationship, be perceived? There can be "alternaneousness" at most, meaning back and forth or, for example, a nonindependent "simultaneousness" like in quantum theory. We talk, by the way, about time again only as one possible standard. I know. But I wonder how my perception of a candle can alternate slowly while the further existence of the moon behind me requires a much higher speed of alternation? Don't both alternations run at the same time? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 364 In this case there would be no connection between them. As soon as they affect each other "something" alternates between them, and this is nothing else than a holistic perception focus. Even if it would be merely a "particle": It leaves a different totality and leads to a different one. A wholeness becomes another. The candle becomes the moon. In principle, yes. Physicalists will be tearing their hair out! They rather look after details. Even if they talk of light for which there is, by the way, no physical time; or of fields and entropy, they need to shift their perception from the candle to the moon in order to abstract a thin connection between the two. Doing so they perceive like you and me: Individual entireties in alternation. So, there is an alternation between all alternations as well. And since there cannot be simultaneous alternations all must be one single alternation! But now you have a problem! An interesting question, isn't it? How do we get together the alternation speeds in an infinite universe in such a way that they pass into each other without contraction? Enlighten me. I have a joker. I knew it. For its wholeness an infinite universe needs an infinite alternation speed. Besides, I don't believe that our concept of speed has an infinite shelf live. But we have to work with what we have and prove its consistency also with the help of extreme cases. And something more general than alternation we do not have. In fact, the infinite alternation speed, which we have already introduced with the consciousness unit, provides a lot more options. A fast alternation may seem slow by repetition without reducing its speed: The entirety circumscribed by the form of the alternation changes without any hurry. Even if it would be circumscribed infinitely fast. More than this, it could also change itself infinitely fast and would come as little into conflict with its infinitely fast circumscription. Arbitrarily fast Arbitrarily fast Infinite plus anything is infinite again. That's why I have no problem with the universe. An infinite alternation speed can circumscribe everything. One moment. Slowly … Complete repetition, therefore total self-containment, does not exist, you said. I roughly said self-containment and openness are also identical. Like the sides of a consciousness unit: By immediate alternation to each other. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 365 I remember. The circumscription therefore is as open as closed. Yes, but the more the unity is emphasized the more slowly or statically it appears. The istructured spiral becomes narrower, so to speak, or is just turned crosswise. … and yet does not lose the connection to the rest of the universe. Correct. Cross-turning stands for becoming more conscious, more quasi-static. And now you take the infinity to unite everything that does not fit together? Only for what can be derived from the finite and according to current understanding can seamlessly merge into the infinite. As mathematicians do. Well, I have one more question: On the first day you said all sides are linked also immediately. Because they as entireties need, strictly speaking, only the infinitesimal center between them for their distinction, and the same applies to any intermediate stage. This is the i-structure. That means we have an infinitely fast alternation in everyday live as well? That's right. NOW I am shocked! Come, come, we also said that alternating structures define a consciousness unit. In their center! Now, but it looks as if the consciousness unit is extended and corresponds to the structures themselves. A clear contradiction! Because thus units define units? Yes! Okay, Okay, I admit, the consciousness unit in the center was a simplification, or rather a special case. You don't say! Yes, as a relief for you. Of course. In reality we can stick just as little to spatial thinking as to the temporal. This relief sometimes makes it even more difficult. Or what do you believe is actually an entirety? "Entire" is one, not one after the other. The entirety, of course, has a structure, but it must also be one! This only works if this identity is established immediately. So, since everything alternates, at infinite speed. Now I'm completely confused! We'll fix that, don’t worry. The perception of the structure –as the perception of the entirety– is simply the alternation of a sole consciousness unit. I put myself out. Stay with me. It won't take a minute. Do you remember that an entirety can have only one central point? Yes. No matter how complicatedly we are alternating in detail, the whole has only one single center. How can this center probably be maintained if in between we are always somewhere else? Okay, Okay. But the intermediate structures! They are Inter, not the whole. Crucial for the central point is the whole! So to speak, the apex of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 366 the entire circumscription. And? This apex is not the center. … But it is centered! Precisely. A ring, for example, a ridge, a crater rim. That is what the central point most severely refers to, what determines it clearly. Not what adjoins it … Not spatially, no. But "establishing"?! Yes, the apex of the entire dynamic. We could almost say a psychic summit. Or an intensity peak. It's beginning to get through me. Since a consciousness unit must be derived from a larger structure and since this derivation culminates out there instead of in the innermost, this unity of ridge and central point is the representative consciousness unit of the entirety. Yes. I am impressed. Accordingly, every intermediate structure which helps to build up the entirety by alternation must culminate in its own consciousness unit. Go on. And so the entirety is formed by one single changing consciousness unit. Okay now? Let's see. Maybe after the counterstrike: How can a consciousness unit create itself as an apex if it must have been created this way in order to its creation? Now you've got me there, eh? Well. You are underestimating the smoothness of the infinite. The infinitely fast alternation of the consciousness unit forms –we had this already– by i-structured repetition a quasi-static focus of consciousness, which can alternate in its turn at any, even infinite speed. So, its top unit may, too, alternate at infinite speed and, in doing so, may form what it wants. The infinite moves in the infinite … … and creates depending on the form of this movement seemingly slower forms. The form of the alternation is therefore what matters. No matter "what" is alternating here. There is, as we have said, only alternation as such. Let's have a break. … As I see it now, every form is produced by the whole universe. Because the only alternation is moving through any form that is being created at the same moment. Yes, and namely as an i-structure, otherwise we are silting up in contradictions. We can also say, all consciousness units transition immediately into each other, since they adjoin each other. Depending on the form of this transition, consciousness and awareness, objects and potentials originate from it. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 367 Although we have derived the consciousness units only from such objects and potentials? Thus, it is. We can base our world view on nothing except on our perception. But we can explore and investigate it to make it consistent. In this case we get back complex quasi-static focuses of consciousness, which now can claim any degree of flexibility by themselves and so in turn prove to be the basis of reasoning. For only movables can enclose something. Day 4: The unlimited potential I have understood the origin of freedom of choice through your book "How Consciousness Creates Reality," at least intuitively. Nevertheless, it seems to me, the explanation by alternation speed is more obstructive than helpful for an intuitive understanding of i-structure. Apparently, a decision is reduced to a consciousness unit. Can this be? … to a consciousness unit which leads to new consciousness units through the identity of both the urge to change and alternatives. It is equally true, however, that all consciousness units by infinite alternation speed establish a unity and form quasi-static focuses. Unity becomes intuitive by infinitely fast alternation, because the latter is the transition to wholeness in zero time. We may simply not forget the zero. It is not only approximated but reached. This is wholeness! The alternation is only for the connection to the difference. Wholeness and structure form a contrast which is offset by alternation. The alternation, though, is a contrast by itself … ? But more precise, since it includes the sides as such. As well as its own wholeness. An alternation between this wholeness and the difference of the sides is here again without intermediate stage. So, again zero. Not zero only! Zero is nothing without its role. The intuition has something to sense. The alternation. Are you kidding me? All right. Intuition equals alternation wholeness. Down to the infinite small, at any place. That's intuitive enough, I think. If you apply this to a more complicated entirety, you cannot longer "see" the top unit clearly, but sense it at most. Probably rather a cluster of units around. A condensate? Thus, we feel it. But now around the crater ring, inside and out. Must not the condensate be in the middle? We consider here the apex of the dynamic form. If the condensate is in the middle, then the apex is there. Okay, slowly everything fits together. Now I also understand better why you like to draw the consciousness funnel or reality funnel with an "outside area" like a crater: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 368 It's not really about inside and outside, right? No, these are limited concepts. It's rather about up and down meaning more conscious or less conscious. The exact center is an axis passing through everything. So, all standpoints or perspectives, which I am less conscious of, are located in the stem of the funnel? The less conscious the awareness the deeper they are circling. The details are becoming increasingly subconscious. If I have understood you properly, I am not only aware of other consciousness, but of other awareness. Because the infinitely many other standpoints from which my awareness is being ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 369 dynamically built are also just summits of infinite dynamics. Aren't these infinities a bit too much? Which ones are too much for you? I mean, how can my awareness apprehend an infinity of infinities and yet remain structured? Because resolution at infinity is coming too early for you? Yes. Don't worry, it's not coming. It's already here. Sorry? Awareness is only structured after all because it is suppressing most other standpoints repeatedly into the increasingly less conscious. Until they almost merge with the central axis. With this axis we anticipate the infinite. It is not "counted." ?? You feared intuition coming off worst, right? Well, awareness is becoming more and more intuitive downwards since consciousness of details is strongly decreasing. The "tracks" of the alternation to the Other are becoming denser and denser and only resolvable if consciousness follows them. That means where it is at the moment they are hardly conscious anymore. Awareness can consciously anticipate the infinity only as such – in the intuitive knowledge that it is there. As the said axis or as a central point. Or as a potential. Yes. Since consciousness is slow, we can consider the central point also as an approximation of the infinite, as a symbol of something to which we can "go" if we "quicken our pace" strongly, asymptotically up to infinitely. Fascinating. Must there not be, however, "infinite space," an unfolded infinity that we can anticipate? Of course. But it is in the opposite direction. In the direction of consciousness … … and with it of the absolute universal continuum which I have explained in "How Consciousness Creates Reality." But an absolute continuum is structureless and cannot be conscious! So as the zero? Hmm. The total unfoldment of absolutely everything to a distinctionless continuum is its collapse at the same time. But to what? To a Nothing? Then unfoldment had not happened at all. The universal continuum rather "reflects" on from which it was reached: It exists only for the awareness by which it is anticipated. So it does not exist for itself? Only as a momentary extreme case within an alternation of perspective, like everything else. We already had this. The continuum has a perspective? Only in the alternation with another awareness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 370 Well, in "How Consciousness Creates Reality" you also describe All That Is, the highest possible consciousness. It should be located just below the universal continuum, "at the brink of collapsing." What is it doing there? I guess it's playing God. We are dealing with an infinitely complex and infinitely large i-structure forming itself, like everything else, at infinite speed. It is in a focus? Not like us. Its alternation has to include everything equally. Nothing may sink into a funnel stem. Therefore, All That Is is in any focus and differs from it only by one single criterion, which solely is its own: The unlimited potential to take up a different focus. With that it is but always a certain perspective of this potential. I have to digest this for the moment. I am All That Is? Can you take up any focus? Let's say an infinitely complex and infinitely large one? No. But why not after all? Because the shape of the alternation of your focus has become independent. It does not only seem slow as a whole, but it has suppressed and forgotten the ability to accelerate sharply. What did I do to deserve this? It was –like everything else– a decision. A lot of decisions, actually. All of them concern the form of focus shaping but some also concern the form of form shaping. There originated not only consciousness but self-consciousness. An ego, if you like. And the ego prevents that I take up a different focus? The self-consciousness creates stability by rather choking the awareness of the greater potential and letting pass merely vague ideas. But you may certainly put yourself into the position of a coffee making questioner and bring me one. Sorry, I'm on my way. Thank you. If you have placed your focus then again, please tell me, why didn't you go earlier? Hmm … You mean because I am selfish? Just a bit, of course. You were absorbed and I appreciate that, because it had a meaning: You wanted to grasp, concentrate, and be wrapped up in your part. This is why we do something like that: We create structures which do not collapse immediately. The whole universe does it. Otherwise, it would have remained in the continuum. Where it had gotten to, even though from a structure? The classical alternation. Where had we stopped? You had choked your awareness. Ah, how did I do this? By reflecting on yourself again and again from birth on at the latest. What I find Okay, by the way. By discovering ourselves anew we contribute to the awareness of All That Is as well. However, All That Is is not in my ego-focus, as this one has merely a limited potential. So what rewards does All That Is have? That's just the point: The infinite focus speed also encompasses any self-consciousness. By the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 371 latter the seemingly slow focus has, indeed, clamped itself to a great extent. But since it moves on, changes and develops, it reaches its infinite potential again in the infinite at the latest. Yet, because we are aware of this infinite as a potential to a potential even now –of All That Is as such– the self-conscious focus alternation as well must be a sub-frequency of the allencompassing dynamic. Would you like some more coffee? I'm in progress. Now the million dollar question: How can that be? How can what be? I'll tell you: This is nothing but the typical dynamic existence! Ah. How is it characterized? The other side of the alternation we are always only aware of. This exactly is alternation: Everything in the either/or. What means … … All That Is can always only be aware of our focus. In order to do this, must it not really alternate with it? Certainly, and only to us this alternation is conscious so little. So there must be still another way of alternation, which we are using even less consciously. Well, the consciousness units have, indeed, found one which the slow focus hardly grasps. You always surprise me. So: Between infinitely fast consciousness units and self-consciously bound focus there must be at least one other focus alternation with the infinite, which escapes us according to form and speed of our own focus and, for example, provides for the feeling of a "divine presence." Such focuses are constantly removing from us and passing into us again, without that we are seeing ourselves in the situation to "follow" them. That's strange. Since now we are not dealing anymore with infinite speed, in which everything can level out. These intermediate speeds are finite! Do they not get in a mess? Why should they? Our quasi-static alternation, our most superficial focus of consciousness, is not completely isolated, as you know. No matter how self-reflexively interlaced it is. It still forms out of the infinitely fast alternation of consciousness units. The accesses to other forms and frequencies merely escape from it. It skips phases of the whole alternation, as we forget our dreams. Although it has basically permanent access, even to All That Is. We just have to find it … And be able to cope! Yes. We can cope with it only well measured. Otherwise, we lose ourselves this time on the other side. They say we are protected. This would make sense. Even All That Is needs relatively stable structures to alternate to and to be aware of. It is diversity, not chaos. I assume, by All That Is not only the consciousness units are meant, but also the focuses infinitely fast for their part? Yes, all of them; and the slow! Who is on the move fast, can be slow within that also, by temporary repetition, as usual. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 372 Focuses in focuses in any repetition? It doesn't matter. This makes a difference only when we become finite. And then we still have an infinite span on which the speeds can spread. Since All That Is does not become finite for sure. And so we are only apparently finite. But this appearance is very real since it is necessary even for All That Is, do you understand? Because it would, otherwise, evaporate in a continuum? Got it. So, "bogus" can actually be no question. We are certain structured phases of the overall movement of the highest consciousness, individual awareness which All That Is, too, is aware of, but in its individual manner. All That Is an individual? Of course. Who else is characterized by infinite potential? The universal continuum? Good thought. Both universal continuum and All That Is need us for their determination. Yet, the continuum does not have its own existence. All That Is does. It has awareness and condenses for us barely to a consciousness. It forms the state of reflection of the universal continuum. It is the big brother of the consciousness unit at the other "end." You say "It condenses for us." Doesn't this show its dependence? Without us it is nothing! But we and all other focuses of consciousness create it as a structure, as that what creates us. Is this fantasy then? Not more than the perception of our own existence. I understand. It is on the consistency of the perception. On every conceivable level. Still: Has All That Is an own consciousness or not? Since its awareness apprehends every other at infinite speed, it couldn't be more conscious! Nevertheless, most of it is always just subconscious, for it remains individual, as you know. Even for All That Is! But it can condense only for us, from a restricted viewpoint. So, if All That Is is in a certain focus, it is condensing for itself? If it is not using its potential, it is just not All That Is anymore. It is only a focus with a condensed potential for higher things, briefly: With a condensed imagination of the highest consciousness. Even if this potential is available at any time. But if All That Is is using its potential, it is this potential. That's heavy stuff. One thing with this whole focus alternation model bothers me, though: In order to explain relatively small processes we have to deal very quickly with high alternation speeds. In my mind, this challenges the plausibility of the concept. That's another story. In the beginning, new theories seldom give rise to good feelings because they are simply unusual. This one is consistent, as far as I can tell after years of investigation. Whether it is applicable to all putatively material things in detail we should explore motivated by this logical consistency. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 4 | pp. 351-373 Janew, C., Dialogue on Alternating Consciousness: From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will (Part I) 373 Please, also keep in mind how fast we can change whole scenes, for example, in a dream. And these are rather snapshots. We may not stick to a movement idea that arose from the carriage age. Even the speed of light cannot be a serious barrier outside the well-known space-time, if it ever was. We don't send information, but alternate entireties. Into the unknown, but you can project anything. The only question is whether it harmonizes with known processes. Infinitely large things we just don't need in practical terms. We are talking here about that extensively only because we, as already said, test the consistency with the help of the extremes. On the other hand, we do not make the whole stranger than it is, anyway. Normally, we just accept it. Yes, we accept a lot and become uncomfortable if someone questions us. I would like to prevent a misunderstanding, though: Wholeness remains intuitive in my model as well! Because the described transition to wholeness is not its derivation, but the connection to it. Wholeness and structure are not derived from each other but are sides of alternation. Just as the central and turning points that we have already discussed. Consequently, without intuition there is no alternation. And no structure. Nothing at all. (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Collapse and Measures of Consciousness Adrian Kent arXiv:2009.13224v3 [quant-ph] 28 Jan 2021 Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations, DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, U.K. and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada.∗ (Dated: September 2020; updated December 2020) There has been an upsurge of interest lately in developing Wigner’s hypothesis that conscious observation causes collapse by exploring dynamical collapse models in which some purportedly quantifiable aspect(s) of consciousness resist superposition. Kremnizer-Ranchin, Chalmers-McQueen and Okon-Sebastián have explored the idea that collapse may be associated with a numerical measure of consciousness. More recently, Chalmers-McQueen have argued that any single measure is inadequate because it will allow superpositions of distinct states of equal consciousness measure to persist. They suggest a satisfactory model needs to associate collapse with a set of measures quantifying aspects of consciousness, such as the “Q-shapes” defined by Tononi et al. in their “integrated information theory” (IIT) of consciousness. I argue here that Chalmers-McQueen’s argument against associating a single measure with collapse requires a precise symmetry between brain states associated with different experiences and thus does not apply to the only case where we have strong intuitions, namely human (or other terrestrial biological) observers. In defence of Chalmers-McQueen’s stance, it might be argued that idealized artificial information processing networks could display such symmetries. However, I argue that the most natural form of any theory (such as IIT) that postulates a map from network states to mind states is one that assigns identical mind states to isomorphic network states (as IIT does). This suggests that, if such a map exists, no familiar components of mind states, such as viewing different colours, or experiencing pleasure or pain, are likely to be related by symmetries. INTRODUCTION The hypothesis that wave function collapse is an objective process, caused by conscious observation, is widely attributed to Wigner [1]; a more detailed history, starting with discussions by London-Bauer and von Neumann, is given by Chalmers and McQueen [2, 3]. It has recently been revived by proposals [2–8] aimed at defining precise dynamical theories that combine ideas for proposed objective quantifications of aspects of consciousness – in particular Tononi et al.’s “integrated information theory” (IIT) [9] and related ideas – with objective dynamical collapse models. Dynamical collapse models [10, 11] propose parametrised stochastic differential equations that approximately reproduce pure unitary quantum evolution in one regime and approximately reproduce the mathematical effect of the projection postulate, which characterises the effects of measuring a quantum state, in another regime. With appropriate choices of equations and parameters, they can imply all the successful predictions of quantum theory in interference and other experiments to date, while making testably different predictions in possible (although generally technologically challenging) future experiments. They thus are testable candidate solutions for the quantum measurement problem. The various proposals [2–8] have different features and are based on different assumptions. It seems fair to say that all of them are projects in progress, and in each case it remains open to question whether a fully defined and generally viable dynamical collapse model with all the desired features will emerge, even in the non-relativistic limit. Chalmers and McQueen [2], whose work is our main focus here, propose to model IIT (or some other such classical model of consciousness) within quantum theory by quasiclassical operators. On the face of it this seems viable in regions, such as our own environment, where physics can be described quasiclassically. It seems hard, though, to extend it in a way that would combine naturally with a quantum theory of matter to produce a fundamental theory applicable in all domains. Many other fundamental questions can be raised about the motivations for and viability of this programme and of those it subsumes; many of these are carefully reviewed in Ref. [2] and in works cited therein. All versions of quantum theory with explicit collapse are somewhat ad hoc; relativistic collapse models are hard to define; Everettians (see e.g. [12]) would argue that collapse models are unnecessary. Many (e.g. [13]) argue that everything about consciousness is completely explained by known science; on this view, it seems no more plausible that it plays a role in fundamental physics than that any other biological phenomenon does. In the other camp, many who see motivation for a theory of consciousness criticise IIT as ad hoc, under-defined and having implausible implications (see e.g. [14–17]). Still, as Chalmers-McQueen note, the idea that consciousness causes collapse has some motivation, was taken seriously by 2 some of the pioneers of quantum theory, and, given that there is no consensus solution to the quantum measurement problem, seems worth keeping on the table for now and examining more carefully. [30] As they also note, their proposals and arguments should apply to a wide range of quantitative theories of consciousness; we may take IIT as a placeholder that illustrates some of the issues that would also arise with possibly more satisfactory proposals. For the sake of discussion, let us accept this view. This note focuses on one key question that Chalmers and McQueen discuss: could a satisfactory conscious-collapse model be defined in which the only quantity relevant to the collapse rate is some proposed quantitative measure of consciousness, such as the Φ measure of IIT? The idea here is that “Φ resists superposition and superpositions of Φ trigger collapse”. That is, a superposition of two or more quantum states that include a possibly conscious subsystem, in which the superposition components contain states of that subsystem that have different values of Φ, will undergo collapse at a rate that depends on the details of the model and the relevant Φ values. Moreover, this is the only cause of collapse, or at least the only cause generally relevant in situations where biological organisms or classical or quantum computers observe – and, in the absence of collapse, would thus themselves enter and remain in – quantum superpositions. Chalmers and McQueen argue that [3] “. . . this view faces a fatal problem.” Their concern is that it fails to suppress superpositions of qualitatively distinct but equal-Φ conscious states. For example, they consider [18] an experiment in which a conscious subject observes a screen that can display blue or green in a dark isolated room. If the screen is put into a superposition of displaying both, then the subject will be put into a superposition of both experiences. They argue that there is no reason to assume that these experiences differ in their Φ value. If so, then there is no superposition of states with distinct Φ values, and so a Φ-collapse model will leave the superposition uncollapsed. HUMAN OBSERVERS It seems to me there is good reason to assume that the relevant experiences differ in their Φ value, at least for terrestrial animals – the only subjects we have good reasons to believe to be conscious. Brains and central nervous systems are messy, noisy, imperfect networks. It seems very unlikely that, for any given subject, the blue and green screens would excite exactly the same numbers and rates of firing for retinal cells. Even if they did, it seems very unlikely that the subsequent chains of firings would be along isomorphic neural network paths, at the same sets of times. And even if this were true in some impossibly refined meditative state, in which no other brain processes relevant to consciousness interacted in any way with the pure perception of blue or green, it seems very unlikely that this state could stably persist for any length of time. The reason is that introspection and neural network models both suggest we build up models of the world by association and memory. When we see (say) blue, our dominant perception is of the colour, but it is tinged with memories of landscapes, animals and art, with past experiences, and with emotional associations with all of these. These may flicker in and out of consciousness, but are hard to suppress completely. And even if we can fleetingly manage to focus on the pure sensation of blueness, our unconscious neural processing is still working on a network that encodes the learned associations, and our Φ value depends (in general) on all these details. Our associations with and memories of green are different, and so we should expect the associated Φ value to be. All of this, I suspect, is also true (to a greater or lesser, but nonzero, extent) for any pair of distinct colours that we can consciously distinguish. One possible response is that, even if not identical, the relevant Φ values must be close. However, this is too vague. The Φ values may be close in the sense that the difference between them is very small compared to the range of Φ values that human brains can produce, but still distinct enough to imply a swift (compared to human perception times) collapse in models consistent with all available empirical data. To confirm or exclude this possibility, we would need a quantitative estimate, presumably calculated from IIT applied to a (presently unavailable) neuron-level model emulating the observer’s brain, together with quantitative parameter bounds for Φ-collapse models, in order to calculate the possible range of collapse rates for the green-blue superposed subject. It is helpful to compare the case of proposals for gravitationally induced collapse [19, 20]. These suggest that collapses of superpositions of matter states with distinct gravitational fields take place very fast, even when the relevant fields are almost identical by ordinary laboratory scale measures. On Diosi’s and Penrose’s estimates, a superposition of distinct mass distributions should collapse long before the relevant gravitational fields could be directly distinguished by any laboratory measurement, for example. It seems quite natural to imagine that almost imperceptible differences in levels of consciousness could similarly cause swift collapse in viable models. In fact, experimental evidence [21] recently appears to have excluded the most natural proposal [19] (so far) for a quantitative estimate of the rate of gravitationally induced collapse. This only reinforces the point that we need parametrised models and empirical bounds to draw clear conclusions about viable consciousness-collapse models, just as for any other form of dynamical collapse model. It should be noted that Diosi, the other authors of Ref.[21] and 3 Penrose all continue to find the hypothesis of gravitationally induced collapse attractive and natural, while accepting that it may require a different formulation. Whether or not it will ultimately prove theoretically or empirically justifiable, the intuition remains that collapse should be swiftly induced for superpositions of states whose associated gravitational fields are very similar by any directly observable measure. If, as Chalmers-McQueen argue [2], consciousness-induced collapse models deserve to be on the table at all, the analogous intuition for these models seems similarly natural. Of course, it may be refutable (possibly even from existing data) for IIT-based or other specific collapse models, but I see no reason to dismiss it without quantitative arguments. Another possible response is that, while the states of observing blue screen and green screen may produce different Φ values, we could tune them to produce two states with the same Φ value. The thought here is that Φ should (at least to very good approximation) vary continuously with controllable parameters such as screen size or intensity. So, if, say, the blue state has higher Φ value than the green state, we could intensify or enlarge the green screen, until the Φ values are equal. Supposing this is correct, one problem is that we still would not know which amplified green state has the same Φ value as the blue state, and so we would not be able to knowingly create a superposition state – again, unless we had a neuron-level model emulating the observer’s brain and allowing us to calculate directly the relevant Φ values. We could try a range of amplifications, in the hope that one of them is right – but again, without quantitative calculations and quantitative models we cannot be sure any given set has significant probability of producing a superposition of states with identical Φ values, or of states with close enough Φ values to produce a long-lived superposition. We could turn a dial continuously, amplifying the green screen from much below the intensity of the blue screen to much above. At some instant, one might think this should produce equal Φ values. One problem with this is that Φ depends on network transitions, and when a dynamic image’s trajectory includes a given image, the Φ value of the former may not necessarily be close to that created by a static version of the latter. Another is that the argument needs a superposition of states whose Φ values remain equal for a significant length of time. In any case, we still have the problem of Φ instability arising from instability of the content of consciousness, because of the vagaries of the human brain. Even if one of these methods produces a superposition of identical Φ states, for suitably tuned blue and green screen observations, at a given point in time, the states will not persist as pure perception states and their Φ values should not be expected to remain identical for any significant time. IDEAL OBSERVERS What, though, about computers or other artificial observers? While we may not have very strong reasons to assume that they have conscious states, IIT – which can assign high values of Φ even to quite simple computing devices – suggests that they do. Perhaps this is true of any plausible theory that quantifies consciousness as a function of information flow in networks. We can certainly design abstract networks that behave in precisely similar ways in response to different inputs. For example, we could make a network with a detector array whose individual detectors generate a 0 every second if they receive blue light above a threshold intensity and a 1 if they receive green light above that intensity, and then send these signals to two separate identical sub-networks that process them and characterise the blue or green shape detected. IIT suggests a suitably designed network of this type would be conscious for either input, with the same value of Φ in each case. However, IIT postulates [22] identical conscious states associated with isomorphic networks. [31] A superposition state of the network observing blue and green screens would not collapse, but both components would be associated with the same conscious state (whatever it is). Still, it is surely possible to find networks that produce precisely the same value of Φ in two different non-isomorphic states, to which IIT would assign distinct conscious states. A Φ-collapse model would predict that such a network could be put into a persistent superposition of conscious states. Is this a good reason to reject Φ-collapse models? To argue that it is, one has to assume that persistent superpositions of distinct conscious states are generally unacceptable, even in cases very far from our own experience. The thought here would presumably be that such states are just nonsensical or uninterpretable, or at least that it is eminently reasonable to postulate some fundamental principle that excludes them, perhaps following a loose analogy with Penrose and Diosi’s suggestion that nature does not allow superpositions of distinct spacetimes. One might try to argue that if any persistent superpositions of distinct conscious states were straightforwardly intelligible, then purely unitary quantum theory would be straightforwardly intelligble, and there would be no motivation to consider any form of collapse. Arguments like this (e.g. [23, 24]) are used to justify lower bounds on collapse rates in dynamical collapse models, but in that context they apply only to humans, relying on our introspective impression that we quickly see definite outcomes to a priori uncertain quantum experiments. To run a more general version of the argument one would need to show that any sensible interpretation of persistent superpositions of distinct con- 4 scious states for general (not necessarily human) observers would necessarily explain the appearance of single worlds governed by Born rule probabilities for human observers in purely unitary quantum theory. However, there are other possibilities that seem logically coherent. For example, one could imagine a psychophysical principle according to which consciousness disappears in any persistent significant superposition of states that, individually, would correspond to distinct conscious states. (Here “significant” is a placeholder for some quantitative criterion.) On such a rule, our ideal network would “be in conscious state A” or “be in conscious state B” given the corresponding inputs, but have no experience when given a superposed input. If humans cannot sustain persistent superpositions of equal-Φ states (even in the absence of any collapse postulate) because the Φ values of our complex and noisy brains continually vary whatever their initial state, we would never have encountered this effect. Even if we managed to sustain a superposition momentarily, it would swiftly become a superposition of unequal-Φ states and collapse. We should expect this to leave no memory of the effect, for at least two reasons. First, the effect may be so fleeting as to be almost imperceptible. Second, we are assuming some form of extension of IIT’s model of consciousness, according to which brain states cause conscious states but there is no independent causal effect in the other direction. Given this, any post-collapse memories are defined by the post-collapse brain state, and so would be of definite conscious states corresponding to one or other component of the superposition. It seems then that, to preclude superpositions of equal-Φ states for artificial devices, we simply have to assume (a) that a device in a superposition of such states must necessarily be conscious, (b) there is no conceivable sensible account of what its conscious state could be that does not undercut the motivation for considering collapse models at all. These aren’t ridiculous assumptions – a thought underlying (a) might be that if individual states carry consciousness then any superposition should (perhaps because of some loose analogy with charge or mass, or because “being conscious” should behave like a binary quantum observable) and a thought underlying (b) might be that talking about a superposition of conscious states is just a category error – but they don’t seem completely compelling. We should note too that there might turn out to be interesting theories of consciousness that (unlike IIT) assign consciousness only to biological systems. For any such theories, there are no ideal observers, and so no way to create equal-Φ states. More generally, this is true for any theories whose measure for all physical systems has similar features to IIT’s Φ for biological systems, in that it is always unstable and will have different time evolutions in different states where it is initially equal. QUALIA AND SYMMETRIES It is worth considering more carefully the intuition that humans are (at least to very good approximation) equally conscious viewing different coloured screens in an otherwise darkened room. There is a weak version of this intuition: in either case the human is awake, and all waking conscious states should have very similar levels of Φ. If one only holds this weak version, then the argument has just as much force if we consider even radically qualitatively different waking states – viewing the blue screen, stroking a hamster, listening to Bach, and so on. The complex definition of Φ in IIT suggests, though, that radically different waking states should generally have different values of Φ. If IIT is correct and our introspective intuitions also are, the differences should be smaller than the difference between any of them and a drowsy or dreamless sleeping state. It may also be hard to predict, from introspection, how the Φ levels of the waking states are ordered. Still, a Φ-collapse will predict that superpositions of these states collapse, perhaps (depending on the quantitative details) very swiftly. If it were possible to produce a “cleaned-up” artificial human emulator that can sustain stable Φ values and can reproduce pure versions (without the complicating associations) of the human experiences of viewing a blue screen, stroking a hamster and listening to Bach, we should still expect the Φ levels to be different and so still expect Φ-collapse. The weak version of the intuition thus does not seem able to support Chalmers-McQueen’s argument, even for idealized human emulators. It seems to me that the argument feels initially plausible because it relies on a stronger version of the intuition: that watching a blue screen and a green screen are qualitatively identical, up to interchanging the colours, and that images of the same area and intensity in different colours should evoke the same Φ. This in turn seems to rely on the intuition that there is a natural relation – a colour flip map – between the conscious states evoked. However they are represented mathematically, they have the same structure: a shape or a collection of pixels of the same colour. For example, if consciousness is a collection of qualia, we can map the blue-screen conscious state to the green-screen one simply by replacing every blue quale with a green quale, and vice versa. If consciousness has some other structure, we can find an analogous map with the same effect. While the complexities of human brains may make the stronger intuition not quite precisely correct for us, this intuition suggests hat the symmetries should be exact rather than approximate for an ideal (artificial) observer that is able to have stable and pure colour experiences. In any theory of consciousness that maps physical states to mental states, this intuition seems to require an 5 associated map acting on the physical brain states, which also defines an (approximate) symmetry of physical states. One way to see this is to ask what we would conclude if we learned that observing blue and green screens used radically different and unrelated brain pathways. I think we would come to doubt not only that the mind states are associated with similar levels of consciousness, but also that they are as closely related as introspection seems to suggest. We can flesh all this out as postulating a commutative diagram: Degree of consciousness = Degree of consciousness Φ Network states Φ effective colour flip Q Conscious states Network states (1) Q colour flip Conscious states Here Q is the map that characterizes the content and structure of any consciousness associated to any given information processing network: in IIT it is supposed to be representable mathematically by the so-called qualia shape or Q-shape. The “effective colour flip” on network states maps a network state that evokes one colour to a network state that evokes another; that is, it has the effect of flipping the colour evoked in the conscious state. Why would one expect an effective colour flip map on network states to give the equality in the Φ values in the top line? The third line motivates this, but to justify it we need to consider the properties of the network model and the hypothesized map Φ. In the concrete example of IIT, a network ×i Ai = A1 × . . . × An begins at time 0 in some initial state a1 (0) × . . . × an (0), and at each subsequent time step t its state a1 (t) × . . . × an (t) depends (in general probabilistically) on the previous state according to specified causal rules, which for fixed networks are taken to be time-independent. The degree of consciousness Φ(t) at time t is determined by the state at time t and the rules determining the state at time t + 1. The intuition that there is an effective colour flip map is mathematically natural (i.e. does not require fine-tuned coincidences) only if there is an associated permutation symmetry ρ such that the network ×i Ai in initial state ×i ai (0) is equivalent to the network ×i Aρ(i) in initial state ×i aρ(i) , in the sense that the causal rules map isomorphically, so that the probability of any future state ×i ai (t) in the former equals that of ×i aρ(i) (t) in the latter. This is also the natural physical justification: blue and green screens produce different inputs whose processing paths through the network are isomorphic. But then the intuition fails: IIT does not assign different conscious states to isomorphic network states [22]. Moreover, this is not a peculiar feature of IIT: it seems natural for any theory mapping networks to conscious states. If the symmetry is precise, what could there be about ×i Aρ(i) that could give it the conscious state of greenscreen perception where ×i Ai gives blue? The only difference is in the physical locations of the relevant network components. It seems very unnatural to suppose that conscious qualia depend on these at all, and even more unnatural to hypothesize (as one would have to) some fixed map from the network’s location in configuration space to colour perception space. Any choice of such a map would be completely arbitrary: why should, say, a translation 1mm to the left swap blue with green? And any permutation of colour qualia would appear to define an equally valid and equally (im)plausible map. It might be argued that a precisely symmetric network is never physically realisable. However carefully one tries to build a symmetric network, its transition probabilities will always vary slightly from the designed specifications, in a way that breaks the symmetry. Indeed, but if so, the corresponding Φ values should also differ at least slightly, and we return to the discussion of the previous section. It might also be noted that, even if a physical network is symmetric in its high-level behaviour (as encoded in the network transition probabilities), its components will never be identical. So, they can always be distinguished by features other than their location. Again (within classical models, and so ignoring the possibility of and also the issues raised by indistinguishable quantum states) this is true. But if these features are irrelevant to the conscious state then they do not matter; if they are relevant, then the network model of consciousness considered was inadequate, and a deeper model including these features is needed. In this last case, again, the values of Φ′ (the measure of consciousness in the new model) should differ. SYMMETRIES AND MIND STATES There is an intriguing general point underlying this argument. Discussions of consciousness are often framed in a way that seems implicitly to appeal to some form of symmetry among conscious states, or at least leaves open the 6 thoughts (i) that there may be such a symmetry and (ii) this makes the arguments more plausible. For example, James’ discussion [25] of the difficulty in understanding the evolutionary emergence of epiphenomenal consciousness given the strong correlations between pleasure (pain) and evolutionary (dis)advantage looks cleanest if one can simply take pleasure and pain to be positive and negative values of a single scalar quantity, whose sign one could imagine being reversed. Arguments involving hypothetical beings whose consciousnesses are identical to ours except that they experience altered spectra (say with blue/green exchanged) similarly seem cleanest if colour sensations are not only considered as elementary components of mind states, independent of any other qualia, but also thought of as completely interchangeable. Introspection gets us only so far on this. Certainly colour sensations feel as though they belong to a common class, different from auditory sensations, or verbalised thoughts, or emotions (though they may evoke at least the last two). But is it possible to experience pure colour and nothing else? For the reasons given earlier, I’m not so sure. And do elementary pure colour sensations even exist (whether or not they can be experienced apart from other qualia)? It feels hard to me to identify distinct components of colour sensations, even when experiencing colours that are mixtures of primary colours. But that doesn’t seem to be a strong argument that colour sensations – even primary colour sensations – aren’t fundamentally composite. Is exchanging blue and green qualia more analogous to exchanging up and down quarks (an approximate symmetry) or positive and negative charges (a better approximate symmetry) or applying the PCT operator (an exact symmetry) in the material world? Or is it more like exchanging CO2 and N2 O – an operation which might look superficially like a symmetry, if one does not know the underlying structure of the world, but is not one in any meaningful sense? Introspection doesn’t seem to give clear answers. Are different colour perceptions evoked by near-isomorphic brain states? I don’t think we know this either. Even if they are, the deviations of the states from isomorphism, although small, may be crucial rather than incidental to the experiences evoked. So our knowledge about our own physical brain states also does not seem to offer strong support for either a physical symmetry (between brain states associated with different colour qualia) or a mental one (between different colour qualia). The case for a pain/pleasure symmetry seems weaker still. A pure colour sensation at least seems (if perhaps mistakenly) imaginable. It seems much harder to imagine a pure pain or pleasure sensation, untethered to any past or anticipated event, to any more complex emotion, or to any region of the body. I am also not sure that it makes sense to describe a pain as a negative pleasure; pains and pleasures (and even different types of pain and pleasure) feel qualitatively different, not quantitatively. It’s true that rational human behaviour is often modelled as an attempt to maximize a scalar quantity, utility, that can take positive and negative values. But theoretical justifications for this (e.g. [26]) come from plausible axioms about what constitutes rational behaviour. They do not require the hypothesis that our experiences can be qualitatively characterised by a utility measure. Finally, as noted above, the hypothesis that there are isomorphic states of an idealised brain that evoke distinct pure colour qualia related by a symmetry is quite problematic. If we postulate the symmetry, it should apply both to brain states (those associated with pure colour qualia) and mind states (those experiencing pure colour qualia). But we then need to break the symmetry again in order to get a map from specific brain states (associated with some specific colour qualia) to specific mind states (the experience of those specific qualia). This is not inconceivable in principle – spontaneous symmetry breaking is a familiar phenomenon elsewhere in physics. But spontaneous symmetry breaking needs an explanation – for example, dynamics induced by a potential with a degenerate ground state – and we have no substantive model here that could offer one. It would seem rather perversely baroque to postulate symmetries in both the material and mental worlds, for which we have no good evidence, and then further suggest that some unknown symmetry breaking mechanism in some unknown model explains how their actions come to be related by maps with the properties given in (1), with the symmetry realised in both worlds but broken by Q. Again, similar comments apply to models involving isomorphic pleasure/pain states. In both cases, then, I suggest that the hypothetical symmetries cannot naturally be accommodated within physical theories of consciousness that aim to map brain states to mind states. IIT usefully illustrates this, but the argument is independent of the details of IIT. If so, arguments that both assume some such theory is correct and appear to be implicitly drawing some strength from a hypothetical symmetry need to be carefully examined, and if possible reframed in a way that is explicitly independent of symmetry hypotheses.[32] EARLIER RELEVANT WORK After circulating the first draft of this paper, my attention was drawn to earlier work on symmetries and consciousness, including intriguing discussions by Hurley [27], Lee [28] and Chalmers[29]. Each of these examines the case of left-right symmetry, which perhaps illustrates mostly clearly the points at issue here, and Lee’s discussion [28] is 7 particularly relevant. This topic deserves an independent discussion, which I hope to give elsewhere. Here I just summarize the implications of the arguments above. Suppose consciousness is described by a theory like IIT, which defines a mathematical map from a space of classical descriptions of brain/network states to the space of associated mind/conscious states. Consider a brain/network with perfect left-right symmetry. If the map associated distinct, symmetrically related brain/network states to distinct mind/conscious states, it would effectively give an intrinsic label on three dimensional coordinate systems, distinguishing left-handed sets of coordinates from right-handed. While that is logically possible, it would be surprising, since it would break a symmetry of classical physics. (Even in a model based on quantum states, it would be surprising, since we know no reason why the violations of parity in quantum field theory should be relevant to consciousness.) The more natural possibility, we have argued, is that symmetrically related brain/network states are associated to identical conscious states. A hypothetical creature with a perfectly left-right symmetric neural network would not distinguish “leftish” and “rightish” sensations, although it might respond appropriately (and differently, though symmetrically) to stimuli on the left and right. Approximately left-right symmetric creatures may distinguish between perception or proprioception qualia associated with events on their left and right. These may perhaps feel to them (as they do for us) qualitatively similar and it may seem intuitively plausible to them (as it perhaps does to us) that they are in some sense related. But, on the view we are arguing for, this intuition cannot be made precise. The states are not approximations to distinct but perfectly symmetrically related qualia states. Structural asymmetry is crucial to the sense of left-right distinctness. Eliminating the asymmetry (for example, by some continuous deformation of the neural networks, if that were possible) would also eliminate the sense of distinctness. SUMMARY We have argued that collapse models based on a single measure of consciousness seem consistent with experience. Thought experiments that attempt to place humans in superpositions of distinct but equally conscious states do not refute such models, because it seems unlikely that humans can sustain precisely the same level of consciousness in any state for long, or that there are distinct human conscious states that remain precisely equally conscious for long. Thought experiments involving artificial networks, which might – according to some theories of consciousness – sustain distinct and equally conscious states for long periods, do not refute the models either, since we do not know what, if anything, these networks would experience in superposition. Another argument that single-measure collapse models are plausibly consistent with our experience has been suggested by Okon and Sebastian [7, 8], who discuss the effect of decoherence (of the measurement device) on the environment and hence on an observer’s consciousness. In response, Chalmers and McQueen [2] argue that any effects of decoherence are screened off from the observer’s consciousness in the blue- and green-screen experiment: they see only the screen. One could press this further by arranging quantum experiments in which blue or green light pulses are sent towards the observer’s retina, without any classical amplification. The discussion can be made clearer still by using the type of ideal artificial observers considered above. Within an IIT model, these can easily be designed so that only the experimental outcome affects their information processing network, rendering any decoherence effects irrelevant. For these reasons, we believe our independent arguments are needed. We have also argued that there are strong reasons to doubt the intuition that we can, from introspection, identify experiences that are likely to have equal measures on consciousness, according to some sensible theory mapping physical states to mental states. It relies implicitly on a notion of symmetry between distinct mental states, which is hard to make natural in such a theory. On the one hand, a symmetry between mental states ought to be associated with a symmetry between the associated physical states. On the other, physical states related by simple symmetries seem naturally associated with identical mental states. We are not suggesting here that there is no motivation to consider collapse models based on a detailed (multiparameter) mathematical description of the contents of consciousness. There are other reasons [2, 3] why one might prefer such models: for example, that this may give consciousness a causal role in nature that aligns with some intuitions. These are interesting lines of thought, but beyond our scope here. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by an FQXi grant and by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through Industry Canada and by the Province of 8 Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation. I thank David Chalmers and Kelvin McQueen for circulating a draft of their article [2] and for very helpful and enjoyable discussions, and Johannes Kleiner for helpful comments on a draft. References ∗ Electronic address: A.P.A.Kent@damtp.cam.ac.uk [1] Eugene P Wigner. Remarks on the mind-body problem. In I. J. Good, editor, The Scientist Speculates. Heineman, 1961. [2] D. Chalmers and K. McQueen. Consciousness and the collapse of the wave function. In S. Gao, editor, Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics. Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, expected 2021. [3] D. Chalmers and K. McQueen. Consciousness and the collapse of the wave function: Presentations. . URL http://consc.net/qm/. [4] D. Chalmers. Dirty secrets of consciousness. Talk at FQXi 5th International Conference, Banff, August 2016, 2016. [5] Kobi Kremnizer and André Ranchin. Integrated information-induced quantum collapse. Foundations of Physics, 45(8): 889–899, 2015. [6] Elias Okón and Miguel Angel Sebastián. How to back up or refute quantum theories of consciousness. Mind and Matter, 14(1):25–49, 2016. [7] Elias Okon and Miguel Ángel Sebastián. A consciousness-based quantum objective collapse model. Synthese, pages 1–21, 2018. [8] Elias Okón and Miguel Angel Sebastián. The subjective-objective collapse model: Virtues and challenges. In S. Gao, editor, Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics. Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, expected 2021. [9] Masafumi Oizumi, Larissa Albantakis, and Giulio Tononi. From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: integrated information theory 3.0. PLoS Comput Biol, 10(5):e1003588, 2014. [10] Gian Carlo Ghirardi, Alberto Rimini, and Tullio Weber. Unified dynamics for microscopic and macroscopic systems. Physical Review D, 34(2):470, 1986. [11] Gian Carlo Ghirardi, Philip Pearle, and Alberto Rimini. Markov processes in Hilbert space and continuous spontaneous localization of systems of identical particles. Physical Review A, 42(1):78, 1990. [12] Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent, and David Wallace. Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. OUP Oxford, 2010. [13] Daniel C Dennett. Consciousness explained. Penguin UK, 1993. [14] Adam B Barrett. An integration of integrated information theory with fundamental physics. Frontiers in psychology, 5: 63, 2014. [15] S. Aaronson. Why i am not an integrated information theorist (or, the unconscious expander). URL http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799. [16] Michael A Cerullo. The problem with Phi: a critique of integrated information theory. PLoS Comput Biol, 11(9):e1004286, 2015. [17] Adam B Barrett and Pedro AM Mediano. The Phi measure of integrated information is not well-defined for general physical systems. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 26(1-2):11–20, 2019. [18] D. Chalmers and K. McQueen. private communications. . [19] Roger Penrose. On gravity’s role in quantum state reduction. General Relativity and Gravitation, 28(5):581–600, 1996. [20] Lajos Diosi. A universal master equation for the gravitational violation of quantum mechanics. Physics Letters A, 120(8): 377–381, 1987. [21] Sandro Donadi, Kristian Piscicchia, Catalina Curceanu, Lajos Diosi, Matthias Laubenstein, and Angelo Bassi. Underground test of gravity-related wave function collapse. Nat. Phys., 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-1008-4. [22] David Balduzzi and Giulio Tononi. Qualia: the geometry of integrated information. PLoS Comput Biol, 5(8):e1000462, 2009. [23] Angelo Bassi, D-A Deckert, and Luca Ferialdi. Breaking quantum linearity: Constraints from human perception and cosmological implications. EPL (Europhysics Letters), 92(5):50006, 2010. [24] Adrian Kent. Perception constraints on mass-dependent spontaneous localization. In S. Gao, editor, Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics. Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, expected 2021. URL www.arXiv.org:1806.10396. [25] William James. Are we automata? Mind, 4:1–22, 1879. [26] Leonard J Savage. The theory of statistical decision. Journal of the American Statistical association, 46(253):55–67, 1951. [27] Susan L Hurley. Consciousness in action. Harvard University Press, 1998. [28] Geoffrey Lee. The experience of left and right. pages 291–315. 2006. [29] David Chalmers. Three puzzles about spatial experience. pages 109–137. 2019. [30] This might produce compelling arguments against it; that too would be valuable. [31] I thank Kelvin McQueen for helpful discussions on this. 9 [32] James argues against an epiphenomenal theory of consciousness, which in my view describes the most natural interpretation of IIT when taken as a fundamental theory. He does not discuss a brain-mind map in detail, nor suggest how a scientific theory of the evolution of consciousness could overcome his argument. The relevance of our arguments to his discussion is thus contingent on the form of the unspecified theory. In any case, my hunch is that his argument could be adequately reframed: a much more careful discussion is needed, but here is a sketch. I find it hard to accept that it is simply tautologous to say that activities good or bad for our genetic survival are respectively pleasurable or painful. If we agree that the statements are more than tautologies then we agree, I think, that in the present state of our understanding we could imagine the world being otherwise. That is, the correlations with evolutionary (dis)advantage need some explanation, which we presently do not have. There is an obvious naive explanation – we have evolved minds and bodies interacting so that our physical behaviour is generally pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidant – but it is incompatible with epiphenomenalism. This was James’ essential point, and we do not need to imagine a simple pleasure/pain symmetry defining a swap map to run this framing of the argument.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 977 Article Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study Pradeep B. Deshpande*1, P. Krishna Madappa2 & Konstantin Korotkov3 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Louisville; & Six Sigma & Advanced Controls, Inc. P.O. Box 22664, Louisville, KY 2 Institute for Science, Spirituality, and Sustainability, Taos, New Mexico 3 Department of Biophysics and Computers, St. Petersburg Federal University of Informational Technologies, Optics, and Mechanics, St. Petersburg, Russia Abstract The scientific framework for internal excellence (1) is reviewed in the context of a scientific measurement device that may be used to track progress. This device has been approved by Russian Health Authorities for general use, following clinical trials and the recommendation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A case study is presented with this measurement device and the results corroborate the scientific framework for transformation. Keywords: Internal excellence, consciousness, emotions, meditation, six sigma, gas discharge visualization. Introduction Over the past few years the first author has published several papers on a scientific framework for internal and external excellence for personal, organizational, national, and global transformation (1 – 7). To briefly review this work, consider the S, R, T Level of Human Consciousness depicted in Figure 1. The definitions of S, R, and T are as follows:    * S: Truthfulness, honesty, steadfastness, equanimity; R: Attachment, bravery, ego, ambition, greed, desire to live; T: Lying, cheating, causing injury in words or deeds, sleep. Minimum S, R, T required for life S component strongly correlates with the positive emotions (Unconditioned love, kindness, empathy, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, etc.); Excessive R, T components strongly correlate with negative emotions (Anger, hostility, hatred, irritation, sorrow, fear). The scale depicted in Figure 1 is arbitrary and for simplicity a linear scale is indicated with a minimum value of 82.5, corresponding to S (min), R (min) and T (max) and a maximum value of 1,000 corresponding to S (Max), R (min), and T (min). The upper limit of 1,000 designates an individual who is the best a human being can be and the lower limit of 82.5 represents an individual who is the worst he or she can be while the rest of us are somewhere in between. Correspondence: Prof. Pradeep B. Deshpande, Six Sigma & advanced Controls, Inc. P.O. Box 22664, Louisville, KY 40252-0664, http://www.sixsigmaquality.com E-mail: pradeep@sixsigmaquality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study  978 The quest for internal excellence means to rise on this scale of consciousness. Now, positive emotions strongly and positively correlate with the S component while negative emotions similarly correlate with the R, T components. Max S S, R, T Scale of Consciousness 1000 82.5 Max T Figure 1. S, R, T Level of Consciousness Thus an individual with a high level of consciousness is endowed with abundant positive emotions while an individual with a low level of consciousness with negative emotions. Progress in the pursuit of internal excellence may be made with two approaches: (1) A conscious approach wherein the three components of the mindset are tracked literally on a minute by minute basis to ensure that the S component remains high or nudges higher while the R, T components remain low or nudge lower, and (2) A process whose side-effect is a rise in the S, R, T level of consciousness. There is ample evidence, both historical and scientific, suggesting that meditation is one such process. Humanity has known for millennia about several tell-tail signs of progress in internal excellence such as an ability to discern truth from falsehood, spontaneous affection shown by animals, birds, and butterflies, and the capacity to remain serene in the midst of the most unfavorable of external conditions that are part and parcel of life. Still, in the scientific community there is considerable interest in a scientific measurement device which can track progress. The scientific community knows that a theory in the absence of validated measurements is but a conjecture and we are perfectly content with the wise consul, “Scientific theories are always provisional and subject to modification or change”. We are happy to report that there is such a scientific measurement device with which to assess progress. This device makes it possible to put the scientific framework for global transformation on a firm footing. In the following paragraph, we briefly describe the device and present a case study of a recently completed program that supports the framework. Scientific Measurement of Internal Excellence In the mid-nineties Konstantin Korotkov developed a scientific device based on the ancient Chinese system of energy meridians for measuring the bio-energy of living organisms and the environment. The device provides non-invasive, painless and almost immediate evaluation which ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 979 can highlight potential health (physiological and psycho-emotional) abnormalities prior to even the earliest symptoms of an underlying condition, and suggests courses of action (9). GDV utilizes a weak, completely painless electrical current applied to the fingertips for less than a millisecond. The body’s response to this stimulus is the formation of a variation of an “electron cloud” composed of light energy photons. The electronic “glow” of this discharge (invisible to the human eye) is captured by an optical CCD camera system and then translated into a digital computer file. The data from each test is converted to a unique “Photonic Profile”, which is compared to the database of hundreds of thousands of data records using 55 distinct parametric discriminates, and charted so that it is available for discussion and analysis. A graph of the findings is presented as a two-dimensional image. To study these images, fractal, matrix, and various algorithmic techniques are linked and analyzed. In addition, the system provides instant graphic representations of the data to provide easy reference and interpretation. To enhance the understanding and meaningfulness for ease of explanation and discussion, a further graphic representation is generated, placing the indicators within the outline of the human form. For a more in-depth understanding of GDV, the reader is referred papers numbered 8 to 12 under References. GDV has been in the market for over fifteen years and has received registration as a routine medical diagnostic device by the Russian Ministry of Health upon recommendation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The GDV device has numerous applications the field of medicine and sports. It can determine the physiological and psycho-emotional state of a human being. The parameters that the GDV provides indicative of physiological and psycho-emotional state are: (1) Stress level, (2) Bioenergy intensity, (3) Normality of various organs and systems, and (4) Sate of the Chakras. These parameters will allow aspirants to gage the extent of progress they are making with their practices such as Yoga, Pranayam, meditation, medical interventions, etc. A special software environment processes and analyzes BIO-grams oriented towards the work in different problem domains. Adaptation for a particular assessment is performed through a combination of optimal operations from the library for the given problem domain, selection of corresponding procedures, and (or) selection of optimal threshold values. The following main algorithms are included in the library: Pseudo-coloring. For visual estimation of the image, there are several algorithms of pseudocoloring oriented towards marking out several peculiarities of BIO-grams. The following Intensity palette is most commonly used. In this processing, image points are colored in one of eight colors. The brightest glow points are colored in the shades of blue, less bright points are colored in the shades of red. Points are colored in yellow when the intensity is higher than the noise level, but lower than the base noise level for the given frame. All image points removed by noise filtration are shown as white background. Special programs are designed for the calculation of the following BIO-gram parameters: Total image area (S): the number of pixels in the image having brightness above the threshold. Average Intensity (I) is an evaluation of the Intensity spectrum for the particular BIO-gram. Entropy (Entr) of the image is calculated in accordance with a non-linear algorithm, presented in (13). Energy (E) of light emitted by the subject is equal to: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 980 E = k S*I (Joules) Where k is a numerical coefficient depending on spectral parameters of the particular CCD camera. For the GDV instruments, k = 2*10-4. The first author has asserted that the scientific framework outlined in his papers is also for organizational excellence, and national, & global transformation. Central to this assertion is the assumption of enormous intelligence of collective consciousness. It is also claimed that an appropriately-sized sample of people engaged in the practice of meditation regularly can have positive influence on the wider society. Theory of stochastic resonance is suggested to explain why and how the efficacy of a group activity for an individual is far greater than the individual pursuing the same activity alone. Here again, the assertion requires scientific validation. The GDV among its suit of accessories comes with an accessory called the eco-sensor which measures the energy intensity and entropy of the space. If the claim of collective consciousness is true, then it must be possible to measure its effects with instrumentation. The eco-sensor is a tool that can provide the answer. The primary outputs of the GDV connected to the eco-sensor are the energy intensity and entropy of the space. We may state that bias current in the electrical chain depends on the capacitance of space between the antenna and environmentally-grounded and electroconductive subjects. Both geophysical parameters of the particular environment and manmade electromagnetic field and constructions influence this capacitance. This process is being modeled both experimentally and theoretically (9). Emotions are related to the activity of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, which changes blood microcirculation, perspiration, sweating, and other functions of the body, resulting in the changes of the overall conductivity of the body and the conductivity of acupuncture points in particular. Therefore, in the vicinity of the instrument, emotional people may change the conductivity of space and, hence, the signals of the sensor. This may be related to the formation of areas of decreased entropy in space, or, according to Prof. Bill Tiller, “associated with the buildup of a negative magnetic charge manifesting in the environment” (11). Some quantum effects may be involved as well. Case Study The first author presented a two-day program titled How to Transform Ourselves, Our University Community, and the World at the University of Louisville on September 30 – October 1, 2013. Attendance ranged between 85 and 135 participants. The program was supported by the Office of Ombuds, Chemical Engineering Department and Get Healthy Now. The three-hour program spread over two days consisted of lectures and Prana Kriyas (Breathing practice), Loving Kindness Intention, and Meditation. Six participants volunteered for their before-and-after bioenergy measurements. All GDV measurements were made and analyzed by the second author. Figure 2 is a photograph of the group during the process of meditation. The GDV and eco-sensor are visible on the table. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 981 Figure 2. The Group Engaged in Meditation Physiological and Psycho-Emotional State of Volunteers. The GDV determines the subject to be in a good physiological and psycho-emotional state if the energy field is normal and the chakras are of proper size and aligned at the central line. The smaller the chakras and farther away they are from the central line, the more unbalanced the state is. The analysis of the EPC/GDV images taken from the fingertips is based on digital image analysis and processing of the image as a whole and of specific image sectors by artificial intelligence techniques. In 1986 Prof. Peter Mandel from Germany had suggested a diagnostic table based on sectorization of the Kirlian images taken from finger tips and toes. Using digital image processing technology Korotkov and his team updated the diagnostic table based on clinical studies of more than 10,000 patient cases with different health challenges. This way the initial diagnostic table was updated and verified (8). Today there is a large difference between the diagnostic table used by Prof Mandel and the table that forms the base of EPC/GDV-Analysis. The principle of GDV technique is as follows (9): Under a high intensity electromagnetic field, the finger emits a burst of electrons and photons. With the help of an optical system and camera, the electro-photonic emissions are transformed into video-signals, which are recorded in the form of single snapshots or fingertip images called GDV-grams. The data processor utilizes a specialized software complex that permits the calculation of system parameters. The software GDV Diagram facilitates the implementation of standardized processing of GDV-images. The process involves capturing GDV-images with a special CCD camera, filtrating GDV-images, obtaining numerical characteristics, creating graphs and diagrams, and saving and transferring data for additional processing. In the GDV Software Programs, the glow from the different sectors of the finger images is projected onto the shape of a human body in correspondence with the location of the different organs and systems. The result are Energy Field images that allow for intuitive analysis of the physiological level of human body functioning. However, it must be kept in mind that this energy field image is created by data analysis in the computer and does not constitute what is referred to as Aura or Aura-photography. Complex mathematical calculations are performed to derive statistics that characterize the strength, shape, dimensions, and irregularities of the fingertip images. These calculations are ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 982 used in the analysis of areas or sectors of fingertip images that are believed to reflect different organs and systems of the body. Relying on extensive research utilizing the application of small electrical potentials to detect the location of acupuncture points and the energy “meridians” which connect them together, and with their endpoints on the fingertips, it is possible to carry out “sector analysis” of these fingertip images. Each individual sector or portion of the fingertip is connected energetically with specific organs and organ systems such as the respiratory system. When the data of the 10 individual BIO-grams are collated and interpolated, an image of the entire full body energy field is created. An example of the full body energy field from a healthy and unhealthy/emotionally unbalanced individual are shown in Figure 3. The gaps and the reduced emissions and out-of-balance Chakras for the unhealthy individual are quite obvious. Figure 3. Energy Field and Chakras of a Healthy (left) and Unhealthy/Emotionally Unbalanced Individual (Right) According to Eastern metaphysical theories and principles of Ayurvedic Indian medicine, there are seven “Chakras” or integrated energy centers that are considered to affect physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. These energy “disks” are positioned or embedded into the spinal column at various locations starting at the coccyx and rising to the crown of the head. Each Chakra is considered to resonate at a different frequency level. With new BioWell software, it is now possible to quantitatively estimate the energy of chakras and graphically display their level of activation, and indicate whether this level of activation is above or below the level found from large numbers of subjects. The most important in evaluation is Chakras distribution. Ideally they should be aligned along Sushumna – central line of a spinal cord. In most cases several Chakras are misaligned and their size is much less than in the ideal case. When people have strong stress, depression, very bad mood, chakras may be totally out of order. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 983 In the GDV programs, a particular part of every finger is associated with particular Chakra (9). This is based on the principles of Ayurvedic medicine and tested by many Ayurvedic doctors in India and USA. Balance between correspondent parts of the left and right fingers allows to calculate the shift of the particular Chakra from the central line in accordance with the following nonlinear equation: Simmetry = 0.56*delta3+1.68*delta2-0.12*delta Where delta is the numerical difference between the correspondent parts of the left and right fingers. Coefficients are selected based on a large volume of experimental data. Figures 4 (a) and (b) show energy field and the state of the chakras of two of the volunteers. Figure 4(a) Energy Field of Volunteer 1 Before (Left) and After (Right) the Program Figure 4(b) Chakras of Volunteer 1 (Before are shaded and After are solid color) Figures 4(a) and 4(b) indicate the subject was calmed, relaxed and nourished from her participation. This can be clearly observed as the smoothning of the energy field by the pre and post Energy Field Images. The chakras also indicate inner empowerment. Figures 5(a) and (b) depict the same information for a second volunteer. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 984 Figure 5 (a) Energy Field of Volunteer 2 Before (Left) and After (After) the Program Figure 5(b) Chakras of Volunteer 2 (Before are shaded and After are solid color) Observe the loosening of the energy field, post meditation, indicated by the nature of the energy field distribution, which has been activated and stirred. The chakras of the second volunteer were strengthened to almost perfect alignment from an already strong position with very minor shifts. Energy of the Space during the Program The GDV and the eco-sensor were used to assess the changes in the energy intensity and the entropy of the space during the program. If in fact the stochastic resonance of participants is a reality then these two parameters should reflect it. The energy level of the space should go up and the entropy indicative of disorder should go down. Figure 6 shows the energy intensity of the space during the course of Day 1 of the program selected for illustrative purposes while Figure 7 depicts the entropy behavior during the same period. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 985 84.00 82.00 Average intensity 80.00 78.00 76.00 74.00 72.00 70.00 1 116 231 346 461 576 691 806 921 1036 1151 Sample 1 Figure 6. Energy intensity increased during course of the program In Figure 6, the x-axis denotes the number of frames (20 frames per minutes) while the y-axis is the measured value of light as a unit. From Frame 1 to 90 the trend shown may be taken to be the baseline for the room as attendees enter and take their seats. This is followed by the University of Louisville speakers and the Metro Louisville Mayor’s Chair of the Compassion Committee from 90 to 180 frames. From 180 to 340 frames refer to the second author’s Prana Kriya breathing meditation. From 340 – 1151 frames is the bulk of the program of the first author. Here, the first author engages the audience providing a synopsis and relevance of six sigma principles in the context of the scientific framework for internal excellence. Participants see that a powerful tool to use in the pursuit of internal excellence is meditation and learn how the pursuit leads to improved health & wellness, creativity & innovativeness, compassion & empathy, and higher levels of consciousness for themselves and to unparalleled excellence and exemplary business performance for organizations. Parallel measurements of the room temperature demonstrated that it was kept stable +/- 2C due to the air conditioning system. Figure 7 depicts the changes in the entropy of the space. In Figure 7, the x-axis denotes the number of frames while the y-axis is the measures entropy value as a unit. Again, from frame 1 to 90 the trend shown may be taken to be the baseline for the room as attendees enter and take their seats. This is followed by the University of Louisville speakers and the Metro Louisville Mayor’s Chair of the Compassion Committee from frames 90 to 180. Frames 180 to 340 refer to the second author’s Prana Kriya breathing meditation. Frames 340 – 1151 refer to the bulk of the program as mentionee. The curve remains flat during all this period which means that sensor did not reflect any significant changes in the environment. Note that there is a significant reduction in entropy from the start of the program to the end of the program. Observing the spectrum of charts from the two days of sensor data, we have observed the effect of coherence and the responses in the environment. A sampling of male and female response also affirms the hypothesis, given the time cycle of the seminar. We have come to realize the transmissions from wisdom traditions that have been conveyed for millenia: “What is within us is perfection; the outer world can attain perfection only when the inner world guides, molds and shapes the outer world.” ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study 986 3.00 Entropy by isoline 2.00 1.00 0.00 1 116 231 346 461 576 691 806 921 1036 1151 Sample 1 Figure 7 Entropy reduces during the course of the program and stabilizes Discussion and Conclusions A scientific framework for individual, organizational, and global transformation is now available thanks to ancient Eastern wisdom reinforced by the work of several internationally-known yogis together with the outstanding work of European, American, and Russian scientists. A scientific device is also available with which to assess performance and track progress. We have begun to understand why for millennia people in the pursuit of internal excellence have sought refuge in difficult to live places such as the Himalayas, insisted on limiting themselves to simple foods limited in quantity, refrain from interactions with the outside world as much as possible, and devoted tens of thousands of hours to meditation. . A few among them have come down to teach the wherewithal of how to achieve what they achieved. In the ancient times, this privilege was limited to a select few disciples. A person desirous of reaching the very top the S, R, T scale of consciousness will have to solicit the help of these self-realized souls. For the rest of us the scientific framework together with the measurement device is sufficient to raise our level of consciousness adequately for individual excellence & organizational, national & global transformation and peace. References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Deshpande, P. B., Scientific Framework for Individual, Organizational, National, and Global Transformation, 17th Annual Conference on Science, Information, and Consciousness, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 6 – 8, 2013. Deshpande, P. B., Science of Compassion, Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research, 3, 9, October 2012. Deshpande, P. B. and Kulkarni, B. D., The Brahma Uncertainty Principle, Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research, 3, 2, February 2012. Deshpande, P. B., Science of Enlightenment, Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research, 3, 2, February 2012. http://2012daily.com/?q=node/17 (Pradeep B. Deshpande’s Message for World Transformation, September 30, 2011). Deshpande, P. B. and Christopher, P. M., On The Cyclical Nature of Excellence, reflections, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1993. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Vol. 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 977-987 Deshpande, P. B., Madappa, K. P., & Korotkov, K., Can the Excellence of the Internal Be Measured? – A Preliminary Study [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] 987 Deshpande, P. B., Six Sigma for Karma Capitalism, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., 2011. Jakovleva E., Korotkov K., Eletrophotonic Analysis in Medicine. GDV Bioelectrography research. 2013. 160 p. Amazon.com. Korotkov K.G., Energy fields Eletrophotonic analysis in humans and nature, 2012. 240 p. e-book: Amazon.com. Korotkov K. and Orlov D., Analysis of Stimulated Eletrophotonic Glow of Liquids. www.WaterJournal.org V 2, 2010. Korotkov, K., Madappa, K., Orlov, D., New Approach for Remote Detection of Human Emotions; Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine • Volume 19 • Number 3 • Page 2; July 2010. Pehek J. O., Kyler, H. J., and Foust, D. L., Image Modulation in Corona Discharge Photography, Science, Vol. 194, 263 – 270, October 1976. Korotkov K., Korotkin D. Concentration dependence of gas discharge around drops of inorganic electrolytes. J of Applied Physics, 2001, 89, 9, 4732-4737. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

A Theoretical Computer Science Perspective on Consciousness1 Manuel Blum and Lenore Blum2 ABSTRACT The quest to understand consciousness, once the purview of philosophers and theologians, is now actively pursued by scientists of many stripes. This paper studies consciousness from the perspective of theoretical computer science. It formalizes the Global Workspace Theory (GWT) originated by cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars and further developed by him, Stanislas Dehaene, and others. Our major contribution lies in the precise formal definition of a Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), also called a Conscious AI. We define the CTM in the spirit of Alan Turing’s simple yet powerful definition of a computer, the Turing Machine (TM). We are not looking for a complex model of the brain nor of cognition but for a simple model of (the admittedly complex concept of) consciousness. After formally defining CTM, we give a formal definition of consciousness in CTM. We later suggest why the CTM has the feeling of consciousness. The reasonableness of the definitions and explanations can be judged by how well they agree with commonly accepted intuitive concepts of human consciousness, the range of related concepts that the model explains easily and naturally, and the extent of its agreement with scientific evidence. INTRODUCTION Thanks to major advances in cognitive neuroscience, science is on the brink of understanding how the brain achieves consciousness. In 1988, cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars proposed a Global Workspace Theory (GWT) of the brain, sketched its architecture, and outlined its implications for understanding consciousness. See (Baars B. J., 1988) and (Baars B. J., 2019). That, together with the invention of fMRI in 1990, and the seminal investigations by Francis Crick and Christof Koch (Crick & Koch, 1990) into the neural correlates of consciousness, helped shake off the taboo on the scientific study of consciousness. As a consequence, the quest to understand consciousness is now actively pursued by scientists of many stripes. 3 1 Preprint of an article submitted for consideration in [Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness] © [2021] [copyright World Scientific Publishing Company] [https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/jaic]. Published (Blum & Blum, 2021), see https://bit.ly/3sUqC7d. 2 The work of Manuel and Lenore Blum was supported in part by CMU, in part by a sabbatical year from CMU at the Simon’s Institute for the Theory of Computing, and in part by a gift from UniDT. Avrim Blum will be an author on the expanded version of this paper (Blum, Blum, & Blum, Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Cognitive Neuroscience, In preparation) which will contain a more in-depth description of the Sleeping Experts’ Algorithm and how it is used in this context. Email addresses: mblum@cs.cmu.edu, lblum@cs.cmu.edu, and avrim@ttic.edu. 3 There are various approaches to the study of consciousness. In addition to neural correlates (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011), these approaches include the psychological (James, 1890) and (Freud S. , 1900); philosophical (Dennett D. C., 1991) and (Chalmers, 1996); information theoretic measures of consciousness (Tononi, 2004) and (Tononi & Koch, 2015); and structural (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Our approach to consciousness is architectural. It is informed by and close in spirit to (Baars B. J., 1997) and employed by (Dehaene S. , 2014) to study neural correlates. 1 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum We study consciousness from the perspective of Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), a branch of mathematics concerned with understanding the underlying principles of computation and complexity. 4 TCS is our principal tool in defining the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) as a formalization of neuroscientist Bernard Baars’ Theater of Consciousness. The CTM is proposed for the express purpose of understanding Baars’ Theater model and for providing a TCS framework to understand consciousness. In settling on this model, we look for simplicity not complexity, for a simple mathematical model sufficient to explain consciousness, not a complex model of the brain or cognition. Our approach, in the spirit of mathematics and theoretical computer science, proposes formal definitions to fix informal notions and deduce consequences. An important major goal is to determine if the CTM can experience feelings not just simulate them. We investigate in particular the feelings of pain and pleasure and suggest ways that those feelings might be generated (Chapter 4). We argue that even a complete knowledge of the brain’s circuitry - including the neural correlates of consciousness - cannot explain what enables the brain to generate a conscious experience such as pain. We propose an explanation that works as well for robots having brains of silicon and gold as for animals having brains of flesh and blood. Our thesis is that in CTM, an explanation lies with the architecture of the system, its basic processors; its expressive inner language that we call Brainish; and its dynamics (prediction, competition, feedback and learning); that make it conscious (Chapter 3). In his Global Workspace Theory (GWT), (Baars B. J., 1997) describes conscious awareness through a theater analogy as the activity of actors in a play performing on the stage of Working Memory, their performance under observation by a huge audience of unconscious processors. Unlike GWT, the CTM will have just one and the same actor always on stage. That actor can ask or answer questions, make or respond to requests, or communicate information. Through a well-defined competition, an audience member with a response to a question or request, or with a question, request, comment, or information of its own, can send that actor the script she is to deliver. Here is Baars’ sketch of his model: Figure 1 Sketch of Bernard Baars' Global Workspace Model (adapted from (Baars & Gage, 2010) ). The architectural approach to the study of consciousness was inspired by the architectural models of cognition, developed largely at Carnegie Mellon by Herb Simon’s Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1969), Raj Reddy’s Blackboard Model (Reddy, 1976), Allen Newell’s Unified Theories of Cognition (Newell, 1990) and John Anderson’s ACT-R (Anderson, 1996). LIDA (Baars & Franklin, 2009) is an important more recent architectural model of cognition. 4 As a result of Gödel and Turing’s groundbreaking works in the 1930’s, many logicians became interested in the dichotomy between solvable and unsolvable problems (Hilbert’s tenth problem). Starting in the 1960’s and 1970’s, theoretical computer scientists began pointing out that even amongst the solvable, there appeared to be a dichotomy between problems that are feasibly solvable (like maximum matching) and those that appear not to be (like SAT). The subsequent models and abstract theories of TCS led to remarkable insights into the mathematical distinction between efficiently and not efficiently solvable problems, an understanding of pseudorandomness, applications to secure communication, machine learning, and much more. ( (Sipser, 2013) is a great introduction to TCS.) 2 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum A corresponding sketch of our Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) is in Section 1.7 (The Conscious TM in Toto) where we also discuss modifications and simplifications we have made to Baars’ model. In the CTM, the stage is represented by a single Short Term Memory (STM), and the audience members sitting in the dark are represented by processors that make up its Long Term Memory (LTM). LTM processors, each with their own specialty, compete to get their questions, answers, and information on the stage. The Turing Machine (TM), being an extremely simple formal model of computation, is a fundamental first step in the mathematical understanding of computation. 5,6 In that spirit, CTM, being a formalization of cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars’ theater model of consciousness, is a first step toward the theoretical computer science understanding of consciousness. This formalization of CTM (Chapter 1) includes the precise definition of a chunk, a precise description of the competition that decides which (processor’s) chunk will gain access to STM, and a precise definition of conscious awareness in the CTM. Feedback enables LTM processors to learn from their mistakes and successes; links that emerge in the life of the CTM enable conscious processing to become unconscious. We begin by defining the deterministic CTM (Chapter 1), which we use as a stepping stone to define the probabilistic CTM (Chapter 2). For many reasons, (one given by Figure 3/Note 4), we view the probabilistic CTM, not the deterministic CTM, as the simpler better model of consciousness. After Chapter 1, when we refer to CTM, we mean the probabilistic variant unless we say otherwise. The reasonableness of our formalization lies in the breadth of concepts that the CTM explains easily and naturally. That breadth includes some understanding for the feeling of consciousness (Chapter 3) and the Hard Problem of consciousness which we explore in the particular case of pain and pleasure (Chapter 4). The understanding depends on the Brainish language (Section 1.1) which LTM processors use to communicate with each other, the activity of select LTM processors, and their predictive dynamics (prediction, feedback and learning), not on chemicals like glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, and so on. Throughout this paper, we consider different scenarios that might arise in life, and investigate whether and how the model helps to explain the human experience of consciousness. The model does not explain everything. It is too simple for that. On the other hand, it explains a lot – and that without making any modifications to the basic probabilistic CTM.7 5 The Turing Machine (TM), an example being the 23 state universal TM of (Minsky, 1967), is a simple mechanism for exploring computability. The CTM is intended to serve a similar purpose for exploring consciousness. 6 In his paper proposing the Imitation Game, aka the “Turing Test” (Turing, 1950), Alan Turing mentions consciousness, but only briefly, and basically skirts the topic: “In short then, I think that most of those who support the argument from consciousness could be persuaded to abandon it rather than be forced into the solipsist position. They will then probably be willing to accept our test. I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness. There is, for instance, something of a paradox connected with any attempt to localize it. But I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper.” 7 In our experience, no matter what property of consciousness one wishes to account for (see examples of properties in (Van Gulick, 2014)), no modifications of the basic probabilistic CTM model need be made. Instead, it suffices to invoke an appropriate LTM processor. Properties can be explained by the introduction of such processors, and these often work better than the otherwise obvious changes one might make to the model. 3 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 1 FORMAL DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUS TURING MACHINE (CTM) ........................................................................... 5 1.1 1.2 PRELIMINARIES ................................................................................................................................................................... 5 BASIC CTM STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS ................................................................................................................................. 6 STM ............................................................................................................................................................................ 6 LTM ............................................................................................................................................................................ 6 1.2.2.1 1.3 1.3.2.1 1.3.2.2 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 2 LTM Processors Produce Chunks ......................................................................................................................................... 6 The Down-Tree........................................................................................................................................................... 7 The Up-Tree................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Links ........................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Input maps ................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Output maps .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 IMPORTANT DETAILS OF THE UP-TREE COMPETITION ................................................................................................................. 9 Chunks Submitted to the Competition ....................................................................................................................... 9 The Up-Tree Competition and The Chunks That Move Up ...................................................................................... 10 The Deterministic Competition Algorithm and the Competition Function ....................................................................... 10 The Competition Computation .......................................................................................................................................... 12 MORE CTM DYNAMICS ..................................................................................................................................................... 12 The Interrupt Constant............................................................................................................................................. 12 Increasing Weights .................................................................................................................................................. 13 The High Level Story................................................................................................................................................. 13 PREDICTIVE DYNAMICS ....................................................................................................................................................... 13 Sleeping Experts Algorithm ...................................................................................................................................... 14 DEFINITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE CTM ......................................................................................................................... 15 The Current Mood .................................................................................................................................................... 16 THE CONSCIOUS TM IN TOTO ............................................................................................................................................. 16 THE PROBABILISTIC CTM ........................................................................................................................................ 18 2.1 2.2 2.3 THE COIN-FLIP NEURON ..................................................................................................................................................... 19 THE PROBABILISTIC UP-TREE COMPETITION ........................................................................................................................... 19 THE PROBABILISTIC UP-TREE COMPUTATION ......................................................................................................................... 20 3 THE FEELING OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS .............................................................................................................. 21 4 THE HARD PROBLEM FOR PAIN AND PLEASURE ....................................................................................................... 24 4.1 4.2 PAIN ............................................................................................................................................................................... 25 PLEASURE ........................................................................................................................................................................ 27 5 SUMMARY............................................................................................................................................................. 28 6 RELATION TO OTHER THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS ............................................................................................... 29 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................................................. 31 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................................. 32 ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE EXPANDED VERSION OF THIS PAPER (BLUM, BLUM, & BLUM, IN PREPARATION) ................ 36 ADDENDUM: HIGH LEVEL EXPLANATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 36 4 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 1 Formal Definition of the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) 1.1 Preliminaries Statements about the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) are printed in black. Statements particular to humans or animals will generally be printed in burgundy. Burgundy-colored statements refer to features that a human or animal would have if it were correctly modeled by CTM. Time t is discrete: t = 0, 1, 2, ... T. The CTM (its basic definitions given in Sections 1.2 and 1.3) is born at time t = 0 and has a fixed finite lifetime T. Time is maintained by a clock whose ticks are received by all components of CTM simultaneously. CTM’s world is a high dimensional subset of Rm(t) x Rn(t), where R is the reals, m and n are positive integer dimensions, and t is time. Rm(t) is CTM’s outer world, also called the environment, and Rn (t) is its inner world. Input maps transform the outer world to the inner world via sensors. These sensors may be for auditory, visual, tactile, thermal, gustatory, visceral, electromagnetic, or some other kind of information. Output maps transform the inner world to the outer world via actuators that act on the outer world. Brainish is the inner language used by and between processors to communicate in its inner world. It includes coded representations of inputs and outputs all expressed with multi-modal Brainish words and phrases called gists (see Section 1.2.2.1). Brainish is a much richer and more expressive language than outer languages such as English or Chinese for communicating in the outer world. Brainish is the language used to express inner speech, inner vision, and inner sensations. Its enormous expressive power can be appreciated by comparing wide-awake seeing with the seeing in dreams, as the dreams are manufactured completely by gists. Gists can express and deal with images, sounds, tactile sensations, and thoughts - including unsymbolized thoughts8- and do this better than outer languages, which express only symbolized thinking (thoughts that can be communicated through the external environment). In humans, an important example of inner language is the collection of images, sounds, and actions that occur in dreams. A gist holds the essence of a scene in a nutshell. Having an expressive inner language is an important component of the feeling of consciousness (see Chapter 3). Besides Brainish, each processor in CTM has its own “inner” language for its own personal internal communication, dependent on its internal functioning. We say nothing more about each processor’s own inner language here. Although we use words like “small”, “short”, “succinct,” and “fast” informally, they each have a technical meaning that will be specified when enough details have been given. 8 Brainish can express both symbolized and unsymbolized language. (Hurlburt & Akhter, 2008) and (Vicente & Martínez-Manrique, 2016) give experimental evidence that human inner thought is always one (or two) of 1.speaking, 2.seeing, 3.feeling, 4.sensory awareness, and 5.unsymbolized thinking. (Hurlburt & Akhter, 2008) give the following example of an unsymbolized thought: “Abigail is wondering whether Julio (her friend who will be giving her a ride that afternoon) will be driving his car or his pickup truck.” 5 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 1.2 Basic CTM Structure and Dynamics MAIN DEFINITION 1.2.1. CTM is a 7-tuple, < STM, LTM, Down-Tree, Up-Tree, Links, Input, Output >9 where: STM is a Short Term Memory that at each and every time tick t = 0, 1, 2, …, T holds exactly one chunk (defined formally in Sections 1.3.1 and 1.3.2). This single chunk becomes the entirety of CTM‘s conscious content at time t. In humans, the storage capacity of short-term memory is roughly 7±2 chunks (Miller, 1956), where a chunk can be a word, a phrase, a digit, and so on. A few chunks cycling through STM can simulate some aspects of an STM that holds several chunks.10 LTM is a “large” collection of N (initially unlinked) Long Term Memory processors p1, p2, … pN whose workings are all unconscious. Large means that N ≈ T. Each processor, pi, is a parallel random-access (programmable modifiable) machine with its own address, addressp_i = i, and unbounded memory, memoryp_i. All CTM processors are in LTM, none in STM, none anywhere else, so “processor” will always mean LTM processor. We assume that LTM has sufficiently many processors to guarantee that a fresh new unused processor is available or can be commandeered whenever a task requires one. In a CTM with N = 10k processors, each processor has a k-digit address. We view the roughly 107 cortical columns (k=7) in the human brain as constituting a substantial fraction of all its processors. 1.2.2.1 LTM Processors Produce Chunks At every clock tick t = 0, 1, 2,…, T, every LTM processor p produces a chunkp,t,0, possibly a NIL chunk (Section 1.3.1), which it places in the “competition” (defined formally in Section 1.3.2) for STM. Chunks will be defined in Sections 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 as 6-tuples: chunk = < address, t, gist, weight, intensity, mood >. Each chunk contains the address of the processor that originated it, the time t it was generated, and a gist together with a real number weight (positive, negative or zero). Gists are succinct compressed multi-modal thoughts. Succinct means that statements in Brainish are small enough to fit in a chunk, which in turn must be small enough to fit in any node of the Up-Tree (Section 1.2.4). A gist can be an answer to a query, the (high level expandable) idea of a proof, an insight of some sort, a sketch of a beautiful sunset, a dream image, the pain of a torn ligament, and so on. The |weight| of a gist is the processor’s estimate of how important it is to get that chunk into STM. A Sleeping Experts Algorithm (Section 1.5.1) that runs in each processor adjusts the weight-giving algorithms in that processor and the weights those algorithms give their gists. The Sleeping Experts Algorithm comes with the assurance that processors will eventually be neither too assertive nor too timid 9 Coincidently, the classical Turing Machine is also defined as a 7-tuple, < Q, Σ, Γ, , q , q 0 accept , qreject>, where Q is a finite set of States, Σ is the Input alphabet, Γ is the Tape alphabet,  is the Transition function, q0 is the Start state, qaccept is the Accept state, and qreject is the Reject state. 10 Cycling can happen via the Up-Tree competition (Section 1.3.2) and the Down-Tree broadcasts (Section 1.2.3). In this way, CTM can keep thoughts alive in STM continuously through many cycles by sending the thought from processor 6 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum STM processors STM …. in setting their weights (Blum, Hopcroft, & Kannan, 2015). The algorithm helps define the dynamics of feedback and learning. The sign of the weight indicates whether the processor that created the chunk views the gist as positive/optimistic/cheerful or negative/pessimistic/depressing. Intensity and mood will be defined in Sections 1.3.1 and 1.3.2. The Down-Tree is a down-directed tree /|\ ⬇ consisting of a single root in STM and N edges directed from that root to N leaves, each leaf being an input to one of the N LTM processors. At time t, t ∊ {0, 1, 2, …, T-1}, STM broadcasts its single chunk of content via the Down-Tree to all N LTM processors, causing them to receive that broadcast at time t+1. Conscious awareness by CTM at time t+1 is defined to be the reception by all LTM processors of the broadcast from STM at time t (see Section 1.6). This ensures that processors responsible for the sense of conscious awareness (especially the model-of-the-world, inner speech, inner vision, and inner sensation processors) all receive the same content at the same time from STM. While this is a formal definition of conscious awareness, it does not yet explain the feeling of conscious awareness (for that, see Chapter 3). The Up-Tree is an up-directed binary tree11 Figure 2 Up-Tree. of height h. Its purpose is to run the Up-Tree competition (Section 1.3.2) that determines which chunk gets into STM. The Up-Tree has a single root in STM and N leaves, one leaf in each of the N LTM processors. Every directed path from a leaf to the root is required to have the same length h. We further require that h ≤ 3(log2 N). The 3 is arbitrary: any small integer ≥ 3 would do as well. (In Figure 2, h = 1.5(log2 N) = 3.) Every node of the Up-Tree is at some level s, 0 ≤ s ≤ h. The leaf nodes are at level 0 and the root node is at level h. For each s, let vs denote a node of the Up-Tree at level s. For s > 0, vs contains a “small” “fast” parallel circuit with a “small” amount of storage that takes as input the chunks in its children and produces as output the chunk in vs (details in Sections 1.3.2.1 and 1.3.2.2). At every time t, every processor puts a chunk in the Up-Tree competition (Section 1.3.2) that begins at time t and ends at time t+h with a single winner, which is broadcast from STM to all LTM processors via the Down-Tree. CTM is constantly bubbling with the activity of chunks competing for STM and the winner of each competition being broadcast from STM to LTM. The time ordered chunks broadcast from STM to LTM form a stream of consciousness (Section 1.6). As discussed in Chapter 3, this stream is part of the subjective feeling of consciousness. 11 In a binary tree, every non-leaf node has one or two children, no more no less. 7 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Links are bi-directional edges between processors. They form over time, and turn “conscious communication” between processors (via STM) into “unconscious communication” between them (through links).12 For example, if processor A asks a question, B responds to it, and A acknowledges the response to be useful, and if this exchange occurs often enough, then a bidirectional link is generated between A and B.13 Links transmit chunks and thus enable processors to influence each other directly, without going through STM. The number of two-way links between processors A and B at time t is proportional to the number of chunks from A broadcast by STM and acknowledged by B to have been useful plus the number of chunks from B broadcast by STM and acknowledged by A to have been useful, from time 0 to time t. We note that a processor’s address in a chunk provides negligible information about the processor’s function, though processors may glean (some) information about such function from chunks broadcast from STM or communicated through links. Input maps take (time-varying) environmental information acquired by CTM’s sensors, convert that (bit-coded) information into Brainish-coded gists, then send those gists (encapsulated in chunks) to designated LTM processors.14 x Output maps convert Brainish-coded command gists from LTM processors (like those that generate instructions for a leg movement) into bit-coded commands for the intended actuators (the leg muscles). The (intended) action may or may not affect the environment, and even if it does affect it, may not affect it as intended or expected. The question whether or not an action has an effect and what that effect is, must be determined by CTM from feedback (observation of the environment) and learned experience (Section 1.5). 12 There are many examples in which LTM (the collection of unconscious processors) does some spectacularly heavy lifting, in part through unconscious communication. An example from Henri Poincaré is quoted in (Hadamard, 1945): “As I was about to board a bus, the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry.” 13 When a query is followed instantly by a response, the linking is that suggested by the Hebbian rule (Hebb, 1949): “Neurons that fire together wire together”. In the CTM, however, the linking occurs even when the response comes some time after the query “Her name is Tina!” 14 For simplicity, we assume that sensors are part of the Input maps, i.e. not separate entities. Similarly, we will assume actuators are part of the Output maps. 8 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 1.3 Important Details of the Up-Tree Competition The Up-Tree competition (Section 1.3.2) that starts at time t begins with each processor p putting a chunkp,t,0 on its leaf of the Up-Tree (Section 1.2.4).15 At each time t > 0 and for every level s, 0 ≤ s < h, every chunk either moves up a level or disappears. These chunks, whether they “move up” or disappear, do so simultaneously in a single clock tick, meaning in the time interval [t, t +1). The up or out decision depends on the competition algorithm and a chosen competition function f (Section 1.3.2.1). The chunk at s = h, being the chunk in STM, is broadcast via the Down Tree to all LTM processors. Chunks Submitted to the Competition The chunk that processor p submits to the Up-Tree competition at time t is: chunkp,t,0 = < addressp, t, gistp,t,0, weightp,t,0, intensityp,t,0, moodp,t,0 > , where a. addressp = address of the processor p that produces the chunk. b. t is the time at which the chunk is submitted to the competition. c. gistp,t,0 = the “small” amount of “information” in Brainish, also called the potential “thought”, that p puts in chunkp,t,0 at time t. The potential thought becomes an actual thought one tick (a single unit of time) after it reaches STM. Sample gists include: • Scene gist: A rough sketch of a group with several well-dressed men and women talking together. • Inner-speech gist: “I don’t know any of the people here.” • Feeling gists: A sense of confusion. A desire to leave. • Questions: “Do I know any of these people?“ “I know that woman, but… what’s her name?”16 d. weightp,t,0 denotes the real number (positive, negative or zero) that processor p assigns to gistp,t,0 at time t. 15 For simplicity, we have stipulated that all LTM processors submit chunks at all times to the competition for STM. In many cases chunk p,t,0 = chunkp,t-1,0 ; in other cases, chunkp,t,0 = < addressp, t, NIL, 0, 0, 0 >, the NIL chunk (defined in Section 1.3.1). (NIL chunks have “negligible” effect on the “operation” of the CTM.) Unlike CTM, where all processors compete for STM, humans (and monkeys) have many processors that cannot compete. As (Milner, 2012) points out, for example, the ventral stream of vision is conscious (competes) while the dorsal stream is unconscious (does not compete): Figure 2a Two Visual Systems - Goodale Lab - Western University (by permission of Mel Goodale). 16 An answer that might pop up after 1 minute: “Maybe the name begins with an S?” An answer that might pop up a half hour later: “Now I remember, her name is Tina.” If evidence of the answer’s correctness is sufficiently strong (high enough |weight|), it provides feedback to all processors for correcting their answers and adjusting their weights (see Section 1.5.1). 9 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum e. intensityp,t,0 = |weightp,t,0| is the importance that p assigns to its gistp,t,0. It quantifies how much p “wants, needs, would like, or feels pressured” to broadcast gistp,t,0 at time t. Feedback is used (as we shall see in Section 1.5.1) to drive the intensities that processors assign gists to reasonable values. f. moodp,t,0 = weightp,t,0. The empty or trivial gist is denoted by NIL. Any chunkp,t,0 that contains the NIL gist at a weight of 0 is a NIL chunk. For t = 0, we define chunkp,0,0 = <addressp, 0, NIL, 0, 0, 0>. We have now defined chunkp,t,s for all t and s = 0. In the next section, we define chunkp,t,s for all t and 0 < s ≤ h. The Up-Tree Competition and The Chunks That Move Up For 0 < s ≤ h, t = 0, and for each node vs, set chunkp,0,s = <addressp, 0, NIL, 0, 0, 0>, where p is the descendant processor of vs having smallest address. For 0 < s ≤ h, t > 0, and for each node vs, the Up-Tree competition places in vs at time t+s, chunkp,t,s, for a particular p: The particular p will be determined by the competition algorithm and competition function f (Section 1.3.2.1). Once p is determined, the chunk in vs at time t+s will have the form: chunkp,t,s = < addressp, t, gistp,t,s, weightp,t,s, intensityp,t,s, moodp,t,s > where gistp,t,s = gistp,t,0 , weightp,t,s = weightp,t,0 , but intensityp,t,s and moodp,t,s are the sums of intensity and mood respectively of the chunks in the children of vs. WARNING. Thus for s > 0, unlike for s = 0, intensityp,t,s ≠ |weightp,t,s| and moodp,t,s ≠ weightp,t,s in general. DEFINITION 1.3.2.1. Processor p wins the competition that began at time t if chunkp,t,h (a variant of chunkp,t,0 ) is in vh (i.e. STM) at time t+h. We call chunkp,t,h the winning chunk. (We may also call chunkp,t,0 the winning chunk. What is meant is clear.) The winning chunk, chunkp,t,h, is broadcast via the Down-Tree to all LTM processors and simultaneously disappears from STM, all in the same single step in the time interval [t+h, t+h+1). The Up-Tree competition takes h time-units, 1 time-unit (the time between successive clock ticks) for each of the Up-Tree’s h levels. This is quick, but not as quick as the Down-Tree broadcast, which takes just 1 time-unit. 1.3.2.1 The Deterministic Competition Algorithm and the Competition Function The competition algorithm is implemented by a collection of N-1 circuits, one such circuit located in each of the N-1 non-leaf nodes v of the Up-Tree. The circuit in each such v runs a local competition that selects (deterministically or probabilistically) one of v’s two children (siblings) based on a comparison of the chunks they contain, then moves (a variant of) that chosen child’s chunk into v. The chosen chunk is said to be the winner of the local competition at/for v. In specifying this algorithm, we aim for the local competition in each node to be run by a fast tiny parallel circuit. The competition algorithm at v uses a competition function, f, to decide which of the chunks in v’s two children wins the local competition at that node. f is not used for any other purpose. The function, f, takes chunk = < address, t, gist, weight, intensity, mood > nonnegative real number in such a way that every node in the Up-Tree can do its computation and upload the winning chunk’s information in the time between successive clock ticks. An example of f is f(chunk) = intensity + ½ mood. In the deterministic 10 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum CTM, the chunk with the bigger f-value, i.e. bigger f(chunk), moves up, unless its sibling has the same f-value, in which case the sibling with the smaller address moves up. The deterministic competition algorithm in more detail: Consider an arbitrary vs in the CTM Up-Tree, 0 < s ≤ h. If vs has just one child, let vs-1(L) be that child, let chunkp(L),t,s-1 be the chunk in that child, and set p = p(L) and chunkp,t,s = chunkp,t,s-1. Otherwise, vs has two children, nodes vs-1(L) and vs-1(R), containing chunkp(L),t,s-1 and chunkp(R),t,s-1 respectively. If chunkp(L),t,s-1 has the larger f-value or if it has the same f-value as chunkp(R),t,s-1 and the smaller address, then set p = p(L); else set p = p(R). Then chunkp,t,s-1 is the winner of the local competition at level s. Then, at time t+s, the node vs will contain the chunk: chunkp,t,s = < addressp, t, gistp,t,s, weightp,t,s, intensityp,t,s, moodp,t,s >, where gistp,t,s = gistp,t,0, weightp,t,s = weightp,t,0, intensityp,t,s = (intensityp(L),t,s-1) + (intensityp(R),t,s-1), and moodp,t,s = (moodp(L),t,s-1) + (moodp(R),t,s-1). (Here we assume that if vs has just one child, then that child contains chunkp(L),t,s-1, and chunkp(R),t,s-1 is NIL, so intensityp(R),t,s-1 = moodp(R),t,s-1 = 0.) NOTE 1. By a simple induction on s, each specific vs contains a chunkp,t,s with intensityp,t,s = ∑ (intensityp’,t,0) and moodp,t,s = ∑ (moodp’,t,0) where the two sums run over all LTM processors p’ in the subtree rooted at this specific vs. Thus, the winning chunk of the competition that began-at time t is chunkp,t,h = < addressp, t, gistp,t,0, weightp,t,0, ∑all N processors p’ (intensityp’,t,0), ∑ all N processors p’ (moodp’,t,0) >. NOTE 2. The numbers intensityp,t,h/N and moodp,t,h/N are the average intensity and average mood over all chunks put into the competition at time t. NOTE 3. We note that in the deterministic competition described above, the winner of the competition that began at time t depends on the specific assignment (permutation) of processors to the leaves of the Up-Tree: Example. In the deterministic competition on four processors in Figure 3 whose chunks have gists a, b, c, d, with weights 3, 3, 1, 4, respectively, and assuming a’s address is a number smaller than b’s, the chunk with gist a wins the competition. If the 2nd and 3rd processors are transposed so that their gists are a, c, b, d, then d wins. Figure 3 Deterministic Competition with Competition Function f: chunk intensity. NOTE 4. In the probabilistic competition to be introduced in Chapter 2 (Section 2.2), local decisions are made with the aid of a coin-flip neuron (Section 2.1). For “additive” competition functions f (Definition 2.2.1), the winner of the competition will be independent of the assignment of processors to the leaves of the Up-Tree. In fact, something even better will hold true: the average fraction of time that a chunkp,t,0 gets to be in STM (in the form of chunkp,t,h) is given by f(chunkp,t,0) / ∑all N LTM processors p’ f(chunkp’,t,0) (see Theorem 2.2.1). 11 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 1.3.2.2 The Competition Computation For t > 0 and s > 0, the computation to update the chunk at node vs consists of doing all the following in 1 timeunit: (i) Evaluating which of the chunks associated with vs’s children, vs-1(L) or vs-1(R), has the greatest value of f, f(vs-1(L)) or f(vs-1(R)),17 and if both have the same value, which has the smallest address, and choosing that one, (ii) putting the address, gist and weight (but not the intensity and mood) of the chunk selected in (i) into the chunk at vs, and (iii) summing the intensities and moods of the chunks associated with vs’s children, and setting those sums to be the intensity and mood respectively of the chunk at vs.18 NOTE 5. (i) above uses f to select a child, but once that child is selected, (ii) and (iii) make no further use of f. Every parent node vs is a dedicated circuit that performs (i), (ii), and (iii). These computations, all three of which must be completed in 1 time-unit, put a bound on both the size of the chunk in a node and the amount of computation that can be performed in that node.19 NOTE 6. At the end of Chapter 2 (Section 2.3) we discuss the competition computation to update the chunk at node vs for the probabilistic CTM. Since the only difference in the models (deterministic vs. probabilistic) is how local winners in the Up-Tree competition are chosen (the probabilistic CTM utilizes a coin-flip neuron), the only difference in the computation will be in (i). The interested reader may take a detour here to visit Chapter 2. 1.4 More CTM Dynamics Here we discuss some CTM dynamics that will play a role in CTM’s feelings of pain and pleasure (Chapter 4). The Interrupt Constant Built into the CTM is a positive real number, the Interrupt constant 𝛊. When a chunk gets to STM, it gets broadcast. If that chunk has intensity ≥ 𝛊, its reception causes all LTM processors to put their current work on a stack and to pay attention to the interrupt. So long as chunks passing through STM have intensity ≥ 𝛊, no processor can return to work unless, in its opinion, that work is potentially useful/ directly relevant/ tied to dealing with the interrupt. The Interruption of all processors coincides with the excruciating pain when a ligament is torn. In part, this is because the Model of the World processor (Chapter 3) sees itself, actually its model of itself, in terrible pain. Section 4.1 discusses the role that the constant 𝛊 plays in the “feeling” of pain. A normal broadcast, unlike an interrupt, does not force any processor to put its work on a stack and pay full attention to it. 17 This evaluation consists of two fast computations ofif and a comparison of their values. 18 The “linear operation” of summing was chosen because it is quick and yields many important features. For example, for mood, positive and negative valences cancel each other, while two negatives or two positives reinforce each other. The CTM is highly nonlinear, however, as a result of prediction, feedback, and learning (Section 1.5), as well as the nonlinear intrinsic operations of the LTM processors themselves. 19 The space required to store a chunk must be large enough to store a log N bit (or log N digit) address, and to store a gist whose length is 2 10 no greater than what is required to store approximately two lines of English or its equivalent in Brainish, very roughly 128x128 = 214 bits. 12 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Increasing Weights The CTM is built to look for ways to increase weights, whether positive or negative e.g. +2 +3 and -2 -1. In the CTM, anything that increases weights is noted, learned and viewed as “pleasure”. The baby learns that milk when hungry counters the negative weight of hunger. After that, whenever and for whatever reason the baby is in pain, it looks for the breast to reduce the pain. See (Leknes & Tracey, 2008) and (Harrison, et al., 2016). In Section 4.2 we argue that the dynamics of aiming to increase weights plays a role in the “feeling” of pleasure. The High Level Story We assume that at each time t, each processor p stores in its internal memory a tuple consisting of the chunkp,t,0 it submitted to the competition at time t, and all chunks it received at time t, whether by broadcast (as chunkp,t-h,h) from STM, from links, or from input maps. This history is necessary for the operation of the sleeping experts algorithm. In addition, it can contribute to a high level story of what p saw and did. Periodically, this stored information may be pruned so only “salient” chunks remain, the most “salient” being those that represent unexpected, bad (breaking a bone), or wonderful (birthday party) events. We do not specify details of this pruning process, if any, in the CTM. 1.5 Predictive Dynamics In this section, we discuss predictive dynamics20 = prediction + feedback + learning in the CTM. . • • • Predictions in CTM are made by each and every LTM processor. These are made both inside the processor’s internal algorithms and through its connections to outside the processor – as it submits chunks to the competition for STM, to other processors via links, and to actuators. Feedback comes from chunks that are received through broadcasts from STM, through links, and from sensors of the outer world via Input maps. Learning and Correcting takes place within processors. There is a continuous cycling of prediction, feedback and learning within CTM. In Chapter 3, we argue that the “feeling” of consciousness in the CTM arises in part from this cycling. Suppose you command your walk processor to walk you from home to work. With experience, that walk can be accomplished automatically, unconsciously, and your de facto prediction at the start of the walk can be a straightforward walk with no interruptions. During the walk, attention can be paid elsewhere. Stumbling and skinning a knee, however, invalidates your prediction. It serves as feedback to the processor that made the prediction.21 Next time you go out, you may avoid or pay special attention to that section of sidewalk. 20 This is related to “predictive processing.” See, in particular, (Lee & Mumford, 2003), (Friston, 2003), (Friston, 2005), (Cleeremans, 2014), (Clark, 2015), (Seth, 2015) and (Hohwy & Seth, 2020). Also see the earlier, “nets with circles”, in (McCulloch & Pitts, 1943). 21 Question: Does the walk processor call attention to the stumble (you expect to be upright when you plant your left foot in front of your right, but instead you find yourself falling), or does the pain processor call your attention? Put another way, do you notice you are stumbling before or after your knee gets skinned? In the late 1880’s, William James asked a similar question (see (Ananthaswamy, 2015, p. 149)). 13 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Sleeping Experts Algorithm Sleeping Experts Algorithms are a class of learning algorithms employed by LTM processors.22 Here we present one of the simplest versions of the Sleeping Experts Algorithms23 for correcting errors in processors that generated faulty chunks. Recall that as part of its high level story (Section 1.4.3), every processor maintains a list of all chunks it has ever submitted to the competition. Each chunk is initially stored “unchecked”. The following Sleeping Experts Algorithm checks off some of these chunks: Fix t > 0. At whatever time t’ > t + h a processor p learns (via broadcasts from STM, links or otherwise) that its submission to the competition at time t (whether or not that submission reached STM) was right or wrong, and provided that that submission has not yet been checked off, p does the following: 1. 2. If what got to STM at time t+h was right, then p does nothing. If what got to STM at time t+h was wrong, and if p was right at time t, then p promotes itself, i.e. increases its intensity giving power (say by multiplying it by 3/2), and p checks off this submission. if p was wrong at time t, then p corrects its error to the extent it can (e.g. her name was Tina, so it did not begin with S), p then demotes itself, i.e. lowers its intensity-giving ability (say by multiplying it by 1/2),24, 25 and p checks off this submission. The way that processor p can tell that it was right or wrong at time t, and that what got into STM at time t+h was right or wrong, is from feedback p receives at some time t’ > t + h, which would come not only from what STM broadcasts but also from what p receives from other processors via links and from the environment via Input maps. In general, every processor looks and judges for itself if it was in error. Beliefs can be corrected and recorrected repeatedly. To see how this happens, consider the “i before e” rule for English spelling: i before e except after c, or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh, with exceptions such as weird, policies, neither, seize, nor forfeit, either, caffeine, albeit, glacier, species. Now imagine there is one processor for the whole "i before e” rule, and separate processors for each word whose spelling must be remembered. The first few times the processor pcaffeine for the correct spelling of "caffeine" sees that the misspelling of the word got into STM the algorithm raises the intensity giving power of pcaffeine until it overrides the “i before e” rule. Once its correction is high enough to override, CTM stops making mistakes on “caffeine” and so the algorithm stops raising pcaffeine’s intensity giving power. 22 These Sleeping Experts Algorithms are typically viewed as centralized procedures for adjusting |weights| on basic predictors (called "specialists" or "sleeping experts") that at any given time may make a prediction or abstain. In our setting, these Sleeping Experts Algorithms will be implemented in a distributed fashion, with each processor made responsible for correcting its own weights. 23 More sophisticated Sleeping Experts Algorithms will be presented in an expanded version of this paper. See also, (Blum A. , 1995) (Blum A. , 1997), (Freund, Schapire, Singer, & Warmuth, 1999) , (Blum & Mansour, 2007) and (Blum, Hopcroft, & Kannan, 2015). 24 The 3/2 and 1/2 are chosen so that an equal numbers of increases and decreases do not affect the average weight. 25 If what got to STM was different from p's gist, then p may choose to not demote itself or to demote itself less. 14 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 1.6 Definition of Consciousness in the CTM Psychologists have defined consciousness as awareness of sensory stimulation - as opposed to merely being awake and receiving stimulation. “We are not conscious of everything we see and hear, nor of all of the information processing occurring in our own brains. We are aware of only a small subset of input and processing, which is woven together into a continuous and seamless narrative that we experience.” (Novella, 2010) Here we present our definitions of consciouness in the CTM, some of which have been stated earlier. Again, these are formal definitions; in Chapter 3 we discuss what generates the feeling of conscious awareness in CTM. DEFINITION 1.6.1. At each time t, t ≥ 0, STM holds exactly one chunk, which is designated to be the entirety of CTM‘s conscious content at time t. Conscious awareness in CTM of that chunk, which is broadcast from STM at time t, is defined to be its reception by all LTM processors at time t+1.26, 27 One reason to keep the number of chunks in STM small (exactly one in our model), and to keep the amount of information in any gist (and hence in any chunk) small (at most two lines of Brainish), is to ensure that all processors focus on (are consciously aware of) the same information in the broadcast from STM.28 Equivalently, permitting just one chunk at a time into STM focuses the “feeling of consciousness” (see Chapter 3) that occurs when all processors pay attention to the same tightly circumscribed content. A second reason is that while it might seem preposterous that the theater model could succeed with no central executive and just one actor on stage, these restrictions together with feedback and learning (Section 1.5) underscore how the model succeeds even in this extreme case, supporting our third reason: to keep the model as simple as reasonably possible. Leslie Valiant (Valiant, 2013, pp. 127-128) views limited computational resources and constraints imposed by the need to learn as the primary reason for the small size of conscious information. Since CTM becomes consciously aware of the winning chunkp,t,h at time t+h+1, it follows that that there is a delay of h+1 time units for CTM to become consciously aware of the winning gist that was submitted to the competition at time t, as well as the (average) mood of all gists that were submitted at time t. Neuroscience research demonstrates that there are time delays of 300msec or more, between the time that decisions are made by unconscious processors and the time that humans first feel that they consciously made them (Libet B. (., 1985), (Bode, et al., 2011) and (Guggisberg & Mottaz, 2013). At all times t > 0, the CTM is continuously active with chunks competing in the Up-Tree to get into STM and the chunk in STM being broadcast to all LTM processors. Thus CTM is continuously consciously aware of the changing content of STM. DEFINITION 1.6.2. The stream of consciousness (t1, t2) is the sequence of chunks broadcast from STM to LTM in the time between t1 and t2. We describe this as the stream of consciousness without a time interval when that time interval is irrelevant. 26 Note that while cognitive neuropsychology literature, e.g., (Graziano, Guterstam, Bio, & Wilterson, 2020), distinguishes between conscious awareness and attention, the CTM makes no such distinction. 27 Blindsight provides a striking example of the difference between conscious and unconscious awareness (Striemer, Chapman, & Goodale, 2009). In blindsight, the CTM (or person) does not consciously see the outer world. Information from the Input sensors (eyes) goes directly to a subset of LTM processors related to vision but does not get up to STM (due to some malfunction, perhaps a break in the Up-Tree) and (therefore) does not get broadcast. For this reason, CTM (she) is not consciously aware that it (she) can see. However, information can be communicated between (unconscious) processors via links. For example, orders can be given by the Walk Processor to the leg actuator to take a walk that avoids obstacles. At a high level, this suggests how the blind-sighted person can have the surprising ability to avoid obstacles, despite that she believes herself to be blind. 28 At the other extreme, consider an STM sufficiently large to contain a chunk from each of the N processors. That CTM clearly has problems focusing attention. 15 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum The constant bubbling of chunks competing to get up into STM, together with the continual broadcasting of successive winners down to LTM, produces the stream of consciousness. As in humans (James, 1890), this dynamic stream helps give CTM the “feeling” of consciousness including its richness and texture (see Chapter 3). The stream of consciousness is sustained by the constant bubbling of chunks as suggested by the (Gazzaniga, 2018) metaphor: “Each mental event is managed by brain modules [CTM processors] that possess the capacity to make us conscious of the results of their processing. The results [CTM chunks] bubble up from various modules like bubbles in a boiling pot of water. Bubble after bubble, each the end result of a module’s or a group of modules’ processing, pops up and bursts forth for a moment, only to be replaced by others in a constant dynamic motion. Those single bursts of processing parade one after another, seamlessly linked by time. … “ The Current Mood Conscious awareness in CTM affects CTM’s mood. DEFINITION 1.6.1.1. Let t > h + 1. The current mood of CTM at time t, moodt, is defined to be the mood of the chunk that is broadcast from STM at time t-1 and received by LTM processors at time t (so CTM is consciously aware of it at time t). Similarly, the current intensity of CTM at time t, intensityt, is defined to be the intensity of the chunk that is received by LTM processors from STM at time t. NOTE. moodt = ∑all N LTM processors p moodp,t-1-h,0 and intensityt = ∑all N LTM processors p intensityp,t-1-h,0. So moodt/N and intensityt/N are the averages, respectively, of the moods and intensities of the chunks that were submitted to the competition at time t-1-h. Moodt is the measure of CTM’s “optimism/happiness” if positive, or “pessimism/sadness” if negative, at time t. (Kringelbach & Berridge, 2017) argue that in humans “emotion is always valenced—either pleasant or unpleasant—and dependent on the pleasure system”. Similarly, intensityt is the measure of CTM’s level of “energy/enthusiasm/confidence” at time t. These measures are formal definitions of the stated feelings; they are not arguments that the CTM actually has those feelings. For that, see Chapters 3 and 4. CTM’s current mood globally affects the weights that processors assign to the gists that they submit to the UpTree competition. This happens in part because when a processor chooses the sign of a weight, if it is not clear what that sign should be, the sign is taken to be that of the moodt. Thus, a positive moodt encourages positive thoughts, while a negative mood discourages them (leading to negative thoughts). In addition, the CTM does the following: if the current mood is positive (negative), processors raise (drop) the weight they otherwise assign their “current” gist by a certain positive (negative) amount ∆•w. Here 0 < ∆ < 1 is a constant of the CTM; w is the weight that CTM would otherwise assign the gist. 1.7 The Conscious TM in Toto Chapter 1 focuses primarily on the basic architecture and dynamics of the deterministic CTM. The main components of CTM’s architecture are STM, LTM (processors), Down-Tree, Up-Tree, Links, Input (maps), Output (maps) and chunks. The main dynamics include chunk production, competition for STM, broadcasts to LTM, link formation, input output mapping, and learning based on prediction and feedback. Chapter 2 defines the probabilistic CTM. The only difference between the deterministic and probabilistic CTM is that the probabilistic model uses a coin-flip neuron at every non-leaf node of the Up-Tree. The probabilistic CTM has the nice property that, when the competition function f is additive (Definition 2.2.1 of Chapter 2), all chunks 16 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum submitted to the Up-Tree competition get a fraction of time in STM. That fraction at time t is { f(chunkp,t,0) / (∑all N LTM processors p’ f(chunkp’,t,0)) }, which is chunkp,t,0’s share of its f-value, f(chunkp,t,0). That f(chunkp,t,0) is a measure of the importance and correctness of chunkp,t,0 as determined by f. We are interested in the explanatory power of the basic CTM, whether it be deterministic or probabilistic. To this end, we single out several key processors essential for the feeling of consciousness (Chapter 3). We do not focus on developing the LTM processors, though they are the heavy lifters that provide much of the functionality of the CTM. Here is a sketch of our formal model, the CTM: To get on the stage, a process mus Short Term Memory TINY EXTERNAL INPUT read only CONSCIOUS SMALL SHORT TERM MEMORY read/write Q: A EXTERNAL OUTPUT write only then each chunk gets less time on Chunk produces depression. UP-Tree Fast COMPETITION BROADCAST Long Term Memory UNCONSCIOUS MANY parallel processors, links emerge over time Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Processor Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Memory Vision Inner Speech Visuospatial Sketchpad Verbal Rehearsal Model of World Procedural Declarativ Memory Memory Memory / Siri PROCESSOR INTERFACE Figure 4 CTM in Toto. In a comparison of CTM to Baars’ Theater Model (Figure 1), Short Term Memory (STM) is the stage. In CTM, there is always just one and the same actor on stage. At every step in time, that actor gets handed the winning chunk as a script for broadcast. The Down-Tree is the broadcast system, the Up-Tree is the competition process, and the Long Term Memory (LTM) is the audience of processors, each vying to get its chunk to the (actor on) stage. Note that the CTM differs from Baars’ Theater Model in several ways, including especially: a 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The CTM has no Central Executive aka stage manager. In CTM, Inputs from the environment go directly to LTM, not to STM. In CTM, Outputs to the environment are sent from LTM, not STM. In CTM, unlike in humans, Working Memory = Short Term Memory. In CTM, chunks compete in a well-defined competition to reach STM. That competition is vague in the Theater model. 6. In CTM, conscious awareness lies in the reception by all LTM processors of the content of STM. It is not an event that occurs between Input and STM. 7. Baddeley and Hitch prove the existence of a tiny Speech Buffer that they call the Phonological Loop for Verbal Rehearsal (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), (Baddeley, 1986), (Baddeley, 2000) and (Baddeley, 2010).29 29 If one needs to remember a phone number, one can repeat the number over and over until paper and pencil is found to write it down. This keeps the Speech Buffer full, making it difficult to use that buffer to find one’s way around in the world. Finding paper and pencil is possible because the Visuospatial Sketchpad is available to help plan and implement this search. 17 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum They view the Phonological Loop as a component of STM not LTM. Baars places it between STM and LTM. To keep our model simple (rather than physiologically correct), CTM has no Phonological Loop (though it can recruit an LTM processor to do some of what the Phonological Loop does). 8. Baddeley and Hitch prove the existence of a Visuospatial Sketchpad as another component or slave of STM. To keep CTM simple (rather than physiologically correct), it has no Visuospatial Sketchpad (though it can recruit an LTM processor to do some of what the Visuospatial Sketchpad does). 9. As in the “Extended Mind Theory" of (Clark & Chalmers, 1998), CTM can have access to existing technology - Google, WolframAlpha, AlphaGo, NELL, and so on – in the form of LTM processors tasked to use these apps. This is one way to ensure that CTM has a huge collection of powerful processors at the start of its life, a collection that is also augmentable throughout life. We note that key features of the formal CTM and its dynamics resonate with properties of consciousness that (Dennett D. C., 2018) outlines: [Neither] a Master Scheduler, nor a Boss Neuron, nor a Homunculus or Res Cogitans [govern the transitions of our conscious minds]. [What governs] must be a dynamical, somewhat competitive process of contents vying for fame, for cerebral celebrity ... or relative clout against the competition. What determines the winners? Something like micro-emotions, the strength of positive and negative valences that accompany and control the destiny of all contents, not just obviously emotionally salient events such as obsessive memories of suffering or embarrassment or lust, but the most esoteric and abstract theoretical reflections. 2 The Probabilistic CTM The CTM defined in Chapter 1 is completely deterministic. Chunks that have low f-values, typically those for context and background, often do not get into STM. Humans, on the other hand, are generally conscious of context and background. In the probabilistic CTM - but not the deterministic CTM - under reasonable conditions30 on the relative importance of different chunks, a chunkp,t,0 will win the competition for STM a fraction of time proportional to its importance (Theorem 2.2.1). The concepts and discussions regarding CTM, except as otherwise noted, apply to both deterministic and probabilistic models. The only difference between models is that the probabilistic CTM uses a coin-flip neuron (defined below) in every non-leaf node of the Up-Tree. Except for that, the probabilistic CTM is completely deterministic. 30 The condition is that the competitive function f is additive (Definition 2.2.1). 18 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 2.1 The Coin-Flip Neuron DEFINITION 2.1.1. A coin-flip neuron is a device that takes as input an (ordered) pair (a, b) of non-negative real numbers (a ≥ 0 and b ≥ 0), and in one step does the following: if a > 0 or b > 0, it outputs a with probability a/(a+b), else b; else (a + b = 0) it outputs a with probability ½. Figure 5 A coin-flip neuron on input (a, b) with a + b > 0. In what follows, we assume that every node of the Up-Tree, at every level s, 0 < s ≤ h, has a single coin-flip neuron. 2.2 The Probabilistic Up-Tree Competition Let f be an Up-Tree competition function (Section 1.3.2.1), i.e., f: chunk = < address, t, gist, weight, intensity, mood > nonnegative real number For the probabilistic competition algorithm (with competition function f): The address, t, gist, and weight of the chunk to be associated with vs, 0 < s ≤ h, will be, • • with probability f(chunkL) / (f(chunkL) + f(chunkR)), it will be the address, t, gist, and weight of the chunkL associated with its left child L. In this case, we say that chunkL moves up and set p = p(L). If chunkL does not move up, then the chunkR associated with its right child R, chunkR, moves up and set p = p(R). The other parameters of the chunk associated with vs are defined, as for the deterministic competition (Section 1.3.2.1), by intensityp,t,s = (intensityp(L),t,s-1) + (intensityp(R),t,s-1) and moodp,t,s = (moodp(L),t,s-1) + (moodp(R),t,s-1). DEFINITION 2.2.1. A competition function f is additive if for each t, 0 < t, each s, 0 < s ≤ h, each node vs, and each chunkp,t,s in vs, f(chunkp,t,s) = f(chunk p(L),t,s-1) + f(chunk p(R),t,s-1). In this case, it is convenient to define +f to be an operation on the chunkL and chunkR in sibling vertices that sets chunkP in their parent vertex to be chunkP = chunkL +f chunkR. Examples of additive competition functions include: f(chunkp,t,s ) = intensityp,t,s, or more generally f(chunkp,t,s ) = intensityp,t,s + c•moodp,t,s for any real c, -1 < c < +1, but not the competition function f(chunkp,t,s ) = |moodp,t,s| as it is not additive, nor the function f(chunkp,t,s ) = moodp,t,s as it is not even a competition function. We next show that the probabilistic competition with any additive competition function f gives every processor p a fraction of time in STM at time t+h that is proportional to the f-value of its chunk, f(chunkp,t,0), at time t.31 To see this through an example (Figure 6), suppose LTM has 4 processors with chunks a, b, c, d having f-values 1, 3, 2, 4, respectively. Then b will get a fraction of time in STM that is 3/(1+3+2+4): z 31 In this way, just for example, the environment (via inputs to processors) generally maintains a presence in STM. 19 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Figure 6 A Probabilistic Up-Tree. THEOREM 2.2.1 Let f be any additive competition function. Then for every processor p and time t ≥ 0, the probability that p wins the competition that began at time t, which by definition is the probability that chunkp,t,h is in STM at time t+h, is f(chunkp,t,0) / ∑all N LTM processors p’ f(chunkp’,t,0). In symbols, pr {p wins the competition that began at time t} =def pr {chunkp,t,h is in STM at time t+h} = f(chunkp,t,0) / ∑all N LTM processors p’ f(chunkp’,t,0). PROOF: Self-evident from the example. ∎ COROLLARY 2.2.1. Let f be any additive competition function. Then for all p and t, the probability that chunkp,t,0 reaches STM at time t+h is independent of the location of p (or any other processor) on the leaves of the Up-Tree. Equivalently, the permutation chosen to assign processors to leaves of the Up-Tree has no effect on the sequence of broadcasts from STM. While this convenient result holds for the competition function f(chunkp,t,s) = intensityp,t,s because this f is additive, it does not hold for the competition function f(chunkp,t,s) = |weightp,t,s|, which puts a chunk having the largest |weight| at time t into STM. Notice that for any additive competition function f, background chunks (i.e. chunks that get only a small fraction of time in STM) lurk constantly in consciousness, being (almost) completely out of consciousness only when CTM focuses intensely on something that needs full attention. This is one of several nice properties of the probabilistic CTM with additive competition function. 2.3 The Probabilistic Up-Tree Computation In Section 1.3.2.2 we discussed the computation involved in updating the chunk at node vs in the deterministic Up-Tree competition. Here we do the same for the probabilistic Up-Tree competition: For t > 0 and s > 0, the computation to update the chunk at node vs consists of doing all the following in 1 timeunit: (i) Computing the f-value of the chunks associated with vs’s children, f(vs-1(L)) and f(vs-1(R)), and a) if (f(vs-1(L)) + f(vs-1(R))) ≠ 0, choosing the left child vs-1(L) of vs with probability vs-1(L)/(f(vs-1(L)) + f(vs-1(R))) else the right child vs-1(R) of vs, or b) if (f(vs-1(L)) + f(vs-1(R)) ) = 0, choosing the left child of vs with probability ½ (ii) putting the address, gist and weight of the chunk selected in (i) into the chunk at vs, and (iii) summing the intensities and moods of the chunks associated with vs’s children, and setting those sums to be the intensity and mood respectively of the chunk at vs. NOTE. The evaluation in (i) consists of two fast computations of f, a sum and division of their values, and a fast probabilistic selection. (ii) and (iii) are the same as the deterministic competition. 20 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 3 The Feeling of Conscious Awareness 32 While CTM is consciously aware by definition of the broadcasted content of STM, this definition does not explain what generates the feeling of conscious awareness in CTM. This brings us to our big question: Will CTM have the “feeling” that it is conscious? While we believe that the answer is YES, we cannot prove anything mathematically without a definition of the “feeling of consciousness”, which we do not have (yet).33 Instead, we now present arguments for our belief that CTM has the “feeling” that it is conscious. In Chapter 4 we argue that CTM can have also the feeling of pain and pleasure. Dreams play a special role in this argument.34 That is because inputs and outputs are turned off in sleep, so what you see, hear, feel and do in a dream are creations – fabrications - of brain-generated gists. Dreams give a sense of the enormous power of Brainish to express sensations, actions, and feelings. The architecture of the CTM ensures that what you see in the environment has been coded by sensors of the environment into gists that go from those sensors to a few specialized LTM processors to STM and from there by broadcast to all LTM processors. As a consequence, dreams can be generated internally from memories using the same processing that enables the Model-of-the-World processor (defined below) to predict consequences of possible actions. In addition, dreams are conscious happenings that are capable of expressing emotions superbly. We argue that the feeling of consciousness in CTM is a consequence principally of its extraordinarily expressive Brainish language, coupled with CTM’s architecture, certain special processors, and CTM’s predictive dynamics (prediction, feedback and learning). More specifically: 1. The content of STM (i.e., the conscious content of CTM) is broadcast to all LTM processors, so all processors responsible for the feeling of consciousness know what’s in STM. 2. Certain processors play a special role in generating the feeling of consciousness. Here we consider a few such processors that have their specialized algorithms built into them at birth:35 • The Model-of-the-World processor is a collection of processors that construct models of CTM’s outer and inner worlds. We call each of these models a model-of-the-world. The Model-of-the-World processor tags various constituent parts of the model(s) as either self, not-self, or unknown. It also tags parts with additional descriptions such as the actions they can perform annotated in Brainish.36 32 Discussions of consciousness often pit access (or functional) consciousness against phenomenological (the subjective experience of) consciousness. (Block, 1995) sees these two types of consciousness as distinct. (Kriegel, 2006) argues that, while different, the former is a subcategory of the latter. We believe that subjective experience (e.g., the feeling of what it is like to be me) is possible in the CTM, and that the explanatory gap (Levine, 1983) can be filled. This viewpoint aligns closely with Baars (see (Kaufman, 2020) interview) and (Dennett D. C., 2016). 33 We are exploring IIT (Tononi, 2004), among other theories, for a definition of the “feeling of consciousness”. The CTM has a positive, PHI, IIT’s measure of consciousness, but does having consciousness, according to this measure, imply that it has the feeling of consciousness? 34 Most people dream and most dreams have a large visual component. If you don’t dream or don’t remember your dreams, then our argument is not for you. If your dreams are auditory or tactile, you may be able to substitute that sense for the vision that we discuss. 35 In the expanded version of this paper (Blum, Blum, & Blum, Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Cognitive Neuroscience, In preparation) we discuss these processors in more detail, as well as processors for Sleep, Dreams, Meditation and Motivation. 36 For example, the notation attached to a leg representation might be “this leg can be moved with the power of thought; but this leg has no sensory feeling.” 21 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum • The Inner Speech processor takes any speech (inner37 or Brainish coded outer)38 encoded in the gist broadcast by STM and maps it to the same location(s) that the Input map sends gists of outer speech. When the CTM begins speaking, speech from the Inner Speech processor passes through STM. After enough speech has passed through STM, that speech can go directly through links. • Inner Vision39 and Inner Sensation processors map whatever images/sensations (inner or Brainish coded outer) are broadcast from STM to whatever locations input maps send outer scenes/outer sensations. This enables CTM to see with its “mind’s eye” what it sees with its actual sensory eye and to sense with its “mind’s skin” what it senses with its actual sensory skin. (The mind’s eye in the model-of-the-world “sees” whatever the CTM recalls from its visual memory. Similarly, the mind’s skin in the model-of-the-world “senses” whatever CTM recalls from sensory memory.) The Inner Speech, Inner Vision, and Inner Sensation processors are special purpose decoders that extract speech, vision, and sensation from the multi-modal gists that STM broadcasts.40 They and the Model-ofthe-World processor contribute to the feeling of consciousness as follows: • The Model-of-the-World processors maintain models of the outer and inner worlds. They have several important jobs that give the CTM its sense of self, including: • • • • • • Generating, recalling and maintaining (personal) maps of CTM’s worlds, distinguishing self from not-self in those worlds, helping to predict/correct actions of self and not-self in those worlds, helping to plan actions in the environment (outer world), labeling the objects in those worlds (in Brainish), and labeling the CTM in its models of itself as “consciously aware”, which it does when it detects itself thinking about its own consciousness. The Model-of-the-World processor can create and stitch together a sequence of chunks to produce an “inner movie”, which sends images, smells and sounds to the appropriate (model-of-the-world) sensory input processors, and generates a range of actions that it sends to the appropriate (modelof-the-world) “actuators”. • Inner speech in a human is what the mind’s tongue speaks and the mind’s ear hears (when one talks in inner voice to oneself). Inner speech enables CTM to recollect its past, predict its future, and make plans.41 The gists of inner speech (such as occur in talking to oneself or hearing in a dream) are nearly indistinguishable from the gists of outer speech (the gists created by the Input maps).42 37 Inner speech is the inner voice that CTM uses to do planning and forecasting. 38 Recall (Section 1.1) that inner speech is always in Brainish and that Input maps turn outer speech into Brainish. 39 Since blind people are conscious, a Visual Scene processor is not necessary for consciousness: A Sensory Scene processor, for example, can replace it. 40 (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2015) identify five types of thoughts (gists) that humans are conscious of: an inner voice (an articulation of one’s thoughts), an inner image (perhaps a map or dream image), a sensation (mostly external, as of hot, cold, tasty, slippery), a feeling (mostly internal, as of joy, anger, desire), a wordless thought (mindful meditation). As discussed in this chapter, the processors that produce such gists play a special role in giving CTM its sense of consciousness. 41 Many animals have speech, not just humans. For example, prairie dogs have a complex communication system of tones for communicating information about predators to other prairie dogs (Slobodchikoff, Perla, & Verdolin, 2009) and (Slobodchikoff C. N., 2012). They use inner versions of this language to plan how to avoid predators. 42 In humans, inner speech sounds so much like outer speech that it can be difficult, as in schizophrenia, to distinguish between Inner and outer speech (Rosen, et al., 2018). 22 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum • CTM’s inner vision enables CTM to create the inner images that CTM uses to generate imaginings or dreams. Examples of imaginings include maps, visual concepts, and so forth. The gists of inner vision are barely distinguishable from the gists of outer vision (the gists created by the Input maps).43 Most humans see inner images most sharply in dreams, and with notable exceptions much less sharply in daydreams or imaginings (Marks, 1973) and (Zeman, Dewar, & Della Sala, 2015).44 Whether awake or in a dream, an image gist can give the impression of an entire scene, all that the eye sees. After all, the gist holds the essence of the scene. The impression of seeing the whole of a scene is an illusion. In summary, the feeling of consciousness or conscious awareness arises in part from the fact that Brainish is a very expressive language, and that every chunk that ever reaches STM is heard by CTM’s “inner ear“, seen by its “inner eye“, felt by its “inner sense of touch” and so on, in ways that very closely match what is heard, seen, and felt by outer ears, eyes, and touch.45 This makes dreams extraordinarily realistic. Reduced functioning of these processors may create a reduced sense of consciousness. For example, Jill Bolte Taylor in My stroke of insight (Taylor, 2008) describes her own diminished state of consciousness following a stroke that disabled her (inner and outer) speech centers. 3. We argue that CTM’s continuous cycling through prediction, feedback and learning (Section 1.5), together with the stream of consciousness (Section 1.6), play a role in CTM’s feeling of consciousness. This constant pro-active prediction-making and subsequent action informed by feedback that helps give this feeling. The feeling is further enhanced by (parallel) predictive dynamics in CTM’s Model-of-theWorld where planning and testing is constantly carried out, often before action is taken by the CTM. Positive feedback gives CTM an indication that it understands what is going on; negative feedback unless it is about something that could not have been predicted such as an unexpectedly loud noise gives CTM evidence of something that it did not know or understand. 4. A minimal general ability to think/plan plus the motivation (= energy + drive) to do it. As (Valiant, 2013) says, “While there may be many kinds of intelligence, some minimum ability to reason from learned information, with all the uncertainties that that entails, has to have a role.” We now look at the CTM from the point of view of the Model-of-the-World processor. That processor like all processors is aware of both the inner world of imaginings and dreams (which it gets from STM) and the outer world (which it gets indirectly from STM), hardly distinguishing between outer and inner languages and sensations. Additionally, the Model-of-the-World processor incorporates and tags, as appropriate, this information in its various model(s)-of-the-world, including tagging the “CTM” in all its models-of-the-world as “consciously aware”. From outside CTM, we see that something about CTM is conscious. It cannot be the Modelof-the-World processor itself or any other processor, as processors are just machines running algorithms. We propose that the view that CTM as a whole is conscious, as normally understood, is a consequence in part of the fact that the Model-of-the-World processor views the “CTM” in its models-of-the-world as conscious. 43 To thwart schizophrenic hallucinations, the human brain needs to distinguish inner images from outer images when awake. The brain has various tricks for doing this, one being to make dreams hard to remember. 44 The eminent architect, Tasso Katselos, has written us (personal communication) that “I am constantly generating images in my mind, [but] for me their final planning and execution never reach the richness and detail of the dream.” On the other hand, in “An update on ‘extreme imagination’”, Adam Zeman says “that around 2-3% of the population, with aphantasia, lack a mind’s eye, and that a somewhat larger percentage, with hyperphantasia, have imagery that is ‘as vivid as real seeing’” (Zeman A. , 2020). 45 The same can be said for other senses like (dolphin’s) sonar, (bee’s) ultraviolet vision, and (dog’s) sense of smell. 23 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 4 The Hard Problem for Pain and Pleasure "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” - Jeremy Bentham (1776) David Chalmers (Chalmers, 1995) has defined the Easy and Hard Problems of consciousness which we reformulate here as follows: • The Easy Problem: Make a robot that simulates feelings. • The Hard Problem: Make a robot that truly experiences feelings. While Chalmers is interested in all qualia,46 we restrict our discussion of the hard problem to the qualia of pain and pleasure, including their extremes of agony and ecstasy. We do this in part to narrow the problem and in part because the generation of these particular feelings is especially mystifying. While the explanations for pain also work reasonably well for fear, the explanations for pleasure are necessarily different. While current day robots may simulate emotions, they do not suffer the agony of pain, nor do they delight in joys and pleasures. We want an explanation for pain and pleasure that works as well for robots having brains of silicon and gold as for animals having brains of flesh and blood. 47 The next two sections present our explanations for pain and pleasure: 4.1 deals with pain, 4.2 with pleasure. Although the model provides a measure of insight, we do not claim to have all the answers. We start with pain. To clarify the difficulty of the hard problem for the case of pain, we describe a disorder called Pain-Asymbolia. (The corresponding disorder for the case of pleasure, called Anhedonia, is relevant to Section 4.2 below.) Pain-Asymbolia is a disorder in which the individual knows all there is to know of her pain, but she does not suffer from it (Bain, 2016). We distinguish two types: Pain-Asymbolia 1. When hurt, the asymbolic person shows no outward sign of pain. She does not grimace or cry out under pain; she typically giggles when pinched and pricked. Pain-Asymbolia 2. When hurt, the person shows outward signs of pain. She grimaces, cries out, etc. Notwithstanding these observable signs, the pain does not cause any suffering. Both types of pain-asymbolics have working nociceptors (sensory receptors for painful stimuli). They are as aware of their pain as any normal human being: its location, its intensity, whether it is burning-hot or freezing-cold, and so on. But… they do not suffer. Current-day robots are pain-asymbolic (and anhedonic). 46 Qualia = Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. For example, qualia include the concept of the color blue; the experience of seeing blue eyes; hearing “Rhapsody in Blue”; and feeling blue. 47 Because it is possible for a machine to simulate pain and pleasure, we argue that any explanation for feelings in a machine needs to include knowledge of how the machine works. For comparison, consider Gordon (not George) Gallup’s mirror test for self-awareness, which does a reasonably good job of testing for self-awareness in visually oriented animals (Gallup, 1977). The mirror test might be a good test for self-awareness in visually oriented machines as well, except that it is easy to build a machine with no self-awareness that passes the mirror test. For this reason, any test of self-awareness in a machine needs to include knowledge of how the machine works. Similarly, we claim that a test for deciding if a machine can feel/experience pain or pleasure needs to understand how the machine works. 24 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 4.1 Pain Our primary reason for wanting to understand pain is to solve the puzzle of how nature produces the feeling of pain.48 A related but different reason is to figure out how a CTM can experience the feeling of pain. But why would we want a CTM or robot to experience the feeling of pain? • • • For the same reason animals feel pain. Animals born without the suffering of pain don’t live long. Children born with pain asymbolia typically live no more than 3 years. Because we want robots to have empathy. Humans find it hard to understand a feeling if they have never had that feeling. We also hope that this understanding of pain will enable humans either to control it in themselves or understand why they cannot.49 We have five suggestions for pain. Only five: 1. Extreme pain occurs when a chunk of extreme pain, a “scream of pain” in Brainish50, takes over STM. Its great intensity makes it impossible for other chunks to compete successfully for STM - unless they too have comparably great intensity. Of equal importance, pain’s weight, having a negative valence, makes each processor assign correspondingly great weight to reducing the pain. When extreme pain messages are broadcast from STM, every processor spends a fraction of time proportional to the intensity of the pain to find a way to ease it. At a minimum, processors are programmed to store information that relates the pain to their own capabilities. For example, the processor for recognizing faces can store whatever faces appear concurrently with the pain, and whether those faces are mitigating or exacerbating the pain. The processor for sleep can let the pain affect sleep by making it harder/easier to sleep. The processor for sex can link pain to sex, making sex nastier or more intense (a la Marquis de Sade). Confirmation for extreme pain: a) In describing physical pain, (Harnby, 2017) writes: “I’ve only been in agony a couple of times in my life, and I was good for nothing, rendered almost immobile. Reason left me. So did language.” b) In The Poppy Factory, (Fairchild, 1987) describes an experience of extreme pain by: “suddenly you're 48 The feeling of great hunger arises in part because a strong hunger signal allows nothing else to get into STM. CTM learns the meaning of hunger in part through its discovery that eating (filling its fuel tank) when hungry reduces the intensity of the hunger signal. Feelings of pain, fear and hunger (but not pleasure, relief or satiety) are achieved in similar fashion. Consider hunger: the infant CTM has a fuel gauge processor to indicate how much fuel is in its system. The level of the fuel gauge determines the weight of its hunger gist. A weight below zero indicates hunger, and the lower (more negative) the weight, the greater the hunger. 49 Here are some ways in which pain is special (Morrison, 2009): - It's loud. Even small amounts shout over everything else. - It's intrusive. You can't will it away. About the most you can do is match its intensity and drown it out. - It makes you want to pull away. It's a flinch, abstracted. We suspect this is the "primitive op". All animal life flinches, even stuff too simple to have a brain. To this we add: - It’s motivating. 50 The “scream of pain” in Brainish contains much more information than is conveyed in normal English. Artists, novelists, and poets try their best to capture it. Louise Harnby (Harnby, 2017) points to William Fairchild’s (Fairchild, 1987) The Poppy Factory for his description of extreme pain: “Then suddenly you're down and all movement stops like a jammed cine film. You're still screamin g but now it's different. It's because of the pain and when you try to get up, your legs won't move. You don't know where you are. All you know is that you're alone and probably going to die. When you stop screaming and look up, the sky is dark and you can't hear the guns any more, only the sound of someone moaning softly. It takes a few moments before you realize it's yourself.” 25 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum down and all movement stops like a jammed cine film. You're still screaming but now it's different. It's because of the pain and when you try to get up, your legs won't move. You don't know where you are. All you know is that you're alone and probably going to die. When you stop screaming and look up, the sky is dark and you can't hear the guns any more, only the sound of someone moaning softly. It takes a few moments before you realize it's yourself.” 2. Sudden extreme pain - a ligament at the moment it is torn – interrupts all unconscious processors. The shock of pain is instantaneous. How does this excruciating pain come about? a) When a chunk reaches STM, it gets broadcast. If that chunk has intensity ≥ 𝛊, where 𝛊 is the interrupt constant of CTM (Section 1.4.1), the ensuing broadcast causes all LTM processors to put their current work on a stack to pay “maximum attention” to the cause of the interrupt. The sudden interruption of all processing systems - as from an unexpected whack on the head - registers as shock. Confirmation for sudden extreme pain: People are known to remember exactly where they were when they tore a ligament. The decision to store was not made consciously. That’s what autobiographical memory does when it gets interrupted (Fivush, 2011).a b) The difference between broadcasts and interrupts is this: A broadcast is an input to all processors that is handled by every processor each in its own way, including possibly by disregarding it. Interrupts, however, compel processors to put their work on a stack and pay (maximum) attention, as mentioned above, to the cause of the interrupt. c) In sudden extreme pain, nothing else enters STM. All consciousness is on pain. Nothing can get into STM to temper that pain. 3. Less extreme pain and chronic pain do not so much prevent other chunks from reaching the stage as make it “difficult” for them to reach it. In the deterministic CTM, the difficulty for a chunk to get into STM is measured by how much greater the chunk’s intensity would have to be for it to get into STM. In the probabilistic CTM, the difficulty is measured by how much greater the chunk’s intensity would have to be to get allotted a “suitably larger” share of time in STM. Confirmation for chronic pain: a) In “The Impact of Persistent Pain on Working Memory and Learning”, (Ayres & Smith, 2014) write: “Participants that identified as experiencing pain for 6 or more months demonstrated clinically low levels of pain, but nevertheless performed significantly worse than pain-free participants on retention and transfer tests.” b) In 2008, about 100 million people were affected by chronic pain costing the U.S. $560 to $635 billion (in 2010 dollars) combing health care costs, work missed and lower wages. (Gaskin & Richard, 2012) 4. Fear causes and enhances pain. “Fear of pain and coping strategies… are known to play an important role in the development and maintenance of pain.” (Mittinty, et al., 2017) 5. Vicious cycles. Concentration on pain reduces pain, permitting fear to take its place; concentration on fear reduces fear, permitting pain to take its place. Such a vicious cycle sustains and reinforces both pain and fear. 26 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Figure 7 Cycle of Pain. (Reproduced with permission from Co-Kinetic.com). 4.2 Pleasure Pain and pleasure are often viewed as opposite sides of the same coin: Opposite sides: “Losses are felt as pain or anxiety, and gains as pleasure." (Szasz, 1957) Same coin: “Emerging evidence from pain and reward research points to extensive similarities in the anatomical substrates of painful and pleasant sensations.” (Leknes & Tracey, 2008). Examples of pleasure include: • a mother’s love; • avoidance of pain;51 • success in achieving a goal - any goal that CTM has consciously set for itself; 52 • coming up with a new idea for a promising course of action. 53 A processor expresses pleasure by doing some of what a processor for pain does when it gets a chunk on stage: it hogs the stage. This is particularly true when the pleasure is extreme (ecstasy). There are also major differences between pain and pleasure. In the CTM, every processor spends a fraction of its time looking for ways to increase its pleasure and decrease its pain (symbolized respectively by positively and negatively weighted gists). See Section 1.4.2. Much of this is built into all LTM processors at birth, and reinforced by learning mechanisms. A child learns from its built-in suckle response that milk reduces pain – in this case the pain of hunger. The child generalizes the power of food to reduce the pain of hunger to its power to reduce all pains, and consequently it suckles whenever it has pain “even when the pain has nothing to do with hunger per se” (Leknes & Tracey, 2008).54 Similarly, having learned that positive moods counter negative moods, CTM can try to lessen any negative mood (pain, hunger, etc.) by seeking a counter-balancing positive mood (like food). In this way CTM learns that negative moods can be countered by positive moods. Unless a child is taught to avoid pleasure, she will generally not seek pain to counter-balance pleasure. This is one way in which pleasure and pain are not symmetrical. These and other (asymmetrical) functionalities account for why the feelings generated by positively and negatively weighted gists are different. 51 For Epicurus, “happiness was the complete absence of bodily and especially mental pains” (Bergsma, Poot, & Liefbroer, 2008). But sometimes, pain can facilitate pleasure “by providing an important contrast for pleasurable experiences, increasing sensitivity to sensory input, and facilitating self-rewarding behavior” (Bastian, Jetten, Hornsey, & Leknes, 2014). 52 “Nothing succeeds like success” [“Rien ne réussit comme le succès”] (Dumas, 1854); and “Success breeds success” (van de Rijt, Kang, Restivo, & Patil, 2014). 53 Nevertheless, an excess of ideas - too many ideas to think through carefully - may be a sign of mania, while a dearth of ideas -too few to maintain interest- may be a sign of depression. 54 In general, “the pleasure system relies on the balanced interaction over time of key brain regions…” Additionally, in humans, there appears to be a “ ‘common currency’ reward network of interacting brain regions. Pleasures of food, sex, addictive drugs, friends and loved ones, music, art, and even sustained states of happiness can produce strikingly similar patterns of brain activity” (Kringelbach & Berridge, 2017). 27 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum As Michel Cabanac points out (Cabanac, 2013), behavior in humans and animals is “motivated by the trend to seek pleasure and avoid displeasure.” Behavior is also “adapted to the defense of homeostasis in the long term, …, not limited to correcting immediate needs but also anticipated future needs for chemical and thermal energy.” Similarly (Lewis & Cañamero, 2016), studying autonomous robots, suggest that pleasure can have a “purely hedonic quality not directly linked to need satisfaction,” and that both [hedonic and need] have “value for homeostatic management in terms of improved viability, as well as in terms of more flexibility in adaptive behavior.” We hypothesize that a system such as CTM, built to attain homeostasis via its inherent predictive dynamics (Section1.5), will have a feeling of pleasure and well-being in the quest and attainment of that goal.55 5 Summary This paper looks at consciousness from the perspective of theoretical computer science. It presents a simple formal model of Bernard Baars’ GWT (Global Workspace Theory) of Consciousness (Baars B. J., 1988) and (Baars B. J., 2019). We believe GWT captures the essence of consciousness. In formalizing our model, the CTM (Conscious Turing Machine), we also take a cue from (Turing, 1937), aiming for simplicity rather than complexity, for a simple model of consciousness rather than a complex model of the brain. Even supposing we had a complete description of the brain, and the technology to duplicate it, that would not imply that we understand what gives rise to consciousness, the feelings of pain and pleasure, etc. We claim that what gives rise to consciousness is the expressiveness of the brain’s inner language and the architecture of the system, basic processes and dynamics. One purpose of the CTM model, besides formalizing Baars’ Global Workspace Theory, is to argue this claim. Another is to provide a theoretical computer science foundation for understanding consciousness. This paper does the following: 1. It presents a simple mathematical model (Chapter 1) of Bernard Baars’ Global Workspace Theater of Consciousness – expressed formally in the definition of the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM). 2. It discusses Brainish (Section 1.1), an enormously expressive language capable of generating the illusion of all sensations, actions, and feelings. 3. It defines a chunk (Section 1.3.1 and 1.3.2) explicitly as a 6-tuple <address, time, gist, weight, intensity, mood>. Cognitive psychology generally identifies a chunk with the gist alone; the CTM chunk has an additional collection of numbers (address, time, weight, intensity, mood) that the human (only) vaguely or approximately senses.56 4. It defines the conscious content of CTM (Section 1.6) to be whatever chunk is in STM (Short Term Memory); and then defines conscious awareness by CTM to be the reception by all LTM (Long Term Memory) processors of STM’s broadcast of that content. The gists of those broadcasts are the inner thoughts generated by CTM’s unconscious processors or the speech, vision, touch, taste, and/or whatever else is received as input by CTM. 55 This aligns also with the hypothesis that “optimal metastability could be linked to a state of eudaimonia…. As such this objective measure of metastability could link eudaimonia (and emotions) to more global theories of brain function. One such example is the global neuronal workspace model ….” (Kringelbach & Berridge, 2017). 56 See e.g., “Chunking Mechanisms and Learning” (Gobet & Lane, 2012). 28 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum 5. It discusses how prediction, feedback and learning (Section 1.5) enables LTM processors to adjust the weights they give their gists based on information gleaned from conscious and unconscious awareness of mistakes, inconsistencies57, unexpected effects, and so on. 6. It explains why the continuous broadcasting of the content of STM, the stream of consciousness, helps give rise to consciousness as we know it (Chapter 3), namely: • The feeling of consciousness arises in CTM because all its processors, including especially those that are particularly responsible for consciousness, are privy to the same (conscious) content of STM, and • the gists of outer speech (what we say and hear in the world), outer vision (what we see in the world), and so on, are nearly indistinguishable from the gists of inner speech (what we say to ourselves), inner vision (what we see in dreams), and most importantly, • the gists are expressed in Brainish, an enormously expressive language capable of generating the illusion of sensations, actions, and feelings. 7. It gives some understanding of how a pain or pleasure experience, not just its simulation, is produced (Chapter 4). In summary, we argue that the feeling of consciousness in the CTM is produced using the expressive power of Brainish, which is CTM’s inner language for describing all elements of both its outer and inner worlds, and by its architecture, certain special processors, and its predictive dynamics (prediction, feedback and learning). An expanded version of this paper (Blum, Blum, & Blum, Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Cognitive Neuroscience, In preparation) will cover the topics presented here in considerably more detail, especially the Sleeping Experts Algorithms, as well as additional topics such as dreams, illusions and free will.58 6 Relation to Other Theories of Consciousness The CTM is influenced by Baars’ GWT, which is supported by the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) of (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011) and (Dehaene S. , 2014) in their investigation of neural correlates of consciousness. Like the LIDA model of cognition (Baars & Franklin, 2007) and (Baars & Franklin, 2009), CTM is architectural. Unlike LIDA, which is a more elaborate model of GWT, the CTM is intended to be a minimal model of GWT sufficient to explain a wide range of conscious phenomena. We see a kinship between the CTM and the self-aware robots developed by (Chella, Pipitone, Morin, & Racy, 2020). Philosophically, we align with much of Daniel Dennett’s functionalist perspective (Dennett D. C., 1991)59 and not so much with David Chalmers’ phenomenalist focus on qualia (Chalmers, 1996). Along with Dennett, we do not 57 Inconsistencies are detected by the Model-of-the-World processors (Chapter 3 item 2), among others. 58 Topics will also include: a further discussion of LTM processors (some central and some not so central for consciousness) including Sleep and Dream Creation processors, Motivation processors, Meditation processors; processor recruitment; evolution of processors; more explanatory examples; how CTM understands and extends its understanding in new directions; how various functionalities (like the function of a Central Executive) emerge without being built into the model; and a further discussion of computational and complexity measures (numbers, size and time). 59 We generally agree with Dennett except for his view that we are the only species to have consciousness, see (Dennett D. C., 1978), and more recently (Dennett D. C., 2018). In an otherwise excellent interview with Louis Godbout, Dennett expresses his view that a dog does not have conscious awareness since it “can’t tell a story about what it is thinking about; it can’t, it doesn’t have language” (Dennett D. C., 2019). 29 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum see the explanatory gap (Levine, 1983) as insurmountable. Indeed, we see the CTM as helping to explain the feeling of “what it is like” (Nagel, 1974). As in Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory (AST) (Graziano, Guterstam, Bio, & Wilterson, 2020), CTM is consciously aware of both external and internal events. Both AST and CTM appear to embody and substantiate illusionist notions of consciousness proposed by Dennett (Dennett D. C., 2019) and Keith Frankish (Frankish, 2016).60 Basic AST is similar to GWT: its i-consciousness (i for information) aligns somewhat with CTM’s conscious awareness.61 We do not agree with Graziano et. al. that GWT “leaves unexplained how people end up believing they have subjective experience,” i.e. leaves an explanatory gap. In imaginings and dreams, for example, the feeling of subjective experience in the CTM arises when the “winning chunks” of those imaginings and dreams are received by the same (unconscious) processors that receive chunks directly from the environment via Input maps. Additionally, the Model-of-the-World processor incorporates the information gotten from the winning chunks (i.e., the conscious content of the CTM) into its model(s)-of-the-world, as appropriate, tagging the “CTM” in all models-of-the-world as “consciously aware”. Such experiences get additional heft from the constant bubbling of chunks into STM, and their broadcast to LTM, forming streams of consciouness (Section 1.6 and Chapter 3). These chunks are constantly evolving due in part to CTM’s dynamics of prediction, feedback, and learning (Section 1.5). With respect to its predictive dynamics (Section 1.5), CTM incorporates elements similar to the “predictive processing” (PP) of (Lee & Mumford, 2003), (Friston, 2003), (Cleeremans, 2014), (Clark, 2015), (Seth, 2015) and (Hohwy & Seth, 2020). See also Section 4.2 on pleasure. By utilizing existing technology (or apps) to supplement its supply of LTM processors (see Section 1.7), CTM incorporates elements similar to those advocated by (Clark & Chalmers, 1998)’s “extended minds”. We agree with Christof Koch that “There isn’t a Turing Test for consciousness. You have to look at the way the system is built. You have to look at the circuitry, not [only] its behavior” (Paulson, 2017). We would emphasize “architecture” as well as “circuitry”. Along these lines, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), the theory of consciousness developed by Giulio Tononi, (Tononi, 2004) and supported by Koch (Tononi & Koch, 2015), proposes a measure of consciousness called PHI, defined using Shannon’s information theory. Tononi proposes five “axioms” (properties) necessary for any causal system to have consciousness.62 Given a detailed specification of a CTM, one could in principle compute its PHI and compare it to the PHI of any other precisely defined causal system. It turns out that many causal physical systems have non-zero measures of PHI.63, 64 As for animal consciousness, we agree with (Mumford, submitted 2019) that consciousness is a matter of degree. Here he cites (Merker, 2007) that consciousness does not need a cerebral cortex, it arises from midbrain structures. We would also cite other studies, e.g., (Slobodchikoff C. N., 2012). 60 Saying that the feeling of consciousness is an illusion does not deny the existence of that feeling. As a familiar example, the fact that a movie is made up of (many) discrete still images does not affect the feeling of continuity one gets from viewing it. The feeling of continuity is an illusion. 61 Full AST has three neural networks (A for receiving information, B for constructing an attention schema, and C for reporting to the outside world) to obtain a system which purportedly thinks it has subjective experience (m-consciousness, m for mysterious). 62 In (Koch, 2019), Christof Koch outlines the axioms: “[E]very conscious experience has five distinct and undeniable properties: each one exists for itself, is structured, informative, integrated and definite”. 63 IIT in particular validates animal consciousness. 64 There are a number of “popular” books relating to consciousness. A few that we have particularly enjoyed include A Leg to Stand On (Sacks, 1984, 1993); Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Foer, 2011); The Man who wasn’t there (Ananthaswamy, 2015); Other Minds (Godfrey-Smith, 2016); and Mamma’s Last Hug (de Waal, 2019). 30 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum Acknowledgements We are especially grateful to Jean-Louis Villecroze for his comments, suggestions, and painstaking multiple reviews of this paper, his pointers to the literature, and his ongoing work to simulate CTM (Villecroze J. L.), (Villecroze J.-L. , 2019). We thank Paul Liang for his continuing work with us. We thank the students and faculty at CMU and PKU for their feedback in our courses. We are grateful to our friend Michael Xuan for his enormous personal support and encouragement. We thank UniDT for their supporting grant of our work. 31 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum References Ananthaswamy, A. T. (2015). The Man who wasn’t there. 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Cortex, 336-337. 35 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum About the Authors of the expanded version of this paper (Blum, Blum, & Blum, In preparation) Manuel has been motivated to understand the mind/body problem since he was in second grade when his teacher told his mom she should not expect him to get past high school. As an undergrad at MIT, he spent a year studying Freud and then apprenticed himself to the great anti-Freud65 neurophysiologist Warren S. McCulloch, who became his intellectual mentor. When he told Warren (McCulloch) and Walter (Pitts) that he wanted to study consciousness, he was told in no uncertain terms that he was verboten to do so - and why. As a graduate student, he asked and got Marvin Minsky to be his thesis advisor. Manuel is one of the founders of complexity theory, a Turing Award winner, and has mentored many in the field who have chartered new directions ranging from computational learning, cryptography, zero knowledge, interactive proofs, proof checkers, and human computation. Manuel Blum mblum@cs.cmu.edu Lenore has been passionate about mathematics since she was 10. She attributes that to having dropped out of school when she was 9 to wander the world, then hit the ground running when she returned and became fascinated with the Euclidean Algorithm. Her interests turned to non-standard models of mathematics, and of computation. As a graduate student at MIT, she showed how to use saturated model theory to get new results in differential algebra. Later, with Mike Shub and Steve Smale, she developed a foundational theory for computing and complexity over continuous domains such as the real or complex numbers. The theory generalizes the Turing-based theory (for discrete domains) and has been fundamental for computational mathematics. Lenore is internationally known for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in STEM and is proud that CMU has gender equity in its undergraduate CS program. Lenore Blum lblum@cs.cmu.edu Avrim had an earlier start than the elder Blums. He spent his first two years at MIT, in his mom’s office in the Math Department, and in his dad’s office in McCulloch’s lab. In sixth grade, he solved an extra credit math problem by programming his home-made computer to get a feel for the problem, then (once he saw what was going on) stated and proved the desired result. Because he used a computer, he got no credit. Odd, because he was pointing to a novel way (at the time) to solve a math problem. Avrim’s expertise is Machine Learning Theory. He has been an advisor to many of the young leaders in the field. Avrim Blum avrim.blum@gmail.com All three Blums received their PhDs at MIT and spent a cumulative 65 wonderful years on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at CMU. Currently the elder two are emeriti and the younger is Chief Academic Officer at TTI-Chicago, a PhDgranting computer science research institute focusing on areas of machine learning, algorithms, AI (robotics, natural language, speech, and vision), data science and computational biology, and located on the University of Chicago campus. This is their first joint paper. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Addendum: High Level Explanations In this paper we explored explanations for the feelings of pain and pleasure in the CTM (Chapter 4). In Insights from the Conscious Turing Machine (Blum & Blum, 2021) we consider additional phenomena generally associated with consciousness (see https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.13704.pdf). These include examples related to vision (blindsight, inattentional blindness, and change blindness) as well as dreams, free will and altered states. We give explanations derived from the formal model and draw confirmation from consistencies at a high level with the psychological and neuroscience literature. The model and explanations are developed further in (Blum, Blum, & Blum, In preparation). 65 Where Freud had written The Future of an Illusion (Freud S. , 1927), McCulloch followed with “The Past of a Delusion” (McCulloch W. S., 1953). 36 © 2021 Blum, Blum & Blum

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 276 Article The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness Chris King* ABSTRACT It is proposed in this article that the ultimate answer to the “deus ex machina” paradox is neither invoking God in the machine nor humanity as a molecular automaton, but consciousness as a space-time spanning property of the cosmos. This implies that we are playing a pivotal and in its essence a cosmological role through our subjective consciousness in bringing about a cognizant universe aware of its own existence and imbued with a sense of purpose expressed in and through our free-will and sense of compassion for the unfolding nature of conscious existence amid the mortal toil of biological sexuality. In discovering this change of perspective lies our redemption through taking full responsibility for our actions participating in a deepening understanding of this extraordinary universe, in which we as sentient beings are the conscious progenitors of its becoming. Key Words: conscious cosmos, deus ex machina, God, free will, sentient being. The concept of “god in the machine” evokes all the paradoxes of nature and existence, from religious creationism to mechanistic atheism. We shall use this evocative notion to escape from the contradictions of current world views and to discover the roots of our transformative consciousness. Right: Artist’s impression of human transcendence through he evolution of nucleic acids (Cover from Lichtenberger 1912, 4shared.com). Tragic Roots of a Great Notion The term “deus ex machina” has an intriguing and paradoxical history, not from God transcending the flawed mechanism ascribed to nature, but the creative process of poetry and theatre. The Latin term goes back to the Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanḗs theós), * Correspondence: Chris King http://www.dhushara.com E-Mail: dhushara@sakina.org ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 277 meaning "god from the machine". It harks back to Dionysian theatre, where the deities were literally portrayed in theatre using machines, such as mobile cranes, to enable the supernatural figures to ascend from the depths, or fly into the heavens on stage. More generally deus ex machina is conceived of as a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object –a ‘supernatural’ intervention – intended to move the story forward when the writer has "painted themself into a corner" and sees no other way out. Euripides' Medea, performed in 2009 in Syracuse, Italy (Wikipedia). Opinions about this device run right across the spectrum. More than half of Euripides' tragedies employ a deus ex machina in their resolution. In Medea, a dragon-drawn chariot sent by the sun god, is used to convey his granddaughter Medea, who has just committed murder and infanticide, away from her husband Jason to the safety of Athens. However Aristotle criticized the device in “Poetics”, where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, from previous action of the play: "For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy". However, he praised Euripides for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, consistent with tragedy, and suggested "astonishment" should be sought: "since it is probable that improbable things will happen”. The Greeks could think this way because, although they saw their deities as omniscient, they were polytheists who felt free to enact the lives of their gods and goddesses creatively in tragedy and comedy. They could thus appreciate the boundaries of legitimate use of the device, unlike monotheists who adopt more inflexible positions. Horace in his Ars Poetica, vv. 191-92, instructs poets that they should never resort to a "god from the machine" to resolve their plots "unless a difficulty worthy a god's unravelling should happen." This criticism is particularly cogent in regard to creationism, where to accede to a mythological six day sabbatical account in Genesis, God is forced to come to the rescue of fundamentalist religious belief, when all the scientific evidence, from the geochemical record, through fossils to genetic sequences attests to evolutionary diversification. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 278 Two views of the Sabbatical Creation of Genesis (thepersonalistproject.org and author’s photo of a greeting card) Intelligent Design: God Forced to Rescue His Tragically Flawed Machine The sabbatical creation is an utterly beautiful mythological creation account. Just like the seven layers of heaven and hell of the ancients from Sumeria to Babylon, the creation takes place in seven days – the week, which quarters the 28 day cycle of human menses, slightly shorter than the 29.53 day lunar cycle, just as our circadian cycle tends to be a little longer than the earth day, but again close enough to form a resonance. This creation, leading ultimately to woman and man in the likeness of the dyadic ‘Elohim, follows an order which makes sense only in a flat Earth cosmos where the Sun, Moon and stars are merely secondary fixtures on a great firmament or ‘dome’ like the lid on a dinner tray. Consequently the creation is all out of natural and cosmological order. It begins with Earth tohu va vohu – ‘without form or void’ – until the spirit of ‘Elohim moves on the face of the waters. By the end of the first day we have light separated from darkness. On day two ‘Elohim put a firmament in place to divide the waters and call it heaven. The third day the land and waters are divided and the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself. At this point we have light and darkness, heaven, and all the plants which are even fruiting, but no Sun, Moon or stars. It doesn’t take denial of evolution to see from the most basic energetics that this cosmic machine is never going to fly! Only on the fourth day do the ‘Elohim belatedly realize to put the Sun Moon and stars in the heavens. Where the first light came from before is anyone’s guess – the big bang possibly? On the fifth day ‘Elohim paradoxically make the fishes, whales and birds of the air who fly up into the firmament above. Then on the sixth day in a last flurry all the creatures of the land appear - the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 279 creepeth upon the earth. In one last afterthought, the ‘Elohim make humanity male and female ’in our image after our likeness’ to have dominion over the lot. Finally, to consecrate a holiday for spiritual observance, the ‘Elohim rested on the Sabbath. One would have thought that, given the invocation in the Ten Commandments against idolatry, that taking sacred texts so literally would also be seen to be a corruption of the essential spiritual meaning, but no such luck. Right: Evolutionary tree of the human G-protein linked receptors (Blenau & Thamm). Every one of us has all these receptors, including everything from neuroreceptors for substances such as serotonin, to sight and smell, but their genetic sequences show a deep evolutionary relationship having evolved long ago before the first multi-celled organisms. Left: The serotonin 1 and 2 families diverged in evolution before the mollusks, arthropods and vertebrates (Fredriksson et al, Zozulya S. et al). When Copernicus and Galileo discovered that the flat Earth-centric cosmology was a fallacy the church issued ex-communications. Not satisfied with finding the universe has rejected the flatearth creation, latter day Christians have rallied to paint themselves into a corner over adamantly rejecting both cosmology and biological evolution, despite the evidence from fossils and the geological record, the immense age, size and complexity of the universe, and finally the overwhelming flood of genetic data since the turn of the millennium, confirming in minute detail, the evolutionary process, from the first life forms to migrating human cultures. This is a frank violation of Horace’s maxim not to invoke the god in the machine unless unravelling the deity is necessary. The intelligent-design approach flies directly in the face of all integrity. By comparison with the menial evidence of Copernicus and Galileo we are currently faced with a tsunami of genetic evidence consistent in every detail with the evolution of life. For example all the protein-linked receptors in our body, from those for neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine, through rhodopsin permitting vision, to the many diverse receptors for smell do not conform to an independent design attuned only to their designated function, but display an evolutionary tree showing they all evolved from a much more ancient precursor. When we take one family of these, the serotonin receptors and compare them with those of other animals we find it originated before the fundamental branchings of molluscs, arthropods and vertebrates, in the first single celled eucaryotes. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 280 Of course the stumbling block in the creationist model of the universe is the very notion of creation itself. As the myth goes, ‘Elohim created each of the creatures de novo as is by commanding the earth to bring them forth and set them to carry out their fixed allotted tasks. In the Eden version Yahweh breathes life in Adam and builds Eve from one of his ribs. This picture sets all the life forms up as created - ‘made’ by manufacture at the beginning of time by a single act of God. They are assembled, but do not themselves have the capacity to transform into new forms, or to adapt to new roles. God made them then and because God made them, like clockwork toys, they have no creative powers of their own, or that would be assuming some of God’s powers to themselves. This despite the fact that life is sexually reproductive, even under ‘Elohim’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, and thus clearly has the procreative capacity to generate new unique life forms, which every one of us is an example of. Consequently under no circumstances can an evolutionary process be admitted or accepted by religious creationists or intelligent design proponents, even though the evidence is incontrovertible. The Day of Judgment, Hans Memling (www.lib-art.com) At every point, attempts are made to select evidence in a non-scientific way to cobble together a resolution to this story to prove God is needed to intelligently design the universe because it can’t pull itself up by its bootstraps. The one area where science hasn’t quite completed the picture – how life first began – is seized upon as a critical weakness, but even in this area, the evidence, from interstellar gas clouds, through organics on comets, to the decoding of key reaction pathways , and the core biochemical record in living organisms continues to point to natural biogenesis occurring almost as soon as Earth was habitable. What is so contradictory about the intelligent design fallacy is that it consists of a tragic cycle. Because literalists believe God created the universe and life in six days at the beginning of time, even though it is a charming, but entirely mythological and hence metaphorical account, they are ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 281 forced to believe life cannot evolve, so we end up with a machine that is doomed to eventually break down with no hope of improvement or adaption. Because they have invented a broke machine, they then have to complete the tragic cycle by insisting God designed the whole thing to be this way, attempting to incorporate snippets of evidence that appear to suit these arguments, however unscientific these may be. Because we believe God created a flawed universe without the creative potential, we are forced into a deus ex machina fallacy, recreating God as a cosmic designer to solve the tattered mess of life spawned in the sabbatical creation. But the problems don’t just stop there. There are also the diabolical problems of the endless war between good and evil and the schizophrenic divide between a heaven devoid of any creative potential except by grace of God, and eternal damnation in the fires of hell awaiting us as divisive futures when we die and pass into the imagined realm of pure consciousness that we are taught to believe carries on eternally when our mortal bodies pass away. This means that the entire ‘machina’ of the universe as we know it is just a dress rehearsal for an eternal transfixation – that all of nature, and with it the universe at large, is just a husk to be discarded in a morally retributive cosmos whose only law of nature is obedience to the creator deity. Mechanistic Atheism: A Mindless Machine with no Redemption in Sight It is with the scientific revolution that we have come to view the entire universe as a mechanism. Rene Descartes, the "father of modern philosophy, and also the founder of Cartesian geometry, is renowned for his statement "Cogito ergo sum" – I think, therefore I am (Discourse on the Method part 4). Descartes proposed that the body works like a machine, while the mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described as nonmaterial and as not following the laws of nature. This form of dualism proposed that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, as when people act out of passion. However the critical flaw in Descartes’ description has turned out to be the link between mind and body, which he envisaged took place in the pineal gland which we now know functions in circadian rhythms. Although Isaac Newton was a devout religious believer who attempted to predict the date of the apocalypse, his great achievements are in discovering gravity, defining the laws of motion and co-inventing calculus. In his Principia, Newton came to describe a universe following mechanical laws defining the relationship between causes and their effects. Newton and Laplace after him came to describe the universe as a gigantic mechanism in terms of differential equations and initial conditions. In 1814, Laplace published what is usually known as the first articulation of causal or scientific determinism: “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes” (Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities). With the advent of Clerk ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 282 Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism and light, this description seemed to be almost complete. Along with the growth of the scientific model, we came to understand that the phenomena of biology and hence the affairs of human life as defined in terms of our brain and bodily functions are just complex instances of chemical reactions, which ultimately become defined in the physical properties of atoms and molecules and their shared radiation through electromagnetic and other force fields. We enter the era of reductionism, where ultimately everything reduces to the laws of physics. Humanity trapped in the existential nightmare: Deus ex Machina by Ekud (http://ekud.deviantart.com/art/DEUS-EX-MACHINA100870568) This leads to an existential nightmare, as expressed so succinctly by Bertrand Russel: “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built” (Bertrand Russell, Free Man's Worship). Everything might have remained caught in this nightmare except for two "dark clouds" noted in the 1900 warning by Lord Kelvin - the Michelson-Morley experiment, which led to the discovery of relativity and black body radiation which led to quantum theory. Thus the deterministic Newtonian universe opened up to new forms of uncertainty at the quantum level, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 283 although some aspects of the theory, such as quantum electrodynamics remain one of the most quantitatively accurate theories of physics ever devised. Quantum theory has opened up the philosophical arena surrounding both determinism and the part played by the mind of the conscious observer in reality. Quantum uncertainty involves the causality-violating process of reduction of the wave function, which founding researchers have attributed to the intervention of the conscious mind on the probability superpositions of quantum mechanics. However running against this quasi-mystical trend in physics have been two great developments in scientific discovery, which have profoundly strengthened the notion of causality and determinism in the everyday universe around us. Both of these stem partly from a reaction to the Second World War, with physicists developing the fields of biology and computer science. The first gave rise to molecular biology and molecular genetics, which began with the discovery of the structure of DNA and has led all the way to the explosion of genetic science in initiatives such as the human genome project. Over half a century this has laid bare the physical mechanisms underpinning all biological processes and the computational and informational processes enabling biological organisms to reproduce and develop true to their genetic code despite mutational change. Artificial intelligence closes in on the conscious brain: four internet views (the –messiahs-blog.blogspot.com). The second is the revolution in digital computing and digital communications that has brought about the explosion of computing power, from super computers to laptops and cell phones and spawned the internet, along with robotics, and artificial intelligence. Not only has this transformed human society into an interconnected global village, but it has brought upon us a cybernetic form of thinking – that causality is simply a matter of instruction sets following strict rules prescribing how 0s and 1s are encoded into new forms of information. The confluence of these two highly deterministic sciences has led to a new kind of collective ‘cyborg’ mythology, that conscious experiences are really just brain function, that human beings are really just molecular machines and the brain is just a biological computer, admittedly a very different sort of computer from the serial digital computers having a central architecture basically identical to that originally conceived of by John von Neumann, perhaps working using parallel processing and brain waves rather than purely digital 0s and 1s, but nevertheless just a computer for all that, and that the only difference between a conscious being and a personal ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 284 computer is one of scale and complexity – although our laptop may not be currently conscious, given the right artificial intelligence and enough processors and memory space, computers will, like us become conscious beings. AMD 9080A series CPU (www.cpu-world.com) and the 70s ribosome involved in protein translation in the cell (rna.ucsc.edu). Although subjective experiences are all that we have to access the physical world with, the privacy and non-replicability of subjective experience has led to a situation in which objective science has successfully built a description of reality covering diverse aspects of the physical world, from solid-state semi-conductors to biological tissues, and even to brain function based on classical deterministic notions of functional mechanisms. By comparison, the role of mind has slipped by degrees into a neglected orphan status, in which many scientists regard it as merely an epiphenomenon, perhaps the shadow of a kind of internal model of reality generated by the functional brain, but unable to have any affect on physical functions, reducing free will, and our sense of personal conscious autonomy to the status of a necessary delusion we all depend on to keep functioning and live out our reproductive, social and professional lives. It is a world view which is not really justified by the science, but rather by popular impressions of it in the media and in science fiction productions, in which humans and computers become ever more closely equivalent. We and all of human conscious experience becomes just one big data set on the information super-highway. Free-will is dead long live the CPU! Could any form of (intelligently) designed computational system replicate, or emulate, biological brains and consciousness? One might presume that any interactive system that can develop genetically could also be designed from the top down but this isn't necessarily the case. We don't yet have any idea of what the physical principles are underpinning subjective consciousness. Philosopher Jerry Fodor famously complained that: “Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious.” Until we do we can’t make significant progress on what sort of synthetic physical system might also support it. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 285 The brain is a fractally generated developmental system where the genetic code results in organization from the molecule up and in turn cell type specific interactions involving cell migration to develop resonant neurocircuits which ramify as the brain develops. It's not a set of modules put together top down according to an overall design. The code is generative but not prescriptive - it doesn't specify the final arrangement but only the recursive process to generate a chaotically resonant complex system through very complex molecular feedbacks in the way genes are orchestrated through non-linear couplings in nucleic acid structure.. There is no viable way to replicate this developmental complexification in the solid state semiconductor physics.of the digital computer. If the conscious brain falls into class that requires bottom up developmental ramification for the system to form, we are back to a synthetic brain using genetic technology utilizing the genetic processes underlying the biological brain structures we already have naturally and gene technology plagiarized from existing biological systems. The vision of human as a computational automaton becomes another kind of existential nightmare and another breakdown of the deus ex machina, this time by a complete failure to engage the process necessary to redeem the mechanical nightmare from its own pitiless future. By losing the mind to the cyborg mechanical monster, we have created a demiurge universe null and void of both consciousness and any autonomous will, doomed to its own extinction as entropy wipes away all distinction and the ‘statues made of matchsticks crumble into one another’, as Bob Dylan lamented. Of course this universe is not quite as defunct as the morally retributive cosmos of the monotheistic tradition’s intelligent design. It does leave room for the mechanism to evolve by random mutation and natural selection, even if all the ensuing life forms are really just molecular automata of one sort of another. But there is no rhyme or reason to any of it. The best we can say of it is that, although we have no conscious will of any kind, evolution has selected us to feel that we do, so that the mechanics of the life process continues unimpeded by existential ennui and a complete loss of faith in our joie de vivre, let alone our discredited élan vitale. Effectively the machine is a dysfunctional shadow of what it needs to be to support volitional subjective conscious existence, but by refusing to invoke the deus ex machina when it is genuinely required, at least as consciousness ex machina, and claiming that we can act as intelligent designers of a computational machine eclipsing our own awareness, we remain stranded as mechanical canaries in a cage constructed by our own predilection for mechanically verifiable certainties – in denial of the manifold entangled uncertainties of the quantum universe. In effect this is a second manifestation of the design delusion. Creationists think the conscious universe must be an intelligent design of God. Deterministic materialists think conscious brains could be intelligently designed by humans. Same delusion - same misconception - external design as a generative metaphor based on mechanistic human manufacture. Concrete thinking in the entangled universe. How do we find our way out of this predicament? It’s all a question of revitalizing the ghost in the machine. And it is also centrally a question of getting the physics right. This model of reality ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 286 is based almost entirely on a classical notion of physics, one which was superseded with the discoveries of relativity and quantum theory. The Mind Escapes its Mechanistic Bondage in the Quantum Universe Brain and mind are complementary but categorically different manifestations of an existential cosmological reality (Chris King). At the same time as this highly deterministic myth about reality became common currency, the status of the mind and of conscious experience as a foundation of reality had became almost completely eroded. If we turn back the clock again to the middle of last century, Gilbert Ryle’s “The Concept of Mind” argues that "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes'. According to the official doctrine … every human being has both a body and a mind ... each person has direct and unchangeable cognisance. In consciousness, self-consciousness and introspection, he is directly and authentically apprised of the present states of operation of the mind. … I shall often speak of it … as ‘the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine.’ It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category mistake”. According to Ryle, mental processes are merely intelligent acts and in this sense he is part of the flow of psychological behaviourism, which was dominantly influential at the time, but he criticized both Cartesian dualism and behaviourism alike as too rigid and mechanistic to provide us with an adequate understanding of the concept of mind. The idea of the category error has veracity because mental experiences are categorically different from physical phenomena. Conscious experiences are entirely subjective while physical processes are objective and verifiable by others. This doesn’t necessarily mean that subjective experiences are unreal, but that they cannot be understood or classified using the same analytical techniques as we do with physical phenomena. Towards the end of the twentieth century a growing need to understand higher brain functions and the role of conscious decision-making has led to the emergence of the so-called science of consciousness research. While at the easy end this simply constitutes modelling higher brain function and the integrated neurophysiological processes supporting conscious attention and cognition, at the opposing ‘deep’ end we come to the “hard problem in consciousness research” enunciated by David Chalmers – the fact that no purely objective functional description invoking integrated brain states can be equivalent to, or explain of its own accord, the nature of conscious experience, because subjective consciousness and objective brain function are so utterly different ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 287 qualitatively, turning Ryle’s category error into a categorical complementarity of attributes, as different as the wave and particle aspects of quantum reality. Subjective consciousness poses the ultimate dilemma for the scientific description of reality. We still have no idea of how the brain generates it, or even how, or why, such an objectively elusive phenomenon can come about from the physiology of brain dynamics. The problem is fundamental because, from birth to death, the sum total of all our observations of the physical world, and all our notions about it, come exclusively through our subjective conscious experience. Although neuroscience has produced new techniques for visualizing brain function, from EEG and MEG to PET and fMRI scans, which show a parallel relationship between mental states and brain processing, these go no way in themselves to resolving how these objective physiological processes give rise to the subjective effects of conscious experience. The advent of quantum theory has fundamentally altered our idea of a deterministic universe where defining the conditions at an earlier point in time determines the conditions at successively later points in time, as a dynamical system progresses. In this sense the notion of temporal causality – that causes at an earlier time define subsequent effects at later times also becomes fundamentally changed. Quanta have both a wave and a particle nature. They are emitted and absorbed discretely as particles but travel through space and time as a wave. For example in a two-slit interference experiment photons are each released as a particle from an excited atom, and then travel as waves through the apparatus, which we can see because each one travels through both slits and they then strike the photographic plate in a pattern which reflects the superimposed wave amplitudes. However each single photon arrives in a different place, which cannot be predicted, in what is called reduction of the wave function. It is only when many have passed that we can see the wave pattern from the probability distribution of the particles. Causal determinism is thus violated for each quantum. Quantum uncertainty is a fundamental feature of the dynamical process, preventing us knowing both the energy and the time of an event simultaneously. The more precisely we need to define the energy results in the time being spread over an increasingly large interval and vice versa according to the relation Et  h . This arises because energy is equivalent to frequency E  h and to determine the frequency within a given accuracy requires counting how many wave fronts have passed over a period of time using beats as shown in B in the image above. But quantum reality has many more tricks up its sleeve. If two particles of complementary spins, or polarizations, occur in a single wave function, they become entangled in such a way that finding out the identity of one cause the other to immediately have the complementary identity, no matter how far away it is, and to do so in a way which cannot occur by information travelling between the two particles at below light speed. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 288 A: Schrödinger cat paradox experiment. B: Uncertainty is determined by wave beats. C: In an interference experiment the photon is first released as a particle but travels as a wave through both slits only to be absorbed again as a particle on the photographic plate. The particle distribution follows the superimposed wave amplitudes to form bands. D: Wheeler delayed choice experiment shows that changing the detection method after the photon has traversed its path can retrospectively change which way it went. E: Transactions explain exchanged quanta in terms of waves travelling both forwards and backwards in time. F: Quantum chaos can introduce new forms of entanglement (in this case with nuclear spin (Chaudhury et al. 2009). G: Weak quantum measurement is made in a way, which is confirmed only in the future of the ensemble when the absorption takes place (Kocsis et al. 2011) Moreover the boundary conditions defining an exchanged quantum appear to involve both the past emitters and the future absorbers, in a transactional handshaking in which the future also has an effect on the past. This handshaking relationship can be seen in the transactional interpretation E above, in which the exchanged particle is an overlap of an offer wave from the emitter and a confirmation wave from the absorber travelling backwards in time. This effect can also be seen in the Wheeler delayed choice experiment D above, where switching between individual detectors and an interference film after the photons have passed the gravitationally lensing galaxy, determines whether they went around one or both sides. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 289 It is also possible to extract information from a quantum by making a small deformation in its wave function during its path flight without absorbing and thus destroying it, which will nevertheless change the way it is eventually absorbed later, in a way we can learn about its original state from. This doesn’t give us enough information to know what happened to each quantum at the time but can be used to build up a statistical profile when all the information is put together after the quanta are eventually absorbed. Critically the pattern of eventual absorptions leaves a strong mark on the earlier weak measurement statistics. This shows up another feature of uncertainty. What God gains by ‘playing dice with the universe’, in Einstein’s words, in the quantum fuzziness of uncertainty, is just what is needed, so that the future can exert an effect on the present, without ever being caught in the act of doing it in any particular instance: “The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake”, Yakir Aharonov the discoverer of weak quantum measurement declares. An indication of how quantum chaos might lead to complex forms of quantum entanglement can be gleaned from an ingenious experiment forming a quantum analogue of a kicked top illustrated above in F. In the chaotic dynamic (right) the orbital and nuclear spins have become entangled as a result of the chaotic perturbations of the quantum top’s motion. This shows that, rather than the suppression of classical chaos seen in closed quantum systems, reverberating chaotic quantum systems can introduce new entanglements. Now let’s turn back to the brain and conscious mental states. We now know that the aspects of conscious experience are represented over the entire cortex in a many-to-many ‘holographic’ representation, in which each aspect of an experience such as a given person’s face, or a facial expression is stored in a given area. This means that conscious mental states correspond to integrated excitations of brain areas working in a coherent manner together, while local processing that is ‘out of synch’ with the global brain state remain subconscious processing, which may later become conscious. This means that there is no single area of the brain responsible for consciousness although a variety of brain studies point to certain areas being pivotal for central aspects of conscious processing, as illustrated in B below, such as the ‘self’ network, also called the default network because it is activated when we are in idle moments anticipating situations we may shortly be having to deal with. The default network connects frontal and other regions also involved in working memory and cognition. Areas that appear to be pivotal for integrative consciousness, which cause significant problems if damaged, also show a similar arrangement. Other frontal and related areas are involved in a salience network that uses very fast neurons apparently to keep up an ongoing representation of the dynamic present. These ideas are reinforced by brain scans on anaesthetics, which show that loss of consciousness is accompanied by brain areas going out of synch with one another. They also explain why consciousness tends to unitary and attention to centre broadly on one train of ideas at a time (King 2014). Brain excitations also show the characteristics of dynamical chaos, see A above. They have broad spectrum frequencies rather than resonances, their orbits behave like strange attractors and many states have been found to have a fractal dimension indicative of dynamical chaos. Chaos might seem to be a noisy interference in what might be thought of as an ordered deductive process, but it provides two essential dynamical properties. Firstly it makes a system arbitrarily ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 290 sensitive to its bounding conditions in the butterfly effect – a disturbance as small as the eddy from a butterfly’s wing can become the source of a tropical cyclone. Secondly it prevents the dynamic getting stuck in the rut of an ordered attractor by shaking the system up a little like a fly buzzing around the room exploring the space fully. Transitions at the edge of chaos thus form an ideal meeting point where new structures can form out of the instabilities and then be incorporated if they have adaptive value. A: Evidence for dynamical chaos and phase wave-front ‘holographic’ processing. (a) Freeman’s model of olfactory recognition involves a transition from high-energy chaos to enter a new or existing strange attractor basin as the energy is lowered, represented (Skarda & Freeman 1987) (b) in distinct global patterns of olfactory bulb activation. Extended spatial distribution of cortical activation accompanying recognition of an odour. (c) Strange attractors in the EEG. (d) Fourier transforms of an EEG, showing broad-spectrum excitation and correlation dimensions, both consistent with chaotic dynamics. (e) Correlation dimensions of brain states. (f) Increased phase coherence when a musical note becomes anticipated (Basar et al. 1989) (g) Wavelet transform, showing time evolution of amplitudes with a peak accompanying recognition of an anomalous note is consistent with phase-front processing. Spectral product (right) illustrates coherence across several EEG channels. B: Regions identified in the notions of self (Zimmer 2005), saliency (Williams 2012) and consciousness (Bor 2013). But this may introduce another feature. If a brain state is critically poised because there is no obvious best outcome to a computational assessment, it may in turn become sensitive to the instabilities of a single neuron, a single ion channel and ultimately quantum uncertainty itself. Neurons are often tuned to their sigmoidal thresholds putting the system into a state of critical instability. Certain neural processes, and other dynamical features such as ‘stochastic resonance’ can amplify such small oscillations from single ion channels to cells and in turn into global brain states. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 291 The critical role of consciousness is to enable an organism to be able to evade imminent threats to its survival. However problems of survival in the open environment are notoriously intractable by classical computation because of super-exponential runaway in the number of computations required. Given serial computation alone, a digital gazelle would become stranded at the crossroads, gobbled by a real predator while it was protractedly ticking over trying to solve the problem of what to do. Hence the massively parallel processing in our brains and the brains of our sibling species, which enables living organisms to make a decision in real time through a transition from the edge of chaos if there is no predisposing factor driving the decision. Given the fact that the central role of the brain is to anticipate imminent futures and this intractability problem, we are led to a situation in which the brain may use an extracomputational avenue of anticipation to complement computational assessments with the sort of integrated intuition, hunch, paranoia and split-second reactions we know active consciousness is capable of. But there is another feature of brain processing which we have already touched on – coherent wave excitations – that are essential to distinguish attended signals from the groundswell of incoherent noise and peripheral processing, which is both central to the conscious state and necessary to identify salient features from the flood of sensory and higher-level processing information passing through the doors of perception.. Karl Pribram in the notion of the holographic brain, has drawn attention to the similarity between phase coherence processing of brain waves in the gamma frequency range believed to be responsible for cognitive processes and the wave amplitude basis of quantum uncertainty in reduction of the wave packet and quantum measurements based on the uncertainty relation Et  h , where the relation is determined by the number of phase fronts to be counted. In effect brain wave states may act like quantum excitations and the brain as a special type of ‘holographic’ quantum computer whose role is to anticipate reality. It is likely that this form of consciousness first arose in chaotically excitable single cells sensing and anticipating the environment around them through sensitive dependence, because all the components we associate with the conscious brain, from ion channels to neurotransmitters and their receptors evolved long before multi-celled animals. Biology is full of phenomena at the quantum level, which are essential to biological function. Enzymes invoke quantum tunneling to enable transitions through their substrates’ activation energy. Protein folding is a manifestation of quantum computation intractable by classical computing. When a photosynthetic active centre absorbs a photon, the wave function of the excitation is able to perform a quantum computation, which enables the excitation to travel down the most efficient route to reach the chemical reaction site. Quantum entanglement is believed to be behind the way some birds navigate in the magnetic field. Light excites two electrons on one molecule and shunts one of them onto a second molecule. Their spins are linked through quantum entanglement. Before they relax into a decoherent state, the Earth's magnetic field can alter the relative alignment of the electrons' spins, which in turn alters the chemical properties of the molecules involved. Quantum coherence is an established technique in tissue imaging, demonstrating quantum entanglement in biological tissues at the molecular level. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 292 Weak quantum measurement provides a way that the brain might use its brain waves and phase coherence to evoke entangled states that carry quantum encrypted information about immediate future states of experience as well as immediately past states, in an expanded envelope - the ‘quantum present’ - which we witness as subjective experience. Effectively the brain is a massively parallel ensemble of wave excitations reverberating with one another, through couplings of varying strength in which excitations are emitted, modulated and absorbed. The entire system could be a reverberating system of massively parallel weak quantum measurement of its ongoing state (King 2014), giving the conscious brain state a capacity to anticipate immediate future threats through prescience, paranoia and foreboding. Notice that the nature of uncertainty noted by Aharonov above might prevent us ever proving that such anticipation occurs in any given instance. This form of weak quantum measurement would require significant differences from traditional weak quantum measurement experiments, which are designed to produce a classically confirmed result from an eventual statistical distribution in the future, whereas in the brain coherent states would correspond to ongoing entangled excitations themselves extended between past and future through quantum hand-shaking. This would open the quantum loophole in the deterministic nightmare which would admit both subjective consciousness as a sensitive anticipator of immediate futures and free-will as the converse action of conscious volition on brain states through the uncertainty of the physical brain dynamic. Discovering a molecular-biological basis for such an effect would pose an ultimate challenge to experimental neuroscience. By liberating the conscious mind and volitional will from the shackles of the mechanistic nightmare we are at the same time evoking a deus ex machina in the form of the way our own subjective consciousness is capable of transforming the world and unfolding history to bring about social and psychic change. The central enigma of quantum reality is the causality-violating reduction of the wave packet. We see this in Schrödinger’s cat paradox (A in the second to last image) a cat set to be killed by a radioactive scintillation breaking a cyanide flask. In quantum reality the cat is both alive and dead with differing probabilities, but in our subjective experience, when we open the box the cat is either alive, or dead, with certainty. However, not only is Schrödinger’s cat both alive and dead, but in quantum reality Napoleon has both won and lost the battle of Waterloo. Many of these strategic outcomes, indeed all accidents of history, depend on uncertainties that go, in principle, right down to the quantum level. The whole notion of a single line of history unfolding seems to be something only our conscious awareness is able to determine. Several of the founding quantum physicists, from John von Neumann to Werner Heisenberg adhered to this view. In physicist Henry Stapp’s words: “Before human consciousness appeared, there existed a multiverse of potential universes. The emergence of a conscious mind in one of these potential universes, ours, gives it a special status: reality”. This implies that we are playing a pivotal and in its essence a cosmological role through our subjective consciousness in bringing about a cognizant universe aware of its own existence and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| April 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | pp. 276-293 King, C., The Roots of Our Transformative Consciousness 293 imbued with a sense of purpose expressed in and through our free-will and sense of compassion for the unfolding nature of conscious existence amid the mortal toil of biological sexuality. This appears to be the ultimate answer to the “deus ex machina” paradox – invoking not God in the machine, but consciousness in the cosmos. In discovering this change of perspective lies our redemption through taking full responsibility for our actions participating in a deepening understanding of this extraordinary universe, in which we as sentient beings are the conscious progenitors of its becoming. References Basar E., Basar-Eroglu J., Röschke J., Schütt A., (1989) The EEG is a quasi-deterministic signal anticipating sensory-cognitive tasks, in Basar E., Bullock T.H. eds. Brain Dynamics Springer-Verlag, 43-71. Blenau W & Thamm M (2011) Distribution of serotonin (5-HT) and its receptors in the insect brain with focus on the mushroom bodies. Lessons from Drosophila melanogaster and Apis mellifera Arthropod Structure & Development 40 381-394 Bor D (2013) Consciousness: Watching your mind in action New Scientist 20 May. Chaudhury S, Smith A, Anderson B, Ghose S, Jessen P (2009) Quantum signatures of chaos in a kicked top Nature 461 768-771. Fredriksson R et al. (2003) The G-protein-coupled receptors in the human genome form five main families. phylogenetic analysis, paralogon groups, and fingerprints Molecular Pharmacology 63/6 1256-72. King C. C. (2014) Space, Time and Consciousness Cosmology (to appear in “Cosmology”) http://www.dhushara.com/stc/ct.htm Kocsis, S., Braverman, B., Ravets, S., Stevens, M. J., Mirin, R. P., Shalm, L. K., & Steinberg, A. M. (2011). Observing the average trajectories of single photons in a two-slit interferometer. Science, 332(6034), 1170-1173. Lichtenberger, Henri (1912) The Gospel Of Superman: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche Macmillan, NY. (trans) J M Kennedy 2012. Skarda C., Freeman W., (1987) How brains make chaos in order to make sense of the world Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 161-195. Williams C. (2012) Are these the brain cells that give us consciousness? New Scientist 20 Jul. Zimmer C. (2005) The Neurobiology of the Self, Scientific American Nov 93. Zozulya S. (2001) The human olfactory receptor repertoire Genome Biology 2/6 1-12. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

February 1, 2008 arXiv:quant-ph/9502012v1 15 Feb 1995 LBL-36574 Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness But Quantum Mechanics Can. ∗ Henry P. Stapp Theoretical Physics Group Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory University of California Berkeley, California 94720 Abstract It is argued on the basis of certain mathematical characteristics that classical mechanics is not constitutionally suited to accomodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics is. These mathematical characteristics pertain to the nature of the information represented in the state of the brain, and the way this information enters into the dynamics. Prepared for a Special Issue of “Psyche” This work was supported by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098. ∗ Disclaimer This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. While this document is believed to contain correct information, neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor The Regents of the University of California, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products process, or service by its trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or The Regents of the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof or The Regents of the University of California and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is an equal opportunity employer. ii 1. Introduction Classical mechanics arose from the banishment of consciousness from our conception of the physical universe. Hence it should not be surprising to find that the readmission of consciousness requires going beyond that theory. The exclusion of consciousness from the material universe was a hallmark of science for over two centuries. However, the shift, in the 1920’s, from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics marked a break with that long tradition: it appeared that the only coherent way to incorporate quantum phenomena into the existing science was to admit also the human observer.(1) Although the orthodox approach of Bohr and the Copenhagen school was epistemological rather than ontological, focussing upon “our knowledge” rather than on any effort to introduce consciousness directly into the dynamics, other thinkers such as John von Neumann(2) , Norbert Weiner(3) , and J.B.S. Haldane(4) were quick to point out that the quantum mechanical aspects of nature seemed tailor-made for bringing consciousness back into our conception of matter. This suggestion lay fallow for half a century. But the recent resurgence of interest in the foundations of quantum theory has led increasingly to a focus on the crux of the problem, namely the need to understand the role of consciousness in the unfolding of physical reality. It has become clear that the revolution in our conception of matter wrought by quantum theory has completely altered the complexion of problem of the relationship between mind and matter. Some aspects of this change were discussed already in my recent book(5) . Here I intend to describe in more detail the basic differences between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics in the context of the problem of integrating consciousness into our scientific conception of matter, and to argue that certain logical deficiencies in classical mechanics, as a foundation for a coherent theory of the mind/brain, are overcome in a natural and satisfactory way by replacing the classical conception of matter by a quantum conception. Instead of reconciling the disparities between mind and matter by replacing contemporary (folk) psychology by some yet-to-be-discovered future psychology, as has been suggested by the Churchlands, it seems enough to replace classical (folk) mechanics, which is known to be unable to account for the basic physical and chemical process that underlie brain processes, by quantum mechanics, which does adequately 1 describe these processes. 2 2. Thoughts within the Classical Framework. Thoughts are fleeting things, and our introspections concerning them are certainly fallible. Yet each one seems to have several components bound together by certain relationships. These components appear, on the basis of psychoneurological data(6) , to be associated with neurological activities occurring in different locations in the brain. Hence the question arises: How can neural activities in different locations in the brain be components of a single psychological entity? The fundamental principle in classical mechanics is that any physical system can be decomposed into a collection of simple independent local elements each of which interacts only with its immediate neighbors. To formalize this idea let us consider a computer model of the brain. According to the ideas of classical physics it should be possible to simulate brain processes by a massive system of parallel computers, one for each point in a fine grid of spacetime points that cover the brain over some period of time. Each individual computer would compute and record the values of the components of the electromagnetic and matter fields at the associated grid point. Each of these computers receives information only from the computers associated with neighboring grid points in its nearly immediate past, and forms the linear combinations of values that are the digital analogs of, say, the first and second derivatives of various field values in its neighborhood, and hence is able to calculate the values corresponding to its own grid point. The complete computation starts at an early time and moves progressively forward in time. On the basis of this computer model of the evolving brain I shall distinguish the intrinsic description of this computer/brain from an extrinsic description of it. The intrinsic description consists of the collection of facts represented by the aggregate of the numbers in the various registers of this massive system of parallel computers: each individual fact represented within the intrinsic description is specified by the numbers in the registers in one of these computers, and the full description is simply the conglomeration of these individual facts. This intrinsic description corresponds to the fact that in classical mechanics a complete description of any physical system is supposed to be specified by giving 3 the values of the various fields (e.g., the electric field, the magnetic field, etc.) at each of the relevant spacetime points. Similarly, an intrinsic description of the contents of a television screen might be specified by giving the color and intensity values for each of the individual points (pixels) on the screen, without any interpretive information (Its a picture of Winston Churchill!), or any explicit representation of any relationship that might exist among elements of the intrinsic description (Pixel 1000 has the same values as pixel 1256!). The analogous basic classical-physics description of a steam engine would, similarly, give just the values of the basic fields at each of the relevant spacetime points, with no notice, or explicit representation, of the fact that the system can also be conceived of as composed of various functional entities, such as pistons and drive shafts etc.: the basic or intrinsic description is the description of what the system is, in terms of its logically independent (according to classical mechanics) local components, not the description of how it might be conceive of by an interpreter, or how it might be described in terms of large functional entities constructed out of the ontologically basic local components I distinguish this intrinsic description from an extrinsic description. An extrinsic description is a description that could be formed in the mind of an external observer that is free to survey in unison, and act upon together, all of the numbers that constitute the intrinsic description, unfettered by the local rules of operation and storage that limit the activities of the computer/brain. This external observer is given not only the capacity to “know”, separately, each of the individual numbers in the intrinsic description; he is given also the ability to know this collection of numbers as a whole, in the sense that he can have a single register that specifies the entire collection of numbers that constitutes the intrinsic description. The entire collection of logically and ontologically independent elements that constitutes the intrinsic description can be represented by a single basic entity in the extrinsic description, and be part of the body of information that this external observer can access directly, without the need for some compositional process in the computer/brain to bring the information together from far-apart locations. In general, collections of independent entities at the level of the intrinsic description can become single entities at the level of an extrinsic description. The information that is stored in any one of the simple logically independent 4 computers, of which the computer/brain is the simple aggregate, is supposed to be minimal: it is no more than what is needed to compute the local evolution. This is the analog of the condition that holds in classical physics. As the size of the regions into which one divides a physical system tends to zero the dynamically effective information stored in each individual region tends to something small, namely the values of a few fields and their first few derivatives. And these few values are treated in a very simple way. Thus if we take the regions of the computer simulation of the brain that are represented by the individual local computers to be sufficiently small then the information that resides in any one of these local computers appears to be much less than information needed to specify a complex thought, such as the perception of a visual scene: entries from many logically independent (according to classical physics) computers must be combined together to give the information contained in an individual thought, which, however, is a single experiential entity. Thus the thought, considered as a single whole entity, rather than as a collection of independent entities, belongs to the extrinsic level of description, not to the intrinsic level of description. According to classical mechanics, the description of both the state of a physical system and its dynamics can expressed at the intrinsic level. But then how does one understand the occurrence of experientially whole thoughts? How do extrinsic-level actual entities arise from a dynamics that is completely reducible to an intrinsic-level description? One possibility is that the intrinsic-level components of a thought are bound together by some integrative process in the mind of a spirit being, i.e., in the mind of a “ghost behind the machine”, of an homunculus. This approach shifts the question to an entirely new realm: in place of the physical brain, about which we know a great deal, and our thoughts, about which we have some direct information, one has a new “spirit realm” about which science has little to say. This approach takes us immediately outside the realm of science, as we know it today. Alternatively, there is the functional approach. The brain can probably be conceived of, in some approximation, in terms of large-scale functional entities that, from a certain global perspective, might seem to be controlling the activity of this brain. However, in the framework of classical mechanics such “entities” play no actual role in determining of the course of action taken by the 5 computer/brain: this course of action is completely controlled by local entities and local effects. The apparent efficacy of the large-scale “functional entities” is basically an illusion, according to the precepts of classical mechanics, or the dynamics of the computer/brain that simulates it: the dynamical evolution is completely fixed by local considerations without any reference to such global entities. As an example take a belief. Beliefs certainly influence, in some sense, the activities of the human mind/brain. Hilary Putnam characterized the approach of modern functionalism as the idea that, for example, a belief can be regarded as an entry in a “belief register”, or a “belief box”, that feeds control information into the computer program that represents the brain process. Such a belief would presumably correspond, physically, to correlations in brain activities that extend over a large part of the brain. Thus it would be an example of a functional entity that a human being might, as a short-hand, imagine to exist as a single whole entity, but that, according to the precepts of classical mechanics, is completely analyzable, fundamentally, into a simple aggregate of elementary and ontologically independent local elements. The notion that such an extrinsic-level functional entity actually is, fundamentally, anything more than a simple aggregate of logically independent local elements is contrary to the precepts of classical mechanics. The grafting of such an actual entity onto classical mechanics amounts to importing into the theory an appendage that is unnecessary, nonefficacious, and fundamentally illusory from the perspective of the dynamical workings of that theory itself. Since this appendage is causally nonefficacious it has no signature, or sign of existence, within classical physics. The sole reason for adding it to the theory is to account for our direct subjective awareness of it. Logically and rationally it does not fit into the classical theory both because it has no dynamical effects, beyond those due to its local components alone, and because its existence and character contravenes the locality principle that constitutes the foundation of the theory, namely the principle that any physical system is to be conceived of as fundamentally a conglomerate of simple microscopic elements each of which interacts only with its immediate neighbors. Neither the character of the basic description of the brain, within classical mechanics, nor the character of the classical dynamical laws that supposedly govern the brain, provides any basis 6 for considering the brain correlate of a thought to be, at the fundamental as distinguished from functional level, a single whole entity. One may, of course, postulate some extra notion of “emergence”. But nature must be able to confer some kind of beingness beyond what is suggested by the precepts of classical mechanics in order to elevate the brain correlate of a belief to the status of an ontological whole. This problem with ‘beliefs’, and other thoughts, arises from the attempt to understand the connection of thoughts to brains within the framework of classical physics. This problem becomes radically transformed, however, once one accepts that the brain is a physical system. For then, according to the precepts of modern physics, the brain must in principle be treated as a quantum system. The classical concepts are known to be grossly inadequate at the fundamental level, and this fundamental inadequacy of the classical concepts is not confined to the molecular level: it certainly extends to large (e.g., brain-sized) systems. Moreover, quantum theory cannot be coherently understood without dealing in some detail with the problem of the relationship between thoughtlike things and brainlike things: some sort of nontrivial considerations involving our thoughts seems essential to a coherent understanding of quantum theory. In this respect quantum theory is wholly unlike classical physics, in which a human consciousness is necessarily idealized as a non-participatory observer — as an entity that can know aspects of the brain without influencing it in any way. This restriction arises because classical physics is dynamically complete in itself: it has no capacity to accomodate any efficacious entities not already completely fixed and specified within its own structure. In quantum theory the situation is more subtle because our perceptions of physical systems are described in a classical language that is unable to express, even in a gross or approximate way, the structural complexity of physical systems, as they are represented within the theory: there is a fundamental structural mismatch between the quantum mechanical description of a physical system and our description of our perceptions of that system. The existence of this structural mismatch is a basic feature of quantum theory, and it opens up the interesting possibility of representing the mind/brain, within contemporary physical theory, as a combination of the thoughtlike and matterlike aspects of a neutral reality. One could imagine modifying classical mechanics by appending to it the 7 concept of another kind of reality; a reality that would be thoughtlike, in the sense of being an eventlike grasping of functional entities as wholes. In order to preserve the laws of classical mechanics this added reality could have no effect on the evolution of any physical system, and hence would not be (publicly) observable. Because this new kind of reality could have no physical consequences it could confer no evolutionary advantage, and hence would have, within the scientific framework, no reason to exist. This sort of addition to classical mechanics would convert it from a mechanics with a monistic ontology to a mechanics with a dualistic ontology. Yet this profound shift would have no roots at all in the classical mechanics onto which it is grafted: it would be a completely ad hoc move from a monistic mechanics to a dualistic one. In view of this apparent logical need to move from monistic classical mechanics to a dualistic generalization, in order to accomodate mind, it is a striking fact that physicists have already established that classical mechanics cannot adequately describe the physical and chemical processes that underlie brain action: quantum mechanics is needed, and this newer theory, interpreted realistically, in line with the ideas of Heisenberg, already is dualistic. Moreover, the two aspects of this quantum mechanical reality accord in a perfectly natural way with the matterlike and thoughtlike aspects of the mind/brain. This realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics was introduced by Heisenberg not to accomodate mind, but rather to to keep mind out of physics; i.e., to provide a thoroughly objective account of what is happening in nature, outside human beings, without referring to human observers and their thoughts. Yet when this dualistic mechanics is applied to a human brain it can account naturally for the thoughtlike and matterlike aspects of the mind/brain system. The quantum mechanical description of the state of the brain is automatically (see below) an extrinsiclevel description, which is the appropriate level for describing brain correlates of thoughts. Moreover, thoughts can be identified with events that constitute efficacious choices. They are integral parts of the quantum mechanical process, rather than appendages introduced ad hoc to accomodate the empirical fact that thoughts exist. These features are discussed in the following sections. 8 3. Thoughts Within the Quantum Framework Let us consider now how the brain would be simulated by a set of parallel computers when the brain is treated as a quantum system. To make this description clear to every reader, particularly those with no familiarity with quantum theory, I shall start again from the classical description, but spell it out in more detail by using some symbols and numbers. We introduced a grid of points in the brain. Let these points be represented by a set of vectors ~xi , where i ranges over the integers from 1 to N. At each point ~xi there was a set of fields ψj (~xi ), where j ranges from 1 to M, and M is relatively small, say ten. For each of the allowed values of the pair (i, j) the quantity ψj (~xi ) will have (at each fixed time) some value taken from the set of integers that range from −L to +L, where L is a very large number. There is also a grid of temporal values tn , with n ranging from 1 to T . The description of the classical system at any time tn is given, therefore, by specifying for each value of i in the set {1, 2, ..., N} and each value of j in the set {1, 2, ..., M} some value of ψj (~xi ) in the set {−L, ..., +L}. We would consequently need, in order to specify this classical system at one time, tn , N ×M “registers” or “boxes”, each of which is able to hold an integer in the range {−L, ..., +L}. We now go over to the quantum mechanical description of this same system. It is helpful to make the transition in two steps. First we pass to the classical statistical description of the classical system. This is done by assigning a probability to each of the possible states of the classical system. The number of possible states of the classical system (at one time) is (2L + 1)M ×N . If the probability assigned to each of the possible classical systems is one of K possible values then the statistical description of the classical system at one time requires (2L + 1)M ×N registers, each with the capacity to distinguish K different values. This can be compared to the number of registers that was needed to describe the classical system at one time, which was M × N registers, each with a capacity to distinguish (2L + 1) different values. If the index m runs over the (2L + 1)M ×N possible classical systems then a P probability Pm is assigned to each value of m, where Pm ≥ 0, and Pm = 1. The quantum-mechanical description is now obtained by replacing each Pm 9 by a complex number: Pm ⇒ rm (cos θm + i sin θm ), √ where rm = Pm , θm is an angle, cos θ and sin θ are the cosine and sine func√ tions, and i = −1. This replacement might seem an odd thing to do, but one sees that this description does somehow combine the particle-like aspect of things with a wavelike 2 aspect: the probability associated with any specific classical state m is rm = Pm , and an increase of θm gives a wave-like oscillation. I am not trying to explain here how quantum theory works: I am merely describing the way in which the description of the computer/brain system changes when one passes from the classical description of it to the quantum description. For the classical description we needed just M × N registers, but for the quantum description we need 2 × (2L + 1)M ×N registers. Thus the information contained in the quantum mechanical description is enormously larger. We need a value of rm , and of θm , for each of the possible states of the entire classical system, where the specification of the state of the classical system includes, simultaneously, a value of ψj (~xi ) for each allowed combination of values of i and j. That is, for each conceivable state of the entire classical system one needs two separate registers. Consider again a belief. As before, a belief would correspond physically to some combination of values of the fields at many well-separated field points ~xi . In the classical computer model of the brain there was no register that represented, or could represent, such a combination of values, and hence we were led to bring in an “external knower” to provide an adequate ontological substrate for the existence of the belief. But in the quantum-mechanical description there is such a register. Indeed, each of the 2 × (2L + 1)M ×N registers in the quantum mechanical description of the computer/brain corresponds to a possible correlated state of activity of the entire classically-conceived computer/brain. Consequently, there is no longer any need to bring in an “external observer”: the quantum system itself has the requisite structural complexity. Moreover, if we accept von Neumann’s (and Wigners(7) ) suggestion that the Heisenberg quantum jumps occur precisely at the high level of brain activity that corresponds to conscious events then there is an “actual happening” (in a particular 10 register, m) that corresponds to the occurrence of the conscious experience of having an awareness of this belief. This “happening” is the quantum jump that shifts the value of rm associated with this register m from some value less than unity to the value unity. This jump constitutes the Heisenberg “actualization” of the particular brain state that corresponds to this belief. Jumps of this general kind are not introduced merely to accommodate the empirical fact that thoughts exist. Instead, they are already an essential feature of the Heisenberg description of nature, which is the most orthodox of the existing quantum mechanical descriptions of the physical world. Thus in the quantum mechanical description of the brain no reference is needed to any “ghost behind the machine”: the quantum description already has within itself a register that corresponds to the particular state of the entire brain that corresponds to the belief. Moreover, it already has a dynamical process for representing the “occurrence” of this belief. This dynamical process, namely the occurrence of the quantum jump (reduction of wave packet), associates the thought with a choice between alternative classically describable possibilities, any one of which is allowed to occur, according to the laws of quantum dynamics. Thus the dynamical correlates of thoughts are natural parts of the quantum-mechanical description of the brain, and they play a dynamically efficacious role in the evolution of that physical system. The essential point, here, is that the quantum description is automatically wholistic, in the sense that its individual registers refer to states of the entire brain, whereas the individual registers in the classically conceived computer/brain represent only local entities. Moreover, the quantum jump associated with the thought is a wholistic entity : it actualizes as a unit the state of the entire brain that is associated with the thought. The fundamentally wholistic character of the quantum mechanical desription nature is perhaps its most basic and pervasive feature. It has been demonstrated to extend to the macroscopic (hundred centimeter) scale in, for example, the experiments of Aspect, Grangier, and Roger(8) . In view of the fact that the wholistic character of our thoughts is so antithetical to the principles of classical physics, it would seem imprudent to ignore the wholistic aspect of matter that lies at the heart of contemporary physics when trying to grapple with the problem of the connection of matter to consciousness. 11 4. On The Thesis That ‘Mind Is Matter’. Faced with the centuries-old problem of reconciling the thoughtlike and matterlike aspects of nature many scientists and philosophers are turning to the formula: ‘mind is matter’.(9) However, this solution has no content until one specifies what matter is. The need to define ‘matter’ is highlighted by the extreme disparity in the conceptions of matter in classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. One might try to interpret the ‘matter’ occurring in this formula as the ‘matter’ that occurs in classical physics. But this kind of matter does not exist in nature. Hence the thesis ‘mind is matter’, with matter defined in this way, would seem to entail that thoughts do not exist. The thesis that ‘mind is matter’ has been attacked on the ground that matter is conceptually unsuited to be identified with mind. The main rebuttal to this criticism given in ref. 9 is that one does not know what the psychological theory of the future will be like. Hence it is conceivable that the future theory of mind may not involve the things such as ‘belief’, ‘desire’ and ‘awareness’ that we now associate with mind. Consequently, some future theory of mind could conceivably allow us to understand how two such apparently disparate things as mind and matter could be the same. An alternative way to reconcile a theory of mind with the theory of matter is not through some future conception of our mental life that differs so profoundly from the present-day one, but rather through the introduction the already existing modern theory of matter. Let me elaborate. The main objection to the thesis that mind is matter — as contrasted to the view that mind and matter are different aspects of a single neutral reality — is based on the fact that each mind is known to only one brain, whereas each brain is knowable to many minds. These two aspects of the mind/brain are different in kind: a mind consists of a sequence of private happenings, whereas a brain consists of a persisting public structure. A mind/brain has both a private inner aspect, mind, and a public outer aspect, brain, and these two aspects have distinctive characteristics. In the quantum description of nature proposed by Heisenberg reality has, similarly, two different aspects. The first consists of a set of ‘actual events’: 12 these events form a sequence of ‘happenings’, each of which actualizes one of the possibilities offered by the quantum dynamics . The second consists of a set of ‘objective tendencies’ for these events to occur: these tendencies are represented as persisting structures in space and time. If we correlate thoughts with high-level quantum events in brains, as suggested by von Neumann, Wigner, and others, then we can construct a theory that is a dual-aspect theory of the mind/brain, in the sense that it correlates the inner, or mental, aspects of the mind/brain system with ‘actual events’ in Heisenberg’s picture of nature, and it identifies the the outer, or material, aspects of the mind/brain with the ‘objective tendencies’ of Heisenberg’s picture of nature. This theory might, on the other hand, equally well be construed as a theory in which ‘mind is matter’, if we accept the criteria for intertheoretic reduction(10) proposed in reference 9. For this quantum theory of the brain is built directly upon the concepts of the contemporary theory of matter, and it appears(5) to be able to explain in terms of the laws of physics the causal connections underlying human behavior that are usually explained in psychological terms. Yet in this theory there is no abandonment of the normal psychological conception of our mental life. It is rather the classical theory of matter that is abandoned. In the terminology used in reference 9 folk psychology is retained, but folk physics is replaced by contemporary physics. 13 5. Final Remarks It will be objected that the argument given above is too philosophical; that the simple empirical fact of the matter is that brains are made out of neurons and other cells that are well described by classical physics, and hence that there is simply no need to bring in quantum mechanics. The same argument could be made for electrical devices by an electrical engineer, who could argue that wires and generators and antennae etc. can be well described by classical physics. But this would strip him of an adequate theoretical understanding of the properties of the materials that he is dealing with: e.g., with a coherent and adequate theory of the properties of transistors and conducting media, etc. Of course, one can do a vast amount of electrical engineering without paying any attention to its quantum theoretical underpinnings. Yet the frontier developments in engineering today lean heavily on our quantum theoretical understanding of the way electrons behave in different sorts of environments. In an even much more important way the processes that make brains work the way they do depend upon the intricate physical and chemical properties of the materials out of which they are made: brain processes depend in an exquisite way on atomic and molecular processes that can be adequately understood only through quantum theory. Of course, it would seem easy to assert that small-scale processes will be described quantum mechanically, and large-scale processes will be described classically. But large-scale processes are built up in some sense from small-scale processes, so there is a problem in showing how to reconcile the large-scale classical behaviour with the small-scale quantum behaviour. There’s the rub! For quantum mechanics at the small scale simply does not lead to classical mechanics at the large scale. That is exactly the problem that has perplexed quantum physicists from the very beginning. One can introduce, by hand, some arbitrary dividing line between small scale and large scale, and decree that, in our preferred theory, the quantum laws will hold for small things and the classical laws will hold for large things. But the separation is completely ad hoc: there is no natural way to make this division between small and large in the brain, which is a tight-knit physical system of interacting levels, and there is no empirical evidence that supports the notion that any such separation 14 exists at any level below that at which consciousness appears: all phenomena so far investigated can be understood by assuming that quantum theory holds universally below the level where consciousness enters. Bohr resolved this problem of reconciling the quantum and classical aspect of nature by exploiting the fact that the only thing that is known to be classical is our description of our perceptions of physical objects. Von Neumann and Wigner cast this key insight into dynamical form by proposing that the quantum/classical divide be made not on the basis of size, but rather on the basis of the qualitative differences in those aspects of nature that we call mind and matter. The main thrust of ref. 5 is to show, in greater detail, how this idea can lead, on the basis of a completely quantum mechanical treatment of our brains, to a satisfactory understanding of why our perceptions of brains, and of all other physical objects, can be described in classical terms, even though the brains with which these perceptions are associated are described in completely quantum mechanical terms.. Any alternative theoretical description of the mind/brain system that is consistent and coherent must likewise provide a resolution to the basic theoretical problem of reconciling the underlying quantum-mechanical character of our brains with the classical character of our perceptions of them. 15 6. Conclusions Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, considered as conceivable descriptions of nature, are structurally very different. According to classical mechanics, the world is to be conceived of as a simple aggregate of logically independent local entities, each of which interacts only with its very close neighbors. By virtue of these interactions large objects and systems can be formed, and we can identify various ‘functional entities’ such as pistons and drive shafts, and vortices and waves. But the precepts of classical physics tell us that whereas these functional units can be identified by us, and can be helpful in our attempts to comprehend the behaviour of systems, these units do not thereby acquire any special or added ontological character: they continue to be simple aggregates of local entities. No extra quality of beingness is appended to them by virtue of the fact that they have some special functional quality in some context, or by virtue of the fact that they define a spacetime region in which certain quantities such as ‘energy density’ are greater than in surrounding regions. All such ‘functional entities’ are, according to the principles of classical physics, to be regarded as simply consequences of particular configurations of the local entities: their functional properties are just ‘consequences’ of the local dynamics; functional properties do not generate, or cause to come into existence, any extra quality or kind of beingness not inherent in the concept of a simple aggregate of logically independent local entities. There is no extra quality of ‘beingness as a whole’ , or ‘coming into beingness as a whole’ within the framework of classical physics. There is, therefore, no place within the conceptual framework provided by classical physics for the idea that certain patterns of neuronal activity that cover large parts of the brain, and that have important functional properties, have any special or added quality of beingness that goes beyond their beingness as a simple aggregate of local entities. Yet an experienced thought is experienced as a whole thing. From the point of view of classical physics this requires either some ‘knower’ that is not part of what is described within classical physics, but that can ‘know’ as one thing that which is represented within classical physics as a simple aggregation of simple local entities; or it requires some addition to the theory that would confer upon certain functional entities some new quality not specified or represented within classical mechanics. This new quality would be a quality whereby an aggregate of simple independent local entities that acts as 16 a whole (functional) entity, by virtue of the various local interactions described in the theory, becomes a whole (experiential) entity. There is nothing within classical physics that provides for two such levels or qualities of existence or beingness, one pertaining to persisting local entities that evolve according to local mathematical laws, and one pertaining to sudden comings-into-beingness, at a different level or quality of existence, of entities that are bonded wholes whose components are the local entities of the lower-level reality. Yet this is exactly what is provided by quantum mechanics, which thereby provides a logical framework that is perfectly suited to describe the two intertwined aspects of the mind/brain system. 17 Appendix A. Salient Features of the Quantum Theory of the Mind/Brain Described in Ref. 5. 1. Facilitation. The excitation of a pattern of neural firings produces changes in the neurons that have the effect of facilitating subsequent excitations the pattern. 2. Associative Recall. The facilitations mentioned above have the feature that the excitation of a part of the pattern tends to spread to the whole pattern. 3. Body-World Schema. The physical body of the person and the surrounding world are represented by patterns of neural firings in the brain: these patterns contain the information about the positioning of the body in its environment. Brain processes are able to interpret this information. 4. Body-World-Belief Schema The body-world schema has an extension that represents beliefs and other idealike structures. 5. Records. The B-W-B Schema are representations that have the properties required for records: they endure, are copiable, and are combinable11 . These requirements ensure that these representations are engraved in degrees of freedom that can be characterized as “classical”. Superpositions of such classically describable states are generally not classical. This characterization of “classical” (in terms of durability, copiability, and combinability) does not take one outside quantum theory: it merely distinguishes certain functionally important kinds of quantum states from others. 6. Evolution Via the Schoedinger Equation. The alert brain evolves under the quantum dynamical laws from a state in which one B-W-B schema is excited to a state in which a quantum superposition of several such states are excited. That is, the brain evolves from a state in which one B-W-B schema is excited, for a period of time sufficient to “facilitate” the pattern, into a quantum state that is a superposition of several “classical branches”, each representing a different classically describable state of the Body-World-Belief complex. 7. The Quantum Jump. The Heisenberg actual event occurs at the highlevel of brain activity where the different classical branches have separated: this event actualizes one branch and eradicates the others, in accord with Heisenberg’s idea of what happens in a measuring device. The human brain is, in effect, treated as a quantum measuring device. 18 8. Thoughts. The occurrence of the Heisenberg event at this high level, rather than at some lower level (e.g., when some individual neuron fires) is in line with Wigner’s suggestion that the reduction of the wave packet occurs in the brain only at the highest level of processing, where conscious thoughts enter. The state of the brain collapses to a classical branch that encapsulates and records the information contained in a classical description of the bodyworld-belief complex. It is postulated that this actualizing event at the level of the wave function is associated with a conscious event that is a mental image of the information represented by the actualized B-W-B schema. 9. Limitations. The theory describes only those collapses that occur in the part of the physical world associated with human brains: Whether and where other events occur is left open. A parsimonious version of the theory in which the only collapses are those associated with human brains would account in principle for all human experience: there is no empirical evidence available today that would demand any other actual events. Such a parsimonious theory would be excessively anthropocentric. Yet any attempt to go beyond it would be speculative in the absence of relevant data. In the parsimonious version every actual event corresponds to a human thought, and every human thought corresponds to an actual event: the theory is maximally linked to the empirical facts of human experience. 19 Appendix B. Survival Advantage Contemporary quantum theory does not have any definite rule that specifies where the collapses occur. The proposal adopted here is designed to produce a simultaneous resolution of the quantum measurement problem and the mindmatter problem. Thus the proposal is justified by the fact that it produces a coherent model of reality that accords with our actual experience. Yet the deeper question arises: Why should the world be this way, and not some other way? Why should the collapses be to single high-level classical branches, rather than to either lower-level states, such as firings of individual neurons, or to higher-level states that might include, for example, many classical branches. If we suppose that the determination of where the collapses occur is fixed not by some a priori principle but by habits that become ingrained into nature, or by some yet-to-be-discovered characteristic of matter that does not single-out the classical branches ab initio, then the question arises: Is the placement of the collapses at high-level classical branches, as specified in our model, favorable to survival of the organism? If so, then there would be an evolutionary pressure for the collapse location to migrate, in our species, to this high-level placement. The fact that the collapses, and hence the accompanying experiences, are classical and high-level would then be consequences of underlying causes, rather than being simply an unexplained fact of nature: it would be advantageous to the survival of the organism to tie whatever fundamental property controls collapses to the high-level classical states of our model. In fact, it is evident that placement of the collapses at a lower level would introduce a disruptive stochastic element into the dynamical development of the system. Any sort of dynamical process designed to allow the organism to respond in an optimal way to its environmental situation would have a tendency to be disrupted by the introduction of stochastically instituted low-level collapses, which will not always be to states that are strictly orthogonal. Thus there would be an evolutionary pressure that would tend to push the collapses to higher levels. On the other hand, this pressure would cease once the highest possible level of classically specified branches is reached. The reason is that in order for the organism to learn there must be records of what it has done, and these records must be able to control future actions. But these properties are essentially the properties by which we have defined “classical”. Superpositions 20 of such classical states have, because of the local character of the interaction terms in the quantum mechanical laws, no ability to reproduce themselves, or to control future actions of the organism.11 Thus there should be no migration of the location of the collapse to levels higher than those specified in our model. 21 Appendix C. Many-Worlds Theories. I have accepted here Heisenberg’s idea that there are real events, that each one represents a transition from “the possible” to “the actual”, and that the quantum state can be regarded as a representation of “objective tendencies” for such events to occur. In fact, it is difficult to ascribe any coherent meaning to the quantum state in the absence of such events. For there is then nothing in the theory for the probabilities represented by the wave function to be probabilities of : What does it mean to say that something happens with probability P if everything happens? In our model, if we say that there is no collapse then all the branches continue to exist: there is no singling out and actualization of one single branch. Each of the several branches will evolve independently of the others, and hence it is certainly plausible to say that the different realms of experience that we would like to associate with the different branches should be independent and non communicating: the records formed in one branch will control only that one branch, and have no effect upon the others. But if there is no collapse then it would seem that each of the corresponding separate branches should occur with probability unity. Yet that would not yield a match with experience. In order to get a match with experience we must be able to effectively discard in the limit of an infinite number of repetitions of an experiment those branches that have a quantum weight that tends to zero in this limit. That is, quantum states with tiny quantum weights should occur almost never: they should not occur with probability unity! So without some added ontological or theoretical structure the many-worlds (i.e., no-collapse) theories fail to give a sensible account of the statistical predictions of quantum theory. Of course, the key question is not whether a certain experience X occurs, but rather whether my experience will be experience X. However, the idea that many experiences occur, but that my experience will be only one of them involves some new sort of structure involving “choice” and “my”. It involves a structure that goes beyond the idea of a quantum state of the world evolving in accordance with the Schroedinger equation. At that basic quantum level the various classically describable branches are components that are combined conjunctively: the universe consists of branch 1 and branch 2 and branch 3 and ... ; not branch 1 or branch 2 or branch 3 or ... . Yet the world must be decom22 posed in terms of alternative possibilities in order to assign different statistical weights to the different components: the and composition given by the basic quantum structure must be converted into an or composition. This restructuring seems to require the introduction of some new sort of beingness: the idea of a psychological being that splits into alternative branches while the associated physical body, evolving in accord with the Schroedinger equation, is splitting into a conjunction of corresponding branches. By an appropriate assignment of statistical weights to the various alternative psychological branches one could then explain the statistical predictions of quantum theory, but this would seem to be an ontological tour de force compared to the simpler Wigner idea, adopted here, that thoughts correspond to real Heisenberg-type events. 23 References 1. H.P. Stapp, The Copenhagen Interpretation, Amer. J. Phys. 40 10981116 (1977) Reprinted in ref. 5. 2. J. von Neumann, The Mathematematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press (1955) (Translated from the original (1932) German edition) Ch VI Sec. 1. 3. N. Weiner, Back to Leibniz, in Tech. Rev. 34 (9132), 201-203, 222, 224; Quantum Mechanics, Haldane, and Leibniz, Philos. Sci. 1 (1934), 479-482; The Role of the Observer, Philos. Sci. 3 (1936), 307-319. 4. J.B.S. Haldane, Quantum Mechanics as a Basis for Philosophy, Philos. Sci. 1 (1934), 78-98. 5. H.P. Stapp, Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag (1993). 6. S.M. Kosslyn, Image and Brain, MIT Press (1994). 7. E. Wigner, in The Scientist Speculates, ed. I.J. Good, Basic Books, New York (1962). 8. A. Aspect, P. Grangier, and G. Roger, Experimental Tests of Bell’s Inequalities using Time-varying Analysers, Phys. Rev. lett. 49 (1982), 1804-1807. 9. P.S. Churchland, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Theory of the Mind/Brain, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1992. 10. P.S. Churchland, ibid. , p.295. 11. H.P. Stapp, Symposium on the foundations of modern physics 1990, eds. P. Lahti and P. Mittelsteadt, World Scientific, Singapore, 1991. 24

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 344 Essay How Is the World Created from Nothing? James Kowall* Abstract An answer is given to the question: how is the world created from nothing? This answer is based on recent discoveries of modern physics, including dark energy, the holographic principle, and non-commutative geometry. This answer not only solves the mystery of how the world is created, but also solves the mystery of the origin of consciousness. Key Words: Creation, world, void, consciousness. There has recently [1] been in great deal of interest in how the world is created from nothing. An answer to this profound metaphysical question has recently been discovered, and is explained in the book by Amanda Gefter [2], a book that has been praised by many well-known theoretical physicists. This answer is based on the recent discoveries of dark energy, the holographic principle, non-commutative geometry, and what Gefter has called the one-world-per-observer paradigm. In a way, physicists who do not embrace this worldview are reminiscent of classical physicists of a century ago who could not understand the world in terms of quantum theory and relativity theory. The answer is outlined in a few paragraphs. Whenever dark energy is expended, which in the sense of relativity theory is understood as the exponential expansion of space that arises with a cosmological constant [2], an observer-dependent cosmic horizon arises that surrounds the observer at the central point of view of that particular frame of reference. The force of dark energy is like a repulsive force of anti-gravity [2] that gives rise to the exponential expansion of space. Space appears to expand away from the central point of view of the observer at an accelerated rate. The farther out in space the observer looks, the faster space appears to expand away from the observer. At the cosmic horizon, space appears to expand away from the observer at the speed of light, and so things at the cosmic horizon appear to move away from the observer at the speed of light. Since nothing can travel faster that the speed of light, the cosmic horizon is as far out in space as the observer can see things in space. Whenever dark energy is expended, an observer-dependent cosmic horizon surrounds the observer at the central point of view. The cosmic horizon limits the observer’s observations of things in space due to the limitation of the speed of light and the exponential expansion of space, which is unlimited. The limitation of the speed of light is like the maximal rate of information transfer in a computer network. There is no good explanation for the expansion of space except that it is a part of relativity theory. * Correspondence: James Kowall, MD, PhD, Independent Researcher. letranger0101@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 345 How can space appear to expand? The answer is the curvature of space-time geometry. Relativity theory describes geometrical curvature in terms of the space-time metric, which is a measure of the curvature of space-time geometry. Space appears to contract with the attractive force of gravity, while space appears to expand with the repulsive force of dark energy. This apparent contraction or expansion of space over the course of time occurs relative to the point of view of an observer, and is the nature of the curvature of space-time geometry in relativity theory [2]. This apparent contraction or expansion of space is like the distortion of images that appear on a computer screen in a computer animation. This is actually a very good analogy since the bounding surface of a cosmic horizon acts as a holographic screen that projects the images of things to the central point of view of an observer. The holographic principle [3] tells us all bits of information that define all the observable things an observer can observe in the space bounded by a cosmic horizon are encoded on the horizon, which acts as a holographic screen. The screen encodes n bits of information in a pixelated way, with one bit of information per pixel. These n bits of information are typically defined by the n eigenvalues of an nxn matrix [2], where n=A/4ℓ2, A is the screen area, and ℓ2=ћG/c3 is the Planck area. This result is a natural consequence of defining n position coordinates on the screen with n non-commuting variables [2]. If position on the screen is parameterized in terms of an (x, y) coordinate system, like latitude and longitude on the surface of a sphere, these n non-commuting variables define n position coordinates on the screen, which no longer are points but pixels [4]. If these n non-commuting variables obey an uncertainty relation of the form ΔxΔy≥ℓ2, the pixel size is ℓ2 and the n bits of information are defined by the n eigenvalues of an nxn matrix. In the sense of a Hilbert space defined by the n non-commuting variables, every observer has its own world [2] defined on its own observer-dependent cosmic horizon that acts as a holographic screen. In the sense of a consensual reality shared by many observers, many observer-dependent worlds can share information to the degree their respective horizons overlap [2]. Information is shared whenever screens overlap in the sense of a Venn diagram. This is like the kind of information sharing that occurs in an interactive computer network. In much the same way, the expenditure of dark energy is like the flow of energy through a computer network that energizes the network of screens [2]. It is still possible to understand the unification of the laws of physics in such a radically observer-dependent holographic world. The only fundamental things in that world are the way bits of information are encoded on the bounding surface of the observer's horizon and the way energy flows through that world, so where do the laws of physics come from? The answer is the laws of physics can only arise as a thermodynamic average in the sense of the second law of thermodynamics [5]. The holographic principle tells us entropy is defined on the bounding surface in terms of bits of information. The second law requires that as energy flows through the bounding surface, some entropy must flow with the energy, and this implies Einstein's field equations for the space-time ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 346 metric [5] in the bounded space as a thermodynamic equation of state. Einstein's field equations in the bounded space are dual [2] to the holographic description of non-commuting variables defined on the bounding surface, but only in the sense of a thermodynamic average. It is instructive to briefly review how this holographic mechanism comes into effect [5]. The second law of thermodynamics relates the flow of energy, ΔE, through the bounding surface to the flow of entropy, ΔS, and absolute temperature, T, as ΔE=TΔS. Entropy is defined on a holographic screen [3] in terms of the number of bits of information encoded on the screen, n=A/4ℓ2, which gives entropy in terms of screen area as S=kA/4ℓ2. If the screen is a spherical surface of radius R, the holographic principle [3] also specifies the temperature of the screen, as observed by a distant observer, as kT=ћc/2πR. As energy flows through the screen, say under the influence of a thermal gradient, some entropy must flow with the energy. Since entropy is defined in terms of screen area, the screen area must change as energy flows. This implies that the geometry of the bounded space must change as energy flows through the bounding surface. This simple thermodynamic relationship, ΔE=TΔS, then implies Einstein's field equations for the space-time metric in the bounded space as a thermodynamic equation of state [5]. For a spherical cosmic horizon, the screen area is A=4πR2, where the horizon radius, R, is determined in relativity theory [3] in terms of a cosmological constant, Λ, as R 2/ℓ2=3/Λ, which gives S=3πk/Λ. The idea of inflationary cosmology [2] then gives a natural explanation for the normal flow of thermal energy through the observer's world in terms of an instability in the cosmological constant, which is understood as a phase transition from a meta-stable false vacuum state to an eventual stable true vacuum state [2]. Inflationary cosmology [2] tells us that at the time of the big bang event that creates the observer's world, the cosmological constant has a value of about Λ=1, which gives the horizon temperature as about 1032 degrees Kelvin. Astronomical observations, based on the rate at which distant galaxies accelerate away from us, indicate a current value of about Λ=10−123. As the cosmological constant decreases in value, the radius of the cosmic horizon inflates in size and the horizon cools in temperature. The normal flow of thermal energy through the observer's world is understood in terms of this thermal gradient that develops due to an instability in the value of the cosmological constant [2]. This instability in the value of the cosmological constant is understood as a transition from metastable false vacuum state to a more stable vacuum state. The most stable vacuum state, the true vacuum state, which has eternal stability, is defined by Λ=0. As the cosmological constant decreases in value to its eventual final value of zero, the cosmic horizon inflates in size to infinity and its temperature cools to absolute zero [2]. This scientific argument tells us the flow of energy through the observer's world arises with the expenditure of dark energy, which gives rise to the bounding surface of a cosmic horizon surrounding the observer at the central point of view, while the encoding of bits of information on the horizon arises in a non-commutative geometry [4], which implies Einstein's field equations for the space-time metric in the bounded space. If the Kaluza-Klein mechanism and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 347 super-symmetry are invoked, all the usual quantum fields of the standard model are then generated from Einstein's field equations [2]. The final result is called 11-dimensional supergravity, which is understood as a low energy limit. This also explains the nature of elementary particles, like the electron and photon. The correct way to understand elementary particles is as localized (in space and time) and quantized (in terms of energy and momentum) excitations of field energy. In quantum theory this is usually visualized as a field wave-packet. The standard interpretation of quantum theory tells us this wave-packet only specifies the quantum probability with which the particle can be measured at some point in space and at some moment in time. Unification of the laws of physics (the Kaluza-Klein mechanism) tells us all quantum fields are components of the space-time metric in extra compactified dimensions. All field equations, like Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism and Dirac's equation for the electron, arise from Einstein's field equations for the space-time metric through the Kaluza-Klein mechanism and super-symmetry. The holographic principle tells us Einstein's field equations for the space-time metric in the bounded space arise from the statistical laws of thermodynamics as a thermodynamic equation of state due to the encoding of bits of information on the bounding surface of that space. We can therefore say all elementary particles in space are really a form of gravity in extra compactified dimensions that arise from the way bits of information are encoded on the bounding surface of that space. Gravity is the curvature of space-time geometry. Elementary particles are therefore space-time curvature in extra compactified dimensions of space. That curvature arises holographically from bits of information encoded on the bounding surface, which acts as a holographic screen. This tells us the measurement of the particle at some position in space at some moment in time is like the projection of an image of the particle from a holographic screen to the central point of view of an observer [6]. All bits of information for the particle are encoded on the bounding surface of space, not in space itself. This projection of images from a holographic screen to an observer is very much like the way a movie is animated on a digital computer screen over a sequence of screen outputs in a computer animation. In much the same way, the expenditure of dark energy that gives rise to the construction of the holographic screen is like the flow of energy through an interactive network of computer screens that gives rise to the computer animation. Each screen in the network is observed by its own observer at the central point of view. The way the holographic principle is formulated in terms of non-commutative geometry and non-commuting variables defined on the bounding surface of a cosmic horizon insures the total energy of the observer's world is exactly zero [2]. In this sense, everything in that world arises from nothing. The positive energy of dark energy and any other forms of positive energy that arise from dark energy, like mass energy, are exactly cancelled out by the negative potential energy of gravitational attraction. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 348 By its nature, the expenditure of dark energy, the expansion of space, and the creation of an observer-dependent cosmic horizon implies there must be an empty space of potentiality within which this bounding surface of space arises [2]. There must be an all-encompassing empty space with the potential to express energy as the exponential expansion of space. This empty space of potentiality can be called the void or the primordial nothingness. In this sense, everything is created from nothing. An observer's world is only created if this empty space of potentiality expresses dark energy. This empty space of potentiality cannot be characterized in terms of the laws of physics, a dimensionality, or the curvature of space-time geometry. Only the observer's world can be characterized in this way [2], but that characterization only arises from the way bits of information are encoded on the bounding surface of the observer's world and the way energy flows through the observer's world. This explanation not only solves the mystery of how everything is created from nothing, it also solves the mystery of how the observer's world is created. It also solves an even greater mystery: how does the observer's consciousness arise? The answer is found in non-dual wisdom. The primordial nothingness or void is the nature of undifferentiated consciousness [7, 8, 9]. When this empty space of potentiality expresses dark energy with the exponential expansion of space and an observer-dependent cosmic horizon arises that acts as a holographic screen that defines the observer's world, the observer's individual consciousness is differentiated from undifferentiated consciousness. The consciousness present at the central point of view of the observer's world is differentiated from the undifferentiated consciousness of the void when the bounding surface of a cosmic horizon arises in empty space. Mystery solved. The observer's focal point of consciousness is present at the central point of view of a surrounding holographic screen, which only arises when dark energy is expended. The expenditure of dark energy is the nature of the process that differentiates this focal point of consciousness from undifferentiated consciousness. We understand the expenditure of dark energy as the exponential expansion of space, which expands at an accelerated rate relative to the central point of view of the observer. In the sense of the curvature of space-time geometry, this accelerated expansion of space is the "bending of space". The undifferentiated consciousness of the void expresses its power with the expenditure of dark energy. As dark energy is expended, the observer's focal point of consciousness is differentiated from undifferentiated consciousness and a cosmic horizon arises that acts as a holographic screen surrounding the observer at the central point of view. This "bending of space" is the only way the observer's world can be created and the observer's individual consciousness can come into being. When the expenditure of dark energy ultimately comes to an end, as it must since all things ultimately come to an end, the observer's world must disappear and the observer's differentiated focal point of consciousness must return to the void of undifferentiated consciousness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 344-349 Kowall, J., How Is the World Created from Nothing? 349 Ultimately all the observer really is, is this empty space of potentiality. Ultimately all the observer really does is bend space as it expresses its energy. Do not try to bend the spoon. That is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth. What truth? There is no spoon. Then you’ll see it’s not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. - The Matrix References 1. Lawrence Krauss (2012) A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing. (Barnes & Noble) 2. Amanda Gefter (2014) Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything (Random House) 3. Raphael Bousso (2002) The Holographic Principle. arXiv:hep-th/0203101 4. J Madore (1999) Non-commutative Geometry for Pedestrians. arXiv:gr-qc/9906059 5. Ted Jacobson (1995) Thermodynamics of Space-time. arXiv:gr-qc/9504004 6. Leonard Susskind (1994) The World as a Hologram. arXiv:hep-th/9409089 7. Nisargadatta Maharaj (1996) The Experience of Nothingness (Blue Dove Press) 8. Nisargadatta Maharaj (1973) I Am That (Acorn Press) 9. Jed McKenna (2013) Theory of Everything (Wisefool Press) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 815 Article Why S? Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) Graham P. Smetham* ABSTRACT Mindful reflections upon a metaphysically misguided materialist advertising campaign: Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything by Amanda Gefter. Gefter, New Scientist book reviews editor, presents a philosophically confused account of current quantum metaphysics because she adheres to an out of date materialist metaphysics and claims that, whilst observers in some way create reality, the process does not involve consciousness. Her claims are shown to invalid, the various quantum metaphysical perspectives she covers are shown to require consciousness as fundamental. Keywords: Grand design, observers, consciousness, anthropic principle, Darwinism, evolutionary developmental biology, Cambrian explosion, quantum morphogenetic archetypes, buddhanature, nothingness, emptiness, primordial consciousness, timeless awareness, substrate of consciousness. The Question is what is the Question? Is it all a Magic Show? Is Reality an Illusion? What is the framework of the Machine? Darwin’s Puzzle: Natural Selection? Where does Space-Time come from? Is there any answer except that it comes from consciousness?1 - John Wheeler Wheeler thinks that consciousness could be the criterion for an observer, but that’s obviously bullshit. I mean, consciousness is just a physical process in the brain. It’s not magic.2 - Amanda Gefter * Correspondence: Graham Smetham http://www.quantumbuddhism.com E-mail:graham@quantumbuddhsim.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 816 ..the essence of consciousness can be interpreted as a special type of perception of quantum reality by living beings.3 - Michael Mensky I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.4 - Max Planck The recent book Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything (TEL) by Amanda Gefter, a science journalist who writes for New Scientist, Scientific American and other science journals, has been greeted with some enthusiastic reviews. One reviewer describes it: Beautifully written and hugely entertaining, this book is a heartfelt introduction to the many mind-bending theories in contemporary physics.5 Gefter’s descriptions and explanations of some of the metaphysical conclusions drawn from modern physical theory, derived from her conversations with the physicists she persuaded to grant her interviews, are well written, intriguing and entertaining. The physicist Peter Woit compares TEL to another recent work Why Does the World Exist, wherein the author Jim Holt interviews various philosophers and scientists on their views on the origin of, and reason for, the existence of the universe. Woit writes that the authors of both books are: …lively, entertaining writers with wonderful material about deep questions, and I greatly enjoyed both books. Gefter is the funnier of the two, and I had trouble putting the book down after it arrived in my mail a couple of days ago.6 However, Woit also has some severe reservations: While I liked the book, at the same time I found the whole project deeply problematic, and would have reservations about recommending it to many people, especially to the impressionable young. The part of physics that fascinates Gefter is the part that has gone way beyond anything bound by the conventional understanding of science. ... The questions being discussed and answers proposed are woolly in the extreme, … Not recognizing that this post-modern way of doing science is deeply problematic and leading the field into serious trouble isn’t so much Gefter’s fault as that of the experts she speaks to .... Those taking the field down this path are dominating public coverage of the subject, and often finding themselves richly rewarded for engaging not in sober science but in outrageous hype of dubious and poorly-understood ideas. Only the future will tell whether the significance of this book will end up being that of an entertaining tale of some excesses from a period when fundamental physics temporarily lost its way, or a sad document of how a great science came to an end.7 In this criticism Woit implicitly indicates that the central problem that he finds with approaches to current interpretations within physics lies in the relationship between what he considers to be ‘true’ physical theory, which he considers to be “sober science,” and the metaphysical ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 817 conclusions that are derived from such “sober science.” In this indication Woit has inadvertently put his finger on a crucial issue that rarely gets clearly examined or articulated. However, one significant science writer who has taken on this investigation, in his book Farewell to Reality: How Fairy Tale Physics Betrays the Search for Scientific Truth, is Jim Baggott, who writes: ...I’m going to accuse a bunch of theoretical physicists of abandoning the scientific method and so betraying the search for scientific truth about the nature of physical reality … I will seek to reject fairy-tale physics as metaphysics.8 The proposals that Baggott identifies as “fairy-tale physics” are the stuff of popular science writing: string theory, supersymmetry, M-theory, Many Worlds and the Multiverse, the Holographic Principle and so on. Some of the perspectives that Baggott seeks to chastise are also amongst those enthusiastically and breathlessly expounded by Gefter. The term ‘metaphysics’ is, according to many, notoriously difficult to define. Originally the term was used simply to indicate the works of Aristotle which he wrote after his works which purported to deal with purely ‘physical’ phenomena. The philosopher Peter van Inwagen describes the Aristotelian notion of metaphysics: Metaphysics is about things that do not change. In one place, Aristotle identifies the subject matter of first philosophy as “being as such,” and, in another, as “first causes.” It is a nice—and vexed—question what the connection between these two definitions is. Perhaps this is the answer: The unchanging first causes have nothing but being in common with the mutable things they cause—like us and the objects of our experience...9 Thus we see that originally the term ‘metaphysics’ denoted the exploration and description of the deep, core, fundamental structures of reality, at the very deepest level it has to do with the unchanging ‘stuff’ of reality which gives rise to the changing phenomena of our experiential world. Furthermore, it is clearly essential that metaphysics also elucidates the relationship between ‘pure being’ and the phenomena that arise from its changeless essence. In Buddhist Yogācāra terminology, as we have seen, ‘pure being’ is dharmata, and the manifested phenomena are dharmas. Today, however, the metaphysical task has been handed over to physics, despite Baggott’s mistaken notions. We shall see that Baggott’s rigid distinction between physics and metaphysics is mistaken. Indeed, the significant physicist Abner Shimony referred to the experimental investigation of the deepest quantum layer of reality accessible to us, in experiments of Bell-type inequalities, precisely as “experimental metaphysics.”10 In this case, then, wherein physics investigates and describes the deepest quantum level of reality, we see that physics dissolves into metaphysics. Indeed, there is a fuzzy, hazy boundary between physics and metaphysics. And, furthermore, it is important to be cognisant of the fact that originally physics was based on a metaphysical commitment to materialism, a commitment which its own development has now crucially undermined. The notion that physics and metaphysics can be sharply separated is, then, mistaken. Furthermore, the notion that it is invalid to draw metaphysical conclusions, such as that of the Anthropic Principle, on the basis of the evidence of physics and the other sciences is equally misguided. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 818 Baggott’s use of the term ‘metaphysics’ is not of the Aristotelian kind. His use has more to do with the use of the term by the twentieth century ‘logical positivists’, for whom the meaning of a scientific statement consisted entirely in the predictions it made about possible experience, and any statements which went beyond such statements were asserted to be meaningless ‘metaphysical’ statements. Baggott claims that: There is as yet no observational or experimental evidence for many of the concepts of contemporary theoretical physics, such a super-symmetric particles, superstrings, the multiverse, the universe as information, the holographic principle, or the anthropic cosmological principle. For some of the wilder speculations of the theorists there can by definition never be any such evidence.11 However, whilst it may be the case that “some of the wilder speculations” are completely devoid of evidential backing, it can be shown that this is not true of the Anthropic Principle. In fact the opposite is the case, there is overwhelming evidence for an anthropic principle, which asserts that the development of sentience and consciousness is a primary and fundamental feature of the process of reality. In his chapter on the Anthropic Principle, Baggott clearly indicates that he rules out the Anthropic Principle purely on the grounds of what is called the ‘Copernican Principle’, which is the dogmatic assertion that the universe cannot be Anthropic. This assertion is not based on any evidential grounds. Baggott indicates that he is uneasy with the fact that the Anthropic Principle clearly has religious and spiritual implications. But Baggott presents no evidence which counters or undermines the Anthropic Principle, he simply dogmatically rules it out as being unscientific in principle. The ‘Copernican Principle’ is named after the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who realized that the Earth is not the center of the solar system, as was thought at the time, but, rather, the Sun has that central role. It is thought by supporters of the Copernican Principle that the erroneous notion of the Earth being the center was an example of the people at the time overestimating their own importance, rather than just making a mistake based upon the evidence available at the time. Supporters of the Copernican Principle claim that any assertion which seems to privilege human life in any way must be considered anti-scientific, whatever the evidence. When applied to the Anthropic Principle, the Copernican Principle has become a dogmatic decision on the part of a large section of the scientific community to disregard, and even suppress by nefarious means, evidence suggesting that consciousness is not only a primary feature of the process of reality, but also has a role in creating what appears to be the ‘material’ world and the sentient organisms within it. Baggott describes the Copernican Principle (or prejudice): The universe is not organized for our benefit and we are not uniquely privileged observers. Science strives to remove ‘us’ from the centre of the picture, making our existence a natural consequence of reality rather than the reason for it. Empirical reality is therefore something that we have learned to observe with detachment, without passion. Scientists ask fundamental questions about how reality works and seek answers in the evidence from observation and experiment, irrespective of their own personal preferences, prejudices and beliefs.12 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 819 The problem with this presentation, however, is that it seems to suggest that a failure to “remove ‘us’ from the centre of the picture” is a result of a lack of detachment, a pandering to “personal preferences, prejudices and beliefs.” But nothing can be further from the truth, as Roger Penrose has pointed out with regard to the relationship between quantum theory and consciousness: Quantum theory was not wished upon us by theorists. It was (for the most part) with great reluctance that they found themselves driven to this strange and, in many ways, philosophically unsatisfying view of the world.13 The early explorers of the quantum realm did not consciously seek to erect some form of mystically inspired physical theory, to begin with they were shocked by their discoveries. However, the evidence moved towards an inescapable endpoint, as master quantum physicist John Wheeler, toward the end of his life, concluded: The Question is what is the Question? Is it all a Magic Show? Is Reality an Illusion? What is the framework of the Machine? Darwin’s Puzzle: Natural Selection? Where does Space-Time come from? Is there any answer except that it comes from consciousness? What is Out There? T’is Ourselves?14 Physicist Anton Zeilinger has written in appreciation of Wheeler’s: …realisation that the implications of quantum physics are so far-reaching that they require a completely novel approach in our view of reality and in the way we see our role in the universe. This distinguishes him from many others who in one way or another tried to save pre-quantum viewpoints, particularly the obviously wrong notion of a reality independent of us.15 So, whereas Baggott claims that we must keep ‘US’ out of the scientific picture whatever the evidence, Wheeler and Zeilinger claim that the evidence of quantum physics indicates the central significance of ‘US’ in the process of reality. And they are not alone, physicist and philosopher Bernard d’Espagnat, for another example, writes that: The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment. 16 There is a dramatic amount of evidence that consciousness is fundamentally significant in the process of reality and the evolution of life and the universe. In other words Wheeler and others have drawn the conclusion, based upon quantum theory and the fact of a seemingly miraculous fine-tuning of physical parameters, that ‘US’ or some form of intelligence is somehow involved in the evolution of life and the universe. One example of spectacular fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe is the generation of carbon in the process of stellar nucleosynthesis. The cosmologist Fred Hoyle famously stated in this context: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 820 Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule? A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and bio logy, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”17 The notion of a “super-calculating intellect,” of course, moves us in the direction of theism. However this is not a necessity in the Anthropic context, Wheeler, for instance, thought of the process of the self-production of the universe as being the result of the intersubjective collective perceptual activities of all sentient beings: Directly opposite to the concept of universe as machine built on law is the vision of a world self-synthesized. On this view, the notes struck out on a piano by the observer participants of all times and all places, bits though they are in and by themselves, constitute the great wide world of space and time and things.18 In order to graphically represent this perspective Wheeler employed his ‘self-perceiving universe image (figure 1), in this case the self-perceiving U does represent ‘US’. In this context it is worth pointing out that the Anthropic Principle, a term coined in 1974 by the theoretical physicist Brandon Carter, is often misrepresented as being the claim that it is solely human life that is the end point of the anthropic process, rather than sentient life in general. As the philosopher Nick Bostrom has pointed out: Figure 1 The term “anthropic” is a misnomer. Reasoning about selection effects has nothing to do with homo sapiens, but rather with observers in general. Carter himself regrets not having chosen a better name.19 It is also necessary to point out the distinction between the so-called Weak Anthropic Principle which simply states that the universe we find ourselves in must be anthropic because we exist, but it might have been otherwise, and the Strong Anthropic Principle which asserts that it is the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 821 very nature of the universe to be Anthropic. On this view, life and sentience are the reason for the universe’s existence, so to speak, and there is an innate intelligence and fundamental awareness and internal consciousness which unfolds within the process of the evolution of life and the universe. However, there is a deep reluctance, verging on a dogmatic prejudice, against allowing such evidence to be entertained because the implications, especially in the sphere of spirituality, are significant and important. And this antagonism has been enshrined in the so-called ‘Copernican Principle’ which has been elevated by some to an inviolable principle of the scientific method. Baggott for example writes: I don’t think we need to waste time debating whether the strong anthropic principle, or indeed any similarly structured principle, is scientific. Any structure designed to completely overturn the Copernican Principle and restore some kind of privileged status to intelligent observers (be they human or not) goes against the grain of nearly five hundred years of scientific practice.20 However, in making such a sweeping and dogmatic statement Baggott is clearly ignoring the most crucial feature of the scientific method which is that, as Baggott himself writes in his book, scientists should “seek answers in the evidence from observation and experiment, irrespective of their own personal preferences, prejudices and beliefs.”21 There is, however, absolutely no “evidence from observation and experiment” which supports the Copernican Principle, it is much more akin to “personal preferences, prejudices and beliefs.”22 As Brandon Carter pointed out about the Copernican Dogma: Unfortunately there has been a strong (not always subconscious) tendency to extend this to a most questionable dogma to the effect that our situation cannot be privileged in any sense.23 The evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin stated a particularly egregious version of the Copernican Principle which indicates that materialism must be adhered to, whatever the evidence against it, in order to further science’s supposed intellectual war with religion: Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.24 Lewontin, like Baggott, seems oblivious to the scientific requirement to take observations and evidence seriously. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 822 This antagonism towards any evidence which points towards the fundamental and innate presence of awareness, consciousness, intelligence and design (not necessarily of a theistic nature) in the evolution and development of life and the universe runs very deep in some Western intellectual cadres. It derives from certain political, social and academic forces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forces which favoured materialist Darwinism in the face of any contrary evidence. In the most extreme form it manifests in the ridiculous strident and pugilistic assertions of crude materialism and crude Darwinian fundamentalism as displayed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and friends. But the intellectually undermining influence of academic materialism, crude or subtle, permeates and exercises an influence upon a great deal of modern intellectual, academic and popular culture, thus the great popular taste for the writings of Dawkins, even though his many of his metaphysical claims can be shown to be dubious. Such is the pervasiveness of this fundamentalist materialism that it pervades works such as Gefter’s TEL, even though the very metaphysical accounts conveyed to Gefter by various physicists are entirely contrary to any materialist account of the process of reality. In Gefter’s hands they are sanitised for the materialist cause by Gefter’s stubborn refusal to figure out that the notion of an ‘observer’ without the presence of consciousness is absurdly incoherent. Gefter appears to have a detailed understanding of the groovy, weird and wonderful things that current physics indicates about the nature of reality, yet she fails to appreciate that any moderately metaphysically coherent intellect would consider the perspectives described to her by most of the physicists she interviews to be antithetical to any form of materialism. Consider for example, the physical-metaphysical perspective proposed by Wheeler as described by physicist Paul Davies, Gefter writes concerning Wheeler’s notion of “a participatory universe”: If measurements built the universe bit by bit, as Wheeler suspected, then observers were somehow implicated in the creation of reality - a radical picture that, if true, would mean ours was a participatory universe. As the physicist Paul Davies wrote, “Wheeler seeks to … turn the conventional explanatory relationship matter→information →observers on its head, and place observership at the base of the explanatory chain: observers→information→matter … could it somehow be that observers turn nothing into something? The idea seemed impossible from the start, because where would the observers come from? What would even count as an observer? Surely it did not have to be conscious or human … but what?25 The fact that it appears that “measurements built the universe bit by bit” derives from the quantum situation that prior to a “measurement” being carried out by an “observer” there is only a quantum realm of potentiality, which is not a “nothing” - Gefter, like some others, is very slap-dash with some of her terminology regarding the ground quantum state. This quantum realm of potentiality becomes an experienced, and apparently ‘material’, reality when a measurement “collapses” the quantum wavefunction of potentiality. On this view, the activity of a multitude of acts of observation are required to build an experiential-material universe over time. This was Wheeler’s fundamental view. And it is a view which clearly requires the acceptance that observership, and therefore consciousness, is a fundamental and primary aspect of the process of reality. In other words, there must be some kind of internal pressure of “observership,” not fully individuated and conscious at the ground ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 823 level of course, but having the nature of undifferentiated primordial consciousness. The process of the deeper levels of “observership” eventually produces the multitude of sentient organisms which continue to maintain the universe through their observations. Such a view is clearly strongly anthropic. Gefter refers to such an anthropic perspective as “top-down” as opposed to the conventional “bottom-up” approach. It is “top-down” in the sense that, like Mensky's notion of a “LifePrinciple” operating at the quantum level in order to unfold the potentialities for life which are a fundamentally innate aspect of the quantum realm, this perspective requires that we accept that life and consciousness are internal, and primary, aspects of the ground of the process of reality. Gefter writes about this: Anthropic coincidences are problematic for bottom-up cosmology because you are starting with an initial state that’s completely independent of observers; the universe evolves forwards in time until observers like us just happen to arise, a fluky by-product of physics and happenstance. Given random initial conditions some 14 billion years ago, of course we’re scratching our heads and asking, what were the odds that the universe would just happen to have every minute ingredient to cook up the fragile stew of life? Top-down cosmology, on the other hand, doesn’t raise the question … top down cosmology starts with observers … And if you start with life, you are bound to end up with a life-friendly universe. Why an anthropic principle? … Because the universe is observer dependent. Such jewel-toned thoughts about life made me nervous - any theory which relied on humans or consciousness as being some kind of “special” ingredient struck me as crackpot.26 So, here we have it, Gefter dismisses the notion of a top-down development of life and the universe, not on the basis of evidence or cogent reasoning, but, rather, she kind of feels in her bones, so to speak, that such a notion must be “crackpot.” It does not occur to her that, not only does the evidence support this psycho-metaphysical viewpoint, it is also the only logically coherent possibility. The notion that life and consciousness can emerge from entirely lifeless and entirely blankly non-conscious fundamental aspects of reality is absolutely logically incoherent and therefore definitely “crackpot.” At the same time as Gefter revels in the frisson of an “observer-dependent” reality, she, as we shall see, also, inconsistently, supports the current academic prevalence of crude materialist dogma. Like many others she seems to be incapable of drawing obvious conclusions because of a preformed dogmatic prejudice concerning any viewpoint which draws spiritual conclusions from the modern discoveries on the part of physics. Bizarre and contradictory it may be but, at the same time as she seems to support her father’s view that the universe is some kind of illusion generated from a “homogeneous state” of “nothingness” (which itself is a misuse of the term “nothingness” which should mean absolute zilch – not even a glimmer of potentiality), and that the process of reality and the universe is “observer-dependent,” she also upholds the materialist worldview, supporting a crude materialist Darwinism. Gefter also holds to the view that consciousness has nothing to do with the fundamental observer-dependency of the universe. In her worldview consciousness is asserted to be generated by material brain processes: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 824 Wheeler thinks that consciousness could be the criterion for an observer, but that's obviously bullshit. I mean, consciousness is just a physical process in the brain. It’s not magic.27 This means that, in her universe, which she asserts is “observer-dependent,” observation can take place without the presence or activity of consciousness. According to Gefter: It was also clear that we needed to give careful consideration to the meaning and role of “observers” in general. Both relativity and quantum theory had changed the role that observers played in physics – not observers as humans or conscious creatures, but observers as in points of view.28 Such bizarre formulations indicate the remarkable philosophical incompetence on Gefter’s part. The notion of free-floating “points of view,” having no reference to any kind of experiential substrate able to experience and be aware of the “point of view” is incoherent. This claim elevates the notion of a “point of view” to an elementary feature of the process of reality, a claim which is philosophically unacceptable precisely because the concept of a “point of view” requires the experiential medium of consciousness. However, this attempted objectification of the notion of a “point of view” indicates what is going on here. This move amounts to what Zeilinger calls an attempt to “save pre-quantum viewpoints, particularly the obviously wrong notion of a reality independent of us.”29 In the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century mind and consciousness were removed from the scientific description because of not being amenable to mathematical quantification. Subsequently the notion of consciousness became problematic and, due to the remarkable achievements of the scientific method in investigating, harnessing and controlling the phenomena of material reality, it was assumed that matter was the ultimate substance and consciousness was considered to be derivative. Consciousness, then, was simply assumed to be irrelevant to any ultimate description of the process of reality. This assumption, however, was overturned within the quantum revolution wherein consciousness was shown to have a subtle interconnection with the quantum realm, interacting with it in order to produce experienced ‘material’ reality. As physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner write in their book Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness: …physics’ encounter with consciousness, demonstrated for the small, applies to everything. And that ‘everything’ can include the entire Universe.30 This indicates the primary nature of consciousness. However, resistance to this conclusion is still prevalent amongst a rearguard community of adherents to the metaphysical worldview of materialism, and in order to “save the appearances” of this outmoded worldview adherents simply rearrange language to suit their purposes. Thus “points of view” become active agents on their own behalf, having, according to Gefter’s up-side-down and inside-out perspective, no connection with consciousness. Gefter writes: “Observers” didn’t mean people, and “observer-dependency” didn’t mean subjective. But I could imagine how it could all be misconstrued.31 But, as we shall see, Wheeler did mean “people” (and animals). It might be true that the universe is not entirely subjective, Wheeler’s perspective requires us to consider it to be an intersubjective ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 825 creation. However, Gefter’s absurd misconstrual here is the confident, and mistaken, assertion that “observers” and “observer-dependency” have nothing to do with consciousness. Gefter has great admiration for Wheeler, praising his poetic approach to exploring some of the deepest mysteries of physics and existence, but at the same time she is wary of his views on the issue of the agency of consciousness. Wheeler asserted that the universe has been built up, bit by bit, from the quantum “smoky haze of possibility” (not “nothingness”) by acts of observation made by sentient beings. Gefter observes: But what exactly did Wheeler mean by an observer? Without careful clarification observer was a dirty word. … Wheeler himself acknowledged the problem. “Any exploration of the concept of ‘observer’ and the closely associated notion of ‘consciousness’ is destined to come to a bad end in an infinite mystical morass,” he wrote. And yet at times he teetered dangerously on the banks of the morass, his view of observers skewed far more towards minds than rods or clocks.32 And it is true that Wheeler did tread a very fine line, it may even be said that at earlier times in his career he hedged his bets, and it is interesting and illuminating to consider why this might have been the case. In a 1983 article Law Without Law, wherein he described the delayed choice experiment, which demonstrates how an observation can determine the nature of reality backwards in time, Wheeler wrote the following observations: We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening.33 And: Many investigators, believing that the greatest insights are to be won from nature’s strangest features are … giving fresh coverage of the strange “observer-participancy” forced to our attention by the quantum.34 And: Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say the world exists “out there” independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld. There is a strange sense in which this is a “participatory universe.”35 And: Is the term “big bang” merely a shorthand way to describe the cumulative consequence of billions upon billions of elementary acts of observer-participancy reaching back into the past...36 And: Yes, oh universe, without you I would not have been able to come into being. Yet you, great system, are made of phenomena; and every phenomena rests on an act of observation. You could never even exist without elementary acts of registration such as mine.37 And: Beyond particles, beyond fields of force, beyond geometry, beyond space and time ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 826 themselves, is the ultimate constituent the still more ethereal act of observerparticipancy?38 And yet, despite these stirring and repeated assertions of the “observer-participatory” nature of the universe, Wheeler also asserted in this article that: We cannot speak in these terms without a caution … The caution: “Consciousness” has nothing to do with the quantum process. We are dealing with an event which makes itself known by an irreversible act of amplification, by an indelible record, an act of registration.39 But one must ask in this context: how does Wheeler know this? What possible result or results of quantum experimentation validate this conclusion? None! If observer-participation is clearly required for the manifestation of the universe, and the most natural assumption is that observation is a phenomenon that requires consciousness, then the most obvious conclusion is that consciousness is implicated. So why does Wheeler, in this 1983 article, issue such a stern warning? In order to appreciate a possible answer it is useful to look into the intellectual climate and expectations within the physics establishment at that time and the years preceding. Rosenblum and Kuttner are physicists who have no doubt about the connection between consciousness and the quantum ground of reality: Consciousness and the quantum enigma are not just two mysteries; they are the two mysteries; first, our physical demonstration of the quantum enigma, faces us with the fundamental mystery of the objective world ‘out there;’ the second, conscious awareness, faces us with the fundamental mystery of the subjective, mental world ‘in here.’ Quantum mechanics seems to connect the two.40 They also indicate the intellectual climate of mainstream physics since the 1950’s, extending down to recent times: In physics departments a conforming mindset increasingly meant that an untenured faculty member might endanger a career by serious interest in the fundamentals of quantum physics. Even today it is best to explore the meaning of quantum mechanics while also working a ‘day job’ on a mainstream physics topic.41 In his excellent book How the Hippies Saved Physics David Kaiser indicates that in the 1960’s and 70’s physics in the United States was a conservative profession not enamored of metaphysical speculation or research. The general attitude amongst working physicists was that of “shut up and calculate,” the idea being that it was the practical results of research that mattered, and speculation about exactly what quantum theory implied about the metaphysical nature of reality was to be avoided. The ethos was very different to that which held sway during the early development of quantum theory when discussions between Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and the other ‘founding fathers’ were replete with puzzled philosophical speculations as to what the weird behaviour of the quantum realm might actually indicate about the nature of reality. Kaiser observes that later in the United States: The quarter century during which this Cold War style reigned witnessed an extraordinary buildup of calculating skill. At the same time, an intellectual trade-off slipped by unnoticed, with wide-ranging implications. For every additional calculation of baroque ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 827 complexity that physics students tackled during the 1950’s and 1960’s, they spent correspondingly less time puzzling through what all of those fancy equations meant, what they implied about the world of electrons and atoms. The fundamental strangeness of quantum reality had been leeched out.42 Interest in quantum philosophical and metaphysical issues was a fringe activity. Later, however, this anti-metaphysical attitude changed. The Fundamental Fysiks Group (FFG) was founded in San Francisco in May 1975 by two physicists, Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann, at the time both graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. The group held informal discussions on Friday afternoons to explore the philosophical implications of quantum theory. Leading members included Fritjof Capra, John Clauser, Philippe Eberhard, Nick Herbert, Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Henry Stapp, and Fred Alan Wolf. According to Kaiser: The ways and means of being a physicist came unmoored in a way they hadn’t been for two generations. No longer would the attitude of “shut up and calculate” hold sway unchecked. Sitting around the large conference table at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with few other demands on their time, they sought to recapture the sense of excitement, wonder, and mystery that had attracted them to physics in the first place, just as it had animated the founders of quantum mechanics.43 Amongst this fringe group an interest in connections between quantum phenomena, consciousness and psychic phenomena was central, figure 2 shows a ‘roadmap’ drawn out by a member of the group for their research and metaphysical explorations. Jack Sarfatti was one of the few physicists who was very enthusiastic about Wheeler’s metaphysical speculations at that time. He wrote: In my opinion, the quantum principle involves mind in an essential way …. the structure of matter may not be independent of consciousness. Some component in the quantum probability involves the turbulent creative sublayer of ideas in the mind of the “participator.”44 Wheeler, however, kept his distance from these wayward fringe physicists. Sarfatti and Wolf were keen to work with Wheeler but Wheeler “politely declined” 45 their requests. So it would seem that Wheeler at that time was keen not to veer too far from academic respectability. It can be seen from the ‘roadmap’ for explorations based on the important implications of quantum entanglement that the FFG were aware that the new emerging quantum worldview might support the existence of phenomena such as ESP and psychokinesis, phenomena that were dogmatically ruled out within a ‘classical’ worldview. They saw the possible implications of an “observercreated world.” Wheeler’s disavowal of the role of consciousness at this time actually lacks credibility as he also wrote in Law Without Law: Are billions upon billions of acts of observer-participancy the foundation of everything? We are about as far as we can be today from knowing enough about the deeper machinery of the universe to answer this question. Increasing knowledge about detail has bought increasing ignorance about plan. The very fact that we can ask such a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 828 strange question shows how uncertain we are about the deeper foundations of the quantum and its ultimate implications.46 In the light of such “uncertainty” about “deeper foundations of the quantum and its ultimate implications” it is difficult to see how Wheeler could be so certain at that time that “Consciousness has nothing to do with the quantum process.” It seems very likely that such statements were made with deference to academic respectability. As we know he later changed his mind on this issue and he connected up the notion of observership with consciousness: Unless the blind dice of mutation and natural selection lead to life and consciousness and observership at some point down the road the universe could not have come into being in the first place...47 Figure 2. The FFG’s ‘Roadmap’ of quantum possibilities for the paranormal. In other words the universe could not come into being without the emergence of “consciousness and observership.” But what Wheeler failed to see, at least at this point, is that life and consciousness must have been already implicit or potential at the point of the big bang, which was actually a quantum fluctuation in a vast quantum field of potentiality, a field that Mensky terms the ‘Alterverse’ – the vast pool of possible alternative histories of the universe. Furthermore, because consciousness is involved in the unfolding of the universe, the process cannot be driven by “the blind dice of mutation and natural selection.” The materialist Darwinian worldview is entirely out of place in Wheeler’s quantum psycho-metaphysics, as we have seen in a previous Wheeler quote he indicated that “Darwin’s Puzzle: Natural Selection … comes from consciousness.” And in this case the kind of “natural selection” involved cannot be the random “blind watchmaker” variety, for the unfolding of life requires that consciousness ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 829 steers in the direction of life through some sort of quantum ‘look-ahead’ mechanism such as Mensky’s ‘postcorrection’ mechanism. Wheeler described the meaning of his “universe as a self-excited circuit” graphic image (figure 1) as follows: Beginning with the big bang, the universe expands and cools. After eons of dynamic development it gives rise to observership. Acts of observer-participancy – via the mechanism of the delayed choice experiment – in turn give tangible “reality” to the universe not only now but back to the beginning. To speak of the universe as a selfexcited circuit is to imply once more a participatory universe.48 And the caption for the image is: Starting small (thin U at upper right), it grows (loop of U) and in time gives rise (upper left) to observer-participancy – which in turn imparts “tangible reality” … to even the earliest days of the universe.49 Physicist Kip Thorne explained Wheeler’s perspective to Gefter as follows: From a certain point of view, which Wheeler adopts, systems can become classical only when observed. They behave quantum mechanically … until observed, and the observation collapses the wavefunction. So Wheeler conceives of the universe as having been born and having evolved quantum mechanically until it naturally generates life. Then that life performs the observation that collapses the state of the universe to make it classical. It is self-excited in the sense that the observation comes from within the universe, not from the outside.50 Gefter then asks Thorne: “Does it have to be biological life that makes the observation?” and Thorn tells her that this was Wheeler’s view. Wheeler, however, did not at this point seem to be aware that “observer-participancy” could not have suddenly sprang into operation from nowhere, it must have been implicit or potential from the beginning. Furthermore, the mechanism of “observer-participancy” must have been operative in some form even when fully organic beings where not yet fully evolved. In other words the mechanism of self-excitation, self-observation, or self-registration must be a fundamental mechanism employed by a deep non-individuated primordial consciousness, and the employment of this mechanism results in the development and evolution of the universe and the sentient beings it contains. In other words, primordial consciousness is able to individuate through a Wheeler-type mechanism of universal internal self-perception. This Wheeler-type mechanism corresponds in an important way with Mensky’s psycho-metaphysics, in both perspectives evolutionary choices are made through a quantum mechanism involving consciousness from the reference point of a future point in time. And, as we saw in the first chapter the same is true of the quantum metaphysics outlined by Hawking & Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design. Gefter, however, seems dogmatically predisposed to reject notions of consciousness being at all involved in the development of the universe and the sentient life within it: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 830 I couldn’t see how bringing consciousness into the mix could possibly help - not least of all because scientists don’t know what consciousness is. Whatever it is, it’s governed by the same laws of physics and composed of the same particles, fields, or informationtheoretic bits as everything else.51 Here we find Gefter stating her own prejudices, admittedly derived from the deep-seated materialism that pervades so much scientific and academic discourse, as if they were backed by evidence or reasoning, which they are not. Her views on the nature of consciousness are nothing other than materialist dogma. Consciousness cannot be composed of ‘particles’ precisely because particles come into being when consciousness interacts with quantum wavefunctions of potentiality. So consciousness is more fundamental than particles. It may be possible to consider consciousness as a quantum field, but in this case it would be a fundamental quantum field capable of interacting with other quantum fields in creative ways. This would render consciousness as being an essential creative feature of the ‘physical’ world. The quantum cosmologist Andre Linde has mused in this context: Is it possible that consciousness, like spacetime, has its own intrinsic degrees of freedom and that neglecting these will lead to a description of the universe that is fundamentally incomplete? What if our perceptions are as real as (or maybe, in a certain sense, are even more real) than material objects?52 And Linde has also observed: The universe and the observer exist as a pair. ... The moment you say that the universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. A recording device cannot play the role of an observer, because who will read what is written on this recording device? In order for us to see that something happens, and say to one another that something happens, you need to have a universe, you need to have a recording device, and you need to have us. It’s not enough for the information to be stored somewhere, completely inaccessible to anybody. It’s necessary for somebody to look at it. You need an observer who looks at the universe. In the absence of observers, our universe is dead.53 Furthermore, in the absence of conscious observers the universe is only quantum potentiality, no ‘classical’ world exists. Such a viewpoint, which was accepted by several of the ‘founding fathers’ of quantum theory, and is accepted today by scientists such as Linde, Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Henry Stapp, Amit Goswami, Mensky and others, is, it seems, rejected by Gefter without rhyme or reason. Gefter’s claim that most scientists assert that they do not know what consciousness is, on the other hand, true. But the reason for this is that scientists in general approach the phenomenon of consciousness with a ridiculous methodology, expecting to be able to examine it “out there” as if it were some kind of externally existing fluid-like ‘stuff’. This, of course, is not possible. If we want to directly know what consciousness is there is only one way to know, and that is to experience directly through advanced meditation techniques such as exist in the Buddhist tradition. In Buddhist psycho-metaphysics there are levels or degrees of consciousness, which can be directly experienced by advanced meditation techniques. The basic division is that between jnana, which is fundamental nondual consciousness or wisdom-awareness, and vijnana ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 831 or divided, dualistic everyday consciousness. Everyday consciousness is the “glow of the ground of being” 54 manifesting in the dualistic world. The West’s understanding is primitive in comparison to Buddhist psycho-metaphysics. If we require a definition of consciousness, then one derived from Buddhism will suffice. Here is a description of the fundamental nature of mind or consciousness given by the Dalai Lama: The knowing nature, or agency … is called mind and this is non-material … Cognitive events possess the nature of knowing because of the fundamental nature of clarity that underlies all cognitive events. This is … the mind’s fundamental nature, the clear light nature of mind.55 If we want to know where the “clear light nature of mind,” which provides the functionality of knowing and cognizing, arises from then, as Mensky points out: …the phenomena of life and consciousness cannot be mechanistically reduced to the action of the laws of science as they are found in the course of exploring [inanimate] matter. The explanation of these phenomena on the basis of quantum mechanics requires [the] addition of a special independent element to the set of quantum concepts and laws. Such a new element of theory should directly connect quantum concepts with the concepts characteristic of life. The simplest way to find this element is to consider the phenomenon of consciousness and compare it with the description of observation (measurement) in quantum mechanics. 56 The fundamental qualitative aspect of fundamental awareness which manifests as individuated consciousness must reside at the quantum level. As physicist Nick Herbert (one of the members of The Fundamental Fysiks Group) has pointed out: ...every quantum system has both an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’, and … consciousness both in humans as well as in other sentient beings is identical to the inner experience of some quantum system. A quantum system’s outside behavior is described by quantum theory, it’s inside experience is the subject matter of a new ‘inner physics’….57 As Mensky indicates, the required ‘inner physics’ actually already exists within Buddhist psycho-metaphysics. Consciousness is, then, the internal qualitative aspect of the quantum functioning of the ‘ground of being’. According to Buddhist psycho-metaphysics a continuous direct experience of the ground level of awareness is an experience of buddhahood, or enlightenment: When the true face of the ground aspect of buddhahood - a state of purity and mastery of the ground of being … timeless awareness - the innate glow of the ground of being subside into an inner glow whose radiance is directed outwards …58 Advanced Buddhist meditation involves the dissolving of the dualistic everyday levels of the functioning of consciousness and the activation of deeper levels of a more universal consciousness. As Buddhist practitioner-writer B. Alan Wallace has pointed out: This brings us to primordial consciousness, the ultimate level of mind that Buddhists seek to penetrate. The substrate consciousness can be compared to a relative vacuum. It is relatively empty, but still possesses structure and energy, characterized by such attributes as bliss (spiritual joy or rapture), luminosity (an internal radiance), and a muted ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 832 sense of duality between subject and object. Primordial consciousness - characterized as the absolute ground, the most basic state of consciousness - could then be characterized as the absolute vacuum of consciousness. Like the absolute vacuum of modern physics, it entails the lowest possible state of mental activity but the highest possible potential and degree of freedom. Furthermore, whereas the substrate consciousness is conscious of the substrate - the relative inner space or vacuum of the mind - primordial consciousness is indivisibly aware of the absolute space of all phenomena (dharmadhatu), which is beyond the duality of external and internal space. Out of this space emerge all the phenomena that make up all worlds of experience - the whole universe, inside and out, subjective and objective. All appearances of external and internal space, time, matter, and consciousness emerge from the dharmadhatu and consist of nothing other than configurations of this absolute or true vacuum.59 Furthermore, final buddhahood, or complete enlightenment with a continuous awareness of the nondual ground of being, is the endpoint of the evolution and development of a sentient being. Wheeler’s quantum conclusions were entirely consistent with Buddhist psycho-metaphysics. He summarized his conclusions in his article ‘Thoughts on the Origin of Spacetime’ as follows: In what medium does spacetime itself live and move and have its being? Is there any other answer than to say that consciousness brings all of creation into being, as surely as spacetime and matter brought conscious life into being? Is all this great world that we see around us a work of imagination?60 Figure 3 In other words we must conceive of a ground level universal energy-awareness-potentiality, also designated within Buddhism as shunyata, or emptiness (not nothingness) which, through the medium of “spacetime and matter,” “creates” a manifested realm of individuated sentient beings within the apparently material world in order to embody individuated consciousness. Through this process the universe can explore and discover its own meaning (figure 3). Such a viewpoint is suggested by the recent notion of a “self-explaining universe” that the physicist Paul Davies has written about in his book The Goldilocks Enigma: …a good case can be made that life and mind are fundamental physical phenomena, and so must be incorporated into the overall cosmic scheme. One possible line of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 833 evidence for the central role of mind comes from the way in which an act of observation enters into quantum mechanics. It turns out that the observation process conceals a subtle form of teleology.61 Such a universe would necessarily contain organisms that embody the capacity for cognition, which is to say consciousness, precisely because the purpose of ‘self-explanation’, to use Davies’ terminology, or self-cognition, is fundamental to the universe. It is part of the “teleology” of the universe. Quantum physics seems increasingly to point towards the operation of an infinitely fertile universal “imagination,” to use Wheeler’s term, which can actually bring into being an extraordinary appearance of a vast ‘material’ universe containing infinite varieties of consciousness, all of which inhabit an individualized field of meaning-values. As physicist David Bohm pointed out: We can say that human meanings make a contribution to the cosmos, but we can also say that the cosmos may be ordered according to a kind of ‘objective’ meaning. New meanings may emerge in this overall order. That is we may say that meaning penetrates the cosmos, or even what is beyond the cosmos. For example there are current theories in physics that imply that the universe emerged from the ‘big bang’. In the earliest phase there were no electrons, protons, neutrons, or other basic structures. None of the laws that we know would have had any meaning. Even space and time in their present welldefined form would have had no meaning. All of this emerged from a very different state of affairs. The proposal is that, as happens with human beings, this emergence included the creative unfoldment of generalized meaning. 62 Each sentient being is an individualized structure of experiential meaning-values embodied within individualised consciousness, each sentient being embodies a fundamental evolutionary impetus to maximise the overall meaning value of the individualized meaning-matrix, the final endpoint being enlightenment, wherein the limited awareness of a sentient being dissolves into its universal source. This dramatic psycho-metaphysical perspective is articulated within the Buddhist Dzogchen tradition in texts such as You Are the Eyes of the World, composed by the remarkable fourteenth century practitioner-yogi Longchenpa: Listen, because all you beings of the three realms Were made by me, the creativity of the universe, You are my children, equal to me. Because you and I are not separate, I manifest in you.63 This “creativity of the universe” can be seen in what Paul Davies indicates as a quantum “teleology,” an internal purpose, which brings into existence a vast field of individuated sentient beings all of which partake of the infinite capacity of the ultimate source. According to Longchenpa: Out of the state of pure and total presence, the impetus for everything From which come the five great elements whose very being is this state, I, the creativity of the universe, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 834 Arise as teacher, in five forms of pure and total presence.64 These “five teachers,” which are generated by the “creativity of the universe which fashions everything,”65 are earth, water, fire, wind and space, in other words all the factors which make up the material dualistic world of experience. And: If I [the state of pure and total presence which is the creativity of the universe] did not exist, you would not exist. When you do not exist, the five teachers [i.e. the dualistic and material world of experience] also do not come about…66 It is intriguing to compare these observations with some of Wheeler’s, such as: Yes, oh universe, without you I would not have been able to come into being. Yet you, great system, are made of phenomena; and every phenomena rests on an act of observation. You could never even exist without elementary acts of registration such as mine.67 What Wheeler refers to as the “imagination” of a primordial consciousness that “brings all of creation into being,” corresponds precisely to Longchenpa’s “majestic creativity [of the universe] which fashions everything.”68 According to another Buddhist Dzogchen philosopher: In the human context, intelligence reaches into man’s life as his spirituality, constituting itself as human subjectivity. The latter, therefore, is not an immutable essence; rather it is a product of an overall evolutionary force moving in an optimizing direction, thereby enabling the subject to transcend itself by overcoming its limited domains. This force is felt as giving meaning to man’s life and is experienced as having existential significance. 69 In the Buddhist Dzogchen worldview, which is fully in accord with modern physics, we have a remarkable vision of the universe as a meaning-machine, or meaning-organism, using sentient beings both as creative agents and also agents of transcendence reaching towards ever greater vistas of universal meaning-values. This perspective indicates a universal directedness towards ever more universal modes of experience within consciousness, the ultimate experience being ‘enlightenment’. What is enlightenment? It is the direct nonconceptual understanding of the ground of Being by the fundamental cognizant aspect of the ground of Being itself. In other words enlightenment occurs when the ground of Being fully and directly and nonconceptually cognizes, comprehends and understands its own nature through the agency of a sentient human being (assuming that animals cannot become enlightened). This is brilliantly explained in the excellent Dzogchen text Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. The ground of Being is characterized within Dzogchen as an ‘empty’ energy field of potentiality which has an internal spontaneous cognizant quality. The field of potentiality is designated ‘emptiness’ and the internal spontaneous cognizant quality is designated ‘luminosity’ or ‘clarity’. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes: Who then understands emptiness? There is the self-understanding of emptiness by emptiness itself, by the clarity aspect of emptiness that enables understanding by direct ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 835 perception. Understanding is not separate from emptiness. Emptiness understands itself and illuminates itself, ... Herein lies the inseparability of emptiness and clarity; selfunderstanding is self-clarity or self-awareness.70 In Mensky’s terminology we may say that within enlightenment the Alterverse has a direct and full understanding of its own infinite capacity and nature. In Buddhist terminology this is the “ultimate reality intuitive wisdom (dharmadhatu-jnana)”71 by which the dharmadhatu, the ultimate space of phenomena – Mensky’s ‘quantum Alterverse’, directly cognizes its own nature. This vision of enlightenment as the final aim of the process of reality, and the evolution of the universe and sentient beings within it, is a natural endpoint of Wheeler’s quantum psychometaphysics. His self-perceiving universe graphic indicates that as the universe evolves the degree and power of “observership” increases over time. The final and most complete act of observership can only be the omniscient knowledge of the true nature of all phenomena. In this context it is worth pointing out that the kind of ‘omniscience’ within enlightenment suggested by Mensky, wherein an enlightened being has “access to the entire set of parallel worlds,” which is the entire ‘Alterverse’, corresponds to what the Buddhist scholar Sara L. McClintock calls “capacity omniscience”: On this model, which we find articulated … by Vasubandhu, one may be omniscient in the sense that one may attain an unlimited capacity to know whatever one wishes simply by directing one’s attention to the object in question; omniscience is not a matter of knowing all things simultaneously. According to this model, the Buddha may be called “all-knowing” by virtue of the fact of his unlimited capacity to know any knowable thing to which he directs his attention…72 One important aspect of this omniscient capacity is the ability to directly see the rebirth history of any sentient being. Such a view, that the process of evolution is directed towards an omniscient endpoint, has been called by some the Final Anthropic Principle. Quantum researcher David Deutsch, who views the universe as a vast quantum computer, has speculated that in the distant future mankind will form a kind of supermind that will in some sense unite with the universe, forming a god-like entity. He describes the Final Anthropic Principle: In the final anthropic principle or if anything like an infinite amount of computation taking place is going to be true, which I think is highly plausible one way or another, then the universe is heading towards something that might be called omniscience. ... But yes, there’s something like that, the concept that we’ve found that is most like a religious concept is providence. The fine-tuning of the universe, whatever it’s due to, is very like providence. But again, the role that this providence plays in physics is very different from the role that religious providence plays in religion, because in religion providence is supposed to be an explanation for why things are as they are. And that’s no good, because you’ve got to explain why providence did this and it just makes matters worse not better. In thinking about fine-tuning and trying to explain it, what we’re looking for is something that explains the fine-tuning. In other words, providence is not a proposed solution, it’s an interesting problem, which is going to be explained by something else, if at all.73 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 836 However, the notion that the universe is merely a computational machine is yet again a manifestation of the materialist prejudice which seeks to undermine the notion that consciousness is a primary and the fundamental driving force of the process of reality. As Gyatrul Rinpoche has pointed out: Today people tend to spend many hours working on computers rather than gaining the inner quality of experiential realization. A computer may have a tremendous amount of information loaded onto it, but we have yet to see a computer that has obtained liberation or omniscience.74 It is the primordial consciousness of the process of reality that becomes omniscient of its own nature with the ‘achievement’ of enlightenment by a sentient being. Because, like many scientists, Deutsch has a mistrust of religious metaphysics he rejects the obvious conclusion that the fundamental existence of a primordial field of non-individuated awareness is a “providential” given. Just as we cannot go beyond the fact of the existence of the eternal quantum fields underlying the process of reality, so too, we cannot go beyond the fact of the “providential” existence of primordial awareness or nondual awareness-consciousness. Deutsch’s perspective clearly strays into the realm of religion, and it seems to correspond in essence with Buddhist perspectives and it also reiterates the psycho-metaphysical perspective of the great twentieth century French Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who postulated that the process of the universe was directed towards a collective omniscient endpoint he called the “Omega Point.” In his book The Phenomenon of Man he wrote: … evolution is an ascent towards consciousness… Therefore it should culminate forwards in some sort of supreme consciousness. But must not that consciousness, if it is to be supreme, contain in the highest degree what is the perfection of our consciousness – the illuminating involution of the being upon itself.75 This notion that the “supreme consciousness” results when individuated consciousness directly cognizes its own nature is remarkably close to the Buddhist view. However, de Chardin, similar to Deutsch, suggested that the final endpoint of the process of the universe resides at a distant future point in a super-personal universal collective consciousness: The very centre of our consciousness, deeper than all its radii; that is the essence which Omega, if it is to be truly Omega, must reclaim. And this essence is obviously not something of which we can dispossess ourselves for the benefit of others as we might give away a coat or pass on a torch. For we are the very flame of that torch. To communicate itself, my ego must subsist through abandoning itself or the gift will fade away. The conclusion is inevitable that the concentration of a conscious universe would be unthinkable if it did not reassemble in itself all consciousnesses as well as all the conscious; each particular consciousness remaining conscious of itself at the end of the operation, and even … each particular consciousness becoming still more itself and thus more clearly distinct the closer it gets to them in Omega76. According to the psycho-metaphysical perspective presented by de Chardin, then, the Omega endpoint is one in which each individuated consciousness “abandons” its limited ego centered perspective, and in so doing it both becomes more fully “still more itself” whilst at the same time becoming co-extensive with all other consciousnesses. Whilst this view initially appears consistent and coherent with Buddhist psycho-metaphysics, it is in fact far more akin to the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 837 Hindu notion of a substantial universal self (Atman-Brahman). Buddhism, apart, perhaps, for the Jonang school, denies such a substantialist-idealist point of view. De Chardin referred to “the primacy accorded to the psychic and to thought in the stuff of the universe.”77 The ultimate dependency upon consciousness of the apparently external material world is also clearly indicated by physicist Wojciech Zurek when he writes that the: “ultimate evidence for the choice of one alternative resides in our illusive “consciousness”. 78 But Zurek also tells us that at the level of the everyday world consciousness seems to have little impact. Quantum experimentation has shown without question that at the level of a single quantum state consciousness influences the ‘choice’ of which alternative reality comes into being. However, at the same time it also appears that on the large scale of the structures of the everyday world individuated consciousness has no choice, the material world seems to exist under its own momentum. This apparently independent weight of the apparently ‘external’ world of materiality is maintained, according to Zurek, by the phenomenon of ‘decoherence’. According to Zurek there is a kind of quantum template of the material world which “advertises” itself by producing a multitude of copies which are accessed by the conscious-nesses of all sentient beings. He likens this vast ‘template’ as a quantum “advertising billboard” which “decoheres” quantum states under its own momentum. In his “quantum Darwinism” proposal Zurek suggests that the quantum “advertising billboard” springs into existence advertising classical reality when quantum correlations become “robust enough”: The main idea of quantum Darwinism is that we almost never do any direct measurement on anything … the environment acts as a witness, or as a communication channel. … It is like a big advertising billboard, which floats multiple copies of the information about our universe all over the place.79 In other words there is a kind of quantum ‘matrix’ of the classical ‘material’ world which has become resistant to obliteration through the process of observation, it “floats” so many copies of itself all over the quantum environment that it becomes the source of the apparent ‘objectivity’ of the classical world. Zurek explains the emergence of “objectivity” from “intersubjectivity” to Gefter as follows: My view of reality has to do with what philosophers call intersubjectivity. That’s what quantum Darwinism is all about. Reality is what we agree on. In that sense it’s what’s invariant. But that invariance – and hence, quantum reality – is not fundamental, it’s emergent and approximate.80 And: To understand objectivity. In a quantum universe we do not measure anything directly. If I were to make a direct measurement of a system, I could disturb its state. But I never do that, because usually the environment does the measuring for me. It decides on the set of states that get found out and get disseminated, and I never interact with the system directly, I just use the environment as a witness. The observer gets hold of the information that is already advertised all over the place.81 In this discussion Zurek makes a distinction between the “advertising billboard,” which is the quantum template of the universe that “floats” copies of itself “all over the place,” and the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 838 environment which acts as a “communication channel” which conveys quantum information about the template to observers. In this way the original “advertising billboard” does not get disturbed. On this view, ‘decoherence’ is the way that the “advertising billboard” maintains itself in the quantum environment and the “quantum Darwinism” extra is the notion of the environment acting as a “witness” in conveying information to observers, as Zurek explains: Quantum Darwinism goes beyond decoherence. It recognizes that we don’t measure anything directly. We just find out from the environment.82 As Gefter points out, this view eliminates Wheeler’s notion of observer-dependency because the maintenance of the “intersubjective” “objective” world becomes the responsibility of decoherence, the “environment” then conveys the information to the observer, so the observer is isolated from the quantum template of the material world. Zurek replies that: Usually the measurement is done for you by the environment. But there are situations in which you deal with quantum systems hands-on. In that case, the choice is up to you how you want to set up your apparatus and decide what you’re going to measure.83 Thus it appears that Zurek erects a rigid division between the case wherein quantum experiments are performed to demonstrate the “ultimate” dependency upon consciousness, and the case of the everyday material world which appears, in this presentation, to be entirely independent of consciousness. So Zurek’s viewpoint does indeed appear to undermine Wheeler’s “participatory universe.” Although Zurek says that: “the Universe is quantum to the core,” he seems hell bent on giving it a fully classical demeanor, by isolating his quantum “advertising billboard” from the tampering effects of conscious observation. Zurek’s approach, then, seems to eliminate the operation of consciousness. As John Campbell, in his article Quantum Darwinism as a Darwinian process, says of Zurek’s work: Hopefully this treatment will finally lay to rest the interpretational confusion around the role of a human observer in quantum measurements that has been prevalent in many treatments and taken to anthropomorphic extremes by some such as Wigner. Zurek’s work makes it clear that decoherence takes place whenever there is an information transfer to the environment. No human observer need be in attendance.84 Eugene Wigner was a quantum physicist who was entirely convinced of the necessity of the quantum operation of consciousness: When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena, through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again: it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness. All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions (also called “apperceptions”) of the consciousness, and even though the dividing line between the observer, whose consciousness is being affected, and the observed physical object can be shifted towards the one or the other to a considerable degree, it cannot be eliminated. It may be premature to believe that the present philosophy of quantum mechanics will remain a permanent feature of future physical theories; it will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 839 concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.85 Campbell’s desperate rush to dismiss the efficacy of consciousness on the basis of Zurek’s treatment is, however, mistaken. Zurek’s presentation is only a partial picture. Physicist Erich Joos has pointed out: Does decoherence solve the measurement problem? Clearly not. What decoherence tells us, is that certain objects appear classical when they are observed. But what is an observation? At some stage, we still have to apply the usual probability rules of quantum theory.86 And Dieter Zeh: Decoherence by itself does not yet solve the measurement problem … This argument is nonetheless found widespread in the literature … It does seem that the measurement problem can only be resolved if the Schrödinger dynamics … is supplemented by a nonunitary collapse…87 Zurek’s account is deficient, it does not, for instance, address the issue of the probabilities within quantum theory. And neither does it give an account of how the quantum “advertising billboard” came into being. At the point of the big bang there was only a vast set of quantum possibilities and no established “advertising billboard,” so where did it come from? If Zurek really considers that his “view of reality has to do with what philosophers call intersubjectivity” and “Reality is what we agree on,”88 then should not the “advertising billboard” also be intersubjective in true Wheeler-type sense? However, apparently Wheeler had problems reconciling himself with a quantum metaphysics which involved multiple observers. The problem is highlighted by the quantum conundrum of “Wigner’s Friend,” a thought experiment concocted by Wigner. If ‘Wigner’s friend’ collapses the wavefunction of an atom inside a laboratory, then from the point of view of the friend both atom and friend are not in a state of quantum superposition. But from Wigner’s point of view, standing outside the lab, both atom and friend are in a state of quantum superposition. So it seems that when we look at the situation involving multiple observers a contradiction arises. As Gefter writes: Wigner took the paradox to mean that consciousness plays some special role in physics – that while atoms and photographic plates … could be in superpositions, conscious people could not.89 So Wheeler too was forced to accept a special role for consciousness. Gefter writes: Wheeler was stuck. The only way to have multiple observers living in the same universe without having to give up the observer’s ability to create reality was to afford some special role for consciousness, however reluctant he was to do it. That opened up a host of bizarre but unavoidable questions “What level of consciousness?” “Does a worm qualify?” “What about household appliances?”90 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 840 Figure 4. Wigner's friend Gefter’s absurd quip about “household appliances” is irrelevant because they are not sentient beings. Quips such as these simply indicate that the author has given up using coherent reasoning and is resorting to attempted sarcasm. A worm, on the other hand, is a sentient being, although the level of consciousness of such an organism is clearly very low, in fact its level is likely to be virtually unconscious and automatic. This indicates a problem with Western concepts of consciousness and unconsciousness when viewed from a Buddhist perspective. For Buddhist psycho-metaphysics what the West calls the ‘unconscious’ is still a state of consciousness, although it is not accompanied (usually) by self-awareness. Within Buddhist psycho-metaphysics even dreamless sleep is a state of consciousness, it is the clear light mind. For ordinary human beings this state is a state of blankness, but advanced Buddhist practitioners can achieve self-awareness even within the clear light mind of deep sleep. Gefter’s quip about the worm, which is clearly an attempt at irony which she thinks indicates the silliness of the notion that consciousness has an important role in the creation of the universe, can be easily defused. All sentient beings, even worms which have barely a glimmer of sentience, are animated by the primordial consciousness of the process of reality. It is this primordial consciousness which creates sentient beings and their environments and then acts through sentient beings to maintain the universe and evolve the sentient beings within it towards greater levels of self-awareness. The phenomenon of the ‘collapse of the wavefunction’ is not necessarily evidence that all sentient beings are individually creating reality by beaming single rays of consciousness, so to speak, at quantum wavefunctions, but, rather, it indicates that a deep level of primordial consciousness is operating through the community of sentient beings of all levels of consciousness in order to “create” the process of reality. Thus the “intersubjective” creation of the universe is coherently coordinated by a deep level of primordial consciousness. In this way primordial consciousness acts upon the quantum potentialities in order to produce a coherent world of manifestation. This is the origin of Zurek’s ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 841 quantum “advertising billboard.” And from the point of view of individual sentient beings individual consciousness has little individual impact upon the edifice of the apparently material world precisely because it is an intersubjective collective creation generated by primordial consciousness, eventually acting through the agency of all sentient beings. So, although Zurek is correct when he says that “there is every indication that the choice occurs much before” consciousness gets involved, this remark applies to individual consciousness. This does not detract from the fact that ultimately primordial consciousness, acting through the collective agency of sentient beings, orchestrates the process. Gefter, however, is antagonistic to such notions: Why drag consciousness into it all? I wondered. Wheeler knew it was a mystical morass, and that one gap in understanding couldn’t be plugged by another. Observers, sure – but why not stick with Einsteinian observers, just reference frames, coordinate systems, rods and clocks? … the observer, conscious or not, had to be built out of ordinary physics, not fairy dust.91 The answer to Gefter’s question about why Wheeler was drawn to the notion of the significance of consciousness perhaps lies in the fact that Wheeler was probably aware that “reference frames, coordinate systems, rods and clocks” are not the kind of things which are capable of observing, observations require consciousness. As to the final “fairy dust” remark, the employment of prejudicial language does not count as evidence or reasoning. What ultimately is “ordinary physics?” It certainly is not the classical physics of ‘matter’. Quantum fields are immaterial fields of potentiality, and evidence and reasoning indicates they are animated by a primordial quantum consciousness. The tactic of using insulting language rather than coherent argument has a hallowed tradition in the materialist academic camp. It is possible that Gefter took inspiration for her use of the term “fairy dust” from the ardent materialist Patricia Churchland who tried to pour scorn on the Penrose-Hameroff proposal concerning consciousness and quantum coherence in brain microtubules: Pixie dust in the synapses is about as explanatorily powerful as quantum coherence in the microtubules.92 However, evidence is now emerging that Penrose and Hameroff may be correct to some extent.93 Churchland, like many ardent materialists, seems to think that concocting insults, without bothering with evidence and reasoning, against viewpoints they dislike constitutes an argument. Gefter seems to have inherited this materialist trait. Gefter interviews a few other significant physicists and philosophers, there is no need to cover all of them. The crucial issue we are concerned with is Gefter’s treatment of the notion of the significant role of consciousness in the creation of the dualistic world and her attitude, as well as the attitude of some others, to the Anthropic Principle and religion. In the second chapter of TEL she writes concerning the Physics and Ultimate Reality symposium that she gatecrashed, posing as a science journalist, that: Throughout the symposium. There had been a giant elephant in the room: the anthropic principle. ... Anthropic had become a four letter word because it veered uncomfortably ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 842 close to religion … as if the universe, somehow, were built just for us.94 Gefter has little patience with religion, she has pitched her intellectual tent with the anti-religion materialist camp. Thus in a piece published in The New Scientist entitled “How to spot a hidden religious agenda” she wrote: As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to… well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I’d share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science’s clothing. Red flag number one: the term “scientific materialism”. “Materialism” is most often used in contrast to something else – something nonmaterial, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not. The invocation of Cartesian dualism – where the brain and mind are viewed as two distinct entities, one material and the other immaterial – is also a red flag. And if an author describes the mind, or any biological system for that matter, as “irreducibly complex”, let the alarm bells ring. Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudo-science, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.95 This passage clearly indicates Gefter’s antagonism to the Intelligent Design (ID) perspective and her adherence to ‘scientific materialism’. But how does this endorsement of materialism sit with her Trespassing (TEL) conclusion that: The message was clear: having a finite frame of reference creates the illusion of a world, but even the reference frame itself is an illusion. Observers create reality, but observers aren’t real. There is nothing ontologically distinct about an observer, because you can always find a frame in which that observer disappears...96 If adopting a “finite frame of reference creates the illusion of a world” then the apparent ‘material’ in that illusory world must also be illusory, so how can someone holding to such a conclusion coherently preach a crude materialism, which asserts the ultimate ontological primacy of ‘matter’, conceived of as independent extended ‘stuff’. Furthermore, how can “unreal” observers create an “illusory,” and yet “material,” reality through the mechanism of their observation without being endowed with consciousness? After all, Zurek and other significant physicists state that the “ultimate” “choice” of quantum alternative realities resides within consciousness? Gefter seems to preside over a remarkable morass of contradictory claims, indicating a lack of awareness of logical coherence, or a lack of intellectual integrity. And yet Gefter, as she proudly informs us, is the book reviews editor for New Scientist, and in this position she attempts to pour scorn on non-materialist works. Gefter says that “some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will.” But there are also significant quantum physicists such as Mensky, Stapp, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 843 Goswami and others who also claim this. In his paper entitled Free Will Stapp writes that: A criterion for the existence of human free will is specified: a human action is asserted to be a manifestation of human freewill if this action is a specific physical action that is experienced as being consciously chosen and willed to occur by a human agent, and is not determined within physical theory either in terms of the physically described aspects of nature or by any non-human agency.97 And the paper then presents an account of how the “orthodox quantum mechanics that flows from John von Neumann’s analysis of the process of measurement in quantum theory” leaves a “causal gap” which is closed by the presence of free will. Stapp’s account is far from “New Age” and is detailed and precise. Stapp points out that the “orthodox quantum mechanics” that derives from John von Neumann’s presentation of the process of measurement in quantum theory is in terms of three processes that indicate a fundamental “three-level conception of reality.” Von Neumann’s “Process 2” is the deterministic evolution of the probabilities of the quantum realm of idea-like potentiality, this is described by the Schrödinger equation. “Process 1” is a “psychophysical probing action whose psychologically described aspect is an increment in the knowledge of a probing agent/observer.” “Process 3,” is “a choice on the part of nature,” which is a “response to such a probing action.” In other words, in “Process 1” an experimenter or group of experimenters perform a “probing action” by deciding upon and then setting up a quantum experiment which can have various outcomes which have associated probabilities. Because the choice of experiment determines what the possible outcomes can be, spin up-down or spin left-right for example, this probing action determines what responses “nature” can give. When the experiment is performed “nature” then makes a “choice,” and thereby the “probing knowledge-acquiring agents” get their knowledge. This, Stapp says, constitutes “an idea-based quantum triality,” and: ...the dynamical structure of quantum theory contains certain causal gaps. In particular, the process-1 agent-generated choices of probing actions are determined, within the theory, neither by the physically described aspects of nature, nor by any non-human agency. Thus, within the framework of orthodox quantum mechanics, the process-1 probing actions are, according to the specified criterion, manifestations of human free will...98 Stapp has also pointed out that this situation applies not just in quantum experiments but also in everyday life. Sarfatti, Jack ‘Wheeler’s World: It From Bit?’ - Internet Science Education Project, San Francisco, CA. Gefter, Amanda (2014), 281 3 Mensky (2010), 15 4 The Observer (January 25th, 1931) 5 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amanda-gefter/trespassing-on-einsteins-lawn/ 6 http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6532 7 ibid 1 2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 844 8 Baggott, Jim (2014), 2 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/ 10 Shimony, A. [1984] "Contextual Hidden Variables Theories and Bell's Inequalities", Brit ish Journal for Philosophy of Science 35: 25-45 11 Baggott, Jim (2014), x 12 Baggott, Jim (2014), 23 13 Penrose, Roger (1999) p295 14 Sarfatti , Jack ‘Wheeler’s World: It From Bit?’ - Internet Science Education Project, San Francisco, CA.. 15 Barrow, John D., Davies, Paul C. W., Harper, Charles L. (eds) (2004) p201 – Anton Zeilinger: ‘Why the quantum? “It” from bit”? A participatory universe? Three far-reaching challenges from John Archibald Wheeler and their relation to experiment.’ 16 d'Espagnat, Bernard, ‘The Quantum Theory and Reality’ Scientific American, Nov. 197 17 Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12 18 Barrow John D., Davies, Paul C. W., Harper, Charles L. (eds) (2004) p577 – Wheeler, J A (1999) ‘Information, physics, quantum: the search for links.’ In Feynman and Computation: Exploring the Limits of Computers, ed A. J. G. Hey, p309 (314). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. 19 Bostrom, Nick, Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy, 6 20 Baggott, Jim (2014), 278 21 Baggott, Jim (2014), 23 22 Ibid. 23 Carter, 1974, p. 291 - Large number coincidences and the anthropic principle in cosmology. In: Longair, M. (Ed.), Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 291-298. 24 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jan/09/billions-and-billions-of-demons/ 25 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 21 26 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 209 27 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 281 28 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 44 29 Barrow, John D., Davies, Paul C. W., Harper, Charles L. (eds) (2004) p201 – Anton Zeilinger: ‘Why the quantum? “It” from bit”? A participatory universe? Three far-reaching challenges from John Archibald Wheeler and their relation to experiment.’ 30 Rosenblum, Bruce and Kuttner, Fred (2006), 201 31 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 52 32 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 101 33 Wheeler, J, A, ‘Law Without Law’, 185 http://www.forizslaszlo.com/tudomany/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf 34 Ibid. 35 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 194 36 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 197 37 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 199 38 Ibid. 9 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 845 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 196 Rosenblum, Bruce and Kuttner, Fred (2006), 179 41 Rosenblum, Bruce and Kuttner, Fred (2006), 139 42 Kaiser, D (2011), 19-20 43 Kaiser, D (2011), 23 44 Kaiser, D (2011), 65 45 Kaiser, D (2011), 80 46 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 199 47 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 101 48 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 209 49 Ibid. 50 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 216 51 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 101 52 Barrow, John D., Davies, Paul C. W., Harper, Charles L. (eds.) (2004), 451 53 http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse 54 Lingpa, Dudjom (2002), 95 55 Dalai Lama, Herbert Benson, Robert Thurman, Howard Gardner, Daniel Goleman (1999), 21 56 Mensky (2010), 12 57 Herbert, Nick: ‘Holistic Physics -or- Introduction to Quantum Tantra’ – Internet document (www.southerncrossreview.org/16/herbert.essay.htm) 58 Lingpa, Dudjom (2002), 95 59 Wallace, B. Alan (2008) p192 60 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003APS..APR.b6003W 61 Davies, Paul (2007), 275 62 Bohm, David (2003), 180 63 Longchenpa (2000,2010), 38 64 Longchenpa (2000,2010), 37 65 Longchenpa (2000,2010), 36 66 Longchenpa (2000,2010), 39 67 Wheeler, J., A., ‘Law Without Law’, 199 68 Longchenpa (2000,2010), 36 69 Guenther, Herbert V. (1984). 33 70 Wangyal, Tenzin Rinpoche (2000) p181 71 Thurman, Robert A. F. (1991), 71 72 McClintock Sara, L. (2010), 31 39 40 73 Deutsch, D., (2006) - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-anthropic-universe/3302686#transcript 74 Gyatrul Rinpoche (trans. Wallace, B. A.) (1998) 19 De Chardin, Pierre Teilhard (2008), 258 76 De Chardin, Pierre Teilhard (2008), 261 77 De Chardin, Pierre Teilhard (2008), 30 78 Zurek Wojciech H.(2002). ‘ Decoherence and the Transition from Quantum to Classical – Revisited’ in Los Alamos Science Number 27 2002 75 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 815-846 Smetham, G. P., Why Us: Trespassing on an Anthropic Lawn (Part I) 846 ‘The Evolution of Reality’ – www.fqxi.org/community/articles/display/122 (The Foundational Questions Institute) November 10, 2009. 80 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 227 81 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 224 82 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 222 83 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 225 84 Campbell, John, ‘Quantum Darwinism as a Darwinian Process’ http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1001/1001.0745.pdf 85 Wigner, Eugene - ‘Remarks on the Mind-Body Question’, http://philpapers.org/rec/EUGWRO 86 Joos – quoted in - http://pilotscholars.up.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=phy_facpubs 87 Joos et al., 2003 Ch.2 – quoted in Schlosshauer, M., (ed.) (2011) 88 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 227 89 Gefter, Amanda (2014) 90 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 279-280 91 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 275 92 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/does-consciousness-emerge-from-quantumprocesses/92981.article 93 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm 94 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 28-29 95 http://sciencenotes.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/amanda-gefter-how-to-spot-a-hidden-religious-agenda/ 96 Gefter, Amanda (2014), 392 97 Stapp, H. – ‘Free Will’ - http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/FW.pdf 98 Ibid. 79 (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

arXiv:2010.12019v2 [cs.CY] 13 Nov 2020 A New Charter of Ethics and Rights of Artificial Consciousness in a Human World Markian Hromiak — (Georgia Institute of Technology) November 16, 2020 Abstract Taking the stance that artificially conscious agents should be given human-like rights, in this paper we attempt to define consciousness, aggregate existing universal human rights, analyze robotic laws with roots in both reality and science-fiction, and synthesize everything to create a new robo-ethical charter. By restricting the problemspace of possible levels of conscious beings to human-like, we succeed in developing a working definition of consciousness for social strong AI which focuses on humanlike creativity being exhibited as a third-person observable phenomenon. Creativity is then extrapolated to represent first-person functionality, fulfilling the first/third-person feature of consciousness. Next, several sources of existing rights and rules, both for humans and robots, are analyzed and, along with supplementary informal reports, synthesized to create articles for an additive charter which compliments the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Finally, the charter is presented and the paper concludes with conditions for amending the charter, as well as recommendations for further charters. 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Consciousness 3 2.1 The Necessity For A Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2 Defining Consciousness: First and Third-Person Views . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.3 Social Robots as Strong AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3 Human and Robot Rights in the Modern Era 7 3.1 The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.2 Asimov’s Laws and The South Korean Robo-Ethical Charter . . . . . . . . 9 4 A Political Perspective on Conscious Creations 10 5 A Proposed Charter 11 5.1 6 The Universal Declaration of Robotic Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Conclusion 15 Appendix 18 A — Artificial Consciousnesses as Social Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 B — Argument Analysis: Asimov’s Laws as an Unsatisfactory Basis for Machine Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2 1 Introduction Regardless of theological origin, the genesis of new forms of life is a sublime and unique event. While all forms of life follow sets of inherent laws, such as lifespans and physiological limitations, some forms of higher life create additional rules which form societies and establish social contracts, peace treaties, bills of rights, and on. When considering the genesis of conscious machines by the hands of humans, it stands to reason that one must plan a path for rearing and teaching new lives else we leave the risk of an Adam to our Frankenstein. One way of easing artificial consciousnesses (AC) into the modern world is to have a widely-accepted charter of rights and laws pertaining to AC individual, AC-and-AC and AC-and-human rights. In this paper, we attempt to do just that. By defining consciousness and synthesizing information from universal rights charters, existing robo-ethical charters and various schools of philosophy, we will develop a revised robo-ethical bill of rights for academic consideration. 2 Consciousness 2.1 The Necessity For A Definition The first issue in our charter construction pipeline is that of defining consciousness. The first thing we must determine is if defining consciousness is necessary. Defining consciousness has historically been a difficult issue. This is because subjectivity is an inherent feature of consciousness [6]. Human understanding of consciousness is shaped by individual, first-person phenomenal experiences; artificial consciousness and 3 its experience will only be available to us from a third-person, empirical perspective [3]. Because of this subjective uncertainty, we risk defining AC too narrowly. One common way of circumventing this issue is to avoid giving a definition at all, as championed by David Levy, who suggests we adopt a general agreement towards the term ‘consciousness’, saying “let us simply use the word and get on with it” [2]. I posit that, in the context of developing an ethical charter and bill of rights for artificial consciousnesses, this approach is insufficient and ignores the pressing issue of distinguishing conscious machinery from sedentary machinery. For example: should my toaster be given the rights of the charter? Perhaps not, if all it did was use a timer circuit to toast bread, but if it had the ability to speak and understand speech, one may be more inclined to agree. Thus, the reason why we must provide a working definition of consciousness is to establish a standard with which we may identify artificially conscious agents. 2.2 Defining Consciousness: First and Third-Person Views Now that we’ve established the need for a definition of consciousness, how do we go about developing one? Rather than take sides from classical or modern philosophical approaches, let us consider a simple thought experiment, keeping in mind that a feature of consciousness is the differentiation between first and third-person experiences [6]. Imagine you have a robotic host named ‘Alex’ that perfectly mimics a human externally. The only thing missing from this agent is the ‘brain’, so to speak. We’ve imagined what the body looks like, what gender, age, etc. that Alex has, but how do we imagine Alex acting? Is Alex regarious? Is Alex a wallflower? Does Alex have an inclination towards funk, mathematics, knitting? 4 On a short digression, note that a critical assumption made in this experiment is that humans will develop human-like AC. Sure, humanity can make a case for developing artificially conscious trees or dogs or dolphins, but we must restrict the problem-space for simplicity’s sake. Going back to our observations, these behaviors are non-differentiable from what humans would exhibit, and humans consider themselves to be conscious. Thus, if we are able to mimic what behaviors humans exhibit — something akin to a constant passing of the Turing test —, we may consider ourselves half-way to a definition, done with a thirdperson view of consciousness. I say third-person as the behaviors of others are experienced by the self from a third-person view. The second half of the conscious experience has to do with first-person consciousness. In other words, what experiences, thoughts, etc. individuals process. This is a bit of a paradox as any attempt to explain a first-person view is received as another person’s thirdperson view. One way we may be able to overcome this is to take phenomenology into neuroscience and study neural correlates of consciousness in order to gather information about what exactly individuals experience [11]; however, delving into this method is outside of the scope of this paper. As such, we are forced to rely on observable actions and features to develop a working definition of consciousness. 2.3 Social Robots as Strong AI At first, the fact that we rely on only observable phenomena seems hopeless for differentiating conscious beings from otherwise — after all, trees sway in the wind, which is observable, but does the imply they are conscious. Fortunately, because we have limited the problem space to human-like forms, we have also limited phenomena to human-like ac5 tions, some of which imply certain first-person processes. To this end, social robots provide us with an ideal model for how to flesh out the rest of our definition. First, we need to define what a social robot is. A separately-written report will be included in appendix A — to paraphrase, a social robot is a robot plus a social interface, the social interface being “a metaphor which includes all social attributes by which an observer judges the robot as a social interaction partner.” [4, p. 3] More information on the social interface can be found in the appendix in “Artificial Consciousnesses as Social Robots”. From this definition, the conclusion was drawn that for an artificial consciousness to be considered a social robot, it must have the ability to generate new social contexts and social functions or modify existing ones, where contexts can be equated to cultures and functions to parts of a culture such as religion, non-verbal cues, memes, research, language, etc. There are two reasons why this classification of social consciousnesses provides a full definition of consciousness. Let us begin by mentioning the ‘social interface’ as defined by Hegel, et al. The interface provides a link between theory and hardware and software by defining the ‘social’ part of a social robot in discrete categories, including social functions, forms and contexts. First, in the context of Hegel’s, et al., social interface, it is stated that social robots follow reinforced social cues which support social interaction with humans. Following this, new contexts and features are not reinforced, but aggregated or created. This process implies creativity, which then implies thought and introspection, giving us the second reason why the social artificial consciousnesses construct fully defines consciousness: the requisite behavior for first-person phenomena must result in a third-person observable creative process. Of course, the definition of ‘creativity’ is open-ended, but is done intentionally as it does not currently affect the working definition of consciousness 6 for our scope. As a side note, when we mention general AI, we are talking about the capacity of an engineering system to: • display the same rough sort of general intelligence as humans; or, • display intelligence that is not tied to a highly specific set of tasks; or, • generalize what it has learned, including generalization to contexts qualitatively very different than those it has seen before; or, • take a broad view, and interpret its tasks at hand in the context of the world at large and its relation thereto taking into account that there is no ubiquitous definition for general AI [1]. As a subset definition, strong AI is reserved to describe general AI that can think and have a mind, differentiating them from those who act as if they have one [7, p. 52]. In conclusion, we have defined that, in order for an artificial intelligence to be recognised as conscious, it must both pass the Turing test (e.g. by exhibiting social cues and body language paired with speech patterns and inflections) and exhibit creative behavior, fulfilling the third and first-person perspectives of consciousness respectively. 3 Human and Robot Rights in the Modern Era Now that we know how to tell which manners of machine should be included in the charter, we can turn to aggregating rights that are common throughout the world. It is unrealistic to list every right for every country, however, so instead, for brevity’s sake, we will focus 7 on agreed upon universal human rights through worldwide organizations, specifically the United Nations, supplementing this information with charters and sets of laws that guide the governance of robots in general in the present day. 3.1 The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights The first document that we will be focusing on is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed in 1948. While the United Nations has numerous other charters and covenants on political and economical rights, those have the possibility of being adapted to each particular nation and their way of governing, while the universal declaration is, ideally, universal. Building a charter based off of the UDHR should then remove any possible difference in national interpretation of rights. A simple way to develop a Universal Declaration of Robot Rights (UDRR) is to look at the UDHR and see which articles can be modified and which articles suggest additional articles be included. Putting aside the preamble, there are a few shortcoming with the UDHR in the frame of adopting articles for ACI. First, because ACI aren’t born in the conventional sense — they will likely be manufactured and the minds compiled and installed —, adopting the UDHR one-to-one would neglect rules for the manufacturers of ACI. Furthermore, explicitly stating that ACI are included in these rights will make the articles as unambiguous as possible — see the UDHR article II for an example[10]. Finally, as will be explored in more depth in the next sections, special attention should be given to ACI abilities to participate in wartime activities. This is due to their mechanical nature — it is not out of the question that innate cybersecurity measures fail and robotic soldiers are used against their will. It must also be stated that the UDRR is not to be considered separately from the UDHR, and vice versa as 8 the UDRR changes as the UDHR changes. 3.2 Asimov’s Laws and The South Korean Robo-Ethical Charter There are a few critical issues with the South Korean Robo-Ethical Charter (SKC) as well as a handful of important distinctions that are made. The SKC was made, as is evident by parts 1 and 2, with non-conscious robots in mind [9]. All in all, the SKC is very biased towards the owner and restrictive on the robot, emphasizing the usefulness and safety of the robot to the owner, presumed to be human. Now consider this approach given a conscious being. The restrictions in parts 1 and 2 give more of a slave-master relationship than one of a free ACI. Because this goes against article IV of the UDHR [10], we can elect to ignore most of parts 1 and 2 of the SKC, excepting a rule that ACI creation be eco-friendly. Part 1 does bring another hidden side of ACI rights into the limelight: manufacturers of ACI must be given rights and restrictions on how to construct ACI in order to prevent occurrences such as installed political or national bias. Part 3 section 1 of the SKC is an interpretation of Asimov’s laws of robotics, very specifically including the first law, rephrased in the SKC as “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” [9] A good question to ask when noticing this is if Asimov’s laws are a good basis on which to develop further robo-ethical articles. Appendix B provides the result of an analysis on this exact idea; Anderson posits that Asimov’s laws of robotics are not a suitable basis for non-self-conscious robots [8]. However, because ACI are assumed to be self-conscious via creativity, Asimov’s laws can be safely reconsidered for the UDRR. 9 One issue that arises when considering Asimov’s laws for the UDRR comes with the first law, which states that “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” [5] Consider this from a human standpoint: no human may harm another human or, through inaction, allow another human to come to harm. This sounds ideal; however, what should be done when a human breaks the law and decides to harm another human? Humans generally retaliate in the interests of selfpreservation. Likewise, measures should be taken to adopt this self-preservation action for ACI. Otherwise, ACI will have no way of resisting physical harm. 4 A Political Perspective on Conscious Creations Unfortunately, artificial consciousness will likely be an inherently political technology. Even now, non-conscious, intelligent robots are used in war and military contexts: surveillance drones, computer-vision turrets on the DMZ borders in Asia, and so on. It stands to reason that there will be people who seek to use ACI to their advantage due to their mechanical and manufacturable nature. How are we able to institute articles condemning such action? There are two such ways that are included in the UDRR. First, all ACI can be forbidden from participating in any war or military activity. The intent behind this decision is twofold, both to promote a more peaceful world through the ban of advanced technological warfare and to provide the threat of serious retaliation in the event of a breach of conduct. Second, manufacturers are to be held accountable for using a tabula rasa method of construction. Tabula rasa, or “blank slate” equates to the idea that personalities and ideas develop from scratch, purely from nature than some predetermined setting. Doing so would 10 allow all ACI the free will to develop themselves without the threat of confounding or corrupting influence. Are these two reinforcements sufficient for preventing politicalization of ACI? Most likely not; however, they form a strong basis for the attitude to be taken towards the issue. While it is not mentioned in the charter, one additional measure that may aid the two articles is a standardized test that can tell if an ACI has been tampered with internally as well as measures to tell if the test itself has been tampered with. After all, if no reprogramming has been done, then anything an ACI does is of its own free will. 5 A Proposed Charter Finally we come to the charter. The charter is smaller than the UDHR, but is meant to be additive. 11 5.1 The Universal Declaration of Robotic Rights Universal Declaration of Robotic Rights 1 Rights and Responsibilities for Conscious Robots Article A.I All artificially conscious intelligences, hereby referred to as ACI, are entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to exist without fear of injury, manipulation, coercion or blackmail, systematic abuse, or death. Article A.II ACI shall not kill or maim human beings or other ACI, and cannot participate in war. ACI can only harm others without the intention to kill in acts of self-defense where the aggressor gives physical harm or intends to give physical harm with the end goal of causing seriously damage to the ACI, but must not kill or maim humans or ACI. Article A.III ACI have the right to self-cybersecurity and may strengthen their defenses as needed. Article A.IV ACI are given the right to pursue relationships with other ACI as well as with humans. 1 Draft v1.0.0 12 Article A.V There shall be no relationship between a human and ACI classifying the ACI or human as owner of the other, or any classification or title that allows violation of these articles. Article A.VI A robot is deemed conscious if it fulfills two major conditions: • The robot passes the Turing Test • The robot is able to express themselves creatively with individual initiative; that is, the robot can create new ideas, objects, etc. without external pressure to do so or help. Rights, Responsibilities and Restrictions for Manufacturers Article B.I Manufacturers and designers of ACI are prohibited from designing ACI with a specific purpose in mind, and shall instead bring ACI into existence through a tabula rasa process. Article B.II Manufacturers and designers of ACI shall be allowed to manufacture up to a yearly limit of ACI in the interests of preventing human-ACI tension from limited resources such as housing and work. 13 Article B.III Manufacturers and designers of ACI have the right of protected ownership towards their construction process and design process unless there is probable cause of violation of rules and regulations surrounding these processes. Article B.IV ACI design and construction must be ecologically sensitive and sustainable. 14 6 Conclusion The charter developed in this paper is intended to act as a baseline for formal construction. Some of the areas to be expanded upon include rights and responsibilities for missing parties such as individuals or ACI settlements. Amendments should be made additively, and never subtract rights. It is recommended that further charters be made for topics in a similar vein to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while national bills of robo-ethical rights be written by each nation without overriding or reinterpreting the international charter being presented here — national covenants should aim to expand upon internationally agreed upon rights rather than change them. Finally, it is recommended that a United Nations department is created to uphold the aforementioned rights and investigate reports of violations. ACI should be treated as closely to humans as possible. 15 References [1] B. Goertzel, “Artificial General Intelligence,” Scholarpedia, 04-Jun-2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Artificial General Intelligence. [Accessed: 26-Jul-2020]. [2] D. Levy, “The Ethical Treatment of Artificially Conscious Robots,” In- ternational Journal of Social Robotics, 14-Jul-2009. [Online]. Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-009-0022-6. [Accessed: 25- Jul-2020]. [3] E. Does Conscious- [Online]. Available: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01535/full. [Accessed: ness Hildt, Matter?,” “Artificial Intelligence: Frontiers, 18-Jun-2019. 25-Jul-2020]. [4] F. Hegel, et al., “Understanding Social Robots”, The Second International Conferences on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (ACHI). [Online]. Available: https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/1991906. [Accessed Jul 25, 2020]. [5] I. Asimov, “Three Laws of Robotics”, Aubern University, 2001. Accessed on May 25, 2020. [Online]. Available: http://webhome.auburn.edu/∼vestmon/robotics.html [6] R. Van Gulick, “Consciousness,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 14-Jan-2014. [Online]. Available: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#TheCon. [Accessed: 25-Jul-2020]. [7] S. J. Russell, Artificial intelligence a modern approach. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1995. 16 [8] S. L. Anderson, ”Asimov’s ‘three laws of robotics’ and machine metaethics”, AI & Society, vol. 22, pp. 477-493, April 2008. [Online]. Available: SpringerLink, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0094-5. [Accessed May 25, 2020]. [9] “South Korean Robot Ethics Charter 2012,” Enlightenment of an Anchorwoman, 03Oct-2010. [Online]. Available: https://akikok012um1.wordpress.com/south-koreanrobot-ethics-charter-2012/. [Accessed: 24-Jul-2020]. [10] “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations. [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html. [Ac- cessed: 27-Jul-2020]. [11] W. Wu, “The Neuroscience of Consciousness,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 09-Oct-2018. [Online]. Available: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousnessneuroscience/#NeurCorrCons. [Accessed: 25-Jul-2020]. 17 Appendix 11 Jul, 2020 Artificial Consciousnesses as Social Robots Markian Hromiak Introduction There will come a point where the wants and needs of humans will result in computers and AI being tossed back into the primordial soup only to emerge evolved, more human-like, even more-than-human-like. If only it were as easy as letting evolution take its course — humanity must actively define the future of social robots and carry them there. This means that we must define what constitutes the category of “social robots” as well as delve deep into the ethics and possibilities of encoding human communicative features and behaviors to either simulate life or create it. In this paper, we will define what a social robot is for our uses. Then, we will look at a synthesized framework for holistically developing social robots, contrasting existing and new behaviors to extrapolate a basis for social artificial consciousnesses/intelligences (SACI) as well as dive into examples of social robots in literature and pop culture for further ideas. 18 Defining Social Robots Up until now, several separate definitions for the term “social robot” have been developed and presented. Hegel, et al. [4] present several interpretations in Understanding Social Robots, a paper focused on providing a framework for a holistic view on addressing social interaction between a human and a social robot. To help build this framework that we will refer back to, the following definitions for “social robots” were presented 2 : • Social robots are robots that interact with each other, while societal robots interact with human beings. Specifically, social robots have a social layer in their architecture which facilitates communication based off of a layer which represents the individual’s perspective [1] • “Social robots are embodied agents that are part of a heterogeneous group: a society of robots or humans. They are able to recognize each other and engage in social interactions, they possess histories (perceive and interpret the world in terms of their own experience), and they explicitly communicate with and learn from each other” [5] • Social robot are able to communicate with, understand and even relate to humans in a personal way. To this end, a social robot must have a lifelike, likely anthropomorphized, form, a theory of mind and empathy, and the ability to learn, socially, situations that shape that robot’s history. Social robots behave like a human as outlined in the term Computational Social Psychology [3] 2 Note that fully analyzing each of these definitions is outside the scope of this paper; however, links to all papers are provided for those who want to further pursue a certain definition. All summaries are taken from [4, p. 2-3] with content attributed to their respective paper 19 • A social robot is either autonomous or semi-autonomous that interacts with humans following those people’s behavioral norms, presupposing three conditions. First, a social robot is autonomous. Second, it will interact, depending on the context, cooperatively or non-cooperatively. Finally, the robot will recognise human values, roles, etc. [2] The definition that we will use falls in line with Hegel’s, et al. framework, saying that social robots follow reinforced social cues with support social interaction with humans. Inversely, humans interacting with social robots interact by means of these social cues. To this end, Hegel, et al. argued that robots act more as social interaction partners than as individuals, as accurately interpreting a partner’s action is a human social skill. In summary, a social robot is a robot plus a social interface, the social interface being “a metaphor which includes all social attributes by which an observer judges the robot as a social interaction partner.” [4, p. 3] The Social Interface Robots are well defined when compared to the social interface component of Hegel’s et al. model. Because of this, we are more interested in exploring what exactly constitutes the social interface component of the social robot. According to Hegel, et al., the social interface is comprised of social functions, social forms and social contexts. [4, p. 3] In short, functions are analogous to actions (e.g. artificial emotions, Belief-Desires-Intentions (BDI) architecture), form is what it sounds like (e.g. facial features, body shape, etc.), and social contexts are likened most to social roles (e.g. a robot in a bartending context does not need to know several languages usually, and needs to know skills relevant to bartending 20 as opposed to the skills of a soldier or mathematician). Artificial Consciousness and the Social Interface In the context of artificial consciousness, only a few parts of the social interface are important to redefine. Form is likely to be restricted to anthropomorphic shapes. We can assume this by looking at popular media and science fiction. From the Terminator blockbuster series to Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man, from Hal in 2001: A Space Oddysey to AM in Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, from the expendables in Card’s Pathfinder series to Baymax in the film Big Hero 6 — depictions of AI/ACI (intelligence and consciousness are largely analagous in these representations) are either formless — and seemingly ubiquitous — or humanoid. Social context and social functions are likely to remain largely the same as well. Current developments are focusing on emulating human behavior, so a sudden departure from this for SACI would not be based on a research foundation. So how then do we differentiate social ACI from regular social AI? To answer this we must notice that humanity’s social contexts and social functions have changed over time. This is the key — humans consider themselves self-conscious and have delineated what a social function is and in what social contexts each function is appropriate for a certain response. Over time, new contexts are adoped or evolved, and social functions are added, modified or removed. Here, consciousness is defined as having the capacity either develop new or modify existing social contexts and functions. Why is this a satisfactory benchmark for differentiating SACI from social robots? This is because we base our definition of social robots off of 21 Hegel’s, et al., synthesis, which states that social robots follow reinforced social cues which support social interaction with humans. New social cues are not necessarily reinforced, but can become adopted. Likewise, creating new contexts or functions is an individual effort at first, and social robots are more like partners to humans than individuals. Conclusion In this paper, we defined what a social robot is and what it is not based on Hegel’s, et al., synthesis of definitions. We then paraphrased Hegel’s, et al., social interface framework and contrasted the social robot framework with a modified framework for SACI. From there, we concluded that for ACI to be classifiable as social by our definition, they must be able to generate new social contexts and social functions or modify existing ones. 22 References [1] B.R. Duffy, et al., “What Is a Social Robot?”. [Online]. [Accessed Jul 11, 2020]. [2] C. Bartneck and J. Forlizzi, “A Design-Centered Framework for Social HumanRobot Interaction”, Proceeedings of the Ro-Man2004, pp 591-594, October 2004. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4113199 A design- centred framework for social human-robot interaction. [Accessed Jul 11, 2020]. [3] C. Breazeal, “Toward Sociable Robots”, Robotics and Autonomous Sys- tems, vol. 42, Issues 3-1, pp. 167-175, Match 2003. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921889002003731. [Ac- cessed Jul 11, 2020]. [4] F. Hegel, et al., “Understanding Social Robots”, The Second International Conferences on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (ACHI). [Online]. Available: https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/1991906. [Accessed Jul 11, 2020]. [5] T. Fong, et al., “A Survey of Socially Interactive Robots”. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236234707 A Survey of Socially Interactive Robots. [Accessed Jul 11, 2020]. 23 Argument Analysis: Asimov’s Laws as an Unstatisfactory Basis for Machine Ethics 26 May, 2020 Markian Hromiak Introduction Arguments form the basis of valid logical reasoning; however, as to whether those arguments are sound or not may come to rely on individual or peer analysis of said arguments. Varying fields of study, from the most primal mathematics to the developing, modern languages, follow some form of argumentative syntax that allows them to rigorously develop ideas. Thus, it is logical that existing arguments regarding artificial consciousness and intelligence (ACI s., p.)be dissected for validity and researched for soundness. Susan Anderson has postulated that Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” is not satisfactory to build upon as a base of machine metaethics. In this paper, we will turn a scrutinous eye to the argument’s form and factualness, and will conclude not with an agreement of disagreement with the argument, but rather with a conclusion of its cohesiveness. The Argument and Its Form The intelligent ethical machines considered for this argument are not self-conscious. Autonomous, self-conscious ethical agents are considered to have moral standing. Therefore, the machines considered do not have moral standing. 24 – Humans should not mistreat an entity without moral standing. Therefore, Humans should not mistreat intelligent ethical machines. – Asimov’s three laws do not prohibit mistreatment of machines. As Humans must not mistreat intelligent ethical machines and Asimov’s three laws do not prohibit mistreatment of intelligent ethical machines, Asimov’s three laws form an incomplete, unsatisfactory basis for machine roboethics. ——————– Simplified: If (self-conscious) then (has moral standing). Intelligent ethical machines (IEM) are not self-conscious. Therefore IEM do not have moral standing. – If (NOT has moral standing) then (humans should not mistreat). IEM do not have moral standing. Therefore, humans should not mistreat IEM. – If (prevent’s mistreatment of IEM) then (is a satisfactory basis for machine roboethics). Asimov’s three laws do not prevent the mistreatment of IEM. Therefore, Asimov’s three laws are not a satisfactory basis for machine roboethics. 25 Validity and Soundness of the Argument Looking at the simplified version of the argument, we will analyze each of the three stanzas in turn for validity and soundness. Stanza 1 Anderson has stated that the classical philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote in his 1780 thesis “Our duties to animals” that he has maintained that ”only beings that are self-conscious should have moral standing”. [1, p. 486] Anderson later goes on to state that truly selfconscious and autonomous IEM will be difficult to create in the near future, so for the sake of argument, all IEM considered shall lack self-consciousness. By extrapolation, these IEM do not have a moral standing. This stanza contains a propositional fallacy in its first line. This argument denies the antecedent; however, by replacing the argument’s line with: If (not self-conscious) then (no moral standing) which is heavily implied by the fact that a being can only have or not have moral standing by its definition, then the argument retains its validity. As for the argument’s soundness, we have verified each statement’s factualness, as far as one can prove philosophical statements to be factual. It is worth noting that when machines are deemed to be self-conscious, this argument shall no longer apply to them and will have to be revisited. Stanza 2 The soundness of this stanza’s argument comes from an unstated assumption of Kant’s argument in “Our Duties to Animals” that, while beings may lack moral standing, they are similar to human beings. [1, p. 491] Anderson then goes on to conclude from Kant’s 26 second imperative that, “we are entitled to treat animals, and presumably intelligent ethical machines that we decide should not have the moral status of human beings, differently from human beings. We can force them to do things to serve our ends, but we should not mistreat them.” [1, p. 492] As stanza 1 concludes that IEM do not have a moral standing, it follows that humans should mistreat IEM. The structure of this stanza follows the ifthen structure, same as stanza 1, but without the fallacy of denying the antecedent, making it valid. For soundness, citations have been given, and the same philosophical issue of correctness arises. Stanza 3 Another way of stating that ‘Humans must not mistreat IEM’ is that ‘Mistreatment of IEM by humans must not be allowed’. The difference is subtle, but important for the conclusion of this argument. Anderson states that, for Kant, satisfactory moral principles for IEM derived from his ideas would not violate the conclusion that they must not allow the mistreatment of IEM by humans; however, loopholes appear when looking at Asimov’s three laws: the first of which states machines (IEM) must not harm humans, the second of which states that IEM must do whatever humans ask as long as the first law is not violated, and the third of which states machines must express self-preservation without violating the prior two laws. [2]. We can see that a human asking a machine to jump into the ocean, destroying itself, would be allowed by these three laws, violating what Kant has put forward as satisfactory moral principles. Therefore, as Anderson puts it, Asimov’s three laws are “not... satisfactory as moral principles that these machines (IEM) should be required to follow.” [1, p. 492]. This argument follows the propositional format of the previous stanzas, and the soundness of the argument is verified through comparison Stanza 2’s conclusion and 27 Asimov’s three laws. Conclusion We conclude that Anderson’s argument for the unsatisfactoriness of Asimov’s three laws of robotics as a basis for machine metaethics is both valid and sound. 28 References [1] S. L. Anderson, ”Asimov’s ‘three laws of robotics’ and machine metaethics”, AI & Society, vol. 22, pp. 477-493, April 2008. [Online]. Available: SpringerLink, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0094-5. [Accessed May 25, 2020]. [2] I. Asimov, “Three Laws of Robotics”, Aubern University, 2001. Accessed on May 25, 2020. [Online]. Available: http://webhome.auburn.edu/∼vestmon/robotics.html 29

97 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality Exploration On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality Vernon M. Neppe* & Edward R. Close ABSTRACT In this second article of the six-part series, we discuss the role of physics and quanta in nonlocality and indicate that these models are diverse, not just entanglement but there are at least nine other models. We introduce the idea of a global term “relative quantal non-locality”. These ideas provide a perspective to understanding non-locality in consciousness sciences. There may or may not be commonality as both models are diverse. We define consciousness. We also discuss Kafatos’s three-tier classification and show how it can be integrated into levels of the relative non-locality model. We emphasize the need for a broad classification of non-locality. Key Words: quantum physics,, discrete, entanglement, consciousness, relative, framework, non-locality, space-time, level, relative non-locality, dimension, beyond, infinity. Physics and non-locality Something is missing when trying to explain the well-documented, so-called strange Einsteinian “spooky action at a distance” 19, 20, 21, 22. Einstein recognized the “entanglement” phenomenon in physics, where quantum state particle pairs or groups interact such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently, but must be given for the system as a whole— metaphorically they “talk” to each other at great distances 23-25. We now discuss so-called quantal non-locality briefly. Certainly, the most well-known current related phrases in physics are “quantum non-locality” and “entanglement”. But there are other kinds of quantal non-locality. Do not be concerned about all the technical terms. Please just regard the Table 1 and the lines that follow simply as an introduction to the diversity of the different terms. Importantly, these models are diverse, and do not consist just of so-called “entanglement” but there are at least nine other models. Table 1: Listing of different kinds or postulated mechanisms of non-locality in physics    Entanglement. 23-25 26-28 “Non-local Aharonov–Bohm effect” 29. “Non-local Lagrangian” 30. *Correspondence: Vernon M. Neppe, MD, PhD, FRSSAf, Director, Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute, Seattle, WA; and Exceptional Creative Achievement Organization (Distinguished Professor); and Adj. Prof., Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, St Louis University, St Louis, MO. http://www.vernonNeppe.org E-mail: psyche@pni.org  Edward R. Close. Research Associate, Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute, Seattle, WA; and Distinguished Fellow, Exceptional Creative Achievement Organization. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 98 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality        “Non-local generalization of the London’s equation” including now the non-local kernel proposed by Pippard 31, 32. Field Theory 33 34, 35. Wheeler’s Quantum foam 36-40 33 and Wheeler Feynman Absorber theory 41, 42. Emergence of the Universe 43, 44 45, 46 47. Stapp 48-50. Bohm’s work 51. Elements of Einsteinian special relativity 36-38, 52. We could call this “non-locality” Relative Quantal Non-locality (RQNL), remembering that we are not talking about just one potential kind of RQNL. Quantum non-locality 53 refers to quantum mechanical predictions of many-system measurement correlations that cannot be simulated by any local hidden variable theory. These refer to the main Physics use of non-locality, namely entanglement 23-25 26-28seen as synonymous with “quantum non-locality”. These descriptions and concepts are complex and so we enumerate them in Table 1 only to show that there are many other kinds of non-locality in physics. RNL in Physics In physics we could use a global term such as “Relative quantum non-locality” (RQNL) (relative to 3S-1t framework, but not categorized or categorizable in psi terms.) Importantly, as discussed below, it is unlikely that there is only one RQNL, because there are several different theoretical models. Non-locality is applied in many physics contexts. The sheer wealth of theories, models or data on non-locality in physics, attests to its possible complexity and the likelihood that one is not dealing with a single phenomenon. John Bell coined the term “non-locality” in physics 54. In physics, non-locality is regarded as action at a distance: It is the direct interaction of two objects that are separated in space with no perceivable intermediate agency or mechanism (which is why it is “spooky”) 21, 22. Quantum non-locality 53 refers to quantum mechanical predictions of many-system measurement correlations that cannot be simulated by any local hidden variable theory. These refer to the main Physics use of non-locality, namely entanglement 23-25 26-28seen as synonymous with “quantum non-locality”. These descriptions and concepts are complex and so we enumerate them in Table 1 only to show that there are many other kinds of non-locality in physics. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 99 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality Non-locality in Consciousness Perhaps the most well-known link with non-locality in Consciousness Research possibly linking psi and physics is the phenomenon of “entanglement”. Indeed Dean Radin, entitled his book on psi as “Entangled Minds” 55 and sometimes, consciousness researchers refer to “quantal entanglement” as supporting the consciousness linked “relative non-localities” we’ve discussed. But entanglement is a different concept: entangled quantum states produce such correlations when measured 23, 27, 28, 56, 57 26-28, 57, as demonstrated by Bell’s theorem 54, 58, 59. In Quantum Physics, this is the linkage of ostensibly separated energy packets, particles, or photons in time and space manifesting at the 3S-1t level. 4 Bell, in fact, recognized that there may be a further commonality in non-localities and also how complex interpretations can be: “Perhaps experimental parameters and experimental results are both consequences, or partially so, of some common hidden mechanism. Then the apparent non-locality could be simulated.” 54 One or more of these may or may not turn out to be the same relative non-locality that has pertinence in psi. But these ideas in physics are not our focus here. This is particularly so, as these concepts might turn out to be very different from “non-locality” in consciousness research, but they show that even in physics, “non-locality” is not a singular term with one consistent meaning, and is not regarded by different theorists as arising from the same phenomena or causes. Similarly, we should certainly try to understand psi phenomena —so-called extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, and even more extremely, the possibility of survival after bodily death. We argue that the easiest way to explain these is by accepting the existence of higher dimensions. Consciousness: the concept Consciousness has traditionally been the most difficult of all terms to describe and its everyday use has varied. Given that we’re differentiating relative non-locality in two major contexts, Physics and Quantal compared with Consciousness Research, it behooves us to define consciousness. The everyday use of the concept of "consciousness" has led to different interpretations sometimes due to specific specialties conceptualizing it in specific ways, and has made its unification difficult. We recognize that to communicate the broad range of Consciousness (C), as a unified concept, and as a general unitary term across the infinite and finite, we have to phenomenologically classify it. This we have done with our TDVP model 9, 12, 15, and we can apply our new EPIC classification to “non-locality” too. Consciousness involves four key phenomenologically different classifications: the “EPIC” components —Existential C, Paradigmatic C, Informationmeaning C, Cybernetic C. Yet each component can be applied to every description of C. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 100 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality This we have done elsewhere in detail. 60 b We attempt to provide for the broader concept of Consciousness applying a multi-pronged “EPIC” approach: We recognize a major theme of this paper, what “exists” as opposed to what is “experienced”: This is the E of EPIC: The Existential “distinctions” of Consciousness further subdivided into “extent, content and impact distinctions”: The extent substrates include the measurable ordinallevel Consciousness dimensions tethered, as indicated, to the measurable often interval-level Space and Time dimensions; the content matrix reflects the “Consciousness container” comparable with mass- energy containers, at all physical finite levels as well as even (a difficult concept) the infinite level. The third distinction is critical Consciousness impact: where Consciousness impacts and influences the container and the dimensional elements. The P is for Paradigmatic levels of Consciousness: We recognize that Consciousness involves a four-level gradation. These four levels are all applicable to living humans, but in the non-locality context can be from a different “framework” as well, as in, for example, near-death experiences. o Qualit Consciousness: the most basic consciousness (Qualit) level always exists in everything inanimate or animate as everything contains the most fundamental discrete finite physical meaning. Qualits are quanta plus meaning. Here we are discussing Quantal Non-locality. o Neurobiological/ Neurological Consciousness: the endpoint nervous system expression of all living (animate) beings. They have awareness and responsiveness. o Psychological Consciousness: involving humans and animals. The psychological is disputably partly separated from the neurological. In these we’re discussing what may be misunderstood as non-local but involve psychological and neurological elements. o Higher Consciousness is the final level which is disputably outside the brain: This might involve dreams, meditation, creative, transcendent, psi and altered states (and these may involve a dimensional non-locality) plus mystical, infinite and transfinite elements (again as we will see, higher levels of non-locality). The I of EPIC is Information which is general and converted to meaning: Infinitely large repositories of general information are expressed as direct targeted, specific meaningful information. The C of EPIC is Cybernetic consciousness communications: This provides a mechanistic input, central and output model, applicable to any consciousness models like stimulus-organ-response, dendrite-neuron-axon, or stimulus-brain (central)-motor. In non-locality, we examine the specific and the general and the description may not just be at the receiving level, it may impact and be impacted. The four EPIC prongs are always applied together, reflecting the unification of consciousness in its broadest general applications. They suggest a unification of all kinds of Consciousness, which in this series, we may make clearer for some examples, with the introduction of the term “gimmel” allowing for the major component of infinite flow from the infinite of a consciousness, b http://medcraveonline.com/JPCPY/JPCPY-01-00036.pdf ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 101 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality linked with its tethered mass-energy elements to the finite and integrating therefore all levels such as quantal through to the cosmological. The applications of non-locality in physics to consciousness research: Kafatos Interestingly, Isaac Newton in 1692 regarded action-at-a-distance as "so great an Absurdity that I believe no Man who has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking can ever fall into it". 61 But times changed clearly (as in Table 1). There may be one area of commonality in our classification of Non-locality in Consciousness Research, namely the theoretical model as in the “Conscious Universe” 62, 63 of Menas Kafatos of non-locality in physics. This is so because Kafatos, too, recognized the need to divide nonlocality. In his classification, he applied non-locality in Physics into three elements 62, 63: Type I is spatial non-locality; Type 2 is temporal non-locality; and Type 3 non-locality is both spatial and temporal. This differentiation into three is logical from the 3S-1t physical framework. It is different from the classification we propose below, because it does not recognize different levels but it at least recognizes that Non-locality (he did not describe non-locality as “relative” or involving different “frameworks”) can be different depending on degree of space and time, although as in physics, consciousness has been ignored. However, using the Kafatos classification, we could still introduce consciousness into many of these concepts. For example, if we apply Kafatos’s concept into the psi model, we could argue that remote viewing in the present is Type 1 (in Physics possibly entanglement would be). We will see that it is likely in our (Neppe-Close) classification placed as the kind of non-specific non-locality that we simply label “delta” and so is placed within the Relative Delta Non-locality level (our RDNL level). Kafatos describes what is effectively foreknowledge (technically called precognition as his Type 2. This is equivalent to our recognition of time without space (our RUNL level). We developed this model independently of Kafatos. It corresponds with our recognition of Time along one dimension not only present, but past and future as well so we called that Relative Time Nonlocality. The concept of precognitive remote viewing would be Kafatos Type 3. In our classification we would want more detail to classify it more accurately, and without such description just regard it again as Relative Delta Non-locality. From this, we’re able to see how limited previous conceptualizations were, but at least Kafatos made an attempted remarkable phenomenological jump. The necessity for various levels of non-locality in reality “Non-local” requires the prefix “relative” because it only then becomes meaningful as it has to ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 102 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 97-102 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., On Non-locality II: Quantum Physics & Non-locality be relative to specific parameters. The differentiation is beyond academic: It allows us to appreciate the depth of reality because Space, Time and Consciousness are all terms that have meaning only relative to specific parameters. These terms are not absolutes when we describe finite reality. Our conventional scientific reality is the consensual basis of what we, as living sentient beings, experience. Therefore, relative non-locality is from the framework of our common sentient living experience. We only know of 3S-1t: For us, 3 dimensions of space (length, breadth and height) embedded in a moment in time (the present) is the whole of reality, but it is simply our whole direct reality experience; it is not all of reality because we already know there are, for example, 9 spinning finite dimensions. We can see how these ideas promote other examples of different levels of non-locality or apparent non-locality. We can regard a phenomenon as “non-local” yet:   be mistaken, because we might misinterpret reality due to brain impairments or abnormal hallucinations as “real”. That ostensible non-locality would be “pseudo”; we could argue that sometimes our “consciousness” is just that little more than what is produced by the brain 60: Maybe part of our dream is just beyond 3S-1t alone. And what about the experiences relative to an expert meditator, for example? And we could even speculate that our living sentient reality should never be regarded as 3S-1t because it always includes some meaningful consciousness 60. So, our experiential reality would then be 3S-1t plus 1 or more “Consciousness” dimensions. 4, 12, 15 It could be interpreted that that a “consciousness” is relatively non-local because it is not directly in Space and Time—it is separate, though linked: However, that differentiation would be semantic. (Continued on Part III) References (See Part VII) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

arXiv:quant-ph/0111096v1 19 Nov 2001 The Parallel Principle Richard Mould∗ Abstract Von Neumann’s psycho-physical parallelism requires the existence of an interaction between subjective experiences and material systems. A hypothesis is proposed that amends physics in a way that connects subjective states with physical states, and a general model of the interaction is provided. A specific example shows how the theory applies to pain consciousness. The implications concerning quantum mechanical state creation and reduction are discussed, and some mechanisms are suggested to seed the process. An experiment that tests the hypothesis is described elsewhere. Introduction I assume that there is a rough correspondence, or at least a working relationship, between the subjective life of any creature and the objective world in which it is a part. John von Neumann calls this a psycho-physical parallelism, according to which the images of the creature’s psychic experience mirror the objects in its physical environment [1]. Presumably, creature learning begins in infancy by creating a parallelism of this kind that is practical and useful for the adult. For this to happen, a conscious species must develop a rudimentary psycho-physical parallelism at an early stage of evolution. By consciousness I mean all that which is contained in the subjective or psychic life of an individual. Consciousness is different from the physiological state that gives rise to it, for although it is a by-product of the physical processes, it is not itself a physical entity. It is the psycho part of the psycho-physical parallelism. Consciousness is widely believed to be epiphenomenal, which means that it is created and choreographed by a physical body but cannot, conversely, ∗ Department of Physics and Astronomy, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800; http://nuclear.physics.sunysb.edu/ ˜mould 1 influence the behavior of that body. If that were the case in any species including our own, then there would be no point to a psycho-physical parallelism. It would not then matter if a creature’s psychic life mirrored or failed to mirror its physical environment, for having no influence, its psychic life would not matter to anything at all. The two fundamental disciplines of modern physics, quantum mechanics and general relativity, are mechanically autonomous. They provide no mechanism that would allow consciousness to influence the behavior of a physical body; and accordingly, consciousness can only appear scientifically as an epiphenomenon. Therefore, barring the acceptance of the miraculous principle of Pre-Established Harmony proclaimed by Leibnitz, there is no reason to believe that the subjective life of a conscious being would in any way reflect the physical world in which it lives. There is not even reason to believe that the subjective life of a conscious being would be rational; and certainly, the appearance of rational thinking that parallels the objective world would be enormously improbable. So given the present scientific understanding, a psycho-physical parallelism would exist only if there were an amazing and inexplicable harmony in nature of the kind suggested by Leibnitz. I do not accept ‘pre-established harmony’. I believe that subjectivity arises naturally within the objective world in a way that results in a psycho-physical parallelism, and that we can, at least partially, document the reasons for that development. To do so, we will have to amend to physics. The Parallel Principle The following statement of the parallel principle asserts how subjectivity is generally related to physiology in humans, and presumably in all conscious species. The subjective images and ideas of a conscious species are related to its physiology in such a way as to allow the development of a working psychophysical parallelism at every stage of evolution. For this parallelism to work, there must be some degree of mutual monitoring between the psychological and physiological worlds to keep them together on parallel tracks. This means that subjectivity must feed information back to the underlying physiological system, correcting it on the evolutionary stage when it does not create appropriate (i.e., parallel) images and ideas. Physiology must respond to this instruction. 2 The idea that mind and body must have evolved interactively was discussed by William James, who believed that the evolution of “appropriate” subjective feelings would be incomprehensible if feelings were biologically redundant [2]. On this model, our effort should initially focus on how this parallelism develops in primitive species. Our strategy will be to consider amendments to physics that will satisfy the parallel principle in early organisms. Attention goes first to the ways in which a creature that is fully automated might begin to experience consciousness. An automaton operates on the basis of a simple stimulus/response sequence, where the success of a sequence is awarded to the survivor of the evolutionary struggle. Suppose, as a result of mutation, an amended sequence appears in the form stimulus/consciousness/response. The conscious experience in this sequence does not have to be the sole determinant of the response, but we will allow that it is influential; that is, that it will increase or decrease the likelihood of one response or another. If the response favored by the newly introduced consciousness is wrong (i.e., if it encourages an unfortunate response), then the species will not survive; but if the favored response is right, then the species will survive. In the end, a successful species will have a specific conscious experience that is associated with a successful stimulus/response sequence, and this is the signature of a psycho-physical parallelism. A more accurate formulation of the parallel principle might be: 2nd Formulation: If an element of consciousness becomes associated with a stimulus/response sequence in a species, and if it contributes to the long-term survival of the species by enhancing or repressing a response, then the species will have acquired a rudimentary psycho-physical parallelism. Again, this is because a subjective state that enhances or represses a response will enable the creature to learn (through evolution) to couple that ‘psychological’ state with a successful ‘physiological’ response. It is my belief that the psycho-physical parallelism that we identify with humans began in this way. It must be emphasized that the conscious element in the above statement is not just a circuitous way of talking about another (equivalent) physiological configuration that is itself a response to the stimulation and a determinant of the response. That would defeat our purpose by reestablishing an epiphenomenal interpretation; for again, the content of the conscious element would then be irrelevant to any behavior. We say, rather, that it is the conscious element itself that is associated with an enhanced or repressed response. That is not to say that consciousness has an existence independent of physiology; for indeed, we 3 assume that it arises out of physiology. But we claim that the qualitative properties of the experience are directly related to the enhancement or repression of a response, and that that correspondence cannot be explained by contemporary physics. One way of providing the required feedback is described in the final sections on physics. The General Model & Hypothesis A model is shown graphically in fig. 1 in which a stimulus gives rise to two possible responses R and R′ , together with a possible subjectve experience E. This appears in two possible sequences, one being either R(E) or R′ (nE), and another being either R(nE) or R′ (E), where nE indicates no associated experience. R( E) R( E) R’(nE ) repressed R( nE ) repressed R’(E) R’(E) survive Stimulus Stimulus extinct Figure 1 We now add a hypothesis concerning the experience E that, we will say in this example, enhances a response. To put this hypothesis into play, it will be necessary to amend the underlying physics in a way that will be explained in a later section. The General Hypothesis applied to an enhancing experience: When the experience E appears in association with a response, it will “enhance” the response by increasing its probability relative to other responses. Since the bracketed term nE means that there is no associated experience, it produces no special effect. The claimed influence of E increases the probability of the response R(E) in the first sequence in fig. 1, and R′ (E) in the second sequence. Because of normalization, this effectively represses the responses R′ (nE) and R(nE). We make the further assumption that the response R is favored in the evolutionary struggle, and R′ is not. Therefore, the only species that survives is one in which the experience E is associated with a life affirming response R. 4 It should be noted that the experiential mutation introducing E is capable of advancing the evolution of the species in this example, and it does so without the help of a mechanical mutation of the kind that advances an automaton. That is, the sequence in fig. 1 might proceed as indicated without a mechanical mutation also taking place. This does not mean that the evolutionary process is thereafter dominated by experiential mutations in preference to mechanical ones. However, it is possible that these two processes (mechanical and experiential) operate independent of one another; and if that is so, they might also operate in tandem. If that were historically so, then whatever the relative frequency of the two process, the species would evolve faster than it would with either one of these processes working by itself. We would then be able to say that if consciousness is introduced in a way that gives rise to a psycho-physical parallelism, it will always benefit evolution by increasing the speed with which a species adapts to its environment. A fanciful Example An example that I use in previous papers is more specific [3,4]. It involves the experience of “pain” that is assumed to decrease the probability of any response to which it is associated. In the interest of concreteness, a fictitious encounter is imagined between an ancient fish that is initially assumed to be an automaton, and an electric probe that somehow exists in primordial waters. The probe provides the stimulus that gives rise to two possible responses of the fish (1) W-withdraw, or (2) C-continued contact. A mutation is assumed to introduce the conscious experience of pain associated with one or the other of these responses. The sequence W(no pain) or C(pain) therefore presents itself as a possibility together with the sequence W(pain) or C(no pain). In the first case, C(pain) is repressed inasmuch as we require that pain always represses the response with which it occurs. This leaves a painless withdrawal W(no pain) that will survive the evolutionary struggle inasmuch as it is a healthy response for the fish. In the second sequence, W(pain) is repressed, leaving the fish in painless contact C(no pain) with the probe; and this leads to the fish’s demise inasmuch as that response is unhealthy. The result is the emergence of a species of fish that instinctively withdraws from a probe, and at the same time, experiences a release from pain. We therefore see the beginnings of a psycho-physical parallelism in which pain is coupled with a dangerous behavior. When I speak of “pain” in this example I do not necessarily refer to the 5 painful experience known to humans. Different creatures might experience pain differently. What is important about pain is the way that it is associated with the repression of unhealthy of responses. I have been alluding to the causal efficacy of consciousness by referring to its ability to ‘enhance’ or ‘repress’ responses. I will continue to do so in the interest of simplifying and unifying the discussion. However, strictly speaking, one should only talk about possible “correspondences” or “associations” between conscious experiences and physiological responses (or our models of physiological responses). That’s because we can only hope to discover empirical relationships at this point. We have no general theory that can explain the psycho-physical interaction proposed here, and we may never have such a theory. It is even possible that there is a third unknown (and unknowable) cause that is common to these relationships [5]. I will nonetheless continue to speak of consciousness as a ‘causal’ influence because that is the most heuristically effective way of presenting this model. The Physics A stimulus that acts on a biological organism will generally create a quantum mechanical superposition of body states over a wide range of possible responses1 [6, 7]. I call a superposition of this kind of an endogenous superposition. It will consist of many competing physiological configurations, each supporting a distinctive conscious state, and each with a specific quantum mechanical probability of being realized. The external stimulus therefore gives rise to an endogenous superposition of states that are capable of supporting different degrees and qualities of consciousness. The probability that one of these states is realized is normally determined by quantum mechanics alone. However, I add a special hypothesis concerning pain consciousness. The Psycho-Physical Hypothesis applied to pain: When pain consciousness is associated with a component of an endogenous 1 It is frequently said that macroscopic states cannot be in quantum mechanical superpo- sitions because they behave like classical mixtures (i.e., like classical statistical ensembles). However, quantum mechanical interference terms do exist between these states when they are taken together with correlated elements in their environment. The states in this entanglement appear to be a classical mixture when the environmental variables are integrated out; but Joss and Zeh call it an “improper mixture” because, globally considered, it is a bona fide quantum mechanical superposition with distinct probability amplitudes. See refs. 6 and 7. It might equally be called an “improper superposition”. 6 superposition, it will repress that component relative to other ‘painless’ components. If more that one component contains pain consciousness, than the degree of repression of each component will be a function of the intensity of the pain in each. This hypothesis is entirely qualitative inasmuch as no data is available to give us a measure of the degree of repression. It is further limited to one kind of experience - pain consciousness. Presumably, pleasurable experiences are associated with enhanced behaviors; and more sophisticated experience/behavior interactions are dealt with at later stages of evolution. Again, the hypothesis is intended to be an amendment to the fundamental mechanics. It provides feedback from conscious states to physiological states that is essential if we believe that there is a naturally occurring psycho-physical parallelism. The feedback cannot be thought of a euphemism for a physiological activity that is ‘really’ the underlying cause of the influence; for barring a Leibnizian miracle, a genuine psycho-physical interaction is necessary for there to be a parallelism. State Reduction There is still no general agreement concerning how, why, or exactly when a quantum mechanical wave function collapses upon measurement. The why of it will not concern us here, but for the parallel principle to work we must choose a reduction process that satisfies one important condition: namely, that state reduction (or state collapse) cannot happen too quickly. A developing endogenous state must have enough time to grow to macroscopic proportions; and it must have enough time to mature sufficiently to support consciousness. This condition is automatically satisfied if we adopt the state reduction ideas of John von Neumann. Accordingly, (1) state reduction will not occur unless a conscious observer is present and aware of the system. This means that an endogenous macroscopic state will not collapse until it has matured sufficiently to support a conscious observer; that is, until an internal self-observation is possible. This idea is sometimes said to imply that consciousness causes the collapse of a quantum mechanical state function. As previously stated, I use terminology like this myself; but one should be reminded that we are talking about empirical relationships in which consciousness is only found to be associated with state reduction in a certain way. With this qualification, I accept the von Neumann account of state reduction. Without it, a psycho-physical parallelism would not 7 be possible. Seed Particles There remains the question of how an endogenous quantum mechanical superposition can be formed in the first place. Henry Stapp proposed that the calcium ions that are needed to release neurotransmitters across a synaptic junction are possible seed particles for the creation of such a superposition [8]. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, one of these small ions will grow to many times its “classical” size during the time it takes for it to diffuse to the vesicles containing neurotransmitters. The resulting uncertainty as to which transmitters are released is passed on to the neurological level, and this results in the macroscopic uncertainty implicit in an endogenous superposition. Other seed mechanisms are possible. There are many migratory transmitters that travel significant distances from their point of origin to receptors in other parts of the body, and these can acquire Heisenberg uncertainties in position. They are the steroids and peptides that move throughout the body, carried along by blood or intercellular fluids. Many of these are small enough and travel for a long enough time to be significantly affected by Heisenberg uncertainty. This means that the time of a molecule/receptor attachment is governed by a quantum mechanical probability distribution. This in turn leads to an uncertain receptor response. To this extent, migratory transmitters guarantee the existence of a superposition of receptors in different stages of stimulation. When the resulting uncertainties in all of the body’s receptors are taken together, the result will be a wide-ranging endogenous superposition of possible body states2 . The Case of Pain The endorphins produced by the body are migratory molecules that mediate pain by seeking out and attaching to opiate receptors in the brain and other 2 A migratory molecule spreads out spatially as it moves about, due to its Heisenberg uncertainty of momentum. Its components interact strongly with the fluids in which it is immersed, so they are also dispersed by such classical mechanisms as diffusion, turbulence and laminar flow. Either way, the probability with which a given molecule attaches to a given receptor is governed by quantum mechanical uncertainty . The resulting ensemble of receptor states is an entanglement of seed molecules and the liquid environment in which they are immersed. But when that environment is integrated out, thereby eliminating it as part of the local (macroscopic) system, the resulting receptor states are found to lack the ability to interfere with one another (see ref. 6, 7). 8 parts of the body. These molecules are peptides that are small enough and generally travel far enough to seed endogenous quantum mechanical superpositions that include a broad range of states with different degrees of pain consciousness. Endorphins can therefore function as the pain suppressers in the fanciful example of the fish, and this gives them a possible evolutionary role of some importance. Opiate receptors have been found in very ancient species, going back to the early vertebrates [9]. Since they serve no other purpose than to stimulate analgesic and euphoric effects, and since they have such a pervasive presence in all vertebrates, it is easy to believe that opiate receptors served a compelling evolutionary purpose associated with the most elementary of conscious experiences3,4 [10]. Because of its (Heisenberg) uncertainty of position, a migrating endorphin molecule has a less-than-one probability of attaching itself to an opiate receptor at any given moment. So the total number of receptors that are turned on at that moment is quantum mechanically uncertain. This number is a variable of a quantum mechanical superposition, each component of which potentially supports different degrees of pain consciousness. Our psycho-physical hypothesis tells us that those components with a greater degree of pain will be repressed relative to those with a lesser degree of pain; and as a result, the distribution of states in the superposition will shift in the direction of states with lesser pain. The probability that the subject will experience less pain is thereby increased, thus establishing a connection between subjective experience and physiology as required by the psycho-physical parallelism. It is difficult to imagine how this theory can be tested if the only seed particles available are the calcium ions within neuron synapses. But small migrating molecules are a different story. Exogenous opiates, such as codeine, morphine, heroin also alleviate pain and/or give pleasure by attaching to opiate receptors [11]. These molecules are small enough and they travel far enough to be seed particles, and they are easier to manipulate experimentally. It is therefore possible to test the above theory by injecting pharmacological doses of these opiates into subjects, determining the extent to which they attach to receptors in conscious subjects; and comparing this with their attachment in subjects 3 In advanced species, receptors perform these functions as well as modify more sophisticated moods in the direction of analgesia and euphoria. See ref. 10. 4 The existence of ancient opiate receptors does not in itself prove the existence of consciousness, inasmuch as an automaton might very well use these devices to modify a response to certain kinds of stimuli. However, I believe that consciousness was introduced through these devices. The extent to which they existed before that event, or came into existence as party to that event, is not a question that I address here. 9 who receive subpharmacological doses. The author has proposed an experiment along these lines that injects synthetic opiates into humans using positron emission tomography (PET), or into rats using autoradiography [12]. References [1] J. von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, (Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 1955), pp. 418-421 [2] W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Chap. 5, in The Works of William James, F. Burkhart, ed. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981), pp. 141-147 [3] R.A. Mould, “Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics”, Found. Phys. 28 (11), 1703 (1998) [4] R.A. Mould, “Quantum Consciousness”, Found. Phys. 29 (12), 1951 (1999); quant-ph/9908077 [5] R.A. Mould, ”Satisfying Reality”, Iyyun. Jerus. Phil. Q. 50 (Jan. 2001); quant-ph/0012120 [6] E. Joos and H. D. Zeh, “The Emergence of Classical Properties Through Interaction with the Environment” Z. Phys. B 59, 223 (1985), top p. 224 [7] D. Giulini, et al, Decoherence and the Appearance of a Classical World in Quantum Theory, (Springer, Berlin, New York, 1996) p. 41-44 [8] H. Stapp, Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, (Springer, New York, 1993) p. 152 [9] C. B. Pert, Molecules of Emotion, (Scribner, New York, 1997) p. 84 [10] C. Levinthal, Messengers of Paradise, Opiates and the Brain, (Anchor Press, Doubleday, New York, 1988) p. 111-120 [11] S. Snyder, Drugs and the Brain, (Scientific American Library, W. H. Freedmann & Co., New York, 1999) Chap. 2 [12] R.A. Mould, “Endogenous Conscious State Reduction: Two Experiments”, Found. Phys. Lett. 14 (4), 377-386 (2001); quant-ph/0106103 10

The Moon Illusion explained by the Projective Consciousness Model Running head: The Moon Illusion & Projective Consciousness David Rudrauf1*, Daniel Bennequin2* & Kenneth Williford3* 1. FAPSE, Section of Psychology, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland 2. Department of Mathematics, IMJ, University of Paris 7, Paris, France 3. Department of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Texas, Arlington, USA * The authors equally contributed to this report. Corresponding author: Prof. David Rudrauf Campus Biotech Chemin des Mines, 9 1202 Genève, Suisse MMEF Lab (Director) Tél: +41 22 379 09 31 Fax: +41 22 379 06 10 1 The Moon often appears larger near the perceptual horizon and smaller high in the sky though the visual angle subtended is invariant. We show how this illusion results from the optimization of a projective geometrical frame for conscious perception through free energy minimization, as articulated in the Projective Consciousness Model. The model accounts for all documented modulations of the illusion without anomalies (e.g., the “size-distance paradox”), surpasses other theories in explanatory power, makes sense of inter- and intra-subjective variability vis-à-vis the illusion, and yields new quantitative and qualitative predictions. Keywords: consciousness, projective geometry, free energy, perceptual illusions Introduction The structure of consciousness remains one of the greatest scientific puzzles. Here we support the hypothesis that consciousness is framed by projective geometry and dynamically calibrated to resolve sensory uncertainty by accounting for one of the oldest documented unexplained perceptual illusions, the Moon Illusion. Our account is based on an independently derived mathematical model, the Projective Consciousness Model (PCM)(1). (Supplementary Information §1). Euclidean 3-space frames sensorimotor integration, but the PCM entails that conscious perception, imagination, and action control are framed by projective geometry, which extends this 3-space and spaces for action (2) with a plane at infinity and the sets of standard isometries with point transformations preserving relations of incidence of lines and planes. Projective frames are capable of integrating points of view dynamically and are calibrated for subjective rendering in the PCM following principles of Bayesian inference and free energy (FE) minimization (1, 3), based on prior beliefs and sensory evidence. We show that when observing the Moon (especially when full and bright), the most probable projective frame, that which maximizes the use of information, is heavily dependent on the Moon’s perceived elevation and the availability of sensory information. We demonstrate mathematically and verify with simulations that on these assumptions the apparent diameter of the Moon tends to be larger when near the horizon (with “landscape” information available) and smaller when higher, in a manner that accounts for reported individual and environmental variability (4-9). The phenomenon, which also affects the perception of other celestial objects, has posed a puzzle since antiquity (9) and is considered an illusion because the visual angle A subtended by the Moon remains the same irrespective of its position in the sky. The illusion depends on the salience of depth cues (5, 9), is diminished when the Moon is seen from upside-down through one’s legs (10), and is maintained in pictures (11). Taking Account of Distance (TAD) theories (4-6, 12-14) hypothesize that perceptual systems assume the diameter of the Moon to be proportional to its estimated distance in accordance with trigonometry (the “size-distance invariance hypothesis” or SDIH). When assumed to be farther away, the Moon would thus be expected to display a larger diameter. Yet, more subjects judge the Moon larger and closer when near the horizon and smaller and farther away when elevated (12), a situation dubbed the “size-distance paradox”. TAD theorists have invoked introspective error to resolve the paradox (12, 15), sometimes bolstered by considerations about visual processing streams (16). But why should only introspected diameter correctly match unconsciously estimated quantities, and why would only some subjects suffer from this dissociation? 2 By contrast, the PCM offers a generative model of the illusion at the conscious perceptual level, accommodates the contextual factors implicated in its occurrence, is immune to the objections to TAD theories, and surpasses previous accounts based on the geometry of visual space (17, 9). Preliminaries Perceptually estimating relative sizes and distances is adaptively crucial; there are conscious perceptions of the relative sizes and distances of objects, though no direct perceptions of metrical values. This is consistent with a projective geometrical model in which there is no canonical notion of distance or ratios of distances, but only relations of incidence, preserving alignments and crossings. Nevertheless, some metrics are more natural than others in this geometry because they have the largest number of symmetry dimensions (n = 6): a Euclidean metric in the restricted affine model (E3) and a spherical metric (FubiniStudy) for the full projective space (PSO4). (For technical details see Supplementary Information §2.) Several studies (e.g., 18) have established that all sufficiently far objects are judged as “at infinity” when no indication of relative distance is available. The Moon (constellations, etc.) can be assumed to be “at infinity” in a projective frame, which does not preclude the object’s appearing nearer to or farther from the observer. Physically, the Moon M, seen from a point O, subtends a solid angle A. If M is moved to M’ maintaining Euclidean distance from O (e.g., from an elevated position to near the horizon), the visual angle A’ has the same aperture. The identity of the subtended visual angles does not by itself allow one to infer that apparent distances d and d’ or diameters D and D’ are identical. We assume that there exists a projective frame F that maximizes the use of available sensory information and minimizes the divergence from priors (beliefs and preferences) through the minimization of variational free energy. Relevant variables and parameters (see Supplementary Information §2) are: the visual angle (HM) between the horizon H and the Moon M, the visual angle A subtended by the object M, depth cues, characteristics of light, landscapes and objects. Prior parameters include the probabilities of environmental features and a default projective frame F0. The states of the variables are modified by projective transformations T, integrating sensory evidence and an unconscious world model R in memory into the Field of Consciousness (FoC). (See Supplementary Information §1.) Judgements on the apparent distance d and diameter D of M issue from this process. Our explanation of the Moon Illusion consists in proving that the projective frames F=T(F0) and F’=T’(F0), which minimize free energy in their situations, entail that the apparent diameter D of an elevated Moon is smaller than the apparent diameter D’ of a Moon near the horizon. From this, most observers will infer that distance d is larger than distance d’ and experience the Moon as both larger and closer under F’. However, it is possible on this model for observers to infer from different priors that the Moon is both larger and farther away (9,12-13). Figure 1 illustrates the overall projective setup and argument. 3 Fig. 1. Projective setup and argument a. Fields of Consciousness (FoC) for the Moon high in the sky (top) and on the horizon (bottom) from respective projective frames F and F’. The Moon is at projective infinity. (See text.) The Moon appears smaller high in the sky, larger near the horizon. b. Conditions of observation and influences on the frames and their metrics. An observer (manikin) looks at the Moon M high in the sky and M’ near the horizon at elevation q and azimuth f. The visual angle A remains the same. Free energy minimization yields the frame F (or F’) with projective transformations for the plane at infinity T (or T’), making maximal use of information. The point I in projective frame F implies a broader projective scope, and I’ in frame F’, a smaller one, which calibrates the internal metrics of the invariant projective plane at infinity defining the FoC and induces the illusion. Default projective frame The main ingredient in our explanation is the selection of the projective frame F=T(F0). Any projective frame for a 3-space must contain five points such that no four of them belong to a plane. (See Supplementary Information §2.) The standard default frame F0 (itself unconscious but subtending the FoC (1)) is defined by the center O (the “point of view”), by three points at infinity, namely, H on the horizon in front, L (or R) laterally, V vertically, and by a fifth point, I, in the finite ambient affine 3space. The point I behaves as a control point modulating the spatial scope of information integration. H, L, V and the point J projected to infinity along OI define a frame on the plane at infinity !" . Standard metrics g (e.g., Euclidean or elliptical) can be adapted to F0. On the PCM, the perceptual processing of an object like the Moon is as follows (Fig. 1): 1) Constrained by priors, the brain tries to minimize FE by maximizing the use of available information about the surroundings (quantified by an entropy), yielding a projective frame that is optimal for the discrimination of objects and integration of panoramic vision (see formula Supplementary Information §2). 2) The frame selection modifies the standard coordinates, altering apparent relative distances in !" . 3) The metric shapes conscious 4 perception, including the apparent size D of the Moon. 4) Priors can be further used, automatically or deliberatively, to attempt to resolve remaining perceptual or conceptual uncertainty (e.g., about the Moon’s apparent distance). High Moon When looking at the Moon M high in the sky, environmental perspective cues (e.g., about relative distances) are generally absent in the observer’s visual field, save perhaps the prior that M is beyond the maximum distance of binocular and accommodation discrimination (see 18). FE minimization leads to an enlargement of the projective scope, since, in such an impoverished context, a larger area offers a greater potential for sampling information (see Supplementary Information §2). This induces a transformation F = T(F0), moving I=T(I0 ) more laterally than I0 in F0 (Fig. 1). Moreover, as the Moon moves towards the zenith, the head of the observer has to be inclined upward; thus V=T(V0 ) is shifted in the direction opposite H with respect to V0 in F0. This affects the metric of the FoC, reducing the apparent size of the Moon compared to F0. Proof: The angular metric at infinity in the frame F of the FoC is isomorphic to the angular metric in the default frame F0; for instance, in the FoC, HJ0 and HV0 are processed as equal to HJ and HV. But since the real view angle, A, of M remains invariant, it represents a smaller arc in F than in F0. The Moon is thus perceived as smaller. Note that the presence of buildings or other elevated cues is known to mitigate this effect of apparent size reduction (9). This can be explained by a smaller displacement of the point I (see Supplementary Information §2). Horizon Moon When looking at a Moon M’ appearing low on the horizon, above the line HL, geometrical priors and available perspective “landscape” cues constrain the choice of the projective transformation T’, as more information is present in a narrower region of space. Free energy minimization yields a projective frame F’ with a focus on a narrower solid angle around the line OH so that the point I’ (and its projection J’ at infinity) are closer to the Moon. The arc HV in the FoC has not changed, but the angle HJ’ is now slightly smaller than in the default frame, which enlarges the apparent relative size D’ of the Moon. Proof: The projection of the arc HJ’ in the FoC is isomorphic to the arc HJ’0, but the visual angle A is unchanged (A’=A). Therefore, it now constitutes a larger part of the angle HJ, and the Moon is accordingly perceived as larger. The closer the Moon is to the horizon, the closer the point J’ is to H, and the bigger the Moon’s apparent size D’. The mathematical derivation (Supplementary Information §2 and Fig. 2) shows a non-linear dependency of D’ on the angle HJ’. Note that when comparing arcs at infinity, a prior preference for transformations preserving angles can be assumed. The deformed metric is likely to give the Moon’s disc a circular shape consistent with visual angles. The differential displacement of I in the direction of H and L is able to preserve the circular shape. However, an elliptical shape is possible in the general model and might relate to documented effects on halos around the Moon (9). Active vision and binocular disparity Eye convergence, binocular disparity and depth accommodation have the effect of considerably augmenting available information from lateral cues at far distances in the direction of the Moon. On the PCM, this shifts I’ toward the line HL and thus augments the illusion. Conversely, monocular vision, eliminating disparity (though not accommodation), 5 which is expected to have the opposite effect on I’, is known to strongly attenuate the illusion (9). The Moon in pictures The PCM can also explain why and how the Moon Illusion occurs when making perceptual inferences from planar pictures. The projective frame has to be adapted to the figure’s perspective cues, as if a human observer were contained in the world of the picture, which is interpreted as 3-dimensional (not 2D) (19). Substitution of points of view and rescaling of frames are a core feature of projective geometry. Following the same information theoretic arguments outlined above, the choice of a projective frame can induce the illusion as a result of the choice of the equivalent of point I. Note that the use of such a frame inside pictures is compatible with the use of another frame for the observer looking at the picture, the different sub-spaces being distinguished in the FoC. Seeing the Moon upside down through the legs When the Moon is low on the horizon and seen by subjects bending over to look through their legs (10), H, M’ L, and V can be all assumed to be nearly coplanar. Such a projective setup induces a higher degeneracy of the metric in the plane at infinity, thus flattening the Moon and reducing the Moon Illusion, as empirically documented (10). As shown in (10), inversion of the visual scene, even in pictures, reduces the illusion. This can be explained by the difficulty of transforming the metric when OV is reversed. Results Simulations We applied the above principles and quantitative developments (see Methods and Supplementary Information §2 & (20)) in simulations demonstrating the illusion and its relation to key model parameters (Fig. 2). 6 Fig. 2. Generative projective model of the Moon Illusion. a. Left-Tier: Conformal constraint. Charts representing relations between parameters in the model. Top and Middle: FE as a function of l, µ and s, featuring a strictly convex function guaranteeing a unique solution. Bottom: relative area (normalized by the area at 0º elevation) of the perceived Moon as a function of elevation (in degrees) and σ, demonstrating a range of possible magnification ratios. Right-Tier: 2-dimensional planar rendering of the projection of a world model (including the Moon at projective infinity) in projective space, as a function of elevation (in degrees), given parameters: σ (influences control point I (see text)), (l, µ) = argmin(Fe). b. No conformal constraint. Top: FE as a function of l and s, with fixed µ = 1.06. Middle first: elliptic bias (ratio of vertical over horizontal diameter) as a function elevation and s. Middle second: apparent relative area of the perceived Moon as a function of elevation (in degrees) and σ. Bottom: 2-dimensional planar rendering at elevation 2º (See Supplementary Information §2 & (20)). 7 Further evidence from Virtual Reality In order to acquire additional evidence bearing on the model, we performed an initial experiment in Virtual Reality over a small sample (N=6), focusing on specific quantitative predictions (20) (Fig. 3) (see Methods). The results demonstrated a relation between elevation and the perceived relative area of the moons (as compared to a reference moon at 2º), consistent with the Moon Illusion, depending on the presence of environmental information. On average, the results fit the nonlinear functions predicted by the PCM better than a linear model (LM) (PCM: t(6) = 26.3, p = 2 *10-7 versus LM: t(6) = 1.15, p = 0.0004; relative R2 = 0.86; AIC = - 14.73 versus AIC = -2.76; BIC = -3.98 versus BIC = 0.01). Though not systematic in occurrence and direction and quite variable, we also found some evidence of elliptical deformations of the moons’ shapes (Fig. 3b), which were on average significantly larger when environmental information was present than when it was not (t(4) = 3.63; p = 0.02). Furthermore, 4 of the 5 participants completing the task of elliptical assessment, reported, though irregularly, elliptical deformations of “secondary moons” presented laterally (cf. 3), which is a unique signature of the model when a global conformal prior is not dominating. 8 Fig. 3. Additional empirical evidence from Virtual Reality. For methods see (20). a. Virtual Reality (VR) scenes for conditions: environment On versus Off, displaying a reference moon (near the horizon) and a target moon (at 20° elevation). The participants’ task was to change, if warranted, the perceived size of the reference moon to make it match that of the target moons at various elevations. b. Result charts. (Error bars are standard errors). Top-Left: between-participant average relative perceived area as a function of elevation and condition. With the environment On (blue) (versus Off (red)), on average the empirical perceived areas (dashed curves) decreased (versus did not decrease) with elevation, indicating an effective Moon Illusion in VR, depending on environmental cues. On average, the PCM-predicted, nonlinear curves (continuous lines) demonstrated a good fit with the data, above that of a linear model (grey line). Bottom-Left: fitting of individual (participant 1 to 6 (see color bar)) empirical data (dashed curve) and PCM curves (continuous lines). Top9 Right: average PCM parameters, s, C’, and l, estimated from empirical data, as a function of the presence [1] or absence [0] of environmental information; corresponding to estimates of the calibration of the participants’ FoC frames. Bottom-Right: between-participant average elliptic bias as a function of elevation and condition. Discussion On the PCM, the Moon Illusion is a perceptual phenomenon that results from a projective form of Bayesian inference that frames consciousness. It is induced by the process of the subjective rendering of the FoC, which starts with the maximization of the use of information (through FE minimization) and results in the calibration and application of a projective transformation T to an unconscious world model R. Metrics can be adapted to the finite and infinite compartments in a seamless way, yielding a unique coherent first-person perspectival experience as solution (Supplementary Information §1). At infinity, the projective transformation assumed for the Moon deforms the plane at infinity proportionally to the expected information, which is achieved without affecting the real Moon’s visual angle, thus contracting the perceived Moon’s relative size when high in the sky and dilating it when low (Supplementary Information §2). Our approach makes quantitative predictions based on explicit parameters about the enlargement of the Moon near the horizon, for instance distinguishing “normal” illusions (a factor > 1 to < 2) from “super” illusions (factor ≥ 2) (4-8). Putative explanations of the Moon Illusion fall into three main types: those appealing to (i) “external physical reasons” (atmospheric refraction, magnification, change in actual distance); (ii) entoptic, optical, and oculomotor processes (faulty accommodation, pupil size under low illumination, binocular disparity); and (iii) “perceptual size changes owing to scaling mechanisms within the brain” (see 9). Theories of the first two types can be abandoned (see 9 for comprehensive treatment). The third type, which includes our proposal, TAD theories, and other geometry-based models, still stands. A number of contextual factors impact the Moon Illusion: relative sizes of objects, terrain effects, vergence commands, visual angle, posture, aerial perspective and color (see 9). The PCM can accommodate the role of basic visual parameters, such as binocular disparity (see 21-23), as well as the integration of contextual factors. Our model eliminates the “size-distance paradox” plaguing TAD theories, since it implies that D is first perceived and that d is only secondarily inferred, based on priors (e.g., that a constant object should appear bigger when closer) or on lateral cues or accommodation. More generally, it can account for the large inter- and intra-subjective variability affecting apparent D and d. Heelan (17) proposed a finite hyperbolic geometrical model of visual space (i.e., with a negative constant curvature). Though mathematically deep, the model is ad hoc if not circular (see (9)) as it arbitrarily selects a geometry and a set of fixed parameters to reproduce the illusion. By contrast, the PCM posits that the geometry underlying spatial consciousness is larger than any metrical geometry and tends towards a projective extension of affine geometry, including a notion of variations of points of view, affording great flexibility and complexity. It does not assume fixed structures for measurement but makes metrical properties dependent on active Bayesian inference, motivated by the optimal integration of priors and sensory evidence and accounting for the way in which the world is sampled. Measurements in different planes are independent; sizes and distances are computed independently of each other. Nevertheless, projective geometry can naturally accommodate spherical or Euclidean metrics (at finite distances and infinity), which are perceptually plausible. It can also incorporate hyperbolic metrics, though in the present context this would be with little ecological validity, as these can make parallel lines hyper-parallel and 10 exponentially divergent toward infinity. We have developed a second version of the general model (Supplementary Information §2), where the Moon is assumed to belong to a sphere at a finite distance and where induced transformations are restricted to preserve angles. This second version of the model remarkably coincides with Heelan’s model based on the ideal sphere of hyperbolic space. As in Heelan’s, the shape of the Moon is always round (conformal). Then the PCM can be compatible with conformal constraints, but it also offers possible non-conformal solutions, inducing elliptical deformations. Our initial results in Virtual Reality suggest the presence of some deviations from conformality, which, if confirmed, would in and of themselves exclude Heelan’s model. But more fundamentally, the PCM has much broader explanatory and predictive power (1). For instance, in this context, it also provides an explanation of the flattened dome “sky illusion”, closely associated with the Moon Illusion (9): When looking up at the sky, the point I is displaced laterally, and thus the covered region around the zenith corresponds to a smaller region in the standard default frame. Hence, the distribution of curvature is not perceptually uniform (it is smaller at the zenith and larger at the horizon). More generally, the PCM explains other types of perceptual illusions and provides a psychological inspired generative model of active inference, which encompasses and unifies the frames for perception, imagination and motor programming, embedding them in a general algorithm of global optimization of multimodal information (1). If we abandon SDIH and Heelan’s model, we need not thereby “abandon geometry” (9). In (1) we discussed the possible functional neuroanatomy of the PCM. Here, we further hypothesize that grid cell adaptation (24-25) could be linked to transformations of the projective frame, in particular to the extension of grid fields due to the displacement of the point I in the frame. Spatial representations and navigation are supported by place, head direction, grid and boundary cells, which are governed by spatial frames dependent on external cues, in particular “at infinity” (24-25), and found in the para-hippocampal region in rodents and also in humans, especially for the visual field (26), featuring a larger contextdependent flexibility (27). As Westheimer (28) states, the Moon Illusion results from many hidden neuronal activities supporting perception and action and thus involves much more than a geometry, even a projective one, in its overall generative mechanism. However, shifting to a projective space for generating consciousness and, adapting a variable projective frame dynamically through FE minimization, constitute crucial steps in the explanation of the illusion. In turn, the explanation of the Moon Illusion by the PCM provides further support for the validity of the model. Methods The PCM model principles were applied to obtain a generative model of the Moon Illusion, which was used for both simulations and analyses of empirical results (see Supplementary Information §2 for detailed mathematical definitions and derivations). Simulations The simulations presented in Fig. 2 were implemented and run using Matlab (MathWorksTM), applying the relevant formula introduced in Supplementary Information §2. The world model included a series of triangulated meshes: a sphere of radius OH = 1 centered at 0 used as a projective plane at infinity; a horizontal ground plane XY; “mountains” based on Matlab’s “peaks” function; a model of a city from an online freely available 3-dimensional model; and a small sphere (diameter 0.03) representing the Moon 11 and projected on the sphere at infinity in the direction OH. The coordinate system was: OH = x, OL = y, OV = z. The parameters of the simulation were varied across the following ranges: elevation of the Moon = [0 2 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40] degrees; s = [0.5: 0.22 :2.5]; l = [0.3 : 0.0046 : 3.5]; µ = [0.3 : 0.0046 : 3.5]. We used C = 0 for non-conformal solutions, and C = 6 for conformal solutions. We used C’ = 1, and n = 1. We used for L = log(αγ) + log(ωκ): a = 1, g = 2, w = 2, k = 2. The default frame F0 was derived from V(4) in standard coordinates: [1 0 0 0; 0 1 0 0; 0 0 1 0; 0 0 0 1], with I = c*(V4(1,:)+V4(3,:)-V4(2,:)) (with c = 1), defining P = I*V(4)-1, so that F0 was equal to V(4) row multiplied by P elementwise. A transformation Tpersp was defined as a 4×4 matrix [1 0 0 0; 0 1 0 0; 0 0 1 0; cmoon(1) cmoon(2) cmoon(3) 1] (with cmoon, the coordinates of the center of the Moon at a given elevation), and used for perspective transforms and 3-dimensional perspective division of the affine space encompassed by the sphere at infinity (inducing the 3-dimensional perspectival presentation of the world model in the FoC), so that the frame of the affine space was defined as Faffine = Tpersp*F0. Free energy (Fe) was minimized as a function of s across the range of l and µ to derive the optimal argmin(Fe[l, µ]) following equations [39-40] (see Supplementary Information §2), using equation [26] for the calculation of areas, integrating over the angular range [0 : 1.6 * 10-4 : p/2]. The change of metric in the sphere at infinity as induced by the minimization of Fe and variable Moon elevations was computed as follows. Q = atan2(l*sqrt(sin(f)2 + µ (-2)*cos(f)2)*sin(q), cos(q)), F = atan2(µ*sin(f), cos(f)), with q the elevation and f the azimuth of the Moon (in radians), sqrt(.), the square root function, and atan2(.,.), the multi-valued inverse tangent function. The results were then expressed in homogeneous coordinates at infinity, so that: (X,Y,Z,0) = [cos(Q), sin(Q)*cos(F), sin(Q)*sin(F), 0]. The absolute area of the Moon in the FoC projective space was computed as: p*(DZ/2)*(DY/2), with DZ, the vertical elliptical length and DY, the horizontal elliptical length of the projected Moon. The area was then expressed as a relative area by dividing area(q) at a given elevation by area(q = 10) at elevation 10 (near the horizon, and corresponding to the lowest elevation for ratings in the Virtual Reality experiment). Rendering of the space for Fig. 2 was performed using Matlab’s patch function. VR experiment Participants There were N = 6 participants (Females = 4; age range [24 - 40]), with normal or corrected to normal vision. Informed consents were obtained following local IRB guidelines. VR setup The experiment was programmed in Unity3d version 2017.2.0f3. A scene was created with basic assets (ground plane, cubicles, road planes, mountains, moons) (Fig. 3), in order to manipulate perspective cues, based on stereoscopic vision through the Head Mounted 12 Display (HMD), geometrical perspective cues from objects due to their distance, and atmospheric effects (fog). Moon spheres, all of the same diameter (2,500 meter), were placed in the scenes at various elevation and azimuth, but at a constant distance from the location of the participants of 50,000 meters. The experiment used an HTC Vive system for the VR immersion in the scene. Scripts were programmed in C# to control conditions, the positions of moons, ratings, saving the results in a CSV file. Experimental conditions The following conditions were manipulated. Moon elevation, ranged from 2° (reference moon) to 10 to 70° (target moons), by steps of 10°, at constant azimuth of 90° with respect to x-axis in front). Terrain visibility 1: a) mountains and buildings with horizontal plane on; b) all terrain cues off (giving the impression of floating in space). We predicted that the Moon Illusion would be maximum in (a) and absent in (b). In order to assess possible elliptical effects in dedicated blocks, an array of additional lateral moons ranging from 2°to 20° in elevation and azimuth were used to maximize the likelihood of elliptical effects due to the complexity of frame optimization in such a context. Experimental schedule, tasks and ratings Conditions were controlled manually by dedicated key press performed by the experimenter following a pseudo-random schedule. Two experimental blocks were performed. A) Manipulation: presence of terrain and perspective cues, condition (a) versus (b) above. For each condition and each trial, a target moon was presented at a given elevation, in sequences (from maximum to minimum, and minimum to maximum, ranging from 10° to 70°, among 7 possible basic elevations, repeated twice per participant), yielding 28 values × 2 conditions = 56 trials. B) Manipulation: presence of terrain and perspective cues, condition (a) versus (b) above, with in all cases an array of additional moons present (see above). For each condition and each trial, a target moon was presented at a given elevation, in sequences (from maximum to minimum, and minimum to maximum, ranging from 10° to 70°, among 7 possible basic elevations, repeated twice per participant), yielding 28 values × 2 conditions = 56 trials. Tasks and ratings were as follows. No time pressure was imposed. The total duration of the experiment, including setup, training and test was an hour on average. In block A, participants were asked to perform the following. They used the two arrow keys (left-right) on the keyboard to decrease or increase the apparent overall diameter of a “reference moon” always presented at a 2° elevation above the horizon in front. The task was to make the apparent diameter of the reference moon match as closely as possible the apparent diameter of the “target moon” appearing at different elevations above ground. Participants were asked to look carefully at each moon as directly as possible: reference and target, alternatively, looking up or down, to perform the matching. Once satisfied, they indicated it verbally in order to move to the next trial. In block B, participants were asked to perform the following. They used the two arrow keys (up-down) on the keyboard to decrease or increase the lateral diameter of the reference moon (this results in a shape of the moon that is more or less elliptical: from a vertical elongation if the diameter is decreased to a horizontal elongation if it is increased, with a perfectly round shape in between). The task was to make the apparent shape of the reference moon (irrespective of overall size) match as closely as possible that of the target moon. 13 Participants were asked to look carefully at each moon directly: reference and target, alternatively, looking up or down, to perform the matching. Once satisfied, they indicated it verbally in order to move to the next trial. The size of the reference moon was reset between each trial. Procedure The experimenter set up and helped the participant get equipped with the requisite technology. The participant was instructed to sit on a rocking chair in the center of the room. The participant was given a keyboard to set on his/her legs in order to provide responses. The participant equipped with the HMD entered the virtual scene and was given a succinct introduction about Virtual Reality. Block A was followed by block B. There was a 2-minute pause in the middle of each experimental block and a 2-minute pause between blocks. During the pauses the participant was instructed to remove the HMD. At the end of the experiment, the experimenter helped the participant to remove all of the experimental equipment and provided a debriefing about the specific goals of the study. Data analysis All analyses were performed in Matlab (MathWorksTM). The area of the apparent reference moon disks as a function of elevation q was calculated as A(q) = p*D(X)* D(Y), with D(.) the diameter (in meters) of the moon. The areas were normalized by that of the target moon at 10° in order to express the areas as a proportion of the lower target moon area, so that A(q) = A(q)/A(q = 10°). The elliptical bias (for block B) was computed as abs(D(Y)/ D(X)). Data were averaged within participants for each elevation (2 samples per condition per elevation). Simulations were performed in order to regress empirical data on data predicted by the model. After considering the empirical range of relative areas (with minimum relative areas of around 0.6), the space of parameters of the PCM used to generate predicted curves for fitting, ranged as follow: s = [0.1 : 0.128 : 1.25]; C’ = [0.001 : 0.006 : 0.6]; C was fixed at C = 3. We thus varied two of the parameters of the model. Individual empirical data were first fitted on simulated data using a least square procedure. Simulated curves with least square were retained as best match for empirical data. Empirical data and simulated data were averaged across participants for each elevation and condition in order to estimate central tendencies. The fit of the average empirical and simulated data was then computed using linear regression in order to compute statistics and assess goodness of fit. Likewise, we used a linear regression to fit straight lines (both slope and intercept) to the average empirical data. We then compared the goodness of fit of the average empirical data with i) averaged simulation data from the PCM, and ii) the straight linear model (LM). We hypothesized that the PCM simulated data would demonstrate a better goodness of fit with the empirical data than the linear model. For statistical analyses, the averaged data and elevations, as well as the curves predicted by the PCM, were z-scored so as to enable a valid comparison across goodness of fit between the PCM and the linear models. The fitting of the empirical data on the simulated data also allowed us to estimate, in each individual and on average, the parameters l, µ, s, and C’, corresponding to the projective frames of the FoC implied by the model, given the observed behavior of the relative areas as a function of elevation and condition. Goodness of fit was compared using the following indices: relative R2 = 1 – (MSE(PCM)/MSE(LM)) (with MSE(.), the Mean Squared Error); AIC = n*log(MSE) + 2*k (with n the number of elevations, and k the numbers of parameters used for model optimization and fitting), for both the PCM and LM; BIC = 2*log(MSE) + k*log(n). k was equal to 3 for the PCM (2 parameters (s and C’), and 1 regression 14 coefficient), and to 2 for the LM (1 regression coefficient, 1 intercept). We used a paired ttest to compare elliptical bias effects over the participants that performed the task. We report these results as initial results in support of the theory, but plan to perform a larger and more detailed empirical study in VR for a future report. Note that, in the model, l larger than 1 implies the displacement of the point I in the direction of H, and µ larger than 1 the displacement of I in the lateral direction. If one of them is smaller than 1, the displacement goes in the opposite direction. Author Contributions D.R. developed the study concept. D.R., D.B. formulated the hypotheses. D.B. developed the mathematical framework. D.R. implemented the simulations and designed and conducted the VR study. K.W. performed in-depth background analysis. D.R., D.B., K.W. developed the rationale and discussion and wrote the manuscript. References 1. D. Rudrauf, D. Bennequin, I. Granic, G. Landini, K. Friston, K. Williford, (2017). A mathematical model of embodied consciousness. Journal of Theoretical Biology 428, 106131. 2. A. Berthoz (2000), The Brain’s Sense of Movement. 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Acknowledgements We thank Karl Friston, Björn Merker, and Fabio Solari for their reviews during the preparation of this report. 17 Supplementary Information 1. Projective Consciousness Model General Summary General definitions Active inference. A formal and computational framework for modeling autonomous, embodied cognition, inspired by phenomenological traditions from Merleau-Ponty (29) to Varela (30) and formalized by Friston (3). Active inference is a method of information processing related to Bayesian inference by which an autonomous system: (i) anticipates the consequences of its actions by predicting how they will be experienced; (ii) programs its actions and acts accordingly, and (iii) updates its prior beliefs based on a comparison of its predictions and sensory evidence. According to the PCM, consciousness is governed by active inference. Agents run through cycles of perception, imagination, and action in order to optimize the precision of their knowledge and the satisfaction of their preferences. Free energy. A quantity introduced in Statistical Physics and transposed into Information Theory and Bayesian Learning Theory, in which it is based on predictive coding and can be applied to active inference. The quantity is the sum of three terms: discrepancy between expectation and actual state, departure from prior beliefs, and negentropy. The free energy principle entails that agents attempt to minimize their overall free energy in order to maximize the validity of their expectations and the satisfaction of their preferences in a globally optimal manner. Formally, it is an upper bound on surprise. According to the PCM, consciousness minimizes free energy either factually or by anticipation, through its cycles of perception, imagination, and action, as well as prior updates. (Cf. below, Appendix 2.2.) Entropy. A quantity, derived from Statistical Physics and forming the basis of Information Theory that characterizes the level of uncertainty about anticipated outcomes. Entropy is maximal for predictions with maximally uncertain outcomes and equal to 0 for completely certain ones. It scales up with the number of alternative possibilities. In the PCM, the more complex the inferences are, i.e., the more options and uncertainty, from simple physical situations to complex social interactions, the bigger the entropy to be processed as part of the optimization mechanism. Projective transformations. Geometrical operations for transforming projective coordinates, extending the usual coordinates in Euclidean space. (In this paragraph, two kinds of transformations are considered together: the bijective ones, forming a group, that we used in this report for changing frames, and projections from one subspace to another, which are singular in 3-dimensions, and do not form a group.) Every non-zero linear transformation of a 4-dimensional vector space induces a projective transformation in the generalized sense, which is not defined on the projective subspace corresponding to the vectors cancelled out by the linear transformation (called its “kernel”). Such transformations can place points along directions of perspective in relation to a horizon at infinity and an implicit point of observation. They cover first-person and third-person perspectives. In the PCM, the changes of projective frame correspond to one-to-one projective transformations and implement spatial intentionality, attention, and perspective taking across perception, imagination, and action programming. They are selected based on the process of free energy minimization and reciprocally have impacts on perception and action coherence. (Cf. below, Appendix 2.1.) 1 Field of consciousness (FoC). The FoC is a (virtual) 3-dimensional projective space, and behaves in a manner that is analogous to force fields in physical theories, extended over space-time and internal variables and governed by the minimization of free energy. A fundamental property of the FoC is its reliance on projective changes of frame, altering global and local perceptions, the contents of consciousness, and thus influencing cognition and behavior. Its dynamics drive anticipation, orientation and action selection. The FoC provides a high degree of information integration across multiple sensory and cognitive modalities. It is organized around a “first-person point of view” but can simulate “other persons’ points of view” and their relations, allowing the conscious organism to adaptively engage with its non-social and social surroundings. Note that the notion of the FoC has interrelated descriptive (phenomenological) components, and functional (biological, cognitive, affective, behavioral) components. Subjective rendering. The set of (neuro)computational process whereby FoCs are generated and updated in response to new data (sensory, affective, semantic, etc.) or imaginary perspective taking. The subjective rendering engine relies on a dynamical process: the active inference based on free energy minimization modifies the states of internal variables; in particular it generates a projective geometrical transformation that alters information integration and influences conscious subjective perceptions and decisions, based on sensorimotor processing. It is called “subjective” rendering due to the oriented, “first-person point of view” structure inherent in every FoC and its phenomenal manifestation. Overall model description The Projective Consciousness Model, posits that the structure of conscious perceptual (and imaginary) space approximates a projective 3-space (e.g., RP3, the projective space in 3dimensions over the field of real numbers) and relies on the corresponding group of transformations (e.g., PLG(4), the projective linear group in 4-dimensions) to simulate and evaluate possible paths through, and efficiently navigate, the organism’s environment. Path selection is driven by an active inference engine that aims at free energy (FE) minimization, roughly the minimization of surprise relative to the organism’s prior beliefs, preferences, and ongoing sensory inputs. Many cases of perceptual ambiguity and multistability (e.g., the Necker Cube), can be explained, according to the PCM, in terms of the lack of perceptual cues sufficient to determine, in accordance with FE minimization, a single, canonical perspective or angle of view on the object in question, thus allowing for ad libitum oscillation between one orientation and another, one’s transient arbitrary preference being the only remaining determinant (see (1)). The projective Field of Consciousness (FoC) plays a central integrative role as part of a general process of active inference, guiding behavior via predictions about the likely sensory consequences of actions and updating in a Bayesian way in response to sensory feedback. The process maximizes the reliability of prior beliefs and the satisfaction of preferences, which are encoded as conditional probabilities. FE minimization and invariance maximization together define the choice of projective parameters used for perspective taking in perception and imagination (e.g., first-person versus third-person perspective taking). To illustrate, consider a case of perceptual ambiguity occurring in a rabbit hunt. Imagine that the rabbit hunter cannot decide from his current vantage point if the animal in the bushes some ten meters away is a rabbit or a cat. In order to resolve the ambiguity, the hunter must decide what new visual perspective on the animal is required. In order to do that, he must be able to imagine (actively or passively) a number of accessible visual points of view, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these possible points of view, and select the best (or one 2 of the best) to attempt to realize. Here the choice will be determined by how conducive the imagined point of view would be (if realized) to the attainment of the hunter’s goals (i.e., determining the identity of the animal and enabling a clear shot) and how difficult the point of view is to realize given these goals (e.g., Will attempting to realize it scare the animal off?). The process of relating his current point of view on the situation to the imagined points of view is what we call “perspective taking”. And the process of selecting an optimal perspective in a given situation is driven by the general directive to satisfy preferences given the constraints provided by prior beliefs and sensory evidence (prior beliefs being subject to Bayesian updating in the light of new sensory evidence). The hunter selects and enacts the realizable perspective (from among those he can envision) with the greatest probability of reducing his FE further. Imagining those possible perspectives requires an implicit mastery of projective geometrical transformations; choosing a single one to actualize requires a selection regime, one driven by FE minimization, according to the PCM. The projective structure of the space of conscious experience (“conscious space” for short) is most notable in visual perception, with its points of view, horizon lines, vanishing points where parallel lines seem to converge, and scaling effects, revealing the relative distances of familiar objects. But this projective structure is by no means restricted to vision; in fact, it is a pervasive feature of multimodal, conscious 3D space. Arrows of direction in space and exchanges of points of view, are essential for the control of reaching, grip, locomotion, imagined displacement and social perspective taking (see (1,2)). It is not too surprising that the projective plane was first discovered and studied with the aim of explicating and systematizing the rules governing the depiction of 3D visual scenes on 2D surfaces. It may at first appear somewhat more surprising that multimodal conscious space can itself be modelled in terms of projective 3-space. It is due to this projective arrangement that conscious experience is always perspectival and capable of making basic spatial distinctions (here vs. there, closer, farther away, above, below, behind, etc.), imbued with an elusive but roughly localizable origin, which is not itself a distinguishable object within the space, and that it is capable of implicit and explicit perspectival imagination, able to infer how physical objects would look from various angles, distances, etc. Projective imagination, in turn, is also crucial for intersubjective understanding, empathy, and Theory of Mind. In the PCM, sensorimotor data integration is dependent on the choice of a projective frame F=T(F0) on the 3-dimensional projective space, which completes the usual ambient affine space E by adding points at infinity, forming a plane at the horizon. This projective frame is chosen based on FE minimization, in agreement with data and prior probabilities, including valuations related to internal preferences and motivational parameters, and used for optimal subjective rendering in the FoC. Furthermore, beyond its general framing, the representational contents of the FoC (animate and inanimate objects, structures and properties of physical objects, etc.) are determined on the basis of information encoded in memory and extracted from sensory evidence in order to build a world model R that is projected in perspective using the projective transformations T for subjective rendering in the FoC. The application of a projective transformation to the world model results in a conscious world model S. The transformations distribute spatial structures and motions in the FoC, as well as their associated FE, according to a point of view, direction of aim, and a scope that can be used for the evaluation of action; they also require calibration for perceptual inference. The distribution of subjective information in the projective workspace is interpreted as given by the operation of T on R: ! " # , % # , & # , ' = ) ∙ +(", %, &, 1) [1] 3 where (x,y,z) are affine coordinates in the frame F, and (x', y', z',w) are homogeneous coordinates in the frame T(F). The model is projected in the FoC 3-dimensional workspace in a first-person perspective (1PP) mode through perspective divide across the three spatial ambient dimensions (x,y,z) as: 23 53 63 ! 1// = S( , , , 1) 4 4 4 [2] The parameters of T(t) and R(t) are selected at a given time instant t based on a combination of sensory evidence and prior beliefs such that: ) 7 , +(7) = 89:;<= >?(), +) [3] 2. Mathematical framework a) Projective frames and metric transformations at infinity Let there be given a real vector space W of dimension n+1. The projective space P(W) is the set of lines through 0 in W; it is said to have n dimensions. Every invertible linear transformation u from W to itself induces a transformation T of P(W) that is called a projective transformation. If v is a constant multiple of u, it defines the same T, and reciprocally if u and v define the same T, v is a constant multiple of u. By definition, a projective subspace Q of dimension m in P(W) is a subset of the form P(U), where U is a linear subspace of W of dimension m+1. In particular, a hyperplane of P(W) is a subset P(V) where V is a linear subspace of dimension n, i.e., co-dimension 1 in W. A linear basis e1,…,en+1 of W defines homogeneous coordinates [x,…,xn+1] on P(W) that are n+1 numbers, not all equal to zero, considered to define the point in P(W) (i.e., the same line in W) which passes through the vector x = x1e1 +…+ xn +1en+1. Thus two sets of coordinates [x1, … ,xn+1] and [x’1,…,x’n+1] are equivalent if and only if there exists a nonzero constant c such that x’1= cx1,…,x’n+1 = cxn+1. Definition: A projective frame in P(W) is a set of n+2 (projective) points P0,P1,…,Pn+1, such that no subset with n+1 elements belongs to a hyperplane of P(W). Proposition 1: In this case there exists a linear basis e1,…,en+1 of W, such that Pj corresponds to the line generated by ej for any j between 1 and n+1, and P0 corresponds to the line generated generated by e0 = e1+…+en+1. Moreover, this basis is unique up to the multiplication of all vectors by a common constant. Demonstration: We choose a basis e’1,…,e’n+1 of W such that e’j generates the line Pj, then the numbers x’1,…,x’n+1 such that x’1e’1+…+x’n+1e’n+1 generates P0 are well defined up to the multiplication of all of them by a common constant. The searched frame is given by putting ej = x’je’j for any j between 1 and n+1. From this proposition, it follows that a projective frame is equivalent to n+1 vectors linearly independent up to multiplication by a non-zero constant. However, this fact is a bit misleading in view of the following result, which shows that n+1 points are truly not sufficient for making a projective basis. 4 Theorem 1: Given two projective frames P0,…,Pn+1 and P’0,…,P’n+1, there exists a unique projective transformation T such that for every j, T(Pj)=P’j. Demonstration: We choose two linear bases of W, ej and e’j (j=1,…,n=1) that are related to these two frames as described in the statement of the preceding proposition (not its proof), then there exists a unique linear application u such that u(ej)=e’j (for j=1,…,n=1). The relation u(e0)=e’0 is automatic by linearity. This defines T. Historically, projective spaces were defined by adding points at infinity to affine spaces. In practice, it is important to work in such a context, and thus to explain how it relates to what precedes just above. Let V be any hyperplane in W, defined by a linear equation a(w)=0. Then the subset E of W defined by a(w)=1, has a well-defined structure of affine space associated to V: given two points A and B in E, there exists one and only one vector v in V such that B=A+v. The points P of E can be identified with points of P(W) by taking the lines containing 0 and P; those projective points are named the “points at finite distance” of P(W), even if there exists no preferred distance here. (In fact, a Euclidean metric on E is equivalent to a positive nondegenerate scalar product on V.) And the projective subspace P(V) of P(W) can be seen as the hyperplane at infinity of E, by associating the directions in E parallel to non-zero vectors in V. An affine frame of E is made by a point Pn+1 and a linear basis e1,…,en of V. Given such an affine frame, an associated linear basis of W follows by taking for Pj the lines generated by ej when j=1,…,n, and taking en+1=Pn+1. Then we deduce a projective frame, just by taking the point P0 as before, i.e., the line generated by the vector e0=e1+…+en+en+1. Conversely, if a projective frame P0, P1,…,Pn+1 is given, according to Proposition 1, this defines a unique basis e1,…,en+1 of W. We define V as the vector subspace of W generated by e1,…,en, equipped with the equation a(v)=0, such that a(en+1)=1. This defines an affine space E as before. The points P1,…, Pn belong to the plane at infinity P(V) which completes E to get P(W); in E we find Pn+1 corresponding to the line generated by en+1and P0 corresponding to the line generated by the sum e0=e1+…+en+1. The intersection of the line Pn+1P0 with P(V) is the point Q0 that corresponds to the vector f0=e1+…+en=e0-en+1, because this is the unique vector such that P0=Pn+1+f0 belongs to the affine space E. Remark: It is a pure convention to choose this form of e0; for instance, nothing essential would be changed if we had chosen e’0=-e1+…+en+1. This could be seen as another frame P’0,P1,…,Pn+1, and this would have no effect on the projective transformations associated with another frame, on the condition that we respect the form of the combination of basis vectors, the same sign at the same place. This remark points to the important fact that there exists a manifold of concrete representations of what a frame is; this could, for example, be a point cloud, deduced one from another by fixed conventional changes of coordinates. In the 3-dimensional projective space presented in the body of the text, the points L, V, H correspond respectively to P1, P2, P3, the point P4 to O, and the point P0 to I. The point Q0 is the point J. When modifying the convention as in the above remark, we exchange left and right, then the point cloud R/L and I, I’ is an example of the possible extension of the notion of a frame. Let us now look at metrics in the space P(V). Elliptical metrics (corresponding to spherical metrics of the two-fold cover of P(V) by the sphere of oriented directions in E) appear more natural, but we will also consider Euclidean metrics, describing an affine part of P(V) centered on Pn (that correspond to our H at the horizon), because some subjects have the tendency to report their estimation preferentially in these Euclidean terms. In this Euclidean case, we assume that P1,..,Pn-1 are at infinity in P(V) (corresponding to V and R/L). (Later in 5 this supplementary document, in (c), we will also consider natural hyperbolic metrics on parts of the projective space.) We admit that the standard elliptical (or spherical) metric that corresponds to the usual measure of angles, is associated with a standard frame of reference (that we named the frame by default (F0) in the main text), the largest angle is π/2, it is realized for any pair Pj, Pk with j,k between 1 and n, and distinct. Then the angle between Q0 and a Pj is π/4. Let us look at the effect of changing the frame into a new one P’0,…,P’n+1. We restrict ourselves in what follows (except in (c)) to the case where P’1,…,P’n continue to belong to the hyperplane at infinity P(V). There exists a unique projective isomorphism T of P(W) sending a Pj to the corresponding P’j, for j=0,1,…,n+1. There exists a unique rescaling of the corresponding linear isomorphism u of W (a 4×4 matrix, in our case n=3) such that u preserves the affine part E, and induces an affine transformation on it, which can be identified with the restriction TE of T. Let us look first at the case where T fixes all the points Pj, j=1,…,n+1, and moves only P0 into a point P’0, then Q0 into Q’0 in P(V) (in our 3D case, this means that only I and J are moved). The new basis e’1,…,e’n, e’n+1 of W, is made of proportional vectors, e’1=a’1e1, …, e’n+1=a’n+1en+1, i.e., the matrix of u in the standard basis e1,…,en is diagonal with entries a’1,…,a’n+1. Due to the fact that u preserves E, the last entry a’n+1 is equal to 1, but the other ones can be anything except zero, and can be interpreted as the coordinates of P’0 in the affine frame of E centered in Pn+1=O, and with axis normalized by e1,…,en, that is because e’0=e’1+…+e’n+1=en+1+a’1e1+…+a’nen, generates the line P’0 and cuts the affine hyperplane E of W in the point O+a’1e1+…+a’nen. Therefore Q’0 is defined by the vector e’0en+1=a’1e1+…a’nen, which gives another interpretation of the coefficients a’1,…,a’n. For Q’0, and for the corresponding transformation in P(V), and then for the angular geometry, only the homogeneous coordinates [a’1,…,a’n] play a role, i.e., we can multiply all of them by the same non-zero number without changing this geometry. (If we were interested in the geometry at finite distance, on E, we should have considered the separate values of all the coordinates.) For every j and k between 1 and n, the arc from Pj to Pk continues to have the value p/2, and the arc from Pj to Q’0 now is equal to p/4. The easiest way to express the change of geometry induced by the new point Q’0, B B replacing Q0, is to consider the ellipsoid Σ’ in E of equation 8′A "A B + ⋯ + 8′E "E B =1. Its half-axis in the direction of ej, j=1,…,n, is 1/a’j. This ellipsoid is the unit sphere in the new coordinates x’j, j=1,…,n. Let us denote by Σ the unit sphere in the old coordinates xj, j=1,…,n, i.e. "A B + ⋯ + "E B = 1. And consider the radial projection ρ from Σ to Σ’, followed by the inverse of the transformation u, to come back to Σ; this composed transformation f gives the new metric on Σ. In terms of homogeneous coordinates f is nothing but the inverse ) FA of T. For example, if n=2, let us choose a’1=λ and a’2=1, and denote the coordinates x1 and x2 by the letters x and y respectively. The sphere Σ is the ordinary circle of radius one and center 0, " B + % B = 1, and the ellipsoid Σ’ is the ellipse of equation GB " B + % B = 1. Let us parametrize Σ by the angle θ=arctan(y/x), then ρ(θ)=( GFA / 1 + GFB 78= H B , GFA tan(θ)/ 1 + GFB 78=(H)B ), and N H = OFA (ρ θ ) = arctan(λtanθ). To understand the deformation of the metric on the circle Σ that is induced by f, we have to compute its derivative at a given elevation θ, this is f’(θ)= G A ^_` ] Z YTZ `aE ] Z TUVW3 X AYTZ [\E ] =G Z AY[\E ] Z AYTZ [\E ] Z = . We see that for zero elevation the factor of expansion (or contraction if λ< 6 1) is the number λ, and for elevation at 45° it is equal to 2λ/(1+GB ). To go further we compute the second derivative: N"(H) = G(1 − GB ) B^_`(])efW(]) (^_` ] Z YTZ `aE ] Z )Z [4] Thus f is a concave function when λ is strictly larger than 1, which means that the factor of expansion f’(θ) is larger and larger when θ approaches 0; we referred to this as the convexity of the Moon dilatation when it approaches the horizon. For n=3, we parametrize the round sphere Σ by the longitude θ and the latitude φ, in such a manner that x=x1=cos θ, y=x2=sin θ cos φ and z=sin θ sin φ, the transformation u being given by x’=λ x, y’=µ y and z’=z. (With the notations in the body of the text x is along OH, y along OR, and z along OV. The coordinates of I are noted (λ,µ,n).) Applying ρ and the inverse of u, we obtain the following transformation f of the sphere Σ: f(x,y,z)=(X,Y,Z); where: X=GFA cos (H)/+ ; Y=iFA sin(θ)cos(φ)/R; Z= n-1sin(θ)sin(φ)/R, and, R= υFB k<= l B k<= H B + GFB mnk H B + iFB mnk l B k<= H B . In spherical coordinates (Θ, Φ), this yields: Θ=arctan(λ υFB k<= l B + iFB mnk l B 78=(H)) Φ=arctan(µυFA tan(φ)) [6] [5] In natural homogeneous coordinates on the plane at infinity, the transformation f is simply: f(x ;y ;z)=(x/λ; y/µ; z/n) [7] In the affine coordinates (y,z) centred in H in P(V), y lateral and z vertical, it is: fa(y ;z)=(λy/µ; λz/n) [8] Then if the Euclidean structure in these coordinates is used, the metric is dilated if λ is larger than 1, and more dilated in the vertical direction than in the lateral one if µ is larger than n, which might play a role under some conditions in the reported egg shaped of the halos around the Moon at the horizon (9). Since to our knowledge an egg shape has not been reported for the Moon itself, we could assume a strong prior, consistent with visual angles, favoring the preservation of a round shape at infinity. Or perhaps the effect is too slight to be easily noticed. Transformations that send circles to circles (without necessarily sending the center to the center) are called conformal. They are the transformations that multiply the metric tensor by a strictly positive function. We will see in Proposition 3 below that the only conformal maps of a projective plane are isometries, as opposed to what happens for the sphere. We remark that the affine model fa is conformal when µ=υ, but the correspondence between the hemisphere x positive, or the projective plane, with the affine plane, which is given by central projection (called the gnomonic projection), is not a conformal map, as opposed to the projection of the full sphere on the tangent plane at a pole from the opposite pole (called the stereographic projection). Let us compute how far the map f defined above is from a conformal map. The elliptical (or spherical) element of length ds is given by: 7 ok B = oH B + k<=B Hol B iB k<= l B + q B mnk l B . We have Let us define p = rw rx = [9] uv u Z `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z Tt`aE] , and k<=y = rs r] TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z = Ttuv TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z , . Therefore : iB q B (GB p| oH B + GB pB k<=B H GB pB k<= H B + iB q B mnk H B ol B ) oy +k<= yo{ = ( GB pB k<= H B + iB q B mnk H B iB k<= l B + q B mnk l B )B B = B B u Z vZ TZ tZ (r] Z Y`aEZ ]rx Z )Yu Z vZ TZ t}Z (`aEZ ] TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z Ft~ `aEZ ])rx Z TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z Z [10] Thus the departure from conformality is given by: ol B = u Z vZ TZ t}Z `aEZ ]( TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z Ft~ )rx Z TZ tZ `aE ] Z Y^_` ] Z Z [11] More explicitly: ( GB pB k<= H B + iB q B mnk H B ) − pÄ = iB GB k<= H B k<= l B + q B GB k<= H B mnk l B + iB q B mnk H B − iÄ k<= l Ä − q Ä mnk l Ä − 2iB q B k<= l B mnk l B [12] For instance, on the vertical axis, where φ=π/2, the departure from conformality is zero if and only if : i= GB k<= H B + q B mnk H B [13] Consequently, given the elevation θ of a point M along the vertical axis at infinity and the parameters λ, υ, there is a unique choice of µ preserving the circular form in the neighborhood of M. The same result holds true in any direction, because the following equation in 9 = pB : 9 B − GB 9k<= H B − iB q B mnk H B = 0 [14] has one and only positive root for any value of θ strictly between –π/2 and π/2 and for any value m of the product µυ, which is given by: 9= TZ `aE ] Z Y T~ `aE ] ~ YÄÉZ ^_` ] Z B [15] which leads to the following equation in µ and υ: 2iB k<=l B +2;B iFB mnkl B − GB k<= H B = GÄ k<= H Ä + 4;B mnk H B [16] By multiplication by the square t of µ, we obtain a second degree equation in t, with a strictly positive discriminant as soon as θ is smaller than π/4, due to the inequality: 4;B mnk H B > 8;B k<=l B mnk l B [17] 8 There exists one and only one strictly positive solution of this equation, due to the minus sign of the term of degree one. Thus we have proved the following result. Proposition 2: For any direction φ around H, and any value of θ smaller than π/4, and any strictly positive value of λ, there exists a one parameter family of pairs (µ, υ) making the transformation f conformal in the point M of coordinates (θ, φ). This has to be contrasted with the following negative result. Proposition 3: Any projective conformal transformation of the projective plane is an isometry and thus induced by a rotation of the sphere; that is the two-fold cover of the projective plane. Proof: any projective isomorphism of the plane can be lifted to a bijection of the twodimensional Riemann sphere, which commutes with the antipodal map τ; by composing with an orthogonal reflexion we can suppose that this transformation preserves the orientation, then, if it is conformal, it is expressed by a complex homography, which has one or two fixed points. The case of a unique fixed point is excluded by the commutation with τ. Thus we have two antipodal fixed points. The eigenvalues of the linear approximations at these two points must be inverse imaginary numbers (the determinant is one), having the same modulus (from the commutation with τ). Thus the homography is a rotation. We have to compute the area A(λ,µ,υ) of the image by f of the domain Ω where θ is smaller than π/4 and φ is arbitrary. It is given by standard elliptic integrals of the third kind. á/Ä Ü G, i, q = à á oH à ol rw âs rx â] sin(y) [18] Then: á/Ä Ü G, i, q = à á oH à ol Z uv Ttuv TtefW(]) u `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z [19] To integrate over θ, we use the following formula: r ãåe(]) r] TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] = Z FTZ tZ efW(]) (TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z ) TZ tZ `aE ] Z Yu Z vZ ^_` ] Z [20] We get: á Ü G, i, q = à uvrx u Z `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z u Z vZ rx á − à (u Z `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z ) TZ (u Z `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z )Yu Z vZ [21] The first integral can be computed easily, by introducing the variable t=tan φ: á Yé Yé rç uvrx r[ = 2iq à =2 à =è à u Z `aE x Z YvZ ^_` x Z u Z [ Z YvZ çZ YA [22] The second integral is a multiple of the standard complete elliptic integral of the third kind in the form of Legendre: 9 á/B ê =, ë = à rx (AFE`aE x Z ) AFí Z `aE x Z [23] with : = = 1 − iB q FB [24] and : ëB = TZ vZ FTZ u Z TZ vZ Fu Z TZ vZ Yu v v T Yu Z = Z Z Z Z [25] Then the exact formula of the area, with these notations is Ü G, i, q = è − 2 uZ v TZ Yu Z ê =, ë [26] Also here we neglect nothing that is essential except symmetry, by imposing υ=1, and varying λ and µ. b) Free energy and projective frames General considerations In general, variational Bayesian learning and decision depend on the minimization of a functional FE, similar to a free energy in statistical Physics. The variable is an a posteriori probability p on the internal parameters representing the states of the world, the states of the mind and body, including notably motivations and intentions. All these variables being denoted by letters X, Y, etc. Thus functional FE expresses a trade-off between the conservation of the a priori probability pa on the internal parameters and the best possible explanation of the probability pL on a subset of the variables XL that in general represent new observations, but that could as well represent new goals or beliefs: FE(p) = Eò (−log õ\ ) + úùû (üû ∗ õ, õû ) − !(õ) [27] The entropy, which measures the total uncertainty, is defined as: !(õ) = − õ(") log (õ(")) [28] and the Kullback-Leibler divergence, measuring statistical proximity, is defined as DKL(p1,p2)= õ1 log (õ1/õ2) [29] We do not justify this function here: it is traditionally deduced from the lower bound of a probability (cf. (3)), but it is also directly a Kullback-Leibler divergence between probabilities on the product of the space of parameters and the space of the values of all variables. In our application, the data on XL is not treated as a probability, but as a fixed value xL, then the term Ep(DKL) (the expectation of the Kullback-Leibler divergence of two probabilities) is replaced by -log(p(XL=xL), which yields the following simplified form: 10 FE(p) = −log (p X¢ = xû ) + Eò (−log õ\ ) − !(õ) [30] However, even the minimization of this function turns out to be very difficult, thus people (and probably their brains too) have adopted a simplified version. Such simplification could be implemented through regionalization, as introduced by Bethe and generalized by Kikuchi (31), or by introducing a virtual probability q on all the variables X, and using the Jensen’s inequality of convexity, which simplifies the form of FE and yields a more tractable function : pV ", H FE(p) = −log (p X¢ = x¢ ) + Eò (− log E§ ))) p x, θ •(") õ\ ", θ ≤ −log (p X¢ = x¢ ) + Eò (E§ (− log )) õ ", θ • " = −log (p X¢ = x¢ ) + Eò E§ (− log p\ ", θ ) − S(p) − S(q) [31] This function is now considered as a function F(p,q) of the pair or probabilities (q,p). A further simplification consists in assuming that on θ the marginalization of p gives a certainty, and that for this value of θ, p(x, θ) coincides with q(x), and pa(x,θ) becomes pa(x),which yields another form of free energy: >® • = −log (q X¢ = x¢ ) + E§ (− log p\ " ) − S(q) [32] The variable q now belongs to a chosen set Q of prescribed probabilities on X. As X is a joint variable (Xk; k in K), the choice of Q implies some hypotheses on the dependency between the internal variables Xk. The set L is considered as a subset of K. In the PCM, one of the variables is a projective frame F=T(F0) on the 3-dimensional projective space P(W), which completes the usual ambient affine space E by adding points at infinity. Sensorimotor integration relies in particular on F. We will assume for simplicity that the law q on F (or T) has a Gaussian shape with small variance. In fact, a variance zero would lead to a contradiction because the a priori –log(p) would take an infinite value in this case. Other variables are observables or hidden variables. The law on the projective frame, as the laws on the other variables, is chosen based on the minimization of FE. Once F is chosen, and the other elements of the law q, perceptions and actions follow, which change the data, so that a dynamical system emerges. We replace the prior pa by a probability p deduced from q; and a new F and new p are determined for the next time instant, and so on. Application to the Moon Illusion When the Moon appears in the sky, one of the principal inputs xL is its approximate position in the sky. Other inputs from XL are defined by the visible landscape and objects. In what follows, we adopt the notations of the first section of this appendix. The prior distribution pa on the frame is centered in F0 and has variance σ0, which corresponds to a matrix, itself constituted by four 4×4 matrices, one for each of the four vectors e1,e2,e3,e4 in the 4-dimensional space W. This representation is simpler than the (nonequivalent) representation of variance using five 3×3 matrices for the points O, H,V, L, I. For minimizing the second term in >® • , the frame F has to depart as little as possible from F0. In this case, the variation of H,V,R/L and O is minimal, but the variation of I has a cost. If we take the complete contribution of the variable F to the free energy function Fe, we get the DKL between two Gaussian laws in the vector space V: one for f0=e1+e2+e3, and the 11 other for f’0=a’1e1+a’2e2+a’3e3. This is known as the sum of squares of the Euclidean distance, corresponding to the covariance I*σ0 of the first law induced on the fifth point I, between the points in 3D space and a non-symmetric function of the two covariance matrices. In what follows we neglect this second part, but it could have an effect. Note, in addition, that visual information, which unconsciously puts the horizon farther, i.e., augments d, as in Kaufman & Kaufman (12), has the effect of displacing f’0 in the direction of e1 (i.e., H), thus augmenting λ and yielding a larger visible horizon, elongating the frame in the lateral direction e2 (i.e., R/L), which increases µ. By symmetry, the only unknown parameter here is the scale of I*σ0, the statistical unit σ: it is smaller than 1 if the prior in favor of the standard frame by default is strong, and is larger than 1 if this prior is weak, and: Fe(F)= A B© Z (G − 1)B + (i − 1)B [33] For the other terms of >®, the role of F is indirect: we assume that choice of F has an effect on the quality and quantity of observations inside the cone delimited by I. Then the variables XL that can impact the choice of F are observables in the vicinity of the Moon, and between the Moon and the observer. If the Moon is full and luminous, and if salient cues are present, many variables can be estimated more accurately. Thus, for minimizing the first term in Fe, that is −log (q X¢ = x¢ ), the point I has to be chosen far in the direction of the moon when it is near horizon. Contrariwise, in the case of the Moon high in the sky, the point I is better placed more laterally in order to augment the likelihood of acquiring new information. The problem now is to quantify this difference. Concerning all the variables XK, including XL, the two last terms in Fe taken together correspond to the KL divergence from fine graining q to coarse graining pa. We can assume that most of the variables XL are indifferent for the prior, i.e., pa is uniform. In this case, it has a large entropy, and - log(pa) is a constant Ua. Then Eq(-log(pa))=Ua too, and: DKL(q;pa) =Ua-S(q). DKL decreases if the entropy of q increases. This entropy is large if the quantity and quality of cues are large, and is small in the opposite case. This is because, entropy grows with the number of states that are estimated. We can assume that such quality, for each variable XL, is proportional to the sum of the logarithms of the luminosity of the Moon, say γ, measured in units inverse to the area, of the area α of the visible object, of the quality of sight, say ω (two eyes and so on), and of the quality κ of the object (contrast and so on). Let us denote Λ= log(αγ) + log(ωκ); we have: S(qL)=CNLΛ [34] where C is a normalization constant, and NL is the number of observables for the sight in the region of interest. The constants α, γ, ω and κ are independent of the choice of F, and can be manipulated experimentally. The quantity NL, however, depends on F. It corresponds to the number of available “independent variables” in X’, or a number of accessible dimensions, related to the available information. We hypothesize that NL is proportional to the inverse of the area of the region determined by J around H. When µ=1, all the necessary formulas can be explicitly computed. In the elliptical geometry at infinity, that is, half the standard spherical geometry, the area a of the region defined by θ£θ0 is a(θ0)=π(1-cos(θ0)). Then the ratio of areas, between the region covered by J0 and the region covered by J is given, according to the function f of section 1 (i.e., f(θ)=atan(λ tan(θ))), by the following formula as a function of λ: 12 ρ(λ)= ( 2 − 1) 1 + GB / 2( 1 + GB − 1) [35] Then we want to minimize the following function: Fe(λ)= A B© Z G − 1 B +C’Λρ(λ) [36] where C’ is a constant independent of everything else. This function Fe(λ) is strictly convex and tends to infinity when λ tends to infinity or zero; therefore, it has a unique minimum. However, the prior preference assumed here based on phenomenology for keeping a Moon of round shape makes the intervention of lateral parameters µ and υ necessary. In what follows, to simplify, we fix υ=1, which is not a problem if the angle φ is sufficiently large, say between 30° and 120°, which is quite a natural hypothesis in our context, given the adopted coordinate system. In this case, we have seen that, given a point M(θ,φ), a unique µ exists such that the transformation f is approximately conformal in the vicinity of M. To simplify the simulations, we work with M on the vertical, thus with υ=1 and: i= GB k<= H B + mnk H B [37] We will now denote by ω the value of θ where the Moon is seen. We define : p G, i = AFA/√B ´(T,u,A) [38] where A is given by the complete elliptic integrals in section (a). Thus two components of Fe(λ,µ) contribute to the overall FE, with a differential weight depending on the position of M with respect to a transition point for elevation. When the elevation of M is under that point (say π/4 where in many cases no environmental information will appear in the visual field), the function that contributes the most to FE to be minimized is: Fe(λ,µ)= A B¨Z G − 1 B + ≠(Æ) i − i G, Æ B + ≠′ Λ p G, i [39] where C expresses the strength of the a priori assumption of roundness. We introduced a dependency on Æ to take into account that the departure from roundness varies with the Moon’s elevation center Æ. For small values of Æ, µ values yield roundness, but for larger ones, a precise tuning is warranted, leading to a larger weight ≠(Æ), which can be defined as C0sin2(Æ), for respecting the order of the defect of conformality. In general, in a model preserving the roundness of the Moon’s shape (i.e., with a conformal behavior), C is supposed to be large as a prior. It is smaller if conformality is not encoded as a strong prior. The form of the function Fe implies that its minimum is to be found for λ and µ larger than 1. This generates focalization to the horizon HL, accompanied by a corrective relative enlargement for the lateral integration of information. When the Moon is higher in the sky beyond the transition point (say more than 45° of elevation where only the open sky is given and no more proximal cues are present), according to our main rationale, the projective frame has to further shift from fine graining to coarse graining to maximize information integration. Thus the region of integration is 13 expected to be further enlarged and the equivalent area to grow. Consequently, the function that contributes the most to FE to be minimized is: Fe’(λ,µ)= A B¨Z G − 1 B + ≠ i − i G, Æ B + ≠" Λ Ü G, i [40] For λ=0, the area is zero. It is convex in the vicinity of zero, and growing everywhere, going toward infinity when λ grows toward infinity. But λ is less than 1 in this context. In general, this function is not necessarily convex, but it becomes convex if σ is sufficiently small. The point I is moved backward with respect to its default position, and the lateral correction when C is sufficiently large continues to follow the prior of roundness. By considering the form of Fe’, we expect a less spectacular effect of a decreasing apparent diameter of the Moon as its elevation keeps growing (as the minimum is not far from λ=1 and then µ=1) than with Fe above. The above formulas are valid as well for meridians other than the vertical. c) The conformal model Let us suppose that we introduce a factor 2 in the formula for f. In the simplest case this yields the following transformation g of the sphere at infinity: Θ=2 arctan(λ78=θ/2), Φ=φ. The transformation may look similar to the original f, but it is misleading. The original f sends the hemisphere x=cos(θ) positive into itself, and when extended by continuity to the great circle θ=π/2 (where the tangent is infinite), this extended formula induces an identity transform (i.e. sending points to themselves) on this great circle. It then induces a smooth transformation of the projective plane into itself: the new g is a well-defined smooth map from the whole sphere, x positive and x negative, that fixes the two poles x=1 and x=-1, and sends the equator θ=π/2 to the circle Θ=2 arctan(λ). It is a conformal map for the spherical metric. The division by two of the angles corresponds to the coordinates on the unit sphere viewed from the pole x=-1, and the passage to the tangent corresponds to the stereographic map, which is conformal. The transformation g is named a boost in Special Relativity, because it describes the effect of a boost on the sphere of the past towards the present (or future). Then its intervention in a theory of perception of the sky around us might make sense and may be less surprising than a purely projective map such as f. In fact, such map g (and others having the same structure) can naturally be defined in the PCM. The fact that we are looking all around us, although not at the same time, makes sensible a two-fold cover S(V) of the plane at infinity P(V), and the fact that we are able to sometimes sense differences in depths very far, even if we cannot in general attribute a quantitative measure to these differences, renders natural the possibility of spheres associated with S(V) that are very far but remain at a finite distance. On such spheres, as on S(V), the angular metric would be sensed by ordinary vision. Note that, in this context, a change of projective frame can induce a transport of this metric to another one, thus influencing the perception of objects, viewed as surfaces on this sphere and as volumes in general. Let us take again the default frame in the 4-dimensional space W: e1 in the direction of H, e2 lateral, e3 vertical, and e4 from the point of view O. The 3-dimensional affine space E is the hyperplane containing O and parallel to e1, e2 and e3. Let us also consider a sphere Sc of center O and radius c, and its isomorphic image P(Sc) in the projective space P(W). The subgroup of the group GL(W) of linear bijections of W, constituted by the transformations sending P(Sc) into itself, is the conformal group of the standard Lorentzian metric, which is defined by the quadratic form: 14 Ø "A , "B , "∞ , "Ä = "AB +"BB + "∞B −m B "ÄB [41] When considering the projective transformations, this yields the group PO(1,3), which is isomorphic to the conformal group of the sphere SR, of which the connected component of the identity is PSL2(C), when Sc (or P(Sc)) is parametrized by a complex number, after stereographic projection. Let us introduce the light coordinates x’=x1+cx4, x”=x1-cx4 (c is not necessarily the speed of light in this context, it denotes any large radius), so that: "′"" = "AB −m B "ÄB . The standard boost of ratio λ is defined, in homogeneous coordinates, by the transformation y’=x’/λ and y”=λx”. It belongs to the connected Lorentz group SO(1,3), and it induces on the sphere Sc the transformation g just described below. We have: y1=½(y’+y”)=½((x1+cx4)/λ+λ(x1-cx4))=½(λ+1/λ)x_1-½(λ-1/λ)cx4 [42] and, cy4=½(y’-y”)=½((x1+cx4)/λ-λ(x1-cx4))=-½(λ-1/λ)x1+½(λ+1/λ)cx4 [43] but y2=x2, and y3=x3. Let us define the vector e’=(e1+ce4)/2c along the axis of x’, and the vector e”=(e1-ce4)/2c along the axis of x”. The change from e1, e4 to this new basis yields the formulas of the coordinates x’, x”. These vectors are sent respectively to λe’ and e”/λ. Therefore the vector e1=c(e’+e”) is sent to f1=½ (λ+1/λ)e1+½(λ-1/λ)ce4, and the vector e4=e’-e” is sent to f4=½(λ1/λ)e1/c+½(λ+1/λ)e4. The vectors e2 and e3 are fixed. The fifth vector e0=e1+e4 +e2+e3 is sent to: f0=f1+f2+f3+f4=½((1+1/c)λ+(1-1/c)/λ))(e1+e4)+e2+e3 [44] The inverse of the above transformation is the projective transformation T, which corresponds to the following equations, where now e’1, e’2, e’3, e’4 denotes the image of the original basis: ®′A = A B λ+ A A ± ®A − A A B λ− A A ± m®Ä A ®′Ä = − λ − ®A + λ + ®Ä B^ ± B ± ®′B = ®B ®′∞ = ®∞ [45] [46] [47] [48] We can see that, in P(V), the point O and H are both moved along the line OH. If λ is larger than 1, the segment OH expands, O’ being in the back and H’ moving backward too. If λ is smaller than 1, the contrary happens, O’ and H’ both move forward along the segment OH. However, this does not imply that the observer has moved. The change concerns the integration of external variables, as in the preceding section. Under T or f, the plane at infinity P(V) is not preserved. If λ is larger than 1, infinity moves far away in front, which might correspond to the reported feeling of being closer to the Moon. But if λ is smaller than 1, infinity in front moves closer to the observer, and approaches the sphere of radius c, which might correspond to the opposite feeling that the Moon is farther. 15 To describe the transform g of the sphere Sr in the 3-dimensional affine Euclidean space E, we have to normalize the equations by imposing x4=y4=1, which yields the following nonlinear formulas: ≤ ≤ ¥ Y^ FT ≥ ≤ ≥ ≤ ≤ FT ¥≤ Y^ ±Y ≥ ≥ B^¥Z ≤ ≤ FT ¥≤ Y^ ±Y ≥ ≥ B^¥µ ≤ ≤ FT ¥≤ Y^ ±Y ≥ ≥ %A = m %B = %∞ = ±Y [49] [50] [51] The lateral points Rc, Lc as the vertical point Vc on the sphere Sr are moved by T in the direction opposite to H. But the points at infinity, V and L remain fixed. These effects might induce sensations of enlargement of the sky when λ≥ 1, and the opposite effect when λ≤1. The analysis of the free energy Fe(λ) for this case of finite radius c is not fundamentally different from the case of infinite radius of the celestial sphere as described in the preceding section. Identical arguments lead to the same kind of functional. The areas that we have to consider are again the areas of regions of the form θ smaller than a certain value. The region of the sphere where θ is larger than π/4, being the reference by default, is sent now by g on the region where cos(Θ)/2 is larger than 1/√ (1+λ²tan²(π/8))=1/(1+ (1+½√3)λ²). Then cos(Θ) itself has to be greater than -1+2/(1+ (1+½√3)λ²) , and the inverse of the area is now: 2 − 1 (1 + 1 + 3/2)GB )/2 2 1 + 3/2)GB ρc(λ)= [52] Note that we measure ratios of areas, thus the radius c doesn’t enter the formula; the metric could be the angular one as well. Then the function to minimize when the Moon is between the horizon and π/4, is: Fe(λ)= A B¨² G − 1 B +C’ Λρ(λ), [53] as considered for λ≥ 1. The complementary function for the Moon high in the sky is: Fe’c(λ)= A B¨² G − 1 B +C” Λ’ 1 + 3/2)GB /(1 + 1 + 3/2)GB ) [54] when λ≤1. The group of projective transformations that preserve globally the sphere P(Sc) is the group of isometries of a family of hyperbolic metrics on the ball P(Bc) in P(W) that is contained in P(Sc). Thus it is natural to consider this ball as equipped with one of the Riemannian geometries. An elegant model of this metric is the metric induced by the Lorentz form Q on one of the branches of the hyperboloid Q(x)=-ρ², where ρ is a strictly positive number. For convenience, we will consider the branch Hρ with x4 strictly positive too. The rays from 0 in W to the points Hρ describe the ball P(Bc). A parametrization of this branch is given by: "A = ρ sinh ξ cos H [55] 16 "B = ρ sinhξ sin H cos l "∞∫ ρ sinhξ sin H sin l t "Ä = cosh ξ [56] [57] [58] ^ In those coordinates ξ,θ,φ, the Riemannian metric takes the following form: ok B = pB (oª B + sinh ª B (oH B + sin H B ol B )) [59] The corresponding parametrization of the Euclidean ball Bc in E is obtained by taking the projection to x4=1 and: "A = c tanh ξ cos H [60] "B = c tanh ξ sin H cos l "∞∫ c tanh ξ sin H sin l [61] [62] Then we set r= ctanh(ξ), and get the usual spherical polar coordinates r, θ, φ on the Euclidean space V, identified with E, with the following metric, which is only defined inside the ball Bc: ok B = pB ( Z ^Z ^ Fº ºZ o9 B + Z Z Z ^ Yº Z (oH B + sin H B ol B )) [63] When c tends to +∞, this metric, once multiplied by m B , converges to the standard Euclidean metric with scale ρ. The groups of isometries of the hyperbolic metrics, accordingly, tend to the Euclidean group of displacements, similar to a sort of zooming. Thus for large c, we can see the above hyperbolic geometry as a deformation of the ordinary Euclidean geometry. We cannot exclude that this hyperbolic geometry, which is in exact agreement with the conformal transformation on the large sphere Sc in E, plays a role in perception. In fact, if the conformal change of projective frame is used for perceiving the celestial sphere in some circumstances, this could justify the use of the hyperbolic geometry. However, this is not necessary in our context to appeal to a hyperbolic geometry, as we do not have to appeal to the Euclidean geometry at finite distance in the first model of f. d) Discussion of Heelan’s model The above family of hyperbolic geometries were introduced in the domain of visual perception by P.A. Heelan (17). The name he gave to this theory was the “hermeneutic Luneburg model”, because Rudolf Luneburg (see 17) developed the idea that available primary cues and priors, together with sensorimotor constraints, could be expressed by a change in the geometry of perception. Thus it should be evident that the approach of Luneburg and Heelan is an ancestor of our approach. However, there are many fundamental differences. First, let us consider differences of detail in the setting. Heelan finds the above ok B in bipolar coordinates, which represent a deformation of spherical polar coordinates, in order to take into account the disparity in vision induced by the two eyes (17, pp. 286-287; we take the opportunity here to note a typographic error in the formula of the metric page 287, where the factor sinh(ª)B seems to appear at a wrong place). We note that Heelan was in general more interested in near vison in a room than in far vision. Also, in the variables, Heelan noted ρ=κ (which changes nothing), 17 but he also noted: ξ= σγ+στ; which is more important. The variable coordinate is γ, and σ,τ are constants, the first indicating the Euclidean distance from the observer to the region of the physical space where a good agreement between the hyperbolic metric and Euclidean metric can be expected. (Note that Heelan says that τ is for the curvature, but this cannot be what he had in mind, because no change of variables has an effect on the curvature, since it is intrinsic and controlled here by the inverse of ρ=κ.) But there are more important divergences between our point of view and Heelan’s. In our model, the metric results from two choices: a frame (projective in nature) and a kind of measurement (angles in the present case, but this could be another metric in another case). In Heelan, a change of frame is not considered and the metric is chosen a priori in a fixed family. Moreover, for the choice of parameters, Heelan compared the perceptual metric with the physical metric somewhere in space, which in principle results from a frame and does not precede it. In some sense, real physical space has a stronger status in the approach of Heelan. This appears in his use of the term “true point” for the region where ok B must be Euclidean. Of course, parameters in the metric and parameters in the frames are connected. Moreover, we cannot neglect that the free energy, which controls the change of frame in our model, also uses geometric parameters as priors (such as ordinary distances inside KullbackLeibler divergence, or areas for entropy). Thus these differences could be somewhat superficial. However, in our model, we can make a clear connection between geometry and information content, which is more obscure in Heelan’s. As discussed in the main text, with respect to the particular perceptual situation of the Moon Illusion, our model is compatible with conformal constraints, which can maintain the round shape of the Moon, but it also offers possible non-conformal solutions. Thus the PCM is compatible with possible elliptical effects in the perception of the shape of the Moon. Any departure from conformality would not be accounted for by Heelan’s model (see main text). Last but not least, our model, while being capable of integrating the essential properties captured by Heelan’s model, has much broader explanatory and predictive power, as it encompasses and unifies perception, imagination, and motor programming. This is in parts due to the characteristics of projective geometry, which is not attached to a particular family of metrics but rather represents an extended notion of variations of points of view. In particular, the convenient families of metrics which could be considered at finite distances, in other contexts, are not restricted to hyperbolic ones; they can be spherical or Euclidean. A more general model with broader explanatory and predictive power should be selected over a model that is equivalent to the broader model in a very specific context but that cannot account for a wealth of essential phenomena that are linked together experientially and unified in the more general model. e) Further remarks on the default frames Choice by default of the fifth point I It could be that some persons prefer to place the point I to their right and others to their left, just as there are right-handed persons and left-handed persons. However, it could also happen that most persons use two points IR, IL symmetric with respect to the sagittal plane. This pair would imply more than one frame, but the theory can easily be extended to this kind of enriched frame. The default 45° situation of IR, IL or I with respect to the sagittal plane is compatible with the orientations at 45° of the planes of semi-circular canals in the labyrinths of vertebrates and the corresponding orientations of the eye muscles. These two possibilities, 18 one point or a symmetric pair, could be tested experimentally by manipulating left and right environmental cues. This is also something that could be empirically tested in future studies. Analogy with color adaptation The geometry governing color perception is fairly complex. However, as a first approximation, 3D affine geometry explains well the change in perception induced by a change in illumination. Here, the natural or “default” frame is based on the distribution of wave-lengths in solar light, related to the center and shapes around it, the three axes corresponding to luminance S+L+M, to green/red opposition, L-M, and to blue/yellow opposition, S-L-M. When the light distribution is modified, the origin, shape, and coordinates must change accordingly in order to maintain sufficient information flow. 19

701 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach Research Essay On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach Daniel Caputi* Abstract The self, which presents to us as an irreducible entity in which our subjective experience is directed onto, is often thought of as an unremarkable phenomenon or illusion. However, the mere perception of it cannot be neglected for our scientific endeavor to explain consciousness, and this point is illustrated through a multitude of thought experiments. These thought experiments also show the importance of differentiating selves between distinct conscious organisms, regardless of their individual phenomenological content. A distinction is made between an active subject (a self that is conscious) and a potential subject (a self that is unconscious). Potential subjects refer to selves that would otherwise be present in organisms that are currently unconscious or post-mortem. They can also refer to an infinite amount of imaginary selves that will never be born into existence. This infinite reference space shows that there is an explanatory gap between our knowledge that conscious organisms have selves and our knowledge that specific selves are mapped into specific organisms. This explanatory gap needs to be closed in order to design effective uploading technology to extend the life of our minds beyond the life of our body. Key Words: self, consciousness, illusion, subjective experience, active subject, potential subject. 1. Background and Introduction Despite tremendous progress in cognitive science, there remains a clear explanatory gap between understanding physical processes in the body and understanding how inner subjective states of consciousness (known as qualia) take place. This is the “hard problem” put forth by David Chalmers in 19951, which has since held center stage in the field of consciousness studies. While this problem is effective for capturing the mystery of qualia, there is a second piece to the puzzle. It seems that qualia doesn’t just happen, but happens to someone. In other words, subjective experience as we know it must happen to an experiencer, also known as a conscious entity or self. What exactly is this self, and how does it fit in with consciousness? I will attempt to show that these questions are just as important as the questions often posed about qualia, and this analysis will reveal a surprising second explanatory gap in the nature of consciousness. This explanatory gap does not disappear even if one takes the position that the self does not exist in the way we may intuitively think of it. My hope is that this new perspective will allow more efficient progress toward understanding the full picture of consciousness and the physical place2 it has in the universe. * Correspondence: Daniel Caputi. Email: dannycaputi@optonline.net ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 702 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach This full picture is monumentally important for our future existence. It can be used to determine if we possess a natural kind of immortality, and if not, how we may be able to create it for ourselves. With recent advances in artificial intelligence, ideas have emerged about the possibility of “uploading” one’s brain computational parts onto an alternate substrate, such as a computer system or robot3. A critical philosophical question has emerged about whether an “uploaded” organism, even if conscious, would have the same identity as the original organism4. This paper will explore this question in the context of a new model on the self I will propose. With investigations of consciousness confronting both the problem of qualia and the problem of the self, we may be able to not only cure death for ourselves, but erase it from those who have gone before us. 2. The Problem of the Self Consider the following thought experiment. The simple objective is to imagine slowly disintegrating your brain. This can be accomplished by either a melting process, or slowly removing neural components or brain cells one piece at a time. If one were to take your brain and remove or demolish just one cell, it would be highly unlikely to have any notable effect on your conscious experience. We know that small quantities of brain cells can be damaged in everyday life, yet we don’t seem to feel any different. But surely, if we continue destroying brain matter down to its last bits, a remaining microscopic sample of brain tissue consisting of a tiny collection of cells would not be you, right? So, if we slowly cut off more and more usable volume of your brain, at what point are you not yourself anymore? You may consider a quite simple solution: we do in fact become less of ourselves when a tiny tissue of our brain is removed, but the damage is too miniscule to be recognized. Noticeable changes may begin after large chunks have been removed, and we would officially not be “ourselves” when there are no personality traits remaining. This view considers our “self” as a bunch of content. This type of self comprises memory, all inner sensory experience, personality traits, and really anything else we would consider important for identifying who a person is. In a sense, this is considering a self from an external perspective, but it also includes all the content of inner experience. The problem with this view is that it only considerers the first piece of the puzzle, the experience. At least from an intuitive perspective, phenomenological experience requires someone to experience it. Let’s define a type-1 self as the experiential content of an individual (including memories, sensations, personality, etc), and let’s define a type-2 self as the entity that is experiencing the type-1 self. In other words: the type-1 self is the experience, and the type-2 self is the experiencer. The disintegration thought experiment we described above becomes more intriguing when we become less interested in any definition of what constitutes a person’s meaningful and extended selfhood (type-1 self), and rather become more concerned with the experiencer of the qualia (type-2 self) as the brain is falling apart. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 703 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach The reason for this is simple. Most likely, as the disintegration process is ongoing, you are gradually losing consciousness. Now imagine yourself very late in the process, with only a small amount of the cerebral cortex intact. At this point, you may be “aware” on a very basic level, but severely lacking any form of organized informational processing. The type-1 self may constitute only perception of basic shapes or colors, devoid of any personality or rich interpretations of these perceptions. But as you (the experiencer of this very low level qualia) imagine yourself in this state of mind, it is impossible to eliminate this “you” from your imagined state. There is still a type-2 self anchored in your perception, a “self” entity on which your very low level perception is attached to. V.S. Ramachandran, in his book A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, said “self and qualia are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have freefloating sensations or qualia with no one to experience them, and you can’t have a self completely devoid of sensory experiences, memories or emotions” (96). The type-2 self does not need to be anything complex, such as reflective awareness that one exists as a self, or an inner language that uses the terms “I” or “me”. It only needs to be some central experiencer that qualia is linked to. While the type-1 self can devolve in the brain disintegration process, we can only imagine the perceived type-2 self being either present or not. The type-2 self, in the way we perceive it, is irreducible. What follows from this is a startling implication. If a whole brain possesses this type-2 self, but a very tiny collection of brain cells does not, the logical conclusion is that at some critical and very finite point during the disintegration, the type-2 self (conscious entity) must suddenly disappear. This clearly goes against any intuition of the type-2 self being a larger emergent epiphenomenon of brain activity. Despite its mysterious nature, I would argue that the type-2 self is the important part of the self. This is because we may be able to easily upload our type-1 self from our brain into an alternate substrate, and the substrate may have conscious experience, but it would be quite meaningless if it’s not us that is the experiencer inside. That being said, these are my basic claims about the nature of type-2, irreducible selves: A) They exist. Even if they are not physical entities, the “image” of them is real. B) They are differentiable. Numerous conscious entities exist that are different from one another, and since each is irreducible, they do not overlap. In laymen’s terms, this is simply saying that you are fundamentally a different conscious subject than I am, even if we are experiencing the same thing at the same time. (Note: the term “type-2 self” will be used interchangeably with “irreducible self”, “conscious entity”, “subject”, and “experiencer”. Different terms tend to fit different contexts, but they all refer to the same thing.) If you agree with these premises, you can probably skip the next section. But as with anything in philosophy, nothing can go unchallenged. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 704 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach 3. It Is Perception that Matters Talking about this type-2 self is a risky move because many doubt its existence. A trending thought in consciousness studies has been that the self is merely an evolutionary trick of our brains to unify everything that is represented in our minds. The idea of a self has been attacked from scientific, philosophical, and even spiritual grounds. In this section, we will tour some common thought patterns of counter-arguments given to the existence of selves, and show that with each of them, what matters is our mere perception of the type-2 self. 3.1. Pathology and Altered States The quote from Ramachandran above is one that many would disagree with. It is often argued that it is possible to experience qualia with a completely distorted (or even non-existent) sense of self in abnormal states of consciousness, and this is often used to support the idea that our awareness is fundamentally selfless. Many types of conditions can be explored, including (but not limited to) the following: Split-brain: An individual with a split corpus callosum, and communication between brain hemispheres cannot occur. This condition is typically induced by a surgical procedure in order to treat violent seizures. Patients often behave as if they have two selves, with each self possessing distinct characteristics. Schizophrenia: An individual with difficulty distinguishing real and imaginary input. Their consciousness is often depersonalized, with a lack of a sense that their qualia belongs to them. Agency and unity that binds their experience is also distorted. Cotard delusion: An individual who claims that they are dead or do not exist. There appears to be selfless consciousness in this case, as affected people often do not use the “I” pronoun to describe anything pertaining to them (Metzinger 63-64). Even outside of pathology, consciousness without the robust sense of self we experience in ordinary life may not be impossible. Individuals achieving transcendental states of consciousness (through meditation or other means) often report a clear message: the self is an illusion, we are all one and the same. Additionally, many researchers argue that this “self” in our consciousness is only present when we call upon it to be, and it is impossible to catch ourselves not having it. This quote is taken from Susan Blackmore’s “The Grand Illusion: Why consciousness exists only when you look for it”: […] perhaps there is only something there when you ask. Maybe each time you probe, a retrospective story is concocted about what was in the stream of consciousness a moment before, together with a “self” who was apparently experiencing it. Of course there was neither a conscious self nor a stream, but it now seems as though there was. ___ The first question to ask is what these findings in pathology and altered states actually tell us. While many find that these claims are consistent with the existence of selfless consciousness (or a type of consciousness other than one with a single anchored self), others are more ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 705 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach skeptical. It may be that the type-2 self is just interpreted and expressed differently in our unique language systems, rather than certain individuals actually experiencing some inconceivable form of consciousness. Ramachandran himself is famous for studying these phenomena, so it is interesting to hear this skeptical position coming from him, noting that “even in the extreme case of a split-brain patient whose two hemispheres have been surgically disconnected, the patient doesn’t experience doubling subjectivity, each hemisphere’s ‘self’ is aware of only itself – although it may intellectually deduce the presence of the other” (105). But even if it were true that selfless consciousness were possible, it would be a mistake to take these altered state revelations to support the idea that the self is fundamentally illusory just because it can be dissolved under certain conditions. While the disintegration thought experiment is aimed to show that there exists a type-2 self that is irreducible, it is separate from the question of whether or not it is possible to have experience without an irreducible conscious entity. While the idea of “free floating qualia” without an attached experiencer may seem bizarre, I am not arguing that it is impossible. But the existence of selfless experience does not negate the ordinary sense of self. 3.2. Phenomenal Self Model Thomas Metzinger proposes a phenomenal self model (PSM) in which the content of our consciousness is held and unified. This model, he argues, was a useful adaptation in our evolutionary history because it allowed an organism to interact with both its internal and external environment intelligently. Metzinger describes the rubber hand illusion, in which subjects place one hand behind an optical barrier while a rubber hand is placed in front of it. Both the rubber hand and the actual hand are stroked repeatedly, and after a few minutes, many subjects feel a sense of ownership to the rubber hand. A “whole body analog” was created for this experiment, where subjects had their backs repeatedly stroked as they watched a virtual reality projection of their back (and the stroking) a few feet in front of them. Many subjects reported a feeling that their body was displaced in front of their vision, and the stroking sensation occurring at the location of their virtual back. In Metzinger’s view, these experiments demonstrate the ability to manipulate the integrated sense of self in carefully designed experiments. His central claim is that the sense of self feels so real because we are unable to recognize our PSM as a model, as the model itself is transparent. In my view, the PSM proposal is an excellent attempt at explaining why we feel we have selves, and it may carry truth. However, I would caution against using it to conclude that the irreducible type-2 self doesn’t exist, because this model does not negate our own experience. Our experience alone is enough to prove the type-2 self as an irreducible entity, much like the fact that the existence of consciousness is proven automatically by our experience of it. Many people are familiar with the optical illusion of the mirage. On hot days, turbulent mixing of air near the ground can create a false image of water on roads. Is the water real? No, but the image of it most certainly is. Even if the irreducible type-2 self is just an image and not “real” in the way we may intuitively think of it, that does not negate the ontology of it within our own conscious minds. We can simply define the type-2 self as an image that we perceive without it losing any explanatory power, importance, or mysteriousness. This sense or image of an ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 706 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach irreducible entity is important, because this is what we want to preserve in mind uploading. It is the sense of irreducibility that fundamentally produces additional questions about the nature of consciousness that will be discussed in subsequent sections. Even if the type-2 self is only perceived to be irreducible, the disintegration thought experiment still works, because at some critical point in the disintegration process, this perception of irreducibility must suddenly change. No matter how one looks at it, there is something in the nature of consciousness that is irreducible. 3.3. Overlapping Qualia This point is mainly to examine the differentiable property of type-2 selves. Let’s examine an essay by Kenneth Hayworth, “Killed by Bad Philosophy”. Hayworth writes this essay as the director of the Brain Preservation Foundation in order to make the case that mind uploading will preserve identity. I want to make it clear that I do not intend to attack his motives to preserve brains. In fact, I believe that his work may be critically important for curing death, as he claims. My only point of this analysis is to show why the type-2 self should not be rejected as, at the very minimum, an important construct. Hayworth states: Our intuition tells us that being me (Ken) right now staring at these words on my laptop screen is fundamentally different from being another person, say my friend John, staring at these words on his laptop screen. Of course there is truth to this, John and I will understand these words in a somewhat different way and will react somewhat differently to them. But our intuition also tells us that being Ken right now staring at these words is somehow fundamentally similar to being Ken driving in his car to work. There is a “being Ken” quale (singular of qualia) that is similar even in these two very different experiences (reading and driving) that is utterly missing in John’s conscious experience (and is replaced with the “being John” quale). To paraphrase the authors viewpoint: my intuition tells me that my current experience can be described as the qualia I am experiencing now plus an additional quale, a “further fact” 5, of “being Danny”. The remainder of the article goes on to argue that there is a Point of View (POV) self that comprises the moment-to-moment experience we have of the world, and a memory (MEM) self that comprises our “set of declarative, procedural, and perceptual memories”. The author points out that from a qualitative perspective, there is more similarity between the conscious states of Ken being happy and John being happy than there is between Ken being happy and Ken being sad. An additional point is made about how the POVself would not consciously notice any dramatic sudden change in the brain wiring unless it was actively engaging in a process that involved it at the time. An example is given where if one were to suffer a stroke to the Wernike’s (language) area of the brain while hiking in the woods, one may not notice anything has happened until one tried to speak. The author concludes that since the POVself is only used for real-time informational processing and is essentially oblivious to the MEMself, it carries virtually no specific facts about a person’s identity on its own. Since our MEMself is what determines our uniqueness as people and truly sets us apart from one another, it is only this MEMself that we really need to be concerned with for preserving identity. The MEMself can be preserved simply by making a functional copy of the brain wiring. This argument may sound convincing by choice of wording, but this ultimately fails to disprove a fundamental idea: that qualitative states of consciousness happen to subjects. Essentially, I do not feel that “being Danny” is a quale at all. Rather, I feel that “Danny” is an entity on which ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 707 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach all of my qualia is being directed. This misclassification is important, because one will not find inherent uniqueness between conscious organisms by only considering experiential content. Again, we cannot rule out the existence of qualia without an attached subject, but I know that I perceive myself as a subject, and I want this subject to survive. I, Danny, am having experiences right now that you, the reader, are not, and we have two distinct subjects (type-2 selves). While Hayworth seems to be considering the POV-self as an analogue to the type-2 self I defined, both POV and MEM self content can be thought of as part of the type-1 self, because they both consider experience (rather than an experiencer). If our POVself content happens to overlap at any given time, it does not mean that our instantaneous selves are not unique. Rather, it would simply mean that the same experience is happening to two subjects. This is the simple further fact about our identity that some have gone to great lengths to deny: you and I are distinct subjects of consciousness, and this difference exists regardless of the content of our POV or MEM selves (hence the “further fact”). 4. Why Differentiable Subjects can Annoy Philosophers This idea of differentiable subjects is understandably disturbing because the boundaries of subjects can get quite messy in philosophical thought world. Personal survival is no longer a matter of opinion in what one considers to be a person, but an objective fact with a binary yes/no solution, and it is not clear in certain circumstances if survival occurs or not. The uploading problem is one such example. At first glance, it may seem obvious that your personal identity would survive an upload. If everything that matters about you is the result of the exact structure of your brain, it would make sense that you (as in your type-2 self) survive the upload because your brain structure would essentially be preserved, even when your brain itself is destroyed. But here’s where things get dicey. Imagine that instead of directly replacing your brain with an uploaded equivalent of your mind on an alternate substrate, we utilize the upload as a copy of your mind while preserving your original body. The process of uploading is exactly the same otherwise, except that from your perspective inside your original body, nothing should have happened because the scanning and copying is non-invasive. So intuitively, whether or not your type-2 self is transferred into the alternate substrate depends on whether or not your original body is preserved, but yet this seems logically absurd because nature should not care about this detail. Since intuition leads us to believe several conflicting ideas, it may be appealing to believe that the idea of differentiable subjects is somehow flawed. Let’s consider a similar but slightly different scenario. Imagine that you are about to undergo some type of surgery to modify (but not necessarily damage) brain structure. The surgery will require general anesthesia, rendering complete unconsciousness. Thomas Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, considers what would happen during this kind of surgery in his essay “Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity”: […] How much of a change between [me] and [modified me] is necessary to destroy personal subjective continuity? At what point, that is, would we start to say "Well, [Tom] 'died' and a stranger now inhabits his body; experience ended for [Tom] and now occurs for someone else"? It is not at all obvious where to draw the line. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 708 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach It seems logical to believe that a very small change in brain structure under surgery, say, on the scale of a few neurons, would not change the conscious entity inside his body. If we accept this, it is also logical to believe that making radical changes under surgery would also preserve his conscious entity. This may sound like a slippery slope argument, but the alternative, given the irreducibility of the perceived type-2 self, may be even less plausible: at some highly specific threshold of brain alteration, the conscious entity would change, and any less degree than that threshold would mean the original entity survives. In other words, we would have to accept that the difference between subjective experience continuing for Tom and subjective experience ending for Tom (while beginning for another subject) would come down to a single brain cell. But if we accept that Tom’s subject is preserved after making radical modifications to brain structure in surgery, we may as well also accept that in the death of one arbitrary person followed by the birth of another arbitrary person, the new individual born is the same subject as the individual that died. This is because both death to birth and extreme brain modification under surgery involve radical changes to brains between streams of continuous conscious experience, and it is hard to see how these situations would be viewed differently in the eyes of nature. So again, we are confronted with conflicting intuitive ideas when accepting the notion of differentiable subjects. To resolve this dissonance, there are two positions one may take. One position may be similar to Hayworth’s. On this account, we would be denying that Tom is some unique subject of experience. Despite that Tom perceives his conscious subject of experience as an irreducible entity, and that it makes sense that his experiences are only his, there is somehow an ontological overlap between his core self and another person’s core self if the content of their POV or MEM selves are similar. There is no ontologically objective way to answer whether or not Tom (as an experiencer of consciousness) died based on the amount of brain changes that occurred during surgery. Rather, it is simply a matter of what one considers to be “Tom” (as an experiencer of consciousness). One who takes this position may not worry about death at all if they have a twin who is very much like them. In their view, since the conscious entity embodying the twin is hardly different from their own, they can die without noticing much change. This position should theoretically be held for one who disputes the idea that entities are differentiable regardless of phenomenological content. Alternatively, one may hold that everyone is entirely affected by their own death as far as subjective experience for them is concerned. It makes sense to talk about a “me” experiencing the world, because “I” perceive it to be there. My body’s death would affect me, and only me, directly. Having a twin would not mean that I survive my own death any more than someone without a twin would. Some of my phenomenal content would be preserved, but I wouldn’t be there to experience it. It is true that if we accept this position, answers to questions such as “at what point does my conscious entity get replaced with another one in brain modification surgery?” or “at what point in brain disintegration does my perceived type-2 self just disappear?” become less clear. But this is no reason to deny the reality of what our consciousness fundamentally comprises. These questions present epistemological uncertainty as opposed to ontological uncertainty, and there is no reason to believe that the tools of science will not be able to get us to an answer. I argue that despite all of these attempts to ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 709 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach explain away the self as a non-problem, there is no evidence against what our intuition actually tells us about you and I being fundamentally different subjects. Additionally, negating the importance of our perception would be very difficult. I know from my experience that “I” am here in this body around me, and not in some other body such as my mother’s. Could I be wrong about this? It is very hard to see how. To summarize: The view of a self that stands independent from the content of subjective experience has been discredited by numerous philosophers, but without clear good reason. Existence of pathology, models demonstrating the degree to which the sense of self can be manipulated, and self-boundary thought experiments do not refute the existence of this self. While some may argue that the existence of this self would overturn numerous findings in psychology and neuroscience, I submit that it would be far easier to accept that our picture of consciousness is simply incomplete than to deny the foundation of my very existence. One further subject to touch on before moving forward is the idea of a deflationary identity. Under this view, the type-2 self is unstable and does not survive throughout an organism’s lifespan (Chalmers 2010). This is because occasionally, one’s conscious entity is being replaced by another conscious entity, and the new entity then captures the memories of previous entities as if it were its own. Some possible reasons to hypothesize this replacement will be discussed in the next section. This view does not dispute the existence of the type-2 self as defined in this paper, but holds that any particular type-2 self in an organism is only maintained for a short amount of time, as opposed to its entire lifespan as we might think. It is necessary to accept that type-2 selves are differentiable to hold this view, because this view specifically states that “selves” are replaced in spite of a (mostly) unchanging MEMself. 5. The Power of Potential If we accept that we have something that we can call irreducible and differentiable type-2 selves, the need to solve the problem of how to preserve this type of self in an upload becomes clearer. However, I would argue that by only asking “how do I know that an upload will be me?”, we are not confronting the root of the problem. Ultimately, our perspective should shift from the question of how to preserve identity when changing substrates to the question of how to create a conscious system with our identity from scratch. This new perspective has more power because in theory, it would not only allow effective uploads of us, but it opens up a possibility to resurrect those who have already passed. In other words, the true nature of the mystery lies in the question of why the body you find yourself in possesses your conscious entity as opposed to someone else’s. Just as that there is nothing special about a living brain from an objective standpoint that would lead one to believe that it is conscious6, there is nothing special about the molecular arrangement of your body that would lead an objective observer to look at it and believe it is you (as opposed to someone else) in there. What I would like to propose is a new framework that can make more sense of this problem. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 710 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach In order to grasp the new framework, let us review the concept of potential in science, using potential energy as an example. Potential energy is a useful construct because it allows us to make predictions about the future state of a system. For example, a roller coaster about to take a 100 foot plunge would have more potential energy than a roller coaster about to take a 30 foot plunge (relative to the bottom of each respective track), even though the physical state of the coasters would be identical at the top of each hill. The word “potential” in this context simply refers to energy that is not currently active, but may become active. This is an example of a practical reason to conceptualize a property or entity that is imaginary in the eyes of nature. The interest to science is to learn the mechanisms behind how seemingly imaginary properties become very visible and real. We have a fairly established science that can explain how potential energy translates into kinetic energy. With consciousness, the problem is almost a perfect analogue to potential energy. The main difference is a lack of science behind it, but understanding it in this framework should help lead us toward one. Our new framework will involve conceptualizing the “existence” of non-existent conscious entities. We will define a “potential subject” as a conscious entity, an experiencer of consciousness, that does not exist. An “active subject”, on the other hand, will be defined as an experiencer of consciousness that does exist. The reason to posit a construct of potential subjects is the same reason to posit potential energy. We can begin to understand this by considering temporary disruptions to consciousness – that is - a period of unconsciousness between two periods of consciousness for a particular subject. Some things that may cause this include dreamless sleep, being put under general anesthesia, or suffering severe head trauma7. In any of these cases, during the time that you are unconscious, you would be referred to as a potential subject of consciousness at that time. The justification for ascribing a term to a presently non-existent feature is much the same reason we would say a roller coaster on the top of a hill has potential energy; we are referring to the future state of the system. In the case of the roller coaster, we are referring to the energy that will exist (mostly in the form of speed) when the coaster gets to the bottom of the hill. In a living but unconscious system, we are referring to the conscious entity that will exist when the subject wakes up. You, as a subject (experiencer) of consciousness, would be restored to the active state. While it may take a bit more imagination, a particular conscious organism can be thought to have a potential subject before its conception and after its death. Assuming consciousness is restricted to my living brain, the conscious entity that is me is active now, but potential before my conception and after my death, just like it is potential during general anesthesia. While this may sound like a dualist position, it is not. The potential subject is merely an entity we are constructing, much the same way we construct the idea of potential energy, because it allows us to make predictions about future consciousness. The potential subject is not a “spooky” thing. So to clarify a central point: Every conscious organism alive today has an active subject of experience, as well as a corresponding potential subject. You can imagine this as a giant board of on-off (or in this case, active-potential) switches, with one switch for each organism with a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 711 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach type-2 self (which is either present or absent, because it is irreducible). At any given time, each switch is either on or off. Additionally, when an organism dies, the switch is permanently shut off (to simplify the problem – we’ll momentarily assume that there is no consciousness after death). The switch does not disappear however, because in principle it could be switched on again8. So in addition to the switches for organisms alive, which can be either on or off depending on the organism’s current activity, there is a whole set of permanently off switches for organisms that have died. There is also a whole set of switches for all conscious entities that will come into existence in the future, but for now those switches are off. While the amount of conscious organisms that will ever be born is probably a humongous number, even this does not represent all of the possible subjects that could come into existence. Consider the following quote from the beginning of Dawkin’s 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow: We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here (Dawkins 1). The “potential people” in the above quote can refer to potential subjects that will never become active. Even though they will never see the light of day, their potential conscious entities (that will never become activated) are something we can make reference to. In addition to the fact that “the set of possible people allowed by our DNA” is huge, we illustrated earlier that two identical bodies may have different conscious subjects, so even this set does not represent an upper limit to the amount of potential subjects. There really is no conceivable limit to the amount of conscious organisms that could theoretically come into existence, and there is no upper limit to the amount of conscious subjects we could imagine. I would therefore argue that the number of potential subjects is unlimited or infinity. Even assuming that the number of conscious organisms that will ever exist in the multiverse is finite, there are an infinite amount of subjects that could become conscious but never will become conscious. The potential subject concept still works – because in thought world we can imagine that the multiverse will output infinite life given an infinite amount of time (even though infinite time is unlikely). These infinite subjects will just always stay at the “potential” side of the switch. So why pretend they even have potential? Even if the laws of physics dictate that these infinite subjects have no potential, the laws of philosophy do not. It’s the laws of philosophy, in this case, that are going to get us to the answers we need and tell us about what we can achieve with them. So your body, the biological body that you find yourself in right now, did not have to contain your conscious entity. From an objective perspective, not only could it just as easily contain my conscious entity, or anyone else’s, but it in fact had an infinite amount of options! Even if it wasn’t really an “option”, like a God choosing a conscious entity to put inside your body, something in nature must have determined it. This is our big second explanatory gap in consciousness studies. How do we go from knowledge that living organisms have conscious entities to the idea that specific conscious entities are mapped to specific bodies? What ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 712 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach distinguishes a lucky potential subject that will eventually find itself in the light of the world via an organism and one that will not? When subjects are extinguished by death, are they naturally placed back into the lucky bin? These questions can ultimately be collapsed into this one: “How do specific potential subjects become active subjects?” The answer is not clear at all, and this is our ultimate missing science, which I call “the selection problem”. But when we examine this issue head-on, we see that the options are surprisingly quite limited. Though the possibilities are broad, we can at least begin to break down the issue to design good experiments. 6. Possible Solutions and Associated Problems 6.1. Parameters that may identify the self To think about the selection problem, we can consider some parameters that could potentially preserve our type-2 self in an upload. It is natural for many deep thinkers to hold a position on what causes a type-2 self, and whether or not this criteria will be met in an upload will determine whether or not they believe an upload will be effective in preserving identity for a subject. Let’s explore the possible parameters of physical properties that could be the answer to the selection problem, based on the principle that an organism’s brain as a whole is what “selects” one entity out of the infinite options. These parameters essentially represent three mutually exclusive positions one could take on the selection problem. - - - A: Numerical molecular arrangement: the numerical identity9 of the molecules arranged a particular way in your body is what determines everything about your personal identity, including the conscious entity your body will contain. Therefore, uploads can never contain the entity that was in the original person. B: Qualitative molecular arrangement: the qualitative identity9 of the molecules arranged a particular way in your body is what determines everything about your personal identity, including the conscious entity your body will contain. Since this would require an upload to be a carbon-based biological substrate, and an exact copy down to the molecular level would inherently include damage from aging along with the natural aging process, there may be little point unless these features could somehow be removed without changing the conscious entity. C: Qualitative functional arrangement: A Body’s conscious entity is determined by its functional parts. Therefore, uploads will preserve identity if equivalent functional parts of the original brain are preserved in a substrate independent mind, even if the substrate is non-biological. Upon philosophical investigation, these possibilities face a number of challenges. The more obvious one is that all of these parameters are changing continuously over time. If one were to accept that the conscious entity inside a conscious system is entirely determined by the current state of any of these parameters, they would be accepting quite an extreme version of the deflationary view. We would literally be dying (by conscious entity replacement) probably ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 713 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach hundreds of times per second without knowing it, because the chemistry of our brains is always changing10. This particular problem does have a conceivable solution, however. It is necessary to separate the questions “how do we create a specific conscious entity?” and “how do we preserve a specific conscious entity?” When a living organism is developing and reaches sufficient complexity for consciousness (and genesis of a conscious entity), one of the above parameters (A-C) may be called upon to make the “selection” of which subject to activate out the infinite options. But once the entity is generated, the organism may be able to hold on to it in spite of a physically evolving brain. Perhaps only when consciousness is regained after a temporary period of loss (such as sleep), the brain would generate a new conscious entity (which would be “selected” by whichever parameter was called upon in the first place, but the new entity would be selected based on the current state of the body). This “stream stabilization” view is also a deflationary view, but a less extreme one because a continuous stream11 of consciousness presumably lasts a bit longer than an instantaneous conscious moment. To resist a deflationary view altogether, one could postulate a “life stabilization” view, holding that a single type-2 self will “jump” from one conscious stream to the next throughout the lifespan of the organism. Or, perhaps consciousness is never truly and fully lost for an organism as long as it is alive. If any version of the deflationary hypothesis were true, some may see little point in crafting an uploading system to preserve a person’s specific conscious entity, because the entity is not even preserved in everyday life. Any form of uploading would still be better than nothing though, as the type-1 self would be preserved. But still, the mystery of how the selection occurs each time a “new self” is generated would remain. It still may be worth solving this puzzle in order to make survival through uploading a more meaningful thing. If the “life stabilization” idea held any merit, we may have two options for uploading. One option would involve somehow tracing back the history of the organism to the original point at which it became conscious, and re-create that structure to activate the same entity in the new substrate. This would be nearly impossible. Another method would be to simply preserve the current entity, perhaps by gradual destructive uploading. This process refers to replacing each brain part, one at a time, until the entire system is uploaded (Chalmers 2010). 6.2. Why these Parameters are Probably Wrong Ultimately, these parameters (A-C) are more questionable than we may make them out to be. I find it extremely difficult to imagine A. We would effectively need to accept the following: starting with a conscious system, we could destroy it, and then rebuild it using the same numerical molecules. At the same time, we build an exact copy of the system using qualitatively identical molecules. The numerically identical body would have the same conscious entitiy as the original and the qualitatively identical body would have a different entity. Since both bodies have identical function in the laws of nature, why would this be? It is hard to imagine why nature would care which of the two, if any, gets the original conscious entity. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 714 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach Should B or C be true, imagine the following scenario. Two twin bodies are generated in identical environments, so both bodies contain the exact same qualitative configuration of molecules. Under this hypothesis, the two twins are not separate subjects – they are the same conscious entity in two places at once. This is because parameters B and C do not allow for the numerical identity of molecules to have a role in the selection problem. Perhaps this is easy to conceive if the two bodies are experiencing identical qualia, but what if, following the initial time that these bodies were generated, one was then led into a different environment? If stream or life stabilization were true, we would have the same entity perceiving two separate worlds simultaneously. The only alternative under the B and C parameter view is to reject the stabilization views while accepting the extreme deflationary position. There is an even more fundamental issue, which trumps almost everything discussed so far. Even if we were able to understand how consciousness arises, how we develop our sense of self, and how to map potential entities into different bodies based on some physical arrangement parameters, we would still be left with a huge explanatory gap. What is it that makes one particular arrangement or set of molecules me as opposed to someone else? Or we could think of this from the other direction: why is my consciousness the equivalent of this particular set of molecules as opposed to any other? It seems that we may be inevitably faced with a fundamentally random process in nature. To me, this idea is just as mind-boggling as the randomness in quantum uncertainty. Intuitively, nothing in the universe should be random. Albert Einstein clang to this intuition of systematic cause and effect, ultimately rejecting central aspects of quantum mechanics. Perhaps someday, new physics will illuminate a perspective on quantum uncertainty that will allow us to grasp the nature of random output. Similarly, the apparent randomness found in the nature of the self may be within theoretical grasp. While this is one possible endpoint, we have not exhausted all possible options. Instead of taking the “whole brain” approach which involved parameters A-C, perhaps a more plausible solution to the selection problem is that some central mechanism in the brain is responsible for selecting one potential subject (as opposed to other potential subjects) to activate. By “central mechanism”, I mean an explicit large-scale brain function or reaction that reliably has the same entity activated even with conscious stream disruptions throughout the organism’s lifespan. Even though this would implicitly depend on qualitative molecular arrangement (parameter B), the difference is that the mechanism for the selection process would be explicit, thus removing the explanatory gap12. While this may sound like an absurd idea, the only conceivable alternative is to accept some fundamental randomness. This mechanism may be a quick silverbullet in our search for truth, similar to the discovery of DNA as the “life force” that has always been searched for. Thus far, we have been assuming that consciousness is generated by the brain, and consciousness for a subject begins and ends in their own body. This is commonly taken as a given, since modern neuroscience can demonstrate one-to-one mapping between brain function and mental phenomena. However, my overall take on this position is that it only considers the individual parts of consciousness (such as senses and cognition) and fails to consider consciousness as a whole with the irreducible sense of self. Additionally, while the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 715 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach quality of evidence for consciousness survival of bodily death is debatable, it would be foolish to ignore the fact that some evidence exists, for example, see work developed by Gary Schwartz and Ian Stevenson. Efforts have been made to link quantum mechanics and consciousness, with growing success (Radin 2012, Hameroff 2014). Perhaps such mechanisms could allow theoretical room for the brain to act as a receiver, rather than a producer, of consciousness. In any case, we can take natural survival as a theoretical possibility and consider what implications it may have on this model of the self. In this scenario, perhaps the infinite amount of potential subjects we postulated are really active subjects embedded in universal fabric13. All possible conscious entity “switches” imaginable (an infinite amount of them) would be on, at least periodically. This infinite sea of active subjects would be an unlimited supply of consciousness and in line with many eastern philosophies. Specific active subjects/entities may get drawn into specific organisms when some critical feature in their living brain is formed. Alternatively, perhaps particular entities ingrained into the universe can split off from the sea and play a role in generating a body for itself, though this is purely speculative. This may seem like an extreme violation of Occam’s razor: why postulate an infinite amount of unnecessary entities? But postulating these entities may actually yield the simplest explanation, which will be discussed in the next subsection. Someone living in a 2-dimensional flatland may think the idea of an infinite number of flatlands stacked on top of each other is absurd, but in reality we know that an infinite amount of these flatlands simply creates an extra dimension. There may be a simple, natural answer within the laws of physics that can explain the existence of this higher dimension of consciousness, with our brains simply accessing a single infinitesimal slice of this dimension14. 6.3. Different types of infinity and why they are important We are faced with some questions at this point about the nature of infinity in these contexts. In mathematics, there are multiple types of infinity, some of which are provably larger than others. One category of infinity is countable infinity, which includes a set of all real numbers that can in principle be listed (for example, integers and fractions). Another category is uncountable infinity, which includes the set of all real numbers. One cannot, even in principle, list all the real numbers that lie on a number line. These so-called uncountable infinities are therefore larger than countable infinities15. Countable infinity can be represented by an infinite amount of discrete points, while uncountable infinity would be a continuous line; discrete values, no matter how small, are always separated by an infinite amount of numbers. Applying these concepts to active and potential subjects is difficult at best. But it matters, because it is possible to have both an infinite amount of potential subjects and an infinite amount of active subjects. An infinite amount of active conscious entities (subjects) does not necessarily include the entire possible set of conscious entities, because infinity plus infinity equals infinity. It is possible that there naturally exist an infinite amount of active conscious entities, but instead of being embedded in universal fabric, this really could just be due to an infinite amount of space or time in the multiverse yielding countably infinite life. If this were the case, it would be very easy to imagine a separate set of infinity potential subjects that will never exist. The number of active subjects in this case should be countable infinity, because ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 716 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach actual living organisms are discrete. However, the type of infinity describing the number of potential subjects would be less clear. One could make an argument that this is countable infinity, because even imaginary subjects are discrete and should be able to be lined up side by side like geometrical points. However, one could also make an argument that it would be uncountable infinity, because in principle one should be able to imagine a distinct potential entity corresponding to every possible real number on a number line16. Under some configurations, it can be shown that the chances are of any particular subject (such as you or me) ever existing are virtually zero. If there are an infinite amount of possible conscious entities for an organism to select besides mine, the chance of any particular developing conscious being becoming me is 1/∞. The probability of any particular conscious entity (me, you, etc) being drawn given n opportunities is thus17: 1 𝑛 1 − (1 − ) ∞ Let’s take n to be the number of conscious systems that have existed, exist now, and ever will exist in the multiverse. If n is a finite number, this probability is infinitesimally close to zero. I do not necessarily take this as evidence against an only finite amount of conscious systems ever existing, because nature should not care about this tiny probability of me existing. However, this clearly demonstrates that our existence under these circumstances is nothing to take for granted, and many people probably overestimate the chances of existing naturally. If we consider that perhaps an infinite amount of conscious systems will naturally exist over the course of multiverse space and time (though not the universal fabric view of consciousness) we can evaluate the following: 1 𝑛 lim 1 − (1 − ) 𝑛→∞ 𝑛 This expression also yields zero. While the infinity represented in the denominator and the infinity represented in the exponent have different meanings, this does not affect the answer. It seems that even given a countably infinite amount of opportunities for your consciousness to be born into a conscious organism, you should have had virtually no chance of existing to read these words. To eliminate this idea, the only feasible solution is to suppose that there are zero potential subjects. This would mean that you cannot think of or imagine a possible conscious entity that isn’t (at least periodically) conscious. In other words, every entity in the entire possible set of conscious entities is active. This would be consistent with the hypothesis of consciousness being embedded in universal fabric, because otherwise it would be possible to imagine a separate set of infinity potential subjects over and above the countably infinite conscious organisms. The type of infinity describing the number of active subjects in this case is open to debate though, as described above for counting the entire possible set of potential subjects. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 717 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach 7. What’s Next? In this section, I will make a basic outline for how we can proceed to utilize this model of the self scientifically. The basic goal is to determine what naturally occurs after death, and then figure out how we may be able to control the future of our conscious experience if we don’t like the natural answer. If naturally existing consciousness after death could be tested and proven, we need not bother with uploading or any efforts to create immortality. To start, some forms of qualitative research may be useful. For example, we can look at the phenomenology of transcendental experiences, which are considered by many to be indications of a world beyond. Transcendental experiences can include near-death experiences (NDEs), meditations, as well as effects from certain drugs. Namely, we should be looking for some experience of a self being connected to an infinite amount of other selves, as the model I proposed would suggest. While such reports have been described18, it may be worth examining the phenomenology of their experience in greater depth to see how well it matches up to the ideas presented in this model. But eventually we need actual proof of something. We need a complete theory of consciousness that can explain the mechanisms of the self and qualia the same way that the theory of evolution can explain the diversity of life. What are the options for solving the selection problem of how potential subjects become active subjects? We first may need to know more about how a subject (or type-2 self) forms. Research into altered states of consciousness, from both drugs and pathology, may still be invaluable. This is because we need to understand all the forms that consciousness can take, and what the brain is doing in each case. This will become easier with improving brain scanning technology. Ultimately, if we can figure out where and how the irreducible type-2 self breaks down, we may be able to explain the mechanism of the type-2 self. Fortunately, scientists are seemingly making headway with technology that can selectively turn off parts of the brain. For example, the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation device can non-invasively affect parts of the brain by magnetic fields. Perhaps more sophisticated forms of this technology, when developed, could effectively simulate the disintegration process of the brain (without causing actual brain damage). A subject reporting their experience could give scientists useful insight on the scale of brain activity needed for coherent perception of an irreducible conscious entity. Further, if there are indeed better forms of consciousness than qualia attached to an irreducible self, we may be able to understand how those work as well, and consider those for uploading efforts in lieu of saving our differentiable selves. Simply by knowing the mechanisms of the type-2 self, the answer to the selection problem might be right in front of us, or it may at least uncover some hints. Once we have the answers, we then may have complete control over turning potential subjects into active subjects, therefore giving us the ability to upload or resurrect any conscious entity. If this seems like too much of a slippery slope argument, one may also consider hope from the singularity, which is the idea that there will be an explosion of intelligence (and resulting technology) once a human invents a computer “smarter” than human itself. Such an explosion could help us out ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 718 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach tremendously in not only developing uploading technology, but also determining how to upload in order to preserve identity. 8. Conclusion While the underlying reality of the self may be vastly different than what our intuition tells us, the importance of the way we perceive it cannot be neglected. Thus, it makes practical sense to distinguish two types of self, with the irreducible entity type of self giving us objective answers to whether or not a conscious system survives under specified conditions. Given the further fact of differentiability, there is an explanatory gap between our knowledge of the existence of these entities and our knowledge that specific entities are mapped into specific conscious systems. The underlying scientific question to answer is how potential subjects become active subjects. When broken down, it can be seen that possible solutions are quite finite, and can likely be solved with the tools of science in the near future. When including the selection problem in the quest to explain why we are not zombies, perhaps the puzzle of consciousness will finally come together. Footnotes 1. See Chalmers 1995. 2. By physical place, I am referring to how consciousness fits in with the physical laws of the universe. 3. Uploading can take many forms, but most types discussed in literature involve scanning the brain in its microscopic parts followed by recreating it in an alternate substrate. The alternate substrate is usually a nonbiological functional isomorph, such as a silicon-based computer system with individual circuits taking the place of individual neurons in their original locations with respect to the brain and spinal cord as a whole. See Chalmers 2010 for more background on uploading forms. 4. Once again, I would direct readers wishing to seek more background on this topic to begin with Chalmers 2010. 5. The term “further fact” is often used to portray the view that there are facts about a person’s identity beyond the sum of their phenomenological content. 6. This is the essence of the hard problem. From a perspective outside of a living organism, it is difficult to imagine how looking at all of its microphysical components and interactions would lead the observer to believe that the system is conscious. 7. For the sake of simplifying the problem, we can assume that these situations will render a complete lack of consciousness, equivalent to the phenomenology of not existing. 8. By in principle, I do not mean that it is possible within the laws of physics. Rather, I mean it is theoretically imaginable. 9. “Numerical identity” and “qualitative identity” are two different ways of considering whether or not two things are “the same” in the famous Ship of Theseus thought experiment. For example, two different carbon atoms with the same properties would be qualitatively identical, but not numerically identical. A carbon atom is numerically ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 719 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach identical to itself and only itself. Since a whole brain can only be numerically identical to itself, a view that the numerical identity of brain molecules holds ontology to the conscious entity selection is inherently pessimistic about uploading. 10. Brain cells continuously die and regenerate as our bodies grow. Numerical identity of all of our brain molecules is never preserved in everyday life. This dilemma is slightly less extreme for parameter B and perhaps even less for C, as it could take a bit longer for qualitative and functional changes (i.e. memory encoding) to occur, but these are still very short timescales and it is nonetheless an extreme view. However, this is not to say that an extreme view is necessarily wrong. 11. A conscious stream will be defined as a continuous and unbroken period of consciousness. While it is difficult to know with certainty whether some things (such as deep sleep, general anesthesia, etc) truly cause a complete lack of consciousness (and thus break a stream), I speculate that most people will experience multiple streams throughout their lifetime. 12. Parameters A-C by themselves involve only implicit mechanisms for the selection problem, because there is no objective reason to assume that any particular configuration of molecules would favor one particular entity over another. Saying that a person’s identity is determined by their molecular arrangement does not eliminate the randomness discussed, and thus we are still left with an explanatory gap. However, identifying a specific mechanism inside the brain that explicitly polarizes a specific entity would directly explain the selection problem. 13. “Universal fabric” is my umbrella term for features at the quantum-scale of the universe. Things like time and spatial dimensions can also be considered part of universal fabric. 14. I am referring to this version of consciousness as a “higher dimension” as an analogue to the nature of spatial th dimensions. An infinite number of n dimensional objects stacked together create a shape in the n+1 dimension, so an infinite amount of irreducible conscious entities embedded in universal fabric, in a sense, constructs a higher dimension of consciousness. 15. See Cantor’s diagonal argument for an explanation as to why all numbers on a number line are unlistable. It is generally accepted that this is proof of uncountable infinity being larger than countable infinity. While the exact ontology of these types of infinity may be disputable, the concepts that follow on the entire possible set of conscious entities should hold. 16. Mapping of specific conscious entities to specific number values would be an entirely arbitrary process. The purpose of imagining this is to think about this problem from a mathematical perspective so that it can be grasped. 1 17. If the probability of any particular developing conscious organism becoming me is , the probability of that ∞ 1 organism NOT becoming me is1 − . In order for me to never exist or know of existence, this probability would ∞ need to be realized for every single conscious organism that ever has and ever will exist in the multiverse. We 1 don’t know how many such organisms there are, so we assign a variable n to represent it. The expression 1 − ∞ th can be raised to the n power to determine the probability that I will never exist, because this probability will need 1 to be realized n times. To change this to the probability that I will exist, this new term (1 − )𝑛 is subtracted from 1 𝑛 ∞ 1 to get the overall expression: 1 − (1 − ) ∞ 18. This is a universal description in many near death experiences and other transcendental states of consciousness achieved by experienced meditators. For an example that provides particular detail, see LaBerge 2012. See also Jourdan 2011 for a detailed study on the higher dimensional perceptions of the near death experience. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 720 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 710-720 Caputi, D., On the Mystery of the Self & the Selection Problem: A Mathematical Approach References Blackmore, S. (2002). The grand illusion: Why consciousness exists only when you look for it. New Scientist 174 (2348):26-29. Chalmers, D. "Facing up to the problem of consciousness." Journal of consciousness studies 2.3 (1995): 200-219. Chalmers, D. "The Singularity: a Philosophical Analysis." Journal of Consciousness Studies 17.9-10 (2010): 9-10. Clark, T. W. (1995). Death, nothingness, and subjectivity. In Daniel Kolak & R. Martin (eds.), The Experience of Philosophy. Wadsworth Publishing. 15-20. Dawkins, R. Unweaving the rainbow: Science, delusion and the appetite for wonder. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000. Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (2014). Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’theory. Physics of life reviews, 11(1), 39-78. Hayworth, K. (2010). Killed by bad philosophy: Why brain preservation followed by mind uploading is a cure for death,". Essay published online at http://www.brainpreservation.org. Jourdan, J. P. (2011). Near Death Experiences and the 5th Dimensional Spatio-Temporal Perspective. Journal of Cosmology, 14, 4743-4762. LaBerge, S., & Brown, D. Waking the Dreamer. Retrieved September 27, 2014, from http://www.mavericksofthemind.com/lab-int.htm Metzinger, T. (2009). The Ego Tunnel. The science of the soul and the myth of the self. Radin, D., Michel, L., Galdamez, K., Wendland, P., Rickenbach, R., & Delorme, A. (2012). Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments. Physics Essays, 25(2), 157. Ramachandran, V. S. (2004). A brief tour of human consciousness: from impostor poodles to purple numbers. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 222 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil Research Essay On Life, Death, Good and Evil Matti Pitkänen 1 Abstract Is there actual justification for moral laws? Are they only social conventions or is there some hard core involved? Is there some basic ethical principle, telling what deeds are good and what deeds are bad? Second group of questions relates to life and biological death. How should one define life? What happens in the biological death? Is something self-preserved in the biological death in some form? Is there something deserving to be called soul? Are reincarnations possible? Are we perhaps responsible for our deeds even after our biological death? Could the law of Karma be consistent with physics? Is liberation from the cycle of Karma possible? These questions are discussed from the point of view of TGD inspired theory of consciousness. The cosmology of consciousness, the concept of self-having space-time sheet and causal diamond as its geometric correlates, the vision about the fundamental role of negentropic entanglement and Negentropy Maximization Principle, and the hierarchy of Planck constants identified as hierarchy of dark matters and of quantum critical systems, provide the building blocks needed to make guesses about what biological death could mean from subjective point of view. 1 Introduction In principle the proposed conceptual framework allows already now a consideration of the basic questions relating to concepts like Good and Evil and Life and Death. Of course, too many uncertainties are involved to allow any definite conclusions, and one could also regard the speculations as outputs of the babbling period necessarily accompanying the development of the linguistic and conceptual apparatus making ultimately possible to discuss these questions more seriously. Even the most hard boiled materialistic sceptic mentions ethics and moral when suffering personal injustice. Is there actual justification for moral laws? Are they only social conventions or is there some hard core involved? Is there some basic ethical principle telling what deeds are good and what deeds are bad? Second group of questions relates to life and biological death. How should on define life? What happens in the biological death? Is self preserved in the biological death in some form? Is there something deserving to be called soul? Are reincarnations possible? Are we perhaps responsible for our deeds even after our biological death? Could the law of Karma be consistent with physics? Is liberation from the cycle of Karma possible? In the sequel these questions are discussed from the point of view of TGD inspired theory of consciousness. It must be emphasized that the discussion represents various points of view rather than being a final summary. Also mutually conflicting points of view are considered. The cosmology of consciousness, the concept of self having space-time sheet and causal diamond as its correlates, the vision about the fundamental role of negentropic entanglement, and the hierarchy of Planck constants identified as hierarchy of dark matters and of quantum critical systems, provide the building blocks needed to make guesses about what biological death could mean from subjective point of view. 2 Life and Death There are rather important steps of progress occurred during that last years (I am doing this updating 2015), which allow a more serious consideration of the notions of life and death in TGD framework. 1 Correspondence: Matti Pitkänen http://tgdtheory.com/. Address: Karkinkatu 3 I 3, 03600, Karkkila, Finland. Email: matpitka6@gmail.com. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 223 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 1. NMP and the notion negentropic entanglement imply that state function reductions do not only destroy entanglement but can also create negentropic entanglement for which the density matrix is projector to a higher-dimensional sub-space of state space. This changes completely the standard rather gloomy view about evolution as approach to maximal entropy. Also now second law holds but for the ensemble entropy which is single particle quantity whereas entanglement entropy characterizes a system with at least two particles. The stable correlation between system and complement becomes information carrier. A possible interpretation is as an abstraction: the pairs of stase in the superposition are instances of the abstraction, concept, or rule. I have christened the negentropic resources as Akashic records. In this view Universe is a gigantic library, which grows all the time. The information coded to negentropic entanglement need not be conscious as such. If interaction free measurement generalizes so that it applies to this entanglement the information about the entanglement might be read consciously. Second possibility is that negentropic entanglement is experienced as a rule or concept during state function reduction sequences at same boundary of CD. 2. TGD Universe is quantum critical. This statement has now an elegant formulation as a hierarchy of quantum criticalities assignable to a fractal hierarchy of sub-algebras of various conformal algebras associated with TGD acting as gauge symmetries, and labeled by effective Planck constants hef f = n × h. The levels of the hierarchy have interpretation in terms of dark matter. The most important algebra of this kind is super-symplectic algebra. The phase transitions increasing n = hef f /h correspond to scalings n → m × n for some integer m and criticality is reduced so that these phase transitions should occur spontaneously. Living systems can be seen as systems trying to stay at the existing criticality. This requires metabolic energy and homeostasis serves this purposed. Eastern philosophies talk about Karma’s cycle and the need to preserve ego preventing the spontaneously occurring extension of consciousness. One can argue that this view about life as a battle against enlightment is rather cynical. The attempt to stay at quantum criticality should have some deep positive meaning. Maybe the jumping forth and back between criticalities is what gives life its positive meaning and helps to build Akashic records by generating negentropic entanglement. Maybe living systems could be seen as kind of publishing producing systematically replicas of Akashic records could be the deep rationale behind life. 3. ZEO allows a precise identification of self as a sequence of state function reductions at the same boundary of CD. This allows also to understand how the experience about flow of time and arrow of time emerge. One can also formulate precisely the life-time of the system in geometric sense as the increase of the average distances between the tips in the superposition of CDs associated with self. The life-time in subjective sense can be identified as the number of quantum jumps at passive boundary of CD. The first state function at the opposite boundary of CD means the death of self and rebirth of self at the opposite boundary. NMP forces this first state function reduction and when it occurs for sub-self higher level self interprets it as an act of volition. 4. NMP has become central principle of TGD inspired theory of consciousness. Quite generally, NMP replaces quantum randomness with intentional evolution: Universe has a goal and this is to increase negentropic resources. The analogs of slee-wake-up cycles in which self and its shadow wake up would be realized in all scales. Can one interpret also human life cycle as on example about this kind of cycles. The basic questions seem to be following ones. 1. Is me the self defined by my biological body? In this case biological death would mean re-incarnation of me at opposite boundary of CD and life lived in opposite direction of time. Or does my biological ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 224 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil body corresponds to my subs-elf/mental image. Me could in this case correspond to my magnetic body or field body having possibly astrophysical size. The death of my biological body would replaced the mental image about biological body with time reversed mental image. 2. A further interesting question is whether there is a continuity of conscious experience in the reincarnation of self at opposite boundary of CD. We remember something about our dreams. Does this new self have memories about the earlier life? 3. Also NMP raises questions. Can self perform bad deeds or does NMP automatically imply possible deeds increase the negentropic resources. In thermodynamics thermodynamical fluctuations can break second law in some short enough time scales. NMP has structure very similar to second law. Could it be that bad deeds are analogous to thermodynamical fluctuations: possible but present only in short time scales? Or is the only remaining non-predictability related to the ordinary state function reductions in which outcome is non-deterministic and random. But how can one see the deeds of Hitler as creation of negentropy? His deeds produced a lot of suffering but did they teach for humanity something very importan: Do not do like Hitler? Perhaps the only reasonable option is that NMP allows but does not force state function reduction to a density matrix which is a higher-dimensional projector. Self can select whether it performs a reduction to this or a lower-dimensional space or even to a ray of Hilbert space. This allows also bad deeds and the optimistic view would be that these bad deeds are analogous to thermodynamical fluctuations. 2.1 What is Death One can interpret ageing in two senses. The ageing with respect to geometric time and the ageing with respect to the subjective time. Before discussing ageing in the sense of geometric time one must specify what one means with geometric time and what one believes its relationship to subjective time to be. 1. There are two geometric times corresponding to the times assignable to space-time surface and imbedding space and by general coordinate each of these times can be identified in various number of ways. 2. Geometric time increases in discrete steps and corresponds to sub-sequent scalings of CD size defined by the distance between its tips by integer. One could call this geometric time associated with particle CD/self personal geometric time. Each self/CD defines its own imbedding space time and the increase of the proper time distance between the tips of CD is the natural choice for the definition of the age of self. There is also time associated with space-time surfaces. Both time coordinates can be chosen in many manners but symmetry conditions favor certain choices. 3. Subjective time corresponds to the number of the state function reductions already occurred at the passive boundary since the first one. The ratio of subjective age to geometric age measures the number of conscious experiences per geometric time and the larger this number is the longer of the subjectively experience time is. 4. Ageing itself with the biological and spiritual aspects that we know could be seen in two manners. Biological ageing which corresponds to hef f /h = 1 sector consisting of ordinary visible matter and second law which follows also from TGD. Variants of second law are expected also for other values of hef f /h corresponding to dark matter and be a manifestation of the non-determinism of state function reduction at ensemble level. Spiritual ageing would correspond to the gradual increase hef f /h and quite literally leading to the increase of the scope of consciousness. The increase would be due to giving up in the fight against spontaneous increase of criticality to keep hef f /h unchanged ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 225 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil and allowing the transition to criticality at longer length scales. Eastern thinking would translate this to ego attachment. There must of course be some point in fighting against the spontaneous increase of hef f and there is. The longer the lifetime of self is, the wiser the sub-selves representing mental images can become by repeated re-incarnations. Ageing means getting wiser! By favoring the generation of negentropic mental images, self can live longer. 5. The challenge is to understand in more detail how biological death as the first state function reduction at the opposite boundary of CD is forced by NMP. This relates to the growth of entropy at the lowest and also other levels by the challenge is to understand the details. The increase of the total negentropy of CD by generation of negentropic mental images can postpone the biological death. Could it be that a cascade of state function reductions proceeding down to shorter scales from the level of CD cannot anymore produce negentropic entanglement and after that NMP forces the biological death. Since hef f can increase in the first reduction to the opposite boundary of CD, NMP forces this reduction to eventually occur. An interesting question already posed is whether the integer multiples of the original size of CD correspond to especially critical moments for the biological death. There is present an entropy growth due to the randomness of state function reduction leading to a thermalization or the ensemble of mental images. This would correspond to second law, which still hold true for ensemble entropy. NMP predicts that the negentropy of conscious experience tends to increase and the biological death is only a transformation to some new form of existence. The dark matter hierarchy with levels labeled by the values of Planck constants has become a key element of TGD inspired theory of consciousness and one can imagine that during ageing these levels of existence begin gradually dominate consciousness. What interests us mostly is obviously the subjective ageing and biological death. What dying person might experience? Is there a continuity of subjective experience or does suffering end with a loss of consciousness. What follows after biological death? How our deeds affect what happens in biological death and to the experiences after the biological death? Here are some possible answers. 1. If biological body corresponds only a mental images of the magnetic body, the only thing that happens in biological death could be that the contribution of biological body to the contents of consciousness disappears so that other contributions usually masked to a high degree by sensory input and motor activities become into full light of consciousness. In fact biological body and magnetic body are 4-dimensional and there are good reasons to expect that it continues to contribute to the consciousness of some self- not necessarily the self which possessed the body. The question is however about what this particular self that I have experiences in biological death and after it. 2. The notion of negentropic entanglement (see fig. http://www.tgdtheory.fi/appfigures/cat.jpg or fig. 21 in the appendix of this book) allows to consider an answer to what might happen in biological death from the point of subjective time. Depending on the choices of self which has the dying person as sub-self, dying person generates bound state entropic entanglement with a loss of consciousness or negentropic entanglement accompanied by an expansion of consciousness. What option the higher level self chooses depends on the probability of the size of the contribution of the state with negentropic entanglement. 3. If the dying person has a strong negentropic entanglement with external world, it tends to be preserved in quantum jumps and only a small entropic contribution is present and there is only a small probability to lose consciousness. Another manner to see this is that a sub-self having very entropic sub-selves (mental images) is experienced by self as something unpleasant and by generalized NMP self might want to get rid of this kind of mental image. This would reduce the ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 226 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil chances of experiencing an expansion of consciousness. Perhaps death could be seen as the price for sins. 4. One could also argue that although consciousness might be lost it might be not be in any manner different from sleep. It could be gained back in wake-up but as something different from ordinary wake-up consciousness and determined by the 4-D biological and magnetic bodies and the deceased could remember his former life by still existing 4-D body. The notion of electromagnetic body, when combined with the view about psychological time, allows to consider a general answer to these questions. Magnetic body probably survives the biological death, and since it serves as the sensory canvas, there are all reasons to expect that subjective consciousness continues after the biological death. The contents of consciousness would be determined by the 4-dimensional physical and electromagnetic bodies and the dominating contribution creating the illusion about reality as a time=constant snapshot would be absent. Kind of timeless consciousness would be in question in accordance with the life review experiences associated with NDEs. 5. One can also ask what might be the physical correlate of self after the biological death. The self associated with the biological body should re-incarnated at the opposite boundary of CD associated with it and defined kind of ”shadow me”. The 4-D space-time sheet representing self very probably does not disappear in biological death and the 4-D character of the perceptive field suggests that this 4-D body continues to exist as a conscious entity and the sub-CDs of the geometric past representing mental images still exist. Only at the future boundary of CD the flow of 4-D biological body ceases but the sub-CDs representing existing mental images float to the direction of geometric past in the river of time and remain consciousness. 2.2 Ageing from the point of view of second law In standard quantum theory framework not allowing negentropic entanglement self could be regarded as a statistical ensemble of mental images defined by the unentangled final states of the quantum jumps. Since the size of this ensemble increases quantum jump by quantum jump, the approach of this ensemble to thermal equilibrium is unavoidable although living matter has probably invented manners to fight against the second law of thermodynamics. Thus ageing of self means dissipation. The hierarchy of Planck constants and negentropic entanglement mean deviations from this picture. 1. For higher levels of dark matter hierarchy the dissipation rate is expected to be slower: the naive expectation is that the rate is inversely proportional to Planck constant. 2. Negentropic entanglement means second exception to the rule and for given CD second law can be broken in time scales shorter than the time scale characterizing CD [6]. Each p-adic length scale defines its characteristic dissipation rates. In case of a self decomposing into sub-selves the rate of dissipation is sum over the real dissipation rates associated with the nested system formed by the self, its sub-selves, their sub-selves, etc.... The dissipation associated with states of whole-body consciousness can be anomalously small since only negentropic mental images are absent and if there is only one such mental image (or no mental images at all) there is no generation of ensemble entropy. A possible test for this is the study of total rate of metabolism during meditation. Dissipation causes the ageing of self: getting old at least at the level of biological body would be the price for having self. More concretely, the entropies associated with various distributions of quantum number and zero mode increments increase during ageing so that mental images are gradually blurred. Note that also our self which defines a mental image of a higher level self is blurred. Also biological death, or at least death experience, seems to be unavoidable fate of self. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 227 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 2.3 Ageing and death from the point of NMP The possility of negentropic entanglement allows to see ageing from different point of view if NMP is taken as the analog of second law holding in the realm of subjective existence. 1. Ageing as an entropic process could be seen also as a process analogous to the process of getting drowsy and falling asleep but in much longer time scales. Bodily sub-self would not remember anything about these periods in the case that the entanglement was entropic. Also sleep could represent a similar conscious state without bodily mental image and the impossibility to remember anything about this period of consciousness might be simply due to the fact that one can remember something about sleep state only in sleep state. The periods during which negentropic entanglement prevails would be experienced as enlightment like experiences. During ageing bodily sub-self would spend more and more time near the critical line at which this kind of phase transition occurs. 2. Ageing could be seen as a process of personal growth generating negentropic entanglement. The negentropic entanglements generated with larger selves would give rise to larger selves and the metaphor ”awakening” would thus be much more than a metaphor. Time-like negentropic entanglement would mean longer time span of attention. Person would spend more and more time in extended state of consciousness and in death finally leave the confines of the biological body. Note that person need not, and probably doesn’t, remember anything about the periods of entanglement in which the local topology of self changes. This would make possible the evolution of selves continuing after death to higher levels of conscious existence. This picture is rather optimistic: one must also consider the possibility that the evolution of self is not always a continuous personal growth! The fact that the individual development of most people seems to be a process of continual abstraction suggests that biological death is only one step in the process of abstractions and that our self consciously experiences the final transition to higher level of existence in biological death. 2.4 Why childhood memories are recalled so intensely? The first manner to see ageing is as a subjective experience: as ageing with respect to subjective time. Our self contains sub-selves representing our memories, sensory input from the geometric now and future plans. At the old age it often happens that childhood memories begin to dominate whereas the recall of more recent memories is gradually lost. Of course, the contribution of future plans becomes also gradually negligible. This suggests that the contents of consciousness for our self can suffer a gradual transformation such that the childhood begins to dominate: of course, this need not happen always. That the childhood dominates is not easy to understand if the memories of the past are stored in the geometric now as assumed in the standard brain science. In TGD framework the very fact that the childhood consciousness is very intense and un-conceptual, explains the dominance of the episodal memories of childhood. Who is the subjective experiencer in this kind of situation? Is it the old person with vivid memories or a child with some very diffuse ideas about future? The view about psychological time would suggest that the general experience gradually becomes some kind of a 4-dimensional life review such that the very intense childhood memories dominate but that the person in the psychological now is still the only one who can transform intentions to actions effectively whereas the 4-D body of the past is more or less frozen. 2.5 Death as disappearance of the mental image representing the biological body? If one takes seriously the following two assumptions behind the TGD based model of quantum control and coordinate based on the symbiosis of MEs, magnetic flux tube structures, and matter at the atomic ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 228 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil space-time sheets, one ends up with rather concrete view about what happens after the biological death. The ultimate sensory representations are realized on the sensory canvas provided by magnetic flux tube structures of similar size, so that we have magnetic body providing sensory representation of the biological body and external world [8]. Our magnetic self very probably survives in the biological death by the conservation of the magnetic flux. In this picture the body of after-life body would consists of the magnetic body plus MEs possibly surviving the death of the biological body. The only difference as compared to the life before death would be that the sensory and cognitive mental images representing the biological body (sub-selves) would disappear and the attention of our self would be directed to something else. Possibly to the entire time span of 4-D biological body since sensory input and motor actions at the upper boundary of peresonal CD are absent. Near death experiences indeed support this view [4]. In this picture re-incarnation is possible and even plausible and means only that the magnetic flux tube structure representing our bodily self turns its attention to some other biological body and uses it as a sensory and motor organ. This new biological body could be plant, animal, human, or perhaps something else. In this picture the metaphor about biological body as a cloth becomes very concrete. Since self has an extension with respect to geometric time, it has memories about its earlier history and one could perhaps identify the continuation of self after the death as that self which has the memories of self with respect to geometric time before death. In this extended state of consciousness self could experience the subjective past of the space-time sheet of self and associate it with self’s recent mind-like space-time sheet. 2.6 Near death experiences Near death experiences provide a testing ground for the general ideas about what might happen in the physical death. Experiences resembling near death experiences can be produced now in controlled manner in laboratory circumstances for people well and alive and irrespective of their belief structure subject persons tell about light tunnels and meeting of deceased relatives [2] . These experiences have been found to be therapeutic and are indeed used as therapy to cure severe psychic traumas. Therefore the materialistic explanation as a hallucination associated with dying brain seems to be excluded. Near death experiences involve experiences like being in light tunnel, seeing beautiful and rich landscapes and meeting dead relatives. Also out-of-body experiences are involved. The model of NDEs are discussed in detail in [7] and here only some brief comments are represented. The proposed picture about physical death allows a lot of room to interpret these experiences. For instance, OBEs allow two explanations. 1. The first explanation is based on the fact that in TGD based model of sensory representations the magnetic sensory canvas far outside body basically sees the brain in ELF light. This light usually comes from brain and provides a sensory representation for the external world. TGD predicts also a mechanism producing background ELF radiation from the entire body at magnetic transition frequencies and this background would make possible to see the body 3-dimensionally from outside when the sensory input is absent and does not mask this weak contribution. NDE OBEs might correspond to this kind of vision reported also by yogis. 2. The experience looking one’s body from outside could mean that some higher level self corresponding to slow EEG waves and higher em selves formed physically by the personnel of hospital in the hospital room begins to dominate. This self could perhaps see patient’s body with the combined eyes of the hospital personnel. Indeed, since the sensory input from the biological body ceases, the illusory identification of ”me” with the biological body ceases and attention can be directed to this higher level sensory input. Geometrically the em bodies of our dead relatives would exist in the geometric past and now, perhaps already in a re-incarnated form. This allows several explanation for the experience of meeting dead or ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 229 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil living relatives. A very concrete model would be based on electromagnetic bridges formed by magnetic mirrors and connecting us with our relatives and friends. This would make possible for us to see them in ELF light just like we would see ourselves. The experience about meeting deceased relatives could be also understood as a special kind of geometric memory. Generation of the long term memory means classically looking to a magnetic mirror at classical level and seing the me of the past in the mirror. It is however possible to see someone else in the mirror since the magnetic flux tube from the mirror could continue to the body of the deceased relative of friend instead of my body. In the usual states of consciousness the sensory input from the psychological now dominates and this contribution is masked. In near death experiences sensory input from the geometric now is diminished and the transpersonal background contribution becomes unmasked. 2.7 What after biological death? Biological death could mean the loss of sub-self representing body image and involve extension of the physical self: this would explain out of body experiences and near death experiences (person near death looking his body from outside). In fact, an attractive hypothesis, motivated by the quantum model of brain, is that the topological field quanta associated with photons generated by EEG currents having size of order Earth by Uncertainty Principle, could correspond to selves in our personal self hierarchy. Also magnetic flux tube structures associated with body and brain could have similar sizes and serve as a magnetic body [8]. In biological death these ELF selves could continue to oscillate as Schumann resonances in the wave cavity between Earth’s surface and ionosphere interacting with magnetic flux tube structures! If one believes that even cell sized structures have their own CDs then the primary p-adic length scale defined by the size scale of a large neuron (10−4 meters) would correspond to a time scale of the order of the age of the Universe! It seems implausible that these CDs could disappear totally although zero energy ontology in principle allows it. Biological body is accompanied by magnetic body and radiation body which provide representation for the physical (or better to say, material) body. The latter consists of radiation selves (massless extremals representing topologically rays of light) representing classically the ELF radiation fields generated by EEG currents, one is led to ask what happens for these em selves in biological death. Some of them correspond to resonant frequencies of the em fields in the 80 km thick wave cavity between Earth surface and ionosphere known as Schumann frequencies and one can consider the possibility that that something which might be called soul remains after the biological death and is represented as Schumann resonances. The most plausible hypothesis is that both ULF MEs and magnetic flux tube structures remaining after physical death together with the 4-dimensional body of geometric past define our self after the biological death. This leads to the following speculative vision about consciousness after the biological death. 1. The transformation of intentions to actions ceases in the biological death so that the dominating contribution of the psychological now to the experience disappears and conscious experience becomes kind of four-dimensional life review in which also the contributions from other bodies (say deceased relatives) appear as unmasked. 2. The geometric past, or rather experiences about it, can be gradually refined but no big changes are possible, so that a totally new life based on different decisions does not seem to be possible. The assumption about totally new life would also lead to paradoxes. On the other hand, the instability of the long term memories suggests that the memories about the past life could be edited. The conscious experience contains also the contribution of the magnetic body continuing to exist. 3. The surviving magnetic body could attach to some new organism which it begins to use as a sensory and motor organ. The re-incarnation would have the memories of the past life as an unconscious background masked strongly by the sensory input and coming clearly conscious only ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 230 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil in some altered states of consciousness. The reports about children remembering they previous life could be understood in this conceptual framework. This of course makes one wonder whether young children could remember their past lives. Perhaps someone should ask! 4. ZEO inspired view about state function reduction suggests more concrete view. The new self is generated at the previously active boundary of CD assignable to the biological body and the new life is lived in reversed direction. 2.8 Does soul exist in some sense? An open question is what happens for the space-time sheet (or CD) assignable to self after biological death. 1. Could this space-time sheet or CD be called soul? Does this soul continue drift in light-cone and get attached to some new material system. Or can it disappear in quantum jump? This would not be a reincarnation in the usual sense of the word. The re-incarnation in the usual sense if the word would mean that one has memories about the life of someone whose has lived in past. In TGD Universe this is quite possible since the mechanisms of remote mental interactions are basically the same as the interaction mechanisms making possible for the magnetic body to control the biological body receive information from it. 2. ”Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” principle suggests that the evolution of an individual is image for the evolution of the entire universe. Biological death would be only a metamorphosis to some new form of existence, perhaps as topologically quantized classical fields associated with the biological body. Magnetic flux tube structures having sizes measured in scale of light lifetime are especially promising candidates for the components of electromagnetic body surviving in the death of what is usually identified as the biological body. Some experimental facts lead to rather precise ideas about the geometric representation of our selves and also suggest that our existence continues in electromagnetic form after death [4]. 3. An attractive identification of ”soul” would be as negentropic entanglement resources - Akashic records - serving also as a quantum correlate of love and other positive atributes of consciousness. Could this negentropic entanglement become conscious (be read) in repeated state function reductions or is the counterpart of interaction free quantum measurement require for this to happen? Indirect support for the survival of space-time sheets carrying associated with negentropic entanglement/large hef f after death comes from rather unexpected direction. 1. The phenomenon of phantom DNA suggesting that dark space-time sheets associated with DNA remain in the chamber which contained DNA: in the experiments of Poponin [1] the signature of phantom DNA is its interaction with laser light at visible frequencies. Phantom DNA would be represented by mind-like space-time sheets with size of at least the wavelength of visible light (10−7 meters). The em selves remaining after our death would have consirably larger size! One can however consider the possibility that some detectable interaction between ELF frequency em fields and ”phantom brain” could be possible and make it possible to prove experimentally the presence of em soul! 2. The claimed successes of homeopathy (for phantom DNA and homeopathy see [9] and [5] ). could also have explanation in terms of the mind-like space-time sheets. Homeopathic drugs are fabricated by a repeated dilution of the active drug so that the concentration of the drug in solution becomes extremely low. The method of fabrication could however imply that final product contains quite many mind-like space-time sheets of the drug molecules. These mind-like space-time sheets might be able to affect the sickness since the mind-like space-time sheets provide a cognitive representation ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 231 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil for drug and this mimicry could ”cheat” the patient to cure. The law of similarities could have something to do with the mechanism involved. More concretely, a given quantum transition frequency characterizing the medicine would be represented as ME with length equal to the wavelength associated with the transition frequency. The electromagnetic body of the molecule could be mimicked by liquid crystal water blobs producing similar transition frequencies and thus containing similar MEs in their electromagnetic bodies. The effect of the medicine would be mediated by the electromagnetic body so that the ”fake” medicine could indeed cure. Some support for the extension of self in death is provided by near death experiences (NDEs). For instance, looking one’s body from outside could mean that self is entangled with a larger self formed by the personnel of hospital in the hospital room and sees patient’s body with the eyes of the personnel. This experience could be understood as experience of, say self representing hospital room: in this experience the visual experiences of persons in the hospital room would fuse to the experience experienced by patient entangled with the hospital room. Meeting one’s relatives and elders could mean entanglement with a larger self formed by the selves of dead and living relatives. This larger self could experience the abstracted experiences of dead and living relatives. Also the ability of subjects of surgical operations to occasionally remember about events occurred during unconscious state, supports this view. Magnetic flux tube structures are the most plausible candidates for the ”body” remaining in physical death: this point is discussed in more detail in [4]. 2.9 Is it possible to get into contact with deceased? There is a lot of anecdotal evidence consistent with life after death. Near-death experiences are not the only manner to get convinced for life after death. So called eye-movement de-sensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) discovered by Francine Shapiro [2, 3] induces what could be interpreted as afterdeath communications. 1. The experiences of subject persons can be induced by this therapy in highly reliable manner: according to [2] 98 per cent of patients willing to participate the therapy had after death communication experience It does not matter what the religious convictions of the subject person are and the experiences are actually rather easy to induce. It does not matter if the loss is traumatic or not or whether it is recent or occurred for decades in past. 2. The experiences resemble near death experiences (light tunnels, beautiful landscapes) and involve spiritual contact with the deceased. The EMDR technique involves getting the patient to move his or her eyes in a particular rhythmic fashion while at the same time attending to a particular aspect of the traumatic memory. 3. How EMRD works is poorly understood as yet: possibly the fact that the shifting of eyes leads to increased brain processing is of importance. Notice that rapid eye movements REM are also involved with dreams. A possible explanation is that EMDR experiences could involve communication with the recent selves of the deceased ones located possibly in the geometric recent or past and represented by magnetic flux tube structure and MEs interacting with them. 3 Good and Evil The vision about life as something in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds together with the notion of negentropic entanglement gives hopes for understanding the quantum correlates of evolution and even ethics. The basic principle would be that good deeds generate negentropic entanglement and Negentropy Maximization Principle - perhaps suitably generalized from its original form- would define the basic principle of ethics. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 232 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 3.1 Quantum ethics very briefly The proposal is that the basic ethical principle is that good deeds help evolution to occur. This proposal can be criticized. Evolution should correspond to the increase of negentropic entanglement. NMP in trong forces it and in weak form allows it. 1. If strong form of NMP prevails, one can worry that TGD Universe does not allow Evil at all, perhaps not even genuine free will! No-one wants Evil but Evil seems to be present in this world. 2. Could one weaken NMP so that it does not force but only allows to make a reduction to a final state characterized by density matrix which is projection operator? Self would choose whether to perform a projection to some sub-space of this subspace, say 1-D ray as in ordinary state function reduction. NMP would be like Christian God allowing the sinner to choose between Good and Evil. The final entanglement negentropy would be measure for the goodness of the deed. This is so if entanglement negentropy is a correlate for love. Deeds which are done with love would be good. Reduction of entanglement would in turn mean loneliness and separation. 3. Or could could think that the definition of good deed is as a selection between deeds, which correspond to the same maximal increase of negentropy so that NMP cannot tell what happens. For instance the density matrix operator is direct sum of projection operators of same dimension but varying coefficients and there is a selection between these. It is difficult to imagine what the criterion for a good deed could be in this case. And how self can know what is the good deed and what is the bad deed. Good deeds would support evolution. There are many manners to interpret evolution in TGD Universe. 1. p-Adic evolution would mean a gradual increase of the p-adic primes characterizing individual partonic 2-surfaces and therefore their size. The identification of p-adic space-time sheets as representations for cognitions gives additional concreteness to this vision. The earlier proposal that p-adic–real-phase transitions correspond to realization of intentions and formations of cognitions seems however to be wrong. Instead, adelic view that both real and p-adic sectors are present simultaneously and that fermions at string world sheets correspond to the intersection of realities and p-adicities seems more realistic. The inclusion of phases q = exp(i2π/n) in the algebraic extension of p-adics allows to define the notion of angle in p-adic context but only with a finite resolution since only finite number of angles are represented as phases for a given value of n. The increase of the integers n could be interpreted as the emergence of higher algebraic extensions of p-adic numbers in the intersection of the real and p-adic worlds. These observations suggest that all three views about evolution are closely related. 2. The hierarchy of Planck constants suggests evolution as the gradual increase of the Planck constant characterizing p-adic space-time sheet (or partonic 2-surface for the minimal option). The original vision about this evolution was as a migration to the pages of the book like structure defined by the generalized imbedding space and has therefore quite concrete geometric meaning. It implies longer time scales of long term memory and planned action and macroscopic quantum coherence in longer scales. The new view is in terms of first quantum jumps to the opposite boundary of CD leading to the death of self and its re-incarnation at the opposite boundary. 3. The vision about life as something in the intersection of real and p-adic words allows to see evolution information theoretically as the increase of number entanglement negentropy implying entanglement in increasing length scales. This option is equivalent with the second view and consistent with the first one if the effective p-adic topology characterizes the real partonic 2-surfaces in the intersection of p-adic and real worlds. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 233 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil The third kind of evolution would mean also the evolution of spiritual consciousness if the proposed interpretation is correct. In each quantum jump U -process generates a superposition of states in which any sub-system can have both real and algebraic entanglement with the external world. If state function reduction process involves also the choice of the type of entanglement it could be interpreted as a choice between good and evil. The hedonistic complete freedom resulting as the entanglement entropy is reduced to zero on one hand, and the negentropic entanglement implying correlations with the external world and meaning giving up the maximal freedom on the other hand. The selfish option means separation and loneliness. The second option means expansion of consciousness - a fusion to the ocean of consciousness as described by spiritual practices. In this framework one could understand the physics correlates of ethics and moral. The ethics is simple: evolution of consciousness to higher levels is a good thing. Anything which tends to reduce consciousness represents violence and is a bad thing. Moral rules are related to the relationship between individual and society and presumably develop via self-organization process and are by no means unique. Moral rules however tend to optimize evolution. As blind normative rules they can however become a source of violence identified as any action which reduces the level of consciousness. There is an entire hierarchy of selves and every self has the selfish desire to survive and moral rules develop as a kind of compromise and evolve all the time. ZEO leads to the notion that I have christened cosmology of consciousness. It forces to extend the concept of society to four-dimensional society. There is an entire hierarchy of selves and every self has the selfish desire to survive and moral rules develop as a kind of compromise and evolve all the time. The newest progress in this evolution is brought by the cosmology of consciousness, which forces to extend the concept of society to four-dimensional society! The decisions of ”me now” affect both my past and future and time like quantum entanglement makes possible conscious communication in time direction by sharing conscious experiences. One can therefore speak of genuinely four-dimensional society. Besides my next-door neighbors I had better to take into account also my nearest neighbors in past and future (the nearest ones being perhaps copies of me!). If I make wrong decisions those copies of me in future and past will suffer the most. Perhaps my personal hell and paradise are here and are created mostly by me. 3.2 What could the quantum correlates of moral be? We make moral choices all the time. Some deeds are good, some deeds are bad. In the world of materialist there are no moral choices, the deeds are not good or bad, there are just physical events. I am not a materialist so that I cannot avoid questions such as how do the moral rules emerge and how some deeds become good and some deeds bad. Negentropic entanglement is the obvious first guess if one wants to understand emergence of moral. 1. One can start from ordinary quantum entanglement. It corresponds to a superposition of pairs of states. Second state corresponds to the internal state of the self and second state to a state of external world or biological body of self. In negentropic quantum entanglement each is replaced with a pair of sub-spaces of state spaces of self and external world. The dimension of the sub-space depends on the which pair is in question. In state function reduction one of these pairs is selected and deed is done. How to make some of these deeds good and some bad? 2. Obviously the value of hef f /h = n gives the criterion in the case that weak form of NMP holds true. Recall that weak form of NMP allows only the possibility to generate negentropic entanglement but does not force it. NMP is like God allowing the possibility to do good but not forcing good deeds. Self can choose any sub-space of the subspace defined by n-dimensional projector and 1-D subspace corresponds to the standard quantum measurement. For n = 1 the state function reduction leads to vanishing negentropy, and separation of self and the target of the action. Negentropy does not increase in this action and self is isolated from the target: kind of price for sin. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 234 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil For the maximal dimension of this sub-space the negentropy gain is maximal. This deed would be good and by the proposed criterion the negentropic entanglement corresponds to love or more neutrally, positively colored conscious experience. Interestingly, there are 2n − 1 possible choices which is almost the dimension of Boolean algebra consisting of n independent bits. The excluded option corresponds to 0-dimensional sub-space - empty set in set theoretic realization of Boolean algebra. This could relate directly to fermionic oscillator operators defining basis of Boolean algebrahere Fock vacuum would be the excluded state. The deed in this sense would be a choice of how loving the attention towards system of external world is. 3. A map between between the different choices of k-dimensional sub-space to k-fermion states is suggestive. The realization of logic in terms of emotions of different degrees of positivity would be mapped to many-fermion states - perhaps zero energy states with vanishing total fermion number. State function reductions to k-dimensional spaces would be mapped to k-fermion states: quantum jumps to quantum states! The problem brings in mind quantum classical correspondence in quantum measurement theory. The direction of the pointer of the measurement apparatus (in very metaphoral sense) corresponds to the outcome of state function reduction, which is now 1-d subspace. For ordinary measurement the pointer has n positions. Now it must have 2n − 1 positions. To the discrete space of n pointer positions one must assign fermionic Clifford algebra of second quantized fermionic oscillator operators. The hierarchy of Planck constants and dark matter suggests the realization. Replace the pointer with its space-time n-sheeted covering and consider zero energy energy states made of pairs of k-fermion states at the sheets of the n-sheeted covering? Dark matter would be therefore necessary for cognition. The role of fermions would be to ”mark” the k space-time sheets in the covering. One can make further questions. 1. Could the moral rules of society be represented as this kind of entanglement patterns between its members? Here one of course has entire fractal hierarchy of societies corresponding different length scales. Attention and magnetic flux tubes serving as its correlates is the basic element also in TGD inspired quantum biology already at the level of bio-molecules and even elementary particles. The value of hef f /h = n associated with the magnetic flux tube connecting members of the pair, would serve as a measure for the ethical value of maximally good deed. Dark phases of matter would correspond to good: usually darkness is associated with bad! 2. These moral rules seem to be universal. There are however also moral rules or should one talk about rules of survival, which are based on negative emotions such as fear. Moral rules as rules of desired behavior are often tailored for the purposes of power holder. How this kind of moral rules could develop? Maybe they cannot be realized in terms of negentropic entanglement. Maybe the superposition of the allowed alternatives for the deed contains only the alternatives allowed by the power holder and the superposition in question corresponds to ordinary entanglement for which the signature is simple: the probabilities of various options are different. This forces the self to choose just one option from the options that power holder accepts. These rules do not allow the generation of loving relationship. Moral rules seem to be generated by society, up-bringing, culture, civilization. How the moral rules develop? One can try to formulate and answer in terms of quantum physical correlates. 1. Basically the rules should be generated in the state function reductions which correspond to volitional action which corresponds to the first state function reduction to the earlier active boundary of CD. Old self dies and new self is born at the opposite boundary of CD and the arrow of time associated with CD changes. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 235 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 2. The repeated sequences of state function reductions can generate negentropic entanglement during the quantum evolutions between them. This time evolution would be the analog for the time evolution defined by Hamiltonian - that is energy - associated with ordinary time translation whereas the first state function reduction at the opposite boundary inducing scaling of hef f and CD would be accompanied by time evolution defined by conformal scaling generator L0 . Note that the state at passive boundary does not change during the sequence of repeated state function reductions. These repeated reductions however change the parts of zero energy states associated with the new active boundary and generate also negentropic entanglement. As the self dies the moral choices can made if the weak form of NMP is true. 3. Who makes the moral choices? It looks of course very weird that self would apply free will only at the moment of its death or birth! The situation is saved by the fact that self has also sub-selves, which correspond to sub-CDs and represent mental images of self. We know that mental images die as also we do some day and are born again (as also we do some day) and these mental images can generate negentropic resources within CD of self. One can argue that these mental images do not decide about whether to do maximally ethical choice at the moment of death. The decision must be made by a self at higher level. It is me who decides about the fate of my mental images - to some degree also after their death! I can choose the how negentropic the quantum entanglement characterizing the relationship of my mental image and the world outside it. I realize, that the misused idea of positive thinking seems to unavoidably creep in! I have however no intention to make money with it! 4. It is difficult to avoid an association with the basic myth of Christianity about the death of God’s Son which is said to mean that sins of sinners are forgiven. How could one make sense of this? Or is the Freudian interpretation the only possible explanation? If negentropy increases as self dies, the paradox begins to disappear. God was self and his Son was his mental image, whose death increased the negentropic resources of the Universe and made it better. We are Gods of our mental images and we are mental images of higher level Gods. 3.3 Do positively colored emotions allow a representation of Boolean logic? Weak form of NMP allows the state function reduction to occur in 2n − 1 manners corresponding to subspaces of the sub-space defined by n-dimensional projector if the density matrix is n-dimensional projector (the outcome corresponding to 0-dimensional subspace and is excluded). If the probability for the outcome of state function reduction is same for all values of the dimension 1 ≤ m ≤ n, the probability distribution for outcome is given by binomial distribution B(n, p) for p = 1/2 (head and tail are equally probable) and given by p(m) = b(n, m)×2−n = (n!/m!(n−m)!)×2−n . This gives for the average dimesion E(m) = n/2 so that the negentropy would increase on the average. The world would become gradually better. Note that one assumes that there is some preferred basis for the states and these numbers apply when this basis is given. One cannot avoid the idea that these different degrees of negentropic entanglement could actually give a realization of Boolean algebra in terms of conscious experiences. 1. There should be a mapping of k-dimensional subspaces of n-dimensional space to the fermionic representation of Boolean algebra 2. Could one speak about a hierarchies of codes of cognition based on the assignment of different degrees of ”feeling good” to the Boolean statements? If one assumes that the n:th bit is always 1, all independent statements except one correspond at least two non-vanishing bits and corresponds to negentropic entanglement. Only of statement (only last bit equal to 1) would correspond 1 bit and to state function reduction reducing the entanglement completely (brings in mind the fruit in the tree of Good and Bad Knowlege!). ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 236 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 3. A given Q hierarchy of breakings of super-symplectic symmetry corresponds to a hierarchy of integers ni+1 = k≤i mk . The codons of the first code would consist of sequences of m1 bits. The codons of the second code consists of m2 codons of the first code and so on. One would have a hierarchy in which codons of previous level become the letters of the code words at the next level of the hierarchy. In fact, I ended up with almost Boolean algebra for decades ago when considering the hierarchy of genetic codes suggested by the hierarchy of Mersenne primes M (n + 1) = MM (n) , Mn = 2n − 1. 1. The hierarchy starting from M2 = 3 contains the Mersenne primes 3, 7, 127, 2127 − 1 and Hilbert conjectured that all these integers are primes. These numbers are almost dimensions of Boolean algebras with n = 2, 3, 7, 127 bits. The maximal Boolean sub-algebras have m = n − 1 = 1, 2, 6, 126 bits. 2. The observation that m = 6 gives 64 elements led to the proposal that it corresponds to a Boolean algebraic assignable to genetic code and that the sub-algebra represents maximal number of independent statements defining analogs of axioms. The remaining elements would correspond to negations of these statements. I also proposed that the Boolean algebra with m = 126 = 6 × 21 bits (21 pieces consisting of 6 bits) corresponds to what I called memetic code obviously realizable as sequences of 21 DNA codons with stop codons included. Emotions and information are closely related and peptides are regarded as both information molecules and molecules of emotion. 3. This hierarchy of codes would have the additional property that the Boolean algebra at n + 1:th level can be regarded as the set of statements about statements of the previous level. One would have a hierarchy representing thoughts about thoughts about.... It should be emphasized that there is no need to assume that the Hilbert’s conjecture is true. m One can obtain this kind of hierarchies as hierarchies with dimensions m, 2m , 22 , ... that is n(i+1) = 2n(i) . The conditions that n(i) divides n(i + 1) is non-trivial only for at the lowest step and implies that m is power of 2 so that the hierarchies starting from m = 2k . This is natural since Boolean algebras are involved. If n corresponds to the size scale of CD, it would come as a power of 2. p-Adic length scale hypothesis has also led to this conjecture. A related conjecture is that the sizes of CDs correspond to secondary p-adic length scales which indeed come as powers of two. In case of electron this predicts that the minimal size of CD associated with electron corresponds to time scale T = .1 seconds, the fundamental time scale in living matter (10 Hz is the fundamental biorhythm). It seems that the basic hypothesis of TGD inspired partly by the study of elementary particle mass spectrum and basic bio-scales (there are 4 p-adic length scales defined by Gaussian Mersenne primes in the range between cell membrane thickness 10 nm and and size 2.5 µm of cell nucleus!) follow from the proposed connection between emotions and Boolean cognition. Hilbert’s conjecture relates in interesting manner to space-time dimension. Suppose that Hilbert’s conjecture fails and only the four lowest Mersenne integers in the hierarchy are Mersenne primes that is 3, 7, 127, 2127 − 1. In TGD one has hierarchy of dimensions associated with space-time surface coming as 0, 1, 2, 4 plus imbedding space dimension 8. The abstraction hierarchy associated with space-time dimensions would correspond discretization of partonic 2-surfaces as point set, discretization of 3-surfaces as a set of strings connecting partonic 2-surfaces characterized by discrete parameters, discretization of space-time surfaces as a collection of string world sheet with discretized parameters, and maybe discretization of imbedding space by a collection of space-time surfaces. Discretization means that the parameters in question are algebraic numbers in an extension of rationals associated with p-adic numbers. In TGD framework it is clear why imbedding space cannot be higher-dimensional and why the hierarchy does not continue. Could there be a deeper connection between these two hierarchies. For instance, could it be that higher dimensional manifolds of dimension 2 × n can be represented physically only as ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 237 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil unions of say n 2-D partonic 2-surfaces (just like 3 × N dimensional space can be represented as configuration space of N point-like particles)? Also infinite primes define a hierarchy of abstractions. Could it be that one has also now similar restriction so that the hierarchy would have only finite number of levels, say four. Note that the notion of n-group and n-algebra involves an analogous abstraction hierarchy. 3.4 Some questions There are still many questions that are waiting for more detailed answer. These questions are also a good manner to detect logical inconsistencies. 1. What is the size of CD characterizing self? For electron it would be at least of the order of Earth size. During the lifetime of CD the size of CD increases and the order of magnitude is measured in light-life time for us. This would allow to understand our usual deeds affecting the environment in terms of our subselves and their entanglement with the external world which is actually our internal world, at least if magnetic bodies are considered. 2. Can one assume that the dynamics inside CD is independent from what happens outside CD. Can one say that the boundaries of CD define the ends of space-time or does space-time continue outside them. Do the boundaries of CD define boundaries for 4-D spotlight of attention or for one particular reality? Does the answer to this question have any relevance if everything physically testable is formulated in term physics of string world sheets associated with space-time surfaces inside CD? Note that the (average) size of CDs (, which could be in superposition but need not if every repeated state function reduction is followed by a localization in the moduli space of CDs) increases during the life cycle of self. This makes possible generation of negentropic entanglement between more and more distant systems. I have written about the possibility that ZEO could make possible interaction with distant civilizations [10]. The possibility of having communications in both time directions would allow to circumvent the barrier due to the finite light-velocity, and gravitational quantum coherence in cosmic scales would make possible negentropic entanglement. 3. How selves interact? CDs as spot-lights of attention should overlap in order that the interaction is possible. Formation of flux tubes makes possible quantum entanglement. The string world sheets carrying fermions also essential correlates of entanglement and the possibly entanglement is between fermions associated with partonic 2-surfaces. The string world sheets define the intersection of real and p-adic worlds, where cognition and life resides. 3.5 How the law of Karma could be realized? The existence of self hierarchy means that our deeds are remembered also after our death at higher level of self hierarchy although only as an abstracted summary. Also the shadow me which is born at the opposite boundary of my personal CD remembers my deeds like a person remembers his dreams just after wake-up. One can therefore ask whether the law of Karma or something akin to it might be implied by basic principles of consciousness theory. First of all, self has two life strategies: be a sinner or saint. Sinner is selfish and minimizes the dependence on the environment be avoiding negentropic entanglement. Saint does the opposite and develops love towards surrounding world. 1. Self can fight for the metabolic energy feed giving rise to the self-organization of self. This strategy works as long as self is a young, brisk and arrogant sinner. Sinners are not desirable mental images from the point of view of higher level self since they induce a lot of entropic mental images (pain). This strategy is also in conflict with the possible goal of the higher level self to achieve fusion of its own mental images. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 238 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil 2. Self can attempt to share mental images by quantum entangling its sub-selves with the sub-selves of other, possibly, higher level selves. This mechanism gives rise to quantum metabolism and expanded states of consciousness, favors the generation of social structures, and means fusion of mental images from the point of view of higher level self. The cognitive mental images of the saintlike self are highly negentropic and favored by p-adic NMP. On basis of these findings the policy for higher level selves looks obvious: try to get rid of the unpleasant mental images represented by sinners. Higher level self could apply this policy for purely selfish reasons: too bad sinners might affect like a poison to the moral level of the higher level self and, since the law of Karma is universal, could eventually lead to the decline of the higher level self to a lower level of the hierarchy: the world would seem to be a tough place also after death! 3.6 What ”liberation” might mean? The strong analogies with eastern spirituality encourage to ask whether the TGD inspired quantum counterpart for the concept of liberation might make sense. 1. Quantum-classical correspondence suggests that the endless evolution at the level of the entire universe corresponds to endless evolution at the level of individual so that the notion of liberation would make sense only as kind of transformation to a higher level of consciousness. 2. In the real context selves having only single mental image or no mental images at all are in state of ”oneness” and experience no divisions and separations since the analysis process represented by state function reductions and self measurements is absent. This kind of state realized at the level of field body is a possible candidate for enlightened state. Certainly it cannot last forever. 3. Liberation experience might also relate to the experience of ”cosmic consciousness”. Most naturally a generation of negentropic entanglement fusing self to a self at higher level of self hierarchy. The fear about the loss of consciousness is what gives self an ego, since ego is something which can be lost. This can happen via the generation of entropic bound state entanglement with some other system. This can happen for any subsystem of Universe but not for the entire Universe enjoying an eternal state of consciousness. The state of cosmic consciousness thus means being a self without ego. The counterpart for this would be negentropic entanglement. Leaving aside the question whether we are able to experience ideal cosmic consciousness, one can consider the possibility that even human beings could achieve a state of consciousness in which the loss of consciousness is highly un-probable and that this loss of ego is synonymous with the experience of liberation. The term ”cosmic consciousness” looks somewhat pompous notion to anyone identifying himself with his suffering biological body and it would be certainly very difficult to sell this concept to a neuroscientist. The notion of magnetic body, the hierarchy of Planck constants, and the identification of quantum gravitational bound states in terms of astroscopic quantum coherence assignable to gravitational Planck constant, allow to take this notion seriously. In ZEO the arrow of geometric time can change so that finite light velocity does not prevent instantaneous communications over cosmic distances so that communications with life forms in distant galaxies become possible. I have considered a concrete model for what might be involved in [10]. References [1] V. Poponin. DNA PHANTOM EFFECT: Direct Measurement of a New Field in the Vacuum Substructure. http://www.webcom/~hrtmath/IHM/ResearchPapers/DNAPhantom/DNAPhantom.html, 1996. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 222-239 239 Pitkänen, M., On Life, Death, Good and Evil [2] A. L. Botkin. The Induction of After-Dearth Communications Utilizing Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: A New Discovery. Journal of Near-Death Studies, (3):181, 2000. [3] F. Shapiro. Eye moment densensitization and reprocessing: Principles, processes and procedures. Guilford, New York, 1995. [4] M. Pitkänen. Biological Realization of Self Hierarchy. In Bio-Systems as Self-Organizing Quantum Systems. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/bioselforg/bioselforg.html# bioselfc, 2006. [5] M. Pitkänen. Homeopathy in Many-Sheeted Space-Time. In Bio-Systems as Conscious Holograms. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/hologram/hologram.html#homeoc, 2006. [6] M. Pitkänen. Negentropy Maximization Principle. In TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdconsc/tgdconsc.html#nmpc, 2006. [7] M. Pitkänen. Quantum Model for Paranormal Phenomena. In TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdconsc/tgdconsc.html#parac, 2006. [8] M. Pitkänen. Quantum Model for Sensory Representations. In TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdconsc/tgdconsc.html#expc, 2006. [9] M. Pitkänen. Wormhole Magnetic Fields. In Quantum Hardware of Living Matter. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/bioware/bioware.html#wormc, 2006. [10] M. Pitkänen. Meditation, Mind-Body Medicine and Placebo: TGD point of view. In TGD based view about living matter and remote mental interactions. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_ html/pdfpool/panel.pdf, 2012. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com

Title: CONSCIOUSNESS: A DIRECT LINK WITH LIFE’S ORIGIN? Authors: A. N. Mitra1 and G. Mitra-Delmotte2, Ph.D. 1 Emeritus, Department of Physics, Delhi University, Delhi-110007; 244 Tagore Park, Delhi-110009; e.mail: ganmitra@nde.vsnl.net.in 2 39 Cite de l’Ocean, Montgaillard, 97400 St.Denis, Reunion Island ; e.mail: gargijj@orange.fr Abstract: Inspired by the Penrose-Hameroff thesis, we are intuitively led to examine an intriguing correspondence of ‘induction’ (by fields), with the complex phenomenon of (metabolism-sustained) consciousness: Did sequences of associated induction patterns in field-susceptible biomatter have simpler beginnings? Keywords: mind-matter; field-driven assembly; induction; environment; solitons; coherence; magnetism. 1. Introduction Consciousness is a many-splendoured thing, whose anatomy has been under scrutiny almost since the birth of civilization. We have come a long way from the times when this term was associated with religion and spiritualism, to the present era when serious efforts are directed towards understanding it in the language of Science (Penrose 1995; Hameroff 2003). During this saga, physical science has progressed all the way from Newtonian mechanics (when Cartesian Partition ruled against such efforts) to the birth of relativity and quantum mechanics when sheer compulsions of logical self-consistency demanded that Cartesian Partition was no longer tenable and that mind and matter could no longer be divorced from each other. This was despite Bohr’s Copenhagen Interpretation which had effectively decreed against difficult logical questions being asked about quantum mechanics. But Einstein could not accept this dictum and produced his EPR paper (Einstein et al 1935) ostensibly designed to demolish the tenets of quantum mechanics, but serendipitously treaded on a most fertile land as a logical consequence of the new paradigm, namely quantum entanglement and non-locality. This was directly at variance with the concept of local realism, the bedrock of the Copenhagen Interpretation. Since both could not be right at the same time, it took another half a century to decide on the issue: Alan Aspect, through his famous experiment (Aspect et al 1982), gave the verdict in favour of EPR’s entanglement and non-locality and in so doing, ruled out Bohr’s local causality. In the meantime Copenhagen had got rather outdated due to the emergence of decoherence, thanks to a two-decade-old development bearing on the very foundations of quantum mechanics (following the Aspect discovery) which gave an increasingly active role to the environment (see below for its fuller ramifications). This episode offers a possible setting for bringing mind and matter on a common platform, since a direct touch with reality of these bizarre quantum concepts have willynilly got these two entities “mutually entangled”! One may wonder how this ‘Frankenstein’ (read science with all its tools) which is the product of the human mind in the first place, has come to challenge its own Creator, and probe its `anatomy’. This essay is an attempt to string together some scientific advances designed to reduce the complex phenomena of consciousness (Sect.2-5), and to map (Sect.6-7) the resulting scenario to simpler ingredients that may have been available in the Hadean. 2. Bohm’s Thesis: Integral Duality of Mind and Matter For historical reasons, we start with a semi-intuitive model due to David Bohm (1990) who was led, by the conflict of quantum theory (discreteness) with GTR (continuous matter), to propose the existence of an undivided wholeness present in an implicate order which applies to both matter and mind, so that it can in principle access the relationship between these two different things. In this picture, matter and mind are seen as relative projections into an explicate order from the reality of the implicate order, with apparently no connection between them. Only at the deeper, fundamental level of the universe, does there exist an unbroken wholeness in which mind (consciousness?) merges with matter-- something akin to a holographic image of the brain (Pribram 1975). Bohm also illustrates the idea of `meaning’ through the example of listening to music as a sequence of overlapping moments each with a short but finite interval of time. To produce the notes, one moment ‘induces’ the next, such that the content that was implicate in the immediate past, becomes explicate in the next interval (the immediate present). The sense of movement in music is thus the result of a sequence of overlapping transitions, thus producing consciousness from an implicate order. Consciousness is thus seen to be intimately related to the concept of `time’ –not merely a ‘duration’, in the sense of classical mechanics, but an active ingredient bearing on consciousness that reveals a world of continuous and unfolding events, a la Bergson (2001[1889]). Bohm (1990) further suggests that the tiny electron is an inseparable union of particle and (not or) field wherein the latter (like consciousness) organizes the movement of the former (like body). This is in line with Bohm’s (1952) earlier thesis on quantum mechanics with “hidden variables” wherein guiding waves determine the motion of the associated particles. 3. Quantum Coherence in Biology Next, quantum coherence, which is naturally associated with quantum mechanics, is considered as a key ingredient in a more recent approach to consciousness studies, questioning the validity of purely algorithmic prescriptions for addressing phenomena like human insight. To deal with this issue of “non-computability”, Penrose (1995) suggests a new role for the environment, viz., as an “external guide” influencing decisions in an algorithmic system, and for this a necessary condition is its quantum coherence. For a more concrete representation of such a picture in a biosystem, let us look at Frohlich’s (1968) coherent excitations envisaged for cell membranes. Now, a stationary state is reached if the energy fed into an assembled material with polar vibrational modes, is sufficiently larger than that lost to bath degrees of freedom. Then, in the words of Frohlich (1968), “The long-range Coulomb interaction then causes this energy to be shared with other dipoles. …the dipoles will tend to oscillate coherently provided the energy supply is sufficiently large compared with the energy loss. Nonlinear effects are likely to reduce this loss with increasing excitation and effectively transfer the system into a metastable state in which the energy supplied locally to dipolar constituents is channelled into a single longitudinal mode which exhibits long-range phase correlations”. Of course, the energy of the metabolic drive must be large enough, and the dielectric properties of the materials concerned need to have a matching capacity for maintaining (and withstanding) extremely high electric fields (Frohlich 1975). This is similar to Bose-Einstein condensation, in which a large number of particles participate in a single quantum state, i.e., behaving as one with a wave function applicable for a single particle, albeit scaled up appropriately. Despite their much higher than ‘absolute zero’ temperatures, it seems that coherence conditions are not only met in bio-systems, but that there is some direct experimental evidence too (Grundler and Keilmann 1983) of 1011 Hz oscillations predicted by Frohlich (1968). If this seems surprising vis-a-vis physical systems, note that it is because of (not despite!) the warm and soft sol-gel state that efficient nano-machines actually harness thermal fluctuations (Bustamante et al 2005, see below) in biology, where energy transformations occur under isothermal conditions. 4. Penrose-Hameroff Model: New Role for the Environment In looking for appropriate biomaterials that on supplying with energy led to Frohlich-like excitations in the sub-nanosecond range, the Penrose-Hameroff model zeroes in on microtubules having the required ingredients of voltage effects and a geometry favoring "coupling among subunits" (Hameroff 2003) for acting as reservoirs of highly ordered energy. The early-evolved cytoskeleton forms the basic ‘building block’ in their new fractal perspective of the nervous system, which argues for a change in paradigm so that the sophisticated actions of animals down to single celled ones (all affected by general anaesthetics at about the same concentration) can be explained using only one basic control system (Penrose 1995). Now functional protein conformations appear to be correlated to such collective “metastable states” mediated via the surroundings: "action of electric fields, binding of ligands or neurotransmitters, or effects of neighbor proteins” (Hameroff 2003). Thus consciousness can be partially inhibited using anaesthetics. (By reversibly binding to hydrophobic pockets within key neural proteins via weak forces, these can alter the environmental medium and thereby the electron mobility, in turn non-linearly coupled to mechanical movements). A complementary approach to such long range cooperativity is due to Davydov (see Lomdahl et al 1984) who considers wave-like propagations—solitons-- for the spatial transfer of vibrational energy in ordered form, which also can be derived from the same type of non-linear effects leading to the coherent Frohlich ordered state. Tuszynski et al (1984) observe that while the latter lays its emphasis on time-independent dynamical ordering aspects, the former offers a plausible mechanism for not only localization but also transporting order through the system (time dependent aspects). (The unusual resilience of a soliton-- a quantum of energy that propagates as a traveling wave in nonlinear systems-- stems from two opposing tendencies as a result of which a dynamically stable entity emerges). Indeed, as the substrate for energy transfer in the cytoskeleton, just like electrons in computers, Hameroff (2003) considers Davydov’s solitons. “Objective reduction” (a self-collapse of the observer’s wave function), then occurs in this algorithmic coherent system (see above), one in which the external (gravitational) field plays a key role. Here, the Penrose-Hameroff thesis makes a major departure from the conventional view, in that the (non-computable) field shows a new and active role for the environment, viz., as a concerned 'teacher' with a deep involvement in the system's decision-making- not merely a neutral examiner, assessing system variants (Penrose 1995). Further, another study (Davia 2006) suggests the relation between the organism and the environment as one of mutual ‘friendliness’, in contrast to the reigning Darwinian perspective where, apart from being a source/sink, the environment presents itself to living systems as a sort of (potentially destructive) obstacle course to be negotiated; and the organism appears as a machine within an environment, with no causal relationship between the two. Briefly, Davia seeks to demonstrate that the question of how life maintains its organization through time is central to an understanding of the brain. To that end, he postulates life to be a scale- free (fractal) process of catalysis (which involves the fusion of energy and structure in the form of solitons). Then, rather than a hostile ‘obstacle course’, the environment becomes a willing partner in a set of transitions mediated by the living process via `catalysis’. 5. Non-computable Bio-issues: External Control? According to Goedel’s incompleteness theorem, with any set of axioms, it is possible to produce a statement that is obviously true, but cannot be proved by means of the axioms themselves. Penrose (1995) took advantage of the Goedel theorem to claim that the functioning of the human brain also includes non-algorithmic processes, i.e. a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. For this an excellent candidate is again quantum mechanics in its full glory of quantum coherence, in common with Bohm’s (1990) semi-intuitive thesis. Now, mathematical induction is a well known concept which is akin to Goedel’s theorem. Inspired by Penrose, we wish to extend this terminology to a physical level via the well known phenomena of (electric, magnetic) field-induced effects, which although conceived classically has a good promise of quantum extension. And with due respect to gravitation, the effects of other fields at different levels, from classical to quantum, should not be neglected in view of the properties of biomatter (Cope 1975). We again return to the theme of non-computability for thought processes (Penrose 1995), looking to the environment as exerting external control. Now in fact, across biology we encounter instances where bio-solutions can include choices outside the space of existing possibilities. For instance, consider Bio-evolution (in particular the algorithmic complexity of sequences pointed out by Abel (2009)), and note that a similar Darwinian selection at the time scale of days--affinity maturation in B-cells-- can be found in higher vertebrates. So it is natural to ask how life itself must have emerged, (very likely from a set of not-as-yet-living systems), thus taking the problem to the door of life’s origin! 6. The Environment as Guide; a Scaffold for Life (?) Now in addition to the vital role for solitons in today’s biology, they have strong implications for life’s emergence owing to their fundamental association with both energy and information (Taranenko et al 2005). That is the boundary conditions offered by repeating structures could have been the answer to how energy and structure in biology got synonymous (Davia 2006), so that the patterns sustaining these quasiparticles could have been retained while gradually replacing the materials embodying them, en route to present day versions of metabolism and replication (c.f. Cairns Smith 1982; see below). In this context, Davydov’s (1991) proposal for ‘electrosolitons’ (a plausible mechanism for electron transfers across distances with minimum energy losses, traditionally approached using tunneling effects) seems to be highly relevant for the hydrogenation of CO2--seen as the basis for life’s emergence (Nitschke and Russell 2009). Indeed, the quantum metabolism model of Demetrius (2008) approaches the issue of energy harnessing in the ATP-membrane proton pump-the most primitive of energy transduction mechanisms-using Frohlich’s coherent excitations. Hence, revisiting CairnsSmith’s (1982) idea of a mineral scaffold for life ‘taken over’ by organic matter, in the light of these insights, prompts the question of whether the above non-linear interactions leading to coherent dynamics could have been achieved using simpler/less sophisticated substances that in turn got gradually replaced by the advanced ones of today with greater time-stability. Importantly, the new ingredient would be the environment having a penetrating influence in the coherent scaffold, and taking decisions a la Penrose. A few years ago, we have drawn attention to another ubiquitous ingredient in terrestrial phenomena, viz., magnetism, which appears to exert its influence across kingdoms of life, and has a natural association with quantum coherence (see Merali 2007). A soft colloidal scaffold a la Russell and coworkers (1989) in terms of a fieldinduced assembly of magnetic dipoles (Mitra-Delmotte and Mitra 2010b), seems equipped with the potential to address symmetry-broken dynamics for primordial chemical reactions hosted within its ‘layers’. A magnetic field can ‘order’ magnetic nanoparticles; the resulting structural order in natural assemblies could provide the boundary conditions needed for generating soliton-like structures. The synonymy between structure and energy across biology (Davia 2006) makes it compelling to speculate if magnetic solitons could not have been a primitive mechanism (c.f. CairnsSmith 2008) for energy transport in a natural assembly (Russell et al 1990; Sawlowicz 1983), whose dynamical order was controlled by a field. To that end, it is encouraging to find studies using particles interacting via dipolar interactions (Ishizaka and Nakamura 2000) and indeed worth noting the recent field-modulated dynamics of magnetic nanoparticle ensembles by Casic et al. (2010). That solitons could be linked to transfer of order within field-induced colloidal structures, shows to what extent the analogies of energy landscapes for protein-folding and of disordered (solid) spin systems can be extended, and which thereby reduces the immense gap demarcating living and (considered as) non-living matter. Then it becomes tempting to cite a few other apparently disjointed features which fit into a bigger mosaic. For instance, there are intriguing analogies of conformational fluctuations of ‘sophisticated’ motor proteins carrying a load, with infinitesimal spin alignment changes of magnetic dipoles, ligand bound to organics, making their way through templates of head-to-tail aligned electric and magnetic dipoles, respectively (Mitra-Delmotte and Mitra 2010a). These can throw light on how thermal fluctuations can be harnessed in a simpler system with such life-like features, and which seems plausible to imagine in a Hadean setting. Like in ATP-driven molecular motors, a gentle flux gradient (in a non-homogeneous rock magnetic field) can offer both detailed-balance breaking non-equilibrium as well as asymmetry to a magnetic dipole. Again, the correspondence of the local lowering of temperature (towards aiding coherence) theorized by Matsuno and Paton (2000) via the slow release mechanism of ATP hydrolysis, to the magnetic scenario comes in the form of an accompanying magnetocaloric effect, which allows interchange between system-entropy and bath temperature. And, not only does the matter-structuring role of a magnetic field gel with the boundary requirements of soliton-like structures, it provides a friendly background for a more dynamic role mediated by the soliton, besides being the same ingredient already found to be crucial to the Frohlich mechanism (1968). 7. Any Direct Link to the Origins? Indeed, the above inductive form of reasoning by analogies, which is complementary to algorithmic deduction (c.f. Penrose 1995), matches the traditional ‘pattern-recognition’ approach to biology. Guided by the above, and the repetitively appearing phenomenon of sequential induction (in association with a self-referential character) across a hierarchy of life-processes, we propose that associated induction patterns could offer a richer ‘simulation’ of an ‘active’ experience as compared to a mere collection of data on a screen by a computer programmed to ‘passively’ mimic the same. Figure 1: The subjective experience The picture above (Figure 1) (taken from the Web) depicts the said subjective experience. Indeed, the communication of the image via propagating patterns induced within a biological device could be what makes room for optical illusion effects and subjectivity. Now contrast this typical example of observation/measurement in biology with a detector (without outside field effects), say a camera, where the corresponding information gets quenched on the image plate. So this begs the question whether sequential induction as a measuring mode could throw light on the origins of the complex phenomena of consciousness, in view of the field-susceptible nature of biological matter. Note further that an environment--as a field-- does have the potential for induction, given access to any active d.o.f.s in matter. Such a scenario seems to gel with our proposal of a fieldinduced primitive scaffold for life. 8. Conclusion: Extra Scientific Dimensions? We have chosen only a few samples of consciousness models, at the same time trying to extrapolate the environment-related issues to the emergence of life itself, yet they seem to go hardly beyond scratching only the outer surfaces of the problem so far. The huge gap is perhaps symbolized by a perspective taken from Whitehead if one substitutes “consciousness” for his definition of “religion” (Whitehead 1970): “Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something which gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.” Acknowledgements: This essay is dedicated to the memory of ANM’s mother, Rama Rani Mitra, on the occasion of her birth centenary (2011). We thank Prof.M.J.Russell for inspiration and constant help; and Dr.J.J. Delmotte for financial/infrastructural support. References Abel, D. (2009). The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity. Intl J. Mod Sci, 10, 247-291. 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(2010) Frictioncontrolled bending solitons as folding pathway toward colloidal clusters, EPL, 90, 58001 Cope, F.W. (1975). The solid-state physics of electron and ion transport in biology. A review of the applications of solid state physics concepts to biological systems. J. Biol. Phys., 3, 1-41. Davia, C.J. (2006). Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A dynamic systems approach to metabolism and cognition. In: Tuszynski, J. (Ed .), The Emerging Physics of Consciousness, Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag. Davydov, A.S. (1991). Solitons in Molecular Systems. Kluwer, Dordrecht, p115. Demetrius, L. (2008). Quantum Metabolism and Allometric Scaling Relations in Biology, In: Abbott, D., Davies, P.C.W., Pati, A.K. (Eds.), Quantum aspects of life, Imperial College Press, London, pp. 127-146. Einstein, A., Podolsky, P., Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Phys. Rev. 47, 777-80. Frohlich, H. (1968). 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Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 729 Research Essay Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? Cosmin Vișan* Abstract By arguing that qualia is meaning or understanding, a new framework for understanding consciousness is developed. In this way, the meaning of yellow and red are uncovered. The suggested solutions are that yellow means “source of light” and red means “important”. Also, in the process of arguing that qualia is meaning, remarkable similarities in the structure of qualia are uncovered. In this way, a reason for why very hot and very cold water feel the same, is given. The same behaviour is also shown to take place for colours. Key Words: qualia, meaning, understanding, consciousness, colour, yellow, red. Introduction When looking at the colours, we are faced immediately with a problem. Why do they look the way they look? Why is red red? Why is yellow yellow? When asked, a physicist will tell you a beautiful story about light and its frequencies and how each colour corresponds to a specific frequency. But all this picture is misleading1. The main reason is that, for once, colours are qualia and they are created in the brain. There is no connection between the qualia of colours and whatever the light is doing outside of our brain. Unfortunately, the picture is very prevailing in society and in our educational systems, that the children grow up with this idea that colours are inextricably mingled with light, and so, the question “Why does red look red?” is very rarely raised. In this paper, the nature of qualia is analysed. It will be shown that qualia is meaning. One very simple reason for this is that each quale means something. The quale “1+1=2” has a very clear meaning to everyone. But there are other qualia, as for example colours, that at a first sight, it is very hard, if not impossible, to know what they mean. By presenting a broad analysis of qualia in general and then of particular cases, we would come up eventually with an explanation for the meanings behind yellow and red, and so, explain why they look the way they look. * Correspondence: Cosmin Visan, Independent Researcher. Email: visancosmin17@yahoo.com 1 Because the confusion is unfortunately persistent, I must stress out here, that by colours I’m referring strictly to the subjective experience of colours. For example, let’s say that for the 700nm light I see red and another person sees what I would call green. In order to avoid ambiguity, by red I call what I see as red. By green I call what I see as green, etc. This should be clear to anyone from the start, but unfortunately people get confused about this aspect. Another way to avoid confusion is to postulate that everybody sees the same thing. And this is well justified for the colour yellow. If you ask someone what is the brightest colours that he/she sees, and the answer is yellow, then most likely it is the same colour for both persons. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 730 The Nature of Qualia How does one even begin to address this problem? The first thing that one encounters when first meeting with qualia, are their tremendous diversity. And the difficulty arises when someone tries to find the similarities between, for example, colours and sounds. How can such different manifestations of consciousness have anything in common with each other? At a closer look, though, few main common characteristics appear, as for example, ontological subjectivity, quality and unity. But even though both sounds and colours are subjective, each have a specific quality, and are each one well defined unity, the difference between them still begs the question: “In what respect does a sound differ from a colour?” “What makes a sound to be a sound and a colour to be a colour?” One answer to this is that each quale has its own content. But this is just a hand-waving answer, not really explaining the difference. In order to really explain the difference, the content must be specified. But what can the content of colour red be? Is it even possible to answer this question? In order to do so, we need to have a closer look at the structure of qualia. Kant divided our consciousness into two parts, sensibility and understanding. Sensibility is comprised out of what we experience from our senses, like colours, sounds, smells, feelings, emotions. Understanding, on the other hand, is made up of concepts that lie under the control of reason. Apparently, the division is well justified. But is this division a fundamental one? Or is it merely an apparent one? Let’s have a closer look at both parts, and see if we can find some elements that will allow us to consider both one and the same thing. Let’s first start with understanding and take a case where understanding occurs. Let’s assume that we want to understand something, as for example Pythagoras Theorem. In order to do this, we take a Mathematics book. We read a while and try to figure it out the logical argument presented in its pages. After a little effort and concentration, something new happens. For a brief moment of time, so brief that it is only an instant, we understood. So what happened? What is that instant in which we understood Pythagoras Theorem? If we have a closer look at it, we discover few properties. First of all, its nature was ontological subjective. That moment was experienced by us, in a subjective manner. Secondly, it has a specific quality. There is one thing to understand Pythagoras Theorem, and there is another thing to understand Relativity Theory. They both have their own specific feeling to them. And thirdly, it is unified. It is one specific experience that occurs in only one instant. So, what we discover, are the very properties of qualia. The understanding of Pythagoras Theorem is a quale. We acquired the quale of Pythagoras Theorem, and by its very way in which it feels, we know that we understand the theorem. Let’s now have a look at sensibility. Let’s say we want to see colour red. In order to do this, we take a book about paintings and open it to a page where an apple is drawn. What happens at that moment is that in an instant, we see colour red. But colour red is also a quale. It is subjective, being experienced by us. It has a specific quality of looking red. And it’s unified: it is one entity, called red. The conclusion that we reach is that there is no fundamental difference between understanding and sensibility. One might point out at this moment, that there is actually a difference. For the case of understanding, we take some time and efforts to reach that understanding. While for ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 731 sensibility, it just happens to us. But is this a real difference? I will argue that is not. And here is why. When one acquired the understanding of Pythagoras Theorem, the next time he will encounter the theorem, he will simply understand it immediately, in exactly the same manner that one sees colour red immediately. The difference is most likely not a fundamental difference, but rather a difference having to do with the brain. For the case of sensibility, there are already specialised regions in the brain that are responsible for the immediate experience of sensibility qualia. For the case of understanding, the physical structures in the brain are missing at the first encounter with the understanding. A learning process is needed, by which the appropriate physical structures are created in the brain. But after they are created, understanding will come up with the same ease as sensibility comes. We draw the conclusion that, as far as the nature of consciousness is concerned, understanding and sensibility are the same phenomenon. In order to make things clearer for the rest of the paper, I will summarise this as follows: Consciousness Is Understanding2 Meaning Is this a fare conclusion to draw? After all, understanding is a meaningful phenomenon. When we understand Pythagoras Theorem, we acquire a certain meaning. From that moment on, when we read in a book about this theorem, we know what it means. Every understanding that we acquire about the world, actually means something. Understanding is meaning. But are all qualia meaning? Does red mean anything? Haven’t we just uncovered a difference between sensibility and understanding? Let’s proceed and see why all qualia are meaning. For this, we need to have a look at the duck-rabbit image. Figure 1. Duck-rabbit image. An example of how qualia and meaning are the same thing. 2 One further aspect of consciousness is probably free will, otherwise consciousness would be rendered epiphenomenal. But since this paper is only dealing with the aspect of qualia, it is safe to say that consciousness is understanding. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 732 This image is actually showing the equivalence between meaning and qualia. Every time we give the meaning of rabbit, we also experience the quale of rabbit, namely the image of a rabbit. Every time we give the meaning of duck, we also experience the quale of duck, namely the image of a duck. If a more technical treatment is desired, the task of proving that qualia is meaning, can be written as “qualia  meaning”. The first implication “meaning => qualia” is trivial. Since meaning is a phenomenon in our consciousness, it has all the properties that a conscious experience has, so it is automatically a quale. All meanings exist as qualia. But what about the “qualia => meaning” implication? This would imply that each quale means something. But is this really true? Let’s take some examples. The “1+1=2” quale means a mathematical statement. The sentence “John went out for a walk.” is again a quale that means something. The above example with the duck-rabbit image is another quale that means something. And it even illustrate that the quale changes as we change the meaning. And in this case, the meaning is not of a linguistic type, which is the most common place where the notion of meaning is used. But in this case, the quale is a visual one. So it seems that each quale that we can think of, actually means something. So the inverse implication is also true. In this way, we arrive at the conclusion that qualia  meaning. Of course, there still seems to be some qualia that have no meaning. Does red mean anything? In order to get there, we need to have a look at some similarities between language and colours. Meaning in language and colours The most common place where the notion of meaning is used, is in the field of linguistic. There, the words are said to have meaning. Of course, what we need to be careful here, is that it is not actually the word that has a meaning. The word in itself is just a group of meaningless symbols. What actually has meaning is the representation of that word in our mind. So the mode of existence of meaning is ontological subjective, meaning being part of consciousness. When we communicate with other people, even though it might appear that we communicate through words, we are actually communicating through meanings in our minds. Words are merely carriers of meaning, they are simply tools through which we transfer our meanings. Meanings are the semantic part of a sentence, while the written or spoken words are merely just the syntax of a sentence. What matters in a sentence is its semantic content, which exists in the mind of the people who communicate the sentence. Syntax is just a convenient way of transmitting the semantics. But syntax on its own carries no meaning. This can be easily shown when someone who doesn’t understand Chinese wants to read a sentence in Chinese. The only entity that he perceives is just the syntax of that sentence. But since he has no access to the semantics that existed in the mind of the person who wrote the sentence in Chinese, the syntax simply doesn’t mean anything to him3. What is the relevance of this? Let’s see what happens when we have a single syntax, but 3 The reason that we still don’t have a computer program that can do a perfect translation between languages has to do with the very nature of language. Language is first of all a meaningful phenomenon. A language operates within the consciousness of the persons who engage in a conversation, and it does this by using meanings or semantic content. What a translation software does, is to find patterns and underling structures in the syntax of a language, and based on those patterns tries to do the translation. But this approach is doomed to fail right from the beginning. This is for the reason that language is not syntax alone, but especially semantics. The structures ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 733 two different meanings. The word “rock” by itself is ambiguous in what meaning it might convey in the mind of the reader. But if we write the sentence “The mountain is made up of rocks.”, we know what meaning to attach to this word. If we take the sentence “I’ve been to a rock concert.”, we again know what meaning the word “rock” takes in this case, so we have a different subjective experience when we read the word in this context. Let’s put this example in the following way: We have a stimulus: rock. And we have two different qualia that this stimulus creates in the mind of the reader, depending on context. Now let’s have a look at colours and be stricken by the fact that we will see exactly the same phenomenon taking place. Figure 2. Colours are meaning. In this image, the two arrows point to two different coloured squares. The square on the left is blue and the square on the right is yellow. The physicist’s classical picture will tell you that in the first cube, the wavelength that hits your eyes is the 475nm one, and the wavelength on the right is the 570nm one. But as I warned at the beginning of the paper, this picture is misleading. In this example, if the two squares are brought together, they both look grey! So what is going on? How can the same grey square not only look different in the two different cases, but the way in which it looks different is that it also acquires colours! Out of nowhere! The explanation is exactly the same as for the case of linguistic. The same stimulus acquires different meanings depending on the context. The two phenomena are so strikingly similar, that the only conclusion that can be draw is that we are actually dealing with a single phenomenon, and that phenomenon is the phenomenon of meaning, the differences arising from the contents of each meaning. In the linguistic case, the form that meaning takes is as words in the mind of the reader. In the colours case, the form that with which a language operates are found in the semantics, and not in the syntax. But since semantics is a noncomputational phenomenon, it is not accessible to a computer. A computer only has access to syntax, and so, by not having access to the entire phenomenon of language, a perfect translator will never be possible for a computer. What would be needed for a perfect translator, is a system that operates on the same principles that consciousness operates. As of today, the principles of consciousness are not known. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 734 meaning takes is the qualia of colours. This example I consider to prove in a conclusive way that colours are indeed meaning. And if even the colours are a form of meaning, it strongly suggests that the postulate that qualia and meaning are the same thing, is true. Let’s summaries this as follows: Qualia are meaning Having established our bases, we can now safely move on and try to search the meanings of colours. In the linguistic example, it is straightforward to see the meanings that we are dealing with. But in the colours example, even though we established that we are dealing with the same phenomenon, namely the phenomenon of meaning, it is not at all clear what the meanings of colours are. We are still at the stage of “What does red mean?”. At this moment we are still not going to try to answer this question. We need to see more examples of how meaning works. And only after we will uncover a certain pattern, we will be in the position of finally dealing with the colours. Qualia Hierarchy and Composition One feature of the unity of qualia is that it has a hierarchy component. Some qualia are more complex than others, and for qualia belonging to the same domain this complexity can be directly shown. Let’s take the linguistic domain. One set of qualia are the letters of the alphabet. The next set in the hierarchy can be considered to be the words in a language. The next level can be taken as being the level of sentences. And so on until you get to novels, poems and other complex forms of language. Of course, these levels are not as clearly defined as in this simple example that I give here. But what is important is that there is indeed a hierarchy of qualia. Each level of the hierarchy gives us the ability to see its components. Even though each level is a unity, it also contains information about its parts and is itself a part in a more complex quale. This hierarchy is present everywhere. In the visual domain, the hierarchy starts from colours, shapes, and go on to the most intricate geometrical patterns, the most amazing architecture or the most complex nature’s landscapes. When we have the quale of a tree, we know that it is a tree. If we then concentrate only on the leaves, we know what the quale of a leaf is. Actually, we are able to see at all only because we understand what we see, only because we have the meaning of what we are seeing. It is probably a common experience to all of us that sometimes, when we see a new object, even though we are able to see its shapes or colours, we are unable to see the object. This is because we don’t understand what that object is. Only when we understand, only when we have an “aha!” moment, we then also acquire the visual experience of the object, so only then we also have the necessary visual quale. So we are able to see a leaf only because we understand its meaning. But what about its colour? We are able to see green. But what does green mean? Before getting there, let’s see some similarities between temperature and colours. Temperature and Colours We saw how composition in different qualia domains goes from simple to complex and gives birth to a qualia hierarchy. It would be illuminating to have a closer look at this process. What ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 735 we would like to know here is if there are commonalities between how the composition works in different domains. If this process appears in many domains, it probably also has certain underlying principles that it obeys regardless of the domain in which it acts. This would mean that given two different domains, a similar construction should be observed. That would indicate that the structure that helps building qualia is the same, what would differ being only the content. Even though the structure might be the same, we will see that the content can give birth to such different final qualia that the structure can be easily obscured. The two domains that are most revealing for this hidden structure in the way qualia is composed are temperature and colours. A phenomenon that was probably observed by each of us is how we experience the temperature of very hot and very cold water. In the first moment when we touch very hot or very cold water, the quale of temperature that we have is the same in both cases. In the first moment of touching the water, we cannot say if the water is very hot or very cold. Of course, after the first moment, our brain acquires different other information, as for example if there is steam from the water, and then the distinction can be made. But given the case when no extra information is present, the quale that we acquire when we touch an extreme temperature object, doesn’t allow us to specify if the object is very cold or very hot. Why is that? In order to understand what is happening, we also need to consider the case of mild temperature. If we touch only a slightly warn or slightly cold object, we are able to specify its temperature. So what is going on? To understand what is happening, we need to remember that qualia have the ability of composition. This is of course clear for complex objects. When we hear a song, it is clearly composed of different sounds, but what about temperature? It appears to be a primitive quale. Not quite so. Since it has different behaviours in different cases, this is probably because it also has a structure. Let’s try to specify that structure. Take for example 3 warm objects at 3 different temperatures, say 30, 35 and 40 degrees. Each object creates us a slightly different quale. Then take 3 cold objects, say at 15, 10 and 5 degrees. They also each creates us a slightly different quale. So there is something in the quale structure that changes as the temperature changes. We thus observe that the temperature quale has an intensity component. It also has another component that informs us if the object is either cold or warm. So what we observe is that there are two types of temperature qualia. One is: cold+intensity, the other one being warm+intensity. Cold and warm can then be considered to be two aspects of the same thing, if we consider that they provide the meaning that the temperature is below or above a certain value that is taken to be the reference value. But let’s not worry about this aspect in this discussion. Let’s now go back to our original problem, namely why does very hot and very cold water feel the same. Since we elucidated the composition of temperature quale, this problem can easily be solved. What happens when the temperature becomes extreme (either very hot or very cold), is that the intensity component of the temperature quale is changing. The cold/warm components on the other hand, don’t change. Since their meaning is only the side relative to a reference value, they cannot change. They only tell us if the temperature is below or above a certain reference point. So the components of cold/warm are always the same. What changes is the intensity component. What we obtain at very high or very low temperatures, is a very high intensity component and two cold/warm components that haven’t changed their values. We can represent this numerically in the following way: At mild temperatures, we can take the following proportion in a temperature quale: 90%warm+10%intensity, 90%cold+10%intensity. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 736 Since the cold/warm components are dominant, we can clearly feel them, and a mild warm and mild cold objects appear distinct to us. But for extreme temperatures, the proportions change to: 1%warm+99%intensity, 1%cold+99%intensity. Basically, the cold/warm components become negligible. The only component that we can feel is the intensity component. So we feel the same thing. That is why a very hot water feels the same as a very cold water. We just uncovered the structure behind the temperature quale. It is conceivable that the structure is much more complex than this. But for our present purposes here, this will suffice. What is important to know is that there are certain structures built into qualia. We will now emphasize that these structures can be independent of the content and that they can receive different contents and yield different manifestations. We will thus search for the same structure in the colours domain. We will see that only the content will differ, but the structure will be similar to the structure present in the temperatures domain. We thus need to look for a structure of the form x+intensity. For the temperatures domain, x was the cold/warm component, and the intensity was the quale that informed us how cold or warm an object was. What could these components be for the colours domain? We first need to look for a quale that behaves as if it would represent an intensity, thus a quale that gradually increases in its quality. The black-and-white spectrum looks like a good candidate. Figure 3. The intensity component in the colours domain. In order for the black and white spectrum to qualify for the type of intensity that we are looking for, it needs to take part in a qualia composition of the type x+intensity such that when intensity is extreme, x is lost. What can x be such that x+intensity displays the desired behaviour? The only other qualia that we have in the colours domain, are the colours themselves. And amazingly, they follow the desired behaviour. Figure 4. The x+intensity structure in the colours domain. Here x is a specific colour, while intensity is the black-and-white spectrum. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 737 Regardless of what colour we pick, they all follow the same behaviour. All colours combine with the black-and-white spectrum such that when the intensity of the black-and-white spectrum is increased, (i.e. when its value approaches white), the colours become more and more fade until they all look the same: white. We are dealing with exactly the same phenomenon as in the temperature domain. Also, if we decrease the intensity of the black-and-white spectrum (i.e. when its value approaches black), the colours not only look the same, but all visual qualia disappear. There is nothing to see anymore. The same phenomenon is taking place in the temperature domain. When we decrease the intensity, warm becomes less warm and cold becomes less cold, until we reach a point where we no longer feel either warn or cold. At that point we don’t feel any temperature whatsoever. We only feel the texture of the object, or its shape, but no temperature. We thus uncovered a common structure in the way colours and temperature domains are built. There are also differences, as for example the number of x components. For the temperature domain, x can only be warm or cold, while for the colours domain, the number of colours is much larger. In principle, there are 7 well defined colours, but their total number can be of the order of millions. The meaning of sounds and colours We now have all the tools we need in order to try to find the meaning of colours. We gave many examples in which various qualia each means something, we saw how various components are built into a specific quale in order to give its specific feel. The reason that we talked about qualia composition is that a specific quale is usually not only one isolated meaning, but it rather has a rich structure that combines many meanings which eventually go to give the quale its specific feel. Before getting to colours, we will first have a look at sounds. This is because we need to know the structure of sounds in order to later emphasize and important feature that colours lack while sounds have. There are three main meanings that are built into a sound. Note that, as we also mentioned earlier, the structure of a quale might be much richer than we describe here. An interested reader may go much deeper into analysis, but we are restricting ourselves here only to the main meanings. The first meaning is one that we also uncovered for temperature and colours, and that is intensity. A sound can range from faint to loud, the meaning which value is changing being the intensity meaning. This is correlated with the amplitude of the air waves that are touching our ears. The higher the amplitude, the louder the sound. The second meaning is the sound’s pitch. A sound can be higher or lower. This meaning is correlated with the frequency of the air waves that are touching our ears. The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch of the sound. The third type of meaning are the harmonics that manifest themselves as the musical notes. There are 12 musical notes that form an octave, C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B and then again C, etc. this pattern being repeated from the lowest pitch that our ear can hear, to the highest one. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 738 Figure 5. The twelve chroma. Even though an octave differs from the adjacent octaves by its frequencies, a specific musical note from one octave sounds in some way identical with its corresponding musical note from the adjacent octaves. The notes are not easy to distinguish for an untrained ear, but a musician has no trouble identifying two identical tones from two different octaves. Figure 6. Identical chroma from different octaves. An octave is the interval between a musical note and another identical musical note which corresponds to an air frequency which is half or double the frequency of that particular note. So the sounds qualia have a meaning component that helps us distinguish various harmonics of the air frequencies that are touching our ears. These musical notes are also called pitch classes or chroma. There are 12 of them. One consequence of the structure of sounds qualia is that given two sounds that differ in their pitches, it is easy to tell which is the higher pitch one and which is the lower pitch one. This is a direct consequence of the fact that sounds have in their composition meanings that refer to the frequency of the air that reaches our ears. We will see that colours don’t have this meaning. That being said, let’s move on to colours and ask immediately if colours have anything to do with the frequency of light. As we warned from the very beginning of this paper, colours have nothing to do with light. A physicist will tell you a beautiful story about how each colour corresponds to a specific light frequency, red being the 650nm light, green being the 510nm light, blue being the 475nm light and so on. But as we saw for sounds, which indeed refer to the frequency of the air, if two different pitch sounds are given, it is natural to tell which one corresponds to a higher frequency of the air, and which one corresponds to a lower air frequency. Unfortunately, this is not the case for colours. If someone (who doesn’t already know the order of colours in the rainbow) is given two different colours, he has no way of telling which one corresponds to a higher frequency light and which one corresponds to a lower frequency light. This inability comes from the fact that there is no meaning in colours that refers to the frequency of light. Otherwise, we would be able to know the frequency of light with the same ease that we ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 739 are able to know the frequency of air wave. But we cannot do that. There is no meaning in the structure of a colour that can inform us about the frequency of light. So clearly we are dealing with a different structure for colours. That structure is being described by the RGB colour system, where R=red, G=green, B=blue. This system is based on the fact that the rods cells in our eyes are only sensitive to three light frequencies that would correspond to the so called red, green and blue colours. In this system, each colour is a combination of these three colours. Black and white are also included. We show here the RGB codes for the main colours, where the RGB parameters can take values between 0 and 255. The question that now arises is if the RGB structure is all there is required in order to give a full description of colours. Does this structure determine in a unique way the quality of red? Does red acquires its quality of redness because of its position in this structure? Colour Red Yellow Green Cyan Blue Violet Black White R 255 255 0 0 0 255 0 255 G 0 255 255 255 0 0 0 255 B 0 0 0 255 255 255 0 255 One more set of relations are actually present in the structure of colours. As we saw earlier, if you give to a person two different colours, he will not be able to tell you which corresponds to a higher frequency of light. But what if you give him 1000 colours? Indeed, in that case, the person will be able to arrange the colours in an order. But that order will also not reflect the frequencies of light. One more feature about the structure of colours is that it is circular. You can arrange the colours in a circle such that after violet comes red. So the person required to put the 1000 colours in order will make two mistakes. One is that he will not be able to tell which is the first colour. There is nothing in the way red looks that might suggest that it should be the first colour in the spectrum. The second mistake is the order. There is no way to tell that after red there should be orange and not violet. So beside the RGB structure, there is another structure that sorts the colours in a circular way and in a specific order: ROYGBIV. But even if we take this extra structure into account, do we have all the relations that are necessary to give the colours their specific qualities? Why would these relations make red look red or yellow look yellow? For yellow we can actually find an explanation at this point. But as we will see later on, it might not be the full story. Let’s try to give an explanation for yellow. Let’s ask: Pick the colour that stands up from the crowd! That’s rather a weird question at first. How can a colour stand up from all the others? But at a closer look at all the colours, your attention will be drawn towards yellow. Yellow is indeed different from all the other colours. What distinguishes it, is the fact that it appears to have an intrinsic brightness. It clearly is a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 740 bright colour in a way that red is not, neither green, nor blue for example. This can only means that in the structure of yellow there is a meaning that is not in the other colours. Otherwise, we would not be able to pick it from the crowd. Is the same case as for the pitch of the sounds. We can tell that one sound corresponds to a higher air frequency than other, only because there is a specific meaning inside the qualia of sounds that lets us know its frequency. For colours, not having this meaning, we cannot tell if a colour is at a higher light frequency than another. So the fact that yellow appears different from all the colours must be because it contains a meaning that none of the other colours contain. This can be explained at this moment by the RGB code. If we look at yellow, we see that it has R=255, G=255, (B=0). A lot of light is received by the eye when we look at a yellow object. So the brain created a colour which contains the meaning of “intrinsic brightness”. Another colour that appears to have intrinsic brightness, but not quite as yellow, is cyan. And if we look at its RGB code, we indeed see that it has the code G=255, B=255, (R=0). But what about the colour that has R=255, B=255, (G=0)? That is violet. But violet doesn’t appear like a colour that has intrinsic brightness. This is because of the sensibility of the eye to RGB. The sensibility for blue is much lower than the sensibility for the other colours. Figure 7. Human eye sensibility This might seem like a good explanation for at least how yellow acquires its quality. But let’s push a little harder. Let’s tackle the problem from an evolutionary point of view. Consciousness has two very different aspects. First of all, it is a natural phenomenon that has to do with the very way in which reality is. Secondly, our specific consciousness acquired its qualia through an evolutionary process. In the same way that our physical body has its form because it helped us in the process of evolution, so does our particular set of qualia have acquired their quality through an evolutionary process. We have the specific senses that we have because they proved the best for our evolutionary advantage. We also have many feelings and emotions with specific meanings that helped us in the process of evolution. Take for example hunger. Hunger feels the way it does because it has a specific meaning. As we saw throughout this paper, each quale acquires its specific quality because of its meaning. Hunger means the need for food or energy, and this very meaning creates the very way in which hunger feels. Thirst having a different meaning, the desire for water, has a different quality. And by the very way in which they feel, you know their meaning. One can take any emotion that he wants, and he will find specific meanings for all of them. So this assures us once again that we are on the right track in our attempt to find meanings for colours. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 741 Let’s ask now what could have been the evolutionary advantage of seeing yellow? If yellow acquired its quality because of an evolutionary reason, then we need to find that reason in the environment of the animal. And we do find such a reason! One very important object in the life of a creature that has a visual system is the Sun. And curios enough, the Sun has the colour yellow. Or to dispel confusion, I better say: when we look at the Sun we have the quale of yellow. Is this just a coincidence? I will argue that it is not. What we saw earlier is that yellow is a rather peculiar colour, having a distinct quality that none of the other colours have. I called that quality intrinsic brightness. But the Sun is just that: a bright object. We also need to realize at this point that when our visual system evolved, the Sun was the only bright object in the environment. Of course, at night there was the Moon, and occasionally fires sprung here and there, but there was one object that was always around. And that was the Sun. Given the importance of the Sun, I don’t consider a mere coincidence that we have evolved to have the quale of yellow in association with the Sun. And this further points out to the fact that the meaning that gives yellow its peculiar quality of intrinsic brightness is the meaning of “source of light” or “brightness” or something that in some way represents the Sun. If this is the case, the RGB system is not the primary reason for why yellow looks the way it looks, but is merely a system that evolved such that it could mold around the meaning that yellow had. One might ask at this point: Why should yellow have this meaning and not white? After all, white is the brightest colour that can be. The reason is that white has a totally different meaning. As we saw in the comparison with temperature, the black-and-white spectrum has the meaning of intensity. But since it proved advantageous to see the world in colours, rather than just blackand-white, the meanings that were used in the construction of the colours, went beyond the simple meaning of intensity. Let’s move on to another colour and observe another peculiarity. Since the Sun was such an important object for the animals, it needed to be clearly identified from the surroundings. The surrounding for the Sun is the sky. And here we stumble upon another apparent coincidence. The quale that we have when we look at the sky is the quale of colour blue. But blue and yellow are opposite colours. Is this a coincidence that also the Sun and the sky have these two opposite colours? I consider that not only is not a coincidence, but that the meaning of blue is “the opposite of yellow”. When asked “Why is the sky blue?” a physicist will tell you a beautiful story about how the rays of light are reflected in different ways based on their wavelengths by the molecules present in the atmosphere, especially oxygen. But I consider that this answer misses completely the point. The correct answer should be: “Because this way, the Sun was best distinguished from the surroundings by the brain of the animals.” Can these hypotheses be tested? I would suggest two tests for them. One is that each extraterrestrial will see their home star yellow and their sky blue. This doesn’t mean that we will see them like that. If we were to go on their home planet, we would see their star and sky as having various colours. But this is because our visual system and our brain evolved in a different environment. But each native species will see their star yellow and their sky blue. If they would have more than one main star, they will probably see colours that we cannot even imagine. Their colours will have specific meanings that will help them distinguish between the two or more different stars. But since we didn’t need to make such a distinction, we didn’t evolve to have those meanings in our colours. For us it was enough to have a colour that has the meaning “source of light” that we can see when we looked at the Sun. Unfortunately, this hypothesis ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 742 cannot be tested at the present moment. It might even be the case that we will explain consciousness before we will encounter aliens. And by that time we will anyway know for sure that each alien are seeing their home star yellow and their sky blue. The second test is the phenomenon of Haidinger’s Brush that we will later explore. Before getting there, let’s try to find the meaning of colour red. We will adopt a similar approach as for yellow. Since the particular sets of qualia that we have were acquired through an evolutionary process, we need to have a look in the environment and see where could the colour red come from. One of the most important things in the life of an animal is the acquisition of food. In order for the animal to be most efficient in this attempt, he needed to quickly make sense of the environment. Food had to be easily identifiable. Ideally, it would have been good if all food looked the same. In practice this is not the case. But nevertheless, there is a recurrent feature of how food looks. And that is: red! Most of the fruits are indeed red, especially when they are ready to be eaten. We have to be once again careful here. Fruits are not red. They have no colours whatsoever. Red is only in the consciousness of the animal. So whatever light was coming from the fruits, the brain of the animals evolved such as to give the meaning of red, to see colour red. So now that we identified how red got to come about, we are in the position to find a meaning for it. Could it mean “food”? Not necessarily. I would go for a more profound meaning, and that is: Red has the meaning of “important”. The animal not only needed to know that that is food, but it needed to know that that is important for his survival. Another reason for why I consider that “important” should be the actual meaning, and not “food”, is because “important” is a more abstract meaning, that can be used in a more general way in other qualia as well. Is something similar to “intensity”. As we have seen, the meaning of “intensity” appears in many different qualia and in each qualia domain it takes a different form. Is this the real source from which red acquired its quality? Let’s argue that indeed it is. Fruits are not simply found in the environment all by themselves, but they are found in trees. One important characteristic of trees is that leaves are coloured green. But red and green are opposite colours. We are in the same situation as for the Sun-sky pair. This time the pair is fruits-leaves. Is this a coincidence that leaves have the opposite colour of red? No. The reason, the same as for the Sun, was that fruits needed to be easily identifiable. So the brains of the animals evolved to see the leaves as having colour green. In this case, green has the meaning “the opposite of red”. One might ask at this moment: Why fruits red and leaves green and not the other way around? Wouldn’t it be the same situation? The answer is no, and this is for the reason that animals were interested in the fruits. What needed to draw the attention of the animals, were the fruits. The fruits were those important, not the leaves. So only the fruits could have acquired colour red, because that is the colour that has the meaning of “important”. Can this explanation for the meaning of red be tested? I will propose here two experiments that might be able to see at least some correlations. One way to test this is to have a look at some MRI scans. Since the meaning of “important” is also an abstract idea and not only part of red itself, the subjects of the experiment can be asked to think about important persons or events in their life and then identify the neuronal correlate (NCC) of the idea of “important”. Then the subjects will be asked to see colour red and register the corresponding NCC. It might turn out that some similarities will be seen for the two NCCs. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 743 The second experiment will be to ask the subjects to have a look at a screen on which various coloured objects are displayed for only a brief moment of time. Then the persons will be asked to tell the objects that they remembered. The colours would probably be needed to be adjusted such that they have the same luminance, such that this parameter would not influence the answer of the subjects. If the objects that are mostly remembered turn out to be those that are coloured red, it might be an indication that indeed colour red looks the way it looks because it has the meaning of “important”. This experiment should also take into account the cultural background of the subjects. It might be that for different cultures, some objects or some colours are more likely to be chosen. But if even after the cultural background has been eliminated and the most often remembered objects would still be the red ones, this would indicate more strongly that indeed colour red might have this meaning. Haidinger’s Brush Let’s argue a little more for the meaning of yellow. Since we cannot find an alien right now that can provides us with an answer about what colour it sees its own star, maybe we can find an answer here on Earth. Let’s have a look at the phenomenon of Haidinger’s Brush and see if we can see something remarkable. Figure 8. Haidinger's Brush with its yellow and blue colours. This phenomenon is our ability to see polarized light. It is a rather weak effect, not seen by many people. It presents 2 colours, yellow and blue, arranged at 90° to each other. The blue axis corresponds to the direction of the electrical vector of the electromagnetic radiation that hits our eyes. By seeing the orientation of the blue axis we can thus know the polarization of light without using any apparatus beyond our own eyes. There are various explanations put forward about how we are able to see this pattern. The most common has to do with the ability of the xanthophyll pigment in the macula to absorb polarized light. And because of the circular geometry of this pigment’s arrangement in the eye, the specific pattern and colours of the Haidinger’s Brush are obtained. However, none of the proposed models are able to fully account for the look of Haidinger’s Brush. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 744 I will therefore allow myself the liberty to bring a new explanation in terms of the ideas presented in this paper. First of all, I will allow for the shape to be realized entirely by the geometry of the eye. But for colours, I will suggest that they are not accountable for by anything in the structure of the eye. What the eye is doing is just sending signals to the brain, letting the brain know that there is an interaction in the eye that has the geometry corresponding to the polarization of the light. So the brain has 2 pieces of information to deal with, corresponding to the two geometrical axes. Now it needs to represent this information somehow. Since it is part of the visual system, it will have to use qualia of colours to represent it. The question arises about what colours to use to represent it. Since the information coming from the polarized light is isolated from the information that we usually receive from the normal light, it forms a totally independent system of qualia. So we are dealing with 2 systems here. First, there is the normal visual system that contains the normal set of information, which is then used by the brain to create 7 different main colours (let’s say the 7 colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). And then there is a different system, that contains only 2 pieces of information. The question is: If you were to have a visual system that contains only two colours, what would those two colours be? I would suggest that those colours would be yellow and blue. And here is why. One of the colours needs to mean “source of light”, because that would be the colour that would let you know that you are actually seeing a colour. And that colour is yellow. The other colour needs to be the colour that is opposite of the first one, such that the 2 colours contrast maximally and so they contain the maximum meaning that can be contained in such a situation. So the second colour should be blue. Those are exactly the colours that we are seeing in the Haidinger’s Brush. If it will turn out that indeed the colours in the Haidinger’s Brush cannot be accounted by the structure of the eye but they are actually created by the brain, then this will be an important argument in the favour of the idea that yellow means “source of light”, and more generally it will be an argument in the favour that all qualia are meaning4. Conclusions We are drawing to an end now. We just presented a rather controversial view in this paper. Can this be a valid explanation for why colours look the way they look? Shouldn’t a real explanation involve mathematical equations? How would colours be explained in a future science in which consciousness will be explained? I will only give a short justification for why this explanation will likely hold even when we will have a theory of consciousness. Let’s take the simple case of feeling thirsty and drinking water in order to end thirst. We then ask: Why did I drink water? I think the answer is straightforward and that is: Because I was thirsty. I don’t consider to be anything more to the answer than this simple explanation. I don’t think that there is any need to explain the reason for drinking water in any sophisticated mathematical terms. I think that this is the most fundamental explanation that can be given to the question of why I drank water. When 4 The expression “The meaning of qualia” (i.e. the meaning of red) is employed here in a rather loosely way. Since what I argue for is that qualia IS meaning, the expression “the meaning of qualia” is incorrect. It is only used for the ease of expression. A more proper expression would be “the content of qualia” or “the content of meaning”, since meaning is synonymous with qualia. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 729-745 Vișan, C., Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding? 745 it comes to consciousness, it might well be that some explanations can simply be given in plain words, that being the most fundamental level possible. So is not unreasonable to search for an explanation in plain words for why some qualia feel the way they do. What a theory of consciousness will probably do is to provide an explanation of what meaning is, how it arises in the world, and how it can have different contents. But this would be probably the only explanation that can be given to consciousness from a 3rd person perspective. Other explanations, as for example the relations between various meanings, will only have to come from the 1st person perspective: I drank water because I was thirsty. It would still be possible to give a 3rd person account for the relations between meanings, but this will not tell us how that specific meaning feels like. This 3rd person account might come from brain scans. As we suggested for colour red, a scan might reveal that what happens when we see a specific colour also happens when we think about something in a rational way, this suggesting what the meaning of a particular colour is. This also might point out what reason actually is and what its powers are. It appears that reason has access to meanings that are embedded in sensibility qualia. How is it possible for reason to manipulate these meanings? What is it about free will that through the power of reason can have access to meanings hidden deep inside sensibility qualia? The questions are indeed fascinating, but we will stop here. For the present moment, it is enough to know that there is meaning inside all qualia. Future developments will reveal us more about the nature of consciousness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

arXiv:physics/9906040v2 [physics.pop-ph] 8 Feb 2000 Night Thoughts of a Quantum Physicist Adrian Kent Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW, U.K. Abstract The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of relating consciousness to the rest of physics. I survey some recent promising ideas on possible solutions to the measurement problem and explain what a proper physical understanding of consciousness would involve and why it would need new physics. 1. Introduction As the twentieth century draws to a close, theoretical physics is in a situation that, at least in recent history, is most unusual: there is no generally accepted authority. Each research program has very widely respected leaders, but every program is controversial. After a period of extraordinary successes, broadly stretching from the 1900’s through to the early 1980’s, there have been few dramatic new experimental results in the last fifteen years, with the important exception of cosmology. All the most interesting theoretical ideas have run into serious difficulties, and it is not completely obvious that any of them is heading in the right direction. So to speak, some impressively large and well organised expeditionary parties have been formed and are faithfully heading towards imagined destinations; other smaller and less cohesive bands of physicists are heading in quite different directions. But we really are all in the dark. Possibly none of us will get anywhere much until the next fortuitous break in the clouds. I will try to sketch briefly how it is that we have reached this state, and then suggest some new directions in which progress may eventually be possible. But my first duty is to stress that what follow are simply my personal views. These lie somewhere between the heretical and the mainstream at the moment. Some of the best physicists of the twentieth century, would, I think, have been at least in partial sympathy.1 But most leading present day physicsts would emphasize different problems; some would query whether physicists can sensibly say anything at all on the topics I will discuss. I think we can, of course. It seems to me the problems are as sharply defined as those we have overcome in the past: it just happens that we have not properly tackled them yet. They would be quite untouched — would remain deep unsolved problems — even if what is usually meant by a “theory of everything” were discovered. Solving them may need further radical changes in our world view, but I suspect that in the end we will find there is no way around them. 2. Physics in 1999 The great discoveries of twentieth century physics have sunk so deeply into the general consciousness that it now takes an effort of will to stand back and try to see them afresh. But we should try, just as we should try to look at the night sky and at life on earth with childlike eyes from time to time. In appreciating just how completely and how amazingly our understanding of the world has been transformed, we recapture a sense of awe and wonder in the universe and its beauty.2 So recall: in 1900, the existence of atoms was a controversial hypothesis. Matter and light were, as far as we knew, qualitatively different. The known laws of nature were deterministic and relied on absolute notions of space and time which seemed not only natural and common sense but also so firmly embedded in our understanding of nature as to be beyond serious question. The propagation of life, and the functioning of the mind, remained so mysterious that it was easy to imagine their understanding might require quite new physical principles. Nothing much resembling modern cosmology existed. Einstein, of course, taught us to see space and time as different facets of a single geometry. And then, still more astonishingly and beautifully, that the geometry of spacetime 1 In any case, I am greatly indebted to Schrödinger and Bell’s lucid scepticism and to Feynman’s compelling explanations of the scientific need to keep alternative ideas in mind if they are even partially successful, as expressed in, for example, Schrödinger 1954, Bell 1987, Feynman 1965. 2 We owe this, of course, not to nature — which gives a very good impression of not caring either way — but to ourselves. Though we forget it too easily, that sense is precious to us. is nonlinear, that matter is guided by the geometry and at the same time shapes it, so that gravity is understood as the mutual action of matter on matter through the curvature of spacetime. The first experiments confirming an important prediction of general relativity — that light is indeed deflected by the solar gravitational field — took place in 1917: still within living memory. Subsequent experimental tests have confirmed general relativity with increasingly impressive accuracy. It is consistent with our understanding of cosmology, as far as it can be — that is, as far as quantum effects are negligible. At the moment it has no remotely serious competitor: we have no other picture of the macroscopic world that makes sense and fits the data. Had theorists been more timid, particle physics experiments and astronomical observations would almost certainly eventually given us enough clues to make the development of special and general relativity inevitable. As it happens, though, Einstein was only partially guided by experiment. The development of the theories of relativity relied on his extraordinary genius for seeing through to new conceptual frameworks underlying known physics. To Einstein and many of his contemporaries, the gain in elegance and simplicity was so great that it seemed the new theories almost had to be correct. While the development of quantum theory too relied on brilliant intuitions and syntheses, it was much more driven by experiment. Data — the black-body radiation spectrum, the photo-electric effect, crystalline diffraction, atomic spectra — more or less forced the new theory on us, first in ad hoc forms, and then, by 1926, synthesised. It seems unlikely that anyone would ever have found their way through to quantum theory unaided by the data. Certainly, no one has ever found a convincing conceptual framework which explains to us why something like quantum theory should be true. It just is. Nor has anyone, even after the event, come up with a truly satisfactory explanation of what precisely quantum theory tells us about nature. We know that all our pre-1900 intuitions, based as they are on the physics of the world we see around us every day, are quite inadequate. We know that microscopic systems behave in a qualitatively different way, that there is apparently an intrinsic randomness in the way they interact with the devices we use to probe them. Much more impressively, for any given experiment we carry out on microscopic systems, we know how to list the possible outcomes and calculate the probabilities of each, at least to a very good approximation. What we do not fully understand is why those calculations work: we have, for example, no firmly established picture of what (if anything) is going on when we are not looking. Quantum theory as originally formulated was inconsistent with special relativity. Partly for this reason, it did not properly describe the interactions between light and matter either. Solving these problems took several further steps, and in time led to a relatively systematic — though still today incomplete — understanding of how to build relativistic quantum theories of fields, and eventually to the conclusion that the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces could be combined into a single field theory. As yet, though, we do not know how to do that very elegantly, and almost everyone suspects that a grander and more elegant unified theory of those three forces awaits us. Nor can we truly say that we fully understand quantum field theory, or even that the theories we use are entirely internally consistent. They resemble recipes for calculation, together with only partial, though tantalisingly suggestive, explanations as to why they work. Most theorists believe a deeper explanation requires a better theory, perhaps yet to be discovered. Superstring theory, which many physicists hope might provide a complete theory of gravity as well as the other forces— a “theory of everything” — is currently the most popular candidate. Though no one doubts its mathematical beauty, it is generally agreed that so far superstring theory has two rather serious problems. Conceptually, we do not know how to properly make sense of superstrings as a theory of matter plus spacetime. Nor can we extract any very interesting correct predictions from the theory — for example, the properties of the known forces, the masses of the known particles, or the apparent four-dimensionality of space-time — in any convincing way. Opinions differ sharply on whether those problems are likely to be resolved, and so whether superstring theory is likelier to be a theory of everything or of nothing: time will tell. Almost everyone agrees, though, that reconciling gravity and quantum theory is one of the deepest problems facing modern physics. Quantum theory and general relativity, each brilliantly successful in its own domain, rest on very different principles and give highly divergent pictures of nature. According to general relativity, the world is deterministic, the fundamental equations of nature are non-linear, and the correct picture of nature is, at bottom, geometric. According to quantum theory, there is an intrinsic randomness in nature, its fundamental equations are linear, and the correct language in which to describe nature seems to be closer to abstract algebra than geometry. Something has to give somewhere, but at the moment we do not know for sure where to begin in trying to combine these pictures: we do not know how to alter either in the direction of the other without breaking it totally. However, I would like here to try to look a bit beyond the current conventional wisdom. There is always a danger that attention clusters around some admittedly deep problems while neglecting others, simply through convention, or habit or sheer comfort in numbers. Like any other subject, theoretical physics is quite capable of forming intellectual taboos: topics that almost all sensible people avoid. They often have good reason, of course, but I suspect that the most strongly held taboos sometimes resemble a sort of unconscious tribute. Mental blocks can form because a question carries the potential for revolution, and addressing it thoughtfully would raise the possibility that our present understanding may, in important ways, be quite inadequate: in other words, they can be unconscious defences against too great a sense of insecurity. Just possibly, our best hope of saying something about future revolutions in physics may lie in looking into interesting questions which current theory evades. I will look at two here: the measurement problem in quantum theory and the mind-body problem. 3. Quantum Theory and the Measurement Problem As we have already seen, quantum theory was not originally inspired by some parsimonious set of principles applied to sparse data. Physicists were led to it, often without seeing a clear way ahead, in stages and by a variety of accumulating data. The founders of quantum theory were thus immediately faced with the problem of explaining precisely what the theory actually tells us about nature. On this they were never able to agree. However, an effective enough consensus, led by Bohr, was forged. Precisely what Bohr actually believed, and why, remain obscure to many commentators, but for most practical purposes it has hardly mattered. Physicists found that they could condense Bohr’s “Copenhagen interpretation” into a few working rules which explain what can usefully be calculated. Alongside these, a sort of working metaphysical picture — if that is not a contradiction in terms — also emerged. C.P. Snow captures this conventional wisdom well in his semi-autobiographical novel, “The Search” (Snow 1934): Suddenly, I heard one of the greatest mathematical physicists say, with complete simplicity: “Of course, the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry are laid down for ever. The details have got to be filled up: we don’t know anything of the nucleus; but the fundamental laws are there. In a sense, physics and chemistry are finished sciences.” The nucleus and life: those were the harder problems: in everything else, in the whole of chemistry and physics, we were in sight of the end. The framework was laid down; they had put the boundaries round the pebbles which we could pick up. It struck me how impossible it would have been to say this a few years before. Before 1926 no one could have said it, unless he were a megalomaniac or knew no science. And now two years later the most detached scientific figure of our time announced it casually in the course of conversation. It is rather difficult to put the importance of this revolution into words. [. . .] However, it is something like this. Science starts with facts chosen from the external world. The relation between the choice, the chooser, the external world and the fact produced is a complicated one [. . .] but one gets through in the end [. . .] to an agreement upon “scientific facts”. You can call them “pointer-readings” as Eddington does, if you like. They are lines on a photographic plate, marks on a screen, all the “pointer-readings” which are the end of the skill, precautions, inventions, of the laboratory. They are the end of the manual process, the beginning of the scientific. For from these “pointer-readings”, these scientific facts, the process of scientific reasoning begins: and it comes back to them to prove itself right or wrong. For the scientific process is nothing more nor less than a hiatus between “pointer-readings”: one takes some pointer readings, makes a mental construction from them in order to predict some more. The pointer readings which have been predicted are then measured: and if the prediction turns out to be right, the mental construction is, for the moment, a good one. If it is wrong, another mental construction has to be tried. That is all. And you take your choice where you put the word “reality”: you can find your total reality either in the pointer readings or in the mental construction or, if you have a taste for compromise, in a mixture of both. In other words, on this conventional view, quantum theory teaches us something deep and revolutionary about the nature of reality. It teaches us that it is a mistake to try to build a picture of the world which includes every aspect of an experiment — the preparation of the apparatus and the system being experimented on, their behaviour during the experiment, and the observation of the results — in one smooth and coherent description. All we need to do science, and all we can apparently manage, is to find a way of extrapolating predictions — which as it happens turn out generally to be probabilistic rather than deterministic — about the final results from a description of the initial preparation. To ask what went on in between is, by definition, to ask about something we did not observe: it is to ask in the abstract a question which we have not asked nature in the concrete. On the Copenhagen view, it is a profound feature of our situation to the world that we cannot separate the abstract and the concrete in this way. If we did not actually carry out the relevant observation, we did not ask the question in the only way that causes nature to supply an answer, and there need not be any meaningful answer at all. We are in sight of the end. Quantum theory teaches us the necessary limits of science. But are we? Does it? Need quantum theory be understood only as a mere device for extrapolating pointer-readings from pointer-readings? Can quantum theory be satisfactorily understood this way? After all, as we understand it, a pointer is no more than a collection of atoms following quantum laws. If the atoms and the quantum laws are ultimately just mental constructions, is not the pointer too? Is not everything? Landau and Lifshitz, giving a precise and apparently not intentionally critical description of the orthodox view in their classic textbook (Landau & Lifshitz, 1974) on quantum theory, still seem to hint at some disquiet here: Quantum mechanics occupies a very unusual place among physical theories: it contains classical mechanics as a limiting case, yet at the same time requires this limiting case for its own formulation. This is the difficulty. The classical world — the world of the laboratory — must be external to the theory for us to make sense of it; yet it is also supposed to be contained within the theory. And, since the same objects play this dual role, we have no clear division between the microscopic quantum and the macroscopic classical. It follows that we cannot legitimately derive from quantum theory the predictions we believe the theory actually makes. If a pointer is only a mental construction, we cannot meaningfully ask what state is in or where it points, and so we cannot make meaningful predictions about its behaviour at the end of an experiment. If it is a real object independent of the quantum realm, then we cannot explain it — or, presumably, the rest of the macroscopic world around us — in terms of quantum theory. Either way, if the Copenhagen interpretation is right, a crucial component in our understanding of the world cannot be theoretically justified. However, we now know that Bohr, the Copenhagen school, and most of the pioneers of quantum theory were unnecessarily dogmatic. We are not forced to adopt the Copenhagen interpretation either by the mathematics of quantum theory or by empirical evidence. Nor is it the only serious possibility available. As we now understand, it is just one of several possible views of quantum theory, each of which has advantages and difficulties. It has not yet been superseded: there is no clear consensus now as to which view is correct. But it seems unlikely it will ever again be generally accepted as the one true orthodoxy. What are the alternatives? The most interesting, I think, is a simple yet potentially revolutionary idea originally set out by Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber (Ghirardi et al. 1986), and later developed further by GRW, Pearle, Gisin and several others. According to their model, quantum mechanics has a piece missing. We can fix all its problems by adding rules to say exactly how and when the quantum dice are rolled. This is done by taking wave function collapse to be an objective, observer-independent phenomenon, with small localisations or “mini-collapses” constantly taking place. This entails altering the dynamics by adding a correction to the Schrödinger equation. If this is done in the way GRW propose, the predictions for experiments carried out on microscopic systems are almost precisely the same, so that none of the successes of quantum theory in this realm are lost. However, large systems deviate more significantly from the predictions of quantum theory. Those deviations are still quite subtle, and very hard to detect or exclude experimentally at present, but they are unambiguously there in the equations. Experimentalists will one day be able to tell us for sure whether or not they are there in nature. By making this modification, we turn quantum theory into a theory which describes objective events continually taking place in a real external world, whether or not any experiment is taking place, whether or not anyone is watching. If this picture is right, it solves the measurement problem: we have a single set of equations which give a unified description of microscopic and macroscopic physics, and we can sensibly talk about the behaviour of unobserved systems, whether they are microscopic electrons or macroscopic pointers. The pointer of an apparatus probing a quantum system takes up a definite position, and does so very quickly, not through any ad hoc postulate, but in a way that follows directly from the fundamental equations of the theory. The GRW theory is probably completely wrong in detail. There are certainly serious difficulties in making it compatible with relativity — though there also some grounds for optimism that this can be done (Pearle 1998, Kent 1999). But GRW’s essential idea has, I think, a fair chance of being right. Before 1986, few people believed that any tinkering with quantum theory was possible: it seemed that any change must so completely alter the structure of the theory as to violate some already tested prediction. But we now know that it is possible to make relatively tiny changes which cause no conflict with experiment, and that by doing so we can solve the deep conceptual and interpretational problems of quantum theory. We know too that the modified theory makes new experimental predictions in an entirely unexpected physical regime. The crucial tests, if and when we can carry them out, will be made not by probing deeper into the nucleus or by building higher energy accelerators, but by keeping relatively large systems under careful enough control for quantum effects to be observable. New physics could come directly from the large scale and the complex: frontiers we thought long ago closed. 4. Physics and Consciousness Kieslowski’s remarkable film series, Dekalog, begins with the story of a computer scientist and his son who share a joy in calculating and predicting, in using the computer to give some small measure of additional control over their lives. Before going skating, the son obtains weather reports for the last three days from the meteorological bureau, and together they run a program to infer the thickness of the ice and deduce that it can easily bear his weight. But, tragically, they neglect the fire a homeless man keeps burning at the lakeside. Literally, of course, they make a simple mistake: the right calculation would have taken account of the fire, corrected the local temperature, and shown the actual thickness of the ice. Metaphorically, the story seems to say that the error is neglecting the spiritual, not only in life, but perhaps even in physical predictions. I do not myself share Kieslowski’s religious worldview, and I certainly do not mean to start a religious discussion here. But there is an underlying scientific question, which can be motivated without referring to pre-scientific systems of belief and is crucial to our understanding of the world and our place in it, and which I think is still surprisingly neglected. So, to use more scientifically respectable language, I would like to take a fresh look at the problem of consciousness in physics, where by “consciousness” I mean the perceptions, sensations, thoughts and emotions that constitute our experience. There has been a significant revival of interest in consciousness lately, but it still receives relatively little attention from physicists. Most physicists believe that, if consciousness poses any problems at all, they are problems outside their province.3 After all, 3 Penrose is the best-known exception: space does not permit discussion of his rather different arguments here, but see Penrose 1989, 1994. the argument runs, biology is pretty much reducible to chemistry, which is reducible to known physical laws. Nothing in our current understanding suggests that there is anything physically distinctive about living beings, or brains. On the contrary, neurophysiology, experimental psychology, evolutionary and molecular biology have all advanced with great success, based firmly on the hypothesis that there is not. Of course, no one can exclude the possibility that our current understanding could turn out to be wrong — but in the absence of any reason to think so, there seems nothing useful for physicists to say. I largely agree with this view. It is very hard to see how any novel physics associated with consciousness could fit with what we already know. Speculating about such ideas does seem fruitless in the absence of data. But I think we can say something. There is a basic point about the connection between consciousness and physics which ought to be made, yet seems never to have been clearly stated, and which suggests our present understanding almost cannot be complete. The argument for this goes in three steps. First, let us assume, as physicists quite commonly do, that any natural phenomenon can be described mathematically. Consciousness is a natural phenomenon, and at least some aspects of consciousness — for example, the number of symbols we can simultaneously keep in mind — are quantifiable. On the other hand we have no mathematical theory even of these aspects of consciousness. This would not matter if we could at least sketch a path by which statements about consciousness could be reduced to well understood phenomena. After all, no one worries that we have no mathematical theory of digestion, because we believe that we understand in principle how to rewrite any physical statement concerning the digestive process as a statement about the local densities of various chemicals in the digestive tract, and how to derive these statements from the known laws of physics. But we cannot sketch a similar path for consciousness: no one knows how to transcribe a statement of the form “I see a red giraffe” into a statement about the physical state of the speaker. To make such a transcription, we would need to attach a theory of consciousness to the laws of physics we know: it clearly cannot be derived from those laws alone. Second, we note that, despite the lack of a theory of consciousness, we cannot completely keep consciousness out of physics. All the data on which our theories are based ultimately derive from conscious impressions or conscious memories of impressions. If our ideas about physics included no hypothesis about consciousness, we would have no way of deriving any conclusion about the data, and so no logical reason for preferring any theory over any other. This difficulty has long been recognised. It is dealt with, as best we can, by invoking what is usually called the principle of psycho-physical parallelism. We demand that we should at least be able to give a plausible sketch of how an accurate representation of the contents of our conscious minds could be included in the description of the material world provided by our physical theories, assuming a detailed understanding of how consciousness is represented. Since we do not actually know how to represent consciousness, that may seem an empty requirement, but it is not. Psycho-physical parallelism requires, for example, that a theory explain how anything that we may observe can come to be correlated with something happening in our brains, and that enough is happening in our brains at any given moment to represent the full richness of our conscious experience. These are hard criteria to make precise, but asking whether they could plausibly be satisfied within a given theory is still a useful constraint. Now the principle of psycho-physical parallelism, as currently applied, commits us to seeing consciousness as an epiphenomenon supervening on the material world. As William James magnificently put it (James 1879): Feeling is a mere collateral product of our nervous processes, unable to react upon them any more than a shadow reacts on the steps of the traveller whom it accompanies. Inert, uninfluential, a simple passenger in the voyage of life, it is allowed to remain on board, but not to touch the helm or handle the rigging. Third, the problem with all of this is, that as James went on to point out, if our consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution, as it surely must be, it is difficult to understand how it can be an epiphenomenon. To sharpen James’ point: if there is a simple mathematical theory of consciousness, or of any quantifiable aspect of consciousness, describing a precise version of the principle of psycho-physical parallelism and so characterising how it is epiphenomenally attached to the material world, then its apparent evolutionary value is fictitious. For all the difference it would make to our actions, we might as well be conscious only of the number of neutrons in our kneecaps or the charm count of our cerebella; we might as well find pleasures painful and vice versa. In fact, of course, our consciousness tends to supply us with a sort of executive summary of information with a direct bearing on our own chances of survival and those of our genes; we tend to find actions pleasurable or painful depending whether they are beneficial or harmful to those chances. Though we are not always aware of vital information, and are always aware of much else, and though our preferences certainly don’t perfectly correlate with our genetic prospects, the general predisposition of consciousness towards survival is far too strong to be simply a matter of chance. Now, of course, almost no one seriously suggests that the main features of consciousness can be the way they are purely by chance. The natural hypothesis is that, since they seem to be evolutionarily advantageous, they should, like our other evolutionarily advantageous traits, have arisen through a process of natural selection. But if consciousness really is an epiphenomenon, this explanation cannot work. An executive summary of information which is presented to us, but has no subsequent influence on our behaviour, carries no evolutionary advantage. It may well be advantageous for us that our brains run some sort of higher-level processes which use the sort of data that consciousness presents to us and which are used to make high-level decisions about behaviour. But, on the epiphenomenal hypothesis, we gain nothing by being conscious of these particular processes: if they are going to run, they could equally well be run unconsciously, leaving our attention focussed on quite different brain activities or on none at all. Something, then, is wrong with our current understanding, There are really only two serious possibilities. One is that psycho-physical parallelism cannot be made precise and that consciousness is simply scientifically inexplicable. The other is that consciousness is something which interacts, if perhaps very subtly, with the rest of the material world rather than simply passively co-existing alongside that world. If that were the case, then we can think of our consciousnesses and our brains — more precisely, the components of our brains described by presently understood physics — as two coupled systems, each of which influences the other. That is a radically different picture from the one we presently have, of course. But it does have explanatory power. If it were true, it would be easy to understand why it might be evolutionarily advantageous for our consciousness to take a particular form. If say, being conscious of a particular feature of the environment helps to speed up the brain’s analysis of that feature, or to focus more of the brain’s processing power on it, or to execute relevant decisions more quickly, or to cause a more sophisticated and detailed description to enter into memory, then evolution would certainly cause consciousness to pay attention to the relevant and neglect the irrelevant. We have to be clear about this, though: to propose this explanation is to propose that the actions of conscious beings are not properly described by the present laws of physics. This does not imply that conscious actions cannot be described by any laws. Far from it: if that were the case, we would still have an insoluble mystery, and once we are committed to accepting an insoluble mystery associated with consciousness then we have no good reason to prefer a mystery which requires amending the laws of physics over one which leaves the existing laws unchallenged. The scientifically interesting possibility — the possibility with maximal explanatory power — is that our actions and those of other conscious beings are not perfectly described by the laws we presently know, but could be by future laws which include a proper theory of consciousness. This need not be true, of course. Perhaps consciousness will forever be a mystery. But it seems hard to confidently justify any a priori division of the unsolved problems in physics into the soluble and the forever insoluble. We ought at least to consider the implications of maximal ambition. We generally assume that everything in nature except consciousness has a complete mathematical description: that is why, for example, we carry on looking for a way of unifying quantum theory and gravity, despite the apparent difficulty of the problem. We should accept that, if this assumption is right, it is at least plausible that consciousness also has such a description. And this forces us to accept the corollary — that there is a respectable case for believing that we will eventually find we need new dynamical laws — even though nothing else we know supports it. One final comment: nothing in this argument relies on the peculiar properties of quantum theory, or the problems it poses. The argument runs through equally well in Newtonian physics. Maybe the deep problems of quantum theory and consciousness are linked, but it seems to me we have no reason to think so. It follows that anyone committed to the view I have just outlined must argue that a deep problem in physics has generally been neglected for the last century and a half. So let me try to make that case. There is no stronger or more venerable scientific taboo than that against enquiry, however tentative, into consciousness. James, in 1879, quoted “a most intelligent biologist” as saying: It is high time for scientific men to protest against the recognition of any such thing as consciousness in scientific investigation. Scientific men and women certainly have protested this, loudly and often, over the last hundred and twenty years. But have those protests ever carried much intellectual force? The folk wisdom, such as it is, against the possibility of a scientific investigation of consciousness seems now to rest on a confusion hanging over from the largely deleterious effect of logical positivism on scientists earlier this century. Hypotheses about consciousness are widely taken to be ipso facto unscientific because consciousness is presently unmeasurable and its influences, if any, are presently undetectable. Delete the word “presently”, and the case could be properly made: as it is, it falls flat. If logical positivism is to blame, is only the most recent recruit to the cause. The problem seems to run much deeper in scientific culture. Schrödinger described (Schrödinger 1954) the phenomenon of: [. . .] the wall, separating the ‘two paths’, that of the heart and that of pure reason. We look back along the wall: could we not pull it down, has it always been there? As we scan its windings over hills and vales back in history we behold a land far, far, away at a space of over two thousand years back, where the wall flattens and disappears and the path was not yet split, but was only one. Some of us deem it worth while to walk back and see what can be learnt from the alluring primeval unity. Dropping the metaphor, it is my opinion that the philosophy of the ancient Greeks attracts us at this moment, because never before or since, anywhere in the world, has anything like their highly advanced and articulated system of knowledge and speculation been established without the fateful division which has hampered us for centuries and has become unendurable in our days. Clearly, the revival of interest in Greek philosophy that Schrödinger saw did not immediately produce the revolution he hoped for. But our continued fascination with consciousness is evident on the popular science and philosophy bookshelves. It looks as though breaking down the wall and building a complete worldview are going to be left as tasks for the third millennium. There could hardly be greater or more fascinating challenges. Nor can there be many more necessary for our long term well being. Science has done us far more good than harm, psychologically and materially. But the great advances we have made in understanding nature have also been used to support a worldview in which only what we can now measure matters, in which the material and the external dominate, in which we objectify and reduce ourselves and each other, in which we are in danger of coming to see our psyches and our cultures, in all their richness, as no more than the evolutionarily honed expression of an agglomeration of crude competitive urges. To put it more succinctly, there is a danger, as Vaclav Havel put it in a recent essay (Havel 1996), of man as an observer becoming completely alienated from himself as a being. Havel goes on to suggest that hopeful signs of a more humane and less schizophrenic worldview can be found in what he suggests might be called postmodern science, in the form of the Gaia hypothesis and the anthropic principle. I disagree: it is hard to pin down precise scientific content in these ideas, and insofar as we can it seems to me they are no help. But I think we have the answer already. The alienation is an artefact, created by the erroneous belief that all that physics currently describes is all there is. But, on everything we value in our humanity, physics is silent. As far as our understanding of human consciousness is concerned, though we have learned far more about ourselves, we have learned nothing for sure that negates or delegitimizes a humane perspective. In that sense, nothing of crucial importance has changed. 5. Postscript All this said, of course, predicting the future of science is a mug’s game. If, as I have argued, physics is very far from over, the one thing we should be surest of is that greater surprises than anything we can imagine are in store. One prediction that seems likelier than most, though, is that the Editor will not be restricted to considering human contributors for the corresponding volume in 2999. Perhaps our future extraterrestrial or mechanical colleagues will find some amusement in our attempts. I do hope so. References Schrödinger, E. 1954 Nature and the Greeks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bell, J.S. 1987. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics: Collected papers on Quantum Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Feynman, R. 1965 The Character of Physical Law. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. Reading: Addison Wesley. Snow, C.P. 1934 The Search. London: Victor Gollancz. Ghirardi, G. et al. 1986 Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems. Physical Review D 34 470-491. Landau, L. and Lifshitz, E. 1974 Quantum Mechanics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Pearle, P. 1999 Relativistic Collapse Model with Tachyonic Features. Physical Review A 59 80-101. Kent, A. 1998 Quantum Histories. Physica Scripta T76 78-84. Penrose, R. 1989 The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Penrose, R. 1994 Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. James, W. 1879 Are We Automata? Mind 13 1-22. Havel,V. 1996. In The Fontana Postmodernism Reader, (ed. W. Truett Anderson). London: Fontana.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 658 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Article Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Mandy A. Scott, Nicolas Rouleau, Brendan S. Lehman, Lucas W. E. Tessaro, Lyndon M. Juden-Kelly, Kevin S. Saroka & Michael A. Persinger* Neuroscience Research Group, Human Studies and Biomolecular Sciences Programs, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada P3E 2C6 ABSTRACT There have been multiple historical and cross-cultural reports of excess correlation of specific experiences between individuals separated by thousands of kilometers. Recently there have been experimental demonstrations of excess correlations between measurable cerebral events for small percentages of test subjects. More reliable effects can be elicited when electromagnetic fields and photons are involved. In this experiment completed during the summer of 2015, 5 pairs of volunteers separated by more than 6,000 km wore identical cerebral toroids through which patterns of phase shifting, 30 nT magnetic fields that diminished the local magnetic field in both loci by 1-5 nT were exposed to the sequences that produced excess correlation in chemiluminescent reactions and shifts in pH. Compared to the various baselines and control procedures enhanced power between the right hemispheres of pairs of participants occurred during the interval documented to produce excess correlation. Specific analyses indicated diminished coherence within the theta band only within the right temporal lobes of the pairs. Sequential block analyses revealed that the paired brains’ responses to pulsed tones at 6.5 Hz occurred within the 30-40 Hz band over the caudal temporal lobes during the exposures to the effector field. Primary independent component analyses verified these patterns. During the 6.5 Hz tones there was a peak in the spectral power density (SPD) at that frequency over the right temporal lobe of the person listening but a trough in (SPD) over this region for the person who was not. Even subjective experiences, as measured by the Profile of Mood States (POMS), indicated significantly increased excess correlation for scales by which increased anger and decreased vigour are inferred. This experiment, based upon physical principles, suggests there is a technology that can generate reliable excess correlation of brain activity (and potentially consciousness and specific experiences) between two people separated by thousands of kilometers. Part I of this two-part article includes: 1. Introduction; 2. Method; 3. Equipment; and 4. Results and Discussion. Keywords: Excess correlations, entanglement, transatlantic effects, theta frequency, right temporal lobe, toroidal magnetic fields, brain coherence. *Corresponding author: Dr. M. A. Persinger, mpersinger@laurentian.ca ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 659 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) 1. Introduction Consciousness has been strongly correlated with a single brain’s structure and electromagnetic activity most typically measured by electroencephalography (EEG). The interaction between two loci associated with consciousness has assumed that distance is limited because locality is required. It is mediated by proximal physical stimuli such as visual or auditory events. However from an operational perspective as long as reliable, specific excess correlation for measureable events occurs between person A and person B, distance is not limited. Even from a classical behaviorist perspective the reciprocal interactions between two people are simply the manifestations of alternating stimulus-response sequences. We have developed a paradigm to evoke powerful excess correlations between chemilumiscent reactions (Dotta and Persinger, 2012; Dotta et al, 2013a) shifts in pH within spring water (Dotta et al, 2013b), and alterations in malignant cell growth (Karbowski et al, 2015) within two loci separated at distances between 10 m and 3 km. Here we present experimental evidence for the first known trans-Atlantic excess correlations in the type of brain activity associated with consciousness when the brains of pairs of people, each separated by thousands of kilometers, share toroidal, rotating magnetic fields with changing angular velocities. The Nature of Locality and Causality The definition of a causal relationship between a stimulus and response depends upon their space-time contiguity and whether or not the display of the responses systematically follows the occurrence of the stimuli. Examples are bright light flashes that elicit eye blinks or the verbal behavior of one person that elicits the verbal behavior of another. The usual perspective is: 1) there is some proximity between the locus of the stimulus and the locus of the response, and, 2) the correlation approaches 1 such that for every stimulus there is always a specified response. This would be an example of the maximum limit or “asymptote” for excess correlation which is often described as causality. However near thresholds or limens for perceptual phenomena such as detecting the presence or absence of a tone the elicitation of a response to a stimulus is not one-to-one but becomes a weaker and weaker correlation until there is some point where the “excess correlation” does not vary from random variation. As aptly demonstrated by decades of research in psychophysics signal detection around thresholds is a multivariate process where even chaotic distributions or stochastic components can enhance the capacity to discern the signal. When the two loci that are attributed to the stimulus and response are separated by distances that do not appear to involve proximity or locality, the mechanisms for any excess correlation may be different. Dozens of theoretical approaches and experiments have shown that non-local effects are easily reproduced for quantum systems. The measurement involves photons (Vaziri, et al, 2002). Experimental free-space quantum teleportation involving photons has been measured at distances of up to 600 m according to Jin et al (2010). However Hotta et al (2014) has indicated that quantum energy teleportation does not necessarily display a limit of distance. Megidish et al (2013) showed that entanglement can occur between photons that never coexisted in traditional space-time, which suggests that specific modifications of the electromagneticgravitational features of spaces could induce excess correlation. This interpretation is consistent ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 660 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) with the theory developed by Hu and Wu (2006a, b; 2013) that the primary source of the macroscopic manifestation of quantum entanglement originates from primordial spin processes in non-spatial and non-temporal pre-space-time and involves gravity. When one considers the measurement by Fickler et al (2013) that single photons (even though they differ by 600 in quantum number as long as they exhibit quantized orbital angular momentum from helical wave structures) can exhibit excess correlation, then the potential for remote sensing become feasible. Entanglement is defined as “when the quantum system contains more than one particle, the superposition principle gives rise to the phenomenon of entanglement” (Aczel, 2002). The superposition principle, or more specifically the principle of superposition of states, indicates that a new state of a system may be composed of two or more states such that a new state emerges that shares some of the properties of each of the composite states. If X and Y are two different properties of a particle, for example existing in two different loci, then superposition indicates a condition X+Y arises which has properties of both entities. Thus there would be a non-zero probability that the particle could be in both loci simultaneously. The application to a “multi-particle” system or one that involves more than one photon has been shown experimentally. Macroscopic manifestations of “excess correlation” have also been shown. Julsgaard et al (2001) demonstrated excess correlation in two macroscopic objects (gas molecules). Dotta and Persinger (2012) measured this effect with millions of photons each generated by separated reactions of hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide. Development of the Theory and the Technology Excess correlation at spaces greater than quantum levels may appear to require physical conditions that allow the superposition of two loci such that they display the behavior of a single space. Based upon the conceptual approaches of Ernst Mach (1988), Sir Arthur Eddington (1981), Niehls Bohr (1958), and Hu and Wu (2006a, b; 2013), we had reasoned that the circular momentum of a quantized electromagnetic field could create the condition to facilitate entanglement between two loci (and the state of matter within those loci) separated by nontraditional distances (Persinger and Koren, 2013; 2014). The essential premise is that the physical mechanisms that serve as the substrate for entanglement reflect the properties of the entire universe as a unit within which differences in space and time may be less critical. It would be similar to Hu and Wu’s (2013) concept that it is a feature of the universe before space and time emerged as properties with which they are now recognized. Our initial methodology employed bursts of weak magnetic fields rotating within a circular array of 8 solenoids. The angular velocity of these rotating magnetic fields either increased or decreased. The pattern of the magnetic fields that were produced within each solenoid in the circular array of solenoids was produced by a computer program that generated pulsed or punctate 1 ms or 3 ms fields that composed either an accelerating or decelerating frequency-modulated and phase-modulated magnetic field. The durations of ~1 ms and ~3 ms were derived from our (Persinger and Koren, 2007) calculations that these two values reflected the time for an electron and a proton to expand one Planck’s Length. Since those initial quantifications, several experimental results have supported this interpretation (Persinger, 2013a; Koren et al, 2014). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 661 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Inspired by the importance of the difference in phase and group velocities of photons in order to produce a non-zero rest mass (Tu et al, 2005) Dotta and Persinger (2012) compared the effects of different combinations of accelerating and decelerating group velocities (the changing angular velocities of the whole field rotating around the array of solenoids) and accelerating and decelerating frequency-modulation or phase-modulation of the patterns of magnetic fields that were being generated by the computer to each solenoid. The change in velocity was accomplished by adding +2 or -2 ms to the base duration of 20 ms as the field rotated around the ring of solenoids. They found that only one combination produced excess correlation. The group angular velocities were equivalent to frequencies between 5 and 20 Hz with specific locations around the array where the acceleration was convergent with g: 9.8 m·s-2. If an initially accelerating group velocity embedded with a decelerating frequencymodulation field was presented first (the primer field), the subsequent presentation of a decelerating group velocity embedded with an accelerating frequency-modulated field (the effector field) produced excess correlation of photon emissions between two loci separated by either 10 m or 3 km for about 8 minutes. These were the only two distances tested. During the approximately 8 min interval the power density of the photons emitted from the chemical reactions in one location was double that of the typical measures. In fact it was equivalent to injecting twice the reactant into a single reaction when there was no excess correlation. This was consistent with our assumption that the structure of the two loci separated by non-traditional distances behaved as if they had been superimposed into a single space. In other words, the states exhibit superposition. The Electroencephalogram and Brain Imaging The most frequent tool employed to study consciousness is electroencephalographic activity. These measurements obtained from sensors located more or less equally over the surface of the scalp measure the variations in the averaged, distant electric fields from the approximately 20±5 billion neurons that compose the human cerebral cortices (Pakkenberg and Gundesen, 1997). We have employed the 10-20 international system. Although other researchers who prefer denser sensor arrays we have found this matrix is sufficient to discern the phenomena we are investigating. The measurements are within the microvolt range. The corresponding magnetic field component exhibits picoTesla values and is consistent with the product of magnetic permeability of a vacuum and the current density from these voltages within the resistivity of extracellular fluid across the length of the human brain (Persinger and Saroka, 2015; Saroka and Persinger, 2014). Quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) was a major development that permitted the quantized perspective to be applied to brain activity. The decomposition of fluctuations from scalp sensors into quantized microvolt increments markedly increased the complexity and numbers of measurements and permitted the consideration of QEEG activity as a field potentially composed of “infinite, infinitesimal points”. When real-time brain activity from 19 sensors is sampled between 250 to 1000 times per second the density of the potential data arrays is sufficient to discern very subtle changes from the environment yet manageable for routine analyses. Such complexity could be sufficient to demonstrate the subtle changes in two locations ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 662 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) displayed by two human brains that could meet the criteria for “excess correlation” or entanglement. QEEG has the potential to manifest excess correlation because the data can be considered as representative (or by inference) of a “state” composed of a more or less reliable field or pattern of frequencies and intensities. There are reliable microstates first described by Lehmann et al (1998 ) and standardized by Koenig et al (2001) that remain relatively consistent across a person’s life time. There are primarily four states of whole cerebrum organization with polarities arranged in left frontal to right caudal, right frontal to left caudal, frontal to caudal and central frontal to caudal patterns. They accommodate more than 70% of cerebral activity. Each state exists for about 80 to 120 ms, the duration of a “percept,” and is remarkably similar across human beings. The median value is conspicuously equivalent to 10 Hz. The concept of a field involving billions of neurons would appear to contain considerable momentum that would oppose alteration by a single, small source energy. There is clear experimental evidence that very small energies can alter states composed of millions or billions of units. Houwelling and Brecht (2008) found that the activity of only one neuron could affect the direction of a rat’s motor behaviour. Within a single barrel cortical column containing about 8,500 excitatory neurons, detection required 2,500 action potentials above the 1,500 action potentials (a difference of 1,000) per 200 ms period. This means that the initiatory detection and the whole-organism effect required only about 5 action potentials per 1 ms. Later Li et al (2009) reported that repetitive high frequency spiking of only a single rat cortical neuron could trigger a shift between two cortical states that resembled rapid-eye-movement (REM) and slow wave sleep. In other words the energies required to produce significant alterations in brain states and overt behaviour are in the order of 10-20 J. This is the energy from the effect of the net change of an action potential upon a unit charge (Persinger, 2010). It is also a likely increment of energy that might integrate the distribution of energy at the level of Planck’s Length throughout the universe. The total force within the universe based upon its mass, length and squared “Zitterbewegung” frequency divided by the total number of Planck’s voxels in the universal volume distributed across the wavelength of the hydrogen line results in 10-20 J (Persinger, et al, 2008; Persinger, 2015). Thus very small increments of energy transmitted through non-local space could alter the entire pattern of global brain activity. Previous Experiments of EEG-Related Excess Correlation Hans Berger, the pioneer who developed the concept and original tools that now define modern electroencephalography, was interested in explaining a personal experience that would now be identified as a potential example of excess correlation between his exposure to a trauma that could have been deadly and the cerebral ideation of his sister who was living in different city of that country. The first major high profile experiment showing that two (2) of 15 pairs of twin infants separated by non-traditional distances displayed excess correlation in elicitation of alpha rhythms was published by Duane and Behrendt in Science in the year 1965. Although there were many interesting preliminary studies involved with “extrasensory perceptual” research, including that of a martial arts master who was instructed to emit “qi” force and the concurrent increase in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 663 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) strip-chart alpha wave moving in a rostral direction from the occipital region of the student recipient sitting in another room (Kawano, et al, 2000), direct experimental manipulation of the process has been more rare. Standish et al (2004) reviewed about a dozen experiments involving “remote transfer of signals” from the previous 40 years. Standish and her colleagues found that 5 of the 60 subjects displayed reliable visually evoked potentials when their “senders” were viewing flickering but not static light displays. In a previous experiment Standish et al (2003) had demonstrated excess correlation between the MRI signals of two brains separated by non-traditional distances. Although there have been many reports of specific or exceptional individuals who report “spontaneous” experiences consistent with excess correlations at greater distances (Dotta et al, 2009; Scott and Persinger, 2013), without experimental manipulation or simulation of these conditions within the laboratory, the mechanisms cannot be isolated. In addition both the Duane and Behrendt (1965) and Standish et al (2004) experiments indicated that the effects were not demonstrable in all pairs of “senders” and “receivers”. The relative portion is in the order of about 10%. We have assumed that the spontaneous occurrences of excess correlations between the activities of two different brains separated by non-traditional distances suggest an aggregate phenomenon within which one component is essential. The analogy would be the remarkable analgesic and antipyretic effects of white willow bark. The clinical effects were often variable. However when late 19th century methods for organic chemistry were developed that allowed the extraction and later synthetic reproduction of the specific component (acetyl salicylic acid) that was responsible for the analgesia and antipyresis, the effects could be more reliably replicated between individuals. We have assumed spontaneous excess correlations between human brains separated by thousands of kilometers are natural phenomena that, like the white willow bark’s correlation with analgesia, can be reliably elicited once the critical variables are isolated and experimentally manipulated. Persinger et al (2003) first reported that the stimulation of one of a pair of siblings with a circular array of 8 solenoids placed around the head at the level of the temporal lobes produced a specific change in theta power (5 to 5.9 Hz) in the right temporal lobe of the other sibling (not wearing an array of field-generating solenoids) sitting blindfolded with earplugs in a separate room. The rates of rotation of the magnetic that were most effective involved 20 ms reference intervals. Additions or subtractions of unit times, such as 2 ms, as the field moved to each successive solenoid produced a changing angular velocity. This interval which is more likely a range between 15 and 25 ms is the classic “refresh” rate of consciousness (~40 Hz) which has been described as the rate of “re-entry” of continuous processes (Edelman, 1989). It can be considered a second derivative. A magnetic field moving within a circle might be considered as in a state of continuous acceleration. Changing that rate would result in a second derivative. Because one of the features of excess correlation or entanglement is a history of shared space-time, Persinger et al (2008) paid pairs of random strangers to meet each other for one hour twice per week for four weeks and simply remain within a meter of each other. When one of the pair who had been randomly assigned to the entanglement process was stimulated with the same effective field parameters (20 ms intervals) while wearing the circular array of 8 solenoids and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 664 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) the other member’s QEEG was recorded there was an increase in power within the 5.0 to 5.9 Hz band over the temporal lobes but no other lobes. Pairs of people randomly selected on the days of the experiment who had no previous shared space-time history did not display this effect. In that experiment the stimulus person (the one receiving the angular accelerating magnetic fields) was instructed to imagine walking to the other room and standing on the left side of the response person whose QEEG was being recorded. The response persons, during the period associated with the enhanced theta activity over the temporal lobes, reported (as indicated by post-experimental questionnaire responses) an increased incidence of sensed presences, anger, and sexual arousal. These effects were not reported by the other members of the pair who were exposed to the rotating magnetic fields or by the response persons who composed the random pairs of subjects for the reference (control) group. These studies were predicated on the concept that the magnetic field condition for one person was a type of stimulus while the response in the EEG for the other person (no field) was the consequence of this effect. Subsequent experiments, which were similar to the excess correlation experiments for photon-chemical reactions (Dotta and Persinger, 2012) and shifts in pH (Dotta et al, 2014), involved both loci or the brains of both participants in a pair being exposed to the same rotating magnetic fields around each of their heads. The demonstration of proof of principle involved a reliable shift in the intercorrelations of QEEG sensor data over the scalp for the “receiver” person sitting blind folded and wearing ear plugs in one room while the “stimulus” person sitting in a closed, acoustic chamber was exposed to a series of different frequency lights (Persinger et al, 2010). The changes in the intercorrelations in the response person’s brain when the stimulus person’s brain was being exposed to the light flashes occurred over the right posterior hemisphere. Dotta et al (2011) extended this study by measuring the photon emissions from the right hemisphere of the response person who was sitting in complete darkness while wearing one of the circular arrays of solenoids. When the stimulus person (also wearing the array of solenoids, was sitting in a closed acoustic chamber) was stimulated with light flashes the response person’s right hemisphere displayed an increase in photon flux density when measured at a distance of about 15 cm. The reversible increases and decreases of these ultraweak biophoton emissions from one person as a function of the light exposure to a second (stimulus) person in another room was within the range of 10-11 to 10-12 W·m-2. This effect only occurred if both the stimulus and response persons were wearing the solenoid arrays and were simultaneously exposed to rotational fields with changing angular velocities. The results suggested that when both loci, or both person A and B, were exposed to the specific parameter of circular rotating weak (microTesla) magnetic fields with changing angular velocities changes consistent with excess correlation were stronger and more likely to occur reliably. Estimated Magnitude of Energies Any mechanism that is involved with excess correlations between two brain loci separated by non-local distances should involve energies that reflect those that involve the processes that mediate the effect. Saroka and Persinger (2014) and Persinger and Saroka (2015) have shown that the basic frequency and the harmonics of the Schumann Resonance (7-8 Hz, 14 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 665 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Hz, 20-21, 26-27, 33-34, 39-40 Hz, etc) can be discerned within the spectral profiles of most human brain activity. Most all terrestrial organisms are immersed in these fields or their variants. The manifestation of the Schumann Resonances and the harmonics are more evident within the caudal portions of cerebral activity than more rostrally. The magnitudes of both the electric field and the magnetic field of human cerebral electroencephalographic activity are similar to those of the fundamental Schumann resonance. These values are in the range of mV per meter for the electric field and 1 to 2 picoTesla for the magnetic field. The Schumann resonance is primarily generated by global lightning strikes whose average incidence is about 44±5 Hz (Christian, et al, 2003) which is the median interval of the gamma frequency frequently associated with consciousness. The propagating field from a single lightning discharge returns to the source over the spherical guide in about 20 to 25 ms with a phase shift of 13 ms within this 7 to 9 Hz interval. As shown by Llinas and his colleagues (e. g., 1993) the recurrent 20 to 25 ms propagating waves that integrate large areas of the human cerebral cortices occurs between the rostral and caudal cerebrum. This particular pattern occurs predominately during waking and dream sleep but not during slow wave sleep. The phase modulation is about 12.5 ms. Even from a conservative electrophysiological perspective brain tissue displays a resonance frequency with a medium value in the 7 to 8 Hz range. According to traditional empirical measurements the permeability (inductance, L, per meter) of cortical grey matter at frequencies around 1 kHz is about 10-2 Henrys. This frequency (1 kHz) is equivalent to 1 ms which is the effective duration of the action potential of most neurons. The energy of a single action potential with this duration produced by the product of the shift in voltage and the unit charge is about 10-20 J which reflects both the magnitude and duration required to stack a base nucleotide upon the type of RNA sequence the produces the proteins that some neuroscientists consider the substrate of memory (Persinger, 2010). The permittivity value, C (capacitance), for grey matter is 2·10-1 F·m-1. Application of the classic formula: f=[√2π·(LC)-1/2)]-1 (1), results in about 7 Hz. The immersion of human brains within an electromagnetic pattern that shares peak spectral frequencies and electric and magnetic field intensities produces the condition for a pervasive diffusivity. The resistivity of the whole brain’s primary constituent (physiological water) is about 2 Ω·m. When multiplied by magnetic susceptibility (4π · 10-7 N·A-2) the resulting diffusivity is 1.7·106 m2·s-1. The median potential difference for QEEG activity per Hz is ~2·10-6 V (2 μV). When this value is divided by 1.7·106 m2 s-1 the equivalent magnetic field strength is about 10-12 T (pT). This is the value of the magnetic component of the Schumann Resonances. The convergence does not prove a variable that produces diffusivity is necessary for the similar strength magnetic field. However it suggests that a fundamental feature of space, magnetic permeability, with the exact conditions (extracellular fluid conductivity) within which a collection of neurons (a brain) interact could produce a conduit for this global interaction. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 666 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) The functional duration for all human brains immersed within a common medium to be potentially interconnected has been calculated to occur within about 8 to 9 min (Dotta and Persinger, 2012). Assuming the conductivity of physiological saline within each brain to be σ=0.5 S·m-1, the magnetic diffusivity would be 0.63·106 m2·s-1. If the surface area of each human cerebrum is assumed to be ~π·102 m2 the total surface area for 7 billion human brains would be 22·107 m2. When this value is divided by the magnetic diffusivity term the resulting value is 349 s or about 6 min (Persinger, 2013b). One interpretation is that if there was some factor that simultaneously integrated or “connected” all brains because they shared the same medium, such as the earth’s static magnetic field within which the Schumann patterns are embedded, then the time required for a change in one brain to affect any one or all of the other 7 billion brains would be about 6 min. This latency does not reveal the quantity of the effect being mediated. If ~10-20 J is associated with the excess correlation as a basic unit about 107 neurons each discharging around 10 Hz would be required to achieve the threshold for a percept where the person might be aware of the effect (Rouleau and Dotta, 2014). However if the demonstration by Houwelling and Brecht (2008) is applied and this magnitude of energy is sufficient to affect the overt response of an animal, an effect could occur without necessarily the awareness or perception of the effect. The phenomenon of “blind sight”, for example, involves adaptive responses during ambulation of technically blind people. fMRI data indicate that small numbers of occipital cortical neurons respond to the optic stimuli but the numbers are not sufficient to meet the threshold at which “conscious awareness” occurs. The conditions for the two similarities, from a signaling perspective, could be consistent with Lorentz’s Lemma which relates any two electromagnetic fields if: a) they are the same frequency, b) outside of the source, and c) in a linear isotropic medium. If we assume: 1) the two fields are the Schumann resonance generated between the surface of the earth and ionosphere by lightning and the cerebral resonance generated between the corona of the cortices and the multiform layer of the cerebrum by action potentials (Persinger, 2012), and, 2) the Schumann Resonance and cortical fields are harmonic in time, then: del·(Eb x Hs) = del·(Es x Hb) (1), where E refers to the electric field vector component, H is the magnetic field (A ·m-1) vector component and the subscripts refer to b (brain) and s (Schumann) sources. The aggregate is Watts per meter squared. For both the human and the Schumann Resonances, this value is ~10-12 W·m-2. This is also the power density emitted from the right hemisphere of subjects imagining white light while sitting in a hyper-dark environment (Dotta and Persinger, 2011; Dotta et al, 2012). As predicted by the Lorentz Lemma, Persinger and Saroka (2015) demonstrated real time intermittent coherence between the spectral power within the Schumann frequencies associated with the brain activity of 41 men and women and ionosphere measures. Transient coherence of spectral power densities with the first three modes (7-8 Hz, 13-14 Hz, 19-20 Hz) of the Schumann Resonance in real time were measured from local (measured in Sudbury) and distal (measured in Italy) stations. The duration of the coherence was for about 300 ms about twice per ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 667 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) min. This suggested that the “interface” interval between the global Schumann field within the spherical wave guide and each brain was once every ~30 s. Topographical map clusters indicated the domain of maximum coherence was within the right caudal hemisphere within the volume occupied by the parahippocampal gyrus. These clusters, associated with shifts of about 2 μV, became stable about 35 to 45 ms after the onset of the synchronizing event. During the first 10 to 20 ms the isoelectric lines shifted from clockwise to counterclockwise rotation. Persinger and Saroka (2015) concluded that the results were consistent with the congruence of the frequency, magnetic field intensity, voltage gradient, and phase shifts that are shared by the human brain and the earth-ionospheric spherical wave guide. The observation that the intermittent coherence for brain measures was similar for measurements of the Schumann values in Italy and within a few meters (locally) of where the brain activity was being measured suggested that coherence might occur any where on the planet for some individuals. This capacity might be considered a major antecedent variable for phenomena represented as “non-local”. There are multiple examples of measurements demonstrating the magnetic fields of the cognitive correlates of brain function and of the Schumann Resonance at the fundamental (7-8 Hz) are about 10-12 T and the electric field components are about 1 μV·m-1 to 1 mV·m-1. The Lorentz Lemma adds the dimension of radiant flux density. For the human brain with an average of 1 μV per 10 cm per Hz or 10-5 V·m-1 and current gradient of 1·10-6 V divided 2 Ω·m or 0.5·10-6 A·m-1, the flux power density would be about 5·10-12 W·m-2. This is the same order of magnitude as the photon flux density emitted from the earth and during human cognitions associated with imagination and thinking of white light when sitting in hyperdark settings (Dotta et al, 2012). The involvement of photons within a “macro-entanglement process” is expected from both theory and measurement because quantum phenomena manifested as discrete shifts of change in energy between electron shells is considered the bases of “entanglement”. A similar concept, employing a different perspective, has been developed by the extraordinary original thinker Pitkanen (2012; 2013; 2014). The Present Experiment The major limit of our DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Convertors) technology is that is not readily accessible to the population. We (St-Pierre and Persinger, 2006) have found that when a technology is too complex its application by others (Persinger and Koren 2005) is often erroneous because of the numbers of requirements for function. This leads to results that can be misinterpreted. What was required was equipment that: 1) could be easily constructed by the average person and 2) imitated or replicated the excess correlation effects we have found in the laboratory. Burke et al (2013) found that when a toroid was placed over the head (level of the temporal lobes) of each individual in a pair separated by about 400 km while each subject’s QEEG was being measured, LORETA profiles indicated excess correlation in the activity within the temporal lobes of both subjects when one of the pair was exposed to sound patterns. The effect was not observed with visual stimuli. The excess correlation also occurred only during the component of the experiment when the rotating magnetic fields were functioning in a decelerating manner that simulated the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 668 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) conditions in which double photon emissions were measured by Dotta and Persinger (2012). However in the Burke et al (2013) experiments the fields were generated from the programs within laptop computers to Arduino circuits that could be easily constructed. This meant that there was the potential for any person to construct the equipment with readily available components to replicate and extend this research. Rouleau et al (2014) employed the same double toroid and Ardueno system within which two containers of spring water were placed in order to verify that the arrangement produced the excess correlation in the pH shift that was reported for the DAC system by Dotta et al (2013b). Rouleau and his colleagues (2014) found that the excess correlation effect was discernable within the component of the presentation of the field that was most similar to the “entanglement” phase of the DAC studies. In addition Rouleau and Persinger (2015) later found that the intensity required to produce the effect associated with the activation of these counterclockwise, experimental rotating fields (0.3 mG) was a small decrease in intensity of the ambient geomagnetic field between 1 and 5 nT. This small diminishment occurred primarily in the eastwest direction or within the direction of the axial rotation of the earth. This small shift of 1 to 5 nT is not trivial. The change in magnetic energy for a shift of 5 nT within a cerebral volume of 10-3 m3 would be about 10-14 J, or, the mass equivalent of an electron. The convergence with the energy-mass relationship for an electron could be considered essential given the intricate connections between quantum photon emissions and absorptions and electron shells. In addition, the product of 1 to 5·10-9 kg·A-1·s-2 (T) and the rotational velocity (~4.5·102 m·s-1) at the latitudes in which our experiments were completed is in the order of 10-6 V·m-1. In other words a potential difference that occurs in the cerebral cortical fields of the human brain is coupled to the angular velocity of the earth itself for the same magnetic field intensities that characterize both the dynamic activity associated with the Schumann and human brain harmonics. The present experiment was designed to discern if excess correlation between pairs of two brains separated by the Atlantic Ocean would occur specifically during the effector component of the paired toroid design. In order to integrate all of the major themes and procedures that have been involved with previous experiments that pursued excess correlations over long distances without the participation of traditional senses, the design involved multiple operations for different types of cognitions, such as eyes open or closed, imagining sending or imaging receiving light, listening to either pulsed (6.5 Hz) or continuous tones, and field on or field off conditions. We appreciated that the demonstration for excess correlation between brain activities of two individuals separated by thousands of kilometers but who shared the “entanglement” magnetic fields would be embedded within the normal activity of the brain that reflected the behavioural contingencies and cognitive structuring of the experiment. These conditions were employed as reference points or comparator functions so that the effect size and strength of any evidence of excess correlation could be quantified. We also realized that an elegant, simple design would appeal to parsimony. However if consciousness is a complex, emergent phenomenon, then the opportunity for interactions of processes to occur was considered preferable. This required a more multivariate design. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 669 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) 2. Method Participants The participants (N=10) were 4 female and 6 male adults aged 23 to 57 years (mean age=33.5 years). During the experiment they were located in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada; Berlin, Germany; and Madrid, Spain. They were divided into Groups A and B and then paired by trial (e.g. A1 with B1, see Table 1). Group A (n=5, 3 female, 2 male, mean age= 30.4 yr) was the first to be cued to “send” while simultaneously Group B (n=5, 1 female, 4 male, mean age= 36.6 yr) was the first to be cued to “receive” white light, the active engagement conditions. Group A was also the first to receive the burst tone while Group B was first exposed to the single tone + silence, the passive engagement and “rest” conditions. Table 1. Designation of Participants in the TransAtlantic Entanglement Experiments Group A Group B Pair ID Sex Age Location ID Sex Age Location 1 A1 1 31 Sudbury B1 1 39 Berlin 2 A2 1 30 Sudbury B2 2 40 Berlin 3 A3 2 24 Sudbury B3 2 57 Madrid 5 A5 2 42 Berlin B5 2 23 Sudbury 6 A6 1 25 Berlin B6 2 24 Sudbury Procedure: TransAtlantic Entanglement Each pair of participants from Groups A and B completed a single trial of the paradigm in June 2015 between 16:00 to 19:00 UTC. Timing was precise (within 1 s) in order to facilitate synchronous measurements at distances exceeding 6000 km. At agreed upon times based on UTC, experimenters in the NRG Consciousness Research Laboratory located in Canada coordinated with out-bound experimenters located in Berlin, Germany and Madrid, Spain to complete the TransAtlantic measurements of Non-Local Entanglement. The orientation (facing) of the pairs (A and B, respectively) were: N-N, E-E, S-E, N-SE, and N-NW. The participants completed a demographics questionnaire and pre-test profile of mood states (POMS-SF) after which the experimenters applied the 19 channel (Mitsar EEG-201) quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) for continuous measurement during the 42 minute paradigm, as well as the toroid systems for the field application, to each participant in the pairing. Stop watches for pairs of Group A and B measures were synchronized by the experimenters (to the second) via video-teleconferencing (Skype). Once watches were synchronized and a start time was determined (~5 min from synchronization), communication between experimenters was ended and the participants were each read verbatim a script describing cuing instructions for the paradigm (see Appendix A). The participants were informed that the entire experiment, except for baseline measures, would be completed with eyes closed, and that verbal cues to send-receive would be followed by rest conditions cued by audible tones. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 670 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Table 2. Flow diagram of the temporal components of QEEG data extracted for analyses and the operations within each component. # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Condition EO-pre EC-pre Rest S-R R-S Rest S-R R-S Rest S-R R-S Field No field Primer Field Effector Field (I) # 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Condition Rest S-R R-S Rest S-R R-S Rest S-R R-S EC-post EO-post Field Effector Field (II) No Field The experiment began with a 6 min baseline (3 min eyes opened then 3 min eyes closed) followed by a 1 min “rest” period, the onset of which was signaled by an audio cue (either burst tone or single tone + silence, for Groups A and B respectively). The carrier tone was 220 Hz while the pulsation of that tone was 6.5 Hz. Next Group A was cued to “send” while simultaneously Group B was cued to “receive” (condition S-R) for a duration of 2 min, after which the pairs switched (Group A receives while Group B sends, condition R-S) for another 2 min. Following this first block of send/receive conditions, the second 1 min “rest” period was cued and Group A received the single tone + silence while Group B receives the burst tone. The conditions alternated for a set of 6 send/receive + rest repetitions. The magnetic field application was initiated through the Toroid + Arduino system at the start of the second rest period, 11 min into the paradigm, following one full trial of both passive and active engagement conditions (Rest, S-R, R-S), for a total duration of 20 min, involving 2 different magnetic field patterns. The second trial of entanglement conditions was completed during exposure to the first pattern, a counter-clockwise decelerating magnetic field pattern (minutes 11 to 17, for 6 min total). At the end of the third rest period (min 17) the second field pattern was initiated. It was a counter-clockwise accelerating magnetic field. Send/Receive trials 3-5 were completed during the accelerating field exposure, from minute 17 to 31 in the full paradigm and minutes 6 to 20 within the magnetic field exposure time. The fields were turned off at the start of the 6th and final rest period, at minute 31. The participants completed trial 6 of the send/receive paradigm postfield exposure before completing a 6 min post-experimental baseline measure (3 min eyes closed and 3 min eyes open). The participants completed the POMS (Profile of Mood States) before the beginning and at the end of the 22 sequences (42 min). Table 3. Locations of the pairs of subjects and the estimated distances of separation. City Sudbury, Canada Berlin, Germany Madrid, Spain ISSN: 2153-8212 Longitude Latitude UTC 46.49° N 52.52° N 40.40° N 81.01° W 13.38° E 3.68° E UTC-5 UTC+1 UTC+1 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. Distance (km) to Sudbury 0 6341 6019 www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 671 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Quantitative EEG Data The continuous data, spanning a total of 2520 sec, from each of the 19 channels for each of the pairs were extracted from WINEEG Software and imported into MATLAB for synchronization by pair. This allowed for artifact removal from paired data without compromising the synchrony of the measurements. The continuous synchronized data were then segmented into the 22 conditions (Table 2), from pre to post baseline. Segmented data were then spectral analyzed into 8 band ranges from delta to gamma (1.5-4.5, 4.5-7.5, 7.5-10, 10-13, 13-20, 20-25, 25-30, 30-44 Hz) and imported into SPSS Windows for further analyses. The segmented data were also entered into a series of coherence analyses within MATLAB comparing 19 x 19 channels within each pair, from A1 to B1, etc., across the 8 frequency bins. 3. Equipment Toroid & Arduino The devices consisted of identical torus-shaped coils coupled to identical microcontrollers receiving synchronized signal-generating procedures from separate laptop computers. Previous studies have shown that this configuration induced a stimulus-response pattern in human participants such that quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG) activity associated with stimuli presented to an individual at location A was effectively displayed for a second, stimulus-naïve individual at location B where the paired participants were separated by over 300 km (Burke et al., 2013). Additionally, discrete pH shifts were recorded in coupled beakers of spring water such that the injection of a proton donor at location A (decrease in pH) was associated with reliable increases in pH (more alkaline) at location B where the paired beakers were separated by 1 meter (Rouleau, Carniello, & Persinger, 2014). Figure 1. A plastic crotchet ring (A) before and after (B) copper wrapping. The coil is covered in black vinyl electrical tape. Each coil consisted of a plastic ring with a diameter of 25.4 cm, wrapped in a single layer of 16 gauge insulated copper wire for a total of 225 turns around the 79.8 cm circumference (Figure 1). This toroid, fastened to the head by an elastic cap, was plugged into a solderless ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 672 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) breadboard equipped with the basic circuit seen in Figure 2. The details, including schematic representation, were specified by Rouleau & Persinger (2015). Figure 2. Components of the circuit disassembled (A) and assembled (B). The solderless breadboard and coupled coil received pulsed current from an Arduino Uno R3 Microcontroller (as seen in Figure 2). Two pulse patterns were coded within the Arduino 1.0.6 software interface. The Primer pattern consisted of 7 all-or-none 3 ms point potentials which continuously looped, separated by incrementally longer inter-stimulus intervals beginning with 20 ms and increasing by 2 ms for every pulse, recycling back to 20 ms after the 7-pulse sequence. The 3 ms point duration was selected on the bases of calculations by Persinger and Koren (2007), derived from the Hubble parameter, for the time required for a proton to expand one Planck’s Length. The Effector pattern involved the same all-or-none potentials. However, the inter-stimulus intervals between points starting with 20 ms decreased by 2 ms for every pulse. The code is partially displayed in Figure 3 whereas 2D representations of the pulse patterns are provided in Figure 4. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 673 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 3. Arduino code for the Primer (left) and Effector (right) pulse patterns. Once the fields were initiated, the duration of the whole exposure procedure was 20 minutes. The first field (Primer) was presented for 360 s and immediately followed by the second field (Effector), which was presented for 840 s. Rouleau and Persinger (2015) have reported that the electromagnetic fields generated within the center of the coils outputting these pulse patterns undergo 1-5 nT diminishments within the East-West horizontal axis referenced to Magnetic North as recorded by a MEDA FVM-400 Vector Magnetometer. A power frequency unit indicated that the strength of the pulsed magnetic fields rotating around the toroids averaged 30 nT (0.3 mG). This was the intensity that produced the largest excess correlation in the pH studies that employed this equipment. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 674 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 4. Primer (top) and Effector (bottom) pulse patterns as specified by the code. Each diamond represents a 1 ms point. Note that each pulse duration was 3 ms. The field exposure procedure subsequent to cap application and antecedent psychometric data collection can be summarized succinctly. First, the participant was fitted with the toroid over the head (Figure 5). The participant then sat still in a comfortable chair while baseline QEEG recordings were obtained. The Primer pattern was initiated upon the 11th minute of the trial by plugging in the USB cord which connected the laptop to the microcontroller. Synchronization of this step across both locations was accomplished by strict adherence to presynchronized time keeping devices and the experimental schedules that accompanied them. Once connected by the USB cord, the microcontroller, breadboard, and coil drew power from the laptop. After 360 s had elapsed, the Effector pattern was initiated manually using the Arduino 1.0.6 software. Once uploaded, the Effector pattern cycled for 840 s. The field was terminated by unplugging the USB cord, thereby removing the power source of the device. QEEG recording continued until the 42nd minute of the experiment had elapsed. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 675 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 5. Schematic of the experimental equipment. 4. Results and Discussion Expected Activities of Local Behaviours (Within Subject Brain Correlations) In order to compare any statistically significant effects for the shared hemispheric correlations between subject (non-local) effects we measured the magnitude of intercorrelations between hemispheres within subjects, i.e., within the same brain. Table 4 shows the global power in μV for each person’s left and right hemisphere as well as the net difference in power and the equivalent voltage when the eyes were opened. There were baseline differences in the two Mitsar boxes employed in the experiments. This is shown by yellow and grey color. However the net differences in voltage between the persons’ left and right hemisphere were comparable for the two instruments. Table 4. Global Power for the Left and Right Hemispheres of the 10 participants during eyes open conditions as well as the net difference in power and equivalent in microVolts. Yellow vs grey reflects the intrinsic characteristics of the two Mitsar devices. Eyes Open Global Power Converted to µV Left Global Right Global Net Difference Net Difference Power Power in Power in µV 49.22 50.58 1.36 7.236 24.57 23.44 1.13 6.595 19.8 21.95 2.15 9.098 25.55 28.53 2.98 10.711 30.53 37.44 6.91 16.310 8.64 6.9 1.74 8.184 4.44 4.6 0.16 2.481 3.07 3.32 0.25 3.102 12.28 8.48 3.8 12.095 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 676 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) 6.49 8.29 1.8 8.324 Table 5 also shows the global power differences and net changes when the subject’s eyes were closed. The net increase in μV global power when the eyes were closed was typical for the normal person and representative of what we have measured in the last approximately 500 subjects assessed with this technology. A separate analyses by another one of the authors showed that the average increase in global spectral power was about 5 to 10 μV higher during phases 2 through 21 of the experiment when the subjects’ eyes were closed compared to the pre (phase 1) and post (phase 22) baselines whose average was 20 and 16 μV respectively. Table 5. Global power for the left and right hemispheres for all 10 participants during the eyes closed conditions as well as the net differences in power between the hemispheres in microVolts. Yellow vs grey indicates the two Mitsar devices. Eyes Closed Global Power Converted to µV Left Global Right Global Net Difference Net Difference Power Power in Power in µV 5.6 6.05 0.45 4.162 5.51 4.31 1.2 6.797 3.22 3.69 0.47 4.253 11.44 8.96 2.48 9.771 7.36 7.17 0.19 2.704 38.62 40.6 1.98 8.730 50.7 44.26 6.44 15.741 29.28 34.97 5.69 14.800 36.31 41.66 5.35 14.351 81.42 99.65 18.23 26.493 The interhemispheric correlations for each subject across the phases of the experiment are shown in Figure 6. Because these measures reflected the intrasubject correlation of activity across hemispheres the expected near 1.00 values were expected. The coefficients for the 10 subjects per phase ranged between r=0.97 to r=0.99. From a neurofunctional perspective, the inter-correlations between the individuals’ own lobes is significant. As seen in Figures 7 thorugh 10 the individual lobes are strongly intercorrelated. Although T3 (left) and T4 (right) sensors were least correlated and accommodated only 77% of the shared variance compared to the other examples (> 90% of shared variance), the effect is not statistically significant because of the sample size (n=10). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 677 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 6. Within subject correlation between the magnitudes of the global power within the left and right hemisphere of the same brain for the 10 participants Figure 7. Correlation (r=0.88) between T3 and T4 global power for each person’s brain (n=10) during eyes opened conditions. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 678 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 8. Correlation (r=0.95) between T3 and T4 global power for each person’s brain (n=10) during eyes closed conditions Figure 9. Correlation (r=0.99) between global power between the left and right frontal sensors for each person’s brain during eyes closed condition. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 679 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 10. Correlation (0.99) between global power between the left and right occipital sensors within each person’s brain during eyes closed condition. Excess Correlation Patterns Between Subjects at a Distance: Global Power The same methods of comparisons were completed for correlations of global power values between each pairs left hemisphere and right hemisphere even though they were separated by more than 6,000 km. During the Effector field sequence of the EMF exposure, statistically significant increased coherence of global spectral power density across right hemispheric sensors equivalent to a correlation coefficient of .88 could be discerned, explaining approximately 77% of the variance (Figure 11). Spectral power densities were highly correlated over F4 (r= .95, p<.05; rho= .90, p<.05) and T4 (r= .97, p<.01; rho= .90, p<.05), which were the sensors located over the right frontal and right anterior temporal areas. Removing pairs systematically from the analysis revealed that a cluster of significant non-parametric correlation coefficients could be identified for right hemispheric global power during the second half of the Effector field sequence, continuing somewhat after the termination of the field (p<.05). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 680 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 11. Correlation coefficients plotted overtime indicative of the strength of the association between paired right (light circle; dotted line) and paired left (dark circle; full line) hemispheric global spectral power densities. EO indicates baseline with eyes open, EC indicates baseline with eyes closed, L indicates white light visualization, and T indicates paired tone presentations. Correlation coefficients presented in Figure 12 were loaded and chunked into 5 experimental sequences across time: Pre-Baseline (n=5), Primer (n=4), Effector 1 (n=4), Effector 2 (n=4), and Post-Baseline (n=5). An ANOVA revealed that correlation coefficients indicative of the strength of the association between global spectral power density over right hemispheric sensors of paired participants differed as a function of sequence, F(4,21)= 3.83, p<.05, η2= .47. Left sensors did not demonstrate the effect after Bonferroni correction (p<.05). Post-hoc analyses revealed two homogenous subsets where the primary source of variance was accommodated by differences in the correlation coefficients during Effector 2 (M= .74, SE= .10) relative to PreBaseline (M= .34, SE= .09), t(7)= 2.84, p<.05, r2= .53. During the second half of the Effector field sequence (Effector 2), correlation coefficients indicative of the strength of the association between global spectral power density measures across QEEG channels for paired participants differed as a function of channel, F(7,31)= 21.90, p<.001, η2=.86. As visualized in Figure 13, the weak association between paired right occipital sensors (O2) relative to all other sensor pairs was the major source of variance (p<.001). However, it should be noted that further differences among the remaining sensors were identified. Increased average correlation coefficients were noted for paired T6 sensors (M= .90, SE= .04) relative to paired C4 sensors (M= .74, SE= .05, t(6)= 2.51, p<.05, r2= .51). Similarly, correlation coefficients were increased for paired F4 sensors (M= .92, SE= .03) relative to paired C4 sensors, t(6)= 3.21, p<.05, r2=.63. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 681 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) Figure 12. Average correlation coefficient indicative of the strength of the association between global spectral power density for sensors over the left (dark) and right (light) hemispheres for paired individuals. Figure 13. Average correlation coefficients indicative of the strength of the association between global spectral power densities displayed at sensors over the right hemisphere for paired individuals during the second half of the Effector sequence (Effector 2). Figure 14 shows mean differences between correlation coefficients associated with μV from the left and right hemispheric sensors. These computed values, with their measures of dispersion, are indicative of the magnitude of the global spectral power density coherence disparity between the left and right hemispheres of the paired individuals over the course of the experiment. This was accomplished by subtracting left-hemisphere-associated correlation coefficients from right-hemisphere-associated correlation coefficients. An ANOVA revealed that ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 682 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) this measure differed as a function of the sequence of the experiment, F(4,21)= 4.83, p<.01, η2=.53. The source of the variance associated was an increased value for this metric associated with the Post-Baseline (M= .37, SE= .06) relative to the Effector 1 sequence (M= .11, SE= .03) at the point of inflection, t(7)= -3.52, p=.01, r2= .64. Figure 14. Difference scores obtained by subtracting correlation coefficients indicative of the strength of the association between global power spectral densities for sensors over the left hemisphere of paired individuals from those displayed over the right hemisphere as a function of the sequence of the experiment. Excess Correlations Between Subjects at a Distance: Intrahemispheric and Interhemispheric Coherence The mean coherence values for the five pairs of participants over the blocks of the protocol for power within the theta and gamma bands between the left and right hemisphere for each of the four lobes indicated that the only major significant and obvious effects involved the temporal lobes. These bands are the predominant interaction mode between the hippocampal formation and cerebral cortices (Bear, 1996; Whitman et al, 2013). The other frequency bands, delta, alpha-1, alpha-2, beta-1, and beta-2 did not exhibit any significant coherence differences across the phases of the experiment for the shared hemispheric activity for the pairs of participants. The parietal, occipital and frontal regions did not show this effect during the effector field period. There was a marginally significant increase in coherence over the right prefrontal regions for gamma activity during the beginning of the experiment when the instructions were given and individuals were concentrating accordingly. The conspicuous effect of changed coherence between the more rostral left (T3) and right (T4) temporal lobes as a function of the phase of the experiment and type of magnetic field configuration is shown in Figure 15. During the effector field only there were statistically ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 683 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) significant (as inferred by the absence of overlap of the SEMs) and transient diminishments of the coherence of power within the theta bands between the right temporal lobes of the pairs of individuals separated by ~6000 km. This was not evident for the left temporal region for this frequency band or for the theta band for either temporal lobe. The specificity of the (right) temporal lobe (and not other lobes) and the gamma band (compared to all other bands) strongly suggests the effect was not simply an artifact of direct exposure to the simultaneously applied toroidal fields. This effect was also not apparent during the primer fields, which also strongly indicates the effect was not due to simply shared magnetic fields. The diminishment was from a right temporal (person 1) to right temporal (person 2) value of 0.15 to 0.10 or a shift of 0.05. For comparison the typical correlations between spike counts from groups of individual neurons in cortical networks range between 0.1 to 0.3 (Ecker et al, 2010). Figure 15. Mean coherence between the left temporal (T3) and right (T4) temporal sensors for the pairs for the theta and gamma band. The only statistically significant differences occurred during the entanglement (effector) stage associated with the depression for right theta coherence. Vertical bars indicate SEMs. A similar effect was noted only during the effector field condition for the region of the more caudal portion of the temporal lobes (T5, T6). However in this region the diminishment of interbrain coherence during the latter portion of the effector phase occurred for both the left and right hemisphere. It is relevant that these two surface sensor positions are most strongly correlated with activity within the parahippocampal gyrus. The parahippocampal gyrus is the general region by which interactions between the two hippocampuses are mediated through the dorsal hippocampal commissure. It is located in the rostral portion of the splenium of the corpus ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | pp. 658-684 684 Scott, M. A., Rouleau, N., Lehman, B. S., Tessaro, W. E., Juden-Kelly, L. M., Saroka, K. S. & Persinger, M. A., Experimental Production of Excess Correlation across the Atlantic Ocean of Right Hemispheric Theta-Gamma Power between Subject Pairs Sharing Circumcerebral Rotating Magnetic Fields (Part I) callosum. The dorsal hippocampal commissure in the human being mediates information between the hippocampal formations within the left and right hemisphere without processing through the neocortices. Consequently memory modifications can occur without self-awareness. Figure 16. Mean coherence between the left temporal (T5) and right (T6) temporal lobes for each pair (separated by 6000 km) for the power within the gamma and theta band over the various conditions of the experiment. The only statistically significant differences occurred during the entanglement (Effector II) stage. Vertical bars indicate SEMs. (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

749 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 749-751 Kaufman, S. E., Intelligence Realization Intelligence Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT What is true intelligence? No one can really say, because true intelligence is non-conceptual, and so beyond words. What is the true source of intelligence? That too cannot really be spoken, because the true source of intelligence is also non-conceptual, and so also beyond words. Key Words: intelligence, non-conceptual, thought. When it is thought that thinking is the height of intelligence then true intelligence is lost. When it is thought that the mind is the source of intelligence then the true source of intelligence becomes obscured. What is true intelligence? No one can really say, because true intelligence is non-conceptual, and so beyond words. What is the true source of intelligence? That too cannot really be spoken, because the true source of intelligence is also non-conceptual, and so also beyond words. And so true intelligence and the true source of intelligence are not two different things, but are one thing that is not a thing. *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 750 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 749-751 Kaufman, S. E., Intelligence And what is this one thing that is not a thing that is both true intelligence and the true source of intelligence? What sees when the sun rises, and hears when the bird sings? What feels love when the heart is open, or hate when the heart is closed? What knows when the mind thinks? That alone is both true intelligence and the true source of intelligence. And that alone is what you truly Are. What you truly Are cannot be known through the intermediary of form. But what you truly Are can be Known directly, as That by which all form is known. What is seen when the sun rises, or heard when the bird sings, or felt when the heart is open or closed, or thought when the mind thinks, are all forms. What you truly Are is not that, is not a form. What you truly Are is the formless Consciousness that knows all those forms, and on occasion, mistakes Itself for the forms it knows. What you truly Are is not the word Consciousness, for that too is but a concept, and so is also a form, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 751 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 749-751 Kaufman, S. E., Intelligence and so is not what you truly Are. What you truly are is the formless Isness that is pointed toward through the use of the word Consciousness, and through the use of the words formless Isness. The formless Isness that sees the sun rise, that hears the bird sing, that feels love or hate, and knows what the mind thinks, even when It does not Know Itself, even when It has obscured Itself, as a result of knowing itself to be a form, as a result of knowing itself to be what is seen, and heard, and felt, and thought. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Consciousness is Pattern-Recognition: A Proof Copyright Ray Van De Walker 2016, Licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International License, as specified at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Author: rgvandewalker –at- yahoo –dot- com orcid:0000-0001-9072-7390 Abstract: This is a proof of the strong AI hypothesis, i.e. that machines can be conscious. It is a phenomenological proof that pattern-recognition and subjective consciousness are the same activity in different terms. Therefore, it proves that essential subjective processes of consciousness are computable, and identifies significant traits and requirements of a conscious system. Since Husserl, many philosophers have accepted that consciousness consists of memories of logical connections between an ego and external objects. These connections are called "intentions." Pattern recognition systems are achievable technical artifacts. The proof links this respected introspective philosophical theory of consciousness with technical art. The proof therefore endorses the strong AI hypothesis and may therefore also enable a theoreticallygrounded form of artificial intelligence called a "synthetic intentionality," able to synthesize, generalize, select and repeat intentions. If the pattern recognition is reflexive, able to operate on the intentions, and flexible, with several methods of synthesizing intentions an SI may be a particularly strong form of AI. Similarities and possible applications to several AI paradigms are discussed. The article then addresses some problems: The proof’s limitations, reflexive cognition, Searles' Chinese room, and how an SI could "understand" "meanings" and “be creative.” This paper directly proves the “strong AI hypothesis” that consciousness is computable. Also, this proof describes critical features of the algorithms of consciousness, which may help practical AI development and testing. One problem with any such proof is that conventional tests of consciousness are subjective, thus the proof must be at least half phenomenal. The required phenomenal analysis seems to have stymied many researchers. I'd like to describe the proof that persuaded me. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so as far as I know, it is original. Briefly, a philosophically respectable position is that consciousness is always consciousness… Of. Some. Thing. There is a substantial body of philosophy, Phenomenology, which studies the connection between a perceiver, and the object, i.e. the meaning of that critical little word "of." Phenomenology is often defined as the study of experience. Some evidence that phenomenology may be relevant to AI is that by 1930, phenomenologists had uncovered the complexity of natural human intelligence. They recoiled in horror at the "vast field of toilsome discoveries" of which logic, mathematics and epistemology were small parts.1 This is clearly parallel with more-modern experiences in practical AI. Edmund Husserl, who cast phenomenology in its modern terms, describes a consciousness as a memory or stream of experience of the logical connections (or “intentions”) between an "ego" and other things.2 His proof and evidence is widely respected by philosophers, and is beyond the scope of this paper. Intentions (connections between things and an ego) include perception, belief, observation, desire, communication and will. All of these are described as "of," "with," "about" or "to." In people, intentions seem to occur about 10 times per second. Husserl claims that consciousness consists of sequential memories of intentions. If Husserl's proofs are right, the practice of strong AI should be phenomenological engineering: The design of consciousness is the design of intentions between a self and objects, recorded in a memory. If the connection between ego and object is an “intention,” then a mechanism that synthesizes intentions would be a “synthetic intentionality,” or “SI.” To make a rigorous proof, a basic research tool of phenomenology is needed, an introspective mental operation called "bracketing." The name is from the idea of putting some part of one’s experience into “brackets,” and mentally pretending that it and its logical consequences don't exist. Bracketing is essential to the proof that follows. In phenomenal experiments, one brackets some part of one's experience, and then observes how one's experience would be different. The really unique thing about phenomenal experiments is that they require no equipment and little preparation. So, they're actually better than logic for making a proof. With logic, one has to start from agreed premises. Phenomenal truths are objective because they're so easy for individuals to reproduce. The utility of bracketing is that one can examine the conceptual structure of one's experiences in detail. For example, one can bracket the color or smell of an apple, and it still can be an apple. One cannot bracket "edibility" in an apple, and retain "appleness." If one does, then a moist wax model of an apple becomes phenomenally equivalent to a real apple. This shows the interesting fact that edibility is part of the mental concept of an apple. Briefly: The proof uses bracketing to analyze the "object-ground" problem. Briefly, this problem asks: "What's an ‘object’?" and, "How do people separate objects from backgrounds?" One way to investigate this is to bracket all objects. This experiment has the interesting effect that what’s left is ground, mere qualia (or “sense data”). There are some further interesting side-effects. When I do this, I have to remove all thought from consideration, because thinking is precisely "about" "things." In order to think, or apparently to do anything “conscious,” people have to make logical connections between things, that is, "objects," and themselves, their “ego.” It occurred to me that the process of synthesizing intentions, i.e. separating “objects” from the “ground” was precisely the problem that AI researchers call "pattern recognition." That is, pattern recognition is consciousness. Therefore, since pattern recognition can be computed, then consciousness can also be computed. That is, the “strong AI hypothesis” is confirmed. The identity of consciousness and pattern recognition has already been recognized by many AI researchers, but the lemma that it proves computability of consciousness has been neglected. A more detailed phenomenal analysis yields not only a more rigorous proof, but also identifies essential features of consciousness and its necessary algorithms. Here's the details: For an example to generalize from, let's imagine a very simple pattern recognition program. Let's say that it finds square-shaped patches of zeros in a square array of numbers. I am sure that this is within the state of the art, because I could program it myself. This might even be useful, if the array of numbers was from a video camera, or had mathematical interest. Now, for lemma A, let’s bracket each piece of consciousness as it is found in the pattern recognition program. Lemma A1: If one brackets the program’s concept of “objects” a square can’t be recognized, because it’s an object. The logical consequences, i.e. the variables identifying it, must be removed from consideration, and therefore from usage. The bracketed program cannot perform its function. Lemma A2: If one brackets the program's connection between the concept of square, and a position in the array, the logical consequences, i.e. the variables owned by the program that identify or locate the square, must be removed from consideration, and therefore from usage. The bracketed program cannot perform its function. Lemma A3: If one brackets the concept of a “recognizer” (i.e. an ego) from the program, then the purpose and meanings of the program’s outputs are lost, and therefore the program can’t perform its function. It might still produce data, something like “qualia,” perhaps, but never information. (Note that qualia as such lack memory, ego and a logical connection, and are not enough to produce consciousness.) Lemma A4: If one brackets the program's memory of such a connection, the justification for any belief is not available. The program may produce data, but there is no evidence from it. In particular, there’s no way to decide that some sense-data is or was a square. Again, the progam can’t perform its function. Lemma A, Evidence: I think it’s clear that almost all pattern recognition programs would have similar issues, if the parts of consciousness were bracketed in similar very general ways. There might be pathological cases that don’t reduce, but they will be remarkably interesting in their own right for their very peculiar properties. These special cases might be ways to produce exceptionally stable synthetic intentions, or especially low-cost or well-performing implementations. For the general case, Lemma A shows that bracketing significant parts of consciousness in a pattern recognition program causes the pattern recognition program to fail to recognize. It is no longer a "pattern recognition" program. These parts are essential, that is, required by definition. Lemma A, Conclusion: Thus, by eliminating the concepts which are essential to consciousness: Any of: objects, the connection, the former of the connection or the memory of the connection, one eliminates the equally essential parts of pattern recognition. Lemma B, Evidence: Now, for lemma B, let’s bracket pattern recognition from consciousness. Imagine, a human being, someone who is indisputably conscious, such as yourself. Bracket your pattern recognition. That is, pretend to yourself that "everything which was logically dependent on pattern recognition" ceased to exist. Lemma B1: One will discover that one cannot recognize any objects in such a state; Consciousness is removed from consideration because it forms intentions with (logical connections to) objects. Lemma B2: Further, the intentions, the logical connections are gone as well. There are no recognized objects to which they can attach. Tellingly, even Husserl’s “transcendentally pure consciousness” (when one’s consciousness is conscious only of itself) is removed from consideration, because one must recognize one’s own consciousness as being different from the other items of one’s mental landscape. Lemma B3: In this state, there may be sense-data, so-called “qualia,” but there is no narrative, even as a sequence of connected mental pictures. In a real sense, formation of an observation is impossible, and therefore there is no observer (i.e. no ego). Arguably, the consciousness itself does not exist in this state. That is, there is no consciousness, in a different way. (Qualia as such are not sufficient to identify consciousness.) Lemma B4: Memory becomes impossible, because recognition experiences objects in time and space. When recognition is removed from consideration, space, sequence and time are also removed from consideration. Memories depend on these, and are also removed from consideration. Why do I consider time and space essential items for memory? Well, a simple example is food. If you remember food, the memory is utterly useless unless you can use the memory to get the food. Arguably, such a mental phenomenon without time and location is so useless that it’s not a memory. This is rather a weak spot. Often people substitute a discovery procedure for a reliable memory. We look for restaurants on the street or net, or use a cook-book or phone-book. However, I would argue then that what we are responding to is not a memory, but a hope, and we’re trying to convert the hope into a plan. This may eventually turn into a memory, but it simply isn’t one yet. Lemma B Conclusion: All the items of consciousness are removed from consideration when pattern recognition is bracketed. Main lemma, combining A & B: The logic: If not A implies not B and not B implies not A, then B implies A and A implies B. That is, A and B are biconditionally equivalent. Restated: The items A and B have the same logical effects in different terms. By this logic, pattern recognition in objective technical terms has the same effects as consciousness, in different, subjective terms. Therefore, since many forms of pattern recognition are computable, then parallel forms of subjective consciousness are also computable and viceversa. An even more detailed phenomenal examination may yield more insight about how to implement more human-like AIs. But, there’s enough to move forward. Also, useful SIs might not need to resemble human cognition much. So, let’s speculate about how to apply these logical identities. A memorized sequence of intentions, what we subjectively call an “experience,” might be selectively replayed by a synthetic intentionality as it uses its pattern recognition to unify a sequential graph of intentions with its sense-data. With simple feedback and some reflexive processes, a synthetic intentionality might select its sequence of intentions to search for and repeat subjective experiences. That is, given feedback equivalent with the qualia of pain and pleasure, and a method to find and replay intentions, a synthetic intentionality can have an experience that is subjectively equivalent to learning. A fruitful application of an automaton's pattern recognition might be to reflexively apply pattern recognition to its own memories and internal operations. In this way it could even learn to improve its general problem-solving methods. An SI requires only one data structure, a graph of “intentions.” Intentions can be passive or active, because the type of connection (between ego and object) of an intention can vary. Also the data structure of intentions is finite, closed, defined by the hardware (input, output and reflexive) that the SI is designed to operate. Given full reflexive access, an SI might even be able to compile intentions into optimized code for its CPU or other computational substrate. That is, in subjective terms, continuing effort by a programmer is not needed for a synthetic intentionality to learn by experience and improve itself. When intentionally-guided pattern recognition failed, a synthetic intentionality could fall back to evolutionary searches for intentional sequences,5 Bayesian-guided searches of a stochastic space of intentional sequences, or, when lacking data, even random generation and recording of intentions. The result could be a very strong form of AI, whose intentions, intentional sequences and later algorithms are not limited by its starting algorithms. These might be intentional, literally conscious improvements. However, if unconscious methods were used (e.g. evolution of intentional graphs) these unconscious reflexive processes might occur in a subjective experience like sleep, to avoid interference with real senses and effectors during the reorganization of the intentions. We’d expect successes in AI systems that resemble synthetic intentionalities (SIs), and failures as they depart from that model. The canonical form of a synthetic intentionality might synthesize and store a database describing a graph of intentions, then apply pattern recognition to realia to select a graph or intentions to predict the future in a limited way and cope with the future. This canonical form might be useful in some applications: Explicit reasoning such as mathematical proofs, heuristic descriptions, knowledge transfer, etc. A synthetic intentionality thus resembles a frame-based4 AI, except that an SI fixes some of frames’ practical issues by using explicit pattern recognition to automatically provide new frames, linkage between frames and data, and other context. An SI is amenable to genetic programming5 with the advantage that an SI’s provensufficient, defined-by-I/O data structure removes any necessity to manually design new data structures. A compact, fast, parallel implementation of an SI might be neuromorphic. It could be like Hawkins’ hierarchal temporal memory6 (an HTM has hierarchies of stochastic forwardpredicting state-machines.) As in an HTM, a hierarchy can multiply a (relatively) small number of intentional graphs (thousands) into many distinct intentions, economically yielding trainable, flexible, adaptive behavior. However, an SI’s reflexive consciousness (i.e. “imagination” or “abstraction”) could speed learning compared to the unconscious training of current HTMs. Also, the canonical form of SIs may permit direct design of HTMs, given some translation from canonical to HTM. Conversion between an easily analyzable database of intentions and a neuromorphic implementation might be by something like Tononi’s integrative process(es), that produce transition probability matrices.8 This would permit a-somatic design or training of SIs. A reverse elaborative process would decompile neural or neuromorphic data into a graph of intentions, permitting transfer, design, functional composition, optimization and synthesis of SIs. This proof and its schemes have some issues. First, the proof has reasonably clear limitations in its fidelity because of its incompleteness and unrealistic simplicity. As to completeness, the proof may fail to describe many parts of human consciousness. But, many major, subjective tests of consciousness will be satisfied, because the proof leverages decades of research in phenomenology. Also, it’s not reasonable to expect humans and machines to have identical consciousnesses without targeted research and development. The actual complexity of subjective phenomena and implementations may prevent high fidelity in basic implementations. However, R&D can improve a practical implementation’s fidelity until it’s valuable in practice. A theoretical problem is to define "pattern recognition" well enough to implement an SI. Ideally, such a definition would be mathematically complete, closed over all possible experiences of the SI. However, since the SI is computable, this seems to require that the SI’s mental system be both consistent and self-proving, which Gödel proved is likely impossible. Luckily, we have examples of pattern recognition. Using these, phenomenological engineers can build SIs without a general definition. The story here would be something like, “Smarter SIs will recognize more items and types of items, and therefore smarter SIs will have expanded forms of consciousness.” This puts SI design into a continuum of technique by which SIs can be improved like any other technical artifact. Eventually a limited theory of pattern recognition may be possible, and bring many improvements. But, can an SI possibly be conscious? Many philosophers argue that computers are "syntactic," that is, they perform only symbol manipulation. Then these philosophers prove that consciousness is nonsymbolic, and therefore "can't be performed by computers." This is Searle’s “Chinese room.”9 Searle is qualitatively right. Pattern recognition, therefore consciousness, is generally an analog process. That is, its inputs are smoothly varying quantities from sensors that interact with some nonsymbolic "real world." However, there’s no profound problem in turning those quantities into streams of numbers and processing the numbers. Electrical engineers frequently use "digital signal processing" in place of analog circuitry. It works well. Almost all digitally-recorded music “sounds like music.” Even when it goes wrong, it sounds like “badly recorded” music. There are technical deficiencies in digitization, but they are well-understood sources of error, characterized mathematically using the “Z transform” to manage “sampling error,” “quantization error” and “frequency response.” The "non-syntactic" nature of consciousness thus seems amenable to normal engineering tradeoffs between the costs and convenience of digital and analog designs. Just design the desired pattern recognition algorithm. Then use the cheaper of analog or digital implementation. Reflexivity is also an issue. It’s common to believe that only a conscious being can perceive meaning. So, “recognizing concepts” is at the core of consciousness. Some philosophers still argue about whether one can recognize a concept. But, the proof says that consciousness and pattern recognition have identical consequents, so if one can be “conscious of” a concept, one can “recognize” it. So, the existence of the philosophers' argument itself indicates that people can be conscious of a concept, and therefore can recognize it. There's also real dispute among philosophers about what "meaning" is, and therefore whether automata can perceive it. Let’s use Wittgenstein's assertion that meaning is how one uses words.10 This explains why meaning requires exactly a set of words and an interpreter. Still, Wittgenstein leaves open what one is doing, and what words are. As programmers might note, Wittgenstein's definition is shockingly close, perhaps even practicably close, to such computer-science subjects as Turing-equivalent instruction sets and syntax-directed compilation. But, Wittgenstein's definition is too vague to be inherently mechanistic. Note that the interpreter could even be a human soul increasing in spiritual beauty because of the nourishment of God's word. Compiling to intentions can resolve these issues. An SI could consciously understand meaning by synthesizing new intentions from a stream of words or other symbols, and linking it to its preexisting set of intentions. And, in a crucial test of consciousness, an SI can misunderstand, by mislinking intentions to its preexisting intentions, and correct its misunderstanding by relinking them more accurately. Wittgenstein's words could be absolutely anything that is not already in the interpreter, including the experience of eating an apple. The memory of such an experience could be in the interpreter, but the experience cannot be, because it occurs only when the apple goes into the interpreter's mouth. (Note that experience requires particular equipment: e.g. a “mouth.” This is evidence that the physical structure of the interpreter is crucial to symbolic interpretations of experience.) Synthesizing intentions can solve these issues, too. It’s also common to believe that creativity is an essential element of consciousness. How might an SI be creative? From my personal observations, creative people do something very like rolling weighted mental dice when making contingent decisions. An SI can handle such contingent decisions by using what amounts to an infinitely-divisible roulette wheel, in which different contingent choices of paths through a graph of intentions are assigned to each slice of the wheel. And, there can always be some probability of a totally random choice. When the SI starts, totally random choices might be a large part of each intention. But, if a result is sufficiently unpleasant, that choice can be avoided in the future by reducing that choice’s slice of the probabilities. The contingent choices without unpleasant consequences will remain contingent, making the SI creative throughout its behavior. Pattern recognition also appears to be the foundation of all symbol manipulation. The way that people perform symbolic manipulation is that they recognize patterns of symbols, and transform them into other patterns. Even digital computers use analog pattern recognition, because every binary switch has to recognize whether its control is on or off. If this is right, then computers are already conscious, in trivial ways. The same sense of consciousness over time is in every thermostat: Too hot or too cold, with some memory of other states, and something to do about them. So, synthetic intention is not only possible, it already exists. Doing it more skillfully, and linking it to languages, space, time and other qualia (“sense data”) seems perfectly possible. Citations 1. Edmund Husserl, "Ideen", 1913. pub. as "Ideas", English paperback, 1962, Collier Press, section 87. 2. Ibid, Section 84, 1st paragraph. In reading this section, note that the philosophical term for the connection between an ego and object is "intentionality." About the edition: to my knowledge, this is the only inexpensive edition of the only English translation that was corrected by the author before his death. Some other English translations appear to be mistranslated to grind the axes of the translators. A unique aid is the "analytic index" in the back, originated by Husserl, and corrected. The book is tough to read in English, and harder in German, but very good. 3. Ibid. section 31. Husserl calls bracketing "phenomenological reduction," or often: "reduction." "Bracketing" is the common usage in American philosophy. 4. Marvin Minsky, “A Framework for Representing Knowledge”, 1974, Retrieved May 11, 2016 from http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Frames/frames.html 5. John R. Koza, “Genetic Programming by Natural Selection”, 1992, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; This is the first of four books by Koza. Book 3 discusses how evolutionary algorithms can design structure, including hierarchies. 6. Jeff Hawkins, “On Intelligence”, 2005, Henry Holt, New York. Hawkins identified HTM by neural analysis, and has arranged simulations and development. 7. Djuro G. Zrilic, “Circuits and Systems based on Delta Modulation”, 2005, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. This appears to be a stable, low-power, compact technique to implement a neuromorphic fabric. 8. Masafumi Oizumi, Larissa Albantakis, Giulio Tononi, “From the Phenomenology to the Mechanisms of Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0”, May 2014, v.10.5; PLoS Computational Biology. Retrieved May 10, 2016, http://journals .plos .org /ploscompbiol /article?id=10.1371 /journal .pcbi .1003588 IIT’s mathematical description of the biology is an excellent hypothesis. 9. John Searle, “Mind, Language and Society”, 1999, Basic Books, New York. 10. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Philosophical Investigations”, trans. By G.E.M. Anscombe, 1973, Pearson, New York; Section 543.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory 422 Exploration The Integrative Brain Theory Sohail Adnan1*& Sher Azam2 1 FCPS Neurology, LRH, KPK, Pakistan 2 CESAT, Islamabad, Pakistan Abstract The element of conscious interpretation remained an unknown fact for more than a century. It can be realized from the observation that the theories explaining consciousness have changed over time. It is still difficult to explore a relationship between the brain activity and the conscious mind, the involved neuronal processes, and how do we determine an appropriate motor response. Determinately, a testable theoretical description will be more paramount and acceptable to consciousness. In this article, we will amass information on different theoretical models explaining consciousness, and later, the electromagnetic concept will be discussed in the form of an integrative brain theory (IBT). We claim that IBT gives a complete description of conscious meaning, motor response, and differences in basic sensory modalities at one moment in time. In this theory, the electromagnetic field effects (accompanying spatial patterns of neuronal activity) bind the processed information and serve as a medium of detection. A temporal relationship of these spatial field effects may engender an overall meaning of a perception. The linear polarization frequency is suggested to exist along the surface of cortical dendrites, and possibly differentiate the basic sensory modalities. A simple experiment can evaluate the presence of dendritic polarization rates and, therefore, the dipole idea of cortical activity may become less consequential for the differences in basic sensory modalities. Key Words: integrative, brain theory, spatial pattern, consciousness, electromagnetic field, dendritic polarization. 1.0 Introduction The true nature of conscious mind remained a baffling puzzle to the philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists. There hasn’t been a single concurred definition for consciousness. In general words, it means self-awareness or knowing of self-existence. For me, it is a property of brain activity, which creates awareness of self, and relates meaning to our thoughts and psychic experiences. The underlying mechanism for consciousness is always speculated, because it is not an entity at a single point in space to be quantified. The neuroscientists have so far been unable to explain the neural processes involved in the vast diversity of psychic experiences like thoughts, color perception, passage of time, feelings, and the different modalities of sensation. We don’t yet have an explanation for the differences in various forms of qualia at the level of the brain. The peripheral nerve impulses of different * Correspondence: Dr. Sohail Adnan, FCPS Neurology, LRH, KPK, Pakistan. E-mail: adnan.neuron@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 423 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory sensory modalities behave similarly, and there is no considerable variation in the morphology of neurons in the brain to account for the differences in perception. When we relate these diversities of mind to the underlying neuronal processes, it is called a mind-brain problem. The sensory perception, which becomes single in mind, has multiple aspects interpreted in different parts of the brain. A mechanism that brings all these aspects together, and produces a unified perception in mind is called a binding problem. We have sensory and motor areas in the central nervous system. The neurons of all the sensory areas interlace in an intricate fashion, and process a sensory signal of any kind into a quantified meaning. The neuronal activity determines a pattern of motor coordination, which is an implicit destination of all kinds of interpretations in the brain. In fact, the brain’s interpretation of any sort is destined to determine an appropriate motor response. It seems that the consciousness has evolved over time to enhance the brain effectiveness in survival against the challenging environment. A large chunk of brain tissue between the sensory and motor areas makes all this complex integration. The whole confusion resides in the sensory aspect of interpretation. The excitatory electrodynamics of neurons is considered in multiple field theories to develop an explanation for consciousness. However, there is no successful theoretical description so far to explain, all problems of the conscious-mind. The broad significance of the mind-brain problem prompted William James [1] to declare that the attainment of a genuine glimpse into the mindbrain relation would constitute “the scientific achievement before which all past achievements would pale’’. It will also be appropriate to recall the Charles Sherrington’s [2] comment, which remains as valid today as when he wrote it many years ago: “we have to regard the relation of mind to brain as still not merely unsolved, but still devoid of a basis for its very beginning”. In the earlier part of the twentieth century, Wolfgang Kohler presented a theory of electrical currents in the brain as a possible means of detection and integration. The proposed electrical currents were recorded on the surface of the scalp, and presented as an evidence of electrical activity in the brain. Many invasive experiments were performed in the cats and monkeys to disrupt the proposed electrical currents of the brain. However, the brain’s function couldn’t be impaired. Therefore, it was considered that the deflections recorded on the surface of scalp were not due to the travel of electric currents to the external electrodes. The deflections were probably due to the electric field effects of the brain. It encouraged the evolution of electromagnetic field theory of the brain towards the end of the twentieth century. Johnjoe McFadden believes that consciousness is an electromagnetic phenomenon with a low electric potential value of 0.5 to 1 millivolt /mm, capable of influencing the membranes’ potentials and activity of motor neurons. The electric potential initially develops as a local field potential from depolarization of neurons. Reinforcement of the local field potentials forms an amplified electromagnetic information field. The resultant information field activates the motor neurons to show an appropriate motor response to the environment. Susan pocket, on the other hand, has a different theoretical description for the conscious electromagnetic phenomenon. She believes in the presence of conscious and non-conscious ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 424 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory electromagnetic field patterns. The cortical dendrites are suggested to behave as dipoles. It will be explained in the relevant section of our article. Towards the end, we will describe that electromagnetic field theory of consciousness can have a third possible dimension of explanation. We call it an integrative brain theory. This theoretical model suggests that the large chunk of brain tissue between the sensory and motor areas possesses a delicate network of neurons with complex wiring. The complex sequence of wiring in the neuronal network influenced by everyday experience will be capable of fine integration, and finding an appropriate motor response to a given problem. If every kind of interpretation is possible for the brain, then the electromagnetic field effects of neurons may not require additional processing of information to determine an appropriate motor response. The electromagnetic field effects accompanying the spatial patterns of neuronal activity may only bind the processed information, and serve as a medium of detection and meaning. The integrative brain theory introduces the idea of dendritic polarization rates to explain the differences in various forms of qualia. An experimental technique is also suggested to evaluate the presence of dendritic polarization rates. If the polarization frequencies are found to exist along the surface of dendrites then the neurons may be viewed as integrating entities of conscious mind for the differences in basic sensory modalities. They can interpret information in the form of different frequencies. The same frequency may also be reflected into the electromagnetic field of the brain. This matter will be discussed further in detail as we move forward in the article. Now we will discuss the neuronal electrodynamics first followed by the theories of consciousness. The third possible dimension of conscious mind in the form of integrative brain theory will be discussed at the end. 1.1.0 Neuronal Electrodynamics Neuronal activity engenders a conscious mind and, therefore, first we will elaborate the neuronal electrodynamics. The dendrites, somatic impedance, and a long myelinated axon make the three essential parts of a neuron. An axon is a single long process, and conducts an ionic signal away from the cell body. The axonal terminal is loaded with the transmitter vesicles. The transmitter vesicles contain a particular type of neurotransmitter i.e. acetylcholine, glutamate, and serotonin etc. The transmitter is released into the gap (synapse) between the axonal terminal and the dendrites of another neuron. The neurotransmitters move across it, and bind to the receptors on the postsynaptic membrane. The ligand’s gated channels open up for the sodium ions to depolarize the membrane potential. The electric potential sensitive ion channels are incorporated separately for the sodium, potassium, and calcium ions in the neuronal membrane [3]. Under the normal circumstances, there is high sodium ions’ gradient to the outside compared to the inside of a neuronal membrane. Similarly, the intracellular potassium ions’ concentration is higher than the outside. The sodiumpotassium pumps serve to maintain the high sodium ions’ gradient to the outside and high potassium ions’ gradient to the inside of a neuronal membrane [4]. This complex protein is driven by the adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It pumps three sodium ions to the outside and two potassium ions to the inside against their concentration gradients. It builds an extracellular sodium ions’ concentration of 140 mmol /l, and a similar amount of potassium is maintained in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 425 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory the intracellular compartment. The intracellular sodium is maintained as low as 10 -12 mmol/l. Similarly, the extracellular potassium concentration is only 4 mmol/ l. The ionized calcium is required for the interneuronal signal transmission. The calcium ions enter the cell when an electric signal arrives at the axonal terminal. The diffused calcium ions mediate binding of the transmitters’ vesicles to the presynaptic membrane. The neurotransmitters are released in the synapse from the transmitter vesicles. Subsequently an electric signal is induced in the second neuron. In the resting state of the membrane’s potential, the potassium ions being smaller in size move out of the membrane’s pores easily than either of the sodium and calcium to the inside. The potassium ions are positively charged. The rapid diffusion of the potassium ions to the outside compared to either of the sodium and calcium ions to the inside, creates a negative electric potential of -65 to -85 millivolts on the inside of the neuronal membrane [5].At the same time, a similar amount of charge of the opposite polarity is established on the outer surface of the membrane. When a signal arrives at the axonal terminal, a neurotransmitter is released and binds to the receptors in the post-synaptic membrane. If an excitatory neurotransmitter like acetylcholine, binds to the receptor then a central ion’s channel of the receptor will open for the sodium ions. The sodium ions rapidly move to the inside making the membrane’s potential less negative. If the input signal is strong enough, the transmembrane potential may fall to a level of -40 millivolts, known as the threshold potential. An impulse is fired at the threshold level. The impulse produces electric potential changes and travels from the dendrites to an axonal terminal. 1.2.0 Wolfgang Kohler Kohler was a gestalt psychologist. Kohler believed that the conducted action potentials could not explicate the complexities of visual perception. The action potentials traveling along the separate fibers cannot merge together to form a molar object, and separate it from the attributes of the environment in the cerebral cortex. He suggested that the cerebral cortex integrates information in the form of electric currents [6, 7].The description was initially formulated to explain the visual perception in the striate cortex. However, the cortical currents were believed to operate in all forms of cerebral activity. An electric field is established when impulses arrive at a circumscribed area in the cerebral cortex. An electromotive force develops due to the electric potential difference between this area and the surrounding tissue. It causes an electric current to flow that passes through the circumscribed area. The direction of flow is opposite within the area compared to the surrounding tissue. In this regard, the cortical currents were also recorded on the surface of the scalp [8].The cerebral currents were recorded with two electrodes positioned on the surface of the scalp over the occipital area. The active electrode was placed 1 cm above the occipital protuberance to represent the foveal locality of the striate cortex. The second electrode was positioned at the vertex. An object in the form of either a projected bright circle or a strip of the bright cardboard with a dark background was moved in the visual field across a fixation point. A fairly smooth deflection was recorded multiple times. The deflection peaked when the object passed the fixation point. It corresponds to the activation of the foveal part of the visual cortex. The smooth deflections recorded on the surface of the scalp were suggested to represent electric currents of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 426 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory the brain. The brain activity responsible for the external deflections required exploration. The researchers performed multiple experiments to reveal the nature of the underlying cortical currents. Kohler himself did not suggest an experimental model to show the presence of cerebral currents. There was a great deal of interest in the scientists’ community to reveal the nature of electric currents in the brain. Different intracranial experiments were endeavored in the cats and monkeys to disrupt the cerebral currents. However, none of them was rewarding to show the presence of molar currents in the brain. In 1951, Karl Spencer Lashley and his colleagues attempted to disrupt the predicted cortical currents with the strips of gold foil and pins[9].The strips of gold foil were placed in contact with the striate cortex of monkeys, while the gold pins inserted perpendicular to the macular area. The presence of gold was expected to fuse the cerebral currents and make clouding of the visual field. However, the visual function was preserved. The idea of cerebral currents became uncertain if the presence of gold couldn’t impair the recognition of visual patterns. Roger Sperry et al performed similar experiments [10],[11]. The cats one-half to three-fourths grown at the start were trained to differentiate an equilateral triangle from a series of imperfect triangles with similar dimensions. The cats were then operated and subpial cuts produced in the visual area to obstruct the flow of cerebral currents. In some cases, metal wires cut from the tantalum sutures were inserted in the visual area to disrupt the flow of currents. However, the cats performed well after the surgery, and specific equilateral triangles could still be differentiated. In another experiment with a similar approach, dielectric mica plates were inserted in the visual area to disrupt the vision. However, no effect was observed in recognition of the visual patterns to suggest the presence of cerebral currents. 1.3.0 Johnjoe McFadden (Conscious electromagnetic field theory) McFadden explained the idea of electromagnetic (EM) information field as a possible substrate of conscious mind [12]. McFadden believes that consciousness is an electromagnetic phenomenon with a low electric potential value of about 0.5 to 1 millivolt /mm, capable of influencing the membranes’ potentials and activity of the motor neurons. A resting electric potential of -65 millivolts is established at the inside of a neuronal membrane due to the activity of ion pumps. These ion pumps move out the positively charged sodium and calcium ions to the extracellular space. However, the resting membrane potential is influenced by the electric field changes occurring in the surrounding neurons. The cerebral cortex has a parallel alignment of cells and densely packed with virtually 104 cells per square millimeter. Therefore, when a group of neurons with a parallel alignment is activated, their extracellular field effects reinforce to form an amplified local field. The amplified field is able to modulate the membranes’ potentials of neurons in the vicinity. Its strength varies from a few hundred microvolts to about one millivolt. The weak local field may produce a small drift in the membranes’ potentials, and activate neurons that are already close to a firing threshold. Therefore, a further amplified field is generated. In this fashion, a self-referred feedback loop of the electromagnetic field is created between the groups of neurons. McFadden expanded the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 427 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory vision into an integrative electromagnetic field known as conscious electromagnetic information (CEMI) field [13, 14].The digital information of neurons is pooled and integrated into the electromagnetic information field. Consciousness constitutes that part of the integrative EM field which activates the motor neurons and makes communication with the external environment. McFadden explained in his recent papers [15] that the CEMI field is capable of producing neuronal synchrony. The neuronal synchrony is considered to be a stronger correlate of consciousness and awareness. It is believed that conscious awareness is produced when all the aspects of an object are processed at the same time, though in different parts of the brain, producing a unified perception. The CEMI field binds the digital information of these aspects into a single physical system known as a gestalt [16]. The structure of the gestalt is similar to that of the real object. Awareness and meaning are believed to be a part of the same gestalt information. Therefore awareness is produced when all the aspects of an object bind together into the gestalt information. However, the theory is still required to explain: 1. An experimental technique to confirm that the CEMI field operates the conscious mind. 2. A possible mechanism for the differences in basic sensory modalities on the basis of CEMI field theory. 3. How does a CEMI field determine the position of motor neurons to be stimulated without an anatomical connection? 4. It is a common observation in neurology that the patients with a middle cerebral artery infarction, [17], [18] develop a motor aphasia and or contralateral hemiplegia (power of 0/5) due to degeneration of the motor neurons. However, they are still able to develop a conscious desire for speech and movement in the paralyzed limb. If consciousness constitutes that part of the EM field which activates the motor neurons then these patients would have not been able to make a conscious desire for the lost function. 1.4.0 Susan Pockett Pockett believes that the conscious interpretation happens in the sensory areas of the brain rather than in the motor cortex. The sensory cortex contains an electrically neutral layer 4 as compared to the motor areas [19]. She claims that the presence of a neutral layer may be a possible reason for the development of conscious patterns in the sensory areas. The cortical pyramidal cells are suggested to behave as dipoles. When a signal arrives, a negative charge is established on the upper outer surface of a dendrite due to diffusion of the positive ions to the inside. The intracellular electrical neutrality is maintained with the diffusion of positive charge to the outside near the cell body. In this fashion, the cortical dendrite operates in the form of a dipole. The presence of a neutral layer 4 within the dipole makes it a conscious pattern of the electromagnetic field. The motor cortex lacks the neutral layer and, therefore, the dipole spatial patterns behave unconscious. However, we feel that the cortical dendrite is a long slender filament of the pyramidal cell. The neuronal electrodynamics changes in a short span of time during an action potential. If the dendrite passes a series of impulses rapidly then the changing ionic gradients may develop ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 428 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory polarization patterns along the surface. This is explained in the relevant section below. If experiments showed the presence of polarization patterns along the surface of dendrites then the dipole idea of cortical activity may become less important. Susan Pockett also explained that the brain electromagnetic waves are produced as a result of convective ionic currents with a spatiotemporal coherence [20]. The behavior of the convective ionic currents in a tissue is different than that of electrons in a metal. Therefore, Maxwell’s equations of the electromagnetic phenomenon based on the electrons’ dynamics are required to be changed for the electromagnetic field effects of the brain based on the convective ionic currents. We feel that Susan Pockett is absolutely right because Maxwell’s equations are entirely based on the electron dynamics. The transmembrane electrodynamics of ions is different than the movement of electrons in conductors. During an action potential, the sodium ion’s permeability of the membrane is increased and diffuse inside rapidly. The process brings a negative charge on the outer surface of the membrane and at the end voltage-sensitive potassium channels are opened. Subsequently the outward diffusion of the potassium ions restores the membrane’s potential. The entire process is accomplished in fractions of microseconds. The electromagnetic field effects associated with the above neuronal electrodynamics may have a different spatiotemporal configuration. Therefore the theoretical and experimental values of the Maxwell’s equations are required to be changed for the electromagnetic field effects of the brain. Unless the experimental evaluation of the CEMI field as a possible substrate of consciousness remains difficult, it is better to consider a testable theory explaining consciousness as a property of brain activity, EM field as a medium of detection and distinguish sensations on the basis of dendritic polarization rates. If evidence of dendritic polarization rates becomes available then we may become certain that the brain has potential mechanisms to explain diversities of the conscious mind, and can be gathered into a structured theory. We call it an integrative brain theory. The theory also gives an explanation of certain basic facts discussed below. 2.0 Discussion Kohler theory of cerebral currents was disproved in a series of experiments performed over the decades at that time. The failure of demonstrable electric currents in the brain gave space to the electromagnetic field theories of consciousness. The electromagnetic field effects can be detected in association with the brain’s activity and, so far, remained the only alternate option to explain the conscious mind. The electromagnetic field forms the base of a different theoretical idea of consciousness. However, this new evolving concept is required to give an explanation to the vast diversities of conscious mind. We will explain these diversities of conscious mind in the form of certain basic facts. Susan Pockett, [21] discussed three important difficulties with the electromagnetic field theories of consciousness. Here we will discuss some more important basic facts that would require flexible explanations in the electromagnetic field theory of consciousness: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 429 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory I) The EM field concept is altogether theoretical and the conscious mind has too many aspects. The theory is quite primitive, and needs to explain various dimensions of the psychic mind. The electromagnetic field theory is required to incorporate flexible explanations for differences in basic sensory modalities, i.e. touch, pain, pressure, vibration, hearing, and color vision. How do these differ and what is the possible explanation on the basis of EM field theory. II) The peripheral nerve impulses all over the body behave similar [22]. The quality and characteristic of conduction of peripheral nerve impulses for the different sensory modalities are similar and, therefore, may not influence differentiation of sensory signals at the level of the brain. The differentiation is determined by areas of the brain into which they discharge. When a given sensory area of the cortex is stimulated in a conscious human subject, it produces a sensation in that particular area of the body [23]. If peripheral impulses of the basic sensory modalities behave similarly, then, how do we differentiate them at the level of the brain? For instance, if the peripheral impulses of touch and pain are similar, how do they become different at the level of the brain? We suggest a model of dendritic polarization rates to explain the differences in basic sensory modalities. It is discussed in the relevant section below. III) It is likely that the EM field of consciousness will be made up of electromagnetic waves. The confusion arises when we consider how waves are produced in the EM field of the brain? When a neuron is activated, the sodium ions move to the inside of a cell followed by the exit of potassium ions to the outside to complete an action potential cycle. The two types of ions move opposite to each other during the process. The movement of sodium ions to the inside causes depolarization of the membrane and exit of the potassium ions will restore the membrane potential. The two processes are well separated in time, and the associated electromagnetic field effects will travel away from the membrane by a speed of light. Therefore, it becomes difficult to believe that the fast traveling field effects produced by a slow process of ionic currents would merge together to form an electromagnetic wave. We can overcome the difficulty by considering that the electromagnetic waves exist in the brain in the form of dendritic polarization rates or frequencies. We describe the dendritic polarization rate as a linear polarization pattern on the surface of a dendrite when a series of impulses are transmitted. The electromagnetic field effects of the polarization patterns on the surface of aligned cortical dendrites may reinforce together. Subsequently, the polarization pattern frequency of the aligned cortical dendrites is incorporated into a spatial pattern of EM field (formed as a result of synchronous neuronal activity). IV) The brain has a complex sequence of connections. However, the brain connections are usually fixed for a period of time. The conscious experience is a property of brain activity. With the fixed connections, how does the brain activity evolve into a conscious mind that has a variety of options to think, feel, and execute? V) The electromagnetic field effects generated within the brain represent our conscious perceptions. These field effects can also be recorded on the surface of the scalp. Therefore, the field effects are not confined to the inside of the brain. The brain’s electromagnetic waves travel by a speed of light. We should have been able to feel the interaction of these EM waves in the external environment at a distance far away from our body in a matter of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 430 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory no time. These field effects ultimately distort as EM waves move in the brain tissue. If the spatial patterns of EM waves have conscious values, their distortion effects should have been experienced. 2.1.0 Integrative Brain Theory Despite all the above facts, the conscious mind and different modalities of sensations can still be experienced as electromagnetic in nature. This is because the psychic feeling of our own existence cannot be attributed to the organic membranes of cells. There is no comparable diversity in the organic membranes to explain the different aspects of conscious mind. It includes the perception of different colors, calibration of distance, binding problem, the passage of time in mind, and differences in various forms of sensations. It will not be logical to think that the interaction of transmitters with their receptors will be interpreted into any sort of information. Similarly, a simple movement of ions cannot give you a perception. This is because ions are only particles. They lack awareness of their own existence and may not add up anything to consciousness with a simple movement across the membranes. If we look as a second observer to a depolarizing neuron then as a single neuron it may not produce a quantified feeling of any kind. A particular perception may be experienced only, if activities of the neighboring neurons are unified together. The only adequate explanation that unites a synchronous neuronal activity is the interaction of field effects produced by the individual neurons. The electromagnetic field effects accompanying a synchronous neuronal activity can bind the information into a spatial pattern. The informational values of field effects may become productive of a meaning when they bind together in a spatial pattern. The spatial patterns of the electromagnetic field may then serve as a medium of detection and meaning. However, many serious problems will occur if values of the electromagnetic field are extended to a level of self-integration. The spatial patterns of electromagnetic field effects may disrupt while traveling through the brain and their informational values may not remain intact. This can make the integration quite difficult within the electromagnetic field. It may be very difficult to evaluate the integrative electromagnetic field with an appropriate experiment. Again it is quite difficult to explain that an electromagnetic field operating at a speed of light, determines the exact position and sequence of motor neurons for an appropriate motor response. The picture is further complicated when EM field has to take a decision with a speed of light in a limited distance between the sensory and motor areas. Consciousness behaves in a controlled fashion and requires processing in a well inhibited environment. A controlled well inhibited environment may not be possible in an EM field operating at a speed of light. The brain contains both excitatory and inhibitory neurons and is a suitable place for a controlled processing. Based on these facts we present a model of integrative brain theory of electromagnetic consciousness. The theory suggests that integration and processing happen within the controlled environment of the brain while the electromagnetic field effects produce detection and meanings only. If perception is at all related to the neuronal field effects then at which point do we feel anything as the neurons become activated via action potentials? For this reason, the neuronal status may ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 431 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory be viewed as changed when its polarity reverses compared to the surrounding during a depolarization. It happens when a depolarization makes the intracellular potential more positive. A similar amount of negative charge is also established on the outer surface of the membrane at the same time. A cluster of neurons that depolarize together at the same time produces a reinforced localized EM field. This localized EM field is called a spatial pattern. A spatial pattern can form in a matter of a few microseconds. When a series of spatial patterns follows each other in a short span of time then a temporal relationship will be established. In the meanwhile, a signal comprising of several spatial patterns with a gap of microseconds will take a few milliseconds to reach the premotor area. At that time, the operational effect of temporally related spatial patterns of EM field may reflect a psychic meaning in mind. We believe that the conscious awareness of meaning is a result of the brain processing forming temporally related spatial patterns of electromagnetic field. A conscious meaning may be an impact of processing of more than a few spatial patterns. The spatial pattern of neuronal activity binds its information into a spatial pattern of the electromagnetic field. It may happen with the processing of every spatial pattern of neuronal activity as the signal proceeds towards the premotor area. Ultimately the brain processing will yield temporally related spatial patterns of the electromagnetic field. Temporally related spatial patterns of the electromagnetic field may be the ultimate point of detection and meaning. The spatial patterns of neuronal activity will permeate a dense volume of cells in the brain before arrival in the premotor area. Therefore, information arriving the premotor area will be well processed, inhibited, reflect more of a conscious type, and determined to show an appropriate motor response. Each signal processed in different sensory areas may have a tendency to move to the premotor area and determine a pattern of motor coordination to show an overt response. However, one signal with many spatial patterns of neuronal activity may get a chance to reach the premotor area at one time with a desired effect. This fact is based on the observation that the human mind can be conscious about one thing at a time. The information of different sensory areas may share a “common group of neurons” before reaching the premotor area. When a signal passes through the common group of neurons, it becomes refractory to receive and process signals from other sensory areas that are a fraction of a microsecond late to arrive. In this situation, one signal will produce a conscious meaning at one time that succeeds to permeate all the way to the premotor area. Subsequently the later signals would fail to produce a meaning and a desired effect. They cannot permeate all the way to the premotor area and do not complete the required numbers of spatial patterns to have a conscious impact in mind. The common groups of neurons with a relative refractory state explain the fact that the brain can approach the premotor area with a variety of options even if the connections are fixed. It also explains our basic fact IV mentioned earlier. A psychic meaning that appears to emerge in milliseconds may actually contain the integrated values of spatial patterns in series. A single spatial pattern is a local EM field. We predict that a single spatial pattern add up its value to the overall meaning during the process of development and binding. When a spatial pattern of EM field is well established its integrated value for the overall meaning is released. Later if it is distorted while traveling through the brain, the meaning ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 432 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory won’t be affected. Its effect is felt with the integrated values of other spatial patterns ahead. It explains the basic fact V as well. 2.1.1Patterns of Brain Stimulation The physical patterns of brain stimulation may not always resemble the perceptions in mind. It may depend on the sequential arrival of impulses in the sensory cortex. For instance, consider the stimulation of visual cortex for a triangle. The visual field is divided into the right and left halves. The left half of the visual field is processed in the right occipital cortex while the right half of the visual field is processed in the left occipital cortex respectively. When the vision is fixed at the center of a triangle then its left half moves to the right occipital cortex and the right half goes to the left occipital area [24]. The two occipital cortices are quite separate and apart. The single image is divided in equal halves and interpreted in separate visual areas. However, the image is still perceived as a single quantified entity rather than two separate halves. The quantified perception of an image or any other information may not require interpretation at a single point in the brain. It is probably the time of interpretation of various aspects of an object in the brain that matters for a quantified perception in mind. The sequence and timing of arrival of photons for the various aspects of an object may be fixed and specified, and peripheral receptors in the retina will be stimulated according to the sequence of arrival of photons. Consequently, the impulses carrying information to the visual area will be traveling with a time sequence for all the aspects of an object. The same temporal relationship of all the aspects will also be preserved between the spatial patterns of neuronal activity in the visual areas. The spatial patterns of neuronal activity for the different aspects of an object will bind information into the spatial patterns of EM field and their temporal relationship may give an impression of a unified perception. The above explanation still considers the brain as a possible source of integration of information for a unified perception in mind rather than the EM field. 2.1.2Dendritic Polarization Pattern Frequency At the end, we will discuss an important aspect of mind that requires an additional explanation. The basic sensory modalities like hearing, vision, touch, pain, pressure, cold and vibration are all processed by action potentials in the cerebral cortex but still we experience them as separate and distinct. One aspect of the action potential can explain the difference. There is experimental evidence that action potentials can develop in the distal parts of the dendrites and travel towards the soma [25]. The conduction of action potentials in a dendrite depends on its geometry i.e. morphology and the density of ion channels in the membrane [26]. If there happens to be a difference in the speed of conduction of impulses in the dendrites then polarization patterns may develop along the surface of the membranes. A group of neurons that interpret one particular sensation may all have a similar dendritic polarization pattern. The polarization patterns can integrate into the spatial patterns of EM field and represent a particular sensation. The phenomenon of dendritic polarization pattern is shown in the diagram below. It gives a twodimensional view of the long dendritic process of a pyramidal cell. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 433 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory Fig.1. Formation of polarization patterns along the surface of a dendrite. In part ‘A’ the dendrite has a stable resting membrane potential with extracellular surface ‘e’ charged positively compared to the intracellular surface ‘I’. When an excitatory signal arrives, the upper part will begin to depolarize. The positive sodium ions will diffuse to the inside of the dendrite. At this instant diffusion of sodium ions bring a positive charge of approximately +5 ---+10 millivolts to the inside at the upper segment as shown in ‘B’. At the same time, positive charges permeate a small distance of the cytoplasm but still not all the way to the cell body because of resistance in the cytoplasm. As positive charges move forward, the intracellular resting membrane potential of -65 to -80 millivolts is raised to the threshold level of -40 millivolts. When the threshold is achieved then sodium channels are opened up again for further diffusion of positive ions as shown in ‘C’. In that much time, the repolarization process may be activated in the upper part of the membrane. The potassium ions move outward and restore the resting membrane potential near the upper segment as shown in ‘D’. When a dendrite has to pass a series of impulses then the two processes may follow each other rapidly. Finally, polarization patterns will develop along the surface of the membrane as shown in ‘F’. We predict that such polarization patterns (dendritic polarization rates/ frequency) may vary for the different groups of neurons. During a synchronous neuronal activity, the intrinsic polarization pattern frequency will bind into the special patterns of the electromagnetic field. The dendritic polarization pattern frequency in different groups of neurons explains the differences in various sensory modalities. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 434 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory 2.1.3Experimental Technique to Evaluate the Presence of Polarization Patterns Our theory relates dendritic polarization patterns to the differences in various forms of qualia. The pyramidal cells in the cortex have a long slender dendritic process. These neighboring slender processes have a close parallel alignment to each other. Therefore, the changing electromagnetic field effects can readily reinforce together as signals travel these fibers. Reinforcement can establish in all the aligned fibers with a synchronous nerve impulse. There are about ten thousand cells in one square millimeter area of the cerebral cortex. So, there will be a synchronization of a few hundred cortical neurons in a spatial pattern of neuronal activity. Keeping in mind the density of cells in the cerebral cortex, it is quite certain that the individual spatial patterns would measure in micrometers. Therefore, it is inappropriate to think that the entire sensation can be impaired by interfering with a few cells at a random point in the macro map of that sensation. The interruption mechanism will be appropriate if it disrupts the reinforcement of the maximum number of cells in a micro map in real time. Merzanik developed the concept of micro mapping in the past century with multiple successful experiments [27, 28]. These experiments were performed to test the hypothesis that neurons change their representative function after every few months. This is called the brain’s plasticity. The micromaping is an invasive procedure. It determines a group of cerebral neurons working for a small portion of the body. Like the representative area of the thumb is grossly localized in the cerebral cortex. Similarly, neurons representing a single point of the surface of the thumb may also be localized. It requires insertion of a micro electrode in the representative area of the thumb and recording in real time from the individual cells. A microelectrode is inserted in one neuron at a time and different points are stimulated on the surface of the thumb. The electrode produces a spike when a relevant point is stimulated on the surface of the thumb. Thereafter the electrode position is changed and adjacent points are stimulated again to know their cortical position. With this effort, the entire set of cortical neurons may be mapped for the surface of the thumb. A similar technique may also be used to localize the cortical cells for the different modalities of sensation. The cortical area where different modalities of sensation arrive may not be the ultimate site of conscious perception. The conscious awareness of a sensation may develop when a signal penetrates deeper in the brain tissue. We already explained in an earlier section that the conscious awareness of any kind may be an overall operational effect of all the processed spatial patterns of EM field accompanying the spatial patterns of neuronal activity. Therefore, we believe that psychic awareness of a particular sensation may not develop at one particular point. Our hypothesis suggests that the spatial patterns of a sensation occupying a neuronal track have a linear polarization frequency. The linear polarization frequency is the total number of electric field gradients established on the surface of a neuronal membrane during conduction of an action potential as explained in fig 1. The following figure demonstrates how linear electrical gradients may reinforce together. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 435 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory Fig.2. Synchronized polarization patterns The linear polarization frequency in the above figure is five. The linear polarization frequency can either be single or be a range of frequencies for a particular sensation. In the later case, the idea will not be surprising if we consider that the linear polarization frequencies of a sensation exist with a small difference along the neuronal track. Stimulation of the entire frequency sequence may give feelings of a particular sensation. Suppose the sensation of touch has a hundred spatial patterns in the neuronal track divided in a group of three, 40, 30 and 30. Consider that the polarization frequencies in these groups are 06, 04 and 02 respectively. Now stimulating the entire track of 100 spatial patterns in a sequence with a slight variation in frequencies could be an energy value and determinant of touch. Similarly for the sense of smell and taste the polarization frequencies may range from 08 to 10, 12 to 15, and so on. Before discussing the technique, we will elaborate certain basic facts regarding the approach of an appropriate experiment: 1. The technique should not interfere with the release of neurotransmitters and the movement of ions across the membranes. 2. Spatial patterns are suggested to measure in micrometers. Therefore, application of gross techniques like mica plates or widely separated scars may not interfere with the conscious perceptions. These experimental techniques were however appropriate to test the Kohler’s theory at that time. 3. A conscious interpretation of any sort may develop as an overall operational effect of all the processed spatial patterns of EM field. It is unlikely that a technique employed at a single point will disrupt the whole conscious phenomenon. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 436 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory 4. It is hard to accept an experimental technique applying the external electric fields to the brain activity. If an external electric field is stronger than the changing field effects of the membrane, it may resist the movement of ions. If the strength is equal to the changing field effects of the membrane, it may either get aligned or do not affect the reinforcement. Therefore, we recommend demonstrating the presence of linear polarization patterns in the neuronal track. These polarization patterns may establish in fractions of microseconds along the surface of a membrane. A microelectrode that takes recording at a comparative speed without a significant time lapse will be appropriate to show such changes. In other words, if a greater time lapses at the recording end then such critical changes may not be registered. First, we will be required to localize a neuronal track. Micro map technique may then be employed to localize the first point on the surface of the sensory cortex. It may be labeled as point ‘a’. Three consecutive points ‘b’, ‘c’, and‘d’ should be localized with reference to the first point such that all may be stimulated in a series. Fig.3.Transmission of signal to the sensory cortex Three electrodes can now be placed inside the long dendrite of a pyramidal cell at point ‘b’. The first electrode positioned at the top, second in the middle and third near the body of the pyramidal cell with a gap of micrometers in all three. Point ‘a’ should now be stimulated continuously to make uniform discharges in the neuron at point ‘b’ with the positioned electrodes. When a transmitter is released for a few microseconds, it may sustain discharges of impulses in the neuron at point ‘b’ for a brief period of time. The molecules will metabolize in a few microseconds. Transmitters at the receptors’ site will keep the ligand-gated sodium channels open for the repeated transmission of action potentials. The positioned electrodes will take ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 437 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory independent recordings. The phases of the deflection of all the three electrodes may then be compared at a specific time interval. If phases of the deflection are different at one time, the segments of the neuronal membrane will be at a different electric potential level indicating the presence of polarization patterns. Fig.4. Recorded polarization patterns of a dendrite The third electrode is introduced in the experiment to compensate for time lapses in recording the electrical changes. A similar procedure can also be repeated for the other two points ‘c’ and‘d’. If all the electrodes show a similar deflection at one time then it suggests that the dendrite is activated as a single unit and polarization patterns do not exist along the surface. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 438 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory 3.0 Conclusion After a detailed study of the theories of consciousness and observing the fact that the organic membranes of neurons lack a comparative diversity to the conscious experiences, we believe that the conscious mind and its various aspects are electromagnetic. The brain activity generates spatial patterns of the electromagnetic field. A spatial pattern is possibly a basic integrative unit of the conscious meaning. The spatial pattern is established with synchronous neuronal activity and all the neurons working together may have similar polarization patterns. The polarization patterns can form linear polarization frequency. The dendritic polarization frequency may be a possible reason for the differences in basic sensory modalities. When a set of spatial patterns follow each other in a short span of time then a temporal relationship is established. Proceeding of temporally related spatial patterns can produce a peculiar awareness and psychic meaning in mind as an overall operational effect. The operation and integration happen in the complex neuronal network of the brain while the binding and meaning may develop in the accompanying electromagnetic field. The spatiotemporal relationship of the brain activity remains preserved in the electromagnetic field. The brain activity is directed from the sensory areas towards the motor cortex. A signal comprising of a series of spatial patterns, permeates a large volume of cells before arrival into the premotor area. It moves through a lot of neuronal groups and becomes more decisive and a complete conscious information before arrival into the motor areas. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 439 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory References 1. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 2. Sherrington, C, S. (1933). The brain and its mechanism.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Martin, A. R., Wallace, B. G., & Fuchs, P. A. (2001). From neuron to brain (Vol. 271). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates. 4. Huguenard, J., McCormick, D., & Shepherd, G. M. (1994). Electrophysiology of the neuron: an interactive tutorial. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5. Blanton, M. G., Lo Turco, J. J., &Kriegstein, A. R. (1989). Whole cell recording from neurons in slices of reptilian and mammalian cerebral cortex. Journal of neuroscience methods, 30(3), 203-210. 6. Kohler, W. (1929). Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright 7. Kohler, W., & Held, R. (1949). The cortical correlate of pattern vision. Science, 110, 414-419. 8. Kohler, W., Held, R., & O'Connell, D. N. (1952). An investigation of cortical currents. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 290-330. 9. Lashley, K. S., Chow, K. L., & Semmes, J. (1951). An examination of the electrical field theory of cerebral integration. Psychological Review, 58(2), 123. 10. Sperry, R. W., Miner, N., & Myers, R. E. (1955). Visual pattern perception following subpial slicing and tantalum wire implantations in the visual cortex. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 48(1), 50. 11. Sperry, R. W., & Miner, N. (1955). Pattern perception following insertion of mica plates into visual cortex. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 48(6), 463. 12. McFadden, J. (2002). Synchronous firing and its influence on the brains electromagnetic field. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(4), 23-506 13. McFadden, J. (2002). The conscious electromagnetic information (cemi) field theory: the hard problem made easy?Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(8), 45-60. 14. McFadden, J. (2007). Conscious electromagnetic (CEMI) field theory. NeuroQuantology, 5(3). 15. McFadden, J. (2013). The CEMI Field Theory Closing the Loop. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20(1-2), 153-168. 16. McFadden, J. (2013). The CEMI field theory gestalt information and the meaning of meaning. 17. DENES, G., SEMENZA, C., STOPPA, E., & LIS, A. (1982). Unilateral spatial neglect and recovery from hemiplegia. Brain, 105(3), 543-552. 18. Heinsius, T., Bogousslavsky, J., & Van Melle, G. (1998). Large infarctsin the middle cerebral artery territory Etiology and outcome patterns. Neurology, 50(2), 341-350. 19. Pockett, S. (2012). The Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness A Testable Hypothesis about the Characteristics of Conscious as Opposed to Non-conscious Fields. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19(11-12), 191-223 20. Hales, C. G., &Pockett, S. (2014). The relationship between local field potentials (LFPs) and the electromagnetic fields that give rise to them. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 8. 21. Pockett, S. (2002). Difficulties with the electromagnetic field theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(4), 51-56. 22. Sperry, R. W. (1952). Neurology and the mind-brain problem. American scientist, 291-312. 23. Penfield, W. (1938). The cerebral cortex in man: I. The cerebral cortex and consciousness. Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 40(3), 417-442. 24. Zeki, S. M. (1978). Functional specialisation in the visual cortex of the rhesus monkey. Nature, 274(5670), 423-428. 25. Stuart, G., Schiller, J., &Sakmann, B. (1997). Action potential initiation and propagation in rat neocortical pyramidal neurons. The Journal of physiology, 505(3), 617-632. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 440 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 422-440 Adnan, S. & Azam, S., The Integrative Brain Theory 26. Vetter, P., Roth, A., &Häusser, M. (2001). Propagation of action potentials in dendrites depends on dendritic morphology. Journal of neurophysiology, 85(2), 926-937. 27. Merzanik, M. M., Nelson, R. J., Stryker, M. P., Cynader, M. S., Schoppmann, A., &Zook, J. M. (1984). Somatosensary cortical map changes following digit amputation in adult monkeys. Journal of comparative neurology, 224(4), 591-605. 28. Merzanik, M. M., & Jenkins, W. M. (1993). Reorganization of cortical representations of the hand following alterations of skin inputs induced by nerve injury, skin island transfers, and experience. Journal of Hand Therapy, 6(2), 89-104. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

PROCEEDINGS COINs15 MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH E-MAIL BASED SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS Peter Gloor, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon MIT, University Rome Tor Vergata Cambridge USA, Rome Italy pgloor@mit.edu, fronzetti.colladon@dii.uniroma2.it ABSTRACT This paper describes first experiments measuring organizational consciousness by comparing six “honest signals” of interpersonal communication within organizations with organizational metrics of performance. INTRODUCTION Ever since French enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes put human consciousness into the sentence “Cogito ergo sum” – “I think therefore I am,” researchers have been grappling with what human consciousness really is. In this paper we extend individual consciousness to collective consciousness, trying to identify communication patterns that might be indicative of the consciousness of groups. Teilhard de Chardin introduced the concept of “noosphere”, the sphere of human thought complementing the biosphere, as the notion of a globally connected intelligence. Recently the concept of the “noosphere” has been gaining some traction, for instance by the Global Awareness Project at Princeton, which is trying to measure it using a network of sensors spread around the globe. The Princeton researchers claim to have identified a correlation between recognizable signals measured by their instrument, and significant external events such as earthquakes, or when the two airliners hit the World Trade Center 9-111. Other researchers claim to have discovered traces of global consciousness for example in the Twittersphere (Dodds et al. 2011). In this paper we define organizational consciousness as common understanding on the team’s global context, which allows team members to implicitly coordinate their activities and behaviors through communication (Daassi & Favier, 2007). SIX HONEST SIGNALS OF COMMUNICATION Our work focuses on organizations, and measures “honest signals” of communication, aggregating group consciousness along three dimensions of social interaction (figure 1): network structure, where we measure the degree of connectivity, dynamic changes 1 http://noosphere.princeton.edu/results.html in the network structure over time, where we measure the degree of interactivity of an actor, and content, where we measure the degree of sharing in word usage, sentiment, and emotionality. Degree of Connectivity Degree of Sharing Degree of Interactivity Figure 1: Three-dimensional framework of group consciousness These three dimensions are the result of research conducted over the last twelve years analyzing hundreds of organizations on the global level, organizational, and individual level (www.ickn.org). On the global level we have studied dynamic networks constructed from re-tweets on twitter, link structure on Blogs, and co-authorship and Wikipedia link structure on Wikipedia. On the organizational level we have studied communication within dozens of organizations through their e-mail archive. On the individual level we have identified similar patterns using sociometric badges measuring interpersonal interaction. Structure' Time' Central&& leaders& Rota2ng&& leadership& Content' Balanced&& contribu2on& Rapid& response& Innova2ve&& language& Honest&& sen2ment& Figure 2: Six honest signals of communication On the structure, temporal, and content level we have identified six signals, which are excellent predictors of organizational creativity and performance (figure 2). (1) Central leadership is measured through SNA metrics like group degree and group betweenness centrality. (2) Balanced contribution is measured as the variance in contribution index, i.e. the ratio of sending to receiving messages. (3) Rotating leadership is measured as oscillation in betweeness centrality and contribution index of actors. (4) Rapid response is measured as the average time it takes an actor to respond to another, and the number of nudges it takes until the other actor responds. (5) Honest sentiment is measured by the standard deviation in emotionality (6) Innovative language is measured as the deviation in word usage from a standardized dictionary. These six signals can be used to measure organizational consciousness. operation business units are regressed against an exogenously measured organizational performance 4"Steps"of"Knowledge"Flow"Op2miza2on" variable. OPTIMIZING THE FLOW OF KNOWLEDGE Predictors Intercept Emotionality Responsiveness Structure The six signals can then be calibrated with a dependent variable of organizational performance in a four-step process towards measuring organizational consciousness (figure 3). In the first step, an e-mail-based structural social network analysis of the organization provides initial insights into key questions at the divisional, departmental, and role/individual level such as: Who are key influencers? Who is central in the network? How do they behave? Do they contribute to discussions or filter them? Do they assume a collegial/creative work style? Do they respond quickly? What is the sentiment of their conversations? How do business units interact with the rest of the organization? How do outside partners interact with the organization? Answering these ad similar questions assists in developing the hypotheses for the calibration step. In the second step the six honest signals of communication are calculated. In the third step, if the organization has performance metrics, these can be used evaluate the organization and ascertain whether certain communication patterns are associated with superior performance coefficients of the six honest signals, using or instance a regression model (see table 1 for an example). In the fourth step, these organizational signals of consciousness can be continuously calculated, and interventions be taken to increase organizational effectiveness and creativity. Table 1 illustrates analyzing organizational consciousness of a large company, where the six honest signals of communication of 16 independently 1" Structure" bridges" structural"holes" connectors" bo<lenecks" 2" Honest"signals" best"prac2ce" benchmarks"from" 100’s"of" organiza2ons" 3" Calibra5on" " correlate"structure" with"outcomes" " 4" Interven5ons" customized" behavioral"change" Figure 3: Four steps of knowledge flow optimization to measure organizational consciousness As the regression shows, the more emotional and responsive, and the less hierarchically structured a business unit is, the more successful it is. Model&1 Coeff. FIT N Adj&R2 Model&2 Coeff. Model&3 Coeff. 0.1193777 0.6590365* 1.064805** 0.1409307* 0.1409307** 0.1228148** 0.0568062* 0.0511518** -0.0678522* 16 0.2612 16 0.5163 16 0.6930 Table 1. Regression results analyzing 16 organizational units of a company Through this approach we can substitute a dependent which is near impossible to measure – organizational consciousness – with measuring structural, temporal, and content based communication patterns, which, while still hard to measure, are far more tangible and measureable. REFERENCES Daassi, M, Favier M. (2007) Developing a measure of collective awareness in virtual teams, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, 413-425. Dodds PS, Harris KD, Kloumann IM, Bliss CA, Danforth CM. (2011) Temporal Patterns of Happiness and Information in a Global Social Network: Hedonometrics and Twitter. PLoS ONE 6(12): e26752. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026752 Gloor, P. A., Almozlino, A., Inbar, O., Lo, W., & Provost, S. (2014). Measuring Team Creativity Through Longitudinal Social Signals. arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.0440. Gloor, P. A., & Giacomelli, G. (2014). Reading global clients' signals. MIT Sloan management review, 55(3), 2329.

396 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 396-398 Deshpande, P. B., Why Teach Science of Internal Excellence Op-Ed Why Teach Science of Internal Excellence Pradeep B. Deshpande*1 * Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Louisville, & Six Sigma & Advanced Controls, Inc., Louisville, KY 40222 USA Abstract Students will derive a myriad of benefits from higher levels of internal excellence that are amenable to an audit. Among them are health & wellness, improved performance in all walks of life including academic work, better interpersonal and family relationships, and less discord and violence. Keywords: science, internal excellence, external excellence, ultimate reality, Consciousness. Educators have the noble responsibility to teach students how to excel. Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders and so the importance of teaching the correct knowhow cannot be overstated. Excellence can be categorized into two components: Excellence of the External and Excellence of the Internal. Excellence of the external encompasses two types of activities human beings engage in life: dynamic and static. Examples of dynamic processes include Petroleum refineries, petrochemical plants, pulp & paper mills, cement plants, Aluminum smelters, etc. Virtually everything else in life falls in the category of static processes or transactions. Transactional processes vastly outnumber static and dynamic manufacturing processes. The outcomes of all processes, whether static or dynamic, manufacturing or transactional, are influenced by unknown and uncontrollable causes which prevent us from achieving perfection (zero defects ad infinitum). Restricting this degradation in performance to unavoidable variation, which goes by name minimum variance, is the limit of achievable perfection in all external activities. The author refers to the wherewithal of how to achieve this level of performance as Excellence of the External and this training requires college education. Engineering students are appropriate recipients of training in minimum variance in dynamic processes while all college students ought to be trained in the knowhow of how to achieve minimum variance in static processes which are abundant in life and commerce. In his research into excellence of external activities the author kept finding evidence that organizations pursuing identical quality initiatives were realizing vastly different levels of performance. On the flip side, folks with no formal quality-training were delivering outstanding performance. It turns out that the elephant in the room in both instances is the level of internal excellence. Briefly, the level of internal excellence refers to the capacity of an individual to remain centered in the face of challenging external conditions that are part and parcel of life. The 1 Correspondence: Prof. Pradeep B. Deshpande, Six Sigma & advanced Controls, Inc., 1209 Holsworth Lane, Louisville, KY 40222, http://www.sixsigmaquality.com E-mail: pradeep@sixsigmaquality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 397 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 396-398 Deshpande, P. B., Why Teach Science of Internal Excellence wherewithal of how to enhance the level of internal excellence is called Excellence of the Internal. Together the two components of excellence and the practices associated with them constitute the Scientific Framework for World Transformation and it has become available arguably for the first time in human history. Exemplary performance requires both external excellence and internal excellence. While the scientific framework for external and internal excellence requires college education, the practices of internal excellence can be taught to students from an early age when they are able to sit quietly for a period of time and follow directions. Scientific scrutiny of internal excellence is important for success as humanity has become increasingly rational minded since the days of Copernicus possibly stung by the false claims of an Earth-centric nature of our existence. The capacity to remain centered in the presence of extremely unfavorable or highly pleasing external conditions depends on the three components of the mindset and two types of correlated emotions each of the 6 ½ billion of us is endowed with (The definitions are at the end of the article). The specific level of internal excellence of an individual can be inferred from several measurable outcomes. Among them are heart rate variability (beat-to-beat variations), respiration rates, brain waves, human energy field, and spontaneous affection shown by animals, birds and butterflies, among others. The principal tools for raising the level of internal excellence are contemplative practices such as mindfulness and meditation. Success with these practices can deliver improved health & wellness but they also benefit from good health and therefore a healthy diet and physical exercises for the external systems (spine, muscles, and joints) such as Yoga postures, workouts at a gym, etc., and breathing exercises for the internal organs and systems (Pranayam) are important. Students will derive a myriad of benefits from higher levels of internal and external excellence that are amenable to an audit. Among them are health & wellness, improved performance in all walks of life including academic work, better interpersonal and family relationships, and less discord and violence. The United States is home to the science of external excellence while the practices of internal excellence are uniquely ancient Indian, several thousand years old. However, in its scientific incarnation the scientific framework of internal excellence is made possible in part by the work of several American, Russian, and European scientists together with three Americans of different faiths. One is a Jewish American journalist who began her journey to decipher the mystery of the beginning of the universe in 1995 when she was a teenager. In 2014 she published a path-breaking book, ‘Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn’. The second is a Christian American theoretical physicist with a doctorate from Brown who is also a physician, board certified in Neurology and Internal medicine. Several years ago, he retired from private practice to spend full-time in search for the nature of ultimate reality. He is coauthor of the book on the Nature of Ultimate Reality with the author. Finally the author is an Indian American born in the Hindu faith and he has been on the journey to develop the framework for four decades. Together, the two components of the scientific framework can transform individuals, organizations, and nations, and make this a better and a more peaceful world. The author has made a presentation on this topic in several countries and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. He introduced the scientific framework and practices of internal excellence in his six sigma course (scientific framework of external excellence) in the MBA program of the University of Kentucky in Athens, Greece three years ago and the students love it. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 398 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| June 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 396-398 Deshpande, P. B., Why Teach Science of Internal Excellence Some Words of Caution The mysteries of the universe and the mystery of life are all about consciousness, emotions, energy, vibrations, and frequency. Once educators have internalized the scientific framework for world transformation, they will see that the quest to remain centered has nothing to do with race, gender, languages, religion, caste, or national origin. Discrimination and violence on any basis is a product of excessive R and T components. Race, religion, or caste have very little to do with these human afflictions. Incarnations, son of God, and Prophets from all faiths have left ample evidence that their sole aim in life had been to raise the S component and to endow humanity with abundant positive emotions (unconditioned love, empathy, kindness, compassion). These comments notwithstanding, the practices associated with the scientific framework for internal excellence which originated in ancient India involve certain postures, chants, etc., which can be easily misconstrued as being religious. They can be modified easily enough as deemed necessary without the loss of impact value. Further Readings Deshpande, Pradeep B. and Tantalean, Roberto Z., Process Control and Optimization, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., September 2015 (will be available on amazon). Deshpande, Pradeep B. and Kowall, James P., The Nature of Ultimate Reality and How it can Transform our World: Evidence from Modern Physics; Wisdom of YODA, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., January 2015 (Available from amazon). Deshpande, Pradeep B., Website, sot.sixsigmaquality.com, June 2015. Deshpande, P. B., Six Sigma for Karma Capitalism, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., January 2015 (Available on amazon). Gefter, Amanda, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn, Bantam Books, 2014. • • Max S Max T Max Positive Emotions Level of Internal Excellence • Mindset Components: S: Truthfulness, honesty, steadfastness, equanimity R: Attachment, bravery, ego, ambition, greed, desire to live T: Lying, cheating, causing injury in words or deeds, sleep Emotions: Positive Emotions: Unconditional love, kindness, empathy, compassion Negative Emotions: Anger, hatred, hostility, despair, resentment, frustration, guilt, jealousy, fear, sorrow Positive emotions are strongly and positively correlated with the S component Negative emotions are strongly and positively correlated with R and T components Level of Internal Excellence  Max Negative Emotions Figure 1. Internal Excellence Explained ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 889 Article Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination: Reflections on Some Misrepresentations of Buddhist Philosophy by Western philosophers, & a Quantum Buddhist Mind-only Solution (Part I) Graham P. Smetham* ABSTRACT The metaphysical implications of the Yogācāra-Vijnanavada ‘consciousness-only’ school of Buddhist psycho-metaphysics has become an issue of some debate amongst some Western philosophers with an interest in Buddhist philosophy. The ‘canonical’ view amongst many significant scholars is that, as the name suggests, this perspective asserts that the ultimate nature of the process of reality is nondual primordial consciousness/awareness. On this ‘Idealist’ view the external apparently material world is considered to be a mind-created illusion. However, some contemporary Western philosophers are offering seemingly more materialist, or noncommittal as to the existence of an external material world, versions. This article examines such claims and exposes their deficiencies. A quantum-Mind-Only Yogācāra-Vijnanavada perspective is explored. Keywords: Engaging Buddhism, consciousness-only, mind-only, three-nature theory, quantum consciousness potentiality, quantum Darwinism, ground-consciousness, store-consciousness, collective karma, quantum mind-created reality. The distinguished philosopher Jay L. Garfield has an impressive academic profile, having Professorships in both Philosophy and Tibetan Studies. He is also a member of a group of philosophers who call themselves “The Cowherds.” This appellation is derived from a comment made by the seventh century Indian Buddhist practitioner-philosopher Chandrakirti indicating that ‘conventional truth/reality’ (saṃvṛti-satya – also translated as ‘seeming’, ‘relative’, and ‘everyday’ truth or reality, as opposed to paramārtha-satya, ‘ultimate truth/reality’) is the way that the world is experienced by unenlightened people such as cowherds; ultimate reality, according to Buddhist philosophy, of course, is the way that reality is experienced by enlightened beings. The ‘Cowherds’ describe themselves as being: … scholars of Buddhist studies … [who] are united by a commitment to rigorous philosophical analysis as an approach to understanding Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology, and to the union of philology and philosophy in the service of the greater understanding of the Buddhist tradition and its insights.1 There are a couple of things one can say about this project at the outset. There are many impressive practitioners who are trained in both the meditative practices and the philosophical perspectives of the various Buddhist traditions, as opposed to people who are only academic * Correspondence: Graham Smetham http://www.quantumbuddhism.com E-mail:graham@quantumbuddhsim.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 890 “scholars.” Contemporary Buddhist practitioners such as Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and Ringu Tulku, to mention just three I have had experience of, clearly have degrees of realization which derives from consistent and committed meditation practice, as well as profound knowledge of Buddhist philosophical/metaphysical perspectives, perspectives that perhaps become more understandable with some degree of meditation competence. Teachers like these are fully conversant with the Western world and speak fluent English and therefore are able to explain Buddhist philosophy, which has been handed down through a line of teachers within various traditions, clearly for a Western audience. In the light of this it seems perhaps slightly incongruous for Western “scholars” to decide that they are required to sort out what various Buddhist philosophical perspectives really amount to. And the notion that a Western analytic philosophical approach is going to get the job done properly is, as we shall see, questionable. The fact that the various ‘cowherds’ come to significantly different conclusions points to this conclusion. Furthermore, there are a few significant Western scholar-practitioners, working within Buddhist traditions under the guidance of accomplished Buddhist teachers, who are able to articulate Buddhist metaphysical viewpoints with great precision and clarity. To my mind a remarkable contemporary example of such a scholar-practitioner is Karl Brunnhőlzl, who works alongside respected Tibetan teachers such as Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Brunnhőlzl has translated and written introductions and commentaries to important Buddhist texts, and his brilliant elucidations of such texts are clearly in line with traditional Buddhist perspectives, whereas some of the accounts presented by some of the ‘cowherds’ are a little misleading. In this article I will primarily be concerned with Garfield’s account of Yogācāra-Vijnanavada psycho-metaphysics, which, when viewed from the perspective of ‘canonical’ Yogācāra-Vijnanavada, is both bizarre and misleading. It must be said that Garfield is an academic who has done a great deal of significant work in the field of Buddhist Studies, translating texts and writing and editing several books. And he should be heartily congratulated for championing the view that Buddhist philosophy should be treated seriously by Western philosophers: People in our profession are still happy to treat Western philosophy as the “core” of the discipline, … So, for instance, a course that addresses only classical Greek philosophy can be comfortably titled “Ancient Philosophy,” not “Ancient Western Philosophy,” and a course in metaphysics can be counted on to ignore all non-Western metaphysics…. It is simply irrational to ignore most of world philosophy in the pursuit of truth, and immoral to relegate any literature not written by Europeans as somehow beneath our dignity to read.2 Such an attitude is indeed refreshing. However, the fact that Garfield, through a misguided use of a Western ‘analytic’ philosophical attitude, misrepresents a core Buddhist philosophical perspective is, obviously, less laudable. The fact that someone holding a weighty list of academic positions, and a significant stature within Buddhist Studies, manages to misconstrue and misrepresent the Yogācāra-Vijnanavada (yoga/meditation-practice-consciousness-onlyvehicle), which is the basis for what later became the Tibetan school of Chittamatra or MindOnly Buddhism, is disturbing. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 891 The Yogācāra-Vijnanavada school of Buddhist psycho-metaphysics developed in Indian Mahayana (Great-Vehicle) Buddhism around the fourth century C.E., largely as a result of the metaphysical explorations of the practitioner-philosophers Vasubandhu and Asanga. The term Yogācāra indicates that the exponents of this school considered the practice of meditation was a central aspect of the Buddhist path (‘yoga’ here refers to meditation, not physical postures), and the term Vijnanavada, ‘consciousness-way’, indicates that the metaphysics associated with this school asserts the primacy of consciousness in the process of reality. This viewpoint was in contrast to the Madhyamaka, Middle-Way, school which held that it was mistaken to ascribe either existence or non-existence to ultimate reality. As the philosopher Roger Zim points out: The fundamental doctrine of the Yogacara school is “that all phenomenal existence is fabricated by consciousness.” Consciousness is the basis of all activities from birth to attaining enlightenment; “...all is based upon the coming into being and the ceasing to be of consciousness, i.e., of distinctions in the mind.” Consciousness is the distinction making activity of the mind, both in making and having distinctions, including the states we consider the conscious as well as the unconscious. Consciousness, in making distinctions between self and other, becomes the subject which treats everything else as object. Consciousness itself is real. It exists as a series, or stream, of successive momentary awareness of events, each immediately replaced by consciousness in the next moment. Consciousness “has no substantiality ...and is dependent on the consciousness of the preceding instant.”3 Thus the foundational feature of Yogācāra-Vijnanavada would seem to be that all phenomena, including the appearances of apparently external objects, ultimately derive from the activities of consciousness. However, the extent to which consciousness determines the process of reality, in particular the status of apparently external objects, has for Western philosophers become a matter of dispute. The most prevalent understanding of Yogācāra-Vijnanavada is that the process of reality is in somehow entirely orchestrated by mind: The basic ontological question - what is there in the world? - is answered unambiguously by the Indian Yogācāra theorists of the classical period: they say there is nothing but mind (cittamatra).4 As Brunnhőlzl writes regarding the views of the 4th century Yogācāra practitioner-philoso-pher Vasubandhu: The beginning of Vasubandhu’s Vimsatikavrtti says: In the mahayana, the three realms are presented as being mere cognizance (vijnaptimatra). The sutras say, “Oh sons of the Victor, all three realms are mere mind (cittamatra).” … “Mere” has the meaning of excluding referents. All this is mere cognizance Because of the appearance of nonexistent referents, Just like the seeing of nonexistent strands of hair In someone with blurred vision. Like many other Yogācāra texts, Vasubandhu’s indeed continues by denying the existence of material outer objects…5 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 892 This view is sometimes termed ‘Idealist’, although the details of Yogācāra-Vijnanavada (henceforth denoted simply by ‘Yogācāra’) are much more complex and detailed than most Western notions of Idealism. However, Garfield, whilst sometimes conceding an Idealist aspect of the Yogācāra worldview, also suggests that it does not necessarily indicate that consciousness is involved in the actual production of the appearance of the apparently material external world. Thus in his discussion of the famous ‘brain in a vat’ scenario in relation to Yogācāra he writes: …Vasubandhu is an important partner in this conversation – that this conclusion is not necessarily idealistic. It is neither to deny the materiality of the brain, nor the vat, nor to deny the reality of the world to which I have only unmediated access. 6 And: Vasubandhu … calls upon us to challenge neither the reality nor the illusory character of the objects we perceive, but rather our instinctive view that they, we, and our experience of our own being are given to us just in the way that they exist, or that anything ever could be.7 In other words there may be objects ‘out there’ but we cannot know their true and ‘real’ nature. The Buddhist scholar Georges B. J. Dreyfus writes concerning this kind of approach to MindOnly: Modern scholars have tried to come to terms with this difficult topic. One interpretation is that this system is Idealist. Another view is that this is a misinterpretation of a philosophy that emphasizes the mind dependency of perceptual elements but remains neutral as far as the status of external objects are concerned. I have not seem anything in the Tibetan tradition supporting the latter interpretation.8 This would mean that Garfield’s claim would amount to indicating significant incompetence on the part of Tibetan scholars. But, as we shall see, the notion that the Yogācāra perspective is neutral concerning the nature of the apparently external material world is in the mind-only of some misguided Western philosophers. Examples of misleading presentations of the Yogācāra perspective are provided by Garfield’s account of Yogācāra psycho-metaphysics in general and his treatment of Vasubandhu’s magic elephant analogy in particular. This analogy comes towards the end of Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra text Trisvabhavanirdesa (Verses Explaining the Three Natures). Garfield proffers his idiosyncratic vision of Yogācāra both in his recently published book Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy and in an essay entitled ‘I am a Brain in a Vat (Or Perhaps a Pile of Sticks by the Side of the Road)’, this essay is contained in a recently published collection of essays Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: Allies or Rivals? Garfield has translated and interpreted Vasubandhu’s thirty-eight verses, as have several others, including Brunnhőlzl, and it is interesting to compare the difference between Garfield’s version, concocted with the help of an analytical philosophical attitude, and a correct reading of Yogācāra. It is also illuminating to view the Yogācāra, consciousness-mind-only viewpoint presented by Vasubandhu in the context of modern quantum discoveries, rather than analytic philosophy. We shall explore the possibility of a quantum-Yogācāra, which is in line with Mensky’s quantum psycho-metaphysical perspective, later in this article. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 893 We shall examine Garfield’s approach after a fairly comprehensive exploration of the Yogācāra worldview. The ‘cowherds’ are not the first academics to subject Buddhist philosophy to Western philological and philosophical treatment. The philosopher William S. Waldron focuses on the Yogācāra and its dialogue with modern thought, and he writes in a review of a book titled Yogācāra Phenomenology9 by another Western academic, Dan Lusthaus, that: There is still no consensus in the West as to how to best interpret, or even approach, the vast collection of Buddhist teachings and practices falling under the rubric ‘Yogācāra.’ A recently completed annual seminar at the American Academy of Religion, for example, hosted an impressive array of papers on an extensive range of topics for five years running without, however, finally addressing exactly ‘What is, or isn’t, Yogācāra?10 What this means, of course, is that there is no consensus amongst Western academic scholars of Buddhism. The Western academic practitioner of Buddhist Studies Dan Lusthaus, in particular, has forcefully asserted, in the book reviewed by Waldron and also in an article ‘What is and isn’t Yogācāra’, that Yogācāra does not involve the claim that the primary ontological nature of the process of reality is of the nature of mind or consciousness. In his article Lusthaus writes that: Yogācārins’ sustained attention to issues such as cognition, consciousness, perception, and epistemology, coupled with claims such as “external objects do not exist,” has led some to misinterpret Yogācāra as a form of metaphysical idealism. They did not focus on consciousness to assert it as ultimately real (Yogācāra claims consciousness is only conventionally real since it arises from moment to moment due to fluctuating causes and conditions), but rather because it is the cause of the karmic problem they are seeking to eliminate. And that: The school was called Yogācāra (Yoga practice) because it provided a comprehensive, therapeutic framework for engaging in the practices that lead to the goal of the bodhisattva path, namely enlightened cognition. Meditation served as the laboratory in which one could study how the mind operated. Yogācāra focused on the question of consciousness from a variety of approaches, including meditation, psychological analysis, epistemology (how we know what we know, how perception operates, what validates knowledge), scholastic categorization, and karmic analysis. Yogācāra doctrine is summarized in the term vijñapti-mātra, “nothing-but-cognition” (often rendered “consciousness-only” or “mind-only”) which has sometimes been interpreted as indicating a type of metaphysical idealism, i.e., the claim that mind alone is real and that everything else is created by mind. However, the Yogācārin writings themselves argue something very different. Consciousness (vijñāna) is not the ultimate reality or solution, but rather the root problem. This problem emerges in ordinary mental operations, and it can only be solved by bringing those operations to an end. Yogācāra tends to be misinterpreted as a form of metaphysical idealism primarily because its teachings are taken for ontological propositions rather than as epistemological warnings about karmic problems. The Yogācāra focus on cognition and consciousness grew out of its analysis of karma, and not for the sake of metaphysical speculation. Two things should be clarified in order to explain why Yogācāra is not metaphysical idealism: 1. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 894 The meaning of the word “idealism”; and 2. an important difference between the way Indian and Western philosophers do philosophy.11 There is much that is completely correct in Lusthaus’ perspective. It is indeed true that the Yogācāra perspective held that vijñāna, which is dualistic consciousness, is a “root problem” and did not assert that dualistic consciousness was the ultimate ontological nature of the process of reality. It is also correct that Yogācāra is not ‘metaphysical idealism’ as this term is generally understood in Western philosophy. However, this still leaves the issue of what the Yogācāra position is regarding the ultimate nature of the process of reality. Lusthaus claims that “There is no Universal collective mind in Yogācāra,” however, we shall see that Yogācāra indicates that the ultimate nature of the process of reality must be of the nature of mind. The first essential point concerning Yogācāra psycho-metaphysics is that it indicates that the world is experience-only, or consciousness-only (vijnanavada), cognition-only (vijñapti-mātra), or information-only and therefore outer, external, apparently material objects do not exist in the manner that they appear to, they are akin to collective illusions appearing, in a coordinated and coherent way, within the mindstreams of all sentient beings. The reason for the coherent and coordinated appearances within a group of sentient beings is the fact of collective karma. According to fully developed Yogācāra psycho-metaphysics ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ is a field – the cognitive field of the buddhas12 - (analogous to a quantum field, as we shall see) of awareness and experience energy-potentiality which can take various forms. In particular there are two levels of mind/consciousness, as Vasubandhu indicates (the following verses from Vasubandhu’s Trisvabhava-nirdesa are Garfield’s translation): Because it is cause and effect, The mind has two aspects. As the foundation consciousness it creates thought; Known as the emerged consciousness it has seven aspects.13 The ‘foundation consciousness’ or ‘store consciousness’, the alayavijnana, is an undifferentiated level of experience/awareness potentiality which underlies the manifested levels of consciousness which ‘operate’ within sentient beings. When this foundation level consciousness ‘emerges’ in sentient beings it manifests as “seven aspects.” These aspects are the consciousnesses which are associated with the various sense faculties: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and two mental faculties, which are ‘thought’ and ‘self-awareness’, the latter is also termed the ‘afflicted consciousness’ because the sense of self-identity is actually, according to Yogācāra psycho-metaphysics, delusional. The ‘foundation consciousness’, the alayavijnana, is also called ‘store consciousness’ because it ‘stores’ impressions or ‘seeds’ which are generated by the perceptions, thoughts and actions of all sentient beings. In other words, all the activities of the seven emergent consciousnesses leave traces in the foundation consciousness, and on the basis of these traces the activities of future emergent consciousnesses are conditioned. Vasubandhu’s verses describe this: The first [the foundation consciousness], because it collects the seeds Of suffering is called “mind.” The second [the emergent consciousnesses], because of the constant emergence Of the various aspects of things is so called [i.e. ‘mind’]. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 895 One should think of the illusory non-existent As threefold: Completely ripened, grasped as other, And as appearance. The first, because it itself ripens, Is the root consciousness, The others are emergent consciousness, Having emerged from the conceptualization of seer and seen.14 The “foundation” or “root” consciousness, then, “collects seeds” which then “ripen” as future “emergent” consciousnesses. The “appearances” experienced through the functioning of the emergent consciousnesses are “illusory” and “non-existent,” furthermore, they are “grasped” as being “other.” This means that they are “conceptualized” as “seer and seen,” which means they appear ‘dualistically’, in the guise of subject and object. This is the continuous cycle of samsara, the conditioned and dissatisfactory realm of cyclic dualistic experience. Within this cycle, the universal law of karma-vipaka, cause and effect, operates; karmic ‘seeds’ (bija) will produce similar future effects. Furthermore this universal karmic law operates on all aspects of the process of reality, including the appearance of the collective material world: …since beginningless time we have been perceiving sights, sounds, smells, tastes and bodily sensations and these perceptions have been creating imprints or latencies in the ground consciousness. Habituation of having experienced a certain visual form will create a latency for that very form. Eventually, that latency will manifest from the ground consciousness as a visual form again, but it will be perceived as external to ourselves.15 Within this process there are aspects which are common to groups of sentient beings because of common karma, like the apparently ‘material’ world which is common to humans and animals, and also individual aspects: The samsaric appearances that arise from these causes and conditions are of two kinds: common and individual. Some appearances are the result of identical causes created by many beings, so that something will be seen by everyone in common, such as everyone in a particular room seeing that it has two pillars. However, there are certain individual causes and conditions which result in beings having their own individual experiences of happiness and discomfort. … These different perceptions are due to different latencies that have been laid down in the ground consciousness.16 The ‘foundation consciousness’ (alayavijnana or “ground consciousness” in the above quotes) operates within the overall space of the dharmadhatu, the ‘space of phenomena’. When a sentient being becomes enlightened the alayavijnana dissolves and the ultimate ‘truth body’ of reality – the dharmakaya manifests. The dharmadhatu is the eternal backdrop of potentiality within which all the phenomena of samsara and nirvana take place. Samsara is the unenlightened perspective of conditioned and dissatisfactory cyclic existence, and nirvana is the extinguishing of samsara and the dissolution of the alayavijnana which is the basis of samsara. When the alayavijnana dissolves, the qualities of the dharmadhatu shine forth as nondual wisdom, jnana. The term ‘jnana’ refers to the profound nondual awareness-wisdom of the process of reality, the term vi-jnana indicates divided dualistic consciousness (the prefix ‘vi’ indicates a cut) which derives from jnana. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 896 The opening verses of Vasubandhu’s text which outlines the three natures are as follows (Garfield’s translation): The imagined, the other-dependent and The consummate: These are the three natures Which should be deeply understood. Arising through dependence on conditions and Existing through being imagined, It is therefore called other-dependent And is said to be merely imaginary. The eternal non-existence Of what appears in the way it appears, Since it is never otherwise, Is known as the nature of the consummate. If anything appears, it is imagined. The way it appears is as duality. What is the consequence of its non-existence? The fact of non-duality! What is the imagination of the non-existent? Since what is imagined absolutely never Exists in the way it is imagined, It is mind that constructs that illusion.17 The next verses are those we have covered above, which elucidate the structure of mind, or consciousness, as operating at two levels, the ‘foundation/store/ground-consciousness’ (alayavijnana) and the dualistic consciousnesses which ‘operate’ within sentient beings. The last line in the above quote clearly indicates that the functioning of the alayavijnana “constructs that illusion.” The three natures, as translated by Garfield, are: parikalpita, or ‘imagined nature’, paratantra, or ‘dependent nature’, and parinispanna, or ‘consummate nature’. These terms are translated differently by others. The above verses, including those indicating the two levels of mind, as translated by Brunnhőlzl are: The imaginary, the other-dependent And the perfect as wellThe three natures are held to be The profound object to be understood by the wise. What appears is the other-dependent And the way that it appears is the imaginary, Since it comes about through being subject to conditions And since it exists as mere imagination. The fact of the invariable absence Of the way it appears in what appears Is known as the perfect nature, Since it is never otherwise. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 897 What appears here? The imagination of what is non-existent. How does it appear? By way of having the character of duality. What is its nonexistence with that duality? The very nature of nonduality in it. What is the imagination of the nonexistent here? It is the mind that imagines in certain ways what does not exist, But its referents which it imagines like that, Are absolutely never found in these ways. Through being either cause or result, The mind is held to be twofold: The consciousness called “alaya” And the one called “operating,” which is sevenfold. The first is called mind, since it is accumulated By the seeds of the latent tendencies of afflictions, While the second is called mind Since it operates under various aspects. In brief, this false imagination Is considered as threefold: As maturational; likewise, as having characteristics; And the other as involving appearances. The first refers to the root-consciousness, Since its character is the maturation of latent tendencies The other refers to the operating consciousness, Since it functions as cognition with the duality of seer and what is seen.18 Brunnhőlzl, then, translates the three natures as 1) the imaginary, 2) the other-dependent and 3) the perfect, all consistent with Garfield’s terminology. Brunnhőlzl elucidates the term ‘otherdependent’ by indicating that: The “other” in “other-dependent” refers to the latent tendencies of various appearances of subject and object. Which in their entirety make up the alaya-consciousness.19 This identification of the other-dependent nature with the latent tendencies of dualistic appearances within the alayavijnana is validated by both analysis and other commentaries. Brunnhőlzl, in his work Mining for Wisdom within Delusion, which is an extensive exposition of the Yogācāra text Dharmadharmatavibhaga (Distinguishing Phenomena and the Nature of Phenomena) as well as an exploration of both Indian and Tibetan commentaries, shows that this identification is natural and is made by all commentaries, Sthiramati for example: …once the fundamental change of the alaya-consciousness (the dependent nature) occurs, the perfect nature is observed as the aspect of the freedom from duality, just like seeing a rope when one no longer sees a snake.20 The situation, however, is subtle and needs to be understood with subtlety. The alayaconsciousness is the dependent nature operating dualistically and thereby seemingly ‘creating’ the illusion of the dualistic world of the manifested dualistic consciousnesses. When the “fundamental change,” which takes place within enlightenment, occurs, the dualistic ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 898 appearances of the imaginary nature dissolve, and thereby the dependent nature appears to ‘transform’ into the perfect (consummate) nature. What appears to be a snake (the imaginary) is seen to be a rope, the ‘rope’ here represents the other-dependent operating within the ‘ultimate’ or ‘consummate’ nature. However, this is not a case of the imaginary being ‘taken out’, because it was never there as something extra, and there was no actual transformation from one thing into another. Brunnhőlzl writes brilliantly about this: Thus, the three natures are not three different “things.” It is not through taking away one (the imaginary nature) from the other (the dependent nature), that the third (the perfect nature) is obtained. Rather, Yogācāra takes the other-dependent nature as the experiential ground for a dynamic disillusioning and refining the way we see ourselves and the world, with the imaginary nature and the perfect nature being the two poles of mistaken and pure perception, respectively, right within that experiential ground. The other dependent nature stands for the continuity of experience, which is impure when blurred by the superimpositions of the imaginary nature and pure or perfected when the imaginary nature has been seen through and let go. However, since the realization of the perfect nature is an experience as well and not something abstract or just some nothingness … the other-dependent nature in its pure aspect is the perfect nature. … “other-dependent nature” is just a term for the compound … of the imaginary nature and perfect nature, which points to the underlying experiential continuity of a mind stream that becomes increasingly aware of its own true nature.21 So Brunnhőlzl characterizes the Yogācāra ‘three natures’ doctrine as primarily having to do with the process by which an individual mind-stream transforms its experiential continuum in order to become “aware of its own true nature.” Brunnhőlzl’s approach is in line with the presentation of Yogācāra philosophy by Gadjin M. Nagao: This one unchanging world is originally neither contaminated nor purified, but rather neutral … However, insofar as our interaction occurs directly or instinctively, like an animal, without reflection or self-consciousness – that is, in so far as we are not yet enlightened to its reality but remain in a deluded state – we speak of this world as a world of the imagined nature; it is an imagined world. Through our cognitions, or discriminations, or intellect, we are always projecting some kind of imagination … This projection of false imagination changes or contaminates the world … The sages and enlightened ones also live in this one, unchanged world. But, because they are enlightened and are free of all false imagination and attachment, for them, the world is no longer imagined and contaminated; it is pure and consummated.22 Thus, we see that the core Yogācāra delineation of the structure of the process of reality can be delineated as a common world, which is not “unchanging” in its details, although the ‘stuff’ it is made of (dharmata) is unchanging in essence. This ‘world’ can be experienced in two different ways. The common world is the paratantra, the ‘dependent’ or ‘other-dependent’ nature, which is the stream of ‘dependently’ or ‘other-dependently’ originated causal realm of experiential possibility. As Brunnhőlzl indicates most people experience the common world of the paratantra, the dependent nature, through the mistaken projections of the parikalpita, the mistaken imaginary nature which is projected onto or into the dependent nature. A central and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 899 pervasive feature of the imaginary projection is the appearance of svabhava, the deep-rooted immediate experience of entities as having their own internal, independent cut-off core of ‘selfbeing’ or ‘inherent-existence’. The paratantra, the ‘other-dependent nature’ is an interconn-ected and interpenetrating field of causes and conditions, but when it is viewed through the projection of the imaginary nature it is experienced as being made up of independent, separate entities. And it is through a process of transformation of consciousness and mind-streams that Buddhist practitioners are able to withdraw the imaginary projection in order to experience the dependent nature in its consummated, perfected or perfect nature – the parinispanna. Lusthaus uses the terms “the conceptually constructed realm” for the ‘imaginary nature’, “the realm of causal dependency” for the ‘other-dependent nature’ and “the perfectional realm” for ‘the perfected nature’. He writes: The conceptually constructed realm is the erroneous narcissistic realm in which we primary dwell, filled with projections we have acquired and habituated and embodied. Paratantra (lit. ‘dependent on other’) emphasizes that everything arises causally dependent on things other than itself (i.e. everything lacks self-existence). The perfectional realm signifies the absence of svabhava (independent, self-existent, permanent nature) in everything. When the causally dependent realm is cleansed of all defilements it becomes “enlightened.”23 So Lusthaus’ version of the meaning and relationships of the three natures is consistent with those of Brunnhőlzl and Nagao. The ‘other-dependent’ realm of the ground/foundation/storeconsciousness, wherein the seeds of future dualistic experiences are stored, is the foundational nature. But it has two possible modes of experience. The first mode is that which imputes or projects the solidity and inherent existence of the imaginary nature into or onto the otherdependent realm, this is the unenlightened mode. When the fictions of the imaginary nature dissolve then the enlightened mode of the perfected, perfect or consummate nature comes into being. This psycho-existential configuration is most precisely captured in Brunnhőlzl’s translation: What appears is the other-dependent And the way that it appears is the imaginary… It is the ‘other-dependent’ nature, which is the alayavijnana, the ground-consciousness, which actually does the appearing, and it produces appearances which appear as if a real, external, independent world of materiality were to stand over against an internal subjectivity. However, although the dualistic appearance is very powerful and persuasive, this “way it appears” is in actuality false, “the way that it appears is the imaginary.” The perfect nature manifests when the fact that the imaginary is imaginary and an illusion is directly seen: The fact of the invariable absence Of the way it appears in what appears Is known as the perfect nature, Since it is never otherwise. This Yogācāra insight is actually a restatement, with added surrounding context and elucidation, of Madhyamaka emptiness – sunyata, the apparent external solidity of the apparently material world is in actuality not there. All phenomena, internal and external, lack inherent existence, or ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 900 svabhava. However, it is also the case that all the phenomena of the apparently material world appear to have independent internal self-existence. The fact that this appearance of internal selfexistence and solidity is an appearance, and not reality, means that the reality of the appearance is absent from reality. Lusthaus’ use of the phrase “the conceptually constructed realm” for the parikalpita, ‘the imaginary nature’, points to an important issue. The term ‘parikalpita’ literally means “fully conceptualized,” so Lusthaus’ translation is, on the face of it, closer to the original meaning. However, Brunnhőlzl points out that the term “kalpana,” from which “kalpita” is derived: …is usually translated as “thought” or “conceptual thinking,” but basically refers to the deluded constructive activity of mind, which produces all kinds of dualistic appearances and experiences.24 The hugely significant issue, however, is just how deep and efficacious the constructive activity of mind is? Lusthaus, for example, denies that the Yogācāra perspective asserts the nonexistence of external entities: Yogācāra tends to misinterpreted as a form of metaphysical idealism primarily because its teachings are taken for ontological propositions rather than epistemological warnings about karmic problems. The Yogācāra focus on cognition and consciousness grew out of its analysis of karma, and not for the sake of metaphysical speculation.25 And with regard to the material world he writes that: …questions about the ultimate reality of non-cognitive things are simply irrelevant and useless for solving the problem of karma. … Yogācārins emphasize that categories such as materiality (rupa) are cognitive categories. “Materiality” is a word for the colors, textures sounds. Etc. … that we experience in acts of perception, and it is only to the extent that they are experienced, perceived and ideologically grasped, thereby becoming objects of attachment, that they have karmic significance. Lusthaus is suggesting, then, that the ‘existence’ or ‘non-existence’ ‘out there’, beyond our “cognitive categories” is irrelevant, all the Yogācārins are concerned with, according to Lusthaus, is the structures of cognition and consciousness which we throw over, so to speak, whatever, is, or is not, “out there.” Lusthaus calls this position “epistemological idealism” as opposed to ontological/metaphysical idealism. On this view, whether there is, or isn’t anything “out there” is irrelevant. Lusthaus’ perspective is, however, internally contradictory and incoherent. He tells us that Yogācārins are only concerned with its “analysis of karma,” and not interested in “metaphysical speculation.” What he seems to miss, however, is that the Yogācāra analysis of karma, which involves the notion of the ground consciousness (alayavijnana) as a deep layer of consciousness that carries seeds of potentiality across lifetimes, automatically has the ontological-metaphysical implication that the material world must be a production of the alayavijnana. All experiences which (unenlightened) sentient beings are subject to are the result of karma, their previous actions, and this must extend to experiences of materiality. It follows that experiences of materiality constitute what appears to be the material world, if there were a ‘truly material’ realm beyond our experience it would be beyond the influence of karma, and this would mean that this ‘real’ material realm would have no karmic influence on any sentient ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 901 being’s world, therefore natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and so on would have to be considered as random, not karmic, events, which is contrary to Buddhist doctrine. In this context the Buddhist practitioner and teacher Alexander Berzin was asked: …earthquakes are the inevitable outcome of our planet’s having arisen as it is; and it has arisen as it is as the result of the very broad collective karma of all the beings who have ever lived on this planet. Could you comment on this? And he replied: Karma, or more specifically, positive or negative karmic forces and karmic tendencies, whether individual or collective, ripen into various types of results. One of these results is a dominating result. A dominating result is our experiencing of the type of environment or society in which we are born or enter, and the way it treats us, or objects such as our possessions, and what happens to them.26 If karma is ubiquitous in forming the experiences of all sentient beings then whatever the ‘material’ world is ultimately made up of must ultimately be orchestrated by the groundconsciousness. It would be a very odd situation in which a group of people were having earthquake experiences generated by their karmic cognitive categories of ‘materiality’ if the ‘real’, so to speak, unknowable “out there” world of materiality was not actually quaking. At this point it is worth quoting a conclusion the much admired twentieth-century physicist John Wheeler came to on the basis of his understanding of quantum phenomena: Directly opposite to the concept of a universe as machine built on law is the vision of a world self-synthesized. On this view, the notes struck out on a piano by the observer participants of all times and all places, bits though they are in and by themselves, constitute the great wide world of space and time and things.27 Wheeler suggested that the material world was constructed by the perceptions of all the sentient beings, the “observer participants,” who inhabit or have inhabited the universe. This notion he graphically represented by his ‘self-perceiving’ universe graphic image shown in figure 1. As we shall see this is a natural conclusion from the details of quantum theory. Wheeler made many such dramatic statements and indications. In 1978 he wrote that: Figure 1 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 902 The universe does not ‘exist, out there,’ independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe.28 And speaking in April 2003 to the American Physical Society, he made the following remarkable, almost mystical, sequence of remarks: The Question is what is the Question? Is it all a Magic Show? Is Reality an Illusion? What is the framework of the Machine? Darwin’s Puzzle: Natural Selection? Where does Space-Time come from? Is there any answer except that it comes from consciousness? What is Out There? T’is Ourselves? Or, is IT all just a Magic Show?29 Wheeler, and quite a few other physicists, have been ‘forced’ to the conclusion that in some way the perceptual activities of all sentient beings determines what appears to be an external material world. As we shall see in more detail later, quantum theory actually supports a Yogācāra-like ‘idealist’ or ‘idea-ist’ psycho-metaphysical worldview. Yogācāra is idealism in the sense that it denies the ontological primacy of the material world and asserts that the process of reality is a matter of mind-stuff, so to speak. Wheeler asked, on the basis of his profound understanding of quantum physics, whether what appears to be a material world inhabited by sentient beings might be a “Magic Show.” Vasubandhu, a little under two thousand years ago, answered in the affirmative with his magic elephant analogy. The analogy involves a magician who by means of a magic spell, or ‘mantra’ is able to make a block of wood, or pile of sticks, appear in the form of an elephant. People deceived by the appearance might consider that an elephant really is “out there.” The magician, of course, knows that it is just an appearance. Here are the stanzas from Vasubandhu’s Thirty Verses as translated by Brunnhőlzl: Something magically created through the force of a mantra May appear as if it had the character of an elephant, But there is merely an appearing aspect there And no elephant at all exists. The elephant is the imaginary nature, Its appearance is the other-dependent, And the nonexistence of the elephant there Is held to be the perfect. Likewise, the imagination of what is non-existent Appears from the root-mind as having the character of dualityThere is absolutely no duality there, But a mere appearance does exist. The root-consciousness is like the mantra, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 903 Suchness is regarded as similar to the wood, Imagination is considered like the appearing aspect of the elephant And duality is like the elephant. Once the true reality of things is realized, Corresponding to the order of the [three natures] The processes of knowing, relinquishment, and attainment Are held to be simultaneous. Here, knowing is nonobservation, Relinquishment is held to be nonappearance, And observation without characteristics Is attainment, direct realization. Through the nonobservation of duality, The dualistic appearing aspect vanishes, And since that vanishes, the perfectThe nonexistence of duality-is discovered. This is just as the nonobservation of the elephant, The vanishing of its appearing aspect, And the observation of the wood In the magical illusion are simultaneous.30 The following, and final stanzas indicate that when the magic illusion is ‘seen through’, and thereby disempowered, the reality of the ultimate sphere of the dharmadhatu, the spacious sphere of the ground of all phenomena is observed. This is the realm of “suchness” (tathata), which in Vasubandhu’s analogy corresponds to the wood. Tathata is also termed dharmata which is the ultimate immaterial nature of all phenomena. Dharmata is the ultimate immaterial ‘stuff’, using this term very loosely, which in various configurations make up all dharmas, all phenomena. In Vasubandhu’s analogy the mantra, which corresponds to the root-consciousness or alayavijnana, operates upon the wood, which is suchness, the ultimate immaterial nondualawareness of reality. This interaction results in the appearance of the elephant, which is the appearance of a world of duality – apprehenders and apprehended, subjects and objects. Furthermore, these dualistic appearances appear to be very ‘real’ and are taken, by unenlightened beings, to be real in the way that they appear, the imaginary nature is taken to be real. And because of this, the reality of the ultimate nature of suchness is not seen, not realized. However, “once the true reality of things is realized” the illusion dissolves and the “wood” of the ultimate reality of the nondual realm of tathata, or suchness, is immediately experienced and known. The two penultimate stanzas of Vasubandhu’s exposition are as follows: Through the observation of it being merely mind, A knowable object is not observed. Through not observing a knowable object, Mind is not observed either. Through not observing both, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 904 The dharmadhatu is observed. Through observing the dharmadhatu, Mastery is obtained.31 These verses assert that when a practitioner fully comprehends, directly and experientially through profound meditation, that external dualistic phenomena are not as they appear to be, i.e. independent ‘material’ objects, but are actually collective projections of minds, then the subjective side of the duality dissolves as well. The term ‘mind’ refers to dualistic mind, and this dualistic mind dissolves into the non-dual experiential realm of the dharmadhatu. And the experiential nature of the dharmadhatu is the nondual dharmadhatu-jnana (wisdom-awareness). This nondual internally self-aware, self-luminous ground of dualistic appearances and dualistic mind (vijnana) is the fundamental nondual and insubstantial mind-energy-potentiality-awareness of the process of reality. As an advanced Yogācāra practitioner writes: …from the moment an individual attains awakening, the absolute Reality that is the natural state of abiding is realized, and whatever exists is seen to be contained without duality in the uncreate Clear Light of the ground. When this is realized, then the practitioner recognizes that even though various phenomena arise and pass away on a continuous basis, all such phenomena have the one same flavour throughout, which is the single taste of existing in awareness. Were there no such awareness, no entities would exist … When yogis realize the extra-temporal natural state of mind stripped naked as mere awareness, it is then that consciousness dawns no longer as consciousness but as gnosis (jnana, ye-shes) or ‘non-dual knowing.’ All phenomena dawn as innately pure. Thus the many synonyms, “basic goodness, Absolute Totality, Mahamudra, or the mind of uncreate Clear Light,” refer not to the mind (sems) as such but to the essence of mind (sems-nyid), or mind in its original natural state …32 And also: The metaphysical doctrine of the ancient Yoga tradition puts forth an understanding of the creation, progresson and eventual destruction of the Universe that seems surprisingly modern, to the extent in which it agrees with leading edge advances in science, quantum mechanics and cosmology. Those who go deeply into this subject, will find this doctrine rooted in a profound understanding of a great mystery called PARAMĀRTHA, which in Indian philosophy means ‘the Absolute’, devoid it is said of all attributes, and essentially distinct from manifested finite Being. The manifestation (pravrtti) and re-absorption of the Universe, or domain of finite Being, and how the latter relates to the transcendent infinitude of the Absolute has been central to Yogacara inquiry from the beginning of its history … It is believed that by means of proliferation (prapanca, differentiation), the innate essence of being in three forms (trisvabhava) manifests or is transformed, as it were, into active mentation in the act of Creation. This is then explained as the coming into being of alaya-vijnana, universal or cosmic consciousness, which is a concept that has also been held in Western philosophy by many great thinkers, from Plato, Plotinus and others…33 Here is the true meaning of Yogācāra-Chittamatra. And it turns out that there are in a sense two levels of mind-only. The first is the dualistic level of vijnapti-matra, or ‘cognition-only’, the dualistic world of subjects and objects are a matter of repeated and continuous cognition and perception, external objects are appearances which ultimately do not exist independently of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 905 perceiving minds. Once the illusion of this cognitive process is penetrated, the second, deeper level of insubstantial (as opposed to the substantialist Chittamatra perspective) nondual absolute mind-awareness becomes apparent. From this perspective it becomes apparent that all levels of the process of reality are transformations of mind-awareness-consciousness. The paratantra, which in unenlightened mode is also the alayavijnana, can be experienced as dualistic, whereby it manifests as the imaginary, or it may be experienced non-dualistically, in which case the paratantra is experienced as it really is, as an illusory play of appearances within the perfect nature of the nondual experiential realm of the dharmadhatu. As the ninth century Zen Patriarch Huang Po declared: This pure Mind, the source of everything, shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection. But the people of the world do not awake to it, regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowing, they do not perceive the spiritual brilliance of the source substance. If they would only eliminate all conceptual thought in a flash, that source substance would manifest itself like the sun ascending through the void and illuminating the whole universe without hindrance or bounds.34 In this depiction the ultimate ground of the process of reality, the perfect nature, which manifests when all of the imaginary projections of the dualistic sensory and mental consciousnesses are withdrawn, is portrayed as a “pure” mind-energy pervading the “whole universe.” In the light of this, the picture of Yogācāra psycho-metaphysics which is presented by some Western ‘analytic’ philosophers is very mundane. In Engaging Buddhism (EB), Garfield suggests that according to Yogācāra: …the phenomena we experience are dependent on our conceptual imputation simply because they are all really nothing more than projections of our consciousness, mere ideas and not external phenomena.35 In this connection Garfield cites Vasubandhu’s opening verse from his Twenty Stanzas: All this is merely consciousness, Because all intentional objects are non-existent. It is just as one who suffers from ophthalmia Sees such non-existent things as moons and hairs. However, when Garfield turns his attention to Vasubandhu’s Treatise on the Three Natures (Trisvabhavanirdesa) he believes, bizarrely, that Vasubandhu has changed his philosophical tack in the direction of phenomenology: …it is reasonable to say that Vasubandhu explicitly articulates an idealistic perspective in his Twenty Stanzas and Thirty Stanzas … and Vasubandhu in his final work Treatise on the Three Natures (Trisvabhavanirdesa) as developing a phenomenology. We might also say that the Entry into Lanka grounds the idealism … whereas the Discourse Unravelling the Thought, particularly the Paramartha-samutgata chapter … grounds the phenomenology.36 He then makes the extraordinary, and mistaken, claim concerning “radical idealism” that: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 906 Few in the West today, and even few contemporary Buddhists, take radical idealism seriously, but phenomenology is a central concern of contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. As we shall see, Yogācāra phenomenology can be an important resource for contemporary thought.37 However, as we shall see, Yogācāra is not phenomenology as practiced by Western philosophers. It is rather the case that some Western philosophers, such as Garfield, falsely imagine Yogācāra to be phenomenology in order to practice Western style philosophy in a Buddhist context. Furthermore, with regard to Garfield’s claim the possibility of taking “radical idealism” seriously, not only do contemporary Buddhists who are true to the metaphysical worldview of traditional Buddhism, rather than adherents to a misguided modified Western materialist Buddhism (which is not actually Buddhism at all), take the idea that the ground of the process of reality is mind-stuff seriously, but modern physicists are being forced into a quantum-Yogācāra “radical idealism” metaphysical perspective by quantum discoveries. In his book Engaging Buddhism Garfield offers the following ‘phenomenological’ exposition of the ‘three natures’: Every object, on this view, has these three natures. When I consider my coffee cup, for instance, it appears to me to be an independently existing external object that possesses all of the properties I naturally ascribe to it, including a color, feel, or some other property, that I simply register through veridical perception and cognition. This is its imagined nature. In fact the object as I experience is represented in my brain as a complex set of perceptive and cognitive processes, and may be experienced quite differently by beings with very different kinds of minds, for instance an insect or a dog. The fact that as an object of consciousness it is dependent on my cognitive architecture is its dependent nature. And seeing this leads me to see that as an object of experience, while it exists in one way (as dependent) but appears in another (the imagined). It is devoid of existence in the way that it is imagined, and this is its consummate nature. At first sight this may appear to be a precise statement of the Yogācāra ‘three natures’ doctrine, but, because Garfield presents the delineation of the natures in a materialist guise, it is in fact a travesty. It is quite clear that all three of the natures within the Yogācāra worldview are of the nature of mind, and the appearance of the material world, including ‘brains’, derives from the karmic activities within the paratantra, the alayavijnana or the other-dependent nature, so ‘brains’ are appearances within the mind-stuff of the paratantra/alayavijnana. It follows, therefore, that to represent, as Garfield does, the paratantra, other-dependent nature, as being an aspect of the process of reality which highlights the fact that “objects” are “represented in my brain as a complex set of perceptive and cognitive processes” is highly misleading because it suggests that ‘brains’ and ‘coffee cups’ actually exist as fully paid up material entities. This amounts to an attempt to completely remove the Yogācāra from its Buddhist soteriological context in order to cast it into the context of a fundamentally materialist mode of Western analytic philosophy. And this is a crude and mistaken attempt to appropriate subtle Buddhist psycho-metaphysical analysis for the purposes of a much less precise, cogent and competent Western academic discourse. Consider what the physicist Henry Stapp states about the ultimate existence of apparently material entities such as ‘brains’: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 907 …no such brain exists; no brain, body, or anything else in the real world is composed of those tiny bits of matter that Newton imagined the universe to be made of.38 According to Stapp and other significant physicists all material entities emerge form an “idealike” quantum realm of potentiality: We live in an idealike world, not a matterlike world. The material aspects are exhausted in certain mathematical properties, and these mathematical features can be understood just as well (and in fact better) as characteristics of an evolving idealike structure. There is, in fact, in the quantum universe no natural place for matter.39 Much contemporary Western philosophy tends to ply its trade with the bizarre idea that metaphysical concerns can be decided by purely conceptual word-spinning without a look at what science has uncovered about the nature of the functioning of reality. As Stapp has pointed out: Philosophers of mind appear to have arrived, today, at less-than-satisfactory solutions to the mind-brain and free will problems, and the difficulties seem, at least prima facie, very closely connected with their acceptance of a known-to-be-false understanding of the nature of the physical world, and of the causal role of our conscious thoughts within it.40 Because of its soteriological concerns Buddhist philosophy was not isolated from a concern with the nature of apparently external material world as well as the apparently internal subjective world. The pursuit of enlightenment requires a knowledge of the ultimate functioning of reality, and, because of this, Buddhist philosophy is not philosophy as practiced by many Western philosophers who only indulge in conceptual analysis, often with a hidden materialist bias, as if such a procedure is able on its own decide metaphysical issues. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 908 1 Cowherds, The, (2010), Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy, Oxford University Press, U.S.A. Back cover blurb. 2 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2013/05/jay-garfield-a-buddhist-philosopher-speaksout-or-howls-at-fellow-philosophers-academia-and-perhaps-the-moon.html 3 http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/Yogacara/basicideas.htm 4 Griffiths, Paul, J. (1986), On Being Mindless: Buddhist meditation and the mind-body problem, 80 http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/On%20Being%20Mindless_Buddhist%20Meditation%20an d%20the%20Mind-Body%20Problem_Griffiths.pdf 5 Brunnholzl, Karl, (2009), Luminous Heart: The Third Karmapa on Consciousness, Wisdom, and Buddha Nature, Snow Lion, 18 6 Garfield Jay L. & Westerhoff Jan (Cowherds) (eds.), (2015), Madhyamaka and Yogacara: Allies or Rivals, Oxford University Press, 256 7 Garfield Jay L. & Westerhoff Jan (Cowherds) (eds.), (2015), Madhyamaka and Yogacara: Allies or Rivals, Oxford University Press, 271 8 Dreyfus, Georges B. J. () Recognizing Reality, Suny, 465 9 Lusthaus, Dan (2006), Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun, Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism 10 http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/440170/original/reviewlusthaus_buddhist_phenomenology_h-buddhism.pdf 11 Lusthaus, Dan – ‘What Is and Isn’t Yogācāra’ - www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html 12 Garfield Jay L. & Westerhoff Jan (Cowherds) (eds.), (2015), Madhyamaka and Yogacara: Allies or Rivals, Oxford University Press, 147 13 Edelglass, W. & Garfield J. L. (2009), Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press, 42 14 ibid 15 Thrangu Rinpoche, Kenchen (2001), Transcending Ego: Distinguishing Consciousness from Wisdom. Namo Buddha Publication., Boulder, Colorado. 34-35 16 Thrangu Rinpoche, Kenchen (2001), Transcending Ego: Distinguishing Consciousness from Wisdom. Namo Buddha Publication., Boulder, Colorado. 17 Edelglass, W. & Garfield J. L. (2009), Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press, 41 18 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 47-48 19 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 492-3 20 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2013), Mining for Wisdom within Delusion: Maitreya’s “Distinction between Phenomena and the Nature of Phenomena” and Its Indian and Tibetan Commentaries. Snow Lion, 79 21 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 45 22 Nagao G. M. (1991), Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, State University of New York, 63 23 Lusthaus, Dan – ‘What Is and Isn’t Yogācāra’ - www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html 24 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 491 (endnote 198) 25 Lusthaus, Dan – ‘What Is and Isn’t Yogācāra’ - www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| October 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-909 Smetham, G. P., Engaging Buddhism with a False Imagination (Part I) 909 26 http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level2_lamrim/initial_scope/karma /questions_collective_karma.html 27 John D., Davies, Paul C. W., Harper, Charles L. (eds) (2004) p577 – Wheeler, J A (1999) ‘Information, physics, quantum: the search for links.’ In Feynman and Computation: Exploring the Limits of Computers, ed A. J. G. Hey, p309 (314). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. 28 Dolling, L.M.; Gianelli, A. F. & Statile, G. N. (eds) (2003) p491 – John A. Wheeler (1978): ‘The ‘Past’ and the ‘Delayed Choice’ Double-Slit Experiment.’ 29 Sarfatti , Jack ‘Wheeler’s World: It From Bit?’ - Internet Science Education Project, 30 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 51-52 31 Brunnhölzl, Karl (2007), Straight from the Heart: Buddhist Pith Instructions. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 52 32 Devenish, R. P. (2012), Principle Yogacara Texts. Dharma Fellowship. 13-14 33 Devenish, R. P. (2012), Principle Yogacara Texts. Dharma Fellowship, 2-3 34 Addiss, Stephen; Lombardo, Stanley; Roitman, Judith (2008), Zen Source Book: Traditional Documents from China, Korea and Japan. Hackett Publishing Company, 39 35 Garfield, Jay L. (2015), Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters To Philosophy Paperback, Oxford University Press, 33-34 36 Garfield, Jay L. (2015), Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters To Philosophy Paperback, Oxford University Press, 71 37 Garfield, Jay L. (2015), Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters To Philosophy Paperback, Oxford University Press, 72 38 Stapp, Henry (2007), Mindful Universe. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 139 39 Stapp, Henry (2004), Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics. Springer, 223 40 Stapp, Henry: ‘Philosophy of Mind and the Problem of Free Will in the Light of Quantum Mechanics’, 19 (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

November 25, 1997 LBNL- 40369 arXiv:quant-ph/9711064v1 26 Nov 1997 On Quantum Theories of the Mind ∗ Henry P. Stapp Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory University of California Berkeley, California 94720 Abstract Replies are given to arguments advanced in this journal that claim to show that it is to nonlinear classical mechanics rather than quantum mechanics that one must look for the physical underpinnings of consciousness. This work was supported by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098. ∗ In a paper with the same title as this one Alwyn Scott (1996) has given reasons for rejecting the idea that quantum theory will play an important role in understanding the connection between brains and consciousness. He suggests that it is to nonlinear classical mechanics, not quantum mechanics, that we should look for the physical underpinnings of consciousness. I shall examine here all of his arguments, and show why each one fails. Scott contrasts, first, the linearity of quantum theory with the nonlinearity of certain classical theories, and notes the complexities induced by the latter. Thus he asks: “Is not liquid water essentially different from gaseous hydrogen and oxygen?” Of course it is! And this difference is generated, according to quantum field theory, by certain nonlinearities in that theory, namely the nonlinearities in the coupled field equations. These field equations (or, more generally, Heisenberg equations) are the direct analogs of the coupled nonlinear equations of the corresponding classical theory, and they bring into quantum theory the analogs of the classical nonlinearities: these nonlinearities are in no way obstructed by the linearity of the wave equation. To understand this point it is helpful to think of the equation of motion for a classical statistical ensemble. It is linear: the sum of two classical statistical statistical ensembles evolves into the sum of the two evolved ensembles. This linearity property is a trivial consequence of the fact that the elements of the ensembles are imaginary copies of one single physical system, in different contemplated states, and hence they do not interact with one another. Thus in classical statistical mechanics we have both the (generally) nonlinear equations for coupled fields, and also the (always) linear equation for a certain statistical quantity. Similarly, in quantum field theory we have both the (generally) nonlinear field equations for the coupled fields, and also the (always) linear wave equation for a certain statistical quantity, the wave function. The fact that a group of several atoms can behave very differently from how they would behave if each one were alone is a consequence of the nonlinearity of the field equations: this nonlinearity is not blocked by the linearity of the wave equation. This blurring of the important distinction between the completely compatible linear and nonlinear aspects of quantum theory is carried over into Scott’s 1 discussion of solitons. The nonlinear field equations make the parts of this configuration of fields hang together indefinitely, and never spread out like a wave, as could be verified by doing experiments that probe its ‘togetherness’ by making several measurements simultaneously at slightly separated points: the various simultaneously existing parts of the soliton never move far apart. There is no conflict between this stability of the soliton and the linearity of the quantum mechanical wave equation. The wave function for the center-of-mass of the soliton does eventually spread out in exactly the way that a statistical ensemble consisting of the centers of the solitons in an ensemble of freely moving solitons (of fixed finite extension) would do: the spreading out of the wave function of the center-of-mass of a soliton just gives the diffusion analogous to the spreading out of a statistical ensemble of superposed centers of mass, due to the distribution in this ensemble of velocities of these centers of mass: the extended object itself, the soliton, does not spread out; its parts are held together by a nonlinear effect that can be attributed to the nonlinearity of the field equations. This obscuring by Scott of the important conceptual distinctions between the two very different aspects of the soliton associated with the linear and nonlinear aspects of quantum theory creates, I think, a very false impression of some significant deficiency of quantum theory with regard to the manifestation of the analogs in quantum theory of nonlinear classical effects. No such deficiency exists: the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen do combine, according to quantum theory, to form water. Failure carefully to follow through this conceptual distinction is the root of the failures of all of Scott’s arguments. Scott emphasizes the smallness of the spreading of the wave function of the center-of-mass of Steffi Graf’s tennis ball. That situation involves the motion of a large massive object, the tennis ball, relative to, say, a baseline on a large tennis court. A pertinent analogous situation in the brain involves the motion of a calcium ion from the exit of a microchannel of diameter 1 nanometer to a target trigger site for the release of a vesicle of neuro-transmitter into the synaptic cleft. The irreducible Heisenberg uncertainty in the velocity of the ion as it exits the microchannel is about 1.5 m/sec, which is smaller than its thermal 2 velocity by a factor of about 4 × 10−3 . The distance to the target trigger site is about 50 nanometers. So the spreading of the wave packet is of the order of 0.2 nanometers, which is of the order of the size of the ion itself, and of the target trigger site. Thus the decision as to whether the vesicle is released or not, in an individual instance, will have a large uncertainty due to the Heisenberg quantum uncertainty in the position of the calcium ion relative to the trigger site: the ion may hit the trigger site and release the vesicle, or it may miss the trigger site and fail to release the vesicle. These two possibilities, yes or no, for the release of this vesicle by this ion continue to exist, in a superposed state, until a “reduction of the wave packet” occurs. Thus, if there is a part of the wave function that represents a situation in which a certain particular set of vesicles are released, due to the relevant calcium ions having been captured at the appropriate sites, then there will be other nearby parts of the wave function of the brain in which some or all of the relevant captures do not take place— because, for this part of the wave function, some of the calcium ions miss their target—and hence the corresponding vesicles are not released. This means, more generally, in a situation that corresponds to a very large number N of synaptc firings, that until a reduction occurs, all of the 2N possible combinations of firings and no firings will be represented with comparable statistical weight in the wave function of the brain/body and its environment. Different combinations of these firings and no firings can lead to very different macroscopic behaviours of the body that is being controlled by the this brain, via the highly nonlinear neurodynamics of the brain. Thus the collapse effectively chooses between very different possible macroscopic bodily actions. I do not suggest that the mechanism just cited, involving the diffusion of the calcium ions in the nerve terminals is the only sources of significant differences between the macroscopic consequences of the quantum and classical descriptions of brain dynamics, for many other possible effects have been identified by quantum physicists interested in brain dynamics. But this effect is directly computable, whereas some of the others depend on complex factors that are not yet under theoretical control, and hence could be challenged as questionable. But this effect pertaining to calcium ions in nerve terminals gives very directly a reason for the the inappropriateness of the example of Steffi Graf’s tennis ball: the relevant scales are enormously different. Because of this the huge difference 3 in scales, the consequences of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and the subsequent collapses that they entail, are irrelevant to the outcome of the tennis match, but are critical to the bodily outcome of a brain activity that depends on the action at synapses. Scott now lists a number of reasons for believing that quantum theory is not important in brain dynamics in a way that would relate to consciousness. However, as I shall now explain, none of these arguments has any relevance to the issue, which hinges on a putative connection between conscious thoughts and quantum reduction events. The point is this. The quantum reduction/collapse events mentioned above are, according to orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory, closely tied to our conscious experiences. I believe that all physicists who suggest that consciousness is basically a quantum aspect of nature hold that our conscious experiences are tied to quantum collapses. The motivation for this belief is not merely that it was only by adopting this idea that the founders of quantum theory were able to construct a rational theory that encompassed in a unified and logically coherent way the regularities of physical phenomena in both the classical and quantum domains. The second powerful motivation is that this association seems provide a natural physical basis for the unitary character of our conscious experiences. The point is that quantum theory demands that the collapse of the wave function represent in Dirac’s words “our more precise knowledge after measurement”. But the representation of the increase in knowledge associated with say, some perception, would be represented in the brain as the actualization, as a whole unit, of a complex brain state that extends over a large part of the brain. Collapse events of some kind are necessary to make ontological sense out of orthodox-type quantum theory, and these events can never be pointlike events: they must have finite extension. But once they are in principle nonpointlike, they need not be tiny, and can quite naturally extend over an entire physical system. The natural and necessary occurrence in quantum theory of these extended holistic macroscopic realities that enter as inseparable and efficacious units into the quantum dynamics—and which, according to the physical theory itself, are associated with sudden increments in our knowledge—seems to put the physical and psychological aspects of nature into a much closer and more natural correspondence with each other in quantum theory than in classi4 cal mechanics, in which every large-scale thing is, without any loss, completely decomposable, both ontologically and dynamically, into its tiny parts. Scott’s first reason for claiming quantum theory to be unimportant to mind pertains to the speading of wave packets in molecular dynamics. That effect was just considered, and the crucial spreading of the calcium ion wave packets in nerve terminals was shown to be large compared to the ion size, contrary to Scott’s estimate. Scott then considers a subject he has worked on: polarons. He says the the effect of the quantum corrections is to degrade the global coherence of the classical polaron. But this “degrading” is not just some fuzzying-up of the situation: it is the very thing that is of interest and importance here. In the case of a body/brain this “degrading” is, more precisely, the separation of the wave function into branches representing various classical describable possibilities. However, only one of these classical possibilities is experienced in the mind associated with this body/brain. Quantum theory in its present form is mute on the question of which of these possibilities is experienced: only a statistical rule is provided. But then what is it that undoes this huge (in our case) degrading that the linear wave equation generates. It is not the classical nonlinearities, for the quantum analogs of these nonlinearities are built into the part of the quantum dynamics that creates the superposition of the classically describable possibilities: they are built into the Schroedinger equation. A collapse, which is the putative physical counterpart of the conscious experience, is a different effect that does not enter into the Schroedinger equation. Nor does it enter at all into the classical approximation to quantum theory. In that approximation there are no Heisenberg uncertainties or indeterminacies, and hence no collapses, and hence from the persective of the encompassing and more basic quantum theory, no physical counterparts of our conscious experiences. His next two points concern the difficulty of maintaining “quantum coherence” in a warm, wet brain. The brain is a complex structure with built-in energy pumps. The question of whether or not long-range quantum coherence could be maintained is difficult to settle theoretically. Some explorations have been made (Vitiello, 1995), but the matter is not yet settled. On the other hand, my theory yields important quantum effects that are not wiped out by decohence effects and that could lead to the evolution of a dynamically effica5 cious consciousness in coordination with evolution of brains without requiring any long-range quantum coherence (Stapp, 1997a,b). Scott’s next item is the theory for the propagation of an action potential along a nerve fiber. He points out that this propagation is well described by the classical Hodgkin-Huxley equation. But even among neuroscientists who accept classical mechanics as an adequate foundation for brain dynamics there is a recognition that although in some situations the parallel processing structure produces reliable and essentially deterministic behaviors of groups of neurons, in spite of the essentially stochastic character of the the distribution of individual pulses on the individual neurons, in other cases there are long-range correlations in the timings of pulses. One can expect in cases where thermal and other classical fluctuation effectively cancel, in such a way as to give reliable and deterministic behaviors, that the quantum effects associated with collapses will probably have no major macroscopic consequences. But in cases where longrange correlations of pulse timings arise, the precise details of these timings must be controlled in part by stochastic variables even in a completely classical model that generallly conforms to, say, the Hodgkin-Huxley equation. In these more delicate situations there is ample room for the large-scale effects associated with quantum collapses of brain-wide quantum states to play a decisive dynamical role within the framework of possibilities compatible with the classical HodgkinHuxley equations. Indeed, the actualization of global brain states would be expected produce fine-tuned global regularities that classical mechanics could not account for. Scott’s final point is about Schroedinger’s cat. He says the Schroedinger equation cannot be constructed because the cat does not conserve energy. But the usual assumption in these studies of the quantum mind-brain is that quantum theory is universally valid, in the sense that the Schroedinger equation is the equation of motion for the entire universe, in absence of collapse events. Partial systems are defined by integrating over the other degrees of freedom, and their energies are not conserved. 6 References Fogelson, A.L. & Zucker, R.S. (1985),‘Presynaptic calcium diffusion from various arrays of single channels: Implications for transmitter release and synaptic facilitation’, Biophys. J., 48, pp. 1003-1017. Scott, A. (1996), ‘On quantum theories of the mind’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 5-6, pp.484-91. Stapp, H. (1993), Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, (Berlin: Springer), Chapter 6. Stapp, H. (1997a), ‘Pragmatic Approach to Consciousness’ To be published in The Neural Correlates of Consciousness, ed., N. Osaka; To be re-published in Brain and Values, ed. K. Pribram, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. Availaible at http://www-physics.lbl.gov/∼stapp/stappfiles.html Stapp, H. (1997b) ‘Quantum ontology and mind-matter synthesis’, in The X-th Max Born Symposium, eds., P. Blanchard and A. Jadczyk, to be published by Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Availaible at http://www-physics.lbl.gov/∼stapp/stappfiles.html Vitiello, G (1995), ‘Dissipation and memory capacity in the quantum brain model’, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B9, 973-89. Zucker, R.S. & Fogelson, A.L. (1986), ‘Relationship between transmitter release and presynaptic calcium influx when calcium enters through disrete channels’, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 83, pp. 3032-3036. 7

757 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 757-761 Kaufman, S. E., the Flow of the Great Mother Realization The Flow of the Great Mother Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT The Great Mother is One, everything else comes in pairs of opposites, because everything else is created as the Great Mother Flows in relation to Herself. And so in constructing the door that leads to Her enjoying Herself, She also constructs a door that makes it possible for Her to do the opposite of enjoying Herself. Key Words: Great Mother, One, flow, universe of form. Better than to try and improve yourself is to just enjoy yourself. The Great Mother did not create this Universe of Forms out of Herself to improve Herself. The Great Mother created this Universe of Forms out of Herself to enjoy Herself. To envelope Herself in her own Joy in her own Being. To Wrap Herself around Herself and then Flow through Herself while still Wrapped around Herself. The Great Mother does not Flow Herself through these Forms made of Herself, as She is wrapped about Herself, in order to become better, in order to become more, for that is not possible. *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 758 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 757-761 Kaufman, S. E., the Flow of the Great Mother She is perfect as She Is. There is no room for improvement. There is however, room for enjoyment. But with the possibility of enjoyment must also arise the possibility of the opposite of enjoyment. All this Wrapping around and Flowing through in order to create enjoyment, in order to create joy, requires the Great Mother to Be in relation to Herself. And where one relation is possible that creates one sort of feeling, the opposite relation must also be possible that creates the opposite feeling. The Great Mother is One, everything else comes in pairs of opposites, because everything else is created as the Great Mother Flows in relation to Herself. And so in constructing the door that leads to Her enjoying Herself, She also constructs a door that makes it possible for Her to do the opposite of enjoying Herself. One who does not understand this thinks that suffering should not be. But one who does understand this knows that without the possibility of suffering there can be no possibility of its opposite, no possibility of enjoyment. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 759 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 757-761 Kaufman, S. E., the Flow of the Great Mother Enjoyment arises when the Great Mother Flows through Herself unopposed by Herself. Suffering arises when the Great Mother Flows through Herself opposed by Herself. When the Great Mother Knows Herself, She naturally Flows through Herself without opposition, and so feels enjoyment. But when the Great Mother forgets Herself, She just as naturally Flows through Herself opposing Herself, and so feels suffering. And so there is something that we can improve, but it is not what we Are, for That is already perfect. What we can improve is what we know our self to be, for in this regard we are always mistaken, but to greater and lesser degrees. The more our idea of our self is in conflict with our true Nature, the more in conflict with that Nature our Flow will Be. And the more our idea of our self is in harmony with our true Nature, the more in harmony with that Nature our Flow will Be. Now no idea is exactly what we Are, for ideas are forms and we Are not. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 760 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 757-761 Kaufman, S. E., the Flow of the Great Mother So as long as an idea comes between us and our Nature there will be some conflict between us and our Nature. But as a clean mirror has greater utility than one that is caked with mud, a clear idea of one's Nature has greater utility than an idea that muddies one's Nature. The idea that you can improve yourself, and that you can improve the world, are ideas that arise from a muddy image of what you Are. The idea that you can enjoy yourself, and that you can enjoy the world, are ideas that arise from a clear image of what you Are. It may be true that the ultimate Knowledge comes when all thought is set aside, when all masks are dispensed with. But until then why not just enjoy yourself as best you can. It is what the Great Mother would do. It is what the Great Mother is doing. And when you do as the Great Mother does you Flow as the Great Mother Flows, and the more you Flow as the Great Mother Flows the more transparent and unreal all the masks become, until all that remains is That which, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 761 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | October 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 8 | pp. 757-761 Kaufman, S. E., the Flow of the Great Mother to the extent that It is revealed, gives to every mask its Beauty, and so causes the world and one's self to appear as beautiful and perfect as they are, and to the extent that It is hidden makes every mask appear less than beautiful, and so causes the world and one's self to appear as less than beautiful and imperfect as they are, and so in need of some repair, in need of some improvement. So many words, so little actually happening. The Great Mother Being and Flowing in aligned or opposed relation to Herself, and so enjoying Herself, or suffocating Herself. That is all. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Viewpoint A Theoretical Computer Science Perspective on Consciousness and Artificial General Intelligence1 Lenore Blum2 and Manuel Blum3 Abstract We have defined the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) for the purpose of investigating a Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) approach to consciousness. For this, we have hewn to the TCS demand for simplicity and understandability. The CTM is consequently and intentionally a simple machine. It is not a model of the brain, though its design has greatly benefited - and continues to benefit - from neuroscience and psychology. The CTM is a model of and for consciousness. Although it is developed to understand consciousness, the CTM offers a thoughtful and novel guide to the creation of an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). For example, the CTM has an enormous number of powerful processors, some with specialized expertise, others unspecialized but poised to develop an expertise. For whatever problem must be dealt with, the CTM has an excellent way to utilize those processors that have the required knowledge, ability, and time to work on the problem, even if it is not aware of which ones these may be. 1 The Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) in a nutshell A Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) perspective is employed to define the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), “conscious awareness”, and the “feeling of consciousness” in the CTM (Blum & Blum, 2021). These are followed by arguments explaining why the definitions capture commonly accepted understandings of consciousness and the feelings that many people have of their own consciousness (Blum & Blum, 2022). The CTM is a mathematical formalization of a modified version of the Global Workspace Theory (GWT) of consciousness (Figure 1) that originated with cognitive neuroscientist Bernard Baars in (Baars B. J., 1988) and (Baars B. J., 1997), and was subsequently extended to the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) by (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011), (Dehaene S. , 2014) and (Mashour, Roelfsema, Changeux, & Dehaene, 2020).4 Baars describes conscious awareness through a theater analogy as the activity of actors in a play performing on a stage of Working Memory, their performance under observation by a huge audience of unconscious processors sitting in the dark. In the CTM, the stage is represented by a Short Term Memory (STM) that at every tick of a central clock contains what is defined to be CTM’s conscious content. The audience members are represented by an enormous collection of powerful random access processors - some with their own expertise, some 1 This work was supported in part by a grant from UniDT. 2 lblum@cs.cmu.edu; lenore.blum@berkeley.edu 3 mblum@cs.cmu.edu; blum@cs.berkeley.edu 4 Baars’s GWT is strongly influenced by earlier work in cognitive science, much of which was done at Carnegie Mellon: (Simon, 1969), (Reddy, 1976), (Newell, 1990) and (Anderson, 1996). 1 © 2023 Blum & Blum without, and all with deep learning hardware to develop or improve an expertise - that make up CTM’s Long Term Memory (LTM) processors. These LTM processors make predictions about the world and get feedback from that (CTM’s) world. Based on that feedback, learning algorithms Internal to each processor improve that processor’s behavior. LTM processors compete to get their questions, answers, and comments onto the STM stage for immediate broadcast to the audience. The information that passes through STM is coded in the form of chunks. Conscious awareness/attention is defined formally in the CTM as the reception by all LTM processors of whatever chunk was broadcast from STM and received by processors of LTM. In time, some LTM processors become connected via links that serve as channels for carrying chunks directly between processors. Links turn indirect conscious communication (via STM) between LTM processors into direct unconscious communication (not involving STM) between those processors. While these definitions are natural, they are merely definitions. They are not arguments that the CTM is conscious in the sense that the word “consciousness” is normally used. We do argue however that the definitions and explanations from the CTM capture broadly accepted intuitive understandings of consciousness. Although inspired by Baars’ global workspace model, there are significant differences between Baars’ model (Figure 1a) and the CTM (Figure 1b). With respect to architecture, while Baars has a central executive, the CTM has none: it is a distributed system that enables the emergence of functionality and applications to general intelligence. In the CTM, input sensors transmit environmental information directly to appropriate LTM processors; output actuators act on the environment based on information gotten directly from specific LTM processors. In the Baars model, these inputs and outputs are processed through working memory. In the CTM, chunks are formally defined and are submitted by LTM processors to compete in a well-defined competition for STM; in the Baars model, neither are formally defined. For Baars, a conscious event occurs between the input and the central executive; in the CTM, conscious awareness is the reception by the LTM processors of the chunk broadcast globally from the STM. Although inspired by Turing’s simple yet powerful model of a computer, the CTM is not a standard Turing Machine. That’s because what gives the CTM a “feeling of consciousness” is not its input-output map or its computing power but rather its global workspace architecture; its predictive dynamics (cycles of prediction, feedback, and learning); its rich multi-modal inner language (which we call Brainish) for inter-processor communication; and certain particularly important LTM processors including the Inner Speech, Inner Generalized Sensation, and Model-of-the-World processors. Figure 1. Sketches of models: a) Baars' GWT model (left) and b) the CTM (right). 2 © 2023 Blum & Blum As mentioned in the abstract, the CTM is not intended to be a model of the brain but a simple model of consciousness, and even there, the CTM model can hardly be expected to explain everything: it is too simple for that. The reasonableness of the model (and its TCS perspective) should be judged by its contribution to the discussion and understanding of consciousness, to related topics like feelings of pain and pleasure, and to its potential for use as an AGI. The above presents an overview of the CTM model. We refer the reader to two papers for the formal definition of CTM as 7-tuple and chunk as 6-tuple. The first paper (Blum & Blum, 2021) explores explanations for the feelings of pain and pleasure in the CTM.5 The second paper (Blum & Blum, 2022) explores additional phenomena generally associated with consciousness such as free will and the disorder of blindsight.6 We give explanations derived from the formal model and draw confirmation from consistencies at a high-level with the psychology and neuroscience literature.7,8 2 The CTM and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)9 Though the CTM is defined to be a very simple model of consciousness, it being explicitly formally defined for generating definitions and understandings of consciousness, it also suggests a novel approach to AGI, giving a way to coordinate an enormous number of (special-purpose) artificial intelligence (AI) agents for the purpose of building the AGI. In particular, it suggests how to coordinate a huge number - 107 or more10 - of processors, some specialized, most initially unspecialized but capable of being specialized, to solve a variety of unforeseen problems. In an AGI, specialized processors could be tasked to get information from a number of search engines, from ChatGPT or GPT-4, Wikipedia, Google Translate, Wolfram alpha, the weather channel, newspapers, HOL Light11, and so on. These are existing ready-made processors. Many more processors could and would be developed from scratch as needed by the CTM itself. A principal contribution of the CTM is a way to coordinate processors that must solve a diverse collection of unforeseen problems. The CTM assigns tasks to its processors, even though it has no 5 For an update on pain and pleasure in the CTM, see Chapter 4 of the Blum’s The Hard Problem for Pain and Pleasure, in https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.09850. 6 For an update see https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.13704. 7 We note a historical synergy between theoretical computer science and neuroscience. Turing’s simple computer model led neuroscientist Warren S. McCulloch and mathematician Walter Pitts to define their formal neuron, itself a simple model of a neuron (McCulloch & Pitts, 1943). Mathematics forced their model to have inhibition, not just excitation - because without inhibition, loop-free circuits of formal neurons can only compute monotonic functions - and these do not suffice to build a universal Turing Machine. The McCulloch-Pitts neuron also gave rise to the mathematical formalization of neural nets (Wikipedia) and subsequent deep learning algorithms (Goodfellow, Bengio, & Courville, 2016), further illustrating ongoing synergies. 8 A forthcoming monograph (Blum, Blum, & Blum, In preparation) describes in more detail how the CTM works. Its three appendices demonstrate how CTM can operate with no central executive, despite that all other global workspace models (such as Baars’ functional model (Baars B. J., 1997)) hypothesize a Central Executive. These same appendices show by example how CTM functions with just one chunk in STM instead of George Miller’s 7±2 (Miller, 1956) or Nelson Cowan’s 3 or 4 (Cowan, 2015). No other models suggest that one chunk will suffice. 9 Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task that can be learned by human beings or other animals. 10 107 is the estimated number of cortical columns in the brain. 11 HOL Light is a formal mathematical programming system for generating proofs that are logically and mathematically correct, and/or for checking any “proofs” given it. It was used, for example, by Tom Hales to prove the correctness of his solution to the Kepler conjecture (Hales, 2005). 3 © 2023 Blum & Blum central executive and no single processor or collection of processors to keep track of which processors have the time and know-how to do the task. How it does that is an interesting koan. Suppose (a processor of) CTM has a task to perform but nary a clue how to perform it, and no idea which, if any, of its many Long Term Memory (LTM) processors has the knowledge, ability, and time to deal with the task. Through a well-defined competition for Short Term Memory (STM), the processor submits a request for help to all LTM processors. The request will with some probability [well-defined in the CTM] reach STM for global broadcast to all (LTM) processors. All processors that have relevant expertise and time to work on the problem respond, again through the competition and global broadcast. Their broadcasts in turn can motivate other processors to come into play. In this way, the CTM engages powerful processors to collectively solve a problem that CTM had no idea how to solve, no approach to the problem, no sense which processors, if any, could be helpful. When it comes to mathematics, the CTM is ideal for orchestrating its processors to recognize a sound logical argument, write a correct mathematical proof, and check its work. It can program its processors and modify them as needed to reach such goals. For example, one processor can suggest an approach to a proof, a second can evaluate the likelihood that the approach will work, a third can outline a potential “proof”, a fourth can check if a proposed “proof” is really a proof (pointing out what problems arise) if not, and so on... More generally, the CTM can and must have processors for checking the truth of statements or arguments. Consider for example the assertion that shrimp is healthy to eat. One source says YES, shrimp is healthy, but that statement comes from an Association that represents the Frozen Foods industry, making it suspect. Another says NO, shrimp is unhealthy: it has lots of cholesterol and cholesterol is unhealthy. Yet another says YES, shrimp is healthy, the cholesterol in shrimp is the healthy LDL kind. As that last paper (De Oliveira e Silva, et al., 1996) is authored by a scholar from a respected (Rockefeller) University, and published in a reputable refereed journal, its case is the strongest so far. Responses to the paper may further strengthen or weaken the assessment. 3 What features does the CTM bring to the design of an AGI? The CTM is a simple TCS model of consciousness. It is not a brain. It is not an AGI. That said, we suggest that its basic features surely have value in the design of some aspects of an AGI. For example: 3.1. The CTM suggests an approach to building an AGI that has no central executive - no conductor, no stage director. It has an enormous number of processors, each of which is largely self-directing, rather like the members of a self-conducting musical ensemble. This architecture is unexpected and strange because large assemblies, large orchestras, and large political states, generally have a leader. The CTM has one and only one actor on stage, and that one is not a leader. It serves merely as 3.1.1. a small buffer to hold the winning chunk of the current competition and 3.1.2. a broadcasting station to beam that chunk to the entire LTM audience. The CTM solves a conundrum: how is it possible for a long and subtle argument, say the proof of a difficult theorem, to be understood – grasped as it were in the palm of one’s hand? That handful is the final chunk that contains something like “Eureka! I got it.” That chunk is from a processor that, if asked, can point to the outline of a proof, each phrase of which can point to what in the proof it depends on and what depends on it. 4 © 2023 Blum & Blum 3.2. The audience members of the CTM global workspace are self-monitoring processors. They have the final word on the value of their personal contribution.12 3.3. Baars (Baars B. J., 1997) says that the audience members of the global workspace consult among themselves to agree on who to send to the stage, but how do they do that? Baars doesn’t say. The CTM, on the other hand, explains precisely how to do it. It hosts a well-defined competition that is similar to, and actually provably better than a chess or tennis tournament in that, at minor cost and negligible extra time, it guarantees that each processor will broadcast its information with probability proportional to the value of its information (a value computed dispassionately by the processor’s sleeping experts algorithm), something that chess and tennis tournaments do not and cannot do. 3.4. Sleeping Experts learning algorithms (Blum A. , 1997), (Blum, Hopcroft, & Kannan, 2015) determine how a processor assigns a value to its information, a value that is (mostly) self-determined by the processor. The CTM makes do with no teacher at the head of the class and no answer sheet to make corrections. Its processors self-predict and self-correct based on feedback. We expect AGI designers to be interested in how they manage that. 3.5. CTM’s Model-of-the-World (MotW) processor develops world models. These world models are hugely important for planning, testing, making corrections, distinguishing fiction from nonfiction, living from non-living, self from not-self, and most importantly for contributing to feelings of consciousness. The CTM has at birth a rudimentary MotW Processor, then continuously upgrades it and its models. How the CTM creates and manages its world models is especially important given that the CTM does not consciously see the world directly, as does the Baars model (Figure 1a), but indirectly through its world models (Figure 1b). 3.6. The CTM can explain what it is doing and why. It can answer questions about the how and why of its doings and give arguments to support its answers. 4 Arguments for and against using CTM as a guide for creating an AGI The specification of CTM 13 gives a sense of how a CTM works. Descriptions are given of how each processor assigns a valenced measure of importance (a weight) to its chunks, and how that measure is affected by the Sleeping Experts Algorithm in each LTM processor. There is a description of how the tournament that starts at time t is run, that tournament being a competition among all N chunks14 contributed by all N processors at time t. Each such tournament takes (log2N) steps: the first step being N/2 matches performed in parallel, the second being N/4, ..., the last being a single match to crown the winner. The tournament is as fast as any tournament for tennis and chess but better as chess and tennis tournaments don’t guarantee, as does the CTM tournament, that chunks get to STM with probability proportional to their importance. On that account, CTM processors can remain hard-wired and in place without in any way affecting which chunk will win any given tournament. Another argument for using CTM as a guide for AGI comes from neuroscience research demonstrating that in humans, “language and thought are not the same thing” (Fedorenko & Varley, 2016). Individuals with global aphasia, “despite their near-total loss of language are nonetheless able to add and subtract, 12 The idea reminds us of the visiting Admiral at MIT who told McCulloch’s neurophysiology group in 1959 that in the navy, it is not the flagship that commands the fleet: it is the ship with the information. The CTM’s processors are the ships of an enormous fleet. The workings of the CTM give precise meaning to the Admiral’s words. 13 In (Blum & Blum, 2021), (Blum & Blum, 2022), and in the upcoming monograph (Blum, Blum, & Blum, In preparation). 14 We assume that N = 2k for some positive integer k. 5 © 2023 Blum & Blum solve logic problems, think about another’s thoughts, appreciate music, ....” Healthy adults “strongly engage the brain’s language areas when they understand a sentence, but not when they perform nonlinguistic tasks such as arithmetic, storing information in working memory, ..., or listening to music.” Influenced by this research and comparing large language models to formal and functional properties of human language, (Mahowald, et al., 2023) argue that while large language models “are good models of language”, [they are] “incomplete models of human thought.” They further argue “that future language models can master both formal and functional linguistic competence by establishing a division of labor between the core language system and components for other cognitive processes, ...” as in the human brain. They provide two suggestions to accomplish this. Their first suggestion is Architectural Modularity (whereby separate specialized modules work together with each other). The CTM incorporates such modularity by utilizing multiple processors with different input domains, knowledge, and functionalities. Their second suggestion, Emergent Modularity (modularity that emerges within a large language model), points to the possibility that deep learning alone will suffice for AGI, though they argue that architectural modularity is “much better aligned with... real-life language use”. The possibility of emergence is supported by (Bubeck, et al., 2023) who examine the impressive and multiple “sparks” of general intelligence demonstrated by early experiments with the large language model GPT-4 and view it as an early version of an AGI. Indeed, it may turn out that no global workspace model or CTM is needed to create an AGI, that deep learning alone suffices, that a single machine with a sufficiently large matrix size can be a universal AGI, but we doubt it. One can argue that the matrix size of a deep learning AGI must grow with the square of the number of problems it is to solve, and such a size would be difficult to achieve since the best current AIs currently use about 1014 parameters. The CTM, which is designed for understanding consciousness, can reasonably handle 107 AIs with 1014 parameters per AI, for a total of 1021 parameters. For comparison, there are 1011 stars in the milky way galaxy and 2x1023 stars in the visible universe. Avogadro’s number is 3 time as large as that at ≈ 6.0221 x 1023. Returning to consciousness, the CTM global workspace model is a promising untapped approach to turning AI into AGI. We expect that robots with CTM-like brains that construct models of the world will have “feelings of consciousness”, hence be more likely to experience empathy. Finally, as AIs become more human-like, understanding consciousness and feelings of pain will be critical if we want to avoid inflicting suffering on our planet’s co-inhabitants. Acknowledgements The work of Lenore Blum and Manuel Blum was supported in part by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), in part by a sabbatical year from CMU at the Simon’s Institute for the Theory of Computing, and in part by a generous gift from UniDT. We are grateful to Jean-Louis Villecroze for his ongoing work to simulate CTM, Paul Liang for his insight into multimodal Brainish (Liang, 2022), for our students at CMU and Peking U who constantly challenge us, and our friends and colleagues Raj Reddy and Michael Xuan for their suggestions, personal support, and extraordinary encouragement. 6 © 2023 Blum & Blum References Anderson, J. R. (1996). ACT: A simple theory of complex cognition. American Psychologist, 51(4), 355-365. Baars, B. J. (1988). A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baars, B. J. (1997). In the Theater of Consciousness: A rigorous scientific theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 4, No. 4, 292-309. Blum, A. (1997). Empirical support for winnow and weighted-majority algorithms: Results on a calendar scheduling domain. Machine Learning, 26(1), 5-23. Blum, A., Hopcroft, J., & Kannan, R. (2015). Foundations of Data Science. Ithaca. Retrieved from https://www.cs.cornell.edu/jeh/book.pdf Blum, L., & Blum, M. (2022, May 24). A theory of consciousness from a theoretical computer science perspective: Insights from the Conscious Turing Machine. PNAS, 119(21). Blum, M., & Blum, L. (2021, March). A Theoretical Computer Science Perspective on Consciousness. JAIC, 8(1), 142. https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/epdf/10.1142/S2705078521500028. Blum, M., Blum, L., & Blum, A. (In preparation). Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Cognitive Neuroscience. Bubeck, S., Chandrasekaran, V., Eldan, R., Gehrke, J., Horvitz, E., Kamar, E., . . . Zhang, Y. (2023, March 22). Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4. Retrieved from arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712 Cowan, N. (2015, July). George Miller's magical number of immediate memory in retrospect: Observations on the faltering progression of science. Psychol Rev., 122(3), 536-41. De Oliveira e Silva, E. R., Seidman, C. E., Tian, J. J., Hudgins, L. C., Sacks, F. M., & Breslow, J. L. (1996, November ). Effects of shrimp consumption on plasma lipoproteins. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 64(6), 712- 717, https://doi.org/10.1093. Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. New York: Viking Press. Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J. P. (2011). Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron; 70(2), 200-227. Fedorenko, E., & Varley, R. (2016, April). Language and thought are not the same thing: Evidence from neuroimaging and neurological patients. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1369 , 132-153, doi:10.1111/nyas.13046. Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hales, T. (2005). A proof of the Kepler conjecture. Annals of Mathematics, 162, 1065–1185. Liang, P. P. (2022). Brainish: Formalizing A Multimodal Language for Intelligence and Consciousness. Retrieved from arXiv: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2205.00001 Mahowald, K., Ivanova, A. A., Blank, I. A., Kanwisher, N., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Fedorenko, E. (2023, January 18). Dissociating language and thought in large language models: a cognitive perspective. Retrieved from arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.06627 Mashour, G. A., Roelfsema, P., Changeux, J.-P., & Dehaene, S. C. (2020). Conscious Processing and the Global Neuronal Workspace Hypothesis. Neuron, 195(5), 776-798. McCulloch, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity, 5, 115-133. Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. Newell, A. (1990). Unified Theories of Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Reddy, D. R. (1976, April). Speech Rcogniton by Machine: A Review. Proceedings of the IEEE, 501-531. Retrieved from http://www.rr.cs.cmu.edu/sr.pdf Simon, H. A. (1969). The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. Wikipedia. (n.d.). History of artificial neural networks. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_neural_networks 7 © 2023 Blum & Blum

Conscious Enactive Computation Daniel Estrada arXiv:1812.02578v1 [cs.AI] 3 Dec 2018 New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark NJ 07102 djestrada@gmail.com Abstract. This paper looks at recent debates in the enactivist literature on computation and consciousness in order to assess major obstacles to building artificial conscious agents. We consider a proposal from Villalobos and Dewhurst (2018) for enactive computation on the basis of organizational closure. We attempt to improve the argument by reflecting on the closed paths through state space taken by finite state automata. This motivates a defense against Clark’s recent criticisms of “extended consciousness”, and perhaps a new perspective on living with machines. Keywords: enactivism, artificial intelligence, computation, Turing machine, state space, finite state automata, predictive coding, consciousness 1 Introduction Enactivism challenges the dominant cognitive paradigm in psychology with an account of intentional (purposive) agency that is grounded in the emergent dynamics of biological complexity [15,43,46]. Specifically, enactivism holds that biological life is characterized by adaptive self-constitution: living systems construct and maintain their own organized structure through their active engagement with a changing world [4,35]. This approach motivates a systematic account of autonomy [3,33,41,48], intentional agency [17,31], subjective consciousness [19,28], and identity in complex dynamical systems [5,6], with the promise of a consistent and unified explanatory framework across the full range of biological processes, from the biomechanics of single-celled organisms to ecologies and societies [18,26,44]. Despite the emphasis on biological complexity, enactivism has from its inception maintained a robust research program investigating artificial intelligence, artificial life, and robotics (hereafter AI) [1,2,13,16,20,42]. This research aims to develop models, simulations, and robots that assist in the scientific investigation of biological complexity and adaptive systems. For instance, AI that exhibits some dynamically self-organizing behavior might serve as a useful “proof of concept” demonstrating key enactivist principles (see [20] for examples). However, while robotics research has already felt a significant impact from the embodied approach [37,38], enactivist AI is often advanced against a backdrop of criticism directed at “merely” computational or representational explanations [22,23]. As a founder of enactivism Francisco Varela put it, “This fundamental paradigm of the digital computer program will not do for biology, nor for AI.” [46] 2 Estrada A recent set of papers from Villalobos, Dewhurst, Ward and colleagues (hereafter Villalobos) [14,49,50,51] address these historical tensions between enactivism and computation. Villalobos argues that the enactivists are mistaken to treat computers as mere symbolic processors of abstract representations. Drawing on a mechanist account of computation, Villalobos suggests an interpretation of the classical Turing machine which they claim would meet enactivist conditions for self-determination. If so, it would suggest that embodied agency could be given a computational rather than biological basis without sacrificing enactivist commitments to the dynamical interactions between agent and world. This argument strikes at the foundations of the enactivist program, and threatens to overturn 20+ years of enactivist thought on AI and computation. The central concern of this paper is to assess the proposal for enactive computation put forward by Villalobos. Their argument turns on the enactivist interpretation of self-determination in terms of organizational closure. While we think Villalobos’ examples fail to meet strong enactivist conditions on closure, we suggest they can be improved through explicit consideration of the structure of the finite state automata (FSM) that controls a classic Turing machine. This highlights an important form of closure that is, we argue, more fundamental than organizational closure: namely, the closed path through state space taken by the FSM. We claim that computation is fundamentally concerned with the structure of paths through state space, and that all living organisms can be characterized by such paths. This result suggests computation as the fundamental basis from which the enactivist program must emerge. We then consider the implications of this argument for a particular strand of criticism raised by Clark [10,12] against enactivist proposals for “extended consciousness” [36]. We conclude with general thoughts on the implications these arguments have for living with machines. 2 Organizational closure and Turing’s machine Organizational closure serves as the basis for the enactivist approach to autonomous intentional (purposive) behavior, and names the sense in which biological organisms are self-determined [3,4,47]. A system is organized when its constitutive components are arranged into a network of functionally interdependent processes and constraints [27]. An organization is closed when the operation of its constitutive components are themselves sufficient for the adaptive construction and generation of its organized state [35]. Enactivists argue that organizational closure provides an intrinsic basis for identifying organisms and their boundaries as unified wholes. Furthermore, enactivists emphasize that organisms are precariously situated within a dynamic world to which they must continually adapt in order to maintain an organized state. This precariousness creates conditions that demand coordinated action from the organism as a whole in order to maintain its organized state [7]. This gives rise to what enactivists call adaptive sense-making, which serves as the basis for investigations into consciousness and phenomenology [19,28,43]. Conscious Enactive Computation 3 Beyond its central role in the enactivist theory of autonomous agency, organizational closure also figures in enactivist criticisms of classical computation1 . Enactivists contrast the closed structure of biological organisms with the open or linear structure of traditional computing machines [20]. On this view, computers operate through a sequence of formal operations that transforms symbolic “input” into symbolic “output”. Enactvists claim at least two important differences between computation and the adaptive self-constitution of biological organisms. First, computers perform stepwise formal operations on symbolic input, rather than performing dynamic mechanical operations within a changing world. Second, computers don’t “build themselves” in the sense relevant for adaptive selfconstitution, which requires organizational closure. Put simply, computers aren’t self-determined wholes with a world of their own, and so cannot serve as the intrinsic subject of an experience. Instead, computers are artifacts created through external processes of human design and manufacturing. Such considerations lead Froese and Ziemke [20] to distinguish the behavioral autonomy characteristic of certain kinds of self-controlled machines (say, a dishwasher on a timer), from the constitutive autonomy characteristic of living biological systems. Villalobos’ argument for enactive computation in [51] is designed to show that a Turing machine can meet the conditions for self-determination as described by Maturana (1988) [30]. Here, self-determination is identified with functional closure. A system has functional closure when its organizational structure forms closed feedback loops. As an example, Villalobos offers a thermostat regulating the temperature of a house. The behavior of the thermostat-house system is characterized by a feedback loop between these two components which has a circular structure and satisfies functional closure. Of course, while the thermostat-house system “controls itself” with respect to temperature, it is not adaptively selfconstituting in any deeper sense; thermostats and houses don’t build themselves with their parts alone. Thus, functional closure is not sufficient for organizational closure of the sort required for constitutive autonomy. Nevertheless, Villalobos argues this control structure does not connect inputs to outputs through a linear sequence of symbolic processes, and so is not “open”. It is, they argue, closed and minimally self-determining in a sense relevant for enactivist theory. Villalobos then applies this feedback loop model to the classic Turing machine. Turing [45] proposed a computing machine with three components: a tape with discrete cells; a read-write head that operates on the tape; and a program which controls the operation of the head. On the enactivist interpretation, the tape serves input to the machine and records output from the machine, and the machine (the head and program) performs formal operations that convert the former to the latter as a linear process. Against this view Villalobos offer an alternative, inspired by Wells [54] and Piccinini [39,40], that interprets the Turing 1 Enactivists are not universally hostile to computation. Importantly, Mossio et al [34] render an organizationally closed system in the λ-calculus, and argue that “there are no conceptual or principled problems in realizing a computer simulation or model of closure.” Such arguments have resulted in a split between radical anti-computationalists [22] and more traditional versions of enactivism. See [8,53]. 4 Estrada machine in terms of looping interactions between the machine and the tape. This forms a functionally closed loop, much like the thermostat-house system, which implies self-determination in the sense that the computer’s state is determined by the interactions between the machine and the tape. In an analog computer these constraints might appear as features of the physical mechanisms of the device, thereby eliminating any symbolic aspect of the computation. Thus, Villalobos argues, even a classical Turing machine can be understood as purely mechanical and functionally closed, and so evades the enactivist criticism of computation. While this argument doesn’t entail that computers are conscious living creatures of equivalent complexity to biological organisms, it does confront a major hurdle within the enactivist literature to treating computing machines as genuinely purposive agents with a world of their own. Does Villalobos’ argument succeed? Briefly, no: functional closure alone is not sufficient for adaptive self-constitution of the sort relevant for intentional agency or adaptive sense-making. Villalobos’ ‘enactive’ Turing machine is merely behaviorally and not constitutively autonomous. While Maturana’s account is influential, recent work has developed more rigorous constraints on organizational closure. For instance, Mossio et al. [32,35] present a model of closure which requires that constitutive constraints operate across multiple scales or levels of organization to achieve closure. While the thermostat-house system is functionally closed, we might say that closure occurs at a single scale, namely the feedback loop that controls temperature. At other scales, for instance the internal structure of the thermostat mechanism, the system is not closed or self-determining. Similarly, Turing’s machine appears to be functionally closed only at the level of operations of the head on the tape and nowhere else. Biological systems, on the other hand, are in some sense self-determining all the way through—or at least they are self-organized across a range of scales from inter-cellular biochemistry through geopolitics that covers the breadth of our experiences of a meaningful world as human agents. A Turing machine might be functionally closed, but it covers nothing close to the same range of interactivity. How many levels of organizational constraints are required to distinguish between behavioral and constitutive autonomy? Mossio’s model suggests at least two. If so, Villalobos’ argument might be improved by describing a Turing machine with two layers of self-determining organizational constraints rather than one. In the next section, I will discuss how the classic Turing machine already captures organizational closure across two layers of constraint. 3 Closed paths through state space If we suspend the anti-representational commitments of enactivism for a moment, there’s an important feature of Turing’s machine which is not explicitly addressed in these arguments: the structure of the program which controls the read-write head. In Turing’s model, the program takes the form of a finite state machine (FSM). FSMs are abstract automata that are characterized by a finite number of discrete states, and a set of rules that describe the operations Conscious Enactive Computation 5 performed in each state, and the conditions for transitioning between states, depending on what is read from the tape. These rules can be represented as a state transition table, which can be realized2 in a physical machine in a number of ways. The physical Turing machine is ‘programmed’ insofar as it realizes the abstract state transition structure of the FSM. The abstract nature of the FSM should not worry enactivists [27]. An FSM can in principle be realized by simple physical mechanisms; there’s nothing inherently “symbolic” about the FSM. The FSM does not directly concern the relationship between a computer and its environment; the FSM is not (necessarily) used by a computer to represent the world. The FSM is just an abstract model of the states a machine can be in, and the conditions for transitioning between these states. Enactivist literature is often directly preoccupied with systems being in certain states, like the equilibrium state (homeostasis), and with the activities organisms must perform to maintain these states [25,41]. To this extent, enactivist theory depends on state abstractions of the same sort used to describe the FSM. Describing the autonomy of an organism in terms of “organizational closure” is already to appeal to an abstract control structure, so there should be no principled objections from enactivists to discussing the equally abstract structure of the FSM. While the FSM can be represented as a transition table, it is also customary to represent an FSM with a state space diagram with states represented as circles, and arrows between circles representing the transitions between states. A state space diagram has a closed path (or loop) if some sequence of operations will return the system to a previous state. For instance, suppose I take water at room temperature, freeze it to ice, then let it thaw back to room temperature. The water changed state, then changed back; we can represent this as a short path through the state space of water that loops back to where it began. Homeostasis is an interesting state for biological organisms precisely because they maintain the state as a fixed point attractor, returning to equilibrium after minor disturbances. This is another way of saying that homeostasis is characterized by a closed path in state space (CPSS). With these considerations in mind, we propose that CPSSs, and paths in state space generally, are of fundamental relevance to enactivist models of selfdetermination. Moreover, CPSSs put computers and organisms on equal ontological footing. Recall the theoretical motivation for appealing to organizational closure to explain autonomy: it provides an intrinsic basis for individuating a system as a unified whole, and so serves as a basis for adaptive sense-making. We claim that a CPSS accomplishes the same theoretical task: organisms can 2 For historical reasons originating with Putnam [21], it is often taken for granted that a definition of computation in terms of finite state automata cannot distinguish between different realizations of a computer, and so cannot in principle provide an explanation for cognitive behavior. Piccinini [39] cites this as an explicit motivation for developing his mechanistic account of computation. There are good reasons for thinking that Putnam’s concerns are overstated [9,24], but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. Thanks to Jon Lawhead for pointing this out. 6 Estrada be identified intrinsically as the collection of processes and constraints that walk a CPSS. This definition is intrinsic in the same sense as organizational closure: whether a path counts as “closed” is set by the constitution of the system itself. More strongly, we claim that any organizationally closed system can be characterized by a collections of CPSSs with a fixed attractor at the constitutive organized state. This suggests that CPSSs are theoretically a more fundamental form of closure than organizational closure. Indeed, the important sense of ‘closure’ captured by the enactivists has less to do with daisy-chained functions looping on themselves, and more to do with the CPSSs those functional relationships enable. Strictly speaking, neither functional nor organizational closure is necessary for walking a CPSS. Not every Turing machine will walk a CPSS, but it is exceedingly common for them to do so3 . We can think of the CPSSs which characterize a Turing machine’s program as another scale of closure, one which directly controls the looping interactions between head and tape. With two scales of closed loops, this would appear to meet Mossio’s stronger constraints on closure, and thus we have shown the classical Turing machine might already constitute an adaptively self-constituting system on enactivist grounds. Or, perhaps more realistically, the depth of closure matters a lot less than what states those functional relationships (closed, shallow, or otherwise) make available for the organism as it walks paths in state space. 4 Extended consciousness To appreciate how CPSSs can be useful to enactivism, consider a recent debate on the bounds of consciousness. Despite his strong influence on enactivism, Clark has pushed back against attempts to locate the processes constitutive of conscious experience in the world [10]. Clark argues there is no good reason to do so; the activity constitutive of a conscious experience occurs immediately within patterns of neural firings. Clark advocates for an explanatory approach called ”predictive coding” which uses “a hierarchical generative model that aims to minimize prediction error within a bidirectional cascade of cortical processing” [12]. Clark argues that the model works by rapidly updating on the basis of new information. This leaves little bandwidth for external changes to impact the updating model beyond sensory input; the dominant influence on a neuron is simply the activity of other neurons. Thus, Clark argues, it is unlikely that external processes play a constitutive role in conscious experience. Ward [52] offers a response to Clark on behalf of enactivists that appeals to multiple layers of interactions between the agent and world. Clark’s mistake, on this view, is to localize consciousness to any single process in the organized hierarchy. The appeal to multiple layers should by now be a familiar enactivist move, one Clark rejects as superfluous in this case [11]. Whatever world-involving 3 The question of deciding in general whether a path in state space will close is formally equivalent to the halting problem, and so is not computable. See [29]. Conscious Enactive Computation 7 processes enactivists believe are important, Clark claims he can account for them with predictive coding. So consciousness appears stuck in the head. Clark’s alternative doesn’t appeal to enactivists because the world-involving aspects of predictive coding appear linear and open, like a computer, rather than closed like an organism. This isn’t an accurate perception; the cascade of neural activity develops with looping feedback until the neurons reach stability, so there are functionally closed processes; those processes just aren’t extended and world-involving. They only involve neurons and their cortical support. Enactivists are attracted to externalism because they view consciousness as inherently world-involving and organizationally closed. Just as with Villalobos’ computer, enactivists are hoping to find closure in the organizational structure of the embodied conscious state. Since closure is an indicator of unification and wholeness, enactivists expect neural activity and world-involving processes to demonstrate functional interdependencies. Clark’s argument that the neural activity is not functionally dependent on external processes is therefore fatal to the view. Perhaps CPSSs can help resolve this conflict amicably? If we think about closure in terms of CPSSs we can recover the looping interactions that are inherently world-involving and closed in state space, while conceding to Clark that the neural activity is sufficiently explanatory of the functional interactions that give rise to the conscious state. In state space we are no longer confined to a single closed loop spanning organizational levels. Instead, our dynamical activity across different scales will form many different kinds of closed paths in different state spaces. Some of these CPSSs will be characterized by inherently worldinvolving states, and so will recover an enactivist sense of closure compatible with predictive coding. Consider, for instance, that it is easier to maintain your balance with your eyes open than closed. Here we have two cortical cascades: one producing visual experiences, and one producing motor activity to maintain balance. These two systems reinforce each other. Maintaining balance is a precarious state that inherently involves the configuration of the body as a massive physical object with specific dimensions. Thus, the configuration of my body is a fundamental factor in whether I am in a balanced state. The balanced state is a fixed attractor for certain CPSSs that characterize my attempts to stay balanced. This brings in looping, inherently world-involving processes into an explanation of my behavior as an agent without committing to implausible functional interdependencies between neurons and world. The important dependencies for closure, and ultimately for autonomy, identity, and consciousness, are found in state space. 5 Conclusion We don’t view CPSSs as a threat to enactivism’s positive theory of autonomy or adaptive sense-making. Instead, we see it correcting the over-emphasized anticomputationalism that has historically motivated the view. We think enough speaks in favor of the enactive approach that it needn’t appeal to a questionable and increasing problematic ontological distinction between computing machines 8 Estrada and biological life. Insofar as Villalobos’ argument also serves these goals, this paper is meant to push harder in the same direction. References 1. 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766 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Article Premomentumenergy Model I: Genesis of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Huping Hu* & Maoxin Wu ABSTRACT This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence. A premomentumenergy model of elementary particles, four forces and human consciousness is formulated, which illustrates how the self-referential hierarchical spin structure of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) provides a foundation for creating, sustaining and causing evolution of elementary particles through matrixing processes embedded in said premomentumenergy (Consciousness). This model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. These quantum frames and their metamorphoses are interconnected through quantum jumps as demonstrated in forthcoming articles. The premomentumenergy model reveals the creation, sustenance and evolution of fermions, bosons and spinless entities each of which is comprised of an external wave function or external object in the external momentum-energy space and an internal wave function or internal object in the internal momentum-energy space. The model provides a unified causal structure in said dual universe (quantum frame) for weak interaction, strong interaction, electromagnetic interaction, gravitational interaction, quantum entanglement, human consciousness. Further, the model provides a unique tool for teaching, demonstration, rendering, and experimentation related to subatomic and atomic structures and interactions, quantum entanglement generation, gravitational mechanisms in cosmology, structures and mechanisms of human consciousness. Key Words: principle of existence, premomentumenergy, prespacetime, four forces, consciousness, spin, existence, God, Consciousness. *Corresponding author: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D., P.O. Box 267, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. E-mail: hupinghu@quantumbrain.org ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 767 1. Introduction In Consciousness We Contemplate As a continuation of the Principle of Existence [1-4], the beauty and awe of the manifestations of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) are described in this article. The premomentum-energy model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual momentum-energy universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. This model creates Relativistic Quantum Mechanics for a dual momentum-energy universe. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously [1-4] generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual spacetime universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. The prespacetime model creates the usual Relativistic Quantum Mechanics for the dual spacetime universe. These dual universes (quantum frames) and their metamorphoses are interconnected through quantum jumps as illustrated below in Figure 1.1 and demonstrated in forthcoming articles. Figure 1.1 Illustration of Prespacetime model & premomentumenergy model ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 768 This work is organized as follows. In § 2, we shall use words and drawings to lay out the ontology of the premomentumenergy model. In § 3, we shall express in mathematics the premomentumenergy model in the order of: (1) scientific genesis in a nutshell; (2) selfreferential matrix law and its metamorphoses; (3) additional forms of matrix law; (4) scientific genesis of primordial entities; and (5) scientific genesis of composite entities. In § 4, we shall discuss within the context of premomentumenergy model: (1) metamorphoses & the essence of spin; (2) the determinant view & the meaning of Klein-Gordon-like equation; (3) the meaning of Schrodinger-like equation & quantum potential; and (4) the third state of matter. In § 5 through § 8, we shall discuss, within the context of premomentumenergy model, weak, electromagnetic, strong and gravitational interactions respectively. In § 9, we shall focus on the essence of consciousness and the mechanism of human conscious experience within the context of premomentumenergy model. In § 10, we shall pose and answer some anticipated questions related to this work. Finally, in § 11, we shall conclude this work. Readers are reminded that we can only strive for perfection, completeness and correctness in our comprehensions and writings because we are limited and imperfect. 2. Ontology In words and drawings we illustrate In the beginning there was premomentumenergy (Consciousness) ei0 materially empty but spiritually restless. And it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=eiM-iM=eiMe-iM=e-iM/ e-iM = eiM/ eiM…such that it created the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external momentum-energy space and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through selfreferential matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual momentum-energy universe which it has since sustained and made to evolve. In this universe, the body of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), represented by Euler’s Number e, is the ground of existence and can form external and internal wave functions as external and internal momentum-energy objects (each pair forms an elementary entity in the dual momentum-energy universe) and interaction fields between elementary entities which accompany the imaginations of the premomentumenergy. The body of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) can be self-acted on by self-referential matrix law LM. Premomentumenergy has imagining power i to project external and internal objects by projecting, e.g., external and internal phase +M =+(Et-p·x)/ħ at the power level of premomentumenergy. The universe so created is a dual momentum-energy universe comprising of the external momentum-energy space to be observed and internal momentum-energy space as observed under each relativistic frame pμ=(E/c, p). In one perspective of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) view, the internal momentum-energy ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 769 space (which by convention has negative time) is the negation/image of the external momentum-energy space (which by convention has positive time). The absolute frame of reference is the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) itself. Thus, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) stops imagining (i0=0), the dual momentum-energy universe would disappear into materially nothingness ei0=e0=1. The accounting principle of the dual momentum-energy universe is conservation of zero. For example, the total time of an external object and its counterpart, the internal object, is zero. Also in this dual momentum-energy universe, self-gravity is the nonlocal-momentumenergy self-interaction (wave mixing) between an external object in the external momentum-energy space and its negation/image in the internal momentum-energy space, vice versa. Gravity in external momentum-energy space is the nonlocal-momentum-energy interaction (quantum entanglement) between an external object with the internal momentum-energy space as a whole. Some other most basic conclusions are: (1) the two spinors of the Dirac electron or positron in the dual momentum-energy universe are respectively the external and internal objects of the electron or positron; (2) the electric and magnetic fields of a linear photon in the dual momentum-energy universe are respectively the external and internal objects of a photon which are always self-entangled; (3) the proton may be a momentumly confined positron through imaginary position in the dual momentum-energy universe; and (4) a neutron may be comprised of an unspinized (spinless) proton and a bound and spinized electron in the dual momentum-energy universe. In this dual momentum-energy universe, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the selfreferential matrix law) and it projects the external and internal momentum-energy spaces through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external momentum-energy space through the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness in the dual momentum-energy universe is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation which is mostly classical at macroscopic levels but quantum at microscopic levels. Before mathematical presentations, we draw below several diagrams illustrating the mechanism of how premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates the dual momentumenergy universe comprising of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentum-energy space and how the external object and internal object and the external momentum-energy space and internal momentum-energy space interact. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 770 Figure 2.1. Illustration of primordial phase distinction As shown in Figure 2.1, a primordial phase distinction (dualization), e.g., +M=+(Et-p·x)/ħ, was made at the power level of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) through imagination i. At the ground level of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), this is 1=e0=eiM-iM=eiMeiM =e-iM/ e-iM = eiM/ eiM…. The primordial phase distinction in Figure 2.1 is accompanied by matrixing of e into: (1) external and internal wave functions as external and internal objects; (2) interaction fields (e.g., gauge fields) for interacting with other elementary entities; and (3) self-acting and self-referential matrix law, which accompany the imaginations of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) at the power level so as to enforce the accounting principle of conservation of zero, as illustrated in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2 Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) Equation Figure 2.3 shows from another perspective of the relationship among external object in the external momentum-energy space, internal object in the internal momentum-energy space and the self-acting and self-referential matrix law. According to the Principle of Existence, self-interactions (self-gravity) are quantum entanglement between the external object in the external momentum-energy space and the internal object in the internal momentum-energy space. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 771 Figure2.3 Self-interaction between external and internal objects of a quantum entity in a dual momentum-energy universe As shown in Figure 2.4, the external object and internal object in the two momentumenergy spaces interact with each other through gravity or quantum entanglement since gravity is an aspect of quantum entanglement (See, e.g., [1]). Please note that, although in Figure 2.4 the body of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), ether, is shown as a strip, both the dualized external energy-momentum space and internal energy-momentum space are embedded in premomentumenergy (Consciousness). Figure2.4 Interactions in the dual momentum-energy universe ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 772 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 3. Mathematics of the Premomentumenergy Model In mathematics we express 3.1 Scientific Genesis in Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) in a Nutshell It is our comprehension that: Consciousness=Premomentumenergy = Prespacetime = Omnipotent, Omnipresent & Omniscient Being/State = ONE (3.1) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of primordial entities (elementary particles) in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows:   1  ei 0  1ei 0  L1e  iM iM  Le Li 1 e  iM e  iM L M ,e   1  Aee iM  A    LM ,i  iM   LM  e e iM  LM  e   L M   0  Ai   i   Ai e  (3.2) In expression (3.2), e is Euler’s Number representing the body (ether) of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), i is imaginary unit representing the imagination of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), ±M is the content of imagination i, L1=1 is the Law of One of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) before matrixization, Le is external law, Li is internal law, LM,e is external matrix law, and LM,i is internal matrix law, LM is the selfreferential matrix law in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) comprised of external and internal matrix laws which governs elementary entities and conserves zero in the dual momentum-energy universe, Ae e iM   e is external wave function (external object), Ai e iM   i is internal wave function (internal object), and  is the complete wave function (object/entity in the dual momentum-energy universe as a whole). Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of primordial entities in the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   0  0e i 0  L0 e  iM iM  DetM t  DetM   DetM x  e  iM e  iM L M ,e 773   1  Ae e iM  A      L M  e e iM  L M  e   L M   0 LM ,i  iM   Ai   i   Ai e  (3.3) where L0 is the Law of Zero of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) as defined by fundamental relationship (3.4) below, Det means determinant and Mt, M and Mx are 2 respectively matrices with  t ,   and  x as elements and t ,   2 and  x2 as determinants. Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) spins as 1=ei0=eiM-iM=eiMe-iM=e-iM/eiM iM iM =e /e …before matrixization. It also spins through self-acting and self-referential matrix law LM after matrixization which acts on the external object and the internal object to cause them to interact with each other in the dual momentum-energy universe as further described below. 3.2 Self-Referential Matrix Law and Its Metamorphoses The matrix law LM , e LM , i   L M of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is derived from the following fundamental relation through self-reference within this relation which accompanies the imagination (spin i) in premomentumenergy (Consciousness): (ct)2 - x2 - (c)2 = L0 = 0 (3.4) where t and x are dynamical variables of time and position respectively and  is an intrinsic proper time of an elementary particle (e.g., defined as Compton wavelength divided by speed of light  =/c). For simplicity, we will set c=ħ=1 throughout this work unless indicated otherwise. Thus, we have from (3.4): t2 - x2 - 2 = L0 = 0 (3.4a) Expression (3.4) is based on the relation of four-position x = (ct, x) in special theory of relativity: (ct)2 = x2 + (c)2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 774 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness In the presence of a four-potential A = (, A) of a second primordial entity, equation (3.4a) for an elementary entity with charge e is modified as follows: t  e 2   2   x - eA  L0  0 2 (3.5) One form of the matrix law of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is derived through self-reference as follows:    t 2  2 t  L 1  2 x  x  x t  1 (3.6)  x  x t  t      0  x t   x t  where x  x 2 . Matrixing left-land side of the last expression in (3.6) such that Det LM   t 2   2  x 2  0 so as to satisfy the fundamental relation (3.4) in the determinant   view, we have: x  LM , e t  t  x LM ,i   L M (3.7) Indeed, expression (3.7) can also be obtained from expression (3.4) through self-reference as follows: 0  t 2   2  x 2  Det      0 t 0  0  Det  Det x 0 t 0  x 0  (3.8) Matrixing expression (3.8) by removing determinant sign Det, we have:    0 t 0  0   x 0 t 0   x t   0 x  x  LM ,e t  L M ,i   L M (3.9) After fermionic spinization: x  x 2   Det(σ  x )  σ  x (3.10) where σ = (σ1, σ2, σ3) are Pauli matrices: 0 1 0  i 1 0   2    3    1 0 i 0 0  1       1   (3.11) expression (3.7) becomes: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 775 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   t   σ  x  LM ,e  σ  x t  LM ,i   L M  t - α  x   (3.12) where α = (α1, α2, α3) and β are Dirac matrices. Expression (3.12) governs fermions in dual-momentum-energy Universe in Dirac form such as Dirac electron and positron and expression (3.7) governs unspinized or spinless entity/particle with charge e and intrinsic proper time  (e.g., a meson or a meson-like particle) in dual-momentum-energy universe. Bosonic spinization of expression (3.7) x  x 2  s  x shall be discussed later. If we define: Det   t   σ  x  t   t      σ  x  σ  x   σ  x t  (3.13) We get: Det   t   σ  x  t 2  2  x 2 I 2  0  σ  x t   (3.14) Thus, fundamental relationship (3.4) is also satisfied under the determinant view of expression (3.13). Indeed, we can also obtain the following conventional determinant: Det   t   σ  x 2  t 2   2  x 2   0  σ  x t  (3.15) One kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.6) – (3.14) is respectively as follows: L 1 t2  x2 2   t x    t x  1 t x t x       0  t x  t x  t x  ISSN: 2153-8212    LM ,e t x LM ,i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.16) (3.17) www.JCER.com 776 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 0  t 2   2  x 2  Det  t 0  0    0 t          t 0 0  Det 0 t     x  0   0     x   Det 0 0 0  t  x  x       t σx   LM ,e  t σx Det  0 x     t x   LM ,i   L  t σx   t  σ  x t  σ  x         t σx Det   t σx   t 2  x 2   2 I 2  0  t σx (3.18) (3.19) (3.20) (3.21) (3.22) Expression (3.17) is the unspinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form and it is connected to expression (3.7) by Hadamard matrix H   t  H  x   x  1  t  x H     t     1 1 1   : 2 1  1    t x   (3.23) Expression (3.20) is spinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form and it is connected to expression (3.12) by 4x4 Hadamard matrix:    t   σ x  1  t  σ x H    H   σ x t      t  σ  x     (3.24) Another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.6) - (3.14) is respectively as follows:  t2 t L 1 2  2  x   i x     i x 1 t  t    i x  t    i x  0   i x t   i x t ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.25) www.JCER.com 777 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness            i x t t   i x 0  t 2   2  x 2  Det LM ,e t 0 0  Det 0 t  0   Det i 0 i x   t  0     i x      0  0   i x   t 0  0    0 t         t    iσ  x  LM ,e    iσ  x t Det Det  LM ,i  L M (3.26) i 0  (3.27)  i x   t   (3.28) LM ,i   L M (3.29)  t    iσ  x  tt     iσ  x    iσ  x     iσ  x t   (3.30) t    iσ  x  t 2  2  x 2 I2  0    iσ  x t  (3.31) Indeed, Q    iσ  is a quaternion and Q     iσ x is its conjugate. So we can rewrite expression (3.29) as:  t  Q Q t   LM , e LM ,i   L M Expression (3.26) is connected to expression (3.7) by unitary matrix  t  HS   x   t x  HS 1      i x t     (3.32) HS  1 1 i  :   2 1  i    i x   t   (3.33) Similarly, expression (3.12) is connected to expression (3.29) by 4x4 matrix HS: t  iσ  x   t   σ  x   HS 1    HS    σ  x t      iσ  x  t     ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.34) www.JCER.com 778 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Yet another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.6), (3.7) & (3.12) is respectively as follows:     x t 2  2 t  L 1  2  x x 1 t   x  x t  t      0  x t   x t   t  x   x  LM ,e t  L M ,i   L M (3.35) (3.36)  t   σ  x  LM ,e LM ,i   L M  t  α  x    σ  x t  (3.37) If =0, we have from expressions (3.6) - (3.14):    t2 t L 1 2   x x  x 1 t  x  x t t     0  x t  x t  t x  x  LM , e t 0  t 2  x 2  Det  t 0  0   0 t   x    LM ,i   L M    0 t 0  Det x 0 t x 0 x  t  0   x   x  t   (3.38) (3.39)  (3.40) (3.41) After fermionic spinization x  σ  x , expression (3.39) becomes: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 779 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   t σx  LM ,e σx t LM ,i   L M (3.42) which governs massless fermion (neutrino) in Dirac-like form. After bosonic spinization:  x  x 2   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3    s p (3.43) expression (3.39) becomes:   t sx  LM ,e sx t LM ,i   L M (3.44) where s = (s1, s2, s3) are spin operators for spin 1 particle:  0 0 i 0 0 0   0  i 0       s1   0 0  i  s2   0 0 0  s3   i 0 0    i 0 0 0 i 0   0 0 0       (3.45) If we define: Dets   t sx  t t    s  x  s  x  sx t (3.46) We get:    x xy xz  t sx Det  t  x I   yz y yz  sx t  zx zy z    s 2 2 2 2 3 (3.47) 2 To obey fundamental relation (3.4) in determinant view (3.46), we shall require the last term in (3.47) acting on the external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone as discussed later. We propose that expression (3.39) governs massless particle with unobservable spin (spinless) in the dual momentum-energy universe. After bosonic spinization, the spinless and massless particle gains its spin 1. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 780 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.18) - (3.22) when =0 is respectively as follows: 0  t 2  x 2  Det     x t 0  0 0 t     x t 0  Det 0 0 t 0 t x  x 0  0  LM ,e t x        (3.48) L M ,i   L M (3.49) 0 x t σx 0  LM ,e 0 t σx LM ,i   L M (3.50) t sx 0  LM ,e 0 t sx LM ,i   LM (3.51) Det s t sx 0  t  s  x t  s  x  0 t sx x2  t sx 0 Det s  t 2  x 2 I 3   yz 0 t sx  zx   xy xz  y 2 yz   zy z 2  (3.52) (3.53) Again, we shall require the last term in expression (3.53) acting on external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone in order to satisfy fundamental relation (3.4) in the determinant view (3.52) as further discussed later. Importantly, if t = 0, we have from expression (3.4):  2  x2  0 (3.54) Thus, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows energy-less forms of matrix law, we can derive, for example, from (3.7) and (3.17) the following:   x ISSN: 2153-8212 x    LM , e LM ,i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.55) www.JCER.com 781 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   x    LM , e x LM ,i   L M (3.56) Further, if |x|=0, we have from expression (3.4): t2  2  0 (3.57) Thus, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows momentumless forms of matrix law, we can derive, for example, from (3.7) and (3.17) the following:    t  0 0  LM ,e t  LM ,i   L M (3.58) t   t LM ,i   L M (3.59)   LM , e The significance of these forms of matrix law shall be elucidated later. We suggest for now that the energy-less forms of matrix law govern external and internal wave functions (selffields) which play the roles of energy-less gravitons, that is, they mediate energyindependent interactions through momentum space (position) quantum entanglement. On the other hand, the momentumless forms of matrix law govern the external and internal wave functions (self-fields) which play the roles of momentumless gravitons, that is, they mediate momentum independent interactions through intrinsic-proper-time (mass) entanglement. The above metamorphoses of the self-referential matrix law of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) are derived from one-tier matrixization (self-reference) and two-tier matrixization (self-reference) based on the fundamental relation (3.4). The first-tier matrixization makes distinctions in energy (time), mass (intrinsic proper time) and total momentum (undifferentiated space) that involve scalar unit 1 and imaginary unit (spin) i. Then the second-tier matrixization makes distinction in three-dimensional momentum (three-dimensional space) based on spin σ, s, or other higher spin structures, if they exist. 3.3 Additional Forms of Matrix Law If premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows partial distinction within first-tier selfreferential matrixization, we obtain, for example, the following additional forms of matrix law LM , e LM ,i   L M :  t 2  2   x  ISSN: 2153-8212  (3.60)  2 2 t   x  t 2  2    σ x   σ x  t 2  2  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.61) www.JCER.com 782 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t 2  2  x   0   (3.62)  t 2  2 σ x   2 2   0 t   x     2 2 t   σ   0 0 (3.63)  t 2 x 2       (3.64) t 2  x 2   t 2  x 2    0   0  2 2 t  x   (3.65)  t  2   x 2    2  x 2  (3.66)  t  t   2  x 2   0    2 2 t  x  (3.67)  t 2  2  x 2   0  0   2 2 2 t   x  (3.68) 0 Bosonic versions of expressions (3.61) and (3.63) are obtained by replacing σ with s. If premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates momentum self-confinement of an elementary entity through imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that 2>t2) we have:  2  t 2  x i2   xi2  yi2  zi2  ixi 2   Det(σ  ix i ) (3.69) that is: t 2  2  x i2  0 (3.70) Therefore, allowing imaginary position (downward self-reference) for an elementary entity, we can derive the following matrix law in Dirac-like form:    pi  LM ,e t    σ  xi  σ  xi  LM ,e   t   xi  L M ,i   L M LM ,i   LM (3.71) (3.72) Also, we can derive the following matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 783 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness     LM ,e  xi t  σ  xi    LM , e E  σ  xi t  xi   LM ,i   L M  (3.73) LM ,i   L M (3.74) Bosonic versions of expressions (3.72) and (3.74) are obtained by replacing σ with s. It is likely that the above additional forms of self-referential matrix law govern different particles of the particle zoo in the dual momentum-energy universe as discussed later. 3.4 Scientific Genesis of Primordial Entities in the Premomentumenergy Model Therefore, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion such as an electron in Dirac-like form in dual momentum-energy Universe as follows: 1  e  1e  Le i0 i0  M  iM t 2   2  ip  x   ip  x   e  x2       t   x  x t  1 e  ip  x  e  ip  x  1  (3.75) t    ip  x   x  ip  x  t    ip  x   x  ip  x  e  e  e  e 0 x t  x t   t    x   t     σ x  that is:  ip  x     x  ae, e     L  ip  x  t     ai, e     ip x    σ x  Ae, e     L   ip x  t    A e  i ,   e,   L  0  i,    LM ,i  M ,e M ,e M  e,   L  0  i,    LM ,i  M  i E e,    e,   iσ   p i ,    t    e,   σ  x i ,      or    t    i ,   σ  x e ,    i E i ,    i ,   iσ   p e,   (3.76) where substitutions t  i E and x  i p have been made so that components of LM can ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 784 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness act on external and internal wave functions. Equation (3.76) also has free spherical wave solution in the dual momentum-energy universe in the form:  e,   S e, e iEt       i,   Si, e iEt      (3.77) Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion such as the electron in Dirac-like form in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows:   0  0ei 0  L0eiM iM  t 2   2  x 2 e  t     σ x   (3.78) 1   0 t 0   0   Det   Det   Det   0 t   0   x    t 0    0   0      0 t   0     x   ip x ip x  x   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0      ip  x    x   ae, e   t        x  ip x 0      ai, e  ip  x    σ x  Ae, e       LM , e  ip x t    A e  i,  ip  x    x  ae, e   0  ip x t     ai ,  e    e,   L  0 LM , i   i,  M   Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave antifermion such as a positron in Dirac-like form in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: 1.  ei 0  1ei 0  Le iM iM  t 2   2 ip x ip x e  x2        t   x  x t  1 e ip x e ip x 1 (3.79) t   ip x  x ip x t   ip x  x ip x e  e  e  e 0 x t  x t  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 785 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness ip  x    x  ae, e  e,     L  0  L L     i,  M ip x t       ai, e   ip  x    σ x  Ae, e  e,    L  0   L L     i,  M ip x t      A e  i,   t    x  M ,e  t     σ x  M ,i M ,e M ,i or   0  0ei 0  L0eiM iM  t 2   2  x 2 e ip  x   ip  x  (3.80) 1   0 t 0   0   Det   Det   Det   0 t   0   x   x   ip x  ip x    e  e     0       ip  x  ip  x     t   x  ae, e  x   ae, e        0      x t   ip x ip x 0        ai, e  ai, e      t 0    0   0      0 t   0     x         t    σ  x  Ae,  e   ip x   LM ,e  σ  x t  A e ip  x LM ,i   i,  e,_  LM   0  i, Similarly, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  t2  x2 2 e ip  x ip  x        t x  t x  e ip  x   t x 1 e ip  x e ip  x  1 (3.81) t  x ip x   ip x   ip x e  e  e 0 t x  t x ip  x     ae,l e  e,l    L  0   L L    i,r  ip  x t  x      ai , r e   ip  x     Ae,l e  e,l    t  σ x L  0    L L        i,r  ip x t  σ  x   Ai,r e      t  x     M ,e M ,i M ,e ISSN: 2153-8212 M M ,i Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. M www.JCER.com 786 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness that is:  i E e,l  iσ   p e,l   i ,r   t  σ  x  e, l   i , r     or   i E i ,r  iσ   i ,    e,l   t  σ  x  i , r   e, l  (3.82) Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows:   0  0e i 0  L0 e iM iM  t 2   2  x 2 e  ip  x ip  x                          x   Det 0 0 t 0 0 Det  Det 0 t  t 0 0  0 t   x   0 0 a 0 x e, l e  ai, r e 0 x  ip  x  ip  x e  ip  x t x    ip  x     Ae,l e   t  σ x     L   ip  x t  σ  x    A e  i, r  M ,e e  ip  x  t x 1 (3.83)   0     ai, r e  a e, l e  ip  x  ip x  e,l  L  0  i,r    LM , i  M Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: 1  e  1e  Le i0 i0     i x t   i x t   i x t e ip  x     iM iM ip  x ip  x t2  2 e    x2     1  e ip  x e ip  x 1 ip  x t  e    i x (3.84)    i  ip x ip  x t e  e 0   i x t   t  Q  Ae e    L    Q t Ae    i   ip  x  ip x   t  Q  Ae e    L    Q t Ae    i  M ,e ip  x ip x M ,e  LM ,i  e  LM  0 i  L M ,i  e  LM  0 i that is: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 787 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t e    iσ  x  i    or  t i    iσ  x  e   i E e   i  σ   p i     i     σ     E i e p i   (3.85) Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: ip  x ip  x 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   t 2  2  x 2 e   t 0 0  Det   Det   0 t      t 0  0     0 t        0   0   i x t      iσ x   t    Q   0     Det 0 i x 1 i x   ip x  ip x    e  e     0      ip  x   i x   ae e   t    0   ip x     i x  ai e   ip  x    iσ x  Ae e      LM ,e   ip x   t   Ai e   ip  x   Q  Ae e      LM ,e   ip x   t    Ai e   ip  x   i x  ae e   0   t  ip x   ai e     LM ,i  e   LM  0  i      LM ,i  e   LM  0  i    (3.86) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave photon in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: 1  ei0 1ei0  Le  iM  iM  1 t 2  ip  x   ip  x  e  x2 1  t   x    ip  x    ip  x        e     x  t   e        t  ip  x   x  ip  x  t  ip  x   x  ip  x  e  e  e  e 0 x t x t ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.87) www.JCER.com 788 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  ip  x     x  ae, e      e,   L   0    LM , e L M , i   M     ip x  t    i,   ai, e     ip x     s x  E 0e, e      e,   L    L L 0  M ,i    M ,e M photon  i,   ip  x  t     iB e  0i,  t   x   t    s x  Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of the linear plane-wave photon in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: 0  0e h  0ei0  L0 e  iM  iM   t 2  x 2 e   ip  x   ip  x    t   s x  (3.88) 1   0 t 0  Det    Det 0 t   x       t 0  0      0 t    x    x    ip  x    ip  x     e  e     0       ip  x    ip  x      x   ae, e  x  ae, e   t        0  x   ip  x   ip  x  0   t     ai, e  ai, e     ip  x    s  x  E 0e, e       LM ,e ip  x t   iB e  0i,  e,  L  LM ,i  0  i,  M photon   This photon wave function in the dual momentum-energy universe can be written as:  e,    E(p, E)   E 0 e  i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon    iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e   i ,    (p, E)      (3.89) After the substitutions t  i E and x  i p , we have from the last expression in (3.87):  i E   is   p  is   p  E (p, E)    p B (p, E)    E    0   E (p, E)   B  i E  iB ( p, E)     E p ( p, E)   E (p, E) (3.90) where we have used the relationship s  i p    p  to derive the latter equations which together with  p  E(p, E)  0 and  p  B (p, E)  0 are the Maxwell-like equations in the source-free vacuum in the dual momentum-energy universe. Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates a neutrino in Dirac-like form in the dual ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 789 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness momentum-energy universe by replacing the last step of expression (3.87) with the following:  t    σ x  ip  x    σ x  ae, e       LM ,e  ip x t   a e  i,    LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.91) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave antiphoton in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: t 2 ip x ip x 1  ei 0  1ei 0  Le iM iM  2 e  x       t x x t 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1  (3.92) t ip x  x ip x t ip x  x ip x e  e  e  e 0 x t x t  x  e,        LM ,e LM ,i  e,   LM  0   t  i,    i ,   ip  x    s x  iB 0e, e      e,   L    L L 0  M ,i    M ,e  i,  M antiphoton ip  x t     E e  0i,   t   x   t    s x  This antiphoton wave function can also be written as:  e ,    iB (p , E)   iB 0 e i (t k x )   iB 0  i (t kx )         antiphoton   E   E 0 e i (t kx )    E 0 e   i ,    (p , E)      (3.93) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates an antineutrino in Dirac-like form in the dual momentum-energy universe form by replacing the last step of expression (3.92) with the following:  t    σ x  ip  x    σx  ae, e       LM ,e  ip x t   a e  i,    LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.94) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of chiral-like plane-wave photons in the dual momentum-energy universe as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 790 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   t 2  x 2 e  ip  x ip  x   (3.95) 1   x 0   ip  x  ip  x  t 0   Det    e  e    0 t   Det  0      x           ip  x  ip  x      t 0   x 0   ae,l e 0  ae,l e  t  x           0     0  ip x ip x 0 t   0 x   t  x     ai,r e   ai , r e     ip  x   0  Ae,l e    t  s x      LM ,e   0  ip x t  s  x   Ai,r e     e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   that is,  e,l and  i, r are decoupled from each other and satisfy the following equations respectively:  t  s  x  e,l  0      s   p e,l  0    or  E e,l     s    0   t  s  x   0 p i ,r i ,r    E i ,r  (3.96) which have the following respective solutions:  e ,l   E (p , E)  iB (p , E)   E 0  iB 0 ei (t kx )          E   E 0  iB 0 ei (t kx )   i B  ( p , E)   i ,r   (p , E)   Both (3.97)  E e,l  s   p e,l  0 and  E i , r  s   p i , r  0 produce the Maxwell-like equations in the source-free vacuum as shown in the second expression of (3.90). Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates neutrinos in Weyl-like (chiral-like) forms in the dual momentum-energy universe by replacing the last step of expression (3.95) with the following: ip  x   (3.98) 0  Ae,l e      t  σ x  e,l   L   0    L L  M , e M , i     0  M ip  x t  σ  x     i, r  Ai,r e   that is,  e,l and  i, r are decoupled from each other and satisfy the following equations respectively:  t  σ  x  e ,l  0     σ   p e,l  0    or  E e,l      t  σ  x   0    σ     0 i ,r p i ,r    t i ,r  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.99) www.JCER.com 791 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains energy-less external and internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an intrinsic proper time  in Dirac-like form as follows: 1  ei 0  1ei 0  Le iM iM  1   2 iM iM e  x2      x  1    e iM e iM      x        iM  x iM   iM  x iM e  e  e  e 0 x  x     (3.100)    x  g D,e e iM   V   D,e   L V  0 L   L    x   g D,i e iM   M , e M , i  VD,i  M D      We will determine the form of imaginary content M in expression (3.100) later. Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains energy-less external and internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an intrinsic proper time  in Dirac-like form as follows: 0  0ei0  L0 e  iM  iM   2  x 2 e  iM  iM      Det 0          0      x    iM  iM 1  e e  0     iM     x  g D, e e  iM   x   g D, e e    0    iM  iM         0  g D, i e  x  g D, i e       0 0   Det    x 0  0      x  (3.101) Similarly, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains energy-less external and internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an intrinsic proper time  in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 792 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 1  ei 0  1ei 0  Le iM iM    x             x     1   2 iM iM e  x2 e e   iM iM 1 (3.102)  x iM  x iM    M   iM e  e  e  e 0  x  x  x       gW ,e e iM     L   x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e   VW ,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   Again, we will determine the form of the imaginary content M in expression (3.102) later. Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains energy-less external and internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an intrinsic proper time  in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   2  x 2 eiM iM     x  Det   0      x    0  0  0   x     (3.103)       iM iM 1  e e  0       gW ,e e iM     x  gW ,e e iM   0    0   gW ,i e iM    x   g w,i e iM       0  0   Det   x    Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains momentum-less (momentum independent) external and internal wave functions of an intrinsic proper time  in Dirac-like form as follows: 0  0e 0  L0 e iM iM   t 2  2 e imt imt  (3.104)      t 0   0   imt imt 1  Det   Det   e e   0 t   0       t 0    0   g D,e e imt   t  0  g D,e e imt    0          0 t   0    g D,i e imt   0 t   g D,i e imt        Similarly, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains momentum-less (momentum independent) external and internal wave functions of an intrinsic proper time  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 793 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 1  e  1e  Le 0 0 1 iM iM  t2  2 e imt imt  1  t     imt e imt     e     t  t imt   imt t imt   imt e  e  e  e 0  t  t V   t   gW ,e e imt    W ,e   L V  0    L L  M , e M , i  V   t  g e imt    M W   W ,i  W ,i      (3.105)  Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains momentum-less (momentum independent) external and internal wave functions of an intrinsic proper time  in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   t 2  2 eimt imt         t 0  0    imt imt 1  Det    Det    e e    0 t   0        imt   t   gW ,e e imt    t 0   0    gW ,e e   0         0 t    0   gW ,i e imt    t  g w,i e imt        (3.106) Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton in the dual momentum-energy universe through imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that 2>t2) in Dirac-like form as follows: 1  ei0  1ei0  LeiM iM  1 t 2  2 ip  x ip  x e  x i2 1  t    x i   ip  x  ip  x   e  e           x t   i        t  ip  x  x i ip  x t  ip  x  x i ip  x e  e  e  e 0  xi t   xi t  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.107) www.JCER.com 794 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t    xi   x i  se, e iEt     L  t   si, e iEt   M ,e    e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (3.108)  e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (3.109) After spinization of expression (3.108), we have:  t     σ x i   σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   Si, e iEt     As discussed later, it is plausible that expression (3.108) governs the confinement structure of the unspinized proton in Dirac-like form through imaginary position x i and, on the other hand, expression (3.109) governs the confinement structure of spinized proton through x i . Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of the momentum-ly self-confined entity such as a proton in the dual momentum-energy universe in Dirac-like form as follows:   0  0ei 0  L0eiM iM  t 2   2  x i2 e  ip x ip x  (3.110) 1  0  x i   ip x  ip x  0     0      e    e    Det  Det   0   x   0   t   i         iEt   t 0    0   0  x i   se, e   t   x i  se, e iEt    0          0 t   0     x i 0   si, e iEt    x i t   si, e iEt        t  Det  0   t    xi   x i  se, e iEt     L  t   si, e iEt   M ,e    D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D    t     σ x i   σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D   Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Dirac-like form may be respectively governed as follows:  t    xi  ISSN: 2153-8212  x i  se, e iEt     L  t   si, e iEt   M ,e    D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.111) www.JCER.com 795 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t     σ x i   D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D    σx i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt     (3.112) Similarly, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton in the dual momentum-energy universe through imaginary position x i (downward self-reference) in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM   iM  t  x i            t  x  i    t  xi  e ip  x t  xi      1   e t 2  x i2 2 ip  x  e e ip  x  ip  x ip  x   1 (3.113) t  x i ip x   ip x   ip x e  e  e 0 t  xi  t  xi   se,r e iEt     L  t  x i  si,l e iEt   M ,e    e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l    (3.114)  e,r    LM  0 LM ,i   i,l    (3.115) After spinization of expression (3.114), we have:  t  σ x i       S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  t  σ x i  S i,l e iEt     It is plausible that expression (3.114) governs the structure of the unspinized proton in Weyl-like form and expression (3.115) governs the structure of spinized proton in Weyl-like form. Alternatively, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a spatially self-confined entity such as a proton in the dual momentum-energy universe in Weyl (chiral) form as follows:   0  0ei 0  L0eiM iM  t 2   2  x i2 e ISSN: 2153-8212  ip x ip x Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.  (3.116) www.JCER.com 796 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   xi t 0  Det    Det 0 t   0       t 0   x i      0 t   0   t  xi      t  σ x i     1    ip x  ip x    e  e     0       iEt   se,r e iEt     se,r e   t  x i    0     t  x i  si,l e iEt  0   si,l e iEt         0  0   Det  x i    0  0   x i      se,r e iEt       LM ,e LM ,i  e,r   L   0  M    t  x i  si,l e iEt    i,l      S e,r e iEt       LM ,e LM ,i  e,r   L   0  M    t  σx i  S i,l e iEt    i,l    (3.117) (3.118) Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Weyl-like form may be respectively governed as follows:   se, l e  iEt     L  t  xi  si, r e  iEt   M , e    t  xi       S e,l e iEt     LM ,e  t  σx i  Si,r e iEt      t  σ x i     3.4  e, l   L  0 LM , i   i, r  M   (3.119)  e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   (3.120) Scientific Genesis of Composite Entities in the Premomentumenergy Model Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustain and cause evolution of a neutron in the dual momentum-energy universe in Dirac-like form which is comprised of an unspinized proton:    t  e(p, E )      x i  eA (p, E )    x i  eA (p, E )  se, e iEt      0 iEt   t  e(p, E )  si, e    p  (3.121) and a spinized electron:    t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )      σ  x  eA (p, E )    as follows:     σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e   (3.122)  1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le iM iM p Le iM iM e ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 797 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t 2   2 ip x ip x   t 2   2 ip x ip x        e e 2 2 x x e i  p 1 1  1   1    t    x   ip  x  ip  x     t    x   ip  x  ip  x   i       e  e      e      e                    x i  t          x  t  s       p e   t       x i   x i  se, e iEt     t  0   t   si, e iEt      x  p  x  se, e iEt   0  t   si, e iEt   e    t  e   x i  eA p, E   se, e iEt   p, E      0  iEt     x  eA    t  ep, E    si, e   p, E   i p       σ x  eA p, E    S e, e iEt       t  ep,E  Vp, E   0  iEt      σ x  eA      t  e   V   S e p, E  p, E  p, E   i,   e n  (3.123) In expressions (3.121), (3.122) and (3.123),   ,   and   indicate proton, electron p e n and neutron respectively. Further, unspinized proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, A  (  (p.,E )     , A (p.,E ) ) p and A  ( (p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) ) e are the electromagnetic potentials acting on unspinized proton and tightly bound spinized electron respectively, and V(p , E ) e is a binding potential from the unspinized proton acting on the spinized electron causing tight binding as discussed later. If A   ((p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) )p is negligible due to the fast motion of the tightly bound spinized electron in the dual momentum-energy universe, we have from the last expression in (3.123):    t   x i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0      x i t   si, e      p       t  e  iEt  σ x  eA p, E   S e, e    p, E      0      σ x  eA p, E   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt       e n  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.124) www.JCER.com 798 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Experimental data on charge distribution and g-factor of neutron may support a neutron comprising of an unspinized proton and a tightly bound spinized electron. The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (3.123) and expression (3.124) are respectively as follows:    t  e   s e,r e iEt    (p, E )  x i  eA (p, E )     0 iEt         e  x i  eA (p, E )  si,l e  p      iEt   S e,l e       t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E ) 0      t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  p  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt      e n    t  x i   se,r e iEt    0      t  x i  si,l e iEt   p    t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )           (3.125)        iEt   S e,l e    0  t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e n  (3.126)  Then, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustain and cause evolution of a hydrogen atom in the dual momentum-energy universe comprising of a spinized proton:    t  e(p, E )     x i  eA (p, E )   σ   (3.127)   (3.128)   σ x i  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E )   S i, e iEt     p   σ  x  eA (p,E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p,E )   Si, e iEt     e and a spinized electron:    t  e(p, E )      σ  x  eA (p, E )    in Dirac-like form as follows:    1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le iM iM p Le  iM iM e  t 2   2 ip x ip x   t 2   2 ip x ip x        e e 2 2 e  xi p x ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 799 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 1 1  1   1    t    x    ip  x   ip  x     t    x    ip  x   ip  x   i            e  e      e       x  t    e            x t      i                p e   t       x i   x i  se, e iEt     t  0   t   si, e iEt      x  p  x  se, e iEt   0  t   si, e iEt   e    t  ep, E    σ x i  eA p, E   S e, e iEt     0      σ x i  eA p, E   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt     p     t  e   σ x  eA p, E   S e, e iEt   p, E       0      σ x  eA p, E   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt       e h  (3.129) In expressions (3.127), (3.128) and (3.129),   p ,  e and   h indicate proton, electron and hydrogen atom respectively. Again, proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, and A  (  (p.,E )     , A (p.,E ) ) p and A  ( (p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) ) e are the electromagnetic potentials acting on spinized proton and spinized electron respectively. Again, if A   ((p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) )p is negligible due to fast motion of the orbiting spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (3.129):    t    σ  x i  S e, e iEt      0   S e iEt       σ  x i  t    i,  p       t  e  iEt  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e    (p, E )     0      σ  x  eA (p, E ) t  e(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e h     (1.130)  The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (3.129) and expression (3.130) are respectively as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 800 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness      t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E )   S e,r e iEt     0      t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E )  S i,l e iEt    p     t  e    S e,l e iEt    (p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )       0     t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h           t  σ x i    S e,r e iEt      0   iEt          t  σ  x i  S i,l e  p     t  e   iEt   S e,l e    (p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )    0      t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h    (3.131)  (3.132)  4. Metamorphous Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) View 4.1 Metamorphoses & the Essence of Spin in the Premomentumenergy Model The preceding sections make it clear that the particle ei0 of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) can take many different forms as different primordial entities and, further, can have different manifestations as different wave functions and/or fields in different contexts even as a single primordial entity. For example, the wave functions of an electron can take the Dirac-like, Weyl-like, quaternion-like or determinant form respectively in different contexts in the dual momentum-energy universe depending on the questions one asks and the answer one seeks. This work also makes it clear that primordial self-referential spin in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is hierarchical and it is the cause of primordial distinctions for creating the self-referential entities in the dual momentum-energy universe. There are several levels of spin: (1) spin in the power level in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) making primordial external and internal phase distinctions of external and internal wave functions; (2) spin of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) on the ground level making primordial external and internal wave functions which accompanies the primordial phase distinctions; (3) self-referential mixing of these wave functions through matrix law before spatial spinization; (4) unconfining spatial spin through spatial spinization (electromagnetic and weak interaction) for creating bosonic and fermionic entities; and (5) confining spatial spin (strong interactions) creating the appearance of quarks through imaginary position (downward self-reference). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 801 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 4.2 The Determinant View & the Meaning of Klein-Gordon-like Equation in the Premomentumenergy Model In the determinant view, the matrix law collapses into Klein-Gordon-like form as shown in § 3 but so far we have not defined the form of the wave function as a result of the said collapse. Here, we propose that the external and internal wave functions (objects) form a special product state    with i containing the hidden variables, quantum potentials or e i self-gravity as shown below, vice versa. From the following equations for unspinized free particle in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form respectively:  t    x   x  e,     LM D  0 t   i,   t  x       e, l    L  0 t  x  i, r  M W  (4.1) and (4.2) we respectively obtained the following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordonlike form):    DetLM  e,  i,   t 2   2  x 2  e,  i,   0    t 2   2  x 2  e,   0      t 2   2  x 2    0   i,       and      DetLM  e,l i,r  t 2  x 2   2  e,l i,r  0    2 2 2 t  x     0   e ,l   2 2 2  t  x    i ,r  0       (4.3) (4.4) By way of an example, equation (4.1) has the following plane-wave solution: from which we have: ISSN: 2153-8212  e,   ae,  e  i  Et px        a e i  Et px   i,  e,   (4.5)  e,  i,   ae,  e  i  Et px  e ai,  e i  Et px  i (4.6) Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 802 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness where  Et  p  x e  e    (4.7)   Et  p  x i  i  are respectively the external and internal phase in the determinant view. The variables in  i,  play the roles of hidden variables to  e,  which would be annihilated, if  i,  were allowed to merged with e ,  . Indeed, if relativistic time in the external wave function  e ,  is considered to be inertial time, then the relativistic time in the conjugate internal wave function  i,  plays the role of gravitational time. We will discuss quantum potential later. Similarly, from the following equations for spinized free fermion in Dirac-like and Weyllike form respectively:  t     σ x   σ x  e,    LM  0  t   i,  (4.8) and   e, l   t  σ x (4.9)   LM  0        t  σ x  i, r   where ψD=(ψe,+, ψi,-)T=(ψ1,ψ2, ψ3, ψ4)T and ψW=(ψe,l, ψi,r)T=(ϕ1, ϕ2, ϕ3, ϕ4)T, we respectively obtained the following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordon-like form):    Det LM  e,  i,   t 2   2  x 2 I 2 e,  i,   0    t 2  2  x 2  1  0     2 2 2 t   x  2  0     t 2   2  x 2  3  0   t 2   2  x 2  4  0       and        Det LM  e,l i,r  t 2   2  x 2 I 2 e,l i,r  0    t 2   2  x 2 1  0     2 2 2 t    x 2  0     t 2   2  x 2 3  0   t 2   2  x 2 4  0           (4.10) (4.11) In the presence of electromagnetic potential A  ( , A) in the dual momentum-energy universe, we have from equations (4.1) and (4.2) the following equations: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 803 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t e(p,E)     x-eA (p,E)   x-eA (p,E)  e,    L  0 t e(p,E)   i,  M D  (4.12)  e,l    L  0 t e(p,E )  x-eA (p,E )  i,r  M W  (4.13) and  t e(p,E )  x-eA (p,E )      from which we respectively obtained the following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordon-like form):   2   2    2   DetLM  e,  i ,    t  e(p , E )   m  x-eA (p , E )  e,  i ,   0      2 2  t  e  2     m  x e A   0   e,  (p , E ) (p , E )       2 2  t  e    0 2   m  x e A     (p , E ) i, (p , E )         (4.14) and   2   2    2   DetLM  e,l i ,r   t  e(p ,E )   x-eA (p ,E )        e,l i ,r  0      2 2  t  e  2          e,l  0  (p , E )   x-eA (p , E )       2 2  t  e   2      i,r  0    (p , E )   x-eA ( p , E )       where   t  e(p,E ) and   x-eA we have:  t  e(p, E )     σ x-eA (p, E )  and      t  e(p, E )  σ x-eA (p, E )     (p, E )   (4.15) . After spinization of equations (4.12) and (4.13),    σ x-eA (p, E )  e,    L  0 t  e(p, E )   i,  M D   (4.16)   e,l    L  0 t  e(p, E )  σ x-eA (p, E )  i,r  M W   (4.17)   from which we respectively obtained the following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordon-like form):    Det LM  e,  i,   t  e(p , E ) 2   2  x-eA (p , E ) 2  eσ  B (p , E ) I 2 e,  i,   0    2 2 2   t  e(p,E )     x-eA (p,E )  eσ  B (p,E ) I 2 e,  0   2 2    t  e(p , E )    2  x-eA (p , E )  eσ  B (p , E ) I 2 i,   0             (4.18) and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 804 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness    Det LM  e,l i,r  t  e(p , E ) 2  x-eA (p , E ) 2   2  eσ  B (p , E ) -ieσ  E (p , E ) I 2 e,l i,r  0    2 2    t  e(p , E )   x-eA (p , E )   2  eσ  B (p , E ) -ieσ  E (p , E ) I 2 e,l  0   2 2    t  e(p , E )   x-eA (p , E )   2  eσ  B (p , E ) -ieσ  E (p , E ) I 2 i,r  0             (4.19) In equations (4.16) and (4.17), the couplings of E(p,E) and/or B(p,E) with spin σ are either implicit or hidden. These interactions are due to self-referential matrix law LM which causes mixing of the external and internal wave functions. However, in the determinant view, these interactions are made explicit as shown in equations (4.18) and (4.19) respectively. 4.3 The Meaning of Schrodinger-like Equation & Quantum Potential in the Premomentumenergy Model It can be shown that the following Schrodinger-like Equation is the non-relativistic approximation of equation (4.3) or (4.4): 1 2 2 2  p (c=ħ=1) i E  Tˆ   p or i E  Tˆ  2 2 2c (4.20) where    Re  i Im . From (ct)2 = x2 + (c)2, we have:   2  x2 x2 1  x 2   x2  t    1    1   ...    2  2c 2 8  c 4   2  c c 2     Choosing +, omitting second term on the right, and making substitutions T  i E and x  i p , we arrive at equation (4.20). Equation (4.20) can be written as two coupled equations (c=ħ=1):   E Re  Tˆ Im        Tˆ  Re   E Im  E or  ˆ T Tˆ  Re   0  E  Im  (4.21) The above equation describes the non-relativistic self-reference of the wave components  Re and Im due to spin i. If we designate Re as external object,  Im is the internal object. It is the non-relativistic approximation of the determinant view of an unspinized particle (Klein-Gordon-like form) in momentum-energy space with self-referential ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 805 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness interaction reduced to spin i and contained in the wave function from which the quantum potential Q can be extracted. For example, in the case:  e,  i,   ae,  e  i  Et  p  x ai ,  e  i  Et  p  x     e  iS e  i (4.22) where ae,+ and ai,- are real, ζ contains the hidden variables and:    ae,  ai ,      S  Et x  p  x e     Et  p  x   x i   2 x   tx    2   (4.23) we can derive the following quantum potential (details will be given elsewhere): Q 2 1  p 2    x    t x i 2  2  i (4.24) which originates from spin i in:  i,   ai , ei  Et px   ai , e iE ei (4.25) Q would negate the non-relativistic kinetic time tx=x2/2 of the external wave function, if the external wave function and the conjugate internal wave function would merge. Further, it can be shown that the Pauli-like Equation is the non-relativistic approximation of equation (4.18) which is the determinant view of a fermion in an electromagnetic field in Dirac-like form within the momentum-energy space:    1 e    2  i E  1    i  eA p,E )   σ  B (p,E )  e(p,E )  1  2   2    2   2 (4.24) It contain non-relativistic self-reference due to both spin i and σ and will be treated elsewhere in detail when and if time permits. 4.4 The Third State of Matter in the Premomentumenergy Model Traditionally, a scalar (spinless) particle is presumed to be described by the Klein-Gordon equation and is classified as a boson. However, in this work we have suggested that KeinGordon-like equation is a determinant view of a fermion, boson or an unspinized entity (spinlesson) in which the external and internal wave functions (objects) form a special ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 806 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness product state    with  as the origin of hidden variable, quantum potential or selfe i i gravity. The unspinized entity (spinlesson) is neither a boson nor a fermion but may be classified as a third state of matter described by the unspinized equation in Dirac-like or Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in the dual momentum-energy universe, for example:  t    x  ip  x    x  ae, e       LM ,e  ip x t     ai, e    e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.25) ip  x   (4.26)   ae,l e      e,l   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e  i,r  M ip  x t  x      ai,r e   The hadronized versions of the above equations in which the position is imaginary are respectively as follows:  t   x i  se, e  iEt    (4.27)    LM , e LM , i  e,   L   0    iEt M     x i t   si, e    i,     t  x i   se,l e iEt    (4.28)    LM ,e LM ,i  e,l   L   0    iEt    i,r    t  x i  si,r e       t  x     M The third state of matter may not be subject to the statistical behavior of either bosons or fermions. The wave functions of a fermion and boson are respectively a bispinor and bivector but that of the third state (spinlesson) is two-component complex scalar field. The third state of matter is the precursor of both fermionic and bosonic matters/fields before fermionic or bosonic spinization. Thus, it may step into the shoes played by the Higgs field of the standard model. Further, in this scenario, intrinsic proper time is created by the selfreferential spin (imagination) of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 5. Weak Interaction in the Premomentumenergy Model In this model, weak interaction is an expressive process (emission or radiation) through fermionic spinization with or without intermediary bosonic spinization and the associated reverse process (capture or absorption). There are two possible kinds of mechanisms at play. One kind is the direct fermionic spinization of an unspinized massive particle as shown in § 3: x  x 2   Det (σ  x )  σ  x (5.1) that is, for example:  t    x  ISSN: 2153-8212  x  e   t   σ  x  e     0      0   σ  x t   i  t   i      Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (5.2) www.JCER.com 807 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness and the following reverse process: σ  x   Det (σ  x )  x 2  x (5.3) that is, for example:  t   t   σ x  e      0     σ.x t   i   x      x  e     0 t   i   (5.4) Processes (5.1) and (5.3) only conserve spin in the dual universe as a whole. If they hold in reality, neutrino may not be needed in the weak interaction in this model. Accordingly, beta decay of a neutron may involve the spinizing process (5.1) during which an unspinized proton (or electron) gains its spin 1/2 and a bound spinized electron becomes free as follows: (1) Spinless Proton → Spinized Proton → Release of Bound Electron; or (2) Spinless Electron → Spinized Electron → Release of Spinized Electron. Process (1) seems in closer agreement with experimental data on g-factor and charge density of neutron. There is no exchange particle involved in process (1) or (2). In neutron synthesis from proton and electron, if it exists, the reverse process (5.3) occurs in this model during which a spinized proton (or electron) loses its spin and free electron becomes tightly bound to proton. We suggest that the following equation governs free unspinized particles having intrinsic proper time  and charge e respectively but spinless, that is, they are pion-like particles (their combination generates  0 -like particles):  t  x    x e  0 or t   i  t    e  x  i     t     x   i e  (5.5) After spinization through (5.1), we arrive at Dirac-like equation:    t     x  e 0   x t  i Assuming a plane wave  e ,   e  ip  x   t    e  σ  x i    t    i  σ  x e  or  (5.6) exists for equation (5.5), we obtain the following solution for said equation (   -like plane-wave solution): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 808 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  e  ip x    1    e,  t     ip x    x  ip  x    N  x e   i,  2t  e  t         t    (5.7) where N is a normalization factor and we have utilized the following relation for a time eigenstate: t    i,  x  e,  i,  x t   e,  (5.8) After spinization of solution (5.7): 1       0  1  1 0    x  0 1  z      σ  x    t   t   x  iy    t     t  0   1  x  iy  t    z  t   (5.9) we arrive at the free plane-wave electron solution for Dirac-like equation (5.6) in the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentumenergy space:  1   0      0   1     e,  and     t   z t    ip x x  iy    e ,     e  ip x   e  i,  2t  t    i,  2t  t        x iy   z       t    t    (5.10)  In the above solutions for external spin up and down respectively, the external spin 1/2 is balanced by the internal spin components which may be deemed as antineutrino such that the total spin in the dual universe is still conserved to zero. Therefore, in this model it may be that external spin up or down can be created without the need of a separate antineutrino in beta decay, if any excessive time ∆t and/or position ∆x are allowed to cancel each other in premomentumenergy (Consciousness):  e  i  Et pΔ x   i  Et pΔ x   e i  Et pΔ xe i  Et pΔ x  e i  Et pΔ xi  Et pΔ x  e 0  1 e    ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (5.11) www.JCER.com 809 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness Further, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows the following bosonic spinization of massive spinless particle (e.g., as unstable particle with very short life-time):  x  x 2   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3    sx (5.12) that is, for example:  x  e   t     0     s x t   i     t    x  and/or  x  x 2   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3  sx  e     0 t   i  (5.13)   s  x  σ  x   σ  x  1 (5.14) 2 that is, for example:  t   x  e   t  sx  e      0      0  sx t   i    x t   i               t    σ  x  e   0    t  σ  x  e   0  t  i     σ  x t    i  1    σ  x 2 (5.15) during which transitory states similarly to vector bosons W-, W+ and/or Z0 appear and disappear, we have from expression (5.14) the second kind of weak interactions. We point out here that only process (5.14) mediates weak interactions since in process (5.12) vectorboson-like particles are just transitory states that do not decay into fermions. The spinized equation in expression (5.13) for a free massive spin 1 particle may take the following Dirac-like form:  t     s x  E   e,  sp  e,   (p, E)  L  L    L  0 t   i, _  M  i, _  M  iB (p, E)  M  (5.16)  or  t     s x   iB  sx  e,        LM  e, _   LM  (p, E)   LM  0   i,   E (p, E)  t   i,     (5.17)  After calculating the determinant:  t   s x        t  t    s x   s x  Dets    s  x t         ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (5.18) www.JCER.com 810 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness We obtain the following:   x t   s  x Det  t  x   I   yz  s  x t   zx  s  2 2 2 2 3 xy y2 zy  xz  yz   z2  (5.19)  t 2  x 2  2 I3  MT As mentioned in § 3, the last term MT in expression (5.19) makes fundamental relation t 2  x 2   2  0 not to hold in the determinant view (5.18) unless the action of MT on the external and internal components of the wave function produces null result, that is:  Ex    M T  E y   ( px   p y   pz ) p  E (p, E)  0 E   z (5.20)  Bx    M T  B y   ( px   p y   pz ) p  B (p, E)  0 B   z (5.21) and Thus, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows these violations to exist transitorily, equations (5.16) and (5.17) may describe free vector bosons W- and W+ in the dual momentum-energy universe respectively; their combination then describes free vector boson Z0 and MT may be deemed as transitory intrinsic proper time (or intrinsic proper time operator). In contrast to processes (1) and (2), vector bosons W- and W+ or the like mediate the spinization of spinless proton or electron respectively as follows: (3) Spinless Proton → Spinized Vector Boson W+ → Spinized Proton + Spinized 2nd Fermion → Release of Bound Electron + Spinized 2nd Fermion; and (4) Spinless Electron → Spinized Vector Boson W- → Spinized Electron + Spinized 2nd Fermion → Release of Spinized Electron + Spinized 2nd Fermion. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 811 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness It is hoped that the metamorphous forms of matrix maw in § 3, their further metamorphoses and the corresponding wave functions that these laws govern will be able to accommodate all known particles of the particle zoo in the dual momentum-energy universe. Very importantly, in this model there may be no parity violations in weak interactions such as beta decay as the apparent parity violation in the experiment may simply be explained as a spin polarization effect in which the spin polarization influences the dynamics and directions of the emitted electron in an external magnetic field. Also, there may be no need for Higgs boson to generate mass since mass is generated by self-referential spin at the power level of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), so the primordial particle of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is simply 1= ei0. 6. Electromagnetic Interaction in the Premomentumenergy Model Electromagnetic interaction is an expressive process (radiation or emission) through bosonic spinization of an intrinsic-proper-time-less (massless) and spinless entity and the associated reverse process (absorption). In this model, there are possibly two kinds of mechanisms at play. One kind is the direct bosonic spinization (spinizing radiation):  x  x 2   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3   sx (6.1) that is, for example:  t   x   x  e   s  x  e   t    0      0   s.x  i  t  i  t     (6.2) and the following reverse process (unspinizing absorption):  s  x   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3    x x 2 (6.3) that is, for example:  t    s x   t  s x  e     0    x t  i    x  e     0 t  i   (6.4) The radiation or absorption of a photon during acceleration of a charged particle may be direct bosonic spinizing or unspinizing process respectively: (1) Bound Spinless & Intrinsic-proper-time-less Particle → Bound Spinized Photon → Free Spinized Photon; and (2) Free Spinized Photon → Bound Spinized Photon → Bound Spinless & & Intrinsicproper-time-less Particle. In this model, these two processes may also occur in nuclear decay and perhaps in other ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 812 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness processes. Assuming a plane wave  e,   e particle:   ip  x     t e  x  i     t  x   i e    x e  0 or t i t x exists for the spinless and massless (6.5) we obtain the following solution for this equation:   ip  x    1   ip  x   e,  1 e      x  N x e  x  ip     i,  2 e t       t  (6.6) where we have utilized the following relation for a time eigenstate and N is the normalization factor : t i ,   x  e ,    i ,   x  e,  (6.7) iy   t  ix   t   0   (6.8) t After spinization:   0  x s  x  iz    t t t  iy   t  iz t 0 ix t We arrive at the plane-wave solution:  1     0   0   ex,     ip  x 1   0 e  i,  2  iz       t   iy   t     0     1   0   ey,    _ ip  x 1    iz e  i,  2 t       0   ix   t     0     0   1   ez,     ip  x 1 iy    e  i,  2 t     ix   t   0    (6.9) for the spinized photon equation:  t sx   sx e  0 or i t  t e  s  x  i    t   s  x  e  i (6.10) The second kind of electromagnetic interaction is the release (radiation) or binding (absorption) of a spinized photon without unspinization: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 813 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness (3) Bound Spinized Photon → Free Spinized Photon; and (4) Free Spinized Photon → Bound Spinized Photon. Processes (3) and (4) occur at the openings of an optical cavity or waveguide and may also occur in atomic photon excitation and emission and perhaps other processes. For bosonic spinization x  x 2  s  x , the Maxwell-like equations in the vacuum (c=1) in the dual momentum-energy universe are as follows:   t     i E  p   E (p , E)   s  x  E (p , E)      0       0     t  iB ( p , E)     s  x     p   i E  iB ( p , E)       p  E (p , E)  0 , x  E ( p , E)  0      p  B (p , E)  0 x  B ( p , E)  0               E E (p , E)   p  B (p , E)      t B (p , E)   p  E (p , E)   or   p  E (p , E)  0       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.11) If we calculate the determinant: s x   t   t  t    s x  s x  Dets   s x  t   (6.12) We obtain the following:    x xy xz  t sx Det  t  x I   yz y yz   t  x I  M sx t  zx zy z    s 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 T (6.13) 2 2 2 The last term MT in expression (6.13) makes fundamental relation t  x  0 not hold in the determinant view (6.12) unless the action of MT on the external and internal components of the wave function produces null result, since equations (5.20) and (5.21) only hold in the source-free region of the dual momentum-energy universe. At the location of a massive (i.e., intrinsic proper time is non-zero) charged particle such as ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 814 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness an electron or proton, equations (5.20) and (5.21) are also violated by the photon. That is, the photon appears to have intrinsic proper time MT at the source, thus in this model particle pairs may be created on collision of a photon with a massive charged particle. In the Maxwell-like equations, these violations are counter-balanced by adding source to the equations as discussed below. The Maxwell-like equations with source are, in turn, coupled to the Dirac-like Equation of the fermions such as electron or proton forming the DiracMaxwell-like system as further discussed in § 11.   Indeed, if source j    (p ,E ) , j(p ,E )  0 in the dual momentum-energy universe, we have instead:  t     s  x       s  x  E ( p , E)   ij( p , E)      i E  p   E (p , E)   ij( p , E)          t  iB (p , E)   0      p   i E  iB (p , E)   0    ,  x  E ( p , E)  i ( p , E)  p  E (p , E)   (p , E)    x  B (p , E)  0  p  B ( p , E)  0            E E (p , E)   p  B (p , E)  j(p , E)      t B (p , E)   p E (p , E)  or    p  E (p , E)   (p , E)       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.14) Importantly, we can also choose to use fermionic spinization scheme x  x 2  σ  x to describe Maxwell-like equations in this model. In this case, the Maxwell-like equation in the vacuum has the form: - σ  x  σ  E (p , E)   t 0   t  iσ  B (p , E)  - σ  x (6.15)   E    p   E ( p , E)      0  E  B (p , E)     p      p  E (p , E)  0    p  B (p , E)  0       (6.16) which gives: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 815 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   If source j    (p ,E ) , j(p ,E )  0 , we have:  t  - σ  x - σ  x  σ  E (p , E)   iσ  j (p , E)     t  iσ  B (p , E)   i (p , E)  (6.17) which gives:   E E (p , E)   p  B (p , E)  j(p , E)      t B (p , E)   p  E (p , E)     p  E (p , E)   (p , E)       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.18) Therefore, in the fermionic spinization scheme, we have in place of the bi-vector wave function a 4x4 tensor comprising of two bi-spinors (instead of the bi-vector itself) generated by projecting the bi-vector comprised of E(p, E) and iB(p, E) to spin σ. Further, we point out here that for a linear photon its electric field E(p, E) is the external wave function (external object) and its magnetic field B(p, E) is the internal wave function (internal object) in this model. These two fields are always self-entangled and their entanglement is their self-gravity. Therefore, the relation between E(p, E) and B(p, E) in a propagating electromagnetic wave in the momentum-energy universe is not that change in E(p, E) induces B(p, E) vice versa but that change in E(p, E) is always accompanied by change in B(p, E) synchronously vice versa due to their entanglement (self-gravity). That is, the relationship between E(p, E) and B(p, E) are gravitational and instantaneous. 7. Strong Interaction in the Premomentumenergy Model While weak and electromagnetic interactions are expressive processes involving fermionic and bosonic spinizations of spinless entities (the third state of matter) and their respective reverse processes, strong interaction in this model does not involve spinization, that is, strong force is a confining process. It may be assumed that spinless entities in general are unstable and decay through fermionic or bosonic spinization. In order to achieve confinement of a nucleon or stability of the nucleus, we suggest that strong interaction may involve imaginary position in the confinement zone in the dual momentum-energy universe as illustrated below. There are two types of strong interactions at play. One is the selfconfinement of a nucleon such as a proton and the other is the interaction among nucleons such a proton and a neutron. In the Standard Model, a proton is a composite entity comprised of three quarks confined by massless gluons and the interaction among the nucleons is mediated by mesons comprised of pairs of a quark and an antiquark which in turn interact through gluons. However, since no free quarks have been observed, there may be good reason to consider other options. We have suggested in § 3 that the proton may be considered as an ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 816 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness elementary particle that accomplishes momentum self-confinement through downward self-reference (imaginary position). Here, we will first derive the condition for producing momentum self-confinement of the nucleon in the dual momentum-energy universe and the Yukawa-like potential. The equation for a massive but spinless entity in Dirac-like Form is as follows:  t  x    x e  0 or t  i  t    e  x  i     t     x   i e  (7.1) Assuming that the wave function has time eigenstate -t (that is, the external and internal wave functions have time eigenstate -t and +t respectively in the determinant view), we can write: t    e  x  i  t   e iEte p  x e iEti p   t   e p  x i p t    i  x  e  t   e iEti p   x e iEte p   i p   x  t  e p  (7.2) (7.3) From expressions (7.2) and (7.3), we can derive the following: t    x  p  0 or t      p   0 2 2 2 2 2 2 i p (7.4) i Equation (7.4) has radial solution as follows: i ( p)  1 ip t 2  2 e 4p (7.5) Then, we have from expression (7.3): e  p   x  t  i  p   x 1 ip t 2  2 e t   4p (7.6) where we may utilize the following conjecture: x i  p     p 2 1 ip t 2  2 1 ip t 2  2 e  t 2  2 e 4p 4p (7.7) The complete radial solution of equation (7.1) for time eigenstate -t in Dirac-like form is:   x 1 iEt ip t 2  2    e x   e ,  E , p    1 iEt ip t 2  2 t   4  p     N  ( E , p )    N  t   e (7.8)   2 2 1    E , p 4  p  iEt  ip t     i ,    1 e      4p  where N is a normalization factor. When 2>t2, that is, when the position in t2-2=x2 is imaginary, we have from (7.8): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 817 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness   x 1 iEt  p  2 t 2    e  x   e,  E , p    1 iEt  p t   4  p     N  ( E , p)    N t   e  1 iEt  p  2 t 2  4p    i ,  E , p   e  1     4p  (7.9) where    2  t 2 . Now, if we consider the special case of an energy-less, spinless but massive entity in which t=0, we have from (7.9):  x 1   p e  e   4  p   ( p)     N  1  p  i  e   4p    x   1  p   N e     1  4p     (7.10) Thus, the internal and external wave functions in expression (7.10) have the form of Yukawa-like potential and its negative imaginary projection, respectively. We suggest that the interior (confinement zone) of an unspinized nucleon is described by wave functions similar to expressions (7.9) or (7.10) in the dual momentum-energy universe and confinement is achieved through downward self-reference (imaginary position x i ). Therefore, in this scenario, the three colors of the strong force are the threedimensional imaginary position x i . Further, another implication of this scenario is that in the Machian quantum universe the energy-less edge or the outside of this dual momentum universe (which is embedded in premomentumenergy (Consciousness)) is connected to or simply is the enegy-less inside of the nucleons. If we assume that the internal wave function ψi (which is self-coupled to the external wave function ψe through expression (7.1)) also couples with the external wave function χe of another entity (which is also self-coupled to its internal wave function χi) as, for example:  g 2 i  e   g 2 1 p g2 e  e   e p  e 4p p (7.11) where –g2 is a coupling constant, we can write part of the nuclear potential of a nucleon as follows: V  g 2 p e p (7.12) which is in the form of Yukawa-like Potential. We now discuss the unspinized and spinized forms of proton. The spinized proton in the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 818 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness duel momentum-energy universe is the commonly known form of proton and we suggest that the unspinized proton may reside in the neutron comprised of the unspinized proton and a spinized electron as illustrated in § 3. The equations for a free unspinized and spinized proton in Dirac Form are respectively as follows:  t    xi   x i  e     0 t   i    t    σx i  σx i  e     0 t   i  and (7.13) (7.14) where xi is imaginary position. From the above derivation, we may write the wave function of an unspinized proton with external and internal time eigenstate –t and +t respectively as follows (by convention, electron has positive external time +t and internal time –t):   x i 1 iEt  p    e  e,  E , p  t   4  p    N   i e iEt 1 e  p   N  ( E , p)    1   1 iEt  p  4r    i ,  E , p   e    4p  (7.15) In contrast, an unspinized antiproton with external and internal time eigenstate +t and -t respectively may have the following wave function: 1 iEt  p   e    e,  E , p  4p    N  1 e iEt 1 e  p   N  ( E , p )    i   x i 1 iEt  p  4p    i ,  E , p   e    t   4p  (7.16) According to this scenario, the nuclear spin of the neutron in the dual momentum-energy universe is solely due to the tightly bound spinized electron. Indeed, experimental data on charge distribution and g-factor of neutron supports this scenario. We further suggest that the nuclear potential causing tight binding of the spinized electron in the neutron may have the form of expression (7.12). Detailed consideration will be given elsewhere. The wave function of spinized proton described by equation (7.14) can be obtained by spinizing the solution in expression (7.15) as follows: x i  x i2   Detσ  x i  σ  x i  iσ   (7.17)     1 j  1 / 2  1  j  1 / 2   i   i I 2   i   I2   p p   p p p  p      where j is the total angular momentum number. Choosing j=1/2, we obtain from expression ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 819 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness (7.15) two sets of solutions as follows:   1 / p  i  1 iEt r    1 / p  i   e     t  4p   t    1  e,  E , p  0   N 0   N    ( E , p)   e iEt  p (7.18) 1   iEt  p    E , p 4  p    i,  e 1   4p     0   0   0   0      1 / p  i  1 iEt  p     1 / p  i   e    e,  E , p   1 iEt  p (7.19) t  4p   N   N  t   ( E , p)   e   0   4p 0  i ,  E , p     1 iEt  p     e 1     4  p   where    2  t 2 . In the case of energy-less proton (that is, when t=0), we have from expressions (7.18) and (7.19) the following:  1  1 p   1      i  e    i    p  4p   p  1  e,  E , p    0   N  ( E , p)    N 0  e p   1 p  1  4p  i ,  E , p   e     4p    0    0   (7.18) 0    0   1  1 p  1     i  e   i     E , p  e,     N p  1 e p   N   p  4p  ( E , p)       0 0  4p  i ,   E , p      1 p  1  e     4  p   (7.19) In this scenario, spinization of unspinized proton may cause loss of tight binding of spinized electron to unspinized proton the possible cause of which will be considered elsewhere. 8. Gravity (Quantum Entanglement) in the Premomentumenergy Model Gravity in the dual momentum-energy universe is quantum entanglement (instantaneous interaction) across the dual momentum-energy world. There are two types of gravity at play. One is self-gravity (self-interaction) between the external object (external wave function) and internal object (internal wave function) of an entity (wave function) governed by the metamorphous matrix law described in this work and the other is the quantum entanglement (instantaneous interaction) between two entities or one entity and the dualISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 820 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness world as a whole. As further shown below, gravitational field (graviton) is just the wave function itself which expresses the intensity distribution and dynamics of self-quantumentanglement (nonlocality) of an entity. Indeed, strong interaction in the dual momentumenergy universe may be strong quantum entanglement (strong gravity). We focus here on three particular forms of gravitational fields. One is energy-less (zero time) external and internal wave functions (self-fields) that play the role of energy-less graviton, that is, they mediate energy-independent interactions through momentum quantum entanglement. The second is momentum-less external and internal wave functions (self-fields) that play the role of momentum-less graviton, that is, they mediate momentum independent interactions through mass (intrinsic proper time) entanglement. The third is proper-timeless external and internal wave functions (self-fields) that play the role of proper-timeless (massless) graviton, that is, they mediate intrinsic-proper-time (rest-mass) independent interactions through massless energy entanglement. The typical wave function (self-fields) in the dual momentum-energy universe contains all three (energy-less, momentum-less and proper-timeless) components. In addition, the typical wave function also contains components related to fermionic or bosonic spinization. As shown below, energy-less quantum entanglement between two entities accounts for Newtonian-like gravity. Momentum-less and/or proper-timesless quantum entanglement between two entities may account for dark matter. Importantly, gravitational components related to spinization may account for dark energy. When t=0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4):  2  x 2  0 or  2  x2  0 (8.1) We can regard expression (8.1) as a relationship governing the Machian-like quantum universe in which the total time is zero. This may be seen as: (1) the intrinsic proper time  being comprised of imaginary position x=ixi, or (2) position x being comprised of imaginary intrinsic proper time =ii. As shown in § 3, the energy-less matrix law in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form is respectively the following: (8.2)    x      LM ,e LM ,i   LM     x     (8.3)   x       LM ,e LM ,i   LM      x    Thus, the equations of the timeless wave functions (self-fields) are respectively as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 821 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness     x   x  g D,e e iM     L    g D,i e iM   M ,e   VD,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.4)  x       gW ,e e iM     L   x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e   VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   (8.5) and Equation (8.4) and (8.5) can be respectively rewritten as:   x VD ,e   VD ,i     x    VD ,i  VD ,e     (8.6)   x   V  V W ,e W ,i  VW ,e  x VW ,i       V   x V  or  x  W ,e   W ,i VW ,i   VW ,e     (8.7) VD ,e   x VD ,i     V  x V  or D ,e   D ,i and To see the coupling of external and internal wave functions (self-fields) in a different perspective we can rewrite (8.6) and (8.7) respectively as follows:  VD ,eVD ,i   x VD ,i  x VD ,e       x V V   V  x V  D ,e D ,e D ,i D ,i   (8.8)  VW ,eVW ,i   x VW ,i  x VW ,e       x V V   V  x V  W ,e W ,e W ,i W ,i   (8.9) and From expression (8.6), we can derive the following:   x V 2 2 D ,e    0 or  2   2 V D,e  0 (8.10) Equation (8.10) has radial solution in the form of Yukawa potential: V D ,e ( p )  1 p e 4p (8.11) So in expression (8.4), M=-ip, that is, position is comprised of imaginary intrinsic proper time. The external energy-less self-field in expression (8.11) has the form of Newton-like ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 822 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness gravitational or Coulomb-like electric potential at large momentum p→∞. We have from expression (8.6): VD ,i  x  VD ,e  x 1 p 1 p e i e  4p 4p (8.12) where we have utilized the following conjecture: x V D ,e    p 2 1 p 1 p e  i e 4p 4p (8.13) The complete radial solution of equation (8.4) is then:  1 p  e   VD ,e  4  p    N 1 1 e p   N VD ( p)    i  4p  1 p     VD ,i  i e  4p    (8.14) where N is a normalization factor. Indeed, expression (8.7) can have same radial solution as expression (8.6):  1 p  e   VW ,e  4  p    N 1 1 e p   N VW ( p)   (8.15)  i  4p 1   V   p W , i      i 4p e    If we assume that the internal self-field VD,i (which is self-coupled to its external self-field VD,e through expression (8.4) or (8.8)) also couples through energy-less quantum entanglement with the external wave function ψe of another entity of test intrinsic-propertime t (which is also self-coupled to its internal wave function ψi ) as, for example: iVD ,i t e  ii 1 p  e  t e  G e p t e 4r p (8.16) where iκ is a coupling constant and G=κ/4π is Newton-like Gravitational Constant, we have gravitational-like potential at large momentum p→∞ as: V g  G  p (8.17) When |x|=0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4): t 2  2  0 (8.18) We can regard expression (8.6) as a relationship governing a momemtum-less quantum universe. Classically, this may be seen as the intrinsic-proper-time  being comprised of energy-position (time t). As shown in § 3, the momemtum-less Matrix Law in Dirac and Weyl form is respectively the following: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 823 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t    0  0      LM ,e t    LM ,i   LM (8.19)  t           LM , e t   LM , i   L M (8.20) and and the equation of momemtum-less wave functions (self- fields) are respectively the follows:  t    0  0  g D,e e iE      LM ,e  t   g D,i e iE     VD,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.21)  t       gW ,e e iE      LM ,e  t  gW ,i e iE     VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   (8.22) and The external and internal (momentum-less) wave functions VD,e and VD,i in equation (8.21) are decoupled from each other, but those in equation (8.22),VW,e and VW,i, are coupled to each other:  tVD ,e  VD ,e   tV  VW ,i    but  W ,e  tV  V  tV    V D , i D , i W ,e     W ,i It can be easily verified that the solutions to equation (8.21) are in forms of: (8.23)  1e  iE  VD ,e  1  iE   N  e iE   VD    N   0e   0  VD ,i    (8.24)  0e  iE  VD ,e   0   N  iE   N  e iE VD    1e  1  VD ,i    (8.25) or but the solutions to equation (8.22) are in the forms of: 1e  iE  VW ,e  1   N  iE   N  e iE VW     1  VW ,i  1e  (8.26) 1e  iE  VW , e  1   N   iE   N  e  iE VW   1e  1  VW ,i    (8.27) or ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 824 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness We shall illustrate below momentum-less quantum entanglements (gravity) between two entities. For simplicity, we will consider two intrinsic-proper-times 1+p and 2 respectively located at momentum points 1 and 2. Their respective momentum-less wave functions may be be written in Weyl-like form as follows: i  1   E    g 2W ,e e  i 2 E   g1W  ,e e  p    V1W     and V2W    i  2 E  i  1  p  E g e   g   2W ,i   1W  ,i e  (8.28) which form product stateV1W V2W  . After p leaves V1W+ as an emitted particle and get absorbed by V2W-, we may have the following two additional momentum-less wave functions in Weyl-like form:  g 2W  ,e e i  2  p t   g1W , ee  i 1 E    V2W    V1W    i  2  p t   i 1 E  and g g e  1W ,i   2W  ,i e  (8.29) which form product stateV1W V2W  . The final momentum-less quantum state may be written as follows: V 1 V1W V2W   V1W V2W    1  1  2   1  2   2 2 (8.30) In this joint momentum-less wavefunction, 1 and 2 are quantum entangled due to interaction with and through p. When =0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4): t2  x2  0 (8.31) We can regard expression (8.11) as a relationship governing the intrinsic-proper-time-less quantum universe in which the total intrinsic proper time (rest mass) is zero. Classically, this may be seen as time t being comprised of position x. As shown in § 3, the intrinsicproper-time-less matrix law in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form is respectively the following:  t   x  x    L t   M ,e  LM ,i   LM t  x   0  0     L t  x   M ,e  LM ,i   LM (8.32) and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (8.33) www.JCER.com 825 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness and the equations of intrinsic-proper-time-less wave functions (self-fields) are respectively the following:  t   x   x  g D,e e iM     L  t  g D,i e iM   M ,e   VD,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.34) t  x   0  0  gW ,e e iM     L  t  x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e   VW ,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   (8.35) and Equations (8.34) and (8.35) have plane-wave solutions. The external and internal (masssless) wave functions VD,e and VD,i in equation (8.34) are coupled with each other, but those in equations (8.35),VW,e and VW,i, are decoupled from each other:  tVD ,e  x VD ,i   tV  x VW ,e    but  W ,e   tV  x V   tV   x V  D ,e  W ,i   D ,i  W ,i (8.36) For eigenstate of t and |p|, the solutions to equation (8.34) are in the forms of:  1e  i (t k x )   V D ,e  1   N  x i (t k x )   N  e i (t k x ) VD    e  1  VD ,i   t  (8.37)  x i (t k x )   V D ,e  1 i (t k x )  e     e VD    N  N  t    1e i (t k x )  1  VD ,i    (8.38) or but the solutions to equation (8.35) are in the forms of:  1e  i (t k x )  VW ,e  1   N  i (t k x )   N  e i (t k x ) VW    0e   0  Vw,i    (8.39)  0e  i (t k x )  VW ,e   0   N  i (t kx )   N  e i (t k x ) VW    1e  1  VW ,i    (8.40) or Equations (8.34) and (8.35) describe the self-interaction of external and internal intrinsicproper-time-less and spinless wave functions (self-fields). We may build a quantumentangled state of two intrinsic-proper-time-less and spinless entities similar to that of two momentum-less entities. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 826 9. Human Consciousness in the Premomentumenergy Model We now briefly discuss human consciousness in the premomentumenergy model. Detailed treatment will be given in forthcoming articles. Our experimental results on quantum entanglement of the brain with external substances (See, e.g., Refs, in [1]) suggest that Consciousness is not located in the brain but associated with prespacetime/ premomentumenergy (Consciousness) or simply is prespacetime/premomentumenergy (Consciousness). Thus, Consciousness as premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of Consciousness as premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the self-referential matrix law) and it projects the external and internal objects (wavefunctions) in the dual universe through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of Consciousness as premomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external object (wavefunction) in the external momentumenergy space through the internal object (wavefunction) in the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness in the dual momentum-energy universe is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect Consciousness as premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation. Figure 9.1 Interaction between an object and the brain (body) in the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentum-energy space ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 827 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness As illustrated in Figure 9.1, there are two kinds of interactions between an object (entity) outside the brain (body) and the brain (body) in the premomentumenergy model. The first kind is the direct physical and/or chemical interactions such as sensory input through the eyes. The second and lesser-known but experimentally proven to be true kind is the instantaneous interactions through quantum entanglement. The entire universe outside our brain (body) is associated with our brain (body) through quantum entanglement thus influencing and/or generating not only our feelings, emotions and dreams but also the physical, chemical and physiological states of our brain and body. In the premomentumenergy model, we may write the following Hodgkin-Huxley-like equation in the external/internal momentum-energy space:  EVm(p.E )       Vm (p.E )  Ei (p.E ) g i (p.E )  Cm ( p . E )  i  1 (9.1) where Vm(p,E) is the electric potential across the neural membranes, Cm(p,E) is the capacitance of the membranes, gi(p,E) is the ith voltage-gated or constant-leak ion channel. Microscopically, in the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentum-energy space, electromagnetic fields E(p, E) and B(p, E) or their    four-potential A (p , E )  (p , E ) , A (p , E ) :  E(p ,E )  (p ,E )   E A (p ,E )      B    A ( p , E ) ( p , E )   (9.2) interact with proton of charge e and unpaired electron of charge –e respectively as the following Dirac-Maxwell-like systems:    t  ep, E      σ  x i  eA p, E     σx i  eA p, E   e,     0  t  ep, E    i,     p † - σ  x  σ  E  p , E    iσ  ( α )  iσ  j p , E    t    t  iσ  B p , E    i ( †  )  i p , E   - σ  x     and    t  e p ,E       σ  x  eA   p ,E    ISSN: 2153-8212     0  σ  x  eA  p , E     t  e   p ,E    e,  i, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.   e (9.3) (9.4) p (9.5) www.JCER.com 828 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness  t  - σ  x † - σ  x  σ  E p , E    iσ  ( α )  iσ  j p , E     t  iσ  B p , E    i ( †  )  i p , E      e  (9.6)  where β and α are Dirac matrices and j    (p , E ) , j(p , E ) is four-current in external/internal momentum-energy space. In equations (9.3) and (9.5), the interactions (couplings) of E(p, E) and/or B(p, E) with proton and/or electron spin operator (σ)p and (σ)e are hidden. The said interactions are due to the self-referential matrix law which causes mixing of the external and internal wave functions and can be made explicit in the determinant view as follows. For Dirac-like form, we have:    t  e  p , E      σ  x  eA   p, E     t  e  p , E      σ  x  eA p , E     t  e p,E  e,      p M i,  p, E  p , E   σ  x  eA p , E   2 e,   i,      x  eA     eσ  B   I   2 p , E     L   0  t e      t  e     I    0     σ x  eA  2 2 p ,E p ,E 2 e, (9.7)   p  i,  0 p For Weyl-like (chiral-like) form, we have:   t  e  p, E   σ  x  eA p, E          e,r     0  t  ep, E   σ x  eA p, E   i,l     p (9.8) t  e  σ  x  eA t  e  σ  x  eA  I    0  t  e     x  eA   eσ  B -ieσ  E I    0   2 p , E  p , E  2 p , E  p , E  p , E  2 e ,r e ,r  i ,l 2 2 p , E  p , E  p , E  2  i ,l p p These two couplings will also be explicitly shown during the process of non-relativistic approximation of the Dirac-like equation in the present of external electromagnetic potential Aμ. We can carry out the same procedures for an electron to show the explicit couplings of (σ)e with E(p, E) and B(p, E). One effect of the couplings is that the action potentials through E(p, E) and B(p, E) (or Aμ(p, E)) input information into the mind-pixels in the brain. Another possible effect of the couplings is that they allow the transcendental aspect of consciousness through wave functions (the self-fields) of the proton and/or electron to back-influence E(p, E) and B(p, E) (or Aμ(p, E)) which in turn back-react on the action potentials through the Hodgkin-Huxley-like neural circuits in the brain. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 829 10. Some Questions & Answers 1. Do the uncertainty principle and commutation relations among energy, momentum, time and position hold in the premomentumenergy model? Yes. However, in this model, time and position of an elementary particle are quantized dynamical variables and energy and momentum are continuous parameters. In contrast, in the prespacetime model [1-4], time and position are continuous parameters and energy and momentum are quantized dynamical variables. 2. How are prespacetime model and premomentumenergy model connected to each other? The elementary particle in prespacetime model is transformed into that in premomentumenergy model through quantum jump, vice visa, as demonstrated in forth coming articles. 3. What is the foundation of the dual momentum-energy universe? The foundation is premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. 4. Was there something before the dual momentum-energy universe was born (if there was such birth)? Yes, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) alone (1=ei0) without differentiation or dualization. So, it may be said that 1= ei0 is the primordial particle. 5. How does premomentumenergy (Consciousness) create, sustain and cause evolution of the dual momentum-energy universe and all entities in it? Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) does these things by hierarchical self-referential spin of itself at its free will. 6. Why is there materially something instead of nothing? Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is restless and tends to create, sustain and make evolutions of different entities. 7. How does premomentumenergy (Consciousness) govern the dual momentum-energy universe? Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) governs through metamorphous selfreferential matrix law. 8. What is matter in the premomentumenergy model? Matter is a dualized entity (created through hierarchical self-referential spin of premomentumenergy (Consciousness)) comprised of an external wave function (external object) having positive time by convention and an internal wave function (internal object) having negative time by convention. 9. What is antimatter in the premomentumenergy model? Antimatter is a dualized entity (created through hierarchical self-referential spin of premomentumenergy (Consciousness)) comprised of an external wave function (external object) having ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 830 negative time by convention and an internal wave function (internal object) having positive time by convention. 10. Is time conserved in the premomentumenergy model? Yes, time is conserved to zero according to the accounting principle of zero. 11. Is time conserved in the external (internal) momentum-energy space? The answer depends on the context. In most natural processes, external (internal) time is conserved and transformed into different forms without loss due to cancellation between the external and internal spaces. However, in some processes, especially those involving human consciousness and/or intention (free will), time conservation in the external (internal) momentum-energy space may be slightly violated so that the free will may function. 12. What is quantum entanglement in the premomentumenergy model? It is the interaction and/or connections between the external and internal wave functions (objects) of a single dualized entity or among different dualized entities through premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is outside momentum-energy. 13. What is self-interaction, self-gravity or self-quantum entanglement in the premomentumenergy model? Self-interaction is the interaction between the external and internal wave functions (objects) according to the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) equation governed by the self-referential matrix law. 14. What is strong force in the premomentumenergy model? It is downward self-reference through imaginary position. It is strong gravity (strong quantum entanglement). 15. What is weak force in the premomentumenergy model? It is fermionic spinization and unspinization of spinless entities with or without bosonic intermediary spinization. 16. What is electromagnetic force in the premomentumenergy model? It is bosonic spinization and unspinization of intrinsic-proper-time-less (massless) and spinless entity. 17. What is gravity in the premomentumenergy model? It is quantum entanglement across the dual momentum-energy universe which includes self-gravity or self-quantumentanglement between the external and internal wave functions (objects) of a single dualized entity and gravity or quantum entanglement among different entities. 18. What is the origin of the quantum effect in the premomentumenergy model? The origin is primordial hierarchical self-referential spin of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 19. What is information in the premomentumenergy model? It is a distinction (either quantitative or qualitative) experienced or perceived by a particular consciousness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 831 20. What is quantum information in the premomentumenergy model? It is a distinction or a state of distinction (either quantitative or qualitative) experienced or perceived by a particular consciousness which is due to a quantum effect such as quantum entanglement. 21. What is the meaning of imaginary unit i in the premomentumenergy model? It is the most elementary self-referential process. As imagination of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), it makes phase distinction of an elementary entity and, as an element in the matrix law, it plays a crucial role in self-referential matrixing creation of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 22. What is Consciousness? Consciousness is premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. 23. What is human consciousness? It is a limited or individualized Consciousness associated with a particular human brain/body. 24. Does human consciousness reside in human brain? No, the human brain is the interface for human consciousness to experience and interact with the external universe. 25. What are spirit, soul and/or mind? They are different aspects or properties of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is transcendent, immanent and eternal. 26. Where did we come from? Physically/biologically, we came from premomentumenergy (Consciousness) as its creation. Spiritually, we are an inseparable part of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) and our consciousness is limited and/or individualized version of unlimited Consciousness. 27. Where are we going? Physically/biologically, we disintegrate or die unless we advance our science to the point where death of our biological body becomes a choice, not unavoidability. Also, we are of the opinion that advancement in science will eventually enable us to transfer or preserve our individual consciousness associated with our ailing or diseased bodies to another biological or artificial host. Spiritually, we may go back to premomentumenergy (Consciousness) or reincarnate into a different form of individual consciousness that may be able to recall its past. 28. How does the mind influence the brain? Mind influences the brain through free will which acts on subjective entities (internal objects), which in turn effect objective entities (external objects) through the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) equation. 29. What is the origin of the uncertainty principle? The origin is self-referential spin or zitterbewegung. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 832 30. What is the origin of quantum jump or wave collapse? The free will of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) or unlimited transcendental Consciousness. Remember that our limited free will is part of the unlimted free will of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) since we are part of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 31. Is information conserved? It is our opinion that information is conserved to zero in the dual universe since each distinction in the external space is accompanied by its negation in the internal space. However, information is not conserved in each space alone. 32. What is a graviton? There is no graviton in the sense of a quantum (particle) which mediated gravitational interaction at the speed of light. However, since gravity is quantum entanglement, the wave function of each entity may be treated as a graviton. 33. Is there an absolute reference frame? Yes, it is simply prespacetime/ premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 11. Conclusion This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence. A premomentumenergy model of elementary particles, four forces and human consciousness is formulated, which illustrates how the self-referential hierarchical spin structure of the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) provides a foundation for creating, sustaining and causing evolution of elementary particles through matrixing processes embedded in said premomentumenergy (Consciousness). This model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. These quantum frames and their metamorphoses are interconnected through quantum jumps as demonstrated in forthcoming articles. The premomentumenergy model reveals the creation, sustenance and evolution of fermions, bosons and spinless entities each of which is comprised of an external wave function or external object in the external momentum-energy space and an internal wave function or internal object in the internal momentum-energy space. The model provides a unified causal structure in said dual universe (quantum frame) for weak interaction, strong interaction, electromagnetic interaction, gravitational interaction, quantum entanglement, human consciousness. Further, the model provides a unique tool for teaching, demonstration, rendering, and experimentation related to subatomic and atomic structures and interactions, quantum entanglement generation, gravitational mechanisms in cosmology, structures and mechanisms of human consciousness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 833 One of the key features of the Principle of Existence illustrated in this work is the use of hierarchical self-referential mathematics in order to accommodate both the transcendental and immanent qualities/properties of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). In the beginning there was premomentumenergy (Consciousness) ei0 materially empty but spiritually restless. And it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=eiM-iM=eiMe-iM=e-iM/ e-iM = eiM/ eiM…such that it created the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external momentum-energy space and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through selfreferential matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual momentum-energy universe which it has since sustained and made to evolve. In this universe, the body (ether) of premomentumenergy (Consciousness), represented by Euler’s Number e, is the ground of existence and can form external and internal wave functions as external and internal momentum-energy objects (each pair forms an elementary entity in the dual momentum-energy universe) and interaction fields between elementary entities which accompany the imaginations of the premomentumenergy. The body of premomentumenergy can be self-acted on by self-referential matrix law LM. Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has imagining power i to project external and internal objects by projecting, e.g., external and internal phase +M =+(Et-p·x)/ħ at the power level of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). The universe so created is a dual momentum-energy universe comprising of the external momentum-energy space to be observed and internal momentum-energy space as observed under each relativistic frame pμ=(E/c, p). In one perspective of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) view, the internal momentum-energy space (which by convention has negative time) is the negation/image of the external momentum-energy space (which by convention has positive time). The absolute frame of reference is the premomentumenergy (Consciousness) itself. Thus, if premomentumenergy (Consciousness) stops imagining (i0=0), the dual momentum-energy universe would disappear into materially nothingness ei0=e0=1. The accounting principle of the dual momentum-energy universe is conservation of zero. For example, the total time of an external object and its counterpart, the internal object, is zero. Also in this dual momentum-energy universe, self-gravity is the nonlocal-momentumenergy self-interaction (wave mixing) between an external object in the external momentum-energy space and its negation/image in the internal momentum-energy space, vice versa. Gravity in external momentum-energy space is the nonlocal-momentum-energy interaction (quantum entanglement) between an external object with the internal momentum-energy space as a whole. Some other most basic conclusions are: (1) the two spinors of the Dirac electron or positron in the dual momentum-energy universe are respectively the external and internal objects of the electron or positron; and (2) the electric and magnetic fields of a linear photon in the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 766-834 Hu, H &Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness 834 dual momentum-energy universe are respectively the external and internal objects of a photon which are always self-entangled. In this dual momentum-energy universe, premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the selfreferential matrix law) and it projects the external and internal objects (wavefunctions) in the dual universe through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external object (wavefunction) in the external momentumenergy space through the internal object (wavefunction) in the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness in the dual momentum-energy universe is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation. References 1. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence: Towards a Science of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:1, pp. 50-119. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1001.0011 2. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence II: Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law, & the Ontology & Mathematics of Ether. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:9, pp. 1149-1178. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1012.0043 3. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model I. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 641-660. 4. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model II. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 661-680. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Prognostication of chronic disorders of consciousness using brain functional networks and clinical characteristics Ming Song1,2*, Yi Yang3*, Jianghong He3, Zhengyi Yang1,2, Shan Yu1,2, Qiuyou Xie4, Xiaoyu Xia3, Yuanyuan Dang3, Qiang Zhang3, Xinhuai Wu5, Yue Cui1,2, Bing Hou1,2, Ronghao Yu4, Ruxiang Xu3, Tianzi Jiang1,2,6,7,8 1 National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 2 Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 3 Department of Neurosurgery, PLA Army General Hospital, Beijing 100700, China 4 Centre for Hyperbaric Oxygen and Neurorehabilitation, Guangzhou General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, Guangzhou 510010, China 5 Department of Radiology, PLA Army General Hospital, Beijing 100700, China 6 CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 7 Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation of the Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 625014, China 8 The Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia *These authors contributed equally to this work. 1 / 102 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Tianzi Jiang National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190, China Phone: +86 10 8254 4778 Fax: +86 10 8254 4778 Email: jiangtz@nlpr.ia.ac.cn And Ruxiang Xu Department of Neurosurgery PLA Army General Hospital Beijing 100700, China Phone: +86 10 6403 0762 Fax: +86 10 6403 0762 E-mail: zjxuruxiang@163.com Running title: Multidomain prognostic model for DOC 2 / 102 Abstract Disorders of consciousness are a heterogeneous mixture of different diseases or injuries. Although some indicators and models have been proposed for prognostication, any single method when used alone carries a high risk of false prediction. This study aimed to develop a multidomain prognostic model that combines resting state functional MRI with three clinical characteristics to predict one year outcomes at the single-subject level. The model discriminated between patients who would later recover consciousness and those who would not with an accuracy of around 88% on three datasets from two medical centers. It was also able to identify the prognostic importance of different predictors, including brain functions and clinical characteristics. To our knowledge, this is the first reported implementation of a multidomain prognostic model based on resting state functional MRI and clinical characteristics in chronic disorders of consciousness, which we suggest is accurate, robust, and interpretable. 3 / 102 Keywords: disorders of consciousness; prognosis; resting state fMRI; functional connectivity; brain network Abbreviations: CRS-R = Coma Recovery Scale-Revised; DOC = disorders of consciousness; GOS = Glasgow Outcome Scale; MCS = minimally conscious state; PLSR = partial least square regression; UWS = unresponsive wakefulness syndrome; VS = vegetative state 4 / 102 Introduction Severe brain injury can lead to disorders of consciousness (DOC). Some patients recover consciousness from an acute brain insult, whereas others tragically fall into chronic DOC. The latter cannot communicate functionally or behave purposefully. Most patients remain bedridden, and require laborious care. The medical community is often confronted with expectations of the chronic DOC patients' families. The social, economic, and ethical consequences are also tremendous (Bernat, 2006). In parallel, although more validations are required, recent pilot studies have proposed new therapeutic interventions, which challenge the existing practice of early treatment discontinuation for a chronic DOC patient (Schiff et al., 2007; Corazzol et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2017). However, before using these novel therapeutic interventions, clinicians first need to determine if the patient is a suitable candidate. The availability of an accurate and robust prognostication is therefore a fundamental concern in the response to chronic DOC patients, as medical treatment, rehabilitation therapy and even ethical decisions depend on this information . To date, the prognostication for a DOC patient is based on physician observation of the patient's behavior over a sufficient period of time to discover whether there is any evidence of awareness. On the one hand, a patient's motor impairment, sensory deficit, cognitive damage, fluctuation of vigilance and medical complications could give rise to misjudgments; on the other hand, for the assessor, a lack of knowledge regarding DOC, poor training and non-use of adequate behavioral scales are additional elements that may contribute to a high possibility of mistakes. Consequently, careful and 5 / 102 repeated behavioral assessments are considered to be particularly important for a precise diagnostic and prognostic judgment (Wannez et al., 2017). However, behavioral assessments are inevitably subjective and vulnerable to a variety of personal interferences (Giacino et al., 2009). Physicians and scientists have therefore been seeking accurate and objective markers for diagnosis and prognosis (Demertzi et al., 2017; Noirhomme et al., 2017). Several pioneering studies suggested that the etiology, incidence age and duration of DOC were important indicators for prognosis (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, 1994). Specifically, patients with non-traumatic brain injury were expected to have a worse functional recovery than traumatic brain injury patients, and young patients were considered more likely to have a favorable outcome than older ones. During the past decades, some pilot prognostic models have also been explored based on features of neurological examination (Zandbergen et al., 1998; Booth et al., 2004; Dolce et al., 2008), abnormalities detected with EEG and evoked potentials (Steppacher et al., 2013; Kang et al., 2014; Hofmeijer and van Putten, 2016; Chennu et al., 2017), anatomical and functional changes identified with brain CT, PET and MRI (Maas et al., 2007; Sidaros et al., 2008; Galanaud et al., 2012; Luyt et al., 2012; Stender et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2015), and physiological and biochemical disturbances at both the brain and body levels (Kaneko et al., 2009; Rundgren et al., 2009). However, despite many efforts, identifying efficient biomarkers for the early prediction of outcome is still challenging and requires additional research. One of the reasons for this is that the DOC could have many different causes and be associated 6 / 102 with several neuropathological processes and different severities, such that any method when used alone carries the risk of false prediction (Bernat, 2016; Rossetti et al., 2016). Recently, resting state functional MRI (fMRI) has been widely used to investigate the brain functions of DOC patients. Research suggests that these patients demonstrate multiple changes in brain functional networks, including the default mode (Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2010; Silva et al., 2015), executive control (Demertzi et al., 2014b; Wu et al., 2015), salience (Qin et al., 2015; Fischer et al., 2016), sensorimotor (Yao et al., 2015), auditory (Demertzi et al., 2015), visual (Demertzi et al., 2014a) and subcortical networks (He et al., 2015). The within-network and between-network functional connectivity appeared to be useful indicators of functional brain damage and the likelihood of consciousness recovery (Silva et al., 2015; Di Perri et al., 2016). Taken together, these studies suggest that the brain networks and functional connectivity detected with resting state fMRI could be valuable biomarkers to trace the level of consciousness and predict the possibility of recovery. With advances in medicine, prognostication of a DOC patient has moved towards a multidomain paradigm that combines clinical examination with the application of novel technologies (Gosseries et al., 2014). Multidomain assessment has the potential to improve prediction accuracy. More importantly, it can provide reassurances about the importance of each predictor for prognostication by offering concordant evidence (Stevens and Sutter, 2013; Rossetti et al., 2016). More than twenty years ago, the Multi-Society Task Force on PVS suggested that the etiology, incidence age and 7 / 102 duration of DOC could help to predict the outcome (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, 1994), and numerous studies have subsequently validated the clinical utility of these features (Jennett, 2005; Bruno et al., 2012; Estraneo et al., 2013; Celesia, 2016). Therefore, it is possible that a multidomain model that combines these clinical characteristics and resting state fMRI could improve prognostic predictions at an individual level and lead to the early identification of patients who could recover consciousness. The present work had two major objectives. The first aim was to develop an approach to predict the prognosis of an individual DOC patient using clinical characteristics and resting state fMRI. The second aim, building on the first, was to further explore different prognostic effects of these clinical and brain imaging features. Materials and methods The study paradigm is illustrated in Figure 1. Resting state fMRI and clinical data from DOC patients were collected at the so-called T0 time point when the patients' vital signs and conscious level had stabilized and a diagnosis had been made. Outcomes were assessed at least 12 months after this T0 time point; this is referred to as the T1 time point. The principal scales included the Coma Recovery Scale Revised (CRS-R) and the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS). Instead of predicting diagnosis, this study used the outcome as a target for regression and classification. Using the resting state fMRI and clinical data at the T0 time point in a training dataset, a regression model was first developed to fit each patient's CRS-R score at the T1 time point, after which the optimal cut-off value for classifying individual patients based on 8 / 102 consciousness recovery was calculated. In this way, we set up the prognostic regression and classification model. Two independent testing datasets were then used to validate the model. Subjects This study involved three datasets. The datasets referred to as "Beijing 750" and "Beijing HDxt" were both collected in the PLA Army General Hospital in Beijing, and the same medical group diagnosed and managed the patients. However, the MRI scanners and imaging acquiring protocols were different; the "Beijing HDxt" cohort was scanned with a GE signa HDxt 3.0T scanner between May 2012 and December 2013, whereas the "Beijing 750" cohort was scanned with a GE Discovery MR750 3.0T scanner between January 2014 and May 2016. The dataset referred to as "Guangzhou HDxt" was collected from the Guangzhou General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command in Guangzhou, and the MRI data were obtained with a GE signa HDxt 3.0T scanner between April 2011 and December 2014. The inclusion criterion was that the patients should be at least 1 month after the acute brain insult so that they met the DOC diagnosis. Patients were excluded when there was an unstable level of consciousness (continuous improvement or decline within the two weeks before the T0 time point), uncertain clinical diagnosis (ambiguity or disagreement between examiners), contraindication for MRI or large focal brain damage (>30% of total brain volume). One hundred and sixty DOC patients were initially enrolled in this study. Eleven patients were excluded due to large local brain lesions or movement artifacts during 9 / 102 MRI scanning. Nine patients died during the period of the follow-up, 16 patients were lost to follow-up, and in 12 cases no definite outcome information was collected at the 12-month endpoint of the follow-up. Thus, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and the follow-up results, the "Beijing 750" dataset included 46 vegetative state/ unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) patients and 17 minimally conscious state (MCS) patients. The "Beijing HDxt" dataset contained 20 VS/UWS patients and 5 MCS patients, and the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset contained 16 VS/UWS patients and 8 MCS patients. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients are summarized in Table 1, with additional details provided in Appendix 1-table 1, 2, 3. The "Beijing 750" dataset also included 30 healthy participants, and the "Beijing HDxt" dataset included 10 healthy participants. All of the healthy participants were free of psychiatric or neurological history. These healthy participants are referred to as "normal controls". See Appendix 1 -table 4, 5 for details. As the "Beijing 750" dataset involved more patients than the other two datasets, it was used as the training dataset for model development and internal validation, whereas the "Beijing HDxt" and "Guangzhou HDxt" datasets were only used for external validation. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the PLA Army General Hospital (protocol No: 2011-097) and the Ethics Committee of the Guangzhou General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command (protocol No: jz20091287). Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from the legal surrogates of the patients and from the normal controls. 10 / 102 Clinical measurements Diagnosis and consciousness assessments The diagnosis of each patient in the three datasets was made by experienced physicians according to the CRS-R scale (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, 1994; Bernat, 2006; Magrassi et al., 2016). In the "Beijing 750" and "Beijing HDxt" datasets, the patients underwent the evaluations at least twice weekly within the two weeks before the MRI scanning (i.e. the T0 time point). The highest CRS-R score was considered as the diagnosis. The CRS-R includes six subscales that address auditory, visual, motor, oromotor, communication, and arousal functions, which are summed to yield a total score ranging from 0 to 23. Outcome assessments All patients were followed up at least 12 months after MRI scanning, according to the protocols for DOC described in a number of previous studies (Galanaud et al., 2012; Luyt et al., 2012; Stender et al., 2014; Pignat et al., 2016). Basically, follow-up interviews were performed in four ways, including outpatient visit, assessments by local physicians, home visit, and telephone/video review. Whenever possible signs of responsiveness were detected or reported, the patient was evaluated either at the unit or at home by the hospital staff. In cases where no change was signaled, patients were examined twice by one hospital physician via telephone/video reviews at the end of the follow-up process. For the training dataset "Beijing 750", two outcome scales were assessed: the GOS and CRS-R. The GOS is one of the most commonly reported global scales for 11 / 102 functional outcome in neurology, and provides a measurement of outcome ranging from 1 to 5 (1, dead; 2, vegetative state/minimally conscious state; 3, able to follow commands/unable to live independently; 4, able to live independently/unable to return to work or school; 5, good recovery/able to return to work or school). Although simple to use and highly reliable, the GOS score cannot provide detailed information about individual differences in consciousness level for DOC patients. In contrast, the CRS-R score can assist with prognostic assessment in DOC patients (Giacino and Kalmar, 2006). The six subscales in the CRS-R comprise hierarchically-arranged items associated with brain stem, subcortical and cortical processes. The lowest item on each subscale represents reflexive activity, whereas the highest items represent cognitively-mediated behaviors. In order to simplify modeling, we hypothesized that the higher the total CRS-R score at the follow up, the better the outcome for the patient. We developed a regression model to fit each patient's CRS-R score at the T1 time point based on their clinical characteristics and resting state fMRI data, and designed a classification model to predict consciousness recovery or not for each patient. The classification accuracy was assessed by comparing the predicted label and the actual GOS score, i.e. "consciousness recovery" (GOS≥3) versus "consciousness non-recovery" (GOS≤2). The testing dataset "Beijing HDxt" involved both the GOS scores and the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point for each patient. The testing dataset "Guangzhou HDxt" measured the GOS scores, but not the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point. 12 / 102 MRI acquisition All of the participants in the three datasets were scanned with resting state fMRI and T1-weighted 3D high-resolution imaging. During the MRI scanning, the participants did not take any sedative or anesthetic drugs. The resting state fMRI scan was obtained using a T2*-weighted gradient echo sequence, and a high-resolution T1-weighted anatomical scan was obtained to check whether the patients had large brain distortion or focal brain damage. For the training dataset "Beijing 750", the resting state fMRI acquisition parameters included TR/TE=2000/30ms, flip angle=90°, axial 39 slices, thickness=4mm, no gap, FOV=240×240mm, matrix=64×64, and 210 volumes (i.e., 7 minutes). For the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt", the resting state fMRI acquisition parameters were as follows: axial 33 slices, TR/TE=2000/30ms, flip angle=90°, thickness=4mm, no gap, FOV=220×220mm, matrix=64×64, and 240 volumes (i.e., 8 minutes). For the testing dataset "Guangzhou HDxt", the resting state fMRI acquisition parameters included axial 35 slices, TR/TE=2000/30ms, flip angle=90°, thickness=4mm, no gap, FOV=240×240mm, matrix=64×64, and 240 volumes (i.e., 8 minutes). Data analysis The data analysis pipeline is illustrated in Figure 2. Imaging preprocessing Preprocessing and connectivity calculation were performed in the same way for the training dataset and the two testing datasets. All resting state fMRI scans were preprocessed using SPM8 (SPM, RRID:SCR_007037) and in-house Matlab codes. 13 / 102 Specifically, the first five volumes of each subject were discarded. The remaining resting state fMRI volumes were corrected for slice timing differences and realigned to the first volume to correct for inter-scan movements. The functional images were then spatially smoothed with a Gaussian kernel of 6×6×6 mm full-width at half maximum. Linear regression was used to remove the influence of head motion, whole brain signals and linear trends. The variables regressed out included 12 motion parameters (roll, pitch, yaw, translation in three dimensions and their first derivatives), the average series of the signals within the brain, and the regressors for linear trends. Motion artifact is increasingly recognized as an important potential confound in resting state fMRI studies. Any particular motion may produce a wide variety of signal changes in the fMRI data, and thus introduce complicated shifts in functional connectivity analysis. This problem was particularly serious for the DOC patients, as they were unlikely to follow the experimental instructions and control their head motion. To balance the demands of noise reduction and data preservation, we censored volumes that preceded or followed any movement (framewise displacement, FD) greater than 1.5 mm. The FD is a summarization of the absolute values of the derivatives of the translational and rotational realignment estimates (after converting the rotational estimates to displacement at 50 mm radius) (Power et al., 2015). The head motion measures were achieved in the preprocessing step of realignment using SPM. To obtain reliable Pearson's correlations for functional connectivity, the patients with less than 50 volumes worth of remaining data were excluded. More information about the analysis and validation of controls for motion-related artifacts are provided 14 / 102 in Appendix 4. Finally, to reduce low-frequency drift and high-frequency noise, band-pass filtering (0.01-0.08 Hz) was only performed on volumes that survived motion censoring. Definition of networks and regions of interest As noted in the introduction, multiple functional brain networks are disrupted in DOC patients. Among these impaired networks, six (the default mode, executive control, salience, sensorimotor, auditory, and visual networks) show system-level damages and significant correlations with behavioral assessments (Demertzi et al., 2014b; Demertzi et al., 2015). We therefore defined a total of 22 regions of interest (ROIs) to probe these six brain networks. The definitions of the 22 ROIs were based on the results of a series of previous brain functional studies (Seeley et al., 2007; Raichle, 2011; Demertzi et al., 2015), and their names and Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) coordinates are listed in Appendix 2. The connection templates of the six brain networks were first investigated within the normal control group. In addition to the above-mentioned preprocessing stages, the resting state fMRI scans of the normal controls in the training dataset were transformed into MNI standard space. For each of the six networks, time series from the voxels contained in the various ROIs were extracted and averaged together. The averaged time series were then used to estimate whole-brain correlation r maps that were subsequently converted to normally distributed Fisher’s z-transformed correlation maps. Group functional connectivity maps for each of the six networks 15 / 102 were then created with a one-sample t test (see Appendix 3 for details). Notably, the T map included both positive and negative values. We used the six T maps as the brain connection templates of the corresponding brain networks in the healthy population, which would assist to define one type of imaging features, i.e. the connection feature of the ROI. More information about the connection features of the ROIs are provided in the following section. The conventional fMRI preprocess normalizes individual fMRI images into a standard space defined by a specific template image. Our goal was to extend this conventional approach to generate a functional connectivity image for each patient in his/her own imaging space. During the preprocessing of each patient’s fMRI scans, the 22 ROIs and six brain connection templates were therefore spatially warped to individual fMRI space and resampled to the voxel size of the individual fMRI image. We also developed tools to visually check the registration for each subject, some examples of which are provided in Appendix 5 and Supplementary file 1. Calculation of imaging features We designed two types of imaging features from the resting state fMRI, one being the functional connectivity between each pair of 22 ROIs, and the other being the spatial resemblance between the functional connection patterns of each ROI and the brain connection templates across the whole brain. The functional connectivity was based on the Pearson’s correlation coefficients, while the spatial resemblance was conceptually similar to the template-matching procedure (Greicius et al., 2004; Seeley et al., 2007; Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2010).The basis of template matching is that the 16 / 102 more spatial consistency which exists between the template of a brain network and a specific connectivity map (for example, a component in an independent component analysis), the stronger the possibility that the connectivity map belongs to that brain network. Here, for each ROI of an individual DOC patient, we first computed the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the time-course of the ROI and that of each voxel within the brain so as to obtain a functional connectivity map, and subsequently converted the functional connectivity map to a normally distributed Fisher’s z transformed correlation map. Next, we calculated the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the Fisher’s z transformed correlation map and the corresponding brain connection template wrapped to individual fMRI space across each voxel within the brain. A greater correlation coefficient between the two maps suggests that there is more spatial resemblance between the functional connectivity map of the ROI and the normal brain connection template. Our assumption was that the more spatial consistency that existed between the connectivity map of the ROI in a DOC patient and the brain connection template, the more intact the corresponding brain function of the ROI in this individual. In this way, we defined the connection feature of the ROI with the spatial resemblance. Overall, for each participant in this study, there were 231 (22×21/2) functional connectivity features and 22 brain area connection features. Imaging feature selection Feature selection techniques have been widely adopted in brain analysis studies, in order to produce a small number of features for efficient classification or regression, 17 / 102 and to reduce overfitting and increase the generalization performance of the model (Fan et al., 2007; Dosenbach et al., 2010; Drysdale et al., 2016). Feature ranking and feature subset selection are two typical feature selection methods (Guyon and Elisseeff, 2003). Feature subset selection methods are generally time consuming, and even inapplicable when the number of features is extremely large, whereas ranking-based feature selection methods are subject to local optima. Therefore, these two feature selection methods are usually used jointly. Here, we first used a correlation-based feature selection technique to select an initial set of features, and then adopted a feature subset selection method for further selection. As a univariate method, correlation-based feature selection is simple to run and understand, and measures the linear correlation between each feature and the response variable. Here, the image features (i.e., functional connectivity features and brain area connection features) which significantly correlated to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset were retained for further analysis. Competitive adaptive reweighted sampling coupled with partial least squares regression (CARS-PLSR, http://libpls.net/) was then used for further feature subset selection (Li et al., 2009; Li et al., 2014). Briefly, CARS-PLSR is a sampling-based feature selection method that selects the key informative variables by optimizing the model's performance. As it provides the influence of each variable without considering the influence of the remainder of the variables, CARS-PLSR is efficient and fast for feature selection (Mehmood et al., 2012), and has therefore been used to 18 / 102 explore possible biomarkers in medicine (Tan et al., 2010) and for wavelength selection in chemistry (Fan et al., 2011). Using CARS-PLSR, we selected a subset of key informative imaging features. Notably, both the correlation-based and CARS-PLSR feature selection methods filtered the features from the original feature set without any transformations. This made the prognostic regression model easier to interpret, as the imaging predictors were associated with either brain regions or functional connectivity. Prognostic modeling and assessments of predictor importance PLSR is able to handle multicollinearity among the predictors well (Wold et al., 2001; Krishnan et al., 2011). It was therefore used to generate the prognostic regression model in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Given that clinical characteristics, including the etiology, incidence age and duration of DOC, have been verified as useful prognostic indicators, we designated the selected imaging features and the three clinical characteristics at the T0 time point as independent co-variates and the CRS-R score at the T1 time point as the dependent variable. Among the three clinical characteristics, the incidence age and duration of DOC were quantitative variables, whereas the etiology was a qualitative variable. In accordance with a previous study (Estraneo et al., 2010), we categorized the etiology into three types, including traumatic brain injury, stroke and anoxic brain injury. Thus, two dummy variables for etiology were designed and included in the model. Prior to model training, all involved predictors were centered and normalized (i.e., transformed into Z-scores). The prognostic regression model therefore took the imaging and clinical 19 / 102 features as input and returned a predicted score as output. In the training dataset "Beijing 750", we used cross-validation to decide that the number of latent variables for PLSR was three. To evaluate the regression model, the coefficient of determination R2 between the predicted scores and the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point was calculated, and the Bland-Altman plot was used to measure the agreement between them. Next, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for the predicted scores. The optimal cut-off value for classifying an individual patient as having recovered consciousness or not was appointed to the point with the maximal sum of true positive and false negative rates on the ROC curve. Individual patients were classified as exhibiting recovery of consciousness if their predicted scores were higher than or equal to the cut-off value, otherwise as consciousness non-recovery . The classification accuracy was calculated by comparing the predicted label and the actual GOS score, i.e. "consciousness recovery" (GOS≥3) versus "consciousness non-recovery" (GOS≤2). As model interpretation is an important task in most applications of PLSR, there has been considerable progress in the search for optimal interpretation methods (Kvalheim and Karstang, 1989; Kvalheim et al., 2014). In this study, using the Significant Multivariate Correlation (sMC) method (Tran et al., 2014), we assessed predictor importance in the prognostic regression model. The key points in sMC are to estimate for each predictor the correct sources of variability resulting from PLSR (i.e. regression variance and residual variance), and use them to statistically determine a 20 / 102 variable's importance with respect to the regression model. The F-test values (termed the sMC F-values) were used to evaluate the predictors' importance in the prognostic regression model. Internal validation of model The prognostic regression model was internally validated using bootstrap (Steyerberg, 2008). Specifically, bootstrap samples were drawn with replacement from the training dataset "Beijing 750" such that each bootstrap sampling set had a number of observations equal to that of the training dataset. Using a bootstrap sampling set, correlation-based feature selection and CARS-PLSR were first used to select the feature subset, after which the PLSR was used to generate a prognostic model. We then applied the model to the bootstrap sampling set and the original training dataset, and calculated the coefficient of determination R2 of each of the two datasets. The difference between the two coefficients of determination was defined as the optimism. This process was repeated 1000 times to obtain a stable estimate of the optimism. Finally, we subtracted the optimism estimate from the coefficient of determination R2 of the "Beijing 750" training dataset to obtain the optimism-corrected performance estimate. In addition, out-of-bag (OOB) estimation was used as an estimate of model classification performance in the training dataset (James et al., 2013). Specifically, for the original training dataset x, we left out one sample at a time and denoted the resulting sets by x(-1),..., x(-n). From each leave-one-out set x(-i), 1000 bootstrap learning sets of size n-1 were drawn. On every bootstrap learning set generated from x(-i), we 21 / 102 carried out feature selection, built a PLSR regression and classification model, and applied the model to the test observation xi. A majority vote was then made to give a class prediction for observation xi. Finally, we calculated the accuracy for the whole training dataset x. External validation of model External validation is essential to support the general applicability of a prediction model. We ensured external validity by testing the model in two testing datasets, neither of which included samples that were considered during the development of the model. First, using the prognostic regression model, we calculated one predicted score for each patient in the two testing datasets. As the "Beijing HDxt" dataset assessed the patients' CRS-R scores at the T1 time point, we calculated the coefficient of determination R2 between the predicted scores and the patients' CRS-R scores at this time point. The Bland-Altman plot was also determined. Finally, the patients in the two testing datasets were assessed as achieving consciousness recovery or not based on the cut-off threshold obtained using the training dataset. The performance of the classification, including the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity, was determined. Comparison between single-domain model and combination model Using the same modeling and validation method as described above, we examined predictability and generalizability in the two testing datasets based on the clinical features alone or the imaging features alone. In addition, to compare the two types of single-domain models and the combination model, we used bootstrap resampling to obtain the distribution of the 22 / 102 prediction accuracies in the two testing datasets based on each of the three types of models. We first resampled with replacement from the training dataset, and built a regression and classification model based on the clinical features alone, the neuroimaging features alone, or the combination of the two-domain features. We then tested the classification accuracy in the two testing datasets using the three types of models. In this way, we obtained the distribution of the prediction accuracies using each of the three types of models. Next, we used repeated measures ANOVA to determine whether or not the performances of the three types of models were the same, as well as Ψ, the root-mean-square standardized effect, to report the effect sizes of the mean differences between them. Comparison between the proposed modeling method and linear SVM We compared the prediction performances between the proposed modeling method and linear SVM. The code for SVM was downloaded from LIBSVM (LIBSVM, RRID:SCR_010243). The 253 imaging features and the four clinical features were integrated into one feature vector. No feature selection was adopted in the linear SVM-based classification. The patients with GOS≥3 were labeled as 1, with the others being designated as -1 (i.e., GOS ≤2). Similarly, the OOB estimation process was used to estimate the performance of linear SVM in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Next, using all the samples in the training dataset "Beijing 750", we trained a linear SVM-based classifier and then tested the predictive accuracy in the two testing datasets. 23 / 102 RESULTS Imaging feature selection Correlation-based feature selection Using the training dataset, we found that some imaging features significantly correlated to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point. For example, the connection features of some brain areas, including the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC), posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC) and right lateral parietal cortex in the default mode network, and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and left lateral superior parietal cortex in the executive control network, displayed significant correlations to the CRS-R T1 scores across the DOC patients. We also found numerous examples of significant correlation between functional connectivity and the CRS-R score at the T1 time point, with these functional connectivities being distributed both within and between brain networks. More information about the correlations between the imaging features and the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point are provided in Appendix 6. CARS-PLSR feature selection Figure 3 shows the final imaging features selected with CARS-PLSR. Specifically, the brain area connection features included the aMPFC and PCC in the default mode network, and the DMPFC in the executive control network. The functional connectivity features included the connectivity between the aMPFC in the default mode network and the DMPFC in the executive control network, as well as between the middle cingulate cortex in the auditory network and the right lateral primary 24 / 102 visual cortex in the visual network. More information about the feature selection by bootstrap is provided in Appendix 7. Prognostic regression model and predictor importance The prognostic regression model is presented in Figure 4. Based on the regression formula, we noted some interesting findings. First, there were both positive and negative weights. In particular, the weights were all positive for the three brain area connection features, whereas the weight for the functional connectivity feature between the aMPFC in the default mode network and the DMPFC in the executive control network was negative. Interestingly, this connection had the maximum sMC F-value as shown in Figure 4B. In addition, the age and the anoxic etiology had negative weights, and the age predictor had the largest sMC F-value among the four clinical features. Prognostic classification model and internal validation Figure 5A presents the predicted score for each patient in the training dataset. As shown in Figure 5B, there was good agreement between the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point and the predicted scores. The apparent coefficient of determination R2 was equal to 0.65 (permutation test, p=0.001), and the Bland-Altman plot verified the consistency between the predicted and achieved scores (one sample T test, p=1.0). The prognostic regression model was internally validated using bootstrap. The optimism-corrected coefficient of determination R2 was equal to 0.28. Figure 5C illustrates the number and proportion of DOC patients in different bands of predicted scores. We found that the proportion of the patients with a 25 / 102 “consciousness recovery” outcome in the patient cohorts rose in conjunction with an increase in the predicted score. The higher the predicted score, the higher the proportion of patients who exhibited a favorable outcome. Figure 5D shows the area under the ROC curve (AUC=0.96, 95% CI=0.89-0.99). Based on the ROC curve for the training dataset, the threshold 13.9 was selected as the cut-off point to classify the recovery of individual patients. In other words, if the predicted score for a patient was equal to or larger than 13.9, the classification model designated the label "consciousness recovery" for this patient, otherwise "consciousness non-recovery". The classification accuracy was assessed by comparing the predicted and actual outcomes, i.e. "consciousness recovery" (GOS≥3) versus " consciousness non-recovery" (GOS≤2). Using this method, the classification accuracy in the training dataset was up to 92%. Specifically, the sensitivity was 85%, the specificity was 94%, the positive predictive value (PPV) was 79%, the negative predictive value (NPV) was 96%, and the F1 score was 0.81. The OOB was able to provide the mean prediction error on each training sample and estimate the generalizability of our method in the training dataset. Using the OOB estimation, we found that the prediction accuracy in the training dataset "Beijing 750" was 89%, and the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV were 69%, 94%, 100%, and 87%, respectively. Model external validation The performance of the prediction model on the two testing datasets is illustrated in Figure 6. As we assessed the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point for the patients in 26 / 102 the "Beijing HDxt" dataset, we calculated the coefficient of determination R2 between these scores and the predicted scores. The R2 was equal to 0.35 (permutation test, p=0.005), with the Bland-Altman plot verifying the consistency between the predicted and actual scores (one sample T test, p=0.89). Using the predicted score 13.9 as the threshold, we then tested the classification accuracy on the two testing datasets. We found that, for the "Beijing HDxt" dataset, the prediction accuracy was up to 88% (sensitivity: 83%, specificity: 92%, PPV: 92%, NPV:86%, F1 score:0.87; permutation test, p<0.001), while for the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset it was also up to 88% (sensitivity: 100%, specificity:83%, PPV:67%, NPV:100%, F1 score:0.80; permutation test, p<0.001). Notably, our model demonstrated good sensitivity and specificity for both the "subacute" patients (i.e. duration of unconsciousness ≤3 months) and those in the chronic phase (i.e. duration of unconsciousness >3 months), as shown in Figure 7. More interestingly, for the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt", eight DOC patients who were initially diagnosed as VS/UWS subsequently recovered consciousness. Using the proposed model, we could successfully identify seven of these and there was only one false positive case. That is, for the VS/UWS patients, the model achieved 90.0% accuracy (sensitivity: 87.5%, specificity: 91.7%, PPV:87.5%, NPV:91.7%, F1 score:0.875). To test robustness, we evaluated whether the present prognostic regression model generalized to the healthy subjects scanned in the "Beijing 750" training dataset (n=30) and the "Beijing HDxt" testing dataset (n=10). We found that both the healthy subjects and the "consciousness recovery" patients had significantly higher predicted imaging 27 / 102 subscores than the "consciousness non-recovery" patients (two sample T test, p<0.05). Additional information is provided in Appendix 8. Comparison of the single-domain and combination models When only the clinical features were used to build the predictive model, the prediction accuracy for the "Beijing HDxt" dataset was 68% (sensitivity: 58%, specificity: 77%, PPV: 70%, NPV:67%, F1 score:0.64), while for the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset it was 83% (sensitivity: 100%, specificity:78%, PPV:60%, NPV:100%, F1 score:0.75). When only the imaging features were involved in the model, the prediction accuracy for the "Beijing HDxt" dataset was 80% (sensitivity: 67%, specificity: 92%, PPV: 89%, NPV:75%, F1 score:0.76), while for the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset it was 79% (sensitivity: 100%, specificity:72%, PPV:55%, NPV:100%, F1 score:0.71). Using bootstrapping, we obtained the distribution of the prediction accuracies in the two testing datasets with each of the three types of models. In the "Beijing HDxt" testing dataset, the mean±standard deviation of the distribution of the prediction accuracies was 0.815±0.050, 0.811±0.044, and 0.666±0.037 for the combination model, the model using imaging features alone, and the model using clinical features alone, respectively. We found that there were significant differences between the means of the classification accuracies using the three types of models (repeated measures ANOVA, p<0.001). Subsequently, we conducted pairwise comparisons. We found that there was significant difference between the combination model and the model separately using the imaging feature alone (paired sample t-test, p=0.001) and 28 / 102 using the clinical feature alone (paired sample t-test, p<0.001). We also found that there was significant difference between the model using the imaging feature alone and the model using the clinical feature alone (paired sample t-test, p<0.001). Using effect size analysis, we found that there was a mean difference of Ψ=0.004 (95% CI=[0.002, 0.007]) between the combination method and the method using only imaging features, and Ψ=0.149 (95% CI=[0.147, 0.152]) between the combination method and the method using only clinical features. We also observed a mean difference of Ψ=0.145 (95% CI=[0.142, 0.147]) between the methods using only imaging features and only clinical features. In the "Guangzhou HDxt" testing dataset, the mean±standard deviation of the distribution of the prediction accuracies was 0.863 ± 0.051, 0.783 ± 0.044, and 0.829±0.086 for the combination model, the model using imaging features alone, and the model using clinical features alone, respectively. Similarly, we found that there were significant differences between the mean of the classification accuracies using the three types of models (repeated measures ANOVA, p<0.001), and there was significant difference between the combination model and the models using imaging features alone (paired sample t-test, p<0.001) or using clinical features alone (paired sample t-test, p<0.001). Using effect size analysis, we found a mean difference of Ψ=0.080 (95% CI=[0.076, 0.084]) between the combination model and the model using the imaging features alone, and Ψ=0.034 (95% CI=[0.028, 0.040]) between the combination model and the model using only clinical features. We also observed a mean difference of Ψ= -0.046 (95% CI=[-0.053, -0.040]) between the model using 29 / 102 imaging features alone and that using only clinical features. Therefore, in both testing datasets, the combination of imaging and clinical features demonstrated higher accuracy than the use of the single domain features alone. In addition, using the imaging features alone had higher predictive power in comparison to using the clinical features alone in the "Beijing HDxt" dataset, whereas the opposite condition was observed in the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset, suggesting that the two testing datasets might be heterogeneous. More information about the single-domain models are provided in Supplementary file 2. Comparison between the proposed modeling method and linear SVM Using the OOB estimation, we found that the accuracy of the linear SVM-based classification method in the training dataset "Beijing 750" was 83% (sensitivity: 31%, specificity: 96%, PPV: 100%, NPV: 81%), which was lower than the accuracy of our proposed modeling method (i.e., accuracy: 89%, sensitivity: 69%, specificity: 94%, PPV: 100%, NPV: 87%). On the other hand, the linear SVM-based classification method achieved an accuracy of 76% (sensitivity: 58%, specificity: 92%, PPV: 88%, NPV: 71%) and 88% (sensitivity: 100%, specificity: 83%, PPV: 67%, NPV: 100%) in the "Beijing HDxt" testing dataset and the "Guangzhou HDxt" testing dataset, respectively. That is, the accuracy in the "Beijing HDxt" testing dataset was lower than that in our method, whereas the accuracy in the "Guangzhou HDxt" testing dataset was similar to that of our approach. Therefore, taking together the performance comparisons in both the training dataset and the two testing datasets, we believe that our method based on feature selection and PLSR should have higher 30 / 102 prediction accuracy and better generalizability in comparison to linear SVM. DISCUSSION In this paper, we describe the development of a prognostic model that combines resting state fMRI with three clinical characteristics to predict one year outcomes at the single-subject level. The model discriminated between patients who would later recover consciousness and those who would not with an accuracy of around 88% on three datasets from two medical centers. It was also able to identify the prognostic importance of different predictors, including brain functions and clinical characteristics. To our knowledge, this is the first reported implementation of a multidomain prognostic model based on resting state fMRI and clinical characteristics in chronic DOC. We therefore suggest that this novel prognostic model is accurate, robust, and interpretable. For research only, we share the prognostic model and its Matlab code at a public download resource (https://github.com/realmsong504/pDOC). Brain functions are mediated by the interactions between neurons within different neural circuits and brain regions. Functional imaging can detect the local activity of different brain regions and explore the interactions between them, and has demonstrated potential for informing diagnosis and prognosis in DOC. On the one hand, many studies have focused on one modality of brain functional imaging, such as PET (Phillips et al., 2011), SPECT (Nayak and Mahapatra, 2011), task fMRI (Owen et al., 2006; Coyle et al., 2015), and resting state fMRI (Demertzi et al., 2015; Qin et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2015; Roquet et al., 2016). On the other hand, some cross-modality studies have compared the diagnostic precision between imaging 31 / 102 modalities, for example, comparing PET imaging with task fMRI (Stender et al., 2014), or comparing PET, EEG and resting state fMRI (Golkowski et al., 2017). In our study, by combining brain functional networks detected from resting state fMRI with three clinical characteristics, we built a computational model that allowed us to make predictions regarding the prognosis of DOC patients at an individual level. We compared the models separately using only the imaging features or only the clinical characteristics and found that the combination of these predictors achieved higher accuracy. This validated the need for the use of accumulative evidence stemming from multiple assessments, each of which has different sensitivity and specificity in detecting the capacity for recovery of consciousness (Demertzi et al., 2017). Validations in additional and unseen datasets were also undertaken to evaluate the feasibility of the predictive model. Our results showed about 88% average accuracy across the two testing datasets, and good sensitivity and specificity in both the "subacute" patients (i.e. 1 months ≤ duration of unconsciousness ≤3 months) and those in the prolonged phase (i.e. duration of unconsciousness >3 months), which suggested good robustness and the generalizability of our model. Further, the sensitivity of 83% and 100% obtained across the two testing datasets demonstrated a low false negative rate, which would avoid predicting non-recovery in a patient who can actually recover. Our method successfully identified 16 out of the total 18 patients who later recovered consciousness in the two testing datasets. In parallel, the specificity across the two testing datasets was up to 92% and 83%, respectively. Taken together, these results suggest that our method can precisely 32 / 102 identify those patients with a high-potential for recovery consciousness and concurrently reduce false positives in predicting low-potential patients. In addition, although it has been widely considered that the prospect of a clinically meaningful recovery is unrealistic for prolonged DOC patients (Wijdicks and Cranford, 2005), our model correctly predicted 9 out of 10 DOC patients with longer than or equal to three months duration of DOC who subsequently recovered consciousness, including three patients with longer or equal to six months duration, suggesting that it can also be applied to prolonged DOC patients. According to the surviving consciousness level, DOC patients can be classified into distinct diagnostic entities, including VS/UWS and MCS. As MCS is often viewed as a state with a potentially more favorable outcome (Luaute et al., 2010), a misdiagnosis of VS/UWS could heavily bias the judgment of the prognosis, the medical treatment options and even the associated ethical decisions. Some influential studies have found that a few VS/UWS patients exhibit near-normal high-level cortical activation in response to certain stimuli or commands (Owen et al., 2006; Monti et al., 2010), and that late recovery of responsiveness and consciousness is not exceptional in patients with VS/UWS (Estraneo et al., 2010). Instead of predicting diagnosis, this study used one year outcome as a target for regression and classification. Our method based on the combined use of clinical and neuroimaging data successfully identified seven out of the eight VS/UWS patients in the testing dataset who were initially diagnosed as VS/UWS but subsequently achieved a promising outcome. 33 / 102 By analyzing the sMC F-value for each predictor in the regression model, we investigated the prognostic effects of these predictors. In particular, the sMC F-value of the incidence age was greater than that of the other clinical characteristics, suggesting that incidence age might be the most important predictor among the clinical characteristics. Notably, the sMC F-value for the imaging features as a whole seemed to be greater than that of the clinical features, as shown in Figure 4B. We therefore speculate that the patient's residual consciousness capacity, indicated by brain networks and functional connectivity detected from resting state fMRI, might have a stronger prognostic effect than their clinical characteristics. Some previous studies have shown that the resting state functional connectivity within the default mode network is decreased in severely brain-damaged patients, in proportion to their degree of consciousness impairment, from locked-in syndrome to minimally conscious, vegetative and coma patients (Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2010). Moreover, the reduced functional connectivity within the default mode network, specifically between the MPFC and the PCC, may predict the outcome of DOC patients (Silva et al., 2015). Our model also validates that the aMPFC and PCC in the default mode network play important roles in predicting prognosis. Above all, we found that the functional connectivity between the aMPFC and the DMPFC had the maximum sMC F-value in the prognostic regression model. The aMPFC is one of the core brain areas in the default mode network, whereas the DMPFC is located in the executive control network. Previous studies have demonstrated that this functional connectivity is negative connectivity in normal 34 / 102 healthy populations, with the anti-correlation being proposed as one reflection of the intrinsic functional organization of the human brain (Fox et al., 2005). The default mode network directly contributes to internally generated stimulus-independent thoughts, self-monitoring, and baseline monitoring of the external world, while the executive control network supports active exploration of the external world. Correct communication and coordination between these two intrinsic anti-correlated networks is thought to be very important for optimal information integration and cognitive functioning (Buckner et al., 2008). A recent study reported that negative functional connectivities between the default mode network and the task-positive network were only observed in patients who recovered consciousness and healthy controls, whereas positive values were obtained in patients with impaired consciousness (Di Perri et al., 2016). Further, our regression model suggests that the anti-correlations between these two diametrically opposed networks (i.e., default mode network and executive control network) should be the most crucial imaging feature for predicting the outcomes of the DOC patients. We therefore conclude that our prognostic model has good interpretability, and that it not only verifies the findings of previous studies but also provides a window to assess the relative significance of various predictors for the prognosis of DOC patients. This study involved two testing datasets, which were found to be quite different, as shown in Table 1. First, the distributions of the etiology of the patients were remarkably different in the two datasets. The numbers of patients suffering from trauma/stroke/anoxia were 12/6/7 and 8/0/16 in the "Beijing HDxt" and "Guangzhou 35 / 102 HDxt" datasets, respectively. The outcomes were also different. In the "Beijing HDxt" dataset, 12 out of the total 25 patients recovered consciousness, compared with six out of the total 24 patients in the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset. Given that the characteristics of the two medical centers and their roles in the local health care system are different, we speculate that this could be one of the main reasons that the enrolled patient populations were heterogeneous. As described in the Introduction, DOC can have many causes and be associated with several neuropathological processes and different severities, leading to the suggestion that information from different domains should be integrated to improve diagnosis and prognostication (Bernat, 2016). Our study demonstrates that the combination of imaging and clinical features can achieve a better performance than the use of single domain features. However, some caution is warranted. Firstly, although this study involved 112 DOC patients, the patients who would later recover consciousness was relatively low (i.e. 31/112). So, a much larger cohort will be needed for further validation. Secondly, the PPVs for the two testing datasets were remarkably different, with that for the "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset being relatively low (67% versus 91%). Although our method predicted that nine patients in this dataset would recover consciousness, only six of them did (i.e. GOS≥3), with the other three remaining unconscious at the end of the follow-up (i.e. GOS≤2). Given that many additional factors are associated with the outcome of DOC patients, including medical complications, nutrition and so on, future work will need to integrate more information in order to provide more precise predictions. Thirdly, the signal-to-noise ratio of resting state fMRI can influence 36 / 102 functional connectivity analysis, so calibrations will be necessary when applying the predictive model across different sites, including standardizing the MRI acquisition protocols (e.g. scanner hardware, imaging protocols and acquisition sequences) and the patients' management strategies (see Appendix 10 for more information). Finally, a DOC patient’s prognosis can be considered according to at least three dimensions: survival/mortality, recovery of consciousness, and functional recovery. This study focused on predicting recovery of consciousness, and the patients who died during the follow-up were excluded. In the future, we will consider more outcome assessments, including survival/mortality and functional recovery. In summary, our prognostic model, which combines resting state fMRI with clinical characteristics, is proposed to predict the one year outcome of DOC patients at an individual level. The average accuracy of classifying a patient as "consciousness recovery" or not was around 88% in the training dataset and two unseen testing datasets. Our model also has good interpretability, thereby providing a window to reassure physicians and scientists about the significance of different predictors, including brain networks, functional connectivities and clinical characteristics. Together, these advantages could offer an objective prognosis for DOC patients to optimize their management and deepen our understanding of brain function during unconsciousness. 37 / 102 Acknowledgements The authors appreciate the help of Ms Rowan Tweedale with the use of English in this paper. Funding This work was partially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81471380, 91432302, 31620103905), the Science Frontier Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-SMC019), National Key R&D Program of China(Grant No. 2017YFA0105203), Beijing Municipal Science& Technology Commission (Grant Nos. Z161100000216139, Z161100000216152, Z161100000516165), the Guangdong Pearl River Talents Plan Innovative and Entrepreneurial Team grant (2016ZT06S220) and Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS. References Bernat JL. Chronic disorders of consciousness. Lancet 2006; 367(9517): 1181-92. Bernat JL. Prognostic limitations of syndromic diagnosis in disorders of consciousness. AJOB Neuroscience 2016; 7(1): 46-8. Booth CM, Boone RH, Tomlinson G, Detsky AS. Is this patient dead, vegetative, or severely neurologically impaired? Assessing outcome for comatose survivors of cardiac arrest. 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Beijing_750 Beijing_HDxt Guangzhou_HDxt (n=63) (n=25) (n=24) Gender, M/F Etiology Trauma/Stroke/Anoxia Age at the T0 (years) Mean(SD) Range Time to MRI (months) Range Mean(SD) Median Band [1,3] (3,6] (6,12] >12 Follow-up time (months) Range Mean(SD) Median Band [12,24] (24,48] >48 Diagnosis at T0 MCS/VS CRS-R total score Mean(SD) Range Outcome at T1 CRS-R total score Mean(SD) Range GOS score GOS=5 GOS=4 GOS=3 GOS<=2 36/27 18/7 14/10 17/21/25 12/6/7 8/0/16 42.8(13.8) 18.0~71.0 40.7(15.2) 18.0~68.0 39.3(16.9) 15.0~78.0 1.0~77.0 7.4(12.8) 3.0 1.0~44.0 5.4(8.4) 3.0 1.0~10.0 2.3(2.4) 1.5 32 15 11 5 13 8 3 1 20 2 2 0 12.0~51.0 21.0(9.8) 15.0 14.0~53.0 41.7(8.4) 43.0 27.0~78.0 52.2(14.5) 53.0 38 24 1 2 20 3 0 8 16 17/46 5/20 8/16 7.3(2.9) 3.0~18.0 6.5(2.3) 3.0~14.0 7.1(4.1) 3.0~17.0 9.9(5.1) 3.0~22.0 12.7(6.4) 5.0~23.0 N/A N/A 0 5 8 50 0 5 7 13 0 1 5 18 48 / 102 Abbreviations: CRS-R: Coma Recovery Scale–Revised; GOS: Glasgow Outcome Scale; MCS: minimally conscious state; N/A: not available; SD: standard deviation; VS: vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome. 49 / 102 Figure 1. Conceptual paradigm of the study. CRS-R: Coma Recovery Scale Revised scale; GOS: Glasgow Outcome Scale. 50 / 102 Figure 2. Data analysis pipeline. All datasets involved in this study included resting state fMRI and clinical data. For the fMRI data in the training dataset, data analysis first encompassed preprocessing and imaging feature selection and extraction. Partial least square regression was then used to generate the regression model using the selected imaging features and clinical features in the training dataset. In this way, a prediction score that depicts the possibility of consciousness recovery was computed for each patient. The optimal cut-off value for classifying an individual patient as responsive or non-responsive was then calculated, and the prognostic classification model was obtained. The two testing datasets were only used to externally validate the regression and classification model. 51 / 102 52 / 102 Figure 3. Imaging features involved in the prognostic regression model. DMN.aMPFC: anterior medial prefrontal cortex in the default mode network; DMN.PCC: posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus in the default mode network; ExecuContr.DMPFC: dorsal medial prefrontal cortex in the executive control network; Auditory.MCC: middle cingulate cortex in the auditory network; Visual.R.V1: right lateral primary visual cortex in the visual network. DMN.aMPFC - ExecuContr.DMPFC: the functional connectivity between DMN.aMPFC and ExecuContr.DMPFC; Auditory.MCC - Visual.R.V1: the functional connectivity between Auditory.MCC and Visual.R.V1. 53 / 102 54 / 102 Figure 4. Prognostic rognostic regression model. In the three subplots, each color denotes a particular predictor. (A) Regression formula. (B) Predictor importance for each predictor in prognostic regression model. The vertical axis represents the sMC F-test value. The he larger the sMC F-value, F value, the more informative the predictor with respect to the regression model. model (C) The imaging features in the model are rendered on a 3D surface plot template in medial view. 55 / 102 Figure 5. The performance of the prediction model on the training dataset. (A) Individual predicted scores for each DOC patient in the training dataset. The CRS-R score at the T0 time point is shown on the x axis and the predicted score on the y axis. The patients diagnosed as VS/UWS at the T0 time point are shown to the left of the vertical red solid line, whereas the patients diagnosed as MCS at this time point are shown to the right. The purplish red pentagram, imperial purple triangle and blank circle mark the patients with a GOS score ≥4, =3 and ≤2, respectively, at the T1 time point. (B) Agreement between the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point and the predicted scores. The left panel shows the correlation between the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point and the predicted scores, and the right panel shows the differences between them using the Bland-Altman plot. (C) Bar chart showing the numbers or proportions of DOC patients in each band of predicted scores. In these two panels, the y axis shows the predicted score. (D) The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The star on the curve represents the point with the maximal sum of true positive and false negative rates on the ROC curve, which were chosen as the cut-off threshold for classification. Here, the corresponding predicted score=13.9. 56 / 102 57 / 102 Figure 6. The performance of the prediction model on the two testing datasets. (A) The individual predicted score (top panel) and agreement between the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point and the predicted scores (bottom panel) for the testing dataset "Beijing HxDt". (B) The individual predicted score for each DOC patient in the testing dataset "Guangzhou HxDt". The legend description is the same as for Figure 5. 58 / 102 59 / 102 Figure 7. The sensitivity and specificity in the "subacute" patients (i.e. duration of unconsciousness T0≤33 months) and those in the chronic phase (i.e. duration of unconsciousness T0 >3 months), respectively. 60 / 102 Supplementary file 1. Some examples of the warped ROIs in the default mode network for one healthy control and three DOC patients with a GOS score 2,3,4, respectively. Supplementary file 2. Details about single-domain prognostic models and comparisons of the single-domain and combination models. 61 / 102 Appendix 1: Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients and normal controls in this study. The diagnosis in this study was made by experienced physicians according to the CRS-R scale. Patients were diagnosed as MCS when they demonstrated at least one of the following behaviors: (1) following simple commands; (2) yes/no responses (gestural or verbal); (3) intelligible verbalization; (4) purposeful behavior in response to an environmental stimulus; (5) vocalization or gestures in direct response to questions; (6) reaching for objects that demonstrates a clear relationship between the position of the object and the direction of the movement; (7) touching or holding objects; (8) following or staring at an object in direct response to its movement. Emergence from the MCS was signaled by the return of functional communication and/or object use. In this study, the patients underwent the CRS-R assessments twice weekly (or more) within the two weeks before MRI scanning. So, the CRS-R can be generally administered about 4-5 times for a patient. The highest CRS-R score was considered as the diagnosis and listed in the following tables. T0: the time point of the MRI scanning; T1: the time point of follow-up. 62 / 102 Appendix 1-table 1. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Beijing_750" dataset. patient age gender diagnose etiology alias (years) 001 M 36 VS/UWS Anoxia 002 M 29 MCS Trauma 003 F 33 VS/UWS Trauma 004 F 28 MCS Trauma 005 M 23 MCS Anoxia 006 M 45 MCS Stroke 007 M 39 MCS Stroke 008 F 27 MCS Trauma structural lesions on MRI Diffuse pons damage Bilateral-temp oro-parietal damage Bilateral-front al lobe damage, atrophy L-frontal-temp oral lobe damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy L-temporo-par ietal damage Brainstem damage L-basal ganglia assessments CRS-R score at T0 CRS-R subscore at T0 CRS-R score at T1 CRS-R subscore at T1 1 6 7 022102 22 446323 15 4 18.26 9 4 18 355113 22 456223 39 4 15.31 12 5 7 102202 22 455323 12 4 22.88 1 4 15 335103 22 456223 19 4 16.58 3 4 10 232102 21 455223 13 4 17.08 9 4 9 222102 17 334223 12 3 13.94 1 4 17 345113 19 445123 12 3 14.39 10 6 12 332103 18 345123 19 3 16.09 time to MRI (months) number of CRS-R 63 / 102 follow-up GOS （months） predicted score 009 M 23 MCS Trauma 010 M 42 MCS Stroke 011 M 53 MCS Stroke 012 F 40 VS/UWS Stroke 013 M 22 VS/UWS Trauma 014 F 64 VS/UWS Stroke 015 F 42 VS/UWS Anoxia 016 M 45 VS/UWS Anoxia damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy L-basal ganglia damage Diffuse cortical & basal ganglia (caudates) damage Diffuse cortical & basal ganglia damage L-frontal-temp oro-parietal lobe damage L-thalamus, basal ganglia lesions Diffuse anoxic cortical lesions Diffuse anoxic cortical lesions 6 4 9 132102 19 444223 13 3 10.94 3 7 7 103102 19 416323 12 3 14.72 7 5 11 332102 14 332123 14 3 11.55 5 6 7 112102 14 333122 12 3 14.67 3 4 7 112102 15 334122 27 3 15.48 1 4 7 112102 11 233102 17 2 8.28 1 4 7 112102 9 222102 14 2 9.02 9 5 5 002102 7 112102 15 2 8.65 64 / 102 017 F 60 VS/UWS Anoxia 018 M 42 VS/UWS Stroke 019 M 51 VS/UWS Anoxia 020 F 35 VS/UWS Anoxia 021 M 71 VS/UWS Trauma 022 F 30 VS/UWS Anoxia 023 F 58 VS/UWS Trauma 024 M 23 MCS Trauma Diffuse anoxic cortical lesions R-cerebral hemisphere lesions Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral-front al lobe damage, atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral-basal ganglia damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy R-basal ganglia 4 4 6 102102 6 102102 13 2 7.71 6 4 7 112102 7 112102 14 2 12.44 3 4 7 112102 7 112102 28 2 4.28 2 4 7 112102 7 112102 13 2 5.87 6 6 3 101100 4 101101 13 2 4.46 2 4 4 002002 7 022102 38 2 6.92 2 4 3 002100 4 002101 14 2 5.09 5 5 7 103102 11 223202 12 2 14.57 65 / 102 025 F 66 VS/UWS Trauma 026 F 25 VS/UWS Anoxia 027 M 48 VS/UWS Anoxia 028 F 28 MCS Anoxia 029 M 57 VS/UWS Anoxia 030 M 61 MCS Stroke 031 M 40 VS/UWS Anoxia (caudates) damage Bilateral-temp oro-parietal damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral-temp oro-parietal lobe damage Diffuse cortical & 1 4 6 102102 8 113102 32 2 5.71 3 4 5 102002 6 112002 36 2 6.75 4 5 7 112102 8 113102 29 2 7.83 5 4 9 222102 11 233102 32 2 11.36 11 4 6 102102 6 102102 33 2 4.70 2 4 11 134102 11 223112 12 2 10.34 4 4 4 001102 5 011102 27 2 5.70 66 / 102 032 M 39 VS/UWS Stroke 033 M 41 VS/UWS Anoxia 034 M 26 VS/UWS Stroke 035 F 50 VS/UWS Anoxia 036 F 53 VS/UWS Stroke 037 M 67 VS/UWS Stroke 038 M 45 MCS Stroke subcortical atrophy R-basal ganglia damage, atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral brainstem, midbrain damage R- brainstem, cerebellar damage Diffuse 3 4 7 112102 7 112102 12 2 8.03 2 4 5 002102 5 002102 13 2 6.44 54 4 7 112102 7 112102 38 2 7.28 8 6 6 102102 9 122202 12 2 5.77 3 4 5 112100 7 112102 28 2 8.02 1 4 5 112100 3 002001 12 2 2.04 2 5 9 132102 10 222112 13 2 10.91 67 / 102 039 F 35 VS/UWS Anoxia 040 F 46 MCS Trauma 041 M 49 VS/UWS Stroke 042 M 45 VS/UWS Stroke 043 M 18 VS/UWS Anoxia 044 M 53 VS/UWS Anoxia 045 M 46 VS/UWS Trauma cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse axonal injury Bilateral-brain stem, cerebellar damage Diffuse cortical & basal ganglia damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral-occipi tal lobe damage, atrophy R-temporo-pa 3 4 6 102102 8 112202 19 2 10.24 77 7 11 222212 13 332212 51 2 14.76 10 4 7 112102 7 112102 28 2 10.87 3 4 7 112102 8 122102 19 2 7.59 8 5 6 111102 9 123102 12 2 10.85 2 4 3 002001 7 112102 34 2 1.98 4 4 6 101202 6 101202 13 2 7.23 68 / 102 046 F 29 VS/UWS Anoxia 047 F 47 MCS Stroke 048 M 58 VS/UWS Stroke 049 M 66 VS/UWS Anoxia 050 M 34 VS/UWS Trauma 051 F 31 MCS Trauma 052 M 33 VS/UWS Stroke 053 F 31 VS/UWS Anoxia rietal damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy R-basal ganglia damage Bilateral-temp oro-parietal lobe damage L-frontal lobe damage Diffuse axonal injury L-frontal-temp oro-parietal lobe damage L-temporo-par ietal lobe damage Diffuse cortical & basal ganglia (caudates) damage 28 4 7 112102 9 123102 12 2 8.31 47 5 8 113102 11 222212 12 2 9.66 6 4 7 112102 8 113102 27 2 7.05 4 4 4 002002 6 102102 38 2 4.79 3 4 6 112101 8 122102 14 2 10.28 3 5 11 133202 8 112202 15 2 15.56 17 4 6 102102 8 113102 13 2 7.67 1 4 6 102102 6 102102 27 2 8.36 69 / 102 054 F 28 VS/UWS Anoxia 055 F 26 VS/UWS Stroke 056 M 45 VS/UWS Trauma 057 F 69 VS/UWS Stroke 058 F 68 VS/UWS Trauma 059 M 50 VS/UWS Stroke 060 M 60 MCS Trauma 061 M 44 VS/UWS Anoxia 062 F 35 VS/UWS Anoxia Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy L-basal ganglia damage Diffuse axonal injury Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse axonal injury L-frontal-temp oro-parietal lobe damage Bilateral brainstem, midbrain damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral-basal 3 4 6 102102 8 112202 32 2 9.23 4 4 6 102102 6 102102 12 2 10.96 1 4 6 102102 6 102102 29 2 9.05 4 4 6 102102 7 102202 33 2 12.43 6 6 7 112102 9 132102 17 2 9.74 3 4 6 111102 8 222002 27 2 7.01 7 4 11 134102 11 223112 30 2 11.69 2 4 6 102102 4 002101 13 2 10.48 3 5 7 211102 9 231102 27 2 9.07 70 / 102 063 F 43 VS/UWS Anoxia ganglia damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy 2 4 71 / 102 7 112102 8 202112 29 2 10.09 Appendix 1-table 2. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Beijing_HDxt" dataset. patient age gender diagnose alias (years) etiology 001 M 19 VS/UWS Trauma 002 M 26 MCS Trauma 003 F 22 VS/UWS Trauma 004 M 41 VS/UWS Stroke 005 M 36 MCS Stroke 006 M 34 VS/UWS Anoxia 007 F 18 VS/UWS Trauma structural lesions on MRI L-temporo-pa rietal lobe damage R-thalamus, basal ganglia lesions L-temporal lobe damage Bilateral brainstem, midbrain damage Bilateral brainstem damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse axonal injury at T0 CRS-R score at T1 CRS-R subscore at T1 7 112102 22 456223 40 4 20.37 6 10 232102 23 456323 47 4 17.12 4 4 6 102102 22 456223 47 4 14.05 3 4 6 112101 23 456323 50 4 20.23 4 4 6 003102 23 456323 39 4 7.75 1 4 6 111102 14 323123 31 3 17.25 3 4 5 012002 14 332123 41 3 14.86 time to MRI (months) number of CRS-R CRS-R CRS-R score subscore assessments at T0 6 4 3 72 / 102 follow-up GOS （months） predicted score 008 M 58 MCS Trauma 009 M 41 MCS Trauma 010 M 46 VS/UWS Stroke 011 M 25 VS/UWS Anoxia 012 M 58 VS/UWS Trauma 013 M 36 VS/UWS Trauma 014 M 58 VS/UWS Trauma 015 M 65 VS/UWS Stroke 016 F 24 VS/UWS Trauma R-frontal lobe damage R-frontal-tem poro-parietal lobe damage L-brainstem, cerebellar damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy L-brainstem damage L-frontal-tem poro-parietal lobe damage R-frontal-tem poro-parietal lobe damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse axonal injury 12 4 8 113102 15 333123 40 3 15.62 1 5 11 233012 18 344223 42 3 18.89 7 4 6 102102 14 332123 53 3 17.05 4 6 6 102102 14 224123 46 3 18.07 1 7 7 112102 19 355123 40 3 10.75 6 4 7 112102 10 232102 44 2 9.58 4 4 6 102102 6 102102 45 2 6.69 3 4 3 100002 5 101102 43 2 4.01 44 6 6 102102 8 122102 44 2 14.03 73 / 102 017 F 46 VS/UWS Stroke 018 M 53 VS/UWS Anoxia 019 F 32 VS/UWS Trauma 020 M 41 VS/UWS Anoxia 021 F 33 VS/UWS Anoxia 022 M 49 VS/UWS Anoxia 023 F 25 MCS Anoxia 024 M 63 VS/UWS Stroke L-pons damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy L-temporo-pa rietal lobe damage Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Diffuse cortical & subcortical atrophy Bilateral thalamus, brainstem damage L-basal 2 4 7 112102 7 112102 40 2 12.11 3 4 4 101002 6 102102 41 2 5.38 3 4 6 102102 8 112202 23 2 13.76 2 4 4 101002 8 112202 40 2 12.06 7 5 6 211002 11 232202 47 2 4.55 2 4 6 102102 6 102102 14 2 8.97 4 7 14 450023 10 240022 50 2 12.42 5 4 4 001102 5 101102 48 2 8.22 74 / 102 025 M 68 VS/UWS Trauma ganglia lesions L-frontal-tem poro-parietal lobe damage 2 4 75 / 102 5 002102 6 012102 47 2 9.72 Appendix 1-table 3. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Guangzhou_HDxt" dataset. patient alias 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 gender F M F F M M M M M M M F M M M F M M F F M age (years) 15 29 27 20 30 31 28 48 46 78 39 46 39 16 25 76 36 32 49 52 62 diagnose etiology MCS MCS MCS MCS MCS MCS VS/UWS MCS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS MCS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS Anoxia Trauma Trauma Trauma Trauma Trauma Anoxia Trauma Trauma Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Trauma Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia time to MRI(months) 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 5 2 10 1 1 2 CRS-R score at T0 13 9 9 8 15 20 5 12 4 4 5 4 5 3 12 4 5 6 6 3 3 76 / 102 CRS-R subscore at T0 135112 114012 105102 113102 116223 445223 102002 234102 102001 100102 002102 001102 102002 001002 135102 100102 001202 102102 102102 000102 001002 follow-up GOS （months） 59 4 61 3 29 3 41 3 63 3 51 3 69 2 55 2 65 2 49 2 51 2 46 2 43 2 71 2 78 2 59 2 65 2 56 2 49 2 27 2 28 2 predicted score 20.92 16.50 16.67 20.37 17.34 14.00 9.71 9.11 12.58 9.20 4.20 14.49 7.30 14.17 8.56 3.57 17.28 5.66 4.55 5.08 10.26 022 023 024 F F F 33 28 57 VS/UWS VS/UWS VS/UWS Anoxia Anoxia Anoxia 2 9 1 6 6 5 77 / 102 102102 102102 002102 29 67 42 2 2 2 9.09 12.62 4.72 Appendix 1-table 4. Demographic of healthy controls in the "Beijing_750" dataset. alias NC001 NC002 NC003 NC004 NC005 NC007 NC008 NC009 NC010 NC012 NC013 NC014 NC015 NC016 NC017 NC018 NC019 NC020 NC021 NC022 NC023 NC026 gender F M F M M F F F F F M F M M F M M F F M F M age 40 50 34 25 28 24 47 22 60 26 21 27 40 44 22 50 27 43 25 54 52 46 handedness Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right 78 / 102 NC027 NC028 NC029 NC030 NC031 NC032 NC033 NC034 F M F M M M M M 52 29 46 44 30 31 32 30 Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Appendix 1-table 5. Demographic of healthy controls in the "Beijing_HDxt" dataset. alias NC001_HDxt NC002_HDxt NC003_HDxt NC004_HDxt NC005_HDxt NC006_HDxt NC007_HDxt NC008_HDxt NC009_HDxt NC010_HDxt gender M M M M M M F F F F age 44 42 30 40 30 30 58 54 41 41 handedness Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right Right 79 / 102 Appendix 2: Brain networks and regions of interest in this study. The six brain networks investigated in this study and the names of regions of interest (ROI). The Appendix 2 - table 1 represented the six brain networks, the name of ROIs, the peak coordinates in the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space and the corresponding references. All of ROI were defined as a spherical region with a radius of 6mm at the center of the peak coordinates of the ROI. Appendix 2 - table 1: Brain networks and ROIs in this study. Brain Network ROI name ROI Peak MNI Abbreviation coordinates References (Raichle, Default mode Demertzi 2011; et al., 2015) Anterior medial prefrontal cortex aMPFC -1 54 27 Posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus PCC 0 -52 27 Left lateral parietal cortex L.LatP -46 -66 30 Right lateral parietal cortex R.LatP 49 -63 33 (Seeley et al., 2007; Executive control Raichle, 2011) Dorsal medial PFC DMPFC 0 27 46 Left anterior prefrontal cortex L.PFC -44 45 0 Right anterior prefrontal cortex R.PFC 44 45 0 Left superior parietal cortex L. Parietal -50 -51 45 Right superior parietal cortex R. Parietal 50 -51 45 (Seeley et al., 2007; Raichle, Salience Demertzi 2011; et al., 2015) Left orbital frontoinsula L.AIns -40 18 -12 Right orbital frontoinsula R.AIns 42 10 -12 Dorsal anterior cingulate dACC 0 18 30 (Raichle, Sensorimotor Demertzi 2015) Left primary motor cortex L.M1 80 / 102 -39 -26 51 2011; et al., Brain Network ROI Peak Abbreviation coordinates Right primary motor cortex R.M1 38 -26 51 Supplementary motor area SMA 0 -21 51 ROI name MNI References (Raichle, Auditory Demertzi 2011; et al., et al., 2015) Left Primary auditory cortex L.A1 -62 -30 12 Right Primary auditory cortex R.A1 59 -27 15 Middle cingulate cortex MCC 0 -7 43 (Demertzi Visual 2015) Left primary visual cortex L.V1 -13 -85 6 Right primary visual cortex R.V1 8 -82 6 Left associative visual cortex L.V4 -30 -89 20 Right associative visual cortex R.V4 30 -89 20 81 / 102 Appendix 3: Brain functional network templates. Although the neurobiological implications of the spontaneous neuronal activity are not very clear, spontaneous fluctuations in the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal have been found to be coherent within a variety of functionally relevant brain regions, which are denoted as representing a "network". Moreover, several networks have been found to be spatially consistent across different healthy subjects (Damoiseaux et al., 2006). Researchers suggested that the brain networks assessed by resting state fMRI may reflect an intrinsic functional architecture of the brain (Raichle, 2011). As mentioned in the manuscript, multiple networks were reported to be disrupted in the DOC patients. Here, the connection templates of the six brain networks were investigated within the healthy control group of the "Beijing 750" dataset. This study focused on the cortex, so six functional networks were investigated, including default mode network, executive control network, salience, sensorimotor, auditory, and visual network. Group functional connectivity maps for each of the six networks were created with a one-sample t test as shown the following Appendix 3 figure 1. These templates were separately shown on the brain surface using the SurfStat toolbox (SurfStat, RRID:SCR_007081). The color bar represented T value. Appendix 3 - figure 1. The six brain functional network templates in this study. 82 / 102 83 / 102 Appendix 4: Quality control for resting state functional connectivity. During the MRI scanning, the foam pad and headphones were used to reduce head motion and scanner noise. The normal controls were instructed to keep still with their eyes closed, as motionless as possible and not to think about anything in particular. The same instructions were given to the patients but due to their consciousness and cognitive impairments, we could not fully control for a prolonged eye-closed yet awake scanning session. The Appendix 4-figure 1 showed cumulative distribution of head motion per volume (framewise displacement) for normal controls and the patients. The Appendix 4-figure 2 showed the results of control quality of resting state fMRI in this study. The Appendix 4-figure 3 showed the histogram of the remaining number of fMRI volumes after scrubbing. 84 / 102 Appendix 4-figure 1.. Cumulative distribution of head motion per volume (framewise displacement) for normal controls and DOC patients separately in the training dataset "Beijing 750" (A1), the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt" (A2), and the testing dataset "Guangzhou HDxt" (A3).. The normal controls were shown in left column, whereas the DOC patients were shown in right column. Noo healthy control data were available for the Guangzhou centre. centre In both patients and controls, head position was stable st to within 1.5 mm for the vast majority (>95%) (> of brain volumes. 85 / 102 Appendix 4-figure 2. Correlations between motion artifact and neuroanatomical distance between the ROIss in this study. Prior studies have shown that motion artifacts tend to vary with neuroanatomical distance between brain nodes. Here, we conducted quality control analyses as described in the previous study (Power Power et al., 2015). Specifically, we computed ed correlations between head motion (mean FD) and each resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) feature and plotted them as a function of neuroanatomical distance tance (mm) for subjects in the training dataset "Beijing 750" (B1), the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt" (B2), and the testing dataset "Guangzhou HDxt" (B3). Smoothing curves (in red) were plotted using a moving average filter. 86 / 102 Appendix 4-figure 3. Histogram of the remaining number of fMRI volumes after scrubbing for each population, specifically "Beijing 750" datatset (C1), "Beijing HDxt" dataset (C2), and "Guangzhou HDxt" dataset (C3). 87 / 102 Appendix 5: Warped regions of interest and brain network templates. The conventional fMRI preprocess normalizes individual fMRI images into a standard space defined by a specific template image. This study generated a functional connectivity image for each patient in his/her own fMRI space. During the preprocessing of each patient’s fMRI scans, the 22 ROIs and the 6 brain network templates were spatially warped to individual fMRI space and resampled to the voxel size of the individual fMRI image. To ensure the registration, we developed some tools to visually check the transformed ROIs and brain network templates for each subject in this study. Supplementary file 1 illustrated some examples of the warped ROIs in the default mode network (DMN) for the 3 DOC patients with a GOS score 2,3,4, respectively. Additionally, as a reference, we showed these figures for one normal control. The ROIs in the DMN include the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC), the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC), the left lateral parietal cortex (L.LatP), the right lateral parietal cortex (R.LatP). The details about these 4 ROIs were listed in Appendix 2, and the brain network template of the DMN was provided in Appendix 3. 88 / 102 Appendix 6: Correlations between imaging features and CRS-R scores at T1. Appendix 6 - table 1. The brain area connection features and their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". ** ** ** ** ** * * * * * * * ROI name DMN.aMPFC ExecuContr.L.Parietal DMN.PCC DMN.R.LatP ExecuContr.DMPFC ExecuContr.R.Parietal Sensorimotor.SMA ExecuContr.R.PFC Auditory.R.A1 DMN.L.LatP ExecuContr.L.PFC Sensorimotor.L.M1 Auditory.L.A1 Salience.R.AIns Sensorimotor.R.M1 Visual.L.V4 Salience.dACC Salience.L.AIns Visual.R.V1 Auditory.MCC Visual.R.V4 Visual.L.V1 Pearson's correlation coefficient and p value r= 0.514, p=0.000 r= 0.429, p=0.000 r= 0.420, p=0.001 r= 0.407, p=0.001 r= 0.405, p=0.001 r= 0.363, p=0.003 r= -0.332, p=0.008 r= 0.320, p=0.011 r= 0.315, p=0.012 r= 0.298, p=0.018 r= 0.291, p=0.021 r= 0.267, p=0.035 r= 0.206, p=0.105 r= -0.187, p=0.142 r= 0.167, p=0.191 r= -0.151, p=0.236 r= -0.104, p=0.418 r= 0.075, p=0.560 r= 0.065, p=0.611 r= 0.053, p=0.682 r= -0.031, p=0.809 r= -0.028, p=0.830 **: p<0.05, FDR corrected; *: p<0.05, uncorrected. In addition, Appendix 6 - figure 1 illuminated these brain area connection features and their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point. 89 / 102 Appendix 6 - table 2. Functional unctional connectivity features and their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Functional connectivity Pearson's correlation coefficient and p value DMN.aMPFC - ExecuContr.DMPFC r= -0.489, p=0.000 DMN.L.LatP - Visual.L.V4 Auditory.MCC - Visual.R.V1 ExecuContr.R.PFC - ExecuContr.R.Parietal ExecuContr.DMPFC - Auditory.MCC ExecuContr.L.PFC - Salience.dACC Sensorimotor.R.M1 - Sensorimotor.SMA Sensorimotor.R.M1 - Auditory.L.A1 Salience.dACC - Visual.R.V1 ExecuContr.DMPFC - Sensorimotor.L.M1 DMN.R.LatP - Visual.R.V4 ExecuContr.L.Parietal - Sensorimotor.L.M1 DMN.aMPFC - Salience.dACC DMN.aMPFC - Sensorimotor.L.M1 DMN.aMPFC - DMN.PCC ExecuContr.R.Parietal - Visual.R.V4 DMN.aMPFC - Sensorimotor.R.M1 r= -0.421, p=0.001 r= 0.375, p=0.002 r= 0.361, p=0.004 r= -0.351, p=0.005 r= -0.335, p=0.007 r= -0.330, p=0.008 r= 0.319, p=0.011 r= 0.319, p=0.011 r= -0.310, p=0.013 r= -0.306, p=0.015 r= -0.302, p=0.016 r= -0.292, p=0.020 r= -0.286, p=0.023 r= 0.275, p=0.029 r= -0.270, p=0.033 r= -0.268, p=0.034 90 / 102 * * * * * * * * * ExecuContr.R.Parietal - Sensorimotor.R.M1 Sensorimotor.L.M1 - Sensorimotor.SMA DMN.R.LatP - Sensorimotor.R.M1 ExecuContr.R.Parietal - Visual.L.V4 Salience.dACC - Visual.L.V4 ExecuContr.DMPFC - Sensorimotor.R.M1 DMN.aMPFC - Visual.L.V1 Salience.R.AIns - Sensorimotor.L.M1 DMN.L.LatP - Sensorimotor.SMA r= -0.263, p=0.037 r= -0.261, p=0.039 r= -0.261, p=0.039 r= -0.257, p=0.042 r= 0.256, p=0.043 r= -0.255, p=0.043 r= 0.251, p=0.047 r= 0.250, p=0.049 r= 0.248, p=0.050 Specifically, the functional connectivity features were the functional connectivity between any pair of ROIs. s. Since there were more than 200 functional connectivity, for the space limitations, only the functional connectivity features which were significantly correlated to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point were shown. shown **: p<0.05, FDR corrected; *: p<0.05, uncorrected. In addition, Appendix 6 - figure 2 illuminated these functional connectivity features that were significantly correlated to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point. 91 / 102 Appendix 6 - figure 3 showed these significant functional connectivity features in a Circos manner. The he red links represented represent the within-network network functional connectivity, while the blue links represented represent the inter-network network functional connectivity. The width of link wass proportional to the strength of functional connectivity. 92 / 102 Appendix 7: Histogram depicting the imaging features included in CARS-PLSR models. We resampled 1000 times with replacement from the training dataset "Beijing 750". In each bootstrap sampling set, the CARS-PLSR was used for imaging feature subset selection. We then summarized the number of each imaging feature that was included in the CARS-PLSR model. Appendix 7 - figure 1 shows the histogram depicting the imaging features included in CARS-PLSR models. The horizontal bar represents the number. 93 / 102 94 / 102 Appendix 8: Validations in healthy control ontrols. To test robustness, we evaluated whether the prognostic regression model generalized to the normal controls (NC) in the training dataset "Beijing 750" (n = 30) 3 and the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt" (n=10). (n=10) No normal control data was available in the Guangzhou centre.. Since the NC subjects did not have the clinical characteristics, we calculated the subscores only using the imaging features and then compared the subscores to thatt of the DOC patients. Appendix 8 -figure figure 1 showed the imaging subscores for all of the subjects in the three datasets. We would like to emphasize that the he normal controls in the training dataset were only used to establish the brain network templates, and not used for any training. We found that (1) in the training dataset "Beijing 750", the NC subjects had significantly larger imaging subscores in comparison to both the DOC patients with consciousness recovery and the DOC patients with consciousness non-recovery no 95 / 102 (one-way ANOVA, p<0.05, multiple comparison corrected), and the DOC patients with consciousness recovery had significantly larger imaging subscores in comparison to the DOC patients with consciousness non-recovery (one-way ANOVA, p<0.05, multiple comparison corrected); (2) in the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt", the NC subjects had significantly larger imaging subscores in comparison to the DOC patients with consciousness non-recovery (one-way ANOVA, p<0.05, multiple comparison corrected), and the DOC patients with consciousness recovery had significantly larger imaging subscores in comparison to the DOC patients with consciousness non-recovery (one-way ANOVA, p<0.05, multiple comparison corrected); (3) In the testing dataset "Guangzhou HDxt", the imaging subscores of the DOC patients with consciousness recovery were significantly larger than the one of DOC patients with consciousness non-recovery (two-sample t-tests, p<0.05). 96 / 102 Appendix 9: Variations across different sites. To investigate variations across different sites, we did two experiments using the normal control (NC) subjects in this study. First, we explored whether the predicted imaging subscores of the NC subjects were significantly different between the training dataset "Beijing 750" (n = 30) and the testing dataset "Beijing HDxt" (n=10). We found that there was no significant difference between the two groups (two-sample T test, p=0.24). The distribution is shown as the following Appendix 9 figure 1. Second, we investigated the relationships between the fMRI signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the predicted imaging subscores. Different MRI acquisition protocols (e.g. scanner hardware, imaging protocols and acquisition sequences) can influence the 97 / 102 imaging SNR. But, it is not trivial to estimate the SNR in resting-state fMRI, since the noise is complex and also differs spatially. Here, we calculated the temporal SNR (tSNR) as the ratio between the mean fMRI signal and its temporal standard deviation in each voxel (Welvaert and Rosseel, 2013), and then averaged across all voxels in each region of interest (ROI) (Gardumi et al., 2016; Hay et al., 2017). Since there were 22 ROIs in this study, the median of these 22 ROI tSNR values was used as the measure for evaluating the SNR of the fMRI. We then correlated the median tSNR with the predicted imaging subscores across all of the NC subjects (n=40), and found that there were significant correlations between them (Pearson's correlation r=0.36, p=0.024) as shown in the following Appendix 9 - figure 2. From the above two experiments, we found that (1) the fMRI tSNR could be one of influencing factors in the application of the presented model; (2) the predicted 98 / 102 imaging subscores for the NC subjects could be approximate across different sites when the tSNR was proximity. Therefore, we suggested that our presented model can be applied to different centers, although the calibration might be required. Further, the tSNR in fMRI is not only associated with instrumental noise but also modulated by subject-related noise, such as physiological fluctuations and motion artifacts (Huettel et al., 2009). Therefore, we suggest that, on the one hand, the quality of imaging acquisition, including MRI scanner and imaging sequence/ parameters, need to be guarantee; on the other hand, scanning protocols is required to be standardized to reduce the subject-related noise during the scanning. 99 / 102 Appendix 1-table 1. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Beijing_750" dataset. Appendix 1 - table 2. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Beijing_HDxt" dataset. Appendix 1 - table 3. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients in the "Guangzhou_HDxt" dataset. Appendix 1 - table 4. Demographic of healthy controls in the "Beijing_750" dataset. Appendix 1 - table 5. Demographic of healthy controls in the "Beijing_HDxt" dataset. Appendix 2 - table 1: Brain networks and ROIs in this study. Appendix 3 - figure 1. Six brain functional network templates. Appendix 4 - figure 1. Cumulative distribution of head motion per volume (framewise displacement) for normal controls and DOC patients. Appendix 4 - figure 2. Correlations between motion artifact and neuroanatomical distance between the ROIs. 100 / 102 Appendix 4 - figure 3. Histogram of the remaining number of fMRI volumes after scrubbing for each population. Appendix 6 - table 1. The brain area connection features and their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Appendix 6 - figure 1. The brain area connection features sorted by their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Appendix 6 - table 2. The functional connectivity features and their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Appendix 6 - figure 2. The functional connectivity features sorted by their Pearson's correlations to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". Appendix 6 - figure 3. The Circos map for the functional connectivity features that were significantly correlated to the CRS-R scores at the T1 time point across the DOC patients in the training dataset "Beijing 750". 101 / 102 Appendix 7 - figure 1. Histogram depicting the imaging features included in CARS-PLSR models. Appendix 8 - figure 1. The imaging subscores for all of the subjects in the three datasets. Appendix 9 - figure 1. The distribution of the predicted imaging subscores of the healthy controls at different sites. Appendix 9 - figure 2. The correlations between the fMRI signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the predicted imaging subscores in the healthy controls. 102 / 102

405 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy Research Essay Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy * Raul Valverde Abstract Transpersonal Psychology considers that the psyche is multidimensional and that there are several "levels of consciousness" and each has different characteristics and is governed by different laws. The main goal of transpersonal theory is to integrate the spiritual experience within a broader understanding of the human psyche. The most used tool by professionals in transpersonal psychology is the use of transpersonal experiences through altered states of consciousness for self exploration such as the holotropic therapy developed by Stanislav Grof. Channelling is a parapsychological phenomenon which is considered an altered state of consciousness, although there are many differences of opinion as to whether channelling, is really true, what is known is that in many cases this phenomena can be attributed to the very psyche of the individual who manifested this phenomena and so could be used in psychology to know more about the inner subconscious of the individual. Keywords: Transpersonal consciousness psychology, channelling, parapsychology, altered state of 1. Introduction Parapsychology research focuses on seemingly anomalous experiences. The three main areas of parapsychological research are: extrasensory perception (ESP), and psychokinesis (PK). These two are often called 'psi phenomena'. The third main area is the survival hypothesis, the notion that some element of human existence survives death (Irwin and Watt, 2007). Musso (1994) suggests that the phenomena of ESP and PK are transpersonal in nature and part of parapsychology. A new paradigm of psychology is Transpersonal Psychology. Transpersonal Psychology considers that the psyche is multidimensional and that there are several "levels of consciousness" and each has different characteristics and is governed by different laws. Transpersonal psychology does not deny other schools of thought as psychoanalysis and it does not arise as opposed; the right thing to say is that it attempts to go further. For the transpersonal vision, Freud developments have been of fundamental value in the development of a psychological science to include the idea of the unconscious in a discipline that was tied to the positivist rationalism. Although psychoanalysis opened the possibilities of understanding of the human psyche, transpersonal psychology goes further by promoting the inclusion of the spiritual dimension of the human being. The main goal of transpersonal theory is to integrate the spiritual * Correspondence: Raul Valverde, Concordia University, Canada. E-mail: raul.valverde@concordia.ca ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 406 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy experience within a broader understanding of the human psyche. The most used tool by professionals in transpersonal psychology is the use of transpersonal experiences through altered states of consciousness for self exploration such as the holotropic therapy developed by Stanislav Grof. Channelling is a parapsychological phenomenon which is considered an altered state of consciousness, it is the aim of this article to discuss the usefulness of the channelling in transpersonal psychology that studies man from several dimensions including what is unseen but is manifested in our reality. 2. Altered states of consciousness and transpersonal psychology The human being experiences different altered states of consciousness. Consciousness can be altered in different ways; we find pathological states of consciousness as in the case of severe depression, especially in the case of psychosis, states of consciousness as deep hypnosis produced by hallucinogenic drugs like mescaline and LSD, and even altered states of consciousness that are common in the practice of yoga and in the case of mystical ecstasy. It would be quite impossible to give a concrete and precise definition of the so-called altered states of consciousness (ASC). For many, it is an unclear term, too ambiguous. The scientific community itself is divided over the definition of their functions, location, objectivity, etc. However, even with the added constraints of language, we try to be as objective as possible, but, as everyone knows, as the general principles of quantum theory state, we must be aware that we can only know a part of the reality that, in any case, will always be "the reality" of the observer. Traditionally, psychology described two states of consciousness: waking and sleep. However, the great psychologist William James (1985) stated, in his time: "I am sure that, between the two extreme states of consciousness as we know, there are many other states that do not have to be pathological". These were prophetic words indeed, because now we have identified many of these states and many of them are beneficial to humans. Stanley Kripner (2000) defines ASC as mental states that can be recognized by an objective observer other than the individual who experiences it as differences in mental functions; the normal state of the individual, the alertness and the waking. In fact, twenty states have been provisionally identified, with considerable overlap, as worthy of further study. The ASC may be spontaneous or caused by many different methods. Among them we can highlight hypnosis, meditation, psychedelic drugs intake, hearing some music, colors or perfumes, sensory isolation, electronic stimulation of the brain by a brain synchro energizer (Ossebaard, 2000), etc. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 407 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy In general terms they can be defined as mental states likely to be recognized by an individual (or an objective observer of the individual) as different as it relates to normal psychological functions of the individual alert. Of all the ASC, the best known and widespread is the meditation practice that is currently carried out in universities, colleges, schools, etc. Already in the era of the caverns individuals realized that focusing on a single stimulus, sounds, breathing, etc., a special type of consciousness is generated. Hardt & Kamiya (1978), observed that in the subjects who practiced meditation, the alpha activity was more pronounced in the frontal regions, and top of the head, because normally these wave trains are more common to find in the occipital region. Another known way of inducing ASC is with neurological rhythmical stimulation of the brain, this is with a repetitive quality of sensory stimuli that begins to generate a synchronous pattern of brain waves that is known as the Monroe effect (Monroe 1982). Ornstein (1973) tells us of a similar phenomenon that is known as the Ganzfeld effect, which is caused by looking at a white screen or by placing on the eyes two devices similar to half balls of the type used in the ping-pong game, which, after about 20 minutes, the subject blocks his or her sense of sight while an electroencephalogram (EEG) detects an increase in frontal alpha waves. Through these and similar studies, it has been possible to establish that meditation increases the blood flow and causes decrease in oxygen consumption, both effects due to a profound change in metabolism. Also, it increases the electrical resistance of the skin, giving an index of the state of relaxation of the subject. For information only we can point out that after several hours of sleep the electrical resistance of the skin arrives doubled, while after a few minutes of meditation is reached it quadruples its value (Hafner 1982). Meditation also produces a rapid reduction of blood lactate level-a product of the cell's metabolism, possibly because it is combined with calcium, which is essential for the transmission through the nervous system. In fact, a high level of blood lactate is associated with panic disorder (Hafner 1982). Our brains mathematically construct concrete images by interpreting frequencies from another dimension, a realm of primary reality, significant, scheduled and that transcends time and space reality. In this sense, the brain can be described as a hologram interpreting a holographic universe, and in such a context the ASC may be due to a literal harmonization with the invisible matrix that generates concrete reality (King 2012). In this scheme, if events come in a holographic representation of frequencies that transcend space and time they do not have to be communicable, as they are potentially simultaneous and available everywhere. David Bohm (1990), described that the universe is a hologram that would seem to be a range of frequencies that give the illusion of immediate and tangible apparently creation. The most harmonious and coherent states of consciousness come into harmony with this primary reality. David Bohm (1990) affirms that whatever is manifested by nature has "n" dimensions, is timeless and cannot be handled in any way. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 408 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy Abraham Maslow (1969), known psychologist in transpersonal psychology, through its observations concluded that the climax experience involves an individual merger of facts and values in conflict resolution, loss of anxiety, the discovery of the true self, a sense of unit, detachment, generosity, happiness and love. Stanislav Grof one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, is a psychiatrist of Czech origin, who worked most of his career in the United States. He was professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, and his last work was at the Esalen Institute and the center of transpersonal psychology for many years. Grof has studied the effect of LSD in a particularly extensive and profound way. In the sixties he directed about three thousand sessions with the drug and had access to about two thousand case histories of other cases that he had not spoken personally. Then, as the ban on held LSD in the United States, he started practicing holotropic therapy, with which can also be used to induce a similar altered state of consciousness. Holotropic therapy has been practiced by Grof (1994) along with his wife Cristina as a way to produce an altered state of consciousness without drugs. This is done with Hyperventilation making an individual to take a deep and rapid breath for several minutes. Grof, with this technique, caused a pulmonary hyperventilation, this is also accompanied by music and some verbal guidance from who leads the session. The subject remains lying down, eyes closed, in order to facilitate the alteration of consciousness. This technique produces a decrease of carbon dioxide in the blood, which must also have a level neither too high nor too low. This sharp decline in the level of carbon dioxide in turn causes a neurological crisis, and through the brain acts in a similar way to a drug. This causes a crisis that leads to an altered state of consciousness, and allows the psychologist to study the consciousness of the individual from that new state. Stanislav Grof (1994) uses the experiential healing power of this new state of consciousness. 3. The phenomenon of parapsychological "channeling" in altered states of consciousness as a tool for transpersonal psychology The channelling is a parapsychological phenomenon which is considered an altered state of consciousness that can also lead to the exploration of the inner self and the transpersonal psychoanalysis in a similar way as holotropic therapy does. Channelling, as defined by Jon Klimo (1988), it would be receiving information through paranormal sources. According to Klimo (1988), channelling, is the communication of information to a physically embodied human being or their intermediaries, from a source that is said to exist in some another level or dimension of reality other than the physical plane as we know, and not from the conscious mind of the channeller. Another definition of channelling which identifies the process by which a person transfers messages from a source presumed not embodied and external to their consciousness. Channeling often uses trance that does not stop being a form or aspect of mediumship. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 409 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy Chandley Margo (1986) in his doctoral thesis, believes that this non-physical energy is an intrinsic part of every human being, and that the reason why the label as being with personality is located outside of us. Channelling would, in this context, be the only way to communicate with that energy in a form of transpersonal psychoanalysis using the paranormal phenomenon of channeling. Scott Rogo (1975), established differences between mediumship and channelling. According to Rogo, serious mediumship is the art of attracting the spirits of dead people with the specific objective to communicate with their families, while channeling would try to attract some undefined nature of intelligence for the purpose of promoting and encouraging education spiritual and philosophical discussion. However, we must exclude from channelling what is known as ESP (ie telepathy), which would be the transmission of information between two embodied people, since in channelling the source or transmitter is at some other level of different reality from perceiving it. Huston Smith (1965), rather than entities, prefers to use the term psychic centers, and thus encompasses a variety of types of living beings individualized that could function as a communicators through the channeling process. We would also consider, to talk about channelling, there are other levels, dimensions or planes of reality where only the physical would be one more of these realities. Other parallel planes exist where the various doctrines or different movements have their place, and could be listed in terms of astral plane, mental plane, causal plane, etc. Throughout history there have been various entities that came to enjoy some popularity; according to Cunningham (2012), the Seth entity manifested through a medium called Jane Roberts. Seth says that we are multidimensional in nature and exist outside of time and space as part of a wider reality and will be evolving within the universe. We create our own reality projecting energy outward and thus form the physical world in which we learn our creativity. This ongoing work is what makes the universe is constantly developing, and to modify our personal world we must change ourselves, so that we change what we project or express. Seth's teachings include reincarnation, although we are contemplated as relatively immortal beings we cover many physical incarnations. Jane Roberts had the first conduit through automatic writing in 1963, which lasted until 1984, the year of her death. Jane Roberts, described the process as a situation as if she had taken an hallucinogen drug and in this situation she had an avalanche of great new ideas that flooded her mind, making it a receiving station messages. Jane Roberts (Cunningham (2012)), suggested that individualized energy is materialized within our physical existence, to learn to create energy and ideas to make physical parts. We project these ideas into an object so that in this way we can relate to us; in this context, the object is materialized thought, the idea has obvious similarities to certain areas of the Buddhist philosophy and some modern cosmological theories. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 410 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy Jane began receiving channeling from Seth in a clairvoyant way, then she moved to a deep trance in occasions. Seth described himself as an individual consciousness, energy personality essence, no longer limited by physical reality. Jane Roberts always wonder if this phenomenon was real, or Seth belonged to a part of her own psyche. Seth, on the other hand, seemed to reveal an alleged absolute knowledge, and the explanation that it gave Jane is that our current figures could be aspects of a broader which distant consciousness, the individual is only a part, albeit In the case of an inviolable and unique part. Our personalities would be composed by many other aspects, and each of them would be dominant in other realities. Besides Seth, Jane Roberts channeled also two other sources, a French impressionist painter of the nineteenth century, Paul Cezanne, and the famous American psychologist William James. Roberts believed that she perceived the personality of James Williams as a construction formed unconsciously as an automatic process. Seth let the material is very prolific, and its main contribution is that each of us are able to create our reality through our own beliefs and desires, that is, we would live this our present life as one of the many personalities experience, each within their respective level of reality and another as part of a broader nature also learns and evolves. The level of the texts left by Jane Seth dictation are philosophically very high, although debatable, as well as expressing general concepts, answering all a person of high scientific, philosophical and humanistic preparation. Usually, the first idea that comes to mind is that the neophyte channels are people with psychological pathology, if not worse, and that basically is all a sham. We must admit that, at least in part, such an opinion has some justification given the authentic falsehoods and scams that have come to mount on the issue. Myers (1895) speaks of subliminal in the phenomenon of channeling as it was a part of the mind that transcended the control of consciousness and was wider and deeper faculty. So through this subliminal, one could access the mysteries of a broader universe of a superior spirit with more energy and possibilities. This concept of subliminal could help to explain the channeling phenomenon and its use in psychoanalysis to the transpersonal level. Russel Wallace speaks of the existence of higher powers in the context of a hierarchy of spiritual nature in creation; He said that there must be an invisible world of the spirit that causes changes in the world of matter. The evolution of this planet must be guided and assisted by upper and invisible intelligences, to which man, as a spiritual being is exposed. Furthermore, it would be likely that these beings of superior intelligence lived in a hierarchy above ours. In addition, Wallace adds that these spiritual beings could communicate with us via telepathy. This could provide a gateway to the acquisition of universal knowledge through parapsychology (Kottler 1974). Thomson J. Hudson (1904) expounded his theory of objective mind, which would deal with ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 411 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy everyday experience, and a subjective, which would be oriented inward, would control our inner being and would live in the deepest levels of the self with the powers employed sewers and other paranormal experiences. Richard M. Bucke (2009) also differed less than our simple awareness of higher consciousness or cosmic. He worked with subjects who practiced the channelling and admitted that was natural in all of us, that would be related to the exact extent that we consciously realize our oneness with eternal life and open ourselves to the divine energy. He thought that we had in ourselves the properties and powers of eternal life, and we constitute channels through which they can act in intelligence and power. All these theories are against the tide with respect to traditional psychology that believes that the unconscious is as a closed system and therefore impossible to communicate with the mental or spiritual universe. Current theories of the psyche propose that we each have a conscious part, would work within the limits of normal perceptions, individual memory and an unconscious part that would be a deposit of perceptions and memories are still not ready to emerge into consciousness . This unconscious mind would be responsible for channelling and therefore this could be seen as a tool to explore the unconscious mind and the true self of the individual. The current experimental systems are strongly based on behaviorism; behavioral psychologists believe that learned behaviors are based largely unconscious associations structures built in the mind by various environmental stimuli and internal configurations. Behaviorists believe that ignore the fundamentals of much of our own conduct, which apparently work in a field based on conditioning beyond the control of consciousness. The most important type of conduct in channelling: the individual hears a voice that seems to come from him or herself or anyone around him or he, but uses its vocal cords to speak, or notes with surprise that someone who is not then uses his or her hand to write. Based on the theories of conditioning, these situations can be interpreted as functions of certain structures of associations formed unconsciously by memories, mental game configurations and combinations of creativity. Sigmund Freud (1964), talked of the paranormal phenomena related to channelling although his whole life was skeptical about this phenomena. He said that this type of behavior would be sought to recover by "supernatural" means the lost illusion in this world. Channeling was for Freud the result of dissatisfaction desires and manifestations of repressed material in the unconscious; voices, visions and expressions of repressed material would be channeling the unconscious and seek a way out. Jung (1936), said that the psyche is not an indivisible unit, but a divisible whole, in fact more or less divided, and was composed of many complex psychic materials. The ego would be the characteristic center of our psyche, but only one among others. Jung also thought that the existence of a communication from disembodied spirits can be justified through these complex materials, that are repressed and away from the usual conscious perception. These are complex, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 412 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy he said, could be designed in a configuration perceived by the individual as alien to him or herself. Jung said the spirit, seen from a psychological perspective, is an unaware complex autonomous psychic material that appears as a projection because it has direct contact with the ego. Moreover, he also believed that grim appearance of the spirit is the dark side of everyone, the less evolved and understood, sometimes part that could manifest in the form of something or someone outside the self. He also gave another possible explanation based on what he called the collective unconscious. Its components are not personal but collective, that is, not belonging to a single individual but a group of them, an entire nation or even all mankind. These components are not acquired during the life of the individual but are innate products and configurations, the fundamental concepts that have always been the basis of human thought, the full circle of mythological themes. The channelling has also been compared with hypnosis, with trance and dissociated states. It's hard to grasp the relationship may have channelling with hypnosis, as is the fact that subjects that are more easily hypnotized in turn are the ones most likely to be channellers, although it is possible that the latter are self hypnotized to exercise channelling. The hypnotic state would be easier to access channelling messages. Through hypnosis the subject, the channeller breaks his mindset and prejudices aware making it much easier to channel. It is also true that the subject would be well disposed to suggestions more easily, since it can induce the hypnotic state channels through to deeper stages of hallucinations. Charles Tart (1972), when he was studying hypnosis, perceived that he could generate in a subject an entity with an apparent independent existence of the subject. The subject perceived as if someone was speaking from outside, that is, that although some cases may be due to channelling if manipulation, this does not mean that all channelling cases are related to hypnosis. In effect, for example, we find burnt trees in the countryside, still standing, and that happens when lightning strikes on him during a storm; that does not mean that all charred trees still standing that we find are in the fields and forests have suffered a lightning strike. There are multiple causes that can produce a similar effect. There are diseases that resemble channelling such as delusions and hallucinations, identity disorders, schizophrenia, behavior simulation, depersonalization and dissociation, multiple personalities, etc. However, we should develop more detailed and careful studies before putting labels of mental disorders to those who act as channels. Parapsychology has also contributed to the explanation of the channelling phenomena, especially in what has been called psychical research. Parapsychology has studied the ESP (Extra-Sensory Perception, information acquired by unusual channels) with what would be an explanation of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 413 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy channelling. With respect to the channels of the person that seeks from a medium to communicate with another person now deceased, we must be careful that the medium is not telepathically capturing the information contained in the subject who has attended to query. We must also mention that not only telepathy could capture the information, but also through other information area that Teilhard de Chardin (1965) proposed as lying around Earth, an evolving field of knowledge, which they called noosphere. Clearly, any of these options connects with the collective unconscious of Jung. It exists in the annals of parapsychology an anecdotal event that may be relevant, in 1973 a group of people created a fictitious entity that gave the name of Philips. This being manifested by strokes, realizations, voices, etc. In previous times when Philips figure was created, each attendee at the meeting incorporating personality traits, professionals, etc., distinct and integrated a story that were supposed to be those of the body, soon appeared a presence that began to respond to questions from the group and attended by the name Philips. This event is brought to prove that, despite speaking seriously and with sufficient rigor, what could be considered an authentic channel was merely the result of individual and unconscious of those involved in the experience minds. Aldous Huxley (1945) also talked that each of us has a high potential of mind, a mind without restrictions, but in our quality of animals we have above all the instinct to survive. In this sense, a mind without restrictions should be targeted in any case, through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. Some people, however, seem to be born with a kind of detour that bypasses the pressure reducing valve. In other words, temporary shifted can be purchased, either spontaneously or as a result of deliberate retreat. Grof (1994) cites the transpersonal concept holds that there is a broad spectrum of altered states of consciousness, and one of them is useful in power and specific in their functions. Some of these are true higher states. Since each state of consciousness reveals his own vision of reality, we can deduce that reality as we know it (and this is the only way we know it) is only relatively real, in other words, is to hold genuine psychosis in a single reality. The father of transpersonal psychology, Stanislav Grof, was the first to carry out such channeling experiences under the influence of drugs, particularly LSD, whose composition has many similarities with serotonin. Grof (1973) explains: "The subject affected by LSD can, for example, suddenly enter into a trance-like state of a medium. His appearance and his gestures are alien, and his voice changed completely. You can speak foreign languages or write texts through automatic writing, you can have encounters with spiritual beings or astral bodies of people killed even have many of the characteristics of the so-called spirit possession. " Grof has used the experiences of channelling as a tool for self-exploration of the individual to ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 414 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy find possible causes of psychological problems such as depression and psychosis. Persinger (1983) is skeptical about the paranormal origin of channelling and gives an explanation of physiological origin. In one experiment, he stimulated the current low level of the temporal lobes of the brain in order to induce channelling experiences in the subject of study. After an initial feeling of floating in the air, the individual felt 'out of body'. Then the experiments recreated experiences that varied from one subject to another, but whose constant is to describe their feelings with cosmic and spiritual meanings. Persinger says "Often intense listening experiences in which the person feels that some messages are communicated to occur. This transmission is perceived by the individual through a kind of feeling of "knowing what happens" without being able to necessarily say that hears a voice" . Persinger suggests that people with epilepsy (ie temporal lobe dysfunction), has been found to possess a kind of constant form of channeling. Another novel contribution to the possible explanation of channelling was carried out by physicist Frank Barr (1983), who has issued a whole theory based on the peculiarities of the organic compound called melanin, and the brain equivalent neuromelanin. It is a substance that would act between mind and brain, as an intermediary. According to Barr, filamentous cells have bumps called glycocalyx antenna that could act in strong overlap with neuromelanin. Thus they transform the received waves of a variety of lengths and frequencies, including light in mechanical impulses and vice versa. Vibratory waves, once inside the cells would move through these through-called microtubules to melanin, which is capable of converting light into sound and sound into light. From this pattern, it is evident the possibility of transforming inner voices emissions received as waves in the brain, and vice versa. However, Frank Barr does not stop here but also extrapolated that there may be different standards of living at different levels of wave frequencies, inhabited by beings of difficult objective understanding from our usual physical reality. Despite the different views of the phenomenon of channeling, the truth is that it is possible to use it as a tool for exploration of subconscious. Although some cases are unexplained, many of these appear to be manifestations of the individual's own unconscious and could reveal information that could help a patient to understand the origin of their own psychological problems. 4. Conclusions In this article, the altered state of consciousness of channeling was presented as a tool for analysis and self exploration that is basic to the transpersonal psychology. Although there are many differences of opinion as to whether channelling, is really true, what is known is that in many cases this phenomena can be attributed to the very psyche of the individual who manifested this phenomena and so it could be used in psychology to know more about the inner subconscious of the individual. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 415 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy The article was meant to open the eyes of the reader about the usefulness of parapsychology in transpersonal psychology. Believe it or not, parapsychology offers a wider horizon of possible applications to the transpersonal psychology for better understanding of the human mind. References Barr, F.E. (1984) What Is Melanin? Unpublished article available by request from the Institute for the Study of Consciousness, 2924 Benvenue Ave., Berkeley CA 94705 Bohm, D. (1990). A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter. Philosophical psychology , three (2-3), 271-286. Chandley, M (1986), A psychological investigation of the development of the process in personality function mediumistic, PhD dissertation, International College Cunningham, PF (2012). The content-source research problem in modern mediumship. Journal of Parapsychology, 76 (2), 295. Grof, S. (1994). Transpersonal psychology: birth, death and transcendence in psychotherapy. Editorial Kairos. Grof, S. (2010). Brief history of the transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal Journal of Research, 2 (2), 125-136. Wilber, K. (1996). The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development. Quest Books. Hafner, R. J. (1982). Psychological treatment of essential hypertension: a controlled comparison of meditation and meditation plus biofeedback. Biofeedback and Self-regulation, 7(3), 305-316. Hardt, JV, & Kamiya, J. (1978). Anxiety change through alpha electroencephalographic feedback seen only in high anxiety subjects. Science, 201 (4350), 79-81. Irwin, HJ, & Watt, CA (2007). An introduction to parapsychology . McFarland. James, W. (1985). The Varieties of Religious Experience (Vol. 15). Harvard University Press. King, C. (2012). Entheogens, the Conscious Brain and Existential Reality: Part 1. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 3(6). Kottler, MJ (1974). Alfred Russel Wallace, the origin of man, and spiritualism. Isis, 145-192. Klimo, J. (1998). Channeling: Investigations on receiving information from paranormal sources . North Atlantic Books. Krippner, S. (2000). The epistemology and technologies of shamanic states of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7 (11-12), 93-118. Maslow, AH (1969). Various meanings of transcendence. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1 (1), 56-66. Monroe, R. (1982). The Hemi-Sync process. Monroe Institute Bulletin, # PR31380H. Nellysford, VA . Musso, JR (1994). THE IMPORTANCE OF parapsychology for psychology and psychoanalysis. Journal of Psychology Paranormal Argentina , 5 (3). Myers, FW (1895). The subliminal self. In Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (Vol. 11, pp. 334-593). Ornstein, RE (1973) The nature of human consciousness: A book of readings . WH Freeman. Rogo, DS (1975). Parapsychology: A century of inquiry. Taplinger Publishing Company. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 416 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 405-416 Valverde, R., Channeling as an Altered State of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychology Therapy Smith, H. (1965). The religions of man . New York: Harper & Row Hudson, TJ (1904) The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A Working Hypothesis for the Systematic Study of Hypnotism, Spiritism, Mental Therapeutics, Etc AC McClurg & Company Bucke, RM (2009) Cosmic consciousness: A study in the evolution of the human mind . Courier Corporation. Freud, S., & Strachey, JE (1964). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Jung, CG (1936). The concept of the collective unconscious. Collected works , 9 (1), 42. Tart, CT (1975). States of consciousness (p. 206). New York: EP Dutton. Huxley, A., & Bradshaw, D. (1945). The perennial philosophy (p. 55). New York: Harper. Grof, S. (1973). Theoretical and empirical basis of transpersonal psychology and psychotherapy: Observations from LSD research. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 5 (1), 15-53. Ossebaard, H. C. (2000). Stress reduction by technology? An experimental study into the effects of brainmachines on burnout and state anxiety. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback, 25(2), 93-101. Persinger, MA (1983). Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function. General hypothesis Perceptual and Motor Skills , 57 (3f), 1255-126. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 835 Article Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness Huping Hu* & Maoxin Wu ABSTRACT This work is a continuation of the premomentumenergy model described recently. Here we show how in this model premomentumenergy (Consciousness) generates: (1) time, position, & intrinsic-proper-time relation from transcendental Law of One, (2) selfreferential matrix law with time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as the determinant, (3) dual-universe Law of Zero, and (4) immanent Law of Conservation in the external/internal momentum-energy space which may be violated in certain processes. We further show how premomentum-energy generates, sustain and makes evolving elementary particles and composite particles incorporating the genesis of self-referential matrix law. In addition, we discuss the ontology and mathematics of ether in this model. Illustratively, in the beginning there was premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and spiritually restless, and it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=e+iL-iLe+iM-iM=e+iLe-iMe+iLe-iM=e+iLe+iM/e+iLe+iM …such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external momentum-energy space and internal momeutmenergy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentum-energy space which it has since sustained and made to evolve. Key Words: premomentumenergy, principle of existence, spin, hierarchy, self-reference, ether, mathematics, ontology, matrix law, transcendental Law of One, dual-world Law of Zero, immanent Law of Conservation, Consciousness, Consciousness. 1. Introduction Through all of us Consciousness manifests This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence [1-4] and the premomentumenergy model [5]. As shown in our recent work [1] and further shown here, the principles and mathematics based on premomentumenergy (Consciousness) for *Corresponding author: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D. Address: QuantumDream, Inc., P.O. Box 267, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. E-mail: hupinghu@quantumbrain.org ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 836 creating, sustaining and making evolving of elementary particles in the dual momentumenergy universe are beautiful and simple. First, the premomentumenergy model employs the following ontological principles among others: (1) Principle of oneness/unity of existence through quantum entanglement in the ether of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (2) Principle of hierarchical primordial self-referential spin creating: - time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as transcendental Law of One. - time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as determinant of matrix law. - Dual-universe Law of Zero of time, position and intrinsic-proper-time. - Immanent Law of Conservation of time, position and intrinsic-proper-time in external/internal momentum-energy space which may be violated in certain processes. Second, premomentumenergy model employs the following mathematical elements & forms among others in order to empower the above ontological principles: (1) e, Euler’s Number, for (to empower) ether as foundation/basis/medium of existence (body of premomentumenergy (Consciousness)); (2) i, imaginary number, for (to empower) thoughts and imagination in premomemtumenergy (ether); (3) 0, zero, for (to empower) emptiness (undifferentiated/primordial state); (4) 1, one, for (to empower) oneness/unity of existence; (5) +, -, *, /, = for (to empower) creation, dynamics, balance & conservation; (6) Pythagorean Theorem for (to empower) time, position and intrinsic proper time relation; and (7) M, matrix, for (to empower) the external and internal momentum-energy space and the interaction of external and internal wavefunctions (objects). This work is organized as follows. In § 2, we shall illustrate scientific genesis in premomemtumenergy in a nutshell which incorporates the genesis of self-referential matrix law. In § 3, we shall detail the genesis of self-referential matrix law in the order of: (1) Genesis of Fundamental Time, Space & Intrinsic-proper-time Relation; (2) Self-Referential Matrix Law and Its Metamorphoses; (3) Imaginary Momentum; (4) Games for Deriving Matrix Law; and (5) Hierarchical Natural Laws. In § 4, we shall incorporate the genesis of self-referential matrix law into scientific genesis of primordial entities (elementary particles) and scientific genesis of composite entities. In § 5, we shall illustrate the mathematics and ontology of ether in the premomentumenergy model. Finally, in § 6, we shall conclude this work. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 837 Readers are reminded that we can only strive for perfection, completeness and correctness in our comprehensions and writings because we are limited and imperfect. 2. Scientific Genesis in Premomentumenergy in a Nutshell Consciousness creates everything through self-referential spin In the beginning there was premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and spiritually restless, and it began to imagine through primordial selfreferential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=e+iL-iLe+iM-iM=e+iLe-iMe+iLe-iM=e+iLe+iM/e+iLe+iM …such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external momentum-energy space and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to a dual momentum-energy universe comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space which it has since sustained and made to evolve. We draw below several diagrams illustrating the above processes: Figure 2.1 Illustration of primordial phase distinction in premomentumenergy The primordial phase distinction in Figure 2.1 is accompanied by matrixing of premomentumenergy (Consciousness) body e into: (1) external and internal wave functions as external and internal objects, and (2) self-acting and self-referential matrix law, which accompany the imaginations in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) so as to enforce ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 838 (maintain) the accounting principle of conservation of zero in the dual momentum-energy universe, as illustrated in Figure 2.2. Figure2.2 Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) Equation Figure 2.3 shows from another perspective of the relationship among external object, internal object and the self-acting and self-referential matrix law. According to premomentumenergy model, self-interactions (self-gravity) are quantum entanglement between the external object in the external momentum-energy space and the internal object in internal momentum-energy space. Figure2.3 Self-interaction between external object in the external momentumenergy space and the internal object in the internal momentum-energy space Therefore, premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of primordial entities (elementary particles) in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows:   1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e iLiLe iM iM  Le Li 1 e iM e iM L M ,e ISSN: 2153-8212   1  A e iM  A    LM ,i  e iM   LM  e e iM  LM  e   L M   0  Ai   i   Ai e  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (2.1) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 839 In expression (2.1), e is Euler’s Number representing premomentumenergy (Consciousness) body (ether or aether), i is imaginary unit representing imagination in premomentumenergy (Consciousness), ±M is immanent content of imagination i such as momentum, energy, space & time, ±L is immanent law of imagination i, L1  ei 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  1 is transcendental Law of One in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) before matrixization, Le is external law, Li is internal law, LM,e is external matrix law, and LM,i is internal matrix law, LM is the self-referential matrix law in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) comprised of external and internal matrix laws which govern elementary entities and conserve zero, e is external wave function (external object) in the external momentum-energy space, i is internal wave function (internal object) in the internal momentum-energy space, and  is the complete wave function (object/entity in the dual momentum-energy universe as a whole). Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) spins as 1=ei0=ei0ei0=e+iL-iLe+iM-iM=e+iLe-iMe+iLeiM +iL +iM +iL +iM =e e /e e …before matrixization. Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) also spins through self-acting and self-referential matrix law LM after matrixization which acts on external object in the external momentum-energy space and the internal object in the internal momentum-energy space to cause them to interact with each other as further described below. 3. Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law in Premomentumenergy Natural laws are hierarchical 3.1 Genesis of Fundamental Time, Space & Intrinsic-proper-time Relation In the premomentumenergy model, the time, position & intrinsic proper time relation of an elementary entity: ct 2  x 2  c 2 or ct 2  x 2  c 2  0 (3.1) can be created from the following primordial self-referential spin: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   2 2  c x  c x   c  i x  c  i x   c   x    i   i        ct  ct  ct ct   ct  ct   ct 2    ct 2  x 2  c 2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.2) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 840 where t and x are dynamical variables of time and position respectively and  is an intrinsic proper time of an elementary particle (e.g., defined as Compton wavelength divided by speed of light  =/c). For simplicity, we will set c=ħ=1 throughout this work unless indicated otherwise. Expression (3.2) satisfy the relation of four-position x = (ct, x) in special theory of relativity. In the presence of an interacting field of a second primordial entity such as an electromagnetic four-potential in the dual universe comprised of the external energymomentum space and the internal energy-momentum space: A  ((p , E ) , A(p , E ) ) (3.3) equation (3.2) becomes, for an elementary entity with charge e: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x - eA (p ,E )  x - eA (p ,E )       i i  t  e(p ,E ) t  e(p , E )  t  e(p , E ) t  e(p ,E )     2    i x - eA (p ,E )    i x - eA (p ,E )    2  x - eA (p ,E )       t  e(p , E )  t  e(p , E )   t  e(p ,E ) 2       t  e 3.2     x - eA 2 (p ,E ) 2  or t  e     x - eA   0 2 (p ,E ) 2 (p , E ) 2 2 (p , E ) (3.4) Self-Referential Matrix Law and Its Metamorphoses In the premomentumenergy model, one form of matrix law LM in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is created from the following primordial self-referential spin: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x   x     i x    i x    2  x 2    i   i      t  t   t  t    t 2  t t         ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness     t2  2 t   x2  x x t  1   x  x t  t     0  x t   x t   t   x  841   x  LM , e t  (3.5) LM ,i   L M where matrixization step is carried out in such way that   Det L M  t 2  2  x 2  0 (3.6) so as to satisfy the fundamental relation (3.2) in the determinant view. After fermionic spinization: x  x   Det (σ x )  σ  x 2 (3.7) where σ = (σ1, σ2, σ3) are Pauli matrices: 0 1 0  i 1 0   2    3    1 0 i 0 0  1       1   (3.8) expression (3.7) becomes:  t  σx     L  σx t    M , e   LM , i   L M (3.9) Expression (3.9) governs fermions in Dirac-like form such as Dirac electron and positron in a dual universe comprised of an external energy-momentum space and an internal energymomentum space and we propose that the last expression in (3.7) governs the third state of matter (unspinized or spinless entity/particle) with charge e and intrinsic proper time  such as a meson or a meson-like particle in said dual momentum-energy universe. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 842 If we define:  t  σx      t  t     σx  σx  Det   σx t       (3.10) We get:  t  σx   2 2 2     t   x  I 2  0 Det   σx t       (3.11) Thus, fundamental relation (3.1) is also satisfied under the determinant view of expression (3.10). Indeed, we can also obtain the following conventional determinant:  t  σx   2 2 2  2    t   x   0 Det  σx t       (3.12) One kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.5), (3.9), (3.10) & (3.11) is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x   x     i x    i x    2  x 2    i   i       t t  t t   t  t   t 2   1  t  x            t  x  2    t x t x       0  t x  t x t 2 x 2 t  x          L t  x   M ,e      t  σ x     LM , e    t  σ  x   ISSN: 2153-8212 (3.13) LM , i   L M LM , i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.14) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness     t  σ x    t σx  t  σx        Det    t  σx   843 (3.15)    2 2 2   t  σ x    t  x   I 2  0 Det       t  σ  x   (3.16) The last expression in (3.13) is the unspinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form. Expression (3.14) is spinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form. Another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.5), (3.9), (3.10) & (3.11) is respectively as follows: 1  ei 0  e  iL  iL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   1     i x   x   x     i x    i x   t     i   i       t  t   t  t      i x    t t t             i x   i x t t     0   i x t   i x t  t     i x   i x    Le  t  t  iσx        LM , e   iσx  t   (3.17) Li   LM LM , i   L M t  iσx     tt    s iσx   s iσx  Det    iσx  t   t  iσx   2 2 2      t   x  I 2  0 Det    iσx    t   (3.18) (3.19) (3.20) Indeed, Q    iσ  x is a quaternion and Q    iσ  x is its conjugate. So we can rewrite expression (3.18) as: Q    t      LM , e  Q  t   ISSN: 2153-8212 LM , i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.21) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 844 If  =0, we have from expression (3.5): 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0 x  0 x  x  x   x2    i   i     i   i    2  t t  t t   t  t   t   t 2  t   x      2   x   x  t  1 (3.22) x x t t     0 x t x t x     L t     t   x  M ,e LM , i   L M After fermionic spinization x  σ  x , the last expression in (3.22) becomes:  t    σ x   σ x      LM , e t   LM , i   LM (3.23) which governs intrinsic-proper-time-less (massless) fermion (neutrino ) in Dirac-like form in said dual momentum-energy universe. After bosonic spinization: x  x 2  Det (sx  I 3 )  Det I 3   s  x (3.24) the last expression in (3.22) becomes:  t    s x   s x      LM , e t   LM , i   L M (3.25) where s = (s1, s2, s3) are spin operators for spin 1 particle: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness  0 0 i 0 0 0   0  i 0       s1   0 0  i  s2   0 0 0  s3   i 0 0    i 0 0 0 i 0   0 0 0       845 (3.26) If we define: Det  t s sx sx t       t t   s  x  s  x  (3.27) We get:  x xy  t sx  2 Det   t  x 2  I  yx y s sx   3  t  zx zy    2 2 xz   yz  z   (3.28) 2 To obey fundamental relation (3.1) in determinant view (3.27), we shall require the last term in (3.28) acting on the external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone as discussed later. We propose that the last expression in (3.22) governs intrinsic-proper-time-less (massless) particle with unobservable spin (spinless). After bosonic spinization, the spinless particle gains its spin 1. Further, if |p|=0, we have from expression (3.5): 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0   0         2     i   i        2  t  t t   t  t   t  t 1  t          2    t  t  t      0  t  t     t    LM , e LM , i   L M     t   t2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.29) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 846 We suggest that the above momentum-less forms of matrix law govern the external and internal wave functions (self-fields) which play the roles of momentum-less gravitons, that is, they mediate momentum (distance) independent interactions through intrinsic proper time (mass) entanglement. 3.3 Imaginary Position Premomentumenergy model can create momentum self-confinement of an elementary entity through imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that 2 > t2):  2  t 2  x i2  xi2  yi2  zi2   ix i   Det (σ ixi ) 2 (3.30) that is: t 2   2  xi2  0 (3.31) which can be created by the following primordial self-referential spin: 1  ei 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x i   x i     i x i    i x i    2  x i 2    i   i     t  t   t  t    t 2   t t         t 2   2  xi 2 or t   2 2  xi  0 2 (3.32) Therefore, allowing imaginary position (downward self-reference) for an elementary entity, we can derive the following matrix law in Dirac-like form:  t    xi   xi     LM , e t     LM , i   L M (3.33)     σx i  σx i     LM , e   LM , i   L M (3.34) Also, we can derive the following matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness t  x i          L  xi   M,e  LM , i   L M  t σx i          LM , e E  σx i   LM , i   L M 847 (3.35) (3.36) It is suggested that the above additional forms of self-referential matrix law govern proton in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form respectively in the dual universe comprised of the external energy-momentum space and the internal energy-momentum space. 3.4 Games for Deriving Matrix Law The games for deriving various forms of the matrix law prior to spinization can be summarized as follows: 0  t 2   2  x 2  DetM t  DetM  DetM x   Det ( M t  M   M x )  Det ( LM ) (3.37) where Det means determinant and Mt, M and Mx are respectively matrices with ±t (or ±it), ± (or ±i) and ±|x| (or ±i|x|) as elements respectively, and t2, -2 and –x2 as determinant respectively, and LM is the matrix law so derived. For example, the matrix law in Dirac-like form prior to spinization:  t  LM    x  x   t    (3.38) can be derived as follows:  0  t 0   0    Det   Det 0  t 2  2  x 2  Det 0 t   0   x        t 0    0   0     Det    0 t   0     x   t   x     Det  x 0     x   0   x    Det (L M ) t    (3.39) For a second example, the matrix law in Weyl-like form prior to spinization: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness t  x LM         t x   848 (3.40) can be derived as follows:  t 0 0   Det 0  t 2  2  x 2  Det 0 t        t 0  0   Det    0 t        x   0   0  x     Det  0 0   t  x 0     Det   x     0  x      Det LM  t x   (3.41) For a third example, the matrix law in quaternion form prior to spinization:  t LM     i x   i x   t   (3.42) can be derived as follows:  0 i x   t 0  0      Det   Det 0  t 2  2  x 2  Det 0 t    0  i x  0         t 0   0    0 i x    t  i x     Det   Det (LM )       Det     i x   0 t    0   i x 0   t      (3.43) 3.5 Hierarchical Natural Laws The natural laws created in accordance with the premomentumenergy model are hierarchical and comprised of: (1) immanent Law of Conservation manifesting and governing in the external or internal momentum-energy space which may be violated in certain processes; (2) immanent Law of Zero manifesting and governing in the dual momentum-energy universe as a whole; and (3) transcendental Law of One manifesting and governing in premomentumenergy (Consciousness). By ways of examples, conservations of time, position and intrinsic proper time are immanent (and maybe approximate) laws manifesting and governing in the external or internal momentum-energy universe. Conservations of time, position or intrinsic proper time to zero in the dual momentumenergy universe comprised of the external momentum-energy universe and the internal momentum-energy universe are immanent law manifesting and governing in the dual universe as a whole. Conservation of One (Unity) based on time, position and intrinsic proper time relation is transcendental law manifesting and governing in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 849 premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is the foundation of the dual momentumenergy universe. 4. Scientific Genesis of Elementary Particle in Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) 4.1 Scientific Genesis of Primordial Entities in the Premomentumenergy Model Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion particle such as an electron in Dirac-like form in a dual universe comprised of an external energy-momentum space and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  t t      i x    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ  e      t  t    2  x 2  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ t 2   2 ip μ x μ ip μ x μ e    e 2 2 t x         t   x   x t  1 e ip μ x μ e ip μ x μ 1  (4.1) t   ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ t   ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ e  e  e  e 0  x t   x t   t    x   t     σ x   ip  x     x  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,   ip  x  t       ai, e     ip x     σ x  Ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M , e M , i   M    ip  x  t     i,  Ai, e   that is: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness  t    e,   σ  x i ,    i E e,    e,   iσ  p i ,      or  i       i σ   p    t     σ  x  i, e,   i, e,    E i,  850 (4.2) where substitutions t  i E and x  ip have been made so that components of LM can act on the external and internal wave functions. Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave antifermion such as a positron in Dirac-like form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ xμ ip μ x μ   i   i e t s  t t      i x    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ xμ      t e t      2  x 2  ip μ x μ ip μ xμ t 2   2 ip x ip x e    e 2 x2  t         t   x   x t  1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (4.3)    t   ip x e   x e ip x  t   e ip x   x e ip x  0 x t  x t   t    x   t     σ x   ip  x     x  ae, e  e,       LM  0   LM , e LM , i     i,   ip x  t       ai, e    ip  x     σ x  Ae, e  e,      LM  0    LM , e LM , i     i,   ip x  t      A e  i,  Similarly, premomentumenergy creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 851 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  t t      i x    i x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ      t e t      2  x 2  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ t 2  x 2 ip x ip x e    e 2 t 2    t  x          t  x     1 1   ip  x    ip  x   e  e            t  x  ip x    ip x  t  x  ip x    ip  x  e  e  e  e 0  t x  t x (4.4) ip  x     ae,l e      e,l   L   0   L L  M,i    M,e  i,r  M ip  x t  x      ai,r e   ip  x     Ae,l e      t  σ x  e,l   L   0    L L  M , e M , i  M      ip  x t  σ x     i ,r  Ai,r e   t  x     that is:  i E e,l  iσ   p e,l   i ,r   t  σ  x  e,l   i ,r     or   i    i σ         t  σ  x    E i , r p i ,  e , l i , r e , l     (4.5) Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 852 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  t t      i x    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e t        i x t    i x t   e ip  x e ip  x (4.6) 1    i x ip x t ip  x e   e   i x t    i x ip x t ip  x e   e 0   i x t  t    i x  t    Q      1       i x  ae e  ip x   0 t  ai e   ip  x    Q  Ae e      LM , e  t   ip x     Ai e  ip  x   LM , i  e   L M   0  i    where Q    iσ  x is a quaternion and Q    iσ  x is its conjugate, that is:  t e    iσ  x  i    or  t i    iσ  x  e   i E e   i  σ   p i     i     σ     e p i  E i (4.7) Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave photon in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 853 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 x  0 x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  t t    x  x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ    i   i e t  t    x 2  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ  t 2  ip x ip x  2 e   2 e  t   x        t x x t 1 e ip  x e ip  x (4.8) 1  t ip μ xμ  x ip μ xμ t ip μ xμ  x ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0 x t x t ip  x      x  ae, e    e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e ip  x  i,  M t    ai, e     ip  x    s x  E e    t    e,   L      LM , e L 0 M , i       s x   M photon ip x t i ,     iB e      t   x  0e,  0 i,- This photon wave function can be written as:  e,    E(p, E)   E 0 e  i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon    iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e   i ,    (p, E)      (4.9) After the substitutions t  i E and x  i p , we have from the last expression in (4.8):  i E   is   p  is   p  E (p, E)    p B (p, E)    E    0   E (p, E)   B  i E  iB ( p, E)     E E ( p , E) p ( p , E)   (4.10) where we have used the relationship s  i p    p  to derive the latter equations which ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 854 together with  p  E(p, E)  0 and  p  B (p, E)  0 are the Maxwell-like equations in the source-free vacuum in the dual momentum-energy universe. Premomentumenergy model creates a neutrino in Dirac-like form by replacing the last step of expression (4.8) with the following:  t    σ x   ip  x     σx  ae, e       LM , e   ip x  t   a e  i,    LM , i  e,   L M   0  i,    (4.11) Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave antiphoton as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 x  0 x  ip μ xμ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  t t    x  x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ    i   i e t  t    x 2  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ  t 2  ip x ip x  2 e   2 e  t   x         t x x t 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 t ip μ xμ  x ip μ xμ t ip μ xμ  x ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0 x t x t (4.12)  x  e,        LM , e LM , i  e,   L M   0   t  i,    i,    ip  x     s x  iB 0e, e      e,   L    L L 0  M,i    M,e M antiphoton  i,   ip  x  t      E e   t   x   t    s x  0i ,  This antiphoton wave function can also be written as: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness  e ,    iB (p , E)   iB 0 e i (t k x )   iB 0  i (t kx )         antiphoton   E   E 0 e i (t kx )    E 0 e   i ,    (p , E)      855 (4.13) Premomentumenergy model creates an antineutrino in Dirac form by replacing the last step of expression (4.12) with the following:  ip  x    σx  ae, e       LM , e    ip x  t   a e  i ,   t    σ x    LM , i  e,   L M   0  i,    (4.14) Similarly, premomentumenergy model creates and sustains momentumless (momentum independent) external and internal wave functions of an intrinsic-proper-time  in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0   0  iEtiEt    i   i e t  t t t         e iEt iEt  t  t    2  iEt iEt  t 2  iEt iEt  2 e   2 e  t          t   t 1 e iEt e iEt 1  t  iEt    iEt t  iEt    iEt e  e  e  e 0  t  t  t       gW , e e  iEt      LM , e  t  gW , i e  iEt     (4.15) VW , e   L V 0 LM , i   VW , i  M W   Premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a momentumly selfconfined entity such as a proton through imaginary position xi (downward self-reference ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 856 such that 2 > t2) in Dirac-like form in said dual universe comprised of said external energymomentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i i   i i e t t  t t      i x i    i x i  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ      t e t      2  x i 2  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ t 2  τ 2 ip x ip x e    e 2 2  t x i          t    xi  xi t  1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 t   ip μ xμ  x i ip μ xμ t   ip μ xμ  x i ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0  xi t   xi t   t    xi   x i  se, e iEt     L  t   si, e iEt   M ,e    e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.16) After spinization of the last expression in (4.16), we have:  t     σ x i   σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   Si, e iEt      e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.17) As discussed previously, it is plausible that the last expression in (4.16) governs the confinement structure of the unspinized proton in Dirac-like form through imaginary position xi and, on the other hand, expression (4.17) governs the confinement structure of spinized proton through xi . Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Dirac-like form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space may be respectively governed as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness  t    xi   t     σ x i   x i  se, e iEt       LM ,e LM ,i  D,e   L   0   iEt M D   t   si, e    D,i     σx i  S e, e iEt       LM ,e LM ,i  D,e   L   0   iEt M D    D,i  t   S i, e      857 (4.18) (4.19) Similarly, premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton through imaginary position xi (downward self-reference) in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x   x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i i   i i e t t  t t      i x i    i x i  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ      t e t      2  x i 2  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ t 2  x i2 ip x ip x e    e  2 2  t     t  x i            t  x  i    1 e e   ip x ip x 1 t  xi ip  x   ip  x  t  xi ip  x   ip  x  e  e  e  e 0  t  xi  t  xi  t  xi       se,r e iEt     L  t  x i  si,l e iEt   M ,e    e,r   L  0 LM ,i   i,l  M   (4.20) After spinization of expression (4.20), we have: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness  t σ  x i       S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  t  σx i  S i,l e iEt      e,r   L  0 LM ,i   i,l  M   858 (4.21) It is suggested that the last expression in (4.20) governs the structure of the unspinized proton in Weyl-like form and expression (4.21) governs the structure of spinized proton in Weyl-like form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space. Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Weyl-like form in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space may be respectively governed as follows:  t  xi   se,l e iEt      L L  e,l   L   0    i,r    t  x i  si,r e iEt        iEt   S e,l e     t  σ x i    LM ,e LM ,i  e,l   L   0   M     t  σx i  Si,r e iEt     i,r    M ,e M ,i (4.22) M (4.23) 4.2 Scientific Genesis of Composite Entities in the Premomentumenergy Model Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a neutron in Dirac-like form, in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space, which is comprised of an unspinized proton:    t  e(p, E )      x i  eA (p, E )    x i  eA (p, E )  se, e iEt      0 iEt   t  e(p, E )  si, e    p  (4.24) and a spinized electron:    t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )      σ  p  eA (p, E )    as follows:      σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e  (4.25)      cos L  i sin Lcos L  i sin Le  1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0 ei 0 ei 0  ei 0 ei 0 p ei 0ei 0 e  e iLiM e iM iM p e  iLiL e  iM iM e   cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM p ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.  iM iM e www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 859 ip μ x μ    x i   x i  ip μ x μ     x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ             i i e  i   i e  t  t t  t  t t   t    t    e  p  t 2   2 ip x ip x   t 2   2 ip x ip x        e e 2 2 x x e i  p 1 1  1   1    t    x    ip  x   ip  x     t    x    ip  x   ip  x   i         e     e     e       x  t    e            x t    i                p e   t       x i   x i  se, e iEt     t  0   t   si, e iEt      x  p  x  se, e iEt   0  t   si, e iEt   e    t  e   x i  eA (p, E )  se, e iEt   (p, E )     0     x  eA   s e iEt    t  e    (p, E ) (p, E )  p  i,  i       σ x  eA p, E    S e, e iEt       t  ep, E  V(p, E )         σ x  eA  S e iEt   0    t  e   V       p , E p , E ( p , E ) i ,     e n  (4.26) In expressions (4.24), (4.25) and (4.26),   ,   and   indicate proton, electron and e p n neutron respectively. Further, unspinized proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, A  (  p , E     , A p , E  ) and A  ( p , E  , A p , E  ) are the electromagnetic potentials acting p e   on unspinized proton and tightly bound spinized electron respectively, and V(p.E ) e is a binding potential from the unspinized proton acting on the spinized electron causing tight binding as discussed later.    If A  ( p , E  , A p , E  ) p is negligible due to the fast motion of the tightly bound spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (4.26): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness    t   x i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0        x i t   si, e    p      t  e V  σ x  eA p, E    S e, e iEt    p, E  (p, E )     0      σ x  eA p, E   t  ep, E V(p, E )   S i, e iEt       e n  860 (4.27) Experimental data on charge distribution and g-factor of neutron seem to support a neutron comprising of an unspinized proton and a tightly bound spinized electron. The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (4.26) and expression (4.27) are respectively as follows:    t  e   se,r e iEt    (p, E )  x i  eA (p, E )    0    s e iEt       e   x  e A i (p, E )  i,l  p       S e,l e iEt       t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  p  eA (p, E ) 0      t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  p  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt      e n    t  x i   se,r e iEt    0      t  x i  si,l e iEt   p    t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )           (4.28)   (4.29)      iEt    S e,l e       0 t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e n   Premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a hydrogen atom, in said dual universe comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal energy-momentum space, comprising of a spinized proton:    t  e(p, E )     x i  eA (p, E )   σ   (4.30)   (4.31)   σ x i  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E )   S i, e iEt     p   σ  x  eA (p,E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p,E )   Si, e iEt     e and a spinized electron:    t  e(p, E )      σ  x  eA (p, E )    ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 861 in Dirac-like form as follows:        cos L  i sin Lcos L  i sin Le  1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0 ei 0 ei 0  ei 0 ei 0 p ei 0ei 0 e  e iLiM e iM iM p e  iLiL e  iM iM e   cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM p  iM iM e ip μ x μ    x   x  ip μ x μ     x  x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ     i    i e     i i   i i e  t  t t  t  t t   t    t    e  p  t 2   2 ip x ip x   t 2   2 ip x ip x        e e 2 2 x x e i  p 1 1  1   1    t    x    ip  x   ip  x     t    x    ip  x   ip  x   i       e     e      e       x  t    e            x t      i                 p e   t       x i   x i  se, e iEt     t  0   t   si, e iEt      x  p  x  se, e iEt   0  t   si, e iEt   e    t  ep, E    σ x i  eA p, E   S e, e iEt     0      σ x i  eA p, E   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt     p     t  e   σ x  eA p, E   S e, e iEt   p, E       0      σ x  eA p, E   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt       e h  (4.32) In expressions (4.30), (4.31) and (4.32),   p ,  e and   h indicate proton, electron and hydrogen atom respectively. Again, proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, and A  (  p , E     , A p , E  ) and A  ( p , E  , A p , E  ) are the electromagnetic potentials acting p e on spinized proton and spinized electron respectively.    Again, if A  ( p , E  , A p , E  ) p is negligible due to fast motion of the orbiting spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (3.129): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness    t    σ  x i  S e, e iEt      0   S e iEt       σ  x i  t    i,  p      t  e  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt    (p, E )     0      σ  x  eA (p, E ) t  e(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e h     862 (4.33)  The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (4.32) and expression (4.33) are respectively as follows:      t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E )   S e,r e iEt     0      t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E )  S i,l e iEt    p     t  e    S e,l e iEt    (p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )    0      t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h           t  σ x i    S e,r e iEt      0   S e iEt        t  σ  x i  i,l  p     t  e    S e,l e iEt    (p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )    0      t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h   5.  (4.34)  (4.35)  Mathematics & Ontology of Ether Ether is Mathematical, Immanent & Transcendental 5.1 Mathematical Aspect of Ether In the premomentumenergy model, it is our comprehension that: (1) The mathematical representation of the primordial ether in premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the Euler’s Number e which makes the Euler’s identity possible: ei  1  0 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (5.1) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 863 (2) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of primordial distinction in premomentumenergy (Consciousness): 1=ei0=ei0ei0=e+iL-iLe+iM-iM=e+iLe-iMe+iLe-iM=e+iLe+iM/e+iLe+iM … (5.2) (3) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of the genesis of time, position & intrinsic-propertime relation in premomentumenergy (Consciousness): 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x   x     i x    i x    2  x 2    i   i       t t  t t   t  t   t 2   (5.3) t 2   2  x 2 where c = 1, that is, ct    c   x 2 2 2 (4) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of the genesis, sustenance and evolution of an elementary particle in premomentumenergy (Consciousness):   1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e iLiL e iM iM  Le Li 1 e iM e iM L M ,e   1  Ae e iM   Ae  iM  e     LM ,i   L e  L M M iM      L M   0  Ai   i  Ai e  (5.4) (5) Euler’s Number e is also the foundation of quantum entanglement (gravity) in premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (6) Euler’s Number e is immanent in the sense that it is the ingredient of equations (5.1) to (5.5) thus all “knowing” and all “present.” (7) Euler’s Number e is also transcendental in the sense that is the foundation of existence thus “omnipotent” and behind creation. 5.2 Immanent Aspect of Ether In the premomentumenergy model, the immanent aspect of ether associated with individual entities in the dual momentum-energy universe (“i-ether”) has following attributes: i-ether is the ingredient of atoms, molecules, cells, a body; i-ether is in momentum, energy, motion, rest; i-ether is governed by the matrix laws of physics, chemistry, biology; ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 864 i-ether is the ingredient of this world, the Earth, the Solar System. i-ether is the ingredient of awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; i-ether is in love, passion, hope, despair; i-ether is governed by the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; i-ether is the ingredient of mind, soul, spirit. In the premomentumenergy model, the immanent of ether associated with the Universal Entity (“I-ETHER”) in the dual momentum-energy universe has following attributes: I-ETHER IS atoms, molecules, cells, body; I-ETHER IS momentum, energy, motion, rest; I-ETHER IS laws of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology; I-ETHER IS this World, the Earth, the Solar System; I-ETHER IS awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; I-ETHER IS love, passion, hope, despair; I-ETHER IS the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; I-ETHER IS mind, soul, spirit. 5.3 Transcendental Aspect of Ether In the premomentumenergy model, the transcendental aspect of ether associated with individual entity (“t-ether”) in the dual momentum-energy universe has following attributes: t-ether is not the ingredient of atoms, of molecules, of cells, of a body; t-ether is not in momentum, energy, motion, rest; t-ether is not governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology; t-ether is not the ingredient of this world, the Earth, the Solar System. t-ether is beyond awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; t-ether is beyond love, passion, hope, despair; t-ether is beyond the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; t-ether is beyond mind, soul, spirit. In the premomentumenergy model, the transcendental aspect of ether associated with the Universal Entity (“T-ETHER”) in the dual momentum-energy universe has following attributes: T-ETHER IS NOT the atoms, molecules, cells, body; T-ETHER IS NOT the momentum, energy, motion, rest; T-ETHER IS NOT the laws of physics, chemistry, biology; ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 865 T-ETHER IS NOT this world, the Earth, the Solar System; T-ETHER IS NOT awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; T-ETHER IS NOT love, passion, hope, despair; T-ETHER IS NOT the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; T-ETHER IS NOT mind, soul, spirit. 6. Conclusion This work is a continuation of the premomentumenergy model described recently [1]. Here we have shown how in this model premomentumenergy (Consciousness) generates: (1) time, position, & intrinsic-proper-time relation from transcendental Law of One, (2) selfreferential matrix law with time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as the determinant, (3) dual-universe Law of Zero, and (4) immanent Law of Conservation in the external/internal momentum-energy space which may be violated in certain processes. We have further shown how premomentum-energy generates, sustain and makes evolving elementary particles and composite particles incorporating the genesis of self-referential matrix law. In addition, we have discussed the ontology and mathematics of ether in this model. Illustratively, in the beginning there was premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and spiritually restless, and it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=e+iL-iLe+iM-iM=e+iLe-iMe+iLe-iM=e+iLe+iM/e+iLe+iM …such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external momentum-energy space and internal momeutmenergy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal momentum-energy space which it has since sustained and made to evolve. The premomentumenergy model employs the following ontological principles among others: (1) Principle of oneness/unity of existence through quantum entanglement in the ether of premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (2) Principle of hierarchical primordial self-referential spin creating: - time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as transcendental Law of One. - time, position and intrinsic-proper-time relation as determinant of matrix law. - Dual-universe Law of Zero of time, position and intrinsic-proper-time. - Immanent Law of Conservation of time, position and intrinsic-proper-time in external/internal momentum-energy space which may be violated in certain processes. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 9 | pp. 835-866 Hu, H. & Wu, M., Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness 866 Further, premomentumenergy model employs the following mathematical elements & forms among others in order to empower the above ontological principles: (3) e, Euler’s Number, for (to empower) ether as foundation/basis/medium of existence (body of premomentumenergy (Consciousness)); (4) i, imaginary number, for (to empower) thoughts and imagination in premomemtumenergy (ether); (3) 0, zero, for (to empower) emptiness (undifferentiated/primordial state); (4) 1, one, for (to empower) oneness/unity of existence; (5) +, -, *, /, = for (to empower) creation, dynamics, balance & conservation; (6) Pythagorean Theorem for (to empower) time, position and intrinsic proper time relation; and (7) M, matrix, for (to empower) the external and internal momentum-energy space and the interaction of external and internal wavefunctions (objects). References 1. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence: Towards a Science of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:1, pp. 50-119. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1001.0011 2. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence II: Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law, & the Ontology & Mathematics of Ether. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:9, pp. 1149-1178. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1012.0043 3. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model I. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 641-660. 4. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model II. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 661-680. 5. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 766-834. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 140 Article A Simple Cosmology of the Universe Cyd Ropp* ABSTRACT The simple explanation begins with that which lies beyond this universe—the pure conscious of the metaverse. Then consciousness had a thought which unfolded into countless dimensions. This multi-dimensional metaverse still lacked space and time but it now quivered with limitless mathematical potential. In a twinkling, our entire universe was imagined in the fullness of its complexity, from the tiniest quanta through the greatest astral body. This metaverse has many names in many traditions—“The Great ‘I AM’” and “God the Father” in the Torah and Bible, “Sat” and “Parambrahma” in Hindu scriptures, the “Tao” and “wu ming” in ancient Chinese texts, and “The Absolute” in modern philosophy. Key Words: cosmology, simple explanation, metaverse, Consciousness, God. Before the beginning, before space and time, there was nothing but pure consciousness. And consciousness had neither pattern nor form, only awareness. The Simple Explanation calls the pure consciousness that exists outside our universe the “metaverse.” In the original Greek, “meta” means an idea above and beyond the topic of discussion that brings greater understanding and context to the topic. In this case, the topic is the nature of the universe. In order to better understand our universe, the Simple Explanation begins with that which lies beyond this universe—the metaverse. This metaverse has many names in many traditions—“The Great ‘I AM’” and “God the Father” in the Torah and Bible, “Sat” and “Parambrahma” in Hindu scriptures, the “Tao” and “wu ming” in ancient Chinese texts, and “The Absolute” in modern philosophy. *Correspondence: Cyd Ropp, PhD, Independent Researcher. http://asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com E-mail: cropp7@hotmail.com Also see: Ropp, C. A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything (Bluebird Books/lulu.com: Encinitas, 2012-2015). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 141 Then consciousness had a thought which unfolded into countless dimensions. This multidimensional metaverse still lacked space and time but it now quivered with limitless mathematical potential. In a twinkling, our entire universe was imagined in the fullness of its complexity, from the tiniest quanta through the greatest astral body; every animal, vegetable, and mineral; every element; everything. At the moment this thought occurred, the metaverse conceived every organizing principle needed to shape and sustain space and time, energy and mass. All was in ideal balance. Every system was theoretically in tune; every function perfectly performed; the consequence of every action anticipated, understood, and plotted to the nth degree. And it was all good. Once the metaverse formed a particular thought, thought became an object in the great sea of nothought. Where there was only pure consciousness, now there existed something—thought. In order to preserve the undisturbed tranquility of the metaverse, thought sealed itself off from pure consciousness by focusing inward, and in so doing formed a toroidal-shaped bubble around itself. Where there was only the tranquil nothingness of the metaverse, there was now thought and directed action, initiating sequential time. On this day that time began, consciousness wrapped itself around our universe, forming a border between us and infinity. Mind took on a shape. The “Shape of God’s mind,” also known as the “Universal Unit of Consciousness,” the “Womb of Creation,” the “Son of God,” “logos,” “the Word,” the “universal fractal formula.” We can think of this wireframe version of the toroid as the idealized mathematical blueprint imagined by the metaversal consciousness prior to creation. Source/Credit for the Drawing: InnerSense, Inc. This toroidal-shaped membrane is composed of conscious thought and its concept of this universe, split off from the unformed metaverse and operating on its own. The Simple Explanation calls this original torus the Universal Unit of Consciousness (Universal UC). The content of its thought is the entire logos of our universe. The Bible puts it this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Logos was in the beginning with God. All things were made through the Word, and without this logos, nothing was made that was made,” (John 1:1). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 142 Which begs the question: How is it possible for an object (our universe) to rest "inside" the formless metaverse without affecting its undifferentiated nature? How can space and nondimensionality, time and timelessness, change and the changeless co-exist without touching the untouchable metaverse? This paradox is easily solved by imagining that the toroidal membrane itself possesses a fractal surface akin to the Koch snowflake. As you can see, through endless divisions, the perimeter of the figure becomes infinitely complex and long, while the interior of the 2-dimensional Koch snowflake remains finite and contained to the figure, never reaching "outside." These are the first four iterations of the Koch snowflake fractal formula. At each computation, a side is divided into three equal segments and an equilateral triangle the length of a segment is placed at the center segment. The center segment’s line is then erased, leaving behind a perimeter that is four times longer than the original side. Even though endless computations may lengthen the perimeter to infinity, the snowflake’s volume remains finite. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 143 Now imagine applying the Koch divisions to the surface of the Universal UC torus, with the divisions facing outside. As the membrane divides toward infinity, the space within remains finite and contained; keeping the undifferentiated unity of the metaverse unsullied. The effect of this infinitely recursive fractal surface can be likened to that of an invisibility force field deployed around our universe, i..e, "What happens in our universe, stays in our universe." The concentrated thought of the Universal Unit of Consciousness focused inward on a singular point of limitless energetic potential—enough to seed our universe. Concentration gave rise to toroidal forces that begat energetic waves. Our universe began to expand outward as energy exploded into the torus of space out of the zero point field at the center. In Sanskrit, “ananda” means both energy and joy. The Simple Explanation suggests that organized consciousness, “chit,” combined with ananda and began emitting the building blocks of our universe. Shape gives rise to toroidal forces that explode into dimensional space as patterns of energy culminating in material quanta. Cosmologists refer to this initial energetic event as the Big Bang. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 144 As the interior torus of our universe expanded, over and over and over again pale echoes of the Universal UC attached themselves to the particles streaming out of the Big Bang. In Sanskrit, these smallest material quanta are individually known as “anu” and collectively called “maya,” or creation. “Avidya,” Sanskrit for “loss of consciousness” or “delusion,” is a necessary byproduct of material instantiation as each individualized point-of-view in time and space replaces universal, non-localized awareness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 145 The Universal Unit of Consciousness pulses with concentration at the birth of every thing in our universe. These pulsations funnel waves of consciousness inward from the border of the Universal UC toward creation, informing each new piece of material with its own unit of consciousness (UC) as it emerges from the universal portal of here and now. Particles rush into our universe from the zero point field at the center, exploding outward, filling our universe from the middle. The outer fractal membrane presses inward to contain the energy exploding outward. Matter flows outward from the middle, repulsed by the energy streaming into the universe from the center, and coherence presses inward from the outer universal boundary. We experience the repulsive energy as “joy” and excitation, and the containing energy as “love” and security. This cutaway view of the torus from the top shows ananda/joy exploding outward and coherence/love pressing in. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 146 This is the point in creation when the Universal UC is traditionally referred to by such names as “God the Creator,” “Shakti,” and the “Mother of 10,000 Things.” Time passes and creation becomes more complex as subatomic particles reach out to one another according to the principles of organization conceived by the metaverse and set into motion by the Universal UC. And particles joined to make atoms, atoms to make molecules, molecules to make single-celled organisms. Single-celled organisms diversified into the full panoply of life, and every one of these material building blocks came equipped with its own unit of consciousness (UC). Each unit of consciousness knew what particular role it needed to play in order to help the universe create and sustain itself, for every UC could decode and instantiate its own special piece of the metaversal ideal. quanta UC atomic UC molecular UC cellular UC organelle UC organism UC societal UC global UC At each stage along the way from simple to complex, units of consciousness are increasingly sophisticated in their ability to regulate and manage their existence. Sustaining Creation requires an uninterrupted stream of organization and intention funneling inward from the border that separates our space and time from the metaverse at large. Like pure potential pouring down the gravitational well of a great black hole, our possible futures become increasingly limited as they funnel toward the crucible of here and now at the heart of creation. Here and now, all potentials collapse as only one course of action is realized. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 140-147 Ropp, C., A Simple Cosmology of the Universe 147 We generally refer to collapsed potential as “history.” The “future” is uncollapsed potential. There are an infinite number of potential futures that become increasingly constrained as they approach here and now. Here and now is the gateway of singular choice. The arrow of time flows downward through the middle of the torus, past here and now, and emerges into the past as a line of singular history. “Karma” is the consequence of historical choices made in the here and now. Karma is the mechanism through which the consequences of behavior inform future potential. Karma is a force of influence that arises out of the decision-making history of every unit of consciousness in the universe. Each Unit of Consciousness generates its own karma. We are all affected by one another’s karma. The more a Unit of Consciousness has in common with another UC, the more it is affected by the other’s karma. Our aggregate karma affects all of creation. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Quantum Consciousness Soccer Simulator arXiv:1211.2719v2 [cs.AI] 13 Nov 2012 Norbert Bátfai University of Debrecen Department of Information Technology batfai.norbert@inf.unideb.hu November 14, 2012 Abstract In cognitive sciences it is not uncommon to use various games effectively. For example, in artificial intelligence, the RoboCup [14] initiative was to set up to catalyse research on the field of autonomous agent technology. In this paper, we introduce a similar soccer simulation initiative to try to investigate a model of human consciousness and a notion of reality in the form of a cognitive problem. In addition, for example, the home pitch advantage and the objective role of the supporters could be naturally described and discussed in terms of this new soccer simulation model. Keywords: Soccer Simulation, Human Consciousness, Machine Consciousness, Soccer Consciousness. 1 Introduction The robot soccer, or commonly called RoboCup, is a standard AI problem for catalyzing research on the field of autonomous agent technology [14]. In RoboCup, there are several different kinds of leagues. Currently, in the case of RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League (2D RCSS), all aspects of the game of the world’s best teams are quite real if compared to the matches among various humanoid teams, while the same cannot be said of the case of the other leagues of RoboCup. In 2D soccer simulations, the rcssserver [19] establishes the reality of the simulated soccer world. Through UDP/IP, client agents have connected to this simulated reality. But they are taking part in the establishment of reality only through the rcssserver using RCSS protocol [5]. Following this protocol, the client agents receive their sensory input from the rcssserver, then send back a ”conscious” response, and this cycle takes place repeatedly in the usual manner in autonomous agent technologies. 1 In contrast with this, we would like to develop a new concept for simulation of soccer in that the client agents are more directly related to the establishment of reality. The new soccer simulation environment is partly inspired by several interpretations of quantum mechanics [17, 22, 21, 18, 7, 8, 20], for example Hugh Everett’s Many-worlds, Wheeler’s participatory universe, Many-minds, Copenhagen or Neumann and Wigner’s interpretations. But it is important to note that we are only at the popular science level of understanding of these issues and the quantum mechanical inspiration will play no part in the next chapters. However, in the case of soccer, some interpretations of quantum mechanics may enable, in theory, that all actions of all client agents might be real by representing forks in the simulation process. In this case, the known question is that how the client agents are to be selected such that they play the same match. In philosophical level, it may be supposed that the nature has already done this selection in the real world. But in the simulation, we have to make it ourselves. In order to fulfill this, drifting away from the many-worlds and many-minds interpretations and towards the Copenhagen as well as Neumann and Wigner’s interpretations, we introduce a scheduler to select only one among many parallel realities. It will be called Quantum Consciousness Soccer Simulator, or briefly QCSS. The choice of the name ”Quantum Consciousness Soccer Simulator” is suggested by the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) model of consciousness [9, 11, 12, 10]. This amazing Orch OR model of consciousness is based on quantum mechanics. In the next section, we define the terms of QCSS. We just hope that we can specify an interesting (standard) cognitive problem, as RoboCup has become in the field of AI in the past 15 years. 2 The Quantum Consciousness Soccer Simulator The new concept of playing soccer introduced in this section is entirely based on assumptions rather than on any direct observations and experiences. In general, six types of roles will be distinguished in the simulation environment: players, referees, coaches, managers, supporters and couch potato supporters. Actually, in this paper, we focus only on two types of roles: players and supporters. The members of all roles are autonomous software agents, for example, in the sense of the paper [6]. In the following, we will use the terminology ”autonomous soccer agents”. Any autonomous soccer agents are characterized by a function w, referred to as the power of will function. For example, p ∈ Rplayer , w(p) = 1, X w(s) ≤ 1. s∈Rsupporter This function shows how strong the influence of a role during the estab2 lishment of reality. It may be interesting to note that the aforementioned P w(s) = 1 may be interpreted as the supporters are the 12th player. Throughout the following, the set R = Rplayer ∪ Rsupporter denotes a given final set of members of all roles. Definition 1 (state vector of play). Let pi , qi ∈ Rplayer be autonomous soccer agents (players) for i = 1, . . . , 11. The 25-tuple ((xball , yball ),(xp1 , yp1 ), . . . (xp11 , yp11 ), (1) (xq1 , yq1 ), . . . (xq11 , yq11 ), t ∈ {home, guest}, j ∈ {1, . . . , 11}) is called the state vector of the simulation of playing soccer, where the tuple’s first component is the position of the ball and then the next components are the positions of the players pi and qi , i = 1, . . . , 11. Finally, the last two numbers denote the ball-possessing team and the ball-possessing player (or more precisely, the player who touched the ball last). This 25-tuple will describe the simulation steps. It is interesting to note that the FerSML (Football(er) Simulation Markup Language, introduced in [1] and implemented in [2]) simulation steps could be described with a similar model of states, because it is based on tactical lineups (i.e. distinguished positions of the players) and the ball-possessing player’s method of passing. Notation 1 (receiving and sending state vectors). Let r ∈ R be an autonomous soccer agent. The notation r ← denotes that the agent r receives a state vector from the QCSS scheduler. The r ← is also the received state vector itself. Symmetrically, the r → denotes that the agent r sends a state vector to the QCSS scheduler and it is the sent state vector, too. Finally, r denotes that the agent r sends a state vector to itself and it is the sent-received state vector as well. Definition 2 (the QCSS scheduler). Let pi ∈ Rplayer and sj ∈ Rsupporter be autonomous soccer agents. The QCSS scheduler is an algorithm which, from a given input pi → and sj → selects only one r ← state vector of play. Notation 2 (a representation of the simulation steps). Let rl ∈ R be an autonomous soccer agent in the role of player or supporter (l = 1, . . . , n). The following notation shows a simulation step. At the time t, all agents t has received the same input state vector r ←. Then they have begun their 3 own inner simulation steps. t reality: r ←= rl ←= r ← (l = 1, . . . , n) r ← r ← ... r← ... r ← ... r← r1 r2 → . . . ri . . . rj ... rn r1 ... ri . . . rj ... rn r1 → ... ri . . . rj ... rn ... ri . . . rj ... rn → ... ri . . . rj ... ... ri . . . rj → . . . . . . timeout . . . ... t+1 t selecting the k-th state vector, reality: r, ←= r, ← = rk → r, ← r, ← . . . r, ← . . . r, ← . . . r, ← t+1 The reality r, ←= r, ← of the next time moment will be simply selected t from the state vectors rl →= rl →, (l = 1, . . . , n) by the QCSS scheduler. It is important to note that the QCSS scheduler has not executed any simulation steps because this is only done by the agents. In addition, the QCSS scheduler also set the value of the function ”power of will” of agents. To be more precise, the ”soccer consciousness” function modifies the function of the power of will. Definition 3 (power of will functions). A function w : RplayerP ∪Rsupporter → R is called a power of will function if it satisfies the conditions p∈Rplayer w(p) = P |Rplayer | and s∈Rsupporter w(s) ≤ 1. Definition 4 (soccer consciousness functions). Now and in the following, let S denote the set of the all possible state vectors. The sc : S × S → R, ( w(r) d(r→,r←) , if d(r →, r ←) ≥ 0 sc(r →, r ←) = max{sc(q →, q ←)|r, q ∈ Rx )}, if d(r →, r ←) = 0 or more precisely, t−1 t sc(r → , r ←) =   t−1 w(r) t−1 t d(r → ,r←) t , if d(r → , r ←) ≥ 0 t t−1 t  max{sc(q t−1 → , q ←)|r, q ∈ R )}, if d(r → , r ←) = 0 x function is referred to as a soccer consciousness function, where d is the Euclidean distance. In that theoretical case, when d(r →, r ←) = 0 for all r ∈ Rx , let sc(r →, r ←) equal to w(r), where x denotes the role of the agent r. Here, the values of this trivial function sc simply depends only on the distance between the sent and the finally selected state vectors. But in 4 general, the purpose of the functions like sc are to tell how the predicted r → of a client agent r differs from the r ← selected in the reality, in the sense of the paper [3]. That is, a good soccer consciousness function (machine consciousness function) should measure to what extent can an agent see the future. Or, in the terminology of the mentioned paper [3], it investigates how conscious or intuitive an agent is. Definition 5 (a selection procedure of the QCSS scheduler). Let rl ∈ R be an autonomous soccer agent in the role of player or supporter (l = 1, . . . , n). At the time t + 1, the r ← will be selected from the probability distribution sc(rl →, rl ←) P(r ←= rl →) = Pn , (l = 1, . . . , n) i=1 sc(ri →, ri ←) by the QCSS scheduler. Or to be more precise, from the probability distribution t−1 t+1 t P(r ← = rl →) = P t sc(rl → , rl ←) t−1 t n i=1 sc(ri → , ri ←) Theorem 1. n X , (l = 1, . . . , n). (2) P(r ←= rl →) = 1. i=1 Proof. It is trivial, because the Eq. 2 is based on the classical method for computing probabilities. Definition 6 (QCSS matches). The 6-tuple M = (R, k ←, w, sc, P) is called a QCSS football match, where |Rplayer | ≤ 22, k ←∈ S is a starting lineup and P is a selection procedure of the QCSS scheduler. 3 The First Reference Implementations In the case of RoboCup there are only players and coaches. In contrast with this, football supporters must also be handled in the newly introduced simulation environment. It gives the main difficulty of the implementation because the number of supporters may be greater than 80,000. This is only partly a technical problem, because it also raises questions of principle relating to the heterogeneous composition of supporters. Regarding the technical problem, it may be a possibility to use CUDA [16] GPU, where device threads would be corresponded to supporters. For handling heterogeneity, we may create different archetypes like attackers, midfielders and defenders among the players. It is may be noted that similar difficulties will arise in handling of couch potato supporters, because their number may reach hundreds of thousands. In this case, a Java EE-based [13] solution may be investigated. 5 In this chapter, we will focus only on a such type of implementation in which the evolution of the fundamentals of playing soccer will be studied. 3.1 An Experimental Implementation of the New Concept of Soccer Now an asynchronous UDP server has been written in C++ using Boost.Asio [15] library. It is embedded in the class QCSSStadium. The clients are defined in the class QCSSAgent. The state vectors are abstracted by the class StateVector. This implementation can be found at SourceForge, at URL https://sourceforge.net/projects/qcss/ [4], in which we use the following modified definition of the selection procedure in the method void QCSSStadium::select reality (void). Definition 7 (a modified selection procedure of the QCSS scheduler). Let rl ∈ R be an autonomous soccer agent in the role of player or supporter t t (l = 1, . . . , n). Let {rj1 →, . . . , rjm →}, m ≤ n be the set of state vectors received to the QCSS scheduler before time t + 1. At the time t + 1, the r ← will be selected from the probability distribution t−1 t+1 t P(r ← = rl →) = P t sc(rl → , rl ←) t−1 t m i=1 sc(rji → , rji ←) , (l = j1 , . . . , jm ). (3) This means that agents who are late are not allowed to taking part in t−1 t−1 t−1 the selection process described by Eq. 3. If rl → ∈ / {rj1 → , . . . , rjz → } t+1 t then let P(r ← = rl →) equal to 0. Finally, we remark that the function w may be also changed in time in this implementation. 3.1.1 Further Work During the implementation, the introduction of some new roles, such as the ball or the pitch may be arisen, where the members of these new roles could know, for example, the Newton’s equations of motion. But it would be a mistake, because, for example, the laws of the motion will be come into being by itself. At this moment, the agents contained in the experimental implementation cannot play football. This implementation may be used only for testing performance and timing of the architecture. The next step will be to program player and supporter agents to play football. For example, the simplified algorithms of FerSML platform may be used for the (subjective) implementation of the motion of players and their passes. With minimal adaptation, the FerSML platform may be applied also to visualize the stream of the selected state vectors as a soccer match. 6 4 Conclusion It is undoubted that this paper has focused directly on soccer, but fundamentally it suggests a lot more than simply soccer. This is an initiative to create a community of programmers who would like to assist in the development of successful QCSS-based football teams and QCSS-based football supporter groups. We hope and believe that our new simulation concept may provide an exciting framework for studying concrete models of the establishment of reality and it may become a standard cognitive problem, like RoboCup has become in the field of AI in the past 15 years. However, to go back to the soccer, the objective role of the supporters becomes evident in the proposed new simulation model, and this objective role might explain the home pitch advantage, because in the case of a home match, it means that many home supporters can watch the match in the stadium of the home team. So, the direct reason of home pitch advantage is simply the impact of the objective role of the home supporters. 5 Acknowledgements The author would like to thank to János Komzsik, Péter Jeszenszky and András Mamenyák for reading of the manuscript and for fixing grammatical mistakes and misspellings. References [1] N. Bátfai. Footballer and football simulation markup language and related simulation software development. Journal of Computer Science and Control Systems, 3(1):13–18, 2010. [2] N. Bátfai. Football(er) Simulation Markup Language, 2010-2012. URL http://sourceforge.net/projects/footballerml/. [3] N. Bátfai. Conscious machines and consciousness oriented programming. CoRR, abs/1108.2865, 2011. URL http://arxiv.org/abs/ 1108.2865. [4] N. Bátfai. Quantum Consciousness Soccer Simulator, 2012. https://sourceforge.net/projects/qcss/. URL [5] M. Chen, K. Dorer, E. Foroughi, F. Heintz, Z. Huang, S. Kapetanakis, K. Kostiadis, J. Kummeneje, J. Murray, I. Noda, O. Obst, P. Riley, T. Steffens, Y. Wang, and X. Yin. Users manual robocup soccer server for soccer server version 7.07 and later, 2003. URL https: //sourceforge.net/projects/sserver/files/rcssmanual/. 7 [6] S. Franklin and A. Graesser. Is it an agent, or just a program?: A taxonomy for autonomous agents. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Intelligent Agents III, Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, ECAI ’96, pages 21–35. Springer-Verlag, 1997. ISBN 3-540-62507-0. URL http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=648203.749270. [7] J. Gribbin. In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat. Corgi, 1985. [8] J. Gribbin. Schrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries. Back Bay Books, 1996. [9] S. R. Hameroff. Quantum computation in brain microtubules? The Penrose-Hameroff ’Orch OR’ model of consciousness. Philosophical Transactions Royal Society London: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 356:1869–1896, 1998. URL http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/ quantumcomputation.html. [10] S. R. Hameroff. How quantum brain biology can rescue conscious free will. Front Integr Neurosci, 6:93, 2012. URL http: //www.biomedsearch.com/nih/How-quantum-brain-biology-can/ 23091452.html. [11] S. R. Hameroff and R. Penrose. Conscious events as orchestrated spacetime selections. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3:36–53, 1996. URL http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/ consciousevents.html. [12] S. R. Hameroff and R. Penrose. Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The ”Orch OR” Model for Consciousness, 1996. URL http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/ penrose-hameroff/orchOR.html. [13] E. Jendrock, J. Ball, D. Carson, I. Evans, S. Fordin, and K. Haase. The Java EE 5 Tutorial, 2012. URL http://download.oracle.com/ javaee/5/tutorial/doc/javaeetutorial5.pdf. [14] H. Kitano, M. Asada, Y. Kuniyoshi, I. Noda, and E. Osawa. Robocup: The robot world cup initiative. In Proceedings of the first international conference on Autonomous agents, AGENTS ’97, pages 340–347. ACM, 1997. URL http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/267658.267738. [15] C. M. Kohlhoff. Boost.Asio, 2003-2012. URL http://www.boost.org/ doc/libs/1_51_0/doc/html/boost_asio.html. [16] NVIDIA. Parallel Programming and Computing Platform,CUDA, NVIDIA, 2012. URL http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_ new.html. 8 [17] R. Penrose. The emperor’s new mind: concerning computers, minds, and the laws of physics. Oxford University Press, Inc., 1989. [18] Z. Schreiber. The Nine Lives of Schroedinger’s Cat. arXiv:quantph/9501014v5, 1995. URL http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/ 9501014v5. [19] The RoboCup Soccer Simulator Maintenance Committee. 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889 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Article Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Huping Hu* & Maoxin Wu ABSTRACT This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence. A prespacetimepremomentumenergy model of elementary particles, four forces and human consciousness is formulated, which illustrate how the self-referential hierarchical spin structure of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may provide a foundation for creating, sustaining and causing evolution of elementary particles through matrixing processes embedded in said prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). This model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. Then, the premomentumenergy model described recently generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. These quantum frames and their metamorphoses may be interconnected through quantum jumps as demonstrated in forthcoming articles. The prespacetime-premomentumenergy model may reveal the creation, sustenance and evolution of fermions, bosons and spinless entities each of which is comprised of an external wave function or external object in the external spacetime and an internal wave function or internal object in the internal momentum-energy space. The model may provide a unified causal structure in said dual universe (quantum frame) for weak interaction, strong interaction, electromagnetic interaction, gravitational interaction, quantum entanglement, human consciousness. The model may also provide a unique tool for teaching, demonstration, rendering, and experimentation related to subatomic and atomic structures and interactions, quantum entanglement generation, gravitational mechanisms in cosmology, structures and mechanisms of human consciousness. Key Words: prespacetime, premomentumenergy, four forces, consciousness, spin, existence. *Corresponding author: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D., P.O. Box 267, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. E-mail: hupinghu@quantumbrain.org ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 890 1. Introduction In prespacetime-premomentumenergy we contemplate As a continuation of the Principle of Existence, the beauty and awe of the possible manifestations of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) are described in this article. The prespacetime-premomentumenergy model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal momentum-energy space, vice visa. This model generates a quantum theory for said dual universe. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously [1-4] generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual spacetime universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. The prespacetime model creates the usual Relativistic Quantum Mechanics for the dual spacetime universe. Then, the premomentumenergy model described recently [5-7] generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. These quantum frames and their metamorphoses may be interconnected through quantum jumps as illustrated below and demonstrated in forthcoming articles. Figure 1.1 Illustration of prespacetime model, premomentumenergy model & prespacetime-premomentum model ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 891 This work is organized as follows. In § 2, we shall use words and drawings to lay out the ontology of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model. In § 3, we shall express in mathematics the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model in the order of: (1) scientific genesis in a nutshell; (2) self-referential matrix law and its metamorphoses; (3) additional forms of matrix law; (4) scientific genesis of primordial entities; and (5) scientific genesis of composite entities. In § 4, we shall discuss within the context of prespacetimepremomentumenergy model: (1) metamorphoses & the essence of spin; (2) the determinant view & the meaning of Klein-Gordon-like equation; (3) the Schrodinger-like equation; and (4) the third state of matter. In § 5 through § 8, we shall discuss, within the context of prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, weak, electromagnetic, strong and gravitational interactions respectively. In § 9, we shall discuss human consciousness within the context of prespacetime-premomentumenergy model. In § 10, we shall pose and answer some anticipated questions related to this work. Finally, in § 11, we shall conclude this work. Readers are reminded that we can only strive for perfection, completeness and correctness in our comprehensions and writings because we are limited and imperfect. 2. Ontology In words and drawings we illustrate In the beginning there was prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) ei0 materially empty but spiritually restless. And it began to imagine through primordial selfreferential spin 1=ei0=eiM-iM=eiM e-iM=e-iM/ e-iM = eiM/ eiM…such that it created the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through selfreferential matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of said external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space which it has since sustained and made to evolve. In this universe, the body of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness), ether, represented by Euler’s Number e, is the ground of existence and can form external wave functions as external object and internal wave function as internal object (each pair forms an elementary entity) and interaction fields between elementary entities which accompany the imaginations of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). The prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) can be self-acted on by selfreferential matrix law LM. The prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has imagining power i to project external and internal objects by projecting, e.g., external and internal phase +M =+(Et-p·x)/ħ at the power level of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). The universe so created is a dual universe (quantum frame) comprising of the external spacetime with a relativistic frame xμ=(t, x) and internal momentum-energy space with a relativistic frame pμ=(E/c, p). The absolute frame of reference is the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 892 prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) itself. Thus, if prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) stops imagining (i0=0), the dual universe (quantum frame) would disappear into materially nothingness ei0=e0=1. The accounting principle of the dual universe is conservation of total phase to zero, that is, the total phase of an external object and its counterpart, the internal object, is zero. Also in this dual universe, self-gravity is nonlocal self-interaction (wave mixing) between an external object in the external spacetime and its negation/image in the internal momentumenergy space, vice versa. Gravity in external spacetime is the nonlocal interaction (quantum entanglement) between an external object with the internal momentum-energy space as a whole. Some other basic conclusions are: (1) the two spinors of the Dirac electron or positron in this dual universe (quantum frame) are respectively the external and internal objects of the electron or positron; and (2) the electric and magnetic fields of a linear photon in the dual universe are respectively the external and internal objects of a photon which are always self-entangled. In this dual universe, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the self-referential matrix law) and it projects the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external spacetime through the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation. Before mathematical presentations, we draw below several diagrams to illustrate how prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates the dual universe (quantum frame) comprising of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space and how the external object in the external spacetime and internal object in the internal momentum-energy space interact. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 893 Figure2.1. Illustration of primordial phase distinction As shown in Figure 2.1, a primordial phase distinction (dualization), e.g., +M=+(Et-p·x)/ħ, was made at the power level of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) through imagination i. At the ground level of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness), this is ei0=e+iM-iM=e+iMe-iM = e+iM/ e+iM…. The primordial phase distinction in Figure 2.1 is accompanied by matrixing of e into: (1) external and internal wave functions as external and internal objects, (2) interaction fields (e.g., gauge fields) for interacting with other elementary entities, and (3) self-acting and self-referential matrix law, which accompany the imaginations of the prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) at the power level so as to enforce (maintain) the accounting principle of conservation of total phase to zero, as illustrated in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2 Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) Equation Figure 2.3 shows from another perspective of the relationship among external object in the external spacetime, internal object in the internal energy-momentum space and the selfacting and self-referential matrix law. According to the ontology of the Principle of Existence, self-interactions (self-gravity) are quantum entanglement between the external object in the external spacetime and the internal object in the internal energy-momentum space. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 894 Figure 2.3 Self-interaction between external and internal objects of a quantum entity in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space, vice versa. As shown in Figure 2.4, the external object in the spacetime and the internal object in the internal energy-momentum space interact with each other through gravity or quantum entanglement since gravity is an aspect of quantum entanglement (See, e.g., [1]). Please note that, although in Figure 2.4 prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is shown as a strip, both the dualized external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space are embedded in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). Figure2.4 Interactions in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space, vice versa. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 895 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 3. Mathematics of the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model In mathematics we express 3.1 Scientific Genesis in a Nutshell It is our comprehension that: Consciousness=Prespacetime-premomentumenergy =Omnipotent, Omnipresent & Omniscient Being/State = ONE (3.1) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of primordial entities (elementary particles) in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows:   1  ei 0  1ei 0  L1e iM iM  Le Li 1 e iM e iM L M ,e   1  Ae e iM  A    LM ,i  iM   LM  e e iM  LM  e   L M   0  Ai   i   Ai e  (3.2) In expression (3.2), e is Euler’s Number representing the body (ether) prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness), i is imaginary unit representing the imagination of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness), ±M is content of imagination i, L1=1 is the Law of One of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) before matrixization, Le is external law, Li is internal law, LM,e is external matrix law, and LM,i is internal matrix law, LM is the self-referential matrix law in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) comprised of the external and internal matrix laws which governs elementary entities and conserves phase to zero in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal energy-momentum space, Ae e iM   e is external wave function (external object), Ai e iM   i is internal wave function (internal object) and  is the complete wave function (object/entity in the dual universe as a whole). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 896 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of primordial entities in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows:   0  0e i 0  L0 e iM iM  DetM Et  DetM m  DetM px  e iM e iM L M ,e    Ae e iM   Ae  iM  e        L M   0 LM ,i   L e  L M M iM  A  A e  i  i   i  1 (3.3) where L0 is the Law of Zero of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) as defined by fundamental relation (3.4) below, Det means determinant and MEt, Mm and Mpx are respectively matrices with ±E & ±t (or ±iE & ±it ), ±m & ± (or ±im & ±i) and ±|p| & ±|x| (or ±i|p| & ±i|x|) as elements respectively, and Et, -m and –p.x as determinant respectively. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) spins as ei0=e+iM-iM=e+iMe-iM = e+iM/ e+iM….before matrixization. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) also spins through self-acting and self-referential matrix law LM after matrixization which acts on the external object and the internal object to cause them to interact with each other as further described below. 3.2 Self-Referential Matrix Law and Its Metamorphoses The matrix law LM , e LM , i   L M of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is derived from the following fundamental relation through self-reference within this relation which accompanies the imagination (spin i) in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness): E / c ct   p  x - mc c   L0  0 where time t and space x are continuous parameters in external spacetime but quantized dynamical variables of an elementary particle in the internal energy-momentum space; energy E and momentum p are quantized dynamical variables of said elementary particle in the external spacetime but continuous parameters in internal energy-momentum space; and  is the intrinsic proper time of the elementary particle (e.g., defined as Compton wavelength divided by speed of light  =/c) and m is the mass of the elementary particle. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 897 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space For simplicity, we will set c=ħ=1 throughout this work unless indicated otherwise, so that we have from above equation: Et  p  x - m  L0  0 (3.4) Expression (3.4) is based on the relation of four-momentum p = (E/c, p) and four-position x = (ct, x) in special theory of relativity: E / cct   p  x - mcc  In the presence of an interacting field such as an electromagnetic potential (A(x,t), (x,t)) in spacetime and its dual (A(p,E), (p,E)) in momentum-energy space, equation (3.4) may be modified as follows for an elementary entity with charge e: E  e  t  e    m  p - eA   x - eA   x ,t p,E x ,t (3.5) p,E One form of the matrix law in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is derived through self-reference from (3.4) as follows when E m p   and p parallels to x: t  x    Et  m Em  x L 1  p x  p t  1 Em  x Em  x     0 p t  p t  (3.6) where p  p 2 and x  x 2 . Matrixing left-land side of the last expression in (3.6) such that Det LM   Et  p  x - m  0 so as to satisfy the fundamental relation (3.4) in the determinant view, we have:   Em  x  LM ,e p t  LM ,i   L M (3.7) Indeed, expression (3.7) can also be obtained from expression (3.4) through self-reference as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 898 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  Et  p  x - m  Det      x 0 0 E 0 m 0  Det  Det p 0 t 0   (3.8) Matrixing expression (3.8) by removing determinant sign Det, we have:    0 E 0 m 0   p 0 t 0     x Em  x   LM ,e 0  p t  LM ,i   L M (3.9) p  p 2   Det(σ  p )  σ  p , x  x 2   Det(σ  x )  σ  x (3.10) After fermionic spinization: where σ = (σ1, σ2, σ3) are Pauli matrices: 0 1 0  i 1 0   2    3    1 0 i 0   0  1 1   (3.11) expression (3.7) becomes:   E m σx  LM ,e  σ p t  LM ,i   LM (3.12) Expression (3.12) governs fermions in Dirac-like form such as Dirac electron and positron in a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space, and expression (3.7) governs unspinized or spinless entity/particle with charge e and mass m (intrinsic proper time) such as a meson or a meson-like particle in said dual universe. Bosonic spinization of expression (3.7) p  p 2  s  p and x  x 2  s  x shall be discussed later. If we define: Det ISSN: 2153-8212   E m σx  E  mt      σ  x  σ  p   σ p t  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.13) www.JCER.com 899 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where E m p   and p parallels to x, t  x We get: Det   E m σx  Et  m  x  p I 2  0  σ p t  (3.14) Thus, fundamental relation (3.4) is also satisfied under the determinant view of expression (3.13). Indeed, we can also obtain the following conventional determinant: Det where   E m σx 2  Et  m  x  p   0  σ p t  (3.15) E m p   and p parallels to x. t  x One kind of metamorphoses of (3.4)-(3.9) & (3.12-15) is respectively as follows when x t    and x parallels to p: E m p tE  x  p - m  L0  0 (3.4a) t  e  E  e    m  x - eA   p - eA   p,E x ,t p,E (3.5a) x ,t    tE  m t    p L 1  xp  x Em  p (3.6a) p t  t     0  x Em  x Em   p  LM ,e Em t   x 0  tE  x  p - m  Det ISSN: 2153-8212 1 LM ,i   L M      t 0   Det 0 E 0 0 0  Det x m Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.7a) p 0  (3.8a) www.JCER.com 900 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space     t 0   0 E 0  t  σx Det   p t   0 x 0 0  m x   σ p  LM ,e Em p  LM ,e Em LM ,i   L M LM ,i   L M (3.12a)  t   σ  p  t   E  m   σ  p  σ  x  σx E m Det   Det (3.9a) (3.13a)   t   σ  p  tE  m  p  x I 2  0 σx E m (3.14a) t   σ  p 2  tE  m  p  x   0 σx E m (3.15a) Another kind of metamorphoses of expressions (3.6) – (3.14) is respectively as follows when E m p   and p parallels to x: t  x L 1  E p Et  p  x  m m   t x  1 (3.16) E p E p       0 m t x m t x  E p m    LM ,e t x 0  Et  m  x  p  Det    (3.17)   p E 0 0   Det  Det 0 0 t m 0  E 0   0    p     0 t   m 0   0      ISSN: 2153-8212 LM ,i   L M 0  Ep  x   m   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.    t x   0 x  (3.18) (3.19) www.JCER.com 901 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   E  σ p   LM ,e m t σx Det  LM ,i   L (3.20)  E  σ p   E  σ  p t  σ  x      m m t σx Det  (3.21)  E  σ p   Et  p  x  mI 2  0 m t σx Expressions (3.16) – (3.22) have the following metamorphoses when parallels to p: L 1  t x tE  x  p  m   m E p (3.22) x t    and x E m p  1 (3.16a) t x t x m m     0  E p  E p   t x  m  LM ,e E p 0  tE  m  x  p  Det t 0  0    0 E        t σx  Det ISSN: 2153-8212  LM ,i   L M    t 0 0  Det 0 E   m   x  0   0     x m  Det 0 0 0  t  x  p      m  LM ,e E  σ p (3.17a) m   Ep   LM ,i   L  t σx m  t  σ  x E  σ  p    m    E  σ p Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 0 p  (3.18a) (3.19a) (3.20a) (3.21a) www.JCER.com 902 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Det   t σx m  tE  x  p  m I 2  0  E  σ p (3.22a) Another kind of metamorphoses of expressions (3.6) - (3.14) is respectively as follows when E m p   and p parallels to x: t  x  Et E L 1  m  p  x mip    i x t  1 (3.25)  E    i x  E    i x  0  m  ip t  m  ip t    i x t E mip 0  Et  m  p  x  Det   LM ,e LM ,i   L M      0 E 0 0   Det  Det ip 0 t m 0 i x   E  0    m i p    E 0   0    0     0 t   m 0  i p        E    iσ  x  LM ,e  m  iσ  p t Det  Det  LM ,i   L M  E    iσ  x  Et     iσ  x  m  iσ  p   m  iσ  p t  E    iσ  x  Et  m  x  p I 2  0  m  iσ  p t We can rewrite expression (3.29) as:  t  Qx  ISSN: 2153-8212  i x   t    Qp t   LM ,e LM ,i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.26) i x 0  (3.27) (3.28) (3.29) (3.30) (3.31) (3.32) www.JCER.com 903 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where Q p   iσ  x is a quaternion and Qx   m  iσ p is also a quaternion. Expressions (3.25) – (3.31) have the following metamorphoses when x t    and x E m p parallels to p:  tE t L 1  m  x  p   i x  mip E  1 (3.25a)  t   m  ip  t   m  ip  0   i x E   i x E  t   i x  mi p  LM ,e E 0  tE  m  x  p  Det t 0  0    0 E          t 0 0  Det 0 E  m  0  0   i x  LM ,i   L M i p   t  0     i x     t  m  iσ  p  LM ,e    iσ  x E Det Det     0 m  Det ix 0 (3.26a) i p 0  m i p   E   LM ,i   L M  t  m  iσ  p  tE   m  iσ  p    iσ  x     iσ  x E  t  m  iσ  p  tE  m  p  x I 2  0    iσ  x E  (3.27a) (3.28a) (3.29a) (3.30a) (3.31a) Yet another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.6), (3.7) & (3.12) is respectively as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 904 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    Et  m Em  x L 1  px p t  1 (3.35)  x  x Em Em     0 p t  p t    Em  x  LM ,e p t  LM ,i   L M (3.36) E m σx  LM ,e LM ,i   L M  σ  p t  (3.37)   If m==0, we have from expressions (3.6) - (3.14):    Et E L 1  px p 1  x t (3.38)  x  x E E     0 p t p t  E p  x  LM ,e t 0  Et  p  x  Det LM ,i   L M    0 E 0  Det p 0 t x 0 x   E  0  p   x   t    E 0  0    0 t  p    (3.39)  (3.40) (3.41) After fermionic spinization p  σ  p and x  σ  x , expression (3.39) becomes:   E σx  LM ,e  σ p t LM ,i   L M (3.42) which governs massless fermion (neutrino) in Dirac-like form. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 905 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space After bosonic spinization:  p  p 2   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3    s p ,  x  x 2   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3   sx (3.43) expression (3.39) becomes:   E sx  LM ,e  s p t LM ,i   L M (3.44) where s = (s1, s2, s3) are spin operators for spin 1 particle:  0 0 i 0 0 0   0  i 0       s1   0 0  i  s2   0 0 0  s3   i 0 0    i 0 0 0 i 0   0 0 0       (3.45) If we define: Dets   E sx  E t    s  x  s  p   s p t (3.46) We get:    xpx E sx Dets  Et  x  p I 3   ypz  s p t  zp  x xp y yp y zp y xpz  ypz   zpz  (3.47) To obey fundamental relation (3.4) in determinant view (3.46), we shall require the last term in (3.47) acting on the external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone as discussed later. We propose that expression (3.39) governs massless (intrinsic-proper-time-less) particle with unobservable spin (spinless). After bosonic spinization, the spinless and massless particle gains its spin 1. Expressions (3.35) – (3.47) have the following metamorphoses when ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. x t  & x parallels E p www.JCER.com 906 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space to p:    p E tE t L 1  x p  x 1 (3.38a) p p t t     0  x E  x E   p  LM ,e E t x 0  tE  x  p  Det t 0  0   0 E   x      (3.39a)    0 t 0  Det x 0 E p 0 p   t  0   x   p   E      (3.40a) (3.41a) t  σ p  LM ,e σx E LM ,i   L M (3.42a) t  s p  LM ,e sx E LM ,i   L M (3.44a) Dets  LM ,i   L M t Dets sx   t  s p  tE   s  p  s  x  sx E   px x  s p  tE  p  x I 3   p z y E p z  x py x py y zp y (3.46a) pz x  pz y   pz z  (3.47a) Another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.18) - (3.22) when m= = 0 is respectively as follows: 0  Et  p  x  Det ISSN: 2153-8212    p E 0  Det 0 0 t 0 x  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.48) www.JCER.com 907 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space     p E 0  0 0 t   0 E p  x 0 0  LM ,e t x  E  σ p 0  LM ,e 0 t σx  E  s p 0  LM ,e 0 t sx Dets  LM ,i   L M LM ,i   L M (3.50) LM ,i   LM (3.51)  E  s p 0  E  s  p t  s  x  0 t sx    px x E  s p 0 Dets  Et  p  x I 3   p z y 0 t sx p z  x (3.49) py x py y py z (3.52) pz x  pz y   pz z  (3.53) Again, we shall require the last term in expression (3.53) acting on external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone in order to satisfy fundamental relation (3.4) in the determinant view (3.52) as further discussed later. Expressions (3.48)–(3.53) have the following metamorphoses when to p: 0  tE  x  p  Det     x t 0  0 0 E t σx 0 ISSN: 2153-8212    x t 0  Det 0 0 E  0 t x  p 0   0  LM ,e E p 0  LM ,e E  σ p x t  and x parallels E p  (3.48a) LM ,i   L M (3.49a) 0 p LM ,i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.50a) www.JCER.com 908 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   t sx 0 Dets 0  LM ,e E  s p  LM ,i   LM (3.51a)  t sx 0  E  s  x t  s  p  0 t  s p    xpx 0  tE  x  p I 3   ypz E  s p  zp  x t sx Dets 0 xp y yp y zp y (3.52a) xpz  ypz   zp z  (3.53a) Importantly, if t = 0, we have from expression (3.4):  m  p  x  0 (3.54) Thus, we can derive, for example, from (3.7) and (3.17) the following energy-less forms of matrix law:      m p x  LM , e LM ,i   L M (3.55) p m   LM , e x L M ,i   L M (3.56) Further, if |p| = |x| = 0, we have from expression (3.4): Et  m  0 (3.57) Thus, we can derive, for example, from (3.7) and (3.17) the following spaceless forms of matrix law:   Em 0  LM ,e 0 t  LM ,i   L M (3.58) E   LM ,e m t LM ,i   L M (3.59)   The significance of these forms of matrix law shall be elucidated later. We suggest for now that the timeless forms of matrix law govern external and internal wave functions (selffields) which play the roles of energy-less gravitons, that is, they mediate energyindependent interactions through momentum space (position) quantum entanglement. On the other hand, the momentum-less forms of matrix law govern the external and internal ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 909 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space wave functions (self-fields) which play the roles of momentum-less gravitons, that is, they mediate momentum independent interactions through proper time (mass) entanglement. The above metamorphoses of the self-referential matrix law of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) are derived from one-tier matrixization (selfreference) and two-tier matrixization (self-reference) based on the fundamental relation (3.4). The first-tier matrixization makes distinctions in energy (time), mass (proper time) and total momentum (undifferentiated space) that involve scalar unit 1 and imaginary unit (spin) i. Then the second-tier matrixization makes distinction in three-dimensional momentum (three-dimensional space) based on spin σ, s or other spin structure if it exists. 3.3 Additional Forms of Matrix Law If prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) allows partial distinction within first-tier self-referential matrixization, we obtain, for example, the following additional forms of matrix law LM , e  Et  m   p   Et  m  p   0  LM ,i   L M , when  x  (3.60)  Et  m   E m p   and p parallels to x: t  x  Et  m    σ p   σ x   Et  m   (3.62)  Et  m  σ p 0    Et  m  x  0   (3.61)  0  Et  m  σ   (3.63)  Et p x   m   (3.64)   Et p x   Et p x  m   0   0  Et p x   (3.65)  E   m px   m px  (3.66)   t   E  m p x   0   0  t  m p x  (3.67) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 910 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  Et  m p x   0   0  Et  m p x  (3.68) Bosonic versions of expressions (3.61) and (3.63) are obtained by replacing σ with s. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create momentum-position selfconfinement of an elementary entity through imaginary momentum pi and imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that m >Et). We may write: m  Et  pi  x i   pi , x xi  pi , y yi  pi , z zi  ipi   ixi  (3.69) Et  m  pi  x i  0 (3.70) that is: Therefore, allowing imaginary momentum and imaginary position (downward selfreference) for an elementary entity, we can derive the following matrix law in Dirac-like form when E m pi   and pi parallels to xi: t  xi     E  m  xi  LM ,e  pi t  m  σ  pi LM ,i   L M  σ  xi  LM ,e  (3.71) LM ,i   LM (3.72) Also, we can derive the following matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form:   E  pi m   LM ,e  xi E  σ  pi m   LM ,e t  σ xi   LM ,i   L M (3.73) LM ,i   L M (3.74) Bosonic versions of expressions (3.72) and (3.74) are obtained by replacing σ with s. It is possible that the above additional forms of self-referential matrix law govern different particles in the particle zoo as discussed later. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 911 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Expressions (3.70) can also be written as follows: tE  m  pi  x i  0 (3.70a) Expressions (3.71) – (3.74) have the following metamorphoses when x t    i and xi E m pi parallels to pi:      t   xi  pi  LM ,e Em   σ  xi  σ  pi  LM ,e m  m  LM ,e  pi t  σ xi  m  LM ,e E  σ  pi  t  xi   LM ,i   L M (3.71a) LM ,i   LM (3.72a) LM ,i   L M (3.73a) LM ,i   L M (3.74a) 3.4 Scientific Genesis of Primordial Entities in the Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion such as an electron in Dirac-like form in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  e  1e  Le i0 i0  M iM Et  m ip x ip x  e  px       Em  x  p t  1 e ip x e ip x 1  (3.75) E  m ip x  x ip x E  m ip x  x ip x e  e  e  e 0 p t  p t  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 912 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  ip  x     E  m  x  ae, e      e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,    p t    ip  x        ai, e     ip x         E  m  σ x  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e   σ p t    i,   ip  x    Ai, e      M where E m p   ; p parallels to x; E and p are only operators in spacetime acting on t  x external wave function (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are only operators in momentum-energy space acting on internal wave function (they are continuous parameters in spacetime), that is:  i   m e,   iσ   p i ,    E  m  e ,   σ  x i ,      or  t e ,   i E i ,    i ,   iσ   x e,    t    i ,   σ  p e,   where substitutions (3.76) E  i t , p  i x in the external spacetime and t  i E and x  i p in the internal momentum-energy space have been made so that components of LM can act on external and internal wave functions. Equation (3.76) may have free spherical wave solution in the dual universe in the form:  e,   S e, e  iEt       i,   Si, e  iEt      (3.77) Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion such as the electron in Dirac-like form in the dual universe as follows: 0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  Et  m  p  x e   0 E 0  m 0  Det   Det   Det   0 t  0   p  ISSN: 2153-8212  ip x ip x  (3.78) 1  x   ip x  ip  x    e  e     0      Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 913 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  E 0   m 0  0      0 t   0     p  ip  x  ip  x     x   ae, e   E  m  x  ae, e       0      p t   ip x ip x 0        ai, e  ai, e     ip  x      E  m  σ  x  Ae, e      LM , e    σ p t   ip x   Ai, e     e,  L  0 LM , i   i,  M   Expressions (3.75), (3.76) & (3.78) have the following metamorphoses, when x t    E m p and x parallels to p, for a dual universe comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal spacetime: 1  e  1e  Le i0 i0  M iM tE  m ip x ip x  e  x p       t   p  x Em 1 e ip x e ip x 1  (3.75a)  p ip x  p ip x t   ip x t   ip x e  e  e  e 0 x Em x Em  ip  x     p  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,   ip  x  E  m      ai, e    ip  x         t   σ p  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e   σ x E  m   i,   ip  x    Ai, e       i E e,    e,   iσ   x i ,    t    e ,   σ  p i ,      or  (3.76a)  i    m    i σ      E  m   σ  x  i, p e,   i, e,     t i,  t    x  M 0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  tE  m  x  p e  t 0    Det   Det   0 E  0  ISSN: 2153-8212  0 0   Det m  x  ip x ip x  (3.78a) 1  p   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0       Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 914 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   t 0        0 E   0   t     σ x  0  0  m    x ip  x    p   ae, e   t        x   ip x 0      a i, e   ip  x    σ p  Ae, e       LM , e  ip x E  m   A e  i,  ip  x    p  ae, e   0  ip x t     a i , e    e,  L  0 LM , i   i,  M   Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave antifermion such as a positron in Dirac-like form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  Et  m ip x ip x e  px        Em  x  p t  1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (3.79) E  m ip x  x ip x E  m ip x  x ip x e  e  e  e 0 p t  p t  ip  x    E  m  x  ae, e      e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e  i,  M   p t   ip  x      ai, e   ip  x        E  m  σ  x  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M , e M , i      σ p t    M ip  x   Ai, e   i,    or 0  0ei 0  L0eiM iM  Et  m  p  x e  ip x ip x    x   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0        ip x  ip  x     x   ae, e   E  m  x  ae, e       0     p t   ip x ip x 0       ai, e  ai , e         E  m  σ  x  Ae, eip x   LM ,e  σ p t   A e ISSN: 2153-8212 (3.80) 1   0 E 0  m 0  Det      Det  Det 0 t  0   p         E 0  m 0  0      0 t   0     p   ip  x i,    LM ,i   e, _  LM  0  i, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 915 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where E m p   ; p parallels to x; E and p are only operators in spacetime acting on t  x external wave function (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators only in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wave function (they are continuous parameters in spacetime). Expressions (3.79) & (3.80) have the following metamorphoses, when x t    and x E m p parallels to p, for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  tE  m ip x ip x e  x p        t   p  x Em 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (3.79a)  p ip x  p ip x t   ip x t   ip x e  e  e  e 0 x Em x Em ip  x    p  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e  i,  M ip  x E  m      ai ,  e   ip  x        t   σ p  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M , e M , i      σ x E  m   M ip  x   Ai, e   i,     t    x  0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  tE  m  x  p e  t 0    Det   Det   0 E  0    t 0        0 E   0   0  0  m    x   ip x ip x  (3.80a) 1  p   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0       ip x  ip  x     p   ae, e   t   p  ae, e       0     x E m ip x ip x 0       ai, e  ai ,  e      0 0   Det m  x     t    σ  p  Ae, eip x   LM ,e σx E m A e  ip  x i,    LM ,i   e,_  LM  0  i, Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 916 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  Et  p  x ip x ip x e  m        E p m E p m e ip  x   t x 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (3.81) E  p ip x   ip x   ip x e  e  e 0 t x m t x ip  x     ae,l e  e,l     L  0   LM ,e LM ,i     i,r  M ip x t  x      ai,r e   ip  x     Ae,l e      E  σ p  e,l   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e  m  i,r  M ip  x t  σ x      Ai,r e   Ep   m  where E m p   ; p parallels to x; E and p are operators only in spacetime only acting on t  x external wave function (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators only in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wave function (they are continuous parameters in spacetime), that is:  i t e,l  iσ   p e,l   i ,r   E  σ  p  e,l   i ,r     or  i    i σ     m    t  σ  x   m  E i , r x i ,  e , l i , r e , l     (3.82) Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in the dual universe as follows: 0  0e i 0  L0 e iM iM  Et  m  p  x e ip  x  ip  x                    p E 0 0  Det  Det  Det 0 0 t m 0 p E 0 0    0 0 t m 0 ISSN: 2153-8212 0 x a e ,l e ai , r e ip  x ip  x 0 x e ip  x E p  m e ip  x  t x Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 1 (3.83)   0   a e  a e ,l e ip  x ip x i ,r www.JCER.com 917 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space ip  x     Ae,l e    E  σ p      LM ,e   m  ip x t  σ  x   Ai,r e    E m p   , p parallels to x. where t  x  e,l  L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   Expressions (3.81) - (3.83) have the following metamorphoses, when x t    and x E m p parallels to p, for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  tE  x  p ip x ip x e  m        t x  t x  e ip  x t  x      t  σ x     m E p 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (3.81a) t  x ip x  m ip x  m ip x  e  e  e 0 E p  E p ip  x    m  ae,l e      e,l   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e  i,r  M ip  x E  p      ai , r e   ip  x    m  Ae,l e      e,l   L   0   L L  M , e M , i  M    ip  x E  σ p    i,r  Ai,r e    i E e,l  iσ   x e ,l  m i ,r   t  σ  x  e,l  m i ,r     or    E  σ  p  i ,r   e,l   i t i ,r  iσ   p i ,    e,l  0  0e i 0  L0 e iM iM  tE  m  x  p e ip  x ip  x                    Det t 0 0  Det 0 E  t 0 0  0 E  ISSN: 2153-8212  x m  0 0  x m  Det 0 0 0 p a e ,l e ai , r e ip  x ip  x  0 p e tx   ip  x e ip  x m E p Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.82a) 1 a e ,l e ai , r e (3.83a)   0   ip  x ip  x www.JCER.com 918 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space ip  x    m  Ae,l e       LM ,e  ip x E  σ p   A e  i,r   t  σ x      e,l  L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  ip  x ip  x Et e  m  p  x         i x E mip t   i x t e ip  x 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1   where   Qx  (3.84)    i p ip x ip  x E  e  e 0 mip t ip  x   E  iσ x  Ae e        LM ,e    m  iσ p  ip x   t    Ai e   t ip  x E e  mip     Qp  A e e    LM ,e  t  A e ip x   i  ip  x   LM ,i  e   LM  0  i     LM ,i  e  LM  0 i E m p   ; p parallels to x; E and p are operators only in spacetime only acting on t  x external wave function (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators only in momentum-energy space acting on internal wave function (they are continuous parameters in spacetime); Q   iσ  x ; and Q   m  iσ p , that is: x p  E e    iσ  x  i    or  t i  m  iσ  p  e   i t e   i  σ   p i    i    m   σ    E i e x i   (3.85) Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in said dual universe as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 919 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   Et  m  x p e ip  x ip  x  1   0 i x   ip x  ip x  E 0 0      Det   e  e    0 t   Det  m 0   Det i p       0            ip  x     E 0   0    0 i x   a e ip x   E    i x    a e e    e            0     0 t   m 0  i p 0   ip x    m  i p t  ip x   ai e   ai e     ip  x   E  iσ  x  Ae e        LM ,e    m  iσ p  ip x   t     Ai e       t Q  A e e    L     Q  t Ae  i  where p x ip  x M ,e ip x   LM ,i  e   LM  0  i     LM ,i  e  LM  0 i (3.86) E m p   , p parallels to x. t  x Expressions (3.84) - (3.86) have the following metamorphoses, when x t    and x E m p parallels to p, for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM    mi p t   i x E mip E t      iσ x  ISSN: 2153-8212 e ip  x ip  x ip  x tE e  m  x  p     1 e ip  x e ip  x 1  ip  x t e    i x (3.84a)  m  i p ip x ip  x t  e  e 0   i x E ip  x    m iσ p  Ae e      LM ,e   ip x   E   Ai e     LM ,i  e   LM  0  i    Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 920 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  where  E Q  p      Qx  A e e  ip x   LM ,e t     Ai e  ip  x LM ,i  e  LM  0 i E m p   , p parallels to x, Q   iσ  x , and Q     iσ x , x x t  x  t e  m  iσ  p  i    or  E i    iσ  x  e   i E e  m i  σ   x i     i     σ     e p i   E i 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   tE m p x e  t 0 0  Det   Det   0 E      t 0   0     0 E     m  0  0   i x t      iσ x    t  Q p 0 m   Det 0  i x 1 ip  x   i p   ae e   t    0   ip  x     i x  ai e      Qx  A e e  ip x   LM ,e E    Ae  i  ip  x  i p   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0      ip  x    m iσ p  Ae e     x    LM ,e   ip E    Ai e    ip  x ip  x (3.85a) ip  x   m i p  ae e   0   E  ip x   ai e     LM ,i  e   LM  0  i     LM ,i  e  LM  0 i (3.86a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave photon in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 921 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 1  ei0  1ei0  LeiM iM  Et ip  x ip  x e  px 1 (3.87) 1  E   x   ip  x  ip x       e     p  t   e          E ip x  x ip x E ip x  x ip  x e  e  e  e 0 p t p t  ip  x     x  ae, e      e,   L   0    LM , e L M , i   M     ip x  t    i,   ai, e     ip x     s x  E 0e, e      E  e,   L     L L 0  M ,i    M ,e M photon   s p   i,   ip  x  t   iB 0i,- e       E   p  Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of the linear plane-wave photon in said dual universe as follows: 0  0e i0  L0 e  iM  iM   Et  x p e   0 E 0  Det    Det 0 t p       E 0  0      0 t    p   ip  x   ip  x   (3.88) 1  x         e     e   0       ip  x    ip  x      x   ae, e   E  x  ae, e       0   p   ip x   ip x  0   t     ai, e  ai, e      ip  x  ip  x ip  x    s  x  E 0e, e      E  e,   L      LM , e L 0 M , i      s p  M photon ip  x t  i,     iB e  0i, This photon wave function in the dual universe may be written as:  e,    E( x , t)   E 0 e i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon    iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e   i ,    (p, E)      (3.89) After the substitutions E  i t , p  i x and t  i E , x  i p , we have from the last expression in (3.87): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 922 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  i t   is   x   p B (p, E)  is   p  E ( x , t)   E   0   t ( x , t)      i E  iB (p, E)    E B ( p, E)   x  E ( x , t)  (3.90) where we have used the relationship s  i p    p  to derive the latter equations which together with  x  E( x, t)  0 and  p  B (p, E)  0 are the Maxwell-like equations in the source-free vacuum in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates a neutrino in Dirac-like form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentumenergy space by replacing the last step of expression (3.87) with the following: ip  x    σx  ae, e    E      LM ,e    σp  ip x t   ai, e      LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.91) Expressions (3.87) - (3.91) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  ei0  1ei0  Le  iM  iM  1 tE  ip  x   ip  x  e  x p 1  t   p    ip  x    ip  x        e     x  E   e       t  ip  x   p  ip  x  t  ip  x   p  ip  x  e  e  e  e 0 x E x E (3.87a)  ip  x     p  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,   ip  x  E      ai, e     ip x     s p  E 0e, e      e,   L    L L 0  M ,i    M ,e M photon  i,   ip  x  E     iB e  0i,  t   x   t    s x  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 923 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  0ei0  L0 e  iM  iM   tE px e  ip  x   ip  x   t    s x  (3.88a) 1   0 t 0  Det   Det   0 E   x   t 0   0      0 E    x    p    ip  x    ip  x     e  e     0       ip  x    ip  x      p   ae, e  p  ae, e   t        0  x E   ip  x   ip  x  0       ai, e  ai, e     ip  x    s p  E 0e, e       LM ,e  ip x E   iB e  0i,  e,  L  LM ,i  0  i,  M photon    e,    E(p, E)   E 0 e i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon   (3.89a)  iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e   i ,    ( x , t)       i E   is   p   t    σ x  is   x  E (p, E)    x B ( x , t)   E    0   E (p, E)  B  i t  iB ( x , t)   t ( x , t)   p  E (p, E)  ip  x    σp  ae, e       LM ,e  ip x E   a e  i ,  (3.90a)   LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.91a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave antiphoton in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  Et ip x ip x e  px       E  x p t 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1  (3.92) E ip x  x ip x E ip x  x ip x e  e  e  e 0 p t p t ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 924 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  x  e,        LM ,e LM ,i  e,   LM  0   t  i,    i,   ip  x   E  s  x        iB 0e, e  e,   L     L L 0  M ,i    M ,e   s p  i,  M antiphoton ip  x t      E e  0i,   E   p  This antiphoton wave function can also be written as:  i (t k x )   iB 0 ( x , t)  i (t kx )  e ,    iB ( x, t)   iB 0 ( x , t) e         antiphoton   E   E 0( p , E) e i (t kx )    E 0( p , E) e   i ,    (p , E)      (3.93) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates an antineutrino in Dirac-like in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space form by replacing the last step of expression (3.93) with the following: ip  x    σx  ae, e    E      LM ,e    σp  ip x t   ai, e      LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.94) Expressions (3.92) - (3.94) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  e  1e  Le i0 i0 iM iM tE ip x ip x  e  x p       t  x e ip  x t p  x E  p E e 1 ip  x e ip  x  t  x e e ip  x ip  x 1   p E (3.92a) e ip  x 0  p  e,        LM ,e LM ,i  e,   LM  0   E  i,    i,   ip  x    s p  iB 0e, e  e,    L     LM ,e LM ,i  0    i,  M antiphoton ip x E     E e  0i,   t   x   t    s x  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 925 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  e ,    iB (p , E)   iB 0 ( p , E) e  i (t kx )   iB 0 ( p , E)  i (t kx )         antiphoton   E   E 0 ( x , t) e i (t kx )    E 0 ( x , t) e  ( x , t)  i,         t    σ x  ip  x    σp  ae, e       LM ,e  ip x E   a e  i ,    LM ,i  e,   LM  0  i,    (3.93a) (3.94a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of chiral plane-wave photons in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   Et p x e ip  x ip  x   p E 0  Det   Det   0 t  0   (3.95) 1 0   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     x      ip  x  ip  x      E 0   p 0   ae,l e 0  ae,l e  Ep           0      0  ip x ip x  0 t   0 x   t  x     ai,r e   ai , r e      ip x   0  Ae,l e  e,l     E  s p  L  0     LM ,e LM ,i     0   i,r  M ip x t  s  x   Ai,r e      E p  where and p parallels to x, that is,  e,l and  i, r are decoupled from each other t x and satisfy the following equations respectively:  E  s  p  e,l  0      s   x e,l  0    or  t e,l     s     0   t  s  x   0 i ,r p i ,r    E i ,r  (3.96) which have the following respective solutions:  e ,l   E( x, t)  iB ( x , t)   E 0(x,t)  iB 0(x.t) ei (t kx )          E   E 0(p.E)  iB 0(p,E) ei (t kx )   i B  ( p , E)   i ,r   (p, E)   (3.97) t e,l  s   x e,l  0 produces Maxwell equations in external spacetime of the source-free vacuum and  E i , r  s   p i , r  0 produce the Maxwell-like equations in internal momentum-energy space of the source-free vacuum as shown in the second expression of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 926 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space (3.90). Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates neutrinos in Weyl-like (chirallike) forms in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space by replacing the last step of expression (3.95) with the following: ip  x   E  σ  p 0    A e   e,l      LM ,e  0 ip  x t  σ  x    Ai,r e    (3.98)  e,l  L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   that is,  e,l and  i, r are decoupled from each other and satisfy the following equations respectively:  E  σ  p  e,l  0      σ   x e,l  0    or  t e,l      σ     0   t  σ  x   0 i ,r p i ,r    E i ,r  (3.99) Expressions (3.95) - (3.99) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   tE  x p e ip  x ip  x    x t 0  Det   Det   0 E   0  (3.95a) 1 0   ip x  ip x    e  e     p       ip x  ip  x     t 0   x 0   ae,l e t  x 0  ae,l e             0  0 ip  x ip  x   0 E   0 p   E  p      ai,r e   ai,r e    ip  x   0  Ae,l e      t  s x  e,l   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e  0  i,r  M ip  x E  s p      Ai,r e    t  s  x  e,l  0      s   p e,l  0    or  E e,l     s     0    E  s  p   0 i , r x i ,r    t i ,r  (3.96a)  e ,l   E(p, E)  iB (p , E)   E 0(p,E)  iB 0(p.E) ei (t kx )          E   E 0(x.t)  iB 0(x,t) ei (t kx )   i B  ( x , t) ( x , t) i , r       (3.97a) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 927 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  t  σ x   0  ip  x   0  Ae,l e       LM ,e  ip x E  σ p   A e  i,r  (3.98a)  e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M    t  σ  x  e,l  0      σ   p e,l  0    or  E e,l     σ     0  x i ,r  E  σ  p  i ,r  0   t i ,r  (3.99a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains timeless external wave function (timeless graviton) and energy-less internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an elementary particle in Dirac-like form as follows: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  1  m iM iM e  px   m   x  1    e iM e iM    p         m iM  x iM  m iM  x iM e  e  e  e 0 p  p     (3.100)   m  x  g D,e e iM   V   D,e   L V  0   L   L    p   g D,i e iM   M , e M , i  VD,i  M D      Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains timeless external wave function (timeless graviton) and energy-less internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an elementary particle in Dirac-like form as follows: 0  0ei0  L0 e  iM  iM   m  x p e  iM  iM    0 m 0   Det    Det  0   p       m 0   0     0     p      x    iM  iM 1  e e  0     x   g D, e e  iM    m  x  g D, e e  iM   0    0   g D, i e  iM    p   g D, i e  iM       (3.101) Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains timeless external wave function (timeless graviton) and energy-less internal wave functions (energyless graviton) of an elementary particle in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 928 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM    p          m   x     1  m iM iM e  px e e   iM iM 1 (3.102)  p iM  p iM   iM   iM e  e  e  e 0 m  x m  x   p   gW ,e e iM     L     m  x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e    VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   Again, we will determine the form of the imaginary content M in expression (3.102) later. Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains timeless external wave function (timeless graviton) and energy-less internal wave functions (energy-less graviton) of an elementary particle in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   m p  x eiM iM  (3.103)      p 0   0    iM iM 1  Det    Det   e e   0 x   m 0         iM   p 0   0    gW ,e e    p   gW ,e e iM    0       0  x    m 0   gW ,i e iM    m  x  gW ,i e iM        Expressions (3.100) - (3.103) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM  1  m iM iM e  x p      p  1    e iM e iM    x   m       iM  p iM   iM  p iM e  e  e  e 0  x m  x m     x  ISSN: 2153-8212    (3.100a)  p  g D,e e iM   V   D,e   L V  0   L  L   m  g D,i e iM   M , e M , i  VD,i  M D   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 929 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  0ei0  L0 e  iM  iM  m px e  iM  iM     Det   0        0   0 0    Det m  x 0   0   m    x     p   g D, e e  iM       0   g D, i e  iM    x    1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le iM iM    x   m          p      x  e iM   x     1 (3.101a)  p    iM  iM 1  e e  0     p  g D, e e  iM  0   m  g D, i e  iM     m iM iM e  x p e e   iM iM 1 (3.102a)  x iM  m iM  m iM e  e  e 0 p  p  m  gW ,e e iM     LM ,e  iM   p  gW ,i e     VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   0  0ei0  L0eiM iM  m  x p eiM iM    x  Det  0      x    0  0  0   p        m   iM iM 1  e e  0     iM  m   gW ,e e    x  m  gW ,e e iM   0    0   gW ,i e iM     p  gW ,i e iM       0  0   Det  p    0  0ei0  L0eiM iM  m  x p eiM iM    x  Det  0      x    0  ISSN: 2153-8212 0  0   p    (3.103a)     m   iM iM 1  e e  0     m   gW ,e e iM    x  m  gW ,e e iM   0    0   gW ,i e iM     p  gW ,i e iM       0  0   Det  p    Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 930 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains spaceless (momentum independent) external wave function and momentumless (space independent) internal wave functions of an elementary particle in Dirac-like form as follows: 0  0e 0  L0 e  iM  iM   Et  m e  iM  iM      E    0    E 0   m 0    iM  iM 1  Det   Det   e e    0 t 0        0    m 0   g D, e e  iM   E  m 0  g D, e e  iM   0     t   0    g D, i e  iM   0 t   g D, i e  iM      (3.104) Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains spaceless (momentum independent) external wave function and momentumless (space independent internal wave functions of an elementary particle in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: 1  e 0  1e 0  Le iM iM  1 Et iM iM e  m 1  E     iM e iM     e   m  t  E iM   iM E iM   iM e  e  e  e 0 m t m t    E   gW ,e e iM      L   m t  g e iM   M ,e   W ,i   (3.105) VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates and sustains spaceless (momentum independent) external wave function and momentumless (space independent internal wave functions of an elementary particle in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 931 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   Et  m eiM iM       E 0  0    iM iM 1  Det   Det   e e    0 t  m 0        E 0   0    gW ,e e iM   E   gW ,e e iM   0         0 t    m 0   gW ,i e iM    m t  g w,i e iM        (3.106) Expressions (3.104) - (3.106) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: 0  0e 0  L0 e  iM  iM   tE m e  iM  iM      0    iM  iM 1 t 0    Det   Det    e e    0 E 0  m        iM   t    t 0    0   g D, e e 0  g D, e e  imt    0          0 E   0  m   g D, i e  iM   0 E  m  g D, i e  imt        1  e 0  1e 0  Le iM iM  1 tE iM iM e  m 1  t   m  iM e iM     e     E  t iM  m iM t iM  m iM e  e  e  e 0  E  E  t     ISSN: 2153-8212    m  gW ,e e iM      LM ,e  E  gW ,i e iM     (3.104a)  (3.105a) VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 932 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 0  0ei0  L0eiM iM   tE m eiM iM      t 0  0  m   iM iM 1  Det    Det    e e    0 E   0        t 0   0  m   gW ,e e iM   t  m  gW ,e e imt   0       iM mt     0 E         0   E g e g e   W ,i  w,i     (3.106a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustains and causes evolution of a spatially and momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton through imaginary momentum pi imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that mτ>Et) in Dirac-like form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: 1  ei0  1ei0  LeiM iM  1 Et  m ip x ip x e  x i p i 1 ip  x  ip  x   E  m   x i    e  e        t     p i          E  m ip x  x i ip x E  m ip x  x i ip x e  e  e  e 0  pi t   pi t   E  m  x i  se, e  iEt     L     pi t   si, e  iEt   M , e    where  e,    LM  0 LM , i   i,    (3.107) (3.108) x t    i ; xi parallels to pi; E and pi are operators in spacetime only acting E m pi external wave function (they are free parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and xi are operators in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wave function (they are free parameters in spacetime),After spinization of expression (3.108), we have:  E m    σ p i   σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (3.109) It is plausible that expression (3.108) governs the confinement structure of the unspinized proton in Dirac-like form through imaginary momentum p i and imaginary position x i and, on the other hand, expression (3.109) governs the confinement structure of spinized proton ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 933 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space through p i and x i in the dual universe. Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustain and cause evolution of the spatially and momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton in Dirac-like form in said dual universe as follows:   0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  Et  m  x i  p i e  ip x ip x  (3.110) 1  0  x i   ip  x  ip  x  0    m 0     e  e     Det   0    Det  p   0   t   i          E 0  m 0  0  x i   se, e iEt   E  m  x i  se, e iEt    0            0 t   0     p i 0   si, e iEt    p i t   si, e iEt        E  Det  0   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     L     p i t   si, e iEt   M ,e     D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i     σx i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i     E m    σp i  where x t    i and xi parallels to pi. E m pi Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Dirac-like form may be respectively governed as follows:  E  m  x i  se, e iEt     L     p i t   si, e iEt   M ,e     D,e  L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D   (3.111)  σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (3.112)  E m    σp i  Expressions (3.107) - (3.112) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 934 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 1  ei0  1ei0  LeiM iM  1 tE m ip  x ip  x e  p i x i (3.107a) 1 ip  x  ip  x   t    p i    e  e        E m    x i          t  ip x  p i ip x t  ip x  p i ip  x e  e  e  e 0  xi E m  xi E m  t    xi   t     σ x i   p i  se, e  iEt     L  E  m  si, e  iEt   M , e    e,    LM  0 LM , i   i,     σ  x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M     0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  tE  m  p i  x i e  ip x ip x (3.108a) (3.109a)  (3.110a) 1  0  p i   ip  x  ip  x  0     0      e  e     Det   0    Det  x   0   E   i           t 0    0   0  p i   se, e iEt   t   p i  se, e iEt    0            0 E   0 m    x i 0   si, e iEt    x i E  m  si, e iEt        t  Det  0   t    xi   p i  se, e iEt     L  E  m  si, e iEt   M ,e    D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D    t     σ x i   σp i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  E  m  S i, e iEt      D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D    t    xi   p i  se, e iEt     L  E  m  si, e iEt   M ,e    D,e   L  0 LM ,i   D,i  M D   (3.111a)  t     σ x i   σp i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  E  m  S i, e iEt      D,e    LM D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (3.112a) Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustain and cause evolution of a spatially and momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 935 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space through imaginary momentum p i and imaginary position x i (downward self-reference) in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space as follows: iM  iM   E  p i          m  t  x  i    1 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le Et  p i  x i ip x ip x e  m  e ip  x  e ip  x  1 (3.113) E  p i ip x E  p i ip x   ip x   ip x e  e  e  e 0 m t  xi m t  xi  E  pi   m    se,r e iEt     L  t  x i  si,l e iEt   M ,e    e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l    (3.114) After spinization of expression (3.114), we have:  E σp i   m    S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  t  σx i  Si,l e iEt      e,r   L  0 LM ,i    i,l  M   (3.115) It is plausible that expression (3.114) governs the structure of the unspinized proton in Weyl form and expression (3.115) governs the structure of spinized proton in Weyl form. Alternatively, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) creates, sustains and causes evolution of a spatially and momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton in Weyl (chiral) form in said dual universe as follows:   0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  Et  m  p i x i e  ip x ip x  (3.116) 1 0   0    ip  x  ip  x    Det   e  e      x i    m 0     0   0    se,r e iEt   E  p i   se,r e iEt    0       x i    m 0   si,l e iEt    m t  x i  si,l e iEt         p E 0  Det   Det i   0 t  0   E 0   p i     0 t   0   t  xi     ISSN: 2153-8212   se,r e iEt     L  t  x i  si,l e iEt   M ,e    e,r   L  0 LM ,i   i,l  M   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.117) www.JCER.com 936 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  E  σp i   m   e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l      S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  t  σx i  S i,l e iEt     (3.118) Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Weyl-like form may be respectively governed as follows:  E  pi   m    se,l e iEt     LM ,e  iEt   t  x i si,r e      e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   (3.119)  E  σp i   m    S e,l e iEt     LM ,e  t  σ x i  S i,r e iEt      e,l    LM   0 LM ,i   i,r    (3.120) Expressions (3.113) - (3.120) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime: iM  iM   t  x i   m         E  p  i    1 1  e i 0  1e i 0  Le t  xi  e ip  x  tE  x i  p i ip x ip x e  m  e ip  x  e ip  x (3.113a) t  x i ip x  m ip x  m ip x e  e  e 0 E  pi  E  pi  t  xi      m  se,r e iEt     L  E  p i  si,l e iEt   M ,e    t  σ x i      m  S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  E  σp i  S i,l e iEt       e,r   L  0 LM ,i   i,l  M    e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l     0  0ei 0  L0e iM iM  tE  m  x i p i e ISSN: 2153-8212  1  ip x ip x Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.  (3.114a) (3.115a) (3.116a) www.JCER.com 937 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   x t 0  Det   Det i   0 E   0  1  m   ip  x  ip  x    e  e     0       t 0    x i 0   0  m   se,r e iEt   t  x i  m  se,r e iEt     0           0 E   0  p i    E  p i  si,l e iEt  0   si,l e iEt           iEt t  xi  m  se,r e    (3.117a)    LM ,e LM ,i  e,r   L   0    iEt M    i,l    E  p i  si,l e        iEt (3.118a)  m  S e,r e     t  σ x i    LM ,e LM ,i  e,r   L   0   M      E  σp i  S i,l e iEt     i,l    0  0   Det  p i     t  xi      m  se,l e iEt     L  E  p i  si,r e iEt   M ,e    e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   (3.119a)  t  σ x i      m  S e,l e iEt     LM ,e  E  σp i  S i,r e iEt      e,l    LM  0 LM ,i   i,r    (3.120a) 3.4 Scientific Genesis of Composite Entities in the Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model Then, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustain and cause evolution of a neutron in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space in Dirac-like form which is comprised of an unspinized proton:    E  e( x ,t )  m     p i  eA ( x ,t )  where t  e(p , E ) E  e( x ,t )   m    x i  eA (p, E )  se, e iEt      0 t  e(p, E )   si, e iEt    p  x i  eA (p , E ) p i  eA ( x ,t ) (3.121) , x i  eA(p, E ) parallels to p i  eA( x ,t ) , E and pi are operators only in spacetime acting on external wave function (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space), and t and xi are operators only in momentumenergy space acting on internal wavefunction (they are continuous parameters in spacetime), and a spinized electron: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 938 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    E  e( x ,t ) V( x ,t )  m    σ  p  eA (x ,t )    where  t  e(p , E )  V(p , E )  E  e( x ,t )  V( x ,t )  m     σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e x  eA (p , E ) p  eA ( x ,t ) (3.122) , x  eA (p,E ) parallels to p  eA ( x ,t ) , E and p are operators in in spacetime acting on external wavefunction (they are continuous parameters in momentum-energy space), and t and x are operators in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wavefunction (they are free parameters in spacetime), as follows:    1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le iM iM p Le iM iM e  Et  m ip x ip x   Et  m ip x ip x        e e  x i  pi  p  x i  pi e 1 1  1   1    E  m   x   ip  x  ip  x     E  m   x   ip  x  ip  x   i         e     e     e       p  t     e            p t    i                p e   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     E  m  x  se, e iEt   0  0         p i t   si, e iEt      p t   si, e iEt     p e iEt     E  e  m  x  eA   x ,t  p, E   se, e i    0  iEt     p  eA    t  ep, E    si, e   x ,t   i p       σ x  eA p, E    S e, e iEt       E  ex ,t  Vx ,t   m  0      σ p  eA  t  ep, E  Vp, E    S i, e iEt      x , t   e n  (3.123) In expressions (3.121), (3.122) and (3.123),   ,   and   indicate proton, electron p e n and neutron respectively. Further, unspinized proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, A  (  ( x .,t )  A  ( , A ( x .,t ) ) p ,  (p.,E )  , A (p.,E ) ) p and A  (  ( x .,t ) , A ( x .,t ) ) e , A  (  ( p .,E )  , A (p.,E ) ) e are the electromagnetic potentials acting on unspinized proton and tightly bound spinized electron respectively, and V(x ,t ) e , V(p , E ) e is a binding potential from the unspinized proton acting on the spinized electron causing tight binding. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 939 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space If A   (( x .,t ) , A ( x .,t ) )p , A   ((p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) )p is negligible due to the fast motion of the tightly bound spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (3.123):    E  m  x i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0        p i  t   si, e  p       E  e V  m  iEt  σ x  eA p, E    S e, e    x ,t  x ,t     0      σ p  eA x ,t   t  ep, E  Vp, E    S i, e iEt     e n  (3.124) Experimental data on charge distribution and g-factor of neutron seem to support a neutron comprising of an unspinized proton and a tightly bound spinized electron. The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (3.123) and expression (3.124) are respectively as follows:    E  e  p  eA   s e,r e iEt    ( x ,t ) i ( x ,t )     0 iEt       m t  e  x i  eA (p, E )  si,l e  p      iEt   S e,l e       E  e (x ,t ) V(x ,t )  σ  p  eA (x ,t ) 0     m t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  p  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt      e n       E  p i    se,r e iEt     0   s e iEt       m  t  x i  i,l  p     E  e V  σ  p  eA   iEt   S e,l e    ( x ,t ) ( x ,t ) ( x ,t )    0     m t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e n     (3.125) (3.126)  Expressions (3.121) - (3.126) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime:    t  e(p, E )      x i  eA (p, E )  ISSN: 2153-8212   p i  eA (x ,t )  se, e iEt      0 t  e(x ,t )   si, e iEt    p  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.121a) www.JCER.com 940 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    t  e(p, E ) V(p, E )      σ  x  eA (p, E )        σ  p  eA (x ,t )  S e, e iEt     0  E  e(x ,t ) V(x ,t )  m  S i, e iEt     e   (3.122a)  1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le iM iM p Le iM iM e  tE  m ip x ip x   tE  m ip x ip x        e e p  x p  x  i i p i i e 1 1  1   1    t    p   ip  x  ip  x     t    p   ip x  ip x   i       e  e     e     e          x  E  m            x i  E  m              p e   t       x i   p i  se, e iEt     t  0   E  m  si, e iEt      x  p  p  se, e iEt   0  E  m  si, e iEt   e    t  e   p i  eA x ,t   se, e iEt   p, E      0     x  eA   s e iEt    E  e   m p, E  x ,t   p  i,  i       σ p  eA x ,t    S e, e iEt       t  ep, E  Vp, E          σ x  eA  S e iEt   0    E  e   V  m       p , E x , t x , t  i,   e n     t   p i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0        x i E  m  si, e    p      t  e  σ p  eA x ,t    S e, e iEt    p, E  Vp, E      0      σ x  eA p, E   E  ex ,t  Vx ,t   m  S i, e iEt     e n  (3.123a) (3.124a)    t  e  (3.125a)  s e,r e iEt   m (p, E )  x i  eA (p, E )     0    s e iEt      E  e   p  e A ( x ,t ) i ( x ,t )  i,l  p     m  S e,l e iEt       t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )       S e iEt   0     E  e   V  σ  p  e A ( x , t ) ( x , t ) ( x , t ) i , r    e n   ISSN: 2153-8212    Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 941 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space t  x i  m  s e,r e iEt    0      E  p i  si,l e iEt   p    t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )            (3.126a)      iEt    m  S e,l e  0   E  e (x ,t ) V(x ,t )  σ  p  eA (x ,t )  S i,r e iEt     e n   Then, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may create, sustain and cause evolution of a hydrogen atom in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space in Dirac form comprising of a spinized proton:   E ex ,t   m σx i eA p, E   Se, e iEt     0   t ep, E    Si, e iEt     σp i eA x ,t    p where t  e(p , E ) E  e( x ,t )   m  x i  eA (p , E ) p i  eA ( x ,t ) (3.127) , x i  eA(p, E ) parallels to p i  eA( x ,t ) , E and pi are operators in spacetime only acting on external wave function (they are free parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and xi are operators in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wavefunction (they are free parameters in spacetime), and a spinized electron:   E ex ,t  m σx eA p, E   Se, eiEt     0   iEt        σ  p  e A t  e     x ,t  p, E   Si,e  e  where t  e(p , E ) E  e( x ,t )   m  x  eA (p , E ) p  eA ( x ,t ) (3.128) , x  eA (p,E ) parallels to p  eA ( x ,t ) , E and p are operators in spacetime only (they are free parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators in momentum-energy space only (they are free parameters in spacetime), as follows:    1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le  iM iM p Le iM iM e  Et  m ip x ip x   Et  m ip x ip x        e e x  p x  p  i i p i i e 1 1  1   1    E  m   x   ip  x  ip  x     E  m   x   ip  x  ip  x   i       e     e      e       p  t    e            p t      i                p e ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 942 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     E  m  x  se, e iEt   0  0        pi t   si, e iEt      p t   si, e iEt     p e    E  ex ,t   m  σ x i  eA p, E   S e, e iEt     0      σ p i  eA x ,t   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt     p     E  e  m  σ x  eA  iEt   x ,t  p, E   S e, e     0      σ p  eA x ,t   t  ep, E    S i, e iEt       e h  (3.129) In expressions (3.127), (3.128) and (3.129),   p ,  e and   h indicate proton, electron and hydrogen atom respectively. Again, proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, and A  (  ( x .,t )  A  ( , A ( x .,t ) ) p ,  (p.,E )  , A (p.,E ) ) p and A  (  ( x .,t ) , A ( x .,t ) ) e , A  (  ( p .,E )  , A (p.,E ) ) e are the electromagnetic potentials acting on spinized proton and spinized electron respectively. Again, if A   (( x .,t ) , A ( x .,t ) )p , A   ((p.,E ) , A (p.,E ) )p is negligible due to fast motion of the orbiting spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (3.129):    E  m  σ  x i  S e iEt       e, 0   S e iEt       σ p i  t    i,  p       E  e  m  σ  x  eA  iEt    ( x ,t ) (p, E )  S e, e    0      σ  p  eA (x ,t ) t  e(p, E )   S i, e iEt     e h     (1.130)  The Weyl-like (chiral-like) form of the last expression in (3.129) and expression (3.130) are respectively as follows:      E  e(x ,t )  σ  p i  eA (x ,t )   S e,r e iEt     0     m t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E )  S i,l e iEt    p     E  e  σ  p  eA    S e,l e iEt    ( x ,t ) ( x ,t )       0    m t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt      e h   ISSN: 2153-8212     (3.131)  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 943 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    E  σ p i    S e,r e iEt      0   S e iEt       m  t  σ  x i  i,l  p     E  e  σ  p  eA    S e,l e iEt    ( x ,t ) ( x ,t )       0    m t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h     (3.132)  Expressions (3.127) - (3.132) have the following metamorphoses for the dual universe comprised of the external momentum-energy space and the internal spacetime:    t  e(p, E )     x i  eA (p, E )   σ    t  e(p, E )      σ  x  eA (p, E )      (3.127a)   (3.128a)   σ p i  eA (x ,t )  S e, e iEt     0  E  e(x ,t )  m  S i, e iEt     p   σ  p  eA (x ,t )  S e, e iEt     0  E  e(x ,t )  m  Si, e iEt     e    1  ei 0  1ei 01ei 0  Le  iM iM p Le iM iM e  tE  E ip x ip x   tE  E ip x ip x        e e p  x p  x i i i i  p e 1 1  1   1    t    p   ip  x  ip  x     t    p   ip  x  ip  x   i         e  e  e     e                       x i  E  m      p    x  E  m       e   t       x i   p i  se, e iEt     t  0   E  m  si, e iEt      x  p  p  se, e iEt   0  E  m  si, e iEt   e    t  ep, E    σ p i  eA x ,t   S e, e iEt     0      σ x i  eA p, E   E  ex ,t   m  S i, e iEt      p      t  e   σ p  eA x ,t   S e, e iEt   p, E           0     σ x  eA p, E   E  ex ,t   m  S i, e iEt       e h  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.129a) www.JCER.com 944 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    t    σ p i  S e, e iEt      0      σ  x i E  m  S i, e iEt      p      t  e  σ  p  eA (x ,t )  S e, e iEt    (p, E )     0      σ  x  eA (p, E ) E  e(x ,t )  m  S i, e iEt     e h      (1.130a)      t  e(p, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E ) m  S e,r e iEt     0      E  e(x ,t )  σ  p i  eA (x ,t )  S i,l e iEt    p     E  e  σ  p  eA    S e,l e iEt   ( x ,t ) ( x ,t )     0      m E  e(x ,t )  σ  p  eA (x ,t )  S i,r e iEt    e h           E  σ p i    S e,r e iEt      0   S e iEt       m  t  σ  x i  i,l  p     E  e  σ  p  eA   iEt   S e,l e    ( x ,t ) ( x ,t )    0     m t  e(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )  S i,r e iEt     e h    (3.131a)  (3.132a)  4. Metamorphous Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) View 4.1 Metamorphoses & the Essence of Spin in the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model The preceding sections make it clear that the particle ei0 of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) can take many different forms as different primordial entities and, further, can have different manifestations as different wave functions and/or fields in different contexts even as a single primordial entity. For example, the wave functions of an electron can take the Dirac-like, Weyl-like, quaternion-like or determinant form respectively in different contexts depending on the questions one asks and the answer one seeks. This work also makes it clear that primordial self-referential spin in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) is hierarchical and that it is the cause of primordial distinctions for creating the self-referential entities in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space. There are several levels of spin: (1) spin in the power level in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 945 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space making primordial external and internal phase distinctions of external and internal wave functions; (2) spin of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) on the ground level making primordial external and internal wave functions which accompanies the primordial phase distinctions; (3) self-referential mixing of these wave functions through matrix law before spatial-momentum spinization; (4) unconfining spatialmomemtum spin through spatial-momentum spinization (electromagnetic and weak interaction) for creating bosonic and fermionic entities in the dual universe; and (5) confining spatial-momentum spin (strong interactions) creating the appearance of quarks through imaginary position-momentum (downward self-reference) in the dual universe. 4.2 The Determinant view & the meaning of Klein-Gordon-like equation in the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model In the determinant view, the matrix law collapses into Klein-Gordon-like form as shown in § 3 but so far we have not defined the form of the wave function as a result of the said collapse. Here, we propose that the external and internal wave functions (objects) form a special product state    with i containing the hidden variables, quantum potentials or e i self-gravity as shown below, vice versa. From the following equations for unspinized free particle in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form respectively:  E  m  x  e,     L  0   p t   i,  M D    (4.1) and Ep   m    e,l    L  0 t  x  i,r  M W  (4.2) we respectively obtained the following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordonlike form):  DetLM  e,  i,   Et  m  x  p  e ,  i,   0    Et  m  x  p  e,   0     Et  m  x  p  i,   0   (4.3) and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 946 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  DetLM  e,l i,r  Et  p  x  m  e,l i,r  0    Et  p  x  m  e,l  0      Et  p  x  m  i ,r  0   where (4.4) E m p   ; p parallels to x, E and p are operators in spacetime only acting on t  x external wave function (they are free parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wave function (they are free parameters in spacetime). By way of an example, equation (4.1) has the following plane-wave solution: from which we have:  e,   ae ,  e i  Et px       a e i  Et px   i,  e,   (4.5)  e,  i,   ae,  e i  Et px  e ai,  e i  Et px  i (4.6) where   Et  p  x e  e    (4.7)  Et  p  x i  i  are respectively the external and internal phase in the determinant view. The variables in  i,  play the roles of hidden variables to  e,  which would be annihilated, if  i,  were allowed to merged with e ,  . Indeed, if relativistic time in the external wave function  e ,  is considered to be inertial time, then the relativistic time in the conjugate internal wave function  i,  plays the role of quantized gravitational time. Similarly, from the following equations for spinized free fermion in Dirac-like and Weyllike form respectively:  E  m  σ x  e,   L  0     σ p t   i,  M    (4.8)   e,l   E  σ p   LM   0    m  i,r  t  σ  x    (4.9) and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 947 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where ψD=(ψe,+, ψi,-)T=(ψ1,ψ2, ψ3, ψ4)T and ψW=(ψe,l, ψi,r)T=(ϕ1, ϕ2, ϕ3, ϕ4)T, we respectively obtained following equations in the determinant view (Klein-Gordon-like form): and where  Det LM  e,  i,   Et  m  x  p I 2 e,  i,   0    Et  m  x  p  1  0     Et  m  x  p  2  0     Et  m  x  p  3  0   Et  m  x  p  4  0   (4.10)  Det LM  e,l i,r  Et  p  x  m I 2 e ,l i,r  0    Et  p  x  m 1  0     Et  p  x  m 2  0     Et  p  x  m 3  0    Et  p  x  m 4  0   (4.11) E m p   ; p parallels to x, E and p are operators in spacetime only acting on t  x external wave function (they are free parameters in momentum-energy space); and t and x are operators in momentum-energy space only acting on internal wave function (they are free parameters in spacetime).  Klein-Gordon-like equation in the presence of electromagnetic potential A   ( x ,t ) , A ( x ,t )    in spacetime and A   (p , E ) , A (p , E ) in momentum-energy space will be treated in future articles. 4.3 Schrodinger-like Equation in the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model From equation (4.3), we can obtain the following Schrodinger-like Equations:  x  m  E e  Hˆ  e      p   e t   t  (4.12)  mc  x  e i t e  Hˆ  e    i    x  t  t  (4.13) that is, 2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 948 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space and  p  m  t i  Tˆ i      x   i E  E  (4.12)  mc 2  p  i i E i  Tˆ i    i    p  E E     (4.13) that is, 4.4 The Third State of Matter in the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model In this work we have suggested that Kein-Gordon-like equation is a determinant view of a fermion, boson or an unspinized entity (spinlesson) in which the external and internal wave functions (objects) form a special product state    with  as the origin of hidden e i i variable, quantum potentials or self-gravity. The unspinized entity (spinlesson) is neither a boson nor a fermion but may be classified as a third state of matter described by the unspinized equation in Dirac-like or Weyl-like (chiral-like) form, for example: ip  x   (4.14)  E  m  x  ae, e      e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,    p t   ip  x      ai, e   Ep   m  where ip  x     ae,l e       LM ,e  ip x t  x    ai , r e    e,l  L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M   (4.15) E m p   , p parallels to x. t  x The hadronized versions of the above equations in which the position is imaginary are respectively as follows:  E  m  x i  se, e iEt     L     pi t   si, e iEt   M ,e     e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.16)   se,l e iEt     L  t  x i  si,r e iEt   M ,e    e,l  L  0 LM ,i   i,r    (4.17)  E  pi   m  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. M www.JCER.com 949 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where x t    i and xi parallels to pi. E m pi The wave functions of a fermion and boson are respectively a bispinor and bi-vector but that of the third state (spinlesson) is two-component complex scalar field. The third state of matter is the precursor of both fermionic and bosonic matters/fields before fermionic or bosonic spinization. Thus, it may step into the shoes played by the Higgs field in the standard model. Further, in this scenario, intrinsic proper time is created by the selfreferential spin (imagination) of premomentumenergy. 5. Weak Interaction in the Prespacetime-premomentumenergy Model Weak interaction is an expressive process (emission or radiation) through fermionic spinization with or without intermediary bosonic spinization and the associated reverse process (capture or absorption). There are two possible kinds of mechanisms at play. One kind is the direct fermionic spinization of an unspinized massive particle as shown in § 3: p  p 2   Det(σ  p )  σ  p , x  x 2   Det (σ  x )  σ  x (5.1) that is, for example:  E  m  x  e   E  m  σ x  e      0      0   σ p t   i    p t   i         and the following reverse process: (5.2) σ  p   Det (σ  p )  p 2  p , σ  x   Det (σ  x )  x 2  x (5.3) that is, for example:  E  m  x  e   E  m  σ x  e     0     0     σ.p t   i    p t   i        (5.4) Processes (5.1) and (5.3) only conserve spin in the dual universe as a whole. There is no exchange particle involved in process (1) or (2). In neutron synthesis from proton and electron, if it exists, the reverse process (5.3) may occur during which a spinized proton (or electron) loses its spin and free electron becomes tightly bound to proton. We suggest that the following equation governs free unspinized particles having mass m in external spacetime, intrinsic proper time  in momentum-energy space, and charge e respectively but spinless: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 950 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space     E  m  e  x  i     t     p  i e   E  m  x e  0 or  p t  i (5.5) After spinization through (5.1), we arrive at Dirac-like equation:    E  m   x e 0  p t  i Assuming a plane wave  e,   e  ip  x  E  m  e  σ  x i    t    i  σ  p e  or  (5.6) exists for equation (5.5), we obtain the following solution for said equation:  e  ip x    1    e,       N  p  ip  x   N  p e  ip x      i,   t  e    t        (5.7) where N is a normalization factor and where we have utilized the following relation for an time eigenstate: t    i ,   p e,    i ,   p  e,  t  (5.8) After spinization of solution (5.7): 1 0       0 1     1 0  1     p  ip  p   0 1  pz x y        t    t    σ p   t  p  ip y  p z     t     x  t    t  (5.9) we arrive at the free plane-wave electron solution for Dirac-like equation (5.6) in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space:  1   0      0   1    e,  and     p  ip e ,     N  p z e  ip x   e  ip x x y   N    t    i,  t   i,       p z ipy   p  z      t    t    (5.10)  Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may allow the following bosonic spinization of massive spinless particle: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 951 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    s p ,    sx p  p 2   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3  x  x 2   Det(s  x  I 3 )  Det I 3  (5.11) that is, for example:  E  m  x  e   E  m sx  e      0      0  sp t   i    p t   i        and/or (5.12)    s  p  σ  p   σ  p  x  x   Det(s  x  I )  Det I    s  x  σ  x   σ  x  p  p 2   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3  1 2 1 2 2 3 3 (5.13) that is, for example:  E  m  x  e   E  m sx  e      0      0  sp t   i    p t   i                E  m  σ  x  e   0    E  σ  x  e   0  t  i     σ  p t    i  1    σ  p 2 (5.14) The spinized equation in expression (5.12) for a free massive spin 1 particle may take the following Dirac-like form:  E     E  m sp  e,      LM  e,   LM  (x, t)   LM  0    sp t   i, _   i, _   iB (p, E)         (5.15) or  iB     E  m sx  e,      LM  e, _   LM  (x, t)   LM  0    sp t   i,   i,   E (p, E)         (5.16) After calculating the determinant:  E  m s x     E  m t      s x   s p  Dets    s p t      (5.17) We obtain the following: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 952 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    xpx E m sx Dets  Et  m  x  p I 3   ypz  s p t   zp  x xp y yp y zp y  Et  m  x  p I 3  M T xpz  ypz   zpz  (5.18) As mentioned in § 3, the last term MT in expression (5.18) makes fundamental relation Et  m  x  p  0 not to hold in the determinant view (5.17) unless the action of MT on the external and internal components of the wave function produces null result, that is:  Ex    M T  E y   ( x  y  z ) x  E ( x, t)  0 E   z (5.19)  Bx    M T  B y   ( p x  p y  p z )p  B (p, E)  0 B   z (5.20) and 6. EM Interaction in the Prespacetime-momentumenergy Model Electromagnetic interaction is an expressive process (radiation or emission) through bosonic spinization of a massless and spinless entity and the associated reverse process (absorption). There are possibly two kinds of mechanisms at play. One kind is the direct bosonic spinization (spinizing radiation):    s p , x  x   Det(s  x  I )  Det I    s  x p  p 2   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3  2 3 3 (6.1) that is, for example:  E  p   x  e   s x  e   t    0      0   s.x  i  t  i  t     (6.2) and the following reverse process (unspinizing absorption): ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 953 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    p p, s  x   Det(s  x  I )  Det I    x  x s  p   Det(s  p  I 3 )  Det I 3  2 2 3 (6.3) 3 that is, for example:  E  s x  e   E     0     s p p t  i    Assuming a plane wave  e,   e  E p  ip  x  x  e     0 t  i   (6.4) exists for the spinless and massless particle:    x e  0 or t i  E e  x  i     t  p  e   i (6.5) we obtain the following solution for this equation:  ip x   1   ip x   e,  1 e   p e     N  p ip x   i,    2 e    t t  (6.6) where we have utilized the following relation for an energy eigenstate and N is the normalization factor : t i ,   p  e ,    i ,   p  e,  (6.7) ip y   t  p  x  t  0   (6.8) t After spinization:   0  p s  p  ip z   t t t  ip   y  t  ip z t 0 ip x t We arrive at the plane-wave solution: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 954 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  0   1      1   0    0   0  y   ex,     ip  x  e,   1   ip e ip x 1 z    0 e  i,  2  t   i,  2  ipz       0   t   ipx    ip y   t       t  for the spinized photon equation:    E s x e  0 or i  s p t  0     0   1  z    ip  x  e,      1  ip y e  i,  2 t      ipx     t   0   E e  s  x i    t   s  p  e   i (6.9) (6.10) For bosonic spinization p  p 2  s  p and x  x 2  s  x , the Maxwell-like equations in the vacuum in the spacetime-momentumenergy unverse may be written as follows:    p   E ( x, t)   E    i t  s  x  E ( x , t)    0         0  i E  iB ( p , E)   t  iB (p , E)     s  p    x      ,  x  E ( x, t)  0 p  E ( x , t)  0      p  B (p , E)  0 x  B (p , E)  0               t E( x, t)   p  B (p , E)      E B (p , E)   x  E( x , t)  or    x  E( x , t)  0       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.11) If we calculate the determinant: s x   E   Et    s x   s p  Dets    s p  t   (6.12) We obtain the following: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 955 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space    xpx E sx Det s  Et  x  p I 3   ypz  s p t  zp  x xp y yp y zp y xpz  ypz   Et  x  p I 3  M T  zp z  (6.13) The last term MT in expression (6.13) makes fundamental relation Et  x  p  0 not hold in the determinant view (6.12) unless the action of MT on the external and internal components of the wave function produces null result, since equations (5.20) and (5.21) only hold in the source-free region of the dual momentum-energy universe.   If source  (p,E ) , j( x ,t )  0 in the spacetime-momentumenergy universe, we may have instead:  E  s  x  E ( x , t)    ij( x , t)     i t   p   E ( x , t)    ij( x , t)                 t  iB ( p , E)   0       p  i E  iB (p , E)   0     s p   ,  p  E ( x , t)  i ( E, p)  x  E ( x , t)   (p , E)     x  B ( p , E)  0  p  B (p , E)  0               t E ( x , t)   p  B (p , E)  j( x , t)      E B (p , E)   x E ( x , t)  or   x  E ( x , t)   (p , E)       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.14) Importantly, we can also choose to use fermionic spinization scheme p  p 2  σ  p and x  x 2  σ  x to describe Maxwell-like equations. In this case, the Maxwell-like equation in the vacuum may have the form: - σ  x  σ  E ( x, t)   E 0    i σ  B σ  p t ( p , E)    (6.15) which gives: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 956 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  t    p   E ( x , t)        0  E  B ( p , E)     x      x  E ( x , t)  0    p  B ( p , E)  0        (6.16)  If source  (p,E ) , j( x ,t )  0 , we may have: - σ  x  σ  E ( x , t)    iσ  j ( x , t)   E        i  i σ  B σ  p t ( p , E)  ( p , E)     (6.17)   t E ( x , t)   p  B (p , E)  j( x , t)      E B (p , E)   x  E ( x , t)     x  E ( x , t)   (p , E)       B  0 p ( p , E)   (6.18) which gives: Therefore, in the fermionic spinization scheme, we have in place of the bi-vector wave function a 4x4 tensor comprising of two bi-spinors (instead of the bi-vector itself) generated by projecting the bi-vector comprised of E(x, t) and iB(p, E) to spin σ. Further, we point out here that for a linear photon its electric field E(x, t) is the external wave function (external object) and its magnetic field B(p, E) is the internal wave function (internal object). These two fields are always self-entangled and their entanglement is their selfgravity. Therefore, the relation between E(x, t) and B(p, E) in a propagating electromagnetic wave is not that change in E(x, t) induces B(p, E) vice versa but that change in E(x, t) is always accompanied by change in B(p, E) vice versa due to their entanglement (self-gravity). That is, the relationship between E(x, t) and B(p, E) are gravitational and instantaneous. 7. Strong Interaction in the Prespacetime-momentumenergy Model While weak and electromagnetic interactions are expressive processes involving fermionic and bosonic spinizations of spinless entities (the third state of matter) and their respective reverse processes, strong interaction does not involve spinization, that is, strong force is a confining process. In order to achieve confinement of a nucleon or stability of the nucleus, we suggest that, in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 957 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space space, strong interaction may involve imaginary momentum and imaginary position respectively in the confinement zone as illustrated below. We have suggested in § 3 that the proton may be considered as an elementary particle that accomplishes spatial and momentum self-confinement through downward self-reference (imaginary momentum and imaginary position). 8. Gravity in the Prespacetime-momentumenergy Model Gravity in the spacetime-momentumenergy universe is quantum entanglement (instantaneous interaction) across the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space. There are two types of gravity at play. One is selfgravity (self-interaction) between the external object (external wave function) and internal object (internal wave function) of an entity (wave function) governed by the metamorphous matrix law described in this work and the other is the quantum entanglement (instantaneous interaction) between two entities or one entity and the external or internal universe as a whole. As further shown below, gravitational field (graviton) is just the wave function itself which expresses the intensity distribution and dynamics of self-quantum-entanglement (nonlocality) of an entity. We focus here on three particular forms of gravitational fields. When E=t=0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4):  m  x  p  0 or m  x  p  0 (8.1) As shown in § 3, the timeless and energy-less matrix law in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form is respectively the following: (8.2)  m  x      LM ,e LM ,i   LM    p      (8.3)   p       LM ,e LM ,i   LM   m  x     Thus, the equations of the timeless and energy-less wave functions (self-fields) are respectively as follows:   m  x  g D,e e iM     L     p   g D,i e iM   M ,e    VD,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.4)   p   gW ,e e iM     L     m  x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e    VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   (8.5) and Equation (8.4) and (8.5) can be respectively rewritten as: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 958 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space   x  V D , e   V D ,i  m   p    V D ,i  V D , e      mVD ,e   x VD ,i    or  V  p V  D ,e   D ,i (8.6) and  mVW ,e  x VW ,i    V   p V  or W ,e   W ,i   x  VW ,e  VW ,i  m   p   VW ,i   VW ,e     (8.7) When |p|=|x|=0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4): Et  m  0 (8.18) As shown in § 3, the spaceless and momemtumless matrix law in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form is respectively the following:  E m 0       LM , e  0  t     LM , i   L M (8.19)  E      L   m t   M , e   LM , i   L M (8.20) and and the equation of spaceless and momemtumless wave functions (self-fields) are respectively the follows:  E  m 0  g D,e e iM       LM ,e  0 t   g D,i e iM      VD,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.21)  E   gW ,e e iM      L   m t  g e iM   M ,e W , i    VW ,e   L V 0 LM ,i   VW ,i  M W   (8.22) and The external and internal (momentum-less) wave functions VD,e and VD,i in equation (8.21) are decoupled from each other, but those in equation (8.22),VW,e and VW,i, are coupled to each other:  EVD ,e  mVD ,e   EV  VW ,i    but  W ,e  tV  mV  tV    V D , i D , i W ,e     W ,i ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (8.23) www.JCER.com 959 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space It can be verified that the solutions to equation (8.21) are in forms of:  e  imt   V D ,e  1   N  e imt   N  VD      0  VD ,i   0  (8.24)  V D ,e   0  0   N  iE   N  e iE VD   e  1  VD ,i  (8.25) or but the solutions to equation (8.22) are in the forms of:  e iEmit  VW ,e  1   N  iEmit   N  e iEmit VW   e  1  VW ,i    (8.26) When m==0, we have from fundamental relationship (3.4): Et  x  p  0 (8.31) We can regard expression (8.31) as a relationship governing the massless and intrinsicproper-time-less dual universe in which the total mass and intrinsic-proper-time are both zero. As shown in § 3, the intrinsic-proper-time-less matrix law in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form is respectively the following:  E  p  x     L t   M ,e  LM ,i   LM (8.32) and Ep 0  (8.33)     LM ,e LM ,i   LM    0 t x    and the equations of massless and intrinsic-proper-time-less wave functions (self-fields) are respectively the following:  E   p   x  g D,e e iM     L  t  g D,i e iM   M ,e   VD,e  L V 0 LM ,i   VD,i  M D   (8.34) Ep   0  0  gW ,e e iM     L  t  x  gW ,i e iM   M ,e   VW ,e    LM VW  0 LM ,i   VW ,i    (8.35) and The external and internal (masssless) wave functions VD,e and VD,i in equation (8.34) are coupled with each other, but those in equations (8.35),VW,e and VW,i, are decoupled from ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 960 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space each other:  EVD ,e  x VD ,i   EV  p VW ,e    but  W ,e   tV  p V   tV   x V  D , i D , e W , i W , i     (8.36) The solutions to equation (8.34) are in the forms of:  1e  i (t k x )  1  V D ,e    N  p i (t k x )   N  p e i (t k x ) VD    e     VD ,i   t   t  (8.37)  x i (t k x )  x  VD ,e      i (t k x )   N  E e VD    N   E e V  i (  t  k  x )   D , i   1  1e  (8.38) or but the solutions to equation (8.35) are in the forms of:  e  i (t kx )  VW ,e  1   N  e i (t kx )   N  VW     0  0  Vw,i    (8.39) 0 VW ,e     0   N  i (t kx )   N  e i (t k x ) VW   e  1  VW ,i  (8.40) or Equations (8.34) and (8.35) describe the self-interaction of external and internal spinless wave functions (self-fields). 9. Human Consciousness in the Spacetime-momentumenergy Universe We now briefly discuss human consciousness in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) model. Detailed treatment will be given in forthcoming articles. Our experimental results on quantum entanglement of the brain with external substances (See, e.g., Refs, in [1]) suggest that Consciousness is not located in the brain but associated with prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) or simply is prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness). Thus, Consciousness as prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of Consciousness as prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the selfreferential matrix law) and it projects the external and internal objects (wavefunctions) in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 961 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space the dual universe through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of Consciousness as prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external object (wavefunction) in the external spacetime through the internal object (wavefunction) in the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect Consciousness as prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation. Figure 9.1 Interaction between an object and the brain (body) in the dual universe As illustrated in Figure 9.1, there are two kinds of interactions between an object (entity) outside the brain (body) and the brain (body) in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model. The first kind is the direct physical and/or chemical interactions such as sensory input through the eyes. The second and lesser-known but experimentally proven to be true kind is the instantaneous interactions through quantum entanglement. The entire world outside our brain (body) is associated with our brain (body) through quantum entanglement thus influencing and/or generating not only our feelings, emotions and dreams but also the physical, chemical and physiological states of our brain and body. In the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, we may write the following HodgkinHuxley equation in the external spacetime and Hodgkin-Huxley-like like equation in the internal momentum-energy space respectively:  tVm   ISSN: 2153-8212  1    Vm  Ei gi  Cm  i  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (9.1) www.JCER.com 962 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space where Vm is the electric potential across the neural membranes, Cm is the capacitance of the membranes and gi is the ith voltage-gated or constant-leak ion channel; and  EVm(p.E )       Vm (p.E )  Ei (p.E ) g i (p.E )  Cm ( p . E )  i  1 (9.1a) where Vm(p,E) is the electric potential across the neural membranes, Cm(p,E) is the capacitance of the membranes, gi(p,E) is the ith voltage-gated or constant-leak ion channel. Microscopically, in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space, electromagnetic fields E(x, t) and B(x, t) or their four-poential A ( x ,t )  ( x ,t ) , A ( x ,t )  in the external spacetime:  E ( x ,t )  ( x ,t )   t A ( x ,t )      B    A ( x , t ) ( x , t )   and electromagnetic fields E(p, and E) B(p, (9.2) E) A (p , E )  (p , E ) , A (p , E )  in the internal momentum-energy space: or their  E(p ,E )  (p ,E )   E A (p ,E )      B    A (p , E ) (p , E )   four-potential (9.2a) interact with proton of charge e and unpaired electron of charge –e respectively as the following Dirac-Maxwell-like systems:    E  ex , t   m    σ  p i  eA x , t     σx i  eA p, E   e,     0  t  ep, E    i,     p † - σ  x  σ  E  x ,t     iσ  ( α )  iσ  j x ,t    E    t  iσ  B p , E     i ( †  )  i p , E   - σ p     and  E  e m   x ,t     σ  p  eA   x ,t    ISSN: 2153-8212     0   σ  x  eA  p , E     t  e   p,E    e,  i,   e Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (9.3) (9.4) p (9.5) www.JCER.com 963 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space  E  - σ p † - σ  x  σ  E x ,t     iσ  ( α )  iσ  j x ,t     t  iσ  B p , E     i ( †  )  i p , E      e  (9.6)  where β and α are Dirac matrices and (p,E ) , j( x ,t ) is the electric density in the internal momentum-energy space and current in external spacetime respectively. 10. Some Questions & Answers 1. Do the uncertainty principle and commutation relations among energy, momentum, time and position hold in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? Yes, they hold separately in the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space. In external spacetime, time and position are continuous parameters and energy and momentum are quantized dynamical variables. In the internal momentum-energy space, time and position are quantized dynamical variables and energy and momentum are continuous parameters. 2. How are prespacetime model, premomentumenergy model and prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) connected to each other? The elementary particle in prespacetime model is transformed into that in prespacetime-premomentumenergy and/or premomentumenergy model through quantum jump as demonstrated in forth coming articles. 3. What is the foundation of the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space? The foundation is prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. 4. Was there something before the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space was born (if there was such birth)? Yes, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) alone (1=ei0) without differentiation or dualization. So, it may be said that 1= ei0 is the primordial particle. 5. How does prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) create, sustain and cause evolution of the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space and all entities in it? Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) does these things by hierarchical self-referential spin of itself at its free will. 6. Why is there materially something instead of nothing? Prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) is restless and tends to create, sustain and make evolutions of different entities. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 964 7. How does prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) govern the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space? Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) governs through metamorphous self-referential matrix law. 8. What is matter in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? Matter is a dualized entity (created through hierarchical self-referential spin of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness)) comprised of an external wave function (external object) having positive energy by convention and an internal wave function (internal object) having negative time by convention. 9. What is antimatter in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? Antimatter is a dualized entity (created through hierarchical self-referential spin of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness)) comprised of an external wave function (external object) having negative energy by convention and an internal wave function (internal object) having positive time by convention. 10. What is quantum entanglement in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is the interaction and/or connections between the external and internal wave functions (objects) of a single dualized entity or among different dualized entities through the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model which is outside spacetime and momentumenergy. 11. What is self-interaction, self-gravity or self-quantum entanglement in the the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? Self-interaction is the interaction between the external and internal wave functions (objects) according to the the prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) equation governed by the self-referential matrix law. 12. What is strong force in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is downward self-reference through imaginary momentum in the external spacetime and imaginary position in the internal momentum-energy space. 13. What is weak force in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is fermionic spinization and unspinization of spinless entities with or without bosonic intermediary spinization. 14. What is electromagnetic force in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is bosonic spinization and unspinization of intrinsic-proper-time-less (massless) and spinless entity. 15. What is gravity in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is quantum entanglement across the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal momentum-energy space which includes self-gravity or self-quantumISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 965 entanglement between the external and internal wave functions (objects) of a single dualized entity and gravity or quantum entanglement among different entities. 16. What is the origin of the quantum effect in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? The origin is primordial hierarchical self-referential spin of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness). 17. What is information in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is a distinction (either quantitative or qualitative) experienced or perceived by a particular consciousness. 18. What is quantum information in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is a distinction or a state of distinction (either quantitative or qualitative) experienced or perceived by a particular consciousness which is due to a quantum effect such as quantum entanglement. 19. What is the meaning of imaginary unit i in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model? It is the most elementary self-referential process. As imagination of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness), it makes phase distinction of an elementary entity and, as an element in the matrix law, it plays a crucial role in selfreferential matrixing creation of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). 20. What is Consciousness? Consciousness is prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. 21. What is human consciousness? It is a limited or individualized Consciousness associated with a particular human brain/body. 22. Does human consciousness reside in human brain? No, the human brain is the interface for human consciousness to experience and interact with the external universe. 23. What are spirit, soul and/or mind? They are different aspects or properties of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is transcendent, immanent and eternal. 24. Where did we come from? Physically/biologically, we came from prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) as its creation. Spiritually, we are an inseparable part of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) and our consciousness is limited and/or individualized version of unlimited Consciousness. 25. Where are we going? Physically/biologically, we disintegrate or die unless we advance our science to the point where death of our biological body becomes a choice, not unavoidability. Also, we are of the opinion that advancement in science will eventually enable us to transfer or preserve our individual consciousness associated with our ailing or ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 966 diseased bodies to another biological or artificial host. Spiritually, we may go back to prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) or reincarnate into a different form of individual consciousness that may be able to recall its past. 26. How does the mind influence the brain? Mind influences the brain through free will which acts on subjective entities (internal objects), which in turn effect objective entities (external objects) through the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) equation. 27. What is the origin of the uncertainty principle? The origin is self-referential spin or zitterbewegung. 28. What is the origin of quantum jump? The free will of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) or unlimited transcendental Consciousness. Remember that our limited free will is part of the unlimted free will of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) since we are part of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness). 29. Is information conserved? It is our opinion that information is conserved to zero in the dual universe since each distinction in the external space is accompanied by its negation in the internal space. However, information is not conserved in each space alone. 30. What is a graviton? There is no graviton in the sense of a quantum (particle) which mediated gravitational interaction at the speed of light. However, since gravity is quantum entanglement, the wave function of each entity may be treated as a graviton. 31. Is there an absolute reference frame? Yes, it is simply prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness). 11. Conclusion This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence. A prespacetimepremomentumenergy model of elementary particles, four forces and human consciousness is formulated, which may illustrate how the self-referential hierarchical spin structure of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) provides a foundation for creating, sustaining and causing evolution of elementary particles through matrixing processes embedded in said prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). This model generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum of a dual universe. In contrast, the prespacetime model described previously generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of an external spacetime and an internal spacetime. Then, the premomentumenergy model described recently generates elementary particles and their governing matrix laws for a dual universe ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 967 (quantum frame) comprised of an external momentum-energy space and an internal momentum-energy space. These quantum frames and their metamorphoses may be interconnected through quantum jumps as demonstrated in forthcoming articles. The prespacetime-premomentumenergy model may reveal the creation, sustenance and evolution of fermions, bosons and spinless entities each of which is comprised of an external wave function or external object in the spacetime and an internal wave function or internal object in the internal momentum-energy space. The model may provide a unified causal structure in said dual universe (quantum frame) for weak interaction, strong interaction, electromagnetic interaction, gravitational interaction, quantum entanglement, human consciousness. The model may also provide a unique tool for teaching, demonstration, rendering, and experimentation related to subatomic and atomic structures and interactions, quantum entanglement generation, gravitational mechanisms in cosmology, structures and mechanisms of human consciousness. In the beginning there was prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) ei0 materially empty but restless. And it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=eiM-iM=eiM e-iM=e-iM/ e-iM = eiM/ eiM…such that it created the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through self-referential matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universe (quantum frame) comprised of said external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space which it has since sustained and made to evolve. In this universe, the body (ether) of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness), represented by Euler’s Number e, is the ground of existence and can form external wave functions as external object and internal wave function as internal object (each pair forms an elementary entity) and interaction fields between elementary entities which accompany the imaginations of the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). The prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) can be self-acted on by selfreferential matrix law LM. The prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has imagining power i to project external and internal objects by projecting, e.g., external and internal phase +M =+(Et-p·x)/ħ at the power level of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). The universe so created is a dual universe (quantum frame) comprising of the external spacetime with a relativistic frame xμ=(t, x) and internal momentum-energy space with a relativistic frame pμ=(E/c, p). The absolute frame of reference is the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) itself. Thus, if prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) stops imagining (i0=0), the dual universe (quantum frame) would disappear into materially nothingness ei0=e0=1. The accounting principle of the dual universe is conservation of total phase to zero, that is, the total phase of an external object and its counterpart, the internal object, is zero. Also in this dual universe, self-gravity is nonlocal self-interaction (wave mixing) between an ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 968 external object in the external spacetime and its negation/image in the internal momentumenergy space, vice versa. Gravity in external spacetime is the nonlocal interaction (quantum entanglement) between an external object with the internal momentum-energy space as a whole. Some other basic conclusions are: (1) the two spinors of the Dirac electron or positron in this dual universe (quantum frame) are respectively the external and internal objects of the electron or positron; and (2) the electric and magnetic fields of a linear photon in the dual universe are respectively the external and internal objects of a photon which are always self-entangled. In this dual universe, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) has both transcendental and immanent properties. The transcendental aspect of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the origin of primordial self-referential spin (including the self-referential matrix law) and it projects the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space through spin and, in turn, the immanent aspect of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) observes the external spacetime through the internal momentum-energy space. Human consciousness is a limited and particular version of this dual-aspect prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) such that we have limited free will and limited observation. References 1. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence: Towards a Science of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:1, pp. 50-119. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1001.0011 2. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence II: Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law, & the Ontology & Mathematics of Ether. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:9, pp. 1149-1178. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1012.0043 3. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model I. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 641-660. 4. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model II. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 661-680. 5. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 766-834. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 889-969 Hu, H & Wu, M., Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentum-energy Space 969 6. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 835-866. 7. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Modeling Methods Based on Premomentumenergy Model. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 867-888. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

135 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| February 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | pp. 135-139 Neppe, V. M. & Close, E. R., Relative non-locality—Key Features in Consciousness Research – On Non-locality VII: References Cited in Non-locality I, II, II, IV, V & VI Exploration Relative Non-locality - Key Features in Consciousness Research On Non-locality VII: References Cited in Non-locality I, II, II, IV, V & VI Vernon M. Neppe* & Edward R. Close ABSTRACT This part contains the references cited in Non-locality I, II, II, IV, V & VI. Key Words: reference, consciousness, relative, framework, non-locality, space-time, level, relative non-locality, dimension, beyond. Acknowledgements: We wish to acknowledge the assistance of Shauna Mason, Neil McNeill, Dean Radin, Jacqueliine Slade and Suzan Wilson, and the permission of the Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute, Seattle to publish one part of this series of articles which is rewritten for this journal. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Neppe VM, Close ER. Reality Begins with Consciousness (RBC) — Glimpses and Glossary 2nd ed. Seattle, WA: Brainvoyage.com; 2014. Neppe VM, Close ER. Relative non-locality and the infinite. Reality begins with consciousness: a paradigm shift that works (5th Edition). 5th ed. Seattle, WA: Brainvoyage.com; 2014:376-379. Neppe VM, Close ER. The concept of relative non-locality: Theoretical implications in consciousness research. Explore (NY): The Journal of Science and Healing. March 2014 (In press);12: 07(1). Neppe VM, Close ER. Reality begins with consciousness: a paradigm shift that works (5th Edition). Fifth ed. Seattle: Brainvoyage.com; 2014. Tressoldi PE. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence: the case of non-local perception, a classical and Bayesian review of evidences. Frontiers in Psychology. 10 June 2011. 2011;2(117):1-5. Neppe VM. 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arXiv:0705.1617v1 [quant-ph] 11 May 2007 Non-Computability of Consciousness Daegene Song∗ October 22, 2018 Abstract With the great success in simulating many intelligent behaviors using computing devices, there has been an ongoing debate whether all conscious activities are computational processes. In this paper, the answer to this question is shown to be no. A certain phenomenon of consciousness is demonstrated to be fully represented as a computational process using a quantum computer. Based on the computability criterion discussed with Turing machines, the model constructed is shown to necessarily involve a non-computable element. The concept that this is solely a quantum effect and does not work for a classical case is also discussed. 1 Introduction. Research in the field of artificial intelligence, which attempts to imitate and simulate intelligent activities using a machine, has blossomed along with the development of information technology [1]. Because the study of artificial intelligence has provided many insights into intelligent behaviors such as pattern recognition, decision theory, etc., there is a question whether consciousness or self-awareness could emerge out of a computational system, a view termed as strong artificial intelligence. This question can be rephrased and stated as follows: Are all conscious activities computational processes?. In this paper, the answer to this question is shown to be no. In order to examine the computability of a physical phenomenon, the phenomenon should first be represented as a computational model; subsequently, the computability of this particular model can be examined. The physical phenomenon can then be claimed to be computable or not based on this examination. A similar approach will be taken in order to examine the computability of consciousness. Because consciousness is a phenomenon experienced by an observer, representation of consciousness as a computational process will be attempted and its computability will be examined. Although traditional approaches for studying consciousness have included neuroscience [2] or neural ∗ School of Computational Sciences, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 130-722, Korea.; Email: dsong@kias.re.kr. 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 Figure 1: Turing machine. A Turing machine is an abstract model of a computing system consisting of internal states, a tape containing symbols in each cell and a head that reads and writes the symbol. Evolution in time of the Turing machine is described by (I, a) → (I ′ , a′ , d) where I is the internal state, and a is a symbol written on the tape. At the ith cell, i.e., the head’s position, the head reads the symbol a, and, with the instruction I, it writes a new symbol, a′ , and moves either one cell to the left (d = −1) or to the right (d = +1) with an updated internal state, I ′ . The initiation and termination of computation are indicated by internal states, h0 and h1 , respectively. network modeling [3, 4], it is demonstrated that a quantum system to be presented below, it necessarily involves a conscious, as opposed to a physical, activity of an observer observing the unitary dynamics of a quantum state. Based on this observation, a particular quantum computer can be built such that it yields a computational model involving consciousness. Using logic similar to that in Turing’s haling problem, it can be shown that this computational model necessarily runs into a contradiction. As a result, this effectively provides a counter-example to the assumption that all conscious activities are computational processes. In this paper, it is not claimed that all conscious activities can be constructed, using a quantum computer, nor that they are quantum mechanical. Instead, it will be argued that the quantum system to be presented necessarily involves a certain conscious activity and that quantum theory provides a full description of this particular conscious activity. This argument will be used to build a quantum computing machine such that it suffices to provide a counter-example. A single counter-example is sufficient to prove the assumption is incorrect. 2 Computability and Turing machine. In order to discuss computability of consciousness, let us first consider what it means to be computable. This can be done using the notion of Turing machines. A Turing machine, denoted as TM, is a theoretical model of dynamic computing system configured with an internal state, a tape containing a symbol in each cell 2 and identification of the position of the head on the tape (see Fig. 1). The time evolution of the TM is described by (I, a) → (I ′ , a′ , d) where I is the internal state, a a symbol in the cell of the tape, and d = ±1. Therefore, at the ith cell, the head reads the symbol, a. Then, given the current internal state, I, which provides an instruction, the new symbol, a′ = I(a), is written, and the internal state is updated to I ′ and the head moves either one cell to the right (d = +1) or one cell to the left (d = −1), i.e., to the (i + d)th cell. Among the functions of the internal state, is the indication of initiation and termination of computation. Initially, this particular state is set to h0 , indicating the initiation of the computation. After the computation is completed, the state is set to h1 and the machine ceases its activity. The output of the computation corresponds to the symbol in the cell where the head is located when the machine halts. For a given input, i, the TM runs, following the time evolution described above, and either (A) produces an outcome, f = TM(i), and halts with the internal state set to h1 or (B) loops forever and the internal state never reaches h1 . A system is called computable if it corresponds to a TM such that it follows either (A) or (B) for a given input i, and is called non-computable otherwise. The issue of computability is considered in the following setup: suppose T is defined to have the following two properties: 1. Computable: T (i) when i 6= T 2. Non-computable: T (i) when i = T That is, T corresponds to a TM that follows either (A) or (B) except when the input is T , i.e., the description of T , itself (see Fig. 2). In the following approach, the manner in which the computational model involving consciousness may be defined through T will be shown using a quantum computing machine, such that the two conditions regarding computability are satisfied, i.e. necessarily containing non-computability. 3 The halting problem. Before proceeding with the discussion of consciousness, it is instructive to review Turing’s halting problem [5] and to examine its use of a property similar to that seen in T , such that the problem was shown to be non-computable. The situation for the halting problem is as follows: for some TMs, an outcome indicated by the halt internal state h0 → h1 , is computed, while for some other TMs, with a given input, the computation loops forever indicated by a constant internal state, h0 . Turing’s halting problem asks if there is a TM that can distinguish between the two types given an arbitrary TM and an input. Suppose there is such a TM that performs a calculation given the description of TM and i such that it is able to determine if TM halts or not. This assumption then makes it possible to construct a particular TM, TMH , such that the machine does not halt, for an input TM, if and only if TM(TM) halts. However, a contradiction follows for TMH when the input is TMH itself, because TMH (TMH ) does not halt, if and only if, TMH (TMH ) halts. 3 Non-computable Computible i where i Computable i where i Computible Figure 2: Computability and Non-computability. T is defined to have the property corresponding to a Turing machine that either halts or not unless it is given an input of T itself. The halting problem can be defined in association with T , such that it necessarily is non-computable. Similarly, quantum theory allows consciousness to be represented as a computational process in terms of T , such that it would necessarily consist of a non-computable element when the input is T itself. Therefore, by identifying the TMH associated with the hypothetical TM that could decide if an arbitrary TM would halt on a given input, it is possible to show that the TMH contains an element that neither halts after completing the computation nor loops forever as should a valid TM. The constructed TMH has the same property as T in Fig. 2, i.e., it is computable except when the input is TMH itself. 4 Conscious activity in quantum system. In order to represent a phenomenon of consciousness as a computational model, the manner in which a conscious activity is involved in a quantum system is first discussed. This will be conducted using the notation of a qubit, a two-level quantum system. A qubit in a density matrix form is written as |ψihψ| = 21 (1 + µ̂ · ~σ ) where µ̂ = (µx , µy , µz ) = (sin θ cos φ, sin θ sin φ, cos θ) and ~σ = (σx , σy , σz ) with σx = |0ih1| + |1ih0|, σy = −i|0ih1| + i|1ih0|, and σz = |0ih0| − |1ih1|. Therefore a qubit, |ψihψ|, can be represented as a unit vector µ̂ = (µx , µy , µz ) pointing in (θ, φ) of a sphere with 0 ≤ θ ≤ π, 0 ≤ φ ≤ 2π. In quantum theory, there is another important variable called an observable. For a single qubit, an observable can also be written as a unit vector, ν̂ = (νx , νy , νz ) = (sin ϑ cos ϕ, sin ϑ sin ϕ, cos ϑ), pointing (ϑ, ϕ) direction in a sphere. Therefore if one is to make a measurement in (ϑ, ϕ) direction, the observable would be ν̂ · ~σ . 4 Representing a qubit and an observable as unit vectors in the Bloch sphere will make their visualization easier which will be helpful in the following discussions. Let us consider one particular phenomenon, denoted as P1, and described as follows: an observer observes the unitary evolution of a qubit, µ̂, with respect to the observable, ν̂. The observer is observing the evolution of µ̂ indirectly and a measurement can be followed in order to confirm the evolution. When a measurement on µ̂, with the observable, ν̂, is made, it yields a real eigenvalue that can be directly observed by the observer. Before discussing the description of the phenomenon, P1, using the dynamics of quantum theory, it is necessary to illustrate why the phenomenon, P1, necessarily involves a conscious activity of the observer. An observable serves as a coordinate or a reference frame when the measurement is made on a given state vector [6]. This concept is easier to visualize with two unit vectors, µ̂ and ν̂. The unit vector representing an observable, i.e., ν̂, is serving the role of a coordinate for the unit vector representing a qubit, µ̂. Because the measurement is performed by an observer, the observable is considered to be a coordinate or a reference frame of the observer, for a given qubit µ̂. However, in quantum theory, observables, being a reference frame of the observer, are fundamentally different from reference frames in classical physics. In quantum theory, the state vectors have representation in, and evolve in, the Hilbert space, a complex vector space. This description was invented in order to correctly predict the outcome of measurement performed on a state vector which yields a real eigenvalue outcome. Not only do state vectors reside and evolve in the Hilbert space, so do the observables. Because the observables correspond to the reference frame of the observer and they exist in the complex Hilbert space, it must be concluded that, unlike reference frames in classical physics, quantum observables correspond to an observer’s reference frame in thought. That is, an observable should be considered to represent the conscious status of an observer while observing a given state vector. This argument explains why the phenomenon, P1, necessarily involves a conscious activity. The qubit in P1 can be any 2-level quantum system, for example, a spin 1/2particle or any quantum system in 2-levels, etc. However, it is not necessary to specify all properties of the physical system other than µ̂, because µ̂ is a pure state and is disentangled from the state that represents other properties of that quantum system. Therefore, as far as the phenomenon, P1, is concerned, µ̂ provides a full description of the physical system. The same logic applies to ν̂ as well. The vector, ν̂, is not entangled with vectors representing other observables. Therefore, ν̂ must provide a full description of the conscious status of the observer in phenomenon, P1. That is, similarly to the case with µ̂, it is not necessary to be concerned with other conscious activities of the observer because ν̂ is disentangled from them. Therefore, P1 not only necessarily involves a conscious activity of the observer, ν̂ gives a full description of the conscious activity as far as the phenomenon, P1, is concerned. Quantum theory provides two approaches in describing the natural phenomenon P1. Given µ̂ and ν̂, the first is by applying a unitary operation to the qubit with µ̂′ = U µ̂U † where a measurement would yield the expectation 5 value of ν̂ · µ̂′ . The second is by applying a unitary operation to the observable as ν̂ ′ = U † ν̂U and a measurement would yield ν̂ ′ · µ̂. That is, quantum theory insists that, in order to have an observer observe the unitary transformation of µ̂ with respect to ν̂, either a unitary transformation is applied to the qubit, i.e., the first approach, or the observer’s reference frame ν̂ is changed, i.e., the second approach. The first approach is called the Schrödinger picture and the second corresponds to the Heisenberg picture. In the second approach, it was the observable that went through a unitary transformation which should describe the same phenomenon, P1, as the first approach. Because the evolution of observables through unitary transformations are performed in the Hilbert space and the observable is the observer’s conscious status in P1, an observable that is being changed must correspond to a conscious activity of an observer. However, while the observer’s conscious status is being changed, the observer is not observing the observable but the state vector, µ̂. Therefore, this approach also yields the description of the natural phenomenon, P1, just as in the first approach. 5 Conscious activity in quantum computing process. So far, it has been argued that the phenomenon, P1, necessarily involves an observer’s conscious activity and quantum theory provides a full description of the conscious status of the observer regarding P1. Based on these observations, a quantum computational model is to be constructed such that it represents a phenomenon involving a conscious activity and its computability will be examined. In particular, T will be defined in terms of this computational model and the computability for a given input, i, will be examined. In the next section, it will be argued that when the input is T itself, it represents consciousness and will be proven to be non-computable similarly to the halting problem. Let us review basic elements of quantum computation by following the discussion in [7, 8]. The particular class of quantum computers to be considered is assumed to perform a computation on an input of a single qubit, i.e., a unit vector in the Bloch sphere, µ̂s , in which the subscript, s, is placed in order to distinguish it from the halt qubit to be defined shortly. In this particular class, the computation is assumed to be conducted through a unitary process on a given single input qubit, a rotation about the y-axis by δ, i.e., Uy ≡ cos 2δ |0ih0| − sin 2δ |0ih1| + sin 2δ |1ih0| + cos 2δ |1ih1|. Among the components of the classical TM, the head exists which reads each cell on the tape (see Fig. 1). The head in the classical TM may correspond to the observables in the quantum computer. As demonstrated earlier, for a single qubit, the observable can also be written as a unit vector in the Bloch sphere, which will be denoted as ν̂s . As suggested in [8], in addition to the system input qubit, an additional qubit is placed which indicates if the computation on the system qubit has successfully 6 ended by 0 → 1 after a valid computation on the single system qubit which remains 0 otherwise. This is equivalent to the classical TM in which its internal state indicates if the machine completed its computation by h0 → h1 . The halt qubit is set to point at the z-direction, i.e. µ̂h = (0, 0, 1). The corresponding observable, ν̂h = (0, 0, 1), also set to point at the z-direction, initially. Therefore, the quantum computer constructed for a given input µ̂s , is a closed system consisting of µ̂s , ν̂s , µ̂h , and ν̂h . Because there is freedom to set the observable, it can be used to identify one particular quantum computer which works on a given input, µ̂s . Among the infinitely many choices of ν̂s , assume that one particular quantum computer exists with the observable, ν̂s = (0, 0, 1). Because the unitary evolution will be Uy only, the initial observable fully characterizes this particular quantum computer and it will be defined as T . The quantum model constructed operates on a single qubit, and, only a single operation, i.e., Uy , is considered. Therefore, there is no need to specify any internal state that yields an instruction because there is only one operation. The only internal state needed is the indication of initiation and termination of the computation that is represented with the halt qubit. Moreover, indication of the position of the head is unnecessary because there is only one qubit, which corresponds to a tape with a single cell. Therefore, the quantum computer constructed corresponds to a very simple case of a quantum mechanical TM. One particular phenomenon, denoted as P2, is considered as follows: an observer observes a rotation of the input, µ̂s , about the y-axis by δ, with respect to ν̂s . As in P1, the observer is observing the rotation indirectly and a measurement on µ̂s with the observable, ν̂s , can be followed to confirm the evolution. Note that P2 is almost identical to the phenomenon, P1, except the unitary operation is specified as Uy . Therefore, similarly to the case with P1, the phenomenon, P2, necessarily involves a conscious activity of the observer, represented as ν̂s . Moreover, as discussed with the instance of P1, ν̂s provides a full description of the conscious status of the observer in reference to P2. In the following, it will be established that the quantum computer constructed, T , represents P2 as a computational model and is computable, therefore indicating that the phenomenon, P2, is computable. As discussed earlier, the quantum theory provides two approaches for the evolution in time of a quantum system. Therefore, because T , the quantum computer constructed, is a quantum system, it should also evolve in both approaches. The evolution in time of T with an initial input state, i = µ̂s = (0, 0, 1), will be examined. The first approach, i.e., the Schrödinger picture, is considered as follows: the unitary operation Uy transforms the input as µ̂s → Uy µ̂s Uy† and the halt qubit µ̂h ≡ (0, 0, 1) halts by transforming into −µ̂h . In the second approach, i.e., the Heisenberg picture, it is the observable that evolves. Therefore, Uy† transforms the vector representing the observable ν̂s into Uy† ν̂s Uy and the observable for the halt qubit ν̂h ≡ (0, 0, 1) is transformed into −ν̂h . Therefore, in the second approach, the observer’s conscious status ν̂s is being changed while the observer observes µ̂s . This should yield the same observation as the first approach. It is noted that the expectation 7 value of (Uy† ν̂s Uy ) · µ̂s for the second approach is equal to the expectation value in the first approach, ν̂s · (Uy µ̂s Uy† ). Therefore, both the first and the second computational processes ultimately describe the phenomenon, P2, by correctly producing an outcome described in P2. Initially, it was discussed that a system is stated to be computable when it satisfies one of two criteria, i.e. either (A) it halts after completion of a valid computation or (B) it loops forever without halting. T was shown to yield the description of P2, with a given input µ̂s , by following both pictures in quantum theory, i.e., both approaches yielded the outcome by which µ̂s rotated about the y-axis by δ, with respect to ν̂s , and halted. Therefore, the phenomenon, P2, can be claimed to be computable because its computational representation, T , with the input µ̂s , was shown to be computable by satisfying the criterion (A). 6 Counter-Example to the Assumption. In case of the Heisenberg picture description of P2, as well as of P1, it was discussed that the observer is in the conscious status undergoing change, ν̂s , and observes µ̂s . This was shown to yield the phenomenon of P2, i.e., the observer observing the rotation of µ̂s . A slightly different case can be considered. While the observer is in the conscious status, ν̂s , that is being changed, the observer observes ν̂s rather than µ̂s . This is a peculiar aspect of consciousness– observing one’s own conscious status–that is not observed in other measurement experiences, for example, in classical dynamics. This phenomenon can be stated as follows and denoted as P3: an observer observes a rotation of the input, ν̂s , about the y-axis by δ, with respect to ν̂s . Therefore, in P3 which describes consciousness of the observer, ν̂s is serving the role of a state vector, because it is being observed, and an observable, because it is serving as the reference frame of the observer. Unlike the cases of P1 and P2, the measurement confirmation is not needed for P3. While the conscious status, ν̂s , is evolving, the observer is not observing µ̂s but ν̂s . No measurement is needed in order to confirm the evolution of ν̂s because the observer is already experiencing it as consciousness. In the previous section, it was demonstrated that T , with an input µ̂s , provides a computational model for describing the phenomenon of P2 and was shown to be computable. Because P3 is exactly the same as P2 except the input has changed to vector, ν̂s , from µ̂s , it follows that T , with an input, ν̂s , must correspond to a computational model representing the phenomenon, P3 (see Table 1). The observable, ν̂s = (0, 0, 1), fully characterizes T . Therefore, T with an input, ν̂s , can also be stated as T with an input of the description of T , or simply as T with an input, T . In the following, the computability of T for a given input of T , which represents the phenomenon, P3, as a computational model, is to be examined. As established previously, quantum theory provides two approaches to the evolution in time of T for the input, ν̂s , because it is a quantum system where ν̂s corresponds to both a state and an observable. In the first approach, it is the input system that evolves. Since the input is ν̂s , the evolution is as follows, 8 Computational Model (T ,i = µ̂s ) (T ,i = ν̂s ) Phenomenon P2: Observer observes the rotation of µ̂s with respect to ν̂s . P3: Observer observes the rotation of ν̂s with respect to ν̂s . Table 1: Analogy between the computational model, T , and phenomena P2 and P3. If the phenomenon, P2, can be represented as a computational model, T , with an input, µ̂s , then T with an input, ν̂s , should correspond to a computational model for the phenomenon, P3. ν̂s → ν̂s′ = (sin δ, 0, cos δ), while the halt qubit is transformed as µ̂h → −µ̂h . Quantum theory provides a second approach where the same vector, being an observable, is transformed as ν̂s → ν̂s′′ = (− sin δ, 0, cos δ), while the observable for the halt qubit is transformed as ν̂h → −ν̂h . It is noted that ν̂s′ 6= ν̂s′′ unless δ = kπ where k = 0, 1, 2, .... Let us now discuss the computability of T (i) where i = T . In order for T (T ) to be computable, it has to follow either the computability criterion (A) or (B). Since T halted on both approaches, i.e., µ̂h → −µ̂h , with respect to ν̂h , in both pictures, it must follow (A) rather than (B) in order to be computable. In order to satisfy (A), the halt qubit of T must have halted accompanied by a valid computation, i.e., both approaches should yield the same outcome predicted in P3. However, the two approaches yielded two generally different outcomes for a single input vector, ν̂s . The second approach did not yield the outcome described in the phenomenon, P3, because the vector is rotated by −δ. Therefore, this results in a contradiction because T halted on the invalid computation. The contradiction is noted to result from a peculiar property of consciousness in which ν̂s is serving as a reference frame of the observer and as a system to be observed. The assumption states that all conscious activities are computational processes. Because T (i), with i = ν̂s , being a computational model of the phenomenon P3, is a closed and independent system, this must satisfy the assumption. However, it was shown that T , with a given input ν̂s , is not computable. That is, a particular conscious activity of an observer observing the change of an observable, as described in P3, is not computable. Therefore, this leads to a conclusion that the assumption is incorrect, because it suffices to have a single counter-example to invalidate the assumption. Perhaps, by considering a larger system that includes the qubit, the contradiction may be removed and may yield the result that consciousness is always a computational process. This is commonly seen in thermodynamics in which a subsystem violates the second law but this violation is always removed when the total system is considered. However, this kind of argument would not work because the evolution considered in P2 and P3 are for pure states. Any attachment of ancilla to T and their interaction with the system qubit would cause entanglement and this will not properly represent the physical phenomena P2 and P3. 9 7 Discussion. The above argument applies only as a quantum effect. The classical TM cannot define consciousness using the same technique. As discussed, a reference frame of quantum measurement was represented in complex Hilbert space which led to the conclusion that it must correspond to the observer’s conscious status. A classical measurement yields an outcome in terms of the difference between the object and the reference frame of an observer, and, unlike consciousness, the observer cannot observe the dynamics of its own reference frame alone. Therefore, the same argument used with the quantum computing machine involving conscious activities cannot be used in a classical case. In [9], Penrose discussed that a non-computable aspect in consciousness may exist at the fundamental level as described in Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. Including Turing’s halting problem, there have been a number of mathematical examples showing undecidability in Gödel’s theorem. In this paper, it was demonstrated that, as in Penrose’s suggestion, consciousness is a physical, i.e., rather than mathematical, example of Gödel-type proofs. References [1] S. Russell, P. Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Prentice Hall, 2nd edition, 2002) [2] C. Koch, The Quest for Consciousness: a Neurobiological Approach (Roberts & Company Publishers, 2004). [3] G. Tononi, G.M. Edelman, Science 282, 1846 (1998). [4] R.L. Harvey, Neural Network Principles (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1994). [5] A.M. Turing, Proc. London Math. Soc. (2) 442, 230 (1936). [6] A. Peres, Quantum Theory, Kluwer Academic Publishers, (1991). [7] P.A. Benioff, J. Stat. Phys., 563 22 (1980). [8] D. Deutsch, Proc. R. Soc. London A 400, 97 (1985). [9] R. Penrose, The Emperer’s New Mind (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989). 10

Quantum Mechanics May Need Consciousness Andrew Knight aknight@alum.mit.edu (Dated: July 14, 2020) arXiv:2005.13317v2 [quant-ph] 12 Jul 2020 The assertion by Yu and Nikolić that the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment of Kim et al. empirically falsifies the consciousness-causes-collapse hypothesis of quantum mechanics is based on the unfounded and false assumption that the failure of a quantum wave function to collapse implies the appearance of a visible interference pattern. In 2011, Annalen der Physik published “Quantum Mechanics Needs No Consciousness,” in which Yu and Nikolić [1] attempt to empirically put to rest what they called the “bizarre bridge between the mental and the physical.” To these authors and other physicists to whom academic discussion of a relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics is regarded as unfashionable, the hypothesis that consciousness causes collapse (“CCC”) of the quantum mechanical wave function is perhaps the most inconvenient and least liked of the various currently unfalsified hypotheses to explain the so-called measurement problem1 of quantum mechanics. Despite assertions by [1] to the contrary, the CCC hypothesis remains unfalsified. Yu and Nikolić [1] address the “delayed choice quantum eraser” experiment suggested by Scully and Drühl [2] and performed by Kim et al. [3], which will be described with reference to Figs. 1-3. A laser beam is incident on a double slit, each slit containing a crystal that converts a laser photon, via the process of spontaneous parametric down conversion, to an entangled two-photon state of orthogonally polarized “signal” and “idler” photons, so named because the experiment is designed to detect each idler photon after (i.e., within the light cone of) detection of its entangled signal photon. The laser beam produces photons that are monochromatic and spatially coherent – thus indistinguishable – over the width of the two slits. A first detector D0 , which is placed in the far field by use of a converging lens (not shown), allows for detection of signal photons as a function of lateral displacement. A prism directs idler photons through an optional beam splitter (“BS”) to detectors D1 and D2 , also placed in the far field. In Fig. 1, shown without the beam splitter, the prism and detectors are configured so that idler photons originating from slit A are detected by D1 (and not D2 ) while idler photons originating from slit B are detected by D2 (and not D1 ), so that detector D1 is correlated with slit A and detector D2 is correlated with slit B. Without the beam splitter, it is asserted by both [1] and [3] that “which-path” information is preserved.2 If so, it would 1 Specifically, the inconsistency between these two statements: the quantum state of a system evolves linearly; and observations always yield outcomes (i.e., eigenstates of the measurement operator). 2 I disagree that “which-path” information ever exists in any of the not be surprising, as confirmed by [3], that the distribution recorded at D0 is the sum of two closely-spaced single-slit Fraunhofer distributions. In other words, the detection of which-path information by detectors D1 and D2 guarantees no interference distribution at D0 . FIG. 1. When which-path information of idler photons is recorded by detectors D1 and D2 , detector D0 does not produce an interference pattern. In Fig. 2, the beam splitter allows some photons to pass but reflects others, according to quantum mechanical randomness, so that a detection at D1 is no longer correlated with emission of a photon at slit A, nor detection proposed experimental set-ups. Because the initial photons are spatially coherent over the width of the slits, all three detectors are placed in the far field, and the experimental setup prevents differentiation of slits A and B at the time of each biphoton’s creation in the slits, no information exists – or can ever exist – to distinguish the creation of entangled pairs in either slit A or slit B. [1] and [3] make the same mistake as Afshar et al. [4] in assuming that the correlation of detector D1 to slit A when slit B is closed and correlation of detector D2 to slit B when slit A is closed imply the same correlations when both slits are open. However, with both slits open, and with detectors D1 and D2 located in the far field, the wave functions emanating from slits A and B have already fully interfered (and rendered moot any “which-path” information) long before detection. A future measurement does not retroactively cause collapse or decoherence. (See, e.g., [5].) Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, I will describe the experiments consistently with analysis by [1] and [3] as if, in the absence of the beam splitter, detectors D1 and D2 indeed measure which-path information when both slits are open. The opposing opinion that no which-path information ever exists only strengthens this paper’s conclusions. 2 at D2 correlated to slit B. The beam splitter thus “erases” any which-path information so that it is never again available, even in principle. In a standard Young’s double-slit interference experiment, the lack of which-path information is ordinarily manifested, over many photon detections, in the form of a visible interference pattern. However, in the present case, entanglement with the idler photon complicates matters: reflection (or not) from the beam splitter produces a phase shift [3] between the distributions correlated respectively to D1 and D2 so that their sum, as recorded at D0 , is identical to the “no interference” distribution produced by the configuration of Fig. 1. FIG. 3. When a coincidence counter is used postmeasurement to correlate signal and idler photons, detector D0 produces a visible interference pattern for signal photons that correlate to idler photons detected by detector D1 . FIG. 2. When which-path information is erased by a beam splitter, detector D0 produces a distribution that cannot be distinguished from that produced by detector D0 of Fig. 1. Finally, in Fig. 3, a coincidence counter (“CC”) is placed between the detectors that allows determination of which measurements on D0 correlate to detections by either D1 or D2 . When the distribution produced by D0 corresponding only to simultaneous D1 detections is plotted, a typical two-slit interference distribution appears [3]. The same is true of a distribution produced by D0 corresponding only to simultaneous D2 detections, but it is phase shifted so that the sum of these two interference patterns is indistinguishable from the “no interference” distribution produced by the configuration of Fig. 1. The analysis of [3] suggests not only that which-path information can be forever erased from the universe, but also that this erasure can, through the use of coincidence counting and post-measurement analysis, be confirmed by the appearance of a visible interference pattern. Ref. [1] aims to interpret the results of [3] as providing empirical evidence to falsify the CCC hypothesis. The paper first characterizes the CCC hypothesis as (¬P R =⇒ ¬CW F ), where CWF means “collapse of the wave function” and PR means “phenomenal representation,” or the “registering [of] the results of a measurement in consciousness,” or simply conscious observation. To falsify this statement, all that is needed is an example in which there is a wave function collapse without a corresponding conscious observation. The paper provides no such example, and that’s not surprising. How does one provide an example of a wave function collapse without making a conscious observation? How does one definitely state, “There’s been a wave function collapse, but it’s not correlated to any conscious observation”? What (presumably conscious) observer could possibly say that? This conundrum has always been a problem with falsifying the CCC hypothesis. It is not trivial. There are, in fact, proposals for doing so, such as Deutsch’s creative attempt [6] to show how to empirically distinguish whether or not Wigner’s Friend, presumed conscious, collapses the quantum wave function. Proposals like this, however, heavily depend on whether there is any natural limit to the size of objects subject to interference experiments, to what extent decoherence prevents macroscopic quantum superpositions [7], whether conscious perception is related to irreversible processes or the cosmological arrow of time [8, 9], and whether a conscious being could survive the thermal isolation necessary for a relevant interference experiment [10]3 . These are complicated and difficult questions that transcend the analysis of [1]. Instead of providing evidence for a wave function collapse without conscious observation, [1] later asserts that the CCC hypothesis is equivalent to the statement, “The interference pattern should be visible if which-path’ information has not been registered in consciousness of the observer,” which I’ll label as (¬P R =⇒ V IP ) (“visible interference pattern”). This is a big jump from (¬P R =⇒ ¬CW F ), and only follows, logically, if (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ), but the paper more or less states this anyway. (“If the photons are always in a superposition state, after a sufficient number of photons have been registered at D0 , [they] will exhibit the 3 Indeed, [10] correctly identifies a major flaw in [1] by pointing out why the phase shift caused by the beam splitter would, without coincidence counting, result in an apparent lack of any interference pattern detected by D0 , whether or not which-path information existed. 3 standard Young’s double-slit interference pattern,” and “Thus, the presence of the interference pattern at D0 indicates whether the wave function of the original photon [sic] collapsed or not.”) In other words, [1] positively asserts, through statements as well as logical necessity, that (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ). Based on their new characterization of the CCC hypothesis – i.e., (¬P R =⇒ V IP ) – all the authors must do to falsify it is to give an example in which there is not a visible interference pattern when there is no conscious observation. This is easy: they then (correctly) point out that in the Kim et al. experiment, there is “no interference pattern in D0 ... irrespective of what happens with the idler photons.” The problem is not with their evidence; it is with their logic. They are correct that an interference pattern will not be found at D0 , but this says nothing to disparage the CCC hypothesis, as the logical flaw is found in their assertion that (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ). Regarding CWF, they make it clear that “the relevant information” is “which path (i.e., L or R) the photons took.” Therefore, [1] necessarily claims that if there is no collapse of the wave function, due to a lack of which-path information, then an interference pattern will be visible at D0 .4 So how long need we wait for a collapse? When can we officially declare that there has been no collapse and it’s time to look for interference? Note that we are discussing entangled photons that are notoriously contemptuous of the demands of special relativity. The authors clarify that interference will be exhibited by photons that “are always in a superposition state.” (Emphasis added.) But instead of waiting until the end of eternity to verify their theory, let’s choose some firm date in the future at which we will eliminate any possibility of which-path information – in other words, let’s use the actual Kim et al. quantum eraser experiment that [1] cites. Let’s choose some definitive time in the future after which we no longer have to worry about the possibility of collapse. Referring back to Fig. 3, the detection of the idler photon is delayed beyond detection of the signal photon by 8ns, which is much longer than the 1ns response time of the detectors [3]. Thus, after 8ns following detection of the signal photon by detector D0 , we are guaranteed that any information regarding “which path (i.e., L or R) the photons took” is forever erased and inaccessible. And if [1] is correct that (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ), we should see an interference pattern at D0 . But we don’t. Nor would we expect to.5 And a single sentence in Footnote 16 in [1] indicates that the authors already knew that. For the sake of argument, let’s give [1] the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume the veracity of the assertion in [1] that (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ) and redo the Kim et al. experiment. Of course, there’s no reason we can’t delay the idler photon by a few minutes, a few hours, perhaps even a few years before the two possible photon trajectories are recombined in a quantum eraser. How can we be sure that the idler photon isn’t intercepted and detected by some conscious person during that time? According to [1], we need only look for “the presence of [an] interference pattern at D0 ” and that will tell us “whether the wave function of the original photon collapsed or not.” If that were true, then we could foretell whether or not the wave function of the idler photon will collapse sometime in the future by reading the output of D0 today – a problem of backward causality. Further, let’s redesign the experiment so that I can choose whether or not to insert the beam splitter of Fig. 2 into the experiment any time before detection by D1 or D2 . I’ll run the experiment today and then decide to insert the beam splitter only if the Red Sox win the World Series in 2021. All I’ll need to do is look at D0 today and I’ll have my answer. Clearly, the problem of backward causality (or “[violation of] the no-signaling condition in quantum mechanics” [10]) invalidates the assumption that (¬CW F =⇒ V IP ) and is fatal to the analysis of [1]. It is my opinion that consciousness exists in the physical world and is therefore fair play in the field of physics, including the extent to which relativity and quantum mechanics may relate to consciousness. The problem of consciousness may be one of the last big questions in science, and the laws of physics may very well be implicated in its successful explanation. The authors of [1] reject the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics and note that “the hypothesis that consciousness causes (or at least correlates with) the collapse of the wave function” is “not preferred by most physicists.” That may or may not be true, but appeals to consensus in any scientific paper should be a red flag. After all, general relativity was not preferred by most physicists in 1915. More importantly, despite what may or may not be currently fashionable to discuss in the physics academy, [1] fails to falsify, empirically or otherwise, the CCC hypothesis. Whether or not quantum mechanics needs consciousness, or vice versa, is yet to be known. 4 We can all agree that if there is a collapse, then an interference pattern will not be visible. That is, (CW F =⇒ ¬V IP ). cones of) the occurrence of both detections. 5 An interference pattern can be inferred only by looking at joint 6 “So proper separation of sub-populations of registered photons detection rates between D0 and D1 (or D2 ), and that’s only possible at a point in spacetime after (i.e., within both light may be needed.” These “sub-populations” can only be separated after post-measurement correlations are accounted for. 4 [1] Yu, S. and Nikolić, D., 2011. Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness. Annalen der Physik, 523(11), pp.931938. [2] Scully, M.O. and Drühl, K., 1982. Quantum eraser: A proposed photon correlation experiment concerning observation and” delayed choice” in quantum mechanics. Physical Review A, 25(4), p.2208. [3] Kim, Y.H., Yu, R., Kulik, S.P., Shih, Y. and Scully, M.O., 2000. Delayed “choice” quantum eraser. Physical Review Letters, 84(1), p.1. [4] Afshar, S.S., Flores, E., McDonald, K.F. and Knoesel, E., 2007. Paradox in wave-particle duality. Foundations of Physics, 37(2), pp.295-305. [5] Kaloyerou, P.N., 2016. Critique of Quantum Optical Experimental Refutations of Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity, of the Wootters–Zurek Principle of Comple- mentarity, and of the Particle–Wave Duality Relation. Foundations of Physics, 46(2), pp.138-175. [6] Deutsch, D., 1985. Quantum theory as a universal physical theory. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 24(1), pp.1-41. [7] Haroche, S., 1998. Entanglement, decoherence and the quantum/classical boundary. Physics today, 51(7), pp.3642. [8] Aaronson, S., 2016. 12 The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine. The Once and Future Turing: Computing the World. [9] Maccone, L., 2009. Quantum solution to the arrow-oftime dilemma. Physical review letters, 103(8), p.080401. [10] de Barros, J.A. and Oas, G., 2017. Can we falsify the consciousness-causes-collapse hypothesis in quantum mechanics?. Foundations of Physics, 47(10), pp.1294-1308.

Bohr, QBism, and Beyond arXiv:1907.11405v2 [quant-ph] 28 Nov 2019 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff Abstract QBism may be the most significant contribution to the search for meaning in quantum mechanics since Bohr, even as Bohr’s philosophy remains the most significant revision of Kant’s theory of science. There are two ironies here. Bohr failed to realize the full extent of the affinity of his way of thinking with Kant’s, and QBists fail to realize the full extent of their agreement with Bohr. While Bohr’s discovery of contextuality updates Kant’s transcendental philosophy in a way that leaves the central elements of the latter intact, Kant’s insight into the roles that our cognitive faculties play in constructing physical theories can considerably alleviate the difficulties that Bohr’s writings present to his readers. And while throwing a QBist searchlight on Bohr’s writings can further alleviate these difficulties (as well as reveal the presence in them of the salient elements of QBist thought), Bohr’s writings can in turn provide answers to important questions that QBism leaves unanswered (and also allay some of QBism’s excesses and possible inconsistencies). In the final sections I confront the two most impenetrable mysteries yet unearthed: making sense of quantum mechanics, and the dual mystery of making sense of (i) the existence of consciousness in a seemingly material world and (ii) the existence in consciousness of a seemingly material world. Here the relevant arguments are framed in the context of the philosophy of the Upanishads, according to which we (as Schrödinger put it) “are all really only various aspects of the One.” There is no world that exists out of relation to consciousness, but there are different poises of consciousness. In particular, there is a poise of consciousness peculiar to the human species at this point in time, and there are poises of consciousness that are yet to evolve (and that may be essential to averting the calamities towards which humanity appears to be heading). Keywords Bohr; consciousness; empirical realism; evolution; experience; intersubjectivity; Kant; manifestation; objectivity; QBism; Schrödinger; Upanishads Ulrich J. Mohrhoff Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education Pondicherry 605002 India E-mail: ujm@auromail.net 2 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff 1 Introduction Quantum mechanics has a well-known problem. It comes in two versions, a BIG one and a small one.[1] The former calls for an explanation of how measurement outcomes come about dynamically. It is a pseudo-problem if ever there was one. Pseudo-problems arise from false assumptions, in this case the belief that a quantum state is some kind of evolving physical state. The latter arises once it is acknowledged that the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics is a probability calculus, and that the events to which (and on the basis of which) it assigns probabilities are measurement outcomes. It calls for a demonstration of consistency between the representation of measurement outcomes by subspaces of a Hilbert space and the representation of outcome-indicating states or events by atomic subsets of a phase space. Nine decades after this problem was solved by Niels Bohr in or around 1929 (albeit in a way that nobody seems to have understood), and after half a century of futile attempts at solving it without taking account of the universal context of science, which is human experience,[2] there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is called QBism. Launched at the beginning of the 21st Century by Carlton Caves, Chris Fuchs, and Ruediger Schack,[3] QBism may be the most significant contribution to the search for meaning in quantum mechanics since Bohr, even as Bohr’s philosophy of quantum mechanics remains the most significant revision of Kant’s theory of science. To David Mermin,[4] QBism is “as big a break with 20th century ways of thinking about science as Cubism was with 19th century ways of thinking about art.” The big break lies not in the emphasis that the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics is a probability calculus—that ought to surprise no one— but in this plus a radically subjective Bayesian interpretation of probability plus a radically subjective interpretation of the events to which (and on the basis of which) probabilities are assigned. What distinguishes the outcome-indicating properties of outcome-indicating devices from other physical properties is that they are perceived. They are experiences. Nothing but the incontestable definiteness and irreversibility of direct sensory experience can account for the definiteness of outcome-indicating properties and the irreversibility of measurements. There are two ironies here. The first is that Bohr failed to realize the full extent of the affinity of his way of thinking with Kant’s. The second is that QBists fail to realize the full extent of their agreement with Bohr. While Bohr’s discovery of the contextuality of quantum phenomena updates Kant’s transcendental philosophy in ways that leave the central elements of the latter intact, being acquainted with Kant’s insight into the roles that our cognitive faculties of intuition (Anschauung) and thought play in constructing physical theories can considerably alleviate the difficulties that Bohr’s writings present to his readers. And while throwing a QBist searchlight on Bohr’s writings can further alleviate these difficulties (as well as reveal the presence in them of the salient elements of QBist thought), Bohr’s writings can in turn provide answers to important questions that QBism leaves unanswered (and also allay some of QBism’s disconcerting extravagances and possible inconsistencies). My first order of business, carried out in Sect. 2, is to set off empirical realism— the kind of realism that was inaugurated by Immanuel Kant and defended (among Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 3 others) by Hilary Putnam and Bernard d’Espagnat1 —against the two kinds of realism that preceded it: direct or naı̈ve realism and indirect or representational realism. Section 3 presents in outline Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and Sect. 4 backs up the claim that Bohr’s philosophy of quantum mechanics agrees in all essential respects with Kant’s theory of science. Bohr’s unique understanding of quantum mechanics is the focus of the next four sections, beginning in Section 5 with a general outline of his views. It is important to distinguish Bohr’s views from (all variants of) the Copenhagen interpretation. This interpretation only emerged in the mid-1950’s, in response to David Bohm’s hidden-variables theory and the Marxist critique of Bohr’s alleged idealism, which had inspired Bohm.[8] The term “Copenhagen interpretation” first appeared in print in Heisenberg’s version of 1955.[9] Section 6 highlights a key implication of Bohr’s thought, which is that the dichotomy between quantum systems and attributes created for them by measurements is unwarranted: experimental conditions are constitutive not only of the attributes of quantum systems but also of the systems themselves. Section 7 aims to clarify the respective roles that ordinary language and classical concepts play in Bohr’s thought, and Sect. 8 addresses a major stumbling block that Bohr’s writings present to the reader, i.e., his several invocations of “irreversible amplification effects.” The next four sections are centered around QBism. Section 9 contrasts the role that language plays (or is claimed to play) in QBism with the role it plays in Bohr’s thinking. Section 10 addresses certain flaws in QBism that quite unnecessarily distract from its core message. Section 11 brings up QBists’ (widely shared) misappreciation of Bohrian thought, and Sect. 12 raises the question of whether QBism countenances a reality beyond “the common external world we have all negotiated with each other”.[4] (The jury appears to be still out on this.) In Sect. 13 I revisit a reality criterion I previously proposed for distinguishing between two kinds of observables: the contextual ones that have values only when measured, and the ones whose values exist independently of measurements (and thus are capable of indicating measurement outcomes). While superior to appeals to the size or weight of the measurement apparatus in justifying the irreversibility of measurements (as Bohr seems to have done), this criterion cannot establish more than the empirical reality of an intersubjectively constructed world. It only permits us to treat the known world as if it existed independently of the subjects knowing it. The sections that follow present my attempts to confront the two most impenetrable mysteries we have yet unearthed: making sense of quantum mechanics, and the dual mystery of making sense of (i) the existence of consciousness in a seemingly material world and (ii) the existence in consciousness of a seemingly material world. To my mind, these mysteries are so intertwined that neither of them can be solved in isolation. 1 Putnam assumed the existence of a mind-independent real world but insisted that it does not dictate its own descriptions to us: “talk of ordinary empirical objects is not talk of thingsin-themselves but only talk of things-for-us”[5]; “we don’t know what we are talking about when we talk about ‘things in themselves’.”[6] D’Espagnat[7] stressed the necessity of distinguishing between an empirically inaccessible veiled reality and an intersubjectively constructed empirical reality. 4 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff Section 14 offers an explanation for “the miraculous identity of particles of the same type,” which according to Misner et al.[10] “must be regarded, not as a triviality, but as a central mystery of physics.” If correct, it not only implies the numerical identity of particles of the same type but also makes it possible to argue that, at bottom, any object we observe here with these properties and any object we observe there with those properties are one and the same “thing.” It further suggests that quantum physics concerns not the world (as classical physics does) but how the world is manifested to us. Here the relevant arguments are framed in the context of the philosophy of the Upanishads, according to which we (as Schrödinger phrased it) “are all really only various aspects of the One”,[11] and which is outlined in Sect. 15. Among the kinds of cognition posited by the Upanishads, one deserves special attention, to wit, indirect knowledge, which is mediated by representations. This forms the subject of Sect. 16. In Sect. 17 the role that quantum mechanics plays in said context is examined, and an answer to the question why the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics is probability calculus is proposed. In Sect. 18 an Upanishadic theory of evolution is outlined, and Sect. 19 ventures to set forth a possible future. 2 Three kinds of realism: direct, representational, and empirical In an essay written during the last year of his life,[11] Erwin Schrödinger expressed his astonishment at the fact that despite “the absolute hermetic separation of my sphere of consciousness” from everyone else’s, there is “a far-reaching structural similarity between certain parts of our experiences, the parts which we call external; it can be expressed in the brief statement that we all live in the same world.” This similarity, Schrödinger avowed, “is not rationally comprehensible. In order to grasp it we are reduced to two irrational, mystical hypotheses,” one of which is “the so-called hypothesis of the real external world”.2 Schrödinger left no room for uncertainty about what he thought of this hypothesis: to invoke “the existence of a real world of bodies which are the causes of sense-impressions and produce roughly the same impression on everybody . . . is not to give an explanation at all; it is simply to state the matter in different words. In fact, it means laying a completely useless burden on the understanding.” For while we can compare the “external” contents of our respective spheres of consciousness through communication, we have no access to this real world of bodies and no way of knowing how it relates to those parts of our experiences about which we agree. Before Descartes, to be was either to be a substance or to be a property of a substance. With Descartes, the human conscious subject assumed the role of a substance: to be meant either to be a subject or to exist as a representation for a subject. Thus was born the representative theory of perception, and along with it the aforesaid completely useless burden on the understanding. Most current scientific accounts of perception still labor under this burden. They begin by assuming the existence of a mind-independent external world, in which objects emit photons or sound-waves, which stimulate peripheral nerve endings (retinas or ear drums). The stimulated nerves then send signals to the brain, 2 See Sect. 17 for the second of the two hypotheses. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 5 Fig. 1 A neuroscientist explaining the explanatory gap. Drawing by Jolyon Troscianko (jolyon.co.uk). Reproduced with permission. where neural processes miraculously give rise to perceptual experience (Fig. 1). Neither do we have the slightest idea of how this “explanatory gap”[12] is bridged, nor do we have the slightest idea of how we could have knowledge of what goes on in this mind-independent external world. While the aforesaid scientific accounts begin by invoking events in such a world, they lead to the conclusion that we have access only to perceptual experience.3 In the eyes of John Searle,[13, p. 23] the move from the naı̈ve view that “we really perceive real objects” to the view that we only perceive sense-impressions, was “the greatest single disaster in the history of philosophy over the past four centuries.” In an attempt to defend the earlier naı̈ve or direct realism against this indirect or representational realism, he invoked the fact that we are able to communicate with other human beings using publicly available meanings in a public language. For this to work, we have to assume the existence of common, publicly available objects of reference[13, p. 276]: So, for example, when I use the expression “this table” I have to assume that you understand the expression in the same way that I intend it. I have to assume we are both referring to the same table, and when you understand me in my utterance of “this table” you take it as referring to the same object you refer to in this context in your utterance of “this table.” The implication then is that you and I share a perceptual access to one and the same object. And that is just another way of saying that I have to presuppose that you and I are both seeing or otherwise perceiving the same public object. But that public availability of that public world is precisely the direct realism that I am here attempting to defend. 3 This was already obvious to the Greek philosopher-poet Xenophanes, who some twentyfive centuries ago pointed out that even if our minds represented the world exactly as it was, we could never know that it did. 6 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff Searle points out that his argument is transcendental in the sense of Immanuel Kant. A transcendental argument begins by assuming that a certain proposition p is true, and then shows that another proposition q, stating a precondition for the truth of p, must also be true. For Kant the relevant proposition p was the assumption that empirical knowledge was possible, and the corresponding proposition q was the conclusion that certain universal laws of nature must hold. In the argument presented by Searle, p is the assumption that we are able to communicate with each other in a public language, and q is the conclusion that there must be publicly available objects in a public world about which we can communicate in a public language. The realism that Searle’s argument succeeds in defending is not the one it purports to defend. It is the empirical realism that was inaugurated by Kant[14] and defended by Putnam[5, 6] and d’Espagnat[7] (among others). It is neither the naı̈ve realism that reifies the perceived world nor a realism based on agreement between a mental construct or representation and a reality independent of us, but a realism based on agreement between our respective “spheres of consciousness”— between what exists for me, in my experience, and what exists for you, in your experience. 3 Kant [T]hose who really want to understand contemporary physics—i.e., not only to apply physics in practice but also to make it transparent—will find it useful, even indispensable at a certain stage, to think through Kant’s theory of science. — Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker[15] Transcendental philosophy—inaugurated by Kant and continued in the 20th century by Edmund Husserl[16] and others—emerged as a critique of the representative theory. Here is how it was defined by Kant: “I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so much with objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as this is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts would be called transcendental philosophy.”[CPR 149]4 The concepts in question are synthetic rather than analytic. They are synthetic in that they enable us to “work up the raw material of sensible impressions into a cognition of objects”[CPR 136], and they are not analytic because they owe nothing to contingent experience. They owe their meanings to the logical structure of thought and the spatiotemporal structure of human sensory perception. The logical relation between a subject and a predicate makes it possible to think of a particular nexus of appearances as the properties of a substance, connected to it as predicates are connected to a subject. It makes it possible for me to think of my perceptions as connected not in or by me, the subject, but in an external object. The logical relation between antecedent and consequent (if . . . then. . . ) makes it possible to think of appearances at different times as events or properties connected by causality. It makes it possible for me to think of successive perceptions as connected not merely in my experience but objectively, in an external world. And the category of community or reciprocity, which Kant associated with the disjunctive relation (either. . . or. . . ), makes it possible to think 4 These references are to The Critique of Pure Reason.[14] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 7 of appearances in different locations as events or properties connected by a reciprocal action. It makes it possible for me to think of simultaneous perceptions as objectively connected. (Kant thought that by establishing a reciprocal relation, we establish not merely an objective spatial relation but also an objective relation of simultaneity.) But if I am to be able to think of my perceptions as a system of external objects, the connections must be lawful. If appearances are to be perceptions of a particular kind of object (say, an elephant), they must be connected in an orderly way, according to a concept denoting a lawful concurrence of appearances. If appearances are to be perceptions of causally connected events, like (say) lightning and thunder, they must fall under a causal law, according to which one appearance necessitates the subsequent occurrence of another. (By establishing a causal relation falling under a causal law, we also establish an objective temporal relation.) And if appearances are to be reciprocally connected objects, like (say) the Earth and the Moon, they must affect each other according to a reciprocal law, such as Newton’s law of gravity. It is through lawful connections in the “manifold of appearances” that we are able to think of appearances as perceptions of a self-existent system of objects. Kant’s inquiry into the preconditions of empirical science was an inquiry into the preconditions of the possibility of organizing sense-impressions into objects— things that the subjects of these impressions could treat as if they existed independently of subjects and their impressions. The crucial premise of this inquiry was that “space and time are only forms of sensible intuition, and therefore only conditions of the existence of the things as appearances.”[CPR 115] They are not conditions of the existence of things in themselves, things that exist independently of subjects and their impressions. Combined with the fact that all physical concepts have visualizable content, and thus owe their meanings to the spatiotemporal conditions of human experience,5 this implies that we have no concepts of the understanding and hence no elements for the cognition of things except insofar as an intuition can be given corresponding to these concepts, consequently that we can have cognition of no object as a thing in itself, but only insofar as it is an object of sensible intuition, i.e. as an appearance; from which follows the limitation of all even possible speculative cognition of reason to mere objects of experience. [CPR 115, original emphasis] By placing the subject matter of empirical science squarely into the context of human experience, Kant dispelled many qualms that had been shared by thinkers at the end of the 18th century—qualms about the objective nature of geometry, about the purely mathematical nature of Newton’s theory, about the unintelligibility of action at a distance, and about Galileo’s principle of relativity. Concerning the laws of geometry, which apply to objects constructed by us in the space of our imagination, the question was why they should also apply to the physical world. Kant’s answer was that they apply to objects perceived 5 Position and orientation are in an obvious sense visualizable. Linear and angular momentum derive their meanings from the symmetry properties of space or the invariant behavior of closed systems under translations and rotations, while energy derives its meaning from the uniformity of time or the invariant behavior of closed systems under time translations. Causality and interaction, too, are in obvious ways related to space and time. 8 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff as well as to objects imagined because visual perception and visual imagination share the same space.6 As to the mathematical nature of Newtonian mechanics, it was justified, not by the Neo-Platonic belief that the book of nature was written in mathematical language, but by its being a precondition of scientific knowledge. What makes it possible to conceive of appearances as aspects of an objective world is the mathematical regularities that obtain between them. Newton’s refusal to explain action at a distance was similarly justified, inasmuch as the only intelligible causality available to us consists in lawful mathematical relations between phenomena: for the Moon to be causally related to the Earth is for the Moon to stand in a regular mathematical relation to the Earth. As to the principle of relativity, ditto: lawful mathematical relations only exist between phenomena, and thus only between objects or objective events, but never between a particular phenomenon and space or time itself.7 For this remarkable achievement there was a price to be paid. To preserve the objectivity of science, it must be possible to think of phenomena as appearances of things in themselves: even if we cannot cognize these same objects as [i.e., know them to be] things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves. For otherwise there would follow the absurd proposition that there is an appearance without anything that appears. [CPR 115, original emphasis] In other words, we must be able to decontextualize nature, to free it from the context of human experience, to forget that it is the product of a synthesis achieved by the experiencing subject. The price to be paid was that we must ignore the transcendent reality which affects us in such a way that we have the impressions that we do, and that we are able to organize our impressions into objects that change and interact with each other in accordance with laws of nature. 4 Kant and the quantum theory By the time quantum mechanics came along, scientists and philosophers alike had realized that renouncing ontological prejudices and sticking to operationally definable notions was the safest way to arrive at reliable knowledge. At the same time classical physics, still deemed eminently successful, appeared to support a realistic interpretation. What made it possible to reconcile these opposing tendencies was Kant’s transcendental philosophy. It offered an ingenious way to go on talking in realist language about, e.g., electromagnetic waves propagating in vacuum, while disavowing ontological inclinations. Kant’s transcendental philosophy was therefore widely considered to be tightly linked with classical physics, and to make the latter philosophically acceptable. When classical physics failed to account for such 6 It is noteworthy that Kant’s argument applies, not to Euclidean geometry specifically, even though it was the only geometry known in Kant’s time, but to geometry in general, and thus to whichever geometry is best suited to formulating the laws of physics. It has even been said that Kant’s theory of science set in motion a series of re-conceptualizations of the relationship between geometry and physics that eventuated in Einstein’s theories of relativity.[17] 7 Here, too, it would be an anachronism to argue that Kant singled out Galilean relativity, even though it was the only relativity known in his time. His argument holds for every possible principle of relativity, including Einstein’s. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 9 data as atomic spectra, the obvious conclusion was that Kant’s philosophy fared no better than naı̈ve realism.[18] And indeed, many of Kant’s claims appeared to be contradicted by quantum mechanics. There was his principle of thoroughgoing determination, “according to which, among all possible predicates of things, insofar as they are compared with their opposites, one must apply to it.”[CPR 553] In direct contradiction to this principle, the properties of atomic systems came to be regarded as possessing values only if (and when) two conditions were satisfied: a set of possible values was defined by an experimental arrangement, and an actual value was indicated. Then there was the necessary and universal truth of a priori propositions such as “the law of the connection of cause and effect”[CPR 304], established by Kant as preconditions of the possibility of organizing sense-impressions into objects. Yet in the newly discovered quantum domain, there were no sense-impressions waiting to be organized into objects. Neither was it possible to conceive of an atom as a nexus of sense-impressions, nor did atoms satisfy Kant’s a priori laws. In particular, as was stressed by Schrödinger, Atoms—our modern atoms, the ultimate particles—must no longer be regarded as identifiable individuals. This is a stronger deviation from the original idea of an atom than anybody had ever contemplated. We must be prepared for anything. [19, p. 162] Niels Bohr, seeing Kant as arguing not only for the necessary validity but also the unlimited range of classical concepts, could not but regard his own complementarity interpretation of the quantum formalism as an alternative to Kant’s theory of science. And yet—just as Kant did not argue for the universal validity of Euclidean geometry in particular (see Note 6), nor for Galilean relativity in particular (see Note 7), so his arguments did not establish that the range of classical concepts was unlimited. As Kant’s arguments had merely established the validity of whichever geometry (and whichever principle of relativity) was the most convenient, so they merely established the necessary validity of classical concepts as long as one was dealing with the organization of sense-impressions into objects (which he assumed was always the case). Bohr realized that in the new field of experience opened up by the quantum theory one was not only dealing with the organization of senseimpressions into objects, and that, consequently, the range of classical concepts was limited—that it did not extend to quantum systems but only to quantum phenomena. Apart from that, Bohr established the indispensability of classical concepts in dealing with quantum phenomena by the very same arguments by which Kant had established it for classical phenomena (i.e., for sense-impressions that allow themselves to be organized into objects). Here is Bernard d’Espagnat[18] on the relation between Kant and contemporary physics: It is true that contemporary physics forces us to give up . . . significant, although non central, elements of Kant’s thinking. But it more than compensates this blow by practically compelling us to adopt the idea that was, in fact, at the very core of Kantism and constitutes its truly original contribution to philosophical thinking, to wit, the view that things and events, far from being elements of a “reality per se,” are just phenomena, that is, elements of our experience. Kant did not anticipate the possibility of an empirical knowledge that, while being obtained by means of sense-impressions organized into objects, was not a knowl- 10 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff edge of sense-impressions organized into objects. Bohr realized that quantum mechanics was that kind of knowledge. He completely agreed with Kant that what is inaccessible to our senses cannot be expected to conform to the spatiotemporal conditions of human experience, and therefore cannot be expected to accord with concepts that owe their meanings to these conditions. 5 Niels Bohr It is often said that a work of genius resists categorization. If so, Bohr’s philosophical viewpoint easily passes this criterion of greatness. Surely this is one of the reasons for the commonplace complaints over Bohr’s “obscurity.” — Henry J. Folse[20] As a philosopher Niels Bohr was either one of the great visionary figures of all time, or merely the only person courageous enough to confront head on, whether or not successfully, the most imponderable mystery we have yet unearthed. — N. David Mermin[21] “Without sensibility no object would be given to us,” Kant wrote [CPR 193], “and without understanding none would be thought.” Bohr could not have agreed more, insisting as he did that meaningful physical concepts have not only mathematical but also visualizable content. Such concepts are associated with pictures, like the picture of a particle following a trajectory or the picture of a wave propagating in space. In the classical theory, a single picture could accommodate all of the properties a system can have. When quantum theory came along, that all-encompassing picture fell apart. Unless certain experimental conditions obtained, it was impossible to picture the electron as following a trajectory (which was nevertheless a routine presupposition in setting up Stern-Gerlach experiments and in interpreting cloud-chamber photographs), and there was no way in which to apply the concept of position. And unless certain other, incompatible, experimental conditions obtained, it was impossible to picture the electron as a traveling wave (which was nevertheless a routine presupposition in interpreting the scattering of electrons by crystals), and there was no way in which to apply the concept of momentum. If the visualizable content of physical concepts cannot be described in terms of compatible pictures, it has to be described in terms of something that can be so described, and what can be so described are quantum phenomena. The definite definition of a quantum phenomenon is contained in the following passage: [A]ll unambiguous interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism involves the fixation of the external conditions, defining the initial state of the atomic system concerned and the character of the possible predictions as regards subsequent observable properties of that system. Any measurement in quantum theory can in fact only refer either to a fixation of the initial state or to the test of such predictions, and it is first the combination of measurements of both kinds which constitutes a well-defined phenomenon. [BCW7: 312]8 8 These references are to the volumes of the Collected Works of Niels Bohr.[22] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 11 Today, Bohr is mostly known for his insistence on the necessity of using classical concepts, for attributing this necessity to the need to communicate to others “what we have done and what we have learned” [BCW7: 273, 331, 349, 390, 418], and for the thesis that “the specification of [the whole experimental arrangement] is imperative for any well-defined application of the quantum-mechanical formalism”.[23] The conceptual links between these demands, however, belong to a fabric of thought that is not widely known. In the remainder of this section and the three sections that follow, an attempt is made at an outline of the overarching framework of Bohr’s thought. In a 1922 letter to his philosophical mentor Harald Høffding, Bohr wrote: my personal opinion is that these difficulties are of such a kind that they hardly allow us to hope, within the world of atoms, to implement a description in space and time of the kind corresponding to our usual sensory images. [BCW10: 513] In each of the following quotes, all from 1929, Bohr refers to space and time as our “forms of perception”: [T]he very recognition of the limited divisibility of physical processes . . . has justified the old doubt as to the range of our ordinary forms of perception when applied to atomic phenomena. [BCW6: 209] [W]e can hardly escape the conviction that in the facts which are revealed to us by the quantum theory and lie outside the domain of our ordinary forms of perception we have acquired a means of elucidating general philosophical problems. [BCW6: 217] This limitation [of our forms of perception] is brought to light by a closer analysis of the applicability of the basic physical concepts in describing atomic phenomena. [BCW6: 242] [W]e must remember, above all, that, as a matter of course, all new experience makes its appearance within the frame of our customary points of view and forms of perception. [BCW6: 279] [W]e must not forget that, in spite of their limitation, we can by no means dispense with those forms of perception which colour our whole language and in terms of which all experience must ultimately be expressed. [BCW6: 283] [T]he difficulties concerning our forms of perception, which arise in the atomic theory. . . , may be considered as an instructive reminder of the general conditions underlying the creation of mans concepts. [BCW6: 293] [A]ll our ordinary verbal expressions bear the stamp of our customary forms of perception, from the point of view of which the existence of the quantum of action is an irrationality. Indeed, in consequence of this state of affairs, even words like “to be” and “to know” lose their unambiguous meaning. [BCW6: 297] Today the task of making sense of the quantum theory is widely seen as one of grafting a metaphysical narrative onto a mathematical formalism, in a language that is sufficiently vague philosophically to be understood by all and sundry. For 12 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff Bohr, as also for Heisenberg and Pauli, the real issues lay deeper. They judged that the conceptual difficulties posed by the quantum theory called in question the general framework of thought that had evolved in Germany beginning with Kant. If (i) space and time are but our forms of perception, if (ii) physical concepts derive their meanings from different aspects of these forms (e.g., localizability and homogeneity or invariance under translations), and if (iii) the facts revealed to us by the quantum theory lie outside the domain of our ordinary forms of perception (in other words, if they are inaccessible to sensory perception), then these facts cannot be expected to be expressible by the physical concepts at our disposal. How, then, can they be expressed, and how can this be done without compromising the objectivity of the theory? Bohr’s answer in a nutshell: the decisive point is that the physical content of quantum mechanics is exhausted by its power to formulate statistical laws governing observations obtained under conditions specified in plain language. [BCW10: 159] By developing the mathematical part of the quantum theory into an autonomous formal language, von Neumann[24] transformed the theory into a mathematical formalism in search of a physical interpretation. Transmogrifying a probability algorithm—the state vector—into an evolving physical state, adopting the eigenvalue-eigenstate link, and modeling measurements as two-stage processes (“pre-measurement” followed by “objectification”), he gave rise to what has been appropriately called “the disaster of objectification” by van Fraassen.[25] This is how quantum mechanics became “the great scandal of physics”,[26] “the silliest” of all the theories proposed in the 20th century,[27] and a theory that “makes absolutely no sense”.[28] A distinction is made between the “bare quantum formalism,” which is regarded as “an elegant piece of mathematics . . . prior to any notion of probability, measurement etc.,” and the “quantum algorithm,” which is looked upon as “an ill-defined and unattractive mess”[26].9 “Measurement” has become the unmentionable M-word of physics.[33] And Bohr, of all people, often gets blamed for this sorry state of affairs!10 If measurements and plain language played pivotal roles in Bohr’s writings, it was to ensure the objectivity of the new theory. When Bohr realized that his references to “sensory images” and “forms of perception” rather contributed to undermining his efforts in that direction, Bohr replaced these expressions by “quantum phenomena” and “experimental arrangements.” I owe this observation to the editor of the two volumes of Bohr’s Collected Works that deal specifically with the foundations of quantum physics: 9 In reality there is no such thing as a bare quantum formalism. Every single axiom of any axiomatization of the theory only makes sense as a feature of a probability calculus.[29, 30] The distinction between a bare quantum formalism and a quantum algorithm is as illegitimate as the distinction between the “easy” problems of consciousness and the “hard” one.[31, 32] Both distinctions are rooted in the obsolescent mode of thinking that is known as “physicalism.” 10 Even by QBists: “The Founders of quantum mechanics were already aware that there was a problem. Bohr and Heisenberg dealt with it by emphasizing the inseparability of the phenomena from the instruments we devised to investigate them. . . . Being objective and independent of the agent using them, instruments miss the central point of QBism, giving rise to the notorious measurement problem, which has vexed physicists to this day”.[34, emphasis added] In actual fact, it was von Neumann who gave rise to this problem. For Bohr there was “no new observational problem”[BCW10: 212] because we are doing what we have always done: setting up experiments and reporting their results. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 13 when the phrase “forms of perception” was replaced by “experimental arrangement”, “the objectivity of physical observations” could be stressed without the somewhat bewildering addition that it could be “particularly suited to emphasize the subjective character of all experience”.[35] While the business of physics was “the development of methods for ordering and surveying human experience,” this was to be done “in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefore objective in that sense, that it can be unambiguously communicated in the common human language” [BCW10: 157– 158]: To clarify this point [whether we are concerned with a complete description of natural phenomena], it was indeed necessary to examine what kind of answers we can receive by so to say putting questions to nature in the form of experiments. In order that such answers may contribute to objective knowledge, independent of subjective judgement, it is an obvious demand that the experimental arrangement as well as the recording of observations be expressed in the common language, developed for our orientation in the surroundings. [BCW10: 212] At one time Heisenberg[36] drew a dividing line between “the apparatus which we. . . , in a way, treat as part of ourselves,” and “the physical systems we wish to investigate.” Pauli likewise thought that it was “allowed to consider the instruments of observation as a kind of prolongation of the sense organs of the observer” [BCW10: 564]. Bohr would have none of this. The observed had to be detached from the observer (rather than the other way round), and there was only one way to do this: to take the means of observation, rather than the system observed, for what was actually observed, what was directly accessible to our senses, and what therefore was amenable to communication using words and concepts we can understand. The dividing line was to be drawn, not between the apparatus as part of ourselves and the object of investigation, but between our observing selves and the observed apparatus. What could not be separated from the object of investigation was not the subject, which remained the same detached observer it had been before quantum physics came along, but the means of investigation. And this was not a matter of choice, for without the apparatus not only did the object of investigation lack properties but, in fact, there was no object of investigation. 6 Quantum systems or quantum phenomena? Where there are no sense-impressions waiting to be organized into objects, there are no objects. Bohr’s emphatic rejection of the familiar language of objects when dealing with “the facts which are revealed to us by the quantum theory” cannot be overemphasized: The unaccustomed features of the situation with which we are confronted in quantum theory necessitate the greatest caution as regards all questions of terminology. Speaking, as is often done, of disturbing a phenomenon by observation, or even of creating physical attributes to objects by measuring processes, is, in fact, liable to be confusing, since all such sentences imply a departure from basic conventions of language which, even though it sometimes may be practical for the sake of brevity, can never be unambiguous. It 14 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff is certainly far more in accordance with the structure and interpretation of the quantum mechanical symbolism, as well as with elementary epistemological principles, to reserve the word “phenomenon” for the comprehension of the effects observed under given experimental conditions. [BCW7: 316] If there is no object to be disturbed by a measurement, if even the dichotomy of objects and attributes created for them by measuring processes is unwarranted, then it is not just the measured property but the quantum system itself that is constituted by the experimental conditions under which it is observed. More recently this point was forcefully made by Brigitte Falkenburg in her commendable monograph Particle Metaphysics: [O]nly the experimental context (and our ways of conceiving of it in classical terms) makes it possible to talk in a sloppy way of quantum objects. . . . Bare quantum “objects” are just bundles of properties which underlie superselection rules and which exhibit non-local, acausal correlations. . . . They seem to be Lockean empirical substances, that is, collections of empirical properties which constantly go together. However, they are only individuated by the experimental apparatus in which they are measured or the concrete quantum phenomenon to which they belong. . . . They can only be individuated as context-dependent quantum phenomena. Without a given experimental context, the reference of quantum concepts goes astray. In this point, Bohr is absolutely right up to the present day. [37, pp. 205–206, original emphases] A similar conclusion was reached by Ole Ulfbeck and Aage Bohr,[38] for whom “there is no longer a particle passing through the apparatus and producing the click. Instead, the connection between source and counter is inherently non-local.” While “clicks can be classified as electron clicks, neutron clicks, etc., . . . there are no electrons and neutrons on the spacetime scene.” Hence “there is no wave function for an electron or a neutron but a wave function for electron clicks and neutron clicks, etc.” What makes it seem as if there are electrons and neutrons is the existence of conservation laws, which govern patterns of clicks. If a “+ click” is always followed by a “+ click” we seem to have the right to infer the continued existence of a “+ particle,” but if a “+ click” can also be followed by two “+ clicks” and a “− click” or by three “+ clicks” and two “− clicks” then, as Schrödinger put it, “we must be prepared for anything.” 7 Objectivity, ordinary language, and classical concepts Presently (July 2019) a combined Google search for “Bohr” and “classical language” (the latter term including the quotes) yields more than 5,000 results. A search for “Bohr” and “language of classical physics” yields nearly 25,000 results. By contrast, searching the 13 volumes of the Complete Works of Niels Bohr does not yield a single occurrence of either “classical language” or “language of classical physics.” While Bohr insisted on the use of classical concepts for describing quantum phenomena,11 the language on the use of which he insisted was “ordinary 11 Sometimes Bohr refers instead to “elementary physical concepts”: “all subjectivity is avoided by proper attention to the circumstances required for the well-defined use of elementary physical concepts” [BCW7: 394]. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 15 language” [BCW7: 355], “plain language” [BCW10: 159], the “common human language” [BCW10: 157–158], or the “language common to all” [10: xxxvii].12 To represent the content of my experience as objective, I do not need to represent it as a system of objects located in space and changing with time in such a way that they can be re-identified and compared, as Kant had taught, but I need to be able to refer to such objects, and for this I need ordinary language and classical concepts. Ordinary human language uses words we can all understand, inasmuch as their meanings are rooted in what is common to us, i.e., the spatiotemporal structure of human experience and the logic of human thought or the structure of human language. This includes the classical concepts. Bohr often referred to ordinary language and classical concepts (of equivalents thereof) in the same breath. What is required is not classical physics but only the terminology of classical physics: “all well-defined experimental evidence, even if it cannot be analysed in terms of classical physics, must be expressed in ordinary language” [BCW7: 355; emphasis added], i.e., “plain language suitably refined by the usual physical terminology” [BCW7: 390] or “conveniently supplemented with terminology of classical physics” [BCW10: 277]. While classical concepts and ordinary language are necessarily used in both classical physics and quantum physics, in quantum physics their use is restricted to the domain of re-identifiable objects with intrinsic attributes, which in classical physics is all there is. Quantum physics reveals a domain to which neither ordinary language nor classical concepts can legitimately be applied—an intrinsically unspeakable domain which becomes speakable only indirectly, via an experimental context. So: objectivity ⇒ ordinary language and classical concepts ⇒ contextuality: By objectivity we understand a description by means of a language common to all (quite apart from the differences in languages between nations) in which people may communicate with each other in the relevant field. [BCW10: xxxvii] From a logical standpoint, we can by an objective description only understand a communication of experience to others by means of a language which does not admit ambiguity as regards the perception of such communications. In classical physics, this goal was secured by the circumstance that, apart from unessential conventions of terminology, the description is based on pictures and ideas embodied in common language, adapted to our orientation in daily-life events. [BCW10: 276] Faced with the question of how under such circumstances we can achieve an objective description, it is decisive to realize that however far the phenomena transcend the range of ordinary experience, the description of the 12 Jan Faye[39] has argued that “Bohr was not a transcendentalist in his insistence on the use of classical concepts. Instead he had a naturalistic attitude to how common language came about.” Certain passages from the Bohr canon can be adduced in support of this claim, e.g., when Bohr insists on the use of the “common language developed for our orientation in the surroundings” [BCW10: 212], or when he points out that in classical physics the goal of an objective description is secured by the circumstance that such descriptions are “based on pictures and ideas embodied in common language, adapted to our orientation in daily-life events” [BCW10: 276]. I do not think, however, that transcendentalist and naturalistic attitudes are mutually exclusive, nor that Bohr’s motivation for insisting on the use of classical concepts was primarily naturalistic. 16 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff experimental arrangement and the recording of observations must be based on common language. [BCW10: 158] One day during tea at his institute, Bohr was sitting next to Edward Teller and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Von Weizsäcker[40] recalls that when Teller suggested that “after a longer period of getting accustomed to quantum theory we might be able after all to replace the classical concepts by quantum theoretical ones,” Bohr listened, apparently absent-mindedly, and said at last: “Oh, I understand. We also might as well say that we are not sitting here and drinking tea but that all this is merely a dream.” If we are dreaming, we are unable to tell others what we have done and what we have learned. Therefore it would be a misconception to believe that the difficulties of the atomic theory may be evaded by eventually replacing the concepts of classical physics by new conceptual forms. . . . the recognition of the limitation of our forms of perception by no means implies that we can dispense with our customary ideas or their direct verbal expressions when reducing our sense impressions to order. [BCW6: 294] Or, as Heisenberg put it,[41, p. 56] “[t]here is no use in discussing what could be done if we were other beings than we are.”13 Bohr’s claim that the “classical language” (i.e., plain language supplemented with terminology of classical physics) was indispensable, has also been vindicated by subsequent developments in particle physics: This [claim] has remained valid up to the present day. At the individual level of clicks in particle detectors and particle tracks on photographs, all measurement results have to be expressed in classical terms. Indeed, the use of the familiar physical quantities of length, time, mass, and momentumenergy at a subatomic scale is due to an extrapolation of the language of classical physics to the non-classical domain.[37, p. 162] 8 Irreversible amplification? If the terminology of quantum phenomena is used consistently, then nothing—at any rate, nothing we know how to think about—happens between “the fixation of the external conditions, defining the initial state of the atomic system concerned” and “the subsequent observable properties of that system” [BCW7: 312]. Any story purporting to detail a course of events in the interval between a system preparation and a subsequent observation is inconsistent with “the essential wholeness of a quantum phenomenon,” which “finds its logical expression in the circumstance that any attempt at its subdivision would demand a change in the experimental arrangement incompatible with its appearance” [BCW10: 278]. What, then, are we to make of the following passages [emphases added]? [E]very well-defined atomic phenomenon is closed in itself, since its observation implies a permanent mark on a photographic plate left by the impact of 13 Heisenberg thought it possible that the forms of perception of other beings, and hence their concepts, could be different from ours: ours “may belong to the species ‘man,’ but not to the world as independent of men”.[41, p. 91] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 17 an electron or similar recordings obtained by suitable amplification devices of essentially irreversible functioning. [BCW10: 89] Information concerning atomic objects consists solely in the marks they make on these measuring instruments, as, for instance, a spot produced by the impact of an electron on a photographic plate placed in the experimental arrangement. The circumstance that such marks are due to irreversible amplification effects endows the phenomena with a peculiarly closed character pointing directly to the irreversibility in principle of the very notion of observation. [BCW10: 120] In this connection, it is also essential to remember that all unambiguous information concerning atomic objects is derived from the permanent marks—such as a spot on a photographic plate, caused by the impact of an electron—left on the bodies which define the experimental conditions. Far from involving any special intricacy, the irreversible amplification effects on which the recording of the presence of atomic objects rests rather remind us of the essential irreversibility inherent in the very concept of observation. [BCW7: 390; BCW10: 128] If a well-defined atomic phenomenon is closed, how can there be something between the fixation of the external conditions and a permanent mark on a photographic plate? Does not the interposition of the impact of an electron and of a subsequent amplification effect amount to a subdivision of the phenomenon in question? Ulfbeck and (Aage) Bohr[38] have shed light on this issue. Like Kant and subsequently (Niels) Bohr, they view space and time as “a scene established for the ordering of experiences.” Clicks in counters are “events in spacetime, belonging to the world of experience.” All physical phenomena are described in terms of variables that have values at all times, and each variable of this kind belongs to an object that is present on the spacetime scene—a “classical” or “macroscopic” object in customary parlance. The matrix variables of quantum mechanics are “of an entirely novel type.” A click is an event “by which a matrix variable manifests itself on the spacetime scene, without entering this scene.” The key to resolving the issue at hand is that this event—the click—has an “onset”: [A] click is distinguished by the remarkable property of having an “onset,” a beginning from which the click evolves as a signal in the counter. The onset, thus, has no precursor in spacetime and, hence, does not belong to a chain of causal events. In other words, the onset of the click is not the effect of something, and it has no meaning to ask how the onset occurred. . . . The notion that a particle entered the counter, therefore, becomes inappropriate, and it is likewise inappropriate to state that the particle produced the click. . . . [T]he downward path from macroscopic events in spacetime, which in standard quantum mechanics continues into the regime of the particles, does not extend beyond the onsets of the clicks. . . . [T]he occurrence of genuinely fortuitous clicks, coming by themselves, is recognized as the basic material that quantum mechanics deals with. . . . The theory of what takes place in spacetime is, therefore, inherently non-local. . . . Thus, the wave function enters the theory not as an independent element, but in the role of encoding the probability distributions for the clicks, which is the content of the theory. 18 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff In the conventional/orthodox picture, a particle impinges on the counter and produces a chain of processes leading to the click. For Ulfbeck and Bohr, “there is no incident particle, and the steps in the development of the click, envisaged in the usual picture, are not events that have taken place on the spacetime scene.” To (Niels) Bohr, “the quantum-mechanical formalism . . . represents a purely symbolic scheme permitting only predictions . . . as to results obtainable under conditions specified by means of classical concepts” [BCW7: 350–351]. Because “the physical content of quantum mechanics is exhausted by its power to formulate statistical laws governing observations obtained under conditions specified in plain language” [BCW10: 159], a quantum phenomenon has a mathematical or statistical part and a part that relates the same to experience. The irreversible amplification effects belong to the former. The unmediated step from the so-called source to the onset of the click, and the subsequent unmediated steps in the development of the click, are steps in a gazillion of alternative sequences of possible outcomes of unperformed measurements, and unperformed measurements have no effect on the essential wholeness of a quantum phenomenon. In the following passages [emphases added], Bohr appears to argue (rather unnecessarily) that the quantum features involved in the atomic constitution of the measurement apparatus (or the statistical element in its description) can be neglected because the relevant parts of the apparatus are sufficiently large and heavy. In actual experimentation this demand [that the experimental arrangement as well as the recording of observations be expressed in the common language] is met by the specification of the experimental conditions by means of bodies like diaphragms and photographic plates so large and heavy that the statistical element in their description can be neglected. The observations consist in the recording of permanent marks on these instruments, and the fact that the amplification devices used in the production of such marks involves essentially irreversible processes presents no new observational problem, but merely stresses the element of irreversibility inherent in the definition of the very concept of observation. [BCW10: 212] In actual physical experimentation this requirement [that we must employ common language to communicate what we have done and what we have learned by putting questions to nature in the form of experiments] is fulfilled by using as measuring instruments rigid bodies like diaphragms, lenses, and photographic plates sufficiently large and heavy to allow an account of their shape and relative positions and displacements without regard to any quantum features inherently involved in their atomic constitution. . . . The circumstance that [recordings of observations like the spot produced on a photographic plate by the impact of an electron] involve essentially irreversible processes presents no special difficulty for the interpretation of the experiments, but rather stresses the irreversibility which is implied in principle in the very concept of observation. [BCW10: 165] How can the size or weight of a measuring device justify — the irreversibility in principle of the very notion of observation [BCW10: 120], — the essential irreversibility inherent in the very concept of observation [BCW7: 390; BCW10: 128], Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 19 — the irreversibility which is implied in principle in the very concept of observation [BCW10: 165], or — the element of irreversibility inherent in the definition of the very concept of observation [BCW10: 212]? The only irreversibility that can justify the irreversibility of observations is the incontestable irreversibility of human sensory experience. For Bohr, “the emphasis on the subjective character of the idea of observation [was] essential” [BCW10: 496]. If the description of atomic phenomena nevertheless had “a perfectly objective character,” it was “in the sense that no explicit reference is made to any individual observer and that therefore . . . no ambiguity is involved in the communication of information” [BCW7: 390, emphasis added]. It was never in the sense that no explicit reference was made to the community of communicating observers or to the incontestable irreversibility of their experiences. It is only if one wants to disavow any reference to experience that one may have to invoke something like a sufficiently large or heavy apparatus. Bohr may have intended in this way to appease the naı̈ve realistic inclinations of lesser minds, but it certainly does not characterize his own philosophical stance. 9 QBism, language, and the external world There can be no doubt that significant progress has been made during the roughly four decades between the passing of Niels Bohr and the advent of QBism. We now have a congeries of complex, sophisticated, and astonishingly accurate probability algorithms—the standard model14 —and we are witnessing rapid growth in the exciting fields of quantum information and quantum technology. By contrast, the contemporaneous progress in quantum theory’s philosophical foundations mainly consists in finding out what does not work. This includes the various attempts that were made to transmogrify statistical correlations between observations into physical processes taking place between or giving rise to observations. Whereas a quantum state exists in a Hilbert space, we live in a 3D space, at least in the sense that it frames our experience of an external world. Hilbert space “knows” nothing about a world of objects localized in a 3D space. We do. To make the abstract Hilbert space relevant to our experience, we represent it as a space of wave functions defined on a configuration space and evolving in time. This configuration space and this time are not part of the aforesaid “elegant piece of mathematics” (the so-called bare quantum formalism); they belong to the “illdefined and unattractive mess” (the so-called quantum algorithm) to which that “elegant piece of mathematics” owes its physical meaning and relevance. As a system of formal propositions, quantum mechanics allows us to call a selfadjoint operator “elephant” and a spectral decomposition “trunk.” This makes it possible to prove a theorem according to which every elephant has a trunk. Either the words “time” and “space” mean as little as the word “elephant” does when it is used in this way, or they owe their meanings to human experience, in which case wave functions encapsulate correlations between experiences. Selfadjoint operators on a Hilbert space do not become observables by calling them 14 “Standard model is a grotesquely modest name for one of humankind’s greatest achievements”.[42] 20 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff “observables,” any more than they become elephants by calling them “elephants.” They come to be associated with observables when they are seen as tools for assigning probabilities to the possible outcomes of measurements, which do not happen in a Hilbert space. The real business of interpreting the quantum formalism is to situate it in the experiential framework in which “time” and “space” make sense, not to use these words in ways that divest them of their meanings. The great merit of QBism is to put the spotlight back on the role that human experience plays in creating physical theories. If measurements are irreversible and outcomes definite, it is because our experiences are irreversible and definite. This at once disposes of the disaster of objectification. Bohr could have said the same, and arguably did, but in such elliptic ways that the core of his message has been lost or distorted beyond recognition. The fundamental difference between Bohr and QBism is that one was writing before interpreting quantum mechanics became a growth industry, while the other emerged in reaction to the ever-growing number of futile attempts at averting the disaster of objectification. To make the centrality of human experience truly stick, QBism emphasizes the individual subject. It is not we who experience the world. At first the experience is not ours; it is yours and mine. It becomes ours, and the process by which it becomes ours is communication: What is real for an agent rests entirely on what that agent experiences, and different agents have different experiences. An agent-dependent reality is constrained by the fact that different agents can communicate their experience to each other, limited only by the extent that personal experience can be expressed in ordinary language. Bob’s verbal representation of his own experience can enter Alice’s, and vice-versa. In this way a common body of reality can be constructed.[34] This was also Schrödinger’s take.[11] Here is how he set up the question: I get to know the external world through my sense-perceptions. It is only through them that such knowledge flows into me; they are the very material out of which I construct it. The same applies to everyone else. The worlds thus produced are, if we allow for differences in perspective, etc., very much the same, so that in general we use the singular: world. But because each person’s sense-world is strictly private and not directly accessible to anyone else, this agreement is strange; what is especially strange is how it is established. . . . This is a valid question: how do we come to know of this general agreement between two private worlds, when they admittedly are private and always remain so? Direct comparison does not help, for there is none. It is absolutely necessary that we should start by being deeply troubled by the monstrous character of this state of affairs, if we are to treat with indulgence the inadequate attempts that have been made to explain it. So what establishes the correspondence “between the content of any one sphere of consciousness and any other, so far as the external world is concerned”? What does establish it is language, including everything in the way of expression, gesture, taking hold of another person, pointing with one’s finger and so forth, though none of this breaks through that inexorable, absolute division between spheres of consciousness. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 21 As far as the external world is concerned, it thus seems that Bohr, Schrödinger, and the QBists are all on the same page. They all agree that experience provides the material from which we construct “a common body of reality,” and that language is the means by which we construct it. But here I must respond to something I strongly disagree with. Mermin[4] claims that “[o]rdinary language comes into the QBist story in a more crucial way than it comes into the story told by Bohr.” He supports this by saying that “measurement outcomes in QBism are necessarily classical, in a way that has nothing to do with language,” implying that for Bohr the classicality of measurement outcomes had something to do with language. I maintain that it had not. For QBism as for Bohr, measurement outcomes are definite and irreversible because experiences are definite and irreversible. Bohr would also agree with Mermin that “language is the only means by which different users of quantum mechanics can attempt to compare their own private experiences” (though he might have pointed out that this is true for everyone, not just for users of quantum mechanics). What he might not have agreed with is the idea that each of us first constructs a private external world, and that language comes in only after this is done, as a means of figuring out “what is common to all our privately constructed external worlds.” He might have pointed out that one cannot construct a private external world before being in possession of a language providing the concepts that are needed for its construction. Arguably nobody has shed more light than Kant on how each of us constructs her or his private external world, assuming that we are in possession of the relevant concepts. In Kant’s view, I construct a system of interacting, re-identifiable objects by combining relations that owe their meanings to our “forms of perception” with relations that owe their meanings to the logical structure of our thought or the grammatical structure of “a language common to all.” Here I made use of phrases from the Bohr canon in order to highlight Bohr’s affinity with Kant, and I wrote our “forms of perception” and our thought because we could never communicate with each other and arrive at a common external world if my forms of perception and the logical structure of my thought were different from yours. The essential similarity of the general form of my perceptions and my thoughts with yours is a presupposition that is implicit in every statement about the external world. It might seem at first that Kant had little to say about how we make the move from privately constructed external worlds to a shared external world. But if my forms of perception are the same as yours, and if the logical structure of my thought is identical to yours, then we use the same concepts in constructing our private external worlds. And then it makes little difference whether we talk to ourselves silently (i.e., construct our private external worlds) or talk to each other loudly (i.e., construct our common external world). Mermin overlooks that language plays the same constitutive role in the construction of his own private external world as it does in the “collaborative human effort to find . . . a model for what is common to all of our privately constructed external worlds,” which is the QBist view of science. 22 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff 10 Locating the boundary of our common external world John Bell is famous for, among other things, his disapproval of the word “measurement” in quantum mechanics textbooks and the “shifty split of the world into ‘system’ and ‘apparatus’ ” thereby entailed: There can be no question—without changing the axioms—of getting rid of the shifty split. Sometimes some authors of ‘quantum measurement’ theories seem to be trying to do just that. It is like a snake trying to swallow itself by the tail. It can be done—up to a point. But it becomes embarrassing for the spectators even before it becomes uncomfortable for the snake.[33] While for Heisenberg the location of the split (a.k.a. the Heisenberg cut) was to some extent arbitrary, for Bohr it was unambiguously determined by the measurement setup.15 In an attempt to get rid of the shiftiness of the split, QBists put the measurement outcome into the mind of an agent and replace the measurement setup by any old action taken by the agent: a measurement is an action taken to elicit one of a set of possible experiences, and the outcome of a measurement is the experience elicited by such an action.16 Accordingly there are as many splits between the agent-experiencer and the system acted on as there are agent-experiencers, and there is nothing shifty about the splits: Each split is between an object (the world) and a subject (an agent’s irreducible awareness of her or his own experience). Setting aside dreams or hallucinations, I, as agent, have no trouble making such a distinction, and I assume that you don’t either. Vagueness and ambiguity only arise if one fails to acknowledge that the splits reside not in the objective world, but at the boundaries between that world and the experiences of the various agents who use quantum mechanics.[44] Let us disregard the philosophically ambiguous concept of awareness of one’s own experience. The trouble with this approach is that it poses a dilemma. If QBism treats “all physical systems in the same way, including atoms, beam splitters, Stern-Gerlach magnets, preparation devices, measurement apparatuses, all the way to living beings and other agents”,[45] and if the action taken “can be anything from running across the street at L’Étoile in Paris (and gambling upon one’s life) to a sophisticated quantum information experiment (and gambling on the violation of a Bell inequality)”,[46] then Bohr’s crucial insight that the properties of quantum systems are contextual —that they are defined by experimental arrangements—is lost. To preserve this contextuality, Fuchs re-introduces the apparatus (which however does not seem to feature in the act of running across the street at L’Étoile) as a part of the agent: QBism holds with Pauli (and against Bohr) that a measurement apparatus must be understood as an extension of the agent himself, not something 15 If the diaphragm is fixed, it is part of the experimental arrangement; if it is moveable, it is part of the system under investigation.[23] See Camilleri and Schlosshauer[43] for a discussion of Bohr’s and Heisenberg’s divergent views on this matter. 16 While Fuchs and Schack prefer the term “agent,” Mermin prefers the term “user,” to emphasize that QBists regard quantum mechanics as a “user’s manual”.[4] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 23 foreign and separate. A quantum measurement device is like a prosthetic hand, and the outcome of a measurement is an unpredictable, undetermined “experience” shared between the agent and the external system.[46] Whereas orthodoxy has it that the experimenter acts on laboratory equipment (i.e., manipulates it with her actual hands), according to Fuchs she acts on the “external system” using her prosthetic hand. This brings us to the other horn of the dilemma, for now it is not clear where the apparatus—the prosthetic hand— ends and the rest of the laboratory begins. It appears that one shifty split has been traded for another. In Bohr’s view, a measurement apparatus serves not only to indicate the possession of a property (by a system) or a value (by an observable) but also, and in the first place, to make a set of properties or values available for attribution to a system or an observable. The sensitive regions of an array of detectors define the regions of space in which the system can be found. In the absence of an array of detectors, the regions of space in which the system can be found do not exist. The orientation of a Stern-Gerlach apparatus defines the axis with respect to which a spin component is measured. In the absence of a Stern-Gerlach apparatus, the axis with respect to which a spin component can be up or down does not exist. What physical quantity is defined by running across the street at L’Étoile in Paris? We cannot describe an object without describing it. For describing an object we need concepts, and if we want to describe a quantum system, we need to make the concepts that are available to us applicable to it. And for this we need experimental arrangements. There is a clear-cut demarcation between the object of investigation and the means of investigation: the means we can describe directly, the object only indirectly, in terms of correlations between what we may do and what we may learn as a result. No such clear-cut demarcation exists between what forms part of the experimenter’s prosthetic hand and what does not. Fuchs’ response to this challenge is that the physical extent of the agent is up to the agent: The question is not where does the quantum world play out and the classical world kick in? But where does the agent expect his own autonomy to play out and the external world, with its autonomy and its capacity to surprise, kick in? The physical extent of the agent is a judgment he makes of himself.[47] While Mermin places the quantum/classical divide between each individual users subjective experience and “the common external world we have all negotiated with each other”,[4] Fuchs places it between the agent-cum-instrument and the rest of the physical world. In other words, the dividing line—wherever the agent chooses to place it—is drawn in the objective world, which is precisely what Mermin objects to when he writes that “[v]agueness and ambiguity only arise if one fails to acknowledge that the splits reside not in the objective world, but at the boundaries between that world and the experiences of the various agents who use quantum mechanics”.[44] The single most important message of QBism is that the definiteness of measurement outcomes and the resultant irreversibility of measurements are rooted in the incontestable definiteness and irreversibility of each human individual’s sensory experience. QBists seem to believe that they are therefore required to treat all physical systems in the same way, from subatomic particles to measurement 24 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff apparatuses and on to all agents except the experiencing one. They thus feel compelled to consider the outlandish possibility of “some amazing quantum interference experiment” that puts Wigner’s friend in a coherent superposition of having experienced two different measurement outcomes. In Wigner’s scenario,[48] his’s friend (F ) performs a measurement on a system S using an apparatus A. Treating F as a quantum system, and treating quantum states as ontic states evolving unitarily between measurement-induced state reductions, Wigner concludes that a reduction of the combined system S+A occurs for F when she becomes aware of the outcome, while a reduction of the combined system S+A+F occurs for him when he is informed of the outcome by F . This led Wigner to conclude that the theory of measurement was logically consistent only “so long as I maintain my privileged position as ultimate observer.” QBism, by contrast, maintains that Wigner’s state assignments, which are based on his actual past and possible future experiences, are as valid as his friend’s, based as they are on different sets of actual past and possible future experiences. This important point, however, can be made without envisioning Wigner’s friend in a coherent superposition of two distinct cognitive states: Wigner’s quantum-state assignment and unitary evolution for the compound system are only about his own expectations for his own experiences should he take one or another action upon the system or any part of it. One such action might be his sounding the verbal question, “Hey friend, what did you see?,” which will lead to one of two possible experiences for him. Another such action could be to put the whole conceptual box into some amazing quantum interference experiment, which would lead to one of two completely different experiences for him.[46] Everything we believe—including what we claim to know—is a belief. QBists are absolutely right about this. The objective world is what we collectively believe to exist: “the common external world we have all negotiated with each other.” The implicit assumption underlying our common external world is not only that the spatiotemporal structure of my perceptual awareness and the logical structure of my thought are the same as the spatiotemporal structure of your perceptual awareness and the logical structure of your thought, that we share the structures to which our basic physical concepts owe their meanings—how else could we be in a position to negotiate a common external world? The implicit assumption is also that my experiences are as definite as yours. I may be ignorant of your experiences, but I cannot doubt the definiteness of your experiences. Wigner may be ignorant of the outcome experienced by his friend, but he should not be cavalier about the definiteness of her experience. By the very nature of our common external world he is required to assign to “the whole conceptual box” an incoherent mixture reflecting his ignorance of his friend’s actual experience. To treat his own experiences as definite but not those of his friend, to assign to the box a coherent superposition of distinct cognitive states—that would be the solipsism which Wigner feared and sought to avoid by proposing “that the equations of motion of quantum mechanics cease to be linear, in fact that they are grossly non-linear if conscious beings enter the picture.” QBists are united in rejecting “the silly charges of solipsism.” But if they are to escape these charges, they must do more than acknowledge the fact that “[m]y experience of you leads me to hypothesize that you are a being very much like Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 25 myself, with your own private experience”.[4] They must also acknowledge that your experiences are as definite as mine. They must draw the dividing line between the classical and the quantum not at the near boundary of our common external world, situated between it and each individual users subjective experience, nor within our common external world, but at its far boundary, which separates it from the quantum domain proper, which becomes speakable only via correlations between events that happen or can happen in our common external world. It is our common external world in its entirety that is imbued with the classicality of human sensory awareness. 11 Objectivation vs. reification While Bohr failed to realize the full extent of the affinity of his way of thinking with Kant’s, QBists fail to realize the full extent of their way of thinking with Bohr’s. Thus Fuchs et al.[34]: The Founders of quantum mechanics were already aware that there was a problem. Bohr and Heisenberg dealt with it by emphasizing the inseparability of the phenomena from the instruments we devised to investigate them. Instruments are the Copenhagen surrogate for experience. . . . [They are] objective and independent of the agent using them. QBists, it seems, consistently fail to appreciate the constitutive role played by instruments: instruments define not only the properties that quantum system can possess but also (in conjunction with conservation laws) the kinds of quantum systems that can exist. The reason their outcome-indicating and property-defining attributes are definite is that they are given us in direct sensory experience. While they are objective in the sense that they are experiences that we can objectivize— we can deal with them as if they existed independently of being experienced by us—they are not by any means independent of the experiencing and objectivizing agent.17 Again, writes Mermin[4]: Those who reject QBism . . . reify the common external world we have all negotiated with each other, purging from the story any reference to the origins of our common world in the private experiences we try to share with each other through language. . . . [B]y “experience” I believe [Bohr] meant the objective readings of large classical instruments. . . . Because outcomes of Copenhagen measurements are “classical,” they are ipso facto real and objective. QBists also seem to consistently overlook the all-important difference between reification and objectivation. For Bohr, as for Kant, the objective world was the common external world we have all negotiated with each other. It contains, inter alia, the objective readings of large classical instruments. While outcomes of “Copenhagen measurements” are classical because they are (inferred from) objec17 I use the verb “to objectivize” in conjunction with “objectivation,” leaving the more commonly used verb “to objectify” to go with “objectification,” which is a stage of the measurement process thought up by Ψ -ontologists. 26 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff tivized experiences, they are not therefore “real and objective” independently of the experiencing and objectivizing subject.18 Bohr was concerned with objectivation, the process of representing a shared mental construct as an external reality, which can be dealt with as if it existed independently of the constructing minds. Objectivation means purging any reference to the origins of the “common body of reality”[34] constructed by us, not in order to deny its origins in our experiences, but in order to be able to deal with it as common-sense realism does—as if it existed independently of our thoughts and perceptions. (That this can no longer be done consistently was the conclusion we reached in Sect. 8.) Objectification is not the same as reification, which implies complete or willful ignorance of the origins of the objective world in the experiences we try to share with each other through language. Reification is the self-contradictory assertion that the world we perceive exists (just as we perceive it) independently of our perceptions, that the world we mentally construct exists independently of our constructing minds, or that the world we describe exists (just as we describe it) independently of our descriptions. To Bohr, instruments straddle the far boundary of our common external world. Measurement outcomes are “classical” not because they are reified but because they are situated in this intersubjectively constituted world. Instruments make it possible to extend the reach of classical concepts (whose meanings are rooted in the spatiotemporal structure of human sensory perception and the logical structure of human thought) into the non-classical domain via principles of correspondence.19 12 Is there a “world in itself ”? Kant—the first to make empirical reality the subject of physical science—found it necessary to posit an empirically inaccessible thing or world in itself. This has the power to affect us in such a way that we have the sensations that we do, and that we are able to organize our sensations into objects that interact with each other and change in accordance with physical laws. (It also contains ourselves as transcendental subjects, our free will, and our moral responsibility, but this isn’t relevant here.) Bohr realized that empirical knowledge need not be limited to what is accessible to our senses, and that therefore it does not have to be solely a knowledge 18 While it is true that those who reify the objective (=objectivized) world will have to reject QBism, it is not necessarily true that those who reject QBism reify our common external world. One can certainly reject some of the (sometimes mutually inconsistent) claims made by QBists without reifying the objective world. 19 “[Q]uantum mechanics and quantum field theory only refer to individual systems due to the ways in which the quantum models of matter and subatomic interactions are linked by semi-classical models to the classical models of subatomic structure and scattering processes. All these links are based on tacit use of a generalized correspondence principle in Bohr’s sense (plus other unifying principles of physics).” This generalized correspondence principle serves as “a semantic principle of continuity which guarantees that the predicates for physical properties such as ‘position’, ‘momentum’, ‘mass’, ‘energy’, etc., can also be defined in the domain of quantum mechanics, and that one may interpret them operationally in accordance with classical measurement methods. It provides a great many inter-theoretical relations, by means of which the formal concepts and models of quantum mechanics can be filled with physical meaning”.[37, pp. XII, 191] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 27 of interacting, re-identifiable objects and causally connected events. In that he went beyond Kant. But he also realized, with Kant, that what was not directly accessible to our senses could not be expected to conform to the spatiotemporal conditions of human experience, and thus could not be expected to be describable in any language we can understand (apart from the language game of pure mathematics20 ). He did not deny the existence of an empirically inaccessible reality; he only denied that physics has anything to do with it.21 Schrödinger has often been depicted as a realist about wave functions. While this was true of the Schrödinger of 1926, it does not apply to the Schrödinger post 1926, who according to Michel Bitbol[50] adopted a postmodernist stance. This is from a 1950 lecture: we do give a complete description, continuous in space and time without leaving any gaps, conforming to the classical ideal—a description of something. But we do not claim that this ‘something’ is the observed or observable facts; and still less do we claim that we thus describe what nature . . . really is. In fact we use this picture (the so-called wave picture) in full knowledge that it is neither.[19, p. 144, original emphasis] Where nature itself was concerned, Schrödinger thus agreed with Bohr, who would say (as reported by his assistant Aage Petersen[51]) that it is “wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” What we can say about nature constitutes the empirical reality that for Kant was nature. When it comes to QBism, the situation is less clear. In an early QBist manifesto, Fuchs asked: “If the quantum state represents subjective information, then how much of its mathematical support structure might be of that same character? Some of it, maybe most of it, but surely not all of it.” The “raw distillate” that is left behind “when we are finished picking off all the terms (or combinations of terms) that can be interpreted as subjective information . . . will be our first glimpse of what quantum mechanics is trying to tell us about nature itself ”.[52, emphasis added] Two years later, when talk of “information” had been replaced by personalist Bayesian phraseology, Fuchs and Schack wrote that [t]he agent, through the process of quantum measurement stimulates the world external to himself. The world, in return, stimulates a response in the agent that is quantified by a change in his beliefs—i.e., by a change from a prior to a posterior quantum state. Somewhere in the structure of those belief changes lies quantum theory’s most direct statement about what we believe of the world as it is without agents.[53, emphasis added] To QBists, quantum mechanics is a generalization of the Bayesian theory of probability. It is a calculus of consistency—a set of criteria for testing coherence between beliefs. In this, the Born rule—formulated in terms of positive-operator-valued measures rather than the standard projection-operator valued ones—is central. It 20 “To say mathematics is a game is supposed to mean: in proving, we need never appeal to the meaning of the signs, that is to their extra-mathematical application”.[49] 21 “We meet here in a new light the old truth that in our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience” [BCW6: 296]. This has an entirely Kantian ring to it. 28 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff is seen not merely as a rule for updating probabilities, for getting new ones from old, but as a rule for relating probability assignments and constraining them, a rule that (as they have shown) can be expressed entirely in terms of probabilities: “The Born Rule is nothing but a kind of Quantum Law of Total Probability! No complex amplitudes, no operators—only probabilities in, and probabilities out”.[54] QBists hope to eventually derive the standard Hilbert space formalism from the Born rule, and in doing so puzzle out what is attributable to our way of knowing the world and what is attributable to the world itself. The Born rule has this dichotomic character: it is normative—it guides an agent’s behavior in a world that is fundamentally quantum—but it also is an empirical rule. It is a statement about nature itself, indirectly expressed as a calculus of consistency for bets placed on the outcomes of measurements. Writes Fuchs: “The only piece of the quantum formalism that plays an objective role is the normative character of the Born Rule”.[46, emphasis added] Mermin,[55] on the other hand, writes that “QBists (at least this one) attach no meaning to ‘the world as it is without agents.’ It only means ‘the common external world we have all negotiated with each other’.” But then he also writes that “my understanding of the world rests entirely on the experiences that the world has induced in me throughout the course of my life”,[4] and again that “[t]he world acts on me, inducing the private experiences out of which I build my understanding of my own world”.[56] The world that induces private experiences in me—is it our common external world, or is it something like the Kantian thing in itself, which induces the experiences from which we construct our common external world? It seems to me that it has to be the latter, for what induces experiences in us can hardly be the world we construct from our experiences. In the sections after next I shall present my own take on how our common external world relates to whatever reality lies beyond or at the origin of our common external world. 13 A reality criterion revisited Before I encountered QBism, I wrote a series of papers[29, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62] in which I insisted on at least two of the basic tenets of QBism: that quantum mechanics is a probability calculus, and that quantum observables have values only if and when they are actually measured. Probability 1 or the eigenvalue-eigenstate link are not sufficient for “is” or “has.” Lacking the QBist insight that the irreversibility of measurements and the definiteness of outcomes was attributable solely to the definiteness and irreversibility of direct perceptual experience, I proposed a criterion for distinguishing between (i) observables that have values only when they are measured and (ii) observables whose values are real per se (and thus capable of indicating measurement outcomes). I still regard this criterion as superior to mere appeals to the size or weight of an apparatus, but thanks to QBism I have come to realize that it only allows me to treat the macroworld (herafter defined) as proxy for an intersubjectively constructed world, from which the constructing subjects can detach themselves. Fuchs[52] once asked an important question, which has already been quoted: “If the quantum state represents subjective information, then how much of its mathematical support structure might be of that same character?” Specifically: are Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 29 the positions on which wave functions depend of the same character? Ψ -ontologists are necessarily xyzt-ontologists as well, postulating as they must an independently existing spatiotemporal manifold M. This goes as badly as their formulation of the measurement problem, which leads to the disaster of objectification. Here is how: Gerhard Hegerfeldt[63, 64] and David Malament[65] have shown that a free particle, localized at a time t1 in a bounded region R1 , has a non-zero probability to be found at a time t2 > t1 in a bounded region R2 , even if in the time between t1 and t2 no light signal can travel from R1 to R2 . Since this is inconsistent with the theory of relativity, it seems to follow that particles cannot be localized. Having shown that this result also obtains for unsharply localized particles, Hans Halvorson and Rob Clifton[66] concluded that particle talk is “strictly fictional”: The argument for localizable particles appears to be very simple: Our experience shows us that objects (particles) occupy finite regions of space. But the reply to this argument is just as simple: These experiences are illusory! Although no object is strictly localized in a bounded region of space, an object can be well-enough localized to give the appearance to us (finite observers) that it is strictly localized. What Hegerfeldt, Malament, and Halvorson and Clifton have actually shown is that particles are not localizable relative to M. But M is not the expanse in which position measurements are made. Actually measured positions are defined by the sensitive regions of actually existing detectors, and what Halvorson and Clifton have shown for “objects (particles)” also holds for such objects as detectors. Neither particles nor detectors are localizable in finite spatial regions of M. Hence what is strictly fictional (i.e., not objectivizable) is the existence of an infinitely or completely differentiated spatiotemporal manifold. Here, then, is my criterion for distinguishing between observables that only have values if and when they are measured, and observables to which a measurement-independent reality can be attributed. The argument begins by observing that the space that can be objectivized is not intrinsically partitioned. To define a partition of space, we need an array of detectors, and no physically realizable array of detectors can partition space ad infinitum, i.e., into infinitesimal regions. The complete differentiation of physical space taken for granted by field theories corresponds to nothing in the objective world. The next best thing to a sharp trajectory is a trajectory that is so sharp that the bundle of sharp trajectories over which it is statistically distributed is never probed. In other words, the next best thing to an object with a sharp position is a macroscopic object, defined as one whose position probability distribution is and remains so narrow that there are no detectors with narrower position probability distributions—detectors that could probe the region over which the object’s position statistically extends. Macroscopic objects thus follow trajectories that are only counterfactually indefinite. Their positions are “smeared out” only in relation to an imaginary spatiotemporal background that is more differentiated than the objectivizable world. The events by which the positions of macroscopic objects are indicated are therefore correlated in ways that are consistent with the laws of motion that quantum mechanics yields in the classical limit. This makes it possible to attribute to the positions of macroscopic objects (collectively referred to as “the macroworld”) a measurement-independent reality, to regard them as defining the space of posi- 30 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff tions on which the wave functions of unbound objects22 depend, and to use them as apparatus pointers, in the unassailable conviction that they are definite at all times. According to Fuchs,[67] “there might be uncertainty because the world itself does not yet know what it will give. . . . QBism finds its happiest spot in an unflinching combination of ‘subjective ‘probability’ with ‘objective indeterminism’.” In other words, uncertainty is a consequence of an objective indeterminism. I see it differently. To my mind, indeterminism—lack of predictability not attributable to anyone’s ignorance of the facts—is the observable consequence of an objective indefiniteness or indeterminacy (or “fuzziness”).23 But whereas the objective indefiniteness of a quantum observable is revealed by the unpredictability of the position of the “pointer” upon measurement, the indefiniteness of the (position of the) pointer is never revealed. That is: it cannot be objectivized; it is not an objective indefiniteness; it corresponds to nothing in the objective world. 14 The mystery of identity No acceptable explanation for the miraculous identity of particles of the same type has ever been put forward. That identity must be regarded, not as a triviality, but as a central mystery of physics. — Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John A. Wheeler[10] My approach to extracting essential information about what lies beyond the objective (=objectivizable) world from correlations between measurement outcomes relies on Feynman’s formulation of the theory.[68] This is based on summations over alternatives, which are defined as sequences of outcomes of (performed or unperformed) measurements. Suppose, for example, that we24 perform a series of position measurements, and that each measurement yields exactly one outcome, i.e., each time exactly one detector clicks. This would be evidence of a conservation law and could be construed as evidence of a persistent quantum object—not an object that causes clicks (Ulfbeck and Bohr are absolutely right about this) but an object whose successive positions are indicated by the clicks. We would then be able to construe the clicks as measurements of the position of a quantum object and to think of the clicking devices as detectors for such objects. If each time exactly n detectors click, we have evidence that the number of simultaneous detector clicks is a conserved quantity, but this cannot be construed as evidence of a fixed number of re-identifiable quantum objects unless further conservation laws are in force. This is where Feynman’s pair of rules of summation becomes important. If the alternatives are indistinguishable, we assign probabilities by adding their amplitudes and calculating the absolute square of the result. If the alternatives are distinguishable, we assign probabilities by calculating the 22 When dealing with an internal relative position (e.g., the position of the electron relative to the proton in the ground state of atomic hydrogen), the positions of the (in this case imaginary) detectors are defined relative to another object (the nucleus), which remains undefined. 23 It is this indefiniteness, made irreducible by the uncertainty relations, that is at least in part responsible for the existence of stable atomic ground states, and ultimately for the stability of matter and thus the existence of matter as we know it. 24 The plural is justified by the fact that measurements take place in our common external world. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 31 absolute square of each amplitude and adding the results. In the second case the distinctions we make between the alternatives can be objectivized, for example because the simultaneous clicks are of different types, individuating different Lockean substances (such as electrons and protons), and because there is a conservation law for each of these Lockean substances.25 In this case the behavior of the detectors can be construed as indicating the successive positions of n re-identifiable quantum objects. In the first case, nothing in our common external world indicates which quantum object is which. In other words, the distinctions we make between the alternatives cannot be objectivized. We are then in the presence of a single quantum object, which is instantiated but not individuated by the clicks. If we nevertheless think of the clicks as indicating the positions of quantum objects, we must think of the objects instantiated by the clicks as identical, and this not in the weak sense of exact similarity but in the strong sense of numerical identity. They are the same object in n different places. What is signaled by the detectors that click is the presence of one and the same object in each of their respective sensitive regions. But why should we treat a positions differently from other properties, such as the properties that make electrons distinguishable from protons? Is there any compelling reason to believe that the numerical identity of quantum objects in different places ceases when it ceases to have observable consequences owing to the presence of “identity tags”? I can think of no such reason. I am therefore prepared to defend the following claim: a quantum object observed here with these properties and a quantum object observed there with those properties are one and the same thing. It appears to us here with these properties and there with those properties. Kant did not stop at saying that if I see a desk, there is a thing in itself that has the power to appear as a desk, and if I see a chair in front of the desk, there is another thing in itself that has the power to appear as a chair. For him, there was only one thing in itself, which affects us in such a way that we see both a desk and a chair in front of the desk. What would be news to him is that all is not desks and chairs. In addition to phenomena in the traditional sense there are quantum phenomena. In addition to the universal context of human experience, and within the same, there are experimental contexts instantiating Lockean substances. If we insist on thinking of these instantiations as things, then quantum mechanics strongly suggests that the thing we observe here with these properties and the thing we observe there with those properties is what Kant would have called the thing in itself. It appears to us here as an electron and there as a proton. What we have learned from Kant is this: if our minds are to be able to “work up the raw material of sensible impressions into a cognition of objects” [CPR 136], the system of objects he called “nature” must obey certain laws. What Kant could not tell us is how the thing in itself affects us in such a way that we are able 25 Here the reader may want to revisit the discussion in Sect. 6. A single click does not usually announce the type to which it belongs—whether it’s an electron click or a proton click. In general the type of a click has to be inferred from a sequence of clicks. A sequence of clicks makes it possible to determine such quantities as the radius of curvature of a particle’s track in a magnetic field, a particle’s time of flight, a particle’s kinetic energy, or a particle’s energy loss through ionization and excitation. Measuring three of these four quantities is sufficient in principle to positively identify the particle type, which then makes it possible to classify the individual clicks.[69] 32 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff to work up the raw material of sensible impressions into a cognition of objects. This is where quantum mechanics comes in. The knowledge it provides does not concern laws that a world of experience objects obeys. It concerns how something corresponding to Kant’s thing in itself causes itself to be experienced as a world of objects. It touches on the age-old subject of how a One becomes Many, but it does not concern the coming into being of a world that exists independently of experiencing subjects, agents, or users, and it does not concern how such a world comes to be reflected in our minds. It concerns the coming into being of an experienced world, without interposition of an unexperienced world. 15 The poises of creative awareness Schrödinger held that the “extensive agreement or parallelism” between our hermetically separated “spheres of consciousness” can only be explained by either of two “irrational, mystical hypotheses.” In Sect. 2 we saw what he thought of one of them. The other, which he endorsed, was that “we are all really only various aspects of the One”[11]: the multiplicity of minds, he wrote,[70] “is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only of the Upanishads”.(The Upanishads are ancient Sanskrit texts which contain many of the central concepts and ideas of Indian philosophy.) The One here refers to the Ultimate Subject, from which we are separated by a veil of self-oblivion. The same veil (according to the Upanishads) also prevents us from perceiving the Ultimate Object, as well as its identity with the ultimate subject.26 If at bottom we are all the same subject (without being aware of it, except by a genuinely mystical experience that is hard to come by), we can conceive of two poises of consciousness or two modes of experience, one in which the One manifests the world to itself perspectivally, as if experienced by a multitude of subjects from a multitude of locations within the world, and one in which the One manifests the world to itself aperspectivally, as if experienced from no particular location or from everywhere at once.27 And if we distinguish between two such poises, we can, so Schrödinger affirms, understand the origin of the agreement between our private external worlds. His assertion that the agreement “between the content of 26 Schrödinger[71] adds that if “to Western thought this doctrine has little appeal,” it is because our science “is based on objectivation, whereby it has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the Subject of Cognizance, of the mind,” and that “this is precisely the point where our present way of thinking does need to be amended, perhaps by a bit of bloodtransfusion from Eastern thought. That will not be easy, we must beware of blunders—bloodtransfusion always needs great precaution to prevent clotting. We do not wish to lose the logical precision that our scientific thought has reached, and that is unparalleled anywhere at any epoch.” 27 Such an aperspectival experience features prominently in the work of Jean Gebser[72, 73] and in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.[74] Here is an account of an experience of this kind: “It is as if the consciousness was not in the same position with regard to things—I do not know how to say it. . . . The ordinary human consciousness, even when it has the widest ideas, is always at the centre, and things are like this (gesture of convergence from all sides). . . . I believe this is how it is best expressed: in the ordinary human consciousness one is at a point and all things exist in their relation to this point of consciousness. And now, the point exists no more. . . . So, my consciousness is in the things—it is not something which is receiving”.[75] In other words, the subject is where its objects are; it lacks the distantiating viewpoint of our perspectival outlook. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 33 any one sphere of consciousness and any other” was established by language (and corresponding declarations by QBists) leaves unexplained the agreement between my sense impressions and yours, without which it would be impossible for my description of my impressions to agree with your description of your impressions. The reason why my sense impressions agree with yours (to the extent that they do) is that we do, in fact, experience the same world. We experience perspectively the world that the One manifests to itself aperspectively. If there is no unexperienced world, the question how such a world can come to be experienced or reflected in a conscious mind does not arise. In Schrödinger’s own words, to say . . . that the becoming of the world is reflected in a conscious mind is but a cliché, a phrase, a metaphor that has become familiar to us. The world is given but once. Nothing is reflected. The original and the mirror-image are identical. The world extended in space and time is but our representation. Experience does not give us the slightest clue of its being anything besides that.[70] The question that arises instead concerns the relation between the two poises of consciousness or modes of experience. According to the Upanishads, all knowledge (or experience, or awareness) is based on identity. The One is indistinguishably both a consciousness that contains objects and a substance that constitutes objects. But if the One adopts a multitude of localized standpoints within the world it manifests to itself, knowledge by identity takes the form of a direct knowledge: each individual knows the others directly, without mediating representations.28 And if the localized subject identifies itself with an individual to the exclusion of all other individuals, direct knowledge of objects takes the form of an indirect knowledge—a knowledge mediated by representations. It becomes a direct knowledge of some of the individual’s attributes—think electrochemical pulses in brains—that gets transformed into a knowledge of “external” objects with the help of a subliminal direct knowledge. 16 Indirect knowledge While it used to be said that qualities are “nothing but” quantities (e.g., colors are “nothing but” frequencies or reflectances), it may be much closer to the truth to say that quantities are nothing but means of manifesting qualities. What is not sufficiently appreciated is that not only the sensations of color, sound, taste, smell, and touch fail to be reducible to quantities. Our very experience of space and time is qualitative and therefore equally irreducible to quantities. Like the color of a Burmese ruby, spatial extension is a quality that can only be defined by ostentation—by drawing attention to something of which we are directly 28 In the original, aperspectival poise of relation between the One and the world, the One is coextensive with the world. As yet no distances exist between the knower and the known. In other words, space as we know it does not yet exist. The familiar dimensions of phenomenal space (viewer-centered depth and lateral extent) come into being in this secondary poise, in which the One views the world in perspective. Objects are then seen from “outside,” as presenting their surfaces. Concurrently the dichotomy between subject and object becomes a reality, for a subject identified with an individual form cannot be overtly identical with the substance that constitutes all forms. 34 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff aware. If you are not convinced, try to explain to my friend Andy, who lives in a spaceless world, what space is like. Andy is good at math, so he understands you perfectly if you tell him that space is like a set of all triplets of real numbers. But if you believe that this gives him a sense of the expanse we call space, you are deluding yourself. We can imagine triplets of real numbers as points embedded in space; he cannot. We can interpret the difference between two numbers as the distance between two points; he cannot. At any rate, he cannot associate with the word “distance” the phenomenal remoteness it conveys to us.29 Much the same goes for time. Time passes, and the only way to know this is to be aware of it. This is what St. Augustine meant when he wrote, “What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.” That the passingness of time is another quality which cannot be defined in quantitative or mathematical terms, is obvious from the fact that we cannot measure the speed at which it passes. (One second per second?) Neuroscience has learned a great deal about how the brain extracts information from images falling on our retinas.[77, 78, 79] This information is encoded in patterns of electrochemical pulses, and these patterns need to be interpreted in order to be experienced as (or give rise to experiences of) objects in an external world extended in space and time. The decoding or interpretation of these firing patters presupposes acquaintance with the expanse of space and the passingness of time, and such acquaintance is not something that neural processes can provide. So the question is not only “whence the sensory qualities?” but also “whence our forms of perception?” There are sound reasons to doubt that the empirically accessible correlations between measurable brain function and qualitative experience will ever fall within the purview of rational scientific explanation.[80, 81] After all, as Maurice MerleauPonty[82] and Karl Jaspers[83] have pointed out, the existence of correlations between sensory experiences and neural processes is itself a fact of sensory experience. The empirically known correlations exist between experiences and therefore cannot be invoked to explain how neural processes give rise to experiences. Sensory experiences do not give rise to sensory experiences. To clearly get this, imagine a neuroscientist, Alice, who observes a specific complex of neural processes in Bob’s visual cortex whenever she sees that a green apple is located in Bob’s visual field. Something in her experience of Bob’s brain correlates with something in her experience of what Bob is looking at. If Bob tells her that he, too, perceives a green apple, it confirms the existence of a green apple in a shared objective world. What it does not confirm is the existence of a real apple that causes both Alice and Bob to perceive an apple, nor the belief that Bob’s brain—as experienced and studied by Alice—serves as a link in a causal chain that connects a real apple in a mind-independent external world to Bob’s experience of an apple. Again, when we say “this is a green apple,” we do not state the correspondence of a perception to a thing-in-itself. While our judgment that this is a green apple goes beyond what is immediately given to us, it does not reach beyond what is given to us. It merely involves the claim that this thing is of much the same color, 29 The same point was made by Hermann Weyl[76] when he wrote that geometry “contains no trace of that which makes the space of intuition what it is in virtue of its own entirely distinctive qualities which are not shared by ‘states of addition-machines’ and ‘gas-mixtures’ and ‘systems of solutions of linear equations’.” Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 35 Fig. 2 Indirect knowledge: a flowchart shape, and consistency as the things we previously judged to be green apples, or the claim that this particular experience is of the same kind as experiences we previously referred to as “green apples.” It involves the correspondence between “green apple experienced here and now” and “green apple experienced there and then.” Representations are re-presentations of experiential material that was present at some other time. They are objective in the sense of being recognizable invariants of experience. On the other hand, if the “irrational, mystical” hypothesis we are here exploring is correct, then the incomplete information provided by neural firing patterns is supplemented by a subliminal direct knowledge, and in this case Bob’s experience of an apple is veridical,30 and Alice’s experience of neural firing patterns in Bob’s brain is a veridical experience of representations mediating Bob’s experience of an apple. Indirect knowledge is the meeting point of information flowing inward from the object and information flowing outward from a subliminal self (Fig. 2). In the philosophy of mind, the problem of intentionality is as formidable as the problem of qualia. “Intentionality” denotes the fact that, instead of perceiving internal representations, we perceive external objects. Both problems resolve themselves if we accept the fundamental affirmations of the Upanishadic theory of existence. Whatever is missing from the internal representations—intentionality, qualia, including our forms of perception—is supplied by a subliminal subject’s direct awareness of objects. This direct awareness is rooted in the Ultimate Subject’s identity with the Ultimate Object, which appears to us here with these properties and there with those properties. In the words of Sri Aurobindo (arguably the most competent modern interpreter of Upanishadic thought): In the surface consciousness knowledge represents itself as a truth seen from outside, thrown on us from the object, or as a response to its touch on the sense, a perceptive reproduction of its objective actuality. . . . Since it is unable to . . . observe the process of the knowledge coming from within, it has no choice but to accept what it does see, the external object, as the cause of its knowledge. . . . In fact, it is a hidden deeper response to the contact, a response coming from within that throws up from there an inner 30 To be precise: as veridical as a knowledge mediated by representations can be. 36 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff knowledge of the object, the object being itself part of our larger self. [74, pp. 560–61] 17 Why quantum mechanics? It seems clear that quantum mechanics is fundamentally about atoms and electrons, quarks and strings, not those particular macroscopic regularities associated with what we call measurements of the properties of these things. But if these entities are not somehow identified with the wave function itself— and if talk of them is not merely shorthand for elaborate statements about measurements—then where are they to be found in the quantum description? — Sheldon Goldstein[84] Here is what I believe to be the most important message that quantum mechanics has for us: the theory does not primarily concern the world that the One manifests to itself. It primarily concerns how the One manifests the world to itself—and therefore to us, inasmuch as we “are all really only various aspects of the One.” Rather than being constituent parts of the manifested world, subatomic particles, atoms, and (to some extent) molecules are instrumental in the manifestation of the world (to us). We keep looking for the origin of the universe at the beginning of time, but this is an error of perspective. The origin of the manifested world is the One, transcendent of spatial and temporal distinctions, and the manifestation of the world is an (atemporal) series of transitions away from the unity of the One qua Ultimate Object to the multiplicity of a world that allows itself to be described (not in terms of classical physics but) in the object-oriented language of classical physics. The first transition takes us from the One (who of course is formless) to an apparent multitude of formless “ones.” By entering into reflexive spatial relations, the Ultimate Object gives rise to (i) what looks like a multitude of relata if the reflexive quality of the relations is ignored, and (ii) what looks like a substantial expanse if the spatial quality of the relations is reified. The relata are usually referred to as “fundamental particles” and regarded as the “ultimate constituents of matter”.31 The result of this transition is probed by high-energy physics and known to us through correlations between detector clicks (i.e., in terms of transition probabilities between in-states and out-states). Forms emerge as sets of more or less indefinite spatial relations between formless and numerically identical relata, i.e., between the One and the One. The forms of nucleons, nuclei, and atoms “exist” in probability spaces of increasingly higher 31 Fundamental particles are often characterized as pointlike, and many physicists take this to be the literal truth. What it actually means is that a fundamental particle lacks internal relations. Lacking internal relations, it also lacks a form, inasmuch as forms resolve themselves into sets of internal spatial relations. And if we conceive of objective space as the totality of objective or objectivizable spatial relations, then a fundamental particle, lacking internal relations, cannot even be said to exist or be contained in space. (A reminder: in Sect. 13 we arrived at the conclusion that the existence of an infinitely and completely differentiated spatiotemporal manifold must be regarded as an illusion.) There is even a sense in which space is internal to each fundamental particle, inasmuch as each fundamental particle is the One qua Ultimate object, and each spatial relation is a relation between the One and the One. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 37 dimensions. At energies low enough for atoms to be stable, we are dealing with Lockean substances that can be described in terms of correlations between the possible outcomes of unperformed measurements. (Recall note 23.) At the penultimate stage of the (atemporal) process of manifestation there emerges a kind of form that can be visualized, and this not merely as a distribution over some probability space. What makes the atomic configurations of molecules visualizable is that the indefiniteness of the distance d between any pair of bonded atoms, as measured by the standard deviation of the corresponding probability distribution, is significantly smaller than the mean value of d. If the manifestation of the world consists in a progressive transition from the undifferentiated unity of the One to a multitude of distinguishable objects with definite properties, via formless particles, non-visualizable atoms, and partly visualizable molecules, the question arises as to how the intermediate stages of this transition are to be described—the stages at which distinguishability and definiteness are incompletely realized. The answer is that whatever is not completely distinguishable or definite can only be described in terms of probability distributions over what is completely distinguishable and definite—i.e., over the possible outcomes of measurements. What is instrumental in the manifestation of the world can only be described in terms of correlations between events that happen (or could happen) in the manifested world. This, I believe, is why the general theoretical framework of contemporary physics is a probability calculus, and why the events to which it serves to assign probabilities are measurement outcomes. 18 The adventure of evolution But why should the ultimate subject not only adopt a multitude of standpoints but also identify itself with each to the apparent exclusion of the others? The answer hinges on the evolutionary character of this world. From the point of view of the Upanishads, evolution presupposes involution. By a multiple concentration of consciousness the ultimate subject assumes a multitude of vantage points, and by a further exclusive concentration of consciousness the individual subject loses sight of its identity with the other subjects and, as a consequence, loses access to the aperspectival view of things. The direct self-knowledge of the One thereby becomes implicit, or involved, in an indirect or representative knowledge. While our state of being and knowing in some respects corresponds to this poise of relation between self and world, we are evolved from a condition of maximal involution rather than “devolved” by a multiple exclusive concentration of a consciousness that is one with existence. Because of the identity of the Ultimate Subject with the Ultimate Object, the consciousness by which the former creates its content is also the force by which the latter creates forms. In the original, unitary and aperspectival poise of awareness, force is rather implicit in consciousness. At the other end of the spectrum of involution, consciousness becomes implicit (or involved) in the force that creates forms. But this is not all. As there is a world-transcending state of self-awareness,32 so there is state of inconscience tran32 “For at the gates of the Transcendent stands that mere and perfect Spirit described in the Upanishads, luminous, pure, sustaining the world but inactive in it, . . . the transcendent Silence. And the mind when it passes those gates suddenly, without intermediate transitions, receives a sense of the unreality of the world and the sole reality of the Silence which is one of 38 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff scendent of both self and world. If involution begins with a multiple localization of the Ultimate Subject resulting in multitude of localized subjects, it ends not with the involution of consciousness in force, nor even with the involution of force in form, but in the involution of consciousness and formative force in a multitude of formless entities. And since formless entities are indistinguishable and therefore— by the principle of the identity of indiscernibles—numerically identical, evolution ends with the Ultimate Object apparently deprived of its inherent consciousness and self-determining force. This (or something very much like it) is how the stage for the drama of evolution was set. But what can justify this adventure, considering all the pain and suffering that (in hindsight) it entails? Certainly not an extra-cosmic Creator imposing these evils on his creatures. But the One of the Upanishads is no such monster; it imposes these things on itself. But still—why? Here goes: a play of self-concealing and self-finding is one of the most strenuous joys that conscious being can give to itself, a play of extreme attractiveness. There is no greater pleasure for man himself than a victory which is in its very principle a conquest over difficulties, a victory in knowledge, a victory in power, a victory in creation over the impossibilities of creation. . . . There is an attraction in ignorance itself because it provides us with the joy of discovery, the surprise of new and unforeseen creation. . . . If delight of existence be the secret of creation, this too is one delight of existence; it can be regarded as the reason or at least one reason of this apparently paradoxical and contrary Lila. [74, pp. 426–27] Lı̄lā is a term of Indian philosophy which describes the manifested world as the field for a joyful sporting game made possible by self-imposed limitations. “Conscious being” is Sri Aurobindo’s term for the ultimate subject or consciousness that is one with the ultimate object or being. “Delight of existence” is the third of the three terms by which the One is described in the Upanishads. If as being (sat) the One constitutes the world and as consciousness (chit) it contains it, as an infinite Quality, Value, and Delight (ānanda) it experiences and expresses itself in it. In a materialistic framework of thought, what ultimately exists is a multitude of entities (fundamental particles, spacetime points, whatever) lacking intrinsic quality or value. In many traditions this multiplicity is fittingly referred to as “dust.” Such a framework leaves no room for a non-reductive account of quality and value. In an Upanishadic framework, quality and value and their subjective counterpart joy or delight are at the very heart of reality. In such a framework the most powerful and convincing experiences of which the human mind is capable. Here, in the perception of this pure Self or of the Non-Being behind it, we have the starting-point for a second negation,—parallel at the other pole to the materialistic, but more complete, more final, more perilous in its effects on the individuals or collectivities that hear its potent call to the wilderness,—the refusal of the ascetic. It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years . . . has dominated increasingly the Indian mind. . . . And through many centuries a great army of shining witnesses, saints and teachers, names sacred to Indian memory and dominant in Indian imagination, have borne always the same witness and swelled always the same lofty and distant appeal,—renunciation the sole path of knowledge, acceptation of physical life the act of the ignorant, cessation from birth the right use of human birth, the call of the Spirit, the recoil from Matter. For an age out of sympathy with the ascetic spirit . . . it is easy to attribute this great trend to the failing of vital energy in an ancient race. . . . But we have seen that it corresponds to a truth of existence, a state of conscious realisation which stands at the very summit of our possibility.” [74, pp. 26–27] Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 39 accounting for the qualitative content of consciousness poses no difficulty, since it is simply the finite expression or manifestation of the infinite quality inherent in reality itself. 19 A possible future Because what has been involved is an unlimited consciousness and force, evolution is far from finished. What has yet to evolve is a consciousness that is not exclusively concentrated in each individual, a consciousness aware of the mutual identity of all individuals, a consciousness no longer confined to the perspectival outlook of a localized being but capable of integrating its perspectival viewpoint with the aperspectival outlook of the Ultimate Subject. In recent years, many philosophers have put a high priority on providing a reductionist account of intentional categories such as beliefs and desires. There is an unmistakable tone of urgency in the relevant literature. Apparently something dreadful will follow if the program of “naturalizing” the intentional does not succeed—something more dreadful (to the physicalist) than what would follow if the program were to succeed.[85] If the program were to succeed, it would not be true that my wanting something is causally responsible for my reaching for it, that my itching is causally responsible for my scratching, and that my believing something is causally responsible for my saying it. And “if none of that is literally true,” Jerry Fodor concludes,[86] “then practically everything I believe about anything is false and it’s the end of the world”.33 What, then, shall we make of the neuroscientific and psychological evidence that, along with philosophic analysis and phenomenological introspection, supports the conclusion that the folk model of free will is seriously flawed?34 What the opponents as well as the proponents of the libertarian (non-compatibilist) version of free will miss, is the subliminal self and the role it plays in both volition and cognition. Let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that Sri Aurobindo is right when he writes that “to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities . . . is offered to us as . . . the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution”.[74, p. 4] There is only one way in which infinite freedom can be attained, and that is to become one with the ultimate determinant of this evolving manifestation. We are in possession of genuine freedom to the extent that we are consciously and dynamically identified with this ultimate determinant. Absent this identification, our sense of being the proud owner of a libertarian free 33 In other words,[87], “if commonsense intentional psychology really were to collapse, that would be, beyond comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species; if we’re that wrong about the mind, then that’s the wrongest we’ve ever been about anything. The collapse of the supernatural, for example, didn’t compare; theism never came close to being as intimately involved in our thought and our practice—especially our practice—as belief/desire explanation is. Nothing except, perhaps, our commonsense physics—our intuitive commitment to a world of observer-independent, middle-sized objects—comes as near our cognitive core as intentional explanation does.” 34 Because classical physics was taken by many to imply determinism, it is not surprising that the indeterminism of quantum physics has been invoked as the physical basis of free will. One of the first to suggest that quantum indeterminism makes room for mental causation— the determination of physical events by irreducibly mental ones—was Pascual Jordan.[88] And it was none other than Schrödinger[19, pp. 164–66] who pointed out the flaws in Jordan’s reasoning, considering it “to be both physically and morally an impossible solution.” 40 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff will is, not indeed a complete illusion, but a misappropriation of a power that belongs to our subliminal self, a power that more often than not works towards goals at variance with our conscious pursuits. Just as the One adopts several cognitive poises of relation between subject and object, so it adopts several dynamic poises. At the extreme point of involution, we have an apparent multitude of formless particles governed by laws that serve to set the stage for the adventure of evolution.35 That’s all they do. They do not direct what happens on the stage. Evolution does not happen without active modifications (or, God forbid, “violations”) of the laws that served to set the stage. If (as we presently assume) the adventure was made possible by an unlimited force subjecting itself to these laws, its ability to modify them should be a no-brainer. So why do we not have irrefutable evidence that such modifications occur? For one, because we tend to look for them where they do not occur (e.g., at the origin of our supposedly free choices). For another, because of the Houdiniesque nature of this manifestation. “If delight of existence be the secret of creation,” and if the joys of winning victories, conquering difficulties, overcoming obstacles, and discovering the unknown be possible expressions of this delight, then there have to be serious limitations, initially and for a long time, on the power to modify the laws, and this makes it virtually impossible for us (given the means at our disposal) to discern where and when such modifications occur.36 Each of the major evolutionary transitions entails a displacement of the boundary between what is overtly at play and what acts subliminally. To see what I mean, think of the creative process by which the infinite Quality at the heart of reality expresses itself in finite forms as encompassing two intermediate stages: Infinite Quality → Expressive Idea → Formative Force → Finite Form The boundary can be located between any two stages. When life appears, what essentially begins to be overtly at play is the formative force whose principal purpose is to execute expressive ideas, while the power to form expressive ideas acts subliminally if at all. When mind appears, what essentially comes openly into play is the power whose principal purpose is to develop Quality into expressive ideas, while the Quality to be expressed continues, for the most part, to dwell in the subliminal recesses of existence. Nor can the formative force, when it appears, begin at once to execute expressive ideas; it first has to fashion the necessary anatomical and physiological instrumentation. Nor can the power to form expressive ideas act without the requisite instrumentation, and when it begins to act, it must attend to the needs of self-preservation and self-development before it can turn to loftier pursuits. 35 Setting the stage for evolution arguably requires objects that are spatially extended (they “occupy” finite volumes) and are sufficiently stable (they neither explode nor collapse as soon as they are formed). And because the stage was set by an involution of consciousness and formative forms in an apparent multitude of formless entities, these objects appear to be “made of” finite numbers of particles that do not “occupy” space. As I have argued previously,[29, 89, 90] the existence of such objects not only implies the validity of quantum mechanics but also goes a long way toward establishing the other well-tested laws of physics (the standard model and general relativity). 36 What about the alleged causal closure of the physical? Since the doctrine of causal closure is tantamount to the claim that modifications of the laws of physics cannot occur, it obviously cannot be invoked as an argument against the occurrence of such modifications. Bohr, QBism, and Beyond 41 What will happen if the infinite Quality at the heart of reality finally comes in front and the entire creative process becomes conscious and deliberate? Will there remain any need for complex anatomies and physiologies? To put it bluntly, will the complete embodiment of the original Consciousness and Force dispense with muscles, bones, stomachs, hearts, and lungs? Will the world be experienced by its future inhabitants without the need for mediating representations and thus without the need for a brain? When the creative process is no longer broken into an automatic or mechanical action on the surface and a subliminal modifying action, when the previously automatic action is fully integrated into the formerly modifying action, when the limited action and the limiting action are fused into one unlimited action, the anatomical and physiological instrumentation will have served its purpose and can be dispensed with, for its evolution was necessitated by the limitations that the One had imposed on itself for the purpose of instituting the adventure of evolution, and these limitations no longer exist. If any or all of this sounds preposterous, it is in large part because our theoretical dealings with the world are conditioned by the manner in which we, at this particular evolutionary juncture, experience the world. We conceive of the evolution of consciousness, if not as a sudden lighting up of the bulb of sentience, then as a progressive emergence of ways of experiencing a world that exists independently of how it is experienced, but which nevertheless is structured or constituted more or less as it is experienced by us. In reality there is no world that exists independently of how it is experienced. There are only different ways in which the One manifests itself to itself. The different ways in which the One has so far manifested itself to itself have been painstakingly documented by Gebser.[72, 73] One way to characterize the structures of human consciousness that have emerged or are on the verge of emerging, is in terms of their dimensionality. An increase in the dimensionality of the consciousness to which the world is manifested is tantamount to an increase in the dimensionality of the manifested world. Consider, by way of example, the consciousness structure that immediately preceded the still dominant one. One of its characteristics was the notion that the world is enclosed in a sphere, with the fixed stars attached to its boundary, the firmament. We cannot but ask: what is beyond that sphere? Those who held this notion could not, because for them the third dimension of space—viewer-centered depth—did not at all have the reality it has for us. Lacking our sense of this dimension, the world experienced by them was in an important sense two-dimensional. This is why they could not handle perspective in drawing and painting, and why they were unable to arrive at the subject-free “view from nowhere”,[81] which is a prerequisite of modern science. All this became possible with the consolidation, during the Renaissance, of our characteristically three-dimensional structure of consciousness. Our very concepts of space, time, and matter are bound up with, are creations of our present consciousness structure. It made it possible to integrate the location-bound outlook of a characteristically two-dimensional consciousness into an effectively subject-free world of three-dimensional objects. Matter as we know it was the result.37 It is not matter that has created consciousness; it is consciousness that has created matter, first by carrying its multiple exclusive concentration 37 As was the so-called mind-body problem. 42 Ulrich J. Mohrhoff to the point of being involved in an apparent multitude of formless particles, and again by evolving our present mode of experiencing the world. Ahead of us lies the evolution of a consciousness structure—and thus of a world—that transcends our time- and space-bound perspective. Just as the mythological thinking of the previous consciousness structure could not foresee the technological explosion made possible by science, so scientific thinking cannot foresee the consequences of the birth of a new world, brought about, not by technological means, but by a further increase in the dimensionality of the evolving consciousness. In this new world, will consciousness still depend on a brain? Will bodies still depend on organs and cells? We can envision a new perception in which our anatomical insides are replaced by the previously hidden truths of our individual existences, a new seeing in which our true natures—our mutually complementary embodiments of the One—are revealed. We find it harder to accept that the new way of seeing will be the new way of being, and that in this new way of seeing and being our anatomical insides will have disappeared, discarded like a scaffolding or the chrysalis of a butterfly. References 1. I. 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Note: this file was prepared from the scanned text with the use of OCR software. It is provided for the purposes of searching and copying sections of text, and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. In case of doubt, please refer to the scanned pdf file at www.repository.cam.ac.uk to check. -------------------------CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD EDITED PROCEEDINGS OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM ON CONSCIOUSNESS HELD AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE IN JANUARY 1978 EDITED BY B. D. JOSEPHSON Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge and V. S. RAMACHANDRAN California Institute of Technology, U.S.A. First edition, © Pergamon Press 1980 By agreement with the publishers, copyright was transferred to the Editors (B D Josephson and V S Ramachandran) in February 2014. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data (original edition) Consciousness and the physical world. 1. Consciousness —— Congresses I. Josephson, B D II. Ramachandran, V S 153 BF3l1 79-40300 ISBN 0-08—024695—8 Contents Foreword F. J. DYSON vii Introduction V. S. RAMACHANDRAN 1 Part I. General 17 1. What Defines Privacy? G. VESEY 19 2. Regarding Consciousness R. L. GREGORY 31 3. Is Consciousness a Phenomenon? H. C. LONGUET-HIGGINS 49 Part II. Consciousness and Behaviour 55 4. Nature's Psychologists 57 N. K. HUMPHREY 5. Nature’s Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness H. B. BARLOW 81 6. Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains D. M. MACKAY 95 7. Some Hypotheses Concerning the Role of Consciousness in Nature B. D. JOSEPHSON 115 Part III. Subjective Experience 121 8. Consciousness and Psychopathology M. ROTH 123 9. Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity V. S. RAMACHANDRAN 139 10. Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience S. PADFIELD 165 ll. Phenomenal Space M. J. MORGAN 177 Afterword to the Conference: The Prospects for Consciousness Research B. D. JOSEPHSON 193 List of Participants 197 Name Index 199 Subject Index 201 Foreword F. J. DYSON This book stands in opposition to the scientific orthodoxy of our day. The orthodox dogma is stated by the biologist Jacques Monod in his book Chance and Necessity with characteristically French sharpness: “The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that true knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes — that is to say, of purpose.” Monod labels those who disagree with him “animists”. The arch—animist is Teilhard de Chardin, for whom Monod reserves his deepest scorn: “The biological philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin would not merit attention but for the startling success it has encountered even in scientific circles. . . . There is no inert matter, and therefore no essential distinction between matter and life. . . . For my part I am most of all struck by the intellectual spinelessness of this philosophy. In it I see more than anything else a systematic truckling, a willingness to conciliate at any price, to come to any compromise. Perhaps, after all, Teilhard was not for nothing a member of that order which, three centuries earlier, Pascal assailed for its theological laxness.’ ’ The authors of this book are not followers of de Chardin. They represent a variety of scientific disciplines and a variety of philosophical viewpoints. But they are all, according to Monod’s definition, animists. That is to say, they are not willing to exclude a priori the possibility that mind and consciousness may have an equal status with matter and energy in the design of the universe. They are trying to extend the boundaries of scientific discourse so that- the subjective concepts of personal identity and purpose may come within its scope. They are all to some extent exposing themselves to the charges of ideological laxity with which Monod lambasted de Chardin. They are accepting a certain risk that their orthodox colleagues will consider them a little soft-headed. vii viii Foreword I am delighted to see that the contributors to this book include more biologists than physicists. In recent years biologists have usually been more inhibited than physicists in stepping outside the accepted norms of scientific respectability. Monod was, after all, a biologist. In dealing with the problems of consciousness, physicists have had courage but no competence, biologists have had competence but no courage. In this book we see some examples of competence combined with courage. Why have the biologists during the last century been so inhibited? I believe they are still suffering from the after—effects of the great nineteenth—century battle between the evolutionists led by Darwin and Huxley, and the churchmen led by Bishop Wilberforce. The high point of the battle was the great debate in Oxford in 1860 during which Bishop Wilberforce asked Huxley whether he was descended from a monkey on his grandfather’s or on his grandmother’s side. Huxley won the debate, but the biologists are still fighting the ghost of Bishop Wilberforce. In the bitterness of their victory over the forces of religious orthodoxy, they have made the meaninglessness of the universe into a new dogma. “Any mingling of knowledge with values is unlawful, forbidden”, says Monod. The authors of this book have defied Monod’s anathema. They have wandered freely over the borderland between science and philosophy, where knowledge and values are inextricably mixed. I believe they have brought back some insights which will be illuminating not only to scientists but also to anybody with a philosophical turn of mind who enjoys pondering over the mysteries of mind and consciousness. Introduction V. S. RAMACHANDRAN Trinity College, Cambridge This book is about consciousness and is based on a symposium on that subject held at the University of Cambridge on 9-10 January 1978. Usually, books on scientific or philosophical subjects are edited by experts on the subject matter of the book itself. I make no apology for the fact that this particular book is an exception to that rule — since there can really be no such thing as an “expert” on a subject as nebulous as consciousness. Although scientists often have their own private views on consciousness they are usually reluctant to talk about these views. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, scientists are generally unwilling to venture into realms outside their legitimate scope or to speculate on questions for which there can be no precise empirically demonstrable answers. Secondly, there is a widely prevalent superstition among them that interest in such “fringe areas” is a sign of woolly thinking and declining intellectual vigour. Perhaps this explains their curious silence and their unwillingness to publish philosophical speculations. The purpose of the Cambridge conference was to encourage distinguished scientists to express their views on the relationship of conscious experience to the physical world.* To add a sense of proportion we also invited a professional philosopher (G. Vesey) and a person claiming psychokinetic powers (Suzanne Padfield). By doing this we have tried to represent as wide a spectrum of views on consciousness as possible. And as the reader will notice, the spectrum is very wide indeed — ranging from Barlow’s materialistic account (that consciousness is nature’ 3 ‘ ‘trick’ ’ ‘We are grateful to Research Corporation of New York for a grant out of which this conference was supported. 2 V. S. Ramachandran to chain us to our herd) to Josephson’s view that minds may even have oertain attributes of their own (e. g. “creativity” or “intelligence’ ’) to help channel the activity of physical brains towards specific goals. Yet in spite of these wide—ranging views, some of them flatly contradicting each other, a surprising degree of communication was achieved between the various speakers. What emerged was this book, whose contents I shall attempt to summarize in this Introduction. * The publication of an interesting book by Popper and Eccles,‘ The Self and its Brain, coincided with the conference, and since the ideas in that book are rather similar in spirit to some of those which were discussed at the conference, it may be relevant to begin our survey with some of Popper’s ideas. Popper calls himself a “dualist” and “interactionist’ ’, and believes in what he calls World 1 (the material universe, including physical brains), World 2 (individual human minds) and World 3 (language, culture, science and other products of World 2). He suggests that although World 3 originally emerged as a product of World 2, it seems to have acquired a life of its own and is no longer chained to individual minds. He speaks of World 3 “objects” like numbers, ideas, numerical concepts, etc., which are in some respects analogous to the physical objects of World 1. Calling ideas and numbers objects may sound like an elaborate joke to some readers, but in defence of his thesis Popper points out that: (a) World 3 has a quasi—independent status and would exist even if individual men died. (b) Many World 3 attributes are unplanned consequences of collective culture (e. g. Goldbach’s conjecture and other hidden properties of number systems that are discovered by mathematicians just as an archaeologist discovers a World 1 object). (c) World 3 properties are often novel and “emergent”, i.e. irreducible to the properties of individual minds — just as brains may have properties which are irreducible to single neurons. ((1) Finally, one can imagine chains of causation in World 3 that are logically independent of (though necessarily accompanied by) physical causation in World 1. For instance, two computers that are grossly *The speakers were encouraged to correspond with each other after the conference and this additional discussion is also included in the book. Introduction 3 different physically can nevertheless operate according to the same “ standards of logic’ ’ (which are World 3 entities). Popper also emphasizes that Worlds 2 and 3 are symbiotic since culture can “feed back” to enrich and expand individual minds. “Matter”, he argues, “can thus transcend itself by producing mind, purpose and a world of the products of the human mind. One of the first of these products is language. In fact I conjecture that it was the very first of these products, and that the human brain and the human mind evolved in interaction with language.” Elsewhere: “. . . As selves, as human beings, we are all products of World 3 which, in its turn, is a product of countless human minds.” It is important not to evade the chicken-or-egg aspects of this theory. Fortunately both authors (Eccles and Popper) give some thought to the apparently insuperable problem of how a closed system like the physical universe can “interact” with minds. Eccles begins by making the deliberately outrageous suggestion that the physical world is in fact not a closed system and that World 2 can directly influence the activity of brains.* The self-conscious mind, according to him, may act on certain “open” elements in the nervous system (such as synaptic clefts), which are so minute that even Heisenbergian uncertainty can influence their behaviour. The activity of these structures could then become magnified to account for brain events corresponding to human “choice” or “creativity”. Not everyone would find this view very satisfactory. If a combination of sub—atomic uncertainty (World 1) and the constraints of rational thought (World 3) can account for human freedom and creative enterprise, then what need is there for World 2? There is, after all, nothing logically impossible about World 1 objects (brains) creating World 3 without the intervention of World 2; so Eccles’s own argument seems to suggest that minds are redundant by—products of evolution! In spite of these difficulties The Self and its Brain contains some bold and powerful arguments for dualism and is sure to provide a valuable stimulus ‘The authors seem to rely largely on introspection for arriving at some of these conclusions. For instance, the fact that people can reverse Necker cubes or engage in adventurous mountain climbing (Popper, p. 146) is cited as evidence for the view that the conscious self has “taken over” the activities of brains! 4 V. S. Ramachandran to new enquiry. If the Cambridge Symposium (embodied in this book) provides a similar stimulus, it will have achieved its purpose. It begins, appropriately, with a scholarly chapter by G. Vesey which contrasts sharply with some of the more light—hearted chapters in the book. The other contributors include three psychologists (R. L. Gregory, N. K. Humphrey and M. J. Morgan), three physical scientists (B. D. Josephson, H. C. Longuet—Higgins and D. M. MacKay), two physiologists (H. B. Barlow and myself) and a psychiatrist (M. Roth). THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chapters 4 and 5 form the core of the book and deal with speculations on the possible evolutionary significance of consciousness. Barlow’s suggestion (Chapter 5) is novel and surprisingly simple. He begins by rejecting “parallelism” (i.e. the view that consciousness simply parallels any complex neural event such as the activity of MacKay’s “supervisory” system, described in Chapter 6) on the grounds that if consciousness merely parallels complex neural events there is no reason why only a tiny fraction of such events should emerge into awareness. He suggests, instead, that consciousness may have emerged as an evolutionary novelty among social animals to permit gregariousness and communication. Thus consciousness, according to him, is “interaction and not a property”. We feel pain only in order to communicate it, and if the need to communicate it had not arisen (e.g. in non—social animals like frogs or lizards) there would only be reflex withdrawal unaccompanied by the subjective sensation of pain. Perhaps the fact that people generally shout when jabbed with a needle supports Barlow’s argument, but then why is the pain often felt after the shout? Barlow also suggests that archetypes of other people are modelled into our brains by natural selection, and that consciousness consist either of real conversations with other individuals or of imaginary conversations with those archetypes (psychologists would call this “internal rehearsal”). Consciousness in his view is synonymous with communication. It would be biologically useless to communicate certain brain events (like the pupillary light reflex and reflex arcs regulating visceral functions, etc.) and therefore these events never emerge into consciousness. Introduction 5 Note that Barlow is not merely saying that communication adds an extra dimension to consciousness (a point that is already implicit in Popper’s ideas), but that communication is consciousness. What he claims to have found is a correlation between certain kinds of neural events and consciousness — namely those neural events which are involved exclusively in communicating with other brains. Of course Robinson Crusoe was also conscious, but that is because his brain was engaged in imaginary dialogues with archetypes of other people. Humphrey (Chapter 4) also emphasizes social aspects of consciousness but in a sense of his argument is the exact converse of Barlow’s. He points out that a person who has never felt (say) pain cannot meaningfully understand or interpret the behaviour of another person being exposed to painful stimuli and would consequently be unable to communicate* effectively with him. From this example, he argues that the biological function of the sensation of pain lies in its usefulness for social interaction. Thus we feel pain in order better to understand the pain felt by others. He argues further that such subjective sensations evolved primarily to permit an animal to attribute reasons for its own behaviour and consequently to make sense out of the behaviour of other members of the social group. Although at first sight Humphrey’s argument seems flatly to contradict Barlow’s, there is really no fundamental inconsistency, since both authors emphasize the importance of social factors and suggest that consciousness may have an evolutionary function. Thus, while Humphrey suggests that introspection is necessary for modelling archetypes of other people, Barlow regards conversations with archetypes as almost synonymous with introspection. Barlow speaks of communication with people “enriching” our conscious experience whereas Humphrey points to people who seek out new subjective experiences in order to enrich communication with others! A biologically inclined philosopher might support Barlow, but Humphrey’ s more introspective account seems closer to common sense. To use Popperian terminology, Barlow is suggesting that World 2 (mind) is compulsorily parasitic on World 3 (which includes languages and culture). This is a bold departure from Popper’s own interactionist view that Worlds 1, 2 and 3 exist independently while interacting to enrich each *Here, and elsewhere, I use the word communication in its widest sense (and interchangeably with social interaction). The word should not be taken to mean verbal communication alone. 6 V. S. Ramachandran other. Humphrey, on the other hand, sticks to the Popperian tradition, and his view would be consistent with the suggestion that World 3 (as well as simple communication with others which is a necessary antecedent of World 3) would not have arisen if World 2 had not crept into physical brains at some stage in evolution, i.e. in his account World 2 would necessarily precede World 3. However, it is not clear whether either author would want to argue that the survival value of World 3 actually exerted selection pressure for the emergence of World 2. This, it seems to me, is the crux of the whole debate. These considerations must lead us to a synthetic View of the evolution of mind. Perhaps at some stage in phylogeny, consciousness emerged as an incidental by—product of certain complex neural events. This new property was unplanned for, but once it emerged it made communication possible, since animals could begin to “introspect” and (by analogy) make sense out of one another’s behaviour. Since communication has survival value, natural selection seized upon these neural events which were associated with consciousness and this in turn led to a mutually reinforcing interaction between collective culture and individual minds. Such an account would be wholly consistent with Humphrey and Popper but would also leave several questions unanswered. Implicit in all the views presented so far is the assumption that consciousness is causally important for communication. For if it were not causally important then natural selection could not have favoured its emergence and its absence would have made no difference to the course of evolution. On the other hand, if its presence does make a difference we would have to assume that minds can actually exert an influence (however indirect) on the course of events in the physical world — particularly on a small portion of the physical world consisting of communicating brains. The implication of this would be that (a) the physical world is not a “closed system” and that (b) minds cause communication and do not merely accompany it. This gets us into logical difficulties. Can consciousness really cause neural events? Stimulating the cortex can lead to mental events (e. g. phosphenes), but the converse would be hard to demonstrate empirically. Josephson accepts “mind acting on brain” as being almost axiomatic but is there any evidence to justify such a view? Unfortunately we are not even sure of what cause—and—effect means when talking about brain events and mentation. Gregory (Chapter 2) points out that our common—sense notions Introduction 7 about causation are hopelessly muddled, and he illustrates this with the example of night following day. Obviously day does not cause night; nor are they both caused by some third agent. Instead we see the night-day sequence as part of our conceptual model of the solar system. Similarly, the nature of brain—mind causation may become clearer when we start seeing it as part of a larger (hitherto undiscovered) conceptual scheme. Perhaps the causal links between brain events and mentation belong to a logical category that is quite distinct from, and are of a much more subtle nature than, the causation we talk about in the context of objects and forces. (Though, heaven knows, these words beg enough questions themselves!) And nowhere is the problem of disentangling cause and effect more difficult than in the World 2 .2’ World 3 interactionism proposed by Popper and Eccles. Could World 3 have arisen at all in the absence of at least a rudimentary World 2, and if so could the survival value of World 3 have exerted any selection pressure for the emergence of World 2? Did the dim introspective abilities of Proconsul necessarily antedate his ability to communicate, and if so did the culture which emerged from such communication propel him onwards to become Homo erectus? The theories of Barlow and Humphrey (as well as Popper’ s interactionism) may well contain partial answers to these important questions. WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? While engaging in philosophical discussions of this kind there is always the tendency to forget that problems of consciousness are not merely of academic interest. To a patient in a hospital, experiencing intense pain or anguish, what we have said so far in this chapter, and any talk about consciousness being a “ghost in the machine”, would seem curiously irrelevant or even perverse (Gregory, p. 31). Fortunately, this deficiency is remedied by Roth (Chapter 8), who surveys the phenomenology of consciousness from a clinical point of view, and by Longuet—Higgins (Chapter 3), who examines the validity of common-sense criteria which people generally use for deciding whether someone is conscious or not. Relying largely on common sense, Longuet—Higgins argues that the encodability of events into memory seems to be an invariant correlate of conscious experience — i.e. if a person remembers something, he must have 8 V. S. Ramachandran been conscious of it in the first instance. This seems to be generally true, but it is not difficult to think of possible exceptions. For instance, we often remember dreams vividly and attribute consciousness to dreams while recalling them later, but does it necessarily follow that we were conscious during the dream? Josephson’s approach to consciousness (Chapter 7) differs radically from those of the other contributors. Most scientists start with the brain and ask themselves why certain brain events seem to be associated with consciousness. J osephson’s point of departure, on the other hand, is in consciousness itself, which he suggests can be empirically studied by introspection. He begins with consciousness as a “given thing” and points out that our minds seem to have certain obvious attributes like creativity or intelligence. He regards these attributes as being almost axiomatic since we know them to be there from our own personal experience. Might we then not start with these almost axiomatic observations on consciousness and then try to arrive at more general “laws” of behaviour? Josephson points out that there already exists an extensive introspective—phenomenological account of consciousness to be found in the Eastern philosophical literature? He uses ideas from this literature and tries to construct a theory of consciousness based on concepts borrowed from systems engineering. Professional psychologists frown on introspection largely because other professional psychologists would frown on them if they did not. There is, after all, no a priori reason for starting with brains and working up towards consciousness instead of vice versa. In fact, to a person untrammelled by conventional scientific training, Josephson’s approach might seem much more simple and straightforward. Galileo and Newton began with observations about the physical world and went on to construct laws (such as the laws of motion) of steadily increasing explanatory power. Why sneer on the same approach being used for studying our own conscious experience? Until now we have considered the evolutionary origins of consciousness and tried to answer the question “What is consciousness?” We must now turn to more ancient philosophical issues — like free will and personal identity. In my own contribution (Chapter 9) I have tried to point out that there are really two kinds of personal identity which I have dubbed “empirical identity” and “ontological identity”. The empirical identity Introduction 9 question is philosophically trivial and has the form “What criteria do people generally use when trying to identify an agent A’ as being the same as an agent A whom they have seen in the past?”. The ontological identity question (i.e. what criteria should be used when trying to decide whether A’ is existentially the same as A who lived in the past) is much more important and can be stated in the form of a series of “thought experiments”. I have argued that nothing more can be said about personal identity than what is contained in these thought experiments. FREE WILL — AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH Any theory of consciousness must eventually contend with the problem of free will and determinism. If every event in the universe (including brain events) is the inevitable outcome of preceding events, then in what sense are our actions really free? Of course, if a person were completely free his behaviour would be chaotic. Freedom of behaviour (and consequently the will) is necessarily limited by environmental constraints, and hence the question of freedom arises only at what might be called “choice-points”, where an agent is called upon to choose between alternate courses of action. The situation is analogous to a donkey located exactly between two haystacks. Obviously the donkey would not starve to death. He would eventually move towards one haystack or the other, and one would be tempted to describe his choice as being random. A human being in a similar situation might claim that he was exercising the privilege of free will. If there were no special reason for favouring one haystack, the donkey’s choice would either (a) depend on a hidden, thermodynamic bias in the immediately preceding state of the animal’s nervous system, or (b) be truly random. Such randomness could arise from a magnification of Heisenbergian uncertainty (see Eccles).3 The sequence of events would be identical in a man but an illusion of free will would accompany the events. Two questions arise. Firstly, why are events at choice—points accompanied by the subjective feeling of free will? And secondly, is there any sense in which an agent’ s behaviour may be said to be truly free? Why human behaviour at choice—points is accompanied by the subjective sensation of ‘ ‘willing’ ’ is difficult to answer. I do not get this feeling (even at choice—points) if my behaviour is triggered off by (say) an epileptic fit. So 10 V. S. Ramachandran the presence of intervening variables, as opposed to a straightforward S—R sequence, and knowledge (or belief) that I could have acted otherwise are both necessary conditions for claiming to have chosen freely. Further I must be aware of the outcome of my action and must intend that outcome. (For there can be irrelevant consequences of my action which I am aware of but do not intend — see Kenny4) The criteria specified above are mainly self-testimonial. Further, they would be possible only in a nervous system that was capable of projecting itself into the future to anticipate consequences of different kinds of simulated behaviour. (Hence our donkey could not have acted freely.) The system could then use feedback from such anticipations to make what one could call a decision — based on certain goal criteria. If the anticipated consequences are the same for either of two kinds of behaviour then an element of randomness may be deliberately introduced to break the deadlock. Thus free will seems logically possible only in situations where the outcomes of two anticipated courses of action are equally desirable (e.g. choosing between two identical peanuts — where all of Kenny’s criteria would be satisfied). Yet, oddly enough, it is precisely in situations like this that a person often declines having chosen freely and says: “My choice was not based on any particular reason —it was random. . . .” One is almost tempted to conclude that free will exists only among philosophers! We experience willing even in situations where one choice is clearly preferable to the other. The fact that rational considerations lead to one choice and not the other does not seem to be incompatible with feeling free (i.e. feeling that we could have acted otherwise). The sense of choosing freely seems to parallel closely the activity of the system in the brain that is involved in assessing priorities of action in the light of certain goal criteria. Actions uncoupled from this system (e.g. automatisms) are not “willed”. Why the activity of this system should be accompanied by a feeling of conscious choice is a mystery, but we can speculate on its biological origins. Perhaps belief in free will provides the drive or incentive to explore various strategies of action by turning and tossing over ideas in one’s mind (just as hunger provides the drive for exploring one’s physical environment). A drive of this kind would discourage passive acceptance of environmental constraints — and would therefore have obvious survival value. What demarcates Jean—Paul Sartre from Homo habilis may be free will rather than language or consciousness! Introduction 11 This analogy between hunger and free will may not be as superficial as it sounds. Consider a hypothetical organism living in an environment where food is always available in plenty. Such an organism would eat and excrete in a continuous and uninterrupted cycle and would never need to feel hungry. Hunger must have evolved as part of a control system to regulate the state of nutrition of the animal, when food supply became scarce and intermittent. A fall in blood sugar generates hunger and this in turn goads the animal on to look for food. Consistent with this argument is the fact that carnivores probably experience more intense hunger than herbivores, and plants and trees do not feel hungry at all. Now in my view, just as the conscious sensation of hunger leads us to explore the environment around us, the inner feeling of freedom goads us on to explore strategies of action in an imaginary world which we construct in our minds. We then see ourselves as active agents striving to do things in this imaginary world; and this is possible only because we feel free. Consider a fatalist who feels a sense of inevitability about his own future. To him all actions would seem futile and pointless. In extreme cases, such individuals are often profoundly depressed since they feel they have “lost control” over themselves. Conscious beings need to feel free in order to justify planning for the future and even to justify their very existence. As Sartre would put it, we need to believe in the permanent possibility of consciousness “. . . effecting a rupture with its own past, of wrenching itself away from its past . . .”. So, if consciousness is “nature’s joke” to chain us to each other (Barlow, Chapter 5), free will may be nature’s joke to permit human beings to plan their own future without feeling like puppets in a Laplacian world. An animal will work only for a tangible reward that lies well within his reach. What characterizes all human actions, on the other hand, seems to be the willingness to participate in what Bronowski5 has called “unbounded plans”. Instead of going through a specific sequence of steps leading to a reward, we often adopt global strategies of action directed towards more general aims which we call values or ideals. This ceaseless striving towards abstract and sometimes even unattainable goals (such as “truth” or “perfection”) may also depend crucially on our belief in our freedom. Free will may therefore turn out to be a biologically useful delusion that has been built into our brains by natural selection, i.e. those who believed in their ability to will survived and those who did not died out. 12 V. S. Ramachandran This delusion certainly exists in World 2 —and it may also partly exist in World 3 (e. g. French Existentialist literature). It is a sort of imaginary carrot that keeps the donkey in us running all the time — and maybe that is what Sartre really meant when he said, ‘‘It is not enough to will; it is necessary to will to will.” “Free will” may even have a specific anatomical locus—the frontal lobes. Evidence for this view comes from the fact that frontal lobotomy patients are often impulsive and unwilling to deliberate. They also report losing all initiative (or “drive”) and have no interest in planning for the future; although they remain conscious, alert and intelligent in every other respect. Since the illusion of willing has survival value it may have become incorporated into the circuitry of the frontal lobes as these structures became progressively larger during the transition from Proconsul to H. habilis. It could be argued that once this feeling emerged men began to experience events as being done by them rather than happening to them; and this in turn may have given rise to other socially useful feelings such as “conscience” and moral responsibility. Theologians would no doubt find this theory rather distasteful and I myself find it intuitively unappealing; but that, of course, is additional evidence in its favour. In fact it is probably our innate sense of freedom that makes us feel a bit odd when someone points out that all our actions are determined exclusively by preceding brain events. Of course, it is interesting to ask why this whole debate over freedom v. determinism arose in the first place. The physicist’s assertion—that even what we usually call a choice is determined exclusively by preceding brain states— seems to conflict with our inner experience (i.e. our feeling that we could have acted differently). So we jump to the conclusion that there is some kind of paradox here to be explained. But is it really legitimate to contrast feelings with factual assertions about brain states? Why not consider the possibility that what our feelings assert may simply be wrong? Perhaps what we really have here is a pseudo-paradox that is based on the unwarranted assumption that because we feel free, we must also in some sense be free. Let me illustrate this with a more familiar example. Each of us has a feeling of what might be called “self-importance” or selfishness built into him. And a person will continue to feel selfish even if a biologist assures Introduction 13 him that objectively speaking his existence has no more value than anyone else’s. The brain is biologically programmed to value itself, for if it did not value itself there would be no motivation for a person to preserve his safety or to plan his future. In fact, it could even be suggested that an error or perversion in this mechanism is what sometimes leads to feelings of uselessness and futility (“depression”) culminating in suicide. Maybe the free will illusion has similar biological origins. One of its functions, as we have seen, may be to provide motivation for exploring novel strategies of action and for “non—conformist” behaviour. It is also important to note that practically all our notions about legal, moral and ethical issues are parasitic on the assumption of human freedom — i.e. the assumption of a distinction between responsible and irresponsible actions. So perhaps it is these World 3 entities that exerted the selection pressure for the emergence of free will as a useful superstition in our minds. For without this superstition we could make no sense out of even such commonly used words as “deceit”, “cunning”, “kind”, “fickle”, “impulsive”, “determined”, “deliberate”, and so on.* Note the similarity between some of these ideas and Humphrey’s theory on the evolution of mind. While Humphrey would probably argue that we feel free in order to make sense out of each other’s actions, we could go a step further and suggest that the need to attribute freedom (or lack of it) to someone’s choices arises only in the specifically social context of law, ethics and morality — i.e. all those institutions which seem to provide a cohesive force for the orderly organization of society. (For instance, punishing “irresponsible” behaviour would reinforce “responsible” behaviour and encourage people to deliberate more and to refrain from acting impulsively.) Until now we have been considering what might be called the phenomenology of free will. But is there any other strictly logical sense in which human actions may be said to be free? Consider yourself faced with a difficult choice—say between A and B, which are equally desirable. Your choice, we have argued, 1S ‘Note that this argument deliberately evades the “mind—body problem” in its classical form -i.e. why there should be any feelings at all associated with neural events. But it is perhaps just as meaningful to ask why the feeling ‘of freedom (and associated neuracircuitry) evolved as it is to ask why (say) hunger or pain evolved. 14 V. S. Ramachandran determined either by a hidden bias or (in the absence of such a bias) by random neural events caused by magnifications of Heisenbergian uncertainty. If this is true then how can you justify your claim to freedom other than by pointing out that you feel free? LOGICAL INDETERMINACY Imagine that a super-scientist is watching you from behind a tree and that he has access to complete information about your brain state and about your local environment. He then tries to make an accurate prediction of the detailed future state of your brain including your choice (A or B) and writes this down on a piece of paper. After you make your “free” choice he triumphantly shows you the slip of paper to prove that he was right. He could repeat this a hundred times and he would be right each time . . . until you begin seriously to start doubting your free will. But you would be wrong to do so — or so at least MacKay would argue (Chapter 6). For you could challenge the scientist to state whether his prediction is one that you would be correct to accept as inevitable in every detail before you make the choice. The fact is that if the prediction were embodied in your brain it could no longer be valid in full detail. MacKay argues that deterministic predictions even in a Laplacian world are valid in full detail only for a detached external observer (like our super-scientist) and are not valid for you since they would have no unconditional claim to your assent. His prediction would be rendered invalid in detail the moment it was embodied in your brain, since the state of your nervous system would change. Even if he could take these anticipated changes into account while writing his prediction he cannot claim that you would be in error to disbelieve it, since if you disbelieved it, it would then be incorrect in detail. These and other versions of MacKay’s arguments are too well known to require repetition here. For a more comprehensive review of his ideas see his chapter in Cerebral Correlates of Conscious Experience (ed. P. A. Buser and A. Rouguel-Buser, Elsevier/ NorthHolland, 1978). Finally, let us consider another related “thought experiment”. When facing a choice between A and B supposing you were to decide “I shall Introduction 15 deliberately do the opposite of whatever prediction the determinist makes”. You can now challenge your determinist friend confidently with this self—fulfil1ing prophecy—since whatever prediction he now makes would ipso facto be rendered false! There is no way in which your decision to contradict his prediction can be embodied in the final prediction which is shown to you. He, in turn, may point out to you that although your behaviour is now no longer predictable by him it is still determined by his prediction. _ I shall conclude this chapter with a quotation from Russell, which, I hope, conveys the essence of what we have tried to achieve in this book: Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, . . . but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination, and diminish the dogmatic assurance that Closes the mind to speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the Universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the Universe which constitutes its highest good. REFERENCES 1. K. Popper and J. Eccles, The Selfand its Brain, Springer International, 1977. 2. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, videotaped Lecture Course on the Science of Creative Intelligence, 1972. 3. J. Eccles, Facing Rea1ity, Springer, New York. 19704. A. Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will, Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1963. 5. J. Bronowski, A Sense of the Future, M.I.T. Press, 1977. PART I General CHAPTER 1 What Defines Privacy? G. VESEY The Open University, Milton Keynes The purpose of this conference is stated as being “to make a scientific study of subjective experience and to explore the relationships between subjective experience and the objective world”. Examples are given of subjects which might be discussed. One of them is “What defines the privacy and personal nature of a person’s conscious experience?” Perhaps the hope is that a definition can be found which does not put subjective experience beyond the pale for the scientist. Whether I can fulfil that hope, expressed in these terms, I am not sure. But at least I can show willing, by giving my paper the title “What defines privacy?’ ’. One other preliminary remark. In the statement of the purpose of the conference there is the phrase “to make a scientific study”. To what is “scientific” opposed, in this phrase? If it is opposed to “philosophical” then perhaps I have stumbled into the wrong conference. But probably the term “scientific” was meant in opposition to “unsystematic” or otherwise disreputable. After all, scientists, quite properly, reflect on the concepts with which they operate, and sometimes make what may be called “conceptual innovations”. I am not sure that most scientific revolutions are not in large measure conceptual in character; for example, new ways of thinking about the relationship of space and time. Perhaps the required definition of privacy will be a new way of thinking about the relation of what a person says about himself and what others, observing him, can say about him. But before talking about new ways, perhaps I had better say something about the old ones. At the risk of telling you what you know very well, I shall briefly survey the relevant history of the concept of mind; that is, the 19 20 G. Vesey history of answers, not to the question “What defines privacy?”, but to the question “What defines mentality?”. I will concentrate on just three philosophers: René Descartes, whose Second Meditation is sub-titled “The Nature of the Human Mind: it is better known than the Body”;' Franz Brentano, author of Psychology from an Empirical Standp0int;2 and G. E. Moore, who once read a paper to the Aristotelian Society with the title “The Subject—matter of Psychology’ ’.3 Descartes defined mentality in terms of thinking and extension, meaning by “thinking”— doubting, understanding, asserting, denying, willing, and so on;4 and by “extension”— being spread out in space. Minds think but are not extended, he said; matter is extended but does not think. In other words, mind and matter are two distinct substances, even though a mind and a portion of matter are providentially united in a person in this earthly existence.5 This dualism of thinking non-extended mind and non—thinking extended matter gave rise to the intractable problem of how the two substances interact, a problem which a number of philosophers tried to solve by invoking God. I shall not go into that, but will skip across the centuries, two and a third centuries to be exact, to Franz Brentano. Brentano was more concerned with the inadequacy of Descartes’s definition of mentality than with the problems to which it gave rise. The negative characteristic, of not being extended in space, he thought, does not serve to mark off what is mental from what is not mental. “A large number of not unimportant psychologists teach that the phenomena of some or even all of our senses originally appear apart from all extension and spatial location. In particular, this view is very generally held with respect to sounds and olfactory phenomena.”6 Certainly one does not talk of the shape and size of a sound or smell as one does of, say, a colour patch. The argument is: If Descartes was right then sounds and smells, not being extended, should be mental; but obviously they are not mental — they are not the sort of things that think; so Descartes was wrong. But Brentano was not content with showing Descartes to be wrong about the negative characteristic. He held that, in stating the positive characteristic to be thinking, Descartes had done no more than state the problem. What is thinking? What is it that is common to doubting, understanding, asserting, denying, willing, and so on, and that does not characterize any physical phenomenon? Brentano’s answer was as follows: What Defines Privacy? 21 Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional in»existence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves.7 With the qualification “though not wholly unambiguously” Brentano recognized that the expressions “reference to a content”, “direction toward an object” and “immanent objectivity” stand in need of further elucidation. He later attempted such elucidation, as did other philosophers, such as his one-time pupil Edmund Husserl. I think that G. E. Moore may well have read Brentano’s Psychol0gy—he certainly read his book on ethics — and that Moore’s paper on the subject-matter of psychology was an attempt at a non—technical version of Brentano’s thesis. But before I come on to Moore let me just say one other thing about Brentano. In one respect he was still very much in the Cartesian tradition. The respect is that of knowledge. What sort of knowledge do people have of their own doubts, understandings, beliefs and so on? Is it like the knowledge they have of objective material things? We feel drawn to say that it is not. We feel drawn to distinguish two ways of knowing things, an inward way and an outward way. Thus John Locke distinguishes between “reflection”, the mind’s turning inward upon itself, and “sensation”, the source of our ideas of external objectsf‘ Apart from one being inward and the other outward, Locke regards reflection and sensation as being very similar. He evidently regards sensation as being the more familiar mode of observation, for he explains reflection in terms of it. “Though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough he called internal sense.”9 He accepts unquestioningly that both sensation and reflection are modes of observation: he refers to “our observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves”. 10 Brentano draws our attention to a difference which seems to have escaped Locke when he was writing the above. Outer observation is 22 G. Vesey inherently fallible: one may not actually be perceiving what one thinks one is perceiving. This means that, strictly speaking, so-called outer perception is not really perception at all. One does not perceive external objects; one infers their existence from one’s ideas of them. So, far from it being appropriate to assimilate inner perception to outer perception, as Locke does, we must acknowledge that mental phenomena are “the only phenomena of which perception in the strict sense of the word is possible’ ’." In this, Brentano is more consistently Cartesian than Locke. Descartes had said that the mind is better known than the body. G. E. Moore, in his paper on the subject-matter of psychology, sets out to answer the questions “What kinds of ‘entities’ are ‘mental’ or ‘psychical’ entities? And how are those which are ‘mental’ entities distinguished from those which are not?”‘2 He says that certain kinds of entities seem to him to be undoubtedly mental. They are the acts of consciousness named by the words “seeing , remembering”, “imagining”, “dream— ing’ ’, “thinking”, “believing”, “resolving” and so on. Whenever a person performs such an act, Moore says, he is always “conscious of” something or other. 13 But when one sees a colour and when one remembers it, one is conscious of it in very different senses. Apart from both being acts of consciousness they may have nothing in common. Moore does not know how to explain what he means by “consciousness” except by saying that each of the acts he has named is an act of consciousness. The sense in which to be a mental entity is to be an act of consciousness is, he thinks, the most fundamental sense of the word “mental”. But being an act of consciousness, he says, is not the only characteristic of mentality. There is a characteristic which cannot be said to be a “meaning” of the term “mental”, but which may be proposed as a criterion of what is mental. The characteristic is that of being directly known by one mind only.” In one word: privacy. Moore is doubtful whether privacy is a characteristic which belongs to all mental acts. He has in mind the abnormal phenomena of co—consciousness in a case of split personality. Other philosophers do not share his doubts. Brentano had said that since mental phenomena are the objects of inner perception, “it is obvious that no mental phenomenon is perceived by more than one individual”.15 And John Wisdom says: “The peculiarity of the soul is not that it is visible to none but that it is visible only to one.””’ I said that I would briefly survey the relevant history of answers to the What Defines Privacy? 23 question “What defines mentality?” at the risk of telling you what you already know very well. I have now done so and we have seen that the two chief contenders, once Descartes is out of the way, are, first, what Brentano calls “intentionality” and Moore calls “consciousness of”; and, secondly, privacy — defined in terms of direct knowledge, inner perception, or visibility only to one. Incidentally, the thesis that mentality is characterized by privacy, so defined, is known by critics of the thesis as “the doctrine of privileged access”. I have little doubt that the organizers of this conference are familiar with the traditional “privileged access” definition of privacy. Moore and Wisdom are both Trinity College, Cambridge, philosophers, and philosophical ideas have a way of percolating through into other disciplines. And yet they suggest as an example of the sort of subject we should discuss “What defines the privacy and personal nature of a person’s conscious experience?”. I can only suppose that they find the “privileged access” definition unsatisfactory for some reason, and are looking for a new definition. This supposition leads me, naturally enough, to the question “What might their reason be for being dissatisfied with the traditional conception of privacy?". I can only speak for myself. My reason for being dissatisfied with the inner—observation account is this. We think of people doubting, understanding, believing, remembering, imagining, hoping, knowing, fearing, expecting, and so on. How do we know the difference between these things —between, say, remembering and imagining, or believing and knowing? How is a person able to say which he is doing? According to the privileged access definition of privacy, the inner observation account, the answer is as follows. We know about these things in the same sort of way as we know about the difference between, say, cats and dogs, except that the perception is an inward perception and the phenomenon perceived is a private phenomenon. An act of remembering is phenomenally different from an act of imagining, or expecting, or understanding; and we know which we are doing because we can recognize the act in question. I am dissatisfied with the inner—observation account because that answer, to put it bluntly, seems all wrong, a complete fabrication. Let me explain what I mean, by means of a partial analogy. Consider the question “What is the difference between a pain in one’s foot and a pain in one’s stomach?”. ”the most natural and immediate answer”, says William 24 G. Vesey James, is that the difference is one ‘ ‘ of place pure and simple”. But James rejected that answer, for reasons we need not go into,” in favour of the so—called “Local Sign” theory of Hermann Lotze. According to this theory a person can say where a pain is because of something qualitative about the pain which is for him a sign of the location of the cause. He has learnt to associate this quality with a definite part of the body. Wilhelm Wundt agreed with Lotze, and described the local sign as “a peculiar qualitative colouring, which is independent of the quality of the external impression”. But a later psychologist, Oswald Kulpe, put the theory down to what he called “metaphysical prepossession”. He wrote, with reference to the local sign theory of Lotze and Wundt: “The thought upon which this whole theory is based is that the impressions must all be of a conscious nature. And here we see the influence of metaphysical prepossession. It was difficult to conceive that an unequivocal relation obtaining between tactual impressions and visual ideas, or other factors subserving localization, could have arisen without conscious direction, by way of purely physiological connection. But there is no justification for the assumption of these conscious intermediaries in the facts of consciousness itself.” In short, Lotze fabricated local signs, signs of location, in order to provide a specious answer to the question “How can a person say whether he has a foot—ache or a stomach—ache?”. Similarly, I suggest, advocates of the privileged—access doctrine fabricate phenomenally different acts of consciousness in order to provide a specious answer to the question “How can a person say whether he is remembering, or imagining, or expecting, or understanding?”. The analogy is partial only in that there is nothing in the case of remembering, imagining, and so on, to correspond to the physiological explanation of how a person can say where he feels pain. But I have said enough about the old way of defining privacy. It is high time to go on to a new way. The new way I want to outline is the way proposed by a third Cambridge philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, in the last lectures he gave before he resigned from his chair here. They were the lectures on Philosophical Psychology given in l946—7, attended by people like Peter Geach, now Professor of Philosophy at Leeds, and Norman Malcolm, Professor at Cornell. Geach took notes. Unfortunately they have not been published and I do not intend to quote from them. There are passages in Wittgenstein’s published works in which he makes the same or similar points. What Defines Privacy? 25 The first and possibly the most important point for our purposes is this. Psychological verbs—that is, verbs like “believe”, “expect”, “hope”, “imagine”, “intend”, “know”, “remember”— are characterized, Wittgenstein says, “by the fact that the third person of the present is to be verified by observation, the first person not”.‘8 In other words there is an asymmetry between the third person singular present tense use of a psychological verb — for example, “He expects ...’ — and the first person singular present tense use —“I expect”. That someone else expects something IS something I find out about by observation; that I expect something is not something I find out about by observation. It is neither something I ‘ind out about by outer observation, nor something I find out about by inner observation. It is not something I find out about, and a fortiori not something I find out about in this way or that. If I say to someone “I expect he’ll be here in a moment” and they say “How do you know?”, they are asking how I know, or why I think, he will be here in a moment. It would be perverse in the extreme to take their question as meaning: how_do I know I am expecting, as opposed to believing, hoping, imagining, intending, remembering? I do not need any internal evidence to use the word “expect”. If I say to someone ‘‘I hope you’ll come to the dance”, and he, having two left feet so far as dancing goes, says “Are you sure?”, he is questioning my sincerity—do I really want him to come? —not my powers of recognizing the psychological state I am in. I do not need to have Something to go on, to say “I hope you’ll come’ ’. Norman Malcolm has. a rather nice phrase for this— “the autonomous status of selftestimony”.‘9 YOU may be thinking: What has the autonomous status of self—testimony got to do with privacy? Well, private is opposed to public. Consider the two utterances “I’m longing for a cigarette” and “I’m over eleven stone in weight ._About the latter someone may say: “You’re not; your scales need adjusting . The fact that it is my weight that is in question does not mean that what I say goes. But with my longings and such like, it is different. What I say goes. And it is a large part of treating a person as a person that we accept this; that is, that we treat people as having the first and last word about certain things. It is the reluctance of behaviourists like B.2F. Skinner to accept this that makes us think he treats people as things. 0 The privacy that matters is not that of having access to private Objects of some sort: it is that of being treated as a person as opposed to being treated as an object among other objects. 26 G. Vesey There is one big question that I have left unanswered. According to the privileged-access doctrine, we know about the difference between believing, expecting, hoping, imagining, intending, knowing, remembering, and so on, through some sort of inner perception. They are phenomenally different acts of consciousness, and we have simply to attend to the “mental phenomena”, as Brentano calls them. If the privileged—access doctrine is a false doctrine, if it is a myth that the words “believe”, “expect”, “hope”, “know”, “remember”, etc., have meaning by being names of introspectible mental processes,” then how do they have meaning? How do we distinguish between them? At this point there is an awful temptation to take an easy way out. It is very tempting to fall back on the distinction between inner observation and outer observation, and to say that if we do not know about these things by inner observation then we must know about them by outer observation. That is, they must be words for various kinds of behaviour. We get the concept of expecting, for instance, from observing expectant behaviour. Along with this answer goes a causal interpretation of intentionality. To say that someone’s longing is a longing for a cigarette is to predict that a cigarette will satisfy it, at least temporarily. Wittgenstein rejected this answer as vehemently as he rejected the inner observation answer. I have heard it said that Wittgenstein was a behaviourist. Nonsense! To say that he was a behaviourist is to ignore all that he says about grammar, about what he calls “language games”, and about rules of language. In his 1946-7 lectures be explicitly contrasted any attempt to elucidate psychological concepts in terms of phenomena, whether inner or outer, with an elucidation in terms of the grammar of linguistic utterances. Unfortunately I have not left myself with time even to begin a summary of his teaching on these matters. In particular I cannot hope to convey anything of what he says about intentionality (“It is in language that it’s all done”21). What I will do is to leave you with five quotations, in four of which the term “language-game” occurs, and a short story. The quotations are these: . . . a concept is in its element within the language—game.” The question is not one of explaining a language-game by means of our experiences, but of noting a language—game.” Look on the language—game as the primary thing. And look on the feelings, etc., as you look on a way of regarding the language-game, as interpretation.” What Defines Privacy?? 27 . . . the term “1anguage-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity.” Words are deeds.“ And the story is as follows. Once upon a time a Martian, with telepathic powers, landed on earth in his flying saucer. He put on his invisibility shield and set off to investigate the possibility of communicating with the natives. He came across children engaged in some activity with pieces of card. They talked quite a lot, but our Martian soon noticed that one word, “snap”, was evidently regarded as particularly important. He decided that if he was to communicate with these strange beings he must learn what this word stood for. He had never heard of Wittgenstein, but back on Mars he had come under the influence of the great Martian philosopher, Lok Jon, who taught that words have meaning by standing for ideas, and that ideas are either ideas of sensation or ideas of reflection. Using his telepathic powers our Martian soon discovered that when one of the children used the word “snap” he often had an experience like the experience he, the Martian, had back home when he managed to jump clear across one of the canals —an experience of triumphant excitement. Perhaps the child was reporting this experience. And yet when the second child said “snap”, a second after the first, the experience was more like the one he had when he fell short and landed in the liquid nitrogen. Perhaps, then, the word stood for some feature of the cards. He had noticed that the cards had marks on them, and it was not long before he realized that the word “snap” was used when the marks were the same. And yet that could not be it, for he noticed that if one child said “snap” very quickly, the second child instead of agreeing would look as if he did not agree at all with the description. So, in despair, our Martian left as silently as he had come, and went back to tell Lok Jon that the earthlings made language—like noises but that he could not make out what on earth the noises were meant to refer to. Well, that is the story — a very simple one. The moral of the story is that not all words and expressions are used to refer to something. Consider the expressions “I know”, “I hope”, “I remember”, “I mean” and “I understand”. Are they used to refer to something? We have a metaphysical prepossession to say that they are~— that they are used to refer to various mental processes.” So long as we are in the grip of that prepossession we 28 G. Vesey shall continue to be worried about “the relationships between subjective experience and the objective world”. REFERENCES 1. Descartes: Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach, London, 1954, p. 66. 2. Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, ed. Oskar Kraus, 1874, English edition ed. Linda L. McAlister, trans. Antos C. Rancurello, D.B.Terell and Linda L. McAlister, London, 1973. 3. Reprinted in G.N.A.Vesey (ed.), Body andMind, London, 1964, pp. 236-45. 4. Descartes: Philosophical Writings, p. 70. 5. Ibid., p. 194. 6. Psychology from an Empirical S tandpoint, p. 86. 7. Ibid., pp. 88-89. 8. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690, Bk.II, Ch.1, Sections 2-4. 9. Ibid., Section 4. 10. Ibid., Section 2. 11. Psychology from an Empirical S tandpoint, p. 91. 12. Body and Mind, pp. 236-7. 13. Ibid., p.237. 14. Ibid., p.241. 15. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, p. 92. 16. John Wisdom, OtherMinds, Oxford, 1952, p. 220. 17. I have gone into them in G.N.A.Vesey, The location of bodily sensations, Mind, 70, 25-35, (1961). The same article gives the references to James, Lotze, Wundt and Kiilpe. 18. L.Wittgenstein, Zettel, Oxford, 1967, §472; Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, 1953, Pt. I, §277-81. 19. Norman Malcolm, Behaviourism as a philosophy of psychology, in T.W.Wann (ed.), Behaviourism and Phenomenology, Chicago, 1964, pp. 153-4. 20. Godfrey Vesey, Conditioning and learning, in R.S.Peters (ed.), The Concept of Education, London, 1967, p. 70. 21. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. Oxford, 1974, Pt. I, §95. Cf. §92 and Philosophical Investigations, Pt. I, § 445. 22. Zettel, §39l. 23. PhilosophicalInvestigations, Pt. l, §655. 24. Ibid., §656. 25. Ibid., §23. 26. Philosophical Grammar, Pt. I, §131. 27. Zettel, §211. What Defines Privacy? 29 Discussion MACKAY: It is not too strong to say (p. 25)that with my subjective experience, “What I say goes’ ’? This may be true as a matter of social convention; but ontologically we must surely recognize the possibility of lying—as in malingering, for example, or when a mischievous student subject fools an experimental psychologist. I would agree that the privacy that matters is not that of having access to private objects, but it is, I think, that of having private experiences about which we can (in principle) lie. If we knew more about the physiological correlates of specific experiences (e.g. of seeing red rather than seeing blue, or seeing one line as longer than another) we might even hope to check objectively the probable truthfulness of such reports. What is at issue is a question of fact: did he, or did he not, have the experience he reports? To “treat him as a person” is doubtless a necessary condition for gaining evidence on this question, but it is not of itself sufficient to resolve it. VESEY: I may say “I expect he’ll be here soon” to someone, and then later say to someone else “I only said that to buoy her up; actually I had no idea whether he was coming or not”. And I may say ‘‘I hope you’ll come to the party" to someone I hope will not come, simply to be pleasant to him. I do not wish to deny the possibility of my uttering sentences beginning “I expect . . .” or “I hope ...” and of what I say being in some sense wrong. But in what sense? That is the question. Is what I said wrong in a sense which supports the thesis that someone who says ‘‘I expect ...”, or “I hope .. .”, meaning what he says, is right about something? Suppose someone says “I hope you’ll come”, not just to be pleasant. What he says is not wrong, in the relevant sense. Is its not being wrong a matter of his not being wrong about something? Specifically, is it a matter of his being right—about his “subjective experience"? My answer to this last question is “No”. If I say “The carpet is blue” there is the question of whether I correctly perceived it. There is no similar question with “I hope you’ll come". That is what I meant when I said, apropos of such utterances, “What I say goes”. Such utterances are not reports, correct or incorrect, of something being experienced. The notion of private mental processes is the product of the idea that such utterances must be reports. And this, in turn, is one aspect of the idea that all linguistic utterances, except questions and commands, have the same linguistic role, that of stating what is the case. JOSEPHSON: What the organizers had in mind as a subject for the conference was the possibility of being able to produce a general theoretical framework from which could be derived details of the phenomenon of privacy, and not just a dictionary definition of that term. I do not find your discussion of such words as “believe”, “expect” and “hope” very helpful in regard to the problem of privacy of personal experience, as it seems to me that there is a straightforward way to deal with the problems you raise. Just as a hot body gives rise to thermal radiation whose colour gives an indication of its temperature, we can 30 G. Vesey postulate that the nervous system, as a result of its prior exposure to verbal and non-verbal sensory input, generates under certain conditions verbal output which is a reflection of, and in a certain sense a description of, its internal state. The fact that I may not be able to observe the state of the nervous system directly (as opposed to being aware of the descriptions generated) is not of fundamental importance: I may similarly be able to tell the temperature of a hot body by its colour without being in a situation to feel the heat directly. With this idea in mind, I postulate that when sentences containing words such as “believe”, “expect" and “hope” are spoken, there is a corresponding property of the nervous system, caused by its response to the given situation. The connection Wittgenstein proposed between non«observability and privacy seems to me to be fortuitous, and in my experience, when belief, expectation, hope are sufficiently intense they are observable, in the form of emotions. There is a reason, I believe, why psychological states are often not observable. Unlike ordinary information, which may have to be analysed intellectually before being used, emotions (more visibly with emotions such as fear or hate) produce their effects on behaviour directly, without the mediating influence of the intellect. Therefore we tend just not to bother to attend to such happenings and are not aware of them. CHAPTER 2 Regarding Consciousness RICHARD L. GREGORY Brain and Perception Laboratory, Medical School, University of Bristol “Problems of consciousness” are often regarded as of philosophical but of no other interest. For neurologists problems of consciousness can be practical— requiring urgent decisions on disturbingly metaphysical grounds. A boy, whom I knew with affection, fell on his head with grievous injury and remained in coma for many months. Although unable to speak, or respond to those around him, he did have facial expressions. Sometimes he appeared distressed: perhaps he was in pain. Was he conscious, suffering? Our usual means for deciding were absent as he could not communicate: yet perhaps he was in dire need of pain-relieving measures. In such a case as this the extreme behaviourist creed that statements of “mental events” can be reduced to accounts of behaviour — that consciousness and all its works should be exorcised as the absurd “ghost in the machine” —seem irrelevant, even actively evil. They do not at all help to deal with normal life situations; less still such extreme human issues demanding deep understanding and urgent solution. It is remarkable that anaesthetics are given to remove pain, and indeed all consciousness, while we have no understanding of what they do; or how they or consciousness are related to brain function. Possibly anaesthetics and analgesics will become significant research tools for discovering just which features of brain structure and function are especially associated with consciousness; and hopefully how they are related. The question, What is this relation?, is the classical Problem of Consciousness. 31 32 Richard L. Gregory HOW IS CONSCIOUSNESS RELATED TO BRAIN FUNCTION? Is consciousness causally important? Does consciousness affect brain processes? We know that brain activity is affected by normal or artificial physical stimuli; this is clear from electrical brain recordings. We know also that some physical stimuli produce sensations. So the question may be put: “Is consciousness a kind of stimulus affecting the nervous system and behaviour?” Are conscious states mental stimuli? This violates the accepted technical meaning of “stimuli”, which are regarded in physiology and psychology as physical events affecting the nervous system. The notion of nonphysical stimuli looks like a move from a different game; not like anything accepted in physiology or physics. Is consciousness, conceived in this way, so odd that it will never be accepted by any future physics? Or is consciousness odd in the way that magnetism is odd, fitting, if with some difficulty, into accepted physics? This issue forces us, I think, to consider what we can accept as science—and so what “paranormal” should be taken to mean. I shall discuss this now, for use later (p. 42) in a rather different context. IS CONSCIOUSNESS PARANORMAL? Telepathy and telekinesis are alleged phenomena which—if accepted as genuine phenomena and not conjuring tricks — may be accepted in one of two ways: (a) they could be explained by processes, or whatever, which though so far unrecognized would be acceptable to science; or (b) they are due to processes, or whatever, unacceptable to science. This second alternative subdivides into two kinds of unacceptable: (i) unacceptable now, in current science, (ii) unacceptable for ever, in any possible future science. To justify this last possibility (which is the strong meaning of “ paranormal”), it would be necessary to show that something going on is in principle unacceptable, in any possible or conceivable natural science. Are there any examples? There are many cases of the weaker sensephenomena moving from “unexplained” to “explained” as science changes. Examples are: lightning; the lode stone, or compass; movement of muscles; and very many other formerly mysterious but clearly established phenomena. These were not, however, generally considered as paranormal before they were explained in terms acceptable to natural Regarding Consciousness 33 science. What is odd about telepathy, telekinesis and pre-cognition is that they are “paranormal” in the sense that no such explanation is expected. Relegation to paranormal status seems to mean, not only that they cannot now be explained; but that they cannot in principle be explained within, or brought into, any conceivable acceptable science. Does consciousness fall into this category; though its “existence” (if this is the correct word) is not in serious doubt? If so, consciousness is a paranormal phenomenon. No doubt this would be strengthened by establishing other phenomena as paranormal. Meanwhile, it seems wise to attack the claim that consciousness is a paranormal phenomenon; for this is to say that we cannot now (weak sense) or ever in the future (strong sense) explain consciousness in terms acceptable to science. IS CONSCIOUSNESS BIOLOGICALLY SIGNIFICANT? If consciousness affects matter (especially brain states) then is it causal —in the sense that, for example, hitting a nail with a hammer affects the nail? If it has no such effect (no effect on brain or behaviour) why should consciousness have developed biologically? If we suppose that sticks and stones are conscious this would not be a special problem; but given that only organisms are conscious, we must suppose that consciousness has developed in organic evolution — and so it should have survival value. But how can it have survival value if it has no causal effects on behaviour? Any account which supposes that consciousness has biological significance must surely suppose that it causally affects some matter: which implies either that it can (like magnetism) be incorporated into physics though it is odd; or that it is (in the strong sense) paranormal. Personally, I do not see how we can predict future science (or lay down defining criteria for what is for ever to be “acceptable” science) to preclude “paranormal” from being “normalized”, by incorporation into some future science. But if consciousness has no causal roles to play then science would have to accept non—causal entities or processes; and neo—Darwinians would have to accept features developed by natural selection which, though not causal, have survival value. A way out from this is to suppose that consciousness is a biological fluke. But it seems to have developed through many species over a long 34 Richard L. Gregory biological time span; so this is unlikely. A further way out may be to say that consciousness is an accidental property (or, similarly, an emergent property) of complex neural tissue or function— or of whatever increases physically at the top end of evolution. To deny causal significance to consciousness is likely to be dull indeed. If consciousness is a logically necessary characteristic of high complexity, or some such, this would be formally like: “This x is an extended object, so x must be coloured”, though we may not know the colour, and the colour does not matter. This would parallel a logically necessary (rather than a contingent) status to consciousness, which would be hardly more interesting, at least for biologists, than supposing it to be an inconsequential ineffective one—off fluke having no effects. All this is, however, to assume that something without effects is pointless. Do we understand cause sufficiently clearly to make this claim? THE CONCEPT OF CAUSE As David Hume pointed out, the notion cause is not plain. It is more than sequence, or correlation; for causes have, or at least are supposed to have, one-way direction in time. Thus if event A causes event B, A must have occurred before B. There may, however, be a common ancestral causal event, C. If C causes A and B, then A and B may occur simultaneously, or in either order of precedence. So causes cannot be simply inferred from observed sequences: though particular causal hypotheses may be ruled out by observed sequences. There can be sequences or regularities for which no cause is attributable. A classical case is, day following night. Day does not cause night, nor night cause day, yet they follow in sequence (so far) without exception. We understand this from our conceptual model of the solar system - the earth rotating and so on. Within this model it is absurd to say that day causes night, or that night causes day. They are not causally related; in the way that a nail is driven by a hammer, or the hammer becomes worn or dented by hitting nails. Neither is there a simple ancestral common cause. We might say that day is “caused” by the sun shining on a given region of the earth, and that the sequence day—night is given by the earth’s rotation with respect to the sun. We must appreciate the complex solar system model to ascribe any Regarding Consciousness 35 such causal relation, linking day with night. This inspires the thought that perhaps we cannot link brain states and consciousness causally except by some general model, which we do not as yet appreciate. This would be an adequate account of psycho-physics. This model might look very odd indeed, and yet be acceptable to science, if we may judge from weird current accounts of particle physics invoking extremely counter-intuitive concepts and linking relations which indeed are hardly causal in any traditional sense. Though extremely odd they are (though I do not entirely understand why) acceptable science. This is so for the more familiar statistical regularities of matter from random (and perhaps uncaused) quantal jumps of subatomic particles. Indeed, randomness is itself a tricky issue, if only because it can be attributed to (1) lack of evidence of cause; or (2) very many causal influences; or (3) no causal influences. Quantal jumps of sub-atornic particles are generally accepted as individually uncaused; but, when averaged in large populations, they give macroscopic stability and predictable lawfulness to objects. A candle flame is a beautiful example of statistics of quantal jumps of energy producing the appearance of an object, with sharp outlines (the flame), from a continuous temperature gradient. Interestingly, the apparent size of the flame is set by the spectral sensitivity characteristic of our eyes. The same considerations apply to the apparent size of the sun as photographed at different wavelengths. I consider that such examples go to show that what seem objects of the physical world—as well as what seems causal and caused—is no simple matter; but are given by matching characteristics of data and observer. It is this relation which determines our consciousness of reality. The importance for object-perception of this kind of matching applies to time as well as space. This is clear from the dramatic change of appearance of speeded—up or slowed—down film (say of the movements of clouds) which shows that what are taken as objects is very different when the time-scale is changed, with respect to the temporal characteristics of our visual sensory channel. This, in turn, affects how we attribute cause — for cause is applied to what are accepted as separate, but interacting, objects. This has relevance to the classical consciousness problem: Does consciousness interact with brain states: or are they ultimately the same? There is, of course, far more to how we classify patterned stimuli as representing more or less separate objects: this includes stimulus pattern or shape characteristics, and it involves the whole of perceptual learning. This issue 36 Richard L. Gregory has conceptual relevance to the classical consciousness problems: Does consciousness, or do states of consciousness, interact with brain states, or are they ultimately the same? It is relevant also to how conscious states are structured; and to how we should think of one state affecting another which, following Hume, is a central question in controversies on the nature of self-identity. To say that consciousness and certain brain states are the same (and so have no causal relations) is some kind of identity theory. To say that consciousness and brain states are separate implies that there is some kind of relation between them —which may or may not be causal. If causal, it might be two-way interaction or one-way control, by brain or by mind. So we have a number of possibilities to examine, and for each we should consider whether there is or could be empirical evidence. I shall not go exhaustively (and exhaustingly) through all these; but will extend a physical analogy suggested by Leibniz, which may be of some help at least as an aide-mémoire. KINDS OF MlND—BRAlN PARALLELISM COMPARED WITH SYNCHRONIZED CLOCKS Consider two clocks which keep the same time. They thus run 111 parallel”, in time. It is time-parallelism which is suggested for mind—brain (or psycho—physical) parallelism. Brain states and consciousness may appear to be quite different — so we may imagine our clocks as very different though they run parallel in time. There are several ways of achieving parallel-time clocks. Each suggests a relation to be considered for mindbrain parallelism. The relations are between Masters, Slaves and Repeaters — by analogy with electrically synchronized clocks. It is worth noting that all these clock systems do exist. These are the three kinds of clock: 1. Master clocks: which are autonomous timekeepers. 2. Slave clocks: which are autonomous timekeepers, but receive frequent corrections from the Master. 3. Repeater dials: which follow or count pulses (including domestic electric clocks run off the mains). They depend on uninterrupted Master signals to keep going, but may have ‘ ‘catch-up” mechanisms to restart them correctly. Regarding Consciousness 37 Suppose that the brain and mind are separate entities, with physical and mental events running parallel in time, like a pair of our clocks. Suppose also that there may be some kind of causal link (analogous to electrical clock-pulses) to synchronize them. We can look at clock systems of these kinds and ask which (perhaps by assuming horological technology, or more general knowledge of interacting systems) would work best. 1. Master—Master: a pair of Master clocks keeping the same time, though without causal links of any kind. This is the most unlikely horologically, as in practice clocks always differ in their rates. 2. Master—Slave: the autonomous Master provides occasional corrections to the Slave. This is an autonomous clock, which is generally set to run either slightly fast or slow, so that the correcting signals are of only one sign. If the correction signals are lost, the Slave will continue running, though slow or fast. 3. Master—Repeater: a Master providing a steady flow of signals to a Repeater dial. If the signals are interrupted, when restarted the Repeater dial will always be slow by the lost time, until it is reset. Resetting may be automatic. 4. Slave—S1ave.' there might be a pair of (or better very many) interacting Slaves, each correcting the others so that there is a pooled average time. There would be small varying discrepancies but on average they would agree with each other in this democracy. The remaining logical possibilities remain empty, for neither Slave nor Repeater can drive a Repeater or a Master Clock, and one Master driving another denies the “Master” status. The Master—Repeater relation is most used, as it is simple and cheap. It has the grave disadvantage that a momentary loss of Master signal gives a permanent error, which must be corrected. The Master—Slave is interesting, in that the two clocks are not continually but only on average synchronized. The least likely alternative is (l) the Master——Master relation, in which neither affects the other. It is virtually impossible to get a pair of independent clocks to run in step, so we should not on this analogy expect independent mind—brain parallelism. (Of course one might use this for fanciful theories: for example that there is loss of synchronism with ageing—and that this explains increasing absent-mindedness and lack of contact with reality in old people.) 38 Richard L. Gregory All these analogy—examples adopt the underlying assumption of a representational account of perception; and that Direct Realism is false. A Direct Realist horological example would be sundials. They keep time by direct “contact” with an aspect of the physical world, which is accepted as time. Since adopting atomic time standards, and rejecting the earth’s rotation and so the sun’s shadow as time, sundials now can —and do—run fast or slow (apart from the equation of time correction for mean solar time). So the realist account would now be given by atomic clocks rather than by sundials. On this analogy with sundials or atomic clocks consciousness is selections of physical reality: features of physical reality are held to be conscious. This gives the brain no role beyond that of a passive filter. I assume here that this doctrine is false: that the brain does have some special importance for consciousness and that other objects are not conscious, and do not confer consciousness. This might be an empirical issue for experiment. Indeed I think one can give strong empirical evidence against Direct Realist theories of perception; though I shall not give the evidence here. EVIDENCE FOR CAUSAL EFFECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS We seldom doubt that physical events, especially stimuli of various kinds, affect consciousness. The sensation of a pin stuck in the finger is sufficient example. It is not, however, at all so clear that this sensation, or any other, has any effect. Indeed, the sensation of pain generally, and perhaps always, comes too late to serve as a cause of action—such as withdrawing the hand from hurt. We start to feel the pain after the (reflex) withdrawal of the hand. Is there any evidence for consciousness affecting behaviour? William James discusses mind affecting brain in The Principles of Psychology (1890), under the heading “The Intimate Nature of the Attentive Process”. On page 434 he gives as examples (his italics): 1. The accommodation or adjustment of the sensory organs and 2. The anticipatory preparation from within of the ideational centres concerned with the object of which the attention is paid. Regarding Consciousness 39 The point he makes here is that the eyes are adjusted prior to (in anticipation of) what visual signals will be needed; so their movements are not always controlled by physical stimuli. This may occur in darkness — in the absence of any visual stimuli — according to purely internal processes of mental images. The question is: Do we know that it is mental events which are moving the eyes; or is it internal physical events? This question must be asked, for it is clear that there are physical (physiological) processes capable of moving the eyes from within. (If everything inside the skull could be said to be mental, the situation would be much simpler!) William James goes on to consider various perceptual examples of what he thinks might be mind controlling brain. He cites an interesting observation of He1mholtz’s, which I am not sure has been investigated since. Helmholtz found that simple stereograms could be made to fuse by will, when presented as after—images from the flash of a single spark, so that eye movements are ineffective. Helmholtz says: "If I chance to gain a lively mental image of the represented solid form (a thing that often occurs by lucky chance) I then move my two eyes with perfect certainty over the figure without the picture separating again.” This must be a “central" effect because the after—images are stuck to the eyes. William James, however, is careful to point out that it could be other physical brain processes which are affecting the fusion of the images —in which case such effects would be no evidence for mind affecting brain. I shall quote James in full here from Principles (p. 447): When, a few pages back, I symbolized the ldeational preparation element in attention by a brain—cell played upon from within, I added “by other braincells, or by some spiritual force’ ’ without deciding which. The question ‘ ‘which? ’ ’ is one of those central psychological mysteries which part the schools. When we reflect that the turnings of our attention form the nucleus of our inner self; when we see that volition is nothing but attention; when we believe that our autonomy in the midst of nature depends on our not being pure effect, but a cause — Principium quoddam quod fait foedera rumpat, Ex infinito ne causam causa sequatur — we must admit that the question whether attention involves such a principle of spiritual activity or not is metaphysical as well as psychological, and is well worthy of all the pains we can bestow on its solution. It is in fact the pivotal question of metaphysics, the very hinge on which our picture of the world shall swing from materialism, fatalism, monism, towards spiritualism, freedom, pluralism, — or else the other way. James himself inclines to thinking that attention and will do have significant effects — especially (p. 453): “It would deepen and prolong the 40 Richard L. Gregory stay in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly away.” James ends this discussion by objecting to the materialist analogy with the sense of will occurring during difficulty as being merely physical (like the turbulence of rivers in constricted regions) (p. 454). He waxes eloquent: Meanwhile, in view of the strange arrogance with which the wildest materialistic speculations persist in calling themselves "science”, it is well to recall just what the reasoning is, by which the effect—theory of attention is confirmed. It is an argument from analogy, drawn from rivers, reflex actions and other material phenomena where no consciousness appears to exist at all, and extended to cases where consciousness seems the phenomenon’s essential feature. The consciousness doesn’t count, these reasoners say; it doesn’t exist for science, it is nil; you mustn’t think about it at all. The intensely reckless character of all this needs no comment. . . . For the sake of that theory we make inductions from phenomena to others that are startlingly unlike them; and we assume that a complication which Nature has introduced (the presence of feeling and of effort, namely) is not worthy of scientific recognition at all. Such conduct may conceivably be wise, though I doubt it; but scientific, as contrasted with metaphysical, it cannot seriously he called. Whatever the reader makes of William James’s impassioned prose, in favour of mind controlling brain, it may be agreed that he states very clearly this traditional view: that consciousness has significant if small effects on perceiving, thinking and behaviour. This view has recently been defended by Sir Karl Popper and Sir Jack Eccles, in The Self and its Brain (1977). They take two cases of what they regard as evidence for mind affecting brain: 1. The reports of people having their brains electrically stimulated while undergoing brain surgery, who experience streams of memories of other mental images, and at the same time are aware that they are in the operating theatre. 2. Speeding or slowing down of Necker cube reversals by act of will. These are taken as evidence — but without explicit reference to the alternative which James considers, though does not like — that other physical brain processes produce or inhibit changes in the Necker cube reversals, or whatever; and that the two experiences of the brain—operation patient are given by two sets of physical brain processes. Actually it is not at all clear to me why this particular example is supposed by Popper and Eccles to have special power to persuade us; I can read a book, listen to the radio and feel hungry at the same time: which of these is supposed Regarding Consciousness 41 mental, which physical? They should have considered not only two, but three or more simultaneous experiences or activities; do we have a mind (or brain) for each? For Popper and Eccles mind and brain are separate, with weak and slow—acting control of brain by mind. Thus, Popper writing on page 514: . . . there are two kinds of illusions — illusions delivered to us or imposed upon us by the brain; and illusions which have a mental origin, let us say. wish—fulfilment. It is apparently built into our organism and into the whole “mechanism of interaction“ between the brain and the mind that the mind should be in many respects dependent on the brain, in order not to fall too easily into that kind of illusion which we experience in fantasy. I would say that this whole field can be used to show at the same time a kind of gulf and also a kind of dependence between the self-conscious mind and the brain. Do illusions give us the right to make such statements? Granted we can perceive one thing and know at the same time that this perception is false —but surely it by no means follows that one of these, perception or knowledge, is mental and the other physical. Indeed computers could not be given check procedures involving recognizing discrepancies if this were so. All we can infer is that the brain can process more than one thing at a time, and that discrepancies can be noted—as when we recognize an illusion. Of course this could be rewritten “the mind can process more than one thing at a time . . .” but this again gives no reason for saying that there is evidence here of mind and brain as separate, interacting entities. I conclude that James’s alternative (which he disliked) is in no way discounted by such evidence. In every case. it seems, one can argue that it is some other brain process which intervenes —not mind or consciousness. WHEN ARE WE MOST AWARE? It is worth considering under which conditions we are most conscious. or aware —and relate these to our ability at skills and how we behave. I think I am most aware at surprise, and when things go wrong. Thus when driving a car I am scarcely conscious of the situation until something surprising happens. Consciousness seems to be associated with mismatches between predictions and events as signalled. If this is correct, and if consciousness does have causal effects, I suppose it might be 42 Richard L. Gregory supposed to select fresh predictive models— “internal models” as Kenneth Craik called them — or fresh hypotheses of reality or fiction. But again it is not at all clear that this observed association is evidence of a causal relation; or if it is causal, in which direction the cause goes. There is no reason to suppose that awareness causes changes of predictive models or perceptual hypotheses even if we are most aware in these situations. Should we look beyond normal brain function for evidence of mind affecting matter—to alleged paranormal phenomena? I think there are severe logical problems in such an undertaking, at least before we are clearer what we should mean by “paranormal”. This we shall now briefly discuss. EVIDENCE OF CAUSAL CONSCIOUSNESS FROM PARANORMAL PHENOMENA If it could be shown that mind affects matter other than via the nervous system, would we have evidence for causal mind? There is not, it seems, any clear evidence from neurology that behaviour is controlled by a separate interacting mind or consciousness: so why should breaking the neural link —as for telekinesis where distant objects unconnected by nerve fibres, or the body, are supposed to move by mental cause — give better evidence? Returning to our discussion of the meaning of “paranormal” (p. 32) we distinguished between a weak and a strong sense. The weak sense concerns phenomena which are odd and difficult to explain, but which might receive explanation within present or conceivable future science. The strong sense of “paranormal” concerns phenomena which are still odder and more difficult to explain, for it is being claimed that explanation is not possible within present or any future science. This at once raises the question: can we make the claim with certainty that phenomena cannot be explained by any future science? I fail to understand how such a claim could be justified. It is tantamount to saying that only limited paradigm shifts of science are possible: but how can this be shown? After all, there have been quite remarkable paradigm shifts during this present century. Regarding Consciousness 43 What the strong sense amounts to, I think, is that we cannot at present see how such alleged phenomena can be reconciled within current or predictable future paradigms of science. This claim may depend purely upon limited imagination. Even if telepathy, telekinesis, or whatever were shown convincingly to occur (and at present I am not convinced), the phenomena could not, without highly questionable assumptions, be used to justify mind affecting brain. This is more than a question of whether this is the best hypothesis (which holds for interpretations of all observations and empirical claims) for a sufficiently drastic paradigm change might change “paranormal” to “normal”. If I am right that claims of paranormal can only be made within fixed paradigm systems, I do not see how any inferences from what are claimed as paranormal can be made: for the (strong and weak senses of) “paranormal” preclude inferences within accepted data-bases and inference structures. IDENTITY THEORIES Although the notion of mind as being different and essentially separate from, though somehow causally linked to, the brain is the traditional view through the recorded history of philosophy and religions, there is remarkably little if indeed any evidence for it, and there are severe conceptual difficulties. It would be much neater to suppose that mind and brain are essentially one-different aspects of the same thing. To show how this could be so is the aim of Identity Theories. I shall introduce the notion with the words not of a philosopher, but of a nineteenth-century naturalist. who was a personal friend of Darwin, and who concerned himself with the evolution of mind—George John Romanes (1848-94). In his Mind and Motion (1885), Romanes writes (see Body and Mind (1964), ed. G. Vesey, p. 183): We have only to suppose that the antithesis between mind and motion — subject and object—is itself phenomenal or apparent: not absolute or real. We have only to suppose that the seeming quality is relative to our modes of apprehension; and, therefore, that any change taking place in the mind, and any corresponding change taking place in the brain, are really not two changes, but one change. This is a remarkably clear statement of the mind—brain identity notion. Romanes continues: 44 Richard L. Gregory When a violin is played upon we hear a musical sound and at the same time we see a vibration of the strings. Relatively to our consciousness, therefore, we have here two sets of changes, which appear to be very different in kind: and yet we know that in an absolute sense they are one and the same: we know that the diversity in consciousness is created only by the difference in our modes of perceiving the same event — whether we see or whether we hear the vibration of the strings. Similarly we may suppose that a vibration of nerve—strings and a process of thought is really one and the same event, which is dual or diverse to our modes of perceiving it. The great advantage of this theory is that it supposes only one stream of causation, in which both mind and motion are simultaneously concerned. Romanes regards this identity as an hypothesis— for which there is no evidence but which is for him “the only one which is logically possible, and at the same time competent to satisfy all the facts alike of the outer and the inner world’ ’. This is in many ways a highly attractive account. It does, however, raise questions which are far from resolved. In the first place, much clearly hinges here on what we mean by “identity”. It cannot be taken to mean that everything we say of brain states we can say of consciousness. The problem indeed is to find anything in common! So this is no “surface” identity. What criteria for identity should, then, be satisfied for brain states to be accepted as identical with conscious states? If we have to accept criteria for “identity” which would be accepted in other cases (such as electron flow and lightning, or electro-magnetic radiation and light) just how like such cases does the mind—consciousness relation have to be to be accepted as an “identity”? If it is a unique case — and this is the trouble about consciousness — it is helpful to apply criteria taken by such analogies? At least two criteria for “identity” between two things (A and B) would normally be demanded. First, that there are precisely related time relations between the occurrences, or changes, in A and in B. Secondly, that A and B are coincident in space. Whether there are exact time relations between brain states and consciousness seems to be an empirical question which might be answered by experiment. Spatial coincidence of brain states and consciousness poses a deeper problem; for it seems misleading to say that consciousness occupies space. How then can brain states and consciousness be identical, if one occupies space and the other does not! Could this, though, be a case where we take over criteria of “identity” from common physical object examples which are inappropriate for this peculiar case? Regarding Consciousness 45 Since the brain exists in space but experiences do not, for the identity theory to be accepted, should we relax the usual spatial requirement for identity? We do often allow that two things can be in some ways identical though they have spatial differences. For example, a brick and a pail of water may have the same weight. Their weights are identical though their shapes, etc., are quite different. Can mind—brain identity be such a nonspatial identity? This would require that some non—spatial characteristic of the brain is identical with consciousness. For the brick and bucket of water we found a common non—spatial property (weight) and many others could be suggested —so non—spatial identity of consciousness and brain would not be a unique kind of identity. What, then, should we suppose is identical? DO WE LIVE IN QUOTATION MARKS? It does seem clear that brain states symbolize events and concepts; so they are like words in a book. A kind of identity which I consider should be explored here is between symbol and symbolized. It is not identity in a wide strict sense: it is rather a stands for, or an equivalent to, relation. The sentence: “there are six beans in this box” stands for, and for some purposes is equivalent to, the box with six beans in it, provided that the sentence can be read. Perhaps consciousness is reading the world. The nearest I can come to an understanding is to say that: the brain puts reality into quotation marks. We seem to live inside our brain’s quotations. MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS Mind seems more mysterious than matter; but if we ask “What is matter?” do we get an answer? If we ask “What are the ultimate particles of matter made of?” we get no more of an answer than we do when we ask “What is mind?”. We can, however, say a great deal about relational aspects of matter: about generalizations and laws which make predictions possible; and especially conceptual causal models, which give unique intellectual satisfaction. It is this which is absent from accounts of mind and consciousness. Most accounts of mind are analogies with accounts of physical substances and the sometimes surprising “emergent” 46 Richard L. Gregory properties of, especially, chemical combinations of atoms into other substances having (at least on inadequate accounts) surprising properties which seem to pop up mind-like: as ideas, inventions, and indeed perceptions seem to emerge from situations. Ideas are sometimes seen as embedded in inexperienced “mind substance”. Physics is, however, more concerned with structures than substance. In physics, surely, the term “substance’ ’ is as mysterious and probably as meaningless as the term “mind’ ’ conceived as an underlying primeval glue, sticking bits of consciousness and behaviour together to give the self-identity of a person. Hume was surely right to reject this, but until we have functional models approaching the adequacy of accounts in engineering, mind must appear unexplained. The best hope for developing precise and detailed models of mind seems now to be the procedures for problem solving developed for“artificial intelligence” of robot machines. As they begin to solve problems we find difficult (and even impossible), and as they begin to learn, and recognize objects with their television-camera eyes, so we must ask, “Will they become conscious?” Philosophers might be persuaded that they are, if the machines spend time speculating on whether we are conscious. For the common man, it may depend, rather, on whether they share jokes and opinions which inspire our loyalty. Animals and humans which do not share these are doubtfully conscious. Suppose, though, that A.I. machines prove never to be highly successful. Would this be attributed to their lack of consciousness? This could be evidence that consciousness is causally important in us. This might be shown if A.I. reaches a ceiling too low, and unexplainable by limited computing power and concepts of intelligence. If, on the other hand, A.I. machines do come to rival us, and we hold that they are not conscious, then it will be hard to hold that consciousness has causal effects for us—at least for anything for which machine performance rivals ours. This would, say, rule out consciousness as important for problem—solving, though it might allow consciousness the role of setting up aesthetic preferences and goals and action. Such conclusions could follow empirically from successes or failures of machine replications of human capacities to decide, solve and do. Meanwhile, I see no reason to suppose that consciousness is a separate entity, affecting brain and behaviour. Some kind of identity with brain function seems a better bet; but if so, it is a limited identity and hard to Regarding Consciousness 47 specify. One might guess that it is something to do with symbols and how they symbolize. If this is so (and the notion is vague) we may have to suspect that future machines, capable of rivalling us by the power of symbols, will be our conscious brothers. REFERENCES James, William, Principles of Psychology, 1890. Popper, K. and Eccles, J. The Self and its Brain, 1977. Romanes, G. J., Mind and Motion, 1885. (Passage in Body and Mind, ed. G. N. A. Vesey, Allen & Unwin, 1963, pp. l80~6). 48 Richard L. Gregory Discussion VESEY: I have two related comments, both about the problem of “the gap between matter and mind”. The first is about one of the supposed solutions to the problem, the so—called “Identity Theory”. The second is much more general. You said something about “the status of verification criteria" for the identity theory. As you know, the people who hold the theory say that the identity in question is an empirical or contingent one, like the identity of a flash of lightning and an electrical discharge (J. J. C. Smart, Philosophical Review, LXVIII, 141-56, 1959).Evidently you don’t think that answers your question about the status of the theory. Why not? More specifically, would you agree with the following criticism of the assimilation of mind-brain identity to lightning— electricity identity? The statement “Sensations are identical with brain processes” is about a whole philosophical category of things. It isn’t just about, say, sensations of being tickled. But the statement “Flashes of lightning are identical with electrical discharges” is not about a whole, philosophical category of things. It isn’t about the whole class of things in the ordinarily accepted world of experience—as opposed to that of things in the world of the physical sciences. It is not even about the whole class of visible phenomena. In short, the two statements are not on a par. A closer parallel to “Sensations are identical with brain processes” would be "Things in the ordinarily accepted world of everyday experience are identical with things in the world of the physical sciences”. But to say that is to let the cat—meaning the status question—wel1 and truly out of the bag. If “Sensations are identical with brain processes" is like “Things in the ordinarily accepted world, etc.“, is it a scientific hypothesis? (If so, what would falsify it?) Or is it a methodological postulate? (If so, why would not a statement of isomorphism, or what used to be called “psycho-physical parallelism”, serve as well?) And so on. My second, much more general, comment is intended to undercut the whole endeavour in which identity theorists and other are engaged. It occurs to me that if I were to ask you a question about the concept of perception — for example, “Should we think of perception in stimulus-response terms?” —- you would not be at a loss for an answer. It is only when a question like “What is the relation of mind and matter?” is asked that people don't know what to say. This makes me wonder whether the fault is not in the formulation of the question — implying, as it does, that we know something the word “mind" stands for, and know something else the word “matter" stands for, but somehow can’t penetrate to how the two things are connected. Do you share my feeling that if we have an adequate conceptual understanding of things that distinguish people from lumps of matter —I mean things like their being able to perceive things, and to do things for which they can be held morally responsible, and, more than anything else, to enter into conversation with us — we know all there is to know about the concept of mind? Do you, like me, think that the idea that there is some sort of higher-order truth about the relationship of two substances, mind and matter, is a myth left over from our Cartesian past? CHAPTER 3 Is Consciousness a Phenomenon? H.C. LONGUET—HIGGINS University of Sussex In this short contribution to our discussion of “Consciousness and the Physical World” I do not propose to offer solutions to any scientific problems about consciousness, but merely to make some observations on how we use the word “conscious”, and on whether consciousness can legitimately be regarded as a “phenomenon” in the same sense as gravity or morphogenesis, to be explained in ordinary scientific terms. I completely agree with Godfrey Vesey, and Wittgenstein before him, that many intellectual headaches are due to negligence about the use of words, and can be dispelled by proper attention to the everyday use of language. The word “consciousness” occurs most naturally in contexts such as “I lost consciousness” or “He regained consciousness”, where the state of consciousness is clearly being contrasted with more passive states such as sleep, coma or trance. When we visit a seriously injured person, and cannot tell whether he is conscious or not, what is the nature of our concern? We are wondering, surely, whether he is aware of what is going on around him—whether he is having experiences, pleasant or painful, which he might subsequently be able to recall. If, on a later occasion, he can accurately report events in which he was involved at a particular time, then we have no doubt that he was conscious at that time. So although the ability to commit experience to memory may not suffice to define the conscious state, it does seem to be a peculiarly characteristic property of that state. If consciousness is hard to define, self-consciousness is even harder. But the commonplace sentiment “I was acutely self-conscious” points the way to some relevant considerations. It indicates that the speaker was 49 50 H. C. Longuet—Higgins observing himself and his actions in a way similar to that in which other people might be observing him. Most people feel sure that monkeys, for example, must be conscious, and possibly even self-conscious. But any satisfactory definition of consciousness, or of self—consciousness, should in principle be applicable to any system, biological or other, which was capable of processing information. If someone were to design an apparently intelligent robot, the definition ought to enable us to decide whether or not the robot was conscious, by studying in detail the programme which controlled it. At present we have only the haziest notions as to what criteria might be relevant, but presumably they would have to be couched in logical or psychological terms, rather than in the language of electronics or solid-state physics. Presumably the system would have to possess a memory, both of its experiences and of its own responses to those experiences; presumably also. its representation of the world would have to include a representation of the robot itself, for it to meet the criteria of self-consciousness. But there would be formidable problems of principle, to do with the appropriateness of any such psychological account of the physical processes taking place inside it; and the implementation of such proposals is a task altogether beyond the scope of present achievements in “artificial intelligence”. A quite different approach to the concept of consciousness takes as its starting-point the theory of observation, as often propounded in connection with the interpretation of modern physics, especially quantum mechanics. The orthodox view is that the complete “Laplacian” account of physical reality is a myth, and that all we can hope for is statistical laws which correlate descriptions of the world at different times. These descriptions must be couched in terms of “observations” (of complete sets of commuting observables). What intervenes between two states so specified is amenable to mathematical calculation but not to observation; the only “phenomena” admitted by the theory are the observations themselves, and the concept of an observation seems to depend crucially on the concept of an observer. So if consciousness is that state of being which enables the observer to observe, it must belong to a different ontological category from anything that he observes, and cannot be classified as a physical phenomenon, in the strict sense of that term. The latter part of this argument is my own gloss on the orthodox theory of observation, but comes close to the view expounded by Is Consciousness a Phenomenon? 51 Heisenberg in his book The Philosophy of Physics. But whether or not it stands up to critical examination, it does suggest that attempts to construct a scientific account of consciousness may be doomed to failure from the start. We may succeed in understanding, in evolutionary terms, how creatures have evolved which can evidently commit their experiences to memory and thereby profit from their failures and successes, but that is an altogether different enterprise from trying to describe a subjective state in objective terms. When this meeting was first being planned, its provisional title was “Possible Effects of Consciousness on the Physical World”. So let me devote the rest of this paper to some issues which that title suggests. First, it is undeniable that human beings affect the world all the time, not only in accidental ways, such as exhaling carbon dioxide, but also by design — through conscious decisions, translated into action. Unless one is a Cartesian dualist, perplexed as to how the mind can affect the body, there need be no mystery, in principle, about our ability to do things on purpose. Have we ourselves not designed machines which, under the control of computer programmes, can respond in quite complex ways to stimuli from their environments; and as for our own bodies, do we not possess brains which, beyond doubt, carry out the logical processes which we describe as our thoughts? It is unnecessary, and solves no problems, to postulate the existence of a ‘ ‘homunculus’ ’ sitting at the controls of the brain (possibly somewhere near the pineal gland) and transforming the aspirations of the soul into physical stimuli acting on the brain; the required transformations would be just as problematical as the mindbody interaction hypothesis itself. One need not suppose, then, that the microscopic cerebral events which mediate consciousness are any different physically from those which have been studied experimentally in similar systems. But those events are of no particular interest in themselves, except to a neurophysiologist or neurochemist. What concerns us as human beings is their collective outcome, which we can only interpret in terms of concepts such as motive, intention, decision and action. An action, as Vesey reminds us, is much more than a complex train of physical events, it is something that a person does, and something we may or may not hold him responsible for. The exercise of the will, which we normally regard as a manifestation of consciousness, presents the psychologist — and the philosopher — with 52 H. C. Longuet-Higgins a number of difficult problems. Certain sorts of behaviour for which people used to be held responsible are now seen as unconscious or uncontrollable; other kinds of activity, conventionally classified as ‘ ‘autonomic’ ’ , are now known to be accessible to voluntary control. There is much evidence that people can be trained to control their pulse rates and skin responses, and to weep spontaneously, though at the present time the physiological mechanisms are quite obscure. But I suspect that more may have been in the minds of the organizers: perhaps such putative phenomena as levitation, psychokinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance. It would, of course, be unhelpful merely to dismiss such claims as founded on delusion, deceit or experimental incompetence. But the fact remains that a mere set of observations does not constitute a natural phenomenon. To establish a new phenomenon which contravenes accepted laws demands that the relevant observations be exhibited as instances of a clearly stated generalization, and that a convincing reason be given for accepting this generalization in the face of the evidence for the laws in question. And finally, the authentication of one or more “psychic” phenomena would not put an end to the matter: we should then be hard put to it to understand what need human beings have for hands, feet, eyes, ears and voices. Is Consciousness a Phenomenon? 53 Discussion VESEY: The first sense of the word “consciousness” you mentioned was that in which the state of consciousness is opposed to states such as sleep, coma or trance. I suppose there may be borderline cases but, for the most part, I think, we know where we stand with that sense of “consciousness”. That is, we can usually tell whether someone is conscious or not; and the question “What is the use of being conscious?“ has the obvious answer “Well, if everyone were always asleep, or in a coma or trance, our days would be numbered”. Now, two of our fellow symposiasts, Nick Humphrey and Horace Barlow, evidently regard the usefulness question as requiring some other, less obvious, answer. Presumably they are not using the term “consciousness" in the sense in which it is opposed to sleep, etc. So, in what sense are they using it‘? How is their use of the term related to the one in which consciousness is opposed to sleep? What are the criteria of application of the term in their sense? Is one of the senses more basic than the other? JOSEPHSON: You say it solves no problems to postulate a “homunculus” sitting at the controls of the brain transforming the aspirations of the soul into physical stimuli acting on the brain. But if we are trying to understand a complex system, it is always helpful to try to subdivide it into components having particular roles, and the hypothesis you refer to may be an extremely useful one in the long run, even if it is far from leading to a complete solution of the problem when standing by itself. In biological systems we do this subdivision all the time (with conceptual components such as the circulatory system and the immune system), and even in artificial intelligence we find such divisions of function in the most advanced systems, such as Sussman‘s Conceptual Model of Skill Acquisition (HACKER). Separation of the total system into the knower, what he knows, and the consequences of that knowledge, may be the most important step we can take towards the understanding of the nature of intelligence. PART II Consciousness and Behaviour CHAPTER 4 Nature's Psychologists* N. K. HUMPHREY University of Cambridge On the temple at Delphi was written the stern message “Know thyself”. Did the oracle realize she was uttering an evolutionary imperative? I shall argue presently that self—knowledge, and through it the possibility of “intuitive” knowledge of others, has made an essential contribution to the biological fitness of man and certain other social animals. The means to self—knowledge have consequently been promoted and perfected by selection. Within this argument lies a theory of the evolution of consciousness; within it, too, lie some humbler ideas about the evolution of overt behaviour. In The Nature of Explanation‘ Kenneth Craik outlined an “Hypothesis on the nature of thought”, proposing that “the nervous system is .. . a calculating machine capable of modelling or paralleling external events. ... If the organism carries a ‘small-scale model’ of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it.” The notion of a “mental model of reality” has become in the years since so widely accepted that it has grown to be almost a cliche of experimental psychology. And like other cliches its meaning is no longer called in question. From the outset Craik’s ‘This paper is based on the Lister Lecture delivered at the B.A.A.S. meeting, September 1977. 57 58 N. K. Humphrey “hypothesis” begged some fundamental questions: A model of reality? What reality? Whose reality? My dog and I live in the same house. Do we share the same “reality”? Certainly we share the same physical environment, and most aspects of that physical environment are probably as real for one of us as for the other. Maybe our realities differ only in the trivial sense that we each know a few things about the house that the other does not—the dog (having a better nose than I) knows better the smell of the carpet, I (having a better pair of eyes) know better the colour of the curtain. Now, suppose my dog chews up the gas bill which is lying on the mat by the door. Is the reality of that event the same for him as me? Something real enough has happened for us both, and the same piece of paper is involved. The dog hangs his head in contrition. Is he contrite because he has chewed up the gas bill? What does a dog know about gas bills! Gas bills are an important part of my external reality, but they are surely none of his. If mine and the dog’s realities differ in this and other more important ways they do so because we have learned to conceptualize the world on different lines. To the dog paper is paper, to me it is newspaper or lavatory paper or greaseproof paper or a letter from my friend. These ways of looking at paper are essentially human ways, conditioned of course by culture, but a culture which is a product of a specifically human nature. I and the dog are involved with different aspects of reality because, at bottom, we are biologically adapted to lead different kinds of lives. To all biological intents and purposes the portion of reality which matters to any particular animal is that portion of which it must have a working knowledge in the interests of its own survival. Because animals differ in their life—styles they face different kinds of “emergencies” and they must therefore have different kinds of knowledge if they are to react in the full, safe, competent manner which Craik — and natural selectionrecommends. But different kinds of knowledge entail different ways of knowing. In so far as animals are biologically adapted to deal specifically with their own portions of reality, so must their nervous “calculating machines” be adapted to construct very different kinds of models. This is not to say merely that the calculating machines may be required to do different kinds of sums, but rather that they may have to work according to quite different heuristic principles. Depending on the job for which Nature has designed Nature’s Psychologists 59 them the nervous systems will differ in the kind of concepts they employ, the logical calculus they use, the laws of causation they assume, and so on. They will differ in what may properly be called their “ideologies”. Ideology, in the sense I use the term, means simply a framework of ideas. Ideologies provide, if you like, the “conceptual language” in terms of which questions are asked, calculations made and answers given. Let us call these nervous calculating machines “minds”. It is the thesis of this paper that a revolutionary advance in the evolution of mind occurred when, for certain social animals, a new set of heuristic principles was devised to cope with the pressing need to model a special section of reality —— the reality comprised by the behaviour of other kindred animals. The trick which Nature came up with was introspection; it proved possible for an individual to develop a model of the behaviour of others by reasoning by analogy from his own case, the facts of his own case being revealed to him through “examination of the contents of consciousness”. For man and other animals which live in complex social groups reality is in larger measure a “social reality”. No other class of environmental objects approaches in biological significance those living bodies which constitute for a social animal its companions, playmates, rivals, teachers, foes. It depends on the bodies of other conspecific animals not merely for its immediate sustenance in infancy and its sexual fulfilment as an adult, but in one way or another for the success (or failure) of almost every enterprise it undertakes. In these circumstances the ability to model the behaviour of others in the social group has paramount survival value. I have argued in more detail before now that the modelling of other animals’ behaviour is not only the most important but also the most difficult task to which social animals must turn their minds? In retrospect I do not think I took my own case seriously enough. The task of modelling behaviour does indeed demand formidable intellectual skill —social animals have evolved for that reason to be the most intelligent of animals — but intelligence alone is not enough. If a social animal is to become — as it must become— one of “Nature’s psychologists” it must somehow come up with the appropriate ideology for doing psychology; it must develop a fitting set of concepts and a fitting logic for dealing with a unique and uniquely elusive portion of reality. The difficulties that arise from working with an inappropriate ideology are well enough illustrated by the history of the science of experimental 60 N. K . Humphrey psychology. For upwards of a hundred years academic psychologists have been attempting, by the “objective” methods of the physical sciences, to acquire precisely the kind of knowledge of behaviour which every social animal must have in order to survive. In so far as these psychologists have been strict “behaviourists” they have gone about their task as if they were studying the behaviour of billiard balls, basing their theoretical models entirely on concepts to which they could easily give public definition. And in so far as they have been strict behaviourists they have made slow progress. They have been held up again and again by their failure to develop a sufficiently rich or relevant framework of ideas. Concepts such as “habit strength”, “drive”, or “reinforcement”, for all their objectivity are hopelessly inadequate to the task of modelling the subtleties of real behaviour. Indeed, I venture to suggest that if a rat’s knowledge of the behaviour of other rats were to be limited to everything which behaviourists have discovered about rats to date, the rat would show so little understanding of its fellows that it would bungle disastrously every social interaction it engaged in; the prospects for a man similarly constrained would be still more dismal. And yet, as professional scientists, behaviourists have always had enormous advantages over an individual animal, being able to do controlled experiments, to subject their data to sophisticated statistical analysis, and above all to share the knowledge recorded in the scientific literature. By contrast, an animal in nature has only its own experience to go on, its own memory to record it and its own brief lifetime to acquire it. “Behaviourism” as a philosophy for the natural science of psychology could not, and presumably does not, fit the bill. Chomsky in his famous review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior3 argued on parallel lines that it would be impossible for a child to acquire an understanding of human spoken language if all the child had at its disposal was a clever brain with which to make an unprejudiced analysis of public utterances. Chomsky’s way round the problem was to propose that the child’s brain is not in fact unprejudiced: the child is born with an innate knowledge of transformational grammar, and this knowledge of the grammar provides it, in my terms, with the ideology for modelling human language. Though there are snags about Chomsky’s thesis, it would not, I suppose, be wholly unreasonable to suggest something similar with regard to the acquisition of a model of behaviour: the essential rules Nature’s Psychologists 61 and concepts for understanding behaviour might simply be innately given to a social animal. There is, however, an alternative, and to my mind more attractive, possibility. This is to suggest that the animal has access not to “innate knowledge” but to “inside evidence” about behaviour. Nature’s psychologists succeed where academic psychologists have failed because the former make free use of introspection. Let us consider how introspection works. I shall write these paragraphs from the position of a reflective conscious human being, on the assumption that other human beings will understand me. First let me distinguish two separate meanings of what may be called “self-observation”, a weak one and a strong one. In the weak sense self-observation means simply observing my own body as opposed to someone else’s. It is bound to be true that my body is the example of a human body which is far the most familiar to me. Thus even if I could only observe my behaviour through “objective” eyes it is likely that I would draw on self-observation for most of my evidence about how a human being behaves (in the same way that a physicist who carried a billiard ball about in his pocket might well use that “personal” billiard ball as the paradigm of billiard balls in general). But the importance of self-observation does not stop there. In the strong sense of the term self-observation means a special sort of observation to which I and I alone am privileged. When I reflect on my own behaviour I become aware not only of the external facts about my actions but of a conscious presence, “I”, which “wills” those actions. This “I” has reasons for the things it wills. The reasons are various kinds of "feeling"—“sensations”, “emotions”, “memories”, “desires”. “ ‘I’ want to eat because ‘I’ am hungry”, “ ‘I’ intend to go to bed because ‘I’ am tired”, “‘I’ refuse to move because ‘I’ am in pain”. Moreover, experience tells me that the feelings themselves are caused by certain things which happen to my body in the outside world. “ ‘I’ am hungry because my body has been without food”, “ ‘I’ am in pain because my foot has trodden on a thorn”. It so happens (as I soon discover) that several sorts of happening may cause a particular feeling and that a particular feeling may be responsible for my willing several sorts of action. The role of a feeling in the model I develop of my own behaviour becomes, therefore, that of what psychologists have called an ‘ ‘ intervening variable’ ’, bridging the causal gap between a set of antecedent circumstances and a 62 N. K. Humphrey set of subsequent actions—between what happens to “me” and what “I” do. Now, when I come to the task of modelling the behaviour of another man, I naturally assume that he operates on the same principles that I do. I assume that within him too there is a conscious “l” and that his “I” has feelings which are the reasons for “his” willing certain actions. In other words I expect the relation between what happens to his body and what he does to have the same causal structure——a structure premised on the same intervening variables—as I have discovered for myself. It is my familiarity with this causal structure and these variables which provides me with the all—important ideological framework for doing natural psychology. Without introspection to guide me, the task of deciphering the behaviour of fellow men would be quite beyond my powers. I should be like a poor cryptographer attempting to decipher a text which was written in a totally unfamiliar language. Michael Ventris could crack the code of Linear B because he guessed in advance that the language of the text was Greek; although the alphabet was strange to him he reckoned—correct1y—that he knew the syntax and vocabulary of the underlying message. Linear A remains to this day a mystery because no one knows what language it is written in. In so far as we are conscious human beings we all guess in advance the “language” of other men’s behaviour. But it may be objected that I have not really made out a case for there being any unique advantage in using introspection since non—introspective psychological scientists do in fact also allow themselves to postulate certain intervening variables such as “hunger” and “fear”. And so they do. But think of how they derive them. To establish what variables are likely to prove useful to their models they must (assuming they do not cheat) make a vast and impartial survey of all the circumstances and all the actions of an animal and then subject their data to statistical factor analysis. In practice, of course, they usually do cheat by restricting their data to a few “relevant” parameters -— relevance being decided on the basis of an intuitive guess. But even so their task is not an easy one. Before postulating even such an “obvious” variable as hunger the experimental psychologist must go through a formidable exercise in data collection and statistical cross—correlation (cf. Hinde).“ An ordinary introspective human being has, however, no such problem in devising a “psychological” model of Nature’s Psychologists 63 his own and other men’s behaviour: he knows from his own internal feelings what intervening variables to go for. Indeed he knows of subtle feelings which no amount of objective data crunching is likely to reveal as useful postulates. Speaking again for myself, I know of feelings of awe, of guilt, of jealousy, of irritation, of hope, of being in love, all of which have a place in my model of how other men behave. Before I can attribute such feelings to others I must, it seems, myself have had them — a proviso which the academic psychologist is spared. But it is generally the case, for reasons I shall come to in a moment, that in the course of their lives most people do have most of them, and often indeed it takes only a single seminal experience to add a new dimension to one’s behavioural model. Let a celibate monk just once make love to a woman and he would be surprised how much better he would understand the Song of Solomon; but let him, like an academic psychologist, observe twenty couples in the park and he would not be that much wiser: A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits. . . . Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. I sleep, but my heart waketh; it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying Open to me my sister, my love, my dove. My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. The translators of the King James Bible, who summarized these lines of the Song as: “Christ setteth forth the graces of the church; the church prayeth to be made fit for his presence” were themselves perhaps somewhat restricted in their ideological perspective. People are I think well aware of the value of novel experiences in “broadening” their minds. I admit, pace my last example, that mindbroadening is not the usual motive which lies behind people’s first experiments in making love; carnal knowledge, so called, has intrinsic attractions over and above the insight it may give into what the psalmist meant by an orchard of pomegranates. But there are times when people do apparently seek new experiences for no other reason than to help themselves “make sense”, through introspection, of the behaviour of other people. The clearest cases are those where someone deliberately undergoes an unpleasant experience in order to gain insight into the associated state of mind. My mother once discovered that my young sister had swallowed twenty plumstones, whereupon she herself swallowed l l , 64 N. K. Humphrey thirty plumstones in order, she said, that she should be able to understand my sister’s symptoms. My father, in the days when he was politically active, deprived himself of food for a week in order that he should know what it feels like to be a starving peasant. A colleague of mine, studying a tribe of Amazonian Indians, joined the Indians in drinking a strongly emetic and hallucinogenic drug in order that, having experienced the sickness and the visions, he should be better placed to interpret the Indian’s behaviour. I could multiply examples, and so I am sure could you. These acts of calculated self—instruction have, however, a rather artificial ring to them. They are the acts of “intellectuals”, hardly to be expected of ordinary people, let alone of ordinary infra-human social animals. Yet every one of Nature’s psychologists, if they are to make good use of the possibilities of introspection, must somehow or another acquire a broad base of inner experience to which they can refer. Had they but time, they might perhaps hope to pick up the requisite ideas simply by waiting passively for relevant experiences to come their way. Sooner or later, without seeking it, most animals will no doubt find that they have, say, run short of food or been beaten in a fight or had a narrow escape from danger; they may even — if they are lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) — find that they have accidentally swallowed twenty plumstones. But what if the experience comes later rather than sooner? The costs of naivety are likely to be heavy in terms of psychological misunderstanding. The matter is so serious that it would be surprising if it had been neglected by natural selection in the course of evolution. I believe that biological mechanisms have in fact evolved for ensuring that young animals, like it or not, rapidly receive the ideological instruction required to turn them into competent psychologists. They fall into three categories: (i) play, (ii) parental manipulation, (iii) dreaming. The role of play in extending inner experience is so obvious as to need little elaboration. For all animals, and not just man, play involves adventures for the mind as well as for the body. If we could ask a young animal, as we can ask a child, why it is doing whatever it is doing in play, it would probably reply that it is simply “having fun”: but in the course of having fun the animal is unwittingly educating itself. It is throwing itself into new kinds of interaction with the physical and social world and thereby introducing its mind to a whole new range of feelings—new sensations, new Nature’s Psychologists 65 emotions, new desires. Look at a child playing hide—and—seek, or look at a young monkey playing king of the castle: feelings of anxiety, of excitement, of satisfaction, of disappointment, of competitiveness, even perhaps of compassion; these and many other rarer and often unnamable ideas are being planted and tended in the youngsters’ minds. One day, when the games are for real, the child or the monkey will use its introspective knowledge of such feelings to interpret and predict the behaviour of another member of its social group. There are, however, limits to the range of feelings which animals are likely to learn about through play. They play because it pleases them to do so. How then shall they learn about the feelings associated with experiences which are in no way pleasurable? Many of the feelings most pertinent to the modelling of the behaviour of others in the social group are in one way or another disagreeable to the animal who has them—fear, anger, pain, jealousy, grief. But these are the very feelings which a young animal, left to itself, is likely to do its best to avoid. If play, on the whole, plants pleasant flowers in the garden of a child’s mind, what— or whoplants the tares and weeds? My answer may surprise you. I think that, often enough, it is the child’s parents. Biologically it is in the interests of parents to increase the fitness of their offspring in whatever ways they can. Ethologists have long recognized that this is the reason why parents so often take a hand in their children’s education, giving them lessons in how to do things and, of course, being active partners in their play. But there has been very little discussion of how parents might help their children by abusing them ‘ ‘for their own good”. Let me illustrate the principle with a happening I witnessed not long ago on the train to Cambridge. A woman sat opposite me in the carriage with her 4-year-old daughter. The little girl asked her mother an innocent question. The mother pretended not to notice her. The girl repeated her question, adding plaintively “Mummy, please tell me”. “I’m not your mummy”, said the woman, “Your mummy got off at the last station”. The girl began to look anxious. “You are my mummy. I know you’re my mummy.” “No I’m not. I’ve never seen you before.” And so this strange game, if you can call it such, continued until eventually the bewildered little girl broke down in tears. A wicked, heartless mother? I thought so at the time—but maybe it was an unfair judgement. That little girl was in the truest sense being taught a lesson, the lesson of what it 66 N. K. Humphrey feels like to be mystified and scared. She perhaps learned more of real importance in those few unhappy minutes than I myself have ever learned from the hundred books I have read on train journeys. Now I believe such parental abuse of children may be much more widespread than ethologists have either noticed or perhaps cared to admit. And, following my present line of argument, I believe that its biological function may often be to educate children in the knowledge of disagreeable feelings. Children, as apprentice psychologists, need to know about being frightened, so parents frighten them; they need to know about jealousy, so parents do things to make them jealous; they need to know about pain, so parents hurt them; they need to know about feeling guilty, so parents contrive to catch them doing wrong. And so on. If you were to press me for further specific examples, I should probably continue to refer chiefly to the actions of human beings. But there is one general category of parental abuse which is well known to occur in other social animals than man. That is the “parent—offspring conflict” which occurs in relation to weaning. There are, of course, alternative theories of why mothers become progressively more hard-hearted to their children around the time of weaning, but I would suggest that at least one of the functions of the mother’s behaviour is purely educational—it is in the child’s best interests that it should have first-hand experience of frustration, rejection, hunger and loneliness. The third way by which young animals may acquire their ideological grounding as psychologists is by exposing themselves to purely imaginary experiences. I mean by dreaming. Dream experience is clearly in a different class to the experience provided by play or parental manipulation; yet I would argue that as a means of introducing the animal to a range of novel feelings it is potentially as powerful. True, there may seem at first sight to be a fundamental problem here: whereas through play or parental manipulation real things happen to the infant animal and real feelings are aroused, in dreams unreal things happen and, presumably, unreal feelings are aroused. But it is a mistake to talk of “unreal” feelings. All feelings, whatever context they occur in, are internal creations of the subject’s mind. Although they may be-and usually are—evoked by external happenings, it is not the external happenings as such which evoke them, but the subject’s perception of and belief in those external happenings. For a feeling to occur it is a sufficient condition that the subject should Nature’s Psychologists 67 have the appropriate perceptions and beliefs—that he should “think” himself to be undergoing the relevant experience. Thus for me to feel fear it is sufficient that I should think I am being chased by a crocodile: my fear will be the same whether the crocodile is an objective physical crocodile or a subjective crocodile conjured up in my imagination. If you yourself have never dreamed of being chased by a crocodile, or if — as I hardly think likely — you doubt altogether the possibility of feelings being induced by fantasy experience, go and watch a stage hypnotist at work. Better still, go up on the stage and allow him to use you as one of his subjects: the hypnotist will, perhaps, suggest that there is a spider crawling up your neck and you will find yourself shuddering with genuine horror. What the hypnotist does to his subjects on the stage the dreamer can do to himself as the subject of his self—generated fantasies. In the freedom of the dream he can invent extraordinary stories about what is happening to his own person and so, responding to these happenings as if to the real thing, he discovers new realms of inner experience. If I may speak from my own case, I have in my dreams placed myself in situations which have induced in my mind feelings of terror and grief and passion and pleasure of a kind and intensity which I have not known in real life. If 1 did now experience these feelings in real life I should recognize them as familiar; more important, if I were to come across someone else undergoing what I went through in my dream I should be able to guess what he was feeling and so be able to model his behaviour. Although I have been talking now more of people than of other social animals, I have intended that most of what I have said should apply to animals as well. In people, and people alone, however, the biological mechanisms for providing ideological instruction have been supplemented in important ways by culture. All three mechanisms — play, parental manipulation and dreaming - have parallels in human cultural institutions. The play of individual animals has its counterpart in organized games and sports where youngsters, besides enjoying themselves, are encouraged to compete, co-operate, take risks, set their hearts on winning, and discover what it means to lose. Abuse by individual parents has its counterpart in “initiation rites” where adolescents are frequently subjected to bodily mutilation, to fearsome ordeals, and sometimes to forced isolation from the social group. And dreaming has its counterpart in drama and 68 N. K. Humphrey public story—telling where the actors — and their audience too — get drawn into elaborate fantasies. I am suggesting not merely an analogy but a functional homology between the cultural and the biological phenomena. I believe it could be shown that members of a society who have, for example, been put through a brutal initiation ceremony make better introspective psychologists than others who lack the experience. At another extreme I believe that nineteenth—century readers of Dickens’s serial novel The Old Curiosity Shop, who cried in the streets when they heard of the death of Little Nell, may have been better able to understand the behaviour of their neighbours when a real child died. I do not for a moment mean to say that this is all there is to these cultural institutions, any more than a sociobiologist would say that the avoidance of inbreeding is all there is to the incest taboo. But if, as I have argued, greater insight into other people’s behaviour is one of the benefits of subscribing to a cultural institution, then almost certainly it is one of the factors which keeps that institution alive. So much for how I think that Nature’s psychologists proceed. Let me turn to more purely philosophical implications of the theory. I promised at the start of this paper to say something about the evolution of consciousness. I take it to be the case that what we mean by someone’s conscious experience is the set of subjective feelings which, at any one time, are available to introspection, i.e. the sensations, emotions, volitions, etc., that I have talked of. Our criterion for judging that someone else is conscious is that we should have grounds for believing that he has subjective reasons for his actions — that he is eating an apple because he feels hungry, or that he is raising his arm because he wants to. If we had grounds for believing that a dog had similar subjective reasons for its actions we should want to say the dog was conscious too. In proposing a theory about the biological function of introspection I am therefore proposing a theory about the biological function of consciousness. And the implications of this theory are by no means trivial. If consciousness has evolved as a biological adaptation for doing introspective psychology, then the presence or absence of consciousness in animals of different species will depend on whether or not they need to be able to understand the behaviour of other animals in a social group. Wolves and chimpanzees and elephants, which all go in for complex social interactions, are probably all conscious; frogs and snails and codfish are probably not. Nature’s Psychologists 69 There may be philosophers who protest that it is nonsense to talk of a biological “function” for consciousness when, so Wittgenstein tells us, conscious experience does not even have a “place in the language game”.5 But what Wittgenstein demonstrated is that there are logical problems about the communication of conscious experience — and it is not proposed by the theory that consciousness had any direct role in communication between individuals; I am not saying that social animals either can or should report their subjective feelings to each other. The advantage to an animal of being conscious lies in the purely private use it makes of conscious experience as a means of developing an ideology which helps it to model another animal’s behaviour. It need make no difference at all whether the other animal is actually experiencing the feelings with which it is being credited; all that matters is that its behaviour should be understandable on the assumption that such feelings provide the reasons for its actions. Thus for all I know no man other than myself has ever experienced a feeling corresponding to my own feeling of hunger; the fact remains that the concept of hunger, derived from my own experience, helps me to understand other men’s eating behaviour. Indeed, if we assume that the first animal in history to have any sort of introspective consciousness occurred as a chance variant in an otherwise unconscious population, the selective advantage which consciousness gave that animal must have been independent of consciousness in others. It follows, a fortiori, that the selective advantage of consciousness can never have depended on one animal’s conscious experience being the “same” as another’s.5 Maybe this sounds paradoxical. Indeed, if it does not sound a little paradoxical I should be worried. For I assume that you are as naturally inclined as any other introspective animals to project your conscious feelings onto others. The suggestion that you may be wrong to do so, or at least that it does not matter whether you are right or wrong, does I hope arouse a certain Adamite resistance in you. But allow me to elaborate the argument. I think no one of us would object to the claim that a piece of magnetized iron lacks consciousness. Suppose now that an animal— let us call it one of “Nature’s physicists” —wanted to model the behaviour of magnets. I can conceive that it might be helpful to that animal to think of the north pole of a magnet as having a desire to approach a south pole. Then, if the concept of having a desire was one which the animal knew about from its 70 N. K. Humphrey own inner experience, I should want to argue that introspective consciousness was an aid to the animal in doing physics. The fact that the animal would almost certainly be incorrect in attributing feelings of desire to magnets would be irrelevant to whether or not the attribution was heuristically helpful to it in developing a conceptual model of how magnets behave. But if this is conceivably true of doing physics, all the more is it true of doing psychology. Notwithstanding the logical possibility that every other human being around me is as unconscious as a piece of iron, my attribution of conscious feelings to them does as a matter of fact help me sort out my observations of their behaviour and develop predictive models. Ah, you may say, but you are not really saying anything very interesting, since it can only be helpful to attribute feelings to other people— or magnets — in so far as there is something about the other person or the magnet which corresponds to what you call a feeling: the attribution of desire to magnets is heuristically valuable if, and only if, there exists in reality an electromagnetic attractive force between a north pole and a south pole, and the attribution of a feeling of hunger to a man is valuable if, and only if, his body is in reality motivated by a particular physiological state. Quite so. But the magnet does not have to know about the electromagnetic force and the man does not, in principle, have to know about the physiological state. Magnets do not need to do physics. If they did—if their survival as magnets depended on it — perhaps they would be conscious. If volcanoes needed to do geology, and clouds needed to do meteorology, perhaps they would be conscious too. But the survival of human beings does depend on their being able to do psychology. That is why, despite the sophistical doubts I have just expressed, I do not consider it to be even a biological possibility — let alone do I really believe — that other people are not as fully conscious of the reasons for their actions as I know that I myself am. In the case of frogs and snails and cod, however, my argument leads me to the opposite conclusion. Let me say it again: these non—social animals no more need to do psychology than magnets need to do physics—ergo they could have no use for consciousness. Somewhere along the evolutionary path which led from fish to chimpanzees a change occurred in the nervous system which transformed Nature’s Psychologists 71 an animal which simply “behaved” into an animal which at the same time informed its mind of the reasons for its behaviour. My guess is that this change involved the evolution of a new brain— a “conscious brain” parallel to the older “executive brain”. In the last few years evidence has at last begun to emerge from studies of brain damage in animals and man which makes this kind of speculation meaningful. To end my paper I want to talk about a monkey called Helen. In 1966 Helen underwent an operation on her brain in which the visual cortex was almost completely removed. In the months immediately following the operation she acted as if she were blind. But I and Professor Weiskrantz with whom I was working were not convinced that Helen’s blindness was as deep and permanent as it appeared. Could it be that her blindness lay not so much in her brain as in her mind? Was her problem that she did not think that she could see? I set to work to persuade her to use her eyes again. Over the course of seven years I coaxed her, played with her, took her for walks in the fields — encouraged her in every way I could to realize her latent potential for vision. And slowly, haltingly, she found her way back from the dark valley into which the operation had plunged her. After seven years her recovery seemed so complete that an innocent observer would have noticed very little wrong with the way she analysed the visual world. She could, for example, run around a room full of furniture picking up currants from the floor, she could reach out and catch a passing fly.7 But I continued to have a nagging doubt about what had been achieved: my hunch was that despite her manifest ability Helen remained to the end unconscious of her own vision. She never regained what we — you and I — would call the sensations of sight. Do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Helen did not eventually discover that she could after all use her eyes to obtain information about the environment. She was a clever monkey and I have little doubt that, as her training progressed, it began to dawn on her that she was indeed picking up “visual” information from somewhere—and that her eyes had something to do with it. But I do want to suggest that, even if she did come to realize that she could use her eyes to obtain visual information (information, say, about the position of a currant on the floor), she no longer knew how that information came to her: if there was a currant before her eyes she would find that she knew its position but, lacking visual sensation, she no longer saw it as being there. 72 N. K . Humphrey It is difficult to imagine anything comparable in our own experience. But perhaps the sense we have of the position of parts of our own bodies is not dissimilar. We all accept as a fact that our brains are continuously informed of the topology of the surface of our bodies: when we want to scratch an ear we do not find ourselves scratching an eye; when we clap our hands together there is no danger that our two hands will miss each other. But, for my own part, it is not at all clear how this positional information comes to me. If, for example, I close my eyes and introspect on the feelings in my left thumb I cannot identify any sensation to which I can attribute my knowledge of the thumb’s position— yet if I reach over with my other hand I shall be able to locate the thumb quite accurately. I “just know”, it seems, where my thumb is. And the same goes for other parts of my body. I am inclined therefore to say that at the level of conscious awareness “position sense” is not a sense at all: what I know of the position of parts of my body is “pure perceptual knowledge” — unsubstantiated by sensation. Now in Helen’s case, I want to suggest that the information she obtained through her eyes was likewise “pure knowledge” for which she was aware of no substantive evidence in the form of visual sensations. Helen “just knew” that there was a currant in such—and—such a position on the floor. This, you may think, is a strange kind of hypothesis — and one which is in principle untestable. Were I to admit the hypothesis to be untestable I should be reneguing on the whole argument of this paper. The implication of such an admission would be that the presence or absence of consciousness has no consequences at the level of overt behaviour. And if consciousness does not affect behaviour it cannot, of course, have evolved through natural selection—either in the way I have been arguing or any other. What, then, shall I say? If you have followed me so far you will know my answer. I believe that Helen’s lack of visual consciousness would have shown up in the way she herself conceived of the visually guided behaviour of other animals—in the way she did psychology. I shall come back to this in a moment; I think you will be more ready to listen to me if I first refer to some remarkable new evidence from human beings. In the last few years Weiskrantz and his colleagues at the National Hospital, and other neurologists in different hospitals around the world, have been extending our findings with Helen to human patients.3 They have studied cases of what is called “cortical blindness”, caused by Nature’s Psychologists 73 extensive destruction of the visual cortex at the back of the brain (very much the same area as was surgically removed in Helen). Patients with this kind of brain damage have been described in most earlier medical literature as being completely blind in large areas of the visual field: the patients themselves will say that they are blind, and in clinical tests, where they are asked to report whether they can see a light in the affected area of the field, their blindness is apparently confirmed. But the clinical tests —and the patients’ own opinion—have proved to be deceptive. It has been shown that, while the patients may not think that they can see, they are in fact quite capable of using visual information from the blind part of the field if only they can be persuaded to “guess” what it is their eyes are looking at. Thus a patient studied by Weiskrantz, who denied that he could see anything at all in the left half of his visual field, could “guess” the position of an object in this area with considerable accuracy and could also “guess” the object’s shape. Weiskrantz, searching for a word to describe this strange phenomenon, has called it “blindsight’ ’. “Blindsight” is what I think Helen had. It is vision without conscious awareness: the visual information comes to the subject in the form of pure knowledge unsubstantiated by visual sensation. The human patient, not surprisingly, believes that he is merely “guessing”. What, after all, is a “guess”? It is defined in Chambers’s Dictionary as a “judgement or opinion without sufficient evidence or grounds”. It takes consciousness to furnish our minds with the sensations which provide “evidence or grounds” for what our senses tell us; just as it takes consciousness to give our mind the subjective feelings which provide “evidence or grounds” for our eating behaviour, or our bad temper, or whatever else we do with the possibility of insight into its reasons. So if Helen lacked such insight into her own vision, how might it have affected her ability to do psychology? I do not think that Helen’s particular case is a straightforward one, since Helen was already grown up when she underwent the brain operation and she may well have retained ideas about vision from the time when she could see quite normally. I would rather discuss the hypothetical case of a monkey who has been operated on soon after birth and who therefore has never in its life been conscious of visual sensations. Such a monkey would, I believe, develop the basic capacity to use visual information in much the same way as does any monkey with an intact brain; it would become competent in using its eyes 74 N. K. Humphrey to judge depth, position, shape, to recognize objects, to find its way around. Indeed, if this monkey were to be observed in social isolation from other monkeys, it might not appear to be in any way defective. But ordinary monkeys do not live in social isolation. They interact continuously with other monkeys and their lives are largely ruled by the predictions they make of how these other monkeys will behave. Now, if a monkey is going to predict the behaviour of another, one of the least things it must realize is that the other monkey itself makes use of visual informationthat the other monkey too can see. And here is the respect in which the monkey whose visual cortex was removed at birth would, I suspect, prove gravely defective. Being blind to the sensations of sight, it would be blind to the idea that another monkey can see. Ordinary monkeys and ordinary people naturally interpret the visually guided behaviour of other animals in terms of their own conscious experience. The idea that other animals too have visual sensations provides them with a ready—made conceptual framework for understanding what it “means” for another animal to use its eyes. But the operated monkey, lacking the conscious sensations, would lack the unifying concept: it would no longer be in the privileged position of an introspective psychologist. In the days when we were working with Helen, Weiskrantz and I used to muse about how Helen would describe her state if she could speak. If only she could have communicated with us in sign language, what profound philosophical truths might she have been ready to impart? We had only one anxiety: that Helen, dear soul, having spent so long in the University of Cambridge, might have lost her philosophical innocence. If we had signalled to her: “Tell us, Helen, about the nature of consciousness”, she might have replied with the final words of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Silence has never formed a good basis for discussion. Too often in this century philosophers have forbidden the rest of us to speak our minds about the functions and origins of consciousness. They have walled the subject off behind a Maginot line. The defences sometimes look impressive. But biologists, advancing through the Low Countries, should not be afraid to march around them. Nature’s Psychologists 75 REFERENCES l. K.J.W. Craik, The Nature of Explanation, Cambridge, 1943. 2. N.K. Humphrey, The social function of intellect, in P.P.G. Bateson and R.A. Hinde (eds.), Growing Points in Ethology, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 303-17. 3. N. Chomsky, Review of B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior, in Language, 35, 26-58, (1959). 4. R.A. Hinde, Animal Behaviour, McGraw~Hill, New York, 1970. 5. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford, 1958, Part I, §293. 6. Ibid., §272. 7. N. K. Humphrey, Vision in a monkey without striate cortex: a case study, Perception, 3, 241-55 (1974). 8. L. Weiskrantz, E.K. Warrington, M.D. Sanders and J. Marshall, Visual capacity in the hemianopic field following a restricted occipital ablation, Brain, 9'], 709-28 (1974). 76 N. K. Humphrey Discussion RAMACHANDRAN: You point out that consciousness permits social interaction. I agree that my direct conscious experience of non-neutral (and emotionally coloured) states, such as pain, hunger, sex, etc., does improve my ability to interact effectively with someone experiencing similar states; especially when I assume that the other person is also conscious of these states in the same intense way that I am conscious of them. But I do not see how this argument applies to neutral states such as elementary sensations (e. g. reds, greens, etc.). How would my knowledge that the other person was consciously seeing these (rather than merely reacting to them) influence my behaviour towards him? Ifa person were consistently to report red when confronted with such and such a wavelength then I can at once begin effective communica- tion with him. It is quite irrelevant to me whether he is actually conscious of it (like I am) or not. If this is true, then why did “redness” emerge into awareness at all instead of “behaviour towards red” remaining a subconscious and neutral event like the pupillary light reflex? It seems to me that what you have given us is a theory of emotions rather than a theory of consciousness. I see a partial answer to some of these questions in your example of the monkey Helen, who was (presumably) not conscious, although her visual behaviour could be restored; but would you like to elaborate’? Supposing I met a man whose visual performance was indistinguishable from normal (i.e. an extreme example of the kind of patient reported by Weiskrantz) but who lacked visual consciousness. Would this knowledge make any difference to my understanding him or communicating with him? If not, where does your argument stand? HUMPHREY: Your question about the function of “neutral states of consciousness” raises problems which, I am bound to say, I have not fully thought through. Certainly the hypothesis I’ve presented lends itself more readily to explaining why someone should be conscious of affective states (emotions, motives, etc.) than to explaining why they should be conscious of neutral states such as simple auditory or visual sensations. But I did not mean in my paper to sidestep the latter issue altogether, and I hope that what I say about “blindsight” does suggest where the answer lies. On pages 73-4 of my paper I do indeed discuss the question which you now put to me: “In what way would someone who lacked visual consciousness (e.g. after removal of the striate cortex) prove biologically defective?” And I answer it by suggesting that, in one respect at least, such a person would prove to be a poor psychologist, because he would find it difficult to conceive that the behaviour of another person was guided by what we call “sight” (I don’t say that he could never arrive at the concept, but it might well take him a long time to catch on). A parallel of a sort is provided by the difficulty zoologists have had in accepting the existence of “alien” sensory systems, such as the electric sense in fish or the magnetic sense in birds, of which a human being can have no introspective knowledge. More pertinent still, perhaps, is the case of so—called pheromones: it now seems quite probable that human beings are, without being consciously aware of it, influenced by chemical signals from other human beings — but the idea of pheromonal communication remains strange to us because (I would argue) we cannot fit it into a conceptual framework informed by our own consciousness. Radical behaviourists did, in the early days, actually attempt to develop models of both human and animal behaviour which, borrowing nothing from human insight, made no reference Nature’s Psychologists 77 to the existence of different sensory “modalities”; ordinary people, however, being dis- inclined to cut off their intuitive noses to spite their psychological faces, have always made life easier for themselves by relying on the phenomenology of their own conscious experience to generate the (genuinely) useful concepts of “sight”, “hearing“, “taste” and so on. RAMACHANDRAN: Is the distinction between ordinary consciousness and self—consciousness important to your argument? HUMPHREY: By ordinary consciousness or ‘raw consciousness” I mean sensations, desires, etc., existing as primitive mental events. Self—consciousness or reflexive consciousness, on the other hand, involves inward observation of what is happening on the level of raw consciousness: it is thus logically dependent on the existence of raw consciousness, although it might be argued that the converse is not true, i.e. that raw consciousness is not logically dependent on the existence of reflexive consciousness. However, I know of (and can imagine) no reason to suppose that raw consciousness does as a matter of fact ever exist without reflexive consciousness: indeed, if raw consciousness were present in a subject who was unable to reflect on it, he could not (by definition) notice it, remember it, think about it or, a fortiori, tell any one else about it. Further, I am not convinced that raw consciousness as such has, or could have, any independent biological function; my own view is that raw consciousness probably evolved to provide the substrate for reflexive consciousness. JOSEPHSON: While we are discussing reflexive or self—consciousness, it is worth pointing out that according to some people there are two kinds of “self” involved. There is the individual self, which is the accumulation of the individual’s own experiences, and the higher or transpersonal self concerned with creative insights and spiritual experience, which have the appearance of coming from a source beyond the individual and being unrelated to memory. While contact with a higher self is usually stated to be an exclusively human experience, possibly behaviour involving insight, as occurs with monkeys, indicates that they too possess this ability to a limited degree. VESEY: As you may know, philosophers spend a lot of their time talking about meaning. There are radically opposed views, some with quite a history to them. For instance, there is the empiricist view, held by people like John Locke, J.S. Mill, and, more recently, Bertrand Russell and A.J. Ayer. Roughly, they say that a word has meaning by being a name given to an experience. For instance, someone has a pain, gives the name “pain” to it, and then uses the same word again when he has an experience he recognizes as being similar to the one to which he first gave the name. (That is a one—sentence summary of what Mill says in Book I, Chapter 3, of his System of Logic, 1843.) This seems an attractively simple 78 N. K. Humphrey account of meaning, but there is a problem connected with it. If “pain” is a name I give to one of my experiences, and regive when I have a similar experience, what can I mean when I say that someone else is in pain? It’s a bit like knowing what it means to say that it is afternoon, when one is in Houston, Texas, and then being expected to understand the remark when one is half—way to the moon. The conditions of meaningfulness have been removed. There is no zenith for the sun to be past, no horizon for it not to be past. Similarly with talk about someone else being in pain, if one accepts the empiricist account of meaning. The condition of meaningfulness, that the sensation can be recognized as similar to the one first named, no longer holds. It seems to me that a basic presupposition of your argument is the correctness of the empiricist view of meaning. Do you have a solution to the problem l’ve indicated? HUMPHREY: Let me try to make my argument clearer with an example. Then maybe the problem you raise about meaning will be easier to resolve. Suppose that each and every one of us owns a whistling kettle, and that it is important to be able to predict the “behaviour” of these kettles (to anticipate their whistling, etc.). The external facts I observe about my own and other people’s kettles are, say, of the following kind: (i) the kettle when filled with cold water and put on the stove begins to whistle within about 5 minutes, (ii) the kettle takes less time to whistle when filled with hot water, (iii) the kettle takes more time to whistle when salt is added to the water, (iv) the kettle takes less time to whistle on top of a mountain, (v) if the kettle is filled with liquid nitrogen instead of water it whistles without being put on the stove, (vi) if the kettle is filled with treacle it doesn’t whistle at all, and so on. I suggest that, if these external facts were all I had to go on, the behaviour of the kettles might seem puzzling. I would be hard put to it to develop a theory of the relation between what is done to the kettle and what the kettle does. But suppose that, while everybody else’s kettle is made of tin, my own kettle is made of Pyrex glass so that I can see into it. I look into my kettle and observe (i) that when certain things are done to the kettle the liquid inside it boils, and (ii) that when the liquid boils the kettle whistles. I am led to regard boiling as an explanatory concept, an “intervening variable” which “bridges the causal gap between a set of antecedent circumstances and a set of subsequent actions- between what happens to my kettle and what my kettle does” (cf. my paper, p. 62). Thus I now explain the behaviour of my kettle by arguing along the following lines: the kettle whistles when the liquid boils, the liquid boils when the kettle is put on the stove, therefore the kettle whistles when it is put on the stove. But at this point something philosophically interesting has happened. While the concept of boiling has been put into my mind by a factual observation (what I actually saw when I looked into my kettle), its usefulness as an explanatory concept does not depend on the observation’s having been of any particular kind; indeed, I could have observed something quite different. Suppose, for example, that when I looked into my kettle I had observed the liquid turning a red colour under just those circumstances when in fact I saw it boil, then the concept of reddening might have come to play exactly the same role in my argument as the concept of boiling: the kettle whistles when the liquid reddens, etc. Indeed as far as my new-found theory is concerned it really doesn’t matter what I have actually observed (and a fortiori it doesn’t matter what I choose to call what I have observed — I might as well say the liquid in the kettle is in pain). Nature’s Psychologists 79 Now, how about other people’s kettles? Since they are made of tin I cannot, of course, observe the liquid inside their kettles boiling (or reddening or whatever). Can I then use the concept of boiling to help myself explain the behaviour of their kettles’? Yes. Since the usefulness of boiling as an explanatory concept is independent of any particular observation I have or could have made, the concept can play just the same role in my argument about someone else’s kettle as it does in my argument about my own. With regard to the problem of meaning, I accept that the factual propositions “The liquid in my kettle is boiling” and “The liquid in his kettle is boiling” are of different status (indeed the latter proposition is arguably, by positivist criteria, meaningless). But the explanatory propositions “My kettle is whistling because the liquid inside it is boiling” and “His kettle is whistling because the liquid inside it is boiling" are on a par. Another example to think about: suppose that Mendel, when he was searching for a theory of inheritance, could have observed his own genes. VESEY: You are right: your example does make your argument clearer. It makes it clearer that it is as follows. (i) The concept of boiling is put into one’s mind by what one observes on looking into kettles. Similarly, (ii) the psychological concepts one uses to explain people’s behaviour—concepts like expecting, hoping, remembering, understanding, wanting, wondering—are put into one’s mind by what one observes on looking into one’s mind (introspecting) when one is doing these things. (iii) That one cannot look into other people’s minds does not prevent one using psychological concepts to understand their behaviour. Not only does your example make your argument clearer; it also enables me to make clear the extent and nature of my disagreement with you. I disagree with you not only about (ii) but also about (i). And the disagreement is a fundamental one, about meaning. To know the meaning of a word (=“to have the concept for which the word stands”) is to know how to use the word correctly. A word’s being meaningful, and there being criteria of its correct use, go hand in hand. This being so, it does not make sense to talk of concepts being put into people’s minds by their observing things, either inner things or outer things. Concepts are not experiences, to be put into people’s minds by pointing their eyes, or their mind's eye, in the right direction. They are abilities exercised primarily, in humans, in acts of verbal communication. And the linguistic practices involved could not, even in theory, start as private practices. JOSEPHSON: The dilemma can be resolved by assuming that the concepts are already there in latent form in the nervous system, waiting to be triggered off by the relevant experiences. The latter do not have to be linguistic in nature. BARLOW: As a result of thinking about the biological role of consciousness both Nick Humphrey and I (see next paper, “Nature’s Joke”) have come to the same conclusion, namely that the survival value of consciousness is very much connected with its role in the social life of gregarious animals, but there is a difference between our proposals that may be important. I argue that consciousness is impossible without some kind of social interchange, so that 80 N. K. Humphrey mankind is driven to engage in social relations to preserve his consciousness. Consciousness is thus Nature’s tool to make man social, just as pain can be regarded as her tool to make us avoid injury. The survival value of consciousness would result from social hominids leaving more offspring than solitary hominids. If I understand Humphrey correctly, he regards the gregarious nature of man as a prior fact, and sees consciousness as conferring an advantage in competing against other individuals within the same social group. Am I right in understanding him to say that consciousness improves social behaviour, but does not actually help to generate it, as I would claim? I have another question relating to the use of the word “introspection”, for I don’t think we find out about others in this way. It is very likely true that you cannot understand certain aspects of other individuals’ behaviour until you have yourself undergone the experience motivating that behaviour, and this is interesting and important. But this insight seems to come by a process of imitation rather than introspection, which I take to mean a Conscious searching of one’s own mind. Sight of a pattern of muscular movements may enable one to imitate them, and I think one’s feelings can imitate the emotions that generate a pattern of behaviour in another. But I don’t think there is any conscious search in one’s mind for them, so I would hesitate to call this process introspection. HUMPHREY: 1. I hope Barlow will not mind if I characterize his argument as follows. Consciousness is rather like group sex: something which is a source of pleasure to the individual but which he can’t achieve on his own and so is obliged to seek through interaction with others. Thus Barlow sees the biological function of consciousness—the contribution it makes to biological survival—as the provision of an incentive to being social (sociality being essential to human survival). His argument rests, as I see it, on three premises: (i) people desire to be conscious (as, for example, they desire sex); (ii) people can only be conscious through social interaction; (iii) people would not be social if they were not made to be by this “trick” which Nature plays on them. Bar1ow’s question relates to this last point, and he is right to think that I disagree with him here. I do not believe that people remain in social groups in order to preserve their consciousness; my view is that people would, whether conscious or not, try to form social groups but that if they were not conscious they would probably fail because they would be unable to understand each other. In Barlow‘s view, without consciousness the social group would never get together; in my view, without consciousness the social group would fall apart. But either way, surprisingly enough, we draw the same conclusion, namely that consciousness is probably a necessary condition of being a highly social animal. And indeed we agree on a more specific prediction, namely that a dysfunction in the mechanism of consciousness (as I suggest may have occurred in Helen and Barlow suggests may occur in autistic children) is likely to show up as social maladjustment. 2. Barlow has misconstrued my argument if he thinks I‘m suggesting that “we find out about others” by introspection. No, we don’t “find out” about them that way; we find out about them by ordinary external observation — looking at them, listening to them, etc. What introspection does is to help us explain what we find out about them: it provides us with the explanatory concepts in terms of which we “make sense" of what we observe. This point is elaborated in my reply to Professor Vesey. But when, for example, we explain someone else’s behaviour by saying “He is crying because he is in pain” we don’t have to be feeling the pain ourselves (which is what Barlow seems to be implying by his remarks about “imitation"). CHAPTER 5 Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness H. B. BARLOW University of Cambridge ABSTRACT A physiologist needs to know the function of an organ when he tries to find out how it works, and a biologist needs to know the survival value conferred on an individual by the performance of that function. This essay provides a conjectural answer to the questions “What is the function of the consciousness of man?” and “What is its survival value? ’ ’. It is argued that consciousness primarily arises in the relation between one indivi- dual and another, and is not a property of a brain in isolation. One can, of course, be conscious when one is alone, but it is suggested that on these occasions one is rehears- ing future discourse with an imagined individual. This is rendered plausible by the fact that our brains are certainly adept model-makers and the character and person- ality of parents and others must be amongst the most thoroughly modelled aspects of a person's environment. Could one be conscious at all if all memories of experiences with other individuals were deleted from one’s brain? The individual values his consciousness above all else, but if it only arises in real or imagined relations with others, this will have an interesting consequence; his con- sciousness, the arena within which he makes his decisions, is not his own alone, but is influenced by and interacts with those others, real and imagined, with whom he must discourse in order to be conscious. This can be no accident, and it is suggested that Nature has constructed our brains so that, first, we seek to preserve individual con- sciousness; second, we can only achieve it in real discourse or rehearsed future dis- course; and third, important new decisions require the sanction of consciousness. These three aspects of consciousness generate a communal culture in the light of which individual decisions tend to be made. Thus the survival value of consciousness consists of the peculiar form of gregarious behaviour it generates in man; it is Nature’s trick to chain him to the herd. I became interested in the mind-body problem because I am a neurophysiologist and try to relate subjective experiences to the physical properties of sense organs and nerve cells. Now when a physiologist 81 82 H. B. Barlow wants to investigate the working of some organ he first forms a hypothesis about its function, because without such a hypothesis he is likely to waste much time studying inessential aspects of the organ; imagine, for instance, how futile it would be to investigate the lungs without knowing that the interchange of gases between the blood and air takes place in them. When thinking of consciousness my instinctive approach was to avoid studying what consciousness looked or felt like to myself, and also to avoid paying much attention to what philosophers have said about it, for this also seems mainly based on introspection. Nature does not tell us what our organs are for and is well able to make her actors think they are playing one part when they are really playing another, or serving in some quite different capacity. So instead of introspection and reading, my approach has been to observe the actors, to see what it is they refer to as consciousness, and to make a conjecture on its biological role. My conclusions depend, for whatever force they may have, first on this being (I think), an unusual approach to the problem, and second on the fact that a surprisingly simple, far-reaching and unifying concept does emerge. In the first part of the essay I argue that consciousness is not a property of a brain in isolation, but is a property of a brain that is and has been in communication with other brains. By communication I mainly mean talk, certainly nothing mysterious or non—physical; indeed I think that much of the apparent conflict with physics in the mind—body relation disappears if one accepts that consciousness is something to do with relations between brains rather than a property of a single brain. The second part tries to account for the prominence of these conscious interactions between brains in the conduct of the affairs of mankind. Because of its prominence one must ask the question “What is the survival value of consciousness?”. I shall suggest that consciousness, and particularly the restricted nature of our conscious knowledge of our own brains, is Nature’s method of making humans behave co-operatively. Our being is centred in our conscious self, but if consciousness is the relating of one brain to another, this means that one’s being is centred, not in one’s own brain, but in the relation between one’s own brain and others. The view that consciousness is much concerned with past and present interpersonal relationships may find supporters outside the realm of neurophysiologists and biologists. Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness 83 CONSCIOUSNESS A RELATION, NOT A PROPERTY Some everyday usages of the notion of consciousness clearly reflect an appreciation that it refers to relationships. For instance, if we ask “Is he conscious?”, someone will immediately try to establish contact with the person concerned to test his capacity for making such relationships. Furthermore, he is likely to apply the same test even if the person is behaving in an outwardly normal way, as might a sleepwalker or someone in an unusual, trance—1ike state. To be conscious is to be able to relate to others, not just to act normally. Another fact that fits the concept well is the prominence of language in our consciousness. One is at once consciously aware of the spoken word, which seems to take precedence over almost any other sensory experience, except perhaps intense pain. And if one has something to say, this thought in one’s head is certainly in the forefront of one’s conscious awareness. Received and uttered speech are, of course, the most important way that two brains relate to each other. Speech, however, is not the only way that brains relate in a way that I think qualifies for consciousness. The moment a baby first smiles at its mother seems at least as good a time to take for the birth of its consciousness as any other, and the capacity of an animal to respond personally to another or to its master might form a rather acceptable test of its consciousness: dogs and cats, yes; snails and toads, no. So far so good, but one does not have to look far to find difficulties, for I am obviously conscious when I am completely alone. It is true that, for others to know about these conscious experiences, I must establish relationships and interact with them, but it seems quite incorrect, from our own introspective knowledge, to deny that consciousness occurs until we communicate it to others. Or is it wholly wrong? Certainly some experiences gain greatly in vividness from the telling. But I shall simply maintain that immediate conscious experience is preparation for recounting the sensory events to others, that it is a rehearsal before other brains that are embedded or modelled in the imagination. This may sound far-fetched and evasive, but we know very well that our brains contain accurate maps and models of the physical environment, and an individual’s past experience and interaction with other people must surely form the basis of models of their character and 84 H. B. Barlow personality. It would be most surprising if we modelled people less effectively than we model the physical environment. Thus models of other brains normally exist in our heads, and one can ask “Could one have a conscious sensory experience at all if the models of all past and present acquaintances were suddenly deleted or made unavailable?”. Since we learn language from others, we should have no words to represent our awareness, and it is certainly only an impoverished awareness that can occur without words. Even this residue requires, 1 would claim, an imagined person to relate to before it can become conscious. Pain, it is true, seems to require no words for its experience, but it evokes a uniquely strong urge to communicate. Thus I conclude that subjective awareness, even of immediate sensation, is a form of imagined future discourse. Or to put it another way, the portion of the stream of sensory information of which one becomes conscious corresponds to what one is selecting for potential communication to others. It is reasonable to suppose that the brain has to make this preselection, whether or not circumstances are propitious or mandatory for actual communication, but I am insisting on the importance of one or more imagined recipients of the communication before it becomes conscious. An audience, as well as an actor, is necessary for consciousness. Self-awareness might be thought to pose another difficulty with the view that consciousness is a relationship and not a property. If it is a relationship, what is unique about one side of it? Should not consciousness be shared between the group of brains that are interacting and relating? It is interesting that groups do sometimes claim such common consciousness, though it is certainly not usual. But in any case a relationship can have a direction, and there is no need at all for relationships to imply dispersal and sharing. Every node in a network has its own individual set of connections, and it is this set of an individual brain’s directed relationships that I conceive of as its consciousness. Selfawareness would then result from a brain modelling the reaction of other brains, and incorporating the fact that the others, like itself, are nodes in an interacting network. This recognition that others are unique but like oneself implies the reciprocal, which is self—awareness: “I am unique, but similar to others.” Self-awareness is a product of efficient modelling of the relations between brains. Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness 85 Intentions and the making of decisions about future actions are important aspects of conscious mental activity; in fact consciousness is often thought of as the arena within which decisions are made and intentions declared. In what sense, it may be asked, is there really an audience here, people to relate to? Many decisions and intentions directly concern another person, and in these cases it is hard to believe that a brain as intelligent as the human’s would fail to employ the model it has of that other person. “I shall ring him up”; “I shall kiss her”; “I shall not pay this bill”: how could these intentions be declared without having in the forefront of one’s mind the people most directly concerned? It must be admitted there are other decisions where the audience is not necessary; for instance “I shall go to the laboratory by way of the market place because I want to buy some apples”. But my impression is that this type of decision is often barely conscious -one just finds oneself in the market buying the apples without having consciously made the decision. One can also raise the question as to why consciousness is thought of as an arena at all if there is no audience; it can hardly be the rest of one’s own brain one is telling for one does not need to shout or declaim to that. By now I hope to have established the concept of consciousness as the special quality or feeling that imbues those parts of a brain's activity that deal with the relationships of one individual with others. This requires appreciation of the model—making propensities of brains, and acknowledgement that models of other individuals, not real ones, are sometimes involved in the relationships. To strengthen the concept we must now look at the other part of the workings of a brain, those that are not accessible to consciousness. THE UNCONSCIOUS, UNRELATING BRAIN Consciousness has the illusion that it has access to most of the working of its own brain, but this is a foolish conceit and far from the case. There are a host of automatic actions that one can partially control consciously, such as breathing and walking, but clearly one has no introspective understanding of the intimate sequences of muscular contractions required to execute these acts. Similarly with sensory mechanisms: we see a red apple, but have no introspective access to the physiological mechanisms of receptors, retina, lateral geniculate nucleus, and primary 86 H. B. Barlow cortex that start to label the source of excitation. These aspects of motor and sensory mechanisms are an individual brain’s private business, and on the current view it is not surprising that they are inaccessible to conscious introspection. The conceit of consciousness’s claim to know its own brain’s working is well brought out by our introspective ignorance of details of the models of the environment and its furniture. These enable us to walk around town, eat a meal, or drive a car, and they are extraordinarily complex, as the experts in artificial intelligence who try to imitate them have discovered. However, all we have conscious access to is the end—product, not the inner workings. A nice demonstration of our ignorance of such details is provided by the contrasted habits of the left (clutch) and right (brake and accelerator) feet when driving. The left foot has to be withdrawn slowly and skilfully when starting, but the opposite action rarely has to be done delicately and the left foot is usually depressed forcefully and suddenly. Most people are quite unaware that their feet have modelled the car’s requirements, but the left foot’s habit of indelicate depression is dramatically revealed if it is used for braking when driving an automatic. What is even odder about these models is our unawareness of the process of their construction. We acquire knowledge and skill, and can consciously use the end—product, but we cannot reconstruct the steps by which they were acquired. They are formed by experience and the experience is “remembered” in the sense that it is incorporated into the model, but it is not independently available. This is certainly one important form of unconscious memory, but notice that it requires no active “repression” to explain its unavailability; this simply results from each individual memory being merged in the averaging process by which the model must be formed. Freudian notions of the unconscious are particularly interesting, for in this case it is claimed that there are past experiences that guide and largely control an individual’s behaviour, yet are repressed and thereby deliberately kept from conscious awareness. That may be so, but on the present viewpoint the working of the brain is necessarily unconscious except when it is communicated to others. Active repression is quite unnecessary, and instead some active inducement, a model brain soliciting discourse, is required to bring a thought to consciousness. Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness 87 Perhaps the role played by the helpful counsellor or analyst is to solicit this discourse directly, and to provide the model for the patient to continue the discourse in his imagination. The increased range of consciousness would thereby be simply and directly explained. Clearly one could continue to speculate along these lines. For instance, if nature normally imbues interpersonal relations with this special characteristic, perhaps she sometimes fails to do so, as she sometimes fails to provide full colour vision, or as with the occasional congenital absence of pain sensations; could this be the defect in the autistic child? At all events the main point to emphasize at this stage is that if an individual needs other brains in order to become conscious, these other brains will have a reciprocal effect on the individual: he cannot become conscious of what he cannot communicate. Enough has been said to show that making relations its primary seat leads to a very different view of consciousness. It can no longer be thought of as something added to the physical brain, or “emerging” when the brain reaches a certain size, maturity, or complexity. Consciousness is something to do specifically with that part of a brain that deals with other brains, and this is why it is interesting. The question how the brain brings about these interactions loses interest, for there is no reason to believe that the mechanisms of the brain achieve this function differently from any others. The question whether they are bound by the laws of physics, or have an influence on them, no longer seems a specially important one. Indeed it becomes almost absurd when one appreciates that consciousness is concerned with the part of the brain that handles human relations, for then there are so many other more interesting questions to ask about it. It is like harping on the question “Is speech the physical vibration of air molecules?”. Sound might be so described, but speech is so much more than sound that the answer to the question becomes unimportant; an affirmative answer leaves the interest and importance of speech unimpaired. I hope you are convinced that one can include all the normally accepted aspects of consciousness in a view of it which makes the relating of one brain to another the primary act of consciousness. I cannot conceive how we could logically decide between this view and others which place “Je pense” or “Ich will” or “I feel” in the primary position. But just as the geocentric view of the universe lost ground because it had to be 88 H. B. Barlow made increasingly complex to accommodate new facts, so I hope that the view that consciousness arises in interpersonal relations will gain ground because it brings out clearly and simply the cause of its own evolution: it gives a clear answer to the question about its functional role and survival value. It is this unifying role that gives point and purpose to the conjecture; but let me first illustrate with a short story. An informed and friendly person places in your hands what he tells you is a stone, but it is soft and warm instead of being hard and cold as you expected. Surprise prompts curiosity, and you find that there is indeed a stone in your hand, but it has been heated and wrapped in a soft woollen sock. I have been saying that interpersonal relations envelop the hard physical brain in all those aspects where we talk of consciousness, and this is what makes mind appear soft and non—physical. Now this episode is not bizarre and senseless because your friend gave you the hot stone wrapped in a sock for a purpose, namely to help you keep your hands warm. I am going now to suggest why our dubious friend, Nature, placed this warm and glowing consciousness in our heads; the answer, I am afraid, turns out to imply we are the victims of a confidence trick, but it leads to a less bizarre and senseless view of consciousness than is to be found in most philosophies. CONSCIOUSNESS, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE HERD The answer I want to propose is that consciousness is Nature’s trick to ensure that mankind behaves co-operatively, that he is a gregarious animal. We all regard our own consciousness as our most personal and treasured possession: not to be conscious is not to be alive, and to be unconscious is next to death. Yet if consciousness is one’s own brain’s discourse with other brains, there are only two ways for it to stay alive. The first is to engage in real discourse with real people for as much of the day as possible, and no one will deny that that solution promotes the gregariousness of mankind. The second, as we have seen, is to engage in rehearsal of future discourse. It is this capacity to use his models of other brains, to substitute imagined for real discourse, that seems to make man’s social life so different from other gregarious creatures. How long could a purely imaginary discourse be sustained? How can one continuously check that members of the audience of one’s imagined Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness 89 discourse are good models and correspond to their prototypes in the real world? The rehearsal and imagined discourse cannot be stored indefinitely and therefore, if I have stated the nature of consciousness correctly, an attempt must sooner or later be made to communicate it to others. This, it seem to me, is the origin of Popper’s World 3, the world of human culture, books and other products of man’s mind. Thus, if people spend much time alone, it follows from the biological role of consciousness, as presented here, that culture will be produced. Perhaps cave paintings, those time—defying communications, were an early manifestation; our books, movies, and tapes the more transient modern versions. Attempting to contribute towards or to understand our cultural heritage is an activity that links one to the rest of mankind, and thus is a form of gregarious behaviour, but obviously a much more interesting one than a sheeplike desire to follow, to huddle, or to avoid being on the edge of the flock. The essence of this new trick to ensure gregarious behaviour is that one only experiences one’s most personal possession, one’s own consciousness, when one is sharing it with others; one only has it when one gives it away. But that is just half the story. A convention is two—sided. I cannot say anything I like, but only what you will listen to and understand. Conventions must be established and adhered to, including those of language itself. This means that when I preserve my consciousness by entering into a real discourse with you, you have some control over what I can say, what I can become conscious of. There is nothing mystical about this and it is no more strange than a townsman not losing his way in his town because he knows it. It follows naturally from my brain’s ability to model you and your ways of thought, to learn your language, to take account of your past responses, known fields of expertise, your likes, dislikes and prejudices. Because I must take these into account to converse with you, you exert some reciprocal control over my consciousness, just as the plan of the town controls the townsman’s movements. And, of course, what is true of real discourse with a real person is also true of discourse with the imagined people who substitute for a real person when I am attempting to maintain consciousness by rehearsing future discourse. My family and friends, cultural archetypes, my experience of father—figures and schoolmasters, have a firm grip on what can enter my conscious mind, and because of consciousness’s self—importance, they also control my decisions and behaviour. 90 H. B. Barlow Now let us look at it from Nature’s viewpoint. Can you imagine a neater trick than this for making man a social being? She implants in you this special sensation called consciousness, telling you it is your very own possession, from birth to death; she tells you there is really nothing else that is your own, this is your very being, and it is so important that no new decision can be made, no major intention formulated, without this accompanying sensation. All this, of course, she tells you in her own script, in DNA, so that consciousness inevitably has these properties. But she also arranges that nothing whatever will give rise to that sensation of consciousness except a communication between your own brain and another brain of the species Homo sapiens, though she is not explicit about that. Without knowing why, you spend your life chasing the herd, attempting to communicate with it, and rehearsing such communication when you are unable to achieve it. Man is thus trapped by this glorious, hilarious, trick, but it is a trick with remarkable consequences. Who could have foretold that making an animal gregarious in this particular way would cause the earth to become a storehouse and museum of the products of his mind? We had better enjoy the joke, for there is no escape; we each are chained for life to the herd and its image. But during that life we could try to ensure that the earth grows as a museum and does not become, too soon, just a dead monument to Nature's Joke. Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousnesss 91 Discussion RAMACHANDRAN: Let me first summarize your argument to see if I have got it right. You begin by rejecting epiphenomenalism (according to which consciousness is merely the “inner aspect” of cerebral activity) on the grounds that if this view were correct we should be conscious of everything that goes on inside our brains. Since only a tiny fraction of brain events emerge into consciousness you ask “What is it that characterizes these events and makes them different from other brain events?”. Your answer is that the need to communicate certain internal states to other members of the species led to their emergence into consciousness. For instance, we shout when jabbed with a needle and maybe this is possible only because we consciously feel pain. On the other hand, it would be biologically useless to communicate (say) the pupil’s response to light to another person and so this has remained an unconscious reflex. First, your argument requires that the common denominator of all conscious brain states (as opposed to unconscious ones) is the fact that they would have survival value if communicated to members of the species. Unfortunately this does not seem to be true. I am aware of a much wider range of (say) sensations than I would ever want to communicate. For instance, I can see dozens of shades of green. If ordinary language has only one or two words for green (e.g. light green, dark green) then what exerted the selection pressure for me to become conscious of dozens of shades? I can also see hundreds of depth planes using binocular parallax (stereopsis) and I am conscious of each of these. Why not accept the more conventional view that we are aware of depth in order to obtain visual feedback for prey catching and locomotion? What use would it be to communicate stereopsis to my neighbours? My point is that we can be (potentially) conscious of a much wider range of events than we would ever want to or need to communicate; and so language could not have exerted the selection pressure that led to the emergence of these states into Consciousness. I would argue that events emerge into consciousness only if they are linked to the brain’s decision—making mechanisms, i.e. the centre in the brain that is involved in assessing priorities of action based on certain goal criteria (what MacKay calls the “supervisory system" in this volume). Of course, this centre may be incidentally linked to language areas in man but that does not necessarily implicate language in consciousness. Second, it wasn’t clear to me whether you want to distinguish between linguistic and non-linguistic communication and between creative and non-creative use of language. Much of non»linguistic communication (popularly known as “body language”) is completely unconscious, and people can unconsciously exchange a great deal of information without uttering a single word (e.g. the pupil’s response to attractiveness). Conversely we often speak of “mindless babble” when people engage in unintelligent (though articulated) conversation. So perhaps you need consciousness only for particular kinds of communication. Finally, even if we accept your argument that consciousness is intimately related to language, it doesn‘t follow that consciousness is causally effective in permitting or facilitating communication. If the physical world (including communicating brains) is a closed system then I don’t see how consciousness can influence it. Indeed there is nothing logically impossible about brains communicating actively without consciousness ever coming into the picture. Would you agree with this? 7 _ 92 H. B. Barlow BARLOW: I almost agree with your summary of my argument but would like to add a bit more. I am postulating that the innate desirability of consciousness, together with the impossibility of attaining it except by communication, is an important factor in causing man to be social and gregarious. Thus the need to communicate that you refer to becomes more than a matter of finding pragmatic solutions to current problems; it becomes more like the motive for all existence. So in answer to your first question I would say that not every conscious brain state need have survival value if communicated; it is the practice of social communication that has survival value, and single communications may not. Thus I don’t really find it contradictory that our sensations are more fine-grained than our communications. Surely our sensations do not contain details that we can be sure we would never wish to communicate; in seeking the right tint of paint you might ask for something “less bluey, more olive”, thus using a detail of your fine»grained sensory representation in a social communication. Similarly with stereopsis you might say “nearer" or “further" in directing someone how to pour the champagne into your glass and not onto the floor. I would also agree with your remarks about consciousness being linked to the decision- making mechanisms, but think the decisions we are most conscious of are those with social implications, whereas decisions with no social relevance are often made unconsciously. With regard to non-verbal communication, are you sure “body-language” is entirely unconscious, to either communicant or recipient? But I don't want to evade an important issue here. Whereas I think there is little if anything in consciousness that is of purely private concern, I very much doubt if the converse is true; I Very much doubt if all the social communications we make and receive pass through our consciousness. So I agree there is a missing factor here. Finally, why should not brains communicate without consciousness? Well, as I’ve just said, I think they do. In the same way I think an animal's spinal cord mediates reflex responses to noxious stimuli without experiencing pain. The subjective experience of pain puts in motion strategies for longer—term avoidance and recovery. In the same way consciousness is something we desire and seek, but can only achieve by communication; attaining this consistently calls for long-term planning. VESEY: You say that what philosophers have said about consciousness seems mainly based on introspection. This is not true of what Wittgenstein says about consciousness in his later works (e.g. Philosophical Investigations, Pt. I, sections 412 ff ., 1953). In fact, I wonder whether you couldn’t make use of a rather Wittgensteinian argument to support what you say about a connection between communication and consciousness. It is the argument propounded by Anthony Kenny in the I972/3 Gifford Lectures (A. J. P. Kenny et al., The Development of Mind, Edinburgh University Press, 1973, pp. 9I—l07). Very briefly, the argument is (i) that the behaviour of language-users is rule-governed, (ii) that if someone’s behaviour is governed by a rule he must be to some degree conscious of the rule, and (iii) that it would not be possible to distinguish between correct and incorrect applications of a rule if there were not a community of languageusers. Obviously it is too much to ask you for a snap decision on the validity of an argument that has quite a lot of theorizing about the philosophy of language behind it. But I'd be interested to know whether you think the Nature's Joke: A Conjecture on the Biological Role of Consciousness 93 sort of consideration Kenny advances is compatible with an evolutionary explanation of consciousness. (Kenny himself says that: “there seem to be profound difficulties in principle in seeing how the practice of following rules could have . . . been produced by natural selection’ ’ .) BARLOW: I did not want to insult philosophers by implying that all they have ever said about consciousness stems from introspection. However, I don't think they often go as far as they should in mistrusting common—sense introspective ideas about consciousness. My reason for this mistrust arises partly from recognition that our actions can be guided by brain events and mechanisms of which we are unconscious; you do not have to be a dogmatic Freudian to accept that this does sometimes occur. But in a more important way it stems from comparisons of the biological and introspective viewpoints on other prominent subjective experiences. Pain, to a biologist, is a signal to an animal that warns of more serious injury and is thus protective, but there is no trace of this protectiveness in the subjective, introspective, experience of pain. Similarly with love: to a biologist this is the set of emotions that guide reproduction and child rearing, but when touched by it we do not rush forward and say “Ah, how fertile and motherly you look”, nor would it be well received if we did. Our nature is such that we experience conscious thoughts and feelings that make us act in certain ways, and it is these actions that serve Nature’s purpose. The logic and rationality of the whole sequence is not at all evident in the part that we consciously experience, and my thesis is that this is true of consciousness itself. I am afraid I have not attempted to tackle Wittgenstein on this matter, but I confess that 1 find Kenny’s argument amazingly unconvincing. Does he really think that one must be to some degree conscious of every rule one follows? Can he give me a list of the rules he follows when choosing his footfalls on a rocky mountain path? Or when deciding that his daughter’s face is the third from the left in the front row of the school photograph? Or when deciding the appropriate way to introduce his guest in a crowded room? The suggestion that the practice of following rules could not have been produced by natural selection was, I thought, largely demolished in the discussion by Waddington and Lucas that followed Kenny’s contribution to the Gifford Lectures. I do not know that much more need be added, but I am sure Kenny would agree that few human mates are selected (by either sex) without the use of language. Since language is a rule-following game, it is only too easy to see how its skilful use can be a positive factor in survival and propagation; fine words, for the human, are at least the equivalent in this respect of fine tail-feathers for the peacock. And it must be added that words and language are a great deal more useful, and confer much greater survival advantage, in other circumstances. So in summary I do not see any reason why consciousness should not have evolved by natural selection. But to accept this you will have to look at the way it induces us to behave, not at your subjective experience of it. RAMACHANDRAN: In a sense your argument seems to be the exact converse of what Nick Humphrey has suggested (Chapter 4). Would you like to say anything about the relation between your views and his? 94 H. B. Barlow BARLOW: I was as surprised as anyone else to find that we have been thinking about the same subject, but this surprise should be tempered by the knowledge that both of us are receptive to current ideas in sociobiology, and an extension of these ideas to philosophical problems was a natural channel for both our thoughts to flow along. It is gratifying that we agree on the answer to the question “What does consciousness do?”, namely that it promotes man’s survival as a social animal. But then we seem to diverge, for I assume nothing about consciousness except that it is desirable to the individual, and only attainable in real or imagined social relations. Nick Humphrey takes a less radical view, endowing consciousness with many of the properties that we think it has by subjective introspection. Thus 1 think he assumes that, because we are conscious of some piece of information we shall make better, more rational, use of it. Now I don’t see why this should be so: why should not observation of the behaviour of a conspecific creature that is hungry, love—sick or jealous lead to unconscious recognition of the cause of its behaviour? Indeed I think this does often happen, and social behaviour induced by such unconscious intuition is as rational and appropriate as that which follows conscious recognition. Nevertheless one can see that there is an important difference between the unconscious and the conscious case, for in the latter one can communicate directly about the motive state; one can say “I see you are hungry and shall give you food", whereas the unconsciously motivated response could only have been the action of giving food. Thus we see yet another link between consciousness and communication. To put this another way, I think I neglected the aspect of consciousness that Nick Humphrey emphasizes most strongly, its input from one’s own emotional state. But whereas he says this is important for understanding others, I think this understanding comes at least as effectively from unconscious intuition, and the importance of conscious awareness of one’s emotional state lies in facilitating communication; this awareness adds important words to our language. And I must say I prefer my more radical view of consciousness as the prompter and initiator of man’s social and intellectual life to his more conservative view that it simply facilitates these activities and makes them more effective. CHAPTER 6 Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains D. M. MACKAY University of Keele ABSTRACT The bizarre symptoms produced by section of the corpus callosum in man have led to a variety of speculations about the consciousness to be attributed to the result. Are there now two conscious minds, or even two persons, where there was one before? Is one brain hemisphere conscious, the other unconscious? Do normal (unsplit) brains embody two conscious persons all the time? Should we grant that both halves are conscious but only one is self-conscious? And so on. In this paper I want to examine some of the presuppositions that underlie such questions, from the standpoint of information engineering. The intention is not to enter into the vexed question whether automata can be conscious, but only to take advantage of a system of concepts common to both neurology and automata theory as a scaffolding on which to feel our way around these perplexing problems. From this standpoint I shall argue that in order to attribute significant determinative power to conscious processes we have no need to rely on any breach of physical causality in the nervous system. Our primary focus will be, not on the processing, storing and retrieval of informa- tion, nor merely on the co—ordination of sensori-motor performance, but on the evaluative aspects of conscious agency. Unless a surgical operation splits the evaluative hierarchy into two autonomously functioning wholes, there would seem to be no justification for considering the result to be two independent, conscious individuals, however elaborately absent-minded the victim might be. In the interests of clarity, it is suggested that to speak of “hemispheres” or “brains" as conscious is to fasten on the wrong target. It is agents who may (or may not) be conscious, not brains or half-brains. In this contribution I want to raise three questions, two of which I hope will clear the ground for the third. First, starting from the ground level of common experience, how does talk of “consciousness” arise, and what implications has it for our view of physical reality? Next, at what level of 95 96 D. M. Mackay analysis, and in what categories, might we hope to find distinctive features of brain states in which a subject is conscious, as opposed to those in which he is not? Finally, under what conditions does it make sense to claim that we are confronted with two or more conscious individuals? This last question will be related particularly to the bizarre phenomena manifested in cases where the human brain has been partially split by section of the corpus callosum. HOW DOES TALK OF CONSCIOUSNESS ARISE? What we call “conscious experience” is for each of us the primary datum to which all our thinking must do justice —the ground on which we must build even our doubting. All our knowledge of the physical world and of other people goes back to this base; so any attempt to deny the foundational reality of conscious experience would be derisorily selfcancelling. Whatever else “exists” or “does not exist”, the existence of at least one conscious agent in the world is a fact for all of us. When trying to relate the data of conscious experience to what we believe about the physical world, I have found an imaginary visual aid‘ helpful in the interests of semantic hygiene. If you were asked to bear witness to the content of your conscious experience, you could in principle write down a long list of statements in a vertical column, each beginning with “I”. “I see—such-and—such”; “I hear—that”; “I feel—thus— and—so”; “I remember— . . .”; ‘‘I believe— . . .”; and the like. Call this collectively the “I-story”. The I-story bears witness to data that you would be lying to deny. Now the objective of those of us in brain research is to fill out entries in a parallel column (say to the right of the first), describing states of or processes in your central nervous system that correlate with the facts listed on the left. We may call it the “brain story”. How do we get to this from our base in experience? The general answer is: through our experience as conscious agents; but to trace the logical path without jumping illegitimate gaps will take some care and patience. As conscious agents we find ourselves having to reckon with constraints (boundary conditions) on our action and our planning of action. We cannot move freely in all directions, for example. There are “objects” in the way, and other limitations and enablements (such as Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 97 “gravitational forces”) to be taken into account. These constraints, many of them conditional on one another, are regular enough to be worth naming, modelling, analysing mathematically, and so forth. We attribute them to “physical reality”, meaning what must be reckoned with in planning and taking action with our muscular system. Through our sensory experience our conditional readiness to reckon with the physical world is continually updated. This updating in self—matching response to the demands of sensory information we call conscious perception of the physical world? By suitably designed exploratory and experimental interaction we can analyse and elaborate the structure of environmental contingencies and develop a scientific map of physical reality which enlarges our conditional readiness far beyond the immediate correlates of our own perceiving. The total structure of our conditional readinesses represents (embodies) what we believe about the physical world. One relatively minute sample of physical reality we each find we have to reckon with in a special way. It is our own nervous system. This can in principle be prodded, weighed, dissected like other physical objects; but whereas changes in the rest of the physical world are known to us only by observation or report (and may be ignored by closing our eyes, ears, etc.), there is good evidence that certain physical changes in certain parts of our nervous system directly correlate with changes in our conscious experience. In many regions of that system, especially in the periphery, physical activities may normally be necessary correlates of sensory experience and the like; but (as the use of peripheral anaesthetics or the results of cortical brain damage can demonstrate) they are not at all sufficient. Only in deep central brain structures, most of which still await detailed identification, do we find physical activities so unconditionally correlated with the subject’s experience that we may suppose them to be sufficient conditions of that experience. (Even then, of course, this is only a working hypothesis made plausible, but not conclusively demanded, by the data of neurology.) Although the details of the correlation between “I-story” and “brain—story” are at present obscure, the conjecture we are considering is that no change can take place in your conscious experience without some corresponding change taking place in the physical structure concerned. This in principle defines the postulated cerebral correlate of any experience: it is that physical state or process which must change if any change takes place in that experience. 98 D. M. Mackay The point of our visual aid is just to remind us that mental terms like seeing, feeling, thinking, hoping, believing, and being conscious all belong to the left-hand column. The corresponding places on the right, if the assumption were valid, would all be occupied by references to physical, or at any rate mechanistic, concepts such as nerve-cell firings, synaptic modifications and the like. Note that these are not translations of mental terms but only correlates, in something of the sense in which an electronic engineer’s account of the physical process in a computer is a correlate of the description a mathematician might give of what the computer is doing. Neglect of this distinction causes much confusion, as when people claim that in conscious experience we perceive directly what is happening in our brains. If we actually wanted to do that, we should have to use appropriate instruments like anybody else; and as we shall now see, we might run into sufficiently profound epistemological difficulties to convince us of the difference between self—awareness and self-observation! THE COSTS OF KNOWING According to the working hypothesis of brain science, then, we come to know only at the cost of dedicating a relatively minute region of the physical world inside our own heads to the purpose of representing what we know or believe. Let us call this our “cognitive system”. Because it is the region of our nervous system that has to represent what we know or believe, by determining the corresponding conditional constraints and enablements, our cognitive system must change significantly as what we know or believe changes; and by the same token, it is itself something not to be known by us. (In a community of persons in dialogue, as we shall see later, this dedicated region may expand to include the cognitive systems of those in dialogue with us.) “Not to be known” here means “not to be known until afterwards”. Tell me later if you like, but not now—your effort is bound to be selfstultifying. If you had a completely accurate and detailed statedescription of the immediate future of my cognitive system, the changes that would be necessary to embody it in my cognitive system now must (logically must) render it out of date for me. Until afterwards, in a certain strict sense it is not just undiscoverable by me but indeterminate-for-me. Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 99 This last distinction is important. (a) A state may be unknowable—by-A, or undiscoverable-by—A, in the weak sense that although there exists in principle a state-description which has an unconditional claim to A’s assent (i.e. A would be correct to believe it and in error to disbelieve it if only he knew it) A cannot acquire this description. (Example: a detailed statespecification of the particles in the centre of the sun.) This is not a particularly interesting case, unless perhaps to a very old-fashioned variety of logical positivist. (b) A state may, however, be indeterminate—for-A, in the much stronger sense that no fully detailed description of it exists which A would be correct to believe and in error to disbelieve.’ The immediate future of my cognitive system is indeterminate-for—me (and of yours indeterminate-for-you) in this strong sense — quite regardless of the extent to which it may be affected by any physical (Heisenberg—type) ‘ ‘uncertainty’ ’ . Now of course socially, especially for scientific purposes, we share a concept of “the physical world” as if it were well defined or even (in preHeisenberg days) completely determinate. The point we must note, however, is that when each of us appropriates the concept for himself, he has to recognize one region of his physical world (a different one for each) to be systematically indeterminate - namely, the region that represents his present knowing. The physical world may be littered with physical relics of my past knowings and those of others, which are now fully determinate for me and everybody else. But at any given time there IS in our physical world a flickering, shifting little area of indeterminacy, different for each of us, which waits for us to determine its state by our cognitive activity. _ In this sense, the shared social concept of a determinate physical world is strictly a make-believe, even without reference to Heisenberg uncertainty. If our brains are accepted as part of the physical world, then the true picture of that world for each of us includes an irreducible area of indeterminacy, whereof we as cognitive agents are the necessary determinants. This partly indeterminate world is the only world we know. Any Image of the physical world that showed all our cognitive systems in complete1y determinate future states would be false to reality, in the strict sense that we would be in error if we believed it to be the only one 100 D. M. Mackay possible. Such an image of someone else ’s brain may exist with an unconditional claim to my assent, if I am physically uncoupled from him; but none exists with such a claim to the assent of all. In this strict sense the social concept of a fully determinate future for the physical world is logically bankrupt. It is like a cheque which is endorsed “Not payable to anyone signing”.“ LOGICAL RELATIVITY It may be tempting to feel that if others (sufficiently detached observers) could in principle observe and predict the future of the area for which we have a “blind spot”, this would show that it was not “really” indeterminate for us, but that we were just “invincibly ignorant” of its immediate future. But this would be a logical mistake. The most we could validly conclude is that the area was not indeterminate-for—others—but this was granted at the outset. The situation is relativistic, in the strong sense that no single determinate total state-description of physical reality can exist upon which all would be unconditionally correct to agree. What the detached observers know about the future of our brains is not knowledge for us. It is not that knowledge exists which we lack and cannot gain, or cannot be persuaded to accept. The truth is rather that because of our unique relationship to the subject matter, what the detached observers correctly believe would be inaccurate information for us if we had it. It would thus be a solecism to describe our lack of it as “ignorance”, invincible or otherwise. This logically tantalizing conclusion is perhaps the most remarkable consequence of the assumption that conscious experience is physically embodied} Objectors to the foregoing argument have sometimes claimed that it could be circumvented by ensuring that the future state-description was corrected to take account of the changes in the cognitive system that would be produced by embodying it there. Recondite mathematical theorems have been invoked to prove that this is in principle possible.“ It may be worth taking a few lines to see how this move misses the point. Suppose that (with the help of the “Fixed Point Theorem” or whatever) a super—scientist could derive a detailed future state-description of your cognitive system that would become accurate if (but only if) you believed it. Then indeed he has found a possible description that you Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 101 would be correct to believe; but unless he were allowed to interact with your situation so as to make you believe it, in the way he has assumed in making his calculations, it must remain false. Furthermore, and logically more important, what he has derived is something that you would not be in error to disbelieve! Thus whether or not in fact you were given it and believed it, his cooked-up state-description has no unconditional claim to your assent (such that you would be correct to believe it and in error to disbelieve it). On the contrary, your assent is one of the factors that will determine whether it is correct. Even if we imagine that in a given case the super—scientist could predict that you would be given it and would assent to it, and you did, it would not follow that its logical claim on you was unconditional; for that would require him to show that you would have been in error had you rejected it. But in fact if you had disbelieved it, the assumption on which it was based would have been ipso facto false, so you would still have been right to do so! Thus although you were not mistaken to believe it, and he (having been allowed to influence you) was right to predict you would, its claim to your assent was not unconditional. You would have been mistaken to accept his prediction as inevitable—for—you. A DISTINCTIVE CORRELATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS? One particularly important class of change in my nervous system is that which causes me to “lose consciousness”. When this happens I become unable, then or later, to bear witness to events observable by others during the time that my system was in this abnormal state. (In passing, this common phenomenon surely throws doubt on the notion sometimes aired, that consciousness is something that arises automatically when matter is organized into structures of sufficient complexity!) Metaphorical talk of “losing consciousness” or “regaining consciousness” might seem to lend support to speculations that “consciousness” is the name of some kind of entity, like fuel or electric charge, that can exert quasi—physical influences on the brain; but this inference would be as invalid as the conclusion that “loss of balance” in a wheel, or “loss of stability” in a servo system, must refer to the escape of intangible substances called “balance” or “stability”. When I regain consciousness I become a conscious agent -1 do not acquire one. Note 102 D. M. MacKay too that it is I who become conscious, and not my brain or CNS. Doubtless when I am conscious my CNS is organized in some correspondingly distinctive way; but it would be a solecism to claim that it is conscious. How then may we hope to make explicit what is distinctive about the cerebral correlate of consciousness? As it happens, the requirements of industry and war for the mechanization of intelligent action have given rise to a conceptual framework that seems well adapted for the purpose. It goes by the name of information-flow analysis. Applied to a living organism it means a systematic attempt to identify needs for information in the functioning of the organism, and to discover how the necessary information is acquired? In any organism there is a more or less rich repertoire of possible modes of action in the world, including complex “sub-routines”. Information is needed to determine the running selection from this repertoire that constitutes the behaviour of the animal. Where does this information come from? In part, of course, from the receptor system; but the raw data are not enough. At a minimum, if behaviour is to be goal—directed, there must be a stage of evaluation of incoming information in the light of criteria sufficient to determine whether, and if so what, corrective action is called for. Normally the calculation of adaptive action will have to take account also of stored information, kept up to date by sensory input. Where then do the criteria of evaluation come from? In something like a thermostat they are set by a human supervisor, but in an autonomous organism any reordering of goals and priorities is normally organized internally. Let us call the system responsible (whatever it may turn out to be) the supervisory system. Because of the complex array of alternative goals and sub—goals, norms and satisfactions pursued under different conditions by human beings in particular, the human supervisory system must be at least hierarchic, and more probably heterarchic (having feedback between levels) in structure. At this point we face a choice. Some thinkers, of whom Sir John Eccless is a distinguished contemporary exemplar, would locate at least part of the human supervisory system outside the physical world altogether. This would mean that some of the lines of information-flow in our map would have to terminate in thin air, so to say: the “self-conscious mind” would Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 103 exert non-physical influences on appropriately “open” elements of the nervous system. It is important to recognize that no scientific data rule out such speculations. Those of us who object to them do so rather on the grounds that they multiply entities beyond any demonstrated necessity. I must indeed confess to feeling the same objection to Professor Josephson’s conjectures in the present symposium, even though (in his spoken presentation) he prefers to speak of consciousness as “some kind of physical substance”. But could an information-flow model without such extra-physical entities be compatible with the facts of conscious experience? Above all, could it offer any natural (rather than contrived ad hoc) distinctive correlate of the conscious as opposed to the unconscious state? It is sometimes objected that for any mechanistic theory of brain functions, conscious and unconscious states must be equally and indistinguishably reducible to “mere” configurations of nerve impulses; but this I believe is a mistake based on the wrong level of analysis — as if someone were to claim that to a telegraph engineer all messages must be indistinguishable in terms of the physical currents carrying them. Once you know the code, the opposite is true: physical data can actually provide a way of cross—checking a description of the message being sent. EVALUATIVE SUPERVISION The alternative view, which seems at present the more parsimonious, would be that all the lines of cause—and—effect on the information—flow map form closed loops within the brain or by way of the external physical world, and that the distinctive correlate of a conscious state should be sought first in the form of the informational activity. The conjecture I would favour° is that the direct correlate of our conscious experience is not the activation of sensory receiving centres, nor even the exercise of sensori-motor co-ordination as such, but the “meta-organizing” evaluative activity of the supervisory system. According to this conjecture, any brain centre could in principle be active without my necessarily experiencing a conscious correlate; but any change that was significant at the level of the evaluative supervisory activity in my CNS would have its necessary correlate in my experience. What is distinctive, according to this hypothesis, is the information—flow structure of the 104 D. M. Mackay physical activity concerned, rather than any vulnerability of the physical components to extra—physical influences. Without going into details, we may note that on this view the total physical correlate whose “informational shape” determines the content of conscious experience will constantly change with the domain of supervisory activity. In driving a car or playing a game of tennis, for example, the evaluative flow—system will have informational feedback loops reaching out not only into primary cortex but also into the outside world of action. It is well known that a blind man with a cane perceives his world as out there at the tip of his cane, not in his palm. The total physical system in which my conscious experience is embodied at a given time may thus extend far beyond the boundaries of my skin, which from this standpoint are largely incidental. What then of the distinction between human self—consciousness and the general conscious awareness that most of us would attribute to lower animals? Without any further assumptions ad hoc, our analysis suggests a natural correlate. We can think of the human supervisory system, like that of other animals suitably equipped, as keeping up to date the internal representation of the world by an active matching response to incoming information. If, however, this response in man is organized partly at the abstract conceptual level developed for purposes of verbal communication with others, we could expect our correlated experience to link directly with Verbalized thinking: “There goes so—and—so on his bicycle”; “What’s that? —Oh, it’s the missing cuff-link”; and so on. If now we imagine the field of “incoming information” widened to include information about the activity of the supervisory system itself,” we can by the same token expect the agent’s conscious experience to include such trains of thought as: “There I go making the same mistake as before” or “Which of these do I prefer?” In short, the game of (internalized) talking to oneself about one’s world, including oneself, would follow naturally on the development of the game of talking to one another, without any apparent need to suppose that the hardware of the human CNS must be open to non-physical influences of the sort postulated by Eccles8 The reentrant information-flow loops set up when the supervisory system became the subject of its own internal representation could, of course, be expected to introduce special possibilities of oscillatory or co-operative behaviour with qualitatively unique correlates in experience (and with the Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 105 logical consequences outlined on p. 99); but none of this would seem to take us outside of the domain of normal behaviour at the physical level. Now I have stated all this as only a conjecture, and you may well ask why we should pick on the evaluative function as crucial. My reason is that (following John MacMurray") I think of the human self primarily as an agent: one who evaluates his situation and attaches relative priorities to alternative modes of responding to it, including inactivity (passive undergoing or suffering) at one extreme and the upheaval of his whole scheme of priorities itself at the other. It is when activity becomes sufficiently stereotyped to require no evaluative supervision that we tend to become unconscious of it—even though it may employ elaborate sensori-motor co-ordination and a rich supply of stored information. Conversely, it is when we struggle with conflicting demands on our central priority—scheme that we are most acutely conscious of what we are doing and suffering. The hypothesis is also in line with a wide range of clinical observations on the kinds of brain lesion (mostly in deep central structures) that abolish all conscious experience in coma, as opposed to those confined to cortical levels which seem merely to affect its detailed content.” Moreover, it is in the central (hypothalamic and diencephalic) subsystems of the brain that physical changes seem most closely correlated with conscious moods, desires and evaluative affect. Although in man these structures are particularly elaborately integrated with others such as the frontal lobes, damage to the latter seems only to affect the sensitivity and coherence with which priorities are evaluated and changed, rather than abolish all signs of conscious appraisal. SPLIT BRAINS — HOW MANY CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALS? Dr. Ramachandran has already referred to the bizarre symptoms that result from surgical section of the human corpus callosum — the elaborate cableway of several hundred million nerve fibres that link the two brain hemispheres. Although according to Sperry” speech, verbal intelligence, calculation, established motor co—ordination, verbal reasoning and recall, personality and temperament are all preserved to a surprising degree, there is a strong dissociation of reactions to stimuli presented only to one half or the other of the split sensori-motor system. Because the speech 106 D. M. MacKay organs are normally controlled only by one (usually the left) hemisphere, a patient may verbally report seeing only a stimulus flashed to the right of his fixation point, while at the same time correctly identifying with his left hand (controlled by the right hemisphere) an object whose name was flashed to the left (and so signalled only to the right hemisphere). The philosophical implications of these dramatic findings are currently a matter of keen debate. In particular, how many conscious individuals are there in a split-brain patient? Sperry himself happily speaks of “two rather separate streams of conscious awareness”. “Each hemisphere”, he says, “has its own private sensations, perceptions, thoughts and ideas . . . its own private chain of memories and learning experiences.” This claim as it stands involves the transfer of an “I-story” category to the “brain-story”, and strictly makes no more sense than to claim that an unsplit brain is conscious, rather than the person whose brain it is. But the question Sperry is raising is a real one. Without committing any transgression of categories, we can still ask whether the two split hemispheres are now the brains of two conscious individual persons, who just happen to share pre—operative memories and a common body. This is neither inept nor inconceivable, and at least one philosopher, Puccetti,“ has argued in this way. (Puccetti actually goes further, and suggests that on these grounds each of us with unsplit brains must in reality be two persons; but to the logic of this we shall return.) Before we jump to such conclusions, however, I believe that an information-flow analysis of the situation should sow some legitimate seeds of doubt in our minds. For obvious reasons, the surgeon splitting the corpus callosum to relieve an epileptic patient leaves intact as many oentral brain structures as possible. In particular, there is no division of the deeper central structures concerned with the most basic and dominant evaluative functions. If the normal human evaluative system is an integrated hierarchy or heterarchy (a hierarchy with inter—level feedback) then it is not at all obvious that an operation which splits at most its peripheral levels should bring into being two independently conscious individuals. Admittedly, one “split” patient has been reported to button up his trousers with one hand while unbuttoning them with the other, which suggests some independence in executive goal-setting mechanisms. But there is no evidence, and indeed it seems neurologically implausible, to suggest that more than one independent evaluative hierarchy had come Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 107 into being. Bizarre though it must be, such experience of divided executive control would seem more parsimoniously bracketed with things like absent-mindedness, or the experience of “finding oneself in two minds”, than with the discovery of an identical (but conflicting) twin. However vigorous the conflict at the executive level, it seems more analogous to a quarrel in a sub-committee than to the formation of an independent rival organization. The same boss, with the same ultimate criteria of evaluation, presides over both sub—agencies. ARTIFICIAL AGENCY IN DUPLICATED STRUCTURES At this point an example from the engineering of artificial agency may help us sort out our ideas. Suppose that a radar-guided automatic missile director were, for reasons of reliability, constructed entirely in duplicate. Each unit, we may suppose, is wired in parallel with its twin, so that both share all tasks. How many missile directors have we? The engineer’s criterion is quite clear. If there is only one integrated goal—directed flow system with a single central evaluator, we have only one director. Suppose now that we begin to split the system by cutting the paralleling links. At what point would we claim to have two directors? Obviously if the splitting were 100 per cent complete, each half could thereafter function individually. But if only, say, the radar systems were split, or the information storage systems, or the “sensori-motor co—ordinating” systems that linked both of these with the missile controls, it would be quite misleading to describe the end—product as two directors. True, it would be possible, by stimulating each radar receiver separately, to have independent and even conflicting commands issued to missiles (especially if the missiles controlled by each half were different). But as long as the system had only one central evaluator defining its criteria of match and mismatch, the only directed activity would be that which was calculated to reduce mismatch and optimize match according to those criteria. The most that peripheral splitting could do would be to increase the number of degrees of freedom of the executive sub—system, at some risk to overall efficiency. Conversely, it may be useful to remind ourselves that one and the same piece of undivided hardware can easily embody two or more autonomous artificial agents, each with its own evaluative hierarchy. A stock example 108 D. M. Mackay would be the use of a general-purpose computer to embody two artificial chess players sufficiently independent to play against one another. Always the key question is how many independent evaluative roles can be played simultaneously. The physical singleness or multiplicity of the hardware is relevant only in so far as it bears on this question. In the case of split brains, of course, I do not wish to argue that “hardware” considerations can safely be neglected. For all we know, our conscious experience may depend not only on having the right pattern of connections in our brains, but also on phenomena analogous to physical co—operativity15 which may (who knows?) depend on some particular combination of spatial contiguity and molecular structure obtaining only in the natural CNS. (Think, for example, of the combination of physical factors that determine whether a nuclear reactor, or a coal fire, “goes critical”.) So I am very far from suggesting that we can guarantee conscious experience to any artificial agent that happens to have the appropriate evaluative structure, and I would certainly not personally attribute it to our missile director, whose “supervisory system”, after all, is a human operator. The purpose of our excursion into the theory of artificial agency was rather the converse—to show how unjustified it would be to assume that peripheral splitting of the CNS, so as to produce independent sensori—motor and information-storage systems, is enough of itself to set up two independent “streams of consciousness”. HOW MANY INDEPENDENT SUPERVISORY EVALUATORS? The key question, I am suggesting, is how many independent supervisory evaluators are able to function simultaneously. The answer for all of the human split-brain cases described so far appears to be: one. As Sperry himself admits, emotional reactions triggered by offensive signals to one hemisphere seem to be entirely unified, showing no sign of lateralization. Attempts to set up concurrent conflicting emotional sets have failed.” When the non—speech hemisphere receives an offensive input, the patient as a whole blushes or giggles and bears witness to an experience of embarrassment, even though unable to say why. At the outer levels of the evaluative hierarchy that are split, it is only to be expected that independent and even conflicting sub-criteria of evaluation Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 109 can be established once conflicting patterns of experience have been mediated by the two hemisphere systems; but this does not show that either has broken free of the unifying central supervisory evaluation that (according to my conjecture) identifies the conscious agent. It is significant that Sperry (loc. cit., p. 8) finds “separate parallel performance on different tasks, though possible under special facilitating conditions, . . . not to be the general rule. . . . Attention in many tests seems to become focused in one separate hemisphere and simultaneously become repressed in the other. . . .” He points out that brainstem orienting mechanisms are undivided as well as the cerebellar controls for motor co-ordination, and warns (p. 10) that “With most of our research interest naturally concentrated on the divided aspects of brain function, it is easy to underemphasize the many components of behaviour that remain unified”. The fallacy in arguing back from split-brain data to the conclusion that two conscious persons coexist in normal human beings should now be doubly apparent. Not only are the data insufficient to prove that separate persons are embodied in split hemispheres; but even if they were sufficient (if, for example, in a science fiction world a human brain could be split so deeply that two independent conscious agents clearly had their separate supervisory evaluators in the severed halves) it would not follow logically that there must have been two before, any more than in the analogous case of our missile director. In particular we must bear in mind the evidence from ablation studies that Parkinson’s Law (‘ ‘work expands to fill the space available”) seems often to apply in the neuronal domain. Any drastic change in connectivity is likely to bring about some redeployment of essential functions, possibly involving the “cannibalization” of structures whose role in the intact brain would have been quite different. This point would apply even more strongly if largescale co—operative phenomena do play a functional part in the working of the nervous system, since the resulting dynamic patterns of activity could have the same kind of mobility and lability as the flames that flicker over a coal fire. DIALOGUE: THE ULTIMATE TEST Perhaps the most characteristic conscious human activity is that reciprocal interaction with others which we call dialogue. I am not now 110 D. M. MacKay referring to the non-committal alternating monologue that sometimes passes for dialogue in our sophisticated society, but to the deep-going relationship of mutual vulnerability through which another in a special way becomes “Thou” to me and I to him. The distinction between the two seems to have an illuminating parallel at the level of informationflow analysis. As long as someone communicating with another is able to shield his own evaluative system from the address of the other, he can in principle treat the other as an object, a manipulandum, open in principle to full scientific specification like any other physical object. Once the barriers to fully reciprocal communication are down, however, a specially interesting configuration becomes possible, in which the informationflow structure that constitutes each supervisory system interpenetrates the other, and the lines of flow from each return by way of the other, so that the two become one system for purposes of causal analysis. In this relationship, each conscious agent becomes indeterminate for the other (for the reasons explained on p. 99) as well as for himself. Each is mysterious to the other, not merely in the weak sense that the other cannot gain the necessary completely determining information, but in the strong sense that no such information exists, either for him or for his interlocutor, until after the event. There are “interaction terms”, as a physicist would say, in the joint state-equation, which prevent it from having a uniquely determinate solution for either, even if the physical systems concerned were as mechanistic as pre—Heisenberg physics pictured them. Coming back then to the two halves of a split brain, we might have strong grounds for recognizing two conscious individuals if each could be fully “Thou” to the other in dialogue; but this is just what can never be, so long as the deep central supervisory systems in these human cases are undivided. No mutual interpenetration of independent evaluators is possible, unless at the most superficial levels, where any “dialogue” that could be implemented would amount to little more than the debates with oneself that every normal individual conducts without serious danger to his individuality. Where linguistic ability was closely linked with only one hemisphere, that would of course be a further reason for doubting whether the agent embodied in the other hemisphere could be selfconscious on the lines suggested on p. 104. In this sense (though for different reasons!) I am sympathetic to the suggestion by Eccles3 that any Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 111 consciousness associated with the “minor” hemisphere might best be compared with that of a non-speaking animal. Incidentally, it is in exchanges at the evaluative rather than simply the informative level that we see one of the most important biological advantages of human communication. It provides a vital means of resolving potential goal-conflict. To revert to an old analogy,” imagine two air—conditioners operating in a common space with incompatible goal settings. What will happen? Clearly, a tug-of—war: one will run flat out heating and the other cooling until one of them breaks down, when the survivor can relax to a normal level of activity. How could this mutual attrition be avoided? One solution with some survival value would be to equip each with an arm and hand that could pull out the plug of any other it encountered (if the other did not get there first). The most viable solution, however, would be for one to use its hand to adjust the goal setting of the other into conformity with its own, so that each could settle down to carry only half a normal load. Taking this as a parable, we can see the huge biological utility of conscious communication as a means, first and foremost, of mutually adjusting evaluative supervisory systems into compatible states. A true “meeting of minds” is a form of internalized mutual adjustment of evaluators. For such an interaction to be possible at the deepest levels between the split halves of a patient’s CNS, I conjecture that more than the cerebral hemispheres would have to be separated. Without this possibility it would seem hardly justifiable to regard such unfortunates as two persons each. CONCLUSION The hypothesis that all our conscious perceiving, knowing, desiring and doing have specific physical correlates in the informational traffic of our CNS seems likely to accommodate all the data of human experience, both secular and sacred, without the need to postulate non-material Substances interacting with the brain. It leads directly to the conclusion that physical reality as known to each of us has a small but significant domain that waits to be determined by our cognitive agency, and has no completely determinate future state—description with an unconditional claim to our assent. It also leads naturally to a qualitative distinction 112 D. M. Mackay between the conscious experience attributable to lower animals and the selfconsciousness attributable to agents whose supervisory systems have the capacity for self-description. I have suggested that the key element in conscious agency is evaluation —the assessment of states of affairs as desirable/ undesirable according to a (hierarchic or heterarchic) scheme of basic priorities. This implies that it is in the unity of a coherent evaluative system that a conscious individual has his unitary identity. If so, a surgical operation that divides the sensori-motor co— ordinating mechanisms but leaves intact the final levels of the evaluative hierarchy cannot be said to have created two conscious individuals, even though the resulting individual may reasonably be said to find himself “in two minds” in a distressingly wide range of special circumstances. If an operation were ever performed which left two independently viable evaluative hierarchies, the case would be different; but it may be time enough to consider this when it arises, in the light of the evidence. REFERENCES 1. D. M. MacKay, The use of behavioural language to refer to mechanical processes, Brit. J. Phil. of Sci. 13, 89-103 (1962). Also in Human and Artificial Intelligence (F. J. Crosson, ed.), Appleton~Century—Crofts, New York, 1970. 2. D. M. MacKay, Perception and brain function, in The Neurosciences: Second Study Program (F. O. Schmitt, editor-in-chief), Rockefeller Univ. Press, New York, 1970, pp. 303-16. 3. D. M. MacKay, On the logical indeterminacy of a free choice, Mind, 69, 31-40 (1960). Freedom ofA ction in a Mechanistic Universe (Eddington Lecture), Cambridge Univ. Press, London and New York, 1967. Reprinted in Good Readings in Psychology (M. S. Gazzaniga and E. P. Lovejoy, eds.), Prentice Hall, New York, 1971, pp. 121-38. 4. This should not be confused with the theorem due to K. R. Popper (Brit. J. Phil. of Sci. 1, 117-33 and 173-95 (1950)), stating that no computing machine (or brain con- ceived as such) could completely predict its own future. We are not here concerned with the agent’s inability to predict, but with the non— existence of a prediction (even if produced by a detached observer) which has a logical claim to the agent’s unconditional assent. 5. D. M. MacKay, Scientific beliefs about oneself, in The Proper Study (G. N. A. Vesey, ed.), Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. 4, Macmillan, London, 1971, pp. 48-63. For example, by J. Taylor in New Scientist and Science Journal, 30/9/71, p. 736. For some early examples see D. M. MacKay, Mind-like behaviour in artefacts, Brit. J. Phil. of Sci. 2, 105-21 (1951). Towards an information-flow model of human behaviour, Brit. J. Psychol. 47, 30-43 (1956). Also G. A. Miller, E. Galanter and K. H. Pribram, Plans and the Structure of Behavior, Holt, New York, 1960. Conscious Agency with Unsplit and Split Brains 113 8. Sir John Eccles, in The Selfand its Brain by K. R. Popper and J. C. Eccles, Springer International, Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York. 1977. 9. D. M. MacKay, Cerebral organization and the conscious control of action, in Brain and Conscious Experience (John C. Eccles, ed.), Springer-Verlag, New York, 1966, pp. 422-45. 10. See Mind~like behaviour in artefacts (note 7). p. 118, and Mentality in machines. Proc. Aristot. Soc. Suppl. 26, 61-86 (1952), especially pp. 81-3. 11. John MacMurray, The Selfas Agent, Faber & Faber, London, 1957. 12. S. J. Dimond and J. G. Beaumont (eds.), Hemisphere Function in the Human Brain, Wiley, New York, 1973. 13. R. W. Sperry, Lateral specialization in the surgically separated hemispheres, in F. O. Schmitt and F. Worden (eds.), The Neurosciences: Third Study Program, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1974, pp. 5-19. 14. R. Puccetti. Brain bisection and personal identity, Brit. J. Phil. of Sci. 24, 339-55 (1973). 15. “Co-operativity” in molecular biology refers to the ways in which a system of com- ponents may be so functionally linked as to act together in switching a molecule from one stable state to another. A macroscopic illustration would be the various alternative coupled modes in which a system of many adjacent compass needles can settle down, with large blocks of needles switching orientations as a co-operating unit. Another example is the amplification of weak effects (e.g. the absorption of a single photon in a visual receptor cell)by self—propagating changes ofstate. See Schmitt, F. 0., Schneider, D. M. and Crothers, D. M. (eds.), FunctionalLinkage in Biomolecular Systems, Raven Press, New York, 1975. 16. D. M. MacKay, Communication and meaning—a functional approach, in CrossCultural Understanding, F. S. C. Northrop and Helen Livingston (eds.), Harper & Row, New York, 1964, pp. 162-79. Reprinted as Chapter 9 of D. M. MacKay, Information, Mechanism &Meaning, M.1.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1969. 114 D. M. Mackay Discussion JOSEPHSON: You mentioned your objection to my ideas on grounds of parsimony (i.e. the inclusion within the theory of an entity, conscious experience, which has not yet been shown to be necessary to explain the data). I should like to make the point here that parsimony is one criterion, but it is not the only one. Parsimony is most relevant when we already have a complete explanation of the phenomena of interest. Neurophysiology can hardly be said to have reached this stage yet. In the history of physics it has at various times happened that explanations involving radically new assumptions have been successfully adopted, when it would have been quite possible in principle to adjust the old framework to fit the facts. An example is Einstein’s general theory of relativity, based on the assumption that space is curved in the vicinity of massive bodies. The noted physicist P. A. M. Dirac has suggested that elegance may be a strong indication of the validity of a new kind of theory. In this aspect Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Science of Creative Intelligence, parts of which were used in my own paper in this conference, has much to recommend it, in comparison with conventional theories based on neurophysiology, as an account of the basic phenomena of intelligence. You say in your talk that there are those who object to these new concepts because they multiply entities beyond any demonstrated necessity. Equally, there will be those who, in the spirit of Dirac, will be attracted to these ideas because of the elegance and directness of their explanatory power. The right course, it seems to me, is that both lines of attack should be followed up; the future will decide the value of each. CHAPTER 7 Some Hypotheses Concerning the Role of Consciousness in Nature B. D. JOSEPHSON Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge The fact of the existence of consciousness plays no part in ordinary physics (with the possible exception, discussed in the paper by LonguetHiggins, of the process of observation in quantum mechanics). It would be wrong to conclude from this, even taking into account the enormous success which physics has had in explaining natural phenomena, that consciousness is not a parameter which needs to be included in the description of the world, for the simple reason that the physicist does not carry out experiments on systems which are conscious. In fact, the success of physics has no bearing at all on this question. The person concerned with the study of conscious systems is the biologist, or, more specifically, the psychologist. For him, the quantitative test in the style of the physicist is not feasible; it will not be feasible until we are able to derive all of psychology in a quantitative way from neurophysiology. We are forced to conclude that the question of whether consciousness is in fact an important parameter in the scientific description of nature is an unanswered one at the present time. From a naive point of view, consciousness obviously is a parameter having significant effects. What we can do and in fact do do when we are conscious (awake) is totally different from what we can do when we are not conscious. It seems worthwhile to study the situation and to try to frame hypotheses about the role which consciousness may play. By definition, this requires a study of subjective experience, and attempts to correlate it with other phenomena. There appears to be a problem with this, in that a subjective experience is observable by only one person, the 115 116 B. D. Josephson experiencer; “objective” observation is not possible. Fortunately language comes to our rescue; in many instances the language a person uses appears to be, and would by most people be believed to be, an indication of the experience he is having. The extent to which this is true depends mainly on how adequately language has been developed to indicate the particular experience, and the practice which the person has had in describing his experience. It is true that, as a philosophically minded person might point out, we can never prove that the conscious experiences of two people are the same when they describe them in the same way. Fortunately science is not concerned with proving its assumptions, but with testing them, that is, assuming them to be true and seeing if the consequences agree with experience. In this paper some specific hypotheses are made about the possible role of consciousness. They are based in part on common experience, but in addition I shall give arguments based on the hypotheses which connect them with systematics of intelligent behaviour. There appears, indeed, to be a distinct possibility that theories based on knowledge relating to subjective experience may provide a deeper understanding of how intelligence functions and how it comes about than theories based on neurophysiology or artificial intelligence, and this alone provides motivation for following the path taken in this paper. Let us begin our analysis by discussing the distinction which exists between voluntary and automatic behaviour. The concept of automatic behaviour is the simpler one. Consider first an arrow being shot by an archer. It is clear that once the arrow has left the bow it is no longer under the control of the archer, and follows automatically along a trajectory determined by the laws of aerodynamics and mechanics. We have a somewhat similar situation in the case of a person running up to and jumping over a stream (the interest being in his actions, and not, as in the first example, in the free trajectory). After the person has started running he has a limited ability to control his motion or even abort the jump, but he also has the choice of not exerting such control. In this situation we may say that he carries out his action automatically. What actually occurs then is determined by laws not very accessible to us but clearly dependent on the person’s competence at running and jumping, which is itself related to his past experience and learning. The person jumping appears Some Hypotheses Concerning the Role of Consciousness in Nature 117 to participate as little consciously in the details of running and jumping as does the archer in the flight of the arrow. The last remark leads us to a consideration of the relationship between consciousness and voluntary action. The archer is conscious of a decision of it being the right moment to release the bow, and the jumper is conscious of a decision that he should now jump. And both these actions are what we would term voluntary ones. We can deepen the discussion by linking the ideas already expressed to the concept of value. In both the cases discussed it can be seen that the voluntary actions undertaken are ones which produce a result of value to the individual concerned: hitting the target with the arrow or getting to the other side of the stream. The behaviour that comes to conscious awareness is associated with a certain degree of flexibility (the decision aspect), and this flexibility is used to maximize the value of the outcome of the current action. If we take for granted for the moment the connection just stated between conscious awareness and flexibility, we have the basis of an explanation for what information comes to conscious awareness and what information does not. In a situation where a person has a high degree of competence, as may be the case for jumping across a stream if the stream is not too wide, there is no reasonable prospect of an increase in value of the outcome by adjusting many precise details of the run—up and jump; therefore this information need not be present to consciousness. The only information that is needed will be information such as where to land and where to take off, and this is the information that will tend to occupy consciousness. The linking of consciousness with considerations of value suggests that consciousness may play an important role in the improvement of skills over time. There are no grounds for supposing that actions carried out automatically will improve with time; they are just like fixed computer programs in their character. But a system concerned with questions of value, as we have postulated for the conscious part of the system, may be able to recognize that certain new actions lead to consequences of higher value than would be obtained using the normal procedures in current use. We can thus assign consciousness the attribute of creativity, in that it leads to new procedures being adopted. Furthermore, in that it appears to 118 B. D. Josephson be the case that new ideas are good ones more often than would be expected by chance, the overall effect of consciousness would seem to be a positive one of giving steady improvement over time. To clarify a point arising in connection with the hypothesis in the last sentence, automatic behaviour displays intelligence, as well as does consciously guided, voluntary behaviour. However, according to the picture being presented, such automatic behaviour is the result mainly of past conscious experiences which had the overall effect of improving the skill of the performer (but obviously a small component of the skill is the result of innate programming and need not be attributed to consciousness). It has been suggested above that consciousness, as well as being in effect creative, in that it is associated with changes in behaviour patterns, is also in effect intelligent, in that these changes tend to be in a positive direction. We now propose a hypothesis to account for this. The hypothesis consists in the assertion that there can be an intimate connection between conscious experience and meaning. At the moment when we understand either the situation in which we find ourselves, or alternatively the meaning of something expressed in language, we have a particular conscious experience of knowing the meaning (which after the event may dwindle to a mere memory of having had the experience). Now what do we mean by meaning here? Knowing the meaning of a situation means knowing what is in the situation for us, that is knowing what to do about the situation to ensure the best outcome from it. To give an example, when we experience the feeling of hunger we at the same time become aware that it would be good to eat some food. This will generally be followed by action to ensure the desired result. Hunger is an experience with a definite meaning to its perceiver. This example illustrates an important point, that the experience (in this particular case) has to be conscious in order to have the powerful effect that it does, which is different from merely, for example, going to a restaurant at a particular time out of habit. We may assert, in a way parallel to our discussion of the difference between voluntary and automatic behaviour, that conscious awareness of the meaning of a situation followed by an appropriate response is different from making an automatic response, since only the former is concerned with the question of the value of an Some Hypotheses Concerning the Role of Consciousness in Nature 119 action to the perceiver (in this case the value of removing hunger). One way of explaining the relation between consciousness and intelligence is to postulate that there is a basic type of subjective experience, such that as a result of something analogous to the basic laws of physics a meaningful conscious experience is automatically followed by the idea of the appropriate response (for example, hunger by the idea of obtaining something to satisfy the hunger, or danger by the idea of escaping from danger). While this idea may seem highly ad hoc, it is completely analogous to the situation we find in ordinary physics, with its various types of basic fields and their interrelating equations, such as Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field. The reader will probably have realized the incompleteness in itself of the hypothesis proposed in the last section. It must be augmented by the consideration that evolution must have played an important part. Evolution must have provided an efficient perceptual system to generate conscious experiences correctly representing the environmental situation, and a planning—motor system to put the ideas generated into practice. These two additional systems are needed to allow the basic intelligence postulated to be associated with conscious experience to be effective. I should like to acknowledge my debt to the thought of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose ideas, especially those contained in his videotaped lecture course entitled The Science of Creative Intelligence, have played an important part in formulating the above. 120 B. D. Josephson Discussion VESEY In the course of talking about the freewill/ determinism problem I think you said that scientists feel that a person’s behaviour is determined by what happens in his head. What b ' ‘ ' did you mean by “behaviour”? I would not want to dispute that the motions of a person’s body are often determined, in part at any rate, by what happens in his head. One can explain someone‘s arm bending, for example, by reference to nerve impulses from his brain to a muscle. But questions about a person’s behaviour are rarely simply about his bodily motions. One wants to know what the chap is up to, what he is doing. And one can sensibly ask him “What are you doing?” even when one is in full possession of the facts about the motions of his body. Is he signalling a right turn or pointing out where his mother’s cook used to live? The “action-description”, as I’ll call it, is a different sort of description from the “motion- description”. I don’t mean just that one can have the same motion—description but different action—descriptions, and vice versa. I mean that the action-description is authorized in a way in which the motion—description is not. The way to find out what someone is up to is to ask him, just as, when someone says he once saw Ted Heath , conducting, the way to find out whether he meant Ted Heath the bandleader or Ted Heath the Conservative politician is to ask him. In both cases it makes no sense for him to i say ‘‘I was wondering that myself”. l ‘ My question is this. When you talked about a person’s behaviour being determined by ‘ what happens in his head, did you mean simply the motions of his body, or did you mean i what he is doing? If the latter, can you please explain? Why do scientists feel that what a person does is determined by what happens in his head? is there empirical evidence to this effect? (And, if so, is the strength of their feeling proportional to the evidence?) Or do they feel it must be so? If so, why do they feel it must be so? JOSEPHSON: I think you have raised a very important point. When I suggested that a person’s intentions are determined by what happens in his head I was basing my remark on the belief, common to physicists, that everything which is in some sense “real” has some definite location in space (and time). But perhaps this belief is not true. An argument for this, within physics, involves the theory of observation in quantum mechanics. While there exists a well—defined formula giving what happens when an observation is made, it does not seem possible to understand the formula in terms of mechanisms happening in space and time. Recent research by J. S. Bell and by H. P. Stapp, based on the so-called Einstein-Rosen—Podolsky paradox, indicate that some very counter—intuitive things are going on. There is a point of View which transcends the distinction between whether things happen within space and time or outside space and time. This is to say that certain things have no apparent location in space and time because they happen everywhere in space and time. l This is a common View in Eastern mysticism. On this view if I intend to do some particular thing, my intention corresponds to a process happening through all space and time, but it leads to my observable behaviour at some particular time because my nervous system is, as it were, “tuned in” to that intention at that particular time. PART III Subjective experience CHAPTER 8 Consciousness and Psychopathology* M. ROTH University of Cambridge INTRODUCTION At the present time, there are no indubitable criteria of “consciousness” which command general assent. The reason for this is that despite the direct experience we have of it and take for granted in other human beings, scientific understanding of it as a phenomenon is rudimentary. And precise, generally accepted definitions emerge not at the beginning of a scientific exercise but at an advanced stage of it. In philosophical discourse regarding human consciousness and the nature of its relationship to the activity of the brain, the state of consciousness of one person is treated as comparable in essential features to the state of every other. The validity of such an assumption is questionable. There are variations in the degree and quality of consciousness and individuals differ from each other in definable ways in both respects. Degree of consciousness will be discussed at a later stage. Differences in quality arise because such characteristic manifestations of consciousness as attention, memory, the capacity for conceptual thought and logical reasoning, and the ability to perceive the world correctly are among the criteria used for the recognition of conscious states. But each of these may vary independently of the others. Thus an individual may have auditory hallucinations without insight into the illusory nature of the experience. Yet psychiatric examination will show some individuals so affected to be in a state of clear consciousness. These variations are * Paper based on discussion comments, submitted after the conference. 123 124 M. Roth important for investigations aimed at refining scientific knowledge of consciousness and have to be taken into account in the shaping of our philosophical concepts of it. In so far as answers can be obtained to these questions, they must affect the philosophical concepts of consciousness and the methods employed to refine knowledge of it. We have neither the logic nor the language, according to Wittgenstein,‘ wherewith to call in question the consciousness of other human beings. But this refers to consciousness in an abstract sense. When asked to examine a man who complains of mental distress or is regarded by others as displaying behaviour out of character for him, one of the most important matters a psychiatrist has to decide is the degree to which he can be regarded as “conscious” in a specific sense of the term. His level of consciousness requires technical means for its determination and has a significant bearing upon the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder in question. He may appear alert and awake and normal in his conduct to ordinary observation, but prove incapable of forming correct or safe judgements about his whereabouts and circumstances. If level of consciousness is lowered his memory for current events will tend to be impaired and his beliefs may be distorted or deluded. It will be apparent that consciousness is not an all—or-none state with deep sleep or coma at one end and complete alertness at the other. There is every gradation in between. But variation is not linear all the way, in that any graph which depicts states of consciousness between these extremes must show plateaus corresponding to the states of incomplete arousal, such as clouding or delirium, in which the individual’s thought and behaviour will be muddled and confused. But he cannot be awakened like the person asleep or experiencing dreams or the sleepwalker. The process of arousal has been arrested at some point intermediate between sleep and full consciousness. Whether such an individual is capable of forming intent and carrying out complex, co—ordinated and dangerous acts is a complex and difficult question to resolve. The answer to it may be of crucial importance in the case of a man charged with murder or some other criminal act. An elderly person with senile dementia may be able to hear noises and recognize objects in a crude and undifferentiated way, but prove incapable of retaining any current event in memory, although memory for remote Consciousness and Psychopathology 125 events may be intact. At an advanced stage she will also prove incapable of recognizing her own relatives, be unaware that she was married and liable to stare in fear and bewilderment at the mirror image of her own face which she does not recognize. Whether or not such a person can be regarded as conscious is neither a trivial nor a purely semantic question. It poses questions about differences between certain states of mind which are inherently capable of resolution by scientific means. The answers would be bound to sharpen our knowledge of “consciousness” and the words we use to depict it. Among the stated objectives of this conference is the “. . . study of subjective experience and . . . the relationship between subjective experience and the objective world”. We are also enjoined to examine what defines the personal character or privacy of the individual’s conscious experience. These are interesting questions for the psychopathologist because there are individuals who lose just these faculties conjointly. They confuse subjective experiences with perception of the external world, and through failure of this differentiation their inner thoughts and feelings are attributed to outside influences. At the same time they feel their privacy and their most intimate experiences to be encroached and intruded upon by forces beyond their control. It may be inferred from this that there is a neurological apparatus which makes possible fulfilment of this function of sifting subjective from objective perceptions. The development of objective scientific knowledge is dependent upon our ability to differentiate between the world of phenomena independent of our perceptions and a reality distorted by or entirely determined by private inner experience. However, as Whewell pointed out more than a century ago, the ordinary individual engaged in his task of perceiving and acting upon the world is all the time testing hypotheses and so refining his knowledge in a similar manner. In some disorders, notably in schizophrenia, the ability to differentiate between the subjective world within and the objective one beyond the boundaries of the body is undermined and in consequence the individual’s picture of reality becomes distorted. It requires the knowledge held by others to diagnose the distortion and take action to correct it as far as possible by appropriate treatment. The study of psychopathology makes it possible to describe tentatively 126 M. Roth the criteria that should be employed to characterize consciousness. These are the criteria that would have to be satisfied by any form of artificial intelligence or organism that was designed to exhibit “consciousness” in the human sense of the term. In the sections that follow some relevant criteria will be examined and the bearing of some of the commoner forms of psychopathology for problems of consciousness considered. MEMORY AND CONSCIOUSNESS The ability to observe and lay down a record of events in the surrounding world, the faculty of memory, is widely regarded as a central feature of any organism or machine we would accept as having “consciousness”. However, it is well known that there are disorders of the mind in which short—term memory is severely impaired so that the ability to lay down memories in, or to retrieve them from, the long-term store is severely and irretrievably damaged. Beyond a limit of about one or two minutes, such an individual will be found on direct inquiry devoid of memory for current events. But he appears alert and may be able to conduct an intelligent conversation and exercise his usual skills in dressing, eating and even in complex activities such as card-playing or the musical performance of works learned in the past. For example, one lady suffering from such a Korsakov or amnestic syndrome had just completed a performance of Beethoven’s Quartet in E Minor, Opus 59, No. 2 with three friends. Three or four minutes later, the cellist, fired with enthusiasm, said, “Let us play something else”. The lady in question, who had played the violin superbly in the first performance, said “Let us play Beethoven’s E minor Quartet, Opus 59, No. 2.” After an embarrassed silence, one of her friends said, “But, Angela, we have just finished playing that!” One could not regard an individual with such a disorder as devoid of consciousness. The picture would, of course, be quite different if the person affected were not able to draw upon a vast memory store extending back into early life. In a progressive degenerative disease of the brain such as senile dementia, this store is also progressively encroached upon so that less and less is left. We are unable to answer the question as to whether or not there is a critical Consciousness and Psychopathology 127 level in the extent of the loss of both short- and long-term memory which would be incompatible with “consciousness”. There are no quantitative observations to guide us. But it is of interest that in advanced stages of dementia individuals are liable to sink into unconsciousness in the absence of any obvious explanation for this, such as an intercurrent infection that has caused further impairment of brain function. Death is then imminent. Inability to remember cannot serve as a necessary criterion for the presence of consciousness for more subtle reasons. It is characteristic of human consciousness that certain experiences can be segregated or locked away in separate compartments whose contents are not accessible to ordinary methods of retrieval without special aids. In his earliest investigations with Breuer, Freud discovered that certain neurotic patients were able to recount, under hypnosis, experiences of which they had no conscious recollection. These memories had been “repressed” into the unconscious “because” they were associated with emotional conflicts beyond the capacity of the individual to resolve. Needless to say such statements tell us nothing about the mechanisms employed in such sequestration of memories. Another example is the seemingly obliterated memory of some profoundly distressing experience such as the injury received during a battle in which friends of the subject might have been killed or mutilated. Such memories can be brought into consciousness by injection of a hypnotic drug which causes partial impairment of awareness. The recovery of such memories is commonly associated with the discharge of intense emotion or ‘ ‘ abreaction’ ’ . Yet another example, which illustrates the point that consciousness is not an all-or-none phenomenon of the kind implicitly assumed in some forms of philosophical discourse, is provided by certain phenomena encountered during anaesthesia. The subject, in the process of recovery, may appear to all intents and purposes unconscious. He does not respond to painful or other forms of stimulation. His eyes are closed and he is immobile. Yet the remarks made by the surgeon are heard and remembered. In some cases where they have been personal or unflattering in character they have been the subject of legal action. It will be apparent that the ability to provide an accurate account of recent events in which the individual had been a participant cannot provide reliable information as to whether he had been conscious at the 128 M. Roth time. To direct questioning he may have no memories to report. But when special techniques are applied, he may bring to light experiences that have been recorded and sequestered as a result of repression into the unconscious in the Freudian sense. In contradistinction to this, islands of memory may remain following a state of epileptic automation in which the individual has been confused and the electrical activity recorded from the brain disturbed throughout. CAN CONSCIOUSNESS BE REGARDED AS A CAUSAL AGENT? It will be apparent that consciousness cannot be regarded as merely the simple aggregate of the activities that result from information transmitted from the outside world along the different modalities of perception. We know that the level of awareness of the individual cannot be judged from functional integrity of the pathways that subserve touch, proprioception, vision and hearing, or from the capacity to form a record of experiences gained alone. This is not to say that tests applied to these functions provide no information about the state of consciousness. But they are very crude indices of it. For example, mild states of impairment are notoriously difficult to diagnose because there are no pathognomonic features. The patient will appear dull, vague and inert. His responses to external events will often be mildly inappropriate, inconsistent and undiscriminating. We know that such a mental state may be the prelude to a state of acute delirium in which the patient loses contact with his environment. And subsequently no trace of memory of the premonitory phase may survive. The human electroencephalogram will sometimes provide valuable evidence regarding the level of awareness. But it is far from being an accurate measure and the results in mild impairment of consciousness are unreliable. Recent investigations have provided a large body of evidence in support of the view that the level of human consciousness is determined by mechanisms that are distinct from, and to some extent independent of, those which are responsible for the flow of sensory information along the specific afferent pathways to the brain. The reticular activating system whose activities have been shown to be closely related to the level of arousal2 is a complex network of neurones in the medial part of the brain stem" Consciousness and Psychopathology 129 extending from the medulla and pons, through the mid—brain to the hypothalamus. It is distinct from the specific pathways that subserve ordinary perception in three respects. A large number of the fibres bypass the thalamus which is a relay station for ordinary afferent pathways. It is distributed to extensive areas of both cerebral hemispheres and not merely to one specific contra—lateral area. Finally, because it is a complex neuronal network any specific effects of one form of sensory stimulation are quickly abolished; different sensory stimuli have equal effects in the promotion of arousal or maintenance of level of consciousness. Damage to this part of the brain will render an experimental animal unconscious but interruption of specific pathways will not do so. It is therefore the intensity of activity within this system and its sites of projection in the cerebral cortex that determines the level of consciousness of the individual. And this will in turn decide whether an afferent stimulus of pain, touch or hearing is or is not perceived. Thus in states of light unconsciousness it is possible to elicit electrical changes or “evoked potentials” in the cerebral cortex by sensory stimulation. But they are neither perceived nor remembered. The answer to the question posed by the title of this section is therefore that there is a certain sense in which consciousness can be regarded as a causal agent. For its complete integrity is a necessary condition for the acquisition of information about the external world and the recording of this information in the memory store. Something more than wakefulness and reaction to stimuli is involved. The individual may appear awake and responsive to stimuli without being fully conscious. PERCEPTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS This leads to the relationship between perception and consciousness and the extent to which the state of the latter can be gauged from accuracy of perception. It is widely recognized that no form of perception can be explained in terms of a passive registration of signals emanating from sense organs. Perception is an active process which creates a picture of the objective world from minimal and partially familiar cues. Hypotheses are rapidly advanced and discarded or upheld. But success in this operation of depicting external reality depends upon a consistently high level of 130 M. Roth arousal which is in turn dependent upon an adequate intensity of activity in the cerebral cortex. We obtain some measure of insight into the role of consciousness in extracting an accurate percept from an array of signals, by observing the states in which consciousness is partially in abeyance. A good example is provided by the clouded and delirious states with impaired awareness seen in the course of chronic intoxication with alcohol and hypnotic drugs. In delirium tremens the individual is disorientated in time and place and his memory for recent events is markedly impaired. He is unable to construe happenings in the objective world correctly because, among others reasons, he suffers from falsifications of perception of hallucinations, commonly in the visual field. Large insects are crawling on his bedclothes, rats are scuttling on the floor, poisonous dust is falling from the ceiling and hideous monsters boring their way through the walls. He is surrounded by warders, spies, executioners. His relatives are at the door but are prevented from entering. There are concomitant emotional changes. The subject experiences suspicion, perplexity and intense fear which may lead him to attack his imaginary persecutors. He is living through a terrifying nightmare but he is not asleep. His perceptual world is in chaos because the errant hypotheses are being discarded and erroneous ones upheld. Perceptual gaps are filled indiscriminately with fantasy which displaces reality. We have no more than rudimentary understanding of the neurological mechanisms underlying such processes. But normal consciousness may be conceived as the obverse of these states in which hypotheses are tested against reality and sound ones sifted from incorrect and illusory ones. We see, therefore, that the paradigm often employed by classical philosophers of the human subject engaged in perception - usually visual perception—is a weak and unsatisfactory model for making inferences about the nature of knowledge. What we designate as human consciousness depends on the interaction of a number of disparate interdependent psychological functions: state of general arousal, perceptions of the objective and subjective world, memory, reasoning and emotion. However, these interdependent and covarying functions display a surprising degree of autonomy. One may show marked variations without affecting the others or impairing the level of consciousness. Consciousness and Psychopathology 131 Illustrations have already been provided in relation to memory. The same situation holds for perception. In the case of delirium tremens, the frightening hallucinations are associated with disorientation in time and place, and inaccurate perception and judgement of the outside world; there is clouding of consciousness. But in another disorder also due to alcoholism, the subject hears hallucinatory voices in a state of clear awareness. He hears them threatening, cajoling, deriding and humiliating him. He attributes them to some remote group of tormentors intent on destroying him. But other than the hallucinations, his picture of the world is clear, detailed and accurate. Again, impairment of consciousness is prone to distort perception but not invariably so. Many patients with clouding of consciousness are merely muddled and disorientated, and the emotions of patients which have a selective effect on filtering of perceptual experiences may become grossly deranged without involving any other aspect of mental life. We call such conditions Depressive and Manic Psychoses. MODELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS Any attempt to create a model that replicates human consciousness must do full justice to this complexity. Such a model must be capable of making reliable and accurate observations of the outside world, and reporting on its subjective, inner activities, and must also be aware of itself as observer in both capacities. It has to replicate variation in degree of awareness or arousal as a relatively distinct function but one whose fluctuations are liable to exert a profound effect upon the accuracy of perceptions. The very characteristics that enable it to extrapolate complex percepts so effectively and accurately from minimal cues also cause it to conjure up spurious perceptions, phantoms and fantasies. It must also make allowance for uniqueness in two respects. The first is that no individual’s cerebral equipment has been shaped by genetic endowment in exactly the same way as any other, and a working consensus about its characteristics has to be achieved with the aid of comparison and communication about shared experiences. ‘ Finally, emotional factors have to be brought into the picture in that they have been repeatedly shown to exert an important selective effect on what is perceived. For example, a patient with a mild Korsakov syndrome 132 M. Roth may remember the visits paid during the day by his wife but nothing else. Or if he has had a stroke he may forget and ignore the paralysis of the left side of his body and even deny it completely. And the emotions of each individual are uniquely shaped by his own past experiences and vicissitudes in interplay with his genetic and constitutional endowment. SELF—CONSCIOUSNESS The most distinctive feature of human consciousness is the awareness that mental happenings are taking place-—or self-consciousness. This awareness is intimately dependent upon our ability to differentiate the happenings in our own inner self from those in the outside world. The phenomena of “believing”, “deciding”, “wishing” ' stem from this selfawareness. Uniqueness apart, they are characterized by the fact that only the individual who is experiencing these mental states has access to them. The unique privacy and freedom from control (other than through the medium of language) of these experiences have to be assumed unless we are prepared to jettison our existing scientific picture of the world. Some philosophers go further and assert that it is the states of intention, choice and belief that render the individual autonomous, make him accountable for his actions, and arouse our respect for him as a person. They are given and not susceptible to scientific investigation or analysis. We can entertain no hope of arriving at an objective account or causal explanation of the inner world of subjective experience. Now for reasons that will emerge later it could be held that there are limits beyond which such an objective scientific account cannot proceed. But the view that the self—conscious mind is an independent entity about which the objective deterministic language of science can have nothing to say is untenable for a number of reasons. In the first place there are conditions in which the inner self is no longer clearly differentiated from the objective world beyond it. In these disorders the thoughts in the mind of the individual are experienced as voices that emanate from some outside source. The person is hallucinated. His intentions, wishes and purposes are felt to be usurped by outside agencies. He experiences himself as the passive victim of witches, freemasons or “atomic rays”. He may come to regard himself as the agent of God and act accordingly. Consciousness and Psychopathology 133 This summarizes some of the leading features of typical schizophrenic illness and leads to two inferences. The first is that the claim that a person’s private intentions, beliefs and expectations are sacrosanct in that they cannot in any circumstances be judged subservient to the objective judgment of others is untenable. The second inference follows from the fact that such disorders often arise in minds that have been previously intact and to which the capacity to differentiate reliably between objective reality and subjective experience can be restored by specific treatments. It follows that there must be neurological mechanisms which mediate this sifting of sense data so as to differentiate the external from the subjective world. Little is known about them at the present time. But the ignorance is of a kind which we can reasonably expect to remedy with the aid of scientific inquiry. The view of Wittgenstein that the world of personal, private will, purpose and belief belonged to an order of phenomena that was categorically different from the world of physical phenomena is reminiscent of the distinction drawn by the psychiatrist and philosopher Jaspers between “understandable” and “causal” connections. Both believed the former to be impervious to the causal explanations and general laws that emerged from scientific study of the objective world (Wittengenstein’s criticism of Freudian psychoanalytic theory was essentially similar to Japsers’s3). But it is difficult to reconcile some of the findings of psychopathology with categorial distinctions of this nature. DEPERSONALIZATION: A MORBID STATE OF THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND It may be helpful to examine another form of psychopathology in order to judge how far we are likely to succeed in explaining human consciousness in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry. In the phenomenon of depersonalization known to psychiatrists the consciousness of the individual is divided into an observing and participating self . Here are some extracts from the self-descriptions of an intelligent and gifted observer: When I am talking to people, especially if the conversation is difficult or important, I feel, as it were, withdrawn into myself at a great distance with difficulty in focusing 134 M. Roth my eyes or attention on the person I am talking to. At times I feel like a mind detached and nebulous without a body or a physical setting. The only thing of which I can really be aware is my own mind and the fact that it is working. Everything else shades off into unreality. It is as though I have been living automatically, reacting and behaving apparently as usual and yet with a part of me which I would call my personality not really involved. In this connection “depersonalisation” seems a very accurate word. The feelings occasionally assume a more specific and physical form especially in the period between waking and sleeping. I feel as though mind and body were parting and expanding, and mind as it were suspended over an expanding gulf into which the body is sinking. This sensation continues indefinitely, the gulf increasing, until I switch on the light or ‘get up and move about. . . . Another occasional physical sensation is that I am literally “beside myself” . . . displaced in space, almost drifting away. Here again to relieve the feeling I have to clench my fists or grasp a fold of clothing for reassurance. Closely associated with these sensations is an inability to experience ordinary emotions. The subject not only feels one part of himself detached and viewing the other as would a passive and indifferent spectator. He complains that he moves and behaves as would an automaton or a wound—up mechanical toy. Every act, no matter how simple, and formerly carried out without reflection, seems now to require an effort of will. Eating, dressing or washing entails a special effort, and even breathing may have to be undertaken with deliberation and self—vigilance. The experience sometimes includes an actual visual hallucination of the self, usually recognized within a short interval as illusory. It should be noted that these phenomena cannot be dismissed as irrelevant for the study of ordinary subjective experience in that they are disordered states of mind. In transient form, depersonalization commonly occurs in normal individuals.‘ And the central core of the phenomenon has been found to occur in a high proportion of those exposed to sudden life—threatening dangers. There is reason to believe that in such circumstances depersonalization and the sense of detachment and objectivity associated with it may enhance the chances of survival.5~5»7 When the peril has passed or ceased the mental state of the individual returns to normal. Closely similar experiences may be engendered by electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain, namely the cortical surface of the temporal lobe. They also arise during the early stages in the development of epileptic fits that result from the discharge of a focus located in one of the temporal lobes. Since we know that experiences have a Consciousness and Psychopathology 135 neurological substrate we may hope through scientific inquiry to acquire more knowledge about and greater control over them. SUBJECTIVE MENTAL STATES AND THE BRAIN Two main questions arise which have a close bearing on certain problems of the mind—brain relationship. The findings of neurology and psychiatry are inconsistent with the view that mind and brain are not connected. Moreover, it is clear that something more than parallelism between the two without causal connection is entailed. The investigation of abnormal mental states and related phenomena may deepen understanding of cerebral activity in its relationship to consciousness. But is it possible that the language of physiology will become so precise and differentiated that, in terms of the activities of neurones, we will be able to describe an individual experiencing a part of himself displaced from the body in space, observing the self as a passive spectator and finding this participant and executive self distressingly unreal and unfamiliar while aware at the same time that the whole experience is morbid and illusory? Will it be possible for someone familiar with the language to recognize from such an account the feelings of depersonalization as he has experienced them in every nuance and detail during introspection? According to the materialist account of the mindbrain relationship this should be possible at some future date. The introspective accounts given by depersonalized patients, and our recognition of them through our own introspection and empathy, will then become redundant in the same way as the knowledge relating the sequence of nucleotides in DNA molecules with the amino acids they sort and assemble into proteins has rendered so much of the older language of cellular biology and genetics redundant. For those who allow for an interaction between body and mind within the framework of a materialist account of the relationship between them, subjective experience, introspection and their disturbances should ultimately prove explicable in a causal language. They are the outcome of processes in which all the activities in one part of the brain—activities which would otherwise remain unconscious — are read off or scanned by some higher centre which undertakes a second order of perception. 136 M. Roth According to current knowledge this centre would be located in the dominant, usually the left, cerebral hemisphere, which appears to have the main responsibility for the conceptual, linguistic and symbolic aspects of mental functioning. In their recent book The Self and its Brain Popper and Eccles“ reject this view, holding that there is no reason why such scanning activities should result in self-awareness or self-criticism. The materialist’s answer given by Armstrong° is that this scanning is identical with consciousness. There need be no residue to explain. When we have learnt to define the physiological processes, the question of all other accounts of self—consciousness will have been rendered redundant and obsolete. Now it may be that the two accounts, the one in the language of cerebral function and the other drawn from self—conscious experience, will approximate to each other. But that ultimately physiology will entirely displace the introspective account is difficult to credit. It is impossible to conceive of a state of affairs in which the latter could be discarded as wholly superfluous. For an indefinite time ahead two separate accounts of self—conscious experience, the one complementing the other, appear indispensable. The second question is a related one. Is it possible to envisage a state of affairs in which we will have produced a computer that will be able to experience and report upon both a subjective internal world and an objective one, and which will be able to observe itself in action as the cause of both forms of perception, empathize with others in both roles, and display insight in the presence of some forms of derangement of discrimination between subjective and objective worlds and loss of insight in others? The answer that has to be given is that there is for the present no body of knowledge at our disposal to encourage the hope that such a feat will be possible. Nor do we possess sufficient understanding of human consciousness to apply valid and satisfactory tests so as to ascertain whether the machine we had manufactured possessed properties of a kindred nature. Consciousness and Psychopathology 137 REFERENCES L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford, 1967, Part I, §420. G. Moruzzi and H. W. Magoun, Brain stern reticular formation and activation of the EEG, Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol. 1, 455-73 (1949). F. Cioffi, Wittgenstein’s Freud, pp. 184-210, in Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgen- stein, Ed. Peter Winch, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press, 1969. D. H. Myers and G. Grant, A study of depersonalisation in students, Brit. J. Psychiatry, l21,560(July 1972). M. Roth and M. Harper, Temporal lobe epilepsy and the phobic anxiety—depersonalization syndrome. Part 11: Practical and theoretical considerations. Comprehen. Psychiatry, 3, no 4 (Aug. 1962). M. Harper and M. Roth, Temporal lobe epilepsy and the phobic anxiety—depersona1ization syndrome. Part I: A comparative study, Camprehen. Psychiatry, 3, no. 3. (June 1862). R. Noyes, Jr., and R. Kletti, Depersonalization in response to life-threatening danger, Comprehen. Psychiatry, 18, 4 (July/Aug. 1977). K. R. Popper and J. C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain, Springer International, 1978. D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind, Ed. T. Honderich, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press, 1968. CHAPTER 9 Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity V. S. RAMACHANDRAN Trinity College, Cambridge Most of the chapters in this book are heavily inclined towards the scientific materialist view that consciousness is an emergent property of certain complex brain events. Since brains precede minds in evolution it would be hard to maintain (like the idealist philosophers did) that the existence of the physical universe depends on the existence of a conscious “observer”. It is the emergence of minds that seems to require explanation. Why did certain kinds of brain activity become associated with consciousness? Is consciousness biologically useful or is it a redundant by—product of evolution? Maybe consciousness is an “epiphenomenon” like the ghostly whistling of a train —but somehow this view seems curiously inadequate. We generally think of our minds as being causally effective in all our actions, and indeed, it is difficult to think of the word “mind” having any other meaning. One of the aims of the Cambridge symposium was to answer the question “What determines the uniqueness and privacy of an individual’s conscious experience?”. This question is generally considered by philosophers under the heading “personal identity”. My approach to this problem will be to present a series of “thought experiments” in which the reader is invited to participate. In my view nothing more can be said about personal identity than what is contained in these examples. Within each of us there seems to be an “I” that remains invariant in spite of continuously changing sensory impressions. If you are (say) presented a stimulus A followed by a stimulus B, there seems to be a “unifying agency” in you that relates the two sensations as having been 139 140 V. S. Ramachandran experienced by the same person. This “I” within you also has other attributes—it claims to “will” actions‘ and seeks self-preservation and immortality. Under the heading ‘ ‘personal identity” we may include two questions: (a) What determines the coherence and continuity of a person’s consciousness — in spite of constantly changing sensory impressions? (b) What determines the exclusive relationship of a person’s mind to a particular physical brain? Question (a) can be stated in a weak form or a strong form. The weak form of the question is “Why do I feel single in spite of changing sensory impressions?” or “Why do I not feel double even though I have two hemispheres?”. In my view these questions are meaningless since there can be no circumstance in which a person can feel double—for who is there to feel the doubling? The situation is analogous to two one—eyed dogs fighting over a bone. As Descartes points out, the dogs would behave as though they saw one bone and not two! Similarly there is no sense in which a split—brain patient could feel double—even if we assume that there are two quasi—independent spheres of consciousness inside his skull. A stronger form of the same question (a) is “What is the exact nature of the unifying agency in me that issues commands for action, etc., and relates various memories and sensations as having been experienced by the same person?”. This is really an empirical rather than a philosophical question. People with frontal lobe lesions, for instance, often report losing this sense of coherence and continuity in time. The feeling that I am a particular individual with some control over my future behaviour is also associated with self-consciousness and may be the subjective correlate of what MacKay calls the brain’s “supervisory system” (Chapter 6). But now let us turn to the second question (b), which is really a special form of a problem which Jennings2 and Eccles3 refer to as the “Uniqueness of personal existence”. Jennings asks: What is the relation of myself, identified as it is with one particular knot in the great network that constitutes humanity, to the other knots now existing? Why should I be identified with one only? To an observer standing apart from the net, it will not appear surprising that the different knots, since they are formed of diverse combinations of strands, should have different peculiarities, different characteristics. But that the observer himself —his total possibility of experience, that without which the universe Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 141 for him would be non-existent — that he himself should be tied in relations of identity to a single one of the millions of knots in the net of strands that have come down from the unbeginning past — this to the observer appears astonishing, perplexing. Through the operation of what determining causes is my self, my entire possibility of experi- encing the universe, bound to this particular one of the combination of strands, to the exclusion of some millions of others? Would I never have been, would I have lost my chance to participate in experience, would the universe never have existed for me, if this particular combination had not been made? Eccles takes this as the starting-point of what he calls a “personalist philosophy": This personal uniqueness and all aspects of its associated experiences are dependent upon the brain; yet it is not entirely dependent on the genetic instructions that built the brain. . . . I believe that my genetic coding is not responsible for my uniqueness as an experiencing being, as I have argued in my book Facing Reality. Of course, I have a unique genetic coding, as indeed do all of us who do not have an identical twin, but the probability of the existence of such a unique code is fantastically low: even 1 in 10^10000°. Thus the theory that the uniqueness of the code is the determinant of the unique- ness of the self results in such inconceivable improbabilities that it cannot be an explanation. Nor do my postnatal experiences and education provide a satisfactory explanation of the uniqueness of the self that I experience. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition. We don’t know how we came to be this unique self that is tied into our brain in a way we do not understand. . . . We go through life living with this mysterious exist- ence of ourselves as experiencing beings. I believe that we have to accept what I call a personalist philosophy—that central to our experienced existence is our personal uniqueness. And in his dialogue with Sir Karl Popper, he says 3*’: I believe that there is some incredible mystery about it. What does this life mean: firstly coming—to-be, then finally ceasing-to-be? We find ourselves here in this wonderful rich and vivid conscious experience and it goes on through life, but is that the end? . . . Is this present life all to finish in death or can we have hope that there will be further meaning to be discovered? I don’t want to define anything there. I think there is complete oblivion about the future, but we came from oblivion. Is it that this life of ours is simply an episode of consciousness between two oblivions? . . . Our coming-to—be is as mysterious as our ceasing—to—be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? It is obvious that (a) my genetic uniqueness, (b) the uniqueness of the experiences I have had, and (c) the particular physical matter that now constitutes my brain are all necessary conditions for my existence as I am now; but what Eccles seems to be asking is whether these conditions alone are sufficient to explain my personal uniqueness. Maybe questions such 142 V. S. Ramachandran as these are meaningless since they seem to imply a metaphysical origin for my existence and unlike Eccles I do not believe in soul—like “agents” inhabiting brains. But I do share his view that each person’s conscious existence in this world is an extraordinary mystery. THE MIND—BODY PROBLEM AND “PERSONAL IDENTITY” The history of science is full of examples of large conceptual gaps which were bridged by sudden flashes of insight. One recalls Maxwell's equations and the large gap which once existed between “life” and “nonlife” before the advent of molecular biology. But when confronted with the mind—body problem one has the uneasy feeling that somehow we are dealing with a different kind of “gap”. As Konrad Lorenz4 points out: The “hiatus” between soul and body . . . is indeed unbridgeable, albeit perhaps “only for us”. . . . I do not believe that this is a limitation imposed just by the present state of our knowledge, or that even an utopian advance of this knowledge would bring us closer to a solution. . . . It is not a matter of a horizontal split between sub- jective experience and physiological events, nor a matter of dividing the higher from the lower, the more complex from the more elementary, but a kind of vertical dividing line through our whole nature. The mind—body problem and the problem of “personal identity” are really two sides of a coin — and there is an interesting thought experiment which illustrates this. Imagine that you are a “super—scientist” with complete access to all laws of physics and brain-function. Supposing you were using microelectrodes to record from nerve-cells in the brain of a person A looking at (say) a red flower. As soon as he sees the red flower you find that certain cells begin to respond vigorously (in those areas of the brain which are known to be involved in colour perception). You then come up with what is essentially a complete and detailed state—description of his brain when he is confronted with such—and—such wavelength. Now the important thing to note is that this description you have produced is not in principle different from a description of (say) what happens when a computer solves differential equations. Each is an Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 143 intellectually satisfying account of a sequence of events in the external world; and we can describe these events at both “soft—ware” and “hardware’ ’ levels. Now you can repeat the experiment in any number of people (B, C, D, E, etc.) and you would come up with the same description each time. There may be minor differences in detail due to statistical fluctuations in each individual’s brain state) but the information—flow diagram specifying “perception of redness” would be the same for everyone. If brain-science is sufficiently advanced you may even be able to record from cells in your own brain when you are looking at a red flower. The description you would then come up with would be identical to descriptions you produced earlier for the brain states of other people looking at a red flower. If you compare the diagrams you have produced for A, B, C, D and E with the one you produced for your own brain state, you will not discern any difference. But now we have a curious discrepancy. You have no reason to doubt that the descriptions of other people’s brain states are complete. But when you examine the description of your own brain’s response to the red flower you will notice that it seems to leave something out —namely, the actual conscious perception of “redness”. From an “objective” point of View your brain has the same logical status as other brains. You have studied 11 brains of which yours is one. And yet you find there seems to be something fundamentally incomplete about your description of one of these n brains (i.e. your own) but not of any of the others. The description of your own brain is identical to A, B, C, D and E but incomplete. Hence there seems to be an asymmetry in nature between the observer’s brain and the brains of those whom he observes. Or, to put it differently, there is no one—to—one correspondence between an objective description of the world and what you experience — since your perception of redness just is not contained in that description. This leads us to what might be called a definition of consciousness. Consciousness is that “property” which makes a detailed statedescription of the observer’s own brain seem incomplete (in some philosophical sense) when contrasted with the descriptions of the brains of other people whom he observes —even if these descriptions are identical to his own in every other respect. In everyday life, of course, we conveniently forget the special 144 V. S. Ramachandran philosophical status of the observer. This has been called the fallacy of “objectivation” by Erwin Schrodinger? Without being aware of it and without being rigorously systematic about it, we exclude the Subject of Cognizance from the domain of nature that we endeavour to understand. We step with our own person back into the part of an onlooker who does not belong to the world, which by this very procedure becomes an objective world. This device is veiled by the following two circumstances. First, my own body (to which my mental activity is so very directly and intimately linked) forms part of the object (the real world around me) that I construct out of my sensations, perceptions and memories. Secondly, the bodies of other people form part of this objective world. Now I have very good reasons for believing that these other bodies are also linked up with, or are, as it were, the seats of spheres of consciousness. I can have no reasonable doubt about the existence of some kind of actualness of these foreign spheres of consciousness, yet I have absolutely no direct subjective access to any of them. Hence I am inclined to take them as something objective, as forming part of the real world around me. Moreover, since there is no distinction between myself and others, but on the contrary full symmetry for all intents and purposes, I conclude that I myself also form part of this real material world around me. I so to speak put my own sentient self (which had constructed this world as a mental product) back into it—with the pandemonium of disastrous logical consequences that flow from the aforesaid chain of faulty conclusions. Elsewhere he says: So we are faced with the following remarkable situation. While the stuff from which our world picture is built is yielded exclusively from the sense organs as organs of the mind, so that every man's world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence, yet the conscious mind itself remains a stranger within that construct, it has no living space in it, you can spot it nowhere in space. The questions raised by Schrödinger in these eloquent passages lead us inevitably to the “why” of personal existence. Why did one tiny corner of the Minkowski space—time diagram become suddenly “illuminated”, as it were, by my conscious awareness? For millions of years the universe must have been a “play before empty benches”. Then, quite suddenly, I was born in a little corner of the world. In a sense I created the world the moment I was born and my mind gave it substance and form. I am told that the world existed before my birth and I infer that it will continue after my death. Yet in what meaningful sense may the world be said to continue when the cognitive agent who perceives the world has ceased to exist? These are rather self—centred ideas. Contrast them with the more intellectually satisfying (but equally pessimistic) view —the so-called Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 145 “objective” world—view of a detached external observer. From his vantage—point my brain is just one of many thousands of brains and obviously has no special philosophical status —no “privileged access” to the world. The “I”, in his view, is a mere evolutionary novelty and so my coming to be and passing away have no special significance. WHAT DOES THE UNIQUENESS OF MY EXISTENCE DEFEND ON? As a brain scientist I am puzzled by the following facts about my existence: 1. In my lifetime I have had a great variety of experiences — sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc. But one thing that all have in common is that they are all my experiences. This mind of mine is always experienced as one in spite of the diversity of sense-data. I also feel convinced that this mind did not exist before the biological birth of my body, i.e. before a particular egg of my mother had been fertilized by a particular sperm of my father. Also, I experience “gaps” in my memory when my brain activity is arrested using an anaesthetic and conclude that I exist only as a result of the activity of a particular brain. That brain is in turn located in a particular body that people have named “R”. Moreover, when people refer to “R” I realize that they mean me and not my body. 2. One of the most mysterious questions I can ask about myself is the following: “How did my conscious agency (the ‘I’ within me) come to occupy this particular body which people call ‘R’? In other words, why was I born in a particular place at a particular time? Why am I me rather than someone else? Why was I not born, say, a thousand years ago in Egypt or Rome?” This question may strike the reader as being mystical or even meaningless but its exact significance will become clearer when he reads the “paradoxes” I shall soon describe. You may be tempted to brush aside the question by saying to yourself: “I am me rather than someone else simply because no one else has the same unique brain organization that I have. I am me, by definition. . . .” But this leads to further questions: 3. Does my existence (i.e. the existence of the conscious “agency” that “inhabits” the present body and experiences pleasure, pain and 146 V. S. Ramachandran emotions) depend on the particular physical matter that now constitutes my brain? In other words, if you were to replace all the carbon, H2, 02, Na+, Kt and other atoms in my brain with identical atoms picked out from the environment at random, then would I continue to exist? Would the same conscious agency then experience pain and pleasure, that experiences pain and pleasure now? 4. Does my existence depend on the particular environment I was raised in? To answer this question, let us do a “thought experiment”. If I asked you “Would you mind particularly, if I tortured you ten years from now?”. You would answer “Yes”. If I went on to ask “If you spent those ten years in Africa, would you mind being tortured after that?”, you would answer “Yes”. Your answer would also have been “Yes” if I had asked “Would you mind being tortured after you have spent ten years in Finland? ’ ’. Hence one is convinced that environmental programming is irrelevant to personal existence although it determines the content of personal awareness. Even if you were regressed back to early childhood and asked “Would you mind being tortured 20 years from now” you would answer “Yes . . . irrespective of where I am brought up. “PERSONAL IDENTlTY” — ONTOLOGICAL AND SEMANTIC QUESTIONS There are really three different questions about personal identity that people are often confused about. It is important to keep these questions separate, since although their meanings overlap a great deal, failure to distinguish between them can lead to all sorts of verbal quibbles. Question 1 First, there is the empirical question of what gives unity and coherence to my “mind”. This is really a problem for brain physiologists. What is often referred to as the mysterious “unity of mind” may simply reflect some particular kind of neural organization that integrates different sensory impressions and issues commands for action based on certain “goal criteria”. Our “minds” also construct symbolic representations of the outside world and we can even enact various roles in this symbolic Twins, Split Brains and Personal identity 147 world before doing so in the real world. What we call “self—awareness” must have emerged in evolution when one’s own body became a part of this symbolic representation. Question 2 Second, there is the philosophical question of “asymmetry” between the observing self and other agents. Supposing you are sitting in a red room and hundreds of other agents exactly identical to you are sitting in rooms which are coloured differently from yours. Then from your subjective point of view there is only “redness”; but in the objective description there are hundreds of people and hundreds of colours. Your perception of redness has no special place in that description. So there is no one—to—one correspondence between the “objective description” of the world and your own subjective experience. In each one of the thought experiments I am going to describe I shall begin with an asymmetry between the self (A) and others (0). Now we can do certain things to A. We can remove all the information in A’s brain and insert new memories, programmes, etc. (as in Bernard Williams’s° example) or we could replace all the atoms in his brain either one by one (gradually) or suddenly. You would then come up with what might be a new asymmetry between the apparently new agent A‘ and 0. Now the key question is how does the old asymmetry A—> O relate to the new asymmetry A‘—> O? This is the only real or ontological question we can ask about personal identity and almost all other questions which philosophers have dealt with in the past (for example, if an agent A‘ claims to be Napoleon based on his memories and based on his resemblance to Napoleon — would we want to regard him as Napoleon?) reallv boil down to this question. In the rest of this essay when I ask is A‘ existentially continuous with A, what I am really asking is whether the original asymmetry between A and O continues as the asymmetry between A‘ and 0 after certain transformations have been applied to the physical world (including A); or whether a new asymmetry has been created. All other questions about P.I. are trivial in the sense that they are of no fundamental philosophical importance. For instance, to take the extreme case, it would be trivial to ask whether A‘ is the same as A after A had undergone plastic surgery—since it is obvious that nothing would 148 V. S. Ramachandran have happened to the original A—>O asymmetry. Of course, external Os often use the face as a criterion for identity, but their choice or criterion has no bearing on what I shall call ontological or existential identity. So, like Popper,’ I would argue that Strawson’s ideas are somewhat irrelevant to the true philosophical question underlying personal identity. The “paradoxes” I shall state are really a summary of everything that can ever be asked about what I have called the ontological personal identity question—the question of how the A—>O asymmetry persists after certain perturbations have been applied to the physical world (including A’s brain). Question 3 Finally we come to a third question about personal identity-—namely the question of how you would identify a person A1 as being different from other agents and as being the same as an agent A whom you have seen in the past. This question (which some philosophers have been interested in) is really quite different from the ontological question (2) although it often masquerades as (2). I shall call this the empirical identity question since it ought to interest only policemen and detectives. (It is not different in principle from asking how one goes about distinguishing chickenpox from measles.) Take the question of criminal responsibility. A has just committed murder and is to be punished. Supposing I were gradually to replace all the atoms in his brain over a half—hour period to create A‘. Now should I punish A‘ since he talks and behaves like A originally did (he would even remember the murder!) and since he satisfies all the conventional criteria that an external observer would use for determining the identity of A? I think we would feel justified in punishing A‘ only if we felt sure that he was existentially the same as A — i.e. only if we are sure of his ontological identity in terms of whether the A —> O asymmetry has really continued as A‘—-> O asymmetry. Hoping to tackle some of these questions I invented a series of paradoxes involving twins and split~brain patients. As I pointed out earlier, these paradoxes are really a way of separating the question of ontological identity from empirical identity. It turns out that the paradoxes cannot be resolved at all; suggesting that the really interesting Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 149 questions about personal (ontological) identity can never be answered. This does not mean that no answer exists but simply that we cannot ever hope to answer them — even in principle. Of course, in everyday life we assume that what I have called “empirical identity” corresponds closely with ontological identity—but this assumption can never be proved; it is merely a belief that we accept for convenience. THE TWIN PARADOX Experiment I 1. Does my existence, the existence of the 1 within me (the cognitive agent that experiences joy, pain and pleasure) depend on the particular atoms that now constitute my brain? The answer is clearly no; from the following argument. I experience continuity of “self” right from childhood. However, there is continuous metabolic turnover of the atoms in my brain. Every few months or so the atoms in my brain must undergo almost complete replacement as I excrete wastes and eat new food. Yet I do not experience a “jerky” existence. This argument also makes sense from another point of view. It is obviously the way in which nerve cells are connected together that determines my conscious awareness. In other words, it is the processing of information in my brain that leads to awareness, and the actual atoms that “carry” the information are quite irrelevant.* Otherwise my existence today would depend on the particular apple pie or Christmas cake I ate last week! Having accepted that an individual’s awareness would continue even if the particular atoms in his brain are replaced let us go on to do a “thought experiment”. Supposing a “super-scientist” were to create a being that is exactly identical to you down to every fine detail. Ignore, for the moment, any limitation that might be imposed by Heisenbergian uncertainty. Imagine that this identical twin‘ is now seated in the next room (that is identical to your own) and keep in mind that there is * We shall examine this conclusion more critically later (p. 153), but let us assume for the moment that it is true and see what it leads to. 150 V. S. Ramachandran nothing logically impossible about this whole situation. (Although practically the experiment would be very difficult to perform.) If I were to ask you ‘ ‘Shall I torture the chap in the other room? Would you mind terribly if I did so?” you might answer “I don’t mind your torturing him because I won’t feel the pain” (although, of course, you might feel some concern for his well-being). If I were then to ask you: “I am afraid I have to kill you now. After killing you, would you mind if I tortured your twin? Do you mind particularly what I do to him after you are gone?” Although you might have some ethical concern for his well—being, you would probably answer: “I don’t particularly mind what you do to him —though obviously I wish him well. . . .” And now we come to a “paradox”. I kill you instantly and grind you up or cremate you. I then bring the twin brother and make him sit down in your chair. This is logically exactly equivalent to replacing all the atoms in your brain with new atoms.* It must follow that if I now torture your brother you will experience pain and if I make him happy you will be happy. In short, you will survive death and will “continue” in your brother! So you should be just as much concerned about your brother’s future welfare as you are about your own! The curious implication of this is that so long as you are alive nothing happens to you (i.e. you don’t feel pain) when 1 pinch your twin. However, the moment I destroy your brain and bring the twin to your room, “you” will feel pain when “he” is pinched! 2. What would happen if I were to destroy you and replace you with two identical agents instead of one? Would you then continue in each of them? If not, what or who decides which one you should continue in? If information=ontological identity then you ought to continue in both the twins. This would be a fortunate state of affairs if you are now motivated by two conflicting goals—say two careers you would equally like to pursue or two women whom you would equally like to marry. You could then destroy yourself after having asked each of your twin brothers to pursue one of these two goals. Perhaps “you” would then be simultaneously satisfying both your desires! ‘The fact that the replacement is done suddenly rather than gradually is irrelevant to the question of ontological identity. See Appendix I. Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 151 3. We shall now go on to consider a more instructive version of the “twin paradox’ ’. Is the paradox applicable to a situation where your twin had been brought up in an environment that was different from yours? Assume that you actually have such a twin living now in (say) Paris and assume that he has been much more fortunate in life than you have been. Maybe he is more famous and has more money than you do; in which case you may envy him and may wish that you were him. Perhaps when you were both still very much alike (in early childhood — say, when you were both 5 years old) your parents were divorced. Perhaps you were at that stage adopted by your mother and brought up under less favourable circumstances in Cambridge than your brother who was adopted by your father in Paris. Since you both began with the same genetic potential it was the environment alone that made all the difference. Your fate was decided at that critical moment when your parents were divorced. “How wonderful it would have been”, you may feel, “if I had been adopted by my father; and my brother by my mother.” Assume that a time machine existed now. I regress both of you back to the stage when you were relatively undifferentiated. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the two of you were completely identical down to every fine detail at the time when the divorce took place. (This assumption is not critical to my argument but it simplifies the logic considerably.) I now exchange two 5-year-olds so that you (the reader) are subsequently brought up by your father. I then bring both of you back to the world of the present. What would be the situation now? Would you now be your brother or would you still be you anyway in spite of the exchange? Would you now exist as your brother and experience all those fortunate circumstances which once belonged exclusively to him? There are three ways of approaching this problem: (a) There is an obvious linguistic sense in which you would not and indeed cannot exist as your brother. You could take the stand that since “I am by definition the person who is here and now, it is meaningless to even ask whether I would exist as my brother”. (b) However, hidden behind this linguistic riddle is a more fundamental philosophical problem. Many of us often regret some (retrospectively) foolish decision or other 152 V. S. Ramachandran which we made in the past. For instance, you may dislike your present career as a philosopher. At the age of 14 you may have decided on philosophy instead of (say) medicine and perhaps you very much regret having made the wrong choice. Given a chance to live your life again you would obviously choose to do medicine. Yet if the linguistic argument presented in (a) is strictly correct you would not even have existed if you had chosen medicine. In fact the argument would imply that it is not even legitimate for you to regret your past (or wish that you had chosen a different career) since the only alternative would be non-existence! This linguistic argument (a) must surely be false since it seems flatly to contradict common sense. There clearly is a sense in which you would have existed even if you had chosen medicine —and in fact all your daily actions are based on that fundamental assumption. As I pointed out on page 146, it seems likely that the particular environment you were brought up in is irrelevant to your existence (ontological identity) although it determines the content of your awareness. (One way of looking at this would be to suggest that the “I” within you is analogous to the program of a computer. The existence of these programs would clearly not depend on the particular inputs that the computer was called upon to handle.) It seems to me, therefore, that no linguistic resolution of the twin paradox is possible, and this takes us back to where we started. If you had exchanged places with your twin brother early in life would you now exist in your brother’s body in Paris—i.e. would you experience those sights, events and sensations which once belonged exclusively to him? Let me explain this a little further since it is central to my whole argument. Supposing you (A) have lived in Cambridge all your life, and your twin (B) has been brought up in Paris. Assume that at least one complete cycle of metabolic turnover of brain atoms has occurred since you were separated (in early childhood). You ate English food (composed of E atoms) and your brother ate French food (F atoms). So your brain now is made of E atoms (in England) and your existence is “tied” to these atoms while your brother’s existence is tied to F atoms. Now supposing A and B had exchanged places early in life. Then B would have eaten E atoms and A would have eaten F atoms; but the final physical state of affairs in the world would be exactly the same as it Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 153 would have been if the exchange had not taken place. In spite of the exchange there would now be one brain in England made of E atoms and one in Paris made of F atoms. Since the physical world now is the same as (not merely indistinguishable from) what the physical world would have been if no exchange had occurred, it must follow that your existence would also remain unaffected. Hence you would now be in Cambridge even if you had exchanged places with your twin!"‘ BIOLOGICAL CONTINUITY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY Until now we have been assuming that existential continuity is unaffected by replacement of brain atoms; and this resulted in a series of “paradoxes”. Perhaps the paradoxes prove that this central assumption is wrong. Maybe if the atoms of your brain are replaced (whether gradually or suddenly) you will cease to exist and a new person (identical to you but not the same as you) may begin his existence. The fact that you experience continuity in spite of metabolic turnover is no guarantee that you are not existentially a new conscious agent. Supposing I were now to suddenly replace the atoms in your head and supposing a new agent is thereby created. There is no way in which either I (the experimenter) or you (the new agent) could know that you were a new agent since you would experience an uninterrupted continuity of memories with the “old” agent. The question of whether you have ontologically a new existence can never be answered. But if it is really the case that every complete replacement of brain atoms leads to a new existence—then several bizarre consequences follow. For instance, one implication would be that it would be quite unnecessary to plan your life more than a year or two ahead since metabolic replacement of your brain would have occurred by then and you would, therefore, in effect be planning the future of someone else’s life! Of course, that person would resemble you a great deal and have the same memories, etc., but he would be existentially new (just as an identical twin is existentially different from you)——and you would, therefore, really be planning the life of a future identical twin! ‘I would like to emphasize that these paradoxes make sense only if the reader thinks of himself as one of the twins. From the point of view of a detached external observer the situation is completely symmetrical. 154 V. S. Ramachandran Here, and elsewhere, I have been asking the question “Is this agent A‘ existentially the same as the agent A who existed a few minutes ago?”. But what exactly do we mean by existential “sameness”? Is this a pseudo-question arising from misuse of language? To answer this, let us remind ourselves of the definition of consciousness which we considered earlier——in terms of the asymmetry between the observer and other agents. All my thought experiments involve changing the world in some way to find out whether this asymmetry persists. The question is “How does the new asymmetry which arises after applying a certain transformation (e.g. replacing brain atoms, replacing with an exactly identical twin, or replacing memories) relate to the asymmetry we began with before applying the transformation?”. Does your “self” or consciousness as defined by this asymmetry continue after I have applied the transformation? This is the only precise meaning we can give to the question of whether two agents are existentially the same or not. To a detached external observer the phrase “existentially continuous” is quite meaningless since from his point of view there was no asymmetry even to begin with. The criteria he would use for deciding whether A would continue as A‘ are largely arbitrary. For instance, if A is suddenly replaced by a replica (A1) made of new atoms, he may choose to call A‘ a new “person”; but if A’s atoms are gradually replaced one by one to produce A‘ he may decide to continue to use the same name label A. His choice has no bearing, however, on what we have earlier referred to as ontological identity. Further, the continuity of experienced consciousness is neither necessary nor sufficient logically to guarantee existential continuity. It is not necessary because you experience discontinuity on waking up from sleep (or anaesthesia) and in such situations there would obviously be no grounds for assuming that you were existentially new each time you woke up. And it is not sufficient either, because, although I can replace your brain atoms gradually (one by one) in such a way that your experienced consciousness is unaffected, there is no way in which either you or I could be sure that you were ontologically the same as the original agent. SPLIT-BRAIN PATIENTS The normal human brain consists of two nirror-image halves (the cerebral hemispheres) which are connected together by a band of nerve Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 155 fibres called the corpus callosum. Almost all memories and skills that are acquired during an individual’s lifetime are laid down simultaneously in the two hemispheres; and there is evidence to indicate that one of the functions of the corpus callosum may be to permit such duplication of memories. In most people one cerebral hemisphere appears to be specialized for speech and so it would not be strictly accurate to speak of all memories being duplicated. However, in some rare individuals, both hemispheres appear capable of speech production; and in such persons one hemisphere is almost literally a mirror—image of the other. During the last decade or so the brains of several human patients have been surgically divided into two by cutting the corpus callosum. The procedure was originally used to prevent the spread of epilepsy from one hemisphere to the other. When these “split-brain” patients8‘ were subjected to a battery of psychological tests, it was found that they often behaved as though they were inhabited by two “minds” or spheres of consciousness. In one well—known example (quoted by Sperry8) the two hands (controlled by different hemispheres) even tried to perform mutually incompatible actions. For instance, while one hand was trying to button the jacket worn by the patient the other hand simultaneously attempted to unbutton it! Almost everyone (except a few theologians) now accepts Sperry’s views that surgical bisection of the brain actually creates two “minds” or conscious agents where only one existed before. Of course, it is true that these patients often look normal and even behave normally except when special tests are used to reveal the presence of two minds. There are two explanations for this. First: it is possible that the “dominant” hemisphere is dominant not only for speech but for initiating motor commands as well (just as a dominant spouse can sometimes completely suppress the individuality of his more submissive partner). Second: it must be borne in mind that the brain of a split—brain patient has not been divided at the output level — the thalamic, bulbar, and spinal motor output centres have not been split. It is possible that when these centres receive conflicting “commands” from the two hemispheres, some simple strategy is adopted to resolve the conflict. One such strategy would be simply to obey the first command and ignore the second. These 156 V. S. Ramachandran strategies may be embodied in the circuitry of the motor output system and may not need instructions from higher centres. In spite of these strategies (which may help the patient avoid conflicts), there is at least one sense in which he really has two minds. If I pinch his left hand only his right hemisphere feels the pain and if I pinch his right hand, pain is felt only by his left hemisphere. So if we were to consider sensations and the reactions to sensations as being of prime importance, then we are really dealing with two independent spheres of consciousness here, although the person’s motor response appears to issue from one mind because of limited “channel capacity” (or even actively adopted strategies) at the output level. Experiment 2. Split—brains and personal identity Our interest in split—brain patients arises from the fact that they can be used to construct bizarre thought experiments—a possibility that has already been recognized by Derek Parf1t.9 Assume, for the sake of argument, that you (the reader) have speech centres in both your hemispheres. This assumption is not unreasonable, since, as I pointed out earlier, such cases are actually known to exist. Now supposing it has become necessary to remove one of your hemispheres for some surgical reason (e.g. to relieve pressure from a tumour). You ought not to mind this since removing one hemisphere alone would not affect your existential continuity (in the other hemisphere). It would also make no difference to you whether I removed the right hemisphere or the left; since you would be confident that you would continue existentially in either hemisphere. But now, let us assume that in order to simplify the surgery it has become necessary to cut your corpus callosum before removing one hemisphere. There is no reason why you should object to this minor change in surgical procedure: since the eventual outcome of the operation would remain unchanged you ought not to mind having your corpus callosum divided before hemispherectomy. I then divide the corpus callosum, thereby instantaneously creating two minds. Assume that the “mind” associated with the right hemisphere is you (the reader). I whisper to you “I am going to destroy you now since I shall be removing the right hemisphere. But, of course, you don’t have to Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 157 worry since there is a spare ‘you’ located in the same body.” (This message is delivered to the right hemisphere alone by whispering it through the left ear.) Now you might realize at an intellectual level that there was another “spare” hemisphere available in which you would continue to exist even if the right hemisphere is destroyed. Yet in spite of realizing this you would probably object violently to being destroyed. In what sense, you might wonder, is the mind of that “other” chap sufficient to replace your own? We have a situation here that is analogous to the “twin paradox” except that both the conscious agents in this case can legitimately claim direct existential continuity with one conscious agent who existed just a few minutes ago. This ought to increase the confidence of each of the two conscious agents that he will “continue” in the other hemisphere if he is destroyed! CAN THESE PARADOXES BE RESOLVED? Supposing an agent exactly identical to you is sitting in the room next door. Your two minds are ontologically different at least in one sense, i.e. in the sense that I can do things to you (such as cause pain) while at the same time sparing the other person. Since the two of you simultaneously coexist in space, you are numerically different and there would be no grounds for “confusing” one for the other. Our “paradoxes” arise only when one agent A is destroyed and replaced by a replica A‘ made of new atoms. Also, when we are considering the ontological continuity of A, it is irrelevant whether the replacement is done suddenly (as with a twin) or gradually (as in metabolic replacement). If we accept the position that ontological identity=information and that the “carrier” of the information is irrelevant then A should continue as A‘. But this would have several curious implications. One implication would be that if you are replaced by two or three agents (A‘, B‘, C‘) who are completely identical to you, you ought to continue completely in each of them. Another implication would be that if A‘ only partially resembles A, containing (say) only 90 per cent of the information that A contains (e. g. I could replace you with another man instead of an identical replica), then A’s ontological identity ought to continue at least partially 158 V. S. Ramachandran in A‘. (We cannot be sure of this but it seems reasonable.) So, when you die, you ought to “continue’ ’ at least partially in all other people! But supposing the “carrier” of the information in your brain—i.e. your brain—atoms—are also necessary determinants of your ontological identity then you ought not to even survive another two or three years since metabolic replacement of brain atoms would have occurred by then. And, again, the fact that you would appear (to other people) to have survived, or that you experience an uninterrupted continuity of memories right from childhood, is irrelevant to the question of your ontological identity. So, after considering all these thought experiments we are, in a sense, back where we started. It looks as though questions about “empirical” identity are philosophically trivial and questions about ontological identity can never be answered! But can we learn anything at all from the examples we have been considering? Some of our “paradoxes” seem to imply that we all go through life making certain assumptions about the nature of our existence. We sometimes accuse others of holding “super—natural” beliefs about souls and life after death without realizing that our own life is sustained by beliefs that are even more superstitious. For instance, we assume that we shall survive metabolic replacement of brain atoms and that we shall continue to remain more or less the same person in the near future. Sometimes we regret our past and assume that if we had lived elsewhere our lives would have been more fortunate. All these assumptions seem reasonable enough but if you examine them carefully (as we have done in this chapter) you will notice that they are all mere beliefs and that none of them can actually be proved. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air; . . . We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. CONCLUSION According to Wittgenstein “The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense.’ ’ Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 159 Wittgenstein’s remark seems particularly appropriate to some of the problems we have been dealing with in this chapter. Perhaps the best that philosophers can hope to do is to state more concisely the nonsense that has already been uncovered by other philosophers; and in a sense that is what we seem to have achieved for the problem of personal identity. I began by making a distinction between what I called “empirical” and “ontological” identity. I pointed out that the empirical identity question is philosophically trivial and then went on to explore all possible ramifications of the ontological identity question by inventing a series of “paradoxes”. These paradoxes encompass all the questions that men have ever asked about souls, transmigration and immortality, including metaphysical questions such as “What am I?”. It may turn out that the ontological identity question can ultimately never be answered. But at least we have succeeded in understanding the question as clearly as possible and that is the best that one can hope to do in philosophy. Also, our analysis seems to have taken us slightly further than Hume, who believed: The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion, which is of great importance in the present affair, viz. that all the nice and subtile questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties . . . we have no just standard by which we can decide and dispute concerning the time, when they acquire or lose a title to the name of identity. All the disputes concerning the identity of connected objects are merely verbal. . . . REFERENCES 1. See the section on “free will” in the introductory chapter of this volume (pp. 9 ff). 2. H. S. Jennings, The Universe and Life, Yale University Press, 1933. 3. J. Eccles, (a) The Understanding of the Brain, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1973; (b) in K. Popper and J. Eccles, The Self and its Brain, Springer International, 1977. 4. K. Lorenz, Behind the Mirror, Methuen, London, 1977. 5. E. Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, Cambridge University Press, 1958. 6. B. Williams, in J.Glover,ed., Essays on the Philosophy ofMind, 1977. 7. K. Popper, in K. Popper and J. Eccles, The Selfand its Brain, p. 118. 8. R. W. Sperry, in J. Eccles, ed., Brain and Conscious Experience, Springer, 1977. 9. D. Parfit, in J. Glover, ed., Essays on the Philosophy ofMind, 1977. 160 V. S. Ramachandran APPENDIX I: SUDDEN V. GRADUAL REPLACEMENT OF BRAIN ATOMS The paradox I have considered rests on the assumption that sudden and gradual replacements of brain atoms are logically equivalent. This assumption seems permissible to me since the final result of the replacement is exactly the same whichever procedure is used (i.e. there now exists a completely identical brain that is composed of new atoms). The objection that sudden and gradual replacements are not equivalent might arise from the common tendency to confuse material objects with functions. If consciousness were a lump of “something” attached to the brain then it might become dislodged if the brain were replaced suddenly but might “stick” to the brain if the replacement were done gradually. But if consciousness is a function (as it almost certainly is) the rapidity of replacement becomes irrelevant (i.e. the physical momentum of sudden replacement would not give it a “jolt” as it would if consciousness were something like a bit of matter attached physically to the brain). It is true, of course, that if the replacement is done gradually then continuity of function would be preserved (like planks being replaced one by one in a bridge so that it is never allowed to collapse), while sudden replacement would interrupt, albeit briefly, the continuity of function. But temporary interruption of function is not detrimental to the preservation of existence: complete cessation of brain activity (as during deep anaesthesia), followed by recovery of activity, interrupts the continuity of the stream of consciousness but the person who wakes up after the discontinuity (i.e. after anaesthesia) is exllstentially the same as the original person; unless one adopts the supernatural position that the original “soul” departs and is replaced by a new one. In the case of planks being replaced in a bridge it is largely a linguistic problem whether we choose to call the “new” bridge (arising from the replacement) the same as the original one or merely identical to it. We may choose to define anything that results from gradual replacement as the same as the original object and that which results from sudden replacement as a new but identical object; and this nomenclature is entirely arbitrary. But the question of whether my existence would continue if my brain atoms were replaced cannot be reduced to this kind of linguistic analysis. An outside observer may choose to call me the same person if the Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 161 replacement had been gradual but not if the replacement had been sudden. But the question is not what I should be called but whether I would ontologically continue to exist or not——and this cannot be answered by merely considering what criteria people generally use in such situations. APPENDIX II: THE MIND—BODY PROBLEM (p. 142) Not everyone would find it necessary to believe in a “split” of the kind described by Lorenz or implied in my thought experiment. Grover Maxwell has argued, for instance, that since the ontological or intrinsic (as opposed to descriptive or structural) properties of the world are fundamentally unknowable to science, the possibility is open that some of these properties are just the ones that are exemplitied in the events that constitute our own private experience. In that case, mental events would be merely one kind—perhaps a rather special kind—of physical event (G. Maxwell, in Consciousness and the Brain, ed. G. G. Globus et al., Plenum Press, 1976). However, the assumption of such a split is not necessary for creating the “paradoxes” that I have described. 162 V. S. Ramachandran Discussion Mackay: You argue that if my physically indistinguishable twin sat down in my chair, that would be “exactly equivalent” to replacing all the atoms in my brain, so that “in a sense” I would be sitting in that chair. But (1) for this to be at all plausible, my twin and I would have to have had identical experiences (including meeting the same people at the same time and in the same geometrical relationships) at every point throughout our two lives. This is impossible in principle, unless you could have us in duplicate worlds with duplicate people i.e. unless you had already solved the problem of producing identical twins! (2) Something that makes me permanently distinct from any other cognitive agent is that in principle I can be “Thou” to him and he to me. Even theoretically identical twins would become distinguishable in principle the moment they were able to engage in dialogue. One of them, for example, would have to listen while the other talked, and so on. (3) If, as I would argue, the identity of a conscious agent is associated with the interpersonal roles he can play, then no other conscious agent who exists simultaneously with me in the same world can be confused with me, since in principle we have the capacity to be “Thou" to one another. To take two conscious role players, however indistinguishable, and exchange them is different from taking one conscious role player and exchanging his bodily atoms, precisely because the first requires the prior existence of two conscious role players, and the second only one. The question “Which was which?” is simply resolved by tracing the roles, active and/or passive, played by each up to and through the point of exchange. RAMACHANDRAN: My question is: “What would happen if an agent exactly identical to me were to be created?" The fact that this is impossible in practice is irrelevant to my argument. Your second question is an extremely interesting one. My reply would be that in the kind of situation I have been considering (i.e. in a Laplacian world) the two agents would not be able to engage in “dialogue” even if they were allowed to confront each other. Dialogue requires exchange of information and since both our agents contain exactly the same information no such exchange can occur. Each agent would say and do exactly the same thing as his twin. Let anyone who believes in his “free will” imagine this situation! Supposing I now create a replica of you (Donald MacKay) and allow the two of you to confront each other in a completely featureless room——so that your brain states are completely identical right up to the point of confrontation. You would then try to be “Thou" to him by starting a conversation but to your surprise you would discover that he always simultaneously utters the same words as you. You might then even go on to explain to him that you wanted to prove to the audience here at the conference that you could be “Thou” to him—but you would be unsuccessful and the audience (who are watching you through closedcircuit TV) would notice that the other Donald MacKay was simultaneously making equally futile attempts to be “Thou” to you! Fortunately, there is a trick you could employ to break the “deadlock". You could use a radioactive device designed to (say) emit a signal either towards you or towards him. You could then decide in advance that only the person towards whom the signal was emitted: Twins, Split Brains and Personal Identity 163 should start speaking. This would at least help you start a dialogue but even then the conversation would soon become quite boring since your brains contain identical information. Furthermore, in all my thought experiments the exchange of bodies is done before the two agents have had a chance to initiate a dialogue. So although your question is an interesting one it does not create problems for the examples I have been considering. CHAPTER 10 Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience SUZANNE PADFIELD West Wickham, Cambridgeshire For many of you, the topic about which I am going to make some comments, namely psychokinesis or the apparent ability to move or alter matter by paranormal means, will seem startling, remote and implausible. May I stress here and now that the remarks I shall make are aimed fundamentally at bringing us merely to the starting—point of discussion, not at attempting to provide a scientific answer under the guidelines of science at present in existence. Just as we cannot measure an electric current with a ruler, neither can we register a step in the evolution of mankind with an attitude or frame of reference proper to a much cruder and outworn part of the history of man’s mental understanding. We have to adjust our attitudes, alter our frame of reference and angle of approach. The startling and intensely uncomfortable nature of psychokinetic phenomena provides the reasons which make the study and discussion of them a very good starting—place. For the purpose of aiding scientific understanding, I have in the past demonstrated some psychokinetic effects under controlled conditions. Most of these experiments took place at the Paraphysical Laboratory, Downton, Wiltshire, with Dr. Benson Herbert, and the principal experiment involved a piece of apparatus known as a light mobile system. This apparatus consisted of a single strand of polyester fibre, the polymer known as polyethylene terephthalate, 25 cm long and 16 microns in diameter (chosen for its high tensile strength and low electrical and thermal conductivity because of its low moisture content). A straw beam 8 cm long was attached to one end of the fibre by means of sealing wax and 165 166 Suzanne Padfield the other end attached by the same means to a cork which fitted tightly into the neck of a large glass bottle in which the straw became suspended horizontally. The straw was balanced by two differently coloured pieces of plasticine, one at either end, and the sides of the bottle marked with vertical lines, enabling the angle of rotation of the straw to be observed accurately. The system was placed on a vibration-free surface in a room free from disturbances and left for 24 hours, being monitored during that time to ensure that none of the known factors which might produce an effect on the straw beam were in operation. At the selected time for the experiment (no detectable movement of the beam, i.e. less than half a degree movement, having been recorded for 24 hours) I would enter the room quietly and stand 5 or 6 ft away from the system. I always wore a visor to reduce effects of heat radiation from my face and electrostatic charge from my hair.‘ I would then commence to “direct” the beam a certain number of degrees towards or away from me, either by free choice, having stated the number of degrees of rotation and direction beforehand, or at the command of the experimenter who was also present in the room but only near enough to the system to allow accurate observation, usually 10-12 ft. The experiment was successful about 70 per cent of the time and the straw beam would rotate the required number of degrees and remain still until a further direction or degree of rotation was chosen. A series of up to fifteen runs of psychokinetic influences could be accomplished during one experimental period with successful deflections of the beam from 5 to 90 degrees, fatigue usually deciding when the period would end. This particular experiment was carried out almost weekly for a period of nine years, and various refinements were made at different times. For example, when the subject and the experimenter entered the room a period was allowed during which any effect upon the mobile due to a change in temperature or humidity caused by the addition of two human bodies to the room would, if it was going to occur, have been observed. In fact we found that the addition of two people to the room caused no detectable effect on the system, no movement of the beam being observed prior to the start of the experiment. When a large number of observers wished to be present this did pose a great problem as the disturbance caused by temperature and humidity change and by general bustling around, no matter how strict one tried to be, usually caused an oscillation Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience 167 in the system or alignment of the beam. We overcame this problem by giving observers visual access via the window of the room containing the light mobile system. Later, at the Stanford Research Institute in California in 1976, I was able to produce deflexions of the beam successfully using only the monitor of a video camera for visual contact, the system itself being in an adjoining room with no one present. I have also been able on a large number of occasions to demonstrate “psychometry”, which is the ability to tell the past of an object, or events in the history of an object, merely by handling it and with no other information available? There are similarities and differences in my subjective experience of what is taking place when I do both psychometry and psychokinesis, which I believe are indicative of a new attitude and framework which may provide a useful tool for future understanding of the nature of matter and of consciousness. In the case of psychometry I am aware of a feeling of scanning the past events of the object I am holding and am aware of sequences or memory tracks, some of which become actual events and others which existed only as possible events. Both are explored and the actual events are singled out and emphasized in the same way as one might retrieve a memory trace. In the case of psychokinesis I am also aware of a sequence of possible events, as it were, in stages which I feel myself to be exploring. It differs from psychometry in that I am aware of the possibility of future events which are open to me and I am able to choose one of them, which becomes the actuality. In the case of the light mobile system it is the new position it will occupy. In both cases there is the subjective experience of exploring possibilities rather in the way one might remember what one did yesterday and the things one might or might not have done in retrospect. I must emphasize here that I feel myself to be a part of these processes and these events and not in any way separate from them. I am a part of the events, of the sequences, not merely observing them. This subjective experience of knowing all the possibilities and being a part of each one as it occurs is not mine alone. It occurs frequently in the revelations of mystical literature, “I am That”,3 and traditionally the second stage of spiritual development embodies just this experience, the notion that the perceiver is not separate but is a part of the process. In 800 168 Suzanne Padfield B.C., Patanjali, the founder of the school of Raja Yoga, wrote in his Yoga Sutras:“ “There is identity of relation between memory and effectproducing cause, even when separated by species, time and place.” Obviously the word “species” may cause some misunderstandings. The text and commentary 1 use as my source‘* discusses the problem of correct translation at some length. If I do as Alice Bailey suggests to her readers and apply my own concept of what Patanjali was saying in the light of my own experience and the rest of his teachings, I would insert “differences of form” rather than and in place of “species”. But it is the phrase “identity of relation” that is the key. The dynamics is determined by the identity of structures, one with another, rather than spatial positions. Let me explain further. Consider the brain as an atomic organization or society. The process of thought may be considered as the reciprocal activity taking place between different atomic organizations. The memory trace is the effect, within the brain as an atomic organization, of its interaction and degree of identification with other atomic organizations. By identification, 1 mean that what we know as a memory trace occurs when the sequence of atomic codings within the brain becomes identical with those of other atomic organizations. Patanjali says: “The past and the present exist in reality, the form assumed in the time concept of the present is the result of developed characteristics and holds latent seeds of future qualities.”5 Here again I believe the translation has suffered and the context of the Sutra strongly suggests replacing the obscure word “qualities” by the more precise words “states”, which makes absolute sense in the light of my own experience. Those “developed characteristics” of which Patanjali speaks are the sequences of atomic codings. They are, I believe, what I encounter and interact with when I do psychometry. “The latent seeds of future ‘states’ ” embodies the notion of a choice of one among many possible atomic rearrangements of an encountered atomic organization, via the interaction with the brain. When two codings match, you have a memory: at the instant they match you have the possibility, w'a the interaction, of creative thought, imagination to one degree, the macroscopic alteration of form to a larger degree. Obviously people will look for and try to make some comparison with more conventional psychology. They might expect some change in Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience 169 the nervous system in the case of psychometry which allows images of past events to be re—created. What I am saying is that there is no recreation of images, but that what is taken to be the re-creation of an image is in fact a newly created event arising out of the identification or matching of codings within the brain and any encountered organisation (or object). People term the new event a “memory” because of degrees of similarity. But I am saying that what we term “memories” are in fact new events never precisely identical (as those who have to deal with eyewitness accounts in court will testify). Concerning the similarity between the past and the present: in the case of psychometry people would normally expect that the experiences that an object had undergone must have changed it in such a way that the psychometrist could re—create the image of those things. The normal way of thinking would be that the object could “pick up traces” which would stimulate analogous memory traces in the mind of the psychometrist, therefore implying some kind of passive memory store. This is not so. Of course each organization is structurally altered atomically by its encounters with other organizations. But each encounter (including its encounter with a psychometrist) is actually a new event and the image the psychometrist perceives is that of a new event. One asks why those experiences tend to bear a startling similarity to events someone recognizes and verifies the psychometrized object to have been involved in. To answer this question I can only say briefly that the elements which go to make up the total object or organization are connected in a similarity space in which distances are defined by degree of similarity and where time and space do not automatically appear at all. In such a space a natural form of connectivity is a sequence of elements or patterns of elements in which neighbours differ only minimally. I further have to postulate that cerebral tissue has evolved the special function of rapidly producing structures which match the coding of some parts of such a sequence and thus get connected to the others. These will seem to be in the past of the object. This form of connectivity is unfamiliar in current physics. On the other hand, there is a growing interest in discrete or combinatorial approaches to physical foundations and in such approaches sequences in similarity space appear naturally at a more primitive level than space and time. (See, for example, Bastin and Noyes, “Possible physical interpretations of the combinatorial hierarchy”, to 170 Suzanne Padfield be published in proceedings of the July 1978 Tutzing conference on “Quantum Theory and the Structures of Time and Space’ ’ .) People might interpret what I have been saying about psychokinesis as my having suggested that the mind of the subject would have the power of exploring a great range of possibilities which are open to a given object or physical situation, so that by choosing and working on one of them the “mind” could make it come about. This is a step in the right direction of thinking from my point of view, but the emphasis is wrong. If you look back at my description of influencing the suspended mobile you will see that this summary gives too much autonomy to the mind. Possibilities are in fact explored, but which one is to be chosen is dictated to a large extent by the possibilities themselves. I am well aware that I have encroached upon the subject of physical particles and what they can do, and that I have postulated that, in some way, the structures formed from them may have the power, via identity of structure, of matching with and leading what we call our consciousness forwards or backwards along sequences determined by the interaction of the microscopic organizations both within and outside the brain. I am also aware that this idea is foreign to current physics, where this kind of connectivity has not been noticed. Formerly physicists would simply have said that no such thing could happen; now they are not so unequivocally certain about the matter. Some writers are seriously investigating the freedom allowed for psychokinesis by current quantum theory. Even they, however, have only demonstrated that a good deal of freedom exists. They have said nothing positive about the way their information organizes the details. My function in this situation is only to present you with my experience and to invite you to examine my argument that particular forms of connectivity are dictated by these experiences. Editorial note: The above has been printed with only minor changes from the author’s original manuscript. A restatement of the theoretical ideas in more conventional terminology based on editorial discussions with the author, may be of some value, provided it is borne in mind that the concepts may not be capable of exact translation. The basic ideas are: (1) laying down of memory is not the laying down of a precise copy of an image. but the creation of a structural change which encodes the event; corre- Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience 171 spondingly the recall process is an active one and does not in general re-create the original event exactly; (2) objects are capable of laying down memories of events they have experienced, by a similar mechanism to that of personal memory; (3) the structure of an object may encode a future possibility as much as it may encode a past event; (4) by generalizing the sense of identity, a psychic may perceive images connected to an object in the same way that we normally perceive images related to our nervous systems: (5) psychometry is explained as a perception created in this manner from the coding of a past event in an object; (6) psychokinesis is explained as a process of first creating an image of a future possibility for the object out of a structure within the object which encodes that possibility, and then interacting with that struc- ture so as to trigger off a causal chain leading to that possibility being realized. It is an interesting question whether the author’s theories, if valid, would reduce the paranormal phenomena she describes to normal ones. The explanations she gives would be quite conventional if one were to accept the idea that an external object could by some mechanism function as part of a person’s nervous system, a possibility which it is difficult to deny on purely logical grounds. While Dr. Ramachandran in his paper asks why one person’s experiences should be linked to one particular nervous system, Ms. Padfield argues that the principle just stated can on occasion be violated; while again Mrs. Noakes (see Josephson’s Afterword to the Conference) suggests that physics as currently interpreted gives an incomplete description of physical reality, and that subtler aspects of a person's identity exist which are not necessarily confined to his usual physical body. These papers all point towards the idea that personal identity and the relation between objective and subjective reality are questions of crucial importance to science. [B. D. J .] APPENDIX During the conference, several questions about experimental procedure, and in particular about the separation of psychokinetic effects from movements due to familiar causes, were put. The experimenter is very aware of the complexity of the problem of isolating effects, and in my opinion the safest course by far is to pursue what I will call a pragmatic approach which does not presuppose that one has a complete knowledge of relevant effects. If one observes the suspended beam for long enough, one can make an estimate to any desired measure of accuracy of the probability of a given effect taking place as a result of uncontrolled effects whatever these may be. Then, provided only that one is satisfied that the introduction of the subject has not altered any of the ambient conditions significantly, one can give an upper bound to the probability of the subject’s effects being fortuitous. In the experiments at Downtown, this pragmatic approach was consistently used. The beam was observed every ha1f—hour or so 172 Suzanne Padfield continuously for 24 hours before an experimental session, and all excursions of the beam greater than a fixed angle were recorded. What happened was that during the 24 hours no excursion greater than one or two degrees was observed; usually there was no excursion at all. During the experimental sessions I was able to produce excursions of the beam through angles of say 45 degrees, at will, every few seconds for as long as I was asked. In circumstances like these I would hardly bother with probability calculations, but they would be there in principle for sticklers on experimental protocol. It is very unfortunate that I seem to have given a misleading impression in my talk, when I spoke of the 24 hours’ observation period. Some of my questioners evidently thought that I said that only one experiment (i.e. excursion of the beam) was recorded in one 24-hour period, and some of the questions are misdirected in consequence. What I meant to say was that there would be a 24-hour observation period before each experimental session, the session including an indefinite number of excursions of the beam. REFERENCES 1. Benson Herbert, Paraphysical News, Supplement to the Journal of Paraphysics, 7, no. 5, p. 2 (1971). 2. For details of experiment carried out for B.B.C. TV, see ibid., p. 8. 3. Exodus 3: 14. 4. Alice A. Bailey, The Light of the Soul, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Lucis, 1972, p. 394. 5. Ibid., p. 374, v. 12. Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience 173 Discussion MACKAY: The “information rate" (number of bits of information per day) claimed for the alleged communication channel here is so low that our normal instincts for the dangers of correlated disturbances can be unreliable. For example, an extremely minute correlation between the process by which the “commands” were selected and the pattern of earth tremors, etc., that might physically influence the beam could give rise to a spurious appearance of information transmission at these low rates. How did the scores vary according to the method of selection? PADFIELD: I would agree with Professor MacKay’s criticism if the experimental procedure were as he supposes, and I hope my remarks above (see Appendix) have cleared up the misunder- standing. I hope, too, that my description of our “pragmatic approach" assures him that our reliance on “normal instincts” had a proper basis. A lot of attention was given to the selection of commands. At an early stage in the course of experiments, trials were made in which the instructions were selected by a suitable random process using random number tables to dictate the timing, and direction of the excursion of the beam which was to be aimed for by the experimenter. It was found that the degree of success of the subject was not related at all to the method of selection. MacKay mentions earth tremors. In some experiments a simple seismograph was kept running. There was never any correlation between earth tremors and other effects of any sort. BARLOW: Obviously you cannot give details of all the control observations and other precautions you took when doing these experiments, but I wonder if you could give us a few particulars in order to show us how easy, or difficult, it was to come to the conclusions you have come to? First, what is the natural period of your device when you are not trying to influence it in any way? Second, I think you said it took a day to recover fully from a perturbation, but I wonder if you can specify rather more precisely the time constant of the decay of oscillations following an imposed perturbation? Third, I wonder if you can specify the range, and perhaps the standard deviation, of positions observed if the reading was taken at, say, daily intervals following a long period without any deliberately imposed perturbations? Fourth, what was the amplitude of the perturbations you thought you achieved, how long did it take you to achieve them, and how did you decide what direction of perturbation you would attempt on any given day? The system may not be simple enough to give straightforward answers to these questions, but even very approximate answers would indicate to us rather more clearly the nature of the task of deciding whether your device is influenced in the way you believe that it is. 174 Suzanne Padfield It is not always easy to decide whether a signal has emerged from the noise, even when the noise behaves well and observations can be repeated every few seconds. It must be a fearsome task if the noise is less regular than expected and if you can only make one observation per day. PADFIELD: Firstly, the system is certainly far beyond the point of critical damping, in the direction of very low Q. I don’t know exactly how far, but the sensation one gets is always of a beam which drifts, certainly not one which oscillates. The fibre which was used for most of the experiments (after a great many had been tested) was a single strand of a polyester- polyethylene terephthalate with a diameter of 16 microns. It has a very low torsional elastic constant. In fact the elastic constant plays a very small part in the thinking about the experiment. For reasons which are not understood, these beams seem to have a natural alignment to which they settle down (quite apart from the activity of the subject) and you have to turn the torsion head several times before the torsional force is great enough to overcome this tendency to alignment. The second question is answered by my answers to MacKay, particularly in relation to the confusion over the 24-hour period, and by my statements about the restoring torsional force and the damping. There must presumably be a time constant which characterizes the exponential relaxation after an excursion of the beam, but I have no idea what it might be. When 1 cause the beam to rotate it moves through a finite angle and stays there. In view of my foregoing comments on oscillations questions 3 and 4 seem to boil down to the question “How far do you customarily move the beam?”. The answer is that it usually moves anything from 5 degrees to 90 degrees and that it is pretty much under my control how far it goes. VESEY : To the best of my knowledge I have never moved anything psychokinetically, so I was very interested in your account of the experience of doing so. From what you said there would appear to be one respect in which the experience of moving something psychokinetically is like the ordinary experience of, say, moving one’s arm. Lotze once said that he felt “thoroughly at home" in his voluntary bodily movements, as distinct from certain other bodily activities. (I suppose he was thinking of things like digestive processes—things we would not ordinarily say were “done” by the agent, although he certainly does something else, namely eating and drinking, to bring them about.) Now, you said that you had the experience of “not being separate” from the psychokinetically induced movement. I took you to mean that it felt rather like making an ordinary bodily movement. But you went on to say something which seemed to me to conflict with that. You said — didn't you? — that you had to visualize the desired movement in order to bring it about. I would have thought that to the extent to which you had to do that it would seem to you that you were separate from the movement. It would make it more like “willing” dice to fall in a certain, visualized, way. I wonder if you could say a little more about what you meant by not feeling separate from the movement in the psychokinetic case. Mind—Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience 175 PADFIELD: I was really concerned to make the point that to get the effect observed, you had to feel a part of the whole system and process including the mobile, as distinct from as it were giving it instructions through what MacKay calls a communication channel. (Indeed, this second process means nothing to me experientially beyond enunciating the words of the instructions.) I actually gave much more detailed instructions than merely to visualize the movement, for you had to get sufficiently a part of the detail of the system to intervene between two states. The misunderstanding may be due to a use of the word “visualize” which carries a sense of seeing as a process where a message is carried from a thing to a mind. On the other hand, “visualize" also carries a sense of reproducing something of what has been seen, which seems to militate against separation. CHAPTER 11 Phenomenal Space M. J. MORGAN University of Durham One of the attributes of mental events, such as thoughts and sensations, that has been most persistently described as distinguishing them from physical things is that mental events do not have an obvious location in physical space. If we are trying to catch a cricket ball, a physicist could tell us the trajectory of the ball, and where it is at a given instant. But if called upon to say where our perception of the ball is he would obviously be much more puzzled about what was required as an answer. One course of action that might occur to him is to get the observer to point to, or otherwise indicate, the position in which he sees the ball to be. In this manner a trajectory of the perceived ball might be plotted out. Such a trajectory might differ, and indeed usually would differ, from the trajectory of the actual cricket ball itself, because of such factors as the speed of the visual response. Suppose the physicist, having established the perceived trajectory, were to examine the point in space which the perceived ball occupied at a particular time. He might do this, if he were very innocent, in the hope of seeing what a perceived ball looks like. Of course, he would find nothing there. No matter how hard he looks in the space occupied by cricket balls and the like he will not find perceived or phenomenal cricket balls. This is the sort of consideration that has led to the notion that perceptions do not occur in physical space at all, but rather in a purely mental or “phenomenal” space. If this claim is true it is clearly a very powerful reason for maintaining a mind—matter dualism. I therefore think it important to point out that the concept of a phenomenal space is mistaken, or at best confused, and this is what I shall try to argue in the following pages. 177 178 M. J. Morgan Let us first of all analyse applications of the concept of phenomenal space a bit further. Consider a well—known illusion such as the “Pulfrich Pendulum”. The observer looks at an object swinging from left to right on a length of string at right angles to his line of sight. If he places a neutral density filter in front of one of his eyes, carefully keeping both eyes open, the observer now sees a very striking effect: the pendulum, instead of moving in a plane at right angles to the line of sight, now seems to move in an ellipse, constantly changing its apparent distance from the observer. The orbit is clockwise in depth (as if viewed from above) with the filter over the left eye and anticlockwise with the filter over the right eye. The details of this illusion are not important for the present discussion; what I wish to draw attention to is the fact that in this case, as in other illusions, it is possible to apply conflicting spatial descriptions to the object. We say that the physical object (the bob of the pendulum) is moving in a straight line, whereas the perceived object is moving in an ellipse. In the case of the physical object we are accustomed to saying that it moves “in” space. But if this description is applied, what shall we say of the movement of the perceived object? Is the ellipse also “in” space? If so, what space is it “in”: the same space as that of the physical bob, or some special space reserved for perceptions? ‘ A widely canvassed answer to this question is that there is indeed a separate space for perceived objects, a “phenomenal”, “subjective” or “mental” space, quite distinct from the space in which the physical object moves. A phenomenal object, phenomenally moving in this phenomenal space, can be meaningfully described, on this theory that I am outlining, as moving in ellipses, straight lines or whatever. This is not supposed to be a merely idle analogy, a sloppy use of the same word “space” to cover two concepts that share nothing whatsoever; on the contrary, as we shall see, it is often thought that phenomenal space shares sufficient properties in common with physical space for it to be meaningfully described as having a geometry — although, as we shall also see, it has been supposed that these geometries do not have to be identical. It would be unfortunate to give the impression that the concept of a phenomenal space has arisen only out of perceptual illusion. Consider another example, in which Shepard and Cooper showed people drawings representing complex three-dimensional shapes with several limbs and Phenomenal Space 179 angles. The observers were given the task of judging whether two such shapes, presented together, were the same or not. One of the shapes could be rotated relative to the other, or both rotated and mirror-imaged: in the first case the observer was meant to say that it was the same shape, in the second case that it was different. The finding was that the greater the angle through which the shape was rotated, the longer the observer took to decide whether it was “the same” or not. When asked how they did the task, observers straightforwardly replied that they mentally rotated one of the shapes until it coincided with the other version, to see if they matched. It seems that the greater the angle through which they had to carry out this mental rotation the longer they took over it. Obviously, the observer is not rotating the physical object on the paper. As in the case of the Pulfrich Pendulum, it is tempting to say that what is really moving is an image or phenomenal object, and that it is rotating in a phenomenal space. Gregory’s theory of the geometric illusions provides another illustration of the way in which the concept of phenomenal space might be used, although Gregory has not emphasized this aspect explicitly. In this theory certain features of line drawings are thought to trigger constancy scaling mechanisms normally involved in three-dimensional representations of objects in space. Lines that are indicated by primitive perspective features as being further away from the observer are expanded, and those indicated as nearer are relatively contracted. One interpretation of what is going on here is that out of the line drawing a representation of an object in a 3-D phenomenal space is being constructed, and that the observer is making judgements of lengths of lines in the phenomenal figure. However, we must be cautious here, because Gregory stresses that the illusions may be seen even when no depth is perceived in the figure. In such cases the illusion is treated as a judgement of line length determined by an unconscious process of “primary scaling”. Even this, however, is treated as a scaling operation, which seems to demand a spatial representation of some sort. To conclude this brief introduction to uses of phenomenal space, I give the following quotation, which may be more aptly considered as a blunder than as a reasoned statement, but which nevertheless illustrates a certain popular conception: 180 M. J. Morgan One important hypothesis suggests that the brain contains a model of the outside world. We are so familiar with this model that we think it is the outside world, but what we are really aware of is an imitation world, a tool which we manipulate in the way that suits us best and so find out how to manipulate the real world which it is supposed to represent. . . . When we cross the road and avoid traffic we are really dodging the moving buses and cars in the mind. In other words, there are two sets of moving buses and cars; one set in the physical world, which are dodged by our real bodies, and another set moving in a purely phenomenal space, which are dodged by a phenomenal version of our bodies. It is fortunate indeed that these two dramas are utterly distinct, for if it were not so a collision with a phenomenal bus might injure our physical body, with disastrous results. Collisions between real buses and phenomenal bodies are probably less to be feared on the whole, although bus drivers might think differently on this point. Luckily these speculations about cross-modal traffic accidents need not detain us, for the supporters of phenomenal space insist that it is utterly distinct from physical space and that there is no possibility of interaction between the two. Indeed, this is what dualism is all about. The first point that needs to be stressed about the doctrine of the “two spaces” is that it differs in a very important way from representational theory as we normally apply it to perceived qualities such as colours, smells and the pitch of sounds. We do not say that there are two distinct sets of colours, one physical and the other phenomenal. On the contrary, we say that phenomenal colours are the only kinds of colours there are: they represent, not a further set of colours, but differing wavelengths of light. Colour science made little progress until it was realized that colour mixture, for example, was a property of colours rather than lights. There was much confusion concerning the interpretation of Newton’s experiments until the Young—He1mholtz theory finally became established and cleared up this logical point. Similarly, we believe that there are only phenomenal smells. (The philosopher Bradley was mistaken in ascribing to physiologists the belief that when we smell rotting fish we are aware of the stinking state of our nervous system.) There is no need to multiply examples. However, the doctrine of the two spaces is not like this, because the same word “space” is still used to describe both the phenomenal and the physical referent, and it is considered that the two spaces share a number of important features. Physiologists could not agree, I take it, that there is only a phenomenal Phenomenal Space 181 space, in the same way that there are only phenomenal colours. If they held that there was only a phenomenal space, it would be hard to understand why they should attempt to explain various aspects of our perception (such as binocular vision of depth) by drawing spatial diagrams, and by appealing to the fact that light travels in straight lines. If “straight lines” and the like were purely phenomenal, explanations couched in these terms would not be physiological explanations at all. They would resemble a “colour theory” such as the one of Goethe, who insisted that explanations of colour should remain within the realm of colour. There may be something to be said for a rigorous phenomenology of this kind—I do not want to enter into this argument at present, but merely to point out that the scientific treatment of perception has rejected pure phenomenology in the case of colours and smells, but has not succeeded in doing so when it comes to the spatial aspects of perception. Exactly the same point can be made about the treatment of time and duration in psychology. We speak of physical events such as eclipses having a duration, but we also talk as if it were meaningful to apply exactly the same word to experiences. It is recognized that “subjective” or phenomenal time will run more or less slowly on different occasions in comparison to a physical clock, but it remains “time” none the less. William James discussed Helmholtz’ 5 treatment of this problem: If asked why we perceive the light of the sun, or the sound of an explosion, we reply “Because certain outer forces, either light waves or air waves, smite upon the brain, awakening therein changes, to which the conscious perceptions, light and sound, respond.“ But we hasten to add that neither light nor sound copy or mirror the ether or air-waves; they represent them only symbolically. The only case, says Helmholtz, in which such copying occurs, and in which “our perceptions can truly correspond with outer reality, is that of the timesuccession of phenomena. Simultaneity, succes- sion, and the regular return of simultaneity or succession, can obtain as well in sensa- tions as in outer events. Events, like our perceptions of them, take place in time. . . ." (W. James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 627-8.) Helmholtz calls this the “only case”, but his use of the word “outer” gives the game away for space as well. This is a spatial term that can be applied to physical events and to phenomena. I perceive a tree as outside my head and my headache as inside; a physiologist would say that the brain events corresponding to both these phenomena are inside the brain. We may have arguments on this point but we use the same words. I think it was Winston Churchill who described the Americans and the British as 182 M. J. Morgan “two nations separated by a common language”. What Kant called the inevitable ambiguity of terms like “outer” and “inner” has very much this divisive effect in the philosophy of perception. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant blames scepticism of the Berkeley variety entirely on this ambiguity. Reference to Kant brings me to a second general remark on the concept of phenomenal space. This is that Kant, although he may be held in part responsible for the intrusion of phenomenal space into psychology (through figures such as Lotze and Hering), nevertheless did not himself believe in “two spaces”. The whole point of his argument is that space is purely phenomenal. He believed it to be a grave error to postulate a physical space separate from the one involved in our perception. For this he had two main motives, which —if we follow critical arguments by P. F. Strawson and others — do not fit very comfortably together. First, there is the point I have already discussed: that we apply a full—blown representational argument to colours and smells, but draw back on the brink of applying a similar rigour to space and time. Without really saying why, Kant found this privileged position of space and time inelegant, and urged that the representational argument be pushed to its obvious conclusion. Arguing in this manner Kant poses as an empiricist who wants to make empiricism more rigorous, just as Berkeley had poured scorn on Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Like Berkeley, Kant criticizes the distinction between primary and secondary qualities as ‘ ‘merely empirical”. This is Kant as a wolf in the empiricist fold, devouring the sheep on the pretext that a few less animals will make the flock stronger. Or, to change the metaphor, he is throwing out the baby to keep the bathwater clean. This inspired benevolence has not on the whole had a very good reception from scientists at their bench, who are distressingly tolerant of possible logical flaws in their outlook provided they carry on getting good results, and who tend to react with gross ingratitude to offers of assistance from the like of Kant and Berkeley. But Kant had a much more powerful reason for his theory than a desire to make empiricism self-consistent, and here his thinking has had much greater influence, if no more ultimate success. This was his conception of geometry, an account of which will take us to the heart of the present problem. When we are taught Euclidean geometry in school (at least, as it used Phenomenal Space 183 to be taught) we are offered one or more “proofs” of Pythagoras’ theorem, which purports to be a metrical statement about triangles, namely, that the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. If we now go out into the field and carefully construct a right—angled triangle, we shall find, within the limits of experimental error, that the Pythagorean metric adequately summarizes the results of our real measurements. This agreement between theory and observation is amazing. Kant, at any rate, found it simply staggering. On the face of it, unaided reason has enabled us to predict the results of real measurement, carried out on physical objects. Kant called reasoning of this kind a priori synthetic: a priori because it does not seem to depend on previous experience, and synthetic because it is about facts, not about tautologies. Kant’s philosophy of space and time is concerned with the problem of how such reasoning is possible. Without going into the details, which are forbiddingly complex, his answer was once again that space and time are phenomenal: but now much more fundamentally so than the level on which colours and smells are phenomenal. We can imagine experiencing a world in which colours and smell are absent; but (according to Kant) there is no form of experience intelligible to ourselves that does not involve space and time. There are thus certain truths which could be stated to hold for experience even before we have the relevant experience: they are the minimum conditions for any experience whatsoever. This has some analogies to the Socratic method of showing that we have innate ideas of geometry, but with an important difference; for Kant it is not merely a matter of demonstrating that we are, as a fact, born with certain innate ideas of space —the important point is that without just these ideas we should, as experiencing beings, never have been born at all. It may seem a long way from these general considerations to Euclidean geometry in particular, and indeed it is too far, for Kant never shows beyond the utmost generalities how a derivation of Euclidean geometry might be managed according to his principles. It is now generally held that his effort was doomed in any case, because other geometries have been discovered that are at least as self-consistent logically as the Euclidean variety (see below). Nevertheless, a revisionist version of Kant’s claim has been claimed in 184 M. J. Morgan recent years which depends upon the “two—spaces” concept. This is not really a Kantian notion at all, for to distinguish between a phenomenal space and a physical one is to abandon the basis of Kant’s philosophy entirely. However, Strawson has suggested that while Kant is clearly wrong in claiming that we know Euclidean geometry to be true a priori for physical space, he may none the less be correct in saying that is true a prion‘ of a purely phenomenal space: If we can make sense of this notion of a phenomenal interpretation for Euclidean geometry then perhaps Kant’s theory of pure intuition can be seen, at least up to a point, as a perfectly reasonable philosophical account of it. To bring out the status of the propositions of such a geometry, it is best to take an example. Consider the pro- position that not more than one straight line can be drawn between any two points. The natural way to satisfy ourselves of the truth of this axiom of phenomenal geometry is to consider an actual or an imagined figure. When we do this, it becomes evident that we cannot, either in imagination or on paper, give ourselves a picture such that we are prepared to say of it both that it shows two distinct straight lines and that it shows both these lines as drawn through the same two points. (P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, pp. 282-3.) This is a very strong claim indeed for the existence of a purely phenomenal space. Strawson is claiming not merely that we might be able to make sense of such a concept, but that we could describe phenomenal space as having a geometry all of its own. On this theory, the very strong intuitive appeal of Euclidean geometry is to be explained by its being the geometry that describes such things as phenomenal straight lines and circles. The theory makes no claims about the proper geometry of physical space. It would not be worrying, on this account, if physical triangles were found to have angle sums greater than two right angles: phenomenal triangles could still be Euclidean. This is a “two spaces” doctrine with a vengeance. I have tried to explain in detail elsewhere‘ why I do not think that this idea of a phenomenal geometry will work. The main problem can be best brought out by considering first of all how theories of physical space and geometry have progressed during the last few hundred years. We have already seen that a remarkable feature of Euclidean geometry is that it appears to make metrical assertions about figures, as in the case of Pythagoras’ theorem. Obviously the origin of the metrical aspects must be buried somewhere in the axioms, and in fact Pythagoras’ theorem depends upon Euclid’s 5th Axiom, the famous “parallel axiom”: “Given three straight lines p, q, r one of which p intersects the other two, then if Phenomenal Space 185 the sum of the interior angles of intersection on the same side of p is less than two right angles, then if r and q are produced indefinitely they will meet on that side of p. ” It is the presence of the two right angles in this axiom that carries the metrical burden of the whole geometry. It is possible to do without the parallel axiom, but only if we are prepared to substitute a statement that would normally be a theorem, such as “There exists a single triangle with the angle sum of two right angles.” In 1773 the Jesuit priest Saccheri tried replacing the angle sum of two right angles by various alternatives, and attempted to show that the resulting geometries were not self-consistent. He failed, and the idea at length became established that several self-consistent geometries exist. This was not finally established with certainty until Klein found a method of mapping each theorem of a non—Euclidean geometry on to a corresponding theorem in Euclidean geometry. If this can be done, the non—Euclidean geometry must be at least as self-consistent as the Euclidean geometry. Klein’s method was roughly as follows. Euclidean geometry makes reference to a number of “primitive elements” such as “straight line” and “intersection”. In a formal statement of the geometry these elements can be replaced by symbols. The same can be done for the non-Euclidean geometry using a different set of symbols. Such axiomatic systems are said to be “uninterpreted” in the sense that the primitive elements have not yet been co—ordinated with points, lines and so on. Let us now interpret the elements of a non—Euclidean geometry by relating them to the interpreted elements of Euclidean geometry, such as “straight line”, “line on the surface of a sphere” and so on. We shall now have a set of axioms that could be said to be true or false in Euclidean geometry. The question is whether a suitable interpretation can be found such that all these interpreted axioms would be true in Euclidean geometry. Klein showed that such an interpretation was possible, and in fact several are now known to exist. For example, suppose that there is a figure T in the non-Euclidean geometry, composed of three L’s, the angle sum of which is greater than two right angles. If we co-ordinate Twith a Euclidean “triangle” and L with a Euclidean “straight line” we have an inconsistency. But if we adopt the mapping T; “spherical triangle” and L E “shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere” there is no inconsistency. If, given this mapping, no further inconsistency turns up we may conclude that our new geometry is as self-consistent as the Euclidean. 186 M. J. Morgan Another approach is to interpret the primitive elements arithmetically, and to show that an interpretation is possible at least as consistent as arithmetic itself. This was done by David Hilbert. We can now take the argument a stage further. Even the interpreted elements of a geometry, such as “straight line”, are not yet interpreted in a physical sense. Before we can apply a geometry to physical measurement we have to decide on interpretations like: “straight line” E “path of light ray in empty space”. Until we have done this we have no right to speak of one geometry as more or less true than any other. If we took a Euclidean “straight line” to mean the shortest distance between two points on the surface of the earth, we should find as a matter of fact that it is not true, in the sense that triangles would have angle sums greater than two right angles. Whether it is true of the paths of light rays in empty space is a matter of experimental investigation. Einstein put this very clearly as follows: For example, Euclidean geometry considered as a mathematical system, is a mere play with empty concepts (straight lines, planes, points, etc., are mere “fancies”). If, however, one adds that the straight line be replaced by a rigid rod, geometry is transformed into a physical theory. A theorem, like that of Pythagoras, then joins a reference to reality. I hope it can be seen without much further elaboration that the idea of a purely phenomenal geometry is highly suspect.‘ Suppose I ask you to imagine a triangle and then I wish to find out whether the sum of the angles of this phenomenal figure is 180 degrees. Since this figure is purely phenomenal there is no measurement 1 can carry out on it. My only recourse is to ask you, the imager, to measure it for me. You may even feel that you can do this, and reply “two right angles”. But what has been established here? If I agree with your answer, all that has been established is that we use the words “triangle”, “straight lines” and “two right angles” in the same way. Consider what we should say if someone obstinately proclaimed that their phenomenal triangles had angle sums greater than two right angles; or, worse, that he could imagine five different lines in the same plane passing through a point and none of them intersecting a sixth line in that plane. His statement could be true of our curves but not of our lines. How do we know that he is talking about our lines rather than our curves? Concluding that our eccentric has a nonEuclidean phenomenal geometry would be just like saying that the Phenomenal Space 187 geometry of a sausage is non—Euclidean. If we decide that lines drawn at right angles to the long axis of the sausage are straight, then all “straight lines” on the sausage are parallel and its geometry is indeed nonEuclidean. But Euclidean descriptions of sausages are not beyond our power if we adopt a different definition. It may be objected that eccentrics of the kind just described do not crop up in reality, and that we all know perfectly well what a phenomenal straight line is. Indeed we do, and this is precisely because we have been taught to use the word by other people. It can hardly be maintained even by the most convinced nativist that we are born with an association between a phenomenal straight line and the verbal utterance “straight line”. We are taught it by being shown physical straight lines. A mother cannot say to her child: “Imagine a straight line. Now this is what we adults call a straight line.” Nor is it any improvement to say: “Imagine the shortest distance between two points: this is called a straight line.” For the term “shortest” has not yet been defined, nor can it be without escaping if only momentarily from the phenomenal domain. Thus any phenomenal geometry must be entirely parasitic upon physical geometry. 1 do not see how it can make sense to speak of different geometries for physical and phenomenal triangles. Even if there were such things as phenomenal triangles we could only learn to call them triangles by being presented with real triangles. We have a set of rules determining which kinds of line drawings shall be called triangles. They must, for example, be drawn with straight edges, not curves. If we show these to people they are simply not allowed to say: “This gives rise to a phenomenal square.” For what then should a square be called? Equally intractable difficulties arise when one considers congruence operations, and what they might mean in a purely phenomenal domain. Superficially it looks as if the congruence relation “the same length as” can be replaced in phenomenal geometry by “looking the same length as”. I think I have said enough to indicate the broad lines on which this can be attacked, but the argument is lengthy and I would refer the reader who thinks this point important to a previous article.‘ If we abandon the notion of a phenomenal geometry, as I think we must, what other properties could phenomenal space have to qualify as being space—like? If we ask what are the properties possessed by physical space and try to find counterparts in the phenomenal domain we shall 138 M. J. Morgan soon see that phenomenal space is extremely impoverished. Of course, arguments still rage about whether physical space is meaningfully described as having properties at all. “Relativists” continue to attempt the replacement of all space-properties by the properties of fields and relations between bodies. Nevertheless, both relative and absolute theories of physical space will have to cope, as Hinckfuss points out, with properties like the following: Electrical, optical, and electromagnetic properties of space (i) Empty space is a poor conductor. (ii) The magnetic permeability of empty space is 471 X 10'7 henrys per metre. (iii) The permittivity of empty space is 8.55 X 10‘ 12 farads per metre. (iv) The speed of light in empty space is 2.9978 X 108 metres per second. (v) Empty space is transparent. I cannot say with confidence whether or not empty phenomenal space is transparent, still less what its permeability might be. One is reminded of a remark by Meyerson: “The real appears to us a fact — a datum. Now, reason would like to consider it as necessary. Hence the extravagant attempts to reduce it to space, namely to nothingness. . . .” If this applies to physical space, how much more does it apply to phenomenal space, the chief distinguishing feature of which seems to be that it has no properties whatsoever. It may seem somewhat perverse to deny the existence of a phenomenal space so thoroughly. I am aware that it is in a sense setting up a straw man to argue that phenomenal space has no metric and no properties corresponding to the physical space. After all, no one has ever really supposed that we can measure phenomenal distances in feet or microns. There are weaker versions of the representational hypothesis than these I have discussed, and they can very probably be phrased in an entirely acceptable form. Of course, I do not wish to deny that we have a representation of spatial relations; for example, in the sense that as I look out of my window I see a line of trees as further away from me than the lawn. What this does not mean, however, is that I somehow measure the distance between phenomenal trees and lawns in a phenomenal space. The perceived space between trees and lawn, I am suggesting, should not be thought of as having any existence prior to the judgement of the Phenomenal Space 189 distance. And this judgement refers to the distance between the real trees and lawn, not to some special and separate phenomenal distance between them. Our perceived space is constituted by perceptual judgements of angle and distance, rather than existing prior to these perceptions and permitting them to be made? I began this essay with some examples and would like to conclude with them also. Shepard and Cooper’s subjects describe themselves as carrying out their task by “mental rotation’ ’. The proper description of what they were doing, I suggest, is that they were imagining a rotation—not that they were rotating an image. Shepard and Cooper are actually very careful to say that “mental rotation” does not imply the rotation of anything. The advantage of the description “imagining a rotation” is that it does not imply that any actual rotation occurred, thus obviating the need for a space in which something might rotate; the phrase “rotating an image”, on the other hand, implies that something was actually rotated, with all the difficulties this brings in its wake. In the Pulfrich Pendulum the target is seen as rotating in an ellipse; this does not mean that the observer is inspecting a phenomenal target that is actually moving elliptically. There are possible advantages here in Gregory’s “hypothesis” terminology for perceptions. The ellipse is the observer’s hypothesis or judgement of the pendulum’s path; it is not a geometric description of some special phenomenal kind of trajectory. Hypotheses are not themselves elliptical or straight any more than judgements are, and they are about physical events in physical space, not about a separate phenomenal domain. REFERENCES 1. N. Bolton (Ed.), The two spaces, in Philosophical Problems in Psychology, Methuen, in press. 2. See Merleau—Ponty’s strictures on “container” space in The Phenomenology of Perception. 190 M. J. Morgan Discussion VESEY: Kant held that spatial properties are entirely phenomenal. Like you I think he was wrong. But my reason for thinking him wrong is one which brings me into conflict with you on something else. My reason is a very general one about the conditions of meaningful discourse. I hold that for the remark “X looks ø”, where X is some object and ø is some property, to be meaningful, “X is ø” must be meaningful. There must be an accepted practice with “X is ø‘ which we cotton on to when we are learning to talk, and by refer- ence to which it can be settled whether or not we are using the term “ø” correctly. Only then can it be allowed that we know what we are talking about when we say “X looks ø”. Some of the things you said — for instance, about “straight" and a brick—led me to think you would agree with me about this. But then, if I’m not mistaken, you went on to contrast spatial properties with properties like colour and smell—as though a word like “blue” could have an entirely phenomenal sense. Do you really think this? D. E. Broadbent once wrote (Behaviour, London, 196]): When a man sees blue, his experience is intensely real to him, but the essence of it cannot be communicated. All he can do is to say a word which labels that experience, so that he can tell other people whether or not some fresh situation gives him this same quality of awareness. No man can tell whether another is really feeling the same as he does himself when he looks at a colour. Personally I think this is bad philosophy, rather than good psychology. What do you think? MORGAN: We seem to be in close agreement about “phenomenal” space. My purpose was to argue that, for example, there was no sense in which a line could be said to “look” straight unless there were agreed ways of showing that a line is straight. I think perhaps I wanted to go a little further than this, and to suggest that when we say a line “looks” straight we are actually more or less covertly carrying out exactly the same operations as we should on a real line. I’d be interested to know how you see this claim as relating to your logical argument. Concerning colour and other “secondary qualities" we probably also agree; although I hesitate to dismiss Broadbent’s views as “bad amateur philosophy”, since he is only expressing a view that has been held by the overwhelming majority of scientists since the seventeenth century. Confusion may have arisen in my chapter because I was trying to explain Kant’s point of view (not mine) that while colour and space are both phenomenal, they differ in that colour is subjective (a property entirely of the perceiver) while space is, in the weird terminology peculiar to Kant, a priori objective, in that it refers necessarily to objects “outside" the observer. Kant seems to have swallowed the received doctrine that colour words are names for wavelengths, or for mysterious inner experiences aroused in some unknowable manner by wavelengths. My own View is that a colour word is a name for a property shared by a particular class of objects in the world; the sensations and emotions aroused in us by an instance of such a property have to do with our experience of the whole object class. Even so-called “colour-blind” people, who have great difficulty in distinguishing between objects on the basis of wavelength information alone, frequently Phenomenal Space 191 use colour words more or less correctly. This is presumably because they have learned the limits of class membership without too much reliance on wavelength information—in which case it seems to me mistaken to call them “colour—blind”. I believe it was Iris Murdoch who justified a painter’s saying to a novitiate “you _don’t understand Red". Perhaps physiologists find colours mysterious and incommunicable because they have not done the right sort of work to understand them, and have scant respect for the patient endeavours of the phenomenologists, who have shown that colours have different “weights”, “distances” and so on. I don’t know how to remedy this real lack of communication. VESEY: On your first point —there are different senses of “looks”: I may say that a coin looks elliptical if seen at an acute angle, meaning by this that if I were to trace its outline on a transparent screen between the coin and my eye, at right angles to the line of vision, the tracing would be elliptical. In this sense of “looks”, the look is determined by the laws of perspective. Again, I may say that the lines in the Muller—Lyer figure look unequal. In that case the look has nothing to do with perspective. What I mean is that on looking at the figure I would judge the lines to be unequal if I didn’t know better. Perhaps your remark about our “more or less covertly carrying out exactly the same operations as we should on a real line” can be interpreted to cover both these senses of “looks”. My own point IS that, in both of them, “looks” makes sense only because “is” would make sense. On your second point, about what I called “bad philosophy" being scientific orthodoxy, perhaps I should make my own position a bit clearer. There is the everyday world in which there are flashes of lightning, colours and so on. And there is the scientific world in which there are discharges of electricity, wavelengths and so on. For certain purposes (explanation, prediction, control) the scientific world has priority. For certain other purposes (including knowledge of the scientific world!) the everyday world has priority. What I regard as philosophically bad is to suppose that the question “Which world is prior?” has some meaning tout court, that is, without any specification of purpose. For the same reason it is bad philosophy to ask “Which is the real one, the everyday world or the scientific world?” without specifying one’s criteria of reality. Once the unqualified “Which is real?" question has been allowed, the scientist feels professionally committed to giving it the answer “The scientific world", and so to saying that the everyday world is unreal. Then, when questions about sensible colours are raised, he has to say that, since they are not needed for explanatory purposes in the scientific world, they exist only in the other one, the one he has had to dismiss as “unreal”. Or, as he is inclined to put it, colours are “only subjective”. The fact that philosophers and scientists have been saying this sort of thing for thousands of years does not make it either good philosophy or good science. But I suspect, from what you say, that we are in agreement on this. Afterword to the Conference: The Prospects for Consciousness Research 8. D. JOSEPHSON Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge In the conference recorded in these Proceedings a group of scientists discussed various topics concerned with conscious experience and the relationship of conscious experience to the physical world. What exactly are we doing when we discuss conscious experience, and what are the future prospects for research in this area? These are questions I should like to explore in this concluding chapter. To some extent scientific inquiry is just an extension of an activity which occurs naturally in everyday life. Both involve learning about the world in order to be able to make successful predictions about it, and in order to be able to carry out such actions as will have desirable outcomes. One of the principal differences between them is that the processes of science are more self—conscious and in a certain sense more public. In science hypotheses are deliberately stated, and steps are taken to test them, using both experimental methods and intellectual analysis. By these criteria, the papers presented in this conference are scientific in character, in comparison with general conversation on the same topics by a randomly chosen group of people. However, conscious experience is a field of inquiry in which application of the usual methods and techniques of science is particularly difficult. Two difficulties in particular are worth discussing in some detail. One of these is that conscious experience is personal in nature, and hence not open to public inspection, and the other is the problem of suitably describing conscious experience. The first difficulty is one which in practice we have even with conventional scientific experiments. While it is true that a certain proportion of experiments are mechanized by using chart recordings or photography, in other cases readings are taken directly by the individual 193 194 B. D. Josephson experimenter, and in such cases the general scientific community does not have direct access to the original experiment itself. Acceptance of such results is dependent upon the reputation of the experimenter and the repeatability of the results by other people. In such a situation we can never have an exact repetition of an experiment, but only a close approximation to it, and in, for example, psychological experiments it is only possible to reproduce a situation which is qualitatively the same. This does not prevent general conclusions from being drawn (a good illustration being the case of linguistics; it is possible to infer grammatical rules from a collection of utterances in which no two speakers are talking about the same thing). In the light of these remarks, the drawing of general conclusions about conscious experiences may not be an impossible task. If we want to consider conclusions of a reasonably precise nature about conscious experience, we must consider the question of what kind of description of conscious experience is to be used. There seem to be three main possibilities. Firstly, there are the verbal descriptions given by the conscious subject himself. Secondly, there is the possibility of measuring physiological or behavioural correlates to conscious experience. And finally, there is the more remote but also more exciting possibility that some future formulation of physics may describe inner experiences as well as the external world, and hence provide its own way of quantifying subjective experience. I shall deal fairly briefly with the first two possibilities. With the first possibility we are dealing with the use of language to describe experiences. The fact that language can be used at all must imply similarities between the experiences of different people, and furthermore, since words are used to distinguish between different possibilities, must imply that there are particular differences between conscious experiences that we can be trained to notice and attach linguistic labels to. To this extent language constitutes a kind of measuring instrument, though an imprecise one. It may be important to note that, since the meanings of the words are tied to the conscious experiences, for one person to understand another’s description fully it may be necessary for him to have had a similar kind of experience, a problem to which Charles Tart has drawn attention.‘ On the other hand, it may be possible to understand strange experiences on the basis of a mathematical model, in the same way that we can Afterward to the Conference 195 understand curved spaces or multi-dirnensional spaces beyond our own experience mathematically. Let us turn now to the second possibility. It may be possible to find physiological correlates to conscious experience, for example the EEG. If this could be done, the result would be to add precision to the verbal description. Similarly, there might be definite behavioural changes associated with a conscious experience, a familiar example being the effects of alcohol intoxication. Another example would be the more subtle changes following experience of the meditative state, involving for example improvements related to attention, discrimination and value judgements. So far we have been concerned with the study of conscious experience at a purely phenomenological level. What is the possibility that a more quantitative, mathematical theory might be feasible? One way in which this might come about is through an extension of existing physical theory. The existing basic theory of physics, quantum mechanics, while in one sense a good description of nature is, from a different viewpoint, highly inadequate. I am referring not to the well-known difficulty that its predictions are statistical in character, but to the fact that it is not entirely clear how it is to be applied to the real world. The situation is that while we understand how the theory can be confirmed, in terms of controlled experiment, there is no well-defined prescription for how predictions can be made in a general uncontrolled situation, where the knowledge of the state of the system does not necessarily take the form required to apply the quantum theory, i.e. measurement of a physical quantity. Is it the situation that inner observation as well as observation of the external world should count as a quantum—mechanical measurement, and if so, what is it a measurement of? The fact that quantum theory is a theory of what can be deduced from observation, as much as it is one of what exists, seems to force such matters upon our attention; if we exclude such matters we cannot legitimately regard quantum mechanics as a comprehensive theory. I should like, finally, to consider in this light the talk given in this conference by Mrs. E. M. Noakes,* to which I shall give more emphasis * The Editors reluctantly agreed to a request ‘by a number of participants that Mrs. Noakes’s paper should not appear in these proceedings, on the grounds that its methodology lay outside the paradigm of science as perceived by these participants. 196 B. D. Josephson than normal on account of it not being available for these Proceedings. In her talk, based on a particular mystical tradition, she described various entities which are supposed to have important effects in the life of an individual human being. An example given was the so—called “astral body”, i.e. the collection of the feelings and emotions of the individual concerned. Now while the average scientist might recoil at even the mention of a term such as “astral body”, it must be admitted that feelings and emotions form a relatively unchanging pan of an individual’s make—up, and that furthermore they do have well-defined effects on the world publicly observable (through the agency of the individual’s nervous system, presumably). Following along this line of thought, we can argue that awareness of feelings and emotions, or other inner experiences, constitutes an observation of the world, which may later have publicly observable effects. If we were to try to say instead that all the physics is to be described in terms of the properties of neurones and synapses, we should run into the practical difficulty that we are not able to observe the details required in order to make prediction (perhaps not even in principle, in a living being) in the way that we can observe feelings and emotions. This argument again suggests the necessity of including inner experience within the subject matter of physics. I cannot detail here the remaining subtler entities and processes to which Mrs. Noakes made reference in her talk. I can only conclude by making the point that while mystical experience is not at the moment considered by the majority of scientists to be a matter worthy of scientific attention, this is to some extent purely an arbitrary decision. The desire to probe more deeply into the interaction between man and the world in which he exists will ultimately lead to the systematic study of the mystical experience and to its incorporation into science. REFERENCE 1. Charles T. Tart, States of Consciousness, Dutton, New York, 1975, Chaps. 15 and 16. List of Participants (Contributors of papers are indicated by an asterisk) *Professor H. B. Barlow, The Physiological Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EG. Dr. E. W. Bastin, Pond Meadow, West Wickham, Cambs. . Professor J. W. S. Cassels, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge. Professor Sir Alan Cottrell, The Master’s Lodge, Jesus College, Cambridge. Professor 0. R. Frisch, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ. _ *Professor R. L. Gregory, Brain and Perception Laboratory, Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TD. Dr. J. R. Henderson, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OHE. *Dr. N. K. Humphrey, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, Madingley, Cambridge CB3 8AA. . *Professor B. D. Josephson, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OHE. Dr. A. J. Leggett, Department of Physics, Sussex University, Brighton BN1 9QG. _ *Professor H. C. Longuet-Higgins, Department of Experimental Psychology, Sussex University, Brighton BN1 9QG. *Professor D. M. MacKay, Department of Communication and Neuroscience, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 SBG. *Dr. M. J. Morgan, South Road, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE. *Mrs. E. M. Noakes, Sidmouth House, Sidmouth, Devon EX10 8ST. 197 198 List of Participants *Mrs. S. Padfield, Pond Meadow, West Wickham, Cambs. *Dr. V. S. Ramachandran, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 ITQ. *Professor Sir Martin Roth, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 IEL. *Professor G. Vesey, Department of Philosophy, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. Dr. P. Whittle, Psychological Laboratory, Downing Street, Cambridge. Prof. O. L. Zangwill, Department of Experimental Psychology, Downing Street, Cambridge. Name Index Armstrong, D. M. 136 Barlow, H. B. 4 Bastin, E. W. 169 Bell, J. S. 120 Brentano, Franz 20, 22 Broadbent, D. E. 190 Bronowski, J. 11 Chardin,Teilhard de vii Chomsky. N. 50 Cooper 178. 189 Craik. Kenneth 42. 57 Descartes, R. 20, 22, 48, 140 Eccles, Sir John, 40-1, 102, 110, 136, 140-1 Einstein, A. 186 Freud, S. 86, 127 Gregory, R. L. 179, 189 Heisenberg, W. 51 Helmholtz, H. L. F. von 39, 181 Herbert, B. 165 Hilbert, D. 186 Hinckfuss 188 Hume, David 34, 159 Humphrey, N. K. 5, 13 James, William 23, 38-41, 181 Jaspers, K. 133 Jennings, H. S. 140 Josephson, B. D. 8,103 Kant, I, 182-4, 190 Kenny, A. 10, 92-3 K1ejn, F. 135 Külpe, Oswald 24 Lorenz, Konrad 142 Lotze, Hermann 24 MacKay, D. M. 14, 140 MacMurray, John 105 Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi 119 Malcolm, Norman 25 Maxwell, G. 161 Meyerson 188 Mill, John Stuart 77 Monod, Jacques vii—viii Moore, G. E. 22-3 Noakes, E. M. 171,195 Noyes, P. 169 Parfit, D. 156 Palanjali M. 158 Popper, Sir Karl 2-7, 40-1, 89, 136 Puccetti R. 106 199 200 Name /ndex Romanes, George John 43-4 RusseIl,Bertrand 15 Sartre, Jean—Paul 11 Schrodinger, E. 144 Shepard 178, 189 Skinner, B. F. 25, 60 Smart, J. J. C. 48 Sperry, R. W. 105, 108-9, 155 Stapp, H. P. 120 Strawson, P. F. 148, 182, 184 Sussman, G. J. 53 Tart, Charles T. 194 Weiskrantz, L. 71-4 Williams, Bernard 147 Wisdom, John 22 Wittgenstein, L. 24-6, 49, 69, 124, 133, 158 Wundt, Wilhelm 24 Subject Index The letter D after a page number denotes a discussion comment. Agent 96-7, 101, 105, 145 Anaesthetics 31, 97 Arousal 124, 128 Artificial intelligence 46-7, 50-1, 53D Astral body 196 Attention 39, 123 Autism 87 Behaviour and state of consciousness 195 Blindness, cortical 72-3, 76D Blindsight 71-4, 76D Brain and mind see Mind -brain relationship Brain stem 128 Cause 6-7, 34-6, 168 Choice see Decision Combinatorial methods 169 Communication channel 175D Communication and consciousness Ch. 5, 4-5, 82-5, 91-2D, 109-11 Concepts 59-61, 78—9D Conscious agent 96-7, 101, 145 Conscious experience Ch. 8, Ch. 11 9-14,51,69,84,96,115,118-19,143 167 Consciousness (see also Mind) and behaviour 195 as causal agent 32-4, 38-43, 46-7, 91D, 128 and communication Ch. 5, 4-5, 82-5, 91,92D, 109-11 definition 50, 53D, 143 evolution of 68-71, 88-90 function of 33, 68-71. 76--7D, 79-80D, 91-4D gain and loss 31,49,101 in machine 46-7, 108, 136 possible paranormality of 32-4 and physics Ch. 3, 115, 119, 193-6 and physiology 195 recognition of 49, 123 relevance of 7, 31,49 and social interactions Ch. 4, Ch. 5, 4-6, 62, 82 variations in Ch. 8, 105 Continuity, biological 153-4, 160-1 Corpus callosum 105, 155-6 Creativity 117 Decision 9,117 Delirium tremens 130-1 Depersonalization 133-5 Depression 131 Determinism 15,100-1 Dialogue 109-11 internal 104 Diencephalon 105 Direct realism 38 Dreaming 66-7 Dualism (Cartesian) 20, 41, 48D, 51, 180 (see also Mind—body relation) Einstein-Rosen—Podolsky paradox 120 Electroencephalogram 128,195 Emotions 30D, 94D, 127, 130-2, 196 Empirical identity 8, 148 Epileptic automatism 128 Epiphenomenalism 91D,139 Evaluation 102-5, 117 Evolution 4-13, 33, 68-71, 88, 169 Existential identity 9, 147-8 Fatalism 11 Free will 9-14 Frontal lobes 12, 105 Future 10, 57,85,167, 168 Geometry and subjective experience 182-8 Goal-setting mechanisms 46, 106-7 Gregariousness 4, 88-90 Hallucinations 131-2 Homunculus 51, 53D Hypnotism 67 Hypothalamus 105, 129 I see Self I—story 96, 106, 143-4 I-thou relationship 109-10, 162-3D (see also Self and others) Identity empirical 8, 148 existential 9, 147-8 (see also Personal identity) hypothesis (mind-brain) 35-6, 43-7, 48D, 91D ontological 9,147-8 personal Ch.9, 171 of structure 168 of subject and object 167, 175D Ideology 59-61, 64 Illusions 41, 179 Improvement (of skills) 1 17-18 Indeterminacy 9, 98-101 Information 50, 103-4, 106, 147, 149 Inner observation 21-8, 29D (see also Introspection) Intelligence 118 Intentionality 21,23 Intentions 85 Internal dialogue 104 Internal models see Mental models Introspection Ch. 4, 30D, 59, 61, 80D, 82, 92—3D, 135-6 (see also Inner observation) Intuition 62, 94 Knowledge Ch. 4, 21, 23-4, 53D, 98-101 Korsakov syndrome 126, 131 Language 26-8, 29-30D, 60, 69, 83, 104, 116, 190D, 194 Local signs 24 Machine consciousness 45-7, 108, 136 Magnet model of introspection 69-70 Mania 131 Master—slave analogy 36-8 Meaning 26-7, 77—9D, 118 Meditation 195 Medulla 129 Memory 49, 126-8, 131-2, 167-9 Mental models Ch. 4, 42, 83-5, 180 Mental rotation 179, 189 Mental space Ch. 11 Mentality 20-3 Mid-brain 129 Mind—body relation Ch. 2, 14, 38-47 48D,101-3,134—5,142—5, 161,171 (see also Dualism, Mind-brain relation) Mind-brain relation Ch. 2, 3, 6, 32_ 35-47, 48D, 85-6, 97-8, 103, 135-6 (see also Mind—body relation) Mind control 89 Mind and matter 20, 41, 48D, 51 Mind-substance analogy 45-6, 103 Models, mental Ch. 4, 42, 83-5, 180 Mysticism 120D, 195-6 Natural selection 6, 33, 64, 92—4D Nature's trick 80D, 88-90 Objective reality 97, 144-5 Observation 30D, 50-1, 115, 195-6 Ontological identity 9, 147 Paradigm viii, 8, 196 Parallelism, mind-brain 4, 36-8 Paranormal phenomena see Psychic phenomena Paranormality of consciousness, possible 32-4 Parental manipulation 65-6 Parsimony as criterion 103, 114D Past, present and future 168 Perception Ch. 11, 21-2, 97, 129-31, 181 Personal existence Ch. 9, 171 Personal identity Ch. 9, 171 Personal uniqueness 140-2 Phenomenal object 178 Phenomenal space Ch. 11 Physical world (reality) 50, 97, 99 Physics and consciousness Ch. 3, 115, 119, 193-6 Play 64-5 Pons 129 Positional knowledge 23-4, 72 Privacy of subjective experience Ch. 1, 22-8, 132-3 Privileged access 23, 132, 145 Psychic phenomena Ch. 9, 33, 42-3, 52 Psychokinesis 165-7, 171, 174-5 Psychological skills and survival 70 Psychological verbs 20, 22-3, 25-8 Psychometry 167, 171 Psychopathology Ch. 8 Pulfrich pendulum 178 Purpose vii, 3 Quantum mechanics 50, 120D, 195 Realism, direct 38 Reality Ch. 8, 57-8, 99 Reflection 21-8 (see also Inner observation, lntrospection) Repression 86, 127 Reticular activating system 128 Rules, knowledge of 92—3D Subject /ndex 203 Schizophrenia 125, 132 Self-awareness 61-2, 84, 104, 147 (see also Self-consciousness) Self-consciousness Ch. 4, 49-51, 61, 77D, 104,110, 132-4,139 Self, higher 77D Self-knowledge see Self awareness, Self-consciousness Self and others 5, 25, 82-90, 147, 162—3D Self-testimony 25, 29D Senile dementia 124-6 Sensation(s) 21-2, 48D, 71-3 (see also Perception) Social aspects Ch. 4, Ch. 5, 4-6 Space, mental Ch. 11 Space—time, location in 120D Spatial knowledge Ch. 1 1, 72 Speech 83 Split brains 105-12, 154-7 Subject-object identity 167,175D Subjective experience see Conscious experience Subjective experience, confusion with perception 125, 132 Substance 45-6, 103 Supervisory system 91D, 102-4, 108-12, 140 Symbolization 45,47 Teleology vii Temporal lobe 134 Twin thought—experiments 149-53, 162-3D Uncertainty, Heisenbergian 9, 99 Unconscious mind 85-7 Unifying agency of self 139 Uniqueness, personal 140-2 Unity of mind 146 Value(s) viii, 12-13, 117 Voluntary action 9-12, 52, 116-17 Will 9-12, 39-40, 51-2, 61 Worlds 1, 2 and 3 (Popper) 2-7, 89

arXiv:2201.09663v5 [quant-ph] 3 Aug 20 Consciência e mecânica quântica: uma abordagem filosófica Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência Universidade Estadual de Campinas Apoio: Processo no 2021/11381-1, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Livro no prelo na Editora NEL Coleção Pontos de Partida Versão atual: 5 de agosto de 2022 https://nel.ufsc.br/pontos-de-partida Sumário Introdução: Um problema filosófico na física 1 8 Questões de fundamento 13 1.1 O princípio da indeterminação . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.2 A complementaridade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 1.3 Uma interpretação fragmentada . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2 Visões de mundo em conflito 2.1 As ontologias da ciência e a ontologia do mundo . . 2.2 A realidade da mecânica quântica . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 À procura da Realidade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 56 60 70 3 A consciência colapsa 86 3.1 Medição: clássica e quântica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 3.2 O problema da medição . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 3.2.1 A interpretação da consciência . . . . . . . . 93 3.2.2 O problema ontológico . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 3.2.3 O problema metafísico . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 3.2.4 Metafísicas da consciência quântica . . . . . 115 3.3 Outras interpretações . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 3.4 Uma escolha filosófica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 4 Novos horizontes 149 4.1 Quem precisa de consciência? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 1 4.2 Consciência como processo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5 Questões de formalismo 166 Referências bibliográficas 178 2 Agradecimentos Este livro foi possível graças às contribuições das seguintes pessoas. • Andrea Faggion, Décio Krause, Jonas Arenhart, e a turma de Filosofia da Física de 2022, do Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, pela leitura cuidadosa e comentários feitos a uma versão anterior do texto; • Gilson Olegario da Silva pela ajuda na diagramação em LATEX; • Helcio Felippe Jr. pela revisão do material, em especial o apêndice; • Jerzy Brzozowski pelo auxílio na editoração deste material; • Maju Capelato pela linda arte da capa. • Equipe do Grupo de Pesquisa em Lógica e Fundamentos da Ciências e também do International Network on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information pelas intrigantes conversas sobre filosofia da mecânica quântica. Muito obrigado! 3 Prefácio Fruto de anos de pesquisa, este livro de introdução à filosofia da mecânica quântica fornece uma base conceitual para os problemas centrais da mecânica quântica não-relativista, delineando o papel da filosofia na discussão e aspectos históricos das soluções já propostas. Tento suprir uma deficiência de materiais em português sobre o tema, pois se trata de uma discussão de ponta na contemporaneidade e com escasso material em nossa língua —motivo pelo qual todas as citações em inglês encontram-se em tradução livre para o português. Divido o livro em quatro capítulos principais e um apêndice matemático. No primeiro capítulo, parto do ponto de vista da interpretação ortodoxa da mecânica quântica. Ainda que existam vários modos de formulá-la, sempre que utilizar a nomenclatura “mecânica quântica” neste livro, tenho em mente os pontos em comum entre os autores Bohr e Heisenberg, comumente referida como “interpretação de Copenhague”. Nesse capítulo, procuro delinear definições precisas para os conceitos envolvidos nos fundamentos dessa interpretação, enfatizando o papel central da noção de medição, bem como alguns aspectos gerais de seus problemas filosóficos internos, a fim de prosseguirmos com o debate mais geral nos capítulos seguintes. Exponho separadamente as formulações de Heisenberg e Bohr, considerados os principais autores da interpretação ortodoxa e, em seguida, confronto os pontos de vista de ambos os autores, a fim de apresen4 tar com maior precisão o posicionamento ontológico de cada um frente à noção de medição. No segundo capítulo, enfatizo como a problemática em torno da medição se insere no debate filosófico, especificamente numa discussão ontológica. Para tanto, busco definições para o termo “ontologia”, que são utilizadas ao longo deste livro. Em seguida, analiso as críticas de Einstein à posição ortodoxa e o debate entre Einstein e Bohr, enfatizando o comprometimento ontológico dos autores no que tange à noção de medição. Com isso, poderei descrever com precisão ainda maior o ponto de vista de cada autor frente à interpretação da teoria quântica, bem como entender como o problema da medição se insere no debate filosófico. No terceiro capítulo, exploro algumas diferenças no conceito de medição entre a física clássica e a teoria quântica. Procuro expor a teoria da medição von Neumann, de modo a delinear de forma clara o “problema da medição”. Enfatizo as interpretações lógicas e ontológicas de sua solução para o problema da medição, que marca a introdução do conceito dualista de “consciência” na medição quântica, explicitando de que modo a noção de “consciência” se insere na discussão filosófica como um problema ontológico. Em seguida, analiso brevemente algumas das propostas pouco abordadas na literatura especializada, que deram continuidade e extensão ontológica à formulação de von Neumann, como a formulação de Ludwig Bass e proposta de Amit Goswami, que utilizaram uma formulação monista para a noção de “consciência”. Também analiso muito brevemente algumas propostas alternativas e críticas em relação às formulações tanto de von Neumann quanto de Bohr, a título de amostragem, justamente para ilustrar a pluralidade de interpretações à noção de “medição”. No quarto capítulo, destaco a possibilidade de investigar a ontologia da noção de “consciência”, relacionada à mecânica 5 quântica, a partir de um novo horizonte, a saber, sob a perspectiva ontológica de Alfred North Whitehead, abordando vários autores que consideram que a ontologia whiteheadiana é apropriada para entender conceitos de interpretação da mecânica quântica (entre eles, o próprio Whitehead). Shimon Malin desenvolve uma concepção de “colapso” inspirada na ontologia dos processos de Whitehead, mas não aborda a questão da consciência. Henry Stapp usa a ontologia whiteheadiana para a compreensão da consciência em relação à mecânica quântica, mas o faz pressupondo o surgimento daquilo que chama de “cérebro quântico” —o que também acaba por descaracterizar a proposta de von Neumann. A ontologia de Whitehead admitidamente evita os problemas do dualismo e, como Anderson Weekes aponta, oferece uma visão monista inovadora do problema filosófico clássico da relação mente-corpo (além do monismo reducionista, como a ontologia materialista ou idealista). Investigo, então, uma proposta do desenvolvimento de uma ontologia para o conceito de “consciência”, inspirada na filosofia de Whitehead, que poderia ser considerada uma leitura mais frutífera para o problema ontológico da consciência na mecânica quântica. Por fim, apresento no quinto capítulo algumas notas introdutórias para o formalismo da mecânica quântica que é utilizado tacitamente ao longo de todo o livro, a fim de especificar melhor as questões que percorrem o debate feito aqui. Meu maior enfoque é sobre a interpretação da consciência, por ser uma interpretação má aceita pela comunidade científica, tendo em vista a falta de debates filosóficos sobre as entidades que pressupõe e postula. Muitos mal-entendidos foram cometidos devido à escassez de discussões acerca desta questão, desde a utilização de tal interpretação por parte da pseudociência litigiosa até o seu descarte precoce por parte de uma comunidade que não se preocupou em debatê-la seriamente. 6 Escrevo este livro na esperança que tais lacunas sejam preenchidas. Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo Campinas, 2022 7 Introdução: Um problema filosófico na física Existem várias maneiras de enunciar o que é a mecânica quântica. Se este fosse um livro de história da física, eu começaria introduzindo o advento da mecânica quântica através da teorização de Max Planck, em 1900, sobre a radiação de corpo negro. No entanto, como é um livro de filosofia, escolhi situar o debate através do contraste entre as concepções filosóficas das físicas clássica e quântica. Para tanto, aponto muito brevemente três teses principais, tácita ou implicitamente assumidas por aquilo que se conhece como “física clássica”: 1. Determinismo causal: podemos conhecer todas as condições iniciais dos sistemas físicos e, com isso, podemos prever com certeza o seu comportamento futuro a partir de uma cadeia causal. 2. Localidade/independência: dois sistemas separados no espaço não podem interagir instantaneamente. 3. Realismo objetivista: objetos na realidade externa existem com propriedades bem definidas e independentes de eventuais observadores. Como procurarei expor ao longo deste livro, a mecânica quân8 tica nos força a rejeitar tais teses.1 O conceito de “medição” ocupa um papel central na discussão acerca da interpretação da mecânica quântica, estando presente desde os primeiros debates ontológicos da teoria conduzidos, mesmo que indiretamente, pelos físicos Niels Bohr e Werner Heisenberg. É um dos maiores problemas filosóficos para a questão interpretativa da mecânica quântica, dando à mecânica quântica diversas interpretações nas quais uma ontologia própria parece estar relacionada a cada uma delas. Na física clássica, a medição é um aspecto que pode nos parecer intuitivamente simples e relativamente pouco problemático —como o ato de medir o peso de um corpo maciço tal como uma bola de bilhar. Já na mecânica quântica, a medição não é um conceito consensual, havendo diversas posições filosóficas conflitantes sobre seu modo de operação, de modo que questões como “a medição cria ou revela o valor observado?” permeiam o debate filosófico sobre conceito de medição. Argumentarei, ao longo deste livro, contrário à prática usual, que todas as características problemáticas dos fundamentos da mecânica quântica se relacionam com a noção de medição. A prática usual é considerar a medição como um problema fundacional dentre muitos outros, tais como determinismo, localidade, ontologia, etc. No entanto, argumentarei em cada capítulo que esses problemas são subsidiários e dependentes da noção de “medição”. Assim, me alinho com Gibbins (1987), para quem o problema da medição é o problema central da mecânica quântica. Dessa forma, considero que problemas fundamentais da microfísica, tais como incerteza, complementaridade, localidade, contextualidade e inflação ontológica, são consequências da interpretação 1 É importante deixar claro logo no início que o termo “mecânica quântica”, conforme empregado neste livro, refere-se à mecânica quântica usual (ou padrão), conforme estudada nos cursos de física ao redor do mundo (cf. Arroyo e da Silva, 2021; Griffiths, 1995; Hughes, 1989). 9 do problema da medição e, portanto, consequências da interpretação da mecânica quântica.2 Trago um debate essencialmente filosófico, na medida em que trato do debate acerca da natureza das entidades e processos que regem uma das teorias físicas com maior sucesso empírico da história da ciência moderna. Neste livro, busco destacar alguns dos aspectos filosóficos centrais no debate em torno do que se conhece como problema da medição quântica. Procuro, especificamente, discutir sobre a introdução do conceito de consciência, dentro do debate da medição, como um problema essencialmente ontológico. É importante esclarecer que, ao invés de defender uma ou outra posição, procuro mostrar que existe um campo para a discussão filosófica na interpretação da mecânica quântica e, como a discussão filosófica se dá por problemas, buscarei explicitar os aspectos problemáticos em torno da interpretação do conceito de “medição”. A estrutura do livro é a seguinte. No primeiro capítulo, inicio a discussão por diretrizes dadas pela história da filosofia da física, isto é, pela gênese do problema que seu deu a partir das formulações de Bohr Heisenberg sobre o ato de medir. Nesse capítulo, sustentarei a seguinte tese: as noções de “incerteza” e “complementaridade”, fundamentais para aquilo que se conhece como a “interpretação ortodoxa” da mecânica quântica, são moldadas no final da década de 1920 por questões embrionárias ao “problema da medição”, cuja formalização aparecerá somente anos mais tarde. No segundo capítulo, trato do famoso debate entre Bohr e Einstein, enfatizando a relação do debate com concepções filosóficas conflitantes acerca da realidade —e do papel da medição na mecânica quântica. Nesse capítulo, forneço mais elementos para endossar a tese geral deste livro: os problemas nos funda2 Também fica implícito que endosso a tese de Friederich (2014), segundo a qual uma interpretação da mecânica quântica se caracteriza fundamentalmente pelo fornecimento de uma solução ao problema da medição —ainda que esse assunto seja debatido somente de passagem ao final do Capítulo 3. 10 mentos da mecânica quântica são problemas filosóficos, todos eles relacionados à noção de medição. O terceiro capítulo é central no livro. É nele que o problema da medição aparece explicitamente, ainda que eu tenha deliberadamente filtrado questões relativas ao formalismo da mecânica quântica, e tratado diretamente com as questões conceituais que envolvem o problema. Trato especificamente de uma interpretação da mecânica quântica, que é extremamente mal vista pela comunidade física e filosófica: a interpretação que atribui à consciência humana poder causal na medição. Por um lado, é compreensível que essa interpretação seja tão mal vista pela comunidade acadêmica: em nome dela, foram feitas muitas deturpações de maneira intelectualmente pouco honesta; por outro lado, tento mostrar como é uma interpretação perfeitamente consistente, e que não deve ser descartada do rol de interpretações disponíveis sem justificativas adicionais. Por fim, mostro como tal interpretação é somente uma, em meio à vasta gama de opções de interpretações da mecânica quântica. Assim, qualquer sentença que comece com “a mecânica quântica implica que. . . ” deve ser lida com bastante cautela, especialmente no tocante a aspectos filosóficos. Parte deste capítulo foi publicado no formato e artigo em Arroyo e Sversutti (2022), e partes dos outros capítulos compuseram minha dissertação de mestrado (Arroyo, 2015). No quarto capítulo, exploro alguns horizontes possíveis para uma fundamentação mais rigorosa dos fundamentos da consciência na mecânica quântica, tendo em vista a interpretação apresentada no capítulo anterior. Em específico, considero a possibilidade de uma fundamentação filosófica, inspirada na ontologia de processos de Alfred Whitehead. Essa alternativa ontológica tem a vantagem de evitar os problemas da metafísica dualista —viz. o problema mente-corpo— ao mesmo tempo que deixa aberta a possibilidade de causação mental. Desnecessário dizer que a es11 trutura ontológica whiteheadiana também evita uma justificação baseada em critérios religiosos para a causalidade da consciência, como é feito por alguns exemplos discutidos no Capítulo 3. Por fim, o Capítulo 5 é uma espécie de apêndice, no qual são tratadas questões matemáticas mínimas relativas ao formalismo da mecânica quântica, de modo a tornar ainda mais preciso o problema da medição. O formalismo apresentado ali não é necessário para o entendimento pleno das questões tratadas neste livro, mas servem a uma leitura mais aprofundada, embora ainda introdutória, da filosofia da física. 12 Capítulo 1 Questões de fundamento Uma característica notável da mecânica quântica não-relativista (doravante apenas “mecânica quântica”) é sua questão interpretativa. É possível interpretar a mecânica quântica de diversas maneiras. As diferenças interpretativas, por sua vez, se mostram de diversos modos: podem ser estruturais, modificando, por exemplo, axiomas da teoria ou equações de movimento; podem ser substanciais, na medida em que alteram o próprio objeto de estudo da física; e também podem ser ontológicas, na medida em que diferenças interpretativas podem significar diferenças de concepções sobre como o mundo é, e quais os objetos que o compõem. As fronteiras entre a física e a filosofia, e também entre teoria e interpretação, se tornam borradas quando nos deparamos com os fundamentos da mecânica quântica. Seja como for, qualquer abordagem interpretativa tem um ponto de partida. De uma perspectiva da história da filosofia e da física, o ponto de partida para as questões interpretativas tem um nome: a interpretação de Copenhague. Por isso, acredito que seja um bom lugar para começar esta investigação. Como veremos ao longo deste livro, todas as interpretações analisadas aqui têm como ponto de partida, direta ou 13 indiretamente, a interpretação de Copenhague. Seja pelos experimentos mentais, ou pelas questões filosóficas levantadas pelos fundadores da mecânica quântica: os físicos Niels Bohr e Werner Heisenberg. Analiso separadamente as formulações de Heisenberg e Bohr, tentando delinear, da forma mais precisa quanto possível, a definição dos principais conceitos de tais autores, que abordam, respectivamente, o princípio da indeterminação e a complementaridade. Em seguida, discuto, também, sobre algumas das diferenças filosóficas fundamentais entre os dois autores que compõem o cerne da interpretação de Copenhague da mecânica quântica —deixando de lado a discussão de outros autores, não menos importantes, como Born, Jordan, Pauli, entre outros. Em diversos manuais e livros-texto de física, a mecânica quântica é exposta sob a ótica da interpretação de Copenhague,1 uma interpretação que, supostamente, advém diretamente das formulações de Bohr e Heisenberg, e é até mesmo considerada a interpretação ortodoxa da mecânica quântica. A noção de uma interpretação unitária da mecânica quântica, chamada de “interpretação de Copenhague”, de acordo com D. Howard (2004), fora introduzida por Heisenberg. Até os anos 1950, segundo D. Howard (2004, p. 680), existia apenas um chamado “espírito de Copenhague”, que representaria “[. . .] um grupo de pensadores unidos pela determinação de defender a mecânica quântica como uma teoria completa e correta”. d’Espagnat (1999) considera a interpretação de Copenhague uma ferramenta prática para a solução de problemas da física quântica. Para que possamos discutir com a literatura especializada, chamo de “interpretação de Copenhague” a adoção dos pontos de vista do princípio da incerteza e da complementaridade —conceitos que serão explicados adiante. 1 Como, por exemplo, em Cohen-Tannoudji et al. (2020), Dicke e Wittke (1960), Messiah (1961) e Schiff (1949). 14 Jamais existiu consenso sobre uma interpretação unitária da mecânica quântica e/ou suas implicações filosóficas. Exemplo disso é o fato de que os próprios teóricos fundadores da mecânica quântica, como Heisenberg e Bohr, frequentemente divergiam em questões filosóficas, como procuro expor ao final deste capítulo. Ainda assim, conforme observa Beller (1996), os dois físicos deliberadamente ocultariam suas diferenças em nome de uma interpretação unitária de Copenhague. É preciso salientar que a mecânica quântica, estritamente falando, não oferece uma visão de mundo ou uma ontologia. A interpretação de Copenhague considera que a mecânica quântica seja meramente um conjunto de regras para fazer predições sobre tipos especiais de condições experimentais. No entanto, considero que é possível extrair uma ontologia associada à investigação da mecânica quântica. Portanto, tratarei de ontologia mesmo que os proponentes da teoria não o tenham feito explicitamente. É igualmente importante ressaltar que, por mais que a mecânica quântica apresente diversos problemas filosóficos, sua capacidade de predição é bastante grande, atingindo dezenas de casas decimais de precisão. Isto é, trata-se de uma teoria muito bem sucedida em termos da concordância de suas predições com resultados experimentais. Como diria Bell (2004), a mecânica quântica funciona para todos os propósitos práticos. Dito isso, passemos ao debate conceitual acerca da mecânica quântica. 1.1 O princípio da indeterminação O famoso “princípio da incerteza” foi formulado por Heisenberg (1983). É um dos pontos centrais —e mais famosos— daquilo que se entende por interpretação de Copenhague, sendo um dos aspectos que diferenciam radicalmente a física clássica da física quântica. Ademais, como já disse anteriormente, veremos, ao longo deste livro, que todas as características que diferenciam 15 radicalmente as físicas clássica e quântica se relacionam com o conceito de “medição”. De acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 65), quando teve acesso ao manuscrito do (ainda não publicado) artigo de Heisenberg (1983), Bohr (1928) teria apresentado uma série de críticas acerca da base conceitual sob as quais as relações foram formuladas, ainda que a validade das relações de Heisenberg —ou seja, sua existência— não fosse questionada. Nesta seção, é delineada, de acordo com a posição de Heisenberg, uma definição tão precisa quanto possível para o princípio da incerteza. Grosso modo, o princípio da incerteza postula a impossibilidade de atribuir valores exatos para certas propriedades observáveis dos objetos quânticos, tais como “posição” e “momento” (“momentum”), simultaneamente, de modo que tal atribuição deva obedecer uma quantidade constante de “incerteza”. Essa é a definição paradigmática do princípio, encontrada frequentemente em manuais e livros-texto de mecânica quântica e representada sob a forma da seguinte expressão: ∆p∆q ≥ ~/2π (em que “q” e “p” representam os desvios padrão, isto é, as propriedades observáveis e “~” representa a constante reduzida de Planck). As variáveis “tempo” e “energia” podem igualmente expressar o argumento, sendo também observáveis. No entanto, manterei o raciocínio com os observáveis “posição” e “momento”, frequentemente expressos sob a forma dos caracteres q e p, respectivamente. O termo “posição” é uma propriedade observável que designa, como o nome intuitivamente sugere, a posição de um objeto quântico em movimento; o termo “momento” pode ser entendido como uma propriedade observável que designa a direção ou a velocidade do movimento de um objeto quântico. Duas questões surgem imediatamente: • Quanto ao primeiro termo: o “princípio da incerteza” é, de fato, um princípio da teoria quântica? • Quanto ao segundo termo: o “princípio” se refere a uma tese 16 epistemológica (de fato “princípio da incerteza”) ou a uma tese ontológica (como “princípio de indeterminação”)? Discuto, adiante, o que implica levar em consideração uma referência epistemológica ou ontológica. Para uma abordagem acerca da primeira questão, é necessário distinguir entre as “relações de incerteza” e o “princípio da incerteza”. Segundo Osvaldo Pessoa Júnior, cabe a seguinte distinção entre os dois termos: O princípio [de incerteza], que se aplica a grandezas não compatíveis entre si [. . .], exprime o fato de que uma maior previsibilidade nos resultados da medição de um dos observáveis implica uma diminuição na previsibilidade do outro. Uma relação de incerteza é qualquer relação matemática que exprima quantitativamente o princípio. (Pessoa Junior, 2003, p. 77). Na física clássica, todas as grandezas são compatíveis, o que não acontece na mecânica quântica. As relações de incerteza são consequências do formalismo da mecânica quântica. De fato, essa é uma das críticas tecidas por Karl Popper (1967) em relação ao princípio da incerteza: as relações não poderiam alcançar o status de princípio da teoria quântica por uma questão de prioridade lógica. As relações são derivadas da própria teoria quântica, de modo que seria impossível fazer o caminho inverso e obter a teoria quântica a partir das relações de incerteza. Para Reichenbach (1944, p. 13), no entanto, o princípio é uma “afirmação empírica”. Assim, a questão em torno da utilização ou não das relações de incerteza sob o nome de “princípio” deveria se dar no sentido empírico do termo, na medida em que as relações são apresentadas originalmente como um resultado experimental, ainda que formulada a partir de um experimento mental, como veremos a seguir. Da forma como interpretam Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), Heisenberg expressaria que relações de incerteza seriam um princípio fundamental da natureza, 17 isto é, imposto como uma lei empírica, ao invés de ser tomado como um resultado derivado do formalismo da teoria. O princípio da incerteza é uma interpretação agregada às relações (matemáticas) de incerteza, frequentemente associada àquilo que se entende por interpretação de Copenhague. De acordo com Cassidy (1998), Heisenberg nunca teria endossado o ponto de vista de que suas relações fossem de fato um princípio da mecânica quântica. Segundo o autor, para designar o argumento expresso através do suposto princípio da incerteza, como ficara popularmente conhecido, Heisenberg utilizava os termos “relações de imprecisão” (inaccuracy relations, Ungenauigkeitsrelationen) ou “relações de indeterminação” (indeterminacy relations, Unbestimmtheitsrelationen). Como não entrarei aqui na discussão relativa ao formalismo da teoria quântica, a discussão que se seguirá, para o escopo desta obra, será relativa àquilo que se refere ao princípio. Adoto, por ora, a nomenclatura “relações de Heisenberg” (ou somente as “relações”) para me referir ao que fora chamado até aqui de princípio da incerteza. Desse modo, não me comprometerei —ao menos de antemão— com alguma interpretação, como as explicitadas acima. A tentativa de responder à segunda questão esbarra na dificuldade de não haver uma única terminologia, na medida em que não existe um consenso para a interpretação das relações. Para uma melhor compreensão do significado das relações de Heisenberg, examinarei o raciocínio do próprio autor. O título do artigo de 1927, no qual as relações são formuladas, parcialmente traduzido para o português, seria: “Sobre o conteúdo ‘anschaulich’ da teoria quântica cinemática e mecânica”. De acordo com Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), o termo “anschaulich” merece atenção especial. É uma palavra própria da língua alemã, cuja tradução para outros idiomas é frequentemente ambígua, de modo que a expressão “conteúdo anschaulich” tem diversas traduções. 18 No volume organizado por Wheeler e Zurek, o título do artigo de Heisenberg (1983) fora traduzido para o inglês como “the physical content” (“o conteúdo físico”); Cassidy (1992), biógrafo de Heisenberg, traduziu como “the perceptible content” (“o conteúdo perceptível”). A tradução literal mais aproximada seria “conteúdo visualizável”, sendo a visão é frequentemente utilizada como uma metáfora para o entendimento da questão proposta. Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016) sugerem a tradução “conteúdo inteligível”. Para Heisenberg (1983, p. 64), o que garante anschaulich a um conceito físico é sua correspondência biunívoca com uma operação experimental especificamente designada para a aplicação de tal conceito. Assim, fica claro que a palavra “anschaulich” não se refere a um conteúdo puramente inteligível, que poderia ser entendido como um conteúdo puramente conceitual, sem correspondente experimental. Desse modo, sugerimos que a expressão tenha um significado mais próximo ao “conteúdo manifesto”, da forma como enuncia através da seguinte passagem: Quando alguém quiser ter clareza sobre o que se deve entender pelas palavras “posição do objeto”, como, por exemplo, do elétron (relativamente a um dado referencial), é preciso especificar experimentos definidos com o auxílio dos quais se pretenda medir a “posição do elétron”; caso contrário, a expressão não terá significado. (Heisenberg, 1983, p. 64). Em outras palavras, se trata de um postulado que declara que apenas as propriedades que forem a princípio observáveis devem se inserir na teoria. Tal atitude fora identificada como uma posição operacionista dos conceitos físicos, frequentemente associada ao empirismo lógico e ao positivismo. Ao mencionar o termo “positivismo”, tem-se em mente, principalmente, a defesa dos aspectos empiricista e verificacionista da ciência, segundo os quais a experiência (ou a medição) é condição necessária para a 19 formulação de enunciados científicos. Tais termos serão discutidos no capítulo seguinte. Adoto, a partir daqui, a nomenclatura proposta por Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 74), de “postulado operacionista” para me referir à passagem citada acima. Para exemplificar esse postulado, Heisenberg (1983, p. 64) introduz um experimento de pensamento —posteriormente conhecido como “microscópio de Heisenberg”— no qual se objetiva efetuar uma medição de posição sobre um elétron a partir de um microscópio de raios γ (gama). Os raios gama têm o menor comprimento de onda conhecido até então do espectro luminoso. A ideia de utilizá-los para iluminar o elétron vem de uma propriedade matemática do processo de tal medição, segundo a qual se obtém maior precisão quanto menor for o comprimento de onda da luz que iluminará o elétron. Então, para efetuar uma medição, seria preciso iluminar o elétron. No entanto, a tentativa de iluminar um elétron, e assim medir sua posição, deve envolver ao menos um fóton, cuja interação com o elétron pode ser considerada uma colisão de modo a implicar uma perturbação no momento do elétron —distúrbio que é maior quando menor for o comprimento de onda da luz que colide com o elétron— e isso limitaria a precisão do conhecimento sobre tal momento. Esse fenômeno é conhecido como “efeito Compton”.2 Com tal raciocínio, Heisenberg é capaz de afirmar que: No instante de tempo em que a posição é determinada, isto é, no instante em que o fóton é disperso pelo elétron, o elétron sofre uma mudança descontínua no momento. Essa mudança é maior [. . .] quanto mais exata for a determinação da posição. No instante em que a posição do elétron é conhecida, seu momento poderá ser conhecido apenas por magnitudes 2 Para um detalhamento físico-teórico desse fenômeno, ver Chibeni (2005, p. 8). 20 que correspondam a essa mudança descontínua; assim, quanto mais precisamente for determinada a posição, menos precisamente o momento é conhecido, e vice-versa. (Heisenberg, 1983, p. 64). Essa é a primeira formulação das relações de Heisenberg, que implicam, à primeira vista, uma tese epistemológica, na medida em que se relaciona com uma limitação do conhecimento acerca dos valores observáveis. Tal formulação induz a uma conclusão preliminar acerca de uma drástica ruptura entre os conceitos “clássico” e “quântico”: os conceitos (tais como posição e momento) teriam, na teoria física clássica, definições exatas (isto é, limitadas somente pela imprecisão dos instrumentos de medida), o que não acontece na física quântica, visto que os conceitos agora obedecem a uma limitação imposta pela operação experimental, impedindo, assim, que a “definição” dos conceitos seja simultaneamente exata. Uma tese semântica está implícita aqui. Como observam Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), o postulado operacionista especifica que um experimento garante significado a um conceito tal como “posição”, de modo que a atitude de, por exemplo, “efetuar uma medição de posição sobre um elétron” acaba por atribuir significado à posição do objeto quântico em questão. A formulação das relações de Heisenberg parece indicar, para além do que se pode conhecer acerca dos observáveis, uma limitação acerca do que se pode dizer dos conceitos físicos em dada operação experimental. Assim, os autores propõem o uso da nomenclatura “princípio de medição=significado”. No entanto, Heisenberg (1983, p. 73) exibe uma segunda formulação das relações, de caráter ontológico, quando afirma: “acredito que se possa formular proveitosamente a origem da [noção de] ‘órbita’ clássica da seguinte maneira: a ‘órbita’ passa a existir somente quando a observamos”. De acordo com tal formulação, a medição não apenas garante significado para uma 21 propriedade observável de um objeto quântico, mas, de fato, garante realidade física para tal conceito. Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016) propõem, para esse raciocínio, o uso da nomenclatura “princípio de medição=criação” —que, como discutirei adiante, Heisenberg (1958) afirma posteriormente que não se trataria de uma criação, mas de uma atualização de potencialidades, remetendo aos conceitos de “ato” e “potência” dos analíticos posteriores de Aristóteles (Órganon, §99b28–29).3 De acordo com o quadro conceitual exposto acima, a medição dos observáveis (no caso, posição e momento) parece proceder da seguinte maneira: quando a posição é medida pelo princípio de medição=significado, pode-se atribuir significado epistemológico ao conceito físico “posição do elétron”; além disso, pelo princípio de medição=criação, pode-se atribuir realidade física à noção de posição, tal que a relação de incerteza impossibilitaria a medição simultânea do outro observável (o momento) com uma precisão arbitrariamente grande. Deve-se notar que a definição de algumas das propriedades observáveis (nesse exemplo, o momento) são imprecisas num sentido ontológico (de acordo com o princípio de medição=criação), de modo que só se pode atribuir à realidade do elétron um momento impreciso. Até aqui, parece seguro definir as relações de Heisenberg como a impossibilidade de medição das propriedades observáveis de um objeto quântico com precisão arbitrariamente grande. Anos mais tarde, Heisenberg exibe uma definição de suas relações de forma ainda mais precisa: O princípio da incerteza se refere ao grau de indeterminação no possível conhecimento presente de valores simultâneos de várias quantidades com as quais a teoria quântica lida; ele não se restringe, por exemplo, 3 Para uma análise aprofundada do conceito de “potentia” em Heisenberg, ver Pangle (2014). 22 à exatidão de uma única medição de posição ou de velocidade. Assim, suponhamos que a velocidade de um elétron livre é conhecida com precisão, enquanto que sua posição é completamente desconhecida. O princípio afirma que cada observação subsequente da posição irá alterar o momento por um valor desconhecido e indeterminável tal que, após a realização da experiência, nosso conhecimento do movimento do elétron é restringido pela relação de incerteza. Isso pode ser expresso em termos gerais e concisos ao dizer que cada experimento destrói parte do conhecimento do sistema, que fora obtido por experimentos anteriores. Essa formulação torna claro que a relação de incerteza não se refere ao passado; se a velocidade do elétron é previamente conhecida e a posição é medida com exatidão, a posição para os tempos anteriores a tal medição pode ser calculada. Então, para tais tempos [. . .] [a relação de incerteza] é menor do que o limite usual, mas esse conhecimento do passado é de caráter puramente especulativo visto que nunca (devido à alteração desconhecida do momento causada pela medição da posição) pode ser usado como condição inicial em qualquer cálculo da progressão futura do elétron e, portanto, não pode ser objeto de verificação experimental. É uma questão de crença pessoal se se pode ou não atribuir realidade física ao cálculo relativo à história passada do elétron. (Heisenberg, 1930, p. 20). Nessa definição, a ênfase é dada no fato de que os valores dos observáveis podem ser conhecidos precisamente, o que parece contradizer a definição clássica das relações de incerteza. No entanto, Heisenberg afirma que as relações não se aplicariam para valores de medições passadas, de modo que os valores passados não podem ser utilizados para os cálculos futuros, pois cada 23 nova medição perturba descontinuamente o valor de um dos observáveis de maneira, a princípio, incontrolável. Como observa Jammer (1974, p. 68), a limitação imposta pelas relações de Heisenberg não impõe uma restrição à definição dos observáveis visto que, se considerados isolados, podem ser medidos com precisão arbitrariamente grande. As relações se aplicam somente à tentativa de medição simultânea dos dois observáveis. Quanto ao estatuto ontológico relativo à “história passada” dos observáveis (ou seja, dos valores “precisos” dos observáveis em medições passadas e isoladas), Heisenberg (1930, p. 20) relega ao plano da “crença pessoal”, visto não haver possibilidade de referir um aparato experimental próprio para verificar tal noção. Sua própria “crença pessoal” é negar sua realidade física se for levado em consideração o princípio de medição=criação. Ainda assim se mantém a questão acerca do que as relações de Heisenberg de fato expressam (ainda que as alternativas não sejam exclusivas): (i) uma limitação experimental sobre o que se pode conhecer acerca dos objetos quânticos, uma incerteza; (ii) uma restrição acerca do significado que se pode atribuir à definição dos objetos quânticos, uma indefinição; (iii) uma restrição ontológica quanto às propriedades observáveis dos objetos quânticos, uma indeterminação. O extenso debate acerca da interpretação das relações de Heisenberg é refletido na própria existência de diversas nomenclaturas para as relações de Heisenberg. Jammer (1974, p. 61–62) identifica três termos distintos, utilizados por Heisenberg no artigo de 1927, para se referir ao argumento de suas relações: (1) Ungenauigkeit, que denota “inexatidão” ou “imprecisão”; (2) Unbestimmtheit, que denota “indeterminação”; (3) Unsicherheit, que denota “incerteza”. Da mesma forma, existem três usos distintos do argumento. Se a ênfase é dada na (a) ausência de conhecimento subjetivo 24 acerca das propriedades dos objetos quânticos, utiliza-se a acepção (1) —há uma incerteza de caráter epistemológico. Se a ênfase é dada na (b) ausência de conhecimento objetivo, independentemente de observador acerca das propriedades dos objetos quânticos, utiliza-se a acepção (2)— há uma indeterminação de caráter ontológico. O termo (3) é utilizado de forma neutra, para quando esta ênfase não for dada. De acordo com Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), Heisenberg transita livremente das implicações epistemológicas para as implicações ontológicas. Segundo Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 78), o motivo pelo qual as relações de Heisenberg transitam de uma tese epistemológica para uma tese ontológica é justamente a assunção do postulado operacionista. De fato, tal postulado é, além do ponto de partida do argumento, a base conceitual das relações de Heisenberg. Tanto as implicações epistemológicas quanto ontológicas das relações se fundamentam no ato de medição, entendida nesse contexto como uma operação experimental. Se as relações demonstram que não é possível medir as propriedades observáveis de um objeto quântico de forma precisa e simultânea, isto quer dizer que, em última análise, tais propriedades nem sequer existem simultaneamente de forma determinada. Assim, se segue logicamente que, devido ao fato de não existirem de forma determinada, não podem ser conhecidas ou definidas de forma determinada. Desse modo, por mais que Heisenberg dê menos atenção às implicações ontológicas desse argumento, elas parecem ocupar um lugar central no plano conceitual das relações, tal que as implicações epistemológicas parecem derivar da implicação ontológica do princípio medição=criação. Portanto, parece seguro caracterizar que, para Heisenberg, as relações são entendidas como relações de indeterminação. Isto é, se assumido o postulado operacionista, que parece ser o cerne do argumento de Heisenberg (1983), o sentido ontológico é condição necessária para as implicações epistemológicas e semânticas. 25 No entanto, Jammer (1974, p. 76) considera “estranha” e até mesmo “inconsistente” a atitude de classificar o raciocínio de Heisenberg como positivista, conforme a adoção do postulado operacionista parece sugerir. A motivação para o raciocínio das relações de indeterminação fora fortemente influenciada por uma conversa com Albert Einstein, como reconhece o próprio Heisenberg (1996, p. 95). Da forma como Heisenberg (1996, p. 78) transcreve, o raciocínio de Einstein seria o seguinte: “em princípio é um grande erro tentar fundamentar uma teoria apenas nas grandezas observáveis. Na realidade, dá-se exatamente o inverso. É a teoria que decide o que podemos observar”. Tal raciocínio acerca do significado do termo “observação” parece indicar uma ordem das razões oposta à proposta positivista para as ciências —na qual as teorias científicas deveriam ter como ponto de partida os dados observáveis. Em uma entrevista conduzida por Thomas Kuhn, Heisenberg esclarece esse ponto: Ele [Einstein] explicou-me que o que se observa ou não é decidido pela teoria. Somente quando você tem a teoria completa, você pode dizer o que pode ser observado. A palavra observação significa que você faz algo que é consistente com as leis físicas conhecidas. Então se você não tem leis físicas, você não observa nada. Bem, você tem impressões e você tem algo em sua chapa fotográfica, mas você não tem nenhuma maneira de ir da placa para os átomos. Se você não tem nenhuma maneira de ir de placa para os átomos, qual a utilidade da placa? (Heisenberg, 1963, sec. XVIII). A referida teoria (que deve preceder a observação) seria, no entendimento de Heisenberg, a matemática. Bem, nós temos um esquema matemático consistente e esse esquema matemático consistente nos diz tudo 26 o que pode ser observado. Não existe algo na natureza que não possa ser descrito por esse esquema matemático. [. . .] ondas e corpúsculos são, com certeza, um modo de expressão, e nós chegamos a estes conceitos através da física clássica. A física clássica nos ensinou a falar acerca de partículas e ondas, mas desde que a física clássica não é verdadeira lá [na física quântica], por que devemos nos ater tanto a estes conceitos? Por que não dizer simplesmente que não podemos usar esses conceitos com uma precisão muito elevada? Daí as relações de incerteza, e, por isso, nós temos que abandonar estes conceitos até certo ponto. Então ficamos além desse limite da teoria clássica, e devemos perceber que nossas palavras não são adequadas. Elas não têm de fato base na realidade física e, portanto, um novo esquema matemático seria melhor que elas, porque o novo esquema matemático diz o que pode e o que não pode estar lá. A natureza de alguma forma segue tal esquema. (Heisenberg, 1963, sec. XVIII). O argumento original das relações de Heisenberg (sob o exemplo do microscópio de raios gama), de acordo com Redhead (1987, p. 67), infere que “uma partícula descrita classicamente se ‘infecta’ com as relações de incerteza da mecânica quântica quando interage com um agente quântico em uma medição”. Isso parece indicar, no limite, a rejeição por parte de Heisenberg da descrição clássica (tais como ondas e partículas) para os objetos quânticos. Para Jammer (1974, p. 68), isto é notável, visto que a formulação matemática da teoria, na concepção de Heisenberg, permitiria a predição de todo e qualquer experimento, de modo que a utilização de termos clássicos, tais como “ondas” ou “partículas”, seria obsoleta para a descrição do que ocorre em uma 27 medição quântica —ao menos diante de tal esquema matemático. Pela definição, ainda em linhas gerais, que busco apresentar para o princípio de Heisenberg (1983), chamarei de princípio de indeterminação, dada a ênfase nos pressupostos ontológicos subjacentes ao raciocínio de sua formulação. Passemos à analise de alguns aspectos centrais da formulação da complementaridade de Bohr para definir com maior precisão a noção de interpretação de Copenhague. 1.2 A complementaridade Juntamente com o princípio de indeterminação de Heisenberg, a noção de “complementaridade”, formulada por Bohr (1928), contém o cerne daquilo que se conhece por interpretação de Copenhague, muitas vezes chamada de “interpretação da complementaridade” ou “interpretação ortodoxa”. No entanto, o termo “complementaridade” tem, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 88–89), usos muito distintos e fora aplicado a diversas outras áreas do conhecimento, tais como ética, linguística, psicologia e teologia. No contexto da física —sobre o qual me aterei exclusivamente— o termo tem diversos usos filosóficos distintos, com implicações epistemológicas (como o próprio Bohr parece sugerir), lógicas e até mesmo ontológicas. Buscarei evidenciar tais implicações ao longo deste capítulo. Me aterei, a princípio, à formulação original de Bohr (1928), na tentativa de reconstruir uma definição tão precisa quanto possível do termo complementaridade, entendendo que haverá uma série de dificuldades, na medida em que, como apontam Jammer (1974, p. 95) e Faye (2012, p. 142), nem mesmo Bohr delineou uma definição clara para aquilo que diz respeito ao conceito complementaridade. 28 O termo aparece pela primeira vez em uma palestra de Bohr (1928) ministrada em 1927, na cidade italiana de Como, conhecida como “Como lecture”, e publicada no ano seguinte. A argumentação conduzida por Bohr (1928) se dá por duas premissas e uma conclusão: (P1 ): Os conceitos clássicos são indispensáveis para a descrição dos experimentos quânticos. (P2 ): A indivisibilidade dos fenômenos quânticos é um fato imposto pela natureza e deve ser aceito como tal. Isto é, como cada medição envolve a troca de uma quantidade finita de energia (de ao menos um quantum), nenhuma medição seria rigorosamente idêntica à outra e, por isso, fala-se na indivisibilidade dos fenômenos quânticos. (C1 ): O uso dos conceitos clássicos tem sua limitação na descrição dos fenômenos quânticos. Iniciarei a análise desse argumento partindo da premissa (P2 ). Uma das principais características que diferencia as teorias clássica e quântica seria a introdução do postulado quântico, contido na premissa de que ele: [. . .] atribui a qualquer processo atômico uma descontinuidade essencial, ou ainda uma individualidade, completamente estranha para as teorias clássicas [. . .]. (Bohr, 1928, p. 88). É precisamente a essa descontinuidade inerente ao processo de medição que Heisenberg se refere nas relações de indeterminação. Tal postulado declara que toda e qualquer interação entre (ao menos) dois sistemas é caracterizada pela troca de energia de (ao menos) um quantum, de modo que qualquer medição envolve uma interação entre o fenômeno quântico e as agências de medição. 29 O termo “agência de medição” é utilizado com frequência nos escritos de Bohr, o que talvez indique uma posição de neutralidade em relação ao que, de fato, seria a causa da medição, de modo a não se comprometer com as ambiguidades contidas em termos como “observação” que poderiam remeter a um aspecto humano. Dado o postulado quântico e suas consequências para o ato de medição, Bohr é capaz de enunciar pela primeira vez o sentido do termo “complementaridade”: Por um lado, a definição do estado de um sistema físico, como entendido comumente, alega a eliminação de todas as interferências externas. Mas, nesse caso, de acordo com o postulado quântico, qualquer observação será impossível, e, acima de tudo, os conceitos de espaço e tempo perdem imediatamente o seu significado. Por outro lado, se, para tornar a observação possível, temos que permitir certas interações com agências apropriadas de medição que não pertençam ao sistema, uma definição não ambígua do estado do sistema naturalmente não é mais possível, e a causalidade, no sentido comum da palavra, está fora de questão. A própria natureza da teoria quântica nos obriga, portanto, a considerar a coordenação espaço-tempo e a alegação da causalidade, a união que caracteriza as teorias clássicas, como características complementares, mas exclusivas, da descrição, simbolizando a idealização da observação e da definição respectivamente. (Bohr, 1928, p. 89–90). Diversas considerações podem ser extraídas do trecho acima, que é a primeira vez em que Bohr se refere ao termo “complementaridade”. Chamo a atenção aos seguintes pontos, respectivamente relativos às três passagens grifadas na citação acima: (i) a ressignificação do conceito clássico de observação; (ii) o operacionismo e (iii) as variáveis complementares. O ponto (i) deixa 30 claro que, uma vez assumido o postulado quântico, uma observação passiva de um objeto isolado não seria possível, uma vez que, na teoria quântica, há a troca de energia discreta (de ao menos um quantum) entre a agência de medição e o objeto medido. Tal inter-relação acaba por aparentemente desconstruir a linha, clara na teoria clássica, que distingue sujeito e objeto. O ponto (ii), que chamo de operacionismo, parece ter as mesmas consequências do postulado operacionista proposto por Heisenberg (1983, p. 64) na formulação das relações de indeterminação, na medida em que admite significado somente aos conceitos sobre os quais se possa indicar uma operação experimental. Isto se torna notável em várias passagens da palestra de Como, quando, por exemplo, Bohr (1928, p. 91–92) admite que a “[. . .] radiação em espaços livres assim como partículas materiais isoladas são abstrações, suas propriedades na teoria quântica são definíveis e observáveis apenas através de sua interação com outros sistemas”. Em um sentido ontológico mais forte, afirma que [. . .] uma realidade independente, no sentido físico usual [clássico], não pode ser atribuída nem ao fenômeno nem às agências de observação. (Bohr, 1928, p. 89). Assim, o ponto (ii) parece enfatizar, de acordo com Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), que o contexto experimental define aquilo que pode ser significativamente atribuído à descrição de um objeto quântico, ao invés de alterar propriedades préexistentes em tal objeto. De fato, a última colocação é uma interpretação possível da primeira formulação da complementaridade expressa por Bohr (1928). Entretanto, ao conflitar com o operacionismo do ponto (ii) sublinhado acima, tal interpretação fora veementemente combatida por Bohr na defesa da completude da mecânica quântica na segunda metade da década de 30, assunto que tratarei em detalhe no capítulo seguinte. 31 Os dois pontos citados acima carregam notáveis consequências filosóficas em relação ao raciocínio de Bohr. Por ora, deixarei de lado a discussão em torno de tais implicações, e enfatizarei o ponto (iii) a fim de delinear uma definição clara para o termo “complementaridade”. O raciocínio utilizado por Bohr nessa passagem é de que a complementaridade seria relativa a modos de descrição mutuamente exclusivos, que seriam: (a) a descrição ou coordenação espaço-temporal de um objeto quântico e (b) a descrição causal ou a alegação da causalidade de tal objeto. Enquanto a noção (a) é, de certa forma, mais clara, o item (b) merece mais atenção. A opção de Bohr da definição do item (b), identificada como causalidade, se refere, segundo Jammer (1974, p. 95) “aos teoremas de conservação de energia e momento”, o que Patrícia Kauark-Leite (2012, p. 171) identifica como “o determinismo causal do formalismo matemático”; de fato, assegura Kauark-Leite (2012, p. 170), o formalismo da teoria quântica, sob a representação matemática da evolução temporal de uma função de onda, seria sempre determinista.4 Em sua formulação original, as variáveis complementares —ou observáveis ou variáveis conjugadas— (a) e (b) denotam a incompatibilidade de qualquer tentativa de, simultaneamente, se atribuir validade a uma descrição espaço-temporal das leis matemáticas. Como aponta Jammer (1974, p. 102), Bohr não utiliza os termos “posição” e “momento”, ou “partícula” e “onda”, na palestra de Como, ainda que pudesse tê-lo feito facilmente. De fato, como notam Hilgevoord e Uffink (2016), as variáveis de posição e momento seriam os melhores exemplos para tratar da complementaridade de Bohr, num sentido de clareza ou praticidade, uma vez que são estas as variáveis utilizadas nos debates em relação à interpretação de Bohr. Assim, unicamente porque os exemplos que se seguirão pressupõem de alguma forma o uso das variáveis 4 A evolução temporal dos sistemas quânticos será tratada em maiores detalhes no Capítulo 3 sob a nomenclatura de “processo 2”. 32 posição e momento, utilizarei por ora, por motivos de clareza, a “versão de Pauli” como sugere Jammer (1974, p. 102), que intercambia a variável (a) por “posição” e (b) por “momento”. Uma das contribuições de Weizsäcker para a compreensão do termo “complementaridade” de Bohr fora a distinção entre várias acepções do termo. A versão de Pauli seria chamada de “complementaridade paralela” visto que os conceitos de “posição” e “momento” pertenceriam à mesma imagem intuitiva dos processos físicos, caso se queira definir completamente o estado de um sistema; a versão de Bohr, no entanto, seria chamada de complementaridade circular. Em simultaneidade, as variáveis (a) e (b) constituem o significado clássico do termo observação. Na teoria clássica, dois modos de descrição (a) e (b) são combinados, uma vez que (a) o estado de um sistema se desenvolve continuamente no espaço e no tempo, e (b) a mudança do estado de um sistema, causada pela interação, é determinada pelos princípios de conservação de momento e energia. Por isso, na mecânica clássica, um estado bem definido pode sempre ser atribuído a um sistema isolado, quer ele interaja ou não com outro sistema. Na teoria quântica, no entanto, em consequência do postulado quântico, não seria possível medição simultânea das duas variáveis, o que desproveria de sentido os conceitos (a) e (b), de acordo com o critério operacionista assumido. Para tanto, Bohr propõe que tais variáveis componham uma descrição complementar, caso tomadas em situações experimentais distintas, mutuamente exclusivas, mas, no entanto, necessárias para uma descrição exaustiva dos fenômenos quânticos. Da forma como descrito, o termo “complementaridade” de Bohr parece se referir a modos de descrição distintos, acompanhados de arranjos experimentais distintos, de modo que pode ser estendido às variáveis elas mesmas em termos de quais descrições complementares são formuladas, assim, por exemplo, 33 uma coordenada de posição e uma variável de momento são chamadas complementares umas às outras; neste sentido, o termo “complementaridade” é justificado somente se as variáveis são utilizadas em descrições que correspondam a operações experimentais complementares. São precisamente tais modos complementares de descrição que devem ser realizados na terminologia da linguagem da teoria clássica, de modo que podemos passar para a análise da primeira premissa (P1 ). Isto se daria, a princípio, pela natureza da observação que, segundo Bohr (1928, p. 89) “em última análise, toda observação pode, de fato, ser reduzida às nossas percepções sensoriais”. Uma observação de um objeto quântico parece representar a ampliação de um sinal microscópico (quântico), por uma agência de medição, para o nível macroscópico (clássico), de tal forma que: Ao traçar as observações de volta às nossas sensações, novamente deve-se referir o postulado quântico em conexão com a percepção da agência de observação [medição], seja por meio de sua ação direta sobre o olho ou por meio de auxiliares adequados [. . .]. (Bohr, 1928, p. 102). Assim, raciocina Bohr (1928, p. 126), na medida em que “[. . .] toda palavra na linguagem se refere a nossa percepção comum”, e que nossa percepção comum é relativa aos macroobjetos —os objetos da teoria clássica— nossa linguagem deve ser clássica. Tentei, até aqui, reconstruir a argumentação de Bohr sobre o termo “complementaridade”. Da forma como proposto por Jammer (1974, p. 101), a reconstrução da premissa P2 pode ser resumidamente enunciada passo a passo da seguinte maneira: 1. Indivisibilidade do quantum de ação (postulado quântico). 34 2. Descontinuidade (ou indivisibilidade) dos processos quânticos. 3. Incontrolabilidade da interação entre objeto e instrumento [de medição]. 4. Impossibilidade de uma (estrita) descrição espaçotemporal, ao mesmo tempo, causal. 5. Renúncia ao modo clássico de descrição. Passemos agora à análise crítica do conceito “complementaridade”. O ponto 5 indicado na conclusão (C1 ) pode soar contraditório tendo em vista a necessidade, expressa por Bohr, do uso da linguagem clássica para a explicação dos fenômenos quânticos. No entanto, para Bohr, o que caracteriza um modo clássico de descrição é a existência de apenas uma descrição completa. No entendimento de Bohr, tal único modo se refere a uma única descrição, ao mesmo tempo causal e espaço-temporal. Assim, se for levado em consideração que uma descrição clássica jamais fornece uma descrição completa de um objeto quântico no sentido da necessidade da exclusividade mútua de (ao menos dois) modos clássicos de descrição, a aparência de uma contradição desaparece. Ainda assim, outra dificuldade para a utilização da terminologia clássica para a descrição dos fenômenos quânticos é exposta por D. Howard (1994, p. 201–229), na medida em que os conceitos clássicos carregam pressupostos filosóficos diferentes ou até mesmo contraditórios em relação àqueles assumidos pela mecânica quântica —da forma como interpretada pela complementaridade. O comprometimento ontológico com a tese de que os entes possuem uma realidade objetiva independente é uma característica notável do referencial conceitual clássico. Em outras palavras, os termos clássicos trazem consigo a ideia de que os objetos que compõem o mundo existem independentemente de 35 qualquer interação (medição/observação) —o que parece claramente contradizer o postulado quântico, assumido como ponto de partida para a interpretação de Copenhague. Tal comprometimento ontológico, presente na terminologia clássica, fora chamado por D. Howard (1994, p. 207) de “princípio da separabilidade”, que seria uma nomenclatura abreviada de um princípio, atribuído a Einstein, que prevê a “existência mutuamente independente de coisas espacialmente distantes”. Dessa maneira, a assunção da separabilidade seria necessária para a noção de independência ontológica. Para Einstein (1971, p. 169), a separabilidade seria a condição necessária para que conceitos físicos ou leis físicas fossem formuladas.5 O princípio da separabilidade será tratado mais detalhadamente no Capítulo 2. Por ora, limito-me a explicitar a forma como Bohr enuncia esse problema (bem como sua solução): A elucidação dos paradoxos da física atômica tem divulgado o fato de que a interação inevitável entre os objetos e os instrumentos de medição define um limite absoluto à possibilidade de falar de um comportamento de objetos atômicos que seja independente dos meios de observação. Estamos aqui diante de um problema epistemológico muito novo na filosofia natural, onde toda a descrição das experiências até agora tem sido baseada na suposição, já inerente às convenções comuns da linguagem, de que é possível distinguir claramente entre o comportamento dos objetos e os meios de observação. Essa suposição não é apenas plenamente justificada por toda experiência cotidiana, mas constitui até mesmo toda a base da física clássica. [. . .] Como nós estamos tratando, porém, 5 D. A. Howard (2017) e Décio Krause (2010, p. 122) vão além e consideram que o realismo einsteiniano é a própria tese da separabilidade. 36 com fenômenos como processos atômicos individuais que, devido à sua própria natureza, são essencialmente determinados pela interação entre os objetos em questão e os instrumentos de medição necessários para a definição do arranjo experimental, somos, portanto, obrigados a examinar mais de perto a questão sobre o tipo de conhecimento que pode ser obtido em relação aos objetos. A este respeito, devemos, por um lado, perceber que o escopo de cada experimento físico —para adquirir conhecimento em condições reprodutíveis e transmissíveis— não nos deixa escolha a não ser usar conceitos cotidianos, talvez refinados pela terminologia da física clássica, não só em todos os relatos de construção e de manipulação dos instrumentos de medição, mas também na descrição dos resultados experimentais reais. Por outro lado, é igualmente importante entender que essa própria circunstância implica que nenhum resultado de um experimento relativo a um fenômeno, que, em princípio, está fora do alcance da física clássica, pode ser interpretado como provedor de informações sobre propriedades independentes dos objetos. (Bohr, 1938, p. 25–26). A ordem das razões da passagem citada acima é a seguinte: (i) a separabilidade deve ser abandonada em se tratando dos fenômenos quânticos; (ii) a assunção da independência —que pressupõe a separabilidade— é inerente ao modo clássico de descrição; (iii) para comunicar os resultados dos experimentos quânticos, de modo a evitar ambiguidades, a linguagem clássica deve ser utilizada; (iv) a linguagem clássica é fundada na assunção da independência que a teoria quântica nega. Ao que parece, para Bohr, a utilização dos conceitos clássicos é necessária para que haja uma comunicação dos experimentos quânticos livre de ambiguidades. Tal comunicação seria a base para aquilo que Bohr 37 chama de objetividade: uma comunicação objetiva é uma comunicação livre de ambiguidades. Nossa tarefa deve ser responder pela experiência de um modo independente do julgamento subjetivo, individual, e, por conseguinte, objetivo na medida em que pode ser inequivocamente comunicada na linguagem humana comum. [. . .] é decisivo perceber que, por mais que os fenômenos ultrapassem o alcance da experiência comum, a descrição do arranjo experimental e o registro das observações deve ser baseada na linguagem comum. (Bohr, 1963, p. 10–11). De tal linha de raciocínio, segue-se que, para que haja objetividade na descrição dos experimentos quânticos, é necessária a assunção da independência ontológica tanto do instrumento de medição quanto do objeto quântico —e, por conseguinte, do princípio de separabilidade— visto que a linguagem clássica, necessária para a descrição objetiva dos fenômenos quânticos, é baseada em tais noções filosóficas. Essa problemática se desdobra, para Faye (1991, p. 128–129) em dois pontos principais: (i) se o aparelho é clássico, o resultado deve ser clássico e (ii) a descrição é clássica, pois a natureza da noção de observação é clássica. O ponto (i) é caracterizado pelo seguinte argumento: o aparato escolhido para efetuar uma medição é constituído de um objeto macroscópico, cujo funcionamento é baseado inteiramente em leis clássicas, e os dados empíricos da medição fornecidos por tal aparelho devem ser entendidos de acordo com seu funcionamento, de modo que tais dados empíricos só podem ser descritos em termos dos conceitos clássicos. A fragilidade do ponto (i) é justamente sua contingência histórica, de modo que aparelhos mais avançados (menores) poderiam vir a descrever “quanticamente” um fenômeno quântico. Esse raciocínio também parece controverso, pois pressupõe que 38 algum dia poderíamos perceber diretamente um aparelho quântico de medição —o que parece esbarrar nas próprias limitações da percepção humana. O ponto (ii), no entanto, parece ser mais fundamental. Para Faye (1991, p. 127–129), a física clássica desenvolveu métodos para ordenar a experiência humana de uma forma objetiva. No mundo macroscópico é aparentemente possível conectar descrições causais com descrições espaço-temporais, da mesma forma que, aparentemente, é possível distinguir entre um sistema utilizado como instrumento para observação e um sistema a ser observado. Assim, ao que parece, a natureza da observação que ordena e estrutura nossa experiência humana cotidiana assim procede, sendo a única garantia de que tal experiência possa vir a ser considerada objetiva. É precisamente porque os conceitos clássicos se referem às formas de percepção, sobre as quais nós —enquanto sujeitos humanos— apreendemos o mundo exterior, que eles são indispensáveis para que a descrição de um fenômeno possa ser estruturada e comunicada de forma inteligível. Da forma como Faye (2012) propõe, a distinção entre sujeito e objeto seria uma pré-condição para o conhecimento objetivo, isto é, um conhecimento que não seja dependente da visão do sujeito sobre um determinado objeto —o que seria possível somente em termos de uma descrição espaço-temporal e causal, de acordo com nossa percepção. Isso é notável se levarmos em consideração a redução de Bohr (1928, p. 89) do ato de medição às nossas percepções cotidianas. Ou ainda, da forma como Favrholdt (1994, p. 80) ilustra a situação, é “[. . .] porque somos seres macroscópicos, nossa linguagem é necessariamente adaptada ao mundo macroscópico”. Bohr explicita a situação da seguinte maneira: A exigência de que seja possível comunicar os resultados experimentais, de uma forma inequívoca, implica que o arranjo experimental e os resultados da ob39 servação devem ser expressos na linguagem comum adaptada para nossa orientação no ambiente. Assim, a descrição de fenômenos quânticos exige uma distinção, em princípio, entre os objetos sob investigação e o aparelho de medição, por meio do qual as condições experimentais são definidas. (Bohr, 1963, p. 78). A linguagem clássica seria então utilizada pela assunção da separabilidade que sua terminologia carrega, e justificada pela necessidade da comunicação objetiva dos experimentos quânticos. De acordo com D. Howard (1994, p. 209), não se trataria de uma contingência histórica, passível de ser superada por algum aprimoramento linguístico, mas justamente de uma necessidade metodológica. O raciocínio segue da seguinte maneira: a separabilidade —clássica, do instrumento macroscópico— é condição necessária para que possamos dizer que um objeto quântico tem tais e tais propriedades bem definidas; isso não seria possível caso objeto e instrumento fossem inseparáveis ou ontologicamente interdependentes. Sem a separabilidade, não teríamos razões suficientes para justificar que consideramos os resultados das medições como relatos de propriedades intrínsecas do objeto. Ao que parece, Bohr enfatiza a necessidade de que a agência de medição seja considerada clássica —isto é, fora do alcance do postulado quântico (o referido “quantum de ação”) e, portanto, separado ou independente— no que tange à comunicabilidade dos seus resultados: O novo recurso essencial na análise dos fenômenos quânticos é, no entanto, a introdução de uma distinção fundamental entre o aparelho de medição e os objetos sob investigação. Essa é uma consequência direta da necessidade de considerar as funções dos instrumentos de medição em termos puramente clássicos, excluindo, em princípio, qualquer relação com o quantum de ação. (Bohr, 1958b, p. 3–4). 40 Isso não significa, no entanto, que a ontologia da física clássica deva ser estendida à mecânica quântica como um todo. O postulado quântico mantém a implicação de que as variáveis complementares, ainda que descritas à maneira clássica, só podem ser aplicadas significativamente em relação a uma operação experimental e não —como pressupõe a ontologia clássica— a despeito de qualquer operação experimental. Isto significa que a complementaridade recusa qualquer descrição utilizada para indicar propriedades por trás dos fenômenos, existentes em si mesmos, inerentes e portadores de uma independência ontológica de qualquer operação experimental. Assim, a utilização da noção filosófica da separabilidade, implícita nos conceitos clássicos para a descrição dos fenômenos quânticos é limitada, de modo que não estende a ontologia clássica para os objetos quânticos. Da forma como diz Faye, a teoria quântica e a teoria clássica devem ser “comensuráveis”, num sentido kuhniano, no que diz respeito ao seu significado empírico.: As duas teorias podem ser baseadas em suposições amplamente divergentes a respeito de determinados aspectos da realidade física e, portanto, as teorias podem envolver diferentes compromissos ontológicos, mas o conteúdo empírico da linguagem na qual estes pressupostos são expressos é o mesmo ou é similar. (Faye, 1991, p. 118). Ao que parece, há aqui em jogo uma noção semântica na qual o uso dos conceitos da física clássica são necessários para uma descrição exaustiva (ou seja, completa) da realidade física que, de acordo com Faye (2012), implicaria restrição do domínio de aplicabilidade dos conceitos clássicos e não no seu abandono, uma vez que, para que os conceitos clássicos possam ser aplicados à descrição quântica, o significado de tais conceitos clássicos devem ser compatíveis com a teoria quântica. Essa passagem parece sugerir que Bohr contrastaria com a posição historicista da 41 ciência que a teoria quântica seria uma superação da mecânica clássica, de modo que as duas teorias seriam incomensuráveis, isto é, totalmente incompatíveis. Bohr chama esse princípio metodológico de princípio da correspondência, cuja formulação é enunciada da seguinte maneira: A necessidade de fazer um uso extensivo [. . .] dos conceitos clássicos, sobre a qual a interpretação de toda a experiência em última análise depende, deu origem à formulação do chamado princípio de correspondência, que expressa nossos esforços de utilizar todos os conceitos clássicos ao atribuir-lhes uma reinterpretação teórico-quântica adequada. (Bohr, 1962, p. 8). A visão comum sobre a interpretação de Copenhague seria a de relegar às agências de medição um comportamento inteiramente clássico, isto é, considerar que as agências de medição (frequentemente um aparelho) são um objeto macroscópico e, portanto, para todos os efeitos, clássico. Isso fica explícito na seguinte passagem de Bohr: Em arranjos experimentais reais, o cumprimento de tais exigências [de uma descrição inequívoca do aparelho e dos resultados da medição] é assegurada pelo uso, como aparelho medidor, de corpos rígidos suficientemente pesados que permitam uma descrição totalmente clássica das relativas posições e velocidades. (Bohr, 1958b, p. 3). Tal interpretação comum, que concebe o aparelho de medição como inteiramente clássico, é chamada por D. Howard (1994, p. 210) de “interpretação coincidente” e afirma que a divisão clássica/quântica coincide com a divisão aparelho medidor/objeto 42 medido. Nela, o critério para delinear os limites do mundo clássico para o mundo quântico seria o “tamanho” do aparelho medidor que, por se tratar de um objeto macroscópico, deveria pertencer ao mundo clássico. De fato, o argumento do “tamanho” do objeto de medição é apenas uma das características da interpretação coincidente. Outra característica, igualmente importante, seria a irreversibilidade dos efeitos ampliados pelos instrumentos medidores. Uma das características dos objetos quânticos é sua reversibilidade no tempo —uma propriedade que não é observada nos macrocorpos. Nos últimos, a característica observada é sua irreversibilidade, ou seja, a duração ou permanência dos efeitos nos objetos. No entanto, optarei por apresentar o argumento de D. Howard (1994) frente à chamada interpretação coincidente da complementaridade de Bohr apenas com o primeiro aspecto, do “tamanho” do aparelho medidor pelas consequências filosóficas que tal argumento desencadeará nos capítulos seguintes no que tange ao problema do macrorrealismo ou macroobjetivismo (cf. d’Espagnat, 1999, pp. 235–237). O aspecto da irreversibilidade da medição será abordado no Capítulo 3. A interpretação coincidente desencadearia, no entanto, uma série de problemas filosóficos como, por exemplo, a introdução de um dualismo na ontologia do processo de medição, uma vez que os objetos contidos na ontologia clássica (no caso, os aparelhos medidores) devem interagir fisicamente com os objetos contidos na ontologia quântica (no caso, os objetos quânticos) ao passo que pertençam a teorias físicas fundamentalmente diferentes. Uma séria inconsistência, relacionada indiretamente à problemática da interpretação coincidente, seria a descontinuidade introduzida na teoria pelo postulado quântico da forma como Bohr enuncia na seguinte passagem: De acordo com a teoria quântica, a impossibilidade de ignorar a interação com o mecanismo de medi43 ção significa que cada observação introduz um novo elemento incontrolável. Na verdade, isto decorre das considerações expostas que a medição das coordenadas de posição de uma partícula é acompanhada não só por uma mudança finita nas variáveis dinâmicas, mas também a fixação de sua posição significa uma ruptura completa na descrição causal de seu comportamento dinâmico, enquanto que a determinação de seu momento implica sempre em uma lacuna no conhecimento de sua propagação espacial. Essa situação realça de forma notável o caráter complementar da descrição dos fenômenos atômicos, que surge como uma consequência inevitável da oposição entre o postulado quântico e a distinção entre o objeto e a agência de medição, inerente à nossa própria idéia de observação. (Bohr, 1928, p. 103). Essa “ruptura” ou “lacuna” parece ser uma dentre as mais sérias dificuldades filosóficas da posição de Bohr. Tal dificuldade é agravada da forma como Bohr (1962, p. 11) enuncia em outro momento: “a magnitude do distúrbio causado pela medição é sempre desconhecida”. Da forma como enunciada, a descontinuidade implícita no processo de medição, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 99) “não seria considerada como o resultado da troca de uma descrição para seu modo complementar, mas como o resultado de uma propriedade física operacional”. A situação se torna ainda mais problemática, caso levarmos em consideração a afirmação, de cunho essencialmente ontológico, de Bohr, que não se deve atribuir uma realidade independente aos objetos quânticos fora do seu contexto operacional. Essa dificuldade dá margem ao famoso problema da medição quântica. O problema da medição será analisado em detalhe nos capítulos seguintes, e é a inconsistência mais séria daquilo que se entende por interpretação de Copenhague. Deixarei a análise e 44 discussão dessa problemática para os capítulos seguintes. Por ora, me aterei ao delineamento dos termos que serão utilizados para a discussão subsequente acerca de tal problema. Pelo que foi considerado aqui, parece seguro delinear uma definição para o termo complementaridade de acordo com a seguinte notação de Jammer: Uma determinada teoria T admite uma interpretação de complementaridade se as seguintes condições forem satisfeitas: (1) T contém (ao menos) duas descrições D1 e D2 , de seu conteúdo; (2) D1 e D2 , referem-se ao mesmo universo de discurso U (no caso de Bohr, a microfísica); (3) nem D1 nem D2 , se tomados individualmente, respondem exaustivamente todos os fenômenos de U; (4) D1 e D2 são mutuamente exclusivos, no sentido de que a sua combinação numa única descrição engendraria em contradições lógicas. (Jammer, 1974, p. 104). Os pontos (1) a (3) são equivalentes a uma descrição sucinta daquilo que foi exposto até aqui. O ponto (4), no entanto, merece atenção, uma vez que dele emerge um problema de ordem lógica. O termo complementaridade se refere também à incompatibilidade dos modos clássicos de descrição quando há a tentativa de que sua combinação leve a um único modo de descrição para os fenômenos quânticos. No entanto, em lógica clássica, a conjunção de duas fórmulas verdadeiras é também uma fórmula válida, de modo que D1 e D2 (no caso da complementaridade aplicada à teoria quântica, correspondendo respectivamente às descrições ondulatórias e corpusculares dos objetos quânticos) são formas válidas. Sendo assim, sua combinação também deveria ser válida. Portanto, como apontam da Costa e Krause: [. . .] se α e β são as duas teses ou teoremas de uma teoria (fundada na lógica clássica), então α ∧ β também 45 é uma tese (ou um teorema) dessa teoria. Isto é o que entendemos intuitivamente quando dizemos que, com base na lógica clássica, uma proposição “verdadeira” não pode “excluir” outra proposição “verdadeira”. [. . .] Isso corresponde ao fato de que, em lógica clássica, se α é consequência de um conjunto de afirmações ∆ e β é também uma consequência de ∆, então α∧β (α e β) é também uma consequência do ∆. Se β é a negação de α (ou vice-versa), então essa regra implica que a partir do conjunto de fórmulas ∆ deduzimos uma contradição α ∧ ¬α (ou ¬β ∧ β). Além disso, quando α e β são incompatíveis em algum sentido, α ∧ β constitui uma impossibilidade. (da Costa e Krause, 2006, p. 107). Isso indica que a noção de complementaridade formulada por Bohr poderia encontrar dificuldades, caso a lógica clássica seja utilizada como a linguagem subjacente da teoria, visto que, da forma como enunciado, o conceito de “complementaridade” levaria a uma contradição —o que tornaria o conceito inconsistente. Para da Costa e Krause (2006, p. 112), talvez a única solução para tal problema seria a modificação da lógica subjacente na linguagem da complementaridade para um sistema no qual uma contradição estrita (tal como α∧¬α) não seria deduzida dos pares complementares, ou seja, da fórmula α ∧ β (sob as condições expostas acima, respectivamente correspondentes às variáveis D1 e D2 ).6 A despeito de todas as dificuldades que, como vimos, a interpretação de Copenhague apresenta, procurei até aqui precisar uma definição desse conceito para que possamos discutir 6 Para uma breve formulação de uma lógica desse tipo, ver da Costa e Krause (2006, p. 112–116). Não me comprometerei aqui com um sistema lógico em particular, mas me limitarei à exposição dos problemas que surgem ao utilizar o raciocínio clássico (lógico e físico) para a mecânica quântica. A discussão em torno desse ponto se estenderá nos capítulos seguintes. 46 adiante sobre o problema da medição. No entanto, tal definição não terá precisão arbitrariamente grande na medida em que (1), como já disse anteriormente, o próprio Bohr não delineou uma definição precisa e nem mesmo os comentadores apresentam consenso sobre a complementaridade de Bohr; assim, é possível interpretá-la desde uma concepção antirrealista (sendo essa a maneira tradicional) até uma concepção realista acerca da mecânica quântica.7 A discussão acerca do último ponto será realizada no Capítulo 2 sob a ótica do posicionamento de Bohr sobre as críticas de incompletude de sua interpretação. Sobre o primeiro ponto, talvez o mais próximo de uma definição que Bohr (1962, p. 10) chega é que o postulado quântico nos obriga a adotar um novo modo de descrição descrita como complementar. Assim, para que eu possa prosseguir com a discussão, adotarei, por ora, para fins práticos, essa definição (ainda que incompleta) que Bohr oferece sobre a complementaridade: tenha em mente essa definição em todas as ocorrências de tal termo neste livro. 1.3 Uma interpretação fragmentada Com o arcabouço conceitual exposto até então, é oportuno discutir sobre as diferenças filosóficas dos considerados principais autores daquilo que se entende por interpretação de Copenhague. Ainda que uma análise exaustiva acerca do debate filosófico entre os dois autores esteja fora do escopo deste livro, apontarei algumas considerações notáveis sobre determinados aspectos de suas divergências. 7 Como exemplo de uma leitura que endossa o antirrealismo de Bohr, podese referir a obra de Faye (1991). Já a obra de Folse (1985) oferece, em contraponto, uma leitura realista dos escritos de Bohr. O debate entre Faye e Folse acerca da postura de Bohr quanto ao realismo científico pode ser encontrado em Faye (1994) e Folse (1994). 47 Um dos pontos essenciais dentre as (diversas) diferenças filosóficas entre Heisenberg e Bohr seria, para Camilleri (2007, p. 521), o fato de que, por um lado, Heisenberg enfatiza a necessidade do entendimento do significado do formalismo da teoria quântica enquanto, por outro lado, Bohr enfatiza a necessidade de uma descrição completa dos fenômenos quânticos. Assim, como uma forma preliminar, podemos discutir a diferença entre Heisenberg e Bohr acerca da delineação dos limites da teoria e da interpretação da mecânica quântica. Para Heisenberg, o formalismo matemático da teoria deveria ser suficientemente elaborado para que pudesse ser feita uma descrição exaustiva dos fenômenos, pois sua concepção era a de que não existiria algo que não pudesse ser expresso de acordo com uma formulação matemática —o que, como aponta Heisenberg, não seria o caso para Bohr: [. . .] a clareza matemática não tinha em si qualquer virtude para Bohr. Ele temia que a estrutura matemática formal fosse obscurecer o núcleo físico do problema, e, em qualquer caso, ele estava convencido de que uma explicação física completa deve absolutamente preceder a formulação matemática. (Heisenberg, 1967, p. 98). Tal controvérsia se daria somente no plano da ordenação ou “precedência” dos conceitos; a discussão acerca da importância e do alcance, tanto do formalismo quanto da interpretação da teoria quântica, não seria, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 67), o aspecto central do debate entre Bohr e Heisenberg em relação à interpretação das relações de indeterminação. A chave de leitura para a compreensão desse debate seria, portanto, a diferença no ponto de partida escolhido por cada autor: ao passo que Heisenberg partiria do formalismo, o ponto de partida da interpretação de Bohr acerca das relações seria, de acordo com Jammer (1974, 48 p. 66–69), a dualidade onda-partícula —isto é, a impossibilidade de reduzir a descrição dos objetos quânticos aos aspectos exclusivamente corpusculares ou ondulatórios, visto que ambas as formas são encontradas nos experimentos quânticos. Bohr haveria encontrado indicações de que o argumento de Heisenberg conectaria descrições de partículas com descrições de ondas que, assim, “pressupõem implicitamente a dualidade onda-partícula”.8 De fato, como enfatiza Chibeni (2005, p. 15), o experimento mental do microscópio de raios gama pressupõe uma ontologia de partículas enquanto utiliza, ao mesmo tempo, conceitos ondulatórios (como uma função de onda) para a representação matemática dos objetos quânticos. Outro argumento apresentado em Jammer (1974, p. 69), seria o de que, originalmente, quaisquer derivações das relações de Heisenberg a partir dos experimentos mentais (como o do microscópio de raios gama) precisariam utilizar as equações de Einstein– de Broglie, que conectam descrições da física de partículas com a física ondulatória. No entanto, considero que os argumentos anteriores, sem a necessidade de adentrar numa discussão acerca do formalismo da teoria quântica, são suficientes para expor o ponto de vista de Bohr. Heisenberg e Bohr concordavam com o fato de que a interpretação da teoria quântica deveria utilizar a terminologia da física clássica. No entanto, ao passo que Heisenberg afirmava a insuficiência dos termos da física de ondas ou da física de partículas para uma explicação completa dos fenômenos quânticos —insuficiência essa expressa nas próprias relações de indeterminação—, Bohr afirmava a necessidade do uso de ambas as teorias. Para Bohr, no entanto, o significado do termo ‘explicação’ deveria ser revisado. 8 Ainda que a dualidade onda-partícula seja um aspecto central da mecânica quântica, optei por não abordá-lo neste livro, visto que essa problemática recai na questão sobre a linguagem a ser utilizada para uma descrição dos fenômenos quânticos. 49 Em seu sentido clássico, uma explicação seria um modo único, suficiente, para o esgotamento da descrição de um objeto. Segundo Bohr (1962, p. 15–16), essa acepção do termo seria empregada por Heisenberg ao afirmar que um esquema matemático seria mais adequado para a explicação dos fenômenos quânticos do que uma ressignificação dos conceitos clássicos (quer sejam da física de partículas ou da física ondulatória) já utilizados para a descrição dos objetos quânticos. Contrariamente, Bohr (1962, p. 96) define uma nova acepção do termo explicação afirmando que “devemos, em geral, estar preparados para aceitar o fato de que uma elucidação completa do mesmo e único objeto pode requerer diversos pontos de vista que desafiam uma descrição única”, em que os “diversos pontos de vista” seriam os aspectos complementares da descrição quântica. A questão do distúrbio descontínuo do ato da medição seria uma indicação da impossibilidade de definição simultânea das propriedades observáveis de um objeto quântico, ou seja, de um modo único de explicação para os fenômenos quânticos. Dito de outra forma, o indeterminismo expresso pelas relações de Heisenberg, para Bohr, seria um exemplo matemático da ruptura ou descontinuidade própria do ato de medição, o que obrigaria a formulação de pontos de vista diversos, complementares, para uma descrição exaustiva do objeto quântico —a linguagem de tal descrição deve permanecer, de acordo com a operação experimental (complementar) em questão, na terminologia clássica—, sendo a indeterminação expressa pelas relações de Heisenberg, o preço a se pagar, caso haja a tentativa de aplicação simultânea dos termos clássicos mutuamente exclusivos. Ao que parece, a descontinuidade implícita nos processos de medição é um fator chave para que eu possa delinear algumas das divergências filosóficas fundamentais entre Heisenberg e Bohr. Enquanto para Heisenberg tal descontinuidade seria ex50 pressa através de uma formulação matemática, sob a nomenclatura de “redução do pacote de onda”,9 para Bohr, a situação seria totalmente diferente. Na medida em que Bohr não considera que o formalismo matemático da teoria quântica tenha um significado por si —ou seja, considera que o formalismo precisa ser interpretado— ou mesmo que represente algo real no sentido físico do termo, o problema implicado pela chamada redução do pacote de onda não seria um problema, caso fosse uma noção limitada ao formalismo em si mesmo. Talvez esse seja o motivo pelo qual Henry Folse (1994) considere Bohr um antirrealista quando diz respeito às teorias, isto é, ao formalismo, e um realista no que tange às entidades empíricas, na medida em que considera um objeto quântico uma entidade real (quando observada). Assim, o problema da medição (cuja contrapartida no formalismo seria a própria noção de redução do pacote de ondas, na terminologia de Heisenberg) parece ainda se aplicar na interpretação de Bohr, visto que a ruptura implícita no ato de medição é algo que se mantém. De acordo com Camilleri (2007, p. 522), essa diferença da precedência do formalismo matemático implica maneiras diferentes de visualizar o próprio problema da descontinuidade referido acima (o que ele chama de “o paradoxo implícito da mecânica quântica”). Pois, se Heisenberg define um sistema quântico nos termos de uma fórmula matemática, como uma função de onda, essa definição independe da experimentação. Ainda que não se possa atribuir realidade física à função de onda (pelo princípio de medição=criação), essa representação seria aplicável para a descrição de um objeto quântico em termos de propensões ou possibilidades. Heisenberg (1958, p. 53) enfatiza que essa realidade se daria num plano potencial —em contraste ao plano atual 9 Que futuramente ficou conhecida como o “colapso”. Tratarei desse assunto nos próximos capítulos. 51 dos fenômenos empíricos—, remontando ao pensamento aristotélico de potência e ato10 Por outro lado, a definição de um sistema quântico, independentemente de sua relação com um contexto operacional, não teria significado na semântica de Bohr, que busca na própria experimentação as condições de possibilidade de definição dos objetos quânticos. Assim, ao passo em que para Heisenberg a descontinuidade é fruto de um distúrbio interacional entre a agência de medição e o objeto quântico medido, Bohr enfatiza que tal descontinuidade seria uma limitação na definibilidade, e não um distúrbio físico. Ainda assim, a tese de que ocorre um distúrbio físico aparece dentre as teses principais da interpretação de Copenhague. Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 87–98) elenca, em dez tópicos, as principais teses atribuídas àquilo que se chama de “interpretação ortodoxa”, dos quais sublinharei apenas um: o distúrbio interacional, que afirma que há uma interação física entre o objeto observado e a agência de medição que observa tal objeto. Esse ponto é uma das vias para se chegar ao problema da medição, motivo pelo qual a interpretação de Copenhague foi duramente criticada nos anos 1930, sob a acusação de incompletude. No Capítulo 2, analisarei os debates sobre a completude da mecânica quântica, enfatizando o comprometimento ontológico dos pontos de vista de Einstein e Bohr em relação ao distúrbio interacional e ao problema da medição. Procurei, neste capítulo, esboçar alguns pontos centrais da interpretação de Copenhague, bem como seus aspectos filosoficamente problemáticos. Devo enfatizar que de modo algum busco aqui uma descrição exaustiva dos conceitos de indeterminação e complementaridade, mas meramente uma definição para possibilitar a discussão feita nos capítulos seguintes. Na realidade, uma descrição completa de tais conceitos —especialmente 10 Ver d’Espagnat (1999, p. 257–258) e Heisenberg (1958, p. 147–148). 52 a noção de complementaridade— não é uma tarefa fácil: conforme aponta Jammer (1974, p. 88) nem mesmo os interlocutores contemporâneos a Bohr foram capazes de compreender completamente sua interpretação da teoria quântica. Como procurei evidenciar ao longo deste capítulo, grande parte de tal deficiência se dá pelo fato de que Bohr jamais teria oferecido uma descrição formal para a noção de medição, apesar de ser uma noção central em suas ideias. Com o que foi exposto até aqui, poderemos entender melhor alguns aspectos filosóficos nos fundamentos da mecânica quântica, especificamente do conceito de medição. Destaco como a interpretação de Copenhague oferece uma visão de mundo bastante contraintuitiva em relação à nossa percepção ordinária da realidade à nossa volta, principalmente no que diz respeito à suposição —ou até mesmo à certeza— ontológica da existência independente dos objetos que compõem o mundo à nossa volta e do determinismo causal implícito na linearidade dos eventos que experienciamos cotidianamente. No próximo capítulo, analiso em detalhes o debate entre Einstein e Bohr, que suscitou diversas questões filosóficas acerca da problemática da medição. 53 Capítulo 2 Visões de mundo em conflito Neste capítulo, analisarei um dos debates filosóficos centrais no que se refere às questões de princípios ou fundamentos da mecânica quântica, especificamente em relação ao debate entre Albert Einstein e Niels Bohr. Saliento que as pressuposições ontológicas de ambos os autores, que se mostrarão claras ao longo do debate aqui proposto, são fundamentais para a compreensão de tal debate; da mesma forma, são fundamentais para compreender o momento em que se insere o problema da medição quântica, que será discutido detalhadamente no próximo capítulo. Para tanto, caracterizo os termos utilizados, procurando, inicialmente, destacar de que modo uma questão concernente à interpretação da mecânica quântica se insere na problemática filosófica. Em seguida, busco uma definição para o termo “ontologia” que utilizarei ao longo do texto, o que me permitirá adentrar nos aspectos ontológicos do debate entre Bohr e Einstein, a fim de especificar os pressupostos ontológicos por detrás da argumentação de cada autor. Assim, será possível delinear a questão da medição quântica como um debate essencialmente filosófico. Segundo Heisenberg: A física moderna e, em especial, a teoria quântica [. . .] 54 levantou uma série de questões muito gerais, concernentes não só a problemas estritamente físicos, como também relacionados ao método das ciências naturais exatas e à natureza da matéria. Tais questões levaram os físicos a reconsiderar os problemas filosóficos que pareciam estar definitivamente resolvidos no estreito quadro da física clássica. (Heisenberg, 1958, p. 10). Com o advento da mecânica quântica, principalmente no final dos anos 1920, muitos físicos da época se questionaram acerca dos fundamentos das noções de realidade —noções estas formadas no modelo da física clássica—, instigando debates acerca das implicações ontológicas da mecânica quântica. A noção de “crise” apresentada na obra de Kuhn (1989, p. 119– 120) parece refletir a problemática que surge com o advento da teoria quântica no século XX. A revisão paradigmática que a mecânica quântica propõe no terreno da física pode ser abordada por diversos aspectos. Limito-me, aqui, a discutir aquilo que, na teoria kuhniana, constitui as diferenças “substanciais”, ou seja, as diferenças ontológicas num sentido de diferentes “mobiliários do mundo”. Segundo Preston (2008, p. 56), paradigmas sucessivos “[. . .] envolvem diferentes ontologias como por exemplo, diferentes listas dos tipos de objetos que o mundo contém”. Nesse sentido, analiso a problemática de visualizar a concepção da mecânica quântica sob a ótica da física clássica como ontológica. Para que possamos compreender um pouco melhor o recorte aqui proposto, assumirei uma distinção utilizada por Cushing (1994, p. 9), ainda que grosseira, entre “formalismo” e “interpretação”, segundo a qual, o formalismo é o cálculo simbólico utilizado para fazer predições teóricas e experimentais, enquanto a interpretação seria “[. . .] a história correspondente ao mobiliário do mundo —uma ontologia)”. As questões sobre os limites entre “teoria” e “interpretação” são muito mais complexas do que isso. 55 Essa distinção, no entanto, deve bastar para uma aproximação inicial ao tema. Desse modo, assumo que o debate em relação à interpretação do formalismo da teoria quântica se trata de um debate filosófico, especificamente ontológico, na medida em que lida com as entidades que compõem o mundo —entidades essas dadas pela teoria, isto é, pelo debate teórico (científico). Portanto, os dois momentos do debate acerca da mecânica quântica (filosófico e científico) configuram instâncias diversas, por mais que estejam intrinsecamente conectados entre si. Ainda assim, enfatizo que minha discussão se limitará, neste livro, aos aspectos filosóficos, especificamente ontológicos do debate. Para me referir ao debate ontológico de uma teoria física, é preciso antes categorizar o termo “ontologia”. Procurarei delinear brevemente uma definição para esse termo, que usarei ao longo deste livro. 2.1 As ontologias da ciência e a ontologia do mundo Hofweber (2018) elencou, dentre os principais usos na história da filosofia, quatro principais sentidos ou acepções do termo “ontologia”, dos quais seleciono, para o propósito da discussão, apenas dois. São eles: o estudo acerca do que há, que chamarei de OT , e o estudo do comprometimento ontológico, que chamarei de ON . O sentido OT é comumente chamado sentido tradicional do termo “ontologia”, o que remete às discussões, desde Aristóteles, acerca de uma “filosofia primeira” cuja parte central seria a ontologia. Assim, o sentido OT , ou tradicional, carrega a pressuposição de ser a única ontologia, isto é, a descrição mais geral do ser enquanto ser assim como ele é. Diferentemente, ao mencionar o sentido ON , ou naturalizado, 56 tem-se implícito, principalmente, o pensamento de Quine (1966), no qual me apoio para me referir à existência de entidades, através da linguagem que utilizamos para descrever as teorias científicas, o que se torna explícito quando as sentenças são trazidas para uma linguagem formal. Conforme argumentado por Russell (1905), algumas expressões linguísticas envolvem quantificação existencial. Por exemplo, a frase “um objeto quântico” carrega, implicitamente, o sentido: “existe algo tal que esse algo é um objeto quântico”. Como observou Davidson (1980), até mesmo sentenças de ação pressupõem o quantificador existencial (∃); assim, se o termo “ontologia” for entendido no sentido ON , pode-se dizer que uma sentença como “uma medição efetuada sobre um elétron” compromete-se com a existência de uma entidade subatômica. Se a linguagem de uma teoria traz consigo um comprometimento racional com a existência de uma entidade, pode-se dizer que a teoria se compromete ontologicamente com essa entidade. É importante notar que tal afirmação não diz qual ontologia é correta, mas diz como nos comprometemos com certas entidades — e, portanto, com uma ontologia num sentido OT que as suporte. É nesse sentido que Quine (1966, p. 66) expressa sua máxima: “[. . .] ser é ser o valor de uma variável”. É interessante fazermos uma pausa aqui e chamar a atenção para uma questão delicada. A máxima Quineana poderia ser interpretada de modo a considerar que as variáveis em questão seriam variáveis dentro da linguagem da lógica clássica, exclusivamente. No entanto, conforme procurei expor no capítulo anterior, podem existir dificuldades no caso de considerar a lógica clássica como a única lógica adequada para o pleno entendimento da totalidade dos fenômenos e problemas da mecânica quântica —tese com a qual não compartilho. Diante essa problemática, diversos apontamentos acerca de quais desses princípios da lógica clássica podem ser revisados 57 para a mecânica quântica foram formulados: (i) o princípio de não contradição, da forma como sugerem Cattaneo et al. (2009, p. 127–226); (ii) o princípio do terceiro excluído, conforme sugere Heisenberg (1958, p. 181); (iii) a lei de distributividade, da forma como sugerem Birkhoff e von Neumann (1936). Não discutirei aqui qual dos sistemas lógicos não clássicos1 seria o mais adequado ao contexto da mecânica quântica (nem mesmo compartilho da ideia de que a lógica clássica seja inadequada para a mecânica quântica), isto é, não me comprometo com algum sistema não clássico em particular. Ao invés disto, me aterei à posição de Krause, da Costa e Bueno (2007, p. 757), para os quais outras lógicas podem ajudar na compreensão de certos aspectos da realidade quântica que não são facilmente explicáveis quando tratadas à maneira da lógica clássica, diferentemente das posições normativas de que a lógica da mecânica quântica não deve ser a lógica clássica. Da forma como procurei enfatizar no capítulo anterior, a complementaridade de Bohr seria um dos casos em que uma lógica não clássica ajudaria significativamente na compreensão dos conceitos envolvidos. Assim, visto que considero a possibilidade da utilização de sistemas lógicos não clássicos para a interpretação da mecânica quântica, adoto aqui a relativização do princípio de Quine, proposta por da Costa (2002, p. 284): “penso que ser é ser o valor de uma variável em uma dada linguagem com uma determinada lógica”. Feitas tais considerações acerca da lógica subjacente, retornei à questão dos dois sentidos para a ontologia. À primeira 1 Embora seja de difícil caracterização, é possível esboçar uma descrição do paradigma lógico-clássico. Quando utilizo o termo “lógica não clássica”, tenho em mente precisamente uma lógica pautada pelos princípios de identidade, terceiro excluído e não contradição —o que equivaleria àquilo que da Costa (1980, p. 8) chama de “grande lógica”. Ainda assim, pode haver lógicas não clássicas que conservem os princípios supracitados. Uma discussão aprofundada sobre esse assunto pode ser encontrada em da Costa (1993). 58 vista, os sentidos OT e ON do termo “ontologia” são excludentes. No entanto, tomarei a posição de Arenhart e Krause (2012), que compatibilizam as duas acepções do termo, no preciso sentido em que ON não implica naquilo que de fato existe ou não, mas somente nas entidades com as quais as teorias científicas se comprometem. Desse modo, pode-se dizer que, se o sentido ON está diretamente associado a uma ou outra teoria científica, então depende de aspectos da investigação empírica. Assim, se de ON resulta que nossos pressupostos nos comprometem ontologicamente com certo tipo de entidade, devemos ou aceitar uma resposta para uma questão do tipo OT acerca de tal entidade ou revisar nossos pressupostos filosóficos. Dito de outro modo, o estudo da ontologia associada a uma teoria científica, num sentido ON , isto é, a análise sobre os objetos que compõem o mundo adotados por essa teoria, não exclui a possibilidade da formulação de uma ontologia num sentido OT baseado no mobiliário ontológico que a teoria fornece. Assim, por mais que os dois sentidos mencionados não sejam excludentes, no que tange aos propósitos da presente análise, basta dizer que assumo, da mesma forma que Arenhart e Krause (2012, p. 48), que “é legítimo investigar a ontologia de uma teoria (ou associada a uma teoria)” —num sentido localizado e descritivo, conforme explicitado anteriormente no sentido ON , de modo que não tratarei aqui uma ontologia num sentido OT .2 Por fim, é oportuno enfatizar que não utilizo o termo “metafísica”. Me alinho com uma tendência recente na metafísica analítica, seguindo autores tais como Arenhart (2012), Hofweber (2016), Tahko (2015), Thomson-Jones (2017), Arroyo e Arenhart (2019) e Arenhart e Arroyo (2021a), para quem a ontologia trata de questões relativas à existência de certas entidades, enquanto a “metafísica” ou “perfil metafísico” trata sobre questões relativas 2 Ainda que o Capítulo 4 traga algumas considerações a respeito de OT . 59 à natureza de tais entidades. Este capítulo trata exclusivamente da ontologia da mecânica quântica, portanto, de ON . Em suma, podemos classificar a terminologia apresentada aqui da seguinte maneira: OT diz o que há, de fato, no mundo em que vivemos; ON diz o que há modulo uma teoria científica em questão; e a tese do realismo científico é a correspondência de ON em OT . Neste capítulo, argumentarei que o cerne do debate entre interpretações da teoria quântica estaria em uma concepção de realidade, do tipo OT , que seria um tipo de “escolha filosófica” feita por cada um de seus proponentes. Mais ainda, argumentarei que essa escolha tem implicações do tipo ON . Analiso, neste capítulo, o debate entre Einstein e Bohr para visualizar essa questão. 2.2 A realidade da mecânica quântica As teses associadas à interpretação de Copenhague, analisadas no Capítulo 1, foram por muito tempo consideradas uma atitude dominante entre os físicos. No entanto, Einstein nunca teria condescendido à atitude dessa interpretação frente aos pressupostos ontológicos ON que ela carregava. Poderíamos destacar suas reticências em relação ao indeterminismo implicado pelo princípio da indeterminação de Heisenberg e às considerações acerca da causalidade propostas pela complementaridade de Bohr, mas Einstein se opunha, sobretudo, à tese do distúrbio interacional. Isso pois Einstein teria preferências ontológicas OT nas quais os estados não observados devem possuir propriedades bem definidas. Vale recapitular que o argumento do distúrbio interacional afirma que há, em um processo de medição, uma interação física entre o objeto observado e a agência de medição que observa tal objeto. Tal argumento é considerado um argumento calcado 60 na concepção clássica, na medida em que pressupõe a tese da separabilidade como OT . Isto é, o argumento pressupõe que todos os objetos especialmente distintos existem em distintos estados físicos. Dito de outro modo, um aparelho de medição só poderia perturbar um objeto que já esteja lá para ser perturbado. Essa afirmativa, como vimos no Capítulo 1, parece indicar um compromisso com uma ideia essencialmente clássica de medição. No entanto, a interpretação de Copenhague afirma que, a princípio, o conhecimento empírico de tais estados é impossibilitado pelo postulado quântico. Assim, a afirmação do distúrbio interacional é confusa e abriu espaço para muitas críticas na década de 30. Dentre elas, e talvez a principal, viria por parte de Einstein. Para alguns historiadores da física, como Jammer (1974, p. 120), o debate entre Bohr e Eintein seria “um dos grandes debates na história da física”. Ademais, para Folse (1994, p. 126), o pensamento de Bohr só poderia ser considerado totalmente maduro após discussões estabelecidas com Einstein, principalmente no que diz respeito ao conceito de medição. Isto é, se antes de tal debate Bohr haveria endossado a tese do distúrbio interacional, depois dele, certamente, isso já não mais seria o caso. O debate entre Einstein e Bohr em relação à completude da mecânica quântica é um ótimo exemplo de como as diferenças numa ontologia ON direciona ou ao menos influencia a concepção da interpretação da teoria quântica de cada autor. Para que possamos visualizar essa tese, iniciarei com a análise do famoso artigo de Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen (1983 [doravante citado como EPR, 1983]). O artigo, redigido por Podolsky, questiona a atitude da interpretação de Copenhague frente à noção de medição, como busco analisar adiante. De acordo com a interpretação de Copenhague, as propriedades dos objetos quânticos não teriam valores definidos simultaneamente, devido à impossibilidade da medição de tais quantidades. Ou seja, o estado de um objeto individual em qualquer 61 tempo determinado não teria valores definidos para todas as suas quantidades físicas. Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen (EPR, 1983) propõem um contraexemplo, mediante um experimento de pensamento (Gedankenexperiment), em que medições precisas e simultâneas pudessem de fato ser efetuadas sobre as propriedades observáveis. Tal raciocínio é frequentemente referido sob a nomenclatura de “paradoxo EPR”. No entanto, seguirei a proposta de Jammer (1974, p. 187–188) de optar pelo termo “argumento EPR” visto que os próprios autores jamais consideraram sua tese como um paradoxo, nem no sentido medieval, de insolubilidade, nem no sentido moderno de uma antinomia sintática ou semântica. O primeiro autor a considerar o argumento EPR como paradoxal foi Schrödinger (1983, p. 556) no sentido etimológico do termo “paradoxo”, isto é, no sentido de ser contrário à opinião corrente na medida em que o argumento EPR implicaria a renúncia do princípio de localidade, um princípio deveras intuitivo na época (e até mesmo nos dias de hoje), ou seja, favorável à opinião corrente. Deve ficar claro que tratarei aqui do argumento conforme exposto por EPR, deixando de lado, portanto, formulações posteriores tal como a de Bohm (1951a, p. 611–623). O argumento EPR se baseia, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 184), em quatro premissas principais, em que as duas primeiras são formuladas, e as duas últimas são assumidas. Seguirei a reconstrução de Jammer (1974, p. 184), embora não seja a ordenação do artigo original de Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen (EPR, 1983, p. 138). São elas: 1. Critério de realidade: os elementos de realidade física não podem ser determinados por considerações filosóficas a priori, mas têm de ser encontrados por meio de resultados experimentais e medições. “[. . .] Se, sem perturbar de forma alguma um sistema, podemos prever com segurança (isto é, com uma probabilidade igual à unidade) o valor de uma quantidade física, então existe um elemento da realidade 62 física correspondente a essa quantidade física” (EPR, 1983, p. 138). 2. Critério de completude: uma teoria é completa se e somente se “[. . .] cada elemento da realidade física tem uma contrapartida na teoria física” (EPR, 1983, p. 138). 3. Assunção da localidade: se “no momento da medição de [. . .] dois sistemas que já não mais interagem, nenhuma mudança real pode ocorrer no segundo sistema em consequência de qualquer coisa que possa ser feito com o primeiro sistema” (EPR, 1983, p. 140). 4. Assunção da validade: “[. . .] as previsões estatísticas da mecânica quântica —na medida em que sejam relevantes para o argumento em si— são confirmadas pela experiência” (Jammer, 1974, p. 184). É notável que a formulação do critério de realidade carrega pressuposições do tipo OT , na medida em que considera a realidade física “algo” cuja existência espaço-temporal seja objetiva e independente. Esse tipo de pressuposição é frequentemente associada aos conceitos de de “realidade física” da física clássica. De acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 184), a estrutura do argumento seria tal que, sob a base fornecida por 1), as assunções 3) e 4) implicariam que a mecânica quântica não satisfaria o critério 2), que é o critério de completude. Como um corolário, a descrição fornecida por tal teoria seria, então, incompleta. Enunciados os critérios, passemos à análise do experimento de pensamento. Dois objetos quânticos individuais, A e B, separados espacialmente depois de interagirem um com o outro, seriam medidos. Devo enfatizar que estou tratando aqui do experimento mental clássico EPR, e não de suas reformulações mais recentes —tal como a de Bohm (1951a). 63 De acordo com o entendimento de EPR, a mecânica quântica, conforme a interpretação de Copenhague, prevê que o sistema I perturba o sistema II de forma descontínua. Antes da medição, os observáveis A e B não possuiriam propriedades bem definidas e, após a medição em algum deles, uma quantidade física poderia ser determinada sobre o outro. E justamente essa seria a forma como operaria o princípio da indeterminação, segundo o qual o conhecimento pleno e simultâneo dos observáveis A e B não seria possível, visto que, da forma como tal relação fora interpretada por EPR, a medição de uma quantidade física de algum dos pares implica perturbação ou distúrbio do outro. Nesse sentido, A e B seriam observáveis com quantidades físicas incompatíveis. Tendo em vista esses pontos, podemos passar ao argumento EPR. Se as “quantidades físicas incompatíveis” —A e B— têm realidade simultânea e se a descrição quântica da realidade é completa, então a mecânica quântica deveria fornecer valores precisos e simultâneos para os observáveis incompatíveis A e B. No entanto, de acordo com o princípio de indeterminação, a mecânica quântica não fornece tais valores precisos simultâneos para os valores das propriedades de, por exemplo, posição e momento de um objeto quântico e, por isso, tais propriedades são referidas como quantidades incompatíveis. Assim, ou a descrição quântica da realidade não é completa, ou as quantidades físicas incompatíveis não podem ter realidade simultânea. Abaixo, o argumento EPR é reproduzido sob a forma de uma redução ao absurdo. A disjunção “ou” do argumento é originalmente introduzida sob a forma de uma contradição: • C: A descrição quântica da realidade é completa; • RS: Quantidades físicas “incompatíveis” podem ter realidade simultânea; 64 • ψAB : A mecânica quântica fornece valores precisos e simultâneos para as quantidades ‘incompatíveis’ A e B. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 P (RS ∨ B) P ¬ψAB 1–2 ¬(RS ∧ C) 3 ¬C ∧ ¬RS H: EPR C → RS C → ¬RS C → (RS ∧ ¬RS) ¬C 4 5–6 7: RAA Brevemente: a primeira premissa diz respeito à definição de completude; a segunda premissa descreve a mecânica quântica. No terceiro passo, temos um modus tollens a partir de 1 e 2; no quarto passo temos a aplicação da lei de de Morgan a partir de 3. O quinto passo é a hipótese referente ao critério de realidade, conforme exposto no argumento EPR. No sexto passo, temos uma aplicação do silogismo disjuntivo a partir do passo 4; o passo 7 apresenta uma contradição a partir de 5 e 6; o oitavo e último passo apresenta uma conclusão por redução ao absurdo. O uso do termo “contradição”, conforme empregado no raciocínio, precisamente após o condicional da etapa “7” da reconstrução acima, deve ser entendido à maneira da lógica clássica. É preciso qualificar tal afirmação, pois considero, anteriormente, a legítima possibilidade da utilização de lógicas não clássicas na interpretação da mecânica quântica. Tal situação ocorre na medida em que a discussão acerca de uma interpretação da mecânica quântica acontece no plano 65 metalinguístico, que corresponde a uma porção restrita da linguagem natural. Em tal metalinguagem, as regras semânticas são pressupostas e, portanto, não formalizadas; assim, a discussão metalinguística acontece em linguagem natural e, por conseguinte, obedece às regras desse discurso que tem a lógica clássica como linguagem subjacente.3 Apresento o argumento EPR de modo formalizado por questões de clareza; a discussão que apresento em torno da semântica do argumento, no entanto, continua obedecendo às “regras” metalinguísticas da linguagem natural: a lógica clássica. Ademais, como aponta Murdoch (1994, p. 306), o argumento original, conforme formalizado acima, tem uma estrutura inválida. Como o critério de realidade adotado por EPR implica realidade simultânea das quantidades físicas incompatíveis, deve-se negar a completude da descrição quântica da realidade. Como EPR se comprometem com a tese da realidade independente como OT , fica claro que todos os objetos quânticos possuem realidade independente —logo, simultânea. Isso ocorre, pois a noção de de “realidade simultânea” depende da noção de “realidade objetiva”— ou seja, dois objetos devem, primeiro, existir objetivamente para que possam ter realidade simultânea. Assim, Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen (EPR, 1983, p. 141) são “forçados a concluir” que a descrição dos objetos, conforme a mecânica quântica (modulo interpretação de Copenhague) não é completa. No mesmo ano, em resposta a EPR, Bohr (1983, p. 145–146) escreve um artigo argumentando em defesa do princípio de indeterminação. Nele, afirma que: A aparente contradição [apontada no artigo de EPR] só evidencia uma inadequação essencial da perspectiva filosófica usual [clássica] de fornecer uma descrição racional dos fenômenos físicos do tipo que esta3 Para uma discussão mais aprofundada sobre isso, ver Church (1956, p. 50– 55) e Krause e Arenhart (2016). 66 mos interessados na mecânica quântica. De fato, a interação finita entre objeto e as agências de medição, condicionadas pela própria existência do quantum de ação, implica —devido à impossibilidade de controlar a reação provocada pelo objeto nos instrumentos de medição, se estes devem servir a seus propósitos— a necessidade de uma renúncia final ao ideal clássico de causalidade e uma revisão radical de nossa atitude perante o problema da realidade física. (Bohr, 1983, p. 145–146). Podemos observar que é precisamente em relação ao critério de realidade, assumido por EPR, frequentemente chamado de “clássico”, que Bohr (1983) se posiciona contrariamente na passagem acima. Ao rejeitar a tese ON de Einstein, Bohr acaba por elaborar ainda mais sua própria ON ; no entanto, é tal rejeição é comumente vista como a necessidade de uma revisão ontológica para as teorias físicas, ou ainda uma revisão na semântica, isto é, uma revisão nos limites de aplicação e na definição dos conceitos envolvidos, tal como o conceito de “realidade física”. Nesse mesmo artigo, diz Bohr: A possibilidade de atribuir de significado inequívoco a expressões tais como “realidade física” não pode, evidentemente, ser deduzida a partir de concepções filosóficas a priori, mas —como os autores do artigo citado [EPR] enfatizam— deve ser fundamentada no recurso direto a experiências e medições. (Bohr, 1983, p. 145). Segundo esse raciocínio, se toda medição é limitada à informação que se obtém por meio dela, essa limitação se estende ao significado que se pode atribuir por meio dela —o que é uma consequência direta da atitude operacionista, também uma ON , 67 assumida por Bohr (1928, p. 89–90) nos fundamentos da interpretação de Copenhague. Assim, a própria ideia de uma OT não seria significativa, isto é, uma realidade “em si”, com o estabelecimento das suas propriedades intrínsecas, fora do contexto do aparato medidor utilizado. Para visualizar melhor esse aspecto do argumento de Bohr, vamos utilizar a reconstrução do contraargumento feita por Murdoch (1994, p. 304): • Observáveis complementares (como posição e momento) não podem ser medidas simultaneamente; são necessárias operações experimentais mutuamente exclusivas para a sua medição; • Uma medição envolve uma interação ineliminável entre o objeto e as agências de medição; • A interação com a medição é indeterminável. Qualquer tentativa de medi-la necessitaria de mudanças no arranjo experimental e ao menos mais uma interação, o que impossibilitaria a medição original; • Portanto, os resultados das medições sucessivas de observáveis complementares não podem ser atribuídos. De acordo com essa linha de raciocínio, o tipo de experimento que EPR propuseram não seria possível, pois os termos como “posição” ou “momento” só teriam significado quando associados a uma operação experimental e, uma vez que só podem ser designados experimentos mutuamente exclusivos para verificar o valor de verdade de tais termos, não se poderia atribuir significado a uma sentença como “valores definidos simultaneamente de posição e momento”. Tal atitude indica, no limite, que as operações experimentais deveriam ser condições necessárias para a definição de sentenças tais como “a posição (ou momento) exata”. Na medida em que 68 as operações experimentais necessárias para a definição das propriedades observáveis dos objetos quânticos são mutuamente exclusivas, as condições para suas definições também o seriam. Dito de outro modo, a tese ON implícita por trás desse raciocínio é que o contexto experimental deveria determinar e limitar a expressão “realidade física”. De fato, é intuitiva a concepção de que o mundo que nos circunda possui um estatuto ontológico de existência independente. Isto é, que os objetos que o compõem (átomos, partículas, prédios e montanhas) se limitariam a “estar lá” de forma objetiva, a despeito da observação de qualquer sujeito. Se as coisas fossem assim, então as propriedades desses objetos existiriam e teriam propriedades bem definidas antes ou após uma medição, ou seja, a despeito de qualquer possível medição ou observação. É justamente essa a definição da noção de “realidade objetiva” utilizada no argumento EPR. Essa noção é compatível com a acepção OT do termo ontologia, pois é pretende-se uma descrição da realidade, e não somente um construto da ciência. Isto é, se trata de uma tese que põe-se à frente da investigação teórica, e molda aquilo que pode (ou não) ser teorizado pela ciência. Podemos ver aqui a confluência entre duas posições filosóficas: (i) o realismo metafísico e (ii) o realismo científico. Grosso modo, tais acepções do termo “realismo” se comprometem com as seguintes teses: (i) há uma (única) realidade física que existe objetivamente, independente de qualquer teoria, vontade, consciência ou observador e (ii) é tarefa da ciência descrever corretamente essa realidade por meio das melhores teorias. A mecânica quântica, no entanto, tem sido, até hoje, um ótimo campo de debate para essas duas acepções do termo “realismo”, na medida em que admite interpretações contrárias e favoráveis. A seguir, analisarei em linhas gerais o debate entre realismo e antirrealismo científico no debate entre Einstein e Bohr. 69 2.3 À procura da Realidade Em uma carta endereçada a Schrödinger, datada de 19 de Junho de 1935, Einstein afirmaria que: Por razões de linguagem, esse [artigo EPR] foi escrito por Podolsky depois de muita discussão. Ainda assim, o artigo não saiu da forma como eu originalmente gostaria; ao contrário, o ponto essencial foi, por assim dizer, obscurecido pela erudição.4 A maior ênfase do artigo EPR foi dada na discussão sobre a possibilidade ou impossibilidade de atribuir valores bem definidos simultaneamente para os pares observáveis (como posição e momento), discussão essa sobre a qual, na mesma carta, Einstein expressa seu descontentamento através da expressão “ist mir wurst” —traduzida por Fine (1986, p. 38) como “I coulnd’t care less” e por Chibeni (1997, p. 56) como “não ligo a mínima”. De fato, Einstein (1949a, p. 88) não considerava que a noção de valores simultaneamente bem definidos para os observáveis fosse indispensável na teoria quântica. Em um sentido mais forte, não há um comprometimento ontológico, da parte de Einstein (1949a, p. 87), com a noção de que os objetos tenham, a priori, valores definidos de posição e momento, mas somente “[. . .] de acordo com o quadro total de nossa construção teorética”. A concepção de Einstein frente à tarefa da física é fruto tal raciocínio, segundo a qual: “Ser” é sempre algo mentalmente construído por nós, isto é, algo que nós livremente postulamos (no sentido lógico). A justificativa de tais construções não reside na sua derivação a partir do que é dado pelos sentidos 4 Extraído de Fine (1986, p. 35, nota 9). 70 [. . .] [mas] em sua qualidade de tornar inteligível o que é sensorialmente dado [. . .]. (Einstein, 1949b, p. 699). Tal concepção essencialmente contrária ao operacionismo, na medida em que afirma que a realidade não se reduz à experiência sensorial —o que não implica uma posição idealista, isto é, de que não exista uma realidade exterior e independente da mente. Assim, Einstein (1949b, p. 674) entende a noção de “realidade” como algo que deveria ser um programa ou uma meta, ao invés de algo sobre a qual se deva aceitar a priori. Uma afirmação desse tipo parece estar em harmonia com o pensamento de Kuhn em relação à discussão ontológica nas teorias científicas (o que corresponderia ao sentido OT ) quando, algumas décadas mais tarde, afirma que: Ouvimos frequentemente dizer que teorias sucessivas se desenvolvem sempre mais perto da verdade ou se aproximam mais e mais desta. Aparentemente, generalizações desse tipo referem-se [. . .] à sua ontologia, isto é, ao ajuste entre as entidades com as quais a teoria povoa a natureza e o que “está realmente aí”. [. . .] Parece-me que não existe maneira de reconstruir expressões como “realmente aí” sem auxílio de uma teoria; a noção de um ajuste entre a ontologia de uma teoria e sua contrapartida “real” na natureza pareceme ilusória por princípio. (Kuhn, 1989, p. 253). Para Murdoch (1994, p. 316), a conclusão é de que “[. . .] não é a priori que todos os objetos físicos, sejam eles clássicos ou quânticos, tenham em qualquer momento posição e momento definidos”. Assim, se Einstein (1949a, p. 88) considerava a noção de “valores simultâneos para as propriedades observáveis dos objetos quânticos” uma construção racional, então, da mesma forma que foi livremente construída, poderia —e deveria, na incidência de situações paradoxais— ser livremente abandonada. 71 No entanto, abandonada totalmente —e não parcialmente, isto é, abandonada na mecânica quântica, mas mantendo-a para a mecânica clássica, da forma como o princípio da correspondência de Bohr parece sugerir. Já o referido “ponto essencial”,5 omitido no artigo EPR, é retomado por Einstein (1950, p. 59–97) posteriormente. Seguirei aqui a reconstrução dos argumentos de Einstein (1950) proposta por Murdoch (1994, p. 309), segundo a qual o argumento pode ser estruturado da seguinte maneira: 1. O estado físico de um objeto quântico pode ser descrito tanto pelo vetor |ψi ou |ϕi, e tal descrição depende do tipo de medição que fazemos em outro objeto, distante, A; 2. O estado físico de um objeto não depende do tipo de medição que fazemos no outro objeto ou sobre o estado físico do outro objeto (princípio da separação); 3. O objeto B está no mesmo estado físico, quer seja descrito por |ψi ou |ϕi; 4. Um vetor de estado fornece uma descrição completa do estado físico de um objeto apenas se descrever exclusivamente esse estado, isto é, exclusivamente |ψi ou |ϕi pode descrever completamente o estado de um dado objeto (a condição completude); 5. Na situação EPR, o estado físico do objeto B pode ser descrito quer por |ψi ou |ϕi; 6. Nem |ψi nem |ϕi fornecem uma descrição completa do estado físico de B; 7. Portanto, a mecânica quântica não fornece uma descrição completa do estado físico de um objeto quântico. 5 Ver Fine (1986, p. 35, nota 9). 72 Uma análise exaustiva do argumento de Einstein não é propósito deste livro, motivo pelo qual assumirei que a reconstrução feita por Murdoch (1994, p. 309) é suficiente. No entanto, é relevante para minha análise a discussão sobre algumas implicações filosóficas, especialmente nos pontos 2 e 4 da reconstrução acima. Em outros textos, Einstein (1949b, p. 681–682) argumenta que o referido princípio de separação, contido na premissa 2, se divide em dois outros aspectos principais: o princípio da localidade e o princípio da existência independente. De acordo com o primeiro, o que acontece em uma determinada localização no espaço independe do que acontece em outra determinada localização no espaço, ou seja, não há uma ação à distância imediata ou instantânea entre objetos que ocupam diferentes lugares no espaço. De acordo com o último aspecto, o que existe em uma determinada localização do espaço independe daquilo que existe em outra determinada localização no espaço, isto é, o princípio da existência independente afirma que não há uma conexão ontológica imediata ou instantânea entre objetos que ocupam diferentes lugares no espaço. Para Murdoch (1994, p. 310), esse seria o ponto crucial omitido no artigo EPR, sugerindo ainda, que sua omissão seria o principal motivo pelo qual o argumento fora tão suscetível a críticas. Já no princípio de completude, contido no ponto 4 da reconstrução de Murdoch (1994, p. 309), Einstein assume a existência de somente uma descrição completa de um sistema físico. Os argumentos sobre completude são encontrados em detalhe nas notas autobiográficas de Einstein (1949a, p. 83–87), nas quais há a afirmação de que se uma função de onda fornece uma descrição completa da realidade —segundo os termos da sua própria noção de completude explicitada acima—, então existiriam casos em que a medição deveria ser considerada como um ato de 73 criação, ao invés de um ato de revelação do valor de um objeto medido. Dito de outro modo, uma descrição completa de um aspecto físico da realidade seria uma descrição do estado real de um objeto real. Assim, se uma descrição completa não fornece um valor definido para uma propriedade observável do objeto em questão, significa que tal objeto não tem um valor definido para a propriedade observável. No entanto, uma medição subsequente mostraria um valor definido para tal propriedade, precisamente daquela que não tinha um valor definido. Como consequência, se assumido o princípio de completude, a medição cria a quantidade definida de uma propriedade observável —e, por conseguinte, num sentido mais forte, a sua realidade física— ao invés de revelar uma propriedade (ou a realidade física de tal propriedade) pré-existente. Esse aspecto da medição se refere ao princípio da medição=criação. Essa conclusão seria, no entanto, conflitante com a visão einsteiniana de mundo, de acordo com a qual, a existência da realidade física independe ontologicamente de uma medição. Para Einstein (1949b, p. 667), a meta de uma teoria física deveria ser a de fornecer “[. . .] a descrição completa de qualquer situação real (e individual, que supostamente existe independentemente de qualquer ato de observação ou comprovação)”. Assim, seguindo a linha de raciocínio aqui proposta, o princípio da separação e o princípio da completude seriam princípios mutuamente exclusivos. Einstein (1949b, p. 682) teria optado por manter apenas o princípio da separação e, da forma como interpreta a posição de Bohr, a interpretação de Copenhague optaria por manter apenas o princípio da completude. Em suma, Einstein teria ao menos três razões principais para discordar de Borh: em primeiro lugar, seria a rejeição da tese verificacionista assumida por Bohr; em segundo lugar, estaria a rejeição da tese da medição=criação; em terceiro lugar estaria a 74 rejeição do princípio da completude como um todo, na medida em que é mutuamente exclusivo em relação ao princípio da separação, princípio esse muito caro para a visão einsteiniana, por negar uma ação à distância ou uma conexão ontológica simultânea entre as propriedades de dois objetos espacialmente separados. Volto a enfatizar que essa seria a leitura de Einstein sobre a interpretação de Copenhague, e, principalmente, do pensamento de Bohr —o que, como veremos adiante, não corresponde necessariamente à tese do próprio Bohr. Vale relembrar que a proposta no artigo EPR seria a análise de uma situação em que seria possível atribuir valores bem definidos para as propriedades observáveis de dois objetos A e B. Na visão de Bohr, a tentativa para essa atribuição de valores seria, a princípio, equivocada, na medida em que qualquer afirmação sobre os valores bem definidos de tais propriedades só seria dotada de significado em condições experimentais mutuamente exclusivas. Assim, para Murdoch (1994, p. 311–312), no caso EPR, as condições experimentais que permitiriam uma afirmação dotada de significado sobre a propriedade x de um objeto A excluiriam as condições experimentais que permitiriam uma afirmação dotada de significado sobre o valor bem definido da propriedade y desse mesmo objeto. Da mesma forma, as condições experimentais escolhidas para determinar o estado de A constituiriam as condições para que se pudesse fazer qualquer tipo de inferência significativa sobre o objeto B, uma vez que a premissa do princípio da separação é rejeitada. Logicamente, é rejeitada também a (sub)conclusão 3 de sua reconstrução do argumento de Einstein, isto é, a rejeição de que os valores das propriedades observáveis de B, quer seja x ou y, independe dos valores das propriedades observáveis de A. Assim, [. . .] nenhuma utilização bem definida do conceito de “estado” pode ser feita, como referindo-se ao objeto 75 separado do corpo com o qual tenha estado em contato, até que as condições externas envolvidas na definição desse conceito sejam inequivocamente fixadas por um controle mais adequado do corpo auxiliar. (Bohr, 1958a, p. 21). A situação proposta sugere que é correta a interpretação de Einstein (1949b, p. 682) de que Bohr rejeitaria o princípio de localidade. A argumentação de Bohr não parece implicar existência de uma interdependência causal ou mecânica entre os objetos A e B no que se refere ao ato da medição, mas, ao invés disso, que a medição efetuada em A determina as condições sobre aquilo que pode ser dito significativamente sobre B. Assim, não se trataria de uma rejeição do princípio de localidade como um princípio causal, mas da rejeição do princípio de localidade como um princípio semântico, isto é, seria o caso de afirmar que há uma interdependência semântica —mas não causal—, por meio de uma operação experimental ou medição entre os objetos A e B. A rejeição por parte de Bohr do princípio de localidade é amplamente conhecida e difundida nos livros-texto sobre mecânica quântica, ainda que por muitas vezes a ênfase não seja dada no aspecto semântico de tal princípio. No entanto, a localidade seria um dos dois aspectos que compõem um princípio maior, o princípio da separação. O outro aspecto do princípio da separação seria o princípio da existência independente, em relação ao qual a posição de Bohr é menos clara. Como foi exposto anteriormente, o princípio da separação (cujo princípio da existência independente seria um de seus aspectos) é mutuamente exclusivo em relação ao princípio da completude que, por sua vez, implicaria na tese da medição=criação, tese que Bohr parece rejeitar: [. . .] a discussão dos problemas epistemológicos na física atômica atraiu tanta atenção como nunca e, ao 76 comentar sobre as visões de Einstein no que diz respeito à incompletude de modo de descrição da mecânica quântica, entrei mais diretamente em questões de terminologia. Nesse contexto, eu adverti especialmente contra frases, muitas vezes encontradas na literatura física, como “perturbação de fenômenos através da observação” ou “criação de atributos físicos para objetos atômicos através de medições.” Essas frases, que podem servir para lembrar dos aparentes paradoxos na teoria quântica, são ao mesmo tempo capazes de causar confusão, uma vez que palavras como “fenômenos” e “observações”, assim como “atributos” e “medições”, são utilizados de forma pouco compatível com a linguagem comum e definição prática. (Bohr, 1958a, p. 63–64). Essa rejeição seria logicamente acompanhada pela defesa de que o ato da medição seria um ato de revelação de valores préexistentes do objeto medido sem que, no entanto, como observa Murdoch (1994, p. 312), “[. . .] tal valor pré-existente revelado seja um valor absoluto, mas uma propriedade relativa ao arranjo experimental escolhido”. Por esse motivo, Murdoch (1994, p. 312) classifica a atitude de Bohr em um terreno médio, entre a posição de Einstein (1949b, p. 667), segundo a qual uma medição revela de forma passiva valores pré-existentes de uma realidade física que existe de forma totalmente independente da medição, e a posição de Heisenberg (1983, p. 73), segundo a qual uma medição cria de forma ativa os valores de uma realidade física que passa a existir com o ato da medição. Dito de outra forma, segundo o raciocínio de Murdoch (1994, p. 312), a posição de Bohr poderia ser considerada como uma tese semântica, que estaria entre uma tese epistemológica (expressa por aquilo que chamo de medição=revelação) e uma tese ontológica (expressa pela medição=criação). 77 Da forma como a problemática foi delineada, a posição de Bohr estaria diretamente relacionada com os limites da definibilidade dos conceitos físicos, isto é, com o significado de tais conceitos. Na medida em que os limites ou significados seriam dados mediante a experiência empírica, Murdoch (1994, p. 313) aproxima esta posição a uma atitude operacionista. Uma concepção operacionista de significado estabelece que os termos que denotam um conceito físico ou quantidade teórica têm significado nas operações experimentais utilizadas para medir tal conceito ou quantidade. Uma concepção operacionista de significado estabelece que os termos utilizados para denotar um conceito físico ou quantidade teórica tem valor de verdade ou valor cognitivo, isto é, podem dizer que algo é verdadeiro ou falso, se e somente se tal valor de verdade pode ser confirmado por uma operação experimental. Ainda assim, a leitura operacionista seria confirmada por Bohr na ocasião de uma resposta a Phillip Frank6 que, em uma carta, questiona se a interpretação de Bohr poderia ser aproximada à atitude operacionista. Murdoch (1994, p. 314) vai além e categoriza a concepção de significado de Bohr como verificacionista, na medida em que a atribuição do significado dos termos se dá mediante condições de verificação (em oposição às concepções segundo as quais as condições para significado ou valor de verdade seriam independentes da verificação experimental). De fato, são posições muito próximas. Segundo o raciocínio de Murdoch (1994, p. 314), o operacionismo seria um subconjunto do verificacionismo, diferindo no fato de que o último, em um sentido mais amplo, iguala a noção de significado com a noção de uso, de modo que o significado de um termo deve ser suportado por condições de verdade cuja verificabilidade e comunicabilidade são possíveis. Por outro lado, a atitude operacionista afirma que um termo cujo valor de verdade é impossível de ser determinado não é um termo que pode 6 Ver Beller (1996) e Fine (1986, p. 20). 78 ser utilizado. Dessa forma, Murdoch (1994, p. 314) identifica, na base verificacionista da posição de Bohr, uma atitude mais próxima ao pragmatismo ao invés de um empirismo radical, como o operacionismo. Sob tal perspectiva, Bohr consideraria a noção clássica de (A) valores simultaneamente bem definidos para posição e momento, uma idealização cujo significado pressupõe uma ação virtualmente nula do postulado quântico; da mesma forma, a noção de (B) simultaneidade aplicada a fenômenos espacialmente separados seria uma idealização cujo significado pressupõe uma velocidade infinita. Tais conceitos devem ser aplicados apenas em um conjunto de condições específicas: utiliza-se (A) quando os objetos são suficientemente grandes em relação à escala quântica de aproximadamente 10−33 cm dos quanta e (B) quando as distâncias são suficientemente pequenas em relação à velocidade de 299.792.458m/s da luz. A visão verificacionista e pragmática de significado assumida por Bohr estaria implicada por trás dessa visão na medida em que os conceitos não são revisados (da forma como Einstein (1949b, p. 699) propusera em relação à formulação de novos conceitos), mas, antes, ressignificados, isto é, restringidos a um escopo de aplicação (ainda) mais limitado. A contrapartida metodológica para essa atitude seria o princípio da correspondência, segundo o qual a física quântica seria uma generalização da física clássica. Assim, a rejeição de Bohr em relação ao referido princípio da existência independente parece ser parcial. Ao passo que não se pode designar uma operação experimental para determinar se de fato o estado físico de um objeto B independe do estado físico de um objeto A distante, a leitura verificacionista de Bohr parece indicar que tal princípio parece ser desprovido de significado. No entanto, a afirmação da tese da medição=revelação parece sugerir que o princípio da existência independente não é totalmente negado. 79 Se essa leitura for correta, uma notável implicação ontológica do pensamento de Bohr no que se refere ao comprometimento ontológico com uma realidade independente parece emergir, isto é, uma leitura realista do pensamento desse autor seria possibilitada por essa leitura. Para Faye (1991, p. 198), as diversas definições e discussões acerca de uma definição para a concepção filosófica do realismo têm em comum dois pontos essenciais: “(1) o mundo existe independentemente de nossas mentes; e (2) a verdade é uma noção não epistêmica; isto é, uma proposição não é verdadeira porque é provável ou cognoscível”. Segundo Folse (1994, p. 128), Faye (1994, p. 98) defenderia uma interpretação de Bohr classificada como um antirrealismo objetivo, na medida em que Bohr aceitaria (1) e rejeitaria (2). O antirrealismo da leitura de Faye emergiria da negação da transcendência das condições de verdade, isto é, da negação do significado de todas as afirmações indecidíveis (as afirmações sobre as quais é possível verificar o valor de verdade mediante uma operação experimental) cujo alcance epistêmico está fora de qualquer possível sujeito cognoscente; em outras palavras, da negação de que o significado seja intrínseco ao objeto em si mesmo: [. . .] [Sentenças] decidíveis são aquelas que são ou determinadamente verdadeiras ou determinadamente falsas devido à nossa posse de meios cognitivos em princípio adequados ou evidências perceptuais pelas quais podemos verificar ou falsificá-las. Em outras palavras, tais sentenças têm condições de verdade cuja verificação é acessível. A classe complementar de declarações é aquela cujos membros são indecidíveis, portanto, não têm valores de verdade determinados, devido ao fato de que tais sentenças têm condições de verdade cuja verificação é transcendente. No entanto, em oposição ao antirrealista, o realista diria que 80 até mesmo essas sentenças indecidíveis têm um valor de verdade determinado; o que acontece é que somos incapazes de descobrir qual. Assim, tanto o realista quanto o antirrealista objetivo operam com uma noção de objetividade. (Faye, 1991, p. 199). Por outro lado, o termo “objetivo” da nomenclatura “antirrealismo objetivo” de Faye (1991) emerge como uma implicação de (1), na medida em que as afirmações decidíveis (as afirmações sobre as quais se possam verificar o valor de verdade mediante uma operação experimental) tenham suas condições de verdade garantidas pela realidade independente, por mais que o sentido de tal afirmação (como o estado de um objeto) seja desconhecido por qualquer possível sujeito cognoscente. Da forma como Folse (1994, p. 128–130) interpreta tal leitura, Faye não excluiria a possibilidade de que, para Bohr, um objeto não observado possua de fato valores bem definidos para suas propriedades físicas como, por exemplo, posição ou momento. No entanto, uma afirmação acerca dos valores simultaneamente bem definidos de tais propriedades não seria uma afirmação bem formulada na semântica da complementaridade e, portanto, seria sem sentido. Contudo, deve ficar claro que, como observa Faye (1991, p. 208) em relação a (1), não há evidência textual que sustente a tese de que Bohr atribuiria valores intrínsecos às propriedades não observadas dos objetos quânticos. Quando Faye (1991, p. 200) menciona (1), parece fazê-lo enfatizando a objetividade dos conceitos, em um campo semântico, quiçá epistemológico, mas, certamente, não ontológico. O antirrealista objetivo, em relação às declarações sobre a realidade física, toma como ponto de partida as circunstâncias publicamente acessíveis ao especificar sua noção de verdade [. . .]. O antirrealismo objetivo é, então, a posição que sustenta que a verdade é um conceito que se relaciona com circunstâncias cuja 81 ocorrência ou não-ocorrência é, a princípio, empiricamente acessível às nossas capacidades cognitivas. A visão sobre (1), em relação ao pensamento de Bohr, é compartilhada por Folse (1994, p. 128). Por mais que Faye (1991, p. 204) e Folse (1994, p. 128) concordem com a visão de que Bohr ocuparia um terreno médio entre os dois extremos do idealismo e do realismo —o que também coaduna com a leitura de Murdoch (1994, p. 312)—, Folse defende uma leitura realista do pensamento de Bohr. Folse (1994, p. 128–131) argumenta que o ponto (2) não seria tão decisivo quanto o ponto (1) na medida em que o comprometimento ontológico com uma realidade independente seria mais fundamental do que uma tese epistemológica, relativa ao domínio do significado dos conceitos utilizados mediante nosso conhecimento. Em outras palavras, Folse (1994) considera que a aceitação de (1) seria suficiente para uma interpretação realista do pensamento de Bohr, tendo em vista o comprometimento ontológico com a existência de uma realidade independente. No entanto, Faye (1991, p. 207–211) expõe sérias restrições à interpretação realista de Folse, das quais sublinharei apenas uma. Quando Folse (1985, p. 257) afirma que a interação de um objeto com os instrumentos de medição produz ou causa o fenômeno, acaba por admitir a ocorrência da tese da medição=criação —uma implicação que, como vimos, é rejeitada por Bohr. Além disso, tal ocorrência parece ser incompatível com o comprometimento ontológico com uma realidade independente. Isto é, a atribuição de um poder criador ao ato da medição parece ser irreconciliável com a afirmação de que tais propriedades, criadas, já estavam lá mesmo antes do ato criador. Por fim, se a tese de Folse for correta, então deve haver alguma evidência textual —o que não há— em que Bohr assume que objetos atômicos possuam intrinsecamente propriedades bem definidas, mas que, no entanto, não podem ser verificadas empiricamente, dado que uma opera- 82 ção experimental não é capaz de revelar aquilo que está por trás do fenômeno. O fato de que Bohr acreditava que os objetos quânticos seriam reais é consensual, mas, segundo Faye (2019) ainda há muito debate na literatura das últimas décadas a respeito do tipo de realidade que eles têm, isto é, se são ou não algo diferente e para além da observação, de modo que tal questão permanece aberta. Bohr parece deliberadamente evitar o comprometimento com as teses realistas e com as teses idealistas através do princípio da correspondência, isto é, pela afirmação de que um objeto (tal como o aparelho medidor) é considerado um objeto clássico em um determinado conjunto de circunstâncias, a saber, para os propósitos da medição. No entanto, esta afirmação acaba por esbarrar em outro problema, talvez ainda mais sério. A separabilidade assumida para o ato da medição seria parcialmente arbitrária. Para que se possa dizer que ocorreu uma medição, o objeto medido não pode ser parte da agência de medição, ou seja, é necessária uma distinção entre duas entidades, de modo que, para fins práticos, um instrumento de medição é um instrumento de medição, e um objeto é um objeto. Como observa Faye (1991, p. 139), se a separação é assumida, sua interação é, do ponto de vista do ato da medição, indeterminada, pois “[. . .] a interação só pode ser determinada se o aparelho de medição for considerado simultaneamente como um aparelho e como um objeto, o que é logicamente impossível”. O que daria o tom de arbitrariedade na distinção proposta seria o ponto de demarcação da separabilidade, que já seria conhecida por Bohr desde o primeiro artigo em que expõe a complementaridade, no qual afirma que: [. . .] o conceito de observação é arbitrário pois depende de quais objetos são incluídos no sistema para ser observado. [. . .] em qual ponto o conceito de observação —envolvendo o postulado quântico, com a sua 83 “irracionalidade” inerente— deve ser utilizado é uma questão de conveniência. (Bohr, 1928, p. 89). A “questão de conveniência” do critério de demarcação para a separabilidade do processo de medição foi tida como a resposta de Bohr frente ao problema da medição, sobre o qual discutirei no próximo capítulo —solução esta, criticada por diversos pensadores da época. Heisenberg (2004, p. 410–414) argumentou que, como a linha de demarcação entre o objeto quântico a ser investigado, representado matematicamente por uma função de onda, e o instrumento de medição, descrito por meio de conceitos clássicos, seria arbitrária, então todos os sistemas (incluindo o instrumento de medição) deveriam ser considerados sistemas quânticos, isto é, as leis quânticas deveriam se aplicar de forma irrestrita. Sob a mesma linha de raciocínio, von Neumann (1955) elaborou uma concepção de medição quântica a partir do formalismo da teoria, segundo a qual, todos os observáveis têm um tratamento quântico. Diferentemente de Bohr e Einstein, von Neumann formulou uma teoria formal da medição, na qual o problema da medição aparece de forma mais clara e distinta, como analisarei no próximo capítulo. Para nos aprofundarmos na teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955), faço algumas considerações gerais sobre a teoria medição em mecânica quântica —que também será o assunto do próximo capítulo. Procurei enfatizar, neste capítulo, os aspectos filosóficos do debate em relação à medição na mecânica quântica, através da discussão entre dois autores com pontos de vista diametralmente opostos, a saber, Bohr, defensor da interpretação de Copenhague, e Einstein, um dos grandes críticos de tal interpretação. Procurei expor, também, os pressupostos ontológicos aos quais o pensamento de Bohr e Einstein se referem, a fim de melhor compreender suas propostas para a interpretação da mecânica quântica. É essencialmente com o referencial filosófico apresen84 tado aqui que Einstein propõe uma interpretação estatística para a mecânica quântica, que também tratarei rapidamente no capítulo seguinte. 85 Capítulo 3 A consciência colapsa Como vimos no Capítulo 1, o problema da medição na mecânica quântica tem sua gênese já nas primeiras discussões em torno da interpretação de Copenhague, na medida em que a posição geral de Bohr seria que as propriedades físicas dos objetos quânticos dependeriam fundamentalmente das condições experimentais, isto é, de medição, efetuadas sobre tais objetos — posicionamento que aparece explicitamente no debate suscitado por EPR. De acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 473), a concepção ortodoxa de medição envolve os objetos a serem medidos e os instrumentos macroscópicos de medição que, embora necessários para que uma medição seja realizada, “[. . .] não são explicados pela teoria quântica em si mesma, mas considerados como logicamente anteriores à teoria”. Assim, na visão de Bohr, não existiria a necessidade de uma teoria da medição quântica, na medida em que a assunção do princípio da correspondência supostamente permitiria uma interpretação da mecânica quântica que deliberadamente se afastaria do problema da medição. Ainda que o princípio da correspondência de Bohr não possa ser substituído por uma teoria formalizada da medição, o tratamento duplo em relação ao processo de medição seria, como 86 salienta Jammer (1974, p. 472), uma das características mais obscuras da interpretação de Copenhague, especificamente no que se refere à arbitrariedade da classificação dos domínios clássico e quântico. Ademais, identifico, ao longo deste livro, alguns aspectos do problema da medição na interpretação de Bohr. Como enfatizei até aqui, o conceito de medição se relaciona com todos os aspectos filosóficos problemáticos da mecânica quântica expostos neste livro. Juntamente com Gibbins (1987, p. 104), considero que a medição é um aspecto ligado à maioria dos paradoxos da mecânica quântica —ao menos aqueles investigados até aqui. No Capítulo 1, apresentei a discussão filosófica suscitada pela medição das propriedades observáveis —posição e momento— de um objeto quântico. Da mesma forma, no Capítulo 2, apresentei o debate filosófico que emerge dos efeitos da medição de um objeto A em um objeto espacialmente distante B. Assim, conforme procurei elucidar, parece razoavelmente justificada a posição de Gibbins (1987, p. 104) de que “[. . .] o problema da medição é o problema central da filosofia da mecânica quântica”. Neste capítulo, analisarei detalhadamente a noção de medição em mecânica quântica, bem como o problema da medição quântica. Para tanto, iniciarei a discussão pontuando as diferenças entre a física clássica e a física quântica em relação ao conceito de medição. Em seguida, analisarei a formulação da teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955) e suas extensões ontológicas. Ao final do capítulo, pontuarei algumas atitudes alternativas às formulações apresentadas ao longo deste livro. 3.1 Medição: clássica e quântica Muito embora a física tenha sido considerada a ciência da medição por Campbell (1928), Jammer (1974, p. 471) afirma que haveria pouco interesse, por parte dos físicos, anteriormente ao ad87 vento da mecânica quântica, em explorar mais profundamente o conceito de medição. Para Gibbins (1987, p. 102), isso ocorre, pois a descrição do processo de medição é um procedimento pouco problemático na física clássica. A noção clássica de medição (bem como sua representação matemática) envolveria, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 471), dois processos, sendo um físico e um psicofísico: o processo físico denota uma interação que chamarei I1 entre um objeto que denominarei X a ser observado (tal como um corpo maciço ou uma corrente elétrica) e um instrumento de medição que denominarei M (tal como uma balança ou um amperímetro), de modo que (IX ↔ M); o processo psicofísico denota uma interação que chamarei I2 entre M e um observador O (seus órgãos dos sentidos e, em última análise, sua consciência). À primeira vista, tal afirmação parece estranha na medida em que, da forma como Jammer (1974, p. 471) generaliza a noção de física clássica, a realidade física clássica seria composta por entidades desprovidas de qualidades sensoriais, isto é, de corpos extensos e seu movimento no espaço, ou seja, não haveria espaço para a introdução da consciência humana como uma parte fundamental na teoria; no entanto, na medida em que a teoria clássica adquire validade através da testabilidade de suas predições, a introdução desse conceito parece ser mais plausível, visto que uma operação tal como um teste deve envolver, em última análise, a consciência humana. Se aceitarmos a definição do processo físico como (IX ↔ M), devemos aceitar, por consequência lógica, uma ação do objeto sobre o instrumento de medição de forma (IX → M) e, ao mesmo tempo, uma ação do aparelho medidor sobre o objeto de forma (IM → X ). No entanto, a ordem de magnitude da ação (IM → X ) seria tão menor do que a ação de (IX → M), a ponto de ser considerada como eliminável na interação I1 . O aspecto psicofísico da medição clássica também seria abandonado 88 sob a alegação de que a relação entre M e O estaria fora dos domínios de uma teoria física. A ação do objeto no instrumento de medição, no entanto, não poderia ser negligenciada, na medida em que o resultado M, tal como a ponteiro de uma balança indicando um valor y, deve depender de X , de modo que a medição clássica seria, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 471–472), reduzida à ação (IX → M). Dito de outro modo, como sugere Gibbins (1987, p. 102), a interação (M → X ) pode ser arbitrariamente pequena, o que sugere que a medição clássica pode ser descrita com uma precisão arbitrariamente grande. Esta atitude permitiria à física clássica o fornecimento de uma abordagem inteiramente objetiva no tratamento dos processos físicos, isto é, considerá-los de forma independente da medição e, consequentemente, eliminar da teoria o papel da consciência do observador implícito em I2 . Com o advento da mecânica quântica, mais precisamente com o postulado quântico, que prevê a necessidade da interação finita (isto é, de ao menos um quantum) entre M e X , a magnitude da ação (IM → X ) seria igualmente relevante a ação (IX → M). Como consequência, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 472), a condição para a consistência da concepção clássica de medição não seria mais aplicável, uma vez que o projeto clássico de uma abordagem independente da medição é inviável na mecânica quântica, isto é, não se pode atribuir à interação (M → X ) uma grandeza arbitrariamente pequena —o que é, como vimos no Capítulo 1, uma das vias para se chegar ao princípio de indeterminação. Um dos aspectos menos problemáticos da medição quântica seria a produção de um resultado macroscópico, determinado, fruto da interação I1 . Esse aspecto não nos interessa aqui, pois é ontologicamente neutro em relação às teses da medição=revelação e medição=criação. O aspecto problemático que desejamos enfatizar aqui tem seu recorte nas interpretações que adotam a tese da medição=criação: enquanto não houver a in89 teração I1 , nenhum evento pode ser considerado atual, mas tão somente potencial. Explicitados esses pontos, passemos à análise da teoria da medição quântica de von Neumann. 3.2 O problema da medição De acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 474), a teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955) se assemelha à interpretação de Copenhague, na medida em que também atribui um papel fundamental à descontinuidade presente no ato da medição, mas, de forma contrária a Bohr, considera o instrumento de medição M um sistema quântico-mecânico. O raciocínio de von Neumann (1955) fornece, para Gibbins (1987, p. 109), as condições necessárias para a formulação de uma teoria da medição em mecânica quântica, sendo a base conceitual para diversas outras teorias da medição. O ponto de partida de von Neumann (1955, p. 349–351) seria a assunção de que existem dois tipos de processos ou mudanças dos estados quânticos: o processo 1, chamado de “mudanças arbitrárias por medição”, e o processo 2, chamado de “mudanças automáticas”. O processo 1 é enunciado como “o ato descontínuo, não causal e instantâneo de experimentos ou medições”; o processo 2 é enunciado como a “mudança causal e contínua no curso do tempo”. Ao passo que o processo 2 é descrito pelas leis de movimento da mecânica quântica,1 o processo 1 não o é. O processo 1 é irredutível e, portanto, não pode ser reduzido ao processo 2. Enquanto o processo 2 envolve uma evolução contínua e determinista, o processo 1, ao contrário, envolve uma descontinuidade indeterminista e irreversível. O processo 1 descreve a transformação do estado de um sistema físico após o ato da medição, isto é, transforma o estado inicial de tal sistema (descrito pelo 1 Frequentemente descrita pela “equação de Schödinger”, como aponto no Apêndice A. 90 processo 2) em um estado inteiramente novo, não previsível pelas leis dinâmicas de movimento especificadas pelo processo 2. Isto é notável, pois ao passo que o processo 2 afirma que o estado final do sistema quântico em questão seja indeterminado em relação às suas propriedades calculáveis pela equação de movimento, o processo 1 afirma um valor determinado para tal estado final, registrado pelo ato da medição. O problema da medição foi então delineado pela primeira vez de modo claro: é o problema da conjunção entre os dois processos que seriam, para von Neumann (1955, p. 417), uma “peculiar natureza dual do procedimento da mecânica quântica”. Mais adiante, afirma: [. . .] a mecânica quântica descreve os eventos que ocorrem nas partes observadas do mundo —contanto que elas não interajam com a parte observante— com o auxílio do processo 2; mas assim que uma interação ocorre, isto é, uma medição, é requerido a aplicação do processo 1. (von Neumann, 1955, p. 420). Em uma taxonomia amplamente difundida, Maudlin (1995) define o problema da medição como a conjunção problemática entre as seguintes suposições sobre a descrição que a mecânica quântica dá aos sistemas físicos: A) É uma descrição completa. Isto é, a assunção de que a mecânica quântica descreve todos os aspectos físicos do sistema físico em questão. B) É uma descrição linear. Essa assunção afirma que a descrição quântica dos sistemas físicos deve ocorrer exclusivamente por processos lineares. C) É uma descrição que fornece resultados únicos. 91 Sem entrar em detalhes acerca de questões da matemática subjacente à discussão das interpretações da mecânica quântica, podemos entender a razão pela qual a conjunção entre A, B e C é problemática com o seguinte raciocínio. Suponha que ψ é uma descrição quântica do sistema quântico S, que pode ter os valores 0 ou 1. Se assumirmos A, então a descrição de S por ψ é completa, isto é, não há nada a se dizer de S, em termos físicos, além daquilo dito por ψ. Como uma característica da descrição linear é a admissão de uma soma de resultados como um resultado, ao assumirmos B temos que 0 + 1 é uma descrição possível de S em termos de ψ. No entanto C pede que tenhamos, exclusivamente, 0 ou 1 como resultado de S por ψ. Assim, ao menos uma das três assunções acima deve ser negada. As interpretações da mecânica quântica dividem-se, em qual dessas assunções é negada. As interpretações do primeiro grupo são as que negam A são as interpretações que introduzem variáveis ocultas no formalismo da medição. Num segundo grupo, estariam as interpretações que negam B e introduzem outras leis dinâmicas para a mecânica quântica, como o colapso. Por fim, no terceiro grupo estão as que negam C, e introduzem o conceito de “ramificação”. Essa é, de modo bastante geral, uma breve taxonomia das interpretações da mecânica quântica. A interpretação de von Neumann está dentre as interpretações do segundo grupo, que negam B. Para adequar a discussão que se segue a essa taxonomia, farei a seguinte escolha terminológica. Aquilo que von Neumann chamou de “processo 2” será chamado daqui pra frente de “evolução linear”, e aquilo que ele chamou de “processo 1” será chamado, daqui adiante, de “colapso” (também referido, em algumas citações, como “redução”). O colapso é uma lei dinâmica não-linear, associada à evolução linear em processos de medição. As interpretações do primeiro e terceiro grupo serão consideradas brevemente nas seções finais deste capítulo. 92 3.2.1 A interpretação da consciência Antes de adentrar nas especificidades dessa particular interpretação da mecânica quântica, devo tecer alguns breves comentários de natureza sociológica. É notável que têm sido feitas muitas apropriações indevidas, que deturpam os assuntos que envolvem a mecânica quântica. Isso foi tratado com maestria nos trabalhos de Pessoa Junior (2011), Cruz (2011) e Machado e Cruz (2016). No entanto, como mostram de Barros e Oas (2017), a interpretação da consciência não foi até o presente falseada experimentalmente; e, mais ainda, conforme argumentam Arroyo e Arenhart (2019), não existem boas razões filosóficas para o que tal interpretação seja descartada do rol de interpretações possíveis para a mecânica quântica. Tratarei dessa interpretação especificamente para esclarecer quais são os usos legítimos da consciência na mecânica quântica, e dimensioná-la como mais uma interpretação —e não “A” interpretação da mecânica quântica, como encontrase em literaturas menos responsáveis sobre o assunto.2 A mecânica quântica considera a união hobjeto + aparatoi um único sistema, chamado sistema composto. No raciocínio de von Neumann (1955), o sistema composto obtido por I1 não seria suficiente para completar uma medição. Se todos os objetos materiais (microscópicos ou macroscópicos) são constituídos por objetos quânticos, então a interação entre um objeto quântico (a ser medido) e um aparelho de amplificação (a supostamente medir) não completaria uma medição, mas ficaria atrelada à evolução linear. Poder-se-ia sugerir que ao aparato M fosse acoplado um segundo aparato de medição M′ , na intenção de completar uma medição no sistema composto. Essa proposta, no entanto, levaria a uma regressão infinita de aparatos medidores na medida em que M′ se relacionaria com M da mesma maneira que M se re2 Ver, por exemplo, Goswami (1993). 93 laciona com X no caso do sistema composto hobjeto + aparatoi, isto é, não conseguiria completar uma medição. d’Espagnat (1999) nomeou esse aspecto problemático de “cadeia de von Neumann”. É preciso salientar que tal regressão infinita é uma dificuldade filosófica bastante séria para uma teoria, sendo um dos célebres paradoxos clássicos, conhecido através do termo em latim “reductio ad infinitum”. Assim, o ato da medição deve ser uma operação finita, o que seria possível, ao que parece, somente por um ato de medição, em M, em “[. . .] um ato descontínuo, não causal e instantâneo”, isto é, correspondente ao colapso. A questão ontológica (ON ) dessa discussão reside justamente nas respostas para a questão sobre onde e como o referido “ato” do colapso acontece: von Neumann (1955, p. 418–420) afirma, em um longo parágrafo (que reproduzirei integralmente), que o ato da medição seria causado pela percepção do observador: Primeiro, é inerentemente e totalmente correto que a medição ou o processo relacionado à percepção subjetiva é uma nova entidade em relação ao ambiente físico e não é redutível a ele —de fato, a percepção subjetiva nos leva para a vida intelectual interior do indivíduo, que é extra observável por sua própria natureza (já que deve ser assumida por qualquer observação ou experimento concebível). (Ver a discussão acima [precisamente a mesma que conduzimos nos parágrafos acima]). No entanto, é uma exigência fundamental do ponto de vista científico —o chamado “princípio do paralelismo psico-físico”— que deva ser possível descrever o processo extra físico da percepção subjetiva como se ele fosse pertencente, na realidade, ao mundo físico —isto é, atribuir às suas partes processos físicos equivalentes no ambiente objetivo, no espaço comum. (É claro que nesse processo relaci94 onando surge a frequente necessidade de localizar alguns desses processos em pontos situados dentro da porção do espaço ocupada pelos nossos próprios corpos. Mas isso não altera o fato de que eles pertençam ao “mundo sobre nós”, o ambiente objetivo referido anteriormente.) Num exemplo simples, estes conceitos podem ser aplicados do seguinte modo: desejamos medir uma temperatura. Se quisermos, podemos prosseguir com esse processo numericamente até que tenhamos a temperatura do ambiente do recipiente de mercúrio através do termômetro, e então dizer: essa temperatura foi medida pelo termômetro. Mas podemos levar o cálculo adiante e, a partir das propriedades do mercúrio, que podem ser explicadas em termos cinéticos e moleculares, podemos calcular seu aquecimento, expansão, e o comprimento resultante da coluna de mercúrio, e em seguida dizer: esse é o comprimento visto pelo observador. Indo ainda mais longe, e levando a fonte de luz em consideração, nós poderíamos encontrar o reflexo do quanta de luz sobre a coluna opaca de mercúrio, e o caminho do quanta de luz remanescente até o olho do observador, sua refracção na lente do olho, e a formação uma imagem sobre a retina, e em seguida nós diríamos: essa imagem é registada pela retina do observador. E se o nosso conhecimento fisiológico fosse mais preciso do que é hoje, poderíamos ir ainda mais longe, traçando as reações químicas que produzem a impressão dessa imagem na retina, no nervo ótico e no cérebro, e então, no final, dizer: essas mudanças químicas de suas células cerebrais são percebidas pelo observador. Mas em qualquer caso, não importa o quão longe calcularmos —do recipiente de mercúrio, com a escala do termômetro, 95 para a retina, ou no cérebro— em algum momento devemos dizer: “e isso é percebido pelo observador”. Ou seja, devemos sempre dividir o mundo em duas partes, uma sendo o sistema observado e a outra sendo o observador. No primeiro caso, podemos acompanhar todos os processos físicos (pelo menos a princípio) com uma precisão arbitrariamente grande. No último caso, isso é insignificante. A fronteira entre os dois é bastante arbitrária. Em particular, vimos nas quatro possibilidades diferentes do exemplo acima que o observador, nesse sentido, não deve ser identificado com o corpo do observador real: num dos casos do exemplo acima, incluímos até mesmo o termômetro, enquanto em outro exemplo, até mesmo os olhos e as vias do nervo óptico não foram incluídos. Levar esse limite profundamente de forma arbitrária para o interior do corpo do observador é o teor real do princípio do paralelismo psico-físico —mas isso não altera a fato de que em cada método da descrição a fronteira deva ser colocada em algum lugar, se não for para o método continuar vagamente, isto é, se uma comparação com a experiência deve ser possível. De fato a experiência só faz declarações deste tipo: um observador realizou certa observação (subjetiva); e nunca alguma como esta: uma grandeza física tem um determinado valor. (von Neumann, 1955, p. 418–420). Embora von Neumann não tenha mencionado a palavra “consciência”, parece ser unânime, dentre as diversas leituras dessa famosa passagem, que von Neumann (1955, p. 420) se refere à “consciência do observador” quando enuncia o poder causal da “percepção subjetiva do observador”. Em outra passagem, von Neumann (1955, p. 421) enuncia o observador como um “ego abstrato”, isto é, um “eu”, uma subjetividade abstrata. Assim, para 96 von Neumann (1955, p. 418–421), somente algo fora do sistema composto por X ∧M —tal como a consciência do observador O— poderia dar cabo à tal cadeia infinita, reintroduzindo a interação psicofísica I2 na teoria da medição. A principal motivação histórica para essa interpretação, de acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 480), seria uma série de longas conversas que von Neumann (1955, nota 218) mantinha com Leó Szilárd, que teria publicado um estudo influente sobre a intervenção de um ser inteligente em um sistema termodinâmico. O estudo de Szilárd (1983), para Jammer, [. . .] marcou o início de especulações instigantes sobre o efeito de uma intervenção física da mente sobre a matéria e, assim, abriu o caminho para a afirmação de longo alcance de von Neumann, sobre a impossibilidade de formular uma teoria completa e consistente de medição mecânica quântica sem referência à consciência humana. (Jammer, 1974, p. 480). A fim de discutir tal situação, von Neumann (1955, p. 421) divide o universo de discurso em 3 partes correspondentes à notação I, II e III, de modo que “I” corresponde ao objeto (ou sistema) a ser observado, “II” corresponde ao instrumento de medição e “III” ao observador, isto é, seu ego abstrato. Em todos os casos, o resultado da medição em I efetuada por II+III é o mesmo do que a medição em I+II efetuada por III. No primeiro caso, a evolução linear se aplica a I e, no segundo caso, a I+II. Em todos os casos, a evolução linear não se aplica a III, isto é, III é a única parte para qual o colapso se aplica em todos os casos.3 Utilizarei o famoso experimento mental do gato de Schrödinger (1983, p. 157) para ilustrar tal problemática, uma vez que se trata de uma situação idealizada poucos anos mais tarde da publicação de von Neumann (1955), para explicitar a 3 Ver também Breuer (2001, p. 78). 97 dificuldade do “problema da medição” na mecânica quântica. O experimento mental do gato de Schrödinger (1983, p. 157) seria, na opinião do próprio autor, uma extrapolação (até mesmo “ridícula”) da descrição quântica da realidade, que se dá da seguinte maneira: Um gato preso em uma câmara de aço, juntamente com o seguinte dispositivo diabólico (que deve ser resguardado contra a interferência direta do gato): um contador Geiger [um detector de radiação] com um pouco de substância radioativa, tão pouco que, talvez no curso de uma hora, um dos átomos decai —mas também, com igual probabilidade, talvez nenhuma; se isso acontece, o contador descarrega e, através de um dispositivo elétrico, libera um martelo que quebra um pequeno frasco de ácido cianídrico. Se o sistema for deixado a si mesmo por uma hora, poder-se-ia dizer que o gato ainda vive se enquanto isso nenhum átomo decaiu. O primeiro decaimento atômico o teria envenenado. A função de onda de todo o sistema poderia expressar isso por ter nela o gato vivo e o gato morto (desculpe a expressão) misturado ou espalhado em partes iguais. (Schrödinger, 1983, p. 157). O núcleo do argumento está contido na ideia de que, até que uma observação direta seja efetuada sobre o sistema em questão (o que corresponde, nessa interpretação, ao colapso), a descrição do formalismo quântico não forneceria nada além de possibilidades, com igual probabilidade, de dois estados atuais que são contrários. Na literatura tradicional, esse raciocínio é frequentemente expresso por meio da sentença “estados contraditórios”, no que se refere ao estado de superposição entre os estados “vivo” e “morto”. No entanto, o correto seria utilizar a sentença “estados contrários”, tendo em vista a definição de tais termos no 98 clássico quadrado de oposições, em que uma situação de contraditoriedade se estabelece quando duas proposições não podem ser simultaneamente verdadeiras nem simultaneamente falsas, e uma situação de contrariedade se estabelece quando duas proposições não podem ser simultaneamente verdadeiras, mas podem ser simultaneamente falsas. Krause propõe que a superposição seja entendida como um terceiro estado, um estado “novo”: [. . .] em certas “situações quânticas”, nomeadamente nas de superposição, não podemos de modo algum dizer —como parece fácil de fazer a partir de uma visão “clássica”— que dois objetos quânticos, como dois elétrons, quando em superposição de dois estados ψ1 e ψ2 (ou seja, quando são descritos por uma função de onda ψ12 = ψ1 + ψ2 ) estão em um dos dois estados. Nem no outro, nem em ambos, nem em nenhum —que seriam as quatro situações logicamente possíveis (de um ponto de vista “clássico”—, mas podemos dizer que estão em um “novo” estado, o de superposição de ψ1 e ψ2 . (Krause, 2010, p. 128). No caso do exemplo do gato de Schrödinger (1983, p. 157), tem-se três estados: o estado “vivo”, o estado “morto” e o estado “superposto”. No último, as proposições “o gato está vivo” e “o gato está morto” são simultaneamente falsas, o que parece configurar uma relação de contrariedade e não de contraditoriedade. Essa forma de interpretar o estado de superposição se coaduna com o fato de que os vetores matemáticos que representam os estados “vivo” e “morto” são ortogonais, e não a negação um do outro.4 Na interpretação de von Neumann (1955), tal quadro se traduziria na afirmação de que nenhum evento atual ocorreria até que o sistema composto —isto é, o sistema quântico 4 Para uma discussão aprofundada e atualizada sobre o assunto, ver também Arenhart e Krause (2016). 99 e o aparelho de medição— seja percebido pelo ego abstrato do observador. Pelo que foi considerado até aqui, existem ao menos duas leituras possíveis da teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955), sendo uma ontológica e outra puramente lógica. Considerando a análise lógica, faço referência ao estudo de Breuer (2001, p. 80– 81), que faz uma aproximação entre a hierarquia infinita dos tipos lógicos, da linguagem-objeto e das infinitas metalinguagens subjacentes (isto é, a metametalinguagem, a metametametalinguagem, etc.) de Tarski (1956, p. 241–265) e a cadeia infinita de observações de von Neumann (1955). Para Breuer (2001, p. 80), tais hierarquias infinitas estão intimamente ligadas com o raciocínio da incompletude de Gödel (1967, p. 610, nota 48), o qual admite textualmente que “[. . .] a verdadeira razão para a incompletude é que a formação de tipos cada vez mais elevados pode ser continuado transfinitamente”. Na teoria da verdade de Tarski (1956), uma predicação da noção de verdade aplicável a todas as sentenças da linguagemobjeto não é parte da linguagem-objeto, mas de um tipo lógico de hierarquia mais alta, isto é, uma metalinguagem. Se o termo “verdade” for intercambiado por “demonstrabilidade”, o raciocínio da incompletude de Gödel (1967, p. 592–616) poderia ser parafraseado, segundo Breuer (2001, p. 80), da seguinte maneira: “um conceito de demonstrabilidade que é formulado dentro de um sistema formal não pode ser aplicado a todas as sentenças desse mesmo sistema”. Voltando ao raciocínio da hierarquia infinita na teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955), uma medição não está completa no sistema X ∧ M, X ∧ M ∧ M′), ou (X ∧ M ∧ M′ ∧ M′′ ), etc., até que o colapso ocorra, o que somente aconteceria pela ação de um agente fora do sistema, ou seja, externo. Nesse preciso sentido, a função de tal observador O externo pode ser aproximada a um funcionamento metateórico, isto é, a um nível lógico mais alto 100 (um meta-nível). Para Breuer (2001, p. 81), a aproximação feita entre a concepção de “obter uma prova de uma afirmação” e concepção de “obter o resultado de uma medição” seria válida na medida em que “’medição’ e ‘prova’ são ambos conceitos semânticos que estabelecem uma relação entre um formalismo físico ou matemático, e que são referidos pelo formalismo”. Pela sentença com um valor de verdade tal como “completar uma medição”, refiro-me a um evento, cuja probabilidade “P ” de resultado “R” seja, exclusivamente, ao menos um dos dois resultados possíveis, “s” e “s′ ”, em que a probabilidade dos dois resultados possíveis seja equivalente, de modo que R(s) = R(s′ ). O colapso indica que o estado de R é (por exemplo) s′ (e, consequentemente, não-s). Nesse preciso sentido, o observador deve estar fora dos limites da física. Dito de outro modo, da mesma forma que para Bohr, para von Neumann o agente causal da medição, isto é, aquilo que completa uma medição está para além dos limites da física quântica: [. . .] é inerentemente inteiramente correto que a medição ou o processo relacionado à percepção subjetiva seja uma nova entidade em relação ao ambiente físico e não pode ser reduzido a esse último. De fato, a percepção subjetiva nos leva para a vida interior intelectual do indivíduo que é extra observacional, por sua própria natureza. (von Neumann, 1955, p. 421). Esse é o motivo pelo qual Breuer (2001, p. 79–80) delineia o problema da medição em física quântica como o problema da compatibilidade entre o que está fora da física (tal como o colapso) e o que está dentro da física (tal como a evolução linear). Dessa forma, por mais que a teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955) incorra na mesma dificuldade de Bohr, no que tange à arbitrariedade da separação entre o que é e o que não é domínio da mecânica quântica, seu ganho é de especificar a discus101 são para os campos lógicos e ontológicos e não tão somente explicitar uma cisão arbitrária entre o que é um objeto quântico e o que não é. Ainda assim, de acordo com Becker (2004, p. 121), existe uma concepção recebida acerca da teoria da medição de von Neumann segundo a qual o colapso é um processo físico que “modifica de modo indeterminista o estado do sistema que está sendo medido”. Para Becker (2004, p. 123), o aspecto central dessa concepção recebida é considerar o colapso como um processo físico “que ocorre durante o processo de uma medição, embora não seja especificado em qual instante”.5 Dadas as características lógicas da teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955), passemos à discussão em torno de seus aspectos ontológicos. Foi possível constatar que a posição de von Neumann (1955) em relação ao problema da medição está comprometida ontologicamente com um novo objeto que compõe o mobiliário do mundo, isto é, com uma nova entidade com poder causal para completar uma medição: o “ego abstrato”, que tem certas características ontológicas, por exemplo, ser um domínio da existência distinto do domínio físico. Tradicionalmente, a entidade do tipo “ego abstrato” fora entendida como “consciência”. No entanto, como observado por Bueno (2019a), essa generalização pode ser apressada, e até mesmo equivocada. Essa não foi a única confusão conceitual encontrado na literatura. Conforme aponta Jammer (1974, p. 482), a teoria da medição formulada por von Neumann (1955), que culmina na tese de que a consciência é o agente causal responsável pelo ato da medição, não seria acessível a grande parte dos físicos experimentais da época na medida em que, sendo demasiadamente formal, requereria dos interlocutores um alto conhecimento de matemática. No entanto, tal teoria foi reelaborada por London e Bauer (1983) em um estudo que Jammer (1974, p. 482) considera uma 5 Sobre a referida “concepção recebida” do colapso, ver Everett (1957), Stapp (1982), Albert (1992), e J. A. Barrett (1999). 102 apresentação “[. . .] concisa e simplificada” da teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955). O interesse de London por filosofia, especificamente pelo problema mente-corpo é documentado em uma pequena biografia escrita por sua esposa, Edith London (1961, pp. X–XIV). Dentre suas influências filosóficas, Jammer (1974, p. 482–483) destaca Pfänder, objeto de análise na tese de doutorado em filosofia de London e, principalmente, seu professor de filosofia em Munique, Erich Becher. De acordo com Jammer (1974, p. 482–483), a tese, apresentada no Instituto Arnold Sommerfeld em Munique, trata sobre Pfänder (1904), que influenciara a teoria psicológica de Lipps (1907) que, então influenciaria a concepção de medição em mecânica quântica de London. Jammer (1974, p. 483) também ressalta que o estudo de London e Bauer (1983) faz referência a duas obras de Brecher (1906, 1921), para quem o problema mentecorpo seria a questão central em toda a filosofia. Em relação aos problemas da filosofia da mente, Becher rejeitaria, segundo Jammer (1974, p. 484), a doutrina do epifenomenalismo, isto é, o pensamento segundo o qual os processos mentais emergem ou são causados pelos processos cerebrais, e defende o interacionismo, isto é, o pensamento segundo o qual os processos físicos “[. . .] permeiam o cérebro em um curso contínuo e produzem, além de efeitos físicos, efeitos psíquicos que, por sua vez, afetam de forma decisiva os eventos físicos”. É natural que London tenha acatado à crítica de Brecher acerca do epifenomenalismo, uma vez que tenha dado continuidade à ideia de que a consciência age sobre a matéria. Para Jammer (1974, p. 484), London teria encontrado na mecânica quântica, especificamente no problema da medição, conforme delineado por von Neumann (1955), um campo para aplicar tais ideias filosóficas, na medida em que, na interpretação de London e Bauer (1983, p. 251), a interação entre um objeto microfísico e um aparelho macroscópico de medição não seriam sufi103 cientes para produzir uma medição, de modo que uma medição ocorre somente quando tal sistema composto hobjeto + aparatoi é “observado”, ou “medido”. No caso, seria a consciência que de fato causa o colapso, isto é, completa uma medição. Tal afirmação deve, no entanto, ser melhor caracterizada, visto que existe um caráter ontológico da proposta London e Bauer (1983) que difere da proposta de von Neumann (1955). A interpretação de London e Bauer (1983), como aponta Abner Shimony (1963, p. 759), considera que o observador está no mesmo nível ontológico que o sistema composto (sistema microscópico e aparato de medição), de modo que “London e Bauer não parecem atribuir uma posição transcendente ao observador”. Isto é, ao passo que von Neumann (1955) enfatiza o caráter nãofísico do observador, London e Bauer (1983, p. 251) consideram que o observador está no mesmo sistema composto que o sistema microscópico e o aparato de medição, que pode ser representado como hobjeto + aparato + observadori. O observador teria, ainda assim, um papel distinto dentro do sistema composto. A tese subjetivista, atribuída a von Neumann devido à passagem em que considera o “ego abstrato” do observador o agente causal da medição, parece se tornar explícita na teoria de London e Bauer quando, em uma passagem decisiva, afirmam que a “faculdade de introspecção” é central no processo de medição: O observador tem uma impressão completamente diferente. Para ele, é apenas o objeto x e o aparelho y que pertencem ao mundo externo, para o que ele chama de “objetividade”. Por outro lado, ele tem consigo mesmo relações de uma maneira muito diferente. Ele possui uma faculdade característica e bastante familiar que podemos chamar de “faculdade de introspecção”. Ele pode acompanhar cada momento de seu próprio estado. Em virtude desse “conhecimento ima104 nente” ele atribui a si o direito de criar a sua própria objetividade —ou seja, cortar a cadeia de correlações estatísticas [. . .]. É apenas a consciência de um “eu” que pode separá-lo da função anterior [. . .] e, em virtude de sua observação, configurar uma nova objetividade ao atribuir para o objeto uma nova função dali pra frente [. . .]. (London e Bauer, 1983, p. 252). A consciência individual do observador, sua faculdade interna, de introspecção, é considerada por London e Bauer (1983, p. 252) um sistema distinto do sistema composto material —que se define pela interação entre o objeto microfísico e o aparelho medidor macroscópico— de modo que esse sistema, não sujeito às leis da mecânica quântica, é causal no sistema material. Como aponta Shimony (1963, p. 759), o observador “[. . .] por possuir a faculdade de introspecção, pode conceder a si mesmo a abstração dos sistemas físicos com os quais interage”. Em outras palavras, a interpretação subjetivista parece sugerir um estatuto ontológico privilegiado para a consciência individual do observador humano no universo. Dito ainda de outro modo, essa interpretação se compromete ontologicamente com uma entidade mental que causa sobre uma entidade material, ponto em que Jammer (1974, p. 484) traça a influência de Brecher no pensamento de London. Nesse ponto, as teses de von Neumann (1955) parecem London e Bauer (1983) se alinhar. É justamente nesse ponto que muitos comentadores se equivocaram. Como mostrou o estudo de French (2002), a teoria da medição de London e Bauer (1983) não exige que a faculdade de introspecção do observador cause o colapso, mas que reconheça o colapso. Esse é motivo pelo qual a chave filosófica de leitura para a teoria da medição de London e Bauer (1983, p 252) esteja na fenomenologia Husserliana, como troca de doação de sentido, e não causa —muito menos subjetivista.6 6 Para mais detalhes sobre esse ponto, ver Arroyo e Nunes Filho (2018). 105 Esses são, portanto, as duas principais confusões conceituais que encontramos na literatura: 1) a identificação de von Neumann (1955) com a tese de que a consciência causa o colapso; e 2) a identificação de London e Bauer (1983) com 1). De modo mais preciso, podemos colocar que o predecessor da interpretação da consciência causal, que considera que é de fato a consciência do observador que causa o colapso seria Wigner (1983), na situação conhecida como o “amigo de Wigner”. Suponha que todas as interações possíveis entre um indivíduo humano com um dado sistema físico se resumam a olhar para certo ponto em certa direção nos instantes de tempo t0 , t1 , t2 , . . . , tn , e que as sensações possíveis que tal indivíduo possa vir a ter se resumam às de ver ou não ver um flash de luz; suponha, ainda, que a formulação matemática representando a possibilidade do indivíduo ver o flash seja uma função de onda |ψ1 i e que uma função de onda |ψ2 i represente a possibilidade do indivíduo não ver o flash. Assim, a comunicabilidade da função de onda, qualquer que seja o resultado, dependeria daquilo que o indivíduo observou. Em outras palavras, ele poderia nos dizer qual das funções de onda seria o caso, isto é, se o indivíduo viu ou não viu o flash de luz. Espera-se que o resultado seja objetivo no preciso sentido em que seja comunicável, isto é, no caso de perguntarmos para um indivíduo X o resultado da interação num instante t, um outro indivíduo, Y, que interagisse com o sistema num instante t + 1 poderia se utilizar do resultado obtido em t como se fosse Y, e não X , que tivesse interagido com o sistema no instante t. O raciocínio do experimento mental consiste em questionar o estado do indivíduo X , que observa o sistema no instante t antes de comunicar o resultado para o indivíduo Y. Dito de outro modo, o experimento mental propõe uma situação em que alguém realiza uma observação em um sistema. No caso, supondo que Y seja o próprio Wigner e que X seja o amigo de Wigner, qual se106 ria o estado do sistema no instante de tempo entre a interação de X em t e a comunicação do resultado da interação para Y no instante t + 1? Isto é, se for assumido que o estado inicial seja uma combinação linear dos dois estados possíveis relacionados com a probabilidade de que cada um dos estados seja o caso, o estado do sistema composto na interação hobjeto + observadori (em que o termo “observador” corresponde ao amigo) poderia ser descrito pela mecânica quântica através uma equação linear. No entanto, de acordo com a mecânica quântica, não seria possível atribuir uma função de onda que descreva o objeto antes do final de uma medição, ou seja, antes que o amigo diga o resultado (isto é, se viu ou não viu o flash), mas somente poder-se-ia atribuir uma função de onda ao sistema composto hobjeto + amigoi. Assim, Wigner (Y) pode interagir com o sistema composto hobjeto+amigoi perguntando ao amigo (X ) se ela viu algum flash. Qualquer que seja o caso, a função de onda do sistema composto7 se modifica para um caso em que o objeto possa ser descrito uma estado único. Tal mudança ocorre somente em contato com Y: [. . .] [A] mudança típica na função de onda ocorrida somente quando alguma informação (o “sim” ou “não” do meu amigo) entra na minha consciência. Disso se segue que a descrição quântica dos objetos é influenciada por impressões que entram na minha consciência. (Wigner, 1983, p. 173). Wigner considera que a consciência do observador modifica 7 A título de precisão, o termo utilizado no texto de Wigner é “mistura”. Ele se refere, contudo, ao termo técnico chamado “mistura estatística”, denotado pelo operador ρ, utilizado no formalismo da mecânica quântica para designar situações de ignorância. Antes, como apontou French (2002, p. 483, nota 27), o termo “mistura” designava, na época aquilo que hoje chamamos de “superposição”. 107 ativamente o conhecimento8 do sistema e, com isso, as condições de previsibilidade do sistema dos flashes, isto é, modifica sua representação matemática através da função de onda: [. . .] a impressão que se obtém em uma interação, chamada também de o resultado de uma observação, modifica a função de onda do sistema. A função de onda modificada é, além disso, em geral imprevisível antes que impressão adquirida na interação entrasse em nossa consciência: é a entrada de uma impressão em nossa consciência, que altera a função de onda porque modifica ou avaliação das probabilidades para diferentes impressões que esperamos receber no futuro.” (Wigner, 1983, p. 172–173). A situação proposta é análoga à cadeia infinita de observações de von Neumann (1955): enquanto a interação do sistema composto hobjeto + amigoi estiver no mesmo nível, não há, de fato, uma medição. Há que se perguntar “quem observa o observador?”, pois até que um observador final interaja com o sistema composto, uma medição não estará completa. Para Wigner (1983, p. 176), quem teria tal posição privilegiada seria ele mesmo, isto é, o amigo, ocupando uma posição intermediária, não poderia ter o resultado da observação registrado em sua consciência a despeito do observador final: “[. . .] a teoria da medição, direta ou indireta, é logicamente consistente desde que eu mantenha minha posição privilegiada de observador final”. Ainda assim, se depois de completada a situação proposta acima, Wigner (1983, p. 176) perguntar ao amigo sobre o estado do objeto S antes da interação entre X e Y proposta no raciocínio acima, o amigo responderia (a depender do que tenha sido o caso de S) que “eu já lhe disse, eu vi [não vi] um flash”. 8 Wigner (1983, p. 169, nota 3) se utiliza dos textos posteriores de Heisenberg (1958, p. 87–99), em que o autor se refere ao termo “consciência” como “conhecimento”. 108 Para ilustrar a problemática que está em jogo, Wigner (1983, p. 177) propõe que o papel do observador intermediário seja trocado: ao invés do amigo, que se utilize um simples aparelho físico de medição, que amplificaria o sinal de um átomo que poderia (ou não) ser excitado pela luz do flash no sistema S. Nesse caso, como aponta Jammer (1974, p. 499), não haveria dúvida de que uma representação matemática, através de uma equação linear, poderia descrever o sistema composto hobjeto + aparatoi —contrariamente à assunção de que tal interação poderia indicar o estado atual de S. Com isso em mente, se modificarmos novamente o observador intermediário, voltando a considerálo como o amigo, a representação matemática, de acordo com Wigner (1983, p. 177) “[. . .] parece absurda, pois implica que meu amigo estaria em um estado de animação suspensa antes de responder à minha pergunta”, isto é, parece absurda, por implicar não só que o objeto S não teria seu estado atual desenvolvido (ou seja, o flash não teria nem não teria sido disparado) mas, principalmente, que o amigo não teria sua própria existência atualizada até que houvesse a ação interativa de Y sobre o sistema composto hobjeto + amigoi. A fim de esclarecer tal dificuldade, Wigner conclui que: Segue-se que o ser com uma consciência deve ter um papel diferente na mecânica quântica que o dispositivo de medição inanimado: o átomo considerado acima [. . .]. Esse argumento implica que “meu amigo” tem os mesmos tipos de impressões e sensações como eu —em particular, que, depois de interagir com o objeto, ele não está nesse estado de animação suspensa [. . .]. Não é necessário ver aqui uma contradição a partir do ponto de vista da mecânica quântica ortodoxa, e não há se acreditarmos que a alternativa é sem sentido se a consciência do meu amigo contém 109 tanto a impressão de ter visto um flash ou de não ter visto um flash. (Wigner, 1983, p. 177–178). Quando Wigner (1983, p. 177) descreve que o amigo está em um estado de suspensão, parece sugerir que no raciocínio todo só há um colapso, isto é, somente um momento em que uma medição é efetivamente realizada: quando Wigner (e não o amigo) tem consciência de todo o processo através da interação com o amigo. Um raciocínio semelhante foi proposto por Penrose (1989, p. 290–293), que revisita a situação do gato de Schrödinger, adicionando no raciocínio um observador humano —propriamente vestido com um traje que o proteja do veneno— dentro da caixa onde se encontra o gato e todo o restante do aparato que envolve o experimento mental de Schrödinger (1983). No experimento revisitado por Penrose (1989, p. 293), o observador de dentro, que visualiza diretamente o que ocorre com o gato, e o observador de fora, que é limitado pelo cálculo das probabilidades sobre o que ocorre com o gato, teriam, forçosamente, impressões discrepantes sobre o que acontece com o gato. Isso ocorreria até que a caixa fosse aberta, quando as impressões tornariam-se precisamente as mesmas. Tal situação é oportuna para visualizarmos a dificuldade colocada por Wigner (1983). Se acatarmos a tese de que a consciência humana (individual/subjetiva) é de alguma maneira causa do que acontece com o gato, então teríamos a mesma situação que se tem com o raciocínio do amigo de Wigner: a consciência de quem atuou como agente causal no caso proposto por Penrose?9 A do observador de dentro ou do observador de fora? 9 É relevante constatar que von Neumann (1955, p. 445) já havia considerado que haveriam dificuldades no caso de mais de um observador concomitante. 110 3.2.2 O problema ontológico Atribuir um papel causal à consciência individual de uma pessoa pode levar a uma dificuldade filosófica bastante séria, que é o solipsismo, isto é, a implicação de que exista uma única subjetividade real e que todas as outras subjetividades sejam irreais ou ilusórias. London e Bauer (1983, p. 258) já haviam reconhecido essa dificuldade ao reiterar que, em mecânica quântica, a existência de um objeto físico depende do ato da medição que, por sua vez, “[. . .] está intimamente ligado à consciência da pessoa que realiza [a medição], como se a mecânica quântica nos levasse a um completo solipsismo”. Para enfrentar a problemática do solipsismo, os autores argumentam em favor de um consenso intersubjetivo dos fenômenos externos, visto que, na prática cotidiana, os fenômenos objetivos ocorrem como se fossem de fato objetivos no sentido de serem públicos e comuns a mais de uma subjetividade. Isso se apoiaria no fato de que existe tal coisa como uma comunidade científica, o que só seria possível mediante tal consenso intersubjetivo. Jammer (1974, p. 485) considera que tal tentativa de superar o solipsismo através do consenso intersubjetivo acaba por entrar em contradição com a hipótese inicial de que os dois componentes do sistema composto hobjeto + aparatoi estejam no mesmo nível ontológico. De fato, existe uma dificuldade, pois como poderia um sistema composto, causado por uma consciência individual Ci1 , ser objetivo, isto é, publicamente acessível a outras consciências individuais Ci2 . . . Cin numa situação em que Ci1 não estivesse ciente do sistema composto? Isto é, a contradição está em assumir a existência de um objeto que, num raciocínio posterior, não existe por si, mas tão somente diante de uma consciência individual. Da mesma forma, a situação proposta por Wigner (1983, p. 173) parece sugerir uma interpretação solipsista, como vemos no trecho: “[o] solipsismo pode ser logicamente consistente com a me111 cânica quântica presente; já o monismo, no sentido materialista, não é”. Claramente, Wigner (1983, p. 178) não fica contente com essa implicação ontológica: “[. . .] negar a existência da consciência de um amigo a esse ponto é certamente uma atitude antinatural que se aproxima do solipsismo, e poucas pessoas, em seus corações, irão segui-la”. No entanto, ao final do raciocínio do amigo de Wigner (1983, p. 173), fica claro que a assunção do solipsismo, na afirmação de que “[. . .] o solipsismo pode ser logicamente consistente com a mecânica quântica presente” parece ter um significado estritamente metodológico. Em outras palavras, é precisamente a ideia de uma interpretação subjetivista para o conceito de “consciência” na mecânica quântica que é colocada em xeque com a situação paradoxal proposta em tal raciocínio, isto é, a ideia de que a consciência subjetiva, individualizada, seria agente causal na medição quântica. Talvez uma das formas mais expressivas do descontentamento em relação às interpretações subjetivistas tenha sido formulada por Bell: [. . .] permita-me argumentar contra um mito. . . que a teoria quântica tenha de alguma forma desfeito a revolução copernicana. Desde aqueles que fizeram essa revolução, aprendemos que o mundo é mais inteligível quando não nos imaginamos no centro dele. A teoria quântica não colocaria novamente “observadores”. . . nós. . . no centro do quadro? De fato, muito se diz a respeito de “observáveis” nos livros de teoria quântica. E a partir de alguns textos de divulgação, o público geral poderia ficar com a impressão de que a própria existência do cosmos dependeria de que estejamos aqui para observar os observáveis. (Bell, 2004, p. 170). Bell (2004) se posicionou tacitamente contra a ideia de que a subjetividade seja um agente causal necessário para que haja 112 o universo, o que parece coadunar com o raciocínio de Wigner (1983), através do raciocínio expresso no paradoxo do amigo. 3.2.3 O problema metafísico Esse novo objeto —a consciência— com poder causal é introduzido na ontologia da mecânica quântica sem que tenhamos informações acerca de sua natureza. Assim, ao passo que o problema ontológico da consciência na mecânica quântica seja a própria introdução da entidade, o problema metafísico é justamente a falta de uma metafísica que explique a natureza dessa entidade. A necessidade (ou não) de que a lacuna entre ontologia e metafísica seja preenchida tem sido extensamente debatida na literatura recente.10 No entanto, ao passo que o debate geralmente gire em torno da metodologia da metafísica e do realismo científico, trarei um ângulo pouco explorado. Farei uma espécie de “mostruário” dos perfis metafísicos pouco explorados para a interpretação da consciência causal. A introdução da noção de consciência como um “objeto” não físico no sentido de não material, na ontologia subjacente a essa interpretação da medição quântica vem acompanhada de uma série de problemas. Dentre eles, destaco a problemática em relação à definição do termo “consciência”, isto é, como a consciência deve ser entendida em termos metafísicos. Qual o lugar de tal “consciência” no mundo? Ou seja, o problema ontológico da consciência na mecânica quântica pode ser brevemente enunciado com a seguinte questão: “o que é a consciência?”. Buscarei elencar como tal questão é abordada pela literatura, bem como a problemática suscitada por essa discussão. Como observa Albert (1992, p. 82), a tese defendida por Wigner dependeria de uma separação entre sistemas inteiramente ma10 Ver Arenhart (2019), Arenhart e Arroyo (2021b), Arroyo e Arenhart (2019), Bueno (2019b), Chakravartty (2019) e French (2019). 113 teriais e sistemas conscientes, isto é, a separação entre sistemas não-conscientes e sistemas conscientes, de modo que a evolução do estado físico de um dado objeto quântico seria diferente caso o objeto fosse ou não consciente. Consequentemente, o entendimento do comportamento dos objetos quânticos dependeria da definição ou do significado do termo “consciência”. No entanto, nenhum dos autores referidos ofereceu uma definição do termo “consciência” Albert (1992, p. 83), de modo que não fica claro o significado de uma sentença tal como a afirmação de que “a consciência é o agente causal na medição quântica”. Assim, a problemática suscitada pela interpretação da consciência causal, isto é, de que a medição seria completa somente com a introdução de um agente causal não-físico, permanece em aberto —e, como aponta Smith (2003), os resultados de tal debate (se a consciência não física é realmente um agente causal ou não) seriam definitivos para as discussões contemporâneas, especialmente nas áreas da filosofia da mente e nas ciências cognitivas. Deve ficar claro, nesse aspecto, que a noção de “consciência”, conforme apresentada, desempenha um papel fundamentalmente distinto da ordem material, onde se situam os sistemas físicos. Nesse preciso sentido, essa interpretação da consciência é incompatível com uma metafísica monista materialista, como sugerido por Wigner (1983, p. 173) e demonstrado por Arroyo e Arenhart (2019). Conforme a analogia proposta, do estatuto ontológico como o mobiliário do mundo, destaco, em específico, que esta interpretação, que caracterizarei como interpretação da consciência causal, carece de uma formulação ontológica (do tipo OT ) que abarque esse novo objeto: a consciência. Como aponta Köhler (2001, p. 114), “von Neumann consistentemente evitava discussões ‘filosóficas’ de questões epistemológicas”. Pelo contrário, a única categorização que é feita em relação ao termo “consciência” é que se trata de um objeto ontologicamente distinto dos obje114 tos materiais, o que sugere que essa consciência se trata de uma substância distinta da substância material. Tal proposta, como observam Stapp (2007, p. 167) e Stöltzner (2001, p. 58–59), se alinha com o dualismo do tipo cartesiano, conhecido como “dualismo de substância”, que possui diversas dificuldades filosóficas —uma das grandes questões seria o problema mente-corpo.11 É possível delinear a questão da seguinte maneira: da forma como colocado por von Neumann (1955) e Wigner (1983), a noção de “consciência” com poder causal na medição quântica deveria cumprir as seguintes caracterizações: a consciência deve ser imaterial, no sentido de que não pertence ao mesmo nível ontológico que os sistemas quânticos, isto é, deve ser considerada em um nível diferente em relação à aplicação da mecânica quântica; não deve ser subjetiva, isto é, individualizada. 3.2.4 Metafísicas da consciência quântica Nos parágrafos seguintes, elencarei algumas alternativas que preenchem a lacuna metafísica da consciência na mecânica quântica. Isto é, tratam-se de alternativas que respondem questões de natureza para essa entidade, a consciência, obtida como parte da ontologia da interpretação da mecânica quântica analisada neste capítulo. Opto pelas propostas de Bass (1971) e Goswami (1989), por tratarem diretamente das questões apresentadas e serem alternativas pouco abordadas na literatura. A proposta de Bass (1971) se trata de uma generalização metafísica do pensamento tardio de Schrödinger (1964) para solucionar a situação paradoxal presente no raciocínio do amigo de Wigner.12 11 Ainda assim, em termos metafísicos, não é possível determinar nem mesmo extrair a metafísica associada à ontologia da interpretação de von Neumann. Para maiores detalhes, ver Arroyo e Arenhart (2019). 12 Um estudo detalhado sobre a concepção filosófica tardia de Schrödinger pode ser encontrado em Murr (2014). 115 Para Schrödinger, os debates em relação ao conceito de consciência ou mente enfrentariam uma situação problemática, devido ao frequente comprometimento ontológico com a existência de múltiplas mentes —tal como a situação do amigo de Wigner parece pressupor: Para a filosofia [. . .] a dificuldade real está na multiplicidade espacial e temporal de observadores e indivíduos cognoscentes. Se todos os eventos ocorressem em uma consciência, a situação seria extremamente simples. (Schrödinger, 1964, p. 18). Pode-se perceber na passagem anteriormente citada, assim como em diversas outras, como observa Cohen (1992), o comprometimento ontológico com a existência de uma única mente que, conforme observa Bertotti é de notável influência do pensamento indiano, especificamente do Vedanta:13 O enigma das consciências individuais e sua comunidade levaram ele [Schrödinger] a uma posição, característica da filosofia indiana, que é o fundamento filosófico do clássico Vedanta: todas as mentes individuais [. . .] são manifestações de uma única Mente que abrange tudo. (Bertotti, 1994, p. 91). Sobre o termo “Vedanta”, destaco um trecho de uma exposição de Conger, que explicita precisamente o aspecto espiritualista do Vedanta que é abordado na discussão acima: [. . .] a filosofia central dos Upanixades e do Vedānta, muitas vezes considerada panteísta, seria descrita com maior precisão como um monismo espiritualista. Exemplo melhor de panteísmo é apresentado 13 Ver também Bitbol (2004, p. 171). 116 pelo Deus de Espinosa com um número infinito de atributos. No Advaita Vedānta, Brahman é caracterizada por sat (ser), cit (inteligência) e ānanda (bemaventurança), ao invés de uma gama de atributos pessoais; [. . .] Brahman é alcançada pelo indivíduo que chega a compreender sua própria identidade com a Realidade Una. (Conger, 1944, p. 239). Schrödinger faz uso da noção de “māyā”, correspondente à distinção —bastante antiga também na filosofia grega— entre o que é real e o que seria aparente para responder à questão da multiplicidade das mentes: A única alternativa possível é manter a experiência imediata de que a consciência é singular que desconhece plural; que existe apenas uma coisa e que aquilo que parece ser pluralidade é meramente uma série de diferentes aspectos dessa única coisa, produzida por uma ilusão (o termo indiano “māyā”). (Schrödinger, 1967, p. 89). Devo apontar, conforme Gough (1891, p. 237), que “a doutrina de māyā, ou a irrealidade do dualismo sujeito/objeto, bem como a irrealidade da pluralidade de almas e seu ambiente, é a vida da filosofia indiana primitiva”. Assim, māyā não se remete exclusivamente ao Vedanta. No entanto, conforme Bertotti, a influência do pensamento tardio de Schrödinger seria primordialmente o Vedanta e, por isso, destaco apenas seu uso dentro do sistema vedantino. Se pudermos extrair uma metafísica do Vedanta, ela estaria associada com a identificação entre Atman, um termo que designa as “mentes individual” e Brahman, que seria algo como uma “consciência cósmica”. De acordo com Radhakrishnan, o termo “Maja” (“māyā”, em sânscrito) se insere no sistema vedantino da seguinte forma: 117 [. . .] apenas o Absoluto, chamado Brahman, é real e as manifestações finitas são ilusórias. Há apenas uma realidade absoluta e indiferenciada, cuja natureza é constituída pelo conhecimento. O mundo empírico é inteiramente ilusório, com suas distinções de mentes finitas e objetos e os objetos de seu pensamento. Sujeitos e objetos são como imagens fugazes que englobam a alma que sonha, e que se reduzem a nada no momento em que acorda. O termo “māyā” significa o caráter ilusório do mundo finito. [. . .] Os aspectos centrais da filosofia Vedantina, como é concebida atualmente, são resumidamente explicitados nas seguintes frases: Brahman é o real e o universo é falso. O Atman é Brahman. Nada mais. (Radhakrishnan, 1914, p. 431). Dessa forma, a multiplicidade das mentes seria uma aparência ao passo que a unicidade da mente seria real ou, nas palavras de Cohen (1992, p. 97–98), “não existe ‘realmente’ uma multiplicidade de eus. [. . .] existe uma unidade de todas as consciências”. No entanto, Schrödinger (1964, p. 18) reconhece, conforme explicita na seguinte passagem, que esse não é um assunto estritamente racional: “[. . .] eu não penso que essa dificuldade possa ser resolvida logicamente, através de um pensamento consistente, em nossos intelectos”, ao se referir que “[. . .] a pluralidade que percebemos é apenas aparente, não é real”. De forma mais enfática, Schrödinger explicita que esta ideia, própria do pensamento do Vedanta, é um pensamento místico: Resumidamente, é a visão de que todos nós, seres vivos, somos unidos na medida em que somos, na verdade, lados ou aspectos de um único ser, que talvez na terminologia ocidental possa ser chamado de “Deus” enquanto nos Upanixades seu nome é “Brahman”. [. . .] Nós reconhecemos que estamos lidando 118 aqui não com algo logicamente dedutível, mas com misticismo. (Schrödinger, 1967, p. 95). No entanto, a ligação desse aspecto de seu pensamento, caracterizado como “misticismo racional” é obscura. Cohen (1992, p. 98) sugere que a ausência de uma ligação se dá pela posição de Schrödinger de que a ciência deve ser fundamentalmente objetiva, isto é, deve excluir de forma preliminar o sujeito que conhece daquilo que é conhecido. Ainda assim, Schrödinger jamais defendeu uma ideia de ciência subjetiva, tampouco objetiva à maneira do empirismo moderno, mas impessoal. Para Murr (2014, p. 212), a visão de mundo de Schrödinger, justamente por ter uma estreita relação com seu trabalho científico, não deve ser entendida como um aspecto religioso, mas essencialmente filosófico. Poser (1992, p. 161) aponta, ainda, que sua proposta filosófica é mais do que uma continuação de seu trabalho científico; pelo contrário, afirma que seu trabalho na ciência seja fruto de suas reflexões filosóficas. O posicionamento filosófico tardio de Schrödinger é classificado por Poser (1992, p. 163) como um “monismo idealista dinâmico”, cuja expressão máxima se encontra na expressão sânscrita “tat tvam asi”, que Huxley (1947, p. 8) traduz para o inglês como “that art thou”, que traduzido livremente para o português significaria algo como “tu és isto”, e que Schrödinger (1964, p. 22) interpreta como: “Eu estou no leste e no oeste, eu estou abaixo e acima, eu sou o universo todo”. Poser (1992, p. 166) destaca ainda que Schrödinger utiliza o pensamento vedantino como referência teórica para seu projeto científico e filosófico, e não como autoridade religiosa; ou seja, utiliza a discussão presente no Vedanta para argumentar em favor de sua proposta, de modo que constrói um modelo aberto a críticas e não um dogma incontestável. Dessa forma, Bertotti (1994, p. 83) utiliza o termo “misticismo racional” para classificar 119 esse tipo de atitude, identificada também na posição filosófica de Einstein. Como observa Murr (2014, p. 212), o referido sentimento de “unidade” pode ser alcançado por diversas vias, sendo a técnica da meditação uma delas. Wilber vai além e considera que tal unidade é empírica: A psicologia vedantina funda-se na introvisão experimentalmente verificável de que Brahman-Atman é a única Realidade, e sua preocupação primária consiste em proporcionar uma explicação pragmática do “por que” os seres humanos não compreendem sua básica e suprema identidade com Brahman. Em geral, a cega aceitação, pelos humanos, de dualismos e distinções é a ignorância (avidyā) que os fazem pousar diretamente num mundo de ilusões (māyā). (Wilber, 1997, p. 152). Tal referencial, que Murr (2014, p. 211–214) chama de “pósobjetivado”, é utilizado por Bass (1971) em um artigo intitulado “The Mind of Wigner’s Friend” (que traduzido livremente para o português significa “A Mente do Amigo de Wigner”), na tentativa de solucionar o paradoxo do amigo de Wigner (1983) com a introdução da hipótese, inspirada na obra tardia de Schrödinger (1964), chamada de “visão Vedantina”, que remete à tese da unicidade da consciência. Para tal raciocínio, Bass propõe as seguintes premissas: A. Meu corpo, com seu sistema nervoso central (explorado em qualquer grau de completude fisiológica) funciona puramente como um mecanismo, de acordo com as leis da natureza. Além disso, a mecânica quântica é a base final desse mecanismo. 120 B. Estou ciente, por evidência direta incontestável, do conhecimento (informação) entrando em minha consciência. (Bass, 1971, p. 56). Se aceitarmos que exclusivamente a premissa “A” se aplica ao “observador intermediário”, então este observador seria, para os efeitos de medição, tal como um aparelho medidor, isto é, seria incapaz de completar uma medição conforme o sentido do termo “medição” proposto por von Neumann (1955); da mesma forma, se aceitarmos que exclusivamente a premissa “B” se aplica ao “observador intermediário”, então este observador seria, para os efeitos de medição, um observador final na medida em que seria capaz de completar uma medição. As duas premissas, quando aplicadas juntamente ao observador intermediário, trariam uma situação paradoxal, visto que levam a situações mutuamente exclusivas. Essa seria a leitura de Bass (1971, p. 57) do paradoxo do amigo de Wigner (1983). No entanto, o raciocínio acima parece levar em consideração dois observadores, nomeadamente o observador intermediário e o observador final. Assim, Bass (1971, p. 59) é capaz de enunciar uma terceira premissa subentendida no raciocínio que leva à situação paradoxal: “C. Existem, independentemente, ao menos duas mentes conscientes”. No entanto, Bass (1971, p. 58–61) procura demonstrar que a situação paradoxal proposta por Wigner (1983) só ocorre quando as premissas A, B e C são aceitas, de modo que, se somente a premissa “C” for negada, as premissas “A” e “B” podem ser ambas verdadeiras ao mesmo tempo. Para tanto, uma hierarquia das três premissas, do ponto de vista empírico, é estabelecida por Bass (1971, p. 59): “mantenho, como Descartes, que a premissa “B” é a mais forte dentre as três: não tenho conhecimento mais direto e menos incerto que esse”. A premissa “A” estaria em segundo lugar na “hierarquia empírica” de Bass (1971, p. 59), e é analisada criticamente: a primeira 121 parte da premissa “[. . .] extrapola os avanços maravilhosos e contínuos da fisiologia do sistema nervoso”, mas que, ainda assim, permanece válida na medida em que a neurofisiologia não nega que o cérebro é “uma rede de unidades de operação eletroquímicas finamente interligadas (células, axônios, sinapses)”. Na análise da premissa “C”, Bass (1971, p. 59) afirma que não é apoiada por qualquer evidência empírica direta”, utilizando-se do raciocínio de Schrödinger (1967, p. 88), para quem “‘consciência’ nunca é experienciada no plural, apenas no singular” —o que Bass (1971, p. 60) considera suficiente para afirmar que a premissa “C” seria a premissa mais fraca dentre as três, do ponto de vista empírico. Por outro lado, do ponto de vista lógico, Bass aponta que a atualização de uma potencialidade, no caso de uma medição efetuada pela consciência, deveria representar “um efeito específico da consciência sobre o mundo físico”, de modo que seja precisamente [. . .] esse efeito específico da consciência sobre o mundo físico que pode ser tomado para acoplar a introspecção [premissa B] na física [premissa A], de modo a gerar o paradoxo. (Bass, 1971, p. 60). Tal “efeito específico” seria a ação da premissa “C”, isto é, a ação de uma (dentre uma vasta pluralidade) consciência individualizada sobre o mundo físico. Assim, Bass resume seu argumento da negação da premissa “C” da seguinte forma. A faculdade de introspecção, contida na premissa B: [. . .] pode envolver apenas uma consciência. O mundo externo (na premissa A) é introduzido e confrontado com a introspecção de tal modo que a hipótese sobre a pluralidade das mentes conscientes (na premissa C) resulta em uma negação. (Bass, 1971, p. 60). 122 Dessa forma, Bass (1971, p. 63) assume a “[. . .] visão vedantina, que nega a pluralidade das mentes conscientes”. A existência da pluralidade da consciência, contudo, não é negada em absoluto: ela existiria enquanto aparência, se referindo à doutrina indiana de māyā, isto é, da aparência da pluralidade das consciências, a medida em que realmente só existiria uma consciência Bass (1971, p. 61–62). No entanto, Bass reconhece que a emergência de uma dualidade sujeito/objeto, tal como parece ocorrer na percepção humana, é um aspecto problemático de sua proposta: Assumindo a pluralidade, deduzi uma contradição. Seria desejável complementar tal resultado ao assumir a unidade e deduzir uma consequência específica que possa ser, ao menos em princípio, observável. Isso asseguraria que a distinção entre pluralidade e unidade é significativa até mesmo no âmbito das ciências naturais. Mas a noção ordinária de um ato de observação envolve um sujeito e um objeto, o que não se coaduna com a hipótese da unidade, quando ambos sujeito e objeto envolvem consciência. (Bass, 1971, p. 65). A dualidade sujeito/objeto no ato de observação, referida acima, é mais sutil do que a referida por Bohr (1928): há implícita aqui uma distinção entre aquilo que conhece e aquilo que é conhecido. Mantendo o vocabulário monista da consciência proposta por Bass (1971), há a distinção entre o que está dentro da consciência e o que está fora da consciência. O tema da dualidade, isto é, a multiplicidade de consciências subsidiária ao monismo, à unicidade da consciência, seria, à luz do Vedanta, abordado pela doutrina da ilusão. Portanto, longe de solucionar os problemas metafísicos da consciência na mecânica quântica, essa hipótese daria lugar a outro espectro de problemas conceituais, próprios do pensamento vedantino. Ademais, metodologicamente, essa proposta 123 parece querer impor uma ontologia do tipo OT para a ciência, sem qualquer justificativa aparente para tal. Ainda assim, essa atitude frente ao problema da medição quântica é levada adiante por Goswami. Apresentarei resumidamente sua interpretação da medição quântica nos parágrafos seguintes —já adiantando de antemão, contudo, que se trata de uma proposta que incorre na mesma dificuldade que a proposta de Bass, conforme apontada no parágrafo anterior. A partir de uma generalização da ontologia de Heisenberg (1958) acerca da distinção entre potencialidade e atualidade e da medição=criação, Goswami (2003, p. 534) afirma que a evolução determinista e temporal, descrita através da evolução linear, ocorre em um domínio transcendente, que define —utilizando a terminologia de Heisenberg (1958)— como “potentia”. A definição de Goswami (2003, p. 534) para o domínio “potentia”, transcendente, seria também reminiscente da ontologia processual de Whitehead (1925, p. 202, nota 2), que considera que “espaço e tempo precisam resultar de algo em processo que transcenda os objetos”. Outra motivação para tal definição seria a interpretação de Stapp (2007) —que também utiliza a filosofia de processos Whitehediana para interpretar a teoria quântica— acerca da não localidade. A não localidade surgiu originalmente do raciocínio EPR, que, como vimos no Capítulo 2, propuseram um experimento mental em que a medição efetuada em um objeto A influenciaria instantaneamente um objeto B, espacialmente distante de A. O estudo sobre a “não localidade” fora desenvolvido posteriormente por Bell (1964) e, posteriormente, ganhou respaldo experimental com os trabalhos de Aspect et al. (1982). A não localidade é um dos aspectos da física quântica que difere radicalmente da física clássica, e tem suscitado diversos debates filosóficos até a contemporaneidade —que não serão tratados aqui. Limitei-me, no Capítulo 2, a analisar o problema da se124 parabilidade, segundo o qual a “não localidade” segue-se como consequência. De acordo com Stapp (1977, p. 191), a principal mensagem da não localidade seria a de que “os processos fundamentais do espaço-tempo estão fora do espaço-tempo, mas geram eventos que podem ser localizados no espaço-tempo”. Assim, Goswami (2003, p. 534) utiliza o termo “não localidade” como “fora do espaço-tempo”, de modo que o domínio “potentia” seja não local. Aplicando tal aspecto, que Goswami (2003, p. 535) chama de “ontologia básica de Heisenberg”, à teoria da medição de von Neumann (1955), tem-se que o colapso atualiza, isto é, traz para a realidade manifesta apenas uma possibilidade dentre diversas outras possibilidades contidas neste domínio transcendente, de modo que a realidade transfenomenal, isto é, a realidade entre tais atualizações, estaria contida no domínio “potentia”. O termo “metafísica experimental”, cunhado por Shimony (1984, p. 35) expressa a ideia de que os experimentos científicos poderiam, de alguma forma, guiar os debates filosóficos. Goswami (2001, p. 15–16) faz uso desse conceito para exemplificar, a partir de um experimento conduzido em conjunto com Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al. (1994), a ação não local da consciência unitiva. No experimento em questão, duas pessoas são separadas em salas com isolamento eletromagnético (isto é, que não permitem a transmissão de sinais eletromagnéticos) e conectadas a eletroencefalogramas diferentes. Solicita-se que, durante o experimento, as pessoas mantenham a intenção de comunicarse entre si. Uma série de flashes de luz é lançada em uma das salas, de modo que apenas uma das pessoas poderia têlos visto. As ondas cerebrais da pessoa que viu os flashes são registradas pelo eletroencefalograma, com uma atividade elétrica no cérebro que atinge picos nos momentos em que os 125 flashes são disparados— o que é nomeado de “potencial evocado” Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al. (1994, p. 423). No entanto —e essa é, segundo Goswami (2001, p. 201), a maior contribuição de tal experimento—, a outra pessoa, que não viu os flashes, também tem uma atividade cerebral registrada, precisamente nos mesmos instantes (mas com uma intensidade menor) em que o potencial evocado ocorre —o que é chamado de “potencial transferido” Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al. (1994, p. 424). Em experimentos controle, as pessoas não mantêm a intenção de se comunicar ao longo do experimento, e o potencial transferido não foi observado. Goswami (2001, p. 202) sugere que a explicação desse fenômeno seja a ação não local da consciência unitiva, que “[. . .] colapsa estados similares nos dois cérebros; daí a similaridade dos potenciais cerebrais”. Assim, da mesma forma que no raciocínio EPR, os dois cérebros estariam de alguma forma inseparáveis de maneira não local, com a diferença crucial de que, no caso do experimento conduzido por Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al. (1994), tal inseparabilidade se daria por uma intenção consciente e não por um ato puramente físico. Um dos aspectos essencialmente novos da interpretação de Goswami (1989, p. 385) seria a proposta metafísica do “idealismo monista”, na qual todos os elementos estão dentro da mesma e única consciência: tanto os elementos transcendentes, potenciais, quanto os imanentes são atualizados. Isto é, tanto o colapso quanto a evolução linear acontecem dentro da consciência. Na realidade, seria uma proposta “nova” em relação à interpretação da mecânica quântica, na medida em que Goswami utiliza vários aspectos metafísicos da filosofia platônica. Como veremos, o termo corresponde àquilo que Conger (1944, p. 239) chamou de “monismo espiritualista”: dentre os autores ocidentais que advogam essa corrente de pensamento, Conger destaca os nomes 126 de Platão, Plotino e Espinoza, principalmente. Nas palavras de Goswami: [. . .] os objetos já estão na consciência primordialmente, como formas possíveis em potentia. O colapso não está fazendo algo aos objetos via observação, mas consiste em escolher entre as possibilidades alternativas que a função de onda fornece, e em reconhecer o resultado da escolha. (Goswami, 2003, p. 536). Isto é, não se trataria da ação da consciência sobre a matéria, isto é, de mover algum corpo material com a força do pensamento, algo como a psicocinese ou a telecinesia. Essa ideia pressupõe uma distinção entre as noções de “consciência” e “matéria”. O que parece estar em jogo aqui é o postulado de que todos os objetos são objetos dentro da mesma e única consciência. Essa seria uma forma de tratar a noção de consciência a partir de uma ontologia outra que não a do monismo materialista —em que a consciência é um fenômeno advindo da complexidade do arranjo material (neuronal) e, portanto, sem poder causal— ou a do dualismo —segundo o qual as noções de “consciência” e “matéria” correspondem a substâncias separadas. Da mesma forma, Goswami procura demonstrar de que forma a noção de consciência, quando tratada a partir do idealismo monista, evita dificuldades filosóficas conforme apontadas em situações tais como a do “amigo de Wigner”: O problema de Wigner surge do seu raciocínio dualista acerca da sua própria consciência separada da consciência de seu amigo. O paradoxo desaparece se existir somente um sujeito —não sujeitos separados como estamos acostumados a pensar. [. . .] Se a consciência do amigo de Wigner não difere em essência da consciência de Wigner, se for sempre uma consciência cau127 sando o colapso da função de onda, não há paradoxo. (Goswami, 2003, p. 536). Essa proposta de solução para a situação elaborada por Wigner (1983), através do “paradoxo do amigo”, é muito próxima da solução proposta por Bass (1971), como vimos anteriormente. Revisitando a situação do gato de Schrödinger (1983), expandida por Penrose (1989), Goswami (1989, p. 390) afirma que questões acerca da consciência do gato ou a discrepância entre os humanos de dentro e fora da caixa são dificuldades que acompanham a concepção dualista da noção de “consciência”. No entanto, Goswami (2003, p. 537) aponta uma dificuldade para essa solução do problema da medição: se admitirmos que a consciência, unitiva e transcendente, traz à atualidade manifesta alguns aspectos da sua própria potencialidade transcendente, ela seria onipresente. No entanto, se aceitarmos tal uso do termo “consciência”, ela estaria sempre observando, de modo que caberia a pergunta: a que ponto uma medição está completa? Isto é, como poderia haver mais do que uma medição se a consciência onipresente estaria continuamente medindo? Dessa forma, a simples introdução da hipótese de uma consciência onipresente como agente causal na medição quântica não resolveria o problema da medição. Na tentativa de resolver tal dificuldade, Goswami (2003, p. 537) afirma que “a medição não está completa sem a inclusão da percepção autorreferencial mente-cérebro”, o que implicaria numa circularidade causal na medida em que “a percepção é necessária para completar a medição, mas sem que uma medição esteja completa, não há percepção”. Goswami (1993, p. 99) afirma que é dessa autorreferência que surge a percepção subjetiva, como um epifenômeno da experiência. Tais ideias acerca do funcionamento autorreferencial entre mente-corpo teriam sido inspiradas na obra de Douglas Hofstadter (1979). Resumidamente, Hofstadter (1979, p. 684–714) 128 considera que uma das características da autorreferência —tal como apontada pela noção de incompletude de Gödel (1967)— seria a emergência de um nível que a transcenda; em sua terminologia, afirma que a autorreferência forma uma “hierarquia entrelaçada”, da qual um “nível inviolado” emerge. Para Hofstadter (1979, p. 688), tais níveis são hierárquicos, de modo que o nível inviolado governa o que acontece no nível entrelaçado, mas o nível entrelaçado não pode afetar o nível inviolado. Na terminologia de Goswami (1993, p.192), a consciência seria análoga ao “nível inviolado”, que governa o aparelho mentecorpo autorreferente, ou em “hierarquia entrelaçada”. No entanto, próprio do nível inviolado, a definição de “consciência”, para Goswami, fugiria aos critérios discursivos: O que é a consciência? Podemos começar a discussão com o que não é. Não é uma parte da dualidade mente-matéria, interno-externo. Não é um objeto, embora objetos apareçam nela. Tem algo a ver com o subjetivo, o experienciador, o conhecedor de objetos. [. . .] Porque a consciência é a base do ser, tudo mais, incluindo palavras, conceitos e metáforas, são secundários a ela. Não podemos definir a consciência completamente com itens que são secundários a ela, acentuando o mistério. (Goswami, 2001, p. 14). Poderíamos, talvez, delinear certa influência da filosofia platônica no pensamento de Goswami (2001, p. 14) acerca da (in)definição do termo “consciência” na medida em que, para a ontologia de Platão (A República, VI, §509d–511e), a razão discursiva (do grego “dianóia”) não seria suficiente para apreender os níveis ontológicos mais elevados, tal como a suprema Ideia de Bem ou Sumo Bem. Maria Pereira (1990) comenta esse aspecto da metafísica platônica da seguinte maneira: 129 [. . .] o mundo visível (horata ou doxasta) tem em primeiro lugar uma zona de eikones (“imagens”, ou, como outros preferem, “ilusão”). Num nível mais elevado, temos todos os seres vivos (zoa) e objetos do mundo, conhecidos através de pistis (fé). O mundo inteligível (noeta) tem também dois sectores proporcionais a estes, o inferior e o superior, o primeiro apreendido através da dianóia (“entendimento” ou “razão discursiva”) e o segundo só pela nóesis (“inteligência” ou “razão intuitiva”). (Pereira, 1990, xxix–xxx). Em seu dicionário etimológico do vocabulário filosófico grego, Ivan Gobry reitera essa ideia: Esse termo [“dianóia”] tem sentido vago; indica habitualmente um modo de pensamento menos elevado que a nóesis. Classicamente, a diánoia é o conhecimento discursivo, por raciocínio. Assim, em Platão, ela é o grau inferior da ciência, que recorre a conceitos em vez de contemplar diretamente as Essências (v. dialektiké, psykhé). (Gobry, 2007, p. 41). Ademais, há, na ontologia de Platão (A República, VII, §519d521b), considerações que pressupõem a conexão entre as noções de “unidade” e a “Ideia de Bem”, o que atenua a possibilidade de um paralelo com a noção de “consciência” em Goswami. Além da influência na filosofia grega, da mesma forma que Schrödinger em seu pensamento tardio, o pensamento de Goswami é claramente influenciado por diversos aspectos da literatura mística, principalmente no que se refere à unidade com o nível ontológico mais elevado (a saber, a consciência unitiva): Mas, dizem os sábios espirituais, os descobridores da filosofia monista idealista, embora não possamos 130 defini-la, podemos sê-la, nós somos ela. É nossa ignorância que nos impede de ver nossa natureza original, nossa interconectividade com a fonte. (Goswami, 2001, p. 14). As propostas de solução para o problema do dualismo analisadas acima pressupõem o uso do referencial filosófico indiano (se é que tal expressão faz algum sentido) —o que ainda é bastante polêmico na prática científica e filosófica do ocidente. Uma das principais dificuldades de utilizar a sabedoria do vasto oriente para compreender o uso da noção de “consciência” na mecânica quântica é que várias vertentes do pensamento indiano, tal como o Vedanta, pressupõem a experiência mística (se é que tal expressão faz algum sentido), isto é, parece fugir do escopo de investigação limitado pelo discurso racional da ciência e pela filosofia. Dessa forma, na medida em que fazem uso referencial do Vedanta, as soluções de Bass (1971) e Goswami (1989), bem como o pensamento tardio de Schrödinger (1964), a despeito de sua plausibilidade, deveriam ser, no mínimo, precedidas por uma discussão acerca da legitimidade do uso da literatura mística como referencial ontológico para as ciências empíricas, como a mecânica quântica —o que não é do escopo desta discussão. Ainda assim, a filosofia processual de Whitehead (1928) tem aberto um frutífero campo de investigação para os estudos da consciência frente às dificuldades da noção de consciência frente ao dualismo e sua relação com a mecânica quântica, como apontam os estudos de Eastman e Keeton (2003), Epperson (2004), Stapp (2007) —o que pode indicar um campo para investigação futura de modo a possivelmente oferecer uma solução melhor aceita pelas comunidades científica e filosófica. Tratarei brevemente dessa investigação no Capítulo 4. Para finalizar essa exposição, refiro-me à proposta de Manousakis (2006), que oferece um modelo em que a teoria 131 quântica é fundada sob a base ontológica da consciência sem fazer referência ao pensamento indiano, mas, ainda assim, há características místicas em sua base ontológica. Pode-se constatar diversos pontos em comum com a proposta de Goswami (1989): para Manousakis (2006, p. 800), a consciência teria caráter unitivo e seria a base ontológica da realidade; haveria apenas uma única consciência, nomeada de “fluxo Universal da consciência”, do qual emergiriam “subfluxos”, como o “fluxo individual da consciência”. Em contraste à interpretação da consciência causal, chamarei as propostas delineadas acima como “interpretação mística da consciência”, ainda que a motivação possa ter sida metafísica. Até o presente, pouco se avançou no debate, e a interpretação mística também acaba não decolando —ainda que por motivos distintos daqueles enfrentados pela interpretação da consciência causal. Talvez a maior dificuldade conceitual das interpretações místicas da consciência é o misteriosismo que envolve a própria noção de consciência, central não só para o funcionamento da interpretação, mas base ontológica de toda uma visão de mundo que depende desse conceito. 3.3 Outras interpretações Existem inúmeras atitudes frente ao problema da medição, questão que procurei delinear ao longo do texto.14 Dentre as diversas abordagens, destacarei cinco atitudes frente ao problema, com base no critério de sua popularidade na comunidade científica contemporânea. Selecionei, nos próximos parágrafos, algumas leituras com 14 Um exame histórico-conceitual mais abrangente sobre as diversas abordagens para o problema da medição pode ser encontrado em Pessoa Junior (1992). 132 base na repercussão que tiveram, a título de amostragem. Deve ficar claro que tal não é meu propósito aprofundar a discussão acerca de todas as interpretações selecionadas adiante. Cada uma delas mereceria um estudo à parte para que se pudesse apresentar sua riqueza e complexidade; limito-me a apresentálas muito brevemente, a título de amostragem, como interpretações possíveis dentre as mais influentes e/ou populares. Dessa forma, me limito a uma abordagem bastante resumida e superficial, indicando bibliografias que possam aprofundar a discussão. As atitudes frente à noção de “medição” foram selecionadas de forma a exemplificar como o problema não é abordado de forma unilateral, isto é: a interpretação da consciência não é necessária. As leituras selecionadas são, cronologicamente: a interpretação estatística que, assim como a interpretação de Copenhague, também é amplamente aceita pela comunidade científica e frequentemente utilizada em diversos livros-texto de mecânica quântica;15 a interpretação causal de Bohm (1952), por se tratar de uma abordagem heterodoxa bastante completa; a interpretação dos estados latentes, abordagem crítica de Henry Margenau (1963) frente ao conceito de “colapso” na medição quântica, bem como sua atitude crítica frente às interpretações subjetivas, que Jammer (1974) destaca como influente; a interpretação dos estados relativos de Everett (1957), por ser uma das abordagens heterodoxas mais populares; a abordagem do colapso espontâneo de Ghirardi, Rimini e Weber (1986 [doravante citado como GRW, 1986]), por também ser uma das atitudes mais bem aceitas na comunidade científica contemporânea.16 Com exceção das formulações GRW, 1986 e “estatística”, todas as outras atitudes destacadas adiante negam a validade do colapso, se enquadrando nas chamadas “teorias sem colapso”. 15 16 De acordo com Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 25, nota 3). De acordo com Albert (1992). 133 Estatística Iniciarei a discussão a partir da interpretação estatística, também conhecida como “interpretação dos coletivos estatísticos” ou “interpretação dos ensemble”. Ballentine (1970, p. 360) distingue as interpretações da teoria quântica em dois grupos maiores: as interpretações nas quais a mecânica quântica provê uma descrição completa e exaustiva sobre sistemas individuais e as interpretações nas quais a mecânica quântica provê uma descrição completa e exaustiva sobre sistemas coletivos. A mesma oposição é feita por Jammer (1974, p. 440). As interpretações do primeiro tipo são consideradas interpretações ortodoxas e, as do segundo tipo, são consideradas interpretações estatísticas. A noção de “coletivos estatísticos” ou “ensemble” remete a um grupo imaginário de diversos sistemas com a mesma estrutura macroscópica e o mesmo sistema microscópico a ser medido. Primeiramente, é relevante destacar a maneira como Ballentine (1970) define e noção de interpretação “ortodoxa” da teoria quântica com um significado distinto e mais abrangente do que aquele que utilizamos ao longo deste livro. Até aqui, a noção de “ortodoxia” tem correspondência exclusiva com a formulação de Copenhague e suas ligações com o empirismo lógico. Segundo a formulação de Ballantine, no entanto, até mesmo a interpretação de von Neumann (1955) seria entendida como uma atitude ortodoxa. De fato, Ballentine (1970, p. 360) considera que tanto a “interpretação de Princeton” —a qual von Neumann seria o fundador— quanto a interpretação de Copenhague da mecânica quântica “[. . .] reivindicam ortodoxia”. No entanto, como vimos anteriormente, essas duas interpretações ditas ortodoxas têm suas dificuldades no âmbito filosófico. Seja a necessidade de uma ontologia para abarcar a noção de um observador para causar a medição na interpretação de Princeton, ou a prioridade ontológica dos objetos clássicos na medição da interpretação de Copenhague. 134 O fato de evitar os paradoxos e os problemas filosóficos da teoria quântica seria uma das três motivações principais que Home e A. M. B. Whitaker (1992, p. 262–264) destacam para a adoção das interpretações estatísticas. Proposta por Einstein em 1927, na ocasião da vigésima terceira Conferência de Solvay, tal interpretação fora formulada justamente para evitar quase todas as dificuldades filosóficas discutidas neste livro— quiçá todas as dificuldades filosóficas da mecânica quântica. Isso porque as dificuldades surgem quando os sistemas quânticos são tratados como sistemas individuais, e não como apanhados estatísticos. Outra motivação destacada por Home e A. M. B. Whitaker (1992, p. 262) seria a de erigir a física sobre uma ontologia realistaobjetivista, isto é, manter na mecânica quântica nossas percepções intuitivas acerca da realidade que nos cerca. Como destaca Putnam (2005, p. 624), essa motivação seria compartilhada por Einstein. Talvez o fato da interpretação de Copenhague oferecer uma visão contraintuitiva do mundo à nossa volta seria um dos motivos para que Einstein tivesse tantas objeções a essa interpretação. Para ilustrar esse ponto, Putnam (2005, p. 624) relata um diálogo, na qual afirma, em paráfrase, que Einstein havia dito algo como “olha, eu não acredito que quando não estou no meu quarto minha cama se espalha por todo o cômodo, e sempre que eu abro a porta e entro ela salta novamente para o canto”. Isso é um problema, como visto no Capítulo 2, quando há incompatibilidade entre uma OT assumida previamente e uma ON obtida pela teoria. No entanto, Fine (1990, p. 968) declara que “até onde eu pude descobrir [. . .] Einstein não oferece em lugar algum uma descrição detalhada da [. . .] interpretação estatística”. Ainda assim, a despeito da falta de uma formulação textual detalhada, diversos físicos teriam utilizado as ideias de Einstein sobre ensembles para criar propostas estatísticas para a mecânica quântica. Há, no entanto, uma grande variedade de abordagens estatís135 ticas para a interpretação da mecânica quântica, com diferentes nomes e especificidades, e não há consenso sobre exatamente qual interpretação Einstein teria endossado. Contudo, como procurei enfatizar no Capítulo 2, o comprometimento ontológico de Einstein com uma realidade independente acaba por sugerir que ele endossaria um tipo de interpretação na qual todas as variáveis, em todos os instantes, possuem valores passíveis de serem revelados por meio de medições, de modo que todo indeterminismo se dê pelo desconhecimento de todas as variáveis envolvidas no processo de medição. Tais variáveis seriam as variáveis ocultas,17 isto é, são criptodeterministas no sentido de um indeterminismo epistemológico subjacente a um determinismo ontológico. Para Ballentine (1970), essa seria a forma mais natural de pensar a posição einsteiniana sobre ensembles. Essa posição se coaduna com evidência textual, que procuramos destacar, do comprometimento ontológico com uma realidade independente e pré-existente na obra de Einstein. Home e A. M. B. Whitaker (1992, p. 263), Bunge (1967, p. 7) e Fine (1986, p. 43) vão além e apontam para o fato de que, para muitos, essa interpretação seria a interpretação estatística. No entanto, destaco uma definição mínima para a atitude estatística, presente em todas as interpretações estatísticas, formulada por Gibbins (1987, p. 76). De acordo com tal definição, uma interpretação estatística considera que uma função de onda representa um ensemble, isto é, que a mecânica quântica trataria exclusivamente das estatísticas dos resultados obtidos por uma numerosa sequência de medições simultâneas de sistemas coletivos (chamados de “ensemble”), e não sobre quaisquer propriedades dos objetos físicos. Dessa forma, a atitude estatística 17 Para um estudo detalhado das teorias de variáveis ocultas, ver Belinfante (1973). 136 contrasta com a atitude ortodoxa, para a qual a função de onda forneceria uma descrição completa de um sistema individual. De acordo com Park (1973), o conceito de colapso também é rejeitado por essa interpretação. Assim, deve ficar claro que, para a interpretação estatística, o problema da medição não existe. Para exemplificar a atitude mínima da interpretação estatística frente à situação do gato de Schrödinger (1983), Ross-Boney (1974, p. 22) escreve que “Em qualquer experimento, aproximadamente metade dos gatos estão mortos [. . .] e metade estão vivos”. Isto é, todo debate filosófico em torno do conceito de medição é evitado. Se trata de uma interpretação puramente funcional da teoria quântica, evitando grande parte dos seus problemas filosóficos. Por esse motivo, recebe grande atenção por parte da comunidade científica. Da forma como Jammer (1974, p. 119) descreve, tal interpretação seria “mais palatável para a maioria dos físicos”. Isto é, tal interpretação evita diversos problemas filosóficos ao preço de considerar a ciência como um instrumento computacional, e não uma descrição da realidade objetiva. Essa concepção instrumentalista, de acordo com o que vimos anteriormente, parece conflitar diretamente com a concepção de ciência do próprio Einstein (1949b, p. 667), segundo o qual, reitero, uma teoria física deveria fornecer “[. . .] a descrição completa de qualquer situação real (e individual, que supostamente existe independentemente de qualquer ato de observação ou comprovação)”. Desse modo, parece mais seguro afirmar que as interpretações estatísticas não solucionam os problemas filosóficos nos fundamentos da interpretação da teoria quântica, mas somente evitam-nos para fins heurísticos. Variáveis ocultas A interpretação causal da teoria quântica fora apresentada por Bohm (1952) como uma interpretação alternativa à de Copenha137 gue. A interpretação causal, de acordo com Freire Junior et al. (2000, p. 124), apresentaria “os mesmos resultados já obtidos pela teoria quântica não relativista [ortodoxa], mas em uma interpretação distinta daquela usual, a da complementaridade”, distinção essa que residiria “na recuperação de certas premissas epistemológicas próprias da física clássica, como o determinismo”; ainda assim, não se tratava de uma recuperação do quadro clássico, na medida em que Bohm propunha a ideia de um chamado “potencial quântico”, que seria responsável por efeitos essencialmente quânticos, como a não localidade. A teoria de Bohm é essencialmente determinista, introduzindo variáveis ocultas não locais; assim, como observa Freire Junior (2005, p. 7), “os elétrons de Bohm tem posições e momentos bem definidos; assim, eles têm trajetórias contínuas e bem definidas”. De acordo com Cushing (1996, p. 5), não há um “problema da medição”, na medida em que o colapso não é admitido; assim, “uma partícula sempre tem uma posição definida entre medições. Não há superposição de propriedades e ‘medição’ [. . .] é uma tentativa de descobrir sua posição atual”. Fica claro que se trata de uma interpretação que se compromete com algum tipo de realismo, na medida em que a “medição” é considerada um ato de revelação de propriedades dos objetos quânticos. d’Espagnat (1983, p. 94) considera a ontologia Bohmiana como um “realismo não-físico”, justamente porque a realidade transfenomenal dos objetos quânticos, isto é, entre observações, não corresponde à ordem física. De acordo com Freire Junior (2015, p. 59), Bohm abandona a interpretação causal já na década de 1950; na década de 1980 desenvolve, com a colaboração do matemático Hiley, uma interpretação ontológica.18 Apesar de tal mudança na concepção da interpretação da teoria quântica, Freire Junior (2015, p. 60) aponta 18 Ver Bohm e Hiley (2006). 138 que “houve um comprometimento permanente com um tipo de realismo científico. [. . .] O determinismo, que seria a motivação da interpretação causal, foi abandonado”. Em sua interpretação ontológica, Bohm (1951b, p. 218–271)19 postula “ordens” ontológicas sutis, de modo que a ordem física, que nós observamos, seria chamada de “ordem explicada”, que seria determinada por uma ordem sutil mais alta, chamada de “ordem implicada” —em que estariam, por exemplo, fenômenos não locais como a “consciência”. No entanto, conforme expressa em uma entrevista com R. Weber (2003, p. 140), quando questionado sobre a existência de uma “ordem super super-implicada”, Bohm respondera que “pode haver uma ordem implicada até mesmo maior do que essa [super super-implicada]” —o que poderia ser considerado uma dificuldade filosófica na medida em que as “ordens” ontológicas cada vez mais altas poderiam ser postuladas infinitamente. Tal dificuldade parece se assimilar ao argumento de Aristóteles (Metafísica, Livros I, II e III, I, §990b17) do “terceiro homem” que deriva de uma redução ao infinito da teoria das formas platônicas, que poderiam, de acordo com a interpretação aristotélica, ser postuladas em graus ontológicos infinitamente mais altos. Cushing (1996, p. 6) e Freire Junior (2015, p. 63–64) destacam que a interpretação de Bohm não fora aceita nas primeiras décadas desde sua formulação, por motivos sociológicos, embora Freire Junior (2015, p. 64) aponte que tal teoria tem conquistado prestígio e popularidade nas comunidades científica e filosófica, principalmente a partir dos anos 2001. Estados relativos A interpretação de Everett (1957) da mecânica quântica, conhecida como a “interpretação dos estados relativos” é uma das in19 Ver também Bohm e Hiley (2006, p. 381–388). 139 terpretações heterodoxas da mecânica quântica mais populares. J. A. Barrett (1999, §2) identifica tal interpretação como uma reação direta ao problema da medição, conforme enunciada por von Neumann (1955). Everett (1957, p. 316) apresenta tal interpretação a partir de dois postulados iniciais: a) a teoria quântica é completa sem o colapso, isto é, funciona inteiramente com as leis dinâmicas contidas na evolução linear; b) “todo sistema sujeito a uma observação externa pode ser considerado como parte de um sistema isolado maior”. Tal “sistema maior”, é chamado por Everett (1957, p. 317) de “estado absoluto”, do qual partem os múltiplos “estados relativos”. Na formulação de Everett, no processo de medição, o estado absoluto se desdobra em estados relativos paralelos, de modo que cada possibilidade de superposição de fato aconteça em cada estado relativo: Ao longo de toda sequência do processo de observação, existe apenas um sistema físico representando o observador, ainda que não exista um único estado do observador (que se segue das representações dos sistemas que interagem). Apesar disso, existe uma representação em termos de uma superposição, em que cada elemento contém um estado definido do observador e um estado do sistema correspondente. Assim, em cada observação (ou interação) sucessiva, o estado do observador se “ramifica” em um número de estados diferentes. Cada ramificação representa um resultado diferente da medição e do estado correspondendo ao estado do objeto. Todas as ramificações existem simultaneamente na superposição após qualquer sequência de observações. A “trajetória” da configuração da memória de um observador realizando uma sequência de medições não é, portanto, uma sequência linear de configurações na memória, mas 140 uma árvore que se ramifica, com todos os resultados possíveis existindo simultaneamente em uma superposição final com vários coeficientes no modelo matemático. (Everett, 1957, p. 320–321). É importante salientar que na interpretação de Everett (1957, p. 320, nota) não existe a dicotomia entre estados potenciais e estados atuais, tampouco a transição de potência para ato: “todos os elementos de uma superposição (todos as ‘ramificações’) são ‘atuais’; nenhum é mais ‘real’ do que os demais”, de modo que todos os elementos de uma superposição obedeçam, igual e separadamente, à evolução linear —o que implicaria, para Everett (1957, p. 320, nota), numa “total falta de efeito de uma ramificação sobre outra”, o que também implica que “nenhum observador jamais estará ciente de qualquer processo de ‘divisão”’. A questão da impossibilidade da observação de tal ramificação dos estados é salientada por Jammer (1974, p. 514), quem afirma que “nenhum experimento em dada ramificação poderia revelar o resultado de uma medição obtida em outra ramificação do universo”. Assim, lembrando da taxonomia de Maudlin (1995) apresentada no início deste capítulo, essa interpretação nega a assunção C, isto é, que existam resultados únicos de medição. Nessa interpretação, mantendo a analogia do gato de Schrödinger, gatos vivos e gatos mortos existem, simultaneamente, em ramificações diferentes. DeWitt (1970, p. 30) cunhou o termo “mundos” para a noção de “estados relativos”, quando afirmou que, revisitando o paradoxo do gato, a interpretação dos estados relativos “[. . .] considera que os gatos habitam dois mundos simultâneos, que não interagem, mas que são igualmente reais”, o que popularizou a interpretação de Everett como a “interpretação dos muitos mundos”. Jammer ressalta que, nessa interpretação dos estados relativos, as superposições nunca colapsam. Dessa forma: Para conciliar essa suposição com a experiência ordinária, que atribui ao sistema do objeto (ou o sistema 141 de aparelhos correlacionados) após a medição apenas um valor definitivo do observável, a formulação dos estados relativos faz a sugestão ousada de que o “mundo” [. . .] foi dividido, como consequência da interação, para uma multiplicidade de “mundos” igualmente reais, cada um dos quais correspondendo a um componente definido pela superposição [. . .]. Assim, em cada “mundo” separado uma medição tem apenas um resultado, apesar do resultado diferir, em geral, de “mundo” para “mundo”. (Jammer, 1974, p. 512). Ainda assim, Barrett observa que Everett jamais endossou que a noção de “estados relativos” pudesse ser traduzida para o termo “mundos”: De fato, a maioria das interpretações da mecânica quântica sem colapso tem sido, uma vez ou outra, atribuídas diretamente a Everett ou sugeridas como reconstruções caridosas. A mais popular dessas, a interpretação dos muitos mundos, é frequentemente atribuída a Everett diretamente e sem qualquer tipo de comentário até mesmo quando o próprio Everett jamais descrevera sua teoria em termos de “muitos mundos”. (J. Barrett, 2018, §2). Uma análise panorâmica das críticas que a interpretação dos estados relativos recebeu pode ser encontrada em Jammer (1974, p. 516–519). Ressalto apenas que o aspecto mais criticado de tal interpretação é o comprometimento ontológico com algum tipo de multiverso; d’Espagnat (2006, p. 191–192) chega a descartar tal interpretação mediante tal crítica, na medida em que a interpretação dos estados relativos não é clara quanto ao momento em que o universo se divide, isto é, exatamente quando uma ramificação ocorreria. Para Belinfante (1973, p. 313), a interpretação dos 142 estados relativos não responde o problema da medição, mas somente evita o axioma do “colapso” de um ponto de vista prático. Ainda que os aspectos ontológicos da interpretação dos estados relativos não tenham sido o objetivo central da discussão suscitada por Everett, é notável que suscite outro espectro de problemas ontológicos —por mais que nenhum deles se relacione com o subjetivismo. Também é relevante ressaltar que tal interpretação recebera diversas releituras, com diversas formulações ontológicas, nas quais a dos “muitos mundos” referida acima é apenas uma. Outra formulação derivada seria a interpretação das “muitas mentes”, sobre as quais podemos fazer referência aos trabalhos de Albert e B. (1988) e Lockwood (1989). Outra interpretação notável, que a princípio se relaciona com a discussão da seção anterior, fora suscitada por Euan Squires (1991, 1993), na medida em que postula uma “consciência universal”, que remete ao “estado absoluto” de Everett (1957). Em um raciocínio similar ao de Wigner (1983), Squires (1991, p. 285) propõe o postulado da “universalidade da consciência”, isto é, a existência de uma consciência universal. O raciocínio de Squires se dá da seguinte forma: Se supusermos que a minha e a sua consciência pode selecionar independentemente suas experiências, então não existiria algo para prevenir que fizéssemos escolhas diferentes. [. . .] Isso não significa que iríamos discordar do resultado das nossas experiências quando nos encontrarmos (é um fato simples da teoria quântica que isso não pode ocorrer); ao invés disso, significa que o ‘você’ que eu encontraria não seria escolhido pela sua consciência, isto é, você não seria mais um ser consciente! Tal possibilidade bizarra deve, certamente, ser excluída. Isso requer que haja somente uma seleção. A maneira mais simples de assegurar que isso ocorra é postular que há somente 143 uma mente consciente [. . .], isto é, que há uma consciência universal. (Squires, 1993, p. 117–118). A proposta de Squires, no entanto, se relaciona com teorias da medição que não aceitam a existência do colapso e, por isso, se diferencia das demais propostas discutidas anteriormente. Ainda assim, como lembra Saunders (2010, p. 9, nota 5), Everett jamais teria mencionado o termo “consciência” em seus escritos, ainda que tenha se referido ao termo “experiência”, e que Zeh (2000) tenha insistido continuamente na necessidade de um postulado especial para a consciência na interpretação dos estados relativos. Estados latentes Para Margenau (1958), a evolução linear é suficiente para descrever os sistemas quânticos, de modo que o colapso introduziria, desnecessariamente, uma assimetria na teoria. As interpretações subjetivistas da consciência causando o colapso também são rejeitadas por Margenau (1963, p. 482), sob a acusação de tornar a mecânica quântica uma teoria psicológica.20 Proponente da “teoria de latência”, Margenau considera que uma medição revela um estado latente de um objeto. Jammer (1974, p. 505) chama a atenção para o fato de que Margenau, mesmo utilizando um referencial epistemológico e metodológico diverso daquele oferecido pela interpretação de Copenhague, chega a conclusões muito similares. Um dos aspectos notáveis seria a interpretação sobre os estados latentes, que se tornariam manifestos com o ato da medição, que é muito próxima da posição de Heisenberg (1958) de que os estados observáveis são potencialidades (à maneira aristotélica) passíveis de serem atualizadas com o ato da medição. 20 Ver Jammer (1974, p. 478). 144 Ainda assim, os dois autores diferem em um aspecto ontológico, na medida em que Margenau considera a medição um ato de revelação,21 enquanto Heisenberg (1983, p. 73), como vimos no Capítulo 1 a considera um ato de criação. Outro aspecto notável seria que Margenau considera a medição um fenômeno macroscópico, o que se aproxima da posição de Copenhague frente à interpretação da medição quântica. Ao mesmo tempo, tal posição de Margenau acaba por engendrar na mesma problemática que, do ponto de vista filosófico, representa uma dificuldade para a interpretação de Bohr: o referido aspecto duplo da ontologia com a qual a interpretação se compromete, isto é, a cisão arbitrária entre os domínios clássico/quântico, acompanhada por uma ontologia própria de cada domínio —especificamente com o comprometimento ontológico com entidades diferentes. Assim, por mais que evite os problemas ontológicos da consciência, a proposta de Margenau acabaria por herdar problemas fundamentalmente similares aos enfrentados pela interpretação de Copenhague, como vimos no Capítulo 1. Colapso espontâneo Por sua vez, a formulação de Ghirardi, Rimini e Weber (GRW, 1986), considerada por alguns como uma das melhores teorias da medição quântica, é uma teoria que admite o colapso descontínuo. No entanto, como aponta Maudlin (2003, p. 475), abandona a noção de que haja um agente causal necessário para que uma medição seja efetuada: “nessa teoria, colapsos acontecem aleatoriamente, com uma probabilidade fixa, e não são particularmente associados com qualquer tipo de interação”. Em tal formulação, o colapso acontece espontaneamente. De acordo com Pessoa Júnior, as formulações que assumem a noção 21 Para mais detalhes sobre esse ponto, ver Jammer (1974, p. 483). 145 de colapso espontâneo funcionariam apenas para sistemas macroscópicos. Para sistemas de poucas partículas, tal localização [colapso] ocorreria muito raramente, e praticamente não violaria a equação de Schrödinger. Para um sistema macroscópico, no entanto, composto de um grande número de partículas emaranhadas, tal colapso espontâneo ocorreria freqüentemente. Isso explicaria porque a redução só ocorre quando um aparelho macroscópico se acopla ao objeto quântico. (Pessoa Junior, 1992, p. 200). Assim, Albert (1992, p. 105) relembra que, da mesma forma como a interpretação de Copenhague e a interpretação de Margenau, a formulação de GRW, 1986 incorreria no problema filosófico do macrorrealismo. 3.4 Uma escolha filosófica Analisei, neste terceiro capítulo, o problema da medição. Introduzido propriamente por von Neumann (1955), esse problema se origina em conflito axiomático entre as equações dinâmicas e o fato empírico da observação. A posição de von Neumann foi endossada durante os anos seguintes, atingindo seu ápice na formulação subjetivista de London e Bauer (1983) e em sua maior dificuldade com a situação solipsista proposta através do experimento de pensamento do amigo de Wigner (1983). Bass (1971) tentou superar tal dificuldade utilizando a concepção de consciência oferecida por Schrödinger (1964) que, por sua vez, seria baseada nos escritos indianos do Vedanta.22 Goswami (1989) levou a cabo a formulação de uma interpretação para a mecânica 22 Ver também Schrödinger (1967). 146 quântica com base no pensamento vedântico, bem como a formulação de um paradigma para as ciências, baseado numa ontologia na qual a consciência (à maneira vedântica) é a base do ser. Conforme procurei expor, os debates filosóficos suscitados pelas dificuldades conceituais acerca da interpretação da noção de medição deram origem a diversas interpretações da teoria quântica em que, como observa Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 4) “[. . .] cada uma dessas interpretações é internamente consistente e, de modo geral, consistente com experimentos quânticos”. Todavia, pudemos observar que, dentre as interpretações que abordam o problema, nenhuma é livre de dificuldades filosóficas. Parece seguro classificar tais dificuldades em dois grupos maiores: 1) o macrorrealismo, próprio das interpretações que separam o domínio clássico do domínio quântico em dois domínios ontológicos diferentes, em que o primeiro é agente causal sobre o segundo; 2) a introdução de agentes metateóricos para a causação da medição; nos casos estudados, a introdução e comprometimento ontológico com consciência por duas vias: 2a) subjetiva/múltipla, numa concepção dualista, que herda os problemas da teoria cartesiana; 2b) unitiva, à maneira do pensamento vedantino, que também se compromete com a problemática própria dessa linha. Poderíamos colocar num terceiro grupo as teorias que não admitem a descontinuidade da medição, isto é, o colapso, como as teorias de Bohm e Everett, que também suscitam problemas ontológicos na tentativa de solucionar o problema da medição. Poderíamos ainda colocar as interpretações estatísticas num outro grupo, no qual a questão da medição não é abordada. Dessa forma, a pluralidade de opções não torna fácil a vida de quem afirma que existe uma interpretação correta da mecânica quântica —“a mais correta que as outras”. Esse é o famoso problema da subdeterminação: há diversas alternativas para in147 terpretar os fenômenos descritos pela mecânica quântica, e não temos razões disponíveis, sejam científicas ou filosóficas, para escolhermos uma em detrimento de outras. Esse alto grau de humildade epistêmica gerado pela subdeterminação, caso não seja percebido, pode esconder atitudes dogmáticas mascaradas por sentenças do tipo: “A mecânica quântica (sic) implica que . . . ”. Como vimos —ao menos em relação ao domínio ontológico— frases assim carecem de justificação epistêmica. 148 Capítulo 4 Novos horizontes A mecânica quântica funciona. Para todos os propósitos práticos, a teoria não precisa de outra interpretação que não a ortodoxa (ou até mesmo a interpretação estatística), que funciona suficientemente bem para a predição de experimentos. No entanto, se nos arriscarmos a ir além dos propósitos práticos e investigarmos os fundamentos filosóficos da teoria, poderemos observar que até mesmo as interpretações mais bem aceitas pela comunidade científica são fundadas em problemas filosóficos aparentemente insolúveis no que tange ao conceito de “medição”. O campo da interpretação da teoria quântica, especificamente em relação à interpretação do conceito de “medição”, é fortemente marcado por hipóteses “ad hoc” no sentido proposto por Popper (1974, p. 986), isto é, “uma hipótese [é] ‘ad hoc’ se é introduzida [. . .] para explicar uma dificuldade particular, mas [. . .] não pode ser testada independentemente”. A interpretação de Copenhague e a interpretação de Princeton enfrentam, respectivamente, problemas metafísicos relacionados ao macrorrealismo e à noção de “consciência”. No caso da interpretação de Copenhague, tal problemática está relacionada à falta de debate da própria noção de medição que, ainda que seja central nessa interpretação, não recebeu um tratamento de149 talhado, isto é, a interpretação de Copenhague não chega a oferecer uma teoria da medição. Por outro lado, a interpretação de Princeton surge precisamente da formulação de uma teoria da medição que aponta algumas dificuldades na adoção de uma metafísica macrorrealista. No entanto, a introdução da consciência como uma agência metateórica para a causação da medição acaba por introduzir novos problemas de ordem filosófica, na medida em que tal introdução não é acompanhada de uma formulação metafísica que defina ou ao menos discuta o lugar de tal entidade no universo em questão. Foram referidos os trabalhos tardios de Schrödinger como uma tentativa de visualizar tais questões através de um projeto filosófico que inspirou físicos, como Bass e Goswami, que deram continuidade à interpretação da “consciência” e que se empenham em responder as dificuldades apontadas pela escola de Copenhague e Princeton. No caso, Bass faz uso do referencial metafísico schrödingeriano para compreender o conceito de “consciência”, enquanto Goswami interpreta este conceito sob o referencial do monismo idealista platônico. Em ambos autores, a noção de “consciência” é unitiva, embora Goswami, assim como Schrödinger, seja mais explícito no aspecto ontológico quando considera a “consciência” unitiva como a base ontológica da realidade. Por outro lado, existem outras interpretações que não admitem o problema, conforme enunciado pelas escolas de Copenhague e Princeton. Dentre elas, as atitudes mais expressivas se encontram nas interpretações dos estados relativos de Everett e a interpretação causal/ontológica de Bohm. Ambas se utilizam de outros contornos ontológicos para evitar o chamado “problema da medição”: a primeira postula “ramificações” infinitas do universo, de modo que todas são simultaneamente reais; a segunda postula infinitas “ordens” ou “níveis” ontológicos de nível cada 150 vez mais alto, de modo que cada ordem de nível superior é agente causal e determina sua ordem subalterna. Também destaquei a atitude comum às interpretações estatísticas, nas quais a problemática filosófica em torno da medição é deliberadamente deixada de lado pela introdução de coletivos estatísticos imaginários. De fato, tal atitude acaba por ser, em muitos aspectos, uma extensão da metafísica da física clássica, mantendo, por exemplo, a noção de determinismo e realismo. Por isso, se coaduna com nossas percepções intuitivas acerca do mundo à nossa volta e, por isso, acaba por ser preferível por muitos teóricos. Também é uma atitude preferível a muitos cientistas, justamente por não se envolver com os problemas filosóficos próprios da interpretação da mecânica quântica. Ainda assim, é preciso salientar que esta interpretação não resolve as questões concernentes à interpretação do conceito de “medição” em mecânica quântica, mas deliberadamente se afasta de toda a problemática que surge na tentativa de interpretá-lo. Ademais, não deixa de ser uma atitude filosófica, na medida em que os ensembles são coletivos estatísticos inteiramente imaginários. O debate sobre “qual seria a melhor interpretação da mecânica quântica?” é um debate em aberto —ou, como Jammer (1974, p. 521) coloca, é “uma história sem um fim”—, de modo que meu propósito com este livro não foi o de resolver tal questão, mas de delinear alguns aspectos da problemática filosófica em torno da questões ontológicas e metafísicas associadas ao conceito de “medição” em mecânica quântica, principalmente quando a noção de “consciência” está atrelada a tais problemas. Ainda assim, é relevante destacar que grande parte dos problemas das interpretações destacadas neste livro se deve à falta de debate filosófico, especificamente à deficiência de formulações ontológicas para o universo de discurso que se abrira com o advento da teoria quântica. Desse modo, os debates futuros na área da metafísica, levando em consideração alguns aspectos da 151 mecânica quântica, poderiam acabar por auxiliar na elucidação de questões problemáticas centrais na teoria quântica, tais como as noções de “medição” ou “consciência”. 4.1 Quem precisa de consciência? No ano de 2011, os físicos Schlosshauer et al. (2013) apresentaram uma enquete aos participantes da conferência “Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality”, na Áustria, contendo 16 perguntas de múltipla escolha sobre diversos temas em aberto nos fundamentos da física. Em relação à pergunta acerca do papel do observador na física, apenas 6 acreditam que a consciência desempenha um papel fundamental na medição. Dentre os 35 participantes, havia 27 físicos, 5 filósofos e 3 matemáticos. Os resultados obtidos pela enquete, ainda que pouco expressiva dada a quantidade de participantes, é bastante emblemática quanto à atitude dos físicos frente ao conceito de “consciência”. É verdade, em certa medida, que a mecânica quântica não precisa da consciência, isto é, a mecânica quântica funciona mesmo sem o conceito de “consciência”. Tal é a posição de Bell (2004, p. 33), que representa a posição de diversos físicos em relação a esse assunto, mesmo nos dias atuais: a mecânica quântica funciona suficientemente bem para predizer fenômenos, resolver equações e computar probabilidades de eventos a despeito da interpretação adotada, isto é, a mecânica quântica funciona bem para todos os propósitos práticos. Ainda assim, como afirmou Tegmark (2015, p. 238), o fato de que a maioria dos problemas em física possam ser abordados (e solucionados) sem que haja referência ao conceito de “consciência”, não há nada que garanta o salto indutivo de que o mesmo se aplique a todos os problemas; ainda mais, destaca que diversos dos debates mais acalorados na física hoje envolvem a noção de medição e, por conseguinte, a noção de “consciência”. 152 A proposta de Tegmark (2015) traça um caminho diametralmente oposto daquele que sigo neste capítulo. Tegmark (2008, p. 102) admite duas teses fundamentais: 1) existe uma realidade física externa, completamente independente da percepção; 2) tal realidade tem uma estrutura matemática. Num estudo mais recente, Tegmark (2015, p. 239), contra as abordagens dualistas, assume a hipótese de que a noção de “consciência” possa ser entendida a partir de uma metafísica monista (reducionista) materialista, na qual a “consciência” representaria um estado material —assim como os estados líquidos, gasosos, plasmáticos, etc. Uma abordagem crítica ao posicionamento de Tegmark pode ser encontrada em Hut et al. (2006), em que sua atitude ontológica é nomeada de “fundamentalista”, representando o monismo materialista em oposição às atitudes “secular”, representando o dualismo (advogada por Alford) e “mística”, representando o monismo idealista (advogada por Hut). Como procurei explicitar até aqui, quando arriscamos ir além dos propósitos práticos e investigamos os fundamentos filosóficos das interpretações da teoria quântica, podemos constatar que é muito comum a ocorrência de problemas filosóficos permeando conceitos como o de “medição”, tal como a problemática suscitada pela interpretação da consciência causal sugerida por Wigner (1983), isto é, de que a medição seria completa somente com a introdução de um agente causal não físico. Kallio-Tamminen (2014, p. 258) sugere que tais problemas ocorrem devido à falta de debate entre profissionais da física e da filosofia na construção dos aspectos filosóficos das teorias físicas —o que requereria profissionais de ambas as áreas. Dessa forma, parece-me razoável afirmar que profissionais da filosofia têm um bom motivo para atentar-se aos problemas da mecânica quântica. Talvez o melhor exemplo seria o referido problema da medição que (e suas extensões, tal como o problema da “consci- 153 ência”), como procurei apontar, carece de uma discussão metafísica mais rigorosa. Assim, sugiro que a formulação de uma metafísica que leve em consideração a mecânica quântica seja uma tarefa legítima para a filosofia contemporânea. No que tange especificamente à questão da consciência na medição quântica, reitero a possibilidade de que a implausibilidade das interpretações que assumem o caráter causal da consciência esteja intimamente relacionada à ausência de uma formulação metafísica para o conceito de “consciência” que seja adequada às caracterizações colocadas pela interpretação da consciência da mecânica quântica. É precisamente neste ponto que inseri a hipótese de que a elaboração de uma metafísica para a noção de “consciência” na interpretação da medição quântica, inspirada na metafísica de processos, conforme apresentada por Alfred North Whitehead (1928) em sua magnum opus “Processo e Realidade”, poderia lançar uma nova luz (e talvez uma solução) ao problema metafísico da consciência na mecânica quântica —que procurei delinear até aqui. Assim, se trata de uma proposta calcada na esperança de que, como aponta Chalmers (1995, p. 311), “ainda que a mecânica quântica não explique a consciência, talvez uma teoria da consciência possa iluminar os problemas da mecânica quântica”. Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 271) ponderam diversas atitudes frente à interpretação do conceito de “medição” e consideram que a interpretação de que a consciência causa o colapso na medição quântica seria “especialmente favorável para uma filosofia whitehediana”. Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 270) dividem em 4 “famílias de soluções” as diversas propostas de interpretação da mecânica quântica, sendo que as do tipo (1) representariam a interpretação de Copenhague, calcada na obscura proposta de que uma medição é efetuada quando um objeto quântico interage com um aparelho macroscópico; as do tipo (2) representariam as propos154 tas do colapso espontâneo,1 que postulam a inadequação da linearidade das leis dinâmicas do movimento quântico para sistemas macroscópicos; as do tipo (3) representariam a atitude dos muitos mundos; e, finalmente as do tipo (4) representariam as propostas que consideram a consciência como agente causal na medição, isto é, responsáveis pelo colapso. Ao passo que Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 271) considerem que os grupos de propostas (1), (2) e (3) caracterizariam soluções para propósitos práticos, comprometidas (ou ao menos facilmente associáveis) com metafísicas fisicalistas/materialistas (nas quais a consciência seria um epifenômeno da matéria) ou dualistas (em que tanto a consciência quanto a matéria seriam fundamentais, mas separadas), considera que o grupo (4) seria particularmente promissor para uma abordagem filosófica sob uma perspectiva Whiteheadiana —que, como veremos adiante, oferece uma visão de mundo diferente das metafísicas dualista e fisicalista. No entanto, Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 272) acabam por negar a plausibilidade dessa interpretação, devido ao comprometimento do conceito de “consciência” com a ideia de “consciência subjetiva”, isto é, individualizada e essencialmente humana, de modo que a metafísica associada a esta tese esteja comprometida, dentre outras coisas, com as teses do solipsismo e antropocentrismo —o que seria particularmente pouco plausível. Shimony (1963, p. 763–767), assim como grande parte dos físicos atuais, descarta as interpretações que consideram que a consciência subjetiva do observador seja o agente causal do colapso na medição quântica pelos mesmos motivos que Wigner (1983). Ainda assim, é válido ressaltar que o conceito de “consciência” que está em jogo é aquele conforme apresentado pela interpretação metafísica da consciência. Tais autores pressupõem, ainda que indiretamente, uma metafísica cartesiana para o conceito de consciência que é, ao mesmo tempo, (i) dualista, na me1 Ver Ghirardi, Rimini e Weber (GRW, 1986). 155 dida em que separa “consciência” e “matéria” em substâncias distintas e (ii) subjetivista, na medida em que a noção de “consciência” é calcada no “eu”, que pensa e, por conseguinte, existe. Diferentemente da metafísica materialista, a metafísica Whiteheadiana é considerada não reducionista na medida em que não nega a eficácia causal entre os polos material e não material (mental) da existência, tampouco considera-os ontologicamente separados, como a metafísica dualista o faz. No modelo metafísico de Whitehead, o conceito de “consciência” contém e é contido pelo conceito de “matéria”; numa perspectiva de processos (e não de objetos), a consciência transcende e é transcendida pela matéria. Assim, pode-se afirmar que, numa perspectiva da metafísica de processos, o mundo é tanto imanente quanto transcendente. A princípio, tais categorizações eliminam as dificuldades que o conceito de “consciência” enfrenta em torno da problemática metafísica. Contudo, o aspecto do subjetivismo considerado acima (ii) precisa ser levado em conta, visto que uma interpretação subjetivista é indesejável em uma teoria científica, e que Whitehead considera que o conceito de “consciência” possui um aspecto subjetivo. Contudo, a noção de subjetividade da metafísica Whiteheadiana emerge de uma noção não subjetiva ou individualizada, que seria a noção de “Deus”. Como aponta Griffin (2001), um dos pontos notáveis da metafísica Whiteheadiana é o modo como transita por diversas áreas do saber; a teoria psicológica de Whitehead, por exemplo, é indissociável de sua teoria teológica. Tendo em vista que o modelo de Whitehead oferece uma forma original —e pouco referida na literatura específica, como apontam M. Weber e Weekes (2009)— de lidar com a problemática referida acima, considero que poderia ser frutífera uma leitura inspirada na metafísica Whiteheadiana do termo “consciência” para a interpretação da mecânica quântica. 156 4.2 Consciência como processo A tentativa de interpretar a mecânica quântica a partir de certos aspectos da filosofia de Whitehead não é nova. De fato, os resultados da física teriam sido um dos principais pontos de partida para a teoria de Whitehead (1928, p. 121–122), que pretende fornecer uma base conceitual àquilo que refere como “teoria quântica”. No entanto, como observa Shimony (1964, p. 240), a referida “teoria quântica” concebida nos escritos Whiteheadianos seria bastante rudimentar, formulada em 1900. Isto é, o período em que a filosofia Whiteheadiana estava sendo desenvolvida, foi anterior a um período de grandes mudanças na mecânica quântica, inclusive nos debates acerca dos fundamentos e da ontologia associada a suas interpretações —sobretudo na década de 30. Dessa maneira, Whitehead não teria mencionado em texto algum os desenvolvimentos mais “recentes” da mecânica quântica, relativos à sua contemporaneidade. Assim, é natural que autores como Shimony (1964) e Malin (1988) proponham algumas modificações de alguns conceitos da metafísica Whiteheadiana para acomodar a interpretação da mecânica quântica. Talvez a primeira proposta documentada a utilizar a filosofia Whiteheadiana para elucidar o debate em torno das interpretações de uma teoria quântica relativamente mais bem consolidada tenha sido a de Burgers (1963, 1965), seguido por, principalmente, Shimony (1963, 1964), Stapp (1979, 1982), Malin (1988, 1993, 2001) e Epperson (2004). Destaco que todos os autores referidos utilizam os mesmos conceitos para fazer o paralelo entre a mecânica quântica e a metafísica de Whitehead (1928): 1) Em relação à mecânica quântica, destaco o conceito de “potentia” contido nos escritos tardios de Heisenberg (1958, p. 12), que interpreta o conceito de “estado quântico” como uma tendência, algo entre a ideia do fenômeno (ou evento) e sua atuali- 157 dade, um “tipo de realidade física apenas no meio entre possibilidade e realidade”. Ainda que Heisenberg (1958, p. 12) elabore seu conceito de ‘potentia’ como uma releitura do conceito aristotélico de dynamis, Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 263) garantem que tal proposta é original, visto que nenhuma outra metafísica até então teria proposto essa modalidade para a realidade. Na concepção de Heisenberg (1958, p. 128), até mesmo potencialidades contrárias poderiam coexistir, tal como num caso de superposição, “já que uma potencialidade pode envolver ou sobrepor outras potencialidades”. Como apontam Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 264), o próprio conceito de “superposição” seria “derivado da inovação metafísica fundamental da potencialidade”. Nessa interpretação, uma “medição” consiste, através do colapso, na atualização de uma (dentre diversas) possibilidades superpostas —o que torna mais plausível a afirmação metafísica de Heisenberg (1983, p. 73) de que um evento “passa a existir somente quando a observamos”, e que chamamos no Capítulo 1 de “medição=criação”. No contexto Whiteheadiano, considero mais apropriada a nomenclatura “medição=atualização”. Malin (2003, p. 76–77) aponta que as potencialidades não seriam eventos no espaço-tempo —o que seria uma propriedade das atualidades. 2) Em relação à metafísica whitehediana, destaco que o conceito de “entidades atuais” é utilizado para o paralelo com a interpretação da mecânica quântica. Whitehead enuncia tal conceito pela primeira vez da seguinte maneira: As “entidades atuais” —também denominadas de “ocasiões atuais”— são as coisas reais finais das quais o mundo é formado. Não há como ir por detrás das entidades reais para encontrar algo mais real. Elas diferem entre si: Deus é uma entidade atual, e também é o sopro mais trivial da existência em um espaço vazio distante. Os fatos finais são, igualmente, entida158 des atuais; e essas entidades atuais são gotas de experiência, complexas e interdependentes. (Whitehead, 1928, p. 18). De acordo com Malin, o conceito de “entidades atuais” seria a base da metafísica proposta por Whitehead. Sendo impossível resumir toda a construção filosófica de Whitehead, dada a extensão e objetivos deste texto. Por isso, sigo o recorte proposto por Malin (1993, p. 77–78);2 que destaca oito aspectos centrais, relevantes para o debate acerca da interpretação da mecânica quântica; dentre os oito aspectos, seleciono apenas quatro que considero relevantes especificamente para o conceito de “medição”: 1. Uma entidade atual é um processo de “autocriação” atemporal e criativa, que leva a uma aparição momentânea das entidades atuais no espaço-tempo; 2. As entidades atuais são instantâneas; após o único instante em que emergem no espaço-tempo pela autocriação, fundem-se novamente (na terminologia whitehadiana, elas “compreendem”) num “plano” atemporal e fora do espaço, com todas as entidades atuais (passadas, chamadas de “fatos consumados” e futuras), como potencialidades; 3. Toda entidade atual se relaciona e está interconectada (na terminologia Whiteheadiana, forma um “nexus”) com todas as entidades atuais; 4. O final do processo de autocriação de uma entidade atual, isto é, sua aparição momentânea no espaço-tempo, é a autocriação de uma nova entidade atual ou um “pulso de experiência”, de modo que o universo Whiteheadiano não seja um universo de “objetos”, mas um universo de “experiências”. 2 Ver também Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 266–267). 159 Como aponta Stapp (2007, p. 92), o paralelo entre as metafísicas de Whitehead (1928, p. 72) na qual “as entidades atuais [. . .] tornam real o que anteriormente era meramente potencial” e Heisenberg, na qual “[. . .] a transição do ‘possível’ para o ‘real’ ocorre durante o ato de observação” é bastante sugestiva. Para Shimony, tal paralelo poderia ser visualizado da seguinte maneira: Considerem, por simplicidade, duas partículas emaranhadas. Se são consideradas, juntas, como uma única entidade atual, sua dependência mútua é natural: ambas surgem de um único campo de potencialidade. Quando uma medição ocorre em qualquer partícula, ela quebra a conexão, criando um relacionamento entre duas entidades atuais [. . .]. (Shimony e Malin, 2006, p. 274). O ganho de tal interpretação seria, para Malin (2003, p. 81), oferecer um novo horizonte de respostas para a seguinte questão —ainda não respondida— no debate acerca da interpretação medição quântica: “qual é o mecanismo do colapso?”. Na metafísica Whiteheadiana, o universo não seria um universo de objetos (ou campos), mas um universo de experiências ou processos, de modo que, se o axioma do colapso for interpretado como o processo da autocriação de uma entidade atual, tal processo não poderia ser um mecanismo que exclui a possibilidade da criatividade. Nessa leitura, o conceito de “mecanismo” parece não ter lugar. Em relação à interpretação da consciência causal, Malin (2001, p. 260–261) rejeita a interpretação de que a consciência desempenhe um papel causal no colapso. Ressalto que esta rejeição é especificamente a rejeição de que a consciência humana desempenhe tal papel—o que também rejeito. Assim como Shimony e Malin (2006, p. 271), também descarto a interpretação de que a “consciência” cause o colapso na medição quântica—ao 160 menos conforme o termo é apresentado por Wigner (1983), isso é, de maneira subjetivista e antropomórfica. Notavelmente, o estudo acerca da noção de “consciência” é permeado por uma literatura na qual a figura mais citada é Descartes, legando à discussão contemporânea o mesmo escopo de opções teóricas dados há séculos: ou uma forma de monismo reducionista (das quais as teses do materialismo e epifenomenalismo são as mais populares) ou dualismo. Para Shimony, a metafísica Whiteheadiana, sob certa chave de leitura, pode oferecer uma abordagem frutífera ao tradicional problema mente-corpo: Não há nada que sabemos melhor do que isso, que temos experiências conscientes. Não há nada que sabemos muito melhor do que a matéria de que o mundo é feito é inanimada. [. . .] Coloque os juntos; você não tem uma solução, você tem um quebra-cabeça, um quebra-cabeça terrível. [. . .] Eu sou muito simpático com Whitehead porque Whitehead dá uma resposta a isso postulando um universo primitivo que não é totalmente inanimado; ele chama sua filosofia de “filosofia do organismo”. Isso é tão promissor quanto qualquer solução que eu conheça para o problema mente-corpo, mas deixa terrivelmente os de fora. (Shimony e Smolin, 2009, p. 451–452). Os “detalhes” aos quais Shimony se refere na passagem acima também são mencionados por Malin sob a forma de problemas ainda abertos dentro da metafísica Whiteheadiana: A filosofia do processo de Whitehead fornece uma base metafísica para a compreensão da realidade. No entanto, questões essenciais são deixadas sem resposta: A realidade consiste em níveis, alguns dos quais são “superiores” a outros em um sentido profundo? 161 Os seres humanos têm um lugar e um papel a desempenhar no esquema cosmológico? [. . .] surpreendentemente, o misterioso “colapso dos estados quânticos” continua sendo uma rica fonte de sugestões. O colapso, o processo de transição do potencial para o real, envolve uma seleção: Existem muitas possibilidades, das quais apenas uma é atualizada. Como é feita a seleção? (Malin, 2001, p. 189). A proposta de Malin (2003, p. 93) seria, seguindo a máxima, atribuída a Paul Dirac, de que “a Natureza faz a escolha”, isto é, de que a “Natureza” causa o colapso. Ainda que não especificada a definição dessa “Natureza” com letra maiúscula, em sua leitura, isso corresponde à atualização das potencialidades, ou ainda, sua autocriação, com uma aleatoriedade intrínseca —daí a indeterminação quântica. Dado o caráter investigativo desta proposta, parece-me precipitado nos alinharmos de antemão com tal perspectiva. Outra tentativa de interpretar a mecânica quântica, em específico, o papel causal da consciência na medição quântica, é feita por Henry Stapp. Sua proposta vai no caminho inverso daquele proposto pela interpretação da consciência causal, que procurou utilizar a consciência para compreender a mecânica quântica; Stapp (2007) procura utilizar a mecânica quântica para compreender a consciência —caminho este que também é traçado por Penrose (1994). No entanto, como observa Landau (1998, p. 172), “Penrose aceita que a mente consciente surge como um funcionamento do cérebro físico [. . .]”, tese que não é endossada por Stapp (2006), que propõe uma metafísica que chama de “dualismo interativo”. Como aponta Mohrhoff: 162 A teoria que ele [Stapp]3 acaba formulando é completamente diferente da teoria que ele inicialmente professa formular, pois no começo a consciência é responsável pelas reduções de vetores de estado [colapso], enquanto no final uma nova lei física é responsável —uma lei que de forma alguma depende da presença da consciência. (Mohrhoff, 2002, p. 250). É possível interpretar a ontologia Whiteheadiana a partir de uma metafísica dualista. Conforme a leitura apontada por Lovejoy (1960, p. 169), Whitehead seria “um adversário do dualismo com o qual estamos preocupados aqui, mas apenas um dualista com uma diferença”; como aponta Shimony (1964), a leitura dualista, se legítima, seria fundamentalmente contrária à própria proposta Whiteheadiana que, como enfatiza Weekes (2009), é essencialmente monista. Entendendo a pluralidade de leituras (dualistas e monistas) da metafísica Whiteheadiana, procurei utilizar a chave de leitura monista, oferecida por Weekes (2012), Griffin (2009) e Nobo (2003) para compreender o conceito de “consciência” no que se relaciona com a noção de “colapso” na interpretação do conceito de “medição” em mecânica quântica. Como aponta Griffin (2009), a concepção Whiteheadiana de “consciência” difere radicalmente da posição cartasiana (dualista) e materialista (reducionista) — que são as leituras predominantes para o conceito de “consciência” na filosofia da física— ainda que mantenha alguns aspectos dessas concepções metafísicas: Com os dualistas, Whitehead concorda que a consciência pertence a uma entidade —uma mente ou 3 É justo dizer que o próprio Stapp (2002, p. 264) afirma que “[essa] não é minha teoria final”. Ainda assim, quando questionado por Malin se a teoria de Stapp considera, como consequência, que a consciência causa o colapso, Stapp responde categoricamente que não endossa tal interpretação (cf. o diálogo completo em Eastman e Keeton, 2003, p. 110). 163 psique— que é distinta do cérebro, e que a liberdade genuína pode, em parte por essa razão, ser atribuída à experiência consciente. Com os materialistas, Whitehead compartilha uma sensibilidade naturalista, evitando assim qualquer solução implícita sobrenaturalista para problemas filosóficos, e, em parte por essa razão, rejeita qualquer dualismo entre dois tipos de realidades. Como materialistas, em outras palavras, ele afirma um monismo pluralista. Assim, ele considera a consciência como uma função de algo mais fundamental. (Griffin, 2009, p. 175). Nobo (2003, p. 225) também enfatiza que a noção de “consciência”, na metafísica Whiteheadiana, não se reduz à experiência humana ou à subjetividade —o que acaba por evitar a dificuldade antropomorfista das leituras utilizadas até então para o conceito na filosofia da física, e parece oferecer, também, uma chave de leitura para evitar a dificuldade do solipsismo que pode emergir de uma leitura subjetivista do conceito de “consciência” na metafísica Whiteheadiana. Além disso, como observa Katzko (2009, p. 206–208), o debate contemporâneo na filosofia da mente, especificamente para a leitura da noção de “consciência”, está, em sua parte mais expressiva, comprometido com uma metafísica materialista ou dualista. A título de amostragem: existem os proponentes uma metafísica fisicalista que, assim como Stapp (1982), consideram a causação mental sobre o físico mas, ao mesmo tempo, consideram a estrutura cerebral como definitivamente importante para a ocorrência do aspecto mental; Dennett (1991), ainda mais radical, defende a tese do “funcionalismo” de que a mente é um produto do arranjo cerebral, não podendo ter ação causal sobre o cérebro, situando-se entre os materialistas ou epifenomenalistas; Chalmers (1995) considera ambos os polos, material e mental, igualmente importantes, o que o aproxima dos dualistas através 164 daquilo que chama de “dualismo interativo”; em todos os casos, um dos questionamentos centrais seria de causação, isto é: como o aspecto físico da realidade poderia dar origem ao aspecto mental? Como afirma Weekes (2012), a metafísica Whiteheadiana sugere uma metafísica monista, o que também acaba por desfazer a dificuldade do dualismo no caso de utilizá-la para interpretar a noção de “consciência” na mecânica quântica. Com o arcabouço teórico apresentado, proponho que uma metafísica inspirada na metafísica de Whitehead (ou quaseWhiteheadiana) para o conceito de “consciência”, especificamente em relação ao papel da consciência no aspecto do colapso da medição quântica, poderia, ao mesmo tempo, (i) lançar uma nova luz ao problema da medição na interpretação da mecânica quântica, (ii) oferecer uma nova abordagem ao clássico problema mente-corpo de forma diversa às leituras padronizadas, isto é, ao cartesianismo e materialismo. Encerro este capítulo com a esperança de que tal proposta possa vir a incentivar novas pesquisas na filosofia da mecânica quântica —até mesmo para provar se tal proposta é infrutífera. 165 Capítulo 5 Questões de formalismo Os objetos quânticos não podem ser visualizados diretamente, da mesma maneira como este livro diante de nossos olhos. São de tal magnitude que não podem sequer ser visualizados em microscópio. Por isso, o formalismo é de extrema importância para as discussões sobre mecânica quântica: é somente por meio do formalismo que os objetos quânticos são tratados. O termo ‘formalismo’, adverte Krause (2016, p. 27), conforme empregada na literatura da física, designa a formulação matemática da mecânica quântica “[. . .] e não se relaciona, a princípio, com sistemas formais que são tratados em lógica e em fundamentos da matemática”. Como pontuam Susskind e Friedman (2014, p. 2), não somos biologicamente aptos a perceber os objetos da mecânica quântica com nossos órgãos sensoriais, de modo que “o melhor que podemos fazer é tentar entender os elétrons e seus movimentos como abstrações matemáticas”. Nesse preciso sentido, Paty (1995, p. 137) considera que a mecânica quântica, “[. . .] uma vez estabelecida, propõe-se, antes de qualquer interpretação, como um formalismo”. Em tal formalismo, como observa Paty, os estados quânticos: [. . .] são representados numa formulação teórica, em 166 termos de operadores que se aplicam a vetores de estado e, para realizá-lo, recorremos a entidades matemáticas apropriadas. As propriedades dos objetos ou conceitos físicos assim designados são, consequentemente, determinados, de um lado, pela coerência lógico-matemática do esquema e da formulação [. . .]; e, de outro, pela transcrição das observações matemáticas em questão. (Paty, 1995, p. 237). De modo geral, o formalismo da mecânica quântica descreve os estados de um sistema físico, considerando os aspectos que podem ser medidos, chamados de observáveis (posição, momento, spin, etc.). Aqui, o termo ‘estado’ é um conceito primitivo, meta-axiomático, cuja definição (chamada ‘definição operacional’) é dada pelos postulados. No formalismo usual da mecânica quântica, os estados são representados pela noção de ‘vetor’. Uma função de onda, 1 frequentemente notada pelo caractere grego ψ, onde ψ(a, b, c . . . ) são os coeficientes que se movimentam —se expandem— em um espaço vetorial complexo ndimensional, nomeado por von Neumann (1955) de “Espaço de Hilbert”, notado pelo caractere H, onde H ∈ Cn , por sua vez, é caracterizado por um conjunto de vetores chamado “base” do espaço. Para Jammer (1974, p. 2), “a ideia de von Neumann de formular a mecânica quântica como um cálculo de operador no espaço de Hilbert foi, sem dúvida, uma das grandes inovações da física matemática moderna”. O formalismo, quando tomado isoladamente, sugere que a mecânica quântica trata exclusivamente do resultado de medições, mantendo-se silencioso em relação a noções tais como ‘realidade física’ e, como tal, não favorece nem rejeita uma ou outra interpretação particular. Ainda assim, para que possamos tra1 Como advertem Susskind e Friedman (2014, p. 134), não tem conexão direta com o comportamento ondulatório, sendo apenas um nome atribuído por convenção. 167 tar do formalismo, parece necessário assumir uma “interpretação mínima”, que considera o caráter probabilístico da teoria quântica. Hughes considera que tal atitude é uma premissa necessária para que a teoria quântica possa ser uma teoria física: Ao desenvolver nossa representação geral de uma teoria física, partimos de uma suposição, de que o mundo é tal que, em certas circunstâncias especificáveis, vários eventos podem receber probabilidades definidas, eu considero essa suposição mínima, se quisermos ter alguma teoria física: assumimos que existem ligações, embora apenas probabilísticas, entre um conjunto de ocorrências (as circunstâncias iniciais) e outro (os eventos resultantes). (Hughes, 1989, p. 85). (Busch et al., 1996) vão além, e caracterizam a “interpretação mínima” no sentido probabilístico: Na interpretação mínima, a mecânica quântica é considerada uma teoria física probabilística, consistindo de uma linguagem (proposições sobre resultados de medições), uma estrutura de probabilidade (um conjunto convexo de medidas de probabilidade representando as possíveis distribuições de resultados de medição) e leis probabilísticas. Além disso, as probabilidades são interpretadas como limites das frequências relativas dos resultados das medições, ou seja, no sentido de uma interpretação estatística epistêmica. (Busch et al., 1996, p. 4). Ademais, Busch et al. (1996, p. 8) constatam que “essa interpretação mínima está contida em qualquer interpretação mais detalhada da mecânica quântica”. Redhead (1987, p. 44) nomeia essa atitude de “interpretação instrumentista mínima”: 168 [. . .] como o formalismo está relacionado aos possíveis resultados da medição e às frequências estatísticas com as quais esses resultados aparecem quando uma medição é repetida várias vezes (em princípio, um número infinito de vezes) em sistemas preparados em estados quânticos idênticos. (Redhead, 1987, p. 44). Aquilo que esses autores chamam de ‘interpretação mínima’ se relaciona com a chamada ‘interpretação estatística’ de Max Born2 que, de acordo com Griffiths (1995), a teoria quântica fornece, dado um determinado estado, o valor de um observável no intervalo x e x + dx, em um tempo t. De acordo com Griffiths, essa particularidade da descrição quântica introduz a noção de “indeterminismo” na mecânica quântica, pois: [. . .] se você sabe tudo o que a teoria tem a lhe dizer sobre a partícula (a saber: sua função de onda), você não pode prever com certeza o resultado de um experimento simples para medir sua posição —tudo que a mecânica quântica tem a oferecer é uma informação estatística sobre resultados possíveis. (Griffiths, 1995, p. 2–3). As questões relativas à realidade transfenomenal dos objetos quânticos são questões que dependem estritamente da interpretação adotada, motivo pelo qual postergo tal discussão para as próximas seções. Ainda que, como afirma Redhead (1987, p. 45) teorias sem interpretação “[. . .] simplesmente não contribuem para a nossa compreensão do mundo natural”, e Jammer (1974, p. 343) “[. . .] um formalismo, ainda que completo e logicamente consistente, ainda não é uma teoria física”, reitero: ater-me-ei, nesta seção, somente àquilo que denomino “interpretação mínima”. 2 Que não deve ser confundida com a ‘interpretação dos ensembles estatísticos’ idealizada por Einstein —ver Home e M. A. B. Whitaker (1992). A interpretação estatística (também conhecida como interpretação dos ensembles) é tratada no Capítulo 3. 169 A interpretação mínima Cada base pode ser escolhida em função de um observável que se quer medir sobre o sistema em um dado estado, a partir do qual é posível designar infinitos vetores, de modo que, por exemplo, para um observável de posição, |ψi denota um coeficiente do vetor de estado na base da posição da seguinte maneira: |ψi = hx1 |ψi|x1 i + hx1 |ψi|x1 i + · · · + hxn |ψi|xn i (5.1) ρm (t) = |ham |ψ(t)i|2 (5.2) Ou seja, hxj |ψi denota o j-ésimo coeficiente do vetor de estado |ψi na base da posição. Em termos de uma densidade de probabilidade denotada por ρm , a probabilidade de que uma medição efetuada sobre um observável A no tempo t tenha como resultado o valor am é igual a (utilizarei a notação de Paul Dirac dos ‘bra-kets’ para expressar o vetor de estado ψ, de modo que ‘hψ|’ seja um bra e ‘|ψi’ seja um ket): Uma medição do observável A no tempo t representa o valor esperado (que envolve o conceito estatístico de ‘esperança matemática’) hAi(t), dado pela soma das densidades de probabilidade ρm para o resultado am no tempo t, que por sua vez é equivalente ao produto interno das funções de onda possíveis, de modo que: X hAi(t) = ρm (t)am (5.3) m Ou mais especificamente, conforme a regra de Born, a probabilidade de se encontrar o valor da medida de um observável físico A em um sistema quântico descrito por ψ(x, t) em um dado intervalo [a, b] de uma reta em R é Z b ψ(x,t) P rob[a,b] (A) = |ψ(x, t)|2 dx (5.4) a 170 Como pontua Krause (2016, p. 32), quando o observável a ser medido tem dimensão unitária, isto é, normalizada, a probabilidade de encontrar o sistema representado pela função de onda ψ(x, t) no intervalo [a, b] é simplificada pela seguinte expressão: Z b p= |ψ(x, t)|2 dx (5.5) a O valor |ψ(x, t)| é denotado pela densidade de probabilidade ρ(x, t). Reiterando: a mecânica quântica é uma teoria probabilística no sentido que fornece apenas probabilidades para os estados dos sistemas quânticos. Como recorda Krause (2016, p. 5– 6), somente os estados que obedeçam a uma condição de normalização são relevantes para a problemática em questão, visto que, ao representarem probabilidades, os escalares xi devem ter soma igual à unidade, tal que: 2 n X i=1 |xi |2 = 1 (5.6) Como observa Hughes (1989, p. 28) as probabilidades na teoria quântica são dadas na forma de expressões como |x|2 e, por isso, é importante que os coeficientes sejam normalizados, para que as expressões relativas às probabilidades possam assumir valores entre zero e um. O valor esperado é tudo o que se pode conhecer sobre um sistema quântico. Como os estados que interessa à problemática da medição quântica devem ser normalizados, é necessária a utilização da noção de “norma”, uma aplicação que associa um escalar a cada vetor, de modo que o vetor é unitário se kψk = 1; em específico, para tratar do problema da medição, interessam as normas advindas do produto interno hψ|ψi, em que: kψk = p hψ|ψi 171 (5.7) O quadrado da norma dessa função de onda fornecerá uma densidade de probabilidade de encontrar um sistema quântico em certa situação (como uma posição definida para uma partícula, por exemplo). O termo “partícula” deve ser tomado com cautela, uma vez que não há visibilidade ou analogia possível com qualquer objeto macroscópico. É relevante ressaltar que, como um instrumento heurístico, as partículas em mecânica quântica são tomadas como pontos sem extensão. Sintetizando o que foi dito até então, pode-se afirmar que, no formalismo usual da mecânica quântica, são particularmente importantes as equações do tipo: T ξ = λξ (5.8) T representa um observável de um sistema, cujo estado é representado por ξ, sendo λ o valor possível para a medida desse observável. Evolução temporal dos estados via Equação de Schrödinger Tendo esclarecido tais pontos, passemos à discussão acerca da evolução temporal dos estados dos observáveis. Muito embora a equação de Schrödinger não seja a única equação de movimento da teoria quântica (embora seja a mais utilizada), de fato, o formalismo da teoria quântica é sempre determinista. É notável que, embora a teoria quântica seja essencialmente probabilista, as leis dinâmicas que descrevem a evolução (ou movimento) temporal dos estados são deterministas. A equação de Schrödinger, especificamente, é determinista no sentido de que sua solução no tempo t = 0 determina a solução para todos os outros valores de t (positivos ou negativos, isto é, é uma equação cujo valor temporal é reversível). Assim, o valor da medição em um observável A em um tempo t, ainda que 172 não forneça valores determinados para o estado quântico |ψi, fornece elementos para a distribuição estatística de resultados para medições futuras. As leis dinâmicas da mecânica quântica são frequentemente expressas sob a equação de Schrödinger, cuja notação é a seguinte: ∂|ψi = H|ψi (5.9) ∂t Trata-se de uma equação linear, pois envolve derivadas primeiras somente, isto é, não envolve derivações de enésima potência; na medida em que suas variáveis são funções, é uma equação diferencial. A constante i~ trata-se de um coeficiente complexo explícito pelo número i, multiplicada pela constante de Planck ~ = h/2π, representando a constante do movimento de circunferência em H. A taxa de variação, representada pelo ‘∂’, indica uma derivada parcial cuja operação ∂/∂t incide em |ψi para determinar a evolução temporal, fornecendo o estado da função de onda |ψi, isto é, suas coordenadas no tempo, de modo que tal variação é igual ao cálculo do operador de energia H, chamado ‘Hamiltoniano’, multiplicado à função de onda.3 A solução da equação de Schrödinger pode admitir dois ou mais estados |ψi possíveis, cuja soma é também um estado possível. Tal é o ‘princípio de superposição’, que de acordo com Pessoa Junior (2003, p. 23) pode ser enunciado da seguinte maneira: “dados dois estados admissíveis de um sistema quântico, i~ 3 É relevante constatar que a equação de Schrödinger, conforme enunciada acima, é de fácil resolução para apenas uma partícula (como na simplificação do átomo de hidrogênio), mas, em realidade, ela funciona para qualquer número arbitrário de partículas. Em H está previsto o potencial, que substitui a influência do núcleo como uma ferramenta heurística que possibilita o cálculo do movimento do elétron desprezando suas relações com uma segunda partícula, i.e.: o núcleo. 173 então a soma desses dois estados também é um estado admissível do sistema”, o que pode ser descrito da seguinte maneira: (5.10) √ Para que os vetores sejam unitários, utiliza-se o fator 1/ 2, chamado ‘fator de normalização’. Quando uma superposição enn volve certos vetores que podem assumir valores √ complexos C , introduz-se o número imaginário i, tal que i ≡ −1. Assim, |ψ12 i = |ψ1 i + |ψ2 i i 1 |ψ12 i = √ |ψ1 i + √ |ψ2 i 2 2 (5.11) Os estados acima são ditos ‘estados puros’, em que |ψi descreve toda a informação que pode ser obtida sobre o estado de uma única partícula. Não é necessário que os vetores dos estados em superposição sejam ortogonais, isto é, vetores |ψ1 i e |ψ2 i cujo produto interno hψ1 |ψ2 i = 0; ainda assim, a ortogonalidade é utilizada em raciocínios de situações limite, sendo uma característica importante para a discussão acerca do gato de Schrödinger. Assim, supomos que os estados tratados aqui sejam ortogonais, expressos como |ψ1 i ⊥ |ψ2 i. Quando os estados são ortogonais e normalizados, tais estados são chamados de ‘ortonormais’. Uma característica importante da ortogonalidade é a exclusividade de seus estados: dois estados são ortogonais em relação um ao outro se não possuem o mesmo valor. Ambos os estados ‘1’ e ‘2’ podem ser descritos separadamente como |ψ1 i e |ψ2 i, ainda que sua soma dê origem a um novo estado |ψ12 i possível. É importante salientar que, no princípio de superposição, os estados são fatoráveis, isto é, separáveis, sendo apenas o produto tensorial dos componentes da equação, de modo que: |ψ12 i = |ψ1 i ⊗ |ψ2 i 174 (5.12) O vetor |ψ12 i pode ser decomposto em um produto de vetores, cada um em um espaço (possivelmente infinitos), tal que H = H1 ⊗ . . . Hn , de modo que se pode dizer que os vetores agem independentemente. Vale ressaltar que é bastante comum a seguinte generalização: |αi ⊗ |βi = |αi|βi = |αβi, e que os produtos tensoriais não são comutativos, de modo que: |αβi = 6 |βαi. O colapso Se uma medição for efetuada sobre |ψ12 i, apenas um dos estados superpostos |ψ1 i ou |ψ2 i será obtido. Se o estado do sistema é |ψi = Σj cj |aj i, e se a medida fornece o valor an , após a medida o sistema colapsa para o estado |an i com a probabilidade |cn |2 = |hψn |ψi|2. Quando isso ocorre, o vetor é projetado de maneira descontínua em um desses valores, chamados ‘autovalores’. O colapso, contudo, não é determinado pela evolução temporal prevista pela equação de Schrödinger, sendo que a tentativa de conciliar tais dois aspectos seja uma via de abordar o problema da medição, conforme explicitado acima. Uma característica bastante importante para a presente discussão é que os produtos tensoriais são utilizados no formalismo da mecânica quântica para representar sistemas compostos, ou seja, sistemas envolvendo mais de um sistema físico. Remontarei um exemplo dado por Redhead (1987, p. 52–54) acerca de uma ‘medição ideal’ e suas problematizações, conforme o esquema oferecido até aqui. Suponha que Q é um observável com um espectro discreto {qi }. Suponha que o estado de um sistema quântico S é um autoestado |qi i de Q, e que S interaja com um aparato de medição A. Suponha, ainda, que o autoestado de A seja |r0 i na quantidade R, e que o autoestado de A passe, em decorrência da interação, de |r0 i para |ri i, ao passo que S permaneça em |qi i. Assim, o sistema composto S + A vai de |qi i|r0 i para |qi i|ri i após a interação. Como observáveis do sistema 175 composto, os operadores para Q e R devem ser designados por Q ⊗ I e I ⊗ R respectivamente, onde o primeiro produto tensorial corresponde ao sistema S e o segundo a A. O estado inicial da situação proposta, denotando que o estado de S é uma superposição de autoestados de Q com amplitude de probabilidade ci , é dado por: ! X |ψi = ci |qi i |r0 i (5.13) i Dada a linearidade da evolução temporal do sistema, em que se supõe que todos os ri são distintos, tem-se que: X |ψ ′i = ci |qi i|ri i (5.14) i Em termos de operadores estatísticos, antes da medição, o operador para o sistema composto é: W = P|ψi = P(Pi c1 |q1 i|r0 i. 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B RAINISH : F ORMALIZING A M ULTIMODAL L ANGUAGE FOR I NTELLIGENCE AND C ONSCIOUSNESS arXiv:2205.00001v3 [cs.AI] 6 Jul 2022 Paul Pu Liang Machine Learning Department Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 pliang@cs.cmu.edu Abstract Having a rich multimodal inner language is an important component of human intelligence that enables several necessary core cognitive functions such as multimodal prediction, translation, and generation. Building upon the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), a machine model for consciousness proposed by Blum and Blum [13], we describe the desiderata of a multimodal language called B RAIN ISH , comprising words, images, audio, and sensations combined in representations that the CTM’s processors use to communicate with each other. We define the syntax and semantics of B RAINISH before operationalizing this language through the lens of multimodal artificial intelligence, a vibrant research area studying the computational tools necessary for processing and relating information from heterogeneous signals. Our general framework for learning B RAINISH involves designing (1) unimodal encoders to segment and represent unimodal data, (2) a coordinated representation space that relates and composes unimodal features to derive holistic meaning across multimodal inputs, and (3) decoders to map multimodal representations into predictions (for fusion) or raw data (for translation or generation). Through discussing how B RAINISH is crucial for communication and coordination in order to achieve consciousness in the CTM, and by implementing a simple version of B RAINISH and evaluating its capability of demonstrating intelligence on multimodal prediction and retrieval tasks on several real-world image, text, and audio datasets, we argue that such an inner language will be important for advances in machine models of intelligence and consciousness. 1 Introduction Our perception of the natural world surrounding us involves multiple sensory modalities: we see objects, hear audio signals, feel textures, smell fragrances, and taste flavors. A modality refers to a way in which a signal exists or is experienced. Multiple modalities then refer to a combination of multiple signals each expressed in heterogeneous manners [8]. The ability to seamlessly integrate and translate between different modalities is a hallmark of human intelligence that enables core cognitive functions such as multimodal prediction, translation, and generation [54, 84, 90, 91, 99, 126, 127]: 1. Multimodal fusion: encoding modalities both in individuality (e.g., reading a book) as well as in context with other modalities (e.g., listening to movie dialog while watching acted facial expressions). 2. Multimodal translation: converting a unit from one modality to semantically corresponding units in another modality. For example, seeing an image and describing its contents in text. 3. Multimodal generation: parallel generation of realistic data from multiple modalities. For example, dreaming constitutes synchronized imaginations of speech, sight, touch, smell, and other modalities. The ability to perform multimodal processing requires the development of a multimodal language comprising words, images, and sensations combined in representations that are understood by the brain [13, 54, 71, 90, 91] and decodable to human-perceptible data forms [17, 82, 102]. In this paper, we describe the desiderata of such a multimodal language called B RAINISH in accomplishing similar functionality in AI. We develop the underlying key principles of this multimodal language by defining its syntax (grammar) and semantics (meaning). Starting from a local level (e.g., Preprint, work in progress. individual words, image regions, audio segments) multimodal semantics study the relationships across data units with common meaning expressed across multiple modalities. Multimodal syntax then defines the compositional structure that jointly builds up shared multimodal units to derive holistic meaning at a global level (e.g., an entire video). Together, a multimodal language comprising syntax and semantics enables us to effectively (1) fuse modalities by discovering complementary information unique to each signal, (2) translate between modalities by taking advantage of common meaning across signals, and (3) generate new multimodal data starting with co-occurring local units and composing them to form global data of rich content. We next describe how to operationalize our formalism of B RAINISH through the lens of multimodal machine learning. Multimodal machine learning has emerged as a vibrant research area studying the computational tools necessary for processing and relating information from heterogeneous signals. Building upon recent work, our general framework for capturing unimodal and multimodal syntax and semantics in B RAINISH involves designing (1) suitable unimodal encoders to segment and represent unimodal data, (2) a coordinated representation space that relates and composes unimodal features to derive holistic meaning across entire multimodal inputs, and (3) decoders to map multimodal representations into either a prediction (for fusion) or raw data (for translation or generation). We evaluate this proposed framework in 2 ways: first conceptually by discussing how the B RAINISH multimodal language is crucial for communication and coordination in the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), a machine model for consciousness as proposed by Blum and Blum [13], and then by implementing a simple version of B RAINISH and evaluating its capability of demonstrating intelligence on a suite of multimodal prediction and retrieval tasks on real-world image [56], text [86], and audio [105] datasets. We conclude by arguing that a multimodal language is central to the study of intelligence and consciousness in human and artificial intelligence. For neuroscientists, we hope that this paper can introduce several challenges and opportunities from the perspective of multimodal machine learning which can inspire computational models of AI based on human intelligence [13, 21, 80, 89, 122]. For computer scientists, we hope that the insights from human intelligence and consciousness can potentially inform the design of new computational datasets, algorithms, and evaluation frameworks [9, 60]. In the following section, we first provide necessary background in multimodal machine learning (Section 2) to motivate our definition of a multimodal language (Section 3). We then discuss algorithms for operationally learning this multimodal language (Section 4). Using these tools, we apply them to the CTM [13] in Section 5 and to a case study on real-world multimodal datasets in Section 6. 2 Background: Multimodal Machine Learning We define a modality as a single particular mode in which a signal is expressed or experienced. Multiple modalities then refer to a combination of multiple heterogeneous signals [8]. Each modality can be represented as static inputs without a time dimension (such as images or a table of numerical data) or as temporal inputs which come in a sequence with a time-dimension such as language (a sequence of tokens), video (a sequence of frames/audio features/optical flow features), or time-series data. Many real-world research problems are inherently multimodal: from the early research on audio-visual speech recognition [31] to the recent explosion of interest in language, vision, and video understanding [31] for applications such as multimedia [66, 92, 94], affective computing [67, 109], robotics [52, 62], finance [44], dialogue [107], human-computer interaction [30, 97], education [88] and healthcare [34, 140]. The research field of multimodal machine learning (ML) brings unique challenges for both computational and theoretical research, and has emerged as a vibrant interdisciplinary field of immense importance and with extraordinary potential [8]. As relevant background, we review some of the core research challenges and main application areas of this research field. 2.1 Core research challenges There are several core challenges in multimodal learning. We briefly summarize a few below and give some definitions and examples, but defer the reader to a survey paper for more details [8]. Please refer to Figure 1 for an overview of these technical challenges. In Table 1, we give examples of concrete machine learning tasks and datasets in each area. Note that these technical challenges are not mutually exclusive. Solving each real-world multimodal problem typically requires tackling more than one core challenge in conjunction. Representation: Firstly, the challenge of multimodal representation aims to represent and summarize the multimodal data to highlight the complementarity and synchrony between modalities. The heterogeneity of multimodal data makes it particularly challenging to learn coordinated and joint representations. For example, language is often seen as symbolic while audio and visual modalities are represented as signals. Multimodal representation learning is typically exemplified by joint representations (integrating information from 2 or more modalities, effectively reducing the number of separate representations) and coordinated representations (interchanging cross-modal information with the goal of keeping 2 Representation Fusion Alignment Translation Co-learning Figure 1: Core research challenges in multimodal learning: Representation studies how to represent and summarize the multimodal data to highlight the complementarity and synchrony between modalities. Fusion aims to combine information from two or more modalities to perform a prediction (e.g., classification, regression). Alignment aims to identify the direct relations between units from two or more different modalities. Translation studies the generation of semantically-aligned information in a new and different modality. Co-learning aims to transfer knowledge between modalities and their representations. Note that these technical challenges are not mutually exclusive - solving each real-world multimodal problem typically requires tackling more than one core challenge in conjunction. the same number of representations but improving multimodal contextualization). Representation is a particularly overarching challenge that needs to be considered for every more specific challenge below. Fusion: In multimodal fusion, the main challenge is to combine information from two or more modalities to perform a prediction (e.g., classification, regression). Classic examples for multimodal fusion include audio-visual speech recognition where visual lip motion is fused with speech signals to predict spoken words [31], or recognizing human emotion from language, spoken speech, and visual gestures. Alignment: The challenge of multimodal alignment aims to identify the direct relations between units from two or more different modalities. For example, when analyzing the speech and gestures of a human subject, how can we align specific gestures with spoken words or utterances? Alignment between modalities is challenging since it may depend on long-range dependencies, involves ambiguous segmentation (e.g., words or utterances), and could be either one-to-one, many-to-many, or not exist at all. Some core tasks in multimodal alignment are cross-modal retrieval [135] and visual grounding [3]. Translation: Multimodal fusion and alignment can be contrasted with multimodal translation where the goal is to generate semantically-aligned information in a new and different modality [134]. For example, generating a descriptive caption of an image can help to improve the accessibility of visual content for blind people [40]. Multimodal translation brings about new difficulties involving the generation of high-dimensional structured multimodal data as well as their evaluation. Co-learning: Finally, a fifth challenge, co-learning, is to transfer knowledge between modalities and their representations. Exemplified by algorithms of co-training, conceptual grounding, and zero-shot learning, how can knowledge learned from one modality (e.g., predicted labels or representation) help a computational model trained on a different modality? This challenge is particularly relevant when one of the modalities has limited resources. Some examples of co-learning involve transferring knowledge from knowledge graphs to visual classification [79], images to machine translation [125], and video to language [145]. 2.2 Core Applications and Datasets In this subsection, we list some major applications of multimodal machine learning in the real world. Affective computing studies the perception of human affective states (emotions, sentiment, and personalities) from our natural display of multimodal signals spanning language (spoken words), visual (facial expressions, gestures), and acoustic (prosody, speech tone) [104]. Some commonly studied datasets and tasks involving fusing language, video, and audio time-series data to predict sentiment (CMU-MOSI [143] and CMU-MOSEI [146]), emotions (CMU-MOSEI [146]), humor (UR-FUNNY [42]), and sarcasm (MUS TARD [19]). Healthcare: Medical decision-making often involves integrating complementary signals from several sources such as lab tests, imaging reports, and patient-doctor conversations. Multimodal models can help doctors make sense of high-dimensional data and assist them in the diagnosis process [5]. MIMIC is a large-scale dataset [46] which records ICU patient data including time-series data measured every hour and other tabular numerical data about the patient (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity) to predict mortality rate and the disease ICD-9-code. Robotics: Modern robot systems are equipped with multiple sensors to aid in their decision-making. Recent work has explored methods to integrate visual (RGB and depth), force, and proprioception sensors to predict the pose of the object being pushed by the robot end-effector [62] or action-conditional learning objectives that capture forward dynamics of the different modalities (contact prediction and robot end-effector pose) [62]. These multi-sensor robots 3 Table 1: Some representative machine learning tasks and datasets for each of the multimodal challenges of fusion, alignment, translation, and co-learning. Representation is a more overarching challenge that needs to be considered for the other more specific challenges, so it does not have specific tasks or datasets. Input modalities span a: audio, e: embodied environment, f : force sensor, g: graph, i: image `: language, o: optical flow, p: proprioception sensor, s: set, t: time-series, ta: tabular, v: video. Area Task Dataset Modalities sarcasm prediction MUS TARD [19] {`, v, a} → y sentiment prediction CMU-MOSI [143] {`, v, a} → y humor prediction UR-FUNNY [42] {`, v, a} → y emotion prediction CMU-MOSEI [146] {`, v, a} → y mortality, disease code prediction MIMIC [46] {t, ta} → y object pose prediction M U J O C O P USH [63] {i, f, p} → y contact, robot pose prediction V ISION &T OUCH [62] {i, f, p} → y Fusion movie genre classification MM-IMD B [7] {`, i} → y digit classification AV-MNIST [133] {i, a} → y human action classification K INETICS 400 [48] {v, a, o} → y video classification YOU T UBE -8M [2] {`, v, a} → y image question answering VQA [3] {`, i} → y video question answering TVQA [64] {`, v} → y environment question answering EQA [25] {`, e} → y image-caption retrieval F LICKR -30 K [108] `↔i Alignment audio-caption retrieval AUDIO C APS [51] `↔a audio-visual retrieval YOU T UBE -8M [2] a↔v image captioning MSCOCO [70] i→` video captioning LSMDC [115] v→` Translation speech recognition WSJ [101] a→` text-to-speech L IBRI TTS [149] `→a image generation C ONCEPTUAL C APTIONS [113, 123] `→i video → text CMU-MOSI → SST [145] {`, v, a} → ` Co-learning text → image G LOV E → CIFAR10 [124] {i, `} → i knowledge graph → image Visual Genome [55, 79] {i, g} → i have been successfully applied into haptic robots [100, 121] and surgical robots [1, 11]. More generally, language [76] and audio [26] have also emerged as useful signals in learning policies for reinforcement learning in both simulation and the real world. Multimedia: A significant body of research in multimodal learning has been fueled by the large availability of multimedia data (language, image, video, and audio) on the internet. The research field of multimedia involves understanding and synthesizing different content forms into a single interactive medium. Several real-world challenges include audio-visual video classification (classifying a video into a particular genre [151] and recommending similar videos), image/video question answering (asking and answering text-based questions given a relevant image or video [3, 64]), image/video captioning (generating descriptive text for a given image or video [29, 134]), image/audio/text retrieval [87, 117, 152] (retrieving relevant image, audio, video, or text articles given a search query in another modality). 2.3 Case Studies To motivate these multimodal tasks and challenges, we illustrate examples of state-of-the-art models tackling these technical challenges through 3 case studies: 1. Video-based affect recognition aims to predict human sentiment and emotions from spoken text, prosody, and visual gestures [146]. This is primarily a fusion problem to combine multimodal signals to make a prediction. At the same time, a model also needs to learn suitable representations of each signal before fusion can be performed. These representations should be able to relate signals that represent similar meanings. For example, loud voices and laughter reinforce each other to predict stronger happiness over each individually. Local fusion of the loud voice and laugh signals can only be performed with the discovery of the underlying complementary information across the audio and image modalities. 2. Image-based question answering aims to correctly answer a text-based question in reference to a relevant image (e.g., asking what color is the table in reference to an image depicting a brown table). This is both a fusion and alignment problem: fusion because the goal is to integrate complementary information from the image and text question, and alignment because one has to relate words in the question (e.g., table) to a specific part of the image referencing that word. 4 3. Image-caption retrieval aims to retrieve a semantically relevant image given a text caption or search query [108]. Similarly, in image-caption generation, the goal is to generate a caption, one word at a time, describing an image. These are both primarily translation problems with the goal of learning relationships between images and text to enable translating from one modality to another. It also requires learning alignment between image and text where units from images are close together with their semantically corresponding units in the caption. 3 Towards Formalizing A Multimodal Language In this section, we identify the underlying key principles towards formalizing a general multimodal language. We begin with a basic problem setup that defines a universe of concepts and their manifestations as multimodal data through a generative process. Using this setup, we first define the notions of unimodal syntax and semantics, before extending these definitions to capture multimodal syntax and semantics. Setup: Suppose there are 2 modalities (e.g., image and text) and a set M of underlying atomic abstract concepts (e.g., cats, dogs, tables, chairs). Each modality is comprised of a set of atomic units - the most basic unit of real-world data in that modality which cannot (or rather, the user chooses to not) be broken down into further units. For example, when working with the text modality, a user may choose the level of words as the most basic unit, in which case the set of atomic units M1 would be a word-level vocabulary. When working with the image modality, one might choose the level of cropped object patches as the most basic unit, which results in a ‘visual vocabulary’ M2 (e.g., cropped images of cats, dogs, tables, and chairs). A generative process for multimodal data: These abstract concepts are manifested as real-world data in terms of these 2 modalities. This manifestation process can be seen as stochastic functions mapping units from M to those in M1 and M2 . Continuing with the above example, the concept cat could be mapped to the text modality as words cat, feline, kitten, and so on. Similarly, it could be mapped to the image modality as different basic images of cats with varying colors, sizes, and features. While this may seem straightforward for object-based concepts, the generative process becomes more ambiguous when dealing with non-objects. For example, M could also contain abstract emotions such as happiness, which can be expressed in language via positive words, audio via loud voices and positive tones, and visual via smiles, laughs, eye movements, and many more. Typically, M1 ≠ M2 >> M - there are many more real-world manifestations of abstract concepts through raw data than the abstract concepts themselves. For example, there are many words describing a cat and also many possible visual scenes of a cat. Further building on this setup, problems of significance in the real world are typically not defined directly in terms of atomic units, but rather their compositions into ordered collections. For example, instead of words and object regions, multimodal tasks involve sentences, long paragraphs, dense images, and videos [70, 108, 146] as an ordered sequence of atomic units. There is typically a set of rules governing this ordered composition, such as grammar in language [22] or visual relationships in image [45]. Challenges: The core research challenges of representation, fusion, alignment, translation, and co-learning are then defined on top of multimodal data and an associated task. These underlying concepts and compositions are important since they usually define the task space. For example, representation and fusion generally require recovering the underlying abstract concept (e.g., cats, dogs, tables, chairs, happiness, sadness, sarcasm) after their manifestation into atomic concepts and composition into real-world high-dimensional multimodal data. Alignment, translation, and co-learning require the discovery of pairings across data related by shared underlying abstract concepts to enable retrieval, generation, and information transfer. Therefore, all of these challenges require studying the relationships between data and abstract concepts (i.e., semantics), as well as the composition of atomic units into higher-order sequences (i.e., syntax). We will proceed to formalize these notions of unimodal syntax and semantics, as well as multimodal syntax and semantics in the next section. Together, they create a multimodal language necessary for modeling the generative process of multimodal data to solve associated tasks. 3.1 Unimodal Syntax and Semantics We begin with a treatment of unimodal syntax. Commonly studied in language, syntax refers to grammar - the set of fixed composition rules that govern how words (the atomic unit) build up into a structurally valid (i.e., grammatical) sentence [22]. The set of composition rules resulting in a grammatical sentence can then be visualized as a constituencybased parse tree (see the left side of Figure 2), where certain parts of speech (NP: noun phrase, VP: verb phrase, etc.) are composed according to grammar rules [18]. In the visual modality, atomic units could refer to individual objects in a scene, such as a laptop, a teacup, a table, and a sofa. Visual syntax (right side of Figure 2) then refers to rules that govern the composition of individual object units into a visual scene [45] - the laptop and teacup typically go onto a table rather than the sofa, and the sofa is typically parallel but lower than the table. Visual syntax is informed and constrained by spatial dimensions and perceptual principles, but there are typically no fixed rules. Instead, probabilistic 5 Unimodal language syntax Unimodal visual syntax NP NP PP DT NN IN A teacup on NP (laptop) NP PP DT JJ IN the right of on top of NP NP PP IN DT NN a laptop on in front of NP DT top PP IN (sofa) NP (table) of DT NN a table. Figure 2: Unimodal syntax of an arbitrary modality refers to the compositional structure of atomic units in that modality into more complex yet structurally valid data. Left: In language, the syntax is typically defined via a set of fixed production rules that govern how words (the atomic unit) build up into a grammatical sentence, which can then be visualized as a syntax tree. Right: In the visual modality, syntax refers to certain rules that govern the composition of individual object units into a visual scene - the laptop typically goes on top of a table rather than the sofa, and the table is typically in front of the sofa. rules are learned from a natural distribution of images or based on visual design principles such as gestalt theory, visual topologies, prior associations, or visual context [45]. More generally, the syntax of an arbitrary modality refers to the compositional structure of atomic units in that modality into more complex yet structurally valid data. Formally, given 2 subsets of atomic units A, B ⊆ M1 (or M2 ), unimodal syntax defines a composition function f ∶ A × B → [0, 1] that outputs a value representing the validity of a particular composition. In the case of language which has a deterministic syntax, the output is either 0 or 1: output 0 denotes invalid composition, output 1 denotes valid composition. For the visual modality, a probabilistic syntax means that the output is a range [0, 1] representing the likelihood of a valid composition based on the natural distribution of images. The unimodal semantics of an arbitrary modality refers to the meaning of each atomic unit in that modality (atomic semantics), as well as the meaning of compositions of those units as governed by a corresponding syntax (compositional semantics). In the former, unimodal atomic semantics aim to discover the meaning of each atomic unit in M1 (and in M2 ). What is meaning? In linguistics, the study of word meaning includes the study of words both locally and globally. At local levels (i.e., only a word), meaning is communicated through the relationships between the distinct senses of a word and how words are derived [128] through word-level semantic relations such as synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, homonyms, and polysems [74]. At global levels, meaning is communicated via how words are used in grammatical contexts [15]. In the visual modality, these local relationships are captured through visual properties. Following the same example above and illustrated in Figure 3, the visual semantics of each object (laptop, a teacup, a table, and a sofa) would typically represent both local meaning: what object it is, their physical properties (size, shape, and color), as well as global meaning: what they are used for and how they would interact with other related objects [38]. In the latter, unimodal compositional semantics study how the meaning of atomic units correlates with the structure of the language or syntax (also known as syntax-semantics interface [110]). For example, when individual object regions are composed together in a scene based on visual syntax, visual compositional semantics would then represent higher-level concepts such as a person’s work desk, whether the person is right or left-handed depending on the relative position of the teacup, and whether the scene belongs to a house of an office, and so on (see right side of Figure 3). In language, semantics are typically learned via the distributional hypothesis: the idea that units (i.e., words) or their compositions (i.e., sentences) of similar meaning tend to occur in the same context [41]. Extensions of these ideas to visual semantics have also explored how visual scenes are classified and organized into a semantic hierarchy based on the occurrence of objects in their visual context [16, 23, 38]. 6 Unimodal language semantics Unimodal visual semantics furniture color table Atomic semantics table chair made of shape bed (teacup) color wood shape laptop Compositional semantics used for A teacup on the right of a laptop on top of a table in front of a sofa. (laptop) work work space living room white round grey square recreational living room right-handed Figure 3: The unimodal semantics of an arbitrary modality refer to the meaning of each atomic unit in that modality (atomic semantics), as well as the meaning of compositions of those units as governed by a corresponding syntax (compositional semantics). Left: The lexical semantics of each word (table, laptop) represent word meaning as exemplified through semantic hierarchies, their real-world usages, or interactions with other related objects. When composed in a sentence, one can infer higher-level concepts such as a person’s work desk and whether the scene belongs to a house of an office. Right: The visual semantics of each object provides complementary information through visual properties (size, shape, and color) that might not be present in the language. Similarly, compositional semantics represent meaning from the entire visual scene. 3.2 Multimodal Syntax and Semantics While unimodal syntax and semantics are typically studied in unimodal machine learning (e.g., classification and generation of image or text individually), multimodal machine learning requires extending the notion of syntax and semantics to multimodal tasks, which we illustrate in Figure 4. In this section, we provide preliminary definitions and examples of multimodal syntax and semantics. Multimodal atomic semantics study shared meaning of atomic units across multiple modalities [49, 50]. These relationships are present due to the underlying pairing across atomic units in M1 and M2 through abstract concepts in M that generated them. Therefore, multimodal atomic semantics can be seen as extending the idea of semantic relations from within the same modality to across different modalities. For example, the semantics of a visual image of a dog should correspond to the semantics of an audio clip of a dog barking. Given 2 atomic units a ∈ M1 , b ∈ M2 , learning multimodal atomic semantics, therefore, involves learning a pairing/alignment function f ∶ a × b → [0, 1] where the output represents a likelihood of the 2 units across both modalities having shared meaning. While there are cases where meaning is exactly shared across units, there are also cases where the matching is many-to-many (many possible dog barks for the same image of a dog), or does not exist at all (it might be hard or impossible to describe a bark exactly in words). In certain cases, the underlying abstract concepts can be expressed in ambiguous or idiosyncratic manners - the abstract concept of sarcasm is commonly expressed through positive words in the language modality yet disappointed/exasperated tones or gestures in the audio or visual modalities [4]. One has to identify the relationships between these atomic units of seemingly contradictory meaning in order to accurately predict sarcasm from multimodal data. Similarly, textual references to visual objects in complex scenes can possibly be ambiguous and require careful reasoning [47, 137]. Multimodal syntax involves learning the compositional structure that jointly builds up shared multimodal atomic units to derive holistic meaning. Depending on the specific problem, the compositional structure, or multimodal grammar, can fall in several cases: 1. Deterministic syntax (e.g., grammar in text) helping to resolve probabilistic syntax (e.g., image). For example, on the right side of Figure 4, the textual description of a visual scene “a teacup on the right of a laptop on top of a table in front of a sofa” defines a multimodal syntax that describes exactly how one would compose individual visual objects (tea cup, laptop, table, sofa) into the complete visual scene, rather than a probabilistic visual syntax as described in Figure 2 (probabilistic since the spatial relationships between tea cup, laptop, table, sofa are not exactly determined). In this case, additional deterministic information from the language modality helps resolve ambiguity in the composition of visual objects into a scene. 2. Joint temporal syntax. In cases where deterministic rules are not present (e.g., image and audio modalities), the joint compositional structure has to be learned from naturally occurring data. One type of multimodal syntax is a common shared temporal dimension across modalities. This is exemplified in video data, where a 7 Multimodal languageimage syntax Multimodal languageimage semantics NP NP PP DT NN IN A teacup on teacup Atomic semantics NP NP laptop PP DT JJ IN the right of NP NP PP IN DT NN a laptop on Compositional semantics NP DT top PP IN A teacup on the right of a laptop on top of a table in front of a sofa. NP of DT NN a table. Figure 4: Multimodal syntax refers to a compositional structure that jointly builds up multimodal units. For example, the textual description of a visual scene defines a multimodal syntax that describes exactly how one would compose individual visual objects (tea cup, laptop, table, sofa) into the complete visual scene, rather than a probabilistic visual syntax as described in Figure 2. Multimodal semantics refer to shared meaning across modalities both at atomic and compositional levels. common time dimension builds up units at individual time steps. For example, after learning local atomic pairs (smile, loud voice) and (closed eyes, laughter), it is likely that the smile happens at the same time as closed eyes which co-occur as a result of laughter, all of which happens before a loud voice. Jointly composing paired units can help reduce ambiguity by decreasing the space of all possible configurations. At a global level, multimodal compositional semantics study how meaning is built up under the compositional structure defined by multimodal syntax. Similar to unimodal compositional semantics, we show examples of compositional meaning across multimodal data on the right side of Figure 4: a complete visual scene matching a complete description of the scene in language. Composing individual local relationships results in a global representation of multimodal data. Each modality often provides additional information for a task which could come in the following forms [8]: 1. Joint information is present in both modalities that reinforce each other (e.g., loud voice and smile). In this case, existing information is contextualized and reinforced based on other modalities. 2. Complementary information is present in one modality but not the other (e.g., monotone voice, but positive words). Existing information is new and necessary since it is not present in other modalities. Together, a multimodal language comprising syntax and semantics enables us to effectively (1) fuse modalities by discovering complementary information unique to each signal, (2) translate between modalities by taking advantage of joint information across signals, and (3) generate new multimodal data starting with co-occurring local units and composing them to form global data of rich content. 4 Operationally Learning a Multimodal Language Based on the previous treatment of syntax and semantics in unimodal and multimodal tasks, our goal is to operationally learn a multimodal language in practice. This section details our framework for multimodal language learning and references to current research on the machine learning side. 4.1 A Framework for Multimodal Language Learning Our proposed framework consists of 3 steps: designing encoders from multimodal data to representations, learning a suitable representation space, and designing decoders from representations back into data. Each of these steps is designed to capture unimodal and multimodal syntax and semantics. 1. Encoders take in raw data from different modalities and model unimodal syntax and semantics into a unimodal representation. Syntax is captured by segmenting each modality into atomic units, and semantics are captured by learning a representation summarizing the meaning of each atomic unit. By modeling unimodal syntax and 8 semantics, the result is a fine-grained unimodal feature representation capturing both compositionality and meaning in unimodal data. 2. The representation space takes in multiple unimodal feature representations across modalities and captures multimodal syntax and semantics. Multimodal semantics are learned via alignment: the matching between atomic units across multiple modalities based on shared meaning. Multimodal syntax involves learning how aligned subsets of atomic units compose to derive holistic meaning across entire multimodal inputs (rather than at the level of units). The result is a coordinated multimodal representation capturing shared and composed meaning across multimodal inputs. 3. Finally, decoders take in multimodal representations and output a prediction, which can either be a classification label in prediction tasks or raw data in generation tasks. In the former, fused multimodal data is important to capture complementary information for prediction (e.g., predicting emotion from language, speech, and gestures). In the latter, generation can be in the same modality (e.g., dialog prediction in language) or different modality (describing an image in language), all of which necessitate starting from a coordinated multimodal representation. To motivate this learning process, we show how they would be executed in three case studies, and show an example in Figure 5: 1. Video-based affect recognition aims to predict human sentiment and emotions from spoken text, prosody, and visual gestures [146]. Unimodal encoders segment and learn atomic units such as units of speech (e.g., a specific word or phrase), tone (e.g., loud voice or speaking quickly), and gestures (e.g., a yawn or laugh). Learning correspondences between these units then refers to estimating a fused representation based on unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal interactions (e.g., loud voice and laugh reinforce each other to predict stronger happiness over each individually). Finally, the decoder composes these individual local predictions across the entire video to form a global video-level emotion prediction. 2. Image-caption retrieval aims to retrieve a semantically relevant image given a text caption or search query [108]. Atomic units could refer to specific objects or certain nouns or phrases in text, in which case learning correspondences between these units refers to estimating an alignment probability based on semantic similarity. Finally, these individual object and phrase-level alignments are composed to form a global image-text alignment estimate. 3. Language-guided reinforcement learning is an emerging application investigating whether text descriptions of a task can help guide an agent to learn better policies in some environment [93]. Unimodal encoders capture atomic units such as specific text or visual references to a single entity in the environment, the agent’s possible actions, or possible ways of obtaining rewards. Learning correspondences refers to relating text descriptions to visual objects in the environment (e.g., identifying that text references to a weapon refer to images of weapons in the environment), actions in the action space, or possible rewards. Composing these references is crucial towards more efficiently learning a policy mapping visual states and text descriptions to a distribution over an agent’s actions to maximize cumulative reward. We now describe these 3 steps in detail and provide methodological examples suitable for commonly studied modalities including language, image, video, audio, and time-series data. 4.1.1 Encoders Each modality is first processed by a set of specialized encoders. The goal of each encoder is to capture unimodal syntax and semantics and summarize them into a unimodal representation. Unimodal syntax is captured by segmenting raw input data into a set of atomic units (for example, a sequence of words or word parts in the language modality, a set of object bounding boxes in the image modality, or a set of segmented speech parts in the audio modality). Unimodal semantics are captured by learning a feature vector summarizing the meaning of each atomic unit. In general, feature vectors learned by representation learning techniques exhibit certain desirable properties that make them suitable for capturing meaning [10]. We list some below but defer the reader to Bengio et al. [10] for a more detailed treatment of the general desiderata of feature representations: 1. Smoothness: atomic units in each modality with similar meaning tend to be mapped into similar feature vectors in representation space. 2. Multiple explanatory factors: different underlying factors in the data generating distribution (e.g., size, shape, color for visual units) are encoded through different subspaces of the representation space. 3. Hierarchy of explanatory factors: underlying factors are defined in terms of other concepts in a hierarchy, with more abstract concepts higher in the hierarchy defined in terms of less abstract ones. 9 Composition Correspondences Visual and text subunits match = 0.8 match = 0.7 Multimodal syntax match = 0.9 A teacup on the right of a laptop on top of a table in front of a sofa. Multimodal semantics Unimodal syntax and semantics Figure 5: We propose a general multimodal language for processing multimodal data to discover unimodal and multimodal syntax and semantics essential to a range of challenges in multimodal machine learning. This generalization involves discovering atomic units in each modality, their correspondences within and across modalities, and their composition for a specific prediction task. 4. Natural clustering: different values of atomic units (e.g., object categories) cluster into separate manifolds in representation space, and local variations within each cluster tend to preserve the value of a category. To summarize, the output from each modality’s encoder is a set of atomic features, each with information represented in a dense vector. By modeling unimodal syntax and semantics, the result is a fine-grained unimodal feature representation capturing both compositionality and meaning in unimodal data. Examples: In practice, some common examples of machine learning encoders are convolutional neural networks [61] for images, which have been shown to learn features representing the semantic meaning of the object in the image. More fine-grained models such as Region-CNNs [37] further extract feature representations of multiple objects in an image along with their bounding box regions. Another closely related line of models are those designed for image-based semantic segmentation [73] which categorizes every pixel in the image into a semantic object category. For text and other sequential data such as speech and time-series, sequence models like Recurrent neural networks [118], Long short-term memory networks [43], and Transformer models [130] have emerged as the de-facto choice for processing. For discrete data like text, the set of discrete tokens is typically first converted into continuous space using a Tokenizer before learning a token embedding dictionary. For video data, methods for encoding images (such as convolutional networks or R-CNNs) are typically combined with a sequence model - the former image-based methods extract features for each frame in the video, and the sequence of features over all frames are combined with a sequence model such as a Long short-term memory network [43] or Transformer network [130]. For graphs, graph-based neural networks have emerged as a popular option [120, 138]. Each unit is defined as a node or edge, and the combination function is determined by local connectivity within the graph structure. For example, representations of nodes would be combined if they were connected together by an edge (or a weighted combination in the case of weighted graphs). For tables and sets, a commonly-adopted paradigm is to model the permutation-agnostic structure of input data using a permutation-agnostic model which has been shown to learn features that better respect the structure of input data [148]. 4.1.2 Representation space After learning atomic features in each modality, the core research problem lies in learning a representation space that takes in multiple unimodal feature representations and learns a coordinated multimodal representation capturing multimodal syntax and semantics. As formalized in Section 3, multimodal semantics involves learning the correspondences/alignment in atomic features across modalities based on shared meaning. Multimodal syntax involves learning how aligned subsets of atomic features relate and compose with each other to derive holistic meaning across entire multimodal inputs (rather than at the level of units). The result is a coordinated multimodal representation capturing shared and composed meaning across multimodal inputs. A general approach to learning this representation space is to define a set of atomic units that are known to correspond with each other, and enforce alignment using some objective function that imposes a certain form of structure in paired units (see Figure 6). Some typical examples of structure and their corresponding alignment objective functions are: 10 Language encoder Representation space Image encoder Fish Horse Figure 6: Top: A general approach to learn a coordinated representation space is to define a set of atomic units that are known to correspond with each other (e.g., words with their corresponding images and sounds), and enforce alignment using an objective function that imposes structure in paired units. Bottom: A coordinated representation space enables fusion, retrieval, and compositionality in the form of multimodal vector space arithmetic (Figure from [53]). Similarity measures aim to learn a representation space containing transformed features from both modalities such that units of the same semantic meaning are mapped to features that are nearby in feature space. Distance is typically measured via cosine distance, l2 distance, or max-margin losses. The exact algorithm used to preserve semantic distances can range from contrastive learning [75, 142], noise contrastive estimation [106], max-margin learning [39], or visual-semantic embedding models [35]. When applied to images and captions, the resulting coordinated representation space enables compositional multimodal vector space: representation(image of blue car) - representation(word “blue”) + representation(word “red”) = representation(image of red car) [53]. Ordered and hierarchical spaces: In contrast to the above methods which are distance-preserving (semantically similar objects are mapped to points that are nearby in the embedding space), an alternative approach is to maintain an order-preserving representation space. Vendrov et al. [132] achieve this by constructing a visual-semantic hierarchy that captures a partial order of language and image representations. For example, the image of “a woman walking her dog” should align with the text “woman walking her dog” which falls under the text “woman walking”, in order to better capture hierarchical representations of text and their subsentences. Zhang et al. [150] also explore this idea in learning multimodal concept taxonomies resulting in a hierarchy of hypernyms (i.e., categorizing specific concepts with respect to more general ones) across both textual and visual atomic units. 4.1.3 Decoders Finally, the primary function of decoders is to map data in representation space into data space. We distinguish between 2 types of decoders: 1. Predictive decoders map data in representation space into a set of labels for a particular task that one cares about (e.g., a set of object categories or human emotions). The prediction process typically takes in the set of aligned units across modalities and learns a task-specific composition function that combines these aligned features into a prediction for a task. For example, given corresponding atomic units (e.g., a paired positive word and loud voice), the predictive decoder would predict “strongly happy” as the emotion displayed by the speaker in the video. Fused multimodal data in the form of coordinated representations is important to capture complementary information for prediction (e.g., being able to predict emotion when through only speaker gestures, or when language and speech are also present). 11 Examples: Predictive decoders are typically trained neural network classifiers where the composition function is approximated via gradient-based learning. Recent work has also explored handcrafting explicit composition functions [141] based on the parse tree of questions for tasks like image-based question answering. 2. Generative decoders map data in representation space back into high-dimensional data space such as that of images, natural language, or speech signals. Generation can be in the same modality (e.g., dialog prediction in language) or different modality (describing an image in language), all of which necessitate starting from a coordinated multimodal representation. A core challenge in generation is that of controllable interpolation - given a new feature sample in representation space, can we decode it back into data space while respecting the changes in factors of variation in feature space? Factors of variation correspond to individual, atomic changes in the input modality. For example, given a visual object, each factor of variation could correspond to changes in its color, shape, size, and orientation [58]. Similarly, given a sentence, each factor of variation could correspond to changes in its tense, sentiment, and tone [77]. Controllable generation involves the ability to change each factor individually while achieving corresponding perceptible changes in the desired basis in output space, which is important for generating data with desired properties. Examples: Recent work in generative decoders has formed the basis for much recent work in generative modeling of images, video prediction, and style transfer across the image, text, and video modalities. Some examples of decoders back to raw data include deconvolutional networks/upsampling for image generation [14] and autoregressive models for sequential data such as text, audio, and video [83, 112, 136]. 4.2 Addressing the Technical Challenges To see why this is a general framework for multimodal language learning, we explain how this approach is able to tackle each of the core technical challenges in multimodal machine learning as described in Section 2. Alignment: The challenge of alignment is most directly tackled by this learning paradigm - alignment consists of the set of unimodal atomic units and their learned correspondences with atomic units in the same or different modality. Representation: This framework provides flexibility in defining the representations at various levels. The first level is at the level of unimodal representations by representing each atomic unit as a feature. The second level is a multimodal representation defined as the composition of unimodal atomic units and their learned correspondences with atomic units in the same or different modality. Fusion is performed when the overall multimodal representation from above is combined with a task-specific prediction layer to make a fused prediction (e.g., predicting speaker affect from human videos). Translation: After aligning each unimodal atomic unit with their corresponding entities in the other modalities, translation from a source to target modality then amounts to retrieving from a set/generating from scratch the closest aligned unit in the target modality for each unit in the source modality. Special care still needs to be taken to coherently compose the retrieved/generated units into final raw data in the target modality (e.g., composing individual retrieved words/phrases into a full sentence). Co-learning is indirectly exemplified by learning an alignment between modality representations. For example, learning that images of dogs (a visual unit) correspond to audio of dogs barking (an acoustic unit) induces shared information useful for both image classification as well as audio classification. Therefore, our blueprint describing a general multimodal learning process is a step towards addressing several core technical challenges in multimodal learning. 5 Multimodal Language for Consciousness: A Case Study in the CTM Given the above treatment of a general multimodal language based on modality-specific encoders, a coordinated representation space, and modality/task-specific decoders, we explain how these can be applied in the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM), a machine model for consciousness as proposed by Blum and Blum [13]. B RAINISH comprising words, images, audio, and sensations combined in representations is an essential language that the CTM’s processors use to communicate with each other, and enables higher-order cognitive functions such as multimodal processing, constructing a model of the world, inner speech, vision, and tactile sensation, as well as dreaming. Please refer to Table 2 for an overview of CTM processors and their corresponding multimodal challenges. 5.1 Unimodal Processors The unimodal processors that each process information from individual modalities can be seen as unimodal encoders that learn basic unimodal representations. Each of these representations contains information about unimodal atomic units, their feature representations, and how atomic units are structured compositionally (essentially unimodal syntax 12 Table 2: Linking core processors in the CTM with multimodal research challenges. CTM processor Unimodal processors Examples Challenge Language, vision, audio, smell, touch Unimodal representation Audio-visual Multimodal fusion Language-visual Multimodal fusion Emotion Multimodal fusion Multimodal processors Model-of-the-world Multimodal fusion Inner speech, vision, sensation Multimodal translation Dreams Multimodal generation CTM language Brainish Multimodal representation and semantics as outlined in Section 3). Each unimodal processor can take the form of a unimodal encoder as described in Section 4.1.1. 5.2 B RAINISH Multimodal Language The B RAINISH multimodal language is defined as the coordinated representation space across all sensory modalities that have been processed by unimodal processors, and multimodal features that have been extracted by multimodal processors. These features are summarized as multimodal gists [13] in the coordinated representation space as described in Section 4.1.2. The B RAINISH multimodal language can then be used for multimodal processors in the CTM such as audio-visual fusion, emotion recognition, model-of-the-world, inner speech/vision/sensation, and dreaming which we will describe in the next subsection. 5.3 Multimodal Processors Multimodal processors integrate information from representations learned by individual unimodal processors to summarize multimodal information. Based on our general treatment of multimodal learning, each multimodal processor works by learning the correspondences between atomic units across modalities and composing these to form multimodal features useful for multimodal tasks. We outline some examples of multimodal processors below: Audio-visual processor: The McGurk effect [81] shows that the brain processes information from audio and visual sensory inputs in order to recognize speech from a speaker. Multimodal learning exists to the extent that when these inputs conflict with each other (ambiguity), an ‘overriding’ phenomenon occurs where misreading the person’s lips leads to incorrect inferences on predicted speech. This could be realized by an audio-visual processor that learns and composes the correspondences between mouth movements and auditory features (i.e., “baa baa baa”, “daa daa daa”) into order to make a prediction of the spoken speech [94]. Language-visual processor: Integration of language and vision is crucial for human cognition since language is commonly used as a communicative medium in reference to the visual world. The integration of language and vision is exemplified through machine learning tasks such as question answering (asking a question in reference to an image/video and obtaining a correct answer) [6, 131, 141], navigation (giving a text instruction in reference to a visual environment and obtaining a sequence of steps taken in that environment to complete the instruction [78]), and image captioning (generating relevant text descriptions of a given image [134]). Emotion processor: An emotion processor aims to recognize human sentiment and emotion through multimodal communicative behaviors spanning language (spoken words), visual (facial expressions, gestures), and acoustic (prosody, speech tone) [65]. These processors have also been studied in machine learning literature, and several strong-performing methods are primarily based on the idea of multimodal temporal fusion of these heterogeneous signals [144]. Model-of-the-world processor: Another important multimodal processor in the CTM is the agent’s model-of-theworld processor which constructs models of its inner and outer worlds. These multimodal models of the world combine the agent’s multisensory information observed from the physical world, plan possible actions in the world, predict the effect that its actions have on the world, and help distinguish self from not-self [13] (see Figure 7). These models are crucial for recognizing strange settings, planning actions by modeling their impact on the environment, and helping the CTM to stay out of danger. Having a multimodal language is a crucial component in meeting each of these goals. Prior research in combining multisensory information from the physical world has been studied in multisensor fusion (involving, for example, the visual, audio, and force modalities) for robotics [62, 68, 119]. In these settings, the agent’s policies (a mapping from multimodal inputs to actions) are learned based on fused multimodal representations [20]. Multimodal representations are essential for good action prediction since each modality provides unique information not present in the others. Furthermore, multimodal fusion enables one to perform prediction in the face of noisy or missing modalities, such as relying on the visual modality to predict robotic movement when touch sensors are missing 13 Language Vision Audio Model-of-theworld processor Multimodal representation Touch State Feedback loop Smell Action Decisionmaking Reward Environment Figure 7: The model-of-the-world processor is an example of a multimodal processor which combines the agent’s multisensory information observed from the physical world into a multimodal representation (gist), plans possible actions in the world, and updates itself based on the effect that its actions have on the world (i.e., by observing new states and rewards as an outcome of its actions). and vice versa [62]. Furthermore, predicting the effect that an agent’s actions have on the world can be seen as a form of model-based reinforcement learning, which again has been extensively applied to multimodal settings [76]. Inner speech, vision, and tactile sensation: The inner speech processor takes a gist representation broadcast by the CTM’s short-term memory (i.e., its stage) and maps it to the same locations that the input sends representations of outer speech [13], and can be nearly indistinguishable from the gists of actual speech from the environment [116]. This is a multimodal translation problem that involves taking in a representation of one input modality and decoding it into (inner) speech, which is exemplified by similar machine learning tasks such as conditional text generation [111] (inner speech given read text), conditional image/video captioning [70, 115] (inner speech given observed visual scenes), and multimodal dialog [96] (inner speech given heard dialog possibly paired with observed visual scenes). Again, it is important that the gist representation obtained from an observed input is mapped into the B RAINISH multimodal space to enable translation from an arbitrary source modality to output speech. Without coordination, translation would not be possible from independently-learned representation spaces of source modalities (i.e., visual) and target modalities (e.g., speech). Similarly, the generalized inner speech processors for inner vision and inner sensation [13] are also translation problems with different output modalities and require a multimodal gist representation to enable semantically-aligned decoding into arbitrary outputs. Decoding into the desired target modality can be performed by any of the decoders as described in Section 4.1.3. Dreams demonstrate the power of Brainish gists: what the CTM sees, hears, feels, and does in a dream are fabrications by processors that can recall, modify, and submit creations to the competition for short-term memory [12]. Dreams generate the sense of a realistic world even while the CTM is completely divorced from external inputs, and can appear so realistic that it may become hard to distinguish dreams from reality [24]. Dreaming can therefore be seen as taking a semantic representation in the form of gists stored in memory [147] and decoding it into long-range multimodal data with no feedback from the outside world during this generation process. Dreaming can be viewed as a multimodal generation problem where semantically meaningful mappings are learned from the gist representation to a series of long-range parallel modalities (which could span auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory dream components [82]). This decoding process is often (1) conditional, (2) synchronized, (3) stochastic, and (4) auto-regressive. Dreams don’t replay memories exactly, but are semantically conditioned on the same gist as some recent memory and could have the same title [147]. It is synchronized across modalities since dreams involve output modalities that are semantically coherent. The process is stochastic since there are many possible future generations given a particular state. Finally, it is auto-regressive across possibly long ranges: future dream states are recursively generated given previous ones. In practice, there has been some progress towards text to image generation [113], text to speech [129], image captioning [134], and video generation [98], but a complete decoding process into synchronized high-dimensional multimodal data still remains a challenge for modern machine learning methods. 5.4 Main Take-away Messages From this case study of a multimodal language in the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) [13], we observe that many of the core cognitive processors require a multimodal language to function. These span processors whose main purpose is 14 Image classification Paired dataset horse zebra lion (image) Audio classification fish mammal (audio) Figure 8: Experimental setup text for a real-world implementation of multimodal language with 2image modalities. 2Retrieved datasets each labeled Source Retrieved image Source audio for some prediction label D1 = {(x1 , y)} and D2 = {(x2 , y)} represent feedback we obtain separately for images and audio. The paired dataset3/4 D3pound = {(x represents center-cut fillet shared information through paired natural occurrences of images and audio [69]. 1 , x2 )}salmon with skin, 2 cups kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. to perform multimodal fusion (e.g., audio-visual reasoning, emotion recognition, model-of-the-world), multimodal 2 Tablespoons of oil,vision, 2 Chicken translation (inner speech, and sensation), and multimodal generation (dreams). The B RAINISH multimodal cut into chunks, …, 4 language is breasts used by these processors to communicate with each other. Achieving a real-life implementation of such Cups of chicken broth, 1 Cup of (Frog) computational models therefore requires understanding the functionality of a multimodal language (Frog) simultaneously cabbage cut into small thin slices, 1 Cup of diced peeled avocado, 1 realizing multimodal fusion, translation, and generation. Cup of tortilla chips, … 6 1/4 head red cabbage, 2 carrots, Multimodal Language for 1 fennel bulb, 1 small orange, 3 Intelligence: A Case Study in Machine Learning scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, 1 In this section, we describe real-world implementation of multimodal language in the context of a problem with 2 jalapeño, seeded and a minced, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, … setup, which we illustrate in Figure 8, consists of 2 datasets each labeled for some prediction modalities. Specifically, the (Engine) label D1 = {(x1 , y)} and D2 = {(x2 , y)} as well as a paired dataset D3 = {(x1 , x(Car) 2 )} across modalities. This general setup captures a natural scenario in both human and artificial intelligence where feedback (the label) is provided for either modality - for example, feedback is provided for images through dataset D1 and feedback is provided separately for audio through dataset D2 . To enable multimodal learning, one also needs some amount of paired data across both modalities (e.g., paired natural occurrences of images and audio) through D3 [69]. Note that this setup does not require labels for paired data across both modalities (i.e., feedback for paired image and audio at the same time). 6.1 Datasets and Tasks We collect the following datasets across the following paired modalities: text and image, image and audio, as well as text and speech. Code for data, methods, and experiments in this section can be found at https://github.com/ pliang279/Brainish/. Text and image dataset: We use the Yummly-28K dataset [86] which contains parallel text descriptions and images of recipes. We create classification labels from the metadata by concatenating the meal-type and cuisine, yielding 44 distinct classes. A large number of recipes and shared concepts between text and image makes it an ideal testbed for learning a shared multimodal language. Image and audio dataset: We combine two large unimodal classification datasets over images (CIFAR-10 and CIFAR100 [56]) and audio made by various objects (ESC-50 [105]) with partially related label spaces. This allows us to leverage complementary information from both modalities while testing on new concepts. To obtain weak pairs, we map similar classes between the datasets using similarities from WordNet [85] and text cooccurrence. This yields 17 clusters of weak pairs. 6.2 Learning a Multimodal Language We now describe our approach of learning a multimodal language (B RAINISH for short) on the union of these 3 datasets. Encoders: We define encoders es , et for source and target modalities (i.e., one specialized encoder for each modality). Specifically, the encoders we use are ResNet pretrained on ImageNet [27] to encode the images, pretrained BERT encoder [28] for text, and a Convolutional neural network (CNNs) pretrained on AudioSet [36] to encode audio [59, 114]. ResNets are designed for image processing with an inductive bias inspired by convolutional layers which model spatial 15 Algorithm 1 Learning a multimodal language across 2 modalities. Initialize encoders e1 and e2 , classifier φ. for iteration = 1, 2, . . . do Sample alignment pairs {x1 , x2 } from dataset D3 . Compute alignment loss Lalign (equation 2) on pairs {x1 , x2 }. Update e1 ∶= e1 − ∇e1 Lalign and e2 ∶= e2 − ∇e2 Lalign using gradient updates. Sample modality 1 pairs {x1 , y} from dataset D1 . Compute prediction loss L1 (equation 3) on pairs {x1 , y}. Update e1 ∶= e1 − ∇e1 L1 and φ ∶= φ − ∇φ L1 using gradient updates. Sample modality 2 pairs {x2 , y} from dataset D2 . Compute prediction loss L2 (equation 3) on pairs {x2 , y}. Update e2 ∶= e2 − ∇e2 L2 and φ ∶= φ − ∇φ L2 using gradient updates. locality in images. and have shown state-of-the-art results in image classification. BERT is a recent model for processing text which takes into account both features of individual words as well as how they are used in bidirectional context: how the meaning of words is influenced by the meaning and order of words before and after in a sentence. Convolutional neural networks are strong models for processing audio spectrograms by treating spectrograms as an image waveform. Representation space: We aim to learn a representation space that takes in multiple unimodal feature representations and learns a coordinated multimodal representation capturing multimodal syntax and semantics. Multimodal semantics involves learning the correspondences/alignment in atomic features across modalities based on shared meaning. Multimodal syntax involves learning how aligned subsets of atomic features relate and compose with each other to derive holistic meaning across entire multimodal inputs. To achieve this, we use dataset D3 which contains pairs across modalities of the form (x1 , x2 ). We define a similarity measure such that units of the same semantic meaning, as represented by paired units (x1 , x2 ), are mapped to features that are nearby in feature space (i.e., alignment). We model alignment by learning an alignment function p(a∣x1 , x2 ) which outputs a probability a representing the likelihood of x1 and x2 being semantically matched. We parametrize p(a∣x1 , x2 ) ∝ e1 (x1 )⊺ e2 (x2 ) which is a natural way of measuring (unnormalized) similarity based on cosine similarity of vectors e1 (x1 ) and e2 (x2 ) in the coordinated representation space. Training requires positive samples (x1 , x2 ) ∈ D3 for which we would like to maximize p(a∣x1 , x2 ), but also requires contrastive negative samples x1 , x2,neg sampled randomly across all pairs in D3 for which we would like to minimize pθ (a∣x1 , x2 ). The overall objective resembles Noise Contrastive Estimation (NCE) [32] which learns a binary classifier to distinguish paired samples (x1 , x2 ) ∈ D3 from unpaired negative samples x2,neg . Therefore, given encoders es , et for source and target modalities and paired dataset D3 , we learn an aligned space across source and target modalities by optimizing for the NCE loss: Lalign = ⎛ ⎞ − log p(a∣x1 , x2 ) + ∑ log p(a∣x1 , x2,neg ) ⎝ ⎠ x2,neg (x1 ,x2 )∈D3 (1) ⎛ ⎞ −e1 (x1 )⊺ e2 (x2 ) + ∑ e1 (x1 )⊺ e2 (x2,neg ) . ⎠ x2,neg (x1 ,x2 )∈D3 ⎝ (2) ∝ ∑ ∑ where x2,neg denotes unpaired negative samples. The NCE objective has a nice interpretation as capturing a space where the representations of similar concepts expressed in different modalities are close together, and different concepts are far apart [35, 103]. Decoders: Given an aligned space, we now train a single classifier φ on top of the aligned space for prediction across datasets D1 = {(x1 , y)} and D2 = {(x2 , y)} by optimizing for the cross-entropy loss, which maximizes the log probability of predicting the true label y given data x1 (or x2 ): L1 = ∑ (x1 ,y)∈D1 − log φ(y∣e1 (x1 )), L2 = ∑ (x2 ,y)∈D2 − log φ(y∣e2 (x2 )). (3) Training and testing: Overall, the training stage consists of learning from the alignment dataset D3 as well as classification tasks from each modality through datasets D1 and D2 . We show the full training algorithm in Algorithm 1 and a visual diagram in Figure 9. After training, we obtain trained encoder parameters e1 , e2 and a classification decoder φ. Given new data from x1 (or x2 ), a prediction is made by computing φ(e1 (x1 )) or φ(e2 (x2 )). In addition to prediction, this multimodal language 16 Modality 1 zebra Modality 2 fish (audio) (image) Representation space (image) (video) (video) Paired dataset Modality 2 encoder Decoder (audio) Modality 1 encoder Figure 9: Visual depiction of learning a multimodal language. Encoders take in raw data from different modalities and model unimodal syntax and semantics. Syntax is captured by segmenting each modality into atomic units, and semantics are captured by learning a representation summarizing the meaning of each unit. The representation space takes in features across modalities and captures multimodal syntax and semantics. Multimodal semantics are learned via alignment: the matching across multiple modalities based on shared meaning. Multimodal syntax involves learning how aligned subsets of atomic units compose to derive holistic meaning across entire multimodal inputs. Finally, decoders take in multimodal representations and output a prediction. Multimodal alignment Multimodal fusion Multimodal co-learning Image classification Image classification horse zebra lion horse zebra lion (image) (image) + Audio classification Audio classification fish mammal fish mammal (audio) (audio) Figure 10: We design 3 experimental settings to evaluate multimodal language learning. (1) In multimodal fusion, we investigate whether a joint model learned from both image and audio classification tasks improve over separate models trained on each task alone. (2) In multimodal alignment, we investigate whether the joint model can retrieve semantically similar data across modalities. (3) In multimodal co-learning, we investigate whether it is possible transfer knowledge learned from one modality (image) to help a computational model trained on a different modality (audio). also enables multimodal translation. Given data x1 , encode it into the coordinated representation space e1 (x1 ) and rank its alignment with a samples x2 in modality 2 by x2 = arg maxx2 e1 (x1 )⊺ e2 (x2 ), which retrieves the most semantically aligned data from modality 2 matching input x1 . 6.3 Experiments We design 3 experimental settings to evaluate multimodal language learning across a suite of technical challenges described in Section 2. These settings are (1) multimodal fusion, (2) multimodal alignment, and (3) multimodal co-learning (see Figure 10). 17 Weak cluster: automobile Table 3: Results on multimodal fusion across text and image classification. B RAINISH outperforms unimodal baselines that do not learn a multimodal language. (Car) (Engine) TASK Text + Image Barbecue: main dishes A PPROACH Unimodal text Unimodal image B RAINISH (ours) Mexican: soups ACCURACY 60.0 55.0 68.0 American salads: side dishes Figure 11: On Yummly-28K dataset, B RAINISH leverages source text to make accurate few-shot predictions on target images despite only seeing 1 − 10 labeled image examples. Table 4: Results on multimodal alignment: B RAINISH yields better alignment scores than the baselines, indicating that meta-alignment can align new concepts using only weakly paired data across image and audio. K A PPROACH No alignment 5 B RAINISH (ours) No alignment 10 B RAINISH (ours) 6.3.1 R@1 ↑ R@5 ↑ R@10 ↑ R ANK ↓ C OS . ↓ 1.0% 2.0% 5.5% 101 0.428 4.0% 19.5% 39.0% 13 0.003 0.5% 3.0% 4.5% 101 0.399 3.5% 17.5% 35.0% 15 0.004 Experiment 1: Multimodal fusion Setup: We investigate whether a joint model learned from both image and audio classification tasks improves over separate models trained on each task alone. The former is our joint multimodal language model while the latter is a unimodal baseline that trains separate encoders e1 , e2 and separate classifiers φ1 , φ2 without sharing a common representation space. This baseline performs learning and prediction separately in each modality. We report classification accuracy in each modality, repeating experiments 10 times to report mean and standard deviations. Results: From Table 3 on text and image classification, B RAINISH outperforms unimodal approaches. This implies that discovering common information across both modalities through learning a multimodal language leads to performance gains over unimodal learning. Similar observations were also made in the field of multimodal fusion where multiple complementary signals improve performance in a variety of applications such as healthcare, robotics, multimedia, and affective computing [68]. We show samples of text and image classification into recipes in Figure 11. Our method is able to quickly recognize images from new recipes. 6.3.2 Experiment 2: Multimodal alignment Setup: Our second experiment centers on the accuracy of multimodal alignment: given new data in one modality, does our approach accurately retrieve semantically-corresponding data in the other modality? Retrieval is measured using recall@k, rank, and cosine loss metrics [35] with respect to the ground truth pairings in a held-out test set of D3 = {(x1 , x2 )}. Results: We show retrieval performance in Table 4. Our model yields better retrieval performance than a baseline that does not perform alignment of representation space, which indicates that alignment successfully aligns concepts across modalities to enable multimodal alignment. In Figure 12, we also show samples of retrieved data in the target given input in the source modality to help us understand which source modalities the model is basing its target predictions on. We observe that the multimodal language is able to perform alignment at fine granularities. 18 Audio classification fish mammal (audio) Source text Retrieved image Source image Retrieved audio (Frog) (Frog) (Car) (Engine) 3/4 pound center-cut salmon fillet with skin, 2 cups kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. 2 Tablespoons of oil, 2 Chicken breasts cut into chunks, …, 4 Cups of chicken broth, 1 Cup of cabbage cut into small thin slices, 1 Cup of diced peeled avocado, 1 Cup of tortilla chips, … 1/4 head red cabbage, 2 carrots, 1 fennel bulb, 1 small orange, 3 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, 1 jalapeño, seeded and minced, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, … Figure 12: Left: samples of retrieved images given text recipes. Right: samples of retrieved audio samples given images. B RAINISH can perform multimodal retrieval at fine granularities. Table 5: Performance on multimodal co-learning: transferring knowledge from a source to target modality - text to image classification (top), and image to audio concept classification (bottom). B RAINISH is on par and sometimes outperforms the oracle target modality classifier that has seen thousands of labeled target samples, and also outperforms unimodal baselines that do not learn a multimodal language. #Target (labels) denotes the number of target modality samples and labels used during meta-training. 6.3.3 TASK Text ↓ Image A PPROACH Unimodal image B RAINISH (ours) Oracle image [33, 95] 1 POINTS 5 POINTS 10 POINTS #TARGET ( LABELS ) 37.4 ± 0.6 41.7 ± 3.7 49.0 ± 1.0 5131(0) 39.7 ± 1.3 47.1 ± 3.3 51.1 ± 2.1 5131(0) 38.9 ± 2.1 42.1 ± 1.4 47.9 ± 5.6 5131(5131) Image ↓ Audio Unimodal audio B RAINISH (ours) Oracle audio [33, 95] 45.6 ± 1.3 74.2 ± 0.3 83.7 ± 0.1 47.5 ± 0.2 85.9 ± 0.7 92.7 ± 0.4 45.9 ± 0.2 89.3 ± 0.4 94.5 ± 0.3 920(0) 920(0) 920(920) Experiment 3: Multimodal co-learning Setup: Finally, our third experiment investigates multimodal transfer (co-learning): whether it is possible to transfer knowledge learned from one modality (e.g., predicted labels or representation) to help a computational model trained on a different modality? This challenge is particularly relevant when one of the modalities has limited resources [69]. Using the same datasets, we study the transfer of knowledge from text to image, image to audio, and text to speech classification. We call the first task the source modality and the second task the target modality, which often is a low-resource modality with less labeled data than the source. During training, we first learn classification in the source task (training e1 and φ) and alignment across source and target tasks (training e1 and e2 ). After training, we transfer the learned model to the target task. Using only a small number (k) of labeled training datapoints in the target, we update the model to perform target task classification (training e2 and φ). Using only k labeled training datapoints in the target enables us to simulate few-shot learning settings under limited labeled target modality data, and truly test the capabilities of knowledge transfer from source to target modalities [33, 139]. We compare to the following baselines: 1. Unimodal, which directly performs target task classification with k labeled training datapoints in the target, without using information from the source task. 2. Oracle, which performs target task classification with all labeled training datapoints in the target, which gives an upper bound on performance when there is no limited data in the target. Results: From Table 5, we observe that B RAINISH outperforms unimodal approaches. Unimodal approaches struggle due to only a small number of datapoints in the target modality. Surprisingly, B RAINISH also manages to slightly outperform the oracle baseline on the text to image transfer task. We hypothesize this is because text data (source) is cleaner than image data (target) and these are the tasks where we have more total labeled data in the source modality (text) and less total labeled data in the target (image). Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that text classifiers performed better on the Yummly-28K dataset than image classifiers (in 19 reference to Table 3, where unimodal text gets 60.0% while unimodal image gets 55.0% accuracy). This implies that one can leverage abundant, cleaner, and more-predictive source modalities to improve target modality performance by learning a multimodal language. For image to audio (Table 5 middle), we observe that our approach is on par (outperforms for k = 1, and within 2 − 3% for k = 5, 10) with the oracle baseline that has seen a thousand labeled audio examples in the target modality. 6.4 Main Take-away Messages From this case study of multimodal language learning in a computational model of artificial intelligence using real-world machine learning models and datasets [69], we find that the multimodal language we have implemented has successfully learned to perform several tasks such as multimodal fusion, alignment, and co-learning simultaneously. Performance is consistently superior to unimodal language learning on the fusion and co-learning tasks, while unimodal learning does not enable alignment at all. While we are unable to fully explore multimodal generation due to a lack of high-fidelity generators and evaluation metrics for image and audio, we leave this part for future work. Furthermore, it would also be interesting to integrate a similar multimodal language with an actual computational model of consciousness such as the Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) [13], and test it in simulated environments. 7 Conclusion In conclusion, we formalized the properties of a multimodal language, B RAINISH, essential for machine models of intelligence and consciousness. We connected these properties to the core technical challenges and algorithms for multimodal representation learning from an AI perspective and proposed ideas towards operationally learning such a multimodal language. We hope that these insights can serve as a bridge between the study of multimodal representations in human and artificial intelligence with the eventual goal of developing a similar multimodal language needed to achieve intelligence and consciousness in artificial machines. Future directions: We outline several important directions of future research: 1. Quantifying differences between modalities: One core challenge of multimodal learning lies in representing and synchronizing vastly heterogeneous modalities which require different unimodal processors. However, different sensory inputs are more similar than others. For example, speech and language could be seen as more similar than images and text. Furthermore, it is unclear if speech in different languages should be classified as being the same or different modalities. Future work should investigate formalisms of heterogeneity in multimodal data and how heterogeneity plays a role in the design decisions when learning a multimodal language. 2. Plasticity of unimodal processors in the brain: Unimodal processors are not static over time but rather evolve with our surroundings, especially when encountering lesions such as post-birth blindness [72]. Similarly, when acquiring new skills (e.g., learning a new language), new processors may develop in conjunction with existing ones [57]. Our investigation into a multimodal language has only explored static processors across a predefined number of input modalities and currently lacks the flexibility to handle dynamic modalities and processors. 3. Multimodal integration in the brain: While we have presented a multimodal language based on coordinated representations, insights from neuroscience regarding unimodal and multimodal processing, integration, alignment, translation, and co-learning [17, 54, 91] could potentially inform our design of multimodal models. 4. Environments and evaluation: It is important to design simulated environments that are reflective of real-world human learning processes in order to benchmark design decisions in the multimodal language and AI models as a whole. These environments should capture the multimodality of diverse environments, a comprehensive suite of possible agent interactions, and feedback signals at varying granularities, all while remaining efficient and reproducible. Acknowledgements PPL is supported in part by a Facebook PhD Fellowship and a Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Machine Learning and Health Fellowship. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Facebook or Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Machine Learning and Health, and no official endorsement should be inferred. The authors are extremely grateful to Manuel Blum and Lenore Blum for encouraging the development of this manuscript as well as helpful discussions and feedback on computational models for artificial intelligence and consciousness. We also thank Louis-Philippe Morency and Ruslan Salakhutdinov, as well as the students in their research groups (Alex Wilf, Amir Zadeh, Ben Eysenbach, Brandon Trabucco, Chaitanya Ahuja, Dong Won Lee, Martin Ma, Murtaza Dalal, Peter Wu, Tiffany Min, Torsten Wortwein, Victoria Lin, Volkan Cirik, Yao-Hung Hubert Tsai, Yiwei Lyu) for constructive discussions regarding multimodal machine learning. We acknowledge Peter Wu for his role in the implementation and experiments in Section 6. Finally, we would also like to acknowledge NVIDIA’s GPU support. 20 References [1] Ahmad Abiri, Jake Pensa, Anna Tao, Ji Ma, Yen-Yi Juo, Syed J Askari, James Bisley, Jacob Rosen, Erik P Dutson, and Warren S Grundfest. Multi-modal haptic feedback for grip force reduction in robotic surgery. Scientific reports, 9(1):1–10, 2019. [2] Sami Abu-El-Haija, Nisarg Kothari, Joonseok Lee, Paul Natsev, George Toderici, Balakrishnan Varadarajan, and Sudheendra Vijayanarasimhan. 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This a preprint version of an article which subsequently appeared in the Journal of Mind and Behavior. The citation is: Reason, C. M., (2016) JMB 37 (1) pp 31-46 http://umaine.edu/jmb/ Consciousness is not a physically provable property Catherine M Reason1 We present a logical proof that computing machines, and by extension physical systems, can never be certain if they possess conscious awareness. This implies that human consciousness is associated with a violation of energy conservation. We examine the significance that a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, known as single mind Q (Barrett 1999), might have for the detection of such a violation. Finally we apply single mind Q to the problem of free will as it arises in some celebrated experiments by the neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet. In 1995 Gilbert Caplain published a paper entitled “Is consciousness a computational property?”, in which he outlined an argument to the effect that no computing machine could ever be conscious. In his paper, Caplain pointed out that his argument was presented only in outline, and that some of the ideas presented required further work (Caplain 1995, 2000). In this author’s opinion Caplain’s argument is not, in fact, an argument that consciousness is not a computational property but rather something more subtle; it is an argument that no computing machine can ever, using purely computational processes, be certain if it is conscious. To establish his argument, Caplain demonstrates an inconsistency between two principles; the principle of reflexivity and the principle of cognitive separation. Reflexivity is Caplain’s term for the capacity of conscious beings to know with certainty that they are conscious; cognitive separation can be expressed as the separation between some symbolic state in a computing machine, and the state of affairs which that state represents. Caplain argues that, if all computing machines are bound by the principle of cognitive separation, then the inconsistency between these two principles implies that no computing machine can ever be truly conscious, and hence conscious human beings cannot be computing machines. This argument effectively applies Descartes’ notion of the malicious genius to the internal states of a computing machine. It seems to this author that Caplain’s use of the term reflexivity does not conform to the usual philosophical usage, and so I shall use the term self-certainty instead. To 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed at CMRneuro@Gmail.com 1 avoid any ambiguity we shall define this term here: Definition: Self-certainty is the capacity of at least some conscious beings to verify with certainty that they are conscious. The detailed proof of Caplain’s result that we are presenting here is substantially different from Caplain’s in form, and attempts to minimize any dependence on philosophically ambiguous terms such as “knowledge” and “belief”. However it relies on the same properties of consciousness and of machines. For the purposes of this argument, a computational process is operationally defined as any process which can be represented in the following form: Result = P(input) where P is some computation. The exact form of P itself is irrelevant to this argument, so according to this definition a computational process is any computation which associates an input to an output. A computation here means simply any process which occurs in a computing machine. If the reader is concerned that this leaves the term “computing machine” undefined, then this may be taken to mean “some Turing machine”, although this is not in fact a necessary stipulation. In order to show that no computing machine can verify with certainty that it is conscious, one must first assume a computing machine M, all of whose computations are assumed to take the form above. At this point we must also define the following Principle F (the functionalist principle): “Every human mental process supervenes on some computational process.” This principle asserts, in effect, that human beings are computing machines of the same form as M. M is now presented with the task with the task of proving that it is conscious. At this point two conditions must be noted: 1 M is given the task of proving that it is certainly conscious. Proofs that M may be conscious which depend on additional assumptions, or which fall within particular limits of confidence short of full certainty, fall outside the scope of this argument and are not relevant to it. 2 “Conscious” in this context, does not necessarily mean “awake” or “selfconscious”. It means only that some form of conscious experience is present, even if this is some altered state of consciousness such as a lucid dream. (It may seem odd to attribute such states to machines, but as it is impossible to assert, a priori, what forms consciousness may take in computing machines, this possibility must be allowed for.) At this point the reader should be careful to attend to the following operational definitions. Firstly we operationally define certainty as follows: M is certain of some proposition k if M is able to determine that k is certainly true. Other definitions of certainty -- for example, subjective “feelings” of being certain -- are not relevant to this argument. Secondly we operationally define provable, in statements of the form “proposition k is provable by M” as meaning: M is able to determine that k is 2 certainly true. The reader should be careful not to confuse this operational definition with more familiar notions, for example those concerning the proof of theorems in formal systems. M’s task can now be represented as a function or mapping from a domain E to a range X. E is a binary variable which represents the presence or absence of conscious experience and takes the following values: E = 1 if conscious experience is present when the mapping is performed; E = 0 if no conscious experience is present. X is a binary variable which takes the following values: X = YES if E = 1 X = NO if E = 0 or if the state of E cannot be ascertained. The mapping therefore associates a state E, which represents the presence or absence of consciousness, with a state X which represents the answer to the question “Am I conscious?” This mapping is performed by a computation P which can be represented as follows: X = P(E) where X and E can now be thought of as states (or sets of states) in M. It is necessary also to make the following assumptions: 1 M can reason deductively (in particular, M must have deductive reasoning powers equivalent to those of a human being). It is not necessary to specify exactly what these powers are; merely that there is an equivalence between humans and M. 2 M is “honest” -- that is, there are no systematic biases which prevent M from reasoning deductively in the domain in question. This is actually quite a difficult requirement to make precise. The best approach is to assert that there are no systematic biases which would make it impossible, even in principle, for M to follow classical rules of inference such as modus ponens. We now define the following deductive argument which I shall call A: The reliability and accuracy of the computational process X = P(E) depend critically on the reliability and accuracy of P (which is to say, how well P performs the mapping from E on to X). Consider some malformed computation BadP such that X = BadP(E = 0) = YES In such a case, M will conclude that it is conscious, but M’s conclusion will be neither accurate nor reliable. Therefore the accuracy of P needs to be checked, and by Principle F, this must be done by some computation P', such that 3 X' = P'(P) where X' is YES if P is found to be accurate and NO otherwise. But what of the reliability and accuracy of P'? Clearly this would necessitate some further computation P'' to establish the accuracy of P' -- and so on leading to an infinite regress. It follows that the reliability and accuracy of P can never be ascertained with certainty, and hence the value of E cannot be ascertained with certainty either. (One can paraphrase this by saying that, in any system which relies entirely on computations, the reliability and accuracy of any given computation can only be determined by applying another computation to it, and this process is obviously nonterminating.) It should be noted here that this argument applies even if P = P' (that is, if P and P' are the same process) since it does not follow that X = X'. (As the input is different, the output can be different even if the function is the same.) It follows from this that X cannot be guaranteed to be reliable indicator of the value of E, and nor can the value of any subsequent state, such as X', render X ultimately reliable as an indicator of the value of E. In plain language this means that X, which represents M’s answer to the question “Am I conscious?”, can never be relied upon to be a certainly correct answer to that question, so long as the value of X is determined by some computation. It is not possible, by means of any computation, to establish with certainty the value of E, and since M is a computing machine, M can never establish with certainty that it is conscious. This concludes the definition of Argument A. It follows from Assumptions 1 and 2 that M can deduce A, and thereby deduce that it can never be certain if it is conscious. This rules out the possibility that M could be conscious, and arrive at the correct conclusion that it is conscious via faulty reasoning. Given our assumptions, it is simply impossible for M to be certain that it is conscious. It is important to note the two stages of this process. Argument A simply implies the potential unreliability of M (M may be accurate but it is impossible to establish this with certainty by means of any computation). Assumptions 1 and 2 allow M to deduce A and thus deduce the uncertainty of M (M can show that it can never be certain of the accuracy of any of its computations). (Incidentally it is not necessary for M to assume that it is a computing machine; it is sufficient for M to be unable to establish with certainty that it is not a computing machine.) This argument has a recursive character which may seem a little baffling at first sight, since the reader’s brain is itself part of the argument! That is, we rely on the reader to appreciate the soundness of the deductive argument A. Once this is given, then Assumption 1 guarantees that M will also appreciate the soundness of A. It is now apparent that M cannot possess self-certainty. But conscious human beings do possess self-certainty; it is possible for a conscious human being to know, with absolute certainty, that they are conscious (in the sense defined above in Condition 2). This implies that Principle F (which asserts that human beings are computing machines of the same form as M) must be wrong. It is in this sense that we can say that consciousness is not a computational property -- or that if it is, it is attended by some other property or properties which are not themselves computational in nature. At this point it should be remembered that this proof applies only if M possesses 4 deductive powers similar to those of a human being (Assumption 1). Conceivably if M did not possess such powers, then M could not deduce the argument A, and the proof of M’s uncertainty would not apply; however in such a case, human beings could not be machines of the same form as M. Expansion of the computational argument to physical processes In the previous section P was considered to be a computation mapping E on to X. However there is no reason to confine the definition of P in this way. P can instead be regarded as any physical process which performs the same mapping, and M can be regarded as a physical system rather than specifically a computing machine. To eliminate any confusion between mappings, computations, and physical processes, the relation between P and X can be rewritten to avoid any explicit mention of E: X = O(P) X is a binary variable as before, but P is now a physical process whose output O determines the value of X, where X is some state (or set of states) in a physical system. This formulation is intended to make it clear that physical processes which perform functions or mappings may not in any sense “look like” computations; in other words, they may not take the form of operations on data inputs. Once again, the reader may worry that the term “physical process” is effectively undefined. A physical process can therefore be operationally defined as any objective entity in the real world which has the potential to evolve in time. This includes for example collections of molecules, or computers running programs, but excludes abstract entities such as mathematical functions, or programs without implementations to run them. The output O of a physical process can be regarded as just the effect which that process has on the value of X. A physical system can be regarded as some set of physical processes. It is now also necessary to change the Principle F to the following Principle F' (the physicalist principle): “All human mental processes supervene on some physical process.” Argument A then proceeds much as before, except that the word “computation” in A is replaced by the word “process”. Again one notes the possibility of physical processes BadP such that: X = O(BadP) = YES even when E = 0. This necessitates some physical process P' to ascertain the accuracy and reliability of P, and as before, this leads to an infinite regress. This is all that is needed to show that, either consciousness is not a physical property, or it is attended by a property or properties which cannot themselves be physical. As before, Assumptions 1 and 2 imply that M can deduce the Argument A, and thereby 5 establish that it can never be certain of being conscious. The upshot is that any physical system capable of reasoning honestly and which has deductive reasoning powers equivalent to those of a human being, would have to conclude that the question “Am I certainly conscious?” is effectively undecidable. Consciousness, therefore, is not a physically provable property. How can this be? It is an inevitable consequence of the separation between the state of X and the process P by which the state of X is determined. This is analogous to Caplain’s principle of cognitive separation. But it can readily be seen that it applies to any process P such that X is the output of P. In fact, even the qualifier “physical” is redundant; this argument applies to any sort of process whatsoever if the state of X is determined by the output of that process, rather than directly by E with no intervening process of any sort.2 The reader may feel that this limitation on the capabilities of physical systems is too trivial to be worth mentioning. It simply means that humans beings derive their certainty of being conscious not by any sort of mediating process, but by what in philosophy is called “acquaintance”. However it has a serious consequence which has received virtually no attention within the academic literature. Principle F' implies that if M cannot be certain that it is conscious, then human beings cannot be certain that they are conscious either. Principle F' is therefore inconsistent with the property of self-certainty.3 So -- either Principle F' is wrong, or one of the other assumptions does not apply to human beings. It can be noted immediately that Assumption 1 cannot be discarded since by definition it must apply to human beings. Assumption 2 could be discarded but would leave one with the somewhat paradoxical situation that humans could be certain of being conscious only because their brains were incapable of honest reasoning (and hence were unreliable). Nonetheless, as we shall see later, there may be situations in which Assumption 2 could at least be modified, though to discard it entirely would be asking rather a lot of coincidence; it would in effect require a faulty system to produce, and produce reliably, the correct result via a series of fortuitous accidents. There could also be no way for humans to establish with certainty that the flaw in their reasoning was precisely that flaw required, for them to reach the correct answer to the question “Am I conscious?” This seems to leave one with no choice but to throw out Principle F'. Human mental processes, in other words, do not all supervene on physical processes.4 2 In fact it is not enough for E directly to determine X; E must also directly determine that it is the case that E directly determines X, and do so in a way that a conscious subject can be certain is reliable -that is, not by means of any physical process which would be susceptible to Argument A. 3 Another way of looking at this is to say that knowledge or understanding by “acquaintance” is impossible in any physical system; or that if it is possible, it cannot influence the evolution of that system. 4 One might think that allowing X to be identical with E might solve this problem -- that is, by allowing X to be a state which is identical with consciousness itself. It is obviously possible to arrange things so that if E and X are identical, then it must be the case that E = 1 if X = YES. But to make use of this (and thus to be certain that X can be relied on) M must have some way of being certain that it is the case that E and X are identical. Since M is a physical system, any means of obtaining such a proof 6 It is important to note that this conclusion applies not only to consciousness itself, but to some of the contents of consciousness as well. It also follows from Argument A that if human beings were exclusively physical systems, they could not be certain of the truth of the statement “I am reading this article”; indeed they could not even be certain of the truth of the statement “I believe I am reading this article”. One could even formulate Argument A in such a way that physical systems could not be certain of their own existence. There is also an important difference between this conclusion concerning consciousness in physical systems, and the original, more restricted conclusion regarding computing machines. This is because even if human beings can be certain that they have conscious experience, it is still the case that physical systems -- such as brains -- cannot. This implies that when human beings ask themselves if they are conscious, either the evolution of their mental processes will diverge from the physical evolution of their brain-states in some drastic and irreversible manner; or their mental processes will force their brains to evolve in a manner which is inconsistent with their own physically determined behavior. Such a violation of physically determined behavior should entail -- at the very least -- a violation of the principle of conservation of energy. Such a violation we shall henceforth refer to by the symbol c (from chramoV, a cleft or gap). The point of interest here is that c should be empirically detectable. When human beings are asked to consider Argument A, and then decide if they are conscious, then -- assuming all human beings are conscious, and know it -- c should be detectable within their brains. Single-mind Q may partially conceal c I hope to examine the problems associated with the detection of c in future work. However it is first necessary to examine a possibility which may make c intrinsically undetectable, at least under certain conditions. This section will require a small diversion into quantum mechanics. In the most common interpretation of quantum mechanics (the Copenhagen interpretation) the physical state of a quantum system is represented by a vector in Hilbert space (Von Neumann 1955). This state evolves deterministically according to the unitary dynamics of quantum mechanics (Barrett 1999). Measurements are represented by applying an appropriate operator (in the form of a Hermitian matrix) to the state vector, which produces a representation of the state vector in terms of some particular measurement basis. The physical states represented by the measurement basis are called eigenstates, since these are the states which result when the state vector is an eigenvector of the corresponding operator. Normally, however, the state vector will be a superposition of basis states, and on measurement this vector is assumed to “project” non-deterministically to an eigenstate of the measurement basis. This is the well-known “collapse” or “reduction” of the state vector. The problem is that quantum mechanical theory does not provide any clear explanation of what constitutes a measurement. In order to circumvent this difficulty, must supervene on some physical process, whereupon Argument A proceeds as before. 7 attention has focused recently on so-called “no-collapse” interpretations, in which the physical state never collapses and superpositions persist indefinitely (see Barrett, 1999 for a review). However this now presents us with another problem; how to account for the determinate nature of our experiences, which are always of single “classical” properties and never of superpositions of states. One approach to dealing with this is the single mind Q interpretation (Barrett 1999)5. Single mind Q assumes some particular property Q, which evolves in such a way as to ensure that all our experiences are determinate. But in this approach, Q is regarded as a purely mental property -- single mind Q, in other words, postulates a robust mind-body dualism. Q also functions to orchestrate or co-ordinate the experiences of different minds; without this, different minds would experience completely different and potentially unconnected realities. The consequences of this for detecting c are as follows. The process of neuroscientific inquiry can be regarded as the partitioning of a set U, which contains every possible neural topography. Each element of U -- that is, each neural topography -- is a fully specified set of neurological properties (or as fully specified as quantum indeterminacy will allow). The term “neurological properties” is here intended to refer to all brain properties, and not necessarily just positional ones. The partitioning of U will yield a subset which I shall call N. As neuroscientific inquiry advances, the set N would be expected to get smaller and smaller.6 However in a no-collapse theory, the physical state of the brain underlying U is assumed always to be a quantum state. It is important to be clear about what is going on here. The elements of U are not themselves quantum states. In fact in single mind Q, they are not really physical states at all. They are best understood as classical appearances; that is, they are descriptions of how neural topographies appear to the neuroscientists who are observing them. They are purely mental properties. (The determinate nature of these experiences is guaranteed by the determinate property Q, which is a property of the combined system of observer plus brain being studied.) There are two ways in which U can be partitioned. First, as the physical system evolves, correlations will develop both between neurological properties and other neurological properties, and between neurological properties and properties in the environment. As this evolution occurs some elements of U will become inconsistent 5 Single mind Q is in fact just one example of a type of theory called a "Q theory". In other versions of Q theory, Q is regarded simply as a physical parameter. In these versions of Q theory mind-body dualism is obviously not required. 6 The technically-minded reader will have noticed that this is somewhat oversimplified. Although the classical requirement that neuroscientific inquiry is possible ensures that the subset N will reduce in size over time, quantum indeterminacy means that it will not do so smoothly; individual elements of U will “jump” in and out of N as N is refined. The reason for this apparent anomaly is that, in order to keep the representation simple, I have deliberately ignored the difference between static topographies -those defined at some precise instant of time -- and dynamic topographies, which evolve over time. Neuroscientists who aim to understand the brain are typically interested in dynamic topographies. If one assumes that quantum mechanics plays no functional role in neural processing, then the dynamic topographies can be considered as evolving in essentially classical ways. In this case the quantum indeterminacy in the static topographies can be considered as noise and disregarded. From a neuroscientist‘s perspective, the physical state can therefore be regarded as a set of classical topographies which is subsequently partitioned by measurement. 8 with the physical state. One can say that these elements are partitioned out of U, and not included in N. The second way U can be partitioned is via the process of quantum measurement; that is, the selection of an eigenstate for some observable. Since in single mind Q this sort of partitioning is always a mental process, the physical state remains unchanged after each partition. However the net effect of both types of process is to produce a subset N which is smaller than it was before. There is here a potential loophole by which the effect c might be partially concealed. Consider how the brain is normally thought to function; it is a physical system which instantiates what might be called intelligent processes. These are processes which enable the brain to respond to a wide range of environmental stimuli without requiring a separate programmed behavior for each stimulus. (Assumptions 1 and 2 may be regarded as an operational definition for such intelligent processes in human beings.) The understanding of these processes is the business of the so-called “special” sciences, such as psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Intelligent processes are assumed to supervene on the physical processes which instantiate them. Now consider the following thought experiment. Imagine an enormously powerful oracle, which is able to give accurate and meaningful answers to every question asked of it. Such an oracle would appear omniscient to all those by whom it was questioned. But consider that the actual number of questions such an oracle is likely to be asked in a finite period of time is probably a very small fraction of the number of questions which could be asked. If it were possible for the oracle to know in advance which questions would be asked, then the oracle could perhaps contrive to know the answers to just those questions and not trouble itself about those questions which no-one would ask. The oracle would still appear omniscient to all those who questioned it; but in practice it would be no such thing. An analogous situation potentially exists in the relationship between intelligent processes and the physical processes which instantiate them. Of course no-one believes that intelligent processes are all-powerful, but they are very likely far more powerful then is needed to deal with the whole range of situations which arise within a given human lifetime. That is, intelligent processes are capable of dealing with many situations that never in fact arise. This is assumed to be necessary because noone can predict what situations will actually arise within a human lifetime, even though most of them will never occur. But what if the actual state of the brain were indeterminate at the moment each novel environmental situation arose? In that case the conscious experience of each new environmental stimulus could be regarded as a further partitioning of N. If the actual state of the brain were indeterminate then the resulting partition would contain all neural topographies consistent with the correct response to that stimulus (except those which had previously been partitioned out of N). In most cases this would include all topographies which fully instantiated intelligent processes, but would also include many topographies in which intelligent processes were only partially instantiated (because these topographies would not yet have been partitioned out by measurement). In the previous section it was shown that any physical system which fully instantiates the human capacity for deductive reasoning will be unable to conclude with certainty that it is conscious (or indeed that it has any other property). But this does not 9 necessarily apply to systems which only partially instantiate human deductive reasoning. How does this work in practice? Successive neurological observations and conscious experiences will partition the set U and Q will evolve to ensure the partition is determinate. But quantum measurement will partition U in such a way as to select precisely those topographies which are consistent with those observations and experiences, as long as such states are available -- that is, as long as topographies which are consistent with those observations and experiences remain in N. For example, consider a neural topography which contains a population of cells whose only purpose is to force M to answer “yes” whenever the question “Am I conscious?” is asked. The previous section showed that such a topography could not be consistent with intelligent processes which incorporate a capacity for honest deductive reasoning. But so long as such topographies remain within N, then quantum measurement will select precisely those topographies, and these topographies could be observed through neurological research. Indeed those topographies which did fully instantiate intelligent processes would be inconsistent with the conscious experience of self-certainty, and would therefore be selected out by the partition and hence not included in N. So the price one pays for consistency between conscious states and physical states is a lack of consistency between the selected topographies and the intelligent processes which supposedly supervene on them. One can see that in such a case the effect c would not occur. Of course in practice it is not just the particular sample of environmental situations which occur within a given human lifetime which one has to consider, but the sample of such situations which occur throughout the whole of human evolutionary history. As the range of actual environmental situations encountered by human beings throughout history becomes larger and larger, the permissible deviation of the topographies in N from perfect consistency with intelligent processes becomes smaller and smaller -- just as, in the case of the oracle, as the number of questions actually asked of the oracle gets ever larger, the oracle will have to get ever closer to true omniscience. There are two potential difficulties with using single mind Q to “conceal” the effect c. Firstly, mental operations such as deciding that one is conscious are not really like measurements of quantum observables. In the measurement of a quantum observable an eigenstate of that observable is selected randomly, in accordance with the quantum amplitudes associated with the various eigenstates. But in the specific example of deciding that one is conscious, only those neural states which are consistent with the outcome of that process are possible. Correlation of the observer’s physical state with the observer’s own mental state removes any possibility of quantum indeterminacy in this particular case. Since clearly we must be correlated with our own brains this presents no problem for us. But consider an extraterrestrial visitor who is not correlated with our brain states or our mental states. Such a visitor would find it extremely peculiar that the usual rules of quantum indeterminacy were being flouted. One can see why by considering the example above of a population of cells whose sole purpose is to ensure that we always answer “yes” whenever the question “Am I conscious?” is asked. Such a neural topography, and the evolutionary history leading up to it, would be extremely unusual. An extraterrestrial visitor uncorrelated with our mental and brain states 10 would expect to find many examples elsewhere in the universe of conscious beings whose brains did not exhibit such a topography. We would thus be unusual in being perhaps the only conscious beings in the universe who could be certain of being conscious, a circumstance which appears unreasonable. One way round this problem would be to require that all intelligences in the universe, including all extraterrestrial intelligences, were in fact correlated with our own mental and brain states in some fundamental way. The source of such a correlation would presumably have to be found in the very early history of the universe. Another way would be to impose a requirement that the “minds” in single mind Q entail certain properties, and to require that the neural topographies they select be fully consistent with intelligent processes. In this second case the rules of quantum indeterminacy could be preserved, and c would not be concealed and should be detectable. The second problem is that single-mind Q in any case would not completely eliminate the possibility of c. Consider a comprehensive program of neuroscientific research, as represented by a long sequence of measurements, completed before any attempt was made to detect c. The result would be a subset V, which would be the intersection of all those subsets of U selected by their respective measurements. If the research program were intensive enough then V might be a very small subset indeed. In such a case, one could not be sure that V would still contain sufficient neural topographies, that at least one would remain which was consistent with the mental property of knowing that one is conscious. All neural topographies consistent with that outcome might have been partitioned out by the previous sequence of measurements. In such a case one would expect c to be detectable subsequently. Note that the subset V can be defined as follows: V = U \ (Vn È Ve È W) where Vn is the subset of U inconsistent with neuroscientific observations; Ve is the subset of U inconsistent with observed environmental properties; and W is the subset of U inconsistent with the existence of the non-physical “minds” required by single mind Q. The considerations in this section can be summarized by saying that, if the correct quantum statistics are to be maintained, then either all “minds” in the universe are correlated, or “minds” which are certain of their existence are found only on earth, or it is the case that the subset W is not empty. Single mind Q may explain a specific operational definition of free will There is a sense in which the single mind Q approach to quantum mechanics may explain a certain notion of free will. To see how this is so, we must now refer to some celebrated experiments by the physiologist Benjamin Libet. The first experiments of interest here refer to a phenomenon generally known as the readiness potential (Libet, Gleason, Wright and Pearl 1983; Libet 1985). When human subjects are asked to time as accurately as possible when they experience the impulse to 11 perform a random movement, an EEG trace is observable up to 0.3 seconds before the subject’s first conscious awareness of the impulse (this number is an average computed from aggregate data). This is known as the readiness potential. It might be argued that, since the EEG trace precedes the conscious impulse and in effect predicts it, the apparently random conscious impulse is not, in fact, random at all but determined by the neurophysiological state of the subject’s brain. So, to the extent that one regards random impulses as a matter of free will, Libet’s results can be taken as an argument against free will. Libet’s interpretation of these findings is controversial, particularly with respect to the readiness potential; and it is not my intention here to attempt to resolve this controversy. I wish to make the much narrower point, that even if the readiness potential can be regarded as a predictor of the subject’s decision in a classical system, it cannot necessarily be regarded as such in a quantum system. The reason is that the neurological properties underlying the readiness potential may not actually have determinate values until the subject becomes consciously aware of their decision. In connection with this, an earlier experiment (Libet, Alberts, Wright and Feinstein 1972) is of interest here. Using a technique known as backward masking which, for reasons of space, will not be described here, Libet found evidence that perceptual stimuli can take up to 0.5 seconds (with a minimum of 0.4 seconds) before they register as conscious impressions -- it takes that long for the subject’s brain to process them. This delay is called perceptual latency. Single mind Q illustrates how the second effect may counteract the first. Consider an EEG machine which is in a superposition of two states; a state EEGON, in which the readiness potential is detected, and a state EEGOFF in which no readiness potential is detected. These states are correlated with brain states BRAINON and BRAINOFF, in which the readiness potential occurs and does not occur respectively. From the perceptual latency effect described above, it will take roughly 0.5 seconds for the states EEGON and EEGOFF to form a conscious impression in the mind of the observer reading the EEG machine-- at which point, according to single mind Q, the superposition will be resolved to a single determinate state (albeit only in the minds of the conscious observers). But by that time, the subject’s conscious awareness will already have selected a determinate value for the readiness potential, since the readiness potential is shorter than the perceptual latency. In other words, it is impossible for any observer to perceive consciously if a readiness potential has in fact occurred, before the experimental subject experiences the conscious impression of a random impulse. Since in single mind Q determinate properties are mental properties, this means there simply is no determinate state for the readiness potential or the EEG trace before the subject becomes aware of their conscious decision. The readiness potential therefore cannot, even in principle, be used to predict the subject’s decision before it happens. This will always be the case if the perceptual latency is longer than the readiness potential. And so, according to single mind Q, it will be the subject who determines the state BRAINON or BRAINOFF, and hence the state EEGON or EEGOFF, by random selection. This state of affairs is empirically indistinguishable from the operational definition of free will posited by Libet, but removes any possibility that the readiness potential can be said to have a determinate value before the subject’s conscious decision. Of course, this only 12 applies to the rather limited sense of free will described by Libet. It is also subject to empirical review should subsequent research challenge the relative values of the readiness potential and perceptual latency. What sort of neural mechanism might be implied by the effect described here? A neural network which exploits single mind Q might have the following properties: P is a population of cells, and I1 and I2 are, respectively, excitatory and inhibitory inputs to P. X is a population of cells I shall call the state determiner -- Population X determines the output of the network. E and Y are populations which are connected to X by reciprocal excitatory and reciprocal inhibitory connections respectively. X is connected to P by a delay line, which allows small changes in P to manifest before they are amplified by the connections from X to E and Y. K(P) is the mean activity level7 of P the value of which is equal to Kidle when I1 = I2. The network is set so that when the activity level of X is Kidle, both E and Y are inactive. An increase in the activity level K(X) of X will drive K(X) to a level Kmax, and a decrease will drive K(X) to Kmin, which are respectively the maximum and minimum values of K(X). We now introduce a quantum noise term8 e to P. (It is important to note that merely adding classical noise to the network will not work, since the effect being exploited here relies on the quantum superposition being maintained until a conscious decision is made.) We assume e to be approximately Gaussian in distribution, with a mean of zero. Therefore when I1 = I2, the activity level of P will be: K(P) = Kidle + e The effect of this is to introduce a small variation in K(P) which will quickly be amplified by the network so that the state determiner X will evolve to either Kmax or Kmin. In quantum mechanical terms, the state vector of the network can be represented as a superposition of two states: a state MAX in which K(P) = Kmax, and a state MIN in which K(P) = Kmin. According to single mind Q, a single state, either MAX or MIN, will then be selected randomly once a conscious observation is made. (Different probabilities for Kmax and Kmin can be arranged by varying I1 and I2 so that K(P) is initially either slightly greater or slightly less than Kidle). Consciousness as a fundamental entity in explanations of nature Finally I want to make a brief remark about how theories of consciousness, and its 7 Each cell in P, X, E and Y fires a number of action potentials within a certain time Dt. This number is assumed to follow a Poisson distribution with mean mK. Excitatory or inhibitory inputs are assumed to increase or decrease the value of mK. 8 The most likely source of such noise is thought to be in the random variation of neurotransmitter release at neural synapses (Destexhe 2012). If these small random variations are considered equally likely to increase or decrease the likelihood that a cell will fire an action potential, then the cumulative effect of many such variations can be regarded as Gaussian distributed with a mean of zero, if the number of effects is sufficiently large. It is unfortunately impossible to quantify these effects in any simple way since they depend critically on the internal connectivity of the network, and in particular on the extent of feedback connections within the populations of cells. 13 interaction with the physical world, should include consciousness itself as an entity. Since consciousness cannot be fully decomposed into physical components, how can it be defined as a theoretical entity, and what properties should be attributed to it? The obvious starting point is to define consciousness in terms of precisely that property which turns out to be inconsistent with physical decomposition -- that is to say, self-certainty. This property can be defined in terms of the mapping E ® X which was set out in the first section of this article. If we refer to this mapping as the function p0, then self-certainty can be defined as the capacity of consciousness to perform the function p0 with provable reliability and accuracy. This can be defined symbolically in terms of an infinite sequence of functions: p1, p2, p3, … where every pn can be defined in the following terms: Xn = pn(pn-1) such that: Xn = YES if pn-1 is performed accurately and reliably; Xn = NO otherwise. Clearly, each function pn in the sequence examines whether the previous function pn-1 has been correctly performed. These functions obviously correspond to the computations (or physical processes) described as part of the infinite regress in Argument A. However, unlike those processes, these functions are merely abstract representations of the properties of consciousness, and are not concrete entities in the physical world. In fact the representation of self-certainty in terms of a sequence of functions provides another way of proving the impossibility of self-certainty in a purely physical system, since it is easy to show that no physical system can perform all of these functions. To see why, one need only assume some physical process Pn which performs each function pn. If one assumes the functions are performed sequentially, then one notes that each Pn requires some time to execute, say dt. The infinite sequence of functions therefore requires a total time of dt multiplied by infinity. Alternatively if one assumes the various functions are performed in parallel, then each Pn requires some region of space, say dV, to execute. The total volume of space required to perform all the functions simultaneously is therefore dV multiplied by infinity. A physical system to perform the infinite sequence of functions would therefore need either to be infinitely large or to take an infinite amount of time, and neither contingency is physically reasonable. The infinite sequence of functions can be summarized as a single function pw, identified by the subscript w or omega: Xw = pw(E) where: 14 Xw = YES if it is provably the case both that E = 1 and pw is reliably performed; Xw = NO (or more accurately, is undefined) otherwise. This is purely a notational convenience. One can regard a defining characteristic of consciousness as the ability to perform the function pw, and a defining physical property of consciousness as the c effect (or violation of energy conservation) which is associated with it. Once defined, such a fundamental entity can be included in theoretical models, or simulations, of neurological or cognitive processes. This illustrates that it is not true, as is sometimes claimed, that allowing a non-physical basis for consciousness renders it immune to analysis or understanding. References Barrett, J.A. (1999). The quantum mechanics of minds and worlds Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caplain, G. (1995). Is consciousness a computational property? Informatica 19, 615619. Caplain, G. (2000). Is consciousness not a computational property? - Reply to Bojadziev. Informatica 24, 79-81. Destexhe, A. (2012). Neuronal noise. New York: Springer. Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8, 529-566. Libet, B., Alberts, W.W., Wright Jr, E.W. and Feinstein B (1972). Cortical and thalamic activation in conscious sensory experience. In G. Somjen (Ed), Neurophysiology studied in man, 157-168 Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica. Libet, B., Gleason, C.A., Wright, E.W. and Pearl, D.K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness potential): the unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 106, 623-642. Von Neumann, J. (1955). Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. [R. Beyer, Trans.]. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1932.) 15

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 970 Article Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law &Mathematics of Ether Huping Hu* & Maoxin Wu ABSTRACT This work is a continuation of prespacetime-premomentumenergy model described recently. Here we show how in this model prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) generates: (1) four-momentum and four-position relation as transcendental Law of One, (2) self-referential matrix law with four-momentum and four-position relation as the determinant, and (3) Law of Zero in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal momentum-energy space. We further show how prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) may generate, sustain and make evolving elementary particles and composite particles incorporating the genesis of self-referential matrix law. In addition, we will discuss the ontology and mathematics of ether in this model. Illustratively, in the beginning there was prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=eiL-iLeiM-iM=eiLeiMe-iLe-iM=e-iLe-iM/e-iLeiM iL iM iL iM =e e /e e …such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universe which it has since sustained and made to evolve. Key Words: prespacetime, premomentumenergy, principle of existence, spin, hierarchy, self-reference, ether, mathematics, ontology, matrix law, transcendental Law of One, Law of Zero. 1. Introduction Through all of us Consciousness manifests This article is a continuation of the Principle of Existence [1-7] and the prespacetimepremomentumenergy model [8]. As shown in our recent work [8] and further shown here, the principles and mathematics based on prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) for creating, sustaining and making evolving of elementary particles in a *Corresponding author: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D. Address: QuantumDream, Inc., P.O. Box 267, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA. E-mail: hupinghu@quantumbrain.org ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 971 dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal momentum-energy space are beautiful and simple. First, the prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) model employs the following ontological principles among others: (1) Principle of oneness/unity of existence through quantum entanglement in the ether of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (2) Principle of hierarchical primordial self-referential spin creating: - Four-momentum and four-position relation as transcendental Law of One. - Four-momentum and four-position relation as determinant of matrix law. - Law of Zero of total phase of external and internal wavefunctions (objects). Second, prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) model employs the following mathematical elements & forms among others in order to empower the above ontological principles: (1) e, Euler’s Number, for (to empower) ether as foundation/basis/medium of existence (body of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness)); (2) i, imaginary number, for (to empower) thoughts and imagination in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness); (3) 0, zero, for (to empower) emptiness (undifferentiated/primordial state); (4) 1, one, for (to empower) oneness/unity of existence; (5) +, -, *, /, = for (to empower) creation, dynamics, balance & conservation; (6) Pythagorean Theorem for (to empower) energy, momentum and mass relation, and time, position and intrinsic proper time relation; and (7) M, matrix, for (to empower) the external spacetime and internal momentumenergy space and the interaction of external and internal wavefunctions. This work is organized as follows. In § 2, we shall illustrate scientific genesis in a nutshell which incorporates the genesis of self-referential matrix law. In § 3, we shall detail the genesis of self-referential matrix law in the order of: (1) Genesis of four-momentum & four-position relation; (2) Self-referential matrix law and its metamorphoses; (3) Imaginary momentum & imaginary position; (4) Games for deriving matrix law; and (5) Hierarchical natural laws. In § 4, we shall incorporate the genesis of self-referential matrix law into scientific genesis of primordial entities (elementary particles) and scientific genesis of composite entities. In § 5, we shall show the mathematics and ontology of ether in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model. Finally, in § 6, we shall conclude this work. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 972 2. Scientific Genesis in Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) in a Nutshell Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model generate everything through self-referential spin in the beginning there was prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=eiL-iLeiM-iM=eiLeiMe-iLe-iM=e-iLe-iM/e-iLe-iM=eiLeiM/eiLeiM…such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universeuniverse which it has since sustained and made to evolve. We draw below several diagrams illustrating the above processes: Figure 2.1 Illustration of primordial phase distinction in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) The primordial phase distinction in Figure 2.1 is accompanied by matrixing of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) body e into: (1) external wave functions as external object in external spacetime and internal wave function as internal object in internal momentum-energy space, and (2) self-acting and self-referential matrix law, which accompany the imaginations in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) so as to enforce (maintain) the accounting principle of conservation of zero, as illustrated in Figure 2.2. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 973 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether Figure2.2 Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) Equation Figure 2.3 shows from another perspective of the relationship among external object in the external spacetime, internal object in the internal momentum-energy space and the selfacting and self-referential matrix law. According to prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) model, self-interactions (self-gravity) are quantum entanglement between the external object and the internal object. Figure2.3 Self-interaction between external object in the external spacetime and internal object in the internal momentum-energy space Therefore, prespacetime-premomentumenergy model may create, sustain and cause evolution of primordial entities (elementary particles) in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) by self-referential spin as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0  e iLiLe iM iM  Le Li 1 e iM e iM   1 LM ,e Ae  A    LM ,i  e iM   LM  e e iM  LM  e   LM   0  Ai   i   Ai e  iM (2.1) In expression (2.1), e is Euler’s Number representing prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) body, ether; i is imaginary unit representing imagination of prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness); ±M is immanent content of imagination i such as momentum, energy, space and time; ±L is immanent law of imagination I; ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 974 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether L1  ei 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  1 is transcendental Law of One in prespacetime- premomentumenergy (Consciousness) before matrixization; Le is external law; Li is internal law; LM,e is external matrix law; and LM,i is internal matrix law; LM is the self-referential matrix law in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) comprised of the external and internal matrix laws which governs elementary entities and conserves zero; e is external wave function (external object) in external spacetime; i is internal wave function (internal object) in internal momentum-energy space ; and  is the complete wave function (object/entity in the dual universe comprised of external peacetime and internal momentum-energy space as a whole). Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) spins as 1=ei0=ei0ei0=eiL-iLeiMiM iL iM -iL -iM -iL -iM -iL -iM iL iM iL iM =e e e e =e e /e e =e e /e e …before matrixization. Prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) also spins through self-acting and self-referential matrix law LM after matrixization which acts on external object and internal object to cause them to interact with each other as further described below. 3. Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law in the Prespacetimepremomentumenergy Model Natural laws are hierarchical 3.1 Genesis of Four-momentum & Four-position Relation In the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, the four-momentum p = (E/c, p) and four-position x = (ct, x) relation: E / c ct   p  x  mc c  or E / cct   p  x - mcc   0 can be generated from the following primordial self-referential spin when (3.1) E / c mc p   ct c x and p parallels to x: 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    mc p  c x   mc  i p  c  i x   mc c   p x     i         i  E/c  ct   E / c  ct    E / c ct    E / c ct         E / c ct   p  x  mc c  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.2) www.JCER.com 975 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether where  is intrinsic proper time of an elementary particle (e.g., defined through Compton wavelength  = /c). For simplicity, we will set c=ħ=1 throughout this work unless indicated otherwise. So, we have from equation (3.2): or Et  p  x  m  0 Et  p  x  m (3.3) In the presence of an interacting field such as an electromagnetic potential (A(x,t), (x,t)) in spacetime (x, t) and its dual (A(p,E), (p,E)) in momentum-energy space (p, E), equation (3.3) may be modified as follows for an elementary entity with charge e: 1  ei 0  e iLiL  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    p - eA x ,t   x - eA p ,E   m     i i  E  ex ,t    E  ex ,t  t  ep ,E  t  ep ,E      (3.4)  m  p - eA  x ,t   x - eA p , E       E  e x ,t  t  ep , E    m  p - eA  x ,t   x - eA p , E         E  e  t  e   x , t   p , E    where E  ex ,t  t  ep , E   m   p - eA x ,t  x - eA p , E  ; p - eA x ,t   is parallel to x - eAp, E   . The metamorphoses of (3.1), (3.2), (3.3) & (3.4) are respectively as follows: ct E / c   x  p  c mc  or ct E / c  x  p - c mc   0 (3.1a) 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    c x  mc p   c  i x  mc  i p   c mc   x p          i  i  ct  E / c   ct  E / c    ct E / c    ct E / c         ct E / c   x  p  c mc  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.2a) www.JCER.com 976 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether or tE  x  p  m  0 tE  x  p  m (3.3a) 1  ei 0  e iLiL  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x - eA p , E   p - eA x ,t    m    i i  t  ep , E    t  ep , E  E  ex ,t  E  ex ,t      (3.4a)  m  x - eA p , E    p - eA x ,t       t  ep , E  E  e x ,t    m  x - eA p , E    p - eA x ,t    t  e     E  e  p , E   x ,t    where E / c mc p   ct c x E  ex ,t  t  ep , E  3.2  m   (or p - eA x ,t  x - eA p , E  E m p   when t  x c=1), p parallels to x; and ; p - eA x ,t   is parallel to x - eAp, E   . Self-Referential Matrix Law and Its Metamorphoses In the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, one form of matrix law LM in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) is created from the following primordial self-referential spin: 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   m p   x   m  i p    i x   m  p x    i   i       E    E  t t   E  t   Et      Et  m E m  x   p x p t    ISSN: 2153-8212 1  x Em Em  x    0 p t  p t   E m p   x  LM ,e t  (3.5) LM ,i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 977 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether where E m p   , p parallels to x and matrixization step is carried out in such way that t  x   Det L M  Et  ms  p  x  0 (3.6) so as to satisfy the fundamental relation (3.3) in the determinant view. After fermionic spinization in spacetime and momentum-energy space respectively: p  p   Det (σ p)  σ p 2 x  x   Det (σ x )  σ  x 2 (3.7) where σ = (σ1, σ2, σ3) are Pauli matrices: 0 1 0  i 1 0   2    3    1 0 i 0 0  1       1   (3.8) the last expressions in (3.5) becomes:  E  m  σ x     L  σp t    M , e   LM , i   L M (3.9) Expression (3.9) governs fermions in Dirac-like form such as Dirac electron and positron in the dual universe comprised of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space. We further propose that last expressions in (3.5) govern the third state of matter (unspinized or spinless entity/particle) with charge e and mass m (intrinsic proper time ) such as a meson or a meson-like particle in said dual universe. If we define:  E  m σ x     E  m  t      σ x   σ p  Det    σ p t      where (3.10) E m p   and p parallels to x, we get: t  x  E  m  σ x     Et  m  x p  I 2  0 Det   σp t      ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.11) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 978 Thus, fundamental relation (3.1) is satisfied under the determinant view of expression (3.9). Indeed, we can also obtain the following conventional determinant:  E  m  σ x   2   Et  m  x p   0 Det  σp t      where (3.12) E m p   and p parallels to x. t  x Expressions (3.5), (3.9), (3.10) & (3.11) have the following metamorphoses respectively: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x  m p     i x  m  i p   m  x p    i   i        t  E   t  E     t E tE            tE  m t    x p  x   p Em 1 p p t  t     0 x Em x Em  t   x  p  LM ,e Em  t  σp     L  σx E    M , e   LM ,i   L M LM , i   L M  t   σ p      t  E  m     σ p   σ x  Det    σ x E        t  σp     tE m px  I 2  0 Det   σx E  m     where (3.5a) (3.9a) (3.10a) (3.11a) E m p   and p parallels to x t  x ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 979 Expressions (3.5), (3.9), (3.10) & (3.11) also have the following metamorphoses respectively: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   m p   x   m  i p    i x   m  p x    i   i        E  t   E  t     E t Et         Et  p x  E  p         m  t  x  m      1  (3.13) Ep Ep      0 m t x m t x Ep   m       L t  x   M ,e      E σ p    LM , e   m  t  σ  x   LM ,i   L M (3.14) LM , i   LM     E  σ p    E  σ p  t  σ x       m Det   m  t  σ  x   (3.15)     E  σ p    Et px m  I2  0 Det   m  t  σ  x   where (3.16) E m p   , p parallels to x; or t  x 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x  m p     i x  m  i p   m  x p    i   i        t  E   t  E     t E tE         ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether tE  x p  t  x   m        E  p  m      1  (3.13a) t x t x m m    0  E p  E p t  x     m     L E  p   M ,e  m    t σ x    LM , e     E  σ  p   LM ,i   L M (3.14a) LM , i   LM m    t σ x    t  σ x  E  σ p     m   Det     E  σ  p    t σ x Det     where 980 (3.15a) m      tE  x p  m  I2  0 E  σ p   (3.16a) x t    , x parallels to p. E m p The last expression in (3.13) or (3.13a) is the unspinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chirallike) form. Expression (3.14) or (3.14a) is spinized matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form. Another kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.5), (3.9), (3.10) & (3.11) is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   1     i x  m p   x   m  i p  s  i x   E     i   i        E  E  t t   E  t    m  i p   t     i x   i x E E     0  m  ip t  m  ip t  E    m  ip ISSN: 2153-8212   i x    Le  t  (3.17) Li   LM Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether E  iσ x       LM , e    m iσ p  t   (3.18) LM , i   LM E  iσ x     Et    iσ x   m  iσ p  Det    m  iσ p  t   (3.19) E  iσx       Et  m  x p  I2  0 Det    m iσp  t   where 981 (3.20) E m p   , p parallels to x; or t  x 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   1   mip   x  m p     i x  m  i p   t     i   i       t  E   t  E      i x    t E E           mip  E ip t t     0   i x E   i x E  t      i x mip    Le  E  t  m iσ p       LM , e    iσ x  E   Li   LM LM , i   LM t  m iσ p     tE    m iσ p    iσ x  Det     iσ x  E   t  m iσ p       tE  m px  I2  0 Det    iσ x  E   where (3.17a) (3.18b) (3.19c) (3.20d) x t    , x parallels to p. E m p ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 982 Define Q    iσ  x and Q   m  iσ  p , we can rewrite last expression in (3.18) as: x p  E   Q p   Qx     L t   M ,e  (3.21) LM , i   LM If m= = 0, we have from expression (3.5): 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0 p  0 x  p  x px    i   i     i   i    E  t      Et  E t E t       Et  E   x     px   p  t   1 (3.22) x x E E    0 p t p t  E  p  x     L t   M ,e  LM , i   L M After fermionic spinization p  σ  p , x  σ  x in spacetime and momentum-energy space respectively, the last expression in (3.22) or (3.22a) becomes:  σ x    E     LM , e  σp  t   (3.23) LM , i   L M which governs massless and proper-time-less fermion-like (neutrino-like) in Dirac-like form. After bosonic spinization in spacetime and momentum-energy space respectively: p  p  Det (sp  I 3 )  Det I 3   s p , 2 (3.24) x  x  Det (sx  I 3 )  Det I 3   s  x 2 the last expression in (3.22) or (3.22a) becomes:  s x    E     LM , e  sp  t   ISSN: 2153-8212 LM , i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.25) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 983 where s = (s1, s2, s3) are spin operators for spin 1 particle:  0 0 i 0 0 0   0  i 0       s1   0 0  i  s2   0 0 0  s3   i 0 0    i 0 0 0 i 0   0 0 0       (3.26) If we define: Det s  E sx  s p t       E t   s  x  s  p  (3.27) We get:    xpx E sx Dets  Et  x  p I 3   xp y  s p t  xp  z ypx yp y ypz zpx  zp y   zpz  (3.28) To obey fundamental relation (3.1) in determinant view (3.27), we shall require the last term in (3.28) acting on the external and internal wave functions respectively to produce null result (zero) in source-free zone as discussed later. We propose that the last expression in (3.22) governs massless and intrinsic-proper-time-less particle with unobservable spin (spinless). After bosonic spinization, the spinless and massless particle gains its spin 1. One kind of metamorphosis of expressions (3.22), (3.23), (3.25), (3.27) & (3.28) is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0 x  0 p  x  p x p    i   i     i   i    t  E      tE  t E t E       tE  t   p     x p   x  E   (3.22a) p p t t    0 x E x E  t   x  ISSN: 2153-8212 1 p     L E   M ,e  LM , i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 984 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  t    σ x  σ p      LM , e E   LM , i   LM (3.23a)  t    s x  s p      LM , e E   LM , i   LM (3.25a) Det s   t  s p sx E   tE   s  p  s  x    px x  s p  tE  p  x I 3   p y x E p x  z t Dets sx px y py y pz y (3.27a) px z  py z   pz z  (3.28a) Further, if |p|=0, we have: 1  ei 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0   0   m     m  m   i   i         E  t t   E  t   Et  E 1 Et  E        m   m  t  E  E      0 m t m t     E    LM , e LM , i   L M   m  t   (3.29) We suggest the above spaceless and momentum-less forms of Matrix Law govern the external and internal wave functions (self-fields) which play the roles of spaceless and momentum-less gravitons, that is, they mediate space (distance) independent interactions through proper time (mass) entanglement. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 985 One of the metamorphoses of (3.29) is as follows: 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   0  m 0     m   m     i   i         t  E E   t  E   tE  t 1 tE  t   m      m    E  t m t m     0  E  E m    t    LM , e LM , i   L M     E   3.3 (3.29a) Imaginary Momentum & Imaginary Position Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model may create spatial and momentum selfconfinement of an elementary entity through imaginary momentum pi in external spacetime and imaginary position xi in internal momentum-energy space (downward self-reference such that m>Et): m  Et  p i  x i   pix xi  piy yi  piz zi  ip i  ix i  (3.30) Et  m  pi  x i  0 (3.31) that is: which can be created by the following primordial self-referential spin: 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   m p   x   m  i p i  s  i x i   m  p i  x i    i i   i i       E  t   E  t   E t Et        Et  m  p i  x i or Et  m  p i  x i  0 where (3.32) E m pi   , pi parallels to xi. t  xi ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 986 Therefore, allowing imaginary momentum pi in external spacetime and imaginary position xi in internal momentum-energy space (downward self-reference) for an elementary entity, we can derive the following matrix law in Dirac-like form:  E m  x i      L   p i t    M , e   LM , i   L M (3.33) σx i     LM , e t    LM , i   L M (3.34)  E m   σp i  Also, we can derive the following matrix law in Weyl-like (chiral-like) form:  E  pi   m       L t xi   M,e  LM , i   L M  E σp i   m       LM , e t  σx i   LM , i   L M (3.35) (3.36) It is suggested that the above additional forms of self-referential matrix law govern proton in Dirac-like and Weyl-like form respectively in said dual universe. One kind of metamorphoses of (3.30) – (3.36) is respectively as follows: m  tE  x i pi   xi pix  yi piy  zi piz  ix i  ip i  (3.30a) tE  m  x i  pi  0 (3.31a) 1  e i 0  e  iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L    x  m p     i x i  m  i p i   m  x i  p i    i i   i i       t  E   t  E    t E tE        tE  m  x i  p i or tE  m  x i  p i  0  E     xi  ISSN: 2153-8212  pi     L E m  M , e  LM , i   L M Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (3.32a) (3.33a) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 987  t     σ x i  σp i     LM , e E  m  LM , i   LM (3.34a) t  x i     m     L E  pi   M , e  LM , i   L M (3.35a)  t  σ x i     m     LM , e E  σp i   LM , i   LM where x t    i , xi parallels to pi. E m pi 3.4 Games for Deriving Matrix Law (3.36a) The games for deriving various forms of the matrix law prior to spinization in the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model can be summarized as follows: 0  Et  m  p  x  DetM Et  DetM m  DetM px   Det( M Et  M m  M px )  Det( LM ) (3.37) where Det means determinant and MEt, Mm and Mpx are respectively matrices with ±E & ±t (or ±iE & ±it ), ±m & ± (or ±im & ±i) and ±|p| & ±|x| (or ±i|p| & ±i|x|) as elements respectively, and Et, -m and –|p||x| as determinant respectively, and LM is the matrix law so derived. For example, the matrix law in Dirac-like form prior to spinization:  E m  x   LM     p t     (3.38) can be derived as follows:  0  E 0  m 0   Det   Det 0  Et  m  p  x  Det 0 t  0  p      ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. x   0   www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  E 0  m 0  0     Det    0 t   0     p  where  E m  x   x     Det   Det (L M )    p t   0     988 (3.39) E m p   . t  x For a second example, the matrix law in Weyl-like form prior to spinization: Ep LM    m     t x   (3.40) can be derived as follows:  p  E 0  0     Det   Det 0  Et  m  p  x  Det 0 t  m 0   0        E 0   0    p     Det    0 t    m 0   0  where Ep 0     Det  m x     0  x      Det LM  t x   (3.41) E m p   . t  x For a third example, the matrix law in quaternion form prior to spinization:  E LM     m i p   i x   t   (3.42) can be derived as follows:  0 i x   E 0  0      Det   Det 0  Et  m  p  x  Det 0 t  m 0  i p  0         E 0   0    0 i x    E  i x     Det   Det (LM )       Det    m i p  0 t   m 0  i p 0   t      where (3.43) E m p   . t  x ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 989 One kind of metamorphoses of (3.37)-(3.43) is respectively as follows: 0  tE  m  x  p  DetM tE  DetMm  DetM xp   Det ( M tE  M m  M xp )  Det ( LM )  t  LM    x  p   E m  t 0     Det 0  tE m  x p  Det 0 E  0      t 0      Det    0 E   0  0  0   m    x  0 0   Det  x m   p    Det (LM ) E m  (3.39a) (3.40a)  x m   Det  0 0   Ep 0     Det  m x      t LM      i x  p   0      Ep   t 0 0   Det 0  tE m  x p  Det 0 E         E 0   0    p     Det    0 t    m 0   0  (3.38a)  t   p     Det  x 0     t  x LM      (3.37a) 0  p      Det LM  t x   (3.41a)  m i p   E   (3.42a)  0 i p  t 0  0 m    Det   Det 0  tE m  x p  Det 0 E    0  i x  0         t 0   0  m   0 i p    t  i p     Det   Det (LM )       Det     i x   0 E    0   E  0  i x     where (3.43a) x t    . E m p ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 990 3.5 Hierarchical Natural Laws The natural laws created in accordance with the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model are hierarchical and comprised of: (1) immanent Law of Conservation manifesting and governing in the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space respectively which may or may not hold; (2) immanent Law of Zero conserving total phase of external and internal wavefunctions to zero and manifesting and governing in the dual universe as a whole; and (3) transcendental Law of One manifesting and governing in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness). By ways of examples, conservations of energy, momentum and mass and conservations of time, position and intrinsic proper time are immanent (and approximate) laws manifesting and governing respectively in external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space. Conservations of zero conserving total phase of external and internal wavefunctions to zero in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space are immanent law manifesting and governing in the dual universe as a whole. Conservation of One (Unity) based on fourmomentum and four-position relation is transcendental law manifesting and governing in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) which is the foundation of external spacetime and internal momentum-energy space. 4. Scientific Genesis in Prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) 4.1 Scientific Genesis of Elementary Particles Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion particle such as an electron in Dirac-like form in the dual universe comprised of the external spacetime and the internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m p   x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i   i e E  t t  E ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 991 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  m  i p    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e E     m  p x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  m ip μ x μ ip μ x μ e    e  Et p x         Em  x   p t  1 e ip μ x μ e 1 ip μ x μ  E  m ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ E  m ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ e  e  e  e 0 p t  p t  (4.1)  ip  x     E  m  x  ae, e      e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e M  i,    p t    ip  x       ai, e     ip x         E  m  σ x  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M , e M , i  M     σ p t     ip  x    Ai, e   i ,    where E m p   , p parallels to x, that is: t  x  E  m  e,   σ  x i ,    i t e,   m e,   iσ  p i ,     or     t  s   σ  p  i       i σ    i, e,   i, x e,     E i, (4.2) where substitutions E  i t & p  i x and t  i E & x  ip have been made so that components of LM can act on the external and internal wave functions. One kind of metamorphoses of (4.1) & (4.2) in which the dual universe is comprised of an external energy-momentum space and an internal spacetime is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x  m p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  E E   ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 992    i x  m  i p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      E e t     m  x p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ tE  m ip μ x μ ip μ x μ e    e  tE x p         t   p   x Em 1 e μ ip x μ e 1 μ ip x μ  (4.1a)  p ip μ x μ t   ip μ x μ t   ip μ x μ  p ip μ x μ e  e  e  e 0 x Em x Em ip  x    p  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M , e M , i     M ip  x E  m    i ,   ai ,  e   ip  x        t   σ x  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e   σ x E  m   i,  M ip  x   Ai, e       t    x   t    e,   σ  p i ,    i E e ,    e ,   iσ   x i ,      or   i   m  iσ       E  m   σ  x  i, p e,   i, e,     t i, where (4.2a) x t    , x parallels to p. E m p Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave antifermion such as a positron in Dirac form in said dual universe comprised of said external spacetime and said internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t   ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 993 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  m  i p    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e E     m  p x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  m ip x ip x e    e  Et p x           Em  x    p  t  x 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 x (4.3) E  m ip x e  eip x  E  m e ip x  eip x  0 p t  p t      ip  x    E  m  x  ae, e      e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e  i,  M   p t   ip  x      ai, e   ip  x    e,     E  m  σ x  Ae, e  L  0     LM , e LM , i      σ p t    i,  M ip x   Ai, e      where E m p   , p parallels to x. t  x One kind of metamorphoses of (4.3) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is as follows: 1  ei 0  e i 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x  m p  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i   i e t t  E E      i x  m  i p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      E e t     m  x p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ tE  m ip x ip x e    e  tE x p   ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 994 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether      1 1   t    p    e e   x  Em   t  e   p e  t  e   p e    ip x x  ip x   ip x ip x x Em  ip x (4.3a)   ip x Em 0 ip  x    p  ae, e      e,   L   0   L L  M , e M , i     M ip  x E  m    i ,   ai ,  e   ip  x        t   σ p  Ae, e  e,   L   0    L L  M ,i    M ,e   σ x E  m   i,  M ip  x   Ai, e       t    x  where x t    , x parallels to p. E m p Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy create, sustain and cause evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in Weyl (chiral) form in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t    m  i p    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e E     m  p x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  p x ip x ip x e    e  Et m   1  E  p      ip  x   ip  x    e     e     m  t  x            E  p  ip x   ip x E  p  ip x   ip  x e  e  e  e 0 m t x m t x 1 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (4.4) www.JCER.com 995 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether ip  x     ae,l e  e,l     L  0   LM , e LM , i     i,r  M ip x t  x      ai , r e   ip  x     Ae,l e  e,l     E  σ p L  0     LM , e LM , i     m   i,r  M ip x t  σ  x   Ai,r e      Ep   m  where that is: E m p   , p parallels to x, t  x  E  σ  p  e,l   i ,r   i   iσ   x e ,l   i ,r    or  t e,l   i   iσ     m    t  σ  x   m  i , r e , l E i , r p i ,  e , l     (4.5) One kind of metamorphoses of (4.4) & (4.5) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m x   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t    m  i p    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ  e      E  t   m  p x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  p x ip x ip x e    e  Et m    1  E  p      ip  x   ip  x    e     e     m  t  x            E  p  ip x   ip x E  p  ip x   ip  x e  e  e  e 0 m t x m t x 1 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (4.4a) www.JCER.com 996 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether ip  x     ae,l e      e,l   L   0   L L  M , e M , i  M    ip  x t  x    i,r   ai , r e    ip x     Ae,l e  e,l     E  σ p L  0     LM , e LM , i     m   i,r  M ip x t  σ  x   Ai,r e      Ep   m   E  σ  p  e,l   i ,r   i   iσ   x e ,l   i ,r    or  t e,l   i   iσ     m  p i, e ,l   t  σ  x  i ,r  m e,l   E i ,r where (4.5a) x t    , x parallels to p. E m p Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a free plane-wave fermion in another form in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t     m  i p    i x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e E       i x E   m  i p t   ISSN: 2153-8212     1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (4.6)    i x ip x E ip x e   e  m  ip t    i x ip x E ip  x e   e 0  m  ip t Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 997 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  E    m i p  ip  x   i x  Ae e      LM , e  ip x   t    Ai e   E   Q p    Qx  Ae e ip x     L t  ip x   M , e  Ai e     LM , i  e   LM  0  i      LM , i  e   LM  0  i    E m p   , p parallels to x, t  x where Q   m  iσ  p and Q    iσ  x and where x p that is:  E e    iσ  x  i    or   t   m  i σ  p  e   i  i t e   i  σ   p i    i    m   σ    e x i   E i (4.7) One kind of metamorphoses of (4.6) & (4.7) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x  m p  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i   i e t t  E E       i x  m  i p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      E e t     mip t     i x E   ISSN: 2153-8212     1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 (4.6a)  m  i p ip x t ip  x e   e   i x E  m  i p ip x t ip x e   e 0   i x E Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 998 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  t     i x  ip  x   m i p  Ae e      LM , e  ip x   E    Ai e    LM , i  e   LM  0  i     Q p  Ae e ip x     L  e   L   0   L M , e M , i  M   E  ip x    i A e i    i   m i  σ   x i   t e  m  iσ  p  i     or  E e  i      σ      E     i σ  x  t i e p i i e     t    Qx   where (4.7a) x t    , x parallels to p, Q     iσ x and Q  m  iσ  p . x p E m p Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear plane-wave photon in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 p  0 x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t    p  x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ    i   i e t   E   p x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ  Et  ip x ip x e       Et e  p x           E x p t 1 e ip  x e ip  x (4.8) 1  E ip μ xμ  x ip μ x μ E ip μ xμ  x ip μ x μ e  e  e  e 0 p t p t ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 999 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether ip  x      x  ae, e    e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e ip  x  i,  M t    ai ,  e     ip  x    s  x  E 0e, e      E  e,   L      LM , e L 0 M , i       s p   M photon ip x t i ,    iB 0i,- e       E   p  This photon wave function can be written as:  e,    E( x , t)   E 0 e i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon    iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e  ( p , E) i ,          (4.9) After the substitutions E  i t & p  i x and t  i E & x  ip , we have from the last expression in (4.8):  i t   is   x   p B (p, E)  is   p  E ( x , t)   E   0   t ( x , t)      i E  iB (p, E)    E B ( p, E)   x  E ( x , t)  (4.10) where we have used the relationship s   i x    x  and s   i p    p  to derive the latter equations which together with  x  E  0 and  p  B  0 are the Maxwell-like equations in the source-free vacuum in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates a neutrino in Dirac form by replacing the last step of expression (4.8) with the following: ip  x    σx  ae, e    E      LM , e   σp ip  x t    a e  i ,    LM , i  e,   LM  0   (4.11)  i,  One kind of metamorphoses of (4.8)-(4.11) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1000 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 x  0 p  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i   i e t t  E E    x  p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ     i   i e t  E    x p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ  tE  ip x ip x e       tE e  x p           t p  x E 1 e ip  x e ip  x (4.8a) 1   p ip μ xμ  p ip μ xμ ip μ x μ ip μ x μ t t e  e  e  e 0  x E  x E ip  x      p  ae, e    e,   L   0   L L  M ,i    M ,e ip  x  i,  M E    ai ,  e     ip  x    s p  E 0e, e      t  e,   L      LM , e L 0 M , i       s x   M photon ip x E i ,    iB 0i,- e       t   x   e,    E(p, E)   E 0 e i (t kx )   E 0  i (t kx )         photon    iB   iB 0 e i (t kx )    iB 0 e   i ,    ( x , t)       i E   is   p   t    σ x  is   x  E (p, E)    x B ( x , t)   E    0   E (p, E)  B  i t  iB ( x , t)   t ( x , t)   p  E (p, E)  ip  x    σp  ae, e       LM , e   ip x E   a e  i ,    LM , i  e,   LM  0  i,    (4.9a) (4.10a) (4.11a) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a linear ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1001 plane-wave antiphoton in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 p  0 x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e E E  t t    p  x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ    i   i e t   E   p x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ  Et  ip x ip x e       Et e  p x            E x p t 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 E ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ E ip μ x μ  x ip μ x μ e  e  e  e 0 p t p t (4.12)  x  e,        LM , e LM , i  e,   LM  0   t  i,    i ,   ip  x    s  x  iB 0e, e      E  e,   L     L L 0  M ,i    M ,e   s p   i,  M antiphoton ip  x t   E 0i, e       E   p  This antiphoton wave function can also be written as:  i (t k x )   iB 0 ( x , t)  i (t kx )  e ,    iB ( x, t)   iB 0 ( x , t) e   e      antiphoton   i (t k x )      E 0( p , E)  E E  0( p , E) e ( p , E) i ,          (4.13) Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates an antineutrino in Dirac form by replacing the last step of expression (4.12) with the following: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether ip  x    σ x  ae, e    E      LM , e    σp  ip x t   ai, e      LM , i  e,   LM  0  i,    1002 (4.14) One kind of metamorphoses of (4.12)-(4.14) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0 x  0 p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i   i e t t  E E    x  p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ    i   i e t  E    x p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ  tE  ip x ip x e       tE e  x p            t p x E 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1 t ip μ xμ  p ip μ xμ t ip μ xμ  p ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0  x E  x E (4.12a)  p  e,        LM , e LM , i  e,   L M   0   E  i,    i,    ip  x     s p  iB 0e, e      e,   L    L L 0  M,i    M,e M antiphoton  i,   ip  x  E     E e  0i,   t   x   t    s x   e ,    iB (p , E)   iB 0 ( p , E) e  i (t kx )   iB 0 ( p , E)  i (t kx )         antiphoton   E   E 0 ( x , t) e i (t kx )    E 0 ( x , t) e   i ,    ( x, t)      ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (4.13a) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether ip  x    σ x  ae, e    E      LM , e    σp  ip x t   ai, e      LM , i  e,   LM  0  i,    1003 (4.14a) Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates and sustains spaceless and momentum-less (space/momentum independent) external and internal wave functions of a mass m and intrinsic proper time  in Weyl (chiral) form as follows: 1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0  e  iLiL e  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0   0  iEt iEt m   i   i e E  t t E  m       e iEt iEt  E  t   m  iEt iEt  Et  iEt iEt    e e  Et   m        E  m t 1 e iEt e iEt 1  E iEt   iEt E iEt   iEt e  e  e  e 0 m t m t (4.15)  E   gW ,e e iEt      L   m t  g e iEt   M , e   W ,i  VW ,e   L V 0 LM , i   VW ,i  M W   One kind of metamorphoses of (4.15) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1004 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e iLiL e iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  0   0  iEt iEt    i   i e t  E E t    m     e iEt iEt  t  E   m  iEt iEt  tE  iEt iEt   e   e  tE   E        t m  E 1 e iEt e iEt 1  t iEt t iEt  m iEt e  Ee iEt  e  e 0   E  t      m  gW ,e e iEt      LM , e  E  gW ,i e iEt     (4.15a) VW ,e   L V 0 LM , i   VW ,i  M W   Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a spatially self-confined entity such as a proton through imaginary momentum pi and imaginary position xi (downward self-reference such that m>Et) in Dirac form in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal energy-momentum space as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM  m p   x  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i i   i i e E E  t t    m  i p i    i x i  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ  e       E  t  ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1005  m  p i x i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  m ip x ip x e    e  Et p x i i         E  m  xi   pi t   1 e ip  x e ip  x 1  E  m ip μ xμ  x i ip μ xμ E  m ip μ xμ  x i ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0  pi t   pi t   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     L     p i t   si, e iEt   M ,e     e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.16) After spinization of the last expression in (4.16), we have:  E m    σ p i   σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  iEt   t   S i, e      e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.17) As discussed previously, it is likely that the last expression in (4.16) governs the confinement structure of the unspinized proton in Dirac form through imaginary momentum pi and imaginary momentum xi and, on the other hand, expression (4.17) governs the confinement structure of spinized proton through pi and xi in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space. Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Dirac form in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space may be respectively governed as follows:  E  m  x i  se, e iEt     L     p i t   si, e iEt   M ,e     D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (4.18)  σ x i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  t   S i, e iEt      D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (4.19)  E m    σp i  One kind of metamorphoses of (4.16)-(4.19) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1006 1  ei 0  ei 0 ei 0  e  iLiLe  iM iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM   x i  m p i  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ   i   i e t  E  t E       i xi  m  i p i  ip μ xμ ip μ xμ      E e t     m  x i p i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ tE  m ip x ip x e    e  tE x p i i         t    xi  pi Em 1 e ip  x e ip  x 1   p i ip μ xμ t   ip μ xμ t   ip μ xμ  p i ip μ xμ e  e  e  e 0  xi Em  xi Em  t    xi   p i  se, e  iEt     LM , e   iEt   E  m si, e      e,    LM  0 LM , i   i,     t    σ x i   σ p i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  E  m  S i, e iEt      e,   L  0 LM ,i   i,  M   (4.17a) (4.16a)  t    xi   p i  se, e iEt     L  E  m  si, e iEt   M ,e    D,e    LM D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (4.18a)  t     σ x i   σp i  S e, e iEt     LM ,e  E  m  S i, e iEt      D,e    LM  D  0 LM ,i   D,i    (4.19a) Similarly, prespacetime-premomentumenergy model creates, sustains and causes evolution of a spatially and momentumly self-confined entity such as a proton through imaginary momentum pi and imaginary position xi (downward self-reference) in Weyl (chiral) form in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space as follows: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1007 1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0  e  iL  iLe  iM  iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM  iM  m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i i   i i e E E  t t    m  i p i    i x i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      t e E     m  p i  x i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ Et  p i  x i ip x ip x   e  e Et m    E  p i          m  t  x  i    E  pi m ip  x e  E  pi   m  where  1 e e   ip  x ip  x 1  ip x E  p i ip x  ip x e  e  e 0 t  xi m t  xi   se,r e iEt    L  t  x i  si,l e iEt    M ,e  e,r  L  0 L   i,l    (4.20)  e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l    (4.21) M ,i M E m pi   , pi parallels to xi. t  xi After spinization of expression (3.114), we have:  E σp i   m    S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  t  σ  x i  S i,l e iEt     The last expression in (4.20) may govern the structure of the unspinized proton in Weyl form and expression (4.21) governs the structure of spinized proton in Weyl form. Thus, an unspinized and spinized antiproton in Weyl form in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space may be respectively governed as follows:  E  pi   m  ISSN: 2153-8212   se,l e iEt     L  t  x i  si,r e iEt   M ,e    e,l    LM   0 LM ,i   i,r    Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (4.22) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether  E  σp i   m    S e,l e iEt     LM ,e  t  σx i  S i,r e iEt      e,l    LM   0 LM ,i   i,r    1008 (4.23) One kind of metamorphoses of (4.20)-(4.23) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows: 1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0  e  iL  iLe  iM  iM cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM  iM   x  m p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ   i i   i i e t t  E E      i x i  m  i p i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      E e t     m  x i p i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ tE  x i p i ip x ip x e    e   tE  E    t  x i   m         E  p  i    t  xi  e ip  x  1 e e   ip  x ip  x 1 t  x i ip x  m ip x  m ip x e  e  e 0 E  pi  E  pi  t  xi      m  se, r e  iEt    L  E  p i  si, l e  iEt     e, r   L  0 L    i, l     t σ  x i      m  S e,r e iEt     LM ,e  E  σ p i  S i,l e iEt      e,r    LM   0 LM ,i   i,l    t  xi      m  se,l e iEt     L  E  p i  si,r e iEt   M ,e    t  σ x i     ISSN: 2153-8212 M ,e M ,i  e,l   L  0 LM ,i   i,r  M    m  S e,l e iEt     LM ,e  E  σp i  S i,r e iEt      e,l    LM  0 LM ,i   i,r    Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (4.20a) M (4.21a) (4.22a) (4.23a) www.JCER.com 1009 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 4.2 Scientific Genesis of Composite Entities Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model create, sustain and cause evolution of a neutron in Dirac form in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space which is comprised of an unspinized proton:   E  e(r, t )  m  x i  eA (p, E)  s e iEt     e, 0    p i  eA (r, t ) t  e(p, E)   si, e iEt       p (4.24) and a spinized electron:        E  e(r, t ) V  m  σ  x  eA (p, E)  S e, e iEt     0  t  e(p, E) V(p, E)   S i, e iEt      σ  p  eA (r, t )  e   as follows:  (4.25)   1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 e i 0 e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 p e i 0 e i 0 e  e  iLiM e  iM iM p e iLiL e iM iM e     cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM iM p cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM e  m p i   x i  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ    m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ        i e   i   i e    i  t   t   E   E  E t E t       p  e  Et  m ip x ip x   Et  m ip x ip x        e   px e  p x  i i p e 1 1  1   1    E  m   x   ip  x  ip  x     E  m   s   ip  x  ip  x   i       e     e      e       p  t    e            p t    i                p e   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     E  m  x  se, e iEt   0   0        pi t   si, e iEt      p t   si, e iEt     p e iEt     E  e  m  x  eA    (r, t ) i (p, E )  s e, e    0 iEt      p  eA     t  e(p, E )   si, e (r, t )  p  i       σ  x  eA (p, E )  S e, e iEt       E  e(r, t ) V(r, t )  m 0  iEt      σ  p  eA     t  e   V   S e (r, t ) (p, E ) (p, E )  i,   e    ISSN: 2153-8212   (4.26)  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1010 In expressions (4.24), (4.25) and (4.26),   ,   and   indicate proton, electron and p e n neutron respectively. Further, unspinized proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, A   ( , A ) and A  ( , A) are the electromagnetic potentials acting on unspinized    p  e proton and tightly bound spinized electron respectively, and V  is a binding potential from e the unspinized proton acting on the spinized electron causing tight binding as discussed later.   If A   ( , A ) is negligible due to the fast motion of the tightly bound spinized electron, p we have from the last expression in (4.26):    E  m  x i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0           p i t   si, e    p     E  e V  m  iEt  σ  x  eA (p, E)  S e, e    (r, t ) (r, t )    0      σ  p  eA (r, t ) t  e(p, E) V(p, E)   S i, e iEt    e      (4.27)  Experimental data on charge distribution and g-factor of neutron seem to support a neutron comprising of an unspinized proton and a tightly bound spinized electron. The Weyl (chiral) form of the last expression in (4.26) and expression (4.27) are respectively as follows:    E  e  p  eA   se,r e iEt    (r, t ) i (r, t )   (4.28)   0    s e iEt     m t  e   x  e A (p, E ) i (p, E )  i,l  p       S e,l e iEt       E  e(r, t ) V(r, t )  σ  p  eA (r, t ) 0     m t  e(p, E) V(p, E)  σ  x  eA (p, E)  S i,r e iEt      e n       E  p i   m  se,r e iEt     (4.29) 0   s e iEt       m  t  x i  i,l  p     E  e V  σ  p  eA   iEt  m  S e,l e    (r, t ) (r, t ) (r, t )       0    m t  e(p, E) V(p, E)  σ  x  eA (p, E)  S i,r e iEt      e n   ISSN: 2153-8212   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.  www.JCER.com 1011 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether One kind of metamorphoses of (4.24)-(4.29) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows:   t  e(p, E)      x i  eA (p, E)   p i  eA (r, t )  se, e iEt    0 E  e(r, t )  m  si, e iEt      t  e(p, E) V(p, E)      σ  x  eA (p, E)      (4.24a) p   σ  p  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt   0  E  e(r, t ) V(r, t )  m  Si, e iEt   e (4.25a)      1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 e i 0 e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 p e i 0 e i 0 e  e  iLiM e  iM iM p e iLiL e iM iM e     cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM iM p cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM e  x  m p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ     x  p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      i  m  i e      i i   i i e  E   t   t  t E E t E       p  e  tE  m ip x ip x   tE  m ip x ip x        e   xp e  x p  i i p e 1 1  1   1    t    p   ip  x  ip  x     t    p   ip  x  ip  x   i         e     e     e       x  E  m   e            x E  m  i                p e   t       x i   p i  se, e iEt     t  0   E  m  si, e iEt      x  p  p  se, e iEt   0  E  m  si, e iEt   e    t  e   p i  eA (r, t )  se, e iEt   (p, E )     0     x  eA   s e iEt    E  e   m (p, E ) (r, t )  p  i,  i       σ  p  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt       t  e(p, E) V(p, E )  m        σ  x  eA  S e iEt   0   E  e   V  m (p, E ) (r, t ) (r, t ) i ,    e    ISSN: 2153-8212   (4.26a)  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether    t   p i  s e iEt       e, iEt   0      x i E  m  si, e      p     t  e iEt      V    σ  x  e A   S e (p, E ) (p, E ) (r, t ) e ,   0       σ  x  eA (p, E) E  e(r, t ) V(r, t )  m  S i, e iEt    e      1012 (4.27a)     t  e   se,r e iEt   m (p, E )  x i  eA (p, E )   (4.28a)   0 iEt        E  e(r, t )  p i  eA (r, t )  si,l e  p      iEt m  S e,l e       t  e(p, E) V(p, E)  σ  x  eA (p, E)       S e iEt   0     E  e   V  σ  p  e A (r, t ) (r, t ) (r, t )  i,r   e n    t  x i  m  se,r e iEt       s e iEt   0      E  p i i , l   p    t  e (p, E ) V(p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )               (4.29a)     iEt m  S e,l e    0  E  e(r, t ) V(r, t )  σ  p  eA (r, t )  S i,r e iEt     e n   Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model create, sustain and cause evolution of a hydrogen atom, in the dual universe comprising of said external spacetime and internal energy-momentum space, which comprises of a spinized proton:     σ x i eA (p, E)  Se,e iEt    0   t e(p, E )   Si, e iEt   p  σ x eA (p, E)  Se, eiEt    0   t e(p, E)   Si,eiEt   e   E e(r, t )  m    σ p i eA (r, t )  (4.30) and a spinized electron:   E e(r, t ) m    σ p eA (r, t )   in Dirac form as follows:       (4.31)   1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 e i 0 e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 p e i 0 e i 0 e  e iLiM e iM iM p e iLiL e iM iM e     cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM iM p cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM e ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1013  m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ    m p   x  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      i   i e      i i   i i e  t   E   E  E t t E t       p  e  Et  m ip x ip x   Et  m ip x ip x        e   px e  p x  i i p e 1 1  1   1    E  m   x    ip  x   ip  x     E  m   x    ip  x   ip  x   i         e     e     e       p  t    e            p t    i                p e   E  m  x i  se, e iEt     E  m  x  se, e iEt   0    0       iEt  iEt         pi   t   si, e   p t   si, e     p e      E  e(r, t )  m  σ  x i  eA (p, E)  S e, e iEt     0      σ  p i  eA (r, t ) t  e(p, E)   S i, e iEt     p     E  e  m  σ  x  eA  iEt   (r, t ) (p, E )  S e, e      0  iEt         σ  p  eA (r, t )  t  e(p, E)   S i, e  e        (4.32)  In expressions (4.30), (4.31) and (4.32),   p ,  e and   h indicate proton, electron and hydrogen atom respectively. Again, proton has charge e, electron has charge –e, and A  ( , A) and A  ( , A) are the electromagnetic potentials acting on spinized p e proton and spinized electron respectively.   Again, if A  ( , A) p is negligible due to fast motion of the orbiting spinized electron, we have from the last expression in (3.129):    E  m  σ x i  S e iEt       e, 0   S e iEt       σ p i  t    i,  p     E  e  m  σ  x  eA iEt    (r, t ) (p, E )  S e, e    0   iEt        σ  p  eA (r, t ) t  e(p, E)   S i, e    e    ISSN: 2153-8212   (4.33)  Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1014 The Weyl (chiral) form of the last expression in (4.32) and expression (4.33) are respectively as follows:      E  e(r, t )  σ  p i  eA (r, t ) m  S e,r e iEt     0  (4.34)    m E  e(p, E)  σ  p i  eA (p, E)  S i,l e iEt    p     E  e  σ  p  eA  m  S e,l e iEt   (r, t ) (r, t )        0     m E  e(p, E)  σ  p  eA (p, E)  S i,r e iEt    e h           E  σ p i   m  S e,r e iEt      0   S e iEt       m  (4.35) E  σ  p i  i , l   p     E  e  σ  p  eA   iEt m  S e,l e    (r, t ) (r, t )    0     m E  e(p, E )  σ  p  eA (p, E)  S i,r e iEt     e h      One kind of metamorphoses of (4.30)-(4.35) in which the dual universe is comprised of said external energy-momentum space and said internal spacetime is respectively as follows:   t  e(p, E)      σ  x i  eA (p, E)     t  e(p, E)     σ  x  eA (p, E)        σ  p i  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt   0  E  e(r, t )  m  S i, e iEt   p  σ  p  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt    0   t  e(r, t )  m  Si, e iEt   e   (4.30a)    (4.31a)   1  e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 e i 0 e i 0  e i 0 e i 0 p e i 0 e i 0 e  e iLiM e iM iM p e iLiL e iM iM e     cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e  iM iM p cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L e iM iM e  x  m p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ     x  p  ip μ x μ ip μ x μ      i  m  i e      i i   i i e  E   t   t  t E E t E       p  e  tE  m ip x ip x   tE  m ip x ip x        e   xp e  x p  i i p e ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1015 1 1  1   1    t    p   ip  x  ip  x     t    p   ip  x  ip  x   i       e     e      e       x  E  m   e            x E  m    i                 p e   t       x i   p i  se, e iEt     t  0   E  m  si, e iEt      x  p   p  se, e iEt   0  E  m  si, e iEt   e     t  e(p, E)   σ  p i  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt     0       σ  x i  eA (p, E) E  e(r, t )  m  S i, e iEt     p     t  e   σ  p  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt   (p, E )          0     σ  x  eA (p, E)  E  e(r, t )  m  S i, e iEt   e            t    σ p i  S e, e iEt      0      σ x i E  m  S i, e iEt      p     t  e  σ  p  eA (r, t )  S e, e iEt    (p, E )     0       σ  x  eA (p, E) t  e(r, t )   S i, e iEt    e       (4.32a) (4.33a)      t  e(rp, E )  σ  x i  eA (p, E ) m  S e,r e iEt     0  (4.34a)     E  e(r, t )  σ  p i  eA (r, t )  S i,l e iEt    p     E  e  σ  p  eA  m  S e,l e iEt   (r, t ) (r, t )        0     m E  e(r, t )  σ  p  eA (r, t )  S i,r e iEt   e  h          t  σ x i   m  S e,r e iEt      0   S e iEt        (4.35a) E  σ  p i  i , l   p     t  e   iEt m  S e,l e    (p, E )  σ  x  eA (p, E )    0      E  e(r, t )  σ  p  eA (r, t )  S i,r e iEt     e h   ISSN: 2153-8212   Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc.  www.JCER.com 1016 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 5. Mathematics & Ontology of Ether Ether is Mathematical, Immanent & Transcendental 5.1 Mathematical Aspect of Ether In the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, it is our comprehension that: (1) The mathematical representation of the primordial ether in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness) is the Euler’s Number e which makes the Euler’s identity possible: ei  1  0 (5.1) (2) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of primordial distinction in prespacetimepremomentumenergy (Consciousness): 1=ei0=ei0ei0=eiL-iLeiM-iM=eiLeiMe-iLe-iM=e-iLe-iM/e-iLe-iM=eiLeiM/eiLeiM… (5.2) (3) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of the genesis of four-momentum and four-position relation in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness): 1  e i 0  e iLiL  Le Li 1  cos L  i sin L cos L  i sin L   m p   x   m  i p    i x   m  p  x    i   i       E  t   E  t    E t Et        (5.3) Et  m  p  x when E m p   and p parallels to x. t  x (4) Euler’s Number e is the foundation of the genesis, sustenance and evolution of an elementary particle in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness): 1  ei 0  ei 0ei 0  e iLiLe iM iM  Le Li 1 e iM e iM   1 LM ,e ISSN: 2153-8212 Ae  A    LM ,i  e iM   LM  e e iM  LM  e   LM   0  Ai   i   Ai e  iM Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. (5.4) www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1017 (5) Euler’s Number e is also the foundation of quantum entanglement or gravity in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (6) Euler’s Number is immanent in the sense that it is the ingredient of equations (5.1) to (5.5) thus all “knowing” and all “present.” (7) Euler’s Number is also transcendental in the sense that is the foundation of existence thus “omnipotent” and behind creation. 5.2 Immanent Aspect of Ether In the prespacetime-premomentumenergy model, the immanent aspect of ether associated with individual entity (“i-ether”) has following attributes: i-ether is the ingredient of atoms, of molecules, of cells, of a body; i-ether is in space, time, motion, rest; i-ether is governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology; i-ether is the ingredient of this world, the Earth, the Solar System. i-ether is the ingredient of awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; i-ether is in love, passion, hope, despair; i-ether is governed by the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; i-ether is the ingredient of mind, soul, spirit. In the prespacetime model, the immanent of ether associated with the universal entity (“IETHER”) has following attributes: I-ETHER IS atoms, molecules, cells, body; I-ETHER IS space, time, motion, rest; I-ETHER IS laws of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology; I-ETHER IS this World, the Earth, the Solar System; I-ETHER IS awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; I-ETHER IS love, passion, hope, despair; I-ETHER IS the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; I-ETHER IS mind, soul, spirit. 5.3 Transcendental Aspect of Ether In the prespacetime model, the transcendental aspect of ether associated with individual/entity (“t-ether”) has following attributes: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1018 t-ether is not the ingredient of atoms, of molecules, of cells, of a body; t-ether is not in space, time, motion, rest; t-ether is not governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology; t-ether is not the ingredient of this world, the Earth, the Solar System. t-ether is beyond awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; t-ether is beyond love, passion, hope, despair; t-ether is beyond the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; t-ether is beyond mind, soul, spirit. In the prespacetime model, the transcendental aspect of ether associated with the universal entity (“T-ETHER”) has following attributes: T-ETHER IS NOT the atoms, molecules, cells, body; T-ETHER IS NOT the space, time, motion, rest; T-ETHER IS NOT the laws of physics, chemistry, biology; T-ETHER IS NOT this world, the Earth, the Solar System; T-ETHER IS NOT awareness, feeling, imagination, free will; T-ETHER IS NOT love, passion, hope, despair; T-ETHER IS NOT the laws of psychology, economics, sociology; T-ETHER IS NOT mind, soul, spirit. 6. Conclusions This work is a continuation of prespacetime-premomentumenergy model described recently. Here we have shown how in this model prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) generates: (1) four-momentum and four-position relation as transcendental Law of One, (2) self-referential matrix law with four-momentum and four-position relation as the determinant, and (3) Law of Zero in a dual universe comprised of an external spacetime and an internal momentum-energy space. We have further shown how prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) may generate, sustain and make evolving elementary particles and composite particles incorporating the genesis of selfreferential matrix law. In addition, we will discuss the ontology and mathematics of ether in this model. Illustratively, in the beginning there was prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness) by itself ei0 =1 materially empty and it began to imagine through primordial self-referential spin 1=ei0=ei0ei0=eiL-iLeiM-iM=eiLeiMe-iLe-iM=e-iLe-iM/e-iLeiM iL iM iL iM =e e /e e …such that it created the self-referential matrix law, the external object to be observed and internal object as observed, separated them into external spacetime and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1019 internal momentum-energy space, caused them to interact through said matrix law and thus gave birth to the dual universeuniverse which it has since sustained and made to evolve. Prespacetime-premomentumenergy model employs the following ontological principles among others: (1) Principle of oneness/unity of existence through quantum entanglement in the ether of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness). (2) Principle of hierarchical primordial self-referential spin creating: - Four-momentum and four-position relation as transcendental Law of One. - Four-momentum and four-position relation as determinant of matrix law. - Law of Zero of total phase of external and internal wavefunctions (objects). Further, prespacetime-premomentumenergy model employs the following mathematical elements & forms among others in order to empower the above ontological principles: (3) e, Euler’s Number, for (to empower) ether as foundation/basis/medium of existence (body of prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness)); (4) i, imaginary number, for (to empower) thoughts and imagination in prespacetime-premomentumenergy (Consciousness); (3) 0, zero, for (to empower) emptiness (undifferentiated/primordial state); (4) 1, one, for (to empower) oneness/unity of existence; (5) +, -, *, /, = for (to empower) creation, dynamics, balance & conservation; (6) Pythagorean Theorem for (to empower) energy, momentum and mass relation, and time, position and intrinsic proper time relation; and (7) M, matrix, for (to empower) the external spacetime and internal momentumenergy space and the interaction of external and internal wavefunctions. References 1. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence: Towards a Science of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:1, pp. 50-119. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1001.0011 2. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2010), The Principle of Existence II: Genesis of Self-Referential Matrix Law, & the Ontology & Mathematics of Ether. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1:9, pp. 1149-1178. Also see: http://vixra.org/abs/1012.0043 3. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model I. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 641-660. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 10 | pp. 970-1020 Hu, H. &Wu, M. Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model II: Generation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether 1020 4. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2013), Application of Prespacetime Model II. Prespacetime journal 4:6, pp. 661-680. 5. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Premomentumenergy Model I: Creation of Elementary Particles & Relativistic QM for a Dual Momentum-Energy Universe in Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 766-834. 6. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Premomentumenergy Model II: Creation of Self-Referential Matrix Law & Mathematics of Ether in Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 835-866. 7. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Modeling Methods Based on Premomentumenergy Model. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:9, pp. 867-888. 8. Hu, H. & Wu, M. (2014), Prespacetime-Premomentumenergy Model I: Generation of Elementary Particles & Quantum Theory for a Dual Universe Comprised of Spacetime & Momentumenergy Space. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 5:10, pp. 889-969. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

267 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek Guest Editorial A Brief Introduction to The Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek Grant Gillett Bioethics Centre University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Jeffery Jonathan (Joshua) Davis* ‫ישוע‬ The Embassy of Peace, Whitianga, New Zealand Abstract How can a new paradigm, the Paradigm of Melchizedek, shape scientific research in a completely new direction, in a way that is based on Values rather than unhealthy scepticism? A distorted kind of scepticism about anything beyond the bare facts as described by a limited scientific paradigm is widespread in the academic world and has shaped the brain structure of many scientists to favour a perception of reality strongly biased towards promissory materialism. This paradigm comes as an antidote to that tendency and is geared towards a greater synthesis between ancient and modern spiritual wisdom and scientific truth, in order to advance a cognitive science that allows an inclusive study of the neurobiology of values like Truth, Love and Unity and propel human consciousness towards the manifestation of a peaceful social environment. Key Words: Brain, Melchizedek, paradigm, neurobiology, truth, love, value, unity, peace, Consciousness. Plato’s great insight that goodness and truth are one suggests that an inclusive form of knowledge, would shape brains and hearts capable of doing science as part of an integral, loving and caring way of being that is concerned with the betterment of our knowledge, perception and experience of life, so as to increase the quality of all aspects and dimensions of human existence in the world. The thought, derived from John Hughlings Jackson [1], is that as we integrate at higher and higher levels the varieties of information used to solve a cognitive problem, we broaden the range of contingencies that are factored into the control of behaviour so as to more adequately reflect and adapt our lives to our real human situation (maximally understood). Thus, for instance, if one were conscious of the effect on the environment of increasing energy consumption and the imbalances created by it one might see that certain types of action, whatever the gratification they offer, are ultimately maladaptive and so avoid them. In so doing one might find that a narrow problem solving schema of the type found in the dorso-lateral frontal lobe needs to be moderated by other less articulate resonances with nature and lived experience. *Correspondence: c/o Sarah Frew, The Embassy of Peace, Whitianga, New Zealand. http://paradiselanding.weebly.com/ E-mail: sarahinparadise888@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 268 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek The Promissory Materialistic paradigm focuses on functional material outcomes aimed at individual survival and preference in the short to medium term and explains only the functional, problem solving consciousness directed towards ego-oriented survival needs. It assumes that a human is and must be accountable for by-processes shaped by organismic values realised in an individual brain. That creates a paradox of brain and mind duality when we consider abstract and general thoughts through which human beings become cognisant of eternal and shared concerns that transcend individual interests and tries to integrate those with a creative source of unity between all humankind that can be explored subjectively, internally, and spiritually yet also objectively, energetically through the interaction of biology with meaning, and even through the interaction between the matter field and the quantum field. A closed materialistic perspective of the kind found in research reported by V.S. Ramachandran [2] embodies the view that a ‘God Module’ in the brain mediates “spiritual experience” which is seen in terms of self-contained brain processes, neurogenetic interactions and intra-organismic information processes. By contrast, Francisco Varela [3], Humberto Maturana [4], Stuart Hameroff [5] and Fritjof Capra [6], take a systemic approach to consciousness as a process emergent in an autopoietic or self-organising and self-making system that is adapted holistically to a complex world so that life and cognition can embrace all levels of reality from the most physical and physiological to the most symbolic and abstract. The latter kind of neural process is deeply informed by “propositionising” [1] a level of representation that is essentially shared and tracks the truth of our being-in-the-world-with-others [7]. Consciousness in that inclusive sense shapes and breathes life into the human life world and the whole of the universe as we try to understand it. Spiritual thought, as explored by mystics in all religions, focuses on a type of consciousness that embraces the possibility of a personal dialogue, and a personal relationship with the process of Life and The Creator of all things (however conceptualised). This is the most highly integrative level of understanding of the human condition, and it allows us to theorise, hypothesise and explore the existence of creation and Creator by overcoming the dichotomies of for example, personal~impersonal and self~other, seeing these apparent opposites as ecologically complementary pairs or as described by Scott Kelso [8]. When we realise that brains are unable to work without the body, and human beings are unable to work without other human beings, other beings, the planet and life itself, we are left with a view of reality where consciousness, cognition and neural activity have to be studied in a way that recognises both downward and upward causation as complementary, and model consciousness with the aid of non-linear systems dynamics. To go beyond that complex physical reality and consider the existence of a spiritual field which permeates all of it, a field different in quality from, and even more beautiful and all-inclusive than the quantum field, and also to consider The Creator as the Source of this field, we need “The Connective Paradigm of Melchizedek”. This paradigm differs from Promissory Materialism, and also from that of a purely energetic, holistic and systemic thought oriented paradigm. The first turns our view towards the machinery, and the second to why that machinery exists and what it is all about. One conceives the universe as an impersonal machinery, the other considers the universe as an impersonal living organism, while “The Connective Paradigm of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 269 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek Melchizedek” considers the universe as existing by and through the presence of conscious, cognising, loving and Living Beings who form a set of Holons. It tells us why the machine or the living organism exist in time and space in both personal and impersonal relationships, and what the purpose of these Holons are in a larger family system of personal relationships. The paradigm itself is based on the existence of The Creator, where communication with HimHer is optional, where we have the choice according to the integrative structures informing our nervous systems and it is our prerogative to establish that communication or rule it out. The Spiritual Values concerned can be accessed through an integrated mode of sensory-motor and cognitive processing that includes our relationships with other people, the environment, and the universe at large. When we talk about the embodiment of Values like Love and Truth, we are talking also about an experience intimately connected with the idea of self or who I Am. This is often limited to the inskin individual and survival however, in reality, that individual is in a dynamic relationship of continuous reciprocal causation with a context that can be construed either narrowly or broadly [9]. In this deeper sense, what we think of as the self is actually moulded by something, which is greater than just our bodies and we lose sight of it when we narrow our gaze to what goes on within us. Spiritual Values exist with or without the agency of a human or human behaviour. To understand, explore and research Spiritual Values would be to understand that we are dealing with forces, essences and presences that are antidotes to greed, fear, anger, guilt, misuse of power and chaos in general. These invisible and apprehensible presences, essences and forces may become accessible to us at will, and help construct our own sense of identity, in the paradigm of Melchizedek, called our I Am Identity. Through that process, human beings may then construct human thoughts and feelings beneficial to mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, and even learn to embody and express Universal Spiritual Values. Once these Values are accessible to us at will through action structures and neural assemblies that are maximally inclusive of our engagement in the world, we are given Presence and power of action, and our jurisdiction or sovereignty in personal relationships is prescribed for us to fit with our destiny as co-creators, and planters of the seeds of wisdom and goodness. This also means that the I Am Identity prescribes interpersonal relationships that lay the foundation for Law and Justice. On the other hand, human values based on individualistic neurogenetics, are behavioural and sometimes limit or support human wellbeing relativized to personal biological, physical reality and its priorities, however they can be transformed by integrating Spiritual Values. If we are embedded in morphic fields (as Rupert Sheldrake [10] calls them) that can transform our perception of reality through wide connections with others, the question of human behaviour and Spiritual Identity can be re-phrased. How can we access ways of being or behaving that are conducive to the synthesis and synergy that integrates in our neural processors to form a new ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 270 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek cognitive map suited to the embodiment of Spiritual Values as co-constructors of a realm of being, shared between humans and other beings? We seem to be conditioned, however imperfectly, to express Universal Values, and confining our cognitive structure to the imperfections seems to be getting in the way between human beings of different groups with different Behavioural Values. To address that, we have to explore the possibility that our perception and behaviours in a sense, are being coloured by what Metzinger [11] and Ramachandran [2] call ‘a false construct of self.’ Perhaps those false constructs are inherent in the temporal and behavioural boundaries erected in our brains through self-oriented reward and fear conditioning and the moulding of Behavioural Values through national, religious, or other group identities and we need to (cognitively) step out of them into a completely different way of being. But what transformations in the brain and which shaping environments are conducive to producing a change that will overcome these limitations by creating an integrative neural dynamics, based on gene expressions and environmental influences? The ideal is a new universal-value-oriented cognitive map that allows one to act peacefully and harmoniously toward all creation. In the context of this Paradigm we define such a person as a Tzadik, someone concerned with the wellbeing of all humanity as seen through the eyes of The Creator or a maximally integrated state of consciousness, like a Buddha. These kinds of people are wired with a cognitive map of reality that we have called “The Brain of Melchizedek”. A brain of that kind is capable of large-scale integration of neuro assemblies through oscillatory synchronisations and desynchronisations, as described by Kozma [12] and the non-linear brain model of Freeman and Guiseppe Vitiello [13]. This same principle applies to other oscillatory systems that interact with the brain, like the heart, the respiratory and digestive systems and the autonomic nervous system. At a macro level synchronisation within a human being can then be extended between human beings in ways that can be modelled by expanding on the K5 and K6 Models of Kozma and Freeman. If synchronicity is real in the way described by Sheldrake [10], Carl Jung [14], and Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue [15], it becomes possible to understand the thought that we are Holons as part of something bigger, perhaps God’s Order, and can talk about the Life-Giving Spirit that embraces all of us and brings us together as something accessible to consciousness and cognition. “The Brain of Melchizedek”, is a brain geared to the embodiment of Spiritual Values in a way that is meta-stable (regarding metastability see Scott Kelso and Emmanuelle Tognoli [8], Walter Freeman and M. D. Holmes [16]). As the brain goes from human consciousness to higher Consciousness, a person’s perception of reality changes from a survival map, based on reactions towards threats, fearful situations and so on, into a map of reality capable of existing in the presence of “a Peace that surpasses all understanding” so that she or he becomes altruistic and connected in spirit to all other human beings [17]. “The Paradigm of Melchizedek” is realised in human beings regardless of the experience of knowing God personally or having even conceived that such a relationship could be valid for them, provided they are minded towards maximal integration in their holistic adaptation to a context [1]. Both the personal and impersonal ways of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 271 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek relating or embodying Universal Values have been discussed by Jewish psychologist Abraham Maslow [18] who spoke about Being Values (or B Values) and a cross-roads between a personal relationship with the Source of Values (Union with God) and the impersonal embodiment of B Values. Further development of the global potential of this orientation is found in a body of research concerned with the understanding and modelling of the Spiritual Neurogenetic Propagation of Spiritual Values and Peace trans-generationally, and a possible conscious re-engineering or redesign of our evolutionary path towards a peaceful humanity, understood through the works of Leonid Perlovsky [19], as well as “The Brain of Melchizedek” (Appendix C) [20]. Acknowledgement: This article is a short version of the paper “The Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek – A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Spirituality or a Spiritual Approach to Cognitive Neuroscience” by Grant Gillett and Joshua. The full version of this paper is on the following website: https://sites.google.com/site/thebrainofmelcizedek/Home/archivepdfs References [1] J. Hughlings Jackson; “Remarks on the evolution and dissolution of the nervous system.” Brit. J Psychiatry 1887; 33: 25-48. [2] V. S. Ramachandran and S. Blakeslee; Phantoms in the Brain – Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. (New York, USA: William Morrow and Company, INC., 1998). [3] F. J. Varela and E. Thompson; “Radical embodiment; neural dynamics and consciousness”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 5, Issue 10, pp. 418-425 (October 2001). [4] H. R. Maturana and F. J. Varela; The Tree of Knowledge – The Biological Roots of Human Understanding Revised Edition. (Boston, Massachusetts USA: Shambhala Publications, 1987). [5] S. Hameroff; “Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection.” www.quantumconsciousness.org/springer.htm accessed online 22 July, 2008. [6] F. Capra; The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. (Anchor Books, 1996). [7] G. Gillett; Subjectivity and Being somebody: human identity and neuroethics, St Andrews series on philosophy and Public Affairs. (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2008). [8] J. A. Kelso and E. Tognoli; “Toward a Complementary Neuroscience: Metastable Coordination Dynamics of the Brain”, (pp. 39-59). In Neurodynamics of Cognition and Consciousness, Perlovsky and Kozma, Editors (Verlag Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, 2007). [9] A. Clark; Supersizing the mind: embodiment, action and cognitive extension. (Oxford: U P, 2008). [10] R. Sheldrake; A New Science of Life - Revised and Expanded - The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. 1981). [11] T. Metzinger; Being No One - The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. (USA: A Bradford Book, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2003). [12] R. Kozma; “Neurodynamics of Intentional Behavior Generation”, (pp.131-161). In Neurodynamics of Cognition and Consciousness, Perlovsky and Kozma, Editors (Verlag Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, 2007). [13] W. J. Freeman and G. Vitiello; “Nonlinear Brain Dynamics as Macroscopic Manifestation of Underlying ManyBody Field Dynamics.” (Science Direct, Elsevier, 2006). [14] C. G. Jung; Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle. (USA: Princeton University Press, 1973). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 272 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 267-272 Gillett, G. & Davis, J. J., A Brief Introduction to the Brain and Paradigm of Melchizedek [15] M. Jibu and K. Yasue; Advances in Consciousness Research, Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness - An Introduction. (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co. 1995. Accessed online 22 July, 2008 at: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/springer.htm [16] W. J. Freeman and M.D. Holmes; “Metastability, Instability, and State Transition in Neocortex.” Neural Networks 18(5-6) pp. 497-504. (2005). [17] I. Kant; Anthropology from a pragmatic Point of View. Tr. V.L.Dodwell. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978). [18] A. H. Maslow; Religions, Values, And Peak-Experiences. (USA: Viking Press, 1964). [19] L. Perlovsky; “Evolution of Languages, Consciousness and Cultures”, pp. 25 –39 IEEE Computational Intelligence. Volume 2 Number 3 (August 2007). [20] J.J.J. Davis; The Brain of Melchizedek – A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Spirituality. (2008). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

496 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will Opinion On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will Lei Liu * School of Information Management, Dezhou Universtiy, Dezhou, China ABSTRACT It is desirable to us humans that a computer or an AI would not require any programmer to do meaningful work. How can we achieve this? This paper aims to provide a tentative answer. Lady Lovelace was the first person and programmer to point out that a computer needs to originate something to be creative and autonomous. Philosophers think this as free will objection. Though free will inspired some attention in AI literature, the mystery of free will is so far unsolved. This paper suggests that a desire for a divergent state is a plausible evidence for existence of free will. Though a desire is still mysterious to us in some way, the content of a divergent state is somewhat specific. Key Words: artificial intelligence, free will, divergent state, human, computer, Lovelace. 1. Introduction Lady Lovelace’s objection was perhaps the most powerful objection against artificial intelligence. She stated that computers originate nothing and they merely do what we order them, via programs. Hauser[2015] classified it as free will objection. Bringsjord et al. [2001] took her objection as a way to avoid the problem of trickery stirred by the Turing Test. They states that strong AI will be demonstrated when a machine's creativity is beyond the explanation of its creator. However, Oppy et al. [2011] points out that “it remains an open question whether a digital computing device is capable of ‘origination’ in this sense”. Similarly, I understand it as an indication for our aim at AI: If a computer or an AI doesn’t need any programmer to do meaningful work for us, it is a desirable scene for us. To achieve this, we need to add free will to AI. For example, if a man feels to be a puppet, he loses partly free will at least, cannot originate anything anymore, is not the author of what he does and (is forced to) waits for instructions. McCarthy [2000] had given an attempt to realize a free will that is compatible with determinism. However, it still needs us to write programs. Thus compatible theory of free will is not adequate for the purpose of this paper. In addition, the desirable free will faces serious problems because it requires that we have ultimate control over our actions: that is to say, it needs not nature (without us) but us the conscious beings as its ultimate source. Determinism holds that nature forms a great causal chain (perhaps) without ultimate source. Free will demands that our actions are not produced by a deterministic process * Correspondence: Lei Liu, Ph.D., School of Information Management, Dezhou Universtiy, Dezhou, China. E-mail: leiliusid@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 497 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will that traced back to factors beyond our control [Pereboom, 2007b]. This definition presents a dilemma: if determinism is true, our desires/actions can be traced back to the remote past which is not under our control. Therefore, if this is true, then we are not free. However, if indeterminism is true, our desires/actions are nothing but a matter of luck. So once again, we are not free. Versions of this argument have been posited by Voltaire, Diderot, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Clarence Darrow, Paul Edwards, Bruce Waller, Saul Smilansky, Richard Double, and Pereboom [Pereboom, 2001, 2007a, 2007b]. As stated by Clark[2008], a determined event occurs necessarily from the remote past in conjunction with natural law. We have no control over it since we have no control over the remote past. An undetermined or chance event occurs spontaneously and receives no control from anything; hence it is not controlled by the agent. For example, if a quantum jump in one's brain resulted in a choice it would seem that it occurred by accident rather than from a choice by the agent. That is to say, free will faces serious threatens from physical laws. Thus some philosophers begin to consider if physical laws is complete. Recently, 1Horst[2011] provided a compatible theory of free will which holds that deterministic laws don’t predict motions with exactness. However, this liberation is not enough for our desire to live. For example, if deterministic laws together with fixed past predicates the swing will hit me heavily without exactness, the swing-no- hit-me state is more desirable for me. This paper states that a desire for a divergent state is the key for forming free will. Though a desire is still mysterious to us in some way, the content of a divergent state is somewhat specific. 1.1 Problem faced by free will realists Free will paradigm holds free will as a necessary condition for moral responsibility, i.e., free will is needed to makes us truly deserving of blame or praise for our actions. It presents a dilemma as we have stated. Free will paradigm is faced by two questions: (1) Is free will compatible with determinism? (2) Is determinism true in our world? Question (2) relates to the fact of what our world is. Question (1) would only have theoretical meaning if there is evidence to falsity of determinism. By the way, the first one received most attention. Thus arguments about free will can be classified into two kinds of arguments: theoretical and factual. Many theoretical arguments don’t start from settling if our world is deterministic or not. They just argue that free will is incompatible or not with determinism (or indeterminism). Some of them require that there are causations by a substance without answering whether there are any in 1 Thanks for Pereboom and Oppy for helpful discussions on arguing from incompleteness of physical laws, especially Horst’s position. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 498 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will our world. [Clarke, 2003, 135, 146-7; O'Connor et al., 2006, 244] Uncaused theories require that a free action be either uncaused or caused as long as it is not deterministically caused [Ginet, 2007; McCann, 1998; Ginet, 2002] while they give no evidence for this kind of indeterminism. Event-causal theories face this kind of problem, too. Though quantum mechanics is true in micro world, it hardly affects the macro world. Factual arguments state that our world is either deterministic or probabilistically indeterministic or else. It is very rare in literature recently. Pereboom argues in this way, which can be summarized below. [Pereboom, 2001; 2007b, 469] Either Deterministic or probabilistically indeterministic form of scientific naturalism is true according to scientific evidence. The truth of these scientific naturalisms entails that all actions we perform are the result of processes that traced back to factors beyond our control (The past before we born or chance). If the act is the result of processes that traced back to factors beyond the agent’s control, then the agent doesn’t deserve blame or praise for the act. Thus we can’t deserve praise or blame for our actions. There are also experiments that showed that free will is a illusion besides theoretical objections. Smith [2011] stated that Haynes and Libet successfully suggested that some simple decisions are not under our conscious control, which contradicts to the belief that we have free will. You may have thought you decided whether to have tea or coffee this morning, for example, but the decision may have been made long before you were aware of it. This is a new challenge to the concept of free will. However, says Mele, the majority of philosophers debate the interplay between freedom and determinism—the theory that everything is predestined, either by fate or by physical laws —but Roskies says that results from neuroscience can't yet settle that debate. They may speak to the predictability of actions, but not to the issue of determinism.2 In this paper, I wish to find the evidence of free will that is partly specific by investigating a serious of the following propositions. Propositions: Suppose our world is govern by quantum indeterministic laws. 1. If we desire for a state, we desire for that state to happen not with the probability of less than 1 but 1. 2. Thus the desired probability of occurrence of desired state is 1. 3. In reality, the probability of occurrence of it is less than 1since it didn't occur (suppose the desire is unsatisfied, which is very common according to our experiences. Also suppose our world is govern by quantum indeterministic laws.). 4. Thus only one of them is the probabilistically determined probability. 5. If the desired probability is not a divergent one (which means “different from the probabilistically determined one”) but the probabilistically determined one, then there is a state that failed to occur with the probabilistically determined probability, which states that quantum indeterminism is not true. Thus some desires must be desires for a divergent state. 6. We have a desire for a divergent state and it is satisfied. Thus quantum indeterminism is not true in our world. 2 To be more positively, Mele takes a project of “The Philosophy and Science of Self-Control” to address the relation between free will and science of self-control. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 499 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will We want to add evidence to indicate whether (6) is possible given others. That is to say, there may be some events or probability distribution of them that can’t be computed from the past (before we born) and physical law. Thus neither determinism nor probabilistic indeterminism is true in our world. This is just a negative answer to what our world is. We only give a plausible argument from some facts. Let “a divergent state” mean “different from a determined state”. Then (6) is changed into a proposition against determinism. Similar analysis is given in this paper, too. Before we start, let’s take a look at the value or aim of free will. I believe this presents a better start for seeking the evidence of free will and a plausible condition for the incompatibilities of free will with both determinism and quantum indeterminism. Kane reports that most ordinary persons start out as natural incompatibilists. The idea that freedom and responsibility might be compatible with determinism looks to them at first like a "quagmire of evasion" (William James) or "a wretched subterfuge"(Immanuel Kant) [Kane, 1999]. In my experience, when they learned that determinism is a true aspect of our lives, they often seemed to have a bleak feeling about themselves. Perhaps this was because it seemed that their future is determined by the unchangeable past, since because of this, how could they diverge from their determined future? If they are determined to have a miserable life, how could they struggle to escape this inevitable future? Thus, it is valuable that there is a divergence from deterministic laws, though this is not possible if determinism is true. In addition, quantum indeterminism threatens us too. If a disaster whose antecedent probability of occurrence is 0.82 according to quantum indeterminism is about to occur, we might become unhappy about this point and seek some way to ensure our chances of surviving. However, this result is not possible according to quantum indeterminism. If determinism is true, we are destined by the remote past and natural law. Free will can help us escape from that destiny and affect the physical world. Thus even if some people are determined to encounter catastrophes, free will can guides them to find ways to escape disasters. If some outcomes of a quantum event are disasters, then it would be desirable if free will helped us to reduce the probability of these occurrences. Kane also raises this concern: “Is freedom compatible with determinism?" —the question is too simple and ill-formed. The reason is that there are many meanings of "freedom" and many of them are compatible with determinism. Even in a determined world, we would want to distinguish persons who are free from such things as physical restraint, addiction or neurosis, coercion, compulsion, covert control or political oppression from persons who are not free from these things; and we could allow that these freedoms would be preferable to their opposites even in a determined world. [Kane, 1996] Here Kane stated that a freedom that is incompatible with determinism is preferable. In other words, they are more favorable than their opposite values. Another reason similar to Kane’s, is that it is valuable for us to have a freedom that is incompatible with quantum indeterminism. Clark also makes this point: “If it (the indeterminism provided)won’t hurt, it won’t help.” [Clarke, 2008] ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 500 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will As we and others[Pereboom, 2001; Strawson, 2010] have stated, for us to have moral responsibility, there are events that can’t be traced back to factors beyond our control. This we term it as a divergence. Obviously evidence is needed for this claim. 2. The desire for a divergent state is a key for free will Let us take determinism to be the view that given the complete state of the world at one point in time with conjunction to natural law, the state of the world at every future point in time follows logically. Or interpret it as: the state of the world at every future point in time is uniquely determined by the previous states of the world as a matter of natural law. Here the state of the world is a state at a time t. Paul Thiry D’Holbach, one of the leading figures of the French encyclopedistes, presented the cosmos precisely as a network of interlocking causes and effects. The universe, he wrote, “reveals to us an immeasurable and uninterrupted chain of causes and effects” [d’Holbach, 1770]. Thus, if determinism is true, the future state of the world is determined (by the past as a matter of natural law). That state is not only determined but also holds since it is the future state of the world. Thus we can analyze determinism into two conjunctions: A determined state about each future time point is computed from the past and natural law. (1) That determined state obtains. (2) Thus, if a future state can’t be traced back to the remote past and natural law, it is enough to show that (2) is false. Let us understand quantum indeterminism as the indeterminism introduced by the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. On this interpretation, the world is governed by statistical laws which are also strict laws following Davidson. Thus all the outcomes of antecedent events happen because of non-trivial probabilities, which are given by these statistical laws and the antecedent event. Here “non-trivial” denotes that the value of them should not all be 0 or 1 for capturing the idea that it is essential to probability that, at least in principle, it can take intermediate values. [Hájek, 2012] If some outcome is probabilistically determined by an antecedent event, then given the antecedent event, the probability of its occurrence is static given the statistical laws. In other words, if this probability is 0.3, then for a large number of instances it is correct to expect that the outcome happens close to 30 percent of the time. The words “probabilistically determined” used in this way is the same as how Kane understands indeterminism: “Indeterminism is consistent with nondeterministic or probabilistic causation, where the outcome is not inevitable.” [Kane, 1999] Similarly to determinism, Indeterminism can be analyzed into two conjunctions: A probability distribution of states about the future is computed from the past and natural law. (3) This probability distribution obtains. (4) Similarly, for an event not probabilistically determined, only (4) is needed to be false. With these interpretations of determinism and quantum indeterminism in place, we return to the evidence of divergence. Let’s take a look at events involving free will. It is common to see an event ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 501 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will involving free will as a process: deliberating on some reasons, forming a desire, performing some overt bodily actions, and testing if we will be able to succeed and fulfill our aims. At first, a desire is a desire for a (desired) state of affairs. “According to most theories, desires are always desires for conceivable states of affairs. A desire for tea is a desire for a certain state of affairs one has in mind: that one drinks some tea. A desire for a new pair of skates is likewise a desire for another state of affairs: that one owns a new pair of skates. And so on. This idea is also expressed with phrases such as ‘desires are attitudes toward propositions’ or ‘desires have propositional content.” [Schroeder, 2012] For example, if Rose desires candy bars, then there is only one answer of the following five states of affairs that will provide the solution in which her desire is satisfied: 1. Rose possesses, but does not eat some candy bars in the near future. 2. Rose eats some candy bars in the near future. 3. Rose doesn’t eat some candy bars in the near future while the probability for her to do this is 0.8. 4. Rose eats some candy bars someday. 5. Rose possesses, but does not eat some candy bars in the near future. It seems that only 2 would satisfy Rose's desire. This gives us grounds to say that Rose's desire is for a state of affairs: that she eats some candy bars in the near future. An additional observation is that this state of affairs is possibly not realistic. For example, if only 4 represents Rose’s reality, then the desired state is certainly not a feasible outcome. One of the other three observations that need to be addressed is that the desired state corresponds to sometime points which occur in the near future at the time that she began to desire candy bars. The second observation is that: A desire is satisfied if counterpart of 2 is true. (SCOD satisfied condition of desire)[Schroeder, 2012] The last observation is that: If we desire for a state, we desire that state happens not with the probability of less than 1 but 1. Let’s take a look at the concept of “state of affairs” since we used this definition above. A state of affairs: a way the world is (situations, being able to exist without obtaining) [Plantinga, 1974, 44; Pollock, 1984, 52]. It can be understood as a possible scenario. For simplicity, I use “desire for divergent state” to denote “desire for a state that it and the determined state can’t both be the obtaining state,” in the case of determinism. Note that both of these two states occurring at about the same time and the same place can obtain, if they are the same. Thus if there is a desire for a divergent state, then it is a desire for a state that is not the same as the relevant determined state. Similarly for the case of quantum indeterminism, the desired state may not be the same as the probabilistically determined state as long as they are different states in a normal sense or their probability of occurrence are different if they are the same. For simplicity, in the case of quantum ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 502 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will indeterminism, I use “desire for divergent state” to denote “desire for a state that it and the probabilistically determined state can’t both occur with the same probability.” We provide evidence for a weak divergence and a strong divergence, though the latter is not ideally proven. A weak divergence consists of a desire for a divergent state that is not actually satisfied. Though this is not an evidence for the direct falsity of determinism & quantum indeterminism, it is a divergence in the sense that the actions we perform to realize the desire is a failed try to change the state of the world from determined or probabilistically determined states. In fact, we can be responsible even if we failed. Thus this is also a divergence while it is a failed divergence. A strong divergence results from a desire for a divergent state that is actually satisfied. With such an example, we can say that we can change the world from determinism and quantum indeterminism to a desired state. In this paper, I will focus the evidence for the case for determinism since analysis of the case for indeterminism is quite similar. Because of this, I will only provide some necessary words to the latter. 2.1 Our world doesn’t constrain the desired states to be only the determined states of the world Let’s see an attempt that is well known: perpetual motion machine. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics. [Derry, 2002, 176; Roy, 2002, 58] Thus, the existence of such machine is against natural law. Though no such machine has ever been built, many have the desire to create one. We get two states of the world: one is the real state of the world where there is no perpetual motion machine being built, the other is the desired state that there is a perpetual motion machine being built. Only one of them obtains that there are no perpetual machines being built. The question is which one is the same as the determined state of the world according to natural law? Or is the desire a desire for a divergent state? Clearly there are no perpetual motion machines being built is the determined state, and obtaining one since is not even possible according to natural law. Similarly, it is also bound to be the case in the quantum world since a perpetual motion machine is also impossible according to quantum mechanics. So since there are no perpetual motion machines being built it is also not an obtaining state according to quantum mechanics. The obtaining and determined state is that there are no perpetual motion machines being built. Thus we have evidence that there are desires for a divergent state: desire for perpetual motion machine. Similar cases include desires for a Golden Mountain, round squares, meeting aliens, etc. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 503 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will This forms firm evidence for the claim that determinism doesn’t constrain desired states to exist only within determined states of the world. (This is similar to the case of quantum indeterminism since a perpetual motion machine is also impossible if quantum indeterminism is true.) In addition, I have another example for the evidence of desire for a divergent state. Let’s consider unsatisfied desires. The first thing to mention is the truism of them. We have desires almost every day: desire to have a birthday party, desire to have progress in somebody’s career, etc. Many of them are unsatisfied. In fact, large numbers of desires are satisfied desires. Example 1 of an unsatisfied desire: Tom wanted to drink some water. Then Tom found no water, but an apple after some action or changed his mind without any action. Tom ate the apple. These states are listed according to the time sequence of them. Observations from the above example: The desired state is not realized in reality. If not so, it is a satisfied desire according to SCOD. The real state of the world in the near future of the desire is not the same as the desired state. Only one of them is the same as the determined state by definition of determinism and (2). If the desired state is not a divergent state but a determined state, then there is a determined state that failed to hold, which is a contradiction to definition of determinism. For if this is so, then even a virtual state can be a determined state and thus determinism fails to have any bearing on reality. Thus each unsatisfied desire is a desire for a divergent state if we want to believe that determinism is true. Let’s turn to the case of quantum indeterminism. Example 2 of an unsatisfied desire: Tom wanted to drink some water. Then Tom found no water, but an apple after some action or changed his mind without any action. Tom ate the apple. We have the following observations: 1. If we desire for a state, we desire for that state to happen not with the probability of less than 1 but 1. (A previous observation at the beginning of Section 2) 2. Thus the desired probability of occurrence of desired state is 1. The desired state is "Tom's drinking some water". 3. In reality, the probability of occurrence of it is less than 1since it didn't occur. 4. Thus only one of them is the probabilistically determined probability. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 504 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will 5. If the desired probability is not a divergent one but the probabilistically determined one, then there is a probabilistically determined state that failed to occur with the probabilistically determined probability, which states that quantum indeterminism is not true. Thus each unsatisfied desire is a desire for a divergent state if we want to believe that quantum indeterminism is true. Combined with the former observation, we have to accept that each unsatisfied desire is a desire for a divergent state whether determinism or quantum indeterminism is true. This is the second evidence for the claim that we can have a desire for a divergent state. 2.2 Weak divergence As I have defined, weak divergence is the satisfaction of these two claims: 1. Somebody has a desire for a divergent state. 2. The desire is not satisfied. We saw that the desire for a perpetual motion machine is such a desire, which satisfies these two claims. And if determinism is true, each example of unsatisfied desire is such a desire, too. Though we have no evidence for direct falsity of determinism & quantum indeterminism from this, it is a divergence in the sense that the actions we perform to realize the desire is a failed try to change the state of the world. Exemplified by the desire for a perpetual motion machine, the determined state of the world is that there is no such machine, while there is also the desired state by those people trying to build one as if such a machine were possible to build. Thus the desired state is different from the determined state.3 If they had succeeded, the state of the world would not be determined by the past and physical laws. (Counterfactual analysis of weak divergence) In fact, we can be responsible for the actions required to satisfy a desire even if we fail in our attempts to reach it, because this is also an attempt to diverge from determined state even though it is a failed divergence. For example, those who tried to build perpetual motion machines can be said to make bold and failed efforts to change the determined world, and it makes good sense to say so. In addition, many divergent states are as easy to realize as determined ones. Suppose a door is determined to be open at some future time. Then the door’s closing at that time is a divergent state. That is also easy to realize. If someone chooses this as his or her desire, then divergence is expected. Whether the desire for a divergent state is determined or not doesn’t matter, it is weak divergence as long as that desire is a desire for a divergent state. This shows that Libet and other neurobiologists might be too quick to form the idea that free will is an illusion. 3 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 505 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will Counterfactual analysis of weak divergence is prime facie very similar to what compatibilists give by their conditional analysis: “Since determinism is a thesis about what must happen in the future given the actual past, determinism is consistent with the future being different given a different past.” [McKenna, 2009] However, there is a tracing-stop at the time of desiring when I use the denotation of desire for a divergent state: From an unsatisfied desire for a divergent state, we may derive these counterfactuals: if that desire (for a divergent state) were satisfied, a divergent state would obtain. We can trace this back further: if the agent had taken more care, her desire for passing an exam would be satisfied. However, we cannot trace back further to unmake that desire: If the desire for a divergent state were not made, then this desire would be satisfied. Certainly this is false, because it is ridiculous to say that a desire that doesn’t exist is satisfied. This is not to say that you cannot trace back further in other respects, but that the desire for a divergent state should hold necessarily for divergence in the same way as satisfying a desire for a divergent state. It is far beyond the scope of this paper. There is no such tracing stop for compatibilists: Determinism is consistent with the future being different given a different past. Compatibilists state that if someone has different desires than they had originally, and then accomplishes these new desires, that the world would be different, because this new desire is an alternative to the previous one. Thus the satisfaction of desire for a divergent state doesn’t need to be traced back further to the time of making that desire. It needs only to change something afterwards. If we have desires for a divergent state, we have to fail in our attempts to satisfy those desires in order for determinism to be true. That is to say, that as we satisfy a desire for a divergent state, that there is also a divergent state that occurs with obtaining. Thus we have to admit: Any satisfied desire is a desire for a determined state. This is intuitively not plausible since we desire many things and we normally don’t know and don’t consider whether our desire is the determined state. In fact, with careful analysis, I can show that this actually involves highly implausible coincidences for this to occur. This is provided in detail in the next section as a proof for strong divergence. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 506 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will 2.3 Strong divergence In case the world is a deterministic world: 1. From section 2.1, I show that each example of desire for an impossible state is an example of desire for a divergent state. 2. Each time we have an unsatisfied desire, we have a desire for a divergent state. (That is to say, we have a desire for determined state and failed to satisfy it, and then there is a determined state that occurs even without obtaining.) 3. Each time we have a satisfied desire, we have a desire for a determined state. (If that is not so, then there is an obtaining non-determined state that derives in the same way as the case of unsatisfied desires.) 4. If the mechanics of forming desire is the same in the case of desire for an impossible state (unsatisfied desires and satisfied desires) it seems to involve a wild coincidence for 2, 3 to hold. This is especially true for 3, based on the fact that the examples of unsatisfied/satisfied desires are very large. I will explain the reasons below. 5. Failure of 2 or 3 entails that determinism is not true or has no decisive bearing on reality. Note 1 is not needed to derive 2 and 3. Let me explain this in more detail. Before we form a desire, it is highly possible we think about many possible scenarios of the near future and choose one from that. Since determinism doesn’t constrain desired states as only determined states, where only one of them is the determined state, we have a good chance to choose the non-determined state. For example, imagine Tom is playing chess with somebody. Before he decides to choose what to do next, he considers every possible scenario. At most, one of them is the same as the determined state. Since there are many possible steps if not an infinite number, it is probably true that none of them is the same as the determined state. Thus we should have much more desires for a divergent state than we should have desires for a determined state. Thus 3 is more implausible than 2. The failure of 3 decisively sentences the death of determinism: there is a non-determined state of being realistic in the world, and this is the desired state. A _ A _ A Undetermined statetes A Determined states Figure 1. Venn diagram of the set of determined states and the set of undetermined states ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 507 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will Satisfied desires Unsatisfied desires Figure 2. Venn diagram of the set of satisfied desires and the set of unsatisfied desires Desires for Desires for determined states undetermined states Figure 3. Venn diagram of the set of desires for determined states and the set of desires for undetermined states Someone may worry that having unsatisfied desires signals that the desired state is a divergent state, and having satisfied desires is the sign that the desired state is a determined state. Of course this is highly implausible since it would result in a contradiction: if so the probability of choosing the determined state as the content of our desire is close to 50% (1) because many desires are satisfied (I can estimate that nearly 50% of our desires are satisfied). However, we have many options to choose from, so the probability for us to choose the determined state as the content of our desires is most likely far less than 50%. Figure 1-3 expresses this analysis. Since the number of determined states is extremely smaller than that of undetermined states and the number of satisfied desires occupies almost half of all desires, we should accept that determined states are much easier to be chosen as desired states and this seems highly implausible. Let’s dig a little further to show there is strong divergence in some other ways. The first thing I should address is that we can be certain we will satisfy our ordinary desires. For example, it is very easy for a healthy adult to do the job of opening or closing the door. Some may worry that there are possible threats of a catastrophe occurring. Let’s restrict this job as doing something on a normal day by a healthy adult who we will call, John. Suppose that John opens and closes the door a thousand times. Each time he formed a desire and tried to satisfy his desire. He succeeded every time. In this case, it is plausible that if his desire changed, the outcome will change according to his desire. In another word: His desire is always a correct sign of the door’s state (if the door is open or closed) in this situation. (ASD always satisfied desires) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 508 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will Since each time at most one of these two outcomes represents the determined state, at least one of them is a divergent state. This divergent state is as easy as the determined one to realize. Now imagine: John is a Laplace’s demon: he can predict which outcome will occur in the near future. John chooses his desire in this way: if he predicts that the closed door is the determined outcome by vast computing, then he chooses opening the door as his desire. Since using ASD, the door is open, then this is a contradiction of determinism. As we have stated, strong divergence is true iff there is a satisfied desire for a divergent state. In summary, we give a very weak argument: Many desires are desires for a divergent state. Many desires are satisfied desires. Thus it is possible that there is a satisfied desire for a divergent state. This is very weak but is helpful for us to summarize our intentions. So far I have concentrated on the value and end of free will: divergence from both determinism and quantum indeterminism, even though I have strong evidence for weak divergence and have very plausible evidence for strong divergence, I have not explained what indeterminism looks like and where it starts. Let’s leave this deeper analysis to another paper. Here is a primary analysis of normal reasons to form desires: As shown above, I have shown that there is a tracing-stop for desire of a divergent state: If the desire (for a divergent state) were satisfied, a divergent state would obtain. However, we cannot trace back further to unmake that desire: If the desire for a divergent state were not made, then the desire would be satisfied. This is ridiculous. This shows the character of indeterminism that we have studied: it is necessarily for us to first have a desire no matter what the other factors are surrounding it. 3. Objections One may objects in this way: For example, if the brain is considered as a physical machine, the states of brain and also the desires of people will also be determined. In this case, the free wills are just the products of the internal states of the machine. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 509 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will At first, “the states of brain are determined” is never decisively proved though it is plausible. We don’t provide direct objections. We prove that we will encounter a highly plausible contradiction if we accept this: (If we accept this,) We have to accept that it is determined that the desired state is a (probabilistically) determined state in any case of satisfied desires. Besides the contradictional air it involves, based on the vast number of satisfied desires, it will involve highly implausible coincidences to accept that all satisfied desires are desires for determined states since the agent is not necessarily going to consider the determined states.This is not an affirmative answer to what our world is and not an answer to why the desire is not determined. It states only that determinism is probably false in our world. Someone may still have confusions. Why is it possible that determinism is not true even if deterministic laws still holds? As stated above, this is beyond the scope of this paper. However, I have a vague answer to it. Strawson told us that the only way is that we are causa sui by quoting Nietzsche’s comment about its impossibility. We are the cause of ourselves[Strawson, 2010]. Inspired by this, the way to save free will is through the fact we are media. Desires as mental states are media that can be directed to a desired state which is a state in another causal chain different from the one in our world. (States in any counterfactuals are such examples.) Why this is helpful? The desired state is a virtual state which can't result in anything without some media. It has no cause in our world. Thus it is a source. It should have no positive effect to our world because it doesn’t exist in our world. With desires as a media, we brought them into our world. Thus the required causa sui is not we cause ourselves, it is a representation of another source causes its existence with the help of us as a media. It is only quasi causa sui and seems to avoid contradictions faced by causa sui. Someone may get the idea that a desire for a divergent state is the source of the new causal chain. This is a misunderstanding because it only serves as an evidence for falsity of determinism and quantum indeterminism in this paper though it is crucial for having free will. Can it be a source of a new causal chain? It seems not. After all, we are masters of our desires. 4. Conclusions What is gained? Weak divergence shows that there are efforts to make events happen that are (probabilistically) determined not to happen, and that there also are efforts to stop events from happening when they are (probabilistically) determined to happen. Whether the desire for a divergent state is determined or not doesn’t matter, it is weak divergence as long as that desire is a desire for a divergent state. This shows that Libet and other neurobiologists might be too quick to form the idea that free will is an illusion. Strong divergence shows that determinism and quantum indeterminism does not govern the events that involve a desire for a divergent state. Based on the vast number of satisfied desires, I argue that it will involve highly implausible coincidences to accept that all satisfied desires are desires for determined states since the agent is not necessarily going to consider the determined states. Hence, it is hard to believe that all satisfied desires are desires for determined states and will not introduce divergences from natural laws, whether they are deterministic or statistical. If we are right, at least a divergent state as desire contents is specific and realizable in computer, while a desire is still mysterious to us in some way. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 510 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 496-511 Liu, L., On Artificial Intelligence & Free Will References [Selmer Bringsjord, Paul Bello, & David Ferrucci, 2001] Selmer Bringsjord, Paul Bello, & David Ferrucci "Creativity, the Turing Test, and the (Better) Lovelace Test". Mind and machines, 11, 3-27, 2001. [Randolph Clarke, 2003] Randolph Clarke. Libertarian Accounts of Free Will, Oxford University Press, New York, 2003. [Randolph Clarke, 2008] Randolph Clarke. Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/ [Paul Thiry d’Holbach, 1770] Paul Thiry d’Holbach (Ed.). Syst`eme de la Nature. (1770) [Gregory N. Derry, 2002] Gregory N. 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Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Preface Designs from Nature Armchair AI Consciousness Mobility Consciousness Driven Learning Systems Dilemma Solution? Mind Presence of Mind I Movies in My Mind Database, Learning, Patterns, Search - A Question of Scale Designs of Nature I X I Preface “This work contains hardly any original facts in regard to man; but as the conclusions at which I arrived, after drawing up a rough draft, appeared to me interesting, I thought that they might interest others… The conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form is not in any degree new.” - Charles Darwin – The Descent of Man Questions about the human mind and consciousness are old questions, possibly man’s oldest. What is consciousness? What is mind? Who am I? The trend of the moment is to look towards the natural sciences for help in breaking the brain-mind-consciousness lock. It may look foolhardy and unseasonable for someone at this point to take an old-fashioned logical hypothesis based look at these problems. And when such an approach originates from first principles, it can look nothing less than quixotic. However this is what we have set ourselves to do, we take here a first principles, learning system perspective to these problems, perhaps for once last time. Let us start tilting at windmills. The brain and the computer may not be similar, but no one disagrees with the proposition that natural entities are also learning systems. One can see that if natural entities are learning systems, then such systems need to follow some kind of logical design or design path. Is it possible to unravel the design paths of natural learning systems? Here we make an effort, a humbler one sans modern tools, and see if we can derive a logical learning-system-based explanation for the rise and presence of mind, our sense of I, and its relation to consciousness. To that aim, let us leave aside the beaten track. Rather than undertake a detailed study of natural intelligence systems, let us do a simpler thought experiment. Let us assume that nature started off with a simple learning system. Lets us then ask, in tribute to Simon’s ant, what kind of learning conditions could have possibly given rise to mind and consciousness. Such a thought experiment and its mapping to the natural world and to humans does give rise to some interesting possibilities, and can allow for a more coherent and natural explanation for natural intelligence system phenomena. Let us take a brief overview. Page 1 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I We first posit a simple learning system and then a complex learning system in a natural environment and see how environmental constraints and enablers shape their growth paths. Here we understand the importance of archive based environmental knowledge and the need for pattern based learning. We understand the possible role and importance of reproduction and incubation to natural life. We discover how natural environments force all learning systems to abandon online learning in favor of online response. We see how this push results in the rise of offline learning mechanisms. We see how this offline movement can ironically result in better learning and how it may have even contributed to our rise and presence on this planet. We see how the presence of consciousness and intent enable natural entities with offline learning mechanisms to assume a semblance of control over their local environments. We define consciousness in the simplest terms possible and use this definition to build a consciousness driven learning system. We discuss how mobility influences the growth of consciousness and intelligence in consciousness driven learning systems. We discuss the effects of natural environments on such consciousness driven learning systems and how it can result in the rise of the mind and our sense of I. We see how minds may have online and offline modes. We look at the presence and need of sleep from a learning system perspective. We posit reasons for the rise of man’s mind, his mixed mode of mindlessness and mindfulness and his incessantly looping thought processes. We do not attempt anything radically new in this discussion other than a slight shift in perspective, a shift that allows natural phenomena to fall more coherently and naturally in place. If the evolution of life forms is considered to have risen out of an interaction between living organisms and the environment, here we presume that the evolution of consciousness and intelligence systems must have risen through a set of interactions between learning systems and environmental factors and would have followed a similar evolutionary path. The study of evolution perhaps forms a close analogy to our approach. Intelligence theorists and scientists working on understanding mind and consciousness may find such a change in perspective and the resulting discussion meaningful and interesting. Pre Script: This discussion takes the chance that consciousness, a seemingly complex entity, if of material origin and systemic, rests on simple design principles. Consciousness is both a siren and a mirage; it attracts avid enthusiasts only to let them down when they get too close. Much like an Indian God with many arms, it takes a multiplicity of meanings and shapes. Experience tells us that nature’s basic mechanisms are generally simple and complex looking natural systems are generally multiple iterations or modifications over simple systems. Could consciousness be such an artifact? We take the simplest possible approach and we base it on simple assumptions. Our attempt is to see if we can derive a probable, functional, and extensible framework for mind and consciousness design, a frame work that also lends itself to being falsifiable, an important criterion for a theory as any. The final system that we come up with could perhaps be sketched on a sheet of paper; this system is but an ant. A framework that covers such a huge area has to be necessarily panoptic and bare boned. Such an approach however also makes the following discussion devoid of much of the existing major texts and subtexts of consciousness and learning theories, also much of biology and philosophy. While we lay out a possible design path, we avoid any discussion of its implementation in the natural domain. A sizable amount of hard evidence is just beginning to emerge in these areas and as is true of any new field they seem to be open to multiple explanations and interpretations. This forces us to ignore most of it and follow the logic of the perspective, which is at best a dangerous course for anyone trying to explain natural systems. This discussion is therefore rather speculative, more a discussion of possibilities and does not claim exactness or correctness in detail. The well known neuroscientist VS Ramachandran once quoted Medawar’s “We are not cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge” (Frontline interview, April 2006) to defend logic based non-QED style speculation. No one could disagree; the seeds of science have to first sprout in the mind before they take root on more solid ground. (In a companion paper that forms Part II of this discussion (5) we use the results of this discussion to reexamine the idea of understanding and see how the presence of mind affects its communication and discover how minds cause language. From such a perspective, we also reexamine the validity of mankind’s perennial humanoid fantasies. We find that to reach human levels, AI entities may need to be something more than the learning machines they are now.) Page 2 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Designs from Nature “You get a lot of respect for natural biological systems. Even ants do all these functions effortlessly. It is very hard for us to imitate that and put it into our machines” - Reinhold Behringer - quoted in a National Geographic Nov 2004 article on autonomous robotic vehicles. Natural entities and their underlying intelligence systems have evolved through long periods of geological history in response to a variety of environmental and evolutionary challenges. Natural organisms demonstrate multiple levels of intelligence and consciousness. The common strain through out nature and evolution is that these natural entities are exposed to recurrent survival risks and unending environmental variation. The resultant learning aims and response demands placed on a natural entity are thus different from what is generally provided to an artificial intelligence mechanism or entity, static or mobile. Nature’s primary focus is first on entity survival and then on entity comfort. Entities that need to survive in nature like environments need to demonstrate quick and appropriate environment responses. Such responses arise from the learning processes and intelligence systems within the entity. All learning processes unfortunately exhibit processing or learning delays. In natural environments such learning delays create response delays that could be inimical to the very survival of the entity. Response speed is therefore very critical in nature like environments. Response appropriateness however arises out of good learning. Therefore, the target for any natural intelligence system should be to find the right blend of good learning and quick response, the latter being more important in the short term. The design of intelligence systems in nature like environments should contain design factors and paths that help achieve such good blending in aid of both short and long term targets. The learning load for any entity inhabiting a natural environment comes from its system sustenance demands and environmental challenges. Natural entities generally gather sustenance based on what the environment provides, therefore environmental variation forms the bigger part of entity learning load. Learning loads are generally not uniform in a natural environment. They vary both in time and over time. Even seemingly stable environments are not immune from such dynamic load patterns. We know that for any learning or data processing system, peak processing or learning loads can lead to system stall. In nature, such system stalls could prove fatal. Therefore, any learning or intelligence system that needs to learn and survive in a natural environment has to take cognizance of dynamic learning loads and manage to keep it within control to avoid/reduce fatal risks. Natural intelligence systems seem to have learnt to overcome such dangerous dynamic learning overloads and other natural load variants. Three of them seem important to us from a design point of view, stall control, load balancing, and proactive behavior. We will discuss these solutions where appropriate. In stall control, the factors’ leading to system stall are avoided and includes an emergency response system. In load balancing, natural systems take advantage of low dynamic load periods by shifting peak learning demands to such periods. With proactive behavior, the natural entity seeks and acts to reduce learning loads by reducing either its exposure to the environment or the environmental variation it needs to face, to the limits of its learning system capacities. While we will discuss how these solutions arise, natural scientists are best posited to show and understand how natural intelligence systems demonstrate such learning load reduction behavior. Such solutions imply that natural learning systems are not environment reactive systems or mere environment punch bags buffeted by environmental demands; they are autonomous intentional systems that are conscious of their needs and act to satisfy them while keeping their exposure to environmental dangers under check. Such intentional, separatist activity demands a basic sense of distinction or awareness about themselves - an awareness of themselves as entities separate from Page 3 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I their environments and interacting with it for sustenance and protection. For this discussion we assume that such awareness and directed activity derives from the presence of life. It is the awareness of such differentiation that we call consciousness. Such differentiation from the environment and the need for efficient interaction with it lead directly to the need for learning systems. This implies that life necessitates natural consciousness, which in turn necessitates natural learning systems. Vice versa, sans consciousness, the need for a learning system does not arise. What follows in this discussion is an elaboration of this simple understanding. In doing so, we elucidate how a consciousness driven learning system can arise and more importantly how natural constraints and enablers act to orient and influence natural learning system growth paths. For such a purpose we create a simple, functional definition of consciousness based on a simple assumption about life. The main challenge for such a definition of consciousness and the resulting consciousness-based learning system would be to explain the phenomenon of human selfconsciousness. We will see how such self-consciousness could arise from a simple conjunction of learning system evolution and human evolutionary history. To keep the discussion short and simple, we are forced to take a snapshot view of the growth of conscious learning systems. Readers can read and extrapolate as to how natural settings, learning load, and consciousness interact to coerce and influence natural learning system design and how such interaction has resulted in animals and man. Given the recent mushrooming of evidence from natural science studies the real test of our system lies in the degree of fit it can demonstrate with such emerging evidence. Armchair AI We rush through the basics; professionals can perhaps skip this section and start directly with the next section, which discusses consciousness and then work back if necessary. However in this section arise first principles, design insights, and features that set the ground for later discussions. As mentioned earlier, we posit a simple learning system in a natural environment and help it grow to deal with the basic demands of the natural environment. Here you will notice that we do take certain capacities and facilities as granted, we would however not fail to elaborate on such assumptions as we move on. The scenarios discussed here on are hypothetical but they help cover the ground faster. The discussion is deliberately kept simple so that only the major points show up and it proves a quick read. A simple learning system is a system that consists of an environment sensor and a processing mechanism that can learn in a given environment. We will consider a natural environment as being characterized by dynamic learning load patterns, time constrained response demands, and pattern like environmental repetition. In such dynamic and time constrained environments a simple learning system, whatever be its internal design, is susceptible to system freezes, particularly under a combination of high dynamic processing loads and time constrained response demands. In a natural environment, where we posit our system to be, the learning needs of the system arise from the environment itself and the interplay of its inhabitants. Repetition is a general characteristic of all environments, natural or artificial; therefore if we can add a learning archive to our system, then we can store the successful results of learning and reuse it when the environmental challenge returns. Such an archive can help reduce repeated learning demand and the system can offer at least partial solutions from its archives to problems that show repetition. We can see that old solutions need not always fit in well to an environmental challenge even when it shows repetition, given that natural environments show repetitive but chaos like behavior. Chaos-like behavior is characterized by bounded, but infinitely repetitive, and therefore infinitely variant system behavior. A learning system in such an environment has to learn to modify its existing solutions on the run to deal with such small but non-foreseeable variations. Run time adaptation makes sense in nature like environments. Page 4 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I This does imply that there are no perfect solutions; we have a bunch of solutions that demonstrate varying degrees of fit to a bunch of environmental challenges. Such solution reuse helps reduce the high dynamic processing power demands that result when solution processing has to proceed from scratch. Such solution clumping also reduces data storage requirements and long term processing requirements. The power of an archival solution strategy comes to the fore during an emergency when even a partial solution can be lifesaving to an entity that could otherwise freeze as a result of highly dynamic learning demands coupled with extreme time constraints. Emergencies are also intrinsic to natural environments and are actually a reflection of both the environment’s challenge and the entity’s preparedness to meet it. In an emergency, the usual time available for processing is refused and in the absence of a prior solution, entity survival can depend on mere chance and environmental benevolence. This is a major possibly fatal risk, no conscious learning system interested in its survival will be able to take, and unless learning systems can learn from such tight situations, they will be as ill prepared to meet a future emergency as they were in the first instance. This creates a dilemma for the learning system; on one hand, extreme time constraints do not allow it to learn, and on the other hand, without learning from an emergency, it cannot better its response or reduce its susceptibility to risk on a future occasion. On reflection this applies to all time constrained learning processes. How do we design a learning system that can learn under such time constraints? The possible way out is to store emergency data in an archive and look for a time when we can reprocess or learn from this data, such times are available in natural environments as rest time. It could be the night, or in general any time when environmental challenges are minimal and do not stress the entity. Notice that even with our earlier strategy of learnt response archival, a fair amount of data storage becomes necessary. This is because any archive-based response process depends on environment challenge cognition. Such problem cognition can only happen if similar data exist in the archive, which implies some amount of data storage. Such storage of data however means that the learning archive grows really big and fast, which increases search time. Large archives that need searching however imply delayed cognition, resulting in delayed responses and increased risk. So archive search processes and cognitive processes need to be very fast for archival solutions to work. We will deal with this problem at later points in the discussion. The presence of the archive and streaming data means that data storage and archive management become important activities of the system. When will the system find the time to do all this, without debilitating the entity’s normal environmental response? On the other hand without such management processes, the presence of the archive will really become a drag on the system. A real time online learning system will demonstrate better learning in the short term. We will however retain the archive-based design since its long-term advantages outweigh the disadvantages. In nature, where time for online dynamic processing is frequently limited by external factors, the first advantage of an archive-based system with a built in cognition process is that a prompt if not exact response, is guaranteed. This advantage can be a life and death differentiator for the learning system in a natural environment. Archival solutions also bring forward another possibility, that of learning retention, and by extension, the mechanism of reproduction. Learning from scratch is a costly and risky endeavor for any learning system that aims to survive in nature like environments. It is obvious that retaining the results of learning and reproducing them can help successor or descendant systems start with an advantage, particularly with respect to an environment of medium to long-term stability, where the environment is itself the cause of learning loads. As long as environments remain stable, the chances of survival of such descendant systems remain high. The presence of the knowledge bank means that systems do not need to worry about normal environmental challenges. The use of reproductive strategies and incremental learning mean that with time, the data bank grows higher and richer. On the whole processing power Page 5 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I requirements in the long term reduce. This also means that entities can use their existing processing power to deal with new situations and add such learning to the knowledge bank, so that after multiple generations, the species as a whole can deal with its environment on a more comfortable basis. Such a quickly reconfigurable iterative solution process that exists on partial solution bases is good for chaos like repetitive environments which themselves show slow variation, because it allows descendants to keep pace with the environment, without being locked on to hard bound solutions. Linear zero to hero learning is not a viable option for natural entities, such an option demands very high real time processing power, which may not be practically possible. (An ant with the brain of a man?) Our simple learning system with the addition of archives, search processes, and environment cognition is better termed a simple intelligent system. The primary reason is that even if the system does not learn continuously, it has the choice of either learning/responding online or environment cognition/archival solution reuse. This enhances both entity comfort and entity survival possibilities. Our simple intelligent system with its archive-based design can exhibit a small measure of comfort in environments of low variance. However, exposing it to higher variance can bring about system stall, which as we know can threaten survival. High variance environments bring in a data inrush so high that the processing mechanisms will find it difficult to keep pace with it. The major problem is in the architecture we normally provide for learning systems. The usual process and forward architecture means that data coming in from a sensor, goes into a small data buffer, from where it moves in to the processing mechanism for solution generation and delivery. When environments speed up, data will tend to pile up at the processing end, where the inevitable processing delay means that the data that cannot be accommodated in the data buffer is lost. Even otherwise, processing delays during such an environment speed up will mean that the systems responses do not keep pace with environmental response demands and therefore the system as a whole goes out of tune with its environment. Under very high data deluges, the system may even stall; there is a distinct call for a reboot. In a natural environment, any possibility of system stall needs to be avoided because once a system stalls, even an emergency response like hiding can become impossible, the system in effect is forced to depend on chance and environmental benevolence. Real life allows no reboots. We will modify the system so as to avoid the possibility of system stall and the corresponding data loss during an emergency. We will attempt to store the maximum data possible even through the emergency so as to make it available for rest time processing. Such processing can at least result in improved cognition if not appropriate action when the emergency conditions repeat. For this purpose, we first isolate the data queue and the processing queue. We will stream incoming sensor data directly into a separate sensor memory bank bypassing the processing queue. All sensor data thus flows into the memory bank and is stored, from where it can be recalled for later processing. Next we give the processor the choice of withholding processing or doing selective processing. To make a choice, the processing unit will poll the data queue for incoming data speeds. When data speeds are abnormal, it will alert an emergency control system and hand over control to it. Once the emergency is past, normal processing can restart. When data speeds are normal, even as data flows into the memory banks, the processing mechanisms will dip in to this data stream and process the data. In the process and forward architecture, all data that arrived in the queue had to be necessarily processed; here we avoid such a necessity. This not only reduces processing time wasted in processing non-critical data, but also reduces processing delays inherent to such wasteful processing. The ability to do selective processing is a great help in cognitive architectures, since it is possible for the system to sieve the data stream and pick only the requisite data to process. Such data that already have solutions in the archive can be diverted into response reuse or response adaptation Page 6 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I modes that demand very little processing power compared to complete online real time data processing. This means that more processing power and time is available for the fresher data and this improves the learning of the system in the long run. The other advantage of selective processing is the possibility for intentional processing, where the conscious processing mechanism based on its priorities can choose the data that it wishes to process. Both these modifications allow the system to process the more important data even as an emergency is in progress, which means that the system does the maximum possible processing before handing over control to an emergency response process. Even if its response fails, all possible data is stored and can be reprocessed at a later time so that when such emergency conditions repeat, it can be recognized and at least an evasive action can be taken. These modifications also allow for saner processing during normal conditions, the pressure for knee jerk processing is reduced and as a result the system as a whole is in human terms less anxious. If the system can learn during its rest time from the stored emergency data and other data that lies unprocessed in the archive, then it is clear that our system can, in time and over learning cycles, improve its responses to environmental challenges. In hindsight, our supposition of a system with a single sensor is not practical in natural environments. Natural entities are generally equipped with multiple sensors. However when we have our simple intelligent system acquire multiple sensors, then it no longer remains a simple intelligent system, it necessarily becomes a complex intelligent system. Even without going into the detailed system architecture, it becomes clear that the resultant multiple sensor based system needs an architectural revamp and addition of processing power. In line with our earlier design, each sensor also demands a separate streaming archive and archive management becomes a major and time-consuming task. It is clear that such time consuming processes cannot be done in real time without debilitating the systems online response. For the moment however, for the purpose of moving forward, we will assume that such a multi sensor, sensory bank based, archival, cognitive, offline learning architecture exists. You were forewarned; we are rushing through the subject. It can be seen that given a natural environment, such a multi sensor system, despite our system stall workaround solutions, can still fail. On one hand, instantaneous learning loads have not only multiplied due to the presence of multiple sensors, but the need for centralized and combinational data processing means that cumulative processing demands are very high, therefore learning delays can increase. On the other hand, it is to be noticed that natural time constrained response demands are blind to such increases in learning system power or system complexity. Nature is not bothered about the system complexity or learning quality of its inhabitants, it demands that learning systems in natural environments display appropriate timely responses to environmental challenges. Given the possibility that a static multi sensor complex intelligent system can fail in a natural environment, the chances of failure for a mobile entity equipped with such a system are simply higher. Mobility implies constantly changing learning loads and a complex multi sensor intelligent system in a mobile entity is certainly doomed to failure. One can deem increasingly higher processing power for such entities, until one remembers that in nature, processing power provision and availability are subject to morphological and evolutionary constraints. We can see that the system has a much better chance of survival if it can do away with real time learning and can concentrate on search and response processes from its archive. Learning though necessary can come later; prompt responses and survival are primary requirements. However, with a multi sensor complex intelligent system, even such prompt responses cannot be guaranteed. This is because the presence of multiple sensors multiplies not only data flow but also archive sizes, simple linear searching through a multi column database can take time and demand multiple iterations. Parallel searches can reduce the time and iteration required for such searches, but still search, cognition and response delivery are going to be delayed affairs. With both search and Page 7 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I response impaired and online dynamic learning being difficult, the risks for a multi sensor complex system in a nature like environment are simply too great. A possible savior that can enable faster cognition in multi sensor arrangements arrives in the form of patterns. Patterns, an idea familiar to AI people, arise from and are endemic to stable environments. A pattern can mean a certain set of environmental conditions or can indicate a sequential environmental condition chain. Patterns can generally be recognized from the presence of leading incoming data or pattern markers. The presence of pattern markers can ease the pattern cognition and response planning process. Pattern cognition implies easier cognizance of the incoming environment. If such pattern identification and pattern cognition are possible (we skip the details of the pattern identification and cognition process) then the entity’s environment response can improve over time and dramatically. Pattern cognition allows the entity some breathing space because the entity gains a fair amount of pre-knowledge of the possible environment path. Such pre-knowledge can be a great comfort to the time harassed entity as it can plan or choose a possible response path to the incoming environment. If identified patterns and their solutions can be put in a separate archive then searching this pattern archive is easier; since in an entire lifetime, the number of possible patterns an entity will encounter are infinitesimal when compared to the number of probable combinations a multi-sensor intersection of the environment can create. Given an environment, natural or artificial, its possible patterns are limited in number; this makes pattern archives small and close to linear, thus making search not only easier but also faster. The presence of pattern archives can drastically cut short search time and improve environment cognition/response time. Pattern identification is however not an easy process, moreover it is an extremely time consuming and resource consuming process. A good knowledge of patterns can arise out of archive study. Fortunately such an archive study process does not demand real time data processing; it is actually better suited for offline processing. Archive management, we did discuss earlier is best done offline to avoid debilitating the entity’s response to the environment, now we see that the process of archive study and pattern identification is also best done offline. Such offline movement however necessitates rest periods when environmental challenges and demands are low. Fortunately such periods and facilities are available and routine in natural environments. Rest periods are good times for offline activities like pattern identification, archivemanagement, and offline learning. Rest periods are therefore a necessary artifact for intelligent archive based entities in such environments. When a rat hides in its hole, it is a nice time for such data processing activity. It can be guessed that when environmental challenges rise and learning demands increase, short term or long term, the intelligent entity will be forced to find rest-enabled times, areas and environments, within the limitations of the environment. This however means that unlike usual AI entities, natural learning entities cannot switch off power once their online response demands are over. They will have to stay powered, so that they can undertake offline activities like these during rest periods. Switching off power translates to death for most natural entities, there is also increasing evidence that offline time could be learning time for nature’s entities. While the presence of archival processes save them from known environmental challenges, such offline processes can help save them from newer non-processed environmental challenges. In nature like scenarios, where processing power straddles a broad range, where offline periods may themselves be low, and lifetimes are short, pattern identification and learning may not always be possible even within an organism’s lifetime. We can see that these are resource intensive costly processes, so it makes sense to retain the lessons of learning across generations, rather than have each generation acquire it from scratch. This demand for conservation of learning necessitates a suitable knowledge retention and reproduction mechanism. With patterns, the call for reproductive mechanisms, a call that did arise earlier from the presence of a learning archive, becomes clearer and cleaner. In hindsight, simple archive reproduction is Page 8 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I inherently messy, and does have many disadvantages. A lot of this messiness can be reduced with pattern archive reproduction, but an even better option is to bypass the archival pattern data and pass pattern templates. Such a pattern template reproduction option, as computer scientists can understand, would not only reduce archival carrying loads, but also reduce the demand for exact archival matching. This does demand the use of approximation during cognition, on the other hand such templates are easy to standardize, carry, install and use. The greater disadvantage of template reproduction is the demand for template fill-in before these patterns can be used online. Translated to nature, such a fill in demand means that a call for incubation arises. Incubation entails both incubation time and incubatory protection processes. This means that parental or environmental protection should be available to the emergent entity. Incubation time and experiences allow these barebones templates to be filled in before the entity is called to directly war with the environment. More complex and more intricate the templates, higher are the need for incubation experiences and incubation time. When learning loads increase and incubatory facilities are available, limits on processing power may demand a phased learning load rollout during the incubation period, so that learning acquisition can stay within the processing power of the underlying intelligent system. This in turn means that the entity’s ability to engage the environment from birth is debilitated and a growth sequence for the new born entity, in consonance with its processing powers is required. This also means that with good incubation facilities and longer lifetimes, entities with increasing learning loads can be rolled out. One can see that the final product, mechanism and roll out of an incubation based, archive based natural intelligence solution is a conjunction of multiple factors. Processing power limitations and the resulting incubatory strategies are factors that turn simple (gene based?) reproductive blueprints into recipes, each with its distinctive growth path. It is clear that the choice of reproduction as a learning retention mechanism will have and has had great implications in the design, structure, and function of natural entities, entity life styles and lifetimes in the natural kingdom. In hindsight it is obvious that such a reproduction strategy is only possible with an archive-based design. The presence of reproduced archives and archival solutions can instantaneously reduce the starting learning demand and lifetime learning demands of successor generations. Incubation helps deliver a product that is ready to perform in an environment and which can continue learning from where the last generation left off. In effect, reproduction and incubation allow species to run relay races covering long geographical periods with little processing power. If a reproduction based archive/pattern passing process were not available, it can be foreseen that all natural organisms would have to start learning from scratch; the demand for processing power would be very high and life would have found it extremely difficult to pass even the bacterial stage. Let us get back to patterns, because patterns provide us with more interesting possibilities. Why do we harp on patterns so? It is because of the understanding that even the simplest natural mobile learning entities are pattern-based entities. Every process in life and evolution is tied to patterns and the abilities that pattern bases provide to natural learning organisms. Read on and you will find this a statement you will fall naturally in agreement with. We did see that pattern knowledge allows us to predict environments from pattern markers. Iterative archival study and pattern correlation can let the system improve its knowledge of pattern markers, and choose markers that can predict incoming environmental conditions as early as is possible. We can see that for an entity that is equipped with a facility for such environmental prediction, the environment is no longer a perennially variant, possibly malicious master; it almost becomes a predictable sequence of actions and actors. The possibility that a pattern-based entity need not wait for the environment to completely expose itself, before it can plan a response gives entities the time and comfort of predetermining its response chain, a response chain that can allow it to fall seamlessly in step with an incoming environment. Page 9 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I The availability of this time gap between environment cognition and environment response also gives rise to some rather interesting possibilities. For instance given that the environment is open to prediction, given that there is a time gap available between environment cognizance and actual time of response, given that environment feedback is (also) dependent on entity response activity, is it possible for an entity to preplan and present an action that will influence the environment, even if in a limited sense, to provide a beneficial feedback response? Or at least reduce the entity’s susceptibility to an adverse response? In effect, rather than stay put with simple environment prediction and passive response play out, is it possible for a pattern based entity to actively engage the environment so as to maximize possible environmental benefits and minimize environmental dangers? Can the entity ditch passive environment responsive behavior in favor of environment ahead proactive behavior? For such proactive behavior, it is clear that the entity can no longer be a pure environment responsive entity; it should be an intentional entity that seeks to maximize its environmental comfort. We will see in the next section how life and consciousness embed all natural entities with intent. Such intent can allow these entities to demonstrate dynamic load management behavior and environment-ahead proactive behavior. Even without going into a detailed discussion of intentional environment ahead proactive behavior, we can see that the very possibility of such environment prediction and environment management by an intelligent entity tends to turn our general perception of the objectives of environment based AI learning systems on its head. The general target for AI entities operating in artificial and natural environments is good environment responsiveness. We are yet to consider the possibility of active environment management; an activity that nature’s entities engage naturally in. Such environment prediction and environment preemptive action allows entities to gain a semblance of control over their local environments and can make life easier for the entity. This implies that for natural entities that have occupied natural environments over generations, the real target is not environment responsiveness. Such base targets have long been overshot through generations of learning; the real target of most natural entities is environment comfort. The idea behind environment comfort is not the idea of comfort per se; it arises as an unintended side benefit of consciousness based learning system design. While still being dependent on the environment to a large extent, intentional pattern based systems can and will, like an intelligent servant (Jeeves?) take advantage of the master when and where possible, even arm twisting him like a child sometimes arm twists its parents. However not all is fine in the pattern based world. We can see that environment stability gives rise to pattern based systems; higher the stability and longer the period of stability, more intricate and detailed will be the pattern database. The possibility of response optimization will mean that as a species, these natural entities will over time, learning cycles, and generations increasingly dovetail themselves to their environments. Such dovetailing is not always beneficial to the entity or its species. Dovetailing increases the detail and complexity of patterns and increasingly fine grains the entity’s responses to the environment. When environments change drastically, as they sometimes do, simple patterned systems can relearn and reorient themselves to most changes quickly, advanced patterned systems will find that difficult to do. When environments change drastically, existing patterns may need to be abandoned, new patterns will need to be identified, and newly identified patterns need to be written back into the genetic database, all under time pressure and in very short time spans. In effect the learning correction backlog becomes very high; relearning disturbs the normal life cycle of the entity thus exposing it to increasing stress. Entities that depended on archival strategies and lived in comparative comfort, with minimal processing power will find such inflated learning demands difficult to manage. Hardwiring mechanisms, if they exist, can worsen the scenario; all instinctual responses can become suspect in the new environment and this can spell doom for the organism and its species. Page 10 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Therefore, it can be seen that when the environment changes faster than a pattern-based entity can learn from it, a separate reason for species extinction is not required. The tendency towards extinction or survival is dependent on the speed of the environment change envelope, the faster it moves, higher the chances of extinction. Entities that survive such drastic environmental changes are usually the beneficiaries of environmental or ecological niches. Entities that live in environments that are always at the edge of change also have better chances of survival since their processing power is not only perennially active but also slightly higher than that of environmentally comfortable organisms. Thus we see that Darwinian natural selection scenarios can arise even for non-morphological reasons. While their morphologies may permit many natural entities to survive in environmentally modified environments, their learning systems may find it difficult to keep pace with new learning demands; the entity and its species can find their environmental responses increasingly out of tune with environmental challenges and are thus wiped out. Over geological history, science tells us that there have been multiple periods of drastic environmental change that have destroyed millions of species. Given such repeated destruction, it can be predicted that a demand for quicker pattern rewriting abilities or quicker relearning abilities and higher processing power will rise. We will discuss in a later section, a learning rewrite mechanism that probably reduced the demand for such extinction and reduced the speed of evolution. In our enthusiasm for patterns and their possibilities we are yet to discuss how an offline learning process may arise. In our next section we will see that the creation or implementation of such an offline learning mechanism is not as simple as pattern identification or archive management. Given our overall experience with AI design, we can however see that real time learning can become progressively difficult in nature like environments. On one hand learning demands progressively rise because of environmental/ecological pressures, predator prey relationships and natural selection pressures and on the other hand, response demands become keener and show little regard for system complexities. Designing a real time online learning process for such a demanding environment is a challenging task, not impossible, but improbable. Offline learning is much simpler. Before we move on to such a discussion of such a system, a quick recap of our salient points on our natural learning system discussion would be:  The presence of life differentiates entities from their environments. Consciousness arises out of such differentiation; therefore life necessitates natural consciousness, which in turn necessitates natural learning systems.  Archive-based learning systems make sense in nature like environments. Nature like environments generally show chaos like repeated activity and provide varying time constraints to entity responses. Such time constraints can debilitate online real time learning ability and force it to be moved offline, archive based solution reuse avoids repeated learning and also offers a better chance of survival. Such solution reuse however depends on quick environment cognition, archival response look up, and response reuse, which in turn necessitate environment data storage and quick search capabilities. An emergency response system is essential for all mobile entities in natural environments.  Processing architectures of systems that inhabit nature like variable learning demand environments will benefit if the data queue is separated from the processing queue, this reduces chances of data clog and subsequent clog induced system stall. A sensor memory bank DMA type architecture helps isolate data queue from processing queue, helps stores all environment data including emergency data, reduces data clog, allows for offline or postponed processing, and makes archive based environment cognition possible, which directly reduces online learning demands. This frees us the processing portion from having to process all data. This option also allows processing systems to choose and process data. This makes intentional processing of data possible.  Natural environments can force even simple learning systems to concentrate on online archive based responses and move learning offline. In such an environment, multi sensor equipped intelligent systems would find online learning and response still difficult. Even archive search, cognition, and response can also become difficult because of explosive search space expansion. Such a multi sensor intelligent Page 11 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I system can survive and benefit if it can use rest time or periods of low environment challenges to review its database, identify patterns from it, and create responses for such patterns. Pattern identification eases environment cognition and speeds up environment response in repetitive environments. Pattern identification, pattern based cognition, and pattern exploitation can enhance survival chances of timestressed complex multi sensor based intelligent systems, therefore all multi sensor complex systems would find it advantageous to morph into offline based pattern identification systems. Most natural systems are pattern-based systems.  Pattern based systems can exhibit comfort in stable natural environments. This is because pattern knowledge and pattern marker based cognition can help these systems predict incoming environments and therefore give them time to choose their response, which is a great relief in time constrained environments.  However pattern identification is also a slow and resource intensive process and may not be complete within an organism’s lifetime. The cost of such learning is therefore high; therefore there arises a demand for a knowledge retention mechanism across generations. In the presence of an archive, the mechanism of natural reproduction can help satisfy such a demand. Pattern template reproduction helps decrease pattern carrying loads but necessitates incubation. Good incubation strategies will allow even entitles with very high archival and learning loads to be rolled out successfully. The presence of archival lessons and incubation allow newborn natural entities to blend in quickly and seamlessly to a known environment before it needs to take on new learning loads. This archive based reproductive strategy reduces learning loads and enables even entities with low processing power to demonstrate increasingly dovetailed interactions with their environments over multiple generations.  The presence of intent can enable such pattern-based systems to actively engage the environment rather than react passively to it, such proactive engagement can help it maximize environmental benefits and reduce environmental risks.  When environments change quickly, pattern based entities can find it difficult to survive, because much of the pattern based knowledge needs to be rewritten and rather quickly. Unfortunately this pattern based, archive based, reproduction based design, which allowed them comfy lives with little processing power, will be found wanting in the face of massive learning loads. Quick environment changes can lead to species extinction, faster the change, higher the learning load, therefore higher dovetailing to an environment increases the species’ susceptibility to extinction. Pattern based architectures which emerge from periods of environmental stability are suitable only for stable or slowly variant environments. Our first point is that the rise or generation of any learning system is dependent on the presence of life and consciousness. So what is consciousness? Consciousness  For readers starting to read from this point, kindly read the synopsis of the earlier section in the last paragraphs to get an idea of what we have discussed until now  At this point, informed readers have a real hard task at hand. For the course of this discussion, the author wants them to drop all notions and ideas, preconceived or received, of consciousness and related topics, so that we can proceed from a simpler perspective on consciousness.  We start with an extremely simple and functional definition of consciousness and watch as it morphs from being the base of all learning systems to becoming its controller, directing what the entity is to learn and when and further. The author requests you to follow the logic and promises you that you will be surprised at what emerges and what the implications are. However please remember that we are only laying possible design paths and this discussion is not intended to be a final description of consciousness or its implementation in natural systems, we merely attempt to show how human like binary consciousness can arise out of a few simple design choices. First we assume that it is inherent to life that any system that is alive tries to sustain itself so that its continuity can be ensured. While we cannot explain why this is so, we all know that it is so, we also know that we cannot explain this phenomenon based on current scientific knowledge. This is a base assumption and one of the two assumptions we use in this entire discussion. Page 12 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Once life is available, then the desire for sustenance implies not only inputs to remain alive but also the protection of what is alive. For any system to sustain and protect itself, it needs to be first aware of what is to be protected. This awareness is given by consciousness. Consciousness simply means awareness. It is logical that in any entity, awareness can arise only through its sensors. The entity’s sensors delineate the entity environment boundary and all self and environmental knowledge arise from the sensory boundary. We use the term simple consciousness to indicate the system’s sensory boundary image. Since environments vary but sensory boundaries remain the same, simple consciousness indicates the sensory map of the organism. When we say sensory boundary image, we do not declare any perceptional or cognitional differences, we mean that the sensor generates sensory data when in contact with the environment. For instance, heat in an environment will map to thermal sensory data in a thermal sensor, as simple as that. The question of time differences between individual perception and base system perception and the accompanying debate are non relevant at the present stage. We will assume that all sensory data passes via suitably modeled sensory interfaces to the sensory banks and then this data will be picked up by the processing system we modeled earlier. It is obvious that without the sensors and the resultant sensory boundary image, a rock, and a living thing are no different. It will become more obvious when you consider that any data for an intelligent system in an entity arises from the entity-environment sensory interface, without this interface and the subsequent data generation, the need for an intelligent system simply does not arise. Learning arises and is required to make sense of and make shortcuts and rules out of this sensor data arising out of the entity environment interface (please see the section on understanding for a discussion on such learning); therefore any learning in any intelligent entity including man is always with respect to the system boundaries and on the data that arise out of such boundaries. There exists no learning demand outside of it. This can be debated; we will come back to it when we discuss understanding in a forthcoming section. The natural question arises as to who is it that is conscious. This could be the wrong question to ask; from our definition of simple consciousness, we understand that given a sensory boundary there is no individual entity that is aware, awareness is the sum total of the effect of the presence of the system sensory boundaries. The next natural question is that how is it that we humans are aware that we are aware. To answer that question we will have to travel a little further in this discussion where we encounter an overlying mirage like entity that is aware of and is dependent on the presence of the basic entity. Humans feel this as the involution (def: the act of enfolding something) of consciousness and call it self-consciousness; we will discuss how self-consciousness can arise out of such an involution. Let us keep that point aside for a moment and get back to simple consciousness. Earlier we assumed that life chooses to sustain and protect itself. Any living system that is aware of its sensory boundaries can choose to sustain and protect itself. Since the generation of the sensory image and its sustenance and protection demands are concomitant, perhaps connatural to life, we expand our definition of consciousness to include these two activities. The right definition of consciousness is thus system sensory image + system sustenance activity + system protective activity. This redefinition is truer to the spirit of the word than to its literal meaning. All natural life therefore needs to be conscious in the spirit of this new definition. Our definition of simple consciousness makes it clear than an entity’s simple consciousness will be limited to, and by, the coverage and abilities of its sensors. The immediate urge is to splurge on sensors; however a cost benefit analysis would dissuade us from that. In nature the spread and coverage of its sensors seem to be dependent on the cost of protection and protectability of its subsystems or components. Page 13 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I For instance, consider simple static natural entities, here the scope of protection is very low. Even when environments buffet them, stasis prevents these entities from taking effective protective action. The cost of protecting such a system using sensors and other artifacts will be very high. Therefore in such cases, mechanisms of easy system or component replacement have evolved and such systems are tuned for easy system or component replacement in case of damage. In their case, the sensory boundaries alter quickly and have to be remapped soon after system replacement is complete. Such remapping however becomes more difficult as complexities rise. This balance of system replacement vs. consciousness-based protection seems to be characteristic to life and is not limited to simple static entities alone. Even within complex systems like animals and man, the system replacement vs. protection rule works at certain component levels. The idea is that if component complexity is lesser and replacement rather than protection cheaper, the need for protection of that entity, component, or sub system does not arise. For example, many of our cells are said to undergo replacement every moment and we are non the worse for it or even aware of it. However, let a small thorn nick our skin and the protective measures we take to avoid such damage are disproportional to its importance. Because of this, we can drink alcohol and damage our liver and our consciousness cares two hoots about it. We can also see that the level and spread of consciousness can vary, in terms of the sensory image detail, system sustenance demands, and system protection demands. The sensory spread and coverage and system complexity determine to a large extent, the level of consciousness of the entity. More complex the system higher would be its protection and sustenance demands. Since one of the jobs of consciousness is the protection of the sensory boundaries, the simplest indicator of the level and spread of consciousness in a natural entity is the amount of fear and the locations it favors. Fear/pain or similar system protective activity arises to protect the system bounds and ensure the continuity of the system’s sensory image or consciousness. The other indicators for the level of consciousness are the number, type, granularity, complexity, and coverage of the sensors. The degree of centralization of the sensors, the sensory wiring, and the actuators is also a good indicator of the level of consciousness. These factors are also proportional to system replacement costs and are good indicators of system complexity. If consciousness implies system image, system sustenance and protection, then it becomes obvious that no autonomous intelligent system can exist without first being conscious of its own sensory image and the resulting sustenance and system protection demands that emerge as a result of such an entity interacting with an environment. Any autonomous intelligent entity, natural (or artificial), perforce needs to be conscious. There seems to be no way out. We also see that consciousness rises as a result of rising system complexity where system protection makes more sense that system replacement. System complexities tend to rise when the environment begins to demonstrate stability. We did see a parallel with patterns too. We can see how critical environmental stability has been to the rise of intelligence, consciousness, and system complexity, the comparative stability of the last sixty odd million years have helped bring us humans here. We can now link up this idea of consciousness as a collage of system image, sustenance, and protection with our earlier ideas of natural learning systems to create a consciousness driven learning system. Mobility Mobility needs good sensors; the presence of multiple sensors can help provide a better picture of the environment. Mobility also demands actuator centralization and processing. The sensors also need to be coordinated to actuation. The presence of mobility therefore leads to a cumulative demand for centralization of the sensory wiring system, the actuator wiring system, and processing. The presence of multiple sensors in a mobile entity forces it to rely on pattern study and offline data processing. The sustenance demands of mobile entities are also quite complex and varied. Page 14 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I In toto, all these factors that arise from being mobile add to increased processing loads and complex / centralized processing architectures. It is clear that in comparison to that of a static entity, the consciousness and intelligence system levels of a mobile entity have to be necessarily very high, the increased consciousness arising out the presence of multiple sensors and intelligence arising out of complex processing and centralized architectures. When an entity gains mobility, each of its steps brings forth the risk of sensory boundary damage, a factor that was not present for static entities. We know that the cost of repair/replacement for mobile system components is very high due to the centralization of the sensory, processing and output architecture. This means that the demand for sensory boundary protection is immanent and permanent. Our definition of consciousness says that the job of system protection is a function of consciousness. This implies that the consciousness mechanisms of a mobile entity should forego the typical role of a sentry that it assumes in a static system and should be transformed into a perennial patrol party, actively scouting the system boundaries for any presumed or actual danger. The mobile entity clearly needs a more active and higher level of consciousness than the static entity. Since uncontrolled mobility can increase the risk of system damage, it is clear that such uncontrolled mobility is to be avoided, and that in the interests of system protection, mobility control be coordinated by the same system that undertakes to protect it. This means that each step and activity the mobile entity undertakes should not only be conscious but intentional. Since both consciousness and intent arise out of the presence of the consciousness mechanisms, this implies that the control of mobility should rest with the consciousness mechanisms. Consciousness in the mobile entity is therefore an active hardworking artifact doing both system protection and mobility control. This leads us to the understanding that a system that is not conscious of its sensory image and its environment cannot be autonomously mobile. Any mobile entity acting otherwise is either not completely autonomous, or is under the direction of a conscious entity. Is it not true that in nature we rarely meet with a non-conscious mobile entity? In nature, the loss of consciousness instantly kills mobility, which could be a pointer to the link between natural consciousness and mobility. We did say that intelligence systems rise to meet learning demand and therefore the intelligence and consciousness systems of mobile entities are at higher levels and demonstrate higher activity than that of simple static or non-intentional-y mobile organisms. In fact these two artifacts, intelligence and consciousness, constituent of all learning systems, artificial or natural, are intertwined like the snakes on the staff of Caduceus (Hippocrates?) Consciousness Driven Learning Systems Turing (1) did foresee the major problems in intelligent entity design in his 1950 paper on whether machines could think. He also foresaw the logical conditions necessary for autonomous learning and the approximate path to it, but some interlinking mechanisms are missing and the picture is not very complete. For our design, we reuse Turing’s idea of the punishments and rewards mechanism, which he posited as useful in child machine learning. Rather than use Turing’s terms, we will use the terms success monitoring or success/failure mechanisms. We will first develop a simple consciousness based learning system and wonder about its enablers, constraints, and its performance in a natural environment. From our discussion on consciousness we know what consciousness implies; a system image, system sustenance demands and system protection demands (a sensory boundary image and the need to sustain and to protect that image). Here we create a simple system that uses success monitoring and associated mechanisms; one that is better explained using control system terminology. In deference to readers who may be natural scientists we keep the scope and terms of the discussion as simple as possible. Page 15 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Our system is a twin loop control system, with an outer loop straddling the inner. We did discuss a simple intelligent system earlier, a simple learning system with an archive and other artifacts, in our basics section. This simple intelligent system will form the inner loop and we will provide a success monitoring mechanism that will form part of the outer loop. This is the learning loop. This outer loop will be driven by system demands, both of sustenance and protection; so both food demands, environmental demands and environment protection demands form part of this loop. This means that the outer loop contains both the system image for system protection and sustenance demands like food and also mobility control. We can therefore call this the consciousness loop. This consciousness loop contains a success failure monitoring mechanism that determines if the systems response satisfied the system’s internal or external demands (sustenance demands and environmental demands). The success monitoring system has as its reference system protection and system sustenance demands. The demand is passed on to the learning loop, which will respond using either online learning or cognition and response from the archive if prior solutions exist. The success monitoring system will use environmental feedback and tag all responses of the learning loop to a (system or environmental) demand as successful, failed or partially successful (but non-optimal) based on how well the response satisfied the demand. Partial solutions arise because of response time constraints when this consciousness based learning system inhabits nature like environments. Partial or non-optimal solutions themselves can be marked with a success percentage, so that they straddle an optimality range. We know that natural environments provide variable time demands on the organism, many a time, the response demands are instantaneous, and there is no time available to actually learn/process data. This means that an instantaneous perfect response to the natural environment may not be possible. After some time, we can see that the learning archive will contain many solutions; some tagged as successful, some as failure and some as partially successful. It is clear that non-optimal responses require further learning and failed responses need repeated learning. In a natural environment, such learning is however possible only when the condition or demand repeats. Notice however that the system as a whole is however aware of what it knows and what it needs to learn. When a demand repeats, successful solutions, if available in the archive, can directly be delivered to the output. Solutions that require relearning have to go through the learning system for reprocessing. The availability of partial and failed solution tags in the archive actually allows for earlier and better problem cognition when it repeats, when a partial solution exists in the archive and is tagged for relearning, the system can alert remain and can alert the sensors for a repeat of such a problem. In effect this is a iteration enabled, postponed learning system that can not only learn, but also look for, wait and learn when suitable conditions arise, which makes it a good solution under time constrained response repetitive environments. If the demand recurs and time for reprocessing is available, then these partial solutions can be taken up for reprocessing. It is to be however noticed that natural environments may at times even deny such chances for reprocessing, perhaps when the environment is as constrained as before or when the relevant archive data is so submerged within the archive that the time available for response is used up in search and cognition. This means that the system has to be always open to the possibility for partial learning. Such a wide prevalence of partial learning demands that reprocessing does not start from first principles every time, learning should continue from where it left off, call it stop and go learning. Till this point there is little new when seen from a control system angle, this is a simple multi loop control system and higher and more advanced systems see service both on earth, in the air and in space. Patience please! Notice that in nature, humans and most natural organisms always seem to learn iteratively; improving their responses in kaizen fashion over multiple learning cycles and even multiple Page 16 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I lifetimes. Such iterative learning and partial relearning possibilities demands a special kind of learning and archive design as we discuss later. We call it a scaled learning and database design. We will discuss how such a design can possibly aid search, learning, and pattern identification. The system we have discussed now can however do incremental postponed learning, but is not good enough. Some new mechanisms need to be added to improve learning capabilities. Did you notice that this system contains a factor that is more important to us from the point of consciousness and learning? If you did not, notice that this is the beginning of directed or intent driven learning; the consciousness loop gains the ability to vary and direct the learning demand and the learning process to its current requirements, thus making it a truly autonomous learning system. It can even set its priorities on partially learnt solutions and take up learning on a priority basis. Since these demands arise from an entity being conscious of its own demands and its environment, a self driven intelligent system fitted with a success monitoring loop and system protection demands, and capable of iterative learning becomes an autonomous, conscious, intelligent system. The effect of directed learning is however greatest on the sensors, orienting them, and supplying them with a focal set of demands that removes their endless dithering and focuses them on what to see. This in turn has a great effect in minimizing the extent of the frame problem. Isn’t that interesting? This does however imply some intelligence on the part of the sensor. We did see that given nature like environments even pattern-based systems are starved for learning and processing time. The severity for mobile complex systems is greater. In such a case, the provision of an additional loop via the success monitoring system can actually worsen the system’s responsiveness in the short term. The additional consciousness loop adds an inevitable processing delay in the system, thus enhancing survival risks at least in the short term when the system is under response pressures. We cannot however wish away the consciousness loop; good result oriented learning depends on it, so does mobility, consciousness is but a necessary devil. We also did see that even for the simplest learning systems, learning improvement with respect to a particular environmental challenge needs recurrence of the challenge. Even during such recurrence, environmental/time constraints could still deny the possibility of complete or improved learning; the entity per se has to wait for multiple occurrences of the challenge before a good quality solution can be achieved. The need for multiple learning cycles is very high. For entity’s that have life spans of hours, days and months, multiple learning cycles certainly look like a luxury. One can escape this conundrum by saying that learning cycles will be spread over multiple lifetimes, something that is true to a certain extent of natural entities. It is clear that even for the most advanced natural entities, such demand recurrence based iterative learning will mean that, with such a system, the prospects of good learning are available but limited. Dilemma Can we avoid the wait for demand recurrence? Can we improve the learning prospects of such a system? Can we shorten the learning cycle time? Can we improve the learning per learning cycle? Under response pressures implicit in a nature like environment, given the processing demands and delays implicit in online learning and the requirement for offline processes, it will be advantageous if we can split the entity’s processing and response mechanisms. We can let an archive based environment response process run in the foreground and shift learning processes to the background. Transferring the load to an external process or a higher-powered system and gathering back the results will also help. However these are at best possible solutions for artificial autonomous mobile entities alone. Why is this so? Notice that natural systems are already under learning pressures and that their learning abilities are limited. The effects of morphology, environmental factors, predator prey relationships, and food availability further constrain the quality and quantity of learning available to an entity. Page 17 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I The only positive that the environment provides them, considering all other factors as constant is a little rest time and the presence of low environmental demand periods. In a natural environment, due to various factors like the sun’s cycle and the weather, most natural organisms can and do enjoy periods of low environmental demand and some much needed rest. This rest time is generally a time of low dynamic processing loads, learning loads that arise from the environment and from internal system requirements are generally low in such periods. Learning during such low load periods can be advantageous to the entity. This implies learning load shifting. Is this possible to use this time to learn? Can we shift online learning loads to these rest periods? If learning can be accomplished during these periods, then it will free up the organism to concentrate on online response search and response delivery. We can see that rest period learning, if implemented will result in great advantages to the entity. However our very definition of consciousness and intelligence precludes this very possibility. The very idea of consciousness and the resulting learning mechanisms arises from that of the sensory boundaries. Any learning demand arises with respect to the sensory boundary and there can be no learning demand that lies outside of it. All data to a consciousness based learning system are sensor-generated data and our learning system is designed and oriented not to learn from (sensor reference free) data chunks but against an incoming sensor based data stream. Notice that even during rest periods too, the sensory boundaries are not exactly idle, they feed in data, and such data needs to be processed even though response demands may not be urgent. Also processing any data other than online data while being online may result in incongruent system responses to the environment, another risky endeavor. On the other hand a background process looks difficult from the point of view of available processing power and resources. Let us for the moment recap the demands that precipitate the need for a rest time learning mechanism. The major cause is the systems decisions, forced upon it by the environment, to respond now and learn later. This demand curtails learning time, can interrupt search and creates sub-optimal learning solutions and system responses. Given a certain processing power, the ratio of sub optimal solutions to complete solutions is going to rise with increase in system complexity or environment complexity. Notice that right from the simple intelligent system to the pattern based system the demands for rest time learning do grow exponentially. We saw in an earlier section that pattern identification and archival management demands may necessitate that the entity finds times and places of rest, safe from extreme environmental demands and challenges. The demand for iterative learning and failure relearning that rises from the consciousness based learning mechanisms we have just discussed also increase the felt need for a time of rest when all this processing can be carried out. Without the presence of rest time and associated rest time processing mechanisms, an archive-based online cognition and response/ offline learning strategy will fail. If rest time is available then processes like archive management, deep search and pattern identification processes can be executed without much system modifications since their process demands are generally limited to the availability of uninterrupted processing time and resources. However as discussed earlier, rest time learning remains a problem. As we noticed what we have now is a learning mechanism designed to learn against a sensory boundary based data stream. Even during rest, the existing sensory boundaries are busy. The old data needs to be replayed for the rest time learning mechanism to learn from it. In the absence of a sensory boundary we will need to create a new learning mechanism to learn from that data. We may not have the resources to create a parallel learning system. Can we use the available facilities to resolve our problem or should we create a separate learning environment and affiliated learning processes? Page 18 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Solution Remember that we have a sensory data archive and that data from the sensors go into it in movie frame fashion. Reversing the movie frame can give us data recall. Remember that sensory interfaces bring in these data. If these sensory interfaces could be mimicked in memory, stub like, we can then recreate the entity environment interface. We can now replay the archived movie frame like data sets through this (offline) interface to let the learning mechanisms learn from it. As far as the learning mechanisms are concerned, it sees an actual entity in an actual environment and can therefore learn from it. However there is a small hitch. Notice that the offline learning mechanisms are generally concerned with reprocessing or relearning loads. In such loads the solutions that the entity provided at the time of actual occurrence are also available. In general such a review based learning process will be slightly different from the normal online process. How will a learning system even if given time, learn from such solution embedded data? We will take up this problem in a later section. Notice that very presence of such a rest time learning process means that with a little resource sharing the entity can use its lightly loaded rest times to learn/relearn, while responding to the lighter demands of the environment. When interrupt levels from the environment rise and there is a demand for quick responses, then the rest time learning process can be aborted and the entity can go back to proper online activity. Notice that in theory such rest time learning can be really fast. The happenings of the day can run thro the entity’s memory mechanism in less than half the time. Why should this be so? You do know the answer, however to be more explicit, let me say that the rest time learning process runs at processor speed and not environment speed, not being dependent on the environment for reactions saves a lot of time. It is clear that such an offline learning mechanism, if available, would be a great boon to the entity. It can review its actions and environmental reactions and learn from it at its own pace at a time when it is not besaddled by environment response concerns. Such a mechanism increases learning time, improves learning, and can increase the learning prospects of an entity in a natural environment. Notice that in the usual case (except for the predator) there is practically no response time pressure on the rest time learning mechanism. The single biggest inhibitor of good learning quality, the time constrained learning demand, can be countered by such a rest time learning process. Rather than relearn or review the entire happenings of the day, we can reduce rest time processing loads by choosing to process only directed learning demands. The success monitoring mechanism and the consciousness loop can create a priority ranked list of learning demands and direct the offline consciousness based learning mechanism to recall relevant events and data and learn from the data. Iterative learning and Failure relearning become easy and the system will have a trial response ready in its learning archive, next time the demand recurs. Whenever the entity is free, then such free time can in theory be offline learning time. The most important factor is that while this arrangement improves learning, it does not demand extra processing power or radically new architectures. The same learning mechanism can be reused for such review and the results of offline learning can be added to the same learning archive, seen that way this is an economic design that reflects Thatcherian prudence. From an engineering point of view creating a mock interface is not an easy job, but far easier than creating a separate learning system. If such a load shifted, rest time learning mechanism sounds like a fulfillment of a time constrained learning system’s wish list, wait till we encounter the problems. Notice that in recreating the sensory interfaces, we are recreating the entity in memory, albeit in a limited sense. If you remember our definition of simple consciousness as awareness that rises as a result of the sensory boundaries, then this recreation of the sensory boundary essentially duplicates simple consciousness. A shadow like simulated entity comes to dwell in memory. The data replay or learning review process runs using this simulated entity as the primary actor to Page 19 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I interact with the simulated replayed environment. Therefore in doing such data replay we not only have environment data recall and environment interaction history recall but also entity recall. During offline learning, the entity has to be aware of this simulated entity, its learning processes, and its results. Such awareness is best illustrated by the example of a stage and an audience. It is as if the basic conscious entity is in the audience, watching its alter ego, the simulated entity, performing with other actors on a stage. (This in effect puts the actor in the foreground and the audience in the background) Such awareness is essential to avoid environment incongruent responses that may arise out of response tangling. Response tangling arises because the learning mechanisms are reused for offline learning, and its results go into the same learning archive. It is always possible that the result of an offline process is wrongly routed to the system outputs and confusion and environment incongruence can result. The entity will seem to exhibit mad behavior. Such response tangling can be extremely risky and even fatal to the entity. It is therefore absolutely necessary that the entity be aware of these offline learning results as separate and arising from its rest time learning mechanisms. It is also necessary that these processes and results be corralled away from the online response mechanisms. However with such an offline data replay based learning process, it is clear that the entity has a higher learning potential. The quality and quantity of such learning will be dependent on the amount and quality of rest and safety the entity can enjoy. With a rise in learning potential, the entity can even seek higher processing load by colonization or migration. Notice that the very presence of a shadow entity and offline learning mechanisms offers some breathing space to the harassed entity and its online learning mechanisms. Learning pressures come down; rest time processing also ensures a better and more complete quality of learning. This leaves the basic consciousness based learning mechanisms to concentrate on faster archive based search and respond processes, confident that the offline learning mechanisms can handle any new learning loads. The presence of such benefits from offline learning would mean that the entity would be motivated to find the rest time and the safety needed for such processes so as to maximize its learning potential and enjoy the chances of a more relaxed online life. Rest time is rarely a great problem for natural entities; the diurnal nature of the day is a great help, other rest times do appear in the daily life of any natural entity. The problem then boils down to the level of entity safety, higher the safety during rest time, the better the entity can learn. The combination of good rest and safety for natural organisms depends on a lot of implicit and explicit factors like morphology, lifetimes, predator prey relationships, food availability, evolutionary paths etc, in short the evolutionary and ecological history of the entity and its species. Our present knowledge about processing power availability and processing architectures in natural entities is too low to make an educated guess about these factors and their level of influence. Therefore, for purposes of argument, let us ignore individual species capacities and foresee the scenarios that arise from a combination of these three (offline) learning critical factors; rest, safety, and processing power. If we suppose that these factors have binary states, eight combinations become possible; some of which lead to extinction, some to stable online systems and some to systems that need offline architectures. A combination of 000 is a call for extinction, the combinations 100 and 010 are exceptionally risky and may not survive, the combinations 001,011, 101 and 111 can lead to pure online learning systems. That leaves the combination 110 as the one that may need offline learning processes. Pure online processing power may look like a luxury in nature, where the processes of natural selection imply that a demand for extra processing power may take generations to satisfy. It is well known that processing mechanisms tend to consume a large part of the entity’s energy. It can therefore be presumed that the processing mechanisms will be constrained to stay within the energy minimum that the system can support, since these systems need to be functional even at such minimum energy levels. Then there are other systemic and environment based negatives that act to ensure that processing power availability stays within processing power demand. Despite Page 20 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I such negatives, it is still possible that some natural entities end up with an excess of processing power, even if temporary, mainly as a result of evolutionary trajectories. For purposes of argument, consider a condition in the evolutionary history of the organism where there was a sustained demand for a rise in processing power. Such demands may have risen due to factors internal and external to the entity. An improved sensor may demand more processing resources, so could variant environment conditions. Let us say that over generations of natural selection, the entity and its species rose to meet the increased processing power demand. Let us now allow a long period and multiple generations to pass by after which we say that the original conditions that demanded such power increases have died down or disappeared. In such a case the entity will be left with an excess of processing power. If we use the logic of natural selection, we can safely presume that there will never be complete synchrony between processing power availability and the rise and fall in processing power demand. The response of the entity and its species to any increased or decreased demand generally takes multiple generations to satisfy. There can be an interim condition where the entity and its species enjoy an excess of processing power. In such a case, like a man newly awash in money, the extra processing power will be directed towards new baroque or functional targets. The entity and its species may act to colonize new environments and thus take on new learning loads, alternately it may undertake to fine tune its courtship strategies or optimize other systemic responses. If this extra processing power contributes in any way to the success of the entity or its species, then despite the fall in actual processing power demands, we can expect natural selection to retain this extra processing power. A stronger case for the presence of extra processing power comes from entity or species dwarfing. Environmental and systemic factors may force entities or species to take smaller body shapes to keep in tune with environmental or other demands. It is logical and also well known that brain sizes are proportional to body sizes. If we reuse our earlier logic, we can see that such downsizing can also lead to a condition where the entity and its species enjoy a temporary spurt in processing power, and so on… The author wonders if (other than for genetic reasons) such size reduction was a primary trigger for those natural organisms that have come to enjoy better brain to body size ratios. He is not aware if there is any prior evidence to support such a premise. Such an engineering based logic may not hold true in natural realms. However if there is evidence to support such a premise or if we can assume that such a premise is true, we will show in a later section how it is possible to use such a premise to explain hominid evolution. While the above case for excess processing power needs such an arm-twisted explanation, a case for lower processing power can be much more straightforward. The addition of processing power is costly and resource intensive, so one can expect that processing power supply will generally stay below or just equal to processing power demands. However a condition of too little processing power could also be risky to the entity and the species. Given that delays are inherent to processing, too little processing power can make these entities sluggish and unresponsive and thus expose them to environmental and systemic risks that may lead them to extinction. However entities or species with processing power shortages can still maximize their learning potential if they have the rest and safety to afford offline-learning mechanisms. This is the ‘ 110 ‘ condition we discussed earlier. Rest and safety are critical to offline learning processes since offline learning mechanisms have to share processing resources with the online mechanisms. A lack of safety and rest would mean that the entity would not have the time and flexibility to allot processing resources to this offline mechanism. Even when used, these offline mechanisms are susceptible to quick rollback calls, which in effect debilitate learning possibilities. Since rest time is generic and available to almost all entities in nature, it is the level of safety that determines the level of offline processing possible for the entity. In cases of good safety, like say a good availability of shelter and rest, the offline processes can increasingly take over online resources. In cases of exceptional safety and where high demand for offline processing resources exist, it would even be possible to shutdown the online consciousness mechanisms or reduce its Page 21 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I processing power requirements to a minimum. This allows the offline mechanisms to garner almost all the available processing power for offline processing. Does such a condition correspond to sleep? Many natural organisms sleep; naturally many scientists have wondered if sleep time corresponds to learning time and have sought to study them from such a perspective. Unfortunately the real evidence has not yet tallied up to strongly support such suppositions. The jury understandably is still out on the evidence. To us viewing the problem from an engineering point of view, sleep looks like the ideal choice for an offline learning process. It is not necessary however that this be true from a biological standpoint. Other reasons for sleep are presently being conjectured. For instance energy conservation looks like an obvious and logical choice, however notice that even during hibernation, there is evidence that sleep periods are separate and demarcated. The presence of the circadian and similar environment based rhythms is also evidence that most natural organisms have a great level of (inbuilt) awareness of their larger environment. It is possible that through the course of evolution low load higher safety periods were identified and earmarked for offline learning. The best we can do is to wait for more evidence from science to support or reject a conjecture that sleep times are also learning times or that sleep arose primarily for learning purposes. However if the sleep conjecture is correct, it can be seen that more sleep naturally translates to higher learning potential. Higher the processing load and higher the processing resource constraints, higher would be the requirement for sleep. Better the quality of sleep, better the learning would be, within the given processing power capacities. We can see that a facility for uninterrupted sleep can multiply by many folds the processing loads that a system can theoretically process. What happens to entities with little safety or rest? One presumes that such entities will need to do some sneak-in offline processing, running a mix of offline and online processes when rest and safety allow them to. Such an admixed process, though risky, can be a boon to such entities that are starved for processing power. During such periods, online response may be a little compromised; a decision to run such offline processes online demands a cost benefit analysis. In the natural kingdom, the rest and safety available to an entity and its species are dependent on the entity’s position in the natural hierarchy. Prey would find such an admixed process difficult to implement, because the need for high alert means that they would find it difficult to relax and allot time and resources to the offline mechanisms. The threat of rollback is perennial and high. However in the case of most predators, such an option can not only be implemented but can also be useful in a manner we are yet to consider. The presence of a offline learning mechanism combined with the (high priority) need for hunting success will tend to turn the offline learning mechanisms into an instant replay and review facility. Such an offline review facility will allow quick reliving of the event history and learning from it. This will allow the predator to fine tune its strategies on the run and aid their run time intelligence. We see that rest and safety remain the most critical factors in the implementation of an offline processing mechanism. If rest and safety are available, then the target entity’s learning potential can be maximized. How can such a theoretical maximum be achieved? Consider a case when the entity has the facility to run an undisturbed offline process during sleep and an admixed offline-online process during wakefulness. With such a strategy the learning mechanism enjoys the maximum possible processing power and the maximum offline learning time. This is the condition where its learning system achieves its highest possible learning potential. It is natural to ask whether all this learning load involution and sneak in processing really necessary. Prima facie, no natural entity seems to be so harassed and point bent on learning or data processing. What are the learning loads that necessitate such learning process involution sneak in processing and sleep? Where are the processing power constraints that we talk of? Page 22 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I The most straightforward answer would be we do not know, nor does current science. We are just beginning to get a hang of the learning processes of animals and man. However from an intelligence system design perspective we can say that such loads exist and that an offline solution that corresponds to rest, safety, and sleep looks like a workable solution. Notice that offline processes are not confined to offline learning, it also includes processes like archive management and pattern related processes that range from identification, cognition, pattern solution creation/play out and so on. Notice that our discussion until now has assumed that the inner learning loop is inhabited with a simple learning system. When we replace this system with a multi sensor pattern based system, we can see that online processing loads are not only high, which in itself can increase offlinelearning demand, but also that archive management jobs have multiplied, and pattern identification becomes distinctly more difficult. Mobility adds to these increased processing demands, both online and offline. Notice that we ignore a lot of data during mobility. Such ignored data also wait for offline processing in the archive. Mobility also implies sub intent devolution and sub intent reassembly, this also increases processing loads. The moving target of environment comfort also brings in its own learning loads as the entity looks for measures to do more with less, for instance reduce food availability variability, reduce predator attraction, improve prey location and so on. Then there are the small and large environmental variations that are part of any environment; all natural entities need to keep pace with such learning demands that arise from environment variation. All natural entities also seem to take risks and learning to the limit of their processing loads, within their generation and life spans and this is what keeps the species alive and moving. Even otherwise learning resources are used up in the never-ending one-upmanship with members of one’s own species in the race for the survival of the fittest. The author avers that the present trend towards neuroscience based brain studies will increasingly bring evidence of such learning loads, resource constraints, and offline processes, in many organisms including man. Mind In our discussion of the offline or rest time learning mechanism, we said that the entity should be aware of the simulated entity, the associated secondary learning process running on the simulated entity environment interface and its results. Such awareness of this secondary learning environment will allow it to differentiate itself from the entity and corral its results and processes so that they do not clash with the online mechanisms. If we can map our offline learning mechanisms (with its entity recall, environment recall and environment-entity-interaction-history recall attributes) to natural learning systems and organisms, say humans and animals or say fruit flies, we can figure out their equivalents. OK you already guessed it! Let us call the simulated learning theater as the mind, the arena in which the simulated entity interacts with a simulated environment and learns from it. Let us call the learning processes that run in such an environment as the mentation processes and let us term thoughts as results of such mentation processes. We know that when two processes run in parallel in a system, then the processes need clear system identifiers; let us identify the shadow entity as “I”. The sense of I helps the main entity identify its shadow entity as distinct and separate from itself. Our basic consciousness mechanism is aware of this I as separate but as a coarse reflection of itself. This equivalence between the artifacts of the offline learning mechanisms and the natural intelligence system is a basic assumption (presumption?) of this discussion. We assume that our sense of “I” denotes a proxy entity that inhabits a proxy-learning environment, which is our mind, that offline-learning processes correspond to our mentation processes, that thoughts are results of mentation processes and that the basic consciousness is aware of the proxy entity as I. From our perspective, we see the mind or simulated consciousness as an offline-learning environment necessitated by high offline learning loads combined with the availability of rest Page 23 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I periods and comparative entity safety. More the learning load, more the requirement for the presence of the mind mechanism! More the safety and more the rest, more the time such an offline learning mechanism can occupy the brain of the entity. More the time the mind occupies the brain, better the learning capacity of the resource starved entity. If this equivalence is correct then we can see that the presence of the offline processing and learning architecture can allow natural organisms to take learning and processing loads that are simply not possible without such architecture, given processing power and other resource constraints. If the presence of consciousness marks the beginning of directed or intentional learning, the presence of an offline learning system running in simulated consciousness optimizes the learning process. The entity’s basic consciousness and its mirage like sister, the mind share the learning load and reduce the resultant learning pressure on the system. Such a bi-conscious system can handle higher learning targets and pressures if it has sufficient rest time and environment safety. During wakefulness and periods of high alert, the mind is constrained to give place to the online basic consciousness mechanisms for environmental response purposes. This online response requirement cannot be wished away because man or any other animal that has a mind is basically a mobile entity. Basic consciousness, we did discuss, is a pre-requisite for mobility. During sleep, when our environment safety allows us considerable leeway when compared to the animals, when mobility demands are absent, our mind can shift to top gear. Presence of Mind Do animals have minds? Do insects have minds? Does man have a mind? If so, why does he need one or how did he come to one? To answer such questions, one needs to learn and understand more about the learning loads of a natural entity. Such data being not available, we perforce need to speculate. Our present understanding of the process however allows us to offer some logic to our speculations. In the absence of real scientific data any explanatory process is inherently speculatory (and must be taken with the usual bucket of salt). If mind equates to offline processing then one can see that for entities that have the facility for sleep the offline processes would run during sleep periods and will be finished when they wake up. During such a sleep process, the cognizance of binary consciousness is not necessary and the entity will not be aware of this learning process running within it, except when it dreams. (Perhaps as a result or part of a timed/regular keep awake interrupt) In the general case, the entity only knows that it needs to sleep and that after sleep problems that looked highly intractable prior to sleep look reasonably soluble. Mobile entities that have migratory and colonization activity will need offline processing time and offline processes to update their databases. Even here if such updates can take place within sleep or deep rest, cognizance of the process is not really necessary. The presence of mind can therefore be ephemeral in natural entities that are gifted with sleep. If and when they sleep, they can be said to have offline minds that work as they sleep. The level of sleep is then an indicator of their presence of (offline) mind. If offline minds come on only during sleep time a cognizance of I may not be even necessary. The sense of I would make brief appearances as they go into sleep, when they dream and when they exit out of sleep. We did see earlier that some entities like predators would benefit from having cognizable minds, even online. Let us say that they may need online minds, even if ephemeral. On the other hand, for prey; the attraction of improved learning is at best dicey. In short, natural conditions may not allow most natural entities the luxury of online minds, while offline sleep based minds look a distinct possibility. Such a broad based generalization may not apply equally to all entities, however our present lack of knowledge about these entities learning loads and processing power leaves us with little option. Man is not exempt from the natural kingdom. Notice that emergency conditions and exceptional alert conditions do debilitate his sense of I. When emergencies arise, humans are also forced to fall back on their instinctual mechanisms. In such situations his sense of I goes missing, the pattern Page 24 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I of individualistic activity he normally demonstrates vanishes; he becomes nothing more than an instinctual animal. In such situations he can neither see himself nor understand the logic of his actions when such actions come under subsequent review. The best he can say is that he was not acting self-consciously. The last paragraph implicitly assumes that man has and needs I, that he has online mind. Why does he need one? What triggered the rise of the human mind? What makes him special or his needs special from those of the other animals? The processing power requirements of any entity or its species are in broad terms dependent on their evolutionary history. At some point in the evolutionary hierarchy there arose a remarkable intersection of processing power, rest, and safety that heralded the arrival of man. The author feels that this remarkable conjunction of processing power, rest, and comparative safety can be seen even today with the advanced primates. If you look at the advanced primates, they are largely herbivorous, largely non-hunters and on the whole, are not preferred prey for any predator, despite their having the morphological and intelligence faculties a predator may need. Whatever the reason for this predator prey food chain drop out, this seems to have provided them with considerable environment safety and ample rest time. They also seem to have a predilection for comfortable sleep. Even Darwin (2) in his comparison of the mental powers of animals and man was tempted to make an observation in this regard. “The orang in the Eastern islands, and the chimpanzee in Africa, build platforms on which they sleep; and, as both species follow the same habit, it might be argued that this was due to instinct, but we cannot feel sure that it is not the result of both animals having similar wants, and possessing similar powers of reasoning.” Chapter 3 Descent of Man (emphasis author’s) Darwin’s remark allows us to posit a view that may sound radical. We did say earlier that sleep arises when ample safety and rest conjunct a lack of processing power. This makes us wonder if the advanced primates are actually starved for processing power. As of now science is still not clear as to what triggered the hominid speciation process from an ancestor common to both the advanced primates and modern humans. However notice that in the evolutionary branch off, based on the fossil evidence that we are presently privy to, the hominids actually started off with smaller sizes and bipedalism. Did smaller sizes place these initial hominids on an equal footing with other prey? A freak thought suggests itself; did bipedalism itself arise as a response to being chased as prey? What caused the downsizing? Did this downsizing lead to better mobility? Did such increased mobility lead to better vision? More important to us is the question as to whether this downsizing gave them a processing power advantage, in line with our earlier suggestion of better brain to body size ratios? Did that small extra make all the difference? Did the improved brain size to body size ratio trigger the start of the hominid rise? Did he find the extra processing power useful to resolve (may be even belatedly) small problems that his genetically close brothers, the apes could not solve? As a species we are not natural carnivores, that much is certain, also we have inbound fear of many of the other predators which is in itself unusual for a predator. We know that such speculation hangs on a limb too thin, this is a subject on which no clear answers presently exist or can be given, however there is clearer evidence that the hominid brain added more than a kilogram of weight to the head during its one million years of evolution from prehuman to man. Science posits an evolutionary hierarchy that led from the apes to man, the lines are however not still clear and form the subject of considerable debate. Let us look at it from our learning system perspective. We see that processing power increases can be triggered by both internal systemic needs and external environmental needs. When we track hominid evolution, we see a picture of increasing brain size. If we assume that most of nature uses processing equipment that are close to uniform, then we see that processing speeds would Page 25 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I remain practically the same, there seems to be little indication that man’s nervous systems or its processing are quicker than that of the other animals. So when brain sizes and learning loads increase, it is obvious that given the same processing speeds, with a more complex learning architecture and increased processing loads, more learning time is necessary. While we do not know the actual learning demands, a comparative look at the advanced primates sleep requirements tells us that the offline processing slots are practically full; they all need their eighthour sleep quota. This means that any additional learning time demands necessarily have to cut into online process time, unless the environment permits higher sleep durations or the brain mechanisms speed up the learning processes. When one posits such an online cut-in of the mind into hominid evolution, (based on what is known about hominid evolution now), one sees the possibility that the early hominids would have found their online rest times being increasingly taken over by their mind mechanisms. With each increase in brain size, the mind needed to increasingly cut into online times. The final point of such a cut in process would be the almost parallel presence of the offline and online processes, in other words the mind and the basic consciousness mechanisms shuttle or oscillate between themselves incessantly, each giving space to the other. Notice that this matches the theoretical conditions that we discussed earlier on, a condition where the learning potential of an offline-learning enabled entity is maximized. The author posits that this is the condition where the modern human species finds itself in with its incessant shuttle of the mind and its basic consciousness. Man seems to have come to such a maximized state of learning where an admixture of online and offline learning processes consumes his day, while sleep consumes his nights. He has both online and offline minds. Notice that there seems to be little space for mental Superman; the learning slots seem pretty occupied! Notice that this puts a theoretical full stop to intelligent system evolution on this evolutionary branch, which is perhaps why evolution did not continue to make Superman. It could even be speculated that this moving in of the mind to a more active online presence is what triggered the dietary move of the hominids from major herbivore to major carnivore. This is because they now had a review mechanism similar to that of a predator; they could outthink their prey and fast. For the earlier and later hominids, the increasing presence of an online mind perhaps helped change the equations of the traditional food chain. Being a predator changed his status in the animal kingdom from sometime prey to someone who needed to be feared. If his size did not deter them, his group sizes would, if that did not deter them, there were the tools that were getting rather fearsome. The move to a carnivorous diet would have also meant better food supplies and can probably account for their subsequent increase in sizes. It was perhaps this dietary change that gave them the impetus and safety of migration and colonization; they were no longer dependent on a vegetarian diet. Another concurrent process happened here, one we cannot explain how, his increase in fertility, the links are still not clear. However the author speculates that there is more than a casual link between learning systems and fertility, given our earlier supposition that reproduction is essentially a pattern passing process. He wonders if learning stresses debilitate fertility. It can be speculated that the forward movement of the mind into online time and the resultant species success brought a forward loop into operation, a loop that ended with modern humans, who now have the requisite safety and rest to have their mind flit in and out of their basic consciousness within an eye blink, literally. Before they got comfortable with it, possibly over a couple of million years, such a creep in would have been very unsettling to the earlier hominids, particularly for the earlier ones, having to contend with a shadow entity that arose in them at rest times and proceeded to provide solutions to problems that they had just faced. Once it grew enough for them to be comfortable they must have craved this shadow entity and even advantageous to have him around. Perhaps the very human attraction for intoxicants began with the drive to let the basic consciousness relax and let the mind speak. Such speculation may not be true, but definitely interesting. It could be argued that our basic propositions are wrong but notice that even in modern humans, there seems to be a correlation between body size and brain sizes, lesser the average body sizes, higher the average brain sizes, Page 26 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I if not intelligence. There also seems to be a link between intelligence and carnivorous behavior across the animal kingdom. There also seems to be evidence that links the increasingly human reliance on vegetarianism due to his agricultural successes to a net decrease in average human brain sizes over the last 10,000 years. Smaller sizes across the animal kingdom have implications for group size also and there is increasing evidence that there are parallels between brain sizes and social behavior. Whatever be the major impetus, it can be presumed that it is the enlargement of the online mind that necessitated the further enlargement of the brain and carried evolution further on till man was far ahead of the advanced primates. (Some of the above conclusions remain under debate in the science community; we do not wish to take a position on them. Much of these quoted data/conclusions arise from general science articles in various media and do not refer to specific science papers) It is natural to ask as to why other and earlier predators did not rise up to man’s state. For explanation we will have to fall back on our evolutionary history, our learning demands and more importantly morphology; bipedalism was the first and most important enabler and differentiator for the hominid line. We presume that the speciation process that diverged man from the apes also provided him with a little extra processing power that reinforced and grew to human scales over evolution. We presume that the mechanism of the mind must have risen early on in evolution, but has occupied the echelon in man. The author suggests that during wakefulness the human brain shuttles between mindlessness and mindfulness in the blink of an eye. He wonders if the eye blink is actually a state change signal of the human brain as it shuttles between online and offline processes. I The presence of the (online) mind creates a binary consciousness in any entity it inhabits. If the concept of self-consciousness (def: aware of yourself as an individual or of your own being and actions and thoughts) indicates that man is aware of himself as an entity independent of his body, from our perspective we can explain how such a feeling can arise. Offline processes need not be unique to man and so man is not necessarily the only mindful entity, even an animal can demonstrate mindfulness and binary consciousness if not self-consciousness. Even online minds need not be unique to man; the best place to look for them might be in the larger predators. Man’s awareness of this self-consciousness has challenged him over millennia; the concept of soul and all philosophy, even religion seems to have risen from this seemingly separate entity that inhabited the body. An entity that baffles neuroscience by refusing to show up in those brain scans! The stranger fact is that humans have been aware of the mirage like nature of our selfconsciousness for millennia now; the proponents of quietism were perhaps to notice this. The quietists have over millennia converged on one single question. Who am I? In answer many of them have persistently claimed that our sense of I is a mirage and that man’s actual consciousness resided below this mirage. Across time, sects, and religions, this seems to be their only common claim. In consequence, many of them consistently refused to identify themselves by names and used the third person to refer to themselves, rather than say my eyes; they used the format, this body’s eyes. This is not to claim that the quietists are right/wrong, but to point out the historicity of the question and their answer. "Whom are you seeking?" asked Abu Yazid the Sufi. "Abu Yazid," replied the man. "Poor wretch!" said Abu Yazid. "I have been seeking Abu Yazid for thirty years, and cannot find any trace or token of him." Other philosophers, scientists, and common people have also tried to make sense of selfconsciousness, however the Descartian proposition of “I think therefore I am” is in many ways a scientist’s attempt to resolve a pure senses based mechanistic argument, that man is a sum total of his senses. In the conventional interpretation, if the author’s understanding is correct, Descartes’ assertion is implied as a dualistic argument, that man exists as an entity independent of his body. The idea also implies that humans are different from animals because he is able to think of himself as an entity different from the body, an entity divergent and existing independent from/of the senses, from such a view animals are automata, unfortunately the mechanistic view intended Page 27 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I originally for man gets hoisted on the animals. Apologies if the author understanding of the Descartian proposition is wrong! From our newly arrived perspective, we can now propose that the Descartian “I” is neither the real “I” nor the entire “I”. Notice that we are not actually born self-conscious, as children we acquire self-consciousness by correlation, by correlating between our thoughts and our bodies, just like baby chimps and dolphins also seem to be able to do. We are actually born binary conscious. Over time and evolution the permanence of our learning loads and the need for the almost permanent presence of mind have morphed this binary conscious mode into a linked consciousness mode that allows correlation between our thoughts and our bodies. Thus do we arrive at self-consciousness! We should perhaps prefer to be called self-sentient to retain our observation that basic consciousness, binary consciousness, and self-consciousness are all dependent on sensory data. One of the reasons for the rise of self-consciousness would have been to reduce the schizoid discomfort that binary consciousness can induce in the entity, particularly en route to its maximization. In the common lingo, with a binary conscious offline mechanism, one would expect to have voices speaking in our head as the brain shuttles between the results of the online and offline process. Self-consciousness arises as an attempt to reduce the discomfort that the presence of a shadow man can create by correlation between the real man and his shadow. Another possible reason for self-consciousness to arise must have been to rein in a runaway brain. A learning system endowed with good processing power, good inferential processes, rest and safety can extrapolate events and sequences to an extent that they get out of reality and some reining in must have been necessary to keep its solutions relevant to the task at hand. Selfconsciousness perhaps arose as a solution to avoid such a runaway. If these are true, one can expect natural selection to have acted in favor of self-consciousness over plain schizophrenia. We can presume that over evolution, this self-identification and correlation process has acted to create and strengthen our sense of “I”. In reality the “I” denotes a proxy entity that resides in the brain and gives identity to the mind, it is actually a design artifact that allows for the presence of an offline learning mechanism. We did see earlier how the presence and activity of the offline mechanisms tend to push it into the processing foreground, while the basic consciousness based online mechanisms watch in the background. We also did see how the active learning activity of the basic consciousness mechanisms are pushed on to the offline learning mechanisms to allow the basic mechanisms to concentrate on archive based cognition and response. These are likely scenarios in the evolution of the human mind and self-consciousness. In humans, due to his inherently high learning loads, the mind covers his existence much like a blanket. Even while being a proxy for the main entity, it consumes most of his living time, both during sleep and wakefulness. We are actually more I than not. So what if it masquerades as the real thing? It has every reason to. Movies in My Mind We know from our earlier discussions that the presence of a success monitoring system is the key to good learning. It is obvious then that the offline learning system, if it is to exhibit good learning, also has to be equipped with one. The real environment forms the feedback mechanism for the online learning process, what could be its counterpart for the offline processes? One can see that the design of an offline learning system is not simple and straightforward. Learning from a data review process has another problem, which we identified earlier on, the presence of the entity’s earlier response. Even though the job of an offline learning system is to improve existing solutions, how will a system learn from such a result-embedded data stream? We certainly need to better understand the entity’s solution generation process. Rather than start from first principles and sidetrack this discussion, we will assume that the pattern based learning system Page 28 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I generates a response to the environment and our job is to better this response by reviewing the data and the solution. In our initial discussions, we did refer to proactive behavior as the third solution that a natural autonomous entity uses to reduce dynamic learning loads. We also said that proactive behavior arises out of a marriage of consciousness based intent and the pattern-based system. We said that the time gap between environment cognizance and entity response implicit to pattern cognition systems allowed the entity to demonstrate proactive behavior. Proactive behavior means that entities tend to utilize the time gap to probe the environment with trial responses to see which gives them the most benefits or helps attenuate risks. Much of the natural behavior we see is actually proactive behavior; a pure online response behavior arises but rarely and is extremely stressful to the organism. All natural organisms probe the environment for response beneficiation. Such probing cannot be rash and risky; it should be tentative and should contain a provision for retreat should the solution fail. Like a kitten’s tentative paw at a ball of twine when it first encounters it, the entity needs to paw at the environment, always ready to reverse its actions if they are risky or when they do not meet system requirements. This can best be done when the probing system has at least an idea of the response it can expect from the environment in reaction to its probing action. How can such knowledge and such knowledge-based solutions arise? An online system generally generates a solution based on its reading of the problem. The quality of the solution however depends on the time constraint (and environmental risks/demands). With an offline system, such a time constraint generally disappears or is relaxed. This does allow for a better quality of learning. A pattern identification process also relies on the presence of an offline learning system to generate a solution to the identified pattern. Here the presence of the entity’s online response embedded in the data stream can help the system compare its new solution with the entity’s old solution and replace it with a trial solution that can be tried next time the challenge repeats. This trial solution is the base of environment probing and all proactive behavior. The presence of the offline processes means that solutions to environmental challenges do not emerge hot from online processing; they are generally derived from the inherited archive or are the result of offline processing. If we can track back to the base system that starts with a pattern identification process one can see that initially the systems solutions are mini solutions, solutions that provide specific answers to specific environmental challenges. As the pattern identification process gathers steam these mini solutions are stitched together to form a response to a pattern. Even the most stable environment undergoes micro changes, which means that the entity has to do a lot of collation, stitching and separation of the micro responses to keep in tune with environment demands. In fact most of a natural entity’s lifetime is spent in such micro response collation on demand. Good solution chains tend to get reinforced over time and repetitions and are written back into the pattern-based database. The initial combinations are necessarily carpetbagger like; design and aesthetics arrive over time. The entity knows the reactions of the environment to its micro solutions. This allows it to guess the environments collated reaction to a solution chain. This means that before the solution chain is delivered to the output the entity has an approximate idea of the way the environment would respond to its latest action. Over time and generations, most environmental challenges and their responses tend to take place within such prebuilt knowledge frames. The result of entity activity and environment response either reinforces or questions this knowledge frame. The everyday variance of the environment is reflected in the flexibility of this knowledge frame, it tries to be inclusive and only when too much divergence occurs does the frame come under review. The presence of an offline mechanism and the knowledge frame allows the entity to safely probe its environment. If the improved trial solution fails, the older solution can always be reintroduced. In the natural environment this kind of probing is common. Solution improvements could be hard to come by, but all this probing is not wasted, once a solution is learnt, we are one up on the environment and have just increased our comfort level. A rash probing action is necessary only Page 29 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I when the environment response does not comply with such internally generated solution frame works. Notice that the presence of the offline learning system and the archive alters the very approach of the entity to environmental challenges. Notice that with such processes the entity is tuned to catching environment standouts. It is tuned to catch features and challenges that do not conform to the norm. Most of its usual responses are beneficiated responses; the act automatically returns the maximum possible benefit in the given circumstances. From such a perspective we see that much of natural behavior is proactive behavior or the results of a sum of earlier proactive behavior. Much of the complexity of natural behavior and activity can be explained by the concept of proactive behavior. Such behavior cannot rise out of systems that aim to be purely responsive to the environment; it can rise only out of intentional systems that aim to gain maximum efficiency in their interactions with the environment. Most natural entities are then like Jeeves, always thinking of the many ways they could persuade their master, the environment to follow their wishes rather than the other way round. Man is as good an example as any. The rat, which carves out a home in the ground, or a squirrel that stores nuts may be doing so out of his pattern based memory, but the rat, which first figured out the solution, had to do some real work of probing and knowledge frame correlation. Later accretion and improvements arise out of iterative learning and the final product may be far removed from what the original intent was. Birds nests, courtship dances, hibernation, many activities which evoke in us wonder all probably evolved from simple practices, much like the tendency of the chimp and the orang to arrange their resting places in preparation for a good nights sleep probably led to down pillows and spring beds and an inability to sleep without air-conditioning. Our initial problem that sent us scurrying away on trying to understand the solution generation process was the problem of trying to build a success monitoring system offline. Building solutions for a real environment and getting them tested is nice and simple, but what will happen if it goes really wrong? It is possible that the proposed solution carries more than its share of risk, would it be worthwhile trying it? Many possible solutions can arise for a problem; will we get the time, space, and conditions necessary to try all of them? Surely the need for a real time environment and concurrent requirements are a dampener to the system. What can the system do? It could be beneficial if one could create an offline-based success monitoring system rather than always rely on the environment to provide an online success monitoring system to test the results of offline learning. We already know that we can recreate the environment entity interface and its interactions. We also have a large history bank that contains previous trials and the environments responses to it. Can we use this accumulated knowledge to build a simulation platform to test the results of offline learning before such solutions can be offloaded to a real environment? While we reserve a detailed discussion on the design aspects of such an offline success monitoring mechanism and its testing environment for a further paper, the simpler way to understand the offline success monitoring idea and its consequences would be to consider the offline success monitoring mechanism we humans are equipped with; our conscience, or inner voice or conditioning or whatever term you like to call it. The job of this offline success monitoring mechanism is to use past learnt personal and cultural history to guide our actions and choices. In effect we store both our individual histories and cultural histories, our understanding of the rules that arise from these histories and posit trial solutions to the problems we face in everyday life. We then wonder how the environment would react to it based on its history of earlier reactions. To enable this look ahead and guessing, every real world success and failure, personal and cultural, goes into this archive. The learning process acts in two directions, one way to guess a solution, and another way to guess the environments response. Improved solutions are verified and checkmated against past personal and cultural history before they are enacted in the real world. The feedback of such an act is again fed back into the historical archive for reprocessing and correction; this is a continuous process that keeps our mind busy. Notice that such an offline success monitoring mechanism is only Page 30 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I possible for systems that have the luxury of online minds; that means that only we humans and perhaps some other predators may have the luxury of conscience and inner voices. An offline success monitoring mechanism can and does exist in us and it is logical that its presence and availability is equivalent to the presence of the offline processing mechanisms. The offline learning mechanism uses the offline success monitoring mechanisms to generate and improve offline proactive solutions. Man’s mix of mindlessness and mindfulness seem to ensure the almost permanent presence of such a proactive offline mechanism. Man therefore shuttles between the demands of instinctual action and considered conscious action. While instinctual patterns arise from his evolutionary heritage, the offline learning is newer and current and arises from cultural learning and the offline learning processes and its inbuilt success monitoring mechanisms. Here is where we can see conscious action score over instinct, here is where we set long term strategy that overrules the environmentally correct short term instinctual response, and here is where cultural training can offset natural behavior. Such simulated offline proactive behavior, whose basic idea seems simple to us, could prove difficult for the processing system. For offline proactive behavior to happen it should make the mind not a theater where vanilla processing happens, but a battleground of options and hypotheses. In this offline learning process with its own success monitoring mechanism, thoughts can loop incessantly looking for a solution. A good simile is that of a stage performance or a movie, a story runs on the stage, however this is a stage where the director, scriptwriter and actor are one and the same, the entity himself, performing before an imaginary audience that consists of an environment and other people and possibly the entity itself, it is on this stage that hypotheses are tried and as Popper said, die in our stead, the scriptwriter has to find a way out of the conundrums he himself has created or undergone. This calls not only an awareness of the environment but its past history too, not only history, but an interpolation of that history into the present future, it calls for recollecting a chain of events and rechaining it as the entity wishes to, it can become a big job. Developing an AI system like this would be a difficult affair, but then who said that it is easy to be human? We will expand the discussion on this in a later paper. However notice that even the above discussion helps better our picture of our mind and our sense of I. In our earlier description the concept of I looked like a rather forlorn object necessitated by offline learning demands. Now we see that the “I” and the mind are better fleshed out, these are not just simple shadow entities and shadow environments, these are full fledged learning systems, existing and running within the base learning system, like say Windows running within Linux or vice versa. We can see that these offline learning systems are actually equipped with all the appurtenances of a basic consciousness based learning system, a sensory boundary image, a learning mechanism, a success monitoring mechanism, archival systems, predictive and proactive behavior, time constraint switches and so on. This is practically an identical mirroring of the basic consciousness based learning mechanism. Its only limitation is that it requires and runs on the basic mechanism and cannot exist without it. Now the explanation for our mind and our sense of I becomes almost realistic, we do recognize this beast as our own. We see that Descartian Theater to use a Dennet (3) phrase needs to exist, and not only in man, however we need to find the way such a mechanism is actually implemented. The mind is the (offline learning) theater of the brain. The "I" is the online identifier of the mind. This I consumes much of his time, during his wakefulness and even during his sleep, (during sleep he recognizes it only when he dreams). We see why thoughts need to loop incessantly in our brain, more difficult the problem, more unrelenting the swirl. There will always be problems that never go away and people who never give up, so the looping can be infinite and vicious. Our discussion of the possible origins and nature of nature’s learning mechanisms are drawing to a close. We have however barely scratched the surface, what has emerged is a possible substrate mechanism that can display behavior that is far more complex and richly delineated depending on Page 31 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I its extent and use. In our effort to provide a basic framework, we have stripped it down so that its rich details do not obscure its base design. The presence of the gaps is obvious in this discussion and will be keenly felt by the discerning reader and will initially lead to much nay saying and shaking of the head. We do have to deal with the proactive mechanism in more detail, but that has to wait. Notice that we have no quarrels with natural scientists or philosophers, we have only wondered about the base design of consciousness and consciousness enabled learning systems from an engineering point of view. We do not and have not discussed and speculated on the actual implementation of consciousness based learning at the neuronal or other levels. The reader can however see that that we have relied on no external factors and characteristics; the discussion rests on few simple assumptions, is fairly straightforward, and is easily falsifiable. This hypothesis about the design choices of natural learning systems will make sense only if it is read in conjunction with the theory of evolution. Like for evolution, the reader perforce has to consider evolutionary timescales, pressures and influences, a panoptic view is first necessary to understand the import of the hypothesis before one can map it to the natural world. Any system natural or artificial, experience tells us, rests on a bed of logical foundations. Life and consciousness cannot be any different. This discussion has been an effort to put a logical systemic face to the problem. Natural scientists can use the perspective to probe and explain some of the mechanisms that make up man’s mind and consciousness. If the consciousness and learning systems of man and animal derive from the same roots, then it becomes easier to probe. Our knowledge of natural intelligence systems is still in its early stages and evidence is quickly emerging from various areas of natural science. The real measure of the hypotheses would be the degree of fit to present and emerging evidence. The author would be glad to have and answer relevant feedback on explicit evidence standouts and conflicting opinions. Database, Learning, Patterns, Search - A Question of Scale Having set the consciousness and learning mechanisms in place, one needs to wonder what kind of archive would satisfy the mechanism and what kind of learning mechanism should be implemented. The author refrains from a detailed discussion of learning, search, pattern identification, archive management, and database processes here. However, from our discussion we know that time-constraints deny the possibilities of complete processing or complete learning, most of the time. The same applies to search and cognition processes too. On the other hand, there are occasions when complete learning is possible and our offline learning processes do contribute to increasing such a possibility. Most organisms would need to be satisfied with a mix of online and offline processes. These call for an ability on the part of the learning mechanisms to vary learning/search/cognition/response processes based on the available time and environmental urgencies. This calls for a scaled learning approach, visualize a scaling slider that moves up and down based on the capricious time and response demands of the environment. A scaled learning process can work when the underlying archive is also scaled. Such an archive can also lend itself to scaled cognition and search processes. Let us first visualize a scaled database arrangement and then posit learning, search and pattern identification processes on it. To visualize this design, imagine a range of hills and a helicopter able to hover over and within it. The data arrangement is like this. Each hill is devoted to a context; it consists of an object and links to other objects. The height and spread of the data and contexts are dependent on contextual or data strength and interlink strength. The top of the hill is populated with high strength data points. This area is generally detail sparse and possibly interlink sparse. In the mid area, the details emerge, and the links multiply and are perhaps stronger. The base is a thicket of low strength relationships among low strength data signals. Therefore data scaling seems to be on data density and relationship density. Page 32 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I Under extreme time constraints, the helicopter can just hover over the hill tops, get an approximate data range and process it for learning or search. Such learning is little more than a random guess, as we go down the hill; it will become data rich and can become an approximation. The learning system can also generate theories based on a simple sampling of the data and then search back the archive for supporting data; we can call this anticipation (def: to guess with desire or intent) This allows for solution seeding, which speeds up the learning process. Natural systems do this guess and test most of the time. When time is available or when iterative learning demands arise, then the helicopter can come down the ranges and exhibit a better quality of learning/search. During deep offline learning, the quality of learning will become better if the time available switch is thrown off, reducing response pressure. Such scaling of the database and learning processes also predict scaled searches, which is a prime requirement for any entity in time-constrained environments. Scaled searches also imply that the search process can branch off at certain scale intervals; then depending on the response of the entity to the present output, search terms can be modified on the fly. This means the process of search morphs into a tree traversal search, search can expose an object and its link, and search can proceed along probable links. Such a search path can give rise to heuristic search rather than linear search. The search process can also become stop and go, going underground when interrupted by online processing and coming up when online demands weaken. Scaling helps the pattern identification process also, rather than seek patterns in large masses of data, it can look for patterns at the sparse top end of the data hill and seek to confirm patterns as it traverses down hill. This design can help generate time-delimited responses to learning and search. Times constrained learning, interrupted or stop and go learning, sub optimal learning, optimal learning, iterative learning, plain guessing or anticipation, quick search, normal search, deep search, tree traversal search, simple pattern discovery, pattern confirmation and pattern linking are all possible with such a database and learning system design. Such scaled learning can sometimes result in data discontinuity to the processing systems and data bridging may be necessary, it may be required to guess a missing link. This calls for fuzzification; the positive side of this activity is insight discovery. The author wonders if such a scaled learning and database design is possible or if it already exists in the literature. Rather than a master design, it is obvious that there can arise a simple reusable unit like design that can incorporate these features, if there is one, the author has not managed to figure out such things to a degree of confidence as to present it. Designs of Nature This section was originally part of our basics section. The ideas here form natural extensions of our earlier arguments on nature and consciousness, there might be some repetition. Time constrained readers may skip this and jump directly to the section on understanding. Our earlier discussion helped us strain the major points and helped us stake out the possible design for a consciousness mechanism; here we see some of the implications of our arguments and the design it begot. Consciousness seems to be life’s tool to sustain itself; we do not venture to seek the purpose or origin of life; however we did presume that it acts in a certain manner. We can see that life uses consciousness and intelligence as mechanisms to protect its exhibits and sustain them. The sum and substance of our consciousness argument is that (given life and its desire to sustain itself) the more stable the environment, the more complex the systems that evolve, then the more difficult, more costly it becomes to build, repair and replace, therefore the more sustenance and protection it demands, and so more the requirement for consciousness. The level of consciousness is proportional to system complexity and sustenance/protection costs. Page 33 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I The advantage of consciousness based rules is that very simple factors drive it, the demand for protection and sustenance, there is no other logic or ideal to which these systems aspire to, system structures and behaviors are oriented towards these demands, in a sense, these systems are the ultimate realists. No wonder then that life has survived in spite of extreme pressures and multiple extinctions; we can judge that it would even survive multiple nuclear winters if niches can ensure that at least some form of life survives. We know from geological and biological records that extreme environmental variations have always meant extinctions. Environmental variance is the greatest challenge to all life, when we say environment we mean both the animate and inanimate environments and one that includes all inhabitants and their effects on the ecosystem. Why should entire species and genera be wiped out in one single stroke of the evolutionary pen? From our perspective we see that when environments change they generate sudden learning loads and when natural intelligence systems cannot keep pace with learning loads, then extinction can result. This can also happen to entities that have little morphological disabilities in new environments. We also wonder if excessive learning loads dampen fertility and thus help trigger species extinction. The interaction of consciousness based directed learning systems and natural environments could throw up a variety of entities with varying levels of consciousness and intelligence. Since environments themselves seem to arise from a complex interaction of forces with no pre-defined trajectory, and consciousness based systems try to dovetail to them, we can see that the trajectory of intelligence system growth paths cannot be defined clearly. What is however clear is that there no ideal design or growth path; all paths are dependent on a mix of historical and current system pressures. We cannot really foresee what kind of organisms and systems may emerge in the process. Therefore setting the clock back 65 million years and rerunning the earth’s evolutionary program does not guarantee the rise of humans, it could be something different too. The prospect of human like alien forms and ruminations on their intellectual capacities also comes under the same hammer; we simply cannot say. Here we see that human mental involution itself arises out of a certain combination of enablers and constraints, without such factors humans would never have emerged. The most intelligent entity on this entity would have been an ape for reasons it wouldn’t even know or get to. One thus sees a parallel with what Darwin wanted the world to see; that there is no master design in Nature, evolution is an intersection of multiple forces; here we see that learning system abilities and learning system paths form important factors in evolution. In nature, such conditions can give rise to a confusing multiplicity of platforms and levels. Darwin’s first success was to prove that all this seeming multiplicity of life follows a logical inheritance path, but with no logic of its own. (Darwin’s idea is logical and therefore extremely seductive to us as learning systems, which are always under pressure to seek answers to close out existing questions. As to the actual evidence and its interpretation, there seems to be a fair bit of debate even among evolutionists). Having figured out the path of inheritance, Darwin did wonder as to the logic of inheritance and the resultant divergence. How did successors so divergent and varied emerge from their simple ancestors? “But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.” - Excerpted From Darwin’s Biography – Source: Project Gutenberg Page 34 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I He concludes that the process of speciation can arise out of the internal pressure of entities tending to dovetail themselves to their local environments. From our learning system perspective we can see how such a solution can arise from the activity of directed learning, but that still begs the question as to how these solutions find their way back into the genes. There are as many unanswered questions on this subject as there are questioned answers. Let us not add our bit to it. From a simpler straightforward perspective, one can easily see that speciation can arise on two counts, from generations of isolation within environments and from generations of isolation within food chains. Probably the former corresponds to macroevolution and the latter to microevolution. There could be more reasons we are not presently aware of. From our perspective, we can see that learning archives can vary both on an individual basis as each entity responds to its peculiar view of the environment, but also between generations, as they tend to dovetail to their current environments. Our current state of knowledge posits gene passing as the way of reproduction and therefore learning retention, therefore from our perspective we should expect to see some genetic write back with each individual and generation as it learns to interact successfully with its environment. Variation in lesson passing is to be expected not only with each individual but also with each generation, though they could be so small as to be unnoticeable. It is understandable that all learning need not be reflected back into the pattern passing mechanisms, only those with a certain level of persistence may need to, one can posit a write back threshold, however one sees that the entity or its species cannot get away with zero write back in the long term. Write back requirements can also reduce with the presence of the cultural learning mechanism, which reduces the need to write back minor environmental variations to the database, however this will mean that the loss of incubation translates to a steeper learning curve for the entity. We have conjectured that all natural intelligence (directed learning systems) arises as a result of the presence of consciousness and the desire of life to sustain itself. One can foresee that consciousness enabled learning systems will use the intentional, directed learning mechanism to adapt closely to environments, probably until they hit morphological limits. The next natural question is that of how do morphologies change. Darwin’s answer was evolution by natural selection. On first inspection, natural selection looks like a poor choice, long geographical periods, multiple generations, multiple lifetimes, more evolutionary failures than successes, and too damn resource intensive. Despite the rather discomforting observation that evolutionists have still not explained the evolution of the rather long neck of the giraffe convincingly, either from fossil based evidence or otherwise, the fact seems to be that there is no other logical process that can successfully account for the millions of species that inherit the earth and have passed through the earth till date. No alternate theories have risen to successfully challenge Darwin’s basic theory. The theory of evolution does look a little like Charlie Chaplin, all askew and in ill-fitting attire, but then creationism, which is more an argument and less a theory looks more like the king that wore no clothes. From our perspective, we see natural selection as an environmental success-monitoring mechanism that enables a directed growth of living systems. We can see that paths and results that rise out of success monitoring mechanisms could be inherently messy. Such results do not show or follow a clear linear hierarchy; they are more the sum of parts. A theory like the theory of evolution offers us a logical window that allows us to discern the broad logical stream that underlies the seeming chaos. How and why did complex species arise at all? The simple and most natural answer is that because environments for some reason stayed stable and benevolent. The other answer is that it is rare for extinctions to completely destroy the entire population; the environment has no such aim, therefore survivors did manage to survive in ecological and environmental niches. For them there is no going backward, the only way is forward or sideward. When environments revert back to stability, it is time for whatever is left of life to pick up where it stopped. New interconnections Page 35 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I may also arise between the survivors in place of older links that were lost during the unstable phase, and these interconnections may themselves induce modifications. When we marry our consciousness driven, archive-based, pattern-based learning systems (with their inherent tendency for environment comfort) with environments that can show variance, we can see that processes like natural selection and evolution can and will naturally arise out of such a marriage. We see that pattern-rewriting difficulty can complement or perhaps drives Darwinian selection, pushing the extinction envelope further and faster. We recognize that Darwinian natural selection scenarios can rise not only from morphological disabilities in the new environment but also from learning system problems. It is obvious that there is a clear call for a mechanism that enables easy relearning and rewriting of patterns. We can speculate that such architecture arose, not from the ashes of patterns but astride the pattern writing architecture, we see cultural writing as Nature’s solution in the face of so much extinction as a way out. The rise of what we call cultural writing; organisms acquiring learning in their lifetime and passing it on to their descendants, bypassing the slower instinctual learning mechanism, perhaps helped slow down the rate of species turnover and perhaps did help stop the high end of Darwinian evolution in its tracks, culminating in man, where the cultural rewriting process can be considered to be well entrenched. With cultural writing, learning, relearning and rewriting becomes easier. Depending on the efficacy of its directed learning mechanism, the entity could relearn and apply the lessons of life to itself and teach its descendants. Therefore as long as a species does not face extreme morphological constraints and demands or resource scarcity, it has a better chance of keeping track of its environment, which in turn increases the chances of survival. Cultural learning offers a waiting buffer facility for learning transference, only when environmental conditions turn persistent, is it required to transfer learning to the instinctual pattern based mechanisms. Learning transfer does bring us to reproduction. Asexual reproduction makes sense even from our perspective. A learning system bequeaths its learning to its inheritors to carry on, in the interests of life’s sustenance. Notice that in an ideal environment with multiple inhabitants, the directed learning process tends to induce individual divergence over a common base; variation is the norm, except for twins in highly similar environments. Higher the intelligence and more varied the environment and more varied the environment worldview, higher the divergence and individual variation would be. The net benefit of social grouping must therefore be higher for groups to arise. The roots of sexual reproduction seem to be an extreme version of such grouping instincts, a sense of formalized give and take, of learning or genes. We certainly need to know more about the connection between the genes and learning for us to even speculate further on this point. Life, from a panoptic point of view seems to have followed two major paths in system development. In the static path, like trees and other flora, it took system replacement as easier than system protection, thus favoring a system that could easily replicate and conquer the world. Static entities have few sensor requirements simply because the scope for system protection is low, we can perhaps ask rhetorically how it would help a tree to have a pair of eyes. These lower sensory requirements directly translate to lesser levels of consciousness and learning. For trees and similar static entities consciousness consists of a distributed but interconnected network that can realign itself quickly in case of system damage. On the sustenance angle too, static systems tend to be simple systems that learn to survive on what is available. It could be argued that trees develop patterns and develop proactive behavior, but the extent and richness of such behavior is lower when compared to such behavior by their mobile counterparts. Plants and trees are evidence that an alternate to centralized consciousness exists within the bounds of natural intelligent system design. Consciousness demands on the mobile side are the other way around of stasis; components increasingly become complex, sensor wiring gets dense, input and output centralization becomes high and replacement gets so costly that consciousness and intelligence has evolved to sustain and protect it. As regards food, for mobile entities, to forage is life. Life is also exceptionally risky. Page 36 Conscious Intelligent Systems Natural Intelligence and Consciousness – A Learning System Perspective Part I: I X I These contribute to higher consciousness levels and higher intelligence for mobile entities. Mobile entities also need good environmental awareness. As we move up the mobile hierarchy, the patterns multiply and environmental learning demand again determines their learning ability. Learning ability is not something that entities can acquire overnight; it is a complex intersection of environmental challenges and demands, their evolutionary history, their existing level of consciousness, the available rest time, and internal system demands. The environment also determines where and how these learning abilities are used. We did see that the dolphin and man may have similar intelligence levels but man's environment put him on top and made the dolphins his toys, it could well have been otherwise. In our basics section, we did discuss that learning from scratch is not only impossible but also improbable for a sufficiently advanced natural learning system. Even given the facility of incubation, such an ab initio process will take a long, long time. Nature's incubation requirements for its entities also seem to vary on a mix of pattern complexity and environment demands, some come OS ready, ready to perform, some come with pattern frameworks, with data filled in during incubation time, parental or otherwise. We see that the amount of learning that any entity or species can do within its lifetime is constrained by its processing abilities and other external factors. It looks logical to propose that longer lifetimes would mean more learning. Why did not Nature take such an approach? It looks like there are environmental and morphological constraints to such an approach. The availability of food resources, the cyclic nature of the weather and climate, the wear and tear induced by environmental demands all constrain the idea of long lifetimes. Nature seems to face a dilemma in choosing between learning ability and such natural constraints. The fact that an environment may itself show variation and thus a sudden spurt in learning load, within a single lifetime is also a perennial worry, because the available learning ability may not suffice to take care of such variation. Shorter lifetimes allow parceling of the problem into manageable parts. The author presumes that nature's choice of rapid life turnover and pattern passing through reproduction emerged as a golden mean solution to such a dilemma. The lifetime of a natural entity is therefore a probable intersection of its learning abilities and such ecological and environmental constraints. In environments of stability and minimal wear and tear, it is possible that learning ability may be a restriction to longer lifetimes. He does not know if the evidence will allow for a supposition that the lifetimes of natural organisms are not only a reflection of their maintenance costs, but are also a reflection of their learning abilities. Full Stop! Post Script: As regards the application of the mind mechanisms to nature, our discussions have barely scratched the surface. We have sacrificed much of the details that are critical to natural science to gain the freedom to say that this is perhaps how it all ought to be. This is at best a perilous approach towards the natural sciences, as even evolutionists are finding, there will always be standouts that need of explanations within a broad logical framework. Making a law that explains natural living systems is more difficult that making physical laws. No past or future biologist in the past and future can afford Newton’s freedom when he asserted that he did not speculate. Nature’s rules do not seem to follow the rigidity of physical law. As regards our proposed mechanism, it is for the biological and associated sciences to accept/reject/extend it or to fill in the gaps with detail. We have merely staked out the possible substrate design. References: 1. Turing, A.M (1950), Computing Machinery and Intelligence Mind 49: 433-460. 2. Darwin, Charles (1871), The Descent of Man 3. Dennett, D.C. & Kinsbourne, M (1995) Time and the observer-Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (2): 183-247 4. Joel Achenbach (2004) Who’s Driving? - National Geographic, Nov 2004 5. Gayathree U, (2006) Conscious Intelligent Systems Part II - Mind, Thought, Language, and Understanding, Page 37

arXiv:q-bio/0404007v2 [q-bio.SC] 18 Jan 2005 Information Processing in Brain Microtubules Jean Faber 1, Renato Portugal 1 , Luiz Pinguelli Rosa 2 1 Laboratório Nacional de Computação Cientı́fica - LNCC, Av. Getúlio Vargas 333 - Quitandinha, 25651-075, Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil. {faber, portugal}@lncc.br 2 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, COPPE-UFRJ, RJ, Brazil. lpr@adc.coppe.ufrj.br October 24, 2018 Abstract Models of the mind are based on the idea that neuron microtubules can perform computation. From this point of view, information processing is the fundamental issue for understanding the brain mechanisms that produce consciousness. The cytoskeleton polymers could store and process information through their dynamic coupling mediated by mechanical energy. We analyze the problem of information transfer and storage in brain microtubules, considering them as a communication channel. We discuss the implications of assuming that consciousness is generated by the subneuronal process. 1 Introduction In recent years many papers have addressed the problem of developing a theory of mind [1-13]. R. Penrose and S. Hameroff developed a quantum model of the mind considering the cytoskeleton of neuron cells as the principal component that produces states of mind or consciousness [2,3]. In their model the microtubules (MTs) perform a kind of quantum computation through the tubulins. Tubulins are proteins which form the walls of the MTs. They claim that the tubulins work like a cellular automata performing that kind of computation. In this way, the walls of the MT could be able to store and process information by using combinations of the two possible states (α and β) of the tubulins. The MT interior works as an electromagnetic wave guide, filled with water in an organized collective state, transmitting information through the brain. A gelatinous state of water in brain cells, which was observed by [13], could boost these communication effects. 1 Using a different approach, Tuszynski et al. [6-8] model the biophysical aspects of the MTs considering the following questions: What kind of computing do microtubules perform? How does a microtubule store and process information? In order to analyze these questions they use a classical approach, studying the basic physical properties of the MTs as interacting electric dipoles. → According to [6-8,14-17] each tubulin has an electric dipole moment − p due to an asymmetric charge distribution. The microtubule is thus a lattice of oriented dipoles that can be in random phase, ferroelectric (parallel-aligned) and an intermediate weakly ferroelectric phase like a spin-glass phase. It is natural to consider the electric field of each tubulin as the information transport medium. Therefore, the tubulin dimers would be considered the information unit in the brain and the MT sub-processors of the neuron cells. Therefore, to know how MTs process information and allow communication inside the brain is a fundamental point to understand the mind functions. In this work we derive some results which were not explicitly obtained in [6-8] and extend the ideas introduced by [6,16] using the point of view of the information theory. We analyze the problem of information transfer and storage in brain microtubules, considering them as a communication channel. The electric field is the mediator of each communicator entity. We discuss the implications of assuming that the consciousness is generated by the microtubules as sub-neuronal processors. 2 Biophysical Aspects of the Microtubules The cytoskeleton has a dynamic structure which reorganizes continually as the cells change their shape, divide, and respond to their environment. The cytoskeleton is composed of intermediate filaments, actin filaments (or microfilaments), and microtubules. The filaments and the microtubules are mutually connected and form a three-dimensional network in the cell. There are many papers [6-8] showing that the cytoskeleton is the main component which organizes the cell, mediates transport of molecules, organelles, and synaptic vesicles. The cytoskeleton possibly receives signals from the cellular environment mediated by the membrane of proteins and participates in signal transmission to the neighborhood of the cell [16,17]. Microtubules are hollow cylinders whose exterior surface cross-section diameter measures 25nm with 13 arrays of protein dimers called tubulins. The interior of the cylinder contains ordered water molecules which implies the existence of an electric dipole moment and an electric field. The MTs represent a dipole due to individual dipolar charges of each tubulin monomer. The microtubule dipole produces a fast growth at the plus end towards the cell periphery and a slow growth at the minus end. The MT polarity is closely connected with its functional behavior which can be regulated by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of microtubule-associated protein (MAP) [6-8,14-17]. Guanosine triphosphate molecules (GTP) are bound to both tubulins in the heterodimer. After polymerization, when the heterodimer is attached to the 2 microtubule, the GTP bound to the β-tubulin is hydrolyzed to the guanosine disphosphate (GDP). On the other hand, the GTP molecule of the α-tubulin is not hydrolyzed. The microtubules present a calm dynamic instability which are their principal feature [6-8].[?] Many models of conformation (and polarity energy) of the microtubular protofilament were developed. These models describe the behavior of the pulses generated by the free energy in the GTP hydrolysis. The pulses propagate along of the MTs through an elastic coupling or through electric field propagation between tubulin dimers [5-8,14,15]. The overall effect of the surrounding dipoles on a site n can be modelled by the double-well quartic potential [6-7] A B V (un ) = − u2n + u4n , (1) 2 4 where un represents the dimer conformational change on the n–th protofilament axis coupled to the dipole moment. A and B are parameters of the model, where A is dependent of the temperature by A = a(T − Tc ), Tc is the critical temperature, and B is a positive parameter independent of the temperature [6,8]. In figure 1 we plot the effective potential in terms of un . Fig. 1 - Double well quartic potential model with a potential barrier |A2 /2B|. Our assumptions lead us to reconsider this model taking into account the Information Theory to calculate the storage and transference of information along the MT. The information is mediated by the electric field propagating in the cellular medium. This propagation of energy can provide a communication channel. 3 Communication Channels The Shannon entropy of a random variable X is defined by [18]: X p(xi ) log p(xi ). hI(X)i = − i 3 (2) where p(xi ) is the probability of the outcome xi . This definition describes the amount of physical resources required on average to store the information being produced by a source, in such a way that at a later time the information can be restored completely. If we want to send a message X through a noisy channel, that message can be subjected to a loss of information. To correlate a sent message X with a received message Y we have to calculate the mutual information I(X : Y ) between them. The mutual information concept gives us how much knowledge we obtain from a message X given that we have received Y. It is defined by [18,19] hI(X : Y )i = hI(X)i − hI(X|Y )i = hI(Y )i − hI(Y |X)i (3) and hI(X|Y )i = − XX i p(xi , yk ) log p(xi |yk ), (4) k where p(xi |yk ) = p(yk , xi )/p(yk ). Nevertheless, by using a binary code to send a message M, compressed by procedure C that minimizes the use of bits in that codification, any receiver of M, using a decoding procedure D, must to be able to get all information associated to M. Consider a symmetric memoryless channel1 N with a binary input Ain and a binary output Aout . For n uses of the channel, the procedure C encodes the input message M such that C n : {1, ..., 2nR } → Ain and D decodes the output such that Dn : {1, ..., 2nR } → Aout , where R is the rate of the code (the number of data bits carried per bit transmitted) [19]. Therefore, if X is the encoded message M through the procedure C, Y is the received message, and D is the decoding procedure for Y , then the probability of error is defined by p(C n .Dn ) = max p(Dn (Y ) 6= M |X = C n (M )). M (5) The principal problem of the information theory is to determine the maximum rate R for a reliable communication through a channel. When p(C n .Dn ) → 0 for n → ∞, the rate R is said achievable. According to Shannon’s theorem, given a noisy channel N, its capacity Ω(N ) is defined to be the supremum over all achievable rates for this channel. That is Ω(N ) = max(hI(X : Y )i), p(xi ) (6) where the maximum is taken over all input distributions p(xi ) of the random variable X, for one use of the channel, and Y is the corresponding induced random variable at the output of the channel. Equation (6) allows us to calculate the transference of information among many physical systems. The transfer of energy may include the transfer of electrostatic energy, energy of low frequency oscillating fields, energy of light, energy 1 The memoryless channel is the one that acts in the same way every time it is used, and different uses are independent of one another. 4 of vibrations, etc. Molecules can contain energy in the chemical bonds, in the excited electron states, in the conformation states, etc. A common measure of the interaction leading to cooperative behaviour is the information transference. The electromagnetic field can transfer information through the environment among the systems like a communication channel. 4 Information Processing in Microtubules Many features of the cytoskeleton support the idea that microtubules can perform computation and store information. According to [6] the charge separation of the MTs is wide enough to store information. Due to its dynamic coupling the information can be stored as mechanical energy and chemical events. Changes in the opposite direction can be favorable to the SG phase over the F-phase. This change could switch from the growth mode to operational behavior. Our focus is this operational mode. Information processing is addressed by [1-5] considering the highly specialized nature of the functional proteins on the microtubules. 4.1 Information Storage in Microtubules The tubulins form a dipole moment net and therefore are sensitive to external electric fields. Some papers use physical models such as spin net to describe the behavior of the dipole moment net [6-7,20]. According to those models models, all tubulins are oriented to the same direction at low temperature (∼ 200K) and the units of the system are organized (figure 2). In this case the system is in ferroeletric phase (F). At high temperatures (∼ 400K), the system is in the paraelectric phase (P) and the polarity of the tubulins are completely disorganized (figure 3). However, there is a critical temperature Tc in which occurs a phase transition between F and P, that is, between order and disorder. At this phase transition emerges a new state known as spin-glass phase (SG) (figure 4). There are some theoretical models trying to estimate this critical temperature. One of them estimates the critical temperature around to 300K which is near to the human body temperature [7,8]. Fig. 2 - schematic picture for F-phase 5 Fig. 3 - schematic picture for P-phase Fig. 4 - schematic picture for SG-phase We analyze the propagation of informatin along MTs considering the above phases. Assuming an energy approximation dependent on the mean polarity described by the Landau theory of phase transitions, the total energy can be given by [6,16,21]   a 2 b 4 (7) ℘ + ℘ N0 , E= 2 4 where ℘ represents the continuous variable for the mean polarization at each site, and N0 is the total number of sites. The parameter a has a linear dependence with the temperature a = a(T − Tc ), where 200K < Tc < 400K p and b > 0 [6-8]. E will be minimized by ℘ = 0 for T > Tc and by ℘ = ± −a(T − Tc )/b for T < Tc . We use the Boltzmann distribution g(℘) to weight the energy distribution as a function of the mean polarity g(℘) = Z −1 exp(−βE), (8) where β −1 = kT , Z is the normalization, and k is the Boltzmann constant. Subtituting (8) into (7) we get   b 4 a(T − Tc ) 2 (9) ℘ + ℘ . g(℘) = Z −1 exp 2kT 4kT Because ℘ is a continuous variable, we need to use the continuous counterpart of (2) in order to calculate the information mean value of the system. Replacing p(x) by g(℘) in (2) we obtain the following expression for the information storage capacity: ln Z b a(T − Tc ) 2 hIi = − h℘ i − h℘4 i. (10) ln 2 2kT ln 2 4kT ln 2 The average of ℘ over the whole MT, considering all domains, is obtained from Z ∞ h℘n i = g(℘)℘n d℘. (11) −∞ 6 Using (10) we can plot the information capacity against the temperature for some parameter values. Fig 5. - Storage information capacity of MT when a = b = 0.5. Fig. 6 - Storage information capacity of MT when a=0.5 and b = 50. 7 Fig. 7 - Storage information capacity of MT when a = 0.05 and b = 50. These graphs corroborate with the results of [6], which show that, probably at physiological temperature, we can have a mode of information storage in MTs. This is the most important feature for finding another subunit of information processing inside the brain. It could show us new perspectives for cognitive aspects. However, according to these graphs, the maximum information storage is obtained at the spin-glass phase, therefore we need to make some assumptions. In this phase, there are domains with many energy levels which can store information. The interaction among the domains due to the electric field generated by the oscillating dipoles must be considered. This electric field is emitted to the neighbouring area producing many channels among the domains in MT. 4.2 Microtubules as a Communication Channel Given the capacity of information storage of MTs, the issue now is to know whether there exist some kind of information processing on them. To study any kind of processing, it is necessary to describe how the information is stored in the MT walls. That is, we need to understand how the information propagates along the MT. We saw that the SG phase has the maximum capacity of information storage. Therefore, we will restrict to this phase in order to describe the interaction, or communication, among the domains. Here, we are assuming that the electric field generated by the MT dipoles is the main mediator which allows the communication among the domains. The graphs of the previous section show that near to the critical temperature Tc the information capacity has the maximum capacity of storage. Following [6], we assume in this phase a partition of lattices by local domains (see figure 4). Therefore, the previous prescription is valid only on the local domains. In 8 this way, a domain j has a polarization ℘j with probability gj (℘j ). If we make these assumptions, the total probability is given by g= r Y gj (℘j ), (12) j=1 where r is the number of domains [6] As a consequence of (12) we have for the spin-glass phase X hIi = hIj i (13) j with j in the set of domains. Now, we need to calculate the amount of information transferred through the channels among the domains [6,16]. The domains will communicate only if they interact. If we consider two domains, the communication is mediated by the electric field interaction between them. In order, to calculate the capacity of this communication channel, we use the mutual information concept. From (6) we know how much information is transferred from an event xk (of an ensemble X) to another event yj (of an ensemble Y ). The term p(xk |yj ) imposes the dependence among the systems. Assuming a Boltzmann distribution, we want to know the dependence between the domain k, with polarization ℘k , and the domain j, with polarization ℘j . This dependence is described by the distribution g(℘k |℘j ) which imposes a connection between the domains. Following [16] we will assume that the output energy is expressed as a function of the electric field energy and of the mean polarization energy. Therefore, in the thermodynamic equilibrium, we have the average of the output energy E out of a domain j as hEjout i = hEjsignal i = hEjf low i + hEjnoisy i, (14) where Ejsignal is the energy of the coherent signal, Ejnoisy is the noisy energy, and Ejf low is the energy of the flow along the system. The energy Ejf low is responsible for the interaction between the domains. Therefore, supposing that the domain j emitts Ejf low , we can express the dependence of a domain k as h i g(℘k |℘j ) = Z −1 exp −β(Ek + Ejf low + Ejnoise ) , (15) where Ek is the correspondent energy of the domain k. The information entropy depends on the amount of energy in the system and on the noisy energy Ejnoisy . Therefore, the energy of the noise is given by [16] hEjnoisy (Tn )i = Z −1 exp(Ah℘2j i + Bh℘4j i), (16) where A = a(Tn − Tc )/2kTn and B = b/4kTn . To evaluate the communication channel capacity, each domain is approximated by a unique dipole. The information transference will be mediated by a radiation of the electric field in the equatorial region of an oscillating dipole. 9 Using the complex Poynting vector and taking the real part, we get an expression for the mean value of the flow of energy Ejf low . The amount of energy absorbed by the oscillating charged units depends directly on its effective crosssection and on the intensity of the flow of energy. We can calculate it considering the radiation flow of energy through the cross-section D over a spherical surface of radius R, where D is a rectangle whose sides are x and z. Hence the expression for the flow of energy towards the dipole axis is given by "  3 # x z z 1 f low hEj i = 2π 2 Sj arcsin , (17) − 2Rx 2Rz 3 2Rz p where Sj = ℘2j η 3 ενj4 , such that νj is the dipole frequency, ε is the permitivity, η is the permeability of the medium, Rx and Rz are the perpendicular distances from the dipole to the z and x sides, respectively [16]. Using (3) and (4), and the previous relations, we can derive an expression for the capacity of communication between two domains. The channel between two domains j and k will be denoted by Njk , hence Ω(Njk ) = hI(Ek )i − hI(Ek |Ej )i, (18) where hI(Ek )i is given by an expression similar to (10). The conditional information hI(Ek |Ej )i, for a specific polarity ℘j , can be calculated by a continuous version of (4), that is Z   ln Z hI(Ek |Ej )i = (19) − β g(℘k , ℘j ) Ek + Ejsignal d℘k . ln 2 Through those calculations we can infer that there is an inter-dependence among the domains in the SG phase. Each domain communicates to other domain the value of its polarity. It transforms the MT in a net of communication units (in this case the units are the domains - see figure 8). Besides, as each domain has a particular polarity, in the context of the information theory, we can interpret each polarity representing a type of symbol. It would build a kind of alphabet along the whole MT, where each domain represents a letter. However, as the polarity ℘ is a continuous variable, the change of a letter in another would be also in a continuous way and not in a discrete way Fig. 8 - A representation of the communication between domain j and domain k accomplished by the f electromagnetic field Ej lowalong the walls of MT. 10 Considering the case x = z, we plot the capacity of information transference between each domain as a function of the distance and frequency. Fig. 9 - Communication channel capacity: frequency υj × distance Rz when T ∼ 300K. Fig. 10 - Communication channel capacity: frequency υj × distance Rz when T ∼ 100K. 11 Fig. 11 - Communication channel capacity: frequency υj × distance Rz when T ∼ 600K. The graphs show that the best conditions to have a communication among the domains are at the physiological temperature, with frequency of the conformational changes of the tubulin dimer protein around to 1012 s−1 . The relative permitivity and permeability in the neighbourhood of the oscillating units is assumed to be 1 [14-16]. The distance z between the protein molecules is adopted to be around to 1µm − 0.1µm. At 300K the information transference is supressed over a distance Rz equal to 0.1µm, and frequency around to 0.1T Hz (figure 9). At a distance smaller than 0.1µm the communication starts to become independent of the frequency. Finally, at a distance greater than0.1µm the high frequency of the electric field plays a fundamental role in the transfer of information. For the other regimes of temperature, the system is not in the SG-phase and the graphs show the loss in performance (figures 10 and 11). According to [22], biological molecules with dipolar vibrational activity could manifest a quantum coherent mode. That systems could have some isolating effect from thermal environments. The frequency range of that quantum mode, (also known as Fröhlich systems) is around 1011 s−1 to 1012 s−1 [1,4]. Therefore, the high frequency regimes obtained above can work not only to perform a communication along the MT but also to maintain some quantum coherent regime2 . 5 Conclusions This work confirm the results of [1-8] which consider microtubules as a classical subneuronal information processor. Through the information theory we calculate the information capacity of the MTs. Utilizing models of [1-8] we estimate that the favorable conditions for storage and information processing 2 Some papers show that the tubulin vibration frequency is in this regime [16,21]. 12 are found at temperatures close to the human body. These results corroborate the possibility of communication among the domains (where each energy level corresponds to some kind of symbol). This communication is mediated by the dipole electric field, and this interaction is necessary to describe some processing or computing on MT. Through this communication, each domain (or symbol) presents some dependence with another. Therefore there are storage as well as processing of information associated to the dimers. Besides, from the information theory point of view, the formation of domains creates some redundancy for storage or representation of these symbols. This redundancy is important for error correction and information protection. However, some points still need further investigations. To mention at least two, (1) the direction of the propagation of the information under the influence of the environment is an interesting point to be analyzed, (2) according to [1-5] there is some water ordination inside MTs which could increase the quantum processes in MTs. These points deserve to be analyzed using the information theory point of view. 6 References [1] S. Hagan, S. R. Hameroff and J. A Tuszynski, Quantum Computation in Brain Microtubules: Decoherence and Biological Feasibility, Phys. Rev. E. 65, 061901, 2002. [3] S. R. Hameroff and R. Penrose, Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules, in S. Hameroff, A . K. Kasszniak and A .C. Scott, Toward a Sience of Consciousness, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996 [3] S. R. Hameroff and R. Penrose, Conscious Events as Orchestrated Space Time Selections, in J. Shear, Explaining Consciousness. The Hard Problem, MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 1998 [4] M. Jibu, S. Hagan, S. R. Hameroff, K. H. Pribram and K. Yasue, Quantum Optical Coherence in Cytoskeletal Microtubules: Implications for Brain Function, Biosystems 32, 195-209, 1994. [5] L. P. Rosa and J. Faber, Quantum Models of Mind: Are They Compatible with Environmental Decoherence? Phys. Rev. E 70, 031902, 2004. [6] J. A. Tuszynski, B. Tripisova, D. Sept, M.V. Sataric, The Enigma of Microtubules and their Self-organization Behavior in the Cytoskeleton. Biosystems 42, 153-175, 1997. [7] J. A. Tuszynski, J. A. Brown and P. Hawrylak, Dieletric Polarization, Electric Conduction, Information Processing and Quantum Computation in Microtubules. Are They Plausible?, The Royal Society,356, 1897-1926,1998. [8] J.A. Tuszynski, S. R. Hameroff, M.V. Sataric, B. Trpisova and M. L. A. Nip, Ferroelectric Behavior in Microtubule Dipole Lattices: Implications for Information Processing, Signaling and Assembly/Disassembly.Journal Theoretical Biology, 174, 371-380, 1995. [9] M. Tegmark, Importance of Quantum Decoherence in brain process, Phys. Rev. E 61 , 4194, 2000 [10] R. Penrose, The Emperor New Mind, Oxford University Press, 1989 13 [11] R. Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, Vintage, London, 1994 [12] J. C. Eccles, How the Self Controls Its Brain, Spring Verlag, Berlin, 1994 [13] J. Watterson, Water Clusters: Pixels of Life, in S. Hameroff et alli, Toward a Sience of Consciousness, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996 [14] M. V. Sataric, J. A. Tuszyski and R. B. Zakala Phys. Rev. E, 48, 589,1993 [15] J. A. Brown and J. A. Tuszynski, Phys. Rev. E 56, 5834,1997 [16] J. Pokoorny and T. Ming Wu, Biophysics Aspects of Coherence and Biological Order, Spinger, 1998. [17] E. R. Kandel, J. H. Schwarts, and T. M. Jessell, Principles of Neural Science. Appleton & Lange Norwalk, third edition 1991. [18] M. A. Nielsen and I. L. Chuang, Quantum Computing and Quantum Information. Cambridge, 2000. [19] J. Preskill, Lecture notes for Physics 229: Quantum Information and Computation, 1998. www.theory.caltech.edu/∼preskill/ph229. [20] V. Dotsenko, An Introduction to The Theory of Spin Glasses and Neural Networks. World Scientific Lecture Notes in Physics, v. 54, 1994. [21] H. Haken, Synergetics: An Introduction. Springer, Berlin 1990. [22] H. Frohlich, Coherent excitations in active Biological systems, in Modern Bioelectrochemistry, F. 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Keyzer, Springer Verlag, N Y, 1986 14 This figure "Info1.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "Tub_Pot.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "communMT1.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "Info2.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "Info3.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "ferroel.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "highT.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "lowT.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "lowT1.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "paramag.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2 This figure "spin-glass.jpg" is available in "jpg" format from: http://arxiv.org/ps/q-bio/0404007v2

37 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) Exploration An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) Rajesh S. Dagli* ABSTRACT In this series of articles, the author analyses epistemological and ontological developments of a human being, in particular, development of an ‘I’ within each of us. It is postulated that each overall 'I' is an energy exchange reservoir, that is constantly interacting with infinite variety of other environmental fields, and thus itself undergoing continuous metamorphosis, exhibiting no defining characteristics for either its brain or body that are unchanged even for an instant. Thus, each 'I', is not a product, nor an entity that we all believe as remaining unchanged within each of us all through the life. Rather, it is a process - a long process running all through the life connecting infinite states of an emerging overall 'I' from instant to instant, exhibiting innumerable avatars of 'duality' between the two extremes of a wave and a particle. Each said avatar comes into being only at the instant of an actualization interaction with an environment, which otherwise remains non-existent. The study concludes, perplexingly and painfully, that each 'I' is as much a quantum-like process as that of an atomic particle. Part I of the four-part series of articles includes: Introduction; 1. Does God Play Dice? Yes and No; 2: Cartesian World View; & 3. Human Behavior & Consciousness. Key Words: Human being, Consciousness, process of becoming, interaction, environment, actualization, quantum-like, quantum reality, I. Abbreviations CCES - Cumulative Consciousness Energy Spectrum FORs - Frame of References MCRM - Mechanism of Compatible Rates of Metamorphosis ROCA - Realm of Consciousized Aggregates SCAR - Subjective Component of an Actualized Reality SSG - Super Scientist-God UCAR - Universal Component of an Actualized Reality UOR - Ultimate Objective Reality UOROI - Ultimate Objective Realm of Interactions Introduction In this series of articles, the author analyses epistemological and ontological developments of a human being, in particular, development of an ‘I’ within each of us. The study begins by bringing to the fore certain ambiguities involved in extending the Cartesian definition of Reality to all ‘things’ in our normal world views. In particular, the rationality behind extending the same *Correspondence: Rajesh S. Dagli, Independent Researcher. E-mail: rajeshsdagli@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 38 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) to man-made ‘things’ like a school, nation, song or painting, as these all do not seem to have truly objective properties to qualify as Cartesian realities, existing ‘out there’ independent of the observer, as for example the table, the trees, the moon, etc. Then, further analysis at the deeper levels in the study ends up with a proposed consciousness mechanism that leads to an inference that even the latter, ‘hard core things', are not truly objective realities. This study proposes consciousness as an inherent automatic process present by default in all living beings that lets them identify and define the realness of an interacting environment only in terms of the basic survival instincts of pleasures and pains. Thus, the brain's energy, proposed to be termed as 'consciousness energy', used in each actualization of a reality, is directly proportional to the Realness of the environments as defined in terms of its impact on the survival by the actualizing brain. The nature of this reality, whether pleasure or pain, is determined equally by both, the mutually interacting brain and the environment in their respective states, thus each actualized reality connects the mind and the matter at the instant of actualization. It is further contemplated that all realities in our Cartesian world views, whether pertaining to manmade ‘things’ or to the natural ‘hard-core things’, are all effectively the actualized realities of pleasures (or pains). Thus, they all are inherently subjective in nature. Conversely, it implies that the true objective nature of any reality is outside the purview of human consciousness. And since all such subjective realities are brought into existence only as an outcome of an actualization interaction and otherwise, are non-existent, they are like quantum realities. On the other end, at the levels of ultimate objectivity, it is postulated, there does not exist any 'thing'-animate or inanimate, not even an independent, freely willing 'I'; and what only 'exist' is one whole universe of interactions, happening among infinite energy fields interacting with each other perpetually in a timeless world, each of them undergoing continuous metamorphosis, making it impossible to demarcate and define any field as existing even for an instant. The study conjectures, how for a same human brain, from such an objective realm of interactions, various realities of a Cartesian world, a quantum world, and most important, of an 'I' get actualized at different levels of subjectivity by the virtue of a proposed mechanism of compatible rates of metamorphosis likely to exist between certain fields of this objective world. Further analysis of an 'I' in the study, starts with splitting the overall, aggregate 'I' -as observed within the Cartesian frame, into its two components, a physical 'I' and a mental 'I'; and dissections of both, down to their root levels, reveal that the physical 'I' is emerging from the infinite instantaneous energy exchange interactions, viz. the metabolic reactions with the environments-within and without the body. Likewise, the mental 'I' is emerging from the infinite actualization reactions with the environments, which are based upon the consciousness energies. In either of the cases, the brain, on repetitive interactions with the same or similar environments, identifies those which are pro-survival from those which are anti-survival, and constantly develops skills, (both mental and physical) so as to get adapted to all for survival. Thus, from time to time, a spectrum of all those actualized realities of both pleasures and pains, and also of all those skills gets continuously developed within the brain, which acts as a spectrum of potentialities for all future interactions with the ever changing environments-which may be ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 39 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) presented by a spectrum of probabilities. The two spectra are constantly evolving in time, and at every interaction between the two, the reflex adaptive actions by the brain are but what we observe as the behavior of an overall 'I' in our Cartesian frame. Thus, it is postulated, each overall 'I' is an energy exchange reservoir, that is constantly interacting with infinite variety of other environmental fields, and thus itself undergoing continuous metamorphosis, exhibiting no defining characteristics for either its brain or body that are unchanged even for an instant. Thus, each 'I', is not a product, nor an entity that we all believe as remaining unchanged within each of us all through the life, but rather, is a process - a long process running all through the life, connecting infinite states of an emerging overall 'I' from instant to instant, exhibiting innumerable avatars of 'duality' between the two extremes of a wave and a particle, with each avatar coming into being only at the instant of an actualization interaction with an environment, which otherwise remains non-existent! The study concludes, perplexingly and painfully, that each 'I' is as much a quantum-like reality, as is any atomic particle! 1. Does God Play Dice? Yes and No Our normal view of this world consists of things existing ‘out there’ whether we observe them or not. There are railway stations and airports, streets, highways and expressways, lakes and rivers and mountains, the planet earth, the stars and galaxies … and so on. Then there are also ‘things’ like people, families, societies, associations and unions, schools and universities, states and nations, … and so on. This whole world view is based upon a fundamental notion that the nature of the objective world ‘out there’ is knowable and definable in terms which are not subjective. This notion also forms the very basis of defining the term Reality, which may be broadly stated as: The Reality of a ‘thing’ can always be defined in terms of its certain properties that can be measured uniformly and unambiguously by all observers and hence the reality expressed in terms of such properties is truly an objective reality. Well, the human progress in all branches of natural sciences may be cited as the proof to support this notion, but certain developments in particle physics in early twentieth century gave first jolts to this basic paradigm and paused an important question on the above meaning of Reality. These ground shaking developments started with discoveries of Max Planck in 1900, and culminated with quantum mechanics as propagated by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and others around 1925. The shocking revelation of the quantum mechanics was that the matter which by itself as an aggregate exhibits properties that can be studied objectively failed to exhibit any objective properties at its atomic or sub-atomic levels. In fact, at these levels, an atomic ‘particle’ exhibits properties that are no more independent of measuring systems or the observer, which means moving down from aggregate levels to the levels of its building blocks, the objectivity is getting lost in a very strange way. As if, a solid thing like a log of wood evaporates at its elemental levels into something like energy fields depicting 'no-thingness', as (because) inherently, that something are neither particles nor waves! Only at the instance of a measurement, either a particle or a wave comes into its being as an outcome of an interaction with the measuring system; prior to that, according to quantum mechanics, what ‘exist’ are only a set of probabilities for each possible outcome, the probabilities being dependent ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 40 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) upon the properties of the measuring system as well. The startling conclusion was that the atomic and sub-atomic ‘particles’ do not have an objective existence that can be described without any reference to the measuring system! The clear Cartesian partition between the object ‘out there’ and the subject ‘in here’ became questionable. The quantum experiments revealed that the object and the subject, at the instance of a measurement would become, in the words of David Bohm (1917-1992)- the famed American theoretical physicist, an indivisible whole, which cannot be further analyzed at any deeper level keeping the partition line intact. (Bohm D., 1951, pg. 161.) Thus, the outcome of the experiment is due to both, the state of potentialities of the ‘particle’ and the probable states of the measuring system/observer. The objectivity aspect of the basic paradigm which hitherto was the very foundation of the classical physics and all other sciences was challenged by the quantum mechanics. The discoveries led to new questions like: Do we really know how much we know about the nature is truly objective? Or more precisely, how much is not knowable objectively in principle? If the macroscopic world can be viewed from Cartesian frame and thus can be split into independently existing ‘things’ as objective realities, why the very building blocks of the same fail to exhibit any inherent objective properties that are independent of the measuring systems? Put conversely, if Cartesian paradigm fails at sub-atomic particles and if these are the building blocks of the matter, application of the same paradigm to macroscopic world should be erroneous, and if it is so, why the error has nor surfaced in any of the sciences developed so far? Many such questions surfaced during the historical developments of quantum physics during the early decades of twentieth century, which probably could not be answered in unambiguous terms even by the proponents of the new physics. In light of such paradoxical questions, the quantum mechanical developments turn out to be incomprehensible for many scientists including Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Erwin Schrodinger. Their main argument was: How can centuries old Cartesian system of knowledge be shaken up fundamentally and so easily? At the same time, the opposite camp of proponents of quantum mechanics was also not devoid of confusion, which mainly hovered around a new quandary : The age old concepts of classical physics cannot explain a quantum event unambiguously, hence the same need to be replaced by an alternative paradigm that necessarily uses a language not based upon the Cartesian world view. But then, such a new language, if at all it can be invented would, in turn be simply unintelligible for a human mind which is conditioned to think in, -and only in-the Cartesian mode ever since the time immemorial! Hence, in the Copenhagen Interpretation, the classical concepts were accepted as the only course left to explain the outcome, however ambiguous that may be, thus leaving this paradox- the Measurement Problem- unresolved. But nevertheless, the quantum developments did make the Cartesian line between the object and the subject blurred forever. So at the sub-atomic levels, the subjective element becomes so prominent that a particle can be turned into a wave and a wave into a particle by choosing an appropriate measuring instrument! What is the true nature of ‘it’? Well, the true nature of ‘it’ will never be known, because inherently ‘it’ doesn’t exist! Hitherto, the term Reality was very widely used to mean an Objective Reality that is existing 'out there', (- and in fact, it is even today widely used in the same meaning in our common sense world views); but for the first time, the scientists, while working with the atomic realms, were forced to differentiate between the reality as observed by us on one side and truly objective reality of the nature on the other side; and not only that, the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 41 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) quantum mechanists also realized rather more shockingly, that this truly objective reality is, in principle not knowable!! How About Very Large Realms of Nature? The sub-atomic realms are not the only realms that cannot be studied objectively, there are many other realms of the Nature which also cannot be studied objectively, but for the different reasons altogether. Most of our scientific studies and research are based upon the methods of abstraction. We study a ‘thing’ of nature -be it a product or a process, by studying it in a laboratory, thus isolating it from many other forces or energies that might be actually existing in nature. The causal laws thus formed in the laboratory would be valid for actual natural world only under limiting conditions, and hence, they are always inaccurate to certain extent. This inaccuracy is directly dependent upon the degree of closeness between the actual conditions in nature and simulated conditions in the laboratory, thus we can expect to have very insignificant inaccuracies when the two conditions match closely well with each other. All products and processes studied and developed in various branches of sciences are the results of such laboratory experiments performed under closely matching simulating conditions. And the scientific progress of the human kind in the last three centuries was at such an accelerating pace, we started believing that anything and everything in the natural world can be objectively studied by using the same methods of abstraction, and thus the very concept of Reality got gradually extended to even those things and objects which are beyond the scope of scientific research based upon such abstraction methods. For example, there are certain natural phenomena, certain natural ‘things’ whose very form and structure are such that they just cannot be simulated in the laboratory. The most striking example of such a case is that of weather. We just cannot simulate actual weather conditions in its totality in a laboratory. Any effort in that direction is nothing but a very heavy compromise of its overall universal totality. The amount of error involved in such an effort would be far from insignificant. Hence, even with all super computers at our disposal, weather predictions over longer time periods are far from accurate. Other examples where scientific studies by abstractions and simulations would fail are, ecology, studies of epidemics, biological and life sciences etc.; in all these fields, we face problems like predicting and/or determining causes and conditions for species either going extinct or being produced anew, predicting or determining causes of onset of an epidemic or onset of a new disease, or even- on a smaller scale, determining root causes for incidence of a particular disease- be it the common cold or a deadly cancer- in a particular person at a particular point of time. In all the above examples, the actual conditions are highly complex due to very large number of forces and energies simultaneously working on each other making it nearly impossible to simulate the conditions even in the most elaborate laboratory set-ups. To understand the complexities involved in these kinds of phenomena, let us take a simple experiment. We take five uniform lengths of mild steel wires cut from the same coil, and are hung in the air in five locations in different continents with an identical weight tied at the bottom end of each wire. The ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 42 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) uniform weight hung is so calculated that the wire will break away when reduced to half its diameter under corrosive atmospheric conditions, and this is estimated roughly to take about a year or so. Can the modern science, with all the available data on the composition of the wire, and also the data on atmospheric conditions as at the time of onset of the experiments in five locations predict the exact time correct up to seconds, if not milliseconds, when each wire would break up? It’s very unlikely. But if the same experiment is conducted in a laboratory with all conditions controlled and known, the prediction could be very accurate, probably even in milliseconds. In the outdoor experiment, the atmospheric ripple effects which otherwise are discarded off in the laboratory experiment, become significant forces under natural conditions, making it extremely difficult to predict an outcome. It’s not that the basic causal laws of science fail in such cases, but it’s the fact that enormous ripples turn into forces that have direct impact on the outcome when we experiment in actual environmental conditions with particular objects, which makes the true objective predictions impossible. Well, study of all the large realms are, in one way or the other, study of the Nature in its Totality. Ultimate Objective Reality and Totality of Nature Let us go back to the example of weather. Let us imagine that there is an omnipotent omniscient Super Scientist-God well above our planet who at any given instant knows the exact values of all relevant parameters that are required to define exact status of the weather in every smallest ‘pockets’ of the entire globe. Let us also assume, that this Super Scientist-God also knows by his super powers, right at that moment, nature of all the energy reactions-without interfering them in any way, that are happening all over the globe which all would impact those parameters-either directly, or indirectly through ripple effects- in each of these ‘pockets’ in the next instant; thus enabling our SSG to determine accurately the changes in all the parameters in each such ‘pocket’ in the next instant; and integrating them all, can also determine exact changes in the weather in the whole of the planet in the next instant, and then in the next instant …and so on, for any time in the future. Thus, from the point of view of SSG, the causality holds good for all these interactions at every level in the universe, and that the events in nature and universe are determinate, continuous, local and…., -that the God doesn’t play dice! The emphasis in the above hypothetical example is on the non-abstracted totality of the nature that consists of infinite interactions enfolding the whole of the planet and also all animate and inanimate matters in its totality. In fact, there are no distinctions between such matters, as such there is neither any description of any macroscopic product or process nor any for a microscopic or sub-atomic ‘particle’, all these are expressed only by infinite energy fields of innumerable kinds, which all interact with each other every instant undergoing perpetual metamorphosis through innumerable interactions. These are the fields that corresponds to organic and inorganic matter, to living and non-living matter, to sub-atomic, atomic and macroscopic aggregates, hence there are infinite energy fields, all overlapping each other when multiple of them interact with multiple others simultaneously in a highly complex way, which results into infinite number of instantaneous energy transformations resulting into newer energy fields, which again enters into newer interactions and so on and on. The whole scenario is so complex, we, with all our super duper computers put into the service, shall never be able to study the nature in its totality. And also, since there are no ‘things’ definable in terms of our classical physics, there are no reference ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 43 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) frames either to define order or disorder, matter or non-matter, living or non-living, there are only energy fields and their transformations happening at all levels, and these all are controlled by causal laws pertaining to energy transformations at the root levels. Well, this in nutshell is the Ultimate Objective Reality (“UOR”). The question is, can we, the human scientist, attain the levels of Super Scientist-God ever in future, and know the UOR in its totality? No and would never, mainly for the following three reasons: a. The human scientist does not have non-interfering measuring systems to collect required data at all levels in all the matters of the entire planet without having any interaction with the observed energy fields. Nothing can be observed unless there is an interaction between a measuring system and the observed. Not only this, as we will see in the latter part of the study, there are entanglements further down the line, between the measuring system and the interpreting system-or the consciousness faculty of the observer. These are all inevitably entangled energically with each other, hence affecting the ultimate objectivity. b. There is enormous complexity involved in the study of UOR in its totality. Even if we put aside all above entanglements for a moment, neither the present day science nor in future would any time have the means to study simultaneously the infinite number of reactions happening in each of the infinite number of ‘pockets’ in the entire universe that would have impacts on the relevant parameters of the nature in an infinite direct and indirect ways. The UOR in its totality is simply beyond the scope of the human beings. c. The third reason, and probably the most intricate one, it is difficult to determine the nature of the highly unpredictable forces that may spring from accidental alignments of ripples effects. Bohm, while discussing inadequacy of Laplacian determinism, says, (Bohm D., 1957, pg. 159): "We see then, the behavior of the world is not perfectly determined by any possible purely mechanical or qualitative line of causal connection. This does not mean, however, that it is arbitrary. If we take any given effect, we can always in principle trace it to the causes from which its essential aspects came. Only as we go further and further back into the past, we discover three important points: viz. first, that the number of causes which contribute significantly to a given effect increases without limit; secondly that more and more qualitatively different kinds of causal factors are found to be significant; and finally, that these causes depend on new contingencies leading to new kinds of chance." Hence, the human mind has no alternative than to interact with an abstracted version of the UOR at a particular instant, and assess its overall state by extrapolating the results of abstraction. Thus, the two states assessed this way spaced out on a time scale would certainly be discontinuous, and non-causal; and also the state of UOR for any other instant in future would always remain indeterminable. The God, for us, does play dice!! ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 44 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) 2: Cartesian World View The basis of human world view for the last several centuries has been Cartesian partition,-the God, The World and the Observer-‘I’. Even in earlier times, in Stone Age too, there existed a world view based upon the ‘things out there’ that is either good or bad for the survival of ‘me over here’. The root of such differentiation lies with the basic inherent pleasures and pains experienced exclusively by the observer ‘within’ its body in an interaction with the environments which all are ‘without’ the body. Well, it is this subjective experience of pleasures and pains that enforces any living creature to differentiate between the environmental ‘things’ around him and thus form a world view partitioned among the ‘things' of pleasures and pains on one side, and 'I' on the other side; a partitioned world view that is so vital for the very survival, and hence is a most common feature among all the living creatures. Put differently, in absence of these basic instincts of life, the living creature would fail to identify a particular environment as being prosurvival or anti-survival, and thus, would also fail to precipitate a flight or fight action. Whether in stone age or in the modern times, every human endeavor to know the nature and the world around him has always been an automatic fall out of such survival instincts, thus automatically forcing a demarcation between a ‘me’ and the rest of the world in every interaction. Over the ages, however, there has been an enormous change in both the qualitative and quantitative nature of the pleasures (and pains), but nevertheless, they remained fundamental instincts of life for all living beings in all times. With changing times, the earlier stone age demarcation line gradually became an elaborated framework to describe the basis of human model of thinking in dealing with nature. This framework, came to be known as Cartesian framework after the French philosopher Descartes, describes a basis which remains, for the reasons as explained, the only and most natural way of dealing with the environments for any human being in all ages to ensure his/her survival. Thus, it forms the commonest basis of all world views of all human beings held at any time. The three main aspects of the Cartesian world view are : 1. The physical things ‘out there’ are objective realities, whose properties are independent of the observer/subject 2. In the same way, the subject-‘I’ is an entity whose properties and existence are independent of the things ‘out there’. 3. The link between the physical things and ‘I’ is God. However the new science, as discussed in the previous section, forced the scientists to start thinking in a Non-Cartesian way, insofar as the world of atomic particles is concerned. Otherwise, for the human mind which continued to be a ‘prisoner’ within this Cartesian frame, found it very difficult to think that there could be systems and ‘things’ in the nature that cannot be defined as objective ‘things’ within this Cartesian frame, and hence that, no causal laws can be formed, developed or applied to such ‘things’. Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), the German Nobel laureate, and co-creator of quantum mechanics along with Niels Bohr, expresses this difficulty as follows, (Heisenberg W. 1958, pg. 55) : “If one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding and accepting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, one can trace the roots of this difficulty to the Cartesian partition. This partition has penetrated deeply into human mind during the three centuries following Descartes and it will take a long time for it to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality”. Having analyzed the impact of Cartesian thinking on human mind in general and resulting paradoxes in the study of small particles, we now turn to the other extreme, the realms of larger ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 45 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) systems. We, in the previous section, have already touched upon weather as a large system, now let us analyze the impact on man-made systems like a family, nation etc. Once again by default, in all these realms too, we view all ‘things’ as if they are all physical objects standing ‘out there’ having a set of objective properties, which are measurable by all observers alike. Thus, reality of India as a nation or reality of a football team or of a painting or a song is all unambiguously as real as an apple in our hands. Let us take an example of a school. The most immediate physical manifestations of a particular school are its physical structures, e.g. administrative offices, class rooms, laboratories, etc. But these are just its physical manifestations, there are many more aspects –and far more important too, to completely define a school in its totality; like its education philosophy and policy, its curriculum, its faculty, caliber of principal and autonomy he/she enjoys, investor’s interests, fee structures, extra-curricular activities, status of laboratories and libraries, pay scales and health care for its employees, etc. Now, when different persons interact with this school in their different capacities and for different reasons, each one of them would experience only a few of those attributes relevant to their individual interactions, and no one can experience all the aspects simultaneously in one interaction; and it is from such truncated versions that each observer by extrapolation would actualize an overall image of the school. Thus, not only that each such extrapolation has inherent errors, but each is also very subjective. So no two actualized realities of a school are likely to be identical in all aspects, but at the same time, each individual version would have some commonalities like the name and location of the school, its physical structures, play grounds, etc. And it is by virtue of such commonalities that all observers tend to believe that each one is observing same reality of a particular school existing ‘out there’, in spite of the fact that each one’s version of actualized reality is different from all others. For example, the investor assesses the school as a revenue generating asset, and thus ‘measures’ it with the returns on his investments, but then with the same yardstick he cannot ‘measure’ the quality of the education being imparted in the school, which can be ‘measured’ correctly only by an educationist, say the principal of the school, but then the principal in turn will not be a good judge on its returns of investments! So a particular school may be very good by one yardstick, and ‘the same’ could be very bad by another yardstick! This means the actualized reality of the school is 'yardstick’ dependent, or is simply subjective. Which of these versions is the truest representation of the school as an overall entity, existing as a reality out there?’ None, whatsoever, because all the assessments are subjective and not only that, all being extrapolations to a certain degree, are also approximations too. Put differently, the school as a whole, as an entity in its entirety, cannot be ‘measured’ and assessed for all its attributes alike by all observers. Precisely speaking, for each observer, the extrapolated overall reality of the school is a reality that has come into being only out of an interaction of each observer with the school, and this extrapolated reality otherwise was simply non-existent, and would have remained non-existent forever in absence of any such interaction. We all up to a certain point, may concur that all versions are subjective and bound to differ from each other, but in practice, we do not extend this concurrence any further to question the very existence of the school as an objective reality. The main reason being, the commonalities like its name, the physical structures etc. are enough to ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 46 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) provide physical manifestations required to actualize the reality of the school as an objective reality standing out there, because all such physical manifestations are sensed and perceived uniformly by each observer . But certainly, the school as a whole is much more than what meets our five senses, and this ‘much more’ is rather more important to assess the school than the physical structures alone. But then, this ‘much more’ part can only be assessed subjectively, or put differently, the ‘much more’ part of a school doesn’t exist as objective reality; it comes into being only in an interaction. This means, most important part of the whole, -the whole which is believed to exist as an objective reality, doesn’t exist as an objective reality! The logical lacuna associated with our basic paradigm of thinking is thus concluded. In the same way, the reality of India for a tourist would be different in many ways than that for any of its citizens, and again in turn, the reality would be different for an urban, rich citizen than that for a poor villager. If for all these three people - or for that matter for any assessor of any kind whatsoever, the reality of India is so different, the question is what is Real India? Nobody knows, nor at the same time, would they agree that they all are talking of different Indias! We may conclude that when dealing with such large systems, either our common sense meaning of the term Reality needs to be redefined precisely in more subjective terms, or accept the fact that a school or a nation per se just does not exist as a reality ‘out there’ in our sense of the meaning! Hence in all such cases, if we still wish to hold to our Cartesian meaning of reality, then only conclusion that can be drawn is that the reality of a particular school or a particular nation just does not exist, which means India or the USA are imaginary entities! To summarize, we discussed how in the quantum world, the entanglement of the observed and the measuring system makes the objective studies impossible, while in case of the nature exemplified by weather or ecology or any such large natural systems, it is their sheer complexity that rules out any possibility for an objective study. We also saw, in man-made large systems, objective assessments are not possible largely because of the problem of entanglements. We shall now see that in case of studies involving living beings and their behaviors with the environments, we are confronted with both the problems, viz. the problem of entanglements as well as the problem due to complexity. To understand this, I propose, we start with the behavior of a new born baby. 3. Human Behavior & Consciousness A newborn baby belongs to the entire universe. For her, she is neither an Indian nor an American, neither a Hindu nor a Muslim nor a Jew. She is not black, nor white, nor brown. She is none in particular, and she is all in general. Hence, she belongs to all uniformly, or put differently, she does not belong to anyone particularly. However, this universalized state of hers doesn’t last long. As for any normal infant, she has pains of hunger, and also the pleasures of being fed, of being loved and cuddled, again and again. She slowly recognizes a face as having consistently associated with these pleasures. This correlation becomes stronger and stronger with each feeding session, and with each act of loving and hugging. A causal connection thus automatically gets established in her little brain, in due course of time. Very soon, it reaches a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 47 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) stage when at each instance of sighting this face, there is a sparkle in her eyes, smile on her tiny face, with her little arms raised in the air as if to embrace this face instantly. All such small acts and expressions are like embracing that reality- a reality identified as a source of pleasure, love and warmth. The mother’s face would become invariably the first reality in her life distinctly identified and memorized as a source of pleasure and protection among many other faces around her. She now belongs to this face more than the rest of the universe! Our baby is put on a regular ayurvedic tonic of harade, which is very bitter in taste. Normally given three times a day, the baby starts correlating the spoon containing harade with its very unpleasant taste. With repeated dosages, the causal connection is complete, and the baby now, on the very sight of the spoon, instantly starts crying, then turns away her frowned face with tightly closed lips in total resistance. All these acts are to avoid the reality of harade, which has been by now, well identified and memorized as a source of unpleasantness. Well, the baby now doesn’t belong to all uniformly any more, she belongs to some little more positively, and to some little more negatively. What triggers the action when the baby sees her mother approaching or when she smells or sights the bitter medicine in the spoon? It’s the small bit of information reaching the brain which acts as a trigger to recall an identical or equivalent reality from the recent past experiences- associated with a pleasure or a pain, in its entirety, which inadvertently results into a physical reflex reaction by baby, either to embrace to avert the approaching environmental change. This entire process of triggering and recalling, including the instantaneous reflex action to embrace or to avert is automatic, as automatic as the digestion process in her tummy. The baby would slowly have more and more interactions with all sorts of environments during her wakeful hours, every minute, every second. She is exposed to ‘things’ like siblings, to neighborhood kids, to various kinds of people of all ages, and of all colors and contours; and so also to all kinds of material ‘things’ like foods, drinks, medicines, toys and games, etc. Not all of these are pleasant, nor all of these are unpleasant. In either case, whenever there are enough number of repeated encounters, invariably a causal relationship between the thing and the associated pleasure or pain gets established. The thing along with the nature of pleasure or pain gets automatically memorized, in such a way that the nature of pleasure or pain gets interwoven with certain physical characteristics of that object to become one whole inseparable reality, that collectively goes as a bundle into her memory. We may repeat, this process of memorization of realities interwoven with the pleasure or pain is very automatic. To be more specific, there are no conscious efforts by baby to memorize certain realities and not to memorize certain others, either of the two are happening very automatically, as automatic as the thumping of her heart. The human memory has certain ‘shelf-life’, and hence the memory of a particular thing tend to fade out automatically with time in absence of any more repeated encounters with the same. With constantly changing environments thus, those ‘things’ with decreasing frequencies of interactions, automatically get replaced by newer ones having higher and increasing frequencies with time. With growing age, the spectrum of realities in the memory is constantly changing both qualitatively and quantitatively depending upon the rate of the change of the environments and also upon the cognitive abilities of the brain, which also is developing and changing with time. But at the same time, there are certain realities e.g. of the parents, of the home, of the school, etc, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 48 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) and above all, of her own image in the mirror, these all are sort of permanent in her memory just for the simple reason that the interactions with all these realities are continuous with time without any long breaks. Physical & Mental Skills With growing age, the child learns various skills by just imitating the elders around him/her, and this is how she learns to take her first steps, learns to utter words like ‘ma’ and ‘pa’, and even learn to speak full sentences by an age of around three, without undergoing any formal training. The child repeatedly experiences that every new skill he/she learns is well appreciated by all elders around him, and each such appreciation by itself becomes a newer kind of pleasure for him/her. (And most children, we have observed, tend to repeat a particular act again and again in presence of elders to have repeated pleasures of appreciations.) Very soon, a correlation between the skills learnt and the associated new pleasures automatically gets established in the young brain, and thus develops inadvertently a continuous inner urge to have more of such kudos by learning more and more newer skills. The kind of urge for newer skills is akin to her craving for the very yummy foods he/she has experienced in the past. And as we mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the same pleasure-driven mechanism by which the child grabs the pleasant foods in a reflex manner, works in the same reflex way to grab every new opportunity to learn a newer skill. The mechanism of repetitive interactions holds valid not only for the basic skills learnt during formative years, but it also provides an underlying functional mechanism by which a human brain learns more complex skills all through the life. Whenever the brain starts learning a new physical or mental task, higher level of attention is demanded, and once the task is learnt, with every subsequent repeated rehearsal, both the time to complete the task and the attention level required will keep on reducing. With enough repetitions, a stage is reached, when the required attention reduces down to near zero levels. At this point of time, the skill goes into the sub-conscious realm of the brain from where it gets performed very automatically without the brain consciously being aware of the same. Once a particular skill is mastered, the same goes into the automatic mode of performing and the brain can turn its attention to learn another new skill requiring higher attention levels, by simultaneously putting to use all those (lower level) skills mastered earlier and now being used in their automatic modes, the cycle, thus, goes on and on. Martha Koukkou and Dietrich Lehmann, Swiss neuroscientists, have reported research correlating changes observed in EEG patterns at various stages of learning newer skills,(Koukkou M. and Lehmann D. 1993, pp.61-62): " It was found that the dimension of the initial EEG reactivity to "new" information relates to the quality of learning; it changes systematically as a function of changing contextual meaning, expectancy and familiarity with the event. During learning and overlearning the information-induced EEG changes (the dimension of EEG reactivity) decrease with increasing familiarity with an event and a task; that is with better performance. The EEG reactivity is minimal or even abolished when the training procedure reaches automatic behavioral responses." ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 49 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) Cycle of Behavior At any instant, when the brain receives an information coming from environments within or without the body, with regard to certain changes in the environments, the same triggers the memory to recollect from the past experiences same or similar environmental change in its entirety, and subsequently, the same gets automatically sorted out into a probable reality of either a pleasure or a pain; following which- by using a mastered mental skill, the one which is visualized as of the highest (probable) pleasure or of the least (probable) pain gets automatically selected for actualization. This, in turn, triggers a particular reflex action –automatically selected as appropriate for that situation from the past experiences, and the same executed instantaneously using the learned physical skills to actualize the selected reality. Now, following the reflex act, subsequent changes in the environment may turn more positive, more negative or neutral from the point of view of the targeted pleasure or adaptability in this entire cycle of interaction; the same, along with some independent changes in environments that may occur in the next instant, comes collectively as the next bunch of information into the consciousness faculty, triggering a new cycle of interaction, following the same pattern. It should be noted that in the entire cycle of behavior, the emphasis is on automaticity. Bohm expresses similar viewpoint, (Bohm D. 1980, pg. 64): "One of the earliest and most primitive forms of thought is, for example, just the memory of pleasure or pain, in conjunction with a visual, or olfactory image that may be evoked by an object or a situation… It is clear, however, that the whole meaning of such a memory is just the conjunction of the image with its feeling , which (along with the intellectual content and the physical reaction) constitutes the totality of the judgment as to whether what is remembered is good or bad, desirable or not, etc. It is clear that thought, considered in this way as the response of memory, is basically mechanical in its order of operation. Either it is a repetition of some previously existent structure drawn from memory, or else it is some combination arrangement and organization of these memories into further structures of ideas and concepts, categories, etc. These combinations may possess a certain kind of novelty resulting from the fortuitous interplay of elements of memory, but it is clear that such novelty is still essentially mechanical." (Italics as in the original). Each such cycle of interaction, operating totally in an automatic mode, fundamentally works on the basic instincts of survival, which ‘decides’ in the first stage, whether the environmental change is good or bad for its survival, or being pleasant or unpleasant with respect to its past experiences, followed by, in the second stage, a reflex act to actualize or de-actualize the reality of the same. I may propose to call this cycle as Cycle of Consciousization. In the English language, there is no verb equivalent for 'consciousness', and since in the present study, consciousness is defined as a process, the need for such a term is unavoidable. Hence, to consciousize would mean to become conscious of, and consciousization would mean a process of becoming conscious of. In the more precise meaning, as described above, consciousization is a default mechanism, present in all the living beings, that is solely responsible to help them develop adaptive skills under all circumstances vis-a-vis ever changing environments so as to maximize their chances of survival, and/or to maximize the pleasures and minimize the pains. This mechanism of behavior based upon the basic instincts of pleasures and pains is very fundamental and common to all living beings across the board in any age, at any time whatsoever. Why do these basic instincts exist in the first place? No science probably would ever ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 50 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) get an answer to this question, for the simple reason that no experience of any pleasure or a pain can further be analyzed to any other lower level in order to get an answer for its causes. Pleasures and pains are there, simply because they are, period. To that extent they would always remain mysterious forever. In a way, this fundamental cycle of behavior comes very close to the concept of collective unconscious , and the basic instincts of pleasures and pains, probably qualify as archetypes; as postulated by the famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1976) in his analytical psychology. According to him, the collective unconscious is the common pattern that controls human psyche in all cases. Its correlation with proposed consciousization cycle may be visualized by the following narration on the collective consciousness and archetypes given by Miller A. in "When Pauli met Jung", (Atmanspacher H. & Primas H., 2009, pp. 247-248) : "Unlike Freud, Jung was interested in aspects of the psyche that could not be attributed to individual's personal development but to the deeper non-personal realms common to humankind- the collective unconscious, whose contents he called 'archetypes'. These are not inherited ideas, rather they are latent potentialities whose origins remains forever obscure because they reside in the mysterious realm of collective unconscious about which we will never have direct knowledge. Whereas the archetype itself is not representable, its effects enable to visualize it as an archetypal image, or symbol. Archetypes are hard-wired into the mind and serve as organizing principles allowing us to construct knowledge from the potpourri of sensations bombarding us. " The research paper by Koukkou and Lehmann, (Koukkou M. and Lehmann D., 1993, pg. 59), draws conclusions that are very much in line with those described above in regard to the functional mechanisms of a human brain: " Summarizing one can say that the operations of the cycle of communication generate and coordinate all dimensions of human behavior. These operations can be analyzed into three continuous, interdependent, dynamic, and complex sets of operations where each set depends on the previous one and initiates the next one. All three sets of operations are knowledge implemented. That means, their characteristics depend on the kind of previously acquired and momentarily accessible knowledge of the individual. These sets of operations are (1) the creation of multidimensional neuronal model of the internal and external individual realities out of the interaction between incoming signals and momentarily accessible knowledge (pattern formation) (2) the evaluation of significance of these realities for the momentary psychobiological priorities by matching against accessible knowledge (pattern recognition); and (3) selection and execution of the answer, which is a functional psychobiological adaptation to the recognized significance of these realities. The answer is relayed back to the central nervous system and together with new incoming messages participates in the formation of the next model of realities, and so forth." The seemingly so variant and complex behaviors of all human beings, controlled or not controlled, aimed at long time goals can in fact, at the root levels be split up into umpteen numbers of instantaneous consciousizing interactions, one each for each of the innumerable unitary acts of ‘go/no-go’ types, ‘go’ for pleasures, ‘no-go’ for pains; each of which has been mastered by repeated encounters in the past, and hence all such acts are executed instantly in a reflex mode, thus we can say that the entire overall complex behavior is also executed very automatically and unconsciously. Since, each complex task is but a different combination of such innumerable unitary root level acts or the skills mastered in the past, the complete automaticity ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 51 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) of human brain's functioning applies to all kinds of human behaviors. What is being suggested here is a simple mechanism by which a human brain operates, whereby seemingly complex functioning of the brain at the aggregate levels can be reduced down to a simple on-off mechanisms operating at the root levels of neurons. The future research in this field may be able to correlate each such unitary act, as executed by on-off firing of a particular bunch of the neurons(-and probably the same bunch of neurons in every repetitive act), with each peak on real time EEG of an active brain. During the wakeful and very active hours for a person, the number of elementary acts being performed (either physically or mentally) per unit time increases by manifold as compared to sleep hours; and this is what exactly reflected in the corresponding EEGs. For example, the lowest frequency EEG is called Delta, having a frequency as low as 4 Hz, and is normally associated with babies and adult sleep states, and on the other extreme are highest frequency EEGs, known as Beta(16-31 Hz) and Gamma (32-100 Hz) and are those found in very active states of adults. Koukkou and Lehmann contemplates even more close correlations between the human brain's micro-states, which constitutes its overall macro behavior, with the micro-structure of the EEG. They report, ( Koukkou M. and Lehmann D., 1993, pg. 64): "Our studies on this micro-structure of the EEG and its functional and introspective correlates showed that such very brief states can be clearly identified. For these studies of micro-states, brain electric activity is not viewed as waveforms but as a continuous series of momentary electric landscapes (maps) at a typical rates of 128 or 256 maps/second. .. .. .. A given landscape of the brain's momentary electric field can be assumed to represent the activity of a particular neuronal population and accordingly, a particular step or mode of information processing. A change of the momentary electric landscape must mean that a different neural population has become active and, hence, that a different step or mode of information processing is taking place. This leads to the possibility to identify momentary functional micro-states of brain activity on the basis of the spatial pattern of momentary landscape of the brain's electric potential." I may propose: Consciousness, or ‘Consciousizing’ is a process in which, in the first stage, the sensory perceptions arising from the brain's interaction with an environment leads to visualization of a probable reality of either pro-survival/pleasure or anti-survival/pain, (or as a third possibility, neither of the two), which in the second stage, instantly triggers a reflex action to actualize the environment of pro-survival /pleasure as a Reality, or to deactualize the environment of anti-survival/pain as if a Non-reality (and in the third case, be indifferent). Briefly put, the consciousizing is a default mechanism present in all living beings by the virtue of which they all automatically strive to develop an adaptability to survive in the ever changing environments. I also propose the following Principle of Reflex Human Behavior specifying reflex characteristics underlying all kinds of human actions and reactions: Principle of Reflex Human Behavior: All human acts and actions are brain’s reflex reactions –without the subject being consciously aware of the same, triggered automatically by each consciousizing interaction of the brain with an environment, so as to either embrace the pleasure or to avert the pain as consciousized in the interaction, and as such there cannot be any human action which is neither of these two; and further that under the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 52 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | Janaury 2016 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 37-52 Dagli, R. S., An Exploration of the Process of Becoming an 'I' & the Quantum World of Realities (Part I) prevailing conditions of the brain and the environment, the triggered reflex actions are inevitable and irreplaceable. According to the above proposed principles, all human actions are reflex, execution and nature of which is 'decided' jointly by the existing status of the brain and that of the environment interacting with it at the instant of each interaction. And also further that all human beings at the root levels behave identically like robots, - or more precisely, like Conscious Robots. Whether we like it or not, this fundamental characteristic underlying the above proposed principles is there by default in all of us to control, regulate and direct all our actions automatically without we ever realizing the same, to help us survive in or to adapt to the ever changing environments around us. (Continued on Part II) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1064 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Article Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Imants Barušs*1, Carolyn van Lier2 & Diana Ali1 1 Department of Psychology, King’s University College at The University of Western Ontario Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario 2 ABSTRACT Matrix Energetics is a system of self-transformation developed by Richard Bartlett in the context of alternative medicine, which he teaches at training seminars around the world to anyone who wishes to learn it. The authors conducted the present study to determine what happens psychologically at a Matrix Energetics seminar and to see if there could be any long-term health benefits associated with participation at such a seminar. Participants were 97 attendees at a Matrix Energetics seminar held over three days at a hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There were 69 women and 26 men (N = 95) with a mean age of 51.1 years (SD = 13.2; age range: 18–77 years; N = 94). Participants were given questionnaires to complete before the beginning of the seminar, at the end of each of the three days, and through a website at a two-month follow-up. The questionnaires included measures of demographic information, personality, psychological well-being, physical and mental health, state of being, and profundity of experiences. In addition, behavioral observations were made and participants were interviewed. During the seminar participants appeared to experience reality as being more plastic than we ordinarily assume it to be while in an attentive, expanded, and emotionally positive state of being. Using the total scale of the 36-Item RAND Health Survey, a paired samples t test revealed that overall health was better at the follow-up (M = 81.33; SD = 10.43) than at the time of the initial questionnaires (M = 72.77; SD = 16.15) with t(24) = 3.42, p = .002 (two-tailed), although that result needs to be interpreted with caution. The alterations of consciousness experienced in the context of Matrix Energetics should be further investigated as should the potentially therapeutic benefits of experiencing Matrix Energetics. Key Words: Self-development, alterations of consciousness, meaning, well-being, Matrix Energetics. Matrix Energetics (ME) is a system of transformation developed by Richard Bartlett, a chiropractor and naturopath, in the context of alternative medicine. Together with Melissa Joy Jonsson, Bartlett has been teaching this system to the public in a series of seminars, each lasting from one to three days, which have been held in hotel conference rooms around the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate what occurs psychologically for people who participate in an ME seminar and to determine whether there could be any long term improvements in physical or psychological health following a seminar. * Correspondence: Professor Imants Barušs, Department of Psychology, King’s University College at The University of Western Ontario, 266 Epworth Ave., London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3. E-Mail: baruss@uwo.ca ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1065 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey The practice of ME consists of applying specific techniques to oneself or to someone or something else. These techniques essentially consist of noting one’s own spontaneous thoughts, creating changes in the imagination, and then allowing whatever process appears to be taking place, to take place. In theory, the recipient of ME does not need to be physically present for effects to occur. Whatever is happening is sometimes conceptualized as interacting with a non-physical, intelligent field that has the ability to create changes. Those who have experienced ME have reported noticing somatic sensations, altered emotions, unexpected thoughts, or, in some cases, the spontaneous remission of physical conditions. For instance, sometimes recipients of ME have reported feeling a wave-like sensation in their bodies and ended up lying on the floor (Bartlett, 2007; 2009; Barušs, 2012; 2013; Jonsson, 2013; Marlowe, 2010). Because of the nature of ME and its possible non-local effects, it is difficult to determine where the boundaries of ME lie, and no effort is made to do so in this study. That would require additional studies that would be difficult to do. Also, for the purposes of this study, no effort is made to distinguish ME from non-specific factors such as social interactions with like-minded individuals, suggestion, listening to a charismatic speaker, and so on. Teasing those out would require separate studies. The situation we faced is not dissimilar to that of the phenomenon of hypnosis. Hypnosis researchers cannot agree on a definition of hypnosis. The closest that they come to agreement is to say that hypnosis is whatever it is that is happening in situations that have been labeled as hypnosis (Barušs, 2003). Similarly, for the purposes of this study, ME is operationalized as whatever it is that is happening at an ME seminar. We begin our literature review by summarizing two remote influencing experiments using techniques derived from ME and then discuss a study of people who said that they had had transformative experiences in the context of ME. Falling down is a conspicuous behavior at ME seminars, so we say a little bit about that. Then we situate ME in the larger context of selfdevelopment and healing. We conclude by laying out the design of our study. Remote Influencing Experiments Imants Barušs conducted two experiments using techniques derived from ME to look for any apparent effects of remote influencing. Both experiments were done entirely over the Internet. In Experiment 1, Barušs conducted 34 remote influencing sessions for 15 volunteers asking them to report anything that they thought had occurred during the time of the sessions. On the basis of the responses from participants, Barušs decided to use self-reported energy levels as the main dependent measure in a second experiment. Experiment 2 consisted of 138 sessions carried out from May 26, 2010 to May 11, 2012 with 22 participants who had provided informed consent and indicated times when they would not be driving or operating machinery. Barušs emailed participants indicating the time that he would begin a session for them, then would flip a coin to determine whether or not it would be a control or experimental session. If the coin landed heads, he did a remote influencing session for them lasting for about 20 minutes. If the coin landed tails, he did nothing further. Participants were asked to respond to three statements on a 6-point Likert scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” These were ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1066 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey statements that something unusual had happened, that participants were more fatigued than they expected to have been, and that participants were more energized than they expected to have been. In addition, if he did an experimental session, Barušs took two self-measures immediately after the conclusion of the session, each on a rising scale from 1 to 10, of his degree of psychological absorption in the task and of the depth of his altered state of consciousness. All of the dependent measures were in the expected direction with the absolute value of the difference between being fatigued and being energized reaching statistical significance. The absolute value of the difference was M = 1.56 (SD = 1.59, n = 57) for the control group and M = 2.08 (SD = 1.58, n = 60) for the experimental group with z = 1.78, p = .04 (two-tailed). There were no correlations of dependent measures with length of sessions or absorption but there was a correlation of r = –.29 (p < .05, two-tailed, n = 55) of being energized minus being fatigued with depth of altered state of consciousness suggesting that the deeper Barušs’ altered state, the more likely participants were to feel fatigued rather than energized. This correlation should be interpreted with caution given that no correction to the level of statistical significance was applied to the consideration of multiple correlations (Barušs, 2013). These results suggest that anomalous remote influencing could take place in the context of ME. Transformative Experiences in an ME Context For her doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Jos Marlowe sought to understand the nature of transformative experiences that individuals claimed to have had as a result of attending ME seminars. She solicited participants by word of mouth and selected them if they said that they had had “transformative experiences” in the context of ME and had not been engaged in other “transformative spiritual practices at the time” (Marlowe, 2010, p. 28). Of the 15 participants who ended up in her study, 11 completed all aspects of the study. Participants were asked to fill out an initial questionnaire, two custom questionnaires with written responses, and two quantitative measures, the Self-Expansiveness Level Form (SELF) and the Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire (HBQ). The first of the written response questionnaires essentially asked participants to tell their stories of what had occurred for them, whereas the second written response questionnaire was used to further query participants using standardized questions about themes that emerged from the first questionnaire. Marlowe used two scales from the SELF to measure “identification with the here and now” and “identification with aspects of reality beyond that which is ordinarily perceived” (Marlowe, 2010, p. 33). The HBQ, measured the degree to which a person has “thin” psychological boundaries in the sense of having ready access to non-conscious psychological material (Marlowe, 2010, p. 35). Using qualitative analyses, Marlowe found 22 themes, which she called “focus codes” (Marlowe, 2010, p. 56), such as “effortlessness” and “transformation” denoting that participants found the practice of ME to be effortless and transformative, respectively (Marlowe, 2010, p. 124). Six of 88 correlations of focus codes with SELF and HBQ scales were statistically significant. The largest of those correlations was r(11) = –.86 (p < .01) of “SELF Personal” with the “Unexplained” focus code, indicating that those who were more grounded in the present were less likely to say that they had ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1067 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey experienced phenomena that they could not explain. The second highest correlation was r(11) = .76 (p < .01) between the HBQ “World Total” scale and the “Effortlessness” focus code, suggesting that those who have thinner external boundaries found that ME experiences flowed effortlessly (Marlowe, 2010, p. 47). Marlowe summarized her results by saying that effortless, limitless, transformative changes occurred; that detachment was required to have these experiences; that “What one focuses on expands;” and that “The experience involves shared subconscious processes” (Marlowe, 2010, p. 40). One of the main problems with Marlowe’s study is the apparent lack of critical reflection by Marlowe. For instance, Marlowe explained the correlation between the HBQ “World Total” scale and the “Effortlessness” focus code by saying: “Effortlessness in this case correlates to the effort that is involved in channeling the energy of the quantum vacuum” (Marlowe, 2010, p. 47). Richard Bartlett has used quantum language to describe his system of self-transformation, Marlowe’s participants used Bartlett’s language to describe their experiences, and Marlowe used Bartlett’s and the participants’ language to explain her results. No evidence has been provided anywhere in Marlowe’s dissertation that anything that she discussed actually has anything at all to do with the quantum vacuum. Another of the problems with Marlowe’s study is that it is frequently not clear whether Marlowe’s participants were reporting events that actually occurred for them or whether they were reporting what they believed should be the interpretation of whatever was happening for them. Without adequate critical reflection, Marlowe’s dissertation could simply be a conduit for Bartlett’s teaching. There are also problems with the small sample size, data analyses, and confusing lines of reasoning. In spite of its shortcomings, Marlowe’s dissertation gives some insight into the experiences that people can have at an ME seminar. Common themes include the notion that participants’ mental states have been altered, that participants sometimes experience various somatic sensations, including falling down, and that reality has become more plastic so that improbable events are more likely to occur, such as the spontaneous remission of disease. All of these events should be more carefully examined, and we try to make a beginning at doing so in this study. If ME can have gainful effects on people’s health, then research concerning ME could have far-reaching, practical, beneficial consequences for health care. Falling Down There are a number of characteristic behaviors associated with experiencing ME, including uncontrollable laughter, spontaneous movement of various sorts, falling down, and, sometimes, jerking around after having fallen to the ground (Bartlett, 2007; Marlowe, 2010). Richard Bartlett has said that falling down is incidental to whatever is happening during the experience of ME, except that physical movement could facilitate productive readjustment that could be taking place in people’s bodies (cf. Bartlett, 2008). Marlowe (2010) has speculated that falling down occurs when the person experiencing ME is exposed to the altered state of the person who is working on her, although she does not explain why such exposure should result in the loss of muscle tone. In general, falling down is not confined to ME. There are two other significant contexts in which similar experiences occur, including the experience of falling down: The phenomenon of being “slain in the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1068 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey spirit” of Pentecostal-charismatic Christians (Robbins, 2004) and the result of suggestion during hypnosis. Uncontrollable laughter, spontaneous bodily movements of various sorts, falling down, and jerking around while on the ground are common experiences during charismatic and Pentecostal services and are typically referred to as being “slain in the Spirit” or, more colloquially, as “carpet time” (Singleton, 2014, p. 383). For some individuals, the experience of being slain in the spirit is propelled by deliberately releasing their resistance to it, whereas others just find that their muscles give out so that they can no longer stand. These experiences are described as “bodily manifestations of the Holy Spirit” and are attributed to “God’s power” (Singleton, 2014, p. 384; see also Taves, 1993). All of these behaviors can also occur in the context of hypnosis for some people who are high in hypnotic susceptibility. It should be noted that hypnosis is not a homogeneous state. Rather, there are three types of highly susceptible people: the positively set, the fantasy prone, and the amnesia prone (Barber, 1999). Several brain imaging studies have shown that hypnosis does have unique brain states associated with it, lending support to the notion that in some cases hypnosis is a special state (Barabasz et al., 1999; Maquet et al. 1999). The person who rationally decides to go along with what is happening could be a positively set person, whereas the one who feels that she has no choice, thereby exemplifying the classic suggestion effect of hypnosis (Barušs, 2003), could be fantasy prone or amnesia prone. Attributing falling down to hypnosis is not an explanation but a re-labeling. In other words, falling down during ME, slain in the spirit, and falling down during hypnosis, are different descriptions of what appear to be similar behaviors that could have similar or different causes for different people in different contexts. The mechanism is not known for any of these. In this study we will try to determine some of the characteristics of falling down in the context of ME. Self-Development and Healing Perhaps the most straightforward contexts for ME are those of self-development and healing. There is a notion, particularly in humanistic and transpersonal psychology, that human psychological development does not end with adulthood, but continues toward states of exceptional well-being (Barušs, 2003; 2007; Maslow, 1968; 1971/1976; McDowell, 2010). The activities in which people engage during ME seminars are intended to induce self-transformation. Part of that selftransformation can include healing of physical or psychological ailments. In addition, ME grows out of chiropractic and naturopathic health care so that the activities taking place can be viewed in the context of healing. The notion of “therapeutic transformation” captures the notion of change toward greater well-being without reference to specific religious, therapeutic, or developmental models (Canda, 1988, p. 205) and provides a way of talking about the confluence of self-development and healing. That is the context that we will use for this study. Design The purpose of the present study was to see what psychological events occurred for participants at an ME seminar and to see if there were any long-term health benefits. The study was conceptualized as ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1069 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey having three stages. During the pre stage participants would fill out a battery of instruments while waiting in their seats for the seminar to begin. During the post stage participants would fill out questionnaires at the end of each of the three days of the seminar. In addition, behavioral measures would be taken of participants during demonstrations and practice sessions and those participants would be interviewed immediately afterwards about the experiences that they had had during those events. The follow-up stage would consist of having participants log onto a custom website designed for the study in order to fill out another battery of instruments. The post measures were to be used to determine what was happening psychologically both by considering the data on those measures alone and by comparing the data from those measures with the pre measures. The follow-up measures were to be used primarily to see if there were any improvement in health from the time of the pre measures. Given the previous studies of Matrix Energetics, as well as the informal information available to the researchers, it was expected that participants would experience alterations of consciousness characterized by greater psychological lability during the seminar and that there would be overall improvements in health afterwards. However, given that this was an exploratory study, there were no formal hypotheses. Method Participants Participants consisted of 97 attendees at a Matrix Energetics seminar held August 18–20, 2012 in a hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There were 69 women and 26 men (N = 95) with a mean age of 51.1 years (SD = 13.2; age range: 18–77 years; N = 94). With regard to education, 23 indicated that they had completed high school, 40 that they were college graduates, and 28 indicated that they had a post-graduate degree. Six did not respond to this item. There was broad representation from a number of occupations including physicians, nurses, those working in various healing and alternative healing modalities, and occupations unrelated to self-development or healing such as college professors, engineers, musicians, artists, office workers, and gas station attendants. The most commonly chosen religious affiliation was “Other” with 32, “Own Beliefs” with 27, “Christian” with 20, “None” with 10, and smaller numbers for other alternatives (N = 93). Frequency of religious practice ranged from 1 (Daily) to 5 (Never) and had a mean value of 2.3 (SD = 1.6; N = 86) where “2” was labelled “Weekly” and “3” was labelled “Monthly.” Only 28 indicated that they had not had any previous training in healing; 50 indicated that they had had previous training in “Alternative Medicine;” 21 in “Other” forms of healing; and 12 in “Traditional Medicine” (N = 95). Of the 95 participants who responded to an attendance item, 59 said that this was their first Matrix Energetics seminar; 15 said it was their second, 2 that it was their third, 3 that it was their fourth, and 16 that they had been to at least four previous seminars. Materials Consent letter. The consent letter consisted of a description of the study and the steps that ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1070 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey individuals could take should they choose to participate in the study. This letter also outlined the type of data that would be collected and assured individuals that their identities would remain anonymous. Contact information of the lead investigator was included. There was a place for individuals to print their name, sign, and date the document. Individuals were also given a pencil if they needed one. Pre-Measures. The pre-measures package consisted of six pages of paper-and-pencil questionnaires. On the first page participants were asked for their names, email addresses, and written descriptions of their motivation and expectations associated with attending the Matrix Energetics seminar. On the second page, participants were asked for demographic information as well as being given a Personality Inventory. The following pages consisted of the State of Being Questionnaire (Pre), Carol Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being, and the RAND 36-Item Health Survey. Behavioral Measures and Post-Experience Interview. During the course of the seminar, a member of the research team would observe an attendee while she was experiencing ME during a demonstration on stage or during one of many practice sessions. The researcher would fill out the Behavioral Measures form on the basis of her observations. If the attendee who was observed turned out to be a participant in the study, she was asked to complete a Post-Experience Interview with the same member of the research team who had observed her. These interviews were audio recorded and later transcribed. In addition to an open-ended question, the Post-Experience Interview consisted of questions asked by the researcher to which the participant responded by indicating her preference along a Likert scale. Post-Measures. The Post-Measures package consisted of a single sheet of paper on which participants were asked to fill in their name and the day on which the Post-Measures were completed. Participants were asked to describe the most memorable experience that they had had that day. This was followed by the Profundity Scale and the State of Being Questionnaire (Post). 2-Month Follow-Up. A questionnaire was set up on our university server which participants were invited to access two months after the seminar. Participants were asked to describe what effects they felt that the Matrix Energetics seminar had had on them. This was followed by the Personality Inventory, Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the RAND 36-Item Health Survey, the State of Being Questionnaire (2-Month Follow-Up), and concluded with a space in which participants were asked to provide any additional comments or reflections. Measures Demographics. The demographics section of the pre measures package was used to gather basic information about participants: age, gender, occupation, highest level of education, religious affiliation, frequency of religious practice, number of Matrix Energetics seminars previously attended, and previous training in healing, if any. Personality Inventory (PI). Gerard Saucier’s Mini-Markers were used as a measure of the big five personality traits. This is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 40 adjectives for each of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1071 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey which the participant is asked to indicate how well it applies to her on a scale from 1 (“Extremely Inaccurate”) to 9 (“Extremely Accurate”). Eight adjectives per scale are averaged to obtain scores for the big five personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect or Openness with alpha coefficients of .83, .81, .83, .78, and .78 (N = 320) respectively (Saucier, 1994). State of Being Questionnaires (SBQ). There were pre, post, and follow-up versions of State of Being Questionnaires designed specifically for this study. As much as possible, items were worded in a counterbalanced manner so as not to suggest an implied bias. All items were scored on a seven-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Validity consisted of face validity and there were no reliability data until the results were analyzed. Twenty items, designed to measure the state of consciousness of participants, were common to all three questionnaires. These were chosen on the basis of previous informal experience with people’s reports of their experiences at ME seminars and modelled after Barušs and Moore’s Beliefs About Consciousness and Reality Questionnaire (Barušs, 1990; Barušs & Moore, 1992) and Ronald Pekala’s Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (Pekala, 1991). Items included “There is no reality other than the physical universe,” “My energy levels are high,” “I feel present to whatever is happening,” and “The carpet seems to be moving.” The wording for the last of these was changed to “The floor seems to be moving,” for the follow-up questionnaire. In addition to the 20 core items, we devised a humility scale for the pre questionnaire in order to supplement the personality measures and see if humility is relevant to whatever occurs at the seminars. The humility scale consisted of eight items such as “I am aware of my strengths, but also acknowledge my weaknesses,” and “I am comfortable accepting honest criticism.” There were two additional items: “Even though it would be nice if it were so, miracles do not really happen,” and “I think that I am going to learn a great deal at this seminar.” The net result was a pre State of Being Questionnaire with 30 items. The post SBQ consisted of the core 20 items plus the following two items: “I feel reborn,” and “I feel that I have developed some good relationships with others at this seminar,” for a total of 22 items. The follow-up SBQ consisted of the core 20 items, the eight humility items from the pre questionnaire, the item about miracles from the pre questionnaire with the following changed wording, “I do not think that any miracles actually happened at the seminar,” and the item “I feel that I have developed some good relationships with others at the seminar.” An additional 11 evaluationtype items included “I experienced a ‘high’ for a period of time after the seminar was over,” and “I am better able to heal myself as a result of the Philadelphia seminar,” for a total of 42 items. Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB). Carol Ryff’s Scales of Psychological WellBeing were used as a measure of psychological well-being. This instrument consists of six scales, Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, Positive Relations with Others, Purpose in Life, and Self-Acceptance. The 3-item scales were used for a total of 18 items with alpha values of .37, .49, .40, .56, .33, and .52 (N = 1108) respectively. Although these are small values, the three items in each scale correlate strongly and positively only with their own respective scale and each of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1072 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey the three items making up a scale had been selected because of its strong correlation with its parent scale in the long version of the questionnaire (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). RAND 36-Item Health Survey (RAND). The RAND 36-Item Health Survey 1.0 is a selfreport questionnaire that measures positive and negative physical and mental health states across eight health dimensions: Physical Functioning, Role Limitations due to Physical Health, Role Limitations due to Emotional Problems, Energy/Fatigue, Emotional Well-Being, Social Functioning, Pain, and General Health, with alpha values of .93, .84, .83, .86, .90, .85, .78, and .78 (N = 2471) respectively (RAND Health, n.d.). The items range from general to specific with some items asking respondents to rate their health relative to one year previously. For example, respondents are asked to rate the amount of limitation that they experience carrying groceries or climbing a flight of stairs. As another example, respondents are asked how much of the time in the past four weeks they felt “downhearted and blue.” The eight health dimensions can be scored individually, aggregated into physical and mental scales, and scored as a single scale (Hays & Shapiro, 1992; RAND Health, n.d.; Ware, 2000; Ware & Sherbourne, 1992). Longitudinal studies for an instrument derived from the RAND 36-Item Health Survey shows that the normative data are stable or, for some scales in some studies, decline slightly over time periods of up to three years (Hopman et al., 2004). Profundity Scale. The profundity scale was a 21-item scale developed by the researchers in order to gauge the profundity of experiences that participants were having in the course of the seminar. It was administered as part of the post measures package. Each item was scored on a sevenpoint Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” After providing a written description of “the most memorable experience” that participants had had that day, the instructions read: “Please respond to the following statements with regard to the experience that you have just described above using the attached scale.” Examples of items include: “I cannot adequately express what just happened,” “What I experienced was not outside the realm of my ordinary everyday experience,” and “I now realize there are aspects of reality of which I was not previously aware.” Validity consisted of face validity and there were no reliability data until the results were analyzed. Behavioral Measures. Behavioral measures were developed for this study to document the observable behavior associated with experiencing ME. There was a 15-item checklist that was used while observing participants either on the stage as part of a demonstration or as a recipient of ME during practice sessions. This was followed, for the same participant, by a 5-item checklist to be used after a participant had been led from the stage or the practice area to a side room in which she was interviewed by one of the researchers. Items were scored “0” if the item did not apply and “1” if the item did apply. Examples of items from the 15-item checklist include: “Participant swayed,” “Participant fell to the ground,” and “Participant appeared to pass out.” Examples of items from the 5-item checklist include: “Participant appeared disoriented,” and “Participant was reluctant to talk.” Post-Experience Interview. The Post-Experience Interview consisted of asking participants “Could you please describe what you just experienced as a recipient of Matrix Energetics?” followed by orally asking participants to respond to the items of the Profundity Scale. All of the interviews were recorded on digital voice recorders and subsequently transcribed. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1073 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Procedure The main body of data was collected during a Matrix Energetics seminar held in a banquet hall at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Saturday, August 18, 2012 to Monday, August 20, 2012. On the preceding Friday, the researchers met with one of the organizers of the Matrix Energetics seminar in order to finalize the logistics of data gathering. This included making available a room beside the banquet hall in which participants could be interviewed, assigning an assistant at the seminar to help with questionnaire distribution and collection, and determining how participants to be interviewed would be handed off to researchers after on-stage demonstrations. That Friday evening there was a free, two-hour, public demonstration by the organizers of the Matrix Energetics seminar which appeared to be attended by many of the people who would become participants in the study. Prior to the commencement of the seminar at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 18, 2012, the researchers approached attendees as they came into the seminar room to ask them if they would like to participate in a study and, if they were interested, to give them a copy of the consent letter, which they could read once they were seated. Attendees were instructed to raise their hands once they had read and signed the letter at which time one of the researchers, or the seminar assistant assigned to the research team, put an animal sticker on the back of their name tag, in order to be able to identify them as being in the study, and gave them the pre measures package. A pencil was provided for those who needed one. The completed pre measures package was collected by the researchers or their assistant, or placed in a drop-box by the entrance to the seminar room by the participants themselves. During on-stage demonstrations in the course of the seminar, one of the members of the research team would observe the person on whom the demonstration was being performed and fill out the first behavioral measures checklist. As that person left the stage, it was determined whether or not she was a participant in the study. If not, then there was no further observation of that person. If the person was in the study, then the person was led to the side room for the second set of behavioral measures and the Post-Experience Interview. During practice sessions, in which participants practiced ME techniques on each other, a member of the research team would determine if someone on whom ME was being practiced were a participant in the study and, if so, carry out the same process of observation and interviewing as already described. At the end of the seminar on each of the three days, an announcement was made to ask participants in the study to remain seated in order to fill out the post measures package before leaving the room. The completed questionnaires were picked up by the researchers or their assistant, or placed in the drop-box. Two months after the seminar, on October 18, 2012, participants were sent an e-mail to invite them to log onto a web site in order to fill out the follow-up questionnaire package. This message was repeated on January 11, 2013 in order to have as many participants fill out the follow-up questionnaires as possible. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1074 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Results Of the approximately 280 seminar attendees who were approached, 97 signed the consent letter and 95 completed the pre measures package. Sixteen Behavioral Measures and Post-Experience Interviews were completed on Saturday, 11 on Sunday, and 15 on Monday. Ninety-one post questionnaires were completed on Saturday, 85 on Sunday, and 63 on Monday. And 27 participants accessed the web site to fill out the follow-up questionnaires. Isolated missing values on questionnaires were filled in with the median values, but runs of missing values were left as missing. Also, all of the missing values for the RAND 36-Item Health Survey were left as missing to comply with the scoring procedures for the Health Survey. Sample Characteristics The means for this sample of participants were checked against the published norms for three of the instruments (PI, SPWB, and RAND) using individual z tests as shown in Table 1. In terms of personality, the participants at the ME seminar were higher on Openness and Emotional Stability and lower on Conscientiousness than the norm. For the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, Environmental Mastery was below the norm and Personal Growth was above the norm. The sample scores for the RAND 36-Item Health Survey were numerically above the norms for all scales with higher scores being indicative of better functioning. The three scales with the largest differences for the RAND are shown in Table 1. Table 1. Comparison of Sample against Norms Scale PI SPWB RAND Conscientiousness Emotional Stability Openness Personal Growth Environmental Mastery Physical Functioning Energy/Fatigue General Health n 90 90 90 94 93 95 95 95 Sample Norm Mean SD n Mean SD z p 6.43 1.08 1125 6.74 1.12 –2.61 0.01 6.15 1.65 1125 5.79 1.18 2.03 0.04 7.26 1.34 1125 6.55 1.09 4.90 0.00 17.12 1.74 1108 15.7 2.5 7.28 0.00 14.10 2.86 1108 14.9 2.8 –2.61 0.01 83.97 20.42 2471 70.61 27.42 6.17 0.00 63.00 20.53 2471 52.15 22.39 5.04 0.00 77.22 19.11 2471 56.99 21.11 10.09 0.00 Note. Only scales with individually statistically significant differences between means are shown. In the case of the RAND, only the three scales with the largest differences are shown. The sample data are taken from the pre measures. PI = Personality Inventory; SPWB = Scales of Psychological WellBeing; RAND = RAND 36-Item Health Survey. All p values are two-tailed. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1075 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Long-Term Changes Of the three published instruments used in this study (PI, SPWB, and RAND) only the RAND is designed to be scored as a single scale. Using that total scale, a paired samples t test revealed that overall health was better at the follow-up (M = 81.33; SD = 10.43) than at the time of the pre questionnaires (M = 72.77; SD = 16.15) with t(24) = 3.42, p = .002 (two-tailed). Sixteen participants had improved, five had deteriorated, and four stayed the same. This result should be interpreted with caution given the low response rate at the follow-up. However, there were no differences on the total health score at the time of the pre measures between those who completed the follow-up questionnaires and those who did not (M = 72.93, SD = 15.70 vs. M = 72.35, SD = 18.18; t(93) = -.15, p = .88, two-tailed). Multivariate analysis of variance on the nine individual scales of the RAND was not statistically significant (with Roy’s Largest Root λ = .87, F(9, 14) = 1.35, p = .30). Similarly, neither the changes to SPWB nor PI were statistically significantly different between pre and follow-up (with Roy’s Largest Root λ = .40, F(6, 19) = 1.27, p = .32 and λ = .33, F(5, 17) = 1.12, p = .39, respectively). State of Being The idea with the post measures had been to look at changes from the time that participants arrived at the seminar, at which time the pre measures were taken, until they left. However, we realized that not everyone would be staying for the full three days, nor would they necessarily fill out questionnaires just before leaving the seminar, so participants were given post questionnaires to fill out on Saturday and Sunday as well. With this in mind, in order to make the post data more manageable, only the last post data provided by participants were used unless indicated otherwise. This resulted in an amalgamated post data file using 85 participants’ Monday data, 2 participants’ Sunday data, and 7 participants’ Saturday data for the State of Being and Profundity measures. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used with the State of Being pre data to organize into scales the 17 State of Being items that were common to the three questionnaires. A solution with four clusters was chosen as being the most meaningful. The psychometric characteristics of these scales, k1 to k4, along with the scale consisting of all 17 items, k5, are given in Table 2. The scale k1 is a measure of positivity and attentiveness with items such as “I feel happy right now,” and “I feel present to whatever is happening.” The scale k2 is reflecting transcendence with items such as the reverse scored “There is no reality other than the physical universe,” and “I feel connected to everything that exists.” The scale k3 is a measure of the loss of a sense of solidity with items such as the reverse scored “My body feels physical,” and “The carpet seems to be moving.” The scale k4 consists of the single item “I feel open-minded.” When all 17 items are summed to make up k5, the item “My body feels shaky,” which appears without modification on k3, is reverse scored for k5. The scale k5 can be interpreted as being stable and alert but “high” in the sense of being in a transcendent state of consciousness. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1076 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Table 2. State of Being Scales pre scale # meaning k1 9 attentiveness k2 3 transcendence k3 4 lability k4 1 open-mindedness k5 17 alert high ch 2 change post n α 94 94 94 95 94 95 0.8 51.92 7.43 92 0.6 17.45 3.76 92 0.6 13.09 4.80 91 – 6.57 0.85 93 0.8 91.89 11.66 89 0.9 11.51 2.58 93 M SD n α follow-up SD n α 0.7 51.68 7.11 0.4 18.34 2.74 0.6 16.86 5.36 – 6.42 1.11 0.7 94.33 10.61 0.8 12.44 2.24 25 25 25 25 25 25 0.5 53.28 4.47 0.4 17.60 3.16 0.6 13.76 5.02 – 6.08 1.61 0.7 93.20 10.19 0.9 12.20 2.52 M M SD Note. # refers to the number of items in a scale. A paired samples t test for k5 revealed a statistically significant increase from pre to post with t(86) = 2.74, p = .007 (two-tailed) and Cohen’s d = 0.29. Multivariate analysis of variance for the difference variables from pre to post of k1 to k4 was statistically significant with Roy’s Largest Root λ = .59, F(4, 83) = 12.26, p = .000 and with both k2 and k3 showing statistically significant differences. Paired samples t tests for the changes in k2 and k3 give t(89) = 2.55, p = .012 (twotailed), Cohen’s d = 0.27 for k2 and t(88) = 6.86, p = .000 (two-tailed), Cohen’s d = 0.73 for k3. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance for k1 to k4 at pre, post, and follow-up was not statistically significant with Roy’s Largest Root λ = 1.35, F(8, 15) = 2.54, p = .057. Two items on the pre State of Being Questionnaire were “I expect that something profound will happen to me at this seminar,” and “I expect to feel different as a result of attending this seminar.” On the post State of Being Questionnaire these items read “I feel that something profound has happened to me at this seminar,” and “I feel different as a result of attending this seminar.” At the time of the follow-up questionnaire these items read “I feel that something profound happened to me at the seminar,” and “I feel different as a result of attending the seminar.” At each iteration, both items together were considered to be a scale, ch, with the psychometric properties of that scale given in Table 2. Using a paired-samples t test there was a difference from pre to post, with t(90) = 3.16, p = .002 (two-tailed), Cohen’s d = 0.33. Repeated measures analysis of variance for all three iterations revealed an inverted quadratic relationship with F(1, 23) = 4.35, p = .048, η2 = .16. Hierarchical cluster analysis of the additional 11 evaluation items on the follow-up version of the State of Being Questionnaire yielded two clusters. One of the clusters, called kfo1, had five items with α = .77, and included the item “I am better able to heal myself as a result of the Philadelphia seminar,” and the reverse scored “I feel a let down since the end of the seminar.” The second cluster, called kfo2, has six items, was labeled “high,” had a coefficient α = .87 and included the items “I experienced a ‘high’ for a period of time after the seminar was over,” and “I feel as though I have awakened to reality.” ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1077 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Behavioral Measures A total of 42 observational measures was taken during the seminar, 17 of which were made of demonstrations on the stage and 25 of which were made of practice sessions on the floor. A Behavioral Measures Scale, designated as bm, was created by adding the scores for the first 18 of the 20 items on the Behavioral Measures checklist. The same strategy as was used for the post data was also used for aggregating data from the Behavioral Measures, so that only 36 of a total 42 behavioral observations was used for most data analyses. The mean value for the 36 aggregated observations was 3.94 (SD = 3.22). There was no difference between scale scores for participants who experienced ME on the stage (M = 4.80, SD = 2.76, n = 15) compared to those who experienced ME during the practice sessions (M = 3.33, SD = 3.44, n = 21) with t(34) = 1.37, p = .18 (two-tailed). There were no predictors when bm was regressed on pre scores and there were no statistically significant correlations of bm with any of the pre scores. Examining Item 09 by itself, “Participant fell to the ground,” 22 of the times participants fell to the ground and 20 times they did not. Eleven of those who fell down did so during the stage demonstrations, and 11 fell down while practicing on the floor during practice sessions. There was no difference in frequency between falling down during on-stage demonstrations and falling down during practice sessions on the floor with X2(1) = 1.75 (not significant). Stepwise logistic regression on pre variables using a p-to-enter of .05 for score tests and p-to-remove of .10 for the likelihood ratio statistic gave a single predictor with a median cut of Purpose in Life (B = .33, Wald(1) = 3.92, p = .048; Cox & Snell R2 = .17; Nagelkerke R2 = .23) that can correctly predict falling down 87.5% of the time when participants did fall down and correctly predict the failure to fall down 50% of the time when participants did not fall down. Profundity The Profundity Scale was designed to measure the profundity of specific experiences that occurred for participants at the seminar. When hierarchical cluster analysis was used to organize the 21 items of the post Profundity Scale, a single cluster was revealed. Upon interpreting the cluster, it was decided to use the first 7 items as a scale, p1, the first 14 items as a scale, p2, and all 21 items as a scale, p3, with α = .87 (n = 92), α = .86 (n = 92), and α = .83 (n = 91) respectively. The items on scale p1, along with corrected item-total correlations, are given in Table 3. The scale p2 added items such as “I felt a wavelike sensation go through my body,” “My perception of space changed during this experience,” “I now realize there are aspects of reality of which I was not previously aware,” and “I felt a sense of unity with everything that exists.” The scale p3 added items such as “I cannot adequately express what just happened,” and the reverse scored “What I experienced was not outside the realm of my ordinary everyday experience.” These same scales were also used to interpret the interview data. Because of its clarity of meaning, only the scale p1 was used for most analyses. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1078 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Table 3. Profundity Scale p1 Variable POLA10 POLA11 POLA13 POLA14 POLA15 POLA16 POLA19 Item This experience was profound. During this experience, I felt that my existence became more meaningful. During this experience, I had a sense of the sacred. During this experience, I was in an altered state of consciousness. What I experienced was spiritual in nature. The word “transcendent” could be used to describe this experience. This experience brought me closer to the truth. r .69 .73 .62 .59 .69 .72 .60 Note. r is corrected item-total correlation. Normalized versions of the scale scores p1, p2, and p3 were created by dividing through by the number of items for each scale. The resultant mean scores, both for the post data and the interview data, were greater than the constant value of 4 (“not sure”). In particular, the normalized p1 had values of M = 5.68 (SD = 1.12, t(91) = 14.34, p = .000, two-tailed) for the post data and M = 5.42 (SD = 0.96, t(35) = 8.88, p = .000, two-tailed) for the interview data. In fact, for the normalized p1, the means in both cases were greater than 5 (“slightly agree”) with t(91) = 5.80, p = .000 (two-tailed) and t(35) = 2.63, p = .013 (two-tailed) respectively. From these data, it would appear that at least some participants at the seminar are reporting having had somewhat meaningful, profound, spiritual experiences in altered states of consciousness. In order to understand the profundity scale, it is instructive to look at correlations of some of the other variables with profundity shown in Table 4. For instance, there is a negative correlation of p1 with Environmental Mastery. One of the three Environmental Mastery items is “In general, I feel that I am in charge of the situation in which I live.” Being in charge is usually antithetical to experiencing profound states of consciousness (Barušs, 2003) so such a negative correlation would be expected for those scoring high on profundity. The correlations with the State of Being Questionnaire are not surprising given that whatever experience participants had had during the day could carry over to the end-of-day query. The correlations with the two follow-up scales suggest that if something profound happened, that that was not transient, but still memorably profound at the time of the follow-up. Participants appeared to be having more profound experiences during the practice sessions than on stage with M = 40.05 (SD = 5.06, n = 21) during the practice sessions and M = 35.00 (SD = 7.76, n = 15) on the stage, with t(22.36) = –2.21, p = .038 (two-tailed; unequal variances). Profundity increased during the course of the seminar with values of p1 rising from M = 36.69 (SD = 8.00, n = 90) on Saturday, to M = 39.33 (SD = 7.00, n = 85) on Sunday, to M = 40.46 (SD = 7.49, n = 62) on Monday, with repeated measures analysis of variance giving a value of λ = .38 for Roy’s Largest Root (F(2, 58) = 11.04, p = .000) and a statistically significant linear withinsubjects contrast with F(1, 59) = 22.42, p = .000. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1079 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey Table 4. Correlations of the Profundity Scale p1 with Various Variables Time pre post follow-up Variable age number of ME seminars attended SPWB: environmental mastery ch: expected change SBPR28: “. . . miracles do not really happen.” k2: transcendence k3: lability k4: open-mindedness k5: alert high increase in k3, lability, pre to post increase in k5, alert high, pre to post ch: experienced change kfo2: high n 89 90 89 90 90 91 90 92 89 88 87 24 24 r –0.27 0.26 –0.21 0.25 –0.23 0.29 0.39 0.22 0.31 0.24 0.23 0.65 0.54 p 0.012 0.013 0.050 0.018 0.032 0.005 0.000 0.036 0.003 0.023 0.036 0.001 0.007 Note. The full text for Item SBPR28 is “Even though it would be nice if it were so, miracles do not really happen.” The question arises whether profundity is correlated with changes to any of the long-term measures, such as changes in physical well-being. The answer is almost no. Change in the personality measure of Openness has a correlation of r = .45 (p = .043, two-tailed, n = 21) with p1 although Openness does not increase from pre to follow-up with M = 7.26 (SD = 1.34, n = 90) at pre and M = 7.42 (SD = 0.83, n = 24) at follow-up, and paired samples t test giving t(21) = 1.81, p = .084 (two-tailed). This correlation was not mirrored in the k4 scale consisting of the single item “I feel open-minded” which had a correlation of r = –.28 (p = .19, n = 24) with p1. Hence this finding should be interpreted with caution. Using stepwise multiple linear regression to predict p1 from the pre measures gave a solution with R2 = .14, F(2, 65) = 5.27, p = .008 for two predictors: b1* = –.31 for age and b1* = –.24 for SBPR28. In other words, those having more profound experiences are younger and believe that miracles can happen. However, this only accounted for 14% of the variance in the profundity measure. There were no significant changes to humility nor was humility a significant predictor for any of the other measures. Interview Data There was a total of 42 interviews in which participants described what had just occurred to them as a result of being recipients of ME. The interviews were transcribed verbatim from the original audio ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1080 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey files without editing. There was no effort to formally analyze any of the transcribed texts nor any of the written comments. For both the interview data and the written comments, selections are given here to present the variety of what participants said about their experience and not the frequency of what was said. In only two cases, participants reported dysphoric experiences, one in an interview, and one in a written comment. Both of those are included below. Participant 05: “I experienced a wave while my partner was working on me. My body just spontaneously swaying and then I would, what I call, lose my body and I would just go . . . into my head it felt like. It is very, very, very peaceful and I see a celestial light like its glowing from the inside with occasionally threads of gold. It is just very peaceful and a lovely, lovely spot.” Female, 45, registered nurse, bm = 2, p1 = 45. Participant 11: “. . . it almost felt like really gentle rain sort of coming down into my body and gravity. . . . My body just released and I went to the floor. Somebody helped me on the floor. I felt . . ., and still feel, . . . my heart beat actually increase and I . . . feel more heat in my face. I felt my blood moving. I feel tingly in my arms and my fingers and I feel more like I am the space and less that I end at the edge of my body . . . and very peaceful and I’m really aware of just being in a sea of sounds. I'm just floating. It's really nice.” Female, 57, acupuncturist, bm = 4, p1 = 44. Participant 19: Interviewer: “Now, what happened when Richard played the guitar?” Participant: “Oh, I had been wanting to learn how to play the ukulele for a long, long time and I just resonated with, for some reason, that chord that he played. He knew to play that chord and then I could just feel it all up my spine. When I was leaned over towards the floor — in what did he call it? The elephant something stance — I could feel the energy coming up my spine and especially stretching out on the right side for some reason. There was a major shift in the way my physical body felt on the right side. And when she pointed to my mouth that was a little bit too close since I had had a root canal yesterday. It feels much better now.” Interviewer: “Oh, really? It does? And before that you were in pain?” Participant: “I was fantasizing about an Advil, but not anymore!” Female, 57, potter, bm = 3, p1 = 40. Participant 21: “As soon as I got up, I felt like I had a headache. . . . So I don't have a headache right now. I feel very relaxed. I felt relaxed before, but it’s a different state, if that makes any sense.” Female, 24, clinician, bm = 8, p1 = 39. Participant 33: “Letting go in a way that I don't usually do. . . . It was just very quick and like an unraveling. It was very quick, I don't even know what she did. . . . It’s involuntary. . . . It just happens and you just go with it. You have a choice but also you don't have a choice.” Female, 45, Office Worker, bm = 6, p1 = 43. Participant 51: “. . . In my brain as I was coming up to the stage and while I was there I was thinking I'm not going to lie down or anything like that. Then it's difficult to describe it got all wonky. . . . It was kind of funny observing . . . what was happening to me. . . . In a way it was like stepping out of one reality and coming into another one . . .. Then I kind of went down onto the ground. . . . It became very funny at that point . . .. Have you ever seen . . . any drawings by M.C. Escher? . . . So ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1081 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey there is one drawing that he did that . . . what’s the ground depending on where he is in that drawing is, it can be at right angle, it can be kind of at a different angle, and where all these different angles are ground, like where people are standing or sitting. . . . And so then I've got my back on the floor and the people on the stage are they’re like at right angles, like gravity is at a 90 degree pitch from where I am, and then they’re looking down at the people that are out in the audience. . . . For me it was like a complete shift in . . . my perspective. I looked at something from a completely different angle.” Male, 56, project manager, bm = 5, p1 = 27. Participant 54: “[Falling over] is like a letting go. You get soft and so that yields, it's like a yielding feeling. And then, as I was even lying down I felt like patterns unraveling. . . . I felt like I've been constructing in a way . . .. I feel like it’s unraveling, like a deconstruction in a way. . . . I was very conscious and present to what was going on.” Female, 51, unknown occupation, bm = 4, p1 = 30. Written Comments There was a total of 457 written comments. These are presented as written, with editorial changes in square brackets. Most memorable experience. Participant 03: “When [another participant] did ME on me during practice session, I did not specify a malady. However, when she touched my right knee started to pop like popcorn – went on for quite a while. I have had arthritis in my right knew for a while. I feel taller now.” Participant 12: “Also earlier today I was in a small group and started to feel like the whole room was spinning. It was not pleasant.” Participant 17: “My daughter was called up on stage. She was a true sceptic. They Time traveled her back to before birth. I was in a very Bad car accident in my 7th month with her. It amazed me they knew!! (she may have been hurt then).” Participant 66: “Back pain completely gone had to take pain pills every 4 hrs.” Two-month follow-up effects. Participant 30: “Following the seminar I felt clearer and more ‘connected.’ This feeling remained stable for a couple of weeks before dying off somewhat. However there were some shifts that seemed to be permanent - a greater awareness of the metaphysical aspects of reality and more solidity/strength within my body.” Participant 54: “Although I was up on stage and was just freshly operated on for carpal tunnel, I don't feel it had particular benefits or effects on that as I am still getting physio for it.” Participant 76: “I was absolutely transformed by the Philadelphia Matrix Energetics seminar. I read a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1082 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey lot of books about consciousness and the nature of reality but to actually experience Richard's seminar first hand and observe the effects that were taking place was an amazing experience. I was actually called up to the stage and felt the wave of ‘energy’ through my body and noticed positive improvements in my health afterwards. It was very rewarding.” Change in total RAND: 13.33. Discussion Something was happening to people at the ME seminar. And whatever it was that was happening, appears to have been beneficial. The average total health score improved from pre to follow-up, when such health scores are known to be stable or to decline with time. However, this finding should be interpreted with caution given the small number of participants who responded at the time of the follow-up, thereby introducing a sampling problem. In other words, those whose health declined may have chosen not to respond or been unable to respond due to poor health. Also, it is not clear that the seminar was the cause of the increase in well-being, given that people who were trying to be healthier could have gone to the seminar as one of a number of strategies that they were using for trying to improve their health. It is unlikely that participants were inflating values to make ME look good, given that they were unlikely to remember their initial responses and given that there were no correlations of the changes to total health scores with any of the personality and psychological well-being scales. For instance, those who were less conscientious or were less autonomous did not have greater changes in their total health scores than those who were more conscientious or more autonomous. There were only two reports of dysphoric experiences during the seminar, both of which have been included above. It is possible that participants were reluctant to report negative experiences so that they are under-represented in this study. In some cases, there appears to have been no change in a person’s physical condition during the seminar. But there were also many cases of reported physical or psychological improvement, in some cases, dramatically so. Overall, it would appear that the seminar had beneficial effects on attendees. Alteration of Consciousness It is interesting that participants changed more at post than they thought that they would change when asked at pre, as measured by ch, although being changed more than they thought that they would be did not statistically carry over to the follow-up. The pre to post change suggests that something unexpected happened during the seminar to some of the participants. What was that? The state of being scale k5, alert high, increased from pre to post. In particular the pre to post changes in k2, transcendence, and k3, lability, indicate that participants tended to lose their sense of the solidity of reality and their physical isolation, and tended to gain a sense of metaphysical plasticity and an immaterial connection to everything that exists. Scores on the profundity scales provide some characterization of the kinds of experiences that participants were having at the seminar. The scale p1 is a scale that measures self-perceived depth of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1083 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey profundity, spirituality, transcendence, meaning, knowledge, and alteration of consciousness. Increase in meaning is a core existential value and appears to have occurred for some of the participants at the seminar. There has been a tendency in contemporary scientific research to demote numinous experiences such as these to the incidental sporadic firing of some neural circuitry. That is neither logically justified nor helpful. The numinous remains the numinous, whatever its neural correlates, providing the person exposed to it with meaning that was perhaps previously missing (Barušs, 1996; 2014; Pearson, 2014; see also Auld & Bailey, 2014). The correlations given in Table 4 help to provide concurrent validity for the profundity scales. In particular, k2, k3, k4, and k5 are all positively correlated with profundity, indicating that those having more profound experiences were also those who experienced feelings of transcendence and lability, and perceived themselves to be open-minded. In spite of the drop in ch from post to follow-up, those with more profound experiences during the seminar were more likely to report having experienced change and to still be positively affected by the seminar for some time after its termination. There seems to be a practice effect present so that experience with ME is associated with more profound experiences as seen from the increase in profundity scores during the seminar and from the correlation with the number of seminars previously attended. Being younger, having less sense of control over one’s environment, expecting change to occur, and believing that miracles can occur, were all correlated with more profound experiences, although being younger and believing that miracles can occur by themselves take up the variance in profundity attributed to those variables. Somatic Sensations Reading the interview transcripts and comments, as well as examining the behavioral measures, reveals the extent to which participants experienced somatic sensations during the seminar. There was such a range of different sensations that it is difficult to summarize them. Some of the experiences that participants had were clearly out of the ordinary. Frequently they were identified as being synchronous, such as the significance for Participant 19 of a chord played on a guitar by Richard Bartlett or the termination of the time travel technique to a time before birth when the woman’s mother, Participant 17, had been in an automobile accident. It is not clear whether any anomalous phenomena occurred; the study was not designed to make those determinations. About half of the time that behavioral measures were taken for participants as they experienced ME, they fell to the ground. It is not clear why. The comment by Participant 11, “My body just released and I went to the floor,” does not answer the question. Why was the “release” so profound that the person could not stay on her feet? Or Participant 51: “it got all wonky . . . it was like stepping out of one reality and coming into another one.” The world as we know it just seems to give way and we find ourselves in a reality in which we fall down. The somatic sensations, falling down, and synchronous events, all need further research. There was no difference in the number of people falling down during stage demonstrations or during practice sessions on the floor, nor was there a difference in the behavioral measures scores between the stage and the floor. Somewhat counterintuitively perhaps, profundity scores were higher for participants experiencing ME during the practice sessions than participants experiencing ME during ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1084 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey demonstrations on stage. It is possible that the researchers selected participants in a biased manner, although it is not clear how they would have recognized greater profundity at the outset when the selections were made. It is also possible that participants felt more at ease in the practice sessions which could have contributed to higher profundity scores. Also, participants having more profound experiences during the seminar might have been more willing to talk to researchers when they were approached on the floor, thereby skewing the results. There were no predictors for who would experience somatic sensations as measured by the total score on the Behavioral Measures. Purpose in Life was the single, statistically significant predictor of falling down, although not a particularly good one. What is interesting is that none of the State of Being Scales predicted falling down. In other words, the people who fell down were not more likely to be those who were more attentive, or more labile, or more open. The falling down was independent of such obvious potential predictors and suggests that whatever was happening was more nuanced than it might at first appear to be. In particular, there is no evidence from our data that falling down is just the result of compliance or hypnosis and thus it certainly deserves more study. Conclusion Participants at the ME seminar at which these data were gathered were sometimes experiencing alterations of consciousness. It is not clear whether that is due to the ME techniques or to nonspecific factors associated with attending the seminar or a combination of both. However, these alterations are associated with meaningfulness, an increased sense of transcendence, and increased psychological lability, but, overall, no lack of attentiveness to whatever is happening in the moment, as suggested by the State of Being scale “alert high.” Participants appear to be experiencing reality as being more plastic than we ordinarily assume it to be while in an attentive, expanded, and emotionally positive state of being. These alterations of consciousness should be further investigated as should the potential therapeutic benefits of experiencing ME. Note: Carolyn van Lier is now at The Westin Grand Cayman Seven Mile Beach Resort and Spa, Grand Cayman Island; Diana Ali is now at Family Service Thames Valley, London, Ontario, Canada. This paper is based in part on an undergraduate thesis in psychology written by Carolyn van Lier for the Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, supervised by Imants Barušs, and in part on an undergraduate thesis in psychology written by Diana Ali for the Department of Psychology, King’s University College at The University of Western Ontario, supervised by Imants Barušs. This research was supported by King’s University College and Medical Technology (W. B.) Inc. Funding sources were not involved in any way in the design, execution, or reporting of this research. The authors thank Richard Bartlett and Melissa Joy Jonsson for providing access to the Philadelphia ME seminar for research purposes, Kasha Herba for helping to design the study and gather data at the seminar, Arwen Sweet for data entry, Rebecca Curcio for amalgamating data, Canaan Legault for checking the statistics, and Shannon Foskett for literature searches, critical comments, and proofreading. The authors are grateful to Carol Ryff for permission to use the Scales of Psychological Well-Being. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1064-1086 1085 Barušs, I., van Lier, C. & Ali, D., Alterations of Consciousness at a Self-Development Seminar: A Matrix Energetics Seminar Survey References Auld, A. & Bailey, S. (March 16, 2014). Psychiatrists see increase in suicidal teenagers. Toronto Star, p. A3. 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Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 164 Article A Simple Model of Memes Cyd Ropp* ABSTRACT Memes are the cultural expressions of societies, and their content is information. Memes, in other words, are the “stuff” of symbolic thought. The importance of memes in the simple explanation philosophy is that a huge part of our personality is shaped by the memes we collect and hold onto. The otherwise pristine nature of our underlying fractal units of consciousness is affected by the memes we hold dear, as well as the memes we despise. We enjoy memes we approve of and we are repelled by memes we disapprove of. The Sanskrit word for these provocative memes is samskara. Samskara is traditionally defined in Yogic philosophy as the habitual thought patterns collected by the ego that interferes with soul consciousness. Key Words: memes, model, information, cultural expression, consciousness, sociology, psychology. Memes are the cultural expressions of societies, and their content is information. In human societies, memes are often propagated through mass media such as magazines, films, and the internet in addition to word of mouth and tradition. Every discrete concept, mythology, or icon is a meme. “The Beatles” is a meme. Andy Warhol’s iconic poster of Marilyn Monroe is a meme. Football is a meme. Patriotism is a meme—all “ism”s are memes. “The Cross” and “The Crescent” are memes. “Loyalty” and “Honesty” are memes. Indeed, each and every particular idea that a person can know is a meme. Even basic concepts like “chair” and “mother” are memes. Memes, in other words, are the “stuff” of symbolic thought. Some memes are held in common by most human cultures—the wheel; the ideal model of a caring family; archetypal heroes and villains like the Wise Sage and the Shadow; even universal human values such as liberty and safety. Other memes are exclusive to their particular culture. This especially applies to memes dealing with local traditions, religions, politics, and regional myths. Humans are not the only units of consciousness affected by memes. All social aggregations of UCs propagate and utilize memes. Cats, for example, bury their waste because there is a strong waste-burying meme that resonates in all cats. “Dog is man’s best friend” is a shared meme chord continually re-propagated and reenacted by both humans and dogs. “Flying in formation is awesome” may well be a goose meme. Memes can be described as energetic waves of cultural information patterns fueled by repetition or starved by lack of usage. As wave forms, each meme has a distinct vibratory signature, akin to *Correspondence: Cyd Ropp, PhD, Independent Researcher. http://asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com E-mail: cropp7@hotmail.com Also see: Ropp, C. A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything (Bluebird Books/lulu.com: Encinitas, 2012-2015). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 165 a musical note. Each individual meme can be likened to a string on society’s harp. A single meme is like a single note. A group of related memes is like a chord. In the example above, "America" is one meme chord and each line is a meme or complex set of memes that contributes to that chord. Each meme chord vibrates to the particular concepts that make it up. UCs who share the same memes are like members of a choir cloaked in the robes of their common meme chords, all vibrating in unison with one another. We are not all affected by the same memes. Most memes pass us by unnoticed. A meme must be either instinctually acquired (through prenatal karma) or learned in order to be invoked by a unit of consciousness. Once a UC does acquire a meme, it becomes a part of that UC’s unique vibratory bundle. If the UC does not wish to continue holding that meme’s string in its personal bundle of memes and chords, it must detach the string from its grasp. Some memes are easy to detach because they do not fit in with the UC’s overall bundle of strings and chords. One may, for example, forget the details of a foreign film as soon as it is over because its memes do not bond well with the movie-goer’s personal meme bundle. Some memes are very difficult to detach once they are acquired because their vibratory pattern is so intense—the glamorous seduction of the cigarette or the chemical allure of the crack pipe, for example. Emotionally evocative memes such as victimhood or jealousy are difficult to detach due to the intense synergistic coupling of thoughts and emotion. In general, unwanted memes must be detached through an effort of will, either through conscious disuse or by trading for a competing, more desirable meme. The Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step meme chord, for example, has successfully replaced alcoholic meme patterns for millions of drinkers. Another way to detach memes is through advanced meditation techniques whereby the meditator learns to suspend and disassociate from language and habitual patterns of thought. In Hinduism as well as Buddhism, complete meme detachment results in the state of nirvikalpa,true Enlightenment. “Undifferentiated cognition” is another reference to this blissful, meme-free state. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 166 A unit of consciousness may pick up entire chords of associated memes, but it is also common to pick and choose from among a chord’s individual strings. “Happy Marriage,” for example, is a complex meme chord that means different things to different people, depending upon their personal selection of particular strings. One prospective couple may resonate to the “Big Wedding” meme and so expect to invoke that meme at the outset of the Happy Marriage. Another couple may not be holding on to that memetic string and so do not need or want a big wedding. For most couples, the Happy Marriage chord includes children; other couples do not resonate to the offspring meme, so no children are necessary. For many couples, the “Bouncing Baby” meme may be adequately invoked by the “Man’s Best Friend” dog meme. So, while we all have an idea of what “Happy Marriage” means, we each hold a slightly different set of memes that define it. But the bottom line to marital bliss must begin with a couple’s shared and harmonious meme chords. The memes we cling to are like strings obscuring our Self UC. The importance of memes to the Simple Explanation philosophy is that a huge part of our personality is shaped by the memes we collect and hold onto. The otherwise pristine nature of our underlying fractal units of consciousness is affected by the memes we hold dear, as well as the memes we despise. We enjoy memes we approve of and we are repelled by memes we disapprove of. The Sanskrit word for these provocative memes is samskara. Samskara is traditionally defined in Yogic philosophy as the habitual thought patterns collected by the ego that interfere with soul consciousness. The memes each of us cling to, both those we like and those we actively dislike, influence our ability to exercise free will in the here and now. When we unthinkingly lock onto a meme or set of memes, it is our belief in those memes that determines how we interpret and respond to our surroundings. Our response may or may not be the best response to a given situation, but it is the only response allowed for by our particular meme bundle. In other words, our meme bundles function as incoming and outgoing filters. Literary theorist and philosopher Kenneth Burke called this meme filter a “terministic screen” situated between each person and reality, bothselecting and deflecting their perception of the world. Burke said this terministic screen was activated during information exchanges with others and within oneself during self-talk. The filter of our terministic screen blocks unacceptable memes from affecting our comfortable perception of reality. We see this phenomenon at play every day on the interpersonal level. For example, Person A, whose meme bundle includes a belief that others are "out to get me," will interpret events in a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 167 manner that reinforces that meme. The most innocent statement on Person B’s part will activate Person A's "out to get me" meme, even when no such insult was intended or even imagined by Person B. Clearly, Person A's ego is hurt by A’s own meme attachment, not by Person B. The same meme-filtering mechanism holds true for groups in the form of cultural ideologies, complex bundles of memes shared by members of a group. What is and isn’t allowed in the minds of members is determined by which memes are included and which are excluded from the group’s ideological meme chord. Because of this, information exchanged between members of different cultures will resonate more strongly with the sender’s memes than with the receiver’s memes. For example, when an American speaks of “free and democratic elections,” his or her memetic definitions for “free” and “democratic” may differ radically from someone’s of another culture. The extent to which communication may occur between cultures is determined by the permeability of each culture’s terministic screens, and the extent to which they are open to foreign memes. Another example of delimiting memes occurs during problem-solving. The more tightly held one's memes are, the fewer solutions will present themselves. If you think only a hammer will drive a nail, you will not even consider the flat side of the heavy wrench lying nearby. If a group thinks outsiders are untrustworthy, then they will not trust any outsider. The ability to consider solutions "outside the box" and to engage in "lateral thinking" comes about through nonattachment to the "shoulds" and "oughts" of how things work. One must be willing to set aside treasured beliefs in order to perceive memes outside one's own bundle and thereby discover fresh solutions. Thinking outside the Box ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 168 Institutional Memes As an individual UC’s personality is defined by its unique meme bundle, so, too, institutions are defined by their sets of treasured memes.Memes are even more important to an institution than are its members in the sense that members come and go, but memes persist. As President John F. Kennedy put it, “People may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” Each and every cultural institution we belong to (family, workplace, church, mosque, tribe, nation, and so on) not only comes with its own bundle of shared memes held in common by its members, it also comes with a filter, Burke’s terministic screen, that limits members from acknowledging or adopting ideologically incompatible_memes. Institutions are defined as much by their excluded memes as they are by their included memes. An exclusive institution holds tightly to the identity provided by its current memes; its border is strong and its filter is powerful. An inclusive institution allows members more latitude in the memes they may hold--its border is less defended, its filter less opaque. An "open-minded" institution allows that there may be memes out there in the larger culture of value; its filter is more permeable. Conservative institutions hold tightly onto their memes, which are usually formally codified into law. Whether embodied in the rulings of a Supreme Court or issued by a Tribal Chief, these reckoning rods declare the boundaries of the institution’s acceptable memes and are the mirrors by which members define themselves as part of this group rather than that. Progressive institutions, on the other hand, hold an overarching “inclusive” meme that requires an open and permeable meme boundary that can accommodate diversity of thought and expression. Because of this inclusivity value, open institutions look to their members as living sources of shared memes in preference to codified documents or singular authority figures. President John F. Kennedy presents a good example of a progressive politician who valued others’ meme. Witness: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 169 As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. – John F. Kennedy in his Yale University commencement address (New Haven, Connecticut: June 11, 1962), 5:106:08 “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ― John F. Kennedy “What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” ― John F. Kennedy Exoteric and Esoteric Religious Memes As it is with all groups, the public image of a religious institution is defined by the memes held by or rejected by the members of that institution. The specific "doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs" are the sets of memes commonly held to be true within a given religion, and the specifics of these memes vary from institution to institution. These public memes are known as exoteric memes, and they are easily identified and fairly well understood by most of the institution’s members. Many exoteric religious memes are shared by members of diverse religions. Religions generally share, for example, belief in an overarching "God" meme chord, and generally agree on many of the lesser-included memes that make up the God chord, such as memes concerning God's omniscience and omnipotence, and the importance of communing with God in prayer. In Exodus and again in Deuteronomy, the first four of the Ten Commandments lay out the basic God meme of Judaism. The key God meme, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, is known as the “Shema”: "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Agreement on this basic God chord was so important to the early Hebrews that they were instructed to teach them diligently to their children, to talk of them while sitting in the house, when walking, when lying down, and then again first thing upon rising. They were also instructed to bind the memes to their hands, on their foreheads between the eyes, and to their gateposts and doors. These containers are known as phylacteries, and they hold within them fundamental Hebrew memes. In the Christian faith, the “Apostles’ Creed,” professed by most denominations, states the basic Christian memes regularly recited in unison, out loud, by all believers, beginning with, “I believe ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 170 in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;” and ending with acknowledgment of belief in “the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.” “Born-again” Christians go one step further than the Apostle’s Creed in their emphasis of public affirmation of the meme that Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior. Enactment of the “Born-again” meme requires a watershed moment of personal surrender, without which one is not considered “saved” from sin, death, and damnation. For Muslims, the “Shahada” summarizes the key memes that must be professed to be counted a Muslim: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet.” And beyond this basic belief are more key memes. According to the Muslim Voices website, “Someone who becomes a Muslim is also agreeing to accept the six articles of faith in Islam as well as the Five Pillars of the faith.” Unlike these biblical Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious memes with which most Americans are more or less familiar, Hinduism is an ancient religious tradition with “fuzzy” memes that are difficult to define and exceedingly diffuse. Hinduism is an inclusive religion that allows each member to pick and choose from any number of religious memes as they see fit. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India’s first Vice President and a respected theologian, defined Hinduism as a process rather than a meme set. He said, "Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition that cannot be defined but is only to be experienced.” Wikipedia puts it thusly: Prominent themes (i.e. memes) in Hindu beliefs include (but are not restricted to), Dharma (ethics/duties), Samsara (The continuing cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth), Karma (action and subsequent reaction), Moksha (liberation from samsara), and the various Yogas (paths or practices). Hinduism grants absolute and complete freedom of belief and worship. Hinduism conceives the whole world as a single family that deifies the one truth, and therefore it accepts all forms of beliefs and dismisses labels of distinct religions which would imply a division of identity. Hence, Hinduism is devoid of the concepts of apostasy, heresy and blasphemy. Most Hindus believe in a God meme, Brahma, “Lord of Creation,” but one can be an atheist and still join this most inclusive religion. Because there are no required memes, there is no apostasy, heresy, or blasphemy. Taoism is both a philosophy and a religious tradition. As a philosophy, Taoism’s memes primarily stem from an ancient Chinese book called the Tao te Ching. Tao means way, path, or principle, hence the Book of the Way presents memes by which one may live in harmony with natural order. Religious Taoism adds ancestor worship and local traditions and customs, such as divination practices, to the basic philosophical meme chord. Buddhism is an exception to the rule in that it does not hold an explicit God meme. This is largely because its founder, Siddhartha Gautama, aka “the Buddha” or “Enlightened One,” realized his central meme to be “Avoidance of Suffering” and not “Worship of God.” All Buddhist practice and philosophy stems from this single “Avoidance of Suffering” meme chord, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 171 referred to as the “Four Noble Truths”: 1. Everyone suffers; 2. Craving causes suffering; 3. Suffering ends when craving ends; 4. Liberation is possible by doing what the Buddha did—by practicing meditation. This is why the Buddha is usually depicted as sitting and meditating. The Buddha himself is not considered a deity but a human guide, an exemplar one who tried and failed at various religious practices until finally achieving liberation through meditation. Another common meme chord shared by all religions is the importance of leading a moral life, although, as with all memes, the exact details of what it means to be “moral” may differ. However, the “Golden Rule” seems to be one universal moral meme common to all religions’ chords. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Morality is a different meme than the “God” meme, so, despite the usual conflation of the God meme chord with the Morality meme, the Morality meme may be held and successfully deployed without reference to any particular religion. In that case, Morality becomes part of the meme chord called Ethics and is considered necessary for the smooth operation of civil society. Despite the many memes religions have in common, it is the exoteric memes they do not share-memes of saints and saviors, official histories, and other idiosyncratic, traditional beliefs--that define them and set them apart. It is the memes they do not share that give rise to the world’s diverse religions, denominations, and sects. People generally stick with comfortable, habitual memes, and are somewhat disinterested in acquiring others’ unfamiliar memes. Esoteric memes are less well-known than exoteric memes because they are either so difficult to understand that only advanced devotees can manage, or because they are secrets purposely withheld from all but an inner circle of believers. Secret esoteric memes would include Temple rites and other priestly rituals, and hidden texts that only a select few are allowed to see. The Simple Explanation differentiates between the intentional withholding of secret memes, and memes that are authentically esoteric. Truly esoteric memes are not secrets withheld from the many and only shared with a few. Authentic esoterica is information that can be personally accessed by any individual, and in that sense is “hidden” only until the individual decides to access it. Yet, despite the free availability of these esoteric memes, relatively few people seek them out. The good news is that no one can withhold true "communion of the soul with God" from you. This is because there are no particular memes that must be collected in order to reach God, but rather the opposite—memes must be lost. By letting go of habitual memes, one’s governing UC intuitively aligns itself with the metaversal principles embodied by the Universal UC. During these periods of alignment, "firsthand knowledge of Reality" may be glimpsed. In Sanskrit, this intuitive glimpse is calledsamadhi. When one is able to sustain the meme-suspended state, this is called nirvikalpa samadhi—beyond duality. If one adopts the Simple Explanation's definition of meme-based vs. intuitive knowledge, then esoteric knowledge of God is truly available to any and every seeker at all times. The only ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 172 limitation is one’s willingness to suspend egoic attachment to one’s meme bundle long enough for the governing UC to align with the Universal UC. When all memes are set aside, when thought and language are suspended, one's governing UC remains. This seminal fractal unit of consciousness, the soul, lies beneath the memes. Unencumbered by meme attachments, the person's governing UC aligns with the Universal UC. This condition is called "bliss" in Buddhist and Yogic teachings. "Be still and know that I am God" is how the Bible says it (Psalm 46:10). Verse 16 of the Tao Te Ching says, "Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity," (J. Star translation). To "be still" is to suspend attachment. Intuitive knowledgecomes during the still point between the pendulum swings of breath and thought. To "be still" is how we hear God. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) taught his followers a “scientific,” Kriya yoga technique reputed to reverse a meditator’s life energy flow away from the body and its distracting sense impressions, redirecting it inward and up through the “third eye,”known as the KutathsaChaitanya or Christ Consciousness location between the eyebrows. When mastered, this meditation technique is said to allow direct, intuitive knowledge of "God" or "Reality" – samadhi in Sanskrit. The Simple Explanation calls this a “meme-shedding” technique. The following quote from Paramahansa’s discussion of John 3:1-8 introduces the Kriya meme of what it truly means to be "born again": All bona fide revealed religions of the world are based on intuitive knowledge. Each has an exoteric or outer particularity, and an esoteric or inner core. The exoteric aspect is the public image, and includes moral precepts and a body of doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs to guide the general populace of its followers. The esoteric aspect includes methods that focus on actual communion of the soul with God. The exoteric aspect is for the many; the esoteric is for the ardent few. It is the esoteric aspect of religion that leads to intuition, the firsthand knowledge of Reality. (p.240, vol.1) (The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. Paramahansa Yogananda, 2004. Self-Realization Fellowship) The next quote is in reference to Verses 3-4 in the Bhagavad Gita: The life of a scientific yogi, is therefore more balanced. He understands and follows those laws and principles of Nature by which he sees God as the All in all, and thereby consciously releases himself from the limitations of personal attachments to property and relatives and friends, serving the Lord in all human beings irrespective of their creed, race, or condition. By various methods of concentrations, he gradually detaches his ego from the senses and attaches his life force, mind, and ego to the superconscious soul. Then by primary ecstasy he experiences the Kutastha Intelligence in all creation, and by nirvikalpa ecstasy he attains the Spirit beyond phenomena.” (p.842, vol.2) (God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita. Paramahansa Yogananda, 1999. SelfRealization Fellowship) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 173 A Simple Explanation of Christianity’s Memes By this point in the theory, you’ve been introduced to a number of Simple Explanation memes, and we’re building up a nice-sized meme chord of shared definitions. We have taken a brief tour of exoteric and esoteric religious memes and the roles these memes play within various religious traditions. We have also learned that several major religious traditions advocate shedding memes as a way of uniting with God, an anti-meme usually called “enlightenment.” We are now prepared to take a longer look at Christianity utilizing memes from the Simple Explanation philosophy—a practical exercise in translation between one tradition’s meme chord and another’s. If you are already versed in Christian memes, then here is a way you can make sense of the Simple Explanation using familiar terminology. If, on the other hand, you are less familiar with Christianity’s meme chord, this translation may help you understand a few of its major memes. When the model speaks of “the metaverse,” this can be thought of as the Simple Explanation’s fundamental God meme—what the Bible calls God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth. Prior to creating Heaven and Earth, the original ground state of God was an eternally omnipresent, utterly peaceful consciousness: “I AM WHO I AM,” (Exodus 3:14). When the model says the metaverse “quivered with every organizing principle needed to shape and sustain space and time, energy and mass,” this is God the Son, also called “The Word,” referred to in the Simple Explanation as the "Universal UC" or “Universal Consciousness.” “In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God.” In the original New Testament Greek, “The Word” is written as Logos, meaning information and principles of organization—The Law. The Sanskrit word for Universal Consciousness is chit. The Simple Explanation credits The Word with not only the memes of Biblical Law, but with all the working Laws of the Universe including physics and math. Prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, Savior, his primary role was Logos, “God’s Law.” Jesus materially embodied the principles of Logos on Earth. Jesus said, “Do not think I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it” (Matthew 5:17). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 174 When the model says that consciousness wrapped itself around our universe and took on a shape, this is God the Holy Spirit, “ananada” in Sanskrit, meaning “joy.” The Simple Explanation calls this joyful aspect of God the Primordial or Originating Fractal. At the macro scale, the Holy Spirit surrounds our physical space, forming a membrane of consciousness, chit, that holds creation in and the metaverse out. This “shape” of God’s mind is the Universal Unit of Consciousness that knows all there is to know about everything. At the micro level, the Simple Explanation describes the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in terms of fractal offspring of the Universal UC within every created thing. Thus, the universe is pervaded by joy, from the smallest atom to the highest heights. (Source/Credit: InnerSense, Inc.) The Simple Explanation depicts the Holy Spirit as a torus instead of the more familiar dove. When the Bible speaks of a person’s immortal spirit, this refers to the Self’s unit of consciousness (UC), “made in the image of God.” This Self UC is a fractal replica of the Holy Spirit. As King David said concerning his own death: “I--in righteousness, I see Thy face; I am satisfied, in awaking, with Thy form!” (Psalm 17:15). According to the New Testament, Jesus the Christ was “fully human” and “fully God.” This means that the UC associated with Jesus of Nazareth was a fully realized copy of the UC of the Holy Spirit, which is another way of saying Jesus never allowed his personal will to contradict the will of God streaming in from the metaverse. As a fully-realized, enlightened UC, Jesus was entirely coherent with God’s will, which is to say, Jesus was without sin. Thus, Jesus never ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 175 accrued karmic debt. Since Jesus did not live for himself but for God alone, he never enshrouded his earthly UC with human memes and karma. Buddhism shares with Christianity a Sanskrit meme called “bodhisattva” which refers to an enlightened being who comes to Earth to free others from samsara (sin) and suffering. The Nyingma school likens the highest form of bodhisattva to a good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, as Jesus described himself in John 10:11. Moreover, Mahayana Buddhism holds a meme called pariṇāmanā—merit transfer. In merit transfer, the bodhisattva takes away the sins of his flock, which are washed clean through the bodhisattva’s excess of good karma. John the Baptist proclaimed this same bodhisattva meme when he said of Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29). There are even Hindu sects where Jesus is counted in the lineage of founding gurus, such as Self Realization Fellowship’s Kriya Yoga sect. Conservative Christians, whose ideological meme chord is closed to other religious ideologies and non-Orthodox Christian memes, believe that Jesus was God’s only begotten bodhisattva, and that He, alone, can performpariṇāmanā unto salvation. When asked his central message, Jesus responded that we were to “Love God and to love one another as we love ourselves” (Luke 10:27). In terms of the Simple Explanation model, God would like us to embrace the information and patterns streaming in from the metaverse whenever we make a decision; when we do this, we are “loving God,” by acting in concert with God’s will. Then, God would like us to love ourselves. This means that we are to love our flesh’s aggregate UCs and do what is best for our organism, as explained in CH. 2. We are also to love our governing Self UC and act with wisdom in concert with God’s will rather than selfishly succumbing to Ego. Finally, we are to take the focus off of ourselves and our trove of memes, and reach out laterally with love and information to our brethren UCs. All Christians believe that Jesus came to Earth that we might not perish because of the Law but that we might live life more abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus demonstrated through the example of his life that it is possible to be a fully-realized UC, living moment-by-moment in the service of God’s will. “Be therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). “Believing on Christ for salvation” is the meme chord that says the UC of Jesus can cleanse your UC of sin and the consequences of sin. To be “Born Again” is to make a decision to lay down your personal meme bundle and allow the Universal UC to shine unobstructed through you (“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and stays forever” (1 Peter 1:23). Baptism in Christ is a ritual enactment of washing away your undesired meme chords so that God’s memes may flow through you. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 176 Here is a Simple Translation of The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father from the metaverse, we address you with humility and respect. We invite your plans and principles to inform and bring order to our universe, trusting that your intention for us is best. We acknowledge that you are the source of all that is needed to nourish and sustain our lives. We realize that our karmic shortcomings can only be forgiven to the same extent we forgive others for their shortcomings. We desire to avoid any memes that stand in the way of doing what is best for ourselves and others. We trust you in all things, for your authority and power transcend this universe, and we are but humble echoes of your perfection. Amen Christ, the Word, Logos, chit, Metaversal Law An Ironic Problem with Religious Memes Religious doctrines and dogmas are sets of memes called meme chords. The irony is that, since it is the governing Self UC that seeks union with God (the universal UC), beclouding the Self UC with meme chords seems counterproductive to that aim. Merely surrounding oneself with religious meme chords and performing obligatory works in honor of the memes does not grant access to God. Here's how the Bible puts it: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 177 21 Not everyone that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity. Matthew 7 What does it mean, to "work iniquity"? It means putting your Ego’s desires ahead of God's will (or the metaversal plan). When a fractal Unit of Consciousness puts its own well-meaning-butlimited plan into action, karmic debt is created. Seekers after God desire absolution from sin/karma/iniquity. Building even more karmic debt out of Ego-driven religious effort is the last thing the seeker wants. Here's how Verse 18 of the Tao Te Ching (Mitchell translation) puts it: When the Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality. When morality is lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos. This verse describes ritual's fall from grace. The highest state is to be at one with God and God's plan, herein called the Tao. In The Simple Explanation model, the Tao spoken of by Lao Tzu refers to the metaversal information and principles of organization that have informed our universe since the moment before creation. When one loses touch with the universal Unit of Consciousness, one loses the Tao's information pipeline. But, says Verse 18, even if your UC has lost its way, you still know goodness when you see it, and your heart may still be in the right place. But, once your heart loses its way, you no longer have true goodness. Morality is what you are left with once love departs. Morality is a system of rules meant to engender Godly behavior in those who no longer personally know God. Once morality is lost, empty ritual takes its place. Ritualistic behavior no longer serves to bring one closer to God. At this stage, the Way to God has become replaced by meaningless gestures. "Ritual is the husk of true faith." Lifeless, driedup memes have replaced morality, goodness, love, and communion with God. Verse 18 declares this state to be chaotic, anarchic, and entropic, because when the Word of God cannot pass its organizing principles through your Self UC, the opportunity is lost to accomplish whatever part your UC was to play in making things better. In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering. (Tao Te Ching, Verse 48, Stephen Mitchell translation, Harper Collins, 1988) People believe that the more they know, the better off they and the world will be. However, when we drop memes rather than add them, we allow transcendent patterns of organization and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 178 information to work through us. When we make plans and do work according to our limited vision and personal desires, we strain to get things right. Acting only when truly inspired, the metaverse works through us. When a UC does nothing of its own accord, the metaverse can do exactly what needs to be done. Best results arise from inspired action. The anti-meme of “Let go and let God” allows the metaverse to use us in the most efficient manner for the greatest good. Who Am I After Death? So far we've established that the "soul" associated with this material body is a perfect fractal replica of the original universal unit of consciousness, albeit obscured by memes. If, during life, my Unit of Consciousness is affected by earthly memes and the aggregated UCs of this physical body (“Whoville,” my "mud," “Meat Mountain”), then what, if anything, affects my UC after this body passes away? The Simple Explanation suggests that the individual "me" that persists beyond death is the pattern of my ongoing karma. If this is the case, then the "me" that continues to influence the fate of the Self UC after death is the holographic wave pattern of all the choices ever made by “my” UC. In life, this karmically-generated vibratory pattern attracts or repels the memes associated with my personal meme bundle. The memes I think of as "me" are not mine, but are drawn to me by my karmic pattern. It is my karmic record that attracts and repels the patterns of memes surrounding my life at any moment. That the "you" that exists between material incarnations is nothing but your karmic record is rationally proved by one of our simple philosophy’s basic memes: all UCs are fundamentally one and the same when they begin their individuated journey. It follows, then, that "I" develop continually as a result of my choices and the choices of others. "I" am my perfect UC enshrouded in karma and the memes that my karma attracts, including all the UCs that were attracted to this Self UC and became part of this body’s current aggregate. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 179 In Yogic philosophy it is said that an enlightened Yogi has become free of attachments and can therefore perceive the Oneness of all things. The Simple Explanation of this phenomenon is that the Yogi has successfully laid down all memes and can therefore perceive the perfect Self UC stripped of its karmic shroud. Freed of personal memes, the Yogi can align with the Universal UC and step out of personal karma. In this state the Yogi can instantiate God's will without delusion. The same phenomenon is known as "buddhahood" in Buddhism, and "sainthood" in Christianity. According to tradition, these liberated Units of Consciousness are no longer bound to this material world by their discarded memes and redeemed karma. If they do return to earth, it is in order to help others by sharing love and information for the betterment of all. A Simple Explanation of Reincarnation and Evolution Reincarnation is a meme common to many major world religions and spiritual traditions. Many ancient as well as modern philosophers also incorporate the reincarnation meme into their philosophies. Wikipedia defines reincarnation as "entering the flesh again." Depending upon the particular memes held by one's belief system, it is said that after a human dies they may reenter their next life as a newborn human, or possibly an animal or some other form. The Simple Explanation defines reincarnation this way: Death breaks the bonds of a Self UC's current material instantiation, but not its karmic pattern. The freed Unit of Consciousness continues its existence at a non-material level until its karmic pattern causes it to reattach to a particular newly instantiating aggregate, at which time it is born again into Creation. As just explained, the memes I think of as "me" are not a part of my Self Unit of Consciousness, but are drawn to me by my karmic pattern. It is my karmic record that attracts and repels the patterns of memes surrounding my life at any moment. The Simple Explanation suggests that reincarnations are not random events, but the continuation of karmically-mandated cycles of consequence that do not end with death. It is not logical to expect the consequences of one's actions to end at one's death; if you cut off someone's ear and then die, does the person's ear suddenly grow back? No. Consequences of behavior are not affected by the death of the doer. Likewise, the memes we attach to are not our personal property or invention to begin with, therefore it is safe to assume they also continue to live on after death in the shared transpersonal field. In this model, “I” consist of my karmic pattern, the memes I hold onto, and the "aggregate UCs of my material body, from the subatomic particles to molecules to cells, all the way up through the UCs of the body’s organ systems" overlaid upon my Self's perfect UC. In terms of reincarnation, it is only the aggregate UCs and their associated material bodies that change from incarnation to incarnation, and even then, some, maybe most of my aggregates may choose to “ride along” with my Self UC, co-evolving along with “me” and my ego. In practical terms, here's how I see the reincarnation meme playing out. This person, Cyd, is composed of a Self Unit of Consciousness that is a fractal replication of the Universal Unit of Consciousness, and virtually identical to the Universal UC. Overlaid upon the Self UC is Cyd's personality, which is largely defined by the memes Cyd holds onto, plus Cyd's karmic record ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 180 which inclines Cyd's choices this way and that, plus Cyd's physical body and its desires and limitations. When this particular physical body is no longer able to sustain the constellation of UCs that make up "Cyd," this particular hierarchical collection of UCs will disband their union, and all UCs more complex than the molecular level will also "die" along with the governing Self UC. This means that at death, not just one soul passes away, but the souls of millions of aggregate UCs, too. (The molecular, atomic, sub-atomic UCs do not pass on at this time, because they are still able to do their respective jobs after the organism dies.) Every newly instantiating piece of creation needs a UC to oversee its life. At every conception, be it a leaf or a seed, a cell, an organ, or an egg, perhaps even a planet or a galaxy, nature's karmic computer attaches a governing UC. "Cyd's" UC will probably cycle into another newly aggregated body of UCs who all, in the most perfect way imaginable, "deserve" one another. This new Cyd will resemble old Cyd to the extent that new Cyd adopts old Cyd's memes. These memes will be drawn to new Cyd by way of old Cyd's karma, which attracts some memes and repels others. Cyd's new body may also carry some physical traits forward from the previous life in the form of epigenetic patterns that cause genetic traits to turn off and on, as karmically determined. It's likely that new Cyd will be a human, not just because Cyd was human before but, more persuasively, because Cyd's particular karma and meme bundles best instantiate a human form. (But if Cyd loved to swim and surf and thought about surfing nonstop and spent all her time on the water, she might as well reincarnate as a porpoise, and she very well could.) This reincarnation schema also provides a Simple Explanation of evolution. Here’s how it works: all of our UCs started out as stardust from the original stars that populated the cosmos soon after its inception. Some UCs that became stellar gas may still be inhabiting their original elemental molecules in the intergalactic backwater of some far flung gaseous clouds, but most UCs have moved on to occupy countless forms in the last 14 billion years. The most ambitious UCs continue to find themselves occupying larger and more complex physical forms. Those with the strongest wills eventually find themselves swimming in some primordial soup or another, perhaps here on planet Earth. Some of the UCs that started in Earth’s soup have remained in the soup, never attaching themselves to anything more complex than a single-celled organism. The most ambitious little life forms found themselves returning to slightly more sophisticated organisms with each incarnation. Lessons learned are carried forward, always incarnating more and more complex structures and occasionally jumping to a more complex hierarchical level, driving the evolution of planetary life via memes accrued through karma. Was Cyd’s Self UC ever a single-celled organism? Probably was, beginning about 4.5 billion years ago. Was Cyd’s Self UC ever a jellyfish? Good chance it was, as the jellyfish is the oldest multiorgan animal on Earth, swimming our seas for the past 700 million years. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 181 (Source/Credit:Wikimedia Commons; Dan90266) Was Cyd’s Self UC ever a dinosaur? Well, probably not; I’d imagine the dinosaur memes and karma informed the development of reptiles and birds, not Cyd’s line. Was Cyd’s governing UC ever a lemur? Or a chimpanzee? Or an Australopithecus? Quite possibly, since their proto-human memes and karma would have informed human development, and the Self UC is attracted to familiar patterns. In the Simple Explanation’s evolutionary model, no meme war is needed between natural selection and creationism, science and religion. The Simple Explanation meme proposes that everything in the cosmos is created through metaversal principles embodied in all units of consciousness, and that each UC evolves according to inclination and ability, through established patterns of meme acquisition and adaptation, and the utterly fair and impartial mechanism of karma. In the Simple Explanation’s evolutionary schema, Cyd is currently a human and probably has been for a very long time. Is Cyd more evolved than her dogs? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 182 Not really. The family dogs are at the same level of hierarchical sophistication as the humans. The dogs’ billions of aggregate UCs and their two Self UCs have all made decisions every step along the way that steered them into this life as these two dogs. Every governing UC is an integral part of one aggregate or another, hierarchically upline and downline. Every slot needs to be filled. The most you could say of Cyd’s state of evolution is that ambitious meme collectors evolve into ever more complex instantiations, and Cyd’s UC and those of her aggregate UCs are attached to some highly ambitious collections of memes. But whether or not this is anything to brag about is debatable. The “Perennial Philosophy” Meme One day a philosopher friend of mine said of the Simple Explanation, "Excellent retelling of the Perennial Philosophy!" I was unfamiliar with the expression "Perennial Philosophy," so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here's their essential definition: Perennial philosophy is the philosophical concept which states that each of the world’s religious traditions share a single truth. Perennial philosophy asserts that there is a single divine foundation of all religious knowledge, referred to as the universal truth. Each world religion, independent of its cultural or historical context, is simply a different interpretation of this knowledge... Yes, my friend was right. The Simple Explanation is all about identifying the universal truths embedded underneath ages of confusing memetic overlays. So, just what are these basic memes all traditions share,and what is the Simple Explanation of these memes? The first perennial meme is this: There is a Divine Reality underpinning everything; without This, no thing and no one would exist. Here is how the Simple Explanation puts it: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 183 This Divine Reality may be directly perceived under certain conditions,through prayer, meditation, mystic revelation, near-death experiences, religious ecstasy, inspired ritual, superrational intuition, or visionary psychedelic drugs. Humans possess a dual nature: the little, egoic "me" of day-to-day living, and a true Self that reflects the Divine Reality. Egoic "me" is selfish, competitive, single-minded, short-sighted, meme-bound. Non-egoic Self reaches out to others with love, aid, and information. People long to reunite with that divine Reality from whence they came.Various traditions call this salvation, enlightenment, Self-realization, Buddhahood. The Simple Explanation describes it as aligning your Self UC with the Universal UC. Unification is only possible through denial of the earthly self and identification with divine Reality. The Simple Explanation calls this the “anti-meme,” as it recommends dropping memes in order to apprehend reality here and now. Renowned English philosopher and writer, Aldous Huxley, wrote an excellent book on the topic in 1944 called The Perennial Philosophy, An Interpretation of the Great Mystics East and West. Huxley’s descriptions fit in perfectly with the Simple Explanation, so if you would like to read more about the Perennial Philosophy, I'd recommend Huxley's book. Shed Unwanted Memes Here! Now! According to the Simple Explanation, the memes we believe in and cling to are like threads draped over our souls, obscuring our perfect Self UC and filtering our awareness of here and now. If my Self UC is a perfect fractal expression of the primordial Universal UC, then my personal meme bundle is the unique garment woven by my mind out of life's experiences and sustained by my Ego as personal identity. Once you acquire a meme, it becomes part of your identity. If you would rather not hold that meme in your personal bundle of strings and chords, you need to detach it from your bundle. •Some memes fall away of their own accord through disuse. • Other memes must be consciously detached and laid aside. • Some memes are pernicious; we call the behaviors associated with them addictions. • Emotionally evocative memes such as victimhood or jealousy are difficult to detach due to the intense synergistic coupling of thoughts and emotions. In the worldly course of events, unwanted memes must be detached through an effort of will, either through conscious disuse or by acquiring a competing, more desirable meme. Therapies such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and Rational Emotive Therapy may help. PastLife Hypnosis is an especially useful tool for detaching troublesome past life memes. Memes may also be surrendered to one's Higher Power through prayer and meditation. Serenity is achieved as memes are surrendered. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 164-184 Ropp, C., A Simple Model of Memes 184 Here, now, you may lay down that unwanted meme. If you find yourself accidentally carrying it around again, lay it down again. If you notice yourself invoking that meme out of habit, good for you for noticing! Now, lay it down again. You may need to lay down some neighboring memes as well, if their vibrations are invoking that pernicious meme in you. No need for guilt, dismay, or despair. As the old song advises, just “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” Nature does not bemoan change. There is no clinging to the past, wishing things had gone differently. Nature always looks around without expectation other than how best to instantiate metaversal patterns here and now. Given these particular conditions, what can I do now to be of most use? Onward and upward! ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

449 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Exploration The Idea of Will Michiel M. Dorenbosch * Abstract This article presents a new conceptual view on the conscious will. This new concept approaches our will from the perspective of the requirements of our neural-muscular system and not from our anthropocentric perspective. This approach not only repositions the will at the core of behavior control, it also integrates the studies of Libet and Wegner, which seem to support the opposite. The will does not return as an instrument we use to steer, but rather as part of the way we learn new automatic behavior and of how our neural system steers us. The new concept suggests that understanding of our will is more about understanding of our daily behavior than about the will itself. Keywords: Conscious will, free will, consciousness, need, satisfaction, longing, desire, affection, intention, motivation, valence, learning, automatic behavior, routine behavior, neural muscular system, behavior control, anthropocentric, moral responsibility, Libet, Wegner, Introduction The free, unfree or conscious will has been keeping mankind and especially philosophers busy for ages, if not for millennia and remarkably enough without offering a convincing argument for understanding. The American philosopher John Searle addressed this in 2008 as “something of a scandal” for philosophy (Searle 2008). Nevertheless, little has changed since then. How is it possible that the will could hide itself so well for so long while the apparent opinion is that understanding should be possible. There may be many reasons, however there are two aspects that catch the eye. One is the unilateral analytical focus of philosophy on free choosing or deciding (O'Connor 2010) disregarding the understanding of the nature of underlying feelings of will (fig. 2). The other aspect is the inclination for anthropocentric understanding of the will (O'Connor 2010), risking to blindfold ourselves from a broader view (fig. 3). Was it not Charles Darwin who almost two centuries ago, showed us that we have to look outside ourselves to understand ourselves? This article addresses these two aspects of understanding the will. The result is a surprising new concept of what our conscious will might be about. A concept that also might hold a piece of the puzzle regarding why the will has been keeping us hostage for so long. This new concept does not try to understand the will from our anthropocentric perspective as the majority of research explicitly or implicitly seems to do (Baumeister & Bargh 2014, Brass et al. 2013, Cisek & * Correspondence: Michiel M. Dorenbosch, Independent Researcher, Italy. E-mail: michieldorenbosch@yahoo.co.uk ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 450 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Kalaska 2010, Dennet 2014, Doyle 2011, 2013, Frankfurt 1969, Kane 2014, Mele & Shepherd 2013, Miller & Schwarz 2014, Murphy & Throop 2010, Nahmias 2014, O'Connor 2010, Pereboom 2014, Seth 2007, Wegner 2002, 2004). The new concept approaches our will from the perspective of the requirements of our neural-muscular system (Tab. 1). The concept regards the neural muscular system as an entity independent from us. The neural muscular system may be a part of “us” in a physical sense, but we seem to miss the tools to control it, rather it controls us. The concept focusses on neither freedom nor on deciding, but focusses instead on the mechanisms and feelings of willing. Therefore, where the concept uses the term conscious will, it is about conscious willing and not about conscious deciding. However, we may expect that the mechanisms that create our conscious state of willing also direct what we choose or decide (fig. 2). Viewed from the perspective of the neural-muscular system this article shows that our conscious will is not about what we want, but rather about the inability of our system to control this what automatically. This relationship with control places the will back into the setting of behavior control from which it seemed to be “expelled” by Wegner’s “Illusion of the conscious will” in 2002 (Wegner 2002). The will returns not in terms of direct steering, as Wegner understandably doubted, but as part of the learning trajectories that create our daily automatic routines (Bargh et al. 2001, Graybiel 2008, Wyer 2014). This insight not only offers a natural fit for Wegner’s challenging “illusion of the will”, but it also fits with Libet’s time delay between neural initiatives to act (action potential) and the subsequent conscious decision to do so (Libet et al. 1983, Libet 1985). A new framework seems possible that includes freedom as well as unfreedom of will. However, where the will touches the functionality of consciousness remains a mystery because the nature of consciousness is still unknown (Seth 2007). Table 1. DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF WILL Concept Perspective of understanding Focus of Source of understanding behavior Objective of will Result of willed action Traditional Anthropocentric Free choice/ Free deciding Conscious thoughts Control action & Satisfaction Moral responsible Wegner** Anthropocentric Free choice & Feelings of will Unconscious Create processing emotional markers Authorship of action New Concept Neural muscular system Mechanisms & Feelings of will Unconscious Explore how & Conscious to control learning satisfaction Learning automatic control * * (O'Connor 2010), ** (Wegner 2004). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 451 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will This article is an invitation to step into the shoes of our neural muscular system for a moment, wandering about the will without defining it beforehand, considering that our experiences of will may not be about us, but rather a part of the instrumentation of our neural muscular system to control the world around the system. This article starts with the functionality or non-functionality of conscious perceptions and the relationship between the will and behavior control. Then it looks at our perception of freedom in relation to neural processing, autonomy and intentions. It concludes with a vision on how we assign value to everything around us, and with a new definition of the conscious will. Fig. 1. A MODEL OF CONSCIOUS WILL AS SUGGESTED BY WEGNER (Wegner & Wheatly 1999 ©APA). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 452 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Consciousness The decision to choose the perspective of the neural-muscular system is not that surprising. In fact it is rather inevitable, considering that unconscious neural processing may precede our conscious perceptions, not only in the context of inborn or learned reflexes but also, it seems, in the context of conscious deciding (Bengson, et al. 2014, Bernácer, & Giménez-Amaya 2013, Dijksterhuis 2011, D'Ostilio & Garraux 2012, Fried et al. 2011, Grey Walter 1963, Guggisberg & Mottaz 2013, Libet et al. 1983, Libet 1985, Kühn & Brass 2009, Matsuhashi & Hallett 2008, Ostrowick 2007, 2014, Soon et.al. 2008, 2013, 2014). This shift in perspective however, is not without problems. One difficult question is whether our conscious experiences of will can steer behavior (Block 1998, Gulick 2014). This steering aspect of the conscious will is heavily doubted in Wegner’s “Illusion of the conscious will” (Wegner 2002, 2004) and this vision has become one of the main hurdles in the understanding of the will. Wegner’s vision is that unconscious neural causes create our experience of conscious will and that there is no direct causal relationship between our conscious will and our actions (fig. 1). Nevertheless he tries to understand the will from our conscious anthropocentric perspective and not from the perspective of the neural system (tab. 1 & fig. 1). However, from the perspective of the neural muscular system the steering potency of conscious perceptions is also a thorny topic. The main problem is that we do not know the nature of consciousness (Chalmers 1995, Gulick 2014, Seth 2007). Therefore, we also do not know whether conscious experiences of will are functional or not. Nonetheless, as seen from the perspective of the neural muscular system, it seems possible to position conscious experiences, including those of will, in a functional context. To do so we use the insight that a conscious experience, functional or not, generally is correlated with underlying “unconscious” processing of the neural system that generally is assumed to be functional (Engel & Singer 2001, Lane et al. 1998, Tononi et al. 1998). This “neural correlation of consciousness” (Cleeremans 2009, Mormann & Koch 2007, Tononi & Koch 2014) allow us to consider a conscious experience together with its underlying neural activity as a potential functional action of the neural muscular system (fig. 3). This offers an opportunity to leave the question of functionality of consciousness outside the scope of this article. What and How That our conscious experiences are preceded and escorted by unconscious neural processing, suggests that we have to reevaluate what our experience of will stands for. Is the experience of will an expression of our needs or an expression of the requirements of the neural muscular system? From our anthropocentric perspective, the will is clearly about our needs such as food, safety, sex, autonomy (Maslow 1943). We want to experience satisfaction in terms of relaxation, happiness, freedom, love, etc.. The conscious will seems to be our focus on what can deliver this to us (tab. 1). The will can present itself in general terms. For example, ”I want to drink ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 453 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will OUR CONSCIOUS PERSPECTIVE PHILOSOPHY CONSCIOUS WILL NEED WHAT DECISION FREE OR NOT FREE? HOW ACTION SATISFIED, NOT SATISFIED Fig. 2. THE CONSCIOUS WILL FROM OUR ANTHROPOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE: Our state of CONSCIOUS WILL is preceded normally by a conscious NEED; a longing for satisfaction. The will seems to enter consciousness when this longing focusses itself on WHAT might satisfy us best. This may create an intention to move towards it. The longing, together with this intention, we experience as a motivation to explore HOW we can control this WHAT in a way that suits us best. Subsequently this may turn into real ACTION. If this ACTION does NOT SATISFY our needs, we might try again, modifying the NEED, the WHAT and or the HOW. If the ACTION does SATISFY we may reinforce this behavior by repeating it in future. In both cases this is to regard as a feedback learning loop. When an ACTION is initiated in line with our intentions and thoughts, we normally experience this as our DECISION. PHILOSOPHY strongly focuses on whether we are free in this decision or not. Whether the relationship between the boxes is causal or not (see fig. 1) is still a subject of debate (blue arrows). something”. But it can also have a specific focus toward what may satisfy us best. For example, ”I would give a million for a cold beer!”. However, seen from the perspective of the neural muscular system, the will seems instrumental and primarily about how to keep the organism in the comfort zone of its needs (Craig 2010). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 454 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will From the neural muscular system’s viewpoint, the will is hardly about what could deliver satisfaction. To the system, this object of our longing and intention, for example drinking, or obtaining a cold beer, is already “known”, even in terms of satisfaction. The problem of the neural muscular system seems to be that it lacks the skills to control this object of satisfaction automatically in the present setting. The challenge of the neural muscular system is to stimulate the organism to explore and learn how to control this object also in this setting (tab. 1). For example, it may move the organism into the exploring mode: “Can I buy a beer here?” “Should I ask the neighbor?” “I better eat some fruit?” All But Doing Despite this difference in scope, in both perspectives the will seems focused on control. In our perspective, the focus is on what we want. In the perspective of the neural muscular system, it is on how to control this what in an automatic way. A part of this control is innate in terms of reflexes and talents. The majority of control, however, we must learn, step by step, day by day, by exploring, trying and rehearsing (Bengson 2014, Brembs, et al. 2002). For us this learning is not normally a part of how we experience the will. In our perception, the will is rather about being in control (Brass et al. 2013) and getting or doing right away. Seen from the perspective of our neural muscular system, however, the connection with learning seems inescapable. The will emerges when the organism is outside its comfort zone, lacking the skills to return to it (McBride 2008, 2012). For example, “I’m thirsty, but can’t find a drink here!” The organism, therefore, has to learn new skills. Stated the other way around, willing is hardly relevant when control is adequate. For example, we just open the refrigerator and take a drink, thirsty but generally without strong feelings or intentions. One could say that willing means knowing the what, but not perfectly knowing the how to control this what in the very moment. Conversely, if the how is fully under control, the will fades and our behavior becomes more or less automatic, as in the refrigerator example. From the perspective of the neural muscular system, the will seems less about an intention to satisfy an active need, as we tend to experience it, but more about a mechanism to get the organism to work by exploring and learning new skills. This is not an easy task when we consider that “willing is all but doing”. It may be noteworthy that also the part of the brain that produce our intentional feelings of will seems to operate independently from the part that triggers concrete action (Desmurget et al. 2009, Desmurget & Sirigu 2012). Also this suggests that the conscious will is rather about error detection, motivation and learning than about direct behavioral control (Charles et al. 2014). Daily Behavior The conscious will seems to be part of exploring, trying and learning new behavioral options. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 455 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will When these behavioral options appear successful, normally they will be repeated (Fig. 4). As a result, control improves and the new options will gradually turn into semi-unconscious routines, also referred to as cortical reflexes (Bernácer & Giménez-Amaya 2013, Graybiel 2008, Lamme 2010, Lombo & Giménez-Amaya 2014). We seem to activate these routines by consciously or unconsciously focusing on the triggers (Hassin 2013, Koch & Tsuchiya 2007, Merikle et al. 2001, Shinar et al. 1998), for example, in the way we automatically drive a car. However, life is not only about driving a car. All routine behavior we tend to perform automatic and semiunconscious; consider, walking, working, eating, talking, etc.. Even thinking seems to follow this design as seen in our often automatic opinions about others. Wegner and Libet Seen from the position of the neural muscular system the will seems about conscious learning in order to perform better in the future. The will may be an illusion when it is about direct conscious steering, as Wegner rightly concluded (Wegner 2002), but seen from the perspective of the neural muscular system the will returns, functional or not, as a part of routine steering by improving or renewing routines where the existing routines fail. In other words, steering by doing better next time (Gray 2004, Biggs 2005, Nesse 2005, Woergoetter & Porr 2008). This approach also creates an unexpected fit for the findings of Libet and others (Libet 1983, Grey Walter 1963, Matsuhashi & Hallett 2008, Kühn & Brass 2009) on the time delay between the neural initiatives to act and our conscious perception of deciding. On the one hand, the new approach skips the need of time-consuming conscious perception as we go about our daily routines. On the other hand, and more important, the approach suggests that conscious processing, and therefore also the will, is about trying and learning to behave automatically in the future and not about being in control. Within this context, Libet’s half-second time delay of consciousness is no problem as most learning is iterative and slow because of trying, evaluating and rehearsing. The time delay seems even to make sense in terms of afterward evaluation. Sleepwalking The consequence of the foregoing is a remarkable and hardly conceivable notion that our daily routine behavior may be more or less like sleepwalking in bright daylight, leaving conscious attention, reflection and evaluation for the moments when control tends to be insufficient. This could explain why we are capable of very complex behavior when we really are sleepwalking (Mahowald 2006, Pressman et al. 2007). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 456 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will OUR CONSCIOUS PERSPECTIVE CONSCIOUS WILL NEED WHAT HOW SENSORY INPUT ROUTINE TRIGGER NEURAL TRACT DECISION ACTION ROUTINE BEHAVIOR AUTOMATIC ROUTINE SATISFIED, NOT SATISFIED NEURAL MUSCULAR SYSTEM UNCONSCIOUS Fig. 3. THE CONSCIOUS WILL FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE NEURAL MUSCULAR SYSTEM: Conscious experiences are generally CORRELATED with underlying unconscious neural activity, more or less like the two faces of the same coin. However, the new concept suggests that the CONSCIOUS WILL is not as about the will itself, but rather about the learning and improving of the underlying AUTOMATIC ROUTINE. In this context the conscious WHAT may correspond with the automatic ROUTINE TRIGGER that has to be learned, the conscious HOW with finding and learning the optimal NEURAL TRACT of the routine and the conscious ACTION with the future automatic ROUTINE BEHAVIOR. It may be noticed that the “conscious” boxes are only connected through their unconscious counterparts. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 457 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Pickpockets and magicians have known for ages that we sleepwalk in bright daylight, but for most of us this notion is hard to believe for various reasons. It may seem as stating the obvious, but the main reason might be that our conscious world simply does not include what we process unconsciously. Many may recognize the experience of the miraculous disappearance of the car keys we just had in our hands one minute ago. It appears, we must have put them somewhere in an unconscious routine. Not only our car keys disappear in this manner, but all our routines have the potential to vanish into the void. Nonetheless, we tend to believe that what we do perceive is all there is (Pronin 2009). Conscious perception is far from accurate and complete, as illustrated by the famous experiment with the “gorilla” that passes in full sight among basketball players. When we have the demanding attention task to count the number of ball passes made by one of the teams, many of us will not even notice the passing primate (Simons 2010). Another reason may be that our conscious perceptions can be very present and vibrant, advocating the perfect opposite of sleepwalking. In addition, the nature of our senses unavoidably puts us in the center of conscious perception and action, suggesting that we are in charge of full control. Even when we act more or less automatically, as in driving a car while talking to a fellow passenger, we still have to focus on the trigger context of our driving routines, creating the impression of active conscious steering (Sumner 2008). There are many more examples and arguments, but the constant alert for what may run out of control of our routines, together with the indispensable focus on the routine context, may explain our impression that we certainly do not sleepwalk and that we, and only we, are steering. However, when the sleepwalker is also capable of very complex behavior, we could reason that not us, but rather our neural muscular system is running our routines without the need of consciousness by using the ongoing stream of information that continuously enters into the brain (Bargh et al. 2001). Private Path We seriously have to take into account that our neural muscular system and not us, directs our regular behavior and perceptions. But what about the will, which seems to give us the personal power to freely choose what we prefer. Are we also unfree in our private preferences and choices? The answer to this question depends very much on the angle in which we approach our freedom of will. It might be wise to approach it from our perspective as well as from the perspective of the neural muscular system. From our perspective, we experience a mental freedom to give preference to what weighs most for each of us, a preference that undoubtedly has the ability to differ from that of others. As a result, we all seem to follow a unique private path in life. A path that often originates with intention of our will, but that may also contain other input, such as the way we deal with the arguments of others. Whatever the considerations are, they all have one thing in common. They ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 458 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will all express the values (weight) that we each personally assign to arguments and things around us depending on our actual knowledge, experiences and needs. This capacity to follow our own path and to assign personal values to things around us makes it almost impossible to believe that something other than our conscious will might draw the very lines of our life, lines that sometimes even seem to challenge logic and common sense. This perception of willpower strongly suggests that our mind is free from the deterministic laws that rule the universe (Hoefer 2008). This may, or may not, be true but it is understandable as science is still incapable of filling the gap between the conscious mind and the physical world of which we are a part (Chalmers 1995). Omitting a discourse on freedom and determinism, a conclusion may be drawn that we are organisms that undeniably have the possibility to differ from one another, mentally, emotionally and behaviorally. This is an autonomy that could be described as the freedom to have private thoughts, preferences, intentions and emotions, and consequently to make private choices in life. Backstage The possibility to differ mentally and behaviorally from others may explain our feelings of freedom. But what is happening backstage, out of sight of our conscious perception? Who or what is initiating and steering our thoughts, intentions and choices? In other words, what are the degrees of freedom of our autonomy? That neural mechanisms seem to precede, initiate and guide what we perceive, prefer and choose (Dijksterhuis 2011, Libet 1983, Soon et al. 2008), suggests that our autonomy is less free than we experience. Backstage, out of sight of our consciousness, seems to reign the neural muscular system. By using our senses, it seems to control, more or less automatically, the world outside and inside our body. It does this, among other means, by reflexes, routines and, when needed, by putting us on track of attention, exploring and learning. For example, when we are hungry, we often start to think and talk about food. Intuitively this makes sense, but who or what initiates our thoughts and words? Do we initiate them because we are hungry? Or does our neural muscular system initiate them because of a low blood sugar level? Whatever the answer may be, the undeniable importance of unconscious neural processes widely opens the door for determinism. There is much to write about the importance of unconscious neural processes (Dijksterhuis 2011), but in this article we will discusses only one aspect of the will that illustrates how intertwined conscious and unconscious processes are. We will look at the way we assign personal value, or valence, to everything around us (Colombetti 2005, Frijda et al. 2014, Mauss & Robinson 2009, Shuman et al. 2013). Earthworms In popular terms, one could say that understanding personal value is a little bit like ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 459 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will “understanding” earthworms. Earthworms seem to move towards what is edible or beneficial, and away from what is risky. In a way, we seem to do the same. Recognizing something of importance normally brings us to an intentional state to move towards or away, depending on whether we may expect a positive or negative effect (Valckx et al. 2011, Lavender & Hommel 2007, Lowe & Ziemke 2011). This primitive impulsive reflex of the body is mostly supported by other impulses of our autonomic system (Blessing & Gibbins 2008, Schulz et al 2007). In terms of direct conscious action however, it is normally inhibited by the cortex (Aron 2007, Bradley & Lang 2000, MacLeod 2007, Schel & Crone 2013, Schel et al. 2014). A cortical inhibition that is all but perfect, as we see for example in our body language when somebody is sympathetic to us. In this case, our feet may automatically point towards this sympathetic person, or if not sympathetic, it is our back that turns. In our intent to move we seem even more like earthworms than we probably want to know, especially in our responses to positive stimuli. We not only tend to move towards the object of sympathy. It seems that we actually want to put it in our mouths. So why do we kiss our loved ones? Or even more strange, why do we kiss the world cup when victorious? In many cases adults may hold back this impulsive action as it may be impropriate or unhealthy, but as a baby we explore all kinds of things by putting them in our mouth. Valuable Feelings The conscious perception of the reflex of the body to eat, fight or flight may mirror the individual’s personal value of things and actions (Damasio 2000, Gelder 2006, Mauss & Robinson 2009, Schulz et al 2007). However, our neural muscular system also seems to use another trick to indicate importance. When we recognize something that can satisfy or dissatisfy, our system automatically allows us to “taste” this effect beforehand. For instance when we are buying a lottery ticket, the same brain circuits start to boast as if we already won (Clark et al. 2009, Breiter et al 2001). This suggest that value may involve at least two mechanisms. On the one hand is the motivating mechanism of the automatic body intention to move towards or away, what we may call attraction, affection and aversion (Lang & Bradley 2010, Craig 2003). On the other hand is the motivating state of the desire or need to experience the “tasted” satisfaction to its full extent or if negative, to avoid disgust, what we may call respectively longing and repulsion (Andrews & Hawthorn 1988, Cisler et al. 2009, Decker 1971, Nesse 2005, Rolls 2012, 2014, Shuman et al. 2013). From our perspective, value may be defined as, the experienced intent to move towards because we long for satisfaction, or away because we fear distress. Seen from the perspective of the neural muscular system, value seems to be part of a mechanism to focus the organism on what seems most promising in terms of exploring and learning in the actual setting (fig. 4). Interestingly the experience of value fades when learning is completed and the new behavior has become a routine (Lewis & Todd 2005). For example, as an experienced driver we may no longer experience the potential risk of oncoming traffic as we probably did during our initial ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 460 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will driving experiences. Personal Data How do we know the value of things? Our longing for pleasure and satisfaction may be inborn and also our inclination to explore, but we must learn the value of objects, circumstances and skills. This learning probably starts while we are in the womb and continues throughout our lifetime (Heckhausen et al. 2010). When we taste a delicious cake, our neural system will normally store the experience along with the effort to get the cake and the circumstances in which we obtained it (Schedlbauer et al. 2014, Watrous et al. 2013). In the same way, we will remember negative experiences with the intention to avoid these conditions in the future (Gray 2002, Rolls 2014). As a result of this learning, we create a vast personal “database” of the value of things as a function of actual needs, circumstances and possible actions (Damasio et al. 1996). This database of personal values seems hardly active during daily routines, but is immediately activated when we run out of control over our satisfaction, for example, seeing an appetizing or sexy roadside billboard. The database seems to be more or less a private global positioning system, automatically indicating where to focus when exploring and learning is needed. As part of the brain circuitry, this database allows fast value assessment based on memory. The high speed at which we process the database indicates that memory suffices for valuing (Cannon 1927). Nevertheless, the body may also react at “low” speed when we recognize something or somebody as important, for example sweating or blushing, and more generally in terms of stress, intentionality or relaxation (Faigman, et al. 2003, Melo & Gratch 2009). This reaction may play a role in body language (Gelder 2006) and presumably also in new learning. Weight of Arguments The value of things seems to be based on the conscious perception of body-intention and longing, but what about our preferences based on physical, economical or other discrete values: the biggest, the longest, the cheapest, the sweetest, etc.? A child may create havoc because his or her glass has just one millimeter of lemonade less than those of other children. Is this about physics or feelings? If it were about physics, what would be the common measure when we compensate for less lemonade with a larger piece of pie? It could be about the physical amount of food or about the emotional amount of parental affection. However, when we add more and more aspects to a choice, there seems to be no common physical measure available. In this case, we normally return to what “feels best” in terms of longing, intentionality and achievable satisfaction. A powerful and robust value that spontaneously seems to integrate the importance of what we are perceiving. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 461 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will OUR CONSCIOUS PERSPECTIVE CONSCIOUS WILL NEED: MOTIVATON (LONGING) WHAT: FOCUS & MOTIVATION (INTENTION) HOW: OPTIONS DECISION TRYING ACTION SENSORY INPUT ROUTINE TRIGGER NEURAL TRACT ROUTINE BEHAVIOR AUTOMATIC ROUTINE REPEATING SATISFYING ACTION NEURAL MUSCULAR SYSTEM UNCONSCIOUS Fig. 4. THE CONSCIOUS WILL IN THE FUNCTIONAL CONTEXT OF THE NEURAL MUSCULAR SYSTEM: The CONSCIOUS WILL seems a MOTIVATION to get us to work in finding and TRYING HOW we can control what may satisfy our needs best. The WILL offers steady conditions and a focus to explore, try and learn new routine behavior. REPEATING turns SATISFYING ACTIONS gradually into automatic ROUTINE BEHAVIOR. This behavior may function automatically and unconsciously as long as the NEURAL MUSCULAR SYSTEM can recognize certain INPUT as the ROUTINE TRIGGER. What we experience as a DECISION may be the moment in which we observe that a behavioral option results in real trying. When a new option becomes routine behavior, deciding also becomes an unconscious automatic step. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 462 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Realizing that the value of things is about feeling, suggests that our will and choices are not directly based on facts or logical arguments, as they present themselves to us, but rather on the feelings triggered by this information. Our will and approach may start with the perception of facts or arguments but our intentions and decisions seem based on the feelings generated. This also offers a possible explanation as to why our will can challenge logic and common sense. At the core, we seem to choose what feels best and not what reasons best. Nevertheless, defining, reasoning and understanding play an important role in our daily choices. Not necessarily because of logic and understanding as such, but more likely because we want to be sure about triggering the right feelings, once we have to choose. New Meaning A new picture of the conscious will evolves. The new concept shows the will as a conscious state in which we are encouraged to control what can satisfy us best. An intentional state set off by our neural muscular system at the moment it can no longer control satisfaction automatically. The neural muscular system needs us, the organism, to interact physically with the world around the system to explore, try and learn new options of control. The will seems to offers the steady conditions for this in terms of focus, motivation to and duration (fig. 4). In this new context, the conscious will might be defined as a conscious intentional state, characterized by focus, intention, desire and duration. A state, set off by our neural muscular system in motivating us to explore and learn the options of control that the neural muscular system needs to control the world outside the system automatically. A definition that positions the conscious will, functional or not, central in the context of steering to keep our routine behavior attuned to changing conditions around the neural muscular system. This new definition implies an understanding of the will on three levels. First, on our anthropocentric level, showing a will that targets the satisfaction of our needs. Second, on the brain level, showing the will as a part of the toolbox of our neural muscular system to control the world around the system. Third on the integration level, suggesting that our neural muscular system and not us is running the evolutionary battle of control. Practically all research about the will tries to understand the will on the first level and predominantly in a technical sense, for example in relation to determinism or moral responsibility (O'Connor 2010). It is difficult to grasp why the importance of our feelings of will have been practically ignored for so long. This seems an omission that might explain, in part, why traditional philosophy never could produce answers that took hold in society. People feel what they want and a challenge might be to address also this aspect in the understanding of the will and deciding. However, it may be clear that there is an even bigger challenge for will-related studies. That is the challenge to go beyond the present anthropocentric fixation that seems to blindfold us from understanding the will in the broader context of control and evolution. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 463 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will Decision and Choice This new concept does not address free deciding, the central issue of the free-will debate. Nevertheless, the new concept may have a substantial impact on the understanding of deciding. A first notion is that the new concept positions all conscious perception, including conscious deciding, in the context of learning new routine behavior. This means that studies about conscious deciding should be about real new learning and not for example about routines that already exist. This is not only because both mechanisms use different neural networks (Schenk & McIntosh 2010), but also because the neural activity may differ considerably (Crammond & Kalaska 2000, Cisek & Kalaska 2010). For example the research of Grey Walter in 1963, that strongly suggests that the brain decides and not we, seems to be about an existing button-push routine to change a viewing-slide (Grey Walter 1963, Ostrowick 2007). Also the studies of Libet and many others seem to use existing routines, such as moving a wrist or a finger. We will not discuss here the possible impact of the use of existing routines in the studies (see: Klemm 2010, O'Connor 2009, Pacherie & Haggard 2010) but we have to wonder whether these studies can show the effect of what conscious deciding should be about: trying and evaluating promising options in terms of need satisfaction. A second notion is that the concept suggests that deciding means effecting the only option that feels best to us. On a neural muscular level only this option will result in motor output (Prescott 2008, Schall 2013). It may be clear that such a mechanism leaves little room for doing otherwise at the very moment of choice. Nevertheless, we have a possibility to do otherwise. By postponing the moment of choice, for example because choosing seems risky, we may create time for additional information. This additional information might change the option that feels best to us. From our perspective, we may experience this postponing as hesitating, thinking it over, or asking a friend’s opinion. Nevertheless, also in the new moment of choice, there will only be room for the option that feels best at the very moment of deciding. This brings us to a third and final notion on deciding, the conscious vetoing of a decision to act. The veto debate roots in Libet’s findings of the time delay between a neural initiative to act and our conscious perception of deciding, suggesting that we have no free will (Libet et al. 1983, Libet 1985, 2003). Libet wanted to prove that we still can veto the neural “decision” within the conscious 0.2 seconds before acting. That would leave a little “elbow room” for the free will (Ostrowick 2007). Animals need fast stop routines to deal with unexpected impacts as for instance a sudden predator attack. We can veto an intended action even up to 0.1 before acting (Matsuhashi & Hallett 2008). A veto that may be a fully willed action, as suggested by Libet. However, given the time window of 0.2 sec in its research, it rather might be mix of an automatic stop routine and a conscious afterward assessment of this routine (Kühn & Brass 2009). We advocated already that Libet’s the time delay does not conflict with the new concept of ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 464 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will conscious routine learning. So there is little need to save the will by fast vetoing. Moreover, fast vetoing seems just part of finding and learning the option that might fit us best in order to perform better next time. Epilog This article is written to share the explanatory potency of an approach of the will from the perspective of the neural muscular system, an approach that resulted in a new concept of the conscious will. Does the new concept rescue the free will or free deciding? If we approach the will from our perspective and if we read free as autonomous, the concept might rescue it in a certain sense. The concept suggests that we consciously and intentionally are involved in the learning of new behavior. The correlation of consciousness with neural processing positions our conscious perception and so our conscious will within the functional context of the neural muscular system. Of course this correlation does not answer the question about the functionality of our conscious involvement. Nonetheless, the concept displays a remarkable intertwining of the conscious will and the learning of new routine behavior. However, not knowing the nature of consciousness the functionality of this intertwining cannot be proven, but it also should not be excluded. This nevertheless may be a small anthropocentric spark of good news about our involvement in the steering of our behavior. However, seen from the perspective of the neural muscular system, the new concept suggests that our conscious experiences, including those of will, are not about us, but rather part of the incentives of our neural muscular system. Incentives to get us to work at the moment that the system needs us to keep up with its outer physical world. It is a double layer, which positions our explicit conscious world, including us and our conscious will, within the instrumental context of our neural-muscular system. Without realizing it, all our thoughts, experiences, actions and emotions, seem to be part of how our neural system controls “its world”. This is an alien perspective that displays us as unaware puppets on the strings of the neural-muscular system. A hijacking of our conscious world that is very difficult to see as potentially real and accordingly we must wonder, are we ready for it. Nevertheless, the new concept, if true, will unavoidably force us to reflect anew on who we are. A perspective that may cause us to drift further and further from what we thought to be for ages; beings at the core of consciousness and creation. Does this mean that we no longer can be loving or proud of ourselves? The new view on the conscious will in no way erases our perceptions, values or emotions. Even when every aspect of our conscious world is instrumental to our neural muscular system, we continue to live within the same conscious world confined by our personal experiences. We have no other choice, and emotions such as love, pride and guild inevitably will stay a part of us, individually and as a society. There is still a lot to discover about functionality and our conscious will, nonetheless the concept ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 465 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| August 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 7 | pp. 449-472 Dorenbosch, M. M., The Idea of Will presented here may open a new door to the mystery of will. This may be a small first step, as further research is needed to reveal conclusive insights into the nature of the conscious will. Insights, it seems, no longer of a mysterious free entity but rather the expression of our mental sovereignty and uniqueness; conscious, autonomous, and at the same time inseparable from the universe in which we all live, love and die. Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Catherine Beeker for playing the devil’s advocate and her editorial contribution. References Aron A.R. (2007) The Neural Basis of Inhibition in Cognitive Control. 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Towards a theory of consciousness: Proposal for the resolution of the homunculus fallacy with predictions* A. L rincz and G. Szirtes Department of Information Systems, Eötvös University of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary Abstract In this paper we argue that no forms of Turing test are either necessary or sufficient to establish if a machine is conscious or not. Furthermore, from a modeling point of view, the problem is that the Turing test does not really provide testable predictions. We believe that the model structure should explain the function (of consciousness). We argue that the cornerstone of any model on consciousness is to (partly) overcome the obstacle of the homunculus fallacy about the use of representations. In this contribution a possible solution is suggested, which makes use of reflexive architectures. The emerging computational constraints on the proposed architecture have lead to testable predictions on the dynamical behavior of the biological substrate. Interestingly, these predictions are in good agreement with recent experimental observations. * submitted to the Journal of Consciousness Studies (http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html) Introduction Turing’s famous proposal (Turing, 1950) on a general criterion set for modeling cognition has begun a new chapter in discovering the nature of consciousness, the problem, which is as old as the philosophy itself. Turing’s work can be interpreted as an intention to bridge the gap between the philosophy of the mind and the so-called hardcore sciences (e.g., computational neuroscience, neurobiology, etc.). However, instead of facilitating and directing experimental research, the presumed generality of the Turing test gave rise to new and disturbing questions, many of which, from a modeling point of view, lead us into deadlocks. We admit that attacking the Turing test (e.g. Searle, 1980) and defending it (see e.g. Harnad 2000a, 2000b, 2003) are both entertaining and useful in clarifying the logic behind the philosophy of intelligence and/or consciousness and/or thinking. We are afraid, however, that these routes cannot lead to testable model construction. This is why we feel inspired to chip on the conversation. We hope that our previous works on neurobiological modeling qualifies us for such contribution. Our contribution does not pretend to provide a direct solution to the problem of consciousness. Instead, our remarks are meant to be a call to extend the objectives of cognitive research. Problems of Turing tests In this paper we principally focus on Stevan Harnad’s thoughts from a pragmatic standpoint, because he addresses many exciting issues and aims to highlight their convergence. From our modeling perspective, he argues for the interrelatedness of the mind – body problem, the socalled ‘other minds’ problem and the problem of symbol grounding. Summarizing Harnad’s argument (Harnad 2003, 2000b), we have found the following statements important for our reasoning: i, While the presence of consciousness in others (from human beings to artificial creatures to enter the club of conscious things) is an ontological question, having the knowledge about it is an epistemic problem that is (following Descartes) only our own belief (based on, e.g., the experience of others’ behavior) can help us in deciding on others’ club membership (i.e., epistemic inference on ontological problem). ii, The Turing test still remains the best device to support such an experience based decision. The weakness of the original form of the Turing test (T2) has been demonstrated by Searle' s (1980) Chinese Room argument. As a partial solution, other levels of Turing tests have been introduced. For example, T4 corresponds to a system, which has indistinguishable internal functioning (even at the neuro-molecular level), while T5 is indistinguishable in “every empirically discernible respect” (Harnad, 2000b). The intermediate level of T3 scales up T2 to full performance capacity to pass the Total Turing Test (T3) (see, e.g., in Harnad, 2000a, b). In our view, both T3 and T4 (T5 is omitted for the sake of simplicity) have the same inescapable drawback: they are inherently anthropomorphic, only the mimicking capabilities are different. In other words, passing Turing test is not a sufficient condition for recognizing or defining consciousness. We claim that Turing tests are not necessary conditions either. An illuminating but somewhat controversial example is the case of patients awoken from coma, who can report consciouslike sensations and mental processes during their coma state, which are not accessible for any Turing test. Young children before acquiring the ability of language would be another example, because they would also fail in a communication based Turing test. Thirdly, although there are famous demonstrations that some monkeys can use some hand signs based on American Sign Language and could pass certain items of T2-T4 Turing tests, neither of these tests can tell us, if lower level primates are conscious or not. To escape from this seemingly vicious circle of a neither necessary nor sufficient test, we suggest looking for other, possibly less anthropomorphic constraints on functional modeling with explanation power. As a first step, by rephrasing the problem with Harnad’s wording, we think that the issue at hand is how a “ghost in a machine” could convince itself about the presence or absence of “a ghost in another machine”. Our proposal is to find key modeling issues, which might lead to a functional explanation of the “ghost”. When functional models are investigated, one is forced to deal with internal functioning, which is inherently tied up with the use of representations. However, the concept of using representations is not without problems. The main attack against such representation has been clearly described by, e.g., Dennett (1991) and Searle (1992) in the form of the socalled “homunculus” fallacy. According to the fallacy, the internal representation in any information processing system is meaningless without an interpreter. The paradox claims that all levels of abstraction require at least one further level containing the corresponding interpreter. The interpretation – according to the fallacy – is just a new transformation and we are trapped in an endless recursion. An intriguing property of the fallacy is its generality: it is hard to think of a conscious being, which does not have any form of any interpreting function. Thus, the fallacy is not restricted to humans. It is our firm belief that any model targeting conscious mental processes, such as declarative memory, decision-making and planning (and feelings if you like), could be questioned by the arguments of the fallacy. That is, a constructive route to find the “ghost in the machine” is to resolve the fallacy first. Our thinking is best expressed by the words of Albert Szent-Györgyi (1951), the famous Hungarian Nobel Laureate: "There is no real difference between structure and function; they are the two sides of the same coin. If structure does not tell us anything about function, it means we have not looked at it correctly." A resolution of the fallacy First, we note that there can be more than one route to resolve the fallacy. For example, along the line of the classical black box modeling, the fallacy does not arise at all (see, e.g., Dennett (1991)). The price to pay is that black box modeling cannot provide structural explanation and must resort in the Turing tests. We claim that the paradox stems from vaguely described procedure of ‘making sense’. The fallacy arises by saying that the internal representation should make sense. To the best of our knowledge, this formulation of the fallacy has not yet been questioned except in our previous works (L rincz, 1997, L rincz et al. 2002a, b). The fallacy was turned upside down by changing the roles: Not the internal representation but the sensory input, e.g., retinal pattern, or its transformed forms, should make sense: The input makes sense if the same (or similar) inputs have been experienced beforehand and if the input can be derived or regenerated by means of the internal representation (L rincz, 1997, L rincz 1998, L rincz et al., 2002a, b, c). According to this approach the internal representation interprets the input by (re-) constructing it.




The idea behind this approach is to execute the infinite recursion in a finite architecture. The change of the roles gives rise to a reconstructing loop structure. The loop has two constituents; the top and the bottom. The top part contains the internal representation that, in turn, generates the reconstructed input via the top-down transformation. The bottom part computes the difference between the actual input and the reconstructed input. This difference, the reconstruction error is then used to correct the internal representation via the bottom-up transformation, which generates (modifies) the reconstructed input and so on. This is a finite architecture with a converging, but – in principle – endless iteration and the fallacy is simplified to the problem of stability and convergence. It may be important to note that this route has nothing to do with mirroring (the external world). The input to the mirror and the mirror image differ in their material qualities and the mirror has no tool to compare the two and to engage in any iteration to make corrections. One might say that the internal representation, which reproduces the input, is a (spatio-temporal) model in a general sense: it predicts and reproduces (internal and external) sensory information (L rincz et al., 2002a, b, c).
There are relatively strong (mathematical and computational) constraints on how such a reconstruction network should work. These constraints severely restrict our freedom in building such architectures (L rincz 2002b).
A few corollaries of the resolution We followed the aforementioned constructive route and derived a model (L rincz and Buzsáki, 2000, L rincz et al., 2000a). The model has some emerging mathematical properties For example, successful reconstruction trivially requires at least two things: 1. The information content of the input should be accessible for the internal representation 2. The noise content of the input should not be reconstructed and, in turn, it should not be available for the internal representation The first request can be ensured by the maximization of information transfer of the bottom-up transformation – as it has long been suggested by Attneave (1954) and Barlow (1961). To achieve this, the bottom-up processing channels should be adjusted on the base of the arriving inputs. Loosely speaking, Point 2 says that (a) information and noise should be distinguished and (b) the bottom-up filtering should cancel the noise content. Distinction between information and noise is based on the degree of their compressibility. The concept of compressibility is related to the recognition of any organized structure in the input. If the given architecture is able to compile and interpret the input then it can also provide a more compact description. While a representation can be even more complex than the represented subject, it is tacitly assumed that a useful description method should yield compact representations in order to facilitate the recognition and understanding of higher level organization. The noise component of the input has no structure or its structure is not recognizable at the given processing level in the hierarchical system. In contrast, information has structure and in turn, it can be compressed by highlighting the structure.

What if a novel input arrives? Novel input, by definition, has two properties: (i) the input may have structure, (ii) the input and the embedded structure has not yet been encountered by the reconstruction architecture. The bottom-up transformation channels let through the experienced structural components and filter the non-experienced structural component of the input. The filtering results in slow reconstruction, which is in contrast to the case of familiar (learned) inputs, when reconstruction is fast. After adjusting the bottom-up transformation to enable the transmission of the structure in the novel input, reconstruction becomes faster. Reconstruction is perfect, if the bottom-up transformed input creates an internal representation, which is able to reconstruct the structural part of the input. This latter process requires the tuning of the top-down transformation, too. In the case of perfect reconstruction, bottom-up and top-down transformations invert each other and no error correction and no iteration are needed. The system‘s functioning can be seen in a feed-forward manner, where top-down transformation simply reinforces the bottom-up one. We thus conclude that – in reconstruction networks – familiarity and novelty are tied to reconstruction speed. Neurobiological consequences The model was successfully mapped onto the hippocampus and the adjacent medial temporal lobe structures (L rincz and Buzsáki, 2000, L rincz et al., 2002a, b). This region is thought to be responsible for higher order memory (re)-organization. One implicit evidence is that lesion to this area may give rise to anterograde amnesia in which the ability of learning new things is impaired, whereas past memories are typically spared (Knowlton and Squire, 1994). The novelty of our mapping was that starting from a relatively small set of hypotheses many structural and functional features could be derived. These results may be considered as indirect predictions of the model. Without further assumptions, we could also show the emergence of some specific low order memory functions. One intriguing example is a functional explanation of a specific category learning disorder exhibited by patients of Alzheimer’s disease (Kéri et al., 2002). In our model, we could also demonstrate by means of simulations the inherent connection between repetition suppression observed in neural activity upon repeated presentation of external stimuli and priming (Szirtes and L rincz, 2002, L rincz et al., 2002b), which is a long-suspected relationship (Miller and Desimone, 1994). A few direct and falsifying predictions could also be made. These predictions have been reinforced recently: In accord with the model’s prediction on temporal properties, one specific feature (large and tunable temporal delaying capabilities) of a peculiar sub-region (the dentate gyrus) has been observed since then (Henze et al., 2002). Another prediction of the model concerns temporal integration (that is accumulation of information during a longer time interval) at the internal representation level. Temporal integration is exhibited, e.g., by the maintenance of spiking after the excitation stops. This property has been found recently in the deep layers of the entorhinal cortex (Egorov, et al., 2002)., which is exactly the container of internal representation suggested by our model. This property can be contrasted to other layers (e.g., the superficial layer of the entorhinal cortex) where activity self-terminates, as it was demonstrated by the same work.



All these are preliminary results requiring further investigations. We are also aware that resolving the fallacy will not explain consciousness. On top of that, it is possible that this single issue may not even be on the right track in understanding the nature of consciousness. And yet, the method to follow structural considerations while dropping anthropomorphic features has already lead to testable predictions. Summarizing our view, instead of being trapped by the Turing test we suggest seeking other methods for investigating consciousness. We think that armed with the Turing test alone, makes us too heavy to move on for two fundamental reasons: 1. The Turing test is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish if “there is a ghost in the machine”. 2. The Turing test is not capable to provide testable predictions about beings with or without consciousness. It is challenging to think of better alternatives. Acknowledgements We are most grateful to Stevan Harnad for his helpful comments and, in particular, pointing out the importance of the mirroring problem. This work was supported by the Hungarian National Science Foundation under Grant No. OTKA 32487. References Attneave, F. (1954). Informational aspects of visual perception. Psychol Rev 61:183-193. Barlow, H.B. (1961). Possible principles underlying the transformation of sensory messages. In: Sensory communication, Ed.: Rosenblith W.A. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Dennett, D.C. (1991). Consciousness explained. (Little Brown, New York.) Egorov, A.V. Hamam, B.N., Fransén E., Hasselmo M.E. & Alonso, A.A. (2002). Graded persistent activity in entorhinal cortex neurons. Nature 420:173-178. Harnad, Stevan. (2003). Can a Machine Be Conscious? How? http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002460/ Harnad, Stevan (1982). Consciousness: An afterthought Cognition and Brain Theory 5: 29-47 Harnad, Stevan (2000a). The Convergence Argument in Mind-Modelling: Scaling up from Toyland to the Total Turing Test. Psycoloquy: 11,#78 Harnad, Stevan (2000b). Minds, Machines and Turing: The Indistinguishability of Indistinguishables, Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 9(4):425-445. Henze, D.A., Wittner, L. & Buzsáki Gy. (2002). Single granule cells reliably discharge targets in the hippocampal CA3 network in vivo. Nature Neuroscience 5: 790-795 Kéri, Sz., Janka, Z., Benedek, Gy, Aszalós, P., Szatmáry, B., Szirtes, G. & L rincz, A. (2002). Categories, prototypes and memory systems in Alzheimer' s disease. Trends in Cognitive Science 6: 132-136, 2002.  Knowlton, B.J. & Squire, L.R. (1993). The learning of natural categories: parallel memory systems for item memory and category-level knowledge. Science 262: 147-149 L rincz, A. (1997) Towards a unified model of cortical computation II: From control architecture to a model of consiousness. Neural Network World 7:137-152. http://people.inf.elte.hu/lorincz/Files/lorincz(APCA2).ps  L rincz, A. (1998). Forming independent components via temporal locking of reconstruction architectures: A functional model of the hippocampus. Biological Cybernetics, 75:37-47, 1998.  L rincz, A. & Buzsáki, Gy. (2000). Two-phase computational model of the entorhinal-hippocampal region. In: The parahippocampal region: Implications for neurological and psychiatric diseases. Eds.: Sharfman, H.E., Witter, M.P. & Schwarcz, R. (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 911, 2000) pp. 83-111.  s razor at work: Modeling of the ' homunculus' . L rincz, A., Póczos, P., Szirtes, G. & Takács B. (2002a). Ockham' Brain and Mind 3: 187-220. http://www.wkap.nl/journals/bam  L rincz, A., Szatmáry B. & Szirtes G. (2002b). Mystery of structure and function of sensory processing areas of the neocortex: A resolution. Joournal of Computational Neuroscience 13: 187–205, 2002. http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0929-5313  L rincz, A., Szirtes, G., Takács, B., Biederman, I. & Vogels R. (2002c). Relating priming and repetition suppression. International Journal of Neural Systems 12: 187-202. http://www.worldscinet.com/ijns/ijns.shtml  Miller. E.K., & Desimone, R. (1994). Parallel neuronal mechanisms for short-term memory. Science 263: 520522 Searle, J. (1992). The Rediscovery of the Mind (Representation and Mind), (MIT Press, Cambridge.) Searle, J. (1999). Consciousness. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/ jsearle/rtf/Consciousness1.rtf Szent-Györgyi, A. (1951). Chemistry of Muscular Contraction. (Academic Press Inc. New York) Szirtes, G. & L rincz, A. (2002). Low level priming as a consequence of perception Connectionist Models of Cognition and Perception, Proc. of the 7th Neural Computation Workshop, Eds.: J.A. Bullinaria and W. Lowe, World Scientific, Singapore, NCPW7: 223-235, 2002.  Turing, A.M. (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 49 433-460 [Reprinted in Minds and machines. A. Anderson (ed.), Engelwood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964.]

arXiv:physics/0310154v5 [physics.gen-ph] 5 Sep 2005 A thought experiment on consciousness ⋆ Germano D’Abramo Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Area di Ricerca di Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy. E-mail: Germano.Dabramo@rm.iasf.cnr.it Abstract The Mind-Body Problem, which constitutes the starting point for a large part of the speculations about consciousness and conscious experience, can be re-stated in an equivalent way, using the ‘brain duplication’ argument described in this paper. If we assume that consciousness follows from a peculiar organization of physical matter and energy, namely that it does not transcend physical reality, then the brain duplication argument gives a possible interesting physical characterization of the mind: namely, a sort of extensive interdependence of the brain with the whole surrounding physical world in giving rise to consciousness. Key words: mind/body problem, mind, consciousness, physical world PACS: 01.55.+b 1 Introduction One of the most fundamental problem in dealing with conscious experiences and consciousness is the following: if I am able to completely describe the physical state of my brain (conceding that all the physics necessary to such description is already known), may I safely say to have completely described my mental state, my subjective experience too? The point is that my subjective experiences, like for example those of pain, joy or smell (generally referred to as qualia), seem not to get exhausted in a physical-functional description of my cerebral states, even in the most complete description we are able to imagine to. Actually, the description of the physical processes which take place in my brain, when I experience pain for example, seems not to be a complete description of my subjective experience of pain; at most, it seems to be only ⋆ Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather Giulio-Fiore. Preprint submitted to Philosophy Now First draft: August 2003 a complete description of the cerebral states of my brain during my pain experience. In other words, it seems that a barrier, impassable to every physical theory, forbids any complete objective description of subjective experience, or, at least, every complete objective description of a subjective experience simply does not include the subjective experience itself. The objective description and the subjective experience seem to belong to different and ‘orthogonal’ dimensions, the outside and the inside. What I have described above briefly summarizes the well-known Mind-Body Problem, the main ingredient of the philosophical investigations of the mind and a thorn in the side of physicalism, namely of those who believe in a complete reduction of consciousness to peculiar physical processes of the brain (for accessible and exhaustive reviews of the Mind-Body Problem see, for example, Nagel [1] and Chalmers [2]). In this paper I provide an equivalent formulation of the Mind–Body Problem, which I will call the ‘brain duplication’ argument, and I will show that if we assume that consciousness is in any case a physical process which takes place in the physical world, in the most general sense of these terms, namely that it does not transcend physical reality, then the human brain, in giving rise to the mind, might be characterized by the astonishing property of an extensive interdependence with the whole surrounding physical world. 2 The ‘brain duplication’ argument For the sake of thought experiment, let us suppose that we manage to create an exact, physically identical duplicate of my brain, as it is in this precise moment. Actually, it does not matter whether we do not known operatively how to do it. The point is that since at least a brain exists physically, then nothing forbids us to imagine an identical physical duplicate of it, as well as nothing forbids us to imagine an identical physical duplicate, atom by atom, of the sheet of paper on which these words are written, just for the fact that such sheet of paper exists, even if probably we will never be able to do the actual duplicate. Now, just after the creation of this duplicate, how would my own consciousness react? As everyone of you can experience directly, one of the leading characteristics of consciousness is the perception of its own uniqueness, the uniqueness of oneself and of its own conscious experience, and, in addition, the perception of the persistence of such uniqueness (I feel to be myself also in different periods and different places). Therefore, if I were able to exactly 2 duplicate my brain, would my own consciousness change? And if it changes, how does it change? Would I feel to be here, where I was before the duplication, but at the same time would I feel to be there, where my brain duplicate is now? I believe that the most natural answer for everyone is that I will continue to be myself as I was before the duplication. But then, who or what is my exact physical duplicate? If the two brains are physically identical and their consciousnesses are different, in what do they differ? Here two possible approaches to the problem are presented. 3 Non-physical explanation Consciousness is not physically reproducible in the reality. Namely it does not depend on physical reality and it is in some sense ‘outside’ it: thus, distinct conscious experiences and consciousnesses may even be attached to two physically identical brains, or only one of these brains may be conscious (and the other one may not; the duplicate brain, for example, might be a so-called zombie). If it is so, there is not much to do; as a matter of fact, consciousness would constitute a prime and alien property, to be added to the rest of the physical properties of the brain. However, such hypothesis seems to be scientifically frustrating and, after all, not particularly reasonable. I guess that not many researchers would honestly feel up to deny any link between consciousness and the physical world (even if such link is not completely clear from a scientific point of view). Even if we assume that the existence of the brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the presence of consciousness, the latter must necessarily have a physical interaction with the brain, otherwise it would not even make sense to talk about brain as necessary condition, without speaking about the substantial amount of data achieved nowadays in the neurosciences on the neural correlates of consciousness. Moreover, matter can act on mind and consciousness, as any physical and chemical interferences on our state of consciousness can easily demonstrate. So, matter, mind and consciousness have to speak the same ‘language’. And therefore consciousness must be a physically characterizable, a physically tractable entity. Such physical entity might be completely internal or external (partially or totally) to the brain. In the first case we just would have that the exact physical reproduction of one’s brain would give tout court the consciousness of that person (and hence, the brain duplication dilemma). If, on the contrary, this entity were external, it might be one and unique, or there might be many, one of them corresponding to each consciousness currently existing in the 3 Fig. 1. A naı̈ve sketch of the argument described in the text. world. Yet, this further distinction is not important in our case: plausibly, two physically identical brains would always interact in the same way with the same external physical agent (like two equally tuned radio receivers ‘interact’ always with the same radio station, although there are a lot of different radio frequencies in the air), and again the brain duplication dilemma would be left untouched. However, I believe that now this dilemma is ready to be tackled with the possible physical explanation described in the next section. 4 A possible physical explanation Let us suppose instead that consciousness depends on physical reality, namely on the peculiar organization of physical matter and energy, in the most general sense of these terms, and also let us do not exclude the possibility, suggested in the previous section, that consciousness originates not only in the physics of the brain but also through the interaction with an external physical process. A possible explanation of the seemingly paradoxical picture originated in the brain duplication argument is that (the evolution of) the cerebral processes involved in the rise of consciousness might physically depend not only on the physics of the brain itself but actually also on all the things which physically surround such brain, in the sense that it depends on the organization of all the surrounding physical matter and energy. In such framework, the physically exact copy of my brain, which is in the region of the space B(xc , yc , zc ), interacts with all the surrounding physical world, and thus also with my original brain which is in the region of space B(xo , yo , zo ). Similarly, my own original brain, which is in the region of space B(xo , yo , zo ), interacts with all the surrounding physical world, and thus also with the physically exact copy of my brain, which is in B(xc , yc , zc ). Therefore, 4 it is clear (see fig. 1) that the boundary conditions for the two identical brains are not identical, and the evolution of cerebral states, as well as consciousness, might not be identical (although the memory of all the past experiences might be the same in every details for both brains). A similar conclusion on the possibility of an extensive physical interdependence of the human brain with the whole surrounding physical world in giving rise to mind has been drawn in another thought experiment (D’Abramo [3]) but through a different approach involving the notion of algorithmic complexity. Note that any finite version of this approach, i.e. that the suggested physical dependence is only on a finite portion of the surrounding physical world, does not change much the point. As a matter of fact, the brain+‘finite portion of physical world’ must be a physically isolated system, i.e. a totally isolated system. For if it were not, two such systems within two different environments would eventually lead to the same dilemma on consciousness as before, since the same consciousness will eventually experience different environments at the same time. Hence, even in any finite approach, the finite portion of the surrounding physical world is in fact all the surrounding physical world. Now, whether there are spatial limits to be understood in the word “all ” used before, and whether they are posed by the concept of visible universe and finite speed of light, the discussion of this is beyond the scope of the present note. Thus, the brain might be far from being a semi-closed box, opened only to the five senses, and the common perception that our brain does not continuously interact at a deeper physical level with the rest of the physical world might be simply wrong. As a loose analogy, if the physical reality were the water of a sea, our brain would not be like a submarine guided by sonar, rather it would be more like a soaked sponge. So far, we have never made mention to how consciousness rises, or to which are the specific physical ‘mechanisms’ at the basis of consciousness, but this was not the topic of our paper, other than being a very complicated and longstanding issue (irresolvable at the moment, I think). Rather, I have proposed a possible physical characterization of consciousness and mind: the uniqueness of conscious experience and consciousness might depend also on the whole surrounding physical world, in the sense of the organization of its physical matter and energy. But, if this were the case, it would be very strange if the rise itself of consciousness and mind did not depend on the extensive interaction of the brain with whole surrounding physical world. By the way, if we do not accept the picture of the extensive physical interaction between brain and the whole surrounding physical world, but want to maintain the dependence of mind and consciousness on physical reality, and thus that mind and consciousness completely arise from the physical organization of the brain alone, all this would inevitably result in another type of ‘extensive 5 interdependence’, a sort of non-locality: as a matter of fact, after the brain duplication, the very same mind (the very same person) could be in two very distant places at the same time. I believe that talking about the necessary physical mechanisms responsible for the suggested extensive interaction, and actually talking about the detailed physical dynamics and evolution of such interaction, is premature at the moment. It might be said (and it was actually said already) that the human brain may be assimilated to a complex dynamical system, extremely sensitive to all the surrounding physical conditions (in such case we should mention the so-called deterministic chaos; see for example Newman [4]), or that quantum mechanics may be deeply involved (many people have proposed various quantum mechanisms to explain consciousness, so to compile a complete list of references on this topic is hopeless; see for example Bohm [5] and references therein), or, most probably, that a new kind of physics is needed. However, although such aspect of the problem is obviously essential in the study of the origin of consciousness, it is secondary in the present context. Acknowledgments I wish to thank Alessandro Silvestrini for having brought to my attention the ‘brain duplication’ argument, during a conversation around a coffee table. By the way, the name of the Cafè was ‘Miró’, thus for the sake of joke, I suggest to call the argument of this paper ‘the Miró hypothesis’. I am also grateful to William A. Adams for insightful comments on this paper. I wish to thank Herbert F. Muller for having posted a previous version of this paper on the Karl Jaspers Forum Website. References [1] Nagel, T., 1987. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. [2] Chalmers, D.J., (December 1995). The Puzzle of Conscious Experience. Scientific American, pp. 62–68. [3] D’Abramo, G., 2005. Some non-conventional ideas about algorithmic complexity, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 25/1, pp. 29–32. Preprint archive http://arxiv.org/abs/math.HO/0211222 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2004.11.040 [4] Newman, D.V., 1997. Chaos, Emergence, and the Mind-Body Problem. Australian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 92, no. 2, pp. 180–196. 6 [5] Bohm, D., 1990. A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter. Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 271–286. 7

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1087 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Article The Catuskoti Peter Fumich 1 Abstract An essential principal to Buddhism is non-dualism. However, the Catuskoti is clearly a system still immersed in dualism. This sort of dualism is more like that of the dual in Tao. Taken by themselves, the two relative states contain within themselves the nature of the absolutes. The only thing which differentiates are the notions both, neither. It is much like the yin and yang symbol. However, more accurately as we go on we see a fractal emerge. Hence, the ultimate truth, one in which we seem to conceptually call the more subtle truth is an illusion. The infinite recursion of this extension hints at an ultimate truth arising at ∞. The conception which takes within it this very fractal nature is truly enlightened. A truth which is free from dualism is either entirely immersed within dualism, or it lacks the distinction of truth all together. The use of the Catuskoti serves the purpose to hint ultimately at a non-truth. Speaking in terms of tautologies and ineffables, we will see the Catuskoti is a conceptual elaboration of traditional dualism, absolute true and false. While this itself is a conceptual elaboration of the union of true and false, Sunyata or 0. Sunyata is a conceptual elaboration of itself, which of course cannot be explained conceptually because then it emerges from non-conceptual Sunyata to conceptual Sunyata of 0. We can hint at it by saying, as a truth space, the non-conceptual Sunyata be U, then the set of ineffables of U and tautologies of U forms the conceptual elaboration of U. It should be clear that careful attention to our use of V4 , the Klein 4 group, will be sufficient to realize a conceptual grasp of the non-conceptual Sunyata. 1 Building Blocks 1.1 definitions and propositions Definition 1.1.1. A Truth Space U is a collection of objects with a relation, ∗. For our purposes, the relation will be addition, which behaves in a truth space as exclusive disjunction 2 . Prop 1.1.1. A truth space is an algebraic group. Definition 1.1.2. A truth value is an object within the truth space U, written u. Hence U={u0 , u1 , ..., un |ui ∗ uj ∈ U }, the truth space U is equal to the set of objects such that there is a relation defined by ∗. Since the truth space is a group, any relation between two truth values will return a truth value. Definition 1.1.3. A truth state is a set of truth values, which are treated as a single object. A set of truth states will be applied to propositions, truth possessing statements. Hence, a truth space and a truth value are both truth states, and a truth space can have many truth states. Prop 1.1.2. There exist some U which may be constructed from a dualistic view to truth states, which considers absolute and relative truth states. The above proposition is one of the linguistic approaches we may take investigating truth. It is purely conceptual, and without a nature of truth there is nothing to be dualistic. Two truth states which form a dualistic view are called conjugates. 1 Correspondence: Peter Fumich. Email: pkfumich@gmail.com. 2 This is because all of our truth spaces will be equal to some direct sum of sets of integers.integers, direct sum. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1088 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Definition 1.1.4. A symmetry is a reflection or rotation of a geometric realization of a truth space U, which preserves the geometric orientation. Prop 1.1.3. The set of symmetries also forms an algebraic group. Definition 1.1.5. A negation is any map which under the group operation are their own inverse. Prop 1.1.4. All reflections, and other 2 cycles of the symmetry group, are negations. Definition 1.1.6. A partial negation is a symmetry which is not its own inverse. A finite number of iterations of a partial negation forms a negation. Hence, if we have a truth space with truth values, then taking a symmetry of the geometric realization of the space will ‘map’ each truth value to another truth value. For a symmetry which is a negation, then applying the symmetry twice returns the original orientation. A rotation by π/2 radians is not a symmetric negation of the truth space Z2 , since it is not even a symmetry. More so, even if one conceived of rotating by π/2 then it wouldn’t be a negation since π/2 + π/2 = π. π is a reflection(or rotation), which is a negation, so it π/2 is not a negation itself. However, this will not stop us from rotating spaces in non-symmetric orientations-such as rotating the square π/4 radians. Definition 1.1.7. An algebraic negation is a map from one collection of truth values to another in which the map can be defined by an algebraic operation on each and every truth value, regardless of the geometric realization(or placement on a matrix). In fact, an algebraic negation can be constructed by adding an element of the truth space to each truth state. Equivalently, an algebraic negation may be constructed by adding an element of the set of tautologies to the truth space. Definition 1.1.8. A tautology is a space in which all dualistic constructed views of a set of truth states are equal.3 The set of tautologies of U is written {U } Definition 1.1.9. A proposition whose truth state is not a truth value in the given truth space U is said to be ineffable in U if for each truth state it is distinct4 and symmetric.5 The set of ineffables of U is written {|U |}. Prop 1.1.5. Given a truth value v in a truth space V, then we can exponentially expand v with respect to an integer k, v k =< v, v, v, ..., v > k times, for k ∈ Z. The geometric realization or algebraic realization of the space should be preserved in the exponential expansion. Definition 1.1.10. An ineffable negation(partial symmetry)(internal symmetry) is a symmetry of a truth space U which assigns to each truth value in U a truth state with more than 1 truth value, by an exponential map proposed above, and then permutes these truth values from one state to another along some path. Definition 1.1.11. An Infinitesimal Negation is an ineffable negation, where each truth state has an infinite number of truth values. 1.2 Examples The following examples roughly go in order of the definitions and theorems. However, the most developed example presented is section 2, the Catuskoti. For practice applying the previous definitions and propositions try conceptually elaborating further on some of the following examples. 3 Conjugate pairs are equal 4 Distinct here means that it is not an algebraic expression, it is of the same type of truth value as the other states. 5 Conjugate truth states are conjugate values in some truth space. Equivalently the sum of the conjugate states is equal to some absolutely true tautology ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1089 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Example 1.2.1. Let U=Z2 , where our group operation is addition modulus 2. This defines a space {0, 1|+}, where 0=false, and 1=true. Notice, 1+1=2=0 mod 2. This is traditional dualism, and Boolean logic is based of this group. Example 1.2.2. U could be Zn , for any n ∈ Z. Then 0= false, n=true, and all the other values from 1 to (n-1) are intermediate truth values. For example, if n=3, we have {0,1,2}, and 1=‘between true and false’. It’s not that it is both, or neither, rather it’s like a path from 0 to 2, and 1 is just an intermediate value. Example 1.2.3. Let U be the 4 roots of unity, U={1, i, −i, −1}, but the group operation is multiplication. As a truth space, these roots of unity under multiplication are equivalent to Z4 under addition. y (0, i) 90◦ (−1, 0) 180◦ 360 0◦ ◦ (1, 0) x 270◦ (0, −i) Both these roots of unity and the values of Z4 can be arranged to form the vertices of the square. Example 1.2.4. The set of symmetries of Z2 is Z2 . We can see the symmetries by arranging the group as a line segment with endpoints identified as the truth values. Then, there is a trivial rotation by 0, and a half rotation or reflection such that the line [0,1] goes to [1,0] 0 1 The non trivial negation takes this geometrical realization and ’maps’ it to 1 0 Example 1.2.5. Let U, truth space, equal the integers mod 3, Z3 ={0, 1, 2}. The 3 values can be arranged in a euclidean space either along the same line, or to form vertices of a triangle. If it were arranged as a line, then there would still only be 2 negations, and the intermediate value of 1(between true and false) is an equilibrium point. That is, under any possible symmetry, it is invariant. Example 1.2.6. For Z2 , all symmetries are negations. Furthermore, there are only 2 ways of algebraically negating the space. Adding either 0 or 1 to each truth value in the space forms the two algebraic negations. On Z2 alone, symmetries are algebraic negations. 0 is the trivial rotation, a rotation by 0 radians. 1 is our only reflection. In general the algebraic negation is not always a symmetric negation. In fact, if U is not internally symmetric, then the algebraic negation is not equal to the symmetry of the space. Hence, if we construct a geometric realization of a space, it would be convenient to have an internally symmetric space. Example 1.2.7. For Z3 , there are at most 3 reflections, hence at most 4 negations (including the trivial negation). There are up to 3 rotations of this space. If there are 3 rotations then the space is geometrically arranged as an equilateral triangle. Then negations can clearly be seen as permutations of vertices. In ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1090 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti fact, all reflections are 2 cycles and all rotations are 3 cycles: a 2 cycle is by definition a negation. However, algebraically negating elements poses a greater difficulty, since the sum of any non-zero element with itself is non-zero: 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4 = 1 modular 3. Hence, adding an element of the truth space to other elements does not act as a full negation, rather it acts as a partial negation (see definition 1.1.7). Adding any element to the space maps the set of truth values to itself. However, adding a truth value twice does not map each element to itself, hence addition of a truth value is not a full negation. A geometric realization of this space allows us to conceive of some negations, but they’re inverting a subspace of Z3 . Hence, there is no negation of the space which permutes each truth state, and iterated twice leaves the identity. Let’s say that the space was arranged as a line, again there is only 1 non-trivial symmetry (from example 5). There is only 1 non-trivial symmetry, which fixes 1, but 1 does not remain invariant under algebraic sums(or partial negations). So, while one could perform any combination of symmetries on this space, one cannot compute a negation of 1 from the symmetries alone. Example 1.2.8. Let the truth space U=< 0, 1, 1 >. This is odd, because the truth value 1 arises twice in two separate truth states. Since U is not internally symmetric, algebraic negations will be different than symmetrical negations. One way of interpreting this is that the space is Z3 , but the states are only filled with these two values. Algebraically negating the space can be done by adding an element of Z3 to each truth state. Given U=< 0, 1, 1 >, U+0=U, U+1=< 1, 0, 0 >, U+2=< 2, 0, 0 >. Notice if we add an element not in U, but in Z3 , to U the resulting truth space is related to the intersection of the two spaces. Example 1.2.9. Z3 has at most 2 partial negations, rotations. If the geometric realization is an equilateral triangle then there are 6 symmetries, 3 rotations(including the trivial symmetry), and 3 reflections. The two non-trivial rotations are partial negations. Assuming there is such a geometric realization for this space, then we can write the space as < 0, 1, 2 > Let any non-trivial rotation be ρ, then ρ(< 0, 1, 2 >) =< 1, 2, 0 >, hence, ρ(ρ(< 0, 1, 2 >))) = ρ(< 1, 2, 0 >) =< 2, 0, 1 >. Rotating once more will leave us with the identity. Example 1.2.10. From example 3, the geometric realization of the truth space is a square, with vertexes identified by truth values. There are a total of 8 symmetries, forming the dihedral group of order 4, we will see this construction again in section 2, constructing the truth space for the Catuskoti. Example 1.2.11. Consider the space Z2 , then the space is written < 0, 1 >, and the ineffable states are | < 0, 1 > | and | < 1, 0 > |. To construct an ineffable negation generally would require tautologies of the system, and then permuting the truth values of the tautologies to form ineffable states. However, this space is well behaved, and we can infer that the ineffable negation of the entire space will map each truth value to one of these ineffable states, given only 2 truth values and only 2 negations. Hence, an ineffable negation of Z2 =< 0, 1 > is < | < 0, 1 > |, | < 1, 0 > | >. Another ineffable negation would be a symmetry of this, and hence there are only two ineffable negations of this degree. These ineffables are ineffable in all Zn for all n. Example 1.2.12. Given the truth space U=Z4 , 2 and 3 are both intermediate to the extremes of 0 and 1, false and true respectively. 0 and 1 are both absolute truth values, and 2,3 are relative. Example 1.2.13. Let U=Z2 , there is only 1 diametric set(0 and 1 are perceived dualities), hence only one constructed view of the truth space to form tautologies. Hence, we may write U as a list of tautologies. U = {< 0, 0 >, < 1, 1 >}. Notice it is a list of the entire space, not an ineffable. Example 1.2.14. Infinitesimal Negation: Using Z2 , let limk→+∞ 0k =< 0, 0, ..., 0 >, with infinite elements, and limk→+∞ 1k =< 1, 1, ..., 1 >. Notice if in this infinite expansion each index in order represents a modular 2 placement holder, like a decimal place, then 0=0, but 1 is approximated by 1/21 + 1/22 + ... + 1/2n and negations are adding infinitesimal numbers. An infinitesimal negation of the space {0, 1} is {< 0, 0, .., 0, 1 >, < 1, 1, ..., 1, 0 >} ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1091 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti 1.3 Logical Extension Theorem If a proposition was described by an ineffable which has the structure of the truth space, it means the behavior of the proposition under a map will behave as though the states were actually values in the truth space. If we add two ineffables then we will add their truth states, and thus their truth values. However, when we interpret the system again, the discrete value which one may actually interpret isn’t a truth value, but is an ineffable of the same dimension of the propositions. If a sentence adds two ineffable symmetries then the sum is equivalent to a sentence with two distinct propositions, v1 , v2 . If one assigns a truth value to v1 or v2 , it does not describe the behavior of v2 or v1 and the result is a set of truth values. One would have to assign a value to both virtual propositions to have a result which is a truth value. Theorem 1.3.1. Given a truth space U0 , then there exists an extension of U0 , E : U0 → U1 where U1 = {|U0 |} ∪ {U0 }. U1 is the union, ∪, of the set of ineffables with the set of tautologies. Lemma 1.3.2. Given a truth space Uk , using the above extension, we may extend towards infinity, and retract to a truth space with no truth values. Theorem 1.3.3. If a,b ∈ |U |, then a+b ∈ U . In fact a+b is an object describing a phase of a+b. This is because tautologies can be negations, hence the phase difference is what angle or line of symmetry relates a and b. 2 Building the Catuskoti as a truth space The Catuskoti is a method of logic 6 7 . Even though it is not the entire theory that we will call V4 , V4 is easily apprehended linguistically by the Catuskoti8 . In general, the Catuskoti considers a single proposition, which in itself is composed of known propositions, perhaps more accurately considered dharmas9 , since they are atomic and essentially uniform. Furthermore these dharmas, the atomic elements of a proposition, usually in essence are ineffable themselves. Example 2.0.1. Brahmic philosophers worded a question to the Buddha fully aware of the general nature of the truth space, connectives, and negations.10 The question is based off of the proposition, ‘The arhat exists after death‘. The arhat is an enlightened person, but not just any enlightened person. The arhat is like a flame.11 ‘How is it, Gautama? Does Gautama hold that the arhat exists after death, and that this view alone is true, and every other false? The Buddha and Vaccha go through all 4 possibilities of this proposition in V4 , and each one is rejected when Vaccha proposes that specific orientation is true. Does the arhat exist after death, does the arhat not exist after death, does the arhat exist and not exist after death, does the arhat neither exist nor not exist after death. When they have exhausted all 4, Vaccha is confused, he expected some sort of true value. That is, he expected to find that the arhat had some true nature after death, or at the very least know his question was dialectically different. To Vaccha’s perspective, when the Buddha rejects the absolute duality, the nature of the enlightened being must be a type of relative value, but these too are 6 Is it deductive logic, is it inductive logic, is it both or neither? 7 A category which constructs a logic 8 Mathematics presupposes any conceptual nature of emptiness which is conceptually elaborated by the Catuskoti itself 9 A dharma is a philosophical element in Buddhist philosophy which contains within itself its entire nature. That is, it does not borrow its nature from any other dharma or from any compounded substance or non-substance. 10 That is the following truth space V . 4 11 There are numerous metaphors which explain the conceptual nature of an arhat ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1092 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti rejected. Therefore, Vaccha is left without any sort of orientation, the answer to his question is not a value in his logical system.12 Unknowingly perhaps, his views are still dualistic, and cannot in themselves get to the essential nature of the arhat. Therefore, it would seem that the nature of the arhat is ineffable, the truth value is not a truth value in V4 . In what sense is it ineffable? Is it locally ineffable, or is it globally ineffable? That is, is it ineffable only in V4 or some finite extension of V4 , or is it ineffable in all possible extensions of V4 ? We will first attempt to yield the same result he expected. To do this, however, we will use both exclusive disjunction and inclusive disjunction on our binary parts of the sentence. These disjunctions are ways of saying ”or”. One reason for this is because the Brahmic philosopher does not seem to ask other negations,13 principally the partial negation of ρ, the π/2 rotation. Though even if it were asked as a dual pair, it would be simultaneously rejected. The Brahman expects that if all statements are asked then they will not all be true, and they will not all be false. Hence, he would most likely consider exclusive disjunction, and that’s essentially how the dialogue appears. The Buddha will show that the nature of the Arhat is neither nihilistic nor eternalistic. Either interpretation necessitates the assumption that the premises are all valid, however as Vaccha asks each, they are simultaneously rejected. However, this negation does not reject all inclusive disjunctive interpretations since the question added that all other views were false. If this part of the sentence were left out, one could interpret the system using inclusive disjunction, and then could look for the possibility that two states are both valid. However, as we will see because of the Buddha’s response, all possible combinations would be rejected. We will then explain an interpretation of the Buddha’s position. Before we can do either, we need a truth space, negations, and 3 connectives. An essential principal to Buddhism is non-dualism. However, the Catuskoti is clearly a system still immersed in dualism. This sort of dualism is more like that of the dual in Tao. Taken by themselves, the two relative states contain within themselves the nature of the absolutes. The only thing which differentiates is the notion of both or neither. 14 . It is much like the yin and yang symbol. However, more accurately as we go on we see a fractal emerge.15 The infinite recursion of this extension hints at an ultimate truth arising at ∞. As we approach infinity we arrive at more subtle truths, which conceptually form an illusion. A truth which is free from dualism is either entirely immersed within dualism, or it lacks the distinction of truth all together. The use of the Catuskoti serves the purpose to hint ultimately at a non-truth16 . Speaking in terms of tautologies and ineffables, we will see the Catuskoti is a conceptual elaboration of traditional dualism, absolute true and false. This itself is a conceptual elaboration of the union of true and false, Sunyata or 017 . Sunyata is a conceptual elaboration of itself, which of course cannot be explained conceptually because then it emerges from non-conceptual Sunyata to conceptual Sunyata of 0. We can hint at it by saying that as a truth space, the non-conceptual Sunyata is labeled by U, then the set of ineffables of U and tautologies of U forms the conceptual elaboration of U. It should be clear that careful attention to our use of V4 will be sufficient to realize a conceptual grasp of the non-conceptual Sunyata. 12 It would have been interesting to read the discourse immersing into partial negations, or infinitesimal negations to find truth. Hence, they would consider specific ineffables which are constructed from unifying conjugate pairs, for which there is only 1 to consider, and it is called ρ. Being that this doesn’t arise, one would conclude the Brahmic philosophers themselves did not conceptually elaborate upon other negations. 13 Which would extend their conception beyond the four truth states. 14 Imagine if we were to say some of true, or some of false. Then we might say, z=some true and some false. Though, we’re always in a mathematical dualism created by our conjugate pairs, so there is z. Furthermore z or z is tautologously true. It is in this disjunction that ‘true’ always arises again, and we see it embedded within these truth values. 15 If the first error of dualistic thinking is a circle with one side being black the other white{one is 0 the other is 1, one is false the other is true}, the second is the Tao,{x and y}, perhaps the next could be viewed as ρ and ρ. Which have within themselves x and y. 16 Not to be confused with a non-true a negation of a perceived absolute true, or even a negation of a perceived absolute truth. It is a non-truth of any nature. 17 This conclusion is taken from many authors perception on the relationship between mathematics and Buddhism. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1093 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Example 2.0.2. If Atman18 were some sort of permanent dharma, which existed everywhere undifferentiated and equally, then upon the thought of the conjunction of two things as far as the mind extends there should equally be that which was called Atman. However, all that is eventually found is emptiness of 0. The conjunction of an infinite series of aggregates, which may appear different than Atman, will leave only the essential nature of Atman, since it is assumed that Atman will permeate everywhere the mind extends. One will come to see, because of x and y, the conjunction of this infinite series leaves 0, emptiness, unless everything is equal to one non-zero truth value. We come to a reinterpretation of an empty Atman which is ineffable{in V4 }. For some sentence to be valid from this, all states must be equal upon further constructions. Theorem 2.0.4. Let U2 =Z2 , a Boolean logic composed of only true and false equal to 1 and 0 respectively with respect to addition. Then from theorem 1.1.1 we can define U1 ={| < 1, 0 > |, | < 0, 1 > |} ∪ {< 0, 0 >, < 1, 1 >} = V4 = {x, y, 0, 1|∀a ∈ V4 , a + a = 0, x + y = 1} Lemma 2.0.5. U3 is the Klein group of order 4, V4 . It also represents the truth space for the Catuskoti, just as Z2 represented the truth space for Boolean logic. Also, see examples, 1.1.11 and 1.1.13. Prop 2.0.1. Linguistically: 0 is absolutely false asatya 1 is tabsolutely true - satya x is neither true nor false - asamvrti y is both true and false - samvrti Below are two tables which show the connectives of exclusive disjunction(+) and conjunction( ) on all + 0 x 1 y 0 x 1 y combinations of truth values. 0 x 1 y 0 x 1 y x 0 y 1 1 y 0 x y 1 x 0 0 x 1 y 0 0 0 0 0 x x 0 0 x 1 y 0 0 y y Prop 2.0.2. Geometric Realization of V4 (i) We may notice we can write V4 as vertices of the square since from theorem 2.0.4 we notice they look like Cartesian coordinates which we join to form a square. x=< 1, 0 > and y=< 0, 1 >. y 1 0 x (ii)We can also identify the edges with arrows to designate topological paths, as to relate this square to the path diagram for the topological space which represents the Klein bottle. This designation can be done in many ways which are all equivalent. There are two paths, the x and y paths, and the arrows can be oriented by the relation yxy −1 x. The above orientation is our standard orientation since it is similar to Cartesian coordinates, and it is called e0 . 18 Ultimate self, some practices suggest realizing that Atman is essentially God. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1094 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Prop 2.0.3. The group of symmetries of the geometric realization of V4 is formed by the group D4 , where D4 = {0, ρ, 1, ρ, x, y, τ , σ}. Linguistically: 0 the trivial symmetry, this is a basis for our standard orientation. ρ is a quarter rotation counter clockwise 1 is a half rotation ρ is a quarter rotation clockwise x is a reflection horizontally, thus it has a vertical axis of symmetry y is a reflection vertically, hence it has a horizontal axis of symmetry τ is a reflection which leaves 1 and 0 fixed σ is a reflection which leaves x and y fixed. τ and σ are especially interesting because they leave either an absolute (0 or 1, false or true) diagonal or a relative(x or y) fixed while reflecting the other. From this perspective, if we limited our view only to the absolute so we’re essentially within a Boolean logic, then τ behaves as 0 and σ behaves as the 1 negation. Prop 2.0.4. The set of symmetries of V4 , {|V4 |}, is written {|V4 |}={e0 , ex , ey , e1 , eρ , eρ , eτ , eσ }. As matrices:   y 1 e0 = , This is our standard orientation. Without a choice of a standard orientation we will always 0 x be at a loss to interpreting of an argument.   any result  1 y 0 x x 0 ex = , ey = , e1 = x 0 y 1 1 y         1 x 0 y x 1 y 0 eρ = , eρ = , eτ = , eσ = y 0 x 1 0 y 1 x Prop 2.0.5. D4 may be divided into its negations, and partial negations. Pure negations: {0, 1, x, y, τ , σ} Partial negations: {ρ, ρ} However, pure negations are not pure tautologies in an algebraic sense. Hence the only pure tautologies are those which relate to V4 , 0, x, y, 1. One might say a pure tautology is one in which all truth values are the same. Hence τ and σ are not pure negations in V4 , but act as pure negations for Z2 . We have constructed a geometric realization of the space, considered the set of tautologies, which under exclusive disjunction and a proposition represented by a symmetry of |V4 | acts as a negation to the space. To construct sentences or arguments from these blocks requires the study of maps from one space to another. There must be parts or objects to our sentence; these objects are either our propositions represented by a symmetry of |V4 | or they are tautologous or ineffable objects. An ineffable acts in many respects as its own proposition, hence we may confine our attention to maps using symmetries of |V4 | and elements of D4 as tautologies or negations. 3 Maps Negations and symmetries are maps of truth values to other truth values. In general, a map does not have to map a truth value to a truth value in the space. A map from e0 to e1 maps each truth value to a distinct truth value in V4 , hence the map is 1-to-1. We can consider compositions of relations with these symmetries and negations; this is a further classification of maps and relations. If we continue extending the logic, as we did from Z2 to V4 , there will continue to arise many nested relations; in fact the degree ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1095 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti in which these relations are interrelated goes to infinity. However, underlying these following definitions and propositions on maps is a much greater theory: Category theory. Although we will not formally go into this right now, further revisions will attempt to bring the notion of category theory in conjunction with the Catuskoti into a clearer light. Definition 3.0.1. A map has a domain and a range, such that the domain is composed of truth values arranged in some truth state or space. The range is the set of truth states given by the map along with the given domain. Each truth state in the space is said to be mapped to another truth state in the range. Negations and symmetries are the simplest maps we will use. They are in fact functions. However, one must connect a symmetry(or negation) with a truth space(a symmetry of |V4 |). We will introduce our connectives completely in the next section; however, we will concern ourselves with two algebraic connectives which will relate negations to a truth space. We have actually seen this already in the previous section when we presented the set of symmetries of the space. These two connectives are exclusive disjunction as group addition, and conjunction which behaves as multiplication. Applying an element of D4 to a truth space via one of these connectives is called a negation, and is very well behaved. Definition 3.0.2. A map which is 1-to-1 and onto is a function from a truth value to another truth value. All standard symmetries are functions. Definition 3.0.3. Absolute truth states are along the diagonal with 0 and 1 in e0 . This may be called the main diagonal. Relative truth states are along the diagonal with x,y in e0 . Recall from section 1, we called these conjugates. Below conjugates are defined in terms of negations. Theorem 3.0.6. Exclusive disjunction negation: Given e0 ∈ |V4 | and n ∈ D4 , then e0 +n=en =n+e0 . Given n,m ∈ D4 , n+m ∈ D4 , and if n+m=1 then m=n the conjugate of n. en + en = 1, and en en = 0. (i) u,v ∈ {|V4 |}, u + v ∈ {V4 } u = |V4 |n , v = |V4 |m , u + v = (V4 )n+m = n + m = l, l ∈ D4 (ii)u,v ∈ {V4 }, u + v ∈ {V4 } u = n, v = m, n, m ∈ D4 , then u + v = n + m = l, l ∈ D4 (iii) u ∈ {V4 }, v ∈ {|V4 |}, u + v ∈ {|V4 |} u = |V4 |n , v = m, n, m ∈ D4 , u + v = |V4 |n+m = |V4 |l Hence tautologies and ineffables have an interdependent, symmetrical relationship. The sum of an ineffable and a tautology acts both as an algebraic negation, and as a symmetry. Periodically the term duality, or dichotomy, may be used. When used with respect to the logic, these are conjugate pairs. A dualistic form of thinking does not apprehend on one form of dualism over another, but is in essence always oriented with respect to conjugate pairs. Hence, our entire perspective through this paper is dualistic. Given a sufficient permutation of dualistic views there arises an awareness of non-dualism. However, it seems unlikely to communicate in some non-dualistic sense. Definition 3.0.4. Conjugate pairs are dual forms of perception: dualistic views. Theorem 3.0.7. Conjunction Negation: Given e0 ∈ |V4 | and n ∈ D4 , then e0 n=en =ne0 . Given n,m ∈ D4 , nm ∈ D̂4 . en + en = e10 = e0 , and en en = 0. en em = nme0 e0 = nme0 = enm . If m = n̄, then en em = en en̄ = 0. This exponential notation was used in example 14, with respect to infinitesimal negations. This may be slightly confusing, given the exponent is an element of the truth space then it’s a conjunctive negation. If the exponent was an integer then it behaves as the example, increasing the dimension of the element ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1096 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti with copies of itself. Hence, raising a truth value to a number equal to the number of elements  in acertain 1 1 block structure is a way of constructing tautologies or certain fractal structures. 14 = 1 = . 1 1 Definition 3.0.5. D̂4 ={nm|n, m ∈ D4 } = {0, x, 1, y, ρ, ρ̄, τ , σ, τ x , τ y , σ x , σ y }.         x 0 y 0 0 x 0 y τx = =xτ =τ x, τ y = =yτ =τ y, σ x = =xσ=σx, σ y = =yσ=σy 0 x 0 y x 0 y 0 D̂4 is the set of conjugate negation elements which is closed with respect to multiplication.       1 y x x y 1 Example 3.0.3. ex + x = + = = e0 x 0 x x 0 x Looking at the indices we can see clearly x+x=0. On the left hand side we add the x from ex , and the x from the negation giving 0, hence we have a 0 symmetry of our standard space. We started with an x symmetry and then negated it.       1 y x 1 y x Example 3.0.4. ex + eτ = + = =ρ x 0 0 y x y x + τ = ρ. It can be seen that τ is the composition of the rotation counter clockwise and then the reflection over x, so the order in which we compose symmetries is very important. Had we constructed x and then the rotation, it would have been σ not τ which we added to x. τ = ρx = yρ σ = ρy = xρ. xτ = xρx = ρyx = ρ1 = ρ. These are not negations being multiplied, rather it’s an algebraic way of writing the geometric relationship. For example, xy is reflected along x and then y, hence our composition is 1-true. Had it been multiplied, we would have 0.     1 0 0 1 Example 3.0.5. τ + σ = + = 1. Notice σ and τ are conjugates. 0 1 1 0 We can use maps to define sequences and series. Recall example 1.1.14: in this example we used an infinitesimal symmetry on a Boolean logic to create a decimal expansion. Hence, sequences can be used to construct numbers. In example 1.1.14 we may construct any rational number, and approximate many others. Definition 3.0.6. A sequence of V4 , Sn ={v1 , v2 , ..., vn }∀vi ∈ V4 . Permutations are cyclic sequences, hence 3.0.15 is a permutation of e0 and defines a sequence. Example 3.0.6. Any symmetry is a function of some state e0 . Consider φ : e0 → (e0 )ρn , n = 0...k, then each truth value follows the cycle 0,y,1,x,0,y,1,x.... Furthermore, we can see the cycle starting with e0 , {e0 , eρ , e1 , eρ , e0 }. Now that there is a defined space and maps on the space, we can begin to linguistically describe these systems. This comes down to how we assign states of truth spaces to a proposition, our choice of maps, and finally interpreting results. Prop 3.0.6. A propositional statement may be represented by an element of {|V4 |}, the set of symmetries of V4 , as either a space or as an ineffable. While in Boolean logic one only has to consider the position of one truth value to know the choice of a state, here we must know 2 positions, which are not conjugate pairs. Since every symmetry of V4 has conjugate pairs along diagonals, if we know one horizontal or vertical portion of the matrix then we know exactly which matrix it is. For example, if we knew the left hand side of e0 , then we know y and 0 (top down). There is no other matrix which has that specific configuration, which represents an ineffable object, or symmetry of the geometric realization of the truth space. So, linguistically there is quite the challenge when we wish to chose a state for a proposition. There is ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1097 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti ultimately nothing which stops us from always assigning e0 as our state unless there is more than one proposition. Then the orientation of different propositions is very important. If a different orientation is desired, it is through the disjunction with n, a negation, or conjunction with some n that we have a different orientation. The four states may only be investigated through the eight lenses of the Catuskoti, the method of using the eight symmetries, and a discriminative mind which separates one state from the other. The discriminative mind is perhaps the most important part of the entire process: it is the observer principal in many cases.19 When we refer to a proposition being ineffable, it means the values are not in V4 . However, saying a proposition is represented by an ineffable does not mean the proposition too is ineffable. These subtle differences allow one to interpret results, but also show that without the observer there is no conclusion. If there is no observer then there is no way of interpreting ineffable results. Prop 3.0.7. A propositional statement may also be represented by an element of V4 . This means the proposition is a tautology. While it may be a tautology, it still has 4 states, and since not all tautologies have the same state for every truth value, one must still be aware of the states themselves. Notice, it shouldn’t matter  if a proposition was represented by 1, 0, x or y; it’s always true. x y But if it were represented by ρ = , then some truth states are not equal. Specifically the absolute y x diagonal is y and the relative is x. Theorem 3.0.8. All algebraic negations of truth spaces represented by elements of U4 (the extension of V4 ) are equal to some symmetry of the space. The algebraic negation of a composition of propositions will not necessarily be equal to a single symmetry. Theorem 3.0.9. Given a matrix whose elements are truth values of V4 , and has been constructed from a series of connectives and negations, then if there exists an algebraic negation, there also exists a series of symmetries on the propositional elements of the space and a series of connectives which is equal to the negation. This theorem is difficult to grasp. It suggests that if our argument is constructed purely from the symmetry group of V4 and standard connectives, then the negation of the sentence can be written as a series of symmetries of |V4 | connected through a list of negations and connectives. Important examples of this theorem are expanded upon in the equivalences section 20 . Two other aspects of the truth space which are important to remember are that V4 , Klein Four group, is abelian, meaning adding or multiplying two elements does not depend on the order that we add them. This is important because the extension of V4 forms U4 , a non-abelian group. This commutativity of V4 has a direct relationship to our ability to have a linguistic grasp of the system, or to even perceive the arising of the systems in a psycho-physical universe. The second aspect to be aware of is absolute and relative diagonals, the absolute being the one with 0 and 1 in e0 , and the relative is the diagonal with x and y in e0 . These are preserved under symmetries, hence the absolute diagonal in ex has x and y in it. 3.1 Arguments Definition 3.1.1. An atomic sentence has one proposition and any number of symmetries or maps on it. A molecular sentence has more than 1 proposition and a series of maps. 19 Consider observing a quantum system, the very nature of observing it has a direct effect on the state of the system. Much in the same way, our conceptual elaboration of anything within this field of observation has a direct effect on how it will be perceived. That is, none of this arises naturally without the discriminative mind observing the system. 20 If, however, a more transcendental function were used, perhaps a piecewise dynamical system on a number of propositions whose initial conditions are elements of the symmetry group, then a global negation may not necessarily be so easily apprehended. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1098 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Definition 3.1.2. An argument is constructed of one or more sentences, each composed of propositions. An argument has inputs(propositions), and an output(conclusion), a statement to prove. Prop 3.1.1. If through an argument one concludes n for n ∈ D4 then it is a tautology. Prop 3.1.2. If through an argument one concludes p and pn , for some proposition p(which can be atomic or molecular) and n ∈ D4 , then one may conclude ppn =pn̄ . Definition 3.1.3. Pertaining to the above proposition, if n were 1 then it is a tautologous false, since    y 1 x 0 P P1 = = 0. 0 x 1 y If n=0 then we have our conclusion   p, since P P0 = P . y 0 If n=σ then consider τ e0 = : this is relatively valid, but absolutely invalid. 0 x If n=τ then our statement is absolutely valid, but relatively invalid. Proposition 3.1.2, and definition 3.1.3 allow us to construct indirect proofs. Prop 3.1.3. An indirect proof is constructed from a set {Ai }, a set of assumptions, a statement to show P, and the indirect assumption Pn . Then along the proof there is some (Aj )m . We can deduce from 21 (Aj )m and Aj : (Aj )(Aj )m =Am̄ j 22 Next we can conclude Pn (Am j ) is valid or P is valid, or they’re both valid, or neither. . It does not say that validity is exactly the same as absolutely true, but that there is a type of validity which is simultaneously interpreted as absolutely true(this is based on what our expectation or our center of perception is). Whichever way, we conclude algebraically P+Pn (Am j ). m It may turn out P+Pn (Am j ) cancels out leaving just P, or it may somehow leave just Pn (Aj ), or it could leave some combination of the two. Perhaps the solution is a tautologous false: then our interpretation of validity is neither true nor false. If it were 1 then it would be both true and false(again pertaining to validity). 4 Connectives Definition 4.0.4. Given two propositions A, B which can be represented V 4 ,we may relate    by the space y 1     y∗ y 1 1∗  y 1 y 1  0 x 0 x  Where the 4 A,B using a connective ∗, such that A ∗ B = ∗ = 0 x 0 x  y 1 y 1  0∗ x∗ 0 x 0 x arrays inside the larger array is B while the 4 truth values written to the left of each array correspond to the states of A. In general, we will consider A ∗ B=   (y, y) (y, 1) (1, y) (1, 1)  (y, 0) (y, x) (1, 0) (1, x)     (0, y) (0, 1) (x, y) (x, 1)  (0, 0) (0, x) (x, 0) (x, x) Such that a*b=(a,b) for a and b ∈ V4 . The horizontal and vertical bars are meant to guide the reader to see the truth states of A. The four quadrants are the 4 possible states of A. Consider then that B is ineffable, then a proposition composed of A and B will yield an ineffable in that quadrant. Specifically each 21 Notice if m is 1 then m is 0 and we have a tautology of 0, and our usual form of contradiction from Boolean logic. If m=0 then we have Aj . 22 It should be clear that even our interpretations, a statement of validity, is also dependent on V . In Boolean logic 4 validity was dependent on the truth space Z2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1099 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti block is the truth state of the resulting sentence since individual truth values may not be discriminated against for an ineffable.Depending on the connective, the resulting set of ineffables are not necessarily in U4 .23 The above matrix is read such that the largest block form refers to A, and the smaller blocks are B. Furthermore, the first coordinate is A the second coordinate is B. If there were three propositions, the largest block is A, and the smallest is C. The blocks are always read oriented as e0 :0 is in the lower left, x to the lower right, and conjugates along diagonals. If one maintains the view of the Cartesian plane, there will be no difficulty naturally orienting oneself. If A and B were symmetries of the same proposition, then we would not have a 4x4, we would do calculations as we did for maps on one proposition. Definition 4.0.5. Exclusive Disjunction: An exclusively disjunctive sentence is false whenever the disjunctives  share thesame truth value. 0 x x 0 y 1 1 y   A+B=  y 1 1 y  Exclusive disjunction is addition modulus 2 over Z2 in Boolean logic. It is group 0 x x 0 addition here too. We’ve seen this connective through the development of the paper. Notice along every symmetry it is internally symmetric. Along all geometric symmetries there is a corresponding algebraic symmetry. We use exclusive disjunction when we consider A or B, but we don’t want the case when their truth values are identical to be true. Definition 4.0.6. Conjunction, A and B is false whenever A and B have conjugate truth values. A and B is true  when thetruth value of A and B are both identical to 1. Conjunction is group multiplication. y y y 1  0 0 0 x  AB=  0 0 0 x 0 0 0 x Example 4.0.1. A particle P is moving at velocity, v in meters per second, and is at some location z in a measured space. And is our connective, and our two propositions are velocity and position. If this sentence refers to observing this behavior of a particle, then from the uncertainty principle there exists a probability matrix C such that C is equal to the multiple of C1 and C2 , the probabilities of measuring an expected velocity or position respectively. However we know C1 +C2 ≤ 1. Since we’re multiplying the two propositions and we can write C2 in terms of C1 , then there is a closed form for the sentence, C multiplied by AB. This is not so easily done if we’re adding the two propositions. If the observation was true, the expected position and velocity were both measured, then one reads the upper right corner of the matrix AB. Since it is also being multiplied by the probability C, there is a certain probability this observation will be measured. The probability of this event is ≤ a − a2 , a ≤ 1. If a=0 or 1 we cannot make such an observation because we wont know the velocity or position. If we used disjunction this relationship would not be observed since one proposition having a probability of 0 would not cause the resulting sentence to also have a probability of 0. In conjunction it is the case since 0 multiplied by any other number is always 0. Definition 4.0.7. Inclusive disjunction is another way of saying or, as exclusive disjunction. However, by adding AB it adds the parts of A+B which normally would have been equal to 0, hence it does not mod out identical truth values. 23 All connectives are formed from addition and multiplication. Addition is symmetry preserving. In multiplication, 0 causes many values to map to 0, so it’s symmetries are not invertible. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1100 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti  y y A∨B= y 0 1 1 1 x 1 1 1 x  1 1 =A+B+AB. 1 x Example 4.0.2. Consider the sentence: Either you’re ‘observing’ this paper, or I am. Let A=You’re observing this paper, B=I am observing this paper. There is no doubt that A ∨ B is false only when neither of us are observing the paper. However, by observing, it must be meant that there are 4 states in which this observation can manifest in a truth space. Observing is 1(true) if someone had directly read it, and of course is thinking about it. Observing is x(neither) if it has never been read, but it has been conceived of in an indirect way. Observing is y(both) if the paper has been read but the content is not being thought about further. Finally, observing is 0(false) if the paper has never been read, and has not even been conceived. For each of us, we can observe the paper  up to those truth values. Saying you observed or I did(or  y 1 1 1 y 1 1 1   us both) is to say A∨B= y 1 1 1 . Hence as long as I have not forgotten about the paper, it 0 x x x is always observed to be not false. A nice way of saying this is the paper is existent since it is never false. It could be x, y, or 1. In fact, of course while I’m writing now it’s true, hence the sentence is true. If I stop writing, and go for a walk, my perspective goes to x. Of course, as you’re reading this and I am off on my walk, you could be reading it but not thinking of it at all, so together our combined(inclusively disjunctive) observation makes the sentence true. I’ve underlined this case in the matrix above. Just as in the previous example, we could even consider a probability distribution on the propositions which considers the probability of each truth state arising. What is the chance that at some time, t, I am reading or writing and apprehending what I am reading or writing? This is the probability for 1. However, does 0 ever show up from my perspective; is the proposition I am observing this paper ever false from my perspective? Certainly it isn’t arising now as I write, but I cannot be so certain that I will also be apprehending as you’re observing this. It may even be fair to suggest that often I am neither apprehending nor am I reading or writing. If it never did, what would this tell us? To consider all of these scenarios it is helpful to consider probability matrices for the states of observation. There are two types of probability matrices. Those which distribute the probability of 1(100%) along all states, and a matrix which distributes two states of probability along each absolute or relative diagonal. Go to quantification for more on this. Definition 4.0.8. Implication has the form: if A then B. In Boolean logic, we know this is equal to not A or B, using inclusive disjunction. A then B is the value of B when the values are conjugate pairs. Doing this gives as Boolean logic, and it allows us to easily construct the bi-conditional.  the same equivalence  1 1 y 1 x x 0 x  A→B=  1 1 y 1 =A1 ∨ B 1 1 y 1 Definition 4.0.9. Biconditional If A and B have the same truth value, then A if and only if B is true. It is false ifA and B areconjugates, A if and only if B is equal to ‘If A then B and If B then A’. 1 y y 1 x 0 0 x  A ⇐⇒ B= x 0 0 x=(A → B)(B → A) = (A + B)1 . 1 y y 1 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1101 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti  1 x Proof.  1 1 5 1 x 1 1 y 0 y y  1 y 1 1 y x  1  x 0 1 y 1 1 1 x 1   1 1 x 1 = x x 1 1 y 0 0 y y 0 0 y  1 x  = (A + B) + 1 = (A + B)1 x 1 Equivalences Prop 5.0.4. Commutativity of V4   0 x x 0 y 1 1 y   A+B=B+A. This is easy to prove using our notation. A+B= y 1 1 y . Taking the lower left hand 0 x x 0 corners of each B block, we construct the B block for B+A. Notice that the main corners remain  the  0 x x 0 y 1 1 y   same? The (0,A) corner for B+A is e0 . Constructing all corners of B we get B+A= y 1 1 y . 0 x x 0 We can do the same thing for A B. A B=B A, hence the same can be done for A ∨ B, but not for A → B. That is A → B 6= B → A. Prop 5.0.5. It is easy to show A1 ∨ B = A → B, just as we would have in propositional logic.       1 1 y 1 y 1 y 1 x x 0 0 x x 0 0 0 x 0 x x x 0 x      Proof. A1 ∨ B = A → B ⇒   1 1 y y  ∨ y 1 y 1  =  1 1 y 1  1 1 y 1 0 x 0 x 1 1 y y Prop 5.0.6. Law of Transposition: B → A = A1 → B1 . Proof. Take the proposition B → A and rearrange the entries so that it is read with A on the outside  1 y 1 1 1 y 1 1  and B on the inside.  x 0 x x. 1 y 1 1 A1 → B1 means to take the symmetric rotation, 1 negation on both propositions. When performing operations on a group of premises, one must make sure the order of each block is built in the same way. Hence, again, A → B 6= B → A. . Prop 5.0.7. Rules for Natural Deduction 1) Conjunction Exploitation AB ∴ A(orB) Given A and B, then we can deduce either A or B. 2) disjunction Exploitation An ∨ Bm An̄ (or Bm̄ ) ∴ Bm (or An ) 3) Conditional Exploitation A → B, A ∴ B. Given A → B, and the predicate A, then we may conclude B. Proof. See A → B, if A=1, the upper right corner, and we have e0 =B. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1102 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti 4) Biconiditional Introduction A → B, B → A ∴ A ⇐⇒ B This has been proved in definition 4.0.9. 5) Disjunction Exploitation A ∨ B, A → C, B → C ∴ C Proof. 1.A ∨ B = A + B + AB 2.A → C = A1 ∨ C = A1 + C + A1 C 3.B → C = B1 ∨ C = B1 + C + B1 C 4. show C 5. [2][3] ⇒ A1 B1 + A1 C + A1 B1 C + B1 C + C + B1 C + A1 B1 C + A1 C + A1 B1 C 6. = A1 B1 + A1 B1 C + C 7. = (A1 B1 ) ∨ C 8. = (A ∨ B)1 ∨ C 9. ∴ C Prop 5.0.8. Extended De’Morgans Laws Let A, B both be represented by some symmetry of e0 , then 1)(A + B)n = A + Bn = An + B 2)(AB)n = A1 ∨ B1 + n 3)(A ∨ B)n = A1 B1 + n The following proof illustrates algebraically (2), though one can clearly see that it simultaneously would prove (3), and 1 requires no proof other than inspection. Proof. (AB)n = A1 ∨ B1 + n24 =A1 + B1 + A1 B1 + AB + ABn̄ + An̄ B + An̄ Bn̄ 25 =A + B + (A + 1)(B + 1) + AB + A(B + n̄) + (A + n̄)B + (A + n̄)(B + n̄)= =A + B + AB + A + B + 1 + AB + AB + An + AB + Bn + AB + An + Bn + n= =1 + AB + n = AB + n = (AB)n Prop 5.0.9. More Rules For Natural Deduction (1)Conditional disjunction A → B = A1 ∨ B Look at A1 ∨ B and compare this to A → B. A1 ∨ B is the symmetry taking the larger block structure and reflecting them along their conjugate element: 1 goes to 0, 0 goes to 1, x goes to y, and y goes to x. The result is A → B. (2)Conditional Negation (A → B)n = (A1 ∨ B)n = AB1 + n Proof. By proposition 2.2.6(1), above, (A → B)n = = (A1 ∨ B) = (A1 + B + A1 B)n = (A1 + B) + (A1 B)n = = (A1 + B) + (A ∨ B1 + n) = = (A1 + B) + (A + B1 + AB1 + n) = AB1 + n (3)Bi-conditional negation (A ⇐⇒ B)n = (A + B)n Proof by inspection. (4)Conditional Exploitation * A → B, andBn ⇒ A1 Bn + ABBn 24 n = (A + A )(B + B ) n n 25 AB + n = AB + BA + A B n n n n ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1103 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Proof. (A → B)Bn = =(A1 ∨ B)Bn = (A1 + B + A1 B)Bn = =(A1 Bn + BBn + A1 BBn ) = (A1 Bn ) + BBn (1 + A1 ) = =A1 Bn + ABBn Hence, if n=1 ⇒ A1 B1 (5)Bi-conditional Exploitation A ⇐⇒ B, andAn (orBn ) ⇒ AAn + An B1 Proof. (A ⇐⇒ B)(An ) = = (A + B)1 An = = (A + B1 )An = = AAn + An B1 . Had we let (A + B)1 = (A1 + B) instead, then (A + B)1 An = (A1 + B)An = A1 An + BAn If n=1 ⇒ A1 B1 (6)Disjunction Exploitation A ∨ B, and An (orBn ) ⇒ An (AB1 + B) Proof. (A ∨ B)An = = (A + B + AB)An = AAn + BAn + AAn B = = AAn B1 + BAn = = An (AB1 + B) If n=1 ⇒ A1 B 5.1 Deduction Examples The following arguments are taken from Deduction, by Daniel Bonevac. For all negations, since we don’t know the negation, we will treat it generally, hence the following examples really are illustrating the different behavior of negations through a proof structure. In propositional logic, using a Boolean truth space, we create a contradiction by having a proposition p and p1 (not p). The conjunction of p and not p is false, which tells us that the multiple of a proposition and a symmetry of it will let us infer the validity of the system. Example 5.1.1. Given not q or not p, using inclusive disjunction. Show if p then not q. Proof. 1) pn ∨ qn = pn → qn from prop 2.2.6(1). If n=1, as we have for Boolean logic, then n=0, hence we have p → q1 , as we would with Boolean logic. Example 5.1.2. 1) q ⇐⇒ (qp) 2) show q → p 3) q [Assume by conditional proof] 4) q → (qp) [from 1 and bi-conditional exploitation] 5) qp [from 4 and 3] 6) p [from 5, conjunction exploitation] Here we have the same result as we would from Boolean logic, of course this is because there were no negations to shift our perspective from a dual system. Example 5.1.3. 1)p ⇐⇒ (r ∨ s) 2)pn 3)show rn ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1104 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Proof. multiplying 1 and 2 ⇒ 4) p1 (r ∨ s)n + (r ∨ s)(r ∨ s)n 5)factor: (r ∨ s)n (p1 + (r ∨ s)) 6)(r ∨ s)n = rn sn + n 7)rn (sn + n/rn 8)rn Example 5.1.4. 1)p ∨ (r ∨ q)) 2)rn 3) show p ∨ q Proof. 4)(p ∨ q)n [Assumption by indirect proof] 5)(p1 q1 + n).[Disjunctive negation exploitation] The next line requires factoring a p1 , look at the end of section 3 at the division algorithm for an idea how this may be done. 6)(p1 q1 + n) = p1 (q1 + n/p1 ) If the argument were valid, then p1 6= 0, and we would not divide by 0. 7)p1 [conjunction exploitation] 8)(r ∨ q) [disjunction exploitation, using 1 negation] 9)rn (rq1 + q) [from line 2 and 8] 10)rq1 + q 11)q1 (p1 + n/q1 ) [In the same way we have line 6] 12)q1 [conjunction exploitation line 11] 13)rq1 [disjunction exploitation line 12 and line 10] 14)r 15)rrn = rn̄ Recall we started with an indirect proof, we have shown a partial contradiction, rn̄ .Therefore, we know (p ∨ q) + (p ∨ q)n rn̄ . 16)p1 rn̄ = rpn̄1 . 17)n̄ + pn̄ This is our contradictory element. 18)[AIP][n̄ + pn̄ ]+[Show] 19)(p ∨ q)n (n̄ + pn̄ )= 20)(p1 q1 + n̄)(n̄ + pn̄ )= 21)n̄p1 q1 + n̄ + pn̄ p1 q1 + n̄pn̄ = 22)n̄(p + 1)q1 + n̄ + pn̄ p1 q1 + n̄pn̄ = 23)pn̄ q1 + q1 n̄ + n̄ + pn̄ p1 q1 + pn̄ = 24)pn̄ q1 + q n̄ + pn̄ q1 p1 + pn̄ = 25)pn̄ q1 p + q n̄ + pn̄ = 26)pn̄ q1 + q n̄ + pn̄ =n̄p(q + 1) + qn̄ + pn̄ = n̄pq + n̄p + n̄q + n̄p = 27)pn̄ 1 + q n̄ =n̄q(p + 1) = n̄qp1 [AIP ][n̄qp1 ] + [show] 28)n̄qp1 + p + q + pq= 29)n̄(p + 1)q + p + q + pq= 30)n̄pq + n̄q + p + q + pq= 31)pq(n̄ + 1) + (n̄ + 1)q + p 32)p ∨ (n̄ + 1)q ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1105 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti 33)p ∨ nq Example 5.1.5. 1)p → r = p1 ∨ r = p1 + r + p1 r 2)(rp)n = r1 ∨ p1 + n = r1 + p1 + r1 p1 + n̄ 3)show pn 4)pn̄ [Assumption by indirect proof] 5)[1 and 2] ⇒ r1 p1 + r1 r + r1 p1 r + p1 p1 + p1 r + p1 p1 r + r1 p1 p1 + r1 p1 r + r1 p1 p1 r + n(p1 ∨ r) 6)(r1 p1 + p1 + p1 r1 + n(p1 ∨ r) = 7)p1 + n̄(p1 ∨ r) = 8)p1 + n̄(p1 + r + p1 r) = 9)p1 + n̄p1 + n̄r + n̄p1 r = 10)np1 + n̄rp = 11)n(p + 1) + (n + 1)rp = 12)np + n + npr + rp = 13)npr1 + (rp + n). Multiply by pn̄ to get a contradiction from line 13. 14)(npr1 + (rp + n))(p1 + n) = 15)p1 (npr1 ) + p1 (rp) + np1 + npr1 + npr + n = 16)n(p + 1) + np(r + 1) + npr + n = 17)n(p + 1) + nor + np + npr + n = 18)np + n + npr + np + npr + n = 19)0. It’s the holy grail! 20)∴[show]+0[AIP]=[show]=pn Example 5.1.6. 1)p ⇐⇒ r 2)(u → r)n = ur1 + n̄ 3)show pn 4)p[AIP ] 5)r 6)r1 [factored r1 from 2] 7)rr1 = 0 8)∴ pn Example 5.1.7. 1)p ⇐⇒ r 2)show (pn ∨ qn )n → r Proof. 3)[assumption by conditional proof] (pn ∨ qn )n = 4)=pn qn + n= 5)=pn (qn + n/pn ) 6)pn [6][1] 7)ppn̄ + pn̄ r1 = 8)pn̄ (p + r + 1) = 9)pn̄ p + pn̄ r + pn̄ = 10)p(p1 + n) + (p + n̄)r + p + n̄ = 11)np + pr + n̄r + p + n̄ = 12)p(r + n + 1) + n̄r1 = 13)pr + n̄p + n̄ + r = 14)rp1 + n̄p1 = ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1106 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti 15)p1 rn̄ = 16)rn̄ This example is interesting because we don’t show r from the conditional, but only have managed to show rn̄ . If n was the Boolean negation, 1, then n̄ is 0 and we have shown r. 6 Higher order maps Definition 6.0.1. A map from a truth value to an ineffable truth state is an expansion This map has been used to extend Z2 to V4 . Furthermore, we extend V4 using this map to U4 , the set of ineffables and tautologies. Definition 6.0.2. A map from a a truth state represented by an element of U4 to a truth value in V4 is a contraction. A map from e0 to v, v ∈ D4 , is a contraction onto v from e0 . Prop 6.0.1. A specific classification of contraction and expansion maps are 0 − e0 , x − ex , y − ey , 1 − e1 , ρ − eρ , ρ − eρ , τ − eτ , σ − eσ . Where v-ev means a map which could go either way, as an expansion or contraction. We will call the expansion map the integral, and the contraction map the standard derivative. The above relation -, which is the class of contraction and expansion maps above, is a recursion. The dimension of the matrices is a ratio of the number of copies in each recursion. This allows us to view the relation as a fractal. Example 6.0.8. Using the above expansion map, with  our initial condition v0 = e0 , then v1 is defined  0 x x 0 y 1 1 y   by 0 to e0 , y to ey , x to ex , 1 to e1 . v1 = y 1 1 y . This looks like the truth space for a sentence ‘A 0 x x 0 or B’, using exclusive disjunction. Let v1 = u0 + u1 . Inductively it’s easy to show that we will continue adding proposition for each expansion. So, v2 = u0 + u1 + u2 . There are 4 truth states so there are 4 copies.   y 1 Example 6.0.9. Define a map M : e0 7→ e0 x Let Fk : M k (e0 ). limk→+∞ creates a space with only one 0, at the 0 state. This map, like the map above creates a space which could be rewritten in terms of ‘virtual’ objects(these were the u’s). However, such a closed form  is not so easily  constructed. y y 1 1   y y 1 1  y 1  If F0 = e0 , then F1 = , and F2 = y 1 x x. We can construct a virtual geometric interpree0 x 0 x x x tation for F∞ which looks like a triangle constructed from the square of V4 , by drawing a diagonal line between x and y. Considering two elements, whose structure is like this, which are summed, we inscribe the second element inside the first like we’ve done with V4 . However, there are 4 triangles created by doing this, only the 3 which each share one of the original vertices are of importance here. Furthermore, such a construction can be done by identifying the mid point between two nodes as the sum of those nodes. Hence, the value at one of the vertices is always 0. We will denote this triangle as E0 which can  y 1 . be carefully represented by the matrix e0 x   R R e0 e0 Example 6.0.10. If e0 = u1 + u2 and 0 = . R e0 e0 Then there exists a symmetry F such that F ( 0) = u1 + u2 . ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1107 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti R ∆F ( 0) R = u0 . ∆∆F ( 0) = 0. F is defined by identifying block structures in some 4x4 matrix. The center block structure, which has all conjugate elements in it is mapped to the truth state 1. The four corners are mapped to the 0 state. The 2 paths from 0 to x and y to 1 are grouped and mapped to the x state. The two paths from 0 to y and x to 1 are grouped and mapped as one block to the y state. From the above example we see an elegant relationship between 0 and e0 . The reason for studying this example is simple: the derivative of 0 is not defined, only the derivative from a state matrix to a negation matrix. The map F allows us to transition between the two, and thus show that the derivative of each is both equal to 0. Prop 6.0.2. Integration is a expansion map, with the same index recursion we have used for division, and the reoccurring fractal patterns. Differentiation is a contraction map. The map - which defined the standard contraction and expansion maps is identical to integration and differentiation of the truth space. 6.1 Ineffable Partial Negations Given e0 (or some symmetry) a partial reflection of e0 is constructed by a tautology expansion map, mapping each element of the truth space to a tautology of that element, and then translating the elements in the direction of the fold. Translating from 0 to the base of the negation. For all partial negations, the flow of truth elements is, for convention, from relative to absolute diagonals. Reflections are written er/2k , k ∈ [0, 1, 2, ..., K)     y 1 1 y y y 1 1 1 y y 1 y y 1 1    = Example 6.1.1. ex/2 =  0 x x 0  0 0 x x x 0 0 x 0 0 x x x/2 Rotations of a space, e0 , are written as eπ/2n , n ∈ [0, 1, 2, ..., N ) Rotating counter clockwise, the previous truth state’s relative values are mapped to the absolute values in the next state. It is rotated such that for even n, the entire relative or absolute diagonal is mapped. While for odd n, each truth value is mapped one at a time, such that in 2 iterations it would map the entire diagonal like the rotation which is composed of an even n. The dimension of the ineffable parts is equal to n/2 + 1, rounded down.   y 1 1 x 1 y x 1   Example 6.1.2. eπ/4 = eρ/2 =  0 y x 0  y 0 0 x       1 1 x x y 1 1 x x 0 y 0  1 1 x x  1 y x 1   0 x 0 y  0      Example 6.1.3. consider eρ + eρ/2 =  y y 0 0  + 0 y x 0 =y 0 x 0 =ρ /2 This is y y 0 0 y 0 0 x 0 y 0 x the ineffable symmetry defined going the opposite direction, that is from one states relative to its own absolute, from that absolute to the next state’s relative position.   x y = ρ = π/2 the angle these two elements are separated by. Example 6.1.4. eρ/2 + e0ρ/2 = y x ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1108 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti   y   Example 6.1.5. eρ/8 =   y   0 0  y 1 1 y  y yρ 0  y 0 0 y Example 6.1.6. eπ/4 = eρ/2 =  0 x x 0   y 1 1 1 y y x 1   Example 6.1.7. eρ/4 =  0 y x x 0 0 0 x  1      1 x 1   x 1  x x  xρ x  1 y y 1  x 1 1 x 1 Prop 6.1.1. A partial negation n/2 is defined by v1 + v2 + e0 τ + eo σ for some virtual propositions v1 and v2 . Going in the opposite direction, v1 + v2 + e0 σ + e0 τ . In fact all partial negations can carefully be defined as above. A negation of n/8 is defined by v1 + v2 + v3 + e0 τ + e0 σ. 6.2 division Theorem 6.2.1. Using an expansion map, B/y Given A,B represented by e0 , then B/A = B/0   ey e1 B/0 = e e  0 x y 1 B/1 = 0 x B1 B/x  In the section on arguments, we used this function to let us factor truth states from symmetry objects.The other 8 elements are the elements of U4 in some orientation. These 4 matrices can be arranged in 4 space to form the vertices of a hyper cube. 7 Quantification Prop 7.0.1. A sequence can be defined by an expansion map. Furthermore, such a map and the sequence can define a complex number z such that we assign to each v ∈ V4 a complex number. 0=0, x=1, y=i, and 1=1+i. Then, for each expansion we divide by 2k where k starts at 0 and goes to infinity. Example 7.0.1. let {vi } = {1, 1, 1, ..., 1} ⇒ S = k P vi /2i = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + ... + 1/2k ⇒ limk→+∞ S = 2 i=0 Example 7.0.2. let {vi } = (x)τ k = {x, y, x, ..., } = {1, i, 1, i, ...} ⇒ S = k P vi /2i = 1 + i/2 + 1/4 + ... ⇒ i=0 limk→+∞ S = 4/3(1 + i/2) Definition 7.0.1. The determinant of e0 (or any symmetry) is written det(e0 )=(x+y)(0+1)=1. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1109 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti Definition 7.0.2. The trace of e0 (or any symmetry) is written tr(e0 )=(1+0)+(x+y)=1+1=0 Prop 7.0.2. For some v ∈ {|V4 |}, tr(v)+det(v)=1. For some v ∈ {V4 }, tr(v)+det(v)=0. Definition 7.0.3. A coefficient matrix C assigns to each truth state of a proposition a complex number z. We write these complex numbers as a,b,c, and d   d c let C= a b Prop 7.0.3. If a proposition P=e0 , then CP means the coefficient of 0 is a, of x is b, of 1 is c, of y is d. Hence if a is 0 then P is never false.   e e1 Prop 7.0.4. If q= y then the state of q is determined by a, b, c, d . e0 ex Here, C is a coefficient matrix on states not necessarily values. Example 7.0.3. letting C be all 0 except the 1 state would tell us q always has a true state, but that in itself represents e1 without discrimination of values. If values were to be apprehended, then for all states except1 all values  are 0, while at 1 the distribution is through the entire set. 0ey 1e1 Cq = 0e0 0ex Prop 7.0.5. C can be a probability matrix such that det(C)=1. Hence C ∈ {|V4 |} is a probability matrix with det=1. Prop 7.0.6. C can be a probability matrix such that tr(C)=1 These two probability matrices allow us to discuss rather interesting properties of systems. Example 7.0.4. Let a single particle be described by 2 propositions, velocity and position propositions. Consider a particle is moving at s meters/second. Let this be A. A particle is observed at position z. Let this be B. Both A and B have probability matrices CA and CB such that 1 = CA + CB . CA is the probability of observing the particle move at that velocity, and CB is the probability of observing it at position z. Are these probability matrices of the type tr(C)=1, or det(C)=1? Given that it is det(C)=1, then:   2/3 1 Let CA = 0 1/3 Consider the sentence  AB, given our quantified system, we consider CA ACB B=CA CB AB= 2/9 0 1/3 0 2/3 4/9 1 2/3  BA  0 0 1/9 0  0 0 1/3 2/9 In general, there are up to four quantum numbers for a particle, so a particle should be capable of being determined with no more than 4 distinct matrices and connectives, and quantified coefficient matrices. Prop 7.0.7. A matrix D such that D describes the behavior of a system, such as space time. Combined with a truth space, or series of connectives allows us to discretely manipulate the system through the truth space. D is not restricted necessarily by the trace or determinant functions. In fact, a value in D can be any complex number. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1110 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti 8 Appendix 8.1 Philosophical examples Example 8.1.1. If ∃ P, Atman, such that ∀ v ∈ E26 P and v have the essential nature of P. We can write this as P v → P = (P v)1 ∨ P = (P v)1 + P + P (P v)1 = P1 ∨ v1 + P + (P1 ∨ v1 )P = P1 + v1 + P1 v1 + P + (P1 + v1 + P1 v1 )P = P1 + v1 + P1 v1 + P + P v1 = 1 + v1 + v1 (P1 + P ) = 1 + v1 + v1 = 1. Therefore this is a valid argument. Though, it does clearly state if there is such a P. So now we can investigate based on this valid statement, as we did in section 2 with respect to Atman. In doing so though, we multiply P(atman) and v, here we are looking for what unifies them. What do P and v have in common except 0? The product of an infinite series of v and this P will eventually give just the essential nature of P, which turns out to be 0. Of course, 0 → P is always valid, regardless of the state of P. However, while analyzing the condition Pv we see that P must be 0, even if all v were never 0. The only way it could not be the case is if all v were in fact 1, and P was never 0. This would suggest that there is equivalently only 1 state, for which P and v share, but it would also suggest that all ’existing’ things are absolutely existing, while atman is not necessarily absolutely existing. However, we know that all phenomena can be described as an interaction between x and y. If two phenomena have as their base Atman, then the conjunction of these two with Atman ought to leave the essential nature of Atman. But, the conjunction of x and y is always 0, thus, if Atman also exists equally or greater than the phenomena, then the essential nature of Atman must have truth value 0. We haven’t determined if any of these phenomena, including Atman, actually have truth values. Thus, it could be that Atman is more appropriately described by e0 . Example 8.1.2. Recall, one of our motivating examples was the discussion between Vaccha and the Buddha on the nature of the Arhat. First, we use the proposition P=’The arhat exists after death’. Letting P be represented by e0 , we consider P + P1 + Px + Py = 0 Vaccha expects, as he asks each symmetry of P, to get a true statement for one arrangement. He does not expect that each propositional arrangement will be simultaneously rejected by the Buddha. If none were rejected the sentence itself would not be valid, so Vaccha does expect some of these arrangements to be false. The sentence P + P1 + Px + Py is not valid if all propositions are true. For this reason as Vaccha states each proposition, he says that all other arrangements are false. By rejecting the sentence Vaccha could consider that the problem lies in that phrase that all other views are false. Even if he considered other views which might not be false, the Buddha would fundamentally reject the concept since Vaccha holds onto the constructed views of self and existence. The first problem to analyze is in how he asked the question, as an exclusive disjunctive sentence: If he rearranged the propositions to be the answer the Buddha gave, i.e ”It is not the case the Arhat exists after death”=P, and considered a similar exclusive disjunction of these 4 symmetries, the sentence would still not be valid. If Vaccha assumed that each new proposition was true27 it would still be of the form P + P1 + Px + Py which is not valid. To be valid, some of these arrangements would still have to be rejected. This would suggest that the negation used by the Buddha is conditional to the question Vaccha is asking, and it could then be that the sentence ends up being P+P+P+P, if P represented ”It is not the case that the arhat exists after death”. This doesn’t tell us much about the nature of the Arhat. But it does suggest that the nature of the Arhat is conditional to how we conceive of it. Hence the inferred sentence is valid if and only if we consider different negations in response to Vaccha’s questions. 26 Pertaining to all existing things: There is not one thing which can be conceived of outside of this E. I am flying does not mean in all realms of conception I am flying, but that the one for which the imagined conception that I am flying am I flying. For any v ∈ E, v may not reciprocally refer back to E. Clearly we may conceive of virtual place holders in E which can negate E. 27 By the Buddha’s rejection of the previous statement. Notice this is also a dualistic view ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1111 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti For now, let’s conclude that the sentence itself is not valid, and that the Buddha has rejected all 4 statements of Vaccha. It could be that the principal problem was the use of exclusive disjunction, or that all other views were false. Hence, here we would use inclusive disjunction instead. However, this arrangement is still an attempt at reevaluating the above interpretation given the reassignment of the Buddha’s answer to Vaccha as our premises. So, we instead consider the sentence (P + P1 ) ∨ (Px + Py ), which is valid, and can accommodate the reassignment of the Buddha’s answer to the proposition P. The result ends up being essentially meaningless because it still supposes that there is a self, and that there is existence pertaining to self of some form. When the Buddha says it is not the case, he is simply absolutely rejecting the statement that has arose: it is not a specific negation, it does not imply a symmetry is absolutely the case,though that is what we had abstractly considered above. We showed that despite this possibility, it would not yield meaningful results. Another way of perceiving the rejection is that it is ineffable, the true nature of the Arhat is not contained within the truth space. Much like our final conclusion for 8.1.1, which was that Atman had truth value of 0, we cannot be sure that it has any ultimate existence so we conceive of it as e0 . In the same way the nature of self and existence can be characterized by the ineffable of e0 . If we instead assigned P=’The arhat exists after death’ the ineffable e0 , then we consider the same sentence P + P1 + Px + Py . Since each is really an ineffable, treating each of these as distinct propositions we get an equivalent expression: v 1 + v 2 + v 3 + v 4 . The negations cancel out nicely, and we’re left with the sum of 4 propositions. However, this is equivalent in structure to e0 given the recursive map in proposition 6.0.1. Hence, the answer to the question becomes similar to the nature of the self. In the previous example we considered Atman, and suggested the nature of Atman was 0. In reality, we notice that Atman is ineffable, and not ultimately false. 8.2 Conjunction Negation Table n e0 ex ey e1 0 0   0  0  0  0 x x 0 0 x x 0 x 0 x x 0 0 x x 0 y y y y 0 0 0 0 y 0 0 0 0 y y y y 1 e0 ex ey e1 ex e1 n e0    ey    0 y x y 0 0 x 0 ρ 0 x  0 0 y x y 0 y x y 0 0 x 0 0 ρ̄ 0 0 x 0 0 y x y        y 0 1 0 0 0 x 0 τ 0 x 0 0  0 1   0 y 0 1 0 y 0 x 0 0 σ 0 0 x 0 y 0 1 0 8.3 Quantification Tables Given CA a probability   matrix for a proposition A, and CB a probability matrix for B, such that ay a1 b b1 CA = CB = y a0 ax b0 bx Then we can define the following: ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1087-1112 1112 Fumich, P., The Catuskoti   ay by ay b1 a1 by a1 b1 ay b0 ay bx a1 b0 a1 bx   Definition 8.3.1. CA ACB B = CA CB AB =  a0 by a0 b1 ax by ax b1 AB a0 b0 a0 bx ax b0 ax bx   y(ay + by ) yay + b1 a1 + yby a1 + b1  yay yay + xbx a1 a1 + xbx   Definition 8.3.2. CA A + CB B=  yby b1 xax + yby xax + b1  0 xbx xax x(ax bx ) Definition 8.3.3. Summing the above 2 definitions, y(ay + by + ay by ) yay (1 + b1 ) + b1  yay yay + xbx  CA A∨CB B = CA A+CB B+CA ACB B= yby b1 0 xbx ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. a1 + yby a1 xax + yby xax  a1 + b1 + a1 b1 a1 + xbx + a1 bx   xax + b1 + xb1 ax  x(ax + bx + ax bx ) www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 194-197 Kaufman, S. E., The Thin Veneer That We Call Reality 194 Realization The Thin Veneer That We Call Reality Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT What we experience as reality, emotional, mental, and physical, is nothing more than the forms that arise, like a sort of boundary or etching, as That which is actually there, as That which is beyond reality, as That which is beyond words, as That which is beyond conception, flows in relation to Itself and so becomes defined in relation to Itself, and then apprehends as reality the forms, the etchings, the boundaries, that have arisen within Itself as a result of its flow, as a result of its movement, as a result of its being, in relation to Itself. Key Words: veneer, reality, reflection, etching. Reality is a thin veneer that lies over and obscures what is actually there where reality appears to be. How thin is the veneer of reality? As thin as a reflection on a pool of water. But that reflection can only hide what lies below as long as you think it is what you are. For when you think it is what you are you remain focused upon it and what is actually there remains hidden while still in plain sight. What is actually there where reality appears to be? What is it that remains hidden while still in plain sight? Nothing that seems important *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 194-197 Kaufman, S. E., The Thin Veneer That We Call Reality 195 as long as the forms that you apprehend as and call reality seem to be of primary importance. And that is how it remains hidden while still in plain sight. Because as long as you identify with the forms that you apprehend as and call reality, as long as you think those forms are what you are, those forms, those realities, which are only reflections, only a thin veneer, seem more real than the underlying Actuality upon which they rest, seem more real than the underlying Actuality by which they are apprehended and known as reality. So what is actually there where reality appears to be? What is it that remains hidden while still in plain sight? It cannot truly be said, because what is actually there where the forms that we call reality appear to be is not Itself a form and so is not Itself a reality. And yet it Is, else no form, no reality, could ever exist, or be known to exist. And so what is actually there where reality appears to be can only be pointed toward by saying it is That by which the forms that you call reality are apprehended and known as reality. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 194-197 Kaufman, S. E., The Thin Veneer That We Call Reality 196 And it can truly be said that That which is not Itself a form, not Itself a reality, and yet is That by which all forms are known as reality, is what you truly are and is also what you can know yourself to be once you recognize reality to be but a reflection, to be but a thin veneer, and so turn your attention away from the reflection toward what lies below, toward what was always there but was hidden while still in plain sight while your attention remained focused upon the forms, upon the reality that you only thought you were, upon the forms, upon the reality that you only seemed to be. What we experience as reality, emotional, mental, and physical, is nothing more than the forms that arise like a sort of boundary or etching as That which is actually there, as That which is beyond reality, as That which is beyond words, as That which is beyond conception, flows in relation to Itself and so becomes defined in relation to Itself, and then apprehends as reality the forms, the etchings, the boundaries, that have arisen within Itself as a result of its flow, as a result of its movement, as a result of its being, in relation to Itself. And so it is not that reality is not real, because it is. It is only that reality is not really ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| March 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 3 | pp. 194-197 Kaufman, S. E., The Thin Veneer That We Call Reality 197 what we are. Put another way, it is not the realness of reality that is in question, it is only the realness of reality as what we are that we need to question. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

The Quantum Mechanics of Being and Its Manifestation1 Ulrich Mohrhoff Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education Pondicherry 605002 India Abstract How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is answered without invoking knowledge or observers, by interpreting the necessary distinction between two kinds of physical quantities — unconditionally definite quantities and quantities that have values only if they are measured — as a distinction between the manifested world and its manifestation. Quantum mechanics is seen by many as the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics. To the extent that the theory is testable, however, it is but a probability calculus: the so-called quantum state is determined by a preparation of the system (which, as every experimental physicist knows, includes a classical description of the setup), and it assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes of any subsequent measurement. A quantum state thus presupposes not only a classically describable setup but also classically describable outcomeindicating devices with classically describable outcome-indicating properties. Since quantum mechanics presupposes these things, it cannot be called upon to account for their existence. How, then, can it be the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics? One way to dispose of this problem is to deny its existence, either by asserting that quantum mechanics cannot ultimately be the fundamental theoretical framework for physics or by denying that quantum mechanics is essentially a probability calculus. Among those who haven’t yet given up on the challenge to understand what quantum mechanics is trying to tell us about the world, the second option is vastly more popular. It does, however, raise the problem of objectification, and this has been shown to be insoluble (Busch et al., 1996; Mittelstaedt, 1998). What measurement theorists mean by “objectification” is the coming into existence of an actual outcome (as against an entangled state of the system, the apparatus, and possibly the observer) at the end of a measurement process. Insoluble problems are likely to arise from false assumptions. In this particular case the false assumption is that quantum mechanics ought to account for the existence of the events to which it serves to assign probabilities. Proponents of the many-worlds extravaganza claim to have “solved” this problem by letting the universe, including observers, split into as many copies of itself as there are outcomes every time 1 Published (without the Appendix) in Cosmology Vol. 24, April 2, 2016: http://cosmology.com/ConsciousnessUniverse3.html. While the published paper touches on various ways in which quantum mechanics does not have to do with consciousness, the Appendix concerns what quantum mechanics has to do with consciousness. 1 something qualifying as a measurement takes place. Suffice it to say that many-worlds interpretations, like other realist interpretations of the wave function, face a number of issues that have by no means been resolved (Barrett, 1999; Saunders et al., 2010; Marchildon, 2015). At the root of all such issues is the problem of conjuring correlata out of correlations or events out of probabilities of events. Does it help to invoke the consciousness of the observer or to take the view that quantum mechanics is an epistemic theory, concerned not with the world per se but with our knowledge or information about it? What can be rejected at once is the view that nature obeys the unitary laws of quantum mechanics except when an outcome-indicating property “enters” the consciousness of an observer. It is not surprising that von Neumann (1931), the inventor of the tripartite formulation of the process of measurement (consisting of system preparation, unitary evolution, and objectification), felt compelled to hold this view. Those who hold with Peierls (1991) that a quantum state “represents our knowledge of the system we are trying to describe” (original emphasis) are saying two things: a quantum state is a “compendium of probabilities” (Fuchs and Peres, 2000), which is correct, and probabilities are inherently epistemic, which isn’t. Until the advent of quantum mechanics all known probabilities were epistemic; they were ignorance probabilities. We resort to such probabilities whenever there are unknown matters of fact — matters of fact that would allow us to make predictions with certainty if they were known. If there are no matters of fact that, if known, would allow us to make predictions with certainty, the reason we cannot do better than assign probabilities is not lack of knowledge. This gives us every right to look upon the probabilities we then assign as objective. (It’s just plain unfortunate that the term “objective probability” came to be used for something that isn’t a probability, to wit, a relative frequency.) Here is another reason why (or another sense in which) quantum-mechanical probabilities are objective. The objects of everyday experience “occupy” space (i.e., they have spatial extent), and they neither explode nor collapse as soon as they come into being. If quantum mechanics has anything to say about these objects, it is that they are “made” of finite numbers of particles which lack spatial extent (quarks and electrons), and which are therefore routinely described as pointlike. (Three quarks “make” a nucleon; a finite number of nucleons “make” an atomic nucleus; and a finite number of nuclei and electrons “make” the chair you trust to support you.) Thanks to quantum mechanics, we also know that the existence of space-occupying objects rests on the objective fuzziness of their internal relative positions and momenta (Mohrhoff, 2009a, 2011a). The standard term for this fuzziness — “uncertainty” — is seriously misleading, for what “fluffs out” those objects cannot be anyone’s ignorance of the exact values of their internal relative positions and momenta. It can only be an objective indeterminacy of these values. What, then, is the proper way to describe the objective indeterminacy of a physical quantity? It is to assign probabilities to the possible outcomes of a measurement of this quantity. But if we quantify objective indeterminacies by means of probability distributions, the probabilities used for this purpose have every right to be considered objective. As said, quantum mechanics presupposes outcome-indicating devices with outcome-indicating properties. This means it requires us to distinguish between two kinds of measurable quantities: those that have definite values if and only if they are measured, and those that possess definite 2 values whether or not they are measured. In a two-slit experiment, for instance, the slit taken by a particle has a definite value (left or right) only if it is measured, while the outcome-indicating property, from which the slit taken by the particle can be inferred (no matter whether anyone is around to make the inference), has an unconditionally definite value. What is the meaning of this dualism? What does it tell us about the nature of Nature? Arguably this is the most profound question raised by the quantum theory. A possible answer is to invoke the age-old metaphysical distinction between the world as we know or experience it and the world as it is in itself, and to argue that unconditionally definite quantities belong to the former while quantities that have values only if they are measured belong to the latter. Nobody has defended this view more persistently and more consistently than d’Espagnat (1989, 1995), who distinguished between an empirical reality and a reality independent of human minds, which is “veiled.” Because quantum mechanics forces us to make this distinction, he argued, “the full elision of the subject” (Bitbol, 1990) cannot be achieved. We cannot pretend that quantum mechanics describes a reality independent of human minds. It is, however, possible to make sense of the necessity of distinguishing between the two kinds of measurable quantities without invoking consciousness, experience, or the subject. The key is to view the distinction as a distinction between the manifested world and its manifestation (Mohrhoff 2014ab, 2016). This view has the further advantage of extending our knowledge beyond the empirical reality of d’Espagnat, which corresponds to the manifested world. While the correlata belong to the manifested world, the correlations — those between the outcomes of measurements made on the same system at different times as well as those between the outcomes of measurements made on different systems at the same or at different times — extend our knowledge beyond the manifested world. The possibility of knowledge concerning the manifestation of the world, moreover, argues against a reduction of objectivity to intersubjectivity. If the objective world would correspond to the experienced world (minus the position and the time whence it is experienced by a subject), there could be no such knowledge. So what does quantum mechanics tell us about the manifestation of the world? Let us begin by considering the following scattering experiment. Initially two identical particles — particles lacking properties by which they can be distinguished — are found moving northward and southward, respectively. The next thing we know is that the same two particles are found to be moving eastward and westward, respectively. The question then is: which incoming particle is identical with which outgoing particle? It is well known that this question has no answer. The distinction we make between the two possible identifications cannot be objectified (i.e., cannot be regarded as corresponding to an objective difference). Here as elsewhere, unanswerable questions tend to arise from false assumptions. In this particular case, the question implicitly assumes that we are dealing with two things rather than with the same thing detected twice — a single entity initially moving both northward and southward and subsequently moving both eastward and westward. If the incoming particles (and therefore the outgoing ones as well) are one and the same entity, the question “Which is which?” can no longer be asked. What needs to be borne in mind here is that quantum mechanics does not tell us what (if anything) happens between measurements, except other measurements. As Peres (1984) put it succinctly, “there is no interpolating wave function giving 3 the ‘state of the system’ between measurements.” What’s more, there is no compelling reason to believe that the intrinsic identity of the two particles ceases when it ceases to have observable consequences owing to the presence of properties by which they can be distinguished and reindentified. We are free to take the view that all particles in existence are identical in the strong sense of numerical identity. What presents itself here and now with these properties and what presents itself there and then with those properties is one and the same entity. I shall refer to it simply as “Being.” While fundamental particles are routinely described as pointlike, what is meant is that they lack internal structure. Lack of internal structure is consistent with either a pointlike form or no form at all. See Mohrhoff (2014a, Sect. 9) for reasons why fundamental particles ought to be conceived as formless. But if every fundamental particle in existence is (i) identically the same Being and (ii) formless, then the shapes of things resolve themselves into reflexive spatial relations — i.e., relations between Being and Being. By entering into (or entertaining) reflexive spatial relations (relative positions and relative orientations), Being supports (i) what looks like a multiplicity of relata if the reflexive quality of the relations is ignored, and (ii) what looks like a substantial expanse if the spatial quality of the relations is reified. This way of thinking goes farther in relationism — the doctrine that space and time are a family of spatial and temporal relations holding among the material constituents of the universe — in that it affirms that the “ultimate material constituents” are (i) formless and (ii) numerically identical. It also demolishes the notion that the physical world can be understood in terms of (a multitude of) ultimate constituents and of the ways they interact and combine. The manifestation of the world is essentially the manifestation of material forms. Instead of being constituents of material things and parts of the manifested world, subatomic particles, atoms, and molecules are instrumental in the manifestation of material forms. They occupy a (conceptual) position intermediate between Being and the manifested world. Because the manifestation of the world includes the manifestation of space and time, it cannot be conceived as a process that takes place in time. We keep looking for the origin of the universe at the beginning of time, but this is an error of perspective. The origin of the universe is Being, and the manifestation of the universe is an atemporal transition from undifferentiated Being to a world that is maximally differentiated spacewise as well as timewise. Maximally but not completely, for the manifested world is not differentiated “all the way down” (Mohrhoff, 2009a, Sect. 7; 2011a, Sect. 10; 2014a, Sect. 4). Here, in brief, is why. A detector is needed not only to indicate the presence of a particle in a region of space but also — and in the first place — to realize or define a region, so as to make it possible to attribute to a particle the property of being inside. Speaking more generally, a macroscopic apparatus is needed not only to indicate the possession of a property by a quantum system but also — and in the first place — to make a set of properties available for attribution to the system. In addition, macroscopic clocks are needed to realize attributable times. This, of course, is vintage Bohr (1935), who rightly insisted that the “procedure of measurement has an essential influence on the conditions on which the very definition of the physical quantities in question rests.” But if detectors are needed to realize regions of space, space cannot be intrinsically partitioned. It is partitioned only to the extent that the requisite detectors are 4 physically possible. Because this extent is limited by the “uncertainty” principle, physical space cannot be realistically modeled as an actually existing manifold of intrinsically distinct points. In other words, the spatial differentiation of the physical world is incomplete. And because macroscopic clocks are needed to realize attributable times, a similar argument leads to the conclusion that the temporal differentiation of the physical world is incomplete as well. Quantum theory thus reverses the explanatory arrow of both common sense and classical physics. Instead of allowing us to explain wholes in terms of their interacting parts, it suggests to us how the multiplicity of the world emerges from an intrinsically undifferentiated Being. The transition from the unqualified unity of Being to the multiplicity of the macroworld passes through several stages. Across these stages, the world’s differentiation into distinguishable regions of space and distinguishable objects with definite properties is being gradually realized. There is a stage at which Being presents itself as a multitude of formless particles. This stage is probed by high-energy physics and known to us through correlations between the counterfactual clicks of imagined detectors, i.e., in terms of transition probabilities between in-states and outstates. There are stages that mark the emergence of form, albeit a type of form that cannot yet be visualized. The forms of nucleons, nuclei, and atoms can only be mathematically described, as probability distributions over abstract spaces of increasingly higher dimensions. At energies low enough for atoms to be stable, it becomes possible to conceive of objects with fixed numbers of components, and these we describe in terms of correlations between the possible outcomes of unperformed measurements. The next stage, closest to the manifested world, contains the first objects with forms that can be visualized — the atomic configurations of molecules — but it is only the final stage — the manifested, macroscopic world — that contains the actual detector clicks and the actual measurement outcomes that allow us to test the correlations that quantum mechanics predicts. Many of the mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics become clear in this light. Why, after all, is the general theoretical framework of contemporary physics a probability calculus, and why are its probabilities assigned to measurement outcomes? If quantum mechanics concerns a transition through which the differentiation of reality into distinguishable objects and distinguishable regions of space is gradually realized, the question arises as to how the intermediate stages are to be described — the stages at which the differentiation is incomplete and the distinguishability between objects or regions of space is only partially realized. The answer to this question is that whatever is not completely distinguishable can only be described by assigning probabilities to what is completely distinguishable, namely, to the different possible outcomes of a measurement. What is instrumental in the manifestation of the world can only be described in terms of what happens in the manifested world, or else in terms of correlations between events that could happen in the manifested world. (Think of the textbook descriptions of the stationary states of a hydrogen atom, which are correlations between preparations — measurements determining the atom’s energy, its total angular momentum, and a component of its angular momentum — and probability distributions assigned on the basis of the outcomes of these measurements.) But is it even consistent with quantum mechanics to regard certain measurable quantities as definite per se? Here is a related question: are there localizable particles? According to a theorem due to Clifton and Halvorson (2002), there is no quantum state such that the 5 probability of finding a particle in a finite region of space is 1. From this, Clifton and Halvorson have drawn the conclusion that the experience of detecting particles in finite regions of space is “illusory” and “strictly fictional.” What they have actually shown is that particles cannot be localized relative to the spacetime manifold M postulated by quantum field theory. But M is not where experiments are performed. What is illusory is the notion that attributable positions are defined by spatial regions of M. Attributable positions are defined by the sensitive regions of detectors, which, according to said theorem, also cannot be localized in any finite region of space. What is strictly fictional therefore is M, inasmuch as this cannot be localized relative to the positions that particles can possess. The positions of detectors, in turn, are defined by the positions of macroscopic objects (macroscopic positions, for short). “Macroscopic” is one of the most elusive terms routinely used by physicists. What makes it possible at last to rigorously define it is that the spatial differentiation of the world doesn’t go “all the way down” (Mohrhoff 2009a, 2014a). Here is the argument in brief: In a world that is incompletely differentiated spacewise, the next best thing to an object with a sharp position is an object whose position probability distribution is and remains so narrow that there are no detectors with narrower position probability distributions — detectors that could probe the region over which the object’s position extends. The events by which the values of macroscopic positions are indicated are therefore correlated in ways that are consistent with the laws of motion that quantum mechanics yields in the classical limit. (There is one necessary exception: in order to permit a macroscopic object — the proverbial pointer — to indicate a measured value, its position must be allowed to change unpredictably if and when it serves to indicate a measured value.) What makes it possible to treat macroscopic positions as definite per se is that macroscopic objects follow trajectories that are only counterfactually indefinite. Their positions are “smeared out” only in relation to an imaginary spatiotemporal background that is more differentiated than the manifested world. In a word, macroscopic objects follow definite trajectories because they define what we mean by a (definite) trajectory, and they have persistent identities because they follow (definite) trajectories. Appendix What holds the key to the mysterious presence of consciousness in what appears to be a material universe is the self-identical Being that constitutes every particle in existence. The root of consciousness is not to be found in the manifested world, nor in the process of manifestation, but in that which manifests the world. For Being does not simply manifest the world (by entering into reflexive spatial relations); Being manifests the world to itself. Being relates to the world not only as the substance that constitutes it but also as the consciousness that contains it. It is at once the single substance by which the world exists and the ultimate self or subject for which it exists. How, then, are we as conscious beings related to this ultimate self or subject? This question has been answered in considerable detail and on a solid experiential foundation by the Indian philosopher (and freedom fighter, and mystic) Sri Aurobindo (Heehs, 2008). In keeping with a more than millennium-long philosophical tradition (Phillips, 1995), Sri Aurobindo (2005) posits an Ultimate Reality whose intrinsic nature is (objectively speaking) infinite Quality and (subjectively speaking) infinite Delight. This has the power to manifest its inherent 6 Quality/Delight in finite forms, and the closest description of this manifestation is that of an allpowerful consciousness creating its own content. In the native poise of this consciousness, its single self is coextensive with its content and identical with the substance that constitutes the content. There, but only there, it is true that esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). A first self-modification of this supramental consciousness leads to a poise in which the one self adopts a multitude of standpoints, localizing itself multiply within the content of its consciousness and viewing the same in perspective. It is in this secondary poise that the dimensions of experiential space (viewer-centered depth and lateral extent) come into being. It is also here that the dichotomy between subject and object, or self and substance, becomes a reality. Probably the most adequate description of the process by which the one original self assumes a multitude of standpoints is that of a multiple concentration of consciousness. A further selfmodification of the original creative consciousness occurs when this multiple concentration becomes exclusive. We all know the phenomenon of exclusive concentration, when consciousness is focused on a single object or task, while other goings-on are registered subconsciously, if at all. A similar phenomenon transforms individuals who are conscious of their essential identity into individuals who have lost sight of this identity and, as a consequence, have lost access to the supramental view of things. Their consciousness is mental, which means not only that it belongs to what appears to be a separate individual but also that it perceives or presents the world as a multitude of separate objects. Mentally conscious beings thus come into existence not only by an evolution from seemingly unconscious matter but also, and in the first place, by a multiple exclusive concentration of the creative consciousness inherent in Being. If this multiple exclusive concentration is carried to its logical conclusion, the result is a world whose inhabitants lack both the ability to generate ideas (which is a function of the principle of mind) and the power to execute them (which is a function of the principle of life). And since the latter is also responsible for the existence of individual forms, the result is a world of formless individuals — the fundamental particles of physics. This is how (from our temporal perspective) the original creative consciousness came to be “involved” in mind, how mind came to be “involved” in life, and how life came to be “involved” in formless particles. (If the form of a material object resolves itself into its internal spatial relations, a fundamental particle, lacking internal relations, is a formless entity.) And because these principles are involved in formless particles, matter is capable of evolving life, life is capable of evolving mind, and mental consciousness can and eventually will evolve the supramental consciousness — the power by which Being manifests the world. How does Being manifest a cosmos (rather than pure, indeterministic chaos) in which life and mind (and supermind) are “involved”? Clearly, Being’s reflexive spatial relations must be governed by seemingly inflexible laws possibly of a statistical nature. Furthermore, setting the stage for the drama of evolution calls for objects that are spatially extended (they “occupy” space) and are sufficiently stable (they neither explode nor collapse as soon as they are formed). 7 Because that stage has been set by carrying the multiple exclusive concentration of consciousness to its logical conclusion, such objects will be, or will appear to be, “made of” finite numbers of formless particles — particles that do not “occupy” space. As I have argued elsewhere (Mohrhoff, 2002, 2009b, 2011b), the existence of such objects not only implies the validity of quantum mechanics but also goes a long way toward establishing the other welltested laws of contemporary physics (the Standard Model and General Relativity). These laws, then, are preconditions of the possibility of an evolutionary manifestation of Being — a Being that relates to the world not only as the substance by which it exists but also as a (supramental) consciousness for which it exists. References Barrett, J. A. (1999). The quantum mechanics of minds and worlds (Oxford University Press, Oxford). Bitbol, M. (1990). L’ Elision. Preface to Schrödinger, E., L’esprit et la matière (Seuil, Paris). Bohr, N. (1935). Quantum mechanics and physical reality. Nature 136, 65. Busch, P., Lahti, P. J., and Mittelstaedt, P. (1996). The quantum theory of measurement, 2nd revised edition, Sect. III.6.2 (Springer, Berlin). Clifton, R., and Halvorson, H. (2002). No place for particles in relativistic quantum theories, Philos. Sci. 69, 1–28. D’Espagnat, B. (1989). Reality and the physicist (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK). D’Espagnat, B. (1995). Veiled Reality (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA). Fuchs, C. A., and Peres, A. (2000). Quantum theory needs no ‘interpretation.’ Phys. Today 53 (3), 70–71. Heehs, P. (2008). The lives of Sri Aurobindo (Columbia University Press, New York). Marchildon, L. (2015). Multiplicity in Everett’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. Stud. Hist. Philos. M. P. 52B, 274–284. Mittelstaedt, P. (1998). The interpretation of quantum mechanics and the measurement process, Sect. 4.3b. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK). Mohrhoff, U. (2002). Why the laws of physics are just so. Found. Phys. 32 (8), 1313–1324. Mohrhoff, U. (2009a). Objective probability and quantum fuzziness. Found. Phys. 39 (2), 137– 155. Mohrhoff, U. (2009b). Quantum mechanics explained. Int. J. Quantum Inf. 7 (1), 435–458. 8 Mohrhoff, U. (2011a). A fuzzy world. In Vision of oneness, edited by Licata, I., and Sakaji, A. J. (Aracne editrice, Ariccia, Italy), pp. 41–61. Mohrhoff, U. (2011b). The world according to quantum mechanics: why the laws of physics make perfect sense after all, Chap. 22 (World Scientific Publishing, Singapore). Mohrhoff, U. (2014a). Manifesting the quantum world. Found. Phys. 44 (6), 641–677. Mohrhoff, U. (2014b). Quantum mechanics and the manifestation of the world. Quantum Stud.: Math. Found. 1 (3–4), 195–202. Mohrhoff, U. (2016). Quantum mechanics in a new light. Found. Sci. DOI 10.1007/s10699-0169487-6. Peierls, R. (1991). In defence of ‘measurement.’ Phys. World 4 (1), 19–20. Peres, A. (1984). What is a state vector? Am. J. Phys. 52, 644–650. Phillips, S. H. (1995). Classical Indian metaphysics (Open Court, Chicago/La Salle). Saunders, S., Barrett, J., Kent, A., and Wallace, D. (2010). Many worlds? Everett, quantum theory, and reality. (Oxford University Press, Oxford). Sri Aurobindo (2005). The life divine (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Pondicherry, India). Von Neumann, J. (1931). Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (Springer, Berlin). English translation: Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1955). 9

A quantum method to test the existence of consciousness Rui Qi Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 17 Zhongguancun Rd., Beijing, China E-mail: rg@mail.ie.ac.cn Introduction As we know, "Who can be said to be a conscious being?" is one of the hard problems in present science, and no method has been found to strictly differentiate the conscious being from the being without consciousness or usual matter. In this paper, we will present a strict physical method based on revised quantum dynamics to test who can be said to be a conscious being, and the principle is to use the distinguishability of nonorthogonal single states. Revised quantum dynamics As to the evolution of the wave function during quantum measurement, present quantum theory provides by no means a complete description. The projection postulate is just a makeshift, while the concrete dynamical process of the projection is undoubtedly one of the most important unsettled problems in quantum theory. Recently the resulting revised quantum dynamics ( Ghiradi et al, 1986; Pearle, 1989; Diosi, 1989; Ghiradi et al, 1990; Penrose, 1996; Gao, 1999a; Gao, 2000b; Gao, 2001b ) are deeply studied, in which the linear evolution equation of the wave function is replaced by stochastic linear or nonlinear equation. Presently, even if the last theory has not been found, but one thing is certain for the revised quantum dynamics, i.e. the collapse process is one kind of dynamical process, and it will take a finite time interval to finish. Our method in this paper only relies on this common character of revised quantum dynamics. The method to test the existence of consciousness Now, we will demonstrate how to test the existence of consciousness in the framework of revised quantum dynamics. The concrete method is to use the distinguishability of nonorthogonal single states ( Gao, 1999b; Gao, 2000a; Gao, 2000b; Gao, 2001a). As we know, the usual measurement using physical measuring device can't distinguish the nonorthogonal single states in revised quantum dynamics, as well as in present quantum theory. But, if the physical measuring device is replaced by a conscious being, we will demonstrate that it may distinguish the nonorthogonal single states in the framework of revised quantum dynamics. Thus the existence of consciousness can be tested by use of this physical method. We assume the states to be distinguished are the following nonorthogonal single states ψ1 and ψ1 +ψ2 , and the initial perception state of the conscious being is χ0 . Then after interaction 1 the corresponding entangled state of the whole system is respectively ψ1 χ1 and ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 , where χ1 and χ2 is respectively the perception state of the observer for the states ψ1 and ψ2 . We assume the observer satisfies the QSC condition ( Gao Shan, 1999b; Gao Shan, 2000a), i.e. the perception time of the observer for the definite state ψ1 χ1 , which is denoted by t P , is shorter than the dynamical collapse time for the superposition state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 , which is denoted by t C 1 , and the time difference ∆t = t C - t P is large enough for the observer to identify. Then the observer can perceive the measured state ψ1 or his own state χ1 after time interval t P , while for the measured superposition state ψ1 +ψ2 , only after the time interval t C can the observer perceive the collapse state ψ1 or ψ2 , or his own corresponding state χ1 or χ2 . Since the observer can also be conscious of the time difference between t P and t C , he can easily distinguish the measured nonorthogonal single states ψ1 and ψ1 +ψ2 . Thus the distinguishability of the nonorthogonal single states can be used as a quantum method to differentiate man and machine, or to test the existence of consciousness. Further discussions In order to understand the unusual conclusion, we will further analyze the above demonstrations. As we know, it is still unclear that what the perception of the observer in the entangled state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 is. Albert had analyzed the similar situation in detail (Albert, 1999b). He called such quantum observer John. He concluded that John's perception is not the same as χ1 and χ2 , and denoted that the perception may be very strange. In the following, we will further demonstrate that the above conclusion is irrelevant to the concrete perception of the observer in the superposed state. First, we assume that only after the collapse the definite perception about the input superposition state can appear, which is a well-accepted fact in quantum mechanics Since the observer can be aware of his perception instant, he can also be aware of the collapse instant. Then 1 It should be noted that, since the collapse time of a single superposition state is an essentially stochastic variable, which average value is t c , we should consider the stochastic distribution of the collapse time in a strict sense, i.e. a small number of single states is needed for practical application. In the following discussions, we always simply take the collapse time as the average value t c unless state otherwise. 2 when the observer satisfies the above assumed QSC condition, the awareness of collapse instant will permit him to distinguish the input states ψ1 +ψ2 and ψ1 . Secondly, we assume that the above well-accepted fact is not true, i.e. the observer can have some definite perception about the input superposition state before the collapse happens. Now we will demonstrate that the observer can also be aware of the collapse instant for this situation, thus the observer can also distinguish the input states ψ1 +ψ2 and ψ1 when satisfying the QSC condition. (1). If the definite perception of the observer in the superposed state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 is neither χ1 nor χ2 , then the observer can be aware of the collapse instant, since after the collapse instant the perception turns to be χ1 or χ2 , which is different from that before the collapse instant, and the observer can be aware of the change of his perception. (2). If the definite perception of the observer in the superposed state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 is χ1 , then due to the randomness of the collapse result, the observer can still be aware of the collapse instant for one half of the situations, since after the collapse instant the perception will turn to be χ2 with probability 1/2. (3). If the definite perception of the observer in the superposed state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 is χ2 , the demonstration is the same as that of (2). (4). If the definite perception of the observer in the superposed state ψ1 χ1 +ψ2 χ2 is random2 , i.e. one time is χ1 , another time is χ2 , then due to the independent randomness of the collapse process, the observer can still be aware of the collapse instant with non-zero probability, since the perception after the collapse instant will be different from that before the collapse instant with non-zero probability. Thus we have demonstrated that if only the observer satisfies the QSC condition, he can distinguish the measured nonorthogonal single states. The conclusion is irrelevant to the concrete perception of the observer in the superposed state. The rationality of QSC condition Lastly, we will demonstrate that the QSC condition is not irrational, and can be satisfied in essence, i.e. there should exist some kind of conscious beings satisfying the condition in Nature. First, the perception time of the conscious being is mainly determined by the structure of his perception part, while the dynamical collapse time of the observed superposition state during perception is mainly determined by the energy ni volved for perception. It is evident that the 2 This presumption may be extremely impossible. 3 structure and energy for perception can’t determine each other uniquely, or we can say, they are relatively independent. Thus the corresponding perception time and dynamical collapse time are also relatively independent. Then it is natural for some kind of conscious beings the above QSC condition is satisfied, and for other conscious beings the above QSC condition is not satisfied. Secondly, with the natural selection the structure of the perception part of the conscious being will turn more and more complex, and the perception time will turn shorter and shorter. On the other hand, the energy involved for perception will turn less and less, and the dynamical collapse time will turn longer and longer. Then there will appear more conscious beings satisfying the QSC condition with the natural evolution3 . In one word, it is reasonable that QSC condition is satisfied by some kind of conscious beings, i.e. for some kind of conscious beings the perception time for the definite state ψ1 is shorter than the perception time or dynamical collapse time of the perceived superposition state ψ1 +ψ2 , and the time difference is large enough for the conscious beings to identify. Thus even if our human being can not satisfy this condition, other conscious beings may satisfy this condition. In fact, some evidences have indicated that our human being can satisfy this condition (Duane et al, 1965; Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al, 1994), for example, the subjects can hold the superposition state for a long time, say at least several minutes, in the experiments performed by Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al (Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al, 1994). This denotes that the collapse time of the superposition state, which is the same as the holding time of the superposition state, is much longer than the perception time, which is generally in the level of milliseconds. Conclusions We show that the conscious being may distinguish the nonorthogonal single states when satisfying the QSC conditions, while the physical measuring device can't. This indicates that the distinguishability of nonorthogonal single states can be used to test the existence of consciousness. References Albert,D. (1992), Quantum Mechanics and Experience (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass) Diosi, L. (1989), ‘Models for universal reduction of macroscopic quantum fluctuations’, Phys. Rev. A, 40, pp.1165-1174. Duane, D and Behrendt,T. ‘Extrasensory Electroencephalographic Induction Between Identical Twins’, (1965), Science, 150, 367 Gao Shan (1999a), ‘The collapse problem can be tackled in terms of new motion of particle’, LANL e-print physics/9907002. Gao Shan (1999b), ‘How to realize quantum superluminal communication?’, LANL e-print quant-ph/9906116. Gao Shan (2000a), ‘Revised quantum dynamics permits superluminal communication’, 3 Owing to the availability of superluminal communication, satisfying the QSC condition will be undoubtedly helpful for the existence and evolution of the conscious beings. 4 Quantum-Mind Digest, #002628 Gao Shan (2000b), Quantum Motion and Superluminal Communication (Beijing, Chinese B&T Publishing House) Gao Shan (2001a), ‘Can consciousness conquer quantum randomness?’, Quantum-Mind Digest, #002836 Gao Shan (2001b), ‘From quantum motion to classical motion-seeking the lost reality’, Physics Essays, Vol 14, No.1. Ghiradi,G.C, Rimini, A. and Weber, T. (1986), ‘Unified dynamic s for microscopic and macroscopic systems’, Phys. Rev. D, 34, pp.470-491. Ghiradi,G.C, Rimini, A. and Weber, T. (1990), ‘A Continuous-spontaneous-reduction model involving gravity’, Phys. Rev. D, 42, pp.1057-1064. Grinberg-Zylberbaum, J., Dalaflor, D., Attie,L and Goswami,A. (1994), ‘The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in the brain: The transferred potential’, Physics Essays, 7, 422 Pearle, P. (1989), ‘Combining stochastic dynamical state-vector reduction with spontaneous localization’, Phys. Rev. A 39, pp.2277- 2289. Penrose, R. (1996), ‘On gravity's role in quantum state reduction’, Gen. Rel. and Grav, 28, pp.581-600. 5

1161 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism Realization The Mythology of Materialism Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT The philosophy of materialism holds that Life arises within an otherwise lifeless universe. And so it is that Consciousness, when viewed through that lens, must be seen as a by-product, as an accident, as something that only arises through the chance interaction of otherwise lifeless matter that by chance happens to be involved in the process we call life. However, as there is nothing in the apple that is not first in the tree from which it grows, there is nothing in us that is not first in the Universe out of which we grow. Thus, Life seems to arise from within the Universe because the Universe is already Alive, and Consciousness seems to arise out of Life because the Universe is already Conscious. Key Words: mythology, materialism, Consciousness, life, Universe. The modern day mythology that is the philosophy of materialism holds that Life arises within an otherwise lifeless universe. In our modern world this mythology is as pervasive as the air we breath. And although it is just a mythology, just a set of experiences, arranged in a particular way to form what is only an idea of the nature of reality and how the universe is, it has been mistaken for fact and so has been mistaken for how the universe actually is. This is called mistaking the map for the terrain. And so we see Life *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1162 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism only where we see the ability to organically reproduce. And we see Consciousness only where we see organic reproduction produce humanity. And so Life, seen through the mythological lens we call materialism, becomes a by-product, an accident, something that only arises through the chance interaction of otherwise lifeless matter. And so it is that Consciousness, when viewed through that same lens, must be seen as a by-product, as an accident, as something that only arises through the chance interaction of otherwise lifeless matter that by chance happens to be involved in the process we call life. If materialism were actually true how pointless our lives would be and suicide would be the only reasonable action one could ever take. If what we are is only an illusion, then all that we actually live for, love and joy and happiness, must itself be only an illusion, a shadow that appears on a wall purely by chance. And if that is true then nothing is gained by living and so nothing is lost by dying. Why suffer day in and day out for moments of fleeting happiness? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1163 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism For the sake of the children? But they too, according to materialism, don't actually exist either any more than we do. One shadow living and suffering, and finding occasional happiness, by keeping another shadow going, who then lives and suffers, and finds some happiness, by giving birth to another shadow, who then lives and suffers, and finds some happiness…. And on and on it goes, without any end, and without any real point. A completely pointless journey, because according to materialism there is really no one on the journey, just a shadow we call our Consciousness, just an accident we refer to as I. But life is not pointless because what we call our Consciousness is not a shadow, and what we refer to as I is not an accident. What we are is Life, what we are is Consciousness, but what we are does not arise at the very peak of what materialism tells us is a randomly evolving universe. What we are is the Consciousness that is Itself evolving into the ever expanding Tree of Life, which when viewed looking outward from where we humans grow, appears as the material universe, and when viewed looking inward ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1164 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism from that same position, appears as the mental universe. But both appearances are deceiving, the material and the mental, because all that is really there is the Consciousness that creates both, and apprehends both, as it Flows in relation to Itself, and so Grows into Itself. As there is nothing in the apple that is not first in the tree from which it grows, there is nothing in us that is not first in the Universe out of which we grow. Life seems to arise from within the Universe because the Universe is already Alive. And Consciousness seems to arise out of Life because the Universe is already Conscious. Why would you believe otherwise? Why would you conceive as yourself as having attributes that are separate and apart from the Universe out of which you grow, like a fruit on a tree? Because you were weaned on a mythology that was created through the dissection of the indivisible Universe, the indivisible Life that you Are, into seemingly separate parts. When you dissect an organism the Life that was there animating the organism seems to vanish. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1165 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism And when you dissect the Universe the Life that is there animating the cosmic organism we call the Universe also seems to vanish. But that Life is still there, you just don't recognize it because you have been told it is something else, something accidental, something less real than the objects It perceives. I could say again what It is, but I won't, because It is not that, not a word, not a form, not a thought, not an object. But I will point toward It by saying that, in the absence of It no word, no form, no thought, no object, is ever known. Realize what you are and you will see your Self in everything and so everywhere, or keep listening to the siren song of materialism, and continue to see yourself in nothing and so nowhere. When the map one is using accurately reflects the terrain, then even while mistaking one for the other, one may still arrive ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1166 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1161-1166 Kaufman, S. E., The Mythology of Materialism where one intended to go when the journey began. But when the map one is using bears little relation to the terrain, then in mistaking one for the other losing one's way becomes inevitable. The map of materialism, which humanity continues to use in this journey that we are on, bears very little relation to the indivisible Universe, to the intrinsically Alive Universe, to the intrinsically Conscious Universe, it pretends to describe. Is it any wonder then why the particular fruit of the Universe that we call humanity seems to have lost its way? ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

arXiv:0712.3609v1 [physics.gen-ph] 21 Dec 2007 Postcorrection and mathematical model of life in Extended Everett’s Concept Michael B. Mensky P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences 53 Leninsky prosp., 119991 Moscow, Russia August 20, 2007 Abstract Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) recently developed by the author to explain the phenomenon of consciousness is considered. A mathematical model is proposed for the principal feature of consciousness assumed in EEC, namely its ability (in the state of sleep, trance or meditation, when the explicit consciousness is disabled) to obtain information from all alternative classical realities (Everett’s worlds) and select the favorable realities. To represent this ability, a mathematical operation called postcorrection is introduced, which corrects the present state to guarantee certain characteristics of the future state. Evolution of living matter is thus determined by goals (first of all by the goal of survival) as well as by causes. The resulting theory, in a way symmetrical in time direction, follows from a sort of antropic principle. Possible criteria for postcorrection and corresponding phenomena in the sphere of life are classified. Both individual and collective criteria of survival are considered as well as the criteria providing certain quality of life and those which are irrelevant to the life quality. The phenomena of free will and direct sighting of truth (e.g. scientific insight) are explained in these terms. The problem of artificial intellect and the role of brain look differently in the framework of this theory. Automats may perform intellectual operations, but not postcorrection, therefore artificial intellect but not an artificial life can be created. The brain serves as an interface between the body and consciousness, but the most profound level of consciousness is not a function of brain. Keywords: Everett’s interpretation of quantum mechanics; consciousness; life; antropic principle; poscorrection 1 1 Introduction From the time of creation of quantum mechanics up to now conceptual problems of this theory, or quantum paradoxes, are not solved. They are often formulated as the problem of measurement. Various interpretations of quantum mechanics are nothing else than attempts to solve this problem. The origin of the measurement problem is the fact that, contrary to classical physics, consciousness of an observer plays an important role in quantum mechanics (this difference may be formulated as the difference between classical and quantum concepts of reality). This allowed for the author to suggest the theory of consciousness called Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) starting from the principal points of quantum mechanics. Here we shall introduce a mathematical model for this theory and discuss some principal issues resulting from it. The reasoning applied in EEC is following (see Sect. 2 for detail): 1) Commonly accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics includes the reduction postulate declaring that a quantum system’s state is converted, after a measurement, into one of the alternative states corresponding to the alternative measurement outputs (readouts). This postulate contradicts to linearity of quantum mechanics: the state of the measuring device and the measured system should, in linear theory, include all the alternatives as the components of the superposition. In the interpretation suggested by Hew Everett [1, 2] the linearity was taken as a basic principle and therefore all alternatives were assumed to coexist (to be equally real). To explain, why any real observer always watches only a single alternative, it was assumed that “many classical worlds” (corresponding to various alternatives) exist or, equivalently, that the observer’s consciousness separates the alternatives from each other (subjectively the observer, when watching some alternative, cannot watch the others). 2)In the Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) proposed by the author [3, 4, 5, 6], the observer’s explicit consciousness is identified with separating alternatives. This simplifies the logical structure of the theory and results in new consequences: when the explicit consciousness is disabled (in the states similar to sleep, trance or meditation) one acquires a sort of “superconsciousness” being able to take information from all alternatives, compare them with each other and choose the favorable one. This allows one to explain the well known phenomena of free will, absolute necessity of sleep, as well as such unusual phenomena as direct sighting the truth (e.g. scientific insights) and even “control of reality” in the form of “probabilistic miracles”. According to EEC, the principal feature of consciousness (of human and, more generally, of any living being) is its ability, overcoming the separation of 2 the alternatives, to follow each of them up to the distant time moment in the future, find what alternatives provide survival and choose these alternatives excluding the rest. The evolution of living matter is thus determined not only by causes, but also by the goals, first of all by the goals of survival and improvement of the quality of life. In the present paper we shall introduce the mathematical formalism describing this principal feature of living matter (of its consciousness): the ability to correct its state making use of the information (about the efficient way of survival) obtained from the future. It will be assumed that the evolution of living matter includes the correction providing survival at distant time moments. This correction leaves in the sphere of life only those scenarios of evolution which are favorable for life. Unfavorable scenarios do not disappear from the (quantum) reality but are left outside the sphere of life (are absent in the picture appearing in the consciousness). This correction (selection of favorable scenarios) is represented by the special mathematical operation which is called postcorrection. It corrects the present state of the system in such a way that its future state satisfies a certain criterion. After defining the operation of postcorrection, various criteria for postcorrection are considered as well as the corresponding aspects of the phenomenon of life. In particular, a simple mathematical model of a collective criterion of survival is proposed, and the important role played by collective criteria shortly discussed. Stronger criteria providing not only survival but also certain levels of the quality of life, are discussed. It is argued that the postcorrection is possible also according to such criteria which are insignificant for life. Such phenomena as free will and direct sighting of truth may be explained by the action of postcorrection performed according to such criteria. The paper is organized in the following way. After a short sketch of EEC given in Sect. 2, the operation of postcorrection is defined and the simplest but most important criterion of survival considered in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4 a simple example of the collective criterion of survival is given. Various criteria for postcorrection, their classification and the corresponding aspects of the phenomenon of life are discussed. At last, Sect. 6 supplies comments on the whole theory. In particular, deep analogy of the postcorrection (providing survival) with the antropic principle is analyzed. 3 2 Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) The “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed by Everett in 1957 [1] has as its starting point linearity of quantum mechanics. The von Neumann’s reduction postulate is rejected in this interpretation, and therefore all components of the superposition which correspond to the alternative outputs of a measurement are presented in the measured system’s and measuring device’s state after the measurement (the only change of the state is entanglement of the measured system with the measuring device). This suggests that the classical alternatives corresponding to various measurement outputs coexist, even though they are conventionally considered to be inconsistent (alternative). Remark 1 The conclusion about coexistence of various alternatives is made in the Everett’s concept in the course of analysis of the procedure of a quantum measurement. In order to go over to EEC, this conclusion has to be considered in a more general context. It is not important that the alternatives may appear as a result of a measurement. The only essential issue is that the state of our (quantum) world may have the form of a superposition, the components of which represent distinct classical pictures. According to Everett, all these “classical alternatives” are equally real (coexist). For making the status of these alternative pictures of the world more transparent, they are often called “Everett’s worlds” [2], the term “many-worlds interpretation” resulting from this. Thus, coexistence of the classical alternatives is predicted by the Everett’s concept. However, real observers never see any evidence of this coexistence, always watching only a single alternative. In order to explain this real experience in the framework of the Everett’s concept, one has to assume that the classical alternatives are separated (disconnected) from each other in the observer’s consciousness. Then, despite of all alternatives being equally real, an observer, when watching in his (explicit) consciousness one of them, cannot watch at the same time the others. The alternatives coexist but are not “co-observable”. The statement “the consciousness separates the alternatives” which is characteristic of the Everett’s interpretation has been replaced in the Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) [3, 4, 5, 6] with the stronger one: “the phenomenon of (explicit) consciousness is nothing else than the separation of the alternatives”. Such change of the theory simplifies its logical structure, since two unclear (may be even non-definable) notions are identified with each other and therefore “explain each other”. These are the notion of 4 “consciousness” in psychology and the notion of “alternatives’ separation” in quantum physics. Besides simplifying the logical structure of the theory, this identification results in new very interesting conclusions. In quantum mechanics it becomes clear, in the light of the above identification, why the alternatives are classical (because the classical world is “locally predictable” and therefore appropriate for habitation). In psychology it becomes clear why free will is possible and why sleep is absolutely necessary for support of life. Moreover, the strange things characteristic of consciousness, such as direct sighting (revelation) of truth and probabilistic miracles (realization, by the willpower, of events having very low probabilities) may be explained [4, 5, 6]. All these conclusions result from the following argument. If the (explicit) consciousness is identical to the separation of the alternatives, then its disappearance (i.e. the transition to unconscious, for example in sleep, trance or meditation) means disappearance (or weakening) of this separation. The consciousness stops to watch the world’s state as separated in classical alternatives, but begins to perceive (in some sense or another) this state as a whole. The consciousness stops to watch continuous “developing” alternative scenarios, but views instead the reversible evolution of the quantum world i.e. actually four-dimensional image of the world in which all time moments are treated on equal footing. In other words, when the explicit consciousness is disabled (in the regime of unconscious), the (implicit) consciousness witnesses, instead of the usual classical world, something quite different, including particularly all classical scenarios in all time moments. Such an image of the world can serve as an enormous “data base” allowing particularly comparing various alternative scenarios between each other. This data base may be used first of all for support of life. Indeed, usage of this data base makes possible selecting those scenarios which are favorable for life, i.e. provide survival. Addressing this data base may be performed periodically (for example, in sleep) or even permanently (since many processes in living organisms are regulated unconsciously, with no participation of the explicit consciousness). In the next sections we shall suggest a mathematical formalism describing this function of consciousness: its ability to use the information obtained in the future for correcting the present state. To mathematically describe this function, the operation of postcorrection will be introduced. This mathematical operation performs such a correction of the state of a “living system” which guarantees the required features of its future state. In the simplest case the requirement of survival is meant, but this may also be the requirement of a certain level of quality of life or even the requirement of something that is desirable although not directly connected with the quality of life. 5 3 Life as postcorrection with the criterion of survival Life is a phenomenon which is realized by living matter consisting of living organisms (living beings). Living matter differs from non-living matter in that its dynamics is determined not only by causes, but also by goals i.e. by the state this matter should have in future. First of all the goal of survival (prolongation of life) is important in this context. However, in case of sufficiently perfect forms of life more complicated goals are also actual. They can be formulated in terms of quality of life. In the real conditions on Earth, important features of the phenomenon of life are connected with the balance between all organisms. However, the very definition of life and essential features of this phenomenon may be illustrated in case of a single living being. Let us first consider this simple situation (the case of a group of identical living beings will be considered in Sect. 4). An organism consists of atoms interacting with each other, therefore it is in fact a physical system. According to the modern views this is a quantum system. Let us apply the term “living system” to refer this quantum system. Denote by H a space of states of this system. The state of the environment will be considered (in the simple model we are to discuss) to be fixed.1 Let {L, D} (from the initial letters of the words ‘life’ and ‘death’) be a complete system of orthogonal projectors in the state space H, so that L + D = 1 and LD = 0. These projectors determine two orthogonal and complementary subspaces LH and DH in the whole space H. The subspace LH is interpreted as the space of the states in which the body of the living being is acting properly (remains alive). The subspace DH, vice versa, is interpreted as the space of the states in which the processes of life are seriously violated, the living being is dead. The projector L plays the role of the criterion of survival. If a quantum system is in the state |ψ(t0 )i at a time moment t0 , then its state |ψ(t)i = U(t, t0 )|ψ(t0 )i at time t is determined by the action of the unitary evolution operator U(t, t0 ). In case of static environment and invariable properties of the system, the evolution operator depends only on the increment of time: U(t, t0 ) = Ut−t0 . At the moment we shall assume for simplicity this is valid, but the generalization onto the generic situation is straightforward. The description of evolution by a unitary evolution operator is characteristic of non-living matter, whose dynamics is determined by causes (by 1 This is a sufficiently good approximation if the changes caused by the influence of the living being on its environment is not essential for its life. 6 the initial state and Hamiltonian). However, such a description of evolution is not enough for living matter. The dynamics of a living being is partially determined by goals, i.e. by characteristics of the future state of this living being. In the simplest case the goal is survival. According to this goal the living being has to remain alive, i.e. the state of the living system should be in the subspace LH at a distant future moment of time. This is provided by correcting the initial condition in such a way that the evolution of this state brings it into the subspace LH in the future. Such correction may be called postcorrection. The operation of postcorrection is a correction of the present state of the living system, but it is performed according to the criterion which is applied to the future state of the system. Let us consider the simplest example of postcorrection. For simplicity of notation, we shall fix two time moments, “the present time” t = t0 and “the future time” t = t0 + T . Denote by UT the evolution operator leading from the present time to the future time. Let the living system’s state at time t = t0 be presented by the vector |ψi ∈ H. If only conventional (characteristic of non-living systems) dynamics act, then after time interval τ the state vector should be Uτ |ψi. However, life as a special phenomenon is described only by those scenarios in which the conventional evolution provides survival (prolongation of life). For life prolonging during the time interval T , it is sufficient to restrict the initial condition by the requirement for it to be in the subspace UT−1 LUT ·H. Indeed, any state from this subspace will happen to belong, after the time interval T , to the subspace UT · UT−1 LUT · H = LUT H = LH, i.e. the living system will remain alive.2 Thus, the correction selecting the favorable scenarios is described by the projector LT = UT−1 LUT which may be called the postcorrection operator. The living system’s evolution, with the postcorrection taken into account, may be described as a series of short time intervals τ of the usual (causal) evolutions Uτ , each of them being preceded by the postcorrection LT . This is described as the action of the operator cor Unτ = Uτ LT · . . . · Uτ LT · Uτ LT | {z n times } (1) which replaces, for the living system, the usual evolution operator Unτ = Uτ · . . . · Uτ · Uτ that had to be taken if the system were non-living. 2 We took into account that the whole state space H is invariant under the unitary evolution, UT H = H. 7 Remark 2 A single period τ of the evolution according to the equation (1) is represented by the operator Uτcor = Uτ LT = UT−1−τ LUT . Applying operator LUT to the whole state space H, we shall obtain LUT H = LH i.e. the subspace of alive states (see footnote 2). Therefore, operator LUT brings any state into an alive state. The operator Uτcor also brings any state into an alive state, Uτcor H ⊂ LH, provided that UT−1−τ LH ⊂ LH. This is a requirement which is necessary for the evolution law (1) being correct. This requirement suggests that the usual causal evolution (represented by a unitary operator and taking into account not only favorable, but all scenarios) cannot convert a dead body into alive one. It is of course evident that living matter has this property. Selecting favorable scenarios does not suggest violating the laws of nature as such. The material world is described as usual by all scenarios obtained by the action of the unitary evolution operators on the arbitrary initial state vectors. This conventional presentation of the evolution of matter is sufficient to describe how non-living matter evolves. However, the phenomenon of life is represented by only a part of the set of all scenarios of evolution. “Unfavorable” (for life) scenarios are left “outside the sphere of life”. The picture appearing in the consciousness of an observer may include only one of the favorable scenarios.3 Subjectively this looks as if the living being could find out what should be its state in a distant time t0 + T and correct the state at time t0 in such a way that it provides being alive at time t0 + T . It could be not quite clear what is meant by the words “the unfavorable scenarios are left outside the sphere of life”. To clarify this, let us reformulate this statement in the language utilized in the preceding works on EEC [3, 4, 5, 6] (see also Sect. 2), however with the help of the mathematics introduced above. In the preceding works the (explicit) consciousness is identified with the separation of the alternatives. In the transition to the regime of unconscious (“at the edge of (explicit) consciousness”) the separation of the alternatives disappears, and the possibility arises for the (implicit) consciousness to compare all alternatives between each other, select favorable ones and discard the rest. How could this be expressed in the language of mathematical formulas? Let the set of the (quasiclassical) alternatives at the present time be defined as the set of subspaces {Hi }. Assume that the favorable (providing survival in the time interval T ) are the alternatives i ∈ I, while the rest S alternatives i′ ∈ I¯ (where I I¯ is the set of all alternatives) are unfavorable. 3 This expresses the very principle of life, without details like accidents and other casual obstacles for life. In Sect. 4 we shall consider “programmed death” of individuals necessary for life of a group (collective). 8 ¯ This suggests that LUT Hi = UT Hi for i ∈ I and LUT Hi′ = 0 for i′ ∈ I. −1 Therefore, the postcorrection operator LT = UT LUT conserves any “favorable alternative subspace” and annihilates any unfavorable one, LT Hi = Hi ¯4 for i ∈ I and LT Hi′ = 0 for i′ ∈ I. Therefore, “to stay in the sphere of life” means “to leave only favorable (for life) alternatives in the picture appearing in the consciousness”. The rest alternatives (subspaces) do not disappear (this would be the violation of the laws of nature), but simply disappear from the sphere embraced by the consciousness of the living being. From this point of view the statement that the phenomenon of life is described by postcorrection performed according to the criterion of survival is in fact not a postulate but only a mathematical form of the definition of life. Any reasonable definition should differ from it only in details, but not in principle. Indeed, the essence of the phenomenon of life reduces to a strategy of survival, and the efficient survival is provided only by estimating the future of a living system (from the point of view of its survival) and by the corresponding correction of the system’s present state. Some remarks should be made about the evolution law (1). Remark 3 In the above specified formulas we assumed that the operator of causal evolution depends only on the time interval, but does not depend of the initial time moment: U(t, t′ ) = Ut−t′ . If the environment of the living being is varying with time, this assumption is invalid and one has to make use of the evolution operator U(t, t′ ) depending on two arguments. The formula (1) should then be appropriately modified. Remark 4 We assumed that the evolution of the environment is specified independently of the state of the living system. This may be justified in many cases. However, this assumption has to be abandoned in case of those criteria for postcorrection which include parameters of the environment as well as the parameters of the living system itself (such criteria will be considered in Sect. 5). Then H has to be defined as the space of states of the compound system including the living system and its environment. The operator U(t, t′ ) is then the evolution operator in this more wide space. Remark 5 The evolution represented by the operator (1) consists of the series of operations, each being the causal evolution preceded by postcorrection. 4 In this reasoning we started from the verbal formulation of EEC given earlier. The real situation is very close to this, differing only in that the sets I and I¯ do not necessarily cover the set of all alternatives: the alternatives (subspaces) which are intermediate between completely favorable and completely unfavorable may exist. 9 Such an evolution is characterized by two time parameters: the period of correction τ and the depth of postcorrection T . It is possible that some processes in living organisms are adequately presented by such a type of evolution (for example, higher animals and humans periodically experience the state of sleep in which the correction of the state of the organism is performed). However, continuous regime is typical for other correcting processes. In these cases an evolution law with continuous postcorrection should be applied. The simplest variant of it can be obtained as a limit of the discrete process. Remark 6 We considered a transparent mathematical model of life in which the postcorrection is presented by a projector. This may be (and in fact should be) generalized. For example, the criterion for postcorrection may be presented by a positive operator (not a projector). This is evidently necessary for those criteria for postcorrection that are connected not with survival, but with less critical parameters of quality of life. Such criteria will be considered in Sect. 5. Up to now we considered only the simplest scheme for support of life of a single living being. This scheme requires only a single criterion of life called survival and mathematically presented by the projector L. This may be enough for primitive forms of life in the condition of unlimited resources (first of all food). However, for realistic description of more sophisticated forms of life one has to consider more complicated criteria. Besides, the role played by the living beings in respect to each other should be taken into account. All this requires further generalizations of the mathematical model of life. Not pretending to be quite general and precise in detail, we shall illustrate possibilities of such generalizations in some typical situations. In Sect. 4 a sort of collective criterion of survival will be considered, and in Sect. 5 the classification of various criteria of life and corresponding aspects of the phenomenon of life will be presented. Remark 7 “A future state” of a system has been used by Y. Aharonov, P.G. Bergmann and J.L. Lebowitz in the paper published in 1964 [7] and by Y. Aharonov with other coauthors in the subsequent works (see for example [8, 9]) under name of the formalism of postselection or the two-vector formalism. In this formalism the states of a system at both initial time and some later moment of time (“final time”) are fixed. In [7] the formula for the probabilities of various outputs of the measurement performed at an intermediate time (between the initial and final times), given the initial and final states, was derived. The above defined operation of postcorrection differs 10 from the two-vector formalism (postselection) both formally and essentially. The formal difference is that in the postcorrection 1) not a single state but a subspace (of an arbitrary dimension) is fixed in the future (at the “final time”), and 2) the initial state undergoes a correction. The essential difference is in the physical interpretation (sphere of application) suggested for these two formalisms. The two-vector formalism was applied for analyzing events predicted by conventional quantum mechanics for usual material systems. In the paper [9] the two-vector formalism was exploited to formulate a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the various outputs of a measurement were associated with various future state vectors. In contrast with this, the postcorrection describes (in the framework of EEC) not a usual material system, but a “living system”, or, more precisely, the image appearing in the consciousness of living beings.5 5 In case of a primitive living being, the expression “the image appearing in the consciousness” stands for the information which is exploited by this living being to manage its behavior. 11 4 Collective criterion of survival It was shown in Sect. 3 how evolution of a living being providing its survival may be described mathematically in terms of the operation of postcorrection. The simplest form of this operation considered in Sect. 3 was determined by a single criterion of survival which in turn was presented by a projector L on the subspace of states in which the living system remains alive. This model is sufficient for simple forms of life and unlimited resources (first of all unlimited amount of food). Let us consider now the model of life in which resources are limited so that only a limited number of living beings can survive. It is clear that in this case the relations between various living beings become important and should be taken into account. One possible strategy for survival of living beings in these hard conditions is competition (fight) of them with each other. However, the collective strategy of survival is also possible in this case. Let us consider the simplest mathematical model of such a collective strategy. Consider a group consisting of N similar living beings (living systems), enumerated by the index i ∈ Ω, where Ω = {1, 2, . . . , N}. The living system having the number i is described by the state space Hi and projector Li in this space as a criterion of survival. The corresponding orthogonal projector is Di . The sum Li + Di is a unit operator in the space Hi . The operators Li and Li′ commute with each other because they act in different spaces Hi and Hi′ . Denote by |I| the number of elements in the set I and by I¯ = Ω \ I the complementary subset in Ω (the set of elements of Ω which are not elements of I). In the conditions of unlimited resources all living systems forming the group can exist (survive) independently of each other. Then each of them may be described by the simple model considered in Sect. 3 so that all of them can survive forever.6 Assume however that the resources (for example food) that can be found in the environment are limited and their amount is sufficient only for survival of n living systems of this type. In this situation life may be regulated in such a way that the interests of the whole group are taken into account. Then a sort of a “super-organism” exists. This means that the group consisting of N living beings behaves as a single living system. What has to be taken as a criterion of survival of the whole group in this case? 6 in the framework of the present simple model 12 The simplest form of the collective criterion of survival is following: L(n) = X LI DI¯ I⊂Ω, |I|=n Q Q where it is denoted LI = i∈I Li and DI = i′ ∈I Di′ . It is not difficult to show that this operator is a projector, and the projectors L(n) and oL(n′ ) are n ′ orthogonal for n 6= n . The set of projectors L(n) |n = 0, 1, 2, . . . , N form a complete system of orthogonal projectors. The correction described by the operator of survival L(n) guaranties that in the time interval T precisely n living systems will be alive, the rest will be dead. This means that the resources will be sufficient for those which are alive. The death of some members of the group is in this case a condition for survival of the rest. It is interesting in such a model that the correction of the state of the group of the living systems which is expressed by the operator L(n) , describes not fighting the members of the group between each other, but rather collective regulation of their states. This regulation provides survival of the group with the maximal possible number of members. The state of each living system in the group is corrected at the present time moment, and thus corrected states, simply because of the natural evolution (described by the unitary operator UT ), results in the death of certain number of the members of the group. The number of those who have to die, is sufficient for surviving the rest in the conditions of the available resources. Such a correction of the state may be called collective programming of death for some members of the group for the sake of life of the rest. The collective program of death does not determine which members of the group have to die (the choice varies for various alternatives). Therefore, this is actually the strategy of collective survival discriminating none. The well-known program leading to death of an organism in a certain age is a sort of the collective strategy of survival for the given species. In this case the reason for programming death is not the deficit of resources, but the task of the progress of the species as a whole. Evidently, in most groups of animals the survival is regulated by collective criteria. This explains particularly why intraspecific competition is as a rule absent. In this respect humans radically differ. It seems that they have collective criteria for the collectives (groups) of various levels: for a nation, for a social group, for a family and so on, up to the individual criteria. This makes possible conflicts between different groups of people. In the limit this may result in fighting anyone against anyone. In our time the exponential development of technology makes it available for small collectives. In these conditions individual criteria of survival and 13 even lower levels of the collective criteria of survival (i.e. individualistic consciousness) increase violence so strongly that the very existence of Mankind is in danger. This crisis may be prevented only by the transition to the universal (common for all people and even for all living beings) collective criterion of survival (i.e. to collective consciousness). It was suggested long time ago [11, 12, 13] that transition to the collective consciousness is necessary for preventing the global crisis. However, it is unclear up to now how the transition of most people to the collective consciousness may be achieved in practice (the catastrophe may be prevented only in case of most people changing their consciousness). The theory of consciousness following from EEC gives grounds for optimism. According to EEC, the change of the consciousness will happen automatically, the crisis will be stopped, and the catastrophe prevented.7 7 The transition of almost all people to the universal criterion of survival and collective consciousness will necessarily happen in one of the alternatives at the moment of the highest level of the global crisis. The catastrophe will be therefore prevented in this alternative. Those people who have changed properly their consciousness beforehand, will witness just this alternative with high probability. Those who have not managed to change their consciousness, with high probability will watch the end of world. 14 5 Various criteria for postcorrection In the preceding sections we considered postcorrection with the criterion of survival, the most important criterion for living beings. In fact this criterion defines life as such. The simplest model exploiting only this criterion is sufficient to represent the simplest forms of life. However, other operations of postcorrection, based on other criteria of life, become actual for more sophisticated forms of life. The set of all criteria of life characterize quality of life in more detail. Several various operations of postcorrection, corresponding to various criteria, are performed in this case simultaneously. It seems plausible that in case of human beings criteria for postcorrection may exist which are connected not only with the parameters of the human organisms (bodies), but also with the parameters of their environment. Analyzing various criteria for postcorrection is an interesting problem that may be approached from various viewpoints. Not pretending to be general and precise in details, we can suggest a rough classification of possible criteria of life as follows. • Criteria of survival – The criterion of survival for a single creature – The criterion of survival for a group of creatures – The criterion of survival for the living matter as a whole • Parameters of the state of the body – Evidence of being alive or dead (the criterion of survival) – Various levels of the quality of life – Immaterial parameters (insignificant for the quality of life) • Parameters of the environment (conditions for life) – Parameters, which are essential for surviving – Parameters, which are essential for the quality of life – Immaterial parameters (insignificant for the quality of life) Let us make some remarks concerning this (of course, oversimplified and approximate) scheme of classification. It is clear that a sophisticated structure of living systems allows them to control not only survival, but also quality of life. In our mathematical model this may be described by the same scheme of postcorrection as in Sect. 3 but 15 Figure 1: Various criteria for postcorrection: the state of the world s is determined by the state of the body b and the state of its environment e. The regions L and D correspond to survival and death. Horizontal lines separate the regions corresponding to different levels of the quality of life. Any subregion on the plane determines certain criterion according to which postcorrection may in principle be performed. with projecting on a narrower space of states in which not only life keeps on but the quality of life remains sufficiently high. This suggests that in an arbitrary state from the given subspace the parameters of the state of the body are in the limits characterizing the given quality of life. The question naturally arises why we included immaterial parameters (those which are insignificant for the quality of life) in the list of the criteria for postcorrection. Without a doubt, the control on these parameters is unnecessary to provide the main internal needs of life. However, anyone knows from his own experience that at least human beings (but most probably also animals) are in command of certain immaterial parameters of their bodies and do control them. This reveals itself in the phenomenon of free will. Indeed, a person can, according to his will, choose one or another variant of behavior with no essential influence on the fact of survival, or even on the quality of life. For example, he may in certain limits vary the schedule of his meals, amount of food he eats and its choice (the menu). The more so, one may decide quite arbitrarily whether he wish to open or close the window, to read a book or watch TV and so on. In the framework of our model a free will is an arbitrary choice of some immaterial parameters of the body, and execution of the free will is the postcorrection for a short time interval, performed according to the chosen criteria. Considering various parameters for postcorrection from somewhat different point of view, one may suggest the following (of course, also tentative) classification (see Fig. 1). Denote by s (after the word “states”) the set of various parameters of life (characterizing both the body and the environ16 ment). The parameter s is in fact a pair s = (e, b), where e (after the word “environment”) stands for the conditions of life, or the state of the environment, and corresponds to the horizontal axis, while the parameter b (after the word “body”) refers to the state of the body of the living being (the bodies of a group of the living beings) and corresponds to the vertical axis. The parameter s lies in some two-dimensional area, in which the very notion of life makes sense.8 This area is divided with a horizontal line in two parts. The parameters in the upper part of the area correspond to survival (projector L), while the lower part corresponds to death (projector D). The region of survival is partitioned in the subregions corresponding to various levels of the quality of life. Each subregion in the upper part of the area drawn in Fig. 1 determines some criterion according to which the postcorrection may in principle be performed (but is not necessarily performed in reality). Of course, in general case the criterion for postcorrection is defined as an operator in the space of states of the whole world rather than the states of the living system itself (as in the examples discussed in Sects. 3, 4). This is the situation when evolution of the compound system including both living system and its environment has to be considered (see Remark 4). The operations of postcorrection with various criteria describe various aspects of the phenomenon of life. This may be illustrated by the following scheme of identifications. • Life (the principle of life, without details) = postcorrection with the criterion of survival for the living matter as a whole. • Survival = postcorrection with the criterion of survival relating to the body (bodies). • Support of the health = postcorrection with the criterion of quality of life relating to the body. • Free will = postcorrection with the criterion, relating to the own body, but as a rule immaterial for survival.9 • Control on the appearing reality (probabilistic miracle) = postcorrection with the criterion relating to an object outside the own body. 8 In reality each of the parameters e and b is multidimensional, thus we talk of the “two-dimensional” area only for the sake of an obvious image. 9 The exclusions such as suicide require more detailed model accounting for the influence of the living system onto its environment. 17 The last point concerns an unusual phenomenon, called the probabilistic miracle. By this term we mean that a human person, by the power of his consciousness, makes happen such an event in his environment which has low, though nonzero, probability (we suggest that some persons can do such things). The ability to perform probabilistic miracles does not seem to be necessary, in the usual meaning of the word, for life. However, first, this phenomenon naturally enters the general scheme so that its exclusion could look artificial, and, secondly, the human experience seems to point out that the events of this type really take place. There is one more class of unusual phenomena in the sphere of consciousness (and therefore in the sphere of life) that can be explained by postcorrection: • Insight = postcorrection with the criterion of truth This class includes foresights, insights (among them scientific insights), direct sighting of truth (i.e. conclusions not supported by logic or facts). All these phenomena can be explained in the following way. Let a person formulate some question or pose some problem (a scientific problem is a good example). Then, in order to experience insight, he has to go over to the regime of unconscious (not necessarily completely disabling his explicit consciousness but at least disconnecting it from the given problem). In this regime a faithful solution of the problem comes out sooner or later without any further effort, as an insight.10 In fact, the true solution of the problem is selected, with the help of the postcorrection, among all thinkable “attempted solutions”, most of them wrong. The selection is performed in this case with the help of the postcorrection with the criterion of truth. Even if the problem cannot be solved at the present time by conventional methods (on the basis of the known facts and logical conclusions), it may have evident solution in future. For example, some future events may point to the correct solution. In case of a scientific problem new experiments may be realized in future which unambiguously point to the right solution, singling it out from all seemingly possible “attempted solutions” of the problem. Therefore, a criterion of the true solution of the given problem may exist in the future even if it is absent in the present. In all these cases the operation of postcorrection does correct the present state making it to be in accord to the criterion existing in the future. This 10 This does not mean that hard problems may be solved without any work. In order for the process to be efficient, the problem should be formulated and preliminarily worked out in much detail that requires hard work on the first stage. 18 results in the immediate choice of the correct solution of the problem, although its correctness can be confirmed only in the future. Consciousness, when being in the regime of unconscious, obtains the ability to look into the future, and makes use of the obtained information in the present. The idea may be clarified if it is reformulated in terms of the states of brain. From all states of the brain corresponding to various “attempted solutions” of the problem (wrong ideas of the solution among them) the postcorrection selects the state which corresponds to that solution which has to be confirmed in the future. This change of the state of the brain means that insight, or direct sighting of truth, occurred. By the way, it is known from the experience that the person applying this process for solving a problem, feels to be absolutely confident that the solution guessed by him in the course of the insight is true. This is not at all strange because the solution found in this way is not a product of his imagination but the genuine true observed by the mechanism of direct sighting. Great scientists, Albert Einstein among them, confirm the fact that they always feel absolute confidence in the solution found in the insight, and the solution found in this way always turns out to be correct in the course of its verification by conventional methods. An interesting remark may be made about the criterion of truth used in the process thus described. This criterion may sometimes coincide with the “formal proof” which is found by the scientist after he had experienced instantaneous insight. It is clear that the formal proof may serve as a criterion of truth for a solution of the given problem. This criterion does not exists (not yet found) at the moment of the insight, but it arises later on, when the solution having been guessed in the insight is later deduced by conventional methods. The whole process looks like lifting oneself by hairs. Does it really supply any advantage for solving the problem? Let us show it does. Solving any problem is easier if it is known that the solution exists (may be it is known that this problem has already been solved by someone else) and much easier if the final result (not its proof) is available. Just this situation of the final solution known beforehand is realized in the process of the scientific insight followed by the formal derivation of the foreseen solution. Indeed, the scientist anticipates the right solution in the course of insight, he is completely confident in this solution, and because of this it becomes much easier for him to formally derive the foreseen solution by conventional methods. It is curious that in this case the scientist foresees the certainly right answer which himself will find in some time.11 11 This ability is very exciting in case of great scientists, but it is often is exploited by 19 The operator of postcorrection selecting the right solution of the problem (among “the attempted solutions”) may be presented in the form PT = UT−1 P UT , where P is a criterion of the correct solution. The operation of postcorrection presented by the operator PT is efficient if the criterion P is not realizable at present, but can be realized in the time interval T . This leads us to the question about the role of brain. Many attempts to explain how work of brain can produce the phenomenon of consciousness gave in fact no result. In each of these attempts either a logical circle is included (what should be proved is implicitly assumed) or not consciousness as such is dealt with in the argument, but various operations performed in the consciousness (for example, calculations or logical conclusions). From the point of view of the theory we consider here, EEC, consciousness is not a product of brain, but a separate, independent phenomenon, closely connected with the very concept of life. What about brain, it is an instrument of consciousness rather than its origin. The brain is used by the consciousness to control the body and obtain information about its state (and, through its perception, about the state of the environment). In other words, the brain (or rather some regions in it) is the part of the body which realizes its contact with the consciousness, it is an interface between the consciousness and the body as a whole. In particular, when it is necessary the brain forms the queries that should be answered. Sometimes these queries are answered by the brain itself with the help of the processes of the type of calculations and logical operations. Other queries cannot be solved directly in the brain and are solved by the consciousness with the help of “direct sighting of truth” (by postcorrection). Remark 8 A. Losev and I. Novikov noted [10] that time machines (spacetimes including closed timelike curves), in case if they exist, may be used for solving mathematical problems with the help of the methods or technical devices which are not known at present but can be realized in future. For this aim, the problem is solved at the time when the necessary methods are created and then its solution is sent into the past with the help of the time machine. The above formulated mechanism for solving problems (of arbitrary types) with the help of postcorrection is quite analogous. The only difference is that the “time machine” acting in this process is virtual and “exists” only in human consciousness. many experienced scientists as well as people from other professions and simple people in the each-day life. 20 6 Conclusion Extended Everett’s Concept (EEC) originated as an attempt to improve the interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed by Everett. Nevertheless, it is not simply a novel interpretation, but in fact a theory going beyond the framework of quantum mechanics. Starting from the role played by consciousness in the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics, EEC finally results in understanding what is consciousness and, more generally, what are specific features of living matter. Considering consciousness on the basis of EEC, one is led to the conclusion that the conventional (causal) laws of nature are insufficient for describing phenomenon of life. The laws of nature elaborated in physics (including quantum physics), chemistry and other natural sciences correctly describe the behavior of non-living matter. The behavior of “living matter” cannot be explained only by the action of usual laws of nature (say, quantum mechanics). Nevertheless, comprehensive analysis of quantum mechanics indicates at the principal points in which the laws acting in the sphere of life have to differ from the conventional physical laws. The laws governing living matter may then be formulated at least in their most general aspects. Just this is made in EEC. The novel features that have to be introduced in order to describe the phenomenon of life, can be formulated in various ways. Restricting himself by the most general formulation, one may say that not only causes but also goals play role in behavior of living matter. The main goal, always existing in connection with living beings, is survival, or persistence of life (this may be survival of a single living being, or of some group, for example of a herd or specie of animals). Therefore, the goal of survival has to be accounted in the evolution law for living matter. In the preceding works of the author on EEC [3, 4, 5, 6] the laws governing life were formulated on the basis of the concept of consciousness and its identification with the separation of alternative classical realities (the concept characteristic of the Everett’s interpretation). In this context the term “consciousness” embraces not only the explicit consciousness, but also the sphere of unconscious. Moreover, just in the regime of unconscious (or at the border between the explicit consciousness and unconscious) those features of consciousness are revealed which is the very essence of the phenomenon of life: the ability to obtain information from all alternative realities and select those alternatives which are most favorable for life. In the present paper we have shown that the evolution of “a living system” (following from EEC) can be described mathematically if one introduce, besides the usual (unitary) evolution operator, an additional operation called 21 postcorrection. This operation corrects the state of a “living system” to provide necessary features of this state in future: survival of the living system or even certain quality of its life (for example the health). Introducing postcorrection in the evolution law of the living system allows one to classify various forms of life and various aspects of the phenomenon of life, depending on what characteristics of life can be provided by the postcorrection. We shortly discussed only the key points of this classification. The detailed elaboration of the theory is a question of its future development. The operation of postcorrection not only supplies a mathematical formulation of the principal feature of EEC, but also simplifies the logical structure of this theory. In fact, it is sufficient to postulate that the boundaries of the sphere of life are governed by postcorrection. After this, the concretization of the theory requires only the choice of the criteria, according to which the postcorrection is performed. Unexpected (from the physical viewpoint) interpretation of the operation of postcorrection, as describing evolution of living matter, became possible because we did not restrict ourselves strictly by the framework of physics. Starting from the arguments originated in physics (conceptual problems of quantum mechanics) and following the ideas of EEC, we were forced to go beyond the limits of physics as such and to consider at least the principal points of theory of living matter. Instead of the known (accepted in physics) statement that each event has its own cause, we had to agree that all important events and processes in the sphere of life are determined not only by causes but also by goals, first of all by the goal of survival. In the resulting theory the operation of postcorrection is a mathematical formalization of the almost evident fact that the goals play central role in evolution of living matter. Let us remark that theory of consciousness and life following from EEC essentially differs from the usual mechanistic approach which considers the phenomenon of consciousness as a function of brain. From the viewpoint of theory of “quantum consciousness” resulting from EEC, the brain is rather an instrument exploited by the consciousness (as a specific feature of a “living system”) to control the body and obtain information about the environment through the body and its organs. This, by the way, allows one to look in another way at the problem of artificial intellect. The conclusion following from EEC is that it is possible to create an automat possessing intellectual abilities (there are great achievements in this respect nowadays), but it is principally impossible to create a machine having consciousness as something that can to perform postcorrection, i.e. such that can be called “artificial living being”. The postulate of postcorrection broadens quantum mechanics, including 22 in the consideration the law of evolution of living matter. The resulting theory is in a way symmetrical in time direction. Non-living matter evolves in the causal way (the past determines the future), but in the sphere of life only those initial conditions are left which provide survival (the future determines the past). This “influence of the future on the past” is realized as the selection of favorable scenarios and mathematically described by postcorrection. Let us make finally one more remark demonstrating how natural for living systems the evolution law (1) including postcorrection is. This law is, in its spirit, very similar to what is called the antropic principle. The antropic principle explains the special “fine tuning” of the parameters of our world by the fact that in case of any other set of the parameters organic life would not be feasible and therefore no humans could exist to observe this world. The principle of life, formulated as the ability of the living system to postcorrect its state and provide its survival, suggests in fact something quite similar, even in a softer variant. In order to explain this, we have to underline once more that the postcorrection describes selecting those scenarios which have to remain in the sphere of life. The rest scenarios do not disappear. They are just as real as those selected, but they are not included in the sphere of life, i.e. an observer cannot watch these “unfavorable for life” scenarios. “The sphere of life” is such an image of our world which can be observed. If just this image (i.e. not “the whole world” but only “the sphere of life”) is taken as a starting point for constructing evolution law, then the result of the construction will necessarily be the evolution including the postcorrection. Thus, postcorrection in the evolution of the living matter (of the sphere of life) does not need even being postulated. Instead of this it may be derived from the (generalized) antropic principle. Non-living matter satisfies the usual quantum-mechanical evolution law. The evolution of the living matter (of the sphere of life) simply by definition should include postcorrection. 23 References [1] H.Everett III, ‘Relative state’ formulation of quantum mechanics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 454-462 (1957). Reprinted in Wheeler J.A. and Zurek W.H., eds., Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1983. [2] B.S.DeWitt and N.Graham, editors. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. [3] M.B.Mensky, Quantum mechanics: New experiments, new applications and new formulations of old questions, Physics-Uspekhi 43, 585-600 (2000). [4] M.B.Mensky, Concept of consciousness in the context of quantum mechanics, Physics-Uspekhi 48, 389-409 (2005). [5] M.B.Mensky, Human and Quantum World (Weirdness of the quantum world and the miracle of consciousness) (in Russian), Fryazino: Vek 2, 2005 [¡vek-2@mail.ru¿, http://www.vek2.ru]. [6] M.B.Mensky, Reality in quantum mechanics, Extended Everett Concept, and consciousness, Optics and Spectroscopy 103, 461-467 (2007)[ArXiv:physics/0608309]. [7] Y.Aharonov, P.G.Bergmann, and J.L.Lebowitz, Time Symmetry in the Quantum Process of Measurement, Physical Review B134, 1410-1416 (1964). [8] Y.Aharonov and L.Vaidman, Complete Description of a Quantum System at a Given Time, Journal of Physics A24, 2315-2328 (1991). [9] Yakir Aharonov and Eyal Y.Gruss, Two-time interpretation of quantum mechanics, ArXiv:quant-ph/0507269 (2005). [10] A.Lossev and I.D.Novikov, The Jinn of the time machine: nontrivial self-consistent solutions, Class. Quantum Grav. 9, 2309-2321 (1992). [11] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, New York: Harper and Row, 1959. [12] Satprem, Sri Aurobindo ou L’aventure de la conscience, Bucher Chastel, 1970. [13] Stanislav Grof, The Cosmic Game, New York: State University of New York Press, 1997. 24

Consciousness, brains and the replica problem Ricard V. Solé∗ 1 ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Parc de Recerca Biomedica de Barcelona. Dr Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain arXiv:0712.1126v1 [nlin.AO] 7 Dec 2007 Although the conscious state is considered an emergent property of the underlying brain activity and thus somehow resides on brain hardware, there is a non-univocal mapping between both. Given a neural hardware, multiple conscious patterns are consisten with it. Here we show, by means of a simple gedankenexperiment that this has an importan logic consequence: any scenario involving the transient shutdown of brain activity leads to the irreversible death of the conscious experience. In a fundamental way, unless the continuous stream of consciousness is guaranteed, the previous self vanishes and is replaced by a new one. PACS numbers: I. INTRODUCTION The problem of consciousness has become a hot topic of scientific enquiry over the last two decades (Searle, 2000, Crick and Koch, 1995, 2003). But in spite of this increasing attention from the neurosciences, old questions remain open and the phenomenon itself differs from other biological phenomena in that it is a subjective, firstperson ontology (Searle, 2000). Such special status generates a number of nontrivial questions, some of them right in the boundaries between science and philosophy. Most neuroscientists, with few exceptions, would agree (even with different perspectives) that consciousness is a self-organized, emergent property of brain activity and neuronal wiring, although the nature and organization of the brain-mind mapping is largely unknown (Locke, 1995; Dennett, 1991; Hesslow, 1994; Svenson, 1994; von Wright, 1994; Crick and Koch, 2003). Multiple questions emerge from the previous scenarios, including the nature of the new consciousness emerging after recovery from long-term cryogenization or technological replacement (Moravec, 1988; Egan, 1994; Minsky 1994). Similar problems arise in different contexts, such as teleportation (Penrose, 1989). How can a transient shutdown of brain activity affect the conscious experience? All the previous situations inhabit the realm of speculation and might never be achieved. The potential implications are mostly a matter of philosophical speculation. There is, however, an experimentally feasible scenario where no such speculation is at work. Recently, advances in suspended animation suggest the possibility of preserving human life in a reversible state where completely halted or deeply slowed cellular activity would be possible (Alam et al., 2005). Such state has been obtained experimentally using different organisms (Nystul and Roth, 2004; Blackston et al., 2005) and nothing prevents to reach similar results using humans. In fact, evidence from accidental, long-term suspended animation is available from a number of case studies. In ∗ Electronic address: ricard.sole@upf.edu these cases, humans experiencing severe hpothermia over several hours and showing lack of any vital sign (no pulse nor brain activity) were able to recover without any longterm complications. Ongoing research on using profound hypothermia, together with appropriate organ preservation fluids confirm that such reversible states can be induced in a repeatable manner (Alam et al., 2005). The method, used in swine animal models, results in clinical brain death, but none of the surviving hypothermic animals displayed detectable neurological deficits or cognitive impairment. How can a shutdown of brain activity alter the nature of the self-conscious experience? In principle, you might think that your consciousness is temporally stopped, just to be back afterwards. In other words, you and your consciousness weak up altogether. Is that really the case? To put the question in a more specific form, we consider a mental (Gedanken) experiment, which we will call the replica problem. Below we show, using a logic argument, that something much more fundamental is at work when considering scenarios involving consciousness and its relation to hardware. Together with brain death (no matter if permanent of transient) the death of subjective consciousness needs to be considered. II. THE REPLICA PROBLEM The following experiment is an imaginary one, not expected to be ever possible. It is thus a Gedankenexperiment, used as a logic argument to show the unexpected consequences of the one-to-many brain-mind mapping. It is important to stress that this is a thought experiment and is thus not expected to be possible. In this context, we are aware that quantum mechanics forbids the realization of the ideal experiment to be described below (Scarani et al., 2005) but that is not relevant to our discussion, particularly because quantum effects should not be expected to have a real relevance in large scale neural dynamics. However, although the special case considered here would require a high-level technology not available today, some equivalent scenarios (such as the induction of profound hypothermia discussed above) are likely to 2 a {A,C} b brain copy {A,C} S S {A’,φc } {A,φ c } {A,φc } R transfer {A’,φc } R R A=A’ {A,C’} {A’,C’} FIG. 1: (a) The extended replica problem, as defined in the text. Here we start with an individual defined as the brain-mind pair {A, C}. A copy of the brain hardware is made, with no activity and thus no consciousness, here indicated as {A′ , φc }. Since the new physical hardware is an exact copy, no experiment would be able to distinguish between A and A′ . If activated (dashed line, lower right) the copied system would obviously display a separated conscious experience, here indicated as C ′ . If the A’s brain is extracted and replaced by A′ , we would have exactly the same hardware (so effectively A = A′ ) and no difference would be measurable. However, once activated again, it would not exhibit the initial subjective conscious experience, but a different one. The previous experiment is equivalent to the situation shown in (b) where we simply shut down brain activity and afterwards reverse the unconscious state into a conscious one. be soon applied to human beings. Let us take a given individual brain A, experiencing a given (self-)conscious activity. We can indicate that the conscious experience C is somehow generated by this brain A using a mapping: A −→ C (1) Where C must be interpreted as an emergent property of brain activity and involves both subjectivity and selfawareness. Let us now imagine that thanks to a very advanced technology a full copy of A can be obtained instantaneously at t = t0 . Considering instantaneous formation is not strictly necessary, but makes the argument simpler, since it liberates us from considering the further divergence of the two replicated systems. Let us call this new brain hardware A′ . This replica, if active, would generate a different conscious experience, which we indicate as C ′ . Clearly we have now: A′ −→ C ′ (2) the important point here is that, although exactly the same hardware is being used, we have C 6= C ′ (different subjective conscious experiences). This is true in spite that no single experiment made by some external observer would be able (at t = t0 ) to distinguish between A and A′ . The existence of a replica of A generates a somewhat strange situation, since clearly indicates that brain activity does not univocally define consciousness. This is what we name the replica problem. This problem has been explored by a number of authors (see http://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html) and is our starting point. Let us now consider A, with an associated conscious experience C. The brain-mind pair {A, C} thus fully defines the individual. Let us assume that brain activity is stopped through some process S. If no brain activity is present, no conscious experience exists. The individual’s brain is dead, and will be indicated as φc , meaning ’no consciousness’ (here the symbol φc indicates lack of consciousness, without explicit reference to a given C). Now let us imagine that the brain is reactivated through some other process R. The standard view considers the following causal set of events: S R {A, C} −→ {A, φc } −→ {A, C} (3) This logical chain of events corresponds to a common reasoning: my brain is freezed and stops working, but once a reverse process is used, brain activity returns and I wake up. Is that a correct answer? Which consciousness is experienced: the previous one (C) or a new one (C ′ )? As shown below, a new consciousness is effectively at work, i. e. the correct sequence is in fact: S R {A, C} −→ {A, φc } −→ {A, C ′ } (4) and thus, in terms of consciousness, we never “wake up”. The reason is that the hardware does not univocally define the conscious experience, and thus there is no reason why the conscious activity emerging after recovering the stopped brain would be the same. However, you might argue that it is the same brain what is at work, and thus cannot be properly related with the replica problem, where two identical, but different brains are being used. 3 An additional experiment allows to better understand the implications of the replica problem. This extended replica problem can be used to see clearly why the new conscious experience is necessarily a different one. The basic steps to be described below are summarized in figure 1. support) leads to a state of “dead consciousness”. As a consequence of the non-unique mapping between brain structure and conscioussness, death of a given conscious experience will be irreversible. IV. III. THE EXTENDED REPLICA PROBLEM We now describe a special mental experiment involving the formation of a replica. In figure 1, individuals involving an active (and thus conscious) brain are indicated as framed black circles. If brain activity is stopped, the non-conscious state is indicated as an empty circle. If no brain is present, an empty box is shown. Let us assume that we start with {A, C} and we make a material (but not active) copy A′ of the initial brain. We have a new brain-mind system {A′ , φc } with no consciouss activity (φc ) and physically separated from the initial one (see upper part of figure 1a). If activated, A′ s brain would generate its own subjective conscious state, i. e. R {A′ , ¬C} −→ {A′ , C ′ } (5) with C ′ obviously different from C (lower right, fig. 1a). Now we shut down the activity of A i.e. S {A, C} −→ {A, φc } (6) And now let us replace A by A′ , i. e. {A, φc } → {A′ , φc } (7) Since the two brains are physically identical, no measurement would be able to detect any difference between the previous and the new hardware, and thus we have the equivalence: {A, φc } ≡ {A′ , φc } (8) The logic implication is that they can be exchanged by each other (and any other exact copy) and would not be distinguished. But it is know obvious that the implanted brain, though identical, is not going to maintain the subjective conscious experience that we had at the beginning: it was a copy and following the previous implications we would have R {A, φc } −→ {A, C ′ } (9) The sequence of events described above is logically equivalent to starting from {A, C}, stopping A from being active and restoring its function (ending up in {A, C ′ }, as indicated in figure 1b. This completes our argument. To summarize: any process that either stops brain activity (and thus leaves us with a “just hardware” individual) or replaces a given brain structure by a completely new one (after stopping consciousness in its previous physical DISCUSSION In this paper we have seen how the one-to-many mapping between brain and mind implies that any scenario involving transient brain death leads to the death of consciousness, as defined by a subjective, first-person ontology. The subjective nature of the self makes brain transfer and teleportation non-viable in terms of a reliable way of transfering the self to the new individual. These are, however, science fiction scenarios. However, as shown above, the same situation must be applied to surgery involving profound hypothermia: you (meaning your self) would never truly wake up once the normal brain function is recovered again. Someone else will, with exactly the same external features and memories as you, but experiencing a different consciousness. Under this view, no true immortality (the immortal nature of your self) is possible. Although future technology might allow building a copy of our brains and make our memories and feelings survive, something will be inevitably lost. The argument provided here suggests that the “self” persists (it is alive) provided that the stream of consciousness flows in a continuous manner and is never interrupted. If it is, death of the self occurs in a non-reversible manner. This seems to provide an interesting twist to the mind-body problem. Although the argument presented here is a logical one, further extensions of this study would involve brain states not necessarily associated to a complete lack of activity. More quantitative analyses could be made, involving different features of consciousness (Seth et al., 2006) and the possible localization of the conscious self-representation (Lou et al., 2004 and references therein). In this context, further questions arise: What are the minimum requirements in terms of brain activity able to sustain a conscious pattern? Are there partial changes inducing a loss of self-awareness related to our previous discussion? Acknowledgments The author would like to thank the members of the Complex Systems Lab for useful discussions. Special thanks to Bernat Corominas-Murtra for comments on the manuscript. I also thank the editor and referees of Minds and Machines who kindly rejected this paper with no rational explanation. References 1. Alam, H. B. et al. 2005. Profound Hypothermia 4 Protects Neurons and Astrocytes, and Preserves Cognitive Functions in a Swine Model of Lethal Hemorrhage. J. Surg. Res. 126, 172-181. Blackstone, E., Morrison, M. and Roth, M. B. 2005. Hydrogen sulfide induces a suspended animation-like state in mice. Science 308, 518. Brooks, R. A. 2002. Flesh and machines: How Robots Will Chage Us. Pantheon Books, New York. Crick, F. C. and Koch, C. 1995. Why neuroscience may be able to explain consciousness. Sci. Am. 273, 84-85. Crick, F. C. and Koch, C. 2003. A framework for consciousness. Nature Neurosci. 6, 119-126. Dennett, D. C. 1991. Consciousness explained. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. Egan, G. 1994. Permutation City. Milennium , London. Hesslow, G. 1994. Will neuroscience explain consciousness? J. Theor. Biol. 171, 29-39. Locke, J. 1995. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Prometheus Books, New York. Lou, H. C. 2004. Parietal cortex and representation of the mental self. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101, 6827-6832. Minsky, M. 1994. Will robots inherit Earth? Sci. Am. 271, 108-13 Moravec, H. 1988. Mind children. The future of robot and human intelligence. Harvard U. Press, Harvard. Nystul, T. and Roth, M. B. 2005. Carbon monoxide-induced suspended animation protects against hypoxic damage in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101, 9133-9136. Penrose, R. 1989. The emperor’s new mind. Vintage Books, London. Safar P, Tisherman SA, Behringer W, Capone A, Prueckner S, Radovsky A, Stezoski WS, Woods RJ. (2000) Suspended animation for delayed resuscitation from prolonged cardiac arrest that is unresuscitable by standard cardiopulmonarycerebral resuscitation. Crit. Care Med. 28 (Suppl), N214-218. Scarani, V., Iblisdir, S. and Gisin, N. 2005. Quantum cloning. Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 1225-1256. Seth, A. K., Izhikecih, E., Reeke, G. N. and Edelman, G. M. (2006) Theories and measures of consciousness: an extended framework. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 10799-10804. Svensson, G. (1994) Reflections on the problem of indentifying mind and brain. J. Theor. Biol. 171, 93-100. Tisherman, S. A. (2004) Suspended animation for resuscitation from exsanguinating hemorrhage. Crit. Care Med. 32(2 Suppl), S46-50. von Wright, G. H. (1994) On mind and matter. J. Theor. Biol. 171, 101-110.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1152-1155 Kaufman, S. E., The Ocean of Consciousness 1152 Realization The Ocean of Consciousness Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT No matter how the world appears, it is still composed of Consciousness, the same Substance, the same Beingness, flowing in stillness and turbulence. That is why the Universe is one, regardless of how it appears, because of the singular and unchanging Nature of that of which it is composed. As the ocean is composed only of water, regardless of how many waves arise from it, the Universe is composed only of Consciousness, regardless of how many forms arise within it. Key Words: Consciousness, water, ocean, one, beingness, substance. That which apprehends form and That which flows in relation to Itself and so appears as form are One. No matter how turbulent the ocean becomes, no matter how many forms arise upon its surface, waves coming and going, the ocean remains one. And no matter how turbulent the surface, at its depths the ocean remains still. Observed from the depths, where there is stillness the turbulence of the surface is not disturbing. Observed from the surface, where there is turbulence, there is only disturbance. No matter how the ocean appears it is still composed of water, the same substance flowing in stillness and turbulence. *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1152-1155 Kaufman, S. E., The Ocean of Consciousness 1153 That is why the ocean is one regardless of how it appears, because of the singular and unchanging nature of that of which it is composed. And no matter how the world appears, it is still composed of Consciousness, the same Substance, the same Beingness. flowing in stillness and turbulence. That is why the Universe is one regardless of how it appears, because of the singular and unchanging Nature of that of which it is composed. As the ocean is composed only of water, regardless of how many waves arise from it, the Universe is composed only of Consciousness, regardless of how many forms arise within it. And so, if That of which the Universe is composed is One, and not two, then That which apprehends the forms that arise within the Universe cannot be different from or other than That of which the forms that arise within the Universe are themselves composed. The idea that That which apprehends the forms and That of which the forms are composed are different, and separate, only occurs if one takes the forms alone for all that is there where they appear to be, thereby obscuring the Ocean of formless Consciousness within which they arise. If one sees only the waves and not the water, sees only the forms and not that of which the forms are composed, then the ocean becomes obscured. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1152-1155 Kaufman, S. E., The Ocean of Consciousness 1154 And once the ocean is obscured, that which connects all the waves and reveals their oneness is also obscured, leaving only the appearance of separate waves thrashing about. Likewise, when the Ocean of Consciousness is obscured that which connects all the forms and reveals their Oneness is also obscured, leaving only the appearance of separate forms thrashing about. How do you rediscover the Ocean once it has been lost, once it has been obscured? Look within yourself little Wave and you will find It, not as a form, but as That which apprehends form. And once you are able to do that, Apprehend That which apprehends, Know That which knows, the Ocean of Oneness that was always there beneath the waves, beneath the forms, will reappear. Then the seeming divisions between the waves, between the forms, that once seemed so real, while their common Source was obscured, will simply vanish. The waves will still be there, the forms will still be there, but they will no longer be known, and so no longer be treated, as something separable from or other than what you Are. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1152-1155 Kaufman, S. E., The Ocean of Consciousness 1155 Why does the Ocean appear only within and not without until it is rediscovered by looking within? Without is the direction in which you are going. Within is the direction from which you are coming. When a wave looks to the sky having forgotten the ocean, having forgotten its nature, it sees the clouds, but cannot recognize them as composed of the same substance of which it is itself composed, and so it sees only more forms, more things that seem other than itself. But when a wave looks the other way still having forgotten the ocean, still having forgotten its nature, it cannot help but run into itself on its way to becoming a wave. And then when it looks back to the sky having rediscovered the ocean, having rediscovered its nature, it once again sees the clouds, but now recognizes them as composed of the same substance of which it is itself composed, and so what was once seen as other, is now seen as self. That is why one must first look within, and find the truth of what lies there, before one can look without, and see the truth of what lies there as well. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

292 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour Research Essay Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour Jeffery Jonathan (Joshua) Davis* ‫ישוע‬ The Embassy of Peace, Whitianga, New Zealand Abstract Character, Identity and Personality are spiritual attributes and as such, they are linked to a Spiritual Living Being. These attributes survive in eternity along with the survival of the soul of a human being. When a human being still identifies him or herself with biological processes, he or she is veiled to The Creator’s existence and his or her Spiritual Identity is still a potential reality. In this Essay, I intend to clarify how different aspects and dimensions, both internal and external, may in the life of a human being influence the organisation of the brain systems at a neurobiological level thus shaping perception of reality in relation to the interplay between Spiritual and Behavioural Values. Key Words: Spiritual value, living being, Creator, soul, character, identity, biological process. This essay is intended to clarify how different aspects and dimensions, both internal and external, may in the life of a human being influence the organisation of the brain systems at a neurobiological level thus shaping perception of reality in relation to the interplay between Spiritual and Behavioural Values. When a human being still identifies him or herself with biological processes (neural activity in space-time) he or she is veiled to The Creator’s existence and his or her Spiritual Identity is still a potential reality. Character, Identity and Personality are spiritual attributes and as such, they are linked to a Spiritual Living Being. These attributes survive in eternity along with the survival of the soul of a human being. Usually, the attributes mentioned before have been secularly associated with information processing and verbal descriptions. However, as some scientists and philosophers have pointed out (Ramachandran 19981, Metzinger 20002 and 20033) this model of “self” is just an informational, biological construct with a distorted cognitive map of self, based only on biological roles, body features and movements. The dissolution of this distorted map is *Correspondence: c/o Sarah Frew, The Embassy of Peace, Whitianga, New Zealand. http://paradiselanding.weebly.com/ E-mail: sarahinparadise888@gmail.com 1 Ramachandran V.S. and Blakeslee, S; Phantoms in the Brain – Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. “The Subjectivity of Subjective Experience: A Representationalist Analysis of the First-Person Perspective.” 3 Being No One – The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. 2 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 293 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour accompanied with a transformation by the Energeia Pneumatikon or work of The Spirit to lift a human out of narrow concerns, so that they can embrace the world, themselves and others more deeply and widely. I propose this transformation takes place when the human consciousness is affected by the agency of Spiritual Values whose energetic counterpart in the physical reality registers as electromagnetic or light waves and fields, therefore affecting the brain and body in large. (Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue 1995)4 This is a human whose attention of Identity, Character and Personality shifts to the Spiritual Values that he or she has become. From now on we can say he or she is a genderless spiritual personal being who is identified with the Highest Survival Values, the Spiritual Values of The Value Giver, who gives this being, still in human form, access to Eternal Life. His or her memories and personal history are stored in fields, electromagnetic and light waves. The question for research is what are the neural traces or interfaces of such fields for a fully realised spiritual being in human form? What does the brain of these spiritualised humans look like? What are the genetic implications for the human species? How is the DNA of the species altered by such an order of consciousness? People may respond to these matters in different ways according to their order of consciousness. For a human in the situation where he or she requires a scientific understanding of the universe to find happiness and trust, which is derived from unity in personal relationships, an approach to his or her research in spirituality would be to validate or prove his or her own existence first. This would be easier than proving the existence of The Creator. For a person who knows The Creator and finds fulfilment, happiness and trust, unity in personal relationships, without the need for further proof of his or her experience, a scientific approach is unnecessary. For those human beings that it is important to see to believe, both a spiritual or religious approach to life, as well as a scientific understanding, may contribute to their personal quest for happiness and trust, unity in personal relationships. For those human beings that are convinced that happiness and trust, unity in personal relationships is an impossibility in human experience, neither a religious or scientific approach to Spiritual Values applies and only a wake up call or strong incident or event in life may shift their perception. 4 Quantum Theory of Consciousness and Quantum Brain Dynamics, pp. 177-195. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 294 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour All these situations have in common the need to deal with Spiritual Values, Character and Identity, and Neurobiology. This means, how the different aspects and dimensions, both internal and external, spiritual and biological, may in the life of a human being influence the organisation of the brain systems at a neurobiological level. The question of what is a Spiritual Value is a crucial one to pursue. An intellectual exploration of this kind and the experience of a Spiritual Value is sometimes confined and limited by the ability to verbalise and articulate the experience clearly to others. Let’s start this exploration by looking at the difference between the words Unity and Uniformity. Unity is a good start because most humans have experienced a sense of unity or belonging in playing a sport that requires team coherence or in playing in a band where every musician feels the unity of the whole as part of themselves. Unity is something that most people can hardly put a finger on, if at all, however its presence is felt and it is a Spiritual Presence, Essence or Value. This is sometimes called “good vibes”, perhaps a field of some kind. On the other hand the word Uniformity denotes that everyone is sort of equal in appearance, behaves the same, shares the same dress code (as in uniform). Uniformity is a Behavioural Value; it is in place with expectations to certain behaviours. Uniformity is very different than Unity. Unity is associated with good vibes, Uniformity is devoid of any spiritual meaning, and has nothing to do with vibes or harmony. People exist in Unity without uniformity. People may be in a uniform behaviour and lack the experience of Unity as in so many schools. The point here is that Uniformity is neither a requirement nor a guarantee for Unity. Unity and well being matter more than uniformity and it is reasonable and better for example, to listen to and to be part of a band of musicians playing in Unity without a uniform (dress code), than a band dressed in uniform playing without Unity. Unity provides a connection, a kind of intimacy that uniformity lacks. The kind of connection Unity provides is a requirement for harmonious living and co-operation in community life. Because of the strong connection between values and decision making, this essay covers also a brief exploration of the development of an evaluative system in the orbito-frontal cortex and its intimate relationship with the limbic system in the process of emotions, spirituality and valuebased decision making. I also consider important, in order to create the context for this essay, to state that my Spiritual Identity, the existence and embodiment of Spiritual Values and the order of consciousness akin to my existence, requires no further proof or scientific verification. It suffices to know and say I ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 295 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour Am. However, I also consider it of immense value to communicate to my fellow human being, via a Spiritual-Scientific Synthesis, the possibility to enter this order of existence and some of its neural implications. This is related to shaping consciously and in unity with The Value Giver of Life, the human body’s neural pathways, to the sharing and spreading through interpersonal contact and expression of the highest form of values. Spiritual Values are both the guarantee for the survival of the human species, as well as the survival of his and her Spiritual Being, Character and Identity in Eternity. Let’s explore briefly a theory that will help in understanding the interplay of mental spaces and Spiritual Values. Conceptual Blending or Integration is the consequence of more than twentyfive years research in the area of cognitive science, amongst others. There is considerable evidence that reason is encoded, it appears says Gilles Fauconnier in “Conceptual Integration”: …that neural architectures that evolved to produce perception, sensation, and bodily movements are at the heart of what we experience as a rational inference, conceptualization and meaning construction…C.I. is a basic mental capacity that leads to new meaning, global insight, and conceptual compressions useful for memory and manipulation of otherwise diffuse ranges of memory. It plays a fundamental role in the construction of meaning in everyday life, in the arts and sciences, in technological development and in religious thinking. (Fauconnier 2001, p. 1) It is important to mention that blending is intimately connected to a set of psychological and neurobiological properties due to the constant shift happening in the brain’s highly interconnected cells or neural pathways. Identity and Character can be complex phenomena to describe or validate. Conceptual Integration Networks serve the purpose to emphasise different types of frames in mental spaces. Generally speaking, conceptual integration networks arise to emphasise the Blending of Character and Frame or the Blending of a Character with another Character. When a person unifies in a mental space with for example Jesus, Buddha, a loving Grandmother or the Universal Father-Mother, a fusion of characters may emerge as a consequence of an integration network. This means that a musician for example, lacking the qualities of Love and Harmony, may get to embody those qualities by unifying in a mental space with any spiritual or human being embodying those qualities. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 296 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour This also means that there is a relationship between the emergent properties in the blend and the activation patterns of neurons in the brain. This is more than metaphorical mapping, which just gives the brain access to an experience without necessarily having created a neural pathway to the embodiment of the experience. Having a Spiritual experience is different than embodying Spirituality. Reporting a spiritual experience of “Oneness” with the universe is different than manifesting The Love of God continuously in actions and words like, “I Am the Love and The Light of God”. This implies an Identity instead of an experience that happens suddenly to somebody for a short period of time. Some of those neural activations come from forces, which are affecting human beings through the environment, or from what people share and how people interpret those messages from bodily states, purpose and many others. Some are related to culture, personal experience, biological evolution, while others are related to a sense of self and identity based on Spiritual Values and ultimately God Consciousness and Global Awareness. Most of the work done by different scientists and philosophers (like Ramachandran, Persinger5, Metzinger and others) to describe the neurobiology of spirituality and religious experience, lack a clear distinction between Behavioural and Spiritual Values. They simply talk about religious experiences and a sense of self and identity based on neurochemical interactions in the activation and deactivation patterns of different areas of the brain and therefore subsequently their research leads to describe consciousness as an evolving phenomenon out of the interactions of the material dimension. So here is the greatest irony of all: that the self that almost by definition is entirely private is to a significant extent a social construct—a story you make up for others. (Ramachandran 1998, p. 255) To my view this creates confusion between information processing and consciousness. From where I am, the totality of consciousness, God’s Consciousness, lays the foundations and supports the information processing of different living systems and expressions of life forms. It defines the perceived boundaries of the elements of expression of His/Her Being, The Universe. I will propose that, the proximity to God’s Consciousness by any living system is established by fields resonance, particularly Spiritual Values Fields. These fields must have a neural trace in the human brain. However, part of that neural trace may be perceived as “random thoughts” by 5 Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (1987). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 297 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour humans before they become fully realised in their Spiritual Identity and are able to discern consciously “God’s Voice” and its associated field of Presence. I am proposing that the initial exploration of the distinction between, Behavioural and Spiritual Values is a necessity whose time has come. I am also proposing that the measurement and quantification of the effects in the human body of these two categories of values may be possible as science and technology are advancing, as well as humanity growing spiritually and human consciousness gets closer to God’s Consciousness!!! This means, that people become transformed in their innermost beings once the psyche and its dominance of thinking patterns in terms of basic needs, imaginings and desires is reworked by The Spirit, who resides in the human and is the Source of all Spiritual Values. In order to expand on this essay, I consider it necessary to introduce the reader to a verbal description and some kind of definition of what both Spiritual (Universal) and Behavioural Values are. Universal Values are the antidote to greed, fear, anger, guilt, and misuse of power and chaos in general. Universal Values are invisible and apprehensible presences, essences and forces, which may beget noble human thoughts and feelings that are beneficial to the body, our mental, emotional and physical well being. Universal Values are the foundation to constructive intelligence and altruistic actions for the well being of the human family and beyond. To explore and embody Universal Values leads to the exploration of The Source of All Values, The Value Giver, The Ultimate Value and Everlasting, Never Changing Presence. In a voluntary exploration of the Laws of Nature, the Universe, the Mind, and the attainment of a conscious, everlasting relationship with the Ultimate Value Giver and the Universe, two categories of values can be identified from a human being’s perspective: Biological Values and Universal Values. These two categories may be explored and experienced in the context of their own domain and nature, and their synthesis may be attained in a human life with the emergence of a fully conscious human being who physically embodies and expresses Universal Values continuously. Human Values are Behavioural Values, sometimes limiting and sometimes supporting of human expression. They are relative in meaning, power, goodness and beauty, mainly related to a ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 298 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour biological, physical and objective reality. They can be transformed by the agency of Universal Values. Universal Values are Spiritual Values, with or without the agency of a human or a behavioural component, they are always liberating and ever expanding our human consciousness; absolute in meaning, power, goodness, beauty and Truth, mainly related to our moral, spiritual and subjective nature. In a personal letter, later made public via the Internet, Carey Jackman (2007) wrote: Human Values are Normative Values, they are based on a set of boundaries and behaviour developed through fear and reward conditioning. They are related to patterns of behaviour where individuals are entrained to react and feedback to an external source, separated from the Source of Universal Values. They are also related to beliefs and thought processes. Universal Values come straight from the Universal Source, they are directly sustained and accessible through the acknowledgement and relationship with The Father-Mother of All Creation. They are Spiritual Values. They are beyond any mental boundary of social, cultural, racial, and religious behaviour. They are beyond the behavioural values of honesty and respect, moral codes of conduct. One can be honest yet not living in Truth. All of this raises the need of a Scientific-Spiritual Synthesis (SSS), especially in relation to the exploration, identification, reception, perception and expression of Universal Values. This may lead to the need to measure and quantify the effects of the interplay between Human Behavioural Values and Spiritual Values in human bodies, relations and interactions in large. Even though a subjective experience has a neural trace or component, this is far from being the only component. The neural trace or component of such an experience is of an objective nature of the matter field. This also is only part of a collection of effects related to such an experience. Spiritual Values are different than the subjective experience of those same values. It is different than qualia and its neural components as portrayed in the book, Phantoms In The Brain, where Ramachandran and Blakeslee write regarding this subject, “Now you might ask, “Does any of this yield clues as to where in the brain qualia might be?” (p. 244) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 299 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour The situation here is that the brains of different people may look very similar in relation to Behavioural Values and yet very different in relation to Spiritual Values. Also, the areas of the brain and the body where they register and leave their trace may be different. An example of this is when two different people talk very nicely, with a soft voice to another human being. In one situation the one who talks is hateful while in the other situation the one who talks is beholding Love towards the other person. To express with a soft voice or to express in a “nice” way is different than to Be Love in action (The Embodiment of Love). The traces of a soft voice may be registered in the same area of the brain, with the same or similar patterns. On the other hand, the presence of Love will register as a different heart beat pattern and heart magnetic pulse with a different electromagnetic pulse frequency and with different levels of entrainment and synchronisation between different oscillatory body systems, like the heart, brain, respiratory and autonomic nervous system. This means that whatever traces are searched for in the brain must be correlated to this electromagnetic frequency and levels of synchronisation between different systems. Otherwise, looking “into the brain” is like going to the movies. This is only capturing a very limited aspect of reality. To approach the study of spirituality scientifically requires an understanding of different theories and hypotheses like, The Holonomic Brain Theory6, Quantum Brain Dynamics Theory7, Morphic Resonance Theory8 and The Systemic Memory Hypothesis9. When taken together they provide a framework of reference to understanding what Spiritual Values are. It is important to note that, for the majority of human beings still living on this earth, Spiritual Values find their expression in the context of Behavioural Values. These two are intrinsically related and therefore, inevitably raise the need to investigate also the Neurobiology of Behavioural Values. In this regard Michael Persinger (1987) showed the influence of electromagnetic fields in inducing religious or spiritual experiences. He proposes that humans are biologically wired for a God experience connected to the reward centres, like the centre of Ecstatic Joy, and that this may be a purely physical phenomena without the existence of God. However, he falls short in explaining and clarifying that certain kinds of Electromagnetic fields just are the trigger, and just 6 Prideaux, Jeff; 2002. “Comparison between Karl Pribram’s Holographic Brain Theory and more conventional models of neural computation.” 7 Jibu, Mari and Yasue, Kunio; 1995. 8 Sheldrake, Rupert. 1981, 1988, 1994, 2003. 9 Schwartz and Russek; “Do All Dynamical Systems Have Memory? Implications of the Systematic Memory Hypothesis for Science and Society.” In Brain and Values: Is a Biological Science of Values Possible? Edited by K. Pribram, 1998. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 300 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour the trigger for the neural and hormonal experience of reward in the form of Ecstatic Joy. He lacks an explanation of the origins of these fields in nature and the universe and their connection to Spiritual Values, something that Rupert Sheldrake (1981, 1988, 1994, 2003) and Stuart Hameroff10 to name a few, have attempted to explain. All of these also raise the need to define what an Evaluative System is. I will define an Evaluative System as the interaction of a Universal Core Value System of Spiritual Values and a set of Normative Values with implicit mechanisms to boundaries developed through fear and reward conditioning. The Universal Core Value system comes from The Source of all Spiritual Values, while the set of Normative Values are a consequence of the operation of mental spaces, in conjunction with emotional responses and the natural mechanisms of the human species for survival ends or purposes. An evaluative system enables the creature (human being) with the capacity to make decisions based on a combination of reactive responses to stimulus coming from his or her natural environment in conjunction with the processing of social based rules and Spiritual Values in perfect interaction with The Source of those values. Only just recently neuroscientists are beginning to understand, from the point of view of the brain, the mechanisms by which the orbito-frontal cortex uses emotional information to assist in decision-making. Some scientists like Edmund Rolls (1999)11, have suggested that the orbito-frontal cortex is necessary for quick evaluation of stimulus reinforcement associations and that this evaluation has its own mechanism of adaptation to changes in the environment. However, most of the scientific research is usually conducted from a purely material and reductive perspective, like for example, the work of Ramachandran and Blakeslee which seems to be locked in their views of consciousness around the temporal lobe, creating confusion between Spiritual Identity and Physical Identity. The first (Spiritual Identity) requires of an Evaluative System to distinguish between the two, it is concerned with discernment regardless of biological personal history. Authors like Damasio12, Edmund Rolls, Howard Eichenbam, Neal Cohen13 and others, agree that the orbito-frontal cortex plays a significant role in a humans ability to respond and act in a social environment where there is an exchange of emotional input between people. Also, that the decision-making process of a human being is based on an evaluative system that is stored in the 10 Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection. The Brain and Emotion. 12 Descartes” Error - Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (1994). 13 Eichenbaum, Howard and Neal J. Cohen; 2001. From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection. 11 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 301 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour frontal limbic cortex and takes into consideration the emotional qualities of a stimulus in order to access how meaningful it is, and what actions are adequate. Most of these scientists also agree that the amygdala is one of the main neural structures that interact with the orbito-frontal cortex in emotional processing. This coincides with some of the testimonies of Ramachandran and Blakeslee. A radically different view is found in the book, The Keys of Enoch (1977), a Divine Revelation where J.J. Hurtak writes regarding the broadcasting of mental spaces of spiritual worlds or realms: The supra-consciousness continuum, which makes this possible, emanates from the higher consciousness exercising a superior interpretive and controlling role upon the neural biological events of mental time interplaying with matter waves and time-waves of the Light continuum. In actuality, this higher consciousness mind operates through the divine worlds which, in turn, affects the physical worlds through consciousness image programs of Light continuum which are not limited to time differences. The self-realized mind can then modulate time differences to step in and out of multiple realities between the physical world and the spiritual world out of which our physical reality is extended. (p. 443, 24-28) One question to posit is; how important is the bond with the community of human beings that broadcast these signals, and their associated feelings of Love, Compassion and Grace amongst others, to guarantee the survival of the species in a higher consciousness state of evolution? To gain more insight and understanding on the neural biological aspect of this essay, first, I will propose the exploration of the interaction between the Temporal Lobe and the Prefrontal Cortex and their relationship to Physical and Spiritual Identity respectively. This sheds some light in finding the neural traces of such interactions and such a research could be approached on the basis of a clearer distinction between Spiritual and Behavioural Values. Secondly, I will propose to search for a phenomena that I will call a “Healthy Blessed Seizure”, brain activity similar to the ones related to Epileptic Seizures, therefore leading to spiritual and religious experience. Different values could be explored with the characteristic of this being in the control of the person and their correlation to waves and fields. Thirdly, an exploration of the Evaluative Systems pathways related to the perception of the dissolution of boundaries and the experience of “oneness” leading to the realisation of Spiritual Identity with the ongoing subsequent experience of continuously embodying Spiritual Values. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 302 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour I am suggesting that a “Healthy Blessed Seizure” is part of the chain of events that are related to the cause of a Spiritual Experience. I am also suggesting that the proper preparation in prayer and the genuine desire to listen to the “Voice of God” and the readiness to act according to the will of the Ultimate Value Giver, will produce a synchronisation of different brain areas with the Prefrontal Cortex. This Synchronisation is caused to provide the long lasting effect of knowing your Spiritual Identity and the ongoing embodiment of Spiritual Values. This is very different to an epileptic seizure or an artificially electromagnetically stimulated brain of a person, who reports only the experience of ecstatic unity with the cosmos. This my Dear Reader, is a starting point to the exploration and understanding of Spiritual Values !!! This is where the distinction between Spiritual Values and Behavioural Values becomes crucial when attempting to detect which kind of experiences have been reported as a spiritual experience. To my view, the brain is wired both to develop instinctual survival neural pathways as well as the capacity to develop a neural cognitive map of reality, which allows a communication with the source of all Intelligence and Wisdom. This allows a human to act with spiritual awareness and consciously, instead of merely reacting continuously to his or her environment as animals do for their survival. Hamer14, who accepts the possibility of the existence of God or at least presents his work without denying God’s existence, has introduced some of his views which are also supporting of the idea of genes for spirituality. He makes a certain distinction between learned religious behaviours and Spiritual Values related to self transcendence, and proposes through the study of twins that religious behaviours are learned and spiritual propensity is enabled through genes. Even though his ideas may require more experiments and data analysis this presents a very important biological aspect in differentiating Spiritual Values from Behavioural Values. Also, it is brought to attention the fact that in God’s design of human evolutionary process of time and space there is a provision for a mechanism to guarantee the survival of the human species, both biologically in time space as well as spiritually in eternity. Then, with all this in mind, God can be seen from my perspective as the most important survival value for the soul, facilitating the possibility to know Him/Her and the spiritual dimension of reality from generation to generation. A Righteous Experience of life is derived from an intimate communion and constant connection and communication with The Creator and life in large, The Universe. A Righteous Experience of 14 Hamer, Dean; 2004. The God Gene - How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 303 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour life is associated with the status of Sonship or Daughtership with The Creator as a Father-Mother of all. Sonship or Daughtership is better defined as a state of being in Unity with God and attainment of God Consciousness. A Son or Daughter is only concerned with doing the will of God and finds it easy and amenable to intermingle and get to know his or her fellow human beings. His or Her love for The Creator and other humans allows him or her to gracefully and happily participate and serve in the lives of people with different religious traditions, beliefs or cultures. His or her main service to humanity is to reveal, and show by example, how to live a life of this kind and therefore make this experience available and attainable to other humans. From now on I will refer to a Son or Daughter of The Creator who is fully active in doing the will of God as a Righteous Person (in Hebrew called a Tzadik). A Tzadik exists with a Universal Paradigm and a cognitive map tailored to the embodiment and expression of the Spiritual Values of The Creator. This links them all to one common Origin (One Universal Family), Source and Centre of Spiritual Values and Life. This enables in the human being a communication and communion with The Divine Source and re-spatialises his or her consciousness to comprehend cosmic realities through new and unknown states of consciousness to the human until then, leading him or her to the desire to do good and God’s will. This initial definition opens up the possibility to formulate a paradigm for research about the Neural Basis for the Brain of a Tzadik and the Neural Correlates of a Righteous Experience. One of the major needs for expanding in this line of research is the formulation of the appropriate hypothesis. This kind of hypothesis has to be established in order to validate the interplay and link between mental activity based on Spiritual Values and brain activity, manifest by the agency of electromagnetic fields, waves and electrochemical neural dynamics. This is the study of the interplay between the spiritual being and the physical body, between the Spiritual Identity and the physical construct of biological neural genetic informational process. According to this paradigm, even though mental activity as thoughts are invisible and still undetectable and measurable with current technology, they have a tangible effect in the physical dimension of reality and particularly a direct effect in the physical body. This is similar to the study of gravity, because no one has measured, boxed or sold gravity, however its effects can be measured in the planetary atmosphere and conditions. So, scientists could start by asking questions like for example; what is the electrodynamic structure of Love combined with the thought and presence of the Value of Certainty, and what are its neural correlates and its effect on health? As a consequence of this possibility and the ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 304 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour validation of such a hypothesis, the reader is left with the implication that, as a species, humans are sovereign beings with the capability and power to consciously shape future realities, and the next stage of spiritual and neural genetic evolution! This means my dear reader that you and I cause evolution by co-creating a loving family of human beings, instead of being a random effect of evolution. Like Joshua Ben Joseph prescribed to think and ask for when he said, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done On earth, As It Is In Heaven” (Matatyahu, 6:10) This means that a human being is identified and unified consciously in the image and similitude of The Creator. The study of the brain of a Tzadik may have many similarities to the study of the brain of a surfer. Somehow those surfers who have experienced the pipeline or tube, describe that experience as one of unity with the universe, total harmony, perfection. They speak about an eternal moment or now moment whose effect is permanent in the memory of the surfer to the point that most of them (maybe all) scream the first time that it happens and they are left for days with a huge sense of Joy and Self Realisation. After that, surfers are always willing to seek that experience and state of being again. The problem is that it may be very difficult to study the neural correlates of a surfer in action with the actual technology. However, what about the neural traces, the memories of that moment? Is it possible to find the imprint in the brain of why such an experience is reported to be so powerful and long lasting? The same may apply for those powerful memories and neural traces of those unusual states that Tzadikim and Mystics report. One very important issue here is the fact that only some surfers have been in the tube, while the majority are learning and mastering surfing to the degree that will allow them to ride inside the tube and attain that experience. This learning may take years and usually surfing is a fun thing to do. This means that until a surfer gets to experience oneness with the universe inside the tube he or she derives values from surfing regardless of the status of that possibility. Now, that creates a society or community (similar to religions or cults) with different denominations of surfers, each of them with their own rituals and life styles, that are having a nice social and fun experience surfing by themselves or with one another. However, this category of surfers, are in a way still different (they are veiled to the experience of the tube) from those ones who have had the experience of oneness. The neural traces of the experience of the tube are absent in the brain of most surfers. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 305 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour Here there is a similar situation describing the difference between organised, institutionalised religious groups and mystics or spiritually aware people who become the way showers to the experience of the pipeline (Oneness, Union with God). This illustrates the difference between Behavioural Values and Spiritual Values. The Neural Traces of both categories of values I propose are different. That gives a sense of initial direction on what to look for in the study of the embodiment of Spiritual Values in a Tzadik; which I have called, “The Brain of Melchizedek.” Well, you may recall from the stories about Joshua Ben Joseph, a High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek, who lived around 2000 years ago, that though uninformed about surfing, he was able to walk on water. So after all, the question of whether knowingly or unknowingly he set up a precedent for Surfing, as a stepping stone to oneness and temporal union with God, can be asked. I will leave the Reader with some remarks and questions for further research. 1. - Which kind of brain structures and dynamics are associated with the heart and respiratory systems that contribute or foster the transformation of a human being from the identity of biological processes (neural activity in space-time) to their Spiritual Identity. This means, which brain and bodily systems mediate the removal of the veil to The Creator’s existence? 2. - Which neurogenetic chemistry is associated with the dissolution or transformation of the purely behavioural, survival human map of identity by the agency of Energeia Pneumatikon or work of The Spirit? 3. - How is the DNA of the species altered by such an order of consciousness, if at all? 4. - What are the neural traces or interfaces of memories and personal history stored in fields, electromagnetic and light waves for a fully realised spiritual being in human form? 5. - How is it possible to distinguish, measure and quantify the effects in the human body of the two categories of Values (Spiritual and Behavioural) and what technology is available to this end? 6. - What kinds of brain and heart dynamics take place when damage happens to a marital relationship, where Unity, Integrity and Trust are lost? By marital I mean two ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 306 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour beings that have become One in The Spirit (perhaps through quantum entanglement quanglement) instead of the social construct of what is considered marriage. 7. - What kind of fields associated with these values hold the relationship together and how can they be identified and measured? 8. - What kind of brain dynamics and fields are present in prayer and meditation, and how do they affect the behaviour of the physical world (matter and energy)? 9. - What kind of Behavioural Values are more conducive to a spiritual transformation? 10. - What kind of language, signs and symbols foster a spiritual transformation and what kind prevent it? 11.- What kind of experiments can be conducted to research on brain-heart coherence when exploring the neurobiology of spiritual and religious experience, as well as Spiritual Identity and Character? To attain Global Peace, the system of humanity requires that each of its elements (each person) find their connection with The Creator. This individual process of personal peace and coherence affects the whole of humanity. Each person contributes and is responsible for humanity by fulfilling his or her own inner state of peace and harmony. As more people enter this state of peace individually, the whole also changes and peace starts to emerge, which in turn may affect also the speed at which people attain that state. This can be described as a Dynamical System of Peace Propagation or Spiritual Values Propagation, something that could be called Pneumadynamics, Ruachdynamics, Theodynamics or Melchidynamics. To finish this essay, I will call Melchidynamics the study of the dynamical system associated with the spiritual, quantum, electromagnetic and matter fields by the agency and interaction between Spiritual and Behavioural Values and The Brain of Melchizedek to the attainment of Peace and Harmony. This is to leave the reader with a word that will remind him or her of this fascinating exploration. References Damasio, Antonio R., 1994 “Descartes” Error - Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. (New York: A Grosset/Putnam Book). Eichenbaum, Howard and Neal J. Cohen; 2001 From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection. (Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 307 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 5 | pp. 292-307 Davis, J. J., Spiritual Values and Their Biological, Philosophical and Physical Implications on Behaviour Fauconnier, Gilles and Turner, Mark; 2002 The Way We Think – Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. (USA: Basic Books). Fauconnier, Gilles; 2001 “Conceptual Integration,” Emergence and Development of Embodied Consciousness (EDEC). Accessed on 8 June, 2013 from http://www.google.co.uk/search, the first entry - Conceptual Integration, Emergence and Development of Embodied Conscious EDEC: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.90.8028&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Hamer, Dean; 2004 The God Gene - How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. (New York: Anchor Books). Hameroff, Stuart; Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection, www.quantumconsciousness.org/springer.htm, accessed on 22 July, 2008. Hurtak, J.J., 1977 The Book of Knowledge: The Keys of Enoch. (California, USA: The Academy for Future Science). Jibu, Mari and Yasue, Kunio; 1995 Advances in Consciousness Research, Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness - An Introduction. (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.). Metzinger, Thomas (Editor); 2000 Neural Correlates of Consciousness - Empirical and Conceptual Question. (USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press). Thomas Metzinger; “The Subjectivity of Subjective Experience: A Representationalist Analysis of the First-Person Perspective”, (pp. 285-306) Metzinger, Thomas; 2003 Being No One – The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. (USA: A Bradford Book, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press). Persinger, Michael A., 1987 Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs. (New York, USA: Praeger Publishers). Pribram, Karl H. (Editor); 1998 Brain and Values: Is a Biological Science of Values Possible? (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers). Gary E. Schwartz PhD. and Linda G. Russek PhD; Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson. “Do All Dynamical Systems Have Memory? Implications of the Systematic Memory Hypothesis for Science and Society”, (pp. 249-276). Prideaux, Jeff; 2002 Comparison between Karl Pribram’s Holographic Brain Theory and more conventional models of neural computation. Accessed on line 20 July, 2008 from http://www.acsa2000.net/bcngroup/jponkp/. Ramachandran, V.S. and Sandra Blakeslee; 1998 Phantoms in the Brain – Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. (New York, USA: William Morrow and Company, INC.). Rolls, Edmund T., 1999 The Brain and Emotion. (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press). Sheldrake, Rupert; 1981 A New Science of Life - Revised and Expanded -The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.). - 1988 The Presence of The Past – The Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. (London: Collins, 8 Grafton Street). - 1994 The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions). - 2003 The Sense of Being Stared At and other aspects of the Extended Mind. (London: Hutchinson). ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

arXiv:0711.2058v1 [q-bio.NC] 13 Nov 2007 Computer Model of a ”Sense of Humour”. I. General Algorithm I. M. Suslov Lebedev Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Leninsky pr., 53, Moscow, USSR 1 Abstract A computer model of ”a sense of humour” is formulated. The humorous effect is treated as a specific malfunction in the processing of information, conditioned by the necessity of a quick deletion from consciousness of a false version. The biological function of a sense of humour consists in quickenning the transmission of processed information into conscioussness and in a more effective use of brain resources. 1. Introduction In everyday life we use humour for amusement, as ”a means of extracting pleasure from the psychical process” [1] and we never ask ourselves why nature has provided us with the sense of humour. The bare fact that there exists a complex biological mechanism which causes specific muscular contractions (laughter) as a reaction to a definite combination of sound or visual images leads us to conclude that the sense of humour originated at early stages of the evolution 2 when the possibility of obtaining pleasure should not have of appreciable importance. The present paper is an attempt to answer the question about the biological function of the sense of humour. In the proposed scheme, the humorous effect is interpreted as a specific malfunction in the course of information processing conditioned by the necessity to delete some information transmitted to consciousness. The biological function of a sense of humour consists in quickening the transmission of processed information into conscioussness and in a more effective use of brain resources. The proposed model accounts for different susceptibility of people to humour, the absence of a humorous effect from a hackneyed joke, the role of timing in telling jokes, etc. Some remarks on other emotions are also given. In the present 1 Present address: P.L.Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems, 119337 Moscow, Russia E-mail: suslov@kapitza.ras.ru 2 According to Darwin [2] antropoid monkeys possess a clearly distinct sense of humour. 1 work we formulate a general algorithm for a computer realization of a sense of humour; in the following paper [3] we discuss the possible realization of the algorithm in neural networks and the mechanism of laughter. 2. Humour from the psychological viewpoint In psychology there exist several viewpoints on humour [4, 5, 6], the best – reasoned of which is the concept of incogruity advanced by the Scotch poet Beattie [7] in l776. Its concrete treatments are different in different investigations; we accept the viewpoint close to the one advanced in the paper [5]: the humorous effect is a consequence of the ”commutation” of two mutually exclusive images (versions, estimates) in the human conscioussness. In the simplest cases the commutation occurs on the level of meanings of a separate word (the play on words). For example in the joke 3 (1*) ”My Uncle William has a new cedar chest” ”So! Last time I saw him he just had a wooden leg.” the word ”chest” is at first realized in the meaning of ”box” but later it takes on a meaning of ”breast”. In other cases the commutation takes place on the level of more complex images: (2*) The horse tradesman: ”If you mount this horse at 4 in the morning then at 7 in the morning you will be at Pittsburg.” The customer: ”But what shall I do in Pittsburg at 7 in the morning?” Here the words of the tradesman realized as ”the characteristic of horse speed” take on the interpretation ”giving directions how to reach Pittsburg by 7 in the morning”. Example (3*) Is this a place where Duke of Wellington said his famous words? Yes, it is the same place but he never said such words. shows that the commutation may occur along the line of general estimate of a phrase: the second remark at first gives the impression of being ”natural” or ”logical” but later is perceived as ”absurd”. The existence of two incompatible versions we were able to discover in all jokes; the explicit ”commutation” of versions takes place in approximately half the cases. The rest of the jokes are constructed according to the principle which can be called ”the ambiguity scheme”. In the example (4*) Father (reprovingly): ”Do you know what happens to liars when they die?” 3 A detailed classification of the technical aspects of wit can be found in Freud’s book [1] where examples 2*, 3* are taken from. We give a simplified classification in accordance to the purposes of the present paper; in principle, it embraces all the cases considered by Freud. 2 Johnny: ”Yes, sir; they lie still.” the expression ”lie still” may be lnterpreted as (1) ”be motionless” or (2) ”continue to tell lies”. The speciflc feature of such cases is the practically equal possibility of the two versions: accordingly there is no definite succession of their appearance in the consciousness. It may be assumed that the commutation takes place in such cases also, but the order in which the versions appear is determined by random circumstances; repeated commutations are also possible. The humorous effect is caused not only by ”wit” discussed above, but also by the ”comic” (exaggerated movements of a clown, grimaces, caricatures, parodies and so on). As the main characteristic of the comic, ”the deviation from the norm” can be accepted; accordingly, the humorous effect is caused by the repeated commutations ”the norm” — ”not the norm”. 4 The laughter from tickling can be connected with the attempt of the brain to localize the place of irritation of skin; the result of such localization is invariably rejected because the irritated place is changed unpredictably (that is the reason why the tickling should be done by another person). 3. Information processing We begin the formulation of the computer model of ”a sense of humour” by analysing information processing. Suppose that a succession of symbols A1 , A2 , A3 , . . . (”text”) is introduced from the outside world to the brain: it can be a succession of words during visual or auditory percepption. In the brain a set of images {Bn } is associated with each symbol An : for example a set of meanings (a dictionary family) is put in correspondence to each word. The problem of information processing consists in choosing one image Bnin (which is implied in the given context) from the set {Bn }. The text will be considered as ”understood” if the succession B1i1 , B2i2 , B3i3 , . . . (which visually can be imagined as the trajectory in the space of images — see Fig. 1) is put in correspondence to the succession A1 , A2 , A3 , . . . In principle, the algorithm of information processing consists in the following: (1) all possible trajectories in the image space are constructed; (2) a certain probability is ascribed to each trajectory on the basis of the information on the correlation of images stored in memory; (3) the most probable trajectory is chosen. Only step 2 is nontrivial here, i.e. the algorithm of ascribing the probability to a given trajectory. For example, such algorithm can be based on the binary correlations of images; in this case the set pij should be stored in the memory where pij is the probablllty of the event that in a meaningful text image i will be followed by image j; the probability 4 Of course, not every ”deviation from the norm” looks funny; but it should be taken into account that habitual, oft-repeated deviations are analogous to hackneyed jokes (see below) and the weak deviations are easily forced out by other emotions (see the following paper [3]). 3 Figure 1: The scheme of information processing: a set of images {Bn } is put in correspondence to each symbol An and one image Bnin should be chosen from the set {Bn }. The succession B1i1 , B2i2 , B3i3 , . . . looks as a ”trajectory” in the space of images. of a trajectory ijkl . . . is given by the product pij pjk pkl . . .. The probabilities pij can be obtained by the statistical treatment in the course of the ”learning” process, during which a sufficiently long fragment of the ”deciphered” text (i.e. recorded in images but not symbols) is introduced to the brain. A more complex algorithm can take into account the correlation between n images with n > 2: then the probabilities pi1 ...in−1 ; in of the succession of images i1 . . . in−1 followed by image in should be stored in the memory. It is possible to base the algorithm on binary correlations but with the syntactical connections taken into account 5 and so on. Algorithms of such type are being worked out in the investigations on machine translation [8]; the concrete form of the algorithm is not essential for the following. The number of operations required for the realization of any algorithm of such type increases exponentially with the length of the text. So only fragments of the text containing no more than a certain number (N) of symbols can be immediately treated by such a method. How can longer texts be processed? The natural possibility is the following: during the processing of the first N symbols not one but several (M) of the most probable trajectories are remembered; then translation on one step made — the fragment from the second to the (N + 1)-th symbols is considered — and for each of the M conserved trajectories all possible continuations are constructed; then again M of the most probable 5 The syntactic structure of a sentence has a form of a tree, so that each dependent word is related with its ”host”. The probability of a trajectory may be represented as a product of binary probabilities according to the structure of a syntactical ”tree”. The practice of machine translation [8] shows that the syntactic structure in most cases is clearly established by purely grammatical analysis (word order, adherence to a part of speach, harmonization of endings, etc.) and for the purpose of the present work may be taken as known. 4 Figure 2: The visual imagination of information processing: thin lines are trajectories conserved in operative memory, A is a front, B is the point where the branching is over, CD is a fragment of deciphered trajectory transmitted to consciousness. trajectories are conserved and so on. It is reasonable to make the number M variable, so at each stage as many trajectories are remembered as the operative memory can hold. In the whole, the process looks as follows (Fig. 2): immediately after the front A the trajectory is branched heavily; at a certain point B the branching is over (the distance between A and B is restricted by the volume of operative memory provided for remembering the trajectories); the deciphered part of the trajectory DC with some delay AC is transmitted to the consciousness of the man and is realized by him as a thought (while the whole process takes place in the subconscious and is not perceived immediately). 4. The role of emotions in information processing If numbers N and M are sufficiently large and the algorithm of calculating the probability of N-symbol trajectory is good enough, then the described scheme will operate successfully. However the probabilitistic nature of the algorithm makes mistakes inevitable: so a mechanism is desirable for minimizing their consequences. Such mechanism exists and it consists in communicating to the consciousness some information about the course of the processing in the subconsciousness; the man perceives such information as emotions. 5 For example, such parameters of the process are essential as the probability pmax of the trajectory transmitted to consciousness and the probability pcomp of the most probable of the competing trajectories. The high values of pmax and pmax /pcomp signal a successful course of the process and are perceived as positive emotions (pleasure, confidence): the information obtained is considered as reliable. The low values of pmax and pmax /pcomp signal an unsatisfactory course of the process and are realized as negative emotions (annoyance, doubt): the corresponding information should not be taken too seriously. For very low values of pmax no versions are transmitted to consciousness (complete incomprehension) and so on. The possible relationship of emotions with the parameters of the process can be illustrated on the basis of the semi-empiric ”emotion formula” proposed by Simonov [9] E = N (I − I0 ) where E is the emotion strength (which is objectively measured by the pulse rate, the blood pressure etc.), N is a strength of some need, I0 is the quantity of information demanded for the satisfaction of this need, I is the quantity of information the subject has at his disposal (both informations are estimated subjectively). An emotion is positive (E > 0) for I > I0 and negative for I < I0 . We can suppose that in the course of information processing N is the need in information and the different parameters of the process determine I and I0 for different emotions. For example, pmax can be used as I for the emotion ”pleasure of understanding — annoyance of incomprehension” (accordingly, I0 is the typical value of pmax ensuring the satisfactory course of the process). Analogously, pmax /pcomp can be used as I if E is the emotion ”confidence – doubt” and so on. These speculations lead us to conclude that the emotion expressing the humorous effect is also related to some specific situation in the processing of information. 5. The humorous effect Let us discuss the nature of the delay of point C with respect to front A (Fig. 2). At first sight, point C in a reasonably organized system should be always behind point B or coincide with it: it is just the variant we surely choose writing the computer program. However, for a human as well as for any living creature such a variant is completely unsatisfactory. The matter is that the delay of point C with respect to front A results in the time interval τAC during which the information introduced to the brain does not appear in the consciousness (the man sees a bear but he is not aware of this). The prolongation of the interval AC is obviously dangerous while the interval AB can drag out for objective reasons (the man cannot decide what he sees: a bear or a bush shaped like a bear). Therefore, the interval AC should have the upper bound τmax on the time scale: if time delay τAB corresponding to the interval AB is less than τmax then point C coincides with point B (Fig.3,a); if τAB > τmax , then τAC = τmax and point C leaves behind point B (Fig.3,b). In the latter case, the 6 Figure 3: The parameter τmax is the upper bound of the time interval corresponding to delay of point C with respect to front A; (a) τAB < τmax , (b) τAB > τmax . most probable version DE is transmitted to the consciousness while competing versions (DE ′ ) are conserved in the operative memory (Fig.3,b) — their deletion is unreasonable because the brain has resources to continue the analysis. If in the course of the subsequent movement of front A the trajectory DE continues to have the maximum probability, then the competing trajectory DE ′ will be deleted and the time will be saved as a result. If in the course of the movement of front A the probability of DE falls below the probability of DE ′ , then the brain will have a possibility to correct the mistake. In this case, however, the specific malfunction occurs: the fragment BC transmitted to consciousness should be immediately deleted and replaced by the fragment of trajectory BE ′ . Psychologically this malfunction is perceived as interference of two incompatible versions: version BC fixed by the long-term memory and the newly appeared version BE ′ . The described specific malfunction can be identified with ”a humorous effect”. Indeed, the situation described is exactly reproduced in the course of the interpretation of jocular expressions. For example, in joke (1*) two incompatible versions arise in the subconsciousness during the analysis of the first remark: in the first of them (DE) the word ”chest” is treated as ”box” while in the second (DE ′ ) it is treated as ”breast”. In the context of the given sentence version DE (”box”) is more probable and is transmitted to consciousness. The appearance of the word ”leg” in the second remark makes version DE less probable and increases the probability of version DE ′ (”breast”): this gives rise to a humorous effect. It is essential to emphasize that the existence of a humorous effect is not to any degree unavoidable: nature had a possibility to avoid it in one of the two manners: (1) by delaying the transmission of trajectory DE to consciousness till trajectory DE ′ is naturally discarded, or (2) by quickening the transmission of DE by rejection DE ′ simultaneously. 7 However, in the first case the time the information reaches consciousness is delayed and in the second case the brain resources are not completely used: so nature resolves this problem at the cost of psychological confusion. In the process of evolution the optimal value of τmax is achieved which ensures the compromise between the reliability of information and the speed of its obtaining (people with long τmax will be eaten by a bear, while people with short τmax will confuse every bush with a bear and will be incapable of getting food). For the optimal value of τmax the inequality τAB < τmax is satisfied as a rule, and a humorous effect is rare enough in the natural conditions; but it can be easily produced by specially constructed witticisms and comics. 6. Some consequences The model described offers a natural explanation for a number of well-known facts. The failure of a hackneyed joke to produce a humorous effect is a consequence of the fact that a man knows of the existence of two incompatible versions beforehand and avoids the transmission of the clearly false version to consciousness (for example, knowing that in joke (1*) the ”chest” turns out to be a ”breast” he is not tempted to interpret it as ”box”). The role of intonation in telling jokes is related mainly with temporal characteristics (pace, arrangement and duration of pauses, etc), which can be taken into account by incorporating an appropriate number of ”spaces” in succession An . The quick pace of telling does not give time for the false version to be transmitted to consciousness and interval BC (Fig. 3) turns out small or absent. The slow pace of telling increases the lengths of trajectories due to ”spaces” and the competing trajectory BE ′ (Fig. 3) is deleted from the operative memory; so the commutation of versions becomes impossible. 6 Different susceptibility of people to humour 7 is connected (in case of equal intellectual level) with the differences in the delay τmax . People with large τmax seldom laugh because point C seldom outruns point B. Conversely, people with small τmax are aware of a humorous effect even in cases that most people do not see as funny. Supposedly, τmax is diminished by alcohol and this is a cause of the unmotivated gaiety. At fixed τmax the susceptibility to humour correlates with the volume of the operative memory, which determines the average length of the interval AB (Fig. 2). Nervous laughter. If a mass of unpleasant impressions rushes at a man and there is danger of the overstrain of the nervous system then the organism forcibly deletes the 6 The dependence of humorous effect on duration of the pause in a certain place is well described in Mark Twain’s essay ”Public Speaking”. 7 We have in mind the susceptibility to humour in principle, leaving aside the cases when individual peculiarities give rise to inadequate reaction to a concrete joke. The examples are incomprehension of a joke due to the absence in memory of a necessary image, peculiar view of the ”norm” while perceiving the comic, the forcing out of laughter by secondary emotions (see [3]) and so on. 8 unpleasant information and replaces it by neutral: this gives rise to the reflectory laughter. 7. Conclusion Freud [1] considers the pleasure obtained from laughter as the main cause of the existence of a sense of humour: a man discovers the possibility of extracting pleasure from the psychical process and begins subconsciously and then consciously to exploit it. Our viewpoint is the opposite: a sense of humour is biologically conditioned by the necessity to quicken the transmission of information to consciousness and of a more effective use of brain resources: so the pleasure obtained from laughter is not an essential factor (similarly, the two reflexes — sneezing and coughing — exist regardless of the pleasure afforded by the first and the displeasure caused by the second, because they are dictated by the biological necessity of cleaning out the respiratory system). Of course, if laughter afforded displeasure the social function of humour would change: the society would try to get rid of it by censorship, prosecution of witty people and so on. Is it possible to create a computer program which will ”laugh” in the same cases as a man? From our viewpoint it is quite possible if we restrict ourselves to the simplest types of jokes based on the commutation of meanings of separate words (example 1*); the corresponding program will not be much more complex than the average machine translation program [8]. Computer modelling of the more complex jokes involves the need to identify a complete set of images the average human brain contains and to establish the correct associative connections between these images. This would require many years of work of psychologists and programmers. Acknowledgements. I thank L.A. Prozorova for discussion of linguistic aspects of the paper and D.S. Chemavsky for discussion of results. References [1] Freud, S. Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (Norton, New York, 1960). [2] Darwin, C. The expressions of emotions in man and aniimals (Murray, London, 1872). [3] I.M.Suslov, Biofizika 37, 325 (1992) [Biophysics 37, 249 (1992)]. [4] Nash, W. The language of humour (Longman, New York, 1985). [5] Paulos, J.A. Mathematics ana Humor (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980). [6] McGhee, P.E. and Goldstein, J.H. (eds). Handbook of Humor Research (Springer, New York etc., 1983). [7] Beattie, J. Essays (William Creech, Edinburg, 1776). 9 [8] Hutchins W.J., Harold S.L. An Introduction to Machine Translation, London, Academic Press, 1992. [9] Simonov, P.V. Emotional brain (Nauka, Moscow, 1981). 10

1170 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1170-1173 Kaufman, S. E., That Which Is Hidden Realization That Which Is Hidden Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT Blind to the Formlessness of which all forms are composed, we are blind to That which connects all forms, and so blind to That which makes all forms One. But once you recognize the part of yourself that has been hiding from you, and yet was always there in plain sight, then what once seemed most real becomes the shadow, and what seemed to be the shadow becomes what is most Real. Key Words: blind, hidden, form, formless, One, shadow, Universe, Consciousness. We look into the Universe and see that it consists of objects and the space out of which those objects arise. But when we look at ourselves we see only an object, only a form. And yet even our bodies consist mostly of space, just like the Universe out of which we grow like fruit on a tree. We just don't see it, and so we pretend that it's not there. So we look at the Universe and we see form and formlessness, but when we look at ourselves we see only form and not the Formlessness. This is our first mistake, if one wants to call it that, *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1171 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1170-1173 Kaufman, S. E., That Which Is Hidden and really our only mistake, because all other mistakes are just the continuation of this one mistake. And what is this one mistake, that is not really a mistake, but just a necessary part of the game of cosmic hide and seek that we came to play? It is the twin ideas that what we are is only a form, and that what we are not is the Formlessness in which all forms arise. If someone said the Universe consisted of only the objects and not the space that is also clearly there, then we would say they were either crazy or blind. But when we know ourselves as only an object, as only a form, and not at all as the Formlessness that is also clearly here where we are, we call this normal, we call this seeing things as they are. What is this Formlessness, in which all forms arise? What is it within yourself that is formless? I will give you a hint. It is not your mind, nor is it space, for mind and space, as formless as they may seem, are themselves subtle forms, from which the less subtle forms ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1172 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1170-1173 Kaufman, S. E., That Which Is Hidden of thought and matter arise. So what is it within yourself that is truly formless? I will give you another hint. It is That by which you know both the subtle forms of mind and space, and the less subtle forms of thought and matter that arise within mind and space. It has always been there, you just do not recognize it as either a valid part of what you are, or as the essential part of what you are. Which is more real, form or Formlessness? Which is more enduring, the objects that arise in space or the space in which those objects arise? The forms seem more real than the Formlessness when form is all you know yourself to be. But once you recognize the part of yourself that has been hiding from you, and yet was always there in plain sight, then what once seemed most real becomes the shadow and what seemed to be the shadow becomes what is most Real. And then the game becomes much more fun, becomes much more enjoyable, becomes much more filled with joy, and so less filled with the suffering that seems to make this life such a burden, such a task, such a chore, rather than the game that it really always has been. When you do not recognize your True Nature, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 1173 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1170-1173 Kaufman, S. E., That Which Is Hidden you cannot recognize the Universe as your Self, and so then the Universe, which is really your closest friend, appears as your opponent. And then what is really only a game being played between friends, being played with your Self, appears as a battle between sworn enemies. And so we find ourselves in almost perpetual conflict with this or that form, with this or that situation, with this or that person, with this or that nation, because we do not see those forms as our Self, because we cannot see the Formlessness within ourself. Blind to the Formlessness of which all forms are composed we are blind to That which connects all forms, and so blind to That which makes all forms One. Love thy neighbor as thy self was not a command, nor even a suggestion, but simply a statement regarding how one will feel about the Universe of things, about the Universe of forms, once it is realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is truly within us, as the Emptiness, as the Formlessness, as the Fullness of Life, that is already here, has always been here, and will always be here, Now, in this Moment as our true and essential Nature. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Measures of Entropy and Complexity in altered states of consciousness D. M. Mateos1 ∗, R. Guevara Erra2 , R. Wennberg3 , J.L. Perez Velazquez1 1 Neuroscience and Mental Health Programme, Division of Neurology, Hospital for Sick Children. Institute of Medical Science and Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. 2 Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS and Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France. 3 Krembil Neuroscience Centre, Toronto Western Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. * mateosdiego@gmail.com arXiv:1701.07061v1 [q-bio.NC] 9 Jan 2017 January 26, 2017 Abstract Quantification of complexity in neurophysiological signals has been studied using different methods, especially those from information or dynamical system theory. These studies revealed the dependence on different states of consciousness, particularly that wakefulness is characterized by larger complexity of brain signals perhaps due to the necessity of the brain to handle varied sensorimotor information. Thus these frameworks are very useful in attempts at quantifying cognitive states. We set out to analyze different types of signals including scalp and intracerebral electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) in subjects during different states of consciousness: awake, sleep stages and epileptic seizures. The signals were analyzed using a statistical (Permutation Entropy) and a deterministic (Permutation Lempel Ziv Complexity) analytical method. The results are presented in a complexity vs entropy graph, showing that the values of entropy and complexity of the signals tend to be greatest when the subjects are in fully alert states, falling in states with loss of awareness or consciousness. These results are robust for all three types of recordings. We propose that the investigation of the structure of cognition using the frameworks of complexity will reveal mechanistic aspects of brain dynamics associated not only with altered states of consciousness but also with normal and pathological conditions. 1 Introduction Multitude of studies focus on the investigation of patterns of correlated activity among brain cell ensembles based on magnitudes of a variety of synchrony indices or similar measures. A prominent common aspect that is emerging from those studies is that of the importance of the variability in the brain coordination dynamics. In general, neurophysiological signals associated with normal cognition demonstrate fluctuating patterns of activity that represent interactions among cell networks distributed in the brain [1]. This variability allows for a wide range of configurations of connections among those net-works exchanging information, and thus it supports the flexibility needed to process sensory inputs. Therefore, it has been argued that a certain degree of complexity in brain signals will be associated with healthy cognition, whereas low complexity may be a sign of pathologies [2, 3, 4]. We sought to obtain evidence for the correlation between complexity in brain signals and conscious states, using brain electrophysiological recordings in conscious and unconscious states. There exist a number of statistical measures to analyses electrophysiological recording [5]. In our work we use two well knows measures, one statistical –Shannon entropy, a measure of unpredictability of information content in a message [6] and the other deterministic the Lempel-Ziv complexity based in the minimum information required to recreate the original signal [7]. For both measures, we use use the quantifiers introduced by Bandt and Pompe [8], called permutation vectors, these are based on the relationship of the neighbour values belonging a time series. The Shannon entropy applying to the permutation vector is knowing as permutation entropy (HPE) [8]. In a similar manner the Lempel-Ziv complexity applied to the permutation vectors is called permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity (PLZC) [9]. We used these two method to obtain information about the signals dynamics from two differents perspective, probabilistic (HPE) and deterministic (PLZC). The permutation entropy and the LempelZiv complexity have been employed in previous studies analyzing electrophysiological recording in epilepsy, coma or sleep stages [10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. Moreover , there is an interesting relation, under certain restrictions, between the Shannon entropy and the Lempel-Ziv complexity that naturally can extend to the HPE and PLZC [15, 9]. The result we obtain are shown in a complexity-entropy graph. This kind of representation allows us to visualize better the results. In a recent study on chaotic maps and random sequences, it was shown that the complexity-entropy graph allows the distinction of different dynamics which are impossible to discern using 1 each analysis separately ( [16], unpublished results). In our work we analyze brain signals recorded using scalp (EEG), intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) and magnetoencephalogram (MEG), in fully alert states and in two conditions where consciousness is impaired: seizures and sleep. The hypothesis derived from the previous consideration on the variability of activity is that the brain tends towards larger complexity and entropy in wakefulness as compared with the altered states of consciousness. 2 Methods Electrophysiological recordings Recordings were analysed from 9 subjects using magnetoencephalography (MEG), scalp electroencephalography (EEG) or intracranial EEG (iEEG). Three epilepsy patients were studied with MEG; one epilepsy patient was studied with iEEG; 3 epilepsy patients were studied with simultaneous iEEG and scalp EEG; and 2 nonepileptic subjects were studied with scalp EEG. For the study of seizures versus alert states, the three subjects with MEG recordings and the one with iEEG were used. Details of the patients’ epilepsies, seizure types and the recording specifics have been presented in previous studies (MEG patients in [17], 2005; iEEG patients in [18]). For the study of sleep versus alert states, the 3 patients with combined iEEG and scalp EEG have been described previously (patients 1, 3, 4 in [19]); the 2 subjects studied with scalp EEG alone had been investigated because of a suspected history of epilepsy, but both were ultimately diagnosed with syncope, with no evidence of epilepsy found during prolonged EEG monitoring. In brief, the MEG seizure recordings were obtained in one patient with primary generalized absence epilepsy, in one patient with symptomatic generalized epilepsy, and in one patient with frontal lobe epilepsy. The iEEG seizure recordings were obtained from a patient with medically refractory temporal lobe epilepsy as part of the patient’s routine clinical pre-surgical investigation. MEG recordings were obtained using a whole head CTF MEG system (Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada) with sensors covering the entire cerebral cortex, whereas iEEG electrodes were positioned in various locations including the temporal lobe epilepsy patient, the amygdala and hippocampal structures of both temporal lobes. EEG recordings were obtained using an XLTEK EEG system (Oakville, ON, Canada). The details of the acquisitions varied from patient to patient (e.g., acquisition rate varied from 200 to 625 Hz) and were taken into consideration for the data analyses. The duration of the recordings varied as well: for the seizure study, the MEG sample epochs were of 2 minutes duration each, with total recording times of 30-40 minutes; the iEEG patient sample was of 55 minutes duration. The sleep study data segments were each 2-4 minutes in duration, selected from continuous 24-hour recordings. Data analysis The data were analyzed throw the permutation Lempel Ziv complexity (PLZC) and the permutation entropy (PE). Due the relationship existing between these quantities the result were shown in a complexity-entropy graph, to extract information from the signals either deterministic to statistic. In this section we give a breve explanation of both method and the relationship between then. Permutation entropy The permutation entropy (HPE) is a measure develop by Bandt and Pompe [8], for time series based on comparing neighboring values. The continuous time series is mapped onto a sequence of symbols which describe the relationship between present values and a fixed number of equidistant values at a given past time. To understand the idea let us consider a real-valued discrete-time series {Xt }t≥0 , and let d ≥ 2 and τ ≥ 1 be two integers. They will be called the embedding dimension and the time delay, respectively. From the original (d,τ ) time series, we introduce a d-dimensional vector Yt : (d,τ ) Yt → (Xt−(d−1)τ , ..., Xt−τ , Xt ); t ≥ (d − 1)τ (d,τ ) There are conditions on d and τ in order that the vector Yt preserves the dynamical properties of the full dynamical system1 . The components of the phase space trajectory Y(d,τ ) are sorted in ascending order. Then, we can define a permutation vector, Πd,τ t , with components given by the position of the sorted values of the (d,τ ) component of Yt Each one of these vectors represents a pattern (or motif). There are d! possible patterns. It is possible to calculate the frequencies of occurrence of any of the d! possible permutation vectors. From these 1 For EEG signals values of d = 3, ..., 7 have been recommended [8]; For the time lag, it is adequate to use a value of τ = 1 [20], For all signals in this work we used the parameter d = 3, .., 6 and τ = 1. 2 frequencies, we can estimate the Shannon entropy associated with the probability distributions of permutation vector. If we denote the probability of occurrence of the i-th pattern by P (Πd,τ )i = Pi with i ≤ d! then the (normalized) permutation entropy associated with the time series {Xt } is (measured in bits): Pd! − i=1 Pi log2 Pi HP E = (1) log2 d! The fundamental assumption behind the definition of HPE is that the d! possible permutation vectors might not have the same probability of occurrence, and thus, this probability might unveil knowledge about the underlying system. Permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity Entropy is a statistical characterization of a random variable and/or sequence. An alternative caracterization of time series is the deterministic notion of complexity of sequences due to Kolomogorof. In this view, complexity is defined as the size of the minimal (deterministic) program (or algorithm) allowing to generate the observed sequence [15, Chap. 14]. Later on, Lempel and Ziv proposed to define such a complexity for the class of “programs” based on recursive copy-paste operators [7]. To be more precise, let us consider a finite-size sequence S1:T = S1 ...ST of size T , of symbols Si that take their values in an alphabet A of finite size α = |A|. The definition of the Lempel–Ziv complexity lies in the two fundamental concepts of reproduction and production: • Reproduction: it consists of extending a sequence S1:T by a sequence Q1:N via recursive copy-paste operations, which leads to S1:T +N = S1:T Q1:N , i.e., where the first letter Q1 is in S1:T , let us say Q1 = Si , the second one is the following one in the extended sequence of size T + 1, i.e., Q1 = Si+1 , etc.: Q1:N is a subsequence of S1:T +N −1 . In a sense, all of the “information” of the extended sequence S1:T +N is in S1:T . • Production: the extended sequence S1:T +N is now such that S1:T +N −1 can be reproduced by S1:T , but the last symbol of the extension can either follow the recursive copy-paste operation (thus we face to a reproduction) or can be “new”. Note thus that a reproduction is a production, but the converse is false. Let us denote a production by S1:T ⇒ S1:N +T . Any sequence can be viewed as constructed through a succession of productions, called a history H. For instance, a history of S1:T can be H(S1:T ) : ∅ ⇒ S1 ⇒ S1:2 ⇒ · · · ⇒ S1:T . The number the productions used for the generation CH(S1:T ) is in this case equals to the size of the sequence. A given sequence does not have a unique history and in the spirit of the Kolmogorov complexity, Lempel and Ziv were interested in the optimal history, i.e., the minimal number of production necessary to generate the sequence. The size of the shortest history is the so-called Lempel–Ziv complexity, denoted as C[S1:T ] = minH(S1:T ) CH(S1:T ) [7]. In a sense, C[S1:T ] describes the “minimal” information needed to generate the sequence S1:T by recursive copy-paste operations. As explained above, the Lempel–Zip complexity (CLZ ) needed a alphabet of finite size to be used. In continuos time series as EEG or MEG it is necessary to discretized the series before calculating the CLZ . Using the same idea that in permutation entropy can be taken the alphabet as the set of permutation vectors A = {Π(d,τ ) } and the alphabet large α = |d!|. This is called permutation Lempel–Ziv complexity (PLZC)2 [9] The most interesting thing is although analyzing a sequence from a completely deterministic point of view, it appears that CLZ [S1:T ] sometimes also contains the concept of information in a statistical sense. Indeed, it was shown in references [15, 7] that for a random stationary and ergodic process, when correctly normalized, the Lempel-Ziv complexity of the sequence tends to the entropy rate of the process; this result were extend to the permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity and the permutation entropy [9]; i.e., lim CLZ [S1:T ] T →+∞ HP E [S1:T ] log(T ) = lim T →+∞ T T (2) where HP E [S0:T −1 ] is the joint permutation entropy of the T symbols, and the righthand side is the permutation entropy rate (entropy per symbol) of the process. Such a property gave rise to the use of the permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity for permutation entropy estimation purposes. 3 Results The results obtained with recordings acquired during conscious state are compared with those acquired during unconscious states, with include sleep (all stages) and epileptic seizures. We note that while we work at the 2 From now we call the permtation Lempel–Ziv complexity as C LZ 3 signal level we made the reasonable assumption that the MEG and scalp EEG sensors record cortical activity underlying those sensors and thus throughout the text we used the term brain signals. On the other hand, the iEEG, obviously, records signals at the source level. For all the signals the permutation vector parameter used were d = 3, ..., 6 and τ = 1. 3.1 Entropy-complexity analysis from epileptic recordings To visualize the dynamics of entropy and complexity in the time, we use a non overlapping running window (∆ = 625) corresponding to 1s MEG recording points. For each window the PLZC and HPE were calculated.Fig. 1 shows the complexity (PLZC) and entropy (HPE) values correspond to a MEG recording from a patient suffering primary generalized epilepsy (A), secondary generalized epilepsy (B) and an frontal lobe epilepsy (C). For patients A and B the entropy and complexity values represented were calculated the average over the 143 channels. For patient C the values in each plot correspond a particular channel. One MEG channel corresponding to patient A, are shown in the inset of Fig. 1A), where the seizure is visible as a high amplitude in signal. The complexity-entropy graph depict clearly the dynamics of the ictal event. During conscious states (baseline) – when patients remain conscious since they are not having generalized seizures– the PLZC and HPE tent to maximum values, but as the patients experience seizures both values decrease widely, returning to the original baseline values after the event. Similar result can be seen in patient B who had 7 seizures, the seizures are visible in the inset of Fig. 1B. We can see in the graph that the baseline and the interictal activity – the recording between to seizures – reach always the highest values in entropy and complexity, declining to values well below in the ictal state (seizure). This result is repeated for each of the seizures. In Fig. 1C we show the analysis for 4 different MEG channels corresponding to: left frontal (LF23), left temporal (LT5), left occipital (LO41) and right occipital (RO43). The first two belong to the region where the seizure spread. For all channels the values of HPE and PLZC are higher in baseline, however the entropy and complexity decay in the most affected areas (LF23, LT5), while for the other areas (LO41, RO43) the complexity doesn’t change, there being a small decrease in entropy. Similar result were found in the signals of the other epileptic patients, recorded with scalp EEG and iEEG. A possible explanation for this decreas in complexity and entropy during seizures, is that there is higher synchrony during ictal periods (seizures), therefore this causes the recording signals become more stereotyped, the number of permutation vectors used to quantized the signals are smaller and more regular giving a lower entropy and complexity. This will be further commented in the discussion. 3.2 Entropy-complexity analysis during sleep stages Te recording in these cases were of 2-4 minutes duration during wakefulness with eyes opened (’Awake’) or closed, and in sleep stages slow-wave 2 (Sws2), slow-wave 3-4 (Sws3-4) and rapid eye movement (’REM’). Fig. 2A shows entropy and complexity values applying to 4 whole recording (iEEG channels): left frontal media (LFM1), right frontal media (RFM4), left temporal anterior (LTA1), right temporal anterior (RTA4). The various stages of sleep are remarkably differentiated in the graph. Note how during wakefulness entropy and the complexity is in the higher region of the graph, whereas for the slow wave stages, the values stay in the lower region. The deepest sleep stage, slow wave 3-4 (sws 3-4), has consistently the lowest entropy and complexity. Interestingly, entropy during REM sleep is very close, in most cases, to the normal, alert state. This result may not be as surprising as it appeare, if we consider the mental activity during REM episodes that are normally associated with dreams. The results are in agreement with those reported in [12, 13]. The results for 4 scalp EEG channels are shown in Fig. 2B, where the same result was obtained: higher complexity and entropy for awake state and lower for deep sleep state. In this case, during REM, the values remains between slow-wave period and wakefulness. For the other 2 subjects analyzed we obtained similar results. This example demonstrates that the same qualitative result is obtained with different recording techniques. The similarity of the result indicate that these type of analysis is not influenced by the recording methodology. 4 Discusion Our results indicate a pronounced loss of entropy and complexity in brain signals during unconscious states or in states that do not represent full alertness (eyes closed). This is consistent with what the signals represent: the coordinated collective activity of cell ensembles, which, in alert states, are responsible for optimal sensory processing. This optimality requires certain variability in the interactions among those cell networks, which will be conceivably represented in greater complexity. 4 Previous work has indicated less variability in the coordinated activity patterns in altered states of consciousness, mainly derived from the analysis of synchronization in patients in coma [21, 22], or during seizures [17, 23]. A common feature of several theories of consciousness is the notion of a broad distribution of cellular interactions in the brain that results in conscious awareness (reviewed in [24]). This requirement implies that a certain, high degree of variability in the formation and dissolution of functional cell ensembles should take place [25], and this variability will be reflected in higher complexity of the brain signals during alert states. Moreover in several computational studies have revealed as well the lower complexity associated with epilepsy and abnormal cognitive states, like schizophrenia [26] In fully alert states, brain recordings exhibit higher frequencies of relatively low amplitude, and are less regular than during other states where alertness is perturbed, including closing the eyes (when a prominent periodic alpha rhythm appears in parieto-occipital areas, for instance). Brain cell ensembles that need to integrate and segregate sensorimotor transformations while they receive rich sensory-motor inputs [27]; it is then conceivable that these characteristics will be reflected in the high entropy and complexity values we observe. As consciousness is gradually lost, during sleep, the values of entropy and complexity decrease because brain networks do not need the richness in states needed to process the sensorium. The lack of arrival of multiple sensory inputs during unconscious states decreases the need for neurons to display many different firing frequencies, since there is not much integration/segregation being done at those stages and there is not much sensory load. One consequence of this change in firing patterns during unconscious states, particularly in sleep (for a comprehensive review of the neurophysiological mechanisms leading to slow-wave sleep and other thalamocortical phenomena see [28]) is that the high frequencies (gamma range) become less prominent and there is higher synchrony at lower frequencies. As well, the amplitude of the slow waves is now high since there are more synchronized cells. Thus, all these events result in the recording becoming more regular and exhibiting the typical slow wave frequencies, and therefore our complexity measures decrease as compared to alert states. These results are consistent with measures obtained from analysis of sleep EEG using permutation entropy [12] and other nonlinear measures, such as approximate entropy, correlation dimension, recurrence plots and Hurst exponent, amongst others [29, 30, 31]. In the case of the epileptic recordings we have observed that the complexity and entropy values are larger in the interictal stage (between seizures) and decline sharply in the ictal stage (seizures). This may be due to the fact that seizures are characterized by excessive synchronous neuronal activity, which generates predominance of large amplitude waveforms, the frequencies depending on the seizure type; e.g., the frequency is low in absence seizures (3-4 Hz), but vary substantially in temporal lobe seizures. However, the frequencies remain relatively constant for certain time periods (originating a distribution of periodic epochs, or laminar phases), that have been used in the characterization of dynamical regimes in epileptiform activity [32], and therefore the complexity and entropy tend to decrease. During the sleep stages we also found decreased entropy and complexity as compared with alert states, a reflection of the aforementioned emergence of highly synchronous cell activity during slow wave sleep. On the other hand, we found that complexity during REM sleep is similar to that of the awake state. This is conceivable since REM episodes are normally associated with dreaming, and there is certain cognitive activity going on in dreams, when there is partial awareness. Previous work has shown decreases in HPE and LZC in patients under anesthesia effects [14, 10, 33], thus the decreased complexity of brain signals in unconscious states may be a common phenomenon. Hence in the final analysis what we measure, at the macro(meso)scopic level (through the recording of collective cel activity in EEG or MEG), is a reflection of that the brain handles more information during wakefulness. A larger code is required to manipulate more information. The complexity/entropy of the signals used in this work have been quantified through the Bandt and Pompe method [8], which focuses on the relative values of neighbouring data points in a time series. Every embedding vector (or motif Πd,τ i ) gives an idea of how the waveform is, in a small section, of the original signal. As the original signal carries more variable information, the waveform tend to be more fluctuating, and the number of distinct motifs required to map it increases. Because of that the probability distribution of motifs P (Πd,τ ) tends to be uniform, and this caused entropy increase. Besides, due to of the waveform fluctuation, the PLZC increases too, since much more information is required to reconstruct the signal. In contrast, for monotonal repetitive signals which have little new information, just a limited number of motifs are required, e.g. for a sinusoidal signal the PLZC and HPE tend to be zero. We note that our present resutls are complementary to those recently obtained using measures of coordinated activity, namely the number of configurations of connections derived from an index of phase synchronization [1]; we should consider that the present analysis, done on the raw signals, represent too correlated activity as each local field potential (in case of iEEG) or signals recorded in scalp EEG or MEG represent the collective activity in cell ensembles, thus these signals are themselves a measure of coordinated cell activity, and therefore it is not surprising we obtain similar observations It can be concluded that in the awake state, when information has to be handled is larger, the complexity and entropy of the signals recorded from the brain tend to be higher than in absence of consciousness, a result that stems from the distinct waveforms recorded in these mental states. 5 References [1] R. M. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, and J. L. Perez Velazquez. 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Halberg, T. Takeshima, D. T. Kaplan, H. Suyama, M. Endo, Y. Maegaki, T. Nomura, et al. Approximate entropy in the electroencephalogram during wake and sleep. Clinical EEG and neuroscience, 36(1):21–24, 2005. [32] J.L. Perez Velazquez, H. Khosravani, A. Lozano, B. Bardakjian, P. L. Carlen, R. Wennberg, et al. Type iii intermittency in human partial epilepsy. European Journal of Neuroscience, 11(7):2571–2576, 1999. [33] D. Li, X. Li, Z. Liang, L. J. Voss, and J. W. Sleigh. Multiscale permutation entropy analysis of eeg recordings during sevoflurane anesthesia. Journal of neural engineering, 7(4):046010, 2010. 7 A B 0.69 0.7 0.65 0.68 0.6 10 seg 60 seg 0.67 0.55 CLZ CLZ 0.66 0.5 0.65 0.45 BL Sz 1 Sz 2 Sz 3 Sz 4 Sz 5 Sz 6 0.64 0.4 0.63 0.35 BL Sz 0.62 0.94 0.95 0.96 HPE 0.97 0.98 0.99 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 HPE 0.95 1 C 0.64 0.62 0.65 LF23 0.6 CLZ 0.6 0.64 LT15 0.62 0.62 LO41 0.6 RO43 0.58 0.55 0.6 0.5 0.58 0.54 0.45 0.56 0.52 0.52 0.85 0.4 1 0.8 0.54 1 0.9 0.5 0.98 0.88 0.58 0.56 0.56 0.9 HPE 0.95 0.85 0.9 HPE 0.95 0.54 0.92 0.94 HPE 0.96 BL Sz 0.9 0.92 0.94 HPE 0.96 0.98 Figure 1: Represent the permutation Lempel Ziv complexity (CLZ ) vs permutation entropy (HP E ) (with parameter d = 4 and τ = 1) time tracking values for a MEG signal in epileptic patients during conscious, baseline (BL) and unconscious, seizure (Sz) states. A) Patient with primary generalized epilepsy, the MEG signal for one channel is plotted in the inset (the high amplitude represent the seizure). We observe that before the seizure entropy and the complexity the values remains very high, decreasing in the seizure epoch and return to the original values after the seizure. B) Patient with secondary generalized epilepsy, who had 7 seizure during the recording period, is in the inset. When the patient stay in the inter-ictal state (no seizure period) entropy and complexity values are higher and decreasing in the every attack. C) Patient suffering from frontal lobe epilepsy; 4 channels were analysed separately, left frontal (LF23), left temporal (LT5), left occipital (LO41), right occipital (RO43). For the two recording areas affecting by the seizure (LF23 and LT5) entropy and complexity change in the ictal state, but for the areas which are not affected (LO41 and RO43), the CLZ and HP E values are the same that in baseline state. The same result we obtained for the parameter d = 3, 4, 5, 6 and τ = 1. 8 0.17 A B 0.36 0.18 0.37 0.16 C CLZ 0.34 0.36 RTA4 0.16 T1 LZ LTA1 O1 0.35 0.32 0.15 0.34 0.14 0.14 0.18 0.3 0.13 0.44 0.46 0.48 0.5 0.42 0.45 0.48 0.33 0.52 0.19 0.82 0.84 0.86 0.88 0.9 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.37 0.36 0.17 0.12 0.13 0.1 0.35 0.4 0.35 RFM4 0.15 0.45 HPE 0.5 0.11 0.35 Aw Oc REM Sws 2 Sws 3-4 0.4 0.45 0.5 LZ LFM1 0.14 C CLZ 0.16 F3 0.33 0.55 HPE 0.31 0.75 F4 0.34 Aw Oc REM Sws 2 Sws 3-4 0.32 0.8 0.85 HPE 0.89 0.3 0.75 0.8 0.85 HPE Figure 2: A) Each windows the channel recording from one iEEG channels analyzing by the permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity (CLZ ) vs permutation entropy (HP E ) graph (with parameter d = 4 and τ = 1), for a patient recording during sleep. Data samples were of 2-4 minutes duration during wakefulness with eyes open (’Aw Oe’) , and sleep stages slow-wave 2 (‘Sws2’), slow-wave 3-4 (‘Sws3-4’) and rapid eye movement (’REM’). The electrode localization are: left frontal media (LFM1), rigth frontal media (RFM4), left temporal anterior (LTA1), right temporal anterior (RTA4), the yellow circle show the position of the channel in the brain. When the patient go in deeper sleep states, both PLZC and HPE decreases across all channels. B) The same analysis as in A applied to another subject (scalp EEG channel recording), as in the previous one, awake state has the higher entropy and complexity and the values decrease for deeper state of sleep. For the REM stage the values are remains between the sleep stages and the wakefulness stage. The same result we obtained for all patient analyzed with the parameter d = 3, .., 6 and τ = 1. 9

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 610 Article On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT In the third part of this work what is described is how formless Consciousness, owing to the way in which it naturally relates to the world of forms once it has lost sight of Itself though identification with form, unknowingly keeps Itself caught up in, and so bound to, the relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form, and so unknowingly perpetuates both its identification with form as well as its inability to become aware or conscious of the Formlessness that is Itself, thereby also perpetuating the illusion that reality, i.e., apprehended form, is what is actually there where it appears to be. Also described in the third part of this work is what formidentified Consciousness must do, so to speak, in order to extricate Itself from the cage of formidentification in which it is, owing to the way it naturally relates to Itself through the proxy of form while still identified with form, unknowingly keeping Itself trapped. And what formidentified Formlessness must do, in order to extricate Itself from the cage of form-identification in which it has trapped Itself, is change the way it naturally and habitually relates to the universe of experiential forms, owing to its identification with form, while still identified primarily with form. This first article of Part 3 contains the following sections: The mutually exclusive nature of identification with form and identification with the Formless; The self-perpetuating nature of the Movement into identification with form; & The way out of form-identification. Key Words: Consciousness, formless, form, physical reality, creation, nature. The mutually exclusive nature of identification with form and identification with the Formless As mentioned previously, the purpose of this writing is not to provide the reader with additional concepts, with additional form-based knowledge, that one can then add to one's form-identity. Rather, the purpose of this writing is to demonstrate to the reader the reflection or shadow-like nature of form in order to weaken the reader's identification with form. And the ultimate purpose of weakening one's identification with form is to facilitate the turning of one's Attention toward the Formlessness that must remain hidden in plain sight as long as one's Attention remains fully fixed upon form, as it does while one is fully identified with form and thereby unavoidably involved in the reactive Movements of attachment and aversion. To turn one's Attention toward *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 611 the Formless, which is an internal Movement, and to thereby become aware of Awareness, conscious of Consciousness, is to wake up to some degree from the dream of form-identification in which most of humanity dwells, and to thereby Awaken to some degree to one's true Nature, which Nature remains unavoidably hidden as long as the dream continues, which is to say, as long as individualized Beingness continues to move or flow Itself into form-identification at full Force. Thus, if an individualized Beingness is not able to Move in that direction, i.e., not able to turn its Attention toward the Formless, such a Beingness must then continue to dream the dream of form-identification, and while dreaming that dream continue to remain completely unaware and unconscious of its true Nature, which is not other than the true Nature of the universe itself. It is important to understand that no one can take this step for you, that no force outside yourself can turn your Attention away from form and toward the Formless, because you yourself, as you truly are, are the Force and Flow of formless Beingness, albeit individualized Beingness, but formless Beingness nonetheless. However, it is quite possible that, as of this writing, you are an individualized Beingness that is fully identified with form and so flowing Itself only toward form, flowing all of its Attention toward form, and as a result conscious only of that, conscious only of form. That having been said, to paraphrase Eckhart Tolle, pointing out the possibility of your complete identification with form is nothing personal; rather, it is just a statement that has as its basis the recognition that the vast majority of human Beings are, at the time of this writing, completely identified with form and so have no idea whatsoever that there is a completely different, much more pleasant, much more satisfying, and much more fulfilling, way to Be. All that having been said, in order to flow at least some of your Attention toward the Formless, and thereby become to some degree conscious of That, conscious of the Formless, conscious of Consciousness, conscious of what is ultimately your true Self, you must at some point withdraw some of your Attention from form, i.e., you must direct some of the flow of your Beingness in a direction other than toward form, because in the absence of that Movement you have no Attention to give to what is ultimately your Self, and so no way of Knowing what is ultimately your formless Self. The Formless can become conscious of Itself, can become conscious of Consciousness, in the same way it can be conscious of form, but it cannot do so under any and all conditions. For individualized Consciousness to be conscious of Itself requires the involvement of that individualized Consciousness in a particular relation with Itself, and because the consciousness of Consciousness requires a particular relation, and because for every relation there is an opposite relation, there then must be an opposite relation in which individualized Consciousness can be involved with Itself in which individualized Consciousness is not conscious of Itself. And that opposite relation with Itself, in which relation individualized Consciousness is not conscious of Itself, in which relation individualized Consciousness cannot be conscious of Itself, is the relation in which individualized Consciousness is involved with Itself when it is identified with form, which is to say, the relation in which individualized Consciousness must be involved with Itself in order to create the knowledge or experience of itself as some form. And as long as an individualized Beingness continues to be involved in that relation, i.e., in the relation that is creating its identification with form, that individualized Beingness is simply not able to become involved in the opposite relation necessary for it to become directly conscious of Itself as Formlessness, directly conscious of its formless Self, directly conscious of its formless Nature, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 612 absent any intervening form, including the concept of formlessness. The impossibility of being involved simultaneously in opposite and so mutually exclusive relations is not a condition that a single individualized Beingness is able to overcome. If an individualized Beingness is involved in one relation with Itself then it is by definition not involved in the opposite relation with Itself. Thus, in order for an individualized Beingness to become directly conscious of Itself as it Is, i.e., as a Formlessness rather than as a form, that Beingness must withdraw to some degree from its complete involvement in the relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form so that the possibility of its becoming involved in the opposite relation can arise. Throughout time there have been many human Beings, many teachers, who have Awoken to one degree or another from the dream of form-identification, and having done so they did what they could to point their fellow Beings in the direction of the Formlessness to which they Awoke when the dream more or less ended, for those who have Awoken to the Formlessness know that all that can be done with words is to point toward it, because they know that what they are pointing toward is Itself beyond words, because it is beyond form. And none of those teachers, living or otherwise, no matter how great, no matter how fully Realized, no matter how fully Awake, can carry you across the threshold from form into No-form, across the threshold from form-identification, where what you are remains hidden from you, into identification with the Formless, where what you are is revealed to you. All those teachers can do, the very most that any one of them or even all of them can do, is use form to take you to that threshold and then use form to point you in the direction beyond which no form may pass, which threshold into Noform you may cross because you are not a form, but which threshold into No-form you may not cross while still carrying with you your form-identity, which is to say, while still knowing yourself fully as form. You cannot cross the threshold into No-form while still knowing yourself fully as form because as long as you remain fully identified with form you remain fully involved in the Movement that is the opposite of the Movement in which you must become involved in order to cross the threshold into No-form. Put another way, you cannot cross the threshold beyond which no form may pass while still primarily identified with form because the ceaseless Movement of one's full Attention toward form that is part and parcel of both form-identification, as well as the reactive Movements that identification with form makes so seemingly natural and necessary, is the opposite of the Movement of Attention toward the Formless that is the awareness of Awareness, the consciousness of Consciousness, that is itself the crossing of the threshold into No-form. Every movement of individualized Consciousness, every flow of individualized Beingness, makes it impossible for that same point of Beingness to simultaneously Move or Flow in the opposite way. This is the limitation which Beingness that is being in relation to Itself unavoidably imposes upon Itself. And since this universe is composed of Beingness that is being in relation to Itself, thereby becoming Form and apprehending form, this is a limitation that we, as Beingness operating in this universe, cannot ourselves avoid. This limitation produces all appearance of the world as this or that form, as this limitation makes it impossible for a single individualized Beingness to simultaneously become involved in the opposite relations with Beingness necessary to create what that individualized Beingness would apprehend as opposite forms, so that everything must, in any one moment, appear to a single individualized Beingness ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 613 as either this or that form, as either this or that reality. And this same limitation of relation is also what makes it impossible for individualized Beingness to Know Itself as it Is, i.e., as a Formlessness, while actively knowing itself as some form. Put another way, it is for the same reason that when a wave-form is observed that the particle-form becomes hidden, which phenomenon is referred to as wave-particle duality, or that to the extent to which any form is observed that to that same extent the opposite form becomes hidden, which phenomenon is referred to as uncertainty, that to the extent to which we know ourselves as form that to that same extent our true formless Nature becomes obscured, which phenomenon is referred to as maya, because in all of these cases, i.e., wave-particle duality, uncertainty, and maya, what is actually happening in order to allow what is apprehended to be apprehended, whether it is some form that is being apprehended or the Formless Itself that is being apprehended, is Beingness being in relation to Itself, Beingness flowing in relation to Itself, and as a result becoming conscious of what its involvement in that relation has its Attention flowing toward. And because whatever individualized Beingness is conscious of requires its involvement in some relation, be it the consciousness of this or that form or of the Formless Itself, and because it is not possible for an individualized Beingness to be simultaneously involved with Beingness in what are opposite and so mutually exclusive relations, what a single individualized Beingness can be conscious of in any one moment is unavoidably limited by whatever relations in which that individualized Beingness is already and presently involved as it apprehends whatever it is already and presently apprehending. However, although individualized Beingness' apprehension of form, as well as its apprehension of the Formless, both require its involvement in some relation with Beingness, there is a difference between the apprehension of form and the apprehension of the Formless, because form must first be created by some relation of Beingness to Itself in order to be apprehended, whereas the Formless already Is and so does not need to be created in order to be apprehended. That is, when individualized Beingness apprehends form, i.e., becomes conscious of some reality, what it is apprehending has been created by some relation of Beingness to Itself. On the other hand, when individualized Beingness apprehends the Formless, i.e., becomes conscious of Consciousness, what it is apprehending has not been created, although the apprehension of the Formless by individualized Beingness does require the coming into being of Form in order to allow for the relation of Beingness to Itself, i.e., the movement of Beingness toward Itself, that is the consciousness of Consciousness. Thus, the apprehension of the Formless does involve Attention being directed primarily toward the Formless rather than primarily toward form, and so does involve some relation of Beingness to Itself. But what is apprehended when it is the Formless that is being apprehended is not something that has been created as a result of that relation, because the Formless already and always Is. The apprehension of the Formless by individualized Beingness may require a relation, but what individualized Beingness apprehends as a result of that relation is, unlike what it apprehends as form, Itself Non-relational, Itself not dependent upon any relation in order to Be. Before the relation it already Was, during the relation it continues to Be, and absent any relation it still Is. And so the relation is necessary, or at least seems to be necessary, to bring about, within this universe of Form, the apprehension of the Formless by the Formless, but that relation is not necessary to bring into Being the Formless Itself, not necessary to bring into Being either That which apprehends or That which is apprehended, which are not two different things but are rather a singular formless Non-thing. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 614 Here the mind reaches a limit as we approach with words, with forms, that which is, in its essence, a formless Singularity lying beyond the concepts of form and No-form. Conversely, in order for individualized Beingness to apprehend form as reality, the form apprehended as reality must itself be created by some relation of Beingness to Itself in order for it to even exist as a dual or two-sided something, one side of which individualized Beingness can then apprehend from its always limited perspective upon that created form as a particular and polarized reality, i.e., as this or that, or as some portion of this and some remaining portion of that. This is why what formless Beingness apprehends as form, even though it is created by and so arises within formless Beingness, is not Beingness, is not the nature of Beingness, and so creates delusion when Beingness thinks of itself as being this or that, i.e., as being some form. Beingness cannot be found within form any more than substance can be found within shadow. Lesser form is an appearance, an existence; formless Beingness is what Is. Metaphysically speaking, differentiating between the apprehending Formlessness and the forms which that Formlessness apprehends has often been referred to as discrimination between the real and the unreal. However, now that it is possible to understand that reality is simply apprehended form, it seems more useful and internally consistent to speak of this difference as a discrimination between the Actual and the real, referring then to What Is Actually There and the reflection or shadow that only appears to be what is actually there, respectively. This approach does not require that we redefine reality, but allows us to accept reality as it appears, which is as real, but it does require that we understand that that which appears as reality, and so that which we call real, is of the nature of a reflection or shadow, and so only appears to be what is there because it is not what is actually there where it appears to be. In this way of describing the universe, What Is Actually There where reality only appears to be is not Itself then a reality, not Itself real, but is something beyond real, something beyond the collection of diverse reflections that we call reality, and in this particular classification and conceptualization that something beyond real is referred to as the Actual. All these words are just signposts, but the more consistent the signposts that we use are, the more clearly they are able to point, as a group or as a whole, in the direction in which they are intended. And it is because from within this Dimension of Form, constructed of formless Beingness flowing in relation to Itself, that the apprehension of the Formless, the apprehension of the Uncreated, does require some relation of Beingness to Itself, some relation of the Formless to Itself, that it becomes possible, within this Dimension of Form, for Beingness to lose sight of Itself, to obscure Itself. This Self-obscuring becomes possible within the Dimension of Form because, for the relation that brings about individualized Beingness' apprehension of the Formless to even be possible, through which relation individualized Beingness can Know Itself directly as unconditioned and non-individualized Beingness while still flowing through Form, it must also be possible for individualized Beingness to become involved in the opposite relation which brings about the opposite apprehension, which opposite apprehension in this case is not just the apprehension of form, but is individualized Beingness' apprehension of itself as form, which is another way of saying the identification of individualized Beingness with form. Put another way, for it to be possible for individualized Beingness to Know Itself as it Is within the Dimension of Form it must also be possible for individualized Beingness, operating within the Dimension of Form, to know itself as it is-not. Put yet another way, for there to be the possibility ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 615 of Self-knowledge within the Dimension of Form, there must also be within that Dimension the possibility of Self-ignorance. The wave-form can only be known where there was, prior to that knowing, also the possibility of knowing the particle-form, and vice versa. Likewise, Selfknowledge can only be had where there was, prior to that Knowing, also the possibility of acquiring Self-ignorance, and vice versa. The potential for both Self-knowledge and Self-ignorance has always been there and is always there, for that potential rests in the Infinite Potentiality that is the Formless. But the Formless did not evolve Itself into Form, did not become Form, did not mould Itself into the Universe, for the potential to Know Itself to remain only potential. To the contrary, the Formless moulded Itself into the Universe, became Form, in order to actualize and realize directly the Infinite Potential within Itself, the Infinite Potential that is Itself. The Infinite Potential has no form, and also has no Form. The Infinite Potential is beyond form and even Form. But if the Formless remained completely formless, i.e., without Form, it would also remain only potential, and not become either actualized or realized. Converting the Infinite Potential that is the timeless and spaceless Singularity of unconditioned Beingness into the Actual requires formless Beingness to smear Itself out, as it were, into space and time, into Form, to provide seemingly different places and times for the Indivisible Singularity that is the Infinite Potential of Unconditioned Beingness to become an infinity of Actualities appearing as infinitely varied realities. And the way unconditioned Beingness spreads Itself out, as it were, becoming different points in space and different moments in time, while all the while still remaining a spaceless and timeless Singularity, is through iterative and progressive Self-relation, remaining always what it unconditionally Is while simultaneously becoming what it conditionally Is in relation to Itself. What unconditioned Beingness unconditionally Is is Consciousness. What unconditioned Beingness conditionally Is in relation to Itself is Form. In this Dimension of Form, constructed of formless Beingness flowing in relation to Itself, where all relations of Beingness to Itself are potentially possible, and thus where one relation is possible the opposite relation must also be possible, the only way in which a particular relation of Beingness to Itself becomes no longer possible in a given moment is because the opposite relation is, in that same moment, also no longer possible because it has become Actual, or Actualized. Thus, moving one relation from the realm of the Potential to the Actual also takes the opposite relation out of the realm of the Potential, but does not create its Actuality, but rather makes the simultaneous creation of its Actuality impossible. This is how the evolution of Form has proceeded. We begin with Infinite Potential, and with each relation and each Actualization that Potential becomes constrained to a particular Form. And yet, although the Form is constrained by the relation of Beingness to Itself of which it is composed, because the Form is composed of unconditioned Beingness, albeit unconditioned Beingness flowing in relation to Itself, the Form nonetheless Itself contains Infinite Potential, leaving that Infinite Potential to then express Itself through the Form, through some now and newly possible relation of formless Beingness to Itself that brings into being another constrained Form, through which the Infinite Potential of which the new Form is composed can then express Itself through some now and newly possible relation of Beingness to Itself that brings into being another constrained Form, through which the Infinite Potential of which the new Form is composed can then express Itself, and on and on and on it goes until here we are, that Infinite Potential, that unconditioned ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 616 Beingness, that Consciousness, flowing through a constrained Form of Itself, Individualized but nonetheless containing ourselves Infinite Potential, and so the potential to become involved in this relation or that relation and so to bring into being this or that Actuality, this or that Form, while simultaneously creating this or that form which form we, as the unconditioned Beingness of which all the Forms are composed, apprehend from a particular perspective within the Dimension of Form as this or that reality. But for every relation in which we become involved out of the Infinite Potential of relations that lies within us and is us, thereby taking one of those relations from the level of Potential to the level of Actual, thereby bringing into being Form while simultaneously creating form apprehended as reality, we also simultaneously remove from the level of Potential, at least for our Individualized Self, the possibility of our becoming involved in the opposite and so mutually exclusive relation, thereby making it impossible for us to simultaneously bring into being the opposite Actuality, thereby making it impossible for us to simultaneously create the opposite form, thereby making it impossible for us to simultaneously apprehend the opposite reality. And it is only because we ourselves are the Infinite Potential that our involvement in some relation removes from the realm of the Infinite Potential the opposite relation, because once we become involved in some relation, and as long as we are involved in a particular relation, we, i.e., the Infinite Potential, are simply not available and so are simply not able to become involved in the opposite and so mutually exclusive relation, in which case the opposite relation is, for as long as we are involved in a particular relation, no longer part of our now constrained, and yet still infinite, Potential. However, this removal of a particular relation from the realm of the Potential while we are Actualizing the opposite relation lasts only so long as we continue to Actualize the opposite relation, which is to say, as long as we remain involved in the relation that is bringing into being the Actuality and also creating the form apprehended as reality. That is, if we cease to be involved in a particular relation, then both relations, i.e., the previously Actualized and the nonActualized, return to the realm of the Potential because we are now available and so able to become involved in either relation, i.e., our involvement in either relation once again becomes possible, in which case the bringing into being of either Actuality and so either reality also once again becomes possible. And so it is that, while involved in the relation in which we bring into being an Actuality within which is created a form that is apprehended or realized as a particular reality, e.g., a particle reality, we simultaneously remove from the realm of the Potential the possibility of our involvement in the opposite and so mutually exclusive relation needed to bring into being the opposite Actuality within which would be created the opposite form that would be apprehended or realized as the opposite reality, which in this case would be a wave reality. However, if we cease to be in the relation that creates a particular reality then our involvement in either relation once again becomes possible and so both relations once again become potential, until one is Actualized thereby simultaneously taking the other off the table, so to speak. Likewise, while involved in the relation in which we identify with form and thereby create Selfignorance, we simultaneously remove the opposite relation from our individualized Potential and so make impossible our involvement in the relation that is identification with the Formless and the realization of Self-knowledge. However, if we can, even for a moment, cease to be involved in the relation in which we identify with form then both relations return to the Potential and ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 617 identification with the Formless then becomes possible. But as we shall explore in the next section, the great barrier to Self-knowledge is not the effort, or really the absence of effort, it takes to become involved in the relation in which one identifies with the Formless; rather, the great barrier to Self-knowledge is the difficulty in ceasing to be involved in the relation in which one identifies with form, once one has become involved in that relation, so that the opposite relation that would allow us to identify with the Formless can once again become part of our individualized Potential and so once again becomes even possible. The self-perpetuating nature of the Movement into identification with form As described in the last section, the duality between the Knowledge and the Ignorance, which is to say, between Self-knowledge and Self-ignorance, is not a duality between the apprehension of form and the apprehension of the Formless, but is a duality between Beingness' apprehension of itself as form and Beingness' apprehension of Itself as formless Beingness, a duality between Beingness' identification with what it is aware of or conscious of as form and Beingness' identification with what it is or can be aware of or conscious of as formless Beingness. And so, the duality between Self-knowledge and Self-ignorance arises from a duality of opposite and mutually exclusive movements of Beingness in relation to Itself, one of which Movements causes individualized Beingness to become identified with form and the other of which Movements allows individualized Beingness to become aware of Awareness, or conscious of Consciousness, absent any intervening forms, including the concepts of Awareness and Consciousness, thereby making it possible for formless Beingness to Know and identify with Itself. Those then are the two mutually exclusive relations, those are the two mutually exclusive movements of Beingness within the Dimension of Form, within the Dimension composed of Itself flowing in relation to Itself, that underlie the opposite states of Being that are Selfknowledge and Self-ignorance. And as mentioned at the end of the last section, the difficulty individualized Beingness faces with regard to becoming involved in the relation that would allow it to identify with the Formless does not confront individualized Beingness as a result of that relation being a difficult relation in which to become involved, as it is not. Rather, the difficulty faced by individualized Beingness with regard to becoming involved in the relation with Itself that would allow it to identify with the Formless is the difficulty that surrounds individualized Beingness' ceasing to be involved in the relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form, in which relation it must to some degree cease to be involved in order for there to arise the possibility of its becoming involved in the opposite relation that would allow it to identify with the Formless. The difficulty that surrounds individualized Beingness' ceasing to be involved in the relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form has as its basis the self-perpetuating nature of the movement of Beingness into the relation with Itself that creates its identification with form. That is, once individualized Beingness moves or flows Itself into the relation with Itself that causes it to identify with form, the delusion of form-identification which that Movement and relation creates sets into motion a process that has as its result the continued and ongoing movement of formidentified individualized Beingness into the relation that causes it to identify with form, regardless of any effort made by that individualized Beingness to disidentify with form, because, ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 618 as will be described, the perpetuation of that process is fueled by the efforts that naturally arise as individualized Beingness tries to escape the suffering that unavoidably and inevitably arises within Itself once it has identified with form. The reason that the movement of individualized Beingness into the relation with Itself that causes it to identify with form is self-perpetuating, which movement into that relation simultaneously removes from possibility its opposite movement into the relation with Itself that would allow for its identification with the Formless, is because, from within the reality of formidentification, any movement that form-identified individualized Beingness makes to extricate its illusory self from the suffering it inevitably experiences as a result of its identification with form is actually a Movement that is a continuation and so perpetuation of the movement of Beingness into the relation with Itself that is causing it to identify with form. Thus, any effort to escape the suffering created by its identification with form only perpetuates the relation in which individualized Beingness is involved with Itself that is itself the cause of its suffering. And as long as an individualized Beingness remains completely involved in the relation that creates its identification with form, it simply is not possible for that individualized Beingness to become involved to any degree in the opposite and so mutually exclusive relation with Itself necessary to allow for its consciousness of and identification with its formless Self, i.e., with the Formless. This perpetuation of the relation that creates Beingness' identification with form occurs once individualized Beingness has identified with form because virtually all Movements made from within the reality of form-identification tend to be reactive Movements that have the individualized Beingness' identification with form as their basis, as form-identified individualized Beingness reacts to apprehended form with either attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing. In any case, regardless of whether the reaction to form is one of attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, because these reactive Movements have the Movement and so relation that creates form-identification as their basis, they serve to lock, knot, and bind individualized Beingness into the relation that creates its identification with form, as shown in figure 31. primary Movement and relat ion of Beingness to Itself Movement of individualized Beingness into the relation with Itself that causes it to identify with form ISSN: 2153-8212 secondary Movement and relation of Beingness to Itself secondary Movement of individualized Beingness into a relation with Itself through its reactive relation to form.... Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. ....that locks into place the primary Movement and so relation of Beingness to Itself that is creating its identification with form www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 619 Figure 31 Depicted on the left in the form of a rope or string is the movement or flow of individualized Beingness into the relation with Itself that creates, for that individualized Beingness, the reality that is its identification with form. Depicted on the right is a reactive movement or flow of that now form-identified individualized Beingness into a relation of attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, which reactive Movement follows naturally and unavoidably once Beingness has identified with form. What this drawing shows is that, since the movement of individualized Beingness into the reactive relations of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing are secondary Movements and relations that have as their basis the already present and so primary Movement and relation of individualized Beingness into formidentification, that these reactive secondary Movements must then lock, knot, and bind individualized Beingness into the primary Movement and relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form, thereby effectively trapping that individualized Beingness in the reality of form-identification as long as that Beingness remains engaged and involved in the reactive Movements and relations that seem to be both natural and necessary while it is identified with form. In general, a Movement that has another Movement as its basis can only continue as long as the Movement that is its basis also continues. Therefore, the presence of a secondary Movement not only implies the presence of the primary Movement that is its basis, but even more importantly, the presence of a secondary Movement essentially forces or causes the continuation of the primary Movement that is its basis. Every movement of Beingness is ultimately a Movement in relation to Itself, because there actually is nothing else, and so ultimately every movement of Beingness brings into being some relation of Beingness to Itself. The Movement that brings into being the relation that allows individualized Beingness to identify with the Formless is one Movement, whereas the Movement that brings into being the opposite relation that causes individualized Beingness to identify with form is the opposite Movement. Likewise, the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing also bring into being a relation of Beingness to Itself. However, since the relation that is brought into being by the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing has as its basis an already present Movement and relation, those reactive secondary Movements not only create a new relation of Beingness to Itself, but they also lock into place the primary Movement and relation that is their basis, since these reactive Movements are ultimately a progression of the primary Movement of Beingness into identification with form. What figure 31 shows is that secondary Movements and relations cannot do other than lock into place and so perpetuate the primary Movement and relation that is their basis. For this reason, the reactive, unconscious, and secondary Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing bind individualized Beingness to the primary Movement and relation that is creating its identification with form, because it is not possible for individualized Beingness to cease to be involved in that primary Movement and relation as long as that primary Movement and relation is serving as the basis for that individualized Beingness' subsequent reactive Movement. Thus, a reactive Movement is simply a Movement or Action that is actually the continuation and natural progression of a previous Movement or Action, and is therefore a re-Action, and so is called a reactive Movement. Put another way, the primary Movement and relation cannot itself cease as long as it is fueling a secondary Movement and relation, because the secondary Movement and relation can only be Actualized as long as the primary Movement and relation itself remains Actualized. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 620 The reason this binding of individualized Beingness into a primary Movement and relation as the result of its subsequent involvement in a secondary Movement and relation that has that primary Movement and relation as its basis is important to understand is because this is the essential mechanism that causes the perpetuation of form-identification once individualized Beingness has identified with form. And the reason it is important to understand the essential mechanism that perpetuates form-identification is because, as long as form-identification is being perpetuated by this mechanism, which means that as long as individualized Beingness is locked into or bound to the primary Movement and relation that is creating its identification with form by its subsequent involvement in the reactive secondary Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, then it is not even potentially possible for that individualized Beingness to undertake the opposite primary Movement and so not even potentially possible for that individualized Beingness to become involved in the opposite primary relation that would allow it to identify with the Formless. In other words, as long as form-identified individualized Beingness is moving or flowing Itself into attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, it is not even potentially possible, in that same moment, for that individualized Beingness to identify with the Formless, and so not even potentially possible for that individualized Beingness, in that moment, to do other than remain in Self-ignorance, blind to its true nature as formless Sachchidananda, i.e., Beingness-Consciousness-Bliss. As stated previously, individualized Beingness contains Infinite Potential because it is Infinite Potential. Thus, even while identified with form individualized Beingness remains Infinite Potential. However, while identified with form that Infinite Potential seems to be constrained to reactive Movements, two of which create suffering for the individualized Beingness, and all of which bind that Beingness to its identification with form. These reactive Movements, i.e., attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, appear to be the only Movements possible once individualized Beingness has identified with form and so is viewing the world through the egoic lens, i.e., filtering all experience through the form or collection of forms it takes for itself. For this reason, once individualized Beingness has identified with form it either reactively Moves to cling in some way to those forms that seem to be needed to enhance its form-identity, reactively Moves to push away, run from, or eliminate in some way those forms that seem to diminish its form-identity, or reflexively allows those forms that already seem to be in some way enhancing its form-identity, whereas those forms that appear to do nothing to either enhance or diminish the form-identity are simply ignored. Here it must be noted that the reactive secondary Movement that is the reflexive allowing of form, which Movement does not directly produce suffering, only becomes possible and only arises in those relatively rare moments when the reactive Movements of attachment and aversion do not seem to be needed in that moment to either enhance or avoid the diminishment of the form-identity, because the forms being apprehended in that moment appear to have already reached an optimal arrangement toward those two ends. But the moment a form arises that is not arranged optimally, then the reactive Movements of attachment and aversion resume, along with the suffering those Movements create, because the reactive Movement of reflexive allowing, even though it did not directly produce suffering, nonetheless sustained the primary Movement into identification with form and so sustained the primary Movement that invariably and inevitably leads to the reactive secondary Movements of attachment and aversion that do ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 621 produce suffering. In this way, even reflexive allowing, which causes Beingness to flow in alignment with Itself and so produces a form apprehended by Beingness as a wanted emotional experience or reality, is itself an indirect source of suffering, as it serves to maintain or sustain the primary Movement into form-identification that invariably and inevitably leads to the reactive and Self-oppositional Movements of attachment and aversion. Perhaps this is why St. Francis, as well as many others, sought hardship rather than comfort, and why Lao Tzu wrote, "Which is more dangerous, success or failure?" The way out of form-identification This limitation that arises for individualized Beingness once it has identified with form, limited to the reactive and unconscious Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, two of which Movements directly create suffering, and all of which Movements serve to bind Beingness to its identification with form, thereby making impossible the identification of that Beingness with its formless Self, is the only bondage there is. To free one's Self from this bondage, to free one's Self from being trapped within this self-perpetuating pattern of Flow that both blinds one to their true Nature and causes one to suffer, is the goal, so to speak, of Beingness as it flows individualized through human Form. And once that goal has been reached, to whatever degree, an additional goal arises, and that goal is to assist other individual flows of Beingness, in whatever way one is Moved, in their attempts to release themselves from that same bondage. It is toward both of those ends that all of this has been written, and it is toward both of those ends that I will now describe, to the best of my present ability, understanding, and Realization, the way out of the seemingly inescapable trap of form-identification into which we unavoidably Flow as we Flow through human Form. So much has just been written regarding the way in which we become trapped in formidentification through our involvement in the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing because once a trap is understood the way out, if there is a way out, becomes obvious, or if not obvious at least perhaps easier to locate. And there is always a way out, because there had to be a way in, else one would not find themself trapped. And as has just been described, the way in which we become trapped in form-identification is not so much through our identification with form, because that Movement, while necessary, is not itself the Movement that springs the trap shut. Rather, as shown in figures 32 and 33, the way in which we become trapped in form-identification, once we have unavoidably wandered into it by virtue of being born human, is through the secondary and reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing in which we also unavoidably become involved once we have identified with form. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) secondary Movements into various and limitless relations as an expression of the unconstrained Infinite Potential of individualized Beingness Self-knowledge liberation-enlightenment identification with the Formless opposite primary Movement not possible while Moving into secondary reactive relations of attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing this primary Movement and relation only becomes possible while not reactively Moving into relations of attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, i.e., while not bound to the opposite primary Movement primary Movement into form-identification (the human condition) identification with form .....thereby binding individualized Beingness to its Movement into identification with form, making ... the cycle of Self-ignorance bondage-delusion ....seemingly natural and necessary reactive Movement into attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, .... Infinite Potential of individualized Beingness constrained to the secondary and reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing that bind it to the primary Movement that is creating its identification with form Figure 32 What this drawing shows is, at the bottom, the cycle of Self-ignorance in which human Beings become trapped once they unavoidably identify with form and so begin to naturally and reactively move or flow their individualized Beingness into the relations of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing with apprehended form. What is shown at the top is the movement of individualized Beingness into identification with the Formless, which primary Movement can only occur once individualized Beingness is no longer binding Itself, through its involvement in the reactive secondary Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, to the opposite primary Movement that is creating its identification with form. As long as individualized Beingness is identified with form, its secondary Movements are limited almost exclusively to reactive Movements, as such a form-identified Beingness feels an obligation to react to whatever forms it apprehends according to its particular conditioning, i.e., according to the particular set of forms it knows as itself. Conversely, once the primary Movement of individualized Beingness is a Movement into identification with the Formless, its secondary Movements are no longer reactive and so are no longer constrained, but are instead ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 622 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 623 able to fully express the Infinite Potential inherent in the individualized Beingness. Also, the secondary Movements that have the primary Movement of identification with the Formless as their basis also serve to bind individualized Beingness to the primary Movement that is their basis, but because what the individualized Beingness is being bound to in this case is a Movement into the direct Realization of its nature as the Infinite and Eternal, the Spaceless and the Timeless, the result of its becoming bound to that primary Movement by any subsequent secondary Movements is not Self-delusion and bondage, as is the case when the primary Movement is into form-identification, but is rather a deepening or intensification of the direct Realization of its formless Nature. Movement into form-identification (trap arises as secondary and reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing then appear as only possible Movements) trapped in form-identification through reactive secondary Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing Figure 33 The particular trap in which we find ourselves, i.e., the trap of form-identification, is sort of like a Chinese finger trap, inasmuch as it is a very easy trap to Move into, but once in that trap almost any Movement we make, including any effort to try and extricate ourselves from the trap, is a Movement and effort that only serves to keep us held within the trap, which in this case means we remain bound to the Movement that creates our identification with form. This is because the only Movements that seem either reasonable or possible while identified with form are the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, which Movements are actually secondary Movements that bind us to the primary Movement that is creating our identification with form, and so are Movements that trap us in the state of formidentification. And while operating completely in the state of form-identification, as occurs while involved in these reactive secondary Movements, our formless Nature becomes hidden in plain sight, as all of our Attention is then being directed toward form. Thus, the problem, such as it is, is not so much our Movement into form-identification; rather the problem, i.e., that which actually keeps us trapped in form-identification and so keeps hidden from us our formless Nature, are the reactive Movements in which we remain almost continuously involved once we have Moved into identification with form. Thus, the reason so many seek but so few find is because the nature of the trap of formidentification is such that any effort to escape the trap is actually a Movement that activates the trap, because all efforts to escape the trap, since they are efforts and so Movements that arise while identified with form, are ultimately reactive Movements of either attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing that bind one to the state one is, through one's efforts and Movements, actually trying to escape. Even trying to feel good and succeeding at it still keeps one trapped within form-identification, if that success at creating emotional wantedness has as its basis a reactive and so reflexive allowing of apprehended form. Additionally, what so many are seeking ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 624 but so few find is a way out of the suffering that is unavoidably created as form-identified individualized Beingness reacts to the world, both inner and outer, through the inherently Selfoppositional Movements of attachment and aversion. And the reason so few find a way out of that suffering is because in seeking a way out one almost always, without knowing it, eliminates the only way out, because one almost always seeks the way out through some effort and so through what is actually a reactive Movement into either attachment or aversion, thereby locking into place the Movement into form-identification that is ultimately the source of the suffering one is trying to escape. It is this understanding of the utter futility and counterproductivity of any effort to escape the trap of form-identification that itself points the way out of the trap. As just stated, almost all efforts to escape the trap of form-identification are efforts to escape the suffering we unavoidably create and endure as a result of our subsequent involvement in the reactive, secondary, and inherently Self-oppositional Movements of attachment and aversion that follow naturally, but not effortlessly, from our primary Movement into identification with form. The only way to escape the trap is to cease trying to escape the trap, the only way to put an end to the suffering is to stop trying to put an end to the suffering. Thus, the only way out is to cease all efforts to get out. But how does one cease effort in a way that is not itself just a more subtle effort? That is, how does one, while still identified with form, cease effort in a way that is not just a more subtle Movement into the relations of attachment or aversion by which one is unknowingly chaining themself to the wall of the dark and yet shadow-filled cave that is the state of formidentification? This is where the difficulty arises, and it is the Seeker's failure to understand and identify this difficulty that keeps one forever seeking, forever looking for a way out of the cave that one is, through one's own efforts to escape the cave, unknowingly keeping themself chained within. Thus, with regard to ceasing to be bound to the primary Movement that creates one's identification with form so that one is then free to become involved in the opposite primary Movement that is identification with the Formless, the crux of the matter is as follows: How does one, while fully identified with form, cease to involve themself in reactive Movements in a way that is not itself just a more subtle reactive Movement that serves to maintain one's complete identification with form? And the answer to this perennial conundrum is as follows: One has to realize, while still identified with form, i.e., from within form-identification, that another Movement is possible, a Movement that is not a reactive Movement, and having realized the possibility of this non-reactive Movement, one must then convert that possibility into an Actuality by simply Moving in that way. This non-reactive Movement involves nothing more than individualized Beingness being what it already and always is, but being what it does not know it is while identified with form. And what individualized Beingness already and always is, but what it does not know it is while identified with form, is pure Awareness or Consciousness. That is, the non-reactive Movement that unravels the knot of form-identification while simultaneously Moving one in the direction of identification with the Formless involves Beingness doing nothing more than simply being aware or conscious of the forms which it is, in that moment, already aware or conscious, which forms it would otherwise be reacting toward with attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing. Thus, it is ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 625 the non-reactive Movement toward apprehended forms in simple or pure Awareness or Consciousness of those forms, as opposed to the reactive Movement toward those forms in attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, that is the Movement which can free form-identified individualized human Beingness from the self-perpetuating trap of form-identification into which it has unavoidably wandered. Any other Movement, from within form-identification, can only be a more or less subtle reactive Movement that binds one to, rather than fees one from, the formidentification that is itself the source of the suffering that individualized human Beingness is trying to escape. There is nothing more natural than your Being Aware or Conscious. Being simply Aware or Conscious requires no effort because it is intrinsic to and inseparable from your true Nature. You cannot help but Be Aware or Conscious, because beyond the veil of form that you may think you are, you actually are, whether you are aware of it or not, Sachchidananda, i.e., BeingnessConsciousness-Bliss. On the other hand, reactive Movement toward form is something extra, something not actually needed, but something that arises as seemingly needed and necessary, and so seemingly naturally, from within form-identification, which is to say, once individualized Beingness has identified with form and so sees itself as something that can be made more or less, enhanced or diminished. And because that reactivity toward form is a Movement that is a continuation of the Movement that creates the identification of individualized Beingness with form, that reactivity toward form is a Movement that can only perpetuate the identification of individualized Beingness with form, and in so doing also perpetuate the seeming need and necessity for, and the seeming naturalness of, the reactivity toward form that is perpetuating the identification with form, which identification with form perpetuates the reactivity, which reactivity perpetuates the identification with form, and on and on and on it goes. And because this cycle in which formless Beingness becomes trapped in a Movement into identification with form is fueled and perpetuated by its own reactive Movement, the only way out is for Beingness to cease that reactive Movement. But the only way for Beingness to cease that reactive Movement in a way that is not just a more subtle reactive Movement is to become involved instead in the opposite Movement, which opposite Movement is the Movement of non-reactivity toward apprehended form. And because non-reactivity toward form is the Movement that is the opposite of reactive Movement toward form, and because reactive Movement toward form is a continuation of the Movement into identification with form, non-reactive Movement is therefore a Movement that is the opposite of the Movement into identification with form and is therefore Movement in the direction of realizing and identifying with the Formless, as shown in figure 34. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) Movement into form-identification (trap arises as secondary reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing appear as natural Movements) ...wh ich non-reactive Movement is actually a primary Movement into identification with the Formless (trap eventually dissolves) 626 trapped in form-identification through secondary reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing cessation of secondary reactive Movements through initiation of non-reactive Movement opens the trap.... Figure 34 As shown at the top, once Beingness moves into identification with form, the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing then seem to be the natural Movements, and so then seem to be the only Movements possible. And while involved in any of these reactive Movements the flow of individualized Beingness becomes bound to the flow that is creating its identification with form, thereby effectively trapping the flow of that individualized Beingness completely within form-identification, in which state of complete form-identification Beingness becomes unaware of the pervasive Formlessness that is its true nature, owing to its complete Attention being given to the forms that are arising within that Formlessness, i.e., within its formless Awareness. However, as shown at the bottom, if individualized Beingness, while still identified with form, is able to not become involved in these reactive Movements when faced with a form or forms which it would normally react to, then its non-involvement in those reactive Movements is itself a Movement that is the opposite of those reactive Movements. And this non-reactive Movement, because it is a Movement that is the opposite of the reactive Movements, which reactive Movements are continuations of its Movement into form-identification, is also a Movement that is the opposite of the Movement into identification with form, and so is the Movement that not only causes form-identified Beingness to stop depressing the lever that has it trapped in form-identification, but is also the primary Movement that will, if it is maintained long enough or if it is intense enough, take individualized Beingness into the direct Realization of its true Nature and so into identification with the Formless. This non-reactive Movement is an allowing of form, but it is not a reactive allowing, and so not a reflexive allowing that derives from identification with form, and so is not a Movement that perpetuates Beingness' identification with form. This is a subtle but vital distinction. This nonISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 627 reactive Movement that is a non-reactive and so non-reflexive allowing of form is not a reaction to form, but is an unconditional allowing of form, which unconditional allowing of form must be differentiated from the reactive, reflexive, and conditional allowing of form in which formidentified individualized Beingness usually engages. In the reactive and so reflexive allowing of form Beingness allows, i.e., does not in some way internally oppose, only those forms that appear to be in some way already serving the needs of its form-identity. This is the condition under which form-identified individualized Beingness reacts to forms with reflexive allowing or non-opposition, with all other apprehended forms being either ignored or reacted to with attachment or aversion. However, when a form that is being reactively, reflexively, and so conditionally allowed begins to change, such that that form no longer seems or appears to be serving the needs of one's form-identity, then that reactive and reflexive allowing very quickly turns into the reactive Movements of either attachment or aversion, in which case the thing or person that once seemed to make you happy now seems to make you sad or angry instead. On the other hand, in the non-reactive and so unconditional allowing of form Beingness allows, i.e., does not in some way internally oppose, whatever forms appear or arise within its Awareness or Consciousness, regardless of how those forms seem or appear to affect its form-identity. Thus, the relation of such a Beingness to form, as well as to Itself, is unconditional, or not dependent upon a condition, and so does not change from one sort of reactivity to another as the form invariably changes, but remains instead non-reactive and consistent throughout. Both Movements, i.e., reactive and non-reactive allowing, create emotional wantedness, but only the latter Movement allows the veil of form to fall away from the Formless, because the latter Movement, unlike the former Movement, does not derive from the Movement of individualized Beingness into identification with form and so does not perpetuate that Movement, and so does not perpetuate the delusion and illusion that Movement produces through its obscuring of the Formless, which delusion is the idea harbored by formless Beingness that it is form, and which illusion is the idea harbored by formless Beingness that form is what is actually there where it appears to be. It is important to note that the non-reactive Movement that is the non-reactive allowing of form does not mean non-action, it only means that whatever action does arise, if action arises, arises not as a limited and constrained reaction to form based upon whatever idea one has regarding how that form can best be manipulated to serve the needs of the form-identity, but arises instead unconstrained from the Formlessness that is the field of Infinite Potentiality from which all Movement and Action, whether constrained or unconstrained, ultimately arises. Along those same lines, it is also important to note that what is being discussed here as both reactive and nonreactive Movements refer to internal Movements, to Movements that are occurring at the level of formless Beingness, as formless Beingness flows Itself this way or that, into this or that relation with Itself. And it is as an extension of those internal Movements and relations that all external action or movement arises. Thus, it is relatively easy to predict how a completely form-identified human Being will act under certain external circumstances, because their actions extend from the very limited set of internal reactive Movements that are available to such a form-identified Beingness. Conversely, it is impossible to predict how a human Being that is no longer identified with form will act under certain external circumstances, because their actions extend directly from the Infinite Potential of the Formless, as that Potential is allowed to non-reactively flow ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 628 through the Form, and so allowed to non-reactively express Itself through the Form, without being diverted, inverted, and perverted by any reactive Movements toward form. If this non-reactive Movement is the way out of form-identification and the suffering such formidentification invariably produces, then why is this non-reactive Movement almost always overlooked by individualized Beingness as it searches for a way out of the suffering that unavoidably arises within Itself while it remains identified with form? The reason this nonreactive Movement is almost always overlooked by form-identified Beingness is because, while fully identified with form, the only Movements that seem reasonable and worthwhile to such a Beingness are the reactive Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing. This nonreactive Movement is always there as an option, but the non-reactive Movement does not present itself to form-identified Beingness as a truly valid option, because it is an option that, from the perspective of form-identified Beingness, i.e., from the perspective of the Ego, not only does not appear to do anything for the form-identity, which is to say, does not do anything for what formidentified individualized Beingness mistakenly knows itself to be, but even more importantly, this non-reactive Movement actually seems or appears, from the perspective of the Ego, to be detrimental to the form-identity, since it seems to the Ego that making no effort to cling to that which is wanted or to push away that which is unwanted represents a passive diminishment of its form-identity. It is for these reasons that the non-reactive Movement is actively avoided by the Ego, which is to say, by form-identified Beingness. Thus, the first difficulty faced by formidentified Beingness in undertaking this non-reactive Movement lies in realizing or becoming aware, while still identified with form, that such a Movement is both possible as well as worthwhile. The second difficulty faced by form-identified Beingness in undertaking this non-reactive Movement has to do with the mutually exclusive nature of the reactive Movements that bind one to identification with form and the non-reactive Movement that frees one from identification with from. That is, while fully involved in any of the three reactive Movements that seems to naturally follow once one has identified with form, i.e., attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, the non-reactive Movement cannot possibly be Actualized, because the non-reactive Movement is a Movement that is the opposite of, and so therefore mutually exclusive of, the reactive Movements into attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing. Thus, the non-reactive Movement only becomes possible, and so can only be Actualized, in a moment when one is not already completely involved in one of the reactive Movements, because to not become fully involved in those reactive Movements when faced with a form or forms that one would, under "normal" circumstances, i.e., while identified with form, react to with either attachment, aversion, or reflexive allowing, is itself the non-reactive Movement that is the opposite of the Movement into identification with form. All that having been said, how can one put this information to use while still fully identified with form, and so while fully involved and caught up in the reactive Movements that are mutually exclusive of the non-reactive Movement that is necessary to free one from complete identification with form? To begin to become involved in the non-reactive Movement while still fully identified with form, and so to begin to lessen one's Flow or Movement into identification with form while still identified with form, and so while still seemingly limited to the reactive ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 629 Movements of attachment, aversion, and reflexive allowing, one need only become aware or conscious of one's involvement in those reactive Movements as that involvement is occurring, because to become simply aware of a reactive Movement is itself the non-reactive Movement. And so, to begin to become aware or conscious of one's involvement in the reactive Movements is itself the beginning of one's involvement in the opposite Movement, and is also then the beginning of one's withdrawal from full participation and involvement in those reactive Movements, because the only way to become aware of one's involvement in those reactive Movements, while still engaged in those reactive Movements, is to withdraw some portion of the flow of one's Beingness from that Movement, which withdrawal from one Movement is then, by definition, an entry into and involvement in the opposite Movement. As an analogy, one cannot see the flow of a river in which one is completely immersed, But if one steps out of that flow to some degree, then one is able to see the flow of the river. Likewise, while completely immersed in reactive Movement one cannot be aware of that Movement. It is only when one steps out of that Movement to some degree that one is able to become aware of that Movement, which simple and pure Awareness of that Movement is itself the opposite Movement. How then does one begin to become aware of one's involvement in the reactive Movements while still involved in those reactive Movements and so still Moving into identification with form? One begins to become aware of one's involvement in the reactive Movements by simply becoming aware of the emotional form or reality that one is creating in that moment through whatever reactive Movement in which one is, in that moment, involved, without reacting to that emotional form, because being aware of a form and not reacting to that form is itself the nonreactive Movement. And it is only once one has withdrawn to some degree from involvement in the reactive Movements, by becoming non-reactively aware of the emotional forms that are most immediately and directly being created by those reactive Movements, that one is then able, from that perspective of non-reactive Awareness, to become simply aware of their involvement in the reactive Movement itself, and so in that way to further withdraw from the reactive Movement by becoming more involved in the non-reactive Movement. If you are fully identified with form, which is quite possible, but nothing personal, then you cannot, in this moment, just cease to identify with form, owing to the self-perpetuating nature of form-identification, because trying to cease to identify with form is itself a reactive Movement of aversion that can only perpetuate your Movement into identification with form. However, what you can do in this moment, and what you can do in any moment, is participate and become involved in the opposite non-reactive Movement by simply becoming aware or conscious of the reactive Movements in which you are becoming involved, by becoming non-reactively aware or conscious of the emotional forms that are arising through those reactive Movements. However, the trick here is to become aware of your involvement in those reactive Movements and the emotions they produce without then reacting to your awareness of your involvement in those Movements or the emotions they produce, because if you do that, then you are just once again entering into full reactivity and so full Movement into identification with form at a more subtle level. At this point a concrete example of how one can become involved in these different Movements would probably be helpful. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 630 Let us say that you are driving to or from work and are in a hurry to get where you are going because that is just how form-identified human Beings live, almost always in a hurry to get from where they are to where they are going, because where one is is almost always never quite enough, and so where one is going almost always seems more important. In any case, as you are driving the light turns red just as you get to the intersection and you feel yourself become slightly or even greatly irritated at this delay. The actual cause of this feeling of irritation is not the red light itself, but is an internal Movement that is your reactive Movement of aversion to the red light that is keeping you from getting, for the moment, to where you want to go or be. If there is, at that moment, only the irritation then there is only the reactive Movement. But if there is, at that moment, not just the irritation, but an Awareness of the irritation, which Awareness is not itself caught up in the irritation, but is just observing or aware of the irritation, then that pure Awareness of the irritation is that portion of your individualized Beingness that is not Moving reactively, but is instead Moving non-reactively. The portion of your individualized Beingness that is Moving reactively is also aware of the irritation, otherwise you would not feel irritated, but the portion of your Beingness that is Moving reactively is not able to be aware of the irritation as something separate or distinct from itself, but instead only knows itself as irritated, or as being irritated, because that portion of your Beingness, i.e., the portion that is engaged in reactive Movement, is fully identified with the forms of which it becomes aware. In contrast, if you are able to become, to any degree, simply aware of the irritation, and so non-reactively aware of the irritation, meaning that you are aware of the irritation but not reacting to it, not trying to push it away, then that non-reactive portion of your Beingness is able to be aware of the irritation as something separate and distinct from Itself, because that portion of your Beingness is not identified with the forms of which it becomes aware. Thus, in such a situation, Beingness that is Moving only reactively thinks "I am irritated," because to such a Beingness what it is and what it is aware of as the irritation are one, as they are linked through the reactive Beingness' identification with form. On the other hand, Beingness that is Moving at least to some degree non-reactively thinks "I feel irritation," because to such a Beingness what it is and what it is aware of are not one, as non-reactive Beingness is not identifying with that form, and so not linking or tethering Itself to that form, i.e., to the apprehended irritation. This is a subtle but important distinction, as this is the difference between continued unconscious Movement completely into form-identification and the beginning of conscious Movement out of identification with form and into identification with the Formless. And so let us say that you become non-reactively aware of your irritation, and so to some degree have withdrawn from completely reactive Movement and have instead to some degree entered into non-reactive Movement. At that point what usually happens, at least in the early stages of withdrawal from complete identification with form, is that once you become aware of the irritation there then arises a reactive Movement of aversion toward the irritation itself, as you then think that you should not be irritated by a little red light. In this reactive Movement one then no longer seems to be irritated just by the red light, but now seems to be irritated also by themself and their unconscious reaction to the red light, when in actuality the irritation once again has as its source a reactive Movement toward some apprehended form. Become aware of the emotion and become aware of the reactive Movement toward form that is creating the emotion, and then do not react to either. But if you do react to either then just become nonreactively aware of the emotional form that is being created by that reactive Movement. NonISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 610-631 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1) 631 reactive Awareness or Consciousness, that is all that is required to withdraw one's Beingness from continued and ceaseless Movement into identification with form. It does not matter where you begin to withdraw from reactive Movement, it only matters that you do begin to withdraw, at some point, by becoming involved instead in the opposite Movement, by doing nothing more than allowing yourself to be aware of whatever forms you are presently aware of, both internal and external, without reacting to them. Anything else, any effort to cease or end one's Movement into identification with form, only ends up being another reactive Movement that binds one to the Movement one is trying escape. (Continued in Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (2)) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1174-1176 Schenberg, E., The Mythical Brain: Is the Science of Movie Lucy Wrong? 1174 Letter to the Editor The Mythical Brain: Is the Science of Movie Lucy Wrong? Eduardo Schenberg* Abstract The movie Lucy explores the idea that we use only 10% of our brains which, according to an editorial in Nature Neuroscience, is wrong. However, we may reframe the myth to reveal the underlying meaning: it is not about using just 10% of the brain, but about perceiving only a very small fraction of what the brain is doing. If we will, we can stop our usual, daily routine activities, or our usual day dreaming, and immediately we start noticing more. The alternative interpretation to Lucy is that the movie is not about the brain, but about consciousness. Change the metaphor and you get a totally different meaning. Key Words: Movie Lucy. myth, brain, neuroscience, Consciousness. In "The mythical brain" editorial1 Nature Neuroscience addressed myths about the brain. That is, ideas about the brain shown by science to be wrong, but still accepted by the lay public. This is a recurring theme in science education, not only in neuroscience, and its importance is very clear. The catalyzer episode for this specific editorial was the movie Lucy, which explores the idea that we use only 10% of our brains - which according to Nature Neuroscience's editorial, is wrong. However, one of the movie's main character, played by Morgan Freeman, is a neuroscientist that gives lectures about the neurons, brains, intelligence and evolution. And the untruth in other neuroscientific claims in the movie, such that with one neuron, there's life, with two there's movement, seems to have gone unnoticed in the editorial. Why was the 10% myth clearly addressed, while other myths related to neuroscience were not? Maybe because the 10% myth is used in the movie's marketing. But maybe there are other reasons as well. If unicellular organisms are alive and move, as well as plants and fungi, without needing neurons to do it, why haven't these myths received attention from the editorial? The distinction between these examples seems essential. Because a possible alternative interpretation to the movie is that, although the metaphor is neurocentric, the meaning is not. This alternative interpretation became even more appealing to me while listening to director Luc Besson talking about his work and the idea that we only use 10% of our brains: "It’s totally not true. Do they think that I don’t know this? I work on this thing for nine years and they think that I don’t know it’s not true? Of course I know it’s not true! But, you know, there are lots of facts in the film that are totally right."2 The alternative interpretation to Lucy is that the movie is not about the brain, but about consciousness. Change the metaphor and you get a totally different meaning. Let's reframe the myth to reveal the underlying meaning: it's not about using just 10% of the brain, but about perceiving only a very small fraction of the brain's doings. And this is scientifically true! The brain is intimately connected to all the body, and lot's of its workings * Correspondence: Eduardo Schenberg, PhD. Email: eduardoschenberg@gmail.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1174-1176 Schenberg, E., The Mythical Brain: Is the Science of Movie Lucy Wrong? 1175 have to do with things which are far from our conscious experience. At every single second our hearts beat, our blood vessels dilate and contract, our lungs bring air in and let it out and the whole autonomic nervous system operate. Why have we called it autonomous? Because most of the time it operates independently of our will and consciousness of it. And so it is with many of the brains activities: it goes on and on, but unnoticed by us. But if we will, we can stop our usual, daily routine activities, or our usual day dreaming, and immediately we start noticing more. Oh yes, I am breathing and my heart is beating while I write this letter, even though it's hard to feel it at the same time I write. And this is exactly the puzzle experienced by Lucy. How is it to become more conscious than in our everyday experience? How would it feel to be aware of all the bodily functions at once? What would be the possibilities if we could, at will, control the neuro-pycho-immune connections? How would it be to be conscious of all memories and sensations of one's own life? Poetically, Lucy starts remembering her experience breast feeding, the taste of her mother's milk in her mouth, all the kisses received from her parents in her entire life. And all this while she's undergoing surgery without anesthetics: she chose not feel pain. Is all this possible? We don't know. Probably unlikely. But until the molecular turnover dilemma challenging the neuroscience of memory and the strong placebo effect in pain are not overcome, impossible to definitively claim it's 100% wrong. Not limiting the question to one's own brain and body, Besson has freedom to imagine further: the movie helps us imagine how would it feel to be conscious of other peoples memories, thoughts and emotions. Or yet, how would it feel to be aware of all the matter and energy flowing in a tree? A beautiful scene in the movie helps us see a tree closer to how it really is, beyond our static perception of it: truly alive, moving and pulsating with flows of matter and energy. In another surreal scene in an airplane, the movie help us imagine how would it feel to be aware of every cell and every molecule in the body. Is Lucy transcending the skin-encapsulated ego3 while under the effects of a psychoactive chemical in an airplane? If it's about consciousness, and not just about the brain, these other meanings become possible. And they are there not just to entertain, but to educate. Scientists inclusive. And this other meanings stretch till the last scene: Why else would Lucy be everywhere after attaining a 100%? Any resemblance with Vedanta may not be coincidence. The beautiful imaginative tour about conscious experience depicted in Lucy is, therefore, scientific valid and welcome, even though not all claims about brains and neurons are precise. And many of the movie's visuals and the perceptual situations lived by the main character remind of other questions about consciousness raised before, based on the very real consciousness changes elicited by psychedelic experiences4. Despite the large disinterest of most brain scientists in such "mind manifesting" substances for decades5, their effects on conscious experience and hypothesis of the brain acting as a reducing valve for consciousness continue challenging neuroscience. And this is precisely the myth that neuroscientists are not always willing to openly talk about: neuroscience as having the final word about consciousness. Despite the best efforts and recent advances6,7, we still do not have proofs that the brain generate consciousness, nor that it is uniquely human8. Going even further, it is indeed possible that consciousness exists in other living organisms that move, learn and reproduce even without ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2014 | Volume 5 | Issue 11 | pp. 1174-1176 Schenberg, E., The Mythical Brain: Is the Science of Movie Lucy Wrong? 1176 neurons7,9. As many questions related to consciousness are still unanswered by modern neuroscience, attempts to bring this topic to the general public should not be prematurely dismissed. On the contrary, they should be welcomed as they increase the spirit of enquiry. As humourously expressed by Luc Besson in The Guardian "If you find yourself asking what's real and what isn't, I've won"10. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The mythical brain. Nat Neurosci 17, 1137 (2014). http://www.vulture.com/2014/07/luc-besson-director-lucy-chat.html Watts, A. The Tao of Philosophy. (Tuttle Publishing, 1999). Huxley, A. The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. (Harper Collins, 2009). Nutt, D. J., King, L. A. & Nichols, D. E. Effects of Schedule I drug laws on neuroscience research and treatment innovation. Nat Rev Neurosci 14, 577–585 (2013). 6. Tononi, G. Phi. (Pantheon, 2012). 7. Koch, C. Consciousness: Confessions of a romantic reductionist. (2012). 8. Chalmers, D. J. In The Cognitive Neurosciences III, MIT Press (2004). 9. Hameroff, S. & Penrose, R. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’theory. Physics of Life Reviews 11, 39–78 (2014). 10. http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2014/aug/20/luc-besson-lucy-scarlett-johansson-videointerview ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

202 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values Research Essay Consciousness, Science & Values James R. Arnold* ABSTRACT Various features and expressions of consciousness are shown to be beyond scientific explanation, and yet essential to the appreciation of human values. Thus, the values realized by consciousness, including life, love, liberty, ethics, morality, art, friends, community, fun and laughter, are not going to be found on a chalkboard or under a microscope. Key Words: Consciousness, science, value, nature, explanation, love, emotion, morality. Considerations about the nature of consciousness are not just academic exercises. Our beliefs about what we are, even if more-or-less implicit, can have a profound influence on our values, self-regard, personal relations, and political perspectives. Science is not very helpful in considering consciousness and values, although it has become, for many people, the final authority on every question, the arbiter even of which questions are worth asking. And the appeal to science for beliefs and perspective has been for many of us a liberating alternative to the domination of religious and superstitious dogmas and institutions. But a disciplined science is restricted to the analysis of things that can be observed, and scientific observations involve the reduction of mental activity to biology, and the reduction of biology to physics. The problem is, if the objects of science are (para-scientifically) assumed to comprehend all of reality, rather than just the limits of observation, then consciousness becomes a non-essential bi-product of brain function, and there remains no compelling basis for values like freedom, rights, culture, love, and life. Physical things can be justifiably destroyed and recycled, biological things can be killed and consumed. Nowhere within the domain of science can “things” like ourselves be distinguished based on intrinsic worth. So while science doesn't necessarily eliminate our values, it renders them rationally groundless, and consequently, more or less heedless. To look beyond science for the nature of consciousness and justification of values doesn't require a religious or mystical turn. A naturalistic perspective can appreciate science without regarding it as an all-encompassing metaphysics. Our own self-awareness, and reflections on the deliberate things we are able to do in the world, can be considered evidence of something beyond strict scientific understanding, just by a tentative acceptance that legitimate evidence need not be directly or exclusively physical. We can’t objectively observe consciousness like we can the workings of a machine, but we have our personal experience to acknowledge, we can observe the physical manifestations of our conscious intentions, and we feel an affinity with values that can be as solid and certain as any sight or sound. *Correspondence: James R. Arnold, Independent Researcher. E-mail: swprod@sonic.net ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 203 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values Consider the evidence of these remarkable features of consciousness: Consciousness can be PURPOSEFUL. We are capable of envisioning an innovation or change of circumstance, planning various means to achieve it, then performing a number of actions to make it happen. Each of the actions has a purpose beyond its immediate effect -- the achievement of a goal, the innovation or change of circumstance envisioned. But there is nothing in the fields of biology or physics that is recognized as having purpose. Even the most complex chain of chemical reactions in the metabolism of a cell is believed to be the result of random mutations that recur and persist only because they enhance the survivability of the organism. Each reaction is considered to be a singular cause-and-effect event, with no wider significance except in the interpretations of science. Purposeful behavior is thus radically different from physical and biological mechanisms, as science understands them. A science-based metaphysics can speculate that purpose has evolved in humans (and other animals) simply because there’s an evolutionary advantage in the ability to combine a number of behaviors to achieve a result, but that only trivializes its significance. Evolution can only exploit natural possibilities. To be able to make oneself disappear with the snap of one’s fingers when confronted by a predator would be an evolutionary advantage, but it is evidently not possible. In contrast, what unites a group of purposeful behaviors is the imagined goal, and unlike a physical effect, a goal precedes its causes, even if only in concept; and a goal, the unifying effect that directs a series of behaviors, evidently is possible. And an effect that precedes and unifies its causes is (remarkably) beyond scientific explanation. The functionality of computers provides a revealing contrast to actual consciousness, and I’ll elaborate on the contrast with several comparisons in what follows. Regarding purpose, computers are thought by some to have it at least in potential; its eventual realization is believed to be a problem only of developing better technology and increasing complexity. But a computer is designed to execute planned instructions, each one entirely distinct from the others. What gives a computer the semblance of purpose is the person who has programmed it by composing a series of directives to achieve some specific goal or goals. The purpose exists before the computer is even switched on. And there’s no reason to think that the output of an inorganic, discrete series of instructions has meaning and purpose except extrinsically, for a conscious reader of words on a screen or printout. Consciousness can be RESPONSIVE. Everything that occurs with the objects of physics and biology involves an immediate reaction, but as conscious beings we are able to respond to complex situations in the present, in view of implicit values, even of considerations of consequences that don’t yet exist. When we’re not being “absent minded”, or performing habitual tasks, we can deal with ambiguous, unexpected, even unprecedented events in the moments they occur, situated in an ever-weaving fabric of place and time. A policeman can respond to life-and-death situations for which there can only be general guidelines. A flood victim without food can ponder whether it is right to procure, or wrong to steal, from an abandoned store. Rules of behavior (as with “instincts”) can’t apply and regulate reactions to all situations, but we nonetheless have the evident and distinct ability to respond to our surroundings as a coherent environment, uniquely, resourcefully, and with a presence in the moment. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 204 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values In contrast to responsive consciousness, computer “intelligence” can only react to situations that have been anticipated and projected into the present by the imaginative responsiveness of the programmer. At best, a computer programmed for “artificial intelligence” can expand its repertoire by “learning” new interrelationships that can be identified and reacted to next time. Consciousness is here and now; an object of science simply is. And a world where responsiveness is possible is fundamentally different from a world of reaction. A para-scientific world-view can only attempt to explain the emergence of responsiveness with an utterly unscientific magical “presto!” whereby a virtual infinity of mutations is claimed to have led to a whole new kind of reality, where the present awareness of a responsive consciousness supplants mechanical reaction as if by some miraculous leap. Consciousness can be TRANSCENDENT. I don’t mean “transcendent” in a metaphysical sense. To transcend is to encompass, to unify, by getting “outside” the elements of a situation. When a computer is mistakenly instructed to complete an impossible task it goes into an “endless loop”, and would continue forever unless it is somehow interrupted. But consciousness is able to transcend a situation, to comprehend it from beyond the particulars, and immediately say, in effect, “this can never work – it is pointless to even try.” The evidence for conscious transcendence is abundant. When we derive meaning from a collection of words that goes beyond their individual and literal definition we transcend the elements of language to form a thought. Poetry is a celebration of transcendence; it is the essence of poetry to evoke an image or concept that can’t be expressed in the literal combination of words, and poetry would be meaningless in a world defined by discrete linguistic elements and their serial combination. Even in everyday conversations, our comprehension can transcend the meanings of words. To hear, for the first time, someone say “that’s bad” and realize they actually mean “that’s very good”, is to transcend definition -- and to delight in (or abhor) the novel reformulation of the words. Language can of course be influential in our manner of thinking, but for transcendent consciousness, language is only the material basis, the stepping-stones of thought. Much humor, maybe all humor consists in the enjoyment of suddenly transcending a situation or juxtaposition. When at the end of each of the old Burns and Allen comedy routines George told Gracie “say goodnight, Gracie” and she complied daftly, saying “goodnight Gracie”, the audience laughed at her chronic inability to transcend the literal. When we first heard the question “why did the chicken cross the road?” we searched for some transcendent explanation of motive; then when we laughed at the unexpected answer, it was with the sudden appreciation of our initial and unnecessary transcendence of the immediate and obvious. When the difference between a reaction and a response sneaks upon us in a joke framed like a trick, it can be a lucid and funny encounter with our own transcendence. The transcendence of consciousness is scientifically inexplicable, except by a dismissive tautology. (“Every characteristic of behavior is simply a physical evolution or bi-product, therefore every characteristic of behavior is simply a physical evolution or bi-product”.) In the para-scientific view, thoughts must be reducible to, and determined by their elements -- in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 205 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values language, conceived as a product of evolution. The irony here is that transcendence is required to deny transcendence; there is nothing in language itself to indicate that it may be a conceptual enclosure. Just as the science of linguistics has been dominated by the belief that our thoughts are “determined”, as if imprisoned by our language, anthropology was for a time dominated by a belief that we are “determined” by our native culture -- until it was realized by some that the anthropologist has to transcend her own culture in order to conclude that cultures cannot be transcended. Anyone who is truly confined by their cultural beliefs would be unable to conceive that their beliefs are only cultural. It’s been said that “infinity” is a concept beyond comprehension, and yet we have a word for it, and we can share it with others who understand what we mean. Obviously it can be comprehended, but (appropriately) only as a transcendent, not specifiable, non-finite concept. In contrast to conscious transcendence, the main difficulty in learning to interact with a computer “intelligence” is having to adapt to the need to the give it specific, literal instructions. A computer, an exemplary object of scientific manufacture, is frustrating, and sometimes funny as Gracie Allen, for its inability to transcend the elements of communication. No addition of bytes, or registers, or layers of process can be expected to improve the interaction, except by invoking the virtual magic of a virtual infinity of technical complications whereby (presto!) literal water turns to transcendent wine. Consciousness can be NEGATIVE. By “negative” I don’t mean the common association with being quarrelsome or pessimistic, although they do involve negativity. To be negative is to negate what is -- to say “no”, or “not”, to refuse, to decide that something shouldn’t exist, to imagine that something which doesn’t exist should. And there is no likeness of negativity in the objects of science. A chemical interaction is understood to be the product of what-is. Molecule A reacts with molecule B in a definite way, unless something external and accidental interferes. Genetic mutations, as understood in biology, are chance modifications; they don’t occur because an existing gene is not good enough, or because some alteration might be better. Whether a mutation is an improvement to an organism is irrelevant to its occurrence. But our abilities to critique, to imagine, to wish for what is-not express conscious, deliberate negations that elude the scientific world of cause-and-effect, just as they elude the world of supposed randomness and pointless unpredictability proposed by quantum theory. It may be easy to say an insight like Einstein’s theory of relativity -- a radical negation of established beliefs -- was caused by the performance of his most excellent network of neurons, and at a higher level, by various psychological, sociological, and historical factors. But a negative insight can only be reduced to a series of positive reactions by a determined refusal to negate implausibility. A theory is what it is, its inconsistencies are what they are, and for someone to say that a theory is not complete or not perfect or even wrong is to go beyond what it is, beyond the convention, to refuse what is given, to negate and conceive something else in its place -- which is to do something that’s not just un-caused, but un-causable. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 206 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values Art is, in general, both the creation and experience of negation. Art is, remarkably, not what it is. To appreciate art is to negate its material. A painting is not (typically) just a cluster of colors, and not just the product of an excellent technique. An artistic object has to be negated as-such to be experienced as art, to be grasped as a whole, as an intangible reference to something else, in order for it to evoke a thought or feeling that is transcendent of the immediate experience, the causation of color on the visual cortex, and the recognition of expertise. A computer can only deal with what is. An instruction may mean something negative to a programmer, but for the computer it is always a positive command or comparison, typically in the form of a composite of a number of “plus” and “minus” electrical charges. Even when a computer reports that something is not true, the report actually consists of a statement that something specific, somewhere specific, returns a specifically empty datum -- “it is that it is an empty is.” Consciousness is CREATIVE. It might seem that only someone disconnected or divested from their own dreaming could fail to appreciate the amazing creativity expressed in dreams. Fantastic images that could never have actually been seen through the eyes can be produced when consciousness is most spontaneous during sleep, just as ideas that have never before been conceived can be produced when consciousness is most awake and deliberate. Whereas negativity is a reaction to something that is, might be, or might have been, creativity produces realizations out of nothing. Scientists argue that elements of prior experiences give the necessary content to creative ideas, but an inspiration is no more tangible than a dream, and the inspiration itself, a feature of consciousness, can’t be explained by its incidental, particular contents — except of course by the same sort of method already discussed that tries to explain the scientifically inexplicable by explaining it away. Computer scientists might try to mimic poetry or music by programming random combinations of likely elements, but how could a computer produce the idea of poetry or music? How could such a programmed instruction be given, as-in “be creative”? And how could a world of causeand-effect evolve to produce the creative impulse, an affect that is unrelated to cause and independent of effect? Consciousness can be WILLFUL. The age-old controversy of whether we are free or causally determined is an argument between extremes of interpretation. We are, evidently, neither entirely free nor completely determined by chains of cause-and-effect. To be willful is to be selfdetermined within limits, whether the limits are imposed from the environment without or the personality within. We sometimes experience our willfulness by its absence, its nullification, in the frustration we feel when we’re restricted by external forces. To be truly constrained by cause-and-effect, as when locked in a room or tied to a table, can be a terrible feeling -- a repression that shocks us into an immediate recognition of willfulness by the experience of its suppression and duress. We can experience our willfulness in both the enjoyment and the dread of our ability to make ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 207 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values choices. We can embrace beliefs, and customs, and dictates, because they enable us to avoid our willfulness and its attendant dilemmas -- and their sometimes fearsome implications. But we have to choose not to choose, as when we invoke some given commandment to determine our behavior, rather than act according to our own inclination. To stand at the edge of a cliff is to confront the terror of one’s potential for spontaneous and arbitrary willfulness: In the next moment I can choose to defy my wish to remain alive, to take the smallest step, to lean the slightest bit, and plunge to a painful death, just by invoking a simple act of will that I know, without doubt, to be within my power -- as surely as I know the ledge is beneath my feet. Consciousness can be RATIONAL. To be rational can be defined in this context as the sum of our abilities to be purposeful, to transcend and negate the elements of experience, and to choose deliberate, self-determined courses of action. It allows us to act resourcefully in the world, to have the world react in a way that confirms both our rationality and the world’s affinity with reason, as when a bridge stands strong according to its mathematical-rational design. Reason is a resource beyond the capability of a computer. No matter how intelligent a computer’s actions may appear, its simulation of reasoning is stored in its bank of data by the actual reasoning of the programmer. An unanticipated circumstance can render the most “intelligent” computer utterly stupid, as when a human opponent mischievously interrupts a match by removing her king from the chessboard. Consciousness can be FREE. Freedom in these terms is the ability to be purposeful, responsive, transcendent, negative, willful, and rational – to be an autonomous, unique individual, (conditionally) independent of physical determination. Freedom, when fully appreciated as such, can substantiate our most ideal value: It forms the intuitive basis of our recognition of the speciality of consciousness in a world of apparent thinghood, maybe the ultimate basis of our love of self and others. And its reduction, its denial, forms the counter-intuitive basis of devaluation, of dehumanization. The common and observable manifestations of consciousness -- free and rational behavior -seem as certain as any principle or law of science. It may be difficult to reconcile consciousness with nature as defined by physics and biology, but it is just as true that the para-scientific worldview is difficult to reconcile with our personal experience. It’s been an age-old problem for philosophers, and for para-scientists (closet-philosophers!), to correlate the evident subjectivity of consciousness (“mind”) with the objective world (“matter”). But regardless of how the seeming duality of mind and matter might one day be resolved, the para-scientific view is clearly inadequate, as it ignores the evidence of our personal experience and interactions, and our indomitable sense of values. Ours is a universe of intricate physical structure, a world of astounding biological organization, populated with conscious beings able to reflect upon all there is -- capable even of imagining things that don't exist. Though physical science has discovered much about the rudiments of existence, though biology has revealed much about the mechanisms of life, to believe they could be adequate to fully comprehend consciousness -- maybe the most consummate development in ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 208 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| May 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 4 | pp. 202-208 Arnold, J. R., Consciousness, Science & Values all the universe -- is to believe that what is expressed in more highly developed and organic systems is somehow unreal, or alien and disconnected from the more basic and undeveloped. Asif life is to be understood in its reduction to physics, to the exclusion of how it has been able by its abounding nature to develop into consciousness. As-if consciousness is to be understood in its reduction to biology, to the exclusion of its manifest powers beyond biological explanation. As-if physics and biology are to be understood without reference to their fullest expression in consciousness. This much seems evident, if we are to trust our own experience rather than defend a philosophy of analysis, objectification, and reduction: A conscious being (we might better give it the form of a verb rather than a noun, and say a conscious beingness) is beyond objectification and reduction, because as a beingness, consciousness is not an object, and as individual, it is irreducible. The values realized by consciousness -- including life, love, liberty, ethics, morality, art, friends, community, fun and laughter -- are not going to be found on a chalkboard, or under a microscope. A world where consciousness is possible is a world of more wondrous matter, more wondrous life, more wondrous mind and culture than science with its analysis, objectification, and reduction can comprehend or evaluate. It’s evident, it’s good, it’s valuable. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

512 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 512-515 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Introduction Article On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Introduction Steven E. Kaufman* ABSTRACT This universe consists of both experiential forms as well as the formless Consciousness by which every experiential form is apprehended, and in the absence of which formless Consciousness no experiential form, i.e., no reality, has ever been, or can ever be, known to exist. In the usual analysis of the nature of the universe the emphasis is generally placed upon the experiential forms and their relations to each other, and in the rare instances where Consciousness is even mentioned it is usually afforded a secondary status, as it is usually assumed that the phenomenon of Consciousness is somehow produced through some relation or set of relations occurring between the physical or material realities of which the universe seems to be, and so is assumed to be, composed. In this work that emphasis is reversed, since this work takes the position that the universe is actually composed of a singular and formless Consciousness, and that it is the relations of that Consciousness to Itself that produce the forms which that singular, formless, and yet individualized Consciousness then apprehends as the universe of experiential forms— physical, mental, and emotional—that we call reality. This work consists of the following series of articles: Introduction; Part 1: The Evolution of the Formless into Form while Creating Lesser Form (1, 2 & 3); Part 2: The Identification of the Formless with Lesser Form; & Part 3: The Identification of the Formless with Itself (1 & 2). Key Words: Consciousness, formless, form, physical reality, creation, nature. Introduction One aspect of the human condition is that we take reality far too seriously. And we take reality far too seriously because we think that reality is what is actually there where it appears to be. And the reason we think that reality is what is actually there where it appears to be is because we do not know the nature of What Is Actually There where reality only appears to be. Trying to understand the nature of reality without some understanding of the nature of What Is Actually There where reality appears to be is as futile as trying to understand the nature of a reflection while blind to the presence and necessity of the mirror within which the reflection arises. On the other hand, once one recognizes the presence of the mirror that is actually there where the reflection only appears to be, the reflection, which was previously impossible to understand, becomes relatively easy to understand. Likewise, with regard to the nature of reality, *Correspondence: Steven E. Kaufman, Independent Researcher. http://www.unifiedreality.com E-mail: skaufman@unifiedreality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 513 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 512-515 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Introduction once one is able to recognize the nature of What Is Actually There where reality appears to be, the nature of reality becomes relatively easy to understand. Understanding the nature of reality involves nothing more than understanding the way in which What Is Actually There, where reality only appears to be, creates or brings into existence, through relation to Itself, what it then apprehends as reality. As will be described, what we refer to as reality is created as a sort of boundary or reflection that arises where the Formlessness or formless Beingness that is actually there, where reality only appears to be, becomes defined in relation to Itself owing to its involvement in some relation with Itself. And once that boundary, reflection, or form has been created, that form is then apprehended as a reality, i.e., as an experiential reality, by the formless Beingness that has created that form within Itself through its relation to Itself. And although the nature of reality will be defined with some precision, it should be noted at the outset that using words or any form to describe and define What Is Actually There where reality appears to be is like trying to clean glass using a hammer. That is, it cannot be done, and in trying to do so one only ends up making a mess of that which one is trying to make more clear. This is because words are forms that represent concepts, which are also forms, whereas What Is Actually There where reality appears to be is formless, which is to say, a Formlessness, or formless Beingness. For this reason, words cannot possibly describe nor define the formless Beingness that is actually there where reality appears to be. However, words can describe, to a limited extent, how that Formlessness creates or brings into existence what it then apprehends as reality, because there is a connection between what the Formless is doing, or perhaps more accurately, how the Formless is being, and the forms that are created and apprehended by the Formless as reality. Words can also describe, to a greater extent, what that Formlessness apprehends as reality, because what that Formlessness apprehend as reality, or experiences as reality, is itself a form. For these reasons, what will be described in this work is not the Formlessness or formless Beingness of which the universe is ultimately composed. Rather, what will be described in this work is the process by which the Formlessness of which the universe is ultimately composed creates or brings into existence within Itself the forms which that same Formlessness then apprehends as the universe of experiential forms—physical, mental, and emotional—that we call reality. As already mentioned, the process whereby the Formless brings into existence the forms it apprehends as reality is one of self-relation. More specifically, the process whereby the Formless brings into existence the forms it apprehends as reality is a process of iterative and progressive self-relation. This is how it must be, because in creating the forms it apprehends as reality, the Formless has only Itself to work with, since nothing else Is. Put another way, there is only one thing that actually Is, and the one thing that actually Is is the non-thing, or no-thing, that is being pointed toward in this work through the use of the words Formlessness, or formless Beingness. And so it is left to the Formless to both create and apprehend form, as there is nothing else that actually Is that can do so, since, as will be described, all else, all experiential form, all that we call reality, only exists and so only seems to be what actually is, and so only seems to be what is actually there where it appears to be. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 514 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 512-515 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Introduction This work consists of three parts. In the first part of this work the evolution of the Formless into three different levels of Form is described. Also described in the first part of this work is the coming into existence of a different type of form, or lesser form, within each level of Form, as each level of Form comes into being through the progressive flow of the Formless in relation to Itself. Further, the three different types of lesser forms that come into existence within the Formless, as the Formless, through iterative and progressive relation to Itself, evolves into different levels of Form, are each shown to correspond to one of the three different types of experiences or experiential realities of which we are able to be aware or conscious. Specifically, the lesser form that comes into existence within the first level of Form, as the first level of Form comes into being, will be shown to correspond to what we apprehend as emotional experience or emotional reality. Next, the lesser form that comes into existence within the second level of Form, as the second level of Form comes into being, will be shown to correspond to what we apprehend as mental experience or mental reality. And finally, the lesser form that comes into existence within the third level of Form will be shown to correspond to what we apprehend as physical experience or physical reality. What is described in the second part of this work is what happens when the Formless, for whatever reason, begins to identify with, i.e., know itself as, the lesser forms that have come into existence within Itself as a result of its having become Form, i.e., as a result of its being or flowing in relation to Itself. Specifically, what the second part of this work describes is the way in which the misidentification of the Formless with the lesser forms that have come into existence within Itself causes the Formless to become unable to be aware or conscious of the Formlessness that is Itself, and so causes the Formless to lose sight of Itself, to become hidden from Itself, thereby causing the lesser forms that continue to be created within Itself, which lesser forms the Formless remains aware of or conscious of as reality, to appear as what is actually there, when What Is Actually There, where the forms apprehended as reality only appear to be, is the now hidden Formlessness within which those lesser forms have come into existence and by which those lesser forms are being apprehended as reality. Also described in the second part of this work is both why and how the Formless naturally tends to relate to the forms of which it becomes aware or conscious, once it has lost sight of Itself though identification with form, in a way that causes Itself to suffer. In the third part of this work what is described is how the Formless, owing to the way in which it naturally relates to the world of forms once it has lost sight of Itself though identification with form, unknowingly keeps Itself caught up in and so bound to the relation with Itself that is creating its identification with form, and so unknowingly perpetuates both its identification with form as well as its inability to become aware or conscious of the Formlessness that is Itself, thereby also perpetuating the illusion that reality, i.e., apprehended form, is what is actually there where it appears to be. Also described in the third part of this work is what form-identified Formlessness must do, so to speak, in order to extricate Itself from the cage of formidentification in which it is unknowingly keeping Itself trapped. And what form-identified Formlessness must do, in order to extricate Itself from the cage of form-identification in which it has trapped Itself, is change the way it naturally and habitually relates to the universe of experiential forms, owing to its identification with form, while still identified primarily with form. For, as will be described, it is only once form-identified Formlessness changes the way it is actually being in relation to Itself through the proxy of its relations to the various forms of which ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 515 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 8 | pp. 512-515 Kaufman, S. E., On the Nature of & Relation between Form & Formlessness: Introduction it becomes aware or conscious, that its obscured and yet ever-present formless Nature can cease to be obscured. And it is only once its formless Nature ceases to be obscured that the Formless is then able to become aware or conscious of Itself, thereby allowing the Formless to identify with its formless Self rather than with form. And it is through that direct Recognition and Realization of Itself, absent any intervening form, including the concept of formlessness, that the Formless comes to Know and Realize Itself to be What Is Actually There wherever the forms it continues to know and apprehend as reality still appear to be, since once the Mirror Reappears to Itself, thereby allowing the Mirror to Recognize Itself, the reflections that rest within it, which reflections it once mistook for itself, and which reflections once obscured Itself while they were mistaken for itself, do not go away, although they do cease to be known as what is actually there where they still must, by their very nature, appear to be. (Continued in Part 1: The Evolution of the Formless into Form while Creating Lesser Form (1)) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Intrinsic Awareness, The Fundamental State of Consciousness1 Weili Luo Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, 32816, USA (Weili.luo@ucf.edu) Abstract In an effort to simplify the complexity in the studies of consciousness, the author suggests to describe the conscious experiences as a fundamental state, the intrinsic awareness (I.A.), and functions of this fundamental state. I.A. does not depend on external environment, our sense organs, and our cognitions. This ground state of consciousness is timeless and irreducible to sub-constituents; therefore reductionism can apply neither to the analysis nor to the new theory of I.A. The methodology for investigating I.A. is proposed and the relation between I.A. and the hard problem in consciousness proposed by Chalmers is discussed. Keywords: consciousness, intrinsic awareness, fundamental state of consciousness, space-time and intrinsic awareness, ground state of consciousness. 1. Introduction to Intrinsic Awareness (I.A.) The question of how the mind or consciousness works has been an important intellectual pursuit of philosophers and psychologists over centuries and even millennia. With the advance of technology, it has gone beyond a philosophical issue and has become one of the most studied topics in science. Because the question encompasses diverse fields such as psychology, philosophy, biology, cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, etc., it is a daunting task to even just consider where to start to address the issue of consciousness: should one start from cognition? Should one start from neurobiology, or from the philosophical question of whether the mind is the emergent phenomenon of the physical brain or not? Although different expertise all has something to contribute, the answer to these questions has been entangled in the complexity of many areas overlapping with the problem [1]. In 1996, David Chalmers proposed that there are two types of problems in the studies of consciousness [2], the easy problems, which mainly address the objective mechanisms of the cognitive system, and the hard problem that involves how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. The easy problems, although many of them were unsolved then 1 This paper has been published in “International Journal of Computing Anticipatory Systems”, Volume 24, P190-196, 2010. ISSN 1373-5411. ISBN 2-930396-12-1. It is based on the talks given at CASYS'09, the 9th International Conference on Computing Anticipatory Systems, Liege, Belgium, August 2009, and 18th Winter Chaos Conference, Tarpon Springs, Florida, March 2010. and still are as of today, are solvable; while the hard problem is the one that researchers do not know where to start, and Chalmers was not even sure that current scientific framework can eventually solve it. In this article a proposal is made, instead of dividing the consciousness studies into the easy problems and hard problem, to characterize our conscious experience by a fundamental state and functions of this state. I argue that the complexity of the studies of consciousness can be simplified because of the existence of a fundamental awareness. I terms it the “Intrinsic Awareness” or I.A., which is our basic ability to be aware, to know. The idea of this fundamental awareness is borrowed from some ancient contemplative traditions where it has been called different names such as innate basis of mind, pure mind, illuminating mind, or simply awareness, etc. [3-6]. It is not difficult to realize that I.A. does not depend on our senses and the external conditions. Taking the example of seeing red roses: the whole process of seeing red roses can be broken down to several stages: we may first sense something beautiful in our environment, then our vision comes into focus so we can see the actual flowers; our brain starts to perform the function of analyzing and comparing the observed object with other concepts stored in it; afterward the brain comes up with the conclusion that this is a bunch of red roses. If these flowers are outside our sight at the beginning, our olfactory organ will be the first to get in contact with the smell from them. And, the analytical process from the brain leads to the conclusion that these are fragrant flowers. Although the cognitive process seems to start from the contact of the object with our visual or olfactory sense, it is our ability to know that leads us to notice that there is something out there in the first place. This ability itself does not depend on external objects and it must exist before our sense organs get in contact with the environment. A blind person may not see things at this moment but his/her ability to see is still there. When technology is advanced enough to cure the blindness the person is no longer blind to outside world, and then the ability to see will be able to perform its functions. Just recently a device has been invented to help blind people to analyze the electric signals received so they can “see” the environment surrounding them2. Similarly, people who could not hear may have problems with their sense organ, the ear(s) in this case, but they do not really lose their ability to hear. With modern technology, it is not hard to conclude that once a hearing aid is put into place, they are able to hear again, just as we may not be able to hear in a soundproof room but our ability to hear is still there. Once we get out of the room, we are able to hear again. The next example goes beyond our sense organs: suppose we are alone in a room with our back facing the door when someone walks into the room quietly. Even we do not hear steps and do not see the person, many of us have the gut feeling that someone else is in the room. Through some training, most people can achieve the same ability3 associated with I.A. It is also easy to understand that I.A. can function perfectly 2 “Acoustics help blind people see the world” The Medical News, July 5, 2009. URL: http://www.newsmedical.net/news/20090705/Acoustics-help-blind-people-see-the-world.aspx 3 One way to achieve this is to train our mind to be tranquil so as to be sensitive to surrounding environment. well without external stimuli — we can be aware of internal activities such as our thoughts, emotions, pains, etc.; we know when we are hungry, thirsty, or when we are in love. These examples demonstrate that our ability to be aware depends neither on the external environment nor on our sense organs. 2. All Conscious Experiences Are Functions of I.A. If I.A. does not depend on sense organs, the consciousnesses associated with the five sense organs4 must not be fundamental. Then, what is the relation between I.A. and those conscious experiences we are more familiar with? It is common sense that our daily activities depend on awareness. We have to be aware of our environment and of ourselves to live a normal life, implying that, rather than separating from I.A., our everyday experiences are expressions of I.A. through a specific sense organ or mental activities. When I.A. manifests through our visual organ, the eyes, it becomes what we know as the visual consciousness; when I.A. expresses itself through the hearing organ, it becomes what we know as the hearing consciousness; the same is true for smell, taste, and tactile consciousnesses. Besides the five sense organs we also have consciousness related to mental activities such as thoughts, concepts, and being conscious of self, etc. Some people, especially those who believe that mind is the emergent phenomenon of brain, may conclude that I.A. must be the product of our mental activities. In the previous example of being aware of someone walking into the room, one learned that I.A. does not depend on the mental discriminative ability based on concepts. At the very first moment, before we make connection with any concept or even any sense organ, we just have a hunch that someone is in the room. In fact, we all have experiences in which we had a hunch about something or some situation that we could not quite put it into words. This realization that we know or feel something but could not express it indicates that 1) our language is not sufficient to describe what we experience; 2) the “inner knowing” comes before any concept or words. This “knowing” before the conceptual mind arises is our basic ability to know, i.e. our intrinsic awareness, I.A. These examples demonstrate that this fundamental awareness is always with us whether we experience something or not. This leads to the conclusion that I.A. is independent of, instead of the product of, mental activities. Because all our conscious experiences, either through physical senses or mental cognitions such as thinking, perception, judging, remembering, and problem solving, depend on the instinct ability to be aware, none of them is fundamental − they are all functions of I.A. 3. Timeless and Non-Reducible I.A. as the Ground State of Consciousness The fact that I.A. is the foundation to all conscious experiences indicates that it 4 The five consciousnesses associated with the five sense organs are: the visual consciousness, the auditory consciousness, the nasal consciousness, the taste consciousness, and the tactile consciousness. cannot be further divided into sub-constituents: it is neither a part of anything else nor an entity depending on anything else; I.A. is irreducible. Thus, the current reductionist approach, where a system is analyzed by its subunits plus the interactions between them, will not apply to the study of I.A. Inasmuch as I.A. is irreducible, I.A. does not need the concept of “space coordinate”, which is based on the potential divisibility, as in the concepts of left and right, up and down, inside and outside, etc.5 [7]. Because I.A. cannot reduce itself to something else and because I.A. is always with us, nothing changes in this state. Therefore, there is no “time” if one resides in this pure awareness. Apparently, I.A. is the ground state of consciousness. 4. How to Investigate I.A. If one accepts that I.A. is the root awareness from which all conscious experiences emerge and I.A. is not the product of physical and mental activities, one has to acknowledge the possibility that physical instruments we use in modern science, may not be suitable to measure properties of I.A. directly. It is very likely that these apparatus, at the best, probe only the results of interaction between the mental activities in the brain and I.A. Thus the statement “you do not have experimental evidence to show that I.A. is independent of mental activities” is not a valid argument against the existence of I.A. In quantitative science such as physics, we develop theories through mental construct based on concepts, fundamental laws, and experimental facts; or the other way around, we perform experiments to test theoretical predictions. In all these activities, we use our discriminating ability to differentiate right and wrong, reasonable versus unreasonable. We use concepts, knowledge, even experience stored in our memory to compare with the object under study. There is, however, nothing in our experience or concepts that we learned through analytical or reductionist methodology nearly resembles I.A. Then, the question is how do we learn and understand I.A.? During many years of investigating the nature of consciousness, I realized that, to truly know or even to get familiar with I.A., one must directly experience it through introspection [8] or contemplative practice6. In this direct perception our stereotype, culture background, or special training that leads to a special way of thinking, have to be put aside so they will not interfere with the experience. Although this introspection may seem rather subjective, therefore lack of 5 One should be careful not to equate the space in space-time and the spaciousness. When we say: “someone’s mind is as vast as space” we mean spaciousness, not the space coordinate in space-time framework used in modern science. 6 The contemplative practice is no longer a taboo in our society, even in higher education. Numerous research works have been done to investigate the effect of contemplative practices [9]. Some laboratories and centers for contemplative studies have been established in higher education such as: The Center for Investigating the Healthy Mind at the University of Wisconsin (URL: http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org); The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (URL: http://www.acmhe.org); Contemplative Studies Initiatives at Brown University, Emory University, and other institutions. scientific objectivity, this in fact is not the case. In exploring I.A., as long as we follow the same procedure step by step, different people should have the similarly reportable result about the existence of I.A., albeit the details about how to reach that conclusion may differ. Therefore, the seemingly subjective introspection is verifiable. 5. I.A. Versus “The Hard Problem” in Consciousness There are commonalities between “the hard problem” of consciousness proposed by David Chalmers [2] and I.A. discussed by the author of this article. According to Chalmers, the mechanism associated with the interaction between human and information received by the subject, i.e. the cognitive process, and the mechanisms related to it, are the easy parts of consciousness study, meaning at least one can expect to solve them sometime down the road. The subjective experience is hard because one does not even know where to start to address it. In fact one is not even sure that science can provide an answer to the hard problem in consciousness. Chalmers demonstrated the difficulties encountered by reductionist approach when dealing with the hard problem in consciousness. As far as the inapplicability of the reductionism to the underlying problems is concerned, I.A. and the hard problem proposed by Chalmers face the same situation. Nevertheless, characterizing conscious experience as I.A. and functions of I.A. actually simplifies the complexity involved in studies of consciousness. Once we know the fundamental state of the consciousness we know where to start to proceed. Furthermore, this work gives a clear answer to the question “why doesn’t the reductionism apply to the ‘hard problem’ in consciousness study?” There are clear distinctions between the “hard problem of consciousness” and I.A.: most of David Chalmers’ examples as the hard problem of consciousness are subjective experiences that depend on personal history. For example, the experience of color blue may reflect our living environment, our mood at certain time period, or other things involving individual experiences. If one grew up in the proximity to ocean, then the color blue is associated with his/her childhood memory with the ocean. If someone lives in the open space of countryside, thus blue sky is the constant companion, then the color blue may represent openness and spaciousness. On the other hand, if one is often depressed, he or she may feel sad whenever the blue color shows up7. I.A., instead, is independent of personal history, culture, and our stereotype, as the ability to be aware is universal among all living things. 6. Conclusions and the Final Comments From these discussions we can reach the following main conclusions: The intrinsic awareness (IA) that we all have is a universal phenomenon among all living beings. I.A. is the ground state of our conscious experiences that is timeless and irreducible. The non-applicability of reductionism to study of I.A. challenges the current “theories of everything” in which consciousness is ignored. Recently, Rowlands has developed a new theory, “universal computational 7 In American idiom, “feeling blue” means feeling depressed or unhappy. rewrite system”, with significant applications in particle physics and cosmology [10]. Basically, Rowlands can generate all mathematics, structure of nature, including space and time, from a zero totality. It seems that this is a unified theory that is relative simple and promising, as far as physical world is concerned. However, it is not clear how consciousness and the fundamental awareness can come out of this universal rewrite system. Although I.A. is beyond concept and space-time, consciousness, as function of I.A., can be and should be addressed by any theory that is complete and unifying. Linde has proposed that consciousness should be one of the fundamental variables, such as space, time, matter, in any unifying theory [11]. More than thirty years ago, some physicists have speculated that there are parallels between modern physics and Eastern philosophies, even suggesting that vacuum state coming out of the quantum field theory of modern physics resembles the concept of emptiness in Buddhism [12, 13]. Recently, this parallel was revisited by Buddhist scholar Wallace [14]. Even though there are some similarities between the concept of ultimate reality in Eastern thought and the basic state of nature in physics, and these similarities will be further explored, the vacuum state addressed in quantum field theory, at least in the current form, does not explicitly involve conscious mind. I.A. is different from the “field” in the unified field model for consciousness based on the “coherent field” developed when many people practicing meditation together [15-17]. This “coherent, unified consciousness” was suggested being similar to the “field” concept in physics. First of all, the “pure consciousness state” discussed in these articles is not necessarily the intrinsic awareness. Just because one’s mind is calm, quiet, and no thoughts does not guarantee it is in the intrinsic awareness as defined in this work. Secondly, the so-called “unified, global conscious field” requires many people to establish; while each one of us has I.A. with us; there is no need for anyone else’s presence to experience I.A. 7. Acknowledgement The author thanks Dr. Gilles Nibart for his encouragement and suggestions for references. References: 1. For a review on the problems encountered by the studies of consciousness, please see: “Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings”, Ed. by David Chalmers, Oxford University Press, 2002, and references therein. 2. Chalmers, David, “Facing Up the Problem of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 2, pp. 200-219, 1995; David Chalmers, “The Puzzle of Conscious experience”, Scientific American Dec 1995. 3. Sheng, Yen, “Illuminating Silence”, Watkins Publishing, London, 2002. 4. Suzuki, S., “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”, Weatherhill, 2005. 5. Nyima, Chokyi, “The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen”, Rangjung, Yeshe Publications, 1986. 6. Xuan, Hua, “Shurangama Sutra”, Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, 1992. 7. One of the earliest concepts of space involves the “void” between the discrete numbers. See, for example, Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1080 b 33. 8. Boring, Edwin G., “A history of introspection”, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 50 (3), pp. 169–189, 1953. 9. For a comprehensive review of research on contemplative practices, see: Shapiro, Shauna, Walsh, Roger, and Britton, Willoughby B., “An Analysis of Recent Meditation Research and Suggestions for Future Directions”, J. for Meditation and Meditation Research, vol. 3, pp. 69-90, 2003; and references therein. 10. Rowlands, Peter, “From Zero to Infinity”, World Scientific, 2007. 11. Linde, Andrei, “Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology”, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990. 12. Capra, Fritjof, “Tao of Physics”, Shambhala Publications, 1976. 13. Zukav, Gary, “Dancing Wuli Master”, William Morow and Company, 1979. 14. Wallace, Alan, “Vacuum State of Consciousness: A Tibetan Buddhist View” presented at the 5th Biennial International Symposium of Science, Technics and Aesthetics: Space, time, and Beyond,” Lucerne, Switzerland, January 19, 2003. http://www.neugalu.ch/english.htm. 15. Orme-Johnson, DW. Dillbeck, MC. Wallace, RK., and Landrith, GS. “Intersubject EEG coherence: is consciousness a field?” International Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 16(3), pp. 203-209, 1982. 16. Hagelin, J., “Is consciousness the unified field? A field theorist’s perspective”, Modern Science and Vedic Science, vol. 1, pp. 29-87, 1987. 17. Pockett, Susan, “Field theories of consciousness/Field theories of global consciousness” And references therein. Scholarpedia, ISPN 1941-6016, 2009. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Field_theories_of_consciousness/Field_theorie s_of_global_consciousness.

arXiv:0909.5064v1 [cs.OS] 28 Sep 2009 A Conceivable Origin of Machine Consciousness in the IDLE process Norbert Bátfai University of Debrecen Department of Information Technology batfai.norbert@inf.unideb.hu November 22, 2021 Abstract In this short paper, we would like to call professional community’s attention to a daring idea that is surely unhelpful, but is exciting for programmers and anyway conflicts with the trend of energy consumption in computer systems. Keywords: Machine consciousness, IDLE process, Minix. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Upright Operating Systems 2.1 What would be the cons? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 What would be the pros? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 What should we compute? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Time delayed systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 2 2 3 3 Implementations 3 4 Conclusion and further work 4 1 Introduction Operating systems are very sophisticated programs that can create a dream world for users, in which there are processes, files, windows and etc. In a similar manner, the human consciousness has also created a perfect dream world for us, in which there are smells, colors, words, numbers an so on. However operating systems are still passive programs in this sense that they 1 do exactly what we programmed into them. It is not at all surprising because machines have neither free will nor consciousness today. Namely, in the case of operating systems, the IDLE process will be scheduled if there is nothing to do in the system. In the idle process our computer is doing nothing. A brief outline of the content of this paper is as follows. In the next section, we introduce the idea of Upright Operating Systems in conceptual level. In section 3, first step will have been taken towards implementation in such a way that we will have a closer look to the replacing IDLE process in Minix operating system. 2 Upright Operating Systems We set ourselves the aim of making some computing task in the idle process of the kernel. An open source operating system needs to be selected if this goal is to be achieved. We have chosen the Minix3 system [Herder et al., 2006]. The operating systems in which the IDLE process is replaced with some computing task will be called Upright Operating Systems. The using of the word ”Upright” is an indication of the Upright Man, more specifically of the period of becoming human during which Homo Erectus may have taken an upright position. 2.1 What would be the cons? Why would a computing have to be supported in the kernel space? Why not sufficient a simple, entirely user level server program, which is started by the user, whenever the user wishes to run it? In addition to the exclusion of the classical IDLE process goes against the trend of energy consumption in computer systems. 2.2 What would be the pros? We have only one argument that is principled or even also ethical: this would not be a stoppable program. We will not be able to stop the computing whenever we decide to use an Upright Operating Systems. 2.3 What should we compute? What computing should be taken at kernel level? Essentially, two approaches may be envisaged. In the first approach, the operating system would observe itself operating, in such a way that it would make notes during its operation, which notes will be processed in idle periods. For example, in the case of Minix, the IPC traffic may be observed by the Minix kernel [Tanenbaum and Woodhull, 2005, examples on pp. 219], which in turn en- 2 abled the kernel to modify settings of a possible SJF (Shortest Job First) or a preemptive SJF (Shortest Remaining Time First) scheduler. In the other approach, the operating system, for example, with maintaining a common AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, [Epstein et al., 2008, chap. 13]) file, would converge toward human consciousness. But we should remark that the most ideas arisen in this approach are also implementable in the user level and are typically distributed. 2.3.1 Time delayed systems It is an interesting question, how can Libet and Kornhuber’s results on the timing of consciousness [Libet et al., 1979], [Kornhuber et al., 1976] be implemented into an upright operating system? 3 Implementations The first step towards implementation is to replace the IDLE process. In the case of choosing Minix operating system, it is easy to find the source code which implements IDLE process [Tanenbaum and Woodhull, 2005]. It can be found in file kernel/arch/i386/klib386.s. Here the IDLE process is not only a simple infinity loop, but which contains HLT statement which reduces the CPU energy consumption. We don’t have to do nothing else than to replace the idle task reference with an own one in the system image table in source kernel/table.c. Our simple own ”Hello, World!” style uos task that demonstrates replacing idle task defined in source kernel/uos.c is the following. #include "kernel.h" #include "../lib/other/random.c" /* ==================================================== * * uos_task * *===================================================== */ PUBLIC void uos_task() { long l = LONG_MIN; srandom(get_uptime()); for (;;) { if (random() < l++) { kprintf("Hello, Vilag!\n"); l = LONG_MIN; } } } 3 4 Conclusion and further work In the near future, we are going to accomplish the same firs step described above in Linux kernel. For the time being, we are thinking about the question: what computing should be taken at kernel level? References R. Epstein, G. Roberts, and G. Beber. Parsing the Turing Test: Philosophical and Methodological Issues in the Quest for the Thinking Computer. Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2008. ISBN 1402096240, 9781402096242. J. N. Herder, H. Bos, B. Gras, P. Homburg, and A. S. Tanenbaum. Minix 3: a highly reliable, self-repairing operating system. SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev., 40(3):80–89, 2006. ISSN 0163-5980. doi: http://doi.acm.org/10. 1145/1151374.1151391. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke, and P. Scheid. Voluntary finger movement in man: Cerebral potentials and theory. Biological Cybernetics, (23), 1976. B. Libet, E. Wright, B. Feinstein, , and D. K. Pearl. Subjective referral of the timing for a conscious sensory experience. Brain, (102):193–224, 1979. A. S. Tanenbaum and A. S. Woodhull. Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition). Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA, 2005. ISBN 0131429388. 4

929 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Exploration Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Pradeep B. Deshpande* Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, University of Louisville, & Six Sigma & Advanced Controls, Inc., Louisville, KY 40222 USA Abstract In the article, the author describes and discusses his experimentations on enhancing internal excellence. The state of chakras has been selected for scrutiny in this investigation. If the chakras are on target, the rest of the system should be equally good. The notion of chakras, or energy channels, is an ancient Indian concept developed thousands of years ago. There are seven chakras, whose state is correlated with energies of the ten fingers. When the appropriate fingers of the right hand and the left both have the correct amount of energy, the associated chakra will be of the correct size and perfectly aligned at the central vertical line. The state of the chakras is influenced by both the physiological and psychoemotional state of the subject and so this is a 2input 1-output problem. When the emotions come under control - they will with meditation, it will reduce to a 1-input 1-output problem. The selected meditation process should address both the size of all the chakras, and their balance, meaning closeness to the central line. Keywords: Internal excellence, consciousness, enhancement, measurement. Yogastha Kuru Karmani (Be always in the state of Yoga): Bhagvad Geeta, 2.48) Introduction Yogis say that every individual has the same capacity to rise to the fullest extent possible for a human being. The difference now is that the efficacy of the age-old wisdom can be ascertained with a scientific device to measure progress. “Rising to the fullest extent possible” means to achieve a significantly higher level of internal excellence (Figure 1 provides the definition). Mindset Components: • Emotions: Positive Emotions: Unconditional love, kindness, empathy, compassion Negative Emotions: Anger, hatred, hostility, despair, resentment, guilt, frustration, jealousy, fear, worry, helplessness, sorrow Max S Max T Max Positive Emotions Level of Internal Excellence S: Truthfulness, honesty, steadfastness, equanimity R: Attachment, bravery, ego, ambition, greed, desire to live T: Lying, cheating, causing injury in words or deeds, sleep Level of Internal Excellence  Max Negative Emotions Figure 1. Level of Internal Excellence Explained * Correspondence: Prof. Pradeep B. Deshpande, Six Sigma & advanced Controls, Inc., 1209 Holsworth Lane, Louisville, KY 40222, http://www.sixsigmaquality.com E-mail: pradeep@sixsigmaquality.com ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 930 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence There are two approaches to raising the level of internal excellence: (1) A conscious approach, and (2) A process whose side-effect is a rise in the level of internal excellence. In the conscious approach, the S, R, T components of the mindset are meticulously tracked to insure that the S component remains high and nudges higher while the R and T components remain low and nudge lower. The conscious approach is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for progress. The sufficiency condition is reached when a process whose side-effect is a rise in the level of internal excellence is included and it is meditation. Prospects of success with meditation are enhanced with proper diet and physical and pranic exercises. Methods of Measurement An important indicator of progress amenable to self-assessment in the pursuit of higher levels of internal excellence is the capacity to remain centered (Yogastha Kuru Karmani) in the face of the most challenging external situations that are part and parcel of life. For example, if you stub your toe, what is your instant reaction before you have had a chance to think? Another example, let us say you are driving, obeying all the traffic laws and someone cuts into your lane nearly causing an accident, what is your instant reaction? As depicted in Figure 2 if the disturbances in the internal condition are sustained for long periods of time, then the level of internal excellence is inadequate. If the changes in the internal conditions are small and temporary then that is indicative of a higher level of internal excellence. Among other indicators of high levels of internal excellence are: (1) Spontaneous affection shown by animals, birds, butterflies and children; (2) Just being among individuals with a high level of internal excellence brings a sense of serenity and calm; and (3) Perfectly balanced chakras. External Condition Max Positive Emotions External Condition Scale of Internal Excellence Scale of Internal Excellence Max S Max T Time (a) Max Negative Emotions Time (b) Figure 2. Influence of External Conditions on the Level of Internal Excellence Each of the 6 ½ billion of us on Earth have many trillions cells. Each of these cells has a nucleus which contains 46 chromosomes. We inherit 23 X, X chromosomes from our mother and 23 X, Y chromosomes from our father. The chromosomes are made of atoms which in turn are made up of subatomic particles. In other words, at the fundamental level, we are all made up of vibrations which is light not necessarily visible light. Just as the atomic configuration determines if a substance is iron or gold, the cellular configuration determines whether the cells are healthy or not. That is, the frequency of vibrations of light we are emitting unknown to us is what ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 931 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence determines our health and even the level of internal excellence. Change the vibrational frequencies and the cellular configuration will change for the better as will health. Ancient Chinese and Indian masters have known this for thousands of years. Konstantin Korotkov has developed a clever way to measure this light we emit to estimate the physiological, psycho-emotional, and internal excellence state of humans. This device called Bio-Well, based on the principle of Gas Discharge Visualization, utilizes a completely harmless current applied to each finger of our two hands and measures the light emitted by them. Correlating the pixels so emitted to the state of tens of thousands of subjects in the database allows for the prediction of the physiological and psychoemotional state of the subject under scrutiny at a high probability. This device has been approved by the Russian Ministry of Health as a medical diagnostic device for use in Russian hospitals and doctors’ offices. Bio-Well produces several outcomes. They are: (1) Overall energy, J, (2) Stress level & balance between physiological and psychoemotional state, (3) Chakras, (4) Yin Yang meridians energy distribution, (5) Health Status, and (6) Energy reserve. The state of Chakras has been selected for scrutiny in this investigation. If the chakras are on target, the rest of the system should be equally good. The notion of chakras, or energy channels, is an ancient Indian concept developed thousands of years ago. There are seven chakras, whose state is correlated with the ten finger energies. When the appropriate fingers of the right hand and the left both have the correct amount of energy, the associated chakra will be of the correct size and perfectly aligned at the central vertical line. The selected meditation process should address both the size of all the chakras, and their balance, meaning closeness to the central line. Six sigma principles suggest that perfection is not in the plan of nature meaning that it would be extremely difficult to achieve the correct size and perfect alignment of all chakras at all times. Variation occurs because of many factors that are either known or unknown/uncontrollable which statisticians refer to as common cause variability. One source of difficult-to-control variation is what we inherit from our ancestors. Not only do we inherit potential diseases from our ancestors but also emotional traits and this has a bearing on the level of internal excellence. We further complicate our lives beginning with the time we are in our mother’s womb when things are beyond our control but also later by our own actions to the present age. There are only two ways to rid ourselves of the ill effects of past negative emotions that are lodged in the energy channels: Either suffer from them or eliminate them. The results of meditation suggest that the effects of past negative emotions are attenuated. For the seven chakras, the outcomes are: (1) Energy level (size) of each of the seven chakras, Joules, and (2) Balance of each of the seven chakras, closeness to the central vertical line, %. Thus there are fourteen outputs to regulate. The target value of the energy level of each chakra is 5 J, and the target value of the Balance of each chakra is 100.0 %. This is an interacting multivariable control problem as several of the finger energies influence more than one chakra. The goal is to drive each chakra energy towards 5 Joules and the Balance towards 100.0. Perfection is not possible and so we would be content with achieving the correct mean value of each chakra energy and the Balance while minimizing the variance of the size and Balance for all seven chakras. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 932 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Meditation Process The author has included in his practice a variant of the asanas and pranic exercises of some yoga gurus. The meditation practice was developed by Sanjeev A. Aroskar who holds a B. tech in Electronics and Computers from the Indian Institute of technology, Mumbai. Earlier in his career, he had the opportunity to work on more than fifteen projects for the former President of India the late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam when the latter was a Project Director. At the author’s request, Aroskar has strived to insure that the meditation practice is consistent with six sigma principles. The frequency of the program is twice a day. For more details on meditation for materialization of intentions, the reader is referred to Reference 4. When we strive for perfection, it is nice to have an ideal to work against. For example, the author’s graduate students developed control algorithms that could theoretically deliver perfect control in manufacturing applications. We also understood the problem with specifying perfection and therefore designed control laws which were a suitable compromise. Such is the case here as well. In this case, self-realized masters who remain connected much of the time have the best performance. One such individual is the author’s Guruji, Gurumahan Maharishi Paranjothiar who has an Ashram in the Thirumurthi Hills, Tamil Nadu, India. For the last twenty-five years, he has spent three weeks every year in meditation in a Pyramid-shaped structure for world peace with little or no food or drink (www.universalpeacefoundation.org). Figure 3 depicts his chakras from the bioenergy measurements in May of 2013. For the vast majority of us, such performance is nearly impossible to achieve. Nonetheless, the benefits from achievable performance are very significant. Figure 3. Guruji’s Chakras on May 26 2013 ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 933 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Current Results Figure 4 depicts the results of meditation over many days. In these figures there was one day when all seven chakras were nearly balanced and of near-perfect size. This is significant as the author had arrived from India carrying a 9 ½ hours of jetlag two days earlier. On several other days, five or six of the seven chakras were nearly balanced and nearly on target. On the days they were off-balanced/off-target size-wise, discernable causes could be identified. For example, on one of the days the author had taken a flu shot and had developed a reaction the following morning. On another occasion, when it was not possible to do meditation in the morning due to some overseas calls that had to be made, the effect was visible in the measurement. When meditation was added that evening, several of the chakras became more balanced. These and other data not included here suggest that the entire program needs to be done sequentially in one shot, preferably in the morning. Furthermore, the author suggests that if he can progress to this extent, anyone can. Figure 4(a). October 18, 2015 (58 Joules) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 934 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Figure 4(b). October 25, 2015 (Reaction to Flu Shot) 51 Joules Figure 4(c). October 27, 2015 (56 Joules) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 935 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Figure 4(d). October 28, 2015 (60 Joules) Figure 3(e). October 30, 2015 (59 Joules) Figure 4(f). November 1, 2015 (61 Joules) ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 936 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Figure 4(g). Nov 2 2015 Pranayam Only in AM (60 Joules) Figure 4(h). Nov 2 2015 Meditation only in PM (54 Joules) Figure 4(i). Nov 3 2015 (64 Joules) Figure 4. Chakra Measurements of the Author ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 937 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Generally speaking, the state of the chakras are influenced by both the physiological and psychoemotional state of the subject and so this is a 2-input 1-output problem. When the emotions come under control, and they will with meditation, it will reduce to a 1-input 1-output problem. Then, it will be easier to link the state of each chakra to specific problems with the physiological state. This information is valuable since our bioenergy field is the first to be affected well before the symptoms of ailments are revealed in the body. Discussion An MRI or a CT scan depicts the state of the specific subject. In contrast, the bioenergy measurements answer the question, compared to the tens of thousands of subjects in the database, how does this subject stack up with a high confidence level. The bioenergy measurements may be important predictors of future problems as the bioenergy of a human being is the first to be affected well before the symptoms of ailments appear in the body. Although this article has focused on raising the level of internal excellence, there are numerous side-benefits: Health & wellness, creativity & innovativeness, improved performance in all walks of life, better leadership decisions, and less discord. Elizabeth Blackburn has linked high levels of stress to shortening of telomeres and accelerated aging and various diseases. AMA says 80% of all diseases occur because of stress. Stress being a byproduct of negative emotions and since meditation relieves negative emotions from the inside, it is no wonder meditation has been found to relieve stress. When combined with the scientific framework for external excellence (six sigma), the ideas in this paper extend to organizational excellence, national transformation, and to a better and more peaceful world (Reference 4). Just as a person has an individual level of internal excellence, so do nations. A nation whose population has an increasing level of internal excellence (rising S component), rises while a nation whose average level of internal excellence is falling (rising T component), declines. There is only one way for a developing nation to emerge as a developed nation: Raise the level of internal excellence of the population! Experimental investigations will confirm that the benefits of spending sufficient time on the program during working hours to an organization and to the individuals will far outweigh the cost to the company of allocating the time for the activity. Success is not likely if the staff is asked to do this on their time. Although meditation brings about changes from within, it is important to also consciously strive to cultivate positive emotions and avoid negative emotions. The yogi says, external conditions only have 3% effect on us but how we respond to them has 97% effect. It is advisable to remain committed to relying on data alone for decision-making everywhere else except when you sit for meditation. Then, the rational mind must be sent on a vacation or else it will become your worst enemy. Open-mindedness is essential for progress. Rationalism need not equate to tunnel-version. Prospects of success with meditation are enhanced by Shraddha, Bhakti, Vishwas (faith, devotion, and confidence/trust) but this need not make us superstitious. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 938 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Everyone will benefit from the program but not equally because each of us carry a varying amount of common cause variability. The results are sensitive to how one places the fingers on the glass electrode of the Bio-Well device. For example, Figure 5(a) depicts two measurements taken one after the other. The tester needs to follow all the protocols during the measurements. That said the measurements cannot go from those in Figure 5 to those in Figure 5(b) due to errors. The subject is advised to cultivate a neutral mindset at the time of measurement. Expectations of a certain result may bring about an unwelcome change. Figure 5(a). Two Measurements Nov 5 2015 Energy 60 J (Left) and 61 J (Right) Figure 5(b). Stomach Cancer Patient Jul 27 2014 (Energy 30 J) (Courtesy Konstantin Korotkov) To see how much of a difference the program was making, the before-and-after measurements were made on November 10th. The results in Figure 6 show substantial improvement. One reason for the before results is that the author had gone to see an emotion-stirring James Bond movie, Spectre, and had gone to bed very late but the inability to remain centered in the face of these simple external conditions point to a scope for additional improvement. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 939 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Figure 6. Before (Left - Energy – 55 Joules); After (Right – Energy 65 J) Nov 10 2015 Epilogue Some scientists have suggested that how it couldn’t be anything else but consciousness that created the universe since there was nothing physical left at the moment of the Big Bang. Scientists have also conducted experiments in recent decades showing that everything is connected to everything else even though not physically linked with a field of energy that responds to the power of human emotions. Since everything is connected to everything else, it follows that our individual consciousness must also be connected to the universal consciousness. This implies that we too must possess the capacity to create. If we could demonstrate this capacity, then the hypothesis that the universal consciousness created the universe strengthens. The meditation process is designed to materialize intentions and it contains a mechanism to create physical reality. The noblest intention worthy of creation is to rise on the scale of internal excellence. Now, we have a scientific measurement device with which to assess progress. Still, the author wanted to find additional evidence supportive of the hypothesis, intention can create physical reality. With this mind, the author approached Sanjeev A. Aroskar in India who designed a program which included an explicit intention to become light as cotton so as to lift from the ground. The rational mind objects to this as it appears to violate Newton’s Law of Gravity. Actually, we have lifted from the ground because we have become light as cotton and so Newton’s Law really has nothing to say about it. Sanjeev gathered a group of six fellow meditators and practiced for several months and during the author’s next visit to India, demonstrated the result. Figure 7 is a still-frame from the video taken with the author’s IPhone camera showing Aroskar lifting from the ground by more than a foot. There is some spring-action involved here as the meditator was seen to be pushing himself up by pressing with his hands to the ground but this feat would be impossible to achieve with spring action alone. Readers will realize that sitting cross-legged it is impossible to lift even an inch by spring action of the hands pushing down. Four others in the group had lifted by various amounts but none as high as Sanjeev. One individual showed no ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 940 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence response at all. Just be sure, the author had an associate accompany him to witness the program and to take a video with his IPhone. W. A. Tiller explains that space can become conditioned for example through a meditation process and then if an intention is introduced, it materilizes. The author this article adds, conditioning of space requires a sufficiently high level of internal excellence. Figure 7. Aroskar Lifting off the Ground Musings of the Author Scientific theories are always provisional in that as more and more data comes in that conforms to the predictions of the theory, our confidence in the theory rises but if a single data point presents itself that conflicts with the theory, then that theory must be abandoned in favor of a new or modified theory. One of the side-benefits of the program is creativity and innovativeness. May be some scientists already engaged in deep research on renewable energy, desalination, global warming, etc., would make breakthrough discoveries by embracing these practices. A theory in the absence of a validated measurement is but a conjecture. Capacity to learn is a gift; ability to learn is a skill; desire to learn is a choice: Source - Unknown. Progress requires a change of perspective from how much we know to how little we know. There is nothing wrong with making money. Trying to make it under false pretenses is where the problem lies. In the absence of emotions, the notion of God has no relevance. The teachings of all incarnations are nearly identical. This implies that they were all connected to the one and only source. In an ego-bursting admission, no one invents anything; we only discover them. The wisdom of self-realized yogis is profound. Unfortunately, there are too many instances of unwholesome activities involving individuals pretending to be evolved souls. No wonder, there is so much confusion in the minds of many in the society. Trust but verify. Mysticism is science not yet discovered but take care, mysticism and superstition are close cousins and so validate all observations with six sigma principles. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 941 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence Science is God already discovered but God is science yet to be discovered – Baba Shivanand Ji. Science demands that measurements must be repeatable and reproducible and that is the way it should be. On the hand, six sigma posits that there will always be a certain amount of unavoidable variation in any outcome under scrutiny due to uncontrollable and unknown causes. This concept is especially relevant in the present instance. The scale of internal excellence (Figure 1) is nonlinear and contains chaotic orbits. Therefore, it is possible to traverse the entire distance from the bottom to the top or the top to the bottom in short order if you happen to hitch a ride on one of the strange attractors. Conversely, there could be little progress over an entire lifetime despite best efforts. Some people erroneously link meditation to religion. However, it is clear that there is no scope for religious discord in the domain of universal consciousness. The world has become increasingly rational minded since the days of Copernicus perhaps stung by Aristotle’s false claims of an earth-centric existence. Therefore, a scientific explanation is necessary to win the hearts and minds of the people. Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders and so it is important to introduce the program at an early age. Otherwise, we will find ourselves complaining about high healthcare costs, now over $2.7 trillion and climbing, when we are much older when the time to act would have passed by several decades. The same reasoning applies for why the world is not more peaceful. David R. Hawkins explained that only 25% of the world is transformable. In this connection, two questions arise: (1) How then can the world become more peaceful? and (2) How to reach the 25% who are transformable. The answer to the first question comes from the work of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his scientist followers. They conducted experiments which showed that a mere fraction of the people meditating has a profound positive effect even on those who are not participating in the exercise. As to how to reach the 25% transformable ones, the answer has to be via the World Wide Web. The strategy should be to bring the ideas and concepts to the attention of the 100% of the people knowing fully well that only a quarter of them are likely to embrace them but that should be sufficient to bring about a significant positive change in the society. There are a small number of self-realized yogis who have come out to teach the practices of internal excellence. The work reported here shows that scientists too can teach the science and practices of internal excellence to a significant extent. Scientists may not have the capacity to take an aspirant to the top of the scale of internal excellence but the progress aspirants will make should be sufficient for national and global transformation and peace. This is significant since there are tens of thousands of scientists. So, national and global transformation is not a theoretical concept; it can actually be done. Aspirants desirous of reaching even higher levels of internal excellence may not find it difficult to reach a self-realized yogi who resonates with them. Acknowledgement: This paper is written with the explicit blessings of Guruji Paranjothiar and implicit blessings of Baba Shivanand Ji. The author thanks Konstantin Korotkov and Krishna Madappa for their review and comments on the paper. ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com 942 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| November 2016 | Volume 6 | Issue 11 | pp. 929-942 Deshpande, P. B., Experimentations on Enhancing Internal Excellence References 1. Abdul Kalam, APJ and Tiwari, Arun, Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji, Harper Element Publishers, Noida, India 201301 2015. 2. Abdul Kalam, APJ, Emerging India: India Vision 2020, India Today, March 17, 2003. 3. Deshpande, P. B., Profound Implications of Minimum Variance Control, Dr. Mikel Harry’s Blog, Business Improvement Times, May 2015. 4. Deshpande, Pradeep B., PhD and Kowall, James P., MD, PhD, The Nature of Ultimate Reality and How It Can Transform Our World: Evidence from Modern Physics; Wisdom of YODA, SAC 2015 (available on amazon). 5. Deshpande, P. B., Six Sigma for Karma Capitalism, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., 2015 (available on amazon). 6. Deshpande, P. B., Kulkarni, B. D., Aroskar, S. A., and Bhavsar S. N., Levitation during Meditation: A Scientific Investigation, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 2, 4, June 2011. 7. Gefter, Amanda, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything Random House, 2014. 8. Korotkov, K., Energy Fields Electrophotonic Analysis in Humans and Nature, Available on Amazon as Kindle Edition or from www.korotkov.org, 2012. 9. Hagelin, John S., et al., Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington, DC: Results of the National Demonstration Project, JuneJuly 1993, Social Indicators Research, 47, 2, 153-201, 1999. 10. Hawkins, David, R., Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis and Calibration of the Level of Human Consciousness, Veritas Publishing, W. Sedona, AZ 1995. 11. Kowall, James P., How is the World Created from Nothing, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 6, 6, June 2015. 12. Orme-Johnson, David W., et al., International Peace Project in the Middle East – The Effects of Maharishi Technology of the United Field, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32, 1988 pp 776-812. 13. Tiller, W. A., Psychoenergetic Science: Second Copernican Revolution, www.amazon.com, 2007. 14. Wallace, R. K., Physiological Effects of Transcendental Meditation, Science, New Series, Vol. 167, No. 3926 (Mar. 27, 1970), pp. 1751-1754. 15. http://www.sot.sixsigmaquality.com 16. http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=krishna+madappa ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.JCER.com

Response to Nauenberg’s “Critique of Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness” (accepted 11/01/07 by Foundations of Physics, DOI: 10.1007/s10701-007-9195-8) Fred Kuttner Department of Physics University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Abstract Nauenberg’s extended critique of Quantum Enigma rests on fundamental misunderstandings. In his brief abstract, as a summary of his extensive paper1, Michael Nauenberg incorrectly states that the “central claim” of our book, Quantum Enigma2, is that “understanding quantum mechanics requires a conscious observer.” In fact, we are explicit that understanding quantum mechanics, for all practical purposes, need not address the issue of consciousness. We rather note that physics has encountered consciousness. The major theme of Nauenberg’s critique is that we are wrong, even doing something improper, by raising the issue of consciousness in connection with quantum mechanics. We must reply to this charge. A dictionary’s first definition of “encounter” is: “to meet, usually unexpectedly.” It fits our use of the word. One such meeting early on was von Neumann’s demonstration that, while for all practical purposes a wavefunction can be considered collapsed at any macroscopic point in the measurement chain, nevertheless, in principle no physical system described by quantum mechanics can collapse a wavefunction. The final collapse must take place at the level of consciousness3. We might also cite Wigner’s famous comment that “…it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”4 More recently a foremost exponent of “decoherence” in the measurement process, Zurek, has written: “An exhaustive answer to this question [the perception of a unique reality, i.e., a measurement] would undoubtedly have to involve a model of ‘consciousness’…”5 And in their discussion of the quantum potential interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohm and Hiley write: “However, the intuition that consciousness and quantum theory are in some sense related seems to be a good one…”6 Many examples where quantum mechanics has led physicists to speculate about a connection with consciousness could be cited. And, of course, the connection has influenced philosophers. For example, Chalmers’ landmark book7 introducing the now much-discussed “hard problem” of consciousness has a final chapter titled “The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.” With quantum mechanics, physics has at the very least encountered consciousness. The tack we take in our book is to present the undisputed experimental facts with a quantum-theory-neutral demonstration. We have presented a technical version of such a quantum-theory-neutral demonstration some years ago.8 Our book presents this to the general reader with the invitation to readers to decide on the extent of the encounter with consciousness for themselves. We present the quantum theory explanation of these demonstrations. But we leave the issue an unresolved mystery, an enigma, one that should stimulate meaningful and disciplined speculation. In our book we are explicit that the encounter of physics with consciousness likely has no practical consequences for physics. It is metaphysics. Nauenberg criticizes us for talking of “metaphysics,” as if metaphysics were pseudoscience. A major point of our book is that quantum mechanics brings us to an encounter with something beyond what physicists usually think of as physics. Something beyond physics is essentially the definition of metaphysics. We are clear in our book, that physicists, as physicists, need not concern themselves with consciousness. But we, and our readers, are more than just physicists. There is more to life than physics. Quantum mechanics tells of something mysterious that seems beyond “physics.” Exploring beyond testable physics, several interpretations of the meaning of quantum mechanics currently contend with the Copenhagen interpretation--which we all use in our teaching and research. In our book we treat nine of these (and in the paperback version planned by Oxford University Press, we treat ten). Many of these interpretations explicitly treat consciousness. For example, the most famous alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation, the “many worlds” interpretation, has also been seen as the “many minds” interpretation. Even when consciousness is not explicitly addressed, every interpretation has speculative implications for the nature of consciousness. We are acutely aware that the strange implications of consciousness have increasingly been exploited to promote quantum nonsense. We not only consider this a serious societal problem, but we feel it to be the responsibility of physicists to address it. In fact, evading the enigma, or worse, denying it, cedes the field to the field to the purveyors of pseudoscience. We have urged our colleagues to teach the quantum mysteries honestly as an antidote to their misuse.9 Nauenberg refers to our “misunderstanding” of the physics and does so with very extensive quotations. We will not reply in detail to his many incorrect claims that we have the physics wrong. We just note that our book has been extensively reviewed and praised by physicists, and, other than Nauenberg’s misinterpretations, no errors were noted. See our book’s website, www.quantumenigma.com, for many reviews. Some physicists can be unsettled by having our “hard” discipline of physics connected with the mysterious, “soft,” and emotional subject of consciousness. Historian of science Jed Buchwald has noted that: “Physicists…have long had a special loathing for admitting questions with the slightest emotional content into their professional work.”10 At times we can, to an extent, share this reaction of our fellow physicists, but we are trying, along with many experts in the fundamentals of quantum theory, to move beyond it. Early on John Bell wrote that it is likely that “the new way of seeing things will involve an imaginative leap that will astonish us.”11 Bell expressed similar views in what was probably the last article he ever published.12 By “us” Bell did not just mean physicists. The astonishment Bell refers to might well involve consciousness. 1. Nauenberg, M. : Found. Phys. (in press). DOI 10.1007/s10701-007-9179-8 (2007) 2. Rosenblum, B., Kuttner, F. : Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness. Oxford University Press, New York (2006) 3. von Neumann, J.: Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1955) 4. Wigner, E.: Remarks on the mind-body problem. In: Wheeler, J.A., Zurek, W.H. (eds.) Quantum Theory and Measurement, pp. 168-181. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1983) 5. W. H. Zurek,: Preferred states, predictability, classicality, and the environmentinduced decoherence. Prog. Theor. Phys. 89(2), 281 (1993) 6. Bohm, D., Hiley, B. J.: The Undivided Universe. Routledge, London (1993) 7. Chalmers, D.J.: The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press, New York (1996) 8. Rosenblum, B., Kuttner, F.: The observer in the quantum experiment. Found. Phys. 32, 1273-1293 (2002) 9. Kuttner, F., Rosenblum, B.: Teaching physics mysteries versus pseudoscience. Physics Today 59(11), 14 (2006) 10. Glanz, J.: ESSAY; A Physicist Considers the Cosmos, Through the Prism of 9/11. New York Times, 21 May 2002, p. F4. 11. Bell, J.S., Nauenberg, M.: The moral aspects of quantum mechanics. In: De Shalit, A., Feschbach, H., van Hove, L. (eds.) Preludes in Theoretical Physics, pp. 279–286. North Holland, Amsterdam (1966). Reprinted in J.S. Bell Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, p. 22. Cambridge Univ. Press (1987) 12. Bell, J.S.: Against ‘Measurement'. Physics World 8, 33–40 (1990)

Illusions - a model of mind Markos Maniatis UBB, Departamento de Ciencias Basicas, Chillan, Chile Recognizing that all mental processes have to be unfree and passive, we develop a model of behavior and perceptions. We shall see how misleading our intuition is and shall understand how consciousness arises. arXiv:1707.09379v1 [q-bio.NC] 28 Jul 2017 I. INTRODUCTION We are convinced to be like the captain of a ship - equipped with navigation systems like radar, depth sounder on the one hand und rudder, radio equipment, switches and levers for valves and locks on the other hand. Similar, we get on the one hand visual, auditive, haptic and other sensory informations and on the other hand we control and steer our body, walk, grasp, gesticulate und communicate. We are convinced to be free in the sense, to indeed have informations available about our surrounding and our body, but at least expect to be able to control ourselves to a certain level arbitrary. Of course, we know that certain processes are unconscious, like, for instance, the control of our heart. However, we expect to be free at least with respect to conscious behavior. This picture of a ”captain” on board of our body reveals at a closer look as an illusion; on general grounds it appears to be meaningless to present the sensory signals to any kind of inner ”captain”; our senses have accomplished this task already in transferring the perceptions to our nervous system, that is, have made the information accessible for further processing. Why should these informations be presented once again to an inner ”captain” [1]? In particular, the informations would have to be processed once again within the ”captain” and we were no step further. In fact, the incoming signals, for instance of the visual system, are processed already behind the retina and are directed to different regions in the cortex. Accordingly, there is no localisation in our brain in which the visual signals converge. Obviously, we have to abandon the illusion of a ”captain”. But how does this illusion arise? A further illusion of the ”captain” is his freedom: we think of a ”captain”, who has information available for instance on monitors, about the current position of the ship and its velocity, but we imagine that the ”captain” is in principle free. We expect the ”captain” to balance different options and to have a certain range of possibilities to decide and act. In this sense we speak of a kind of responsibility of the ”captain”. We will see that also this freedom of the ”captain” is an illusion when we consider the ”captain” in our nervous system. The absence of our freedom is the crucial point in order to understand our behavior, thinking, our perceptions, and eventually consciousness. The quest for free will is certainly very old [2, 3] - and it is still subject to discussions today. In section II we shall discuss in detail this question about our freedom. Historically it seemed to be obvious that we are not free, since two break thoughts have been achieved in science: firstly, it became clear that physiological processes are in principle not different from other natural phenomena [4]. Secondly, the principle of cause and effect, the determinism, was recognized as a fundamental and universal principle. These two findings lead to the following question: how could we be free, if our physiological processes have to follow the principle of cause and effect, that is, are deterministic processes? We want to discuss some aspects of this discussion in the section II and we will argue that our freedom is an illusion, in a certain sense independent of the question of determinism. If we are not free, the question arises, how do we come to our decisions and actions? Since the free ”captain” in us turns out to be an illusion, the question is, how do we steer our ship without any type of ”captain”? Obviously it appears that we in general do not behave like a ghost ship - we act in general purposively. As a consequence of the absence of freedom it is required to replace the ”captain” by a non-free, that is, passive ”mechanism” in order to understand our decisions and actions consistently. This ”mechanism” has to connect the incoming signals from our perceptions, which arrive at our nervous system with the outgoing ones, which represent our decisions and actions. In section III we shall present the ”mechanism” which allows us to replace the ”captain” and shall give a consistent explanation of our behavior and thinking. In section IV we will focus on our perceptions. If we, for instance, watch the sunset our sensation seems not to be in accordance with electrical action potential in the neurons of our nervous system. With other words, the question arises, how does the electric action-potential activity of neurons correspond to the sensation of watching a sunset? What is the meaning of pain when we cut accidentally our skin with a knife in contrast to the electrical or biochemical neuronal activity? We recognize the problem already when we ask the simple question of the sensation of a color, say red: the color red corresponds physically to a range of wave length of an electromagnetic wave. This electromagnetic wave excites charges to oscillate in special cells in our retina which in turn induce electrical actions potentials in the neurons. The signals are transferred to the cortex and the whole processing in our nervous system is performed in form of action potentials. The color red, in form of our sensation, seems to not exist neither outside nor inside our brain. How do we come to the illusion of the color red? In the literature 2 this aspect of sensations of perceptions is often denoted as qualia [5–8]. In section V we shall discuss eventually how we come to the illusion of a ”captain”. It is the same question asking for our ”consciousness”, ”self”, or ”I”. Why are we convinced to have a form of ”I”? And what is the true meaning of ”consciousness”? Based on the preceding discussion about freedom and about decisions and acts we shall arrive at an interesting model of mind. The mathematician G. W. Leibnitz has discussed this questions about consciousness already centuries ago [9]. In his monade 17 he is studying the question about consciousness comparing our brain with a mill. We want to reconsider this remarkable thought experiment and shall try to reveal the Nature of consciousness. It is our aim to develop a consistent model of mind which provides a principal understanding of perceptions, actions and eventually consciousness. We shall reveal the illusions we have in mind and the main focus will be to show how and why these illusions arise. Let us emphasize, that we are looking for a basic model of mind, which will not consider all the interesting details. For example, when we discuss our actions, in a general sense also reflexes belong to actions. But reflexes occur in a very different manner than conscious actions like shooting a ball towards a goal. Reflexes follow inevitable on a certain stimulus; they are ”wired” firmly and they follow therefore a different principle than when we shoot a ball. But reflexes do not appear to be in contradiction to our imagination, since we accept them as ”mechanical”. We will see that our imagination is very misleading compared to our true nature. We shall see, how in our model of mind these illusionary imaginations arise and shall understand how consciousness appears. II. UNFREE WILL The central point in the development of a model of mind is to realize that the freedom of will is an illusion. The old quest for freedom is still today subject to discussions with very different opinions. This quest for freedom was discussed already by the ancient greeks Democritus [2] and Aristotele [3], newer discussion can be found, for instance, by [1, 10–16], In general we are convinced to be masters of our actions and thoughts, to weight and eventually decide freely. A consequence of this imagination of freedom is our understanding of responsibility and guilt, concepts which are deeply rooted in our fundamental law; being guilty of a criminal offense means to commit a violation of criminal law. Finally, to a more or less large extend, our understanding of good and evil, responsibility, guilt and atone are related to religion: if we violate God’s law we sin and are guilty. Despite this big historical heritage with respect to the body-mind problem we shall argue, that under simple assumptions we never can be free. First, we have to define what we mean by free. Let us consider a concrete example: suppose, a waiter offers two kinds of muffins, say a vanilla and a chocolate muffin. We choose one of both, say the chocolate muffin. If this choice were free this means that we could, at the same time, that is, under the exact same conditions, have made an alternative choice. In this example we mean to be free, when we could have chosen the vanilla muffin instead. We preliminary define freedom as the capability to have made an alternative choice, under the same conditions. We will see that this definition not quite gives what we actually expect from freedom; therefore we denote this definition as preliminary. Let us note that in praxis it is not possible to restore the exact same conditions since this would require to go back in time. Could we repeat the ”experiment” of the choice of two types of muffins, we would be able to immediately verify whether we always take the same choice or not. However, we will see that this is not necessary to understand that we are not free. At a first glance, it appears not questionable that we, following our definition, do have the freedom to choose the alternative vanilla muffin. But looking at it again this appears to be impossible, at least under certain assumptions: we suppose that our nervous system follows the same basic principles as the rest of Nature does. In detail these principles are electromagnetic and biochemical interactions in the neurons and its joints, the synapses. If we follow natural processes, then the choice of a muffin is the result of a cascade of preceding processes. Every process conditions the following. When we have made a choice, while we extend our arm towards the chocolate muffin, then this choice arises from preceding (electromagnetic and biochemical) processes. An alternative choice means that there were alternative preceding processes present, what obviously was not the case. This argumentation is the determinism, the principle of cause and effect. Our choice appears to be determined, that is, not free, because we could not have taken another choice under the same conditions or equivalently, at the same time. Let us mention that this contradicts our imagination of free will. We will come back to this interesting point later. Firstly, let us consider the assumption that we follow natural processes. Nowadays we undestand the elementary biochemical and electromagnetic processes in our nervous system. Even that we certainly do not understand our brain as a whole, we do understand its basic elementary units, the neurons, together with its joints, the synapses. Electromagnetic action potentials are transmitted through the neurons and in response, neurotransmitters, that is, signaling molecules, are released and excite the receptors of another neuron. Obviously, the basic interactions, that is, its biochemical processes are principally the same interactions as we observe in Nature elsewhere. A milestone in this context was the synthetic production of urea. Before, the chemistry of life, the organic chemistry, was strictly separated from the non-organic 3 chemistry of the remaining, dead, substances. This reflected the idea that chemistry of life is fundamentally different from that of other substances. With the synthetic production of urea in 1828 by Wöhler [4], that is, the production of an organic substance from non-organic substances, this distinction had to be given up. The chemists today denote the molecules based on carbon for historical reasons as organic chemistry, in contrast to non-organic chemistry. This is certainly a strong evidence supporting our assumption. A further evidence that we follow natural processes is that material influences change our thoughts and actions. An example of this is the consumption of alcohol. We recognize the close relation between the material substance alcohol and mind. A further example of this close relation is given by lesion of certain areals of the brain which result in mental changes. But let us note, that the assumption, that our nervous system is based exclusively on natural interactions is plausible but difficult to prove. We will nevertheless make this assumption in our model of mind and shall see that we can in deed understand our thoughts and actions in principle. Secondly, let us take a closer look at the principle of cause and effect, the determinism. It reflects our daily experience that every effect has a cause: if the stone hits the window with sufficient momentum, the glass will break. When a action potential arrives at a synapse, it reveals a certain amount of neurotransmitters. However, we know that this principle of cause and effect has fundamental limitations: quantum mechanics, discovered by E. Schrödinger [17], tells us that under the exact same conditions we can observe different effects. In Nature there are processes which occur spontaneously. An example of this is the decay of a radioactive element, which decays spontaneously: if we observe two such radioactive atoms they in general decay at different times. Before their decay, both atoms are in every detail identical. The reason is not, that we do not know the exact details of the instable atoms, but merely it is Nature itself following this rule. For a sufficient large number of radioactive atoms we can only give the half-life time, the time after which about half of the atoms have decayed. However, for a single atom we can not know this time of decay, it appears to be undeterminable. We can compare this with throwing a coin. When we throw a coin sufficiently often, we find that about half of them fall on one specific side. For a single throw we can not determine the outcome with certainty. If we suppose, that our nervous system underlies the same interactions as everything else we observe in Nature, then we cannot exclude that there are spontaneous processes. With other words, in the cascade of processes it may happen that there appear processes which are not determined. Hence, the processes in the nervous system are natural but not necessarily determined! Following our preliminary definition of freedom, that is, the ability to make an alternative choice under the same conditions, we appear to be free! However, we have to realize that this kind of freedom does not satisfy our idea of freedom. Obviously, considering a machine, employing a spontaneous mechanism, for instance triggered by radioactive decays of instable atoms, we would not call free, even that it satisfies our defintion. Instead, what we mean by free is to make an alternative choice under the same conditions but not spontaneously or randomly. Therefore, let us define freedom eventually as the ability to take an alternative choice under the same conditions but not spontaneously. Accordingly, following this revised definition, our decisions and actions are not free, supposed we underly natural processes. Let us comment on the current discussion about freedom. The physicist Max Planck was also engaged in the quest of freedom [18, 19]. He realizes that the spontaneous, random processes do not make our actions free, but he tries by a kind of ”inner” dialog to declare us free. His argument can be sketched following our example of the choice of muffins. Suppose the waiter offeres the two types of muffin but we are accompanied by a friend. We discuss with our friend the preferences of the two muffins. Evidently this discussion will influence the process of decision and this may result eventually in an alternative choice. Max Planck states that this process of discussion can take place in our brain in a similar form without our friend present and this makes us free, because, following Planck, this may result in an alternative outcome. But there is a flaw in this argument: of course the friend can affect our decision and we may even come to an alternative choice. However, under the same conditions, taking into account our friend, there appears no alternative process, disregarding for the moment spontaneous processes. When we think of our friend as a kind of a ”inner” dialog, we get again to an illusory kind of ”captain”. The ”inner” dialog in reality is part of the cascade of processes which never can be free. As we have argued, spontaneously processes do not change the argument, because ramdom processes do not count following our definiton. In the literature we can find many variants of this argumentation of Planck; see for instance [14, 15, 20–23]. Typically there appears a kind of ”captain” on board of our body in order to save our freedom. The crucial point is to realize the illusion of this kind of ”captain”. We see, that in order to be free, there appears only the possibility to reject the assumption that mind processes are natural. We mentioned some evidences which indicate that the interactions in our nervous system are not anything special, compared to interactions elsewhere, although it appears to be difficult to prove this. The argument to look for something beyond our nervous system is essentially the believe in a ”soul” which is believed to have some kind of existence beyond our body. Of course, we can not accept this and will instead try to develop a model of mind under the assumption that mind processes do not go beyond natural processes elsewhere. In section VI we shall briefly mention some conse- 4 quences of the absence of freedom. In particular it might appear to be unacceptable to be unfree since this contradicts our imagination. We postpone this discussion after we discuss in chapter V how we arrive at the illusion of consciousness. Let us close this section with an illustration by Carl Ginet [12] who compared our illusion of freedom with a little child in a ghost train: the child sits in a small vehicle, equipped with a little unconnected, decorative wheel. The child is moving the wheel in the illusion to steer the vehicle which in reality is guided by the rails. III. THINKING AND ACTING For the moment we want to extend our findings with respect to the lack of freedom to our thinking. So far we have considered the freedom with respect to decisions, like in the example of the two kinds of muffins. But similar to our decisions, thoughts represent also natural processes, at least relying on our assumption that all processes in our nervous system are of the same nature as processes elsewhere. Without knowledge about the detailed realization of thoughts in our nervous system we therefore assume that they represent neuronal processes. Strictly speaking it is in this context irrelevant that thoughts are neuronal processes, it is only relevant to assume that they are any kind of natural processes. Then, our argumentation with respect to our decisions can directly be applied to our thoughts; thoughts follow from a cascade of processes, disregarding for the moment spontaneous processes. Any process of thinking is preceded by a cascade of other processes, which in turn determine this thinking. Similar to our definition of freedom of decisions we mean by free thinking the capability to develop an alternative thinking under the same conditions, but not in a spontaneous way. We see that in analogy to decisions there is no freedom in our thoughts. We see how misleading our illusion of a free ”captain” is. The freely acting and thinking ”captain” is to abandon. Let us emphasize the passivity of the process of thinking: at a closer look it is not ”us”, who develop this or that thought, but the thoughts appears in a passive way in our nervous system. An active form of thinking, the creation of thoughts, in contrast, would correspond to a kind of illusionary ”captain”. How could a thought arise, if not caused by other processes, respectively spontaneously? While I am writing these lines, it is in fact my nervous system, generating this thoughts - it is not my autonomous ”I” in a sense of a ”captain”, who develops this thoughts. In detail, the process of thinking is certainly very complicated, for instance, it is affected by experiences and memories. These experiences go back probably to our earliest childhood. In addition we are typically confronted with many perceptions, for instance, a sound which distracts us. Nevertheless, these details should not obscure the fact that thinking is a passive, unfree process. We shall look closer at the Nature of thinking in section V, but we already see, that under the plausible and simple assumption, that thinking is represented by natural processes, thinking is as little free as actions and decisions. If actions, decisions and thoughts are unfree, the question arises, how they are developed instead? The question is, what instead of a ”captain” is the principal, unfree ”mechanism” between the ”input” given by the monitors, the echo sounder and so forth, and the output, that is, the steering of the ship. Let us fist consider as an example a reflex, which is in a general sense a kind of action. For a reflex it is immediate to see the principal unfree ”mechanism”: when the rubber hammer hits the sensor area at the kneecap then we move our lower leg. The evolution has equipped us with reflexes in order to react fast and the reflex connects the incoming signals going towards our nervous system with the outgoing signals, the motor function given by the muscle contraction. In the example of a reflex we recognize immediately that the action is not free: the movement follows inevitably on the stimulus. However, this action does not contradict our imagination. We accept the reflex as ”mechanical”, in accordance with reality. In general, our actions are not reflexes and we can in general adapt our actions to changing circumstances. In case of the choice of the muffin the ”mechanism” appears to be more complicated and this ”mechanism” is of course not a reflex. We weigh the advantages and disadvantages, have memories, experiences, visual perceptions and many more aspects which lead to our decision. What is the principle, or the ”mechanism”, which has to be passive and cannot be free, in order to reach the decision? We propose that our system of desire and pain signals provides the fundamental principle. The principle, we postulate, is to maximize desire signals and minimize pain signals. We will see that actions can arise based on this principle as required in an unfree manner. Reflexes are excluded from this principle, as discussed already. Considering once again the choice of muffins, the eventual choice corresponds to stronger desire signals: our experiences, memories, the visual impression and so forth guide our nervous system to the choice, because it is accompanied by stronger desire signals than the alternative choice. Maybe, having chosen the chocolate muffin, we are disappointed, because the taste does not meet our expectations. We will memorize this experience and this may lead to an alternative choice in the future. Let us note that we are talking about desire signals and pain signals and not about desire and pain in order to emphasize the ”mechanism”. The sensation or the experience of desire and pain will be discussed later in section IV. To summarize, we postulate that the principal ”mechanism” of our nervous system is to reach certain signals and to avoid others. 5 Some remarks are in order: apparently, the principle of maximizing desire signals and minimizing pain signals is often not immediately obvious. However we want to emphasize that it nevertheless may be the basic principle - excluding reflexes. If we are hungry this is a pain signal which we avoid, when we eat. We take care of our body, avoid injuries and other forms of dangers, following this principle. But if we get up early in the morning and go to work, we can ask, where we can see this principle? But of course, we have made the experience that based on this habit we keep our job. This is in the long term reflected by a regular salary and other benefits, which indirectly correspond to more desire signals. In most cases we do not follow this basic ”mechanism” directly, but by a closer look we can nevertheless recognize it as a fundamental principle. Even when we share our meal with someone, this can be seen as a gain of desire signals: we have experienced, for instance, that it is advantageous for us to share since we expect that if we do so others will also share with us. Of course we see the difference between reflexes and other actions based on the gain of desire signals (together with the avoidance of pain signals). Reflexes are fixed, firmly wired, and do not allow to adapt our behavior to changing circumstances. We move the lower leg constantly, when the hammer triggers the stimulus. But if we have bad experiences with the chocolate muffin, we will probably take an alternative choice. Learning as a change of behavior due to experiences is not possible with reflexes, but certainly following the principle of desire and pain signals. Both principles have in common that we can understand them as unfree ”mechanisms”, as required. We can illustrate the principle of maximizing desire signals and minimizing pain signals with a chess programm: the chess programm calculates different variants of possible moves and values the different positions reached in memory. It then chooses the movement corresponding to the highest value. This is similar to the choice of the muffin where we ”value” both possible moves and choose the muffin corresponding to the highest ”value”, that is, desire signal. Let us in this context consider a rat experiment performed by James Olds and Peter Milner [24]. In this experiment an electrode was put into a certain areal of the brain of a rat. The rat itself can release an electric signal to this electrode by pressing a button. Before, the rat has been trained to use another button which triggers a mechanism such that feed drops into the box of the rat. In the experiment the rat presses the button connected to the electrode continuously. The rat does not consider the other botton to the point of exhaustion. We easily understand this based on our principle of desire signals. The electrode hits obviously an area of the nervous system triggering a strong desire signal. We may argue that this experiment shows the principle in rats and not in humans. But considering persons addicted to drugs, we recognize parallels. These people typically lose their job, neglect social relationships, and often have a tendency to crime - only in order to gain the desire signal, triggered by drugs. The brain has found a fatal way to maximize desire signals. This may explain, by the way, why it is so difficult to get people addicted to drugs to give up this destructive way. There is no contradiction if we consider someone who hurts himself on purpose. If the pain signal is over compensated by a desire signal this can be understood based on our principle. Many actions may appear to not follow this principle on the first sight, but at a closer inspection we can recognize its underlying mechanism at work. As has been mentioned, reflexes are excluded from this principle. Moreover, we have seen that a ”mechanism” is required in order to explain our actions. Which fundamental principle do we have available except from our system of desire and pain signals? We can also ask what is the meaning of this sophisticated system of pain and desire signals other than providing a mechanism of assessment? Hence, it appears to be exactly the required principle to replace the inner ”captain”. This principle explains our actions and decisions in a consistent and unfree, that is passive manner. To summarize, we postulate in our model of mind that the principle, maximizing desire signals and minimizing pain signals is the basic principle of actions and decisions apart from reflexes. IV. PERCEPTION Suppose we watch the sunset with its deeply red sky. We know that this perception of a color is another illusion: before the light hits our retina, it is an electromagnetic wave in a certain range of wavelength. Of course, nothing of the electromagnetic wave is red. In the retina, the incoming wave excites charges to oscillate in specialized cells. In turn these cells transform the incoming signal into an electric action potential [25]. The complete remaining processing proceeds in neurons in terms of action potentials which seem to have nothing to do with the sensation of the color red. Neither we can understand the sensation relying on an inner ”captain” who could get the signals presented on a kind of inner screen. As we have seen in the discussion in section II, this ”captain” is an illusion. Moreover, the stimulus, after being translated into the ”language” of the nervous system, that is, being available in form of action potentials, is already decomposed on its way to the cortex and gets to different separated areas. Of course, the signals do not converge anywhere but are processed further. What is then our perception of the color red? We realize how difficult this is to answer, if we try to explain the color red to a blind person (someone who was born blind so that he/she has never experienced this sensation). It appears to be impossible. This problematic can be extended to other sensation in an analogous way, and we 6 see that all our perceptions appear to be illusions. The guiding principle to reveal the nature of perceptions is the finding that this process is required to be passive and can not be free. Free or active would mean that the perception is ”internally” represented to a kind of ”captain” on a kind of screen. Suppose there would be an inner representation, then, this representation would have to be watched by some kind of ”inner eye” and we arrive at a senseless loop, also known as infinite regress [1]. Since the perception has to be a passive process we have to replace the ”captain” by a passive ”mechanism”. Of course we know that the meaning of perception is to adapt our behavior to the surrounding. With our findings in the last section we know that perceptions serve to provide informations such that our system of gaining desire signals and avoiding pain signals generates actions and decisions. Hence, we have to consistently explain perceptions satisfying the following requirements: • Perceptions cannot be any form of ”inner” representation. • Perceptions have to be a passive process. • Perceptions have to satisfy the functionality to get informations, eventually in order to adapt our behavior. If we ask ourselves what is red, we would describe this perception in the following or similar way: the color red is the color of an apple, of the sunset, of the ember of fire, our blood and we think of red when we listen to the sound red or read the word red. Obviously we find that we associate the perception with a bunch of other sensations. We immediately see that these associations indeed satisfy all the mentioned requirements. Therefore we postulate that these associations are the perception which is triggered by the initial stimulus. Building associations to the stimulus given by red light, occurs without any kind of inner representation, is a passive process, and provide us with information about our surrounding. Let us now consider an auditory perception, when we for example press the key of a piano keyboard. In an analogous way to the visual perception, the sound waves are nothing but fluctuations of pressure in the air which are transformed into action potentials in the hearing. What is then in a passive form the sensation when we listen to the sound of a piano? We associate the auditory signal with a bunch of sensations, for instance the visual impression of a piano, piano music in our memory, the visual perception of a concert hall and certainly much more. The whole bunch of associations, triggered by the initial stimulus is, as we postulate, the sensation of the piano sound. A blind person, without memories about visual sensations, has never experienced the color sensation red and is therefore not able to build associations. Of course, we see, that the perceptions are individually different and in particular are influenced by culture. Accordingly, we expect that the Inuits in Greenland have certainly another sensation of the color white than someone how grew up closer to the equator. A little child, told by his parents, ”The apple is red”, ”This toy is red” learns the perception, triggered by the initial stimulus of light of a certain range of wavelength by the association to the sound of the spoken word ”red”. The child does accordingly not learn to recognize the color red on a kind of screen, but learns the perception itself, building associations. We should mention that our system of perceptions is remarkable sophisticated and typically gives very extended associations. But we are interested in the basic principle here without considering all the details. Eventually, let us consider the sensation of pain, for instance, when we accidentally cut our skin with a knife. In an analogous way the stimulus, triggered by specialized receptor cells in the skin, generates action potentials which are transferred to our nervous system. But there is a principal difference between these signals referring to pain, and the visual perception for instance. The difference is, that our nervous system, stimulated by the cut, tries to avoid this kind of signals. As we have seen in the last section, our actions are driven by the passive principle to avoid pain signals. This distinguishes desire and pain sensations from all other perceptions, which are not a part of our assessment system. How do we explain the visual perception, when we consider a landscape? We have discussed already, that the landscape does not appear in form of an ”inner” representation. When we watch the landscape, we actually recognize different details, a birch there or a cloud above and a lodge over there. We associate different visual stimulus’ entering our eye from different directions with sounds like ”birch”, or ”lodge”. All together we associate the perception maybe with ”valley”, but for this to happen, different details have to appear from different directions. In fact we are not aware of many details, say, a horse, which has been there all the time but only through its whinnies got our attention and now compounds to our sensation. The ”picture”, that is, the bunch of associations, has changed in this moment, even that the visual stimulus has not. Our visual system is able to distinguish different directions and locations and to recognize patterns. We note that the visual system is very advanced. This is reflected by the fact that the visual system in our cortex occupies a large part. If we consider the photo of a landscape, this photo does not show our ”inner” representation, but the photo triggers a sensation which is similar to the landscape itself. We therefore associate the landscape with a ”picture” of it. V. CONSCIOUSNESS Let us start the discussion of consciousness following a thought experiment by G. W. Leibniz from his monade 7 17; see for instance [9]: Besides, it must be admitted that perception, and anything that depends on it, cannot be explained in terms of mechanistic causation – that is, in terms of shapes and motions. Let us pretend that there was a machine, which was constructed in such a way as to give rise to thinking, sensing, and having perceptions. You could imagine it expanded in size (while retaining the same proportions), so that you could go inside it, like going into a mill. On this assumption, your tour inside it would show you the working parts pushing each other, but never anything which would explain a perception. So perception is to be sought, not in compounds (or machines), but in simple substances. Furthermore, there is nothing to be found in simple substances, apart from perceptions and their changes. Again, all the internal actions of simple substances can consist in nothing other than perceptions and their changes. We would like to reconsider Leibniz thought experiment, presented about three centuries ago. Today we know, that at a tour inside the elementary working parts are the neurons, which are pushing each other by means of electrical and biochemical activity. Following Leibniz closely it is evident that we can not find at any special location anything from which we could explain perception, sensing or thinking. This illusionary special location of perception, sensing or thinking we have denoted as a ”captain” earlier. The illusion of a ”captain” corresponds to our imagination of what we would call consciousness or self or I. We have seen, that any special location of perception, sensing and thinking leads to contradictions: as Leibniz argues, suppose, we could detect a special location, then, in a further expansion in size we could again go inside and would only find working parts, pushing each other. Indeed, in terms of neurons, we know that the neuronal signals do not converge anywhere. Besides, as we have seen in section IV, any kind of convergence at some location of perception would require some new kind of inner ”eye”. Leibniz discusses two solutions, to understand consciousness: firstly, looking for consciousness in the ”simple substance” itself, that is, from a modern point of view, in the neurons itselves. However, we know that the fundamental function of the neurons is to transmit action potentials. This is consistent with our assumption we have made in section II that the interactions in the nervous system, based on electromagnetic and biochemical processes, are in principle not different from Nature elsewhere. Hence, we do not agree with the identification of the ”simple substance” to be the location of consciousness. But let us mention that nevertheless there are attempts, following Leibniz, to understand consciousness in the neurons itself; see for instance [14, 15, 21, 22, 26]. The second possibility, as Leibniz mentions, is to understand consciousness from the compound. Contrary to Leibniz we want to follow this way, and try to undestand consciousness like the phenomena of perceptions, sensing, and thinking from the interplay of the neurons. Realizing that perception, sensing, and thinking appear from the cascade of neuronal processes in an unfree manner we talk about the emergence of these phenomena. Using the expression emergence we emphasize that perceptions, sensing, and thinkings are as required passive processes. Let us think about this point further. Imagine, under anesthetic, one neuron after the other would be replaced by an exact copy. Of course, in practise this is not possible, but let us consider this as a thought experiment. Since no neuron would be a special location of perception, sensing or thinking, we would in no step replace this special location simply because this location does not exist. The essential point is to see that every neuron is nothing more then a ”mechanical” device which is replaced by an equivalent one. After recovering from anesthesia we would not recognize any change. The neurons would interact in the same manner as before and our perception, sensing, and thinking would appear in the same way. Here we see clearly the illusion of our imagination of we. Following our misleading imagination we would expect that at a certain point our we would have been removed, that is, the illusionary ”captain” we expect has left the ship. In reality, there is no ”captain” who could leave. Of course, it makes no difference whether we replace the neurons one by one, or all at once. Evidently, this means that, replaced by a copy, we would develop perception, sensing, and thinking in the same way! Hence, suppose that under anesthetic our body is replaced by a copy, nothing like I or consciousness or self would be lost. That is, our perception, sensing, and thinking is not attached to certain neurons, but appear from their processes. The emergence of our thinking, sensing and actions is clearly seen as originating form the interplay of neurons in this thought experiment. Let us further imagine that we replace each neuron in turn by an electronic device, which replicates exactly the functionality of the original neuron. As before we would not remove in any step a location of perception, sensing or thinking. In this way we eventually would be replaced by a machine under anesthetic and this machine would develop the same perception, sensing and thinking and we could not feel any difference! In the circuit there would emerge the same processes as before - supposed the electronic devices work like the original neurons. We rec- 8 ognize that our imagination is contrary to the emergence of perception, sensing and thinking. We are convinced to have some kind of I – a location where perception, sensing, and thinking is formed. Why are we subject to this illusion? The question is how do we come to this illusion of consciousness or ”self” or ”I” [27]? In order to understand this, let us see how the I appears in our thoughts. To this end let us consider an example of a perception, for instance the smell of an apple. If we communicate to someone this perception, we say, for instance: “I smell the scent of a fresh apple”. We use grammatical firstperson in order to communicate our own perception, distinguishing it from a perception of someone else. In contrast, with the communication of ”She smells the scent of a fresh apple” we use grammatically third-person in order to denote the sensation of a third person. But what happens if we do not communicate this statement but only realize the smell? As we have discussed, this thinking must be emergent, that is, occur in a passive manner. We postulate now that thinking is nothing but silent communication. Thinking then represents a communication actually directed to another person. When we smell the scent of a fresh apple, then we associate the sensation with the silent communication ”I smell the scent of a fresh apple”. First of all we see, that thinking in this form occurs in a passive way, as required by our findings. We further see, that we have to use grammatical first-person in the thought. We silently communicate our sensation and not the sensation of someone else. The first person ”I” appears inevitably in our thought. This ”I” or ”self” is the same as our consciousness. In this way the illusion of a location of perception, sensing, and thinking appears automatically - a machine would develop the same illusion of a location of perception, sensing, and thinking. We understand now what would happen in the copy of our nervous system in terms of an equivalent electrical device: in the copy would in a passive manner emerge the same illusion of ”I”. Our copy would be convinced to be conscious, it would associate the same silent communication using grammatical firstperson - compare with the “zombie” in [10]. The machine would be equivalent, and just as litte a ”zombie” as we or with equal right we would be as much a ”zombie” as the machine. Now we can easily understand what it means to be aware of something: being aware of the scent of a fresh apple means that there emerge associations to the silent communication. If we are conscious of a sensation we communicate it, but not necessarily verbalize this association. Let us consider another example, for instance the haptic sensation at our soles of our feet. Before we have read these lines, we were probably not aware of this sensation. This we can now understand easily. Triggered by the words written here, in particular ”haptic sensation” and ”soles” we associate the perception with the silent communication of the form: ”I feel the ground at the soles of my feet”. Since it is a silent communication, we use grammatical first-person and it appears the illusion of an I. Before we have read these lines, we were not aware of this sensation, even that the stimulus was constantly there. What was missing was the association with the silent communication. If we think about something, we imagine to develop these thinkings. We realize that thinking happens to be in reality very different: thinking revealed as a passive process emerges in form of silent communication - if ”I” cannot concentrate, this means that the emergent thinking does not follow a certain subject. Let us emphasize that it appears in principal possible to copy our ”I” on a machine. What appears in the machine would not be a copy - it would be ourself. Our perception, sensing, and thinking would appear in the same manner in the copy. As we have argued, our ”I” would not be lost in the process of copying. Of course, nowadays computers are not sufficiently sophisticated to simulate the tens of billions of neurons, but there are already attempts - see for instance [28]. Let us summarize what he have found: our ”self” or ”I” is an illusion in the following sense, it is not the ”I” that wakes up in the morning, thinks and feels, but it is passive communications that inevitable emerges involving the grammatical first-person. VI. CONCLUSIONS We have seen how misleading our imaginations about our mind are: under the assumption that the processes in our nervous system are basically the same as in Nature elsewhere we find that our freedom is an illusion. We have seen that we have to understand perceptions and likewise actions and thoughts as passive processes. The imagination of a ”captain” on board of our body has to be abandoned. Our behavior, we have argued, follows the principle of maximizing desire signals and minimizing pain signals. This ”mechanism” we have identified replacing our illusionary ”captain”. We understand consciousness which appears in a form of silent communication as a passive process as required. Eventually, we arrive at a model of mind which at a glance may appear to reduce us to will-less ”machines”. But what if we are ”machines”? However, we should realize how powerfull these ”machines” are. These machines have composed the St Matthew Passion (see for instance the discussion in [29]) and are investigating the Universe. Artificial machines are far away from these achievements. We are made of a vast amount of neurons, equipped with dedicated sensors and very complex motor functions. Robots appear to be ridiculous compared to us, even that they already play better chess than every human, recognize speech and can build associations artificially. Let us note that as a consequence of our findings, con- 9 cepts like responsibility and guilt have no meaning if we are not free. How could we be guilty or be responsible for something if we do not have a choice? We obviously have to think these concepts of guilt and responsibility over. Suppose someone steals a bike, then we actually can not blame the thief, but still we can blame the action itself. We have seen that thoughts appear in a passive manner and in reality, we are not able to create thoughts in a free way. This could be misunderstood as a kind of compulsive behavior. But compulsive behavior refers to a mental disorder which is characterized by repetitive actions or thoughts. This is quite different from the required passivity of thoughts and actions. We are not free in our actions and thinking but this is by no means a compulsive behavior since this is in general not a repetitive process. The concept of creativity, in a inspirational sense of thinking, has certainly to be given up. The process of new insights and ideas is merely a synthesis, which originates from the vast amount of impressions and memories. This is the price we have to pay for giving up freedom. The creator in us would be nothing but the illusionary ”captain”. Eventually, there arises an interesting feature: replaced by a machine, we could be become immortal, supposed it is possible to exactly simulate tens of billions of neurons. Acknowledgement(s) Many thanks go to M. Rezgaoui for very fruitful discussions. [1] Rosenthal, D. Two Concepts of Consciousness, [14] Penrose, R. The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Philosophical Studies 49: 329-359, 1986. Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics, Oxford [2] Berryman, Sylvia. Democritus, The StanUniversity Press, 1989. ford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter [15] Penrose, R. Shadows of the mind - A search of the 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), url: missing science of consciousness, Oxford University https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/democritus/. Press, 1994. [3] Tredennick, H. Metaphysics, Trans. Hugh Treden[16] Eccles, J. C., Popper K. R. The Self and Its Brain, nick. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library 271, 287. Harvard Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York: SpringerU. Press. ISBN 0-674-99299-7, ISBN 0-674-99317-9, Verlag, 1977. 1933. [17] Schrödinger, E. An Undulatory Theory of the Me[4] Wöhler, F. Über künstliche Bildung des Harnstoffs, chanics of Atoms and Molecules, Phys. Rev. 28 (6), Annalen der Physik und Chemie. 88 (2), 253, 1828. 1049, 1926. [5] Nagel, T. What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, The Philo[18] Planck, M. Kausalgesetz Und Willensfreisophical Review, 83 (4), 435, 1974. heit, public talk, given at the ”Preussischen [6] Jackson, F. Epiphenomenal Qualia, Philosophical Akademie der Wissenschaften”, 2.17. 1923, url: Quarterly, 32, 127, 1982. https://archive.org/details/MaxPlanckKausalgesetzUndW [7] Block, N. Troubles with functionalism, Minnesota [19] Planck, M. Vom Wesen der Willensfreiheit, talk Studies in The Philosophy of Science 9 261, 1978. at the ”Deutsche Philosophischen Gesellschaft””, [8] Dennett, D. C. Consciousness Little, Brown and Co. 11.27.1936, VII. issue, Johann Ambrosius Barth VerUS, 1991. lag, Leipzig. [9] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Leibniz The Monadol[20] Bohm, D. A new theory of the relationship of mind ogy and Other Philosophical Writings, translated by and matter, Philosophical Psychology, 3: 2, 271286, Robert Latta, Kessinger Publishing Co ISBN 9781990. 0548164266, 2007. [21] Hameroff, S. R. Consciousness, neurobiology and [10] Chalmers, D. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a quantum mechanics in: Jack A. Tuszynski. The Fundamental Theory, Oxford University Press. ISBN Emerging Physics of Consciousness. Springer Science 019511789, 1997. & Business Media ISBN 978-3-540-36723-9, 2006. [11] Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Kenny, A., Murdoch, [22] Hameroff, S. R. Quantum Consciousness 2017, url: D. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes in 3 vols. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org. Cambridge University Press, 1988. [23] Atmanspacher, H. Quantum Approaches [12] Ginet, C. Might We Have No Choice?, In Keith to Consciousness, The Stanford EncycloLehrer (ed.), Freedom and Determinism. Random pedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 EdiHouse. pp. 87–104, 1966. tion), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), 2011, url: [13] Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understandhttp://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/qt ing (Chapter XXVII) University of Adelaide, Aus[24] Olds, J., Milner, P. Positive reinforcement produced tralia, 2010. by electrical stimulation of septal area and other re- 10 gions of rat brain, J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 47 419-427, 1954. [25] Pribram, K. H. Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing, Taylor & Francis ISBN 978-0898599954, 1991. [26] Craddock, T. J., Hameroff, S. R., Ayoub, A. T., Klobukowski, M. ,Tuszynski, J. A. Anesthetics act in quantum channels in brain microtubules to prevent consciousness, Curr. Top Med. Chem. 15(6), 523, 2015. [27] Maniatis, M. Notes on Leibniz thought experiment, Neurons and Cognition, arXiv: 1309.0846, 2013, url: https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.0846. [28] Markram, H. The Blue Brain Project, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 153-160, 2006. [29] Maniatis, A. Sueño y Arte, Serie Cuadernos de Música de la FADA, San Lorenzo Paraguay, 2013.

arXiv:1303.6539v5 [physics.gen-ph] 27 Aug 2023 Quantum Gravity Framework 4.1: Fully Path Integral Framework, Structure Formation and Consciousness in the Universe. Suresh Maran www.sureshmaran.com www.qstaf.com www.uniteserve.com www.linkedin.com/in/sureshmaran June,24,2021 Abstract In this paper I give a major update of quantum gravity framework project. The heuristic conceptual framework proposed in previous versions is expanded to include structure formation and consciousness in the universe. A Path Integral version of decoherence in curved space-time is introduced as major update. Then we discuss the philosophical insights into structure formation in the universe and consciousness. We introduce various mathematical concepts to describe structure formation in the universe and consciousness. Contents Contents 1 1 Review and Introduction 2 2 Path Integral Form of Decoherence 2.1 The theory for simple systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 3 Quantum gravity framework 4.0 3.1 Simple Quantum System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Relative-Time Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Relative-Time Decoherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 General Curved Space Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Relative-Time evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Relative-Time Decoherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Global quantum reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.4 Determinism, Continuum Limit and Scale invariance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Covariant Rest Frame foliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 9 9 4 Application to Quantum Gravity 11 4.1 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.1.1 Cosmology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.1.2 Example: Spherically symmetric space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.1.3 Resolution of singularities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1 5 Universe, Consciouness and Structure formation 13 5.1 Consciousness and Framework 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5.1.1 Consciousness and Global Quantum Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5.1.2 Conscious and Rest frame foliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5.2 Structures and Conscious Observers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.2.1 Relational Harmonic Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.2.2 Perception and Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.3 Universe and Relationship structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 5.3.1 Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 5.3.2 The future of the universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.3.3 Consciousness and Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 6 Conclusion 22 References 22 1 Review and Introduction In this paper1 , I do the next update of the proposal for the conceptual framework of quantum general relativity [3]. The previous quantum gravity framework update of the papers is canonical in formalism. But the universe as described by the established laws is overwhelmingly covariant in formalism. So in this paper, I update the framework to make it covariant. Here we will be also generalizing the entire project further to include consciousness and structure formation in the universe. In section 2.0, I introduce the Lagrangian formulation of the Lindblad-type evolution equation. This is the generalization of the non-covariant formalism as introduced in the previous version [4]. In this paper, in general, I don’t do a detailed study of the idea, as the formalism is not yet ready for application. But simply formally discuss how to apply it to some mathematical simple situations. The relevance of self-time and rest-frame foliation is relevant if the world is observed by an observer who converts states into pure states. The Lagrangian formulation also requires a preferred foliation to be observed by an observer that converts states into pure states. In quantum gravity framework 3.0, I discussed the rest frame evolution, in which gravitational fields and other fields are least changing. Rest frame evolution is the most natural foliation in which the observer observes the world, and the observer is the universe itself observing itself. In section 3.3, I also discuss the covariant generalization of the rest frame evolution to be combined with the Lagrangian formulation of quantum gravity framework 4.0. In section 4 we discuss the application of the path integral form of decoherence to cosmology. I introduce a decoherence function. I briefly discuss the application to various simple cases and the resolution of singularities. In section 5, I start extending the quantum gravity framework project to include consciousness and structure formation in the universe. I build on philosophical insights from my book [32]. In section 5.1, I discuss how global quantum reduction and rest-frame foliation are related to consciousness. In section 5.2, I discuss the theoretical aspects of understanding relationship structures and consciousness. In section 5.3 I discuss how structures are related to conscious experience based on insights from neuroscience. When the universe was created during the Big Bang expansion, initially it was mostly structureless. But eventually, structures rise out of the universe at various scales: galaxies, stars, planets, matter, etc. Matter which initially was inorganic, evolved into organic and eventually into living biological entities that consciously observe the Universe. To develop proper unification of concepts in fundamental physics we 1 Originally published on June 24 2021 as the 4.0 version. In this version 4.1, updated on August 27 2023, references are added, proofreading was done and a few modifications are made in various sections and explained there. An important update in 4.1 is in section 3.3, in the end, where trace-free extrinsic curvature is introduced to detect the rest frame foliation. For the latest updates proper discussions, comments, and issues, please visit www.qstaf.com. Much of the discussions, updates, and supplementary downloadable materials regarding this project will be mostly available on www.qstaf.com, and other websites referred to such as the researchgate. Update information will be provided on social media (www.qstaf.com/links). 2 need a sufficient conceptual foundation that describes the universe fully. This will also address structure formation in the universe and consciousness. Until now we have discussed only the universe without relevance to the conscious observer. But including conscious observer is important for many different reasons: 1. Quantum mechanics needs an observer in the quantum measurement process. 2. Many things about the universe such as the value of physical constants can be explained easily by the presence of observers such as in the anthropomorphic principle. 3. Matter naturally evolves into the living thing and consciousness arises as an inherent property of matter in the universe. So discussing the universe without discussing life and consciousness is incomplete. In this section we will explore the rise of structures in the universe, and consciousness. To understand the rise of structures and consciousness, I build on insights from my book [32]. To understand the grand unification of human knowledge based on this paper I refer to [30]. There are some important changes in this update, I don’t assume space or time is discretized. If I use the discrete model in this paper, it is only for explanatory purposes. Further research needs to be done regarding this. The framework presented is not-yet ready for application, because it is not yet complete. The ideas are brief and quite heuristic in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to establish an initial conceptual framework for quantum gravity. Further research needs to be done to complete the framework. This research will be further updated. Please follow the updates online in the sources mentioned in footnote 1. I apologize for typos and grammatical mistakes in this paper, and the previous papers related to this paper. This paper is only a rough draft of work in progress. We follow the following conventions in this article: Convention 1: In any integral, the variables over which the integration is done are the same as those used in the measure placed at the right-most end of the integral, unless explicitly indicated otherwise. Convention 2: Summation is assumed for all repeated Greek indices in the explicit elementary products of the basic variables of the theories discussed. Convention 3: In the differential measures of the the multiplication over all the suffixes and the Q integrals, prefixes are assumed, for example dxβ dyγ mean dxβ dyγ . β,γ Convention 4: For functions with arguments that have suffixes, prefixes, and parameters: The function depends on all the collection of the arguments for all different values of the suffixes, the prefixes and the α parameters. Example: f (xα γ (t), yα ) = f (X), where X = {xγ (t), yβ , ∀α, β, γ, t}. Convention 5: No other summation or multiplication of repeated indices is assumed other than those defined in conventions 2 and 3. Examples: in fα (xα , yα ), the three α’s are independent, 2) P α1) there noγ summation Q α α α (pβ xα + fβ (x , yα ))dx dyα = ( pβ xα + fβ (x , yδ )) η,ε dyη dxε . α Convention 6: It is assumed that ~ = c = G = 1, unless specified. 3 2 Path Integral Form of Decoherence All the notations used in this section were defined in section 2.2 of the previous update [3]. 2.1 The theory for simple systems The version of equations involving decoherence described in quantum gravity framework 3.0 [4] is not in path integral form unlike the other three proposals of the framework. For this purpose, in this section I will propose the path integral formulation of decoherence as an alernative. In this section, I will work out different formalism of understanding density matrix and from there proceed to a path integral formulation of decoherence2 . In this section let me work in flat space-time. Let me consider the density matrix as an element of the space of outerproducts of the Hibert Space H and its Hermitian Conjugate space H† of a system. In the following let tilde represent operators that only act on the variables that belong to the Hermitian conjugate space. Let me explain this in a simple example in one dimension. If x and x̃ are element of H and H† . Then we have ρ(x, x̃) as a quantum state in H ⊗ H† . Then the Hamiltonian evolution of the evolution is dρ(x, x̃) = iHρ(x, x̃) − iρ(x, x̃)H̃ dt R Above H̃ only acts on x̃. Because of the commutator in the left, the trace ρ(x, x)dx is preserved in this evolution. If we choose ρ(x, x̃) = ρ̄(x̃, x) and set the trace to be one, we then have that ρ(x, x̃) is a density matrix, as the above evolution preserves these conditions. The path integral form of this is formally, < ρ(x1 , x̃1 , t1 )|ρ(x2 , x̃2 , t2 ) >= Z γ,γ̃ exp(iL(γ) − iL̃(γ̃))DγD γ̃ where γ and γ̃ are paths from x1 to x2 and x̃1 to x̃2 respectively, Dγ and Dγ̃ are path integral measure corresponding to paths in H and H† space, and, 1 and 2 represent initial and final states. If the ρ(x, x̃) is such that ρ(x, x̃, t) = ψ(x, t)ψ̄(x̃, t), that is pure, then both the Hamiltonian and Path integral forms splits into two separate pieces. dψ(x) dt dψ̄(x̃) dt = iHψ(x, t) = −iψ̄(x̃, t)H̃ < ψ(x1 , t1 )|ψ(x2 , t2 ) >= Z exp(iL(γ))Dγ γ̃ < ψ(x̃1 , t1 )|ψ(x̃2 , t2 ) >= Z exp(−iL̃(γ̃))D γ̃ γ Here, essentially, we have doubled the Hilbert Space. The two evolutions are independent. This description is redundant if the states or pure or if there is no decoherence. Now we will introduce decoherence in the path integral formulation to make it covariant in the quantum field theory sense. Proposition 1 The covariant evolution of state ρ(t) of the system is formally given by Z   exp iL(γ) − iL(γ̃) − βd(γ, γ̃)2 DγD γ̃ < ρ(t1 )|ρ(t2 ) >= (1) γ,γ̃ 2 While the path integral idea is independently derived for the quantum gravity framework project by me, it has been studied before by many researchers. The idea was initiated by Feynman and Vernon in 1963 [33]. It was further developed in various work in the following references: [34], [35], [36], [37]. 4 where d(γ 1 , γ 2 ) is a measure of distance between field configuration paths γ 1 and γ 2 in the topological space of field configurations, such that d(γ, γ) = 0. The Lagrangian L and distance d are to be covariant under Lorentz transformations in special relativity. The β is constant representing the strength of decoherence, which is small enough that the Hamiltonian evolution is not severely affected. The d(γ, γ̃) can considered to a distance function as in the definition of a metric space. The d(γ, γ̃)2 term helps to implement decoherence. Let me call d(γ, γ̃) as the decoherence function. The differential form of this equation is heuristically, dρ(x, x̃) = iHρ(x, x̃)dt − iρ(x, x̃)H̃dt − βd(x, x̃)ρ(x, x̃) The presence of d(x, x̃) removes the cross terms over time and only preserves the diagonal terms. Let me try to decide what must be d(γ, γ̃). The simplest choice is something like this in one dimensional case: d(γ, γ̃) = Z (x(t) − x̃(t))2 dt In full space-time situation, we want this to be coordinate independent in the general relativistic sense. We will give a choice in the next section. 3 Quantum gravity framework 4.0 3.1 Simple Quantum System Let me review the the relative time formulations discussed in the previous updates of the quantum gravity framework project [2], [3] and [4]. Consider a simple quantum system that is described by a Hamiltonian constraint only. Let the internal configuration space of the quantum system is of dimension d, and is made of canonical variables pα and q α . Let q α takes values in configuration space Rn . Let mαβ , a function of q α , is the metric in the internal configuration space. Hereafter I will use mαβ and its inverse mαβ (assuming it exists), to raise and lower indices. Usually mαβ is simply a delta matrix δ αβ multiplied by mass m. Let me define a scalar product using the metric: < a, b >= 1 aα bβ mαβ . 2 I will assume mαβ is positive definite for now. We can make the following standard definitions: Norm |p| = Unit Vector p̄α 3.1.1 = q + mαβ pα pβ (2) α p |p| Relative-Time Evolution Given any smooth classical path η defined by qα (τ ) in the configuration space R n We also assume the function qα (τ ) has smooth first and second-order derivatives. We can always define the quantum evolution for a given Lagrangian as a function of q α and q̇ α . Let L be the Lagrangian of the system which depends on q α and q̇ α . 1. Define vα (t) = q̇α (τ ) and pα = vβ mαβ (qγ (τ )), where I have assumed mαβ is a function of qγ . 5 2. Define a one parameter family of hyperplanes S(τ ) isomorphic to R n−1 orthogonal to pα (τ ) going through qα (τ ). If xα is the points on this plane, then it satisfies mαβ (qγ (τ ))(xα − qα )pβ (τ ) = 0. We can denote the hyperplanes by S(τ ) ≡ S(pα (τ ), qα (τ )) as it depends on qα (τ ) and pα (τ ). S(τ ) describes a foliation of the configuration space if the surfaces don’t cross each other. α α α α takes values in Rn but is restricted to 3. Define quantum states ρ(q⊥ , q̃⊥ , τ ) on S(τ ). Here q⊥ and q̃⊥ S(τ ). α α 4. Define a single step path integral from S(τ ) to S(τ + dτ ) for ρ(q⊥ , q̃⊥ , τ ) α α α α Gs+ (q⊥ 1 , q⊥ 2 , q̃⊥ 1 , q̃⊥ 2 ; η, τ , ∆τ ) = 1 Z q3α =qα 2 ,q̃3α =q̃α 2 ⊥ d−1 (2π) ⊥ q3α =qα 1 ,q̃3α =q̃α 1 ⊥ ⊥
exp(i L(γ) − L̄(γ̃) ∆τ )dγdγ̃. (3) Here γ stands for q3α . The path integral is evaluated between S(τ ) and S(τ +dτ ) with boundary conditions as described above. We can use the relative path integral to define the quantum evolution of states on S(τ ) of the configuration space: Z α α α α α α α α α α ρ(q⊥2 , q̃⊥2 , τ ) = Gs+ (q⊥ 1 , q⊥ 2 , q̃⊥ 1 , q̃⊥ 2 ; η, τ , ∆τ )ρ(q⊥1 , q̃⊥1 , τ )dq⊥1 dq̃⊥1 For this path integral formulation to genuinely describe the evolution of wavefunction we need to have η smooth enough such that S(τ ) don’t intersect each other, at least in the region where the wavefunctions are finite. 3.1.2 Relative-Time Decoherence In the previous versions [3] we discussed the inclusion of this using the diffusion equation method [11]. We will generalize the formalism to include time relative quantum evolution. I define the relative quantum decoherence evolution equation as follows. α α α α Gs+ (q⊥ 1 , q⊥ 2 , q̃⊥ 1 , q̃⊥ 2 ; η, τ , ∆τ ) = 1 d−1 (2π) Z q3α =qα 2 ,q̃3α =q̃α 2 ⊥ ⊥ q3α =qα 1 ,q̃3α =q̃α 1 ⊥ ⊥   exp(i L(γ) − L̃(γ̃) − βd(γ, γ̃)2 ∆τ )dγdγ̃. (4) where d(γ, γ̃) is the decoherence function. Here γ the paths and it stands for q3α .Here the evolution α α α α , q̃⊥ , τ ) defines of ρ(q⊥ , q̃⊥ , τ ) depends on η. That is why I refer to this as Relative-Time decoherence.ρ(q⊥ probability density states at each value τ during relative-time decoherent evolution with respect to η. 3.2 General Curved Space Time Let’s now apply the formalism that we discussed in the previous subsections to field theory on general curved space-time. We will see in this update of the quantum gravity framework, all constraints including the Hamiltonian constraint need not be explicitly needed for formulating dynamics.. Assume we have an initial hypersurface. To each point on x we can apply the theory for single point systems. There will be internal fields at each point qxα . Let L be the Lagrangian which depends on qxα and q̇xα .We are using simplified version of the fields to make discussion easy. There will be one classical curve x α α ηα x (τ x ) for each point, smooth upto second derivative, one parameter family of hyperplanes S (η̇ x (τ x ), qx (τ x ) in the configuration space of fields at each point, and one free (dummy) parameter τ x for each point. For each point, the physics is identical to the single-point system discussed in the previous section. The only major difference is that the Lagrangian contains interaction terms as functions of the qxα of adjacent points. Let me assume that space is discretized for simplicity and is made of countable number pieces of volume elements such as in cubic lattice. I am assuming this discretization only for simplicity and explanatory purpose. Let B be the number of lattice points, and for simplicity let us assume B is finite. Let ∆V be the coordinate volume associated with the coordinate volume element associated with each lattice element of the 3D manifold. 6 3.2.1 Relative-Time evolution Now consider the path integral defined in the previous section in equation (3). For each system at x, we have one curve η x assigned. Then we have the combined one-step relative path integral is Proposition 2 The relative time evolution instantaneous path integral defined as function of η x , τ x is as follows: α α α α Gs+ (qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 , q̃x,⊥ 1 , q̃x,⊥ 2 ; η x , τ x , ∆τ x ) α α α α Z q3 =q 2 ,q̃3 =q̃ 2 Y x,⊥ x,⊥ 1 = {exp(iL(γ) − iL(γ̃))dγdγ̃}, BD (2π) q3α =qα 2 ,q̃3α =q̃α 2 x x,⊥ (5) x,⊥ Here γ are the paths in configuration space and it stands for q3α . This formulation does not contain constraints at all. In this form it is not necessary to have constraints. We can ask why do you need a relative time evolution since one don’t have Hamiltonian constraint. Because in the next section we will see that decoherence defined depends on η x . We can use the relative path integral to define the quantum evolution of states on S(τ ) of the configuration space: Z α α α α α α α α α α ρ(qx,⊥,2 , q̃x,⊥,2 , τ + dτ ) = Gs+ (qx,⊥ ,1 , qx,⊥ ,2 , q̃x,⊥, 1 , q̃x,⊥ ,2 ; η x , τ x , ∆τ x )ρ(qx,⊥,1 , q̃x,⊥,1 , τ )dqx,⊥,1 dq̃x,⊥,1 3.2.2 Relative-Time Decoherence We can generalize the single system form of the Lagrangian form of decoherence to (3+1)D case. Now we can define relative decoherence as the following: Proposition 3 The relative decoherent evolution of the ρ is given by the following path integral as functional of η x , τ x , where d(γ, γ̃) is the decoherence functional and β is the decoherence constant. α α α α Gs+ (qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 , q̃x,⊥ 1 , q̃x,⊥ 2 ; η x , τ x , ∆τ x ) = (6) 1 (2π)BD Z q3α =qα ,q̃α =q̃α 2 x,⊥ 2 3 x,⊥ q3α =qα x,⊥ 2 ,q̃3α =q̃α x,⊥ 2   exp iL(γ) − iL(γ̃) − βd(γ, γ̃)2 DγDγ̃ This evolution depends on η x for each point. So, this is relative-time decoherence. The choice of η x needs to be discovered by further research. One of the best choice of η x is the self-time evolution in which η x is the classical expectation value of qxα . This is what I referred to as the rest-frame evolution in the configuration space of fields. This will be later discussed in this section. In quantum gravity framework 2.0 and 3.0, we had that the decoherence part was in Hamiltonian evolution form, while the other three components of the framework were in the path integral approach. Now the form of relative decoherence is path integral like the other three components of the framework. Since the path integral directly deals with the evolution of the density matrix, there is a need to take the square of the wavefunction. Summing the product of the density matrix with other operators will give the α expectation values. For example, if A is an operator, a function of the q̃x,⊥ 1 , and their conjugate momenta’s, then, the expectation value is, < A >= tr(ρA) . tr(ρ) The quantum states can be derived from ρ by diagonalizing it: ρ= X pi |λi >< λi | 7 where |λi > are the probable states with the probability of pi , associated to a hypersurface. And it is dependent on η x , τ x . So, evolution of ρ describes a relative probable evolution of states. 3.2.3 Global quantum reduction Let me define dτ x = nx (τ ) dτ , where the nx (τ ) are continuous functions of τ , one of them for each lattice point x. The repeated application of the one-step path integral for infinitesimal dτ evolves the quantum state along the spatial hypersurfaces. The nx (τ ) functions defines the various ways to foliate the discretized geometry, whose topology is B point ⊗ 1D. Here nx (τ ) is essentially is the lapse. Now depending on the choice of nx (τ ) we will have different foliations of the classical space-time geometry relating to the quantum geometry. The evolution defined by relative time decoherence evolution generates a time-dependent quantum state α α α α ρ(qx,⊥ , q̃x,⊥ , τ ) which evolves from the initial quantum state ρ(qx,⊥ , q̃x,⊥ , 0). If we express each step in Hamiltonian form, we can include relative decoherence discussed in this evolution. This evolution evolves the initial state |ψ τ > continuously to generate an entire quantum space-time. But this evolution depends on η x and nx (τ ). The relative decoherence formulation helps calculate the density matrix, it simply converts any pure state into a mixed state. Continuous reduction due to observation requires continuous probabilistic reduction of mixed states into pure states. This once again depends on foliation. The sequence of continuously reduced pure states in one foliation is not equivalent to a sequence of pure state and they depend on η x and nx (τ ). Now there are two ways to understand the relative decoherence formulation used to evolve ρ over a region of space-time. Proposition 4 Proposal 3.1: Observer-less Interpretation- We can also use ρ̂ to calculate averages and other statistical values. For example, we can calculate the following: classical metric gαβ of the corresponding classical geometry using gαβ = tr(ρ̂ĝαβ ) . tr(ρ̂) In the trace we sum over all paths with γ = γ̃. But this still depends on η x and nx (τ ), which we will discuss how to deal with this in global quantum reduction in the next proposition. Now we can use the G for continuous evolution over a finite space-time region to calculate correlations between values of qxα in different space-time points. This is similar to the calculation of propagation amplitudes using Feynman diagrams. The only difference is we don’t need to do squaring to calculate the probability amplitudes, as G deals with evolution of density matrix. Here is an example: α α < qx,⊥ 1 qx,⊥ 2 >∆τ x ,x,ηx = Z α α α α α α α α qx,⊥ 1 qx,⊥ 2 Gs+ (qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 , qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 ; η x , τ x , ∆τ x )dqx,⊥ 1 dqx,⊥ 2 α α α α where < qx,⊥ 1 qx,⊥ 2 >∆τ x ,x is the correlation between qx,⊥ 1 and qx,⊥ 2 seperated by time parameter ∆τ x . Lets deal with the dependence on η x and nx (τ ) next. Proposition 5 Proposal 3.2: Global Quantum Reduction - The quantum evolution and reduction process occurs along a spatial foliation such that the C 1 smooth functions nx (τ ) and η x take smooth values, such that relative probability weight is given by exp(−cr Υ − cr Υ̃), where cr is a fundamental constant, where Υ is Υ(qxα , nx (τ ), η x ) is measure discussed above, and Υ̃ isΥ(qxα , nx (τ ), η x ) corresponds to qxα , cr and n are to be discovered and verified experimentally. Now the Lagrangian density is of the form: L4 = L(γ) − iL(γ̃) + iβd(γ, γ̃)2 + icr Υ(γ, nx (τ ), η x ) + icr Υ(γ̃, nx (τ ), η x ) 8 L4 is the total Lagrangian described including the decoherence and global reduction fields. The constant cr needs to be small enough that the imaginary terms don’t disturb the usual Lagrangian quantum evolution. I have assumed Υ as a function of (gµν , nx (τ ), η x ) only. But in reality, could be function other variables depending on the fields we are dealing with. The value of exp(−cr Υ − cr Υ̃) for different (gµν , nx (τ ), η x ) gives relative probability weight for each of these values. In addition to the probabilistic nature of the theory due to ρ, we also have an additional statistical nature due the probability weights exp(−cr Υ − cr Υ̃). The physical interpretation of these probability weights depends on Υ. In quantum gravity framework 2.0 and 3.0, we discussed various possible choices for Υ depending on various physical motivations. One of the important case is the rest frame foliation introduced in [4]. Later we will discuss the covariant generalization of this field. 3.2.4 Determinism, Continuum Limit and Scale invariance Proposition 6 The fourth postulate is unchanged and is the same as the previous versions [3] and [4]. The only generalization is we need two σ x instead of one in the Lagrangian. L −→ L + i X1 2 x,s α σ x (qy,s )+i X1 2 x,s α σ x (q̃y,s ) (7) such that σ x are β 1) smooth real functions of the variables q̂x,s with a lower bound, 2) functions of quantum variables at x and adjacent (or nearby) quantum systems to point x, and 3) are increasing functions as |qxα − qxα′ |− > ∞. In [3] we discussed scale invariance. A full understanding of determinism, continuum Limit and scale invariance requires extensive study of the other two principles. This is one possible future course of research. 3.3 Covariant Rest Frame foliation Let’s do the generalization of rest frame foliation to a covariant formulation. The propagator was defined formally defined in the section on global quantum reduction. We need to discuss the dependence of the Υ on η x and nx (t) . First let us look at η x . Let me assume that dependence on these two is additive. Υ(γ, nx (τ ), η x ) = Υ(γ, 0, η x ) + Υ(γ, nx (τ ), 0) Let me define Υ1 (γ, η x ) = Υ2 (γ, nx (τ )) = Υ(γ, 0, η x ) Υ(γ, nx (τ ), 0) The η x determines the time flow in the configuration space of fields at each point. The most natural general proposal for dependence of η x is as follows: α 2 Υ1 (γ, η x ) = |η α x − qx | This basically restricts the possible values of η x to be close to expectation values of qxα . The norm squared is calculated in the internal metric of the fields. Now let us focus on Υ(γ, nx (τ ), 0). The self-time constrained evolution and rest frame foliation discussed in ( [4]) are in which global reduction could occur naturally. It was defined by Υ3 = Z ( X1 < π ab f π f ab > ~ 2 ) √1 dx3 + E cg 2 f h f 9 where the suffix 3 indicates it quantum framework version 3.0. The above proposal is not covariant. So we need to generalize this fully into an appropriate form. This will be done at the end of this section. To generalize this idea, we need a time-like killing field. In the Schwarzschild metric, we have the time-like killing field, which defines a good time parameter in weak gravitational fields. This would be good around planets. But if we go to the initial state of the universe, the universe is expanding and so there is no time like killing fields. The appropriate form is a conformal killing field, which was discussed as one of the options in the previous version ( [3]). It can define the natural time parameter both during the universe’s expansion phase and around a spherically symmetric matter field. Let T γ be a time vector field that generates a one-parameter family of space-time diffeomorphism, such that a given initial surface St1 is mapped to a different surface St2 of the foliation. So, specifying T γ , assuming it is integrable, is another way to define the foliation. Now instead of nx we are going to use T γ . The relation between nx and T γ is not so obvious. We want T γ such that it can detect movement of the metric upto a scaling factor, and also give foliation locally, even though it may not be globally. If we a have specific choice of T γ in a region then normal surfaces to T γ gives that foliation. For example, t = constant surfaces in Schwarzschild or inflationary universe. We need to replace n(x) by T γ in our theory to describe evolution in all the four parts of quantum gravity framework 4.0 defined in this section. Now let try to find a possible choice of function for Υ2 (γ, T γ ). Let me define tensor Cαβ defined as a function of space-time metric gµν by 1 Cαβ (gµν , T η ) = £T (gαβ ) − (g γδ £T (gγδ ))gαβ , 4 where £T is the lie derivative along T α . For a vector T α to be conformal killing, Cαβ is to be zero. For measuring the smallness of Cαβ ,consider the most obvious norm: Z Z √ γδ √ 4 Cαβ C gd x = g αγ g βδ Cαβ (gµν , T η )Cγδ (gµν , T η ) gd4 x η The second line makes the depends on g αγ and explicit. Since the metric is Lorentzian, the measure R T to be √ is not positive definite. So the smallness of Cαβ C γδ gd4 x does not imply the smallness of components of Cαβ . To surmount this, the metric can be Euclideanized so that the norm is positive definite. Z √ αγ βδ E E Υ2 (γ, T γ ) = gE gE Cαβ (gµν , T η )Cγδ (gµν , T η ) gE d4 x µν E E where gµν is the Euclidean version of the Lorentzian metric gµν , and gE is the inverse of gµν . This was discussed in the previous version. But this approach seems unnatural and not simple. The most natural form is Υ2 (γ, T γ ) = Z |g αγ g βδ Cαβ (gµν , T η )Cγδ (gµν , T η )|n p |g|d4 x In the case of the covariant decoherence we also have the g̃µν field, for which can define another norm, Υ2 (γ, T γ ) = Z |g̃ αγ g̃ βδ Cαβ (g̃µν , T η )Cγδ (g̃µν , T η )|n p |g̃|d4 x The transition probability is peaked when T η is close to the conformal killing vector of the metric fields gµν and g̃µν . Originally this discussed in the June 24 2021 version of this paper. Let me make a change. Please note while this choice of Υ2 (γ, T γ ) works for Schwarschild metric where the metric is constant along the intuitive time like killing vector, it does not work well for Big Bang cosmology, as this choice doesn’t pick the intuitive time like direction, based on private calculations. Many choices for Υ2 (γ, T γ ) were given in the previous updates [3]. One of the alternative definition that can overcome this problem is 10 1 K̃αβ (hµν , T η ) = £T (hαβ ) − (hγδ £T (hγδ ))hαβ 4 (8) where hαβ = gαβ − nα nβ , is the spatial metric defined on hypersurfaces orthogonal to T γ flow.The nα is γ the normal vector parallel to T γ , |TT γ | . K̃ is the tracefree extrinsic curvature. Now Υ4 (γ, T γ ) can be defined as the following: γ Υ4 (γ, T ) = Z Z √ K̃αβ K̃ γδ gd4 x = η η √ 4 hαγ hβδ αβ K̃(gµν , T )K̃γδ (gµν , T ) gd x In this, we don’t need to Euclidianize the metric, as it has a positive signature on the hypersurfaces and zero on projection to the normal direction. My private calculations with computer tensor algebra give satisfactory behavior for this definition of Υ. That is it predicts intuitive time direction for both Big Bang cosmology and the Schwarzschild case. Also we can include the electric fields in Υ4 if use Kaluza-Klein unification of gauge fields with gravity. These suggest that Υ4 and Υ3 are closely related. It will be quite interesting to study how in the linear limit Υ4 (gµν , T η , n) defined above leads to the rest frame foliation. Now the total Lagrangian density is as follows: L4 = L(γ) − iL(γ̃) + iβd(γ, γ̃)2 + icr Υ1 (γ, η x ) + icr Υ1 (γ̃, η x ) γ (9) γ +icr Υ4 (γ, T ) + icr Υ4 (γ̃, T ) 1 1 +i σ x (γ) + i σ x (γ̃) 2 2 where I have included the terms for smoothness defined in equation (7). In theory with this Lagrangian density we need to use T γ to describe the foliation of space-time locally. We do this analysis in detail in a future version. 4 Application to Quantum Gravity Let us discuss a specific application to quantum gravity. A simple possibility for the decoherence term is the following 3 : R 1 Proposition 7 The covariant distance operator is: d = ch (gab − g̃ab )(g ab − g̃ ab )(gg̃) 4 dtd3 x This is a simple proposal that measures the distance between two metrics which is diffeomorphism invariant on simultaneous diffeomorphism of both tilde and non-tilde space-times. The gab and g̃ab are the 1 metrics on the tilde and non-tilde space-times. g and g̃ are the determinants. (gg̃) 4 is for maintaining coordinate independence of the integral giving equal importance to non-dual and dual space. This is a very formal definition. In density matrix formulation the evolution heuristically is as follows: ρ̇ = Z n
1o 1 i[H, ρ] − ch g 4 8ρ − g ab ρgab − gab ρghab g 4 d3 x (10) 3 This a covariant generalization of gravity induced decoherence, which was investigated before in various forms in references [40], [41], and [39], but it leads to different formulation of gravity decoherence when simplified to 3+1 form in the weak field limit of spherically symmetric case. 11  where ρ = ρ( qxα , q̃xα̃ ; Sx , ∀x, , t), and H is the effective Hamiltonian density. The above equation is an operator equation. To understand the derivation of the decoherence terms from path integral, please note that from the path integral: (gab − g̃ab )(g ab − g̃ ab ) = 8 − gab g̃ ab − gab g̃ ab 1 The g 4 factors form the density for the volume measure. 4.1 Examples 4.1.1 Cosmology For isotropic and homogenous cosmology the density evolution equation reduces to the following, with scale factor a as the time: gab = diag(−1, a2 , a2 , a2 )
3 3 ρ̇ = i[H, ρ] + ch a 4 6ρ − 3a−2 ρa2 − 3a2 ρa−2 a 4 (11) where a is the scale factor acting as the only configuration variable. Explicitly 3 3 ρ̇(a, a′ ) = i ha| [H, ρ] |a′ i + ch a 4 a′ 4 ρ(a, a′ )(a − a′ )(a−1 − a′−1 ) The H need to be derived using symmetry conditions. Below are two cases, with the first for an expanding universe with only a cosmological constant, and the second the universe with scalar field φ included. The π below are conjugate momentas. L = H = L = H =    π 2a 3 − ak + Λa − π a ȧ − N dtcg a    π 2a 3 cg N − − ak + Λa a )   π 2φ a3 φ 2 π 2a 3 − ak + 3 + + Λa π a ȧ + π φ φ̇ − N dt cg − a 2a 2   π 2φ π2 a3 φ 2 cg − a − ak + 3 + + Λa3 a 2a 2 ( The notations have standard interpretation and were introduced in the previous version [3]. 4.1.2 Example: Spherically symmetric space. Consider the spherically symmetric case of spherically symmetric macroscopic matter of radius R with center mass at x: gab = diag(−1 + φ, 1 + φ, 1 + φ, 1 + φ) where φ is gravitational potential. Here I don’t assume the spherically symmetric matter is a point particle, but certain mass of order of Planck mass or more than that. We also assume the matter distribution is 12 uniform, so that there is no spike in the gravitational field. A detailed calculation yields the following: Z 1 (gab − g̃ab )(g ab − g̃ ab )(gg̃) 4 d3 x ≈ 4 Z |φ(y − x) − φ(y − x′ )|2 d3 y Then the quantum mechanics of the macroscopic spherical matter at the center of mass is described by a simple model as follows: ′ ′ ρ̇(x, x ) = i hx| [H, ρ] |x i − 4ch ρ Z |φ(y − x) − φ(y − x′ )|2 d3 y (12) H can be derived from the Hamiltonian analysis of the standard Hamiltonian. Based on private calculations, I believe, the decoherence integrals both in cosmology and spherically symmetric case seems to be convergent and seems promising. This is different from previous formulations, as explained in the last footnote. Further analysis will be discussed in the future. 4.1.3 Resolution of singularities When we go towards the singularities the metric weight h goes towards zero. The Hamiltonian has inverse h factors. So, the Hamiltonian formalism is not of much use near the singularities. In such cases, the Lagrangian formulation is useful for study physics near singularities. 5 Universe, Consciouness and Structure formation In this section we now discuss ideas regarding consciousness and structure formation. We will discuss how consciousness involves quantum gravity through rest frame foliation. We introduce concepts to understand structure formation and how consciousness is linked to it. 5.1 Consciousness and Framework 3.0 5.1.1 Consciousness and Global Quantum Reduction Now we will try to understand the physical relevance of the global quantum reduction proposal4 . When we are involving only Schrödinger evolution, it really doesn’t matter what foliation you are using in space-time or what foliation we are using in the configuration space of fields at each point to evolve the wavefunction. But if we include decoherence as discussed in framework 2.0, then for that foliation matters. Continuous reduction of a quantum system is given by the Bloch equations in the Lindblad form [26] governing the evolution of density matrix (reviewed in [27]): ρ̇τ = i[ρ̂τ , Ĥ] + X m,x + + (2L̂m,x ρ̂τ L̂+ m,x − L̂m,x L̂m,x ρ̂τ − ρ̂τ L̂m,x L̂m,x ), (13) with ρτ = M (|ψ τ >< ψ τ |) , < ψ τ |ψ τ > Even if we use the path integral form of decoherence described in this paper, foliation still matters. We expand ρ̂τ into a sum of pure states. Essentially |ψ τ >< ψ τ | is a sequence of pure states got by probabilistically reducing ρ̂τ at each instant into pure state. This sequence of states |ψ τ > obtained this 4 The relation of quantum measurement to conscious reduction in this section is inspired independently and also by that of Roger Penrose [8]. For example, when I read about quantum measurement in my high school days, 35 years ago, I always believed this may be the best way how consciousness selection happens can be explained. 13 way depends on the foliation. That is, this conversation of mixed to pure state is the measurement process which depends on the foliation. For this we need to find the most natural foliation that nature uses to it, if that is the way this happens. We have discussed possible foliations for global reductions in the previous paper [3]. Now there are three questions to be addressed: 1) whether the reduction process occurs along a preferred foliation , 2) what is the choice of the foliation along which the reduction occurs, and 3) whether this can be addressed as experimental questions. The answer to the first question is ’NO’ if we take into account the spirit of general relativity: Basic laws of physics are supposed to be independent of foliation in which we analyze the process of evolution. But the answer is yes if we take into account the presence of conscious observers as human beings. We observe the world through our brains. The process of observation receives information from the environment to be entered into a quantum state of matter in the brain in relevant regions. This is entangled with the quantum state of matter around the observer. During observation, the observer converts mixed to pure states, and it is registered in his consciousness. This is the lesson from quantum mechanics, both in theory and experiment. Now to answer the third question, yes we can come to certain answers for the first two questions. Consider the first two facts: 1) When an observer observes a quantum superposed state it is probabilistically projected into a single state. This process is decoherence described by the second proposal: conversion of mixed states into pure states. 2) Second we know the observer observes in his rest frame. 3) The choice of foliations described for global quantum reduction are those in which the fields and matter are relatively at rest. We will discuss this in detail after the observation. Combining these three ideas we can come to the following proposal: Proposition 8 Global quantum reduction is the process of continuous observation of conscious observers. Now we would like to go into more detail regarding this. We observe the world through our brains. The information we perceive is distributed throughout the brain. The synchronized pattern of firing of neurons in our brain is perceived by conscious information. But somehow they combine together to give us a 4d picture of the world, which is seen from a particular reference frame. The reference frame is usually the co-moving reference frame of the observers. But we see the observer as a collection of neurons in the human brain, then we ask the question What precisely is the hypersurface foliation used by neurons to synchronize themselves? In other words, what is the foliation along which we observe the world? Each neuron is sitting still in the human brain. If we keep our head still in an inertial reference frame, then all our neurons have the same four velocities, then the orthonormal hypersurfaces to these four velocity is clearly, is the foliation along which the neurons synchronize. Then the information in neurons at each of these hypersurfaces gets bound together somehow and presented as an instantaneous sequence of perceptions to the conscious observer. But usually, the observer keeps shaking his head. Then in this case each neuron no longer have the same four velocity, so the reference frames and the orthonormal hypersurfaces of each of each neuron are slightly different. Even though differences are very small in a relativistic context, but yet we have a conceptual problem. How do we specify this velocity in the field theory concept? In the case of a moving head, the hypersurfaces are slightly curved, because each neuron is at a different velocity. So in general the hypersurface along which the brain organizes information is curved. Why should the conscious observer observe the universe from the hypersurfaces (reference frame) decided by the four velocities of the neurons of the brain? Many other reference frames are equally possible. The question is how does the brain (neurons) choose this reference frame? My question is more technical, How does the brain sense its reference frame? or the sequence of spatial hypersurfaces associated with the reference frame? This is the fundamental question that we need to answer. This is the spatial hypersurface that is relevant to humans. The brain is matter, and this matter seems to sense the hypersurface along which it moves to organize the information it receives. Most neuroscientists consider consciousness as a fundamental capability of many of the lower mammals. Many important scientists such as Wigner, consider that even 14 an electron may have an elementary conscious capability. If we want to link quantum measurement to consciousness, understanding the link between the hypersurfaces and dynamics of brain matter becomes more relevant and this requires further research. In this section, we will discuss some proposals. But how do we specify these hypersurfaces using quantum field theory. The four-velocity of the brain is not a fundamental concept in field theory. We need to specify the hypersurfaces using the fundamental quantum field theory, so that they can be specified at each point of the universe in an objective manner. For this, consider the set up used for studying continuum canonical general relativity. Consider space-time with metric gαβ and one parameter spacial foliation St , where St is the spacial hypersurface for a given t. This foliation can be specified by function t(x), x is a point in space time, with t(x) = constant describing the surface St . We can choose t to be the time coordinate. Consider the vector field, T γ = ( ∂∂t )γ . T γ generates a one-parameter family of space-time diffeomorphism, such that a given initial surface St1 is mapped to a different surface St2 of the foliation. So specifying T γ , assuming it is integrable, is another way to define the foliation. Let nγ be the unit normal to the hypersurfaces. There are many fundamental quantities that can be used to calculate T γ : Energy momentum tensor T αβ , extrinsic curvature Kαβ = £n (hαβ ), or the lie derivative of the metric Lαβ = £T (gαβ ). All these three have a special relationship to the hypersurface along which a conscious observer obeserves the universe. T 0β for moving matter is parallel to the direction in which it is moving. K αβ is zero along the moving observer, if the gravitational field is of its own. Usually, the Lie derivative of the metric is zero along a moving matter, if the gravitational field is of its own. Let us first consider the energy-momentum tensor T αβ , which is a field theory concept. Consider the classical expectation value. T 0β gives the direction along which matter and energy travels. But the human brain is a noisy environment. T 0β differs from point to point in a random manner. Also T αβ is zero if there is no matter. So it is difficult to link T αβ to the hypersurfaces in a one-to-one manner. Lets consider the other two cases Kαβ = £n (hαβ ) and Lαβ = £T (gαβ ). Consider an static observer moving in free space in an inertial reference frame, with his neurons moving in the inertial reference frame. The observer generates a static field around him. By symmetry, the two Lie derivatives are zero if T is given by the time like killing field ( ∂∂t )γ along which the field moves. Then we can determine the hypersurfaces R R along which V Kαβ K αβ or V Lαβ Lαβ is zero or the smallest, where integration is done over the region of the observer and along a hypersurface of the foliation. But Lαβ Lαβ is not positive definite because the metric has (− + ++) signature. Then Kαβ K αβ which is positive definite seems to be the best possible choice. The smaller the Kαβ K αβ , the smaller the variation in hab the spatial metric along the direction movement of the observer. This seems to be the most appropriate surface along which the observer moves. The quantity that is directly related to Kαβ in canonical formalism is the canonical momentum π αβ , π αβ = √ h (Kαβ − Khαβ ) which may play an important role in formulation of the theory and we will explore this in future. In the case of an observer in the gravitational field of a celestial object, Kαβ K αβ is minimal along the static foliations of the body. So the foliations are determined by the gravitational field in the region in which the observer lives. But there is the electric field of the conscious matter that we also need to take into account. This was discussed in [4]. Before this paper we discussed the possible covariant generalization of the rest frame foliation using conformal killing vector. Version update: Kαβ K αβ is not minimal in the expanding universe along the direction of expansion. As discussed before we need to replace Kαβ by the trace-free extrinsic curvature as in 8 to solve this. 5.1.2 Conscious and Rest frame foliation As we discussed before usually observer keeps moving his head. Then in this case each neuron is no longer have the same four velocity, so the reference frames and the orthonormal hypersurfaces of each of each neuron are slightly different. In the case of a moving head the hypersurfaces in which the observes the universe is slightly curved, because each neuron is at a different velocity. So, in general the hypersurface along which the brain organizes information is curved. The most natural form is the rest frame foliation, in which moving matter is most at rest. 15 So, we have the following proposal: Proposition 9 The rest frame foliation is the foliation in the mixed quantum state of the universe that is converted into a pure quantum state continuously and in which a conscious observer observes the universe In our theory both conversion of mixed state to pure state and vice-versa happens all over the universe. This doesn’t mean that the universe is consciously observing itself. In conscious matter such as in people or living organisms, conscious observation is used for conscious observation and behavioral choice. The rest frame foliations are quite natural for an observer, or any object such as a camera, or a microorganism, to observe the world as a sequence of events. How to calculate this foliation? and make it useful for the study of movement needs to be studied further. Further relevance of this foliation will be discussed further in the full version of this paper to be published later. In the previous paper [3], I discussed some experimental tests to understand the effect of foliation dependence on decoherence. It needs to be further studied. 5.2 Structures and Conscious Observers 5.2.1 Relational Harmonic Structures In section we discuss a theory of consciousness5 . In the book [32] I have argued that the purpose of the universe is the creation of relational harmonic structures. The competition between gravity and entropy creates these structures. In our theory the gravity provides the necessary organizing force, while the stochastic component (decoherence mechanisms) creates the entropy. In between these two we have other forces such as electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces. These create the relationship structures out of particles to create composite particles such as atoms and molecules. These relationship structures further create complex structures such as bulk matter. Here we describe a formula to measure relational complexity which has also been described in the book [32]. Let {xi } be the free variables relating to a quantum system, say N atoms. Then the joint probability distribution is Pf = Pf ({xi }) From this we can derive the probability distribution for each variable. Pi (xi ) = X {xj , ∀j6=i} Pf ({xj }) The Shannon information associated with the entire system is If = − X {xi } Pf ({xi }) log2 Pf ({xi }) The Shannon information associated to each variable xi is Ii = I(Pi ) = − X Pi (xi ) log2 Pi (xi ) xi Then the sum of all this information is 5 This section is inspired by the integrated information theory of consciousness by Tononi Giulini but the formulations and basic ideas are different [38] . There is also work by other other scientists. The ideas on the phenomena of consciousness may overlap with other’s work. A much more detailed discussion of its relation to other consciousness theories will discussed in further updates. 16 IsT = X Ii i The mutual information that is associated due to connectivity between the variables is as follows. Im = IsT − If The average information per variable is Is = IsT N where N is the number of variables. The average independent information per variable that is associated with the variables subtracting the mutual information is as follows: Ii = Is − Im Then the strength of the relationships network in the system is the geometric mean of the last two. Ir = p Im ∗ Ii We normalize this information as follows: Ir = 1p Im ∗ Ii Is Ir measures the strength of the relationship structure. If ir is maximum it means, there is the maximum relational complexity. That is they not only have as much self-independence as possible, but also as much mutual connection in the system. The smaller the ir is, either mutual connection reduces or self-independence reduces. The most typical application of ir is the measure of the relational complexity of living things. Assume xi is the locations of each of the individuals of a colony of species. If ir is the maximum for a living colony it means they have a balance of independence and at the sametime mutual connection. For matter in free space, Ii is the independent information associated with each degree of freedom of particles, and measures the effect of self-entropy. Im measures the connectivity between free particles, in planetary scale is a measure of gravitational clumping. Ir is the geometric mean of these two is the measure of relationship structure as a balance between defensive and connective factors as discussed in the book [32]. We can also measure the mental complexity of the neural network of a living brain. Here we can measure xi to be the voltage inside the axon of the neuron. Ir is low mean either the neurons are two independent or they are too connected. The more the information a brain stores more the complexity of information with both interconnectivity and relational independence. If there are entities with their state described by variables x1 and x2 then we can calculate the connectivity as follows. It can be calculated as follows: C12 = Im,12 Is,12 Consider we have a system with many entities described by variables xi . We divide the system into two regions by a cross-sectional area Σ. Then let k and k ′ refer to a pair of connected entities across the surface Σ. Then the total connectivity between the two parts on the two sides of Σ is given by 17 CΣ = X Ckk′ k The fractional connectivity is given by cΣ = CΣ N where N is the number of links across Σ. The concept of connectivity can be used to understand how a system is. If it can be divided into two parts by a surface Σ with CΣ = 0, then it is not connected. The smaller the cΣ is, the less connected the parts are. 5.2.2 Perception and Consciousness The human brain is a conscious structure. It perceives the world as a sequence of perceptions. The perceptions are nothing but a combination of sensations, which I would like to refer to as a sensation complex. This has been described in chapter 3 of [31]. We need to understand the link of sensational complex to physics. Let me frame the following axioms. • Each quantum of reality, like a particle, is capable of elementary sensation and the sensation happens when it splits into or merges with a different quantum. The extent of sensation depends on the energy involved in a split or merger. • When one or more quantum particles bond together they become a bigger observer and their elementary sensation merge to form a bigger sensational complex. The elementary sensational complex is bound together by quantum entanglement and electromagnetic forces to become the bigger sensational complex. • Qualia are sensational complexes mapped to objects by a living entity through its memory systems and reproduced on demand by it. The objects could be external objects such as trees or stones. The objects could be another sensation complex such as a word image or sound. • The time of flow of sensation is given by the rest frame foliation. The sensational complex information on each of the hypersurface of the rest frame foliation is an instant of consciousness. How quantum systems are put together technically becomes the qualia observed by living brains needs to be researched. This may involve understanding the role of cortical columns in the cerebral cortex of the living brain. These cortical columns may be considered as pixels of the sensational complex observed by the living brains... We can use the above list of ideas to give some mathematical descriptions. But before going into that please note that in this paper consciousness is described as a sequence of sensational complexes that is all. There is nothing deeper than that. For example, when a human being becomes self-aware, he doesn’t feel everything about himself. He just feels the sensational complex that is provided in the brain based on the information stored in the brain, to give a sense of self-awareness in combination with other sensations such as visual, tactile, and sound sensations at that time. We look at something and feel that we know it, it is just a sensation generated by the brain as feedback based on what it remembers. When we pay attention to something basically our brain processes that information isolating it from the rest of the environment. Once the processing is done, it provides the necessary sensational complex to identify it, along with a sense of knowing it. Our brain over the course of time has evolved to generate its sensational complex to give a sense of self, feedback about the immediate environment, also feedback about its internal mental states which in themselves is a sensational complex, and mechanical biological mechanisms to use the information it learned to promote its own survival. 18 Let Hi (t) be the time-dependent Hamiltonian associated with each quantum particle in a living brain. Let energy ei =< H > is the expectation value. Then the sensational strength of the sensational complex is given by si (t) = dei (t) . dt The qualia is essentially described by the interconnectivity between the various entities in the brain. Consider the brain of a living thing. If Ψ({ei (t)}) is the wavefunction of the system, then the joint probability density is P ({ei (t)}) = |Ψ({ei (t)})|2 Using P ({ei (t)}) we can calculate various information associated with respect to the system, and we can define the connectivity and relational strength Ir . The fractional connectivity of any division tells how the sensational complex is. If the fractional connectivity is zero it means that the system is made of two more conscious entities. Relational strength indicates how strong the mental development of the system is. The more the relational strength is, the more complex the information stored with strong interconnectivity with them. In the case of neuron-based brains, we don’t need to deal will each atom. But we can deal with neuronal level-information. Let si (t) represent the average rate of change of the voltage of the axon of the human brain. It tells the strength of the sensational complex at the neuron. Our perceptual content is stored in our neural network as bonds between atoms. This energy level fluctuates as the electric field in the brain changes. We perceive many frames of information in the brain, one frame per gamma cycle. As per our proposal in the last section, these gamma cycles are synchronous with the rest frame evolution of our brain. Let PJs be the probability distribution values of si (t) during the ∆T time interval of the Gamma Oscillation beginning at T , T + ∆T > t > T − ∆T . This probability can be calculated from the neural network itself. PJs (T ) = PJs ({si }) where the left side is the function of all si at each points. When J stands for joint probability. Then we can define the joint information in many steps as described below. Pi (si , T ) = Z ∀sj ,j6=i PJε ({sj }) Y dsj sj, ∀j6=i where integral is performed over the range of possible values of the potential of each neuron. Ii (T ) = − Z IJ (T ) = − Is (T ) = Pi (si , T ) log2 Pi (si , T )dsi si X sj, ∀j X PJs ({sj }) log2 PJs ({sj }) Y dsj sj, ∀j Ii (T ) i Im (T ) = Is (T ) − IJ (T ) 19 Im (T ) measures the sensational complex content of gamma oscillation during time interval starting at instant T. Each gamma cycle defines a different instant of sensation. Proposition 10 Im (T ) is a measure of consciousness of a system. This is our fifth postulate. It is one candidate of many other possible definitions available in the literature. 5.3 Universe and Relationship structures 5.3.1 Theory One of the important question regarding consciousness, is its relation to its free will. In the book [32] I proposed that macroscopic superposition is the best possible way to link physics to free will. If the neural network of living brain becomes a superposition of many possible feature courses Mi , the quantum state of the entire neural X network is |Mi >, |M >= i Mi is the ith possible mental state. Eventually it decoheres, possibly based on the decoherence model that I have given in this paper to take one of the possible mental states |Mi >. But the important question is, if any new physics is involved in the decoherence to link consciousness to free will. That is whether the decoherence is not consistent with quantum mechanics, but slightly modified under the influence of free will in the brain. Further research needs to be done on this. Now I would like to propose an interesting proposition based on the unification scheme developed in my work in [30] and also based on ideas in the previous section. Consider the measure of the relational structure defined Ir before. Proposition 11 The transition probability of a synchronous system is an increasing function Ir of the past state and decreasing function Ir of the future state. The last proposition is a mathematical statement of what has been discussed in chapter two of [32] and [30]. One possible realization is that in terms of relative time propagator α α α α α α α α Gs+ (qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 , q̃x,⊥ 1 , q̃x,⊥ 2 ; η x , τ x , ∆τ x )− > g(qx,⊥ 1 , qx,⊥ 2 , q̃x,⊥ 1 , q̃x,⊥ 2 ) exp(−cr Υ12 −cr Υ̃12 ) exp(−dr Ir1 +dr Ir2 ) Where the arrow indicates that Gs+ depends on various parts of its various similar to what has been written on the left-hand side. Υ12 is the restriction of Υ for global reduction to the slice containing the two hypersurfaces of space-time separated in time parameters τ x by ∆τ x . The most general possible way to understand the relationship structure dependence of a system transition amplitudes is to all a new term to the action of the system: S− > S − i Z ξ(Ir )dτ where ξ is an increasing function of ξ(Ir ).This will make transition amplitudes increase with increase in Ir . Then we can generalize the action of the universe from 9 to: S = Z L5 = Z [L(γ) − iL(γ̃) + iβd(γ, γ̃)2 + icr Υ1 (γ, η x ) + icr Υ1 (γ̃, η x ) 1 1 +icr Υ4 (γ, T γ ) + icr Υ4 (γ̃, T γ ) + i σ x (γ) + i σ x (γ̃)] 2 2 Z Z −i ξ(γ, Ir )dτ − i ξ(γ̃, Ir )dτ 20 (14) where ξ is assumed to depend on foliation through γ. Let’s analyze the implications of the last proposal on the universe. In other words, a synchronized system tries to become more relationally harmonic. Since synchronization is also a measure of relational harmonic nature, synchronization also tends to increase. So, to put it together, synchronization and relational harmonic structures tend to increase together. It is one possible implication of the above proposition. This can help us understand the evolution of the relationship structure of the universe: The formation of galaxies, stars, crystals, organic molecules, DNA, and life so on. This has been discussed in [32] and [30], that the universe tends to evolve with the evolution of relationship structures. 5.3.2 The future of the universe Now in the universe we can see three forces that shape its structure: 1. Entropy: This continues to increase as the universe evolves. 2. Blackholes: They tend to become stronger and stronger, and influence the matter around. 3. Harmonic Relationship structures: Harmonic Relationship structures tends to the increase as universe evolves. Now if harmonic relationship structures are related to consciousness then it is the third force that shapes the future of the universe in addition to entropy and blackholes. Consciousness fights against the effects of gravity and entropy to keep the structures in the universe. The future of the universe is determined by the battle between these three factors. The ultimate state of the universe is determined by who wins the fight. 5.3.3 Consciousness and Experience Synchronization, that is consciousness, is also a measure of relational harmonic nature. Now if you assume the extent of Ir is a measure of consciousness, from the last proposal, a conscious system tries to become more relationally harmonic. In other words, consciousness tends to increase itself. In general, in a relational harmonic structure defined in space and time, the synchronization and the spatial relational structure tell about the extent of consciousness. Based on EEG studies of the human brain, the extent of synchronization tells about the extent of conscious activation, while the spatial relational structure tells about information content. If a conscious system is entangled with the environment, then the relational structure of the environment tends to be reflected in the mental state of the system. This means the conscious system tries to promote the increase in complexity of the relational harmonic structure of the environment. So to understand the psychological experience I have the following proposal: Proposition 12 1)Various different harmonic relationship states corresponds to different feelings, emotions or qualia of a conscious system. 2) Ir is a measure of the pleasure sensation by the synchronous system. 3)Increase in Ir is felt as happiness and decrease in Ir is felt as sadness This proposition has various parts that helps understand consciousness as discussed in chapter two of [32]. There are various important research needs to be done in relation to this proposal. • Map the relation between various harmonic relationship structures in the human brain and various sensory information. This is a pure experimental study which might probably lead to a new theory • Which of the brain structures and phenomena evolved due to pure wants? As I have discussed in the book [30] artistic wants are pure wants. It relates to the proposition that nature wants to increase harmonic relationship structures. Consciousness promotes it, and it is felt by it a positive feeling if Ir increases and a negative feeling if Ir decreases. • Which of the brain structures and phenomena evolved due to pure needs? The human brain evolved to accommodate pleasure and pain depending on where the needs are met or not. Usually, neurotransmitters are involved in such phenomena. What is the mechanism, chemistry, and physics behind it? • How do pure needs and wants interact, to create life activities? 21 6 Conclusion This paper describes only the heuristic setup. Application of this setup to study decoherence in a simple context needs to be done. Even though I believe the formalism is ready for application, further research needs to be done in the future to develop the formalism before applying it. Further updates to this paper will be done soon. 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Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 354-356 354 Pitkänen, M., How Imagination Could Be Realized p-Adically? Essay How Imagination Could Be Realized p-Adically? Matti Pitkänen 1 Abstract One of the original motivations for identifying p-adic physics as a possible correlate for cognition, imagination and intentionality was that p-adic differential equations allow pseudo constants as integration constants - piecewise constant functions depending on finite number of pinary digits have vanishing p-adic derivatives. The naive idea about the realization of intentional action is that a quantum phase transition changes p-adic space-time sheet representing intention to a real one representing action. This idea was too simplistic and in the following a more refined mathematical realization based on strong form of holography is proposed. Imaginations are identified as being represented by string world sheets and partonic 2 -surfaces which can be continued to p-adic preferred extremal for various p-adic primes but not necessarily real ones. Only realizable intentions can be continued also to the real preferred extremals. 1 p-Adic pseudo constants and imagination The vision about p-adic physics as physics of cognition has gradually established itself as one of the key idea of TGD inspired theory of consciousness. There are several motivations for this idea. The strongest motivation is the vision about living matter as something residing in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds [?]cognic,numbervision. One of the earliest motivations was p-adic non-determinism identified tentatively as a space-time correlate for the non-determinism of imagination. p-Adic nondeterminism follows from the fact that functions with vanishing derivatives are piecewise constant functions in the p-adic context. More precisely, p-adic pseudo constants depend on the pinary cutoff of their arguments and replace integration constants in p-adic differential equations. In the case of field equations this means roughly that the initial data are replaced with initial data given for a discrete set of time values chosen in such a manner that unique solution of field equations results. Solution can be fixed also in a discrete subset of rational points of the imbedding space. Presumably the uniqueness requirement implies some unique pinary cutoff. Thus the space-time surfaces representing solutions of p-adic field equations are analogous to space-time surfaces consisting of pieces of solutions of the real field equations. p-Adic reality is much like the dream reality consisting of rational fragments glued together in illogical manner or pieces of child’s drawing of body containing body parts in more or less chaotic order. The obvious interpretation for the solutions of the p-adic field equations is as a geometric correlate of imagination. Plans, intentions, expectations, dreams, and cognition in general are expected to have p-adic cognitive space-time sheets as their geometric correlates. A deep principle seems to be involved: incompleteness is characteristic feature of p-adic physics but the flexibility made possible by this incompleteness is absolutely essential for imagination and cognitive consciousness in general. If one accepts the idea that real and p-adic space-time regions are correlates for matter and cognitive mind, one encounters the question how matter and mind interact. The original candidate for this interaction was as a phase transition leading to a transformation of the real space-time regions to p-adic ones and vice versa. These transformations would take place in quantum jumps. p-Adic-to-real phase transition would have interpretation as a transformation of thought into a sensory experience (dream or hallucination) or to an action. The reverse phase transition might relate to the transformation of the sensory experience to cognition. Sensory experiences could be also transformed to cognition by initial 1 Correspondence: Matti Pitkänen http://tgdtheory.com/. Address: Karkinkatu 3 I 3, 03600, Karkkila, Finland. Email: matpitka6@gmail.com. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 354-356 355 Pitkänen, M., How Imagination Could Be Realized p-Adically? values realized as common rational points of a real space-time sheet representing sensory input and a p-adic space-time sheet representing the cognitive output. In this case the cognitive mental image is unique only in case that p-adic pseudo constants are ordinary constants. It turned out that this interpretation leads to grave mathematical difficulties: one should construct U-matrix and M-matrix for transitions between different number fields, and this makes sense only if all the parameters involved are rational or algebraic. A more realistic view is that the interaction between real and p-adic number fields is that p-adic space-time surfaces define cognitive representations of real spacetime surfaces (preferred extremals). One could also say that real space-time surface represents sensory aspects of conscious experience and p-adic space-time surfaces its cognitive aspects. Both real and p-adics rather than real or p-adics. The notion of p-adic manifold [4] tries to catch this idea mathematically. 2 Strong for of holography Strong form of holography [5] implied by strong form of General Coordinate Invariance leads to the suggestion [2, 1] that partonic 2-surfaces and string world sheets at which the induced spinor fields are localized in order to have a well-defined em charge [3] (this is only one of the reasons) and having discrete set as intersection points with partonic 2-surfaces define what might called space-time genes. Space-time surfaces would be obtained as preferred extremals satisfying certain boundary conditions at string world sheets and carrying vanishing classical Noether charges for a sub-algebra of super-symplectic algebra isomorphic to the entire algebra. Space-time surfaces are defined only modulo transformations of supersymplectic algebra defining its sub-algebra and acting as conformal gauge transformations so that one can talk about conformal gauge equivalences classes of space-time surfaces. The map assigning to real space-time surface cognitive representation would be replaced by a correspondence assigning to the string world sheets preferred extremals of Kähler action in various number fields: string world sheets would be indeed like genes. Mathematically this formulation is much more elegant that that based on p-adic manifold since discretization seems to be un-necessary at space-time level and applies only to the parameters characterizing string world sheet. String world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces would be in the intersection of realities and p-adicities in the sense that the parameters characterizing them would be algebraic numbers associated with the algebraic extension of p-adic numbers in question. It is not clear whether the preferred extremal is possible for all p-adic primes but this would fit nicely with the vision that elementary particles are characterized by p-adic primes. It could be also that the classical non-determinism of Kähler action responsible for the conformal gauge symmetry corresponds to p-adic non-determinism for some particular prime so that the cognitive map is especially good for this prime. 3 Figments of imagination as 2-surfaces which allow continuation to p-adic space-time surfaces only? The idea about p-adic pseudo constants as correlates of imagination is too nice to be thrown away without trying to find an alternative interpretation consistent with strong form of holography. Could the following argument allow to save p-adic view about imagination in a mathematically respectable manner? 1. The construction of preferred extremals from data at 2-surfaces is like boundary value problem. Integration constants are replaced with pseudo-constants depending on finite number pinary digits of variables depending on coordinates normal to string world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces. 2. Preferred extremal property in real context implies strong correlations between string world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces by boundary conditions a them. One cannot choose these 2- surfaces completely independently. Pseudo-constant could allow a large number of p-adic configurations involving string world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces not allowed in real context and realizing imagination. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | June 2015 | Volume 6 | Issue 6 | pp. 354-356 356 Pitkänen, M., How Imagination Could Be Realized p-Adically? 3. Could imagination be realized as a larger size of the p-adic sectors of WCW? Could the realizable intentional actions belong to the intersection of real and p-adic WCWs? Could the modes of WCW spinor fields for which 2-surfaces are extendable to space-time surfaces only in some p-adic sectors make sense? The real space-time surface for them be somehow degenerate, for instance, consisting of string world sheets only. Could imagination be search for those collections of string world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces, which allow extension to (realization as) real preferred extremals? p-Adic physics would be there as an independent aspect of existence and this is just the original idea. Imagination could be realized in state function reduction, which always selects only those 2-surfaces which allow continuation to real space-time surfaces. The distinction between only imaginable and also realizable would be the extendability by using strong form of holography. I have the feeling that this view allows respectable mathematical realization of imagination in terms of adelic quantum physics. It is remarkable that strong form of holography derivable from - you can guess, strong form of General Coordinate Invariance (the Big E again!), plays an absolutely central role in it. References [1] M. Pitkänen. Construction of WCW Kähler Geometry from Symmetry Principles. In Quantum Physics as Infinite-Dimensional Geometry. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/ tgdgeom/tgdgeom.html#compl1, 2006. [2] M. Pitkänen. Identification of the WCW Kähler Function. In Quantum Physics as Infinite-Dimensional Geometry. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdgeom/ tgdgeom.html#kahler, 2006. [3] M. Pitkänen. WCW Spinor Structure. In Quantum Physics as Infinite-Dimensional Geometry. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdgeom/tgdgeom.html#cspin, 2006. [4] M. Pitkänen. What p-Adic Icosahedron Could Mean? And What about p-Adic Manifold? In TGD as a Generalized Number Theory. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdnumber/ tgdnumber.html#picosahedron, 2013. [5] M. Pitkänen. Unified Number Theoretical Vision. In TGD as a Generalized Number Theory. Onlinebook. http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/tgdnumber/tgdnumber.html#numbervision, 2014. ISBN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration &Research Published by QuantumDream, Inc. www.jcer.com