Imagining the future humanity by Margarita Iudin

Dear Margarita,

I have read your essay with great appreciation. I have read several others, though not all. I feel certain though at this moment that your essay is the best essay. It is free of ideology. It is free of the mechanical restraints imposed by theoretical physics. It is free of political and economic narrow-mindedness. It reaches into the depths of scientific learning and produces needed direction for humanity. Thank you for submitting your essay and sharing your ideas. I am immediately rating your essay an easy, deserving TEN.

James Putnam

Dear Ms. Judin,

I read your essay four times and I have to ask your forgiveness for I did not understand any of it.

For instance, you wrote: "Nonlocal consciousness is phenomena common to all." I am sure that my grasp of reality only exists here and now, once. I do not believe that I have the option of selecting any specific part of local consciousness or nonlocal consciousness. I cannot confirm that there can be a greater or lesser amount of local consciousness than there is of nonlocal consciousness. Here is immeasurable. Now is immeasurable. That is what makes here and now and me and my consciousness real. Being by nature a charitable sort of bloke, I truly feel that everyone else on the planet thinks as I do, although they may keep it to themselves.

Hesitatingly,

Joe Fisher

Margarita,

An intriguing essay. I almost now feel I like a visitor here! But are we not all temporary 'guests' in our present form? I've written a paper which implies we're anyway all 'recycled' with our galaxies at regular intervals, re-ionized to grow new molecules and new cellular life.

I then entirely agree nonlocal consciousness, but in a causal universe, not as the 'quantum nonlocality' which our incomplete understanding has left us believing in (the subject of my own effort).

Thank you for an entirely original and refreshing perspective.

Best wishes

Peter

PS. The rating buttons seem to be broken. I shall return!

I'm like Mr. Putman, Margarita, I thoroughly enjoyed your essay; you high-light a really good point with your analogous imagining. Many have argued that the evolution of technology is a random walk across design space but I think you demonstrate that the walk is highly constrained by analogy. Radical Constructivists argue that mathematics, which, it could be argued, is the foundation of science and engineering, has its foundations in nature, with abstraction a type of analogy. The same argument could be made of logic; it would seem that most, if not all, logical arguments and connectives are abstracted from observation, even infinity if you consider it a generalization of the counting numbers.

I certainly hope you're right about the restoration of balance with other cellular life forms but I sometimes wonder. I think such a restoration will require a major scientific breakthrough in energy production, containment, and transfer, something akin to cold-fusion. And the reason I find this to be so is largely due to your analogous imagining; with the advent of the global internet, wireless communications, and portable (wearable) smart devices, the human collective is transforming into an emergent global nervous system, analogous to the human nervous system, and this global nervous system is taking on a life of its own. Francis Heylighen (pg. 295) started the Global Brain Institute with a research objective aimed at generating a novel mathematical model to study this emergent phenomenon and Kevin Kelley from Wired has written a few blog posts about it. Viewed from the proper perspective, it can almost seem that humans are in servitude to this behemoth and it consumes relatively vast quantities of energy. But even the staunchest environmentalist cringes at the thought of giving up the internet; it would literally be a regress back to the "dark" ages.

Anyway, a very nice essay . . .

With regards,

Wes Hansen

Dear Margarita

I found that your excellent essay in many ways incorporates much of James Lovelock's "Gaia" theory. Perhaps more directly, it reminded me of Fritjof Capra's 1996 book "The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems" who wrote in the final chapter - Knowing That We Know:

"Identifying cognition with the full process of life - including perceptions, emotions, and behaviour - and understanding it as a process that involves neither a transfer of information nor mental representations of an outside world requires a radical expansion of our scientific and philosophical frameworks. One of the reasons why this view of mind and cognition is so difficult to accept is that it runs counter to our everyday intuition and experience. As human beings, we frequently use the concept of information and we constantly make mental representations of the people and objects in our environment.

However, these are specific characteristics of human cognition that result from our ability to abstract, which is a key characteristic of human consciousness. For a thorough understanding of the general process of cognition in living systems it is thus important to understand how human consciousness, with its abstract thought and symbolic concepts, arises out of the cognitive process that is common to all living organisms."

I believe this underscores what you have communicated in your essay.

You write:

"Although human self-awareness, constrained and fallible, lacks knowledge about position of human life in the hierarchy of cellular life, there is an accurate understanding that this position has been changing with time. The Holocene climate conditions made possible the booming growth of human population and techno-scientific advances, especially in chemical, biochemical and information technologies. We suggest that ongoing extension of the limits of specific human consciousness has been predisposed by unknown needs and interests of total cellular life and the living Earth. It seems that human consciousness is impending great changes."

I would like to speculate that humans do have an integrated purpose in life's overall hierarchical schematic that may not be obvious but is indeed driven by life's processes. From an evolutionary perspective, a possible explanation for the apparent dominance of the human species over the rest of nature, for its technological prowess, for its insatiable curiosity, for its creativity as well as for its unrelenting exploitation of its terrestrial habitat, is that all life on planet Earth must need this kind of species to enable its own evolution in order to insure its ultimate survival.

The fact that every living organism is programmed to reproduce is a fundamental aspect of nature and only in this way does the survival of any life form have a chance in the world that nature has designed. Extrapolating this insight into a cosmic perspective, we know that sooner or later life on Earth will cease to exist. Accepting the interdependent and interconnected processes of nature as you describe, then an understanding emerges that life's chances for ultimate survival can only be enhanced by promoting its propagation beyond Earth. And today, life on Earth has actually reached the point in its evolution via the human species where it would indeed be feasible for it to propagate in other parts of the universe.

Thus, if survival via propagation is the fundamental characteristic of life and that the web of life is indeed an integrated "Gaia-like" entity, then the arguments for spreading life beyond Earth are certainly more compelling than the arguments for not doing so. Life's expansion into the cosmos may or may not include humans but humans appear to be essential for that expansion to happen. By embracing this awareness and helping to propagate terrestrial life beyond the home planet, humanity could be fulfilling its ultimate purpose.

Your thoughts?

Thanks and best regards,

Arthur

Dear Margarita,

I read with great interest your depth analytical essay with interesting original conclusions that I really patches of light:

«Radical anthropocentrism made human consciousness too vulnerable and caused severe disconnection from other life forms. The most desirable for humanity is to change its views at cooperation of the life forms and the living Earth and to change human practices so these practices would be in spirit of natural engineering of the Earth by and large. In order to restore a balance with other cellular life forms and to live full-fledged lives and for sustained development humanity just has to have a push in the right direction.»

«Though anthropogenic engineering has been one of the pinnacles of collective human consciousness, the truth is that it rigorously follows the footsteps of natural control engineering. Human engineers effectively experiment, imitate and adapt logic and material design of the pre-existent natural manufacturing schemes (e. g, biosynthesis of antibiotics in nature). Imitation can be technically complicated, but it does not require new ideas and does not go beyond the bounds of consciousness of the totality of cellular life.»

«Maybe nobody yet knows what the imagining is and how it is resolved in cellular life as a whole, but humans and other cellular life observers use the imagining at all times.»

«We assume that analogous thinking in humans (here the term also covers thought experiments, mathematical modeling, music composing and other imagining) is a peculiar kind of interacting processing between a source system and an image system. As so, thinking is phenomena of hierarchical relations and energy-information exchange between an image and its sources.»

«In our view, without exceptions, technoscience achievements of the modern human life are not more than an imitation and reflection on the pre-existed phenomena of nonhuman life forms. We believe that scientific and technological achievements have become possible due to analogous imagining in cellular life observers. Human thinking originates in analogous imagining. In fact, there is no principle difference between mental construction of analogs and actual construction of the functional analogs. To create mental analogs, human and nonhuman observers employ topological mapping, or Gestalt imagining. For example, human observers employ topological mapping over the physical network of brain cells and signals.»

«The future of humanity is in an optimal transformation of the human conscience and physical body. Analogical imaging is essentially the methodology common to an exploration of the physical world and transformation of the life forms.

It is possible to "steer the future" of humanity by means of analogical imagining.»

In support of your ideas and the way to truth I give two quotations:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." (Albert Einstein)

«The truth should be drawn with the help of the cognitive computer visualization technology and should be presented to" an unlimited circle "of spectators in the form of color-musical cognitive images of its immanent essence.» (Alexander Zenkin «Scientific Counter-Revolution in Mathematics»).

Basic science can overcome the "crisis of representation and interpretation" (T.Romanovskaya "Modern physics and contemporary art-parallels of style") is relying on imagination to make a more profound interpretation of accumulated Knowledge. Need to deepen in the "Dialectics of Nature", to see its original structure, to hear its voice and then draw the desired Eidos of the Universe. Picture of the world of physics should be the same rich meanings of the «LifeWorld» (E.Husserl) as the world picture lyricists.

Profound imagination - first assistant for deep mind. Time has come and we have to start the path together with the new Generation of the Information age, going ahead

I invite you to comment and appreciate my journey into the past and future

where I draw the path of Protogeometer and new eidos of Universe, filled with limiting thoughts of the "LifeWorld".

Best regards,

Vladimir

Margarita,

I'm back with restored rating powers as promised above. I'm disappointed you haven't responded or read/rated mine but I know how much time it takes, even speed-reading. If you get the chance during the extension I think you'll enjoy the allegorical tale.

Well done for yours.

Peter

Dear Margarita,

As I promised in my FQXi page, I have read your nice Essay. Here are my comments:

1) I think that not only human life's position changes with time in the hierarchy of cellular life, but also other kinds of life.

2) Acknowledge the consciousness of individual cellular life forms, the quorum consciousness and the great engineering skill of total cellular life looks consistent with anthropic principle.

3) I agree with your statement that "for present humanity it would be better to match human interests with the interests of total cellular life and to anticipate climate change in the interests of total cellular life".

4) I think that placing straightforward imitation before an understanding is a mistake.

5) In my opinion, the greatest example of imitation and understanding of cellular life is nano-technology.

6) Nonlocal consciousness is also consistent with anthropic principle.

7) Concerning analogous imagining, you were correct in claiming that I used it in my Essay. I also agree with you that it is very important to "steer the future" of humanity.

As your Essay enjoyed me a lot, I am going to give you an high rate accordingly.

I hope you will find the time to read, comment and rate my Essay.

Best luck in the Contest.

Cheers,

Ch.

Margarita,

I left a message for you in my forum.

James Putnam

Margarita,

With regard to my mention of temperature at my forum, It was with regard to thermodynamic entropy. I wrote a page titled the Unknown Thermodynamic Entropy. I wrote that thermodynamic entropy, discovered by and defined by Clausius is unknown to this day. The reason it remains unknown is because its definition includes temperature. Temperature is an indefinable property along with length and time and mass. Temperature, as well as was mass, was improperly declared to be an indefinable property. In my work I define both mass and temperature and explain what thermodynamic entropy is. As you can see, my work is very different from accepted theoretical physics. This is just to let you know what I alone think. My essay for last years contest explains all this and more.

James Putnam

Dear Margarita,

I have remarked and read your essay when it was published (chrologically it was no 114/153)It is remarkably original and creative. It has no references and this is a proof of moral courage- we are faced with the ideas of the author herself and not with some authority in her field (no "post-logical thinking, bravissimo!

I am no expert in biology, so I cannot judge or appreciate the senses and consequences of the starting concept of the essay- "hierarchy of cellular life"

and its relationship with what we call Evolution. I also have problems with the global cellular life and our position in it.I had the impression that human brain cells are a superior form of cellular life due to the marvel of thinking- per se.

I think this essay open a way toward a better future. More instructions how to go will be welcome

Peter Gluck

Margarita,

Your essay sprawls, yet it sprawls over some very rich territory, where its very form reflects the content in a stream-of-consciousness narrative as close to art as to science. Like cut crystal, it is multifacted and beautiful.

What I take away, is that the integration of nonlocal consciousness with local experience is dynamic and free ranging over all scales of metaphysically real interactions -- and I hope I'm right.

Reading your piece leaves me with some regret that at this late date, I will have missed other such jewels among the dross. I can only do what I can, rating wise, to try and elevate attention.

You might resonate with the portion of my essay that expands on: "... there is no principle difference between the logical design and methods of the capital recycling(formidably described by great logician K. Marx) from one side and logical design and methods of energy-information recycling from the other side."

All best,

Tom

Margarita,

Many thanks for your post on my essay. I reproduce my response here for your convenience. Reminded by James I did indeed rate yours. I never declare exactly what but it always reflects my comments, clearly favourable. I also haven't rated some. I hope we can discuss my (full!) response, ..as follows;

~

"Thanks for your interesting post. I agree rating is inconsistent between authors. I consistently use the criteria, which I think mine fits well, but we do wrongly tend to favour things we also 'agree' with. Mine seems to be love or hate, I've had many '1' scores with no comments upping the total. Few seem to identify fundamental 'cause' of change as opposed to 'symptoms', but history's clear, it's new understanding of nature and technology that brings revolutionary advancement from stagnation.

On scores; I showed last year they mean little, but they do bring attention, needed in this case. The table is in the end notes, which is what they're for, and are findings of a REAL experiment! The essay discusses an important new conceptualisation of the real physical mechanism which QM entirely lacks, but is certainly nothing AT ALL like the draft scientific paper I promise! (you'd find an early draft buried on 'classical sphere's'.

Your comments on "form/conceptualisation" and; "something that may exist" confuse me. I'm not sure if you realise that QM entirely lacks BOTH of those! It always has. That (we may agree then?) along with a concept of 'time' inconsistent with relativity, is why it retains the EPR paradox and no classical (physical) explanation. THAT is what I now provide; the simple physical geometrical model to reproduce the findings that 'QM' claims are only explainable in terms of 'probability'.

You then say; "I think your model assumptions are incorrect. You may want to find somebody in the field and have alive conversation and verify your assumptions." Which assumptions? I find remove more (unsupported) hidden ones than I invoke, and I invoke only known science from other fields, and give references! They are;

Electron spin flip, Gauged helicity, Non-mirror symmetry of spin, (see the ref's or just google) and the fact that opposite spin hemisphere's rotate in different directions (Earths N= anticlockwise, S = clockwise) with a non-linear distribution of rotation speed between pole and equator. All I've done is bring those coherently together.

Now if you still do think any are incorrect do please identify so I can check!

You also suggest I; "look into the vorticity and gyroscope models in 2D and 3D and potential vorticity maps" They were indeed early starting points, and all valid, viz; Imagine holding a gyro by the spin axis poles. Look from one end, it's clockwise, and opposite from the other. Now look at the middle, it's either spinning 'up' or 'down'. QM goes no further than considering a single snapshot. I just point out that the ends can be swapped (by switching EM field direction). Now imagine doing so, by switching the poles round between hands. You now find spin UP from the SAME 'particle', with conserved OAM! That inherent duality is what current QM doesn't recognise or accept!!

Of course I've discussed it with many 'in the field'. Some recognise it and are scared that the beliefs embedded in their psyche may be wrong, most scream and look away. We can't advance science by checking it against past science to ensure it's the same! The model is scientifically falsified, but needs the 'new way of thinking' that Bob demonstrates reveals the answer, which allows unification of the two "great pillars" of physics, called the Holy Grail of science. I've identified that history shows that only that can let us escape from this rut and progress! In fact the changes to QM are quite small and reflect von Neuman and Godel's conceptions. Uncertainty is only relegated to the next gauge down. It's the implications for other physics that are wider.

I'm disappointed I didn't get that across to all, and that you disagree. If it's the latter pleased do specify with what. It may be wrong or incomplete but I can't find where. Part of the value for all here is the wide falsification of hypotheses.

If you wish more technical details do see my last post to Tom (under Doug 17/5 above) though Tom isn't 'in the field' and does have his own agenda. Thank you for expressing your doubts and giving me the opportunity to address them. I do look forward to any further specifics."

Best wishes

Peter

Hello Margarita

I enjoyed reading your very-well-written essay. You are absolutely right in stressing the significance of how cellular life has adapted itself and created methods of communation and data transfer - one can call it that - in living systems. In fact in my physics theory Beautiful Universe I have noted that " The human brain evolved over millions of years in organisms that interacted directly, causally and locally with inanimate nature on a molecular scale[15]. Is it too much to ask now that our understanding of Mother Nature should also be as simple, direct and realistic as possible?"

From there to the human scale it is a large leap, and I am a bit doubtful that absolutely everything human beings have created or will create has an analogy in cellular life. This idea denies the creative inventive process. A cell invents ways to survive and procreate. Do cells fall in love, write poetry, harbor thoughts of future security or revenge, or dream or are self-aware? Analogy needs to be stretched to the breaking point to explain the present (and future) human situation.

It struck me that two aspects of your essay hover near religious ideas: the Jain religion in India sanctifies life, even to the smallest insect (and I suppose cell). And your idea of enlightenment is close to Zen 'satori'.

My essay is very different from yours, but hope you will read it.

Best wishes from Vladimir

Dear Margarita

I believe this book:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229710.800-all-systems-tao-holistic-view-of-lifes-networks.html?full=true#.U4_yHXKSz1B

The Systems View of Life: A unifying vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi

Published by: Cambridge University Press

speaks in the favor of your ideas, essay

Peter