I we say that each consciousness is life, then there is not more the problem of sterile organism or encysted organism (no metabolism or no replication).

There is only the consciousness problem to solve; but if we consider a conscious being like a statistical system (a system that consist of many parts), near a critical point (where a statistical system have great fluctuation that can give the free will), with a inner source of energy (metabolism, engine, chemical reaction, mechanical energy or a software in a running database) that give state transformation, then a conscious entity could be a new definition of life.

5 days later

Look it, I know that you want comments on the article du jour...but really? Can you give us some red meat instead of this platitudinous stuff? For goodness sake, free will and free choice are philosophical issues, not really physical ones.

It is true that quantum action has a role in free choice and free will. So what? Quantum action has a role in everything that we do...it is gravity action that is suspect and so we must address the issues with gravity action.

    14 days later
    • [deleted]

    The subject matter is interesting because I discuss the fundamental physics of intelligence in my just published book, along with other fundamental principles.

    My views are a bit radical as some of you may already know here at fqxi. But I'd like to invite you to take a look at my ebook. There is a limited FREE ebook download at kinematicrelativity.com. The paperback is a bit pricy.

    I do not know if my views on the subject matter will incite some discussion here. But it sure would be nice to see some insightful comments.

      castel,

      What is pricy for many of us is time. If you were to post some form of synopsis, or particular points, it might more effectively suit the limits of this forum, than expecting others to read a whole book and reply within the limits of a blog posting. Feedback is best generated by taking the needs of your intended audience into consideration.

      Regards,

      John M

      • [deleted]

      Yes, John. Time is precious - especially for a book on fundamental ideas.

      But thanks for the insightful reply.

      • [deleted]

      John, here's a synopsis.

      Intelligence is fundamentally input-process-output. The fundamental essence of intelligence is motion and it is represented by a vector. You can take that idea of the fundamental to the complex construct of the firing (motions) at the synapse and beyond. And consider that every motion/vector has its components.

      So, at the fundamental physical level intelligence is a motion construct - i.e., either a particulate form or a non-particulate wave form or their agglomeration. This "physical formation" carries with it the "abstract information" - Wheeler's "it in the bit". And the "abstract" is of course the "metaphysical" that we normally don't care to discusss.

      The human brain-and-body is a complex motion construct with every particle of the human form being a motion construct (this is my term for K.E.)

      It seems that Still, Crooks and Grimsmo are working on the idea of quantum forms/constructs that define inference patterns or tendencies. My take...

      I apologize for the rather foreign language. If you've read my book, I think the language would be more intelligible.

        castel,

        Sorry that I haven't yet read the book and doing so would be necessary to do justice to your argument, but I would like to comment: I very much agree with the general hypothesis that intelligence can be modeled in terms of motion, though I think you need to step back and put motion into its larger context. As Newton said, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." While any particular action can be modeled as a vector, the reaction is a non-linear distribution through the context. Much as water being pushed aside by a ship and filling in behind it means an equal amount of water moves in the opposite direction of the ship. How we generally conceive of this cumulative activity is as thermodynamics. The motions of many such entities creating an overall balance, with all the myriad resulting peaks and troughs of temperature and pressure, creating vortices, waves though the underlaying mediums, smoothness, uniform action, choppiness, etc.

        This operates on many physiological levels, from our body temperature, to the activities of large numbers of people. I would argue much of the subconscious aspects of our brain work thermodynamically as well, while it is our conscious rational, sequencing function that is the vector perception.

        Remember that the brain is divided into two hemispheres and while the left side is considered the logical, rational, linear function, it is the right, emotional, intuitional side which operates more as a scalar function. Think temperature or pressure, where all the information in our minds is constantly jostling around, with those instinctive connections rising to the surface as intuition, the emotional effects of conflicting impulses and or too much information, otherwise known as stress, etc.

        So part of our mind is focused on that forward motion through our context, that is the vector and part is like a body of water, interacting with that environment on a more complex contextual level.

        This also goes to the main point I keep making in these debates, that we equate time with that mental effect of forward motion and so think of it is the present moving from one event to the next and so on this narrative basis, history and essentially civilization is based. Physics then codifies this perception by treating time as simply measures of duration between such events. The deeper reality though, is that it is just this activity which creates change and so it is those events which form and dissolve into the next, as the energy is constantly changing form. So it is actually the events which go future to past. To wit, tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth spins, not the earth traveling some flow of time from yesterday to tomorrow. Duration is simply the state of the present, while these events come and go and is not external to any point of the present.

        The problem this poses for physics is that it makes time an effect of activity and as such, more like temperature than space. Which means spacetime is just a clever mathematical correlation between measures of distance and duration, not the underlaying fabric of reality.

        Yes measures[i/] of distance and duration are fundamentally connected, but then so are measures of temperature, or pressure and volume, but no one insists temperature or pressure are another dimension of space!! This explains why all clocks run at their own rates, yet remain in the same present. In fact a faster clock will burn through its energy proportionally faster and so age quicker, thus falling into the past before a slower clock of the same energy content. Whereas if time were simply a vector from past to future, the faster clock should move into the future before the slow clock. Now it will evolve quicker, but require more energy to sustain its continued existence. The hare is long dead, while the tortoise still plods along.

        Safe to say this steps on too many professional toes to even be given consideration, but that's why I try focusing on its more practical applications, like mind/brain function.

        Regards,

        John M

        • [deleted]

        John,

        I'm basically pointing out the fundamental level of the nature of intelligence. I'm saying that intelligence is both abstract (mind) and corporeal (brain-body). We have noumena in the mind (i.e., the nous) and phenomena in the brain-body (which is the phenous). I make the distinctions between the dual aspects of intelligence. But I'm saying that these two aspects are pretty much unisoned - abstractions in the mind and corporealizations in the body. I'm saying that the quantum particles and quantum waves (motion constructs) the corporeal formations 'carry'/'store'/'represent' the abstract information (the ideas/thoughts). So, the brain-body receives external corporeal inputs and processes them, resulting in outputs of corporeal formations in the brain-body, and in unison is the mental information. Thus, we have the quantized formations that store information, and hence, the psycho-somatic tendencies. It seems that Still et all are working on the theoreticals of the quantum tendencies. They are saying 'inference', which is flavored with the 'uncertainty' idea, and hence, the 'freewill' idea. It appears that they are also working on determining the demarcations of things that act and things that are only acted upon - I.e., the demarcations for the animate and the inanimate. A tall order...

          • [deleted]

          castel,

          I would propose a slightly different distinction;

          Consider the point I made about time and the physical reasons for this. Energy is conserved and so in order to create new forms, old forms are constantly being dissolved, yet serve as the mold breaking away from the new forms, thus creating continuity, except when the energy reacts to the forms and it breaks/mutates.

          So what you have is a dichotomy of energy and form, with information as our mental formulation.

          Now there are two essential questions of life: What is the source of organic biology and what is the source of consciousness. Many scientists like to insist they arise from material interactions, but the evidence for this is lacking. Usually what science does with something it can't explain is to declare it axiomatic and move on, so I think this should be done with life and consciousness, after distilling it down it its most fundamental state. For one thing, a logical solution is to assume it is not two questions, but one and consider that all life is inherently conscious and that we are just highly evolved and very complex manifestations of this elemental state. E.O.Wilson described the insect brain as a thermostat and experiments have shown that ants can count steps as a navigation tool, so it is reasonable to say both hemispheres of the brain, the linear and the scalar, exist at that level, in very basic form.

          Now what we have in terms of mind is a state of consciousness and the thoughts it manifests. This goes back to my initial point about energy and form, creating the effect of time. Consciousness is like that energy which persists as the state of the present, while thoughts are the forms it manifests and which quickly recede into the past, as this sense of consciousness continues to probe the myriad inputs of information and distill them into subsequent thoughts. Sometimes this is a very focused stream of consciousness that resists new input and sometimes it is very distracted, as a mind that is constantly drawn to whatever attracts it, away from its own modeling of forms. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

          Education then becomes a feedback loop between the stores of thoughts the mind keeps in its memory and new information constantly being absorbed.

          So for me the distinction between the mind and the brain-body is not distinct. For instance, we all exist in this state of the present, so the element of consciousness which pervades life is only distinct as a function of our physical form. Just as that thought you just can't seem to remember is still part of your present subconscious, so to are other people equally conscious, but you can't readily access their thoughts, even though often some intuitional connection seems to function, any more than you can access all parts of your own mind. If you could, the result would be extreme schizophrenia, if not epileptic seizures. Much as too much energy will destroy the forms it creates.

          We are defined by what limits us and limited by what defines us.

          This may seem an argument for some form of spiritualism and it is, but the logical fallacy of the monotheistic model is that the absolute is basis, not apex, so a spiritual absolute would be that essence from which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. It is just politically convenient for authority figures to assert moral legitimacy as top down, but good and bad are not some cosmic duel between the forces of righteousness and evil, rather they are the basic biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental. What is good for the fox is bad for the chicken and there are no clear lines where the chicken ends and the fox begins.

          Not to get too carried away here, but there are many aspects of biology, society and the physical world which need all their connections explored and so often we break into separate schools and fight over the details.

          Regards,

          John M

          • [deleted]

          John,

          I gotta clarify. My use of the word "forms" departs from the classical. My forms are of the body and my information/formulations/ideas are of the mind.

          The dichotomy is between the body and the mind, the phenomena and the noumena, the corporeal and the abstract.

          To me, the fundamental essence of motion, which essence is the fundamental current in the corporealizations. Motion renders the definition of substance in the space dimension. And substance is rendered as mass or energy, but their underlying essence is motion.

          There is also the fundamental essence of duration, which essence is the fundamental current in the abstractions. Duration renders the definition of instance in the time dimension. And instance is rendered as past and present, with the future yet forthcoming.

          So, corporealizations are of motion and abstractions are of duration. Here we have the dichotomy identified in terms of the fundamental currents, which are always in unison - they occur concurrently.

          The corporealizations and abstractions are both apprehended by the mind-and-body intelligence.

          I wish I could discuss more, John. But I need to catch up on other things. In any case, there's the ebook for you.

          Thanks.

          castel,

          Sorry if I seemed to have gone off topic there.

          While I very much agree thought is an expression of action, I just don't see that split between the body and the mind as particularly fundamental.

          My personal experience is with a lifetime of working with racehorses and while they are extremely aware, they obviously don't have the most complex thought processes. That said, it is still very much an extension of feedback with their environment and my impression is that people are simply a more evolved and complex state. While I said the basis of consciousness hasn't been explained, its manifestation is very much a function of electrostatic, chemical and mechanical activity. The abstractions we formulate are necessarily abstracted from that activity and are patterns we used to simplify and clarify this situation, thus making it more understandable.

          Regards,

          John M

          a month later

          I am thinking that the next quantum notebook with a critical program, could be conscious and alive, and this remind me a Shelley's story for the mankind ...

          3 years later

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