Dear Matt Visser,

By reading your essay one just can imagine consciousness as a bundle of fields over a manifold so-called space time.

This is just imagination and fantasy because what seems clear is this :

That bundle of fields , if there existed something like this thing , would be extraordinary weak here on Earth : human beings are unable to know this sort of question because the "field of consciousness "??? , here and now is very weak. In the past , it was even weaker than now and in the future it is going to vanish. Then, there may be the possibility of traveling points ( i think they were called anunnakis and that sort of stuff , most of them just fantasy and layers of lies over lies in order to make some money by making religions ) from patches of the manifold where the field is stronger than here . Obviously these points would be only able to come here from patches with stronger values of the field and the exception would be a case like that of that film about the alien and Sigourney Weber . ... Hence, consciousness owns to the field of fantasy and imagination, it has always been this way and it will remain the same.

Congratulations for your essay , best wishes.

Matt,

Glad to see someone has taken the contrary approach to the organizer's theme. Agree that to claim a math model for sentience one must have an understanding of wavefunction collapse in the foundation of the model.

Curious re whether event horizons are or are not teleological. By the "...explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes" definition, you seem to ask what purpose the event horizon serves and conclude none, as it is unobservable.

What this seems to ignore is quantum gravity. What defines a quantum system is phase coherence. With wavefunction collapse amplitude info is gained but phase info is lost. Phase is the local gauge variable, not observable in a single measurement. However it may be that this does not rule out the possibility obtaining information from the event horizon via multiple measurements. See for example the work of Vaidman and Aharonov on weak measurement, and in particular some interesting recent experimental results:

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/133

Agree with your assertion that "there are no black holes - in the sense of regimes where light cannot escape to infinity", with the possible exception of the singularity (presuming one might take it to be a regime). The piece missing from discussions such as this is the concept of impedance matching. The point singularity has infinite inductive impedance and zero capacitive impedance. One cannot impedance match to it, so energy cannot flow to or from the singularity. However one can calculate the impedance mismatch between say an electron and the event horizon at the Planck radius. The mismatch is huge, the resulting 'photon' wavelength many times the radius of the observable universe. You can see a plot of the impedance structure of the vacuum at Planck scale in figure 10 of this paper:

http://vixra.org/abs/1701.056

Agree with your conclusion that "...we do not (yet) have any suitable and appropriate well-agreed-upon mathematical/physical framework to address these issues." However I think we might have made some small step in that direction in the essay submitted by my co-author, Michaele Suisse.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2913

Best regards,

Pete

A good essay! It may be a little awkward to point out the problems with how this question was phrased so directly, but I don't think you can do a serious analysis without acknowledging the assumptions, vague terms, and generally poorly-defined nature of the prompt. I really wish other essays had spent more time on this, instead of diving in to their pet theories.

That said, I do think you could have moved on from acknowledging the problems with the question to defining your own terms and exploring these issues a little more. It may be true that we don't have enough knowledge of the physical brain to understand consciousness and aims; it's still useful to wonder if we could *ever* understand these in purely physical terms (at times it seemed a bit like you were assuming we could, which is not necessarily well-founded) and exploring these questions can still be interesting. If this topic is *so* premature nothing useful can be said about it, you wouldn't have written an essay at all, so you might as well go more in-depth on why it's premature and what steps we should take next instead!

5 days later

Dear Prof. Visser,

I read your essay with great interest. I agree that the essay topic as stated deals with mind and consciousness, and that there are no consistent physical models that deal with these issues.

I think the missing link is the biological concept of evolutionary adaption. In evolution, random fluctuations provide the raw material, but they are filtered by the environment to select out structures that survive. Even consciousness may be an adaptive structure.

I address the issue of adaptation in my own essay, "No Ghost in the Machine". I argue that recognition of self, other agents, and a causal narrative are built into specific evolved brain structures, based on neural networks, which create a sense of consciousness as part of a dynamic model of the environment. The reason that this is such a difficult problem is that we are being misled by the subjective perceptions of our own minds. I further suggest that similar structures may be emulated in developing true artificial intelligence.

Alan Kadin

6 days later

Hi Matt,

I read your submission for this contest and your submission for the 2012 contest and I am trying to figure out why you didn't some how extend your 2012 submission and apply it to this years contest. Instead you say bad contest question. You know that is up to you and you wrote on that decision, fine. This year's contest did leave some very strange doors open for all kinds of strange ideas, but you didn't need to also entertain those ideas. My submission ignored those strange ideas that lead thru the human mind and looked at how math effects the universe. But reading your submissions, I doubt you will be able to stomach my words or thinking. By the way, my submission is in the vein of the many-worlds interpretation but it argues against your "...with the minds of conscious entities constantly dividing down the infinitely branching yggdrasillian world-tree of future possibilities. (And, if you take the path-integral approach seriously, a merging world-tree of past possibilities.)"

You ask the question; "Can mathematics exist without a mind to formulate it?" I counter that question with this one. Can Euclidean geometry exist in non-Euclidean spacetime? The answer is yes, where the rules of Euclidean geometry apply. The rules of Euclidean geometry apply regardless if a mind is applying them or not. The mind only finds that they apply it doesn't invent that they apply.

Anyway, good luck in the contest.

Jim Akerlund

Hi dear Matt,

Your sarcasm just killing, but I'm a man who respect this dealt!

But let me ask - where are you? I would like talk on this matter, in case you see this purposeful. Let me know please (in my page)

Regards,

Hi Matt,

Very well presented. It should be a preface to the contest. If I read your essay first, it would have added clarity to my own work. And do check out my essay. I believe you will enjoy it.

Also the paper: http://prespacetime.com/index.php/pst/article/view/1188/1163 will tickle your cosmological interests.

Thanks,

Don Limuti

10 days later

Dear Sirs!

Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».

New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

Sincerely,

Dizhechko Boris

2 years later

We study with a new conception beyond the standard model physics and about the formation of biological molecules/atoms. Our physical universe appeared by a continuous symmetry breaking of the new energy sources from 'Big Rip' Singularity[i.e. when space-time(here we consider the square of the Einstein's real space & time of the physical unfolded universe i.e., -R2)is infinity in another phase] to the "Super Unified Gaussian Energy Group SU(11)"(that means considering the Revised Standard Model of Physics) then GUT the "Unified Gaussian Energy Group SU(5)"[i.e., the present Standard Model of Physics], i.e. in a "Particular Physical Universe" (called a narrower universe) [there may be created several type of particular " Physical Universe" in the ocean(filled with new energy sources explained details in my previous articles) of the wider universe which infinitely largest].These class of symmetry group starting from Big-Rip singularity where energy pressure and density exists[it was shown in my article "The Complex Quantum and Classical Pseudo-Tachyonic Universe", IOSR Journal of Mathematics (IOSR-JM) e-ISSN: 2278-5728,p-ISSN: 2319-765X, Volume 8, Issue 3 (Sep. - Oct. 2013), PP 15-32 www.iosrjournals.org)] and can be expressed mathematically(by using lie-algebra) as SU(5) пѓ‰ SU (3) п‚ґ SU( 2) п‚ґ U(1); SU(11) пѓ‰ SU (5) п‚ґ SU( 6) п‚ґ U(1); SU (23) пѓ‰ SU (12) п‚ґ SU (11) п‚ґU (1); SU (47) пѓ‰ SU(24) п‚ґ SU (23) п‚ґ U (1); ...........so on.

Thus we assumed that our physical universe appeared by the continuous phase-like transition creating several new energies(compared as like Gas-Vapor-Liquid states) and actually unfolded with the symmetry breaking of the Super Unified Gaussian Energy Group SU(11) [пѓ‰ SU (6) п‚ґ SU( 5) п‚ґ U(1)]leaving with new energy sources SU(6), called latent energy groups as explained details in my previous articles, and SU(5) [пѓ‰ SU (3) п‚ґ SU( 2) п‚ґ U(1)], the Gaussian Unified Energy group (GUT) and the electrodynamics U(1), which are inevitable arises particles that have the characteristics of a magnetic monopole. Monopoles are highly stable particles and once created they are not destructible. And so they would survive as relics to the present epoch.

Again our all experiments and measurements or truths/believes are mainly on the basis of "Standard Model of Physics" or "General Relativity Theory" that means any calculation or experiments made on the basis of matter universe(i.e., 4-dimensional universe where so called space-time-matter exists, although it is called real that means only for a particular purpose that counting for a complete matter body like physical universes, cluster, galaxies, stars, humans, lives, trees,...etc.) formed by the Unified Gaussian Energy Group SU(5), we called it's a narrower universe i.e., a particular physical universe where expansion and contraction both may be occurred simultaneously within the speed of light for a particular observer and hence Lorentz transformation, Time dilation,.....etc. Violations may be occurred when we go beyond the "Standard Model of Physics" of SU(5) to the "Revised Standard Model of Physics" i.e., SU(11), thus outside the physical universe, in the case of the "Wider Universe" where the energy particles were found in another phase. We illustrate the scenario with an example that when water decomposed into Hydrogen and Oxygen, the character of water are far different from the characters of hydrogen and oxygen.

Again, it was considered that the human brain and its mental aspects are associated with classical brain physiology and are also part of a quantum physical universe. The human brain conceived as an interfacing organ that not only produces mind and consciousness but also receives information. The brain or its parts of the brain are conceived as an interference hologram of incoming data and already existing data which equivalent to the subject's memory.

Thus our consciousness or intelligence is a part of the universal consciousness or intelligence.

The animate and inanimate bodies are developed or expanded in the similar manner. The physical universe expanded from so called Big-Bang singularity scheduled by the conscious energy groups SU(12), SU(6),.....etc. but the situations created slowly after the symmetry breaking of SU(23), then SU(11)........etc. then by rapidly unfolded matter energies by the symmetry breaking of the Unified Gaussian Group SU(5) by exchanging the bosons of the latent energy group of SU(6) into the bosons of SU(5) in the theory of the Super Unified Gaussian Group SU(11) and then Jk-bosons of conscious energies SU(6) are therefore tightly binding the quark-likes particles and then gradually formed protons-likes, neutron-likes,....etc. quasi-particles having masses may have been five times that of the usual protons, neutrons,....etc or having much more new unknown particles (which are very much medical relevance for better and critical treatments) created other than Hadrons, Hyperons, Nucleons,...etc. of SU(5) and after then those unknown particles may gradually increasing their strengths like as increasing the atomic numbers of usual matter atoms and hence we may found heavy bio-molecular living matter atoms etc. and then created multiple bio-molecular cells combining with nonliving matter atoms. Thus living matters always created by the energies of the group of SU(6) together with all other atoms/elements/compound elements/mainly covalence-compounds....etc. which was formed only after the symmetry breaking of the nonliving matter energy groups of SU(5) as, encountered in condensed matter physics, e.g., in the description of the

conduction electron sea, excitons, magnons, polarons, polaritons, etc. (Ashcroft & Mermin, 1976). This is very important in view of the potential importance of quantum effects in biology and in consciousness where not only are systems of many particles considered, but they function at high temperatures compared to those typically encountered in quantum physics then so called various kind of complex living cell bodies.

It should right that the actual real time measurement or calculation counting from the symmetry breaking of the Super Unified Energy Group SU(11) instead of the symmetry breaking of the Unified Energy Group (GUT) of SU(5). For lives, the real time was measured in two halves first from the fertilization by their parents(actual counting of time started) and second from the birth till to the death, although for our age(time) calculations, we ignore the first half similarly for the real time calculations of our physical universe we ignore the first half that means from the symmetry breaking of SU(11)up to the next symmetry breaking of SU(5)[although material substances created by the Unified Gaussian Group SU(5) by the directions of SU(6) with a suitable situations when it is possible to create bio-molecules that means all then chemical elements created from hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon,...etc. and with heavier elements or compound elements created by the quarks were tightly binding with gluons etc. of SU(5), and thus inanimate particles are then ready for the creation of the animates particles that means the situation when we consider to produce biological molecules or other units like single live cell then gradually multiple cells with DNA/RNA pairs, chromosome pairs,....etc. where most of the organic compounds in which are mainly constructed by the co-valence compounds or compositions or constituted like polymers which are also tightly binding by theJk-bosons(latently)[details ofJk-bosons explained in my previous articles] of SU(6) and creating strong electromagnetic forces[in theory of SU(11) where the latent energy group of SU(6) are created so strong forces relatively the weak forces of SU(5)] (that means in comparison to the chemical elements or compounds elements of atoms/molecules etc. which are constructed by the quarks binding with gluons ....etc. are weaker than some of the unknown new particles formed by the quarks-likes binding withJk-bosons) or creating a strong current SU(6) in the frame-work of SU(6) п‚ґ U(1) like the weak force SU(2) created a weak current in the frame-work of SU(2) п‚ґ U(1) are ready to dynamical situations within the living matters or cells or lives. Our physical universe expanded up to Big-Break singularity like by the directional commands with the energy group SU(6)[by exchanging 30-number of bosons of SU(6) into the 30-number of bosons of SU(5) or vice-versa by exchanging the J-bosons of SU(11)] created like so called consciousness together with all other leaving new energy sources SU(12), SU(24),.....etc. Thus we may be assumed that consciousness is not only in animates but also for inanimate (where quarks are tightly binding by the gluons forming protons, neutrons, electrons,.... etc. for nonliving matters) for which unfolded in a suitable situations like earth(where quark-like particles are tightly binding by theJk-bosons of SU(6) for living matters) and the created residue unknown new particles other than usual particles (that means as like protons, neutrons, electrons,.....etc. which are formed by quarks with gluons) are always remained within the living and nonliving elements or compound elements or covalence compounds or polymers.....etc. as quantum gravity and everywhere which are called as vacant spaces within our universe. The above mentioned processes are always occurred continuously in the wider universe which is infinitely larges with other new energy sources. Hence in quantum theories of consciousness, it is suggested that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe.

Energies of SU(6) created quantum gravity as well as gravitational forces which are required for the formation of a complete body with definite shape for living and nonliving matter bodies, like stars with its planets,.... etc. and living bodies with its parts,.... etc. and then so called vacant spaces are properly filled with the strong new forces of SU(6) around us and also formed like living cells with organic and inorganic elements or compounds.... etc. mainly constructed by the chemical co-valence compounds (carbon based like in earth, another planet may be silicon based etc., because carbon and silicon belongs to the same group in our periodic table) that means which are more flexible for creating several angled atomic bonds other than rigid crystal-likes and then it is bindings with cells may operated more easily than other rigid or crystal solid bodies of elements/compound elements and hence formed as biological cells by creating with polymerizations etc. and hence then cell-divisions etc. Within the biological cells SU(6) combining with all other several elements or compound elements with different ions which are created more different waves but coherently emerging as a single wave or wave functions. Thus in the bio-molecules/atoms etc. where all material parts created by the elements/atoms of the Unified Gaussian Energy Group (GUT) of SU(5) delivering behaviors like intelligence, consciousness, mind, emotions,.... etc. with the combinations of the new energy sources of SU(6),....etc. and also created an electromagnetic force or current within the brain cells i.e., microtubules by the latent energy group SU(6) creating

an electromagnetic strong force in the framework of SU(6) п‚ґ U(1) with producing new unknown particles in the living mode or nonliving mode.Thus for living bodies through ion channel constituted a flow of current throughout the body carrying with charges of free electron-likes etc. and also may be similar for the case in the universe where stars atmosphere like as brain cell......etc.(taking as centre point) always controlled the whole system for example our solar system etc. The created amount of material substances by SU(5)changing by the bosons of SU(6) are always fixed for a particular nonliving/living developing bodies and hence for expansive universe or for its parts of the system till for the compilation or stable shaped. Similarly, after a certain or fixed time (age) our living bodies started like contraction. Thus, always maintaining a common system like for universe /cluster/galaxy/star/planet/animal/.....etc. those are all controlled mainly by the same energy sources of SU(6), then by others like SU(12),SU(24),.....etc. with the combination of the strong force SU(3), weak force SU(2), & electrodynamics U(1) of SU(5).Attachment #1: Abstract.pdf

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