Things, Laws, and the Human Mind by Tejinder Pal Singh

Dear Prof. Singh,

Your essay makes interesting observations about a number of different topics.

You seem to suggest that the conscious mind is distinct from the brain. In my FQXi essay last year, "No Ghost in the Machine", I took the opposite viewpoint. I argued that consciousness reflects a specific brain structure that evolved to create a dynamic model of the environment which recognizes self, other agents, and objects.

You also question the foundations of quantum mechanics and space-time, but you seem to accept the orthodox statement of the problem. On the contrary, my essay this year, "Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics", argues that both general relativity and QM have been largely misunderstood. QM should not be a general theory of nature, but rather a mechanism for creating discrete soliton-like wavepackets from otherwise classical continuous fields. These same quantum wavepackets have a characteristic frequency and wavelength that define time and space, enabling GR without invoking an abstract curved spacetime.

This picture has no quantum entanglement, which has important technological implications. In the past few years, quantum computing has become a fashionable field for R&D by governments and corporations. But the predicted power of quantum computing comes directly from entanglement. I predict that the entire quantum computing enterprise will fail within about 5 years. Only then will people start to question the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Alan Kadin

I will add my vote that FQXi disqualify the 1-bombers. jrc

Professor Singh,

One thought to consider about time, thought and consciousness is that while consciousness goes from one thought to the next, these thoughts coalesce and dissolve, hence consciousness goes past to future, while thought goes future to past.

I think there is a lot about time that needs to be reconsidered. Is it really the Newtonian,narrative flow, which physics codifies as measures of duration, or it just change and our perception is flashes of sequence?

We still see the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

Dear Tejinder,

This was a beautiful journey, starting from the apparent duality between things and laws, and arriving to their unity using arguments from physics. Also I think the notion of "law" you use unifies "meaning", "qualia", "physical law", and "mathematical truth" in a natural way. While I was reading in your essay the paragraph about stars and the motion of Mars, The Motion of Stars started to play in my music player, adding a soundtrack to your insightful thoughts, and reminding me how music is one of the purest examples of law. With this essay, I realized how much your apparently diverse interests visible in your articles and essays converge and become different paths of the same trip to the oneness (by the way, the Collatz conjecture is considered by some a mathematical illustration of oneness). Thanks again for the intellectual and spiritual breakfast at the beginning of my day!

Best wishes,

Cristi

I subscribe to your request to FQXi, as it happened to me and others about the same time.

May i interject re. consciousness. There are a variety of levels of this entitiy. It can be defined as per Dictionary meaning of this word. Human beings and our predecessors came into the scene only 15/20 thousand years back. At the te same Universe has been existing in its present form since millions of years. Intelligent life also could be existing else where than our Earth with our Sun as star. Consciousnees for individuals exists as 'awarenss ' level. It varies on a tremendous scale amongst us too. For example, i rate our ancesters back 3 to 5 thousands years back, as having far greater insight than most of us have about LIFE. There is internal as well as external life. Science governs the latter while the former is governed by Spirituality, unlike religions practiced today! As the Universe shows a logical growth from its start billions of years back, we should wonder about its Creator, if we believe that nothing has not created every thing! Thus there exists a cosmic part of consciousness which has created the Universe. We call it GOD. Today, humans have various levels of it! Starting at lowest level are the animal instincts then going up we have a normal being and then we have men of wisdom. Finally, i prefer to call them the Great Rishis that existed well over 3 to 5 thousand year back who composed the Vedas and Upanishads. For myself i can say that reading an Upanishad and comprehending it to my better limit, it took me through repeated stages of studying such ancient scripts for comprehending and understanding the same to the best of my ability!

If the Universe has been created by an unknown, the logic of creation shows extremely high level of Intelligence/ We scientists have yet to add even an iota to this marvellous creation. We only are trying to explain a few things for which we seem to have 'discovered' some patterns tha fit the laws governing such processes. Consciousness for humans is a mere human consciousness. Note that the adjective used here is 'human'. It can't be limited to we humans. As i pointed out. Indian Wisdom as contained in our scriptures called Vedas and Upanishads. indicate a far deeper understanding and comprehension. Thus, your reference to Alex Hanesky's essay does not appear to justify the correctness of your stand. I respect your stand but sorry to find any rebuttal of the line of thinkng i have taken. Yoga and meditation techniques are found to be outstanding the world over and these are the products of the search for our Trueself done by such men of wisdom in ancient times that we can not ignore if we have succeeded in understanding the Cosmos to a poor strength of just a few percentage!

Tejinder,

Sorry about that. You give a very dense and logical description of the relationship between "things" and laws. I think there are a few issues which might frame this relationship from a different perspective.

Because our thoughta are flashes of perception, we think of time as a narrative dimension, with events strung along it, separated by intervals of duration, thus assume duration is this underlaying dimension.

The reality though is that instead of the present "moving" from past to future, it is change turning future to past, as in tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. So duration is simply the state of the present, as events coalesce and dissolve.

Reality might be considered a dichotomy of energy and form. Energy manifests form and form defines energy.

Since energy is dynamic and conserved, it is always and only present, but changing form. So energy goes past to future, while form goes future to past. Pushing against and feeding back on each other.

As biological organisms, we evolved a central nervous system to process form/information and the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems to process energy.

Think in terms of a factory; The product goes start to finish, being in the future, to being in the past, while the production line points the other way, consuming material and expelling product, onto the future, shedding the past. Life is similar. Individuals go birth to death, being in the future to being in the past, while the species goes the other direction, shedding old generations and moving onto new ones.

So to my point about thought and consciousness, as consciousness goes past to future thoughts, while thoughts, these forms our consciousness take, go future to past.

Which gets around to things and laws as top down framing devices, of this bottom up dynamic that produces them. In the void, there is no structure and so no laws needed to define it, but as soon as there is that original fluctuation of energy, then properties like waves, frequencies, amplitudes, limits, interaction, etc all start to rise and create definitions to the energy.

Since our minds are designed to extract information, we are constantly following the trail created through this dynamical process, thinking there must be some final end, goal, nirvana, etc. but when we think we found an end or goal, it just turns out to be a cresting wave and we get caught up in the undertow.

This is because our minds are reductionist, but nature is thermodynamic.

Think in terms of a galaxy; Energy is radiating out, as mass falls in and it is one big cosmic convection cycle.

Society is the same way. We have essential social and biological energies pushing out and upward, as the civiil and cultural forms push back down, giving it structure and form. Like youth pushing out, until it crests, then age pushing down, giving signal to the noise. Then it cracks open and repeats.

Dear Tejinder,

Very well written article. I browsed it through and will soon give it a thorough reading (mu apologies ...struggling with my other time-bound deadlines). One thought...If we look at the world from the idea of holograms of space and time, which may vary with any change in the reference frame. So, everything that manifests is simply an illusion - might be a temporary reality for one but illusion for all others. I wonder if the same applies to the so called "consciousness". We may be wrongly describing "consciousness" by the notion of "absoluteness". "Absoluteness" may be a weaker notion and may not be apt to comprehend "consciousness". What are your thoughts on this?

Kind regards,

Anil

Dear Tejinder Singh,

If there was no logic and no causaltity in the things then were we lost in blind belief and mysticism. However, Cantor was not quite wrong when he declared the essence of mathematics to be its freedom.

I fundamentally disagree with your opinion that laws and things (map and territory) "become more and more like each other, until deepest down, they become one and the same".

My last boss blamed a paper of mine for being too fundamental. Why? He got aware that there is a problem that evades solution with approximation and mathematics because it depends on a strict philosophical alternative between Parmenides and Heraclitos: Is an evolving system system shift-invariant at all? Are you really the same thing at all ages?

My answer is yes in case of models but no in case of reality. To me, there is just one fix point in nature - the current border between the past and the future. Any counterargument?

Nonetheless, I admire your essay which deserves getting rated appropriately.

Kind regards,

Eckard Blumschein

Dear Tejinder,

It doesn't often happen that experts agree with me on that the current border between past and future is the only fixed point, because their view is based on Hilbert's, Einstein's, and other's block universe.

When Einstein denied the objective differences between past, present, and future, I see him definitely at least incorrect in so far, as the present "state" is no state at all because it has in contrast to past and future no extension. Therefore "living at this border" refers to something fuzzy like "today" that may include a part of the past and a part of the future.

If you have time enough, you might sooner or later read my 9th essay and find some hurting arguments that are too fundamental to mathematics and physics as to be easily swallowed.

Best regards,

Eckard

Me to. I suggested last year that anyone adding a 1 (or even 2 or 3) score without posting and explaining why should have the 1 moved and applied to their own essay. I had no response but can see no reason why it can't be simply done. Indeed just an addition to the rules threatening that action would probably suffice.