Essay Abstract

The mainstream view of meaning is that it is emergent, not fundamental, but some have disputed this, asserting that there is a more fundamental level of reality than that addressed by current physical theories, and that matter and meaning are in some way entangled. In this regard there are intriguing parallels between the quantum and biological domains, suggesting that there may be a more fundamental level underlying both. I argue that the organisation of this fundamental level is already to a considerable extent understood by biosemioticians, who have fruitfully integrated Peirce's sign theory into biology; things will happen there resembling what happens with familiar life, but the agencies involved will differ in ways reflecting their fundamentality, in other words they will be less complex, but still have structures complex enough for what they have to do. According to one approach involving a collaboration with which I have been involved, a part of what they have to do, along with the need to survive and reproduce, is to stop situations becoming too chaotic, a concept that accords with familiar 'edge of chaos' ideas. Such an extension of sign theory (semiophysics?) needs to be explored by physicists, possible tools being computational models, existing insights into complexity, and dynamical systems theory. Such a theory will not be mathematical in the same way that conventional physics theories are mathematical: rather than being foundational, mathematics will be 'something that life does', something that sufficiently evolved life does because in the appropriate context so doing is of value to life.

Author Bio

I am emeritus professor in the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge, where I acquired my bachelor and doctoral degrees. I am also a Fellow of Trinity College in the University. As a graduate student I carried out, along with an experimental project, the theoretical work for which I was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973. Subsequently my interests changed to the issue of Mind-Matter Unification, and presently I am examining the question of the relevance of biosemiotics to this issue.

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Greetings Professor Josephson,

It is good to see your essay appear here Brian, and I hope you will find a warm reception common in this forum. I already know that there are at least a few individuals who will find your approach refreshing, because it radically includes life or assumes it should be included, where excluding life from the picture in Physics or regarding it as emergent is more common. Since I've had the chance to get a preview; I know what you are offering here is worthwhile to consider. So I wanted to welcome you to the field of contributors here at FQXi.

All the Best,

Jonathan

You are mixing cognitive science with the simple physics, and it is simple not "hard", of how consciousness emerges in many different kinds of material substrates when they are pumped properly with external energy flows - metabolic molecular mechanisms in carbon-based life forms - not the only sentient matter configurations in our universe.

I have no objection to your paper as a well-written intuitive philosophical paper for laypeople and beginning science-physics-biotech students who basically do not understand theoretical physics at the level required.

Your above analogy seems OK, but it is not useful until you can provide some mathematics to the right side of your ledger above that corresponds to Popper falsifiable test at least in principle. Curiously enough my PQM using Sutherland's action-reaction restored Lagrangian and Frohlich coherence (aka "Post-Bohemian") may provide everything you are searching for through the glass darkly.

PS You use Bohr-Von-Neumann et-al "collapse" picture with is simply wrong for reasons Michael Towler gives in his paper "Return of the Pilot Waves"

The return of pilot waves - Theory of Condensed Matter - University of ...

www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/PWT/towler_pilot_waves.pdf

The return of pilot waves. Or, why Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Born, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer, Feynman,. Wheeler, von Neumann and Einstein were all wrong about quantum mechanics. Cambridge University Physical Society, 21st October 2009. Mike Towler. TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.

Nevertheless, your program can be reformulated in post-Bohmian language.

"Signal" violates quantum mechanics, but is consistent with post-quantum mechanics where the external Frohlich coherence pump creates wave action particle reaction locally retrocausal ("zig-zag" Huw Price) keyless decodable entanglement signals from one node to another node of the entanglement tensor-spinor network.

https://www.academia.edu/35250757/Solving_the_Hard_Problem_Mind-Matter-Conscious_AI_Frohlich_Coherent_Room_Temperature_Superconductors

The self-organizing action-reaction loops provide the "regulation" synchronized by the macro-quantum non-equilibrium post-quantum coherence (the seat of the soul).

I've heard this all before from you, Jack. It's clear that the depth of understanding of these matters that you have is very limited, whilst other, more qualified people who have seen the essay previously have made very positive comments. I'm not aware of there having been similar approval of your 'Popper-falsifiable' ideas (apart from the Iran's followers that you cite).

Let's keep this discussion out of the forum, it is meant for people who understand the issues.

    That is really not for you to decide on what is constructive peer review. You should leave that up to others.

    According to Dr. Sarfatti:

    "That is really not for you to decide on what is constructive peer review."

    As I understand it, it is perfectly in order for an author to respond to criticisms of his own essay, but I have to admit that my response above was strongly coloured by irritating past exchanges with this individual. Let me then address some of the technical issues.

    1) No arguments are given for why cognitive science should not be mixed with 'simple physics', whatever that term may mean. It may be the case, as I do argue in the essay, that there is a level below that covered by present day physics where cognitive science concepts (and biosemiotic ones) are relevant, and that is certainly a possibility that is relevant in the context of this competition.

    2) I am glad that Sarfatti considers it a 'well-written intuitive philosophical paper for laypeople and beginning science-physics-biotech students'. As it happens there are more highly qualified people than that who have also considered it well-written and of philosophical relevance and who have not expressed the view that it is not for them.

    3) Considering that the only valid research requires Popper falsifiability is an out of date point of view. And perhaps Dr. Sarfatti stopped reading the essay before he got to the point where I say "Science does however possess tools that should prove adequate to taking these ideas further, for example computer modelling (which served to disclose the existence of the previously unsuspected phenomena of chaos and the edge of chaos), dynamical systems theory, and studies involving complexity".

    4) Others here may well not accept the view that "Or, why Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Born, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer, Feynman. Wheeler, von Neumann and Einstein were all wrong about quantum mechanics.", and may indeed find it rather surprising.

    5) "The self-organizing action-reaction loops provide the "regulation" synchronized by the macro-quantum non-equilibrium post-quantum coherence (the seat of the soul)." Have you proved that? What are the detailed mechanics involved, since you demand the same of me? The explorations of myself and colleagues are going some way to being able to characterise the details of how regulation works.

    That's enough for now!

    According to Dr. Sarfatti:

    "That is really not for you to decide on what is constructive peer review."

    As I understand it, it is perfectly in order for an author to respond to criticisms of his own essay, but I have to admit that my response above was strongly coloured by irritating past exchanges with this individual. Let me then address some of the technical issues.

    1) No arguments are given for why cognitive science should not be mixed with 'simple physics', whatever that term may mean. It may be the case, as I do argue in the essay, that there is a level below that covered by present day physics where cognitive science concepts (and biosemiotic ones) are relevant, and that is certainly a possibility that is relevant in the context of this competition.

    2) I am glad that Sarfatti considers it a 'well-written intuitive philosophical paper for laypeople and beginning science-physics-biotech students'. As it happens there are more highly qualified people than that who have also considered it well-written and of philosophical relevance and who have not expressed the view that it is not for them.

    3) Considering that the only valid research requires Popper falsifiability is an out of date point of view. And perhaps Dr. Sarfatti stopped reading the essay before he got to the point where I say "Science does however possess tools that should prove adequate to taking these ideas further, for example computer modelling (which served to disclose the existence of the previously unsuspected phenomena of chaos and the edge of chaos), dynamical systems theory, and studies involving complexity".

    4) Others here may well not accept the view that "Or, why Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Born, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer, Feynman. Wheeler, von Neumann and Einstein were all wrong about quantum mechanics.", and may indeed find it rather surprising.

    5) "The self-organizing action-reaction loops provide the "regulation" synchronized by the macro-quantum non-equilibrium post-quantum coherence (the seat of the soul)." Have you proved that? What are the detailed mechanics involved, since you demand the same of me? The explorations of myself and colleagues are going some way to being able to characterise the details of how regulation works.

    That's enough for now!

      Sorry about the duplicate -- I thought the original had not gone through. I wonder, though if it is appropriate for Dr. Sarfatti to use this thread as a vehicle for advertising his own position, which is what he seems to be doing?

      Alternative version with footnotes on the same page

      The competition required footnotes to be collected at the end of the essay. For those who find it more convenient to have them at the bottom of the page instead, you can find an alternative version at https://philpapers.org/archive/JOSOTF.pdf (apart from the placing of footnotes, the text there is identical to the version here, except for the addition of a link to this page in the alternative version).

      Hi, Brian

      As we discussed in FFP in Spain, you use biological processes to add enough information to complement purely physical processes so as to have self organizing criticality of the physical systems you are observing

      There is much more than this involved, but this appears to be a start and I congratulate you on bringing this viewpoint to FQXI

      Andy

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        • Post #12

        "Meaning fails to show up in the world of physics simply because the kind of situations that physicist prefer to investigate are ones where meaning has no significant influence on the outcome ..." To what extent does meaning determine what physicists investigate and how they do the investigations? I have suggested that Newton's law of gravity is (non-relativistically) slightly wrong, i.e. dark-matter-compensation-constant = sort((60±10)/4) * 10^-5 . However, the gravitational metrologists, on the basis of the meaning of Newtonian-Einsteinian gravitational theory, reject my suggestion. To what extent is meaning determined by culture and history?

          Dear Brian D. Josephson, your deep reasoning needs a deep mind. However, the fundamental must be simple and understandable, it must save our thinking, taking into account the limitations of the human resource. In the "skyscraper" that I write about in your essay, you live between the upper and lower floors, because you are drawn to go down through biology to what is the basis of life. Before establishing the intricacies of quantum states with living phenomena, one must know the essence of quantum mechanics. New Cartesian Physics, which I discovered, claims that the cause of quantum phenomena in the existence of the pressure of the universe, which overcomes the space, to begin oscillations. The physical space, which according to Descartes is matter, serves as the foundation for the birth of life.

          I wish you success!

          聽Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

            Thanks for your comment, Dizhechko. That's one interpretation of 'fundamental', but physicists tend to view things differently: as I said they look for theories that are as universal and wide-ranging as possible.

            In any case, the complexities associated with my approach are not there at the root: 'semiotic scaffolding' has a simple definition, and it is only when one asks 'what are the implications of this idea?' that things start to get complicated.

            The word "sort" should be "sqrt" -- the word correction algorithm modified my abbreviation for square-root.

            Culture and history do have profound influences on physics as you say, and this is one of my interests, as for example in regard to the way arXiv's policies may adversely influence the advance of knowledge (see [link:www.nature.com/articles/433800a.pdf]Vital resource should be open to all physicists[/link], Nature 433 (800), Feb. 24, 2005). But that is not what this essay is about.

            Dear Prof. Josephson,

            First, congratulations on your contribution to the FQXi essay contest. I understand that you long ago moved out of the field of superconducting devices, but my career was based on your junctions. (I was a student of the late Michael Tinkham, whom you might remember.)

            Regarding your essay, I'm not sure that I understand your key points. Are you saying that mind is more fundamental than mathematics, and that fundamental physical laws are no more than creations of the mind?

            In your penultimate line, you seem to be questioning human evolution. Am I reading that correctly?

            But I agree with your point that orthodox theory has suppressed unorthodox views, to the detriment of the advancement of science. My particular objection is to orthodox quantum theory, particularly quantum entanglement. And yes, I too have been blacklisted by ArXiv.

            You might be interested in my contribution to last year's FQXi essay contest, "No Ghost in the Machine". I argued that consciousness is a specific structure that evolved in the brain to create a dynamic model of the environment which recognizes self, other agents, and objects.

            You might also be interested in my contribution to this year's FQXi essay contest, "Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics". I argue that unity and simplicity are most fundamental, although the unity of physics was broken in the early decades of the 20th century. I review the historical basis for this rupture, and go on to present the outlines of a neoclassical synthesis that should restore this unity.

            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

              Thanks for your comment, Andy. This essay is purely about principles, and we are in fact hoping to take things further. In the abstract of my paper How observers create reality I say "[Wheeler's] creative process is accounted for on the basis of the idea that nature has a deep technological aspect that evolves as a result of selection processes that act upon observers making use of the technologies. This leads to the conclusion that our universe is the product of agencies that use these evolved technologies to suit particular purposes". In the present work the issue discussed is essentially the logic underlying this kind of evolutionary process, and ultimately one would hope to be able to say something about the details by working on relevant models. That's a long way ahead, but that is sometimes the case with novel approaches.

              This is maybe a point to address the question of how one can justify a theoretical claim. Dr. Sarfatti is wrong to think that such justifications need to be of a mathematical character, a counter-example being computer software, where the source code may characterised in non-mathematical terms (e.g. a piece of code may be annotated as 'if client clicks on cancel, delete his entry' to permit checking its validity. One might in theory reformulate such statements in mathematical terms, but it would not be helpful to do so. And going on from there, consider Osborne's computer simulation of acquiring balance, listed in the references, which implemented a model of skill acquisition due to Baas. Baas's idea was falsifiable in the sense that the simulation might simply never have ended up learning to balance. Of course the program did need to use maths to compute the behaviour, but the idea it was testing was expressible in terms of ordinary language.

              So the logic here is: this essay involves a description in terms of words, comprehension of which can be expressed in terms of computer models, which can either confirm the claims of the description or not. If they do not, one looks for a better model, and may thereby progress to a hypothetical understanding of some phenomenon of interest, and one can then go on to see how well this picture fits experiment. That is science for you! (and, incidentally, this procedure is not working out so well with conventional approaches such as supersymmetry where nature is not proving obliging. I suggest, quite seriously, that people working in these fields switch to this new approach!).

              Dear Professor Brian D. Josephson,

              Reliable evidence exists that proves that the surface of the earth was formed millions of years before man and his utterly complex finite informational systems ever appeared on that surface. It logically follows that Nature must have permanently devised the only single physical construct of earth allowable.

              All objects, be they solid, liquid, or vaporous have always had a visible surface. This is because the real Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

              Joe Fisher, Realist

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              • Post #20

              Thanks, Alan. Yes, I do remember Michael Tinkham.

              Your evolution question is the easier to answer. I'm not at all denying that human evolution occurs (and neither do Intelligent Design supporters, who are often misrepresented as such). What I say in the essay is something quite different, namely that the assertion that the emergence of mankind is completely accounted for by current theories of evolution is not correct, being for example like asserting that the tides are completely accounted for by the gravitational attraction of the Moon when in reality the Sun also has an effect. Here JS's comment 'show me the maths' is relevant: evolution of species is generally not dealt with quantitatively and a number of people have concluded that the calculations if one were able to do them would not account for what is observed. This leaves open the possibility of (for example) there being some kind of monitoring process that may decide that the behaviour associated with some random mutation is one that should be supported in some way. One might link this with the semiotic scaffolding idea which I quote:

              "The decisive cause for the birth of a new functional gene would be a lucky conjunction of two events: (1) an already existing non-functional gene might acquire a new "meaning" through integration into a functional (transcribed) part of the genome, and (2) this gene-product would hit an unfilled gap in the "semiotic needs" of the cell or the embryo."

              In other words, some mutation would be recognised as dealing with an 'unfulfilled gap' in the context of the way Yardley's 'idea of man' gets realised.

              I'll deal with your other main point separately.