Chaos, Consciousness, and the Cosmos

Consciousness constitutes those annoying periods between sleep.

Free will is not something we can ever prove exists. A proof of such would require a universal Turning machine, which does not exist.

Cheers LC

Roy,

For what little it's worth, I am 100% in agreement with: "I am a bit concerned at the seemingly very wide *total acceptance* by the physics/cosmology community of the "multiverse" inflationary model."

I have very unflattering opinions about why this is true, and no idea how to stop the stampede. I believe physics may be in process of doing itself great harm. Appeals to non-testable phenomena is essentially religious in nature. In fact, as I understand it, the 10^500 universes were essentially invented to get around the implications of fine-tuning (Susskind, p.273: "...the heart of the matter... [t]he unreasonable apparent design of the universe..."). So, fleeing from contemplation of one 'non-physical' explanation of fine tuning, physicists fled right into another 'non-physical' (in any realistic sense of prediction, testing, etc) explanation. This won't end well.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

The above refers to Susskind's "The Cosmic Landscape".

Tom,

Most of what is being discussed here is not science but mathematics and/or mathematical fantasy. There is nothing having to do with strings, branes, multiverses, that has ever been detected or ever predicted anything, or been useful for anything except publications, as far as I know. That is not science it is merely speculation among overly bright, overly specialized people who are intoxicated with the 'unendingness' of their new toy; 10^500 "universes". I don't, and I suspect James doesn't attach any value at all to 'largeness' or 'big numbers' as meaningful. Consciousness is experienced, not theorized or speculated. Having spent a long life thinking about consciousness, and having experienced various states of consciousness, and having designed as many hardware and software systems as anyone here, I'm convinced that consciousness did not arise from hardware or software, and never will. (Consciousness being defined as awareness and free will. Add logic hardware and you get 'intelligence' which of course is subject to evolution in a physical world.)

So the test that distinguishes "lifeless, dumb, mechanical properties from live, intelligent, non-mechanical properties" is self awareness and awareness of other, what else?

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Anyone who needs a proof that they have free will, may not have it, who knows? It's not for me to say.

I have free will, despite, as James puts it, anyone's "mechanical" explanations for "mechanical" actions that others ascribe meaning to. That I can't 'prove it' is not a problem for me. No one else can prove it or disprove it, so what?

Pinch your self. Did that hurt? Can you prove it?

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear All,

I have continually been frustrated by the fqxi blogs and comments on consciousness carried on with everyone's choice of language, Babel style.

James often uses 'intelligence' when I think he means 'consciousness' in my terminology. Half the time I don't know what anyone else means by these terms.

My essay (http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/561) and my many writing on consciousness use the following terminology:

.

Consciousness = awareness plus volition (free will)

Intelligence = consciousness plus logic (hardware)

.

These terms are simple enough and specific enough to explain many relevant things about this topic. Of course my explanations are based on my belief (and theory) that consciousness is inherent to the universe, not an artifact that came into existence when enough Lego blocks were put together in the right order.

It's not mandatory that everyone adopt my terminology, but until fqxi participants agree on some meaning for these terms, there will continue to be a lot of nonsense occurring here, and comments where the commenter and the respondent aren't speaking the same language.

Thanks for your consideration of this issue.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

1bubble+1bubble=1sphere+1sphere.....the theory of bubblelization a Gut or rotating bubbles hihihihi

and the spheres vs multispheres

the spheres vs strings

the bubble vs the multibubbles

spherically yours or bubbly yours.....

Steve bubblelicentrist=sphericentrist hihihi

I question whether intelligence is just a matter of logic. Clearly the ability to perform logical operations in a way where we are consciously aware of them is important. Yet I think a big component is our ability to project ourselves in space and time. We can imagine ourselves in the future and we can project ourselves onto imaginary characters. I suspect a part of this is our evolutionary selection for language which permitted Homo sapiens to engage in narratives and stories about their natural world. This permitted the communication about the local environment down the generations. Further, these stories involved a projection of human consciousness onto the natural world in the form of spirits, totems and gods. So the structure and behavior of the world is cast in a story format which engages the listener and those skilled at telling stories became bards.

Other animals engage in problem solving abilities. Even some birds are known to be able to count and perform basic addition and subtraction. Prairie dogs are capable of very complex communications through variations in harmonics in their chirps, which to our ear appear monotonic. These types of animals are not what we normally consider as intelligent and semi-intelligent, such as apes, cetaceans and elephants. Obviously the complexity with human logical processing surpasses other creatures, but this might just be a matter of degree and not of some qualitative distinction.

Cheers LC

Lawrence,

If you look at the definition, I don't say intelligence is just a matter of logic. I say that intelligence is consciousness PLUS logic. Consciousness, as I say in my essay, is and always will be a mystery. I think the most primitive self-awareness is implied by any field or phenomenon that interacts with itself (since I don't believe that reality is looking up the 'laws of physics' somehow and computing the 'next step'.) And as I propose just such a primordial field as being present at the creation, I assume that consciousness (incredibly primitive, but essentially complete and all encompassing) is here from the beginning. But how do we get beyond the awareness of self to awareness of other. Simplistically speaking, how do we go from 'one' to 'two'?

My current essay discusses how the field 'condenses' to particles (there's no really good word to summarize this process, but the known particles are produced from the process) and my original essay describes a theory of how the consciousness field couples to particles and particular systems.

But, aside from this essential awareness, how do things get more specific? I think that Marcel's introduction to logic in his 'Ultimate Physics' essay is very reasonable, and I see logic as the basis of what's 'real'. Reality is free of logical contradictions. And logic as hardware appears at the DNA level, the bacterial level, the level of the brain, and everywhere in between, and extends into the non-biological universe through computers, etc. Once awareness and volition exist, the question is how do they 'couple' to the physical world in a meaningful way (that is, beyond the level of a self-interacting field). My theory proposes a coupling mechanism, that does not 'explain' awareness, but takes it as a 'given' and asks how it couples to physical systems.

One doesn't have to go to birds and apes. Cells make 'logical' decisions as to whether or not to produce a specific protein (which requires energy) based on the presence of other proteins attaching themselves (or not) to DNA sequences. These are essentially AND/OR type logical operations, and therefore, by my definition, the cell is making 'intelligent' decisions. Go from there.

Once you have awareness, I believe that logic provides the rest. You speak of 'projecting' ourselves in time and space. This doesn't happen without a brain that uses logical mechanisms to 'store' memories of events, times, places, etc that can be combined in logical networks to produce 'models' or 'ideas' that we are aware of. Learning can be modeled by (re-)connecting networks, and these can be described by logic.

What do you think is needed beside awareness and sufficient logical machinery?

Edwin Eugene Klingman

"Linde usually responds to such criticisms by quoting Sherlock Holmes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." In particular, he argues, the multiverse provides the only logical answer to the question of why the constants of nature seem to be finely-tuned in such a way that they allow life to exist. "If there is an infinite number of universes with different physical laws, it makes sense that we happen to live in a universe that allows life," Linde explains."

Well this says nothing. It is just another one of those answers from the fog.

James

I know! Maybe if we disregard the real world with its complex lifeforms and varieties of intelligence, and, repeat our beliefs enough, especially with backing from complex mathematics, then, maybe those who cannot follow the math will be pushed out of the way and mathematical speculations will become free to reign as real knowledge. I mean real knowledge can't exist without mathematics, right! And, real knowledge shouldn't need proof, right! I mean mathematics is pure in its logic, right!

There is a host of problems with this perspective. Mathematics is not pure logic. It is pure in its own rules governing its own numerical domain, but, those numbers are inconveniently dependent upon ideas. Those ideas have names as 'properties', and, those properties are forced onto the numbers by those who believe in those 'properties'. False ideas are part of the problem, but, even more important is the move by theoretical physics into the unempirical domain. A move reminiscient of descriptions of 'heaven', but, more 'practical' in that this new heaven is imagined to be a heaven for mechanics.

My position is clear, the 'practicalness' of theoretical physics is impracticalness with regard to life and intelligence. Life and intelligence exist here inside our universe. How do they exist in this universe? This universe provides empirical evidence. What is the empirical evidence in theoretical physics for intelligence and life? What is the theoretical basis in theoretical physics for intelligence and life? What do physicists have to say about life and intelligence based upon empirical evidence inside this universe?

James

Ok, there are multiverses. Ok, there are solutions approaching or perhaps reaching an infinite amount. Ok, there heavens beyond heavens. Ok, maybe the answers do not exist in our universe. Ok, maybe we are just a chance formed bubble in a vast foam. Ok, maybe this nonscience is the real science. Ok, maybe Jack was a theoretical physicist and really did climb up the beanstalk.

James

"Free will is not something we can ever prove exists."

Are you a robot or a human being?

James

The title 'The origin of Mind and Matter' is appropriate because it separates the two. Afterall, matter is a construct of mechanical theory. From that mechanical perspective, the source of electromagnetism, gravity, etc., has to be something inanimate, so, we are introduced to 'matter'. Well, mind cannot come from the 'matter' described by theoretical physics. So, it is something different, something extra, something added-on, because, 'matter' cannot gives us mind. Nature is not governed by ideology. The nature of the universe is still waiting to be discovered. There is only one source for both intelligent effects and mechanical effects. Getting this problem solved does matter.

James

Dear Edwin,

I think that all effects had to be provided for right from the beginning of the universe. Before realized effects occur there are potential effects. The potential is as full of meaning as are the realized effects. Perhaps there is even more potential that has not yet been realized.

So, when I speak of intelligence, I am thinking first of that which was present at the beginning of the universe in potential form. I do not accept the mechanical perspective in any way. I see it as being human made, an invention of the mind.

Speaking in terms of the realized effects, since I cannot show the existence of potential effects, I observe that the universe gave birth to intelligent life. Theoretical physics has nothing to do with explaining this non-mechanical effect. My work has been oriented toward removing the artificial properties of theoretical physics so that the study of the nature of the universe may advance.

The outstanding current intelligent effect is the existence of human free will. Free will involves consciousness. We receive all of our information in the form of photon data. That data carries no meaning with it other than multitudinous historical reports of particles of matter incrementally changing their velocities.

I see two steps of consciousness. All analysis of photon data occurs at the subconscious level. It has to be an amazing mix of foreknowledge, forsight, and immediate need. After the subconscious mind reaches a conclusion, it is communicated to the conscious mind as a single thought. One thought follows another. So, I see the conscious mind as a string of results. I see the subconscious mind as doing all of the work. That is where 'hardware' and 'software' and photon information meet. It is the combination of all that occurs at the subconscious level that I refer to as intelligence. From my perspective, intelligence is the fullness of meaning that can be attached to action in this universe.

I haven't begun to try to establish the hardware part. I say only that the hardware part is not represented by today's theoretical physics. You have pursued the hardware part. I can't professionally evaluate it. But, I am certainly appreciative to see that a theoretical physicist has done this.

If I were to choose a starting point, it would not be gravity except from the point of view that gravity is the result of a variable speed of light. So, I would pursue a path different from your choice. It does not matter. I am not an expert. While I am compelled to follow my own path, I have good reason to put trust in your path. Thank you for participation here, and, I am glad to see you arguing your own case.

James

James,

I've read enough of your thoughts to have a reasonable idea of what you mean by 'intelligence'. The problem is that, not having read enough of others thoughts, I often have no idea what they mean by 'intelligence', 'consciousness', 'free will', etc. For example, I don't speak of the 'subconscious'. To me the field wherein consciousness resides is all conscious, and only directs our 'focus' to whatever is most appropriate at any given time.

I see the brain as building 'models' (theories, ideas, what have you) in the fantastic neural net that can learn by adjusting it's connections. The photon data that couples us to the 'outside' world does so by either stimulating new connections or else simply 'maintaining' our internal model of the external.

Because at every moment while we live, neurons conduct ions flows along axons and vesical flows across synapses, there is always local momenta that induces circulation in the local consciousness field, thereby coupling the brain's operation to the local field from whence we derive awareness. Destroy the brain and the ideas are destroyed. The consciousness field that fills the universe is not destroyed, but the local structure determines the level of 'intelligence' that is associated with that brain. When the flows stop, (death), the local awareness is reduced to the background level, which, from our perspective is nil, although it may take a while for the cells of the body to lose awareness.

Because the brain is physical, and yet consciousness interacts with the physical body/brain, my focus has been on the interaction. While that does not solve the 'problem' of awareness, I view awareness as the ultimate mystery, and do not believe it 'solvable'. Yet it is coupled to the physical world, so that is where I focus.

Schrodinger one gave a talk, 'Do electrons think?' In my theory structure is required for thinking, which is the act of awareness coupling to the hardware model, so electrons don't think, although they do, by virtue of their momentum, induce a local circulation that essential 'strengthens' the local consciousness field. This is meaningless, but when we consider the structure of the living cell, it suddenly becomes not so meaningless. If you ever watched movies of cells, you would be hard pressed to deny some level of awareness (unless, of course, you are a reductionist who believes 'all is chemistry'.) All ain't chemistry.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear James,

I did not start with gravity. I started trying to write down a force equation that would make sense for a consciousness field interacting with our body/brain. And it did not take long to realize that 'gravito-magnetism' fit the bill almost perfectly. And because my belief is that consciousness does not arise from physical structure, but has been here all along, and I find it most likely that the gravitational field was the only thing here at the 'beginning', it just worked out that way. After a while I stopped resisting the idea because everything fit together so well. In my theory the known particles are derived from the non-linear [Yang-Mills] C-field and then the structure begins to evolve.

If you stop and think about it, "Whatever else life accomplishes, it does so only after it willfully defies gravity." Since the gravito-magnetic field easily produces an 'anti-gravity' effect [as in 'dark energy'] this too fits the picture.

In another blog an fqxi participant said "I like fields, but they cannot be perceived directly."

Forgive me for quoting my earlier fqxi essay, but I can't discuss direct perception any better than I did in Fundamental Physics of Consciousness

.

"Upon what must a fundamental theory of physics be based? ...it should be formulated in terms of human reality, not abstract formulations. Either it is based on directly and immediately sensed reality or it is based on some abstraction that is claimed to represent reality. Current theories are based on physics abstractions such as:

Gravity, String theories, Electromagnetics, Quantum field theories, Strong and weak forces, Dark matter and energy, Extra dimensions, Extra universes, Consciousness

Of these, only two, gravity and consciousness, are immediately sensible and directly experienced by humans. I am directly aware of gravity and I am directly aware that I am conscious. I have no direct, immediate, awareness of any other physics on the list (with the exception of a small range of electromagnetic radiation). All other entities, if they exist, are sensed through the medium of some measurement apparatus (as complex as the Large Hadron Collider or as simple as iron filings in a magnetic field)-yet none is directly sensed. Even muscular detection of a magnetic field is possible only through the medium of a held magnet. Gravity and consciousness are directly sensible, requiring no external apparatus, and hence are deemed suitable for the basis of a physical theory that does not depend upon belief in either equipment or logical argument. We *know* these two entities exist. All else should depend on these."

.

Of course, not everyone thinks that way. Some believe that they can imagine 10^500 universes, and somehow 'create consciousness' from 'big numbers'.

I have written well over a thousand pages tying it all together. Unfortunately this does not all tie together in a few comments. Too bad.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Ed,

I think that you ("Consciousness"), James ("Intelligence") and Frank ("Dreams") are all looking for approximately the same thing. The difference is that you are the best at explaining your position, Frank is the worst, and James is somewhere in between.

I am not a proponant of the Chance paradigm. I am a Christian, and believe in Design - not Chance. I think that a larger Multiverse exists, but not for the sake of different fundamental parameters (different Fine-Structure Constants, different Dirac's Large Numbers, etc. as many proponants of Chance believe), but for the sake of giving a logical explanation for these ridiculusly fine-tuned parameters like 10^41 in terms of the complexity and energy content of the Multiverse, and its multiple smaller self-similar copies.

Your idea cuts straight to the point by connecting consciousness with a fundamental force field. But I fully expect new fields to also imply new particles.

My models also have a new type of Gravity - WIMP-Gravity with massive gravitons, and tachyons (the "scalar fermions" in my 2009-2010 papers) that travel faster than the speed of light.

Taking this to a very speculative extreme, I think that the "Soul" is a tachyonic (imaginary mass) Kramers-Kronig-like relation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramers%E2%80%93Kronig_relation

transform of the real mass of our physical bodies.

"Intelligence" is based on information content at the Scale level - dependant on the complexity (N ln(N)) and energy of the scale. The Multiverse Scale (Heaven?) has the greatest "Intelligence" (say 10^500 or infinity?), but even the Quantum Scale has a minimal quanta of "Intelligence" (say 496). 10^500 does not explain Chance - it explains (near?) perfection. This allows us to simultaneously "rise" from the base Quantum Scale and "fall" from the (near?) perfect Multiverse Scale.

The "Dream" is our Soul's vehicle for communication with the other self-similar me-Souls throughout the Multiverse. These self-similar mes are greater than 13.7 billion light years from me, but it doesn't matter because tachyonic Souls can travel faster than the speed of light.

"Consciousness" is the combined feedback effect from all of the self-similar mes throughout the Multiverse. Consciousness is not a local effect, but rather a spread-out non-local collective effect.

In my own crazy way, I think that all of these ideas are different, but related. Your ideas are similar to mine, but your ideas may be more conservative. Lawrence probably thinks I'm talking crazy...

Have Fun!

Dr. Cosmic Ray

Ray,

Let me hit you with a far-out proposition (not so to me, but to current physicists).

The C-field is a Yang-Mills Calabi-Yau solution to Einstein's equations, and, as I repeat, ad nauseam, is capable of producing all known particles, sans Higgs and sans SUSY. It is capable of explaining the weak force interactions between particles and also of explaining quark confinement and asymptotic symmetry and three generations. It also explains the mass-ordering of all charged particles. No other theory does that. It explains why the 6-quarks in deuterium don't collapse to a 'spherical' distribution. In fact, it explains a dozen or so anomalies that are simply not explained by QCD.

Ray, if this is true, then there is no need for 'QCD color'. The C-field supplies the 'gluons' that hold the quarks together, and provide the dynamics. By the way, you do realize that 'QCD color' has never been seen, don't you. It's an article of faith in the community. In 1929 Rutherford suggested that the strong force was 'magnetic' in nature, but it was too soon. When, about 5 years later Yukawa proposed a radial force and the 'pion', the 'muon' showed up instead, but everyone mistook it for the pion. Anyway, 70 years or so later, and 40 years after QCD, we still can't calculate QCD problems or explain generations, and most of what goes on at LHC seems to be running Monte Carlo codes (PYTHIA and others). The Lattice-QCD models look pretty absurd to me, and Frank Wilczek says that Yukawa doesn't work at hard core distances. And nothing predicted by anyone has been found for decades.

So, faithful QCD-physikers keep on keepin' on, but some day it may become clear that this is getting nowhere. (By the way my model predicted the 'perfect fluids' that have shown up at RHIC and LHC, while QCD predicted a 'quark gas'.

And, in addition, the initial reason (Pauli exclusion) for even proposing color is easily met by the anti-symmetric wave function for the C-field proton and neutron, under exchange of quarks, AND, my proton-proton collisions predict the same 'string-like' function that initially gave rise to strings.

What does this mean? It means that IF my theory were correct, it meets Rutherford's proposal, while satisfying every problem that brought QCD and string theory into existence.

And what would that mean? It would mean that the 'extra particles' you expect for a new field are already here. You just have to subtract the 'old fields' of QCD and electro-weak. And I've already shown that the strengths work out. So you aren't counting your particles right in this case, you're double counting.

Also, note that the "reason" that the Calabi-Yau manifold has 11 (or so) dimensions, is that [and I quote] "they can't get the QCD and Weak forces into only 4-space-time dimension." But ALL Calabi-Yau manifolds can be factored into a torus plus higher dimensions, and my model for particles is the torus. Don't need the higher dimensions.

So the justification for 11-dimension just disappears. Evaporates. Vanishes.

But Wait! It's those silly 'string windings' on the higher dimensional Calabi-Yau that give rise to the 10^500 vacua, and are the basis of the silly multi-verse.

So if my theory is correct, ALL that crap goes away. Think about it.

And if your theories are correct, I'm sure the Higgs and SUSY will be showing up "real soon now".

I guess we'll have to wait and see, won't we.

It's a fun game. But please do me a favor. Look over the above comments a few times and try to grasp what I'm saying, because I have to keep making these points again and again, as if they are dismissed without being read. They are important points, Ray, and the facts are on my side. The faith is on the QCD'ers side. I can explain the 4% anomaly for muonic-hydrogen, QED can't.

This is significant, but those who even admit that it's a problem deny that it's serious. When a theory that claims dozen place accuracy is reduced to 1 place accuracy in the simplest possible atom, it's a problem!

Edwin Eugene Klingman