Chaos, Consciousness, and the Cosmos

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

Hi Ed,

Please don't think that I am dismissing your ideas and writings. Normally, I'm trying to put it into a perspective that makes sense to me. There are several things I need to respond to:

1) I agree that QCD is somewhat questionable. The errors are of order 5% and greater. If you read my recent paper on "The Interrelationship of Spin and Scales", you will see that the behavior of the Strong coupling forced me to make an outrageous assumption - that "fundamental" quantum scaled gluons might be comprised of sub-quantum scaled fermions. I think that your triality explains 3 generations of fermions, and an S-duality of your triality explains "color". What you claim is possible, but we need to better understand the details and dynamics.

2) I think that SUSY is fundamental - sorry but we will continue to disagree on that point. SUSY helps unify bosons and fermions. Without SUSY, there cannot be a true TOE. IMHO, the ONLY question about SUSY is whether or not it is Weak-Scale SUSY.

3) I have my own questions about Higgs - I think that extra tachyons exist, and these will potentially affect the so-called Higgs Mechanism.

4) Personally, I think I can include color, electromagnetism, and the weak force in 4-D. The problem is that doesn't leave any room for gravity, and gravity seems to be every bit as (if not moreso?) fundamental...

5) I'm playing with more than 11-D. I'm not sure where that is going...

Have Fun!

Dr. Cosmic Ray

a little of quiet dear scientists, hihih a little of quiet.

Master Yoda and Master "Tom Tom Maths", be quiet , be professional, be cool hihihi they are crazzy these FQXithinkers they are crazzy.

Dear Master Yoda, it's true? you think it's different 1.5/8 with the others hihihi

Dear Master Tomathtom, do you think a string is divisible and has an equation or several.??

Be quiet dear dudes hhhihihi

Steve

Dear Steve,

My work is different from yours and everyone else's. I am not well versed in everyone else's. I do like my own very much. I think I should continue following the path that I have chosen. Perhaps you are correct or perhaps someone else is correct. My opinion is that truth is the goal. Whover has the trutyh in the end will receive my congratulations. However, the end does appear to have arrived.

"...you think it's different 1.5/8 with the others hihihi..."

I presume this refers to Tom's pointless point. No I didn't make a mistake. I stopped responding because Tom's answers are more trouble than they are worth. He is not the help that he could be. He continually attempts to distract or change the subject. Its like going in circles or jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad on some foggy creek. The point that I was making about the necessity for units to match is correct. The equation I presented deserves to receive some attention. I received none.

I know this because anyone checking it out would have found that it does not hold for systems of units in which electric charge is defined using Coulomb's equation. The reason that occurs derserves attention. The answer would make clear why it is inferior practice to set proportionality constants to unity. The same holds true for the speed of light.

I attempted to carry on a discussion about these things with Tom, but it really is not worth the effort. He is not interested. That is all right with me. But, he is the one who began to challenge me again. He challenges, dodges, declares victory, and thinks that he has accomplished something worthwhile. The exchanges with Edwin and Ray are worth the time spent. I don't want to even try to find a finish for that discussion with Tom. I need to finish my essay.

James

Roy,

A remark on the assumptions in Verlinde's theory:

1. introduces an 'effective' force, the entropic force [conservative macroscopically]

2. assume space is...literally just a storage space for information.

3. assume that information is stored on surfaces.

4. imagine that info about particle location is stored in discrete bits on screen.

5. dynamics on each screen given by unknown rules.

6. [info processing] doesn't have to be by local field theory or anything familiar.

7. assume [like AdS/CFT] one special direction for course graining variables.

8. assume well defined notion of time [microscopic].

9. assume Bekenstein's argument [about] Compton wavelength.

10. postulate change of energy associated with info on boundary.

11. assume entropy proportialnal to mass [and additive]

12. use osmosis to analogize an effective force of entropy.

13. assume Unruh's temperature proportional to acceleration.

14. forget Unruh for Newton, don't need.

15 Think of boundary as storage for info, assume holographic principle.

16. assume number of bits proportional to area.

17. introduce new constant, G.

18. assume energy divided evenly over N-bits.

19. assume [invisible] mass is noticed through its energy.

20 Voila -- Newton's law, "practically from first principles".

.

Contrast with my assumptions:

1. Assume only one field, G, that can interact only with itself: del dot G = G dot G.

2. apply Maxwell: E=G^2 & Einstein: E=mc^2 --yielding Newton's law: del dot G = -m.

.

And compare the things that fall out of the Master equation here.

Verlinde of course says that he has just 'reversed' the logic that led from Newton's law to black hole thermodynamics in order to instead go from black hole thermodynamics to Newton's law.

But is this the equivalent of "drawing a map from territory" [Korzybski] and then trying to derive territory from a map? Do all reversals make physical sense?

Finally, I believe that the 'energy/area' relations for the black hole can be derived *exactly* without ever invoking the concept of information. So why, if the relation is simply dependent on energy, would one insist that information be brought into the picture in such an artificial fashion dependent on so many assumptions, some quite questionable?

I don't believe information is a 'thing'. It is 'about' things, and thus dependent on a representation. 'Things' do not depend on representations, they are real.

This is, I believe, related to the excursion of physics from reality that I see in full swing.

Thanks for your consideration,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Edwin,

Thank you for your message. You are the only other person that I know of that recognizes one or more of the problems that have been forced upon theoretical physics by theoretical physicists. They have messed things up but good. That is what I think. Since I am not a physicist, my voice is almost muted. I say almost because I have a website that is highly ranked by search engines. Also, fqxi.org has been tolerant toward me. I can't correct it all because I don't know enough. But, I can help to fix the fundamentals.

It is important to science for you to speak out. I don't think others will take your theory seriously on its face. That is because there are practices still going on in theoretical physics that cause it to diverge, for no good reason, into unempirical speculation. It has to be demonstrated that persistent errors have become embedded in theoretical physics. I don't know what comes afterwards. I have high hopes that it is your work. I am limited to exposing bad practices that have been passed along as part of the fundamentals.

James

a little beer from belgium together and hop you are friends....vanity of vanities, all is vanity......

Good luck dear thinkers

Steve spherically yours

Ray, Edwin, and James,

I copied the following from an earlier conversation that I had with Jason:

How many of you are familiar with the PEAR proposition? It was/is work done by researchers over the last 28 years at Princeton University, and stands for Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research. One of the original configurations of the experiment was based on a series of events that was created by an electronic random event generator (REG) where the results would be displayed on a computer monitor. This is essentially an electronic series of Schrodinger cat experiments, such that the results would fluctuate around a baseline of zero. The truly amazing aspect of these experiments is when an human "operator" intended to bias the outcome to the positive or negative of the baseline, the display recorded a immediate and consistent result depending on the operator's intentions only! I became aware of this work many years ago and I am still amazed of how many people haven't ever heard of it. Here's a quote from their website, the link of which I have provided below:

"The primary importance of operator intention and emotional resonance with the task at hand, along with the operator-specific structure evident in the data, the absence of traditional learning patterns, and the lack of explicit space and time dependence clearly predicate that no direct application or minor alteration of existing physical or psychological frameworks will suffice. Rather, nothing less than a generously expanded scientific model of reality, one that allows consciousness a proactive role in the establishment of its experience of the physical world, will be required."

The results of their experiments are compelling evidence that conscious intention has an influence on the environment, whether or not this is an example of the entanglement of consciousness with the quantum world and the steering done by the intention of the observer, or whether it is the result of some sort of feedback loop between the quantum world and the observer's conciousness, it should, nevertheless, be of considerable interest to anyone who ponders the foundations of the world we live in. Additionally, it is my belief that the results are a provocative representation PK and, more importantly, a true demonstration of free will.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

These experiments are both reliable and predictable. See their article for The Journal of Scientific Exploration:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/2005-pear-proposition.pdf

This paper shows the cumulative outcome of 91 different "operators", none of which proclaim to have any special abilities, and 2.5 million trials. I suppose it's like everything else that doesn't fit neatly into our current paradigms, people tend to ignore it. I, however, see potential use of this phenomena.

Even more important than its possible utilization, is what I believe these results are saying to us about our own free will. When the physical world can be measurably changed by the choice of conscious intentional thought(s) alone, I believe that is about as fundamental as you can get. These results are telling us something truly profound about ourselves and about our universe on its most basic level.

The experiments testing the PK phenomena done at Princeton are not the only ones that showed reliable and consistent results. I remember reading about test subjects that were connected to EEG machines while being shown a series of visual images that were either pleasant or horrific. The brain wave patterns were different depending on the type of image shown. In many cases the test subjects brain wave patterns reacted, with consistency, even before the actual image was shown. Certain people, such as fighter pilots, etc., were more prone to display this ability than others.

Until we are able to create a quantum paradigm that includes an active role for consciousness in the understanding of such unusual phenomena, we will be missing a big piece of the puzzle. It may be that the "weirdness" of QMs is the very artifact of reality that allows for this macroscopic subjective weirdness to be demonstrated. I especially liked the PEAR results mentioned above because of their sheer simplicity. It seems to me that simple, basic results are a good starting point for a new paradigm, but that doesn't mean that a coherent theory that unifies these unusual phenomena with more ordinary phenomena will be easy to formulate.

Dear Dan,

That's fascinating, and I had not heard of it. After Rhine at Duke University I thought most such experiments were downplayed if they were done. As I say elsewhere, in the 90's even philosopher Searles at UC Berkeley was advised,

"It's ok to work on consciousness, but get tenure first."

Although I have had a few such experiences, and I know other worldly adults who claim such experiences, these are always subjective and anecdotal, so one hesitates to draw conclusions. My wife and I seem to trade thoughts all the time, but this is not the basis of a theory, unless of habitual learning, or something.

My theory was derived from efforts I made to simply ask, "if consciousness affects the physical world, how could this effect be expressed as a physics phenomenon?" Note that I'm not asking how we are aware, just how, based on awareness and free will, we manage to actually affect the physical world. Jump up, raise your arm, etc.

It really didn't take long, as I describe in 'Gene Man's World' to find a reasonable path to follow.

In exploring this path, I made one assumption: The force of the consciousness field MUST be such that it does not measurably affect atoms and molecules, period. But it should affect biological systems. The 'mass dependence' of the field works for me there. Proteins, and vesicles, among other biological entities, for example have much greater mass and so would be more affected than electrons in atoms.

So my approach was to try to compute just how strong such a field COULD BE, without showing up in atomic and molecular physics, except as indistinguishable from noise, say at the nano-volt level.

And I computed that it could be about 31 orders of magnitude stronger than gravito-magnetism was believed to be [on the basis of the simplest symmetry assumption]. This was interesting, but when I found out a year later that Martin Tajmar claimed to have measured the field and found it to be 31 orders of magnitude stronger, it became compelling. In the five years since, I have found at least a hundred places where the C-field seems to explain things, and not one case that seems to disprove my theory.

Anyway, I will check out the PEAR stuff, and thank you for making me aware of it.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dan, Edwin:

Dan: I haven't been following your previous discussions. I wonder, concerning your message here, how free will is evidenced. I think free will is a certainty, so my question has nothing to do with arguing against free will. It is just that if a thought can effect the outside world, that in itself does not, I think, demonstrate free will. I see the effect of free will as having occurred before the thought. Can you say some more about your perception of free will?

Edwin: Excellent post. I think that there are no effects that stop abruptly and completely. So, I think everything has an effect on everything else. Obviously that effect can often be imperceptible to us. However, the universe clearly knows what it is doing. I do think that consciousness has its own effects. I can't express that in physics lingo as you can; but, I think many of us and perhaps even all of us, though some might choose to resist admitting it, have had experiences where coinicidence becomes seriously questionable. I know I have. For anyone else reading this and thinking that I am speaking about something supernatural, I speak only about that which is clearly natural. If the unnatural mechanical theories appear natural to you, then, that is something you will have to defend. However, intelligent free thoughts are natural. I will defend that statement.

James

Dear Friends,

I also need to read these PEAR results. I have always said that experiment is not as fundamental as we normally believe it to be, because of the question of "What to leave in? What to leave out?". This is clear in Supercollider Physics whereby we impose "cuts" to elliminate signals that we believe (according to the theories and Monte Carlo simulations that we are trying to confirm?) are unwanted. It is natural to throw out those oddball 3-sigma-plus events, but are they goofs or are they history-making new physics?

Have Fun!

Dr. Cosmic Ray

Edwin,

I'll try to read your "Gene Man's World", but I've really fallen behind in reading most of the new essays.

There never seems to be enough time to do everything.

James,

I tend toward the deterministic view of reality, but in the presentist camp rather than the block universe camp. In other words, the world exists whether we are there to witness it or not. Since we are here to witness it, and even if only the present exists, determinism still implies that we are not free to choose, that choice is only an illusion which I don't agree with either. So, we have a simple experiment, that shows that conscious choice alone is enough to effect the outcome. Then is reality fundamentally indeterministic or is it only indeterministic when consciousness is present? The simplest experiments with unusual results that don't fit into our current scientific paradigms usually mean we're missing something profound.

I don't claim to be an authority, by any means, but you wrote a couple of things I would like to ask you to clarify. You wrote "I think free will is a certainty, ..." and "I see the effect of free will as having occurred before thought." Free will seems more than plausible, but why is it certain and how can it occur before thought?

Dan

Dear Dan,

I will hold off temporarily explaining free will from my perspective (Although you can read about it at http://newphysicstheory.com/Human_Free_Will.) I think, following Edwin's recent requests for clarification, that thought is the conscious result of a very complex process. I see the process as occurring at the subconscious level, and, the result emerges as a thought at the conscious level.

I did not understand your response:

"Since we are here to witness it, and even if only the present exists, "determinism still implies that we are not free to choose, that choice is only an illusion which I don't agree with either. So, we have a simple experiment, that shows that conscious choice alone is enough to effect the outcome. Then is reality fundamentally indeterministic or is it only indeterministic when consciousness is present?"

What does this have to do with free will?

James

Edwin,

Firstly, I will re-read your essay to enable a proper comparison in the sense you describe. I feel however that you have unnecessarily multiplied the assumptions Verlinde makes, as I see most of your points to be things that "fall out" of the re-formulated theory in a consistent way. There is no doubt that he makes a minimum of two assumptions, that of the holographic principle, which although unproven seems well motivated to me based on black hole physics insights and the Unruh effect. I don't see entropic gravity as a new force, any more than entropy itself or osmosis for that matter. I also believe that the "equipartition" rule (point 18) is not necessary to obtain the derivation.

As you rightly say, information is "about" things, and I interpret "information" in Verlinde's theory as just representing degrees of freedom in the same sense as it is applied to black holes for example or even statistical mechanics eg Maxwell's Demon storing "information" about kinematic *degrees of freedom*.

I also feel that all of our theories (including yours) can only *in principle* be representations of an underlying reality. We cannot have non-perturbative access to that reality of "things", as everything we "measure/observe" must be contextual to our "detection" method and in turn subject to our unique (human brain) perception.

When "drawing a map from territory" we are really only specifying a 2D geometry to project back to 3D geometry. An equivalent analogy for a full "map back to territory" (thermodynamics back to Newton) would require further information such as physical composition to be specified on the 2D surface where the holographic principle would still hold. Verlinde does have a problem with *specifying* the "potential" on the screens but this is not actually necessary for the derivation, nor is knowledge of the Unruh effect really, although you would hope for a full explanatory version of the theory at some stage!

Cheers