Stapp on Mind as a Quantum Effect
Jack Sarfatti
Stapp's paper opposes the view represented by Bill Calvin, for
example in http://www.well.com/www/wcalvin/
February 8,1995, LBL-36574
Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness
But Quantum Mechanics Can.
PART I
Henry P. Stapp
Theoretical Physics Group
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
Abstract
It is argued on the basis of certain mathematical
characteristics that classical mechanics is not constitutionally
suited to accomodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics is.
These mathematical characteristics pertain to the nature of the
information represented in the state of the brain, and the way this
information enters into the dynamics.
Prepared for a Special Issue of "Psyche"
*This work was supported by the Director, Office of Energy
Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of
High Energy Physics of the U. S. Department of Energy under
Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098.
I.Introduction
Classical mechanics arose from the banishment of consciousness from
our conception of the physical universe. Hence it should not be
surprising to find that the readmission of consciousness requires
going beyond that theory.
The exclusion of consciousness from the material universe was a
hallmark of science for over two centuries. However, the shift, in
the 1920's, from classical mechariics to quantum mechanics marked a
break with that long tradition: it appeared that the only coherent
way to incorporate quantum phenomena into the existing science was
to admit also the human observer. (1) Although tbe orthodox
approach of Bohr and the Copenhagen school was epistemological
rather than ontological, focusing upon "our knowledge" rather than
on any effort to introduce consciousness directly into the dynamics,
other thinkers such as John von Neumann (2), Norbert Weiner (3), and
J.B.S. Haldane (4) were quick to point out that the quantum
mechanical aspects of nature seemed tailor-made for bringing
consciousness back into our conception of matter.
This suggestion lay fallow for half a century. But the recent
resurgence of interest in the foundations of quantum theory has led
increasingly to a focus on the crux of the problem, namely the need
to understand the role of consciousness in the unfolding of physical
reality. It has become clear that the revolution in our conception
of matter wrought by quantum theory has completely altered the
complexion of problem of the relationship between mind and matter.
Some aspects of this change were discussed already in my recent book
(5). Here I intend to describe in more detail the basic differences
between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics in the context of
the problem of integrating consciousness into our scientific
conception of matter, and to argue that certain logical deficiencies
in classical mechanics, as a foundation for a coherent theory of the
mind/brain, are overcome in a natural and satisfactory way by
replacing the classical conception of matter by a quantum
conception. Instead of reconciling the disparities between mind and
matter by replacing contemporary (folk) psychology by some yet-to-
be-discovered future psychology, as has been suggested by the
Churchlands, it seems enough to replace classical (folk) mechanics,
which is known to be unable to account for the basic physical and
chemical process that underlie brain processes, by quantum
mechanics, which does adequately describe these processes.
2. Thoughts within the Classical Framework.
Thoughts are fleeting things, and our introspections concerning them
are certainly fallible. Yet each one seems to have several
components bound together by certain relationships. These components
appear, on the basis of psychoneurological data (5), to be
associated with neurological activities occurring in different
locations in the brain. Hence the question arises: How can neural
activities in different locations in the brain be components of a
single psychological entity?
The fundamental principle in classical mechanics is that any
physical system can be decomposed into a collection of simple
independent local elements each of which interacts only with its
immediate neighbors. To formalize this idea let us consider a
computer model of the brain. According to the ideas of classical
physics it should be possible to simulate brain processes by a
massive system of parallel computers, one for each point in a fine
grid of spacetime points that cover the brain over some period of
time. Each individual computer would compute and record the values
of the components of the electromagnetic and matter fields at the
associated grid point. Each of these computers receives information
only from the computers associated with neighboring grid points in
its nearly immediate past, and forms the linear combinations of
values that are the digital analogs of, say, the first and second
derivatives of various field values in its neighborhood, and hence
is able to calculate the values corresponding to its own grid point.
The complete computation starts at an early time and moves
progressively forward in time.
On the basis of this computer model of the evolving brain I shall
distinguish the intrinsic description of this computer/brain from an
extrinsic description of it.
The intrinsic description consists of the collection of facts
represented by the aggregate of the numbers in the various registers
of this massive system of parallel computers: each individual fact
represented within the intrinsic description is specified by the
numbers in the registers in one of these computers, and the full
description is simply the conglomeration of these individual facts.
This intrinsic description corresponds to the fact that in classical
mechanics a complete description of any physical system is supposed
to be specified by giving the values of the various fields (e.g.,
the electric field, the magnetic field, etc.) at each of the
relevant spacetime points. Similarly, an intrinsic description of
the contents of a television screen might be specified by giving the
color and intensity values for each of the individual points
(pixels) on the screen, without any interpretive information (It's a
picture of Winston Churchill!), or any explicit representation of
any relationship that might exist among elements of the intrinsic
description (Pixel 1000 has the samme values as pixel 1256!). Th
analogous basic classical-physics description of a steam engine
would, similarly, give just the values of the basic fields at each
of the relevant spacetime points, with no notice, or explicit
representation, of the fact that the system can also be conceived of
as composed of various fractional entities, such as pistons and
drive shafts etc.: the basic or intrinsic description is the
description of what the system is, in terms of its logically
independent (according to classical mechanics) local components, not
the description of how it might be conceive of by an interpreter, or
how it might be described in terms of large functional entities
constructed out of the ontologically basic local components
I distinguish this intrinsic description from an extrinsic
description.
An extrinsic description is a description that could be formed in
the mind of an external observer that is free to survey in unison,
and act upon together, all of the numbers that constitute the
intrinsic description, unfettered by the local rules of operation
and storage that limit the activities of the computer/brain. This
external observer is given not only the capacity to "know"'
separately, each of the individual numbers in the intrinsic
description; he is given also the ability to know this collection of
numbers as a whole, in the sense that he can have a single register
that specifies the entire collection of numbers that constitutes the
intrinsic description. The entire collection of logically and
ontologically independent elements that constitutes the intrinsic
description can be represented by a singie basic entity in the
extrinsic description, and be part of the body of information that
this external observer can access directly, without the need for
some compositional process in the computer/brain to bring the
information together from far-apart locations. In general,
collections of independent entities at the level of the intrinsic
description can become single entities at the level of an extrinsic
description.
The information that is stored in any one of the simple logically
independent computers, of which the computer/brain is the simple
aggregate, is supposed to be minimal: it is no more than what is
needed to compute the local evolution. This is the analog of the
condition that holds in classical physics. As the size of the
regions into which one divides a physical system tends to zero the
dynamically effective information stored in each individual region
tends to something small, namely the values of a few fields and
their first few derivatives. And these few values are treated in a
very simple way. Thus if we take the regions of the computer
simulation of the brain that are represented by the individual local
computers to be sufficiently small then the information that resides
in any one of these local computers appears to be much less than
information needed to specify a complex thought, such as the
perception of a visual scene: entries from many logically
independent (according to classical physics) computers must be
combined together to give the information contained in an individual
thought, which, however, is a single experiential entity. Thus the
thought, considered as a single whole entity, rather than as a
collection of independent entities, belongs to the extrinsic level
of description, not to the intrinsic level of description.
According to classical mechanics, the description of both the state
of a physical system and its dynamics can expressed at the intrinsic
level. But then how does one understand the occurrence of
experientially whole thoughts? How do extrinsic-level actual
entities arise from a dynamics that is completely reducible to an
intrinsic-level description?
One possibility is that the intrinsic-level components of a thought
are bound together by some integrative process in the mind of a
spirit being, i.e., in the mind of a "ghost behind the machine", of
an homunculus. This approach shifts the question to an entirely new
realm: in place of the physical brain, about which we know a great
deal, and our thoughts, about which we have some direct information,
one has a new "spirit realm" about which science has little to say.
This approach takes us immediately outside the realm of science, as
we know it today.
Alternatively, there is the functional approach. The brain can
probably be conceived of, in some approximation, in terms of large-
scale functional entities that, from a certain global perspective,
might seem to be controlling the activity of this brain. However,
in the framework of classical mechanics such "entities" play no
actual role in determining the course of action taken by the
computer/brain: this course of action is completely controlled by
local entities and local effects. The apparent efficacy of the
large scale "functional entities" is basically an illusion,
according to the precepts of classical mechanics, or the dynamics of
the computer/brain that simulates it: the dynamical evolution is
completely fixed by local considerations without any reference to
such global entities.
As an example take a 'belief'. Beliefs certainly influence, in some
sense, the activities of the human mind/brain. Hilary Putnam
characterized the approach of modern functionalism as the idea that,
for example, a belief can be regarded as an entry in a "belief
register", or a "belief box", that feeds control information into
the computer program that represents the brain process. Such a
belief would presumably correspond, physically, to correlations in
brain activities that extend over a large part of the brain. Thus
it would be an example of a functional entity that a human being
might, as a short-hand, imagine to exist as a single whole entity,
but that, according to the precepts of classical mechanics, is
completely analyzable, fundamentally, into a simple aggregate of
elementary and ontologically independent local elements. The notion
that such an extrinsic-level functional entity actually is,
fundamentally, anything more than a simple aggregate of logically
independent local elements is contrary to the precepts of classical
mechanics. The grafting of such an actual entity onto classical
mechanics amounts to importing into the theory an appendage that is
unnecessary, nonefficacious, and fundamentally illusory from the
perspective of the dynamical workings of that theory itself.
Since this appendage is causally nonefficacious it has no signature,
or sign of existence, within classical physics. The sole reason for
adding it to the theory is to account for our direct subjective
awareness of it. Logically and rationally it does not fit into the
classical theory both because it has no dynamical effects, beyond
those due to its local components alone, and because its existence
and character contravenes the locality principle that constitutes
the foundation of the theory, namely the principle that any physical
system is to be conceived of as fundamentally a conglomerate of
simple microscopic elements each of which interacts only with its
immediate neighbors. Neither the character of the basic description
of the brain, within classical mechanics, nor the character of the
classical dynamical laws that supposedly govern the brain, provides
any basis for considering the brain correlate of a thought to be, at
the fundamental as distinguished from functional level, a single
whole entity. One may, of course, postulate some extra notion of
"emergence". But nature must be able to confer some kind of
beingness beyond what is suggested by the precepts of classical
mechanics in order to elevate the brain correlate of a belief to the
status of an ontological whole.
This problem with `beliefs', and other thoughts, arises from the
attempt to understand the connection of thoughts to brains within
the framework of classical physics. This problem becomes radically
transformed, however, once one accepts that the brain is a physical
system. For then, according to the precepts of modern physics, the
brain must in principle be treated as a quantum system. The
classical concepts are known to he grossly inadequate at the
fundamental level, and this fundamental inadequacy of the classical
concepts is not confined to the molecular level: it certainly
extends to large (e.g., brain-sized) systems. Moreover, quantum
theory cannot be coherently understood without dealing in some
detail with the problem of the relationship between thoughtlike
things and brainlike things: some sort of nontrivial considerations
involving our thoughts seems essential to a coherent understanding
of quantum theory.
In this respect quantum theory is wholly unlike classical physics,
in which a human consciousness is necessarily idealized as a non-
participatory observer - - as an entity that can know aspects of the
brain without influencing it in any way. This restriction arises
because classical physics is dynamically complete in itself: it has
no capacity to accomodate any efficacious entities not already
completely fixed and specified within its own structure. In quantum
theory the situation is more subtle because our perceptions of
physical systems are described in a classical language that is
unable to express, even in a gross or approximate way, the
structural complexity of physical systems, as they are represented
within the theory: there is a fundamental structural mismatch
between the quantum mechanical description of a physical system and
our description of our perceptions of that system. The existence of
this structural mismatch is a basic feature of quantum theory, and
it opens up the interesting possibility of representing the
mind/brain, within contemporary physical theory, as a combination of
the thoughtlike and matterlike aspects of a neutral reality.
One could imagine modifying classical mechanics by appending to it
the concept of another kind of reality; a reality that would be
thoughtilke, in the sense of being an eventlike grasping of
functional entities as wholes. In order to preserve the laws of
classical mechanics this added reality could have no effect on the
evolution of any physical system, and hence would not be (publicly)
observable. Because this new kind of reality could have no physical
consequences it could confer no evolutionary advantage, and hence
would have, within the scientific framework, no reason to exist.
This sort of addition to classical mechanics would convert it from a
mechanics with a monistic ontology to a mechanics with a dualistic
ontology. Yet this profound shift would have no roots at all in the
classical mechanics onto which it is grafted: it would be a
completely ad hoc move from a monistic mechanics to a dualistic one.
In view of this apparent logical need to move from monistic
classical mechanics to a dualistic generalization, in order to
accomodate mind, it is a striking fact that physicists have already
established that classical mechanics cannot adequately describe the
physical and chemical processes that underlie brain action: quantum
mechanics is needed, and this newer theory, interpreted
realistically, in line with the ideas of Heisenberg, already is
dualistic. Moreover, the two aspects of this quantum mechanical
reality accord in a perfectly natural way with the matterlike and
thoughtlike aspects of the mind/brain. This realistic
interpretation of quantum mechanics was introduced by Heisenberg not
to accomodate mind, but rather to to keep mind out of physics; i.e.,
to provide a thoroughly objective account of what is happening in
nature, outside human beings, without referring to human observers
and their thoughts. Yet when this dualistic mechanics is applied to
a human brain it can account naturally for the thoughtlike and
matterlike aspects of the mind/brain system. The quantum mechanical
description of the state of the brain is automatically (see below)
an extrinsic-level description, which is the appropriate level for
describing brain correlates of thoughts. Moreover, thoughts can be
identified with events that constitute efficacious choices. They are
integral parts of the quantum mechanical process, rather than
appendages introduced ad hoc to accomodate the empirical fact that
thoughts exist. These features are discussed in the following
sections.
[Sarfatti Note: Very important sentence is "Moreover, thoughts can
be identified with events that constitute efficacious choices."]
To Be Continued
Mark Hammons
Vertner Vergon
I don't believe it. This must be some kind of an ABIAN joke.
If the above is true then the whole country has gone bonkers.
What pure drivel!
For a better world V.V. Model Maker
Tim Sheridan
: Aren't quanta an effect of mind?
Probibally but then a yo-yo is a "quantum effect" (on our minds) too...
All QEs effect other QEs....
John R Crocker
Take a look at "Shadows of the Mind: A Search For a Missing Science of
Consciousness", Roger Penrose's latest book. Perhaps there is validity to
the thesis, at least enough to make one hesitate before dismissing it out
of hand as "drivel". -JRC
B. Flanagan
> What pure drivel!
>
>
Perhaps if you could state your objection in a more precise way ...
Tim Sheridan
: > >Stapp's paper opposes the view represented by Bill Calvin, for
: > >example in http://www.well.com/www/wcalvin/
: > > February 8,1995, LBL-36574
: > >Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness
: > > But Quantum Mechanics Can.
: > > Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
: > > University of California
: > > Berkeley, California 94720
: > > Abstract
: > > It is argued on the basis of certain mathematical
: > >characteristics that classical mechanics is not constitutionally
: > >suited to accomodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics is.
: > >These mathematical characteristics pertain to the nature of the
: > >information represented in the state of the brain, and the way this
: > >information enters into the dynamics.
Scotch tape also requires Quantum mechanics to function too..
What everyone on this QC craze misses is that QM is inherent in the
substance of matter which holds information so it trivial that it is
necessary for consciousness.. QM is necessary for a bicycle to work but
nobody gets funding to say that...
The fact that QM provides good mathamatical models for decriptions of
consciousness is somewhat interesting though.. not for what it says
about consciousness which is realy the most complex simple thing in the
world... The analogues between consciousness and QM are more interesting
for what they tell us about information and quantum mechanical systems..
If you want to understand consciousness just think about somthing for a
moment then look to see what you were not thinking for that moment.
The answer is almost everything.. We are chains of reason. Strings of
matched patterns. Literaly as Willy puts it "the stuff that dreams are
made of"
Anything that can associate by analogy can be conscious..
But we are all judged on just what and how much we are conscious of.
I bet you were'nt thinking that.
Jack Sarfatti
Flanagan" <bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> writes:
>
>In my own work, I have been delighted to discover that it seems to make
a
>good deal of sense (&on a number of fronts) to consider that what we
call
>our visual (auditory, chemical, tactile) field is identically an EM
field
>with Godelian structure--allowing it to "talk about itself."
>
Almost correct but not quite. You got about half of it- but that's
better than most who get none of it!
On the basis of Bohm's nonlocal hidden variable theory one must
distinguish the classical local Maxwell field from its nonlocal wave
function. It all gets mushed together in second quantization - but you
can still distinguish the Hilbert space from the field operators that
create and destroy quanta.
I would say that our qualia is identically the coherent quantum wave
function of the single electron "Eccles Gates" which I suspect are the
single electrons in the alpha-beta boundary of the dimers in
microtubules that control the shape of the dimers, and consequently the
conductive properties of the neuron.
Yes, there is a Godelian structure it is in the essentially nonunitary
(i.e., creative) back-reaction of the Eccles gates on their collective
coherent wave function which is our mind. It is the back reaction that
allows both perception and intent. It is an effective nonunitary
nonlinearity in the Schrodinger equation of the Eccles Gates which also
allows local decoding of useful messages on the nonlocal quantum
connection between the Eccles Gates. All of this violates the
statistical predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics which is only the
unitary linear inanimate limit of a more general theory of the quantum.
Jack Sarfatti
>Literaly as Willy puts it "the stuff that dreams are
>made of"
>
No you got it wrong way round
"dreams are the stuff that matter is made of"
if you believe the Copenhagen interpretation.
On the other hand if you believe Bohm's interpretation, dreams and
matter exist equally objectively side by side in a dualistic
reality. The orthodox quantum mechanics is the approximation that dreams
move matter but matter does not move dreams. The orthodox approximation
is valid when there is no continuous self-measuring so that the time
between measurements is long compared to scale of significant unitary
change of the system. The generalized quantum mechanics of living matter
is essentially nonunitary because there is no time between measurements
in which the open system is isolated. In this case not only do dreams
move matter, but matter acts back and moves dreams.
If you believe many-worlds, it's all a dream.
Bernard Robertson-Dunn
> In <3jof6c$d...@netaxs.com> spa...@netaxs.com (Tim Sheridan) writes:
> >Literaly as Willy puts it "the stuff that dreams are
> >made of"
> No you got it wrong way round
> "dreams are the stuff that matter is made of"
Dreams do not exist, in the same way that Sherlock Holmes, does not
and did not exist.
Dreams may happen to people, that is a different matter (pun intended)
regards
brd
Brian J Flanagan
> : > > Edited for Internet by Jack Sarfatti
> : > >Stapp's paper opposes the view represented by Bill Calvin, for
> : > >example in http://www.well.com/www/wcalvin/
> : > > February 8,1995, LBL-36574
> : > >Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness
> : > > But Quantum Mechanics Can.
> : > > Theoretical Physics Group
> : > > Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
> : > > University of California
> : > > Berkeley, California 94720
> : > > Abstract
> : > > It is argued on the basis of certain mathematical
> : > >characteristics that classical mechanics is not constitutionally
> : > >suited to accomodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics is.
> : > >These mathematical characteristics pertain to the nature of the
> : > >information represented in the state of the brain, and the way this
> : > >information enters into the dynamics.
>
> Scotch tape also requires Quantum mechanics to function too..
That is presumably true & yet many highly educated persons continue to
believe that QM only applies to the micro world.
> What everyone on this QC craze misses is that QM is inherent in the
> substance of matter which holds information so it trivial that it is
> necessary for consciousness.. QM is necessary for a bicycle to work but
> nobody gets funding to say that...
I'm not sure a functionalist would regard this as trivial, tho' I agree
that, in a good sense, it is remarkably simple. I believe the interesting
thing is the notion that mind & matter are both present in the quantum
field. E.g., when you are looking at an apple, you are "seeing" the
photon field which is reflected off the apple & into your eye & retina &
NN... at least, that is what I feel is the exciting possibility.
>
> The fact that QM provides good mathamatical models for decriptions of
> consciousness is somewhat interesting though.. not for what it says
> about consciousness which is realy the most complex simple
I gather you mean "single"?
thing in the world... The analogues between consciousness and QM are more
interesting > for what they tell us about information and quantum
mechanical systems.. > > If you want to understand consciousness just
think about somthing for a > moment then look to see what you were not
thinking for that moment. > The answer is almost everything.. We are
chains of reason.
"We are chains of reason" ... this seems to omit other facets of
consciousness, such as perception, imagination, dreams, etc.,
Strings of matched patterns.
Like vectors, which also describe QM objects.
Literaly as Willy putsit "the stuff that dreams are > made of" >
Literally:"... dreams are made _on_."
> Anything that can associate by analogy can be conscious.. >
This is quite a leap of faith &, I expect, erroneous.
Brian J Flanagan
> In <Pine.A32.3.91.950309...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> "B.
> Flanagan" <bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> writes:
>
> In my own work, I have been delighted to discover that it seems to make
a good deal of sense (&on a number of fronts) to consider that what we
call our visual (auditory, chemical, tactile) field is identically an EM field
with Godelian structure--allowing it to "talk about itself."
> >
>
> Almost correct but not quite. You got about half of it- but that's
> better than most who get none of it!
Thanks, I think. It seems a wee bit presumptuous to say what is "correct"
in these matters at this stage of history.
Not to cavil, (I believe there are large areas of agreement between us,
which is not unimportant) but it is often difficult for me to understand
what you & Stapp are getting at, because (I believe) you assume a great
deal of background on the part of the reader (some of which even I, with
my godlike intellect, do not share) & because you appear to favor a
viewpoint which, while certainly defensible, by no means commands the
assent of our fellow scholars--nor should it, given our current
intellectual milieu. So I am worrying about putting off the many earnest
thinkers who feel there may be something in the "quantum craze" (as Mr.
Sheridan puts it) when they read remarks like "better than most who get
none of it." which sounds like a defensive remark in the first place & an
attempt to put down those who haven't made the long journey you & Stapp &
I have. Yes, it seems rather simple to us, (that may be delusory in
itself) but I can well recall when, not too many years ago, I was still
wrestling with all sorts of concepts which now seem second nature. It
seems to me that it is up to us who feel we have achieved important
insights in these matters to communicate as clearly as we are able to our
fellow scholars how we got there, what we are assuming, what the evidence
is, & so forth (just like good thinkers ought) and refrain from dogmatic
proclamations which are offensive to the spirit of rational inquiry & may
damage our cause by prompting the curious to suppose that this is all
mumbo jumbo & high-sounding speculation. (Whew!) You see that I am in
earnest. I hope I do not sound merely pompous.
>
> On the basis of Bohm's nonlocal hidden variable theory one must
> distinguish the classical local Maxwell field from its nonlocal wave
> function. It all gets mushed together in second quantization - but you
> can still distinguish the Hilbert space from the field operators that
> create and destroy quanta.
>
This, e.g., is unclear to me, and I have been reading Bohm for 10+ years.
What gets all "mushed together"?
> I would say that our qualia is
you mean _are_?
identically the coherent quantum wave function of the single electron
"Eccles Gates"
the whole wave function? or some part of it? or a projection under an
operator? or what? I'm sorry if I sound irritated, but how can you
reasonably expect anyone to understand what you're talking about here?
How do the various qualia become distinct?
which I suspect are the > single electrons in the alpha-beta boundary of
the dimers in > microtubules that control the shape of the dimers, and
consequently the > conductive properties of the neuron. > >
I think the microtubule business is very interesting & worth pursuing,
but again, it is quite speculative at this stage.
Yes, there is a Godelian structure it is in the essentially nonunitary >
(i.e., creative) back-reaction of the Eccles gates on their collective >
coherent wave function which is our mind.
??? How does "nonunitary" become "creative"? Why do you feel the need to
make these kinds of proclamations: "back-reaction of the Eccles gates ...
coherent wave function which is our mind"?
It is the back reaction that >allows both perception and intent.
And how is that, exactly?
It is an effective nonunitary > nonlinearity in the Schrodinger equation
of the Eccles Gates which also > allows local decoding of useful messages
on the nonlocal quantum > connection between the Eccles Gates. All of this
violates the > statistical predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics which
is only the > unitary linear inanimate limit of a more general theory of
the quantum.
I believe we share a number of similar insights, and I do not want to get
bogged down in any hard feelings or bickering, & so beg your indulgence if I
have been unduly harsh, but I do heartily wish you would take the time to
clarify your meaning. I expect you have many demands on your time & I
know that I do not always succeed in getting my point across as well as I
would like, but I do sincerely think the effort would be rewarded.
Sincere regards,
Don Moseley
>
This sounds like an interesting thread.
Can anyone say it in english or post a glossary of terms?
Walter Raisanen
: On 10 Mar 1995, Jack Sarfatti wrote:
[the usual Sarfatti technobabble deleted, small example below]
: >
: > On the basis of Bohm's nonlocal hidden variable theory one must
: > distinguish the classical local Maxwell field from its nonlocal wave
: > function. It all gets mushed together in second quantization - but you
: > can still distinguish the Hilbert space from the field operators that
: > create and destroy quanta.
: I believe we share a number of similar insights, and I do not want to get
: bogged down in any hard feelings or bickering, & so beg your indulgence if I
: have been unduly harsh, but I do heartily wish you would take the time to
: clarify your meaning.
Hoping for clarity from Jack Sarfatti is a fools game.
He is totally around the bend, and has been for twenty years.
Brian J Flanagan
I don't have a glossary of terms yet, but this is my best effort to date
so far as rendering my own results in plain language. Actually, most of
what follows consists of excerpts from the work of others--the which I
have selected for the clarity of the text. Please forgive the somewhat
slapdash method of presentation. This is very much a work-in-progress.
from _Quanta and Consciousness:
Neural Networks, Quantum Field Theory and the Mind/Body Problem_
[click here, nothing much happens Ñ> field symmetric under this operation]
c 1994 Brian Flanagan ¥ 308 Church Street #1 ¥ Iowa City IA 52245 USA ¥
319/358-7403 e-mail: bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
[Abstract: Running Overlays of Physical &Mathematical Arcana, Equations in
bright colors, notes on a scale, matrices, vectors, wave formsÑvoiceovers
in august tones of Vanessa Redgrave & Alistair Cook]
We inquire herein whether the visual field might be identical to a quantum
field with Godelian structure. Color is then interpreted as one of the
additional, "hidden" spatial variables of a supersymmetric stringlike
theory T and/or a Bohmian theory Q, with nonlocal potential. Or a
Kaluza-Klein theory K. (Sounds complicated, don't be fooled:) Theoretical
and practical consequences are then examined both with respect to (a)
traditional philosophical and historical views on the classical mind/body
problem as well as (b) contemporary issues in physics and neuroscience.
Some Help from Our Friends
[Beatles: Here Comes the Sun; shining orb, around which wacky
professors, academic robes like sails, caps awry, in quaint professorial
German & English accents, learned intonations, fly among clouds of
abstractions, winging up to solar system whic h we see as expression of
curvature in Riemannian space-time, normal to plane of ecliptic]
We are accustomed to regarding as real those sense perceptions which are
common to different individuals, and which therefore are, in a measure,
impersonal. The natural sciences, and in particular, the most fundamental
of them, physics, deal with such sense perception.*
Ñ
--Einstein
Similar light produces under like conditions a like sensation of color.**
-ÑHelmholtz
A color is a physical object as soon as we consider its dependence, for
instance, upon its luminous source, upon temperatures, upon spaces, and so
forth.
-ÑMach
If you ask a physicist what is his idea of yellow light, he will tell you
that it is transversal electromagnetic waves of wavelength in the
neighborhood of 590 millimicrons. If you ask him: But where does yellow
come in? he will say: In my picture not at all, but these kinds of
vibrations, when they hit the retina of a healthy eye, give the person
whose eye it is the sensation of yellow.
--Schršdinger
Bohr suggests that thought involves such small amounts of energy that
quantum-theoretical limitations play an essential role in determining its
character . . . And the remarkable point-by-point analogy between the
thought processes and quantum processes would suggest that a hypothesis
relating these two may well turn out to be fruitful.×
-ÑBohm
Report to the Oversight Committee
The mind/body problem is the ancient mystery of how our thoughts and
feelings, our ideas, dreams and perceptions become entangled in the "soggy
gray stuff" which (on one level of analysis) constitutes the brain.
William James, progenitor of pragmatism, referred to this puzzle as the
ultimate of ultimate problems. Wittgenstein, logically enough, dubbed
this really rather profound conundrum the great cosmic knot.
This problem or set of problems, this ultimate source of consternation
has, under various cunning guises and in myriad out-of-the-way places,
exercised the noggins of intellectuals from Greek antiquity to our own
place and time Ñbungling on the brink of t he millenium, third planet from
the sun, you can't miss it. We'll party;)
In the late twentieth century, owing to largely overrated advances in
various disciplines, it may at last be possible to give a good account of
how mind and brain interactÑand indeed of how mind and matter might be
said to form complementary aspects of a single, more fundamental unity.
Our central argument can be put very succintly, though in somewhat
abstract terms. Yet the basic ideas are wonderfully, naturally, elegantly
simpleÑthat is, for us, a major part of their appeal, being somewhat
simple oursel ves.
Thus, e.g., to speak in a suggestive way, we often talk about visual
perception in terms of the visual field. In the work at hand we ask
whether it makes sense to identify sensory fields with the electromagnetic
fields which mediate neural network activ ity.
By way of adding a dash of plausibility to our proposal, we quote Abdus
Salam, who of course made a killing in physics and who reminds us that " .
. . all chemical binding is electromagnetic in origin, and so are all
phenomena of nerve impulses." We race to point out that Salam's remark
typifies the (admittedly rather dim) outlook of current physical theory.
More on the above to followÑthis is the very nut of it (if that is the
expression I want)Ñ] but, briefly, we argue herein that if mental
processes are "phenomena of nerve impulses" and, thus "electromagnetic in
origin", then many of the longstanding puzzl es which go together under
the rubric of the "mind/body problem" might then yield a nugget of
understanding from the alchemy of reason. As it were.
T is not always for time
The theory (T) is to be built on the renovated foundations of three
subsidiary theories:
I quantum field theory (QFT);
II mind/brain identity theory (M/BIT); and the
III mathematics of formal systems (PM).
The above will fall a bit hard on some ears. "Quantum field theory?! (I
can hear them howl:( ) @#*!) Is that not impossibly abstruse, partaking of
that quality of the silence of God whereof it is truly said that it
passeth all understanding?"
Not to worry. We shall do our utmost to provide a plenty of pithy
quotations and pleasing illustrations so that even the casual reader can
grasp the essentials, whilst simultaneously sprinkling, as we go, cogent
argument and goodly detail for the discerni ng specialist. Hold your
applause, please. No, really, it's embarrassing.
What is a field, then? "A field is simply a quantity defined at every
point throughout some region of space and time." (Gerard 't Hooft, Sci Am)
[Illustrate: wheat field, vector field, EM field, technicolor visual
field, to the tune of: O, Beautiful, for Spacious Skies]
In the physics of electrically charged objects a field is a convenient
device for expressing how the force of electro-magnetism is conveyed from
one place to another. All charged particles are supposed to emanate an
electromagnetic field; each particle th en interacts with the sum of all
the fields rather than directly with the other particles.
In quantum mechanics the particles themselves can be represented as
fields. An electron, for example, can be considered a packet of waves with
some finite extension in space. Conversely, it is often convenient to
represent a quantum-mechanical field as if it were a particle. The
interaction of two particles through their interpenetrating fields can
then be summed up by saying the two particles exchange a third particle,
which is called the quantum of the field.
While I'm at it I might as well quote Cushing's "Foundational Problems in
Quantum Field Theory" in Phil. Found of QFT. This will reinforce our
viewpoint, as well as bolster our (largely self-generated) reputation for
scholarly erudition.
In quantum field theory we face the alternative, often opposing, paradigms
of particles vs. fields (or waves). Although Dirac (1927) is often cited
as having established the equivalence of these two interpretations
(Redhead 1983a), the future of quantum f ield theory lay with the field as
the primary entity, the particle aspect being pushed further into the
background . . . The particle concept survives as the quanta of the field
or possibly as 'knots' in the field. It appears simplest and quite
tempting to take the (operator) field . . . as existing everywhere (Dyson
1953) and to see the particles as the associated field quanta, the effects
of which can be detected upon observation.
Since y comes complete with an easy and well-known mathematical structure
which also (I'm sure it's a coincidence) happens to be the same
mathematical structure demanded by the phenomenology of color and sound
and so forth, we shall now spend some time ta lking about y.
We commonly treat quantum systems in terms of their state vectors (y) in
Hilbert space. Can we think of colors as vectors? Let us look at a passage
from Feynman's priceless Lectures on Physics:
The second principle of color mixing of lights is this: any color at all
can be made from three different colors, in our case, red, green, and blue
lights. By suitably mixing the three together we can make anything at all,
as we demonstrated . . . Further , these laws are very interesting
mathematically. For those who are interested in the mathematics of the
thing, it turns out as follows. Suppose that we take our three colors,
which were red, green, and blue, but label them A, B, and C, and call them
our primary colors. Then any color could be made by certain amounts of
these three: say an amount a of color A, an amount b of color B, and an
amount c of color C makes X :
X = a A + b B + c C.
Now suppose another color Y is made from the same three colors:
Y = a' A + b' B + c' C.
Then it turns out that the mixture of the two lights (it is one of the
consequences of the laws that we have already mentioned) is obtained by
taking the sum of the components of X and Y:
Z = X + Y = (a + a')A + (b + b')B + (c + c')C.
It is just like the mathematics of the addition of vectors, where (a,b,c )
are the components of one vector, and (a', b', c' ) are those of another
vector, and the new light Z is then the "sum" of the vectors. This subject
has always appealed to physicist s and mathematicians. In fact:
"Schr o ac(o,¬)dinger wrote a wonderful paper on color vision in which he
developed this theory of vector analysis as applied to the mixing of
colors. " (Lectures I, 35-5,6).
Hilbert Spaces
The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Hughes, pp. 83-4
(Beautifully lucid work, ed.)
The example of classical mechanics shows us that there are possible
representations of physical theories which do not involve Hilbert spaces.
Of course, this doesn't mean that classical mechanics could not be
reformulated in this way. In fact, our stra tegy for providing a partial
answer to the question, "Why Hilbert spaces?" will be to show that the
theory of vectors has very general application. We will take as an example
a particular physical situation and model it mathematically. The situation
will be paradigmatically of the kind with which physical theory deals, but
our description will be general enough to leave open the question of what
sorts of processes, deterministic or indeterministic, are involved.
Similarly, its representation, in terms of vector space, will be general
enough to be employed for a variety of physical theories; the particular
features of quantum mechanics on the one hand, or classical mechanics on
the other, will then appear as additional constraints on these
mathematical st ructures.
The key to the representation is the fact that Pythagoras' theorem, or
its analogue, holds in any vector space equipped with an inner product.
Consider the space R3. For any vector v in R3
V = vx + vy + vz
Here vx vy, and vz are the projections of v onto an orthogonal triple of
rays spanning R3 Ñ or, as we can call them, the axes of our coordinate
system (see figure 3.1).
Pythagoras' theorem tells us that
|vx|2 + |vy|2 + |vz|2 = |v|2
and so, if v is normalized,
|vx|2 + |vy|2 + |vz|2 = 1
Let us now assume that we wish to represent three mutually exclusive
events that together exhaust all possibilities, and that each event has a
certain probability. For instance, if we were to roll a die, the events
might be: x = die shows even number; y = die shows 1; z = die shows 3 or
5. If we use the axes of R3 to represent the events x, y, and z, we can
construct a normalized vector v to represent any probability assignment to
these events.
We simply take vectors vx, vy, and vz along these axes such that
|vx|2 = p(x), |vy|2 = p(y) and |vz| 2 = p(z)
and then add them (vectorially) to yield v.
Since the events x, y, and z are mutually exclusive and jointly
exhaustive, we know that p(x) + p(y) + p(z) = 1 and it follows . . . that
v is normalized.
This almost trivial construction lies at the heart of the use of vector
spaces in physical theory. (Our emphasis).
[Welcome to a dimension of sight & sound: "An object cannot be red and
green all over at the same time": Colors and sounds at x, y, z, t,
"mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive"]
Now here is a curious business. Quantum events are described by vectors.
Colors behave like vectors. Color is reliably associated with those
quantum events which are photons. Neural networks can be modeled by
matrices operating upon input vectors. To spea k in a loose but suggestive
manner, perhaps our networks are doing matrix algebra on
colors/photons/vectors.
Perhaps it makes good sense to wonder whether, with respect to a given
observer or coordinate system, a color vector is projected out of the
complete state vector y in a manner analogous to that in which a position
vector is projected out along an x, y or z axis.
And so: If we superimpose two spectral colors we get a vector sum. It is a
fact of experience that, when we mix blue and yellow lights together we
get green, which lies between blue and yellow in the spectrum. We are
drawn immediately to the fact that the addition of colors obeys the same
law of vector addition as the wave functions which describe photons.
When we superimpose two spectral colors, we describe this situation
physically by adding the state vectors of the photons which (as we say)
excite those colors in our consciousness. And the color which results from
the superposition is the vector sum of t he constituent colors.
And so here, perhaps, we have an instance of a fact of consciousnessÑthe
perceived results of color additionÑmirrored in the mathematical formalism
quantum mechanics. Let us hold fast to this analogy.
OK, skip that bit for now. But allow for the sake of argument that fields
are the universally accepted scientific constructs or pictures or formulae
whereby we make sense of the diverse phenomena of electricity, magnetism,
light, graviation, radiation, an d quite a bit more besides.
We consider that neurons, as biological entities, ought to "reduce" to
their chemical activities, and, therefore, ultimately ought to reduce to
their constituent physical fieldsÑby which we mean simply that we ought to
be able to derive biology from chemi stry and chemistry, in turn, from
physics. In theory you understand. Right.
In fact this "reducibility" business is simply one of many working
assumptions we use here. We choose this approach in an heroic effort to
save time and space, but also because the concepts and ideas put to use
here are well known and chiefly of interest to philosophers and historians
of science who can't get work themselves. Certainly the fundamental claims
of physics ought not to suggest that working physicists are any less
confused than chemists or biologists.
But let there be no rancor among scholars. Happily, the important
principles tasked in the present investigation are so broad and strong
they can be easily understood by genetically engineered intellects on
distant planets.
For those of you among the intellectual peasantry, though: One hears a lot
these days about emergent properties of complex systems from a number of
otherwise respectable sources whose analytical skills have apparently
collapsed. Though we must by now ackn owledge complexity issues, and have
ourselves an abiding personal interest in chaos, there is only room for so
much in an introductory chapter before my fingers get tired of tapping and
so the above bit of dithering will have to do so far as foreshadowing
.
[determinacy, statistics, EPR, Bell, the Aharanov-Bohm effect, holism,
nonlocality, the quantum potential and stuff]
To get back, we want to look at electromagnetic (EM) fields (remember
those?) with a view to what is called supersymmetric (SUSY) string
theoryÑa fascinating topic, as string theory is often viewed by the
standing minority of sober physicists as the first possible realization of
EinsteinÕs dream of a unified theory of all physical phenomena.
String theory (arguably our best field theory) appears to unify all the
known physical forces, but the wonderful deep Riemannian mathematics of
string theory requires a number of extra spatial dimensions, see, so a
nagging problem has been, OK, wise guys,
where are these extra dimensions?
The usual answer has been that perhaps they are all curled up into tiny
subatomic toruses or orbifolds of about the Planck length. Never mind.
[strings and things]
SUSY Strings
"Well, obviously the extra dimensions have to be different somehow because
otherwise we would notice them."
ÑMichael Green
(SuperstringsÑA Theory of Everything?)
The idea of 'many dimensions' has been a common feature of much recent
theoretical speculation, but of course it does pose the intriguing
question of why the extra dimensions are not 'seen' in the ebb and flow of
daily life? This is usually answered by su pposing that they are 'curled
up on themselves' in a very small circle (presumably of Planck length
size). The question of whether the global topological structure of the
extra dimensions is exactly a set of circles, or whether it is something
more comple x, is currently a matter of some debate: but the general idea
seems to work, provided that the extra dimensions are spatial: trying to
have more than one time dimension is not very productive!
ÑChris Isham
"Quantum Gravity" in The New Physics
Now it may be asked why these hidden variables should have so long
remained undetected.
ÑDavid Bohm
("A Suugested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of 'Hidden'
Variables. I.")
Abdus Salam, Unification of fundamental forces (p. 75)
And now we come to the last stage of our quest for unification. Does
gravity also unify with the other forces, giving the final realisation of
Faraday's and Einstein's dream. Here I come back to Dirac's first
criterion. What had stopped this theory even b eing contemplated so far
was the worry regarding the infinities which gravity theory spawns as soon
as any higher-order calculations are made with it. . . .
This Dirac problem apparently has been cured recently by postulating
that the fundamental entities in physics are not point particles but
strings which make up loops of finite size of Planck length. These strings
vibrate in modes like the violin string s and give rise to spins zero, 1
h, . . . and, in the supersymmetric versions, in addition, to spins. . .
Physics would change its paradigm once again with the fundamental
entities no longer appearing as point particles but as tiny strings. The
mathematics which is needed is the mathematics of 2-dimensional Riemann
surfaces; four-dimensional space and time
arise as secondary concepts.
There are a number of physical requirements which should be satisfied by
a string theory:
(a) All source particles (quarks and leptons) plus messengers (like
gluons, photons, W+, Z0) plus Higgs of the Standard Model should be
comprised within this framework;
(b) It should be a geometrical theory since it must contain Einstein's
theory of gravity as part;
(c) It should describe gravity without any infinities.
To achieve these three conditions would be a miracle, but this miracle
seems to be happening, at least in 10-dimensional space-time where a
unique superstring theory seems to have emerged, following the work of
Green and Schwarz, in the autumn of 1984. The important point is that
Einstein's theory of gravity does emerge as a special subunit of the
string theory. . . .
The desirable space-time which emerges from this unique string theory was,
as I said, ten dimensional. A Kaluza-Klein-like compactification of six
space dimensions would then require a descent to the four dimensions of a
realistic space-time. (Our empha sis)
Witten, "Search for a Realistic Kaluza-Klein Theory", in Modern K-K
Theories
While the Kaluza-Klein approach has always been one of the most intriguing
ideas concerning unification of gauge fields with general relativity, it
has languished because of the absence of a realistic model with
distinctive and testable predictions. Yet t he urgency of the unification
of gauge fields with general relativity has surely greatly increased with
the growing importance of gauge fields in physics. Moreover, the
Kaluza-Klein theory has generalizations to non-abelia gauge fields which
were first pr oposed [6] well before real applications were known for
Yang-Mills fields in physics. In the past few years this approach has been
revived by Scherk and Schwarz and by Cremmer and Scherk, originally in
connection with dual models [7]. These authors introduced many new ideas
as well as new focus. In contrast to much of the classical literat ure,
they advocated that the extra dimensions should be regarded as true,
physical dimensions, on a par with the four observed dimensions.
(a few paragraphs down, after a brief sketch of "compactification" via
"spontaneous breakdown of the vacuum symmetry")
. . . Some of the early work was motivated by the hope that the fifth
dimension could provide the hidden variables that would eliminate
indeterminacy from quantum mechanics.
[first I heard of the connection being made in the literature]
. . . As discussed by some of the authors mentioned above, from a modern
point of view the Kaluza-Klein unified theory of gravitation and
electromagnetism is probably best understood as a theory of spontaneous
symmetry breaking in which the group of gener al coordinate
transformations in five dimensions is spontaneously broken to the product
of the four-dimensional general coordinate transformation group and a
local U(1) gauge group.
(sketch of mathematical K-K theory)
The Kaluza-Klein theory thus unifies the metric tensor gmn and a gauge
field Am into the unified structure of five-dimensional general
relativity. This theory is surely one of the most remarkable ideas ever
advanced for unification of electromagnetism and gravitation.
(Our emphases)
[G field=acceleration field/curvature=field strength;
change-of-phase/change of state/change of color Ñ> change of y; (8/26/94))
In the work at hand we wonder whether these extra dimensions of string
theory are, as it were, not hidden, but right in front of our eyes.
We suggest that properties like colors and sounds ought to be considered
as candidates to fill the extra spatial dimensions which string theory
requires.
Can color really be a dimension? Let us note for the moment that all
(geometric/spatial) areas of the visual field are colored. Is it so with
the associated (identical?) physical field? Color intersects areas and
volumes of our visual fields in a projecti ve x, y, z, over t space-time.
A sound similarly always has some "volume". What is the exact relation
between the flux of photons and the stream of consciousness? In the case
of vision and the other senses, both photon field and perceptual field can
both be described very well by . . . , well, fields. But these are deep
questions which raise many another in their wake and so let us skip over
it for now and give the whole mess its own chapter later.
It may be objected further that this proposal is a bit of a novelty in the
history of science. Colors and sounds are traditionally considered
"sensations" or "mental" phenomena. Yet, as Mach understood, these mental
things behave very much like physical t hings. Isn't that interesting? So,
is "red" a mental thing or a physical thing? And what do we mean by red?
And why ought we to bother ours heads about this business anyway?
Well, what if it should turn out that colors and sounds and so forth are
indeed the sought-for additional dimensions of string theory (or, more
generally, Kaluza-Klein theory, or even (eegad!) hidden variables theory?)
It seems clear, after a moment's reflection, that colors and sounds
parameterize observed eventsÑand indeed of something like Minkowski's
geometric sense of "event"; for we can easily extend our arguments to
Einstein's trains or space shipsÑi. e., the col or of an object may not
betray whether it be in a gravitational field or in acceleration due to
other forces.
Similarly, for a specified observer (that word again) the primitive,
undefined colors and sounds of our immediate consciousness Doppler in or
outÑtheir associated waves rising or falling in frequency, energy &
wavelength but also changing color and sound in a perfectly regular,
mechanical fashion.
Other considerations flowing from relativistic considerations are there to
be had, we believe, but that would take us too far afield from our main
intent herein. And besides, it makes my head swim.
What actually happens to the state vector of the photon when it is
red-shifted? Does not the photon undergo a change of phase (gauge)?
Cao, Gauge Theory
The last development in fundamental physics which is relevant to this
paper is superstring field theories, which have evolved since 1980 from
the spinning string model of hadrons originally developed in the early
1970s. . .
Just as in the original spinning string model, superstring also requires
ten-dimensional space-time. So, to be of relevance to physics, the extra
six dimensions must compactify and be very small. . .
From the above brief review, we find there are three versions of
geometrization of non-gravitational gauge interactions:
1. Fibre-bundle version, in which the gauge interactions are correlated
with the geometrical structures of internal space. Since it is possible to
get a non-trivial fusion of space-time with internal space, the gauge
interactions also have some indirec t relation with space-time geometry.
But the essence of the internal space is still a vexing problem: Is it a
physical reality as real as space-time, or just a mathematical structure?
(Our emphasis)
2. Kaluza-Klein version, in which extra space dimensions which
compactify in low-energy experiments are introduced and the gauge
symmetries by which the forms of gauge interactions are fixed are just the
manifestation of the geometrical symmetries of t he compactified space.
Here the mediator between the gauge interactions and the space-time
geometry is no longer the vexing internal space but the real though
compactified extra space dimensions. The assumption of the reality of the
compactified space is substantial and is in principle testable, although
its ad-hoc-ness makes it difficult to differentiate it from the internal
space in the fibre-bundle version.
3. Superstring version, in which the introduction of extra compactified
space dimensions is due to different considerations from just reproducing
the gauge symmetry. Therefore, the properties and structures of the
compactified dimensions are totally di fferent from those in the
Kaluza-Klein version. For example there is no symmetry in the compact
dimensions from which the gauge symmetries emerge; the gauge interactions
are correlated with the geometrical structure of ten-dimensional
space-time as a whol e but not just with the extra dimensions.]
We urge that, after a good deal of thought and reflection an
identification of color and sound etc., with spatial variable seems less
daft after all and perhaps even downright sensible.
All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to the
answer to the question, "What are light quanta?" Of course today every
rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.
ÑEinstein
Then again, it might seem to follow that the manipulation of these
additional variables (these "hidden" variables) (if they exist) might have
interesting and novel effects on the evolution of physical events,
extending down to the realm of the nuclear, wh ich effects, were we able
to control, might then yield new kinds of energetic technologiesÑto wit,
bigger and better weapons of mass destruction wherewith to rescue our
collective ass from foreign aggressorsÑor perhaps merely to impose our
just and holy w ill on unsuspecting neighbors. The which (at these rates)
is as far as we are willing to go to taint the purity of our science. Then
again I suppose we could maybe design better prostheses Ñhelp the lame to
walk, the blind to see sort of thing. We might b uild sentient . . .
entities . . . combining something like our present imaging technology and
fusing it with neural net hardware with holographic (nonlocal) memory.
See?
In this essay we make much of the fact that colors and sounds (e.g.,)
intersect the space-time coordinates of our visual and aural fields in
regular, known, predictable ways.
A speck in the visual field, though it need not be red must have some
colour; it is, so to speak, surrounded by colour-space. Notes must have
some pitch, objects of the sense of touch some degree of hardness, and so
on.
ÑWittgenstein
Thanks for those words, Lud. Now, then: the extra dimensions of string
theory are presently unaccounted for by physical theory. So are colors and
sounds and so forth. both classes of entitiesÑthe extra dimensions of
string theoretic fields as well as the elements of our sensory
fieldsÑintersect space-time in a regular, predictable manner. The extra
dimensions of string theory are spatial in character. The secondary
propertiesÑcolor & sound and so forthÑfill the spaces of our perceptions.
more on strings
It is standard theory that the extra dimensions of string theory ought to
intersect the usual four dimensional space-time continuum.
[Cao, Gauge Theory
The last development in fundamental physics which is relevant to this
paper is superstring field theories, which have evolved since 1980 from
the spinning string model of hadrons originally developed in the early
1970s. . .
Just as in the original spinning string model, superstring also requires
ten-dimensional space-time. So, to be of relevance to physics, the extra
six dimensions must compactify and be very small. . .
From the above brief review, we find there are three versions of
geometrization of non-gravitational gauge interactions:
1. Fibre-bundle version, in which the gauge interactions are correlated
with the geometrical structures of internal space. Since it is possible to
get a non-trivial fusion of space-time with internal space, the gauge
interactions also have some indirec t relation with space-time geometry.
But the essence of the internal space is still a vexing problem: Is it a
physical reality as real as space-time, or just a mathematical structure?
(Our emphasis)
2. Kaluza-Klein version, in which extra space dimensions which
compactify in low-energy experiments are introduced and the gauge
symmetries by which the forms of gauge interactions are fixed are just the
manifestation of the geometrical symmetries of t he compactified space.
Here the mediator between the gauge interactions and the space-time
geometry is no longer the vexing internal space but the real though
compactified extra space dimensions. The assumption of the reality of the
compactified space is substantial and is in principle testable, although
its ad-hoc-ness makes it difficult to differentiate it from the internal
space in the fibre-bundle version.
3. Superstring version, in which the introduction of extra compactified
space dimensions is due to different considerations from just reproducing
the gauge symmetry. Therefore, the properties and structures of the
compactified dimensions are totally di fferent from those in the
Kaluza-Klein version. For example there is no symmetry in the compact
dimensions from which the gauge symmetries emerge; the gauge interactions
are correlated with the geometrical structure of ten-dimensional
space-time as a whol e but not just with the extra dimensions.
Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?
John Schwarz:
If we knew what that six-dimensional space looked like we would be in a
great position for calculating all sorts of things that we want to know.
This may sound surprising. After all, as I have already said, this space
is completely invisible because it's too tiny to observe directly. As it
turns out the details of its geometry and topology actually play a crucial
role in determining the properties of observable particles at observable
energies.
Edward Witten:
I don't think we can expect to understand definitively how the extra
dimensions curl themselves up without understanding a little better what
string theory is really all about.
Einstein developed general relativity at a time when the basic ideas in
geometry that he needed had already been developed in the nineteenth
century. It's been said that string theory is part of the physics of the
twenty-first century that fell by chanc e into the twentieth century.
That's a remark that was made by a leading physicist about fifteen years
ago. What he meant was that human beings on planet Earth never had the
conceptual framework that would lead them to invent string theory on
purpose. Str ing theory was invented essentially by accident in a long
sequence of events, starting with the Veneziano model that was formulated
in 1968. No one invented it on purpose, it was a lucky accident. By
rights, twentieth century physicists shouldn't have had the priviledge of
studying this theory. . . .
What should have happened, by rights, is that the correct mathematical
structures should have been developed in the twenty-first or twenty-second
century, and then finally physicists should have invented string theory as
a physical theory that is made p ossible by those structures. If that had
happened, then the first physicists working with string theory would have
known what they were doing perhaps, just like Einstein knew what he was
doing when he invented general relativity. That would have perhaps b een a
normal way for things to happen but it wouldn't have given twentieth
century physicists the chance to work on this fascinating theory.
Michael Green:
I'm sympathetic to the view that these theories are at present very remote
from being able to explain directly what is measured experimentally in
accelerator laboratories. Given the fact that they are so very different
from previous kinds of theories, the n they ought to predict some entirely
new sort of phenomenon that we haven't even thought of measuring. It was
only after Einstein had formulated general relativity that he understood
which phenomena that could be measured, would test the theory. The prec
ession of the perihelion of the planet Mercury was already known, but it
wasn't until Einstein came up with general relativity that it was realized
that this peculiar anomaly was of fundamental importance. So what we need
in superstring theory is the anal ogue of the planet Mercury. Some
distinctive piece of experimental evidence that might already be known but
hasn't struck anyone as being important because no one realizes that it's
of relevance to testing a fundamen-tal theory. (Our emphasis)
Charges as internal spaces; electron charge; photon as bearer of EM force
Ñ> how to move in space-time; secondaries as geometric spaces;
Ne'eman: "The Spectrum-Generating Groups Program and the String"
Erwin Schrodinger used the calculus. Following the great
nineteenth-century classicists, he was an analytical dynamicist. His most
important contribution to science is a differential equation. It was a
genius' inspired guess. It offered a wave eq uation that might govern the
behavior of a hypothetical matter wave, postulated by that French
aristocrat, Prince Louis V. de Broglie, in his doctoral thesis (de
Broglie, five years younger than Schrodinger, has just died in
this centennial year) . What happened to Schrodinger's equation
and to the interpretation of that wave function, its relevance to reality,
its "collapse" upon being observed ("natural timidity"!)Ñthis is the story
of quantum mechanics, the most profound and yet the mo st puzzling of
physical theories.
The subject matter of this article consists in a different way of
handling the set of solutions of Schrodinger's equation and of
its relativistic improvements. Rather than using analysis, we apply group
theory, i.e., an algebraic approach. Indee d, the equivalence between the
two approaches is related to some of the most beautiful and fundamental
correspondences that have been recently understood to bridge these two
"continents" of mathematics, previously regarded as entirely separate.
What follows is a brief and witty sketch of the rise of group theory which
we omit with some regret. The relevant names are Galois, Darboux, Lie,
Felix Klein, Jordan, Hilbert and Noether. Concerning Emmy Noether, though:
She did some good work in invariant theory at Erlangen and was invited to
Gottingen by Klein . . . and David Hilbert (1862-1943). It was as a result
of working with the latter, especially after his involvement with general
relativity, that she set on the investigation of the role of symmetry
groups in physics in the most general terms.
She read her two theorems in 1918, and Klein stressed their standing as
extending the Erlanger program to physics. In her first theorem, she
showed how the invariance of the action (or of the Lagrangian,
Hamiltonian, or, in more modern terms, of the sca ttering matrix, path
integral, etc. . .) under the action of a finite Lie group implied the
conservation of a set of "charges" corresponding to the group's
infinitesimal generator algebra.
. . .
The charge-current density fulfills a continuity equation,
¶mjm = 0
The inverse theorem holds under certain conditions. Emmy Noether's second
theorem refers to invariance under a Lie group with locally (in
space-time) dependent parameters, i.e., an infinite Lie group of a
particular type, such as our present gauge groups or Einstein's
diffeomorphisms, etc. She showed that this implied Bianchi-like
identities,
DR i = 0 (5a)
where R i are the "curvatures" or field strengths,
Ri = dwi - f(1,2) (w Ù w)i (5b)
here d is the exterior derivative of the Cartan calculus, Ù the symbol for
exterior multiplication, and wiMi = w is a Lie algebra-valued connection.
. . .
Elie Joseph Cartan (1869-1951) and Herman Weyl (1885-1955) developed the
theory of Lie groups and of their representations so as to make them into
a useful practical tool in physics. Cartan also improved on our
understanding of the structural equations of differential manifolds. The
BRST equations that we have been using in physics to guarantee unitarity
in gauge theories, in gravity, supergravity, and in the latest string or
superstring theories are in every case the Cartan-Maurer structural
equations of the relevant manifolds. . . . Weyl understood the enhanced
importance of the algebraic view in the new quantum mechanics. In his
introduction to the first (1928) edition of his book "The Theory of Groups
and Quantum Mechanics," he writes: . . . it can justly be maintained that
the essence of the new Heisenberg-Schrodinger-Dirac quantum
mechanics is to be found in the fact that there is associated with each
physical system a set of quantities, constituting a noncommutative algebra
. . . the elements of which are the physical quantities themselves. . . .
. . . After all, our very definition of a particle or metastable nuclear
state is based on its classification as the carrier of a definite
representation of the PoincarŽ group . . .]
The spatial aspect of the physical continuum, its geometryÑthese are
arguably abstracted largely from our visual experience. Which is to say,
our knowledge of the visual field.
Perhaps in discussing the visual field we are describing an n-dimensional
physical field. And so, perhaps, Wigner's "unreasonable efficacy of
mathematics" [get exact ""] with respect to the physical world. Let's take
a breather and meanwhile haul in some heavy machinery. What is a quantum
field theory, really?
[Atiyah, Michael F., who generally has the final word, says in his"A New
Knot Invariant II: Topological Quantum Field Theory and the Jones
Polynomial" in TQFTs & Geom/Loop Spaces, p. 12]
A topological QFT is a functor which assigns a complex vector space HS (or
Z(S) using a different notation) to every surface S, and a vector Z(Y) in
H¶Y to every 3-manifold Y. We can refine this theory by taking marked
points P1, . . . , Pr on S and l1, . . .,lr representations of the group
G.
Now, then: the extra dimensions of string theory ought to intersect the
usual 3D + 1 space-time axes (the axes of a suitable Hilbert space?)
revealed by our perceptual experience and given a good account in the
special and general theories of relativity.
[relativity & QM: unification, K-K]
Colors intersect the space-time coordinates of our visual space-time: A
sphere in the visual field may be red, it may be blue. It must be some
color or colors and to the extent that the sphere is perceived, the sphere
is perceived as extended in (visual) space and enduring in time.
So! Here are a few empty places in the great big jigsaw puzzle of the
universe. Here, on the other hand, are a few missing pieces. Do we have a
fit?
Consider that lights of different phase interfere so as to produce, in a
perfectly (quantum) mechanical fashion, bright and dark areas (of an
observable, repeatable, predictable color) at x, y, z, t. Together with
the manifestly vectorial character of co lor, we take as a central clue
the fact that color is observed in mathematically precise relation to
space-time via the wave (vector) mechanics of photons.
And this in a way that Fourier might have approved! Is this a deal, or
what?
Among the properties of light (and indeed of all matter and energy) are
its phase or gauge characteristics. A photon which is red-shifted by a
receding source (or by a gravitational field!) undergoes a phase change in
its internal space relative to a give n observer.
The so-called gauge group of EM is that of a circle, U(1). The colors of
the visible spectrum, when arranged on Newton's circle, yield the group
structure of color addition and multiplication. So this is all rather
pregnant with interest. The state vecto r y is rotated in a manner that is
accounted for by the mathematics of QFT (the quantum potential Am !) in
gauge theory or fiber bundle theory.
We shall have more to say about all this later on, for those souls to whom
the mathematics offers delight and revelation: It has been one of the
great dawning realizations of the twentieth century that symmetry
relations appear to govern all physical phen omena, informing a highly
successful branch of mathematical physics which goes by the name of gauge
field theory. We sound another theme here; we want to know how the
symmetries of color and sound relate to the action of the universe.
[action, path, dynamics, Feynmann diagrams]
That these are vital points may be understood when we consider the
following passages from Pierre RamondÕs classic text field theory and
Steven WeinbergÕs Dirac essay Towards the final laws of physics: First,
Ramond.
It is a most beautiful and awe-inspiring fact that all the fundamental
laws of Classical Physics can be understood in terms of one mathematical
construct called the Action. It yields the classical equations of motion,
and analysis of its invariances leads
to quantities conserved in the course of the classical motion. In
addition, as Dirac and Feynman have shown, the Action acquires its full
importance in Quantum Physics.
And now, Weinberg:
Furthermore, and now this is the point, this is the punch line, the
symmetries determine the action. This action, this form of the dynamics,
is the only one consistent with these symmetries . . . This, I think, is
the first time that this has happened in a dynamical theory: that the
symmetries of the theory have completely determined the structure of the
dynamics, i.e., have completely determined the quantity that produces the
rate of change of the state vector with time.
Our central concernÑaside from having one offÑ is the relation of mind and
matter on the quantum level. Which might be framed like this:
We ask whether the symmetries of color and the other secondary properties
of sound and temperature and so forth contribute to the QM action, and
thereby contribute to the evolution of the state vector y of the
mind/brain? But what does this mean?
[v. Neumann, Churchland; Hilbert space for QM, phase space of mental
states]
But let us take a step back now and take a breather from all this heavy
stuff to gain some perspective and so both clarify and amplify our thesis.
We want to relate visual fields to quantum fields. But visual fields are
typically considered mental things, whereas quantum fields are thought of
as physical things. We need to slow down and have a careful look at a
number of issues, including what is ca lled mind/brain identity theory.
An identity theorist holds that, at some level of its structure and
operation, the brain is identical to the mind; we argue that, if the
matter (or energy) of the brain resides in the field, then perhaps the
field is where the mind lives as well.
Since discussions of mind are notoriously slippery, herein we want to make
an appeal to formal mathematics and neural network theory in order to keep
some degree of rigor in view. Unto this same end of making our ideas
clear, we shall strive to keep in mi nd the fact that sensory perception
is regular, orderly and predictable. Thus, we get up in the morning and
things generally look, sound and taste pretty much the way they always do.
An apple looks like a red, roundish thing. Your sister sounds like your
sister (at least, she did last night:)
What we are saying here is that saying "red is the same today as tomorrow"
is like saying "the mass of an electron is the same tomorrow as it is
today", (here or there or anywhere) and that, to use the physicist's
language, properties such as mass or char ge (or color) are invariant or
symmetric under translations in space and time. They are among the
ontologist's "universals".
[Geometry/optics: covariant/symmetric under change of color]
We assert that the secondary properties of nature (color, sound, etc.,)
ought to find a natural place in the mathematical formalism of our
science.
Major point: By placing the secondary properties among the elements of our
theory, we reproduce one of the enduring and most-remarked features of
color and sound and so forthÑthe fact that we cannot define them in terms
of simpler entities.
To recapitulate, then: We think of mental processes as brain functions. We
are identity theorists who characterize the brain as a set of quantum
fields. We ask if it makes good sense to think of the visual field as a
quantum field. However, since physics as presently constituted has no
referent for color, we consider whether color might then occupy the extra
spatial dimensions which string theoryÑor, more generally, Kaluza-Klein or
even "hidden variables" theoryÑrequires.
This kind of identification, of color and sound with dimension, has a
series of well-known precedents. Indeed, the scientific era was, if not
born, then surely given a vigorous whack on the bottom when Newton showed
that the force which holds the moon and planets in orbit is the very same
force which pulls an apocryphal apple to the existential ground. This was
the first great unification in scienceÑto show that these diverse
phenomena result from a single influence.
Daytime television was foretold when Maxwell demonstrated that light,
electricity and magnetism are unified in those equations which bear his
name. Electron beams excite phosphors on a screen which then emit photons
of characteristic (eigen) frequency, wa velength, energy and color.
The trend toward unification has accelerated in the twentieth century with
EinsteinÕs discovery that matter and energy are but two aspects of a more
fundamental unity, as expressed in the most celebrated equation of our
time: E=mc2.
Again, there was EinsteinÕs realization that space and time are aspects of
a more fundamental object, the space-time continuum.
Further, there was deBroglie's realization that all matter has both wave
and particle propertiesÑone of the most profound insights of quantum
mechanics.
More recently, the ideas of Kaluza and Klein have been revived by Green,
Schwarz, Witten, Neveu, Ramond, et al., in the context of string
theoryÑwidely acknowledged as the first possible realization of Einstein's
dream of a unified field theory. In string theory all particles are
represented as miniscule vibrating one-dimensional objects propagating in
a space-time of N dimensions (10 is the current favorite for the value of
N).
Here we invoke the old idea that mind and matter are dual aspects of a
deeper unity, and reflect on whether this philosophical position (which
has been supported by Leibniz, William James, Bertrand Russell and god
knows how many Buddhists) might find an e xact expression, a
scientifically precise formulation in modern field theory. Indeed, the
Gestalt school of psychologists suspected something like this decades ago,
but we would really like to make these ideas work with respect to a more
nearly rigorous f ormulation of the relevant physics. Paradigm Revisited
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual . . .
ÑT. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
First enter the stream of consciousness. What precisely is the mind/body
problem?
William James, who has been accused of writing too well to be a proper
philosopher, had this to say:
Mental and physical events are, on all hands, admitted to present the strongest contrast in the entire field of being . . .
The nature and hidden causes of ideas will never be unravelled till the
nexus between the brain and consciousness is cleared up. All we can say
now is that the sensations are first things in the way of consciousness.
Before conceptions can come, sensa tions must have come; but before
sensations come, no psychic fact need have existed, a nerve-current is
enough . . .
The ultimate of ultimate problems, of course, in the study of the
relations of thought and brain, is to understand why and how such
disparate things are connected at all . . . We must find the minimal
mental fact whose being reposes directly on a brain -fact; and we must
similarly find the minimal brain event which will have a mental
counterpart at all. (Our emphasis)
Coincidentally, the last quoted sentence above is what this little essay
is really all about.
Major point: Taking the visual field as representative of mental
phenomena, we treat color as a "minimal mental fact" which is identical to
a "minimal brain event" where both are identical to a spatial dimension of
string theoryÑand perhaps equal as well to what is called a quantum
mechanical "hidden variable".
Let us go slowly and build our case a little at a time. In order to make
our ideas intellectually visible, we need to take a careful look at our
premises and reasoning. One does not go about revising the ontology of
physics in a blithe and careless manner . Well, maybe you do.
It should be noted in passing that not a few scientists of the present age
are inclined toward an historically odd notion with regard to philosophy;
it is not uncommon today to hear otherwise learned persons (whom we will
quote when it suits us) disparage philosophy for being "unreasonably
inefficacious" with respect to science. Typically such persons are simply
ignorant of the literature, but their influence is such that Abner
Shimony, one of our most brilliant contributors to the foundations of
physical theory, feels a need to defend such of his assertions as may be
"philosophical". Well, one diatribe leads gleefully to another.
[Excerpts: Shimony, Hanna Arendt, Weinberg, Snow]
The wretched irony of all this (from our comfortably Olympian point of
view) professional backbiting is that the progress of physics has lately
been stymied by wholesale ignorance on both sidesÑthat of complacent
scientists with respect to the metaphysic al foundations of their own
subject as well as that of philosophers for what remains, after all,
natural philosophy. Don't even get me started on engineers. But! Voids we
now mean to fill in our patient fashion.
So what do we mean when we say ÒmentalÓ or ÒphysicalÓ?
[Jammer]
We typically think of rocks and trees and stars as physical things,
whereas ideas, thoughts, dreams and perceptions are regarded as belonging
to the mind. Yet the mind depends on the brain and sensory organs: If the
eyes do not work properly, visual perce ption fails. We commonly take a
couple (physical) aspirin to cure a (mental) ache. On the other hand, we
commonly believe that our (mental) thoughts and feelings influence the
behavior of our (physical) bodies. One whose actions appear to have no
clear pu rpose, whose words would seem to signify nothing, is said to be
"mindless".
[Gratuitous joke]
So mind and body seem to be connected, yoked together, intimately coupled.
Yet mind and body are generally conceived to have different natures,
different properties or qualities.
What are these properties?
In the realm of sensation there are two classes of said qualities or
properties, and they have come to be called primary and secondary.
For many intents and all major purposes, one may think of primary
qualities or properties as the selfsame physical properties of physical
science or the "observables" of classical quantum mechanics, what we, in
our time, might call space-time and/or its f ield quantities.
This division of the world of sensory perception into two categories,
primary and secondary, this bifurcation is deeply embedded in our culture
and indeed is often traced back to Aristotle and Democritus. This
cartesian duality of the properties given to us by experience has attained
the status of dogma in the scientific era thanks largely to Galileo,
Newton, Locke and Descartes. As with all parents, their good intentions
have resulted in chaos and confusion in the lives of their children. No
doubt they d id what they could.
[Start the Way Back Machine, Sherman]
Locke made the distinction clear and explicit in that way he had.
These I call original or primary qualities of the body, which I think we
may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz., solidity, extension,
figure, motion or rest, and number. Secondly, such qualities which in
truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various
sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk, figure,
texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colour, sounds, tastes,
e tc., these I call secondary qualities.
(Our emphases, ed.)
Locke seems to have been cashing in on the discoveries of Newton and
Galileo, who found they could give an account of the motions of planets
and pendulums by:
(1) quantifying their primary properties ("solidity, extension,
figure") and relating these quantities by algebraic/geometric laws;
(2) relegating the secondary properties ("colors, sounds") to the
mindÑ sweeping them under the rug of metaphysics.
As children we learn that Newton broke up white light into its constituent
colors with his prism. The fact that differently colored lights follow
different paths through the prism is certainly very suggestive, on the
present view. To remind our reader:
We are attempting to show that the symmetries of color help to determine
the action of photons, and, hence, the paths they take in space-time.
[light thru prism/spectral colors; acceleration, G = curvature of
space-time/Doppler shift; relativity; Q, Bohm]
Historically, however, it has long been held that such properties as color
do not belong to the physical world. Color, as well as sounds, tactile
sensations, heat and coldÑthese have long been regarded as mental effects
of physical stimuli. As Galileo put it: "Hence I think that these tastes,
odours, colours, etc., on the side of the object in which they seem to
exist, are nothing else than mere names, but hold their residence solely
in the sensitive body . . . "
Or, we find in Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy (ch. XXV, sec. 2) "Sense . .
., in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of the internal
parts of the sentient". (Lockwood) Now, David Hume, whom we all revere,
rightly objected to the above, sa ying:
The opinions of the antient philosophers, their fictions of substance and
accident, and their reasonings concerning occult qualities, are like the
spectres in the dark, and are deriv'd from principles, which however
common, are neither universal nor unavo idable in human nature. The modern
philosophy pretends to be entirely free from this defect, and to arise
only from the solid, permanent, and consistent principles of the
imagination. Upon what grounds this pretension is founded must now be the
subject o f our enquiry.
The fundamental principle of that philosophy is the opinion concerning
colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat and cold; which it asserts to be
nothing but impressions in the mind, deriv'd from the operation of
external objects, and without any resemblanc e to the qualities of the
objects.
. . . This principle being once admitted, all other doctrines of that
philosophy seem to follow by an easy consequence. For upon the removal of
sounds, colours, heat, cold, and other sensible qualities, from the rank
of continu'd independent existences [e cho to contemporary discussions of
realism in QM, ed.] , we are reduced merely to what are called primary
qualities, as the only real ones,of which we have any adequate notion.
These primary qualities are extension and solidity, with their different
mixtures and modifications; figure, motion, gravity and cohesion. The
generation, encrease, decay and corrupt ion of animals and vegetables, are
nothing but changes of figure and motion; as also the operations of all
bodies on each other; of fire, of light, water, air, earth, and of all the
elements and powers of nature . . .
Thus there is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and senses
. . . When we reason from cause and effect, we conclude, that neither
colour, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent
existence. When we exclude these sensible qual ities there remains nothing
in the universe, which has such an existence. (Our emphases)
[Leap forward in time to QM/S, realism, Bell, EPR]
C. S. Sherrington outlines the resulting scientific paradigmÑand what is
for its central difficulty:
For instance a star which we perceive. The energy scheme deals with it,
describes the passing of radiation thence into the eye, the little light
image of it formed at the bottom of the eye, the ensuing photochemical
action in the retina, the trains of act ion potentials travelling along
the nerve to the brain, the further electrical disturbance in the brain,
the action potentials streaming thence to the muscles of eyeballs and of
the pupil, the contraction of them sharpening the light image and placing
the best seeing part of the retina under it. The best 'seeing'? That is
where the energy scheme forsakes it. It tells us nothing of any 'seeing'.
Everything but that.
[Connected to observer problem? Wigner v. Bell]
Just so. We want to see whether we can identify mind and matter, and
'seeing' is normally thought of as a mental process. But this 'seeing' is
intimately connected to the physical EM fields which mediate the
biochemistry of eye and brain. Remember Schršdi nger, though:
[Schršdinger's wave packet]
If you ask a physicist what is his idea of yellow light, he will tell you
that it is transversal electromagnetic waves of wavelength in the
neighborhood of 590 millimicrons. If you ask him: But where does yellow
come in? he will say: In my picture not at all, but these kinds of
vibrations, when they hit the retina of a healthy eye, give the person
whose eye it is the sensation of yellow.
Thanks, Irwin. We postulate an identity between the visual field and a
subset of those fields which are the brain.
So where in the (physical) EM fields are the (mental) colors?
And what is the cash value of all this, anyway? In our time machine vision
is a very hot topic, with heaps of your tax money spent on its
development. Yet we proceed in the absence of a theory adequate to the
task of guiding our researches. Without color, we would see nothing. But
color is all but excluded from physical science. Its presence there almost
a kind of afterthought.
Machine vision may be understood as an attempt to replicate biological
vision, wherein EM energy, quantized as photons, enters the eye and sets
in motion processes which culminate in observed patterns of color.
Nevertheless our science has no agreed-upon place, at present, for these
colors. Curiously, our (differential) geometry is generally considered
adequate to the description of spatial patterns changing in time but not
the colors which everywhere intersect the space of visual patterns at all
times.
[Contrary to what is empirically the caseÑcontent of empiricismÑmission of
science to account for orderliness of sense impressions v. Leibniz]
This is especially curious when one considers the canonical equations of
EM theory.
Again, we ask whether it makes sense to assign such properties as color
and sound to the additional spatial dimensions of string theory. We ask
(what is a related question) whether we can reasonably identify the
secondary properties with the (internal? no nlocal?) hidden variables of
QM.
We argue that natural vision might be understood as a Gšdelian formal
structure on those field processes which constitute biological networks.
Now, this is quite a lot to take on. QED alone is certainly a discipline
with which to reckon. What could possibly motivate its study by those
outside theoretical physics? Then, too, we have brought in such terms as
supersymmetric (SUSY) strings, Gšdelian , hidden variables and the like.
The happy few who are already familiar with these notions will have
already grasped the sense of what is being said here; these erudite souls
will seek a more thorough explication of that sense. Those for whom all
this ter minology presents a vexation and a bewilderment are urged to
remain calm. For behold, they shall be enlightened.
Once again, we are arguing that mind and brain can best be understood if
we allow that our immediate experience presents us with a collection of
dynamic fieldsÑa visual field, an auditory field, a tactile field, what
might be called chemical fieldsÑand, f urther, that our most exact
scienceÑquantum electrodynamics, or QEDÑtells us that our sense organs and
neural networks are also dynamic fields. The formalism of QM thus provides
us with a beautiful and wonderfully natural mathematical apparatus for
rigoro us discussions of neural networks and mind/body relations.
Happily, because QED is such a good theory, the ways whereby we might seek
to improve upon it are highly constrained. It has been a guiding
consideration herein that an improved physics would enjoy a kind of
correspondence relation with current theory suc h as Bohr might have
recommended.
The Electromagnetic Basis of Neural Phenomena
Neurons communicate with one another via electrochemical processes. To
say that a process is electrochemical is to say that it is
electromagnetic. This is basic QED; however, as this notion presents a
conceptual difficulty for a number of very astute readers, we can do no
better than to refer to a delightful little book: QED: The Strange Theory
of Light and Matter, where Feynman makes the same point in his brilliantly
accessible prose.
I would like to again impress you with the vast range of phenomena that
the theory of quantum electrodynamics describes: It's easier to say it
backwards: the theory describes all the phenomena of the physical world
except the gravitational effect . . . an d radioactive phenomena, which
involve nuclei shifting in their energy levels. So if we leave out gravity
and radioactivity (more properly, nuclear physics) what have we got left?
Gasoline burning in automobiles, foam and bubbles, the hardness of salt or
copper, the stiffness of steel. In fact, biologists are trying to
interpret as much as they can about life in terms of chemistry, and as I
already explained, the theory behind chemistry is quantum electrodynamics.
The point we want to establish is also found at the beginning of the far
more esoteric work of Hawking and Ellis: The large scale structure of
space-time:
The view of physics that is most generally accepted at the moment is that
one can divide the discussion of the universe into two parts. First, there
is the question of the local laws satisfied by the various physical
fields. These are usually expressed in the form of differential equations.
Secondly, there is the problem of the boundary conditions for these
equations, and the global nature of their solutions.
The most explicit expression we have found for the working scientific
framework of the present discussion is found in a wonderfully erudite
essay by Simon Saunders, "The Algebraic Approach to Quantum Field Theory":
"Our basic ontology is that all systems, macroscopic structures included,
are quantum fields . . . "
It seems we ought to be able to understand vision in terms of the QED of
neural networks and the eyes. At the most fundamental level of analysis
available to our science, the eyes and neurons just are large collections
of quantum fields.
[principle of least action; Lagrangian, Hamiltonian; path integral]
[invariance of color under Lorentz transformations, Noether currents,
charges; ]
One Lump or Two?
Who sees variety and not the Unity wanders on from death to death.
ÑBrihad-aranyaka Upanishad
Entia non multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
ÑOccam
If we are all one, what do I need you for?
ÑA guy I knew once
What exists? What do we know and how do we know it? And how should I know?
Here we assume that some sort of "mind/brain identity theory" holds: In an
identity theory, mind and matter are one and the sameÑsomehow or other. We
inquire within whether it makes sense to identify mind and brain at the
quantum level.
For a fuller sense of what is meant by an identity theory, we attend to
Herbert Feigl:
I can here only briefly indicate the lines along which I think the Ôworld
knotÕÑto use SchopenhauerÕs striking designation for the mind-body puzzles
may be disentangled. The indispensable step consists in a critical
reflection upon the meanings of the ter ms ÔmentalÕ and ÔphysicalÕ, and
along with this a thorough clarification of such traditional philosophical
terms as ÔprivateÕ and ÔpublicÕ, ÔsubjectiveÕ and ÔobjectiveÕ,
Ôpsychological space(s)Õ and Ôphysical spaceÕ, 'intentionalityÕ,
ÕpurposivenessÕ, etc . The solution that appears most plausible to me, and
that is consistent with a thoroughgoing naturalism, is an identity theory
of the mental and the physical, as follows: Certain neurophysiological
terms denote (refer to) the very same events that are al so denoted
(referred to) by certain phenomenal terms. The identification of the
objects of this twofold reference is of course logically contingent,
although it constitutes a very fundamental feature of our world as we have
come to conceive it in the mode rn scientific outlook. Using FregeÕs
distinction between Sinn (ÔmeaningÕ, ÔsenseÕ, ÔintensionÕ), and Bedeutung
(ÔreferentÕ, ÔdenotatumÕ, ÔextensionÕ), we may say that neurophysiological
terms and the corresponding phenomenal terms, though widely differing
in sense . . . do have identical referents. I take these referents to be
the immediately experienced qualities, or their configurations in the
various phenomenal fields.
We take these "immediately experienced qualities" for the elements, the
"givens" of our formal theory, which we denote, following Gšdel's usage,
as T. Now look what happens: As sentient entities, we cannot define red or
blue in simpler terms, though we ca n be trained to point to examples of
them.
[PoincarŽ on geometry/notes]
Now, by identifying color (sound, etc.,) with the elements of T, we
recover right away this fact of being undefinable: If T could define its
elements, its elements would not be elementsÑa simple contradiction which
mirrors a fundamental (one might say "el ementary") fact of experience.
[Elemental, yes, but elemental as x, y, z, t? Analogy and its engines:
Wittgenstein, Euclidean (Riemannian!) space must intersect 6-space to be
perceived, to be empirical, to respect the phenomenology "given" to us,
with something like the strength of an analytic truth]
Symmetry arguments
The importance of these observations may be seen when we consider the
following passage from Lopuszanski's highly accessible work, Intro to
Symmetry & SUSY in QFT:
To start, we shall try to make the notion of symmetry in physics clearer.
The meaning of symmetry of a physical system is frequently influenced, if
not shaped, by the guidelines of our investigation. It is obvious that the
symmetry of a physical system is closely related to the transformations of
the parameters describing the system. Notice, however, that not every
transformation of parameters is linked to a symmetry of the system; such
symmetries have to satisfy certain conditions. The necessary conditio n is
that the physical system remains the same object of our perception before
as well as after the transformation. . . . We say that a 3-dimensional
sphere has a rotational symmetry because the picture of it does not change
while we rotate it through an angle around an arbitrary axis through the
center of this sphere. . . Let us take as an example the relativistic
field theory. This theory as a whole is symmetric with respect to the
Lorentz transformations. This means that independently of the choice of
frame of reference, the same field theory is the object of our
investigation; changing from one frame to another the fields transform
covariantly according to the rule imposed by the principle of relativity.
Take the sphere above and color it all over. What are the symmetries? What
if we color each point on a Hilbert sphere according to its frequency?
If we add one color to another, a third color is given. If we subtract one
color from the mix, the other remains. Transparency might be taken for the
identity. We have all the ingredients for a group theoretic treatment of
color which ought to suggest dee p connections with those groups which
govern photons and all other elementary processes.
Another set of clues re: color, symmetry & QM comes to the fore when we
consider another passage from WeylÕs Symmetry:
In ordinary geometry length is relative: a building and a small-scale
model of it are similar; the dilatations are included among the
automorphisms. But physics has revealed that an absolute standard length
is built into the constitution of the atom, or r ather into that of the
elementary particles, in particular the electron with its definite charge
and mass. This atomic standard length becomes available for practical
measurements through the wave lengths of the spectral lines of the light
emitted by atom s. (p128-9) (Our emphasis)
MacAdam, ColorimetryÑFundamentals, SPIE, 1993, pp. xvi - xix; excerpts.
Isaac Newton's paper, although in essence anticipated by Grimaldo, must be
our first Milestone. In contrast with Grimaldo's book, it consists of
clear declarative statements in the vernacular. It was one of the earliest
papers in scientific style publishe d in the first vehicle for such
papers, the Transactions of the Royal Society. In that form, it was
promptly distributed to a group of interested persons who were prepared to
appreciate its significance; it was received with immediate interest.
There is l ittle evidence of any awareness, prior to 1969, of Grimaldo's
discovery of the composite nature of white light.
The Origins of Colorimetry
In his Opticks, . . . Newton represented the colors of the spectrum as
points on a circle. He suggested representing all other colors, each of
which is necessarily composed of two or more spectrum colors, within that
circle. He suggested that it is the ce nter of gravity that corresponds to
the spectral composition of that color, as described under "Information
Theory of Colorimetry" below.
White is at the center of Newton's circle and at the corresponding point
in every chromaticity diagram, of which Newton's circle is the prototype.
. . .
Information Theory of Colorimetry
In modern terms, Grimaldo and Newton used prisms as analog Fourier
analyzers and reconstituted white by integrating the power spectra that
they obtained from sunlight. In those terms, Newton's center of gravity
represented the results of two-dimensional c onvolution of the power
spectrum of any light, with respect to the rectangular coordinates of
visible wavelengths in his color circle. The axes of those coordinates
were arbitrary and were not indicated or mentioned by Newton. . . .
(Thomas Young?)
Complementary Colors
The fourth Milestone of colorimetry was translated (presumably by its
author, Hermann Grassmann) from the original paper that he published in
the Annalen der Physik (poggendorf) 89, 69-84 (1854). It was a comment on
a report by Helmholtz that he had not been able to verify the indication
of Newton's color circle that every spectrum color should have a spectrum
complement, by mixture with which it would form white. Grassmann thus
started discussions about complementary colors and geometric
representations of colors and their mixtures.
Geometry of Color
James Clerk Maxwell, whose electromagnetic theory of light was the final
realization of the undulatory concept, determined the first color-matching
data that are the basis of colorimetry. Convolutions of them with power
spectra of light from self-luminous objects or of reflected or transmitted
light constitute the prime results of colorimetry, called tristimulus
values.
Hilbert Spaces
The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Hughes, pp. 83-4
The example of classical mechanics shows us that there are possible
representations of physical theories which do not involve Hilbert spaces.
Of course, this doesn't mean that classical mechanics could not be
reformulated in this way. In fact, our stra tegy for providing a partial
answer to the question, "Why Hilbert spaces?" will be to show that the
theory of vectors has very general application. We will take as an example
a particular physical situation and model it mathematically. The situation
will be paradigmatically of the kind with which physical theory deals, but
our description will be general enough to leave open the question of what
sorts of processes, deterministic or indeterministic, are involved.
Similarly, its representation, in terms of vector space, will be general
enough to be employed for a variety of physical theories; the particular
features of quantum mechanics on the one hand, or classical mechanics on
the other, will then appear as additional constraints on these
mathematical st ructures.
The key to the representation is the fact that Pythagoras' theorem, or
its analogue, holds in any vector space equipped with an inner product.
Consider the space R3. For any vector v in R3
v = vx + vy + vz
Here vx vy, and vz are the projections of v onto an orthogonal triple of
rays spanning R3 Ñ or, as we can call them, the axes of our coordinate
system (see figure 3.1).
Pythagoras' theorem tells us that
|vx|2 + |vy|2 + |vz|2 = |v|2
and so, if v is normalized,
|vx|2 + |vy|2 + |vz|2 = 1
Let us now assume that we wish to represent three mutually exclusive
events that together exhaust all possibilities, and that each event has a
certain probability. For instance, if we were to roll a die, the events
might be: x = die shows even number; y = die shows 1; z = die shows 3 or
5. If we use the axes of R3 to represent the events x, y, and z, we can
construct a normalized vector v to represent any probability assignment to
these events.
We simply take vectors vx, vy, and vz along these axes such that
|vx|2 = p(x), |vy|2 = p(y) and |vz| 2 = p(z)
and then add them (vectorially) to yield v.
Since the events x, y, and z are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, we know that p(x) + p(y) + p(z) = 1 and it follows . . . that v is normalized.
This almost trivial construction lies at the heart of the use of vector
spaces in physical theory. (Our emphasis).
["An object cannot be red and green all over at the same time": Colors and
sounds are, at x, y, z, t, "mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive"!]
Now here is a curious business. Quantum events are described by vectors.
Colors behave like vectors. Color is reliably associated with those
quantum events which are photons. Neural networks can be modeled by
matrices operating upon input vectors. To spea k in a loose but suggestive
manner, perhaps our networks are doing matrix algebra on
colors/photons/vectors.
Perhaps it makes good sense to wonder whether, with respect to a given
observer or coordinate system, a color vector is projected out of the
complete state vector y in a manner analogous to that in which a position
vector is projected out along an x, y or z axis.
And so: If we superimpose two spectral colors we get a vector sum. It is a
fact of experience that, when we mix blue and yellow lights together we
get green, which lies between blue and yellow in the spectrum. We are
drawn immediately to the fact that the addition of colors obeys the same
law of vector addition as the wave functions which describe photons. When
we superimpose two spectral colors, we describe this situation physically
by adding the state vectors of the photons which (as we say) excite thos e
colors in our consciousness. And the color which results from the
superposition is the vector sum of the constituent colors. And so here,
perhaps, we have an instance of a fact of consciousnessÑthe perceived
results of color additionÑmirrored in the mat hematical formalism quantum
mechanics. Let us hold fast to this analogy.
neuroscience perspective
Geoffrey Hinton "How Neural Networks Learn from Experience" Sci AM, 9/92
Artificial neural networks are typically compsed of interconnected
"units," which serve as model neurons. The function of the synapse is
modeled by a modifiable weight, which is associated with each connection.
Most artificial networks do not reflect the detailed geometry of the
dendrites and axons, and they express the electrical output of a neuron as
a single number that represents the rate of firingÑits activity. (Our
emphasis.)
Our essential divergence on this last point: QM law of superposition
contradicts; presence of wavelength sensitive neurons in V4 contradicts;
differentiation of retinal pigments contradicts.
McCulloch/diagram of NNs, bio & AI/deValois projections
"A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity"
Because of the "all-or-none" character of nervous activity, neural events
and the relations among them can be treated by means of propositional
logic. It is found that the behavior of every net can be described in
these terms.
(B. Muller; J. Reinhardt: Neural Networks)
A Brief History of Neural-Network Models
In 1943 Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts proposed a general theory of
information processing based on networks of binary switching or decision
elements, which are somewhat euphemistically called "neurons", although
they are far simpler than their real bi ological counterparts. Each one of
these elements i = 1, . . ., n can only take the output values ni = 0, 1,
where ni = 0 represents the resting states and ni = 1 the active state of
the elementary unit. In order to simulate the finite regenerative peri od
of real neurons, changes in the state of the network are supposed to occur
in discrete time steps t = 0, 1, 2, . . .. The new state of a certain
neural unit is determined by the influence of all other neurons, as
expressed by a linear combination of th eir output values:
hi (t ) = S wij nj (t ). (2.1)
j
Here the matrix wij represents the synaptic coupling strengths (or
synaptic efficacies) between neurons j and i, while hi (t) models the
total postsynaptic polarization potential at neuron i caused by the action
of all other neurons. hi can be considered the input into the neural
computing unit, and ni the output. The properties of the neural networks
are completely determined by the functional relation between hi (t) and ni
(t +1). In the simplest case, the neuron is assumed to become active if
its inpu t exceeds a certain threshold ui, which may well differ from one
unit to the next. The evolution of the network is then governed by the law
ni (t +1) = q (hi (t ) - ui),
where q (x) is the unit step function, i.e.,
q (x < 1) = 0 and q (x >1) =1.
McCulloch and Pitts showed that such networks can, in principle, carry out
any imaginable computation, similar to a programmable, digital computer or
its mathematical abstraction, the Turing machine. In a certain sense the
network also contains a "program code", which governs the computational
process, namely the coupling matrix wij . The network differs from a
traditional computer in that the steps of the program are not executed
sequentially, but is parallel within each elementary unit. One might say t
hat the program code consists of a single statement, i.e. the combination
of the equations (2.1) and (2.2). The extreme reduction of the program is
compensated by the substitution of a vast number of processing elements
(1011 in the human brain!) for the single processing unit of a
conventional, sequential electronic computer.
Maxwell, "Theory of the Perception of Colors" in MacAdam,
ColorimetryÑFundamentals, SPIE, 1993.
When a beam of light falls on the human eye, certain sensations are
produced, from which the possessor of that organ judges of the color and
luminance of the light. Now, though everyone experiences these sensations
and though they are the foundation of al l the phenomena of sight, yet, on
account of their absolute simplicity, they are incapable of analysis, and
can never become in themselves objects of thought. If we attempt to
discover them, we must do so by artificial means and our reasonings on
them mus t be guided by some theory.
The most general form in which the existing theory can be stated is
thisÑthere are certain sensations, finite in number but infinitely
variable in degree, which may be excited by the different kinds of light.
The compound sensation resulting from all th ese is the object of
consciousness, in a simple act of vision.
If the mind/brain can be modelled by a formal theory, it seems to follow
that a mind/brain should not be able to define its elementsÑi.e., if it
could define them, they would not be elements. This simple proof, easy
enough to be understood by a child, is yet extremely powerful in that it
applies to a very large class of theories of the mind/brain.
Gšdel: On Formally Undecidable Propositions of PM
The formulae of a formal systemÑwe restrict ourselves here to the system
PMÑare, looked at from outside, finite series of basic signs (variables,
logical constants and brackets or separation points), and it is easy to
state precisely just which series of basic signs are meaningful formulae
and which are not. Proofs, from the formal standpoint, are likewise
nothing but finite series of formulae (with certain specifiable
characteristics). For metamathematical purposes it is naturally immaterial
what objects are taken as basic signs, and we propose to use natural
numbers for them.
Nagel and Newman: Goedel's Proof:
How did Goedel prove his conclusions? Up to a point, the structure of his
demonstration is modeled, as he himself noted, on the reasoning involved
in one of the logical antinomies known as the "Richard Paradox," first
propounded by the French mathematicia n, Jules Richard, in 1905. . . . The
reasoning in the Richard Paradox is evidently fallacious. Its construction
nevertheless suggests that it might be possible to "map" (or "mirror")
meta-mathematical statements about a sufficently comprehensive formal sy
stem into the system itself. If this were possible, then metamathematical
statements about a system would be represented by statements within the
system. Thereby one could achieve the desirable end of getting the formal
system to speak about itselfÑa most valuable form of self-consciousness.
(Our emphasis) The idea of such mapping is a familiar one in mathematics.
It is employed in coordinate geometry, which translates geometric
statements into algebraic ones, so that geometric relations are mapped
onto a lgebraic ones. The idea is manifestly used in the construction of
ordinary maps, since the construction consists in projecting
configurations on the surface of a sphere onto a plane . . . The basic
fact which underlies all these mapping procedures is that an abstract
structure of relations embodied in one domain of objects is exhibited to
hold between "objects" in some other domain. In consequence, deductive
relations between statements about the first domain can be established by
exploring (often more co nveniently and easily) the deductive relations
between statements about their counterparts. For example, complicated
geometrical relations between surfaces in space are usually more readily
studied by way of the algebraic formulas for such surfaces. . . .
What do we make of above? We think of the mind/brain/field as a
realization or representation of an abstract theory T. We believe it makes
good sense to consider that the brain's wiring supports a Gšdelian
structure on its neural networks/field processes, thus allowing the
mind/brain to talk about itself. The evolutionary pressures which shaped
the brain and sensory organs achieved a system which maps within itself
objects within the sentient organism's domain. Thus, in operating upon
such mental maps, we find that: "In consequence, deductive relations
between statements about the first domain can be established by exploring
(often more conveniently and easily) the deductive relations between
statements about their counterparts."
The position advanced here is roughly like that criticized in Penrose'sThe
Emperor's New Mind. we feel a bit churlish criticizing Penrose in any way;
we have learned much from his work; we sense general agreement of approach
between us. There are a few im portant points on which we differ: we have
in mind, e.g., a passage from The Emperor's New Mind where Penrose tells
us, accurately enough, of
. . . a point of view about consciousness that one often hears put
forward, namely that a system would be 'aware' of something if it has a
model of that thing within itself, and that it becomes 'self-aware' when
it has a model of itself within itself. But a computer program which
contains within it (say a subroutine) some description of another computer
program does not give the first program an awareness of the second one;
nor does some self-referential aspect to a computer program give it
self-awareness . Despite the claims that seem to be frequently made, the
real issues concerning awareness and self-awareness are hardly touched by
considerations of this kind. A video-camera has no awareness of the scenes
it is recording; nor does a video-camera aimed a t a mirror possess
self-awareness.
Penrose does not do much to support these considerations in his popular
work, but we believe he depicts the typical point of view very well, if
only to state his disagreement with it. To be fair, it must be pointed out
that, toward the end of this highly entertaining work, Penrose finds
himself in greater sympathy with the formal viewpoint. Yet his
questionÑwhere in all the mass of a connectionist/ PDP/ supercomputing
thinking machine is the mind?Ñremains absolutely valid. The answer to his
question is co ntained in Leibniz. We must look at the simple substance,
the elements of our theory for the answer. We cannot derive color from
anything simpler in experience. But if we take it as an element of
experience and make it an element of physical theory, then the prize is
ours.
[Penrose on unity of consciousness/superposition of state vectors!
(Dirac?) on centrality of superposition to QM (Hughes): Superposition in
space-time of colors. photons Ñ> addition of y vectors! Go back to
Penrose's ideas about a video camera aimed at an object and/or itself.
Explore analogy, push to limit of video + NN = QED field constrained by
PM/matrix mechanics/G o ac(o,¬)delian metamathematics. General problem of
combining colorless elements to produce color; appeal to T.]
Now, in this work we make a good deal of the formal approachÑthis, in
order to ensure a degree of rigor in the argument. We regard the brain and
its constituent networks as a (metaphysically problematical) machine or
device which can be modeled by matrix algebra. We believe that the
mathematical structures discerned by the mind must be mirrored in the
physics of the brain. The problem of consciousness is a problem of
physics. Formal systems do not exist as objects of experience except as
they find represe ntations (I mean in the group-theoretic sense) in
physical, quantum systems. Thus in both natural and artificial NNs, we
need to focus on field processes. Curiously, we find the same mathematical
structures at work in both NN and field theory.
(Dirac)
To state the general principles of the paradigm argued here in a
diagramatic way, then: Herein, we:
(1) regard the brain as only very roughly like a digital computer;
(2) are committed to a neural network paradigm;
(3) argue that NNs contain models of themselves and their environments;
(4) urge that QED NNs provide a powerful, unitary model for
discussions of mind/matter;
(5) assert that, if the mind/brain can be modelled by a formal
theory T, then the mind/brain should not be able to define its
elements.
(6) argue that the "immediately experienced phenomenal qualities'
are the elements of a theory T of mind/matter;
(7) agree in large measure with the proposition that QFT should be
"the contemporary locus of metaphysical research".;
(8) think the mind/body duality is not respected by nature;
(9) agree in large part with identity theorists and neutral
monists;
(10) believe that mind and matter are complementary categories, in
a manner akin to wave and particle, mass and energy, space and time;
[Similarity of primary/secondary issue to wave/particle debate; dual faces
of a richer unity; complementarity, Bohr . . . ]
We recall Hobbes' words regarding the mechanical basis of sentience:
"Sense . . ., in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of
the internal parts of the sentient".
[How we diverge at this point. Parallel postulate.]
Boole, "Mathematical Analysis of Logic" in WoM, iii, p.1856
They who are acquainted with the present state of the theory of Symbolical
Algebra, are aware, that the validity of the processes of analysis does
not depend upon the interpretation of the symbols which are employed, but
solely upon their laws of combinat ion. Every system of interpretation
which does not affect the truth of the relations supposed, is equally
admissible, and it is thus that the same process may, under one scheme of
interpretation, represent the solution of a question on the properties of
n umbers, under another, that of a geometrical problem, and under a third,
that of a problem of dynamics or optics. This principle is of fundamental
importance . . .
Von Neumann, The General and Logical Theory of Automata, WoM, iv, pp. 2090-1
McCulloch and Pitts' important result is that any functioning in this
sense* which can be defined at all logically, strictly, and unambiguously
in a finite number of words can also be realized by such a formal neural
network. It is well to pause at this point and to consider what the
implications are. It has often been claimed that the activities of the
human nervous system are so complicated that no ordinary mechanism could
possibly perform them. It has also been attempted to
show that such specific functions, logically, completely described, are per se unable of mechanical, neural realization. The McCulloch-Pitts result puts an end to this. It proves that anything that can be exhaustively described, anything that can be comp
letely and unambiguously into words, is ipso facto realizable by a suitable finite neural network. Since the converse statement is obvious, we can therefore say that there is no difference between the possibility of describing a real or imagined mode of b
ehavior . . . and the possibility of realizing it by a finite formal neural network.
[A few paragraphs down]
. . . there is no difficulty in describing how an organism might be able
to identify any two rectilinear triangles, [two patches of red, ed.]which
appear on the retina, as belonging to the same category "rectangle" [or
"red", ed.] There is also no difficu lty in adding to this, that numerous
other objects, besides regularly drawn rectilinear triangles, will also be
classified and identified as trianglesÑtriangles whose sides are curved,
triangles whose sides are not fully drawn . . . The more completely we
attempt to describe everything that might conceivably fall under this
heading, the longer the description becomes. We may have a vague and
uncomfortable feeling that a complete catalogue along such lines would not
only be exceedingly long, but also unavo idably indefinite at its
boundaries . . .
[experience of AI community with vector reps of visual input; Poggio et al.,]
. . . Now it is perfectly possible that the simplest and only practical
way actually to say what constitutes a visual analogy in the brain
consists in giving a description of the connections of the visual brain.
We are dealing here with parts of logics wi th which we have practically
no past experience. The order of complexity is out of all proportion to
anything we have ever known. We have no right to assume that the logical
notations and procedures used in the past are suited to this part of the
subject.
It is not at all certain that in this domain a real object might not
constitute the simplest description of itself, that is, any attempt to
describe it by the usual literary or formal-logical method may lead to
somethiong less manageable and more involve d. In fact, some results in
modern logic would tend to indicate that phenomena like this have to be
expected when we come to really complicated entities.
. . . All of this does not alter my belief that a new, essentially
logical, theory is called for in order to understand high-complication
automata and, in particular, the central nervous system. It may be,
however, that in this process logic will have to undergo a pseudomorphosis
to neurology to a much greater extent than the reverse.
Pure Logic
[M/B as TÑ> what is a T? T + S; S problem in QM; review of logical
progression: Aristotle, etc., A, A Ñ> B, B, Scholasticism, Leibniz, Frege,
Boole, PM, Turing, v. Neumann, Hilbert, Gšdel, quantum logic, logic
circuits/EM/computers, AIÑ> AS/primaries & se condaries as elements of T,
phenomenology; Ss of logical systems]
Our system begins with "atomic propositions." We accept these as a datum,
because the problems which arise concerning them belong to the
philosophical part of logic, and are not amenable (at any rate at present)
to mathematical treatment. Atomic propositions may be defined negatively
as propositions containing no parts that are propositions, and not
containing the notions "all" or "some." Thus "this is red," "this is
earlier than that," are atomic propositions.
ÑBertrand Russell & AN Whitehead, PM, xv
GE Moore, "The Introduction of Sense-Data" in RJ Hirst, Perception and the
External World, p. 100
I shall therefore always talk of sense-data, when what I mean is such
things as this colour and size and shape or the patch which is of this
colour and size and shape, which I actually see. And when I want to talk
of my seeing of them, I shall expressly c all this the seeing of
sense-data; or, if I want a term which will apply equally to all the
senses, I shall speak of the direct apprehension of sense-data. Thus when
I see this whitish colour, I am directly apprehending this whitish color:
my seeing of it , as a mental act, an act of consciousness, just consists
in my direct apprehension of it;Ñso too when I hear a sound, I directly
apprehend the sound; when I feel a toothache I directly apprehend the
ache: and all these thingsÑthe whitish colour, the soun d, and the ache
are sense-data.
We side with Hume and Leibniz and Mach and James and Russell against
Hobbes, Descartes, Locke and Newton. Leibniz offers us the following
argument, (which we find echoed in the work of Roger Penrose):
Besides, it must be confessed that Perception and its consequences are
inexplicable by mechanical causes; that is to say, by figures and motions.
If we imagine a machine so constructed as to produce thought, sensation,
perception, we may conceive it magni fiedÑto such an extent that one might
enter it like a mill. This being supposed, we should find in it on
inspection only pieces which impel each other, but nothing which can
explain a perception. It is in the simple substance, therefore,Ñnot in the
compou nd, or in the machinery,Ñthat we must look for that phenomenon . .
. (Our emphasis)
Bolles, in a thoughtful work, (A Second Way of Knowing), quotes Mach, who
in turn echoes the monism of Leibniz and William James:
Einstein put physics on a relative footing by looking for an absolute that
did not depend on the observer's view. He found that absolute in the speed
of light. Mach too looked for an absolute, and thought he found it in the
"elements" of experience that d epend on both psychological and physical
circumstances. These elements are physical attributes like the color red,
the feeling of coldness, and the sound of E-flat. Physicists discuss these
things in terms of matter and energy and call them atoms. Psycho logists
discuss them in terms of nervous processes and call them sensations. Mach
was widely criticized for confusing objective events and subjective
experiences, but he replied:
The great gulf between physical and psychological research persists only
when we acquiesce in our habitual stereotyped conceptions. A color is a
physical object as soon as we consider its dependence, for instance, upon
its luminous source, upon temperatur es, upon spaces, and so forth. When
we consider its dependence upon the retina it is a psychological object, a
sensation.
The point we want to argue is: There are not two categories of perceived
properties, one mental and the other physical. There is a flux of colored
patterns. There is a stream of sounds of varying pitch and intensity.
There are statements which refer to th ese phenomena. There are statements
about these statements.
Einstein believed something of the sort:
I believe that the first step in the setting of a "real external world"
is the formation of the concept of bodily objects and of bodily objects of
various kinds. Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take,
mentally and arbitrarily, certain re peatedly occurring complexes of sense
impression (partly in conjunction with sense impressions which are
interpreted as signs for sense experiences of others), and we attribute to
them a meaningÑthe meaning of the bodily object. Considered logically this
concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred
to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind. On the
other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively
to the totality of the sense impr essions which we associate with it.
We differ on whether this selection process is done "arbitrarily". It
seems far more likely to us that this selection of "certain repeatedly
occurring complexes of sense impression" is constrained by:
(a) evolutionary pressures;
(b) underlying physics;
(c) neural architecturesÑunderstood as expressions of (a) and (b).
As to "sense impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense
experiences of others" ÑEinstein surely meant language, music, art,
mathematics and physics. Thus, what may be obvious, the patterns of black
and white on the pages before the perceptive re ader are just such "sense
impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences" of the
author.
As to the underlying physics, again, it is generally understood that
colors are related to the frequencies of the photons which give rise to
our impressions of hue. Similar correlations can be made for all the
sensory modalities. If, with Mach, we accept that colors are physical
objects, we are obliged to seek a suitable place for them within the body
of physical theory. Where should we locate them?
Colors are given to us as simple objects: We can point to an object that
is blue, but we cannot say that blue is composed of some simpler objects
of experience. Color is given to us as elemental.
In a formal mathematical theory (such as Gšdel employed in his famous
proof) we have:
(1) a number of undefined elements;
(2) mechanical rules for constructing complex objects from the
elements;
(3) well-formed formulae; and
(4) methods of proof.
[Demo: PM, T, geometry, number theory, algebra?]
It seems natural to place color among the elements of such a theory. By
formalizing our theory, we help to ensure that it can be replicated by a
suitable physical machineÑa physical brain, for example.
[Similarity of primary/secondary issue to wave/particle debate; dual faces
of a richer unity; complementarity, Bohr . . . ]
We recall Hobbes' words regarding the mechanical basis of sentience:
"Sense . . ., in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of
the internal parts of the sentient".
[How we diverge at this point. Parallel postulate.]
Boole, "Mathematical Analysis of Logic" in WoM, iii, p.1856
They who are acquainted with the present state of the theory of Symbolical
Algebra, are aware, that the validity of the processes of analysis does
not depend upon the interpretation of the symbols which are employed, but
solely upon their laws of combinat ion. Every system of interpretation
which does not affect the truth of the relations supposed, is equally
admissible, and it is thus that the same process may, under one scheme of
interpretation, represent the solution of a question on the properties of
n umbers, under another, that of a geometrical problem, and under a third,
that of a problem of dynamics or optics. This principle is of fundamental
importance . . .
Von Neumann, The General and Logical Theory of Automata, WoM, iv, pp. 2090-1
McCulloch and Pitts' important result is that any functioning in this
sense* which can be defined at all logically, strictly, and unambiguously
in a finite number of words can also be realized by such a formal neural
network. It is well to pause at this point and to consider what the
implications are. It has often been claimed that the activities of the
human nervous system are so complicated that no ordinary mechanism could
possibly perform them. It has also been attempted to
show that such specific functions, logically, completely described, are
per se unable of mechanical, neural realization. The McCulloch-Pitts
result puts an end to this. It proves that anything that can be
exhaustively described, anything that can be comp letely and unambiguously
into words, is ipso facto realizable by a suitable finite neural network.
Since the converse statement is obvious, we can therefore say that there
is no difference between the possibility of describing a real or imagined
mode of b ehavior . . . and the possibility of realizing it by a finite
formal neural network.
[A few paragraphs down]
. . . there is no difficulty in describing how an organism might be able
to identify any two rectilinear triangles, [two patches of red, ed.]which
appear on the retina, as belonging to the same category "rectangle" [or
"red", ed.] There is also no difficu lty in adding to this, that numerous
other objects, besides regularly drawn rectilinear triangles, will also be
classified and identified as trianglesÑtriangles whose sides are curved,
triangles whose sides are not fully drawn . . . The more completely we
attempt to describe everything that might conceivably fall under this
heading, the longer the description becomes. We may have a vague and
uncomfortable feeling that a complete catalogue along such lines would not
only be exceedingly long, but also unavo idably indefinite at its
boundaries . . .
[experience of AI community with vector reps of visual input; Poggio et al.,]
. . . Now it is perfectly possible that the simplest and only practical
way actually to say what constitutes a visual analogy in the brain
consists in giving a description of the connections of the visual brain.
We are dealing here with parts of logics wi th which we have practically
no past experience. The order of complexity is out of all proportion to
anything we have ever known. We have no right to assume that the logical
notations and procedures used in the past are suited to this part of the
subject.
It is not at all certain that in this domain a real object might not
constitute the simplest description of itself, that is, any attempt to
describe it by the usual literary or formal-logical method may lead to
somethiong less manageable and more involve d. In fact, some results in
modern logic would tend to indicate that phenomena like this have to be
expected when we come to really complicated entities.
. . . All of this does not alter my belief that a new, essentially
logical, theory is called for in order to understand high-complication
automata and, in particular, the central nervous system. It may be,
however, that in this process logic will have to undergo a pseudomorphosis
to neurology to a much greater extent than the reverse.
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Kimbal Welch
The problem is what exactly does 2+2 mean! Mathmatics can be used to describe
anything, and QM is really a specialized form of math. It is not suprising that
equations in QM can be applied to the description of consiousness, but this does
not mean that consiousness is directly linked to the fundimental structure of
the universe. It only means that math itself is universal.
Jack Sarfatti
> Not to cavil, (I believe there are large areas of agreement between
> ...deleted ...us, I hope I do not sound merely pompous.
>
A wee bit perhaps! :-) Please put line breaks in - your lines
are too long for Netscape.
> >
> >
> This, e.g., is unclear to me, and I have been reading Bohm for 10+ years.
> What gets all "mushed together"?
Have you read Undivided Universe? If that is not rigorous enough
try his Reports in Physics with Hiley.
>
> > I would say that our qualia is
>
> you mean _are_?
I stand corrected. I make persistent grammar and spelling errors
on quick rough drafts -- from being bored as kid in grammar class
-- too bad. I usually catch them third or fourth time around when
my narcissism is sated reading my own words! :-)
>
> identically the coherent quantum wave function of the single
electron
> "Eccles Gates"
>
> the whole wave function? or some part of it? or a projection under
an
> operator? or what? I'm sorry if I sound irritated, but how can you
> reasonably expect anyone to understand what you're talking about
here?
> How do the various qualia become distinct?
Well as one wave function entangling with another...
Clearly our minds are reduced density matrices of the wave function
of the universe which is the Mind of God. There is a fractal
self-similarity - patterns of meaning are approximate invariants
under increasing scales of coarse graining-- this has something to
do with the renormalization group I suspect.
>
> which I suspect are the > single electrons in the alpha-beta boundary of
> the dimers in > microtubules that control the shape of the dimers,
and
> consequently the > conductive properties of the neuron. > >
>
> I think the microtubule business is very interesting & worth pursuing,
> but again, it is quite speculative at this stage.
That goes without saying. Is Crick's "Astonishing Hypothesis" any
less speculative? I would say it's more so since we know that
intelligent machines are switching networks and what better
network than those entangled single electron switches controlling
the shape of each dimer! Not only that but each switch is a quantum
switch a Schrodinger cat so the dimer can be in a coherent
superposition maybe? Actually an entangled state of many such dimers-
.? Remember Hameroff invokes a shielding from the hydrophobic cage
so that the entanglements with thermal noise do not happen allowing
our unity of consciousness to persist at least over a second or two
which may be the relaxation time to the thermalization.
>
> Yes, there is a Godelian structure it is in the essentially
nonunitary >
> (i.e., creative) back-reaction of the Eccles gates on their
collective >
> coherent wave function which is our mind.
>
> ??? How does "nonunitary" become "creative"? Why do you feel the need to
> make these kinds of proclamations: "back-reaction of the Eccles gates ...
> coherent wave function which is our mind"?
Well for one thing Henry Stapp defines "intent" in terms of
nonunitarity in his Phys Rev A July 1994 pp18-24 paper. Take a
look. For another, it is obvious that if probability current is
not conserved then the number of possibilities is changing!
Clearly from the evolution of complexity the space of possibilities
in increasing for open living systems -- the sum of prior
probabilities for the activities of living matter fails to add
up to one rather than exceeds one for a successful biosphere-
that is. That's obviously creative evolution. Nonunitarity is
what allows intelligence. Bohm's great idea is to see that
the rather formal idea of unitarity (which even Feynman says
he had trouble with in his initial encounter with Dirac reported
in Genius by Gleick) has a nuts and bolts mechanistic picture
in terms of lack of feedback from the matter to the mind if
"mind" is the wave function making the quantum potential. This
absence of feedback means no control loops and it means local
conservation of probability current in configurations space. Put
in the control and you have intentional violation of the
statistical predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics. Stapp
only had the formal part without Bohm's picture. That's because
Stapp is still a Copenhagenist. I put the two together! That's
my original contribution to all this. One of these days you will
get what I am saying. It took people awhile to grok Feynman's
diagrams as well. I cam saying that people today simply take a
lot of formal ideas on faith like microcausality, unitarity,
linearity, C* algebras etc without trying to see what they
mean in pictures. Bohm's model allows us to make pictures like
engineers do. Bohr said pictures were impossible in general. He
was wrong.
Jack Sarfatti
>
> Hoping for clarity from Jack Sarfatti is a fools game.
> He is totally around the bend, and has been for twenty years.
>
See the kind of slanderous insults I have to put up with
from morons with nothing constructive to add. Kiss my
fist, Walter! :-)
Brian J Flanagan
> a...@crl.com (Walter Raisanen wrote: Hoping for clarity from
(Yes, this is a bit much, but you bring it upon yourself.)
I would like to note that I detect no dysfunction in Sarfatti, aside from
a highly idiomatic mode of expression & admitted note of narcissism. He
does seem to be of a highly intuitive cast of mind & a rather colorful
character. If I have been out of sorts with him, it is because this
business is very important to me & I feel it is ... helpful to get our
ideas as clear as possible, so that, even if we should prove mistaken,
(our usual lot) we at least have a better sense of wherein we are
mistaken, or what it is that we disagree about. Certainly there are
inherent difficulties involved in translating the vagaries of insight into
structured text ... especially so here, at the boundaries of what is
known.
Brian J Flanagan
Mathmatics can be used to describe > anything, and
QM is really a specialized form of math. It is not suprising that >
equations in QM can be applied to the description of consiousness, but
this does > not mean that consciousness is directly linked to the
fundamental structure of > the universe. It only means that math itself is
universal.
> >
Well ... I think it would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that the
mathematics of QM appears to find a model or representation in particle
physics. U(1), e.g., seems to describe EM interactions, and quite well, at
that. Yet it might have been another group structure, (in the sense that
it is logically possible), but our universe appears to be thus-and-so.
I.e., it seems to have selected this particular mathematical structure &
that is an important discovery.
I set two spheres in front of you. They are identical, except one is red
and the other is blue. I ask you to pick up the blue sphere & you do so
with no problem. But, from a scientific standpoint, what has happened? You
have changed the distribution of matter--a collection of "physical"
particles or fields--on the basis of a "mental" representation (in your
visual field, as we say) of the spheres & their colors.
So, does the "mental" visual field get connected to the "physical" fields
which are the spheres? It is arguably so; there is a practical infinitude of
such cases of regular, mechanical, constant conjunctions: red light--stop;
green light--go.
So, if visual field & quantum field reveal similar mathematical
structures, ought not we to accept this as a possible clue as to the
nature of the putative connection between the two (?) types of fields?
My own suggestion has been to take the neutral monists & identity
theorists at their word & say, well, maybe the two fields are one and the
same, but like the classic case of the morning star & the evening star
(identically the planet Venus) we see these two fields under different
aspects.
Brian J Flanagan
> Have you read Undivided Universe?
Yes, tho' not all of it. I shall have another look soon.
Clearly our minds are reduced density matrices of the wave
function >
How are you using the word "clearly"?
Is Crick's"Astonishing Hypothesis" any > less speculative?
I have not read Crick's work; perhaps the reviewers have done it an
injustice, but my understanding, which I owe to them, is that this text
is little more than old doctrine warmed over.
I would say it's more so since we know that intelligent machines are
switching networks and what better network than those entangled single
electron switches controlling the shape of each dimer!
Well, again, I think this is worth looking into & even exciting.
Not only that but each switch is a quantum switch a Schrodinger cat so
the dimer can be in a coherent superposition maybe?
You sound like a Copenhagenist here--if Bohm is right, what need have we
of S's cat & etc.?
Actually an entangled state of many such dimers- > .? Remember
Hameroff invokes a shielding from the hydrophobic cage > so that the
entanglements with thermal noise do not happen allowing > our unity of
consciousness to persist at least over a second or two > which may be the
relaxation time to the thermalization.
I am not familiar with this work, but I will have a look.
How does "nonunitary" become "creative"? Why do you feel the need to > >
make these kinds of proclamations: "back-reaction of the Eccles gates ...
coherent wave function which is our mind"? > > Well for one thing
Henry Stapp defines "intent" in terms of > nonunitarity in his Phys Rev A
July 1994 pp18-24 paper. Take a > look.
I'll do that. I have come to have quite a lot of respect for Stapp's
discernment in these matters.
For another, it is obvious that if probability current is > not conserved
then the number of possibilities is changing! >
"obvious"? This appears to devolve upon complex issues re: the nature of
"possibility" or potentiality which you may have considered (for all I
know) but which you do not here present for the benefit of your readers.
Clearly from the evolution of complexity the space of
possibilities > in increasing for open living systems -- the sum of prior
> probabilities for the activities of living matter fails to add > up to
one rather than exceeds one for a successful biosphere- > that is. That's
obviously creative evolution. Nonunitarity is > what allows intelligence.
Bohm's great idea is to see that > the rather formal idea of unitarity
(which even Feynman says > he had trouble with in his initial encounter
with Dirac reported > in Genius by Gleick) has a nuts and bolts
mechanistic picture > in terms of lack of feedback from the matter to the
mind if > "mind" is the wave function making the quantum potential.
Well, again, I think your purposes would be better served if you were to
slow down & lay out your ... argument ... in a simple, step-by-step
manner.
This > absence of feedback means no control loops and it means local >
conservation of probability current in configurations space. Put > in the
control and you have intentional violation of the > statistical
predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics. Stapp > only had the formal
part without Bohm's picture. That's because > Stapp is still a
Copenhagenist. I put the two together! That's > my original contribution
to all this.
I believe most would concur that you are quite an original.
One of these days you will get what I am saying.
I already have a sense of what you're saying. You do not do yourself any
good by suggesting that your readers are simply too stupid to get it. The
objections they raise are usually quite understandable & often
recapitulations of historical arguments. You, meanwhile, persist in
making muddy statements of your thoughts which exasperate the bejeebers
out of me.
It took people awhile to grok Feynman's diagrams as well.
How odd. Are you sure about that? In any case, what is demanded here is
the overturning of a centuries-old cultural gestalt or mindset--a far
bigger task than Feynman's & one that will not be accomplished without
coherent argument.
I am saying that people today simply take a > lot of formal ideas on
faith like microcausality, unitarity, > linearity, C* algebras etc without
trying to see what they > mean in pictures. Bohm's model allows us to make
pictures like > engineers do. Bohr said pictures were impossible in
general. He was wrong.
Good! This makes real sense! Moreover, I agree. Nonetheless, these
notions have stood us in good stead & so it is understandable that people
should be unwilling to scrutinize them more closely--but this is all
covered in Kuhn & better than I can hope to do here.
Fare forward.
Don Steehler
<Pine.A32.3.91.950318092248....@blue.weeg.uiowa.ed
u>, bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu says...
======
Voltaire (Philosophical Dictionary - "Friendship"):
Friendship is the marriage of souls, and this marriage is subject to
divorce. It is a tacit contract between two sensitive and virtuous
persons. I say sensitive, because a monk, a recluse, can be innocent of
evil and still live without knowing the meaning of friendship. I say
virtuous, because the wicked have only accomplices; voluptuaries have
companions in debauch, self-seekers have partners, politicians attract
partisans; the generality of idle men have attachments; princes have
courtiers; while virtuous men alone have friends. Cethegus was the
accomplice of Catiline, and Maecenas the courtier of Octavius, but Cicero
was the friend of Atticus.
======
I have been following Jack Sarfatti's activities in this and several other
newsgroups, and his WWW construction, with great interest. I also
consider your commentary and dialogue in this newsgroup unusually
interesting and informative. Dr. Sarfatti has (IMHO) been fortunate to
merit your attention.
If one were to substitute the term "collegiality" for "friendship" in
Voltaire's admirable definition, perhaps it would serve as a reasonable
characterization of your efforts to engage Dr. Sarfatti in a cognitive
fugue (I repeat: "cognitive fugue" - not "cognitive feud").
I hope that the photons from this message that initiate the process of
weaving the sense of the message from you retinal pigments into your
stream of consciousness will help (in some small way) to get on with the
business at hand.
Respectfully,
me
Don Steehler
Geza Szamosi's _The Twin Dimensions: Inventing Space and Time_.
Although Szamosi's topic differs from what you seem to be attempting address, there seems (IMHO) to be some
overlap in content (and context). It could perhaps be useful to you for "background" reference if you
haven't already had an opportunity to consider it.
Brian J Flanagan
> In article
> <Pine.A32.3.91.950318092248....@blue.weeg.uiowa.ed
> u>, bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu says...
> >
Thank you very much for your kind & thoughtful remarks. I haven't looked
at Voltaire for many years. I read _Candide_ about 20 years ago & roared.
If I may return a compliment, your "weaving the sense of the message ..."
suggests a poet's gift.
All the best,
Brian
Lee Rudolph
that the brain is supposed to be the most important sexual
organ, but that would be begging the question.
Lee Rudolph
Jack Sarfatti
<Pine.A32.3.91.950318092248....@blue.weeg.uiowa.
Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar. I salute you! Free drinks on the
Virtually Royal House of Sarfatti!
http://www.well.com/www/sarfatti/
Jack Sarfatti
J Flanagan <bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> writes:
>
>
>Clearly our minds are reduced density matrices of the wave
>function >
>
>How are you using the word "clearly"?
The same way most arrogant obnoxious professors do in good
universities! I am a Wittgensteinian due to my Cornell days, like young
Frederick with King Norman Malcolm and his crew of philosophical
pirates that Feynman made fun of! I must write an opera
"The Rogue Scholars of Ithaca".
>
>
>Is Crick's"Astonishing Hypothesis" any > less speculative?
>
>I have not read Crick's work; perhaps the reviewers have done it an
>injustice, but my understanding, which I owe to them, is that this text
>is little more than old doctrine warmed over.
It would seem so. Crick is friends with my friends in La Jolla, so I
must be careful! He is a jolly fellow. :-)
>
>I would say it's more so since we know that intelligent machines are
>switching networks and what better network than those entangled single
>electron switches controlling the shape of each dimer!
>
>Well, again, I think this is worth looking into & even exciting.
A gold star for you! :-)
>
>Not only that but each switch is a quantum switch a Schrodinger cat so
>the dimer can be in a coherent superposition maybe?
>
>You sound like a Copenhagenist here--if Bohm is right, what need have
we
>of S's cat & etc.?
S's Cat does not disappear in Bohm's theory. If one can keep down the
entanglement to huge numbers of orthogonal modes in the environment,
which the microtubule model seems to do, the unoccupied branch can
recombine with the occupied branch and activate its influence as in a
quantum eraser experiment.
>
>
>How does "nonunitary" become "creative"? Why do you feel the need to >
>
>make these kinds of proclamations: "back-reaction of the Eccles gates
..
>coherent wave function which is our mind"? > > Well for one thing
>Henry Stapp defines "intent" in terms of > nonunitarity in his Phys Rev
A
>July 1994 pp18-24 paper. Take a > look.
>
>I'll do that. I have come to have quite a lot of respect for Stapp's
>discernment in these matters.
Stapp got really pissed with me for insisting that faster than light
communication was possible in orthodox quantum mechanics after he wrote
me many letters showing it was not possible. Well he was right -- but
I played Devil's Advocate just in case.
>
>For another, it is obvious that if probability current is > not
conserved
>then the number of possibilities is changing! >
>
>"obvious"? This appears to devolve upon complex issues re: the nature
of
>"possibility" or potentiality which you may have considered (for all I
>know) but which you do not here present for the benefit of your
readers.
I define "possibility" the way Bohm does in terms of branches of a
wave function relative to some complete set of commuting observables
which are generally non-Hermitian. The idea is that the dimension of a
finite dimensional Hilbert space of some internal observable akin to
spin is not a constant of the motion as it must be in orthodox quantum
mechanics. The new quantum mechanics breaks a topological symmetry of
orthodox quantum mechanics.
>
>Clearly from the evolution of complexity the space of
>possibilities > in increasing for open living systems -- the sum of
prior
>> probabilities for the activities of living matter fails to add > up
to
>one rather than exceeds one for a successful biosphere- > that is.
That's
>obviously creative evolution. Nonunitarity is > what allows
intelligence.
>Bohm's great idea is to see that > the rather formal idea of unitarity
>(which even Feynman says > he had trouble with in his initial encounter
>with Dirac reported > in Genius by Gleick) has a nuts and bolts
>mechanistic picture > in terms of lack of feedback from the matter to
the
>mind if > "mind" is the wave function making the quantum potential.
>
>Well, again, I think your purposes would be better served if you were
to
>slow down & lay out your ... argument ... in a simple, step-by-step
>manner.
>
Patience, patience. I am in the throes of passionate creativity. The
dementions (:-)) of me mind are expanding at an enormous rate due
to the advanced flux of inspiration from the Once and Future God
of the Alpha-Omega Quantum Reality Corporation -- in which I will soon
sell "futures" as an investment in Tiplerian immortality (like the
Duke of Plaza Toro in "Gondoliers",G&S). I am in fact making more
detailed tutorials in
http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/home.html
But Rome was not built in a day, God needed at least seven and I,
even with 20 megs of ram just added in my 486, do not have his resources
- or Davies'million dollars to hire assistants for my great work of
conceptual art. Where is Pope Julius II now that I need Him?
>
>I believe most would concur that you are quite an original.
Shall I sell limited editions of CD ROMS each with a personal
video message for future generations?
>
> You, meanwhile, persist in
>making muddy statements of your thoughts which exasperate the bejeebers
>out of me.
Muddy? muddy? Sir, you are unjust. I am a Paragon of Crystal Clear
Spiritual Waters --
see http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/sioo.html
>
>It took people awhile to grok Feynman's diagrams as well.
>
>How odd. Are you sure about that? In any case, what is demanded here is
>the overturning of a centuries-old cultural gestalt or mindset--a far
>bigger task than Feynman's & one that will not be accomplished without
>coherent argument.
Agreed. Pardon me but I have to roll that big rock up the hill again,
rather hard to do when the vultures peck at my liver, and the
Lilliputians have me tied down, and the Mad Hags of Thrace have
dismembered me and my head floats down the River Styx.
Hey that's a song better than Bob Dylan's! I copywrite that lyric.
Thanks God for the message from the future!
Jack Sarfatti
J Flanagan <bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> writes:
>suggests a poet's gift.
>
>All the best,
>
>
>Brian
>
Now we're talkin! Finally men of wit, humor, literary talent. I propose
the formation of the Virtually Royal Society of Rogue Scholars. I have a
really good authentic Family Crest shown in
http://www.well.com/www/sarfatti
that can be modified for the purpose from the Doge of Venice a few
hundred years ago at the start of the Renaissance whose flame we carry
forward as the Superluminati.
JohnatAcadInt
>
> In article, bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu says...
> >
> >On 16 Mar 1995, Kimbal Welch wrote:
> >
> >Mathmatics can be used to describe anything, and
> >that equations in QM can be applied to the description of
> >consiousness, but this does not mean that consciousness is
> >directly linked to the fundamental structure of > the universe.
> >fundamental structure ... ?].
Come off it: you are trying to have your case and eat it: as Penrose
says, the astonishing thing is the even quite subtle math applies.
You can have no science if no math holds true of the world!
> >... our universe appears to be thus-and-so.
> >I.e., it seems to have selected this particular
> >mathematical structure & that is an important discovery.
It's NOT a discovery: it's the way things work - constant reduction
of variation.
> >We set two spheres in front of you. They are identical, except one
> >is red and the other is blue. ... [We] ask you to pick up the blue
> >sphere & [you] do ...
> >... So, does ... [your] "mental" visual field get connected to the
> >"physical" fields ( or have we ripped you off!). ...>which are the
> > spheres? It is arguably so; there is a practical infinitude of
> > such cases of regular, mechanical, constant conjunctions ...
What right have we to act as your judge? Hume raised the problem
of conjunction, but never pretended an independent platform ...
Apart from their poor results, rain-dancers are othewise soundly
scientific!
> >So, if visual field & quantum field reveal similar mathematical
> >structures, ought not we to accept this as a possible clue as to the
> >nature of the putative connection between the two (?) types of fields?
[ ... ]
> >My own suggestion has been to take the neutral monists & identity
> >theorists at their word & say, well, maybe the two fields are one and the
> >same, but like the classic case of the morning star & the evening star
> >(identically the planet Venus) we see these two fields under different
> >aspects.
The planet Venus? That's a bit anthropomorphic isn't it? How did you find
out its name? Rgds - John Murphy.
JohnatAcadInt
> : I believe we share a number of similar insights, and I do not want to get
> : bogged down in any hard feelings or bickering, & so beg your indulgence if I
> : have been unduly harsh, but I do heartily wish you would take the time to
> : clarify your meaning.
>
> Hoping for clarity from Jack Sarfatti is a fools game.
> He is totally around the bend, and has been for twenty years.
As, we suspect, is anybody you disagree with at length - and
Jack Sarfatti seems to fit the bill.
We have no problem here in London with Jack Sarfatti's approach
to physics. Polanyi - and now Eccles and Popper ("the mind is outside the brain),
Davies, Tipler, others will doubteless meet, or have met, with equal
approval from you - given that they have caught your kindly and
thoughtful attention).
It doesn't always work, but I have found it useful to place abusive
and nasty-minded people under a cloud until I know better.
Rgds - John Murphy
"They acquire the habits of always considering themselves as standing
alone and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in
their own hands." - Alexis de Tocqueville.
Don Steehler
Hi, John.
This is a curious message. You've taken my message, and deleted the sole
comment that I interjected at end of the message. I've also noticed that
you've selectively deleted segments of Mr. Welch's and Mr. Flanagan's
comments, to an uncomfortable degree (IMHO), distorting the originally
intended meaning.
** To anyone else reading this particular message, I recommend that you
back-up through this thread to the original post by Brian Flanagan that I
initially responded to; you'll achieve a more accurate understanding of
what was originally intended. **
I'm not scolding, or complaining. But, please slow down, go more slowly -
or get some sleep; or whatever. Hopefully, if you review your material,
you'll find reason to chuckle.
>
>stee...@pixi.com (Don Steehler) wrote:
>>
>> In article, bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu says...
>> >
>> >On 16 Mar 1995, Kimbal Welch wrote:
>> >
>> >Mathmatics can be used to describe anything, and
>> >QM is really a specialized form of math. It is not [sic] suprising
>> >that equations in QM can be applied to the description of
>> >consiousness, but this does not mean that consciousness is
>> >directly linked to the fundamental structure of > the universe.
>> >It only means that math itself is universal ... [Linked to the
>> >fundamental structure ... ?].
>
>Come off it: you are trying to have your case and eat it: as Penrose
>says, the astonishing thing is the even quite subtle math applies.
>You can have no science if no math holds true of the world!
>
>> >... our universe appears to be thus-and-so.
>> >I.e., it seems to have selected this particular
>> >mathematical structure & that is an important discovery.
>
>It's NOT a discovery: it's the way things work - constant reduction
>of variation.
>
It's not clear (to me) what you mean by "constant reduction of variation."
>> >We set two spheres in front of you. They are identical, except one
>> >is red and the other is blue. ... [We] ask you to pick up the blue
>> >sphere & [you] do ...
>
>> >... So, does ... [your] "mental" visual field get connected to the
>> >"physical" fields ( or have we ripped you off!). ...>which are the
>> > spheres? It is arguably so; there is a practical infinitude of
>> > such cases of regular, mechanical, constant conjunctions ...
>
>What right have we to act as your judge? Hume raised the problem
>of conjunction, but never pretended an independent platform ...
>Apart from their poor results, rain-dancers are othewise soundly
>scientific!
>
>> >So, if visual field & quantum field reveal similar mathematical
>> >structures, ought not we to accept this as a possible clue as to the
>> >nature of the putative connection between the two (?) types of fields?
>
>[ ... ]
>
>> >My own suggestion has been to take the neutral monists & identity
>> >theorists at their word & say, well, maybe the two fields are one and
the
>> >same, but like the classic case of the morning star & the evening star
>> >(identically the planet Venus) we see these two fields under different
>> >aspects.
>
>The planet Venus? That's a bit anthropomorphic isn't it? How did you find
>out its name? Rgds - John Murphy.
>
Uh...I'm not sure that your comment about Venus is earnest, John.
The "Venus: morning star-evening star" story is (as far as I know) a
fairly standard piece of scientific lore. Prior to the paradigm shift
from the geocentric (Ptolemaic) cosmology to the heliocentric (Copernican)
cosmology, (some of) our honorable (European) ancestors kinda thought of
the evening sky as some kind of high-tech virtual reality
music-of-the-spheres celestial light show - conceived, scripted, and
choreographed by God & Co. Well, when the paradigm shift had commenced,
one of the actors, Galileo, took his latest new-wave ultra high-tech joy
toy (version 2.x), the telescope (which he was also peddling [rumor has
it] to "establishment" for fame and profit), and pointed the (correct end,
I presume, of the) telescope at the night sky. Although he seems (as
rumor has it) to have experienced difficulty with convincing some of his
contemporaries, he apparently convinced himself that the scientifically
(though not [necessarily] politically) correct position was heliocentric,
not geocentric. One of his "discoveries" was that Venus orbits the sun
and not the earth, exhibiting a crescent face when it stands nearer to the
earth than does the sun and a gibbous face when it is on the far side of
the sun. Here's a quote from Timothy Ferris' _Coming of Age in the Milky
Way_ : "These things leave no room for doubt about the orbit of
Vebnus...With absolute necessity we shall conclude, in agreement with the
theories of the Pythagoreans and of Copernicus, that Venus revolves about
the sun just as do all the other planets." Eventually (I'm not certain if
historians specifically attribute the realization to Galileo), the Venus:
morning star-evening star identity seeped into cultural consciousness.
Venus had previously been perceived as two separate phenomena: distinct,
bright patches of light in the sky (in the morning, in the evening).
Here's a quick, crude (perhaps irrelevant) diagram:
MORNING EVENING
* *
\ /
VENUS
Now, back to the reason for considering the "Venus identity." Mr.
Flanagan, I believe (with the expectation of being corrected, if
necessary) referred to "Venus affair" in an effort to establish an analogy
with the program that he has apparently embarked upon (evidently with some
enthusiasm - and probably for good reason).
But, let me sidetrack first (if you haven't already given up on my
meandering discourse). I can think of another analogy that I think could
prove useful, and I suspect that Mr. Flanagan may also thought of, but is
too modest (as seems to be consistent with his apparently good character)
to discuss in a public forum. Consider the following quick, crude diagram
that illustrates another significant identity:
Apple Moon
\ /
Gravitational Mass
Instead of babbling about this example, I believe that an excerpt from
Chapter 3 ("Knowldege as Algorithm and as Metaphor) of Jacob Bronowski's
_The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination_ (recommended reading - if you
the time and inclination) would be useful:
======
Consciousness, then, is our mode of analysis of the outside world into
objects and actions. And I pointed out at the close of my second lecture
that it at once posed a problem; namely, that we also think of ourselves
as objects and we therefore also apply language to ourselves. We treat
ourselves both as objects of language and as speakers of language, both as
objects of the symbolism and as symbols in it. And all the difficult
paradoxes which go right back to Greek times and reappear in modern
mathematics depend essentially on this. I shall be concerned in my next
lecture with the implication of these paradoxes from the use of symbolism,
both in literature and in science.
Let me write for you two symbolic expressions. The first is one which
occurs in the work of Newton; it says that "the gravitational attraction
between two massive bodies is proportional to the product of their masses
divided by the square of the distance between two massive bodies is
proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the
distance between some point in each mass." If any single utterance by a
scientist has reshaped history, it is this, the law of inverse squares.
Ludwig Boltzmann's gravestone was inscribed with the symbol for entropy, S
= klogW, and I suppose if Newton had had any control over what was to be
put on his gravestone, he would have chosen G = k mm'/r2. Now we all
understand that as a symbolic expression which describes in some way the
structure of our experience.
Let me now write for you another symbolic expression which I take from
"The Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake. I take a couplet almost at
random; this one says,
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
Now the extradiordinary thing about that verse is that it appears to have
none of the formal structure of Newton's formula. Yet it is a highly
general statement and everybody in this room knows exactly what it means,
and I mean EXACTLY. My "exactly" may not be your "exactly," but in some
way we all know with an immediacy which we derive from language and
experience what
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
means. I would say that everybody understands this, whereas there must be
a good many people in the audience who, in fact, are taking G = k mm'/r2
on trust.
Well now, I wish I could lecture on generalizations of the form of "a
Robin Red Breast in a Cage," but I can only do so much on one occasion.
There are two things, however, I want to say about both of those
statements. One is that they are both general statements; let no one tell
you that this quotation is only a particular statement. It derives its
general appeal to us all from its high specificity, and that is the
miracle of this kind of a remark; but it is a statement which says
something about the human situation and not just about A robin or A cage.
Secondly, neither statement has the form of a syllogism; neither say all
As are Bs or any of those things that occur in the textbooks on logic in
which sentences are always written as if they described classes. It is my
view that that is very foreign to human language, that no scientific
statement and no poetic statement is of the form, "all As are Bs." This
is what these two have in common. This kind of symbolism is a highly
active kind. Do not be deceived by the eqauls sign. It says something
which describes what happens when you do something.
In discussing statements of this sort, scientific statements, I am going
to treat science as a language. I am going to say that this formula is a
sentence in the language, that all such statments are sentences in the
language, and that the way we construct this language mirrors the way
human language evolved. However, I should make one preliminary [remark]
about it and explain to you that science is a rather peculiar language
because it only contains statements that are, in the context of a
particular theory, true. We do not, for instance, say, "Well, g = k
mm'/r2 is a sentence in this language. And another sentence in this
language is G = mm'/r3." In the language we are discussing, G = k mm'/r3
is not a sentence.
There are statements in the language of science which have a simple and
fairly descriptive form. For instance, when Kepler said in 1609 that the
planets run on ellipses round the sun as focus and sweep out equal areas
in equal time, that is a fairly descriptive sentence. The sentence which
Newton wrote about the gravitational attraction is a more abstract
sentence and in fact summarizes the description of what Kepler said. For
the purpose of the discussion today that is not an important difference,
and I will not labor it.
[SNIP]
If we treat our knowledge of the external world in this way, then we are
constructing a language of science which has three features. These are,
first of all, symbols which stand for concepts or inferred entities which
have the character of words in these sentences. Then there is a grammar
which tells us how these thing are to be put together, so that for
instance G = k mm'/r2 is a grammatical sentence. If you did not put r2
down but r3, that would be ungrammatical and the sentence would not be
allowed in the language. And finally there is a dictionary of translation
which relates a sentence like this to specific problems determining the
period of the moon.
After all, when Newton thought of that, the first thing he did was to
calculate the period of the moon. And then he said modestly, when he told
this story to his housekeeper, "I found the answer pretty nearly." He
made the period of the moon twenty-eight days so he felt that r2 was
right. These are the three characters of the language of science. The
grammar is essentially the rules of operation specified by the axioms; the
dictionary of translation is essentially the way we apply the sentences to
our common experience; and the symbols or concepts are solutions of the
cryptogram.
Let me give you a different kind of sentence.
2NaCl + H2SO4 = Na2SO4 + 2HCl
In the seventeenth century Mr. Glauber made Glauber's salts. And after
about another hundred years we learned to write his reaction in the form
that if you mix salt with sulphuric acid you get Glauber's salts and
hydrochloric acid. Now if you actually were to read Glauber's description,
which is full of words like "muriatic acid" and other splendid phrases
that I am afraid I have forgotten, you would not, or course, recognize it
as the same reaction. Why not? Because you have all been brought up with
a code in which NaCl is what you say for salt and H2SO4 is what you say
for sulphuric acid. But, of course, the whole thing has been translated
into a kind of Morse code. And what has been elucidated by the Morse code
is that this sodium atom here is an element and that this hydrochloric
acid is not an element - a fact which was much in dispute in the time,
say, of Humphrey Davy, so that the code teases out the elementary symbols.
We solve the cryptogram by doing this. And I do not have to tell you that
if you were now to write this in terms of its valences and in terms of the
free electrons and so on, you would be breaking down the code step by step
into the codes that we now have for nuclear processes. This is why I say
that we are making the language. We are making the symbols by the
challenge of question and answer, which gives us real statements about the
world that we then break down.
I want to come back to this because it reminds you that the grammar has to
do with explanation, the dictionary has to do with description and the
symbols have to do with those concepts with which the only evidence for
most of us in that somebody told us in a lecture or that it says so in the
textbook. Words like hydrogen and helium, nuclear processes, inhibition
in biology, inhibiiton in psychology have become new words in our
vocabulary. But they owe their existence to being decoded out of
statements of this kind.
[SNIP]
Let me close by reminding you of what Newton actually did on the day that
he conceived G = k mm'/r2. He said to himself, "If I throw a ball, it
will fall to the ground. If I throw it harder, it will fall a little
further off. I must be able to throw it just so hard that it falls
exactly as fast as the horizon, and then it will go all the way around the
world." Beautiful. Full of assumptions about the world being round, and
how the ball would behave and so on, but nevertheless a gorgeous, highly
imaginative conception - a wonderful piece of vizualization. Newton saw
it all. He drew a lovely diagram. The ball will fall all the way round
the world. How long will it take? It is easy to calculate, roughly
ninety minutes.
Well, in 1666 when Newton thought that, nobody was willing to build
expensive pieces of apparatus in order to send men round the world to see
whether they came back in ninety minutes. This test was reserved for our
highly intelligent generation. Newton did not have any subsidies, grants,
funds, Secret Service money. But he had the moon. He said, "Of course, I
cannot throw a ball round the world, but let me now picture the moon as if
it were a ball which has been flung round the world - 250,000 miles up,
but still, it is up there. How long will it take to go round the world?"
Well, now it is more difficult. He knew the value of gravity at the
earth's surface, so that was easy to calculate for the ball, but he did
not know the value of the earth's gravity for the moon. He said, "Let us
suppose that it is given by an inverse square law. Now, how long will it
take the moon to go around?" It comes out at twent-eight days. As Newton
said, "They agreed pretty nearly."
Now there is the kind of imaginative conception that we put into the laws
of nature. How? When we isolate it from the rest of the universe and
say, "That is the part of it that is going to count. I am not going to be
concerned about the perturbations created by Mars and so on. And of
course, Newton's was a termendous mind. You would never get Newton to
say, "It came out right." "They agree pretty nearly," said Newton, not
forgetting about Mars and Venus and everything upsetting it all.
Now we begin to see where the path from metaphor to algorthm always goes.
When Newton saw the moon as a ball that had been thrown round the earth,
he was initiating a gigantic metaphor. And when it finished up, it was in
a calculable form, it was an algorithm (a formula with which you can
calculate). And that is the path from metaphor to algorithm - from the
Blake phrase to the Newton formula - that every scientific theory has to
follow because it is a human section of the totality of experience which
excludes some of the connections which are there.
I will explain next time what importance we ought to attach to a theory,
and why this view makes truth by correspondence (namely, at the dictionary
level) and truth by coherence (name, at the grammar level) match. It is
one of the central problems of philosophical discourse. I also will be
talking about how the inside and the outside of the world hang together,
but I shall be talking about it in terms of the brain.
I do not want to finish today without reminding you of one last metaphor
because I want you to know how our picture of the world is always
influenced by the metaphors that we inject into it. Newton had the apple
and the moon; but before him, Kepler had had the idea that there was a
universal gravitation.
Kepler wrote a book about a journey to the moon in which he said, "Gravity
will not stop at the top of the mountains [which is what most of his
contemporaries thought], the earth's gravity will go to the moon." Now
that is a wonderful idea for Kepler to have. But then he asked himself,
"How would it fall off?" And he had a curious idea. He said, "Well, if
it were an open space then, of course, it would fall off like light as the
square of the distance. But you see, the earth is in a flat orbit round
the sun, so that the sun's force is only being spread over the plane and,
therefore," said Kepler, "probably only falls off like this." There he
was wrong. But the exciting thing is to understand why he was wrong.
He had got hold of the wrong metaphor. But behind it lay a very curious,
much more ancient metaphor. Why did he ever think that masses attracted
one another at all? Well, it is very difficult to trace this. But so far
as one can see, Kepler, who had a very mystical turn of mind (the very
book that I am quoting from is called _Mysterium Cosmographicum_), was
probably influenced by a neo-Platonist called Nicholas of Cusa who thought
that all matter in the world attracted. Nicholas of Cusa appears to have
taken this neo-Platonic idea from an imposter of the fifth century, a
father of the Church who called himself Dionysius the Areopagite.
Dionysius the Areopagite (who turned out, as I say, not to be the person
he claimed to be) had produced the following argument back in the fifth
century. He said, "God's love is universal; it infuses the whole of
nature, and it therefore infuses every piece of matter. And, thererfore,
not only does God's love draw every piece of matter to him, but every
piece of matter must be drawn to every other piece."
======
There's not much I could (or would want to) say that can improve on
Bronowski's cogent and lucid exposition. So I'll return to Mr. Flanagan's
captivating insight:
So, if visual field & quantum field reveal similar mathematical
structures, ought not we to accept this as a possible clue as to the
nature of the putative connection between the two (?) types of fields?
[ ... ]
My own suggestion has been to take the neutral monists & identity
theorists at their word & say, well, maybe the two fields are one and the
same, but like the classic case of the morning star & the evening star
(identically the planet Venus) we see these two fields under different
aspects.
If I understand Mr. Flanagan's motivation (and I realize that I may not),
he has grasped a metaphor (perhaps, more accurately, the metaphor has
grasped him), in which a putative identity that he has conceived can be
represented in the following diagram:
Visual Quantum
field field
\ /
(?)
He (if I haven't misunderstood) has the metaphor - the analogy, and now he
is searching for the necessary formalism for "which they agree pretty
nearly." I hope he allows us to "stay tuned." Maybe we can even help.
What do you think?
Brian J Flanagan
> stee...@pixi.com (Don Steehler) wrote:
> >
> > In article, bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu says...
> > >
> > >On 16 Mar 1995, Kimbal Welch wrote:
> > >
> > >... our universe appears to be thus-and-so.
> > >I.e., it seems to have selected this particular
> > >mathematical structure & that is an important discovery.>
>
It's NOT a discovery: it's the way things work - constant reduction
of variation.
O, well, yes, but at one time this was unknown to us & our present
knowledge resulted from the discovery of this state of affairs. That's
all I meant.
> > >We set two spheres in front of you. They are identical, except one
> > >is red and the other is blue. ... [We] ask you to pick up the blue
> > >sphere & [you] do ...
>
> > >... So, does ... [your] "mental" visual field get connected to the
> > >"physical" fields ( or have we ripped you off!). ...>which are the
> > > spheres? It is arguably so; there is a practical infinitude of
> > > such cases of regular, mechanical, constant conjunctions ...
>
> What right have we to act as your judge? Hume raised the problem
> of conjunction, but never pretended an independent platform ...
> Apart from their poor results, rain-dancers are othewise soundly
> scientific!
This is unclear to me. Could you please elucidate?
>
> > >So, if visual field & quantum field reveal similar mathematical
> > >structures, ought not we to accept this as a possible clue as to the
> > >nature of the putative connection between the two (?) types of fields?
>
> [ ... ]
>
> > >My own suggestion has been to take the neutral monists & identity
> > >theorists at their word & say, well, maybe the two fields are one and the
> > >same, but like the classic case of the morning star & the evening star
> > >(identically the planet Venus) we see these two fields under different
> > >aspects.
>
> The planet Venus? That's a bit anthropomorphic isn't it? How did you find
> out its name? Rgds - John Murphy.
>
> Again, I'm not at all certain what you're getting at.
>
>
>
>
Brian J Flanagan
> In <Pine.A32.3.91.950318...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> Brian
> J Flanagan <bfla...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> writes:
> >
> >Is Crick's"Astonishing Hypothesis" any > less speculative?
> >
> It would seem so. Crick is friends with my friends in La Jolla, so I
> must be careful! He is a jolly fellow. :-)
I have a good deal of affection & respect for Crick and the crew in La
Jolla. It actually pains me to have to disagree with them, especially so
since I employ their works to support my own--when it suits me, i.e.
> >Well, again, I think this is worth looking into & even exciting.
>
> A gold star for you! :-)
Hugs & kisses all around.
> >Not only that but each switch is a quantum switch a Schrodinger cat so
> >the dimer can be in a coherent superposition maybe?
> >
> >You sound like a Copenhagenist here--if Bohm is right, what need have
> we of S's cat & etc.?
>
> S's Cat does not disappear in Bohm's theory. If one can keep down the
> entanglement to huge numbers of orthogonal modes in the environment,
> which the microtubule model seems to do, the unoccupied branch can
> recombine with the occupied branch and activate its influence as in a
> quantum eraser experiment.
> >
I am thinking of that common variant of hidden variables wherein no
"collapse of the wave-packet" occurs in the traditional sense, tho' of
course the phenomena you refer to are well-documented. This tends to
confirm my earlier suspicion that perhaps we are in fair agreement on a
number of points, tho' our formulations diverge-- not at all
surprising, really, since this is all quite new in important respects and
no large canon exists yet ... tho' I would nominate Penrose, the
Churchlands, Bohm, Grossberg, Winograd, Crick, Sejnowski & you (you strange
person) to the list.
the > Lilliputians have me tied down, and the Mad Hags of Thrace have >
dismembered me and my head floats down the River Styx. > > Hey that's a
song better than Bob Dylan's! I copywrite that lyric. > Thanks God for the
message from the future!
>
> >
Well, as I said, I expect you do have a number of demands on your time.
Brian J Flanagan
Grow old along with me.
The best is yet to be.
--Browning
Don Steehler
>not conserved then the number of possibilities is changing!
>Clearly from the evolution of complexity the space of possibilities
>in increasing for open living systems -- the sum of prior
>probabilities for the activities of living matter fails to add
>up to one rather than exceeds one for a successful biosphere-
>that is. That's obviously creative evolution. Nonunitarity is
>what allows intelligence.
Eric Chaisson wrote an interesting book, _The Life Era: The Role of
Change in the Natural Universe_. I have a high regard and for the author
(the last I heard, he was the chief scientist with the Hubble Telescope
project), and the book.
The realm of discourse of the book differs from your focus; the book is
about modern cosmology - written by a cosmologist. If you have the time
and opportunity to read it, you may find that he is considering the same
"universe" as you are. The appendix provides a compact, symbolic-oriented
"summary", which you may find convenient if you do have an opportunity to
consider the book (if you haven't already done so).
At one point in his exposition, Dr. Chaisson expresses some bewilderment
as why others keep on telling him that he reminds them of Teilhard de
Chardin. I think that I'm beginning to grasp the reason for the
association.
Respectfully,
me
Don Steehler
>the > Lilliputians have me tied down, and the Mad Hags of Thrace have >
>dismembered me and my head floats down the River Styx. > > Hey that's a
>song better than Bob Dylan's! I copywrite that lyric. > Thanks God for
the
>message from the future!
>>
>> >
>
>Well, as I said, I expect you do have a number of demands on your time.
Touche! ;)
In my original message to you, I quoted Voltaire. You remarked that you
read _Candide_ at an earlier stage of your life with enjoyment. At the
risk of being accused of proselytizing, I'd like to suggest a shorter work
by Voltaire, "Micromegas." You'd probably also appreciate the rampant
humor in that work. More importantly, at your current stage of life, you
may fully appreciate the message that the author was apparently attempting
to convey.
Respectfully,
me
Don Steehler
>
>stee...@pixi.com (Don Steehler) wrote:
>>
>
>>
>>
>> In my original message to you, I quoted Voltaire. You remarked that you
>> read _Candide_ at an earlier stage of your life with enjoyment. At the
>> risk of being accused of proselytizing, I'd like to suggest a shorter work
>> by Voltaire, "Micromegas." You'd probably also appreciate the rampant
>> humor in that work. More importantly, at your current stage of life, you
>> may fully appreciate the message that the author was apparently attempting
>> to convey.
>
>Biography of John Baez! :-)
>
>see http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/home.html
>
>I am told that Mel Torme's son has been seen in Caffe Trieste
>listening in on my rants and raves with his PowerBook while
>writing script for new Fox TV series Sliders - about time
>travel and hopping through parallel universes shot in my
>neighborhood.
>
>Some of you may remember my joke about when UFOs land out
>will come Donald Duck, Mickey, Bugs and all the toons. Well
>last night Paramount has Michael Eisner of the Lucas Arts-
>Bill Gates Dream Team introduce Alien Contact as "fact"
>while promoting their new Virtual Reality Alien -Human contact
>experience at Disneyland. How's that for precognitive remote
>viewing!
Touche! ;)
Chapter 3 of Dorion Sagan's _Bioshperes_
me
>>
>> Respectfully,
>>
>> me
>>
>
Jack Sarfatti
>
>
>
> In my original message to you, I quoted Voltaire. You remarked that you
> read _Candide_ at an earlier stage of your life with enjoyment. At the
> risk of being accused of proselytizing, I'd like to suggest a shorter work
> by Voltaire, "Micromegas." You'd probably also appreciate the rampant
> humor in that work. More importantly, at your current stage of life, you
> may fully appreciate the message that the author was apparently attempting
> to convey.
I am writing my own version called "Megalomegas" The Unauthorized
Biography of John Baez! :-)
see http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/home.html
I am told that Mel Torme's son has been seen in Caffe Trieste
listening in on my rants and raves with his PowerBook while
writing script for new Fox TV series Sliders - about time
travel and hopping through parallel universes shot in my
neighborhood.
Some of you may remember my joke about when UFOs land out
will come Donald Duck, Mickey, Bugs and all the toons. Well
last night Paramount has Michael Eisner of the Lucas Arts-
Bill Gates Dream Team introduce Alien Contact as "fact"
while promoting their new Virtual Reality Alien -Human contact
experience at Disneyland. How's that for precognitive remote
viewing!
>
> Respectfully,
>
> me
>
Don Steehler
*******
Willima Irving Thompson:
_The American Replacement of Nature: The Everyday Acts and Outrageous Evolution of Economic Life_
*******
>>
>> Respectfully,
>>
>> me
>>
>
Peter Norton
>
>*******
>
aka William Irwin Thompson, historian of myth extraordinaire
>_The American Replacement of Nature: The Everyday Acts and Outrageous Evolution of Economic Life_
also:
_Darkness and Scattered Light_
_Gaia_ vols 1+2
and by his son:
_The Embodied Mind_ Varella and Thompson
two useful terms of WIT's of benefit to Physicists undergoing episodes of
precognitive remote viewing:
"misplaced concreteness" "spiritual inflation"
---
"just ride the train, do not look too closely at the tracks,
you might get dizzy and throw up."
S. Roshi
Jack Sarfatti
> >>How's that for precognitive remote viewing!
> >
> >*******
> >
>
Thompson talks of Ira Einhorn in "The Edge of History". Ira
was my book agent before he was the first O. J. Simpson accused
of murdering his girlfriend, Holly Maddox, and concealing the
body in his apartment for 18 months. See Stephen Levy's, "The
Unicorn's Secret". Like the Juice, Ira maintained his innocence
and is still on the lam after 16 years.
Ira was one of the founders of the Internet with Jacques Vallee.
Ira's defense attorney was now Senator and Presidential Candidate
Alren Specter. Ira received money for his legal defense from the
Bronfman Family now buying MCA. Another close friend of Ira's
was Alvin Toffler who is now Newt Gingrich's Guru.
Ira told me that he was set up and framed by the KGB. Congressman
Charlie Rose of the House Select Committee on Intelligence told
me in a phone conversation that Ira was indeed working with him.
For more info see INSITE
http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/home.html