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Can We Feel What It’s Like to Be Quantum?
Underground experiments in the heart of the Italian mountains are testing the links between consciousness and collapse theories of quantum physics.
Blogger Johannes Kleiner wrote on Jul. 3, 2020 @ 11:51 GMT
Abstract: A scientific understanding of the process whereby physical entities produce consciousness has not come about, despite decades of investigation. This suggests exploring the reversal of the celebrated “hard problem of consciousness,” i.e., take consciousness as fundamental and the physical world as emergent. We describe D. Hoffman’s Interface Theory of Perception in which perceptual experiences do not approximate properties of an “objective” world, but reside in simplified, species-specific, user interfaces. Building on this, the Conscious Realism Thesis states that the objective world consists entirely of a social network of ‘conscious agents’ and their experiences, which together create the objects and properties of our common physical world.
Using evolutionary game theory, we justify interface theory by showing that perceptual strategies reporting the truth will be driven to extinction by those tuned instead to fitness. We state further theorems on fitness beating truth, by showing that perceived structures, such as symmetries, partial orders and probabilities, will likely not be possessed by a world. We define “conscious agents,” suggesting that space-time is a property of the perceptual interface of human conscious agents: physical “objects” are akin to icons on that interface; physical “phenomena” are properties of apparently interacting icons.
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 06:27 GMT
A clue that the material world is not the product/generated appearance is that the dimensions and scale of the material objects are different from those of observation products. the dimensions of the measured object are in Euclidean space. The appearance is not in Euclidean space. There is a perspective dimension to the observation products. The further away the Source object or part of such an object, the smaller it appears.The human interfaces with sensory stimuli that have arrived at its sense organs not with material sources of the stimuli themselves.Except the sense of touch. There are more than one possible source for the observation products produced. As seen size of product depends both on size of Source object and distance from observer. The product only shows some surfaces.e.g. A facade could look the same as a whole building.Learning/experience helps decide on likely sources.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 06:37 GMT
Measure a card board box with a ruler placed on it, to get its dimensions. Then place the box on a table so that three sizes can be seen . Step back from it. Then use the ruler held at arms length to measure the dimensions of the exposed sides.If both then seen image of the box and the material box were in Euclidean space the dimensions of product and Source object would be proportional to each other.They are not.
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 09:25 GMT
Georgina,
When I look at the derivation of special relativity, I see a consistent picture that could lead to gravity propulsion and tractor beams. I see properties that a graviton that would be needed to explain quantum gravity. A graviton that expands from a point to a sphere with radius r = ct could explain many things in physics including spacetime geometry and the invariance of c. But for now, everyone is looking under every nook and cranny for a superstring or consciousness or something.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 11:14 GMT
Jason, your comment does not relate to the video or my comments. When I look at the derivation of Special relativity, i see that when measuring trains , direct measurement of a material train is compared to measurements obtained from using the seen image a train. These are not measurements the same kind; comparing like with like. The light clock thought experiment providing, supposedly evidence for time dilatation ("moving clocks run slow") makes the mistake of assuming the beam of seen light is the beam inside the clock rather than, necessarily because of how vision works, the observers self generated observation product.EM radiation has periodic motion, the period of such is invariant under translation. That applies to the beam inside the clock,not the seen image of it.Clocks are sensitive apparatus, moving them can affect their timekeeping.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 11:46 GMT
The observer generated products are Space-time images ,as sensory input arriving together has taken different lengths of time to arrive. Whereas as, existence not spread over time can avoid temporal paradoxes. Non simultaneity of events only requires the persistence of potential sensory data; potential stimuli. Neither the seen space-time or uni-temporal space of existence independent of observation are space-time as in the space-time continuum.
Interface theory too lacks differentiation of material things and their interactions and seen "images" /observation products with semblance of objects sand semblance of interaction. Beakers full of chemical reagents can react together in material existence independent of observation. The same chemical reaction is not actually happening in the visual cortex of an observer of it.
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 21:15 GMT
Georgina,
Remember Star Trek? The Alcubierre drive? Tractor beams? Quantum gravity? I know how to approach it experimentally. But nobody is interested in those things now. As for "studying consciousness", one has to infer that it comes from deeper levels of fields that have existed before the big bang, deeper than the Higgs field or standard model.
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 22:52 GMT
Technology based on expansionism and contraction of space-time will not work because space-time is not the reality external observers.There is potential sensory data, pertaining to different temporal origins, distributed in uni-temporal space. that is what is required for potential non simultaneity of a seen event and prevention of temporal paradoxes.I don't agree with your" one has to infer that it comes from deeper levels of fields that have existed before the big bang, deeper than the Higgs field or standard model." I think the model requires more than just a "User interface" the agent uses to navigate and comprehend its surroundings; and allows corroboration with near observers of the same species. A chicken seeing a hawk will give a danger from the sky cry, alerting other nearby chickens. When they look they too will see the danger.I think the "User interlace " alone is not enough. To account for how the awareness arises there also needs to be, lets call it, a system's reality interface. Whereby there id a bridge between the external world and the internal. For an organism is its sensory system. That is operating sub consciously.Though there can be conscious decision of what to pay attention affecting orientation and proximity of the sense organs to a source of potential input.
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 4, 2020 @ 23:46 GMT
I don't consider myself a true Christian, more of a Spiritualist who loves God, loves Jesus. But from listening to your comments, I think that you would benefit from reading the Bible. There is a lot of good stuff in it that would give you and others peace of mind. I also recognize that the scientific community has failed utterly to come up with a better explanation for the big bang, the Periodic table, and life, than to say that a Creator/God must have done it. I have to admit that when I went down the road of those assumptions, I indeed did figure out how quantum gravity workds; but you don't seem to be interested. So be it. Happy 4th of July,
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 5, 2020 @ 00:55 GMT
Jason, I have read the bible. I think your ideas belong in the "alternative models of reality" forum rather than here. Which is a page about a model of consciousness. I have also explained why, if your idea is based on expansion and contraction of space-time. I do not think it works.The notion that faith itself can affect material reality is interesting to me. because if true it shows my model of two realities is incomplete if not entirely wrong.
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 5, 2020 @ 01:08 GMT
My idea is actually based upon the idea of an expanding graviton. It never contracts (unless you put a lot of effort into forcing it to). It naturally expands at the speed of light, spherically. I got the idea from the derivation of special relativity. The big bang started from a point and has expanded forever; so I thought that the idea of a graviton expanding forever made sense. But the trick to getting quantum gravity is that these gravitons can be trapped by particle systems; when they're trapped, they become the thing that wave functions describe: collections of quantum states for position, momentum, spin, etc.
"The notion that faith itself can affect material reality is interesting to me. because if true it shows my model of two realities is incomplete if not entirely wrong." Actually, that's your idea. Faith is important for peace of mind, and for creating governments and nations. It was actually the Intelligent Design argument that proved to me that God really does exist (and a personal experience in a dream). The fact that there are physics constants that have to be set just right, in order to get things like stable chemistry, all proves to me that a Creator in unavoidable.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 5, 2020 @ 04:14 GMT
"The notion that faith itself can affect material reality is interesting to me. because if true it shows my model of two realities is incomplete if not entirely wrong." Yes that is my idea (not original, from Christianity) but I was not specific enough. I mean affecting external reality/the external environment directly. Affect on the body of belief is demonstrated by the placebo effect and possibly a nocebo effect.
Your graviton idea is still on the wrong page.There is mounting evidence that Big bang theory is probably incorrect.
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 5, 2020 @ 08:23 GMT
"Your graviton idea is still on the wrong page.There is mounting evidence that Big bang theory is probably incorrect." There is no mounting evidence that the big bang is not correct. There are only a lot of people who need to get back to basic definitions of established empirical physics.
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I think the idea of homuncular particles might very well be real and might lead to the greatest discovery in science ever, mostly ending pain and death and giving us the ability to make own custom designed bodies for almost any environment in the universe!
If the finite universe is conscious with free will and the particles are its children that take a very long time to become a universe,...
I think the idea of homuncular particles might very well be real and might lead to the greatest discovery in science ever, mostly ending pain and death and giving us the ability to make own custom designed bodies for almost any environment in the universe!
If the finite universe is conscious with free will and the particles are its children that take a very long time to become a universe, particles would have more energy (a good measure of both consciousness and free will) and become more massive over time and have more complex behavior.
That has been the trend for billions of years in the universe — Hydrogen being converted to helium and other higher energy, higher mass particles.
The combination problem can be resolved by having a good test when a combination is in effect a higher consciousness. A very good candidate is Planck’s law, E=hf, and Einstein’s E=mc2. A higher consciousness would almost certainly have a higher clock rate allowing it to perceive, think and act with free will faster.
A helium nucleus of two protons and two neutrons act like a unified consciousness most of the time giving a clock speed f=E/h about 4 times higher than hydrogen which can be tested for in a double slit experiment.
The test would be: is the combination obeying f=mc2/h or not? Only elemental particles and very rigid small molecules up to about the 60 carbon fullerene could pass the double slit test. When the fullerene is unified with a high De Broglie frequency that could be like an awake state, and when it acts more like a collection of lower frequency carbon atoms that could be like a sleep state.
A highly massive homuncular particle would operate at a much higher De Broglie frequency by f=mc2/h than any other particle in the brain, maybe having a billion times the mass and thus frequency of typical particles allowing it to perceive, process, and decide (free will) a billion times faster. A year for a high energy particle might seem like a second to a low energy particle allowing the high energy particle to easily be in charge and the low energy particles to seem like objects not subjects.
A likely way a homuncular particle would interact with the brain is electromagnetically which might not be too difficult to discover. There would have to be a homuncular code where the brain sends coded visual audio, and other sense information and receives codes for voluntary free will actions.
If this wireless code exists, breaking it could be the greatest discovery ever! With the code broken the location can be easily discovered and custom designed bodies built for almost any environment! Almost no more death or pain and maybe even a way to communicate with our universal parent, the Universe!
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jul. 6, 2020 @ 05:35 GMT
Hi Chetan Praddesh, I don't understand why you say " perceived structures, such as symmetries, partial orders and probabilities, will likely not be possessed by a world." what do you mean by partial orders? I do know that the visual system emphasizes boundaries which aids object recognition and colour vision is thought to be an advantage for primates and birds as it aids detection of ripe fruits. Cats eyes have a reflective layer that increases the seen "light" intensity which is advantageous for night hunting. We may think we have good colour perception but "Compared to the three types of photoreceptor cells that humans possess in their eyes, the eyes of a mantis shrimp have between 12 and 16 types of photoreceptors cells. Furthermore, some of these shrimp can tune the sensitivity of their long-wavelength colour vision to adapt to their environment" Wikipedia Seems what is generated giving conscious awareness is tied to what is generated as sensory input to the CNS. If the conscious mind originates what is observed in a wakeful not imagining or day dreaming state that is a hallucination that can not be corroborated. It could be drug induced or psychosis. Thinking the mind influences the outside world directly is a kind of magical thinking which can also be indicative of illness.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 7, 2020 @ 10:20 GMT
Hi Chetan Praddesh, I don't understand why you say " perceived structures, such as symmetries, partial orders and probabilities, will likely not be possessed by a world."
I have looked up what symmetry in physics and partial order means.I think the answer depends on how time is or isn't distributed. As well as if passage of time is regarded as part of what the world is. If the external reality space is uni-temporal, conditions that exists at different times can not be in existence together. So if one state precedes another they are at different times.. different configurations of material reality. But if continual change is taken as as foundational characteristic of the world then the partial order is part of that foundational characteristic..A translation takes time so symmetry too can be taken as part of the foundational change characteristic. What springs to mind is invariant period of periodic motion under translation. Probability is about what would happen if...given the configuration of something. The configuration is part of the uni-temporal material reality but the outcome is not yet in existence and might not be actualized.The tossed coin might fall down the grate into the drain and the outcome never realized. The probability is only what the future might be.
What are your thoughts behind your statement, quoted above?
Yeast consumes sugars and secretes alcohol while reproducing and consuming until there is no available sugars left or until the alcohol it secretes kills all of the yeasty beasties. And that is wine with me. But what in that can be attributed to an act of perception? The underlying question doesn't seem to me to be some reformulated statement of an Anthropic Principle, it must be more a question of how "the spark of life" arises in the first instance. If we accept condensed matter physics, then what is it which mathematically obtains as an epi-local state of mass:energy equivalence? Energy upon energy, so to speak. Perception in human experience can be projected down the food chain only so far without becoming as meaningless a characteristic as is the ad hoc quantum categorizations of 'strangeness and charm': mere mathematical necessities to enable the spin additive number system to incorporate the particle zoo and the periodic table.
Having said this, let me add that I prefer that philosophies dwell on the subject and hope that (given mankind's track record)that physical rationales never succeed in revealing the true nature of The Spark of Life which in higher orders manifests in the peculiar self awareness associated with perception. cordially, jrc
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Someday in the future, we'll finally reach the consensus that the word "physical" simply has no meaning beyond "is experienced". Then we'll start moving forward again.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 8, 2020 @ 22:42 GMT
Is experienced, via the senses. Which then leads to thinking about what are sensory stimuli and where/how do they originate.Without external input there can be experience; dreams, imagination and psychosis.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 9, 2020 @ 04:04 GMT
It doesn't seem at all helpful to make 'physical' only mean "is experienced." As that only implies the experience, of the mind, and implies nothing about the interface of the organism with the outside world via it's bodies senses. What are sense organs for if not to receive sensory inputs/stimuli.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jul. 9, 2020 @ 06:22 GMT
To avoid teleology i should have asked about function rather than purpose. What is the function of the sense organs if not acting as receivers of sensory input/stimuli? Many species of cave animal are blind. Geology.com. Troglobites It is so dark that functioning eyes give no survival advantage. Therefore there is no selection pressure working against survival and reproduction of the blind,
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Does the Standard Model have to be described as "physical"? I'd say it represents our current knowledge of the composition - the granularity - of experience. It describes how consciousness constructs reality.
What value is added by asserting that particles - or wave functions - are 'physical'?
Give me your meaningful, non-circular definition of 'physical'. "That which exists" does not seem adequate, because the word 'exists' has the same issue.
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 9, 2020 @ 16:46 GMT
Jim,
If its physical, it can be perceived by the body, by physical things made of molecules and chemistry, sensors, detectors, by the five senses of the physical body.
There are also non physical things that can be perceived by the mind, by consciousness. Wave functions, virtual particles seem to be at the boundary between matter and spirit. If a soul or a spirit is going to inhabit a physical body, then it must pass through/operate through the layer of wave functions, virtual particles and quantum entanglement.
I'm not a mathematician, so the math part is mostly lost on me. And I'm wary of more computer metaphors. But I've read Hoffman's book for the masses, and I think Interface Theory has traction. I hope to hear more from these people.