The Russell Stannard Questions: Mind Over Matter

There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.

The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.

My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.

Q. The problem of consciousness.

A. How can your basic building blocks that are electrons, neutrons and protons combine to form atoms; atoms that combine to form molecules; molecules that combine to form complex molecules - complex molecules like organic molecules, biochemical molecules and molecules part and parcel of neurochemistry; the ultimate result being that this chain from the simple to the complex crosses a threshold from the inanimate to the animate and from the animate to the animate entity that is self-aware. It is a profound mystery why one has a fairly unique structure comprised of the same fundamental bits and pieces that comprise all other structures but yet one that can contemplate itself. That structure is the brain and the mind that resides within that structure. The brain is the only structure in the cosmos that can examine itself and yet that structure is ultimately comprised of just electrons, neutrons and protons. However, is there really a problem if that structure can ultimate figure out how to create another structure that also has consciousness. In other words, intelligent and conscious biological software can deliberately give rise to an artificial intelligent and conscious string of software and in doing so thus create a Simulated [Virtual Reality] Universe that houses or contains an apparent (but artificially) intelligent and conscious biological entity or entities that wonders whether or not there was an artificially intelligent software program that gave rise to it. That sort of reminds me of the human who dreamed she was a butterfly who dreamed it was a human, or was that the butterfly who dreamed it was a human who dreamed she was a butterfly.

  

Q. The free will/determinism problem.

A. I tend to have a belief in absolute causality, much like both Newton and Einstein who believed in a regular clockwork universe. If X happens, Y follows. All the laws, principles and relationships of the natural universe were forged at the time of the Big Bang event and once that clock was set in motion, all else flowed from those first established laws, principles and relationships. So, in other words, determinism rules, okay? That equally holds true if we’re in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe, regardless if we are, like a character in a video game a ‘puppet-on-a-string’ or the avatar as a stand-in in a simulated world for someone in the really real world, or as the consequence of someone programing a set of laws, principles and relationships then hitting ‘run program’ and standing back to see what eventuates. We’d all like to think we have free will, but if we are programmed to believe that, what harm has been done if you really do believe that what you had for dinner was something you freely did choose to have.

Q. Does complete understanding require more than solely physical explanations?

A. By complete understanding, one has to incorporate those seemingly nebulous things that reside within the mind, things that seem far removed from the physical world of forces and fields and particles and actions and reactions, etc. These so-called nebulous things revolve around consciousness and the subconscious, thinking (that’s clearly a neurochemical process), memory (clearly chemically encoded), creativity, emotions (definitely chemically driven), morals and ethics, right and wrong, a soul, spirituality, free will, etc. However, all these sorts of concepts reside in the brain or in a part of the brain normally identified as the mind. Whether mind-in-the-brain, or just in or a part of the brain, the brain is ultimately composed of fundamental particles that make up atoms that make up molecules that ultimately make up your neurochemistry and thus your brain and structures within. The proof of the pudding that these so-called nebulous concepts reside in the realm of the physical is that these concepts or things can be altered by physical things – physical happenings like injury (you can be knocked unconscious) or lose consciousness in sleep; chemical things like drugs, lack of sleep, the aging process and related can have decided effects on aspects of your personality, etc.; biological happenings like disease also can have profound effects on some of those so-called nebulous things. They can also be altered by your own self, being creative and via thinking deep thoughts which is an electrochemical process (you might think ‘morals be damned, crime does pay’) and of course closely related, the lifelong learning process (as in learning and altering your learning about say morals/ethics; right/wrong) – as you learn, you may find that what you thought was crystal clear, black and white, is really murky and grey. The learning process (formal or otherwise) can have profound effects on your belief systems and worldviews. Learning clearly has foundations in neurochemistry.   



Self-Awareness Issues: A Resolution?

I’ve previously viewed an opinion that there apparently seemed to be no logical reason, in theory, why one couldn’t have more than one self-awareness spread over two (or more) bodies (a counterpoint to those having more than one self-awareness housed in just one body). I’ve now come up with a reason why one can’t have a self-awareness in dual bodies. At least I hope this explains the conundrum.

You’re self-aware if you respond to stimuli, so instead of “I think therefore I am” what comes before even that is that “I respond therefore I am”. Part of that response of course can be thought even if way after the event.

Self-awareness has nothing to do with emotions or intellect or memories or creativity. Poke a foetus with a pin and it will respond. The foetus is self-aware that it is receiving a stimulus.

But there has to be more to self-awareness that. You can respond to a stimulus; I can respond to the exact same stimulus (say a flash of lightning) yet we don’t share the same self-awareness. So, there’s got to be a physical connection between living things in order to share self-awareness (and I don’t mean holding hands either).

To illustrate: You are (or probably will be) self-aware if I stick a pin into your big toe. If that big toe however is then amputated from the rest of you, and I stick a pin into that amputated big toe, there’s no response from you. You’re not self-aware that your (former) big toe has been stuck with a sharp pin! That’s because there’s no longer any physical connection between your (former) big toe and you.

Or take the case of Siamese twins’ conjoined say at the hip region. Now normally these twins would have been just plain identical twins and thus have one self-awareness each. But, because of the physical connection, via a body structure common to both Siamese twins, should that common part be stuck with a pin, presumably both heads, heads that contain the self-aware infrastructure or apparatus, will react. Once separated, no such common reaction will take place. Though I don’t know this for a certainly, it might also be possible that while the twins are still joined, that stroking a part of one twin’s body not jointly shared might produce a reaction in the opposite twin.  

Conversely, if something living is grafted or transplanted onto or into you, that something now becomes part of your overall self-awareness.  But all that still doesn’t really explain why there is for all practical purposes just one self-awareness per customer and why you can’t also be self-aware in a second body simultaneously.

Say I take a 3-D snapshot of you and identify where every bit and piece, atom and molecule, that goes into making you up; what makes you, you at that precise instant, is. Then, using nanotechnology, I recreate another you from the ground up, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, cell by cell, tissue by tissue, etc. You would then have another self-aware you identical to your own self-awareness. That would remain the case - dual self-aware entities - even if you both go your separate ways - Right? Well probably not for several seasons.

Firstly, that definitive 3-D snapshot probably isn’t possible even in theory once quantum fluctuations and uncertainties are taken into account. 

Secondly, there’s that lack of physical contact between you and your built from the ground up alter ego. I once thought that if another entity had the exact same self-awareness as you, you would be aware of that bond since you both share an exact same self-awareness. But, on further reflection, I have to abandon that since that implies faster-that-light speed communication and that’s not allowed according to Einstein and thousands of physicists who have followed in his footsteps.

That’s nowhere more obvious than when it comes to the concept of the infinite cosmos or a Multiverse. If you postulate that the cosmos is never-ending in time and/or in space, then of necessity anything that can happen will happen, an infinite number of times. There will therefore be an infinite number of you which could occur in sequence (if the cosmos is infinite in time) or concurrently (if the cosmos is infinite in space). The same applies if you postulate a Multiverse – an infinite number (or nearly so) of individual finite universes all co-existing within an infinite cosmic landscape.

Regardless, the upshot is one you in the here-and-now (on Earth) and another you out back of beyond somewhere in the cosmos but also in the here-and-now. You, both of you, are equally self-aware; identically so. However, neither one of you is aware of the other. That’s because what one of you is experiencing can only be transmitted to the other you at a velocity that cannot exceed light speed. When you’re talking an infinite cosmos or a Multiverse, you are talking communication time frames between universes of trillions to zillions of years, assuming any interaction is even possible. You’ll be long dead before your equal number, who is out back of beyond somewhere, has awareness’s that can reach you. Except - that argument doesn’t really work if there’s an infinite number of you existing at all times. Some version of you that existed a zillion years ago should have an awareness-of-self that should impact on that you living zillions of years later. No matter which way you slice-and-dice things, one you within an infinite number of you cannot exist in isolation. But each one of those infinite number of you are not in that required physical contact with any one of the other numbers of you, thus no self-awareness co-sharing. 

CONCLUSION

All else being equal, each person has his or her self’s own custom-made, personalized, unique self-awareness. That’s because everyone’s brain chemistry and experiences are unique and so everyone will respond to the exact same stimulus ever so slightly differently.

But there is no law of nature that says that has to be so. It’s possible that two or more people could have an identical sense of self-awareness, if not on Earth, then especially so if there’s an infinite spatial cosmos or a Multiverse. Yet, even if you have an identical you, a more closely ‘you’ than even an identical twin would be, you wouldn’t share self-awareness with your other self and vice versa. Why?

The answer I suggest is separation. There’s no way to communicate one’s self-awareness to the other’s self-awareness, just like your amputated big toe can’t communicate to you if it is whacked with a hammer. There could easily be more than one self-aware you, identical in every way to you, in the cosmos right now but you do not share that identical self-awareness since there is no physical connection present.



Self-Awareness

You are a self-aware being. That’s no great revelation. And while there are many unknowns about self-awareness in need of continued research, it’s ultimately grounded in physics, chemistry and biology. The real mystery is why you have one realization of self-awareness in one body, not two or more realizations of self-awareness in two or more bodies. What prevents that from happening? What stops you from having more than one self-aware awareness right here and right now? There seems to be a self-awareness limit – one per customer, and that applies to both human and animal. 

What stops you having more than one self-aware awareness right here and right now?

THE WHEN OF THINGS: PRESENT, PAST & FUTURE

Presumably no other sexual conception – human or animal* - of the millions and millions that have happened since your own conception has resulted in another and simultaneously coexisting self-aware you.

Presumably, none of the other potential trillions of unfulfilled sexual conceptions that could have happened, but didn’t, since your own conception took place, would have resulted in another and simultaneously coexisting self-aware you.

Presumably therefore, none of the sexual conceptions that happened or had the potential to happen prior to your own conception would have resulted in the self-awareness being you call you. That pretty much rules out reincarnation.

Therefore presumably, no conception that will happen or will have the potential to happen in the future that will result in another self-aware being that the current you would also call you. 

Now that says nothing about that one-off unique self-aware you keeping on keeping on post biological death. Afterlife is a separate issue.

THE WHY OF THINGS: NATURAL & SUPERNATURAL

Presumably there is no supernatural force at work preventing two or more simultaneously coexisting self-aware entities both called you by you. The Bible says nothing about there being a limit of one self-awareness body per customer, unless you equate material self-awareness with the nebulous, immaterial and disembodied concept of a soul. 

On the other hand, I’m not aware of any natural law, principle or relationship, biological or otherwise, preventing two or more simultaneously coexisting self-aware persons each calling themselves you. You’d think that if a self-aware you could happen naturally once, it could happen naturally twice, especially given the sheer number of sexual conceptions that keep on keeping on, day-in and day-out. Yet, it’s always a case of one per customer – animal or human.  

The odd thing is that one per customer applies in two odd, but interesting cases. Your clone would not have your self-awareness but their own separate and apart awareness of self. That’s even more obvious in the case of identical twins – you have one sexual conception; but two beings; two non-coexisting, non-simultaneous self-aware identities.

THE EXCEPTIONS TO THINGS

There are people who are aware of having several selves. We call such people with such neurological or psychological symptoms as having a split or multi-personality. However, all these unique personalities are housed in the same body; the same brain, and therefore are the product of just one conception. Whether or not dual personalities reside in any animal species I know not, but presumably it’s not beyond the realm of biological possibility. However, the issue here is more dual self-aware personalities resulting from dual or not-unique one-off conceptions.

THE WHERE OF THINGS: THE BRAIN

You tend to associate your self-awareness with your head, probably because that’s where most of your sensory apparatus is. You do not associate your self-awareness with your big toe or with your thumb even apart from the fact that you know full well that you could lose those anatomical bits and pieces and retain your awareness of self.

Presumably your self-awareness part of you is housed in your consciousness which along with your subconscious collectively comprise your mind, which is housed in your brain.

Why the brain? Presumably I could, except for the brain, replace any part of you with an artificial equivalent (i.e. – hip joint, dentures, etc.) or a natural transplant from someone else (i.e. – heart, kidney, etc.) and you would still have 100% of your self-awareness.   

THE STUFF OF THINGS: MATTER & ENERGY

The brain complex is the ultimate and evolutionary product of raw materials - matter and energy. The brain is just another, albeit incredibly complex, product, a combination of the fundamentals – up and down quarks, electrons, photons and neutrinos.

The elementary components in and of your brain undergo every second by second various chemical reactions and physical processes that require, and in turn, give off energy; take in matter (raw materials) and give off matter (waste products). Part of those reactions and those processes gives rise to what you call your self-awareness.

Self-awareness is dependent on matter and energy. Up and down quarks, electrons, photons and neutrinos and their associated various chemical reactions and physical processes support the existence of awareness of self. The proof of that pudding is that you have no self-awareness when ‘put under’ for a medical operation; when you faint; or even when you are asleep**. When you go to sleep your self-awareness shuts down, tunes out and turns off. All of these altered states of consciousness require altered brain chemistry. The state of your self-awareness can be and is altered by relative states of matter and energy content and processes.

The biggest alteration to the matter and energy component that supports your self-awareness happens at death. And so your awareness of self dies when you die; when your body dies; when your brain dies.

That your brain matter and energy will of course survive your death is not in any doubt (those conservation laws we all learn in high school science class). The specific reactions and processes which require inputs and outputs will not survive. Death negates those. It’s like if your computer receives no inputs, then your computer produces no outputs and your computer for all practical purposes is dead. 

CONCLUSION

You and your self-awareness get but one go-round for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, etc., etc. until death makes your self-awareness and you part company.

Further, presumably in our near-infinite to infinite cosmos there exist an extremely vast number of self-aware aliens or extraterrestrials if you prefer. Presumably you have no additional self-awareness of your bug-eyed green monster-ness on the Planet Zork. So not only are you confined to just a self-awareness here on Planet Earth, but confined to just one self-awareness throughout the entire Universe (and maybe beyond if there is a Multiverse).

I’ve appeared to have painted myself into a corner here since there is no logical reason why one should be restricted or confined a singular awareness of self. So, somewhat reluctantly I have to suggest that this can-of-worms is either strong evidence for a one-off, presumably God-given soul and an existence in a supernatural universe, or a one-off Supreme [computer] Programmer-given barcode and existence in a simulated universe.  

*Animals have self-awareness as any pet owner, zoo keeper or livestock farmer knows.

**I’m not convinced you have self-awareness when you are dreaming since you are not self-aware that you are dreaming. Dreaming is just another altered state of consciousness, one that’s separate and apart from your wide-awake conscious self-awareness.

You Are A Mystery: Part Two

There’s something very odd about you. You have self-awareness about you, but not self-awareness about anyone else (human or animal). How did that happen? How did you acquire your own sense of self-awareness? You began at conception, so presumably self-awareness was programmed in at that moment yet didn’t eventuate until later. When it comes to the concept of you, there’s a lot of explaining required.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHY ARE YOU, YOU?

Presumably prior to your conception every other conception resulted in a not-you, that is, every other conception resulted in someone else (human or animal). Now that might not be the case since 1) you wouldn’t remember if once upon a time you were a T-Rex or a Woolly Mammoth or a Neanderthal or Queen Cleopatra, or 2) an historical conception that would have been you naturally or spontaneously aborted before any memory could set in.

Presumably every conception that has eventuated since yours has been a not-you, or in other words someone else (human or animal). [Since plants don’t have minds or self-awareness I’ll eliminate them from consideration here.]

The question arises, why was your conception and your conception alone you and not a not-you, that is, why wasn’t that conception too someone else (again, human or animal). 

Presumably every conception after your demise will result in a not-you, or someone else (human or animal). But if there could have been a self-aware you in the past, then also presumably there could be another self-aware you in the future – I guess you’d call that reincarnation.

But a puzzle arises here. If there could have been you in the past, and/or you in the future, then what’s preventing the conception of another you here and now? You would have to know, or so I suspect, otherwise you couldn’t call that other you, you. In other words, it’s apparently okay that there can be multiples of you in time, but not in space. Since that makes little sense, it’s more logical to suggest that in the history of all conceptions, past, present and future, one and only one turned out to be you and all others were not-you, or rather someone else (human or animal).

I think it is safe to say that there’s not another you in existence right now, otherwise you would know it by experiencing it.

You are your brain. You go where your brain goes. If I destroy your brain (while the rest of your body is kept artificially alive on life support), I destroy you and your self-awareness or consciousness. If I destroy your big toe, I do not destroy you and your self-awareness or consciousness. If your body is about to go kaput – now say it is riddled with cancer, and say someone else with a healthy body that is brain dead. Then if your brain is transplanted into that healthy but brain dead body, then that self-aware you goes along for the ride and you are the proud owner of a new body – sort of like moving house. You retain your self-aware you-ness. That would apply if your brain were transplanted into a machine (cybernetic organism) or even into that sci-fi staple, the brain-in-a-vat.

So where does the self-aware you go when the brain runs out of puff? The self-aware you will end up going where the brain goes, so that self-aware you too will run out of puff at the same time to decay or be pickled in a jar, or whatever. That also raises an interesting question – as I said above, if I destroy your brain I destroy you: but what if I destroy your brain by picking it off one cell at a time. Surely there would come a point where you would lose your sense of self-identity while still having some grey matter left intact.

Speaking of ‘what if’ scenarios, it’s not difficult to copy information, from the fax machine to the Xerox machine to making copies and backup copies of documents on your computer. It’s easy to make copies of CDs and DVDs (legally and illegally). It’s easy to download audio and video (legally and illegally). The question arises; eventually it should be possible to copy you, or your brain – all the information, memories, knowledge, experiences, etc. storied there – while leaving the original data in your grey matter intact. You would still be you in terms of that ‘you are your brain’ observation, but would you now also be a ‘you are your software’ housed inside some hardware inside some machine or computer? Would this be the ultimate self-aware dual-you that seemingly couldn’t apply to you and your clone, or to you and your identical twin?

RESOLUTIONS & CONCLUSIONS

The entity that is you began at conception. That’s the bedrock fundamental given. The only thing unique about you at conception was your DNA – I’m not aware of any chromosome or gene that has been identified as the “you” or “mind” or “self-awareness” chromosome or gene as opposed to the sex chromosome or a gene that gives you this or that trait. Your DNA is unique. It can point the finger at you in evidence if you commit a crime.

But that doesn’t really work since you’d then also be you if you were cloned or you would share your self-awareness with your identical twin, and that’s clearly not the case. Your clone or your identical twin has their own unique sense of self or identity. 

Every conception has the potential to turn into identical twins. If it doesn’t eventuate, out pops one unique being with that one self-awareness. If it does eventuate, out pops two unique beings each one with an unshared self-awareness. Very strange, except if the brain is you and there are two brains (one each for each twin) then there will be two separate-and-apart beings with self-awareness. The caveat is as long as the split into identical twins happens before the brain develops in the embryo then two separate-and-apart beings with self-awareness will result. 

So what does that leave?

Barcodes! We’re all familiar with barcodes. Each barcode or ISBN or ISSN or credit card number or social security number or account number or tax file number identifies a unique product or book or serial or credit card or social security recipient, etc. Now let’s just suggest that each and every self-aware you that was, is and will be IS (not HAS) a barcode. Of course if you are just a one-off, that lone conception that resulted in you while all others resulted in a not-you, well the same applies. You have a barcode. Your clone would have a unique but different barcode; your identical twin ditto.

You can have more than one you or self-awareness per mind when you consider dual, split, multi-personality syndromes. But you cannot have one you in dual or multi minds. You don’t wake up now and then again 12 hours later halfway around the world with another identity and another set of self-awareness. It’s odd you can have the one but not the other. But perhaps you can (accidentally) be given more than one barcode though two individuals wouldn’t be given the same barcode.

Two identical minds cannot view the same reality since they have different barcodes. From the moment of conception on, or at least from birth, identical minds will diverge into diverse separate and apart mindsets because of that.

That sort of applies in the inorganic world too. All non-living, inorganic bits, would have a unique barcode too – all electrons would share the same barcode; all grains of table salt, ditto, and so on. Yet, one grain of salt or one atom of oxygen can not experience the same sense-of-self (if that has any real meaning) as another grain of salt or another atom of oxygen. Since electrons and oxygen atoms and salt crystals have no self-awareness, it boils down to things that have the same barcode can have vastly different cosmic histories.  Each electron is identical (same barcode), yet each electron has its own unique cosmic history. Be that as it may.

What’s a barcode? A barcode is mathematics, or a mathematical number. That’s also what computer software code is – a sequence of mathematical numbers (in this case in binary code).

So, my theory is that there is a software subroutine that’s your barcode, and when that runs and interacts with other subroutines, well, that’s you and that’s your sense of identity and your self-awareness and your day-in-day-out life. When your subroutine starts running, that’s your conception. When your subroutine terminates, you do too – that’s your death.

Now that implies a software programmer but that doesn’t of necessity translate into something supernatural – like God.

All this certainly explains why you have self-awareness while not having self-awareness of anything or anyone else. You may have a partner, children, siblings, etc. but their minds are as foreign to you as your mind is to them, just like your big left toe cannot know what it’s like to be somebody else’s big left toe.

I guess, by the way, calling you unique because you have a unique barcode, well to some people that barcode could be called a soul – a rose by any other name.

There is one other explanation. There only exists one self-awareness full-stop and that single consciousness is you. All else is a figment of your imagination or a creation of your dreams. Nothing really exists apart from you (or rather your mind) and you alone. If that’s the case, I guess that makes you God! 

You Are A Mystery: Part One

There’s something very odd about you. You have self-awareness about you, but not self-awareness about anyone else (human or animal). How did that happen? How did you acquire your own sense of self-awareness? You began at conception, so presumably self-awareness was programmed in at that moment yet didn’t eventuate until later. When it comes to the concept of you, there’s a lot of explaining required.

Before we start, just a brief note that for all practical purposes, the terms “you” and “mind”; “self-awareness” and “consciousness”, is all pretty interchangeable and synonymous. 

SOME YOU, YOU, YOU TRUISMS

Assuming the Universe was created some 13.7 billion years ago, ‘you’ that will come to pass were in a state of non-existence for that duration – then ‘you’ undergo or underwent a phase transition to existence for roughly 100 years or so, then ‘you’ will undergo another phase transition back to non-existence for another lot of billions maybe trillions of more years. What’s the point? However, think of all those might-have-been self-aware entities that never were and never will come-to-be. These never-ever entities have had and will have a state of non-existence from alpha-to-omega. The question now is might your ever-so-brief phase transition be a positive or negative aspect of your overall alpha-to-omega state of non-existence? I guess only you can answer that philosophical point-of-view. Now you have to admit that there was nothing overly distressing or traumatic about your 13.7 billion year pre-natal non-existence. So, that being the case, there’s unlikely to be anything overly distressing or traumatic about your post-existence non-existence. Rest assured it will be just as peaceful, quiet, stress and tax free.

I give you a state of “non-existence” rather than “no existence” pre-natal and post-death on the grounds that IMHO the fixed and absolute laws, principles and relationships of the newly formed cosmos – physics in other words – was established at the point of the Big Bang event and thus we have a deterministic clockwork Universe (as per Newton and Einstein) and where all subsequent events unfold according to plan (via those absolute laws, principles and relationships).

You had no say in being you. You had no free will in the matter, which is a bit unfair; a bit of a bummer in that you were drafted into being you. You are all alone trapped inside your own mind, from which, excepting death, there is no escape from. So who are you going to sue?

“You” is that which you call yourself “me”, or “myself”, or “I”: indicators of your own self-awareness.

I am to you “the other” and you are to me “the other”. We share lots and lots of traits from basic biochemistry through to organs and organ systems up through basic body shape and structure plus a basic knowledge and understanding of the workings of life, the Universe and everything. We do not share any sense of our own sense of self-awareness. We each have our own unique sense of self. We can’t get inside each other’s head – which is probably a good thing. I have no comprehension what it is like to be you, or be my cat or the bird feeding outside the window at the bird feeder. So be it.

Your brain, and my brain, in fact all normal human brains, share one thing. The brain is the only organ capable of studying itself! Now that’s profound!

WHY ARE YOU UNIQUE?

You are a one-off unique being among all humans who are and who have ever been; among all the animals who are and who have ever been. You are one shot in a trillion – then add in all those eggs and sperm, all those that might-have-been. But what really makes you unique? 

What makes you, you? At first glance it would appear to be memory, experiences, knowledge. But you became you at conception at which time you had no memory, no experiences, or knowledge. So, scratch that idea.

Perhaps what makes you, you – your uniqueness – is the unique way your brain, hence your mind, is hardwired; that plus your unique brain chemistry.

Though you are unique, in theory there can only be a finite number of ways of wiring up the brain and the mind it contains. There could in theory have existed or could now exist another duplicate set of your brain wiring – that too must be you but you and that other you would never know (or even probably suspect), or would you, and your alter ego. After all, if there are an identical two of you out there, each should be experiencing what the other is experiencing as well as what they are experiencing. If that doesn’t make your head hurt, nothing will!

But there has to be a connection between you at conception and you of today, be it 1, 10, 25 or 50 (plus) years on down the track. It’s not brain wiring or brain chemistry either since at your conception there was no brain, hence no wiring, and no brain chemistry.

So what does that leave if it is not memories, experiences and knowledge nor hardwiring of your neurons and brain chemistry, etc.?

Aha – What makes you unique is that you are hardwired by your unchangeable DNA (except here your identical twin and/or clone would be you too with the same arguments that should have made your head hurt earlier).

DNA apart, a clone isn’t you. DNA apart, an identical twin isn’t you. Even if I were to use my home chemistry set and recreate your mind – atom by atom; molecule by molecule; neuron by neuron; and house the finished product in some sort of receptacle (brain-in-a-vat), it still wouldn’t be you. You would still be you, separate and apart; as the you that is trapped inside of your own mind.

Yet, there are a finite number of combos of DNA, so again in theory there could have been, or currently is now, another you out there in la-la-land, but again you and that other you would never know (or even probably suspect), but then again, maybe not.

In any event, we can suggest that what makes you unique starts with your DNA at conception, then builds on that by adding hardwires and building your neural network as you grow up, culminating throughout the rest of your life by the accumulation of memories, experiences, and knowledge.

Yet, your body’s, even your brain’s atoms, molecules, entire cells are replaced on an ongoing basis. Why doesn’t that alter who you are or your self-awareness? You were not the same being at age five as you are, were or will be at fifty, yet you are the same. Very mysterious!

What is crystal clear is that self-awareness or mind isn’t something nebulous or intangible. It’s all grounded in matter and energy. You have no self-awareness at conception. It is debatable if you have any self-awareness at birth. You have no self-awareness when you are naturally asleep or when you are artificially put to sleep – say for surgery. Like the surgery example, you can change your own state of self-awareness artificially, legally or illegally. You have no self-awareness in a coma and there are other medical conditions, especially in the elderly, where self-awareness isn’t evident either.  

To be continued.

Natural History: Some Random Rambling

Theory of Consciousness: Actually I don’t think it’s all that mysterious; well it may be mysterious but it’s biologically universal. Every living thing from humble microbes to plants, jellyfish to frogs, birds to cats to primates have consciousness because all respond to external stimuli in ways that are not predictable by classical physics (unlike a rock expanding and contracting as the temperature rises and falls). From conception to brain death you feel and respond to stimuli 60/60/24/7/52, like gravity and temperature, etc.  If you respond, in un-rock like ways, you are self-aware or have consciousness. If you should have some different definition in mind, then perhaps look for a dividing line between that which is clearly not exhibiting consciousness by that definition and what is. What is the difference in biochemistry between that which is and that which is not? Explore that and you’re on the way to an answer!

Consciousness can be expressed as a series of Russian dolls, which probably doesn’t actually explain what it is, but it’s interesting. We start with: “I’m self aware”. Then, “I’m self aware that I’m self aware”. Then that string is followed by “I’m self aware that I’m self aware that I’m self aware” and so on down the line unto infinity.

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Dreaming: From the moment we wake up, until the time we go to sleep, our brain gets bombarded with sensory inputs – sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. When we go to sleep however, we’re in sensory isolation. Unless it’s a really loud bang, or super strong odour, or the pet dog jumps on top of you, you sleep soundly through it all. It’s not good to be in a sensory isolation tank for eight hours straight, which is what sleep is. So, how does the brain manufacture sensory input? Dreams! Apart from the automatic functions of the brain/nervous system, like breathing, your brain keeps active via dreaming. It’s generating images and receiving back those images – busy work if you will.  

The reason therefore that it’s hard to recall your dreams, well it’s akin to short-term memory. Once awake, once the brain is in forward gear, in high-drive, what was dreamt about is now as irrelevant as what you had for dinner 101 nights ago.

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Reality: Any alternative reality (i.e. – higher realms of existence; spirit worlds; non-corporeal beings; astral planes; etc.) expounded by those who have experienced that so-called ‘reality’ by deliberately altering their brain chemistry via ingesting, injecting or inhaling various brain chemistry altering substances (alcohol, LSD, marijuana, petrol/glue sniffing, pain killers, or just any old generic ‘magic mushroom’), or undergoing sensory isolation is totally suspect, has no credibility and is not to be believed. That equally applies to involuntary brain chemistry alterations (i.e. – exposure to bring flashing lights, lack of sleep, oxygen deprivation at high altitude, long-term fasting, or eating foods that inadvertently contain brain chemistry altering chemicals).

You certainly don’t accept your mind-generated alternative realities you experience in dreamland when your brain is in sensory isolation mode, so why accept the ‘magic mushroom’ variety?

It’s hard enough coming to terms with everyday reality when you are wide awake and stone cold sober, so who needs to unnecessary complicate things with alternative ‘realities’? In fact, even when you are wide awake and stone cold sober you cannot always trust your mind to reveal to you really real reality – optical illusions anyone?

This alone blows out of the water most of what lumps together as New Age claptrap, like altered states of consciousness. You may alter your consciousness, but that doesn’t expose you to really real reality.

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Telepathy Revisited: There just might be a (slight) case to answer after all. That telepathy isn’t, isn’t silent one or two way crystal clear communication over vast distances between two separate brains or minds. What telepathy might be is that vague sense that there’s another mind out there, close by though, that has some resonance with your own. The classic case is that sense that you just know that someone else is watching or staring at you even though you can’t see who it is.

There has to be a medium by which this transfer can well, transfer from them to you. That medium apparently is Earth’s electromagnetic (EM) field. Brain thoughts or activity is electromagnetic in nature. It perhaps might be barely possible for those brain EM waves to be carried via Earth’s EM field to another person’s brain. That other person would at best just have a quasi-vague sensation that they were sensing, well, something, without being able to put a definitive finger on the specifics to many decimal places.

The non-human evidence is how large flocks of birds or schools of fish can in near unison turn on a dime. Since the “turn” command isn’t vocal, and visual observations would make for unacceptable lag times, the idea is that the communication is EM in nature from brain to brain at light speed via Earth’s EM field as the in-between medium.

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The Wheel: When you think of the most important and fundamental inventions that humans are credited with only a select few really stand out. Taming fire is one. Cutting tools like stone flakes are another. Writing is a third. Coming up with the concept of nothing or the zero was a real breakthrough. And of course there is the wheel. However, there are a few anomalies when it comes to the wheel. In the ancient Americas for example, the wheel was both known, but unused. Translated, you find in the archaeological record children’s toys that have wheels. What you don’t find is that concept extrapolated into the adult world. Adults, be they Incas, Aztecs, Amerindians, etc. did tot make use of the wheel even though wheeled toys abound. Now the basic reason for that given is that they had no beasts of burden like oxen or horses to pull chariots, etc. so therefore no wheeled chariots. However, that doesn’t explain the lack of other practical adult applications like the wheelbarrow, or small wheeled wagons/carts/platforms or ‘shopping’ trolleys or even a primitive rickshaw that could be pulled by one person. Not everything wheeled has to be the size of a chariot, a covered wagon, a stagecoach. There’s not even a potter’s wheel and so on. The concept of round or rolling (as in logs) is obvious to the most basic of cultures, yet for the first half of their very lengthy empire, that super-civilization, at least for those times, the ancient Egyptians, didn’t make use of the wheel. The Australian Aborigines didn’t seem to have a wheel-eureka moment either.

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Orion’s Belt: It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintake The stars are more or less evenly spaced in a straight line, and so can be visualized as a belt. For some mysterious reason, several archaeological sites exhibit or mirror the positions of the trilogy of stars that make up the Belt of Orion. The most famous is the trilogy of those massive ancient Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau. The second is seen at Teotihuacán’s central pyramid complex in Mexico. The third is a trilogy of Hopi Mesas in Arizona. Okay, Orion’s Belt, that trilogy of stars, is fairly prominent in the night sky, but then too so is a lot of other star patterns. What makes these special to our ancient ancestors? A big deal of this is made by ‘ancient astronaut’ theorists. Somehow that trilogy of stars must be special, like perhaps home turf to ET. Alas, that doesn’t seem all that plausible. Alnitak (Zeta Orionis), Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis) and Mintake (Delta Orionis) are very bright stars (to the naked eye), but they are also very, very far away. That alone suggests that they are very un-Sun like. Alnitak is 736 light-years away and 100,000 times our Sun’s luminosity; Alnilam is 1340 light-years distant and 375,000 times as luminous as our Sun; and Mintake is 915 light-years away as the crow flies and is a whopping 900,000 times the Sun’s luminosity. Mintaka is also a double star system. Translated, the trio of stars that make up Orion’s Belt don’t seem to be likely candidates for extraterrestrials that would come a-calling as ‘ancient astronauts’. I very much doubt SETI scientists would target these stars as likely candidates to point their radio telescopes at.

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Human Language: Modern humans are one species, many breeds, but one species. Our single species has however thousands of languages, both in use and extinct. That’s an anomaly. Other animals, each a single species, whether of not they come in breeds like cats, dogs and horses, have one vocal language (supplemented, as in the case of humans too, by body/facial ‘language’). A Chinese cat can converse, that is making its intentions understood, with a French cat, or with an Egyptian cat or with an Australian cat. Why humans alone needed to or have developed a massive multitude of spoken languages is a bit of a mystery. Body/facial ‘language’ on the other hand is pretty universal, therefore singular.

You’re Out of Your Subconscious Mind: Part Three

In psychology, there is the concept of the subconscious, or the unconscious, mind. Whatever you call it, you have no real apparent control over it and it’s not subject to your introspection. As such, you have no free will over this apparently automated non-awareness part of your mind (not to be confused with your automated nervous system which holds sway over your body). When you lack free will over the workings of your own mind, well that suggests something or someone else is pulling the strings: translated its evidence for a Simulated Universe.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

EMOTIONS

Emotions are strange in that you may see a picture of X and burst into tears, or laugh out loud, whereas I’m totally ho-hum, under-whelmed, boring. However, another image may cause me to rant and rave, while you just yawn-the-big-yawn. In either case, you seemingly have no control over your feelings. You don’t seem to have much free will in terms of who you like or dislike or who you fall head-over-heels in love with, so again, I’d conclude that emotions are part of your subconscious.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS IS THE CONSCIOUS?

It seems however unnecessarily messy to have both a subconscious and a conscious mind. Actually, it was Sigmund Freud who divided the mind into the conscious mind and the subconscious (unconscious) mind. The question arises, might the subconscious actually be doing ALL the number crunching and feeding the answers to your (illusionary) consciousness or conscious mind, sometimes unexpectedly – that eureka moment, but more often as not, humming a constant feed along to you in the background, a feeding which as far as you’re concerned is your (illusionary) conscious mind in action but it’s all just the subconscious. You think your conscious mind is composing that letter, but the words and sentences are being fed through to your (illusionary) consciousness via that subconscious interface without you being self-aware of that. So in fact there is no consciousness housed separate and apart as an organic structure, only the illusion of one. Your automated nervous system runs the body; what we now call the subconscious runs the mind – the entire mind.

That’s probably a vastly oversimplification, but regardless of whether or not the subconscious and the conscious are separate and apart or one and the same, the subconscious is top of the pecking order over which we have no control. Only the automated central nervous system rules above all else – if it didn’t you’d be kaput, extinct, stone dead as a doorknob.  

MEMORY

I’d be of the opinion that you can’t in fact operate on the conscious level at all at anytime as hinted at above. You read the word “tree” in a book, hear the word spoken, or see a “tree” in the movies or outside your window. You must immediately reach back into that subconscious cubby-hole and draw back out what a tree is in order for the work or image to make sense. You see gibberish in a book or hear it, say someone ‘speaking in tongues’; maybe it’s real gibberish or maybe it’s an unfamiliar foreign language, but it’s gibberish nonetheless. Or say you see something you’ve never seen before (or never heard or learnt about). There’s incomprehension because there’s no subconscious cubby-hole to reach back into that contains that something that will enlighten you. And so you have gibberish or the great unknown to contend with.

One hundred percent of your perception of reality comes into your mind via your five senses and if anything perceived doesn’t match up with your subconscious cubby-hole encyclopaedia then part of your reality makes no sense.

All of these millions of daily inputs, matching with cubby-hole outputs, take place so fast, not quite at the speed of light but getting there, that you have no awareness of it happening. The lag time between reading “tree” and the “ah ha, I know that that means” is so fast it just doesn’t register. If there was a significant time differential you’d know it. Back in our Stone Age cavemen days, our ancient ancestor’s world of fight or flight, survival of the fittest, any lag time would be detrimental to your well being. I see a “sabre-tooth cat” – five second delay – subconscious cubby-hole says “sabre-tooth cat bad news, run”. By then you’re its dinner; it’s too little too late for you.       

Take another common scenario. After you wake up in the morning you tend to greet those around you with a “Good morning (person’s name)”. Say it’s “Good morning, John”. Now you have to reach back into your memory to recall what the appropriate phrase is and what the persons name is. You also therefore need to remember the meaning of ‘appropriate’. It would be strange and inappropriate to say “Goodnight Josephine” instead, or “I think I’ll have pizza for dinner tonight”. But how do you reach back into your memory to draw out the correct phrase when you don’t remember what you’re looking for. If you did remember what you were looking for you wouldn’t have to look. It’s the same with any though process. You’ve got to remember what it is you need to remember in order to think the thought, or say the words, or perform the actions. It’s all very circular reasoning. You have to remember what you need to remember in order to remember!

If you remember where you put your keys you don’t need to search your memory to discover where you left your keys, but you initially still had to perform that search of your memory since you remember where you put your keys! But how did you know where to search for the answer (where did I put my keys), an answer that wasn’t an answer to an unasked question like how many keys are on the keychain or what’s the colour of the key I actually need. Your memory bank is a huge place with millions of bits and pieces of data. Only a very tiny fraction is relevant to “where did I put my keys”. It’s like trying to find one sentence in an encyclopaedia or that proverbial needle in a haystack. 

Further, you had to remember that you needed to remember where you left your keys. That infinite regression of I need to remember in order to remember in order to remember is almost like that series of Russian dolls, one inside the other inside the other. Ultimately your entire mind becomes 100% clogged with the key problem and you shut down from mental overload. But you don’t, shut down that is, so there’s another solution.

If you cannot consciously recall where you left your keys, and that’s a scenario we can probably all identify with, then you rely on your subconscious. If you’re too impatient for that relax, wait and see approach, there’s always the tried and true treasure hunt approach, but that in itself also involves numerous memory exercises. 

YOU’RE ON AUTOPILOT

You don’t need to remember to wake up, or to breathe,  or how to take one step in front of the other to walk from A to B, or how to digest your breakfast, or if you’re sick or injured your body by itself usually manages to put things right. You don’t have to remember how to heal a cut or get over the common cold. If nearly all of your body is on autopilot, pre-programmed as it were, perhaps all of your body is pre-programmed, including the mind, regardless how many divisions it has.

OFFICE ASSISTANT

 I actually have two separate and apart virtual reality critters on my PC, the standard Office Assistant (cleverly disguised as a cat) and Felix [the cat]. Now the question is, do these simulated critters in any shape, manner and form mirror the (apparently) really real human?

Firstly, I think we can all agree that these two virtual critters are just that – simulations. As such we can all agree that they are just software programmes and that they have no free will. But there are many, many parallels between their behaviour, their mental processes, and that of the (apparently) really real human being. 

For starters, the Office Assistant (OA) has memory. If I perform a certain action, I get a prompt to do something in response. The Office Assistant (OA) has searched its memory for an appropriate reply to my action. It has made a decision. It also shows an emotion in trying to attract my attention since it wants further input from me. Because software can and often is upgraded, well that’s learning in another guise. Felix, on the other hand, exhibits some sensory processing by exhibiting a sense of sight, smell and touch when interacting in a creative with other objects it encounters. It exhibits a range of behaviours that you’d identify with a really real cat. About the only things they are not programmed to do is go to the litter box or have sex or vomit, for fairly obvious reasons, though it could be so programmed if one wanted. 

They both feed, albeit off of electrical energy. They wake up when I turn on the PC and go to ‘sleep’ when I turn off the PC. The OA actually takes catnaps during long intervals of inactivity where its helpful hints aren’t necessary. There’s also no way of telling if they are programmed to enter a dream state like real cats do. I suspect probably not as it would be unnecessary and a waste of programming.

Of course it’s all just sophisticated programming. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but I’m sure any computer software programmer worthy of the title could spell it out in incredible technical detail.

The upshot is, these clearly simulated cats do indeed mirror many of what we’d identify as real biologically human traits. Of course given the relative sophistications, it’s like comparing the value of a five cent piece against a five dollar bill, but the commonality is that both the five cent piece and the five dollar bill are money. The difference between Office Assistant/Felix and me is just a matter of degree.

MIND OVER MATTER: THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING?

Try as you will, your mind cannot influence the behaviour of non-living material, otherwise you’d always win playing the slot or poker machines and 18 holes-in-one at the golf course would be, well, par for the course.

I say non-living because your mind can influence other living minds, though I don’t mean via telepathy or some such or various other technological devices allegedly used for mind-control purposes. The quite ordinary hard stare or the ‘evil eye’ or the barking voice is all that’s required as any raw recruit at the receiving end of the Drill Sergeant’s wrath can attest to. Some minds are putty in the ‘hands’ of other minds. On a gentler note, your thoughts, ideas, words spoken or written can shape the worldviews of other minds.

Two lovers gaze into each others eyes – mental communication of a sort transpires each affecting the physiological state of the other.

Influencing other odd bods and sods apart, your mind can have some minor influence over your own body. Some people have some control over their heart rate to some extent, and the placebo effect, both positive and negative has been proven beyond all doubt in terms of alleviating minor medical ailments by accenting the positive or aggravating the negative. With respect to the later, if you really think someone’s put the whammy on you, and you believe in the power of the whammy, then you can just waste away and curl up and snuff it. It’s not surprising that such things are possible since your mind is really matter (biochemistry) and your body is really matter (biochemistry) and biochemistry can flow from one to the other. Now that only works on a relatively minor scale. You might defy the Earth’s gravity and arm toss a ball up into the air, but you can’t defy it to the extent where you can arm toss the ball all the way to Mars. Likewise, your mind might be able to shorten the duration and severity of a common cold, but it’s probably beyond realism to expect it to overcome a case of pneumonia.   

CONCLUSION

 Free will means having control over your own mind. It’s mind-over-mind. You’re in command. But you’re not in command over your subconscious. Lack of free will points to another undefined nebulous someone (or something) in control of you, or in other words, a scenario that’s more likely as not makes you a virtual reality in a simulated universe.

And no, I didn’t come up with this topic consciously – it came to me unwanted, unbidden, via my subconscious.

You’re Out of Your Subconscious Mind: Part Two

In psychology, there is the concept of the subconscious, or the unconscious, mind. Whatever you call it, you have no real apparent control over it and it’s not subject to your introspection. As such, you have no free will over this apparently automated non-awareness part of your mind (not to be confused with your automated nervous system which holds sway over your body). When you lack free will over the workings of your own mind, well that suggests something or someone else is pulling the strings: translated its evidence for a Simulated Universe.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

CREATIVITY (The ‘What If’)

Is creativity pre-programmed or an act of free will? How many things do you do during the course of your day that you did not consciously plan to do, yet could have so planned in theory? Those spur of the moment things, even little things, you didn’t walk up having them on your agenda, must have originated from your subconscious. You really, apparently, didn’t have any free will over doing those agenda items - that is doing them consciously with a before-the-fact intent.

I call creativity the mental “what if” exercise. You take this bit from this cubby-hole and that bit from that cubby-hole and a third bit and fourth and fifth bit from other cubby-hols and combine them in a unique, theoretical, creative, what if, ways. It’s been said that from the reality of one drop of water you should be able to come up with, or envision, the idea of a waterfall or an ocean, even if you’ve never seen or heard about either and therefore don’t have a waterfall or ocean cubby-hole. So you reach into your cubby-hole for the concept of many, numerous, billions and billions; your cubby-hole for cliff; your cubby-hole for bowl or depression; your cubby-hole for gravity, and several more besides. And so you come up with new cubby-holes for theoretical waterfall (but probably lacking the thunderous sounds, spray and foam), and theoretical ocean (but probably without salt, marine life, the tides and waves), not actual parts of your reality, only your ‘what if’ reality, and to be honest, a lot of our cubby-holes are of that nature.  

Let’s take a simple everyday scenario. I think I’ll cook up a pizza for dinner tonight. It’s a spur of the moment eureka moment that wasn’t present when you woke up this morning. So where did that pizza for dinner thought come from? It probably came as a bolt out of the blue at lightning speed; it leapt into your conscious mind, but it was constructed from the various bits and pieces that resides elsewhere in your mind – in your subconscious mind.

Inside your mind you store a whole dictionary full of concepts, each in its own little cubby-hole, which you probably keep adding to all the time. The dictionary of a fifty-year-old is much bigger than that of a five-year old. Imagination or creativity is that which picks and chooses relevant concepts from those various cubby-holes and strings the chosen bits, at seemingly light speed, into a logical linear conglomerate. Sometimes the bits and pieces are strung together to form an original bit of creativity or of the imagination, though that may not be original or creative to someone else, but it is to you, and that’s what counts. I mean I / cook / small / mushroom / thin base / pizza / dinner might not be all that much a stretch of your imagination or overly creative, but I / cook / small / thin base / magic mushroom / pizza / dinner might be.

But let’s back up a second to that storehouse of cubby-hole concepts. That I / cook / small / mushroom / thin base / pizza / dinner is a very specific outcome. You have cubby-holes for cook from scratch vs. ready made frozen vs. dial-a-home-delivery vs. dine out. You have cubby-holes for toppings like mushroom vs. pineapple vs. pepperoni vs. beef vs. ham vs. olives vs. onions vs. capsicum or some combination of those, and a lot more besides. You have cubby-hole concepts for breakfast vs. lunch vs. TV snack-time vs. dinner. Then there’s small individual size vs. large size vs. family size where everybody gets the same deal. And thin base vs. medium base vs. thick base pizzas. Lastly, there’s the choice of pizza in the first place. Your cubby-holes contain concepts of alternative dinners like steak vs. lamb vs. seafood vs. spaghetti vs. chicken vs. turkey vs. ham vs. any of dozens of other possibilities. From the hundreds upon hundreds of choices / options / permutations drawn from those concepts stored in the cubby-holes of you mind, you make one subconscious decision. It could be even a slightly irrational decision – maybe you don’t have any pizza-related ingredients in stock; it’s nasty weather and you’ll need to go to the supermarket! 

I’d suggest that with so many hundreds of options (and this is just one tiny facet of your daily coming to terms with your day), how can you make a final conscious decision using only your conscious mind? You’d be stymied. You’d be indecisive faced with that multitude of conscious options. It seems as if your subconscious crunches the numbers; your consciousness acts on the answer. Your subconscious says I / cook / small / mushroom / thin base / pizza / dinner and then your conscious mind puts that answer into an action mode and makes it so.

Of course not all creative activity is subconscious in origin – or so you think. You compose a letter off the top of your head; ditto holding a real time conversation.

DECISIONS

Do you take a right turn or a left turn at Oak Street? That was the issue at hand for a popular song, and surely the resolution of the issue is a conscious decision and subject to free will. Your subconscious cubby-holes will store and provide for you the positives and negatives of either choice when you drag them to the fore. But what if it’s the very first time you are required to make such a decision and you have no prior knowledge to draw on. Surely that decision will be 100% a demonstration of free will. Or will it? How can you make an informed decision when you have no data on which to make a decision? The easy option is to toss heads or tails, but there’s no free will cigar awarded for that.

Perhaps if you are right-handed you might subconsciously (there’s that word again) true right when you reached Oak Street.

Your mind, like the rest of life, the Universe and everything, is composed of molecules, in turn composed of atoms, in turn made up of the elementary particles we all learn about in high school science classes. Now the realm of the micro-verse is governed by the probability laws of quantum physics. As such, if you really want to get down and dirty, any and all mental activities at any and all levels have to take quantum physics into account. So what’s the big deal? Well, your decision to go right or left at Oak Street might just boil down to a probabilistically quantum state of some elementary particle in your brain which could go either way in a totally random way which you have no control over.

In quantum physics, when you have an equally either/or state of affairs, well that’s known as a superposition of states. If nobody is looking, you go both left and right at Oak Street until someone peeks and it’s determined either/or. It’s another version of Schrodinger’s Cat-in-the-box thought experiment with a naturally radioactive substance that has a 50/50 chance of decaying in say one hour. If the decay happens, it triggers a device inside the box that kills the cat. If the decay fails to eventuate, the cat lives. Until someone looks after one hour, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. After someone peeks, the cat is either dead or alive.

So, in a sort of similar way, perhaps a radioactive atom inside your brain (and you are naturally slightly radioactive) will decay or not decay during the time you are agonising over that left or right turn. The decay/not decay will decide, not if the cat lives or dies but whether you turn left or right at Oak Street. In any case, you have no control. Quantum physics controls your subconscious which controls you and your decisions in the absence of any other driving force.

FREE WILL

As noted frequently above, when it comes to the subconscious you have no control over how it operates. Therefore, with respect to the subconscious, you have no free will.

While watching a DVD of a TV show or feature film for the first time, your phone rings. You hit the “pause” button while you answer the phone. Now when you return, mentally you can envision hundreds of possible scenarios or options that could unfold in the few minutes after you resume viewing by hitting the “play” button. But you know there will be only one scenario and it is fixed – absolutely. Why? It’s been pre-programmed. There’s no free will for the characters.

Now what if we could freeze frame your mind like a DVD – hit your mind’s “pause” button split seconds before a pizza dinner in all its finality detail entered your conscious mind. We, the outsiders, could imagine hundreds of scenarios of what would happen when we un-paused your mind, but just the one scenario would eventuate. 

Now the question arises – you have no control over your subconscious mind and what it comes up with, yet the subconscious seems to often rule the roost where much of your decision making is unplanned; much of your creativity is unplanned; all that much to do with your imagination is unplanned, unplanned meaning your conscious mind played no active role. You just slept on it; you had that unplanned eureka moment while your brain was idling in neutral.

The DVD analogy was pre-programming. Might your subconscious be pre-programming as well? If so, no free will, and one scenario that pre-empts your free will is your existence as virtual reality in a simulated universe!

So, if you are not in control of your subconscious then that implies a lack of free will of the mind and your mental processes. You certainly don’t have mind-over-matter free will (you can’t flap your arms and fly or run faster than the speed of sound), but you no doubt think you are in charge of your own mind. If that’s not the case, well any sign of that is suggestive that you are living in a computer software-generated simulated universe which gives you no free will at all, only an illusion of free will. 

Belief in astrology is self-negating your belief in your free will since the stars and the planets rule in your roost. Perhaps one idea for such acceptance of astrology is that you don’t have free will and so astrology is your scapegoat substitute.

To be continued…