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.   



Thanks for the Memories

For Starters, A Personal Disclaimer: What follows is 100% my own thoughts on the subject of memory. I haven’t done any independent readings or research on the topic, not wanting my own ideas to be otherwise or somehow influenced by what no doubt millions of others have speculated on.

Introduction: Maybe neuroscientists would disagree, but I think the phenomenon of memory is one of the greater mysteries in science. What can we agree on from the start? Well, whatever memory is, it resides in the brain and is a function of brain chemistry. We know memory is biochemically based because biochemical’s like some drugs, alcohol, etc. can affect memory. Ditto the aging process which is ultimately biochemical in nature.

The biochemicals have got to be complex enough to not only store and provide the recall of the memories they represent, but versatile enough to provide recall not only for sight, but sound, smell, taste and touch as well. In addition, they have to be of such a nature that can provide combinations and sequences of these sensory memories. They also need to be able to store non-sensory bits like your memory of how to do addition so you can add up numbers in your head, as well as on paper. Ditto, the abstraction of the memory of how to look things up – all those factual bits and pieces of things you’ve never bothered to actually commit to memory, or have long since forgotten (like all those boring dates and places in history). There’s also the complexity of what makes up memories to draw on any number and variety of them to assist you in your current situation.  

Memory Is Not Unique to Humans: I’m probably stating the obvious here, but memory is not a characteristic that sets humans apart from other animals. While we can be pretty sure plants don’t have memories, experiments have shown that even relative simple fauna have memories, even if rudimentary. Certainly vertebrate animals have quite sophisticated memories. My two cats, for an example, have total recall over where their food and water bowls are located; ditto the litter boxes. They have memorized the geometry of the house. They know where the doors are leading to outside. They have learned and memorized where the sunny spots are and how they move during the course of the day. It’s no longer trial and error as it might have been on their first day getting used to their new surroundings.

Why Memory? Why do we have any ability to recall anything from our past at all? Well, the obvious answer is memory has survival value. I mean it’s important to remember to lock your door at night; remembering what is, and is not, eatable is also important; which is more likely to bite me, a shark or a dolphin – I can never remember but there’s this fin cutting through the water heading my way! It’s important to remember where your home, village, cave, whatever is. Of course you’re going to be in deep poo if you forget who your partner is or who your children are. I know there’s a reason why I shouldn’t jump off this high cliff, but I can’t remember what it is – oh well, it probably isn’t important, so here goes nothing – whee; splat! Memories should also be distributed throughout the brain; even one memory should be stored in a number of places is case disease or injury to one part of that organ results in total memory loss and forfeiture of survival.

Some Various Puzzlements: Okay, so here is this conglomeration of biochemical’s representing some memory of an experience of yours, a memory which, for the moment is out of sight and out of mind. The biochemical(s) are just sitting in the brain, sort of dormant. How is it that biochemical configuration activated, resulting in that memory no longer being out of sight and out of mind?

I can recall multi dozens of favourite film music themes – name a favourite film and I can recall the theme. Yet, I have lots of other equally favourite film music themes that just refuse to stick in my mind – ever. Why some and not others? I don’t know. Conversely, if I hear a favourite film music theme, I can usually, but always name the film. When however I can’t, it can be very frustrating! You know it like the back of your hand, yet it eludes you.

Memory and Thinking: Before you can recall anything, you’ve got to think of what it is you want to remember. It’s an active, not a passive recall. Before you can remember what you had for dinner last night you’ve got to think to yourself what’s the answer to what I had for dinner last night? But what prompted that thought in the first place? Maybe it was in response to a question someone else asked you. But that is of necessity not the only possibility. You could have thought of that yourself, maybe because you’re planning tonight’s dinner and don’t want to duplicate. Presumably there is a logical and independent reason why you would think of what last night’s dinner was prompting the biochemical chain of events that provided the memory and answer of what it was.

Memory and Dreams: I think that memory and dreams have relatively little relationship; aren’t that interlinked or connected. I’m going from personal experience here, in that most of my dreams (what few I can recall after the fact) are about imaginary people and places and events. Where real people, places and events are part and parcel of my dreaming, there is a unique spin to the dream scenario that has nothing to do with actual memories. Yes the people and or place and or events are superficially accurate, but it turns out to be an original story, and not a replay of an actual historical happening. While on the subject of dreams, it occurred to me that for all practical purposes being awake (using your active imagination) and asleep (dreaming) are really the same thing (not to mention that in both states your heart pumps and your lungs breathe and your stomach digests, your cells divide and ageing of course happens). Anyway, anything you can dream while asleep you could imagine while fully awake. So if dreams are an example of a possible simulated reality, so is the day-to-day active imagination scenarios your mind generates while you’re wide awake.

You Are Forgetful: In fact, you have forgotten thousands upon thousands of times more stuff than you can actually remember. Imagine if you could recall every minute of every day of your life – every dream; every word in every book, article, etc. you’ve ever read; every meal you’ve ever had and cooked; every headache and backache; every conversation; recalling every advertisement, jingle and commercial along with every other thing that’s ever annoyed you, like recalling word-for-word every boring lecture you’ve ever heard. What an absolute clutter that would be. So your brain is good at holding garage sales; hitting the delete key. Some memories are just lost for good and no amount of willpower or hypnosis is going to bring them back.

Earliest Memories: It would be a very odd individual indeed who could remember anything about anything from conception through to probably at least their second or third birthday – maybe later. Is there something about the brain’s biochemistry that inhibits remembrance from those first several years of experiencing sensory input?

Submerged Memories: You may not have read that book, or seen that film or TV episode, or listened to that piece of music or visited that building in decades, yet doing so today brings back to the surface nearly all the details you got all those decades ago. In other words, it’s not a new ‘from scratch’ experience.

Mental Blocks: Some people can be walking encyclopaedias of entertainment or sports trivia, but hopeless at learning and retaining a foreign language. Some people soak up historical names, dates and places with ease yet can’t memorize the chemical elements and associated symbols. Some people have no success at memorizing the multiplication tables, yet seemingly have a photographic memory of a favourite book(s).  Some people are walking dictionaries, yet some people, like me, can’t spell worth beans. My old man once offered to give me $10 (good bucks back in those days) if I ever passed a spelling test in school. His money was safe – I never did. The question is why seemingly all people have some sort of innate ability to memorise a particular facet of human knowledge, yet have a mental block to another. I’d assume that our brain’s biochemical base is pretty uniform across our species, yet it’s really, when it comes to memory, a case of different strokes for different folks. Further, I’m not aware that our animal companions differ in this way. My cats seem to be two peas-in-a-pod when it comes to what they recall. Do animals have mental blocks too?  

Short Term vs. Long Term Memory:

Very short term: Well, remembering dreams comes to mind. Usually, upon awaking, we don’t recall any dreaming at all. Sometimes we do recall one (the latest since I gather we have several per night), but it tends to fade very quickly. Of course once in a rare while it lingers on, and now and again, becomes part of your long term memory. There doesn’t seem to be a biochemical rulebook for this process however. Also very short term, I would suggest is the reading say of a chapter in a book, or watching a TV episode or film. Immediately upon completion, you can not recall verbatim the word-for-word, or image-for-image (scene-for-scene) contents. However, the overall theme of the contents or plot remains behind.

Short term: Well, I’ll define this as several days, perhaps weeks, before the memory’s elimination. After a week or so, it’s going to be hard to recall specific meals, and outfits worn and day-to-day doings from, after a week or so. Unless you keep a detailed diary, you’d be pretty hard pressed to recall in precise detail exactly what you did, the order you did it in, and the outcome(s) a week ago.

Long term: One off, traumatic, unique and rare occurrences are more likely to stick around in that brain thing of yours. For example, you’re more likely to recall the day you broke your leg, not the thousands of days you didn’t. Why, since your leg is okay now? Maybe it has something to do with the philosophy that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. By remembering the events surrounding your broken leg, decades after-the-fact, makes it less likely you’ll do it again. 

Specific vs. General Memories: As an example of a general memory, I can remember the quadratic equation decades after the various maths classes I had it exposed to me – yet in those subsequent decades, I’ve never had to put it to any use. It thus seems to be a pretty worthless thing for my mind to have retained. Another example of general memory – my mother didn’t care for pasta and never cooked it. If I or my father wanted to eat pasta, we had to make it ourselves. Again, a question of why? That gastronomic quirk of my mother’s no longer has any relevance in my life and hasn’t for decades, so why hasn’t that memory been erased unlike probably thousands of other equally irrelevant bits that have been deleted?

Summary: A good summary tries to address who, what, where, when, why – and how - central to the issue. ‘Who’ of course are we ourselves; ‘what’ is what our memory is all about; ‘where’ is the domain of our our brains; ‘when’ is now, a good a time as any; the ‘why’ is obvious! ‘How’, well that is ultimately our central point. This essay is saying a lot about ‘what’ memories are – its traits and characteristics – not ‘how’ it is what it is. Neuroscientists and biochemists may be able to explain all – someday.