The information revolution

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Re: [NonDualPhil] The Information Revolution

 

 

 

Pedsie2 wrote:

> No, this is not about the Internet, or any advance

> in human communication. This is about information

> itself. Inf. in its most rudimentary form: the transmission

> of change from one quantum field to another. It's

> obvious, that for information to have occurred a change

> of some kind must have taken place. For example the

> transmission of spin from particle A to particle B. Viewed

> in this way, energy itself is information.

>

> Quantum information laws form a consistency network that

> creates all fields, particles and even space/time itself. So,

> we could correctly label phenomena as information instead

> of energy/matter. It's been shown that large scale quantum

> fields could be used in computation. Therefore, the theory

> that these fields are involved in the creation of conscious states

> has, if still unproved, some experimental backup in the field

> of computer science.

>

> Consciousness might very well be only a self-referential inf.

> system. Information, reaching critical mass, and exploding

> into self awareness.

> You could agree, add to, subtract from, alter, or reject

> in totality this theory, but just by reading it, your brain,

> the very universe has changed in a very small

> way, even among the noise and clatter of language and

> opinions, some information, even if corrupted, has bridged

> the abysmal gap between me and you.

>

> Pete

 

 

Ok. Pete. Even though I favor the use of different models, I will go

with this model/theory and see where it takes us and

tweak it up and down and all around. I had some experience with these

models in discussions with a medical doctor over the nature of

consciousness. That is how I became familiar with them and used them to

for certain purposes in the contemplative life.

 

Also, let's add an issue that may be of some interest to some here and

that may contribute to the resolution of some stubborn subjective

experiences.

 

The issues first. If the model is assumed temporarily and contemplated

well, it may or can be used to resolve several concerns for the those

interested in apperception, no mind, etc. direct experiencing.

 

1. There is always some implicit or explicit, hidden or open, concern,

attachment, conceptual confusion or debate about " personal agency " or

the existence of the SELF or Atman, Brahman, Soul and other

conceptualizations that point to a " pure awareness without awareness, "

" apperception " that is impersonal in content but remains personal in

expression, at least in thought. That is, the use of I, me, my, etc. is

retained but with a sense that this " I " is empty, ego less, impersonal,

not a person, but some other unknowable thing directing the individual

appearing mind/body, as Toombaru once put it, as a " meat puppet. " And it

may be supposed that the same goes for all 6.3+ billion meat puppets on

the planet.

 

The model, if assumed fully and temporarily as an object of

contemplation, can work to remove the following from thought process

attachment: personal identity, self, SELF, atman, Atman, Brahman, Soul,

Spirit, God or gods, demons and all spiritual phenomena, a notion of

personal agency, and a biggy, one of the last to go, free will.

 

The sensation of awareness, consciousness, personal agency and free will

remain. However, one feels like one has these abilities, but the

model/theory if assumed well, puts them in the hands of unknowable and

unseen movements of interacting quanta which reduce all to a whir of

information, a whirl of movements behind awareness. What happens in

daily life is not because it is willed or because one is aware or has

things in the field of consciousness that one deals with. There is a

loss of control a sense of losing, and insecurity.

 

How do we manage to do what is done in daily life in this assumed model?

By " nature " as animals do. They do incredible things and survive. In the

model, if is assumed, humans are simply extremely sophisticated beings

that have inherent capabilities given by the interactions of quanta and

human brain by the swirl of information. Thinking in general in this

model is mere fill in for the work done as it is done in animals but

with far more capabilities. One realizes that thought is unnecessary for

most activities.

 

If the model is fully assumed and only temporarily for contemplative

purposes, for that is all that can be done for it cannot be known or

proven in fact, then what results may or can it it bring?

 

Assumed and used properly for a time, it may help to dissipate

dependency or attachment to the sensation of free will as existing or

not existing, functioning or not functioning, for such a matter can

never be known beyond the sensations of choice, selectivity and

determination.

 

It allows, if assumed properly, to experience the futility of thinking

about this and that since conscious thinking does not contribute

directly to most activities in life with certain exceptions such as

intellectual work (designing, planning, reading, writing and so forth)

thus leaving the mind to mind its business quietly without thought.

 

It also can aid in dissolving the sense of personal identity for there

is none in this model; just complex stimulus-response discrete events

interacting with others of the same that gives the appearance of

continuity.

 

Finally, it may or can end the attachment to the concept of an immortal

SELF, which can never be known by mind, in any case. In its place are

the quanta interacting with the brain in its seamless and unknowable

way. Attachments to the concepts and sensations of free will, personal

identity, and an immortal Self can be loosened or loosed if one assumes

that one is an animal, albeit sophisticated and creative in the human

way, temporarily. All religious concepts and practices that refer to

immortality and immortal beings and identities also dissolve. So warning

to adherents teachings of various kinds. On the other hand, there is no

reason to fear assuming this unless one is afraid of ghosts, which this

model is in the end.

 

This model as well as any model, say the Advaita Vedanta, yoga or the

mysticism models of the East and West all contain sets of assumptions

and concepts, and these assumptions and concepts being what they are not

knowable with certainty and can never be verifiable with certainty with

thought. The appearances will never be known or verified with complete

certainty given the nature of experience. The holding on to to the

assumption of certainty, the sensation of personal identity, immortality

or other control and sensation that one can be right or true all may or

can crumble in this model, if assumed and contemplated well. But it too

is given up, leaving a shambles those things that hinder experience as

it is, and if used properly and then put down, laid aside with the rest.

 

 

2. Tweaking the model could consist of making it neither spiritual nor

physical nor monist in nature. No assumption need to be made about the

nature of the substance underlying the quanta or the appearances. Subtle

bodies, subtle energies and other diaphanous stuff can be left alone. Or

one change everything into photons instead of quanta. There are models

for that.

 

Below are references to a set of models that eliminate the non-physical

as stories for awareness and consciousness.

 

 

1. The Penrose-Hameroff's Orch OR model of consciousness

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/publications.html#penrose

 

2. Francis Crick and Christof Koch's neurobiological theory of

consciousness.

http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/crick-koch-cc-97.html

 

3. Karl H. Pribram's Holographic Model of Brain and Consciousness.

http://www.acsa2000.net/bcngroup/jponkp/

 

4. Ricciardi and Umezawa's Quantum Dynamical Model

http://www.pabst-publishers.com/Psychologie/psyzeit/cogproc/1-2000/vitiell1.htm

 

5. Quantum Field Theoretical Approaches to Consciousness

http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/quantum/Lecture7.htm

 

6. James Newman and Bernard J. Baars's Global Workspace Theory

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/GWorkspace.html

 

7. Rodney M. J. Cotterill's neural correlates of consciousness

http://info.fysik.dtu.dk/Brainscience/1997b.pdf

 

Enjoy. Get physical for a change of pace. It may prove to be refreshing

and insight full or it may bore your mind to death, which may not be a

bad thing. :-D

 

 

Lewis