Wednesday, May 22, 2013

About God theory of Bernard Haisch

I have found that the best manner to learn about TGD is to read books about other theories, and after many years at the border of basic survival I now have opportunity to do this thanks to some generous people making this possible.

Just now I have been reading Bernard Haisch's book "The God theory". Haisch himself is an astrophysicist who might have become priest. The book discusses the possibility of spirituality consistent with physics. It also discusses Zero Point Energy (ZPE) hypothesis and the idea that inertia might emerge from vacuum fluctuations of various fields.

I agree in many respects with Haisch's vision about possibility to build bridge between fundamental physics and spirituality. The new view about spirituality requires that a lot of horrendous stuff of religions (such as eternal purgatory, the sadistic God of Old Testament killing his own son, blind belief in dogmas, etc...) is thrown away. Where I disagree with Haisch is the notion of ZPE but think that I understand why he wants ZPE. In TGD all that can be done using ZPE can be replaced with zero energy ontology (ZEO) to achieve the possibility of re-creation without breaking of conservation laws: without ability go generate new sub-Universes God would be rather powerless creature. I also disagree with the idea that inertia follows from zero point fields although again I understand the underlying motivations of the proposal as relating to a genuine problem of General Relativity. This problem also inspired TGD.

Haisch lists three questions usually regarded as highly non-scientific. Is there really a God? What am I? What is my destiny? As I started to build theory of consciousness, these questions began to make more and more sense also to me. One must be however ready to give up some dogmas such as God as a sage with white hair and long beard, the idea that we are nothing but our neurophysiology generating a brief flash of light in infinite darkness, and the belief that heat death dictated by second law is the eventual fate of the universe as whole.

Putting Haisch in box

When thinkers happen to encounter genuine thinking they want to classify it in order to feel safe. For safety reason some of us also debunk the new idea. The first classification is philosophical. I use three boxes for this purpose (safety reasons). The first box has label "monism". It contains two smaller boxes. "Materialist" contains thinkers accepting only third person view as an acceptable - objective - view about the world. I close to "Idealist" those thinkers who accept only the first person view as fundamental. Most of my colleagues are happy to live in the box "Materialist". The second box has label "Dualist" and contains thinkers accepting both first and third person views - also this box decomposes to smaller boxes depending on how closely the first and third person views are assumed to be related: if the correspondence is exactly 1-1 then the view reduces to materialism. To the third box - "Miscellaneous" - I put the others and live also myself in this box.

Haisch perfoms the classification himself and completely voluntarily chooses the box "Idealist". Hence consciousness is fundamental form of existence for him. In TGD framework both first and third person perspectives are tolerated: consciousness is however in quantum jump between quantum superpositions of objective realities identified as zero energy states and does not define another world as it does in dualistic theories. As a matter fact, in TGD several ontological levels are accepted: geometric existence at space-time and imbedding space levels in real and various p-adic versions, existence as zero energy states identified as spinor fields of world of classical worlds (WCW)) and subjective existence as quantum jumps.

Universe as God

Haisch postulates God as an infinite intelligence. We are God's eyes and ears through which God experiences her (no reference to gender here) own creation. Haisch's God is not the Newtonian clock-smith who creates deterministic universe and then forgets it completely. This God is free to create universes with he chooses freely using her infinite intelligence. This God is also somehow outside the realm of space-time.

The possibility of universes with different laws of physics inside each of them brings in mind inflationary cosmology, multiverse, and the landscape of M-theory. Haisch indeed takes inflationary scenario and multiverse idea rather seriously and also talks about superstrings. The landscape of string theory is catastrophe from the point of view of physics but would fit with the the idea about God who can freely decide about the laws of physics in the limits of mathematical consistency. But what mathematical consistency means? Have M-theorists really thought about this?

What about TGD? In TGD framework nothing prevents from calling conscious selves gods since free will is genuine and the essence of creation. Thus God is replaced with an infinite hierachy of god like entities. Nothing prevents from calling the entire Universe as God, which is re-creating itself in every quantum jump. This God has us as mental images or to be more precise: as mental images of mental images of ..... of its mental images. The sequence could be rather long;-)!

Concerning the laws of physics the situation in TGD framework. The surprising outcome already from the geometrization of loop spaces is that geometry of the infinite-dimensional world of classical worlds (WCW) is expected to be unique if it consists of 4-D surfaces of some higher-dimensional space. This comes from mere mathematical existence requiring the WCW metric to have infinite-dimensional group of isometries (generalization of various conformal symmetries of super string models). This means that also physics is unique just from its existence. As a matter fact, in TGD there is no need to assume any physical existence behind mathematical existence since consciousness is in quantum jumps. Space-time dimension and the choice imbedding space are forced by very general mathematical conditions closely related to the structure of classical number fields. Four-dimensional Minkowski space and space-time dimension four are forced by the condition of maximal symmetries needed for the existences of WCW geometry.

Inflation in TGD framework is replaced with quantum criticality making the Universe maximally sensitive perceiver and motor instrument. Quantum criticality means absence of scales (or actually discrete hierarchy of them) and the flatness of 3-space (dimensional curvature scalar vanishes) is the correlate of quantum criticality in cosmology. The inflaton field producing via its decay matter is in TGD framework replaced with monopole magnetic fluxes assignable to magnetic flux quanta which near Big Bang correspond to what I call cosmic strings. The decay of magnetic energy of flux quanta to particles produces matter and radiation. The basic difference to string landscape is that standard model symmetries apply in all these sub-cosmologies although there are dynamical parameters distinguishing between them. Hence TGD is highly predictive theory. Even God must bow to the laws of mathematics. TGD space-time is many-sheeted and one has Russian doll cosmology natural also in inflationary scenarios.

In superstring theory the landscape problem forces to assume anthropic principle: the fact that we exist becomes the basic guide line when we try to identify the particular universe in which we happen to live. In TGD framework the evolution implied by Negenropy Maximization Principle (NMP) stating that the conscious information gained in quantum jump is maximal, implies evolution. Evolution gradually fine tunes the values of various parameters so that they generate maximal intelligence. This implies that our existence indeed fixes the values of various parameter very precisely. Of course there are some parameters such as Kähler coupling strength (analogous to critical temperature), whose possible values are dictated by quantum criticality. Note that NMP challenges second law as a universal law - at least a generalization is required in ZEO - and it is now clear that the recent view about universe neglects completely the huge negentropy sources associated with the negentropic entanglement assignable to magnetic flux tubes carrying dark matter. In human scale these resources - "Akashic records"- give rise to memories and plans of future, ideas,...

The purpose of lifes

Haisch adopts the vision about endless sequence of reincarnations as a kind of "life-school" in which one transcends life by life to higher levels of consciousness - to upper class in school (and sometime to same or even to lower one).

This vision could have rather concrete realization in TGD framework. In the average sense the average size scale for personal causal diamonds (CDs) in their quantum superposition grows in a given quantum jump, and a biological death now and then does not stop this process. New sub-CDs also pop up and mean creation of new small sub-Universes which began to evolve. Asymptotically the size of the personal CD approaches infinity - asymptotic Universe, asymptotic Godness;-)!

Biological death would not mean the end of consciousness, only a transformation to a new level: perhaps higher, perhaps same, or maybe even lower. This depending on the Karma - the law of action and reaction at spiritual level as Haisch puts it - that we have gathered by our deeds. By doing bad deeds reduce our level of consciousness guaranteeing the return to a lower level in hierarchy. This has quite concrete quantum physical correlate: reduction of the effective Planck constants reducing the quantal size scales of the magnetic flux tubes connecting as as bridges of attention to the rest of the world and reducing thus quantum coherence lengths and times characterizing us. It also reduces our long range goals from those dictated by a mission to short range goals dictated by opportunism.

What could happen in biological death?

"What is my fate?" is one of the questions of Haisch. A more concrete formulation for this question is "What happens to the magnetic body in biological death?". TGD framework provides the tools for a glass pearl game around this question.

It would not be too surprising if at least some upper layers of this onion-like structure were preserved. NMP might guarantee the approximate conservation of the entire magnetic body since its braiding serves as a correlate for negentropic entanglement defining "Akashic records", a kind of cumulative collective wisdom having as a counterpart Sheldrake's morphic fields defining among other things also species memory.

What it means that in 4-D sense (contents of consciousness are from 4-D imbedding space region: either boundary of CD in given scale) also our biological body still exists as sub-CD of the larger CD we continue to exist subjectively? Only the sensory input and motor output conscious- to-us has ceased in biological death.

Does my biological body continue its life in reversed direction of imbedding space geometric time? The answer is negative if one relies on the assumption that the arrow of imbedding space time changes and the folded bath towel argument for the arrow of 4-D time defined by thermodynamical entropy holds true: my body would continue becoming older than it was at the moment of death. Not very plausible or desirable scenario!

NMP requires that negentropic entanglement is generated at the moment of biological death and adds to existing negentropic entanglement defining "Akashic records" about previous life conserved in good approximation. What I painfully learned during my lifetime is not waste! Attention is directed to some target generates negentropic entanglement. It has braiding of magnetic flux tubes connecting the attending system to the attenfed one. Reconnection is the mechanism for building flux tube bridges between the systems.

Tibetan book of dead supports what NMP suggests: I direct my attention somewhere else from my biological body which has become rather uninteresting. The new target of attention could be some new brisk young life form not yet caught the attention (almost anywhere in planet or even elsewhere but inside my personal CD: my magnetic body is big with size scale of - as I hope - about one hundred light years at least!). My new life would proceed in opposite direction of imbedding space time (recall that two subsequent quantum jumps create zero energy states with opposite arrows of imbedding space geometric time). Maybe I remember the teachings of Tibetan book of dead and manage to direct my attention to a higher level in self hierarchy, larger CD, representing perhaps a collective level of consciousness.

If one takes fractality seriously, the death of civilizations and cultures could be a process analogous to biological death. It is difficult to avoid the feeling that this is something which could happen in not so distant future. If this process corresponds to quantum jump, NMP tells that negentropy is generated but does not exclude the possibility of a catastrophe in which even entire species suffers extinction and some of our relatives, maybe bonobos, take the lead. The transition could also lead to a new higher level of consciousness with the prevailing materialistic world view being replaced with a new one? The individuals who have become aware about the need for a new world view and about what it might be could serve as seeds of the quantum phase transition.

ZPE or ZEO?

Laws of physics and conservation laws are the basic problem of Haisch and all those who want free will in the existing ontology of physics. Haisch is also a physicist so that the problem becomes even more difficult to circumvent! How God can re-create the reality without breaking the well-established conservation laws? Or are these laws just rules of game that God has chosen to obey in this particular part of multiverse? But would this lead to mere quantum randomness and does statistical determinism mean a loss of genuine free will?

If I have guessed correctly, Haisch hopes that ZPE could help God over this problem but to my opinion ZPE is mathematically hopelessly ill-defined and reflects the mathematical problems of quantum field theory rather than reality.

In TGD framework ZPE is effectively replaced with ZEO - zero energy ontology instead of zero point energy. Zero energy states have vanishing total quantum numbers so that re-creation can be carried out without breaking conservation laws and standard laws of physics remain true. One can assign to the positive (say) energy part of zero energy state conserved energy and other quantum numbers and positive and negative energy parts correspond to initial and final state of physical event in the usual positive energy ontology: no states - just events! Therefore there is room also for God in TGD Universe. Together with re-creation as quantum jump one obtains maximal free will: any zero energy state can be created or vacuum in principle. ZEO is also necessary for p-adic--real transitions representing formation of thoughts and realization of intentions as actions: essentially time reversals of each other in ZEO as also sensory perception and motor action which generalize to completely universal concepts.

A possible test for ZEO would be creation of zero energy states apparently breaking conservation laws in the framework of positive energy ontology. In cosmology the non-conservation of gravitational energy indeed takes place and can be understood in terms of ZEO: the energy and other quantum numbers are conserved only in scale which correspond to spotlight of consciousness defined by one particular causal diamond (CD). Therefore also the consistency of Poincare invariance of TGD with cosmology requires ZEO.

Are we continually creating tiny Universes as we transform our intentions represented as p-adic space-time sheets to actions represented as real space-time sheets? Does the replacement of personal CD with a larger one in quantum jump (perhaps increasing the effective value of Planck constant) involve also generation of smaller sub-CDs representing mental images. Are our mental images these tiny Universes that we create?

How to a new sub-Universe this in laboratory? Quantum physicists would perhaps speak about generating long lived enough quantum fluctuations creating matter from vacuum. I remember having seen a popular article about a planned experiment in which very intense laser beams would generate particle pairs from vacuum. Of course, the probability for generating CD containing matter might be very small but maybe for some selected CDs this might not be the case!

The origin of inertia

Haisch and Rueda claim of having derived inertia appearing as a mass parameter in Newton's equations from vacuum energy - see this. The basic idea behind the derivation does not however make much sense to me. Here is the condensed form of argument.

If one assumes that the quarks and electrons in such an object scatter this radiation, the semi-classical techniques of stochastic electrodynamics show that there will result a reaction force on that accelerating object having the form fr = −μa, where the μ parameter quantifies the strength of the scattering process. In order to maintain the state of acceleration, a motive force f must continuously be applied to balance this reaction force fr. Applying Newton’s third law to the region of contact between the agent and the object, f = −fr, we thus immediately arrive at f = μa, which is identical to Newton’s equation of motion.

I confess that I have do not have a slightest idea what this statement might mean. The standard wisdom is that particle to which no forces are applied does not suffer acceleration. Now it would suffer acceleration although net force vanishes: f+fr=0.

The standard view is that in special relativity Poincare invariance combined with Noether's theorem allows to assign to any system conserved four-momentum and angular momentum. Given a variational principle coupling particles to fields one obtains automatically the analog of Newton's equations stating that the momentum lost/gained by fields is gained/lost by particles. Therefore in special relativity based theories there are no problems.

In general relativity situation however changes.

  1. First of all, space-time becomes curved and the symmetries behind Poincare invariance are lost. One cannot use Noether's theorem to deduce expressions for conserved quantities: this is especially catastrophic outcome in quantum theory where the conserved quantities interpreted as operators play fundamental role. This was indeed the basic motivation of TGD: by replacing abstract space-time with a 4-D surface in higher-D space possessing the symmetries of empty Minkowski space, one does not loose the classical conservation laws.

  2. There is also another, closely related problem. In Newtonian approach to gravity gravitation accelerating test particle experiences a genuine force. In general relativity test particle however suffers no acceleration nor force. There seems to be now manner for how these pictures could be consistent. Maybe Haisch and Rueda were thinking about this aspect when they made their attempt to derive inertia from vacuum energy in general relativistic context.

    TGD provides a neat solution also to this problem. At 4-D space-time level the orbit of neutral test particle is indeed a geodesic line and 4-D acceleration vanishes. At 8-D imbedding space level the orbit of test particle is not a geodesic line anymore and it experiences genuine 8-D acceleration, whose M4 part defines the Newtonian force. The CP2 part of the force is also present can be neglected since the scale of CP2 is so small (about 104 Planck lengths).

39 comments:

Ulla said...

This I like, wish I would have time to read it well :) Thanks.

I have found that the best manner to learn about TGD is to read books about other theories - agree on that. And happy that you can finally relax a bit :)

Anonymous said...

I'll just leave this here,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829184.400-string-theory-may-limit-space-brain-threat.html

Peace :)
Stephen

L. Edgar Otto said...

hehe I saw that too stephen and made the link to here

Matti, all the things you said are covered in my blogs and more if you want to discuss consciousness with me without academic or other connections to make it seem worth doing while we wait for new LHC data... I see your position clearly but not in the numbers in detail... I would not put you into the miscellaneous box... that is like multiverse in a sense...Newtons is after all an approximate law... Boltzman brains an odd concept... but the world is not simply boxes in boxes or some sort of inflation or even symmetry unless higher laws do connect beyond the thermodynamic ones... we do not always follow God's filing system nor microsofts... I find the ideas of the people you discuss rather primitive btw... the part you say you do not understand is clear to me so those guys are also close to the higher and wider new physics of which we all do not understand well what we share...it is not evident to me at all even on the hierarchical level we die as such, as does the symmetry of the process akin to biological cells. all these continuous ideas have a discrete counterpart but they are not as clear when we let the ideas diverge... just offering is all.

Ulla said...

I have only recently began to understand that we are tidal structures which is not limited to our living period. befor Life and after Life we also have quite big impact, maybe as some kind of memory, or metastructure, very much like a bigger CD-cone.

In fact Living bodies are best charachterized by time? They have symmetrybreaking as one very essential charachter (measurements) which actually is time.

So there must be two kinds of intelligence? One using discreateness and one continous, holistic? As in so many other areas.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Ulla: I like reading books. Now I am in the position of being able to buy some books to read thanks to the support that I receive to my work. No need to worry about daily basic metabolic needs and to beg money in social office in the role of an academic looser. I feel relaxed indeed;-). But this is not by conscious decision to "just relax".

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Stephen:

String model hypes are getting crazier and crazier. This Boltzmann brain stuff demonstrates how miserable the level of understanding about most elementary aspects of consciousness is in the theoretical physics community. I feel deep co-shame since I feel that I am also theoretical physicist. I do not know whether I want to be regarded as representative of this profession anymore;-)!

I however dare to swear that not every theoretical physicist believes on Boltzmann brains in interstellar space!

As the Russian discoverer of the supersymmetry said as he told as his opinion that SUSY has been experimentally excluded at LHC, particle theoreticians belong to a lost generation theoretical physicists. I would say "generations". It is really a pity that generation after generation spends its professional career with wrong paradigms (about forty years now).

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To ThePesla:

Putting Haisch into box and going voluntarily into "Miscellaneous" was an attempt to exercise self irony, it is always very healthy. The talk about biological death and what after that can be counted as my personal profoundly lunatic speculations and does not represent the views of any scientific institution that might have accepted me as a member when I had not yet started to talk about consciousness;-).

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

What I call briefly "Akashic representations" in honor of ancient thinkers represent intelligence as abstractions and rules realised in terms of negentropic entanglement. Their generation is guaranteed by NMP, which means a departure from standard quantum theory and maybe also from thermodynamics: the information carried by Akashic representations might mean that second law applies only to the ordinary matter whereas dark matter would carry negentropy which increases all the time. Akashic representations can be read consciously if we believe that interaction free measurement generalizes to TGD context.

This would lead to very optimistic view about the future of the Universe. Cumulation of intelligence instead of eventual heat death.

The question about discreteness is interesting. The continuous space-time surfaces - real and p-adic are necessary but the potential conscious information of cognitive representations about space-time would be always discrete: this is forced by the notion of finite measurement resolution which in turn is forced by the notion of p-adic manifold mathematically.

I do not see holism as a negation of discreteness. For instance, homotooy and holonomy groups of manifolds represent holistic aspects of manifold and are discrete! I would see discrete-holistic dichotomy mathematically as the function- Fourier transform of function dichotomy. Function values carry purely local information. The values of Fourier transform carry holistic information about function. For instance, frequency spectrum of EEG and EEG amplitudes for various frequencies represent holistic information. As a matter fact, number theoretical universality suggests strongly that real-p-adic correspondence demands that various Fourier spectra are discrete. Holistic representations would be discrete!

Living matter as a conscious hologram would define the basic holistic representation. Reading of "Akashic records" using interaction free measurement by sending also reference beams (with discrete frequencies!) to detectors gives rise to holograms.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...



To Ulla:

Still about discreteness. Second aspect of discreteness is subjective existence as a sequence of moments of conscious: the state function reductions at opposed boundaries of CDs themselves appearing as quantum superpositions.

We experience conscious experience as a continuous flow. Is this a problem here or not? One could argue that it is not possible to be conscious about being unconscious so that gaps are not experienced.

This relates closely to the relationship of subjective time (sequence of quantum jump) so geometric time.

a) Certainly subjective time does not allow any continuous measure in real sense as geometric time does as one space-time coordinate.

b) It seems natural to say about two moments of consciousness, call them A and B, whether A is before B or vice versa. Moments of consciousness would be well-ordered and could be mapped to integers.

I am just trying to understand better the relationship between subjective and geometric time. For example, how the subjective times at various levels of CD hierarchy relate to each other? It seems that one must somehow map sequences of quantum jumps at various levels to real or p-adic time values in order to compare them. Also quantum classical correspondences suggests this.

The idea is following: p-Adic integers form a continuum in p-adic topology. Could one map the sequence of quantum jumps to p-adic integers and in this manner to p-adic instead of real continuum?! Could the p-adic cognitive representations allow to achieve this?! If so, the experience about conscious flow of time would be due to p-adic topology for cognitive representation for the sequence of quantum jumps!

More precisely:

a) Most p-adic integers expressible as N= SUM_k n_kp^k are infinite in real sense and in p-adic topology they form a continuum! Suppose that the infinity of moments of consciousness that have already happened can be labelled by p-adic integers
and look what is the outcome.

b) Sounds very strange but is true: the integers N and N+ np^n, for n large are very near to each other p-adically. In real sense they are very far. This allows to fill the gaps between say integers N=1 and 2 by p-adic integers which are very large in real sense.

c) The p-adic correlate of the sequence of discrete quantum jumps/moments of consciousness would define p-adic continuum which in turn can be mapped to real continuum by canonical identification.

Nice but maybe tricky for any-one accustomed to think in terms of real topology!

Ulla said...

Thanks for this all. You have a very peculiar manner to express your will, indeed. As if what you say means nothing? You express strong opinions in this direction, and after a while just as strong in opposite direction. A scorpio?

Here some good news? Someone has been reading TGD?
One of the challenges facing fundamental physics has been to provide a natural explanation for these three generations. Weinstein's theory does this by revealing the presence of a new geometric structure involving a much larger symmetry at work, inside which the symmetry of the Standard Model sits. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/may/23/eric-weinstein-answer-physics-problems

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2013/may/23/roll-over-einstein-meet-weinstein

Ulla said...

There is a scifi novel about an intelligent cloud, and the question is if a continuum can have intelligence. It should react as One (as instance a plasmon) and it should be possible? This is the information paradox. Is information always in structures? Can information be transferred to quantum algebra?

Ulla said...

I have to say this.
You did not accept my help, and it still feels so bad.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Ulla:

I have seen quite too many noisy and aggressive gurus who are wrong again and again. When I make a proposal and my duty is to represent the objection and possible alternatives. This is genuine skepticism without which science reduces to fruitless dogmatism. Scientist is not worth of his salt, if he is does not live in continual confusion;-).




Anonymous said...

Dear Matti,
You try to say mathematical view of universe is unique. So if ZEO is right, all theories that don’t accept ZEO in their ontologies must have Inconsistent mathematics! In another words thinking on them by accepting assumptions of them must leads to contradiction! ;-)
Maybe this is another way for learning TGD ;-)

I want to understand what contradiction in current formalism of QFT about energy is. I review my understanding and ask this question again.
this review is just my personal view, so please tell me if anything is wrong.

In QFT when we expand the Fourier series of a field , there is e^i(k*x-omega*t) correspond to a particle with energy of hbar*omega go to the future.
But we see e^i(-k*x+omega*t) too.
Therefore one can interprets the e^i(-k*x+omega*t) in two manners:

1-Just “t” is replaced with “–t” and signature of energy is the same. Therefore it refers to particles going to opposite direction of time. Also argues that they have opposite charge and calls them antiparticles

2-Just “omega” is replaced with “–omega” and direction of time is the same. Therefore it refers to particles have negative energy going to same direction of time (future). Also argues that they have opposite charge and calls them antiparticles

Most of physicists because of Escaping from philosophical problems of opposite direction of time accept the second interpretation. But the second has another problem about negative energy. We see both positive and negative energy parts of the field and maybe one can wonder where the negative energy is!! But the answer is given to the person is that there is no particle with negative energy and the lack of these particles corresponds to antiparticles that have positive energy. So nothing has really negative energy.
What contradiction in the interpretation is?

Matpitka@luukku.com said...



Dear Hamed,

thank you for interesting questions.

I claim that the infinite-dimensionality of WCW fixes WCW highly uniquely because infinite dimension it is very difficult to have Riemann connection consistently. In the case of loop spaces this fixes Kahler metric uniquely. And for higher-dimensional basic objects there are even better reasons to expect uniqueness.

ZEO is necessarily if one wants that the theory is maximally testable: in other words, any quantum state can be created from vacuum. This means maximal free will in consciousness theory. In ordinary ontology the states are restricted by the condition that energy and other conserved quantum numbers have fixed values (this condition is not well-defined in infinite sized Universe for which energy can be infinite). ZEO is also forced if one wants quantum jumps between different number fields. Also the consistency with the fact that energy is not conserved in cosmic scales, requires it if one accepts Poincare invariance. Energy becomes length scale dependent notion characterising each CD.

The answer to your second question depends on the scale which one looks at.

*If the scale of CD is shorter than CDs characterising observer then these (sub-)CDs would correspond to quantum fluctuations in positive energy ontology. Observer can detect standard arrow of time for imbedding space and also its reversal for sub-CDs.

Phase conjugate laser beams would represent standard example. Also spontaneous self assembly. The notion of syntropy introduced by Fantatppie would also relate to nonstandard arrow of imbedding space time.

*If CD represents observer then the observer corresponds either to upper or lower boundary of the sub-CD and observer perceives either positive energy or negative energy part of the state in state function reductions and claims that she lives in positive energy ontology.

*If CD is bigger than the one assignable to observer then observer perceives only the physics assignable to either boundary of the CD. Imbedding space arrow of time looks fixed. Situation would look same as in positive energy ontology.

Anonymous said...

SO Thanks,

1-
"If the scale of CD is shorter than CDs characterising observer then these (sub-)CDs would correspond to quantum fluctuations in positive energy ontology"

the scale of CD of an electron is shorter than CDs characterising observer(measurement apparatus), therefore we must measure electron as quantum fluctuation. what is wrong in the argument?


2-
How ZEO describe the process? "a photon decays to particle and anti particle"

3- We measure positive energy for macroscopic objects because CD of them are larger than CD of sensory input of us.
but if we consider earth or solar system as observer, the observer sees the objects in the ordinary scale as quantum fluctuations?
Time flip-flop. where is negative energy state of the ordinary objects?, so that at every flip- flop, earth sees in flip the objects with positive energy and in flop sees negative part of them.

Anonymous said...

It's good to read and continue the discussion. In that vein Finnish philosopher Pauli Pylkkö has very good major point in his detailed criticism of propaganda of materialistic physicalism: http://www.uunikustannus.fi/fysiikkaviikari.pdf

Pylkkö suggests that "quantum approach" would be more fruitfull in study and theorizing about "subconsciosnes" etc. than consciousness or "thoughts about thoughts" in "Strange Loop" a la Gödel and Hofstadter, or if we like, 'awareness' rather than 'consciousness'.

However difficult the analytic distinction between consciousness and awareness is, unlike Hoffstadter I believe it is meaningful and important, and that awareness is also something more basic and panpsychic than just a strange loop of conscious thought - however entangled and intermixed also those get.

The distinction between subconscious and conscious learning has been verified in various psychological tests, so I must stress the importance of this difference. And hence that is also great philosophical disservice to talk about TGD as a theory of "consciousness".

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Hamed:

The first question is the more difficult so that I start from the second one.

2. A massive particle decaying to particle and antiparticle is at say "lower" boundary of CD (initial state) and particle and antiparticle at the "upper" boundary<--> final state. The initial state is superposition of pairs of states of massive particle at "lower" boundary with fixed quantum numbers and any final state at "upper" boundary allowed by conservation laws. This asymmetry means imbedding space arrow of time.

Coefficients of various contributions correspond to M-matrix elements which is analog of thermal S-matrix: product of a hermitian square root of density matrix and unitary S-matrix. In state function reduction particle antiparticle state with well-define quantum numbers is selected and also localization for the "upper" boundary of CD takes place. In the superposition of CDs with various scales the selected CD tends to grow in size. This gives rise to flow of imbedding space geometric to opposite directions at the two boundaries of CD.


1. To the first question I do not have final answer.


a) The electron stability suggests that maybe corresponding CD has infinite size. Electron stability however means in above picture that in the superposition both initial and final state are just on mass shell single electron states. ZEO does not predict decay of electron although the scale of electron CD corresponds is .1 seconds and with certain probabily also longer. Therefore everything is consistent with what is known about electron even if one assumes that electrons physically correspond to CDs with this size.

Remark: What the size scale of CD means is Lorentz invariant size scale. All Lorentz boosts of electron CD are allowed an in the original coordinate system the time duration of boosted CD can be arbitrarily long. The upper tip of electron CD is at hyperboloid t^2= T^2+r^2, T=0.1 seconds.


b) The obvious question is whether the space-time surfaces continue outside the electron CD so that also electron's space-time sheet would continue. I do not know! Is CD just spot light of consciousness or is it the volume in which zero energy state is contained? Generalize Feynman diagrammatics suggests the first interpretation.

Note that CP_2 type vacuum extremals can quite well have finite temporal duration in Minkowski coordinates which also suggests finite size scales. The equation is m^k= m^k(s), s some function of CP_2 coordinates such that m_kl partial_sm^k partial_sm^l=0 is true: no contribution from M^4 to induced metric to induced metric.

Remark: The scale of sensory perception is .1 seconds - a fundamental biorhythm - which happens to be the secondary p-adic time scale characterizing electron. What does this mean? Electronic Cooper pairs are fundamental for consciousness: this is the first thing to come in mind. Cell membranes indeed define electronic Josephson junctions in TGD inspired biology.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


1. I agree with Pylkkö about materialistic physicalism: its time is over.

On the other hand, if we want to understand consciousness, we cannot use wrong physical theory and quantum theory is the best theory we have. I do not believe that it is correct in its recent form since quantum measurement theory is just a set of rules and there is logical contradiction. TGD inspired theory of consciousness begins from this contradiction and proposes a solution to it. Zero energy ontology and the view about moment of consciousness as quantum jump is the essence of the solution.

2. About the notion of consciousness.

a) In TGD framework the terms "consciousness" and "awareness" are not quite correct since what I call consciousness is not a property of system as assumed in most competing theories. "Tajunta" would be excellent expression of finnish language for it. Consciousness is in the recreation of zero energy state. One must however make linguistic compromises in order to communicate.

b) Pure phenomenal consciousness corresponds in TGD framework to purely sensory/phenomenal awareness without reflective levels of consciousness resulting from the conscious reading of representations/ "Akashic records": this is quite possible.

c) An interesting question whether pure awareness without any sensory input is possible: does the negentropic entanglement defining "Akashic records" contribute to conscious experience even without the reading process, and perhaps dominate in experiences known has higher states of consciousness when sensory input and motor activity are absent?

3. Concerning the notion sub-conscious

The basic prediction of TDG is hierarchy of selves (or self representations to be precise). Self has subselves just as CD has sub-CDs and subselves self experiences as mental images. Subselves of sub-selves self experiences as kind of statistical averages. This and lower levels of hierarchy therefore contribute kind of background and it is natural to interpret sub-conscious-to-us processing as conscious processing at these lower levels.

The situation is like in a big hierarchical company: the boss is communicates with those immediately below who produce highly abstracted reports but is only very dimly aware about what those at the bottom of the hierarchy think and experience.

For these reasons I do not feel making any great philosophical disservice when I talk about TGD inspired theory of consciousness. Just the contrary!;-)

Anonymous said...

To quote the relevant passage from Pylkkö: "Kvanttivuorovaikutusten osuus aivotapahtumissa, jotka ovat vastuussa ›tietoisten› toimintojen (siis ajattelun, muistamisen, suunnittelun, puheen, mielikuvien...) ylläpitämisestä, lienee avoin ongelma, ja Enqvistinkin näkemys
tuntuu ymmärrettävästi häilyvän. Eräs omalaatuinen piirre nykyaikaisessa tietoisuustutkimuksessa on se, että kvanttiteoriaa tarjotaan nimenomaan
tietoisuuden tutkimisen pohjaksi, vaikka kvanttiteoria soveltuisi paljon paremmin tiedostamattoman ja esikäsitteellisen kokemuksen selittämisen pohjaksi, siis selittämään pikemminkin kokemuksen holistista, kenttämäisesti esitietoista ykseyttä kuin tietoisten ajattelu- ja suunnittelutapahtumien klassista muotoa."

Terminology in this field is notoriously (and creatively) confusing, and I'm not sure if your use of words clarifies or adds to confusion (rather bit of both). Together with Pylkkö et alii I would translate and restrict 'tietoiset toimet' as 'conscious acts' (thinking, remembering, planning, speech, mental images...) and reserve the words 'tajunta/awareness' also for "unconsciouss and preconceptual experience" and "holistic and preconscious fieldlike unity of experience".

"Philosophical" in one sense means strive for clarified and consistent terminology; poetry can be another motion and maybe a sound TOE needs to be both philosophical and poetic. What does sentence "consciousness is the recreation of zero energy state" mean? Has the language of that sentence become compromised to the degree that it has lost meaning? To begin with, for philosophical consistency and poetic (re)creation could and would it sound better, more true and beautiful, to write TOE in form of TGD in E-prime banning the word 'be' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime) rather than in the essentialist metaphysics of standard English? So instead we might suggest (and ask) that consciousness (or awareness?!?) corresponds/resembles/... with recreation of (mathematical structure called?) zero energy state and then try to bridge the theoretical description with the level or mode of experience tagged "conscious act"?

I believe we fundamentally agree that 'conscious acts' often behave in very invasive and imperialistic way to try control what they perceive as external other, even to the degree that they sometimes claim to BE all there IS, even consciously denying 'fieldlike unity of experience' as too 'godlike' and not material enough. And that "philosophical disservice" gets done by allowing conscious acts to go on all about themselves to the degree that we forget and loose sense that conscious acts depend from basic fieldlike unity of "pure awareness" but not the other way around. Pure awareness IS (to carefully use the big word as correctly as I can) also in the moments where conscious acts are absent and the relentless loop of internal chatter ceases. A philosophically and poetically sound theory should, IMHO, start and build from fundamental ("pure awareness") instead of dependent secondary categories ("consciousness").

Anonymous said...

Matti: "ZEO is necessarily if one wants that the theory is maximally testable: in other words, any quantum state can be created from vacuum. This means maximal free will in consciousness theory. In ordinary ontology the states are restricted by the condition that energy and other conserved quantum numbers have fixed values (this condition is not well-defined in infinite sized Universe for which energy can be infinite)."

Hmm. Not "any" quantum state if we accept no-cloning-theorem as fundamental axiom or "word of God"... ;) ... AFAIK no-cloning-theorem forbids the recreation of the *SAME* quantum state, and the Law of Identity (at least in strict form and all the logics that are founded upon it) gets thrown away with the wash-water, only baby remains.

And what does no-cloning-theorem mean for "maximal testability"? The currently prevailing notion of testability has been constructed upon Law of Identity and recreation of "identical" state-clones from moment to moment, so doesn't that violate the spirit of no-cloning-theorem? In Physics testability itself has been created as strange beast of presuming a certain kind of time and repetitive time-relation, which itself cannot be tested by "testability" and hence presumes a logical inconsistency and a creative contradiction (cf Gödel-loop). And further, idea and requirement of testability has been created by conscious acts of seeking control over what they perceive as controllable by repetition.

Testability itself, so it now seems, and the notion of time it presumes as truth condition of theory of "natural philosophy" has become the blind spot of standard physics as discipline and methodology.

Or does ZEO and the richness of TGD related notions of times change the view of and status (and proof?) of no-cloning theorem?

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


What I mean is following. Zero energy state representing vacuum (positive and negative energy states are vacua) has vanishing quantum numbers. Therefore it can have non-vanishing overlap with any other zero energy state.

One can think the Universe as an ideal conscious theoretician interesting in testing all possible zero energy states and this is possible to maximal extend in ZEO. In positive energy ontology conservation laws restrict this process dramatically (of course also observer is poorly defined concept).

Cloning means formation of state containing two identical copies of given "sub-state", call it A. If no-cloning theorem holds true, this state cannot be achieved by starting from state containing single A. But there is no deep reason why more complex process could allow to achieve the state containing two copies of A (if this state is at all possible as zero energy state!).


Interaction free measurement as reading of "Akashic records" in ideal limit produces which is more or less equivalent with the copy of state but in realistic situation this ideal limit is never reached in positive energy ontology. What ZEO (NMP) implies from the point of view of no-cloning theorem is unclear.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Anonymous;

As I said, I believe that quantum theory is the only reasonable starting point if one wants to build a theory of biology and consciousness. Classical physics is not enough. Also materialistic philosophy must be given up and I would not take too seriously the (anti-)philosophical visions of local science popularizers;-). QM can be just a starting point since wave mechanics and quantum field theory are plagued by the killer problems of quantum measurement theory.


The meaning of words is dictated by the underlying theory and in case of consciousness theories there is no universal vocabulary - for obvious reasons. In any case, we have clearly somewhat different views about awareness and consciousness.

My own language is an attempt to translate mathematical notions to every day language. "Re-creation" is just the other manner to say "state function reduction at either boundary of causal diamond whose outcomeis partially dictated by NMP saying that the content of consciousness information is maximal". This has relatively precise mathematical meaning to anyone who bothers to learn the meaning of various notions in the sentence, but I am afraid that it does not say too much for a layman trying to understand what on Earth that fellow tries to say;-). "Conscious act" is of course another manner to say this.

I prefer to use reflective consciousness/ representations (motor, sensor, cognitive) and phenomenal consciousness (sensory percepts without representations and interpretation) as basic aspects of what I call "consciousness". Every conscious experience - also the reading of the representations - reduces to quantum jump as moment of consciousness so that this would be the fundamental building brick.

The field like aspect is present in the ontology: there are several levels of existence. Geometric existence as that for space-time surfaces, imbedding space, and "world of classical worlds" (WCW) as space of 3-surfaces or by holography 4-surfaces, WCW spinor fields as zero energy states, conscious existence as quantum jumps between them. Three levels of existence together, kind of holy trinity if you wish.

An open question is whether the approximately invariant negentropically entangled states (Negentropy Maximization Principle stabilizes them just as entropy maximation stabilizes thermodynamical equilibria) - "Akashic records" to be poetic - could *directly* contribute to conscous experience/awareness.

In absence of sensory input, motor actions, and absence of thoughts they could give rise to higher states of consciousness - experience of deep understanding without knowing what one understands - about which Krishnamurti talks so much.

I am of course free to postulate "yes" or "no" I have strong temptation for "yes";-). Note that this would realize awareness as a *property* invariant under quantum jumps. Science is search for invariants so that also as a scientists I have temptation to take Krishnamurti's reports seriously!

Ulla said...

I read Haisch and Ruedas paper and see they are linked to Puthoff, another interesting scientist.

They say: We do not enter into the problems associated with attempts to explain inertia via Mach’s Principle, since we have discussed this at length in a recent paper [48]: a detailed discussion on intrinsic vs. extrinsic inertia and on the inability of the geometrodynamics of general relativity to generate inertia reaction forces may be found therein. It had already been shown by Rindler [49] and others that Mach’s Principle is inconsistent with general relativity, and Dobyns et al. [48] further elaborate on a crucial point in general relativity that is not much appreciated: Geometrodynamics merely defines the geodesic that a freely moving object will follow. But if an object is constrained to follow some different path, geometrodynamics has no mechanism for creating a reaction force. Geometrodynamics has nothing more to say about inertia than does classical Newtonian physics. Geometrodynamics leaves it to whatever processes generate inertia to generate such a force upon deviation from a geodesic path, but this becomes an obvious tautology if an explanation of inertia is sought in geometrodynamics.

You use Mach's principle? So this is quite different from your point of view? Or is the only difference Kähler and Poincare gravity approach? So to be able to describe TGD this point has to be learnt?

http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0106075

Haisch publications here http://www.calphysics.org/haisch/publications.html

Ulla said...

http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/422142/the-genomes-dark-matter/

Ulla said...

Her thesis is even free on PubMed :)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470739/pdf/15020477.pdf

Ulla said...

This is 'the jump'? Back and forth. Here is a better description of ZPE from the group? http://www.calphysics.org/articles/Davis_STAIF06.pdf

Anonymous said...

Dear Matti, I'm not sure if and how different our views are. I believe natural languages are local and unique and not fully translatable - organic parts of the local ecosystems they express; songs of forest, desert, prairie, ice etc. to put more poetically. And as we think inside languages and at their border zones, not outside or above, we may call languages (small) gods. Universality of math and mathematical languages is open and deep post-Gödelian philosophical question, as is the communications and discussion between natural languages and mathematical languages.

This variety gives all the more reason to critically question and challenge opinions and thought patterns contained in terminologies, and to *listen* languages and be informed, both consciously (which enables critical questioning and change) and aware to be actively informed (to borrow Bohm's notion) by languages.

Perhaps in English and some other languages 'sentience' could be the word for most suitable corner stone for physical theory building? At least as far as we speak of "sensory input" we should be able to clarify in each context do we mean a field like holographic participation by a subsystem in a larger whole, or filtering actions by classical external senses and/or neural processes. I feel this dichotomy is also at the center of the "measuring problem" and "decoherence" and our ability to talk about it, and concentrating on clarifying sentience instead of more abstract notions of mental categories can help more to bridge the gaps between experiental comprehension and mathematical understanding, and to make mathematical concepts better felt also in the fields of natural languages.

I'm sure you agree that a good (=ethical notion) theory does not stay in the ivory tower of math but gains it's truest meaning in the active participation with human minds, bodies and actions of how we relate in and with the worlds we live and create. Finnish word for 'mind', 'mieli', associates with 'mieluisa' which means pleasurable, agreeable; and the positive response "mielelläni" translates as both "with my mind" and "with pleasure". Mieleni minun tekevi, aivoni ajattelevi... :) <3

Anonymous said...

>>>What ZEO (NMP) implies from the point of view of no-cloning theorem is unclear.<<<

I'm happy that unclarity got clarified ;). Because I believe open theory is ethically more sound than a closed (final) theory.

Anonymous said...

I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying the discussion on this blog.. it us of the highest quality of anything found on the internet or otherwise :) If I may interject and ask Matti and the other readers of this blog, what are your thoughts/ideas/opinions on the ideas of Tom Bearden?

http://www.altenergy.org/new_energy/bearden.html

It seems too good to be true!

Ulla said...

Once again a 'jump' back http://phys.org/news/2013-05-coupled-particles-energy-wall.html

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

I have considered in what sense Mach's principle could make sense in TGD framework. I do not believe Mach's principle in the standard sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle .
That is distant stars would explain centrifugal acceleration.

I have considered just for fun alternative interpretations in the section "Miscellaneous topics" http://tgdtheory.com/public_html/tgdclass/tgdclass.html#tgdgrt . Usually the idea ending in a section with this title is near the end of its life cycle;-).

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Stephen:

Bearden shares the ZPE idea with Haisch. As I explained in the posting, I find this idea mathematically unsound.

Bearden's view about electrodynamics seems to me also mathematically unsound.

Overunity energy production is one of the ideas of Bearden but ZEO in principle allows overunity. Create from vacuum zero energy state which the other end of CD carries a non-vanishing positive energy. The probability for this kind of processes could be however hopelessly small.

System could also send negative energy to some other system receiving it and in this manner obtain energy as a recoil. In living matter the quantum credit card mechanism might be at work for metabolism making possible instantaneous gain of energy.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Anonymous:

Also "sentience" is defined in Wikipedia as ability to be conscious, which is property. "Mieli" and "tajunta" are finnish words which would suite best for my purposes. "Nous" I think has rather similar meaning but "TGD inspired theory of Nous" definitely does not rhyme;-)!

Ulla said...

Amit Goswami: You can call it God if you want, but you don’t have to. Quantum consciousness will do. Nonlocality, tangled hierarchy, and discontinuity: these signatures of quantum consciousness have been independently verified by leading researchers worldwide. This experimental data and its conclusions inform us that it is the mistaken materialist view that is at the center of most of our worlds problems today. To address these problems, we now have a science of spirituality that is fully verifiable and objective.
http://www.amitgoswami.org/

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Matti Pitkanen said...


This muhammed waqar=Fahad Naseer=zahid ahmed=... is mad. He just continues to feed his idiotic commercials. He is badly in need of help.