Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The TGD based interpretation of the God helmet experiments

In the previous posting I described the God helmet experiments of Persinger briefly and Persinger's own interpretation of the results. Anyone interested to understand what neurotheology is about should listen the inspiring talk God and the Brain - The Persinger 'God Helmet', The Brain, and visions of God by Todd Murphy.

In this posting I will discuss the TGD inspired interpretation of the results of Persinger's experiments. To put it in very concise manner: whereas Persinger interprets right brain as "visitor" explaining sense of presence experiences and even meeting of God, I identify the "visitor" of the visitor experiences as the personal magnetic body or in the case of enlightment experiences as the emergence of a new layer to its fractal structure. Magnetic body would be also responsible for the third person aspect of conscious experience, which means that we tend to see ourselves from bird's eye perspective. Magnetic bodies make as social animals, and are responsible for the cultural evolution and explain why we differ so much from our cousins although the genomes differ so little.

1. Frequency modulation as a "code of consciousness"

Maxwell's electrodynamics would suggest that a superposition of endogenous and external magnetic fields takes place in God helmet experimens and is partially responsible for the effects. This is clear from the fact that quite spesific magnetic stimulation is used (signals derived from EEG during the second stage). In TGD framework one should be able to interpret this.

  1. In TGD Universe endogenous magnetic fields could form a fractal hierarchy: flux quanta inside flux quanta. Several critical values of magnetic field expected. Flux quanta could be flux tubes or sheets (DNA strands could be traversed by flux sheets and one could have hierarchy of genomes making possible collective gene expression at various levels).

  2. There is a hierarchy of Planck constants so that one can assign to the cell membrane potential a Josephson frequency proportional to 1/hbar and to cyclotron frequencies photon energy proportional to hbar.

  3. The code for the communications from biological body to various levels of the magnetic body relies on the modulation of the Josephson frequencies assignable to the cell membrane. Assuming that the value of Planck constant is integer multiple of its standard value these frequencies span an enormous range. In the case of EEG the Planck constant is of order 1013 in order to for photons with the energy of visible photon to have frequency about 10 Hz. Since Josephson frequency is proportional to the membrane potential, the modulations of the membrane potential induce modulations of Josephson frequency so that the signal sent to the magnetic body is modulated and this frequency modulation must define the "code of consciousness".

  4. The frequencies involved with these communications are sums of harmonics of Josephson frequency and cyclotron frequency and also cyclotron frequencies can be modulated by modulating magnetic fields. The simplest possibility is that the external magnetic field induces modulation of the magnetic field. This modulation is small since the field strength is of order .01 Gauss and by a factor 1/20 smaller than the endogenous magnetic field Bend=.2 Gauss suggested by the effects of ELF em fields on vertebrate brain. Of course also other field values are expected to be present.

2. The basic philosophy behind the TGD based model

The basic philosophy behind the TGD based explanation of God helmet experiences differs in many respects from that behind the model of Persinger and Murphys. Therefore it is good to describe this philosophy first.

  1. In the normal social consciousness based strongly on verbal communications the left brain self dominates and social interactions actually split the left brain self from right brain self so that right brain self remains a silent companion unable to express itself except throught intuitions. This raises some questions.

    Could just the need to communicate the experience verbally automatically project "me" to left brain me and cut if from "right brain self" so that only the memories of left brain self are communicated. What would happen if the subject person would communicate with external world by singing? Often persons who have lost their ability to speak and comprehend spoken language can communicate by singing. Would the the projection occur to left brain self and could the memories be different?

  2. Persinger and Murphy seem to assume that right brain is God from the perspective of the left brain. Magnetic body is responsible for the third person aspect of consciousness and also for the ability to see the dying biological body from the bird's eye perspective during OBEs accompanying also NDEs, which accordingy to Murphy could be quite real. There is indeed evidence that a subject person unable to move from bed has been able to see objects which she should not have been able to see. If magnetic body is real it could also receive extra-sensory information.

    Could the magnetic body of right brain or of the entire brain be in some sense the God from the view point of the brain? The TGD based interpretation for the vision of Jaynes about bicameral consiousness as a predecessor of modern consciousness would conform with this. The God of old testament would be the personal magnetic body which would not have yet become a highly integrated part of self and could be experienced as an outsider. Jaynes also proposes that the consciousness of schizophrenic is much like bicameral consciousness.

  3. It is not necessary to assume that the right amygdala is specialized to produce negatively colored motions and left amygdala positive emotions. Same applies also to the proposed roles of right and left hippocampi. In fact, according to Wikipedia article about lateralization of brain function depression is linked with hyperactive right hemisphere and selective involvement in "processing negative emotions, pessimistic thoughts and unconstructive thinking styles". A relatively hypoactive left hemisphere is said to be "specifically involved in processing pleasurable experiences" and "relatively more involved in decision-making processes". One can interpret this in many manners. The hyper-activity of right hemisphere could tend to cut its connection with its magnetic body and cause a depressive mood.

    Intense nerve pulse activity could cause this if nerve pulse generation breaks coherence of the EEG oscillation due to the oscillating membrane potentials inducing generation of signals to the magnetic body. The reduced neural activity of left hemisphere would mean a better connection to the magnetic flux tube and positive emotional coloring.

  4. Note that this picture conforms with spiritual practices which teach that the manner to achieve piece of mind and bliss is to stop thinking, which indeed means reduce neural activity and more stable connection to the magnetic body. If one takes this conceptualization seriously, one could conclude that the modern hectic society tends to split the connections to the personal magnetic bodies. Since they represent higher levels in the hierarchy of conscious entities, this would lead to a loss of spirituality and also social regression if magnetic bodies are responsible for social structures and cultural evolution.

  5. For about 26 years ago I had also a long-lasting "enlightment" experience - actually two of them. The general structure of these experiences fits with thde proposed general format. The first experience began with the experience of getting in contact with what I spontaneously called Great Mind. I started to make all kinds of questions which I imagined of writing to a monitor that I saw in front of me. Later I realized that the writing was not necessary. I also understood that our communication was severaly estricted by the fact that my language did not yet have words for to express the messages of this Great Mind so that the messages contained a lot of "blancos".

    I had an experience of profound understanding but did not know what I understood. I also felt that everything around me has extremely deep meaning. One of the first questions I did was "How long I will live?". From the humorous reply expressed as an endless rapid running of a counter containing a long sequence of digits I understood that there is no death. I also asked "Am I alone in this Universe?". The reply was enigmatic "You are a God!".

    Later it somehow became clear that this God like entity was actually in some sense me. A possible interpretation could be that a new higher layer to the hierarchy of layers of my personal magnetic body had emerged as this God like creature became a part of my personal magnetic body. Much later I realized that this paradoxical realization was the analog for Brahman=Atman identity of Eastern philosophies.

Consider now the more technical assumptions.

  1. One can assume that right and left brain selves can entangle to form a single self and that magnetic flux tubes between brain hemispheres closely associated with the connecting nerve bundles serve as a correlate for this entanglement. In TGD framework the notion of negentropic entanglement makes sense and means entanglement entropy defined number theoretically is negative rather than being positive as usually. Negentropy Maximization Principle for quantum jumps guarantees the stability of negentropic entanglement. Entanglement probabilities must be rational or at most algebraic numbers or negentropic entanglement.

  2. The basic mechanism would be reconnection of magnetic flux tubes. Typically two parallel connecting flux tubes would touch each other and reconnect to form U-shaped flux tubes representing flux tubes beginning and returning to left (right magnetic body). What is the role of the external magnetic field in this process? Could the closed flux tubes of the external magnetic fields reconnect with those connecting the right hemisphere to left hemisphere. Suppose that magnetic flux tubes indeed serve as geometric correlates for attention interpreted as negentropic entanglement.

    Could one say that the magnet creating chirp signal catches the attention of the right brain magnetic body directed to the right hemisphere? Could the splitting of the connection to the magnetic body create the negative emotions. It is enough that the magnet- magnetic body entanglement becomes entropic to destroy the entanglement in state function reduction if one believes in NMP and perhaps this occurs.

  3. One an ask whether this kind of mechanism could explain also the effects of strong (or order 1 Tesla) fields on brain in transcranial magnetic stimulation or is the standard explanation in terms of eddy currents inducing nerve pulse patterns enough to explain the effects.

3. The model for God helmet experiences

Consider now a the general TGD inspired model explaining God helmet experiences.

  1. The magnetic chirp during the first stage tends to decouple the right hemisphere from its magnetic body and possibly also from the magnetic body of left brain. This alone creates the negatively colored emotions- kind of feeling of being abandoned by God. This could be also general mechanism of depression and the manner to cure depression would be re-establishment of this connection.

    At quantum level the cutting of the magnetic connection would mean the desctruction of entanglement between parts of the two brain hemispheres or between part of right hemisphere and its magnetic body temporarily. This would lead to the splitting of self to right and left brain sub-selves or the loss of the right hemisphere magnetic body entanglement.

  2. If one is ready to take seriously the notion of number theoretic entropy, the minimum condition would be that the magnetic chirp causes the entanglement probabilities become non-rational or even non-algebraic numbers so that the number theoretic entropy does not make sense. Ordinary entanglement entropy is always non-negative and state function reduction reduces the entanglement and self splits to two.

  3. During the second stage the simultaneous activation of both hemispheres by artificial neuronal signals derived from the EEG of amygdala and hippocampus would fuse both hemispheres to single coherent unit so that the mental images of the right hemisphere would contribute to the conscious experience. The coherence could increase from what it is during ordinary wake-up consciousness dominated by verbal communications. "Being nearer to God" alone could give rise to highly positived colored emotions and to a direct experience of seeing the God/light being/magnetic body and explain the experience of meaningfulness and deep understanding without being able to express what one understands. This inability could be simply to the lack of appropriate language. There is no need to assign this experience to the right hippocampus.

For background and pdf version of the text see the new chapter TGD Based View about Classical Fields in Relation to Consciousness Theory and Quantum Biology of "TGD and EEG".

21 comments:

Ulla said...

Wau. Matti, you have been busy. I have waited for this in years. The book of Jill Bolte Taylor comes with the post. Good.

Compare also to Dickaus work.

L. Edgar Otto said...

Well, Matti,

With great visions (and sometimes lesser visions) one certainly gets the idea of a unification of things happening in the universe or brain. It is a powerful leap of our cognition.

Of course this seems to me beyond the leap to proof of such unity as existing. Yes, I have touched on this sort of philosophy lately with the idea that just perhaps there is some sort of physics involved- not sure Magnetism is the fundamental idea as we know it.

But it is on the way to understanding at least the mathematics that may be involved.

So the issue of what happens between classical and the other representations in relation to this sense of uniqueness and unity we call consciousness is still an open question- you should submit this sort of thing to the link I supplied in the call for papers a few of my posts back.

The PeSla

matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

I realize that I have concentrated mostly to TGD proper. This has not been purposeful choice by me. If it was a conscious choice by some-one it was correct;-).

I cannot make progress in consciousness theory without defining the basic notions more precisely. I need a precise enough phenomenology based on new notion of classical field and space-time and understanding what topological field quantization really means. Answers to very simple questions like "What superposition of classical fields means in TGD Universe?".

The attempt to understand Persinger's findings is an application of the more precise picture about topological field quantization. It seems that TGD is able to say something highly non-trivial and testable about spiritual experiences.

And before everything, I am happy that I need not follow poor skeptics and try to reduce experiences which are often turning points of life to brain disorders;-)!

In any case, I strongly encourage to listen lectures of Todd Murphy. They provide a fresh angle to spiritual experiences. Scientists need not retrograde to silly mockers of spirituality. They can be real explorers. While listening Todd Murphy I felt the same deep inspiration as for 26 years ago after having realized that this "scientific world view" to which I had been brainwashed is nothing but a clumsy drawing of a child.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Tesla:

What try to achieve is the identification the quantum physical correlates of consciousness. Since I believe on quantum classical correspondence, I also try to guess the correlates of consciousness at the level of classical physics.

In TGD Universe field body and magnetic body seem to be very important such correlates. This means giving up the dogma that biology and neuroscience reduce to chemistry. This means a decisive step -skeptic would probably say "fatal";-) - in attempts to understand DNA and related things.

As I have pompously declared boringly many times;-), I believe that contents of consciousness itself is beyond any mathematical formula since its basic building brick is to me the act of re-creation.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Dear Pesla,

I am sorry, I thought that the comment was from Tesla;-).

Ulla said...

I have looked at Murphy and he is good. The best is that the hypotheses actually can be tested. Experiments can be done. But we must remember that brains are individual and wired by Nurture, so we have always some uncertainty/randomness.

What I would want a clearer picture of is hierarchy by p-adics versus Planck constants as related to the different brainareas/halves. Occiput can be seen as past time, Frontal lobes as future, and temporals as present, so 'God' must be in presens as spiritists claim. This would be quantum coherence for the right hemisphere then? At least for the temporal lobe.

Anonymous said...

Yuo are late Matti, we set a helmet
for God.

Ulla said...

https://www.technologyreview.com/article/39289/?p1=A1

L. Edgar Otto said...

Matti,

No problem, If I had a lot of hair I am sure when I touched the coils with such high voltage theories it would make it stand on end, Einstein like.

Your deeper ideas are hard to get a clear picture of in new terms- but I do see the classical level as a sort of prime or given- but consciousness as such is not any more mysterious and miraculous as the fact of matter as given, to me anyway. If we cannot (philosophically) show God exists or not, how can we say consciousness itself is beyond any mathematical formula? Not to say there may not be some such unique reality to be so described. But I did offer lately other or alternative consciousness definitions in terms of the empty distances between generalizations like p-adic (adele) and quasic and Conway's surreal space- I mean I read your concepts on a much higher level than say the quantum terminology- for is quantum mechanics not the heart of chemistry anyway and we cannot reduce neuroscience to that?

The PeSla (but I am not coiled even to Lubos, see my post today abusing your name perhaps- the Pikanadic Continuum or the Pikanomnium.)

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Mathematical formula for contents of consciousness would be like a formula for the sensation of color red. It would also be in conflict with non-determinism of volition.

The problems of the attempts to reduce conscious to some deterministic dynamics lead to difficulties. Matter and consciousness belong to different categories. Consciousness is always about. Matter just is. As Chalmers showed in detail, one ends up with materialist view in which consciousness is just epiphenomenon in other words does not exist at all.

Greatest steps of progress in science relate to the discovery of limitations on what can be known and to me the most reasonable approach is to give up the attempt to give a formula for something which one cannot give a formula.

L. Edgar Otto said...

Matti,
that is a very wise point. But in practice there are some things that appear to exist that are not understood even in terms of the quantum formulas.

How is it we can separate to sticky tapes and it gives off light and x-rays? Or why when we separate surfaces do the planes exchange charge one all positive and one all negative?

Part of it is the effect of this Van der Waals very week force which we know can be put into different models such as the point models- as you say with magnetism (I think is a metaphor for your deeper vision) and Maxwell's formulas- these forces can be thought of as points or Casmir forces or other such things- so what is your explanation of the idea of monopoles?

But I have no doubt all of this applies very closely to organic processes to the beauty and extent I read between the lines of your vision. I have not made the leap into some sort of disembodied field (magnetic body) mathematically indescribable, but I have not tried to reduce things to materialism or its slippery slope. I do not dismiss the possible connection.

I have had a few things to say lately in comparing our visions which I may post today or at the beginning of the new year- if you are interested. I think your question of how things on the level between the "wormholes" become somehow finite has a reasonable answer in my posts.

the Pe Sla

sadia said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Matti:

Consciousness is static. Consciousness is the KNOWING of mind. Knowing is static.

The Self of man belongs to the static, invisible, conscious,
unconditioned universe of KNOWING. We
express knowing in the dynamic, visible, electrically
conditioned universe of sensation.

Consciousness is real. Sensation simulates reality
through motion of interchanging lights, but the mirage
of a city is not the city it reflects.

The universal Mind centers every particle and mass in
this universe: animal, vegetable or mineral, electron,
atom or sun.

There is but One Mind functioning universally within
all creating things, and that One Mind is not stratified
nor divided into the more or less. There are no differing
conditions of the One Mind, nor are there different kinds
of minds.

Regards.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Dear Anonymous,


One thing about which I am certain is that consciousness is *not* static;-). Replacement of Universe with a new one is not any statics thing!

I fail to comprehend the basic idea of One Mind theory. If there is single consciousness it should be analogous to shared computer. Only one user at time, that particular conscious entity in that particular corner of the Universe. It it very difficult to imagine that same conscious entity could in some sense be simultaneously me and you and all the others.

Quantum physics provides the natural mechanism dividing One Mind to several ones: state function reduction reducing entanglement. Irreducible Minds - particles of consciousness- are those having negentropic entanglement between their parts so that state function reduction cannot split them into pieces.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Dear Pesla,

the notions of magnetic body etc are certainly mathematically describable. My passion is to try to develop a detailed theory about what *is* describable! No attempt to put free will in jail and express sensation of beauty as a formula.

Only *correlates* of consciousness, structure of conscious experience (selves, subselves as mental images, self hierarchy...), mathematically well-defined *correlates* of selves-causal diamonds, space-time sheets, magnetic bodies.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Ulla:

At the deepest level the divine is in re-creation: you can fill in the rest: quantum jump, moment of consciousness, etc... This is to me the purest core of theology free of any additional lawyerish constructs that local power-holders wish to add so that the followers would pay their tithes.

I think that God experience is becoming conscious about existence of higher levels of self hierarchy, perhaps also the process of these becoming part of own self as Brahman=Atman experience suggests. Magnetic body receives a new layer.

Its opposite, the dark night of the soul, would be separation from higher level: connection to magnetic body splits: depression might be temporary splitting of this connection, "becoming rejected by God" would religious person say.


A phase transition increasing the Planck constant of some layer of magnetic body taking place. Some neurons or glial cells or at least their magnetic bodies make phase transition to larger hbar.

By the way, Einstein's brains were different after! the number of glial cells was much higher and some of them much bigger than usually.

I try to find time to update my views about glial cells. Their dynamics is typically slow - the conduction of Ca waves can be extremely slow, time scale of life cycle! This is a direct indication that their magnetic bodies could correspond to higher levels of self hierarchy at cellular level: larger values of hbar, weaker magnetic fields, larger magnetic bodies, longer time scales of memory and of planned action.

Anonymous said...

Matti:

We call that omniscience and omnipresence ;)

The still magnetic Light universe of God's knowing is
an invisible, unchanging, unconditioned and unmeasurable
quality from which visible, changing, conditioned
and measurable quantities spring to simulate those qualities
through two-way wave motion.

The God-quality of the One Light is seemingly transformed
into quantities by being divided into pairs of
oppositely-conditioned light pressures of this electric
universe. These divided pairs are then multiplied into
countless octave wave units of light pressures and set in
opposite directioned motion to create the illusion of
sequence, change, dimension, condition and time in a
universe where none of these effects of motion exist.

The calm sea, for example, is an unchanging, unmeasurable
quality of oneness, of sameness and stillness.
Upon its calm surface there is no change, nothing to
count or to measure.

The moment that quantities of waves spring from that
quality of calm (what you may call zero energy ontology? creation from "vacuum?"), those quantities can be measured. Likewise,
they are forever changing. Nor are there two
points in them which are similarly conditioned.

This creating electric universe is composed of moving
light waves which sprang from a calm sea of the One
still Light.

Regards.

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Dear Anonymous:

The vision about God is beautiful: I would assign to the quantum jumps made by entire Universe- recreating itself. Again quantum jump which can of course give also rise to the experience of nothing changing.

Our retina performs all the time movement: without this continual change we rapidly lose our ability to see. If entire visual field is of same color we do not see any color. Gradients are necessary.

But we -at least me- are not omniscient and omnipotent, and I want understand also these not so god-like entities with pain in the neck and problems with digestion. I do not regard them as illusions;-).

Quantum physics -essentially the notion of quantum system- allows the mathematical tool to describe the splitting of this Omniscient God to these small pieces.

Ulla said...

I must smile. So now you have understood Einsteins brain? I told you long ago.... You never LISTEN :) Glias are essential behind the 'meridians' in TCM. Meridians are 'highways' of primitive communication, possibly responsible for the findings of Libet. And Einstein, and you? This is just an hypothesis yet.

To anon.
Knowing is NOT the same as consciousness, but a consequence of consciousness. Say you have 1000 perceptions done at a moment, but only a gate for 10, then those 10 are the knowing, the very small part you are aware of. 990 are something only your unconscious mind or body subsystems are aware of. In fact your conscious mind (the knowing) can actively ASK THOSE SUBSYSTEMS about their conscious parts. You may be astonished over the great knowledge hiding there.

This is one of the most common illusions of human mind. Our brain is in fact the LEAST CONSCIOUS PART of our body? But the most 'knowing' one. Brain doesn't even have perceptions/senses of its own, only eyes and ears, tongue and other protrusions. There is a(n inverse?) hierarchy also in senses, outside is more conscious, inside less, body are a bigger system, head a more precise. EXG measures the noise-amplitude, andis the first step towards consciousness, but not consciousness yet. When negentropy 'collapses' to entropy we get consciousness.

Explain then what is a perception. It is most complex, and you cannot avoid the dark aspects. Some even explain that our physical body can be a wave-form, giving quantum mechanical properties. The Schrödinger cat is both dead and alive at the same moment. This is achieved by constructions of synchrony and coherence in our body. Consciousness is an essential part of that.

MAN AS A QUANTUM-WAVE PSYCHOSOMATIC SYSTEM
G. I. Brekhman (Israel, Russia) Abstract. The author considers the Man from a position of the theory of wave–particle duality of a matter. It has opened existence in a nature of ways of interaction and information interchange between genes, cells, persons, about which we did not suspect or knew a little. The concept of duality has allowed understanding the riches of the information contained in the man that has enabled to consider him as a psychosomatic system and to explain some features of thinking and behaviour of the people, sources of their talents and problems, and also feature of functioning in a society and relations with each other. In the certain measure the concept of duality gives an explanation of reasons of diseases, and gives interpretation to methods of treatment, which (despite of the efficiency) ascribe to alternative and do not admit by official medicine. Author describes the uterine myoma as a psychosomatic process, manifesting itself in ischemic uterus disease. He substantiated and used the holistic approach and nonstandard method of psychoelectroregulation in these patients which gave the long-term results. http://www.qim2011.org/

See that the human border, our skin, is an artificial one. There is no real border. You can look at which part of the body you want, and you find the same. Even genomes are partly floating freely. In fact our skin is an extension of the nervous tissue.

Ulla said...

Glias magnetic bodies could correspond to higher levels of self hierarchy at cellular level: larger values of hbar, weaker magnetic fields, larger magnetic bodies, longer time scales of memory and of planned action.

A more primitive system! Einstein as more primitive :)

So we must do Unlearning and go back to more undifferentiated situations to get a higher hbar! Enlightment? Bacterias are the most enlighted ones, omnipotent? This is so ironic :)

But of course we must first differentiate and learn to be able to unlearn. The same is true regarding emotions? I guess this is the 'pure consciousness' anon. talked of. We are born almost perfect, but spoil it, and struggle hard to get back to the same condition. So life is a wave of noise = NMP?

matpitka@luukku.com said...

Ulla:

Glia is by no means new to me. I wrote very radical thoughts about glia cells already 6 years ago;-):

http://tgd.wippiespace.com/public_html/hologram/hologram.html#metab

Six years is a long time and it would be nice to rewrite the text in light of recent understanding.


That neurons are fast does not mean that they are somehow at higher level in development as compared to glial cells. Actually just the opposite. The longer the typical time scale of dynamics, the longer of time scale of memory and planned action (at least if one assumes hierarchy of Planck constants) . Longer time and length scales control shorter ones.

Also the fact that the number of glial cells increases during evolution supports this view.