Thursday, April 25, 2013

A vision about quantum jump as a universal cognitive process

Jeff Hawkins has developed in his book "On Intelligence" a highly interesting and inspiring vision about neo-cortex, one of the few serious attempts to build a unified view about what brain does and how it does it. Since the key ideas of Hawkins have quantum analogs in TGD framework, there is high motivation for developing a quantum variant of this vision. The vision of Hawkins is very general in the sense that all parts of neo-cortex would run the same fundamental algorithm, which is essentially checking whether the sensory input can be interpreted in terms of standard mental images stored as memories. This process occurs at several abstraction levels and involve massive feedback. If it succeeds at all these levels the sensory input is fully understood.

TGD suggests a generalization of this process. Quantum jump defining moment of consciousness would be the fundamental algorithm realized in all scales defining an abstraction hierarchy. Negentropy Maximization Principle (NMP) would be the variational principle driving this process and in optimal case lead to an experience of understanding at all levels of the scale hierarchy realized in terms of generation of negentropic entanglement. The analogy of NMP with second law suggests strongly thermodynamical analogy and p-adic thermodynamics used in particle mass calculations might be also seen as effective thermodynamics assignable to NMP. Quantum jump sequence realised as alternate reductions at the future and past boundaries of causal diamonds (CDs) carrying positive and negative energy parts of zero energy states.

The anatomy of quantum jump implies alternating arrow of geometric time at the level of imbedding space. This looks strange at first glance but allows to interpret the growth of syntropy as growth of entropy in reversed direction of imbedding space time. As a matter fact, one has actually wave function in the moduli space of CDs and in state function reductions localisation of either boundary takes place and gradually leads to the increase of the imbedding space geometric time and implies the alternating arrow for this time. The state function reduction at positive energy boundary of CD has interpretation as a process leading to sensory representation accompanied by p-adic cognitive representation. The time reversal of this process has interpretation as motor action in accordance with Libets findings. This duality holds true in various length scales for CDs. In the same manner p-adic space-time sheets define cognitive representations and their time reversals as intentions. It seems that selves (identified earlier as quantum jumps) could be assigned to negentropically entangled collections of sub-CDs and negentropic entanglement would stabilize them.

One can understand the fundamental abstraction process as generation of negentropic entanglement serving as a correlate for the experience of understanding. This process creates new mental images (sub-CDs) and to longer sequences of mental images (accumulation of experience by formation of longer quantum association sequences). Abstraction process involves also reduction of measurement resolution characterizing cognitive representations defined in terms of of discrete chart maps mapping discrete set of rational points of real preferred extremals to their p-adic counterparts allowing completion to p-adic preferred extremal. The reversal of this abstraction process gives rise to improved resolution and adds details to the representation. The basic cognitive process has as its building bricks this abstraction process and its reversal.


For details see the new chapter Comparison of TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness with Some Other Theories of Consciousness or the article with the same title.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/04/speed-of-light-not-a-constant-it-varies-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond+%28The+Daily+Galaxy+--Great+Discoveries+Channel%3A+Sci%2C+Space%2C+Tech.%29

I think we already knew this might be the case right?


Interesting thoughts about quantum jumps... the CD idea is such wonderful... I wish it were more generally considered among the wider set of thinkers and "doers" out there

Anonymous said...

Reading the wikipedia page about On Intelligence now... very interesting thoughts, reminds me of the EM algorithm,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation-maximization_algorithm

Maybe Kim Jong Un is having trouble maximizing his expectations and is hence throwing these temper tantrums :)

Ulla said...

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-scientists-dark-lightning-linked-visible.html dark light?

L. Edgar Otto said...

Matti,

I did not think the ideas in the wiki link to this book were very clear at all... as if the authors method were defining his own vision of his state of mind or entropy syntropy or so on...

I still think such debate, especially on the nature of consciousness is much too limited by the physical like effects of our quantum terminology. Maybe not the hints of profound ideas pointed to.

I presume this applies to you disquis link to dialogs of eide on the note there today on matter antimatter difference LHC and all. But has this not been the case for particles in decay for a very long time now?

They have just made the explanation more complicated, so too how to fit it in to any alternative physics but a matter of following suit and catching up.

Consider this: abstract idea that shows time flow or the usual basis of it as evolving complexity, time from and not part of the idea of entropy (or in systems theory the term life as anti-entropy): we can take three distinct things at a time from four things- but what would it logically imply in a reverse if we abstractly allow three things taken four distinct at a time? In abstract thought, a ground in wormhole like connections or not, the vision or his virtual model tries to guarantee by itself its structures so as to make sense in some world or level as meaning. Nature in fact is wiser than this and for us and her particles she is not so biased as all that- four things like say the DNA grounding taken three at a time is the abstraction that does not make sense. But it is neither a both way or all one way vision only- I think it is more like the new conjunction slang term "slash" where experiencing the web the kids pic up unaware the sense of the logic.

On the other hand there are some really great applications as if we actually dwell in a virtual cloud that the touch screen is three distinct things of four space.

I could be that the narrow view of dimensions even in the higher maths like p-adics corresponds to a narrow view of what I think you mean as is TGD integratible when we consider a multiverse tangle of quantum tunneling wormholes.

I will post this comment on my pesla blog now... you never enguage me in dialog there and many I talk to do not respond or freeze us out if they dont like the comments (Lubos hehe) this drive to state a case persists but is it grounded like this idea of slash time? Are we victims of physics or our own growing need for theories to persist against the entropy of our conversations as our ideas that do not adapt become obsolete and decohere? I know you think if we have not seen or understood, dont get the idea, it is a defect that one cannot see something or has any idea as orginal- I mean after awhile it is the same old style and argument (Lubos perhaps) it grows stale on its own as thought and physics runs into its brick walls of vanished equilbrium.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Ulla,

the first results about gamma ray bursts associated with lightnings and suggesting that charge particles travel near light velocity arrived already years ago.

The TGD interpretation is that dark variants of ordinary charged particles are generated and flow along magnetic flux tubes. Darkness means that they have large effective hbar implying macroscopic quantum coherence so that dissipative effects are small and they accelerate near light velocity. Hence dark lightning arrive before the ordinary one as observed. Also dark photons are probably involved and transform to ordinary one before detection.

It is ironic that neither experimentalists nor theoreticians pay any attention to this kind of anomalies, and waste their professional lifetime in futile attempts to find wimps, neutralinos, and other fashionable candidates for dark matter.

The big problem of the big science is that specialists know nothing about the world outside their specialisation. People able to see the bigger picture and able to build abstractions would be desperately needed, but they have no hopes of survival in the career game.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Stephen,

the variation of light-velocity is interesting possibility.

The approach of your reference is totally different from TGD approach and quantum version of what you find in text books of physics: this means vacuum polarization and propagation in which light is absorbed and re-emitted. I am not enthusiastic about this kind of approach since rather strange ad hoc assumptions are made.

TGD approach is purely geometric and involves now ad hoc assumptions. Just sub-manifold gravity. The light-like geodesics at space-time surface are in general not light-like geodesics of imbedding space H=M^4xCP_2. In the general case they are time-like curves as curves of H. The effective light velocity determined from time to propagate from point A to B decreases since the length of path increases.

The effect appears certainly in astrophysical scales: the time taken for light to travel to Moon and back changes gradually, as if the light velocity were changing. What changes is the effective light-velocity in cosmic scales whereas at the level of solar system it is constant since solar system does not participate in cosmic expansion. The prediction is quantitatively correct.

For neutrinos change of c from the maximal one could have been present but its magnitude, that I could not predict, turned out to be too small.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Pesla:

I have not looked the details of Wiki article but the book was very clearly written and an impressive attempt to achieve overall view about what brain is doing and how. I disagree about basic philosophy (functionalism) and not mentioning quantum. I full-heartedly agree with the criticism of AI and connectionism. And as zero energy ontologists I agree that not only patterns but also their temporal sequences are crucial.

Also the idea about fundamental algorithm as a process in which given level tries to recognize the pattern, and if it fails sends it to a higher level, where the same attempt is made and if successful, sent to lower level to be made more detailed, is very convincing and fits to TGD view nicely.

This process is what happens in all organisations (in Finland the higher level is consultant, consultant is hired even when one must decide whether to hire a consultant!):


Association is of course central notion and realised as negentropic entanglement. Abstraction by throwing away details has quantum superposition of space-time sheets with same discretization in given resolution as quantum counterpart.

I have had all these pieces in TGD as quantum variants but the book allowed to combine them nicely to coherent vision. In particular, I realized that sensory-motor duality (motor action as sensory perception in reversed direction of geometric time) is actually the basic structure of quantum jump sequence in zero energy ontology. I should have realized this earlier but I did not!


Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Pesla:

I respond when I understand. We however speak so different languages that I have difficulties of understanding your thoughts.

L. Edgar Otto said...

An interesting reply. Some idea that dawns on us that is obvious and will eventually do so for anyone is a question of beliefs and communication, that seems to be the frontiers of current debates in physics as well as the nature of our minds as consciousness. If we look hard enough we can find a path to dismiss or challenge any theory.

Not the sharing of the message by whatever signal possibilities or not but the sharing of the content made of quasi virtual dreams. That is what we have to find, a universal theory for all translations.

You have a lot of posts to Plato and I am just really back on line again other that a few moments in the public library. The nearly good idea on Plato's post might just use your terms describing these paths as wormhole like at places of wormmouth like so if this is the state of todays theoretical physics I find it taking far too long to reach certain levels many of us causally explored long ago. This is a most challenging feeling- other than sooner or later the responsibility stops to nothing beyond us at the time- by how can we be sure we know anything? I expected much more from what people have done and know. Also, by zero point I see what you are talking about is beneath that idea, vastly deeper, and it is open as to how real it can be for physics- that is I think you see things despite the standard reference terms in a qualitative depth a leap above the pack- or do we really have something to compare with that we may be aware or realize it?

Ulla said...

It is popularly said that when time goes backwards it creates antimatter that annihilates and give then energy? Is this THE quantum jump? I have long thought that the word consciousness have lost its meaning due to so much nonsense written about it. This would also give it a time scale, as you say the difference in reactions between protons and electrons, of scale 10? But in this case the dark current was PRIOR. Another scientist also says about carbon/methylation that the impulse/intention ALWAYS come from the dark side or 'negativity' as he says. The same is seen for DNA. If we use Schrödinger or Dirac they too oscillate around dark-light spectrum or virtual-real? What about quarks that pop in and out of existence? But the bigger proton is more stable, so that's why we get this time-scale of 10?

Ulla said...

But Schrödinger eq. is non-relativistic ?

Ulla said...

Neo-cortex is the LEAST conscious part of our brain, most specialized, and have chosen away most options. In fact the purpose of our brain is to only pick up strong signals, and most of its activity is to INHIBATE the signals by producing GABA. This is a bit simple picture I know, but maybe the simple picture is needed so people start to understand?

Also, consciousness is born in the receptors? Perception is a cognition already, and we use a spread-out 'brain'?

Ulla said...

The book On Intelligence can be downloaded here. http://blog.mohammadzadeh.info/media/blogs/snf/Resources/HTM/OWL%20Books%20-%20On%20Intelligence.pdf?mtime=1296774047

Anonymous said...

The audiobook can be found at http://thepiratebay.is/torrent/8337238/Jeff_Hawkins_-_On_Intelligence_audiobook

Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

neuroscientist would probably agree with you that neo-cortex is the least conscious part of brain. In TGD framework self hierarchy is however present and what is conscious at this level need not be conscious-to-us.

Self hierarchy indeed explains elegantly various agnosias, say blind sight in which person claims that he does not see but his motor activities occur as if he would see.

Neo-cortical level can see consciously, but we do not share these mental images by negentropic entanglement.

I tend to think that sensory qualia can be assigned to sensory organs. I have mentioned many times phantom limb as objection which can be circumvented.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


Thanks for Stephen and Ulla for links.

To Ulla about antimatter. This is an interesting question. I am still not completely sure about the answer. I have however gradually began to think that one cannot apply Feynman's picture applying in positive energy ontology in ZEO.

At the level of Feynman diagrams one could regard antiparticles as particles travelling backwards in time.

In TGD both matter and antimatter appear in both positive and negative energy states located at opposite boundaries of CD and forming pairs with zero net quantum numbers and analogous to initial and final states of physical event.

The state function reduction occurring alternately to opposite boundaries of CD creates quantum states with opposite arrow of imbedding space time and both matter and antimatter possess same arrow of time for given kind of state. The overall arrows are however opposite in these two kind of states. This arrow relates to dissipation and thermodynamic arrow of time. ZEO also forces to accept syntropy as entropy in reverse direction of imbedding space geometric time.

Biology is full of syntropic effects but syntropy does not fit to the framework of existing physics so that it has been "forgotten".



Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

Schrodinger eq. is non-relativistic.

Ulla said...

If both P and T are violated then there should be non-commutativity? Is this the bad interaction between dark and normal matter? Also annihilation is said to happen almost instantly so...?

I have long tried to understand the antimatter - time link.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...



In ordinary QFT Dirac equation allows solutions which have positive and negative energies. When theory is second both particles and antiparticles have positive energies.

In TGD positive and negative energies correspond to different view about what exists. One could say that quantum states are replaced by events: pairs of positive and negative energy states (opposite net quantum numbers) which corresponds in ordinary ontology to initial and final states of physical event.

One might say that this is much more "Eastern", assumes much less, and is much more flexible view about reality as the western view. No absolute never changing reality is postulated and leading to unpleasant questions like "What is the total energy of the Universe?" . These zero energy states/events which can be created from vacuum in quantum jumps, so that any Universe can be re-created from vacuum.

If God exists she is very happy since in ZEO he can do anything she wants. Western God is severely limited in his creative actions by conservation laws and the God of classical physics must accept also determinism so that he can only create the Universe but cannot interfere with it after hat.

Ulla said...

This is because God is seen as outside classic matter, and this view creates many problems for us.

"When theory is second both particles and antiparticles have positive energies." Then you mean in total, but spin and time are violated, so ???

Ulla said...

I found this interesting link (from Brannen) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.6165v1.pdf The quantum vacuum as the origin of the speed of light

and Henri Bergson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Bergson but I suppose you already know him. Interesting ideas.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Ulla:

I should have written "When theory second quantitzed..". Sorry for typo. In TGD both particles and antiparticles have positive (negative) energies at "lower" ("upper") boundary of CD.


Matpitka@luukku.com said...


To Ulla:

I have not read Bergson but in Wikipedia one of his book titles is "Creative Evolution" so that I would guess we have much in common. He was also inspired by James. I have seen fragments of text written by and written about James and also here I feel soul-mateness.

My comment about Gods was written half-jokinly. I hope that none of them has hard feelings for this.

My impression was that James and already Leibniz((!) had understood about consciousness much more than the narrow minded quantum consciousness theorists trying to reduce it to the narrow frame of wave mechanics and reductionism.

Spiritual aspect allowing to see things in bigger perspective is so often lacking. There are of course quantum spin doctors having popular talks and writing books about quantum consciousness but the soul purpose seems to be business. Their teachings are hopelessly shallow play with buzz words.

Matpitka@luukku.com said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Matpitka@luukku.com said...

To Ulla:

I cannot get excited about light-velocity derived from the vacuum structure. This approach does not conform with the vision about geometrization of physics which is my own guiding principle. I could of course be wrong but it is too late to change the mind now;-).

For electromagnetism in empty space the parameters epsilon_0 and mu_0 can be taken to be equal to 1 in suitable units as also c. Therefore their values do not seem to have genuine physical meaning.

Situation changes when one wants to model the effects of the presence of matter to the propagation of em fields. The dimensionless parameters epsilon/epsilon_0 and mu/mu_0 are genuine physical parameters characterizing these effects in linear model.

In quantum vacuum there are indeed polarisation effects which affect also the propagation of light and are summarized in terms of vacuum polarization tensor for photon. This is standard QED but the effect is not interpreted in terms of change of light-velocity.

For these reasons the attempts to derive epsilon_0 and mu_0 and therefore c from quantum vacuum does not seem very attractive to me. Geometrization program gives a beautiful interpretation for light velocity and in sub-manifold geometry one can also talk about its variation in purely geometric sense.

And as I mentioned, this approach predicts correctly the observed variation of distance of moon (about this Riofrio talked a lot and made some nonsense conclusions) as something apparent (and thus not as a real variation or the change of the local maximal signal velocity in solar system).

Ulla said...

"In TGD both particles and antiparticles have positive (negative) energies at "lower" ("upper") boundary of CD."

How are the energy then changed from positive to its ani-matter fashion (fuzzy words but when positive is negative and negative is positive )? I know that you say the back of the book is in the soliton, but also the vacuum is told to be 'measured' by a harmonic soliton. So there is a tiny little space that is responsible for this 'adiabatic' expansion? Negative as we use to see it, but with different chirality? What is time in this? I thought it has to be the first perturbation, so it must then come from the chirality, and be the second (or emergent?).

Matpitka@luukku.com said...


This has nothing to do with solitons. As I already explained the QFT statement that antiparticles have negative energies and propagate to past is equivalent to saying that antiparticles have positive energy an travel to future. Standard QFT is based on positive energy ontology.

In zero energy ontology situation changes. One can distinguish between zero energy states with different time orientations by the arrow of imbedding space geometric time: their difference is that the are prepared at the opposite boundaries of CD. This is something genuinely new and relates to generalization of S-matrix to a collection of M-matrices defining rows of unitary U-matrix.

Unknown said...
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Matpitka@luukku.com said...

Dear Fahad Naseer or whoever you really are,

it is a silly idea to try to sell cars here.

Could anyone tell me what is the easiests manner to get rid of this crazy fellow selling cars?

asim said...
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asim said...
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asim said...
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Matpitka@luukku.com said...


This stupid web terrorists has decided to make my life really difficult by this flow of advertisements: three at this time. Now his name is asim. I want to get rid of this madman without starting systematic moderation. Any help appreciated.

Uhu work said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Matpitka@luukku.com said...


For All:

I am sorry for this troll who has decided to bombard me with his idiotic commercials. At this time his name was Uhu.

Ulla said...

Matti, delete them totally. Then they have no benefit from this game. Also this you can delete completely. When you allow these comments to stay they see they can disturb you.

Mary said...

Quantum jump indeed has proved a lot of its worthy and usefulness to every aspect of life, most especially to building good and lasting relationships. This is not really a mystery but a lot of people are very unaware of its usefulness.

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Ulla:

I did not know about possibility of deleting these
idiotic commercials completely. There is a general pattern that demonstrates that there is very probably only one person involved. He is obviously mentally unstable and extraordinarily silly. I get practically every morning a commercial from this idiot.

The only benefit is that they can waste my time. I do not know how I could prevent this fellow from adding these comments. Moderation would even more time.