On Consciousness

[Mr. Scott]

There are also hormonal-based "messaging" systems to consider, that have a significant impact on how the brain works and thinks.

Also, the way the networks developed could be critical. It's not enough to slap together a bunch of virtual neurons, and expect it to work like a human brain after many rounds of training.

To achieve human-like thinking, one probably also has to learn how human neurons evolved, and how they develop embriologically. Certain types of structures might emerge from there, that would be critical to human-like thinking, that would also be completely non-intuitive for humans to even guess at.

Hormone-based messaging can be considered a part of the neural network, as well as input/output. Messenger hormones are comparable to global variables in computers, and not a problem for data processing hypotheses. My understanding of these hormones is they are, to a great degree, neurotransmitters which are just not local to synapses.

 

[dlorde]

Transfer implies something moved from one location to another location. That is different than the wave correlation in telepathy, where the wave changes amplitude along all positions in the universe at the same time.

OK; are you suggesting that information in one brain/mind is accessible or available to another brain/mind via this means?

If not, please explain precisely and coherently what wave correlation telepathy achieves that justifies the word 'telepathy'.

In either case, what is the evidence for it?

 

[Anders Lindman]

OK; are you suggesting that information in one brain/mind is accessible or available to another brain/mind via this means?

If not, please explain precisely and coherently what wave correlation telepathy achieves that justifies the word 'telepathy'.

In either case, what is the evidence for it?

Rupert Sheldrake has shown with experiments that the effect of telepathy is real.

The correlation means that certain waves are shared between brains. In fact, the waves are spatial, not temporal as in the Schrödinger equation. The de Broglie–Bohm theory is perhaps more in line with my idea:

"The de Broglie–Bohm theory is explicitly non-local: The velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the wavefunction, which depends on the whole configuration of the universe." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie–Bohm_theory

If we take a snapshot of the universe at a certain point in time, then particles still have sizes. And the particles in the frozen snapshot are spatial (size/positions in space) wave packets, not temporal (dependent on time) wave packets.

And the shape of each particle depends on the shapes and positions of all other particles in the universe! In that sense the idea is similar to the de Broglie-Bohm theory.

Here is the graph of Fourier transformed waves again: http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0074614210970010-gr12.gif

The combined wave at the bottom of the diagram depends on all the separate sine waves added together as a unified whole. The diagram shows a temporal wave, a wave moving in time, but the principle is the same for spatial waves.

I haven't figured out yet how the brain of one person can detect nonlocal correlations with another person's brain. And even brain to heart and heart to heart, and gut feelings and things like that would potentially be sensitive to nonlocal wave correlations.

 

[dlorde]

Rupert Sheldrake has shown with experiments that the effect of telepathy is real.

So you say. I asked what the evidence is. Link? Reference?

The correlation means that certain waves are shared between brains.

So you say. I asked what the evidence is, and in what sense that is telepathy.

I haven't figured out yet how the brain of one person can detect nonlocal correlations with another person's brain.

Surely if the correlations were significant and causally connected, or of common origin, rather than chance, 'detection' would not be an issue - the function of one brain would reflect the function of the other to the extent of the correlation.

I want to see some evidence. Anyone can spout speculative quantum woo, but before speculating on mechanisms, you need observations to explain.

 

[Anders Lindman]

I want to see some evidence. Anyone can spout speculative quantum woo, but before speculating on mechanisms, you need observations to explain.

It's tricky, at least at the moment, to show exactly how consciousness works and if it can be nonlocally correlated between for instance different human brains.

I really like the Integrated Information Theory:

"The Integrated Information Theory is a recently formulated theory which attempts to quantitatively measure consciousness. It was developed by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin–Madison." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Information_Theory

The idea is that for consciousness to emerge there needs to be a single integrated information system that is aware of a huge amount of information in specific ways which make the value of function Phi high enough.

So, if consciousness is a result of local computations in the brain, how can there be nonlocal connections between separate brains? The answer may lie in the fact that particles can be entangled according to quantum mechanics.

In my model, the entanglement is explained by having particles sharing fundamental waves that stretch across the entire universe, i.e. are nonlocal in that sense. The Fourier transform shows that a wave packet can be broken down into individual nonlocal sine waves. This means that the individual sine waves are a more fundamental physical property than the wave packet itself which merely is a sum of the individual nonlocal waves.

Particles become entangled when they share the same fundamental nonlocal waves. The amplitudes of these waves change simultaneously across space. This means that it takes no time for a change happening to one particle being reflected in another entangled particle.

In this way, individual brains can be connected nonlocally and when two persons share a large amount of entangled information, the change of that information is reflected in all the correlated brains simultaneously. This explains telepathy.

 

[dlorde]

Never mind Anders, forget I ever asked for evidence or asked any particular questions.

Oh, wait... you already did.

 

[Dancing David]

There are also hormonal-based "messaging" systems to consider, that have a significant impact on how the brain works and thinks.


Also, the way the networks developed could be critical. It's not enough to slap together a bunch of virtual neurons, and expect it to work like a human brain after many rounds of training.

To achieve human-like thinking, one probably also has to learn how human neurons evolved, and how they develop embriologically. Certain types of structures might emerge from there, that would be critical to human-like thinking, that would also be completely non-intuitive for humans to even guess at.

[/lurk]
The enzyme gradients in neural development are very interesting but they are general and not specific, sort of like a growing thing rather than chip layer manufacture.

And the hormonal impact is huge in attention and arousal.


[lurk]

 

[Anders Lindman]

Never mind Anders, forget I ever asked for evidence or asked any particular questions.

Oh, wait... you already did.

Evidence? It's enough for me to for example just think about Barack Obama to establish a nonlocal correlation and then I can read his entire mind from any distance! Just kidding!!!

 

[Mr. Scott]

if consciousness is a result of local computations in the brain, how can there be nonlocal connections between separate brains?

In this way, individual brains can be connected nonlocally and when two persons share a large amount of entangled information, the change of that information is reflected in all the correlated brains simultaneously. This explains telepathy.

Telepathy has never been properly demonstrated in a controlled scientific setting.

Discussions of telepathy belong in the "General Skepticism and the Paranormal" topic category.

When telepathy is proven real, we can discuss what it implies about the physics of consciousness.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Telepathy has never been properly demonstrated in a controlled scientific setting.

Discussions of telepathy belong in the "General Skepticism and the Paranormal" topic category.

When telepathy is proven real, we can discuss what it implies about the physics of consciousness.

"Neuroscience Researcher and Laurentian University professor, Dr. Michael Persinger, demonstrates telepathy under laboratory conditions." -- http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persinger-discovers-telepathic-link/

More experiments are needed I think and the possibility of fraud, even black op technology fraud, must be ruled out, but anyway, the same can be said about any scientific experiment.

 

[dlorde]

Evidence? It's enough for me to for example just think about Barack Obama to establish a nonlocal correlation and then I can read his entire mind from any distance! Just kidding!!!

Yeah, thanks; that was very helpful

 

[dlorde]

"Neuroscience Researcher and Laurentian University professor, Dr. Michael Persinger, demonstrates telepathy under laboratory conditions." -- http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persinger-discovers-telepathic-link/

More experiments are needed I think and the possibility of fraud, even black op technology fraud, must be ruled out, but anyway, the same can be said about any scientific experiment.

His explanation is B.S; information can't be transferred via quantum entanglement. If that's the level of his analysis, I wouldn't trust him to pour my tea, let alone run a controlled experiment. In any case, without the published paper and data in question, it's just an unsupported claim.

 

[Anders Lindman]

His explanation is B.S; information can't be transferred via quantum entanglement. If that's the level of his analysis, I wouldn't trust him to pour my tea, let alone run a controlled experiment. In any case, without the published paper and data in question, it's just an unsupported claim.

As I explained earlier, it's not about any transfer of information. It's a shared state of waves that changes simultaneously and nonlocally across space. It's consistent with ordinary physics, so it's not even an extraordinary claim.

 

[dlorde]

As I explained earlier, it's not about any transfer of information. It's a shared state of waves that changes simultaneously and nonlocally across space. It's consistent with ordinary physics, so it's not even an extraordinary claim.

That's not what Persinger says:

... if you flash a light in one person’s eye the person in the other room receiving just the magnetic field will show changes in their brain as if they saw the flash of light. We think that’s tremendous because it may be the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection, or so-called quantum entanglement. If true, then there’s another way of potential communication

Firstly, the information about the light is transferred from one person to the other; secondly, he claims it's a way of potential communication.

Most definitions of telepathy I've seen explicitly say it involves information transfer or communication. I don't see how it is telepathy without that. Telepathy is an extraordinary claim.

If you want quantum entanglement, you can view everyone and everything as entangled in the universe's ever expanding wavefunction, with all it's multitude of non-interacting outcomes for every event. Like solipsism, it doesn't go anywhere.

 

[Anders Lindman]

That's not what Persinger says:

Firstly, the information about the light is transferred from one person to the other; secondly, he claims it's a way of potential communication.

Most definitions of telepathy I've seen explicitly say it involves information transfer or communication. I don't see how it is telepathy without that. Telepathy is an extraordinary claim.

If you want quantum entanglement, you can view everyone and everything as entangled in the universe's ever expanding wavefunction, with all it's multitude of non-interacting outcomes for every event. Like solipsism, it doesn't go anywhere.

Communication in this case doesn't mean a transfer of information from one brain to another. It's simply a shared entangled quantum state that makes the other brain respond to the observation of light in the first brain.

Here are other examples of that:

"The existence of nonlocal Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlations between pairs of human brains has been indicated in the Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al. experiments(GZEs) and several other subsequent experiments." -- http://www.academia.edu/1798929/A_Proposed_Experiment_on_Consciousness-Related_Quantum_Teleportation

 

[Anders Lindman]

If you want quantum entanglement, you can view everyone and everything as entangled in the universe's ever expanding wavefunction, with all it's multitude of non-interacting outcomes for every event. Like solipsism, it doesn't go anywhere.

The universe is one system, yet for quantum entanglement to occur particles (or processes) must share a large number of the same waves (fundamental nonlocal sine waves).

Consciousness seems to be a local state that depends on a single system that processes and integrates a lot of information. So physical reality is ONE, while conscious states are many. Basically the opposite of what Deepak Chopra, Amit Goswami and other promoters of the one consciousness idea claim. Haha.

For quantum entanglement, see for example:

"Salart et al. (2008) Separation in a Bell Test

This experiment filled a loophole by providing an 18 km separation between detectors, which is sufficient to allow the completion of the quantum state measurements before any information could have traveled between the two detectors." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

 

[Fudbucker]

His explanation is B.S; information can't be transferred via quantum entanglement. If that's the level of his analysis, I wouldn't trust him to pour my tea, let alone run a controlled experiment. In any case, without the published paper and data in question, it's just an unsupported claim.

/quibble
Isn't it more accurate to say that no external information is tansferred?
/quibble

"However, one possible explanation for entanglement would allow for a faster-than-light exchange from one particle to the other. Odd as it might seem, this still doesn't violate relativity, since the only thing exchanged is the internal quantum state—no external information is passed."
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-shows-that-reality-cant-be-local/

Interesting article.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Consciousness seems to be a local phenomenon yet the brain seems to operate to some extent nonlocally! So, if there are nonlocal correlations within one brain, it should in theory be possible to have nonlocal correlation between different brains!

"Brain 'entanglement' could explain memories

Subatomic particles do it. Now the observation that groups of brain cells seem to have their own version of quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", could help explain how our minds combine experiences from many different senses into one memory." -- Full article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18371-brain-entanglement-could-explain-memories.html

 

[Mr. Scott]

Scientific hypotheses about the physics of telepathy are worthless as long as telepathy has not been scientifically demonstrated.

The correct section for telepathy is "General Skepticism and The Paranormal." Please start a thread there if you want to discuss it. And, if anyone on Earth can demonstrate telepathy, tell them to either claim their million dollars or stop bothering people with this nonsense.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Scientific hypotheses about the physics of telepathy are worthless as long as telepathy has not been scientifically demonstrated.

The correct section for telepathy is "General Skepticism and The Paranormal." Please start a thread there if you want to discuss it. And, if anyone on Earth can demonstrate telepathy, tell them to either claim their million dollars or stop bothering people with this nonsense.

Here is a video that is massively about telepathy and consciousness. Rupert Sheldrake has explained why he hasn't claimed the million dollar prize (from about 49 minutes into the video):

The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY

He also described just as one example how a minor journal refused to publish his results, just because it was about telepathy. So it's not really scientific when journals just refuse to publish his results without even looking at them. It's more about childish fear than a true objective standard.