What if consciousness is a field that surrounds us and our brain is an antenna?

https://twitter.com/OMApproach/status/1679586600852791297

by keepamovin • 3 years ago

4 29 3 years ago

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Quinzel3• 3 years ago

It reminds me a little bit of magical thinking.

keepamovin12• 3 years ago

Me too.

There's many things we don't know how to explain and it's natural to see connections.

I don't see that as a bad thing; I see that as a good thing: both a chance to exercise our curiosity and "connection making" ability (a cognitive exercise, if you will; but it can encompass so much more than just cognitive; so many more 'psychic fronts' if you will--in the psyche, not the psi, sense here--emotional, and so on),

as well as a way to explore the unknown--the original sense of wonder, the rare treasured experience of being in "I don't know" and even being wrong. I think this kind of stuff is wonderful! Fascinating! Critical to understanding reality!

And I find it really fun. :)

Quinzel3• 3 years ago

Sometimes people use magical thinking to help them restore a sense of control.

I’m not so sure that these kinds of thought processes are critical to understanding reality though.

fjfaase4• 3 years ago

In the video "From Particles to People" [1] by theoretical physicist Sean Caroll [2] there is no evidence of such a field. For such a field to be strong enough to affect our brain (consisting of atoms) it would already have been found.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Fel1VKEN8

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll

jaggs2• 3 years ago

I'm not sure that it's true to say that because we haven't found anything yet, it doesn't exist. And yes I know that's not what you're saying. It's crucial that we continue to question existence, otherwise we'll never progress as a species. There are so many things we don't understand, and consciousness is one of the big ones.

fjfaase4• 3 years ago

I also believe that in order to make progress it is important to accept those things that are established as scientific fact even if they counter intuitive or hard to accept.

With respect to consciousness, Joshua Bach has an interesting view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3K5UxWRRuY

keepamovin12• 3 years ago

What if it's a non-material thing? It exists in an aspect of reality we do not yet know how to measure (except with our brains!).

What if this field exists outside of spacetime, but nevertheless, our nervous system is able to interact with it?

What if we are literally interdimensional beings, and that being conscious, is itself, an interdimensional activity?

So it's not that we have our heads in the sand (except when we close ourselves to such things perhaps!) it's that we literally have our heads (or whatever part of us allows the interface) in another dimension! :)

BTW - thank you everyone for finding this little lost forgotten un-upvoted tiny thread and coming to comment! I appreciate your deep passionate interest in the subject that brought you through the long miles of uninteresting HN new content directly to this wheelhouse. :)

rwmj2• 3 years ago

You're just making up a bunch of claims that can't be falsified.

keepamovin12• 3 years ago

The idea of "physics" that we can't measure can seem far out, but it may not be a strange as you first think. Dark matter is a mystery that we can't directly detect, only through its effects. Neutrinos were for a long time thought to not interact at all and have zero mass. Eventually, we figured out how to detect those.

But if you like my original theses, I bet you're gonna love these:

- maybe consciousness, gravity and dark matter are related

- maybe they're all aspects / faces of some underlying thing that we don't know how to measure or explain

But, bringing it back to your level: you could be right, but maybe you're just don't know how to falsify them?

I'm sure a clever enough experimentalist could come up with an experiment.

The reality of remote viewing, retrocausal/precognitive effects in "image exposure" experiments, psi effects on RNGs, etc, means there's something we don't know how to measure (or to shield). At least publicly I guess? The reality is the CIA's stargate project continued after the 1995 public debunking report, it just went black~~because it actually worked.

It may be that we just don't have the words to describe what it is. It may not be a field in the sense that we commonly know that, but what else could it be?

What would you call it--if you could put aside your priors for a sec, and accept that it's true--what would you call some sort of big picture explanatory aspect of reality that's related to this?

fjfaase4• 3 years ago

According to theoretical physicist Sean Caroll [1] these already have been ruled out. See the video "From Particles to People" [2]. For such a field to be strong enough to interact with the atoms of our nervous system, it has to fall in the range that has been observed by physics.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Fel1VKEN8

keepamovin12• 3 years ago

But what if the interactions happen in an aspect of reality that we don't know how to measure?

effed3• 3 years ago

Apart the nature of this field, this aproach simply displace the problem of the consciousness from the brain to the field, adding a complication, as now we have a problem more: the tuning.

But indeed is true the fact that without interaction will be no physical world (and even brains and consciousness)

Remind the buddhist concept of the brain as the door capable to let the (universal)mind enter the physical reality, this, at the philosophical level, appear more robust.

3cats-in-a-coat2• 3 years ago

I've heard a similar theory that our memories are not in the brain, the brain is just a configured antenna for perceiving our memories elsewhere. It's a charming theory, mind opening theory (pun not intended), but all kinds of self-consistent theories are possible, and we rule out many of them by looking at the facts, for example by checking the structure of a neuron as is in the brain we've created AI, and so clearly the brain is complex and capable enough of holding its own memories.

This doesn't rule out the brain being an antenna that connects it to a field of consciousness or energy and so on. In fact we could think of those concepts of "a structure containing X" and "an antenna structured to perceive and emit X" as analogous, because a brain doesn't exist unto itself, it's part of the universe and it's subject to the laws of physics. So it's merely environmental configuration of matter an energy that works according to how the universe "wants" it to work.

TLDR: It's worth pondering, but I think we need evidence for it.

I think all complex systems generate their consciousness depending on the patterns within that repeat again and again. The more complex the systems, the more complex the consciousness. Which means in a way computers also are conscious (this does not mean they have emotions, that's another story entirely).

turtleyacht• 3 years ago

Consciousness is a form of computation. How do we measure it?

Simulate it with enough hardware. Even Minecraft has properties amenable to simulate itself.

We just don't know what the "first version" of our software brain would look like, in order to simulate itself.

Or will we always tell our electronic brethren, "No, no--you came from silicon, not carbon: therefore, you may only augment us."

And we add, "Immortality, or the knowledge of good and evil--but not both."

dangitnotagain2• 3 years ago

In the “consciousness is the inflection of existential being” view, consciousness is massively coherent through coupling and entanglement, thus giving the illusion of a singular field (of which there are many going in and out of phase with each other.) this would work similarly to holography (instead of composite wave fronts, those entangled.)

The brain is very much an antenna, though not only an antenna. The Cosmic Serpent (book) does a good job speculating how this might work, using 2D crystalline DNA as “fractal antennas.” The brain stores it’s own information locally.

Consciousness is not computation (or intelligence). Consciousness is the carrier platform from which intelligent systems arise not the other way around.

The advantage of consciousness (other than the existential potential inflecting upon itself) is non-linear “computation”. As consciousness (through constructive and destructive interference) acts as a sieve (information is pushed into and pulled off of the “stack” by electro-chemical biotechnology.) a mechanism far more efficient than linear computation.

keepamovin12• 3 years ago

I'm a big fan of your comments, keep it up! :)

3cats-in-a-coat2• 3 years ago

Can we elaborate on non-linear computation. How is it different than what we can compute? Note that sensor fusion, which is a process similar to what you describe is a common (and increasingly more so) technique in tech, say in smartphones, drones and other semi/autonomous machines.

dangitnotagain2• 3 years ago

Well, there is a hypothesis that the quantum sieve is an analog rather than binary domain. Rather than spin characteristic, an entire amplitude wave front exists in there, we must find the technology to suss it out.

However this technology resolves itself, the single scope’s domain would be a virtual hyper-dimensional “sub-universe”. An echo chamber which simulates whatever constructive and destructive interference interacted upon it. These combine into “your universe”, and best guess behavioral response is activated.

The virtualization layer (through constructive hyper-dimensionality) would mean the information does not have to linearly propagate through every parsing and rendering necessary to functionally relate.

What might the resolution be for such a scope? Is one neuron enough, or do these couple and entangle, producing higher composite resolution?

As for “things” doing hyper-dimensionalization (or hyper-parameterization) , what is obvious is of (efficient) virtualization layers influencing their evolutions.

Whatever we’re doing is economical for our headspace.

What if consciousness is a field that surrounds us and our brain is an antenna?

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