From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Mon Aug 17 09:42:23 1998 Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 00:03:02 -0700 From: Automatic digest processor Reply-To: Quantum Approaches to Consciousness To: Recipients of QUANTUM-MIND digests Subject: QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 12 Aug 1998 to 13 Aug 1998 [ Part 1: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 00:03:02 -0700 From: Automatic digest processor Reply-To: Quantum Approaches to Consciousness To: Recipients of QUANTUM-MIND digests Subject: QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 12 Aug 1998 to 13 Aug 1998 There are 6 messages totalling 819 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. [q-mind] Wigner's thesis, sensory qualities - J P Verhey 2. [q-mind] Its about time (Severinghaus, Newman) - Stuart Hameroff 3. [q-mind] It's about time (Severinghaus replies to Hameroff) 4. [q-mind] 'Halo of Mind' from TGD perspective 5. [q-mind] Orchestration -- Gordon Globus 6. [q-mind] Quantum Perception and World-view - Sidney Mirsky ============================================ Contributions distributed to this list are automatically archived at http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/quantum-mind.html ============================================== For information on how to customize your subscription options, or to un-subscribe, send an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU. ============================================== [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 14:46:55 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] Wigner's thesis, sensory qualities - J P Verhey From: Jan Pieter Verhey Subject: Wigner's thesis, sensory qualities (Brian Flanagan) [Brian] I must demur with Henry regarding Wigner, however. I find myself more nearly in league with Wigner where he says: " .... The first is that, if one entity is influenced by another entity, in all known cases the latter one is also influenced by the former. The most striking and originally the least expected example for this is the influence of light on matter, most obviously in the form of light pressure. That matter influences light is an obvious fact--if it were not so, we could not see objects. The influence of light on matter is, however, a more subtle effect and is virtually unobservable under the conditions which surround us . . . *Since matter clearly influences the content of our consciousness, it is natural to assume that the opposite influence also exists, thus demanding the modification of the presently accepted laws of nature which disregard this influence.*" [My emphasis] [Jan] To focus on the *emphasised* part: I think this is a good example of where the slippery-slope thinking starts. Here consciousness is supposed to be a physical something that inter-acts with physical contents of that same consciousness. But that is a completely nonsensical thing to do. Just to play the advocate of the classical devil, I would say no new laws are needed at-all. Because from a *classical* perspective, it can be made understandable WHY experience is not an observable physical entity among the zillions of things that can be content of consciousness. The analogy: input-process-output, as with computers. In general it is agreed, that experience is processed by the very complex brain that receives input from its environment where it interacts with(in), and from within the organism itself. So for convenience, experience is seen in this analogy as the resultant OUTPUT of this process. Again, vision is a nice and powerful subprocess to illustrate this. Light frequencies (interpreted as such) enter the eyes and hit the retina, electrical nervepulses travel through the optical nerve to the brain, are processed/integrated/filtered/mixed etc. with other multi-sensory inputs from inside and outside the organism which finally results in some compound experience of "a nice blue car". (Of course much "output" is not consciously experienced, so maybe we are more like 98,5% automaton-zombies that only need 1,5% conscious experience to survive and reproduce.) Now what causes all the mind-matter confusion? IMO the troubles-maker is forgetting that this nice blue car is OUTPUT, and NOT INPUT for the process that makes up the blue-car-experience. The input-process phase is HIDDEN because it is PRE-output. Can you see the (same) lightwaves that enter your eye before you see them as blue ? Of course not -- it would be like driving in that blue car and trying to overtake yourself. As looking through a microscoop, or with light detection and em-display apparatus, which is just looking somewhere else at something else but in principle the same -- the original input is "hidden" to the output (=experience), and also severly processed (mixed/translated/intergated) by the very complex brain processes before the output of a conscious event occurs. In the unknowable input-phase, "ce ci n'est pas une pipe"..... [Brian] Therefore, I must part company with Henry where he states: " ... that human brains and bodies are within the physical world described by the ordinary quantum mechanical laws." But I join up with Stapp again where he says: "I define sentient experiential quantities to be the qualities we feel/experience. The question I am answering, at least in a general sense is: How can such experiential qualities guide our bodily actions?" The definition of experiential qualities as qualities we experience is vaguely circular;-) but consonant, I think, with what we find in Austen Clark's recent book on *Sensory Qualities*. (Oxford) [Jan] Stapp mentiones "experiential quantaties", not experiential *qualities*. Maybe that's a difference? The idea seems that the event-stream of experience is built of quantised qualities or something. But how does one quantise qualities when for instance color-experience can be so diverse and different for different types of organisms ? Would bats live in a universe with basically ultra-sonor experiential quantitaties etc etc ?? [Henry Stapp] There is a very basic question here: Can experiential qualities *be* defined to be certain ``physical'' properties, where "physical'' properties are conceptually identical to what they are in classical mechanics, which takes physical properties to have no experiential aspect? [Jan] I think this question has to be redefined : Can ANY experiential OUTPUT be used to FUNDAMENTALLY back-track how unexperienced/unknowable input and pre-conscious brain processing can count for that same experiential output ? [Brian] But the primary properties (extension in space, duration in time) are in fact taken to have experiential aspects in classical theory. Our ideas of these primary ('physical') properties were taken to have 'real world' counterparts in the things themselves--and this notion was doctrine with Galileo, Newton, Boyle et al., following Kepler, and before him, Democritus. It is the so-called secondary properties of color, sound, felt warmth or coolness that were excluded by these guys from the 'physical' world. The experienced (primary) qualities of length and duration, together with their measures, have long been defined as 'physical properties'. [Jan] The human brain-body within its environment seems to have rather fixed "algorithms" to interprete/process information resulting in the world as most commonly experienced by humans. If dolphins or chimps, bats, could do physics and discuss these matters, what would be their "secundary qualities" to attribute to the physical (experience independent) and or experienced world ? Or honeybees ? But also for humans, the world can have significanly different properties and qualities. The world according to Garp for instance, or Vincent van Gogh. Maybe a one-eared Universe :-) Cheers, Jan Verhey [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 14:57:43 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] Its about time (Severinghaus, Newman) - Stuart Hameroff From: Stuart Hameroff Subject: Its about time (Severinghaus, Newman) [Stuart Hameroff, in q-mind Sun, 9 Aug 1998]: The Orch OR model involves events which are self-organized quantum state reductions (Whitehead "occasions of experience") in spacetime geometry. Apparently time may be bidirectional in the interval between quantum state reductions (Aharonov; see Jeff Tollaksen's paper in the Tucson I book). But quantum reductions are irreversible, so they "ratchet forward" consciousness (a waterfall in the stream of consciousness). The bidirectionality in the quantum phase has been invoked to explain apparent backwards time referral in consciousness, such as Libet's data and the emotional pre-cognition reported by Dean Radin and Dick Bierman. [Ed Severinghaus previous] I think this might show a major misconception as to the nature of time. I would ask you to consider the possibility that there is no such thing as time between , and therefor no direction to time therein. Thus there is no such bi-directionality to time either. There might be stasis; that is, action potential may be preserved under some transformative conditions [resulting in macroscopic stability of state]. Rather, the macroscopic passage of time is a result of actions (as opposed to actions occuring in time). [Stuart] I thought I was saying something essentially very similar, if not identical. The actions are the Orch OR events. Between the Orch events/actions there is no subjective time. Bi-directional comes from the Aharonov formulation (2 vector theory) but I wouldn't disagree with your description. In fact I like it. [Ed] We might say that action is a priori relative to time. "Between" (or I might say "within") a quantum *moment* time does not pass, for the moment is itself the quantum upon which our macroscopic notions of time and the passage of time (from which we all start prior to studying physics or philosophy) are based, whether one speaks of "subjective" or "objective" time (ala basketball players...). [Stuart] I think subjective time and objective time may be different. (And, subjective time of two different people may be different.) Maybe Smolin's spin network processes provide an objective time, in/against/of which subjective time occurs. Or are you suggesting that only conscious moments occur? [Ed] I suppose my question is this: If this isn't merely "old hat", what consequences do you see in re "spacetime geometry" as fundamental in Orch OR (and more..)? [Stuart] Connecting to fundamental spacetime geometry enables a modern pan-protopsychist Platonic approach. This can explain the hard problem of conscious experience as well as other enigmatic features of consciousness. See my paper "More neural than thou - Reply to Patricia Churchland" in the Tucson II MIT Press book, or on my website http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hameroff [Stuart Hameroff previous] But irrespective of whether or not time actually flows, there are interesting points related to subjective time. Certainly in consciousness time appears to flow from past to future (subjective time flow). The rate of subjective time flow may vary. ...The basketball superstar Michael Jordan, when asked to explain his success said that when he is playing well, the "other team is in slow motion." [Margaret Newman] Michael Jordan's time experience has been described by Itzhak Bentov (Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 1977) as not simply a matter of accelerated mental processes (implied in such terms as "event rate" and "phenomenal time flow"), but rather as a dilatation of time. Bentov saw this state as expanded consciousness, an experience of having a lot of time available within a second of clock time. He proposed an "index of consciousness" as a ratio of this subjective experience to clock time (the ratio illustrating the altered state, not the experience). [Stuart] I'm not sure there is a difference between time dilation and more conscious events per second. [Margaret ] Bentov also talked about omnipresence, being at all places at all times, and I have tried to connect intuitively these ideas to Bohm's assertion that each moment of our lives contains all others of all time. I would be interested in how others view this phenomenon. Stuart Its a beautiful assertion, and could be true in some sense. Several types of quantum models (not just Bohm's) provide nonlocality which could manifest something like that. Stuart Hameroff [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 18:11:11 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] It's about time (Severinghaus replies to Hameroff) From: Ed Severinghaus Subject: It's about time (Severinghaus, Newman) Replying to Stuart Hameroff [Ed Severinghaus previously] > ... Rather, the macroscopic passage of time is a result of actions (as > opposed to actions occuring in time). > [Stuart responded] > I thought I was saying something essentially very similar, if not > identical. The actions are the Orch OR events. Between the Orch > events/actions there is no subjective time. Bi-directional comes > from the Aharonov formulation (2 vector theory) but I wouldn't > disagree with your description. In fact I like it. [Ed responds] Well... zero times anything is zero, so what's the point of speaking of bi-didectional time if there isn't any [time "there"]? (I haven't read the reference, but it sounds irrelevant to my thinking so far.) > [Stuart] > I think subjective time and objective time may be different. > (And, subjective time of two different people may be different.) > Maybe Smolin's spin network processes provide an objective time, > in/against/of which subjective time occurs. Or are you suggesting > that only conscious moments occur? [Ed responds] They are different, prima facie (if 'subj.' and 'obj.' mean anything!). The question is what to make of the difference (or perhaps how to make sense of the difference). People will have varying evolutions of their action potentials, if that's how you mean "different". It can vary from point to point in a person's history, as well as between two persons. There is a sense in which attention is the linkage between objective and subjective passage of time. But it may be multiply (as in mulitple ways) scalable, and that would allow for the "Jordan" experience which many of us have experienced to some degree. Are you suggesting that Smolin creates/models a physical basis in the brain to support attention and thus allow subjective time some relative lattitude? (got a specific reference for that work?) An intriguing (to me) aspect of all this is this: To what extent can "subjective time" provide a background for objective experience (of time or whatever), pretty much the opposite of your formulation. How does one train one to master the "Jordan" experience, for instance? > [Ed asked] > I suppose my question is this: If this isn't merely "old hat", what > consequences do you see in re "spacetime geometry" as fundamental in > Orch OR (and more..)? > > [Stuart wrote] > Connecting to fundamental spacetime geometry enables a modern > pan-protopsychist Platonic approach. This can explain the hard problem > of conscious experience as well as other enigmatic features of > consciousness. See my paper "More neural than thou - Reply to > Patricia Churchland" in the Tucson II MIT Press book, or on my > website http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hameroff [Ed rephrases] Thanks for the reference; looks like time for me to get web access! Let me rephrase my original question: Given our at least partial agreement about 'action' - What if spacetime geometry is *not* fundamental in this context? Dunno if this amounts to a pardigm shift or simply a reconceptualization... Regards, Ed [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 00:17:00 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] 'Halo of Mind' from TGD perspective From: Matti Pitkanen Subject: comments on "Halo of Mind" from TGD perspective [Farukh Khan] ... How far-fetched it would be in your opinion if I were to speculate that the mind is a quantum structure "held together" by the electromagnetic fields created by the neuronal activity of the brain acting as "antennae" to attract and harness the billions of freely floating quantum particles (such as neutrinos) that are supposed to be passing through the bodies of each one of us every second? So that instead of occurring within the brain cells, the mental processes may exist as an invisible "halo" around our heads or for that matter, around our entire bodies.... [Matti Pitkanen] The Universe of Topological Geometrodynamics (TGD) is quantum critical system. The vacuum functional of the theory is the exponent of so called Kahler function defining the Kahler geometry of the configuration space of 3-surfaces and completely analogous to the partition function of a critical thermal system. The only a priori free parameter of the theory is what I call Kahler coupling strength and being analogous to critical temperature is fixed by quantum criticality. The crucial consequence of criticality is the presence of long range quantum correlations in all length scales. The interpretation is that quantum systems of arbitrarily large size are possible. The task is to identify the mechanisms making these systems possible. Most of them are involve new physics implied by the many-sheeted spacetime concept and new gauge field concept (even my body is spacetime sheet with outer boundary glued to a larger spacetime sheet representing the world exterior to me). Here is a list of six mechanisms identified hitherto: a) Charged wormholes near the boundaries of a smaller spacetime sheet (say my skin) connect it to larger spacetime sheet (the world exterior to me) and feed electromagnetic and other gauge fluxes to the larger spacetime sheet. The peneration of classical electromagnetic fields from spacetime sheet to another involves necessarily charged wormholes and the density of wormholes is proportional to the normal component of electric field. Wormholes behave like particles of very small mass (mass is of order 1/L_p, where L_p is so called p-adic length scale, typically the spatial size of the spacetime sheet) and form a BE [Bose-Einstein] condensate. Charged wormhole superconductivity is possible in length scales below about 10^(-5) meters, the lengths of mictotubules are not much longer. I have proposed quantum model of nerve pulse and EEG based on charged wormholes. One could see wormholes as an extension of Froehlich's dipole condensate idea. The detection of charged wormholes is not easy: they couple to the difference of classical electromagnetic potentials and to gauge potentials describing topologically condensed coherent photonsassociated to the two spacetime sheets in question. If wormhole charge is 1/3 (minimum possible) this could serve as a unique experimental signature. b) Also electronic superconductivity might be possible in non-atomic spacetime sheets where the density of the ordinary matter is small and perturbations should be small. The classical Coulomb interaction of electrons with charged wormholes might be the mechanism giving rise to the energy gap. c) The *classical* Z0 fields are purely TGD:eish prediction and neutrinos are necessary to screen the Z0 fields created by the nuclei in condensed matter length scales. The requirement that parity breaking effects in hadronic, nuclear and atomic length scales are small, fixes very tightly the structure of TGD spacetime. *Neutrino superconductivity* is predicted: something totally unimaginable in standard physics context! Neutrino super conductivity is an *essential element* in the successful explanation of the recently observed tritium beta decay anomaly: the height of the anomaly peak would be 10^12 time too high for nonsuperconducting condensed matter neutrinos! My belief is that this anomaly will be mean sooner or later mean the breakthrough of TGD based spacetime concept. Cell membranes and endoplasma membranes are excellent candidates for defect regions of neutrino super conductor which is super conductor of type I. The presence of Z0 magnetic field in these regions leads to a large breaking of parity and explains chiral selection in living matter: this effect has no generally accepted explanation in standard physics. The parity breaking effects predicted by the standard model are ridiculously small. The length scale of cell corresponds to neutrino Compton length and the length scale of cell membrane corresponds essentially to the length scale determined by the Z0 interaction of neutrino in condensed matter so that the basic numbers are predicted correctly. d) Coherent photons created by the lightlike *vacuum currents* (no counterpart in standard physics) in resonant like manner might be also important in biosystems. The effectiveness of the mechanism is optimal due to the lightlikeness of the vacuum current. Linear structures such as DNA and microtubules could serve as sources of these coherent photon states. *Only the current* would be restricted to the microtubular volume: coherent photons would topologically condense at the surrounding spacetime sheets and could make quantum counterpart of radio-communications possible: not only intensity but also phase would matter. Here the model differs from many competing models. e) The so called association sequences which I have described in separate context, could give rise to discrete quantum degrees of freedom. N additional bosonic states and fermionic states of nondeterminism give rise to N different orbits associated with a given initial 3-surface. It seems that these objects are crucial for the understanding of thinking systems in TGD context. f) The formation of join along boundaries contacts between smaller quantum subsystems (3-surfaces just touch) can lead to larger ones by making entanglement possible in various degrees of freedom. Chemical bonds, MAPs and gap junctions are representative examples. Of course, quantum entanglement is possible also without a direct geometric contact: could one consider biotelepathy made possible by quantum entanglement in the degrees of freedom characterizing the shape and size of and the classical emf associated with cells(:-)? Join along boundaries bonds are expected to be dynamical so that join along boundaries condensates of all possible sizes are possible. The understanding of water in terms of join along boundaries bond and hierarhchy of hydrodynamics in manysheeted spacetime time is an exciting challenge. All these mechanisms involve new physics and the difficulty is how to invent tests for these ideas and find someone taking them seriously. Some brilliant experimental scientist should make the decision to destroy TGD! For details see my homepage http://blues.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/cbook.html With Best, Matti Pitkanen [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 03:02:28 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] Orchestration -- Gordon Globus From: Gordon Globus Subject: Orchestration [Gordon Globus] Henry Stapp notes a shift from his 1993 book ("Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics") in his recent posts. Previously he thought in terms of a "combination of the deterministic evolution via the Schroedinger equation, muddied up by the quantum randomness" (10-11 Aug 98). Since on his account consciousness causes wave function collapse, consciousness took on a random function, which quite is at variance with our intuitions. (Nicole Tedesco earlier gave an additional reason for suspecting random processes: the collapse, after all, is adaptive; a random mechanism will not promote survival and reproduction.) Presumably uncomfortable with this ascendance of chance in the realm of consciousness, Henry suggested that there is a selection process rather than randomness, "essentially a competition among the experiential possibilities, with the winner becoming the actual experience" (1996, p.205). However, he did not give a criterion for winning, the rule under which some winner takes all of conscious experience. Henry's recent posts further distance him from a random consciousness and now attempt to specify how the selection takes place. There is "subjective evaluation," a "mental effort," a "freedom of choice," which while not countermanding in the slightest the basic statistical rules of quantum mechanics, "can give a human observer great power to direct the activities of his brain" (3-4 Aug 98). So instead of a mechanical process of winner take all, a free subjectivity takes control. Henry's view has soul enough. This is a very unhappy solution, as Stan Klein and others have pressed. Stan asks forthrightly, "Who is making Heisenberg's choice?" (11-12 Aug 98). It sure sounds like a good old Cartesian subject...and this will not do nowadays, fast approaching the fin de millenium. Hameroff/Penrose also become aware of the issue Henry struggles with. Roger's objective reduction, after all, is ORCHESTRATED, and it is presumably through orchestration that purely random mechanisms can be mitigated. (Orchestration does not yet appear in Roger's 1994 "Shadows of the Mind.") Here's what Stuart says about orchestration in his paper "Funda-Mentality" (which I got off his web site): Roger Penrose and I have developed a model in which quantum superposition, objective reduction and quantum computation occur in microtubule automata within brain neurons and glia. Microtubule- associated-proteins (MAPs) provide feedback and "tune" the quantum oscillations; the proposed objective reduction is thus self-organized ("orchestrated" objective reduction). This position does not have unhappy Cartesian connotations but at the same time it is lacking any of the psychological content which Henry so amply provides. Stuart is uncharacteristically laconic re "orchestration" and its self-organizing principle. His posts emphasize the process of separation in underlying space-time geometry and the annealing in objective reduction, not orchestration. Hopefully Stuart will spell out orchestration in a future post. What is required, I think, is an account of orchestration that does not have an orchestrator that plays with the probabilities, demiurgically probing state space this way and that. Roger's Plato will not feed this bulldog. Here's my (continental) take on orchestration: I don't like "orchestration" one bit, because it implies control, which is a very very strong value of techno-modernity. I appropriate the role as "attunement," attunement for an interaction that results in a match. This is not control, but PARTICIPATION in a process of fitting together, a brain democracy. The quantum attunement situates the system for the interaction with a quantum re-presentation of the surrounding "reality." This situatedness is aconceptual (Pauli Pylkko); situating is what computers can't do (Bert Dreyfus). The mechanism could well be Stuart's MAPs that quantumly tweak the microtubules. I am talking about something else, the mind side of that maddeningly hyphenated quantum-mind, or as I think more promising, the existence side of quantum-existence. It's not that situatedness probes the probabilities, like Henry's active will. Situatedness offers itself to the interaction which, I suggest, is a process of conjugate and tilde matching between quantum situatedness and the quantum re-presentation of quantum reality. Situatedness is not a controlling orchestration; it is a way of being open, being open for a match, in which world thrownness continually unfolds. Gordon Globus ----------------------------- References: Henry Stapp (1996) The hard problem: A quantum approach. JCS 3:194-210. Pauli Pylkko (1998)The aconceptual mind. (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins) Hubert Dreyfus (1992) What computers still can't do. (MIT) [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 03:25:27 -0500 From: "Robert G. Flower" Subject: [q-mind] Quantum Perception and World-view - Sidney Mirsky From: Sidney Mirsky Subject: Quantum Perception and World-view My background is in applied sciences. Chemistry and Pharmacy and Business. Weak in math. Firstly may I point out that although we refer to the physical world as "obeying" scientific laws, we need to remember that a scientific law NEVER GOVERNS. A scientific law merely describes the most probable outcome of an expectation or prediction based on observation and measurement of the system under consideration. Usually this also includes defined limits within which the law is expected to function reliably. So, when we refer to something obeying or of violating a scientific law, we need to be careful that we do not fall into the trap of allowing the results to determine our perception of reality. In other words, we need to take care that we do not rely upon whether an observation obeys a scientific law to determine the validity of the observation. I'd also like to point out another potential semantic and conceptual trap: we talk glibly about quantum effects and actions of sub-atomic particles, electrons etc. and their behavior as determined mathematically and by experiment. However, we know for example, that we never measure any one, specific, electron. We are able to say in retrospect that an effect (e.g. a tracing in a cloud chamber) was caused by an electron, but we can't say which electron, or where the electron went after it caused the trace. So we never refer, in practice, to any single specific electron. The quantum physicist often refers to experiments with electrons as though they were dealing with single particles like single coins but in reality we don't see or measure specific individual electrons and then watch them continue to exist and behave as the same individual electron, marked perhaps with a scratch or a pink collar! I am always impressed by the lucid writing and descriptions of Fred Alan Wolf, in his books and also in the QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 10 Aug 1998 to 11 Aug 1998 8. "We create our own reality". Thus inFred Alan Wolf's explanation of the electron (spin east) going into a box and then emerging again as either N, S, or E, we should not delude the reader that the very same electron has switched it's spin before emerging. A likely explanation might be that there are electrons of N, S, and E in the box and by virtue of our deciding upon the filter we place in the exit, the electrons with the appropriate spin is permitted to emerge from the box where it's spin is measured. This is not necessarily the electron that was inserted into the box, even if we were able to insert just one electron in the first place. This exercise in semantics brings me to the concept of electrons in relation to atoms and molecules, where rather then flying free they are in orbits or orbitals. As we know the electron momentum decreases with closer association with the nucleus i.e. the s, p, d, f shells allow increasing corresponding degrees of freedom in that order, and the pi orbitals in organic molecules have even greater degrees of freedom. The exact location of the electron becoming increasingly more difficult to predict as the momentum increases, forming diffuse electron "Clouds" over the molecule. It has recently been shown that an electron donor substituent on one end of the DNA molecule, allows an equivalent electron acceptor substituent at the other end to receive the electron that supposedly was introduced by the donor. Here I propose it is not the specific electron that was donated that arrives at the acceptor, but that an electron was inserted into the a pi orbital stack at the one end and another ejected at the other. Suggested mechanisms for this transfer by the authors are quantum tunneling, or hopping but not the obvious one I describe above. (C&EN July 02, 1998, page 51). Referring to the books by Fred Alan Wolf, Nick Herbert, Bohm and Hiley, Amit Goswami, Roger Penrose, Fritjof Capra and others, I am led to understand that there is a general consensus that the quantum state is composed of Superposed potentia, which when acted upon by consciousness, become actualities in our material universe. I understand that *potentia* exist in the quantum state as sub-atomic particles (or waves) and have either property, and their physical locations and momentums are unknown, or uncertain. The collapse of the wave function, which occurs under the auspices of a conscious observer, causes the potentia to manifest as matter. Further, I understand that once the observation ceases, the particle reverts to it's "potentia" state. And if my understanding of this is correct, then it is reasonable and logical to assume that the potentia state, (i.e. the quantum state) is the *Natural* or possibly the *ground* state for all sub-atomic species? If this is so, and since all matter is composed of clumps or globs of sub-atomic particles, is it not reasonable to assume that all of matter's natural state is in the quantum state prior to collapse of the wave function? Ilya Prigogine in his "The End of Certainty " asserts that sub-atomic particles mainly exist in the clump form, that is, not free as individuals but run in packs. ("Statistical Ensembles"). So one might say that the *substance* that reacts most directly with consciousness, is proto-matter. The ensembles of proto-matter (potentia clumps) when acted upon by consciousness in the quantum state, then manifest as matter. So it seems to me that for us to seek and describe consciousness we need to do so in the quantum state. It seems unlikely that consciousness could be found in the collapsed or material state as an epiphenomenon or any other phenomenon, other then perhaps as a tracing (graffiti?) in the microtubules or elsewhere that simply says "Consciousness was here"! :=) So my suggestion is to consider the "natural state" to be the Quantum State and to then try to place our efforts where they are most likely to be effective. Try to understand our universe as primarily existent in the Quantum State, and temporarily existent in the Material State -continuously being renewed each succeeding moment by Quantum Consciousness (which does not reside in any human brain!). I suggest consciousness exists as a phenomenon associated with potentia in the quantum state. That the vacuum ejects a particle coupled to consciousness as a singularity. Consciousness aspect acts as a decision maker, coordinator and catalyst on potentia to bring about and maintain manifest matter. As matter evolves into greater complexity e.g. elements in the periodic table, so corresponding quantum consciousness associated with the more complex elements, becomes correspondingly complex, but remains associated. This facilitates more effective decision making. I even have a suspicion that Henry Stapp might concur with this approach if he could let go of justifying his ideas by how they fit the arbitrary *laws* -- see "Henry Stapp answers Sarfatti #2" in QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 10 Aug 1998 to 11 Aug 1998. As elements join to form molecules and as these tend to more complex molecules, so their associated quantum consciousness becomes equivalently complex. As the molecules form living cells, the degree of complexity continues to evolve and concomitant complexity of quantum consciousness evolves. As cells associate to form organisms the degree of complexity continues to evolve together with associated quantum consciousness Note: If we view our universe as Prigogine suggests, as *ensembles* of sub-atomic particles, then our assumptions regarding their behavior needs to be revised. The idealized notion of isolated particles, I submit, leads to false conclusions not consistent with reality, which in turn leads to the ludicrous expectation that we could miraculously find consciousness by minutely describing possible mechanisms of an epiphenomenon within microtubules, arbitrarily in the brain of humans and nowhere else. Since similar tunneling is seen in DNA, a component of all living systems, why not arbitrarily decide that this is where to look for the elusive consciousness? Why is the brain (of humans) arbitrarily singled out for conscious epiphenomenon arising, why not microtubules in other parts of the body and in other species? Or as Fred Thaheld #2 QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 11 Aug 1998 to 12 Aug 1998, is suggesting, perhaps the place to start is in other organisms such as euglena and photons, but why not look in flat worms, long known for their primitive but well developed nervous system or perhaps yet smaller molecules like DNA, chlorophyll and hemoglobin, but why stop there? We could similarly look at porphins and even conceivably the pi electron shells of organic molecules like benzine. But why stop there? Why not any delocallized electron species such as esters etc.? With the current (pun intended) thinking, we would soon find ourselves suggesting that the movement of electrons in an electric wire is an entrapped potential source of consciousness! The tangled hierarchy of consciousness producing matter which in turn produces consciousness is so circular an approach it makes me dizzy. Take consciousness out of matter and give it it's rightful place in the Quantum Field alongside of the Quantum potentia and allow it to communicate non-locally with it's associated manifest matter, and we have the possibility to solve the hard question and to hopefully see the BIG PICTURE! Cosmologically, we note by observation, that the universe has evolved since the big bang in a unidirectional, irreversible manner, of increasing complexity of form. Each new form dependent upon the existence of previous less complex forms (thus my terming it an *evolution*). The evolution of the elements within the periodic table --> compounds --> complex organic molecules --> cells --> organisms --> complex organisms etc. all uni-directional and irreversible under normal conditions. This implies the existence in matter of an arrow of time that is uni-directional and irreversible. See Prigogine's book "The End of Certainty". Thus we continue to evolve by a series of cooperative (quantitative) associations, punctuated by quantum changes at critical stages which manifest as a qualitative change (e.g. speciation). All matter therefor has associated quantum consciousness (including rocks -- Jack Sarfatti). This exists as a "Group" consciousness which evolves with the associated matter. (see Rupert Sheldrake "The Presence of the Past"). And more complex organisms e.g.. humans, develop self-referencing consciousness wherein lies memory and self-determination. Evolutionary continuing patterns persist after the death and dissociation of the physical body permitting reincarnation of the associated human who then continues to evolve individually together with their associated quantum consciousness. The individual consciousness maintains links with all other organisms and their consciousness's with which it had close associations in the Material State -- (non-local) this would explain psi effects -- (Dean Radin "The Conscious Universe"). I suggest that the goal of matter is to have close encounters in the Material State that would not be possible in the rarified Quantum State, so that it may gain experiences, grow more complex and evolve to completion in this universe. Then as this is achieved, the individual, hyper-evolved, quantum consciousness buds off the Q-web of collective consciousness and starts its own universe with concomitant " Big Bang" or "Continuous Creation" (it's choice!). Thus we have a multi-verse composed of numerous universes (Andrei Linde in "The Whole Shebang," by Timothy Ferris). Einstein said that ideas preceded proof, so here are the ideas, consistent, I believe, with current info! All we need is the courage to change our perspective and paradigm of thinking from the vision that we are merely physical mortals in this material world --and expand our view to the concept that we are in fact Quantum Beings manifesting temporarily in this Material State so that we may have close encounters with others and so continue to evolve. Note: Evolution as observed above, takes place by cooperation and association and not by competition or survival of the fittest! Our world view is strongly influenced by our perceptions and assumptions about reality. Arthur Zajonc in his "Catching the Light" shows how through the ages, our preconceived notions determined what we saw and how we viewed the world. Thus in our search for the understanding of consciousness, I submit, our preconceptions influence our perception -- I therefore propose a new perspective that I believe can bring us closer to our quest. I'd like to end with a quotation from Ilya Prigogine's "The End of Certainty" page 7 "In contrast, we believe that we are actually at the beginning of a new Scientific era. We are observing the birth of a science that is no longer limited to idealized and simplified solutions that reflects the complexity of the real world, a science that views us and our creativity as part of a fundamental trend present at all levels of nature". Thank you, Sidney Mirsky florasec@coho.net