The Physics of Consciousness

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Reiku, Sep 18, 2007.

  1. Reiku Banned Banned

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    On The Binding Problem

    The Binding Problem actually covers many psychological and neurofunctional phenomena. We experience speech at the mouth of a speaker even though we might be listening through headphones, yet we can bind these two experiences together, creating almost the same information... And how is sound and touch invariantly bound to vision?
    Take brail. For blind people, it is a savior. If it wasn't for the Binding of reality, blind people could not touch the inscriptions and know the knowledge simultaneously.
    Smell is also directly linked to our understanding of vision. If we could smell a pot roast, and instead saw Ravioli, we would look for the pot roast because our senses are telling us that is not what we are observing. Even a rare disorder called synesthesia allows the subject to actually ''taste'' words... This bizarre phenomena also leads to the mystery of Binding. Though to be fair, we know that words don't have actual tastes, so the concept of it all isn't true to reality, but it is very real to the reality of the subject.

    From my investigation of the Binding Problem, I find that all the senses will produce [nearly] the same information, and these must be related to a type of symmetry, just like similar analogous symmetries found in Isospins developed by Werner Heisenberg.
    The brain must be mapped out as an in-put, processing, out-put system. All senses will be subjected through an in-put system. This will reach the neural networks where it will be processed. Once this information is processed, there will be an out-put. I interpret this as knowledge. Whatever the answer to the Binding Problem, each sensory perception will have to abide by this system... This obviously includes sight, touch, sound, taste and visual.

    But what if Binding can be answered with a state of conditioning? First, what conditioning am i talking about?
    Well, we can condition the mind to become pro's in certain area's with extensive training.

    Take calculations. We will all remember the days when we where children, given sums like 13 x 7... Then, it would have taken us to use our imaginations to calculate the answer... Nothing of a Binding nature there... But if we where to continually do this, there will come a time we will be able to just look at the sum, and know the answer... Is this a state of Binding? Sure it is. It is very like using visual perception to read written language, and process the information as an outcome.
    Might it be that we have conditioned our reality so that it seems smooth and continuous? Well, maybe in some cases... like smelling a pot-roast ebcause we have had it before, but this conditioning rule cannot surely be applied to all of them, such as how each frame of time presents to us a visual space unbroaken, and not presented in discontinuous flashes. Of course, i could be very wrong... But i'll stick to that hypothesis.

    There is another answer, but this answer will be very controversial and will be shrouded in mystery... This is my theory that we have all-information embedded in our beings... Dormant since birth, and it is based on two presumptions.
    I've always had a problem accepting the idea that information comes into our beings. I'm not exactly sure why. I have always thought of the human being, as being a gigantic memory unit, storing all information in a potential mixed state. Indeed, such an idea shouldn't be difficult to understand, based on two premises:

    1. That entropy, causing the distinction of past and future, makes our perception of the future as something we move towards, and when we do, it seems as though the future is already apart of our memories. For this reason, one must suspect that somehow thought and wishes exists beyond the observer.

    2. That information or knowledge about a system instantly becomes known to the observer upon measurement.

    Now, if we take premise one seriously, thought and memory exists beyond the observer. As much as this might just be a psychological illusory of the mind, we might even consider taking such an idea seriously. For instance, the human observer exists in the present, and we can have memory about the past. However, whenever we come to remember the past, we do no such thing as jumping backwards in time and recollecting the memory being asked for. Instead, we reevaluate an experience we had, and recreate the past in the present as memory. Thus, the real question is, when we do come to experience the future (in the present), how is it that the future already exists as memory? Does thought and wishes exist beyond the observer?

    I think so - but perhaps not in the way I’ve been making out. You see, one might think that the mind jumps into the future, and this is how thoughts can exist beyond the observer... memories of the future. However, as we have seen, the mind is bound to the present time. The only other way to explain this, is if we have a complete record of future events in our beings, just as we have a record of the past; but the record of the future must be seen as a record we can potentially remember, but cannot, because experience must activate these memories (just as the experience of the past activates our memories of a past event).

    Thus, the record of the past can be now put in terms of ''real'', and we can say that the future is a record that is ''virtual''; this is only an idiosyncratic method I am going to use, to distinguish the differences. I would like to note, that the past and future have no existence... the past makes up the present time as a record. The only difference with my interpretation is that the future also makes up a record in the present - but this record differs quite a bit from any other type of record we might suspect through subjective knowledge.

    It turns out, I believe, that both the past and the future is made up of conscious experience, which in turn, exists in the present time as a record of memory - one real and the other potentially real. We must be the perfect machines capable of storing these records, as one exists as memory, and the other is unfolded to us as memory.

    If we take the second premise seriously, then we might ask how we come to process information [almost] as instant as we come to measure something. One example, is how we come to analyze written language, and know it almost just as quickly? In fact, how can blind people touch brail, and equally know it just as fast? How do we bind optical and other sensory perceptions into the phenomena of knowing about it almost just as quick? How do we crystalize reality into a consistent set of frames running smoothly into each other, rather than horrid, discontinuous memoentary flashes? Simply because the brain must be recieving this information from a local source, similar to a hidden variable.

    The only way (I believe) consciousness can perform such tasks, is by saying that we do in fact have a record of all-information about spacetime... Thus, when push comes to shove, consciousness can process the knowledge of a system, because that information is already contained within us. Indeed, such psychic phenomena such as 'Deja Vu' might be explainable, if certain sensory perceptions are abnormal, and certainty get's mixed up with the uncertain realms of knowledge. In fact, psychic predictions of the future might be explainable, if we do indeed have a record of the future in embedded in our consciousness!
    Is this so hard to believe? Haven't we heard from many great physicists that everything is in fact predetermined in the universe? Even Einstein once said that everything plays to a mystical pipers tune. But to believe in such an idea, means that we must abandon certain psychologies. If we have every piece of information that [we] will ever come to know in a lifetime, why does it unravel its knowledge’s to us in the way it does? :shrug:

    This question is a good question. It was first posited to me by my friend Brian. The only way I can explain this, is by saying we need additional information from another 'information carrier,' after all, that is what we are. We are information carriers, which we learned from our parents, the internet, the T.V., whatever source we learn this information from.

    Thus, one can say that information can exist within us in a dormant state, and becomes ''excited'' whenever we have an experience - here, we must recognize that information isn't only obtained from others, but we can piece together our own analysis of a situation - and because of this, there are two ways to obtain information. After all, there must have been a way for our ancestors to obtain knowledge without anybody there to tell them about this original knowledge. Keep this thought for a moment. Another problem is solved by saying that all information we will ever come to know is stored inside of us. How does self-obtained knowledge come about? By saying we have potential information contained within us, would allow us to understand even the most alien knowledge. But this knowledge must compliment our existences; and something inside of the mind can ''pop'' the question and the answer is excited within us. :bugeye:

    Ok... Here is an analogy. Computer systems can have blank spaces ready to contain knowledge. However, for this blank system to record information, there must be someone there to press the button, so-to-say. Who presses the button for us? Is this God? In fact, I believe this. I believe God is our programmer, allowing us to know absolutely anything we will ever come to know! But for this to happen, the space inside us, needs to be [programmed] exactly to contain this information. For instance, imagine a computer program needing 100 bits to process a certain flow of information. If this information requires 200 bits to process the information, how can it operate the function asked for?

    As far as I know, no one has made such a postulate, as to say we have information contained within us. Such information would answer not only everyday phenomena, but also the phenomena of the unknown. I'll leave you with one last thought. We can have any information about a future event, so long as the mind can jump into this record with quite an extent, considering how unconscious the mind is. The more unconscious the mind is, the more it can excite a time and event that has not yet come to pass. In fact, if consciousness actually means we are mostly unconscious, then we may be able to have such psychic experiences while we are awake! The only problem is for us to recognize when such a phenomenon is occurring.

    Thus, my conclusion of the Binding Problem is that the information we percieve is a local effect, and that information from the outside does not flow into our beings. However, this concerns the Binding Problem. I am open to theories suggesting that the mind receives information from the past and the future... Afterall, as far as physics knows, this is how the present is created. The present is a phenom sandwiched by the future and the past...

    Reiku

    P.S. Hey everyone. I plan to involve many more of my theories involving the phenomenon of consciousness. I have a wide range of understanding, and i hope to speak to like-minded individuals concerning this very frustrated area I deal with. Bye for now.
     

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