©Fernando Caracena January 2023
Quantum theory invokes a conscious observer as an agent that establishes the reality of things. The body is a physical organism that exists in the material world, but the mind dose not appear to be so limited. Yet it is present in the world through the body. Past post have approached this problem area in posts, such as: Notes about Mind in Physics. The material used in the above study can now be updated as new empirically based ideas about consciousness have been developed by some moder psychologists.
Donald Hoffman says that we do not see the world as it really is. What we see and what processing we control is directed through simple images, ikons on the desktop that allow our mind to interact with very intricate and complex digital operations through simpler symbolic forms tha represent digital processes invoked and their results. The whole process resembles the well known cartoon where in the middle of a mathematical derivation there are inserted the words, "then a miracle occurs".
The joke here is that it is not a joke.
And here is another historical wise crack:
A SHORT CUT TO METAPHYSICS.
What is Matter?—Never mind.
What is Mind?—No matter.--1855 July 14, Punch, Or the London Charivari, (Filler item), Quote Page 19, Column 2, London, England.
Do you stay awake at night wondering: "Are the mind and the brain two separate things?" Insomniacs can cut to the chase by reading about Descartes' Dualism and Mind in The International Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Clif High proposes a theory that pulses in time over a trillion times a second and piles up enough energy in some spots to generate matter.
Using the whole, estimated mass-energy of the universe and Heisenburg's uncertainty principle I compute a flicker rate of the entire universe of about dT=7.37139e-103 sec. or f=1./DT , which is 1.35660e102 sec^-1 . A much higher flicker rate.
The joke here is that after considering all the processes that go on in the brain. which we can understand as physical processes as digital signals and their digital processing, a miracle occurs that registers on the conscious mind as sensation that is full of the qualities, which we are accustomed to to experiencing. Where did these qualia come from? They were not in there in the digital series of neural, voltage spikes. No they are the product of sensations provided by consciousness to the mind.
I think that the connection between the mind and the body are best through Swedenborg's philosophy, which I may take up later in a future post.
Some thoughts about the mind body connection were presented in previous posts, The Mind-Body Connection Part1