Posted on 08/22/2021 12:48:41 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Without mind, there might as well be nothing. Colin McGinn at the University of Miami, believes that no matter how much scientists study the brain, the mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself. “We’re rather like Neanderthals trying to understand astronomy or Shakespeare,” McGinn observed in Consciousness and Space. Human brains suffer from a “cognitive gap” in understanding their own consciousness.”
“Consciousness May Exist by Itself, Even in the Absence of Matter”
“Is it possible that consciousness may exist by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves, excitations of space, may exist in the absence of protons and electrons?” asks Andrei Linde, Russian-American theoretical physicist and the Harald Trap Friis Professor of Physics at Stanford University. “Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?”
“I have a much easier time imagining how we understand the Big Bang than I have imagining how we can understand consciousness.”
Recently, Princeton physicist Edward Witten, who has been compared to Isaac Newton and Einstein, addressed the problem of human consciousness. Witten is largely responsible for the popularity of string theory over the past several decades. String theory holds that all of nature’s forces stem from infinitesimal particles wriggling in a hyperspace consisting of many extra dimensions.
Witten is pessimistic about our ability to comprehend the origins of human consciousness: “I think consciousness will remain a mystery. Yes, that’s what I tend to believe. I tend to think that the workings of the conscious brain will be elucidated to a large extent. Biologists and perhaps physicists will understand much better how the brain works. But why something that we call consciousness goes with those workings, I think that will remain mysterious. I have a much easier time imagining how we understand the Big Bang than I have imagining how we can understand consciousness.”
Universe and Observer Exist as a Pair
“The universe and the observer exist as a pair. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of the universe that ignores consciousness,” says Linde. This is the great question –perhaps the central unsolved mystery of the 21st Century. Linde is one of the world’s leading proponents of the inflationary universe theory. The paragraph below from LinEe’s essay Universe, Life, Consciousness brilliantly examines this great question.
“According to standard materialistic doctrine, consciousness, like space-time before the invention of general relativity,’ writes Linde “plays a secondary, subservient role, being considered just a function of matter and a tool for the description of the truly existing material world. But let’s remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my ‘green’ exists, and my ‘sweet’ exists. I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory.”
Quantum theorist John Wheeler’s “it from bit” hypothesis anticipated Linde, speculating that consciousness is fundamental to reality, wrote John Horgan for Scientific American in “Do Our Questions Create the World”. Wheeler, observed Horgan, was one of the first prominent physicists to propose that “reality might not be wholly physical; in some sense, our cosmos must be a ‘participatory’ phenomenon requiring the act of observation–and thus consciousness itself.”
“It to Bit”
Wheeler explained his “it from bit” hypothesis as follows: “…every it–every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself–derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely–even if in some contexts indirectly–from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits.”
“We Still Live in the Childhood of Mankind”
“We live still in the childhood of mankind,” Wheeler said about the many unexplained mysteries of science. “All these horizons are beginning to light up in our day: molecular biology, DNA, cosmology. We’re just children looking for answers. As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” Wheeler was convinced that we will someday find “the answer,” and we will be astounded by its simplicity.
“Someday,” Wheeler wrote, “surely we will see the principle underlying existence as so simple, so beautiful, so compelling that we will all say to each other, ‘How could we all have been so stupid for so long.”
You seem like someone it would be fun to sit on the porch with and discuss strange things..
I’m partial to sitting on the porch when it is raining...
The mind is quieted and set slightly off-kilter while you sit and enjoy the rain...
Our perception of reality is a function of the frequency of consciousness from which we view it. The problem is that most people on earth belong to the “ Flat Consciousness Society “ and only get one channel.
By raising our consciousness frequency, consciousness of others (and the contents of their soul) becomes physical to our perception.
Instead of just pondering, go within and experience it.
It’s like pondering riding a bicycle. You really don’t understand it until you experience it.
Where’s the mass?
At three AM I stumble out of bed for a needed glass of water. As I walk in the dark to the kitchen, someone has left a counter stool in my path and I catch my pinky toe on the leg, wrenching it to the side at a painful angle, resulting in audible groans of pain and cursing.
So what is the mass that bent my toe?
The electron microscope has advanced to the degree that we can “see” the atom, the core of all things. So where is the mass in the atom? It consists of two “parts” -the nucleus, which contains neutrons and protons (negatively and positivity charged particles) and racing around the neuclous are electrons (negatively charged particles). There is, relative to their sizes, enormous space on these orbits.
For years, scientists tried to determine which of the two parts of the atom contained the mass. The answer is still debated, because neither the nucleus nor the electrons seem to have mass and where some scientists say it’s one or the other part, these parts are so tiny compared to the vast space of the electron orbit that there is FAR more space in the atom than any potential mass.
So where’s the mass. Upon what mass did I actually wrench my pinky toe?
Light...the debate raged...is it a particle, or is it a wave?
Both.
We live in a universe that the best minds in science will never fully understand.
“For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”
All things created by Him and held together in Him.
So, this is where this mortal mind has to leave it. God has the answers.
...now where’s the ice for my toe.
It doesn’t “matter” =o)
It’s the ion bombardment. Changes your sensory inputs.
CC
Bkmk
Mass is a function of the frequency of the perceiver.
It works much the way light functions.
I ask you, what is the mass of light when it has the attributes of a particle vs when it has the attributes of a wave?
The variable you are not considering is the frequency of consciousness from which you are viewing.
When you use ultrasound or x-rays you can perceive objects that the human eye cannot see. So it is with higher frequencies of consciousness.
Just like what the Temptations song said, “It’s a ball on confusion”
So , we’re finally discovering how puny our understanding is? And that there is a mind-body divide?
Can someone whose thoughts are under the control of space-time ripples, or strings(like a marionette?), or atoms, strong or weak forces, dark matter, dark energy, Casimir effect, quantum foam, or van Der Wall forces, be objective?
What does the Rain Man and autistic savantism tell you about consciousness?
In my research with subjects, I found that the degree of emotional bonding during the 3rd month of pregnancy influences the neural tube development and the thalamus ability to process emotional feminine consciousness.
Autism and Asperger’s is a super masculine consciousness. I’ve done quite a bit of work in this area due to my ability to identify consciousness patterns while a person was in their mother’s womb.
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