h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Indeed, the aphorism of choice re Quantum Field Theory is that if you think you've understood it, that means you haven't. Does that mean that no-one understands Quantum Field Theory, not even the theoreticians? What a laff!

That's okay, Moth.
I read the link you gave on the underground laboratory.

Consciousness indirectly affects the results of quantum experiments because the way you set up experiments determines the type of outcome you get. There's some doubt as to whether a conscious observer is required to collapse wave functions, or whether any measuring apparatus will do - although if 'everything' is consciousness they're presumably the same thing.

I've just been reading a book about quantum logic, but I can't use any of it to contribute to the discussion - I didn't understand a word.



Points to ponder

How good a description is 'particle' of the components of the microworld?
We've agreed that matter and consciousness are not separate things, merely different points of view.
Theoretically the universe could be descibed by a single (if *very* complex) wave function.
What's the relation between part and whole?
Where does the "spontaneous" reorganisation of complex nonequilibrium systems fit in?

I'm used to looking at these questions from one perspective; I'd be interested to see how they look from a different, but hopefully complementary one.

Noggin

Noggin

Points to ponder

How good a description is 'particle' of the components of the microworld?

Particle as in 'minute part of' is as efficient as I can come up with word wise

We've agreed that matter and consciousness are not separate things, merely different points of view.
Yes.

Theoretically the universe could be descibed by a single (if *very* complex) wave function.
Yes. vibration is in here somewhere as we understand atomic particles in movement. The frequency at which an object vibrates at , determines it's form. Consciousness is the energy source of vibration.

What's the relation between part and whole?
It is the 'same thing' but 'separated' by physicality.
ie. Those vibrations create the separation of matter- created -consciousness into 'kind'. Once a form is created it has boundaries but is still made of the same 'stuff' as the whole
A yolk within a shell is all egg.( metaphor)


Where does the "spontaneous" reorganisation of complex nonequilibrium systems fit in?
I might not understand the question. (nonequilibrium systems ? example of in case I am misunderstanding the meaning please ) but what I think you mean is 'will'
Will of consciousness to 'exist' created cause and effect in a spontaneous effect cascade. The cascade incorporated everything that would evolve and become.
Consciouness is subject to will. The 'force' that forms matter from energy.

The hard work here is finding the words that do not divert from the subject, when my vocabulary is so limited !!

PS
There's something in my mind half formed about nonequilibrium systems .
so forgive me if it sounds like rubbish.

As I said all life/form is created by vibration of the 'particles' of the conscious as a whole.
with vibration comes pattern.
Sand on drum, beat drum the 'waves' create pattern in sand.
so the nonequilibrium systems have some connection with vibration of the system we inhabit.
If I get my head around this better I'll come back to it.

something else but I don't know if it works because it mixes science and romanticism
Fractuals are the 'beating' heart pattern of the Universe.

Some interesting stuff there, Moth.

"I'll have to think about it," as something once said, though I promise to be back in less than the stipulated seven million years.

Noggin

Noggin
I've got all the time in the Universe

Conscious does not inhabit us, like a hermit crab
We inhabit consciousness.

The 'boundaries' are released when we die.
The partiel lobes as a biological 'tool', 'create'this 'boundary of self as separate.

Oh ***** I just lost my post. b*ggrit.

Stupid computer doesn't know when I've pressed the wrong button by mistake. Oh well.

I mentioned particles because I'd been reading something about particle/wave duality in Quantum mechanics. I don't understand it too well myself but 'particles' sometimes (appear to) behave like particles, and sometimes (appear to) behave like waves. The waves can be regarded as vibrations (or "vibrations" - we don't have a "clear and direct" representation of what the microworld is actually like, but the word will have to suffice) and it has been surmised that and how it connects/interacts with other 'particles'.

What's the relation between part and whole? This is a rather obscure question, I'm afraid. I think it was sparked by something you said earlier, but which I now can't find.
Hang on, I think it was this - <...part of the subatomic particle system that creates the universe through the 'will' of the whole> - which seems sort of right, but I wasn't sure what you were driving at.
It seems to suggest that 'will' is a high level feature?

A non equilibrium system is one that maintains itself in an otherwise unstable form by some sort of work (bad definition, probably). Best example is life, of course, but convection cells in boiling water are a good 'simple' example. If the amount of heat passing through the system changes, the cells can spontaneously reorganise themselves into a new pattern that is adjusted to the new environment. A bit like a mind having a novel insight.

You will also be pleased to know that you have not only reinvented Leibniz's monads (I think Toxx mentioned that on the F or F thread), but also revived Schopenhauer's usage of the word 'will'. He regarded human will as a special 'self aware' case of the 'will', or striving, of the universe in general.

Fractals (not fractuals, unless that was a typo) are the self similarity of things like trees, river deltas, and many others at different levels of scale. They're not really a 'beating heart' but they do suggest that similar organising principles are at work
at all levels of structure in the universe.

Hope that stretches your intuitions a bit.

Stretched mine a bit, anyway.

Noggin

Fractals. Always spell that wrong !

When described as the 'beating heart', what I was trying to metaphorise was the 'pattern' that is created by wave rhythm.

As in the drum skin.
The vibration will always create the same form that we can see if sand is placed on the drum surface, to 'display' what we cannot see if the beat is the same.
Also sand on beaches? ??

Leibniz's monads ? Will go look see

I'm sure there must be a word for the vibration patterns of sand on a drum and similar things, but its not a fractal.

Sand on a beach, or at least the shape of the boundary of water on the beach is a fractal. It forms shapes that are very similar to a map of the coastline, but on a different level of scale.

Schopenhauer also said (paraphrase, not quote) that "Even when all this has been decided (the metaphysics), almost nothing has been said about the important things - ethics and art and suchlike - the business of human existence." It often seems to me that fundamentalists (of whatever stripe) think the exact opposite.

Noggin

Noggin
no I know, but I'm refering to how both come about.
What creates a fractal ?
The drum beat metaphor, is that the pattern is described by the beat (vibration) change the beat and the pattern changes, go back to the original beat and the pattern returns to it's former shape.
It 'adapts' to use a loose word.
so I suppose my mind is linking, vibration with 'adaptation'- change.
and the 'pattern' determining what shape a thing will be variant on the vibration.
the 'pattern' is what we can see, the vibration is something we don't

The vibration is the cause, the 'pattern' is the effect

The pattern "manifests" the vibration.

What causes a fractal? This might be better phrased as why do things on different scales "manifest" the same sort of organisational structure? Because they "manifest" the same rules. You may remember way back in the God thread I brought up the Mandelbrot set, an extremely complex fratal pattern generated by a (relatively) simple mathematical equation. But at certain points of scale or increasing complexity the old patterns break down and new "emergent" properties come into being.

Although we disagree on this one for me one of those places is when an increasing complexity of the arrangement of, if you like, POTENTIAL consciousness give rise to ACTUAL self awareness and minds.

Noggin

"I'm sure there must be a word for the vibration patterns of sand on a drum and similar things, but its not a fractal"

Chladni patterns, and they sure as hell aren't fractals. They line up sand on a vibrating plate, perhaps in the same way that people fell into step (in an unforeseen way) walking across the London millennium bridge.

Chladni patterns, eh? Thanks Recumbentman.



Noggin

Recumbentman
"Chladni patterns, and they sure as hell aren't fractals"
I don't think that has been said, I wrote metaphor in brackets.
I was thinking along the lines of patterns and where they occur in nature.
Thank you also for the chladni patterns I've never heard that word before.

Ernst Chladni (1756-1827) was a German acoustician who studied sand patterns on plates of different weights and shapes when he vibrated their edges with a violin bow. They arise along the lines of standing waves, but according to Grove's Dictionary of Music "Chladni's figures are still not fully understood".

"Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. -Igor Stravinsky, composer"

http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/

Recumbentman

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0007006