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Advances in consciousness research

Matter, Mind and the quantum

Matti Pitkänen

Published Apr 12, 2001• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Topological Geometro-Dynamics (TGD) is a unified theory of fundamental interactions. TGD involves a quite far-reaching generalization of the space–time concept and, apart from the notion of quantum jump, reduces quantum theory to infinite-dimensional geometry. General coordinate invariance forces the identification of the quantum states as quantum histories rather than time-constant snapshots of a single quantum history: this solves the basic determinism/non-determinism paradox of quantum measurement theory. The identification of the quantum jump as a moment of consciousness defines the microscopic theory of consciousness. p-Adic numbers is one of the basic new mathematical concepts necessary for the formulation of quantum TGD. The notion of the self as a subsystem remaining p-adically unentangled under the action of the “time evolution” operator U (S-matrix) associated with the sequential quantum jumps Ψ i UΨ i Ψ f is central for the macroscopic theory of consciousness. Vanishing p-adic entanglement means subcritical real entanglement so that the self can be regarded as a critical phenomenon. The moments of consciousness which occurred after the last “wake-up” bind temporally to a single experience and give rise to immediate subjective memory. Each self represents a self-organizing system approaching a stable self-organization pattern selected by dissipation. A self can have sub-selves and experiences sub-selves as mental images which are averages about mental images of sub-sub-selves. An infinite hierarchy of selves giving rise to an abstraction hierarchy is predicted. The notion of the manysheeted spacetime and the classical non-determinism of the Kähler action defining configuration space geometry are crucial for understanding how psychological time and cognition emerge in the TGD-universe and a rather radical generalization of the views about the relationship of subjective and geometric time is forced.

DOI
10.1075/aicr.29.10pit

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Topological Geometro-Dynamics (TGD) is a unified theory of fundamental interactions. TGD involves a quite far-reaching generalization of the space–time concept and, apart from the notion of quantum jump, reduces quantum theory to infinite-dimensional geometry. General coordinate invariance forces the identification of the quantum states as quantum histories rather than time-constant snapshots of a single quantum history: this solves the basic determinism/non-determinism paradox of quantum measurement theory. The identification of the quantum jump as a moment of consciousness defines the microscopic theory of consciousness. p-Adic numbers is one of the basic new mathematical concepts necessary for the formulation of quantum TGD. The notion of the self as a subsystem remaining p-adically unentangled under the action of the “time evolution” operator U (S-matrix) associated with the sequential quantum jumps Ψ i UΨ i Ψ f is central for the macroscopic theory of consciousness. Vanishing p-adic entanglement means subcritical real entanglement so that the self can be regarded as a critical phenomenon. The moments of consciousness which occurred after the last “wake-up” bind temporally to a single experience and give rise to immediate subjective memory. Each self represents a self-organizing system approaching a stable self-organization pattern selected by dissipation. A self can have sub-selves and experiences sub-selves as mental images which are averages about mental images of sub-sub-selves. An infinite hierarchy of selves giving rise to an abstraction hierarchy is predicted. The notion of the manysheeted spacetime and the classical non-determinism of the Kähler action defining configuration space geometry are crucial for understanding how psychological time and cognition emerge in the TGD-universe and a rather radical generalization of the views about the relationship of subjective and geometric time is forced.
TGD inspired theory of consciousness relies on two fundamental identifications. The identification of quantum jump between quantum histories as a moment of consciousness reduces quantum measurement theory to fundamental physics and solves long list of paradoxes of modern physics. The identification of self as a subsystem able to remain unentangled in subsequent quantum jumps provides a quantum theory of observer and one can identify self also as a fundamental statistical ensemble. The generalization of spacetime concept so that it allows both real and p-adic regions, is a crucial prequisite for the notion of self. Quantum jump between quantum histories decomposes into three parts corresponding to the unitary U process of Penrose followed by the TGD counterpart of state function reduction in turn followed by a cascade of self-measurements giving rise to the TGD counterpart of state preparation. The dynamics of self-measurement is determined by the so-called Negentropy Maximization Principle (NMP). Selves form a hierarchy and self experiences its subselves as mental images and is in turn a mental image of a higher-level self. Selves can have common subselves and this makes possible fusion and sharing of mental images. The experience of self is a statistical average over quantum jumps occurred after the last 'wake-up' and the theory of qualia can be formulated in terms of statistical physics. Self experiences the subselves of subself as a statistical average so that self-hierarchy means also an abstraction hierarchy. Self has as its geometric correlate so called mindlike spacetime sheets of finite duration with respect to the geometric time (as opposed to subjective time determined by the sequence of quantum jumps) and one can understand how psychological time and its arrow emerge. The paradigm of four-dimensional brain provides a completely new view about long-term memories and intentionality. Crucial element behind all these developments are both the classical non-determinism of the fundamental variational principle determining the dynamics of the spacetime surfaces making possible nondeterminism of symbolic representations and the inherent nondeterminism of p-adic differential equations making possible cognitive representations. Together with the nondeterminism of quantum jump these nondeterminisms make possible the self-referentiality of consciousness. Combining this general theory with the notion of manysheeted spacetime one ends up to a vision about biosystems as macroscopic quantum systems and to a rather detailed view about quantum brain.
The basic ideas and implications of TGD inspired theory of consciousness are briefly summarized. The notions of quantum jump and self can be unified in the recent formulation of TGD relying on dark matter hierarchy characterized by increasing values of Planck constant. Negentropy Maximization Principle serves as a basic variational principle for the dynamics of quantum jump. The new view about the relation of geometric and subjective time leads to a new view about memory and intentional action. The quantum measurement theory based on finite measurement resolution and realized in terms of hyper-finite factors of type II1 justifies the notions of sharing of mental images and stereo-consciousness deduced earlier on basis of quantum classical correspondence. Qualia reduce to quantum number increments associated with quantum jump. Self-referentiality of consciousness can be understood from quantum classical correspondence implying a symbolic representation of contents of consciousness at space-time level updated in each quantum jump. p-Adic physics provides space-time correlates for cognition and intentionality.
The basic difficulties and challenges of Quantum Mind program are analyzed. The conclusion is that the recent form of quantum theory is not enough to overcome the challenges posed by the philosophical problems of quantum physics and quantum mind theories, and the puzzles of quantum biology and quantum neuroscience. Certain anomalies of recent day biology giving hints about how quantum theory should be generalized serve as an introduction to the summary of the aspects of quantum TGD especially relevant to the notion of Quantum Mind. These include the notions of many- sheeted space-time and field (magnetic) body, zero energy ontology, the identification dark matter as a hierarchy of phases with large value of Planck constant, and p-adic physics proposed to define physical correlates for cognition and intentionality. Especially relevant is the number theoretic generalization of Shannon entropy: this entropy is well defined for rational or even algebraic entanglement probabilities and its minimum as a function of the prime defining p-adic norm appearing in the definition of the entropy is negative. Therefore the notion of negentropic entanglement makes sense in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds and is negative: this motivates the proposal that living matter resides in this intersection. TGD inspired theory of consciousness is introduced as a generalization of quantum measurement theory. The notions of quantum jump and self de_ning the generalization of the notion of observer are introduced and it is argued that the notion of self reduces to that for quantum jump. Negentropy Maximization Principle reproduces standard quantum measurement theory for ordinary entanglement but respects negentropic entanglement so that the outcome of state function reduction is not random for negentropic entanglement. The new view about the relationship of experienced time and geometric time combined with zero energy ontology is claimed to solve the basic philosophical difficulties of quantum measurement theory and consciousness theory. The identi_cation of the quantum correlates of sensory qualia and Boolean cognition, emotions, cognition and intentionality and self-referentiality of consciousness is discussed.
The ontology of TGD inspired theory of consciousness  consist of the trinity formed by objective realities represented by configuration space spinor fields, subjective realities defined by quantum jump sequences between quantum histories (selves), and geometrical objects (res extensa) represented by spacetime surfaces. The infinite-dimensional configuration space of 3-surfaces is believed to be determined completely by the requirement that it allows Kahler geometry free of infinities: infinite- dimensional ontology is fixed by self consistency. Quantum histories (configuration space spinor fields, ’solutions of field equations’) are not only representations for objective realities but identical with them: painting is the landscape so that there is no theory-reality dualism at this level. Quantum histories can be also identified as inhabitants of the Platonic realm of ideas. p-Adic nondetermism and the nondeterminism of the basic variational principle defining configuration space geometry correspond to the nondeterminisms of cognition and language. These nondeterminisms make it possible to represent, not only the quantal aspects of quantum states, but also quantum jumps sequences defining selves as spacetime regions. This explains the self-referentiality of consciousness meaning that it is possible to become conscious of being conscious about something. One ends up to a view about mathematics in which one must distinguish between mathematical ideas at the level of quantum histories and quantum jump sequences (’that which is’), and their cognitive and linguistic representations at spacetime level: the latter ones can never be faithful so that in this sense the map is not the territory.
This article is a summary of TGD inspired theory of consciousness as it is towards the end of 2025 and of its applications to biology. This article gives a summary of TGD inspired theory of consciousness as it is towards the end of 2025. In the TGD framework, it is not possible to discuss consciousness without the TGD view of space-time and quantum. Also the applications to quantum biology and neuroscience have been essential in the development of ideas. The basic inspiration has come from the deep philosophical problems of recent day physics and philosophy of consciousness. The TGD view of consciousness can be seen as a generalization of quantum measurement theory: the observer as an outsider becomes a part of the system. The basic new elements are zero energy ontology (ZEO) as a new quantum ontology forced by the new view of space-time as 4-surfaces analogous to Bohr orbits of particles as 3-D surfaces. The dynamics of the classical space-time obeys holography = holomorphy principle. The failure of a strict classical determinism provides geometric correlates of intention and cognition. ZEO allows us to solve the basic problem of quantum measurement theory, allows free will, and provides a new view of the relation between geometric time and subjective time. Physical existence, identified as the mathematical existence of quantum states: one can speak of quantum Platonia. Conscious existence is identified as quantum jumps between them and can be seen as two different kinds of existence. The classical non-determinism gives rise to quantum jumps giving rise to conscious entities, selves, and the ordinary quantum jumps are predicted to change the arrow of time. This means death and reincarnation of self with an opposite arrow of time. Also the number theoretic visions of TGD is central. A key implication of the number theoretic vision is a hierarchy of Planck constants heff making possible quantum coherence in arbitrarily long scales crucial for the coherence of living matter. p-Adic length scale hierarchy is the second number theoretic prediction. The applications to quantum biology and neuroscience rely on these hierarchies. In this article, the key notions and ideas of TGD, especially those relevant to consciousness and quantum biology, are summarized. The TGD view of consciousness emphasizing recent progress is summarized. The basic ideas and applications to quantum biology are also described.
This article is a summary of TGD inspired theory of consciousness as it is towards the end of 2025 and of its applications to biology. This article gives a summary of TGD inspired theory of consciousness as it is towards the end of 2025. In the TGD framework, it is not possible to discuss consciousness without the TGD view of space-time and quantum. Also the applications to quantum biology and neuroscience have been essential in the development of ideas. The basic inspiration has come from the deep philosophical problems of recent day physics and philosophy of consciousness. The TGD view of consciousness can be seen as a generalization of quantum measurement theory: the observer as an outsider becomes a part of the system. The basic new elements are zero energy ontology (ZEO) as a new quantum ontology forced by the new view of space-time as 4-surfaces analogous to Bohr orbits of particles as 3-D surfaces. The dynamics of the classical space-time obeys holography = holomorphy principle. The failure of a strict classical determinism provides geometric correlates of intention and cognition. ZEO allows us to solve the basic problem of quantum measurement theory, allows free will, and provides a new view of the relation between geometric time and subjective time. Physical existence, identified as the mathematical existence of quantum states: one can speak of quantum Platonia. Conscious existence is identified as quantum jumps between them and can be seen as two different kinds of existence. The classical non-determinism gives rise to quantum jumps giving rise to conscious entities, selves, and the ordinary quantum jumps are predicted to change the arrow of time. This means death and reincarnation of self with an opposite arrow of time. Also the number theoretic visions of TGD is central. A key implication of the number theoretic vision is a hierarchy of Planck constants heff making possible quantum coherence in arbitrarily long scales crucial for the coherence of living matter. p-Adic length scale hierarchy is the second number theoretic prediction. The applications to quantum biology and neuroscience rely on these hierarchies. In this article, the key notions and ideas of TGD, especially those relevant to consciousness and quantum biology, are summarized. The TGD view of consciousness emphasizing recent progress is summarized. The basic ideas and applications to quantum biology are also described.