"What happens to a man when
He spills his heart on a page
And he watches words flow away
Then his feelings lay on a page alone.
There, waiting for someone who cares to read them,
To open their eyes to see them,
To see if they can make his thoughts their own."
"The way we see the world is changing. The way we see ourselves is also changing." (q, h/t) Most of us are used to seeing ourselves as isolated, solitary beings. I may be able to physically push you, but we don't generally believe that I can intrude upon the essence of you. However, as the data continues to paint a picture of mind's effect upon perceivable matter, will we be able to hold on to that perception of solitude? As we see how the mind manifests itself in what we experience as reality, will we also be forced to question the nature of other individuals? How can our minds affect reality without also affecting the other individuals who inhabit that reality?
"Distributed cognition is a branch of cognitive science that proposes that human knowledge and cognition are not confined to the individual. Instead, it is distributed by placing memories, facts, or knowledge on the objects, individuals, and tools in our environment." (q)
I am interested in a similar idea - that of a distributed self. The idea being that the memories, facts and knowledge held by other individuals all contribute to one particular individual's actions and sense of self. This would be true for each 'self', and such an idea, when pushed to its logical conclusion, would suggest that each of us are, at least in part, manifestations of a collective consciousness, extended mind, or some other unified whole. And of course, in keeping with the data that give rise to these thoughts and that speak of nonlocal relationships between mind and matter, such influences upon an individual's actions and sense of self would be of a similar nature, meaning that they occur in the absence of verbal or other local feedback from the other individuals. I would also suggest that such changes in one's own sense of self are noticeable to an individual who is using an appropriately developed introspective ability.
The idea of a collective consciousness (or unconscious) is not new to science. Science has even found an experimental illustration that resembles the idea of a collective/hive mind. Take a look at The Jelly Bean Experiment. (h/t) Picture each person who participated in this experiment as a node in an interconnected web where the connections between them are information related to the guessing experiment. Not explicit I-told-you-what-I-guessed connections, but exclusionary forces say that Person A's guess determines Person B's guess in a non-local way that is governed by the observations and consequences of the group's collective behavior. And each individual's action strengthens the output of the collective.
Here is another analogous image that corresponds quite well to the distributed self model that's slowly building itself in my mind. Picture one 'self' on each side of the pegboard. An 'action' on one side of the pegboard shows up as a change in the pegs on the other side of the board. Is the individual 'self' simply the configuration of the pegs on each side of the board, or is it the configuration of the pegs plus something else? That's an open question for me, as far as this particular analogy goes, though I'd like to think that it is a question that can be answered once we better understand the recursive nature of memory within the stream of consciousness.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Closer to the Edge
"Can you imagine a time when the truth ran free
The birth of a song and the death of a dream"
Sleep Journal
June 26th, 2011
Woke up at about 4:30 AM, very abruptly, after approximately 5 – 5 ½ hours of sleep. Had not set alarm.
Had the residual image of my dream still in my head. Of course it was more than an image... In fact, there was an auditory component (as if one were hearing the sentence spoken), a visual component (as if one were seeing the sentence written on paper), and a meaning component (one's understanding of what the sentence actually meant.) For a short period, just after waking up, the three had a sense of unity – meaning, they felt the same, they felt as if they had the same meaning.
Only upon further waking did something (memory?) kick in which allowed the three elements to be parsed apart, which allowed for the recognition that in fact they weren't saying the same thing at all. The auditory element was roughly “The paycheck isn't coming back good.” The visual element was a sentence beginning with the word “It.” The meaning of both of these (which felt the same) was that my reference checks from previous employers were not coming back favorable.
The sense of unity these elements possessed was clearly not based on memory. But a sense of unity they had, and an unimpeachable one at that. Meaning, without memory to illuminate the subtle distinctions between the three elements of the seemingly-coherent experience, it might easily have been acted upon.
While waiting for memory to kick in – a process that always takes some time when I have been abruptly awakened, and a process of which I am aware – I desperately wanted to know the origin of that element of the dream. Was it a sign, or some indication of a subtle awareness on my part that there was (or was likely to be) a problem with one or more of my references? I remember waiting and waiting for memory to kick in, and when it finally showed up – which is to say, when the contents of episodic memory were finally available for conscious analysis – there was a distinct awareness of that information merging into the stream of consciousness. As if it were simply arriving late to the party, but mingling perfectly well with the throng once there.
After – not simultaneous with – the arrival of memory to the stream came the ability to imagine. To project and anticipate and visual completely hypothetical outcomes.
So distinct were these elements in there arrival to the stream of consciousness that it was as if I were seeing the 'waking up' of certain brain areas, or the removal of whatever obstacles had prevented them from feeding information into the dream state. What was clear was that I could not activate them immediately by will alone. I could query, but the response took time to arrive. For a time I simply had no access to the contents of episodic memory.
(end entry)
"Yet the human spirit is restless and nature forever compliant, willing to answer as yet undreamed questions, capable of opening up vast new vistas, revealing still undisclosed parts of her being."
The birth of a song and the death of a dream"
Sleep Journal
June 26th, 2011
Woke up at about 4:30 AM, very abruptly, after approximately 5 – 5 ½ hours of sleep. Had not set alarm.
Had the residual image of my dream still in my head. Of course it was more than an image... In fact, there was an auditory component (as if one were hearing the sentence spoken), a visual component (as if one were seeing the sentence written on paper), and a meaning component (one's understanding of what the sentence actually meant.) For a short period, just after waking up, the three had a sense of unity – meaning, they felt the same, they felt as if they had the same meaning.
Only upon further waking did something (memory?) kick in which allowed the three elements to be parsed apart, which allowed for the recognition that in fact they weren't saying the same thing at all. The auditory element was roughly “The paycheck isn't coming back good.” The visual element was a sentence beginning with the word “It.” The meaning of both of these (which felt the same) was that my reference checks from previous employers were not coming back favorable.
The sense of unity these elements possessed was clearly not based on memory. But a sense of unity they had, and an unimpeachable one at that. Meaning, without memory to illuminate the subtle distinctions between the three elements of the seemingly-coherent experience, it might easily have been acted upon.
While waiting for memory to kick in – a process that always takes some time when I have been abruptly awakened, and a process of which I am aware – I desperately wanted to know the origin of that element of the dream. Was it a sign, or some indication of a subtle awareness on my part that there was (or was likely to be) a problem with one or more of my references? I remember waiting and waiting for memory to kick in, and when it finally showed up – which is to say, when the contents of episodic memory were finally available for conscious analysis – there was a distinct awareness of that information merging into the stream of consciousness. As if it were simply arriving late to the party, but mingling perfectly well with the throng once there.
After – not simultaneous with – the arrival of memory to the stream came the ability to imagine. To project and anticipate and visual completely hypothetical outcomes.
So distinct were these elements in there arrival to the stream of consciousness that it was as if I were seeing the 'waking up' of certain brain areas, or the removal of whatever obstacles had prevented them from feeding information into the dream state. What was clear was that I could not activate them immediately by will alone. I could query, but the response took time to arrive. For a time I simply had no access to the contents of episodic memory.
(end entry)
"Yet the human spirit is restless and nature forever compliant, willing to answer as yet undreamed questions, capable of opening up vast new vistas, revealing still undisclosed parts of her being."
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Time Pressure
The future speaks to us in the language of the past. And no two people hear it the same.
Many years ago I participated in an ESP experiment. I use the vague term 'ESP' deliberately at this point because my experience during the experiment allowed me to examine competing ideas about what 'extrasensory' meant. I've previously written about this experiment, and briefly touched on the two competing hypothetical explanations: 1) Telepathy - I had some kind of 'access' to my partner's mind and/or the contents therein. 2) Futuresense - Identifying those images/ideas in my stream of consciousness that correlated strongly to my future subjective experience.
Here is what I wrote in my previous post... "The most vivid image that I 'received' was actually an image that my friend had drawn during the 'sending' phase of the experiment. After the judging and feedback portions of the experiment were complete, I had the opportunity to see these drawings and discuss the session with my friend. Naturally I had a strong reaction to that image when I saw the drawing of it, as it was the image I had 'received' during the experiment. Had I gotten that image telepathically from my friend? If so, why hadn't I gotten the actual target image telepathically? Or had I been drawing on my startled reaction to the image when I was casting about for information during the 'receiving' portion of my session? If so, why hadn't I pulled the target image, which I subsequently saw and knew to be the correct image? (And so on.)" In assessing my subjective experience during the testing phase and the feedback phase of the experiment, I came to prefer the futuresense explanation. (And it's actually a lot simpler than telepathy.)
I'm not going to pretend that I subsequently worked out a complete (positive) definition of psi/ESP. (And to be clear, I'm referring to what is commonly perceived to be a receptive faculty, as opposed to an influencing agent, although at some level this distinction may vanish.) In fact, I only mention this at all because I got suckered into watching Beyond Belief last night. What started me thinking was the reading that took place about 39 and a half minutes (hulu time) into the program. Bits of the reading were interspersed with feedback, including a relevant picture of David (the reporter's) mother. With my futuresense hypothesis in mind, I couldn't help but think that the psychic (Rebecca) had awesome future feedback to draw upon during the reading. Not only were relevant images and details given to the psychic immediately during the reading, but they were also broadcast on network television to a huge audience. [ASIDE: The huge audience is relevant when one wants to consider multiple observer hypotheses. And I'm of the opinion that you have to consider the effects of each observer, including the skeptical ones.] Contrast this to the type of feedback that the tarot card reader and palm reader received at around 18 minutes. For the purposes of this program, comparing the feedback that was given in Rebecca's success and in the skeptic's failure is like comparing apples to... well, rocks. But if psi/ESP is in some way a sensitivity to the 'flavor' of the future, then the proper way to test that is to give all psychics an equal amount (and quality) of feedback, regardless of whether they hit or miss.
Of course a proper skeptic would immediately point to the Sylvia Browne incident at 29:50, wherein Sylvia's reading to the couple was (painfully) incorrect. Surely the media coverage of that was comparable to Rebecca's feedback, right...? Hey, I don't have all the answers.
But I am very interested in developing a positive definition of psi/ESP, and I have to wonder... Is there an architecture in the brain that might be sensitive to influence from the (subjective) future? (For clarification, I'm not referring to an architecture in the sense of, say, the amygdala, but more along the lines of the microtubule.) From analyzing the subjective experience of psi/ESP, I would think that such an architecture would have to pervade the same regions of the brain that contain memory, as information acquired via psi/ESP appears to often (if not always) come as the activation of existing knowledge structures (memories). This may also explain why two people never have the same 'psychic' experience with respect to a given event; they are operating with a different set of knowledge structures and interconnectivity among the structures.
Is there a way to distinguish between the activation of this architecture in response to pressure from the future, as opposed to the influence of the past? I wouldn't necessarily expect to see an architecture that is dedicated to - will only respond to - influence from the future, but I would expect there to be a way to differentiate the influences of past and future within an overall pattern of signalling.
How does this hypothetical architecture change as one becomes more 'sensitive' to the influence of the future? I'm drawing primarily on my own subjective experience (again) in suggesting that, over a period of time, and with practice, some relationship between signals from the past and the future is/can be modified. This results in what is effectively a 'signal boost' for information/influence from the future. It also fits the pervasive meme that one can learn how to become psychic, and can develop ESP abilities with practice.
Overall, in watching the program last night (and again this morning for the purposes of obtaining names and time markers), I saw such a confusion of information and methodology that it doesn't surprise me that skeptics find it impenetrable and want to chuck it all out the window. But perhaps the better approach is simply to search for the commonalities of experience amidst the chaos of expression. Is sensitivity to elements one's own subjective future one such commonality?
I realize that I'm not saying anything particularly new with this post. But every once in a while you just have to stir the pot. Bonus points if you boosted a signal to get here. ;)
Many years ago I participated in an ESP experiment. I use the vague term 'ESP' deliberately at this point because my experience during the experiment allowed me to examine competing ideas about what 'extrasensory' meant. I've previously written about this experiment, and briefly touched on the two competing hypothetical explanations: 1) Telepathy - I had some kind of 'access' to my partner's mind and/or the contents therein. 2) Futuresense - Identifying those images/ideas in my stream of consciousness that correlated strongly to my future subjective experience.
Here is what I wrote in my previous post... "The most vivid image that I 'received' was actually an image that my friend had drawn during the 'sending' phase of the experiment. After the judging and feedback portions of the experiment were complete, I had the opportunity to see these drawings and discuss the session with my friend. Naturally I had a strong reaction to that image when I saw the drawing of it, as it was the image I had 'received' during the experiment. Had I gotten that image telepathically from my friend? If so, why hadn't I gotten the actual target image telepathically? Or had I been drawing on my startled reaction to the image when I was casting about for information during the 'receiving' portion of my session? If so, why hadn't I pulled the target image, which I subsequently saw and knew to be the correct image? (And so on.)" In assessing my subjective experience during the testing phase and the feedback phase of the experiment, I came to prefer the futuresense explanation. (And it's actually a lot simpler than telepathy.)
I'm not going to pretend that I subsequently worked out a complete (positive) definition of psi/ESP. (And to be clear, I'm referring to what is commonly perceived to be a receptive faculty, as opposed to an influencing agent, although at some level this distinction may vanish.) In fact, I only mention this at all because I got suckered into watching Beyond Belief last night. What started me thinking was the reading that took place about 39 and a half minutes (hulu time) into the program. Bits of the reading were interspersed with feedback, including a relevant picture of David (the reporter's) mother. With my futuresense hypothesis in mind, I couldn't help but think that the psychic (Rebecca) had awesome future feedback to draw upon during the reading. Not only were relevant images and details given to the psychic immediately during the reading, but they were also broadcast on network television to a huge audience. [ASIDE: The huge audience is relevant when one wants to consider multiple observer hypotheses. And I'm of the opinion that you have to consider the effects of each observer, including the skeptical ones.] Contrast this to the type of feedback that the tarot card reader and palm reader received at around 18 minutes. For the purposes of this program, comparing the feedback that was given in Rebecca's success and in the skeptic's failure is like comparing apples to... well, rocks. But if psi/ESP is in some way a sensitivity to the 'flavor' of the future, then the proper way to test that is to give all psychics an equal amount (and quality) of feedback, regardless of whether they hit or miss.
Of course a proper skeptic would immediately point to the Sylvia Browne incident at 29:50, wherein Sylvia's reading to the couple was (painfully) incorrect. Surely the media coverage of that was comparable to Rebecca's feedback, right...? Hey, I don't have all the answers.
But I am very interested in developing a positive definition of psi/ESP, and I have to wonder... Is there an architecture in the brain that might be sensitive to influence from the (subjective) future? (For clarification, I'm not referring to an architecture in the sense of, say, the amygdala, but more along the lines of the microtubule.) From analyzing the subjective experience of psi/ESP, I would think that such an architecture would have to pervade the same regions of the brain that contain memory, as information acquired via psi/ESP appears to often (if not always) come as the activation of existing knowledge structures (memories). This may also explain why two people never have the same 'psychic' experience with respect to a given event; they are operating with a different set of knowledge structures and interconnectivity among the structures.
Is there a way to distinguish between the activation of this architecture in response to pressure from the future, as opposed to the influence of the past? I wouldn't necessarily expect to see an architecture that is dedicated to - will only respond to - influence from the future, but I would expect there to be a way to differentiate the influences of past and future within an overall pattern of signalling.
How does this hypothetical architecture change as one becomes more 'sensitive' to the influence of the future? I'm drawing primarily on my own subjective experience (again) in suggesting that, over a period of time, and with practice, some relationship between signals from the past and the future is/can be modified. This results in what is effectively a 'signal boost' for information/influence from the future. It also fits the pervasive meme that one can learn how to become psychic, and can develop ESP abilities with practice.
Overall, in watching the program last night (and again this morning for the purposes of obtaining names and time markers), I saw such a confusion of information and methodology that it doesn't surprise me that skeptics find it impenetrable and want to chuck it all out the window. But perhaps the better approach is simply to search for the commonalities of experience amidst the chaos of expression. Is sensitivity to elements one's own subjective future one such commonality?
I realize that I'm not saying anything particularly new with this post. But every once in a while you just have to stir the pot. Bonus points if you boosted a signal to get here. ;)
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Pathfinder
"Spacetime is being very naughty right now."
" So if we accept that these psi phenomena are real, how then can we explain them without throwing out our entire understanding of time and physics?" - Melissa Burkley, Psychology Today [Popular idea, but at least this time it was stated as a question. (sigh)]
Given that Daryl Bem's article "Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect" has been discussed in blogs and the popular press for over three months now, my response is a bit delayed. But I promise that it will contain none of that ever-present blah blah blah (old, boring, tired) debating about the reality of ESP. ;)
My response to Bem's article was more in line with Burkley's question: "If we suspend our beliefs about time and accept that the brain is capable of reaching into the future, the next question becomes 'how does it do this?'" The question in my notes was... What, if any, is/are the neurological, neurochemical, and/or neuroelectrical correlates of the salience of information that has significance in the future? (Note that I didn't say 'information from the future', for good reason.)
If you remember this modest post, you'll understand what I'm getting at with that question and where I hope researchers like Bem will go next. Which brings me to...
Suggestion 1: I would like to see a database of psychological and neurological characteristics for high-performing (and no-effect) subjects. Bem had some psychological data in his results (e.g., stimulus-seeking) but there is room for a much more comprehensive workup involving more-detailed psychological profiles. I would also like to see EEG responses at various points during this testing paradigm. (And, of course, appropriate control data.) With the collection and comparison of appropriate EEG data, it might be possible to isolate an element of the response that indicates the 'path' from the future. Further testing could then see if this element of the EEG response alone could predict a successful trial. [Note: I picked EEG data largely because I am already familiar with EEG and ERP testing paradigms and data collection. And, one might expect to see clean/robust differences in EEG data if differences in 'stimulus-seeking' are involved.]
Suggestion 2: Train subjects with the goal of improving their performance. Ideally, these would be the same subjects from which you have created the aforementioned database, as it would also be interesting to know if/how the aforementioned EEG markers covaried as the brain adapted to using this 'source' of information.
Suggestion 3: Something in Bem's results made me wonder if there wasn't something within the timing of the response to the stimuli which could illuminate the 'path' that this information took. No solid ideas yet, I can't quite shake the notion that there's something there...
Daryl, this post is for you, because I admire the clean and elegant design of your experiments, and I hope you'll follow them up with additional research.
My response to Bem's article was more in line with Burkley's question: "If we suspend our beliefs about time and accept that the brain is capable of reaching into the future, the next question becomes 'how does it do this?'" The question in my notes was... What, if any, is/are the neurological, neurochemical, and/or neuroelectrical correlates of the salience of information that has significance in the future? (Note that I didn't say 'information from the future', for good reason.)
If you remember this modest post, you'll understand what I'm getting at with that question and where I hope researchers like Bem will go next. Which brings me to...
Suggestion 1: I would like to see a database of psychological and neurological characteristics for high-performing (and no-effect) subjects. Bem had some psychological data in his results (e.g., stimulus-seeking) but there is room for a much more comprehensive workup involving more-detailed psychological profiles. I would also like to see EEG responses at various points during this testing paradigm. (And, of course, appropriate control data.) With the collection and comparison of appropriate EEG data, it might be possible to isolate an element of the response that indicates the 'path' from the future. Further testing could then see if this element of the EEG response alone could predict a successful trial. [Note: I picked EEG data largely because I am already familiar with EEG and ERP testing paradigms and data collection. And, one might expect to see clean/robust differences in EEG data if differences in 'stimulus-seeking' are involved.]
Suggestion 2: Train subjects with the goal of improving their performance. Ideally, these would be the same subjects from which you have created the aforementioned database, as it would also be interesting to know if/how the aforementioned EEG markers covaried as the brain adapted to using this 'source' of information.
Suggestion 3: Something in Bem's results made me wonder if there wasn't something within the timing of the response to the stimuli which could illuminate the 'path' that this information took. No solid ideas yet, I can't quite shake the notion that there's something there...
Daryl, this post is for you, because I admire the clean and elegant design of your experiments, and I hope you'll follow them up with additional research.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time Travelers Never Die
I been hit with the future but I don't walk with a limp. (I'm alright.)
"For it is true that we often discover meanings and reasons for things many years after they mattered quite so much to us."
(This one's for the Doctor Who ringtone.)
Some time ago I mentioned that I wanted to talk about information from the future. I've held off on that because the ideas in my head haven't solidified into a coherent picture yet. But what the hell... This post has marinated long enough. Let's cook it up and serve it to the unsuspecting masses. :)
I've tried (in this blog) to create a picture of time that has our conscious experience arising from a struggle between information/influence from the (subjective) past and information/influence from the (subjective) future. I don't know quite how to conceptualize this information/influence... Some have call it a 'wave' (in the quantum sense), and that seems as good a picture as any, for the moment.
In working to create this picture of time and its relationship to experience, I occasionally indulge in bizarre thought experiments like the one that prompted my earlier mention of information from the future...
Thought Experiment: Assume that there is an influence traveling 'back in time' from the subjective future. (This is not an unreasonable assumption; the idea has been out there for a while.) Further assume that consciousness as we experience it is somehow critically tied to that biochemical mass we call the brain. (Not an unreasonable assumption, but certainly not a given either.) Assume that the brain would retain its capacity to produce exactly the same experience of consciousness after a period of cryonic suspension. (I doubt that this is possible, as I believe that a critical portion of our conscious experience arises from a non-local 'entanglement' (if you will) with other minds.)
With all these assumptions in place, it stands to reason that a person who has successfully extended his lifespan via cryonic suspension would also have extended the potential for information from his subjective future to influence him now. What would this person have access to, and how would it affect his behavior in the present? If one can reasonably assume that he would use (though perhaps not consciously) information from the future to enhance his own survival, what would you expect to see him doing now? (Hmmm...)
Thinking about the influence of the future brings up other interesting questions as well...
Is time an illusion? How do we experience this influence/information from the future? Is our perception of 'free will' nothing more than an incomplete awareness of the continually shifting balance between the information/influence of the past and that of the future?
What property of the substrate of consciousness creates/enables our awareness of the passage of time? (You want to say 'Memory, duh!', but why should there not also be a corresponding neural/neurochemical structure to harness and/or 'display' information from the future?) Without this property/structure, how would we know about time? What would we know about time? Is our particular kind of temporal perception really nothing more than a reverberation property within the mechanism/substrate of consciousness?
And that's not even the best part...
Now come questions like: How can we deliberately capitalize on our ability to access information from the future? Is our lifespan of moments of conscious experience simply one giant bi-directional temporal computation, such that events in our past can be perceived as having been 'caused' by events (or needs) in our future? Is it possible to willfully use the 'future' in the present to achieve a specific outcome now? In my head, I refer to this as 'borrowing against future entropy', though physicists might have a beef with the way I'm using the word 'entropy'.
I've mentioned things like this before, and I'm slowing solidifying an ontology for... (pick one)
"For it is true that we often discover meanings and reasons for things many years after they mattered quite so much to us."
(This one's for the Doctor Who ringtone.)
Some time ago I mentioned that I wanted to talk about information from the future. I've held off on that because the ideas in my head haven't solidified into a coherent picture yet. But what the hell... This post has marinated long enough. Let's cook it up and serve it to the unsuspecting masses. :)
I've tried (in this blog) to create a picture of time that has our conscious experience arising from a struggle between information/influence from the (subjective) past and information/influence from the (subjective) future. I don't know quite how to conceptualize this information/influence... Some have call it a 'wave' (in the quantum sense), and that seems as good a picture as any, for the moment.
In working to create this picture of time and its relationship to experience, I occasionally indulge in bizarre thought experiments like the one that prompted my earlier mention of information from the future...
Thought Experiment: Assume that there is an influence traveling 'back in time' from the subjective future. (This is not an unreasonable assumption; the idea has been out there for a while.) Further assume that consciousness as we experience it is somehow critically tied to that biochemical mass we call the brain. (Not an unreasonable assumption, but certainly not a given either.) Assume that the brain would retain its capacity to produce exactly the same experience of consciousness after a period of cryonic suspension. (I doubt that this is possible, as I believe that a critical portion of our conscious experience arises from a non-local 'entanglement' (if you will) with other minds.)
With all these assumptions in place, it stands to reason that a person who has successfully extended his lifespan via cryonic suspension would also have extended the potential for information from his subjective future to influence him now. What would this person have access to, and how would it affect his behavior in the present? If one can reasonably assume that he would use (though perhaps not consciously) information from the future to enhance his own survival, what would you expect to see him doing now? (Hmmm...)
Thinking about the influence of the future brings up other interesting questions as well...
Is time an illusion? How do we experience this influence/information from the future? Is our perception of 'free will' nothing more than an incomplete awareness of the continually shifting balance between the information/influence of the past and that of the future?
What property of the substrate of consciousness creates/enables our awareness of the passage of time? (You want to say 'Memory, duh!', but why should there not also be a corresponding neural/neurochemical structure to harness and/or 'display' information from the future?) Without this property/structure, how would we know about time? What would we know about time? Is our particular kind of temporal perception really nothing more than a reverberation property within the mechanism/substrate of consciousness?
And that's not even the best part...
Now come questions like: How can we deliberately capitalize on our ability to access information from the future? Is our lifespan of moments of conscious experience simply one giant bi-directional temporal computation, such that events in our past can be perceived as having been 'caused' by events (or needs) in our future? Is it possible to willfully use the 'future' in the present to achieve a specific outcome now? In my head, I refer to this as 'borrowing against future entropy', though physicists might have a beef with the way I'm using the word 'entropy'.
I've mentioned things like this before, and I'm slowing solidifying an ontology for... (pick one)
- trans-temporal
- extra-temporal
- bi-directional temporal
... ways of describing and discussing conscious experience and the computations that give rise to it. Who knows what kind of questions such a perspective might answer...
(Crazy thought experiments welcome!)
(P.S. Sorry, 50 - I had to do that.)Monday, July 5, 2010
The Science of the Craft
"The study of magic is not a science, it is not an art, and it is not a religion. Magic is a craft... This is not to say that we understand magic, in the sense that physicists understand why subatomic particles do whatever it is that they do. Or perhaps they don't understand that yet. I can never remember."
"Anyone with a spark of the research spirit does not need to be exhorted to chase for all he is worth a really promising clue when one is found, dropping for the time being other activities and interests as far as practicable."
"To see what no one has seen before, look where no one has looked before."
(Because your response disappoints, on several levels.)
When I was a bit younger, in a used bookstore I came across a book on spells. Since I was investigating the effects of mind upon matter, I could not resist having a look. I came across a spell for attracting money (or some such), and I can remember thinking "I understand why that works." All the extra 'fluff' - the specific-colored candle (or whatever), etc. - fell away and it was clear how saying/doing whatever the spell 'required' simply created (and released) a specific set of visualizations/expectations/emotions about future outcomes. The 'fluff' is just a reinforcing support structure that works/helps because it taps an associated knowledge structure. (Yes, it works because you believe it works.)
Sounds like a load of 'useless crap' to many scientists. But why?
1) Perspective - It is difficult/unacceptable for the scientific method to make use 'data' that is only accessible from a subjective perspective. What goes on in my head is only really accessible to me. I can tell you about it, but you have no means of verifying anything I've said, other than to attempt to replicate it in your own mind. "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." (q)
2) Evidence - What constitutes 'acceptable evidence' of certain phenomena is, by current scientific definitions, evidence that can be procured under circumstances that specifically discount any collective effect of mind. For example: what can be produced in an environment where one is alone is required to be exactly the same as what can be produced in a room full of skeptical observers. Only then is the phenomenon deemed to be a 'true' phenomenon.
3) Correlations - Scientists are taught to look for correlations. They are also taught that correlation does not equal causation. What they are not taught is to look inside for correlations - to dissect and examine their own mental processes. The assumption is that there is no need to do this - that 'science' stands beyond/above the (non-local) influence of mind.
With the above limitations on what is acceptable 'science', it is no wonder that religious/magical belief systems persist. If data persists, then the search for explanations (and the attempts to harness this knowledge) will also persist, even if it is not/cannot be called 'science'.
4) Replication - Replication of something that requires a specific type of subjective awareness can be achieved, but it involves teaching a naive subject. Then, of course, you have only your word and the word of your pupil. (See #1.) This might be worth something if you had a pupil with the appropriate background, reputation, and integrity... But most people still will not believe a thing like that until they have experienced it themselves. However, narratives like that produced by William H. Keith can be powerful stimuli for people to start/continue their own explorations. "I was well aware that my senses could deceive, that my will to believe could play tricks on my mind, that what I seemed to be experiencing - my subjective reality - might well be different from things as they really were."
5) Falsification - "No amount of experimentation can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." (That's Einstein, not Keith.) Yes, we're still looking for that magical experiment that could prove this picture of reality to be wrong. (With a less-pedantic approach to things, you could be useful there. Skippy's best (though perhaps unintentional) contribution was simply asking the question 'Where does the entropy go?')
No doubt submitting this idea to peer-review in a journal would point out all these things, and more. But these are big enough problems to overcome, and we are already well-aware of them. If you can contribute nothing more than yet another 'burden of proof' argument, then you really don't bring anything to the table that wasn't already there and you should probably move on/back to some 'real' science. Best,
N
"Anyone with a spark of the research spirit does not need to be exhorted to chase for all he is worth a really promising clue when one is found, dropping for the time being other activities and interests as far as practicable."
"To see what no one has seen before, look where no one has looked before."
(Because your response disappoints, on several levels.)
When I was a bit younger, in a used bookstore I came across a book on spells. Since I was investigating the effects of mind upon matter, I could not resist having a look. I came across a spell for attracting money (or some such), and I can remember thinking "I understand why that works." All the extra 'fluff' - the specific-colored candle (or whatever), etc. - fell away and it was clear how saying/doing whatever the spell 'required' simply created (and released) a specific set of visualizations/expectations/emotions about future outcomes. The 'fluff' is just a reinforcing support structure that works/helps because it taps an associated knowledge structure. (Yes, it works because you believe it works.)
Sounds like a load of 'useless crap' to many scientists. But why?
1) Perspective - It is difficult/unacceptable for the scientific method to make use 'data' that is only accessible from a subjective perspective. What goes on in my head is only really accessible to me. I can tell you about it, but you have no means of verifying anything I've said, other than to attempt to replicate it in your own mind. "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." (q)
2) Evidence - What constitutes 'acceptable evidence' of certain phenomena is, by current scientific definitions, evidence that can be procured under circumstances that specifically discount any collective effect of mind. For example: what can be produced in an environment where one is alone is required to be exactly the same as what can be produced in a room full of skeptical observers. Only then is the phenomenon deemed to be a 'true' phenomenon.
3) Correlations - Scientists are taught to look for correlations. They are also taught that correlation does not equal causation. What they are not taught is to look inside for correlations - to dissect and examine their own mental processes. The assumption is that there is no need to do this - that 'science' stands beyond/above the (non-local) influence of mind.
With the above limitations on what is acceptable 'science', it is no wonder that religious/magical belief systems persist. If data persists, then the search for explanations (and the attempts to harness this knowledge) will also persist, even if it is not/cannot be called 'science'.
4) Replication - Replication of something that requires a specific type of subjective awareness can be achieved, but it involves teaching a naive subject. Then, of course, you have only your word and the word of your pupil. (See #1.) This might be worth something if you had a pupil with the appropriate background, reputation, and integrity... But most people still will not believe a thing like that until they have experienced it themselves. However, narratives like that produced by William H. Keith can be powerful stimuli for people to start/continue their own explorations. "I was well aware that my senses could deceive, that my will to believe could play tricks on my mind, that what I seemed to be experiencing - my subjective reality - might well be different from things as they really were."
5) Falsification - "No amount of experimentation can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." (That's Einstein, not Keith.) Yes, we're still looking for that magical experiment that could prove this picture of reality to be wrong. (With a less-pedantic approach to things, you could be useful there. Skippy's best (though perhaps unintentional) contribution was simply asking the question 'Where does the entropy go?')
No doubt submitting this idea to peer-review in a journal would point out all these things, and more. But these are big enough problems to overcome, and we are already well-aware of them. If you can contribute nothing more than yet another 'burden of proof' argument, then you really don't bring anything to the table that wasn't already there and you should probably move on/back to some 'real' science. Best,
N
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