Endophysics, Time, Quantum and the Subjective

CONTENTS

PREFACE

LIST OF INVITED SPEAKERS

LIST OF OTHER PARTICIPANTS

GROUP PHOTO

We aim at replacing the currently adopted exophysical perspective with the humbler, but more realistic, approach offered by endophysics that goes beyond the boundaries of the former. Our arguments are based on three well established circumstances. First, our unavoidable mutual interaction with nature allows us to bypass any unproved ad hoc assumptions like the Cartesian cut. Second, the historical evolution of human knowledge compels us to recognize a substantial similarity between the notions of “subjective” and “objective” as referred to a single individual, or to a group of individuals. This emphasizes the role of subjectivity in the formulation of theories for the representation of the world. Third, the lack of satisfying progress in the numberless attempts at the unification of physical theories, in spite of the fundamental changes produced by quantum mechanics in the interpretation of nature, seems to indicate that the exophysical approach has already reached its limits.

We apply Shannon’s entropy of information to a quantum computational model of the universe to discuss how big the future could be relative to a given present. We discuss how such a model could provide a basis for an endophysical description of the universe.

Two main factors determine construction of internal temporal architecture in autopoietic systems: external pressure and network of internal interdependences. External influences are given for systems and they are only able to incorporate them into its own functional and temporal blueprint, with very small space for further manipulations. But, internal processes, or more precisely, irreversible reductions toward determined states are enclosed into mobile and alterative network of re-productive cycles. On that basis autopoietic systems are able to construct and manipulate with different temporal strategies as reversibility, delaying, circularity, spiral flows, different distribution of times and so on. Special case is construction of transient time fields, called here intersubjective times, that arise as fusions of two or more specific temporal architectures during their interactions. This paper describes construction of internal proliferation of time patterns and analyze their functional usefulness.

Measurement, cognition and understanding can be regarded as gluing parts by using of the notion of wholeness, and forgetting a limit called de-measurement leads to dissolution. Although measurement and de-measurement is convertible if the wholeness is expressed as a limit, they give rise to negotiation between parts and whole in a real world since wholeness has vagueness. We introduce a particular limit that has vagueness, call it open limit, and show that an open limit plays an essential role in making intrinsic development, by illustrating physarum mold pattern formation.

Any proposed endophysical models need to acknowledge a number of subjective correlates that have been well established in such objectively quantifiable experimental contexts as anomalous human/machine interactions and remote perception information acquisition. Most notable of these factors are conscious and unconscious intention; gender disparities; serial position effects; intrinsic uncertainties; elusive replicability; and emotional resonance between the participants and the devices, process, and tasks. Perhaps even more pertinent are the insensitivities of the anomalous effects to spatial and temporal separations of the participants from the physical targets. Inclusion of subjective coordinates in the models, and exclusion of physical distance and time, raise formidable issues of specification, quantification, and dynamical formulation from both the physical and psychological perspectives. A few primitive examples of possible approaches are presented.

If 20th century physics have taught us one thing, it is that its findings point way beyond its conceptual framework. It doesn’t mean we need a new epistemology or a new paradigm. What we need is a pre-epistemology and a non-paradigm. We must learn to think in terms of what we apprehend. We must stop apprehending in terms of what we think. The basic task is to become aware of how we objectify the world – and why we lock into our objectifications once we do. Pre-epistemology will help us understand nature in more subtle ways. A non-paradigm will help us avoid getting stuck on any conception whatever. Quality cannot be appreciated by a person obsessed with quantity; non-local connections don’t reveal themselves to localising mindsets; dynamic processes are not accessible to a structure-mediated worldview. Nothing of this means we should discard the tools of modern science. It only means their use should become more discerning, Ultimately three things matter: (1) that we keep systems and minds open; (2) that in fragmenting and abstracting nature we never lose sight of its oneness; (3) that what we count doesn’t dictate for us what counts.

In classical physics there was a clear understanding of what physical space and time are: physical space is the theatre of the collection of all events that are actual at a certain moment of time, and physical time is the parametrization of the flow of time. 3-dimensional space and 1-dimensional time have been substituted by 4-dimensional time-space in relativity theory. But if reality is the 4-dimensional time-space manifold of relativity theory, what is then the meaning of ‘change in time’? We investigate this problem of relativity theory by following an operational approach originally elaborated for quantum mechanics. We show that the contradiction between a geometric view and process view of reality is due to a misconception in the interpretation of relativity theory. We argue that it is not time which is space-like, with the inevitable paradoxical situation of a block universe as result, but on the contrary, it is space which is time-like. This ‘dynamic’, ‘time-like’ conception of space answers the question of the meaning of ‘change in time’ within the 4-dimensional reality of relativity theory, and puts forward a new view on other aspects of the theory.

Memory can be defined as mental time traveling. Seen in this way, memory provides the glue which combines different time episodes and leads to a coherent view of one’s own person. The importance of time becomes apparent in a neuroscientific comparison of animals and human beings. All kinds of animals have biorhythms — times when they sleep, prefer or avoid sex, or move to warmer places. Mammalian brains have a number of time sensitive structures damage to which alters a subject’s behavior to his or her environment. For human beings, damage to certain brain regions may alter the sense of time and consciousness of time in quite different ways. Furthermore, brain damage, drugs, or psychiatric disturbances may lead to an impaired perception of time, sometimes leading to major positive or negative accelerations in time perception. An impaired time perception alters consciousness and awareness of oneself. A proper synchronized action of time perception, brain activation, memory processing, and autonoetic (self-aware) consciousness provides the bases of an integrated personality.

Stable neuronal assemblies are generally regarded as neural correlates of mental representations. Their temporal sequence corresponds to the experience of a direction of time, sometimes called the psychological time arrow. We show that the stability of particular, biophysically motivated models of neuronal assemblies, called coupled map lattices, is supported by causal interactions among neurons and obstructed by non-causal or anti-causal interactions among neurons. This surprising relation between causality and stability suggests that those neuronal assemblies that are stable due to causal neuronal interactions, and thus correlated with mental representations, generate a psychological time arrow. Yet this impact of causal interactions among neurons on the directed sequence of mental representations does not rule out the possibility of mentally less efficacious non-causal or anti-causal interactions among neurons.

The subjective experience of time will be taken as a primary motivation for an alternative, essentially discontinuous conception of time. Two types of such experience will be discussed, one based on personal episodic memory, the other on the theoretical fine texture of experienced time below the threshold of phenomenal awareness. The former case implies a discrete structure of temporal episodes on a large scale, while the latter case suggests endowing psychological time with a granular structure on a small scale, i.e. interpreting it as a semi-ordered flow of smeared (not point-like) subliminal time grains. Only on an intermediate temporal scale would the subjectively felt continuity and fluency of time emerge. Consequently, there is no locally smooth mapping of phenomenal time onto the real number continuum. Such a model has certain advantages; for instance, it avoids counterintuitive interpretations of some neuropsychological experiments (e.g. Libet’s measurement) in which the temporal order of events is crucial.

The experience of time’s passing appears, from the 1st person perspective, to be a primordial subjective experience, seemingly inaccessible to the 3rd person accounts of time perception (psychophysics, cognitive psychology). In our analysis of the ‘dual klepsydra’ model of reproduction of temporal durations, time passage occurs as a cognitive construct, based upon more elementary (‘proto-cognitive’) function of the psychophysical organism. This conclusion contradicts the common concepts of ‘subjective’ or ‘psychological’ time as readings of an ‘internal clock’. Our study shows how phenomenological, experimental and modelling approaches can be fruitfully combined.

Emotionality of subjective time-experience in depressed patients is related to the concept of Michael Theunissen as to the dominance of the past in relation to the spontaneity of the subject within a present moment of time. Electrophysiological measurements, using event-related potentials point to the view that negative emotions can induce a value-related cognitive/emotional blockade of valuation processes. The role of creativity to overcome such memory-related impairments is discussed within the context of possible functions of consciousness.

In the contemporary philosophy of mind, the notion of subjective experience plays a central role. One of the most interesting dimensions of the subjective experience is its time dimension. In this paper I will attempt to develop a plausible model of subjective experience of time based on the following conceptual tools: on the metaphor of the ‘Specious Present’ developed by William James and on the concept of the ‘Thick Moment’ of consciousness, introduced by the British psychologist Nicholas Humphrey. Subsequently, I will deal with two basic properties of time experience: change and duration. I will examine their relation to the previously introduced container view of consciousness. In the second part of this paper, I will apply this model of conscious time experience on some ‘extraordinary’ time experiences to see how this model can accommodate this type of experiences.

The paper presents, to our knowledge, a first fairly comprehensive and mathematically well-underpinned classification of the psychopathology of time (and space). After reviewing the most illustrative first-person accounts of “anomalous/peculiar” experiences of time (and, to a lesser degree, space) we introduce and describe in detail their algebraic geometrical model. The model features six qualitatively different types of the internal structure of time dimension and four types of that of space. As for time, the most pronounced are the ordinary “past-present-future,” “present-only” (“eternal/everlasting now”) and “no-present” (time “standing still”) patterns. Concerning space, the most elementary are the ordinary, i.e., “here-and-there,” mode and the “here-only” one (“omnipresence”). We then show what the admissible combinations of temporal and spatial psycho-patterns are and give a rigorous algebraic geometrical classification of them. The predictive power of the model is illustrated by the phenomenon of psychological time-reversal and the experiential difference between time and space. The paper ends with a brief account of some epistemological/ontological questions stemming from the approach.

In the first part of the paper I present a definition of becoming that overcomes the irrelevant as well as misleading debates between presentists and eternalists. Since my definition essentially requires an ontology of events occurring in temporal succession, I go on showing that not only the theory of relativity, but also quantum mechanics, in its various interpretations, requires such an ontology, despite the limitations in the possibility of representing quantum processes in a spatiotemporal arena.

We introduce the Relational Blockworld (RBW) as a paradigm for deflating the mysteries associated with quantum non-separability/non-locality and the measurement problem. We begin by describing how the relativity of simultaneity implies the blockworld, which has an explanatory potential subsuming both dynamical and relational explanations. It is then shown how the canonical commutation relations fundamental to non-relativistic quantum mechanics follow from the relativity of simultaneity. Therefore, quantum mechanics has at its disposal the full explanatory power of the blockworld. Quantum mechanics exploits this expanded explanatory capability since event distributions among detectors per the density matrix follow from spacetime relations (symmetry group) alone. Thus, the event distributions of non-relativistic quantum mechanics follow from a blockworld wherein spacetime relations are fundamental. Per RBW “quantum mysteries” are deflated and the implications for consciousness and the perception of temporal flow and absolute becoming are explored. We conclude that given RBW, consciousness is no less fundamental than any “physical” feature of the world such as brain states. Further, active consciousness is needed to explain the illusion that it is a dynamical world and consciousness in its most fundamental state is relational and non-local.

A complete scientific theory that can integrate material objects with mental objects is capable of heralding the next stage of scientific revolution. Mental qualities such as experienced smell or taste has yet to be quantified in scientific domain. This chapter is devoted to this idea of subjective computation where mental qualities can be quantified. Schroedinger wave equation has been used in a recurrent quantum neural network framework to solve problems such as stochastic filtering, system identification and adaptive control.

I show that the quantum measurement problem can be understood if the measurement is seen as a “speech act” in the sense of modern language theory. The reduction of the state vector is in this perspective an intersubjective — or, better, a-subjective — symbolic process. I then give some perspectives on applications to the “Mind-Body Problem”.

Quantum measurement does not necessarily entail the involvement of human consciousness. However, the fact that people implicate consciousness only in quantum measurement phenomena is not accidental. In classical physics we could remain with “objective reality” description. It is suggested that a yet-unknown element of self-reference in quantum measurement causes the collapse of the wave function. Proposed is a new way of addressing physics and quantum theory as a whole based on Model Theory considerations. In this way a methodological analogy is constructed between the interpretations of Peano Arithmetic (PA) and physics. The interpretational shift PA receives when added with the negation of Gödel’s Theorem as an axiom is similar to the interpretational shift classical physics formalism receives when added with a law indicating that the zero-state does not equal zero.

Nelson’s programme for a stochastic mechanics aims to derive the wave function and the Schrödinger equation from natural conditions on a diffusion process in configuration space. If successful, this programme has some potential advantages, which are briefly sketched, over the better-known deterministic pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm. The essential points of Nelson’s strategy are then reviewed, with particular emphasis on conceptual issues relating to the role of time symmetry. The main problem in Nelson’s approach is the lack of strict equivalence between the coupled Madelung equations and the Schrödinger equation. After a brief discussion, the paper concludes with a sketch of two possible strategies for trying to overcome this problem.

We show that in opposite to a common opinion quantum mechanics can be represented as projection of classical statistical model on prequantum space — prespace. All distinguishing features of the quantum probabilistic model (interference of probabilities, Born’s rule, complex probabilistic amplitudes, Hilbert state space, representation of observables by operators) are present in a latent form in the classical Kolmogorov probability model. However, classical model should be considered as a contextual model (in the sense that all probabilities are determined by contexts – complexes of physical conditions). Moreover, the prequantum→quantum map is well defined only for two fundamental physical variables (in quantum mechanics these are position and momentum). Quantum mechanics is a projection of classical statistical model through these two “reference observables”. Similarly, ordinary classical statistical mechanics on physical phase space is a projection of classical statistical mechanics on prespace, We also introduce a mental prespace and consider its quantum-like representation. Mental prespace describes subconsciousness and its quantum-like representation gives a model of consciousness.

Algebraic geometrical concepts are playing an increasing role in quantum applications such as coding, cryptography, tomography and computing. We point out here the prominent role played by Galois fields viewed as cyclotomic extensions of the integers modulo a prime characteristic p. They can be used to generate efficient cyclic encoding, for transmitting secrete quantum keys, for quantum state recovery and for error correction in quantum computing. Finite projective planes and their generalization are the geometric counterpart to cyclotomic concepts, their coordinatization involves Galois fields, and they have been used repetitively for enciphering and coding. Finally, the characters over Galois fields are fundamental for generating complete sets of mutually unbiased bases, a generic concept of quantum information processing and quantum entanglement. Gauss sums over Galois fields ensure minimum uncertainty under such protocols. Some Galois rings which are cyclotomic extensions of the integers modulo 4 are also becoming fashionable for their role in time encoding and mutual unbiasedness.

During this talk we argued that the peaceful coexistence between special relativity and quantum mechanics can be considered a misnomer. We argue that, given a collapse hypothesis, the Heisenberg picture, and subjective probabilities, one can reason within quantum mechanics in a way that is completely consistent with special relativity. We corroborate this thesis by discussing Bell-like arguments.

In the first part of the paper, I examine cases of acceleration of perception and cognition and provide my explanation of the mechanism of the effect. The explanation rests on the conception of neuronal temporal frames, or windows of simultaneity. Frames have different standard durations and yield to stretching and compressing. I suggest it to be the cause of the effect, as well as the ground for differences in perceptive time scales of living beings. In the second part, I apply the conception of temporal frames to model observation in the extended time scales that reach far beyond the temporal perceptive niche of individual living beings. Duration of a frame is taken as the basic parameter setting a particular time scale. By substituting a different frame duration, we set a hypothetical time scale and emulate observing reality in a wider or a narrower angle of embracing events in time. I discuss the status of observer in its relation to objective reality, and examine how reality does change its appearance when observed in different time scales.

I propose and defend the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface Theory of Consciousness. Mental processes form a hierarchy of mental representations with maximally egocentric (self-centered) representations at the bottom and maximally allocentric (other-centered) representations at the top. Phenomenally conscious states are states that are relatively intermediate in this hierarchy. More specifically, conscious states are hybrid states that involve the reciprocal interaction between relatively allocentric and relatively egocentric representations. Thus a conscious state is composed of a pair of representations interacting at the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface. What a person is conscious of is determined by what the contributing allocentric and egocentric representations are representations of. The phenomenal character of conscious states is identical to the representational content of the reciprocally interacting egocentric and allocentric representations.

Intuition is defined for the purposes of this analysis as: the appearance in the mind of accurate information about the external world, which can be shown to have come not through the five senses, nor through a rearrangement of stored memory contents. Forms of intuition obeying this definition have been explored scientifically under such labels as telepathy, precognition, presentiment, and remote viewing. This paper summarizes those scientific findings, and presents a few theories which have been hypothesized to explain them. Those theories are largely based in theoretical physics, including quantum non-locality, holography, and complex space-time. Related biological theories are also cited, which propose to explain how information might move from the subatomic level up into waking consciousness, for example through DNA structures or neuronal microtubules.

Under normal conditions, human subjects experience the self within the limits of the physical body and the limits of the present time. This unified experience of the self in space and time has been challenged by philosophers and physicists. The spatial unity between self and body has also been challenged by a well defined group of experiences called “autoscopic phenomena” (AP), during which subjects have the impression of seeing a second own body in extrapersonal space. Yet, with respect to the three main forms of AP — autoscopic hallucination, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experience — previous studies have concentrated on describing the spatial unity between self and body while neglecting to analyze the temporal unity of self and body. Here we describe several AP-cases with an altered experience of age or time for one’s own body or self. In some AP-cases the second own body was seen as being younger or older than the subject’s actual body. We show that the second own body is experienced as if “coming from another time” although the observing self is experienced in the present time. Other AP-subjects reported a feeling of timelessness of the observing self without any age difference between the subjects’ actual and illusory body. We argue that these differences in age or time suggest that the temporal experience of one’s own body and self is altered in these subjects. Collectively, these data suggest that AP may be associated not only with abnormal sensations with respect to spatial unity, but also with respect to temporal unity. Moreover, we found that out-of-body experiences were associated with feelings of timelessness and no age differences between self and body and that autoscopic hallucinations and heautoscopy were associated with age differences between self and body but not with feelings of timelessness. We conjecture that out-of-body experiences are characterized by disembodiment not only in space but also in time. For autoscopic hallucinations and heautoscopy our findings suggest that the spatial displacement between self and body (without disembodiment) is accompanied by a temporal displacement of the body to a different time period than the present. We discuss these abnormal experiences of the bodily self in time and space and propose their potential functional and anatomical mechanisms.

It can be proven that physical theory always contains some abstract mechanism whose function is equivalent to the unique role played by the human mind during the empirical manifestation of reality. The importance of this hypothesis, known as the Conservation of Now-ness, or CON hypothesis, is that it defines a formal relationship between the subjective phenomenon of conscious experience and physics, allowing us to reformulate the hard problem into a solvable form, and to develop an endophysics paradigm and program of research.

We have recently started to understand that fundamental aspects of complex systems such as emergence, the measurement problem, inherent uncertainty, complex causality in connection with unpredictable determinism, time-irreversibility and non-locality all highlight the observer’s participatory role in determining their workings. In addition, the principle of ‘limited universality’ in complex systems, which prompts us to ‘search for the appropriate level of description in which unification and universality can be expected’, looks like a version of Bohr’s ‘complementarity principle’. It is more or less certain that the different levels of description possible of a complex whole — actually partial objectifications — are projected on to and even redefine its constituent parts. Thus it is interesting that these fundamental complexity issues don’t just bear a formal resemblance to, but reveal a profound connection with, quantum mechanics. Indeed, they point to a common origin on a deeper level of description.

Attention is drawn to weaknesses in the case for an external, physical basis for time’s perceptual phenomena, raising the possibility of a Darwinian evolutionary explanation for the apparent flow, structure and arrow of time. We develop the hypothesis that, of all arrows of time identified by physicists and philosophers, the most fundamental is the psychological arrow. Based on findings of an on-going program of empirical research, we suggest a neural basis for time phenomena in the rhythmicity and plasticity of one of the brainstem dopaminergic nuclei, the venetral tegmental area (VTA). We examine links between neural time-keeping and perceptual rivalry and discuss evidence that rivalry is mediated by the VTA which functions as an ultradian oscillator. Further research is suggested, which could challenge or support the hypothesis of the VTA as an important neural time-keeper and the subjective basis of the asymmetric phenomena of time.

Time’s apparent “flow” is often dismissed in physical theory. We propose to take it as a real property of reality and show how the addition of this assumption to physics’ prevailing postulate yields a new framework within which relativity and quantum theories are in harmony with one another.

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