[extropy-chat] Psychogenic Fields (was Role of MWI and Time Travel)

[The Avantguardian]

--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> > Hold on. I did not say that consciousness was
> separate
> > from the brain. I said that it does not seem to
> simply
> > be explained by "information processing" in the
> brain.
> > Otherwise ANY complex information processing
> system
> > SHOULD be, to a greater or lesser extent,
> conscious
> > including the Internet.
> 
> How so?  Conscious, as we think of it in human
> consciousness at  
> least, requires specific types of processing.
>  Any
> old processing  
> will not do.  I was under the impression that
> originally we were  
> talking of human consciousness rather than any old
> consciousness or  
> thing that some may want to call consciousness.

Nonsense. There is nothing fundamentally unique or
special about human biology, to account for
"human-specific consciousness". Any consciousness
generating mechanism humans have is shared by all
mammals for certain and possibly by all cell-based
life or perhaps even by all matter depending on
precisely what that SOMETHING is determined to be.

We have more literal brain than a rat but not so much
more so that we can base some religious notion of
"human-specific consciousness" on some emergenct
property of complexity.    
 
> > Moreover according to quantum
> > mechanics individual atoms process information in
> > deciding whether to jump to higher or lower energy
> > states. If this psychogenic field I am proposing
> is
> > generated by the brain then it may be altered by
> brain
> > injuries leading to altered consciousness. I am
> > talking a tensor field here, not hocus pocus
> magic.
 
> This is irrelevant for the reason above.

Huh? Is this cheap debate trick or do you not
understand what I am getting at here? 

> As long
> as it is not  
> measurable and not provably causative and it yields
> no useful  
> explanation or predictions you may as well be
> talking magic.

But the psychogenic field is entriely measurable. EEGs
and magnetoencephalography are both ways to measure
it. As far as being provably causative, that is way
too stringent a criterion. Causality is over-rated and
seldomly provable in any context. Physicists may have
the luxury of studying simplified single variable
systems in the lab and thus might be able to
unequivocally show causality but biologists are not so
lucky.

Very little of scientific theory is provably causative
except perhaps classical mechanics. Causality
certainly does start to break down at the quantum
level (see EPR paradox, Bell's Theorem, etc. for
examples.) 

In biology and medicine there are great deal many
correlations but precious few causative theories. Few
biologists will go out on a limb and say X causes Y 
Instead they cloak their uncertainties in statistical
language of correlation coefficients and P-values.
Why? Because in biology, if one looks hard enough one
will almost always find exceptions to any given rule.

In living systems even on the scale of a single cell,
there are so many variables, that it becomes like
finding needles in a haystack to distinguish the
independent causes from the dependent effects. There
are a host of tendencies and few absolutes.

That being said, I think that the psychogenic field
hypothesis is entirely testable. If it is correct then
one would expect to be able to measure brain function
from outside of the brain. Guess what? EEGs and
magnetoencephalography do exactly that. Furthermore
they do not involve introducing anything foreign into
the brain. Sure does sound like they are measuring a
field to me. 

You can say they are measuring "brain function" but
that is only true by proxy. What they are measuring is
electromagnetic flux issuing forth from the brain and
extending OUTSIDE of the brain and using it to INFER
function inside of the brain.

Other predictions of mine include: 

1. When measured at high enough resolution, the
psychogenic field should be assymetric and non-uniform
in both space and time. 

2. Every possible stimulus, sensation, feeling,
thought, or memory should have a unique configuration
(tensor value) of the psychogenic field that can with
effort be cataloged and deciphered. 

3. Technology capable of non-invasively scanning the
information content of brains should be possible.
Although even if I am right, I don't see it working on
brains that are not metabolically active. So all those
frozen heads will still be out of luck.  

> My beef is that it seems an empty idea.

Well then hopefully I have fleshed it out enough for
you to make an INFORMED critique of my idea.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does." - Richard Feynman on QM

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