opnet [OpNet] Pure Quantum Theory

[kestrel404]

Psimon says: I have theoretical proofs that support my conclusions. Unfortunately identifying the locale wherein consciousness resides is not quite the same as having mapped the function of the mechanisms underpinning it. What you call taint sensing experiments were in fact a rudimentary experiment to prove that something could be sensed which did not exist as a physical quantity with measurable properties.

While I'm certainly interested in the details of your experiment (the devil is in the details, as I'm sure you know), perhaps for the moment we can keep this discussion at an abstract level.

You made two claims earlier that caught my attention. First, that consciousness was rooted at the quantum level of reality, and second that our quantum expression occurrs at that same level.

I will not dispute either claim for the moment, but I am curious as to their basis. What evidence leads you to believe consciousness is the result of quantum energies, and not simple neural networks as the current theory espouses? Similarly, how are consciousness and quantum manipulation linked?

[Magus]

Please be aware that I was not an independent researcher or developer. For this reason some of the early experiments and data derived are owned by others. None of it was conducted for purposes relating to our discussion but did provide me valuable insight into other threads.

The neural network theories are still useful for some gross applications but given the state of computer technology its very simple to disprove their relevance to self awareness. Computers are literally more more complex and, switch for neuron, more capable than the human brain. Yet the even the most advanced prototypes are still inadaquate for the task of simulating let alone creating consciousness. There are other life forms on the planet earth, many not even mammals, that likewise possess equal or greater complexity than the human brain yet again are inadaquate to the task.

It is not a question of complexity or network architechture. The answer lies below the molecular and subatomic into the quantum foam itself. Ah, here it is here that we find the shadowy yet distinctive presence of the mind. Ironically the observor effect becomes very relavant here.

[Neil Preston]

Have either one of you worked with nova-created devices? The one I have seems somehow more alive and ... I guess the word is "responsive". It isn't an AI, but it learns. Nothing new there, except that recently it supplies me an instrument before I needed it. Weird huh?

Psimon, perhaps the conciousness lies at the sub-quantum level. My thoughts on this come from an inventor I know. He was contemplating the inability of novas to create a true Artificial Intelligence, as well as the extreme level of power it would take to create artificial life. Not duplication, but a truly new form of life, whether it be biological, non-organic, or even something in a plasma state.

I'm still thinking about that one.

[Magus]

I have examined a very limited number of these. Without knowing more its impossible to be certain but I could make some guesses. These are those nova created devices that seem to violate the guidelines we lump together as the laws of physics? I think of these as augments instead of true machines.

I've heard stories suggesting exceptions but the few I've examined appear to be localized quantum templates. Restrictive and temporary filters for your own quantum field rather than a device that performs a function independent of the creator or user. One question is whether yours supplied your need before you had a use or before you were aware you might have a use. The first is a rote function dependent on recognized cues while the last would hint at something subtle.

"Life" is a more general function than consciousness but I've wondered the same thing. There are novas that manipulate molecules. Why can't they create life even if its simply a reflection of something that already exists? It should be simple yet it is not. Our increasing knowledge of quantum and observation of nova abilities leads me to conclude life and conciousness is far more complex than a blind dance of molecules.

[Xeno]

This is excellent knowledge. ... Accumulation of consciousness is thusly shown to be a tangible goal, is it not so?

Is quantum-consciousness preserved? Is there a limited supply of sentience? If the macroscopic physical support (brain-like-item) containing consciousness ceases to function, does the quantum state maintain any form of independent integrity? What does consciousness achieve independent of physical data-storage (brain-meats)? What information is contained in the flavor/texture/sensation of a mind?

It is not assumed that the answers are known, but it would be very good to learn them. ... It is necessary to learn them. ... Meat is possibly trivial. Also meat places and meat things. Minds are probably very much of everything. Inside is good.

[Magus]

You have an unusual manner of speaking Xeno.

I believe that each has an effect on the other, meat and mind as you put it. What you're describing may be possible but there is a great deal more that must be known first. Is consciouness a completely seperate entity? There is evidence that suggests consciousness can exist seperated from the biological and even matter but the limits have not been explored. If possible such a consciousness would likely diverge from what is considered normal though that is a supposition on my part.

I say this believing the meat and the mind influence each other. Seperate them and something else will emerge.

[Xeno]

Apologies. There are certain verbal imperatives it is felt would be dishonest to bypass. Correction is available upon request. Or someone else can speak if you prefer.

Most immediately and profusely relevant application of the query: That meat ceases to function nearly always. If consciousness remains somehow stable, a little, outside of the meat after it goes away, then the/an afterlife-like-thing is found, is it not?

It would be much further Outside but also Inside at the same time. Maybe.

And if the consciousness is conserved, and re-inhabits new meat when the old is gone, then that too is relevant.

Understanding the self is as relevant as not-immediately-practical matters can be, it is thought. Practicality is sure to come soon. When we know how we work we can fix ourselves. It will be very good. Possibly.

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Psimon:
There are novas that manipulate molecules. Why can't they create life even if its simply a reflection of something that already exists?

Well Persimon ol sod, you ain't been listening to the folks I been listening to I guess.

The world is a right big fucking place. Sometimes "can't" just don't belong.

[Magus]

Xeno

Mapping the ebb and flow of quantum energies in the foam is not having a key to the gate of heaven. More work is required before this is more than conjecture.

Lemmy

Possibly. I find evidence more useful that stories. I listen to stories. I don't accept them as factual.

[Violette 'V' D'Aronique]

As a bio-electrical manipulator, it's always seemed to me that consciousness does exist on the energy level, even if there are "meat" circuits it uses to travel.

I'm not well-educated in biology or neurology though, so I'm just relating some of my quantum expression experience.

[Neil Preston]

V, there are cases when biology and neurology are not enough. We need those nova experiences to point us in the right direction so that we can better understand what's out there and were we are going.

Xeno, it isn't so much "meat", but we still appear to need some sort of "reality focus" for our conciousness. By "reality focus", I mean something in perceptive reality that houses, or anchors, or present level of conciousness.

I've talked to novas without vital organs, others made of living flame. Unless dormed, they have no funcitioning physical form to speak of.

[kestrel404]

I've given a bit of thought to this. I can site dozens of examples of novas that do not have brains as we would recognize them (I can name four from this forum alone off the top of my head). There are two possible explanations of this.

The first is that Psimon is correct, and consciousness resides well below the physical, matter based reality that we percieve with our baseline senses. I can accept that if it is the case, but that is not the only possible answer.

The other is that before destroying the node and brain tissue, a nova's subconscious learned to move these vital tissues to another state, or learned to simulate verbatim the activities of the brain. In the one case, the brain still exists, and is connected by quantum threads to the body of the nova. In the other case, the brain no longer exists, but a quantum-based brain analog is supporting the same functionality. I can theorize several other possible explanations, and if one is correct than others surely are (due to the diversity of novas).

As for this claim:

Psimon says: "Computers are literally more more complex and, switch for neuron, more capable than the human brain."

I'm afraid that's not true. Yes, computer chips now have tens of billions of transistors per chip. Yes, there are massively parallel systems that use thousands of these chips in interconnected webs. The problem is that the brain has roughly 100 billion neurons, with approximately 20 connections per neuron. Simple math tells you that there are then 2 trillion connections in the brain, but you must remember that each neuron is a living organism, capable of learning and reacting independantly from each other neuron. Therefor, the important number is not 2 trillion connections, but 100 billion to the twentieth power paths through the brain. Also, for every neuron in the brain there are roughly ten glial cells, which provide support functions for the neurons. There is only one device on this planet that matches the complexity of the human baseline brain, and that is the OpNet itself. In addition, I believe that the internal chemistry of each individual neuron lends itself to both memory and cognition (a theory supported by the massive cognitive changes that can be wrought by chemical imbalances in the brain). So no, we have NOT created computers capable of outperforming the brain.

This is not to say your theory is wrong, but more that you cannot base it on the inability of modern science to produce artificial sentience. There have in fact been many advances in producing bird-level intelligence and in one case dog-level complexity in behaviour from a nerual network.

As for novas creating artificial life, I'll give you two examples. The first is a Triton nova that used to be a colleague, who goes by the name 'Genecraft' now. He does not have control over matter like I do, but he has created fully artificial life forms before (from scratch, without DNA templating). Nothing that could live outside of laboratory conditions, but they were fully artificial. The other example is myself. I created, atom by atom, a fully functional bacteria cell (E-coli, since there is so much data on that species). It took all of my reserves just to do that, because of the complexity involved. Crafting the DNA alone took me several hours of painstaking effort. Life is in no way simple, even the simplest of life.

If you're curious, I also have theories relating specifically to those novas who 'conjure life' from nothing.

Now, for your theory: I think it is possible that consciousness is rooted at the quantum level. However, I believe that it is the same kind of roots that all matter has at the quantum level. There is an incredible amount of complexity that exists below that level of the atom, possibly more than exists ABOVE the level of the atom. I will eagerly agree that quantum effects can have an impact on consciousness, but to say that consciousness exists primarily at that level is definitely a stretch.

I would be most interested in hearing your response, Psimon. That goes for everyone else, as well.

[Neil Preston]

If you're curious, I also have theories relating specifically to those novas who 'conjure life' from nothing.

I sure am.

[Walker]

Hmmm, this stuff is deep. Makes me wish I had an intutive understanding of quantum mechanics and a four digit IQ.

OK, here goes.

Quantum wave functions collapse when some sort of intangible force acts upon them, the observer effect. Possibly all things have this observer effect on other things, which raises the interesting question, would the stars shine if there was no one to observe them? Probably. That's my guess.

Novas seem able to amplify the quantum wave function or at the very least select the way they want the wave function to collapse. In practical terms Novas can select what is possible out of the multitude of ways that things could turn out. They can also make possible things that wouldn't happen in a trillion years by amplifying the wave function.

Did I have a point?

Oh yeah, all of which is cool and groovy.

[kestrel404]

Walker: I think you have a slight misunderstanding of the observer effect. It's not that it is an 'intangible force'. Far from it, which is a cause of that effect. What I'm getting at is that the observer effect exists because, in order to find out something about an object (be it particle, wave, atom, star, whatever), you either have to bounce something off of it, or bounce it (or whatever it's emitting) off of something else, thus irrevocably changing it.

If that's a bit esoteric, here's a concrete example. Imagine a lonely proton (hydrogen ion, if you want) in space. How do you know it's there? Well, you could shine some light on it (light pressure would excite it and change its energy level), you could measure its gravity (any mass affected by the proton would also affect the proton), you could place an object in its path and wait for it to bounce off (again, changing its trajectory). Whatever you do to locate it, the proton is changed in some way. That's the observer effect.

As for the rest of it, yeah, that's a good theory. No idea how to test it, but a good theory nonetheless.

Neil: Heh, now you've done it.

My current theory is that the creation of matter and the creation of life forms by novas are two sides of the same coin. I myself can get perfectly normal, inanimate matter to move and act in ways resembling life, so it isn't too big of an intuitive leap.

The level to which this 'spontaneous life' mimics real organic systems most likely varies from nova to nova. Tarot's creations, at a guess, are probably nothing more than perfectly detailed golems, with perhaps a smattering of macro-scale viscera. Managerie's creations, on the other hand, would probably be multicellular creatures (possibly with working cells, possibly with cellular replicas) very close to living organisms. This has been proposed before, and is relatively well accepted within the quantum theory community.

My personal belief is that the matter that these creatures are created from (as well as what most matter creators use) is not actually the matter common to our universe. It is a form of pseudo-matter that uses different kinds of sub-atomic particles, has an entirely different chemistry, and is far more susceptible to quantum manipulation than regular matter. However, it would also be far more unstable (not in an explosive way, but in a self-disintagratory way).

I've been hoping to meet a matter or life creator in order to test this theory, but they're relatively rare even for novas.

[Magus]

Alchemist, thank you for the exposition on neurons. I do not debate your assertions on their natue or qualities though I assign less value to the molecular variations. I may be proven wrong in that.

One observation that may be of interest to you, when you talk about switches in modern computer processors its as if they were the simple binary state devices of yesteryear. While far from the holy grail of quantum state, true multistate systems are as beyond binary state as... Well, quite beyond them.

[kestrel404]

Increase my complexity estimates for modern day computers by five or six orders of magnitude. How does this change my point?

I was just eliminating what I saw as an erroneous argument, and explaining why it would not stand to careful examination.

I am still quite interested in your claim of quantum level consciousness.

Your primary reasoning so far has been that baselines could detect the presence of 'highly tainted' individuals without measureable (on the physical level) stimuli. I would be interested in the specifics of that experiment, if you want to send them to me. I can understand that you would be reluctant to post them publicly, and I also understand if an NDA bars you from giving up those details.

Do you have any other reason for beliving this? Is it intuition (an undervalued tool in my opinion) or opinion?

I appologize if I seem to be overly focused on this topic. It touches upon some of my current research, and I always appreciate additional viewpoints.

[Xeno]

The Gate and The Key are not yet sought, even if they are to be found.

Zeal is only for acquisition of data. It was merely hoped to convey that the nature of consciousness is seen as a critical course of study.

The Grand Unified Theory, for example, is/will-be nice. But that is perhaps only knowing about where we are. What we are seems a logical priority. Where 'we' = self-aware beings.

Which is not to say other courses should be neglected.

...

Though this is one subject where the neglect of other courses might the considered justifiable. Maybe.

...

Further zeal will be contained until concrete corroboration of the theory is available. Further investigation will be supported by any reasonable means available.

[Neil Preston]

Alchemist, there is the theory that at a certain level of complexity, an electronic process will become "aware" and capable of random thought and reasoning. I don't know if I buy into it, but it's out there.

On the subject of intuition:

I hear that term used allot among the elites I treat. The "I could sense something bad was about to happen, so I dodged left/right/up/down/were ever" which they use to explain to me why they aren't dead. It isn't just from hostile sentient sources, but from mechanical ones too.

I have also heard this described as discerning future probabilities, tachyon sensitivity, and looking ahead in time. Some guy actually joked to me that his "Spidey" Sense was tingling, if you can believe that.

The thing is, how does this work?

Are they tapping into this Quantum Consciousness, which seems not only capable of dealing with present conscious thought, but bridging space and time as well?

[Xeno]

Maybe some, likely not all, precognition, it is speculated, can be predicated on the innate pseudo-predictability of certain finite event-sets.

Given sufficient environmental data, a sufficiently enhanced subconscious might simply simulate reality forward and thereby provide warning of impending events of note to the consciousness, when a threshold of criticality is exceeded.

...

With the provision that the accuracy of such predictions would likely be subject to detectable statistical variance depending on the presence of confounding variables.

[kestrel404]

On Intuition & Precognition:

I actually don't have any problem at all believing that a nova can gather information from the (possible/likely) future directly, without superior knowledge or understanding of the present. You must understand a few elements of theoretical physics to see the connections, but they're not too dificult to explain.

First, you must realize that all information is a form of energy. All information is a form of order, where that order represents the information and any other order would represent different information. Because of the second law of thermodynamics (things fall apart), order, and therefore information, becomes a form of potential energy, while creating order (gaining information) becomes a form of energy transfer. Proving this involves a lot of math, mostly in fields where I don't have much expertise.

But you must realize that information by itself has very little energy. Virtually none, in fact. But because it has non-zero energy, it also has non-zero mass, and because of that, it cannot travel through time without incredible amounts of energy being applied to 'push' it.

Well, Novas have been proven to be capable of manipulating time to some extent. And it is much more difficult to manipulate physical matter temporaly than it is to manipulate information temporaly (at least, according to theoretical physics).

Thus, temporal information transfer even over relatively long temporal distances (years) should be possible for strong novas.

Neil: I don't really buy the 'make it complex enough and it will start thinking' argument either. I don't believe that consciousness is either random or default for sufficiently complex systems. It has to be designed into a system (and evolution took a LONG time to make us, with lots of stops along the way).

As for tapping quantum-consciousness, it's plausible, maybe. That's why we're talking about it here.

Xeno: I'm sure that some forms of nova intuition are forward-projection based on heightened awareness. Likewise, I'm sure that some intuition is due to a temporal-telepathic link between the nova's present and future/past self. There are lots of us and we're all different.

[kestrel404]

My, I'm explaining all of my pet theories here, and nobody's picked a fight with me yet. I don't mind people disagreeing with me. Anyone have a bone to pick yet?

[Walker]

Alchemist As I say it's not my field I should have left out the word intangible, right. Slight misunderstanding? Correct. But I was actually trying to say pretty much the same thing as you did, there's nothing special about the observer. You put it more scientifically than I could

On the subject of intuition and precognition:-

My own experience leads me to believe that what Neil says is some-what true for my way of precognition. In my case I am able to tap into my future mind-state quite easily, but I can pick up impressions that have nothing to do with my future mind-state as well. In the cases where I glimpse the past it almost never involves any previous mind-state unless I am deliberately trying to recall some detail with absolute clarity.

I also have a super-enhanced sense of intuition, this could be considered seperate and more in line with what Xeno proposes. I see this as a super-enhanced version of normal Baseline intuition. You know the sort of thing, an experienced copper can spot a wrong 'un a mile off. Perception and memory interact at a sub/semi-conscious level. However my intuition is also triggered by events other than environmental clues. Hence I call it super-enhanced.

Hopefully this provides some interesting data for the Super-Scientist types.

[Magus]

I believe you are understimating the capacity of this years processors and overestimating the processessing capability of neurons and neural networks.

However I can only repeat that my research is incomplete. There are a number of things I believe but I don't see any answer I could give being satisfactory to you until it could be proven beyond a doubt.

[Xeno]

If basic logical capacity is insufficiently relevant, the/a question becomes: What physical properties (or processes) lead to a developing brain (or other sentience-recpticle) attaining/maintaining consciousness?

Follow up query: Could these conditions (theoretically) be replicated entirely mechanically?

It is wildly and un-supportably speculated, based on the unverified quantum theory of consciousness (Psimon, 2015), that a viable brain-like-item displays properties that attract and/or capture pre-existing, self-contained kernels of quantum awareness.

Alternative speculation holds that a viable brain-like-item manipulates undifferentiated 'background quantum' to generate new consciousness.

If either case were so, it might be argued that every conscious being was, minimally, a low-grade quantum manipulator.

[Magus]

Rather than posit the capacity for quantum manipulation, you could argue that self aware minds are by their nature simply sensitive to changes in the quantum field.

[Gerald Haney]

I'm not going to pretend that I've been following most of this but I thought I'd share an experience.

So, I'm looking at this guys brain. Inside it, at the cellular level and checking out energy patters and quantum style stuff. Seeing cells die and be created. Seeing his brain basically die and birth. Basic human stuff. But the energy that was his memories, his personality, it wasn't changing. The cells were changing, but nothing else was.

Kind of eye opening.

[Magus]

Thank you for sharing that anecdote Gerald. At a later time I'd like to hear a more detailed account for my research.

[Neil Preston]

Injuries to the brain are interesting to heal.

Gerald, given enough time and lack of use, you will find these memory pathways degrade and alter. Tracing this in long term memory areas is facinating to trace. For short term memory areas, it is pretty terrifying.

[Magus]

Is this statement a comment on baseline normals or trends among novas?

[Neil Preston]

Is that a question for me?

[Walker]

Everyday events are quickly broken down into categories and stored. That's the way that short term memory works given various biological constraints and assumptions. More novel or traumatic events are stored more completely because they simply can not be categorised so easily. That's why most people can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on N-day (same assumptions apply).

The body is constantly making small adjustments and replacing lost tissue to maintain a steady state, it's bit like running on a treadmill (same assumptions, same assumptions).

[kestrel404]

I should have called this thread Quantum Consciousness Theory. Oh well.

Gerald: Now that's an interesting observation. I can't percieve energy patterns directly, only matter. That leads me to a somewhat materialistic bias in my scientific insights. Care to share more?