huping hu et al- various aspects of consciousness & nature of time continued

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 640-784

ISSN: 2153-8212 Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

www.JCER.com

Volume 1 Issue 6

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research

Various Aspects of Consciousness & Nature of Time Continued

Plus Short Accounts of Some Major Thinkers in Consciousness Studies & Reviews of Books on Paranormal, Healing of Belief, Spirituality,

Panpsychism & “Punk Science”

Chief Editor: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D.

Associate Editor: Maoxin Wu, M.D., Ph.D.

Editor-at-Large: Gregory M. Nixon, Ph.D.

Advisory Board

Dainis Zeps, Senior Researcher, Institute of Math and Computer Science. Univ. of Latvia, Latvia

Matti Pitkanen, Ph.D., Independent Researcher, Finland

Arkadiusz Jadczyk, Professor (guest), Center CAIROS, IMT, Univ. Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Alan J Oliver, Independent Researcher, Australia

Sultan Tarlacı, Neurology Specialist, NeuroQuantologist, Turkey

Gregory M. Nixon, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada

Stephen P. Smith, Visiting Scientist, Physics Dept., UC Davis, United States

Elio Conte, Professor, Dept. of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences, University of Bari, Italy

Michael Persinger, Professor, Dept. of Psychology & Biology, Laurentian University, Canada

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Table of Contents Articles Consciousness, Mind and Matter in Indian Philosophy Syamala Hari 640-650 Consciousness, Lack of Imagination & Samapatti Alan J. Oliver 651-656 Interactions among Minds/Brains: Individual Consciousness and Inter-subjectivity in Dual-Aspect Framework Ram L. P. Vimal 657-717 Explorations (Edited by Nixon) The Great Divide That Separates Humans from Animals Roger Cook 718-728 ‘Conventional time t’ versus ‘Rhythmic Time T’ (Two Faces of One Mystery) Peter Beamish 729-744 Review Article Eminent Entities: Short Accounts of Some Major Thinkers in Consciousness Studies Peter Hankins 745-763 Commentary Commentary on Nixon's Guest Editorial in JCER V1(5): Consciousness, Mind and Matter in Indian Philosophy Syamala Hari 764-766 Response to Commentary Response to the Commentary of Syamala Hari : ‘Who Can Say Whence It All Came, and How Creation Happened?’(‘Rig Veda’, X, 129) Gregory M. Nixon 767-769 Book Reviews Review of Charles T. Tart’s Book: The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together Stephen P. Smith 770-772 Review of Gregg Braden's Book: The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits Stephen P. Smith 773-775 Review of B. Alan Wallace & Brian Hodel's Book: Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality Stephen P. Smith 776-778

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Review of David Skrbina's Book: Panpsychism in the West Stephen P. Smith 779-781 Review of Manjir Samanta-Laughton's Book: Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God Stephen P. Smith 782-784

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Article

Consciousness, Mind and Matter in Indian Philosophy

Syamala Hari*

ABSTRACT

Consciousness and its relation to the physical body were thoroughly analyzed in the Indian philosophy of ancient times. This philosophy contains many concepts which can lead to scientific answers to some of the questions that brain scientists and modern consciousness researchers are concerned with. In Indian philosophical literature thought is often described as being very fast and one that never comes to stop. Properties of thought described in this literature are very similar to those of faster-than-light objects, known as tachyons in modern physics. It will be possible to describe mental processes and interaction of mind with ordinary matter, in the terminology of mathematics and physics and quantum mechanics in particular, by means of a theory based on this philosophy’s concept that mind consists of superluminal objects.

Key Words: consciousness, mind, matter, Indian philosophy.

1. Introduction Consciousness and its relation to the physical body were thoroughly analyzed in the Indian philosophy of ancient times. This philosophy contains many concepts which can lead to scientific answers to some of the questions that brain scientists and modern consciousness researchers are concerned with. In particular, we will discuss this philosophy’s proposition that mind is faster than matter (hence faster than energy and light) and how this proposition sheds light on questions such as “is monism or dualism, which theory can better explain consciousness scientifically”, “is dualism necessarily unscientific?”, “How does a living brain create subjective experience?”, “is quantum mechanics necessary to explain consciousness in a brain?”. In Indian philosophical literature thought is often described as being very fast and one that never comes to stop (interestingly, according to today’s physics, a faster-than-light object, known as tachyon, cannot be brought to rest). If mind indeed consists of superluminal objects then it may be possible to describe its properties and processes and its interaction with ordinary matter in the terminology of mathematics and physics and quantum mechanics in particular. We will use the brain-computer analogy to present some ideas from the ancient Indian Philosophy which helps modern researchers to find scientific explanation of how the physical brain and the mind work together and how subjective experience occurs in the brain. Indian Philosophy is often considered to be a mystery and incomprehensible probably because it was all written long time ago and in Sanskrit, a language not spoken today and also because consciousness is discussed here in the context of spiritual progress. Contrary to such myths this literature’s analyses are objective and concerned with understanding reality and perception of reality rather than with faith and what one should believe in. In recent days,

*Correspondence: Syamala Hari, retired as Distinguished Member of Technical Staff from Lucent Technologies, USA.

E-mail: [email protected]




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some quantum physicists think that this ancient knowledge includes concepts which resonate with findings in quantum physics.

2. Consciousness, Free Will, Mind, and Matter in Indian Philosophy This philosophy makes a distinction between free will and all other aspects of what we call consciousness of humans and other living beings in modern terminology. All aspects other than free will, such as desires, logical thought, remembering, emotions, experiences, imagination and so on, are all seen as involving a certain memory, and can be amenable to scientific explanation but not free will. Briefly, this philosophy’s view of consciousness is as follows: The physical body of a living being is like a piece of hardware. It is made up of matter. Every living being, human or animal, or any living organism (possibly excluding some primitive forms of life), has an accumulation of experiences and therefore an accumulation of information, in other words a memory (called Manas in this literature), which we will call mind in this paper. In this sense, mind is like a computer memory containing data and programs. Just like a computer's hardware and software do not know what they are doing, their own existence, and the meaning of their memory contents, both the body and the mind of a living being also do not really know anything but there is a certain Consciousness (apart from the mind mentioned above) that "knows". Consciousness is like the computer operator, as it were, and the one who "really knows" everything that is part of the living being’s activity. Although a computer does not really know or understand anything it does, once it is equipped with stored information (both data and programs) and mechanisms to store, retrieve, and process information, it is able to exhibit or simulate many "intelligent" behaviors such as learning, planning, and pattern recognition. Machines which do not have these memory mechanisms cannot exhibit such "intelligent" behaviors. Hence machine intelligence is based on memory mechanisms and we may say that an artificially intelligent machine is “intelligent” but not “conscious”, where by “intelligent” we mean the ability to store, retrieve, and process information. On the other hand, human beings (and probably other living beings) are not only “intelligent” like the “intelligent machines” in the sense that they perform various functions in life using the physical brain (similar to hardware) and the information stored in the brain (similar to software) but they are “conscious” as well; they know what they are doing at least when awake. Indian philosophy emphasizes that there is “Consciousness” same as FREE WİLL, different from and independent of any living being’s memory and its contents and mechanisms. Moreover, intelligence in living beings, unlike in computers, is not merely a material process but is a process of interaction between ordinary matter of the physical body and some stored information made up of faster-than-light matter. A living being’s experiences and emotions are responses of this faster-than-light software to the sensory inputs. The difference between a living being and a lifeless stone is that the living being has the necessary faster-than-light information to create experience whereas neither the stone nor the computer have it. The stone’s inability to create experience is perceived by us as lack of self-awareness. The philosophy makes a distinction between “information” and “Consciousness”; the former produces experience in response to external inputs just like a computer’s software while “Consciousness” is the ability to “really know” and “choose”. As already said, what we call consciousness in modern terminology is divided into two components: one is free will and the other is mind, the source of “intelligence” explained

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above. Free will is independent of all causes; it is the ability to decide consciously and independent of any reason from the past or present, and without expecting anything in the future. Manifestation of free will is not an unconscious nondeterministic random occurrence. Free will is independent of space and time; its existence does not depend upon any memory, and it is not bound by any rules or logic. It is said to be nishkarana meaning that it is not the effect of any cause. (After all, it is free; it would not be free if it depends upon anything else for anything!) Therefore its existence cannot be described nor its occurrence be predicted by means of a formula expressed in terms of space and time using some language such as physics, mathematics, quantum mechanics, or computer science or any other science! (Note that every language consists of a certain set of symbols and rules to manipulate those symbols). Existence of such free will needs to be taken as a postulate in any theory that tries to explain subjective experience. One may say that the above approach to consciousness is similar to the first type of approach that Chalmers criticizes (1995) as one that altogether avoids the “hard problem” by assuming that free will is outside the domain of science. However, to insist that everything we experience must have scientific explanation involves assuming the opposite, namely, that nothing exists beyond space and time; in my opinion, the opposite assumption is just as valid or as invalid as the former assumption that something does exist independent of space and time. In spite of asserting that free will is independent of space and time and not bound by logic, Indian philosophy can contribute to scientific knowledge of how experience occurs in our brains and we will try to describe this contribution in what follows. The mind, excluding free will is called Manas. Manas keeps accumulating more and more contents as life goes on. Manas is a sense like other senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste; it is the sense of memory and logic. Manas is said to be sukshma meaning subtle (like “soft” in the word software) as opposed to the physical body which is sthula (like hardware) meaning perceivable directly by physical processes of seeing, touching, hearing, smelling and tasting or indirectly by physical means. Manas is different from the body in that neither of the two can be transformed into the other unlike for example, matter and energy which do transform into each other in specific situations. In this literature, Isavasyopanishad for example (Swami 1990; p 139), mind is often described as being faster than matter (hence faster than energy, that is, light) and that mind never comes to rest (Mukherjee 2002). Hence the assertion that the body and the mind cannot be transformed into each other is valid according to the theory of relativity. But it is possible for the body and the mind to interact with each other producing more mind and changes in the body. Interestingly, after failures of experiments to create tachyons in bubble chambers, Feinberg (1970) conjectured that tachyons probably cannot be produced from matter but that it is possible that tachyons do interact with matter; thus his view is consistent with the above view of mind and matter although he never associated tachyons with mind. If mind indeed consists of faster-than-light objects, then it is possible to describe its properties and processes in the terminology of mathematics and physics and quantum mechanics in particular. It may be possible subsequently, even to verify the theory using biological experiments. Using Bohmian Mechanics, in an earlier paper (Hari 2008), it is shown that a zero energy tachyon can do what an Eccles’s psychon would do, that is, trigger exocytosis simultaneously across a whole dendritic tree by interacting with vesicles in multiple boutons and “collapsing” their two-state quantum wave functions into the state that promotes exocytosis. Although physicists (other than a few who believe in tachyons) usually tend to avoid tachyons in their work, it is interesting that Fred Alan Wolf (2008) recently stated some quantum field




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theoretical concepts associating tachyons to mind. In the past, there has been at least one theoretical physicist, Late Regis Dutheil, a quantum physicist, a consciousness researcher, who proposed a model in which mind is a field of tachyonic or superluminal matter1.

3. Some Rationale for Dualism:

3.1 A Representation of Information is different From Information itself Chalmers (1995) points out that there is no convention followed by researchers as to the use of the word “consciousness” and that “as things stand, those who talk about consciousness are frequently talking past each other”. The same statement applies to the word “information” because “information” is used often without a precise definition assuming that the reader should know its meaning because it is such an easy word. There are a number of phrases floating around: “physical information”, “classical information”, “quantum information”, all of which represent a physical quality such as energy. In the context of the “hard problem” or “explaining consciousness”, one has to understand “information” as Searle (1980) explains: the living brain and mind deal with meanings. In this context, Shannon’s definition of information does not apply because it is irrelevant to meaning or experience. In the previous section we said that a lifeless stone does not have memory mechanisms to receive inputs and generate responses and that this lack of ability to react is what we perceive as lack of self-awareness. Hence one may ask: why then is a computer which does have memory mechanisms and which produces apparently intelligent responses, not self-aware? That is because the computer carries only a REPRESENTATION of information but not any "real information" or “phenomenal information” (Chalmers 1995) which only exists in the programmer's head. Still, amazingly, once a REPRESENTATION of a piece of information is entered into the computer, it can add, subtract, or a draw a picture of it, and so on; it can do almost anything that a person can do with that piece of information and behaves as though it knows the information without "really knowing" it. So, there is a certain "real information" present in human beings and probably in all living beings that is not yet found in a computer digital or quantum. The same meaning may be conveyed by different words in different languages. Hence the meaning is different from any of the words which are used to convey the meaning. Meaning exists only in the brain but not in the words nor in the paper on which the words are written. Sometimes language is not even used to communicate information. For example, a right signal flashing from a car is an indication to others that the car is about to make a right turn. Thus the same piece of information can be conveyed in many ways and the means of communication always uses a representation. The representation may be in the form of words, sounds, electrical signals, and so on. A language is a mapping of information into words (symbols) which become sound energy when pronounced, and particles of matter when written on a paper, and become electrical energy when transmitted over a telephone line. Yet information exists only in the brain and is different from the language or signals that are used for its communication just like water is different from its container without which it cannot be 1 Dutheil, M.D. considered that the mind, though of tachyonic nature, belongs to the true fundamental universe and that our world is merely a subluminal holographic projection. He taught physics and biophysics at "Poitiers" Faculty of Medicine. He dedicated himself to research in fundamental physics from 1973 on. He was the author of "Superluminous Man" & "Superluminous Medicine". He was a joint Director in "Louis de Broglie" Physics Foundation in Paris. (Evellyn Elsaesser Valarino 1997)




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taken from place to place. We are so accustomed to using material representations to store or communicate our thoughts because we cannot help it, that we do not even recognize the fact that information and its mapping are different. In a digital computer or even in a quantum computer, we know that the meaning is not generated within the computer but the programmer assigns the meaning to strings of bits and bytes or qubits, all of which are in their turn, mapped to the states of some specific hardware units in the computer. Thus the computer carries only a mapping of information that is within the programmer’s brain but does not actually contain the meaning. So when we talk about information (data and algorithms) contained in a computer, we are referring to the mapping contained in the computer, of a certain phenomenal information which is really outside the computer. If the computer is broken, we can still run the software on another computer provided we have saved a copy of the software on a storage device such as a CD (compact disc). The point is that software exists independent of any computer hardware although the software existence and features can be recognized only when it executes on a piece of hardware by receiving some inputs and producing some outputs. It is not that reductionists (those who argue that consciousness is a state of matter) think that a computer knows the meaning of its memory contents but they believe that the biological matter in a living brain somehow creates the meaning although any matter outside the brain does not. However, they have yet to prove what they believe. Indian Philosophy is dualistic in the sense that it asserts that just like in the computer, the living brain’s software, namely, the mind is also “real information” and it is not a form of matter or a material energy field; it consists of tachyonic matter, and cannot be created from ordinary matter all by itself. (However, mind interacting with matter can produce more mind; see the next section.) According to this philosophy, the physical body and mind of a living being are two different components in the sense that one cannot be transformed into the other unlike matter and energy which do transform into the other in some situations. However, body and mind do interact. Life is the process of interaction between the body and the mind (in the computer analogy, this interaction is similar to execution of software). Life begins when mind starts interacting with the body and lasts as long as the interaction continues. At death, the body is no longer able to support the interaction (just like a computer with defective hardware does not support software execution). The reincarnation principle of eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism for example, states that a living being’s mind does not cease to exist when the being dies but survives and that the surviving mind can start interaction with another body if a suitable body is found; in other words, take a new life. This can now be seen as nothing more than an inference from the computer analogy: a computer with broken hardware cannot run a piece of software which if saved on a CD, can be entered into another computer and made to run again! Needless to say that it is only an analogy and the principle itself is not yet proved by modern science. Indian Philosophy is known mostly as monism because it explains elaborately that Consciousness (same as free will) alone appears as the various forms in the universe, mind, matter, and all. The well known example given is that Consciousness is like gold and all objects in the universe are like jewels made out of gold. Since the philosophy also claims that this fact can be realized only by spiritual means beyond the mind and beyond all external means, the monistic part doe not conflict the dualistic part described above.




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3.2 Desire, Purpose, Aristotle’s Final Cause and Free Will

3.2.1 Problem Solving and Inductive Reasoning Inductive reasoning sees a common feature, a pattern, or a relation in the data presented and generalizes the finding by assuming it to be applicable to new cases. Induction involves anticipation from experience (Von Wright 2000: p 13). Hence an element of uncertainty is associated with conclusions obtained by inductive reasoning. On the other hand, deduction is an inference process that generates conclusions from general rules and facts; therefore one can be sure that a deductive conclusion is true if the premises from which it is derived are true. The reasoning by which a scientist formulates a theory to explain the observed facts is inductive; that is why a scientific theory is usually accepted only after it is thoroughly tested experimentally. The reasoning by which a mathematician proves a theorem from already proved theorems and axioms is deductive and theorems are accepted unless a flaw is found in the logic of its proof. One need not be a scientist or a mathematician to be able to argue inductively or deductively. In daily life, we use both these types of reasoning often. For example, if we have to go out when rain is in the forecast, we take an umbrella with us. The reasoning that goes on in my brain when I pick the umbrella would be as follows: I recall from my memory a repeated observation (O) of people not getting wet in the rain if they use an umbrella. Then I make the assumption (A) that the observation will remain the same in the future and for all people (but usually not even aware of assuming so). Then from the observation O and assumption A my brain makes the inductive conclusion IC: “I will not get wet in the rain if I use the umbrella”. Then from IC and my desire D: “I do not want to get wet when I am out in the rain”, I deductively arrive at the conclusion DC: “I should have the umbrella with me”. Since IC is not a certainty and only an anticipation, for example, the umbrella may not work if the wind is too strong, philosophers discuss the so called Problem of Induction regarding the merits and defects of anticipation. We are not concerned here with justifying or finding fault with the assumption A; we will be concerned with another aspect of our thinking which is also related to the future and which occurs only too often. In the above example, one of the premises used to derive the conclusion DC is the desire D that I WANT to stay dry when it rains in the future; it is information about a future state of mine. D is essential for the conclusion DC because otherwise for example, a child for whom getting wet is fun may go out to play in the rain without an umbrella. Whether to take the umbrella or not depends upon whether one wants to stay dry or get wet in the future. All living beings and human beings in particular, almost always have a motive, a desire, or a purpose (called final cause by Aristotle) which makes them do whatever they do2, in order to achieve a goal. For example, a person takes a plane or a train because he/she wants to go to a place other than where he/she is at present. A cat jumps on a mouse in order to kill it. Note that jumping happens now and killing the mouse later but the cat has figured out that it should jump on the mouse first and it does just that. The point is that a desire or purpose involves a yet to be realized state of affairs. Yet, the desire to achieve an end is what starts the process of figuring out a means and implementation of the means for the sake of the end which is a future state when this process begins.

2 That need, want, and desire guide, determine, and induce action is Hume’s theory also. He believes that reason does not oppose passion but that reason only helps us discern what is true or false. It does not tell us what to do, what to care about etc. It does not tell whether to act or not but only tells the consequences of an action. Furthermore, he believes that reason is inert since it does not initiate, but only channels the impulse to act. Unlike Hume and other philosophers, we are not interested here in the topic of whether the end justifies the means but interested only in the fact that the end is a future state when action begins.




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Of course, free will may play the most important part in initiating an action by choosing the purpose of the action. For example, free will may choose either to go or not to go on vacation; free will may also decide whether to go to New York or London. Once the choice is made, say London, it becomes the desire to go to London (and a content of the brain’s memory). The appropriate action starts with buying a flight ticket to London and depends upon the information of the future state of being in London. Indian philosophy makes a distinction between desires or purposes and free will as follows: Note that we said above that free will “may choose” the desire or purpose and not “chooses” the desire or purpose because the desire or purpose of a given action may itself be the result of other desire/s or purpose/s and not necessarily the choice of free will. For example, suppose one chooses to go on vacation (call the desire W) because he/she wants to have fun by being away from home. Then W is the effect of the cause consisting of two desires: W1 = wanting to have fun and W2 = wanting to be away from home together. Since both desires W1 and W2 are already in the memory, W is a result of a past state of the brain but not a direct creation of free will. One can now see that given any action, it is difficult to judge whether the action is initiated by free will or some desires or purposes already existing in the memory. The distinction between desires or purposes and free will is that the former are contents of a certain memory (the mind) whereas the latter is not. Indian philosophy views desire as essential to the creation and maintenance of life in this world (Swami 1990: p 139); like any other content of the mind it is different from both lifeless matter and free will. In any given situation, prior to taking an action, one first thinks about what one wants (called volition, passion, desire, etc.) and then how to get it (reasoning). The how-to-get-it part is known as problem solving in computer science. Problem solving and planning are among those considered as "intelligent" behaviors by Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts. Today’s AI programs solve many complex problems and come up with solutions more efficient and elegant than those which would have been obtained by human experts without the use of the AI programs. Note that these programs help the experts only with the how-to-get-it part of the thinking prior to the action to achieve whatever it is that the experts want to achieve. It is as though the programs do the reasoning for the experts instead of them doing the required reasoning in their minds. However, the program execution has to be started by an external input which then tells the program what to get3. For example, a chess playing program plays chess very cleverly and beats most chess players. When the opponent’s move is entered and go-button hit, it causes execution of some instructions stored in the computer memory and the program generates a strategy for win. It is as though the go-hit has told the program that its goal is to win and take action accordingly and immediately because without the go-hit the program would not have run; the chess playing program makes no move by itself because it has no desire to win! The input tells the program what its future state should be, namely that it should be the win state. Once this information is entered into the memory by a go-hit, it becomes part of the information of the very first state in the subsequent execution process. Every state in this process is the result of a past state or past states and the digital computer obeys the causality principle of classical physics. The computer enters a state because of what it has gone through but not because it wants to get into a future state. A quantum computer would play the chess game much faster and using cleverer strategies because it has much more capacity for storing information and parallelism for processing. Still, the algorithmic capacity of a quantum computer does not extend the class of functions computable by a conventional Turing machine and just like in a digital computer, a program execution can be

3 This is in accordance with Hume’s view (415): “Reason is and ought to be the slave of passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”




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started only by an external agent whether it is a human being, or living being or another computer program, or any other physical device. On the other hand, human beings almost always do whatever they do because they want to be somewhere or get something or be somebody, etc. The "want" or desire is all about a future state. This desire (or motive, purpose, goal etc.) needs to be input to the computer from outside in order that it starts the search for the problem solving strategy and then carry out the strategy whereas in a living being the desire is somehow created internally.

3.2.2 Causality: In the previous section, we saw that actions of living beings are often initiated by desires and purposes which are associated with future states of the living being. The search for an appropriate course of action and the action itself depend upon some information about a future state; for example, if I want to go to New York I will take a bus to New York but not to Philadelphia. Therefore, in my brain, information about a future state causes a change to its present state by initiating the appropriate action. This state of affairs seemingly violates the causality principle of classical physics that a cause should always precede its effect. It also seems to violate the causality principle in relativity theory which limits causes to the past light cone of the event to be explained (the "effect") based on the principle that causal influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Hence, if actions of living beings are initiated by information about some future states as said above, then an interesting and yet-to-be-answered question is “Are such actions consistent with the principle of causality of either classical or relativistic physics, and if not how does one justify them?”. In the present context, the paper “Causality and Tachyons in Relativity” written by Caldirola and Recami (1980) is particularly interesting. In the section with title ‘Can a Tachyonic Observer Inform Us about Our Future?’ of this paper, the authors conclude that a tachyonic observer can convey to an ordinary observer the effects on a future event E of the anti-signals (negative-energy signals) sent by himself to E so as to physically influence E. Hence the tachyonic observer seems to be doing the job of the how-to-get-it reasoning of section 3.2.1. According to Hume (1990, p413-418), one’s reason does the same job by telling that individual the consequences of an action. Ever since the birth of quantum mechanics (QM) physicists believed consciousness to play a role in some quantum events (the collapse of the wave-function). Some physicists even hope that QM will be able to explain how free will occurs in the brain because QM is non-deterministic in the sense that it predicts probabilities of results of measurements but not the precise results. Beck and Eccles (1992) used QM to suggest that consciousness could be nonmaterial but nevertheless it can control matter. They proposed an explicit role for consciousness in one of the brain’s biological processes, the exocytosis, a basic unitary activity of the cerebral cortex. The scientific community’s interest in using quantum theories to explain how the brain works is increasing. In the QM literature, there is extensive debate about the compatibility of QM with the causality aspect of relativity physics. For now, most physicists seem to agree that QM obeys what some of them call the weak causality principle (Cramer, 1980). This principle states that a controllable message cannot be sent backwards in time in any reference frame. It is possible that an explanation of the apparent retro-causality of desires and purposes may be found using QM.




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4. The Physical Brain Creates More Mind Not All By Itself but With the Help of an Already Existing Mind In the case of a lifeless computer, we know that programs can learn; they can even discover new formulas and theories from the data input to them. When a computer program learns, actually it creates in its memory new contents as patterns of states of its memory cells. The new information that the program is said to have discovered is obtained only by the programmer’s assigning meaning to the computer’s output consisting of numbers and letters (a certain language) corresponding to the newly created memory contents. The meaning to any language once again, is in the heads of programmers but not in the symbols of the language itself. So, the computer does not know the meaning of the new formulae it has created but the meaning is known only to the programmer or user. Another point to note here is that to create even such new patterns of memory cells though not new information itself, a certain piece of software is required to be present and complete execution in the computer; a machine which has no software or which cannot execute software cannot learn; in AI terms, such a machine cannot exhibit “intelligence”. As to the living brain, it starts learning from the moment it is born. Even if it does not learn new techniques of how to respond to situations, it constantly interacts with the environment and stores the experience and thereby creates new memory. Brain scientists do recognize formation of neuron patterns indicating creation of new memories. To be able to create new patterns of physical memory, similarly to the computer, the brain should already have some mind (brain’s software) prior to interacting with its environment and it does according to today’s brain science. Hence both reductionists and dualists would accept that the living brain (physical brain with mind) creates more mind upon interaction with the environment. Yet unlike the computer, nobody from outside assigns or can assign meaning to newly created neuron patterns but the living brain does it by itself. Reductionists claim that the meaning is a property of biological matter unlike the electronic circuits in the computer but they have yet to prove their claim scientifically. On the other hand, dualists think that mind is not a property of biological matter but have not yet attempted any scientific explanation of how such mind is created. By claiming that mind is made up of tachyonic matter, Indian Philosophy suggests a possible approach to a scientific explanation of why meaning, experience, and “real information” exist in a living brain but not in the computer or any physical means of storage or communication and how mind interacting with brain’s matter can create more mind.

5. Subjectivity The word subjective implies: that perception of reality is highly personal, that perception is not independent of the individual perceiving it but conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states, that it is modified or affected by personal views, previous experience, or background. Let alone human beings, and consider a robot for a moment. A robot's inferences and conclusions are always subjective because they depend upon the knowledge it already has in its memory, which includes the heuristics entered by the robot's programmer as well all the so far received external inputs (vision, sound, motor, etc.), which the robot has saved. For example, two robots may read the same answer sheet of a student from an exam,




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and one robot may give a "pass" grade to the student where as the other robot may "fail" the student; this happens if the definitions of "pass" entered into the robots' memories are different. So, a robot can have its own point of view. The point is that human perception is subjective for a similar reason. We saw in previous sections, that ever since birth, human beings (in general, many living species) should have a software-like entity in their system, which we called mind, since they learn from the moment they are born. Therefore, what two human beings learn, perceive, remember, or experience from same situation in the external world tend to be different at least slightly. Indian philosophy insists that each individual is born with their very own karma (subconscious memory of past actions whose consequences will take place in the future) and vasanas or samskaras (subconsciously remembered skills, inclinations, likes and dislikes, etc.) and hence equipped with a personalized memory with software-like contents. Hence what any two individuals learn from or their perceptions of the same external environment are in general different because the perceptions and learning are responses of their software-like minds to the inputs from the environment. But is the ability to acquire subjective knowledge is all that consciousness really is? Is it something else or something more? The two robots in the example above make subjective judgments but they do not have an experience and do not know what they are doing. It seems consciousness is more complicated than subjective knowledge and inference. According to Indian philosophy, the subjective experience arises because of the ever present Consciousness observing the mind’s contents and thoughts.

6. Summary Ancient Indian Philosophy makes a distinction between Consciousness (same as free will) and all other aspects of consciousness which involve memory; we referred to the latter as mind in this paper. In this literature, it is often stated that mind is faster than all senses (including sight) hence faster than light and that it never comes to rest. It is often stated that mind is a memory where all experiences, emotions, desires, etc. are stored. Mind is subtle unlike the physical body. When interpreted in the terminology of modern physics, the implication is that at least part of what we call mind is made of tachyonic matter. The proposal that the memory aspect of the mind is made up of tachyons provides a mathematical means to explain how brain creates mind and how mind acts upon the brain. It may be possible to verify this proposal experimentally as suggested in Hari (2008). To explain the views of Indian Philosophy on matter, mind and Consciousness, we compared the brain and its mind to the hardware and software of a computer, Consciousness being the computer operator as it were, and completely outside the computer and in control of it.

References Caldirola P and Recami E. Causality and Tachyons in Relativity. Italian Studies in the Philosophy of Science. D.Reidel Publishing Company 1980; 249-298 Cramer J G. Generalized absorber theory and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Physical Review D 1980; 22: 362-376. Chalmers David J. Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 1995; 2(3): 200-19. Hari Syamala. Psychons could be zero-energy tachyons. NeuroQuantology June 2008; 6 (2):152-160.




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Hume David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford Clarendon Press 1990; 413-418. Mukherjee B D. The Essence of Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, verse 34. Academic Publishers, Kolkata (2002);167-169. Searle John R. Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1980; 3: 417-457. Swami Rama. Wisdom of the ancient sages: Mundaka Upanishad. Himalayan International Institute of Yoga, Science, and philosophy of U.S.A 1990; 99, 139. Upanishads Sri Sankara's Commentary Isa, Kena, and Mundaka. Translated by Sastry SitaRama S. Natebran & Co. Printers and Publishers Esplande 1898; 9. Von Wright, Georg Henrik. A Treatise on Induction and Probability. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd 2000. Valarino Evelyn Elsaesser. The superluminal hypothesis in The Other Side of Life. Plenum Press New York, 1997; 193-228.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 651-656 Oliver, A. Consciousness, Lack of Imagination & Samapatti

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Consciousness, Lack of Imagination & Samapatti

Alan J. Oliver*

Article

ABSTRACT

Let me say from the outset that in all of the material written on the issue of consciousness I have

found little, if anything at all, about the presence of imagination and what part it might play in a

discourse about consciousness. In view of the ubiquitous nature of imagination, at least for most

people, this is hardly surprising. For people like me, lacking that faculty, it is quite a different story.

Over a lifetime trying to understand why most people find the way I think a bit odd, autistic even, I

have had to find my own answers, only to find that what the absence of an imagination can provide as

an answer for me just deepens the puzzle.

Key Words: consciousness, imagination, Samapatti, Yoga Sutras, Patanjali

Introduction

It is obvious from the thrust of articles in this journal that almost everyone approaches the issue of

consciousness from a scientific viewpoint, and I agree this is a reasonable stand to take. The problem

arises when a different view is offered; what we agree to allow as science is going to exclude any

information outside of the accepted concepts already explored. Having spent the past thirty years

seeking answers, and being mindful of my lack of any of the science and mathematics currently being

brought to bear on the subject, I have decided to simply say how the observation of reality without

the benefit (or not) of an imagination appears for me, and the risks and abilities this condition

bestows.

People who know me have found that I can only think simplistically, they know I don’t plan anything

and, in discussions, appear to think via leaps rather than a reasoned process. For me there is no gap

between question and answer. I cannot form mental images of anything or do ‘imagine a time when’

sort of exercises. On the other hand, most will also say I am relaxed in situations other find stressful

because I don’t extrapolate issues into threats. Things only began to fall into place when friends

sought me out for that very calmness they lacked and I began to question why.

In those one-on-one situations I found myself feeling their pain and, surprisingly, they felt my

stillness, thus alleviating their pain. We also found that some would ‘see’ mentally what I had

thought without any imagery. In one instance a woman asked me to help her disturbed cat; it was

antisocial and hadn’t washed itself for a year. Yes, it did smell a bit. I sat the cat on my lap and

focused on my stillness. The cat went to sleep and I had chaotic visual images, a bit like multiple

auras of migraine. The chaos cleared to become a garden scene viewed from cat eye-level. The plants

appeared to be very large and the colours were just shades of brown, yellow and red. After a while I

felt the cat would wake up. It woke and began to wash itself. Naturally I was a little surprised and

facing even more questions.

I will leave it to any of the scientists in the room to make a note of the questions arising from that

last paragraph. What it did for me was lead me to the science in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and I know

* Correspondence: Cr. Alan J. Oliver, 9 Mason Street, Port Elliot, South Australia 5212. E-mail: [email protected]


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the same material is available through the many Indian cultures and systems of belief. Patanjali

describes this blending of minds as Samapatti in Yoga Sutra 1.41. I also found another resonance in

Yoga Sutra 1.11, which describes two kinds of memory.

I have watched many TV documentaries on the advances in brain science and applaud these obvious

gains in our understanding of this fascinating subject. I also note that so far imagination has not been

given much investigation in these documentaries, most probably because it is more associated with

creativity and other deliberate thought processes. My view is that imagination is not always a

deliberate or voluntary process.

One aspect of this condition is that I feel little in the way of grief. Some ten years ago I was called to

the bedside of my eldest daughter who was comatose, having rejected a heart and lungs transplant

she received five years earlier. When I sat beside the bed in a room filled with grieving family and

friends I went into a state of intense grief as soon as I looked at her beautiful face. The bliss was

obvious to everyone in the room and I was not very popular in that moment. The bliss stayed with

me for a week or more. The point here is that afterwards, on remembering that event, I have only a

narrative of the time and place; there is no accompanying bliss. This is the same for all of my

memories. I believe that the re-experiencing of emotion when remembering an event such as I have

just described would have to involve some neural process, and in my case, that process must be

missing. It is my view that having an example of something missing in comparison to the general

population should raise a few questions for some research. It has done so for me and now I will try to

apply the Hindu science to my idea of the questions.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

The whole of the Yoga Sutras, along with other Hindu disciplines, are directed toward achieving

control over the mind. What this means is that we need to overcome the modifications of the mind,

and what modifies the mind is the inputs it receives through experience and through thought. The

final goal is the state of Samadhi, where the mind is under control of the observer, Self. The

recommended method of how this can be achieved is meditation. I quote from The Yoga Sutras of

Patanjali by Pandit Usharbuddh Arya, Published by The Himalayan Institute.

Yoga Sutra 1.41 states that when one’s modifications have subsided, his (mind’s) stability on and

coalescence with the apprehender, the process and instrumentation of apprehension and the objects

of apprehension, like pure crystal (which takes on the reflection and colour of proximate objects), is

called Samapatti.

Yoga Sutra 1.11 states that objects experienced not being lost is the modification called memory.

In commentary the question is asked; does the mind-field remember the cognition or the object of

experience, and answers with the following. “A cognition is associated with and coloured by the

object of apprehension and resembles and manifests the features of both the object apprehended

and the process and instrument of apprehension. Such cognition then produces an imprint

(modification) that is similar to both. That modification (also called samskara) then manifests its

identity with its own manifestative cause; it generates a memory. This memory is identical in form to

the same (samskara, its manifested identity, and the manifestative cause). It consists of both the

object apprehended and the process and instrument of apprehension.” And continues ……

“There, when the process and instrument of apprehension is the primary feature, it is intelligence

(buddhi). When the form of the object of experience is primary, it becomes memory. This memory is


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of two kinds: (a) where something imaginary is remembered, and (b) where something not imaginary

is remembered. All these modifications consist of pleasure, pain and stupefaction.”

Let me unpack these passages with a few explanations.

Apprehender is the reflection of purusha (pure consciousness) on the material state both real and in

potential. On the Yoga diagram from the first issue of JCER this is called Mahat or Buddhi. It is the

first field of discrimination and intelligence. It is the agent of pure consciousness.

The process and instrument of apprehension is the senses and their neural processes. This clearly

refers to the mind’s observation of the object as well as the physical processes employed by the

mind in reconstructing the object being remembered. In the process anything related to the object in

the individual’s experiences will be available to the mind. The formation of this extended body of

information is, I suggest, what we call imagination, although not imagination as a deliberate act.

The object of apprehension is what is being remembered in the case of memory, and the subject

being observed by the seer (the cat in the Introduction) in Samapatti.

Patanjali uses the term, ‘being in the presence of’ throughout the Sutras and it is effectively stating

that Samapatti is the process through which pure consciousness observes events in the material

world. Thus Buddhi has the capacity for intelligence and consciousness because it is in the presence

of purusha. Mind has the capacity of intelligence and consciousness because it is in the presence of

Buddhi. Pure consciousness is ‘without distinguishing mark’ and this is also true of Buddhi for that

same reason. Mind on the other hand is ‘with distinguishing mark’ in the form of samskaras, which

generate a constant stream of thought through involuntary imagination.

Mind is also in the presence of the body, and because it identifies with that particular body it also

identifies with the body’s experiences and its sensory system involved in those experiences. The

interaction of the mind’s evaluation of an experience (samskaras) gives rise to the physical activity

we call emotion. Having identified with an experience the mind can be said to have created the

emotion which arises with that experience, which is why a memory can evoke an emotion.

The fact of Samapatti can be taken as valid in the light of my experiences in healing. It also follows

that the requirement for Samapatti to be present has been met. Unless I have something to say or do

then my mind is empty, and since I have not ‘learned’ this quietness of mind the conclusion I have

drawn is that I do not imagine. I just happen to have been born this way. Most people find their mind

is always active and that is what they seek to control through meditation. My assertion here is that

involuntary imagination is the normal state of a mind, driven by the mind’s need to be vigilant for

any number of reasons.

Returning to the matter of lacking the feeling of bliss when I recall that time in the presence of my

dying daughter, it can be said that my conscious awareness of that event takes form at the level of

Buddhi on the Yoga diagram. The bliss experienced at the time was both visceral and euphoric

because it was experienced as a physical event in my life. The fact of its absence as a ‘normal’

memory suggests that it has not generated a samskara and therefore my mind remains empty except

for a narrative of the event from the perspective of a detached observer.


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Samapatti

I have been thinking about what Samapatti can tell us and especially the relatedness to the two kinds

of memory. I feel sure my ideas will hold from a Sankhya perspective as well as from that of

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. How one expresses any of this mathematically is up to one’s choice. In the

‘normal’ kind of memory the object being remembered is primary, while the process and the

instrument of apprehension are secondary. I believe the primary/ secondary points relate to what is

in the mind. In other words we are aware of the object when it is the primary component of a

memory.

I think the process of apprehension is the creation of a samskara = a modification of the mind. What

that means is that the individual will have the same response at that which first initiated the

samskaras and so the object returns to our mind. The same is true of the object is an event

containing an emotion; the same emotion is generated by the memory.

The instrument of apprehension, I believe, is Buddhi which is the source of the intelligence related to

the event. In the ‘second’ kind of memory the object is secondary while the process and the

instrument of apprehension are primary. Where this differs from the first is that the object or event

is known. There is no response similar to the first occasion because a samskaras was not created.

This just leaves the intelligence contained in Buddhi’s observation of the first event.

My assumption about Buddhi is that its intelligence derives from ‘a spark of purusha’ and, bearing in

mind that Patanjali tells us purusha is a reflection of Purusha (pure consciousness) within prakriti I

have assumed that, like Purusha, purusha is ‘without distinguishing mark’. Thus, I am saying the same

can be said of Buddhi and therefore this is why there are no samskaras which are, after all, the

distinguishing mark (modification) on Mind. Since the process and instrument of apprehension are

part of the description of Samapatti it is fair to say that once again, the intelligence acquired by the

seer is Buddhi’s observation. This is also why the seer knows that the condition of the subject, be

that pain or whatever, is not his (the seer’s) pain or condition. For the subject, the stillness of the

seer becomes a samskaras and, with repeated ‘doses’ may offset the subject’s focus on her/his

condition. We can call that a form of healing if only because of the benefit for the subject.

I expect the diagram will be a bit difficult but, with some questions I may be able to explain it:

A simplified Yoga Diagram

The ‘normal situation’

PURUSHA No distinguishing Mark

All knowing

In the presence of Purusha

purusha no distinguishing mark

A ‘spark’ of Purusha Possesses intelligence


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In the presence of purusha

Buddhi Faculty of discrimination

Observes First appearance of intellection

In the presence of Mind

I am the context developed by mind

Through imagination and experience

Mind I know/thoughts/samskaras

In the presence of Body

Body I act and experience/respond

The situation without the faculty of imagination

PURUSHA No distinguishing Mark

All knowing

In the presence of

Purusha

purusha no distinguishing mark

A ‘spark’ of Purusha Possesses intelligence

In the presence of purusha

Buddhi No distinguishing mark

Faculty of discrimination

Observes First appearance of intellection


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In the presence of Mind

I am the context developed by mind

through experience

Mind I know/thoughts/samskaras

In the presence of Body

Body I act and experience/respond

Conclusion

I realize that what I have written may appear different to the general discussions about

consciousness, and I do not claim any of the spiritual attributes of those who come to the Samadhi

state through disciplined study diligent practice. I am simply offering these observations of my

experiences as a validation of the knowledge given in many Hindu disciplines in the hope that they

may shed some light on the complex processes of memory. Memory is not just a matter of storing

information within a neural network. It involves presenting the information related to an experience

in many related contexts in terms of past experience as well as one’s sense of who I am and what my

hopes and aspirations at any moment might be.

The late David Bohm said that all matter contains all information. I would say that before matter

there is information, Bohm’s Implicate Order. Every form of life will have experiences, memory and

samskaras. The same information in Bohm’s Implicate Order will have an influence on each form in

accordance with its needs. The responses will appear to be different from specie to specie but in the

long run we are all running our different applications on the same operating system. In the same

way, what I have written can be interpreted into mathematical and scientific forms to find some

sense of it.

I realize that expressing this condition as a lack of conventional imagination is a difficult concept, and

after some thought I can amend that a little. We think and imagine against the modifications of mind,

and without those modifications the mind is mostly empty. The Hindu culture would say that I am

more or less in a constant state of Samadhi, and this would account for the apparent ability to enter

Samadhi without even thinking about it. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to find the gene for this,

the same Hindu culture would say there are just two ways to achieve this kind if Samadhi. The first is

through diligent study and applications of the discipline of Yoga Sutras, Sankhya, and Buddhism and

so on. The second is to be born that way. These options don’t leave much scope for classical science

unless we start asking different questions.

Further Readings

Oliver, A. J. Addressing the hard problem. JCER; 1:1 pp. 46-49, 2010.

Oliver, A. J. Addressing the hard problem. JCER; 1:2 pp. 153-158, 2010.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 657-717 Vimal, R. L. P. Interactions among Minds/Brains: Individual Consciousness and Inter-subjectivity in Dual-Aspect Framework

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Article

Interactions among Minds/Brains: Individual Consciousness and Inter-subjectivity in Dual-Aspect Framework

Ram L. P. Vimal*

Abstract Previously in (Vimal, 2010a), we argued that: (i) it is necessary to link experience and function aspect of consciousness with the related structure or neural correlate(s) of consciousness (NCC); and (ii) non-conscious experiences are equivalent to relevant proto-experiences at various levels because both are precursors of conscious subjective experiences aspect of consciousness. Here, in terms of dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE (proto-experience/subjective experience) framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), we argue as follows: (I) Non-experiential consciousness is a part of functional aspect of consciousness and consciousness is more fundamental than experience because experiences and functions are two aspects of consciousness.I (II) Therefore, one could argue for the continuum of consciousness, experience, and function. (III) The origin of individual consciousness could be a ‘universal background of awareness’ that is equivalent to virtual reservoir (where potential SEs are stored in superposed form, and a specific SE is selected via matching process) in the PE-SE framework. The interaction between zombies is relational but it would not lead to an individual consciousness in each zombie.1 The origin of intersubjective consciousness is the interaction between individual consciousnesses, i.e., interaction between ‘I’, ‘you’, and ‘she/he/it’, i.e., interactions between minds/brains and their environments. (IV) A specific SE is selected during matching process and conscious experience constructs the perception or SE of external objects. (V) The dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework is consistent with classical double-aspectism in the sense of inseparability of mental and physical aspect, whereas it is consistent with double-perspectivism in the sense that the mental aspect is known via first person perspective and the physical aspect is known via third person perspective. (VI) Our conventional reality is subject inclusive or mind dependent reality (MDR), whereas the subject exclusive or mind independent reality (MIR) remains always unknown even in so called samadhi state of mind that claims to have direct perception (or consciousness as such), which may or may not be close to MIR.2 (VII) The hard problems are Types 1-3

* Correspondence: Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal, Ph.D., Vision Research Institute, 25 Rita Street, Lowell, MA 01854 USA. E-mail: [email protected]. URL: http://sites.google.com/site/rlpvimal/Home. 1 It should be noted that interactions between zombies (molecule-by molecule like humans but have no SEs) would not lead to SEs aspect of consciousness although all instinctual impulsions are relational and zombies may have functions. 2 In other words, a MIR is literally inconceivable (since to conceive takes a mind) though this is a major delusion of almost all symbolic cultures (Nixon, 2010a). (Kant, 1787/1996) distinguished two worlds or realities (Sion, 2008): (1) Noumena, things in themselves (also called mind independent reality (MIR) or subject exclusive reality), which constitutes a transcendental reality that is unknowable because we have no empirical access. (2) Phenomena or things as they appear (also called mind dependent reality (MDR) or subject inclusive reality), which constitutes the immanent world of common experience and is maya or illusion. I do not suggest that a transcendental reality or MIR can be known by the human mind because mind will be involved in the process of knowing. According to (Vimal,


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explanatory gaps: Type-1 explanatory gap is how can SEs emerge from non-experiential matter (emergentism) or identical with respective neural states (identity hypothesis of Type-B materialism)? Type-2 is how can SEs pre-exist? And Type-3 is how can physicists claim that MDR is MIR? The hard problem of panexperientialism is how can experiences create the matter of mind independent reality? (VIII ) The predictive behavior (developmental rhythmic call and response behavior) and then existential crisis contribute towards the emergence of consciousness. On the basis of evolution, (a) individual consciousness in rudimentary form might have occurred about 540 mya during Cambrian explosion,3 (b) symbolic, language-using, Homo sapiens (tribal-centric consciousness4) emerged at around 150 kya, and (iii) self-centric or object-centric consciousness might have emerged at around 10 kya. (IX) (a) The existential crisis, biological crisis, and predictive behavior can be interpreted as the motivation/cause of the formation of appropriate neural-networks, and (b) self (SE of subject) occurred in brain when self-related neural-network were formed and necessary ingredients of consciousness were satisfied. (c) The co-evolution and co-development (neural Darwinism) of mind and brain5 and the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework are necessary in a complementary manner for physicalism and panexperientialism.6

2010d), “What is independent of subject? It is the external world, i.e., mind-independent reality (MIR: the world as it is, in-itself) that is brain-independent, but it is unknowable. According to (Kant, 1787/1996), thing comes to us only in appearance. One could argue that the MIR is the reality [or one could guess MIR] based on conjecture, an inference, or statement of belief. Whatever is known always involves brain. Thus, our daily conventional reality is mind-dependent reality (MDR: the world as it appears to us).” In samadhi state, the reality appears to be different from our daily usual conventional reality and is called ultimate reality, where mind is still involved so reality is still MDR. 3 mya: million years ago; kya: thousand years ago. (Nixon, 2010a) commented that the emergence of “individual consciousness” in the Cambrian explosion may not be correct, perhaps species awareness might be true. One should note that (i) the amoebae came first, (ii) all instinctual impulsion is relational, (iii) no need for individuals, and (iv) individuals who may resist species instincts are very late on the scene, since we are them.

My meaning of the term ‘individual consciousness’ is ‘experiences and/or functions of an individual organism interacting with environment’; which implies ‘relational’ concept because interaction is mandatory for co-evolution and co-development (neural Darwinism). My meaning of ‘intersubjective’ or ‘social’ consciousness is interaction between individual consciousnesses as discussed above. I rely on (Hameroff, 1998) for the emergence of consciousness during Cambrian explosion. 4 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that how the individual can be place before the tribe.

It appears that individual consciousness in rudimentary form might have occurred before intersubjective or social consciousness, which in turn might sharpen the individual consciousness. This is because for the interaction between two subjects such as I and You, ‘You’ and ‘I’ must exist before they can interact. In other words, ‘complete’ individual consciousness might have developed in two stages: (i) initial or rudimentary individual consciousness (which requires organism-environment interaction) and (ii) then sharpened or full-blown individual consciousness. 5 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that it sounds good but he does not think co-evolution Deacon-style (Deacon, 1997) is related to the intra-cerebral neural Darwinism of (Edelman, 1989, 1993), though they could be made to relate.

In the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), the theory of brain/language co-evolution Deacon-style (Deacon, 1997) emphasizes the significance of behavioral innovations, which modifies the human environment; this leads to successive genetic adaptation, i.e., it is related to the co-evolution of brain and mind (including language). This is different from the developmental neural Darwinism (Edelman, 1989, 1993) in a sense that the latter is related to the co-development of new born because it involves co-tuning via sensorimotor interaction until adulthood. 6 The dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) (a) is somewhat similar to Type-B materialism in terms of physical aspect but is complementary in the sense of providing information related to mental


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Inter-subjectivity can modulate the attributes of already created/occurred individual-self in self-related neural-network. Keywords: consciousness, dual-aspect dual-mode framework; experiences; conscious experiences; non-conscious experiences; non-experiential consciousness; functions; conscious functions; non-conscious functions; proto-experiences; subjective experiences; conventional reality; subject inclusive or mind dependent reality (MDR); ultimate realty, subject exclusive or mind independent reality (MIR); self; mind; awareness; panexperientialism; individual consciousness; intersubjectivity; social consciousness; universal background; virtual reservoir; physicalism; constructivism; existential crisis; predictive behavior; chaotic process; emergence of consciousness; double-aspectism; double-perspectivism. Table of contentII 1. Introduction 2. Conscious experience, non-conscious experience, and non-experiential consciousness 3. Continuum of consciousness, experience and function 4. Origin of experiences and consciousness: universal background and virtual reservoir 5. Physicalism (brain creates experience) versus constructivism (experience constructs brain) 6. Double-aspectism versus double-perspectivism 7. Mind-dependent reality (MDR) and mind-independent reality (MIR) 8. Hard problems 9. Existential crisis, predictive behavior, and chaotic process for the emergence of consciousness 10. Interaction between brains, inter-subjectivity, social consciousness, and origin of individual

consciousness 11. Summary and conclusion

1. Introduction In (Vimal, 2010a, 2010d), we proposed that structure, function, and experience must be appropriately linked. In (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e), we proposed that function and experience are mental entities and are the two aspects of consciousness. For example, there is a structure ‘V4/V8/VO’ color neural-network,7 which has a function of detection and discrimination of wavelengths of light and the experiences related to color vision.III

aspect and (b) is somewhat similar to panexperientialism in terms of mental aspect but is complementary in the sense of providing information related to physical aspect. 7 The color area ‘V8/V4/VO’ refers to visual area V8 of Tootell group (Hadjikhani, Liu, Dale, Cavanagh, & Tootell, 1998; Tootell, Tsao, & Vanduffel, 2003), visual area V4 of Zeki group (Bartels & Zeki, 2000), and VO of Wandell group (Wandell, 1999); they are the same human color area (Tootell et al., 2003). VO stands for ventral-occipital cortex. “A neural-network may be composed of all those cells (including receptors for signal transduction and deeper ‘lower’ parts of the brain) that are involved directly or indirectly in awareness. […] A neural-network consists of at the least (i) areas involved in stimulus dependent feed forward signals (such as LGN-V1-V2-V4/V8/VO for color), (ii) areas related to cognitive and attentional feedback signals (such as fronto-parietal areas), (iii) self related areas (such as cortical midline structures (Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004)), and areas involved in wakefulness (ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) system)” (Vimal, 2010d).


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There are over 40 different meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’, which were categorized in two general aspects: experience and function (Vimal, 2009e). In addition, some more aspects of consciousness are suggested by (de Quincey, 2010): (i) sentience, which is a “primitive capacity for feeling and self-motion in any individual organism”; (ii) awake/awareness that is the “higher form of sentience where organism can be either conscious or unconscious, awake or asleep”; (iii) interpersonal, which is (a) “knowing or sharing the knowledge of something together with an other” (Hunt, 1995), (b) “gateway to transpersonal consciousness”, and (c) “involving awareness not only of personal identity, but also of deep intersubjective foundation of all consciousness”; (iv) personal that is “individualized awareness with a sense of self identity”; (v) reflective, which is the “capacity for self to be ‘aware that I am aware’ -- the gateway to altered states of consciousness: ‘aware that I am aware that I am aware …’ ”; (vi) unitive, which “integrates all prior forms of consciousness into experienced unity”; and (vii) dissociative that is the “pathological failure to integrate prior forms of consciousness”. In addition, (viii) another aspect of consciousness is intersubjective that is “primordial condition and foundation for consciousness shared between all intersubjects”, which is spirit as per many traditions. These seems to be experiential aspects of consciousness, which can be added to the 20 experiential aspects listed in (Vimal, 2009e). In this article, in terms of dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), my goal is to address: (i) conscious experience, non-conscious experience, and non-experiential consciousness, (ii) continuum of consciousness, experience and function, (iii) origin of experiences and consciousness, (iv) physicalism versus constructivism, (iv) dual-aspectism versus double-perspectivism, (vi) mind-dependent reality (MDR) and mind-independent reality (MIR), (vii) hard problems, (viii) existential crisis, predictive behavior, and chaotic process for the emergence of consciousness, and (ix) interaction between brains, inter-subjectivity, social consciousness, and origin of individual consciousness. 2. Conscious experience, non-conscious experience, and non-experiential consciousness In (Vimal, 2009e), we proposed that the meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’ can be categorized in two aspects, namely, experiences and functions. Therefore, one can argue for the possibilities of (i) non-functional experience aspect of consciousness where a subject has experience without function (such as experiencing spandrels that have no known function) and (ii) non-experiential function aspect of consciousness or ‘non-experiential consciousness’ such as a zombie/robot can have function but no experience; for example, it can detect and discriminate red from green but cannot have SEs redness and greenness. Thus, one could argue that it is the consciousness which is more fundamental rather than experiences; this hypothesis is based on the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). This may be somewhat appear contrary to the hypothesis ‘experience is more fundamental rather than consciousness’ (Nixon, 2010b, 2010c), which is based on panexperientialism. This apparent contradiction may be due to the fact that functions are part of experiences in panexperientialism, whereas functions


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and experiences are two aspects of consciousness in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. Furthermore, Nixon’s hollows of experience seems equivalent to virtual reservoir in the PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), where proto-experiences (PEs) are close to non-conscious experiences because both are precursors of subjective experiences (SEs).8 According to (Nixon, 2010c), “all that is outside of language is non-conscious experience [but see his 21 indicators in (Nixon, 2010b)] in a reality that is largely a construction of our biological human sensory and memory systems relating to the things in themselves” [p.261]. If language implies reportable entities, then it is access consciousness (Block, 2005); however, the experiential aspect of phenomenal consciousness (which is not reportable) is conscious experience such as in experiments related to (Sperling, 1960), where stimuli were presented for less than 50 msec unless non-verbal language could have been used mentally.9 (Rosen, 2010) elaborates further and critiques (Nixon, 2010b): “Nixon effectively challenges the Cartesian paradigm of consciousness by demonstrating that experience is not limited to the reflective self-consciousness of human beings but pervades nature at every level [panexperientialism]. […] Nixon suggests that the current controversy essentially boils down to those thinkers who contend that all experience is conscious but distinguish reflective or self-consciousness from other forms of consciousness, and those who identify conscious experience with reflectiveness, all other experience being taken as non-conscious. The author appears to favor the latter view, as is consistent with his goal of demonstrating that the terms ‘consciousness’ and ‘experience’ are not interchangeable. […] To me it seems the underlying issue is indeed largely a semantic one revolving around the question of how broadly one defines the term ‘consciousness.’ […] I see no reason why the internalized sensations he refers to could not be considered rudimentary forms of consciousness, rather than as purely nonconscious experience. […] the two terms [consciousness and experience] are not interchangeable is rooted in a semantic predilection to equate all consciousness with fully reflective human consciousness, thereby disallowing the possibility of degrees of consciousness10.” (Nixon, 2010h) replied to (Rosen, 2010) as: “For me, however, semantics, the meaning we apply to words, matters. In the essay I suggest that we change our common usage to better illustrate the way non-human animals and perhaps even plants experience their world. […] if experience 8 It is useful to differentiate subjective experience (SE, such as redness) and its content (such as ripe red tomato). To clarify further, another example is: I have conscious subjective experience of my room and the contents of this experience are laptop, table, phone, printer, file cabinet, and so on. 9 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that if such stimuli were reportable later, they were conscious experiences. If they were not even conceivable, they are experience without consciousness. 10 (Nixon, 2010a) commented, “sure there are degrees of consciousness, but ALL human consciousness is framed by the primacy of self; that is, all human consciousness is self-consciousness, as philosophical phenomenology has taught us. (See (Zahavi, 2005)) That’s why other forms of ‘selfless’ experience should not really be called consciousness: we do not know what it is like to be a bat!”

Since there is no consensus on the meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’, it is useful to define which aspect or meaning an author is addressing to, for minimizing confusion. Some authors, such as Block, propose non-reportable experience as phenomenal consciousness.


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[internalized sensations] leads to more complex experience and finally to conscious experience, such momentary sensations are indeed ‘rudimentary forms of consciousness’. But I emphasize that such experience is best considered non-conscious because it is not aware of itself and has no conceivable means of becoming aware of itself. […] When we become aware of such experiencing, the experience achieves a conscious quality.” Furthermore, (Monteiro, 2010).p373 commented (Nixon, 2010b) as: “a relevant point not mentioned by Nixon is the existence of ‘consciousness without experience’. This is the domain of the emergence of the primary mind or ‘cognition’. […] You can’t witness or experience your own birth at that very moment of birth, they don’t coincide.IV One can think to the 'mind set' or person’s cognitive process of ‘I’ unaware to him/herself but consciously perceived as immediate experience by another person (mind-reading). Formally we can put this in a causal frame of ‘1st person cognition as cause’V and ‘2nd person perception (subjective conscious experience) as effect’ (Monteiro, 2009)”. In my view, (Nixon, 2010b; Nixon, 2010h), (Rosen, 2010), and (Monteiro, 2009; Monteiro, 2010) can be bridged using the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), where (i) consciousness has two aspects experience and function,11 (ii) both non-experiential12 (i.e. functional aspect such as in zombies/robots)VI consciousness and non-conscious experience are entertained, and (iii) there is a continuum of experience, function, and consciousness. Rosen commented (personal communication in May 2010) as follows: “I understand what you mean by ‘non-experiential consciousness’ but, if ‘non-conscious experience’ doesn't simply mean non-waking experience and doesn't mean non-reflective experience (as it does in Nixon's article), can you tell me what it does mean?”

11 (Adams, 2010a) commented, “Vimal’s central proposition is that ‘consciousness has two aspects, experience and function.’ Superficially, I would agree. Consciousness entails the aspect of experience, and consciousness has functional efficacy. The two qualities sometimes seem to be independent, as has been demonstrated for various forms of implicit cognition such as blindsight and perceptual priming. Nevertheless, that does not imply that the two qualities must be, or usually are, independent. Most of the time, conscious experience is entirely congruent with its functionality.”

As discussed in (Vimal, 2010e), there is an optimal definition of consciousness, which has the least number of problems and is AND type: optimal consciousness = conscious experience and conscious function. In addition, there is a general definition of consciousness, which accommodates most views and is AND/OR type: general consciousness = conscious experience and/or conscious function. Thus, the latter general definition encompasses the above Adams’ view.

12 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that he cannot see how experience [function] can be non-experiential — or neither conscious or non-conscious.

As noted above, Nixon seems to consider the functions (non-experiential aspect of consciousness) as a part of experiences in panexperientialism because only experience permeates the universe. However, in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, function and experience are two aspects of consciousness. Therefore, function can be non-experiential, such as functions of structure retina, zombies, hand, leg, and so on. The apparent problem is the different definitions of the terms; otherwise we do not seem to contradict that much. My definitions are derived from the meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’ by various authors in literature; see (Vimal, 2009e) and also (Vimal, 2010e).


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The term ‘non-conscious experience’ is defined in (Vimal, 2010e). To avoid circular definition, I need to define conscious experience first and then non-conscious experience: “Conscious experiences include all types of subjective or first person [waking] experiences including such as: (i) sensory experiences as redness (Vimal, 2009f); (ii) ‘what exists when there is something that it is like to be that thing’ (Nagel, 1974); (iii) phenomenal experience (Chalmers, 1996); (iv) reportable content experienced by living individuals (the ‘referential nucleus’ of the concept of consciousness, according to (Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009)), emotional experiences such as happiness, experiences related to thoughts (such as imagination/creative thinking), the experience of nothingness13 in meditation, experiences as the result of dynamical processes in the embodied and embedded view of cognition, experiences related to social interactions (Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009); (v) experiences related to self (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) and self-awareness (Perrett, 2003), and perhaps higher-order awareness (Carruthers, 2007; Rosenthal, 2009); (vi) experiences related to phenomenal time (Vimal & Davia, 2008); and (vii) inner/ outer experiences, hidden (other’s) experiences via a process of theorization or simulation or both, singular-detachable-individual experiences, and shared experiences (Torrance, 2009), and so on. Non-conscious experiences are those experiences that are not conscious experiences; for example, experiences related to pre-conscious, subconscious and unconscious domains, slow-wave dreamless deep-sleep, coma, vegetative, and anesthetized state. Non-conscious experiences can include experiences related to paradoxical awareness or awareness without being aware, such as subliminal perception and blindsight” (Vimal, 2010e). In addition, (Nixon, 2010b) has enumerated 21 indicators of non-conscious experiences. Since the term ‘consciousness’ has over 40 meanings, which includes waking, non-waking and other experiences, and many kinds of functions; therefore, authors are encouraged to specify which aspect/meaning of consciousness they are addressing to avoid contradictions and confusions (Vimal, 2009e) as Rosen has also pointed out. However, (Nixon, 2010a) maintains that much of psyche (much of experience) is unconscious. Moreover, one could argue that all those experiences, which are not in a wakeful state, are regarded as non-conscious. From EEG point of view, (a) alpha (7-13Hz), beta (13-30 Hz) and gamma (30-70 Hz) waves are associated with wakefulness, (b) theta (4-7 Hz) waves with dreams and hypnosis, and delta (1-4 Hz) with deep dreamless sleep. However, meditative states may involve all brainwaves: delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma waves depending on meditation techniques and levels of meditation (Eklavya, 2010).14

13 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that if there is no witness (only unity with void) then how this could be conscious experience. Is the self not left behind?

Presumably, in samadhi state, the self (SE of subject) merges with the SE of object, i.e., there is no difference between subject and object. Thus, self is not left behind; rather it is merged/unified with the SE of object. In other words, if a yogi is in samadhi state and his object is his enemy, the feeling of enmity disappears because yogi experiences that his enemy and he are the same person in terms of mental aspect such as feelings. 14 (Nixon, 2010a) commented, (Warren, 2007) claims that early on in meditation alpha waves predominate, but, as the meditation advances and awareness spreads, gamma waves predominate.

This may be true because it all depends on meditation techniques and levels of meditation. Alpha waves are usually associated with “relaxed wakefulness, and creative thought where attention may wander and free association is favored. They are also correlated with a generally tranquil, pleasant, almost floating feeling”. Alpha waves are


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Furthermore, one could argue for the following to minimize the semantic and circularity problems: (i) Conscious experiences might best be identified with waking experiences15, non-conscious experiences be associated with non-waking experiences such as dreams, and, in addition, there would be non-conscious states that would not necessarily even be experiential (e.g. comas). (ii) Since meditative states include waking state brainwaves, meditative states might be classified as conscious states for brevity. And (iii) the experiences related to controversial ‘paradoxical awareness or awareness without being aware’ might be classified as ‘combined-state experiences’ (Rosen, personal communication) that are both conscious and non-conscious experiences. In (Vimal, 2010a), the non-conscious experiences and non-conscious functions are considered as a part of the definition of mind (= experiences and/or functions: (Vimal, 2010e)) and/or awareness. However, the suggestion of (Nixon, 2010i), the term ‘psyche’ in place of ‘mind’ may be correct if psyche = experiences and/or functions. Furthermore, I agree with (Nixon, 2010i)’s suggestion that conscious transcendence (or, better, transcendent awareness) which is a higher state of consciousness (Vimal, 2010e) can be considered as part of conscious experience. Furthermore, in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, “A subjective experience (SE) is an expressed first person conscious experience [...] In general, PEs [proto-experiences] are precursors of SEs” (Vimal, 2010e). In other words, any experience that is not SE is PE. Therefore, a non-conscious experience is equivalent to a PE. To sum up, in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), consciousness has two aspects: experience and function. The non-experiential or functional aspect of consciousness is indeed possible such as in (i) the functions related to the detection and discrimination of stimuli without experience, and (ii) the domain of the (weak) emergence16 of the primary mind or ‘cognition’. The non-conscious processing in cognitive brain leads to

considered as “the brainwaves of meditation” and “an integral part of the relaxation process before sleep” (Eklavya, 2010). Beta waves are usually associated with “attentiveness, selective attention, concentration & anticipation. They have been related to concentrated mental activity such as solving math problems, anxiety, and apprehension […] In meditation, beta waves have been noticed only in very experienced practitioners that too in a state of ecstasy and concentration” (Eklavya, 2010). Gamma waves are usually associated with (i) the processing of “various attended stimuli (visual, auditory, touch) and the grouping of the various features of a given stimulus, particularly visual, into a coherent whole” and (ii) “Buddhist meditation of compassion & music listening experiments” (Eklavya, 2010). 15 As per (Nixon, 2010a), remembered dreams are conscious; only external sensory input is left out. 16 According to (Chalmers, 2010), “We can say that a high-level phenomenon is weakly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are unexpected given the principles governing the low-level domain. Weak emergence is the notion of emergence that is most common in recent scientific discussions of emergence, and is the notion that is typically invoked by proponents of emergence in complex systems theory. […] It often happens that a high-level phenomenon is unexpected given principles of a low-level domain, but is nevertheless deducible in principle from truths concerning that domain.” This is interesting, but how can we deduce SE such as redness from non-experiential physical aspect? This is the emergentism’s explanatory gap that one needs to address. However, some functional aspects of mind could be weakly emergent.


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conscious experience, which in turn constructs the individual MDR via organism-environment interaction; here both phenomenal (non-reportable, where attentional feedback signal is not needed) and access (reportable, where feedback attentional signal is necessary) consciousness can be entertained. The same processes among many brains leads to social consciousness17 (inter-subjectivity), where access (reportable) consciousness (Vimal, 2009f) is necessary. 3. Continuum of consciousness, experience and function According to (Nixon, 2010b), “If this continuum of experience — from non-conscious, to conscious, to self-transcending awareness — can be understood and accepted, radical constructivism (the ‘outside’ world as a construct of experience) will gain a firmer foundation, panexperientialism (a living universe) may gain credibility, and psi will find its medium [p217]. […] [Experience is viewed as really consisting of] a continuum from momentary flashes into existence of ‘occasions of experience’ (probably related to quantum fluctuations) to the boundaryless experience which blossoms into transpersonal awareness” (p.223). (Pereira Jr., 2010) has a little different view: “I take ‘conscious episodes’ to refer to content experienced by a subject in present time, and ‘experience’ as the interaction of the individual’s body, brain and environment (Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009).18 In this view, what conscious activity does is to individualize episodes in time, making them available to subjective experiences, which are then conceived as embodied (in the individual’s material structure) and embedded (in the environment). … Instead of thinking of consciousness as ‘the arbiter of all realities’, I view it as a sequence of snapshots in a sea of unconscious experiences. […] I find Nixon attributing the origin of human and non-human creativity to unconscious experiences, not to the conscious tip of the iceberg.”19 17 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that this is reversed: Individual minds are intersubjectively drawn into pre-existing linguistic communities, and only after group mimesis & identification can minds become individualized (and this does not always happen!).

In my view, this needs qualification: “full blown individual mind/consciousness” is intersubjective phenomenon, but “rudimentary mind or consciousness” (that is also relational and is usually based on organism-environment interactions) can be independent of another subject as discussed before.

18 (Nixon, 2010a) objects the use of (Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009)’s terminology. In my view, it is just different meaning attributed to the same term, which is common; for example, the term ‘consciousness’ has over 40 different meanings (Vimal, 2009e). (Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009) have different view, which potentiates the hypothesis that consciousness has two aspects (function and experience) and hence it is more fundamental than experience. 19 Pereira Jr. commented (personal communication in May 2010), “… for me conscious experiences are not co-extensive with brain functions, since the experiences are made of information contents from the world, not from the brain (this position is similar to Max Velmans' Dual-Aspect Monism).” In (Vimal, 2010e), I have given two definitions: “the optimal definition of consciousness is ‘consciousness is a mental aspect of a system or a process, which has two sub-aspects: conscious experience and conscious function.’ A more general definition is: ‘consciousness is a mental aspect of a system or a process, which is a conscious experience, a conscious function, or both depending on the context and particular bias (e.g. metaphysical assumptions)’ where experiences can be conscious experiences and/or non-conscious experiences and functions can be conscious functions and/or non-conscious functions that include qualities of objects.” Thus, conscious experiences AND conscious functions are coextensive for the optimal definition. The general definition accommodates most views including the views of


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(Adams, 2010b) critiques (Nixon, 2010c) as: “Nixon believes that all organisms, even the lowly nematode, are capable of experience, and what they experience is change in the environment. Whenever there is any change in the relationship between an organism and its environment, experience is the result. […] sensory change is prerequisite for sensory experience. But it seems a bit much to attribute all experience to environmental change. Memories, thoughts, ideas, hopes, plans, regrets, questions, feelings, confusion, and much more, are all mental experiences, none of which necessarily depends on an environmental change.” (Adams, 2010a) commented further, “I would like to express skepticism about the notion, held by (Nixon, 2010c) and Vimal that proto-self-awareness (as I call it) exists simply in-itself, free-floating in the universe, disembodied, not necessarily attached to any living thing. That seems quite an arbitrary postulate, not supported by reason or evidence, and not confirmable or disconfirmable.” In my dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), (i) potential SEs pre-exist in superposed form in the mental aspect of each entity (hypothesis H1) (Vimal, 2010d) or SEs can be derived from a PE and 3 gunas (hypothesis H2) (Vimal, 2009b), (ii) all things are carriers of potential SEs in superposed latent unexpressed form, which is different from ‘all things have experience’, and (iii) mental and material aspects never get separated. In other words, SEs do NOT exist simply in-itself and free-floating in the universe; SEs are NOT disembodied; they are necessarily attached to each living thing. Potential SEs are superposed in the mental aspect, which is permanently ‘glued’ with physical aspect of each entity. Thus, my framework is not panexperientialism, where only experience permeates the universe; rather the mental aspect of my framework is somewhat similar to panexperientialism, and the physical aspect of my framework is complementary to panexperientialism. In my view, matter (thing-in-itself) is the property of unknowable mind independent reality (MIR); experiences construct the appearance of matter, which is consistent with my framework. According to Monteiro (personal communication in May 2010): “I make a distinction between (i) external environment and through the recording process of internalization stored in memory and (ii) internal environment. A change in the ‘internal environment’ is for example when an individual is in ‘imbalanced state’ (shortage/surplus) striving for a ‘balanced state’ (no shortage/surplus). An imbalanced state somewhere in the body generates ‘interaction’ between relative ‘energy shortage’ and ‘energy surplus’ starting unconsciously at physical-biological level. A bodily shortage (e.g. nutrients, trace elements) fires a signal to a stored surplus element in the brain (e.g. from previously stored rewarded element). Through ‘interaction’ between shortage-surplus elements in the body-brain, motivation (or e-motion=energy motion) transporting a ‘need’ is aroused. Motivation, however, is a preconscious process (tacit knowing, fringe- proto- or sub-consciousness), and through trespassing a ‘threshold’ can be attendant by a preconscious but functional mental process, called cognition (‘I’). Though cognition is preconscious (‘I’ cannot capture ‘I’ simultaneously), it is functional trying to bridge the cleft between ‘I’ and ‘You’ and this can spontaneously, accidentally or randomly happen (outside

Pereira Jr. and Velmans. In addition, potential subjective experiences are superposed in the mental aspect of all entities including experiences that are made of information contents from the world; and information is a dual-aspect entity in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d).


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conscious control and steering) in the phenomenon of ‘mental interaction’ or ‘cognitive interaction’, a mental quantum event of which both persons are not aware. It goes too far to treat this extensively, but it is postulated and concluded that interaction at all levels is mental interaction, the highest functionality in nature and culture.” (Nixon, 2010j) states, “I have previously stated somewhere that having a living body ties us in with all other living bodies and living material in general. I contain DNA and genetic codes that have evolved through my ancestors and, before them, from prehuman life forms and the earliest cellular structures. The body that I am is a microcosmic focus of all life on a particular genetic pathway. The inborn experience that comes with being a living physical body is part of my life (make me, in turn, a part of all life) and is further the foundation of the culturally reflected consciousness that makes intersubjectivity and self-identity possible. At the bodily level, experiential interactions take place without my learned self-identity reflecting upon them, so experience without consciousness certainly does take place. […] consciousness does not just ride like a boat upon a sea of unconscious experience. It interacts with it in a circle of mutual creativity. Our minds are part of the future evolution of our bodies and of living nature itself.” In addition, “Our self is the ‘bag of memories,’ as Ken Wilber once put it, through which we consciously experience, and nothing is but what is not” (Nixon, 2010g). Monteiro commented, (personal communication in May 2010): “continuum must be specified. One can claim consciousness whether subjectively experienced or not, in the light of pan-experientialism. From a material (physical-biological-cultural) perspective, a ‘gap’ (non-causal transition) in development or evolution exists. That’s to say one cannot postulate a ‘continuum’ between the emergence of material elements (e.g. quantum leap) and between species (e.g. missing link). This also holds for the mental unfolding and development (mentalization) culminated in human beings. One can speak of ‘material-mental discontinuity’. This has to do with the mental cognitive quantum collapse (through 1st-2nd person mental interference) or with other words man can never know in absolute sense the genesis of mind and matter or as conclusion ‘man can never escape his own body and mind’ (even in OBE [out-of-body experience]). This does not imply that in a formal descriptive model one can postulate as an ‘axiom’, matter as the primary initiating stimulus-object ‘to interact’ with a referential stimulus-object (1st-2nd object) and from here deduct the primary initiating mental process of cognition to ‘interact’ with a referential process of cognition (1st-2nd person) to feedback for the emergence of new matter (e.g. normative behaviour, new matter). What happens in the ‘gap’ (mind→matter) between persons is the crux of the whole issue to account for perception. The ratio why this is the case, is extensively treated in my publication (with the tools of finality [goal] and causality [cause-effect] [between stimulus-need, norm-value and cognition-perception]) (Monteiro, 2009).” To sum up, in dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), experiences and functions are two aspects of consciousness; these two aspects (experience and function) must be linked to related structure, i.e., the neural-correlates of consciousness (NCC).20 If experience is

20 (Adams, 2010a) commented, “But why ‘must’ this be so? It is not obvious to me, so I take this simply as one of his [Vimal’s] hypotheses. The ‘linkage’ he refers to is unspecified. Vimal seems to agree that under normal


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in continuum then related function must also in continuum and hence consciousness must also be in continuum: from unconscious to subconscious to conscious states. In other words, one could argue for continuum of consciousness, experience, and function rather than just only the continuum of experience because experience and function are the two aspects of consciousness; and non-experiential consciousness can be non-experiential functional aspect of consciousness (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). Moreover, as Monteiro commented, one must address the ‘gap’ (mind→matter) between persons to account for perception. However, in this article, the continuum of consciousness and its two aspects is related to individual consciousness, where it is hypothesized that the rudimentary individual consciousness occurs before inter-subjectivity and is modified later by the interactions between persons. I argue that ‘consciousness’ is a more general mental entity; conscious experience and non-conscious experiences are subsets of experience; and experiential aspect of consciousness and non-experiential aspect (i.e., functional aspect) of consciousness are subsets of consciousness21. 4. Origin of experiences and consciousness: universal background and virtual reservoir (Nixon, 2010c) proposes that experiences, which undergirt consciousness, emerge from a universal background of awareness: “language not only describes but constructs the object being observed. Awareness observed is reduced to consciousness created, that is, it conforms to its concept. Consciousness then proceeds as an autopoietic manifestation of itself. I will later submit that experience in itself is the result of sensations generated at the point where minute entities like cells or even atomic or subatomic systems interact, but for this birth of sensation in interactive friction to be possible, there must be some sort of awareness-in-itself, a universal background of awareness out of which such primordial experiencing can emerge. This background may be aware but aware of nothing, as though in deep, dreamless sleep, a field of infinite potential, waiting, so to speak, for time to begin. How else can we account for raw experiential sensations without falling into infinite regress? […] Perhaps the experience that

circumstances, conscious experience is usually (always?) tightly linked to its functional quality and both of those are linked to neural structure. (But we don’t know what ‘linked’ means).”

The linkage is very tight because the mental aspect and the material aspect are ‘glued’ together permanently; they cannot be separated in dual-aspect view, in analogy to two sides of the same coin, as discussed in (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d, 2010e), in the sense of optimal definition of consciousness; but ‘not necessarily’ in the sense of general definition of consciousness. The term ‘link’ is borrowed from neuroscience. Identity theory says ‘identical’, meaning exactly the same, at least statistically. But, here, ‘link’ means mostly correlation; for example, fMRI activity in the structure (physical aspect of) color neural-network is ‘linked’ or ‘correlated’ to the color-experience aspect (mental aspect) of consciousness, which is ‘linked’ or ‘correlated’ with color discrimination function aspect (mental aspect) of consciousness. 21 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that it is interesting, but it really does not communicate to him. Experience is either conscious or non-conscious or on the border. There is no third kind of experience.

I agree with that experience is either conscious or non-conscious or on the border in panexperientialism. In dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, function is not experience, rather function is an aspect of consciousness, and other aspect of consciousness is experience.


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undergirts consciousness is unthinkable. I foreshadow my purpose here: What if awareness or experience is as all-pervasive and foundational as universal background radiation?” (p.246) The origin of consciousness,22 according to Nixon is ‘a universal background of awareness’, which is like a plenum or virtual reservoir (such as the mental aspect of each entity, where our potential SEs are stored in superposed form and a specific SE is selected via matching process) as in hypothesis H1 of our dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework. 5. Physicalism (brain creates experience) versus constructivism (experience constructs brain) According to (Nixon, 2010c), “The fundamental division in approaches to the question of consciousness is whether the brain creates experience or experience [creates] the brain. Obviously the sciences lean toward the former, though the neuroscientific proposal of the dynamic brain that changes as a result of experience softens this stance. Experiential practices that accept any sort of transcendence of bodily limitations, such as psi or meditation, assume the latter in the sense that the origin of awareness beyond the brain may change neural processing within the brain [p242]. […] When experience becomes conscious, it has itself become an object. No longer one with the environment, we now feel ourselves as distinct from it, opposed to it. In the same way, we become aware of ourselves in the world and self itself is objectified” (p.243). (Adams, 2010b) elaborates the above further as: “question of whether or not the brain creates the mind. Most neuroscientists are sure that it does […] we have merely correlations between brain function and mental function; there is no proven causal connection. […] Another possibility, equally logical, is that the mind creates the brain. In other words, the brain is an intellectual construct we use to account for the varieties of our experience … no basis on which to choose”. According to (Monteiro, 2010), “To answer Greg Nixon's question ‘how does any material entity create mind, consciousness, or even just experience?’ is not a matter of creation, but mental unfolding what is already present in matter from the beginning (from strong force in the nucleus of atoms till strong love bond in persons)” (p.374). It seems that (Monteiro, 2010) is using Bohm’s implicate-explicate order or enfolded-unfolded view; Bohm’s view is a dual-aspect, consistent with the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). According to (Jarvilehto, 2010), in constructivism, “it is often unclear (at least to me) if reality is seen only as a result of construction of conscious experience, nonconscious processing playing

22 (Adams, 2010a) raised a question: From where could such proto-self-awareness arise?

(Nixon, 2010c) proposes that proto-self-awareness arises from the universal background of awareness. In our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, all potential SEs are in superposed form in virtual reservoir (such as in the mental aspect of elementary particles) as in hypothesis H1 (Vimal, 2010d); a specific SE is selected via matching process; in hypothesis H2, a SE can be derived from the interaction between one PE and three gunas (qualities) (Vimal, 2009b) and/or (ii) downward causation (Vimal, 2010b). I am assuming that the virtual reservoir might be somewhat equivalent to Nixon’s universal background of awareness.


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no role.” In cognitive brain research, “the processing in the brain is endowed with some magical powers that make some of the brain processes conscious, whereas the rest of these processes stay at the nonconscious level.” In the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, consciousness has two aspects: experience and function (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). In hypothesis H1, potential SEs are stored in superposed form in virtual reservoir (such as every elementary particle). In hypothesis H2, a PE interacts with 3 gunas to result SEs depending on the kinds of 3-gunas.VII In both hypotheses, a specific SE is selected during matching process as discussed in (Vimal, 2010d). On the other hand, the SEs aspect of consciousness constructs the mind-dependent reality (MDR), i.e., conscious experience constructs the appearance or SE of external objects and to some extent can affect the processing of brain; however, experiences do not create/construct physical brain. Thus, Nixon’s constructivism/panexperientialism framework (Nixon, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d) and (Pereira Jr., 2010; Pereira Jr. & Ricke, 2009)’s framework (consciousness as a sequence of snapshots in a sea of unconscious experiences) can be bridged via the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework.23 6. Dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework versus double-perspectivism There is a minor but important difference between these two views: the double aspects in dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework are inseparable (and hence bypass many problems) whereas the two perspectives in double-perspectivism can be independent and are separable (hence has problems of substance dualism (Vimal, 2010e)). 6.1. Dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework and double-perspectivism (Adams, 2010a) commented on double-aspectism versus double-perspectivism: “When Vimal finally does get around to explaining his double-aspect theory of mentality, deep into the essay, it is hard to follow the reasoning, and I think that is because it is really a ‘double perspective’ theory, not a ‘double aspect’ theory. In traditional double aspect theory it is proposed that there is one fundamental entity, call it mind-brain, that has multiple, apparently incompatible aspects, such as mentality and physicality. Thus, the apparently incommensurate properties of res extensa and res cogitans are really just two descriptions of the same thing, similar perhaps to how we identify Venus, when it is low on the horizon, as either ‘the morning star’ or ‘the evening star.’ It is the same planet, but we ‘see it’ under differing aspects. The trouble with double-aspectism is that it simply displaces the problem without solving it or even addressing it. What is the nature of the thing-in-itself that constitutes the single underlying entity of which we have two aspects? Unfortunately, that cannot be known, as

23 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that it is still not clear how you imagine this “bridge” to simply explain away all differences.

It can be bridged because we all three groups agree that there are conscious experiences and there are non-consciousness experiences. There are some differences: such as, function aspect of consciousness in our (Vimal and Pereira Jr. & Ricke) frameworks is separate from experience aspect, but functions seem combined with experiences in the pan-experiential framework.


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Vimal, Nixon, and I agree (along with Kant). There is no secretive person we can point to and say, ‘Aha! That guy is both Clark Kent and Superman!’ We can only know the two aspects as they present themselves to us, but rest assured, the theory goes, there is no metaphysical problem here, because the underlying entity is a single, unified whole. But that is just child’s play. […]

However, Vimal’s version (to the extent that I understand it) is perhaps better called ‘double perspectivism’ because it does not make overt ontological claims about what is ‘really’ out there. Instead, it focuses on the epistemological side of the question, and says something like ‘we see and understand mentality when we are in X state of mind (or mode of being) and we see and understand physicality when we are in Y state of mind.’ What is really out there we cannot know, and maybe there is actually nothing out there, it wouldn’t matter. What matters is how we describe the world according to what state of mind we are in.

In this formulation, Vimal’s approach is similar to Husserl’s. Husserl described two modes of understanding, which he called the natural attitude and the phenomenological attitude, similar in some ways to the distinction between ordinary cognition and metacognition. In the first case, a person is simply aware of the world. In the second case, the person is aware of the world and simultaneously, aware of being aware of it. I think that Vimal’s epistemological approach is a more fruitful avenue of exploration than traditional, ontologically based double-aspectism could be.” In dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), the reality is still the mind dependent reality (MDR) for both aspects of the same entity say mind-brain because mind is involved in both aspects. The mental aspect is first person perspective and its physical aspect is third person perspective. Here, the ‘perspective’ refers to first person subjective experience for the mental aspect and third person measurements (such as fMRI) for the physical aspect; both are mind dependent reality. These two aspects can never be separated: they are permanently ‘glued’ together (the brute fact: that’s the way it is!) and they are not independent, in analogy to two sides of a coin. The evidence is from electrophysiological and clinical lesion experiments; if a certain area is lesioned then related function and experience are compromised.24 In addition, there are two modes, and hence the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework is extended form of old double-aspectism.

This dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) is concisely summarized in Section 1.2 of (Vimal, 2010e). Briefly, “There are three entities that need to be linked in a theory of consciousness: structure, function, and experience. Several materialistic neuroscientific models link structure with function well, but fail to link them with experience, leading to the explanatory gap [The dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework is complementary to neuroscience models; it complements them because it closely depends on them for linking structure with function including global broadcasting (Baars, 1988) and because it provides information related to mental aspect.] […] Addressing the explanatory gap mentioned above, (Vimal, 2008b) hypothesized that elementary particles (fermions and bosons) have two aspects: (i) material aspect by mass, spin, charge, force, quanta, and space-time, and (ii) mental aspect. Its

24 “For example, a subject with visual form agnosia (e.g. Milner and Goodale's patient D.F. [(Milner & Goodale, 1995)]) cannot consciously identify a vertical slot, but can "post" an envelope through it without problem; while subjects with optic ataxia (e.g. those with Balint's (1909) syndrome [(Balint., 1909)])) can identify an object but cannot act appropriately toward it. The dissociations here appear to go along with damage to the ventral and dorsal pathways respectively” (Chalmers, 2000).


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components (the mental aspects of elementary particles and inert matter) are considered as the carriers of superimposed fundamental potential experiences in unexpressed form” (Vimal, 2010e). The superposition of potential experiences is based on the dual aspects of matter (wave/particle), where the mental aspect of the wave aspect is a wave-like function of experience. “These possibilities are actualized when neural-networks are formed via neural Darwinism, and a specific SE is selected by a matching process. […] Under [hypothesis] H1, a specific SE arises in a neural-net as follows: (i) there exists a virtual reservoir that stores all possible fundamental SEs/PEs, (ii) the interaction of stimulus-dependent feed-forward and feedback signals in the neural net creates a specific neural net state, (iii) this specific state is assigned to a specific SE from the virtual reservoir due to neural Darwinism, (iv) this specific SE is embedded as a memory trace of a neural net PE, and (v) when a specific stimulus is presented to the neural net, the associated specific SE is selected by the matching and selection process and experienced by this net. […] A subjective experience (SE) is an expressed first person conscious experience that occurs, arises, or emerges due to the interaction between feed-forward signals and feedback signals in a neural-net. This requires that the interaction satisfies the necessary ingredients of consciousness (Vimal, 2009f) such as the formation of neural networks, wakefulness, re-entry, attention, working memory (Rowlatt, 2009), stimulus at above threshold, and neural-net PEs. […] PEs are precursors of SEs [and are non-conscious experiences (Vimal, 2010a, 2010c)]. […] The dual-mode concept was originally formulated in the framework of dissipative thermofield quantum brain dynamics (Globus, 2006; Vitiello, 1995) and explicitly incorporated into the PE-SE framework by (Vimal, 2010d). […] The non-tilde mode is interpreted as the material and mental aspect of cognition (memory and attention) related feedback signals in a neural-network. Since memory contains past information, the non-tilde mode represents the cognitively nearest past approaching towards the present. The tilde mode is interpreted as the material and mental aspect of the feed-forward signals due to external environmental input or internal endogenous input. Since input signals contain information related to the near future, the tilde mode represents the nearest future approaching towards the present. It is a time-reversed, or entropy-reversed, representation of the non-tilde mode. [There are two types of matching mechanisms: (a) the matching mechanism for the quantum dendritic-dendritic MT pathway, and (b) the matching mechanism for classical pathways, such as classical axonal-dendritic neural sub-pathway]. […] In all cases, a specific SE is selected under two conditions: (a) the tilde mode (the material and mental aspect of feed-forward input signals) interacts with the non-tilde mode (the material and mental aspect of cognitive feedback signals) to match for a specific SE; and (b) the necessary ingredients of SEs are satisfied. When the match is made between the two modes, the world-presence (Now) is disclosed. Its content is the SE of subject (self), the SE of objects, and the content of SEs. The material aspects in the tilde mode and in the non-tilde mode are matched to link structure with function, whereas the mental aspects in the tilde mode and in the non-tilde mode are matched to link experience with structure and function” (Vimal, 2010e).

Thus, the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) does not displaces the problem of MDR vs. MIR (thing-in-itself) without solving it, rather it does not even touches the unknowable MIR. What it (my framework) addresses is the linkage problem of MDR: how to link structure, function, and experience in MDR. This is because, as Adam noted, “we can only know the two aspects as they present themselves to us”. In other words, mental


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aspect is known via first person subjective experiences and the physical aspect via third person objective measurements; both are MDR. According to (Nietzsche, 1968), “In so far as the word ‘knowledge’ has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless.—‘Perspectivism.’ […] It is our needs that interpret the world […] each one has its perspective”. “Perspectivism25 is the philosophical view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives. This means that there are many possible conceptual schemes, or perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made.” In double-perspectivism, the two aspects can be separated; they can be independent, interdependent, or dependent; therefore, double-perspectivism is closer to Cartesian substance dualism that has many problems (Vimal, 2010e). The double-perspective interpretation of my framework is incorrect in the above sense because it seems to lead to many problems, such as association problem, how do you associate a specific SE to a specific neural-net when there are two different states of mind (or more precisely the states of neural-network), whereas there are no such problems in my framework. In other words, my dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) is not double-perspectivism in this sense; but it is, in the sense of first person perspective (for mental aspect) and third person perspective (for physical aspect) in MDR domain. Perhaps, Trika Kashmir Shaivism (TKS) approach is somewhat close to double perspectivism. My framework is more fruitful because it is optimal (in the sense that it has the least number of problems) and I have inserted dual-mode in dual-aspect view; therefore it is called dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. 6.2. Incommensurability of mental and physical entities (Adams, 2010a) commented on incommensurable mental and physical entities: “The fundamental question of why there seem to be two incommensurate entities is no easier to deal with than the presumption that there are, in fact, two incommensurate entities.” One can ask that on what ground we justify that mental aspect is incommensurable entity with respect to related physical (which is composed of material fermions and force carrier bosons) aspect? Is that because of (Feigl, 1967)'s category mistake that mind and matter are two different categories? If so, then this is related more to the problems in materialism that mind/SE is identical with related neural state or mind somehow emerges from brain. (Adams, 2010a) replied (personal communication in June 2010): “For me, the answer is, introspective ground. It is only because of introspection that we are aware of any mental aspect in the universe. If there were no such thing as introspection, there would be no scientific evidence in the physical world of the existence of mentality. It simply does not ‘show up.’ Mentality is only known to us through self-awareness, a phenomenon that is not susceptible to scientific detection. Those methodological grounds alone, I believe, are sufficient to distinguish the mental and physical as incommensurable domains. However there are other grounds, arising from philosophy of science, as you note, as well as linguistics, philosophy, phenomenology, and

25 Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectivism .


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intellectual history. […] I would like to know your explanation of how, exactly, mental and material are ‘permanently glued together.’ There is no scientific evidence of that, so you must have some reasoned basis for that speculation. Personally, I do not think it is ontologically possible, as the two domains are incommensurable, to use Thomas Kuhn’s phrase. However, I do think it is possible for a person to change mental perspectives and thus view an entity in various modes of understanding. For example, we can see a woman as a mother, a child, and a spouse, depending on the current ‘perspective’ or mode of understanding. These different understandings do not make any claims about qualities or aspects of the woman herself, only differing attitudes or perspectives of the person making the judgment. That is why I suggested that double-aspectism, for which you make unsupportable ontological claims, could profitably be replaced by a ‘double-perspectivism’, which makes only epistemological claims.” In my view, there are at least two methods to know the conventional (or mind-dependent) reality: (i) introspection (first person perspective) that is responsible for our SEs (the mental aspect) and (ii) third person scientific measurements such as fMRI, electrophysiology, and so on that are responsible for the neural correlates of SEs or NCC (physical aspect). The SE and its NCC are correlated, which has its own problems. True, that these two aspects belong to incommensurable domains and lead to category mistake. In spite of this, in my view, there is no reason that they cannot be the two perspectives and/or two aspects of the same entity. Double-perspectivism leads to substance dualism in a sense that the one perspective can exist without other (motherhood can exist independent of sisterhood or wifehood); whereas in double-aspectism, an aspect cannot exist without other aspect, i.e., they cannot be separated. There is no evidence that a SE can exist independently with respect to its NCC. The evidence of both methods entails that they cannot be separated. Therefore, incommensurability and the category mistake cannot argue against inseparability of mental aspect from its physical aspect and hence against dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. Further details are given in Section 3.7 of (Vimal, 2010d). Furthermore, in MDR domain: “When the long-wavelength light from red-ball is presented to this [color related V4/V8/VO] network, the matching (between stimulus-SEs and neural-network-SEs that is also called neural-net-PEs) and selection mechanisms during the interaction between stimulus-dependent feed forward signals and cognition/attention/memory related feedback signals create a state, call it red-state. This red-state has two aspects: The mental/experiential-aspect is redness and the material-aspect is the material-aspect of the redness-related neural-network and its activity. […] When the red-state is created, its two aspects are observed depending on the observation. If observed subjectively then the network experiences redness. If observed objectively such as in fMRI we see activity in V4/V8/VO visual area. The relationship between the mental/experiential and material aspects could be 1-1. In other words, it all depends on how we perform an experiment on it. If a subjective experiment (first person experiment such as simply looking at the stimulus) is performed then the red-state (the state of the Red-Green psychophysical channel) is SE redness. If we perform objective experiment (such as an fMRI third person experiment) then the red-state is the V4/V8/VO-network and its activity. This is in analogy to wave-particle duality: if we perform wave-type (such as slit-interference-type) experiment, an electron is a wave; if we perform particle-type (such as in photoelectric effect), the electron is a particle; in other words, the electron has two material aspects: wave and particle” (Vimal, 2010d). In the sense of first person and third person


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perspectives/measurements, this appears as double perspectivism. However, in sense of inseparability of the double aspects, it is dual-aspect dual-mode view. Furthermore, the double aspects cannot be separated; in this sense, they are permanently ‘glued’; perhaps one can interpret identity theory similarly: the two aspects are identical and cannot be separated. For example, in a limited analogy of coin, no matter what do, the two sides of the coin cannot be separated such as slicing between sides will lead to another set of two sides again. However, how can they be identical: one is physical and other is mental? Perhaps, the term ‘link’ or ‘correlate’ is more appropriate. By the term ‘glued’, I mean that both aspects will always be together; they cannot independently exist and cannot be separated. 6.3. Discussion with Adams The author (RV) had email discussion with Adams (WA) (personal communication in June 2010) as follows: 6.3.1. The brute fact problem WA: (Adams, 2010a) commented on double aspectism: “No problem is solved and no progress is made with double aspectism.” RV: If the problem is MDR vs. MIR, then it is not solved because I have not addressed it, as MIR is unknown. If the problem is how to link to structure, function and experience and how SEs occur, then it is rigorously solved in (Vimal, 2010d). Our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework is optimal because it has the least number of problems compared to all other views including panexperientialism. The only problem is the justifiable brute fact (that's just the way it is!) of dual-aspect in every entity. WA: I do not see that dual-aspectism is a ‘brute fact’ and it is incumbent upon you to explain why you think it is. I think dual-aspectism is a species of identity theory, and I did explain why I believe that. Identity theory is insupportable, in my view. Two sides of a coin have a simple transformation the converts one aspect into the other, namely the operation of ‘flipping.’ Alas, there is no such transformation known between mind and brain and therefore the analogy is insufficient. RV: The brute fact problem is addressed in (Vimal, 2010d): “One could critique that the PE-SE framework also has a ‘brute fact’ of the mental aspect that has superposed SEs. [The brute fact is that an aspect is experiential.] That an aspect is ‘mental’ is a ‘brute fact’ feature of universe in the PE-SE framework, a way that reality is not derivable from anything else. Though this is true, but I argue that it is also the ‘real fact’ that SEs, such as redness, are fundamental and irreducible and hence must inherently exist [in conventional reality, but not in ultimate reality of samadhi state]. […] Furthermore, the brute fact of ‘[potential] PEs/SEs superposed (unexpressed) in the mental aspect of strings or elementary particles, inert matter as their carrier, and a specific SE is expressed/selected when neural-network is formed’ can be further unpacked. Since our SEs are fundamental and irreducible, they are the inherent facts [in conventional reality]; one could argue


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that they are neither brute facts nor fundamental assumption. In other words, this brute fact is the real fact as mass, spin, charge, space-time, force, and quanta are facts. […] All theories have a brute fact somewhere ― the issue is plausibility and a parsimony that generates richness of explanation, and the PE-SE framework passes this litmus test. […] All metaphysical views have fundamental assumptions that still need to be addressed, for example, the PE-SE framework assumes dual-aspect entities, materialism/emergentalism assumes that SE emerges in neural-network, dualism assumes substance-dualism, and holoworld framework assumes its own ‘brute fact’, and so on. However, so far, the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework is the most optimum framework because it is parsimoniously optimized and the problems of other frameworks are addressed. […] the ‘brute fact’ of dual-aspect (mental and material aspects) is justified on the ground that SEs are fundamental, irreducible, and inherent [in conventional reality]”. The analogy of two sides of the same coin is in the sense that these two sides are inseparable. 6.3.2. The definition of mind WA: I refer to “mind” as the mental entity known to all normal, adult humans through simple reflection. I find your definition, ‘mind’ = experiences and/or functions to be ambiguous. While “experience,” cannot properly be defined in any non-mental way, the term “functions” can be defined in common sense, or in physicalistic terms and is thus ambiguous. I have explained my objection to the ambiguity inherent in functionalism. Thus, your definition of mind as experience/function is, in my view, potentially self-contradictory. RV: Our definitions of the terms ‘mind’ and ‘function’ appear different. My definitions (Vimal, 2010e) were derived from the over 40 different meanings attributed by various authors to the term ‘consciousness’, which were categorized into experiences and functions (Vimal, 2009e). My definition of mind encompasses most views as does the general definition of consciousness = ‘(conscious experiences) and/or (conscious functions)’, which includes panpsychism, materialism, dualism, dual-aspectism, dual-perspectivism, panexperientialism, and so on; however the optimal definition of consciousness = ‘(conscious experiences) and (conscious functions)’ is limited to the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2010e). Thus, my definitions are not self-contradictory.

6.3.3. The association problem WA: “You ask how I can associate a specific experience to a specific neural net. The answer is that I can only point to correlations found between activity in a neural net and a conscious human’s report of mental experience. Such correlations (the NCC) are suggestive but at this time there no explanation, not even a plausible hypothesis, to support any sort of causal explanation. All we can say is that there appear to be correlated events. (And even that statement depends on a mountain of assumptions, such as that a person’s report of mental experience is accurate, complete, infallible, fully communicable, understandable, and so on). In my view, you do not have a problem associating a neural state with a mental experience because you have tacitly assumed a causal relationship that is not supported by the evidence.”


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RV: The two perspectives in double-perspectivism could be independent/inter-dependent, leading to the problem of association (such as how a system can associate redness with red-green cells over billions of cells in less than 50-500 msec, which is the same problem for substance dualism). As you say, correlation does not imply causality and depends on many other assumptions. However, one could argue that the problem of associating a neural state with a mental experience can be addressed by co-evolution (adaptation and natural selection) and co-developmental neural Darwinism, as detailed in (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). The dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework does not have association problem because the two aspects are inseparable. 7. Mind-dependent reality (MDR) and mind-independent reality (MIR) (Nixon, 2010c) critiques materialism and classical science that assumes MIR ~ MDR as: “we do not and cannot know of anything outside of our conscious experiencing. […] To objectify a mind independent reality [MIR], then to look for mind in that mind-independent reality, is a bizarre sort of logic to say the least. […] On the other hand, the materialist would reply that, obviously, it is external reality that continually changes our conscious experience, but with the added assertion that consciousness itself is created by – is a product of – the material world and its interactions. […] It all begins with the established laws of science, which its adherents claim have validity beyond any conscious awareness of them. In other words, the laws of science are ‘the things in themselves’ or at least a part of them. […] To imagine mind in a mindless nowhere is magical thinking indeed. We see that, to begin with, science assumes a worldview, a perspective outside of conscious experience, which is impossible and, finally, a fantasy. […] The only choices for materialism are to quantify, measure, and examine the neural correlates and declare them to be the thing in itself, as in eliminative materialism, or to quantify, measure, and examine the qualitative effects and declare them to be the phenomenon itself, as in experimental psychology.” Moreover, (Nixon, 2010c) uses language framework for constructivism: “language not only describes but constructs the object being observed”, which seems to be consistent with MDR. (Adams, 2010b) elaborates and critiques (Nixon, 2010c) as: “language is the crowbar that levers conceptualized experience from ‘raw,’ unconceptualized experience. Language lets us (actually requires us to) objectify our experience into the idea of a mind-independent reality [MIR] that can be studied by science. […] Invoking Immanuel Kant, Nixon reminds us that if there really is a reality ‘out there’ beyond the mind, the mind could never know it. We know only our own interpretations of what we think we perceive and understand. What is really out there, in-itself, regardless of what we know or think about it, is simply not accessible. We know what we know and we don’t know what we don’t know. […] A more serious implication of Nixon’s point of view is that if all we know and can know is our own conceptualization of the world, then science is a waste of time. […] We simply cannot know what the world is really like. We can only know our own experience26, which is itself highly constrained by language, culture, and prior conceptualization.”

26 (Nixon, 2010a) objected this: An important part of conscious experience is the construction of symbolic knowledge. The symbolic means that it is always our construction but what is referred to by the term knowledge


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MIR according to (Kant, 1787/1996)(I.§8.i) is: “What might be said of the things in themselves, separated from relationships to our senses, remains for us absolutely unknown”. Commenting on subject-exclusive reality or MIR, (Nixon, 2010d) argues: “The perspective from the subject-excluding objectivity of mind-independent reality is in fact an attempt to see ourselves and our experienced reality from a god’s eye view, that is, from the beyondness first conceivable through the creation/discovery of the greater, all-pervasive reality experienced as the sacred. In this view, speech as narrative (and concept as image) was the vehicle that conveyed our ancestors across the symbolic threshold into a new, consciously-apprehended reality beyond the merely sensory or biologic (a reality that in our times has largely become desacralized and despirited as ‘objective’).” One could argue that the mind independent reality (MIR) is always unknown no matter what we do because ‘to know’ means we need to use our minds and then it becomes the mind dependent reality (MDR), not MIR; although, physics assumes that when measured objectively27 MDR is MIR, which is debatable. The following texts related to MDR and MIR are somewhat modified from (Vimal, 2009b): [1] Constructivism proposes that the ‘outside’ world as a construct of experience. According to (Müller, 2008), “Matter is a structure that crystallizes within mind”, which seems consistent with “'matter' is a mental construct of such a substance” (Wilberg, personal communication in (Vimal, 2009b)). This is a mind-dependent or subject-inclusive reality (MDR/SIR). There is also mind-independent or subject-exclusive reality (MIR/SER) that cannot be known, which is consistent with (Kant, 1787/1996). Thus, there is a serious explanatory gap between MDR and MIR that we need to address: the fact is that my car parked in my parking lot exists whether I see/experience/perceive it or not; moon exists whether we observe it or not.28 In my view, MDR = MIR ⊕ SEs of objects and/or subject in first person perspective ⊕ third person measurement such as NCC of SE ⊕ other factors that are not yet known (1)

may be more or less correct. We cannot just make things up! Yes, science is a human construction. What else could it be? It is not reality in itself. All our concepts, tools, & measuring devices are human constructions. But science is still best approximation of reality that we have available. It is like a net we create to throw over Reality. By looking at the shapes of what we capture in that net, we may come to a reasonably close approximation of the things-in-themselves. After all, science works! (And advancing technology has proven that.)

I agree with Nixon. However, there are explanatory gaps in panexperientialism, such as, how function, mind, cognition, and material entities arise from experiences. In panexperientialism, experiences are the only entities that permeate universe. Panexperientialists need to address this gap. There is no such gap in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework.

27 (Nixon, 2010a) questioned: can there be total objectivity when all the measuring devices and their conceptual interpretation are subjective (or, better, intersubjective) human creations?

Total objectivity is impossible but in physics we assume MIR ~ MDR.

28 Einstein asked “whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.” (http://decartes-einstein.blogspot.com/).


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where ⊕ indicates ‘and/or’. In other words, my use of the term ‘matter’ or Wilberg’s use of the term ‘substance’ (Vimal, 2009b) is MIR but it is unknown; MDR is SE of matter/substance; physics is based on the debatable assumption MIR ~ MDR, which may or may not be correct. MDR vs. MIR is further discussed in (Vimal, 2009j). [2] Since MIR is unknown in our daily life, the reality is conventional MDR for both mental and physical aspects. MDR can be in first, second, and/or third perspectives. In the first person perspective, SE (such as redness of ripe tomato) is a part of mental aspect. In the third person perspective, the related neural representation of the ripe tomato in the V4/V8/VO-color-neural-network and the network structure together (such as anatomical grey and white matter and neural activities) can be considered as its physical aspect. In other words, the physical aspect is the related material structure such as neural-network and its neuronal firing activities. One could argue that the related MIR may be approximately close to this physical aspect (third person perspective entity) without mental construction; but strictly speaking MIR is unknown. In other words, physicists may argue that MIR may be close to third person measured anatomical structure and physiological (such as fMRI or single unit) recorded ‘neural firing’ (spikes) activities (Vimal, 2009b). In other word, MIR is unknown, but physics assumes MIR ~ MDR, which is debatable. [3] Furthermore, SEs are part of MDR, whereas the physical properties (P) of matter (such as physical properties of water, salt, and reflectance of red-rose) without mental construction might be close to MIR (Vimal, 2009b). For example, consider the hypothesis H2 of the PE-SE framework: the ‘three mental-gunas’ 29 for each kind of SEs (for example, 3 primaries for color; 3 gunas, namely sattva, rajas, and tamas for emotion; and so on) and the PE can be hypothesized to be in superposed form in the mental aspect of an entity until the interaction between them is needed for SEs (such as redness) and thoughts. In MDR, a trichromat and an achromat have different SEs for color-related stimuli; as a matter of fact SEs are personal; emotions are different for different subjects. Therefore, gunas seem to be the properties of neural-networks. However, external objects provide information (such as reflectance) for SEs as well. If this is correct then physical gunas are related to the physical properties of physical objects (external objects and also internal neural-networks), which can be considered as close to the attributes of unknowable MIR. One could ask then: do SEs-related physical gunas appear only when neural-networks are formed? And precisely how does this happen? For example, the formation of 3 visual channels (Red-Green, Yellow-Blue, and luminance/achromatic channels) involves 3 types of cones (long, middle and short wavelength sensitive cones) related to 3 primaries (red, green, and blue) in trichromats. In this manner, we can link structure (such as redness related V4/V8/VO-neural-network), function (such as detection, and discrimination of red from its background), and experience (such as redness). In hypothesis H2, one PE and 3 gunas for each

29 Gunas (Sanskrit term) are qualities; this term is borrowed from Vedic system. This implies that we can hypothesize that SEs can be derived from the interaction one PE and 3 relevant gunas (as in hypothesis H2 of our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework) discussed in (Vimal, 2009b). In that way, we do not need to hypothesize innumerable and intractable potential SEs in superposed form in the mental aspect of each entity (virtual reservoir in hypothesis H1 of our framework); virtual reservoir is equivalent to universal background of awareness.


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kind of SEs reduce the innumerable SEs to countable and tractable number; they are in superposed form in the mental aspect of each entity until they interact, integrate, stored, and then lead to specific SEs for matching and selection mechanisms; further details are given in (Vimal, 2009b). (Vimal, 2010d) elaborates MDR and MIR further: Although one can still critique that the assumption of mental aspect in dual-aspect view is a ‘brute-fact’, one cannot deny the real-fact that SEs are fundamental and irreducible in the mind-dependent reality (MDR), subject-inclusive reality (SIR), or our daily conventional reality in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. “This is the rationale for hypothesizing that [potential] SEs are in superposed form in the mental aspect of fundamental particles and a specific SE is selected during matching and then the relevant specific neural-network experiences it. In the [unknowable] mind-independent reality (MIR) or subject-exclusive reality (SER), [potential] SEs are still in superposed form in the mental aspect of entities, but ‘what it’s like’ can only be experienced in MDR. […] What is independent of subject? It is the external world, i.e., mind-independent reality (MIR: the world as it is, in-itself) that is brain-independent, but it is unknowable. According to Kant (Kant, 1950), thing comes to us only in appearance. One could argue that the MIR is the reality [or one could guess MIR] based on conjecture, an inference, or statement of belief. Whatever is known always involves brain [and mind]. Thus, our daily conventional reality is mind-dependent reality (MDR: the world as it appears to us).” (Vimal, 2009a) uses Nāgārjuna’s dependent co-origination30, and conventional and ultimate realities to elaborate MDR and MIR further: “Our daily reality is based on our minds and hence it is mind-dependent reality (MDR) or subject-inclusive reality (SIR). Mind-independent reality (MIR) or subject-exclusive reality (SER) is not known. Even then physics assumes that MIR = MDR because physicists assume that laws although derived from human mind are independent of mind. If somehow we understand MIR and its relationship with MDR, we can get insight into subjectivity (subjective experiences or SEs, intentionality, and so on) because subjectivity = MDR − MIR [(minus NCC and other factors, see Eq. (1)]. […] According to Nāgārjuna, there are two types of realities: conventional and ultimate;VIII each has existence and nonexistence. The Nāgārjuna’s conventional reality is basically mind-dependent reality (MDR), and his ultimate reality seems to be the reality experienced at the state of Nirvāņa (detailed later).31 Ultimate reality may not be MIR. The conventional reality of external objects is structured by an individual-mind, so it is MDR. When the mind/subject is excluded from the reality, then that reality is MIR. For example, the falling of tree in a forest, where there is nobody to witness or hear, is MIR. This is because the falling tree generates sound vibration in air, but nobody hears

30 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that but this goes all the way into idealism, does it not — indicating that matter-energy and space-time themselves are illusions and all is mind (that is, the mind of G.O.D.)?

Nāgārjuna’s dependent co-origination is organism-environment interaction, consistent with our (dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE and panexperientialism) frameworks. 31 Nāgārjuna hypothesizes two kinds of reality: conventional and ultimate. I interpret his conventional reality as MDR. I guess, his ultimate reality is knowable at Nirvāņa/Samadhi state attained usually via Buddhist meditation. I am not sure if his ultimate reality is MIR because MIR is unknowable, as per Kant. Therefore, MIR may be or may not be close to ultimate reality.


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it, and hence there is no subjectivity and this will come under MIR. […] The conventional reality (or MDR) entails that conventional/mind-dependent entities lack inherent existence and hence lack causal power. For Nāgārjuna, ‘Effects lacking inherent existence depend precisely upon conditions that themselves lack inherent existence’ (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995)-page 121. This entails dependent co-origination (or interdependent arising) for conventional reality (or MDR), which lacks inherent existence. In other words, phenomena in MDR are conventionally existent, but empty of inherent existence.IX Nāgārjuna asserts that ‘a thing is empty or that it is dependently, one is not contrasting their status with the status of some other things that are inherently existent. Nor is one asserting that they are merely dependent on some more fundamental independent thing. ... Rather as far as one analyzes, one finds only dependence, relativity, and emptiness, and their dependence, relativity, and emptiness.’ (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995) (p. 177).

In physics, we assume that MIR is MDR when observations are successfully replicated at any laboratory and at any time, and they are not significantly different from each other, i.e., when the observations are independent of space and time. However, it is still MDR, not MIR. MDR is consistent with dependent co-origination from the Nāgārjuna’s four conditions (efficient, percept-object, immediate, and dominant conditions), which entails emptiness (lack of essence) of causation. MDR is an illusion (māyā = that which is not); MDR ~ MIR + (mind, subjectivity, or SEs) [plus NCC and other factors, see Eq. (1)]; MIR ~ MDR − Mind.32 The selection of a specific SE in the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008a, 2008b, 2009c, 2009d) and enlightenment are also inherently non-existent and co-arise dependently. If dependent co-origination is denied, action and resultant change would be pointless, life would not have real meaning, and MDR would not exist.

MIR is very hard to know because any process of knowing always involves mind. However, some insight into MIR and ultimate reality can be gained through MDR’s reasoning, language, deep thinking process, meditation, and so on. To gain some insight into ultimate reality, Nāgārjuna suggests that one should acquire the state of Nirvāņa (via meditation).X Moreover, ‘if Nirvāņa is liberation from cyclic existence33 and hence from arising and ceasing, it follows that, from the ultimate standpoint, all things in samsāra [MDR] are actually just as they are in Nirvāņa … everything is both conventionally real and ultimately unreal. [p.250] […] That is, independent of conceptual imputation there are no objects, no identities, and so, no distinctions [i.e., the ultimate nature of things is inexpressible, inconceivable, and uncharacterizable, but one might directly perceive it in Nirvāņa state of mind] [p.251]’ (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995). Nirvāņa is a complete cessation of samsāra; samsāra includes grasping (including Nirvāņa itself), delusion, attachment, craving, suffering, and the cyclic existence. Both Nirvāņa and samsāra are not inherently existent. It appears that the ultimate reality is experienced at the state of Nirvāņa. […] Furthermore, MIR seems to be MDR without subjectivity (SEs). There is no

32 Here, MIR ~ MDR – mind, where by ‘mind’ is SEs; in general mind includes functions (such as detection, discrimination, cognition, intentionality, thinking process, reasoning, language, and so on) and SEs. 33 The term ‘cyclic existence’ refers to the cycle of arising (birth), abiding (life), and ceasing (death) of an entity, a process, or relation for conventional truth (MDR). For example, (i) the cycle of suffering and happiness, (ii) the cycle of our birth, life, and death, (iii) the cycle of birth of universe at Big Bang, its life over billions of years, and its death during Big Freeze/Big Crunch, and so on. For ultimate truth, there is no cyclic existence. Thus, cyclic existence is not inherently existent in time and space for MDR.


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difference in entity between MDR and MIR. The physics and its laws presumably more or less remain the same in MDR and MIR. An alternative method for getting insight into MIR needs further research; for example, just imagine you are in the sea of EMR [electromagnetic radiation] but all your sensory systems are shut down.” Monteiro’s hypothesis related to MDR and MIR is as follows (personal communication in May 2010): “I claim for the existence of MIR as well as MDR to be complementary. I shortly make the statement, that both are right if the theory (model) is set up formally consistent and the experiment is brought under specified condition. What is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ depends on the ‘perspective’, which one holds. The mind can be MDR as well as MIR under specified ‘conditions’. Perception is MDR, but the other side of the picture is cognition (‘I’) as an autonomous process as MIR. An example of MIR is ‘creativity’. It is relevant to define the ‘individual’ ‘I’ formally and unambiguously in the context of MIR abolishing the metaphorical personalized construct of ‘homunculus’.” To sum up, the SEs aspect of consciousness constructs the MDR; mind-independent reality (MIR) is unknowable although mystics/yogis claim direct perception that is close to MIR. Furthermore, Monteiro’s hypothesis is interesting because the cognition (‘I’) or the ‘individual’ ‘I’ (if it is an autonomous process) and/or creativity might be MIR. 8. Hard problems (Nixon, 2010c) elaborates the hard problem of experiences as follows: “I do not feel that it is the conscious quality of experience which is the Hard Problem, the unexplained mystery; it is the fact of experience itself which resists being plumbed. … Consciousness, I have suggested, is the name we give to the reflection of experience back upon itself through symbolic interaction and intersubjectivity. But it is not experience in itself. […] The Hard Problem of experience may be the only one that needs, if not an explanation, a response. … the Hard Problem is [1] ‘Did experience simply evolve from non-experiencing organic interactions?’ or [2] ‘Did experience ‘dirempt’ or ‘focus’ from some sort of nonspecific, preorganic, experiential potentiality that was part of a universe of all possibilities?’ On the personal level, the Hard Problem might be phrased as [3] ‘Was I in some way conscious before my memory of consciousness begins?’ or [4] ‘Was the experiential groundwork for my individual consciousness already present before ‘I' began?’ […] [substance dualists propose that] the basic form of self-aware consciousness we experience on a daily basis existed as a soul before this life and will exist after it … Consciousness, here [in evolutionary emergentism], is clearly an evolved product of various forces in an otherwise non-conscious, non-living universe. […] the material or spatial world itself is a product of perceptual construction that was preceded by non-perceptual experience within the vicissitudes of temporal duration: Experience of time precedes perception of space (or material). […] Hard Problem: [5] Did consciousness evolve through natural, materialistic processes in an otherwise non-conscious, non-experiencing universe? To answer ‘yes’ is simply to take a stand with unprovable assumptions.”


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In PE-SE framework, hard problems are Types 1-3 explanatory gaps (Vimal, 2009h, 2009i): (i) Type-1explanatory gap is how can SEs emerge/evolve from non-experiential matter? For example, how can SEs emerge from brain or identical with brain-states? (ii) Type-2 explanatory gap is how can SEs pre-exist, i.e., how is it possible that our SEs (such as happiness, sadness, painfulness, and similar SEs) were already present in primal entities, whereas there is no shred of evidence that such SEs were conceived at the onset of universe? (iii) Type-3 explanatory gap is how can we say physics reveals mind-independent reality (MIR) when mind (subjective experience) is always used in setting up theories and observation? or “How Do We Know What We Believe We Know?” (Glasersfeld, 1985). For conscious SEs, necessary ingredients must be satisfied (Vimal, 2009f), such as the formation of neural-network, wakefulness, re-entry (Edelman, 1993), attention, working memory, stimulus above threshold level, and neural-net PEs. Perhaps, Nixon’s hard problem of experience is related to Type-1 and Type-2 explanatory gaps. In my view, perhaps, the answers of the Nixon’s questions [1]-[3] and [5] are ‘no’ in dual-aspect view as in panexperientialism. According to hypothesis H1, organism-environment interactions are necessary. In addition, co-evolution, co-development, matching and selection mechanisms are needed to select a specific SE via matching process. Details are given in (Vimal, 2010d). The answer of the Nixon’s question [4], to some extent, is ‘yes’ because either SEs pre-exist (or can be derived from the interaction of a PE and 3 gunas) and potential SEs are superposed in the mental aspect of each entity in the dual-aspect view with hypothesis H1, which hypothesizes that rudimentary individual consciousness is relational and is the result of organism-environment interaction. Intersubjectivity sharpens individual consciousness to its final form. Furthermore, there is another explanatory gap and hard problem of panexperientialism: It is not still clear how matter (in mind independent reality: MIR) can arise from experiences related to panexperientialism, perhaps, because we do not have relevant evidence and MIR is mysteriously unknown. For this, we need to have experimental data to test a relevant hypothesis. In mind dependent reality (MDR), experiences/mind can construct the appearance of matter, but that matter must pre-exist otherwise how can experiences construct the appearance of the matter, where the term ‘matter’ is related to MIR? For example, how can experiences create the material aspect (NOT the appearance) of Taj Mahal, Empire State Building, or World Trade Center from Ground Zero? This is not clear to me. So far, this seems impossible to me! (Nixon, 2010a) addressed this explanatory gap as follows: “These constructions you mention are the very epitome of experience made manifest. Nature could not manage this on her own. Somebody had an image, invisible in this world of matter-energy, and that image, that dream, became the ultimate source of these buildings — which consciously directed experience then constructed in this very world of matter-energy. In the quantum, isn’t it thought that most energy fields are in the form of waves (‘state vectors’) that, when observed (when conscious expectation is placed upon them), ‘collapse’ into the bound form of photons or subatomic particles? The wave is a not in any particular state of ‘matter’ (it is a vector of possibilities). Upon measurement or observation, a particular form is taken. Does this not indicate that experience gives matter-energy its particular form & structure? Note that this experience may not be conscious of itself, so (as Whitehead indicated) the forms or entities that matter-energy has already taken will


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influence the form taken as the wave of potential (or state vector) collapses. Included amongst the forms of entities in the objective world, after all, are all sorts of experiencers, and their expectations of a continuing world affect the continuing (creative) collapse into more forms or entities. Behind it all is ongoing experience itself; thus, the world is a manifestation of ongoing experience, mostly being ‘in-formed’ by the forms of former creative collapses. Put another way, the world process is itself experience happening, becoming manifest only temporarily.” It is an excellent explanation for the appearance of artifacts built by humans in mind dependent reality (MDR). However, energy, wave, particle are material entities; they are not experiential entities as per physics. We can, however, assume that each of them has a mental aspect that has experiences in dual-aspect view, but physical aspect cannot be excluded. One could argue that the gap still remains in mind-independent reality (MIR, thing-in-itself), and for natural material entities such as, rocks, mountains, rivers, trees, and so on. These material entities must pre-exist in MIR. Then only, mind can construct their appearances. In other words, matter must pre-exist before its mental construction for its appearance. Question is: where these material entities come from? How matter can arise from conscious or non-conscious experiences in MIR? It should be noted that there is a NO mind/consciousness/experience in MIR (by definition) and collapse needs mind/observer. Material universe must have existed billions of years without human mind/observer.XI If one assume that experiences existed before living entities appear, then this definition of experience is too broad or non-specific because one has to assume that any type of interaction is related to an experience. Thus, the closing of the gap is still unclear to me in the panexperientialism framework. 9. Existential crisis, selective process, predictive behavior, and chaotic process for the emergence of consciousness According to (Nixon, 2010d), “I conclude that prehumans underwent an existential crisis that could be resolved only by the discovery-creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness we call the sacred. […] The self is founded with death at its core.” However, one could ask: from where symbolic consciousness and related SEs arise, which can resolve the existential crisis? One of answers may be: they must pre-exist to pick them out demonstratively (Vimal, 2009g). This is the conclusion of my discussion with Type-B materialist Levin. She used the most advanced theory of phenomenal concept strategy to defend Type-B materialism (Levin, 2006). The pre-existence of SEs is consistent with our frameworks. The existential crisis phenomenon is non-causal and non-seminal event, rather it is an epiphenomenon as per (Hersch, 2010): “There can be no doubt the individual self-awareness of mortality is one of the great and terrible contradictions of conscious experience, but I contend that the crisis created by this knowledge is not causal, nor is it a formative event in the


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emergence of consciousness. To the contrary, I contend that the psychological impact of mortal knowledge is an epiphenomenon that had a late onset in the course of human experience.”34 (Hersch, 2010) proposes a framework of evolution, selection, adaptation, predictive behavior, the internalization of organism-environment interactions, and the language for the emergence of intersubjectivity and then individual consciousness: “All organisms engage in predictive behavior, but in the absence of consciousness, that behavior is genetically engrained rather than intentional. […] Again, in the case of non-conscious behavior, every organism must of necessity, have built into its genetically determined behavioral repertoire, predictions that have been selected for on the basis of patterned events [equivalent to Nixon’s cosmic cycles] that actually take place repeatedly in its environment, and this behavioral repertoire will be passed on to subsequent generations. […] We have a tendency to view the process of evolution in morphological terms rather than behavioral terms, yet morphology can be aptly viewed as nothing more than an instrument of behavior that, at its most fundamental level, involves survival and reproduction, and it is from the standpoint of the predictive nature of all living behavior, that we must address the emergence of consciousness. […] The change begins when the predictive behaviors that reflect the interactions between the creature and its environment become turned inward amongst the group itself. […] It is the call and the response, in which the response in turn, becomes a call itself, that marks the emergence of the intersubjective conscious creature. Awakening to consciousness entails a leap to meaningful language, and language behavior involves, at its root, patterned, predictive, mutuality.” (Hersch, 2010) elaborates further the selective process for the emergence of consciousness: “In the final analysis, it needs to be remembered that the interactions among and between various species have been determined by a selective process based on the random variation that takes place in the context of the entire constellation of physiological-behavioral differences that emerge among living organisms. There are no rules that determine what works at any given time, in any given place, and in any given ecological context. Among individuals and groups, competitive and cooperative behaviors, dominance and submission, are equally subject to selection pressures. Selection is the ultimate equal opportunity employer. Failure to understand this is the fallacy inherent in Social Darwinism.” The above hypothesis is somewhat consistent with the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) in a complementary manner. However, again, SEs must pre-exist to pick them out demonstratively (Vimal, 2009g). This seems somewhat consistent with the hypothesis of pre-existence of the continuum of experiences (Nixon, 2010b).

34 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that (Hersch, 2010) ignores a great deal of psychological evidence for death denial (Becker, 1973) at the mind’s core.

Becker’s The Denial of Death (Becker, 1973) is interesting. In some sense, we all are involved in Becker’s immortality project (or causa sui), in which we create, publish, and/or become part of something which we feel will last forever; something that will never die, compared to our physical body that will die one day. This gives us the feeling that our lives have meaning, a purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things. However, this comes later after our basic needs are satisfied.


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The developmental neural Darwinism in the PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) is consistent with (Hersch, 2010)’s embryologic development: “It is difficult to imagine the exact context in which the transformation occurred among our ancestors, but we can see the process at work in child development. We are all familiar with the idea that in embryologic development, we see much of evolutionary development mirrored in the development of the embryo --- gills and the like. In this same fashion, we can see in the development of the child, the various stages by which consciousness emerges in microcosm. The newborn infant is not conscious, though from a genetic standpoint, it is both equipped and predisposed to acquire consciousness. At first the infant is entirely focused and reactively dependent on its mother. The mother, who is both programmed and conscious, calls forth the consciousness of the infant, and pop-psychology notwithstanding, is genetically compelled to perform the behaviors necessary accomplish this calling-forth. […] As the infant matures, the mother engages in rhythmic vocalizations that are the immediate precursors to language. These include cooing, repetitious phrases, and singing.35 […] And so the child is awakened to a symbolic world of theory in which the meaning of things is engendered in cause and effect relationships --- reliably and predictably.” (Hersch, 2010) compares his embryologic development framework with Nixon’s existential crisis framework as follows: “To place this picture of the process of emergence of consciousness in microcosm in the context of Nixon’s crisis of mortal knowledge, we might ask ourselves how the very same crisis awareness emerges in human development. Since I have not come across any academic literature that correlates anticipatory death terror with developmental age, I can only speculate. It seems to me that the terror engendered by the anticipation of one’s eventual death develops quite slowly over the course of a lifetime.” (Nixon, 2010c) makes the case for rather sudden appearance of self-referential language; only a crisis can account for this sudden (over a few generations) transformation as per (Nixon, 2010a). In my view, if the existential crisis is the only factor that can account for this sudden transformation related to the appearance of self-referential language, then the related neural-network must be formed over a few generations. Furthermore, the embryologic developmental aspect of language seems to imply that the existential crisis factor participates later in life’s timeline. (Hersch, 2010) then examines the predictive behavior with respect to the embryologic development: “Common sense tells us that the child acquires the name for things, categorizes them and thereafter, organizes them into predictive theoretical relationships. As difficult as it may be to grasp this idea, the situation is actually the opposite. The child experiences everything in relation --- in predictive interaction with the world --- and names things in order to clothe relation with symbolic objects (objectification). In this process, the child undergoes a transformation from a behaving creature that reacts to the world to a predictive intentional actor who acts upon the world. We see that theory (as prediction) precedes data.”

35 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that since humans are the only ones who do this with their young — speak to them as though they were already conscious — it begs the question of the origins of same in our species.

I agree and it seems to entail that consciousness with its two aspects (function and experience) in rudimentary form pre-exists for intersubjective interaction.


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One could argue that the 3-5 years embryonic development of consciousness in infants appear equivalent to the emergence of consciousness over many generations in ancestral troop of wandering hominids (human-like apes).36 However, in all cases, SEs must pre-exist to pick them out demonstratively (Vimal, 2009g). The emergence of individual consciousness from social/tribal consciousness from the developmental rhythmic call and response behavior is argued by (Hersch, 2010) as: “The individual [in ancestral troop/tribe of wandering hominids] may have been self-aware, but in a dimmer sense than we rugged individualists experience today. […] This does not mean that individuals did not come into conflict with one another. […] In contrast to Nixon’s mortal knowledge thesis, I have asserted that conscious emerges from rhythmic call and response behavior spawned from complex sign behavior, and that call and response is perpetuated and elaborated in language behavior in ongoing intersubjective inter—ACTION. The faculty of symbolic interaction (language behavior) enables the construction of a shared predictive/theoretical narrative --- a socially constructed reality --- that functions to produce coordinated, collaborative, intentional (meaningful), and innovative, action among members of the fundamentally the eusocial human species. […] As I have explained, the emergence of tribal-centric consciousness in which the individual self is fully realized is not only consistent with a definition of consciousness, but it is the essence of consciousness that, Nixon and I agree, emerges in symbolic interaction among eusocial creatures. The immersion of the self in relation to a larger causal narrative that embodies tribal identity, takes precedence and this remains true today in the emergence of consciousness that can be observed in child development. […] we can place the emergence of the symbolic, language-using, Homo sapiens at around 150,000 years ago. […] The 140,000-year experiment with tribal-centric consciousness produced a stunningly rapid expansion of range for Homo sapiens. The most recent 10,000 year experiment in which object-centric consciousness, a cultural product realized in intersubjective relation, produces increasing economic efficiencies at an exponentially increasing rate, has resulted in a stunningly rapid expansion of population.” (Nixon, 2010h) replied to (Hersch, 2010): “My thesis is that with the life threatening crisis of mortal knowledge the human awoke to his own existence and the mind itself now found a place between the environmental stimulus and the instinctual response system. […] in my statement of the genetic imperative to survive and reproduce, I ignore cooperative communities, which are central evolutionary features, as well. […] new categories of thought involved the prediction of future events. That is even clear from the archeological record. I’m not sure where he thinks I deny this. I base thought on emotions because I asked myself, why were predictions made? To what end was foreknowledge needed? And the answer was always to fulfill needs that emotions indicated needed to be fulfilled. We certainly did use our new conceptual categories to predict and to build a new cultural world, but we did so for two reasons: We were biologically and psychologically compelled to do so. The former involves the natural emotions (or, as Hersch would have it, feelings) that arise from our embodiment and the latter involves the emotions that

36 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that many generations is not evolutionarily slow, and the definite evidence of symbolic behavior has only been found in H. sapiens.

This is true, but one could argue the emergence of consciousness over many generations might be considered equivalent to 3-5 years embryonic development in infant.


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arose in response to the existential crisis of mortal knowledge. […] I can’t agree that (symbolic) culture is a ‘product’ of conscious action [i.e., the cause of symbolic culture is conscious action]; it is, instead, a simultaneous appearance. We cannot become conscious of our selves without intersubjectivity, and intersubjectivity is a cultural phenomenon. […] I too tend to favour the old idea that the development of the individual from the womb onwards loosely tends to recapitulate evolution – including in this case the cultural evolution of the self.” (Nixon, 2010c) proposes an alternative chaotic process for the emergence of consciousness: “Another position derived from a combination of quantum physics and far from equilibrium thermodynamics sees experience of any sort creating experienced worlds from the chaos or semi-chaos of the unknown and non-experienced — the Kantian ‘things in themselves’.” However, according to (Monteiro, 2010), “the autonomous non-experiencing thing or chaotic unrelated process and experiencing is the borderline between meaningless and meaningful to be incorporated in a philosophy or theory. The meaningless autonomy of a process (Ding-an-sich) must be the axiomatic starting point. The question is how to build the bridge between meaningless and meaningful experiencing: 1) one has to postulate accidental random material object interaction to generate or activate the mind (matter→mind); and 2) accidental random subject mental interaction to activate matter (mind→matter). Through interpersonal feedback, meaningful experiencing (perception) comes into being. The question is what happens in the non-causal gaps of matter→mind and mind→matter” [p. 374]. In the dual-aspect PE-SE framework, self (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) is SE of subject and is related to an adaptive pressure arising from self-organization, chaotic dynamics, and neural Darwinism (Edelman, 1993). Furthermore, (Nixon, 2010d) emphasizes the role of evolution, existential crisis, and chaotic processes for the emergence of consciousness: “the evolution of language […] The existential crisis (the crisis of motivation brought on by the peripheral observation of inevitable mortality) didn't create syntax on the spur of the moment ex nihilo. It is a tenet of systems and ‘chaos’ theory that when any system enters a crisis state, its organization will begin to degenerate or it will transform into a new system through ‘emergent evolution’ (cf. (Pattee, 1995)). […] (Gallagher, 2001) is correct in positing a primary intersubjectivity from which individual subjectivity emerges. […] speech, though asserted by individuals, was experienced as a communal phenomenon”. In my view, the existential crisis and chaotic emergent evolution may have helped the evolution of languages, but the individual self (SE of subject) (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) might already have occurred in brain when self-related neural-networks evolved.37

37 (Nixon, 2010a) questioned: Do you imagine such a thing just spontaneously evolved? As noted, language & brain co-evolved (see (Deacon, 1997)), so one might say mind & brain co-evolved. What happened to human experience that led to the natural selection self-related neural-networks?

I agree that since language & brain co-evolved (Deacon, 1997), so one might say mind & brain co-evolved. I guess, Nixon’s rationale is that co-evolution involves real hard existential crisis and chaos, whereas soft easy going developmental rhythmic call and response behavior (predictive behavior) and/or spontaneous co-evolution is not


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To sum up, in my view, (Nixon, 2010d; Nixon, 2010h) and (Hersch, 2010) are complementary to each other in some sense. Therefore, one can try bridging their two hypotheses by arguing that the developmental rhythmic call and response behavior (predictive behavior) of (Hersch, 2010) occurs first and then Nixon’s existential crisis38 (Nixon, 2010d) occur later and both contribute towards the emergence/occurrence of consciousness along with: (i) the emotionally-based knowledge, (ii) genetic imperative to survive and reproduce, (iii) contributions from cooperative communities, (iv) social Darwinism, (v) predictive behavior to fulfill biologically and psychologically compelled emotion related needs, and (vi) the pre-existence of SEs. In PE-SE framework, the individual consciousness is modulated (not emerged) by the symbolic interaction among eusocial creatures. In other words, social consciousness emerges from the interactions among individual consciousnesses (or interaction between brains)XII . This is because an individual must pick out demonstratively a specific SE even in materialism so it must pre-exist say in a virtual reservoir: a specific SE is selected from the virtual reservoir containing all kinds of potential SEs in superposed form as in hypothesis H1 (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) or SEs emerge from the interaction of a PE and relevant three-gunas as in hypothesis H2 (Vimal, 2009g)).39 On the basis of evolution, (i) individual consciousness in rudimentary form might have occurred about 540 millions years ago (mya) during Cambrian explosion (Hameroff, 1998); (ii) symbolic, language-using, Homo sapiens (tribal-centric consciousness) emerged at around 150,000 years ago (kya) (Hersch, 2010), and (iii) self-centric or object-centric consciousness might have emerged at around 10 kya (Hersch, 2010). In summary, one can argue that predictive behavior, existential crisis, chaotic emergent evolution, and so on may all have their appropriate percent contribution in the evolution of individual consciousness and intersubjectivity; further research is needed to address the issue of their precise timeline and percent contribution. 10. Interaction between brains, inter-subjectivity, and social consciousness, and origin of individual consciousness (Nixon, 2010c) proposes that the origin of individual consciousness is inter-subjectivity (second person perspective): “For the subjectivist, conscious origins tend to take off for more ethereal regions, above into the Great Beyond of transcendent spirituality. This is not the way we come to consciousness nor the way we experience it drawn through time. Percy, for example, sees

going to cause co-evolution because it is within the normal range. However, in the life’s timeline (of say 100 years), the sequence of developmental rhythmic call and response behavior occurs first because of newborn’s development then the existential crisis such as death occurs at the end. 38 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that call & response may have led to protolanguage (cf. (Bickerton, 2000)). One could argue that since call and response behavior may have led to protolanguage (Bickerton, 2000) that leads to language, developmental rhythmic call and response behavior contribute first then the existential crisis in our life time line. 39 From my discussion with type-B materialists Levin and Papineau in (Vimal, 2009g), my view is that SEs must pre-exist to pick it out demonstratively and therefore materialism fails even after the most advance argument of PCS (phenomenal concept strategy) theory for type-B materialism. This failure supports our hypotheses H1 (Vimal, 2010d) and H2 (Vimal, 2009b).


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conscious experience as evolving neither from third person materialism nor pre-existing in first person spirituality. He writes that ‘there has come into existence a relation which transcends the physico-causal relations obtaining among data. This relation is intersubjectivity. It is a reality which can no longer be understood in the instrumental terms of biological adaptation’ (1975, pp. 271-2). One might call intersubjectivity the second person perspective.” According to (Adams, 2010b), “Nixon [(Nixon, 2010c)] tends to the view that subjectivity is self-knowing, or proto-knowing. While he supports the notion that the ‘self’ is merely a narrative structure, somewhat arbitrarily built and maintained by conversations in society, he seems to at the same time believe that ‘The recognition of the self is, in a sense, the objectification of the subject by the subject...’ The relationship between subjectivity and the self is never made explicit. The narrative self is the total set of stories we tell ourselves about who we are, but at the same time, ‘Subjectivity, then, is the experience of being the implied subject of discourse.’ Nixon suggests (but does not state) that subjectivity is a prerequisite for development of a narrative self, for subjectivity is necessary to define intersubjectivity, the awareness we have of each other’s minds.” In dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework, self is SE of subject (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) seems somewhat consistent with Nixon’s self and subjectivity.XIII However, the origin of individual consciousness is the virtual reservoir (equivalent to the Nixon’s universal background of awareness) via relational organism-environment interaction, and this individual consciousness is later modulated by inter-subjectivity.40 (Nixon, 2010c) emphasizes language as a key factor for inter-subjectivity and conscious experiences: “Language acquisition is the final threshold, which requires the assertion of experience in speech and a consequent sense of subjectivity, narrational practice and its pronouns that make reference to such subjectivity, and the intersubjective dynamic by which we recognize and help create subjects in other persons (and who reflexively affect our own subjectivity) [p. 257]. […] Being in itself or experience as such out of which our conscious experience arose is perhaps possible to identify with some attributes of the cultural construct we know as ‘nature’. […] The view of primordial self-existence derives no doubt from the reification of the sense of self, the assumption that the self exists before language and communicates through language as another cultural tool. […] (Lacan, 1977) makes it clear that, for whatever reason, it is an error of immense proportion to simply assume that there is a world of experience ‘out there’ or ‘in here’ previous to or beneath or beyond language to which we have access. […] as Kerby indicated, this self has had its linguistic creation prepared for it before

40 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that it is unclear how this (individual consciousness is later modulated by inter-subjectivity) could be unless you are referring to something mystical like the Atman or soul.

I am not referring to Atman or soul as in Vedic system or religion, which is close to substance-dualism-and-property-dualism; rather my framework is a dual-aspect view that has substance-monism-and-property-dualism. The problem seems that our definitions are different: Nixon’s definitions are panexperientialism-based and mine are dual-aspect based. I do not see that Nixon is contradicting my view seriously on mental aspect (Vimal, 2010d). We both accept that individual consciousness is relational; in my dual-aspect framework, ‘relation’ involves organism-environment interaction, where environment may include all non-living and living entities (including other human individuals).


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its biological birth and it will leave linguistic echoes after its biological demise. […] all that is outside of language is non-conscious experience in a reality that is largely a construction of our biological human sensory and memory systems relating to the things in themselves. […] Thought is built within language and language is the activity of a people.” (Nixon, 2010c) discusses the decision making at preconscious level, the language hypothesis for conscious experiences, and the origin of conscious experience from nonconscious experience further as: “Libet (e.g., (Libet, 1992)), though questioned by some, have persuasively revealed that most conscious decision making takes place an entire half-second after brain activation readings show that subconscious neural processing has begun, indicating the actual decision takes place preconsciously. […] Consciousness shades into the unconscious, into nonconscious experience, with vistas of information arriving both preconsciously and departing postconsciously. (Dennett, 1991) has famously insisted that consciousness does not even do that, that it is not even real but a mere side effect of language, the intentional fallacy. It seems clear, however, that even side effects have some reality. For (Velmans, 2009), consciousness has the vital role of making existence, things in themselves, real for us [p. 261]”. If language is mandatory for conscious experiences, then how do we explain the conscious experiences of mute people who cannot speak, a subject who is isolated (such as in a prison cell) or animals that cannot speak? One could, however, argue for mental language for these cases.41 To address inter-subjectivity, we need to explain the second person perspective: “The term ‘second person’ is a grammatical term which describes the person whom the doer or the first person talks to. When you add the word perspective with the word it describes that something is being watched from the perspective of the second person.”42 In the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework,43 intersubjective dynamics (second person perspective) is a part of developmental neural Darwinism where mind and brain (including self)

41 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that if deaf-mutes never even learn to comprehend symbolic interaction, they have no means to become conscious of themselves. It is possible to enter the world of the symbolic (in which one finds oneself immersed) without being to speak or even understand particular words. Feral or brutally isolated children, I would argue, are not conscious (as in self-conscious) but they are experiencing. I have made the case that nonhuman animals experience emotions but are not conscious of that experience (not self-conscious).

Nixon’s definition of conscious experience is restricted to self-consciousness (and/or Block’s access or reportable consciousness), whereas my definition of SEs includes Nixon’s and also Block’s phenomenal (non-reportable) consciousness. Nixon would categorize the latter under non-conscious experiences. If this is correct, Nixon’s conscious experience should be qualifies with ‘access or reportable’ to avoid confusion. It should be noted that pan-experientialism has explanatory gap problems; the dual-aspect framework does not have such problem. The latter framework is optimal (that has least number of problems) and is complementary to Type-B materialism in a sense that the dual-aspect view argues for mental aspect in addition to Type-B materialism’s physical aspect. 42 Adapted from http://www.blurtit.com/q163012.html. 43 Since every entity has mental and physical aspects in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, conscious robots are possible as discussed in (Vimal, 2010d). Our definition of mind = experiences and/or functions in (Vimal, 2010e) encompasses panpsychism.


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co-develop including sensorimotor tuning between ‘I’ (first person perspective), ‘You’ (second person perspective), and ‘s/he, it’ (third person perspective). In other words, the intersubjective dynamics of second person perspective helps in co-tuning and co-developing the SEs of first person (‘I’) subjective perspective with related neural-correlates of third person (‘s/he, it’) objective perspective and second person (‘You’) intersubjective perspective. This appears consistent with (Nixon, 2010f): “I do not classify my approach within the philosophical dichotomy of realism vs. idealism. Instead, I embrace Terrence Deacon’s co-evolution of language and the brain, each affecting change in the other, which is to say conscious experience [of objects including other interacting human beings] may depend on the brain [and] the brain is in turn changed by conscious experience (since for me language and symbol provided the context for human (self) consciousness). However this begs the question of experience in itself, since most of our experiencing, I believe, is unconscious.” (de Quincey, 2010) compares the three (first, second and third person) perspectives: “on the one hand, investigations of third-person, objective, correlates (e.g. neuroscience and cognitive science) and investigations of first-person, subjective, experience and phenomena (e.g. introspection and meditation), on the other. These two perspectives set the terms of debate in contemporary consciousness research: Is consciousness first-person subjective or third-person objective? How can we bridge the ‘explanatory gap’ between objective brains and subjective minds? […] Although the second-person perspective has been almost entirely overlooked in Western philosophy of mind, the notion of intersubjectivity actually has had significant proponents in other disciplines-such as linguistics, social psychology, psychotherapy, and anthropology.” In addition, (de Quincey, 2010) proposes: (i) “that intersubjectivity is foundational to both a philosophical understanding of, and an experiential engagement with transpersonal phenomena” and (ii) “an evolutionary model of consciousness based on a distinction between intersubjective and interpersonal consciousness - a model that provides a philosophical foundation for the core insights of transpersonal psychology.” He argues that “in addition to methodologies of first-person subjectivity (exploring consciousness from ‘within’ through meditation and introspection), and third person objectivity (studying external correlates of consciousness, such as brains and neurons), a holistic science of consciousness would also expand to include second-person intersubjective methodology and epistemology44 - to account for the inter-reflexivity of consciousness (subjectivity-reflected-in-subjectivity) in ‘I thou’ relationships. Whereas first-person methodologies, such as meditative practices, lead to ‘monologic’ consciousness (Whorf, 1956), second-person methodologies, such as Bohmian dialogue,45 lead to ‘dialogic’ 44 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology 45 “Bohm Dialogue (also known as Bohmian Dialogue) is a freely-flowing group conversation that makes an attempt, utilizing a theoretical understanding of the way thoughts relate to universal reality, to more effectively investigate the crises that face society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness. […] ‘when the 2nd person replies, the 1st person sees a Difference between what he meant to say and what the other person understood. On considering this difference, he may then be able to see something new, which is relevant both to his own views and to those of the other person. And so it can go back and forth, with the continual emergence of a new content that is common to both participants. Thus, in a dialogue, each person does not attempt to make common certain


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consciousness (Bohm, 1985).” (de Quincey, 2010) further argues that ‘consciousness’ (awareness) can be either “contrasted with being unconscious (psychological meaning)”, or “contrasted with the complete absence of any mental activity whatsoever (philosophical meaning)”. (de Quincey, 2010) argues for two kinds of subjectivity: In Subjectivity-1, “subjectivity means, essentially, a capacity for feeling that is intrinsic, or interior, to the entity under consideration--a what-it-feels-like-from within. The key notion here is ‘experienced interiority’ as distinct from vacuous (i.e. without experience) external relations. … experience doesn't ‘happen to’ a subject, it is constitutive of the subject.” In Subjectivity-2, “subjectivity means an isolated, independent, self-sufficient locus of experience. Classically, this is the Cartesian ego, wholly private, and independent of all reality external to it. In the first case, subjectivity-1, experienced interiority is not automatically self-contained within its own private domain-- it is interior, but not necessarily independent or isolated. The question of whether it is self-contained or interdependent is left open: It is possible for subjectivity-1 to be either interior and shared, or interior and private. In this second, Cartesian, case, the subject is not only interior, it is self-contained and private. Such independent egos, or subjects--Leibniz called them ‘monads’--can communicate only via mediating signals, whereas subjectivity-1 can communicate by participating in shared presence. With subjectivity-1, interiority or feeling can be ‘intersubjective’ and precede individual subjects; in subjectivity-2, interiority is always private, and intersubjectivity, if it occurs, is always secondary.” According to (de Quincey, 2010), (Kant, 1961) implies that as “an object, the ‘I’ becomes ‘me,’ and the spontaneity of the ‘I’ is obliterated. In short the subject can never become an object to itself. At best, the first-person ‘I’ recedes, and in its place an objectified third person ‘me’ appears. But this ‘me’-as-object lacks the very autonomy and spontaneity that is the characteristic essence of the ‘I’-as-subject. The ‘I’ is autonomous, creative and now; the ‘me’ is reflected, and therefore past (a habitual construct in memory, built up throughout a lifetime).” This can be interpreted in terms of our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2010d) where the two modes are: (1) the non-tilde mode representing ‘I’ (in self-related feedback signals from cortical midline structures) and ‘me’ (in terms of past in a habitual construct built up throughout a lifetime in memory) as the cognitive nearest past approaching towards present and (2) tilde mode representing the feed forward stimulus related signals which pertains to the nearest future approaching towards present. “When the conjugate match is made between the two modes, the world-presence (Now) is disclosed” (Vimal, 2010d).46

ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it may be said that two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.’ (from [Bohm’s] on dialogue)” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue). 46 According to (Vimal, 2010d), “We incorporate the dual-mode concept in our dual-aspect PE-SE (proto-experiences-subjective experience) framework. The two modes are: (1) the non-tilde mode that is the material and mental aspect of cognition (memory and attention) related feedback signals in a neural-network, which refers to the cognitive nearest past approaching towards present; and (2) the tilde mode that is the material and mental aspect of the feed forward signals due to external environmental input and internal endogenous input, which pertains to the nearest future approaching towards present and is a entropy-reversed representation of non-tilde mode. […] We


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By proposing ego/alter-ego framework, (de Quincey, 2010) addresses the critical question on individual-subjectivity vs. intersubjectivity raised by many investigators: “How can there be a circle of intersubjectivity unless there are subjects already present to start with?47 Mead recognized this problem and proposed as a solution that in the same moment the self encounters an alter ego-the moment ‘I’ encounter ‘you’-the concrete organism establishes a relationship to itself. ‘The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience’ ((Mead, 1962/1967), p.140). The self is thus ‘first encountered as a subject in the moment when communicative relations are established between organisms.’ ((Hohengarten, 1992), p. xvi). The self, thus, has two components: the theoretical ‘me,’ my consciousness of myself, and the practical ‘me,’ the agency through which I monitor my behavior (such as speaking)48. ‘The ‘I’ is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the ‘me’ is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes’ ((Mead, 1962/1967), p.175). Hohengarten explains: This practical ‘me’ comes into existence when the subject establishes a practical relation to herself by adopting the normative attitude of an alter ego toward her own behavior. [...] such a conventionally constituted self is nonetheless a precondition for the emergence of a nonconventional aspect of the practical self: the practical ‘I,’ which opposes the ‘me’ with both presocial drives and innovative fantasy. […] Yet the self is intersubjectively constituted through and through; the relationship to a community is what makes the practical relation-to-self possible ((Hohengarten, 1992), pp.xvi-xvii. …). Mead’s emphasis on the intersubjective constitution of the self, of the subject’s sense of continuity and identity, accounts for self as an ‘individualized context’ for the contents of experience. But it still does not account for the ‘metacontext’--the non-individualized ontological context that underlies all contents of consciousness. […] the essence of human being was relationship, and Buber gave

propose that: (i) the quantum conjugate matching between experiences in the mental aspect of the tilde mode and that of the non-tilde mode is related more to the mental aspect of the quantum microtubule-dendritic-web and less to that of the non-quantum sub-pathways. And (ii) the classical matching between experiences in the mental aspect of the tilde mode and that of the non-tilde mode is related to the mental aspect of the non-quantum sub-pathways (such as classical axonal-dendritic neural sub-pathway). In both cases, a specific SE is selected when the tilde mode interacts with the non-tilde mode to match for a specific SE, and when the necessary ingredients of SEs (such as the formation of neural-networks, wakefulness, re-entry, attention, working memory, and so on) are satisfied. When the conjugate match is made between the two modes, the world-presence (Now) is disclosed.” 47 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that individual subjects emerge in the process of learning to communicate symbolically. Language is haltingly co-invented by groups of speakers each of whom often finish what another has begun (as inspiration strikes). In this case, rudimentary language (felt to come from elsewhere, like the gods) precedes the internalization of language into thought and thus individual subjectivity. So, yes, 2nd person origin: Nixon likes it.

In my view, this seems to imply that rudimentary individual consciousness (that is relational and occurs during organism-environment (‘it’, ‘s/he’, and/or ‘you’) interactions) precedes intersubjectivity, which in turn sharpens the individual consciousness. 48 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that the monitoring of emotional experience & its direction is a key component of conscious experience. I love the way de Quincey brings in Mead (though not so much Hohengarten). Experimental data is necessary to test both hypotheses: individual consciousness is the result of intersubjectivity versus full blown individual consciousness is the result of (i) first organism-environment interaction for rudimentary individual consciousness, and (ii) then sharpening of rudimentary individual consciousness via intersubjectivity.


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ontological status to the ‘between’—a mysterious force, ‘presence,’ or creative milieu, in which the experience of being a self arises. Relations, then, not the relata, were primordial, if not actually primary. ‘Spirit is not in the I but between I and You’ ((Buber, 1970), p.89). […] Buber's vision-replacing the notion of substance with dynamic relations.” To sum up, the above inter-subjective hypothesis implies that self emerges during interaction between the subject (ego) and objects (alter ego and/or other persons) with contents of individual experience in the subject. However, this implication is controversial because (1) self as SE of subject without second person (You) is possible, especially during eye-closed meditation, but this happens after the sense of self is learned via language acquisition as per (Nixon, 2010a), and (2) ‘what is before interaction’ is unclear (perhaps it is individual consciousness or self!)XIV . (de Quincey, 2010) critiques Buber: “Buber is not always consistent about whether the relationship, the ‘betweenness,’ is fundamental, or whether, as logic seems to require, any relationship must always be between some pre-existing entities.” Wheelwright summarizes Buber's position in Between Man and Man as: “By nature each person is a single being, finding himself in company with other single beings; to be single is not to be isolated, however, and by vocation each one is to find and realize his proper focus by entering into relationship with others” ((Wheelwright, 1967), p.75). The betweenness can be interpreted in terms of the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework as follows: “In the holoworld framework (Globus, 2004; Globus, 2006; Globus, 1987; Globus, 1995; Globus, 1998, 2002; Globus, 2005; Globus, 2007) when the interaction occurs between (i) the non-tilde future (an ‘alter time-reversed’ quantum mode) approaching towards present and (ii) the tilde cognitive past (‘our’ mode) approaching towards present and the conjugate match is made, the ‘world-presence’ (‘Now’/‘present’) is disclosed in the match for the ‘belonging-together’ (Heidegger's (Heidegger, 1927/1962) zusammen-gehoeren of die Ursprung=belong together of the origin) of a specific between-two. […] In Vitiello’s framework (Vitiello, 1995; Vitiello, 2004), consciousness is generated between-two during the interaction of the brain system and its world environment, which are the two quantum modes. […] Thus, the selected specific SE during conjugate matching between [two modes] (i) and (ii) is the real explicate state of the between-two in which the dual complex-valued modes belong-together at the juncture of the interaction of feed forward and feedback signals, for example, at V4/V8/VO neurons for color. […] The between-two is explicate, world-thrown. […] In quantum-thermofield framework (restricted panpsychism or panpsychism above coherence length) (Globus, 2009), subjectivity (intentionality) tunes the belonging-together of the between-two. […] The dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework has the dual-aspect everywhere in each mode and also in the between-two: coming from the past (cognitive feedback signals, non-tilde mode), coming from future (stimulus dependent feed forward signals, tilde mode)49 and the Now (between-two modes). For example, the mental aspect of a between-two is SE redness and the material-aspect of the between-two is the related V4/V8/VO neural-network and its activity when a trichromat views a red-ball. […] the ‘experience’ is denoted by the between-two: ‘our thrownness in a world of qualities’ […]

49 The terms ‘tilde’ and ‘non-tilde’ used for in Globus’ holoworld framework and the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework are just opposite.


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Situatedness is not between-two but is one of the two. [...] The subjectivity (intentionality) tunes the belonging-together of the between-two modes (tilde and nontilde modes). What belongs-together is sensory input and situatedness, and this match explicates world-thrownness. […] One could argue that the between-two is fully phenomenal -- world-like -- in the belonging-together of sensory input, intentional input (subjectivity) and re-traces. However, the ‘world-like’, the phenomenal or access awareness (Block, 2005) of world is mind-dependent reality. Thus, one could argue that the between-two (that denotes ‘experience’ and, in my view, equivalent to SE in the PE-SE framework for bridging purpose) also depends on the subjects. That is why, one could argue that the between-two for achromats is black-white world and that for the trichromats is color-world. […] the ‘subjective between-two’ in the holoworld framework can be considered equivalent to ‘subjective experience’ in the PE-SE framework for bridging purpose. The between-two appears subjective because, for example, the between-two is the dark-gray ball for an achromat and the red ball for a trichromat for looking at the same long wavelength reflecting ball.” (de Quincey, 2010) elaborates (Jacques, 1991) position on the relationship between I, you, and he/she: “Jacques has developed a theory of ‘being-as-speaking’ and of the ‘being-who-speaks.’ He parts company with most other intersubjectivists, by presenting a tripartite schema of the subject--not just ‘I’ and ‘thou,’ but one that includes also ‘he/she.’ Self-identity, he says, results from integration of the three poles of any communication: ‘by speaking to other and saying I, by being spoken to by others as you, or by being spoken of by others as a he/she that the subject would accept as appropriate’ ((Jacques, 1991), p. xv). He takes issue with Buber who claimed that human beings become I and derive their interiority only when they encounter a you. Jacques argues that a human being becomes a personal self only when, in addition to I-thou, the ‘otherness’ of an absent third-party, he/she, is acknowledged.” These positions potentiate the hypothesis that first, second, and third person all interact for the emergence of full-blown personal self. The above inter-subjective hypothesis of (Jacques, 1991) implies that personal self emerges during interaction between all three perspectives: (i) first person (‘I’ ), the subject (ego), (ii) second person (thou, objects: alter ego and/or other persons), and (iii) third person (s/he). However, one needs to explain the self during non-reportable phenomenal SE aspect of consciousness where attention is not necessary, i.e., (ii) and (iii) are missing. (Habermas, 1992) proposes that ego (self) is intersubjective process mediated via language: “The ego, which seems to me to be given in my self-consciousness as what is purely my own, cannot be maintained by me solely through my own power, as it were for me alone--it does not ‘belong’ to me. Rather, this ego always retains an intersubjective core because the process of individuation from which it emerges runs through the network of linguistically mediated interactions50 [p. 170] […] The idealizing supposition of a universalistic form of life, in which everyone can take up the perspective of everyone else and can count on reciprocal recognition by everybody, makes it possible for individuated beings to exist within a community--individualism as the flip-side of universalism [p. 186].”

50 (Nixon, 2010a) still thinks that this intersubjective core is fear, specifically mortal fear.


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This seems to address ‘what is before interaction’ to some extent: the ‘self before interaction’ is modified after intersubjective interaction via the process of individuation. This is consistent with the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). (de Quincey, 2010) proposes further that language is the key entity in the inter-subjective interaction (between first and second person) and in the emergence of social (inter-subjective) and individual consciousness while pointing out the problems of first and third person approaches: “Language engages speakers and hearers in such a way that both participate and risk themselves in communication. In the process, consciousness intersubjectively creates and reveals itself. We can identify three central elements of Habermas' work-- the three ‘Ps’: (1) emphasis on practice away from theory; (2) the public or intersubjective origin and role of language and meaning; and (3) the performative function of language [communicative action]. […] Language and meaning unfold from the ‘dialogical’ reciprocity of ‘I-speakers’ and ‘you-listeners.’ […] It is here, in Habermas, where ‘intersubjective agreement’ (through linguistic tokens) and ‘intersubjective co-creativity’ (through shared experience) come together. The first is a foundation for consensual scientific knowledge established between communicating individual subjects (Velmans, 1992). The second is true intersubjective mutual beholding--where the experience of self, of consciousness, arises as a felt experience from the encounter. […] The standard approaches to the study of consciousness have bifurcated along apparently irreconcilable methodologies derived, respectively, from Cartesian-inspired philosophy of the subject (first-person epistemology) and from Hobbesian inspired philosophy of matter (third-person objects). In the first case, knowledge of the objective world remains problematic; in the second, knowledge of the knowing subject (of consciousness)--and therefore of all knowledge-- is inexplicable and radically problematic. […] We all use all three ways of knowing--objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity--in one form or another most of the time. We all deal with external material objects, we all feel what it is like to be a being from within, and we all participate and communicate with other human beings.” In the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, the self (SE of subject) could be modified by the interaction between first (‘I’), third (s/he, me), and second person (‘you’) entities. The first-, second-, and third-person perspectives are elaborated further by (de Quincey, 2010) as: “We tend not to notice the second-person perspective because it is right in front of our noses everyday. It’s the medium in which we most naturally live. Whereas for third-person perspective we need to set up controlled (and artificial) laboratory experiments to induce (at least the illusion of) a separation between observer and observed, and thus step back, or step out of the stream of natural living and human interaction. This stepping-back allows us to notice the third-person perspective in action--because it's not ‘normal.’ Similarly, for first-person perspective: in meditation (or other contemplative or introspective) disciplines we ‘withdraw’ from the ‘normal’ world, and the subjective perspective shows up in contrast. […] [In second person perspective, something] different happens in consciousness when we engage like this. Physicist David Bohm recognized this potential for consciousness exploration in his approach to ‘dialogue’ (Bohm, 1985; Bohm, 1996). […] The ‘I’ that encounters you (as the locus of another ‘I’) is different from the ‘I’ that encounters the world as a conglomeration of ‘its.’ Who I am can be revealed (at


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least partially) through my encounter with you, whereas I-as-‘I’ remain entirely unattainable if I encounter the world as merely a collection of ‘its.’ […] There is something about the nature of consciousness, it seems, that requires the presence of the ‘other’ as another subject that can acknowledge my being. (When I experience myself being experienced by you, my experience of myself-- and of you--is profoundly enriched, and, in some encounters, even ‘transformed.’) […] a second-person perspective to complement third- and first-person perspectives.” In dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, the self (SE of subject) that is modulated by second-person interaction is indeed different from the self that is modified by inert objects (third person interaction),51 which is different from the self-before-interaction (first person self),52 but in a complementary manner and seems to be consistent with above to some extent. (de Quincey, 2010) elaborates further various inter-subjective communal consciousnesses such as social consciousness as: “Consciousness, in other words, was originally communal, a property of the group. This sense remains today in forms of consciousness referred to, for example, as ‘social consciousness,’ ‘political consciousness,’ ‘feminist consciousness,’ ‘racial consciousness,’ and is manifested in such diverse groups as church congregations, religious movements, political parties, sports teams and fans, and religious and political cults. […] ‘consciousness’ implied a dialogic process--an interaction or communication between two or more knowing beings. […] Elements or facets of this emerging worldview would include, for example, the discovery of nonlocality in quantum physics (Albert, 1992); accumulating documentation of evidence for nonlocal psi phenomena (Schlitz & Braud, 1997); increased globalization of economies (Korten, 1995); awareness of ecological interdependence (Roszak, 1992); and, perhaps, even the globalization and interconnectedness of communications technologies such as satellite TV, telephones, and the Internet (Elgin, 1993; Russell, 1995). It is becoming less and less easy to deny our deep interconnectedness. We might also include in this list a growing awareness of the central [Nāgārjuna’s] doctrine of co-dependent arising in Buddhism [(Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995)], as it continues to spread into modernist, Western societies and worldviews (Macy, 1991). […] We could say that standard third-person inquiry leads to a science of external bodies, first-person inquiry to an interior science of the mind, while second person engagement leads to a communal science of the heart. Whereas the ultimate ideal of objective knowledge is control, and the ultimate ideal of subjective knowledge is peace, the ultimate ideal of intersubjective knowledge is relationship--and, dare I say it, love” (de Quincey, 2010).

51 In other words, here it seems to be the self that arises during organism-environment interaction, when the environment is composed of inert objects (third person interaction) 52 According to (Nixon, 2010a), he and many of these sources do not think that ‘self-before-interaction’ exists.

According to pan-experientialism (that has problems) self-before-interaction is a non-conscious experience that arises from the universal background of experiences. According to dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (that has only one justifiable brute fact problem of dual-aspect assumption), self-before-interaction is the ‘SE of subject’, which is potentially superposed with other potential SEs in virtual reservoir (as per hypothesis H1) or is the result of the interaction between a PE and 3 relevant gunas (as per hypothesis H2) in the mental aspect of each entity (fermions, bosons, space-time, strings, loops etc).


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One could argue second person perspective or inter-subjectivity is one of the necessary ingredients of social consciousness53 as it is the result of interaction between brains, minds, and their environments, which is consistent with the Nagarjuna’s dependent co-origination (which involves organism-environment interaction) (Vimal, 2009a). (Nixon, 2010d) emphasizes that communion or inter-subjective consciousness precedes individual consciousness and is its source: “Communion of this depth is not seen elsewhere in nature, to our knowledge. It apparently was something new on Earth, preceding self-consciousness and personal identity. The foregoing demonstrates how primary intersubjectivity (see, e.g., (Gallagher, 2001)) is the garden from within which individual subjectivity later sprouts.” On the hand, “‘Theory of Mind’ or ‘mindreading’ propositions (e.g., (Povinelli, 1999; Premack, 2004)) assume the primacy of a private subjectivity which must at a very young age somehow reason its way to comprehending other minds because others behave ‘like me’. Primary intersubjectivity makes such ideas unnecessary” (Nixon, 2010d). The controversy of inter-subjectivity vs. individualism can be addressed hypothesizing that both are the aspects of consciousness complementary to each other: inter-subjectivity is more related to the interaction between minds/brains,54 which results the related social consciousness; and individualism is the property of single mind/brain interacting with its environment,55 which is related to the SE aspect of consciousness. One could argue that the SEs aspect of consciousness can occur in a single brain via matching and selection mechanisms in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. When many brains interact with each other and with the their environment then social consciousness emerges via social interaction mechanism(s) that needs further research. According to (Nixon, 2010d), evolution might have played important role in the emergence of inter-subjectivity and individual subjectivity: “Without archeological markers that indicate such activity or at least a species-wide fossil record of rounded skull bases that indicate the fallen larynx necessary for complex speech, there is no reason to guess that the leap into reflective

53 Here, the term ‘social consciousness’ also includes ‘political consciousness,’ ‘feminist consciousness,’ ‘racial consciousness,’ consciousness manifested in such diverse groups as church congregations, religious movements, political parties, sports teams and fans, religious and political cults, and so on. Other the necessary ingredients of consciousness are the formation of neural network, wakefulness, memory, re-entry (Edelman, 1993), attention, stimulus-above-threshold, neural-net PEs (Vimal, 2009f). 54 According to (Nixon, 2010a), “intersubjectivity is more a social or cultural phenomenon than a physical one. Brains respond to our socially constructed modes of relationship. I agree with Bill Adams here.”

The use of the term ‘minds/brains’ in place of ‘brains’ should address this problem because mind and brain are the two aspects of the same entity in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework. 55 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that the use of the term individualism may not be correct to apply it to a member of species acting according to species instincts.

In my view, we differ because Nixon’s framework is panexperientialism and mine is dual-aspect view, where individualism is the property of single mind/brain interacting with its environment (consistent with Nagarjuna’s dependent co-origination); environment when includes human subjects (you, s/he) leads to full blown individual consciousness.


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conscious experience has been made. […] In his [Giegerich’s] article ‘Killings’ (Giegerich, 1993), he asserts that ‘humanization came about precisely through man’s killing activities. The birth of the Gods, piety, soul and consciousness, culture itself did not merely arise from the spirit of killing but from actual killings’ (p. 8). […] the reality of the mythosphere (Teilhard de Chardin, 1959), of the tribal and totemistic mind, also reveals the primacy of intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity is a term open to many meanings but the way it is intended here is to imply something more than mere communication from isolated mental monad to isolated mental monad. […] I agree with (Lacan, 1977) and later phenomenologists like (Merleau-Ponty, 1973) in taking the step of assuming the initial identification with others, usually the primary caregiver(s), — obvious in the case of the fetus in the mother but continuing for the infant. […] (Gallagher, 2001) is correct in positing a primary intersubjectivity from which individual subjectivity emerges.” However one could still argue for first the emergence of individual consciousness from the organism-environment interaction, and then the interaction between brains and their minds leads to inter-subjectivity or social consciousness, rather than first the emergence of social consciousness or inter-subjectivity which then leads to individual consciousness. It is logical that inter-subjectivity in turn can alter/influence individual consciousness.56 Furthermore, according to (Nixon, 2010d), the origin of human self-consciousness is in the discovery of the sacred (symbolic consciousness): “prehumans underwent an existential crisis that could be resolved only by the discovery creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness we call the sacred. Thus, although we, the human species, are but one species among innumerable others, we differ in kind, not degree. This quality is our symbolically enabled self-consciousness, the fortress of cultural identity that empowers but also imprisons awareness.” To sum up, in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), (i) the existential crisis and/or biological crisis can be interpreted as the motivation/cause of the formation of appropriate neural-networks (this is correct because experience alters the brain mapping as per (Nixon, 2010a)) including language related (Broca’s areas, which include the ventral premotor cortex (PMv), Brodmann area 44 and 45) neural-network, and (ii) self (SE of subject) (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) occurred in brain when self-related neural-network were formed and necessary ingredients of consciousness (such as the formation of neural-networks, wakefulness, attention, re-entry (Edelman, 1993), memory, and so on) were satisfied (Vimal, 2009f). In other words, the materialistic (or physicalistic)57 evolution, in Nixon’s constructionist

56 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that he does not see this because the use terms like “individual” are used very loosely.

In my view, this is because Nixon’s framework is panexperientialism and mine is dual-aspect view.

57 For the materialistic evolution two examples are: (1) (Cassirer, 1946a; Cassirer, 1946b) emphasized that “the creativity found in the symbolic forms, but these are not Platonic forms dwelling eternally beyond Nature” (Nixon, 2010d). (2) Another example is: “Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (Damasio, 2003) agrees that human consciousness emerged as a necessary response to a biological crisis: ‘Confronting death and suffering can forcefully disrupt the homeostatic state. … The yearning for homeostatic correctives would have begun as a response to anguish’ (p. 271). He seems to agree that ‘social emotions and feelings of empathy’ that ‘already were budding in nonhuman species’ would be enough to bring on this life-threatening anguish, and that memory-extended


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framework (Nixon, 2010b, 2010c) (perception of matter or SEs of subject (self) and objects are constructed by mind in MDR), certainly played useful role in which symbolic consciousness (the sacred) may have contributed to self-consciousness to some extent. However, the co-evolution and co-development (neural Darwinism) of mind and brain and the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework are necessary in a complementary manner. Furthermore, the emphasis on inter-subjectivity (second person perspective) by (Nixon, 2010d) and (de Quincey, 2010) that individual self emerges from the interactions between ‘I’ and ‘You’ (two or more conscious brains) and their respective environment (dialogue philosophy) needs unpacking in terms of the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework.58 In other words, inter-subjectivity may modulate the attributes of already created/occurred individual-self in self-related neural-network (Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004; Northoff et al., 2006). 11. Summary and Conclusion We summarize the our analysis in terms of dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) as follows: (I) Consciousness has two aspects: experience and function. These two aspects can exist together or separate depending on certain conditions: experience, function, or both function & experience. In other words, conscious experience, non-conscious experience, and non-experiential (or functional) consciousness are possible when we consider the general definition of consciousness that accommodates most metaphysical views: “‘consciousness is a mental aspect of a system or a process, which is a conscious experience, a conscious function, or both depending on the context and particular bias (e.g. metaphysical assumptions)’ , where experiences can be conscious experiences and/or non-conscious experiences and functions can be conscious functions and/or non-conscious functions that include qualities of objects. These are a posteriori definitions because they are based on observations and the categorization” (Vimal, 2010e). (II) One could argue for the continuum of consciousness, experience, and function because experience and function are the two aspects of consciousness59(Vimal, 2009e, 2010e).

consciousness and imagination, unique to humans, compensated with hope and reverence. He even supplies an evolutionary rationale for the spread of such abstract thinking: ‘Those individuals whose brains were capable of imagining such correctives and effectively restoring homeostatic balance would have been rewarded by longer life and larger progeny’ (pp. 271-2)” (Nixon, 2010d). 58 (Nixon, 2010a) does not see why, when neural changes can result from experience or behavioral changes.

This is because pan-experientialism has many problems and dual-aspect has only one justifiable problem of brute fact of dual-aspect. A specific SE is selected via matching process when stimulus dependent feed forward neural signals interact with cognitive feedback neural signals. Since structure, function, and experience are linked, if one changes it should affect other.

59 (Nixon, 2010a) does not agree because consciousness is the quality of experience reflected back upon itself, not the other way round.

We differ because we have different frameworks. Nixon’s definition of conscious experience is limited to self-consciousness (experience reflected back upon itself, i.e., reportable access consciousness). Nixon does not include


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(III) The origin of individual consciousness could be ‘a universal background of awareness’ (Nixon, 2010c), which is like a plenum or virtual reservoir (such as elementary particles). Our SEs of subject (self) and objects are: (a) stored potentially in superposed form and a specific SE is selected as needed via matching process60 as in hypothesis H1 or (b) derived from the interaction of a proto-experience (PE) with 3 gunas (qualities) as in hypothesis H2 of the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). (IV) Physicalism (brain creates experience) versus constructivism (experience constructs the appearance of objects including brain) can be bridged via the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework, where a specific SE is selected during matching process (Vimal, 2010d) and conscious experience constructs the perception/appearance/SE of external objects and to some extent can affect the processing of brain. (V) Since mental and physical aspects are inseparable, the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework is consistent with classical double-aspectism. However, since the mental aspect is known via first person perspective and the physical aspect is known via third person perspective, it seems consistent with double-perspectivism in this sense. (VI) The SEs aspect of consciousness constructs the mind-dependent reality (MDR); the mind-independent reality (MIR) is unknowable although mystics/yogis claim direct perception that is close to MIR.61 (VII) In the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework, hard problems are Types 1-3 explanatory gaps (Vimal, 2009h, 2009i): Type-1 explanatory gap is how can SEs emerge from non-experiential matter? Type-2 is how can SEs pre-exist? Type-3 is how can we say MIR ~ MDR in physics? The hard problem of panexperientialism is how can experiences create matter in the mind independent reality? For example, how can experiences create World Trade Center from Ground Zero? Although it is understandable that experiences can construct the appearance of matter in mind dependent reality, but for this matter must pre-exist. non-reportable phenomenal consciousness in conscious experiences. In my framework, both access and phenomenal consciousnesses are in included in first person SEs.

60 (Nixon, 2010a) commented, “You’re not admitting it, but this does sound very much like G.O.D. & the creation of souls with individual destinies already decided. “Superposed form”? “selected” by whom or what?”

The concept of G.O.D. is close to substance-dualism-and-property-dualism. My framework is a dual-aspect view that has substance-monism-and-property-dualism. Dual-aspect’s God is discussed in (Vimal, 2009c): God might be a big bag of all interactive processes in terms of dual-aspect view; of course, processes related to creation, maintenance, and annihilation are included. The quantum superposition of potential SEs in the mental aspect of each entity, the selection of a specific SE via matching process, and neural Darwinism are detailed (Vimal, 2010b), which is very important to understand our dual aspect framework.

61 (Nixon, 2010a) commented, “So they lose their minds?”

In my view, they (yogis) merge their minds with environment (any thing that surrounds a yogi including inert matter, force carriers, plant life, animals, human beings, and so on).


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(VIII) The predictive behavior (developmental rhythmic call and response behavior: (Hersch, 2010)) occurs first and then existential crisis (Nixon, 2010d) occurs later62; and both contribute towards the emergence of consciousness. On the basis of evolution, (a) individual consciousness in rudimentary form might have occurred about 540 mya during Cambrian explosion63 (Hameroff, 1998), (b) symbolic, language-using, Homo sapiens (tribal-centric consciousness) emerged at around 150 kya (Hersch, 2010),64 and (iii) self-centric or object-centric consciousness might have emerged at around 10 kya (Hersch, 2010). (IX) In our PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), (a) the existential crisis, biological crisis, and predictive behavior can be interpreted as the motivation/cause of the formation of appropriate neural-networks including the neural-network for languages, and (b) self (SE of subject) (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007) occurred in brain when self-related neural-network were formed and necessary ingredients of consciousness were satisfied (Vimal, 2009f). (c) The co-evolution, co-development, and co-tuning via sensori-motor interaction (neural Darwinism) of mind and brain and the dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework are necessary in a complementary way to physicalism. Inter-subjectivity can modulate the attributes of already created/occurred individual-self in self-related neural-network (Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004; Northoff et al., 2006). Acknowledgments The work was partly supported by VP-Research Foundation Trust and Vision Research Institute research Fund. Author would like to thank anonymous reviewers, Gregory Nixon, Steven M. Rosen, William A. Adams, Marty Monteiro, Alfredo Pereira Jr., Marc Hersch, Tim Jarvilehto, Manju-Uma C. Pandey-Vimal, Vivekanand Pandey Vimal, Shalini Pandey Vimal, and Love (Shyam) Pandey Vimal for their critical comments, suggestions, and grammatical corrections. The author is also affiliated with (1) Vision Research Institute, 428 Great Road, Suite 11, Acton, MA 01720 USA; (2) Dristi Anusandhana Sansthana, A-60 Umed Park, Sola Road, Ahmedabad-61, Gujrat, India; (3) Dristi Anusandhana Sansthana, c/o NiceTech Computer Education Institute, Pendra, Bilaspur, C.G. 495119, India; and (4) Dristi Anusandhana Sansthana, Sai Niwas, East of Hanuman Mandir, Betiahata, Gorakhpur, U.P. 273001 India. His URL is http://sites.google.com/site/rlpvimal/Home. 62 Since Nixon does agree, so it is debatable. My arguments is based on timeline in our life time of about 100 yrs as death occurs at the end of life, and developmental neural Darwinism occurs since baby is born and of course before death. Perhaps, Nixon’s argument is based on co-evolution over millions of years, where I tend to agree with him and also (Hersch, 2010). Both predictive behavior and existential crisis may have percent contribution in the emergence of consciousness. 63 (Nixon, 2010a) commented that by “individual”, Hameroff presumably meant separate bodies. My impression is that (Hameroff, 1998) is talking about the emergence of consciousness that may include interactions between brains/bodies and environment during Cambrian explosion. He some times follows neutral monism (mind and matter are aspects of third neutral entity) (Hameroff & Powell, 2009), which is close to dual-aspect view (in which there is no third entity). 64 As per (Nixon, 2010a), protolanguage (Bickerton, 2000) was probably in use by H. erectus, much earlier and symbolic self-consciousness was ca. 60 kya.


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Competing interests statement The author declares that he has no competing financial interests. References

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Endnotes

I (Nixon, 2010a) commented that this (consciousness is more fundamental than experience: similar to Hans Ricke’s view) is backward to his view (experience is more fundamental than consciousness).

My justification is that there are over 40 meanings attributed to term ‘consciousness’ by various authors in literature, which were categorized in two aspects: experiences (about 20 meanings) and functions (20 meanings mostly from materialism) (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). Therefore, if we want to encompass most views then the term ‘consciousness’ seems more fundamental then the term ‘experiences’ because experience is just one of the two aspects of consciousness; other aspect is function. My hypothesis is: if multiple views/models explains the same data, then these models/views can be somehow bridged. When we look at just Nixon’s point of view, i.e., ‘panexperientialism’ (only experience permeates the universe) and reject other views especially when we reject materialism then Nixon appears correct because function is NOT another aspect of consciousness. He seems to have a different meaning of the term ‘function’ than I have. My meaning of the term ‘function’ is derived mostly from materialism (Vimal, 2009e). I do not reject materialism in some sense; rather I view it as complementary to the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). This is because matter is one of the two aspects; other aspect is mind (= experiences and/or functions). In panexperientialism, experiences construct matter’s appearances (constructivism), i.e., the appearance of matter is NOT an aspect rather matter’s appearance IS constructed from


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experiences. I argue that mental aspect of dual-aspect view is close to pan-experimentalism and physical aspect is close to Type-B materialism to some extent. In dual-aspect view, a specific eigen-state of a neural-network and its activities has two aspects: mental aspect (such as redness: the subjective first person perspective) and physical aspect (such as redness-related V4/V8/VO-neural-network and its activities: the objective third person perspective such as anatomical and fMRI measurements). In other words, it is not the identity theory of Type-B materialism (single substance and single aspect). In identity theory, a specific SE is identical with its related eigen-state of neural-network, i.e., mental aspect = physical aspect = eigen-state. II Rosen commented (personal communication in May 2010) as follows: “Given the ambitious scope of your article, it strikes me as having something of the quality of a book outline. I can see your table of contents expanded in a book-length treatment wherein you'd have the latitude in each chapter to treat your various subjects in greater depth and integrate these subjects in your overall presentation. This would include sorting out thorny semantic issues by making careful distinctions. For example, you could explore the distinction between ‘conscious’ as an adjective (meaning ‘wakefulness’) and ‘consciousness,’ the noun. The potential semantic problem here is illustrated by the possibility of there being ‘non-conscious’ (non-waking) experience but said experience still being understood as involving a certain level of ‘consciousness.’ ”

I agree with Rosen that this article can be expanded in a book and the semantic issue is difficult and must be addressed carefully. In (Vimal, 2009e), I assembled over 40 meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’ by various authors. One of the meanings may be ‘wakeful’ for ‘conscious’ as an adjective and ‘wakefulness’ for ‘consciousness’ as a noun. Alternatively, wakefulness is one of the necessary ingredients of conscious (or subjective) experiences; others necessary ingredients are: the formation of neural-networks, re-entry, memory, attention, and so on as detailed in (Vimal, 2009f). III (Adams, 2010a) commented, “But can such a structure perform the cognitive functions of detection and discrimination? Whole persons with minds (and brains) have cognitive faculties. To attribute cognitive abilities to a certain neural structure is to attribute to it qualities of mind. There is no scientific evidence that any neural structure has any qualities of mind, for the simple reason that the mind, being nonphysical, is not susceptible to scientific observation.”

Adam raised an interesting question; however, this question is for materialism, which eventually leads to Levine’s explanatory gap in materialism (Chalmers, 1995; Levine, 1983). A whole person consists of body, brain, and mind. A brain is composed neural-networks along with other structures. Mind is an entity that has functions and/or experiences. Brain and mind are related to each other. Cognitive faculties involve neural-networks. Since a neural-network has a specific function and the formation of neural-network is one of the necessary ingredients of experience, it has a quality of mind. Furthermore, in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, every entity has two aspects: mental and physical. Therefore, a neural-network also has mental and physical aspects; its mental aspect is composed of relevant function and experience; and its physical aspect consists of material structure (such as gray and white matter, ionic and neural activities, neurotransmitters, and so on). Thus, such as dual-aspect entity can indeed have all the qualities of mind. A specific SE can be experienced by the neural-network as long as it satisfies the necessary ingredient of consciousness, such as the formation of neural-network, wakefulness, re-entry (Edelman, 1993), attention, working memory, stimulus above threshold level, and neural-net PEs (Vimal, 2009f). (Adams, 2010a) further commented, “If one were to insist anyway that a certain neural structure did indeed have qualities of mind, well then, the game would be up. If the brain has its own mind, there is no reason to study cognitive neurophysiology at all, since it would offer no explanation beyond studying the cognitive functions themselves, using cognitive psychology, for example, or psychophysics, or introspection.”

This argument needs reconsideration because it misses an important component of mind and subjective experiences (SEs) and proto-experiences (PEs) aspect of consciousness: organism-environment interaction, namely, the interaction between cognitive feedback signals and environmental/stimulus dependent feed forward signals. The terms ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ are defined and elaborated in (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). The dual-aspect framework is complementary to materialism; therefore cognitive neurophysiology, neuroscience, psychophysics, introspection and all other sciences are useful for materialism and dual-aspect frameworks. Potential SEs are in superposed latent form in every entity. A specific SE is selected after matching process, as detailed in (Vimal, 2010d).

(Adams, 2010a) critiques against the assumption ‘brain has/is a mind’: “The brain is fantastically complex, but it is just a machine, a biological machine made of protein, fat and water. We have never discovered anything about


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a brain that would justify the assumption that it has, or is, a mind, just as we would not (or should not) claim that a thermostat literally has, or is, a mind. We know through first person introspection and through intersubjectivity (the mental capacity that allows us to appreciate the presence of each other’s minds) that we have minds and to know something about what they are like. But we are not intersubjective with brains, or with thermostats, and have no proper reason to believe that they have minds of their own. […] He is trying to impute mental qualities to that tissue, specifically the quality of being able to have mental experience in the self-aware way we do when we identify and discriminate colors. But that cannot be right, for no one has any idea what it could mean for a piece of biological tissue to ‘have an experience’ in the common sense meaning.”

The term ‘mind’ in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework is defined as ‘functions and/or experiences’ in (Vimal, 2010e). As detailed in (Vimal, 2009f), the necessary ingredients of access (reportable) consciousness (that has two aspects: function and experience) are the formation of neural-network, wakefulness, attention, re-entry, memory, and so on. Therefore, photocell, thermostat, and so on (even retina) may not satisfy these necessary conditions of consciousness. However, these entities have respective function(s). Therefore, some, such as panpsychists, could argue that they have mind in a sense of function. The term ‘neural-network’ is defined as a network of all necessary areas of central nervous system (CNS) including self-related areas, areas for wakefulness (including ARAS: ascending reticular system), attention, re-entry, memory, and so on. The neural-networks and all entities have two aspects: mental and physical in our framework. Since structure, function, and experience are linked, a neural-network that satisfies necessary ingredients of consciousness, has mind/consciousness/SEs; and hence intersubjectivity is possible via interactions between dual-aspect neural-networks of multiple brains/minds in our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d).

(Adams, 2010a) continues to critique, “If you make a list of the qualities of a brain, and another of the qualities of a mind, there is little, if any overlap of the two lists, either conceptually or linguistically. To claim that the brain is actually the mind then is equivalent to claiming that the left kneecap is equivalent to the mind, or that the moon is equivalent to the mind. The claimed equivalence is arbitrary, not based on reason or evidence. Even as mere wishful fantasy, it is an unintelligible proposition. Epiphenomenalism and double-aspectism, to the extent that they are derivatives of identity theory, are equally unintelligible.”

This may be materialist’s or panpsychist’s claim depending on how they define the term ‘mind’; for its definition, please see (Vimal, 2010e); my view is dual-aspect. My framework is not derived from identity theory; rather former is complementary to the latter. It should be noted that identity theory of Type-B materialism requires the pre-existence of SEs to pick them out demonstratively as discussed with materialists in (Vimal, 2009g). The dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) is optimal (has the least number of problems compared to other views), rigorous, and precise as detailed in (Vimal, 2010d). IV (Nixon, 2010a) commented, “of course, the infant experiences its own birth. There is no self to experience so the experience is non-conscious, but the living newborn body is certainly experiencing the changes it is going through.”

It appears that Nixon combining functions aspect of consciousness, mind, and/or cognition with experiences and thus making experiences as fundamental, which is required in panexperientialism. This means, functions might be derived from experiences. In panexperientialism, if (i) conscious experiences are from first person perspective, (ii) functions are from third person perspective, (iii) the appearance of matter is constructed from experiences (constructivism), and (iv) experiences include functions, then functions might emerge (or might be derived) from experiences. If this is correct, then panexperientialists must explain precisely how this is possible and what relevant the mechanisms are: this can be called an explanatory gap in panexperientialism. On the hand, if we consider functions and experiences as aspects of consciousness and consciousness as fundamental, as in the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, then this problem does not arise.

(Nixon, 2010a) replied, “I have said before, I simply can make no sense of this — probably because, in an experiencing world with variously experiencing creatures all caught up on the struggles (or experience!) of life, there is no difference between subjectivity and objectivity. The ‘3rd person perspective’, presumably the objective perspective (made possible by the separation of the subject from the object), appears only after humans crossed the symbolic threshold into formal language structures. Furthermore, as Merlin Donald (Donald, 1991, 2001) has convincingly argued, the mythic mind continued to draw few boundaries between the imagined and the real even after the symbolic crossing, so modern analytical objective thinking did not really emerge until the preSocratic Greeks began to write (and it went through several major stages after that as writing was codified & translations begun, the printing press invented, and the electronic era begun).”


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If the above is true, then evidence is needed for the lack of difference between subjectivity and objectivity

before humans crossed the symbolic threshold into formal language structures. Moreover, the difference between subjectivity and objectivity is lost in modern yogis at samadhi state, which is obviously after the symbolic crossing. V In the hypothesis H1 of the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), SEs are fundamental irreducible entities in conventional reality; potential SEs are superposed in latent unexpressed form in the mental aspect of each entity. A specific SE is selected via matching process. In hypothesis H2, SEs are derived from (i) the interaction of a PE and 3 gunas (qualities) (Vimal, 2009b) and/or (ii) downward causation (Vimal, 2010b).

“In western philosophy (mostly due to Aristotle: (384 – 322 BC), there are six types of causes [quotes and some of the texts are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality]: (i) In the part-whole causation (material cause), the parts forms the whole. (ii) In the whole-part causation (formal cause: what form does the mind take? (Wurzman & Giordano, 2009)), whole (macrostructure) is the cause for the production of its parts. (iii) In the efficient cause, agents cause effects. (iv) In the final cause, there is a purpose or end for the sake of which a thing exists or is done. It includes ‘modern ideas of mental causation involving such psychological causes as volition, need, motivation, or motives; rational, irrational, ethical - all that gives purpose to behavior.’ (v) In reciprocal or circular causation, entities can be causes of one another as a relation of mutual dependence. (vi) The doctrine of causal factor suggests that the same thing can cause contrary effects as atmospheric pressure can have opposite effect in various chemical or physical reactions” (Vimal, 2009a).

There are 4 types of conditions. It seems that Monteiro is confusing cause vs. condition as per Nāgārjuna’s causes vs. conditions: “Nāgārjuna argued that the real causes should have powers as their essential properties and should have inherent existence. The causes that do not have these attributes cannot be real causes. Therefore, he proposes four ‘conditions’ (efficient, percept-object, immediate, and dominant conditions) instead of such apparent causality to explain phenomena in conventional reality” (Vimal, 2009a). Perhaps Monteiro’s ‘cause’ is not real cause because it lacks inherent existence (as defined by Nāgārjuna). It may be simply efficient or immediate condition instead of cause. The dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d) is consistent with Nāgārjuna’s dependent co-origination (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995; Vimal, 2009a). As discussed above, according to Nāgārjuna, so called ‘causes’ are not ‘real causes’ because theses ‘causes’ do not inherently exist. Therefore, they are ‘conditions’. This means, matching and selection processes for a specific SE from virtual reservoir (such as mental aspect of elementary particles and other entities) depend on ‘conditions’ of matching between feed forward stimulus dependent signals and cognitive feedback signals. It is also possible that the SEs which appear irreducible in conventional reality (as in hypothesis H1) may not have inherent existence, i.e., SEs can be derived from or reduced to some entities that inherently exist (as in hypothesis H2). VI (Adams, 2010a) commented, “Presumably, that category would encompass the thermostat, photocell, and mousetrap. Yet Vimal still insists that such machines, such as a color detection machine, “can detect and discriminate red from green” even though it cannot have redness and greenness experiences. That is a self-contradiction, it seems to me, unless he uses the term “discriminate” only metaphorically. No machine can discriminate red from green. Only a whole human (or other animal with supposedly similar cognitive capacities), can discriminate red from green. The human can observe a machine’s differential output and metaphorically call it a discrimination, adopting Dennett’s concept of the intentional stance, but that is an ersatz discrimination, not the real thing. Consequently, I agree that Vimal’s robot performs functions, but I cannot agree that it is capable of discrimination or of any other cognitive function. I simply do not agree that behavioral functionality, in itself, ever constitutes a cognitive function. I would have to be specifically convinced of that. Oddly enough, later in his essay, Vimal says essentially the same thing, that behavioral functionality is an insufficient explanatory basis for mentality. I was not able to reconcile that later statement with this, his opening assertion of functionalism. Maybe when he says ‘discriminate’ he only means ‘behaves differentially.’ So while I did stumble with the opening of this essay, I did not fall down. The rest of it made a lot more sense to me.”

There are over 40 different meanings/aspects attributed to term ‘consciousness’, which can be categorized in two aspects: function and experience as detailed in (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). The term ‘discrimination’ is defined as “the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently […] the ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli”. The term ‘detection’ is a discrimination of a stimulus (such as long wavelength light that appears red) with respect to ‘background’ or ‘surround’ (such as uniform white or dark background field) rather than with respect to another stimulus (such as middle wavelength light that appears green)


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as in discrimination. Discrimination is a function, which is a mental entity and is an functional aspect of consciousness; function can be conscious or non-conscious; cognitive function can be conscious or non-conscious also; consciousness has two aspects: conscious function and conscious experience; they are elaborated in (Vimal, 2009e, 2010e). As for machine, spectrometer can discriminate wavelengths, but wavelength is physics, it is not color; color is perception/SE. The terms ‘discrimination’ and ‘detection’ are a psychophysical terms (Vimal, 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2002a, 2002b), but can be used for machine with appropriate context and qualification. Zombie, by definition, has only non-conscious functions. Robot is a dual-aspect entity as any other entity; and if necessary ingredients are programmed then we may have conscious robots in future (see last paragraph of section 3.13 of (Vimal, 2010d)). VII (Adams, 2010a) commented, “Vimal’s account of experience-in-itself differs importantly from Nixon’s and Strawson’s purely naturalistic versions in that Vimal invokes an Eastern cosmology associated with the Samkhya philosophy of India and the Bhagavad-Gita. I say this because of his reference to ‘the three gunas’ that interact with ‘proto-experience’ to produce ‘subjective experience’ (‘PE interacts with 3 gunas to result SEs depending on the kinds of 3-gunas’). I am no expert on Hindu philosophy, but my understanding is that these ‘gunas’ are supposed to be the fundamental elements of nature, like earth, air, fire and water were for the ancient Greeks. The gunas are inherent to all beings (alive or inanimate), and determine, through their combinations and intensities, the nature of each being, including the nature of its experience. They can do that because they are not mere combinatorial units in the passive sense that we think of, for example, when we consider the elements of the periodic table, but they are the active, dynamic principles of existence: creation, preservation, and destruction, corresponding to the Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively. That is not unreasonable, because the truth is, when you get down to the axiomatic, irreducible principles of the mind, you simply must propose a first principle such as experience-in-itself or proto-self-awareness, that is outside the set that makes up the first principles of physics (gravity, energy, time, space, and so forth). It would be so much more convenient if the first principles of physics included something that could plausibly be applied to a fundamental analysis of the mind. Alas, that is not the case. But if you are forced outside of standard science for your basic explananda, then are there any constraints? Why not invoke spirits, ghosts, angels, devils, gods? You’re out in the weeds anyway, so anything goes, it would seem. To avoid that uncomfortable situation, I think it is better to look to basic psychological principles that, while non-scientific, are at least observable and confirmable by introspection. And should we ever develop a well-defined first-person methodology of inquiry, we would be able to arrive at a consensus about such non-scientific, but nevertheless empirical first principles of mind.”

My framework is the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d), which is somewhat close to Trika Kashmir Shaivism (TKS), where Shiva and Shakti are two aspects of the same entity, i.e., dual-aspect view. I critique Samkhya philosophy because it is Dvait-Advait (dual-nondual) Vedanta, which is somewhat close to Stapp’s view (Stapp, 1996, 2006): at pragmatic/operational level it is dualistic, and at deep ontological level, it is non-dual or mentalistic monism. The Gunas (Vimal, 2009b) in my dual-aspect framework is somewhat different from the gunas used in dual-nondual Dvait-Advait Vedanta. I borrowed the idea of gunas from Samkhya’s Dvait-Advait Vedanta, but in my framework, the one potential PE and three potential gunas are in superposed latent form in the mental aspect of each entity as in hypothesis H2 of my framework. However, in hypothesis H1 of my framework, there is no gunas concept: all potential SEs are superposed in the mental aspect of each entity and my treatment is scientific and rigorous, as in (Vimal, 2008b, 2010d). Moreover, the idea of superposition differentiates my framework from TKS. SEs are not outside, rather they are one of the two aspects in my framework. In addition, I have introduced potential SEs in physics that remains invariant under PE-SE transformation; details are given in (Vimal, 2010f; Vimal, 2010g, 2010h). VIII Nāgārjuna discusses the two truths or realities, “[XXIV.] 8. The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma Is based on two truths: A truth of worldly convention And an ultimate truth. […] 9. Those who do not understand The distinction drawn between these two truths Do not understand The Buddha’s profound truth. […] 10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of ultimate, Liberation is not achieved. […] 11. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, Liberation is not achieved.” (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995).p.298-9.


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IX Nāgārjuna argues: “All phenomena are arisen, but arise as empty, and as dependent. [p.169] […] arising, abiding, and ceasing are not entities at all―they are mere relations […] the self as pure subject does not exist―nor do perception or perceptual objects exist as entities―yet want to affirm the conventional reality of perception, perceivers, and perceiveds, in general, we want to deny the inherent existence of phenomena and affirm their conventional reality. . [p.176]” (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995). X Nāgārjuna described Nirvāņa: “[XXV.]3. Unrelinquished, unattained, Unannihilated, not permanent, Unarisen, unceased: This is how Nirvāņa is described. […] 9. That which comes and goes Is dependent and changing. That, when it is not dependent and changing, Is taught to be Nirvāņa. […] 17. Having passed into Nirvāņa, the Victorious Conqueror Is neither said to be existent Nor said to nonexistent. Neither both or neither are said. […] 20. Whatever is the limit of Nirvāņa, That is the limit of cyclic existence. There is not the slightest difference Between them, Or even the subtlest thing.” (Nāgārjuna & Garfield, 1995)-p.323-331. XI However, (Acerbi, 2008) implies that an observer is an entity that interacts with other entities: “Examples of observers could be a galaxy, a cat, a photographic plate, a chunk of wood. Each of these observers is able to memorize and process information, each one in different ways: a packet of photons coming from a dog is handled differently by a chunk of wood, a photographic plate and a cat.” As per (Acerbi, 2008), whole universe can be an observer. In addition, (Grinbaum, 2010) discusses observers defined/implied by various investigators and then defines an observer as a system identification algorithm phrased in information theoretic terms: “Quantum mechanical formalism has an orthodox interpretation that relies on the cut between the observer and the system observed (Dirac, 1930; von Neumann, 1932). This ‘shifty split’ (Bell, 1990) of the world into two parts cannot be removed: the formalism only applies if the observer and the system are demarcated as two separate entities. Standard quantum mechanics says nothing about the physical composition of the observer, who is an abstract notion having no physical description from within quantum theory. One cannot infer from the formalism if the observer is a human being, a machine, a stone, a Martian, or the whole Universe. As emphasized by Wheeler, this makes it extraordinarily difficult to state clearly where “the community of observer-participators” begins and where it ends (Wheeler, 1983). As a part of his relative-state interpretation, Everett argued that observers are physical systems with memory, i.e., ‘parts... whose states are in correspondence with past experience of the observers’ (Everett, 1957). This was further developed by Rovelli, who claimed that observers are ordinary physical systems such that some of their degrees of freedom are correlated with some property of the observed system (Rovelli, 1996). […] a general definition of observer [is] phrased in information theoretic terms and [is] based on the intuition that the key component of observation is system identification. […] What characterizes an observer is that it has information about some physical system. This information fully or partially describes the state of the system. The observer then measures the system, obtains further information and updates his description accordingly. Physical processes listed here: the measurement, updating of the information, ascribing a state, happen in many ways depending on the physical constituency of the observer. […] Still one feature unites all observers: that whatever they do, they do it to a system. […] What remains constant throughout measurement is the identification [in spite of a change in the state of this system], by the observer, of the quantum system. […] An observer is a system identification algorithm (SIA). […] Particular observers can be made of flesh or perhaps of silicon. ‘Hardware’ and ‘low-level programming’ are different for such observers, yet they all perform the task of system identification. This task can be defined as an algorithm on a universal computer, e.g., the Turing machine: take a band containing a list of all the degrees of freedom, send a Turing machine along this band and put a mark against those degrees of freedom that belong to the quantum system under consideration. Any concrete SIA may proceed in a very different manner, yet all can be modelled with the help of this construction. […] The Copenhagen view of quantum mechanics traditionally described quantum systems and observers, epistemologically, as belonging to different categories. On the contrary, the view based on the relativity of observation, as proposed by Everett and later Rovelli, puts all systems on equal grounds and ascribes them only relative states. These two views are not as contradictory as they may seem. Relativity of observation has been understood by some proponents of the Copenhagen school (Fock, 1971a; Fock, 1971b; Hermann, 1935; Jammer, 1974). Information-theoretic treatment of the observer gives a chance to completely overcome the tension. On the one hand, the observer is a SIA [system identification algorithm] and is characterized by its Kolmogorov complexity [which is a measure of the computational resources needed to specify the object]. On the other hand, quantum mechanics can be reconstructed from information theoretic axioms and thus


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seen as a theory of information (Grinbaum, 2007). This puts all systems on equal grounds, in the spirit of Rovelli, while emphasizing the idea of relativity of observation, in the spirit of Fock.”

If the above is correct, then before life began, observers were interacting entities and collapses might have been occurring for them and the dual-aspect entities might be co-evolving and eventually neural-networks were formed and subjective experience (SE) aspect of consciousness occurred in our brains. Furthermore, it is an interesting idea that source might be the ‘universal background of awareness’ (Nixon, 2010c) or eternal universal background of dual-aspect entities from where both aspects co-evolved via some still unclear mechanisms. This needs to be unpacked to address the Type-2 explanatory gap: how can SEs pre-exist, i.e., how is it possible that our SEs (such as happiness, sadness, painfulness, and similar SEs) were already present in primal entities, whereas there is no shred of evidence that such SEs were conceived at the onset of universe? [This footnote is the result of my personal discussion on (Smetham, 2010) and (Acerbi, 2008) in 7-July-2010-email to Graham Smetham and Michele Caponigro.] Furthermore, it is interesting to put observer and the system to be measured in the same category on equal grounds. In our dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework, (a) information is a dual-aspect entity; (b) observer is related to brain’s cognitive feedback signals, (c) the system to be measured is represented by stimulus dependent feed forward signals, and (d) the interaction between observer and the system to be measured (implicate order) leads to the selection of a specific SE (explicate order) via matching process (Caponigro, Prakash, & Vimal, 2010), which may be interpreted in terms of dual-aspect information-theoretic treatment of the observer and the system to be measured. However, it is unclear that the observer is a system identification algorithm and is characterized by its Kolmogorov complexity (Grinbaum, 2010). XII (Nixon, 2010a) “insists that experiencing (but frightened) proto-humans in groups produced language (in the form of myths) together. Group sharing, group awareness preceded the internalization of language as thought and as mind. Language = conscious experience. Therefore, intersubjectivity precedes subjectivity. How could you think individuals just became conscious, because of some brain mutation? Selfhood is learned.”

Perhaps, my definitions in dual-aspect framework differ from Nixon’s: In my framework, self is the SE of a subject; this conscious experience is selected via matching process (in analogy to SEs of objects) and embedded in self-related neural-network during co-development, sensorimotor interaction, and co-tuning during developmental neural Darwinism. “Subjectivity refers to a [first] person's perspective or opinion, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term can either be contrasted with or linked with objectivity [third person perspective].” “Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy and psychology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity [i.e., second person perspective], one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced (subjectively) but by more than one subject. […] Thomas Scheff defines intersubjectivity as ‘the sharing of subjective states by two or more individuals’ (Scheff, 2006)”. Thus, second person experiences (intersubjective SEs/consciousness or social consciousness) are because of the interaction between two or first person experiences, which implies that first person SEs (individual consciousness) must pre-exist. The first person SEs (individual consciousness) are the result of the interaction between (i) environmental stimulus dependent feed forward signals and (ii) organism (brain)’s cognition/attention dependent feedback signals, which means the organism, environment, and SEs must pre-exist. SEs includes SE of subject (self) and SEs of objects and stored in virtual reservoir. Perhaps, panexperientialism combines both aspects (mental and physical) in a complicated manner because matter, mind, functions, cognition are derived from experiences and there is just one aspect that is experiences (panexperientialism is mentalistic monism close to idealism). Nixon agrees that the precise mechanism is unclear for how hard problems of panexperientialism can be addressed. In the dual-aspect dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2010d), it is rigorous, precise and crystal clear how a specific SE is selected via matching process. XIII The following is adapted from the author’s post #21 in Consciousness Research Forum on self (http://sites.google.com/site/rlpvimal/Home/2010-Self-page3-posts-21-30-network.nature.pdf): As per (Powell, Macrae, Cloutier, Metcalfe, & Mitchell, 2010), self is “a collection of distinct mental operations distributed throughout the brain, rather than a unitary cognitive system”, which needs further examination.

According to (Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004), “the processing of self-referential stimuli in cortical midline structures (CMS) is a fundamental component in generating a model of the self.” In a meta-analysis, (Northoff et al., 2006) suggest, “Since the CMS are densely and reciprocally connected to subcortical midline regions, we advocate an integrated cortical-subcortical midline system underlying human self. We conclude that self-referential


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processing in CMS constitutes the core of our self and is critical for elaborating experiential feelings of self, uniting several distinct concepts evident in current neuroscience.”

In (Bruzzo & Vimal, 2007), we define self as the subjective experience (SE) of a subject, where the essential ingredients of SEs are the formation of neural-network, wakefulness, re-entry, attention, memory, neural-net proto-experiences (PEs), and so on. In addition, we propose that self “arises from chaotic dynamics, self-organization and selective mechanisms during ontogenesis, while emerging post-ontogenically as an adaptive pressure driven by both volume and synaptic-neural transmission and influencing the functional connectivity of neural nets (structure).”

Thus, one could argue that self could be unitary but it can involve multiple mental operations including ‘free Will’, ‘agentic role’, context, and/or as ‘the object of judgment/reflection’. (Northoff et al., 2006) argue for 3 concepts of self: (1) proto/bodily self (involving sensory cortex and sensory processing), (2) core/mental/minimal self (involving medial cortex and self-referential processing), and (3) autobiographical, emotional, spatial and verbal, etc self (involving lateral cortex and higher order processing). (Trehub, 2007) ‘phenomenal self’ might be part of the 3rd concept because core self is its prerequisite.

Self in 1pp (first person perspective), 2pp, 3pp might have subjective, inter-subjective, and objective status. 1pp and 3pp being the mental (SE of subject) and physical (its neural-correlates) aspects of self seems consistent with dual-aspect view. (Trehub, 2007)’s hypothesis is interesting that ‘core self’ (‘I’) is fixed and ‘phenomenal self’ changes. However, if the latter changeable (phenomenal) self characterizes the former (subjective core) self, then how could core self will remain fix is not clear to me. XIV (Nixon, 2010a) commented, “after all this you still do not agree that it is non-conscious (as in pre-conscious) experience!”

Well, there is another explanatory gap of pan-experientialism: (i) where do non-conscious experiences come from? Nixon has assumed that they come from ‘universal background of awareness’. But there is no shred of any evidence that there are such entities at the start of universe (Big Bang). And (ii) how are conscious experiences precisely derived from non-conscious experiences? Physics supports only matter (fermions) and force carriers (bosons) and says nothing about experiences. It is very hard to maintain pan-experientialism because it has many problems.

(Nixon, 2010a) defended panexperientialism as follows: “I do think you are wrong about the limitations of panexperientialism since I did suggest that ‘experience’ must arise from a previously existing background of non-conscious and non-experiencing awareness-in-itself (like, say, the quantum flux or vacuum in an eternal present of potential existence). Plus the self most often means to me self-identity, or a being that is aware of itself as an existent (as opposed to a corporeal identity only). Similarly, subjectivity may be loosely associated with corporeal existence – knowing the boundaries & capabilities of the body that the creature is – but otherwise I would interpret the word to mean the sense of subjectivity, or, again, one's existence as a self interacting with other selves. […]

The scientifically-based notion of the ‘quantum foam’ or ‘quantum vacuum’ is useful here. Non-conscious experiences are not ‘stored’ anywhere in it, but they may be emergent with the creation of time & space. The theory is that this quantum foam ‘field of nothingness’ in the absolute present that predates even the Big Bang (which is to say, ‘it’ was present if not exactly existent before time began) is actually a percolating sea of potential existence, with sub atomic particles or singularities constantly popping into existence then nearly instantaneously popping out again as the ‘particle’ (or singularity) meets its opposite-charged twin and they annihilate each other. Hawking has suggested that our universe began when one of the ‘particles’ disappeared (perhaps into a black hole) before it could annihilate itself & its opposite. The ‘particle’ that remained was all there was to existence so this singularity burst into time and change and the universe began. It is this ‘sea of nothingness’ (like the void awareness of various eastern religions, perhaps?) that, being timeless, may be chaotically yet quiescently aware without being aware OF anything (something only the most advanced-detached mystics might understand). It is thus unconscious and unintentional awareness — a dynamic sea of potential being, a chaos of creativity waiting to happen. Further details are in (Nixon, 2010c).

Addressing the question (how conscious experiences are precisely derived from non-conscious experiences) is the major topic of ‘Hollows of Experience’(Nixon, 2010c) in which I look closely at the features of human language and how it allowed us the ‘mental’ recursion to become reflectively conscious of our natural, somatic experiencing, or, to put it another way, to reflexively experience our own somatic experiencing. It's also the major theme of ‘Myth and Mind’ (Nixon, 2010d) in which I look for the crossing of the symbolic threshold into language in prehistoric


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times and speculate on what may have brought it about. I don't think the question could have been more thoroughly addressed (even if it turns out that I am mistaken).”

So far, Nixon’s framework sounds fine to me qualitatively, except how physical aspect arises from experiences is still not clear to me. The brute fact (that is the way it is with no further explanation) of panexperientialism is: it is only the experiences that inherently exist in the universe and nothing else. So one needs to explain everything from this. One could ask: Why is then pan-experientialism still controversial? Why is Type-B materialism still dominant? To address these questions, we need to make our frameworks more precise quantitatively and test our hypotheses; if still not rejected then we might have some general consensus slowly.

(Nixon, 2010a) suggested to read Process & Reality (Nixon, 2010e; Whitehead, 1978) for how physical aspect arises from experiences. For the latter two questions, he replied, “Hidden truths are called ‘hidden’ for a reason. We seem to be material beings in a material world helplessly caught in the flow of time like leaves in a stream to the sea. But, as you must know, appearance is seldom the ‘real’ reality.”

The explanatory gap and hard problems of panexperientialism are discussed in Section 8 above.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| July 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 718-728 Cook, Roger, The Great Divide that Separates Humans from Animals

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[Note: Late addition essay meant for focus issue 1(5), Time & Consciousness: Two Faces of One Mystery?]

Exploration

The Great Divide That Separates Humans from Animals

Roger Cook*

Abstract

This paper explores the implications for time and consciousness that derive from the fact that animals live their lives locked into the present. This would seem to make language and consciousness logically impossible for non-human animals. The second section explores the implications that arise from the theory of evolution, and concludes that it is very unlikely awareness of time could have been generated in animals during evolution by natural, or artificial, selection. Key Words: Homo sapiens (HS), time dimension, parsimony, displaced reference, agency, sensorium, anthropomorphism, evolution, natural selection, artificial selection Time is not “nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once” as Woody Allen allegedly put it. On the contrary, time is Homo sapiens’ way of keeping everything from happening at once, a faculty exclusive to our species. Throughout billions of years of evolution, everything happened on the instant. Just as one chemical added to another in a test tube reacts immediately, every signal emitted throughout the biosphere in sound, vision, scent or other wavelength evoked instant response: that is Nature’s way. All the organisms of the biota acted and reacted within the biosphere in the process of evolution by natural selection. Then, just recently, a species evolved whose members could think about other things at the same time as their central nervous system (CNS) dealt with all the sensory stimuli that, in order to survive, they had to respond to. How it came about that humans attained this ability to think, i.e., to have consciousness, is a mystery that still awaits solution. It might help if we can shed light on the experience of non-human animals and determine whether a fundamental difference does in fact exist between Homo sapiens and all other species. It would clear the ground a little if it could be established that consciousness is unique to humans. Two leading thinkers of this generation suggest this is the case. First, Daniel Dennett (1995): * Correspondence: Roger Cook lives in the Wiltshire countryside, England. Email: [email protected]


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In order to be conscious – in order to be the sort of thing it is like something to be – it is necessary to have a certain sort of informational organization that endows that thing with a wide set of cognitive powers (such as the powers of reflection and re-representation). This sort of internal organization does not come automatically with so-called "sentience." It is not the birthright of mammals or warm-blooded creatures or vertebrates; it is not even the birthright of human beings. It is an organization that is swiftly achieved in one species, ours, and in no other. Other species no doubt achieve somewhat similar organizations, but the differences are so great that most of the speculative translations of imagination from our case to theirs make no sense.

John Searle addresses the question by involving his dog, Ludwig, in a “speculative translation of imagination from our case to theirs” (i.e., from human to nonhuman):

The reason I am absolutely confident that Ludwig is conscious is that I can see he has mechanisms relatively like mine – there are his eyes, there are his ears. That’s why I don’t know what to say about grasshoppers and termites. I don’t see the relevant causal structure. So the basis on which we make the attribution of consciousness to others is not “intelligent behaviour, therefore consciousness” or “answers ‘yes’ to the question, ‘Are you conscious?’”, but the acceptance of a certain relevant similarity in causal structure. (Searle & Freeman, 1998, p. 729)

Dennett is clear that humans, uniquely, acquire consciousness as they develop out of infancy, but he cannot speak for other species. Searle makes a best guess: his dog has similar organs to him, but with other species there are no relevant similarities. A more comprehensive statement of the situation regarding animals comes from Leslie Dewart (1989):

Unlike an animal, a human being adjusts by relating himself (a) to a world that he perceives as real; (b) to himself, whom he perceives as a self; and (c) to other selves, whom he perceives as beings who perceive themselves as selves and him as a self. … Human society and culture, therefore, depend upon, and are manifes-tations of, the specifically human form of adjustive experience. Conversely, since human adjustment is irreducible to organic adjustment, because it involves con-scious processes, human society and culture are qualitatively different from their counterparts in animal life. (p. 15)

In his last sentence Dewart is implicitly rebutting Charles Darwin’s (1871) claims that

"there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties,” and, “The difference in mind between man and the higher animals ... is one of degree and not of kind.” It is the contention of this paper that Dennett and Dewart are right and Darwin mistaken. The fact is that a fundamental difference does indeed exist between Homo sapiens (HS) and all other species, namely that HS is the only species aware of the passage of time. All


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non-human animals live in the present moment and must respond instantly to sensory stimuli in order to survive. Such a perspective may be deeply counterintuitive, but it does afford a fresh and non-anthropomorphic interpretation. There are two strands to the argument: first, through deductive logic, it transpires that it is not possible for animals living in the present to have awareness of time, language or free will; secondly, by inductive logic, the process of evolution seems not to be conducive to awareness of time in animals. Clearly all the creatures on this planet share the three spatial dimensions – length, breadth, and depth – but HS seems to be the only species aware of time. Since we humans left the living-in-the-Now condition behind soon after we were born,1 it has become very difficult to reconnect with what life in the Now is like. Adult conscious humans in fact live in what William James called the specious present – about half a second behind the beat, as Benjamin Libet’s (2004) experiments show. The real present, in which animals live, is, in effect, a point in time without extent. And at each moment all of the animal's sensory channels – eyes, ears, nostrils, whiskers – are open and receiving sense data that passes via afferent nerves to its CNS from which immediate responses run directly to the efferent nerves that activate appropriate muscles. There is no evidence that animals have the capacity to interrupt or modify that neural flow. Occasionally they may appear to hesitate, but that simply reflects a temporary change of input in the sensory flow – signals from a different direction or in another mode. A good example of this multimodal response is “The Stanford Study of Owls” (2006):

The study determined that the circuits in the brain that process auditory information are influenced powerfully by the circuits that control where the animal is looking – the animal’s direction of gaze. … When the gaze control circuit was activated, they [the researchers] found that the owls’ auditory system responded more strongly and more selectively to sounds that came from the same spatial location as that encoded by the stimulated site. The same stimulation suppressed the auditory system’s response to sounds coming from other locations.

Or consider the case of bats. It is now over 35 years since Nagel posed his classic question, “What is it like to be a bat?” (1974). The properly scientific answer has since been provided: In 1999, research by Dr Dean Waters showed that a bat’s biosonar is on frequencies more than 10 times higher than humans and processes the echo information 10 times faster than humans could; a typical call may last 1/1000 of a second and be repeated 10 times each second. The calls are frequency modulated – in a single FM call the lower frequency portion of the call tells the bat about the shape of the object while the higher gives much more precise information about its position. By these means the bat acquires its food, on the wing, in the dark. In other words, bats run on automatic; the question is simply without sense.

1 As Dennett says above, consciousness “is swiftly achieved in one species, ours, and in no other.”


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In these and other cases, the principle of parsimony embodied in Lloyd Morgan’s (1903) canon implies that it is the scientific account which is the correct explanation of the behaviour: “In no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psycho-logical processes, if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development” (p. 59). From its birth an animal’s trajectory is one of “learning experiences”, which is in fact a process of self- or auto-conditioning. A lamb responds to signals from the ewe’s milk glands and later on to many other kinds of signal. From simply responding to scents that it encounters, it starts to nibble at grass and other vegetation. The growing animal is getting conditioned for survival. All its behaviours, including “play,” are organism-environment interactions triggered by internal and external signals. Every move is decided by signal strength, the predominant signals – auditory, visual, olfactory or a combination – activating the muscle groups conditioned to respond in a particular way to that combination of signals. In the lamb’s case it will be muscles for biting and chewing herbage, or for flocking, mounting other lambs, and so on. Every response occurs in the moment. Since animals live entirely in the present, they cannot, by definition, be aware of the past or the future. They have no means of envisaging what lies ahead; as for the past, it would be fair to interpret their apparent possession of memory as simply an accumulation of conditioned responses. Language. Living-in-the-present also rules out the possibility that animals can com-municate through language, through symbols. The logic of the argument has been pithily stated by Thom Mandel (2008): “It is all connected to the here and now. There are no symbols in the Now. Any symbol [‘that which represents something else’ (Chambers)] by design takes us out of the Now into the past or future. The past and the future do not exist Now. Simple as that.” Human language is a system of symbols by which an idea is transferred from one person (or location) to another, by word of mouth or written text. This is the process of displaced reference, i.e., communicating “outside immediate temporal and spatial contiguity” (Britannica Online Encyclopedia). Moving ideas from person to person, or from book to reader, involves using the symbols of language which, as we have seen, are abstractions. It is the order in which these abstractions follow each other that conveys meaning. C, when followed by a, and then t, means “cat.” The symbols “jhngvbfv,” on the other hand, make no sense at all after the sequence has been scanned to see if it possesses order. It is worth spelling this out, so to speak, in order to show why a non-human animal cannot determine the order in which letters or words succeed one another: it is due to the fact that, living in the Now, it receives what to humans is a sequence of symbols all at once. It is therefore incapable of perceiving any significance in the way the letters or


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sounds are arranged. Humans alone have achieved the displaced reference of abstract ideas that constitutes language, but time-awareness is what made language possible. Agency. At a conference on consciousness over ten years ago, someone raised the question of whether animals possess agency. Nobody offered an answer and the debate moved on. However it appeared to me that if animals are unaware of the passage of time and incapable of communicating through language, they must also lack agency, volition, free will – basically the ability to formulate a decision to act. I warned earlier that certain ideas put forward here would be strongly counterintuitive. But the fact has to be faced that there seems to be no non-human animal that can do anything on purpose. Paradoxical as it may seem, the most aggressive behaviours, as well as the most engaging, are all responses to stimuli. It may not always be clear what the stimuli are, but biological research of the kind outlined earlier reveals that emissions and signals on numerous wavelengths are crucial. Human accounts of animal behaviour are usually anthropomorphic, making the animal a subject, an agent that initiates actions and does what it does deliberately. But this does not reflect reality. It is a narrative version of events, because humans, uniquely, make sense of life by constructing narratives, in language, involving protagonists (i.e., subjects) doing things over time.

The voice used for describing animal behaviour is therefore predominantly active when it should really be passive. We say (correctly) that a moth is attracted to a flame; to be consistent, we should say swallows are migrated. Bears do not hibernate, they are hibernated. They are subjected to pressures, stimuli, influences of weather, the earth’s magnetic field, the circadian rhythm, as well as internal drives like sex and hunger, but they are not the agents of what takes place.

Animals are never prime movers, only reactors, even though their responses may appear proactive; for example, a lion leaping on an antelope or a hawk diving on a mouse. Both behaviours are in fact the outcomes of stimulus-response chains, beginning with stirrings of hunger in the lion, or the mouse’s urine traces on the grass impinging on the hawk’s retina. Even the salmon, making prodigious leaps up a waterfall, is acting in response to a drive to spawn. The typical anthropomorphic narrative is HS’s way of looking at such behaviours, but it does not really correspond with the facts of biology. It is a remarkable fact, for example, that no nonhuman animal can direct its gaze. “For animals, moving muscles and moving the focus of attention sum up the possible reaction to a moment” (McCrone, 1999, p. 198). Researchers trying to determine how rhesus monkeys perform saccades (movements of the eyes from side to side) have to place the animals’ heads in a clamp and train them to move their eyes to left or right by rewarding them with squirts of fruit juice into the throat. The resulting neural activity is then analysed to determine which neural pathways become activated.


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Evolution. As was suggested earlier, there is a second way to approach the subject of time, and that is to determine how time emerged from the billions of years’ duration of organic evolution: precisely when in history, or pre-history, did the concept of time come into being? As David Bohm has said, “Time is a concept which is set up by thought to represent succession” (1994, p. 227); it follows that there has to be a thinking organism doing it. In the living-in-the-present world of prey and predator, the survival imperative is to respond instantly: kill or be killed, quick or dead. This has certainly been the case in the 65 million years that mammals have been on the planet. But obvious anomalies suggest themselves: what about slow-moving creatures, such as slugs or turtles? Clearly speed of response cannot ensure their survival. Survival of the fittest is still the key, although the lock may operate differently. The survival of many species is based on behaviours and adaptations that have had much longer to evolve (about 400 million years in the case of insects); their established behaviours have clearly proved successful. Birds, having evolved about 100 million years before mammals, have also acquired more elaborate survival behaviours; for example, the broken-wing dance of a mother bird trying to distract a predator. The arrival of a predator stimulates a fixed action pattern (FAP) in the mother bird, which the observing human perceives as a deliberate behaviour. A different stimulus might evoke a different FAP. Dennett cites a piping-plover that runs straight at a cow that was blundering towards its nest, squawking and beating the air with its wings; the cow, not being a predator, evoked a different and less elaborate FAP. In such cases as these it is not swiftness but appropriateness of response that ensures survival. The mechanism is of a much more developed kind than the direct fight or flight of mammals; for example, the leaf-cutter ant cultivates its garden, and the bombardier beetle combines two chemicals to create a scalding liquid which is shot out from its rear end at the approaching predator. "At first sight, many animals behave as if they are aiming for a 'goal' or target but, without other evidence, it is more accurate to describe their movements as responses to the stimuli received at or up to that point" (Wyatt, 2003, p. 207). This reflects the principle of parsimony required in analysing animal behaviour expressed in Lloyd Morgan’s canon quoted earlier; it also justifies rejection of commonly-drawn inferences concerning animal behaviour when they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Herbert Terrace courageously acknowledged that, after years of trying to bring up a chimpanzee in a human family, Nim Chimpsky’s “human” behaviour resulted from the cues of his handlers. About 5 mya hominids and chimpanzees seem to have diverged in their direction of evolution, although remaining remarkably genetically similar. In this regard much has been made of tool use by chimps as evidence that they differ from humans in degree rather than kind, and that they are on the same continuum as humans, just not so far along. Chimpanzees back then were unlikely to have differed much from Nim Chimpsky, whereas, in comparison, hominid evolution has proceeded at an exponentially faster rate.


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One can only speculate on how the idea of time entered the human mind: it might have been the succession of the seasons, or the regular passage through the sky of an entity radiating heat and light. Might animals also have an idea of time, from the passage of the sun and perhaps moon or from the changes of the seasons? Certainly the sun was to the fore in Babylonian minds when they divided the day and night into periods of 12 hours each, but since night and day were of unequal length, it became more rational to define an hour as of a standard length throughout the 24. They were creating an abstraction, the idea of a period of time, whereas up till then there was just sunrise and sunset as markers, with perhaps a gnomon or sundial providing physical evidence of the sun’s progress. This codification by the Babylonians about 6000 years ago seems to be the first hard evidence of real awareness in humans of the abstraction called time. If one species, HS, could construct the concept of time, why not the others? It could be argued that species that were domesticated and then selectively bred by humans – dogs from wolves, cattle from aurochs and so on – would also have acquired some idea of time as they developed. But this overlooks a huge fundamental difference – the difference between evolution by natural selection, a process of minuscule incremental changes over billions of years, and evolution by artificial selection, carried out very rapidly under human direction in only a few millennia. This distinction was first made by one of Darwin’s contemporaries:

Blyth [Edward Blyth, Curator of the Asiatic Society’s museum in Calcutta] himself distinguished natural “races” from “breeds” (artificially and intentionally produced). “Why I know not,” said Darwin. It was because Blyth saw two funda-mentally distinct operations at work, one natural, forming wild races, the other an artificial, deforming, domestication process, and he was differentiating the results. Darwin had moved away from other naturalists on this question. He had artificial and natural selection pegged as analogous. Both involved pruning and picking and he saw no reason to separate their products. (Desmond & Moore, 2009, p. 261)

Darwin successfully bred many varieties of pigeon from a common stock, as if to prove his case; but Blyth had it right, the two processes are fundamentally different. The fact is that HS arrived on this planet at a few minutes before midnight (if the Earth’s span of life is compressed into a 24-hour day), and immediately hijacked the biological process of evolution by natural selection and replaced it with selective breeding. HS proceeded to pervert natural selection in two ways: indirectly, by modifying and sometimes destroying the habitat of animals in the wild so that the naturally occurring interactions, such as that between predator and prey, were disrupted, and directly by domestication and selective breeding of wild animals. Wolves became Chihuahuas and aurochs Holstein cattle. All that this has in common with evolution by natural selection is the biological process of reproduction. It occurred so swiftly it could reasonably be termed revolution by artificial selection.


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The real dichotomy then is between animals – which have evolved through natural selection over billions of years while being locked into the present – and HS, who broke into the dimension of time in the course of absorbing such skills as tool-making, cooking, agriculture, and language. Animals living in the wild, beyond the reach of humans, have during the same period evolved little if at all, for they undergo change only very gradually when evolving by natural selection. HS can never replicate in animals the processes that stimulated cortical expansion in humans; selective breeding is too blunt an instrument. The breeding programmes carried out by humans in this blink of an evolutionary eye could not possibly have achieved the sort of neurological changes needed for animal brains to perform abstract thought. It is also unlikely that the conditioning of animals by reward and punishment would be conducive to cortical development in the animals concerned. If tool-making, farming skills, or language were not inherent traits, and could never be developed in, say, wolf offspring by the process of selective breeding, how and why could awareness of time have been inculcated? Wolves were incapable of aimed throwing, did not have opposable thumbs, were unable to walk upright, to wrap themselves in animal hides, or erect shelters; just being around while HS acquired conscious awareness of time was not likely to produce similar conscious awareness of time in a non-human animal. The situation is well summarized by John McCrone (1999):

In one way, the difference is terribly simple. Animals are locked into the present tense. As numerous philosophers from John Locke to Ludwig Wittgenstein have remarked, animals live entirely in the here and now, their minds responding to whatever is currently going on around them, or to whatever urges happen to be welling up from their bodies. Humans, by contrast, have broken free of this tyranny of the moment. We have a consciousness that can wander about, thinking back to review memories from our past, or thinking forwards to imagine how life might be in the future. We can even take a step away from ourselves to contemplate the fact of our own conscious existence. (p. 287)

There is one flaw in this insight, namely the attribution of minds to animals. Each species has evolved a sensorium that fits it for its niche in the world (consider the owl and bat examples quoted earlier) but, I believe, no nonhuman animal has developed a neural substrate capable of supporting a conscious mind. Evolution does not require it. What can be said about emotion? Darwin also championed its existence in animals: “We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals” (Darwin, 1871, chap 4 intro).


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Again this seems to me a suspect insight. What we see in animals is behaviour that resembles emotion as it is expressed by humans. But human emotions require a timeframe in which to build and find outlet and are inextricably mixed with thought. Other species are simply reacting to stimuli in the moment (hackles rising, freezing, running, etc). Humans interpret these manifestations as anger, fear and so on, but this is just a further example of our interpretative narrative paradigm being inappropriately imposed on nonhumans by the human conscious mind. Animal emotions may just be how instinctual responses reveal themselves. However, there is no reason to think such animals do not experience emotions. They just do not KNOW they experience them thus they have no conscious (reflective thought) control over them, i.e., they are unconscious. Emotions are species’ evolved responses that do not allow for freedom of choice; nonhuman animal emotion may be nothing more than the manifestation in action of species determined instinct. There was a personal impetus to this inquiry that should be acknowledged. I was once muttering words of endearment to my horse, and gazing into his eye. It suddenly seemed to me that I was addressing myself to nothing more than a blob of jelly. Of course any eye is actually an organ of marvellous complexity and essential for survival, but this eye was emphatically not the gateway to the soul, or anything like it. I had always felt there was something out of kilter, some inherent flaw in the relationship between human and animals: anthropomorphism and sentimentality on our side, the blankness of undifferentiated nature on theirs. It seems to me now that it may be the lack of consciousness of that crucial dimension, time, in animals that divides them from humans. I have set out to demonstrate that awareness of time, and concomitant consciousness, is an attribute unique to HS. Language and reflective thought all follow from it. The writer Lewis Mumford said that humans were, first of all, time-measurers, then time-savers, and have become time-servers. A little cynical perhaps since the burden of responsibility is actually much worse than that: like it or not, humans control life on this planet because they discovered time. They (we) are the Time Lords of planet Earth and the future is ours to create. Acknowledgement: The author wishes to express his thanks to Greg Nixon for his constructive help/additions/emendations to this paper, and his recommendations over the years of valuable source material [e.g., Leslie Dewart]. References Bohm, D. (1994). Thought as a System (London: Routledge). First published by David Bohm

Seminars, 1992. Britannica Online Encyclopedia (n.d.). Language. Online: http://www.britannica.com/ Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man (London: John Murray). Online: http://www.darwin-

literature.com/The_Descent_Of_Man/1.html Dennett, D. (1995, Fall). Animal consciousness: What matters and why. Social Research 62(3).

Online: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/dennett_anim_csness.html Desmond A. & Moore J. (2009). Darwin’s Sacred Cause (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin).


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Dewart, L. (1989). Evolution and Consciousness: The Role of Speech in the Origin and Development of Human Nature (University of Toronto Press).

Libet, B. (2004). Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness (Harvard University Press). Mandel, Thom (2008). JCS-Online, message #5939, 31/03/08. Online Discussion Group:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/jcs-online/ McCrone, J. (1999). Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Consciousness (London:

Faber & Faber) Morgan, C. L. (1903). An introduction to comparative psychology, 2nd ed. (London: W. Scott). Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review 83(4), 435-50. Searle, J., & Freeman, W., (1998). Do we understand consciousness? Journal of Consciousness

Studies 5(5-6), 718-733. Stanford Study of Owls Finds Link in Brain Between Sight and Sound (2006, Jan). Science News

Online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060125083258.htm Waters, D. (1999, Feb). Echolocation in bats, reported in The Independent 26 February 1999. Wyatt, T. D. (2003). Pheromones and Animal Behaviour: Communication by Smell and Taste

(Cambridge University Press).


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Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| July 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 729-744

Beamish, Peter, ‘Conventional time t’ versus ‘Rhythmic Time T’ (Two Faces of One Mystery)

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[Note: Late addition essay meant for focus issue 1(5), Time & Consciousness: Two Faces of One Mystery?]

Exploration

‘Conventional time t’ versus ‘Rhythmic Time T’

(Two Faces of One Mystery)

Peter Beamish* Abstract: Here is described a second form of time. Here, it is also suggested that ‘ALL (real) TIME IS NOW TIME,’ otherwise past and future temporal concepts of the two types are scalar labels called ‘Conventional timetags’ and ‘Rhythmic Timetags.’ Additionally one’s mind is described by a new, seemingly important, dynamic concept called an ‘Essos’ (pronounced Eee-sos) and containing both one’s ‘Conventional Now’ and one’s ‘Rhythm Based Now.’ It is suggested that we use an upper case ‘TIME’ for the sum of these two mental concepts. Described also is the seemingly very important ‘Mental Vector Process’ or ‘MVP’ which appears as the Most Valuable Player, for all living organisms, in The Game of Life. The book preparation, entitled Dancing With Nature, from which this paper is a highly edited form, suggests the merging of the science of physics with the sciences of biophysics and biochemistry. Key Words: Conventional time t, Rhythm Based Time T, TIME or (t + T), timetag, Timetag, mind, Essos, Now, MVP, biophysics.

Introduction ‘Conventional time t’ is displacement divided by velocity, or space divided by speed. Throughout this research we use both an internal upper case ‘T’ and closed words (such as ‘onTime’) to designate a newly discovered temporal form called ‘Rhythmic Time’ or ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ Such ‘Rhythmic Time’ is defined by: “a mental perception of lateness relative to an agreed, biophysical, cyclical concept of synchronizaTion (or onTimeness) between two or more minds.” ‘Conventional time’ is well known to physics. “Rhythm Based Time” is both biophysics and a foundation of a newly discovered ‘Rhythm Based Communication, RBC,’ which has now been studied between humans and ‘The Great Whales,’ eagles, moose, fox and other unstressed animals. Such is explained in a book entitled Dancing With Whales (Creative Publishers, St. John’s, NL, CA) and is soon to be presented with much more detail, and data, in a sequel Dancing With Nature. We hereby join this latter research story (methods, materials and results) with ocean expeditions from Trinity, Newfoundland, aboard the Ceres, a large rigid-hulled inflatable with hull mounted under-water transmitters.

Samples from Dancing With Nature (adventure plus new knowledge) “T minus one minute and counting. Gentlemen please place your chair backs and tabletops in the upright position for takeoff! A-OK Nick, castaway. T minus zero. Up slow to half speed.”

*Correspondence: Peter Beamish, Ocean Contact, Ltd. & Ceta Research, Inc. Box 10, Trinity, NF, AOC2SO, Canada. Phone: 1-709-464-3990 or 1-709-464-3269. Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.oceancontact.com/ (Dancing with Whales, the full-length book, can be ordered from this site.)



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“What was that upright stuff?” asks Edward, a new British student. “Just Dad's attempted humour Ed,” says Nick, with a smile. “Practice bearings everyone: One o’clock - Admiral’s Island; four o’clock - ruins of an old whaling station; eight and eleven o’clock - church steeples; two o’clock - Fort Point light.” We are cruising at 30 knots on a glassy calm, spectacular harbour. A slow practice turn to starboard is announced and the Ceres leans gently into the curve like a Formula One racing car on a sharp, 90 degree, banked bend. Down speed to zero. Engines off. The ‘sound of silence.’ “Welcome to ‘Admiral’s Island Airport,’ home of about 100 pairs of Arctic terns.” In a low voice, Nicholas describes their flight patterns and sounds, to Alex, Hans, Edward and Mark, all sitting astern. Mark is a young, bright, marine mammal student from New Zealand. Simultaneously I do the same for Elliott, George and two students sitting forward of the console. “Notice the cannons at two o’clock, left by the British to protect the harbour mouth. There are others, tagged by our historical society, just ahead under water.” “Up slow to half speed.” A moment passes while Nick and I search the horizon for whale blows. "The rock statue on the right was named the ‘naked man’ hundreds of years ago and when we tried to get it changed to the ‘naked person,’ in honour of all liberated women, many fishermen refused because there’s a ‘naked lady’ on the other side of this point. It was aptly named the naked god, before the first European settlers.” We stop in sheltered waters. “Bald eagle, two o’clock, on top of the largest pine tree,” announces Nick. “It’s an adult. You can tell from the snowy white on the tail and top of its head.” “We are in ‘Green Island Tickle’ and between eight and ten o'clock live seven species of seabirds, but no eagles!” “And a ‘tickle’ is?” asks Charles, a biophysics graduate from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, western Canada. “A Newfoundland term for the body of water, generally between a peninsula and an island. It was named, presumably because that is where a boat could ‘tickle’ its bottom, or sides!” “Hey Dad,” Nicholas, whispers in my ear from the mast lookout position, “there are seven humpbacks blowing near the cliffs at Pigeon Cove.” Right thumb and forefinger close subtly together, into a ‘circle signal,’ responding confidentially to this good news. Up slow to three quarter speed, in along the spectacular shoreline of hills, harbours, anchorages, well marked fishing nets, water falls and eagles, we proceed, while finding the calmest waters. “Harp seals at eleven o’clock, just watch them dive together!" About 50 seals all look at us until their leader communicates some sort of a synchronous dive concept. I wonder if it was a signal; one could expect that, with a high stress situation. Or was it a rhythmic prelude associated with the beat of a common biorhythm? One day soon humans may study both types of communication for many an organism throughout the biosphere. “Range 5000 meters, bearing twelve o’clock, seven humpbacks – ahead,” I shout. “Assuming that Nicholas first saw the whales, from high up on the main mast,” Hans comments to Alex, “Good Lord, that young man must have fantastic sight.” We pass a minke whale heading at high speed back towards Trinity. “The way that Nick identified the humpback whales at almost four miles was to watch for the low contrast blows against the dark cliffs behind. Polaroid glasses and a cap with a brim are a help. You’ll find lots of such caps in the aft port locker, or you can hold your hand above your eyes to shield the glare and thus differentiate the blows.” Hans and Alex unpretentiously don their sunglasses.



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“It’s Ida’s group,” shouts Nick from on high. “Blow, and another at twelve o’clock, range 3000 meters, feeding along the capelin spawning beach at Pigeon Cove. More blows; do you see them, Elliott?” “That time I believe so,” comes the reply. “That time definitely,” say together, George and Jay, the latter a second New Zealander, specializing in acoustic mammal behaviour. “Range a mile, bearing still straight ahead. Down slow to half speed.” “Sounding dive, large tail up - and - down. That’s Andrew. I could see his large black dots on the underside of his right fluke,” announces Nicholas. “Come on down Nick, we’ll start the computer program. We should use an ‘alpha concept’ of one minute as the whales are all in shallow water. Set your watches everyone. Starting with the next countdown we will be transmitting two second, underwater sound pulses every minute.” “Six whales are lunging after capelin along the shoreline and another is closer to us in deeper water,” Nicholas broadcasts above the steady, moderate purring of the two, enormous, Honda, four stroke, ‘super’ engines. “Down slow to dead slow,” and the in-air sounds reduce to a low purring so that calm voices are all that’s needed for the onboard discussions. “5-4-3-2-1-mark!” shouts Nicholas. “First signal out.” One minute later, second signal out. “Starboard engine turned off, at the mark, Nick,” as he had perceptively already started to enter such a signal as a comment on the computer data base. With one engine off and the other in dead slow even the calmest talk is heard from the forward observers. “The third signal is coming up, watch any or all of the seven whales for synchronization.” There follows another countdown to ‘mark’ and at that very moment we all see a huge blow on the closest whale. “It’s Andrew,” declares Nick. “Synchronization, one o’clock, 1,000 meters.” “Did you suspect that ‘sync.’ Dad, or just feel it?" asks Nick. “The latter. What’s the stress program reading?” “Amber stress light folks; situation looking good,” states Nick to all on board. “Switch to the passkey program Nick and give a ten second warning before transmissions please.” Asking Alex and Hans to watch the coming manoeuvre, Ceres gently turns toward Andrew. Explanations about the next transmission are made, the ‘first message signal,’ which will be 90 seconds delayed in the ‘offTime’ window. Elliott and George glance at their watches. “Hey, ‘offTime,’ that’s what you called – one of your supposedly universal variables!" mentions Hans. “Correct, it’s actually our variable number three of ten, Hans.” “Warning for the first message signal, Dad," confides Nick. "Thank you." Quickly, a second pinger, tethered to the console, is activated. It’ll be tossed forward to hit the water precisely at the start of the main computer controlled transmission. Hans comes closer to observe. “Down one stop on the main sound intensity; log that please.” “5-4-3-2-1-mark, first message signal, ‘gamma one,’ we call it,” announces Nick. “It’s lower in intensity by half the output power, or three decibels.” “Estimated location: 700 meters at twelve o’clock. He’s probably resting on the bottom as it’s only 150 meters deep where Andrew was last seen.” “Lunge feeding near the shore at two o’clock,” reports Nick.



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Capelin (a small fish), literally fly from the water surface just behind a lunging, hungry humpback and then a partner whale emerges with mouth unbelievably wide open and water rushing from the back sides of its mouth. Gulls hover over the second whale, which they must know is the main feeding one. They literally pluck the fish from the air without landing. The first animal, although probably just as hungry, has forced the fish into the second whale’s mouth using its long white inside flipper. We then see these same two whales change places in a following lunge feeding incident in which case we have a primary example of mutually, ‘cooperative feeding.’ “Andrew knows our ‘passkey’ so watch for synchronization on the coming, ‘second message signal.’ This one could be good for you to photograph, George.” “Warning on ‘gamma two.’ Dad,” whispers Nick, as he has remounted to his mast position and he gently taps me with a boot tip, a practiced, concentration and focusing procedure. “My dear Hans, will you take over on this new transmitter. It should go into the water on Nick’s ‘mark’ but you should haul it out between two and three seconds later.” “A-OK as Alex would say! Hey! That’s poetry!" replies Hans jubilantly. “5-‘flipper up’-4-3-2-and, down,’ right on the mark for gamma two synchronization!" hollers Nick, with excitement in his voice. “We’ve green light, low stress conditions and we’ve a potential, ‘reciprocal, overlapping greeting,’ one of the terrific thrills of these new animal communication methods.” “The third message component will be ‘onTime.’ That’s variable number one. Don’t expect Andrew to signal ‘onTime’ but you can expect a signal in the ‘offTime’ window, 28-32 seconds after our transmission.” A ten second warning occurs, which Nicholas communicates via foot tap only! Hans seems ready. Nick announces that Andrew is between ten and eleven o’clock and then he shouts the countdown to ‘mark.’ This is the ‘third message signal,’ we call it ‘alpha one.’ Nick soon reaches down to point toward the expected bearing and then to steady George, by gently holding his shoulder. “OK everyone, here comes Andrew’s second signal. In 5 seconds -3-2- ‘FULL BREACH’!!!” Smash, just after the zero count, and as the 50 ton whale hits the water about half a second late, George is still clicking shots of the enormous splash! “I got the whole sequence! Great guide work Nick and thanks a lot for helping me to aim and keep steady,” reflects George. “We have finished our greeting or passkey. Next it’ll be Andrew’s turn to send his third signal which I predict will be a normal blow.” [For actual photographs of such whale message signals, please refer to the ‘Ocean Contact’ section of the web pages at www.oceancontact.com/.] “Ten second warning everyone, 5-4-3-2-Blow, one second early,” says Nick, (please see Appendix). By now we are nearly beside Andrew so Ceres goes to silent ship exactly on the next ‘alpha time,’ (by definition, the rhythmic time centered in the ‘onTime’ window). “Program for the interrogative of our rhythmic concept for fourth year capelin, Nick. Do you want me to look up the declarative in our dictionary?” “I’ve got it here in memory, yes, it’s: ‘late-offTime-late-early.’ So I just reverse the direction of our rhythmic time from clockwise to counterclockwise to get: ‘early-offTime-early-late,’ right maestro?” asks Nick. “Yes indeed, carry on. But I’ll turn down another stop on the sound transmission intensity if you’ll log it, please.” It’s amazing to see the sudden fascination in Alex and others at this reasonably routine guide conversation, which must be quite novel for them. This may now well be, in fact, a coming experimental demonstration of the quintessential communications discovery of our lives!



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“How can you be sure that Andrew, the whale, both knows and remembers your concept for fourth year capelin?” questions Alex. “Here we have Ida’s group and they all know this concept. They learned it by conditional response when we always tested the capelin age, and then delivered the proper message, wherever they were feeding. They know many other rhythmic concepts as well, and they actually teach and frequently remind us to remember our own rhythmic concepts from past contacts.” “Ten second warning, Dad,” says Nick and his computer conducts the music of the next four transmitted signals. “Now watch for a double signal in either of the ‘onTime’ or ‘offTime’ windows." “Review that again Peter, it is hard to keep track of all these signals,” says Hans. “The ‘onTime’ window, variable number one is now from 58 to 02 seconds on this master watch. The ‘offTime’ window is variable number three and is set from 28 to 32 seconds. It occurs every time, in this case, that the sweep second hand makes, a one minute revolution or one ‘alpha rhythm.’ Recall that an ‘alpha rhythm,’ measured in cycles of ‘Rhythm Based Time’ per unit of linear time is, in this case, one revolution per one minute. It is purposefully designed by us to exactly match the movement of the sweep second hand on your watch. Later, for eagles, the ‘alpha rhythm’ will be one cycle of ‘Rhythm Based Time,’ per twelve seconds. Let’s watch for Andrew’s answer; it can come now on any cycle.” (‘LateTime’ is 13-17 seconds; ‘earlyTime’ is 43-47 seconds.) “Look up! ‘Lob tail’- Smash, 'Lob tail' - Smash," Nick reports and records, while George photographs. “A distinct double signal in the ‘onTime’ window meaning the affirmative!” “And in simpler English doc?” asks Edward. “We asked the whales if these capelin are four years old and they answered yes!” “And in perhaps more philosophic terms?” asks Alex. “We have demonstrated the interrogation of Nature under low stress conditions using what we consider to be a genuine communication system of Nature. For such cases we have no evidence of any replies other than with honesty and altruism.” “Well that certainly makes it different than language, wouldn’t you agree, Alex?” asks Edward. “Wouldn't you say that evolution with its survival of the fittest is a natural type of war?” questions Edward. “Agree, but Peter’s evidence so far shows that the honesty of altruism is a type of peace that is the opposite of war, just as ‘true altruism’ is so different from a business deal,” responds Alex. “Nick can you program the group size, how many, message please?” But Andrew is hungry and he is soon seen inshore with the other feeding humpbacks. “Watch everyone, Andrew, our past communications leader is on a higher stress feeding break, but another should replace him and continue the identical rhythms and communications sequence.” “This, I’ve got to see,” murmurs Elliott to George. “Ten second warning, Dad,” says Nick again, and his computer conducts more music of the next four transmitted signals. Then for Elliott, a miracle of miracles, as Ida emerges from the feeding whales and with a single synchronized tail slap and a ‘lateTime’ left flipper slap, answers the question with the number nine! “Ida, while ending her meal, must’ve received a message expressing Andrew’s hunger. We believe that during our ‘Rhythm Based Communication’ encounters, all nearby whales are listening but only one is a whale-to-human communications leader. When Ida arrived near the Ceres, she took over that position and answered our often-asked question with a tail slap followed by a left flipper slap. We have previously taught these animals, by conditional response, that a tail slap



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represents the number ten and a left flipper slap represents a minus one. So the answer is nine. For your interest in our instructed counting system, a right flipper slap represents a plus one.” “But one tail slap is then the signal ten, not a rhythm,” perceptively states Alex. “Exactly, you have seen how signals and rhythms can be juxtaposed in human animal com-munications. Synchronized signals, as you saw, can contain both ‘Signal Based Information’ and ‘Rhythm Based InformaTion’.” (Please note the important use of the upper case “T” in the latter.) Let me remind everyone that so far we have only studied human-animal communications using ‘RBC,’ but that we are still a fair ways away from studying whale-whale or animal-animal messages. The key difference is that in the former we create the rhythm base, but in the latter there most probably exists one or more rhythms, more natural to the organisms involved. The logic of this last statement is that various confidential combinations of rhythmic bases could make messages private, an important advantage in evolution. When the day comes that organisms share with us their confidential rhythms, humans will have finally and truly joined into the innermost nature of Nature.” “I understood that you now believe there are nine whales in this group,” says Charles. “I do. Look for the missing two,” (which are later found at Eagle Beach).

Student Seminar - Simple Biophysics Students are assembling in the Eagle Room. “Attention s’il vous plait! Merci. This student meeting will try to explain new theoretical concepts about the past, the present and the future. I’ve already ordered the hot drinks so now’s our chance for good communication, good questions and good application to your various experiments, and, quite possibly to both your remaining life, as well as your very inner being.” “Do you mean to infer that these discoveries in communications may improve our careers as well as our total well being?” asks young Jason. “Precisely! Let me explain. Animals, other than humans, do not possess what is generally thought of as semantic language. Apparently, the evolutionary selection pressure has not existed in order for them to develop either a language or detailed thoughts of future plans or future creativity. There are no significant cave paintings by non-human species! Animals have memory but their conscious thought ‘seems’ always in the present, and of the past. Migratory patterns, such as ‘north to feed, south to breed,’ say for our North Atlantic humpback whales, seem like generalized futuristic thought processes, but they are more likely caused by a genetic trigger based on internal biochemistry, external conditions, or environmentally based learning. But we now define the concept of ‘ future,’ to consist of detailed plans and foresight such as are found, so far, only in humans. One’s past is related to memory and in molecular form memory seems found in all living organisms. “Now let’s discuss: ‘A New Logic of an Old Concept,’ that of: ‘TIME.’ And in particular, I’ll mention the mystery of biological aspects of the physical time variable, often represented in your past science courses simply by the lower case symbol t. Using a definitive definition of logic, the following opinions may approach principles governing correct or reliable inference, involving the human enigma of what seems to be an improved temporal theory. “There now appear to be two temporal types: a) Linear or cyclical ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ also designated as ‘time’ with the usual lower case t, and, b) Cyclical ‘Rhythm Based Time, RBT, or RT,’ in contrast designated as ‘Time,’ spelt with an upper case ‘T,’ or by the symbol ‘T’ alone. Additionally we suggest the word ‘TIME,’ with all upper case letters, be used to represent a sum of t + ‘T’.



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“With this convenient notation we have the need for new words, with an internal upper case ‘T,’ such as: ‘duraTion, synchronizaTion, communicaTion,’ and seemingly the immensely important ‘informaTion,’ as well as and including closed words such as: ‘onTime, lateTime, offTime, earlyTime, RhythmicTime’ AND the equally important ‘NowTime,’ or ‘NowTIME’, where, as before, ‘TIME’ = t + ‘T’, all representing the incorporation of cyclic ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT,’ or simply ‘Rhythmic Time’. “Important differences between these two temporal types a and b, are: “1a. A duration of ‘Conventional time, t or Ct’ is displacement divided by velocity where such displacements and velocities are external to a measuring, cyclical, working clock, or if the clock is linear (as for example a water clock), then such a linear clock must match, on a one-to-one basis, the said cyclical clock. “1b. A ‘duraTion’ of ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT’ is displacement divided by velocity where such displacements and velocities are internal to a measuring, cyclical, working clock, or are associated on a one-to-one basis with the internal rhythms of such a clock, as for example an age. “To clarify these two novel statements, our Earth is a measuring, cyclical, working clock and if one remains in a stationary location then one’s cyclical velocities are associated with ‘duraTions’ of ‘T.’ If however, one moves, then any travel time is in the normal durations of t. In communications science, if one synchronizes one’s master, internal, biological clock, one’s ‘Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, SCN,’ to any exterior ‘Rhythm Based Time’ cyclical, working clock then the resulting ‘duraTions’ become essentially ‘internal’ to such a cyclical, working clock and such becomes a potential starting point for ‘Rhythm Based Communication, RBC.’ “2a. ‘Conventional time, t’ is unidirectional, counting only in the direction from the present to the future, as in radians from 0 to 2pi to 4pi, or, in degrees, from 0 to 360 to 720. “2b. ‘Rhythm Based Time, RBT’ or ‘RhythmicTime T’ may have a sign change at pi radians (180 degrees) and counts within its ‘NowTime,’ in radians from 0 to pi to 0 (or in degrees from 0 to 180 to 0). ‘T’ can be bidirectional, as when viewing the Earth from either pole. “3a. ‘Conventional time, t’ is relative depending on transmission characteristics (Dr. Albert Einstein). “3b. ‘RhythmicTime, T’ is relative to ‘synchronizaTion,’depending on minds and mind locations, and can be Earth-Sun absolute, based on the Earth’s rotations. “Both temporal forms are mental readings OF (not ON) various clocks.” “Peter, there’s a phone call from England,” interrupts Chris “OK everyone. Review these ideas. They are also in these copies of Target Article 92 from the Karl Jaspers Forum, on <www.kjf.ca>”.

(After a short break). “Gentlewomen, gentlemen! You’ve digested some of that ‘intro’ I presume, so lets talk about ‘NowTIME’,” I say while reentering the Eagle Room. “I’ll just say a few words about durations before we simplify our discoveries. Durations are not vectors, because they do not have both magnitude and spacial directions, but they can be associated with vectors, such as in travel, which association has caused past confusions. Durations are but differences in temporal scalar labels. Human abstract mathematics created a ‘theoretical’ multiplication of vectors but all known, living organism minds, including humans, cannot meaningfully multiply or divide either vectors or especially any of their associated durations. Such multiplications caused problems in 20th century physics. “As an example, drive a vehicle south from Toronto, Canada, for 12 hours. During this journey ‘Lake Ontario Space’ rotates eastward to approximately ‘Lake Baikal Space,’ in Russia. Now your



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journey of 12 hours duration south, plus 12 hours ‘duraTion’ east, lands you in a ‘China Space!’ But if you were to multiply these durations, the resultant 144 hours is meaningless. “There is, in addition, a vocabulary which is easy and essential to understanding new temporal concepts, as all such concepts are always scalar quantities, like pricetags on merchandise, and not vectors, like displacements or velocities. We can define four varieties of such scalar ‘tags’. “Firstly we must review modern characteristics of part of an organism’s mind, also called one’s ‘Event Space Sphere Or Spheroid,’ acronym ‘Essos,’ pronounced ‘Eee-sos.’ The two ‘Essos Edges,’ inner and outer, are created by the production of ‘Mental Vector Processes, MVPs’ which are combinations of mass and/or energy vectors and scalar labels, destined to arrive at one’s ‘Mental Thought Process, MTP,’ near ‘Essos Centre’. (Please see Glossary.) “Inside one’s ‘Essos’ is subjective reality. Outside one’s ‘Essos,’ and within an ‘Essos Interior Volume,’ are one’s potential future and real past, the latter involving one’s memory, knowledge, understanding, unconscious, culture, education and more. “Let the scalar labels of ‘Conventional time, t’ and ‘RhythmicTime, T’ be ‘timetags’ and ‘Timetags’ respectively. The four varieties of scalar tags are as follows. The subjective ‘timetags’ and ‘Timetags,’ part of subjective reality, are within mind, within ‘Essos.’ Objective ‘timetags’ and ‘Timetags,’ part of one’s objective reality, are ex-mind, ‘ex-Essos,’ either beyond ones outer ‘Essos’ boundaries as one’s potential future, or, within an internal volume, as one’s memory and more. “Now for exceedingly important but relatively simple mind mathematics. Within ‘Essos,’ minds can add scalar labels. But, they cannot multiply them. Hence ‘t+T,’ t+t, and ‘T+T’ within mind = ‘Real TIME’ where ‘TIME’ = ‘t + T,’ but ‘t x T,’ is meaningless, as described earlier in the Toronto to China metaphor. Similarly, colours and shapes, also being scalar labels, can be added, but not multiplied or divided. “Please do not confuse the scalar characteristics of ‘Conventional time, t’ and ‘RhythmicTime, T’ with the ‘transport carriers’ named ‘Mental Vector Processes, MVPs,’ which can create ‘Bioscientific Vectors’ containing the scalar ‘cargos’ of t and ‘T,’ or their sum ‘t + T,’ or other such ‘cargos’ as colour and shape. These ‘MVPs’ are simply mass and/or energy vectors transporting scalar ‘cargos’. They seem the ‘Most Valuable Players’ in the ‘Game of Life’. “We let upper case ‘TIME’ exist only within ‘Essos,’ within ‘Mind,’ and it can involve t, ‘T’ or ‘t + T’ but never a temporal product such as ‘t x T.’ Such a product allows complications for current physics. “Now we can and should talk a bit more about the important concept of ‘Now TIME,’ or its equivalent ‘NowTIME’!” Charles then states, “Please explain one of your favourite sayings: ‘ALL (real) TIME IS NOW TIME.’ Otherwise temporal concepts are just ‘timetags’ and ‘Timetags’.” “No one is negating the continued use of the conventional, physical symbol and variable that we all know as lower case t, which normally stands, and stands alone, for our concept of time. But this concept still remains ‘the enigma of enigmas,’ the mystery of all philosophic mysteries. The following enlarged concept of ‘TIME,’ is merely an attempt to solve a part of this enormous enigma. “Conventional temporal concepts have both a past and a future. Such can be derived, mainly as intervals between events, from measurements and predictions which are scientifically very sound. This means that such measurements can be reproduced by someone else, at some other place, at some other time and with remarkable accuracy. Therefore we must begin our definition with time, or its symbol, the variable lower case t, and build, adding recent suggestions of biophysics, namely that humans may be the only organisms on Earth to have evolved substantial future concepts. So our



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mystery must include a larger group of ideas for which a symbol, upper case ‘TIME’ representing ‘NowTIME,’ has a more comprehensive, real and reproducible meaning, with animals as well as with humans. To discover this symbol, we must include another, a second, an independent concept of time. “We now believe that there is a new additional type of ‘TIME.’ The older, common and well known first type is on your watch, is in your head and has a past, a present and a future. The newer, additional and less well known type is in your heart, in your feelings and it is always in your present. Now I'll try to describe this newer type of time, based mainly on what humpback whales have demonstrated in experiments right here in Trinity Bay and elsewhere. “Let’s proceed with the as yet undefined, biophysical notion of ‘now’ and its associated, seemingly valid, new physical concept of ‘NowTIME.’ The experimental discovery of ‘Rhythm Based Time, or RBT,’ is usually designated with an upper case ‘T’, only in order to differentiate it from the more usual identification of ‘Conventional time’ with its lower case t. ‘RBT’ or ‘T’ is defined as: ‘a mental perception of lateness relative to an agreed, biophysical, cyclical concept of synchronizaTion (or onTimeness) between two or more minds’. (Please see Glossary.) Experiments with many species of animals have indicated that ‘RBT’ is biophysically different from ‘Conventional time, t.’ This new ‘Time,’ which is used in communications for the encoding of information, by humans and possibly all species of other animals, is always in the present! So how do we enlarge the model of ‘Conventional time, t’? “We must firstly think of ‘NowTIME,’ as, say, one cycle of ‘RBT,’ and then assign its measurement to the circumference of an ‘Event Space Sphere.’ Once we achieve this experimentally, as has been done mainly with humpback and other whales, we can now let measurements of ‘Conventional time, t’ within the sphere be related to the perception of ‘real’ now events as received by any ‘Mental Thought Process, MTP,’ located near the center of its sphere. Not only is the diameter of one’s ‘Event Space Sphere’ arbitrary, in this model, but ‘RBT’ as measured on the surface of the sphere has the properties of supersymmetry. It will vary identically for a pathway along any orientation of a sphere circumference. Vectors with ‘Conventional time’ as a scalar cargo, move in the direction of vector energy or mass; ‘RBT’ always orients itself orthogonally and rotates. “Now I’ll say this in a different way. We all have an imaginary sphere around us, on and inside of which all events feel in our hearts and minds to be ‘in the present.’ Outside the sphere on one side, the side of incoming energy, events are in our future. On another side they are in our past. So we define events such as my utterances, or your cough Mark, as being in our ‘NowTIME,’ but only until the energy of the event, for example the energy of a sound, leaves the sphere, until one's next heart beat, next breath, next cough or until your mind switches to a different set of thoughts. Suppose Mark’s cough energy traveled due north to Alex. Then we could label that moving sound with ‘Conventional time, t,’ the type that you know. As Alex hears the sound, the cough is real, the ‘Conventional time’ labels are real and both are in Alex’s ‘NowTIME.’ But Alex has his own ‘RBT’ biorhythms which by definition are cycling, just like the wheels of a bike, but these cycles orient themselves into the east-west direction, as opposed to the incoming north-south direction! The new ‘Time T’ is always at right angles to the old ‘time t.’ But most importantly, in new communications research they work together like best friends! They add to create a new, upper case ‘TIME’. “All events are associated with energy and/or mass vectors and those occurring outside one’s ‘Event Space Sphere’ are by definition not in one’s ‘NowTIME.’ Also associated with such vectors are ‘timetags,’ (or ‘t-labels’), mental, inscribed, machine made, etc., which are in fact the very



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numbers, and perfectly valid numbers, that we have been using to measure time, in all fields; ‘timetags’ (or ‘t-labels’) can label vectors with ‘Conventional time concepts’. “From one’s future such labeled vectors enter one’s ‘Event Space Sphere’ and it is then that the said energy and/or mass which penetrates one’s present awareness, and their ‘timetags’ or ‘t-labels’ become additionally associated with real ‘NowTIME.’ Upon leaving, one’s ‘NowTIME’ the ‘timetags’ become part of one’s past. The transition occurs when the ‘Mental Thought Process, MTP,’ at or near the center of the ‘Event Space Sphere,’ switches internal mental processing from one set of associated ‘NowTIME’ vectors representing a distinct event, to another set. An example could be ‘conscious thought change’. “‘TIME’ is in the present mind of an organism now, and for any diameter of its ‘Event Space Sphere,’ it consists of real ‘NowTIME’ concepts, real time t and its ‘timetags’ and real ‘RhythmicTime, T’ and its ‘Timetags.’ Outside of one’s ‘Event Space Sphere’ (both past and future) are valid labels, valid numbers, valid memories, valid plans, but they have not the ‘reality of nowness’ or of ‘NowTIME!’ Thus the submission that: ‘ALL (real) TIME IS NOW TIME.’ Otherwise temporal concepts are just ‘timetags’ and ‘Timetags’.”

Elliston Research (several days later) Nicholas is last to climb aboard as Kirk, on shore, casts the lines away and we head out between partly grassy, inner islands, bleached in places with flat, surface nests and eggs. Circling above the islands are many glistening white, Arctic and common terns. Next come tens of thousands of puffins, some on the water’s surface in great blackish clusters, most, however, roosting at burrow edges, while others are well out of sight at ocean depths, gathering capelin for their growing chicks which are relatively safe on the towering South Gull Island. Beyond are the humpbacks! “Main transmitter on signals every sixty seconds Nick.” Puffins burst to the surface on all sides as Ceres slows evenly to ‘dead slow,' to give these amazing diving alcids plenty of opportunity to plummet again if they are in our forward going pathway. With the wind calming quickly some have great difficulty becoming airborne with four or five fish in their beaks, an extraordinary payload! “Feeding humpbacks must have trouble avoiding so many puffins,” remarks Hans. “They are never found ingested by the whales, probably because puffins seem to fly better underwater than in the air! However, an unfortunate gull was once discovered wedged between baleen plates of a humpback in Norway!” “When we get closer, watch for a whale firing a puffin into the air as they are too large to fit down the whale’s throat!” jestingly adds Nick. “OK team, we have Ida’s group of nine humpbacks and at least three minkes or piked whales. Keep a good lookout for signals at the same time as Nick’s ‘count downs.’ One humpback should finish feeding before too long.” “5-4-3-2-1-mark,” says Nick as a misdirected puffin flies between Alex and George, standing less than a meter apart in the bow of Ceres! Nick has asked Alex to scan between 9 o’clock (port beam) and 12 o’clock (dead ahead), and George between 12 and 3. Both men are wearing brimmed hats and Polaroid glasses to reduce the surface reflected light and increase contrast. “Remember to keep the eyes relaxed and scan 90 degrees, or pi/2 radians in about 5-8 seconds in both directions,” I remind everyone. “Think of your clock bearings so that you can communicate to the group, first bearing, then range, if a whale appears.” “Blow, 4 o’clock, 100 meters, heading toward us, it’s Andrew,” says Nicholas. “10 seconds to alpha. Mark! Synchronization!”



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“Use the ‘offTime’ passkey, Nick.” Then a kick tap from the mast signifies ‘roger.’ “Please explain the communications,” exclaims Hans from his starboard stern observation post. “For Andrew we will use the ‘passkey message’ of ‘offTime’ twice, then ‘onTime’ once, to set the RBC variables at 30 and 60 seconds for future messages,” I reply. “Seven o’clock VERY CLOSE,” shouts Elliott! “Heading our way, that’s Ida, then Hubert, then Cecil, they’ve identified us for sure,” I say. “Ready on the first message signal 2-1-mark,” announces Nick. “Minke, 1 o’clock, crossing under the bow, watch for the white flipper ‘armbands’,” I say to Alex and George. “Three o’clock - one kilometer, Gannets plunge-diving, watch for whales or dolphins driving the capelin toward the surface,” as I point to our starboard beam. “Second ‘offTime’ signal 2-1-mark, in sync. with the coded computer beeps,” says Nick. “The greeting will be complete, gentlemen in about twenty seconds so watch for signals in your segments, I’ll take the forward half, Nick the stern.” The third and final underwater, acoustic pulse is softer, gentler, but right ‘onTime.’ Then miracle of miracles, Ida and Hubert surface together and exactly in the middle of our ‘offTime’ window with precisely synchronized blows, one on either side of Ceres. Then they signal together in the next ‘offTime’ window and Andrew joins with all three, exhaling together in the ‘onTime’ window. Such is a very complex but successful ‘reciprocal greeting.’ All the while we are proceeding east at dead slow using one engine; both engines are raised to shallowest depths. We now transmit the south concept, ‘late, offTime, late,’ and then turn the Ceres abruptly south. All three humpbacks follow. We transmit the north concept, ‘late, onTime, late,’ and then turn north with the whales following. We repeat these concepts again and then again with the same results. “Now you must ask them if our east west coordinates are their ‘Conventional time’,” says Alex. “That means abandoning the ‘RBT’ windows. What do you suggest?” “I calculate that if you head east, you could transmit three pulses every six seconds at 6, 12 and 18 seconds, then west, using pulses every twelve seconds at 12, 24 and 36 seconds,” replies Alex. “If you are ready Nick, we’ll turn east and west for three messages in each direction.” And the experiment progresses with detailed computer records but slightly less detailed human conscious understanding, and no cetacean mimicry. “Now comes the crucial test Alex. We must switch to the interrogative and look for meaningful replies.” So we reverse the ‘Rhythm Based Time, RBT’ that is similar to flipping your watch over, and transmit ‘early, offTime, early,’ while going south. Ida answers in the affirmative with two flipper slaps in the ‘onTime’ window. We repeat and then we head north and transmit ‘early, onTime, early’ and again Ida answers yes! We repeat again and then test reliability by heading south and using the identical ‘north message’ and Ida, catching on quickly, answers no with two tail slaps in our ‘offTime’ window, meaning negative. Then comes the big test! We head east with reversed ‘RBT’ and three signals outside our ‘RBT’ window variables to represent ‘Conventional time.’ Ida answers yes. Then we head west with signals at 48, 36 and 24 seconds (‘RBT’ reversed from the previous west message) and again Ida answers yes, this time with a half breach with two distinct flipper slaps on landing, just a few boat lengths away! There seems no forward going ‘Conventional time’ but instead variable, bidirectional windows of ‘Rhythmic Time.’ “Looking good gentlemen; we must repeat the data and perhaps we’ll get a different communicating whale if Ida’s stress increases due to hunger.” We try it again in differing order and each time Alex follows closely with efficient human-human communications aboard Ceres. Sure enough, Hubert switches places with Ida, then Andrew



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takes over the communications leadership. Each repeats Ida’s replies. Anyone watching from the land must think that we are doing a geophysical grid survey for sunken treasure but I would have enjoyed explaining to them that we appear to be uncovering perhaps the greatest treasure of all, Nature’s knowledge. “If only Mr. Einstein could be here now I feel sure he would rejoice in this evidence for the missing variable of Nature, that’s ‘Rhythm Based Time’ and its orthogonal, bidirectional and absolute properties.” We repeat the experiment on into encroaching darkness and then head for the safe harbour of Bonavista. Passing the peninsula headland I explain that we are closer to Europe, via the great circle route, than any land in North America and that this was not only the likely landfall of John Cabot in 1497 but also of vast numbers of trading ships during the following 400 years. It is also the location of the first satellite tagged humpback whale named Theophilus Argus after both the fisherman and the satellite system used for tracking! We were able to sit in the Ceta-Research laboratory back at Trinity and track the whale hundreds of miles away. This was for both daytime behaviour where we have some knowledge over the past hundreds of years, as well as for night-time behaviour, where we have practically none! In dead calm waters under the night lights of one of the largest fishing towns in the world, we speed toward the harbour, hearing whales in the distance and avoiding rocky shoals that are well known to Nicholas and myself. We entered Bonavista harbour just as had the replica of Cabot’s Matthew, in 1997, celebrating the 500th anniversary. However they had encountered stormy seas with a cold winter-like wind, but were welcomed by Canada’s Queen, who had helicoptered in for the festive occasion.

GLOSSARY (Single quotation marks are used, as in text, primarily for new concepts.) Altruism - Having regard for others; to give or to act without reward; to be unselfish. Bidirectional - Functioning in two spacial directions. Biophysics - The science of the application of the laws of physics to biological phenomena. ‘Cetacean-Contact’ - ‘Rhythm Based CommunicaTion, RBC’ with whales, dolphins and porpoises. Clock - Any mechanism and/or life system that represents, or is capable of producing cyclic, recurrent or predictable motion, and measures temporal qualities. ‘ClosedWords’ - Neglecting a normal space between words (e.g. OnTime). Used to signify ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ Communication and ‘CommunicaTion’ - The passing of information involving: a) transmission, b) reception and c) the altering of subsequent behaviour. Please see ‘SBC’ and ‘RBC.’ ‘CommunicaTion’ - ‘Rhythm Based CommunicaTion, RBC.’ Conventional - Traditional (in opposition to recent inventions etc.). ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ or the commonly used noun ‘time.’ Please see the following section named ‘Conventional time Categories’. Cyclic - Revolving in recurrent series of events and/or phenomena. Dimensions - a) ‘Spacial dimensions,’ which define all known geometry, or b) Variables, which may be scalar quantities, the usage of which is now not recommended in order to avoid confusion with a). Displacement - Distance in a direction. Duration - A ‘Conventional timetag of t or Ct’ of increased quantity less one of lesser quantity.



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‘DuraTion’ - A ‘Timetag of T or RBT,’ of increased quantity less one of lesser quantity. ‘Earth Life’ - An ‘Earth source domain’ using communication or ‘communicaTion.’ Empathy - “Experiencing strong affection or passion” (Britain and U.S.), “Feeling into, as in watching a high-wire artist” (German), definitions by Dr. Frans De Waal. ‘Essos’ - ‘Event Space Sphere Or Spheroid’ (pronounced ‘Eee-sos’), which is a synonym for part of one’s ‘Conscious Mind.’ Such is an abstract volume useful to describe the dynamic orientation and magnitude of conscious space variables, real ‘Now time and Now Time’ and their combination called ‘Now TIME.’ ‘Essos’ and ‘Ex-Essos’ have been called “Subjective-inclusive Experience” and “Mind-independent Pre-structured Reality,” respectively, by Dr. Herbert Muller of McGill U. ‘Future’ - Scalar labels of ‘Conventional time, t or Ct’ or ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT,’ and their associated ‘Mass/Energies,’ (definitions to follow) that have not yet arrived at one’s ‘Essos.’ ‘Information (SBC)’ - Information encoded in the sensory modalities, of signals, signs and symbols, and described by ‘Conventional Communication’ or ‘Signal Based Communication, SBC.’ (‘SBC’ definition to follow). Please also see ‘World Phenomena’ below. ‘InformaTion (RBC)’ - ‘InformaTion’ encoded in ‘Time,’ that is ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ This is the medium of ‘Rhythm Based Communication, RBC or CommunicaTion.’ Please see definitions above and below as well as that of ‘World Phenomena,’ below. ‘Mass/Energy’ - Either mass or energy or both. ‘Mental Thought Process, MTP’ - An area near ‘Essos Centre’ for receiving and processing mind’s ‘Mental Vector Processes, MVPs’ (this very important definition follows directly). ‘Mental Vector Process, MVP’ - A combination of a ‘Mass/Energy’ vector and any number of scalar quantities, formed at or outside one’s ‘Essos Edge,’ and ending at one’s ‘Essos Centre.’ ‘MVPs’ seem the ‘Most Valuable Players’ in the ‘Game of Life.’ Mind (conscious) - ‘Mass/Energy’ and information, or ‘informaTion,’ involved with the architecture of a central nervous system and within one’s ‘Essos.’ The important ‘Essos’ definition above is a synonym for part of one's 'Conscious Mind' and it includes additional conscious mental aspects. Mind (unconscious) - ‘Mass/Energy’ and information, or ‘informaTion,’ possibly involved with any active cell of a living being but not within ‘Essos.’ The important ‘Essos’ definition is above. ‘Nature-Contact’ - ‘RBC’ with humans and Nature. ‘Nowness’ - One’s immediate present. ‘Now time’ - ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ associated with events in one’s present and contained within one’s ‘Essos.’ Please see ‘Conventional time Categories’ to follow. ‘Now Time or NowTime’ - ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT,’ associated with events in one’s present and contained within one’s ‘Essos.’ Please see ‘ClosedWords’ above and ‘Time and TIME Categories’ to follow. ‘Now TIME or NowTIME’ - Both ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ and ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT,’ associated with events in one’s present and contained within one’s ‘Essos.’ Please see ‘ClosedWords’ above and ‘Time and TIME Categories’ to follow. ‘OnTime, LateTime, OffTime, EarlyTime’ - Elementary cyclical ‘Windows’ of ‘RBC.’ ‘Ontimeness’ - synchronization (defined below). ‘OnTimeness’ - ‘synchronizaTion’ (defined below). ‘Orthogonal’ - At right angles or 90 degrees. ‘Orthogonal Spacial Dimensions, OSDs’ - of which there are a maximum of only three. (as an example: east, north and up). Please see ‘Space’ definition below. Paradigm - A mode of viewing the world which underlies scientific theory for a period of history. Paradigm Shift - A fundamental change in approach and/or philosophy.



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‘Past’ - Temporal labels and their associated ‘Mass/Energy’ that have left one’s ‘Essos.’ Perception - An interpretation based on one’s understanding. ‘RBC’ - Please see ‘Rhythm Based Communication,’ plus Communication and ‘CommunicaTion.’ ‘Rhythm Based Communication, RBC’ or ‘CommunicaTion’ - Encoding in RBT and using ‘InformaTion (RBC)’ or ‘RBI.’ Please see definition of ‘Rhythm Based InformaTion, RBI.’ ‘RBI’ - Please see ‘Rhythm Based Information,’ ‘Information (RBC)’ and ‘World Phenomena.’ ‘Rhythm Based InformaTion, RBI’ - ‘InformaTion’ encoded in ‘Time, T or RBT.’ ‘RBT’ - Please see ‘Rhythm Based Time’ or ‘T’ ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT’ (as opposed to ‘Conventional time, t or Ct’). “A mental perception of lateness relative to an agreed, biophysical, cyclical concept of synchronizaTion (or onTimeness) between two or more minds.” Please see ‘Time and TIME Categories’ ‘SBC’ - Please see ‘Signal Based Communication.’ ‘Signal Based Communication, SBC’ - ‘Signal Based Information, SBI’ encoded in ‘Conventional time, t or Ct.’ Please see definition of ‘Signal Based Information, SBI.’ ‘SBI’ - Please see ‘Signal Based Information,’ ‘Information (SBC)’ and ‘World Phenomena.’ ‘Signal Based Information, SBI’ - Information encoded in signals, signs and symbols and using ‘Conventional time, t or Ct.’ Scalar - Having only magnitude, without spacial direction, that is, without spacial dimensions. Space - Vectors, always containing both magnitudes, and spacial directions of: I) east-west, north-south, up-down, II) right-left, forward-backward,, up-down or III) north celestial pole, declination, right ascension east of the 1st Pt. of Aries. I and III are objective, II is subjective or ‘of Essos.’ ‘Spacial Dimensions’ - Vectors which are most often considered orthogonal (in which case there are up to three and only three spacial dimensions). Please see definition of ‘Space,’ above. Spacial Directions - Space vectors, which are not necessarily orthogonal. Symmetric - When certain positions rotate into other positions in the same set. ‘Sync.’ - An abbreviation for either synchronization or ‘synchronizaTion.’ Synchronization - Happening at the same linear or cyclical, ‘Conventional time, t or Ct.’ ‘SynchronizaTion’ - Happening at the same cyclical, ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ ‘Temporal Tags’ - Please see ‘Conventional timetags, Timetags, and TIMEtags,’ to follow. ‘True altruism’ - To give or to act without the expectation of a reward. Vector - A quantity having spacial direction as well as magnitude. ‘Whale-Contact’ - ‘RBC’ between humans and whales. ‘Windows’ - Relatively short ‘RBT duraTions’ of ‘Rhythm Based CommunicaTion, RBC.’ ‘World Phenomena’ - Mass, Energy, ‘Information, (SBC)’ in t, ‘InformaTion, (RBC)’ in ‘T.’

‘Conventional time Categories’ ‘Conventional Communication’ - Please see ‘Signal Based Communication, SBC.’ ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ or the commonly used noun ‘time.’ Displacement divided by velocity or space divided by speed, as a temporal, scalar label which can move in the direction of its associated ‘Mass/Energy’ vector. Traditional concepts of ‘time’ differ from the new ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ Please see ‘Time and TIME Categories,’ to follow. ‘Conventional time, t or Ct, tags’ - The association, either physical or mental, of ‘Conventional time, t or Ct’ scalar labels, with ‘Mass/Energy’ vectors, or simply ‘time t’ scalars. Please see following definitions. ‘Conventional timetags (developing)’ - Varying scalar labels of ‘Conventional time, t or Ct’ produced by a working, linear or cyclical clock.



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‘Conventional timetags (fixed)’ - Scalar labels, either mental, inscribed, machine made, geophysical, geologic or others, of ‘Conventional time, t or Ct.’ ‘Conventional timetag-vector’ - A ‘Conventional timetag, t’ on a ‘Mass/Energy’ vector. Some call this a ‘time-vector,’ which is discouraged as time does not flow on its own.

‘Time and TIME Categories’ ‘T’ - Please see the following definition of the new ‘Time’ or ‘Rhythm Based Time, RBT.’ ‘Time,’ ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ - “A mental perception of lateness relative to an agreed, biophysical, cyclical concept of synchronizaTion (or onTimeness) between two or more minds.” — Via Dr. Hitoshi Kitada (Tokyo), T=exp(it(+/- 2pi)H/Planck constant h), and for any complex number exp(i theta) on a sphere of radius one (where theta is any fixed real number), then exp(i theta)exp(it(2pi)H/h is a solution of the Schrodinger equation where H = a Hamiltonian operator, and for theta = (2n+1)pi, (and n = 0, +/- 1, +/- 2, - - ), exp(i theta) = -1 and T becomes both bidirectional and “rotation free.” ‘TIME’ - ‘Conventional time, t or Ct,’ plus ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT,’ within ‘Essos.’ ‘Time T, or TIME (t+T) Tags’ - The association, either physical or mental, of ‘Timetags or TIMEtags,’ with ‘Mass/Energy’ vectors, or simply ‘Time T’ or ‘TIME’ scalars. Please see following definitions. ‘Timetags (developing)’ - Varying scalar labels of ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT’ produced by a working, cyclical clock. ‘Timetags (fixed)’ - Scalar labels, either mental, inscribed, machine made, geophysical, geologic or others, of ‘Rhythm Based Time, T or RBT.’ ‘Time/timetags’ - Either ‘Timetags and/or timetags.’ ‘TIMEtags’ - ‘Timetags and/or timetags’ on vectors with combined, resultant ‘TIME’ labels, always within one’s ‘Essos,’ and comprising ‘Real TIME.’ ‘Timetag-vector’ - A ‘Timetag’ on a ‘Mass/Energy’ vector. Some call this a ‘Time-vector,’ which is discouraged as ‘Time’ does not flow on its own. ‘Timing’ - The arithmetic of all combined time, ‘Time and TIME’ concepts, including recordings.

APPENDIX ‘RBC’ and General Experimental Technique “Firstly choose a time of low internally and externally caused stress, such as, no need for nutrition or, no fear of mind/body discomfort. Then ‘share a rhythm!’ This can be interpreted as energy packages traveling between organisms, which signals have a common, compatible, between pulse ‘duraTion’ called an ‘alpha concept.’ Upon synchronization, these ‘duraTions’ become a shared rhythm. Now add a second simple message called a ‘beta concept,’ as explained presently, and to your surprise, ‘Rhythm Based Communication, RBC’ can begin!” “It might be useful if you gave common examples of ‘alpha concepts’ and some good communication signals for both whales and land mammals as well as bald eagles,” interjects Nicholas. “OK, or as some of you would say now, just ‘kay.’ For roosting eagles we use an ‘alpha concept’ or rhythm of 12 seconds with mainly whistles and light flashes for signals. For fox kits and snowshoe hares we use a rhythm of 20 seconds with mainly finger snaps and rock taps. For beaver, black bear, caribou and moose we use 32 seconds, underwater sounds for beaver but mainly comb flicks and light flashes for bear, caribou and moose. For whales we use 60 and 90 second ‘alpha



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concepts’ with computerized, underwater, acoustic transmissions of various intensities. By the way Nick and Kirk, choose four to join Ceres this morning on the water. Everyone should get chances when whale contact space is available. “Next you transmit non frightening, rhythmic, ‘alpha concepts,’ called ‘alpha rhythms’. “Record identification and behavioural details of any animal that returns a signal appearing to be at the same time as your transmitted signal, which behaviour is ‘possible-synchronization,’ or ‘possible sync.’ Cease all transmissions for a 10-15 minute coffee break if no sign of a ‘possible sync.’ occurs in 15-20 minutes. Postpone the experiment if active feeding or external stress is suggested. “Following ‘possible sync.’ send the next signal ‘late,’ which is a ‘beta concept.’ This is ‘the first message signal.’ Transmit another signal ‘late’ using the identical amount of ‘lateness.’ 'This is ‘the second message signal.’ It will and must follow ‘the first message signal’ by the ‘alpha concept,’ which, in other words, is the ‘pulse interval’ before synchronization. “Record all signals from your single animal or any in a group but place maximum effort in following and observing the animal associated with the suspected synchronization. Note that you have not proven anything beyond coincidence yet, but, that will come next, as you hopefully enter the world of ‘RBC’. “Transmit the third message signal which must be ‘onTime’ or at a ‘RhythmicTime’ corresponding to the beginning of the synchronized ‘duraTion’ which is also called the ‘alpha time.’ Successful ‘RBC’ is now, complete if receiving partial message mimicry, so keep up a maximum effort to observe and record, without transmissions. “For example, a transmitted message of ‘late, late, onTime,’ which gives a ‘key’ of the amount of lateness, or the ‘beta concept,’ should return the key with a mutual understanding of both the ‘alpha and beta concepts,’ when you receive signals which are ‘late, late, onTime.’ Then, return to the main research lab, across Taverner’s Path from the Inn, or find Tim, Kirk, or myself with news of success, good data or new knowledge.” There is student silence, save for the scratching of note taking. Then abruptly hands go up. “Exactly what is an ‘alpha concept’?” asks one. “It is an idea in your mind, presumably transmitted to the mind of an organism, which is simply the between pulse ‘duraTion’ during intended ‘synchronizaTions.’ We use this ‘duraTion,’ ‘synchronizaTion’ and ‘onTime’ etc. spelling to emphasize the ‘RhythmicTime T,’ not ‘Conven-tional time t’,” as I copy these ‘RBC’ words onto a flip chart. “Then what again is a ‘beta concept’?” questions another. “It is an idea in your mind, hopefully transmitted to the mind of an organism, which is simply the ‘duraTion’ of the first one quarter of the ‘alpha concept,’ rhythmic cycle. It starts with ‘synchronizaTion’ and ends in the ‘lateTime’ window. Similarly, the ‘gamma and delta concepts’ are the ‘duraTions’ of half and three quarters of the same rhythmic cycle, ending in the ‘offTime’ and ‘earlyTime’ windows, respectively.” Tim joins in with, “Your opening message, now called a ‘passkey,’ or in human concepts simply a greeting, will then be as mentioned, ‘late, late, onTime,’ or ‘beta, beta, alpha.’ This has already been programmed into your computers by hitting both the ‘Psion’ and ‘P’ buttons at the same time.” “Humpback whales are now teaching us that ‘offTime, offTime, onTime’ or ‘gamma, gamma, alpha,’ is another and different passkey. This message seems more universal, so you might want to try it if you don’t get message mimicry from the programmed passkey. I’m beginning to feel that both keys work but convey slightly different but as yet unknown specific meanings.”

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 745-763 Hankins, P. Eminent Entities: Short Accounts of Some Major Thinkers in Consciousness Studies



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Review Article

Eminent Entities: Short Accounts of Some Major Thinkers

in Consciousness Studies

Peter Hankins*

ABSTRACT

I run a blog entitled “Conscious Entities” at http://consciousentities.com which is devoted to short

discussions of some of the major thinkers and theories about consciousness. This is another small

collection of my writings on consciousness which the editor of JCER very kindly selected to appear

here. It contains my short accounts of six major thinkers in consciousness studies including Daniel

Dennet, John Searle, David Chalmers, Colin McGinn, Roger Penrose & Gerald Edelman. In reading the

books of these writers, I found I had views which were very clear, but also completely contradictory;

so these pieces are written in the form of dialogues between a character I call Bitbucket (represented

by the abacus) who is a hard-line materialist computational reductionist, and Blandula (the cherub)

who leans towards dualism and mysterianism. (The last few words of each article, by the way, are

actually quotes from the subject himself.)

Key Words: consciousness studies, people, Daniel Dennet, John Searle, David Chalmers, Colin McGinn,

Roger Penrose, Gerald Edelman.

1. Daniel Dennett

Dennett is the great demystifier of consciousness. According to him there is, in the final

analysis, nothing fundamentally inexplicable about the way we attribute intentions and conscious

feelings to people. We often attribute feelings or intentions metaphorically to non-human things, after

all. We might say our car is a bit tired today, or that our pot plant is thirsty. At the end of the day, our

attitude to other human beings is just a version – a much more sophisticated version – of the same

strategy. Attributing intentions to human animals makes it much easier to work out what their

behaviour is likely to be. It pays us, in short, to adopt the intentional stance when trying to understand

human beings. This isn’t the only example of such a stance, of course. A slightly simpler example is the

special ‘design stance’ we adopt towards machines when we try to understand how they work (that is,

by assuming that they do something useful which can be guessed from their design and construction).

An axe is just a lump of wood and iron, but we naturally ask ourselves what it could be for, and the

answer (chopping) is evident. A third stance is the basic physical one we adopt when we try to predict

how something will behave just by regarding it as a physical object and applying the laws of physics to

Correspondence: Peter Hankins, Conscious Entities at http://consciousentities.com, London, UK.





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it. It’s instructive to notice that when we adopt the design stance towards an axe, we don’t assume

that the axe is magically imbued with spiritual axehood: but at the same time its axehood is

uncontroversially a fact. If we only understood things this way all the time, we should find the real

nature of people and thoughts no more worrying than the real nature of axes. One day there could

well be machines which fully justify our adopting the intentional stance towards them and hence

treating them like human beings. With some machines, some of the time, and up to a point, we do this

already, (think of computer chess) but Dennett would not predict the arrival of a robot with full

human-style consciousness for a while yet. So it’s all a matter of explanatory stances. But doesn’t that

mean that people are not ‘real’, just imaginary constructions? Well, are centres of gravity real? We

know that forces really act on every part of a given body, but it makes it much easier, and no less

accurate, if our calculations focus on a single average point. People are a bit like that. There are a

whole range of separate processes going on in the relevant areas of your brain at any one time –

producing a lot of competing ‘multiple drafts’ of what you might think, or say. Your actual thoughts or

speech emerge from this competition between rival versions – a kind of survival of the fittest, if you

like. The intentional stance helps us work out what the overall result will be.

The ‘overall result’? But it’s not as if the different versions get averaged out, is it? I thought

with the multiple drafts idea one draft always won at the expense of all the others. That’s one of the

weaknesses of the idea – if one ‘agent’ can do the drafting on its own, why would you have several?

It’s just more effective to have several competing drafts on the go, and then pick the best. It’s

a selective process, comparable in some respects to evolution – or a form of parallel processing, if you

like.

‘Pick the best’? I don’t see how it can be the best in the sense of being the most cogent or

useful thought or utterance – it’s just the one that grabs control. The only way you could guarantee it

was the best would be to have some function judging the candidates. But that would be the kind of

central control which the theory of multiple drafts is supposed to do away with. Moreover, if there is a

way of judging good results, there surely ought to be a way of generating only good ones to begin with

– hence again no need for the wasteful multiple process. I’m always suspicious when somebody

invokes ‘parallel processing’. At the end of the day, I think you’re forced to assume some kind of

unified controlling process.

Absolutely not- and this is a key point of Dennett’s theory. None of this means there’s a fixed

point in the brain where the drafts are adjudicated and the thinking gets done. One of the most

seductive delusions about consciousness is that somewhere there is a place where a picture of the

world is displayed for a ‘control centre’ to deal with – the myth of the ‘Cartesian Theatre’. There is no

such privileged place; no magic homunculus who turns inputs into outputs. I realise that thinking in

terms of a control centre is a habit it’s hard to break, but it’s an error you have to put aside if we’re

ever going to get anywhere with consciousness. Another pervasive error, while we’re on the subject, is

the doctrine of ‘qualia’ – the private, incommunicable redness of red or indescribable taste of a

particular wine. Qualia are meant to be the part of an experience which is left over if you subtract all

the objective bits. When you look at something blue, for example, you acquire the information that it

is blue: but you also, say the qualophiles, see blue. That blue you really see is an example of qualia,

and who knows, they ask, whether the blue qualia you personally experience are the same as those

which impinge on someone else? Now qualia cannot have any causal effects (otherwise we should be

able to find objective ways of signalling to each other which quale we meant). This has the absurd

consequence that any words written or spoken about them were not, in fact, caused by the qualia

themselves. There has been a long and wearisome series of philosophical papers about inverted

spectra, zombies, hypothetical twin worlds and the like which purport to prove the existence of qualia.




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For many people, this first person, subjective, qualia-ridden experience is what consciousness is all

about; the mysterious reason why computers can never deserve to be regarded as conscious. But,

Dennett says, let’s be clear: there are no such things as qualia. There’s nothing in the process of

perception which is ultimately mysterious or outside the normal causal system. When I stand in front

of a display of apples, every last little scintilla of subtle redness is capable of influencing my choice of

which one to pick up.

It’s easy to deny qualia if you want to. In effect you just refuse to talk about them. But it’s a

bit sad. Qualia are the really interesting, essential part of consciousness: the bit that really matters.

Dennett says we’ll be alright if we stick to the third-person point of view (talking about how other

people’s minds work, rather than talking about our own); but it’s our own, first-person sensations and

experiences that hold the real mystery, and it’s a shame that Dennett should deny himself the

challenge of working on them.

I grant you qualia are grist to the mill of academic philosophers – but that’s never been any

sign that an issue was actually real, valid, or even interesting. But in any case, Dennett hasn’t excluded

himself from anything. He proposes that instead of mystifying ourselves with phenomenology we

adopt a third-person version – heterophenomenology. In other words, instead of trying to talk about

our ineffable inner experiences, we should talk about what people report as being their ineffable inner

experiences. When you think about it, this is really all we can do in any case. That’s Dennett in a

nutshell. Actually, it isn’t possible to summarise him that compactly: one of his great virtues is his wide

range. He covers more aspects of these problems than most and manages to say interesting things

about all of them. Take the frame problem – the difficulty computer programs have in dealing with

teeming reality and the ‘combinatorial explosion’ which results. This is a strong argument against

Dennett’s computation-friendly views: yet the best philosophical exposition of the problem is actually

by Dennett himself.

Mm. If you ask me, he’s a bit too eager to cover lots of different ideas. In ‘Consciousness

Explained’ he can’t resist bringing in memes as well as the intentional stance, though it’s far from clear

to me that the two are compatible. Surely one theory at a time is enough, isn’t it? Even Putnam

disavows his old theory when he adopts a new one.

It seems to me that a complete account of consciousness is going to need more than one

theoretical insight. Dennett’s broad range means he’s said useful things on a broader range of topics

than anyone else. Even if you don’t agree with him, you must admit that that sceptical view about

qualia, for example, desperately needed articulating. And it typifies the other thing I like about

Dennett. He’s readable, clear, and original, but above all he really seems as if he wants to know the

truth, whereas most of the philosophers seem to enjoy elaborating the discussion far more than they

enjoy resolving it. His theory may seem strange at first, but after a while I think it starts to seem like

common sense. Take the analogy with centres of gravity. People must be something like this in the

final analysis, mustn’t they? On the one hand we’re told the self is a mysterious spiritual entity which

will always be beyond our understanding: on the other side, some people tell us paradoxically that the

self is an illusion. I don’t think either of these positions is easy to believe: by contrast, the idea of the

self as a centre of narrative gravity just seems so sensible, once you’ve got used to it.

The problem is, it’s blindingly obvious that whether something is conscious or not doesn’t

depend on our stance towards it. Dennett realises, of course, that we can’t make a bookshelf

conscious just by giving it a funny look, but the required theory of what makes something a suitable

target for the stance (which is really the whole point) never gets satisfactorily resolved in my view, in

spite of some talk about ‘optimality’. And that business about centres of gravity. A centre of gravity




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acts as a kind of average for forces which actually act on millions of different points. Well there really

are people like that – legal ‘persons’, the contractual entitities who provide a vehicle for the corporate

will of partnerships, companies, groups of hundreds of shareholders and the like. But surely it’s

obvious that these legal fictions, which we can create or dispel arbitrarily whenever we like, are

entirely different to the real people who invented them, and on whom, of course, they absolutely

depend. The fact is, Dennett’s view remains covertly dependent on the very same intuitive

understanding of consciousness it’s meant to have superseded. You can imagine a disciple running into

problems like this…

Disciple: Dan, I’ve absorbed and internalised your theory and at last I really understand and believe it

fully. But recently I’ve been having a difficulty.

Dennett: What’s that?

Disciple: Well, I can’t seem to adopt the intentional stance any more.

Dennett: Wow. It’s really very simple. Deep breaths now. Look at the target (use me if you like). Now

just attribute to me some plausible conscious states and intentions.

Disciple: But… What would that be like? What are conscious states? For you to have conscious states

just means I can usefully deal with you as if you had … conscious states. I seem to be caught in a kind

of vicious circle unless I just somehow know what conscious states are…

Dennett: Steady now. Just think, what would I be likely to do if I had the kind of real, original intentions

which people talk about? How would things with intentions behave?

Disciple: I have no idea. There are no things with real intentions. I’m not even sure any more what ‘real

intentions’ means…

Yes, very amusing I’m sure. I suppose I can sympathise with you to some extent. Grasping

Dennett’s ideas involves giving up a lot of cherished and ingrained notions, and I’m afraid you’re just

not ready (or perhaps able) to make the effort. But the suggestion that Dennett doesn’t tell us what

makes something a good target for the intentional stance is a shocking misrepresentation. It could

hardly be more explicit. Anything which implements a ‘Joycean machine’ is conscious. This Joycean

machine is the thing, the program if you like, which produces the multiple drafts. The idea is that

consciousness arises when we turn on ourselves the mechanisms and processes we use to recognise

and understand other people. Crudely put, consciousness is a process of talking to ourselves about

ourselves: and it’s that that makes us susceptible to explanation through the intentional stance. It’s all

perfectly clear. You obviously haven’t grasped the point about optimality, either. Suppose you’re

playing chess. How do you guess what the other player is likely to do? The only safe thing to do is to

assume he will make the best possible move, the optimal move. In effect, you attribute to him the

desire to win and the intention of out-playing you, and that helps dramatically in the task of deciding

which pieces he is likely to move. Intentional systems, entities which display this kind of complex

optimality, deserve to be regarded as conscious to that extent.

Yes, yes, I understand. But how do you know what behaviour is optimal? Things can’t just be

inherently optimal: they’re only optimal in the light of a given desire or plan. In the case of a game of

chess, we take it for granted that someone just wants to win (though it ain’t necessarily so): but in

real-life contexts it’s much more difficult. Attributing desires and beliefs to people arbitrarily won’t

help us predict their behaviour. Our ability to get the right ones depends on an in-built understanding

of consciousness which Dennett does not explain. In fact it springs from empathy: we imagine the

beliefs and desires we would have in their place. If we hadn’t got real beliefs and desires ourselves, the

whole stance business wouldn’t work.

It isn’t empathy we rely on – at least, not what you mean by empathy. The process of

evolution has fitted out human beings with similar basic sets of desires (primarily, to survive and

reproduce) which can be taken for granted and used as the basis for deductions about behaviour. I




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don’t by any means suggest the process is simple or foolproof (predicting human behaviour is often

virtually impossible) just that treating people as having conscious desires and beliefs is a good

predictive strategy. As a matter of fact, even attributing incorrect desires and beliefs would help us

falsify some hypotheses more efficiently than trying to predict behaviour from brute physical

calculation. Speaking of evolution, it occurs to me that a wider perspective might help you see the

point. Dennett’s views can be seen as carrying on a long-term project of which the theory of evolution

formed an important part. This is the gradual elimination of teleology from science. In primitive

science, almost everything was explained by attributing consciousness or purpose to things: the sun

rose because it wanted to, plants grew in order to provide shade and food, and so on. Gradually these

explanations have been replaced by better, more mechanical ones. Evolution was a huge step forward

in this process, since it meant we could explain how animals had developed without the need to

assume that conscious design was part of the process. Dennett’s work takes that kind of thinking into

the mind itself.

Yes, but absurdly! It was fine to eliminate conscious purposes from places where they had no

business, but to eliminate them from the one place where they certainly do exist, the mind, is

perverse. It’s as though someone were to say, well, you know, we used to believe the planets moved

because they were gods; then we came to realise they weren’t themselves conscious beings, but we

still believed they were moved by angels. After a while, we learnt how to do without the angels: now

it’s time to take the final step and admit that, actually, the planets don’t move. That would be no more

absurd that Dennett’s view that, as he put it, ‘we are all zombies’.

A palpably false analogy: and as for the remark about zombies, it is an act of desperate

intellectual dishonesty to quote that assertion out of context!

2. John Searle

Searle is a kind of Horatius, holding the bridge against the computationalist advance. He

deserves a large share of the credit for halting, or at least checking, the Artificial Intelligence

bandwagon which, until his paper ‘Minds, Brains and Programs’ of 1980 seemed to be sweeping ahead

without resistance. Of course, the project of “strong AI” (a label Searle invented), which aims to

achieve real consciousness in a machine, was never going to succeed , but there has always been (and

still is) a danger that some half-way convincing imitation would be lashed together and then hailed as

conscious. The AI fraternity has a habit of redefining difficult words in order to make things easier.

Terms for things which, properly understood, imply understanding, and which computers can’t,

therefore, handle – are redefined as simpler things which computers can cope with. At the time Searle

wrote his paper, it looked as if “understanding” might quickly go the same way, with claims that

computers running certain script-based programs could properly be said to exhibit at least a limited

understanding of the things and events described in their pre-programmed scenarios. If this creeping

debasement of the language had been allowed to proceed unchallenged, it would not have been long




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before ‘conscious’, ‘person’ and all of the related moral vocabulary were similarly subverted, with

dreadful consequences.

After all, if machines can be people, people can be regarded as merely machines, with all that implies

for our attitude to using them and switching them on or off

Are you actually going to tell us anything about Searle’s views, or is this just a general sermon?

Searle’s main counter-stroke against the trend was the famous ‘Chinese Room’ . This has

become the most famous argument in contemporary philosophy; about the only one which people

who aren’t interested in philosophy might have heard of. A man is locked up, given a lot of data in

Chinese characters, and runs by hand a program which answers questions in Chinese. He can do that

easily enough (given time), but since he doesn’t understand Chinese, he doesn’t understand the

questions or the answers he’s generating. Since he’s doing exactly what a computer would do, the

computer can’t understand either.

The trouble with the so-called Chinese Room argument is that it isn’t an argument at all. It’s

perfectly open to us to say that the man in the machine understands the Chinese inputs if we want to.

There is a perfectly good sense in which a man with a code book understands messages in code.

However, that isn’t the line I take myself. It’s clearto me that the ‘systems’ response, which Searle

quotes himself, is the correct diagnosis. The man alone may not understand, but the man plus the

program forms a system which does. Now elsewhere, Searle stresses the importance of the first

person point of view, but if we apply that here we find he’s hoist with his own petard. What’s the first-

person view of whatever entity is answering the questions put to the room? Suppose instead of just

asking about the story, we could ask the room about itself: who are you, what can you see? Do you

think the answer would be ‘I’m this man trapped in a room manipulating meaningless symbols’? Of

course not. To answer questions about the man’s point of view, the program would need to elicit his

views in a form he understood, and if it did that it would no longer be plausible that the man didn’t

know what was going on. The answers are clearly coming from the system, or in any case from some

other entity, not from the man. So it isn’t the man’s understanding which is the issue. Of course the

man, without the program, doesn’t understand. In just the same way, nobody claims an

unprogrammed computer can understand anything.

But even as a purely persuasive story, I don’t think it works. Searle doesn’t specify how the

instructions used by the man in the room work: we just know they do work. But this is important. If

the program is simple or random, we probably wouldn’t think any understanding was involved. But if

the instructions have a high degree of complexity and appear to be governed by some sophisticated

overall principle, we might have a different view. With the details Searle gives, I actually think it’s hard

to have any strong intuitions one way or the other.

Actually, Searle never claimed it was a logical argument, only a gedankenexperiment. So far

as details of how the instructions work, it’s pretty clear in the original version that Searle means the

kind of program developed by Roger Schank: but it doesn’t matter much, because it’s equally clear

that Searle draws the conclusion for any possible computer program.

Whatever you think about the story’s persuasiveness, it has in practice been hugely influential.

Whether they like it or not (and some of them certainly don’t), all the people in the field of Artificial

Intelligence have had to confront it and provide some kind of answer. This in itself represented a

radical change; up to that point they had not even had to talk about the sceptical case. The angriness

of some of the exchanges on this subject is remarkable (it’s fair to say that Searle’s tone in the first

place was not exactly emollient) and Searle and Dennett have become the Holmes and Moriarty of the

field – which is which depends on your own opinion. At the same time, it’s fair to say that those of a




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sceptical turn of mind often speak warmly of Searle, even if they don’t precisely agree with him –

Edelman , for example, and Colin McGinn . But if the Chinese Room specifically doesn’t work for you, it

doesn’t matter that much. In the end, Searle’s point comes down to the contention – surely

unarguable – that you can’t get syntax from semantics. Just shuffling symbols around according to

formal instructions can never result in any kind of understanding.

But that is what the whole argument is about! By merely asserting that, you beg the question.

If the brain is a machine, it seems obvious to me that mechanical operations must be capable of

yielding whatever the brain can yield.

Well, let’s try a different tack. The Chinese Room is so famous, it tends to overshadow

Searle’s other views, but as you mentioned, he puts great emphasis on the first-person perspective,

and regards the problem of qualia as fundamental. In fact, in arguing with Dennett, he has said that it

is the problem of consciousness. This is perhaps surprising at first glance, because the Chinese Room

and its associated arguments about semantics are clearly to do with meaning, not qualia. But Searle

thinks the two are linked. Searle has detailed theories about meaning and intentionality which are

arguably far more interesting (and if true, important) than the Chinese Room. It’s difficult to do them

justice briefly, but if I understand correctly, he analyses meaning in terms of intentionality (which in

philosophy means aboutness ), and intentionality is grounded in consciousness. How the

consciousness gets added to the picture remains an acknowledged mystery, and actually it’s one of

Searle’s virtues that he is quite clear about that. His hunch is that it has something to do with

particular biological qualities of the brain, and he sees more scientific research as the way forward.

One of Searle’s main interests is the way certain real and important entities (money, football) exist

because someone formally declared that they did, or because we share a common agreement that

they do. He thinks meaning is partly like that. The difference between uttering a string of noises and

meaning something by them is that in the latter case we perform a kind of implicit declaration in

respect of them. In Searle’s terminology, each formula has conditions of satisfaction, the conditions

which make it true or false: when we mean it, we add conditions of satisfaction to the conditions of

satisfaction. This may sound a bit obscure, but for our purposes Searle’s own terminology is

dispensable: the point is that meaning comes from intentions. This is intuitively clear – all it comes

down to is that when we mean what we say, we intend to say it.

So where does intentionality, and intentions in particular, come from? The mystery of intentionality –

how anything comes to be about anything – is one of the fundamental puzzles of philosophy. Searle

stresses the distinction between original and derived intentionality. Derived intentionality is the

aboutness of words or pictures – they are about something just because someone meant them to be

about something, or interpreted them as being about something: they get their intentionality from

what we think about them. Our thoughts themselves, however, don’t depend on any convention, they

just are inherently about things. According to Searle, this original intentionality develops out of things

like hunger. The basic biochemical processes of the brain somehow give rise to a feeling of hunger,

and a feeling of hunger is inherently about food.

Thus, in Searle’s theory, the two basic problems of qualia and meaning are linked. The reason

computers can’t do semantics is because semantics is about meaning; meaning derives from original

intentionality, and original intentionality derives from feelings – qualia – and computers don’t have

any qualia. You may not agree, but this is surely a most comprehensive and plausible theory.

Except that both qualia and intrinsic intentionality are incoherent myths! How can anything

just be inherently about anything? Searle’s account falls apart at several stages. He acknowledges he

has no idea how the biomechanical processes of the brain give rise to ‘real feelings’ of hunger, and he




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also has no account of how these real feelings then prompt action. In fact, of course, the

biomechanical story of hunger does not suddenly stop at some point: it flows on smoothly into the

biomechanical processes of action, of seeking food and of eating. Nothing in that process is

fundamentally mysterious, and if we want to say that a real feeling of hunger is involved in causing us

to eat, we must say that it is part of that fully-mechanical, computable, non-mysterious process –

otherwise we will be driven into epiphenomenalism .

When you come right down to it, I just do not understand what motivates Searle’s refusal to accept

common sense. He agrees that the brain is a machine, he agrees that the answer is ultimately to be

found in normal biological processes, and he has a well-developed theory of how social processes can

give rise to real and important entities. Why doesn’t he accept that the mind is a product of just those

physical and social processes? Why do we need to postulate inherent meaningfulness that doesn’t do

any work, and qualia that have no explanation? Why not accept the facts – it’s the system that does

the answering in the Chinese Room, and it’s a system that does the answering in our heads!

It is not easy for me to imagine how someone who was not in the grip of an ideology would

find that idea at all plausible!

3. David Chalmers

With ‘The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory’ David Chalmers introduced a

radical new element into the debate about consciousness when it was perhaps in danger of subsiding

into unproductive trench warfare. Many found some force in his arguments; others have questioned

whether they are particularly new or effective, but even if you don’t agree with him, the energising

effect of his intervention can still be welcomed. Chalmers believes (and of course he’s not alone in this

respect) that there are two problems of consciousness. One is to do with how sensory inputs get

processed and turned into appropriate action; the other is the problem of qualia – why is all that

processing accompanied by sensations, and what are these vivid sensations, anyway? He calls the first

the ‘easy’ problem and the second, which is the real focus of his attention, the ‘hard’ problem.

Chalmers is careful to explain that he doesn’t mean the ‘easy’ problem is trivial, just nothing like as

mind-boggling as qualia, the redness of red, the ineffably subjective aspect of experience.

The real point, in any case, is his view of the ‘hard’ problem, and here the unusual thing about

Chalmers’ theory is the extent to which he wants to take on two views which are normally seen as

opposed. He wants behaviour to be explainable in terms of a materialist, functionalist theory,

operating within the normal laws of physics: in fact, he ends up seeing no particular barrier to the

successful creation of consciousness in a computer. But he also wants qualia which remain mysterious

in some respects and which appear to have no causal effects. He doesn’t quite commit himself on this

last point: the causal question remains open (qualia might over-determine events, for example, having

a causal influence which is always in the shadow of similar influences from straightforward physical

causes) and he does not sign up explicitly to epiphenomenalism (the view that our thoughts actually

have no influence on our actions) – but he thinks the current arguments for the opposite views are




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faulty. All the words in the mental vocabulary, on his view, acquire two senses: there is psychological

pain, for example, which plays a full normal part in the chain of cause and effect, and affects our

behaviour: and then there is phenomenal pain, which does not determine our actions, but which

actually, you know, hurts .

Chalmers is surely a dualist, because he believes in two kinds of fundamental stuff, and he is

an epiphenomenalist, because he believes our thoughts and feelings have no real influence on the

world. Neither of these positions makes sense. The book pulls its punches in these kinds of areas. He

says he does not describe his view as epiphenomenalism, but that the alternatives to

epiphenomenalism are wrong. Now if you believe the negation of a view is wrong, you have to believe

the view is right, don’t you? And what is this ‘causal over-determination’ business? So an event is

caused by some physical prior event, and also caused by the qualia – but it would have happened just

the same way if the qualia weren’t there? Chalmers says there’s no proof this is true, but no real

argument to disprove it, either. How about Occam’s Razor? A causal force which makes no difference

to events is a redundant entity which ought to be excised from the theory. Otherwise we might as well

add undetectable angels to the theory – hey, you can’t prove they don’t exist, because they wouldn’t

make any difference to anything anyway.

This aggressive attitude is out of place. I think you have to take on board that Chalmers is

quite honest about not presenting a final answer to everything. What he’s about is taking the

problems seriously. This has a certain resonance with many people. There was a gung-ho era of

artificial intelligence when many people just ignored the philosophical problems, but by the time

Chalmers published “The Conscious Mind” I think more were prepared to admit that maybe the

problem of qualia was more substantial than they thought. Chalmers seemed to be speaking their

language. Of course, this may be irritating to philosophers who may feel they had been going on about

qualia for years without getting much attention. It irritates some of the philosophers even more (not

necessarily a bad thing) when Chalmers adopts (or fails definitely to reject, anyway) views like

epiphenomenalism, which they mostly regard as naive. But you really can’t say Chalmers is

philosophically naive – he has an impressive command of technical philosophical issues and handles

them with great aplomb.

Oh, yes. All those pages of stuff about supervenience, for example. That’s exactly what I hate

about philosophy – the gratuitous elaboration of pointless technical issues. I mean, even if we got all

that stuff straight, it wouldn’t help one iota. We could spend years discussing whether, say, the driving

of a car down the road supervenes under the laws of physics on the spark in the cylinder at time t, or

under some conjunction of laws of modal counterfactuals, yet to be specified, with second-order laws

of pragmatic engineering theory. Or some load of old tripe like that. It wouldn’t tell us how the engine

works – but that’s what we want to know, and the same goes for the mind.

Well, I’m sorry but you have to be prepared to take on some new and slightly demanding

concepts if we’re going to get anywhere. We can’t get very far with naive ideas of cause and effect:

the notion of supervenience gives us a way to unravel the issues and tackle them separately. I know

this is difficult stuff to get to grips with, but we’re talking about difficult issues here. You just want the

answer to be easy.

Easy! It’s Chalmers who ignores the real problems. Look at dualism. It’s only worth accepting a

second kind of stuff if it makes things easier to explain. If we could solve the problem of qualia by

assuming they live in a different world, there might be some point. But we can’t: they’re just as hard

to explain in a dualist world as they were in a monist, materialist one, and on top of that you have to

explain how the two worlds relate to each other. Chalmers ends up with ‘bridging principles’, which




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specify that phenomenal states always correspond with psychological ones. This sounds like Leibniz’s

pre-established harmony between the spirit and body, but at least Leibniz had God to arrange things

for him! Chalmers actually has no way of knowing whether psychological and phenomenal states

correspond, because he only ever experiences one of them (which one depends on whether it’s

Phenomenal Chalmers or Psychological Chalmers we’re talking about, I suppose). The final irony is that

it’s Psychological Chalmers who writes the books, because that’s a physical, cause-and-effect matter:

but his reasons for writing about qualia can’t be anything to do with qualia themselves, because he

never experiences them – only Phenomenal Chalmers does that… And we haven’t even touched on

the stuff about how thermostats feel, and the mysterious appeal of panpsychism. But really, the worst

of it is that the problem he’s inviting people to ‘take seriously’ is the wrong one. The whole ‘problem

of qualia’ is a delusion.

On the contrary, it’s the whole point. You should read less Dennett and more by other

people. Incidentally, it must be in Chalmers’ favour that neither Dennett nor his arch-enemy Searle has

any time at all for Chalmers. He must be doing something right to attract opposition like that from

both extremes, don’t you think?

Two points, though. First, if we want to make any progress at all, it’s going to involve contemplating

some weird-looking ideas. All the mainstream ones have been done already. Chalmers is all about

opening up possibilities, not presenting a cast-iron finished theory. Second, you’re talking as if

Chalmers took up dualism for no reason, but in fact he gives a whole series of arguments which

explain why we’re forced to that conclusion.

Argument 1: The logical possibility of zombies, people exactly like us but with no qualia. This is the

main one, which puts in its simplest form Chalmers’ underlying point of view that qualia are separable

from the normal physical account of the world, and so just must be something different..

Argument 2: The Inverted Spectrum. An old classic, which relies on the same basic insight as the first

argument, ie that you could change the qualia without changing anything else. Arguments along these

lines have been elaborated to the nth degree elsewhere, but Chalmers’ version is pretty clear.

Argument 3: From epistemological asymmetry. Qualia just don’t look the same from the inside. When

we examine the biology of our leg, it isn’t essentially different from examining someone else’s: but

when we examine our own sensations, it bears no resemblance to observing the sensations of others.

Argument 4: The knowledge argument. Our old friend Mary the colour scientist .

Argument 5: The absence of analysis. This is simply a matter of putting the onus on the opposition to

give an account of how qualia could possibly be physical.

The main point of the main argument, very briefly, is that we can easily imagine a ‘zombie’: a person

who has all the psychological stuff going on, but no subjective experience. At the very least, it’s

logically possible that there should be such people. As a result, you cannot just identify the physical

workings of the brain, the psychological aspect, with the subjective experience, the phenomenal

aspect. I have to say I think this is essentially correct.

There’s no way we can know whether something is logically possible unless we understand

what we’re talking about. We need to know what phenomenal consciousness is before we can decide

whether zombies without it are possible. Chalmers assumes it’s obvious that phenomenal experience

isn’t physical, and hence it’s obvious we could have zombies. But this just begs the question. I assume

phenomenal experience is a physical process, so it’s obvious to me that there couldn’t, logically, be a

person who was physically identical to me without them having my experiences. Look at it this way. If

Chalmers didn’t understand physics, he would probably find it easy to imagine that the molecules




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inside him could move around faster without his temperature going up. But when he understands

what temperature really is, he can see that it was logically impossible after all.

Chalmers is really presenting intuitions disguised as arguments – alright, he’s not alone in that, but

they’re dodgy intuitions, too. Look at that stuff about information. According to Chalmers, anything

with a shape or marks on it, in fact anything at all, is covered in information – information about itself

and how it got the way it is. We can speculate that any kind of information might give rise to

consciousness: maybe even thermostats have a dim phenomenal life similar to just seeing different

shades of grey. Since, on Chalmers’ interpretation of information, everything is covered in it, it follows

that everything is in some degree conscious. The result? Panpsychism, a third untenable position…

Chalmers does not actually endorse panpsychism, he just speculates about it. Do you think

the idea is uninteresting ? Can you not accept that if philosophers aren’t allowed to speculate, they’re

not going to achieve very much?

And then, a chapter about the correct interpretation of quantum physics! What’s that about,

then?

Chalmers sees a kind of harmony between his views and one of the possible interpretations

of quantum theory. I have no idea whether he’s on to anything, but this sort of linkage is potentially

valuable, especially to philosophy,which has tended to cut itself off from contemporary science. But

the point is, all these latter speculations are just that – interesting, stimulating speculations. Chalmers

never pretends they’re anything else. The point of the book is to get people to take qualia seriously.

That’s a good, well-founded project and I think even you would have to admit that the book has

succeeded to a remarkable degree.

If you ask me, Chalmers basically gives the whole thing away early on, when he says that

another way of looking at the psychological/phenomenal distinction is to see them as the third-person

and first-person views. Wouldn’t common sense suggest that this is just a case of a single

phenomenon looked at from two different points of view? It seems the obvious conclusion to me.

But if the mind-body problem has taught us anything, it is that nothing about consciousness is

obvious, and that one person’s obvious truth is another person’s absurdity…

4. Colin McGinn

Colin McGinn is probably the most prominent of the New Mysterians – people who basically

offer a counsel of despair about consciousness. Look, he says, we’ve been at this long enough – isn’t it

time to confess that we’re never going to solve the problem? Not that there’s anything magic or

insoluble about it really: it’s just that our minds aren’t up to it. Everything has its limitations, and not




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being able to understand consciousness just happens to be one of ours. Once we realise this, however,

the philosophical worry basically goes away.

McGinn doesn’t exactly mean that human beings are just too stupid; nor is he offering the popular but

mistaken argument that the human brain cannot understand itself because containers cannot contain

themselves (so that we can never absorb enough data to grasp our own workings). No: instead he

introduces the idea of cognitive closure. This means that the operations the human mind can carry out

are incapable in principle of taking us to a proper appreciation of what consciousness is and how it

works. It’s as if, on a chess board, you were limited to diagonal moves: you could go all over the board

but never link the black and white squares. That wouldn’t mean that one colour was magic, or

immaterial. Equally, from God’s point of view, there’s probably no mystery about consciousness at all

– it may well be a pretty simple affair when you understand it – but we can no more take the God’s-

eye point of view than a dog could adopt a human understanding of physics.

Isn’t all this a bit impatient? Philosophers have been chewing over problems like this quite

happily for thousands of years. Suddenly, McGinn’s got to have the answer right now, or he’s giving

up?

Anyway, it’s the worst possible time to wave the white flag. The real reason these problems haven’t

been solved before is not because the philosophy’s difficult – it’s because the science hasn’t been

done. Brain science is difficult: you’re not allowed to do many kinds of experiment on human brains

(and until fairly recently the tools to do anything interesting weren’t available anyway). But now things

are changing rapidly, and we’re learning more and more about how the brain actually works every

year. McGinn might well find he’s thrown the towel in just before the big breakthrough comes. A

much better strategy would be to wait and see how the science develops. Once the scientists have

described how the thing actually works, the philosophers can make some progress with their issues (if

it matters).

There’s more than just impatience behind this. McGinn points out that there are really only

two ways of getting at consciousness: by directly considering one’s own consciousness through

introspection, or through investigating the brain as a physical object. On either side we can construct

new ideas along the same kind of lines, but what we need are ideas that bridge the two realms: about

the best we can do in practice is some crude correlations of time and space.

McGinn acknowledges a debt to Nagel , and you can see how these ideas might have developed out of

Nagel’s views about the ineffability of bat experience. According to Nagel, we can never really grasp

what it’s like to be a bat; some aspects of bathood are, as McGinn might put it, perceptually closed to

us. Now if all our ideas stemmed directly from our perceptions (as is the case for a ‘Humean’ mind),

this would mean that we suffered cognitive closure in respect of some ideas (‘batty’ ones, we could

say). Of course, we’re not in fact limited to ideas that stem directly from perceptions; we can infer the

existence of entities we can’t directly perceive. But McGinn says this doesn’t help. In explaining

physical events, you never need to infer non-physical entities, and in analysing phenomenal

experience you never need anything except phenomenal entities. So we’re stuck.

It seems to me that if there were things we couldn’t perceive or infer, we wouldn’t be worried

about them in the first place – what difference would they make to us? If the answers on

consciousness are completely beyond us, surely the questions ought to be beyond us too. Dogs can’t

understand Pythagoras, but that’s because they can’t grasp that there’s anything there to understand

in the first place.

Any entity which makes a difference to the world must have some observable effects, and unless the

Universe turns out to be deeply inexplicable in some way, these effects must follow some lawlike




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pattern. Once we’ve abserved the effects and identified the pattern, we understand the entities as far

as they can be understood. If philosophers want to speculate about things that make no difference to

the world, I can’t stop them – but it’s a waste of time.

I’m afraid it’s perfectly possible that we might be capable of understanding questions to

which we cannot understand the answers. Think of the chess board again (my analogy, I should say,

not McGinn’s). A bishop only understands diagonal moves. He can see knights moving all over the

board and at every step they move from the white realm to the black realm or vice versa. He can see

spatial and chronological correlations (a bit fuzzy, but at least he knows knights never move from one

side of the board to the other), and both the white and black realms are quite comprehensible to him

in themselves. He can see definite causal relations operating between black and white squares (though

he can’t predict very reliably which squares are available to any given knight). He just can’t grasp how

the knights move from one to the other. It looks to him as if they pop out of nowhere, or rather, as if

they have some strange faculty of Free Wheel.

Yeah, yeah. It could be like that. But it isn’t. As a matter of fact, we can infer mental states

from physical data – we do it all the time, whenever we work out someone’s attitude or intentions

from what they’re doing or the way they look. McGinn should know this better than most, given his

background in psychology. Or did he and his fellow psychologists rely entirely on people’s own reports

of their direct phenomenal experience?

It still seems like defeatism to me, anyway. It’s one thing to admit we don’t understand something yet,

but there is really no need to jump to the conclusion that we never will. Even if I thought McGinn were

right, I think I should still prefer the stance of continuing the struggle to understand.

The point you’re not grasping is that in a way, showing that the answer is unattainable is itself

also an answer. There’s nothing shameful about acknowledging our limitations – on the contrary. It is

deplorably anthropocentric to insist that reality be constrained by what the human mind can conceive!

5. Roger Penrose

Sir Roger Penrose is unique in offering something close to a proof in formal logic that minds

are not merely computers. There is a kind of piquant appeal in an argument against the power of

formal symbolic systems which is itself clothed largely in formal symbolic terms. Although it is this

‘mathematical’ argument, based on the famous proof by Gödel of the incompleteness of arithmetic,

which has attracted the greatest attention, an important part of Penrose’s theory is provided by

positive speculations about how consciousness might really work. He thinks that consciousness may

depend on a new kind of quantum physics which we don’t, as yet, have a theory for, and suggests that

the microtubules within brain cells might be the place where the crucial events take place. I think it

must be admitted that his negative case against computationalism is much stronger than these

positive theories.

Besides the direct arguments about consciousness, Penrose’s two books on the subject feature




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excellent and highly readable passages on fractals, tiling the plane, and many other topics. At times, it

must be admitted, the relevance of some of these digressions is not obvious – I’m still not convinced

that the Mandelbrot Set has anything to do with consciousness, for example – but they are all

fascinating and remarkably lucid pieces in their own right. ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’ is particularly

wide-ranging, and would be well worth reading even if you weren’t especially interested in

consciousness, while a large part of ‘Shadows of the Mind’ is somewhat harder going, and focuses on a

particular argument which purports to establish that “Human mathematicians are not using a

knowably sound algorithm in order to ascertain mathematical truth”.

I like the books myself, mostly, but I don’t find them convincing. Of course, people find a

lengthy formal argument intimidating, especially from someone of Penrose’s acknowledged eminence.

But does anyone seriously think this kind of highly abstract reasoning can tell us anything real about

how things actually work?

You don’t think maths tells us anything about the real world then? Well, let’s start with the

Gödelian argument, anyway. Gödel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic, that is, that there are

true statements in arithmetic which can never be proved arithmetically. Actually, the proof goes much

wider than that. He provides a way of generating a statement, in any formal algebraic system, which

we can see is true, but which cannot be proved within the system. Penrose’s point is that any

mechanical, algorithmic, process is based on a formal system of some kind. So there will always be

some truths that computers can’t prove – but which human beings can see are true! So human

thought can’t be just the running of an algorithm.

These unprovable truths are completely uninteresting ones, of course: the sort of thing Gödel

produces are arid self-referential statements of no wider relevance. But in any case, the doctrine that

people can always see the truth of any such Gödel statement is a mere assertion. In the simple cases

Penrose considers, of course human beings can see the truth of the statements, but there’s no proof

that the same goes for more complex ones. If we actually defined the formal system which brains are

running on, I believe we might well find that the Gödel statement for that system really was beyond

the power of brains to grasp.

I don’t think that that could ever happen – it just doesn’t work like that. The complexity of the

system in question isn’t really a factor. And in any case, brains are not ‘running on’ formal systems!

Oh, but they have to be! I’m not suggesting the ‘program’ for any given brain is simple, but I

can see three ways we could in principle construct it.

1. If we list all the sensory impressions and all the instructions to act that go into or out of a brain

during a lifetime, we can treat them as inputs and outputs. Now there just must be some

function, some algorithm, which produces exactly those outputs for those inputs. If nothing

simpler is available (I’m sure it would be) there is always the algorithm which just lists the

inputs to date and says ‘given these inputs, give this output’.

2. If you don’t like that approach, I reckon the way neurons work is sufficiently clear for us to

construct a complete neuronal model of a brain (in principle – I’m not saying it’s a practical

proposition); and then that would clearly represent an implementation of a complex function

for the person in question.

3. As a last resort, we just model the whole brain in excruciating detail. It’s a physical object, and

obeys the normal laws of physics, so we can construct a mechanical description of how it

works.

Any of these will do. The algorithms we come up with might well be huge and unwieldy, but they exist,

which is all that matters. So we must be able to apply Gödel to people, too.




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Nonsense! For a start, I don’t believe ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ to human beings can be defined in

those terms – reality is not digital. But the whole notion of a person’s own algorithm is absurd! The

point about computers is that their algorithms are defined by a programmer and kept in a recognised

place, clearly distinguished from data, inputs, and hardware, so it’s easy to say what they are in

advance. With a brain, there is nothing you can point to in advance as the ‘brain algorithm’. If you

insist on interpreting the brain as running an algorithm, you just have to wait and see which bits of the

brain and which bits of the rest of the person and their environment turn out to be relevant to their

‘outputs’ in what ways and then construct the algorithm to suit. We can never know what the total

algorithm is until all the inputs and outputs have been dealt with. In short, it turns out not to be

surprising that a person can’t see the truth of their own Gödel statement, because they have to dead

before anyone can even decide what it is!

Alright, well look at it this way. We’re only talking about things that can’t be proved within a

particular formal system. Humans can see the truth of these statements, and even prove them,

because they go outside the formal system to do so. There’s no real reason why a computer can’t do

the same. It may operate one algorithm to begin with, but it can learn and develop more

comprehensive algorithms for itself as it goes. Why not?

That’s the whole point! Human beings can always find a new way of looking at something, but

an algorithm can’t. You can’t have an algorithm which generates new algorithms for itself, because if it

did, the new bits would by definition be part of the original algorithm.

I think it must be clear to anyone by now that you’re just playing with words. I still say that all

this is simply too esoteric to have any bearing on what is essentially a practical computing problem. If I

understand them correctly, both Dennett and your friend Searle agree with me (in their different

ways). The algorithms in practical AI applications aren’t about mathematical proof, they’re about

doing stuff.

I was puzzled by Dennett’s argument in ‘Darwin’s dangerous idea’ in particular. He’s quite

dismissive about the whole thing, but what he seems to say is this. The narrow set of algorithms

picked out by Penrose may not be able to provide an arithmetical proof, but what about all the others

which Penrose has excluded from consideration? This is strange, because the ones excluded from

consideration, according to Dennett, are: algorithms which don’t do anything at all; algorithms which

aren’t interesting; algorithms which aren’t about arithmetic; algorithms which don’t produce proofs;

and algorithms which aren’t consistent! Can we reasonably expect proofs from any of these? Maybe

not, says Dennett, but some of them might play a good game of chess… This seems to miss the point

to me.

What I fear is that this kind of reasoning leads to what I call the Roboteer’s argument (I’ve seen it put

forward by people like Kevin Warwick and Rodney Brooks). The Roboteer says, OK, so computers will

never work the way the human brain works. So what? That doesn’t mean they can’t be intelligent and

it doesn’t mean they can’t be conscious. Planes don’t fly the way birds do, but we don’t say it isn’t

proper flight because of that…

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with that argument. What about this quantum

malarkey? You’re not going to tell me you go along with that? There is absolutely no reason to think

quantum physics has anything to do with this. It may be hard to understand, but it’s just as calculable

and deterministic as any other kind of physics. All there really is to this is that both consciousness and

quantum physics seem a bit spooky.




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It isn’t conventional, established quantum physics we’re talking about. Having established

that human thought goes beyond the algorithmic, Penrose needs to find a non-computable process

which can account for it; but he doesn’t see anything in normal physics which fits the bill. He wants the

explanation to be part of physics – you ought to sympathise with that – so it has to be in a new

physical theory, and new quantum physics is the best candidate. Further strength is given to the case

by the ideas Stuart Hameroff and he have come up with about how it might actually work, using the

microtubules which are present in the structure of nerve cells.

They’re present in most other kinds of cell, too, if I understand correctly. Microtubules have

perfectly ordinary jobs to do within cells which have nothing to do with thinking. We don’t understand

the brain completely, but surely we know by now that neurons are the things that do the basic work.

It isn’t quite as clear as that. There has been a tendency, right since the famous McCulloch

and Pitts paper of 1947, to see neurons as simple switches, but the more we know about them the less

plausible that seems. Actually there is some highly complex chemistry involved. Personally, I would

also say that the way neurons are organised looks very much like the sort of thing you might construct

if you wanted to catch and amplify the effects of very small-scale events. One molecule – in the eye,

one quantum, as Penrose points out – can make a neuron fire, and that can lead to a whole chain of

other firings.

At the end of the day, the problem is that quantum physics just doesn’t help. It doesn’t give us

any explanatory resources we couldn’t get from normal physics.

That’s too sweeping. There are actually several reasons, in my view, to think that quantum

physics might be relevant to consciousness (although these are not Penrose’s reasons). One is that the

way two different states of affairs can apparently be held in suspense resembles the way two different

courses of action can be suspended in the mind during the act of choice. A related point is the

possibility that exploiting this kind of suspension could give us spectacularly fast computing, which

might explain some of the remarkable properties of the brain. Another is the special role of

observation – becoming conscious of things – in causing the collapse of the wavefunction. A third is

that quantum physics puts some limits on how precisely we can specify the details of the world, which

seems to militate against the kind of argument you were making earlier, about modelling the brain in

total detail. I know all of these are open to strong objections: the real reason, as I’ve already said, is

just that quantum physics is the most likely place to find the kind of new science which Penrose thinks

is needed.

I don’t see it. It seems to me inevitable that any new physics that may come along is going to

be amenable to simulation on a computer – if it wasn’t, it hardly seems possible it could be clear

enough to be a reasonable theory.

In other words, your mind is closed to any possibility except computationalism.

Consciousness seems to me to be such an important phenomenon that I simply cannot believe it is

something just ‘accidentally’ conjured up by a complicated computation…




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6. Gerald Edelman

Gerald Edelman’s theories are rooted in neurology. In fact, he insists that this is the only

foundation for a successful theory of consciousness: the answers are not to be found in quantum

physics, philosophical speculation, or computer programming.

The structure of the brain is accordingly a key factor. The neurons in the brain wire themselves up in

complex and idiosyncratic patterns patterns during growth and then experience: no two people are

wired the same way. The neurons do come to compose a number of structures, however. They form

groups which tend to fire together, and for Edelman these groups are the basic operating unit of the

brain. The other main structures are maps. An uncontroversial example here might be the way some

sheets of neurons reproduce the pattern of activity on the retina at the back of the eye (with some

stretching and squashing), but Edelman sees similar strucures as applying much more widely, and

mapping not just sensory inputs, but each other and other kinds of neuronal activity. The whole

system is bound together by re-entrant connections, sets of paths which provide parallel connections

from group A to Group B and Group B back to Group A.

The principle which makes this structure work is Neuronal Group Selection, or Neural Darwinism.

Some patterns are reinforced by experience, while many others are eliminated in a selective process

which resembles evolution. Edelman draws an analogy with the immune system, which produces a

huge variety of random antibodies: those which link successfully to a foreign substance reproduce

rapidly. This explains how the body can quickly produce antibodies for substances it has never

encountered before (and indeed for substances which never existed in the previous history of the

planet): and in an analogous way the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) explains how the

brain can recognise objects in the world without having a huge inherited catalogue of patterns, and

without an homunculus to do the recognising for it.

The re-entrant connections between neuronal groups in different parts of the brain co-ordinate

impressions from the different senses to provide a coherent, consistent, continuous experience; but

re-entry is also the basic mechanism of recategorisation, the fundamental process by which the brain

carves up the world into different things and recognises those it has encountered before. The word

recategorisation is potentially confusing here for two reasons: first, it is not to be taken as implying the

existence of a prior set of categories: in fact, every act of recognition modifies the category; nor is it

meant to suggest any parallel with Kant’s categories, which limit how we can understand the world.

Very much the reverse, in fact.

Edelman attaches great importance to higher-order processes – concepts are maps of maps, and arise

from the brain’s recategorising its own activity. Concepts by themselves only constitute primary (first-

order) consciousness: human consciousness also features secondary consciousness (concepts about

concepts), language, and a concept of the self, all built on the foundation of first-order concepts.

The final key idea in the theory, another one with a slightly misleading name isvalue, a word used here

to describe inbuilt tendencies towards particular behaviour. These forms of behaviour may be driven




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by what we value in a fairly straightforward sense – seeking food, for example, but they also include

such inherent actions as the hand’s natural tendency to grasp. Edelman seems to think that, like a

computer, if left to itself the brain might sit and do nothing. It’s the value systems which supply the

basic drives. This sort of set-up has been modelled in a series of robots rather cheekily named Darwin I

to IV. Edelman is emphatically opposed to the idea that the brain is a computer , however.

Being anti-computationalist but using robots to support your theory seems a little strange. It

needn’t be strictly contradictory, of course, but it does expose the curious fact that while Edelman

insists the brain is not a computer, all the processes he describes seem perfectly capable of

computerisation. He gives two reasons for not considering the brain a computer: one, that individual

brains are wired up in very different ways; and two, that reality is not an orderly program feeding into

the brain. Neither of these is convincing. Computers can differ enormously in physical detail while

remaining essentially the same – how much similarity is there between a PC and a model Turing

machine, for example – and wiring differences between brains might perhaps count as differences in

pre-loaded software rather than anything more fundamental. Certainly reality does not structure itself

like a program, but why should it? The analogy is with data, not with the program: you have to think of

the brain as a computer which has its software loaded already and is dealing with the data coming

down a wire from cameras (eyes), microphones (ears), and so on. I see no problem with that.

The argument is a bit more specific than you make out. Edelman points out that the selective

processes he has in mind have an unusual feature he calls ‘degeneracy’ (I’m not quite sure why).

Degeneracy means that the same output can be reached in a whole range of different ways. This is a

feature of the immune system as well as mental processes, but it doesn’t look much like an algorithm.

Of course there are other arguments against considering the brain a computer, but I think Edelman’s

main point is that to deal with reality, you have to be able to arrange the streams of mixed-up and

ever-changing data from the senses into coherent objects. Your computer with a camera attached

finds this impossible except in cases where the ‘reality’ has been made artificially simple – a ‘toy

world’ – and the computer has been set up in advance with lots of information about how to recognise

the objects in the ‘toy world’. I know you’re going to tell me that great strides have been made, and

that you only need another couple of decades and it’ll all be sorted.

I wasn’t, though it’s true . I was just going to point out again that, however difficult it may be

to digest reality, Edelman gives us no definite reasons to think computers couldn’t do it; his robots

even demonstrates some aspects of the methods he thinks most likely. But never mind.You expect me

to attack Edelman just because he and Searle have spoken favourably of each other: but actually I’ve

got nothing much against him except that I think he’s misunderstood the nature of computationalism.

Just because we haven’t got USB ports in the back of our heads it doesn’t mean brain activity isn’t

computable.

As for that bit about ‘degeneracy’, I don’t see it at all. Imagine we had a job we wanted done by

computer – we call in a hundred consultants to tender for the project. They’ll find a hundred different

ways to do it. Even if we set aside most of the possible variation – whether to use PCs, Macs, Unix

boxes or what, Java, C++, visual Basic or whatever. Even if we assume the required outputs are

narrowly defined and all the tenderers have to code in bog-standard C, there’ll be thousands of

variations. So I reckon computers can be degenerate too…

I don’t expect you to attack Edelman at all. As a matter of fact, I’m not an unqualified admirer

myself. Take his views on qualia. The temptation for a scientist is always to miss the point about qualia

and end up explaining the mechanics of perception instead (a different issue) Edelman, in spite of his

scientist bias, is not philosophically naive and a lot of the time he seems to understand the point




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perfectly. But in ‘A Universe of Consciousness’ he swerves at the last minute and ends up talking about

how the neurons could map out a colour space – which might be interesting, but it ain’t qualia.

Perhaps his co-author is to blame.

However, I’m with him on the computer issue. Edelman’s views about selection illustrate exactly why

computers can’t do what the brain does. I think his ideas on this are really important and have possibly

been undersold a bit. The thing about programming a computer to deal with real situations is that you

have to anticipate every possible kind of problem it might come up against – but there are an infiinite

number of different kinds of problem. Now this is exactly the kind of issue the immune system faced:

it had to be ready to deal with any molecule whatever, no matter how novel. The solution is

analogous: the immune system fills your body with a really vast number of variant antibodies; your

brain is full of an astronomical number of different neuronal patterns. When the problem comes

along, even a completely novel one, you’re going to have the correct response waiting somewhere:

and the one that matches gets reinforced and reused. Edelman called this a Darwinian process: it isn’t

really (hence Crick’s joke about it really being ‘neural Edelmanism’): the remarkable thing is, it might

be better than Darwinian in this context!

Anything’s better than Darwin to you, up to and including spontaneous generation and Divine

Creation.

Nonsense! But, honestly. It’s not particularly original to suggest that the mind might use

selective or Darwinian mechanisms, (or be infected with memes evolved in the memosphere) but

normal Darwinian selection is just obviously not the answer. When we confront a sabre-toothed tiger

or think what to say to a question in an interview, we don’t start by copying some earlier response, try

it out repeatedly and gradually refine it by random mutation. We don’t even do that in our heads,

normally. 99% of the time, the response is instant, and appropriate, with nothing random about it at

all. It’s a bit easier to understand how this could be so on the Edelman theory, because some

reasonably appropriate responses could already be sloshing around in the brain and the best one

could be reinforced very quickly.

I think you’re going further on that than Edelman himself would be inclined to do. In fact, I’ll

give you a prediction. Eventually, Edelman himself will come round to the view that there is nothing

unique about all these processes, and that while the brain may not be literally a computer, its

processes are computable.

I think not. You ought to remember what the man said himself about changes of heart – the

unit of selection in successful theory creation is usually a dead scientist…

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | Page 764-766 Hari, S. Commentary on Nixon's Guest Editorial in JCER V1(5): Consciousness, Mind and Matter in Indian Philosophy



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Commentary

Commentary on Nixon's Guest Editorial in JCER V1(5):

Consciousness, Mind and Matter in Indian Philosophy

Syamala Hari

*

ABSTRACT

I am very impressed by the striking similarity of concepts in the Guest Editorial by G. M. Nixon in JCER V1(6) to those of ancient Indian Philosophy on thought, time, and Consciousness. I drew only a few examples from the article to depict the similarity but I am impressed by the elegancy of expression and profoundness of concepts in the whole article.

Key Words: self-consciousness, Indian philosophy, time, thought. Let me first of all point out that Indian Philosophy makes a distinction between two types of consciousness and let me call the first type human or animal consciousness and the second type as Consciousness with big C. The former is what our modern studies of consciousness often focus on; it includes ego consciousness also termed self-consciousness. Unlike human consciousness which comes and goes, Consciousness is always and everywhere present and is independent of space, time and causality. According to this philosophy, free will is a capability of Consciousness but it is not a part of human consciousness as we usually think! Free will is the ability to decide consciously and independently of any reason from the past or present, and without expecting anything in the future. Manifestation of free will is not an unconscious nondeterministic random occurrence. The existence or manifestation of free will does not depend upon any memory, and it is not bound by any rules or logic. On the other hand, when we, humans make choices or decisions, they are very often (but not always as we will see later) motivated by purposes, future goals, desires, and so on, all of which already exist in our memory. Consciousness (with big C) is said to be nishkarana in Sanskrit meaning that it is not the effect of any cause. After all, it is free; it would not be free if it depends upon anything else for anything! Thus free will has no origin but is the origin of everything in the universe. A story narrated later in this commentary may help to illustrate how free will is beyond causality. Here are a few examples to see the striking similarity of Nixon’s concepts and those of the ancient philosophy. The abstract of Nixon’s article says: “it” is changeless and formless (presumably a dynamic chaos without location or duration) yet with creative potential. Such a field of near-infinite potential energy could have had no beginning and will have no end, yet within it stirs the desire to experience that brings forth singularities ----- This agrees with what Indian Philosophy says about Consciousness, that it has no beginning and no end, and without location, and has infinite (not near-infinite), immeasurable (aganita in Sanskrit) creative potential. The philosophy also says that desires and thoughts spring out of Consciousness and bring forth the many individual souls (singularities as Nixon says) in Consciousness which has no location but is everywhere and all the time. Nixon’s abstract says: time and experience are so entangled, they need each other to exist.--- *Correspondence: Syamala Hari, retired as Distinguished Member of Technical Staff from Lucent Technologies, USA.





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Again agrees with Indian Philosophy, according to which time is a thought not material; time and thought are required for human experience. Consciousness is said to be experience independent of time, thought and desire and is transcending the “I” thought (called self-consciousness in the terminology of this journal). Within the article on page 484, Nixon says: Only rarely can we escape the context of self through which our life experience is filtered, and it must be noted that remembering and (self) consciousness may be the same thing. It may be possible to somewhat escape the self-constructed prison of time-past through creative inspiration or spontaneous action in a crisis situation, Indeed, Ramana Maharshi (known to some in the west) says that the “I” thought or ego is the source of all other thoughts, experience, and all that is remembered. In his own words: To say 'I am not this' or 'I am that' there must be an 'I'. This 'I' is only the ego or the 'I'-thought. After the rising up of this 'I'-thought, all other thoughts arise. The 'I'-thought is therefore the root thought. If the root is pulled out all others are at the same time uprooted. The following famous story is an example of how creative inspiration or spontaneous action in a crisis situation, which I called free will earlier, overcomes causality and the prison of time-past. Once upon a time, there was a very religious person who spoke nothing but truth all his life. Let us call him Truth Speaker. One day, he was sitting in a grove and doing meditation with closed eyes. Suddenly, he heard the sound of running foot steps. On opening his eyes, he saw a scared man running for his life. The man stopped when he saw Truth Speaker, and said with a gasping breath “I am being chased by robbers. I am running for my life. I cannot run any more. I will hide behind the bushes over here. Please do not reveal my where-abouts to anybody”. So saying, the man ran and hid behind the bushes without even waiting for Truth Speaker to reply. Truth speaker went back to meditation. A few minutes later, he again heard thundering foot steps and opened his eyes. He saw some armed men running. When they saw truth Speaker, they too stopped and said “We are looking for a man whom we saw come this way. Did you see anybody running past you a short while ago? If so, do you know which way he went?” Truth Speaker thought that he should never tell a lie. So, he pointed to the robbers the bush where the scared man was hiding. The robbers then caught the man and killed him. After some days, Truth Speaker died but was taken to hell instead of to heaven. There, Truth Speaker asked the ruler of hell (a personification of justice according to Hindu Religion) - why was he brought to hell instead of to heaven where he should have been on account of speaking nothing but truth all his life. The ruler of hell replied “You spoke truth alright but by telling a lie you could have saved the life of the man being chased by robbers. You did not have a tiny bit of compassion. You were carried away by your arrogance of sticking to your principle and your selfishness to go to heaven. That is why you deserve hell.” The point in the story is not at all whether Truth Speaker went to heaven or hell after death nor whether there is a heaven or hell. The point is a person’s ability to see when to speak truth and when not. Truth Speaker was following a rule which firmly stuck inside his head and his mode of thinking was that of a machine which was programmed to tell truth and therefore never lie. On the other hand, imagine that in the story, Truth Speaker told the robbers that he did not see anybody around earlier that day and they were only the people that he saw until then. In this case, his mind did not execute like a machine, a memorized instruction expected to be carried out. Nor did it care for a future benefit, namely going to heaven. Thus the action of lying was directed neither by the past nor by a future goal. This ability to violate a rule of the past and act on one’s own is a self-starter or spontaneous and is




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the true free will. This ability refuses to be told what to do and refuses to be told by somebody or something else; it is above and beyond all causality. References Nixon,G. M. (2010) Time & Experience: Twins of the Eternal Now? Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research. 1(5): 482-489. http://mind-and-tachyons.blogspot.com/ http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/teachings.html http://www.davidgodman.org/rteach/whoami1.shtml


Nixon, Gregory, Response to the Commentary of Syamala Hari

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Response to Commentary

‘WHO CAN SAY WHENCE IT ALL CAME, AND HOW CREATION HAPPENED?’

(‘Rig Veda’, X, 129)

Gregory M. Nixon*

My title is taken from a line in the Rig Veda as it was reproduced in Mircea Eliade’s

sourcebook for the History of Religions. Since Syamala Hari sent a thought-

provoking commentary relating my enthusiastic but inarticulate speculations on the

source of time, space, and experience (as found in my guest editorial “Time &

Experience: Twins of the Eternal Now?” in JCER 1[5]) to the august and prolific

thinking of “Indian Philosophy”, I thought I might be allowed to reply with a voice

from the Vedas. I should note that Meera Chakravorty submitted an article1 that also

elucidated “Indian Philosophy” (specifically from the Sankhya or Samkhya school of

thought) in a way that makes it seem as though I were directly inspired by it. (I use

scare quotes around “Indian Philosophy” since I am in doubt that there is any such

unified entity, though, of course, there are all sorts of Indian philosophies, both

modern and ancient.)

In any case, to both of these commentators, I express my sincere gratitude, for you

led me to explore further in these esoteric (to me) realms. I openly admit that I was

taken aback to see how these ancient speculations both anticipate and go far beyond

anything my poorly researched attempt at suggesting an eternal present of dynamic

nothingness as the ultimate source of, well, everything. I trust this is a real case of

synchronicity, but it is not unlikely that my readings of Joseph Campbell of nearly 40

years ago may have brought me into previous contact with this sort of metaphysics.

In response, I reproduce this commentary by Eliade, followed by some directly

relevant lines from the poetry of Rig Veda, X, 129. What I especially like is the

ambivalence of belief herein expressed. I have politely communicated before with

Syamala that I share her wonder at a possible Source that creates yet is itself beyond

all space, time, experience, and consciousness (small “c”), but that I do not believe in

God — that is, I do not believe in any God that is an entity or being (even a deity) or

one that can be named like a person. This leaves me with the mysterious paradox of

a Source that both exists and does not, that is aware (what Syamala calls Conscious

with a capital “C”, implying to me cosmic consciousness) yet is not aware OF

anything, and that is quiescent and invisible yet infinitely dynamic in potential. In

fact, it is a Nothing that is Everything — and this seems to me well beyond anything

our mere human verbal or numerical expressions can ever hope to grasp.

* Correspondence: Gregory M. Nixon, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia,

Canada. Websty: http://members.shaw.ca/doknyx Email: [email protected]

1 The article was vastly informative but not in a format we could use.



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The point is, however, that the author of at least this part of the Vedas felt this same

awestruck ambivalence so very long ago, probably sensing, as I did, that our all-too-

human speculations could never encompass the mystery of mysteries. And s/he

managed to express it certainly better than I did, and just as beautifully as did T. S.

Eliot with his “still point of the turning world”.

Here is the complete quotation from Eliade’s sourcebook:

‘WHO CAN SAY WHENCE IT ALL CAME, AND HOW CREATION HAPPENED?’

(‘Rig Veda’, X, 129)

This creation hymn is at once a supreme expression of the poetry and philosophy

of the Rig Veda and an eloquent murmur of doubt, which carries over into the

Upanishads its sense of depth, the mystery, and above all the unity of all creation.

In ‘darkness concealed in darkness’ (tamas in tamas), in those ‘unillumined

waters’ which harbour no ‘being’ (sat) or ‘non-being’ (asat), there is generated, by

cosmic heat (tapas) the primordial unitary force, That One (tad ekam). ‘Desire’

(kãma) now arose as the primal seed of ‘mind’ (manas), the firstborn of tad ekam,

and the rishis, who ‘see’ that original moment when the gods were not, claim now

to know the bond of sat in asat. ‘But who knows truly,’ concludes the poet, still in

reverence before the mystery: perhaps That One ‘whose eye controls this world’;

but then perhaps he truly does not know.

Not only Upanshadic speculation, but also the evolutionary philosophy of the

Samkhya system was deeply impressed by this speculation of cosmic origins

alongside other Rig Vedic creation accounts such as x, 90 … and x, 112 … or I, 32.

(Mircea Eliade, editor)

1. Then [in the beginning] even nothingness was not, nor existence.

There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.

What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?

Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

2. Then there were neither death nor immortality,

nor was there then the torch of night and day.

The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.

There was that One then then, and there was no other.

3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.

All this was only unillumined water.

That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,

arose at last, born of the power of heat.

4. In the beginning desire descended on it —

that was the primal seed, born of the mind.

The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom

know that which is, is kin to that which is not.

5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,

and know what was above, and what below.



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Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.

Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say

whence it all came, and how creation happened?

The gods themselves are later than creation,

so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

7. Whence all creation had its origins,

he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,

he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,

he knows — or maybe even he does not know.

Rig Veda translation by A. L. Basham (1954), The Wonder That Was India: London,

pp. 247-8. In Mircea Eliade, Ed. (1964), From Primitives to Zen: A Thematic

Sourcebook of the History of Religions (pp. 109-110). New York: Harper & Row.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 770-772 Smith, S. P. Review of Charles T. Tart’s Book: The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal

Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together



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Book Review

Review of Charles T. Tart’s Book:

The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the

Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together

Stephen P. Smith*

ABSTRACT

Tart believes that the big five, his referral to telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and

psychic healing, are well supported by scientific evidence. Tart reviews this evidence, but wants to go

to the next step: to consider other paranormal phenomena, and to look at the issue of what these

phenomena mean in a philosophical sense (his best bet). You can find this book at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/End-Materialism-Paranormal-co-published-

Institute/dp/1572246456/ref=cm_cr-mr-title .

Key Words: materialism, paranormal, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, psychic

healing, science, spirit.

Tart confronts this issue of belief and knowledge, and how we humans struggle with meaning. He

(page 25) writes: "Things that we believe that we don't know we believe, though, are like a set of

chains. They just automatically affect our perceptions and thoughts, and trap us."

Tart (page 34) writes: "If you don't consciously see that you have competing, clashing views of

something, it won't feel as if you have a conflict. But, at a deeper, psychological level, your psyche is

not whole when you do this; the conflict will exact a price from you on less-conscious levels."

This struggle is most apparent in a misplace certainty given to a science turned scientism, with

materialistic philosophy at its core. Tart (page 37) writes: "Scientism has uselessly hurt enormous

numbers of people, and we must distinguish scientism from science if we want any hope of science

and spirituality helping each other."

Tart (page 38) writes: "Until we learn to distinguish essential science from scientism, we remain

vulnerable to false invalidation, which seems to have the full power and prestige of science behind it

but is really an arbitrary, philosophical opinion. And we lose the ability to constructively apply

essential science to increase our understanding of and effectiveness with spirituality."

Tart (page 67) writes: "pseudoskeptics aren't actually skeptics in a genuine sense; they're believers in

some other system, out to attack and debunk what they don't believe in while trying to appear open

minded and scientific, even though they're not." Tart continues: "Various media love to report in

these controversies stirred up by pseudoskeptics, and usually give the pseudoskeptics high, expert

status and make the arguments sound serious, either because (1) the people running a particular

reporting medium are themselves pseudoskeptical, committed to scientific materialism, (2) as cynical

media people have put it for decades, controversy sells more newspapers than accurate reporting, or

(3) both."

Correspondence: Stephen P. Smith, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Physics Department, University Of California at Davis, CA






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Tart (page 192) writes: "Try to always notice when I write [scientism] rather than [science]. A major

aspect of my personal identity is being a scientist and thinking like a scientist, and I consider science

to be a noble calling that demands the best of me. I want to use genuine, essential science to help

our understanding in all areas of life, including the spiritual. Scientism, on the other hand, is a

perversion of genuine science. Scientism in our time consists mainly of a dogmatic commitment to a

materialist philosophy that dismisses and [explains away] the spiritual, rather than actually examining

it carefully and trying to understand it."

Among the various accounts of paranormal phenomena presented by Tart, there is one interesting

account of an out-of-body experience (OBE), where a hidden number is revealed (page 204): "The

number 25132 was indeed the correct target number near the ceiling above here bed. I had learned

something about designing experiments since my first OBE experiment, and precise evaluation was

possible here. The odds against guessing a five-digit number by chance alone on one try are hundreds

thousand to one, so this is a remarkable event! Note also that Miss Z had apparently expected me to

have the target number propped up against the wall behind the self, but she correctly reported that

is was lying flat. She had also hoped to pass through the wall or closed door and see a second target

number in the control room, but could not do so."

Tart (page 226) describes Dennis Hill's near-death experience (NDE), and quotes Hill: "There is a

sudden rush of expansion into boundaryless awareness. I feel utter serenity infused with radiant joy.

There is perfect stillness; no thoughts, no memories. In the rapturous state, free from the limitations

of time and space, beyond the body and the mind, I have no memory of ever having been other that

This." And Tart (page 229) speculates: "If NDEs were nothing but hallucinatory experiences induced

by a malfunctioning brain as a person dies, as materialists want to believe, then we would expect

great variation from person to person, and the qualities of experience would be largely determined

by the culture and beliefs of each person experiencing the NDE. Instead, we have great similarity

across cultures and belief systems, arguing that there's something real about NDE rather that its

being nothing but a hallucination."

Tart (page 246) takes a materialist rejection of after-death communication, and turns it into an

absurd darkness: "I personally find the materialistic idea quite depressing - an admission that, to

materialists, will simply show that I have neurotic hopes and lack the courage to face the facts. If I

believed that there's no hope of any kind of survival, I would adapt as much as possible by becoming

more normal in this materialistic age. That is, I would show excessive concern for my health, promote

research that supports health and increases our life spans, and avoid taking any unnecessary risks

that might endanger my health or my life, while otherwise trying to maximize my pleasure and

minimize my pain. Psychologically, I would try not to think about the depressing reality and finality of

death, would work on distracting myself with constant pleasurable pursuits, and if the above steps

weren't enough, to find a doctor who would prescribe mood-altering medications so I wouldn't feel

depressed."

Tart (page 291) provides a neat summary: "When we look at paraconceptual phenomena in detail, in

the science of parapsychology we find, grouped for convenience, two categories. Group one, the big

five - telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and psychic healing - are psi phenomena

whose existence is supported by hundreds of rigorous experiments for each phenomenon. Group

two, the many maybes, are phenomena that have enough evidence that it would be foolish to simply

dismiss them as unreal, but not enough evidence, in my estimate, to make them foundation realities

for further research as the big five are. The many maybes that we've surveyed in this book (which

certainly aren't all of them) are postcognition, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), near death

experiences (NDEs), after-death communications (ADCs), and postmortem survival in some kind of

afterlife as primary evidenced through mediumship and reincarnation cases."





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Tart (page 291) continues: "The big five paint a picture of humans as being who are more than just

their physical bodies, beings who can sometimes communicate mind to mind, sometimes

clairvoyantly know the state of the physical world, sometimes predict an inherently (by physical laws)

unpredictable future, sometimes affects, for the better, other biological systems, as in psychic

healing. Traditional spiritual systems in general tell us that ordinary, physical life is only part of

reality; there's a larger, more encompassing spiritual reality beyond the ordinary space, time, and

embodiment, and the big five can readily be seen as glimpses of mind operating in this larger reality."

Tart is describing "the end of materialism," as the evidence he brings forth supports his best

conclusion (page 310): "My current best bet is that there's a real spiritual realm, as real or perhaps

even more real (in some sense that's hard to understand in our ordinary state of consciousness) than

ordinary material reality. My current best bet is that this spiritual realm has purpose and is intelligent

and loving in some profound sense. My current best bet is that our human nature partakes of this

spiritual nature. The deep experience of many mystics that are one with all of reality, including

spiritual reality, is about something vital and true. The several psychic ways we occasionally connect

with each other (telepathy) and the material world (clairvoyance) are partial manifestations of this

inherent connection with all of reality, spiritual as well as material.

References

Charles T. Tart, 2009, The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science

and Spirit Together, New Harbinger Publications.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 773-775 Smith, S. P. Review of Gregg Braden's Book: The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits



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Book Review

Review of Gregg Braden's Book:

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief:

Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits

Stephen P. Smith*

ABSTRACT

In is interesting that Braden sees reality as a computer simulation, and it comes with belief codes that

act as part of the universal computer program. This admission would seem to delight materialists and

science fiction writers that venture similar speculations. But Braden's usage is metaphorical, and

there is a serious caveat that permits a break from a mechanistic world view: we are able to re-

program our poorly tuned beliefs, because instinctively we know that the simulation is only an

illusion. Because we know that an appearance is an illusion we are able to escape the dictates of a

computer program, and therefore greater reality cannot be just a simulation. You can find this book

at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Spontaneous-Healing-Belief-Shattering-

Paradigm/dp/1401916899/ref=cm_cr-mr-title .

Key Words: healing, belief, false limit, reality, computer simulation, code, illusion.

The hard-nosed skeptic will caricature Gregg Braden's "The Spontaneous Healing of Belief" as just

another "New Age" book written about how we create our own world by merely believing. I want to

defend Braden's book from such criticism, and I invite skeptical readers to study this interesting book

with an open mind. It is not that belief provides the easy route to New Age enlightenment, it is that

Braden's "belief" involves the hard work of purification as we learn to tune ourselves with something

bigger than our narrow self interests. While Braden's treatment is not perfect, it is easy to find what

he intends to say in the face of would-be criticism. Negativity will not have the final answer, even

when it comes with a pretense of rigor. We must also put our best foot forward in a positive sense.

Braden (page xi) summarizes his understanding of scientific evidence: "Paradigm-shattering

experiments published in leading-edge, peer-reviewed journals reveal that we're bathed in a field of

intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space. Additional discoveries show

beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us -it rearranges itself- in the presence of

our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything."

Braden (page 3) raises a troubling point: "What if we're living our lives shrouded in the false

limitations and incorrect assumptions that other people have formed over generations, centuries, or

even millennia? Historically, for example, we've been taught that we are insignificant specks of life

passing through a brief moment in time, limited by `laws' of space, atoms, and DNA. This view

suggest that we'll have little effect on anything during our stay in this world, and when we're gone,

the universe will never even notice our absence."

Braden (page 16) writes: "It becomes abundantly clear that something -some intelligent force- is

holding the particles of you together right now, as you read the words on this page. That force is

what makes our beliefs so powerful. If we can communicate with it, then we can change how the

particles of `us' behave in the world. We can rewrite the code of our reality."






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Braden (page 20) writes: "The atoms of our reality either exist as matter or they don't. They're either

here or not here, òn' or òff'." In the off position, Braden considers particles that are transformed

into "invisible waves." Braden (page 21) writes that, "everything boils down to opposites: pluses and

minuses, male and female, on and off."

Braden (pages 23-24) writes: "Everything is ultimately made of the same stuff. From the dust of

distant stars to you and me, ultimately everything that ìs' emerges from the vast soup of quantum

energy (what `could be'). And without fail, when it does, it manifests as predictable patterns that

follow the rules of nature. Water is a perfect example. When two hydrogen atoms connect to one

oxygen atom as a molecule of H2O, the pattern of the bond between them is always 104 degrees.

The pattern is predictable. It is reliable - and because it is, water is always water."

Braden (page 28) writes: "A fractal view of the universe implies that everything from a single atom to

the entire cosmos is made of just a few natural patterns. While they may combine, repeat, and build

themselves on larger scales, even in their complexity they can still be reduced to a few simple forms."

Braden (page 31) relates belief to the universal: "Every day we offer the literal input of our belief-

commands to the consciousness of the universe, which translates our personal and collective

instructions into the reality of our health, the quality of our relationships, and the peace of our world.

How to create the beliefs in our hearts that change the reality of our universe is a great secret, lost in

the 4th century, from the most cherished Judeo-Christian traditions."

Braden (page 41) writes on healing: "Beliefs have long been known to have healing powers. The

controversy centers around whether or not it's the belief itself that does the healing or if the

experience of belief triggers a biological process that ultimately leads to the recovery. For the

layperson, the distinction may sound like splitting hairs. While the doctors can't explain precisely why

some patients cure themselves through their beliefs, the effect has been documented so many times

that at the very least we must accept that there is a correlation between the body's repairing itself

and the patient's belief that the healing has taken place."

Braden (page 46) writes: "Just as the belief that we've been given a healing agent can promote our

bodies' life-affirming chemistry, the reverse can happen if we believe that we're in a life-threatening

situation."

Now it is clear that Braden's "belief" is not any belief, or a statement of faith. Rather, Braden

describes belief as a synthesis. Braden (page 52) defines belief: "that it's the acceptance that comes

from what we think is true in our minds married with what we feel is true in our hearts." Braden

(page 53) writes: "Belief is our acceptance of what we have witnessed, experienced, or know for

ourselves."

So there can be wrong beliefs when our reason is not in balance with our emotion, and so to arrive at

something self evident (as Braden requires) involves an innate error recognition. It is this way that

belief can be tuned with the universal, but this requires discipline. Braden (page 59) writes: "the

universal experience that we know as feeling and belief are the names that we give to the body's

ability to convert our experiences into electrical and magnetic waves."

Braden (page 74) writes: "Simply hoping, wishing, or saying that a healing is successful may have little

effect upon the actual situation. In these experiences, we haven't yet arrived at the belief -the

certainty that comes from acceptance of what we think is true, coupled with what we feel is true in

our body- that makes the wish a reality."




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In is interesting that Braden sees reality as a computer simulation, and it comes with belief codes that

act as part of the universal computer program. This admission would seem to delight materialists and

science fiction writers that venture similar speculations. But Braden's usage is metaphorical, and

there is a serious caveat that permits a break from a mechanistic world view: we are able to re-

program our poorly tuned beliefs, because instinctively we know that the simulation is only an

illusion. Because we know that an appearance is an illusion we are able to escape the dictates of a

computer program, and therefore greater reality cannot be just a simulation. Braden (page 137)

writes that, "while our bodies are certainly in this world, the living force that expresses itself through

them is actually based somewhere else, as the larger reality that we just can't see from our vantage

point."

Braden gives us many helpful hints on how to re-program our beliefs. Braden (page 159) writes: "To

make a change in something as powerful as the core beliefs that define our lives, we need a trigger

that's equally powerful. We need a reason to jolt us from complacency of one way of thinking into a

new, and sometimes revolutionary, way of seeing things."

Because we can break away from the output of a mere computer simulation, Braden's big reality

involves a spiritual realm that rediscovers the wisdom of Buddha and Jesus. Braden (page 199)

writes: "Jesus taught that we must become in life the very things that we choose to experience in the

world." This corresponds to Braden's belief code number 27, and by now I hope you feel the jolt of

this remarkable book.

References

Gregg Braden, 2008, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits, Hay

House.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 776-778 Smith, S. P. Review of B. Alan Wallace & Brian Hodel's Book: Embracing Mind: The Common Ground

of Science and Spirituality



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Book Review

Review of B. Alan Wallace & Brian Hodel's Book:

Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality

Stephen P. Smith*

ABSTRACT Wallace (and Hodel) do a very good job in "Embracing Mind." They break the book down into three

parts. In Part One, Wallace takes another look at science, and where science may drift off into

scientism. In Part Two, Wallace looks at a more promising science that can study the mind. In Part

Three, Wallace takes up "tools and technologies of a Buddhist science of contemplation. You can find

this book at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Mind-Common-Science-

Spirituality/dp/1590304829/ref=cm_cr-mr-title .

Key Words: science, spirituality, mind, common ground, scientism, buddhist.

In Part One, Wallace takes another look at science, and where science may drift off into scientism.

Wallace (page 22) tells us where scientific materialism carries hidden metaphysical assumptions - "

what did that interpretation boil down to? The five principles examined previously: objectivism,

metaphysical realism, the closure principle, universalism, and physical reductionism." Without going

into detail what the principles entail, I will merely summerize what Wallace (page 23) concludes: "So

strong was their enthusiasm for an all-embracing scientific worldview that they often allowed their

hopes, dreams, and beliefs to masquerade as facts. They were especially impressed with Darwin's

theory of natural selection. According to their own interpretation, natural selection meant that

organisms best suited to win the competition for scare resources survived, passing on their

advantageous traits to succeeding generations."

Wallace (page 24) writes: "Social philosophers influenced by scientific materialism created social

Darwinism, the view that nations and individuals competed for economic supremacy in an arena

where only the `favored races' or toughest individuals would succeed. There was no room here for

any softness or idealism and, of course, such a philosophy gave at least tacit approval to war,

imperialism, and racism. In like manner, Karl Marx reduced all aspects of culture to economics."

Writing on modernity, with its scientific progress, Wallace (page 25) writes: "We have been exposed

to this philosophy throughout our lives - in the classroom, in the media, by our doctors, and through

the decisions of government agencies ruling on health, the environment, and elsewhere. It has been

pounded into us consistently for so long that we've come to accept it as common sense. This, we are

told, is what `non-believers' accept as truth."

Wallace (page 75) writes on the study of mind and brain: "It wasn't until the late nineteenth century

that science attempted a formal study of the mind. Given the enormous influence of scientific

materialism, it is not surprising that a physical approach - the study of behavior and the brain, the

`gray matter' - held sway. By the early twentieth century, nonmaterial qualities attributed to the

mind (thoughts, feelings, images, dreams, and so on) were neatly avoided by correlating them to the







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physical brain, with its internal physiology, and to physical behavior. This, mind was simply redefined

as the brain."

Wallace (page 82) writes: "By relying on the argument of mere correlations between mental

phenomena and brain physiology, cognitive psychologists remind us of astrologers, who rely on

correlates between patterns in the heavens and events on earth, rather than astronomers, who have

actually explored the skies scientifically with telescopes."

Wallace (page 83) writes: "Shouldn't cognitive scientists first be experts on their own consciousness,

deeply exploring their subjective nature, before they tackle the complexities of the mind-brain

connection? Given the rigors of science, wouldn't such self-knowledge be useful for scientists in

general? After all, the scientific mind behind the eyepiece of a physical instrument (and behind the

devising of theories) is the fundamental instrument of all science. Must not this ultimate black box be

opened and carefully examined if science wants to be certain that its theories and data are

something more than complex imaginings or projections?"

Wallace (page 84) concludes: "The preceding discussion should make it clear that science's attitude

toward the mind has been hampered by historical baggage. According to the dictates of its Christian

background, science explored outer, objective phenomena and avoided the inner, subjective realm.

Lack of self knowledge hampered scientists by blinding them to subjective distortions that have

prejudiced the scientific enterprise."

Wallace (page 102-103) writes: "What of those students who do take an interest in science, believing

that the practice of science follows the open-minded, exploratory spirit of the scientific method?

They study textbooks that either imply or boldly declare that as-yet-unproven theories are definitely

true or will certainly be proven true in the future. They are exposed to an attitude toward science

that promotes conformity to the foregone conclusions of scientific materialism even as it pretends to

favor free inquiry. Those people who see the contradiction are left with the choice of buckling under

or striking out on their own. Alternatively, they may become discouraged with science altogether and

choose another career."

Wallace (page 105) writes: "The materialist approach to medicine has led to the desire for a `quick

fix' - just pop a pill and let chemicals take care of it. Drug, tobacco, and alcohol addiction follow the

same logic. There may be more to mental and physical illness than just chemicals, but the physical

bias of scientific materialism has largely marginalized alternative therapies that show promise."

In Part Two, Wallace looks at a more promising science that can study the mind. Wallace (page 142-

143) writes: "Through intense and lengthy practice, the attention can be honed into a precision tool

that, figuratively speaking, lights up the mind's interior. First one undergoes a sustained, rigorous

training in developing stability and vividness of attention. One then uses one's enhanced powers of

mental perception to learn to distinguish between the phenomena that are presented to the senses

(including the sixth sense of mental perception) and the conceptual superimpositions that one under

normal circumstances compulsively projects upon those phenomena."

Wallace (page 144) writes: "A guilty conscience is no more conductive to contemplative practice than

nervous agitation or drowsiness."

Wallace (page 155) writes: "The Middle Way proposes an alternative explanation for the appearance

of phenomena of the universe - regularities. Certain things tend to occur together or in a sequence.

Whereas causes imply to us some power to affect, the Middle Way defines appearances as mere

regularities."





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Wallace (page 156) writes: "If we conceive of one stage as an absolute, permanent, independent

entity, by definition it cannot have any relationship to anything else. By definition, two completely

self-contained, independent, permanent, absolute things cannot affect one other. If they did, they

wouldn't be self-contained, independent, and so on. But if we back off that position and say that

there is simply a `relationship' between them, Middle Way philosophers will point out that we are

now viewing these things (such as seed and sprout) as relative, conventional realities. A relationship

composed of regularities doesn't require absolute realities or absolute causality, and the relationship

itself lacks any such inherent existence independent of the things that are related. Seed and sprout

and their causal relationship, though existing conventionally, are now seen as `empty of' absolute

existence."

In Part Three, Wallace takes up "tools and technologies of a Buddhist science of contemplation."

Wallace (page 213) writes: "From a Buddhist standpoint our mental afflictions, or distortions, stand in

the way of enlightenment. From an empirical or scientific standpoint, such biases impede the search

for truth, especially since the mind is truly the primary scientific instrument. Whether we are trying

to use the mind and scientific instruments to probe stars and galaxies or we wish to understand the

nature and workings of the mind itself, our mental projections and illusions of knowledge cloud the

picture."

References

B. Alan Wallace & Brian Hodel, 2008, Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and

Spirituality, Shambhala.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 779-781 Smith, S. P. Review of David Skrbina's Book: Panpsychism in the West



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Book Review

Review of David Skrbina's Book:

Panpsychism in the West

Stephen P. Smith*

ABSTRACT David Skrbina's "Panpsychism in the West" presents the historical emergence of panpsychism within

western philosophy: from the ancient Greeks, the Renaissance, the eighteenth century, and up to

modern times. Skrbina gives a very comprehensive treatment, worthy of five stars despite my

criticism. Nevertheless, I want to point out some subtlety that Skrbina missed, and this is not to

detract from Skrbina's fine work. Skrbina writes about my favored panpsychists: C.S. Peirce; A.N.

Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, and C. Hartshorne. He makes a very impressive case for

panpsychism, taking us into modern time. His book is must reading. You can find this book at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Panpsychism-Bradford-Books-David-Skrbina/dp/0262693518/ref=cm_cr-

mr-title .

Key Words: panpsychism, western philosophy, ancient Greek, Renaissance, modern time.

First, the word game: It cannot be that we merely define systems into being, say materialism and

idealism, leaving the systems identical in all respects except for the select definitions. The definitions

by themselves don't automatically present something that is self evident. For example, renaming red

into blue, and blue into red, gives us nothing. In the sense that we get hung up on prior definitions

(and categories) we are playing only a word game, and getting no closer to the truth. Rather it must

be that what we discover with our definitions is only a tension, and it is that somehow the tension is

able to resolve itself. Therefore, truth is not defined into being. Truth is discovered as tension

resolves itself.

Now, the meaning of panpsychism: Correcting for word games that are common to definitions of

panpsychism (e.g, as Skrbina provides) gives us the most frugal meaning. In my view, awareness

necessarily finds an agreement between an active (will-like) feeling that imprints on a passive

(matter-like) substrate, until something self evident is revealed. The slightest feeling holds an

awareness. Panpsychism is saying that some awareness exists in animals, plants, (rocks, worlds, and

the universe). Because awareness is pervasive, awareness is more generally a property of matter as

well as the entire universe. Hence, panpsychism is consistent with a vitalism where both active and

passive constituents permeate the universe. An innate feeling takes the provisional into the

universal, and revealing what is self evident.

Panpsychism finds a middle way between materialism and idealism. Because the validity of

panpsychism is itself self evident, materialism and idealism are discovered as bodies of expressions

that have not yet reached a sufficient threshold of self awareness, but this realization is getting far

ahead. The bottom line is that we can in principle put both materialism and idealism on the

psychologist's couch, revise their truth claims and recover evidence for panpsychsim. It is with this

revisionist attitude that I read "Panpsychism in the West". This revisionist attitude supports a

universal grammar, something already noted by the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl.






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Writing on the mutual interaction of mind and body, Skrbina (page 13) notes how this interaction is

plausible: "Only in the naive intuitive argument that `mind clearly exists', `(human) body clearly

exists,' and `I know that my mind affects my body and vice versa'. Unfortunately in the 400 years

since Descartes no one has produced a satisfactory explanation as to exactly how this would work."

This is again more confusion coming from the word game, and Skrbina forgets that Husserl fixed

Descartes' view. What comes with self evidence does not require a necessary explanation. Rather it is

philosophy that is a derivative of self evidence, and it is a presumed objectivity that questions the

mind-body interaction that is found naive.

Skrbina (page 21) tells us that a "pantheism can be confused with panpsychism," and that pantheism

is a "monistic concept of mind" that is closer "to a traditional theistic view-point". However, if

panpsychism wishes to remain viable it must resolve itself with pantheism. Pure pluralistic

panpsychism fails because a fragmented plurality forgets that it is only an imprint in something

pervasive and immanent. Moreover, it must be possible for the plurality to reach a shared

understanding, and this can only be achieved by way of the feeling of empathy.

Skrbina (page 9) picked up on the word game, noting that "functionalism [a class of materalistic

monism] can be seen to shade into panpsychism." Then he (page 11) fails to note that idealism

provides a similar loophole writing that "one can be an idealist without being a panpsychist" and

while referring to Hegel as an example. Hegel was a trinitarian more than an idealist, and his system

grew out of Schelling's transcendental idealism. Skrbina (page 115) places Schelling close to being a

panpsychist, but where Schelling goes so does Hegel. Moreover, how Hegel describes life in the

"Science of Logic" can only be seen as an endorsement of vitalism. Vitalism cannot be separated from

the meaning of panpsychism, and we find nothing but the word game preventing the recognition of

Hegel's panpsychism. Skrbina (pages 58, 60) connects the trinitarian concepts of the Logos and the

Holy Spirit to panpsychism, so how he misses this is hard to fathom.

Skrbina (page 65) writes: "Monotheism was in direct conflict with panpsychism, and thus it effectively

suppressed any advance in panpsychist philosophy. The Christian worldview, along with aspects of

Aristotelian natural philosophy, dominated Western intellectual thought for about 1,300 years."

However, Skrbina equivocates badly with the word "Christian". "Christian" is not to find its meaning

from the most power hungry theologians that gave us the inquisition. The most authoritative

theologians do paint a dualistic conception of God that has separated from God's creation, yes this is

true. However, it is not the case that Thomas Aquinas (non-panpsychist) is more Christian than Saint

Francis of Assisi (panpsychist). What is more important is that when we put Christianity on the couch

we find that the mystics are closer to the heart of Christianity, and we find that Jesus was a

panpsychist (at least according to trinitarian belief).

Skbina makes several references to design arguments being used to justify panpsychism, referring to

Patrizi (page 71), Gilbert (page 77), Campanella (page 79), Mauperuis (page 106), and Fechner (page

126). Skrbina (page 188) writes: "Darwin's theory of evolution initiated a series of new scientific

arguments for panpsychism." Skrbina forgets the meaning of panpsychism and he misses the fact

that Darwin's theory of evolution is opposed to design arguments. However, Darwinism does not

escape the couch. Darwinism makes only a caricature of life, attempting to explain what is vital

rather than describing something that can only be described. It is that felt vitality is a precondition for

natural selection, it is not that natural selection explains the vital; this confusion comes from the

word game. Moreover, monads are non-passive so they don't just go along for the ride provided by

natural selection thereby making panpsychism redundant. The controversial movement of intelligent

design provides the strongest arguments against Darwin's theory, and their evidence is turned into

support for panpsychism once these folks are also led to the couch. Skrbina is strangely silent on

intelligent design.




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Skrbina (page 118) writes: "Schopenhauer thrust the concept of will into a central ontological role.

Will, for him, was not merely the equivalent of human desire but was more generally a universal

force, a drive, something that impelled all things and sustained all things." Skrbina (page 137) also

correctly interprets Nietzsche's "will to power" as an endorsement of panpsychism. Nietzsche

embroiled himself in the study of nihilism, not that he himself was a nihilist. Nevertheless, he was

easy to associate Christianity with nihilism which led to a confusion that reached its high point with

the remark "God is Dead." We find yet another example of the word game.

Skrbina writes about my favored panpsychists: C.S. Peirce; A.N. Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, and

C. Hartshorne. He makes a very impressive case for panpsychism, taking us into modern time. His

book is must reading. Nevertheless, a stronger case can be made with the couch.

References

David Skrbina, 2007, Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality, The MIT

Press.

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research| September 2010 | Vol. 1 | Issue 6 | pp. 782-784 Smith, S. P. Review of Manjir Samanta-Laughton's Book: Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God



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Book Review

Review of Manjir Samanta-Laughton's Book:

Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God

Stephen P. Smith*

ABSTRACT Manjir Samanta-Laughton's "Punk Science" is worth five stars. I recommend her book because of its

groundbreaking insights, and this is despite of the book's significant weaknesses that I will also point

out. You can find this book at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Punk-Science-Inside-Mind-

God/dp/1905047932/ref=cm_cr-mr-title .

Key Words: punk science, mind of God, insight.

Samanta-Laughton (page 13) writes: "The frontiers of science are revealing that the universe behaves

as the mystics have told us all along." That I agree with this remarkable observation explains why I

am willing to forgive the weaknesses of "Punk Science". Samanta-Laughton tells us that it is

consciousness that has been omitted from a scientific world-view that sees the world only as material

interactions. She (page 24) writes that, "science has led us full circle: by eliminating all discussion of

consciousness, it has found that consciousness is inevitable in our universe and is inherent in all."

Consciousness is hard-wired into the fabric of space-time!

Samanta-Laughton (page 38) writes: "Not only do reductionist biologists have difficulty explaining the

self-organizing nature of the cell, they have also failed to find satisfactory answers to how life first

began. This fact is not apparent from the public image of science, which gives the impression that we

know how life began and can continue with cloning sheep." And while referring to Bruce Lipton's

work and others, she (page 59) writes: "We used to think of ourselves as victims of our inherited

genes and the luck of the draw. Now we are realizing that we can learn to manage our beliefs and

perceptions and therefore our own biology." Perception has found an essential ingredient in our

biology, and it is the perception horizon that connects directly with consciousness (as we will see).

Samanta-Laughton (page 64) writes - "Every atom, molecule, bacteria and cell is inherently

intelligent. The information deep within every subatomic particle shapes life: form embryos to

evolution. It is consciousness itself that undergoes evolution and this is reflected in the increasing

complexity of species. The information of the form already exists and what we call physical matter

follows suit." Her reference to "form" will be a big point, as the topic will eventually turn to a mirror

image aspect of our one universe (the provider of form), a topic that will emerge from physics and

take us into cosmology. Samanta-Laughton (page 84) refers to Rupert Sheldrake's "morphic

resonance," a conception closely related to form.

Samanta-Laughton describes new views of the quantum vacuum (QV), and she treats David Bohm's

"holographic universe," and including Karl Pribram's vision of brain function. She (page 109) writes:

"Having searched for the exact location of memory in the brain and not found it, does memory exists

in the QV?"






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Samanta-Laughton (page 111) writes: "Most people have had the experience of thinking hard about a

problem, putting the problem aside for some time only to find the answer appears suddenly when

the mind is focused elsewhere. It is at these moments of least effort that we seem to find the most

inspiration and the solution appears. This could be when we are able to access the QV more

effectively. All the information we need is present in the QV, yet we need to relax in order to access it

more deeply."

Samanta-Laughton (chapter 8) reads much into string theory (ST), including superstring theory and

M-theory. She goes from "the music of the hyperspace" to "the cosmic symphony". Presumably

string theory is needed to reconnect to innate vibrations that are discovered in the physiological

studies of Valerie Hunt and Keith Wakelam (chapter 9). Samanta-Laughton notes that ST is

incomplete, as no reference is made to consciousness. Nevertheless, it seems that Samanta-Laughton

has given to ST an early endorsement (including higher dimensional space), and I don't really see that

"Punk Science" depends on ST. Samanta-Laughton (page 141) ask: "If we find that there is a

correlation between the behavior of the electromagnetic field and a person's thought and feelings, is

this proof that our inherent vibrations, our superstrings, are related to consciousness?" Well, the

answer is NO! In my view, ST has not proven itself to be empirical science. Otherwise, Hunt and

Wakelam have noted real vibrations that imply a curious gradation in human consciousness.

Samanta-Laughton (page 142) writes: "As a person makes progress with their inner development, this

is reflected in their inherent frequencies. We exist as frequencies of consciousness that changes as

we change our minds."

The remainder of "Punk Science" pertains to the "The Black Hole Principle" (BHP); I am of the opinion

that this principle should be considered very closely, as it makes good sense. To summarize Samanta-

Laughton in my words, the BHP says that black holes (points of singularities in our universe and are

concealed by a perception horizon) are connected to higher dimensions where infinite light finds

itself engaged with both creation and annihilation. I don't think one can point to the "higher

dimensions" that are implied by an abstract ST. Rather, higher dimensions signify a transcendental

realm, and this is all that can be said in my view. Chapters 12 and 13 are the best chapters in the

book, and there is much dependence of William Tiller's work. In short, we have one world with two

aspect: there is the c region limited to travel below the speed of light; and there is the c**2 region

for higher speeds. The c**2 region is the mirror image of the c region. The c**2 region unfolds in

reverse time, it is the feminine aspect of creation. The c region is the masculine aspect of creation.

Between the two is the higher dimensional realm where infinite light makes it passage, but I prefer to

call this the transcendental. An electron (matter) seen through c-region eyes turns into a positron

(anti-matter) when viewed through the eyes of the c**2 region. But as the positron moves backward

through time from an open future, the particle is also transformed into a wave-form to bring out the

feminine that gives its support to the masculine.

Samanta-Laughton provides much new evidence to support here view, coming from cosmology and

showing the discovery of light and particle emission from black holes and other celestial bodies. The

BHP principle is applied not just to black holes, but to other bodies that are less than black holes:

neutron stars; suns, planets, people, electrons. And she takes the BHP and applies it to singularities

that are found in our every day understanding of things (e.g., storms), from chapter 14 to the end of

the book. I will criticize Samanta-Laughton for painting with too broad of a brush making it look like

so many vortex-like spirals are the result of the BHP. I have no doubt that the BHP is active

somewhere, but such activity might also provide support for a more conventional vortex that

emerges from mere classical dynamics.

Smanata-Laughton has changed black holes into agents of creation. She (page 237) writes: "We can

modify our black hole picture in the following way. Light travels from infinity and spirals toward our




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perception horizon. As it does, it also reaches the mirror universe in the c**2 region, just out of our

perception. Not only can we find aspects of this concept in mainstream science, it also fits actual

observation."

Smanata-Laughton (page 280) seems to think free choice is an illusion: "The parallel worlds are

actually the infinite choices that are presented to our infinite selves. They occur in mathematics, but

not in the reality that exists in space and time. Within our reality, our lives are predetermined; there

is no parallel `you' making another choice. This also means that the choices we make are always the

`right' ones because our infinite selves have already chosen them. " But Smanata-Laughton forgets

that for our freewill to be real it only means that our ONE infinite self is free. And if we make the

`right' choice, the bad karma will come hunting for us. The feminine aspect provides route-invariance

for all our `right' choices, and this is far from determinism. Eventually we make our way to our

infinite self that is free of karma.

In her last chapter, Smanata-Laughton takes the BHP to George W. Bush, Michael Moore, and the

Elliot Wave theory of stock investing. Forgive me if I am unable to see the connection.

References

David Skrbina, 2006, Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God, O Books.

huping hu et al- various aspects of consciousness & nature of time continued

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