|
Below I have copied over from the Yahoo Quantum Consciousness group a review of the Dark Matter model of Consciousness that I published there and in the Quantum Mind 2003 conference last March.
Chris King is a Professor of biophysics from New Zealand. His review is right to the point of the next work that has to be done to make the model more meaningful. That is that BECs (Bose-Einstein Condensates) are normally thought to be non-complex- being normally a single wave function having a many particle population. Prof King rightfully points out that the BEC has to be just a complex as the brain, or at least in the same ball park, to be a valid model of non-local consciousness. It would then be complementary to the physical consciousness that has been the concern of most other researchers in quantum consciousness.
I cannot really promote myself as a researchers in this field. But I will follow all the published results of exp and theoretical studies of BECs to ascertain just how complex they can be.
A condensed matter physicist would probably already know the answer- can BECs be complex. If you know any such physicists, please ask that question for me- and let me know the answer.
Richard
-------------------------------------
Review of A Dark Matter Model of Consciousness Chris King
I found this article interesting and challenging generally to ideas about how consciousness is physically manifest and on which quantum or biological phenomena does it depend?
I am far from sure that axionic dark matter exists, and although it may I am not sure it will present as a Bose-Einstein condensate, but it certainly does push the physical manifestation of consciousness to the cosmological limit. Of course the whole question of dark matter and dark energy is itself full of intriguing implications for cosmology generally.
The model also resonates with panpsychic ideas of the 'godhead' in the sense that there could be a great cosmic consciousness 'out there' on a universe-wide footing. I like the principle of sourcing a cosmic form of consciousness in a variety of possible environments, from biological organisms on planets, to the interiors of stars, cosmic gas clouds, or dark matter, as an attempt to make a physical manifestation, in complementarity, of cosmic consciousness.
However, the biocosmological perspective enables some sensitive critiques of the model which I believe are pertinent. The form of consciousness we associate with human awareness is associated with the most complex physical systems known in the universe, the human brain. These require the fractal interaction of all the known physical forces to form atoms and molecules and super-molecular organelles, cells and organisms, and finally a massively-parallel reverberating active nervous system.
The relationship between the indeterminacy of a universe in which subjective experience can through free will affect the physical environment and quantum uncertainty leads naturally to an association between quantum phenomena and consciousness. In such a view we might consider the uncertainty of a single electron or photon in its wave function as a form of conscious free will - invoking a quantum form of universal panpsychism. One could also consider many particles entangles in a single wave function and hence a Bose-Einstein condensate. We also have models of quantum computation and the possibility of quantum transactions in entangled systems. Phase correlations in the brain form a similar 'coherent' state albeit with some problems explaining how this could become quantum isolated in the way a Bose-Einstein condensate does.
There are nevertheless some analogies between a coherent brain state and a Bose-Einstein condensate. Now back to the many layers of interaction on the forces in the brain and the complexity of the brain. To manifest complex consciousness in any way resembling the power of the subjective consciousness we experience, t appears to be a necessary condition that is in some way coupled to a commensurately complex physical system. My concern about Bose-Einstein condensates is that they are so completely entangled in one wave function that they have almost zero capacity for complexity, at best the envelope of all transactions which might occur within or with all of the correlated particles the condensate contains. Because they form one single coherent population all of these would appear to be in an indistinguishable state and hence the system is no more complex than that of that of a single particle wave function in a superposition of states.
I nevertheless find the model a valid challenge to anthropocentric views of consciousness
Chris King |
