I haven't read the whole paper yet, but there seems to be something wrong with the premise. Please bear in mind that I'm no authority in physics so I might be missing something important. In any case, here are my comments:

As I understand it, if particles of dark matter exist they have the curious property of not exhibiting the three nuclear forces (EM, weak, strong) most commonly associated with matter. That is, as opposed to known particles, the gravity component is far stronger than the remaining three. Which is the reason we suppose they exist but cannot easily detect them, is that correct?

So if consciousness is "made" of dark matter, it would take an unbelievable amount of dark matter for our dark-matter-based minds to interact with our visible-matter-based brains, since all conscious actions coming from our brains toward our muscles must be the result of gravitational forces alone. As a physicist, you know the proportion between gravity and the other three forces better than I. All I know is that it's huge.

If I had to guess, I would say that what's missing in the physicists' calculations about the universe is perhaps not gravity, but electromagnetism. We already have plenty of evidence that EM surrounds us, in fact I don't think there's a place in the universe where some amount of EM cannot be measured. Given that "dark EM" has the power to explain the "missing matter" problem, that we have enough evidence that we are surrounded by it, and that we know for a fact that much of what goes on in the brain is the result of EM interactions, why should we resort to explaining consciousness in terms of something we don't even know exists?

So there you are. As I said, I'm no authority on the subject; take that as speculations of a bored layman.

Regards,

ML

• You are right about something being missing - yanniru - July 27, 2003 - 11:36 UTC
  • Oops - harvey1 - July 27, 2003 - 13:24 UTC
    • Yes, we must all conform to the standard "identity scheme" - carefuluniverse - July 27, 2003 - 16:05 UTC