Tag: Highlight

Medical Conditions and Unexplained Experiences of Children

Reading | Psychology

Donna Thomas, PhD | 2023-08-13

Children may be accessing experiences from a collective field, which corresponds to their states of consciousness and extra sensory experiences. But what about the body? Making connections between minds and minds entails a smoother step than trying to explain connections between minds and matter. Ian Stevenson’s book Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect shows how children’s birthmarks correspond with their past life memories. Children would report events from previous lives, including how they died. Their birthmark or defect would match the injury of the deceased person (who the child claimed to be in a previous life). Stevenson notes that having corresponding birthmarks and defects are important as they provide more objective evidence for reincarnation than just memory. Photographs and post-mortem reports from deceased persons provide interesting data that show significant links between the child’s memory and actual events. The data also raises questions about the relationship between mind, body and reality. How is it that the imprint of injuries sustained by one person at a point in time can manifest in the body of a child at another point in time—with the added mystery of the same child accessing the memories of the deceased person?

The wealth of data that Stevenson has generated has astoundingly been ignored by mainstream academia and social/ health policy research. One reason is how the idea of reincarnation entails a reality that is contradictory towards dominant scientific narratives. Children with medical conditions that affect the body and brain can experience unexplained phenomena (past life experiences, having visions, hearing voices and sounds etc.). Some children involved in my own studies have been diagnosed with conditions such as epilepsy, narcolepsy and a relatively new condition called PANS/PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder). What these conditions all have in common is how they can affect regions of the brain, usually through inflammation. Historical studies have made some links between brain abnormalities in children and psychic experiences. One such example is research conducted by a Californian psychologist in the early 1960-70s, Eloise Shields [i]. Shields’ research was conducted in a school for children with disabilities. Shields notes the relationship between brain impairment and telepathy in children aged between 7-21 years:

It appears [these children] can display amazing degrees of telepathy and somewhat above average clairvoyance… these children lack inhibition in speech and behaviour and are at an early stage of language development.
Shields (1962)

Shields considers the striking rapport between groups of children in her study despite their communication difficulties (delayed speech development etc.). The children in Shields’ study had experienced damage to their brains through illnesses such as meningitis and injuries sustained through birth. They had a significant reduction or impairment in brain activity. Experience may be more conscious-rich or extra sensory when there is a reduction in brain activity caused by impairment or inflammation. Studies published in 2012 by Carhart-Harris et. al. measured the neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. The results were surprising. Psilocybin caused decreased activity and connectivity in the brain’s key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition or rich conscious experiences [ii]. Alison Gopnik suggests psychedelic studies show how a deactivation in the pre-frontal cortex systems can mirror young children’s brains, in terms of plasticity, flexibility and design for experience [iii]. Gopnik argues that consciousness becomes narrowed with age, with adults “knowing more but seeing less.” If reduction in brain activity can activate unconstrained cognition, it may follow that any children with conditions that affect neural activity might have a higher incidence of extra sensory experiencing [iv].

 

Children, Epilepsy and Unexplained Experiences

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 50 million people worldwide who have epilepsy, making it one of the most common neurological conditions globally. Epilepsy is characterized by seizures that are caused by excessive electrical activity in the brain. The effects and impact of epilepsy vary depending on which part of the brain is affected. Studies on epilepsy suggest 30% of people with epilepsy experience behavioral and psychiatric problems. [v] Like children’s unexplained experiences, persons with epilepsy are often studied in clinical contexts, from predefined clinical theories. King et. al. (2015) ran a qualitative research study with nine adults with epilepsy. The aim of the study was to gather meanings about the living experiences of people with epilepsy, offering “a voice for an often ignored and stigmatized group.” [vi] The findings show how people with epilepsy (included in their study) qualify their experiences as transpersonal. Their experiences share the qualities of phenomena such as mystical states, NDEs, OBEs and more. King et. al. (Ibid.) identify themes that emerged from participants in the study. People described their experiences of seizures as moving through a portal to different realities, receiving a download of wisdom and engaging with other presences. Two participants reported mediumistic capabilities and most participants reported how their experiences shaped their sense of self. These experiences were transformative. These results, especially the experience of moving through tunnels, are very similar to findings from my own studies with children who are diagnosed with epilepsy.

An interesting case study was published in 2004 by parapsychologist Alejandro Parra, about the recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) experiences of 18-year-old Andres Vernier [vii]. The household had been experiencing strange happenings, poltergeist activity in the form of large stones thrown around the home and walls and furniture destroyed. Andres had frontal lobe epilepsy, experiencing blanks since age nine and seizures from 12 years, along with a range of other emotional issues. The poltergeist activity was intense and frequent, only stopping when Andres attended the hospital and had taken medication to sleep. After extensive tests and support from different experts, Andres’ family concluded that he was a PK agent—creating the poltergeist activity with his mind. The author conjectures a model that may explain the PK activity caused by Andres, as a displacement of his repressed aggression. The emotional energy and difficulties for Andres to communicate create a PK force.

Narcolepsy also affects brain functioning and can cause sleep paralysis and hallucinations in those with the condition. It is extremely rare for children to have narcolepsy and studies note that it is a condition that may be under-reported. One little boy I researched, Cai, was diagnosed with narcolepsy and cataplexy at the age of five years. Cai was six years old when he first shared his experiences with me. He has reported a range of unexplained experiences (seeing apparitions of people, animals and precognition). Cai reported seeing spiders in different rooms in his home. Medical literature shows that seeing spiders is also common in people with epilepsy. Common experiences for people with narcolepsy are sleep paralysis and hallucinations, explained as the effects of a loss of hypocretin-producing cells in the posterior hypothalamus (a chemical imbalance in spinal fluid). The neuroscientific model does not advance an understanding of hallucinations and the experiential authority of people is never sought. In some cases, hallucination does not appear to be an adequate explanation. [viii] The above example comes from an article I published in 2021, about the healing potential of children’s unexplained experiences. [ix] Even in frightening experiences, children report positive after-effects that seem to continue. For example, one young person reported a withdrawal from medication following a peak experience. For Cai, the presence of scary spiders and strange beings in his home prompted an affinity with the superhero Spiderman. His identification with a powerful superhero gave Cai confidence and feelings of empowerment

 

Epigenetics, Children and a Participation Mystique

Troubling the distinction between mind and matter are studies conducted in the field of epigenetics. Since the late nineties, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Rachel Yehuda has studied epigenetic mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission of stress effects, such as PTSD and nightmares—in other words the biology of post-traumatic stress disorder. Yehuda and colleagues have evidenced how parental trauma can cause genetic alterations in their children. [x] These studies show how biological alterations caused by trauma in Holocaust survivors were also found in their children and grandchildren—who had not been exposed to trauma or any psychiatric disorder. As discussed earlier with PANS/ PANDAS children, here is a case of children who have not directly suffered intense trauma yet are experiencing traumatic symptoms and mental material (in the form of memories and nightmares). Yehuda found that children from Holocaust survivors had the same neuroendocrine or hormonal abnormalities that were found in Holocaust survivors. Findings from the many studies conducted on groups such as pregnant mothers who experienced the 9/11 bombings and their children, “yield a cogent understanding of how individual, cultural and societal experiences permeate our biology.” [xi] How we experience reality through our perceptual field influences not only our own bodies, but those of our children and grandchildren. In a recent interview with Yehuda, the host suggested that Yehuda’s research in some ways resonated with passages from the bible: [xii]

The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
Ezekiel,18:1-4, 25-32

This ancient quote refers to children’s misfortune to carry the burden of the ancestors, which Yehuda is evidencing through genetic studies. The biblical quote refers to the father, yet Yehuda’s research is showing that it is the mother who may transmit trauma. When studying mothers caught up in the 9/11 tragic attacks, Yehuda learned how there was a trimester effect on cortisol levels in their babies, showing how some of the differences between maternal and paternal trauma and risk may be linked with the special in-utero changes to developmental programming. This potential evolutionary move can create greater stress levels in children and adults in environments that do not meet the full repertoire of responses (for example, a stress response to starvation in a country that may not have this issue).

What is striking about Yehuda’s observations is the importance of others. Holocaust survivors, who were known to not access support, got through because of the presence of another—how we behave towards each other can affect our molecular biology. Whatever matter is, it appears to be directly affected by mental processes and our subjective perceptions and experiences. Yehuda’s studies with trauma-experienced expectant mothers resonates with Stanislav Grof’s insights about foetus experiences of stress or toxicity in-utero. The idea that children inherit their grandparents’ trauma responses (chemically and psychologically) takes us back to Carl Jung’s observation about great-grandparents being the true progenitors of children’s psychic contents, fused within a participation mystique.

 

Children and The Mind-Body Problem

Children’s experiences reported in this essay raise questions about the relationship between mind and body. Children whose bodies are inflamed experience unexplained phenomena and drastic alterations to their usual person, showing important correlations between mind and matter. Children inherit mental processes that affect their biology, from grandparents and beyond, and states such as dissociation, epilepsy and narcolepsy can trigger unexplained experiences.

The mind-body problem has been cited as one of the most difficult problems to solve in science and philosophy. Queries that gather around this problem include: are they two separate things? How are they synchronistic and where are they held? If they are made of the same stuff, which is primary (mind or body)? Despite the persistent mystery, the mainstream metaphysics of Cartesian Dualism (an aspect of Physicalism) assumes that matter or the body is primary; and that mind/consciousness is an epiphenomenon of physical objects (such as the brain). Despite science advancing this notion in different ways, rendering physicalism as a worn-out model, this is not reflected in the lifeworlds of everyday people. Systems are geared to supporting and enacting this dominant way of thinking about human beings and our relationship to our environment. This can be seen in biomedical models and the medicalization of natural human responses to inner and outer circumstances.

I have only so far met one child who experienced spontaneous healing of a medical condition, following an intense peak experience. This is an area that I have not yet fully explored with children. There is an abundance of research into the relationship between well-being and unexplained experiences in adults, which show significant and enduring positive effects. Studies that examine adult unexplained experiences report how these adults have a similar or better psychological adjustment compared to the average population. Physical healing experiences have also been reported in research studies. For example, Larry Dossey notes that healing is a neglected aspect of NDEs. In a 2014 paper, Dossey includes case examples of people spontaneously healing from the very diseases that caused them to die. One example is the case of Mellen-Thomas Benedict, who had an NDE in 1982. Benedict was dying from an inoperable brain tumor. Benedict died for 90 minutes. Within three days he felt well and happy and was discharged from the hospice where he thought he would end his days. Three months later, Benedict returned to see his doctor to be tested again. A follow-up brain scan revealed the brain tumor had disappeared. Western biomedicine would “explain healing experiences as lucky coincidences even though similar stories have been reported over the millennia.” [xiii] But the growing evidence of cases such as Benedict’s are starting to challenge the biomedical model.

In health science, the placebo and nocebo effects show promise for advancing ideas to address the mind-body problem. Placebo and nocebo are used in drug trials to show the effectiveness of new drugs. These trials take different control groups, giving one group the drug and the other group a placebo. With some conditions, such as epilepsy, Crohn’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, placebos work well, showing improvements for patients. Nocebo works the other way, creating negative side effects. There is a paucity of research into placebo and nocebo effects despite the potential of these phenomena to inform deeper understandings about the mind/body problem. The ability of the mind to create side-effects in nocebo drug trials, or relief from pain and healing in placebo trials, needs better explanations than those presented through the biomedical literature. As does the phenomenon of children having birthmarks that correspond with past lives, or people healing their bodies through the mind.

 

Notes

[i] Shields, E. (1962). Comparison of children’s guessing ability (ESP) with personality characteristics. The Journal of Parapsychology, 26(3), 200.

[ii] Carhart-Harris, R. L., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J. M., Reed, L. J., Colasanti, A., … & Nutt, D. J. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 2138-2143

[iii] Gopnik, A. (2020). Why Babies are more Conscious than we are? BrainMind Summitt, Stanford University, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtG7hn9Mr3g.

[iv] Thomas, D. (2022). Playing in the Field: Exploring the nature and emergence of extra sensory experiences with children. Journal of Parapsychology, 86(2).

[v] Macleod, S., Ferrie, C., Zuberi, S. (2005). Symptoms of Narcolepsy in Children Misrepresented as Epilepsy. Epileptic Discord, 7(1), 13-17

[vi] King, L., Roe, CA and Roxburgh, EC (2015). A transpersonal exploration of epilepsy & its numinous, cosmic states. Paper presented to: Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPa) Annual Conference, University of Glasgow, 22-24 July 2015.

[vii] PARRA, A. (2004) Pk Occurrences, Epilepsy and Repressed. The Paranormal Review.

[viii] Radin, DI, and Rebman, JM (1996). Are phantasms fact or fantasy? A preliminary investigation of apparitions evoked in the laboratory. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 61, 65-87

[ix] Thomas, D. (2021). A participatory research study to explore the healing potential of children’s anomalous experiences. Explore, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2021.8.012

[x] Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, NP, Bierer, LM, Bader, H., Klengal, T., Holsboer, F. and Binder, E. (2016). Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation. Biological Psychiatry, https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/ article/S0006-3223(15)00652-6/fulltext

[xi] Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, NP, Bierer, LM, Bader, H., Klengal, T., Holsboer, F. and Binder, E. (2016). Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation. Biological Psychiatry, https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/ article/S0006-3223(15)00652-6/fulltext

[xii] . https://onbeing.org/programs/rachel-yehuda-how-traum a-and-resilience-cross-generations-nov2017/

[xiii] Krippner S, Achterberg J. Anomalous Healing E. experiences. En: Cardeña E, Lynn SJ, Krippner S, Eds. Varieties of Anomalous Experience. Examinig the Scientific Evidence. American Psychological Association. Washington, DC, 2000. P 353-395.

The red herring of free will in objective idealism

Reading | Philosophy

Bernardo Kastrup, PhD, PhD | 2023-08-06

The question of free will is one of the most significant in metaphysics, if popular interest is the measure to go by. We deeply care about whether our choices are free or determined a priori, for we feel that the meaning of life itself hangs on the answer. A life in which pre-determined choices are simply played out, like a theatrical play in which a pre-written script is followed, cannot possibly be a meaningful one—or so we tend to think. And since mainstream physicalism denies free will, other metaphysical approaches—such as the different formulations of objective idealism—are often seen as the saviors of free will.

I have extensively discussed free will, from an idealist perspective, in Part 7 of my book Brief Peeks Beyond. In this brief essay, I shall merely summarize that argument. I shall maintain that the very concept of free will is a red herring that arises only from the metaphysical confusion underlying physicalism itself. When contemplated under the more coherent optics of objective idealism—of which my own Analytic Idealism is an instance—the very idea of free will turns out to be empty, semantically void; in other words, it means nothing. It’s not that free will doesn’t exist; it’s not that it does exist; and it’s not that free will and determinism are compatible (a position known as ‘compatibilism’). The problem is that the question itself makes no sense. It’s like asking whether the number 5 is married or single: the answer is not that it is or isn’t married, or that being single is compatible with being married, but that the question itself is wrong and there is no point in trying to answer it.

 

What do we mean by free will?

We must start by clarifying what we actually mean when we wonder whether we have free will. This is more nuanced than most people realize, for many would say that our choices are free only if they aren’t determined. The problem is that processes that aren’t determined are necessarily random. Yet, a free choice is not a random choice, is it? That’s not what we mean by free will. Our choices are free if they are determined by our preferences, tastes, judgments, dispositions, etc.

What we thus mean by free will is whether our choices are determined by us, as opposed to an external agency. My choices are free if they are determined by me, instead of my boss, the weather, the economy, or even the neuronal activity inside my head, none of which I think of as myself. A free choice is not the opposite of a determined choice; indeed, a free choice is always determined, but determined by that which we identify with. And what we identify with is our subjectivity. Choices determined by our subjectivity are free, while choices determined by agencies outside our subjectivity aren’t.

Mainstream physicalism maintains that our subjectivity is individual because it is somehow generated by the neuronal activity inside our head. This supposed individuality of subjectivity is what gives rise to the whole question of free will: individual subjectivity is but a subset of nature, and thus choices determined but natural states that aren’t in the subset aren’t determined by us; they aren’t free.

 

Free will under objective idealism

Under objective idealism, however, subjectivity is the foundation of reality; it is the one thing that exists irreducibly. Everything else—all experiential states in nature—are merely patterns of excitation of this fundamental subjectivity, just as different musical notes are patterns of vibration of one and the same guitar string. Under objective idealism, subjectivity is not individual or multiple, but unitary and universal: it’s the bottom level of reality, prior to spatiotemporal extension and consequent differentiation. The subjectivity in me is the same subjectivity in you. What differentiates us are merely the contents of this subjectivity as experienced by you, and by me. We differ only in experienced memories, perspectives and narratives of self, but not in the subjective field wherein all these memories, perspectives and narratives of self unfold as patterns of excitation; that is, as experiences.

As such, under objective idealism there is nothing outside subjectivity, for the whole of existence is reducible to the patterns of excitation of the one universal field of subjectivity. Therefore, all choices are determined by this one subject, as there are no agencies or forces external to it. Yet, all choices are indeed determined by the inherent, innate dispositions of the subject. In other words, all choices are determined by what subjectivity is.

Insofar as one sincerely identifies with universal subjectivity—as opposed to the particular memories, perspectives and narratives of self that we call the ‘ego’—there is a sense in which one could be said to have free will, as all choices are determined by that which one identifies with. But insofar as one identifies with a particular ego—a particular dissociated subset of the experiences unfolding in the one universal subject—one could equally be said to not have free will: we don’t choose what we desire; we don’t choose our preferences, tastes, fears, etc. Otherwise, someone serving a life sentence in solitary confinement would be the happiest person in the world: one would simply choose to desire precisely a lifetime of solitary confinement above all else. Sadly, no one can choose one’s own desires, and thus one’s will is, quite literally, not free. Our desires are determined by mental processes that far transcend the ego.

 

Desire versus necessity

But I want to help you see beyond this seeming contradiction, whereby there is a sense in which we have free will but also a sense in which we don’t. An Apollonian philosopher as I am, I want to leave you with clarity, not ambiguity. And for that, I need to help you see deeper than these precarious attempts to answer a question that has no meaning; to see, instead, that the question itself is senseless.

With this goal in mind, instead of framing the argument in terms of whether choices are determined by self or other, let’s reframe it in terms of desire versus necessity. This will help bring out the insight I am trying to communicate in this essay. Free choices are thus those determined by desire, while choices that aren’t free are determined by necessity. For instance, if you choose to go to work because you need the money, then the choice isn’t really free, for it isn’t determined by desire. On the other hand, when you choose a holiday destination you’re making a discretionary choice, guided by desire as opposed to necessity. After all, if you need to go somewhere on vacation, then it isn’t really a vacation, is it?

 

Desire and necessity are one

Now, as we’ve seen above, under objective idealism the one universal subject does what it does because it is what it is. All excitations of the universal field of subjectivity are driven solely by the field’s own intrinsic dispositions; what else could they be driven by? There is nothing external to the field that could impose on it a choice that didn’t come out of it. It was in this sense that the field could be said to have free will.

However, all of the field’s choices—all of its actions, dynamics, excitations—are dictated by necessity: the field’s own intrinsic dispositions. Insofar as the universal subject is what it is, it must do what it does; it just can’t help it. The only way to avoid this necessity would be for the field to, well, be what it isn’t, which has no meaning. The field can’t help but be what it is, and thus necessarily do what it does.

Nonetheless, is this necessity something other than desire? Why do we desire what we desire? Well, because we are what we are; and we can’t help but be what we are. We can’t choose to desire a life in solitary confinement because that’s not consistent with what we are, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Our desires are expressions of our intrinsic dispositions; they are determined and, therefore, necessitated by our very being. I want to eat the food I desire (as opposed to other foods), be with the woman I desire (as opposed to other women), do the job I desire (as opposed to other jobs), and so forth, because I am what I am (as opposed to something else).

The necessities entailed by our being are experienced by us as our desires. Allow me to repeat this, for it is the key point: the necessities entailed by our very being are our desires; this is what our desires are, have always been, and will always be: the manifestation of the necessities intrinsic to our being. This is why the question of free will is a meaningless red herring: it presupposes that necessity and desire are distinct—even dichotomous—things. Such a presupposition only makes sense under mainstream physicalism, according to which subjectivity is individual and multiple. The assumed individuality of subjectivity conjures up a world outside it, which, in turn, allows necessity (i.e., determinations arising outside one’s subjectivity) to be distinguished from desire (i.e., determinations arising from within one’s subjectivity).

But if subjectivity is unitary and universal, there is no inside/outside dichotomy. Therefore, desire is necessity, and necessity is desire. A desire is a necessity dictated from within, and a necessity is the inexorable outcome of an irresistible desire. This is what you must try to see so to realize that the whole discussion about free will is nonsensical under objective idealism. There is no fundamental distinction between necessity and desire. What the universal subject desires to do is what its intrinsic dispositions dictate; its desires are determined by what it is. And what the universal subject must do is what it desires irresistibly to do; it can’t desire otherwise because its desires, too, are dictated by what it is.

Mainstream physicalism creates illusory dichotomies of agency that give rise to the equally illusory distinction between desire and necessity. It conjures up the question of free will out of nothing but incoherent abstraction. And then—more perniciously—it suggests that the meaning of life itself is somehow contingent upon the answer to that illusory question.

I submit to you that the meaning of life has nothing to do with making ‘free’ choices, as if such freedom were somehow distinct from the necessity of making said choices. The meaning of life has to do with paying attention to what is going on, observing the dance of existence, taking it in, reflecting, bearing witness. This is humanity’s service to nature, not the egomaniacal delusion of individual agency. Only when you truly see this, will you be free in the only way that holds water: the freedom to allow yourself to be what you cannot help but be, and to choose to do what nature demands.

Simulated selves in a simulated world

Reading | Philosophy

Felix Haas | 2023-07-09

That voice in my head that does the talking, that narrator of my thoughts and impressions, that is me. I exist. Every day I decide, I act, I experience and feel. This sensation of ‘me,’ my self, is real. Focusing only on what it is saying, rather than what our self is, we usually experience it as something like Descartes’ ghost in the machine. It is not surprising, then, that philosophers and religions over the millennia have invented daemons, souls, or the atman to inhabit our bodies and to be us. Even if you count yourself an atheist, who claims to disregard any kind of metaphysics, you might still believe your self to be some free-thinking, free-willed entity, distinct from your body, inhabiting it, rather than being part and product of it.

My aim here is to shed doubt on this notion.

But, before we get to the core of the argument, let me start by first trying to poke some holes into your everyday experience of your self. My hope being, that this might leave you more susceptible to what is to follow.

 

The self is not immutable and ever-present

It is difficult to give a satisfactory and exhaustive definition of what our self is. And still, we all have a seemingly intuitive understanding of it. Our sense of self is what we most identify with—that sense of being a small homunculus sitting behind our eyes, being the experiencer of our experiences, the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings, the decider of our actions. Attempts at more analytical definitions of the self often include dissecting it into its different qualities. The neuroscientist Anil Seth, in his book “Being You” [1], for example, distinguishes the embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative, and social self. Many scientists and philosophers, alongside Seth, have stressed that each of these facets are not constant and immutable, but can be altered. This is true even in everyday life.

We are all familiar with situations where the self becomes significantly less prominent. We speak of ‘losing our-self’ in work, of being in a flow state of high focus, fully identifying with a problem or activity, where our self becomes translucent. Likewise, our embodied self does not always inhabit the same boundaries. I am not referring to us growing or gaining weight, but the way we feel the boundaries of a car whilst driving or how we feel the limits of a racket when playing tennis. We learn to extend our sense of embodied self for tool use, helping us navigate complex situations.

Beyond everyday life, the perceived qualities of our self can be severely manipulated in experiment or through neuronal damage. Allow me pick some of Seth’s strata of the self and exemplify how readily hijacked they can be.

The Embodied self: Next to tool use, the ‘rubber-hand illusion’ is arguably the most canonical example. To create this illusion, a healthy subject’s left hand is hidden from his visual field and, instead, a rubber hand is placed in front of him. When an experimenter then starts brushing the rubber hand, interestingly, after a short while, the subject will start feeling the strokes he sees the rubber hand receiving.

The Perspectival self: Autoscopic hallucinations are situations in which the subject’s sense of the location of her self is not aligned with the location of her body. Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are the most extreme examples in this category, where the subject experiences her self leaving her body and seeing it from the outside. Many cases of OBEs are documented, and neuroscientists have even been able to induce OBEs by electrically stimulating a patient’s brain [2]. Furthermore, OBE-like sensations have also been created virtually using cameras and virtual reality goggles.

The Narrative self: There are several documented cases of extreme amnesia. One of the most striking is the case of Clive Wearing whose hippocampi were left severely damaged after a brain infection. His condition has left him unable to experience his self as extended over time. Internal and external events that lie more than a few seconds in the past remain forever lost to him.

More astonishingly still, not only can the various facets of the self be significantly reduced, but total dissolution of any sense of self is also possible. One of the central objectives of Buddhism—particularly pronounced in Dzogchen—is trying to help its practitioners come to their own subjective experience of the absence of self, seeing their own consciousness devoid of self.

Outside of meditation, ritual dance, and hallucinogenic drugs, which can all induce a temporary absence of self, patients suffering from a psychiatric disorder called ‘Cotard’s syndrome’ seem to permanently lack any significant notion of self. As a result, they may stop using first person pronouns or even deny their own existence.

However, its reduction and dissolution are not the only arguments that call the fundamental nature and immutability of the self into question. It also seems possible to divide the self. This is the case in so called split-brain patients. These are people who had their corpus callosum, the neuronal bundle connecting the brain’s two hemispheres, severed either by accident or surgery (e.g. to treat forms of severe epilepsy). Both patients’ reports and experiments show that the two hemispheres of split-brain patients begin to function as independent minds.

 

What does it mean when we say the self is an illusion?

Few would doubt that our sense of self, and our experience of its qualities, is real. So, what do people mean when they claim that our self is an illusion? As Sam Harris puts it in his book “Waking Up” [3], “like many illusions, the sense of self disappears when closely examined.” It is the idea of our self as the originator and audience of our thoughts, actions, feelings, which Harris and others have called into question. Meditation often starts with the realization that thoughts enter and leave consciousness without there being anything like a thinker. In this way, you can see your self to be but one concept—albeit a seemingly pervasive and pivotal one—amongst many populating your consciousness at any point in time.

Some people, Anil Seth amongst them, have taken issue with labelling the self or its qualities ‘illusions,’ rightfully pointing out that it is just as real as ‘redness’ or ‘blueness’ [1]. Yet, both Harris and Seth would likely agree that the self is constructed (that is why it can be deconstructed) by our brains, and that it does not exist independently of them. Importantly, in being assembled by our brain, our self is not set apart, but in line with nearly everything else we experience.

The world we experience, our phenomenological world, is not the way the world really is. There is a map between the two, which must preserve certain primary aspects of reality, such as the volume and elasticity of objects, their relative positions, or velocities. However, qualities like ‘redness,’ ‘chairness,’ ‘sweetness,’ and many other dimensions in which we experience our world, live only in our internal models of the world, not in the world itself. We experience the world in a manner that is useful to us, not in the way it really is.

Things in the world have no smell or taste, yet the molecules they emit give us clues about how edible, dangerous, or ready for mating they might be. Humans, for instance, have five senses—six when adding balance. Other animals have different sets of senses, some of which are completely alien to us, such as echolocation (e.g. bats) or electroception (e.g. sharks). And even when considering the same category of sense across species, different instantiations of this sense are bound to create different internal worlds. It is how a perceived object scores against an individual’s four F’s—fighting, fleeing, feeding, and sex—that determines how attractive or repulsive it is constructed by that individual’s brain.

Historically, we think of perception as happening outside-in: The world impacts our senses, which send signals to different brain networks that ultimately decide what it is we are seeing. However, this view is being challenged (see e.g. [4]) and gradually replaced by an opposing, inside-out view: Our brain predicts what it is we might see in the next moment, which then gets validated against incoming sensory data. We can only see a car or a laptop if our brain already knows the concepts ‘car’ and ‘laptop.’ We would always be able to see the object that is a car. But, if we had never seen, heard of, or experienced any other mode of transport but our own two legs, we would only be able to recognize a car’s shape, size, color, etc.—we would not see any of the essence of what makes a car a car. In short, we would not see a car, but only a hallow block of painted metal.

Cognitive neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett extends the idea of knowing a concept as a prerequisite to perceiving it far beyond the outside world. She understands interoception, perceiving our bodily states and signals, working in precisely the same way. Our brain reads bodily data like our breathing or heartbeat and uses socially shared emotional concepts (anxiety, love, hate, Schadenfreude, etc.) to predict what emotional concept best fits our state in each context. Deciding for a matching emotional concept, according to Feldman Barrett, is feeling that emotion. The concept comes before the emotion—we can only feel betrayal, if we already know the concept ‘betrayal.’

Concept building and concept matching, to Feldman Barrett, is also what gives rise to our experience of the self. “In my view,” she writes in her book “How Emotions Are Made” [5], “the self is a plain, ordinary concept, just like ‘Tree’. It is a goal-based concept in which the goal shifts based on context.”

Both Seth and Feldman Barrett paint our minds as predicting machines that read out signals from extero- and interoception, as well as from our brain itself, and match them against evolving concepts to decide what is in the world and what is ‘in our hearts,’ i.e. our feelings and desires. However, this decision lies not with our self—rather, this process runs almost entirely subconsciously. Our self is a product of this prediction-construction process, not its origin.

We are brains in bony cages who receive electric signals from our sensory organs. We then build models of the origins of these signals and call it the world. And we treat ourselves no different, because building our world model with us in it is the best that we can do. Our body, our feelings, our sense of self are model-elements that represent best guesses at what there is—with the word ‘best’ not being meant ontologically, but pragmatically. That is, our world-model is not constructed to be closest to the way the world really is, but such that we maximize our ability to navigate it and to achieve our goals of survival and reproduction.

Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman has long argued (see e.g. [6]) that a core idea of classical evolutionary epistemology is mistaken—namely, that evolutionary fitness would naturally drive our internal models progressively closer to the world as it really is. Hoffman, who has devised numerous experiments and simulations to support his claim, chooses the desktop metaphor to illustrate his point. We know that the computer desktop is not literally how our computer is organized or functions. Humans have designed and built all its hardware and software, none of which contains a literal desktop. The desktop is merely an abstract representation layer that enables the human user to navigate it more easily. Hoffman sees our internal model’s relationship to the outside world in much similarity to the desktop and the computer: a relationship that does not optimize for faithful representation, but for ease of navigation.

 

Why don’t we experience the world as a model?

If the world we experience is merely a model that our brains create, why don’t we perceive it as such, as a model? Why, instead, is our world-model what philosophers call ‘transparent’? That is, why does everything seem so real, with no scaffolding showing? Why don’t we, for example, perceive the process of how our brains decide whether something has ‘redness’ or not?

Thomas Metzinger—in his book “Ego Tunnel” [7]—answers this question by pointing towards evolutionary fitness. What would be the consequences, he asks, if our model of the world was opaque, and we could see the workings of the model itself? First, to not be significantly disadvantaged compared to a brain producing a transparent world-model, a brain producing an opaque model would still need to construct the same world content, but face additional metabolic expenditure to create whatever additional impressions represent the workings of the model itself. This is contrary to the basic strategy of how our brains evolved, trying to automate as many processes as possible, running them subconsciously at lower energy requirements.

But, even if energy were not an issue, our attention and ability to act would likely be impaired by an opaque world-model. If we no longer perceive only the content of our model, but also its workings, we might often focus on the latter, without gaining any evolutionary advantage. Our attention might be captured by observing how our model creates our phenomenological world, rather than focusing on model content, which alone influences our survival and procreation abilities.

 

What about free will?

The fact that an individual’s actions can be meaningfully influenced is what social media and online marketing build their business models around. More strikingly still, people—after having been subconsciously coerced into a specific action—will often concoct explanations for why they believe they chose what they did not [8]. What is not in itself a watertight argument against free will, does at least prove that we are able to convince ourselves that we are completely free to choose even in situations where we are not. It shows the propensity of our mind to invent volition.

Our biochemistry, genes, culture, and social surroundings, even our microbiome, are part of a long list of factors that influence our actions. However, some might want to brush this off as shaping our ‘character’ and ‘mood,’ rather than limiting or even negating our free will.

There are neuroscientific arguments, most famously the Libet experiment, in which the build-up of a so-called readiness potential in a subject’s brain is used to read out the subject’s imminent choice before they themselves become aware of it. However, variations of this classical experiment by other scientists [9] have raised some doubts about the original interpretation. Other defenses of free will call Libet’s classical interpretation into question by distinguishing between choosing an action and becoming aware of the choice. For some, philosopher Daniel Dennett [10] amongst them, such an implicit redefinition of ‘free will,’ which includes our subconscious, circumvents the Libet experiment being the last nail in the free will coffin. Others, counting Sam Harris [11], question whether this flavor of compatibilism is still talking about the thing that the free will debate set out to discuss.

The argument against free will, however, which holds the most punch, is that of determinism. As far as we know today, the future is determined by the past plus intrinsically random quantum fluctuations. In such a world, in our world, how do you insist on free will without violating the laws of nature?

Compatibilists of free will and determinism have more than struggled to find a convincing loophole to get to have their cake and eat it too. Typically, their arguments involve redefining the terms ‘free will’ or ‘self,’ along the lines of what we just discussed, or trying to find agency in quantum randomness. The former arguably fails to address the original problem. The latter lies outside of any accepted science or interpretation thereof.

Even without evoking our prior discussions on the predictive nature of our minds and the nature of the self, the volitional self and the concept of free will are near impossible to vindicate. Adding our prior conclusions to the discussion, does not make the compatibilist’s challenge any easier (what is free will without a self?). “We project causal power into our experience of volition in just the same way that we project redness into our perceptions of surfaces,” Seth writes in “Being You.”

 

Why does it all matter?

We typically meet attacks on ideas that give meaning or identity to our existence with hostility. The idea of our self as our brain’s simulation, lacking coherence and free will, not only goes against most of our everyday experiences but, put very simply, hearing it doesn’t feel very good. However, neither our emotional resistance, nor our intuition are fair arguments for keeping with these notions. My liking something or not has no bearing on its truth. And there is an abundant list of what we now accept as fundamental aspects of reality where our intuitions have led us astray for millennia—from the idea of a spherical earth and the heliocentric worldview to the ontological insights of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

But why does it all matter? Unlike quantum mechanics and general relativity, the realization of the true nature of the self is unlikely to allow us to build next-generation machines. Rather, you may worry that the absence of free will negates moral responsibility. Much has been written (see e.g. [11] for a short introduction, or [12] for an extensive treatment) on why this is not the case, which I do not intend to reproduce here. However, if our will indeed is not free, then it has always been this way, and so, it might suffice to ask, why our ethics and justice system should disintegrate with the realization of this truth?

On the other hand, realizing the illusionary nature of free will does further enable us to build criminal justice systems around the principles of deterrence, security detention, and rehabilitation, rather than revenge.

Little collective or individual happiness has come from the agrandizement of one’s nation, race, or self. Instead, psychology and self-help literature is ripe with arguments for deflating our ego and self-focus and for finding meaning in something larger than ourselves. After realizing that you are no longer—and never were—the all-controlling CEO of your body and actions, you may choose to be liberated rather than impoverished. Rather than seeing the self-simulation as a bleak truth, you can choose to take it as a call for further introspection and first-person exploration of the structure and possibilities of your own consciousness. You may realize that the fact that all your perceptions, including your own feelings, are constructed by your brain, means that it is not the world that angers you or makes you happy, but your own mind. You may also come to find a greater deal of intellectual humility and empathy. You may be less certain of the finality of the conclusions you draw and thus more receptive to criticism. Likewise, you may be more careful and forgiving when believing that you have spotted errors in others’ conclusions or actions.

Finally, you may find beauty in the idea of how, in an expanding, slowly cooling universe, complexity built over time to give rise not only to life, but eventually also to conscious minds. Through us and other minds before and after us, the universe started modelling and understanding itself. We are not divine souls, beings from a different realm that inhabit our physical bodies, but literally all we are is the stuff that the universe is made from.

 

References

[1] Seth, Anil (2021). Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Faber & Faber.

[2] Blanke, O. et al (2002). Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions. Nature 419, 269-270.

[3] Harris, Sam (2014). Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. Simon & Schuster.

[4] de Lange, F. P., Heilbron, M., and Kok, P. (2018). How do expectations shape perception? Trends Cogn. Sci. 22, 764–779.

[5] Feldman Barrett, Lisa (2017). How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[6] Hoffman, Donald D. (2019). The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes. W.W.Norton & Company.

[7] Metzinger, Thomas (2009). The Ego Tunnel – The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. Basic Books.

[8] Robson, David (2015). The hidden tricks of powerful persuasion [online]. BBC Future. Available from: www.bbc.com/future/article/20150324-the-hidden-tricks-of-persuasion

[9] Schurger A, Sitt J, Dehaene S (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109: E2904–E2913.

[10] Dennett, Daniel (2003). Freedom evolves. Penguin.

[11] Harris, Sam (2012). Free Will. Free Press.

[12] Parfit, Derek (2011). On What Matters, vols. 1 and 2. Oxford University Press. and Parfit, Derek (2017). On What Matters, vol. 3. Oxford University Press.

How a neuroscientist came to embrace the reality of acausal synchronicities

Reading | Metaphysics

Laleh K. Quinn, PhD | 2023-07-02

In Jung’s seminal work, “Synchronicity,” he argues for a fourth organizing principle—alongside space, time, and causality—at work in the universe. As Jung experienced himself, there are some events experienced by humanity that cannot be explained on the basis of the first three principles, and thus there must be a fourth. This fourth is what Jung referred to as “synchronicity.” He defined it as an “acausal” principle, in that it did not seem to be governed by causation as normally defined within the standard scientific model.

Jung describes several instances of synchronistic experiences that could not be explained through physical causation. One of the most famous of these examples is that of the Scarab: while tending to what he refers to as an overly rational patient in his office, who had yet to break through to the deeper reality of her psyche, she related a dream she had the previous evening about a piece of jewelry in the shape of a golden scarab. Just at that moment, a scarab with green and golden hues flew into the office. Jung famously stated: “here is your scarab.” The patient was immediately lifted out of her narrow vision of the world.

This example is noteworthy, as it seems to violate what may be acceptable as normal coincidence. Coincidences happen all the time, but they vary in their probability of occurrence. What lies at the heart of Jung’s insistence that at least some coincidences cannot be explained by mere chance is a seeming violation of such probabilities. It may be a coincidence that my friend and I both decide to wear red shirts and dark jeans on the same day; however, discussing a dream of a golden scarab and immediately witnessing the appearance of a golden scarab—especially if those appearances are extremely rare, as they were in Jung’s environment—seems to point to another level of ‘coincidence.’ For Jung, these are the true synchronicities. There is something in this conjoining of events that goes far beyond our normal understanding of the way the universe works; far beyond normal chance occurrences governed by the laws of physical causation. After all, the discussion of a dream certainly did not cause the scarab to arrive at the window. Moreover, this synchronicity was a highly meaningful one for the patient.

Many of us have had these types of extraordinary experiences in our lives, but we tend to either pass them off as normal coincidences or, at best, delegate them as anomalies that must have a proper scientific explanation that we don’t yet comprehend. Experiences such as thinking of someone not thought of in years and having them call the next day have probably happened to most of us, but if you’re like me—at least the former me—I would have a twinge of excitement about coincidences like that and then promptly forget about them. For Jung, however, attending to such synchronicities goes far beyond feelings of excitement. To him, doing so provides us access to one of the most important forces of the universe, and to an understanding that, at the heart of everything, is meaning. As he states in “The interpretation of Nature and the Psyche,”

Synchronicity … means the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state. ( p. 36)

To get to this place of understanding the meaning that underlies reality, we need to somehow overcome the natural bias we have when it comes to belief in an acausal principle. For a lot of us, including myself for most of my adult life, I would not have taken the scarab incident to prove anything mystical or meaningful. I, like many others, would maybe find it initially fascinating and interesting, but then would return to normal life; a kind of mental sweeping it under the rug. Somehow that’s easier than having to accept a new worldview. But, for Jung, sweeping it under the rug and returning to a comfortable normalcy entails missing the entire point of existence.

So, how can we better have access to the level of meaning that true synchronicities are capable of providing us? How can we get past the skeptical blocks that are our natural tendency? For me, as a neuroscientist steeped in the scientific method and rational materialism, it has been a difficult road. It took a deep personal tragedy for me to begin to experience and pay attention to the immense significance of synchronicities, and to come to have faith in their legitimacy. If I hadn’t had the personal experiences I had, I would most likely still be lacking in that faith.

Soon after my best friend and colleague of twenty years died, I began having very unusual experiences that made me suspect that he was somehow still around me. As a skeptic with lingering distrust of people who claim to be able to talk to the dead, this was—to put it mildly—out of my comfort zone. And yet, I was extremely curious. Could he really still be here in some way? I began to perform my own experiments to prove to myself he was. This was accomplished in a few ways. One was to ask him, upon waking up in the morning, for images in my mind that I would encounter later in the day. The first time I did this I saw an image of an old Wright Brothers plane. When I went running later that morning, I looked up at the rooftop of a house I had run past many times and there, attached to the roof, was a small replica of exactly that type of plane. While this was impressive, I was still able to question whether the information came from him. Maybe I’d subconsciously seen that plane but forgot, and I put that image in my mind myself. I had other experiences like this one but I was still not convinced. To be more sure, I tried a different method: asking for specific signs from him to let me know he was still here.

I was overwhelmed by the response. There were so many shocking moments where I would ask for something particular to be placed in front of me and I would receive it. Still I was hesitant to shake my materialist way of understanding the world. But one chain of signs I received finally resulted in the relaxation of my logical mind and allowed myself to jettison the last vestiges of doubt: I was driving north from San Diego to the Bay Area to visit my father in hospice. While on the highway, I asked my dead colleague to send me a sign that he was around me. I told him it didn’t matter what the sign was, just something I would understand.

Just after I asked, I heard some clicking sounds, then the song “Hello it’s Me” came on the radio. That jarred me. Was he saying hello? I wasn’t sure. Needing more evidence, I asked for further signs. Just then a car passed me with a license plate that said Camelot on it, where instead of the ‘e’ there was a heart. This was actually very significant to me for two reasons. First, I knew that Camelot was associated with King Arthur. This reminded me of the nickname (Wort) that my father—who loved the Arthurian Legends—gave me, which was the nickname Merlin gave King Arthur when he was a child. And second, it also reminded me of the last time I had visited my colleague and he took me to his favorite baking shop, “King Arthur’s flour.” This was all deeply meaningful to me, but I wanted yet more proof. So to clinch it, I asked him out loud, “if that was you I want the next song on the radio to have the word ‘knight’ in it.” Amusingly, in my mind I was thinking of the song “ Knights in white Satin,” (amusing because later I came to know it isn’t “Knights” but “Nights” in white satin). So there I was, waiting for “Nights in white satin” to miraculously play on the radio, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the very next song that came on was a song by Neil Young that I hadn’t heard for many years, called “After the Gold Rush.” As soon as it started playing, I had a chill and a knowing: the first line of the song is “Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming sayin’ something about a queen.”

I can’t describe the feeling I had at that moment; that absolute thrill of discovery and understanding; the sense of expansion and excitement. This was not something I could ignore or deny or sweep under the rug. More came, but it felt like icing on the cake. I passed two trucks on the way that were “Knight Transportation” trucks. Then, when I arrived at my family home, two books were placed facing out on the bookcase of the room I was sleeping in: both had “Knight” in the title. Next to those two books, also facing out, was Richard Feynman’s book “The Meaning of it All.” At that point I was floating, somewhere between our world and theirs, feeling the magic and wonder I didn’t allow myself to previously feel. No amount of rationalization could penetrate this new knowledge. The probability of these chains of signs—and the specificity of the signs after having asked for them—being due to mere coincidence was astronomically low. As a scientist utilizing statistical methods to show the likelihood of hypotheses, I knew the likelihood that what occurred was due to normal causation was at least one in a trillion. Most likely much, much more improbable than that. And as a good scientist should, I accepted that my working hypothesis that my colleague was sending me a message, indicating he was still somehow ‘here,’ was validated.

I consider these types of experiences to be the epitome of synchronicity, as Jung would have us understand it. Not only the improbability of this chain of events, but the deep meaning behind them, both with respect to my deceased friend and my soon to be deceased father, was profound. But I also understand that anecdotal evidence is very hard to accept. I wouldn’t have accepted it if it hadn’t happened to me. The implications are too great, if wrong. It opens up the possibility of there being a universe that is not governed by rational laws as we know them. It opens up the possibility of parapsychological phenomena being true.I deeply understand the implications of allowing oneself to open to a vast, seemingly nonsensical reality. It’s as if the floor has been taken out from under us, everything we used to ‘know’ thrown aside. But I came to understand that this can also be a great opportunity; an opportunity to willingly suspend our disbelief for a moment and consider the other possibilities, and whether those possibilities are worth the risk involved. There appears to be a choice here that we should be considering prior to dismissing Jung’s principle out of hand.

Is there a way to help with making this choice? Blaise Pascal, a brilliant French mathematician and catholic writer living in the 17^th century, grappled with how to make belief in God a rational choice. When I first started studying philosophy, I was taught about Pascal’s famous wager. This intrigued me, as I was brought up in a religious household but rejected organized religion from a very early age, feeling even then that ‘faith’ wasn’t good enough a reason to believe in something. Pascal provided a kind of calculus, or cost benefit analysis, in addition to faith to help those who require more. He provided a matrix of possibilities having to do with belief in God, and asked us to consider these four options: (1) God either exists or (2) doesn’t. And we either (3) believe in God or (4) don’t believe. The ramifications of the options, according to Pascal, are shown in the table below.

Here it seems clear that the ‘rational’ choice is to believe in God, whether or not God exists. Weighing the pros and cons, the decision became obvious to Pascal. Some wasted time and effort is not worth eternal damnation. While Pascal’s wager had a definite fearsome catholic spin, and may not seem applicable to many of us, we can still use it as a way to delineate the possible scenarios under our purpose of belief in Jungian acausal synchronicities. Assume our decision matrix consists of the following: (1) synchronicities exist, (2) synchronicities don’t exist, (3) we believe in them, and (4) we don’t believe in them. How might we fill in our matrix?

First, there is the situation where we believe in sychronicities but they don’t exist. What is the cost of believing that ‘coincidences’ are meaningful when in fact they are not? This may lead to a life of succumbing to some form of magical thinking when there is no magic. We may suffer ridicule from our peers, or worse, from ourselves. This is the situation that, as an academic, I used to be very fearful of. Belief in something ‘nonsensical,’ or ‘irrational,’ may indicate that I’m less intelligent than my peers, or at best mentally unstable, which for many academics is to be preferred over lack of intelligence. Many great thinkers, even Jung himself, struggled with the fear of irrationality.

Now, what happens if synchronicities don’t exist and we don’t believe in them? We may have a sense of being vindicated, knowing we haven’t been gullible and have correctly adhered to a rational state of mind.

But let’s assume synchronicities exist and we do believe in them. This could lead to a deep understanding of reality where we have tapped into something beautiful and meaningful, providing our lives with a depth of knowledge and understanding we couldn’t have otherwise.

Finally, if synchronicities exist and we don’t believe in them, this may result in our having lost access to the true meaning of our lives.

It’s one thing to be told that the rational choice is to believe in something; it’s another thing to actually believe it even if you want to. When asked how one is to make oneself believe if they don’t already, Pascal’s advice was to fake it at first. Spend time with religious people, pray to God, act as if it’s true and ultimately it will become second nature. Perhaps we can take his advice and ‘fake’ it at first, and see what happens. One way to get started is to begin to properly research and do experiments of your own, like I did. Understand that dismissal of a hypothesis out of hand is anti-scientific. If you really want to know the truth, some dedication to rigorous research on the topic is required.

It’s ironic how many materialist scientists have not actually researched the ideas that they are lambasting. Hypotheses concerning acausal phenomena such as synchronicity, ESP, telepathy, mediumship, psychic abilities of any sort, for this type of person, are not worthy of proper analysis. They are not worth analysis at all. To them, they are wrong, a priori. As a scientist, I find this unacceptable if we are truly searching for truth. So jump in and at least make an attempt at discovery, even if it’s difficult at first. Addressing the possibility of synchronicities in a logical, rational way might just lead you to discovering they exist and, thus, provide you with the beginnings of a much more meaningful existence. Open your eyes and mind to a new understanding and see what Jung understood, that “synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.”

The missing subject: a critique of Philip Goff’s panpsychism

Reading | Theology

Joshua Farris, Rev., PhD, CSM, CSPO | 2023-06-18

To accept experiential qualities as fundamental aspects of an otherwise physical reality, as proposed by panpsychist philosopher Philip Goff, isn’t enough. We need more. We need subjects of qualities, and it’s dubious that panpsychism can fit the bill.

In one place, Goff makes the rather odd claim that “The main objection made to panpsychism is that it is ‘crazy’ and ‘just obviously wrong’.”^[1] He proceeds to claim that we know something of the intrinsic nature of matter: “In fact, the only thing we know about the intrinsic nature of matter is that some of it—the stuff in brains—involves experience.”^[2] Goff is convinced that his version of panpsychism steers a via media between physicalism and substance dualism. It takes seriously the nature of conscious experience like substance dualism, but without the sort of bifurcation of mind and body of substance dualism. It posits qualities as the intrinsic nature of matter and the latter, in turn, as the explanation for everything else. Yet, Goff also claims that his view is distinct from any version of idealism (whether it be theistic or involving a cosmic mind undergirding Nature).^[3]

It is to the subject of qualities that I believe we must turn to as we reflect on the nature of the world; not just the qualities of life, but the subject of those qualities—something I and others contend is a challenge for panpsychists.

 

The historical progression of panpsychism

Defenders of panpsychism often trace their view back to Bertrand Russell, who affirms a form of monism concerning the physical and the phenomenal. Prior to Russell, there are traces of panpsychism in Leibniz as well—although Leibniz’s panpsychism is a form of idealism, entailing that minds furnish a fundamental structural role to the physical. Indeed, Leibniz departs in important ways from contemporary panpsychism.

The sort of view intimated by Russell differs significantly from Leibniz’s idealism in that it does not posit something as undergirding matter, but that matter itself is imbued with qualities, mind-lets, or mind-like properties at the fundamental level. This position on matter and consciousness, however, has only come to prominence in the last 20 years or so. It wasn’t until David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel that it made its way back into contemporary academic discussions.

 

The historical overlap between panpsychism and naturalism

Arguably, it is not coincidental that the historical rise of panpsychism overlaps with the conceptual desire to maintain naturalism as the framework for understanding the world. Those naturalists that take the mind seriously, do so because they realize that a physicalist ontology is unable to account for qualities, or ‘qualia,’ as philosophers put it. A quality is the felt experience of what it is like to, e.g., taste strawberry ice cream, smell the ocean air, or experience the beauty of a pink sky as evening turns to night. Felt experience is lost in a naturalist’s world; one that, as Goff argues, is the result of Galileo’s worldview, which attempted to understand the world in terms of quantities without qualities. It is here that panpsychism has an advantage over physicalist naturalism: at least we are able to re-introduce qualities where they are otherwise excised and unaccounted for. For the naturalist, it might be their last hope.

Even naturalist Annaka Harris (wife of the famous new atheist Sam Harris) recognizes the conceptual overlap between panpsychism and its historical origins with physicalists. Toward the end of her book, Consciousness, she offers little more than the common promissory note that there may still be hope for physicalism to make sense of consciousness. But she also realizes that it may turn out that something like Nagel’s or Goff’s panpsychism may rescue the naturalist by saving consciousness. She says: “while theoretical physicists can happily propose ideas such as the predictions of string theory—from ten (or more) dimensions of space to the vast landscape of possible universes—and still have their work get a fair hearing, it is considered a risk to one’s reputation to suggest that consciousness might exist outside the brain.”^[4] This is a fascinating concession from Harris, and suggestively points the way forward for the naturalist. Nonetheless, is it sufficient?

 

Naturalist panpsychism

Just what is naturalist panpsychism? In short, it is naturalism with qualities; naturalism with what Nagel calls ‘subjective appearances.’^[5] Nagel reflects on this move when he considers the insufficiency of physicalism, whereby physics is the only—or best—way of knowing the world. He states:

The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth, and that the natural order is far less austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for everything.

But in order to get qualities, there is the question of whether qualities can exist like physical particles, as part of the bedrock of a naturalist world. In other words, qualities of this sort would exist as a foundational feature or property of the natural world, without any additional reality undergirding them.^[6] This seems problematic: qualities need what philosophers call a ‘substance’ (i.e., a substrate with standalone existence), such as a mind or subject of experience. Indeed, it seems incoherent to speak of qualitative experiences without a subject that experiences those qualities as modes of its mind.

 

We need a wholly distinct substance

A substance has been traditionally defined as a thing that is countable or able to exist independently of other things. In the language of philosopher Ralph Weir, “they exist by themselves.” Since qualities don’t exist by themselves, they need a substance of which they can be the qualities. This is where defenders of substance dualism have an advantage over the naturalist panpsychism of Goff. Substance dualism is the view that there are two distinct sides of being, as put in the language of the dualist Uwe Meixner. And these two sides are properties—with property-bearers—including the phenomenal and the physical. According to the advocate of substance dualism, there is a distinct type of particular necessary to make sense, and instantiate the fact, of phenomenal qualities. While Goff, in his post-Galilean way, is keen to preserve qualities, it is not clear how he can do so. Qualities themselves aren’t enough. They must exist in something that owns them, bears them, and conceivably knows them.

This doesn’t necessarily require a Cartesian substance dualism, although that is one option. As E. J. Lowe has so famously put it, the thing having the phenomenal qualities presumes a fact about the substance in those qualitative states that is quite distinct from physical parts. Lowe highlights the particularity necessary to make sense of personal identity:

[P]art of what makes an experience of mine numerically distinct from a qualitatively indistinguishable experience of yours is the very fact that it is mine as opposed to yours.^[7]

The fact of your existence as an experiencing thing is required, it seems, for qualities. In other words, you can’t just add qualities to your system and leave it at that, precisely because doing so entails a distinct type of substance for those qualities. But if this is the case, Goff isn’t really offering a via media between physicalism and substance dualism; either his view leads to substance dualism or some form of idealism.

 

You can’t just add qualities to your system

Goff argues that his version of panpsychism is distinct from, e.g., analytic idealism: “The main difference is that whilst panpsychists think that the physical world is fundamental, idealists think that there is a more fundamental reality underlying the physical world.” But at least in the analytic idealist framework the individual consciousnesses of people—which are obviously contingent, as individual consciousnesses come into existence at particular times—are explained by a distinct type of substance and are grounded in some necessary and ultimate reality. As Ralph Weir has clearly shown, this understanding of nature doesn’t entail the muddy middle of panpsychism.

One of the crucial lines of argument Goff uses to defend his panpsychism leverages the conceivability of so-called ‘zombie twins.’ A ‘zombie-twin’ is taken to be a complete physical duplicate of a person, but without being a phenomenal duplicate; i.e., your zombie twin is unconscious from within, despite being physically indistinguishable from you from without. Commonly used as an objection to the view that humans are solely physical, the conceivability of zombie twins—and, therefore, their metaphysical possibility—seems to defeat physicalism: if your purely physical zombie twin is metaphysically possible, then there is something extra, distinct from physicality, that renders you conscious. For Goff, this ‘extra’ is the qualities that constitute the intrinsic nature of matter.

Yet, an entirely analogous argument can be used in defense of substance dualism, for we can also coherently conceive of a ‘ghost twin’: an entity identical to you as far as your conscious inner life is concerned, but devoid of any physical property. Insofar as the conceivability of a ghost twin entails its metaphysical possibility, there may be a substance in nature distinct from physicality, and therefore substance dualism may be true. Nonetheless, Goff rejects dualism.

Goff’s rejection here, despite the equivalence between the ‘ghost twin’ and the ‘zombie twin’ arguments (the latter embraced by Goff), is based on a rather technical and questionable dodge: the notion that mere individual identity can lead to non-logical differences across qualitative duplicates. Ralph Weir discusses the problems with this notion:

[I]t is implausible that mere identity can make non-logical differences to what is possible for qualitative duplicates. If it is possible for your zombie twin to exist with only its physical properties and no consciousness, then the same is true of that part or aspect of reality that your zombie twin duplicates. And if it is possible for your ghost twin to exist with only its phenomenal properties and no body, then the same is true of that part or aspect of reality that your ghost twin duplicates. The zombie argument is therefore safe from objections that require that mere identity can make non-logical differences to what is possible for qualitative duplicates. But so is the disembodiment argument for mental substances.^[8]

The important challenge to Goff is that, if there is a metaphysical possibility for zombie twins—i.e., your physical duplicate without phenomenal consciousness—then your analogous ghost twin is a metaphysical possibility too. Goff’s commitment to qualities commits him to substance dualism, or—at a minimum—a wholly distinct substance of a phenomenal nature that accounts for physical bodies in terms of phenomenal qualities; in other words, some version of idealism that causally or structurally couches the reality of physical bodies in a mind or minds.

 

Theistic panpsychism

There is a smaller contingency of panpsychists defending theism, which underwrites panpsychism with a value-full system. This, however, is a departure from the historical rationale leading someone like Goff to posit qualities in an otherwise naturalist system. It is an odd departure given the recent historical reasons that gave rise to panpsychism. But then again, if panpsychism is just a retrieval of some version of substance dualism or idealism (e.g., Leibniz’s idealism), then it should not be considered a historical outgrowth of naturalist physicalism.

 

Theism: qualities aren’t brute but grounded in sufficient reason

In recent analytic theistic literature, one can notice a growing prevalence of the view that contingent, individual consciousnesses are grounded in some ultimate and necessary reality. Indeed, there is a growing body of literature contending that not only is naturalism insufficient as an explanation for consciousness, but that theism supplies the missing ground. This is certainly a move in the right direction, for as Joshua Rasmussen states,

Instead of positing mindless units beyond all experience, I propose that a first-person, personal reality is fundamental to all other realities. This mind-first picture is simpler and has greater explanatory power than the mindlessness-first picture, or so I argue. The mind-first picture also provides resources for solving the many construction problems, explaining nature and formations of matter, and explaining how there can be any being like us. For these reasons, I arrived at this theory of your ultimate origin: your origin is not based in impersonal, mindless stuff but in the ‘stuff’ of a personal foundation.^[9]

Geoffrey Madell makes an argument for a substance that defies any conditioned analysis that can be borrowed from a naturalist or physicalist frame, and points us in the direction of some higher-order cause or ultimate explanation quite apart from the contingency of the physical and emergent consciousnesses:

There is, however, no denying that many people will see grounds for rejecting outright the account of the self which seems to be emerging from what I have said, and that for a fundamental reason. To suggest, as I appear to have done, that there are no criteria for identity of the self over time, and no criteria which have to be satisfied for a state of consciousness to be mine at any one time, leaves one with a sort of free floating ‘I’. On one hand, every attempt to establish criteria for the identity of the self, to tie it logically to some such condition as the continuity of the body or of psychological continuity, or its identity to the notion of origin, seems to break down. But to accept this is to give credence to the idea of the self as an entity which, purely as a matter of chance, alights on a certain set of properties in history but might equally have alighted on any other set. This presents a dilemma of awesome proportions, and we must eventually confront it.^[10]

Michael Bitbol highlights this:

Why do I live now, in this special period of history? Why am I me, born in this family, in this place of the world? I was taught that there were many other possibilities: being any person, at any time, or even just not being at all. And yet here I am, in front of you. Me, not you, here, not there, now, not then…What is the reason, if any, of this inescapable singularity? Does the fact that we all live through this mystery alleviate it in any way?^[11]

The deeper problem seems to be naturalism, as Farris points out:

This rather obvious truth is so plain that you might think there’s no need to say it. What we long for is the person. Persons are valuable to us. In fact, persons are most cherished above  all other things that we regard as valuable. Sure, there are pets that we love and hold as valuable. We value food, our jobs, our homes, and our cars. We like having things, but if we are honest, it’s persons that we prize more highly than anything else in the world.^[12]

While no one would actually claim that technology or science could get in the way of that which is most highly cherished, we are seeing and hearing of developments that promise the possibility to accommodate all of our needs and wants through artificial means. The prospect of constructing individuals that we can interact with that appear to be flesh and blood persons is certainly something that is not outside the imaginative social consciousness of contemporary society… While this might seem a bit far-fetched to some it hits at the heart of what we care about most and what is at stake in the science-engaged theological conversations today.^[13]

What these authors make clear is that a naturalist view of subjects is insufficient to account for qualities in the world. What is needed is both a distinct type of substance and a necessary ground for explaining conscious subjects. Theistic panpsychism is better equipped to handle these facts than the sort advanced by Goff, yet it isn’t an alternative to the traditional options (idealism and substance dualism); instead, theistic panpsychism is just a form of idealism. At the end of the day, we need a substance for qualities, which points us in the direction of some ultimate explanation for contingent consciousnesses. Some version of theism supplies that explanation in a way that Goff’s panpsychism does not.

 

References

^[1] https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true

^[2] https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true

^[3] He is not committed to either reductive or non-reductive panpsychism (the latter being the view that there are differing levels of the mind governed by layers of natural laws). And, while, he leans in the direction of non-reductive panpsychism, he is not convinced that we have sufficient knowledge of Nature to make determinate that hierarchical minds could not be reduced to the underlying qualities or mind-lets.

^[4] Annaka Harris, Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind (New York: Harper, 2019), 81.

^[5] Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

^[6] Philip Goff, “A Conscious Universe: Panpsychism vs. Idealism,” Institute of Art and Ideas. https://iai.tv/aarticles/conscious-universe-panscyhism-idealism-goff-kastrup-auid-1584?_auid=2020; This is precisely the version Goff endorses when distinguishing it from the ‘analytic idealism’ of Bernardo Kastrup. Goff attempts to avoid theism as well as an ontological idealism that undergirds the natural world. The natural world just is conscious at the most foundational ontological level along with physical particles.

^[7] E. J. Lowe, “The Probable Simplicity of Personal Identity.” In Personal Identity: Complex or Simple? edited by Georg Gasser and Matthias Stefan, 137-155 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 149.

^[8] Ralph S. Weir, “Can a Post-Galilean Science of Consciousness Avoid Substance Dualism?”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28, No. 9–10, 2021, pp. 212–28, see p. 221. [DOI: 10.53765/20512201.28.9.212]

^[9] Joshua Rasmussen, Who Are You, Really? (Downers Grove: IVP, 2023), 268-269).

^[10]  Madell, Essence of the Self, 10–11.

^[11]  Michel Bitbol, as quoted in Nicholas Humphrey, Soul Dust (London: Quercus, 2011), 151–152.

^[12] Ibid., 7.

^[13] Ibid., 8.

From points to fluctuating strands: advancing theoretical physics

Reading | Physics

Christoph Schiller, PhD | 2023-06-11

Overview

In contrast to the progress in experimental physics and in all other sciences, progress in fundamental theoretical physics has been slow for the last five decades. Why were so many efforts in vain? There are six reasons. The first reason is the insistence to use points to describe particles and space. Five additional habits of thought slow down fundamental theoretical physics even more.

The present essay argues that all six delaying habits can be eliminated in exactly the same way: points need to be substituted by a different kind of fundamental concept. The new concept is provided by the common constituents of space, black holes, particles, wave functions, and forces. Distilling the correct constituents allows answering the open questions of fundamental physics, including the origin of all colors in nature.

 

The need for a change in fundamental physics

All of modern science, from Galileo to today, can be seen as the quest to describe with precision everything that is observed. Now, in all observations, something moves. The precise description of motion is the subject of physics. Modern physics can be seen as the quest to describe with precision everything that moves. In fact, only two aspects of nature are found to move: particles and the curvature of space.

Due to its drive towards describing particles and space to full precision, science has made—and is still making—steady progress in all its domains, from material science to chemistry, from the geosciences to astronomy, from physics to astrophysics, and in all the life sciences. As a whole, because of this drive, science is a fascinating success story.

In the success story of science, there is one exception. For the last five decades, fundamental theoretical physics—in contrast to the other parts of physics—has stagnated. All known fundamental properties of nature were described in 1973. They agree with all experiments. Nevertheless, there are important open questions. For 50 years, the origin of the interactions, the origin of the elementary particles, and the origin of the fundamental constants remain unknown. For example, there is no explanation for the origin of electricity and radioactivity, no explanation for the origin of electrons and quarks, and no explanation for the strength with which electrons interact with photons. This strength is described by a number, the fine structure constant, measured to have the value 137.0359992 [2], but whose origin is unknown. Because the origin is unknown, also the precise origin of every single color in nature is unknown.

Why is the origin of colors unknown? Why are the origins of particles, forces and their strengths still unclear, despite a large number of researchers working on them? In the following, it is argued that six reasons prevented progress:

1. The habit of using point particles and points in space.
2. The hesitance to conceive a model for black holes.
3. The hesitance to conceive a model for particles and wave functions.
4. The hesitance to conceive a model for space.
5. The habit of looking for a unified equation.
6. The hesitance to conceive a model for forces.

Interestingly, the solution for each impasse is the same: nature must be described with a new type of fundamental constituents.

 

Points do not exist

The two great achievements of twentieth-century physics—general relativity [1–3] and the standard model of particle physics, extended with massive Dirac neutrinos [4]—describe nature with full precision. Even though hints of deviations arise regularly, no hard data contradicts either of the two theories. Despite huge incentives to find deviations, none has been confirmed. The two theories stubbornly insist on being correct and precise.

When the two theories of physics are combined, one finds a striking result. There is, in nature, a smallest measurable length [5–7]. The smallest measurable length is given by the Planck length, about 10−35 meter. The value is incredibly small, and far from any experimental detection. No experiment has reached it, and it appears that no experiment will ever do so. But above all, the value is not zero. In short, between two points in space, there is not always a third one.

Likewise, there is also a smallest measurable time interval in nature. The Planck time is about 10−43 second. Again, the smallest measurable duration is not zero. Between two instants in time there is not always a third one.

The existence of the smallest measurable length and time implies that a correct description of nature cannot be based on continuous space and time. Space and time are not continuous. There is no way to confirm that space is made of points or that time is made of instants. On the one hand, this result is fascinating. On the other hand, we cannot even think or talk about nature without continuous space and time. In particular, all equations of physics use continuous space and time.

Is there a way out of this dilemma? Yes, there is. Both points of space and point particles must be substituted by something of the Planck size. Space and particles both must have constituents of Planck size. In usual experiments, the Planck size is not detectable, the constituents can be ignored, and we can use points. When exploring general relativity only, the constituents are averaged out; thus they are not important. When exploring quantum theory only, the constituents are again averaged out; again, they are not important. But when general relativity and quantum theory are combined, and only in this situation, at the foundations of space and time, when we want to understand the origin of forces and particles, Planck-scale constituents become inevitable.

 

Black holes are the key to the constituents of nature

50 years ago, Bekenstein and Hawking discovered that black holes have entropy and temperature [8, 9]. This result implies two important aspects: first, the value of entropy (and temperature) is finite; second, the values are given by the ratio of the surface of the black hole and the square of the Planck length. The entropy value implies that black holes are made of constituents that are of Planck size in two directions (nothing can be deduced about the size in the third direction). Black holes are thus made of countable, or discrete, constituents. This confirms the results that arise when general relativity and quantum theory are combined, as expected. But in fact, an additional, new result can be deduced.

Black holes are highly condensed matter. In other words, black holes can be seen as highly condensed or compressed particles. At the same time, black holes are highly curved space. In other words, black holes can be seen as a specific configuration of space. As a result, the constituents of black holes are the same as the constituents of space and of matter. To say it simply: space and particles are made of common constituents.

How can space and particles be made of the same constituents? Space and particles differ: particles are like small stones, small and compact, whereas space is extended, spanning across the universe. The common constituents must therefore be both small and extended at the same time. The properties of black holes imply that the constituents must be tiny in two directions and large in one. In other terms, the common constituents of space and matter and radiation must be strands of Planck radius that are as extended as the universe.

 

Particles and wave functions can be illustrated

Both experiments and quantum theory show that particles are not perfectly point-like. Matter particles, specifically, are described by wave functions. Both experiments and quantum theory state that wave functions are extended and continuous. But are wave functions really continuous? No, they’re not.

When approaching the Planck scale, no experiment can prove that wave functions are continuous. In fact, all experiments suggest that wave functions are strands wiggling around extremely rapidly. As Dirac found out already in 1929, wiggling strands explain the spin ½ of matter particles [10]. He also showed that wiggling strands explain that matter particles are fermions—and the origin of the quantum of action ħ. As Battey-Pratt and Racey discovered in 1980, wiggling strands also explain relativistic wave functions and the Dirac equation [11]. In particular, blurred wiggling strands explain the existence and the spatial extension of wave functions.

If wave functions are blurred wiggling strands, what are particles? There are not many options. Particles must be tangled strands. What we usually call the position of a particle then is the region where the tangled region is located. What we usually call the probability density then is the region around the particle where the tiny strands fluctuate. What we usually call the phase of a particle is the average orientation in space of the tangle. What we usually call particle reactions are changes in the tangling of strands.

Are strands in contrast with the peculiarities of quantum theory? Are they hidden variables? A detailed exploration shows that strands do reproduce quantum theory in all its aspects [12]. Wiggling strands are not hidden variables, because single strands are not observable. Wiggling strands do reproduce quantum superpositions and quantum mechanics. Wiggling tangled strands reproduce entanglement—almost intrinsically, one could say. In short, wiggling strands reproduce quantum theory in all its details at all measurable distances.

In other terms, fluctuating strands explain wave functions. Particles are not small parts; particles are fluctuating tangles. Wave functions arise when strand fluctuations are averaged out. And indeed, classifying the various types of tangles yields the known elementary particles. Exploring the rotation of tangles explains the mass values of the elementary particles. Tangled strands thus show how to tackle the open issues of fundamental physics.

 

Space is composed of extended constituents

The combination of general relativity and quantum theory shows that space cannot be continuous. Space is made of wiggling and fluctuating strands. Empty space contains no particles. Empty space is thus made of untangled strands that randomly change shape. Can all this be correct? There is only one way to find out.

Einstein proved that space can bend and move. Space bends or curves around massive bodies, and the bending moves together with the bodies. In addition, space can bend and move also without nearby bodies: there are gravitational waves in nature. Can strands reproduce all these observations? It turns out that they do.

In the same way that strands form empty space, twisted pairs of strands reproduce the curvature of space. Large numbers of moving twisted pairs reproduce gravitational waves. Densely packed woven strands reproduce black hole horizons. Black holes cannot be compressed further because of the tiny radius of the strands they are made of. A detailed investigation shows that Einstein’s field equations of general relativity arise when the strand fluctuations are averaged out [13]. A further result is obtained: twisted strand pairs are only possible in three spatial dimensions. Strands thus explain why we live in three dimensions.

In other terms, space is made of fluctuating strands. Averaging out strand fluctuations of twisted strand pairs yields general relativity. The averaging reproduces textbook physics.

 

Fundamental physics is not based on equations

Physics describes motion with equations. More precisely, physics describes motion as a consequence of interactions—gravity, electricity, magnetism and the two nuclear interactions. Physics describes all change around us with equations of motion. But on this topic, strands imply a surprising consequence.

Because the Planck limits of space and time are inaccessible, single common constituents of space and particles are unobservable. Therefore, there is no possibility to deduce a unified equation of motion or a unified Lagrangian for single common constituents [14]. Instead, all known evolution equations—such as Einstein’s field equations or Dirac’s equation—emerge from the collective behavior of large numbers of fundamental constituents. The emergence was already found above both for the motion of wave functions and for the motion of empty space.

In other terms, quantum theory and general relativity arise from the averaging over fluctuating tangles of Planck size. All precision in nature arises from the averaging over large numbers of fluctuating tangles. Conversely, the Planck length implies the lack of a unified equation of nature.

 

Forces are due to deformations

The disappointment about the search for a unified equation is more than compensated for by a number of consequences of the strand description that are downright fascinating. In fundamental physics, there are three gauge interactions: the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. In quantum theory, interactions are processes that change the phase of wave functions. Strands define particle phase as the orientation of the particle tangle, and the wave function as the shape fluctuations of tangles. As a result, strands imply that interactions are deformations of tangles.

Interestingly, almost a century ago, Reidemeister and other mathematicians deduced a way to classify tangle deformations. They found that deformations can be classified into three basic types, called the three Reidemeister moves. Exploring these three moves, one finds that they generate exactly the observed gauge symmetries of the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear interaction, and the strong nuclear interactions. Sets of one, two and three strands produce precisely the gauge groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3). In short, the three Reidemeister moves on strands explain the origin of the three gauge forces in nature [15, 16].

Why did the discovery of the origin of gauge groups take so long? Strands were introduced by Dirac in 1929. It took until 1980 for Battey-Pratt and Racey to deduce wave functions from strands. In an independent field of research, it took a further decade to discover that shape changes are related to gauge symmetries. But at that time, only commutative gauge symmetries were found, because compact shapes do not yield non-commutative symmetries. Instead, the nuclear interactions are non-commutative: they require tethers. Only 15 years ago did it become clear that strands allow deducing non-commutative gauge groups.

What about the strengths of the interactions? Strands imply that the strengths of interactions are due to the statistics of shape fluctuations in particle tangles. Again mathematics—more precisely, knot theory—leads to progress. Strand tangles imply that charges are quantized, as is observed. And first rough statistical calculations yield coupling constants that agree with measurements.

In other terms, strands imply that the equations of physics do not result from one fundamental equation, but that they all result from the statistics of strand fluctuations. In simple terms, all laws—all interactions and all coupling constants—emerge from wiggling strands. For example, this holds for the mass of elementary particles. Above all, also the famous number 137.0359992… appears to be due to the average number of tangle deformations induced by the first Reidemeister move in electrically charged tangles [12]. Strands thus appear to explain the origin of all colors in nature.

 

Conclusion: renewing fundamental physics

Combining general relativity with quantum field theory—i.e., with the standard model of particle physics—implies that the unified theory of fundamental physics is based on common, discrete fundamental constituents that are both extended and of Planck radius. These strands yield both space and quantum particles. Alas, strands imply that no T-shirts with a unified evolution equation can be designed. Such an equation does not exist. On the other hand, all known evolution equations —such as Einstein’s field equations, Dirac’s equation and the gauge field equations—emerge from the collective behavior of large numbers of fluctuating strands.

Fluctuating strands explain the origin of elementary particles and interactions, and they explain all fundamental constants—elementary particle masses, their mixing angles, the coupling constants, the cosmological constant and the dimensionality of space—from their collective, statistical behavior. In particular, all colors are due to strand fluctuations. Strands and their statistical behavior thus explain all the beauty of nature around us.

Strands also make numerous experimental statements. They have been collected and published. So far, all deduced consequences and predictions agree with all observations.

In total, the use of strands instead of points as fundamental constituents of space and particles yields a new way to describe fundamental physics. Strands explain elementary particles and the four forces. Strands will explain all colors in all details. Strands will allow predicting the mass values of neutrinos.

Even though the universe is filled with fluctuating strands that connect everything, in our everyday life fluctuating strands are not noticed. Chemistry, material science, medicine, biology, geology, astronomy, engineering and most parts of physics are unaffected. In the natural sciences, the exploration of nature will continue independently of strands, and discoveries and inventions will be made independently of strands. Nevertheless, only strands explain particles, space, and all colors around us.

Strands imply that every particle in our body is connected to the rest of the universe by strands. With every movement, we move large numbers of strands. This new description of motion requires quite a change in our thinking habits—though only in fundamental physics. The exploration of nature will remain fascinating for a long time.

 

References

[1] C. M. Will, The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment, Living Rev. Rel. 17, 4 (2014), arXiv:1403.7377 [gr-qc].

[2]  LIGO Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration and others, Tests of general relativity with GWTC-3, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology) (2022), arXiv:2112.06861 [gr-qc].

[3]  M. Kramer et al., Strong-Field Gravity Tests with the Double Pulsar, Phys. Rev. X11, 041050(2021), arXiv:2112.06795 [astro-ph.HE].

[4]  R. Workman et al. (Particle Data Group), Review of Particle Physics, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2022, 083C01 (2022).

[5]  C. A. Mead, Possible connection between gravitation and fundamental length, Physical Review 135, B849 (1964).

[6]  L. J. Garay, Quantum gravity and minimum length, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 10, 145 (1995), arXiv:gr- qc/9403008.

[7]  S. Hossenfelder, Minimal length scale scenarios for quantum gravity, Living Reviews in Relativity 16, 2 (2013).

[8]  R. M. Wald, The thermodynamics of black holes, Living Reviews in Relativity 4, 1 (2001).

[9]  D.N. Page, Hawking radiation and black hole thermodynamics, NewJournalofPhysics 7, 203(2005).

[10]  M. Gardner, Riddles of the Sphinx and Other Mathematical Puzzle Tales (Mathematical Association of America, 1987) p. 47.

[11]  E. P. Battey-Prattand, T. J. Racey, Geometric Model for Fundamental Particles, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 19, 437 (1980).

[12]  C. Schiller, Testing a conjecture on quantum electrodynamics, J. Geom. Phys. 178, 104551 (2022).

[13]  C. Schiller, Testing a conjecture on the origin of space, gravity and mass, Indian Journal of Physics 96, 3047 (2022).

[14]  C. Schiller, From maximum force to physics in 9 lines towards relativistic quantum gravity, Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A 78, 145 (2023), arXiv:2208.01038 [gr-qc].

[15]  C.Schiller,Testing a conjecture on the origin of the standard model, Eur.Phys.J.Plus 136, 79(2021).

[16]  C. Schiller, Testing a conjecture on quantum chromodynamics, International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics 20, 2350095 (2023).