The Quantum Physics of Consciousness
In philosophical debate, particularly in the philosophy of mind, the question of how mind and consciousness arise out of our matter, or more specifically, out of the physical neurological processes in our brains, has been a long-standing one and it has baffled scientists and philosophers alike. When we speak or think of mind, it seems natural to suppose that it is directly linked to our brain and our conscious thinking, including other cognitive functions.
Even if, from our direct experience and observation, there is no direct evidence or clue that could lead us to unambiguously understand what mind is, we do collectively intuit that mind is a phenomenon that is deeply interrelated to our brain activity, and yet it is something more. But what is this ‘something’ more?
This question alone has historically spurred some interesting theories of mind, together with various philosophical standpoints and debates.
The most common take on the nature of mind in modern Western thought is that mind is the same thing as brain activity and hence the question of ‘what is this something more?’ does not arise. This materialistic position on mind was born out of the classical scientific view and its influence on modern thought. It is called materialist because it assumes that mind is nothing more than matter.
The philosophical idea coming out of this materialistic view is a reductionistic one, meaning that it assumes that phenomena such as mind and consciousness can be explained by reducing them to the physical and chemical processes occurring in the neurology of our brains. It is literally a flattened view of the world, since it reduces all phenomena to the dimension of matter, time and space, which are considered primary, according to this view.
The materialist view is that mind is the same thing as brain activity.The Mind-Body Problem
The mainstream scientific position has led itself into a brick wall when it comes to understanding the phenomenon of consciousness. Philosopher of mind, David Chalmers, refers to this as the hard problem of consciousness, which is basically the problem of explaining subjective mental states of consciousness objectively in terms of physical processes, as required by the strict view of science. In simple words, how do we explain a particular feeling we have when we think of chocolate, in terms of neurons firing in our brain?
Other positions that do not subscribe to this reductionist view of mind, however, tend to face another problem–the problem of dualism. Basically, if we are to consider the mind as being separate from the brain, then this once again begs the question “What is mind?” and more specifically, “What is the relationship between the physical brain and mind?” The former is an ontological question asking about the nature of mind, while the latter is an epistemic one, which tries to understand the cause and effect relationship between brain and mind and how information and knowledge passes from one to the other, seeing that they are two different things.
The assumption that mind is different from the brain, such as–for example–that mind is non-material whereas the brain is material, gives rise to the so-called mind-body problem, first addressed by French philosopher René Descartes, who said that the mind and the body are two different substances. Bodies are extended in space, incapable of feeling or thought, whereas minds are unextended, thinking and feeling substances. Because they are two different substances, belonging to the material and non-material, and because there is no observable point of interaction between the two, then we cannot explain a causal relationship between the two. If we cannot come up with a causal explanation, for example, of how our internal mental states and beliefs give rise to behaviour, then some would argue that talking of mind would be superfluous.
Mind is non-material whereas the brain is material.Mind as Software and Emergent Effects
Despite this seemingly problematic position of the mind and brain co-existing in some form of relationship, the idea lived on in other theories and metaphors. One of the most popular metaphors, in fact, is borrowed from the computer sciences and which sees the mind as analogous to a software that runs on top of a hardware (or wetware)–the brain. This model has served particularly well in psychology and the cognitive sciences, where the non-material aspect of mind is seen as the software program and the material aspect of the brain is seen as the underlying hardware.
Another interesting position considers the mind as an emergent phenomena, resulting from the complex interactions of the neural processes in the brain. This theoretical position is a non-reductionistic one while at the same time it circumvents the mind-body problem because although mind is still considered as something other than the brain, the cause and effect link between the two can be explained in terms of emergent effects. The problem with this view, however, is that it still considers matter (the brain) to be primary and mind and consciousness as something that emerges out of matter, rather than being a fundamental aspect of the universe, such as time and space are.
The Mind as a Higher Dimensional Field
As science and research continues, new theories of mind arise which could shed more light on some of the philosophical questions mentioned above. One of the latest ideas to come out from the academia is one which sees the mind as a field existing in a different dimension than the brain, and which interacts with it on a quantum level. Dr. Dirk K.F. Meijer, a professor at the University of Groningen, published a paper positing his idea in the peer-reviewed scientific journal NeuroQuantology, an academic journal that brings together research from the fields of neuroscience and quantum physics.
The mind exists as a field in a different dimension than the brain.
Meijer suggests that the mind is basically a field, or more technically, ‘a holographically structured field’ that acts as a ‘receptive mental workspace’ in that it exists around the brain but at the same time, is able to access other fields outside of it. This field, Meijer suggests, resides in a fourth spatial dimension, a higher dimensional space than the one the brain is embedded in (3D). It is also worth noting that parallel research, such as in the blue brain project–an interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematician and neuroscientists–have identified that the ‘brain’ works in multiple dimensions.
The question then is how does the mind, as a fourth dimensional field, interact with the 3d brain processes? Although we do not yet understand the specific mechanisms underlying the mind-brain communication, Meijer lends on quantum physics to suggest possible contenders. Two possibilities are through what is called quantum entanglement and quantum tunneling; two of the most perplexing and mysterious phenomena observed in the quantum world. In simple words, entanglement is the observed phenomenon that two particles are ‘synced’ together in a way that one effects the other instantaneously, despite being separated by immense distances, say for example, on opposite ends of a galaxy. This phenomenon has baffled scientists for years, including Einstein himself who termed it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ Quantum tunneling can be best explained by analogy to a macro world object. Imagine you throw a tennis ball against a wall. Naturally we expect the ball to stop its motion once it hits the wall and bounce back in the opposite direction. Strangely enough, in a quantum tunneling parallel, the ball passes through the wall and is observed to keep its motion and momentum in the other adjacent room. Strange stuff indeed.
Yet Meijer thinks that although entanglement and tunneling are possible explanations to how the mind field and brain rapidly pass on information to each other, the most probable mechanism at work is quantum wave resonance. This means that at the very quantum and sub-quantum levels there is a wave pattern underlying all the neurons and particles in the brain and which also passes through the mind field. Changes in the mind field resonate with the neurons in the brain instantaneously and vice versa.
Wave patterns in the brain pass through the mind field.Faster than the Speed of Thought
The quantum wave resonance model of brain and mind field communication can be a very clever answer to what is called ‘the binding problem.’ Different neural regions and clusters in our brain are responsible for different cognitive functions, say for example, vision, colour, sound or verbal processing. Yet these different signals from different regions in our brain come together collectively faster than the speed at which they are processed individually, hence giving rise to an observed anomaly known as the binding problem. Now, this is relevant here because it seems that the binding problem arises when we scratch our heads and try to figure out what is happening from just one layer of reality–say from the neural activity of our brain.
On the other hand, when we start to view the brain and mind as being multidimensional manifestations of the same thing and which communicate information at the quantum level through resonance, a better, wider picture starts forming that explains apparent anomalies, such as the binding problem. This also gives more credence to the fact that a flattened and reductionistic view of reality does not work at all. We need a richer, broader and possibly a multi-dimensional view of consciousness and reality. This brings me to the next interesting point about the field theory of mind.
Mind is Universe
The discussion about mind as a field ultimately goes beyond entertaining the possibility of answering longstanding philosophical questions. It opens a door of exciting new possibilities that give us a completely new way of understanding the phenomenon. In a way, it is the classical conundrum of answering one question and opening up another hundred, but this is what is special about growth in knowledge.
Mind is universe and everything is mind.
The real pearl inside the oyster of this theory is that mind is not individual or exclusive to us humans, as we have always assumed. A very short way of saying it is that mind is universe and that everything is mind. As the first principle of the hermetic philosophy goes: ‘All is Mind.’ So one of the things that science might have got fundamentally wrong, and which David Chalmers refers to as “the hard problem of consciousness,” is that it did not assume that consciousness and mind are fundamentally part of everything that is. Consciousness is primary; even relative to matter. This starts to converge with ancient knowledge or modern panpsychism, which hold that everything is imbued with consciousness. Matter arises out of consciousness and not vice versa.
But what does this have to do with Meijer’s theory of mind as a field? Well for one, Meijer holds that the fourth dimensional field of mind is a torus shape which we are now understanding is found everywhere in the universe. Secondly, fields are all interconnected with each other via quantum phenomena such as resonance, entanglement and tunneling. This might explain what we consider as psychic or extra sensorial phenomena such as precognition, clairvoyance, remote viewing or telepathy.
Meijer, in fact, sees consciousness as a boundary condition that exists between the internal information of the brain and everything else outside of it, which he refers to as the ‘universal information matrix.’ From this point of view, consciousness is similar to a phenomena observed in black holes, called an ‘event horizon.’ When light or matter approach a black hole they do not disappear but their information is projected on its boundary. That boundary is what separates the black hole from everything else, and he uses this as an analogy to explain what consciousness could be from his research and insights.
So the bottom line of this thought-provoking and pivotal research is this: Your brain is a quantum tuner that resonates with a field called mind. That mind field is connected to many other fields and this might explain transpersonal and psychic experiences we could not previously explain through mainstream science.
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