Surfing With The Alien, Jet Li Style
dear friends,
http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/inde...-jet-li-style/
be well, be love.
david
surfing with the alien, jet li style
september 25th, 2007
in the one, yu-law (jet li) travels inter dimensionally to destroy all other versions of himself. just as in the matrix, the choices of the character become the center of the story. choice is the core of our identities, and the implied definition of a conscious being. but what if choice is not what we believe it to be? what if choice as we know it is less like deciding and more like surfing? as neo (the other one) would say:
the problem is choice.[1] (bingo)
a recent comment on the the bees who flew too high mentioned the concept of carbon nanotubes as a means for the interaction of quantum fields with mind. it was roger penrose and stuart hameroff (inspired by penrose’s work) who proposed that, on the most minute scales, consciousness involves quantum decoherence. if the “nothing happens until observed” (pic or didn’t happen) character of quantum nature is compared to a coin toss, then quantum decoherence can be compared to the idea that, in this coin toss, one side will face up but both sides exist along with their original relationship to each other. prior to penrose and hameroff, mind and the quantum had been separate concerns. the idea that carbon nanotubes and consciousness come together through quantum decoherence raises some interesting questions, which an extension of a well-known thought experiment may reveal:
one can even set up quite ridiculous cases. a cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. if one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed.[2]
since radioactive decay is triggered by quantum vacuum fluctuations, and quantum systems remain in all states possible at once until some observation is made, the cat in this thought experiment is both alive and dead by extension. the question is: what exactly happens when the chamber is opened? does a set of probabilities collapse into a single outcome, or is something else happening?
if it is indeed a wave collapse, then the idea of carbon nanotubes and consciousness becomes easier to comprehend, although only slightly. in this case, the only reality that actually exists is the one the experimenter sees when opening the chamber. the others were only potentials, like all but one of the sets of dna that could have merged with the egg from which each of us came. they can all be dismissed. if it is something else, like the interpretation that quantum decoherence is in fact multiple universes interacting at once, then the story becomes harder to wrap one’s mind around. this would mean that the killing or saving of the cat happened at the point the chamber was closed, since all possibilities that could exist from that moment on actually do exist. the cat really is both alive and dead. opening the chamber would choose the universe the consciousness of the experimenter would enter, but would not destroy the other universes that were split off when the chamber was closed. and in each of those universes, another version of the experimenter would be opening the “same” chamber with different results.
Reply With Quote
Being
life an "Endless Summer"?
Originally Posted by urtxformation
Bookmarks