PERSPECTIVE ON CONSCIOUSNESS

By Dr. P. J. Marcer, BSc; DPhil; FBCS   27 Jul. 95

"Consciousness is Evolution in action in the mind/brain"

The viewpoint is that of the physical foundations of computation and
in particular of quantum holography. This constitutes a novel paradigm
for information processing  for non-classical machines for the new
millennium of which functional magnetic resonance imaging is already a
most impressive realisation and of which my colleague Walter Schempp
is one of the world's leading specialists.

Such information processing concerns analogue computation performed
quantum mechanically which proceeds by adaptive resonance i.e.
selection & learning and not by algorithms. It cannot be simulated on
digital computers since it concerns gating by phase and not amplitude
or bits and employs non-local quantum interference or synchronicity in
line with the viewpoint on quantum mechanics put forward by W. Pauli
and C. G. Jung and as described in terms of symmetries of the
Heisenberg group as discovered by H. Weyl in 1928.

It says that the brain is a fully distributed synchronously
partitioned massively parallel processor, and that there is mind, a
Self, and a mental world of thought for which the paradigm provides
mathematically specified,  non-classical physically realisable and
experimentally validatable models.  In particular the mind/brain/body
is an adaptive self-organised system where brain/mind interaction or
phase conjugate adaptive resonance defines consciousness, and quantum
mechanics leads to models of the physical world as consciously
perceived, and where non-locality constitutes synchronicity and opens
the model to describing scientifically what is conventionally
considered to be the province of the paranormal.   Objectivity, the
nature of subjective experience, and the nature of qualia are all
explicitly defined.

In contrast to digital computation, information, knowledge,
perception, cognition, intelligence, memory, learning, creativity, and
language are all well-defined physical processes and not dictionary
definitions and the paradigm opens up the prospect of explaining
creation, evolution, the origin of life, the origin of mind/brain etc.
(Refs. 1 & 2)

ABSTRACT, The Brain as a Conscious System (ref. 2)

A mathematically specified and physically realisable model of the
mind/brain working by quantum holography is proposed in which mental
events autonomously cause neural events.  These are manifest by
adaptive resonance so as to elicit a stream of consciousness such as
that of which we are all aware.  This takes place against a background
of unconscious activity for example the taxonomisation and storage of
sensory experience and mental activity in the form of a distributed
paged holographic memory,  The very considerable benefits of this form
of memory and the associated image and signal processing by adaptive
filtering are explained.  It is shown that such a model exhibits many
of the basic features of the actual morphology and dynamics of human
brains including the possibility of language, logic and mathematics as
an enhancement of the primary capabilities of perception and
cognition.  It confirms the nature of our personal experience as
having a conscious mental self or ghost in the machine, in accordance
with the traditional dualist-metaphysics of the physical brain, and a
separate mind which interact.

The model exploits many of the most remarkable properties of quantum
physics, which classical physics excludes so that the mind/brain
system postulated is a non-classical machine computing quantum
mechanically in non-algorithmic mode by selection, adaption and
learning.  Further more the model shows that the formalism of quantum
mechanics need not, as in widely held to be the case, lead to models
of the physical world at variance with the physical world as
consciously perceived, so putting reality on the rocks.

Dedication Dedicated to Maurice Jessel whose discovery of the
mathematical unification of wave phenomena and the active control of
waves showed the way.

REFERENCES

1)  Marcer, P. J.; A proposal for a Mathematical Specification for
        Evolution and the Psi Field; World Futures, 44, pp 1 - 11, 1995.

2)  Marcer P. J. and Prof. Walter Schempp; The Brain as a Conscious
        System, joint draft paper.

3)  Schempp, W. J.; Mathematical Imaging and Vision, Quantum
        Holography and Neurocomputer Architectures; 2(27) pp 9 - 326
        1992

                    Copyright all rights reserved.

Further details from:

                           Dr. P. J. Marcer
                          Aikido Enterprises
                         53 Old Vicarage Green
                  Keynsham, Avon,  England  BS18 2DH

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