Goswami - Self-Aware Universe Physics & Psychic Phenomena

8/11/2019 Goswami - Self-Aware Universe Physics & Psychic Phenomena

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byIona Miller1993

fromTheSynergeticQabalaWebsite

Summary

Amit Goswami, PhD has proposed a theory of consciousness , rather

than atoms, as the fundamental reality o the material world. Based in the

philosophy of monistic idealism, he claims to obtain a cons istent

paradox-free interpretation of the new physics. He sugges ts a quantum

mechanical, as well as classical nature for mind, which accounts fornonlocal psychic phenomena.

MONISTIC IDEALISM

In searching for the fundamental basis of physical reality and the nature of the mind,Goswami(1993) has defined

consciousness as "the agency that affects quantum objects to make their behavior sensible." In choosing this

criterion he hopes to show how mind can effect matter non-energetically because they share the same essence.

By making the leap from a universe based on bits of matter, to one based in consciousness, he hopes to logicallyand coherently resolve some of the major paradoxes of physics. He suggests that instead of everything being made

of atoms, everything is made of consciousness. If quantum objects are waves that spread in existence at more

than one place, as QM has shown, then consciousness may be the agency that focuses the waves so we can

observe them at one place.

Goswami labels this philosophy,

"monistic as opposed to dualist ic, and it is idealism because ideas (not to be confused with ideals)

and the consciousness of them are considered to be the basic elements of reality; matter is

considered to be secondary."

Mental phenomena such as self-consciousness, free will, creativity, and ESP are explained anew in this

reformulation of the mind-body in a fresh context.

As in both the mystical view and holographic universe (such as that described byBohm), there is only the dynamic

play of one great webwork of existence (Bohm'sholomovement). This unified movement, a dance of creation and

annihilation, has intentionality.

However, Goswami does not propose that consciousness is mind; they are different concepts.

In monistic idealism, the consciousness of the subject in a subject-object experience is the same consciousness

that is the ground of all being. Therefore, consciousness is unitive. The domain of potentia also exists in

consciousness. Nothing is outside consciousness.

Buddha tells us that,

"There is an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed. If there were not this Unborn, this

Unori inated this Uncreated this Unformed esca e from the world of the born the ori inated the


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, , , , ,

created, the formed would not be possible."

But there is this essential ground, and it is possible to "escape" space-time, according to Buddha.

If the brain-mind is itself an object in a non-local consciousness that encompasses all reality, then what we call

objective empirical reality is within this consciousness. The one becomes many through self-reference,

fragmentation into tangled hierarchies of self-iterating information.

The trick is to distinguish between consciousnessand awareness.

In processes of which we are aware classical models prevail. When we consciously see, consciousness collapses

the quantum state of the brain-mind. Unconscious processing does not effect collapse of the quantum wave-

function, pinning down quantum entities to one reality. Thus, unconscious processing permits the expression of

non-local phenomena.

The situation in the brain-mind, with consciousness collapsing the wave function may only happen when awareness

is present. There is a tangled hierarchy within the immanent self-reference of a system observing itself.

An operation by a self-referential system is where the von Neumann chain stops.

THAT DARN CAT

Erwin Schrodingerreminded us that,

"Observations are to be regarded as discrete, discontinuous events. Between there are gaps which

we cannot fill in."

He illustrated his famous metaphor of the uncertainty principle with the conundrum ofSchrodinger's Cat. All

physics students eventually get tired of hearing about this stupid cat, over and over, pondering whether it will be

alive or dead.

Goswamihas tried to "put it to bed," with his "nine lives of..." version:

In the first life, the cat is treated statistically, as part of an ensemble. The cat is offended

(because its singularity is denied in this ensemble interpretation) but not wounded.

In the second life, the cat is viewed as an example of the quantum/classical dichotomy by the

divisive philosophers of macrorealism. The cat refuses to trade its life/death dichotomy for

another dichotomy.

In the third life, the cat is confronted with irreversibility and randomness, but the cat says,

Prove it.

In the fourth life, the cat confronts the hidden variables and what happens is still hidden.

In the fifth life, the neo-Copenhagenists try to do away with the cat using the philosophy of

logical positivism. By most judgments, the cat escapes unscathed.

In the sixth life, the cat encounters many worlds. Who knows, it may have perished in some

universe, but as far as we can tell, not in this one.

In the seventh life, the cat meets Bohr and his complementarity, but the question What

constitutes a measurement? saves it.

In the eighth life, the cat meets consciousness (of a dualistic vintage) face-to-face, but

Wigner's friend saves it.

Finally, in the ninth life, the cat finds salvation in the idealist interpretation.

Only three of these models are not flawed:

the many-world theory,

the theory of nonlocal hidden variables,

and that of monistic idealism.


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PHILOSOPHY OF CHOICE

The idealist resolution of the paradox of the cat's existence demands that the consciousness of the observing

subject choose one facet from the multifaceted dead-and-alive coherent superposition of the cat and thus seal its

fate.

The subject is the chooser, and choice is fundamental to existence:

"I choose, therefore I am."

Free choice means the possibility of jumping out of an old context into a new one at a higher level. The capacity for

choice, even recognizing choice, makes us conscious of the experiences we choose. From the myriad alternative

possibilit ies, we recognize the course of our becoming, and define our self. The primary question of self-

consciousness is to choose or not to choose.

More accurate than the old notion of the unconscious is that our conscious self is unconscious of most things

most of the time and of everything in dreamless sleep. Paradoxically, the unconscious is holistically, non-locally

conscious of all things all of the time. It never sleeps. OUR CONSCIOUS SELF IS UNCONSCIOUS OF OURUNCONSCIOUS, AND THE UNCONSCIOUS IS ACTUALLY MORE CONSCIOUS than normal awareness.

Unconscious thoughts and feelings affect our conscious thoughts. During unconscious perception, an unconscious

feeling can produce an unexplainable conscious feeling. According to Goswami, choice is a concomitant of

conscious experience, but not of unconscious perception. Our subject-consciousness arises when there is a

choice made. When we do not choose, we do not own up to our perceptions.

Before choice, the state of the brain-mind is an ambiguous state - like that of Schrodinger's cat. In quantum theory,

the subject that chooses is a single, universal subject, not our personal ego "I." Thus, this universal choosing

consciousness is also nonlocal.

Even if you introduce hidden variables to find a causal interpretation of QM (quantum mechanics), as David Bohmdoes, those hidden variables have to be non-local. In Bohm's theory, the light that projects the image of reality is

not the light of creative consciousness, but causal hidden variables - which current research suggests may be

deterministically chaotic, rather than probabilistic.

According to the idealist interpretation, violation to the EPR Paradox signifies non-local correlation between

photons. Hidden variables are not needed as an explanation. Of course, to collapse the wave function of non-locally

correlated photons, consciousness must act non-locally.

Therefore, simultaneously occurring events in our space-time world can be related meaningfully to a common cause

that resides in a non-local realm outside space and time. This common cause is the act of non-local collapse by

consciousness. Thus it is not a message transfer (from a sender through a channel to a receiver) but a

communication in consciousness. This has important repercussions for information theory, based in causality.

Non-local consciousness might seem like a "hidden variable", but it doesn't constitute causal parameters. It is

simply us! Non-local consciousness operates not with causal continuity, but with non-linear creative discontinuity

from moment to moment, event to event.

This discontinuity, the quantum jump out of the system, is the essential component of creativity needed for

consciousness to see itself, as in self-reference. It means we can exercise the freedom to be open to a new

context.

VIRTUAL DOMAINS OR FORMLESS POTENTIAL

According to the idealist interpretation, coherent superpositions exist in a transcendent domain as formless

archetypes of matter. Suppose that the parallel universes of the many-worlds theory are not material but archetypal


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.

Goswami postulates the need for an EPR-correlated quantum network, stating "It has to be there." Perhaps this isBuckminster Fuller's vector equilibrium matrix, and Thomas Bearden's zero vector summation, which describe

how matter "jitterbugs" into and out of existence in quantum "creationism."

According to this idealist interpretation, consciousness chooses the results of a single quantum measurement -

that is, nonlocal unitive consciousness. The intervention of the nonlocal consciousness collapses the probability

cloud of a quantum system.

In the manifest world, the select ion process involved in the collapse appears to be random, while in the

transcendent realm the selection process is seen as choice. Our consciousness chooses the outcome of the

collapse of the quantum state of our brain-mind. Since this outcome is a conscious experience, we choose our

conscious experiences - yet remain unconscious of the underlying process.

It is this unconsciousness that leads to the illusory separateness - the identity with the separate "I" of self-

reference (rather than the "we" of unitive consciousness). The illusory separateness takes place in two stages, but

the basic mechanism involved is called tangled hierarchy, which is a way of achieving self-reference. The self arises

because of a veil of discontinuity, an infinite oscillation. Out of discontinuity comes the veil and self-reference.

Mystics call it the Veil of Isis orThe Abyss.

The self of our self-reference is due to a tangled hierarchy, but our consciousness is the consciousness of the

Being that is beyond the subject-object split. There is no other source of consciousness in the universe.

The self of self-reference and the consciousness of the original consciousness, together, make what we call self-

consciousness.

EGO AND THE QUANTUM SELF

Before collapse, the subject is not differentiated from the archetypes of objects of experience - physical or mental.Collapse brings about the subject-object division, and that leads to the primary awareness of I-am-ness called the

"quantum self." Awareness of the quantum self also brings about collapse.

In Goswami's conceptualization, "the brain-mind is a dual quantum system/ measuring apparatus," through which

the universe becomes self-aware. The universe cuts itself in two - subject/object - terminating the von Neumann

chain. We resolve the von Neumann chain by recognizing that consciousness collapses the wave function by

acting self-referentially, not dualistically.

The old mechanistic concept was non-regenerative. Repeated measurement interaction leads to a fundamental

change in the brain-mind's quantum system. Each previously experienced, learned response reinforces the

probability of the same response over again. Learning (or prior experience) biases the brain-mind.

Before the response to a particular stimulus becomes conditioned, the probability pool from which consciousness

chooses our response spans the mental states common to all people at all places at all time.

In conditioned behavior, the dual quantum system/measuring apparatus becomes virtually classical. In the limit of a

new experience, the brain mind's response is creative. Experiences such as near-death can instantly release much

repressed unconscious conditioning, as does therapeutic ego death. The psycho-social contexts of living are no

longer absolute to the truly fluid identity.

When the creative potency of the quantum component is not engaged, the tangled hierarchy of the interacting

components of the brain-mind, in effect, becomes a simple hierarchy of the learned, classical programs. The ego is

an emergent property of our classical self. The quantum mode is equivalent to the "still point" within.

Thus, ego emerges out of the introspective interaction of our learned programs that result from our experience in the

world, but there is a twist. The separate self has no free will apart from that of the quantum self, and ultimately, that

of the unitive consciousness. Consciousness always leaves some room for unconditioned novelty, making possible

what we know as free will.


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This process can be viewed from a "top-down" epistemology or from a bottom-up theory that subject-object

consciousness arises as "order within chaos."

How or why does consciousness split itself?

The states of the brain-mind are considered to be quantum states, which are probability-weighted, multifaceted,

possibility structures. Consciousness collapses the multifaceted structure (a coherent superposition) choosing one

facet but only in the presence of brain-mind awareness, the mind-field in which objects of experience arise).

Which comes first: awareness or choice?

This is a tangled hierarchy which gives rise to self-reference, and subject/object split. Secondary-awareness

processes lead to intentionality - the tendency to identify with an object.

The "I" of reflective awareness also arises out of these secondary-awareness processes. Primary and secondary

processes normally remain preconscious, obscuring the tangled hierarchy of the primary process. At this primary-

process level there is no conditioning which means unrestricted freedom of choice.

Benjamin Libethas shown that even before a person experiences awareness of their actions (which is necessary

to free will), there is an evoked potential that signals an objective observer that the person is going to will to raise

his or her arm.

Interestingly, as we all know, we retain our free will to say no to raising an arm, even after the evoked potential

signals otherwise.

AH-HA! THE CREATIVE EXPERIENCE

In psychological terms, nature refers to unconscious instincts that drive us - libido; nurture refers to environmental

conditioning, much of which is also unconscious. A third leg is creativity, which in this context is a drive from thecollective unconscious.

Creativityis the creation of something new in an entirely new context. Newness of the context is the key. We have

access to the vast archetypal content of the quantum states of mind (the pure mental states) that extend far

beyond the local experiences within our lifetime. Creativity is fundamentally a nonlocal mode of cognition.

The creative act is the fruit of the encounter of the self's classical and quantum modalities, according to Goswami.

There are stages in its development, but they are all tangled-hierarchical encounters of these two modalities; the

hierarchy is a tangled one because the quantum modality remains preconscious in us.

The classical modality of the self, like the classical computer, deals with information, but the self's quantum

modality deals with communication. Thus the first stage of the play of creativity is the tangled play of information

(development of expertise) and communication (development of openness). It is tangled because you cannot tellwhen information ends and communication begins; there is a discontinuity in the "cosmic message."

Here the ego acts as the research assistant of the quantum modality - and it takes a strong ego (or fluid ego) to

handle the de-structuring of the old that makes room for the new.

In the second stage of creative illumination, the encounter is between the perspiration of the classical modality and

the inspiration of the quantum modality. When the brain's quantum state develops as a pool of potentialities in

response to a situation of creative confrontation, the pool includes not only conditioned states but also new, never-

before-manifested states of possibility.

Since our personal pool is statistically weighted by our memories we can minimize the mind's conditioning by

keeping an open mind to reduce the probability of (unconscious) conditioned responses, as in creativity. We can

increase the odds of manifesting a low-probability creative idea by being persistent. Persistence increases the

number of collapses of the mind's quantum state relative to the same question, increasing the chance to realize a

new potential.


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Creativity is enhanced if we confront ourselves with unlearned stimuli. Unlearned stimuli that seem ambiguous - as

in a surrealist ic painting - are especially useful for opening our minds to new contexts. Since conscious observation

collapses the coherent superposition, there is a certain advantage in unconscious processing. Uncollapsed

coherent superpositions can act upon others, creating many more possibilities for the eventual collapse.

The classical modality performs an equally essential function: It ensures the persistence of the will (the

perspiration). Hence, the traditional importance in Magickof subordinating the personal will to True Will. The

creative individual's ego has to be strong-willed to be persistent and has to be able to handle the anxiety associated

with unknowing - the quantum jump into the new.

A creative experience is one of the few times when we directly experience the quantum modality with lit tle or no

time lag. It is this encounter with primary process experience that produces the elation, the ah-ha, the creative act

of self-realization. It can lead directly to personal transformation of one's own context of living.

In outer creativity, quantum jumps enable us to view an external problem in a new context. In inner creativity, the

quantum jump allows us to break from established patterns of behavior, which together make up what is known as

character. Inner creativity means transpersonal experience, the uncertainty of being beyond the ego, which tends

toward death-like stasis.

So, for inner creativity, one develops and practices awareness of one's conditioning, becoming aware of inner-

growth potential. Transformation is an ongoing process, always defining an ever-more-compassionate context for

our being. Recognition begins the shift of identity to the quantum-atman, comprehending a new self-identity.

Creative quandaries, like the Zen koan, intensify a double-bind which dissolves the ego and facilitates a third state

of unbiased emptiness, wherein the probability pool of choice is extended to the creative dimension. The quantum

wave of our mind expands and is ready to embrace new responses.

There is, however, no self-nature, no independent existence, in either subject or object: Only consciousness is

reality, but how do we comprehend it? What is before collapse? The tangled hierarchy - the infinite chaotic

oscillation of yes-no answers.

The joy of meditative experiences is the original joy of consciousness in its pure form.

REFERENCES

Goswami, Amit and Richard E. Reed, Maggie Goswami: The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness

Creates The Material World. Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam Books, New York, 1993.

Return to Time Travel

Return to The Human Brain

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