Scenario number three.
=.
Information / consciousness (like light quanta, electrons, atoms . . . . )
is a part of the Universe.
Book: “Why does the world exist?”. By Jim Holt.
“In the other words, maybe all of reality – subjective and
objective – is made out of the same basic stuff. That is pleasingly
simple hypothesis. But isn’t it a bit crazy? Well, it didn’t strike
Bertrand Russell that way. In fact, it was essentially the conclusion
Russell reached in “The Analysis of Matter”. Nor did it strike
the great physicist Sir Arthur Eddington as craze. In “The Nature
of the Physical World” (1928), Eddington ringingly declared that
“the stuff of the world is mind-stuff.” . . . . . “Craze or not, the idea
that the fundamental stuff of reality is mind-stuff has one very odd
implication. If it is true, then consciousness must pervade all of
physical nature. Subjective experience would not be confined to the
brains like us; it would be present in every bit of matter: in big things
like galaxies and black holes, in the little things like quarks and
neutrinos, and in medium-sized like flowers and rocks.”
/page 193/
“The doctrine that consciousness pervades reality is called
“panpsychism”. . . . . . . It seems to harken back to primitive
superstitions like animism - the belief that trees and brooks harbor
spirits. . . . . . Now, . . . .. . But the electrons, protons and neutrons
making up our brains are no different from those making up the rest
of the world. So the entire universe must consist of little bits of
consciousness. . . . .. Consciousness didn’t mysteriously “emerge”
in the universe when certain particles of matter changed to come into
right arrangement; rather, it’s been around from the very beginning,
because those particles themselves are bits of consciousness. “
/page 194/
“ . . . . . Combination Problem: how can many little bits of mind-stuff
combine to form a bigger mind?” . . . . . “How can many consciousness
be at the same time one consciousness?” . . . . . .
What sense does it make, they say, to conjecture that things like electrons
and protons are inwardly mental if you have to clue as to how their
micro- mentality gets unified into full- blown human consciousness?
But there are a few intrepid thinkers who claim they do have clue.
And it is supplied, perhaps surprisingly, by quantum theory. One of the
striking novelties of quantum theory is the notion of entanglement.” . . .
. . . Thus does quantum entanglement offer at least a hint of a solution
to the Combination Problem.”
/ page 195/
Roger Penrose himself has invoked such quantum principles to explain
how the physical activities in our brains generate consciousness. In
“Shadows of the Mind” he wrote that “the unity of a single mind can
arise . . . . only if there is some form of quantum coherence extending
across an appreciable part of the brain.” And he has since gone further,
endorsing the panpsychist notion that the atomic constituents of the brain,
along with the rest of physical universe, are structured out of mind-stuff.
“I think that something of this nature is indeed necessary,”
Penrose announced in a public lecture when the issue came up.” . . . . .
“ So does reality ultimately consist of mina - stuff? Is it no more
(or no less) than an enormous, infinitely convoluted thought, or even dream?
/ page 196 /
Book: “Why does the world exist?”. By Jim Holt.
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