A Paradigm-shifting theory of how Meaning, Knowledge and Consciousness gets into the world
Is it not time for a shift in cosmological thinking and understanding?
The present author believes so and cites several plausible reasons why now might be the opportune moment for a shift in the ontology of physics from "reductionist particle atomism" to a more formal information-centered "meaning" and "qualia" ontology.
His reasoning is not solely based on frustration with the floundering attempts to reconcile classical and quantum physics, but also because serious rethinking about what might be missing from these two models has begun to mature and gain clarity.
The underlying question in this manuscript is how we can be certain that adding classical physics to quantum mechanics will lead to a unified theory of everything. After all Einstein famously said, ï ? ? €œthe quantum model, is incomplete. It fails to give us a full picture of the universe.ï ? ? € And this remains so even when it is added to all of classical physics.
The lingering suspicion is that we already know that "meaning" and "qualia" are among the critical missing components from the proposed additive framework.
However, there also is experimental evidence on the horizon that suggests a shift in ontology might offer a solution to this dilemma by filling the gaps.
For instance, experiments now demonstrate that the pure state of a quantum system can represent the state of consciousness. Moreover, one set of collaborators rather astonishingly has demonstrated that quantum physics can be derived entirely from quantum information postulates alone.
One of their new axioms allows for the claim that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon because it possesses all the characteristics peculiar to a pure quantum state: it exists in a definite, private, non-reproducible state that cannot be known by any other observer.
Furthermore, approaching quantum physics from the ontological perspective of information theory (already a kind of software without a hardware framework) brings us very close to an ontology of semantics, or meaning, which is the key to understanding consciousness.
Ruminating about a new cosmological model
While the first part of this book carefully rehearses the history of anomalies in quantum physics that led us into the current theoretical cul de sac, arguably nothing is implicated more in the failure to understand them than the role qualitative and active information may have played in their formation.
Claude Shannon's information measure, as useful as it has been to automation theory over the last half century, came with the drawback of having the reductionist fallacy built in. And thus, was always used narrowly, defensively and with a disquieting skepticism that always hinted that there must be more to it than just the inert measure of quantity alone.
It remains a mystery as to why we quietly accepted this obvious deficiency in the Shannon information measure when all along we knew that an inert one-dimensional measure of quantity was insufficient to account for the information extant in the universe. Consciousness itself is made up largely of active qualitative information.
Ignoring the theoretical implications of these most powerful aspects of information theory and its potential for measuring the universe of qualia and meaning may be one of the more important oversights in modern physics.
The theoretical framework put forth here does more than just hint that qualia and active information may be the missing link in the project designed to connect the large to the small.
Consciousness and Meaning: Do One-Cell Animals Think?
The author effectively drives home this point by posing a question that goes beyond mere rhetoric: How does a one-celled animal like the paramecium, devoid of a brain or even a nervous system, learn to navigate the world, sense food, avoid predators, locate mates, and reproduce?
Indeed, how does this lowly creature acquire the qualitative information, knowledge, purpose, and meaning essential for survival?
Furthermore, the existence of such sophisticated sensing abilities that have persisted since the dawn of cellular life raises the intriguing question of whether consciousness may indeed transcend biology.
If a single-cell animal can be considered proto-conscious, where does its brainless consciousness originate?
This raises pertinent questions about current theories that posit consciousness as an epiphenomenon of brain processing.
One possible answer lies in the idea that life emerged as an embodied cell, transcending the thermodynamic barrier into existence. This initial struggle for survival led to incremental improvements in reactive sensitivity and information sensing abilities over millennia. These gradual enhancements eventually resulted in structures and functions that proved beneficial for survival.
In the world of classical physics, these evolving sensing abilities, as animals interact with each other and their environment, undoubtedly form the fundamental building blocks of our knowledge tree.
In fact, a historical map of cellular evolution is nothing if not a catalog of incremental improvements in an animal's structures and functions, as well as in its sensing abilities, knowledge acquisition, information handling, and processing capabilities throughout its lifetime.
Another intriguing perspective is presented in this book by Professor Federico Faggin, a physicist-entrepreneur who has transitioned into the neurosciences.
Dr. Faggin proposes a series of paradigm-shifting hypotheses suggesting that consciousness may be an inherent component of our universe.
As a result, the axioms of his pantheistic theory of the universe flip matter on its head and derives physics directly from cognitive rather than strictly materialistic principles.
According to the postulates that form Dr. Faggin's theoretical framework, reality encompasses more than just inert particles of matter. It also includes active particles with an inner core of both irreducible quantitative informational content (manifested in symbolic form) and qualitative semantic content, which consists of conscious experiences.
In this new bifurcated ontology, meaning is introduced into the world through symbols that reside within the interior of matter particles. These symbols are then utilized by "conscious entities" known as Seities. The Seities employ them to communicate with each other and to explore their own private meanings. In fact, according to Dr. Faggin's theory, meaning exists solely for Seities to comprehend themselves.
Therefore, in addition to understanding that a pure state of a quantum system can represent the state of consciousness, mediated by Seities, it also explains how information, meaning, qualia, and purpose enter the world.
What is crucial to grasp about this ontological paradigm is its implications for information theory and quantum mechanics. If quantum mechanics indeed revolves around information (as it most assuredly does), then axiomatically, its information is not limited to the one-dimensional Shannon type (the quantitative only syntax of an unknown symbolic reality) but also is part of a reality whose information is isomorphic with quantum mechanics itself.
Under Faggin's postulated theory, consciousness emerges as a quantum phenomenon because it possesses all the peculiar characteristics of a pure quantum state, such as being definite and private, and incapable of being copied by any observer. Consequently, it should no longer come as a surprise that quantum physics can be derived entirely from quantitative information postulates.
Within each particle of matter in the universe, lies its true ontology: symbolic meaning, which is encapsulated within matter through the language of information and probability theory.
According to Dr. Faggin's theory, the meaning of existence resides within this deeper substrate of reality, manifesting as space-time in classical physics.
Conclusions
So, it is not difficult to conclude that two halves of a reductionist theoretical condominium do not quite add up to one whole grand universe. And increasingly, it seems that what is missing is becoming evermore clear to everyone: We cannot account for how consciousness, meaning and qualitative knowledge gets into the world no matter how these models are conjoined.
And while it is much too early to pass judgment on the merits of Dr Faggin's penetrating foray into a novel set of heuristics, his careful theorizing reopens a window already cracked open by Professor David Bohm among others to a new ontology, one that also concludes that everything in the universe is interconnected as a unit -- as a single expression of the divine oneness of nature and of reality itself.
Dr Faggin's contribution quickens the pace down a path increasingly likely to end in a breakthrough.
And from this lofty vantage point, it must be said that knowledge has always "existed," and will always exist as an integral part of the universe even before the paramecium came into being and will remain so well after it is gone.
Thus, the information and knowledge the paramecium needed to navigate the world came to it, a priori, as a cosmic given, as a fundamental constituent of our quantum universe. Five stars
