Neurocosmology

Once the positivistic/escapist interpretation that human consciousness is epiphenomenal, i.e., accidental, is dismissed there are two possible approaches to the scientific study of consciousness. Bottom-up consciousness, from the individual organism or being to the universe, and Consciousness from the top-down, from the universe to the individual. These two approaches mark the outer boundaries of the present scientific search for a theoretical model of consciousness, even though Consciousness goes beyond science and moves into the realm of metaphysics. In any case, everything in between these two approaches is seriously muddled and clouded with speculations and metatheories that cannot be possible, which is common to the period preceding a scientific revolution. Some of those speculations and metatheories sound rather esoteric and even spiritual, which allows them to appeal to many people, but they would normally be considered non-scientific by definition if they were expressed for anything other than consciousness, which in itself presents a total mystery to science and the scientists who are willing to attempt to explain consciousness. On the other hand, what little concrete information science has at its disposal about consciousness does seem to match ideas in eastern mystical thought and in some cases earlier western ideas in Natural Philosophy that have been rejected by science, which further muddles the scientific quest for understanding consciousness. These ideas and concepts fit the qualitative aspects of mind that science normally associates with consciousness even better as well as the direct characteristics of consciousness, at least to the extent that such characteristics are known. Science needs to find a balance between them so it can maximize the effect of the next scientific revolution as well as the corresponding evolutionary leap in consciousness that is coming, but physics must simultaneously develop a working unified field theory to better define the universe in which consciousness of any kind, shape or form can and has developed.

Great strides have been made in the neurosciences over the past few years, especially in the areas of neurophysiology and neurophysics. In fact, the area of research called neurophysics has only emerged as a viable branch of physics in the past decade or two. The object of these researches goes beyond just discovering how the brain functions, but to actually discover the neural correlates of mind and consciousness. On the other hand, developing physical models of consciousness from the opposite direction of a theoretical rather than an experimental or observational direction has also become popular over the past few decades. Together, these two approaches have raised the possibility that science will soon understand enough about mind and consciousness to answer important questions that have haunted philosophical thought and metaphysical speculations for several millennia, the most important of which might be ‘How does human consciousness emerge within the brain? And ‘What is the relationship between consciousness and the greater universe?’ These questions represent perhaps the greatest and the most important mysteries of all science because they define who we are, where we have been and where we are going as an intelligent species.

Human and non-human living organisms have traditionally been reduced and studied as animate material bodies. Life has been defined by the mechanical structures and biochemical processes that sustain living organisms within this historical context, while mind and consciousness have been relegated to electrochemical interactions within the human brain. Yet physicists should view the body as a complex pattern of energetic material particle exchanges instead of the biochemical processes normally studied by chemists and biologists. The scientific view of life has recently expanded beyond its earlier limits as new research has concentrated on the electric, magnetic and electromagnetic characteristics of living material bodies as well as the brain. Yet the overall concept of life, in so far as life is something beyond the normal biochemical processes that sustain life, has not kept pace with these changes. Once these new research efforts have been taken into account, it is easy to demonstrate that life – the “life” or “vital force” as it was once called – can be equated to the overall matter/energy pattern of the organism. Some scientists call this pattern the biofield. Mind and consciousness can then be equated to the electric and magnetic counterparts of the matter/energy pattern of living organisms. Doing so does nothing to disrupt or disturb the current thinking that the ‘process of life’ is purely biochemical. In fact, all living organisms, from the simplest one-celled organism to the most complex living organism known, a human,  are extremely complex material/energy patterns (comprising the structural and biochemical body) superposed by the extremely complex electric (electromagnetic scalar potential) field patterns and magnetic (electromagnetic vector potential) field patterns that constitute minds and consciousness.

Given the present paradigms and attitudes that influence the continuing development of science, the undisputed recognition of paranormal phenomena seems no more than a "pipe dream" even though today's scientific establishment is more liberal than ever before. However, a 'pipe dream' does not represent a scientific impossibility. There now seems to be ample experimental evidence for precognition, telepathy, micro-psychokinesis and other forms of the paranormal, but paranormal phenomena will never be recognized as undisputed as long as this evidence flies in the face of our commonly accepted scientific theories and concepts of physical reality. So the key element necessary for the complete recognition of paranormal phenomena must be a theory that allows, and perhaps even requires, the reality of what we now regard the paranormal. This is an unpublished essay. As far as I know, the final entry date of the contest was extended twice and no winner was ever announced.

The ultimate goal of science is to find truth in its understanding of nature. Science progresses toward this goal by making accurate observations of events and phenomena in nature and developing hypotheses and theories to explain the observations. In a very real sense, there is only one nature and one universe, so all observations are tied together such that science is one even though it may be split into many different academic disciplines.  So it should come as no surprise that the smallest and simplest things in nature are intimately related to the largest and most complex things in nature.  It is the goal of science not just to explain all of these individual things by the most accurate and simplest theory possible, but also to explain their intimate relationships. As different as they may seem, life, mind and consciousness are intimately related to the birth and death of stars and galaxies as well as the whole of the universe. The deepest mysteries of physics, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, are intimately related to the simplest forms of life imaginable as well as the most complex and elevated consciousness that could ever be conceived. However, science has a major problem in trying to understand such concepts. It is limited by the human consciousness that stores and interprets the observations and data regarding all of physical and material reality. So in the end, science cannot understand the most basic and fundamental principles of reality, such as what is the nature of matter, unless it also understands the consciousness that is sensing, observing and interpreting the data it collects on matter and the world around it as well as the limits that each imposes on the other. Everything in science is intimately related because everything in nature is ultimately connected. There are no exceptions.

The theoretical study of consciousness needs to move in a new direction if it hopes to be successful. The first step is to take a logical look at how life, mind and consciousness could have evolved and then to find a physical theory of reality that could account for the specific characteristics of this evolutionary path.  When this is done, it has been found that: (1) Life, the proverbial ‘life force’, is a five-dimensional complexity of chemical reactions; (2) Mind is a second five-dimensional field complexity that controls life once it has evolved. Its evolution coincides with the formation of the brain; and, (3) Consciousness results from the evolution of a third level complexity. This complexity forms from the electrochemical memories stored in the brain and results from the formation of new resonance patterns within the five-dimensional mind.

In the past few decades, two new ‘crises’ for fundamental physics have emerged  by the observation of phenomena that indicate the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.  These are not problems which can be solved by quantum theory, but rather problems that are related to gravity theory as expressed by the general theory of relativity.  Numerous suggestions and hypotheses have been suggested to explain these problems, but no particular hypothesis or resulting model has proven satisfactory and no model yet proposed seems to be able to explain both DM and DE even though most physicists agree that the two should have a single common explanation.  However, one new model has emerged that is able to explain both DM and DE without any additional hypotheses.  Yet this  new model is not without consequences for the rest of physics and science.  Accepting this new model would mean accepting the existence of a fourth spatial-like dimension in addition to our normal four-dimensions of space-time.  Furthermore, the nature of life, mind and consciousness also emerge from this physical model which leads to explanations of both paranormal phenomena and the possibility that mind and consciousness survive death of the material body. This slideshow summarizes in equations the explanations of Dark Matter and Dark Energy based on the single field theory (SOFT), how they lead to the quantization of the single field as well as well as a total unification of physics out of which life, mind, consciousness and their consequences emerge.