What is it?
Really, people talk as if they'll be able to hold a monopoly on all their cognitive functions when their 'soul' goes to Heaven, but how would pure energy be able to have any form of sentience, let alone a human personality?

What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

What?
Strictly speaking, your eyes, skin, and mouth don't really do anything other than send data to your brain to analyze and interpret. Your brain is what tells your body what to feel, based upon the data it recieves. This all happens almost simultaneously.
This can be proven through such conditions as 'phantom limb syndrome,' where a person feels pain in a body part no longer attached to them.
The brain really is amazing.

Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

What?
Strictly speaking, your eyes, skin, and mouth don't really do anything other than send data to your brain to analyze and interpret. Your brain is what tells your body what to feel, based upon the data it recieves. This all happens almost simultaneously.
This can be proven through such conditions as 'phantom limb syndrome,' where a person feels pain in a body part no longer attached to them.
The brain really is amazing.

Okay, then what is it that gives life to the brain? That animates the body?

Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

What?
Strictly speaking, your eyes, skin, and mouth don't really do anything other than send data to your brain to analyze and interpret. Your brain is what tells your body what to feel, based upon the data it recieves. This all happens almost simultaneously.
This can be proven through such conditions as 'phantom limb syndrome,' where a person feels pain in a body part no longer attached to them.
The brain really is amazing.

Okay, then what is it that gives life to the brain? That animates the body?

Our bodies have no place for a 'soul.' They are amazing machines designed to animate ourselves until degeneration makes that impossible and we die.

Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

What?
Strictly speaking, your eyes, skin, and mouth don't really do anything other than send data to your brain to analyze and interpret. Your brain is what tells your body what to feel, based upon the data it recieves. This all happens almost simultaneously.
This can be proven through such conditions as 'phantom limb syndrome,' where a person feels pain in a body part no longer attached to them.
The brain really is amazing.

Okay, then what is it that gives life to the brain? That animates the body?

Our bodies have no place for a 'soul.' They are amazing machines designed to animate ourselves until degeneration makes that impossible and we die.

100 years ago mankind did not know of the existence of DNA, the relativity of time, infrared, and many more things.
How can you be sure there is no soul when mankind hasn't even reached full understanding of the nature of the universe and all it encompasses yet?

Man is an insect with regards to knowledge.

Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

), we have artificially reached out to other worlds. Look at how we apprehend reality with the sciences, and re-create reality with art. Look at industrial civilization. No, we're quite amazing creatures. And we'll continue to learn more, so long as we exist.

Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: Gatocamera wrote: Shad wrote: What is the soul?

Let me counter that question with another one:

What is it inside you that sees what your eyes see, that feels what your skin feels, that tastes what your mouth tastes?

), we have artificially reached out to other worlds. Look at how we apprehend reality with the sciences, and re-create reality with art. Look at industrial civilization. No, we're quite amazing creatures. And we'll continue to learn more, so long as we exist.

Can you not see our senses are limited? We may think we know all about the universe and life, but who is to say this is true? Do you have the eyes to see God?
We could just as well still be in the 'Human Middle Ages' regarding our knowledge. Perhaps in a 1000 years time people will look back on this period and laugh their asses off cause we thought we knew it all.

Shad wrote: An idea is an idea, you are the one calling it ignorant. I call it ignorant to even dismiss the possibility of the existence of a soul or a Creator. Mystics held us back perhaps in the Middle Ages, but not after that period. Mankind developed and learned to use technology in a time when the Church was still a force to be reckoned with.

Can you not see our senses are limited? We may think we know all about the universe and life, but who is to say this is true? Do you have the eyes to see God?
We could just as well still be in the 'Human Middle Ages' regarding our knowledge. Perhaps in a 1000 years time people will look back on this period and laugh their asses off cause we thought we knew it all.

No, there are justified ideas and there are unjustified, irrational ideas. The idea of a soul is irrational. There is nothing to suggest its existence, other than the trappings of old religious texts, when they did not understand how the human body works. And there is nothing to justify belief in a creator, either.

Of course our senses are limited, but you can't justify ideas by relying on the fact that we aren't omniscient beings. That is an insult to reason, and everything that has culminated in the technology we're using right now.
And no doubt people in 1000 years will look back at this time and think that we're positively primitive, but they'll no doubt appreciate the pioneering innovation that we made that ultimately made them possible, much as one appreciates Aristotle for his clarity of insight, and to Greek culture at large for being so noble and man-oriented.

Here's what a religious scientist has to say on the existence of the soul:

So, I come to the scientific proof for the soul.

I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
I am a physicist and I will explain how science and logic prove that the our psychical life is intrinsically transcendent with respect to material reality, which implies the existence of the soul (or spirit) as a supernatural component of man.
I think in fact that the more direct way to find the certainty of the existence of God is to try to understand our psychical life, that is our capacity to feel emotions, sensations, thoughts, self-awareness, etc.
We know that our brain is made only of particles such as electrons and protons, interacting through the electromagneic fields; every biological process is due only to chemical reactions, and in their turn, every chemical reaction is due only to the electromagnetic interaction among valence electrons.
Every materialistic attempt to explain our psychical life implies that what thinks, loves, suffers, desires ets. in us are objects such as electrons or electromagnetic fields.

The point is that objects can feel nothing at all ; objects cannot feel happiness, sadness, love, anger,self-awareness, etc.
Science has proved that the equations of the electromagnetic field are universal; they describe the electromagnetic field within our brain as well as within a copper wire or an atom.
There is no trace of consciousness, sensations, emotions, etc. in the equations of physics. These equations do not explain the existence of consciousness and our capacity to feel. If one hypothesizes that the electromagnetic fields are responsible of our sensations, emotions and thoughts, the only logical conclusion would be that also our television, our washing machine, etc. sometimes would be happy or depressed. In fact, from a scientific point of view there is no difference between the electromagnetic fields present in our brain and the ones present in those objects.

The claim that the electric impulses in our brain are or generate sensations and thoughts, is in contradiction with the laws of physics that consider equivalent all electric impulses, inside or outside our brain. In fact, an electric impulse is formed only by some electrons moving in a certain direction; according to the laws of physics, electrons are all equal and indistinguishable, and they are always moving in every material or electric circuits. To ascribe to the electrons in our brain the property to generate consciousness, and not to ascribe the same property to the electrons moving in a bulb, is in contradiction with one of the fundamental principle of physics, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, that establishes that all electrons are equal and indistinguishable, that is they have all exactly the same properties.

Besides, the laws of physics establish that electric impulses generate only electromagnetic fields; so the materialistic hypothesis that the electric impulses in the brain generate sensations, emotions and thoughts is in striking contradiction with the laws of physics. The electromagnetic waves generated by the electric impulses in our brain are absolutely equivalent to the ones generated by any other electric impulses; such waves go out of our brain and travel in the external space at the velocity of light, as every electromagnetic wave.
From a physical point of view our brain is only an object, and therefore it can have no psychical life; our psychical life represents a violation of the laws of physics. Every phenomenon which represents a violation of the laws of physics is considered a supernatural phenomenon ; therefore our psychical life is a supernatural phenomenon.
Materialists think that the electromagnetic field is the origin of our consciousness, feelings, emotions, etc., but they cannot explain why the same fields do not make our electric objects have similar consciousness, feelings, etc. ; their position is in striking contradiction with our scientific knowledges which prove that there is no difference between the electric fields inside our brain and the ones outside our brain.
If one supposes that the electric impulses in our brain were the origin of consciousness and emotions, the only possible logical consequence would be that every electric object has a psychical life and FEELS emotions, feelings, etc.

The properties of every molecule (including DNA molecules) and every biological process can be obtained directly from the laws of physics.
On the contrary consciousness, emotions, feelings, etc. cannot be obtained from the laws of physics; this is a further proof of the transcendent nature of consciousness with respect to the material reality.
Our psychical life is intrinsically transcendent with respect to the material reality, because it cannot be originated by objects (such as electrons or electromagnetic fields) ; our psychical life is then intrinsically supernatural.

Since our psychical life cannot be originated by objects such as electrons and electromagnetic fields, it means that our psyche (or mind, or spirit, or whatever you prefer) and our brain are two different interacting entities, and not the same entity. The psyche is the non-physical component of man.
Where did our psyche come from? How did our psychical life begin? Science proves that our psyche cannot have a physical or biological origin, which proves that the only answer is God.
In fact, I know that I exist, that I have not always existed and that I have not come into existence by myself;
these certainties are very evident by themselves and need not be proved.
I can then define God as the Creator of my psyche, He Who has made me exist as a psychical being, He Who has give origin to my psychical life.
In other words, my reasoning can be summarized as follows:
I FEEL my existence, therefore I exist as a psychical being (that is as a spirit).
I exist, therefore God exists and He is the Creator of my own existence.

Shad wrote: Here's what a religious scientist has to say on the existence of the soul:

So, I come to the scientific proof for the soul.

I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
I am a physicist and I will explain how science and logic prove that the our psychical life is intrinsically transcendent with respect to material reality, which implies the existence of the soul (or spirit) as a supernatural component of man.
I think in fact that the more direct way to find the certainty of the existence of God is to try to understand our psychical life, that is our capacity to feel emotions, sensations, thoughts, self-awareness, etc.
We know that our brain is made only of particles such as electrons and protons, interacting through the electromagneic fields; every biological process is due only to chemical reactions, and in their turn, every chemical reaction is due only to the electromagnetic interaction among valence electrons.
Every materialistic attempt to explain our psychical life implies that what thinks, loves, suffers, desires ets. in us are objects such as electrons or electromagnetic fields.

The point is that objects can feel nothing at all ; objects cannot feel happiness, sadness, love, anger,self-awareness, etc.
Science has proved that the equations of the electromagnetic field are universal; they describe the electromagnetic field within our brain as well as within a copper wire or an atom.
There is no trace of consciousness, sensations, emotions, etc. in the equations of physics. These equations do not explain the existence of consciousness and our capacity to feel. If one hypothesizes that the electromagnetic fields are responsible of our sensations, emotions and thoughts, the only logical conclusion would be that also our television, our washing machine, etc. sometimes would be happy or depressed. In fact, from a scientific point of view there is no difference between the electromagnetic fields present in our brain and the ones present in those objects.

The claim that the electric impulses in our brain are or generate sensations and thoughts, is in contradiction with the laws of physics that consider equivalent all electric impulses, inside or outside our brain. In fact, an electric impulse is formed only by some electrons moving in a certain direction; according to the laws of physics, electrons are all equal and indistinguishable, and they are always moving in every material or electric circuits. To ascribe to the electrons in our brain the property to generate consciousness, and not to ascribe the same property to the electrons moving in a bulb, is in contradiction with one of the fundamental principle of physics, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, that establishes that all electrons are equal and indistinguishable, that is they have all exactly the same properties.

Besides, the laws of physics establish that electric impulses generate only electromagnetic fields; so the materialistic hypothesis that the electric impulses in the brain generate sensations, emotions and thoughts is in striking contradiction with the laws of physics. The electromagnetic waves generated by the electric impulses in our brain are absolutely equivalent to the ones generated by any other electric impulses; such waves go out of our brain and travel in the external space at the velocity of light, as every electromagnetic wave.
From a physical point of view our brain is only an object, and therefore it can have no psychical life; our psychical life represents a violation of the laws of physics. Every phenomenon which represents a violation of the laws of physics is considered a supernatural phenomenon ; therefore our psychical life is a supernatural phenomenon.
Materialists think that the electromagnetic field is the origin of our consciousness, feelings, emotions, etc., but they cannot explain why the same fields do not make our electric objects have similar consciousness, feelings, etc. ; their position is in striking contradiction with our scientific knowledges which prove that there is no difference between the electric fields inside our brain and the ones outside our brain.
If one supposes that the electric impulses in our brain were the origin of consciousness and emotions, the only possible logical consequence would be that every electric object has a psychical life and FEELS emotions, feelings, etc.

The properties of every molecule (including DNA molecules) and every biological process can be obtained directly from the laws of physics.
On the contrary consciousness, emotions, feelings, etc. cannot be obtained from the laws of physics; this is a further proof of the transcendent nature of consciousness with respect to the material reality.
Our psychical life is intrinsically transcendent with respect to the material reality, because it cannot be originated by objects (such as electrons or electromagnetic fields) ; our psychical life is then intrinsically supernatural.

Since our psychical life cannot be originated by objects such as electrons and electromagnetic fields, it means that our psyche (or mind, or spirit, or whatever you prefer) and our brain are two different interacting entities, and not the same entity. The psyche is the non-physical component of man.
Where did our psyche come from? How did our psychical life begin? Science proves that our psyche cannot have a physical or biological origin, which proves that the only answer is God.
In fact, I know that I exist, that I have not always existed and that I have not come into existence by myself;
these certainties are very evident by themselves and need not be proved.
I can then define God as the Creator of my psyche, He Who has made me exist as a psychical being, He Who has give origin to my psychical life.
In other words, my reasoning can be summarized as follows:
I FEEL my existence, therefore I exist as a psychical being (that is as a spirit).
I exist, therefore God exists and He is the Creator of my own existence.

Typical creationist blather.

The Pauli Exclusion Principle states that two identical electrons can't exist in the same quantum state at the same time in any given atom. This depends upon the four quantum numbers, which determine what shape they will take from the propability cloud. So n=1, l=0, m=0, s=+1/2 is not the same as n=3, l=2, m=2, s=-1/2.

He is very right that classical physics cannot account for consciousness. But, I present to you an excerpt from a paper that you may find very interesting:

"Neuroscience of the 20th century was based on classical Physics. No surprise that it derived a view of the brain as a set of mechanical laws: that is the "only" view that classical Physics can derive. No surprise that it could not explain how consciousness arises, since there is no consciousness in classical Physics: it was erased from the study of matter by Descartes' dualism (that mind and matter are separate), on which foundations Newton erected classical Physics (the science of matter, which does not deal with mind). By definition, Descartes' dualism predicts that "mind" cannot be explained from matter, and Newton's Physics is basically an instantiation of Descartes’ dualism. Which means that Descartes’ dualism predicts that Newton's Physics cannot explain the conscious mind. Neuroscientists of the 20th century who were looking for consciousness missed that simple syllogism: they were looking for consciousness using a tool that was labeled "this tool does not find consciousness".

Neuroscience of the 20th century rested on the Newtonian principle that a physical system is made of independent parts which interact only with their immediate neighbors and whose behavior over time is deterministic. Within this paradigm, a mind is the product of a brain, which is one particular system of the many that populate the universe. This is a useful paradigm for the study of many material phenomena, but it is not what the Physics of the 20th century prescribed. It is what Physics prescribed a century earlier, before it was showed to be wrong.

Neurological descriptions of the brain that are based on Newton's Physics are based on a Physic that is known to have limitations at a small and large scale. 20th century neurologists assumed that the brain and its parts behave like classical objects, and that quantum effects are negligible, even while the "objects" that they were studying got smaller and smaller. What 20th century neurologists were doing when they studied the microstructure of the brain from a Newtonian perspective was equivalent to organizing a trip to the Moon on the basis of Aristotle's Physics, neglecting Newton's theory of gravitation.


Quantum Consciousness

If no theory of consciousness based on classical Physics is satisfactory in explaining how consciousness emerges from the electrochemical activity of the brain, then maybe the problem lies with classical Physics. Physicists began in the 1920s to advocate an approach to consciousness based on 20th-century Physics rather than classical Physics.

Loosely speaking, the point is that consciousness is unlikely to arise from classical properties of matter (the more we understand the structure and the electrochemical fabric of the brain, the less we understand how consciousness can occur at all). But, for example, Quantum Theory allows for a new concept of matter altogether, which may well leave cracks for consciousness, for something that is not purely material or purely extra-material.

Of course, the danger in this way of thinking is to relate consciousness and Quantum Theory only because they are both poorly understood: what they have in common is a degree of "fuzziness" that allows us to tinker with definitions.

The advantage of Quantum Theory, though, is that it allows for "non-local" properties and provides a framework to explain how entities get "entangled", precisely the phenomena that electrochemical brain processes are not enough to explain.

The unity of consciousness is a favorite example. A conscious state is the whole of the conscious state and cannot be divided into components (I can't separate the feeling of red from the feeling of the apple when I think of a red apple). Newton's Physics is less suitable than Quantum Theory for dealing with such a system, especially since Bell's Theorem proved that everything is permanently interacting. Indeterminate behavior (for example, free will) is another favorite, since Heisenberg's principle allows for some unpredictability in nature that Newton's Physics ruled out. And, of course, the mind/body dualism reminds Physicists of the wave/particle dualism. In fact, Descartes' dualism is less credible within the framework of Quantum Physics because, in Quantum Physics, matter is ultimately not a solid substance.


Quantizing the Mind

The pioneer of "quantum consciousness" theories was the Ukrainian chemist Alfred Lotka, who in 1924, when Quantum Theory was still in its infancy, proposed that the mind controls the brain by modulating the quantum jumps that would otherwise lead to a completely random existence.

The first detailed quantum model of consciousness was probably the USA physicist Evan Walker's synaptic tunneling model ("The Nature of Consciousness", 1970), in which electrons can "tunnel" between adjacent neurons, thereby creating a virtual neural network overlapping the real one. It is, Walker claims, this virtual nervous system that, according to Walker, produces consciousness and that can direct the behavior of the real nervous system.

Walker based his theory on two postulates: 1. Consciousness is real and nonphysical; and 2. Physical reality is connected to consciousness by a physically fundamental quantity. Walker believes that the quantum tunneling effect satisfies both postulates. He can even write the equation for consciousness (the number of electrons that, thanks to the tunneling effect, manage to connect two active synapses). Following the Hungarian physicist Eugene Wigner, Walker proposes to add a term to Schroedinger’s equation that would make it nonlinear and that would explain what causes the collapse of the wave: a measurement of information. This term would disappear once the measurement is performed. Basically, this term would signal the presence of the observer. By introducing the same "information term" in Dirac’s equation, Walker derives another possible interpretation: reality is consciousness observing itself. Dirac’s equation becomes simply the equation of an observer observing.

The "real" nervous system operates by means of synaptic messages. The virtual one operates by means of the quantum effect of tunneling (particles passing through an energy barrier that classically they should not be able to climb). The real one is driven by classical laws; the virtual one by quantum laws. Consciousness is, therefore, driven by quantum laws, even though the brain's behavior can be described by classical laws.

Later theories share with Walker’s the view that the brain "instantiates" not one but two systems: a classical one and a quantum one; the second one being responsible for the properties of mental life (such as consciousness) that are not easily reduced to the properties of the classical brain.

The British neurologist John Eccles speculated that synapses in the cortex respond in a probabilistic manner to neural excitation ("Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously To The Probability Fields Of Quantum Mechanics?", 1986). That probability might well be governed by quantum uncertainty given the extremely small size of the synapsis' microscopic organ that emits the neurotransmitter. Eccles speculates that an immaterial mind (in the form of "psychons") controls the quantum "jumps" and turns them into voluntary excitations of the neurons that account for body motion.

Drawing from Quantum Mechanics and from Bertrand Russell's idea that consciousness provides a kind of "window" onto the brain, the philosopher Michael Lockwood advanced a theory of consciousness as a process of perception of brain states. First he noted that Special Relativity implies that mental states must be physical states (mental states must be in space given that they are in time). Then Lockwood interpreted the role of the observer in Quantum Mechanics as the role of consciousness in the physical world (as opposed to a simple interference with the system being observed). Lockwood argued that sensations must be intrinsic attributes of physical states of the brain: in quantum lingo, each observable attribute (e.g., each sensation) corresponds to an observable of the brain. Consciousness scans the brain to look for sensations. It does not create them: it just seeks them.

There are also models of consciousness that invoke other dimensions. The unification theories that attempt at unifying General Relativity (i.e. gravitation) and Quantum Theory (i.e., the weak, electrical and strong forces) typically add new dimensions to the four ones we experience. These dimensions differ from space in that they are bound (actually, rolled up in tiny tubes) and in that they only exist for changes to occur in particle properties. The hyperspace of the USA physicist Saul-Paul Sirag, for example ("Consciousness - A Hyperspace View", 1993), contains many physical dimensions and many "mental" dimensions (time is one of the dimensions that they have in common).


Bose-Einstein Condensates

Possibly the most popular candidate to yield quantum consciousness has been Bose-Einstein condensation (theoretically predicted in 1925 and first achieved in a gas in 1995). The most popular example of Bose-Einstein condensation is superconductivity.

The fascination with Bose-Einstein condensates is that they are the most highly ordered structures in nature (before their discovery by Albert Einstein and Satyendranath Bose, that record was owned by crystals). The order is such that each of their constituents appears to occupy all their space and all their time: for all purposes the constituents of a Bose-Einstein condensate share the same identity. In other words, the constituents behave just like one constituent (the photons of a laser beam behave just like one photon) and the Bose-Einstein condensate behaves like one single particle. Another odd feature of Bose-Einstein condensates is that they seem to possess a primitive form of free will.

A Bose-Einstein condensate is the equivalent of a laser, except that it is the atoms, rather than the photons, that behave identically, as if they were a single atom. Technically speaking, as temperature drops, each atom's wave grows, until the waves of all the atoms begin to overlap and eventually merge. After they merged, the atoms are located within the same region in space, they travel at the same speed, they vibrate at the same frequency, etc.: they become indistinguishable. The atoms have reached the lowest possible energy, but Heisenberg's principle makes it impossible for this to be zero energy: it is called "zero-point" energy, the minimum energy an atom can have.

The intriguing feature of a Bose-Einstein condensate is that the many parts of a system not only behave as a whole, they become a "whole". Their identities merge in such a way that they lose their individuality.

It was thought that Bose-Einstein condensation could be achieved only at very low temperatures. In the late 1960s, the British physicist Herbert Froehlich proved the feasibility, and even the likelihood, of Bose-Einstein condensation at body temperatures in living matter (precisely, in cell membranes). This opened the doors to the possibility that all living systems contain Bose-Einstein condensates.

He argued that electrical charged molecules of living tissues behave like electric dipoles. When digestion of food generates enough energy, all molecular dipoles line up and oscillate in a perfectly coordinate manner, which may result in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Biological oscillators of this kind are pervasive in nature: living matter is made of water and other biomolecules equipped with electrical dipoles, which react to external stimuli with a spontaneous breakdown of their rotational symmetry.

The biological usefulness of such biological oscillators is that, like laser light, they can amplify signals and encode information (e.g., they can "remember" an external stimulus).

Above all, coherent oscillations are crucial to many processes of integration of information in the brain.

Quantum effects at the level of the protein (which is, after all, a biomolecular information processing system) were studied by Michael Conrad ("Quantum Molecular Computing", 1992), who argued that the molecules inside each cell might be implementing a kind of quantum associative memory.


Quantum Self Theory

The British psychiatrist Ian Marshall ("Consciousness and Bose-Einstein condensates", 1989) showed similarities between the holistic properties of condensates and those of consciousness, and suggested that consciousness may arise from the "excitation" of such a Bose-Einstein condensate. In Marshall's hypothesis, the brain contains a Froehlich-style condensate, and, whenever the condensate is excited by an electrical field, conscious experience occurs. The brain maintains dynamical coherence (i.e., the ability to organize millions of neural processes into the coherent whole of thought) thanks to an underlying quantum coherent state (the Bose-Einstein condensate).

Furthermore, Marshall thinks that the collapse of a wave function is not completely random, as predicted by Quantum Theory, but exhibits a preference for "phase difference". Such "phase differences" are the sharpest in Bose-Einstein condensates. This implies that the wave function tends to collapse towards Bose-Einstein condensates, i.e. that there is a universal tendency towards creating the living and thinking structures that populate our planet. Marshall views this as an evolutionary principle inherent in our universe.

In other words, the universe has an innate tendency towards life and consciousness. They are ultimately due to the mathematical properties of the quantum wave function, which favors the evolution of life and consciousness.

Marshall thinks we "must" exist and think, in accordance with the strong anthropic principle (that things are the way they are because otherwise we would not exist).

Marshall offered a solution to the paradox of "adaptive evolution", discovered in 1988 by John Cairns: some bacteria can mutate very quickly, way too quickly for Darwin's theory to be true. If all genes mutated at that pace, they would mostly produce mutations that cannot survive. What drives evolution is natural selection, which prunes each generation of mutations. But natural selection does not have the time to operate on the very rapid mutations of these bacteria. There must be another force at work that "selects" only the mutations that are useful for survival. Marshall thinks that the other force is the wave function's tendency towards choosing states of life and consciousness. Each mutation is inherently biased towards success.

His wife, the USA philosopher Danah Zohar, expanded on his theory. Zohar views the theory of Bose-Einstein condensation as a means to reduce mind/body dualism to wave/particle dualism: the wave aspect of nature yields the "mental" (conscious experience), whereas the particle aspect of nature yields the material.

Zohar is fascinated by the behavior of bosons. Particles divide into fermions (such as electrons, protons, neutrons) and bosons (photons, gravitons, gluons). Bosons are particles of "relationship", because they are used by other particles to interact. When two systems interact (electricity, gravitation or whatever), they exchange bosons. Fermions are well-defined individual entities, just like large-scale matter is. But bosons can completely merge and become one entity, more like conscious states do. Zohar claims that bosons are the basis for the conscious life, and fermions for the material life.

The properties of matter arise from the properties of fermions. Matter is solid because fermions cannot merge. Likewise, she thinks that the properties of the conscious mind arise from the properties of bosons, because bosons can share the same state and they are about relationships.

This would also explain how there can be a "self". The brain changes all the time and therefore the "self" is never the same. I am never myself again. How can there be a "self"? Zohar thinks that the self does change all the time, but quantum interference makes each new self sprout from the old selves. Wave functions of past selves overlap with the wave function of the current self. Through this "quantum memory" each new "quantum self" reincarnates past selves.


The Ubiquity of Consciousness

The USA physicist Nick Herbert thinks that consciousness is a pervasive process in nature. Consciousness is as fundamental a component of the universe as elementary particles and forces. The conscious mind can be detected by three features of quantum theory: randomness, "thinglessness" (objects acquire attributes only once they are observed) and interconnectedness (John Bell's discovery that, once two particles have interacted, they remain connected). Herbert thinks that these three features of inert matter can account for three basic features of our conscious mind: free will, essential ambiguity, and deep psychic "connectedness". Scientists may be vastly underestimating the quantity of consciousness in the universe.

The USA computer scientist James Culbertson speculated that consciousness may be a relativistic feature of space-time. He, too, thinks that consciousness permeates all of nature, so that every object has a degree of consciousness.

According to Relativity, our lives are world lines in space-time. Space-time does not happen: it always exists. It is our brain that shows us a movie of matter evolving in time.

All space-time events are conscious: they are conscious of other space-time events. The "experience" of a space-time event is static, a frozen region of space-time events. All the subjective features of the "psycho-space" of an observer derive from the objective features of the region of space-time that the observer is connected to. Special circuits in our brain create the impression of a time flow, of a time-travel through the region of space-time events connected to the brain.

Memory of an event is re-experiencing that space-time event, which is fixed in space-time. We don't store an event, we only keep a link to it. Conscious memory is not in the brain: it is in space-time.

The inner life of a system is its space-time history. To clarify his view, Culbertson presents the case of two robots. First a robot is built and learns German, then another robot is built which is identical to the first one. Culbertson claims that the second robot does not speak German, even if it is identical to the one that speaks German. Their space-time histories are different.

At the same time, Culbertson thinks that our consciousness is much more than an illusory travel through space-time, and it can, in turn, influence reality. Quantum Theory prescribes that reality be a sequence of random quantum jumps. Culbertson believes that they are not random but depend on the system's space-time history, i.e. on its inner life. "

Did anyone bother to read this?

Plushophile wrote: Did anyone bother to read this?

Exactly what I was thinking.

Plushophile wrote: Did anyone bother to read this? Bother to read what?

Gatocamera wrote: Plushophile wrote: Did anyone bother to read this? Bother to read what?
The 230 fucking pages that you and Shad just managed to post..