The SMN Blog

Of Computers and Visual Perception

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:52:27 +0100

The vision researcher, Steven Lehar, challenges the computer/artificial intelligence view of the brain. He describes the problems that computers have with visual perception. Computers can detect edges in objects, and this is accepted as being one of the first steps in processing visual input into the brain. However, computers have difficulty in turning this data into useful information, because they detect too many features indiscriminately. They do not just detect relevant edges, but also much less important data referring to textures etc., without the ability of biological vision to determine the relative importance of different edges.

The three-dimensional processing of spatial structure is also argued to be a problem for computers, as evidenced by the difficulty robots have in navigating an irregular environment. Lehar traces this to the two-dimensional retinal image, with the position of objects in spatial structure being inserted by cortical processing that uses a spatial algorithm. To date, computers appear to lack this algorithm.

Famous Dalmatian and other examples: Lehar discusses some well-known images that for him serve to demonstrate that biological vision cannot derive from the bottom-up processing of edges. His first example is the image of a Dalmatian (spotted) dog against a speckled background, which some of us saw in a recent SMN lecture. Much of the edges of the dog are missing, so local information does not allow the observer to distinguish the dog from its background. Nevertheless, when the picture is viewed as a whole, the dog is clearly distinguishable. It is argued that this indicates that perception is based on global brain activity, rather than the sequential process of individual neurons analysing individual edges.

Other examples support the Dalmatian dog argument. With the Kaniza triangle, there are only three black marks printed on a piece of paper, but the brain distinguishes a triangle that does not actually exist in terms of the analysis of edges on the paper. Another example is 'invariant perception', or the ability to identify an object as the same thing in different lights or from different angles. In terms of bottom-up analysis of edges the objects are quite different, but the brain identifies them as the same object. In support of this position, it is pointed out that where the view of a picture is restricted to a few edges, human observers cannot distinguish between edges that are important to the outline of an object, and edges that are just texture. These examples as a whole are claimed to demonstrate that a form of top-down processing underlies human visual processing.

There are a number of suggestions as to how the brain might achieve this analysis. My own conclusion is that the huge number of possible solutions that have to be explored by a top-down search engine look to be well beyond the capacity of any classical computer, and this seems suggestive of a level of quantum computing in the brain.

Prosperity without growth

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:46:37 +0100

If there is one thing that is completely unarguable about how the future will need to pan out, IF we are going to a viable species in the long-term, it is that we will move beyond a paradigm for living that REQUIRES incessant growth. We KNOW that this change must come to pass because infinite growth on a finite planet, with finite resources, is impossible. It is arguably essential to maintain economic growth while the population is growing, but BOTH will have to stabilise, if we are to be sustainable.

Here is a publication that everyone should read:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf

Everyone should read it because it is all very well saying that we need to move beyond a growth-based paradigm, but we must then spell out HOW this is going to work. The above document goes some way to answering that question. Here is a quote from the Foreword to the document:

"Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.

This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems.

For the most part, we avoid the stark reality of these numbers. The default assumption is that– financial crises aside – growth will continue indefinitely. Not just for the poorest countries, where a better quality of life is undeniably needed, but even for the richest nations where the cornucopia of material wealth adds little to happiness and is beginning to threaten the foundations of our wellbeing.

The reasons for this collective blindness are easy enough to find. The modern economy is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. When growth falters – as it has done recently – politicians panic. Businesses struggle to survive. People lose their jobs and sometimes their homes. A spiral of recession looms. Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must. The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. It has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival. It has failed, spectacularly, in its own terms, to provide economic stability and secure people’s livelihoods."

Tim Jackson, Economics Commissioner, Sustainable Development Commission, March 2009

An interesting account of dowsing

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:15:00 +0100

The below account of an experience of dowsing helping retrieve a stolen object is fascinating. The speaker is Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, author of Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism and the Extraordinary Powers of the Human Mind. She is a psychoanalyst - writing the book seems to have been in large part a response to this anomalous experience.

In the talk she refers to 'the gorilla' - this is a reference to the famous perception experiment in which a person who is asked to do a counting task doesn't see a gorilla walk through the visual display they are looking at, because they are too focused on the task that they have been told to do.

An Investigation into Out-of-Body Experiences

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:27:04 +0100

What has always been fascinating to me are the books and texts about unimaginable spiritual things, written through experience, but without a well-defined source of where this information came from. If we look carefully, we can see that there have only really been a small number of these books throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand we have myriads of books that are discussions, ideas or studies about the things that these books have spoken of; some which contain brilliant theories and concepts. However, when you begin to read them, you can very easily see the difference between the first kind of books and the latter kind. The original ones touch you in a completely different way, I would say in a spiritual way, a deep touch in your heart, talking to your consciousness in a way that you cannot explain. The other ones touch your mind, creating complex ideas and processes that are intriguing and fascinating, but most of the times not truly profound. They can also touch your feelings, but this is a 'touch' in a more crude way not in a deep, elegant way. And I have seen how easy it is to get fascinated with the mind processes that this kind of touch creates, and how you can get trapped in a false reality created by you, a self-fascination which will even alter anything that you perceive through your senses.

In what I have mentioned you can see that I make a distinction between the mind and the consciousness, but I will probably refer more on my thoughts and experiences on that in the future.

In my search of the spiritual, I have been through many different groups and ideologies and religions, but what I was seeking wasn't what suits me most mentally or emotionally but what would give me the tools to be able to find and verify knowledge by myself. My scientific background and my PhD studies in Artificial Intelligence gave me a very practical foundation which helped me to seek out something solid, something that I could prove and experience and at the same time seek the roots of those experiences in infinite depth. Although along the way, I found out that you can be trapped in your own experiences and imprison yourself but again, this is a separate, but very important topic.

Through my spiritual search at some point I heard of out-of-body experiences, otherwise called 'astral' experiences, which referred to visiting other realities or dimensions and exploring entirely new worlds - including near-death-experiences. This attracted my interest a lot and thus I began a search, many years ago, to investigate this topic. I began to find many controversial and conflicting references to out-of-body experiences. For example, there were some sources which stated that it is dangerous or that it requires special guidance, while others mentioned that it is natural and happens every night (but unconsciously), and other similar ideas. I am sure that most of us have noticed that on a specific topic we can find very controversial references (and that can be explained by the second kind of books that I mentioned before) and usually we 'go' with what we like most, or with what we agree based on our knowledge or cultural background or based on what we have read and 'approved' in other books, which is most common.

And so I started my search on what those out-of-body experiences actually are. My goal was to be able to experience them by myself and to be able to investigate further into them. It was very difficult and painful in terms of the efforts that this process required, which involved a lot of dedication and a lot of practicing. However, no matter how strange it may sound, the concept I read was very simple and this was what made me try - it is that every night we are out of our body unconsciously in our dreams and that a conscious out-of-body experience is like going to bed but being fully aware of whatever happens, including the process of sleeping. The facts I knew were:

a) Every single day we sleep at least once every night - this sums up to about 1/3 of our lives that we have no idea what actually is happening.

b) Most of the times I sleep, I have dreams that I can remember, sometimes a few and sometimes more.

c) I had no idea what happens during the sleep, nor how I go from the awakening state to the sleep state (and I am talking about a direct experience of what happens and not scientific or any other kind of other explanations).

So based on these three facts, I started my investigation by trying to be observant every time I went to bed, trying to watch out for anything that happened and trying to see for myself the process of sleep. In the beginning, the results were that:

a) I would fall asleep during my 'observation' of what is happening, or

b) I would stay awake because I couldn't sleep by putting mental tension in my efforts

I realised that the simplest thing of watching your sleep, is actually an extremely difficult task.

I further continued to investigate how it works and found that what I observed with the process of sleep was related to the way I lived my day, to my concentration and my mental state, to the stable or unstable state of my thoughts and feelings. For example, when I lacked concentration in my day and had many scattered thoughts or daydreams, I noticed a repetition of this when I was falling asleep, with random thoughts interfering and pulling me quickly into dreams. On the other hand, when I tried to be clear and focused through the day, I noticed that my approach to sleep was much more calm and stable and my dreams much more coherent. It also happened that I started these investigations with some friends of mine that were studying that same topic at the same time, and this was another way to verify common understanding and experiences throughout this process.

After lots of efforts and discipline I started to have my first experiences of the process and what happens during sleep. In my first experience, many years ago, I was sitting on my armchair comfortably trying to sleep, focused on the process. At this point I was concentrated enough so I could stay focused without putting tensions, and naturally the body began to relax. After about 2 hours of effort, I was becoming very tired of the process but I kept insisting saying that I won't get up until I have an experience. Finally this effort was rewarded. After the 2 hours I began to feel sensations in my body, tickling sensations, vibrations and a deep sound that was increasing in density and loudness, but yet it wasn't annoying. I was just observing. At some point the vibrations were increasing a lot and I felt that it was like I was on a spring going up and down and after a while the vibrations stopped and I felt my body light and I was able to move it. So I opened my eyes, and tried to get up. I had some difficulty getting up in the beginning. It is difficult to describe how it was, but it was like something was pulling me from behind, and my vision was a little bit blurred. I tried to focus more to be able to see clearly, and so I did and the problems soon disappeared and I moved forwards from my chair. I could see the room as it is, and feel my body, but the feeling was slightly but yet profound different and the same for my perception. I had a unique clarity, the colours were more vivid, I could hear more and perceive more. It was strange, so I turned back to look at my chair and was very surprised to see my own physical body still there in the armchair! Although this was something very shocking, I was not shocked in a way that upset me.

I looked at the body I was conscious of being in and I realised that it was the exact same shape as my physical body but the feeling of it was more of a plastic feeling. After a while I couldn't stay focused anymore, thoughts began to come into my mind and I could see the environment begin to fade away. I felt a sudden pull back to my physical body and then I woke up in my chair. My observations from this first experience were:

a) Being in that different body, I felt more alive than being in my physical body

b) There was a sense of extreme perception and awareness

c) Clarity was very sensitive to thoughts or emotions that could create a false perception. In this moment I had my first insights that 'being ' is different from 'thinking'.

d) The environment was more vivid and with more details - even details not visible in the physical.

e) Waking up in the physical body didn't bring all this dizziness and lack of clarity or laziness we can have when we wake up from sleep. This was a very important observation that I will explain from my investigations on that in the future.

f) I felt like I had slept for many hours, fully awake and with a clarity that I rarely had while awake - that strangely gradually faded away. That was another important observation that created a lot of questions in me.

This first experience made me question a lot of things that I considered true and many things that I believed or had been taught throughout my life. I realised that in that different 'dimension' not only we can perceive our known physical world in a more deeper level, but we could also investigate non-visible worlds, dimensions and many other things.

It also made me completely change my way of sleeping - instead of going to bed to 'sleep' I was going to bed to 'investigate', trying to have a conscious 'sleep' instead of unconscious 'sleep'.

But however real this experience felt and was, it wasn't enough for my 'mind', I wanted more proof. And so I continued my investigations on out-of-body experiences.

A lot of experiences followed, amazing experiences which were the result of a lot of experiments and investigations I did to prove if this was something of my mind or not. In another post I will mention a few of the more intriguing experiences I had in my efforts to verify the reality of this different plane or dimension...

Richard Dawkins and the birth of consciousness.

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:29:53 +0100

I thought I would post this correspondence with myself and “The Forum” on Richard Dawkins’ website, on the Scimednet forum and see whether I get more intelligent discussion.

{My original post to the forum ...}

“I sent this to Richard a week or so ago and have not had a reply, so I thought I would post it here and hopefully initiate some discussion.

Dear Richard

I heard you speak to Kate Turkington on Talk Radio 702 South Africa on Sunday evening and was very interested to hear you say that "consciousness" may have evolved in much the same way as physical life (bacteria, cellular structures and eventually large animals like humans). I think I have the context correct.

Have you investigated this to any degree? I am aware that just the term "consciousness" is fraught with many definitions, interpretations and philosophies, but if one sticks to the perhaps simplest, which I would think of as "having an imaginative/creative faculty which is capable of self investigation in areas of emotion and reason", there must have been a time (or defined stretch of time) between year zero at the "big bang" and now when a specific evolving cellular structure (whatever form it was in at that time) suddenly had a vague glimpse of a different ability of perception other than mostly reactive to the environment.

This is presuming of course that we possess "consciousness" and are not some highly sophisticated automata!

I was impressed with your logical progression of thought in understanding our development from simple to complex physical forms and would be grateful (if this is not in your sphere of interest) if you could point me to any relevant fields of research into evolution of "consciousness" from a purely scientific viewpoint. If it is an area of study for you, have you written or published anywhere where one could read further?

I think (with my presumed "consciousness") that this could be the "missing link' between biology and "rational" philosophy and would be a very interesting area of study.”

{A FEW WEEKS LATER, THIS IS THE ONLY REPLY TO MY POST}

“According to this Wikipedia article, it's to do with thought process being split between the left and right brain. Communication between these semi-autonomous regions being responsible for the perception of consciousness. It's not so much the difference between the human brain and the lower primates as in in the degree of differentiation of brain processes.”

With a reference to this wikipedia link:-

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

{MY REPLY .......}

Interestingly Prof Dawkins says of Julian James's book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, to which this link goes ~ "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets."

James theorises that "human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago,"

I (and a number of others) find this a very tenuous link. Nothing distinctly significant seems to have occurred on a social level specifically around this period in history. And this does not address the long history of global primitive rock art beginning at least 40,000 years ago, which must have required some element of conceptual reasoning, imagination, structural memory and belief in abstract entities.

The idea that the human mind (the definition of which is still open to debate) suddenly made this jump, in some way analogous to the understanding of perspective in Renaissance art has no real basis.

"Brian McVeigh maintains that many of the most frequent criticisms of Jaynes' theory are either incorrect or reflect serious misunderstandings of Jaynes' theory, especially Jaynes' more precise definition of consciousness. Jaynes defines consciousness — in the tradition of Locke and Descartes — as "that which is introspectable***." Jaynes draws a sharp distinction between consciousness ('introspectable mind-space') and other mental processes such as cognition, learning, and sense and perception — which occur in all animals. This distinction is frequently not recognized by those offering critiques of Jaynes' theory."

****Using this definition and taking the development of primitive art into account, consciousness would have emerged some 30-40,000 years ago.

Thanks to Wikipedia for these references. (Have you donated to Wiki to help keep us informed about almost anything?)

Mind ...... is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness.

Theories of mind and its function are numerous. Earliest recorded speculations are from the likes of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic philosophers. Pre-scientific theories grounded in theology concentrated on the supposed relationship between the mind and the soul, our supernatural, divine or god-given essence. Most contemporary theories, informed by scientific study of the brain, theorize that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain which has both conscious and unconscious aspects.

and epiphenomenon........

In philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that mental phenomena are epiphenomena in that they can be caused by physical phenomena, but cannot cause physical phenomena. In strong epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can only be caused by physical phenomena, not by other mental phenomena. In weak epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can be caused by both physical phenomena and other mental phenomena, but mental phenomena cannot be the cause of any physical phenomenon. (my italics) I find this difficult to understand as my blood pressure and respiratory function usually change when I think of Penelope Cruz; sometimes I may be so distracted as to stumble into coffee tables.

The physical world operates independently of the mental world in epiphenomenalism; the mental world exists as a derivative parallel world to the physical world, affected by the physical world (and by other epiphenomena in weak epiphenomenalism), but not able to have an effect on the physical world. Instrumentalist versions of epiphenomenalism allow some mental phenomena to cause physical phenomena, (the Penelope Cruz effect) when those mental phenomena can be strictly analyzable as summaries of physical phenomena, preserving causality of the physical world to be strictly analyzable by other physical phenomena.

Quantum coherence in living organisms at room temperature - Implications for quantum computing and quantum consciousness

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:27:55 +0100

A paper in the leading peer-reviewed journal 'Nature' refutes what has been the central tenet of the argument against quantum consciousness theories, to the effect that quantum coherence could not be sustained in living matter for long enough to play any role in its processing. It seems possible that this low-key paper could in time come to be seen as one of the decisive studies of the 21st century. This work shows that room-temperature quantum coherence can occur in biological matter, in contradiction of the previous dogma that this was impossible. In 2007, Engel et al had shown that coherence was possible in organic matter, but this was only demonstrated at very low temperatures, whereas the latest study by Elizabetta Collini et al demonstrates similar activity at ambient temperature.

One surprise is the rapid and prominent coverage given to the Collini study at the more popular level, in the form of a useful summary by Kate McAlpine in the 'New Scientist'. She mentions that Engel is enthusiastic about the Collini result, and he is quoted as saying that there could be implications for quantum computing, where a core problem has been the requirement to operate at the very low temperatures that are usually thought necessary to maintain quantum coherence. The speed with which this work has been picked up and given prominence suggests a background change of attitude to the question of coherence in protein. Consciousness is not mentioned, but the suggestion of protein as a model for quantum computing is moving us in that direction.

Engel has speculated that long-lived quantum coherence allows for a more efficient search for a lowest energy state, thus enhancing energy transfer across protein units. However, there remains uncertainty, as to how quantum coherence can persist in biological matter. One suggestion is that the expected rate of decoherence is slowed by correlated motions in the surrounding environment, possibly involving covalent bonds between the photosynthetic light-harvesting molecules and the protein backbone of the organism.

Enlightened Prince?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:33:00 +0100

Prince Charles has now declared himself an enemy of the Enlightenment http :// www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7013764.ece . He doesn’t say which of its fruits he dislikes; whether it be free speech, modern science, liberal democracy, human rights (abolition of slavery), women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights or the constitution of the United States; and neither does he say with what he would replace reason as the guiding principle – except perhaps some vague concept of ‘holism’, too ill-defined to be capable of being judged rational or not. But he thinks that the time has come for Enlightenment ideas, now two hundred years old, to be re-examined (never mind that those of hereditary monarchy are even older).

What I doubt that he realizes though is that these ideas are being examined and developed by a lot of serious people. As one example, I would commend http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0 This was an event that took place a couple of years ago, and involved over thirty world-class speakers. The introductory blurb says the following:

The aim of Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 is to invite participants to undertake together an ongoing reconnaissance of Enlightenment ideas in the light of advances in primarily cognitive neurosciences, evolutionary biology, physics etc. though not by any means scanting history, philosophy, law. The word reconnaissance is used advisedly. The hope is to explore our current sense of Reason, Truth, Belief, Human Nature, Progress, Virtue and the Good Life in this light. It could be argued that the Enlightenment was not quite the disaster that some critics have suggested, and that version 2.0, and subsequent releases, could conceivably be a dynamic improvement if we set our minds to it, guided by that eudaemonic impulse.

It was a three day event, so will require stamina to watch it all, but just dipping in would be worthwhile.

Lecture for the Society For Psychical Research - Thursday 4th February 2010

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:36:00 +0100

Some of you may have read the review of my book "The Daemon - A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self" in the latest edition of Network Review. If this has interested you in my "angle" on things you may be interested to know that the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) are also intrigued by the implications of my "Cheating The Ferryman" hypothesis and have invited to give a talk for them in the lecture room at Kensington Central Library. This will take place tomorrow (Thursday 4th February 2010) starting at 1835. I will be talking for about an hour and then there will be the opportunity for questions and a short mingling session over tea and biscuits. This will finish at 21:00. This is a fully "open" event so if you have nothing better to do why not pop along?

Indeed at present I am up at Cambridge University Library going through the letters sent to J.B. Priestley after his Monitor TV programme request in March 1963. Priestley had discussed the time theories of J.W.Dunne during the programme and had explained how he had applied these theories to his own work. At the end of the programme Priestley asked the public to send him any experiences they may have had regarding precognitive dreaming or time perception oddites.

A few months ago I met up with Priestley's son, Tom. Tom was interested in my ideas and suggested that I should take a look at the letters that his Father subsequently received from his 1963 request. I contacted the SPR and, as a member of that organisation, I have been given access to all of the responses, presently located in the manuscript archive at the university library. Priestley used about twenty of these letters in his book "Man & Time" but the rest, I was informed, have languished, unread up in Cambridge.

I have now spent three days working through the responses (by my calculation there are about 1,200 individual letters). I am finding them to be an absolute treasure-trove of anecdotal evidence for the paranormal. All of the letters I have read thus far are written by ordinary people describing extraordinary experiences. It is also a fascinating exercise in social history.

It is my intention to write a book based upon these experiences. If I have time I will talk a little about them tomorrow evening.

Is nuclear fusion our best hope?

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:34:00 +0100

While climate change and energy reform campaigners focus on the potential of renewable energy sources that come direct from nature, such a wind and solar power, scientists have been quietly making huge strides towards the possibility of nuclear fusion and its potential as an energy source. In the climate change and environmentalist movements, there tends to be a back-to-basics, nature-based sensibility that can prevent focusing on cutting-edge technological breakthroughs as real solution to the energy and environmental crisis. Yet, a news item emerged last week that, for a change, was genuinely GOOD news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8485669.stm

It seems that scientists have made significant strides towards creating nuclear fusion in a laboratory setting. It is important to grasp the scope of what nuclear fusion as an energy source would bring to our little planet. It would mean an "inelastic" source of energy with abundant source materials, little pollution and no carbon emissions. It has been estimated that with fusion, 100 times the current energy consumption of the world is possible. Therefore not only could it mean energy demands are met, it could also take on the job of fresh water supply, by proving the energy required for large-scale desalination. In 2006 The New Scientists estimated that nuclear fusion power was a century away. With the latest breakthrough, it could be less than that, it could be in our lifetime. It would help usher in a new era of human existence, as for centuries humanity has been defined by meeting energy sources by raping the planet's natural resources. Perhaps our time will be known as the Oil Age. Perhaps nuclear fusion will help to bring about its demise. In another life, I would have loved to have committed my life's energies to helping realise nuclear fusion power. Here is the website of ITER, the international fusion organisation, which gives further information and science on fusion:

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

Dr Olly Robinson

What's wrong with the world?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:24:48 +0100

Stephen Hester, group chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, stands to pocket £10million this year. British aid to Haiti is £6.1million. This world is not OK.

Idealism East and West - Keith Ward

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:05:00 +0100

Keith Ward speaks articulately in this free podcast on idealism - the philosophy that the underlying and fundamental reality is conscious, mental, spiritual. There are parallel traditions of idealism in the East and West, and Ward here discusses their respective nature and their influences on one another. Interestingly, not only did Enlightenment philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Hegel admit to being influenced by Indian philosophy, but Indian philosophy has been influenced by German idealism too - "Neo-Vedanta" is a school of Indian philosophy that has been influenced by this European empirical tradition.

Ward rightly says that idealism is not fashionable nowadays, but that idealists are a growing band in Western philosophy, and he mentions quantum physicists such as Roger Penrose and Amit Goswami who postulate the fundamental nature of consciousness.

The interview lasts 20 minutes, and is well worth a listen. Go to the following page, and click on the link: Listen to Keith Ward on Idealism in Eastern and Western Philosophy (if you are using Internet Explorer, right click and go to 'Save Target As' to save it to your computer and then play it.

http://philosophybites.com/2009/02/keith-ward-on-idealism-in-eastern-and-western-philosophy.html

Panpsychism - for and against

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:26:00 +0100

Panpsychism - for and against

I have recently had a chance to look at some of the work of the philosopher, Galen Strawson, who argues for panpsychism as a way of explaining how consciousness arises. Interestingly, his argument as to the difficulty of extracting consciousness from physical matter is almost the same as the reasoning that has caused other researchers to look to quantum theories of consciousness for an explanation.

Strawson starts from the assumption that the universe is entirely physical, with consciousness as a part of this physical universe. He accuses mainstream thinkers and particularly Dennett, of being closet Cartesians, in that they have an underlying assumption that consciousness is non-physical. This means that because they believe that nothing other than the physical exists, they are forced to deny the existence or at least the efficacy of consciousness. However, if we really view the universe as wholly physical, consciousness cannot be treated as a separate category of existence. Strawson says that when matter is put together in the particular way that occurs in brains, conscious experience occurs. Given the fact that subjective experience arises out of a particular conformation of matter, he argues that there must be something experiental in matter.

Strawson also attacks the fashionable idea of consciousness as an emergent property. These are common in physics, and Strawson examines the classic example of the liquidity of water. Liquidity is not a property of individual water molecules, nor their constituent atoms, nor the sub-atomic components of the atoms. It only arises when a number of water molecules slide past one another in a manner governed by the elctromagnetic force. Strawson argues that, if conscious experience emerges from non-experiental matter, it should be explained in a similar manner to liquidity, that is by reference to the underlying forces of nature. The only way out of the matter-consciousness problem that Strawson can see is the panpsychist approach of endowing all matter with an experiental quality.

The main problems with the panpsychist position are the lack of direct evidence for anything experiental in inanimate matter, and the difficulty of binding all the experiental particles together into a conscious mind. Strawson's view is that just as the physical laws allow liquidity to arise from water, there is no reason why forces should not exist that allow experience to arise in a similar way. This seems logically possible, but leaves a considerable gap between existing knowledge and what we are looking for.

At least some versions of quantum consciousness may claim to deal with the problems in panpsychism. In quantum theories, the quanta can reasonably be seen as proto-experiental, in that while not being conscious in themselves, they have the potential to give rise to consciousness. At least in the Penrose-type versions, quantum consciousess also gets over the problem of how many small experiental or proto-experiental particles bind together into a mind, by proposing the existence of macroscopic quantum features in the brain.

Is Dawkins softening up?

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:21:37 +0100

On Sunday 27th, a programme entitled Tsunami: Where Was God? was broadcast on Channel 4. It was an engaging documentary putting a contemporary spin on the arguments surrounding God, religion and suffering. Mark Dowd, the presenter, is a Catholic, and so is arguably not the most impartial of commentators. However overall, he presented an interesting and clear-speaking take on the issue. Towards the end of the programme, he interviews Richard Dawkins, who I was expecting to be as intransigent as ever in his hard-edged atheist position, so I was surprised when Dawkins said:

“The kind of God that I would respect people for believing in would be the kind of God of the deists, who set the universe up in the first place, who set up the laws of physics, perhaps in such a way that it would bring the conditions for evolution into existence, something of that sort, but that kind of grand God of the physicists is not the kind of God who is going to be the slightest bit interested in listening to the odd prayer.”

You can watch the programme using the following link until the end of January, and can see the Dawkins clip at 1 hr 26 minutes into the programme.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tsunami-where-was-god/4od#3018059

Dawkins in this interview gives a certain credibility to a deist God. Deism has a respectable history in the modern era ever since enlightenment philosophers such as Thomas Paine and many of the founding fathers of America expressed this philosophy/theology. It is a philosophy that says you do not need faith and scripture to find God, you need reason and clear thinking, for there are strong arguments to be found in the world around us. Find out more about deism here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Dr Olly Robinson

The World As I See It - Albert Einstein

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:34:00 +0100

The World As I See It - Albert Einstein C A Watts 1935

I came across this copy in a second-hand bookshop and was heartened to read in the entry "Religion and Science" that Einstein had a very contemporary opinion on this subject.

He observes society moving from a primitive fear based "understanding of causal connections"

"I am speaking now of the religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilised by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis."

"Social feelings are another source of the crystallisation of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence who protects, disposes, rewards and punishes........"

He sees "the development from a religion of fear to moral religion as a great step in a nation's life. That primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilised peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that they are all intermediate types, with this reservation, that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates."

"Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. Only individuals of exceptional endowments and exceptionally high-minded communities, as a general rule, get in any real sense beyond this level. But there is a third state of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form and which I will call cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it."

He expands on the historical conflict between science and religion ... "it is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research."

"The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole."

He goes on to make a case for the scientist who "is possessed by the sense of universal causation... whose religious feeling takes the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work .... it is closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages."

Robert de Vos, Cape Town, South Africa

Reclaiming conscious agency

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:48:00 +0100

This reviews a recent paper by Alexander Batthyany, which looks at the implications of experiments by Benjamin Libet and more recently C.S. Soon, for the existence or otherwise of freewill. Libet's subjects were asked to make voluntary finger movements. The experiments showed that a readiness potential was detected in the brain 350 milliseconds before a movement, while the subjects were aware of their conscious intention to act only 200 ms before the movement. Therefore, neuronal activity preparatory to movement happened 150 ms before conscious awareness of the intention to act.

Libet himself did not support the view that his experiments showed that there was no such thing as conscious will. He found that some subjects reported an urge to action, which they nevertheless decided not to carry out. On this basis, Libet took the view that conscious will could operate a veto on urges arising from earlier readiness potentials in the brain. The impulse from the readiness potential could be vetoed in the 200 ms interval between conscious awareness and action. This idea allows consciousness some causal efficacy, and this very definitely places Libtet's view outside of mainstream consciousness thinking. Researchers and commentators in the freewill area are not always aware of Libet's personal interpretation.

With Soon's experiment, it was claimed that there was no evidence for the veto function suggested by Libet. However, Batthyany argues that this experiment was set up in such a way that the veto capacity was unlikley to be manifested. In the Libet experiment, subjects had been allowed to ignore their initial urge, wherreas in the Soon experiment, they were instructed to act immediately, in response to the first urge.

A variety of arguments are put forward against the view that the Libet/Soon experiments constitute a refutation of the existence of freewill. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, urges or experiences of which we are passively aware, and on the other, actively created intentions and actions. Examples of the passive kind of experience or desire are hunger or preferences for particular types of food. Such things are consciously experienced, but are not felt to have arisen from any act of conscious will or decision. In other cases, however, the conscious awareness of an intention or an action is felt as arising from the conscious will. Even in mainstream thinking it is usually accepted that this is what it feels like, but here, the feeling is taken to be an illusion.

Batthyany argues that the Libet/Soon experiments only study the passive and not the active type of experience, and these experiments are therefore invalid in respect to the debate about the existence of freewill. The instruction in the Libet experiments to wait for an urge to act is argued to fall into the category of a passive desire, rather than a willed intention. On this basis, Libet's experiments are argued to merely confirm the intuitive feeling that passive desires such as hunger are not consciously willed. In merely referring to such passive urges, the Libet/Soon experiments are argued to tell us nothing about the nature of consciously willed intentions or actions.

Soon's study closely follows Libet, but with the additional feature of the subjects having to press one of two buttons with their left or right index finger. Activity relative to this decision was found to precede the action by up to ten seconds. In 60% of cases, the researchers were able to predict which button the subject would press. Much has been made of the statistically significant 10% margin over chance. However, the author argues that because there is no apparent reason to choose on option over the other, this choice will also end up being the result of a passive urge, and is therefore also irrelevant to the question of freewill.

Batthyany's criticism of Libet-type experiments, to the effect that they do not deal with actively willed decisions, but only with passive urges, overlaps with my own criticism of the Libet based argument against freewill, to the effect that they only deal with the trivial type of actions that are very often performed on autopilot, and too conveniently ignore the more deliberative, strategic or long-term decisions that might be thought to be more relevant to the question of freewill.

Religious eclecticism and pluralism in America

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:22:11 +0100

A recent survey in the USA has suggested a high percentage of Americans hold 'non-traditional' religious beliefs in which eastern and western beliefs are mixed eclectically. Meanwhile, a very high percentage endorse the idea that many religions can embody truth. A survey by the polling organisation Pew, reported in USA today, highlights these surprising statistics:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-12-10-1Amixingbeliefs10_CV_N.htm

Perhaps unsurprisingly, America is an overwhelmingly theistic country, with 92% in the survey expressing a belief in God, however defined. Encouragingly, 70% responded that many religions can lead to truth in some way, suggesting that the evangelical Christan message that Jesus is the ONLY way is not the dominant belief in the USA. This is just as well, for it can only lead to intolerance and prejudice.

As for the eclecticism, a third of Americans attend spiritual places of worship outside of their own faith. 24% of respondents believe in rebirth, including the same proportion of Christians. 25% endorse astrology, again with the same proportion of Christians. 23% think of yoga as a spiritual practice. 29% said that they have been in touch with the dead, while 26% described finding spiritual energy in trees and nature.

This implies a less doctrinal, more flexible, approach to spiritual beliefs in the USA. It also suggests an openness to experimenting with religious beliefs that can only happen in the absence of rigid dogma.

The survey also finds that over 50% of Americans report a mystical experience. So if you were wondering why America is such a religious country, maybe there's your answer.

Horizon: the challenge of population growth

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:43:18 +0100

There was a superb programme on last night, on the challenge of population growth for our survival as a species. It is viewable in full on BBC I-Player:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pdjmk/Horizon_20092010_How_Many_People_Can_Live_on_Planet_Earth/

It makes a strong case that stemming the rise in human population over the next 30 years, or somehow developing technologies that enhance food and water provision massively, are the biggest challenges facing humanity today. In the lifetime of the programme's presenter, David Attenborough, the human population has tripled. In the next 30 years it is predicted to increase by 3 billion. That is an increase of more than the current population of Europe, Africa and America combined. We are on the edge of a resources precipice, and it is time we opened our eyes.

Watch the programme if you have a spare hour.

Challenging Dogmatism in Science - video

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:36:00 +0100

For the rest of this discussion, go to the following links:

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkLRZkcQSto&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9XJ_g_qvKU&feature=related

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiRK8h6Ph14

Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN-q9yy_T8I

Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk3yqw-mTAY

The faith of scientists

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:10:00 +0100

The great difference between science and religion is that scientists follow the evidence and follow their senses – they are empiricist and are open to being disproved. On the other hand, we are told, religion is dogmatically chained to the past and sensory data cannot overturn scripture. But the longer I work as a scientifically researcher (admittedly in psychology, not the natural sciences, but the point I am making applies for all), the more I realise that what we do is steeped in faith. Every article I write, or any researcher writes, must first review scores of other previous studies/experiments and develop hypotheses correspondingly. But how do I know that all of these are legitimate? How do I know that they are reliable sources of fact and Truth? Well, there are various safeguards in place. Research goes through the peer-review process – we hope that other people will be able to vet out rubbish or falsified data. But the truth is that they can’t. If someone wants to make up data, then without looking at the original data itself, then even that can be meddled with and made up. Also, research generally has to come out of a recognised university department, and that is considered a safeguard against dodgy research too. But in fact, whenever I refer to somebody else’s research, I have faith that the knowledge is legitimate. If I was to be a true empiricist, I would have to directly sense something first before I accept it as knowledge. In science, the majority of knowledge is second-hand, not direct. The majority of knowledge is not derived empirically. How many people have actually seen the climate change data, and how many just take on faith – accepting scientific authority? So why is the faith in science, in academia, any different than religious faith? Why is trust in a scientific authority any better than trust in a religious authority? Big questions, but the best we can do while pondering them is to retain a healthy scepticism of scientific authority, avoid scientific dogma and avoid scientists pontificating about things over which they have no authority. Science can state what is and is not the case, it cannot tell us what is valuable, precious or morally right. At least as far as I can tell.

Olly Robinson

Relativity Equations derived in one line, and without assuming the two Relativity postulates

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:01:00 +0100

Strong evidence for absolute motion can be taken from the "Big Bang" of cosmology, which locates a point of origin in the universe. In contrast, the First Principle of Special Relativity denies the existence of any absolute point of reference which could be used to measure distances from.

Relativists try to avoid this problem by postulating, ad hoc, that space itself was also created at the same time as the Big Bang, like a very tiny rubber balloon which was then inflated (the expanding Universe) so that at any later time all points on the balloon (i.e. all points in space) were effectively at the point of origin of the Big Bang.

But the well-known and experimentally verified equations of Special Relativity can be derived assuming absolute motion instead, and the derivation (in just one line) is far simpler than that from Special Relativity.

Also, the contentious Second Principle of Relativity on which Special Relativity is based, is avoided: The Second Principle of Relativity states that the velocity of light is independent of both the velocity of the light source and the velocity of the observer ! (My exclamation mark)

Mass Dilation formula, without Special Relativity:

The (real) existence of higher dimensions is supported by particle physicists who postulate ten spatial and one time dimension. The absolute motion derivation below also uses a much earlier observation of Besant & Leadbeater [1], not only that there are more than 3 dimensions in space, but that an energy welling-up from 4-D space enters 3-D space, and particles at rest in 3-D space are created by this energy entering from a 4th spatial dimension. A theory of “rest mass” is provided by this explanation.

Rest Mass: Assume that a welling-up of electromagnetic energy from 4-D space creates a stationary particle in three-dimensional space, of rest mass m_o.

Electromagnetic energy (light, radio, etc) travels at c, the velocity of light.

If the particle is then made to move in 3-D space, by giving it momentum in a direction in 3-D space, it will have an extra momentum of mv. The particle’s total mass then increases from m_o to m to incorporate this extra kinetic energy.

All dimensions must be at right angles to each other, so the 3-D mv must be at 90º to the 4-D m_oc, and so a triangle of momenta can be drawn, closed by a hypotenuse mc.

A triangle cannot be drawn on a blog, so please draw one on a paper, with long side m_oc, short side mv and hypotenuse mc.

Then, from Pythagoras’ Theorem: (m_oc)² + (mv)² = (mc)²

The m_oc axis is in a 4th spatial dimension.

The mv axis is in the 3rd spatial dimension.

Re-arrange the above Pythagoras equation:

m_o = m√(1 – v²/c²).

This is Einstein’s mass dilation equation, derived in 1 line!

Five lines of very elementary physics then give: E=mc².

The time & length dilation formulae can be obtained similarly [2].

These derivations are far simpler than Einstein’s derivations and so by Occam’s Razor principle, it could be more likely that they are correct.

Comments:

Orthodox physicists have accepted Einstein’s complicated derivation of the above mass equation for the past hundred years, and so it is very difficult to get them to consider that the same equations can be obtained very simply by assuming absolute motion instead of relative motion (relativity).

Well-known physicists like Prof Stephen Hawking and Prof Paul Davies say they

receive hundreds of letters annually about relativity and so they can’t even try to reply to them. The only way I felt that could get a reply from an eminent physicist was by sending a single page only, to a fellow professor (whom I have never met) at Imperial College (where I am also at):

So I sent the above Pythagoras triangle mass equation derivation only, on a single page, to a Relativity physicist, an F.R.S., at Imperial College.

His response (2008) is given below (with my answers in italics):

He commented that the theory of relativity has very extensive & diverse support. But I have derived the exact same equations, so I can also claim the same experimental support.

He also said that my derivation is based on an unmotivated assumption.

I could not explain this within 1 page! I think he means that my theory that “rest mass” is created by an energy welling-up from a 4th spatial dimension, is unproven, but so are both of Einstein’s Special Relativity postulates (which were contrived by him to derive the correct Special Relativity equations).

The real physical evidence of Einstein’s assumptions are only that his equations are experimentally verified. My equations are identical, but derived alternatively by assuming absolute motion instead of assuming there is only relative motion.

My basic motivation is that if there are hidden spatial dimensions (which particle physics now does accept as a possibility), then it would be very strange if these extra dimensions have no effect at all on the basic equations of physics!

He finally said that Einstein's theory has real beauty, which mine lacks.

Although I agree that Einstein’s theory has a mathematical beauty, my physical-based derivation has beauty in its simplicity: Pythagoras’ Theorem is a beautiful piece of geometry.

But beauty does not always equate to physical reality and mathematical beauty does not mean a theory corresponds to physical reality.

Mathematical fractals are beautiful but no plant leaves in nature look like them. I have a beautiful crystal of silicon carbide, but this compound does not exist in Nature.

I can evoke the Occam’s Razor principle (“The simplest explanation is probably the correct one”, or, “If it looks like a duck, it is probably a duck”!).

The above derivation was published by me in 1968 and again in 2007 [2] along with derivations of the other equations of Special Relativity (including E = mc²).

References:

1. www.4-D.org.uk

2. M.G. Hocking: J Scientific Exploration 21 (1), 13-26 (2007). Available as a (free) web download from