CHAOSOPHY 1993-24
[An ASKLEPIA FOUNDATION Journal]
THE SELF-AWARE UNIVERSE
A Synopsis of Amit Goswami's
Theory of Physics and Psychic Phenomena
by Iona Miller, ©1993
SUMMARY: Amit Goswami, Ph.D. has proposed a theory of consciousness,
rather than atoms, as the fundamental reality of the material world.
Based in the philosophy of monistic idealism, he claims to obtain a consistent
paradox-free interpretation of the new physics. He suggests a quantum
mechanical, as well as classical nature for mind, which accounts for nonlocal
psychic phenomena.
KEYWORDS: Universe model, consciousness, monistic idealism,
Amit Goswami, quantum mechanics, psychic phenomena.
MONISTIC IDEALISM
In searching for the fundamental basis of physical reality and the nature
of the mind, Goswami (1993) has defined consciousness as "the agency that
affects quantum objects to make their behavior sensible." In choosing
this criterion he hopes to show how mind can effect matter nonenergetically
because they share the same essence.
By making the leap from a universe based on bits of matter, to one based
in consciousness, he hopes to logically and coherently resolve some of
the major paradoxes of physics. He suggests that instead of everything
being made of atoms, everything is made of consciousness. If quantum
objects are waves that spread in existence at more than one place, as QM
has shown, then consciousness may be the agency that focuses the waves
so we can observe them at one place.
Goswami labels this philosophy, "monistic as opposed to dualistic, and
it is idealism because ideas (not to be confused with ideals) and the consciousness
of them are considered to be the basic elements of reality; matter is considered
to be secondary." Mental phenomena such as self-consciousness,
free will, creativity, and ESP are explained anew in this reformulation
of the mind-body in a fresh context.
As in both the mystical view and holographic universe (such as that described
by Bohm), there is only the dynamic play of one great webwork of existence
(Bohm's holomovement). This unified movement, a dance of creation
and annihilation, has intentionality. However, Goswami does not propose
that consciousness is mind; they are different concepts.
In monistic idealism, the consciousness of the subject in a subject-object
experience is the same consciousness that is the ground of all being.
Therefore, consciousness is unitive. The domain of potentia also
exists in consciousness. Nothing is outside consciousness.
Buddha tells us that, "There is an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated,
Unformed. If there were not this Unborn, this Unoriginated, this
Uncreated, this Unformed, escape from the world of the born, the originated,
the created, the formed would not be possible." But there is
this essential ground, and it is possible to "escape" spacetime, according
to Buddha.
If the brain-mind is itself an object in a nonlocal consciousness that
encompasses all reality, then what we call objective empirical reality
is within this consciousness. The one becomes many through self-reference,
fragmentation into tangled hierarchies of self-iterating information.
The trick is to distinguish between consciousness and awareness.
In processes of which we are aware classical models prevail. When
we consciously see, consciousness collapses the quantum state of the brain-mind.
Unconscious processing does not effect collapse of the quantum wave-function,
pinning down quantum entities to one reality. Thus, unconscious processing
permits the expression of nonlocal phenomena.
The situation in the brain-mind, with consciousness collapsing the wave
function may only happen when awareness is present. There is a tangled
hierarchy within the immanent self-reference of a system observing itself.
An operation by a self-referential system is where the von Neumann chain
stops.
THAT DARN CAT
Erwin Schrodinger reminded us that, "Observations are to be regarded
as discrete, discontinuous events. Between there are gaps which we
cannot fill in." He illustrated his famous metaphor of the uncertainty
principle with the conundrum of Schrodinger's Cat. All physics students
eventually get tired of hearing about this stupid cat, over and over, pondering
whether it will be alive or dead. Goswami has tried to "put it to
bed," with his "nine lives of..." version:
In the first life, the cat is treated statistically, as part of an ensemble.
The cat is offended (because its singularity is denied in this ensemble
interpretation) but not wounded.
In the second life, the cat is viewed as an example of the quantum/classical
dichotomy by the divisive philosophers of macrorealism. The cat refuses
to trade its life/death dichotomy for another dichotomy.
In the third life, the cat is confronted with irreversibility and randomness,
but the cat says, Prove it.
In the fourth life, the cat confronts the hidden variables and what
happens is still hidden.
In the fifth life, the neo-Copenhagenists try to do away with the cat
using the philosophy of logical positivism. By most judgements, the
cat escapes unscathed.
In the sixth life, the cat encounters many worlds. Who knows,
it may have perished in some universe, but as far as we can tell, not in
this one.
In the seventh life, the cat meets Bohr and his complementarity, but
the question What constitutes a measurement? saves it.
In the eighth life, the cat meets consciousness (of a dualistic vintage)face-to-face,
but Wigner's friend saves it.
Finally, in the ninth life, the cat finds salvation in the idealist
interpretation.
Only three of these models are not flawed: the many-world theory, the theory
of nonlocal hidden variables, and that of monistic idealism.
PHILOSOPHY OF CHOICE
The idealist resolution of the paradox of the cat's existence demands that
the consciousness of the observing subject choose one facet from the multifaceted
dead-and-alive coherent superposition of the cat and thus seal its fate.
The subject is the chooser, and choice is fundamental to existence: "I
choose, therefore I am."
Free choice means the possibility of jumping out of an old context into
a new one at a higher level. The capacity for choice, even recognizing
choice, makes us conscious of the experiences we choose. From the
myriad alternative possibilities, we recognize the course of our becoming,
and define our self. The primary question of self-consciousness is
to choose or not to choose.
More accurate than the old notion of the unconscious is that our conscious
self is unconscious of most things most of the time and of everything in
dreamless sleep. Paradoxically, the unconscious is holistically,
nonlocally conscious of all things all of the time. It never sleeps.
OUR CONSCIOUS SELF IS UNCONSCIOUS OF OUR UNCONSCIOUS, AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
IS ACTUALLY MORE CONSCIOUS than normal awareness.
Unconscious thoughts and feelings affect our conscious thoughts.
During unconscious perception, an unconscious feeling can produce an unexplainable
conscious feeling. According to Goswami, choice is a concomitant
of conscious experience, but not of unconscious perception. Our subject-consciousness
arises when there is a choice made. When we do not choose, we do
not own up to our perceptions.
Before choice, the state of the brain-mind is an ambiguous state--like
that of Schrodinger's cat. In quantum theory, the subject that chooses
is a single, universal subject, not our personal ego "I." Thus, this
universal choosing consciousness is also nonlocal.
Even if you introduce hidden variables to find a causal interpretation
of QM, as David Bohm does, those hidden variables have to be nonlocal.
In Bohm's theory, the light that projects the image of reality is not the
light of creative consciousness, but causal hidden variables--which current
research suggests may be deterministically chaotic, rather than probabilistic.
According to the idealist interpretation, violation to the EPR Paradox
signifies nonlocal correlation between photons. Hidden variables
are not needed as an explanation. Of course, to collapse the wave
function of nonlocally correlated photons, consciousness must act nonlocally.
Therefore, simultaneously occurring events in our space-time world can
be related meaningfully to a common cause that resides in a nonlocal realm
outside space and time. This common cause is the act of nonlocal
collapse by consciousness. Thus it is not a message transfer (from
a sender through a channel to a receiver) but a communication in consciousness.
This has important repercussions for information theory, based in causality.
Nonlocal consciousness might seem like a "hidden variable", but it doesn't
constitute causal parameters. It is simply us! Nonlocal consciousness
operates not with causal continuity, but with non-linear creative discontinuity
from moment to moment, event to event.
This discontinuity, the quantum jump out of the system, is the essential
component of creativity needed for consciousness to see itself, as in self-reference.
It means we can exercise the freedom to be open to a new context.
VIRTUAL DOMAINS OR FORMLESS POTENTIAL
According to the idealist interpretation, coherent superpositions exist
in a transcendent domain as formless archetypes of matter. Suppose
that the parallel universes of the many-worlds theory are not material
but archetypal in content--universes of the mind. Then, each observation
makes a causal pathway in the fabric of possibilities in the transcendent
domain of reality. Once the choice is made, all except one of the
pathways are excluded from the world of manifestation.
Goswami proposes that, "the universe exists as formless potentia in
myriad possible branches in the transcendent domain and becomes manifest
only when observed by conscious beings." These self-referential
observations plot the universe's causal history, rejecting the myriad parallel
alternatives that never manifest.
The universe bifurcates in every event in the transcendent domain, becoming
many branches, until in one of the branches there is a sentient being that
can look with awareness and complete a quantum measurement, according to
Goswami. The causal pathway leading to that sentient being collapses
into space-time reality.
Meaning arises in the universe when sentient beings observe it, choosing
causal pathways from among the myriad transcendent possibilities. This
anthropocentric view is also reflected in cosmology as the Anthropic Principle,
where the cosmos is created for our sake. Amazingly, this is apparently
compatible with quantum physics.
THE QUANTUM BRAIN
The conviction has been growing among many physicists that the brain is
an interactive system with a quantum mechanical macrostructure as an important
complement to the classical neuronal assembly.
The classical and quantum components of the brain-mind interact within
a basic idealist framework in which consciousness is primary. The
classical/quantum distinction is purely functional. Its essence is
one. Experienced mental states arise from the interaction of both classical
and quantum states.
The quantum component of the brain-mind is regenerative and its states
are multifaceted. It is the vehicle for conscious choice and for
creativity. In contrast, because it has a long regeneration time,
the classical component of brain-mind can form memory and thus can act
as a reference point for experience.
The archetypal component of the thought is revealed by its inherent uncertainty:
If we concentrate on the content of thought, we lose sight of the direction
in which the thought is heading. If we concentrate on the direction
of a thought, we lose sharpness in its content. Its features (instantaneous
content) equate with the position of physical objects; association (movement
of thought in awareness) is like momentum in objects.
Between manifestations thought exists as transcendent archetypes--as does
the quantum object with its transcendent coherent superposition (wave)
and manifest one-faceted (particle) aspects.
Research shows spatial coherence of brain waves during meditation proportional
to the degree of pure awareness that the meditator reports. Studies
of remote viewing, mutual hypnosis, and group meditation have shown coherence
of brain waves of participants sharing consciousness states.
As in therapeutic rapport or co-consciousness, "two subjects interact
for a period until they feel that a direct (nonlocal) connection has been
established. The subjects then maintain their direct contact from
within individual Faraday cages at a distance. When the brain of
one of the subjects responds to an external stimulus with an evoked potential,
the other subject's brain shows a transfer potential similar in form and
strength to the evoked potential."
Before the supervention of consciousness, the brain-mind exists as formless
potentia (like any other object) in the transcendent domain of consciousness.
When nonlocal consciousness collapses the brain-mind's wave function, it
does so by choice and recognition, not by any energetic process.
Thus, "conservation of energy" is not violated in the mind/matter interface.
Goswami postulates the need for an EPR-correlated quantum network, stating
"It has to be there." Perhaps this is Buckminster Fuller's vector
equilibrium matrix, and Thomas Beardon's zero vector summation, which describe
how matter "jitterbugs" into and out of existence in quantum "creationism."
According to this idealist interpretation, consciousness chooses the results
of a single quantum measurement--that is, nonlocal unitive consciousness.
The intervention of the nonlocal consciousness collapses the probability
cloud of a quantum system.
In the manifest world, the selection process involved in the collapse appears
to be random, while in the transcendent realm the selection process is
seen as choice. Our consciousness chooses the outcome of the collapse
of the quantum state of our brain-mind. Since this outcome is a conscious
experience, we choose our conscious experiences--yet remain unconscious
of the underlying process.
It is this unconsciousness that leads to the illusory separateness--the
identity with the separate "I" of self-reference (rather than the "we"
of unitive consciousness). The illusory separateness takes place
in two stages, but the basic mechanism involved is called tangled hierarchy,
which is a way of achieving self-reference. The self arises because
of a veil of discontinuity, an infinite oscillation. Out of discontinuity
comes the veil and self-reference. Mystics call it the Veil of Isis
or The Abyss.
The self of our self-reference is due to a tangled hierarchy, but our consciousness
is the consciousness of the Being that is beyond the subject-object split.
There is no other source of consciousness in the universe. The self
of self-reference and the consciousness of the original consciousness,
together, make what we call self-consciousness.
EGO AND THE QUANTUM SELF
Before collapse, the subject is not differentiated from the archetypes
of objects of experience--physical or mental. Collapse brings about
the subject-object division, and that leads to the primary awareness of
I-am-ness called the "quantum self." Awareness of the quantum self
also brings about collapse.
In Goswami's conceptualization, "the brain-mind is a dual quantum system/
measuring apparatus," through which the universe becomes self-aware.
The universe cuts itself in two--subject/object--terminating the von Neumann
chain. We resolve the von Neumann chain by recognizing that consciousness
collapses the wave function by acting self-referentially, not dualistically.
The old mechanistic concept was nonregenerative. Repeated measurement
interaction leads to a fundamental change in the brain-mind's quantum system.
Each previously experienced, learned response reinforces the probability
of the same response over again. Learning (or prior experience) biases
the brain-mind.
Before the response to a particular stimulus becomes conditioned, the probability
pool from which consciousness chooses our response spans the mental states
common to all people at all places at all time.
In conditioned behavior, the dual quantum system/measuring apparatus becomes
virtually classical. In the limit of a new experience, the brain
mind's response is creative. Experiences such as near-death can instantly
release much repressed unconscious conditioning, as does therapeutic ego
death. The psycho-social contexts of living are no longer absolute
to the truly fluid identity.
When the creative potency of the quantum component is not engaged, the
tangled hierarchy of the interacting components of the brain-mind, in effect,
becomes a simple hierarchy of the learned, classical programs. The
ego is an emergent property of our classical self. The quantum mode
is equivalent to the "still point" within.
Thus, ego emerges out of the introspective interaction of our learned programs
that result from our experience in the world, but there is a twist.
The separate self has no free will apart from that of the quantum self,
and ultimately, that of the unitive consciousness. Consciousness
always leaves some room for unconditioned novelty, making possible what
we know as free will.
This process can be viewed from a "top-down" epistemology or from a bottom-up
theory that subject-object consciousness arises as "order within chaos."
How or why does consciousness split itself? The states of the brain-mind
are considered to be quantum states, which are probability-weighted, multifaceted,
possibility structures. Consciousness collapses the multifaceted
structure (a coherent superposition) choosing one facet but only in the
presence of brain-mind awareness, the mind-field in which objects of experience
arise).
Which comes first: awareness or choice? This is a tangled hierarchy
which gives rise to self-reference, and subject/object split. Secondary-awareness
processes lead to intentionality--the tendency to identify with an object.
The "I" of reflective awareness also arises out of these secondary-awareness
processes. Primary and secondary processes normally remain preconscious,
obscuring the tangled hierarchy of the primary process. At this primary-process
level there is no conditioning which means unrestricted freedom of choice.
Benjamin Libet has shown that even before a person experiences awareness
of their actions (which is necessary to free will), there is an evoked
potential that signals an objective observer that the person is going to
will to raise his or her arm. Interestingly, as we all know, we retain
our free will to say no to raising an arm, even after the evoked potential
signals otherwise.
AH-HA! THE CREATIVE EXPERIENCE
In psychological terms, nature refers to unconscious instincts that drive
us--libido; nurture refers to environmental conditioning, much of which
is also unconscious. A third leg is creativity, which in this context
is a drive from the collective unconscious.
Creativity is the creation of something new in an entirely new context.
Newness of the context is the key. We have access to the vast archetypal
content of the quantum states of mind (the pure mental states) that extend
far beyond the local experiences within our lifetime. Creativity
is fundamentally a nonlocal mode of cognition.
The creative act is the fruit of the encounter of the self's classical
and quantum modalities, according to Goswami. There are stages in
its development, but they are all tangled-hierarchical encounters of these
two modalities; the hierarchy is a tangled one because the quantum modality
remains preconscious in us.
The classical modality of the self, like the classical computer, deals
with information, but the self's quantum modality deals with communication.
Thus the first stage of the play of creativity is the tangled play of information
(development of expertise) and communication (development of openness).
It is tangled because you cannot tell when information ends and communication
begins; there is a discontinuity in the "cosmic message."
Here the ego acts as the research assistant of the quantum modality--and
it takes a strong ego (or fluid ego) to handle the destructuring of the
old that makes room for the new.
In the second stage of creative illumination, the encounter is between
the perspiration of the classical modality and the inspiration of the quantum
modality. When the brain's quantum state develops as a pool of potentialities
in response to a situation of creative confrontation, the pool includes
not only conditioned states but also new, never-before-manifested states
of possibility.
Since our personal pool is statistically weighted by our memories we can
minimize the mind's conditioning by keeping an open mind to reduce the
probability of (unconscious) conditioned responses, as in creativity.
We can increase the odds of manifesting a low-probability creative idea
by being persistent. Persistence increases the number of collapses
of the mind's quantum state relative to the same question, increasing the
chance to realize a new potential.
Creativity is enhanced if we confront ourselves with unlearned stimuli.
Unlearned stimuli that seem ambiguous--as in a surrealistic painting--are
especially useful for opening our minds to new contexts. Since conscious
observation collapses the coherent superposition, there is a certain advantage
in unconscious processing. Uncollapsed coherent superpositions can
act upon others, creating many more possibilities for the eventual collapse.
The classical modality performs an equally essential function: It ensures
the persistence of the will (the perspiration). Hence, the traditional
importance in Magick of subordinating the personal will to True Will.
The creative individual's ego has to be strong-willed to be persistent
and has to be able to handle the anxiety associated with unknowing--the
quantum jump into the new.
A creative experience is one of the few times when we directly experience
the quantum modality with little or no time lag. It is this encounter
with primary process experience that produces the elation, the ah-ha, the
creative act of self-realization. It can lead directly to personal
transformation of one's own context of living.
In outer creativity, quantum jumps enable us to view an external problem
in a new context. In inner creativity, the quantum jump allows us
to break from established patterns of behavior, which together make up
what is known as character. Inner creativity means transpersonal
experience, the uncertainty of being beyond the ego, which tends toward
death-like stasis.
So, for inner creativity, one develops and practices awareness of one's
conditioning, becoming aware of inner-growth potential. Transformation
is an ongoing process, always defining an ever -more- compassionate context
for our being. Recognition begins the shift of identity to the quantum-atman,
comprehending a new self-identity.
Creative quandaries, like the Zen koan, intensify a double-bind which dissolves
the ego and facilitates a third state of unbiased emptiness, wherein the
probability pool of choice is extended to the creative dimension.
The quantum wave of our mind expands and is ready to embrace new responses.
There is, however, no self-nature, no independent existence, in either
subject or object: Only consciousness is reality, but how do we comprehend
it? What is before collapse? The tangled hierarchy--the infinite
chaotic oscillation of yes-no answers. The joy of meditative experiences
is the original joy of consciousness in its pure form.
REFERENCES
Goswami, Amit and Richard E. Reed, Maggie Goswami; THE SELF-AWARE UNIVERSE:
HOW CONSCIOUSNESS CREATES THE MATERIAL WORLD; Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam Books,
New York, 1993.
TOP
CONTENTS
NEXT
ASKLEPIA HOMEPAGE
IONA MILLER
HOME PAGE
File Created: 6/22/00 Last Updated: 2/25/01
Web Design by Iona
Miller and Vickie Webb