A physics of consciousness, psi and survival

A physics of consciousness, psi and survival by J. Beichler

Abstract: While the psychical sciences and parapsychology have languished over the decades and failed to produce a viable theoretical basis for their observations, great strides have been made in the neurosciences especially in the areas of neurophysiology and neurophysics. The object of these researches goes beyond just discovering how the brain functions, but to actually discover the neural correlates of mind and consciousness. Understanding how brain and consciousness relate to one another has opened a new door to understanding psi and how consciousness survives death. The new physical model of consciousness presented below goes a long way toward explaining the paradoxical nature of mind and consciousness that psi and survival present.

So consciousness, rather than the brain or mind, has now become both the mediator and the transceiver of psi signals. Psychologists and psychiatrists can handle the problems associated with how psi is interpreted in the mind in conjunction with the brain, the contextual aspects of psi, but the focus of paranormal phenomena now moves from psi to consciousness and both become problems for physicists to solve. Obviously, if psi and consciousness interact in any manner with the physical brain, then they must be physical at some level of reality even if they are not material. In physics, fields are physical without themselves being material, although they can have material sources, so both psi and consciousness would seem to be field effects. This proposition makes sense since mind and consciousness in the brain are usually associated with electricity which is the material expression of the electrical field. However, a great deal more than this simple analogy is necessary to explain consciousness, which can then be used to develop a theory or physical model of psi and survival of consciousness after death.

Given this systematic process, mind and consciousness supposedly arise as either epiphenomena (a secondary effect) or as a primary function of the brain. In either case, the present model of the nervous system and brain cannot explain much of anything about mind and consciousness and definitely nothing about any paranormal intuitions with which we all seem to be blessed even if we are not aware of them. In any case, the mere fact that neurons extend throughout the body supports the conclusion that mind and consciousness are whole organism or whole body physical structures that correspond to life. Within this context, life can be considered  a ‘life force’ or
something extra that goes beyond the ordinary physiological (biochemical processes) and anatomical (bio-structural) aspects of organisms that are commonly associated with the material processes of living by normal science.

A physics of consciousness, psi and survival by J. Beichler

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In any case, the mere fact that neurons extend throughout the body supports the conclusion that mind and consciousness are whole organism or whole body physical structures that correspond to life. Within this context, life can be considered  a ‘life force’ or something extra that goes beyond the ordinary physiological (biochemical processes) and anatomical (bio-structural) aspects of organisms that are commonly associated with the material processes of living by normal science.
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A lot of unremarkable sometimes vague words that don't seem to result in much, with the exception of the bolded. It occurs to me that if consciousness is a physical field phenomenon, that brings forth a lot of further questions.

For instance, fields are found to always be associated with corresponding physical particles, and particle interactions with the rest of the physical world. This would imply there is a "consciousness particle"  not just a "consciousness field". If they exist, the consciousness particle and field must interact with the physical brain in some way.

But the Standard Model of all particles and fields that have been discovered to date seems to be internally consistent and complete at this point in time in terms of accounting for everything detectable with physical instrumentation. There doesn't seem to be any room in physics for the postulated consciousness particle and field. So it doesn't look like consciousness is any kind of physical field/particle phenomenon that can be fitted into the Standard Model.  

However, the empirical evidence from more than a century of psychical research still indicates that consciousness is independent of the physical brain but still somehow interacts with it so as to manifest in the physical through the body and brain. 

And the evidence is that consciousness survives physical death regardless of the violence of the passing, regardless of it even being an extremely energetic explosion vaporizing the physical body, for instance. This could be at very high temperatures (maybe even millions of degrees in an atomic explosion) where the fields and forces constituting the matter of the physical body are totally disrupted. Anything physical in any way would presumably be disrupted. But the mind and consciousness presumably still survive.

Unfortunately the basic problem with mind-brain dualism (how can something non-physical still somehow interact with the physical brain) does not seem to be solved by Beichler's speculations. 

However the mind/consciousness-brain interaction occurs, it evidently isn't anything that can be modeled through the methods of physics.

It seems to me this inevitably leads to somewhat of a cognitive dissonance. One way to deal with it is to decide to humbly follow wherever the evidence of psychical research leads regardless of preconceptions.