What If Everything Is Alive?

What If Everything Is Alive?

Deepak Chopra, M.D., Brian J. Fertig, M.D. and Jack A. Tuszynski, Ph.D., D.Sc.

It seems like a major step forward to see creation as “order out of order” rather than “order out of chaos.” But what about mind? In the end, it doesn’t matter how perfectly tiny bits of matter behave if you can’t show how they learned to think. This is the dead end that dooms functionalism, even though there are likely to be breakthroughs in new fields like quantum psychology, given that the human brain displays some basic quantum functions.

But rather than rescuing functionalism, there is another path. What struck the generation of quantum pioneers more than a century ago was how the behavior of quanta imitated life. Subatomic particles seem to move out of a state of uncertainty by making a decision about what to do next. Viewing the whole apparatus of creation, some physicists began to wonder if the universe is much more like a great mind than a great machine. Take that intuition a step further. Instead of quantum particles imitating life, what if they are actually alive?

One aspect of this conjecture is already becoming fashionable in the notion of panpsychism, which holds that creation contains consciousness, or proto-consciousness, as a fundamental property like gravity. Panpsychism arose to rescue physics from the conundrum of not being able to explain consciousness. Instead of explaining it, panpsychism simply says that consciousness has always been there. Is this an insight or a clever ploy?

"One aspect of this conjecture is already becoming fashionable in the notion of panpsychism, which holds that creation contains consciousness, or proto-consciousness, as a fundamental property like gravity. Panpsychism arose to rescue physics from the conundrum of not being able to explain consciousness. Instead of explaining it, panpsychism simply says that consciousness has always been there. Is this an insight or a clever ploy?"

I would say a clever ploy, but that doesn't mean it can't be true as well.  Discoveries in science often start with an imaginative idea such as this one.

"One aspect of this conjecture is already becoming fashionable in the notion of panpsychism, which holds that creation contains consciousness, or proto-consciousness, as a fundamental property like gravity. Panpsychism arose to rescue physics from the conundrum of not being able to explain consciousness. Instead of explaining it, panpsychism simply says that consciousness has always been there. Is this an insight or a clever ploy?"

I would say a clever ploy, but that doesn't mean it can't be true as well.  Discoveries in science often start with an imaginative idea such as this one.

Yes, but what does panpsychism actually mean? I mean when you get down to the level of electrons and protons, they basically have to be identical to fit in with QM. Identical fragments of mind don't seem to get us very far.
Moreover, if QFT is true, those electrons (say) are just excited states of a vacuum ground state!

Increasingly, I go for a physical world that is controlled by a non-physical world. Stapp has shown how QM can give a non-physical mind some control over the physical I feel that picture gives us a much clearer of phenomena such as NDE's and DE's. At some point we just lose control of the physical realm.

David

Yes, but what does panpsychism actually mean? I mean when you get down to the level of electrons and protons, they basically have to be identical to fit in with QM. Identical fragments of mind don't seem to get us very far.
Moreover, if QFT is true, those electrons (say) are just excited states of a vacuum ground state!

Well identical in their relational measurements doesn't mean identical things in themselves - their very indeterminacy would seem to suggest they aren't identical intrinsically.

Though I agree the very existence of particles as individual entities in physics is questionable, as per QFT.

Increasingly, I go for a physical world that is controlled by a non-physical world. Stapp has shown how QM can give a non-physical mind some control over the physical I feel that picture gives us a much clearer of phenomena such as NDE's and DE's. At some point we just lose control of the physical realm.

David

The article is a bit odd as it seems to leave a confusing picture of whether it advocates for bottom up Panpsychism, Cosmo/Top-Down Panpsychism, or possibly even Animism, Theism, or Idealism. I think it was ultimately meant to be somewhat open ended.

If the non-physical ultimately encompasses the physical, or at the least there is a good deal of overlap between the two, I could see Stapp's ideas making sense. Though everything from a cup of caffeinated coffee to terminal lucidity & PK suggests things aren't as simple as two realms that are "physical" & "non-physical".

Well identical in their relational measurements doesn't mean identical things in themselves - their very indeterminacy would seem to suggest they aren't identical intrinsically.

Though I agree the very existence of particles as individual entities in physics is questionable, as per QFT.


The article is a bit odd as it seems to leave a confusing picture of whether it advocates for bottom up Panpsychism, Cosmo/Top-Down Panpsychism, or possibly even Animism, Theism, or Idealism. I think it was ultimately meant to be somewhat open ended.

If the non-physical ultimately encompasses the physical, or at the least there is a good deal of overlap between the two, I could see Stapp's ideas making sense. Though everything from a cup of caffeinated coffee to terminal lucidity & PK suggests things aren't as simple as two realms that are "physical" & "non-physical".

Could you explain a little of this?

Could you explain a little of this?

Coffee is the apparently physical affecting the mental. ("Apparently" since all we know of the physical is via the mental.)

PK & Terminal Lucidity are the mental affecting the apparently physical without the usual interaction of the body.

So there's causal continuity across the seeming divide where each "side" affects the other. What is strange is this causality seems incomplete, though the way spirits have been witnessed interacting with the world suggests a continuity as well.

The article is a bit odd as it seems to leave a confusing picture of whether it advocates for bottom up Panpsychism, Cosmo/Top-Down Panpsychism, or possibly even Animism, Theism, or Idealism.

I get the feeling that physicists like Stapp, and to some extent all of us, have lived and breathed the idea that there is a non-physical realm, whereas most scientists are coming to this fresh - forced into a corner. I think they are blundering about and hoping to invent a non-physical realm that doesn't really affect the rest of their work!

I mean normally scientists propose a hypothesis and then try to apply it - panpsychism gets proposed and then left on its own, unloved.

I get the feeling that physicists like Stapp, and to some extent all of us, have lived and breathed the idea that there is a non-physical realm, whereas most scientists are coming to this fresh - forced into a corner. I think they are blundering about and hoping to invent a non-physical realm that doesn't really affect the rest of their work!

That last part reminds me of the recent inteview with Jessica Utts. In the part of the video from about 20 to 24 minutes two key points are made (from my perspective). The first, that statistics applied to parapsychology are done meticulously and the results are consistent and replicable.  The second is that the so-called experimenter effect, where one researcher seems conducive to generating significant results, while another may somehow fail. I'm not explaining this very well. The important question then arises as to how the experimenter effect may be relevant in many other areas of science (for example medical research). In other words, all scientists should be interested in this, it is not confined only to the field of parapsychology.

That last part reminds me of the recent inteview with Jessica Utts. In the part of the video from about 20 to 24 minutes two key points are made (from my perspective). The first, that statistics applied to parapsychology are done meticulously and the results are consistent and replicable.  The second is that the so-called experimenter effect, where one researcher seems conducive to generating significant results, while another may somehow fail. I'm not explaining this very well. The important question then arises as to how the experimenter effect may be relevant in many other areas of science (for example medical researtch). In other words, all scientists should be interested in this, it is not confined only to the field of parapsychology.

Yes - I mean in many cases the experimenter is the one person with the greatest stake in the results!

Maybe experimenters should try to meditate for some time before an experiment is run, or even while it is being run if it works automatically - like presentiment tests.

Yes - I mean in many cases the experimenter is the one person with the greatest stake in the results!

Maybe experimenters should try to meditate for some time before an experiment is run, or even while it is being run if it works automatically - like presentiment tests.

But the basic problem is that the scientific method itself absolutely depends on the assumption that the physical world being experimented with and having hypotheses and theories proposed about, is totally independent of the mental, and mechanically invariably behaves according to some mathematical relationships and algorithms that can be ascertained by science through such experiments.  The existence of experimenter effect undermines the scientific method itself, unfortunately, and unfortunately it is real. An experimenter meditating on the success of his experiment is trying unscientifically to influence the results and is "mucking up the works" of science, so to speak.