What if Panpsychism is this "theory of everything (unified theory)"?

Panpsychism originates from the Greek words "Pan" which means "All", and "Psyche" which means "Mind". Panpsychism is the view that all things have mind or that there is a centralized mind for all things that exist. The idea seems bizarre at first, but if we look into the structure of the universe, it doesn't seem so far fetched.

Thoughts arise and pass through the mind. The thoughts may come and go, but the mind is still there. The mind is like a place where thoughts may enter and leave. Even when there are no thoughts, and you are observing the dark emptiness of the mind, the mind is still present. The mind is the observer of all thoughts passing through.

The world that we perceive of, may not be the true reality. The human eyes not see reality in energy or atomic form, rather it puts these atoms into groups and see them as "things". The true reality would be the quantum view. This is the only way to see reality with all of its detail. The truth is, for example, a solid wall is not really solid at all. There is much space in which atoms are flowing around in. Atoms are 99.9% empty space, but what is space?



There is no "void" or "nothingness". Even if you were to take away all of the light, heat, mass, and sound there would still be "something" there that can not go away. This is because all "Space" has a low fluctuation of potential energy which is in inherent called "virtual particles"; therefore, for example, a photon (light particle) can be pulled out from the so-called "void", or "nothingness". For clarity, this so-called "void" or "nothingness" will be referred to as "space" since this "nothingness" can never actually be nothing (since virtual particles will always be there - therefore it is never "empty").



There are many similarities between the universe, and neurons. For example, both the universe and neurons are in the same structure and looks very similar. There are theories that say that there is more than one universe, there are many (the multi-verse), but there are many groupings of neurons but they are all connected, just as this universe is a web-like grouping which may connect to other universes.



Neurons are brain cells. These brain cells are in groupings and yet, they are all connected functioning as one brain. Thoughts are created when one neuron (or group) talks to another neuron (or group). This is done through bio-electricity (energy). Thoughts are actually something existent that we can examine (bio-electricity) and we are even beginning to learn to translate this energy into images so that they can be understood [1]. It is not the mind that is thinking these thoughts. The mind is what is observing these thoughts passing through. The physical brain is working with neurons to produce these thoughts and it is the mind that is observing them. So, what is around these communications but are not apart of it? What is nearby "observing" these thoughts happening through the communication of neurons, without actually "being" a part of it? It could be that the space in between these neuron communications is what is "observing" these thoughts happening. It could be that the "space" itself is the mind (observation) and the physical "brain" - the neurons communicating through bio-electricity is creating these thoughts which the mind is "observing".

Kudos, this thread reflects a lot of my thinking lately.

Maybe our psycho energetic complexes are interacting...

I have an inkling that 21st century science will be characterized by revolutions in fields of neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, etc. All things thought/brain related will come to the forefront. This seems to be on the right track. For some reason I hold the notion the dark matter/energy may play some kind of role in it all...

Anyway, the evolution of thought is good stuff, and I posted a thread this morning that I hoped would catch on, as I hope this one does.

Paradigm Shifts

If this is true then that means multiple universes do in fact exist just like your brain and my brain exist seperately but we can still communicate.

reply to post by BacknTime


There really is no separation in reality. Yes, there seems to be "individual brains" with a collection of neurons, but in reality ALL of this is just energy making up Atoms, and so forth, so it is all connected as one huge fluctuation of energy we call reality (The Present - which keeps "fluctuating" or "unfolding").

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by BacknTime

 

There really is no separation in reality. Yes, there seems to be "individual brains" with a collection of neurons, but in reality ALL of this is just energy making up Atoms, and so forth, so it is all connected as one huge fluctuation of energy we call reality (The Present - which keeps "fluctuating" or "unfolding").

It's great to see an uptick in perception... Unfortunately, this is something you have to feel in order to truly understand.

Here's one place to unlock:


System of Truth

Can you provide insight on whether there is any possible technological applications to the emerging science described here?

For example can the dormant energy of space be harnessed in a mechanical sense?

reply to post by MassOccurs


Yes, it can be. Scientists were able to pull out photons from empty space (void) [Link]. I think there is a name for this sort of thing (pulling out something from the empty space [void]), The Dynamical Casimir effect.

Originally posted by arpgme
There are many similarities between the universe, and neurons. For example, both the universe and neurons are in the same structure and looks very similar.

Actually that picture is misleading. Most of what's shown in the universe image is a computer generated representation of "dark matter" which won't even show up in a real picture, and has none of the properties of neurons. So in essence you are claiming that neurons made of matter and a computer generated image of dark matter are similar when in fact they couldn't be more different. One of the properties of dark matter is that it doesn't interact by electromagnetic forces, and neurons do interact by electromagnetic forces. Therefore this property of dark matter means your picture of mostly dark matter cannot possibly represent a universe brain that operates on electromagnetic forces, like neurons do.

Even if two things look alike, it doesn't mean they're related. A guy named Don Scott who studies electricity got the notion that because the branches of river tributaries resemble the branches of a bolt of lightning, that electrical forces formed the river (like the Colorado river). The processes of erosion that cause rivers to deepen are reasonably well understood and are not electrical at all. So it really seems silly to suggest a correlation between two objects of similar appearance based on appearance alone, when we KNOW the two objects being compared are completely different. We certainly know that the matter that makes up neurons is nothing like dark matter.

If you want a really silly example, I could claim that a basketball and the sun are related, because they are both roughly spherical, and near sunset the sun looks kind of orange. This type of comparison demonstrates a lack of critical thinking, and Don Scott has been lambasted for it. Don't make yourself a target of ridicule also, as Don Scott has done, by claiming that two unrelated things that look roughly similar are related because of their appearance alone.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


We don't know if dark matter really exists, nor do we know what it is made of. But if that image wasn't a real picture of the universe, then that was my mistake.

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

We don't know if dark matter really exists, nor do we know what it is made of. But if that image wasn't a real picture of the universe, then that was my mistake.

Most of the image is a computer simulation, definitely. There's no if about it. You made some pretty good arguments why we might not want to rely too much on dark matter simulations. Even the non-existence of dark matter won't contradict our knowledge that it doesn't interact electromagnetically...as that's one of the few things we DO know about it.

Here's part of the caption for the universe part of the image (emphasis on simulation mine):

thekybalion.wordpress.com...

The simulation image above is a snapshot of the present universe that features a large cluster of galaxies (bright yellow) surrounded by thousands of stars, galaxies and dark matter (web).

The bright yellow part is real. But there is vastly more dark matter than normal matter in our model of the universe and therefore in this simulation.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Here is my current opinion on this issue: Whether dark matter is made of stuff that we know of or stuff that we do not know of, it is still made of energy, since potential energy (virtual particles) is what makes up the sub-atomic particles that makes up this world, so reality (The continuous unfolding Present ) is still a fluctuation of energy - a unity.

reply to post by arpgme


Me was thinking in the same lines.
I was also intrigued by the similaritude between neurons and galaxy supercluster structures. The only thing is that this theory would suggest a mean of sending information well over the speed of light.
The leafs of the theory falls out, but the roots are good. The truth must be somewhere in this line.

reply to post by swan001


What does the speed of light and being able to go beyond its speed limit has to do with this theory?

Originally posted by arpgme
Whether dark matter is made of stuff that we know of or stuff that we do not know of, it is still made of energy,

So you changed your mind from your prior post when you said:

We don't know if dark matter really exists, nor do we know what it is made of

and now you know it exists and it's made of energy? I don't have any problem with either of the points of view, I only ask because they don't seem like consistent viewpoints.

There are alternate theories to dark matter, like MOND, but they have run into trouble with observations from the bullet cluster which would seem to disprove the MOND perspective.

If you want my opinion, it's that the jury is still out and we haven't answered the question until we've answered it. But the bullet cluster observations have seemed to weaken the possibility of dark matter not existing.

reply to post by arpgme


Well, I am referring of course about the entanglement mystery. Even Einstein frowned at it.

reply to post by arpgme


I'm glad you bring this topic up. Because we quite simply have no free will, and the thoughts that enter our mind are not our own thoughts, and all our actions based on those thoughts, are not of our own free will and choice. Our brain is telling our body to move a full 7 seconds before we believe we have the conscious thought to move. It's a little psychic isn't it? So when I consciously thought to move and stab you in the neck just now, my brain was preparing my arm to move a full 7 seconds before I even had the conscious thought of shouting "I'm going to stab you!" and then proceed to stab you.

No Free Will. Thoughts are not our own. Whose thoughts are they? We are mere puppets attached to strings. Who is reaching into the future and pulling our strings? Or is our unconscious mind just psychic and can see 7 seconds into the future and determine the best course of action for us? Try and think of this the next time you have a conversation with someone. Because before you make the conscious decision to reply back to that person, your unconscious mind is probably already listening to their response into your unspoken words and is preparing your body to reply to their next spoken words of which you consciously havn't heard.

Free Will, Science, Religion

'Meat computers' And that's what neurobiology is telling us: Our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output. Recent experiments involving brain scans show that when a subject "decides" to push a button on the left or right side of a computer, the choice can be predicted by brain activity at least seven seconds before the subject is consciously aware of having made it. (These studies use crude imaging techniques based on blood flow, and I suspect that future understanding of the brain will allow us to predict many of our decisions far earlier than seven seconds in advance.) "Decisions" made like that aren't conscious ones. And if our choices are unconscious, with some determined well before the moment we think we've made them, then we don't have free will in any meaningful sense.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by arpgme
There are many similarities between the universe, and neurons. For example, both the universe and neurons are in the same structure and looks very similar.

Actually that picture is misleading. Most of what's shown in the universe image is a computer generated representation of "dark matter" which won't even show up in a real picture, and has none of the properties of neurons. So in essence you are claiming that neurons made of matter and a computer generated image of dark matter are similar when in fact they couldn't be more different. One of the properties of dark matter is that it doesn't interact by electromagnetic forces, and neurons do interact by electromagnetic forces. Therefore this property of dark matter means your picture of mostly dark matter cannot possibly represent a universe brain that operates on electromagnetic forces, like neurons do.

Even if two things look alike, it doesn't mean they're related. A guy named Don Scott who studies electricity got the notion that because the branches of river tributaries resemble the branches of a bolt of lightning, that electrical forces formed the river (like the Colorado river). The processes of erosion that cause rivers to deepen are reasonably well understood and are not electrical at all. So it really seems silly to suggest a correlation between two objects of similar appearance based on appearance alone, when we KNOW the two objects being compared are completely different. We certainly know that the matter that makes up neurons is nothing like dark matter.

If you want a really silly example, I could claim that a basketball and the sun are related, because they are both roughly spherical, and near sunset the sun looks kind of orange. This type of comparison demonstrates a lack of critical thinking, and Don Scott has been lambasted for it. Don't make yourself a target of ridicule also, as Don Scott has done, by claiming that two unrelated things that look roughly similar are related because of their appearance alone.

edit on 15-8-2012 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

Although unlike the river/lightening bolt and sun/basketball examples where we're dealing with physical objects whose properties are well understood, we know next to nothing about dark matter nor do we have a good grasp on the inner workings of the brain or even the concept of consciousness itself.

Not really suggesting anything here just wanted to point out that just because on a physical level two objects superficially seem vastly different; the fact that they share similar structure, fact that we don't really know much about either and all the other possibilities the quantum world hints at mean the OP's conclusions may be slightly more valid than simply comparing the sun to a ball.

reply to post by arpgme


Interasting topic.
Reading this thread made me think that if we could combine all of the brains on earth (in some way) the neurons could work as one whole. Does the movie Matrix ring a bell?

By the way (no offense intended) Psyche does not mean mind, it means soul.
The mind is the skepsi which is also the thought.

Peace
MK

reply to post by Arbitrageur


No. I'm not saying that I know it exists. I'm saying that if it does, whether it is made of the sub-atomic particles we know of or something different, we already know that it is energy which makes up these things, so it is still all connected.


Here is how it may work:

Time works on a scalar level. The 24 hour life of a fruit fly feels longer to the fly than the human. Larger things appear to move slow but they are not moving as slow as humans perceive them to be. Even a cat has a slightly different perspective of time than humans, humans are slightly slower from the perspective of a cat. Time is a missing element of physics, with as much important as the scalar jump (cells to tissues, etc.). When something happens on a higher scalar level, it happens instantaneously although, it may take a while for people to notice due to the element of time. The future is not written, there is possibility. Although The Creator did send its love from its infinity and it is traveling down to this lower scalar level, sort of like how a doctor can cure a patient instantly but from the perspective of the cells it may not seem so fast.

Originally posted by mikepopy
By the way (no offense intended) Psyche does not mean mind, it means soul.
The mind is the skepsi which is also the thought.

In Greek it means soul, but in English and other languages it means the mind. I just wanted to show that these words came from Greek and what their meaning was in English.

Considering we don't know the true nature of our environment, you may be right.

Our eyes "see". These impulses are interpreted by the brain as that which is around us, but is it real?

What generates our world? The collective consciousness?

It's interesting that we keep looking for God, but never quite find him.