Thanks very much for your article. Will take me a while to digest it, but you are clearly a thoughtful guy with a good grasp of the subject.
Lockwood and I arrived at the same conclusion (found below), independently of one another. Our views comport with everything I know about the relevant physics, philosophy, neuroscience & etc.
______
Consciousness, in other words, provides us with a kind of ‘window’ on to our brains, making possible a
transparent grasp of a tiny corner of a material reality that is in general opaque to us, knowable only at
one remove. The qualities of which we are immediately aware, in consciousness, precisely are some at
least of the intrinsic qualities of the states and processes that go to make up the material world — morespecifically, states and processes within our own brains.
The psychologist Pribram . . . has made an interesting attempt to revive an idea originally put forward
around the turn of the century by the Ge stalt psychologists: namely that it is certain fields, in the
physicist’s sense, within the cerebral hemispheres, that may be the immediate objects of introspective
awareness ... What it would amount to, in terms of the present proposal, is that we have a ‘special’ or
‘privileged’ access, via some of our own brain activity, to the intrinsic character of, say,
electromagnetism. Put like that, the idea sounds pretty fanciful. But make no mistake about it: whether
about electromagnetism or about other such phenomena, that is just what the Russellian view ostensibly commits one to saying.
~Lockwood, 'Mind, Brain & Quantum'
See also the work of Devalois on retinotopic maps.
Hi! It is great to read people who are trying to be objective about our experience.
Something that strikes me about QM fields is that they can be transmitted through optical fibres. Entangled optical interactions occur even across a spool of kms of fibre. Could it be that something non-optical but equally QM connected is happening along nerve fibres? The net result would create a geometrical field but such a field could be in a tiny volume of brain.
There is nothing else except these [quantum] fields: the whole of the material universe is built of them.
~Dyson
A field is simply a quantity defined at every point throughout some region of space and time.
~'t Hooft
[All] chemical binding is electromagnetic in origin, and so are all phenomena of nerve impulses.
~Salam
________
Sensory experience discloses a variety of sense-data (colors, sounds, etc.) which are absent from our traditional formulations of electromagnetism (EM).
Fortunately, a more advanced formulation exists, due to Hodge, whose work was inspired by Maxwell's treatment.
Here's a useful article by Atiyah that gets into all that, most of which is quite accessible.
As Weyl tells us, colors respect the laws of projective vector geometry. Differential forms are dual to vectors — whatever is true of one is true of the other — and simple forms have the dimensions of *area.*
And what we see are colored areas.
Most especially, the Poynting vector gives us the rate of flow of EM energy (E), and so with its dual form. By E= hv, we have the frequency (v) of those photons, which lets us look up the associated color.
So, it seems as though we have a plausible quantum correlate for this aspect of consciousness, viz., color sensation, which readily applies to the other senses as well.
________
The principle of duality in projective geometry states that we can interchange point and line in a theorem about figures lying in one plane and obtain a meaningful statement. Moreover, the new or dual statement will itself be a theorem — that is, it can be proven. On the basis of what has been presented here we cannot see why this must always be the case for the dual statement. However, it is possible to show by one proof that every rephrasing of a theorem of projective geometry in accordance with the principle of duality must be a theorem. This principle is a remarkable characteristic of projective geometry. It reveals the symmetry in the roles that point and line play in the structure of that geometry.
dual to vectors -- whatever is true of one is true of the other -- and simple forms have the dimensions of *area.*
And what we see are colored areas.
Most especially, the Poynting vector gives us the rate of flow of EM energy (E), and so with its dual form. By E= hv, we have the frequency (v) of those photons, which lets us look up the associated color.
So, it seems as though we have a plausible quantum correlate for this aspect of consciousness, viz., color sensation, which readily applies to the other senses as well.
________
The principle of duality in projective geometry states that we can interchange point and line in a theorem about figures lying in one plane and obtain a meaningful statement. Moreover, the new or dual statement will itself be a theorem — that is, it can be proven. On the basis of what has been presented here we cannot see why this must always be the case for the dual statement. However, it is possible to show by one proof that every rephrasing of a theorem of projective geometry in accordance with the principle of duality must be a theorem. This principle is a remarkable characteristic of projective geometry. It reveals the symmetry in the roles that point and line play in the structure of that geometry.
Robin's big contribution here is to spot that everything we can know or think is in Experience. So the big problem is how does Experience, which is empirically extended in time and space, get connected at or rather, through, a point?
You are right, Projective Geometry contains a dualism that might fit the bill but something is missing. Perhaps reality occurs at a geometric point and space and time are the projection.
Zeh (1979) has a gem of an observation:
"If consciousness is in fact defined (and different) at every moment of time, it should also be related to points in space: the truly subjective observer system should be related to spacetime points" https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0307013.pdf
As Zeh shows in the paper, a spacetime point can contain a QM field.
So we have a Projective Geometry problem of a point giving rise to a manifold and vice versa... But no clear explanation of this exact form and how it happens. This makes me feel stupid, like being on the edge of what should be a simple explanation. Robin is escaping this by sticking to empirical observations and largely avoiding explanations except for saying that its a bit like this or that and hence physically conceivable.
Steve,
Thanks very much for your article. Will take me a while to digest it, but you are clearly a thoughtful guy with a good grasp of the subject.
Lockwood and I arrived at the same conclusion (found below), independently of one another. Our views comport with everything I know about the relevant physics, philosophy, neuroscience & etc.
______
Consciousness, in other words, provides us with a kind of ‘window’ on to our brains, making possible a
transparent grasp of a tiny corner of a material reality that is in general opaque to us, knowable only at
one remove. The qualities of which we are immediately aware, in consciousness, precisely are some at
least of the intrinsic qualities of the states and processes that go to make up the material world — morespecifically, states and processes within our own brains.
The psychologist Pribram . . . has made an interesting attempt to revive an idea originally put forward
around the turn of the century by the Ge stalt psychologists: namely that it is certain fields, in the
physicist’s sense, within the cerebral hemispheres, that may be the immediate objects of introspective
awareness ... What it would amount to, in terms of the present proposal, is that we have a ‘special’ or
‘privileged’ access, via some of our own brain activity, to the intrinsic character of, say,
electromagnetism. Put like that, the idea sounds pretty fanciful. But make no mistake about it: whether
about electromagnetism or about other such phenomena, that is just what the Russellian view ostensibly commits one to saying.
~Lockwood, 'Mind, Brain & Quantum'
See also the work of Devalois on retinotopic maps.
Hi! It is great to read people who are trying to be objective about our experience.
Something that strikes me about QM fields is that they can be transmitted through optical fibres. Entangled optical interactions occur even across a spool of kms of fibre. Could it be that something non-optical but equally QM connected is happening along nerve fibres? The net result would create a geometrical field but such a field could be in a tiny volume of brain.
Here are a few touchstones in my thinking:
There is nothing else except these [quantum] fields: the whole of the material universe is built of them.
~Dyson
A field is simply a quantity defined at every point throughout some region of space and time.
~'t Hooft
[All] chemical binding is electromagnetic in origin, and so are all phenomena of nerve impulses.
~Salam
________
Sensory experience discloses a variety of sense-data (colors, sounds, etc.) which are absent from our traditional formulations of electromagnetism (EM).
Fortunately, a more advanced formulation exists, due to Hodge, whose work was inspired by Maxwell's treatment.
Here's a useful article by Atiyah that gets into all that, most of which is quite accessible.
"Duality in Mathematics and Physics"
https://fme.upc.edu/ca/arxius/butlleti-digital/riemann/071218_conferencia_atiyah-d_article.pdf
________
As Weyl tells us, colors respect the laws of projective vector geometry. Differential forms are dual to vectors — whatever is true of one is true of the other — and simple forms have the dimensions of *area.*
And what we see are colored areas.
Most especially, the Poynting vector gives us the rate of flow of EM energy (E), and so with its dual form. By E= hv, we have the frequency (v) of those photons, which lets us look up the associated color.
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_27.html
So, it seems as though we have a plausible quantum correlate for this aspect of consciousness, viz., color sensation, which readily applies to the other senses as well.
________
The principle of duality in projective geometry states that we can interchange point and line in a theorem about figures lying in one plane and obtain a meaningful statement. Moreover, the new or dual statement will itself be a theorem — that is, it can be proven. On the basis of what has been presented here we cannot see why this must always be the case for the dual statement. However, it is possible to show by one proof that every rephrasing of a theorem of projective geometry in accordance with the principle of duality must be a theorem. This principle is a remarkable characteristic of projective geometry. It reveals the symmetry in the roles that point and line play in the structure of that geometry.
~Kline
(Continued)
dual to vectors -- whatever is true of one is true of the other -- and simple forms have the dimensions of *area.*
And what we see are colored areas.
Most especially, the Poynting vector gives us the rate of flow of EM energy (E), and so with its dual form. By E= hv, we have the frequency (v) of those photons, which lets us look up the associated color.
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_27.html
So, it seems as though we have a plausible quantum correlate for this aspect of consciousness, viz., color sensation, which readily applies to the other senses as well.
________
The principle of duality in projective geometry states that we can interchange point and line in a theorem about figures lying in one plane and obtain a meaningful statement. Moreover, the new or dual statement will itself be a theorem — that is, it can be proven. On the basis of what has been presented here we cannot see why this must always be the case for the dual statement. However, it is possible to show by one proof that every rephrasing of a theorem of projective geometry in accordance with the principle of duality must be a theorem. This principle is a remarkable characteristic of projective geometry. It reveals the symmetry in the roles that point and line play in the structure of that geometry.
~Kline
Robin's big contribution here is to spot that everything we can know or think is in Experience. So the big problem is how does Experience, which is empirically extended in time and space, get connected at or rather, through, a point?
You are right, Projective Geometry contains a dualism that might fit the bill but something is missing. Perhaps reality occurs at a geometric point and space and time are the projection.
Zeh (1979) has a gem of an observation:
"If consciousness is in fact defined (and different) at every moment of time, it should also be related to points in space: the truly subjective observer system should be related to spacetime points" https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0307013.pdf
As Zeh shows in the paper, a spacetime point can contain a QM field.
So we have a Projective Geometry problem of a point giving rise to a manifold and vice versa... But no clear explanation of this exact form and how it happens. This makes me feel stupid, like being on the edge of what should be a simple explanation. Robin is escaping this by sticking to empirical observations and largely avoiding explanations except for saying that its a bit like this or that and hence physically conceivable.