Nova Spivack - Minding the Planet » Physics

Metascience: The Convergence of Science and Religion

Nova — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:51:33 +0000

(DRAFT 7. Work-In-Progress)

What is the universe and where does it come from?

There are two major schools of thought on this question:

Science: One is modern-day science, which takes the position that universe is strictly a physical phenomenon and that everything about can be explained by repeatable physical measurements, testable scientific theories, and the rules of math and logic.
Religion:
The other school of thought is religion, which in general, takes the position that the universe comes from something non-physical that is ultimately unexplainable and beyond the reach of science.

In this paper we will take an intellectual adventure into the far fringes of both science and religion, to explore the question of whether or science and religion might be unified. Such a unification is an intellectual “Holy Grail” that could truly change the world. But is it even possible? I think it is, and I’ll propose the core of such a unification here.

The Possibility of Convergence

While there are clearly differences between the approaches and beliefs of the sciences and religions of the world, there are also more similarities than many would like to admit. Beyond that however, at the very deepest levels, they lead to similar logical conclusions and in fact intersect on certain fundamental points, whether their proponents know it or not.

In particular, the question of the origin and nature of the universe is where I believe science and religion converge. Whether one holds the view of science, the view of religion, or both, it turns out that there is a logical necessity for reaching the same final conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality.

Whether one starts from a scientific viewpoint and applies only the methods of science and logic, or one starts from a religious perspective and applies only the methods of religion and logic, either way the conclusion is the same. As long as one regards logic as a valid method of enquiry, the final answer is the same.

The Core Argument

So what is the answer? In short, everything is “nonoriginated.” This has a very specific meaning: the universe (or anything else that we might posit to exist) cannot logically originate from nothingness, from itself, or from some other fundamental thing.

Here’s how this conclusion is reached in a nutshell (I will explain this argument in more depth later in this article, as well as its many implications):

To claim that something originates from nothing is a contradiction.

To claim that something originates from itself is a contradiction.

To claim that something originates from something else leads to an infinite regress unless you claim there is a fundamental first-thing — but claiming there is a fundamental first-thing leads to a contradiction, so it’s not an option. An infinite regress on the other hand, is not really an origin.

Therefore none of the three above ways of originating are logically tenable, yet there is no other possible fourth alternative.

This then leaves only two possible conclusions about the universe (and anything else that is posited to exist):

The first option is that the universe is not really happening at all, because there’s no logical way for it to have originated. But this is immediately contradictory to our experience. It is refuted by obvious, undeniable evidence — right in front of us we can see that something is happening — who knows what it is, but it would be absurd to deny that there is some kind of phenomena taking place.
The second option is that the universe is happening, although there is no origin for it (i.e. it is “nonoriginated”). It is not necessary for there to be an ultimate and final origin — no first cause, prime mover, fundamental particle, or first moment of creation. The universe must therefore be infinite in time, space, and levels of scale.

Option (1) is easily refuted. We are left with option (2) – Nonorigination.

But it is a bit strange to imagine a universe that has no beginning, no origin. How can the universe exist if it is truly beginningless? Without a first-cause what could ever have gotten it started? Without a final fundamental particle, what could things actually be made of? In fact, it is precisely because the universe is nonoriginated that it CAN appear at all. This will be explained further in this article.

We can see how this logic applies to the origin of the universe. How about God? Well if God exists then the same logic would apply: God must also be nonoriginated. Anything that is posited to exist must be nonoriginated.

This point of nonorigination is where science and religion intersect. Nonorigination is the ultimate nature of reality. It is not merely a concept — it is the actual nature of all things, and it has many profound implications. It points to a level of reality that is beyond the limits of space and time — and in this respect it is proof of what might be called the Divine, yet it is also completely compatible with the physical world and its laws.

There are several other key dimensions of nonorigination as well. Awareness is one of them. Awareness is the unique capacity of sentient being to make observations. It plays an important role in making the universe happen, and is actually unified with nonorigination. Where there is nonorigination there MUST be awareness and vice-versa.

Likewise the process of cause-and-effect turns out to be a natural corollary to the nonorigination of the universe, and it’s powered by awareness, the act of making observations. If there were no such process, the universe could not work as it does; it would effectively be random.

I will explore these topics in a lot more detail below.

The unification of science and religion is not philosophy, it is logic. But how we interpret it, and what we do with it is a matter of personal preference and personal philosophy. This paper will not attempt to draw conclusions about what scientific or religious belief is best. That is up to you. Use the logical evidence however you see fit.

What Does the Universe Come From?

If one even merely posits the existence of the universe or even just the presence of a fundamental particle — then that immediately leads to further questions such as: Then where does that come from, what is it all really made of, and how could it all be taking place, what is space-time made of or located in, who or what designed this or how did it all happen so perfectly when it is statistically almost impossible?

Some people just can’t imagine that anything as vast as God could be possible, so they simply decide (without any real evidence) that God is impossible. Or they think that there could not be anything greater than or beyond the scope of the physical universe because they feel that the only things that can exist are physical things. To them, there is nothing but the physical, it is all a big machine, this is all there is — and for that reason they can’t believe in some kind of greater being or ultimate reality beyond space and time or the physical laws. But the grounds on which they claim God is not possible can also be used to claim the universe itself is not possible. If they believe in the possibility of the physical universe they also must accept the possibility of God by the same logic.

Here’s why: If the argument against the possibility of God is that it just isn’t possible for there to be something infinite, then that means either space and time are finite or they can’t exist either — the universe would not be possible because space and time are presently thought to be infinite.

Similarly, if the argument against the possibility of God is that there just couldn’t be anything beyond the physical universe, then even the physical universe could not exist — for if there were no possibility of anything greater than or beyond the universe then where is the physical universe taking place? What does it come from? What is it “in?” If it ever ends, what remains? This second argument is a bit of a difficult point so it bears further explanation.

Whenever you posit something, it logically has to either come from nothing, or from itself, or from something else. And at the time it exists it either has to depend on nothing, depend on itself, or depend on something else.

Stating that the universe comes from nothing or depends on nothing is problematic — it is in fact equivalent to saying that the universe comes from or depends on something beyond the universe: some primordial “nothingness.”

Stating that the universe comes from or depends on itself is circular and also a contradiction of sorts — in order for the universe to create itself or depend on itself it must already exist, and so this is impossible and not an option.

Yet stating that the universe comes from something else or depends on something else admits that there must be something beyond it to come from or depend on.

In other words, no matter what position one takes on the universe, it leaves open the possibility – indeed even the logical requirement – that there must be something before it, greater than it, deeper than it, beyond it, after it, etc.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Nothingness

There are however some people who are not convinced by the above arguments. They hold tenaciously to the belief that the universe comes from some kind of primordial “nothingness” which they conceptualize as existing somehow on its own, either before or during the existence of the universe.

This belief in some kind of concrete “nothingness” has many problems. First of all to posit “nothingness” is to treat it as some kind of thing in fact — so it is self-contradictory from the start. Secondly, it is impossible to even imagine actual “nothingness” so labelling it, speaking of it, or positing that it exists is simply delluded. To posit it is not actually to posit it. To imagine it is not actually to imagine it. And in fact there is no way to even conceive of nothingness actually existing, for if it were to exist it would not be nothing. Finally, even if we ignore all these logical problems and still cling to the concept of nothingness, how could anything come from nothing? Let’s examine further.

If nothing really is “nothing” it could not contain anything that serve as a cause or origin for anything else, let alone an entire universe. So it could not give rise to anything. In fact it would be a contradiction to assert the co-existence of nothing and something as well — so even if nothingness could somehow give rise to the universe it would have to be destroyed or eliminated at the moment the universe
came into existence — but if that were the case how could it give rise to the universe — it could never overlap with the universe at all so how could it even be said to give rise to it?

For example the universe could not gradually emerge from nothingness since nothingness would be completely eliminated at the very first instant of the process of emergence, and then the process would be over since there would be no more nothingness left for the rest of it to emerge from.

Similary the universe could not emerge all-at-once from nothingness either, because for that to happen there would at least have to be a moment in which nothing and the universe co-existed — the moment in which the universe emerged.

If we don’t allow for at least that one moment of co-existence before the universe replaces nothingness, then causality is not possible to establish: there would be no way to connect the emergence of the universe as coming out of or from a pure state of nothingness that existed before it — and so there would be no point in making this claim at all.

To say that one thing comes from another thing means we have to be able to show how they are connected, and for that to be possible they have to both exist at the same time, or there has to at least be some chain of events we can point to that connects them.

But if nothing and something are truly mutually exclusive then that is simply not possible to establish. All this effort is simply to show finally and totally that nothingness is a flawed concept, and to claim that something can come from nothingness is even more flawed. If you already accept that you don’t have to re-read this paragraph to figure it out, just continue reading below.

Furthermore belief in the concept of nothingness actually refutes belief in the power of science — for nothingness is not measureable, not verifiable in any way, and is therefore impenetrable to science.

So anyone who cites “nothingness” as the origin of the universe is not in fact being scientific, they are abandoning science. To claim that all space and time — and all science — springs from nothingness is akin to claiming that the physical world (and therefore the domain of science) depends upon something beyond the physical world and beyond domain of science, in other words on what is traditionally the domain of religion.

In other words, if we think the universe sprang forth from nothingness that is like saying that science depends on something beyond the realm of science at the fundamental level, and if we say the opposite — that the universe has always existed or there is an infinite series of universes — that is also akin to saying that science depends on something beyond what science can ever explain — for infinity, while not a contradiction at least, is equally impenetrable to science.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Itself

If the universe didn’t spring forth magically from nothingness, then perhaps it came from itself. What would this mean? It would mean that the universe already existed before the universe existed, in other words it both existed and did not exist at the same time. That is circular reasoning, and it’s also a logical contradiction. There’s not much more that needs to be said about this. But I’ll say it anyway, just to make it perfectly clear that this is not an option.

Perhaps we might interpret “coming from itself” in a slightly modified manner. For example, the universe today comes from the early universe, and they are quite different. So saying the universe of today comes from the universe of way-back-when is not saying that the universe today comes from itself literally, it is saying it comes from something else: the early universe. That is certainly one way to wiggle out of the fallacy of something coming from itself, but it just leads to an infinite regress: the fallacy of something originating from something else. The next section explores why that isn’t an option either.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Something

If the universe doesn’t come from nothingness, or from itself, then what does it come from? If it comes from something else, then what does that thing come from? At some point there has to be a beginning to the process. But if there is a beginning then what is before it? Whatever that is, it is beyond the realm of science.

To state that the universe comes from something else is to say that something else (whatever it is) is the more fundamental level or prior state of the universe. In other words to state that the universe comes from something is really saying the universe comes from the universe, at a deeper level or an earlier time, or a different place, or in a different state or form, or all of the above.

But all such statements are either claims that the universe, taken as a whole (all states of the universe over all time and space) comes from itself, or at worst it is a circular argument that simply pushes the problem down a level: what does that other more fundamental “something” that the universe depends on come from?

On the other hand, if we claim that the universe is beginningless and unoriginated — then what is the eternity in which this “beginninglessness” is taking place? What created eternity? To posit that there is an eternity “beyond” the universe, or that “contains” the universe (including space and time) is already to state that there is
something beyond the realm of science, something outside the universe. That’s acceptable, however, if we then claim that this “eternity” is some kind of more fundamental thing, we just end up in the same infinite regress as before.

Another possibility might be to claim that eternity and the universe are the same thing. This is to say that the universe is infinite in scope — space and time are boundless and contain all there is. This is either equivalent to the claim that the universe comes from nothing, or from itself. Neither of those options is tenable.

If we posit that eternity comes from nothing that is a contradiction. If it is self-originated, that is circular and also a contradiction. If we say it comes from something else, then what — an infinite series of greater eternities, each containing all the lesser ones, like a Russian doll? Or is there a highest level of eternity and if so, what prevents there from being greater levels of eternity — what causes the boundary to exist and if there is a boundary, what is on the other side of it? This leads to either a contradiction or an infinite regress.

If one claims that the universe contains all space and time, then is the container and what is contained finite or infinite in scope? If it is finite there must be some kind of edge, if it is infinite it implies something so inconceivably vast it is frankly mystical in scope.

In short, if we claim the universe comes from something that leads to circular arguments and contradictions, or an infinite regress. If we’re willing to accept circular arugments and logical contradictions or infinite regresses as satisfactory answers then that is not very different than accepting any other self-justified claims taken on faith, such as those made by religions. In fact, it’s just a kind of religious belief disguised as science. If we are willing to think this way — and most scientists are — then why not also believe in God or other religious ideas as well? It would be hypocritical not to.

It’s important to note that the same logic that refutes notions that the universe comes from nothing, itself, or something else, can also be applied to any claims that there is a God. If there is a God, then like the universe, it also cannot originate from nothing, itself, or something else without leading to logical fallacies. To claim that God came from nothingness is again the something-from-nothing argument that we know does not make sense under logical scrutiny. To claim that God comes from God is circular reasoning and contradictory. To claim that God comes from something greater than God contradicts the very notion of God and/or leads to an infinite regress which just pushes the problem down to deeper levels — where does that infinite regress of ever greater Gods come from then?

Both the universe and the concept of God have the same existential status in fact. Neither one of them has an origin that we can actually find or name without ending up in a logical mess of contradictions and infinite regressions. In this respect they are quite similar.

Nonorigination

If neither any possible universe nor any possible God can be said to come from nothing, itself, or something else, then that leaves only two logical conclusions:

The first option is that these things are not possible and not happening at all since they can’t have originated — however that option is refuted by the fact that at least in the example of the universe, something is obviously and undeniably happening right now. The presence of the universe refutes the notion that it is impossible for something to exist that does not originate from nothing, itself or something else.
The second option is that such things could be possible, but in an “unoriginated” manner. But what does this mean? In short, for something to be “unoriginated” does not mean it is non-existent, it just means that it is not dependent on some initial set of causes and conditions. One way for something to exist in an unoriginated manner is for it to be eternal, or at least beginningless.

Option (1) is refuted by the basic fact that we do observe something happening right now. Option (2) is the only remaining option, and is not refuted in any obvious manner.

But option (2) is mind-bending. How can something beginningless exist? How could it ever have come about if there were never any initial causes or conditions to start it? It’s the primordial chicken-and-the-egg problem.

And this is where things get interesting. Scientific theories claim the universe either has an origin or is unoriginated. Religions also either claim the universe has an origin or is unoriginated.

In the first case, the claim of an origin (such as theories in which the universe started from some physical event before which there was literally nothing, or in which there was nothing and then a Diety appeared and created the universe), we can prove logically that this leads to fallacies (because the origin cannot come from nothing, itself, or something else), so this view is simply wrong, or provisional at best; it’s not a final explanation.

In the second case, the claim of non-orgination, in which the universe is held to be beginningless and possibly endless (for example a never-ending sequence of Big-Bangs and Big-Crunches, or a timelessly existing realm), this begs the question of where did this never-ending sequence come from? How could it have ever started? What is it, what iseternity and what created eternity?

In either case however, whether we use science or religion to approach the problem of the origin of the universe, we end up at the same place in the end. The path we may travel to get there is different, and certainly the language with which we express the conclusions is quite different, but the final result is the same. Logically speaking, the universe must be either unoriginated or created by something unoriginated. It is the only logically tenable conclusion.

In other words whether universe is thought of as purely physical, or originating from God, the only logically tenable conclusion is that it is nonoriginated. And the same goes for God. We may believe that God is greater than the universe, in other words prior to it, and in this case God and the universe are not equivalent, however, upon final analysis, even in this configuration, the only logically tenable conclusion is nonorigination.

For example, if the universe is a physical thing that was created by God, yet God is nonoriginated, then by inference the universe is also ultimately nonoriginated (via God’s nonorigination). Although provisionally we can state that the universe originates from God, since God is in this case nonoriginated, the universe is ultimately nonoriginated, for no final origin can be found or logically established.

In summary, nonorigination is the single fundamental truth of both science and religion. It is where they converge.

Unification

And now, based on the above lines of reasoning, the final capstone on the argument.

If we posit that only the physical universe exists, then we have no other choice but to say the universe itself must be unoriginated, in other words, uncaused and unconditioned — neither coming from nothing or from something else.

There is no escape from this logical conclusion. Nonorigination is always found to be the ultimate nature of whatever is positied to exist. It doesn’t matter how many levels of reality you think there are, as soon as you posit even one, it’s “turtles all the way down,” to quote the famous expression. In other words, if you posit the universe resting on the back of something (for example, a giant turtle) then that something must in turn rest on the back of something else (another giant turtle, for example), and so on, endlessly. The only way to not have an endless pile of turtles resting on still deeper turtles is to posit a final fundamental turtle, but that makes no sense — for that turtle would be in free-fall, meaning the entire stack of turtles would have no foundation and would topple over. What nonorigination really means however is that the stack of turtles can be infinite or finite – it really doesn’t matter and is equivalent — either way the entire stack itself, whether just 1 turtle our countless turtles, is nonoriginated. This is not to say that the stack depends on something else we call nonorigination, it is to say that the stack itself IS nonorigination.

This is very hard to accept conceptually, but it is a logical conclusion. The only way to deal with it intellectually, once you derive it and are convinced there is no way around it, is to simply accept it. The universe really is beyond conception — it really cannot ever be conceived. It’s infinite and its nature is inconceivable.

Now what’s interesting, and unifying, about this conclusion is that nonorigination is a logical and scientific kind of conclusion, and yet there is something about it that is inconceivable and wondrous like what we think of when we speak of something Divine. Nonorigination is unexplainable, inconceivable, prior to all space and time, beyond the limits of the mind, and the nature of all things. This is at once scientific and Divine — it is something infinitely beyond all conceptual limits — it is the point where everything converges.

Nonorigination is also a very subtle truth, because it neither asserts or refutes the universe and/or the Divine. In fact, what appears is free to appear and function — yet if we analyze it we find it is nonoriginated. That doesn’t mean there are no causes and effects in operation, it doesn’t mean the universe is random — in fact quite the contrary will be shown later in this article.

Nonorigination says nothing about the day-to-day “relative level of the world” and how it functions — it is a statement about the ultimate nature of everything: the originlessness and fundamental essencelessness of whatever appears. Thus when speaking of nonorigination, we can make a conceptual distinction between the relative and ultimate levels of truth. They are both true, one does not contradict the other.

Relative truth is truth within limits — specifically a statement that holds true locally but not globally. Ultimate truth applies globally. In this case within the reference frame of the universe alone, we can say that any effect we observe is originated from various causes and conditions, but within the larger frame of the origin of the entire universe, it is nonoriginated. In any case, whether one chooses to accept this modal logic or not is a matter of personal preference.

Beyond Four Logical Extremes

In Buddhism the ultimate nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned primordial nature of reality is said to be “unborn.” Since it has no cause it is never actually created or “born” as some thing, yet since it is also not literal nothingness, it is not entirely non-existent, for if it were nothingness it could not be something that we could even apply the labels of nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned to.

That which is nonoriginated is entirely free of all logical extremes:

Existence
Non-existence
Both existence and non-existence
Neither existence nor non-existence

It doesn’t exist because it is not originated. It doesn’t not-exist because it isn’t literally nothingness. It doesn’t both exist and not-exist because that is a logical contradiction.

The fourth logical extreme is the hardest to overcome and there are a few different arguments to conquer it. First of all the assertion of something neither existing nor not-existing is also a contradiction, via double negatives: if it doesn’t exist then this is equivalet to not-existing, and if it doesn’t not-exist then this is equivalent to existing.

Another way to refute this extreme is by the fact that there is no other alternative to existing or not-existing: to exist is to be something, whereas to not-exist is to not be something. How could there be “something” which is neither something or not-something. If it is “something” that contradicts the prong of claim that it is neither “something” or not-something. Yet if it is “not something” then that contradicts the prong of the claim that it is neither something or “not-something.” In other words, to claim that something is neither something or not-something is contradictory from the very start.

The Nonorigination of Nonorigination

It’s important not to get stuck on conceiving of nonorigination as a special kind of thing. Nonorigination is in fact nonoriginated too. So it can’t be something. It also can’t be nothing. It’s actually free of of four logical extremes of being something or nothing. It’s not any of these four logical possibilities:

Something
Nothing
Something and nothing
Neither something nor nothing

There are no other logical possibilities than these four. Nonorigination cannot be said to be or not to be.

In fact, if we look for nonorigination we don’t find it. For example, you cannot find the absence of something. The absence of that thing is literally the fact that you cannot find it. Nonorigination is the absence — in any moment of experience — of anything that can be found to exist, not-exist, exist and not-exist, neither exist nor not-exist. It is an absence, not the presence of something else that could be labelled “nonorigination.”

But this absence is not merely a rhetorical or logical point — it really is the actual fundamental nature of reality. In other words, whatever the universe is — whatever appears to us — really does have this nature of nonorigination, this complete absence of existing, not-existing, both, or neither. This means the universe is far more unexplainable than can even be imagined.

The Primordial Nature of Reality

We have found that whatever there is, it must be nonoriginated. There is no other logical alternative. Even nonorigination is nonoriginated. So while there is no final isolated thing we can point to as nonorigination itself, the fact that whatever we can point to is always found to have a nature of being nonoriginated is a fundamental truth. In fact it is perhaps the fundamental truth. It’s the one logical conclusion that we always reach no matter what we analyze. All roads lead to nonorigination.

If we say that the universe is nonoriginated, then it doesn’t exist the way that most scientists and even most religious thinkers imagine it to. While it’s not nothingness, it’s also not something, or any other alternative. This absence of having an existential status is in fact the way it really is, that’s its primordial and ultimate nature. We can also say that this absence of existential status is the primordial nature of reality.

This means that reality is beyond the limits of existing and non-existing. This may defy common sense, or even feel impossible to imagine, yet it is the only logical option — it is inconceivable yet must be so.

Many great religions all agree on this point at their highest levels of philosophy: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism all agree at the purest conception of the Divine is really inconceivable and unameable, and certainly primordial (not created or conditioned by anything else). At it’s very purest essence the universal truth of all religions, and even of science, is that there must be, and is, something uncreated and unconditioned at the root of reality.

Whether the universe is theorized to have sprung out of perfect randomness or nothingness, or it is an eternity, or there are infinite parallel universes, the only logically tenable way that the entire reference frame can exist is if it is nonoriginated. This nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned nature, is the primordial nature of reality — of the universe and/or the Divine — regardless of whether one believes in just one, or in both.

So there we have it: the essence of the universe and the essence of the Divine are the same primordial unoriginated reality. We can call that the universe, we can call it God, or we call it Buddha, Christ, Allah, Tao, or something else. It doesn’t matter what we call it really, it is nameless.

Freedom

If something is truly nonoriginated, in other words, uncaused and uncreated, then it is totally free. In particular it is free of all concepts and beliefs about it or anything else. It is free of all limitations. We cannot say that it has a particular name and no other name. We cannot say it can only be reached through one path and not others. We cannot say that it can only be served by obeying particular rules and not others. We cannot say that only some people have access to it while others don’t, or that anyone is closer to it than anyone else.

Who are we to say anything that would limit something that is totally uncaused and unconditioned? Something cannot be partially free. Either it is totally free or it is not free at all. There is no middle ground. If we truly believe in a conception of a “God” that is totally free, then we have to be careful not to impose further concepts onto it or onto ourselves or anyone else. The closer one is to knowing God, the less one can really say about God.

The same goes for science: we eventually must reach similar conclusions about the fabric of reality and the origin of the universe. We may be able to describe and predict all sorts of things about the physical universe, but the deeper or farther we look in space and time, the more it starts to become indescribable. At the smallest scales and the largest scales, and in fact at every scale in between, the origin and nature of the cosmos is and will always be a mystery. The best we can do is categorize it and glean some understandings about how it functions, but we’ll never be able to explain it. The universe, like God, is also beyond conception. It is either uncaused and unconditioned itself — which means it is free — or it depends on something that is uncaused and unconditioned. Either way, it is free.

Think about that for a moment. If the universe is free or depends on something that is free — then either way, what takes place in the universe is ultimately uncaused and unconditioned, meaning the universe is effectively free in both cases. What does “free” actually mean? It means literally that anything can happen. Anything. Any universe is possible. Any set of physical laws are possible. Anything at all is possible — even things which we can’t explain and which perhaps are contradictory to the physical laws (such as anomalies, miracles, etc.).

Observation

But then why do only particular things appear to happen, rather than other alternatives? Why does the universe appear to obey particular physical laws? Why don’t we observe miracles or other anomalies that contradict the physical laws (note: some people do claim they observe these phenomena, so we cannot say with certainty that they don’t happen at all…)? But in any case, why does the universe seem so rational and orderly if indeed absolutely anything is possible?

One school of thought on this question (the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics) answers that in fact everything does happen, but in parallel universes, all at once. So there’s no real choice being made — all possibilities from those that are consistent with the universe we know to those which are totally outlandish or seemingly impossible do happen, all at once.

Another school of thought claims that somehow the universe makes choices and that these choices come about whenever observations take place, and that they have something to do with probability — the universe is not precisely deterministic, but not entirely non-determinstic either. If that is the case, then the act of observing something essentially causes the universe to choose what actually happens from the set of all the things that could possibly happen.

But if the universe makes quantum mechanical choices at each moment of observation, then what comes first, the act of observation, or what is observed? What creates reality, what causes the choice that selects one possibility versus all the others? Is what appears literally caused by the observer, or is it there before being observed — does it cause the observer to observer it, or does the observer cause it to be observed? It’s unclear, according to quantum mechanics at least; It’s a
chicken-and-the-egg kind of problem. In fact, the situation is better characterized as a kind of feedback loop, or a dance of sorts, that’s been going on forever.

The universe is ultimately free; anything can happen. But anything does not appear to happen, only some things happen. This is currently said to happen because of choices that are made when observations take place, at least on a subatomic level.

But while observation may cause or condition reality on the quantum scale, on the macroscopic level — the level of people and cars and houses and trees, and so forth — the act of observation does not seem to function in the same manner; it doesn’t cause things to happen. Or does it? The classic Zen koan, “If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?” addresses this question.

In fact, if there is no observer to hear the sound, how can we say there is a sound? When the tree falls it causes vibrations, but those vibrations only make a sound if they move the eardrum of something that can hear. If there is no observer, but only a recording device in the woods, there is a recording, but not yet a sound. The sound only can be said to exist when the recording device is actually used to play the recorded sound to an observer. Until that happens, the sound is not observed.

Quantum Mechanics

This strange fact is reflected in scientific experiments such as the famous “Double Slit Experiment” and many variations. In that experiment, the act of measuring the path that a photon takes causes it to appear to appear to behave like a particle, while if you don’t measure the path it appears to behave like a wave. In fact, this effect is even stranger — experiments have been done which seem to indicate that this effect can even go backwards in time. Even if you wait to measure the path the photon takes long after it has traveled through the experiment, that observation seems to effectively go backwards in time and cause the photon to retroactively behave one way or another, in the past.

Another famous thought-experiment which illustrates the interaction between observation and reality is the “Schroedinger’s Cat” example, in which a cat in a box is either dead or alive depending on whether a random event happens, but until you actually open the box you can’t know it’s actual status — and on a quantum level in fact, until the cat is observed you cannot really say it is either dead or alive; it exists in a kind of intermediate state. The moment of observation somehow causes the intermediate state to collapse into a particular quantum state. This is very odd stuff. And for a while it was thought to really only apply at very small scales, although more recently there is some evidence that similar logic may apply even at macroscopic scales.

What this all means is that there is something about observation that seems to cause the universe to make choices. Another way of expressing this is that the universe — because it is totally free — has the freedom to make choices, and this happens through the act of observation. This would also imply that the universe is intelligent and creative, because the things that make observations (sentient beings like humans, for example) are intelligent and creative. Perhaps the universe isn’t happening out there on it’s own, perhaps it is in a very real sense, imagining itself through an unfolding process of creatively making observations.

The Improbability of the Universe

If the universe either is something totally free, or depends on something totally free, then either way, the universe is totally free. That is to say there are no limitations on it. Anything can happen. How then is it that we observe particular things and not everything happening? Why don’t each of us experience all possible parallel universes? Why is the universe the way it is, and not even slightly different? Why are things the way they are? We can look at physical things and use scientific knowledge to understand their trajectories and dynamics. That certainly helps us explain a little bit about those physical things. But it doesn’t tell us why the initial conditions were not different, or why the universe is such that the physical laws and physical constants are what they are.

Even a slight change in the structure or unfolding of the universe would have resulted in a vastly different outcome — the physical laws would be different, the physical constants would have different values, and this would result in different kinds of universes. Some would have very different properties than the one we live in. Some would support life, some would not. Some would have led to our planet and human beings, some would not. Some would have stars and galaxies, yet other extreme cases would burn out and collapse into giant black holes almost immediately, while other configurations would have led to the universe breaking into countless separate universes or literally exploding and then dissolving into countless separate black holes. And there are many other possibilities too. These claims may sound wild, but in fact they are predicted using our current scientific model — if we simply change the initial conditions of the early universe slightly.

So why did things turn out the way they did? And why does our universe seem perfectly balanced to support human life — or any life for that matter? There are so many possibilities for how the universe might have unfolded, and most of those possibilities do not result in a universe that could support human life at all. In fact the universe we live in is one of the more statistically improbable outcomes. The odds of our universe happening are infitessimally small. So how did it happen?

Furthermore, at least on a quantum level it appears that until an act of observation takes place we cannot really say the universe makes a choice about what happens. So what about the early universe — before there were any human observers, or any living things at all to make observations? So what was made the first observation? Was there a “prime observer” at the first instant of the universe, and if not, how could it have come into being since on a quantum level without being observed it could not have had a particular state.

Or alternatively was there some other kind of outside observer that made the original observations of every ancient quantum interaction, enabling the universe to make choices, at least until living observers could evolve to make their own observations? Or, has the universe effectively made all those choices retroactively — for example, now that there are observers, has the effect of our present choices gone back in time and caused the universe to make all the necessary past choices to lead to the way things are today (that one is a mind-bender, but on a quantum level it is not unreasonable or impossible to consider — space and time are not obstacles on the quantum level. For more on this, read about the Anthropic Principle in physics and cosmology)

Perhaps only universes that can support life can therefore contain observers, and so only such universes can actually happen because without observers quantum level choices cannot be made — in other words, possible universes that don’t contain observers effectively cancel themselves out and never even happen, leaving only those universes that can and do support observers. This would at least eliminate a lot of possible universes and improve the odds of universes like ours ever happening. But there are still innumerable, literally countless, variations that are possible even within that set of observer-friendly universes. Why did it turn out that exactly one and only one of those possible universes — ours — is what happened?

Here’s another question that we have to consider as well: If observation is required for the universe to make choices and effectively collapse on various states out of the space of possible states it could be in, then either there was a first observer (which leads the contradiction that the first observer could not happen because it was not observed) or there has to be an infinite regression of observers, or we couldn’t have the present universe at all. Once again, we come to the logical problems we encountered earlier when discussing the universe and God. Either we end up in contradictions or regressions.

One possibility is that the universe is an observer of itself. We know that since the universe can contain observers (for example, humans), it is capable of making observations. So why should observations only happen on the human-scale. Perhaps there are larger systems within the universe that can make observations too? But even if we believe this it still doesn’t solve the problem — even if the universe can observe itself, what observes the universe? Alternatively, if we posit some kind of outside observer of the universe, then again, what observes that? In either case, we end up with a logical contradiction or an infinite regression.

Is there any way out?

Yes, there is one, and only one, way out: It all comes down to consciousness.

Conscious Awareness

Just as we found that in order for the universe to exist either it must be nonoriginated, it also must be inherently observed. Without observation, nothing could happen, choices could not be made, at least according to quantum physics.

But if this the case, what made the first observation that started it all? The answer is that there was no first observation. Instead, observation must be inherently unified with nonorigination. There is no other alternative, at least if observation is necessary for the universe to exist, on a quantum mechanical level.

In other words, the universe does not require an outside observer. This MUST be the case, for on a quantum level the early universe — indeed even the Big Bang or whatever we think the universe was like as far back as possible — could not have happened at all without something observing it (on a quantum level). The capacity to make observations must be an inherent property of the universe itself, or at least of what the universe depends on if we think it depends on something else. Either way, the capacity to observe is inherent, it doesn’t come from nothing, itself, or something else — it has no origin. It has to be or we couldn’t have the universe at all, according to current scientific theories about quantum physics.

So what is this mysterious capacity to observe? It seems to be pretty close to what we mean when we use the terms “consciousness” or “awareness” (and of “God” too by the way).

We humans have this capacity to experience our minds and senses — to not only be aware but to be reflexively aware as well — and it appears that animals and other forms of sentient life have this capacity too. We are able to observe and react to stimulus, but also to know it. We don’t just react automatically, like springs bouncing back from being compressed. We experience what we observe — we know — we are. We have a sense of our own being, we are aware that we are aware. We are aware that we are. And that is observation in its most naked form.

The universe supports the evolution of things which are aware of their own being. And that means that the awareness of being either comes from the physical universe or from beyond it. But either way, we have seen in our earlier discussion, that at the end of the day, whether you believe in only the physical universe or you believe in a God beyond the universe, they have the same ultimate nature of
nonorigination.

The characteristics of the universe, and therefore of what we call “God,” are therefore that of being uncaused, unconditioned AND aware (in other words, making observations). There is no other logical, or scientific, alternative.

Consciousness is therefore something deeper than what we might think. It is a reflection of the universe’s and/or God’s inherent capacity to be aware. It literally IS the primordial awareness of the universe. And because consciousness IS primordial awareness — the basic capacity to make observations that observes at least itself and can potentially observe anything or everything else — that means it is coming directly from the most fundamental level of reality — in fact it IS the most fundamental level of reality.

Awareness is uncaused, unconditioned and aware of being. Each of us, and indeed, each sentient being that is aware of anything, is a reflection of the entire universe in a sense, and of whatever we call “God,” if we believe in God. In a very real sense — from a scientific perspective as well as a religious one — there is something divine in every sentient being, and indeed in the entire universe.

This primordial awareness is inconceivable, because it literally IS that which is nonoriginated. Even within our own minds we cannot describe it or limit it in any way. It is the nature of mind, and it is the nature of reality, and of whatever we might call God. The difference between each of our individual human awarenesses and the infinite and inconceivable awareness of the universe and/or God is one of scale, not one of qualities. This also means that each individual’s mind is potentially as totally free as the total freedom of the universe and/or God. This is our true condition, whether we know it or not. Total freedom means the mind is potentially unlimited — truly unlimited. That means it is possible to know or experience or observe anything, for us as individual sentient beings, and for the universe as a whole.

Although anything can happen in theory, sentient beings such as ourselves and others make observations — that is our function in the universe in fact – and these observations have quantum level repurcussions that actually cause the universe to choose particular outcomes, which in turn feedback to affect the probabilities of our future observations. In a very real sense, observation creates experience.

Whether you believe the universe is an inconceivably vast intelligent and creative being that has free will, or you believe it all depends on a God that is inconceivabley vast, intelligent, creative, and has free will — it’s the same. Take your pick, they lead
to the same conclusion, and the same universe. Awareness — the essence of consciousness — has a very key role in the universe, and/or in whatever we think of as God. It is in fact THE key to it all.

Cause and Effect

From this discussion so far, we have concluded that the universe is nonoriginated. That is to say, the only logical option is that it exists in a nonoriginated manner — it does not arise from nothing, itself, or something else (OR if it arises from something else then that thing must be nonoriginated, or at least something at some point that is causally upstream from it has to be nonoriginated). For example if the universe comes from God, then either God must be nonoriginated, or that which God depends on has to be nonoriginated, and so on. The point is that the series of things and things that create them is finite, not infinite. There is no infinite regress.

This does not deny the operation of cause and effect within the universe, nor does it deny that there can be an infinite series of causes and effects that lead to or stem from any event within the universe. It only denies that there can be an infinite series of causes and effects the lead to the creation of the universe as-a-whole. In
other words, on the relative level, within the universe, cause and effect can operate just as science (or even various religions) might predict. However, the universe as-a-whole is not caused, or eventually depends on something that is not caused.

Therefore the universe as we know it is not contradicted by claiming that it is nonoriginated. Nor is cause and effect contradicted by stating that ultimately the universe as-a-whole, or whatever is that which is nonoriginated, is totally and complely uncaused, unconditioned and therefore free. Furthermore, even though observers — individual sentient beings — within the universe are expressions of that
primordial freedom (by virtue of being aware), they are still subject to the laws of cause and effect within the universe.

For example, a particular observer may make an observation, and in doing so they perturb the universe on a quantum level, which conditions what they end up observing. Observation is a cause. What is observed is partially an effect of the act of observation, and partially an effect of other causes and conditions that relate to it. When an observer makes an observation, together with the appropriate set of causes and conditions, a particular event is observed to take place. Similarly,
that event then acts as a cause or condition for other observations and events to take place for that observer and/or other observers.

In this manner everything that happens within the universe is the result of a complex network of causes and conditions, in which observers play critical roles. Observers actually change the topology of the network (the patterns of linkages between various causes and conditions and observers) whenever they make observations. This ability to rewire the network by making observations is something that is unique to sentient beings — only true observers that are conscious are capable of causing this to happen.

In fact, without observers actively making observations we cannot truly say the network exists in any particular state — it could be in any of an infinite number of possible configurations representing any of an infinite number of possible timelines of universes. The act of observation is what triggers chains of cause and effect to “fire” (almost as if they were patterns of neurons and dendrites in the brain firing sequentially to generate various thoughts). When there is no observation taking place we might say that the universe is frozen in a kind of indeterminate state. Only when observations happen are particular chains of potential cause and effect in time and space activated, and thus particular events they bring about appear to take place.

The process of cause-and-effect changes the probabilities of various events, making them more or less likely to take place, that is, to be observed. And it is the act of observation itself which triggers the chain of cause and effect, which powers it, which makes it happen. This is how the universe works on a quantum level, and also perhaps how it works on other levels too (for example, the law of Karma in Buddhism is effectively this very process of cause and effect, or what is also called dependent-arising, taking place not only in the external physical world and the body, but within all sensory modalities and even within the mind).

But is cause-and-effect required for the universe to function the way it does? Is there an alternative?

Suppose that there were no cause-and-effect within the universe. Instead imagine what it would be like if everything happened randomly. In a totally random universe every event has an equal chance of happening, so either all events would happen at once, or none of them would. We don’t see either of these taking place however. Instead we see very non-random distributions of events taking place.

When you exert a force on an object it is highly likely to exert and equal and opposite reaction on you, and it is quite unlikely that it will do the opposite of that. But in a random universe both events would be equally likely, at least over all time and space and observers and possible universes. So if the all events are equally likely then we could not have the universe we experience, in which that is certainly
not the case.

One might move the problem down a level however by suggesting that perhaps this universe is only one universe in an infinite number of parallel or possible universes, which are all equally likely to happen, and we just got lucky somehow. We happen to be observers within this one, where things fall towards the force of gravity rather than being repelled by it, and so we are able to stand here on the planet and the planet retains its atmosphere, etc.

It’s fine to hold that view, however, even if one does, within this universe at least, it appears to be as if cause and effect is in operation. Whether cause and effect sequences are really happening sequentially over time and are influenced by the free will of observers, or they all happen all at once from the perspective of eternity and thus free will is illusory, what we experience would be the same. Thus these two alternatives are equivalent.

In this universe — which is the only one we observe — it appears to us as if cause and effect processes are unfolding over time, and for all intents and purposes, from our perspectives, whether causality unfolds creatively and non-deterministically over time and in part due to the free will of observers like ourselves influencing what we observe, or it’s all preordained in eternity, its equivalent.

What this means is that for this universe to happen, cause and effect is necessary. There may be other possible universe in the set of all possibilities which may not appear to contain processes that resemble cause and effect, but we are not experiencing any of them right now, nor can we even prove they exist. So from our perspectives it is as if they do not exist. Notably however, we cannot prove they do not exist either.

Now the question is how can a universe that appears to operate by cause and effect, within it, be nonoriginated? How could a universe full of causes and effects not have a cause? How can nonorigination and cause-and-effect be compatible? Isn’t that equivalent to claiming it is an effect (the univeres) that has no cause (nonorigination), and isn’t that therefore a logical contradiction? No. To make such a claim would indeed be a logical contradiction — an effect is the result of a cause and cannot exist without a corresponding cause. The solution is to not claim that the universe is an effect, nor to claim that nonorigination is a cause.

It is contradictory to assert the existence of an effect apart from its cause. Therefore the universe cannot be asserted to be an effect that has no cause. It is simply nonoriginated, it is not the result of anything. For it to be the result of something would contradict nonorigination, which we have already found is the only logical way that the universe can exist at all (because it can’t come from nothing, itself, or something else, so therefore it must either not exist at all, or it must exist in a nonorignated manner, and since it does appear to exist, it must exist in a nonoriginated manner).

Nonorigination requires that the entire universe is not a cause nor an effect. But although the entire universe is not a cause or an effect, it can appear to contain what look like, and function within it as, causes and effects — sequences of events that are causally linked over time and space in complex interdependent networks. This is a real mind-bender and will take some time to explain. Cause-and-effect is a
relative level process — it is provisionally true — but on an ultimate level the process and everything within it is nonoriginated.

For example, we probe further, into any particular event, and we trace back its origins within the universe, and if space and time are infinite, then we may find an infinitely broad and deep network of causes and effects both upstream (leading to it) and downstream (stemming from it) in time. Since these sequences are infinite, they are from a logical perspective infinite regressions. To claim that any effect comes from an infinite series of causes and effects, is logically fallacious — we cannot prove such a claim since we cannot test infinity to see whether or not the series is truly infinite or not, or even what all the causes and effects in the alleged series even are.

Cause and Effect is Nonorigination

Therefore, from a logical level, even though causes and effects may appear within an infinite universe, they too must be nonoriginated — it is the only manner in which they can be said to exist without commiting a fallacy: They must exist in a manner that is free from four logical extremes. In other words, they cannot exist, not-exist, both exist and not-exist, or neither exist or not-exist.

They cannot exist because of infinite regression. They cannot not-exist because that is a logical contradiction and also conflicts with what we observe. Combining existing and not-existing is a logical contradiction. Rejecting both existing and not-existing leads to logical contradiction and also conflicts with what we observe. So while on a relative level the process cause-and-effect appears to operate, on
the ultimate level of analysis, it is equivalent to being unoriginated, from our perspectives at least.

Another way of expressing the same thing is end result is that if the space and time are infinite, then the universe as well as its contents (including all causes, effects, observations, and observers) must be ultimately nonoriginated. And since it’s not possible to have a finite sequence of causes-and-effects (because that would mean that at least one cause or effect would not have a corresponding effect or case, which is not possible (because a cause and an effect are inseperable, it is a contradiction to claim you have one without the other), a finite universe of causes and effects is impossible. Therefore finite universes are impossible, since only universes that contain causes and effects would not be random.

Therefore our universe must be infinite, because we do observe processes of cause and effect, and it also must be nonoriginated (or be equivalent to something that is nonoriginated — for example be being part of an infinite series of causes and effects of universes or by being created by some kind of God’s free will, not by cause and effect (where God is by definition not orignated by anything else). These are the only logical possibilities.

The lines of reasoning in this section, and those above it, prove that lead us to conclude that only infinite universes in which cause and effect appear to operate are possible, and that such universes (and the causes and effects they contain) must be ultimately nonoriginated, and observed, in order to be said to occur.

In other words, cause and effect is nonorigination. Whatever appears to be generated by causes and effects is ultimately nonoriginated.

Nonorigination is Cause and Effect

The same is true in the reverse direction. We cannot say that something is nonoriginated unless there is some relative-level appearance of a thing to make that statement about. The notion that nonorigination could exist on it’s own without some subject or object that is nonoriginated is a contradiction. Nonorigination is a phenomenon that requires a complementary relative-level facet, namely whatever is being asserted to be nonoriginated. To assert nonorigination apart from anything else would be like positing a penny with no sides. A penny must have a heads and tails. It can’t be a penny without them.

Therefore where there is cause and effect is the result of nonorigination and observation, and where there is nonorigination and observation there is some phenomena — some event appearing to take place, and since phenomena do not happen randomly, the only alternative is that some combination causes and effects are at work.

It is the process of observations, causes and effects that makes some possible phenomena more or less likely than others at various locations in space and time. Without such a process all possible phenomena would be equally likely at all possible locations in space and time. That would not result in our universe, or anything like our universe, at least as far as we observers can know from our positions within space and time.

Perhaps one might argue that maybe if we could see eternity we might find that our universe was randomly generated as-a-whole, but that is not possible either — for if all universes were equally likely then they would either all happen at once or none of them would happen at all. The fact that this universe appears refutes the possibility that none of them happen at least. As for the possibility of them all
happening at once, this is a possibility, but we can’t determine this for sure unless we can see eternity ourselves. From our perspective, and as far as we can know, only this one is happening.

Nonorigination is therefore equivalent to cause and effect, and vice-versa. The process of cause-and-effect is not refuted by nonorigination, indeed it is required by nonorigination, and vice-versa. The proof is that this universe is appearing and
functioning the way it does.

Trinity

At each moment of our lives, of each moment of observation no matter how brief or precise — there is something else taking place that is NOT nothingness and NOT exactly whatever appears to us either.

For example when we observe a tree, we see the appearance of the tree visually. That appearance is there, at least as a mere visual image, not unlike an image in a dream. It may be a real image of a real tree, or a dream image of a dream tree — but that doesn’t matter, the two cases are equivalent for in fact we really cannot tell the
difference at the moment of its appearance.

The image of the tree before us is of some thing which we may believe exists “out there” in the “real world” beyond our body and mind, and that it is really just a depiction of the object out there in the visual spectrum, formed by our particular sense organs and their abilities and limitations, and then rendered via the circuitry of our brains onto some kind of internal viewing screen, or to some further set of cognitive processes which then do things like interpret it, label it as a “tree” etc. That’s all fine — whether or not any of that is really what is taking place or not — at the very moment of an appearance appearing that is all hypothetical from our own perspective. All we can know at the moment of an appearance is that it is there in
its own unique way, and that we know it.

The appearance is the object side of a moment of experience. The “we know it” part of the experience is the subject side. There are these two sides to every ordinary moment of experience. This is consciousness, a dualistic interpretation of what is taking place in every moment into having two poles of subject and object that are
somehow two different things. Most people spend their lives experiencing everything — themselves, the outside world, others — in this dualistic mode of cognition. Note that dualism is not inherent, it is a conceptual interpretation of raw experience. Experience itself is not dualistic — there is no actual boundary that we can find between subject and object and we cannot separate them to have one without the other. This dualistic frame of mind is a deep-seated habit and unquestioned belief that is part of our “filter” of the world. It prevents us from knowing experience the way it actually is, and instead splits it like a prism splits a single beam of light, into multiple beams of “subject” and “object” halves of each moment.

It’s key to notice that the dualistic frame of mind — ordinary consciousness — is a kind of artificial division of the moment into two parts. It comes about because a misunderstanding on our own part of what is actually taking place in each moment. What we call the object side of experience is any appearance in any sensory modality or the mind. The subject side of experience is the label we give to the part
of the moment that seems to be witnessing it, or being it.

In fact there are not really two things like this, divided and separate from one another. Instead there is only one thing taking place that has both of these aspects. What is taking place is nonorigination. It has two aspects: awareness and appearance. Actually this triad can be expressed in three formulas:

Nonorigination = awareness + appearance (N = A + A’)

Appearance = Nonorigination – awareness (A = N – A’)

Awareness = Nonorigination – appearance (A = N – A’)

Each moment of experience combines all three of these together into a trinity — they are unified yet still distinct. This might in fact be The Ultimate Trinity of all trinities. Furthermore, if we focus on appearance we will find that it is nonorigination. If we focus on awareness we will find that it too is nonorigination. If we try to focus on nonorigination itself we never find it, instead we always find
moments of awareness plus appearance. Yet if we then try to find the awareness or appearance on their own they dissolve back to nonorigination.

This Trinity is THE most important philosophical point of all. And I cannot take credit for it. Evertying I know about it or have said here is based on what I’ve learned from Buddhism and quantum mechanics. In particular there are thousands of years of highly developed Buddhist logical treatises on precisely this point.

What is Actually Happening

When things happen they don’t just appear out of nothingness.

There isn’t really any nothingness. Nothingness is impossible by virtue of the following proof: Something appears right now. Nothing and something are mutually exclusive.

Furthemore, even IF nothing was possible, it could never generate anything because there is no way to turn nothingness into something other than nothingness.

Instead of nothingness there is a kind of space of knowing or being — what might be called awareness. This space is not inherently personalized — it has no concepts or sense of I or of being an observer, etc. This awareness has the characteristic of being nonoriginated — we cannot find it or call it a concrete, truly-existing, isolated “thing.”

At the same time as there is any knowing or being, appearances spontaneously develop within its scope. For example, this is just like dreaming. In a dream there is the space of the mind and then within this space various appearances (and other sensory experiences, for example of sound, etc.) unfold. We then identify with a particular character or perspective in the dream and the appearance of its body –
and we call that “I” or “self.” That is a habit — there is nothing inherently real about the character we see ourselves as in a dream — it is not really us, not really our body or our actual mind but rather just a dream image of a body and mind. We label it as “I” or “me” out of habit. In fact, our real body is alseep in bed and is not in the dream, and our real mind and self are having the dream they are not really in the dream. Or are they?

When we dream, dreams don’t appear out of nothing, they appear out of awareness.

The same goes for all the experiences (aka appearances in various sensory modalities) that we call a moment of “our universe.” At each moment of experience there is the space of awareness plus at least some appearance. Neither the awareness or the appearances are truly-existing or even separate, they are just two aspects of nonorigination.

Nonorigination — or what in Buddhism is called “emptiness” is not a final fundamental thing that can be grasped or found either — if you find it you find that it dissolves into awareness and appearances and these dissolve back into nonorigination, endlessly.

Time unfolds as the process of this infinite loop — the Trinity of nonorigination, awareness and appearance — iterating. We are always either looking at an appearance, our awareness, or nonorigination. In either case as soon as we make such an observation what we find is that these dissolve into their counterparts. As we keep observing we trigger the process of cause-and-effect which continues to perpetuate appearances and that is what powers the universe so to speak. The
energy we put into it by making observations drives it to “run” this program so to speak, endlessly iterating new moments of experience that then trigger us to make further observations and so on.

On a quantum level, the process of enacting awareness, via simple acts of observation — is literally what causes the universe to make quantum decisions that jolt the quantum field of possibilities to “collapse” onto a single possibility whenever we look for it. This is analogous to being able to cause liquid water to suddenly freeze into ice by just looking at it. When we don’t look, it’s water, but when we do look it instantly freezes into a particular shape.

We can never really see it in its water form, it always freezes just when we look for it. But we can infer the water from the frozen shapes that appear. Even ice has has waterlike qualities — it’s clear, and it melts back into water when heated after all. If we look closely at any observation (any shape made of ice in this analogy), to find its nature, this is analogous to heating the ice we are looking at, which melts it back to liquid form.

Once it melts we can no longer see it (in this analogy) until we make the next observation as we continue to look for it again. Our next observation is conditioned by the previous observation — the network of probabilities for what can appear next are changed by the previous observation — and this causes it to follow from it, statistically, rather than to be completely random — this is the process of cause-and-effect in a nutshell. Therefore our acts of observation crystallize and perpetuate our experience in an ongoing, recursive process.

Each act of observation effectively loads the dice for the next act of observation and so changes the odds of the next possible dicerolls. If the world did not work this way it would be totally random. Since it’s not totally random — it does appear to behave in a non-random fashion, we are able to make various kinds of predictions, there is a certain amount of consistency over time, this is how the universe must
and does work. Cause-and-effect makes the universe non-random and non-randomness of the universe results in cause-and-effect operating.

Metascience: What are the Possible Beliefs We Might Hold?

So far we have explored some very deep questions about the origin and nature of the universe and, if one believes in God, then of God too. We have found that all these questions converge on the same ultimate reality — the reality of nonorigination.

But while they may all converge on that point eventually, there are many different schools of thought within science and religion, and regarding how they relate to one another. So how do we choose what to believe in?

It is necessary to make such choices in order to simply function on a day-to-day level, to resolve difficult moral questions, and to figure out how to live or what to do in the future. Many people just accept the choice that is handed to them by their parents, or by authorities they trust. But if one has the freedom and presence of mind to question this themselves, then on what basis can an intelligent choice be made?

It’s difficult to make sense of the range of belief system choices available, and their biggest differences or main points. One could proceed on an extensive voyage of exploration — surveying every field of science and religion over decades (what I did by default). But the whole task might be a lot faster and more efficient if one had a map to start with.

I propose a field of thinking about what to believe that we might call “Metascience” in which we make maps to help people navigate possible belief systems more intelligently. In this approach we address big philosophical questions from a higher level, starting by enumerating the space of possible beliefs we could hold about them — rather than by starting with a particular choice of belief. (Note: Another word for Metascience might simply be philosophy or metaphysics. But Philosophy and more specifically, metaphysics, have gotten totally lost, irrelevant, and non-objective. It’s time for a refresh.).

So, regarding the choice of beliefs about the relatoinship between God and the universe — Instead of immediately diving into the rathole of arguing the specifics of any one particular belief system or position on the issues, first let’s at least try try to agree on what the set of possible beliefs and positions is, and on a way to enumerate them as elegantly and usefully as possible. Is a universally agreeable
metascience possible? Can we come up with a way to enumerate all the possible belief systems about God and the universe that everyone can agree with?

A Categorization of All Possible Beliefs About The Universe and God

So here is my first attempt at mapping out the exhaustive metascientific enumeration of all possible philosophies regarding God and the Universe.

(A) Hierarchical Approach: Either the universe or God is more fundamental and/or includes the other

Theories in which the universe – or all time and space – take place within God’s mind and/or body and is subject to God’s laws and will
Theories in which God exists as something within the universe, subject to it’s physical laws and conditions

(B) Dualistic Approach: The universe and God are two separate things

Theories in which God is the first-cause, creator or “blind watchmaker” who started the universe and then detached from it
Theories in which God is watching the universe from some place outside and separate from it and may or may not intervene
Theories in which God and the universe are separate things that co-exist within an even higher-order universe and/or pantheon
Theories in which either God or the universe is more potent or real than the other, and they are separate things

Theories in which the universe is a vast, intelligent, aware, sentient being of some sort (that we name “God”)
Theories in which God is just a synonym or label for the universe, or vice-versa.
The universe and God are a dichotomy; they are neither the same nor different. The universe and God are distinct but connected or merged together as one entity (e.g. God or the universe is considered to be the fundamental aspect and the other is considered to be relative aspect of the same dichotomy, the wave-particle duality, space-time, matter-energy, mind-body, one-many, etc.). Or in other words, theories in which God and the universe are two sides of the same coin so to speak — two distinct sides of the same thing
Theories in which either God exists and the universe doesn’t, or the universe exists and God doesn’t

(D) Existential Approach: The universe and/or God is a provisionally existing thing

Theories in which God or the universe has only a provisional kind of existence that when analyzed proves to reduce to a deeper level of existence, or to non-existence.
Theories in which God or the universe is merely a conceptual construct or label for something that actually has no valid existence of its own (e.g. “the horns of a rabbit”)
Theories in which God is a conceptual label for something that is impossible (e.g. “this statement is not true)
Theories in which God is a fictional character in a story (e.g. the character,
“Aslan” in the Chronicles of Narnia), or is a mental fabrication or projection of someone’s mind
Theories in which the universe is fictional but taking place – a mere fantasy or dream or a mental fabrication or projection of someone’s mind — it doesn’t exist in reality, it only exists in each of our own perceptions or at least in someone’s mind.
Theories such as nihilism which posit that there is actually nothing at all (a contradictory, and irrational assertion)

(E) Nonconceptual Approach: The universe and/or God is inconceivable

Theories in which the universe and/or God is neither posited to exist, not-exist, both exist and not-exist, or neither exist nor not-exist (e.g. the Buddhist theory of “emptiness” or “freedom from four logical extreme views”)
Theories in which God or the concept of the universe is a conceptualization of something real but inconceivable (e.g. “infinity” or “zero”)
Theories in which God and/or the universe cannot be conceived of for some axiomatic reason, such as being transcendental, beyond the scope of thought or words, beyond logic, not in the material realm, higher-dimensional, beyond time and space, etc.

There are no other major categories that I can think of regarding the Universe and God. I believe this may be then an exhaustive list. But feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments below.

Are These Questions Worthwhile?

At this point, for the skeptics among us, we should ask whether it is even meaningful and worthwhile to try to unify science and religion.

It is certainly clear that science has value. But what about religion?

Firstly, much of the world’s population believes in some form of religion and these beliefs are at the root of much of what takes place in the world — culturally, politically, economically and more. For that reason, if nothing else, we really should have as deep an understanding of all the various conceptions about God as we can. But that’s just the start. In fact there are sound scientific and philosophical reasons for exploring the topic of God as well. The theory that God originated the universe is just a valid a hypothesis as any other theory — and may even be testable at some point in the future. It’s certainly no more outlandish than some of the more exotic
and hard-to-test cosmological hypotheses put forth in recent decades.

In addition, many people (including even many scientists) have had personal experiences that indicate that there is some greater entity beyond the body, mind or individual self, and perhaps even beyond the physical limits of space and time. While not everyone has had such experiences, and there is no way to validate the experiences of others, the fact that such experiences are so common and so similar, is another data-point that makes this topic worthy of consideration both by those
who claim to have had such experiences, and by those who claim to have not had them. They may be artifacts of the particular architecture of the human body and brain, or they may be pointing to a deeper reality that exists just as objectively as the physical world.

Finally, from a purely scientific perspective, the origin of the universe is a mystery, and therefore the possibility of God is as much an open question as it ever was. Science has been able to learn about how the universe works to some degree, and to map parts of it, and even to form conjectures about how it has developed — but where it comes from, how it started (if it even has a beginning at all), and even
where it is located ultimately are a mystery. If one posits any kind of a beginning — such as a Big Bang — then that immediately begs the question of where did the Beginning come from?

Religion has certainly learned a lot from science over the millennia. But perhaps, ironically, science has as much to learn from religion in coming millennia, at least when it comes to understanding and exploring the farthest possible reaches of cosmology and the mind. The strange relationship between mind and matter may be what the next great scientific revolution will focus on.

Similarities Between Sciences and Religions

While science and religion may disagree on certain points, at the very deepest level, they may actually be more compatible than we might think. In fact, I would go so far as to propose that a grand unification of science and religion may come about in the future as we probe ever deeper into the edges of what we know about cosmology, subatomic physics, and even our understanding of consciousness and the mind.

The strangeness at the boundaries of science already points to a reality that goes beyond a strict division of mind and matter. For example, the simple act of observation seems to have an influence on what is actually measured to take place, according to the field of quantum mechanics. Similarly, at the borders of cosmology, questions still abound on the origin, structure, and fate of the universe. And in particular, given the improbabilty of a universe such as ours, which seems to be precisely balanced to support the emergence of intelligent life, how did this universe happen?

In many cases scientists are very careful to state that they simply don’t know certain things yet. But at the same time, as scienfitic theories come into vogue, they often get out of control. For example the theory of the Big Bang. This particular theory, like most other scientific theories, has gone from being a new and contentious proposal, to a major and mainstream scientific belief, to a term that
even non-scientists embraced as fact, and now today there is new evidence that perhaps the Big Bang theory is flawed and/or totally incorrect.

In the field of the philosophy of science, which studies how scientific paradigms are born, how they develop and compete, and how they are overturned, there are many other examples (the view of the Newtonian universe versus the view of Relativity, for example, or various explanations for the quantum world, and more recently String Theory). As scientific belief systems emerge, their proponents sometimes develop a kind of faith in the veracity of their beliefs that is not yet justified by the evidence, or that can never be justified in some cases — this scientific faith is quite similar to religious faith. It’s a strong belief in an explanation of nature for which there is some evidence but not yet final proof.

In fact, in science, theories can only be falsified, they can never be established as permanent and final. One never knows if and when new evidence may emerge that overturns the received view, or points to a deeper understanding.

It should also be noted that it is not the case that science is rational and religion is not. In fact, most if not all religions claim that that at least some of their beliefs are verifiable by individuals who follow a rational and repeatable process (for example, do certain things and you will get certain results). In addition at least some religions also apply rigorous formal logic to support their viewpoints. Those religions that provide an experimental method (do certain things and anyone will get predictable results) and that also apply rigorous logic to their reasoning, are applying a form of scientific method. It may be a weak form of scientific method, but it is not irrational.

So while science and religion have very different methodologies, at least with regard to their answers to the really Big Questions, such as the origin and ultimate nature of the universe, they both require a certain amount of faith, and they are both rational processes to some degree.

Differences Between Sciences and Religions

However there are also certain key differences between sciences and religions. In particular, many religions are built from axioms (creation myths, dieties, stories, traditions, and rules) which are established tautologically (they are considered to be true because simply they are defined to be true). For example, those religions which found their belief systems on ancient manuscripts that are said to have come directly for God, are building their belief systems from axioms. Such texts are claimed to be axiomatically true and cannot be disputed for they are God’s Word.

Some relgions also make the claim that the only way to test and verify the truth of their beliefs is to first take them on faith as true. In other words, the only way to verify that x is true is to first believe that x is true, and then after you believe it, the evidence will start to emerge. In other words, not having faith — asking questions or having doubts — actually prevents one from discovering the truth. It is the act of having faith that actually opens the door, so to speak.

Putting faith first is the opposite of the scientific method. The scientific method starts with doubt. It invites questioning — nothing is too sacred to examine, and if some theory can’t stand up to scrutiny, or can’t be shown through experiment or logic to be true, then it can’t be said to be scientific fact. In fact, to accept that
something is true without having doubts, but prior to having proof, would be a grave scientific error. This is a key difference between the methodologies of sciences and religions in general.

However, different though it may be from the scientific method, the religious approach seems to work. Billions of people throughout human history who have followed various religions have been able to verify, for themselves at least, the authenticity of their beliefs. Whether or not the stories in a certain religious text are literally true or only metaphorical or allegorical, the fact remains that the religious
process of faith, devotion, prayer and personal growth do lead, in a predictable and repeatable manner, to profound religious experiences and in some cases even to unexplainable “miracles” at times (such as the many documented cases of spontaneous healings, for example). While this is certainly not the scientific method, it appears to work pretty well nonetheless.

It is not my intention to prove that the scientific method of “proof before faith” is better or worse than the religious approach of “faith before proof.” In fact, I think they both have their place, and they both work, for different purposes.

The Boundary Between Science and Religion is Fuzzier Than One Might Think

The boundary between where science ends and religion begins is fuzzy at best. In fact, they are so intimately connected at the deepest levels that perhaps they will oneday turn out to be the same thing.

Already we have found that on the quantum scale there is an intimate and strange connection between conscious observation and what appears to happen. This is not well understood yet, but it is observed experimentally. Yet we don’t have any real understanding of what consciousness is, or how it interacts with what is observed. The sciences have very little understanding of the mind at all. In fact, many scientists don’t even believe there is a mind; they think the brain is a machine and the mind is a kind of illusion. There is no soul, no consciousness, no being at all. Yet others disagree. The jury is still out.

Religions on the other hand have been studying consciousness for millennia, and some are downright scientific about it. For example the ancient Hindu and Buddhist tantric sciences provide extremely detailed and sophisticated technologies for using the breath, posture, visualization, sound, and concentration to bring about extremely unusual states of body and mind (which have recently have been measured in scientific laboratories in a number of studies). Religions are in some ways way ahead of science when it comes to understanding the mind.

The mind is one of the places where science and religion are going to collide and most likely converge. Another is the ultimate nature of the universe — the nature of space and time. The boundary between science and religion becomes fuzzier as one begins to explore the mind, the relationship between mind and matter, and simply as one views the universe at the largest or smallest scales.

There have been many past attempts by scientists at proving and disproving the existence of God. In fact the question of God’s existence was once considered an acceptable topic of enquiry by scientists such as for example, Sir Isaac Newton, and many others. In the past science was concerned with all questions about nature –
including questions about the nature of reality and the mind, and even the possibility of a soul. But in recent times the focus of mainstream science has shifted far away from such topics — which are now seen as almost taboo. But why should they be taboo? They are just as much a subject for enquiry as ever. God has not been proved to exist or not-exist by science, and therefore the jury is still out. The question is whether there is any way to prove that God exists or not? It may in fact be possible to do this, scientifically, eventually.

In any case, just as is the case for the question of God, there are many scientific questions that also have not been answered yet, especially in the fields of cosmology and theoretical physics. Where does the universe come from? What created it? What came before the Big Bang (if there was a Big Bang)? What medium is space-time taking place in right now, or if there is nothing beyond space time then how did it ever happen, what does it come from, how could there be nothing beyond it? Does the universe have any edges and if so what is outside them? If
there are multiple universes, what separates them from each other, or are they connected and if so how? Do all possible states of all possible universes already exist or are they truly unfolding over time? Is everything predetermined by the physical laws, or is it all open to chance, or is there some level of intelligence and creativity taking place in the universe?

Even if science someday were able to describe and define everything there is to know about the physical universe, there would still be something more to know that could not be proved or discribed or defined. Godel’s famous Incompleteness proof established this on a formal logical level — there will always be gaps in our knowledge — of any formal systems we construct. No formal system can be both
consistent and complete at the same time. We will never have perfect scientific knowledge of the universe. And even if we could, it would simply beg the question of what is beyond that — no matter what we say the universe is, the question will always come up: well, then where does it come from and how or why is it happening?

Whether through science or religion, all paths lead to the possibility of something inconcievably beyond what we know. And this is where the boundary between science and religions gets so fuzzy that it dissolves completely.

Making a Choice

Assuming we can all at least agree on the meta-level choices (the set of possible choices), we can then discuss possible criteria for comparing, testing, and even ranking the various possible choices available to us.

At the end of the process of course there may be no final best choice that everyone accepts (in fact, I can guarantee there will not be!), nor any agreement as to what are the best or correct criteria for choosing among them. But at least we can all at least agree on what the choices are and how they compare to one another in various ways.

This could go a long way to promoting and improving tolerance and understanding. Better yet, this kind of process might even lead to useful meta-level or inter-belief-system dialogues that may eventually lead to important discoveries and even grand unifications in the future.

However, for now, regardless of what belief system we prefer, we simply have to accept that the belief system we choose, if any, is a matter of personal choice (some might call that faith, others might call it aesthetic preference, others might call it a hunch or intuition) — at least until such time as someone comes up with a way to objectively prove to everyone else that there is only one correct choice. Until that time, even if we have our own favorite belief system choice, we still have to keep some measure of open-mindedness in the face of the set of other choices available and the fact that we can’t today prove objectively (to everyone) that we made the right choice.

At least however, we should be clear that if we are willing to believe anything about the universe, there are strong reasons why we therefore should keep an open mind with regard to the possibility of God. It is not that huge a leap in fact. If we are willing to accept that something as vast and inconceivable as the universe exists, then why not God too? We really don’t have much solid grounds for holding any beliefs about such things — to do so is really just an act of faith either way. We should not have illusions about that. Believing in scientific explanations of the cosmos is really not that much different than believing in religous ones.

The good news at least is that so long as our conception of God has the properties of being uncaused and unconditioned, we are likely to have made the right choice. This also means that all the great religions, at least at their cores, are in agreement — they are all worshipping the same ultimate God, regardless of what different names they use for it. You really can’t go wrong as long as you believe in an ultimate nature that is uncaused and uncreated. However — where you certainly CAN go wrong is in imposing any further beliefs on it. And many make that mistake.

Nonduality

I have shown in this article that if one believes in the physical universe described by science, then in fact there is a logical requirement that the universe is ultimately nonoriginated.

I have also shown that the same holds for belief in God — God is also logically required to be nonoriginated.

Therefore the universe and God have the same ultimate nature.

In addition I have shown that for the universe to make choices about what happens from the set of all possibilities, observation, and therefore awareness, is required. Furthermore the nature of sentient beings, and of God, is precisely this unique capacity of awareness. Both the universe and what we think of as God are characterized by the same nature of being nonoriginated and aware.

In fact, at this level, the ultimate nature is not very different from the core idea of what God is. On an ultimate level there is not really much of a distinction between the ultimate nature of the universe and the ultimate nature of God — it is just one ultimate reality. The universe and God may be one thing, or they may be two
things, or only one and not the other may exist, but in any and all of these cases, there is still only one ultimate nature: nonoriginated awareness.

There is no escape from this logic. There is no question that somewhere down the line, we must finally accept that there is something greater than the universe — whatever we think the universe is — and the characterstics of that greater thing are in fact the one common theme of the conception of God across all religions. We can name it what we want, and certainly different religions do. We also may have different perspectives on it, and add all sorts of other details. But what all the great religions have in common is an ultimate nature that is essentially transcendental.

In other words, science and religion are two sides of the same coin. You really can’t have one without the other. They are a dichotomy, but not a duality. They are distinct yet unified.

We do however have the freedom to choose our relative level beliefs about science, and our religious tradition. This freedom is an expression of the primordial freedom of the awareness — our ability to choose what to observe — and this in turn is the ultimate nature of reality. Intellectual freedom is therefore not only irrepressible, it is a reflection of the nature of the universe, it is our birthright.

On the ultimate level everything is unified, but on the relative level, there is no one correct science or religion, there will always be different views, and they probably won’t always agree on all points, and this is perfectly in accord with the freedom of the universe, and each individual. So while science and religion may be unified on the ultimate level, they certainly are not unified on the relative level, and in fact even within each indivividual field of science and each religion, there are differing viewpoints and schools of thought. And this is good.

There is a menu of different belief systems in both arenas and various items on the menu are or are not compatible with one another, or with the beliefs of others. It’s really our personal choice to make. However, what should be clear from the above argument is we have to choose both a main course and a desert: science is undeniable, and religion is unavoidable, they are two sides of the same coin.

Science and religion are different on the relative level (though not as different as some might think), but they definitely converge at ultimate level and this convergence is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of logic. Therefore, regardless of whether we prefer science or religion, or any particular sect within either camp, at least we should not err on the side of thinking they are mutually exclusive.

Unifying Physics and Consciousness: The Next Scientific Revolution

If you pursue science to the very edges, you reach nonorigination. Similarly if you become as close as possible to the diety in any religious tradition, you reach nonorigination. Moreover, nonorigination is the nature of appearances and awareness, and vice-verse. They are never separated. It’s a trinity.

The ultimate nature of the universe, and the ultimate nature of God (if you believe in a God) – must logically be precisely the same. This nature unifies the physical world of seemingly “external” sensory experiences and seemingly “internal” mental events, with the unfindable yet undeniable dimension of awareness, and the unfindable yet logically required nature of being nonoriginated.

The beauty of this is that on the ultimate level there really is no question at all about whether or not the universe exists, or whether or not God exists — the appearances of primordially aware nonorigination is the truth — and it is the most amazing miracle of all. It is irrefutable, it is logically required, and it establishes a basis for authentic and universal spirituality. One can logically derive or directly experience this logical trinity through the vehicle of focusing on and logically analyzing any phenomena (the universe, the mind, God, etc.). When this trinity is recognized as the nature of reality, and directly experienced as such, that is the deepest scientific observation or religious experience possible.

The universe including the body and all other physical things in space and time, the conceptual mind and its mental realm of thoughts and emotions, and all possible real or imaginary dieties, all have at their ultimate root, the same primordially nonoriginated awareness.

Proving this once and for all in a non-religiously couched manner — using pure logical reasoning — enables science to progress beyond its present day limitations to finally begin to make sense of the strangeness of the quantum world and of the role and nature of consciousness, and the ultimate nature of space and time.

The next frontier in science will not be simply be a deeper understanding of the physical world — it will be a broader and more integrated understanding that includes both the physical world and the realm of consciousness — the mental realm.

To fully explain and understand the physical world science must find ways to include and measure the crucial role of conscious observers. Each physical event has both sides on a quantum level: the side of the observer and the side of what is observed. Science has so far been focused exclusively on understanding the side of what is observed. But what is observed cannot fully be understood or explained without an equal measure of scientific understanding of the observer and the act of observation.

Similarly, the only way to fully understand consciousness is to include and measure the crucial relationship between consciousness and the process of appearance (namely cause and effect). Both the physical world and consciousness are nonoriginated — they are empty of having an origin, not having an origin, having both, or having neither.

We don’t have the tools for measuring or exploring consciousness yet, but we’re close. Experiments that show the impact of observation on reality are indicators that consciousness is a phenomenon that can affect the observable world. This means that consciousness is indirectly detectable via measurments of the physical world around observers. It may be that consciousness — the act of observing — cannot be directly measured or observed except on its own — by and “within” each individual — but may still me indirectly measured or detected via its affects on the quantum field in the environment when it is present.

By analogy, this is similar to how space is measured, so it is possible to imagine doing this for consciousness. In the case of space, we cannot see it, touch it, or measure it directly. We can only infer things about it by measuring other things — like the way light travels, or the way things move. These indirect measurements lead us to an understanding of space.

Similarly we may be able to triangulate on consciousness by measuring the effects of various physical changes on consciousness (as reported by a conscious observer) and/or by the effects of consciousness (some observer) on physical phenomena (such as the Double Slit experiment). This is definitely an interesting possibility for
further exploration, and perhaps the next scientific revolution is waiting just over the horizon in this direction.

Our civilization has not even scratched the surface of this new frontier — a unified science of physics and consciousness. But we will soon. We have to. It is unavoidable. Our quest for knowledge and understanding will take us there whether we like it or not. Already there are cracks in our present scientific theories, and experiments are showing us gaps and contradictions in our theories that we cannot explain. And the light is spilling through them.

Video: My Talk on the Evolution of the Global Brain at the Singularity Summit

Nova — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:32:41 +0000

If you are interested in collective intelligence, consciousness, the global brain and the evolution of artificial intelligence and superhuman intelligence, you may want to see my talk at the 2008 Singularity Summit. The videos from the Summit have just come online.

(Many thanks to Hrafn Thorisson who worked with me as my research assistant for this talk).

New Photon Thruster: Get to Mars in 1 Week!

Nova — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:42:32 +0000

An interesting new patent pending design for a photon thruster appears to be the real deal. Check out the article and who is behind it. (A fellow SRI alumnus!). Getting to Mars in a week means getting to the moon, as well as other nearby planets would be quite fast as well. This could be quite revolutionary.

TUSTIN, Calif., Sept. 7, 2007 — An amplified photon thruster that
could potentially shorten the trip to Mars from six months to a week
has reportedly attracted the attention of aerospace agencies and
contractors.

Young Bae, founder of the Bae Institute in
Tustin, Calif., first demonstrated his photonic laser thruster (PLT),
which he built with off-the-shelf components, in December.

Russian Scientists Discover Radiation Absorbing Mineral

Nova — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:08:34 +0000

Russian
scientists in the Khibinsky Mountains in the Arctic Circle have made an
important scientific discovery. They’ve found a new mineral which
absorbs radiation.
It does not yet have an official name and is known only as number 27-4. It can absorb radioactivity from liquid nuclear waste.

Read the rest here.

Burning Salt Water — A New Form of Fuel

Nova — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:00:08 +0000

Inventor, John Kanzius, has figured out a way to burn salt water. This could provide a clean, naturally available alternative fuel source. Salt water is one of the most abundant natural resources on our planet. Here’s a video.

nin

Speed of Light Broken?

Nova — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:03:07 +0000

Let’s hope this is true. That would be seriously exciting!

From this source

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the
speed of light – an achievement that would undermine our entire
understanding of space and time.

Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921

According
to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, it would require an
infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000
miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr
Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have
breached a key tenet of that theory.

The pair say
they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons -
energetic packets of light – travelled "instantaneously" between a pair
of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.

Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.

Scientists Engineer New Levitation Technology

Nova — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:22:42 +0000

Recent research has found a way to reverse the Casimir force, which causes objects to stick together at nanoscales. This enables nanoscale levitation — among other things it could dramatically reduce friction in nanodevices. It could also enable new kinds of nanodevices in which for example rotating parts are levitated and held in place using the reverse Casimir force rather than by nanoscale axles or housings. For example nanowheels on a nanobot could perhaps be held in place and could turn without an axle. This could simplify the geometry of nanodevices, reducing the cost of manufacturing of more complex devices while also reducing the number of parts that could break. In addition, reversing the Casimir force could eliminate the main cause of friction (called "stiction") in nandevices — it causes parts to stick together such that they can’t even move. The solution to this problem has traditionally been to test and discard a percentage of defective nanodevices after production. Eliminating stiction by reversing the Casimir force could perhaps reduce these costs and make the process of nanomanufacturing more efficient.

St Andrews scientists have discovered a new way of levitating tiny
objects – paving the way for future applications in nanotechnology.

Theoretical physicists at the University of St Andrews have created
`incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature
which normally causes objects to stick together by quantum force. By
reversing this phenomenon, known as `Casimir force’, the scientists
hope to solve the problem of tiny objects sticking together in existing
novel nanomachines.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin of the University’s
School of Physics & Astronomy believe that they can engineer the
Casimir force of quantum physics to cause an object to repel rather
than attract another in a vacuum.

Casimir force (discovered in 1948 and first measured in 1997) can be
demonstrated in a gecko’s ability to stick to a surface with just one
toe. However, it can cause practical problems in nanotechnology, and
ways of preventing tiny objects from sticking to each other is the
source of much interest.

Found here via link from Bram.

Steorn Set to Demo "Free Energy" Device Tomorrow

Nova — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 04:36:18 +0000

Steorn, the Irish company that claims to have invented a mechanical device that generates unlimited free energy with no fuel, is scheduled to demonstrate their device publicly for the first time in London tomorrow. A panel of 22 independent world experts has been recruited to study the device. It should be an interesting demo!

Roswell Officer's Deathbed Confession: UFO's Are Real

Nova — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:00:50 +0000

This just in. Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the Roswell Air Force base in 1947 when aliens or a weather balloon allegedly crash landed on a nearby ranch.

Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the base
in 1947, and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press
releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Colonel
William Blanchard.

Haut died last year, but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death.

Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon
claim was a cover story, and that the real object had been recovered by
the military and stored in a hangar. He described seeing not just the
craft, but alien bodies.

Read the rest here.

A Modern Day Da Vinci?

Nova — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:03:47 +0000

My brother pointed me to this video of some incredible kinetic sculptures by a man who appears to be a modern-day Da Vinci. Watch the video to see what I mean.

WiTricity Coming Soon

Nova — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 05:52:12 +0000

Another interesting article on the move towards wireless power, or what some are calling "WiTricity." I’ve written about this previously. The team at MIT is making some good headway. Check out the article for a diagram of how their wireless power beaming system works. It can power any device within about 9 feet.

Nikola Tesla was working on wireless power beaming in the early 1900’s, but since that time nobody has really succeeded in replicating his work or taking it further. Wireless power is an important and necessary step in technological evolution that simply must happen. My guess is that it will be a commercial mainstream technology within 20 years, if not sooner.

Very Cool Laser Graffitti Technology

Nova — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:33:35 +0000

Josh sent me this link. It’s a video of a new technology for doing laser graffitti on the sides of buildings at night. Josh and I have been discussing how to do this for years. You could also project onto clouds. And of course with a computer to control the image you could make some very nice looking pictures, and ads…

Intelligence is in the Connections

Nova — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:26:58 +0000

Google’s Larry Page recently gave a talk to the AAAS about how Google is looking towards a future in which they hope to implement AI on a massive scale. Larry’s idea is that intelligence is a function of massive computation, not of “fancy whiteboard algorithms.” In other words, in his conception the brain doesn’t do anything very sophisticated, it just does a lot of massively parallel number crunching. Each processor and its program is relatively “dumb” but from the combined power of all of them working together “intelligent” behaviors emerge.

Larry’s view is, in my opinion, an oversimplification that will not lead to actual AI. It’s certainly correct that some activities that we call “intelligent” can be reduced to massively parallel simple array operations. Neural networks have shown that this is possible — they excel at low level tasks like pattern learning and pattern recognition for example. But neural networks have not proved capable of higher level cognitive tasks like mathematical logic, planning, or reasoning. Neural nets are theoretically computationally equivalent to Turing Machines, but nobody (to my knowledge) has ever succeeded in building a neural net that can in practice even do what a typical PC can do today — which is still a long way short of true AI!

Somehow our brains are capable of basic computation, pattern detection and learning, simple reasoning, and advanced cognitive processes like innovation and creativity, and more. I don’t think that this richness is reducible to massively parallel supercomputing, or even a vast neural net architecture. The software — the higher level cognitive algorithms and heuristics that the brain “runs” — also matter. Some of these may be hard-coded into the brain itself, while others may evolve by trial-and-error, or be programmed or taught to it socially through the process of education (which takes many years at the least).

Larry’s view is attractive but decades of neuroscience and cognitive science have shown conclusively that the brain is not nearly as simple as we would like it to be. In fact the human brain is far more sophisticated than any computer we know of today, even though we can think of it in simple terms. It’s a highly sophisticated system comprised of simple parts — and actually, the jury is still out on exactly how simple the parts really are — much of the computation in the brain may be sub-neuronal, meaning that the brain may actually a much much more complex system than we think.

Perhaps the Web as a whole is the closest analogue we have today for the brain — with millions of nodes and connections. But today the Web is still quite a bit smaller and simpler than a human brain. The brain is also highly decentralized and it is doubtful than any centralized service could truly match its capabilities. We’re not talking about a few hundred thousand linux boxes — we’re talking about hundreds of billions of parallel distributed computing elements to model all the neurons in a brain, and this number gets into the trillions if we want to model all the connections. The Web is not this big, and neither is Google.

One reader who commented on Larry’s talk made an excellent point on what this missing piece may be: “Intelligence is in the connections, not the bits.”The point is that most of the computation in the brain actually takesplace via the connections between neurons, regions, and perhapsprocesses. This writer also made some good points about quantumcomputation and how the brain may make use of it, a view that forexample Roger Penrose and others have spent a good deal of time on.There is some evidence that brain may make use of microtubules andquantum-level computing. Quantum computing is inherently about fields,correlations and nonlocality. In other words the connections in thebrain may exist on a quantum level, not just a neurological level.

Whether quantum computation is the key or not still remains to bedetermined. But regardless, essentially, Larry’s approach is equivalentto just aiming a massively parallel supercomputer at the Web and hopingthat will do the trick. Larry mentions for example that if allknowledge exists on the Web you should be able to enter a query and geta perfect answer. In his view, intelligence is basically just search ona grand scale. All answers exist on the Web, and the task is just tomatch questions to the right answers. But wait? Is that all thatintelligence does? Is Larry’s view too much of an oversimplification?Intelligence is not just about learning and recall, it’s also aboutreasoning and creativity. Reasoning is not just search. It’s unclearhow Larry’s approach would address that.

In my own opinion, for global-scale AI to really emerge the Web has toBE the computer. The computation has to happen IN the Web, betweensites and along connections — rather than from outside the system. Ithink that is how intelligence will ultimately emerge on a Web-widescale. Instead of some Google Godhead implementing AI from afar for thewhole Web, I think it is more likely that every site, app and person onthe Web will help to implement it. It will be much more of a hybridsystem that combines decentralized human and machine intelligences andtheir interactions along data connections and social relationships. Ithink this may emerge from a future evolution of the Web that providesfor much richer semantics on every piece of data and hyperlink on theWeb, and for decentralized learning, search, and reasoning to takeplace within every node on the Web. I think the Semantic Web is anecessary technology for this to happen, but it’s only the first step.More will need to happen on top of it for this vision to reallymaterialize.

My view is more of an “agent metaphor” for intelligence — perhaps itis similar to Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind ideas. I think that mindsare more like communities than we presently think. Even in our ownindividual minds for example we experience competing thoughts, multiplethreads, and a kind of internal ecology and natural selection of ideas.These are not low-level processes — they are more like agents — theyare actually each somewhat “intelligent” on their own, they seem to besomewhat autonomous, and they interact in intelligent almost socialways.

Ideas seem to be actors, not just passive data points — they arecompeting for resources and survival in a complex ecology that existsboth within our individual minds and between them in socialrelationships and communities. As the theory of memetics proposes,ideas can even transport themselves through language, culture, andsocial interactions in order to reproduce and evolve from mind to mind.It is an illusion to think that there is some central self or “I” thatcontrols the process (that is just another agent in the community infact, perhaps one with a kind of reporting and selection role).

I’m not sure the complex social dynamics of these communities ofintelligence can really be modeled by a search engine metaphor. Thereis a lot more going on than just search. As well as communication andreasoning between different processes, there may in fact be feedbackacross levels from the top-down as well as the from the bottom-up.Larry is essentially proposing that intelligence is a purely bottom-upemergent process that can be reduced to search in the ideal, simplestcase. I disagree. I think there is so much feedback in every directionthat medium and the content really cannot be separated. The thoughtsthat take place in the brain ultimately feedback down to the neuralwetware itself, changing the states of neurons and connections –computation flows back down from the top, it doesn’t only flow up fromthe bottom. Any computing system that doesn’t include this kind offeedback in its basic architecture will not be able to implement trueAI.

In short, Google is not the right architecture to truly build a globalbrain on. But it could be a useful tool for search andquestions-and-answers in the future, if they can somehow keep up withthe growth and complexity of the Web.

First Quantum Computer to be Announced Next Week

Nova — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:27:16 +0000

D-Wave, a company making quantum computers, claims the first quantum computer will be unveiled next week. If this really happens it could be big. Quantum computing can theoretically enable a massive increase in computing power. The question is what will it cost? If this technology is viable it also ups the ante in the encryption field — because quantum computers can potentially crack codes that are today effectively beyond the limits of our present computing power. This could bring about a new market for quantum crytography, such as that provided by MagiQ, which is invulnerable to being cracked by quantum computers.

Brilliant New Optical Imaging Technique — Single Photon Imaging

Nova — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 05:48:01 +0000

Some very interesting research out of University of Rochester. Researchers there have found a way to record and later retrieve an image using only a single photon. This is cool enough — but wait, there’s more — they did this by leveraging the famous "double slit" experiment of quantum mechanics in a really smart way. Why didn’t I think of this??? Duh!

To produce the UR image, Howell simply shone a beam
of light through a stencil with the U and R etched out. Anyone who has
made shadow puppets knows how this works, but Howell turned down the
light so much that a single photon was all that passed through the
stencil.

Quantum mechanics dictates some strange things at that scale, so
that bit of light could be thought of as both a particle and a wave. As
a wave, it passed through all parts of the stencil at once, carrying
the "shadow" of the UR with it. The pulse of light then entered a
four-inch cell of cesium gas at a warm 100 degrees Celsius, where it
was slowed and compressed, allowing many pulses to fit inside the small
tube at the same time.

Must-Know Terms for the 21st Century Intellectual

Nova — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:24:13 +0000

Read this fun article that lists and defines some of the key concepts that every post-singularity transhumanist meta-intellectual should know! (via Kurzweil)

New Wireless Power Technology — No More Wires!

Nova — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:32:12 +0000

A group of physicists at MIT have come up with a new model for beaming wireless power to mobile devices, such as computers or cell phones. It promises to do for power, what wireless ethernet hubs do for network connectivity.

I’ve been interested in wireless power ever since I first read the biography of Nikola Tesla in the early 1990’s. Tesla was perhaps the most important inventor of the 20th century — he singlehandedly invented much of what enables the modern electrical power grid today. He also pioneered radio, and many other technologies. But his greatest dream was wireless power. He believed he had discovered a way to beam electricity to any point on earth and embarked on several ambitious projects to test and commercialize his appraoch. But sadly his projects were never completed due to funding problems and interference by competitors and investors who had conflicting business interests. By the end of his life Tesla was a lonely and forgotten man, feeding pidgeons in the park. At his death, many of his lab notebooks were confiscated and classified as Top Secret by the US military — never to be seen again — (and at least some this confiscated information was later used as the foundation for the Star Wars particle beam weaponry program). The greatest electrical genius in history was just too far ahead of his own time.

Tesla’s work has still not been fully understood or replicated today. But what remains unclassified is a treasure trove of invention of great relevance to the world we live in today. In 2003 I blogged an article, called "I Want Wireless Power" outlining why I want this technology. Another great article about this opportunity is here.

British Ministry of Defense Chief Resigns; Cites Concerns About UFO's

Nova — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 06:30:00 +0000

Ok, here’s a very unusual news item:

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick
Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth
and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

Mr Pope decided to speak out about his worries after resigning
from his post at the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD this
week.

"The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.

Read the rest here. I have several thoughts about this news and what it might mean…

Mr. Pope has been speaking out on these issues for years. What’s
most interesting is that the MoD allowed him to. This seems to tacitly
confirm that what he’s saying may have some truth to it. If he was
actually wrong or a lunatic they would have fired him long ago, or had
him conveniently committed to an asylum. Since they didn’t fire him,
this would seem to indicate that the higher-ups must have at least
enough respect for him to keep him on as one of their chiefs (or maybe
he had some kind of government job that he couldn’t be fired from?).

In any case, I wonder why he thinks aliens would have bad
intentions? Perhaps he has information that is not available to the
public. But if aliens exist, and if they have such advanced
technologies, and if they have bad intentions, wouldn’t they have
invaded long ago? What would be their reason to wait if their intention
was to invade? Waiting would only give us more time to develop
technologies to fight them with.

The fact that, despite quite a lot of evidence of UFO’s, they have
NOT invaded, seems to indicate that their intentions are not harmful.
Perhaps they are here to study us, or protect us from ourselves, or to
refuel and re-provision enroute to somewhere else? Or maybe they are
missionaries? Or maybe they are not interested in humans at all. Maybe
it’s the cats they are here to talk to. Let’s face it — the cats are
clearly much cooler than the humans.

Then again, this reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode from the
early 1960’s that I read about in which aliens landed and stated that
their sole purpose for coming to earth was for the betterment of
humanity. They had a special text of principles entitled, "To Serve
Man." It wasn’t until the end of the episode that it was revealed that
this text was actually a cookbook.

Is There Room for The Soul? – Good Article on Cognitive Science

Nova — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:13:31 +0000

This is a surprisingly good article on the nature of consciousness — providing a survey of the current state-of-the-art in cognitive science research. It covers the question from a number of perspectives and interviews many of the leading current researchers.

Why Machines Will Never be Conscious

Nova — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:08:00 +0000

Below is the text of my bet on Long Bets. Go there to vote.

“By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious).”

Spivack’s Argument:

(This summary includes my argument, a method for judging the outcomeof this bet and some other thoughts on how to measure awareness…)

A. MY PERSPECTIVE…

Even if a computer passes the Turing Test it will not really beaware that it has passed the Turing Test. Even if a computer seems tobe intelligent and can answer most questions as well as an intelligent,self-aware, human being, it will not really have a continuum ofawareness, it will not really be aware of what it seems to “think” or”know,” it will not have any experience of it’s own reality or being.It will be nothing more than a fancy inanimate object, a clevermachine, it will not be a truly sentient being.

Self-awareness is not the same thing as merely answering questionsintelligently. Therefore even if you ask a computer if it is self-awareand it answers that it is self-aware and that it has passed the TuringTest, it will not really be self-aware or really know that it haspassed the Turing Test.

AsJohn Searle and others have pointed out, the Turing Test does notactually measure awareness, it just measures informationprocessing—particularly the ability to follow rules or at leastimitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measuresthe ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, whichis different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeedin creating good AI, we won’t necessarily succeed in creating AA(“Artificial Awareness”).

But why does this matter? Becauseultimately, real awareness may be necessary to making an AI that is asintelligent as a human sentient being. However, since AA istheoretically impossible in my opinion, truly self-aware AI will neverbe created and thus no AI will ever be as intelligent as a humansentient being even if it manages to fool someone into thinking it is(and thus passing the Turing Test).

In my opinion, awareness isnot an information process at all and will never be simulated orsynthesized by any information process. Awareness cannot be measured byan information processing system, it can only be measured by awarenessitself—something no formal information processing system can eversimulate or synthesize.

One might ask how it is that a humanhas awareness then? My answer is that awareness does not arise from thebody or the brain, nor does it arise from any physical cause. Awarenessis not in the body or the brain, but rather the body and the brain arein awareness. The situation is analagous to a dream, a simulation orvirtual reality, such as that portrayed in the popular film “TheMatrix.”

We exist in the ultimate virtual reality. The mediumof this virtual reality is awareness. That is to say that whateverappears to be happening “out there” or “within the mind” is happeningwithin a unified, nondualistic field of awareness: both the “subject”and the “object” exist equally within this field and neither is thesource of awareness.

This is similar to the case where weproject ourselves as dream protagonists in our own dreams—even thoughour dream bodies appear to be different than other dream-images theyare really equally dream appearances, they are no more fundamental thandream-objects. We identify with our dream-bodies out of habit andbecause it’s practical because the stories that take place appear fromthe perspective of particular bodies. But just because this virtualreality is structured as if awareness is coming from within our heads,it does not mean that is actually the case. In fact, quite the oppositeis taking place.

Awareness is not actually “in” the VR, the VR is”in” awareness. Things are exactly the opposite of how they appear. Ofcourse this is just an analogy—for example, unlike the Matrix, thevirtual reality we live in is not running on some giant computersomewhere and there is no other hidden force controlling it from behindthe scenes. Awareness is the fabric of reality and there is nothingdeeper, nothing creating it, it is not running on some cosmic computer,it comes out of of nowhere yet everything else comes out of it.

Ifwe look for awareness we can’t find anything to grasp, it is empty yetnot a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative,alert, radiant, self-realizing.

Awareness is empty andfundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid.If we look for space we don’t find anything there. Nobody has evertouched or grasped space directly! But unlike space, awareness can atleast be measured directly–it can measure itself, it knows its ownnature.

Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, theunderlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come tobe? That is unanswerable. What is it? That is unanswerable as well. Butthere is no doubt that awareness is taking place. Each sentient beinghas a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.

Each of us experiences a virtual reality in which we and our world areprojections. That which both projects these projections and experiencesthem is awareness. This is like saying that the VR inherently knows itsown content. But in my opinion this knowing comes from outside thesystem, not from some construct that we can create inside it. So anyawareness that arises comes from the transcendental nature of realityitself, not from our bodies, minds, or any physical system within aparticular reality.

So is there one cosmic awareness out therethat we are all a part of? Not exactly, there is not one awareness norare there many awarenesses because awareness is not a physical thingand cannot be limited by such logical materialist extremes. After allif it is not graspable how can we say it is one or many or any otherlogical combination of one or many? All we can say is that we are it,whatever it is, and that we cannot explain it further. In beingawareness, we are all equal, but we are clearly not the same. We aredifferent projections and on a relative level we are each unique, eventhough on an ultimate level perhaps we are also unified by beingprojections within the same underlying continuum. Yet this continuum isfundamentally empty, impossible to locate or limit, and infinitelybeyond the confines of any formal system or universe, so it cannotreally be called a “thing” and thus we are not “many” or “one” inactuality, what we really are is totally beyond such dualisticdistinctions.

Awareness is like space or reality, something sofundamental, so axiomatic, that it is impossible to prove, grasp ordescribe from “inside” the system using the formal logical tools of thesystem. Since nothing is beyond awareness, there is no outside, no wayto ever gain a perspective on awareness that is not mediated byawareness itself.

Therefore there is no way to reduce awarenessto anything deeper; there is no way to find anything more fundamentalthan awareness. But despite this awareness can be directly experienced,at least by itself.

That which is aware is self-aware.Self-awareness is the very nature of awareness. The self-awareness ofawareness does not come from something else, it is inherent toawareness itself. Only awareness is capable of awareness. Nothing thatis not aware can ever become aware.

This means awareness istruly fundamental, it has always been present everywhere. Awareness isinherent in the universe as the very basis of everything, it is notsomething anyone can synthesize and we cannot build a machine that cansuddenly experience awareness.

Only beings who are awarealready can ever experience awareness. The fact that we are aware nowmeans that we were always aware, even before we were born! Otherwise wenever could have become aware in the first place!

Each of us “is”awareness. The experience of being aware is unique and undeniable. Ithas its own particular nature, but this cannot be expressed it can onlybe known directly. There is no sentient being that is not aware.Furthermore, it would be a logical contradiction to claim that “I amnot aware that I am aware” or “that I am aware that I am not aware” andthus if anyone claims they are not aware or have ever experienced, orcan even imagine, there not being awareness they are lying. There isnobody who does not experience their own awareness, even if they don’trecognize or admit that they experience it.

The experience ofbeing self-aware is the unique experience of “being” — an experienceso basic that it is indescribable in terms of anything else —something that no synthetic computer will ever have.

Eventually, it will be proved that no formal information processingsystem is capable of self-awareness and that thus formal computerscannot be self-aware in principle. This proof will use the abstractself-referential structure of self-awareness to establish that noformal computer can ever be self-aware.

Simplyput, computers and computer programs cannot be truly self-referential:they always must refer to something else—there must at least be a setof fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer orprogram to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness isperfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.

Thequestion will then arise as to what self-awareness is and how it ispossible. We will eventually conclude that systems that are self-awareare not formal systems and that awareness must be at least asfundamental as, or more fundamental than, space, time and energy.

Currentlymost scientists and non-scientists consider the physical world to beoutside of awareness and independent of it. But considering that nobodyhas or will ever experience anything without awareness it is illogicalto assume that anything is really outside of awareness. It is actuallyfar more rational to assume that whatever arises or is experienced isinside awareness, and that nothing is outside of awareness. Thisassumption of everything being within awareness would actually be amore scientific, observation-based conclusion than the oppositeassumption which is entirely unfounded on anything we have ever or willever be able to observe. After all, we have never observed anythingapart from awareness have we? Thus contrary to current beliefs, theonus is on scientists to prove that anything is outside of awareness,not the other way around!

Awareness is quite simply theultimate primordial basic nature of reality itself—without awarenessthere could be no “objective reality” at all and no “subjective beings”to experience it. Awareness is completely transcendental, beyond alllimitations and boundaries, outside of all possible systems. Whathubris to think we can simply manufacture, or evolve, awareness with apile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules.

Nomatter how powerful the computer, no matter what it is made of, and nomatter how sophisticated or emergent the software is, it will stillnever be aware or evolve awareness. No computer or machine intelligencewill ever be aware. Even a quantum computer—if it is equivalent to afinite non-quantum computer at least—will not be capable ofawareness, and even if it is a transinfinite computer I still have mydoubts that it could ever be aware. Awareness is simply not aninformation process.

B. METHOD OF JUDGING THIS BET…

So the question ultimately is, how do we measureawareness or at least determine whether a computer is or is not aware?How can we judge the outcome of this bet?

I propose a method here: we let the bettors mutually agree on a judge.If the judge is a computer, fine. If the judge is a human, fine. Butboth bettors must agree on the judge. If both bettors accept that partyas the judge then the result will be deemed final and reliable. If acomputer is chosen by both parties to judge this, then I will concededefeat—but it would take a lot for any computer to convince me thatit is aware and thus qualified to judge this competition. On the otherhand, my opponent in this debate may accept a human judge—butobviously since they believe that computers can be aware if they accepta human judge they would be contradicting their own assertion—if acomputer is really intelligent and aware why would they choose a humanjudge over a computer judge?

This “recursive” judge-selection judging approach appeals to ourinherent direct human experience of awareness and the fact that wetrust another aware sentient being more than an inaminate machine tojudge whether or not something is aware. This may be the only practicalsolution to this problem: If both parties agree that a computer canjudge and the computer says the other computer is aware, then so be it!If both parties agree that a human can judge and the human says thatthe computer is not aware, so be it! May the best judge win!

Now, as long as we’re on the subject, how do we know that otherhumans, such as our potential human judge(s), are actually aware? Iactually believe that self-awareness is detectable by other beings thatare also aware, but not detectable by computers that are not aware.

C. A REVERSE TURING TEST FOR DETECTING AWARENESS IN A COMPUTER…

Ipropose a reversal of the Turing test for determining whether acomputer is aware (and forgive me in advance if anyone else has alreadyproposed this somewhere, I would be happy to give them credit).

Here is the test: Something is aware if whenever it is presented with acase where a human being and a synthetic machine intelligence areequally intelligent and capable of expression and interaction BUT notequally aware (the human is aware and the machine is not actuallyaware), then it can reliably and accurately figure out that the humanbeing is really aware and the machine is not really aware.

Ibelieve that only systems that are actually aware can correctlydifferentiate between two equally intelligent entities where one issentient and the other just a simulation of sentience, given enoughtime and experience with those systems.

How can such a differentiation be made? Assuming the human andcomputer candidates are equally intelligent and interactive, what isthe signature of awareness or lack of awareness? What difference isthere that can be measured? In my opinion there is a particular, yetindescribable mutual recognition that takes place when I encounteranother sentient being. I recognize their self-awareness with my ownself-awareness. Think of it as the equivalent of a “network handshake”that occurs at a fundamental level between entities that are actuallyaware.

How is this recognition possible? Perhaps it is due tothe fact that awareness, being inherently self-aware, is alsoinherently capable of recognizing awareness when it encounters it.

Onanother front, I actually have my doubts that any AI will ever beequally intelligent and interactive as a human sentient being. Inparticular I think this is not merely a matter of the difficulty ofbuilding such a complex computer, but rather it is a fundamentaldifference between machine cognition and the congition of a sentientbeing.

A human sentient being’s mind transcends computation.Sentient cognition transcends the limits of formal computation, it isnot equivalent to Turing Machine, it is much more powerful than that.We humans are not formal systems, we are not Turing Machines. Humanscan think in a way that no computer will ever be able to match letalone imitate convincingly. We are able to transcend our own logics,our own belief systems, our own programs, we are able to enter andbreak out of loops at will, we are able to know inifinities, to docompletely irrational, spontaneous and creative things. We are muchcloser to infinity than any finite state automaton can ever be. We aresimply not computers, although we can sometimes think like them theycannot really think like us.

In any case, this may be “faith”but for now at least I am quite certain that I am aware and that otherhumans and animals are also aware but that machines, plants and otherinanimate objects are not aware. I am certain that my awareness vastlytranscends any machine intelligence that exists or ever will exist. Iam certain that your awareness is just as transcendent as mine.Although I cannot prove that I am aware or that you are aware to you Iam willing to state such on the basis of my own direct experience and Iknow that if you take a moment to meditate on your own self-awarenessyou will agree.

After all, we cannot prove the existence of spaceor time either—these are just ideas and even physics has notexplained their origins nor can anyone even detect them directly, yetwe both believe they exist, don’t we?

Now if I claimed that asuitably complex computer simulation would someday suddenly containreal physical space and time that was indistinguishable in any way fromthe physical space and time outside the simulation—you would probablydisagree. You would say that the only “real” space-time is actually notin the computer but containing the computer, and any space-time thatappears within the computer simulation is but a mere lower-orderimitation and nothing like the real space-time that contains thecomputer.

No simulation can ever be exactly the same as what itsimulates, even if it is functionally similar or equivalent, forseveral reasons. On a purely information basis, it should be obviousthat if simulation B is within something else called A, then for B tobe exactly the same as A it must contain A and B and so on infinitely.At least if there is a finite amount of space and time to work with wesimply cannot build anything like this, we cannot build a simulationthat contains an exact simulation of itself without getting into aninfinite regression. Beyond this, there is a difference in medium: Inthe case of machine intelligence the medium is physical space, time andenergy—that is what machine intelligence is made of. In the case ofhuman awareness the medium is awareness itself, something at least asfundamental as space-time-energy if not more fundamental. Althoughhuman sentience can perform intelligent cognition, using a brain forexample, it is not a computer and it is not made of space-time-energy.Human sentience goes beyond the limits of space-time-energy andtherefore beyond computers.

If someone builds a Turing Machine that simulates a Turing Machinesimulating a Turing Machine, the simulation will never even start, letalone be useable! As the saying goes, it’s Turtles All The Way Down! Ifyou have a finite space and time, but an infinite initial condition, ittakes forever to simply set up the simulation let alone to compute it.

Thisis the case with self-awareness as well: It is truly self-referential.No finite formal system can complete an infinitely self-referentialprocess in finite time. We sentient beings can do this however.Whenever we realize our own awareness direclty—that is whenever weARE aware (as opposed to just representing this fact as a thought) weare being infinitely self-referential in finite time. That must mean weare either able to do an infinite amount of computing in a finiteamount of time, or we are not computing at all. Perhaps self-awarenessjust happens instantly and inherently rather than iteratively.

On a practical level as well we can see that there is adiffernece between a simulated experience within a simulation and theactual reality it attempts to simulate that exists outside thesimulation. For example, suppose I make a computer simulation ofchocolate and a simulated person who can eat the chocolate. Even thoughthat simulated person tastes the simulated chocolate, they do notreally taste chocolate at all—they have no actual experience of whatchocolate really tastes like to beings in reality (beings outside thesimulation).

Even if there are an infinite number of levels ofsimulation above the virtual reality we are in now, awareness is alwaysultimately beyond them all—it is the ultimate highest-level ofreality, there is nothing beyond it.

Thus even an infinitelyhigh-end computer simulation of awareness will be nothing like actualawareness and will not convince a truly aware being that it is actuallyaware.

Zooming Out in Time

Nova — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:22:43 +0000

For an interesting read — download this wonderful presentation on zooming out in time as a way to predict the future. It’s from a talk given at the Long Now Foundation. Nice visual slides illustrate how the world changes over vast timescales.

Visualizing the Tenth Dimension

Nova — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 06:47:42 +0000

One of my readers commented that they were looking for this really cool flash presentation that I blogged about a while back — it helps you visualize higher-dimensions all the way to 10-dimensions. Check it out! After this your brain will need a rest, and possibly a hard reboot — but worth it.

By the way, a reader named Runde has discovered that this visualization is not exactly in accord with the view of string theorists or mainstream physics. You can read the criticisms here. Oh Well, that’s too bad — but I think it’s really cool anyway because it is an exploration of higher dimensions from the perspective of true metaphysics (metaphysics in the philosophical sense, as opposed to new-age metaphysics).

How to Build a Landspeeder

Nova — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:31:27 +0000

So as a kid you watched Star Wars and since then you’ve wanted your very own Landspeeder. The problem is, how to make things hover without using fans, magnets, or special effects? Well, a maverick UK scientist may have invented a way to do it. By harnessing microwaves, and a loophole provided by special relativity, Roger Shawyer has developed a new kind of "relativity drive" that may be the future of space propulsion, and perhaps even terrestrial hovering cars and aircraft. He’s received high-level interest from the UK, US military, and the Chinese and hopes to test it in space in a few years.

What Was Before the Big Bang?

Nova — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 22:37:27 +0000

An article in my new favorite magazine, Seed Magazine, by cosmologist Sean Carrol, proposes an interesting new theory about the nature of time and the evolution of baby universes. In this approach, baby universes can suddenly come into being from empty space when random quantum vacuum fluctuations fall into place in just the right way. Admittedly the odds of this happening are incredibly slim, but not impossible, and therefore in an infinite amount of time it definitely will happen over and over again. The only issue I have with the article is that it presents the issue of "time’s arrow" in the wrong light in my opinion. The so-called "arrow of time" is simply the progression from low to high entropy states — that is things start out ordered and become disordered over time. The new proposed theory doesn’t really show any way for that arrow to be reversed as far as I can tell. Entropy doesn’t run backwards, even in the metaverse. It would seem to me that every baby universe would be born from a highly ordered, extremely low entropy, state, and would then become less ordered and would gain in entropy over time. Although this might happen at different moments in meta-time, each of these universes would still develop in the same manner. But perhaps I’m missing something. Maybe the theorists have a way for high-entropy states to suddenly come into being and explode to become full-fledged universes which then lose entropy instead of gaining it? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. While the chances of a high-entropy state randomly occuring are incredibly slim, in an infinite amount of time they too would all occur at least some of the time — yet even so, I don’t see any reason to think that a high-entropy baby universe would, or could, run backwards towards a lower entropy state. Feel free to comment and explain it further if I got it wrong.

The Hidden Structure of Quantum Mechanics and The Prime Numbers Turns Out to Be 42 After All

Nova — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:59:03 +0000

This is a wonderful article about how a chance encounter led to the discovery of a connection between physics and number theory that may help explain everything from quantum mechanics to the prime numbers….and the most incredible thing is that the answer may actually really be "42" after all. You’ve heard of "Life Imitates Art," well this is "Life Imitates Humor" at it’s best.

New Discovery: Enzymes Capable of Quantum Tunneling

Nova — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 20:51:35 +0000

Drug discovery meets quantum mechanics in this article about recent evidence for quantum tunneling in enzymes:

SYDNEY, 25 August 2006: British scientists have found that enzymes
cheat time and space by quantum tunnelling – a much faster way of
travelling than the classical way – but whether or not perplexing
quantum theories can be applied to the biological world is still hotly
debated.

Until now, no one knew just how the enzymes speed up the reactions,
which in some cases are up to a staggering million times faster.

Scientist Raises Possibility of Silicon-Based Life

Nova — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:53:05 +0000

Just read an interesting article on the possibility of "intraterrestrial" silicon-based life on Earth:

SETI spends enormous amounts of money
and resources looking for life outside of Earth’s realm, but life forms
so alien that scientists may simply not have recognized evidence of
their existence could inhabit the Earth, according to a leading
scientist.

Dr Tom Gold, emeritus professor of astronomy at Cornell University in
America, believes that organisms based on silicon – completely
unrelated to all the carbon-based life man has encountered so far – may
live at great depths.

In a forthcoming book he will suggest that scientists should take the
possibility more seriously. Gold, who is a member of the Royal Society,
previously predicted that vast amounts of more conventional bacteria
live miles down within the Earth’s crust. Scientists initially
dismissed the idea, but many now agree with him.

"So
long as nobody suspects there could be silicon-based life, we may just
not be clever enough to identify it," he said last week.

Rocks bearing signs of silicon-based organisms may already be sitting
in laboratories, he believes, with their significance overlooked.

Every known living organism, from bacteria to mankind, is based on the
chemistry of carbon, which forms the complex molecules such as DNA that
are central to our existence. Scientists believe that if
extraterrestrial life is found, the chances are that it, too, will be
carbon-based.

Editor’s Note: While the prospect of silicon-based life is an interesting subject for further research, what the above scientists failed to note is that there is already a large population of Silicone-based life, particularly in Hollywood. Of course they probably can’t get government funding to research THAT subject!

Good Article on Loop Quantum Gravity — New Approach to Physics

Nova — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:37:59 +0000

The New Scientist published a nice overview of the emerging theory of Loop Quantum Gravity. I’ve been following this for a number of years, ever since my friend Bram turned me onto it. It’s related in some ways to other models of discrete space-time, such as cellular automata and digital physics.

LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off
one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the
universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes
up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

It
is an impressive feat. Not only does it tell us about the origins of
space and matter, it might help us understand where the laws of the
universe come from. Not surprisingly, Smolin, who is a theoretical
physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, is very
excited. "I’ve been jumping up and down about these ideas," he says.

This
promising approach to understanding the cosmos is based on a collection
of theories called loop quantum gravity, an attempt to merge general
relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory.

The
origins of loop quantum gravity can be traced back to the 1980s, when
Abhay Ashtekar, now at Pennsylvania State University in University
Park, rewrote Einstein’s equations of general relativity in a quantum
framework. Smolin and Carlo Rovelli of the University of the
Mediterranean in Marseille, France, later developed Ashtekar’s ideas
and discovered that in the new framework, space is not smooth and
continuous but instead comprises indivisible chunks just 10^-35
metres in diameter. Loop quantum gravity then defines space-time as a
network of abstract links that connect these volumes of space, rather
like nodes linked on an airline route map.

From
the start, physicists noticed that these links could wrap around one
another to form braid-like structures. Curious as these braids were,
however, no one understood their meaning. "We knew about braiding in
1987," says Smolin, "but we didn’t know if it corresponded to anything
physical." Read More

Neurons and Universes

Nova — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 06:34:20 +0000

This is a cool pair of images showing a striking similarity between the structure of neurons and that of our universe. I’ve often wondered whether the entire universe isn’t some kind of a mind or a brain in which we are like subatomic particles.

Physicists Plan to Create New Universe in Lab

Nova — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 08:08:52 +0000

Ok, this will be pretty interesting… as long as nothing unexpected happens, like for example, our universe starting to drain out through the wormhole they are making…that would suck…

PHYSICISTS IN JAPAN PLAN TO CREATE NEW UNIVERSE IN LAB
USING THE HIGGS FIELD, SCIENTISTS THEORIZE IT IS POSSIBLE TO CAUSE A ‘BABY UNIVERSE’ TO BREAK OFF FROM OUR OWN, SAFELY
2 August 2006

A
radical new project could permit human beings to create a "baby
universe" in a laboratory in Japan. While it sounds like a dangerous
undertaking, the physicists involved believe that if the project is
successful, the space-time around a tiny point within our universe will
be distorted in such a way that it will begin to form a new superfluid
space, and eventually break off, separate in all respects from our
experience of space and time, causing no harm to the fabric of our
universe.

The project takes as its starting point two basic
theories about the foundations of our universe: the big bang and
inflation theory. The big bang theory, as many readers are well aware,
observes that all objects in the known universe appear to be moving
away from one another, suggesting that the universe was jump-started
when all matter and energy were concentrated in an inconceivably tiny
space, allowing them to overcome binding forces and causing a cosmic
explosion.

It is well-tested and consistent with all currently
accepted models for general cosmology, as tested against advanced
theoretical and observational physics. But it is only one piece of the
puzzle. Inflation is a key theory, developed in 1981, when MIT
physicist Alan Guth observed that there appeared to have been a period
immediately following the big bang when the universe "inflated"
rapidly, allowing distinct regions of matter and energy to function
comfortably free from any forces that might cause them to collapse
against each other or disrupt each other’s evolution.

This
project is not exactly theoretical physics at work. It is closer to a
physical application of observed phenomena, in combination, with the
aim of achieving an as yet untested physical effect. Inflation theory
helps provide the means of understanding how that effect might be
brought about.

As reported by the New Scientist: "Inflation
theory, subsequently modified by Linde, relies on the fact that the
‘vacuum’ of empty space-time is not a boring, static place. Instead, it
is subject to quantum fluctuations that cause strange bubbles to appear
at random times. These bubbles of ‘false vacuum’ contain space-time
with different —and very curious— properties."

Read the rest here.