The science of consciousness

Monday, August 24, 2020

Quantum gravity: fact or fiction?

A new scientific paper suggests using the interference of gravity waves to measure quantum gravity. Interference is a quantum phenomenon where the combination of two or more electromagnetic waves form a resultant wave, the sum of the original waves (i.e., bigger or smaller).

In the experiment, laser light is shone on an electron. If the electron absorbs the photon's energy, then the electron's spin changes either up or down. During quantum superposition, the electron spin is both up and down. Choosing an electron that is part of a large body, such as a diamond, the entire object—with a vast mass for quantum phenomena—would be in quantum superposition.

By applying a magnetic field, it is possible to separate the two quantum states. When these quantum states are brought together again by turning off the magnetic field, they create an interference pattern. "The nature of this interference depends on the distance the two separate quantum states have traveled. And this can be used to measure gravity waves." These waves are space contractions so that their passing affects the distance between the two separated states and, thus, the interference pattern. The hope is that entanglement between two large objects could be used to determine whether gravity is a quantum phenomenon.

Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon. When two objects interacting only through gravity show entanglement, gravity is also a quantum phenomenon. The experiment is a long shot with our current technology. Read more on the journal website.

Reference:

Ryan J Marshman et al., Mesoscopic interference for metric and curvature & gravitational wave detection, New Journal of Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ab9f6c

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Saturday, August 22, 2020

Ambition: The Art of Leadership

Ambition is choosing the challenging path, the difficult problem, or forming a higher goal. It is the insight to formulate a long-term vision and the courage to take bold steps. Like gradually moving up on the mountain, every conquered challenge improves your confidence and belief in your abilities. Because our focus follows our attention, we often live up to our expectations, even if we aim high. Intrinsic motivation is the fuel for successful performance, learning, and creativity. Ambition has an essential role in personality development and wellness throughout the lifespan.

Ambition without leadership is worthless, the theory must be put into practice. Leadership is the physical framework, the primary tool, and the nitty-gritty of purpose. Leaders project purpose and flair. Leadership is an essential quality for everybody with a family or even with a circle of friends. Great leaders motivate achievement without manipulation, restrictions. They can resolve conflicts and tolerate honest mistakes, which often inspires commitment and enthusiasm within the organization. Most of the success points on this list are characteristic of great leaders. Professional and personal coherence is the key to both happiness and leadership. Their habit of generosity with compliments and their ability to apologize quickly help to reverse any blunder or mistake.

The world is in constant flux, change is necessary at every level. In the corporate world, ideas are guarded like a great treasure. Giving over ownership to the group encourages productive contribution, independent of position. Their generous yet focused approach extends to every area of life; they seek excellence in their practice of hobbies, taking meaningful or extreme vacations. They encourage discipline, progress, innovation, and change. The motivation to connect with others, allows them to take decisive actions, and find appropriate words in uncertain situations.

My straightforward handbook, The Power of Joy, gives you the tools and advice you need to liberate yourself from your negativity and become the best version of yourself.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2020

An experimental test to confirm the fermionic mind hypothesis.

The fermionic mind hypothesis (FMH) recognizes that the conscious brain is a self-regulating system. Sensory perception is an energy/information exchange with the environment, which generates mental changes. Intelligent responses to stimuli require that the mind adopt the physical laws for its operation. This is the main idea of the fermionic mind hypothesis. You can test the hypothesis for yourself in the comfort of your own home. You should not experiment if your emotional or physical well-being is at risk. (Disclaimer: The author is not responsible for emotional discomfort or injuries triggered by this experiment.)

The experimental setup:

A well-defined emotional distance characterizes every relationship, which is regulated by emotions with great precision. Although it is difficult to measure the emotional distance, you can easily test its changes, as it extends and shortens, like Tuffy candy. The changes in emotional distance trigger strong reactions to restore normalcy.

Your experimental subject must be a person (or an intelligent pet) with whom you have a close emotional connection. The test manipulates the distance between you and a loved one or friend. Refrain from dramatic actions, so as not to damage to the relationship. The following are two possible versions of the experiment.

1. Reduce the emotional distance. To achieve this, you have to seek closeness with your subject, such as romance, giving favors and gifts more than usual. On the other hand, at the moment your subject indicates a need for separation (your subject attempts to create distance by pushing you away), reverse your attitude toward them by acting cold and indifferent.

2. Increase the emotional distance. You will have to act cold and ignorant toward your subject. As soon as your partner attempts to reverse the situation by favors and trying to be "nice," reverse the course by being warm and affectionate.

Evaluate the results of your experiment. In maintaining the emotional distance between the two of you, your partner's mind performed an everyday miracle. It gradually modified your partners' feelings and attitudes to keep the relationship balanced. How did your feelings change? How did the behavior of your partner change? Congratulations, you achieved an empowering outside view of yourself and your relationship.

Read the resource article on Academia, or on ResearchGate.

Discover more about consciousness by ordering my book, "Emotional Reasoning: Insight into the Conscious Experience."

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Saturday, June 13, 2020

What is the Fermionic Mind Hypothesis?

Understanding consciousness is the next great scientific frontier.

Biological systems must adapt to their environment. The ability to balance and produce intelligent responses depends on a precise mental model of that environment. The superb adaptation to physical laws means that quantum mechanics, such as decision-making, describes our psychology. Comparison processes, the central pillars of intellect, are also utilized by artificial intelligence: Alphazero can learn by comparing game outcomes. As material systems observe the principle of least action when moving through space, biological systems optimize their action repertoire between the past and the future. Like the stationary action in physics, the mind's predictive intelligent processing is a memory-based temporal energy regulation system. Thus, the least action is based on past experience.

Access to air, water, food, and mating influences behavior between urgency and relaxation. Conscious focus is not under conscious control but governed by internal or external motivation. We cannot suppress our thoughts or emotions, nor can we turn them off at will. We say things we do not mean, lie, and commit crimes because we are slaves to our emotions. The inability to consciously guide behavior leads to remorse, shame, and regret.

Despite dramatic changes to the mind and body, the mental continuum lasts from infancy to old age. Qualia's unique, intractable qualities remain intimately linked with the self, with conscious attention representing just the visible surface of the particle-like isolation of mental content. The introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of the mind are at the very heart of the mind-body problem. The mind is a self-regulating system that forms the smallest unit of intellect. This unity and indivisible wholeness is the essence of consciousness' separation from the environment, expressed by the fermionic mind hypothesis (FMH).

Why is it important?
Recognizing the energetic nature of emotions can provide tools for individuals to achieve their human potential and inspire new, effective treatments for mental illnesses, such as depression. Comprehending how the mind works can inspire innovative types of quantum computers and deep learning systems.

The book Emotional Reasoning: Insight into the Conscious Experience was published on August 30, 2024.

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Thursday, May 28, 2020

Social Lasing model: Can it explain the sweeping power of recent social movements?

A laser is a device that emits a beam of coherent light through an optical amplification process. Components of a typical laser:

Gain medium
Laser pumping energy
High reflector
Output coupler
Laser beam

Optical amplification occurs via the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation from excited atoms or another medium. The principle is increasingly applied to explain social changes from color revolutions to such democratically structured protest actions, such as Brexit. The potential combination of information technology and social media to induce social instability is immensely relevant.

The social laser

We live in the information age. Online Echo Chambers (social resonator) can amplify social mood and intentions to produce coherent information waves of high amplitudes (i.e., huge motivational energy). In real lasers, the optical resonator is an arrangement of mirrors that forms a standing wave cavity resonator for light waves. The Internet-based posting of news and communications works as a multiplier mirror. In this, the mass-media plays the role of laser’s resonator, the optical cavity. The stimulated amplification of coherent social actions can be either destructive or inspire better decision-making. The bandwagon effect in human behavior explains the increasing probability of personal reaction as the power of the excitatory field increases. The homogeneous character of social actions (coherence) and the short time needed for their generation and relaxation can be described by social laser theory. Social energy might be understood as a form of motivation.

Read more
Picture credit: Tatoute / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

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Thursday, April 9, 2020

The book, "The Power of Joy" is your guide to self betterment

Success is never arbitrary. Our continuously changing world challenges our determination every day. Achievement requires adherence to goals, and the ability to take risks and overcome mistakes. Self-betterment is the ticket not only to a better job but to be successful at it. Changing the mind/brain is like conquering a mountain. Sudden shifts in attitude, behavior, and disposition are challenging and often painful. There is safety in slow, persistent progress. When you trust in the long-term results of your work, you can find balance and satisfaction.

Trying to avoid change is our shared human fallacy. We tend to face difficulties only when a crisis hits and the change cannot be put off. We often solve our problems when we are literally close to disaster. Becoming proactive in your approach to life transforms you from a passive to an active and purposeful participant.

Finding and accomplishing a purpose-driven life is the highest achievement, and it is possible for everyone. "The Power of Joy" introduces techniques for self-betterment. These methods can be practiced by anyone, at any age, and from any cultural, religious, or social background. When you change, you change the world.

My straightforward handbook, The Power of Joy, gives you the tools and advice you need to become the best version of yourself.

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Sunday, April 5, 2020

Are quantum processes relevant in photosynthesis?

Free waves clip art pictures 3 - WikiClipArt

What is "quantum biology"? It is the study of quantum effects in complex biological systems. These studies have a history stretching back to the early years of quantum mechanics. During photosynthesis, light-harvesting occurs on time scales of tens of microseconds. The couplings between the constituents and interaction with the bath will govern the dynamics of the system.

Photosynthetic pigments are held up by a protein scaffold. When interacting with light, the pigments do not act as independent units because the transition energies and oscillator strength are distributed within the scaffold. The resulting collective excitations are called "excitons." Coherence is a certain degree of spatial delocalization of the excitations in the system. Excited superpositions evolve in time as damped oscillations with a frequency corresponding to the constituent states' energy difference. It is widely accepted in science that the dephasing of any interexciton (the shared exitation of complexes) coherences results in sub–100-fs (femtosecond) decay times at room temperature. Energy transfer within the complex is impossible during such a short time. The reaction center of the photosystem shows similarly fast electronic decoherence rates.

The incoherent relaxation between exciton states forms energy transport with downhill in energy. Since these exciton states are partially localized, this relaxation corresponds to hopping between different regions of the complex. The variable site energies direct the energy flow, automatically providing a definite directionality for the transport.

The inhomogeneous charge distribution in the light-harvesting protein complex leads to varying site energies of the pigments. The effect directs the excitation energy toward the reaction center. Suppressed correlations in site energy fluctuations lead to an efficient dissipation of the excess energy of excitons. The absence of long-lived interexciton coherence on relevant time scales makes quantum occurrences impossible.

In conclusion, photosynthesis occurs on the fastest possible time scales. The dephasing of coherences in biological conditions is too instantaneous to contribute significantly to the light-harvesting function. Are quantum processes relevant in photosynthesis? Quantum coherence in photosynthetic light-harvesting is unlikely.

Read the whole article: Quantum biology revisited

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