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Nonphysical.org
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The Issues
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Dedicated to a Revolution in Biological Theory Seeking a Comprehensive Theory of Life
If we are to construct a robust, logically consistent theory of life and the mind, where might we start? With regard to life's origin and evolution, biologists readily acknowledge the vast improbabilities that haunt the existing theory. In the modern explanation of life's origin, scientists agree that it is most unlikely that molecules randomly bouncing in the Earth's primeval seas should assemble into life's intricate molecular machines (1). And in the evolution of life, biologists readily acknowledge that it is most unlikely that a random genetic mutation will produce an improved creature (2). However, scientist argue, that given enough time, nearly anything can happen. And this vastness of time, they assert, produced life endowed with the conscious mind. However, biologist ignore other astronomic improbabilities, such as Erwin Schrodinger's observation that life's molecular reactions are mysteriously directed with "certainty" to produce and operate the living body (3). Despite biologist's self-admitted, grand improbabilities in their theories, life displays no grand improbabilities. Robust and self healing, life has flourished for billions of years. Life quickly evolves and adapts its behaviors and structures to changing circumstances. Nothing about life displays the character of truly random events. Rather, life displays the certainty of motion and direction (4). What might create this directed motion--this "certainty" of life? When we move to the human level, we observe the conscious mind creates order in the world. Operating within the human brain, conscious intelligence assembles matter into houses, books, and machines. Although many scientists quickly dismiss the possibility that the mind is a nonphysical force, conventional science can offers no actual explanation for how the mind and memory work. Research demonstrates that the mind's qualities of consciousness, emotion, choice, perception, and memory are influenced by the brain's chemistry and material structure. But this does not mean that the brain is the actual cause of the mind. By analogy, a car's engine, steering mechanism and tire pressure influence the car's behavior, but the car's mechanical structure does not explain why the car goes to the store for groceries. The car is directed by the conscious mind of the driver. Although science cannot disprove the possibility the mind is a nonphysical force that directs the brain, the possibility is generally ignored. However, might a vast dimension of conscious Mind not only inhabit the human brain but work on the molecular level to assemble life's molecular machinery? To the scientific mind, this might appear quite a stretch. Yet if the conscious mind is nonphysical force, it means there is strange dimension of conscious intelligence in the Universe that conventional science refuses to acknowledge. Within the scientific community, one of strongest proponents of the nonphysical mind was the Nobel Prize neurophysiologist, Sir John Eccles. In several books, he presented his theory of mind/brain interaction. Eccles started his argument with the evidence that human activities of culture, industry, the arts cannot be explained by the known properties of matter. He concluded that the mind is the force of a nonphysical dimension that conventional science resolutely ignores. He then explored a mechanism by which the nonphysical mind directs the brain. To develop his theory of mind/brain interaction, Eccles started with the modern physicist's view that atoms are simply probability fields of energy as defined by Schrodinger's equation. Within this atomic world of probabilistic energy fields, Eccles asserted, the nonphysical mind has plenty of opportunity to act. The mind skews the shapes of these fields to direct the release of the brain's neurotransmitters and thereby direct neural activity. In doing so, Eccles noted that the nonphysical mind does not violate the principals of physics for it adds no energy to the system. The mind simply directs the probability of events to make marginally probable events become highly probable. Eccles' theory stops at this point. However, one may ask, what information does the nonphysical mind bring to the brain? To answer this, we need to go beyond Eccles's theory and consider the mystery of memory. Common sense might dictate that human memories reside somewhere in the brain's neurons. We know that removal of enough brain tissue reduces memory. And experiments on patients undergoing brain surgery demonstrate that the electrical stimulation of the cortex can trigger vivid recall of memories. Is this proof that memory exists in the brain? Suppose, as neurophysiologist propose, one thinks of a computer as a model for the brain. How might we determine if a computer's memory exists within its box or on the internet? If we do not know how the device works and simply probe its components and cut wires, this will not answer the question. If we cut away enough of the device, it will loose access to memory even the memory data is wirelessly accessed from far away on the internet. In a similar manner, without knowing how the brain actually works, there is no conclusive test to determine if human memory actually sits in the substance of the brain or elsewhere in space and time. However, when one considers the instinctive behaviors of animals, the question of the location of memory becomes far sharper. Biologists assert that life is simply a material process. This means that DNA must hold the full chronology of an animal's instinctive memory and behaviors since DNA is the only "library of information" matter passed between generations. However, one must ask, can the molecular substance of DNA actually contain the fluid, four-dimensional content of instinctive memory? Can DNA reasonably direct the vast sequence of an animal's interactions with its environment from birth to death? Can it construct a spider's web or a bird's nest? In addition, this same DNA is said to direct the entire four-dimensional chronology of molecular events-- a truly astronomic volume of events--that create and operate the trillions of cells and intertwined physiological systems of a creature's body. The material basis of scientific theory allows for no other possibility. However, science cannot propose any sort of actual material mechanism for how any of this might occur. This means that the mystery of instinctive memory still wide open. Further, there are insurmountable reasons why DNA does not, and cannot, carry instinctive memory. (See The Vital Dimension, Chapters 11 and 14 for a full discussion.) If an animal's instinctive memory does not reside in DNA, where might we find it? Once again we turn to the theories of modern physics. Einstein, in his theory of relativity, proposed that time is not the fleeting moment of human experience. Today, modern physicists explain that time is thick like a dimension of space. The concept of "thick" time certainly boggles common sense. Yet this theory is fully embraced by modern physics. This "timescape" or "block time" as modern physicists term it, contains each and every event in the entire history of the Universe. We experience time as the transient state of "now" because our material bodies cannot move into this vast dimension of the past. But what if consciousness is nonphysical and connects through block time to previous conscious experience? The possibility that the "thickness" of time holds the content and structure of living memory might seem to be wild conjecture. Nevertheless, there are strong reasons this may be true. According modern physicists, block time possesses a record of all events in the sequence in which they occurred. This is exactly how human memory is organized. In the human mind, memories are organized day, week, and year like an endless newsreel of life. In recall, we look back through this broad sequence of time and know when events occurred in relation to the others. In the mind's eye, we see these images of the past. Further, in recall, we tend to reexperience the full complexities of the mind's various emotions and perceptions that we had at the earlier moment. When we consider animals' instinctive memory, in line with the theory of modern physics, block time should hold a newsreel of each creature's conscious experience and behaviors. Should an animal's conscious mind "look": through block time to the common experience of the species, we find a ready explanation for the enormous complexities of instinctive behaviors. The chronological patterns of instinctive behaviors need not be distilled to the meager substance of DNA. Instead, block time holds the entire multidimensional volume of life's experience. Further, we natural find that instinctive memory and learned memory are highly interrelated because they in fact share the same mechanism, they are both held in block time. A creature's learned memory easily overlays the common "long term" memory of the species held in block time. When one turns to organization of living physiology, again block time provides an ideal container. According to the theory of modern physicists, block time holds each and every molecular event that ever occurred. This means block time holds the entire chronology of structural transformations that occur in the growth of the organism. Block time holds the structural forms of living physiology and the swirl of molecular motions that created these forms. Not only that, block time should hold the mind's perceptions and emotional content connected with each conscious monent of life. Further, we have evidence, such as from Herbert Jennings observations of microorganisms, that the mind is a force independent of the material structure (5, 6). Even at the simplest level of life, in bacteria, we find the mind's characteristics of conscious perception, memory, and choice. By memory of past events, cells act upon their environments. By choice, the mind creates order from the anarchy of the nonliving world. Many scientists might dismiss such speculation as valueless. But if life is in fact an organizing force, should we ignore the fact because it does not fit comfortably within the science's purely material view of the Universe? Life is a proactive force that is clearly distinct from the passive, purely reactive molecular forces of the nonliving world. However impossible a nonphysical model of life might seem, the possibility that DNA's minute, three-dimensional structure holds life's four-dimensional chronology of ever-changing structures is even more remote. Only when we view life as a vast dimension of conscious intelligence extended through the depths of time do we find a unified theory of life, mind, and memory that overcomes the many gross improbabilities that plague conventional science's purely material theory of life. (See The Vital Dimension for a full development of this theory.)
References: Full citations are found in The Vital Dimension. (1) The Nobel Prize Physicist, George Wald explaining I. Oparin's theory of life's physical origin. (2) The well known college textbook, Biology, by Neil Campbell. (3) The Nobel Prize physicist, Erwin Schrodinger. What is Life? (4) The Russian chemist, I. Oparin, who is credited with the modern theory of life. (5) The noted microbiologist, Herbert Jennings. The Behaviors of Lower Organisms. (6) The Nobel Prize Physicist, Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy.
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