Metaphysics has taken a beating since the Victorian conceits became popular in the west. I still marvel at the rhetorical gymnastics and irony of those who claim "science says."
To take that position is to claim there are only the known knowns of a reproducible materiality. The implication is absurd but clung-to like a concretizing fundamentalist clings to bibliolatry, utterly blind to their idolatry worship of the Holy Bible.
So human, that.
So, let's assume they may be right. Let's agree with them for a moment that there are only known knowns. How ironic to claim to know that you know what is and is not merely based on the mortal perceptions of humans practicing affectations of credence and ritual. Projection anyone?
Religion is an inseparable part of the cognitive state of the human condition. There are those who claim they have no religion. That is their faith. They practice the religion of having no religion. It doesn't mean they do not have religious beliefs. It means they do not understand them.
We humans exist in a state of unknown unknowns, catching glimpses of what is through the filter of our physiology and the varying quality of cognition it may provide us at any given moment.
Carlo Cipolla did humanity a solid when he was able to determine that education and intelligence do not correlate to human stupidity. Cipolla determined however intelligent, credentialed and conscientious one might be, we are just as capable of behaving stupidly as the marginally-literate potbellied beer drinking dude chilling out in nylon webbed lawn chair at the trailer park after having spent the day rebuilding a $40,000 NASCAR racing engine while holding a 6 decimal tolerance.
Somebody said it this way: "Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must."
So back we go to the primordial admonishments about the getting of wisdom.
What we know may not be as important as what we learn next.
There really is no such thing as "Science," per se. There is only the good faith discipline of scientific method. All else is politics.
Perhaps a useful maxim is, GENIUS COMES THROUGH US, NOT FROM US. We know from what are called, Idiot Savants, that genius can exist and even flourish, in the minds/brains of the otherwise cretinous.
Thanks for another great work Josh! I am not sure how I can help but to say that I know you are onto the truth and I look forward to your conclusions and your book. We are spirits who borrowed "biological machines" to incarnate in the material world and forgot that we are more than material. Your contributions to our society is so valuable. Thank you again!
"Quantum Zeno Effect" = "Watched pot will never boil" (unless you keep feeling the water get hotter, them make a little steam, and that first bubble on the side...)
If Schrodinger's cat is consciously observing itself inside the box, it's some other cat, right? (Felix?)
Your postulate that mind nudged along the evolutionary process within the rare universe which could possibly support that is not different from the view my grandfather took, which was unlike that of his Texas-pioneer-minister father, and which he considered long and deeply. He was an extremely widely accomplished man, radio-operator on a tramp steamer to Arabia, observer-gunner in a Spad biplane, attending the Sorbonne, graduating Harvard Grad School in Journalism, newspaperman who raised a family in the great depression, built them a house with his hands, was a Major in OSS counterintelligence in WW-2, Invented a letter-addressing machine and sold it to buy a cattle-ranch, which he ranched for 20 more years, which is missing that he wrote for a radio-news show in the 1950s.
I also don't disagree, but I know that I can't comprehend time as a more multi-dimensional consciousness would, and that is my biggest apparent impediment to understanding.
Thanks, John - as I read your response, I realize there are places I need more clarity in my prose. Some of the ideas I present concord with my beliefs, and others are ideas that I oppose.
>If Schrodinger's cat is consciously observing itself inside the box, it's some other cat, right?
My intention was that Schrodinger's cat keeps himself alive by continual observation.
>mind nudged along the evolutionary process within the rare universe
> which could possibly support life
I am tentatively supporting the idea that consciousness is nudging the evolutionary process, biasing the probabilities for certain mutations. But the idea that we live in a "rare universe capable of life" is not mine. This is mainstream physics creating a multiverse in order to avoid any mystical or religious invocation. I prefer the hypothesis that mind created just one universe as a playground for itself, and set up the physics to make it work. I don't need all those other (dead) universes.
Thanks for the post. This is an area I have been interested in for the past 15 years.
Josh, if you haven't already, you should check out the hypothesis put forward by Federico Faggin, PhD., inventor responsible for many essential discoveries in semiconductor physics, serial entreprenuer and just by the way, the inventor of the first microprocessor!
The hypothesis was first published in an anthology, "Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence" edited by Fabio Scardigli (https://a.co/d/cPyj6ku) . Faggin's book on the hypothesis, "Irreducible" was originally published in Italian. An English version is scheduled to be released on June 1. (https://a.co/d/5KBnokf).
I have read some of Faggin's work in the past, and I'm open to reading more. If you can direct me to readings where I can get the core of his ideas economically explained that would save me some time.
Love this kind of exploration. I wish more of our great theoriticians would be courageous enough to share these thoughts, if they had them. Penrose and Hammeroff do a bit, but could go further. One thing that really intrigues me are LLM's. I'm trying to understand the steps in their programming. The perception of meaning, inference and understanding that they generate is really intriguing.
Fascinating article Josh - apologies for the late comment.
I've also been interested in the whole 'psi' thing in the past. At one point I was in discussion with Dean Radin where he sent me some preview chapters of the book he was working on at the time for comment and to see if I could make it all 'work' with QM. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to.
The problem, as I think you've emphasized, can broadly be described as "The Measurement Problem". The current QM perspective that is most common is that 'decoherence theory' has, essentially, resolved the measurement problem of QM. I do not share that perspective. Penrose's discussion in his "Road to Reality" book (an absolutely magnificent book - a tour de force) is really good and he explains beautifully there why he doesn't think the decoherence approach doesn't really solve anything.
The question of consciousness, and we don't understand what that is properly, is one (I think) of whether it, like an unconscious measurement device, can 'perform' a measurement - or is it merely taking account of the results obtained?
Understanding psi, if it exists, will probably require a final resolution of the measurement 'paradox' within QM and that's a tall order.
Since there is no proof that this world and all life is purely material and since as humans we have evidence there are things at work beyond the material, it would be foolish to deny the reality that we know very little and understand even less.
Any theory must embrace everything, just as any God must embrace and be everything. The 'observer effect' makes it very clear that human minds play a big part in what makes up, what we call, reality.
Modern science caught itself in its own trap when it decided to create itself as a counter to religion, indeed, the worst and most fundamentalist of religious belief. In constantly striving to be the opposite of orthodox religious belief, science became orthodox itself, dogmatic in essence, and set itself on a path to become another religion, albeit one created in the opposite corner. That which we condemn in others is that which we deny in ourselves and science, unconsciously, triggered that process by shaping itself in a mould meant to be the opposite of orthodox religion, but which, unconsciously, had to be the other side of the same coin.
The best of religion embraced both the material and the non-material and science, in order to save itself and recover its soul, must do the same.
I think you’re on the right track. I suggest you posit that Mind preeexists matter, including its properties space and time. I then suggest you explore the philosophical implications of the existence of the Akashic Record, as known by the Hindu and New Age cultures.
I'm ambivalent about this. My contribution to aging science is a finished work, and I feel drawn to these bigger questions. In the field of aging medicine, there's a lot more to be done with rhetoric and politics and funding, but I'm out of my element when I try to do these things. I'm a scientist and a writer. I have several ideas that I want to develop on the Aging Matters Blog, and I invite you to remind me to put in the time and study to finish them:
+ Spermidine
+ Statins
+ Phermones that help worm colonies adapt to cycles of starvation
That's been largely true for a while it seems to me. It was a huge contribution you made, making the case for why aging would be favored by natural selection. It does everything possible, scientist and writer-wise, to bolster acceptance of the notion that aging is purposeful. Chiming in on methylation clocks, the Yuvan work, and all is nice, but you are probably getting diminished returns. (I probably shouldn’t say that, because I'd rather see you work on aging. It's far more compelling to me. But I'm about the last person in the world who would tell anyone what to do.)
I’ve had the same thought that rhetoric, politics and funding is what’s holding things back now. Not my element either, but surely you know someone for whom it is? (Someone else who would like to see progress made in aging, of course.)
Of the 4 topics you mention, only the worm pheromones interest me. Michael Levin's work does though, and I think much about what sorts of limits might be lurking. I could see E5 as a healthspan panacea that doesn't do much for maximum lifespan. An amazing achievement for sure, but I want to live to 6,784, when I get eaten by a grizzly bear, or more likely, shot by a jealous husband. You've argued we should expect multiple aging mechanisms in the body, such that it can't easily evolve away.
How many does E5 mitigate? The body has so many homeostatic mechanisms and redundancies; not just moment to moment stuff like body temperature and blood sugar, but even long-term, like the general course of ontogeny. Where do such things come from, the hypothalamus? Of course if no lab is studying such, what are you gonna do?
I will be making my own E5 at some point. Exactly how that’s going to happen, I don't know. I could be part of a collective. I could be toiling away in my own basement by myself with a PEG column. I'm not making any progress toward that. I just sniff around for opportunity. At 59, I figure I can afford to be patient.
Hopefully, you will continue to provide updates on Harold Katcher's rejuvenation research, or related projects, as you come to hear of it, or as noteworthy developments occur.
(For example, he suggested somewhere recently, that as soon as feasible, he was going to test his plasma fraction technology on himself, as the first human trial. That suggests a high level of confidence; the results would be most interesting.)
Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor and serial entrepreneur, has proposed a hypothesis that does solve this problem and is testable. See my comment above for links.
Metaphysics has taken a beating since the Victorian conceits became popular in the west. I still marvel at the rhetorical gymnastics and irony of those who claim "science says."
To take that position is to claim there are only the known knowns of a reproducible materiality. The implication is absurd but clung-to like a concretizing fundamentalist clings to bibliolatry, utterly blind to their idolatry worship of the Holy Bible.
So human, that.
So, let's assume they may be right. Let's agree with them for a moment that there are only known knowns. How ironic to claim to know that you know what is and is not merely based on the mortal perceptions of humans practicing affectations of credence and ritual. Projection anyone?
Religion is an inseparable part of the cognitive state of the human condition. There are those who claim they have no religion. That is their faith. They practice the religion of having no religion. It doesn't mean they do not have religious beliefs. It means they do not understand them.
We humans exist in a state of unknown unknowns, catching glimpses of what is through the filter of our physiology and the varying quality of cognition it may provide us at any given moment.
Carlo Cipolla did humanity a solid when he was able to determine that education and intelligence do not correlate to human stupidity. Cipolla determined however intelligent, credentialed and conscientious one might be, we are just as capable of behaving stupidly as the marginally-literate potbellied beer drinking dude chilling out in nylon webbed lawn chair at the trailer park after having spent the day rebuilding a $40,000 NASCAR racing engine while holding a 6 decimal tolerance.
Somebody said it this way: "Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must."
So back we go to the primordial admonishments about the getting of wisdom.
What we know may not be as important as what we learn next.
There really is no such thing as "Science," per se. There is only the good faith discipline of scientific method. All else is politics.
Perhaps a useful maxim is, GENIUS COMES THROUGH US, NOT FROM US. We know from what are called, Idiot Savants, that genius can exist and even flourish, in the minds/brains of the otherwise cretinous.
The guys that rebuilt that NASCAR motor to those infinitesimal tolerances played this song for us: Fried Chicken & Gasoline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCCqeHm5VDY
Thanks for another great work Josh! I am not sure how I can help but to say that I know you are onto the truth and I look forward to your conclusions and your book. We are spirits who borrowed "biological machines" to incarnate in the material world and forgot that we are more than material. Your contributions to our society is so valuable. Thank you again!
"Quantum Zeno Effect" = "Watched pot will never boil" (unless you keep feeling the water get hotter, them make a little steam, and that first bubble on the side...)
If Schrodinger's cat is consciously observing itself inside the box, it's some other cat, right? (Felix?)
Your postulate that mind nudged along the evolutionary process within the rare universe which could possibly support that is not different from the view my grandfather took, which was unlike that of his Texas-pioneer-minister father, and which he considered long and deeply. He was an extremely widely accomplished man, radio-operator on a tramp steamer to Arabia, observer-gunner in a Spad biplane, attending the Sorbonne, graduating Harvard Grad School in Journalism, newspaperman who raised a family in the great depression, built them a house with his hands, was a Major in OSS counterintelligence in WW-2, Invented a letter-addressing machine and sold it to buy a cattle-ranch, which he ranched for 20 more years, which is missing that he wrote for a radio-news show in the 1950s.
I also don't disagree, but I know that I can't comprehend time as a more multi-dimensional consciousness would, and that is my biggest apparent impediment to understanding.
Thanks, John - as I read your response, I realize there are places I need more clarity in my prose. Some of the ideas I present concord with my beliefs, and others are ideas that I oppose.
>If Schrodinger's cat is consciously observing itself inside the box, it's some other cat, right?
My intention was that Schrodinger's cat keeps himself alive by continual observation.
>mind nudged along the evolutionary process within the rare universe
> which could possibly support life
I am tentatively supporting the idea that consciousness is nudging the evolutionary process, biasing the probabilities for certain mutations. But the idea that we live in a "rare universe capable of life" is not mine. This is mainstream physics creating a multiverse in order to avoid any mystical or religious invocation. I prefer the hypothesis that mind created just one universe as a playground for itself, and set up the physics to make it work. I don't need all those other (dead) universes.
Thanks Josh, you put more distance between yourself and the natural-selection-of-the-rare-possible-universe approach in a previous essay.
I know it is not your preferred take, but I can't see it as inherently very different to Universally-Creative-Mind.
Even you and I can spot a blind-alley pretty quickly.
About Schrodinger's cat. He seemed to assume that cats are not conscious observers, which is not how I see it, myself.
Cognitively-Yours, John.
Thanks for the post. This is an area I have been interested in for the past 15 years.
Josh, if you haven't already, you should check out the hypothesis put forward by Federico Faggin, PhD., inventor responsible for many essential discoveries in semiconductor physics, serial entreprenuer and just by the way, the inventor of the first microprocessor!
The hypothesis was first published in an anthology, "Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence" edited by Fabio Scardigli (https://a.co/d/cPyj6ku) . Faggin's book on the hypothesis, "Irreducible" was originally published in Italian. An English version is scheduled to be released on June 1. (https://a.co/d/5KBnokf).
Finally, here is a playlist I have created with five of Faggin's recent interviews: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD6iMnod6rUzznmM_ZfDHA2d34Qk70sN4
Enjoy!
I have read some of Faggin's work in the past, and I'm open to reading more. If you can direct me to readings where I can get the core of his ideas economically explained that would save me some time.
Here's a link to his chapter in "Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence": https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-85480-5_5
I also have a AI translated version of "Irreducible" from Italian to English that I can share with you if there is interest. Just let me know...
Thanks, Bob This chapter seems a good place for me to dig in.
Love this kind of exploration. I wish more of our great theoriticians would be courageous enough to share these thoughts, if they had them. Penrose and Hammeroff do a bit, but could go further. One thing that really intrigues me are LLM's. I'm trying to understand the steps in their programming. The perception of meaning, inference and understanding that they generate is really intriguing.
Fascinating article Josh - apologies for the late comment.
I've also been interested in the whole 'psi' thing in the past. At one point I was in discussion with Dean Radin where he sent me some preview chapters of the book he was working on at the time for comment and to see if I could make it all 'work' with QM. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to.
The problem, as I think you've emphasized, can broadly be described as "The Measurement Problem". The current QM perspective that is most common is that 'decoherence theory' has, essentially, resolved the measurement problem of QM. I do not share that perspective. Penrose's discussion in his "Road to Reality" book (an absolutely magnificent book - a tour de force) is really good and he explains beautifully there why he doesn't think the decoherence approach doesn't really solve anything.
The question of consciousness, and we don't understand what that is properly, is one (I think) of whether it, like an unconscious measurement device, can 'perform' a measurement - or is it merely taking account of the results obtained?
Understanding psi, if it exists, will probably require a final resolution of the measurement 'paradox' within QM and that's a tall order.
Since there is no proof that this world and all life is purely material and since as humans we have evidence there are things at work beyond the material, it would be foolish to deny the reality that we know very little and understand even less.
Any theory must embrace everything, just as any God must embrace and be everything. The 'observer effect' makes it very clear that human minds play a big part in what makes up, what we call, reality.
Modern science caught itself in its own trap when it decided to create itself as a counter to religion, indeed, the worst and most fundamentalist of religious belief. In constantly striving to be the opposite of orthodox religious belief, science became orthodox itself, dogmatic in essence, and set itself on a path to become another religion, albeit one created in the opposite corner. That which we condemn in others is that which we deny in ourselves and science, unconsciously, triggered that process by shaping itself in a mould meant to be the opposite of orthodox religion, but which, unconsciously, had to be the other side of the same coin.
The best of religion embraced both the material and the non-material and science, in order to save itself and recover its soul, must do the same.
You nailed it.
Really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds in your explorations Josh. Your Substack has become one of my absolute favorites!! 🙏
I think you’re on the right track. I suggest you posit that Mind preeexists matter, including its properties space and time. I then suggest you explore the philosophical implications of the existence of the Akashic Record, as known by the Hindu and New Age cultures.
Two years or more! Are you shelving your work on aging?
I'm ambivalent about this. My contribution to aging science is a finished work, and I feel drawn to these bigger questions. In the field of aging medicine, there's a lot more to be done with rhetoric and politics and funding, but I'm out of my element when I try to do these things. I'm a scientist and a writer. I have several ideas that I want to develop on the Aging Matters Blog, and I invite you to remind me to put in the time and study to finish them:
+ Spermidine
+ Statins
+ Phermones that help worm colonies adapt to cycles of starvation
+ Molecular hydrogen
That's been largely true for a while it seems to me. It was a huge contribution you made, making the case for why aging would be favored by natural selection. It does everything possible, scientist and writer-wise, to bolster acceptance of the notion that aging is purposeful. Chiming in on methylation clocks, the Yuvan work, and all is nice, but you are probably getting diminished returns. (I probably shouldn’t say that, because I'd rather see you work on aging. It's far more compelling to me. But I'm about the last person in the world who would tell anyone what to do.)
I’ve had the same thought that rhetoric, politics and funding is what’s holding things back now. Not my element either, but surely you know someone for whom it is? (Someone else who would like to see progress made in aging, of course.)
Of the 4 topics you mention, only the worm pheromones interest me. Michael Levin's work does though, and I think much about what sorts of limits might be lurking. I could see E5 as a healthspan panacea that doesn't do much for maximum lifespan. An amazing achievement for sure, but I want to live to 6,784, when I get eaten by a grizzly bear, or more likely, shot by a jealous husband. You've argued we should expect multiple aging mechanisms in the body, such that it can't easily evolve away.
How many does E5 mitigate? The body has so many homeostatic mechanisms and redundancies; not just moment to moment stuff like body temperature and blood sugar, but even long-term, like the general course of ontogeny. Where do such things come from, the hypothalamus? Of course if no lab is studying such, what are you gonna do?
I will be making my own E5 at some point. Exactly how that’s going to happen, I don't know. I could be part of a collective. I could be toiling away in my own basement by myself with a PEG column. I'm not making any progress toward that. I just sniff around for opportunity. At 59, I figure I can afford to be patient.
Hopefully, you will continue to provide updates on Harold Katcher's rejuvenation research, or related projects, as you come to hear of it, or as noteworthy developments occur.
(For example, he suggested somewhere recently, that as soon as feasible, he was going to test his plasma fraction technology on himself, as the first human trial. That suggests a high level of confidence; the results would be most interesting.)
Of course.
I'm surprised he doesn't yet consider it feasible. I wonder what needed to happen to go from feasible for Sima to feasible for Harold.
"Natural Philosopher" Josh.
:-)
The hungry rats live longer, I hear.
Metformin is the Fountain of Middle Age (Don't take it when you are young.)
Deep heating from solar-near-infrared seems to be better than sitting inside in AC, for some reason, maybe lymphatic circulation...
I've been watching a long time, and living past 86 is rarely a "blessing", though if it still is, you might make a century.
:-/
Great post ... thank you ...
But ... do you know any scientists that could solve this very pressing problem?
https://windowsontheworld.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-the-truth
pb
Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor and serial entrepreneur, has proposed a hypothesis that does solve this problem and is testable. See my comment above for links.