[time 467] Thoughts as self-generating cascades


Matti Pitkanen (matpitka@pcu.helsinki.fi)
Thu, 22 Jul 1999 18:39:14 +0300 (EET DST)


In the following latex version for a model of cognition
based on self concept. To my opinion it leads to surprisingly
'computational' picture.

MP
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\subsection{A simpe model for cognition}

The hierarchy of selves and summation hypothesis allows to
construct very general model for cognitive processes including
as special case thinking, analysis of visual experience
and language. In nutshell cognitive processes could be regarded
as cascade like processes leading to generation of selves followed
by generation of subselves for these and so on.

\subsubsection{Self makes two types of quantum jumps}

Essential point is that self can make two kinds of quantum jumps
competing in negentropy gain maximization race:
quantum jumps giving rise to whole body experiences
and quantum jumps giving rise to creation of selves and
very probably involved with ordinary cognition.

\vm

a) Entanglement between cognitive spacetime sheets
and matterlike spacetime sheets is reduced. This corresponds
to 'whole-body' experience in which matter-mind entanglent
disappears. Experience of oneness is involved since there is
no decomposition to smaller selves.
 These states of consciousness might correspond to the mystic
experiences described by mystics like Krishnamurti. The
life long training of yogis could help to achieve skill to generate
very strong body-mind entanglement necessary for these quantum
jumps to occur.

\vm

>From personal experience, these experiences involve sudden fall
of total 'silence' although physical sounds are still perceived. The
interpretation is that quantum jumps of subselves producing the
not so pleasant noise present in usual experiencing cease to occur.
Whole-body consciousness 'fills' the entire body (or part of it)
very much like thrills along spine but in entire body. An example of
this kind of partial body consciousness is following. Cat was sleeping on
my breast and when I woke up I realized that my breast was
in the state of whole body consciousness which gradually faded
away. This would suggest that during sleep selves indeed get entangled
with larger selves: in case of cat this entanglement happened
to be with part of my body. Thus any cat owner could do exciting
and easy experimentation with extended states of consciousness!

\vm

No dissipation occurs at subsystem level during these experiences and
hence neurons, etc... do not get older nor suffer irreversible changes.
Whole body consciousness, if it could be generated artificially,
could have obvious medical applications and perhaps save lives:
for instance, entangling the brain of a victim of brain
infarct with his body would hinder irreversible
neuronal changes otherwise caused by bleeding in brain!
Dramatic reduction of dissipation during whole-body consciousness
could provide breakthrough experimental verification for TGD inspired
theory of consciousness: for instance, one could measure cell level
dissipation during meditation of trained yogis.

\vm

b) Candidate for a new subself is generated in quantum jump in which
subsystem of self containing both matter and mind like spacetime sheets
is generated. This quantum jump decomposes self into two subselves
if the resulting unentangled subsytems are able to remain
unentangled during subsequence informational time developments.
These subselves are created all the time in ordinary wake-up
consciousness and their quantum jumps give rise to not so pleasant 'noise'
all around body: this noise disappears when 'whole-body' consciousness
starts: the sudden fall of this 'silence' is dramatic experience.

\vm

Self can also wake-up spontaneously: informational time development $U$
generates vanishing p-adic entanglement which
results when real entanglement is below the critical one.
Selves fall asleep and hence disappear always spontaneously by generating
entanglement with surrounding world. It seems that we ourselves
wake-up spontaneously. Simple working hypothesis is that same is
true also for lower and higher selves.

\subsubsection{Why thoughts cannot correspond to single quantum jump?}

Before the discovery of the notion of self the idea was
that thought corresponds to single quantum jump. Temporal
aspects of thought were believed to result from the
time nonlocality of the contents of thought made
possible by temporal duration of the cognitive spacetime sheets.
One could however argue that temporal extension
of cognitive spacetime sheets need not have anything
to do with temporal ordering associated with thought.

\vm

The hierarchy of selves and the summation hypothesis
makes possible to consider thoughts as sequences of quantum jumps
which brings considerable flexibility. The realization
that each quantum jump involves localization in zero modes
characterizing the classical aspects of spacetime surface
led to the discovery that psychological corresponds to zero
mode and that its arrow results from the drift of the cognitive
spacetime surface in future direction inside future lightcone.
The simplest estimate for the average duration of quantum jump
is given by the $CP_2$ size, which corresponds to about $10^{4}$
Planck times. This would mean that self performs about $10^{40}$
 quantum jumps per second and psychological time is continuous
in an excellent approximation! One can make also other guesses
for the average increment of psychological time in quantum jump
but all estimates leads to rather small values of time:
typically some macroscopic length scale $L$ divited by some
characteristic velocity $v$: $\Delta T= \Delta L/v$.
This leaves only one conclusion: single thought cannot
correspond to single quantum jump but to a sequence of very
many quantum jumps. A natural idea is that wake-up process for
selves is crucial element of conscious thought.

\subsubsection{Thoughts, perceptions, cognitions as sequences
of awakenings}

Cognitive act is identified as a cascade like process in
which new selves are generated as subselves of already generated
selves. Thus cognitive act can be characterized by a
dynamically generated tree in which each node corresponds
to generation of subselves of self represented by the branch
leading to the node. This leads naturally to a
modular structure of cognitive acts analogous
to the modular structure of computer program: starting
of subprogram means wake-up of self. Subselves cannot
wake-up before self containing them has woken-up and this gives
natural time ordering for the execution of these
'program modules'. The decomposition of the sensory experience
to modular pieces corresponds directly to the decomposition to
subselves.

\vm

a) The dynamically generated nested inclusion of selves inside
selves is crucial for cognitive acts. This provides a realization of
logical implication $A\rightarrow B$ as inclusion of sets: $B\subset A$.
This is standard set theoretic realization of Boolean algebra:
$A$ implies $B$ when self representing $B$ is subself of
self representing $A$. Selves could be thought as symbols
of language or as logical statements or objects in picture:
interpretation depends on what kind of cognitive process is in question.

\vm

b) Thoughts and more generally all cognitive acts
$A\rightarrow B\rightarrow C...$ are sequences of awakenings.
What kind of cognitive acts are in question depends on
the type of matter-mind entanglement inside selves.
Logical causation is realized also as temporal causation.
Note that $A, B,...$ are experienced simultaneously as subselves
of entire self but $B$ and next selves in hierarchy
 are created later than their predecessors! This
realizes logical causation as temporal causation.
In each step several subselves of given self can be created.

\vm

c) What happens is roughly following:

i) Self $A$ wakes up and begins to perform matter-mind like quantum jumps
(perhaps something like $10^{39}$ per second!): $U$ generates everytime
strong matter-mind type entanglement and outcome might be with high
probability the same every time.

ii) Self $B$ could be generated by quantum
jump or possibly spontaneously. Irrespective of waking-up mechanism,
selves must be critical systems. A hypothesis worth of studying
is that all selves have real quantum entanglement only slightly above the
critical value below which real entanglement is mapped to p-adically
vanishing entanglement (recall pinary cutoff!). Alternative possibility
is that selves are critical systems in the sense that a
slight perturbation can cause a generation of very large entanglement
so that self is created by quantum jump.

iii) Cognitive process would proceed
in cascade like manner starting from the root of tree and going
downwards along the tree choosing at each node some branches.
For instance, understanding of a sentence
would correspond to waking up of large self $A$ representing
sentences in its entirety, words
its subselves $B_i$, phonemes to subselves $C_{ij}$ of $B_i$, etc...
waking-up in this order. Similarly, the act of decomposing the figure
to objects and of objects to sub-objects would correspond to a
temporal sequence generating selves within selves. Background
would be the largest conscious self and objects would correspond to
sequence of selfs.

c) Statistical determininism implies reliability if there is ensemble
of 'big' selves. If subselves make with high probability
the same matter-mind type quantum jump everytime and
if the process of self generation is more or less deterministic, thoughts
are reliable. This is possible. Learning as habituation could
be possibly understood as gradual development of highly predictable
cascades of selves. Alternatively, if cognition is realized
in terms of ensembles, then habituation could be realized as
increase for the number of members in the ensemble.

\subsubsection{Biological realization of the dynamical self
hierarchies}

Neurons are only one level
of selves in the hierarchy starting from the level of
body and sensory organs (or possibly from much higher
level) and ending to at the level of
64 basic DNA triplest via neurons and microtubules and all
 between (or perhaps continuing even further downwards).
The fact that Buddhists classify fundamental experiences to
64 basic types in I Chin, might mean, that they have achieved in
meditation the level of DNA selves and recognized its presence
clearly! In chapter 'Quantum model for intelligent system'
I have proposed very simple model of abstraction process
which reproduces the basic numbers of genetic code and in this
framework DNA:s might provide some kind of physical realization
for thoughts.

\vm

The syncronous firing of neurons would mean waking up
of quantum critical neuronal selves in cascade like manner (think of fox
perceived by a crowd of hens sleeping initially!). Receival of
nerve pulse would wake up neuron. Perhaps neurons and also other
subsystems of living systems have small real entanglement slightly above
the critical value for wake-up so that small perturbation is needed for
wake-up. In this case neuronal self creation would not involve quantum
jump. Criticality could be also realized as ability to generate
very large quantum entanglement as a response to large perturbation.

\vm

The nature of cognitive act depends on the type
of quantum entanglement involved.
All kind of combinations are possible for the
cognitive cascades. Thoughts could
correspond reduction of quantum entanglement between cognitive
neutrino states at cognitive and matter like spacetime sheets.
The density of neutrinos
is predicted to be very low in p-adic length scales
much larger than $L(169)$ (two times cell size roughly).
The generation of defects of neutrino super conductor
is closely involved with the formation of thoughts.
 If the levels of self hierarchy correspond to p-adic spacetime sheets
and neutrinos are present at all levels, thoughts cannot involve too
many hierarchy levels. In the model of cell membranes
as defects of neutrino super conductor, the relevant
p-adic length scales correspond to $k=169$ and $k=151$. If
neutrino super conductor can however form defects also at $k=167,163,157$
then hierarchies with four levels are possible (sentences, words,
syllables, phonemes?).

\subsubsection{Quantum criticality of TGD and existence of selves}

The model of cognition provides a new view to the role of
quantum criticality of TGD.
One consequence of quantum criticality could
be the existence of a lot of subsystems for which each
quantum jump $U$ generates real entanglement only slightly
above the critical entanglement. Alternatively, criticality
could imply the ability of some subsystems to generate
very large quantum entanglement as a response to small
perturbations. Both these mechanism might be at work. TGD:eish universe
would be in state of maximal alertness ready to generate cascades
of selves representing cognitive acts. Our cognitive acts would be only
part of the cognitive acts of entire Universe proceeding from top to
bottom as infinite trees with branches representing new selves
and nodes representing moments of wake-ups for the selves.
Or expressing it in the terminology of AI: we would be like subprograms
of infinite program represented by entire universe.
The presence of higher level selfs means that cognitive acts
can proceed from the level of even entire biosystem to the level
of DNA. This encourages to interesting speculations:
for instance, the ideas of Sheldrake about learning at the level
of specis might find justification.

\subsection{Memories and summation hypothesis}

There are two kinds of memories corresponding to
two different time developmens. There is deterministic (in generalized
sense) time development with respect to geometric time on one hand and
the nondeterministic time development by quantum jumps with respect
subjective time. Basically all memories give information about initial
and final quantum histories of quantum jump and it is in principle
impossible to have memories about previous quantum jumps. This
 does not make possible to have model for the most probable
subjective life history through simulation. Quantum statistical
determinism makes this kind of simulations possible.

\vm

Memories seem to be mostly thoughts and mental images and the proposed
model for cascade like generations of selves provides therefore a model
for memory. Memories could be simple cognitive acts occurring again and
again as a reaction to some specific stimulus.
For an ensemble of selves with each self initiating cognitive
acts is in question, reliability of memories results.
Memories realized in this manner could in principle
reside on cognitive spacetime sheets of very short time duration, say of
order second. It might well be that memories involving cognition
do not have long temporal span.

\vm

The standard dogma of neuro science is that all sensory experiences
occur at brain level. TGD based concept of psychological time
allows also the possibility that body is the fundamental experiencer:
various counter arguments (phantom leg, dreams, hallucinations,...)
can be circumvented if multitime experiences are allowed. These
multitime experiences would represent extension of self in time
direction made possible by timelike quantum entanglement between
cognitive spacetime sheets. Also perinatal and transpersonal
conscious experiences could be understood in this manner.
The hierarchy of selves supports strongly this view.
Of course, both brain and primary sensory organs could be
basic experiencers. The pain in my leg could involve both
the pain experienced by leg and the pain experienced by brain
at the level of cognitive representation.

 
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