Matti Pitkanen (matpitka@pcu.helsinki.fi)
Sat, 4 Sep 1999 18:06:17 +0300 (EET DST)
The hypothesis that sensory organs are primary sensory experiencers
explains elegantly the peculiar causal anomalies Libet related
to passive consciousness and reported by Libet and others. Dreams,
hallucinations, phantom leg, synesthesia are obvious counter arguments
which can be avoided in TGD framework.
The newest counter argument against the idea that sensory organs is
the phenomenon of color constancy which would suggest that visual
field experience cannot correspond directly to sensory experience.
It however turns out that this objection can be circumvented and
one ends up with a precise mechanism for how cognitive spacetime sheets
(and selves) providing automatically decomposition of the perciptive
field into objects, are generated by sensory stimulus.
Also connection with hologram model of brain suggests itself.
Below a small piece of text.
********************''
Color constancy and sensory organs as primary experiencers
Color constancy [Montgomery] is one of the most important aspects of
vision. If the object of the visual field is illuminated with
monochromatic light of constant intensity, its color does not change. This
is quite contrary to what one might expect on basis of what happens in
color sensitive cones in retina detecting wavelenghts concentrated around
blue, red and green. A particular case of the color constancy phenomenon
arises when entire visual field is illuminated with a monochromatic light
of a constant intensity: what is experienced is complete darkness. The
ability to see the real colors of the objects of the external world, which
is made possible by color constancy phenomenon, is of course extremely
valuable for survival purposes. Standard neuroscience forces to assume
that the subtraction of the background involves complicated computational
processing at the level of brain.
Color constancy suggests that retina cannot be the primary sensory
experiencer since in this case our subjectively experienced world would be
changing its colors continually. This conclusion is however too naive. In
fact, one could keep the hypothesis about sensory organs as primary
sensory experiencers and use color constancy as a valuable clue in
attempts to guess how cognitive representations for the objects of the
external world are generated as cognitive spacetime sheets residing in
the retina.
All sensory experiences should reduce to representations generated by zero
modes, in particular zero modes characterizing classical Kaehler field,
which can reduce to pure electromagnetic (vision?) or Z^0 field (auditory
experience?). Color constancy can be understood if the incoming light
intensities associated with the wavelengths around three basic colors
generate Kaehler electric fields proportional to the gradient of the
intensity. If gradient is strong, as it is on the boundary of the image of
object, the conservation of the Kaehler electric flux forces the
generation of cognitive spacetime sheet at which part of the flux goes.
Thus retina would create representation for the objects of the visual
field automatically as cognitive spacetime sheets, which in turn could
give rise to selves representing objects of the visual field as mental
images! In fact, all sensory experiences seem to be determined by
gradients. This suggests that also other sensory organs apply similar
principle: a gradient of Kaehler (electric) field proportional to the
gradient of sensory stimulus is generated in primary sensory organ and
automatically generates cognitive spacetime sheets, which give rise to
selves representing the decomposition of the perceptive field to objects.
The idea that sensory organs automatically form a model for the objects
of the external world based on cognitive spacetime sheets suggests
interesting connection with the hologramic model of brain \cite{Pietch}
and with microtubule as quantum antenna hypothesis (see the chapter
'Quantum antenna hypothesis').
a) If cognitive spacetime sheets act as quantum antennae, they generate
coherent photons. Axons connecting sensory organs to brain contain
microtubules and this leads to ask whether these axons could serve as
waveguides for the coherent light generated by the cognitive spacetime
sheets representing the objects of the external world. Also the vacuum
currents associated with these microtubular massless extremals could code
the intensity of the coherent light emitted by the cognitive spacetime
sheets. If either of these guesses is correct, axons provide neurons
with a direct sensory window to the representation of the external world
formed by the cognitive spacetime sheets residing at sensory organs.
Coherent photons would also give rise to neuronal lingua franca realized
as a direct neuronal/microtubular vision.
b) Sensory window would be in question in a rather literal sense. The fact
that a piece of hologram provides the representation given by the entire
hologram, albeit in somewhat blurred form, is essentially equivalent with
the possibility to see through a small window. Therefore the idea about
neuronal window is in accord with the hologram model of brain [Pietch],
which is based on the idea that all neurons receive more or less the same
sensory input, analogous to the visual experience generated by a piece of
hologram. There exists rather convincing experimental support for the
hologram idea [Pietch]. The experiments of Pietch with salamanders
involved the cutting the brain of the salamander to pieces, shuffling
the pieces randomly and putting them back together: no detectable changes
in the behaviour of salamander occurred as a result of this operation! It
is hard to imagine a computer which would function after this kind of
treatment.
References
[Montgomery]
G. Montgomery, Breaking the Code of Color,
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/b/b120.htm.
[Pietch]
P. Pietch, (1972), Shuffle Brain: The Quest for Hologramic Mind,
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/shufflebrain-book00.html.
Best,
MP
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