God, Quantum Theory, and Consciousness: Does the Mind of God create reality?

I now understand what you meant when you were relating the example of the atom, but I imagine I went through the same steps of skepticism as anyone else because of the way their claims were summarized poorly in the video.

However, what conclusions can be made from their findings that agree with each other? - specifically, when measurements differed consistently in the same way with males or females, in groups, it isn't affected by distance or other factors etc. Like you said, if the test I mentioned isn't applicable (which it isn't by the standards you defined rather than the video), and their tests are sound, what is stopping them from wider acceptance and investigation of their theory?

 

From what I can tell, it's just academic hubris, plain and simple. I ran across PEAR's first book browsing through Amazon and it fell right in line with other things I was reading about quantum theory--from Schrödinger and the like--so I found it very impressive research, although a few of its experiments (i.e., those in remote viewing) had methodologies that I find a little too open to interpretational bias. But the random event generation seems solid to me, and not impossible; therefore it probably happens (in physics, this is usually the case; and biology had a LONG time to give our bodies all sorts of cool, mysterious, and still unknown powers). Hell, photosynthesis uses quantum mechanics to work--if some plant can do it, why can't a brain?

As for the male-female difference, I'd theorize that has something to do with the extremely disparate way the male and female brains are constructed:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...ue-has-drawn-wiring-diagrams-brains-two-sexes

But the above is admittedly pure speculation--we really don't have a damn clue. This is simply how new science works, though: people get crazy results, and nobody believes it; then someone else comes along, finds out more, and builds something impressive. And then once it's in all the textbooks, everybody forgets there was even a controversy in the first place. It's how the quantum theory happened in the first place.

GoogleTechTalks had a psi researcher who worked on a PEAR offshoot give a lecture, though, so clearly at least some people are open to it--or at least not willing to dismiss it from the get-go like most academic journals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

 

So you're saying that even if I'm dreaming, my dreams are still bound by these rules in the quantum realm? I mean when I've had lucid dreams, it's an anything goes kind of place. To say that it's not an anything goes place is definitely an interesting empirical claim.

I still don't think this dents the claim that existence exists independent of consciousness. I mean lets take Earth for example. There was a time where no life, nor conscious being (as far as we're aware of), existed on it. Furthermore, as far as we know, the next conscious life forms, if they exist, are certainly quite a distance away. Does Earth exist then? Then all of a sudden, life begins to form on Earth, and evolve. When did Earth exist? Before this event, or simultaneously. If you accept that Earth existed before the event, you inherently accept that existence is independent of consciousness. This is the only claim I am trying to defend. If you reject this view however, then the situation seems very messy. If no Earth exists, how does life 'begin' in the first instance, where does it begin at? It seems to me that lifes beginning requires a place for it to begin on. Additionally, even if you argue that life and Earth appeared simultaneously, surely this would violate certain laws of nature, given the requirement of an immediate assemblation of matter into Earth.

Even so, I don't think it's difficult to still maintain that reality is objective. I accept the premise that nature may behave differently when we're looking vs not looking. However, the conclusion to me is simply that a conscious observer is somehow interacting with this particle. Of course we have no idea about the process which lead to this, but it seems a huge stretch to embark on a line of reasoning that denies the objectivity of reality. I mean here's how I think of it. If you think of our viewing of the particle is an unknown interaction, then consider it like any other interaction, such as typing on a computer. In the former, it is unknown why, but in the latter, the changes in reality are a result of laws in which we understand.

By us I mean consciousness, so yes ANY conscious observer. I take it you have a view that consciousness and existence are independent? Certainly, as you've just pointed out, at some stage there must be an absolute physical reality for consciousness to exist in, but you are of the opinion that they are interdependent, that is, if consciousness didn't exist, then reality wouldn't either.

What is the main reason that you believe that reality and consciousness are interdependent? Is it that superposition particle phenomenon above, or?

To me this really is a needless multiplication of entities.

The four statements I have said before, essentially cover it. It seems very simple, and quite straightforward. This field of thought however, is highly complicated. Granted the research is still incomplete, and an absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence, but from everything you've posted so far, I agree that it is interesting, and worth investigating (how consciousness interacts with reality, the mechanisms, etc), but that's it.

Also, on your genetic lottery argument (how lucky every individual is to be here, given ancestors, sperm etc etc)

The question that why do I (and anyone) exist in the first place, I think you are presupposing an almost fatalist account of reality. I mean the fact that an improbable (albeit absurdly improbable) event occurred does not necessarily mean that it was planned to occur. Furthermore, I think a bit of the gamblers fallacy is occurring here. To the extent that, yes the events of the present are entirely dependent on events in the past, but each present situation operates independently of the probabilities of the past. Like roulette, yes, on a holistic account, the chances of black showing up 10 times is 1/*****. However, with each individual showing, the chance is still 1/2. Like wise, yes on a holistic view, my ancestors, etc etc etc the chance would be as you have already described. However, in the present moment, the chance is far greater, and to me, asking why I was the hero sperm, the response is simply that there is no explanation.

Yes, it seem science, or more broadly speaking, the pursuit for truth is no more, and it is more the vying for government grants, and most often for the purpose of putting food on the table as opposed to genuine interest.

 

I'm inclined to say so, yes. But it depends on what you mean by "not an anything goes place"--we ought to be careful here. A lucid dream is a video game run on a massive supercomputer of a brain--constituted of billions and billions of neurons--with an enormous amount of raw power, non-localized through quantum mechanics, far more complicated than anything we've ever devised or can even begin to imagine or understand in the near future. The possibilities are damn near infinite, at least compared to anything we experience during normal, waking life, which is itself highly variable. QM allows for backward causality, things in multiple places at once, physical uncertainty and multiple coexisting possibilities, etc.; a lucid dream is crazier than anything we could ever imagine to experience while awake because it is the experience of pure imagination.

I don't know the answer to this one--it depends on how life got here in the first place. When we look up at the stars, we are in a sense creating their past history, so it doesn't take an alien race landing on earth to have a physical interaction with it--to give it physical reality. If an alien in a distant part of the galaxy looks up at the sky and sees our sun and earth, this constitutes an observation and creates the present state of the planet. And if aliens seeded life here in the first place, the question is irrelevant.

If a "star" in a far distant galaxy, far beyond the observable universe, has no life on it and no life nearby, what does it actually mean to say such a star exists? What can it mean?

Individual, observed reality is physical and therefore "objective"...but its very objectivity relies on the presence of a subjective observer. And the computer itself is a physical system, constructed by a human being--another conscious observer--in the definite past.

The Universe does not behave like a classical computer; it behaves like a quantum computer. And the rules of quantum computation get real screwy real fast. If you want to call this objective, that's fine--there are indeed inviolable physical laws that govern the quantum realm so far as we can tell; but their power is only statistically deterministic--and not causal. Causality itself is a construct of the mind, and this revelation completely changes what is commonly meant by the phrase "physical reality."

Existence and Consciousness (big-C consciousness, not a single individual's perception of reality) are complimentary; I do not believe the one can exist without the other. If there were nothing at all seen, no Consciousness, what would exist? And where would Consciousness come from to enter into this unconscious world?

It goes back to the entire change in paradigm brought about by quantum theory--"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." (Heisenberg) "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness." (Planck)

In the classical worldview of Newton, every particle had a physical existence, independent of the observer. But the quantum theory told us this is wrong; in order to know anything--in order to have a particle exist in a single location at a single point in time as in the classical mechanics--we must first shine a light on it, interact with it, measure it. Until we choose do this, the entire world around us is uncertain, and nothing has a definite form.

But the key point is this: Not only is the exterior world uncertain, but our choice of how to interact with the exterior world changes how the exterior world chooses to interact with us. "We are both onlookers and actors in the great drama of existence." (Bohr) Somehow, our own subjectivity changes how the "objective" outside world interacts with us. To me, this gives the "objective" world itself a new degree of freedom, of subjectivity--because the subjective is now directly influencing, and is influenced by, that which has been supposed to be objective. If we set up the double slit experiment normally, there is self-interaction between the individual photons. But if we look at the photon before it enters the slit, we've changed the experiment and the photon decides to act differently in our presence. And if we change the experiment in yet another way, we can demonstrate backward causality.

Why do we suppose the outside world to be objective at all? It is merely a matter of convenience because it is a good approximation for what we observe in our normal lives; but careful and repeated observation of personal experience (the scientific method) tells us that on the very small scale, the subjective choices we make can lead to all sorts of weird events: particles in multiple places at once, instant information transfer between galaxies, the breakdown of causal relationships, etc. And because the large or macroscopic is merely the sum of the small or microscopic, this invalidates the entire worldview of determinism and objectivity. The objective world is still a good approximation for what we normally see--but this doesn't make it the most accurate portrait, the true portrait, of reality.

It's not fatalist at all. If one's parents had copulated at a different time, they would have created a different child with a different brain. If consciousness were some classical, non-unitary mechanism, this would be cause for enormous concern.

But because consciousness is unitary, there is no need to worry: "What if we had sex at a different time?; our child would be different; have a different brain; have a different consciousness; our other possible progeny would be dead; etc." It is the same consciousness that inhabits each body, regardless of the precise physical mechanism that gives rise to the body. That to me seems the only way to reconciling living in the present moment at all--and it resolves the paradox of death, to an extent, as well. Consciousness does not disappear with the individual brain because there are eight billion other people who are similarly conscious. I still couldn't tell you what it feels like subjectively to die since all memory of the event is by definition destroyed--but we have died a million times before and are certain to die a million times going forward.

"However, in the present moment, the chance is far greater, and to me, asking why I was the hero sperm, the response is simply that there is no explanation."
This is precisely my issue with the non-unitary view of consciousness--it offers no explanatory power.

If you roll a die, the odds of each roll are equally distributed, 1/6 per side. If you roll the die 1000 times, the probability of getting the exact sequence of rolls that you end up getting, in the exact order you get them, is 1/6^1000. The combination is extremely unlikely from the outset, yet this scenario is guaranteed to play out every time--it is simply the nature of probability.

Similarly, the fact that we pass our genetics on, die, pass our genetics on, die, etc., etc., for thousands and thousands of iterations is guaranteed to give us a scenario that looks enormously improbable once we get there. But this is guaranteed to happen if you assume consciousness is passed on as well as genetics--that all consciousness is unitary. If you pass consciousness on for 1,000 generations, you could end up in any number of disparate situations. But assuming consciousness is passed on--that it is shared between all peoples in all cultures in all galaxies--resolves any paradox. If we, however, take Consciousness (that innermost part of our soul--which I claim we all share, irrespective of our existence in space of time) to be something that is individual, particular to any single person, it is a total mystery why anything should exist at all, how anybody should ever end up in the present moment. And yet, everything does exist, just like it anyways has, just like it always will.

Memories are stored in the brain. We have no individual memories of the times when our mammalian, shrew-like ancestors lived during the reign of the dinosaurs. And yet, we were absolutely there in a sense: their consciousness is our consciousness, individualized through our disparate, highly variable nervous systems. Physically, our current existence is entirely dependent on their past survival, 70 million years ago--so our physical bodies do in a sense remember these "past lives", through our DNA, through the organ structures they evolved, through our very being here. But if they had died and some other line of mammals and ultimately primates had evolved, we would still be here, just not in these bodies, in these brains--because consciousness is shared between all species, for all time.

Again, I go back to the metaphor of the dream: Your consciousness controls all the people in it, is present in all their actions, yet you as an individual are completely oblivious to this fact.

 

Something I want to briefly build on. One of my professors briefly mentioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory in class. This was the theory of oxygen before it was discovered by Priestly. Science was trying to answer this: Why was it that things weighed more after burning than before, and iron weighs more after it rusts? Prior to the discovery of oxygen, people believed that when you trapped a mouse under a jar, it doesn't run out of oxygen, instead, it is expelling plogiston and it has no where to escape, thus the mouse dies, fire extinguishes etc in enclosed areas where (what we now know there is a lack of oxygen) phlogistom can't escape. The theory wasn't totally off base - it was a lack of oxygen rather than the presence of phlogistom that caused the effects, a quick redefinition fits well.

In this case, it would seem that randomness/pseudo-randomness might be something that needs to be redefined. If people can in fact affect these random systems in this way, then they are the pseudo-random systems, and the closed environments that man discovered/programs/creates is actually "true" random by application.

 

This question goes back to the very nature of quantum mechanics and the universe itself: is ANYTHING random? According to Einstein, "God does not play dice"; that is, the universe is perfectly deterministic. From the view, both systems are random in the sense that a coin toss is random: it is effectively random because we cannot reasonably be expected to calculate each and every force on the coin at each and every instant, but if we could, we would be able to perfectly predict the outcome of the flip before the coin ever touched the ground.

Both systems--those based on noise from the environment (i.e., the Brownian motion of the atoms) and those based on seeded algorithms in a Turing machine (i.e., pseudorandom algorithms in a classical computer)--are only random due to ignorance, if you accept the pilot wave version of quantum theory.

But the point with PEAR's research was that individual consciousness is not able to change any individual result/measurement--only the probabilities associated with the various outcomes. The system is random in the sense that we cannot know what the next measured result will be (randomness due to ignorance), but our choice of how to interact with said system as an observer is able to subtly bias the statistics of the entire system through some yet unknown process--at least, this is what the researchers claim.

And I agree that a redefinition is in order. Quantum computational algorithms are--from what I hear--very good at things like factoring large numbers, and this destroys the security of the classical algorithms you're talking about (secure algorithms, such as those that deal with the encryption of sensitive data). And, at the present time, if you were to know the seed of Math.random() (I believe it's the current time on your machine), you could very well reconstruct the entire sequence of "random" numbers that it generates--that's why it isn't recommended to use Math.random() for things like password generation.


As a final note, if you take the whole Universe as a quantum computer, it will have its own Poincaré recurrence time, which means that nothing is really in "Brownian motion" and there is no such thing as true "noise"--these are still just more examples of randomness due to ignorance, which is in line with what Bohmian mechanics tells us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincaré_recurrence_theorem

In short, there is no such thing as a closed environment because in order to construct such an artifice, you would need to put it together yourself--and you've entangled your own self with the "closed" system in so doing. All of QM--and therefore all of the universe--is nonlocal, so computer scientists will have quite the century ahead of them when it comes to securing data. (And as a somewhat fun aside, every thought you've ever had sends out ripples in the electromagnetic and gravitational fields across the entire universe, so an alien in some far distant galaxy could well read our every single one of our thoughts long after we're both gone, and we would have absolutely no way of knowing. And if they were a sufficiently advanced race, they could probably read every one of our thoughts at this very instance, the moment we thought them (maybe even before!)--since every fundamental particle in the universe was entangled at the beginning of time, at the Big Bang.)

 

I’ll try condense the scope of this discussion.

What you’re saying seems fair, we just need more knowledge regarding dreams, the mechanisms involved, etc to better explore this line.

Right, but supposing no aliens observed Earth, then what does that mean. Furthermore, in order to be capable of observing something, there must be something observable in the first instance. To claim that Aliens might have looked at the sky and observed Earth is only possible if (a) Earth existed before their observation or (b) Earth’s existence coincides with their observation. With the former, it seems contradictory to the view that consciousness is interdependent with existence, since Earth would have had to exist before the observation. In the latter, that would seem to violate the physical laws as we know it, matter instantaneously rushing to create an observable Earth. To answer what does it mean to say that it ‘exists’, I think it means just that. It exists, as in, thinking within a 3D Cartesian-co-ordinate system, at the co-ordinates of Earth’s supposed existence, if we travelled there, Earth will be there, and it would have been there before we travelled there/observed it.

I think this gets sufficiently dealt with elsewhere, and I accept that the Universe does not behave like a ‘classical computer’.

As far as we are aware, consciousness is a faculty of awareness. Obviously we know very little about consciousness, but we certainly know that it performs at least that function. The question of how this faculty of awareness arises, although understanding that you’re not talking about individual consciousness, we can agree that that probably arose as a result of evolution (atleast for us), but I think you’ll need to be more specific if you mean Consciousness in a sense other than any individual’s perception.

On the ‘we must shine a light on it …’ The first think I’d like to say is that, if you are eluding to a type of uncertainty principle, that it is a contradiction to claim that everything is uncertain, unless you accept the uncertainty of the uncertainty principle in itself. Furthermore, as I said previously, in order to measure, interact, shine a light on something, it must either (a) exist before such actions, or (b) its existence must arise contemporaneously with such actions. Which is it?

I’m confused with this “instant information transfer between galaxies” could you link me to something explaining that. Is it not possible that our consciousness is merely interacting with nature in a way which we do not yet comprehend, and that in time it is possible that a future explanation may confirm, or strengthen the view that reality is objective (or infact, confirm your position on the subjectiveness of nature).

When you say that Consciousness does not disappear with the individual brain, I take it you are not referring to individual consciousness, because dead people aren’t very conscious. In which case as above, I’ll need a more precise definition of capital-C Consciousness. About the millions deaths however, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. Are you saying that our individual consciousness’s are reincarnated just in a different body, and a memory wipe? This view would presuppose that consciousness’s existence if either non-physical, or a physical thing that exits the body on death.

When you say something offers no explanatory power, I have to ask, why does something require explanatory power. I mean I am 100% sure that your life would be entirely different if you didn’t make certain decisions, your parents didn’t make certain decisions, and even strangers. Not going as far back as ancestors and so on, but then if you ask yourself, why am I in the position I am at the moment, the answer to me is that there is simply no answer. An explanation of why a state of affairs is the way it is implies some sort of plan. For example, why are the laws of nature the way they are? The answer is either just because, or because it was planned that way, but why reject the it is what it is position in favour of a planned position. It is a needless multiplication of entities.

I think we also disagree on the nature of consciousness. Specifically, I find the question as to why x is the way it is to be sufficiently answered with ‘it just is the way it is – no explanation’. Your view to me implies that there is a reason behind it, which implies some form of plan, which seems to imply the existence of another entity. Since this is a needless multiplication of entities in my mind, that is why I reject it. So, why do you think there needs to be an explanation?

NOTE: I failed miserably on the condensing part.

 

It isn't that matter "instantaneously rushes to create an observable Earth", it's that the matter which constitutes the earth behaves differently in different states--namely, without observation vs. with observation. It isn't that the matter isn't there; it's that that the matter is in a superposition (unmeasured, unentangled) state which means multiple co-existing possibilities: And this is the very antithesis of a single, particulate, Newtonian system like you are imagining in 3-D Cartesian coordinates.

And I agree that alien intelligence doesn't answer the question--it's merely pushes it back onto another civilization in a regress. But to truly answer the question would require us to know both the origin of the Universe as well as the origin of Consciousness--neither of which we have a firm grasp on at the present moment.

If you're thinking of the Universe as existing in 3-D, particulate, Cartesian coordinates, you're essentially calling it a Turing machine or classical computer. Again, absolute Cartesian coordinates were the idea of Newtonian determinism, but quantum mechanics--and therefore the whole of the universe--exists in the complex plane (a+bi).

If big-C Consciousness is a confusing term, we could just as well call it big-M Mind or, to use Eastern terminology, the big-A Atman (the eternal part of the personal self; the soul; that part of subjectivity which is alive even in the deepest sleep) or the Brahman (ultimate reality; the Universe; Cosmic Consciousness; God).

I don't know how much throwing around these admittedly esoteric words helps, but I suppose it's at least some consolation for us to realize that every civilization in recorded history has struggled just as much in defining these ideas.

In its original German, "Uncertainty Principle" translates to something more akin to "fuzziness principle". The electron's position is "fuzzy" (because it is a wave) until we smack it with a photon (also a wave), at which point, we start treating them both like particles. Until they interact and WE LOOK AT THEM, however, the wave mechanics of the Schrödinger equation dominate.

This is a pretty good video that explains entanglement:



Einstein hated entanglement, as can be seen in EPR, which attempted (and failed) to demonstrate a paradox related to entanglement--namely, faster-than-light communication: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/experiments/EPR/

And Bohmian mechanics could add a sense of determinism back into physics--but there is still something mysterious going on with nonlocality and conscious observation, and I don't think anybody has yet found any loophole that would make for a purely objective reality that exists independent of the conscious observer:


(Linked at the beginning of the thread)

And to be clear, information is transferred about the state of the particle, but it isn't classical information that's transferred (physicists sometimes like to make qualms about this, but it is still a form of information transfer nonetheless).

It's something between recreation and reincarnation--Consciousness is that which creates the physical world (and consciousness is merely an individual manifestation of Consciousness, individualized through the classical computers or Turing machines of the nervous system). If Consciousness cannot be destroyed with the heat death of an individual brain, then neither can its derivatives be destroyed with the heat death of an individual brain. Again, time is a subjective construct of the physical body and brain: once the brain goes, the subjective experience of time goes too, and we pass away into eternity. What this actually feels like from a subjective point of view, I have absolutely no idea.

As for the definition of Consciousness, the founders of QM would say "wave function collapse is due to consciousness." Roger Penrose, however, reverses this supposition entirely: irreducible conscious moments of experience (qualia) are wave function collapse, inherent to the very fabric of Universe--and he argues so much in his book The Emperor's New Mind.



But to go back to your point on objective reality, Penrose calls his new and improved theory, based on this earlier book, OrchOR (orchestrated objective reduction)--that is, the biological inputs of the brain are orchestrated to perform a state reduction on the wave function in an objective way.

From this mode of looking at it, Consciousness is the objective part of reality, and the physical, Cartesian system we see is merely our subjective experience of the CREATION of said system. The system does not exist independent of the observer; the observer is the only objective part of reality that there truly there.

It isn't that I believe in some "grand divine plan", so much as I am searching for a physical mechanism that would explain the apparent paradox.

Science and empiricism rest on the belief that Nature is understandable. Simply saying "it just is the way it is--no explanation" is to me the same as saying "God did it--no explanation." This feels like special pleading. "The Universe is explicable when it comes to the inanimate, but when it comes to our own existence, there is no answer." We are just as much a part of Nature as the inanimate, so our own existence requires a causal (or acausal) explanation just the same.

 

At what point does the metaphysical premise of no true randomness eliminate the concept of gambler's fallacy?

 

Also, via Richard: http://www.sythe.org/something-all/...anation-time-dilation-length-contraction.html in case this has any relation to the subject at hand as well.

 

Ok, so we both agree that the matter exists pre-observation, but what you are saying is that we cannot know what state it exists as until such observation takes place, and that its observation state is different from its non-observation-state.

I still don’t think this dents my initial claim. We agree that the matter exists pre-observation. I can accept the fact that we may not know what state it exists as/in per quantum theory. I can also accept that our conscious interaction (observation) of the particle will affect/change its state. To me existence being independent of consciousness is still compatible with these claims. Just because conscious observation is interacting with existence/nature, does not necessarily mean that it is dependent or interdependent. By this, I mean that even if no observers exist, nature would still exist, we just don’t know what state it exists as, or, that it exists in a non-observation state.

Although I still have some qualms about the metaphysical possibility of such a scenario, I still think that, even if true, existence can still exist without any conscious observers, it just exists in a non-observation state.
Also as a point of interest, what happens to the particles after they have been observed? If observation brings them into an observed state from a non-observed state, what happens when we then no longer observe them? Almost like an A-B-A style experiment, no observation > observation > no observation. What happens? Does the particle go back to a non-observed state, and how quickly? Or does it remain in an observed state even after no more observations take place?

With the last part, I think this is why it is so hard to gain knowledge about. In order for something to exist it must exist as something and have an identity, and this allows it to be knowable. However, since we are having trouble defining it, identifying what it is in the first instance, it cannot be knowable, and so every debate is doomed to failure since the initial purpose would have been to ‘know’ something about it.

This Is why I think I have a great deal of trouble understanding, let alone accepting such a view, since understanding something relies on knowledge, yet if it is unknowable in the first instance, it appears we are rightly stuck.

I honestly think there is so much speculation going on here that it is divorced from the empirical evidence that supports it. I mean how do we falsify your hypothesis that each individual consciousness is recreated/reincarnated after the death of a person? This is presupposing the view that a capital-C Consciousness exists in the first instance. I mean ultimately when I take a step back and look at it, I see extraordinary claims made on the back of an elementary understanding of the quantum world.

I mean the claim that the ‘system does not exist independent of the observer’, I guess I simply regard this statement as logically contradictory. Existence is a precondition for consciousness. A consciousness can’t exist without a place for it to exist in. However, you are also saying that existence is dependent on consciousness. This just seems contradictory. My parents existence is a precondition for my existence, yet in no way can it be claimed that their existence is dependent on mine. Although I grant that my analogy is different in one key area, that is that it is possible for consciousness and existence to arise contemporaneously (where as parents and kids cannot have come into existence at the same time). This however is an argument for the origin of existence and consciousness, and if you accept that existence is both a precondition to, and dependent on consciousness, then you must accept that existence and consciousness came to be at the same time.

However, like I said before, all this just seems to be needless multiplications, with the evidence so small relative to the claim, and the claim so needlessly complex, I think that as I have said above, consciousness merely interacts with reality through a mechanism in which we do not understand. It seems to me to be a much simpler and consistent explanation with respect to the limited evidence we have.

What paradox?

I think it rests on the belief that it is knowable, not understandable. The distinction is important, because I consider that you’re asking a question of which no answer exists, because there is no answer to know. Also, I don’t think it’s really special pleading. I mean the correct answer is we don’t know, yet you seem to be leaping to a conclusion that there was something to know in the first instance. I mean consider the classic intelligent design argument about the constants of the universe being in such a precise range as to possibly allow us to live. Is there a reason for this? Like the anthropic principles response to this, only those that are ‘lucky’ enough to be the 1 in billion trillion chance of being born are capable of asking that question, I don’t believe we should regard such a thing as any more remarkable than the fact that we live in the .00000…..1% of the hospitable parts of the universe.

Also, when you say the universe is explicable to the inanimate… it is actually the same. We already know very well how each of us is born, as you said before, we were the sperm that won, our parents met, our grand parents etc etc. We know very much the mechanisms involved, we just don’t know why. We also don’t know why with reference to inanimate objects. Why do the rocks in my backyard exist in that certain place? Why do those particular rain drops falling from the clouds hit me as opposed to anyone else on the head. Like our existence, we know the mechanisms behind how, but we do not know the reason for it being that way, but in fact such statements beg the question because they presuppose that there is something to know. If there is nothing to know in the first instance, then there is nothing to understand. I don’t think it’s special pleading at all.

 

I don't think Newton would have done his Principia (translated title: the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) much justice if he removed all the calculus, so we'll need to make use of some algebra and calculus as well--although I've so far done my best to explain what I'm talking about using only written language.

To understand what's going on, we need to go back to the history of the original quantum theory. The Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom (later superseded by Matrix Mechanics) was the first to suppose the quantization of electrostatic charge--the idea of single, indivisible, particle-like electrons in the wave-like "electron cloud".

In the so-called stationary orbits of the Bohr model, the electron cloud is able to attain an equilibrium position. The energy of the electron is given by the Planck relation:

E = h * v
Where E is the energy of the individual electron, h is Planck's constant, and v is the frequency of the electron cloud.

From this, we can further determine the electron's angular momentum,
L = n * h / (2 * pi)
where L is the electron's quantized angular momentum, h is again the Planck constant, and n is the principal quantum number of the electron cloud (restricted to an integer value n = 1, 2, 3...).

This leads to the further revelation of the Bohr radius, the smallest allowed atomic radius--that of a lone hydrogen atom
a(0) = 4 * pi * ɛ(0) * ħ ^ 2 / (m(e) * e ^ 2)
where a(0) is the Bohr radius, ɛ(0) is the vacuum permittivity of free space, ħ is the Dirac constant, ħ = h / (2 * pi)), m(e) is the electron rest mass, and e is the elementary charge

Erwin Schrödinger, however, was unimpressed by all of this and insisted that the electron cloud must still behave as a wave, this pseudo-planetary orbital system being complete nonsense:

If we are going to put up with these damn quantum jumps, I am sorry that I ever had anything to do with quantum theory.
(Schrödinger)

Schrödinger solved the problem by treating the electron as a pure mathematical wave--namely, a de Broglie matter wave
* = h / p
where * is the electron's wavelength, h is the Planck constant, and p is the electron's momentum

Because the electron's wavelength is limited to certain quantized positions around the nucleus, its momentum too must come in discrete values. As a wave, the electron also has a frequency related to its total energy:
f = E / h

We can of course calculate the total energy of the electron through Einstein's mass-energy-momentum relation:
E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2

It is this idea of treating the electron cloud as a pure wave that allowed Schrödinger to explain the "damn quantum jumps" of the Rutherford-Bohr model. Schrödinger proposed the now-famous Schrödinger Wave Equation (or Law of Psi) which dictates the evolution of *, the psi function (or wave function).

The Schrödinger wave equation:
i * ħ * (d / dt * *(x)) = - ħ / (2 * m) * (d^2 / dx^2 * *(x)) + V(x)*(x)
where i is the imaginary unit, ħ is the Dirac constant, (d / dt * *(x)) is the first partial time derivative of psi, m is the electron mass, (d^2 / dx^2 * *(x)) is the second partial spatial derivative of psi, and V(x) correlates with the qubit system's potential energy evolution.

|*(x)|^2 therefore represents the square modulus of the psi function. This square modulus is what allows observing/measuring states to interact with the complex-valued *-function or psi function or wave function. (What is waving? In this mode of thinking, the electron is the complex-valued wave.)

And as a complex-valued wave, psi can be modeled using the exponential function, exp(x) = e^x:
* = exp(i * (kx - *t))
where k = 2 * pi / * and * = 2 * pi * f

It is important to note that it is only after the appearance of the psi function that time and position can come into the picture as derived quantities, related to psi through decomposition:
*(x, t) = *(x)T(t)

It is also important to realize that the Schrödinger equation can be derived from and interpreted through the physical conservation laws.
E * *(x) = i * ħ * (d / dt * *(x)) where E is the total energy operator
T(x, m) = - ħ / (2 * m) * (d^2 / dx^2 * *(x)) is the kinetic energy term of the electron, KE, and
V(x, t)*(x) is the potential energy term of the electron, PE

This leaves us with the physically sound
E * *(x) = KE + PE = T(x, m) + V(x, t)

If we define the Hamiltonian, H, as the sum of the kinetic and potential energy operators, T and V, we have the following:
The kinetic energy operator T based on the electron's momentum and the gradient operator ∇ (∇ ^ 2 is the Laplacian)
T = p^2 / (2 * m) = -ħ^2 / (2 * m) * ∇ ^ 2
(The electron's momentum is now defined by p = i * ħ * ∇. I haven't actually justified this step in the above writing, but you could look it up if you're really that curious). And the potential energy operator V is a function of position r and time t:
V = V(r, t)

We can now rewrite the Schrödinger equation with this simplified operator notation for a Hamiltonian H.
H = T(x, m) + V(r, t) as the definition of the Hamiltonian matrix and
i * ħ * D * * = H * * for the rewritten Schrödinger equation, this time with the Hamiltonian and derivative operators more clearly noted.

Now that we understand how the complex-valued psi function evolves in time, we can realize what the probability amplitude indeed means--namely, it is * multiplied by its own complex conjugate **.
*** = A^2 where A is the amplitude of the wave

To imagine what this looks like, realize that a complex psi takes the form
* = a + b * i
Thus, its conjugate ** will have
** = a - b * i
Their multiple will therefore be:
*** = (a + b * i) * ( a - b * i) = a^2 + b^2
Going back to the Pythagorean Theorem, for any
A^2 = c^2 = a^2 + b^2, A^2 will always be a positive number

*** will therefore always have a real value, denoted as the probability amplitude |*|^2.

We can further model * using the exponential:
*(r) = exp(i * * * r) = A * (cos(*r) + i * sin(*r)) through the Euler formula/identity

Using this wave equation (actually Dirac's equation, the Schrödinger equation expanded to include special relativistic effects), we can now model any atomic or polyatomic system--from the single Bohr atom to a living cat.

Using Dirac notation and linear algebra to look at this new quantum picture, we can decompose psi into parts:
|*> = c(x)|x> + c(y)|y>
where c(x) = <x|*> and c(y) = <y|*>
where x and y are some integer-valued variable

We can also observe how the wave functions--that is, the physical states--of distinct systems interact with one another in time and space.
|*> = c(x)|x>|a(x)> + c(y)|y>|a(y)>
where |a(x)> and |a(y)> are the probable future states of the system.

Macroscopic observers such as ourselves, however, never see an object in two future states at once--and this is where it gets spooky. The nature of quantum theory posits that we can only ever interact with qubits in discrete locations at discrete times. Thus, we never actually see an electron in a superposition of two states--|a(x)> and |a(y)>--at once. Superposition is our subjective mathematical expectation of observing a future state, not the future state itself. This is where physical reality breaks down--as soon as we consider the mechanism behind Schrödinger's cat. We're no longer dealing with an objective physical reality that is observed; we have ventured into the realm of pure Platonism--pure mathematics, but our conscious effort to look at the cat is what brings us back to reality. In order to consider the picture further, it is necessary to look at our own conscious interjection--which is present in every measurement, every observation, every quantum computation that runs the universe and defines the arrow and existence of time itself (and therefore subjectivity).

For fundamental particles such as electrons, this isn't as great of a conceptual problem. "The quantum world vs. the actual world" of Copenhagen puts this issue aside for mathematical simplicity and elegance--ease of use, essentially. But the arbitrary divide between the small and large, the microscopic and macroscopic, is just that: arbitrary. We biological systems are subject to the same laws of physics and physical chemistry as any nonliving, nonbiological, or inanimate system. Thus, Schrödinger&#8217;s cat.

With that, consciousness and the need for a quantum biology made its first appearance in the physical world. Namely, conscious observation is that process which reduces the wave function to a single observed state--in practical, mathematical terms, the introduction of bayesian probability theory--pure statistics--and quantum bayesianism (QBism).

"Physics: QBism puts the scientist back into science" (Nature article, 3/26/2014)
http://www.nature.com/news/physics-qbism-puts-the-scientist-back-into-science-1.14912

Michio Kaku explains Schrödinger's cat and Wigner's friend:



These musings, however, still leave the question of determinism unresolved. What about consciousness actually collapses the wave function--or, what is the origin of observed reality? To answer this, we need to dig into yet deeper mathematics: David Bohm's pilot wave theory, also known as De Broglie&#8211;Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics, as an alternative theory to quantum mechanics.

The guiding equation of pilot wave theory for an N particle system is as follows:

dQ(k)/dt = (&#8463;/m(k)) Im [**&#8706;(k)*/ ***] (Q(1),&#8230;,Q(N))

where * = *(q(1),&#8230;,q(N)) = *(q), the psi function of the system, defined "on the space of possible configurations q of the system, together with its actual configuration Q defined by the actual positions Q(1),...,Q(N) of its particles"

"for Q(t), the simplest first-order evolution equation for the positions of the particles that is compatible with the Galilean (and time-reversal) covariance of the Schrödinger evolution (Dürr et al. 1992, pp. 852&#8211;854). Here &#8463; is Planck's constant divided by 2pi, m(k) is the mass of the k-th particle, and &#8706;(k) = (&#8706;/&#8706;x(k), &#8706;/&#8706;y(k), &#8706;/&#8706;z(k)) is the gradient with respect to the generic coordinates q(k) = (x(k), y(k), z(k)) of the k-th particle. If * is spinor-valued, the two products involving * in the equation should be understood as scalar products (involving sums of products of spinor components). When external magnetic fields are present, the gradient should be understood as the covariant derivative, involving the vector potential. (Since the denominator on the right hand side of the guiding equation vanishes at the nodes of *, global existence and uniqueness for the Bohmian dynamics is a nontrivial matter. It is proven in Berndl, Dürr, et al. 1995 and in Teufel and Tumulka 2005.)

"For an N-particle system these two equations (together with the detailed specification of the Hamiltonian, including all interactions contributing to the potential energy) completely define Bohmian mechanics. This deterministic theory of particles in motion accounts for all the phenomena of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, from interference effects to spectral lines (Bohm 1952, pp. 175&#8211;178) to spin (Bell 1964, p. 10). It does so in an entirely ordinary manner, as we explain in the following sections."
The Defining Equations of Bohmian Mechanics

Bohmian mechanics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/#eqs

In the view of pilot wave theory, the qubit always has a definite position and the psi function is reinterpreted as the origin of the rather spooky and nonlocal "quantum force" or "quantum potential":
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/#qp

No matter how one chooses to look at a single qubit or a collection of single qubits--as a single wave or as a pairing of discrete quantum particles--the system continues to display elements of both wave phenomena and discrete information processing or quantization: thus the quantum mind. How it is that the process of conscious observation results in the single macroscopic reality of every day observation is the question the new biology--quantum biology--is tasked with solving.

Although we've quantified the mystery of the atoms, the ultimate solution is far from clear, and the quantum enigma still destroys any and all notions of absolute, Newtonian-Copernican reality.

The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.
Werner Heisenberg

Some of the Greek symbols didn't come out correctly, so the math is near unintelligible if you're new to this stuff. The law of psi and Bohmian addition:

 

I truly believe that reality is a simulation.