Consciousness and Quantized Space

Something for everyone!

Sculpture by Alexander Girard

For just the next few minutes, think of consciousness as an immaterial reality, an abstraction. This idea relies upon a couple of preliminary notions. One is that space is quantized, or comes in tiny grains set within a background that is neither spacial nor temporal.¹ This same immaterial quality belongs to all truly abstract objects, or ideas, including mathematics, particle properties, the laws of nature, and possibly consciousness. Another notion is that ideas have a real and independent existence outside of our mind. Because we don’t find abstract objects here in space, could abstraction itself provide the non-spacial background of a quantized space in which the abstraction of our own consciousness resides? If so, what is the mechanism by which our brain activity here in space interacts with and corresponds to the activity of our mind in the background?

it begins with space . . .

Imagine that our universe is made up of tiny grains which consist of particle properties. While each grain² has a “real,” or measured volume, its remaining properties (charge, spin, mass, magnetism, etc) are completely unmeasured. Without measured value, these properties can only exist as ideas³ and, if space is in fact quantized in this manner, it might explain why the grains are so hard to find; without measured properties, there’s nothing to measure . . . nothing to detect.

Along with a multitude of grains, space includes a few discrete particles of matter and energy. These are the remnants of collapsed grains whose unmeasured properties have received measured value and make up every thing we know.

But between the grains is the important part, for here lies the background from which they have emerged. It is, of course, an immaterial background which can be neither spacial nor temporal, for if it were either of these things, it would be both of these things and already exist in grains of space.⁴ We can know that our immaterial background is actually there, or “real” because — whether it be grains of rice or grains of quantized space — grains of anything require an enveloping field made of something which is not the thing it hosts. In short, the background of a quantized space must truly exist, and it must exist non-spatially; an immaterial reality.

And here’s the thing, ideas are immaterial as well. And, as you would know more than anyone, they are also quite real. So for just the next few minutes, consider our immaterial, non-spacial background to be a suitable “place,” as it were, for ideas. Because an idea, any idea, is always an awareness of something, we can consider our background of ideas to, itself, possess a property of awareness; an abstract background. As you digest this uncommon notion, imagine how the presence of a material object placed within an abstract background would necessarily generate an idea of its activity.

Each of the grains which make up our quantized space is, of course, contained by a perimeter, or border which limits its volume. Like a property line between neighbors, the grain’s border forms an elision with the borders of its neighbors, and it is the network of these borders which, taken together, form the abstract background.⁵ In this way, the entirety of space-time is something like a froth of soap bubbles. In our sudsy metaphor, the bubbles represent the discrete volumes of the grains while the bubbly network of impossibly thin walls represent the abstract background which contain their unmeasured properties.

All particles undergo activity, or changes of state in each moment. For this reason, the activity of every particle, or coherent thing made of particles,⁶ would necessarily generate an inevitable idea of that thing in the background simply because the object is evolving within a background which is abstract. The idea of the object, whether it be a particle, a protein, a brain, a body, an exaltation of larks, or the Milky Way galaxy is a nested description of the coherent object’s constituents in terms of its measured property values; a vibrational idea,⁷ if you will, of the object’s activity, or changing property values from moment to moment. Likewise, the vibrational idea (vi) of the object’s property values is updated by the object’s activity, or “vibration” of which the vibrational idea is aware, or “notices,” as it were, in each evolutionary moment.⁸

particle evolution . . .

The vibrational idea of an electron, for example, contains all of the information regarding the properties of the electron such as charge, spin, mass, and magnetism with their specific measured values,⁹ and the blending of this idea, this abstraction, with the grain’s abstract properties will set the unmeasured property values of the grain to the discrete, measured values of the electron’s idea, at which point the grain can no longer maintain its abstract nature and collapses down to that particular electron. That is, the vi of the particle in the abstract background emerges here in space-time as a material object.

As a coherent object made of particles, your brain evolves in the same manner and its vibrational idea is updated in each moment by the activity of its material object . . . your brain.

Abstraction is not a space-time property—it cannot exist in space. For every thing in space, a vibrational idea (vi) of that thing exists between grains of space. A thing evolves in space when its vibrational idea blends with the most likely grains, setting the grains’ abstract values to the discrete values of the vi whereupon the grain can no longer maintain its abstract nature. If there’s a “miracle” here, it’s the double nature of the grains; a cosmic emulsion of unmeasured properties (abstraction) with discrete volume.

the awareness of brained creatures . . .

The vibrational idea of every object—as well as the philosophical idea of every thought—that ever existed, or ever will exist, always exists in the abstract background. This is because an idea of any sort is an abstraction; an immaterial reality of a non-spacial, non-temporal nature which can but only ~ ~ exist ~ ~ within an abstract field completely outside of space or time . . . and a background-dependent quantized space provides the perfect candidate for this; a non-spacial field. The immaterial property of the background hosts all ideas and enables your mind, which begins as the vibrational idea of your brain,¹⁰ to acquire ideas, or meanings whose origin may be well in your past . . . or in your distant future.

Your mind comes about in the background and acquires ideas by blending with those ideas with which it best fits based upon its experience.¹¹ In the simplest cases, your brain is stimulated by some physical event which brings about a change in brain activity. The activity updates your brain’s vibrational idea. Your vi then blends with a purely rational idea, or meaning for the stimulation in the abstract background. Probability enables the enriched vi to blend with the most likely grains that will evolve as your brain. The grains collapse and your brain emerges in each moment with an activity reflecting the newly-acquired idea. This activity works its way back into your body where it brings about bodily motions, however subtle. These physical feelings further evolve your brain’s activity which, in turn, further updates its vibrational idea. The vi then blends with an irrational idea in the background for the physical feelings. Importantly, this secondary blending is the emotion and its purpose is to lend significance to the earlier, rational idea. The combination of rational idea with an emotion (irrational idea) always yields a complete thought, an experience.

what’s doing the blending? . . .

The vi of your brain is, more specifically, the vibrational idea of your microtubule network, or MTN.¹⁰ It’s the smallest structure capable of bringing about an avalanche of brain activity yet it’s the largest structure whose vibrational idea of its many measured property values will easily blend with other ideas or grains of potential space-time. Because the vi of the microtubule network is continually updated by the network’s activity, the vi exists in the form of the network’s measured property values; the many sequential sets of values which represent the network’s protein modifications and conformations (“brain activity”) which occur during any particular thought. Likewise, when the MTN is stimulated by a phenomenon of either a physical or mental nature, this enriched vibrational idea of the MTN’s activity blends with meanings for the phenomenon in the background, meanings which already exist in the form of the MTN activity patterns¹² of those creatures who firstly thought them. In this way, thinking is always an abstract process of “best resonance” between MTN values of similar measurement.

The interaction of an abstract mind with a physical brain is integral to your mental life. The vibrational idea of the brain (MTN) and its object (the MTN) are shown above in the onset of self-awareness. Every idea is an awareness, and the vibrational idea of your MTN was previously aware of only the present tense, “is” (each moment with no memory of a previous moment). It achieved the present-perfect tense, “I am” (I have been and continue to be), through the inevitable awareness of its own update process. This elevated your vibrational idea to the status of a mind; the self-aware, abstract entity known as you. A newly-emergent mind continues its initial development in this manner by noticing its own evolution through time and resonating with additional tenses of the verb “to be.”

your mind . . .

Self-awareness, for example, was brought about through this process when the vibrational idea of your MTN noticed-its-self-noticing the world around you as it was updated by your brain’s activity. Your updated vi blended with some previously-established rational idea of self-awareness and this meaning was expressed in the evolution of your brain activity which worked its way back into your body, bringing about bodily motions, or physical feelings. These motions altered the activity of your MTN which further updated its vibrational idea. The enriched vi then blended with an irrational idea, the emotional meaning of “I am.” The blending of the rational meaning with an emotion marked the completion of your first thought. With that thought, the vibrational idea of your MTN became your mind.

Your mind works through the blending of resonant abstractions¹³ and physical feelings, none of which would be possible without a background-dependent quantized space. You can find a more detailed description of this idea here.

Notes

1. This is a background-dependent quantized space, as opposed to the background-independent sort in which the quantized bits make up the entirety of nature.
2. The smallest grain of potential space-time could measure approximately 10⁻¹⁵/meter, just one quadrillionth of a meter. By comparison, the smallest spacial measurement is only 10⁻³⁵/meter, the “Planck” length!
3. If I say, “electric charge,” even without a stated disposition of positive, negative, or neutral charge, you think of the particle property of charge perfectly well. This is possible, of course, because the property of charge exists as that peculiar reality known to creatures like you as an idea.
4. So that special relativity will not be violated, space and time must always occur together; space-time.
5. For the sake of clarity, the illustrations show considerable separation between the grains in order to accommodate call outs and arrow indicators. In actuality, of course, the abstract background formed by the elision of borders has no spacial thickness. Along with unmeasured properties, the background contains all vibrational and philosophical ideas including the laws of nature. (Pls. see the Medium article “Consciousness and Quantized Space” or the book, Between Space, for a fuller description of the abstract background, its workings, and the unique form of its ideas.)
6. For our purposes, coherent objects are those with a singular function like an atom, a molecule, or a protein; not your bicycle, a diamond ring, or an ice cream cone. The removal of particles from a coherent object would alter or damage its singular function.
7. The bold type distinguishes the vibrational idea (vi) of an object from philosophical ideas like thoughts and memories. Vibrational ideas of coherent objects are “nested” such that a particle’s vi of measured property values such as charge, mass, and spin are regulated by the components of the atom’s vi, regulated by the molecule’s, by the protein’s, the organelle’s, the cell’s, etc... Entangled particles are a single coherent object according to this concept by means of a singular vibrational idea, an abstraction, such that vast space-time separations are unimportant, and special relativity is not violated.
8. The tiniest moment is the “Planck time” of about 10⁻⁴⁴/seconds; a trillion-trillion-trillion-billionths of a second. If space is quantized into tiny grains, then time must be quantized into tiny moments simply because space and time are always together, “space-time.” That is, a quantized space, its constituents and its objects, must evolve from one quantized moment to the next.
9. Electrons, photons, quarks, and other particles are identified by their measurable properties which undergo states of change, or motion, as they “evolve,” or exist through time.
10. The vibrational idea of your brain is, more accurately, a vi of your brain’s microtubule network (MTN), a wispy, filamentary structure (aka; cytoskeleton) within each neuron that reaches out (axons and dendrites) to connect with other neurons (via synapses), thereby forming a network. The brain’s function as manager of your body means that the vibrational idea of your MTN is, essentially, a vi of your entire physical body.
11. Experience is the number of ideas which your mind has acquired, while wisdom might be a measure of their increasing complexity and significance.
12. Because meanings exist in the form of measured property values of MTN activity, the MTN would be the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC).
13. This is, essentially, the observer effect and it’s how objects, including your brain, evolve in each moment. According to this idea, the effect’s double-slit experiment demonstrates a blending of abstractions: your mind’s awareness and expectation of the particle’s location updates the probability within the particle’s vi. The enriched vibrational idea then blends with the most likely grain, setting the grain’s unmeasured values to the measured values of the vi resulting in the grain’s collapse, that is, the vi’s space-time emergence as a discrete particle.