Misc. Science Topics

[austintorn@aol.com]

Mysticism

The brain must code the memory—
Therefore must conceptualize
According to its algorithm
And if it doesn't we should
Be able to detect this
Via the new neural network associated
With the mystical experience.

The mystics may very well be
Tapping into emotional memory,
That which is ineffable,
And not able to provide
The factual aspects of the memory.

These 2 aspects can be separated
And this is done in patients with PTSD.
Aside from this the mystics would have to
Overcome one of the most important
Discoveries about memory —
Each time a memory is recalled
It is affected and re-stored differently
Than it was before.

We are getting a derivative of the last time
We recalled the memory each time we recall it.

By the nth time we
Have recounted a memory,
We are n+ degrees away
From the actual experience.
This is why treatments of recall
Coupled with the inhibition
Of areas like the Amygdala
In PTSD patients are effective.

I suspect the amygdala
Is quite active in those
Undergoing and recalling
Mystical experiences.

We simply cannot be certain
That these mystic experiences
Affirmatively prove or disprove
The existence of a specific deity.
This is where faith comes in, as I see it.

My inclinations tell me there is an explanation
For these experiences that involve mechanisms
We may be able to harness in the future,
Like we do for meditative states,
Or hypnosis, or the placebo effect,
As we unveil the many mysteries in neuroscience.

So I will maintain that we are the product
Of our past experiences
Run over our inherited machinery,
And each and every moment
Of memory formation and recall,
Introspective reflection, and other processes,
Are intricately and inextricably linked
And dependent upon one another.
It follows that the introspective experience
Cannot be unbiased or disentangled.

At what point can we know
That sensory perception
And information is shut off
If we are not subjectively managing this process,
As these processes are largely carried out
Below the level of explicit subjective awareness
In subcortical regions?

It may seem shut off to us,
But it is not shut off.
We may find ourselves in a state
In which we believe our awareness
Is devoid of content,
But this belief is not backed up
By how I understand the brain to work.
There is a vast amount of evidence
That our experiences are influenced
By factors we are completely unaware
(Everything from past experience,
Reward pathways, priming, among other things),
Which suggests that there may be
Influences present during such a state.
To get to the bottom of this,
We would also need to
Define information and content.

Of course, experience is subjective,
And the argument is
That common experience suggests objectivity.

But we are going to get caught up
In brain science here as explanation—
Common experience will be explained
Via commonality across brain structure
And the fact that we all
Process information the same way,
Via synaptic connections or calcium ion channels
In the case of glial cells (astrocytes).

Achieving a state that we find rewarding
Generally entails the mesolimbic dopamine system
In the basal ganglia.

This system operates under the level
Of subjective self awareness.
In this scenario, those who achieve such a state
Are then more likely to again achieve
The state because it becomes reward encoded.

If we are aware but have no content,
Information, or perception,
I'd say we are not aware.
The feeling of being connected
To something entails feeling,
Which is associated with various things,
Be it God or the universe, or something else.

Those associations are most likely processed
In part in subcortical regions,
Like the amygdala and basal ganglia.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Mystical Experience

“Mystical experience is correlated with brain states,
But it is not an awareness of a delusion,
Because delusions are incorrect
Sensory representations,
And introvertive mysticism
Is specifically contentless.”

I want to make sure I understand this claim—
It seems to be saying that a religious experience
In this context is not something
Which arises from a sensory stimulation
At the time of the mystical sensation?

If so then the introvertive mysticism
Is still not contentless.
This would assume that while sleeping
Or not engaging in activity means
That the brain is not processing information
(The sum total of all
Our experiences across networks
And structures which hold
Our mental models of the world,
And our biases, of course).

There is no such thing as a resting brain.
Much activity in the implicit systems
Do not make their way up
To explicit subjective awareness,
But nonetheless processing is still ongoing
And can cause sensations
In the absence of direct stimuli.

Mystical experiences are brain states.
These states can be induced,
Or reproduced by stimulation
Much in the same way
That they can occur
With minimal sensory perception.

But one point we must not ignore—
We cannot turn off our sensory neurons
(In the absence of
Certain pharma products or cell death),
So even while resting or tuning out
We are still receiving signals,
Even if they are less abundant
Or robust than when we proactively perceive.

More importantly, the brain has accumulated
An immense amount of information,
Some of which causes perception
Without the stimulus—
For example, the sense of smell
Is the most powerful sense
With respect to emotional association.

However when one thinks about the smell
(Even though the smell is absent)
One can perceive the emotional association.
I would characterize this as introvertive.

It occurs frequently and there is no reason
To assume certain of these perceptions
Have any more ‘standing’ than any others.

[Fredrick]

Unification or Separation?

Electricity and magnetism each
Lead to the other, being transformational.
They facilitate action and motion
Through EM’s push-pull of regularity.

The strong force binds the atomic nucleus,
Barely beating EM’s repelling force.
The weak force counters strong’s stability
Through decay that promotes changeability.

Electromagnetism and the weak force
Unify when the temperature gets hot,
As during the Big Bang, and they oppose
The strong force as duality’s balance.

What about gravity? Where has it been?
It needs matter and motion to exist
And so it is the blended result of
All the forces, a secondary effect.

Dualities seem to assist nature:
Good/evil, on/off, hot-cold, man/woman,
Up/down, left-right, here-there, past-future,
And, so, none can exist without the other.

There can be no more unification,
For what One could be versatile enough
To form both the electroweak force and the
Strong—as different as the north/south poles.

It appears as if the electromagnatism and the weak force are on the same side then, Austin. At least, there is a common background. But how to view this? Is this like children (a boy and a girl) running scared to Momma when things get too hot under their feet? Is it only at the level nearing maturity that the boy and the girl are able to display their different selves, and that such near-maturity (near-maturity because they will always stay boy and girl) only occurrs at the cooler stages? Is there then a space created within the Weak nuclear force that makes the Strong nuclear force enable the creation of E and M when things have cooled down a bit? Should then the Strong and Weak Nuclear forces be seen as the original pair of opposition, and E and M capable of coming into being when their stand-off endures long enough?

Forces are of course not the real thing. The real thing is matter and it appears that heat and the dissipation of heat is vital. Or would you say it is feasible that the universe started out from the cool perspective, where matter only materialized from a cold center no longer capable to remain fluid, cracked open and subsequently dispersed? Then the coming together of E and M in Weak at a heated stage would conjure different images, such as evaporation/temporary death of E and M within Weak, and Weak can then be seen as the afterlife (for E and M), also giving rebirith a chance when that chance is available again.

It all depends on how packed the initial stage is of course. When movement is possible with no one around, not much heat may be forthcoming. Yet when jam-packed, and still moving, any action can quickly result in a heated debate. Must we have a hot starting point or could the universe also have started from a much cooler beginning?

[austintorn@aol.com]

It appears as if the electromagnatism and the weak force are on the same side then, Austin. At least, there is a common background. But how to view this? Is this like children (a boy and a girl) running scared to Momma when things get too hot under their feet? Is it only at the level nearing maturity that the boy and the girl are able to display their different selves, and that such near-maturity (near-maturity because they will always stay boy and girl) only occurrs at the cooler stages? Is there then a space created within the Weak nuclear force that makes the Strong nuclear force enable the creation of E and M when things have cooled down a bit? Should then the Strong and Weak Nuclear forces be seen as the original pair of opposition, and E and M capable of coming into being when their stand-off endures long enough?

Forces are of course not the real thing. The real thing is matter and it appears that heat and the dissipation of heat is vital. Or would you say it is feasible that the universe started out from the cool perspective, where matter only materialized from a cold center no longer capable to remain fluid, cracked open and subsequently dispersed? Then the coming together of E and M in Weak at a heated stage would conjure different images, such as evaporation/temporary death of E and M within Weak, and Weak can then be seen as the afterlife (for E and M), also giving rebirith a chance when that chance is available again.

It all depends on how packed the initial stage is of course. When movement is possible with no one around, not much heat may be forthcoming. Yet when jam-packed, and still moving, any action can quickly result in a heated debate. Must we have a hot starting point or could the universe also have started from a much cooler beginning?

Good question, Fredrick. One would think the primordial soup was boiling, plus it is often said that the melted vacuum froze and thus got a kick out of it, such as like falling off of a shelf.

[austintorn@aol.com]

ON THE ORIGIN,
WHO DESIRED THAT ON ITS TOMB
SHOULD BE INSCRIBED--

‘Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.’

The ‘false’ and melted vacuum was liquid energy—
Unstructured, unordered, and going nowhere,
But, then, inexplicably, it ‘fell’,
As from a kind of ‘shelf’…

…Whirling, twirling and swirling inward
Until there was no more inward left…

And thus it crystalized, frozen,
Into our structured ‘true’ vacuum,

It ‘thought’ that its future could never be,
That its quality was but written
On the water and the wind
With a feathery quill
Whose ink was the smoke and fog
Of a shimmering dream.

Then it died… like the Phoenix.

Ere the breath that could erase it blew,
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,
Death, the immortalizing winter, flew
Athwart the flowing stream—
And Time's printless torrent grew
A scroll of crystal,
Blazoning the name
Of ‘The Universe’!

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Birth of Modern Cosmology

In 1877, when Mars approached Earth very closely.
An italian astronomer observed some dark markings,
Calling them “canali”, in italian, meaning “channels”.

Percival Lowell was later intrigued by the find of
These “canali”, the word perhaps taken by him
To mean canals, for some were straight,
Implying that they had to be made by Martians.

It would be, of course,
That Mars is a dry planet
And so water would have
To be transported
To the more arid regions.

Strangely, all this led to one of
The strangest discoveries in science:
That most of the universe was missing.

Percival Lowell had by now developed
An obsession with life on Mars.

In 1894, he decided that
The clear Arizona skies above Flagstaff
Would be perfect for the task
Of finding this alien civilization.

Vesto Melvin Slipher, an Indiana farm boy,
Became Lowell’s assistant in 1901—
Taken on, reluctantly, by Lowell,
As a favor to a friend,
For a short fixed term.

Slipher left 53 years later,
When he retired from the position
Of observatory director,
Having kick-started modern cosmology.

Spiral nebulae, called “Island Universes”
By Immanuneul Kant,
Were an enigma at the time.

Slipher had been using the Clark telescope
To measure whether the nebulae
Were moving relative to Earth,
Utilizing a spectrograph,
An instrument that splits light
Into its constituent colors,
Realizing that the colors would change
If the nebulae were moving
Towards or away from Earth,
Such as if a rainbow moves away from us
There will be a resultant red shift,
As the incoming waves per second get a boost,
Or a blue shift if it’s moving towards us,
The incoming waves per second getting reduced.

He found that Andromeda was heading towards us,
While very many of the others were receding,
And some very quickly, at that.

The nebulae, he suggested,
Are “stellar systems seen at great distances”.

Something was blowing our universe apart,
And something else was holding
Each galaxy together,
Not to mention that we could
Now surmise the Big Bang,
And that most of the universe was missing.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Mirror Mystery

A mirror show us ourselves
Right-left reversed
Because we have to
Turn around to face it.

Normally,
We turn around vertically,
Keeping our feet on the ground.

But we can face the mirror
Standing on our head—
Then, we are upside down
In the mirror
And not left-right reversed,
So, again, the reversal
Is in the rotation
Of the object—oneself.

[Fredrick]

The mirror shows the same properties as found with the spin indeed, Austin. It is the spin that established the north and south poles, and that gives earth a common anchor. Now, if we take the sun, then there may be nothing polish about that star. It is the orbit of the planets that give the sun a visual anchoring; seemingly, the sun itself does not have an 'up' and 'down'.

Does the sun spin itself? I have no idea. I do know that the sun has sun spots and that they can be seen with the naked eye under lucky circumstances, such as the Los Angeles hill fires of 2003, when I visited the place, and the sky was full of dust/soot. Others and I were able to see the sun spots for two days. I remember an interval of about an hour and a half, and if the sun were a clock, the spots had moved. One that was positioned at three was next positioned at 4:30. Yet I do not know if the sun moved or if just the earth moved in that time frame. I was not wearing a watch, so I did not get top-accurate measurements.

There is no up or down in the universe, except at the individual level in relationship to something bigger (person and earth). So, here we find the same delivery of having a connection be necessary, yet overall there is no 'up' to the universe. But the observation you made is important. I do, however, not know if I agree with you to the point of awarding gravity that much importance.

I agree that the universe is moving outwardly, but I am not a supporter of an impressive force required to keep all together in a galaxy (or solar system). Already the fact of all this matter moving in the same direction will create the appearance as if all is bound together. Instead, the major aspect is the communal movement. You will not hear me say that the gravitational force is a nothing, but I see it as no more than a force in place by lack of any other forces in place. The lack of other forces among matter moving in the same direction (galaxy) is of a far greater magnitude than gravity. So we shouldn't be looking for something special that binds a galaxy together, but rather see gravity as just quite the ordinary force, happening to be there due to the lack of something more compelling.

The earth and the sun are then just doing their dance together, placed rather well on their own track, but dancing to the music that was put in place a long time ago. Not gravity is creating this dance, but the establishment of the dance long, long ago. Of course, gravity helped establish the dance, but spinning ourselves is a greater expression of force than our twirling around the sun.

Last week, I was standing on my balcony where a bucket had been filled by rain water. I decided to take the bucket and throw parts of it out over the garden three stories below. Let's say, I threw out about two quarts of water each time, trying not to throw too much out each time to not crush the plants and grass below with the water impact.

The first five feet the water was dropping (actually in front of me because I threw it forward and upwards a tiny bit), the water was still compact, coming out of the bucket, and bending towards earth. The next ten feet it was no longer the single squirt out from my bucket but had started to form amorph forms. Yet the biggest thrill was when the last ten feet, almost as if after hearing a signal, the water moved quickly towards it all becoming rain. The water was still all reaching the ground more or less at the same time, but there was no single spot where the water impacted the ground too forcefully, because all drops were no bigger than large rain drops.

What are your thought about this, Austin. The resistance of the air plays its important role, of course. But the water molecules also did not have too much passion holding on to each other, even when they started out being throw out as one in a single goop; there was little gravity amongst themselves. Was this because of the resistance by the air molecules and the larger gravitational center called earth? In my view, it mainly shows how fragile gravity is, easily let go when something better comes along. What are your ideas about gravity (not in general, but in specific, such as how strong that force is)?

[austintorn@aol.com]

What are your thought about this, Austin. The resistance of the air plays its important role, of course. But the water molecules also did not have too much passion holding on to each other, even when they started out being throw out as one in a single goop; there was little gravity amongst themselves. Was this because of the resistance by the air molecules and the larger gravitational center called earth? In my view, it mainly shows how fragile gravity is, easily let go when something better comes along. What are your ideas about gravity (not in general, but in specific, such as how strong that force is)?

The water is like a field, as, too, when a stream goes over a waterfall the "particles" separate out as globs and droplets until they rejoin the steam when the fall is over.

As for gravity, it is very feeble, but can dominate all the forces over large distances. It is probably negligible at very small scales and maybe that's why there is the vibration of superpositioning there, as Penrose thinks. As an aside, I never thought of vibration explaining superposition, which at least makes it easier to visualize.

[Fredrick]

The water is like a field, as, too, when a stream goes over a waterfall the "particles" separate out as globs and droplets until they rejoin the stream when the fall is over.

As for gravity, it is very feeble, but can dominate all the forces over large distances. It is probably negligible at very small scales and maybe that's why there is the vibration of superpositioning there, as Penrose thinks. As an aside, I never thought of vibration explaining superposition, which at least makes it easier to visualize.

I do not understand what you mean with superposition, Austin. If it is considered 'that what is one level up' then I understand it. Yet ultimately, there is no final one-level up; our universe is based on the lack of a final one-level up. Just like one can have definitions about all kinds of stuff, there is no overall definition of all these definitions collectively. We can consider a definition about everything, but we cannot consider a definition about all definitions. I believe Lloyd has been quite clear about this, too.

But I am happy to read that you, too, consider gravity to be negligible at very small scales. The explanation should be quite simple. If we consider gravity the overall & synergistic force of the four forces (E, M, W & S N forces), then — when moving towards the smaller scales — separation occurs automatically/naturally about these four forces. Gravity, if it is indeed based solely on the combinations of forces, would not occur (or lose its importance) at those spots where combinations are (barely) possible. As you know, at the smallest levels we do not find cooperation, but distinction. We should therefore stop encountering gravity, but continue seeing the specific forces in their particular environments. Yet at the one-level up from the smallest levels, we can start encountering their collectiveness, their gravitas. That's the ToE. The individuals are to some extent always unique, the overall picture is always based on a plural delivery — and never the twain shall meet. The individuals always contribute to the collective and the collective will never be identical to just one individual.

One point I do have problems with, though, is how you say that gravity can dominate over large distances. I do not see any real evidence for that. One can suggest that a galaxy as largest possible collective hangs on to the collective 'self', but that is just to the max that the collective four forces can extent themselves. And I do not view a galaxy as having a gravitational singular center, rather, galaxies are just hanging on to the max of themselves, circling the center of the group at best, but not a single-entity center. And this result is partly possible because of the four forces, partly because of the monodirectional reality of the galaxy's matter all moving away from their origination point(s). To declare that gravity operates as a universe-wide force is like stating that a human can become god; one needs trickery of the mind to get to that level (this can be done by having god be an entity capable of ànd being unmaterialized ànd being materialized, which is a conflict in terms and would lead to half-godism at best).

I have the feeling, Austin, that you are only giving gravity this much importance because you like the cyclic model for the universe. Is that true? I do not mind that model, because it already comes quite close to my model (which is the model of the pre-universal set-up just having gone too far inwards once, and subsequently going outwards only once as well). I see no evidence - at all - for a gravitational force that is dominant in the universe. The question then becomes if you know gravity as a large distance force to be true, or if you wish this to be true?