Alas, I was firmly rejected by my Romulan brethren, but have found a niche in quantum neuroscience so they still put up with me some lol

An Enformationist, panprotopsychist and nonphysicalist...lol

What do you think of the idea that brains can configure physically to represent things that do not physically exist? — Mark Nyquist

Those concepts don't physically exist except as a configuration of matter generated in consort with our minds, so I agree. I don't find this particularly mysterious. Everything our minds do has some basis in matter, even if this matter is currently beyond scientific models.

The "nonphysical" is just a way of experiencing and describing matter in terms of noncorporeal concepts, an evolutionary adaptation that is in reality an illusion. Perhaps you disagree with me about this.

At these increased scales it's very reasonable to assume that any quantum effects would be completely washed out unless you know of a specific mechanism. — Mark Nyquist

Everything's quantum man! But so-called "quantum effects" so far seem to cancel out at relatively small electromagnetic masses. EM radiation is almost massless though, and it's everywhere, saturating, modulating and modulated by all matter! A detailed knowledge of mechanisms awaits the results of many experiments. Actually read the OPs if you want to really understand where I'm coming from!

From that point on, their description of universe-spanning Cosmic Strings sounds like the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny Quantum Strings on the opposite end of the scale. The authors conclude, "cosmic strings play a key role in structuring the universe on a large scale". Apparently, Penrose thinks their quantum cousins also structure the brain to produce Consciousness. — Gnomon

I do not claim any special knowledge in the ways of cosmic or itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny strings lol The concept of a coherence field is based on a fact that continues to be proven by experiment: EM radiation combines with atomic structure to produce fields of coherent energy.

In the OP I discussed how exposure to UV light has been shown to result in coherent energy fields within microtubules due to aromatic amino acids such as tryptophan they contain. My hypothesis is that infrared radiation saturates matter typical for Earth to render the entire planet, including brains of course, a coherence field. But this EM radiation is compartmentalized somewhat by solids and thoroughly modulated in complex ways by atoms (into visible light etc.) so that the planet's coherence field has a complex structure. I hypothesize that this intricate modulation of coherence field electromagnetism is at least partly responsible for the existence of percepts (more exotic forms of matter and properties which cause nonlocality may also be involved in coherence field structure). Recent developments in our understanding of neural anatomy seem to suggest the brain may be built around coherence field modulation mechanisms, and thus coherence field theory might guide science to the link between matter and the first-person substance of mind.

EM radiation can superposition and entangle much more readily than electrons or atoms, so is key to my hypothesis regarding the source of percepts. I think the proposed role for EM radiation is what Orch-Or was lacking and why it sustained so much criticism.

However, I am familiar with Terrence Deacon's notion of "absence and constraints" in his book Incomplete Nature. Does absential physics have anything to do with Deacon's concept of "constitutive absence" (essence)? Also, do you "abolish absentia" by causing something that exists only in potential to become actual? Please describe how such abolishment is the "logic of reality" How does Nature replace Absence (unreal ; nothingness ; Potential) with Presence (realness ; somethingness ; actuality)? — Gnomon

My understanding is derived from Terrence Deacon. What I mean is that energy flows from more (relative presence) to less (relative absence) in pursuit of equilibrium, but the combination of vast quantities of such motions unbalances a system to make even the most equilibrated states dynamic, a constant unsettlement. All systems (frames of reference) evince this dynamism, but a system's structural properties make it dynamic in a particular way, introducing intrinsic constraints, hence being and becoming with all the logiclike form that seems to be embodied. The pursuit of abolishing absentia or equivalently a void, which can never be conclusively actualized, applies from atoms in a solution to the goal-driven behaviors of human cognition.

Physicists do indeed make discrete measurements at sub-atomic levels of reality. But at the sub-quantum levels (superposition) they can't discriminate between "entangled" or "virtual particles" or "fields", which display holistic or analog behavior. This leads me to believe that reality is fundamentally continuous & inter-connected. & synchronized, but our perception requires discrete patterns.

As the Ken Wharton & Recognition quotes above imply: measurement (importing information into the mind) seems to impose "boundary constraints" on incoming data.

Is the brain programmed to expect certain logical patterns in Nature? Is Logic simply the organizing principle of nature. Perhaps Logic is the Mechanism of Nature. In that case the "substance" of meaningful Form may be abstract Essence or Qualia or Inter-Relationships.

If Nature had no rational Logos to impose order on Chaos, how could novel (progressive) Information (Forms) emerge from mere round & round clockwork Mechanisms? — Gnomon

Those are some interesting issues you raised. I suppose all discreteness would only be so in a relative way. Atoms are discrete in their adjacency to separate atoms, electrons are relatively discrete when ionized from an atom, nuclei are discrete compared to separate nuclei and the electromagnetic field, a proportion of light energy is absorbed and emitted as discrete photons, galaxies are discrete in comparison to separate galaxies, etc. Measurement imposes those energetic forms upon themselves and would be similarly discrete in the relations involved, only as you suggest delimited by the conditions within which conversion to a form discernible by sense organs and perception generally can occur. The brain then mediates the perceptual/memory field such that energetic forms fit a template evolution adapted humans to possess, the manifold within which a huge range of truncations practical for past circumstance obtain.

The realism vs. antirealism of all those pervasive divisions can only be approximated by theory, but my inclination is to think the absentia phenomenon causes a constant agitation from self-perpetuating disequilibration that prevents absolute emptiness from ever materializing. So discreteness is real but constrained, and so are its quantification and perception. Perhaps discreteness is relative discontinuity within what is essentially a continuum, and I think the coherence field concept encompasses this, for decoherence is always from this perspective a relative and local state.

The only fundamental logic of reality is the abolishment of absentia, but this principle is in effect no matter how intellecting the reference frame, so certainly doesn't exclude the possibility of logos as an intrinsic property of substance. I think the existence of absolute Logos is not strictly necessary to postulate because many discontinuities within the continuum are so huge that absentia dynamics driving evolutionary change can never be exhausted. Again, that doesn't disprove the possibility though.

Many physicists tend to think philosophy is bull and psychology is subjective. They can shut up and calculate if they want! All the physics forums do is chastise posters for their ignorance or act condescending, so I'm not surprised at the lack of "legitimate" abusiveness either. All the physicists at this forum got banned for flaming lol

...it's the flow of individual signals that add-up to a dynamic meaningful code...energy flowing smoothly through space, but in the form of waves "bending & morphing" the Aether into the light we see from stars. Then that uniform coherent light is reflected from matter, picking up new patterns (such as color & texture) to be received by physical sensors... — Gnomon

I think the basic concept is contained in statements such as these. Matter is quantized or discrete at a fundamental level, but evinces unity on emergent scales due to synchronization, much more than sand flowing through an hourglass for instance doesn't seem like separate grains unless you know what you're looking for and examine closely. My idea is that the unity of a visual scene for example results from the integrating effects of EM radiation, an ultrafine structure which causes emergent continuity in the mechanistic structure of matter to parallel the integration matter appears to evince perceptually. Emergent continuities modulate as photons, electrons and atoms interact in bulk to produce all the patterns we experience. So the substance of perceptual form is material mechanism.

I keep seeing references to "organization", "signal", "steady-state", "modulation", and "density maxima/minima". Such terminology reminds me of the elements of coding, such as Morse Code. — Gnomon

I think the substance of mechanism and the concept of information are closely related. Any system we comprehend mechanistically will have resemblance to the constructs of information theory. Coherence fields and the emergent material/perceptual forms they give rise to are such a system.

who or what organized the coding system of the universe by which conscious minds can be influenced from the outside world, and by which one mind can influence another from afar? — Gnomon

What makes these phenomena move and change at all is an interesting issue. I incline to think the perpetual activeness of matter is intrinsic, caused by all the local asymmetries that everywhere drive energy from higher to lower density, basically an absentia concept. But this does not necessarily preclude a designer who guides the process, though I of course wouldn't claim any privileged knowledge in this respect even as I do have my personal beliefs.

How does your model handle the transfer of ideas? Something as simple as a short text seems to do the job and uses conventional, well understood means.

There might be a type of dualism involved, as no brain matter is transfered yet two brains can hold the same idea. Certainly ideas are not physical in the sense they are confined to a single brain. — Mark Nyquist

In coherence field theory, the matter of ideas would be a combination of molecular/radiative fields that vibrate while bound together by entanglement to produce emergent percepts as contents of the mind, along with neural circuitry and brain waves giving these ideas a more complex synthetic architecture. If coherence field structure modulated by EM radiation is as essential as I hypothesize, percepts might supersede the individual brain via light's interactions with more nonlocal dynamics which are not yet well-understood, and this could possibly explain scientifically verified phenomena such as remote viewing. So the theory would begin as a dualism regarding ideas as both concepts and objects, but then might reconfigure our understanding of consciousness into more integrated form, providing a unified model of physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology and memetics. I obviously haven't worked all that out at this stage, but interesting to speculate.

The smallest neuronal structures in the human brain are both three orders of magnitude too large and too hot for quantum activity (e.g. superposition, entanglement, etc) to cohere. Thus, the human brain is an entirely classical processing system.

That is true of entanglement between atoms. But experiments have shown EM radiation can entangle across distances of 15 km, and light interacts with atoms to produce coherent energy fields among photosynthetic reaction centers and microtubules, so it seems likely that entanglement effects can at least in part generate the substance of a perceptual field and emergent stream of consciousness/awareness via superpositioned light waves. Brain tissue activation is closely correlated with temperature fluctuation, suggesting that wavelengths of infrared light may be functionally shifting around as electricity flows through neurons along with cooccurring changes in molecular vibration patterns. The evidence is not conclusive, but certainly worthy of further investigation.

Conscious states have bread bases. — Bartricks

The pivotal question is then whether we need a neurobreadology to lesion the nuts out of our conscious states hahaha The medical establishment could probably get away with that if they tried long and hard enough.

That is generally how I see the relationship between physical structure and mental logic. But it's the steps in-between Energy and Intention that are still hard to imagine. There is still a gaping gap between quantum mechanics and spooky mysticism — Gnomon

When you think about the complexity that must be present in a coherence field of macroscopic emergence it is hard to imagine. Every molecule we've identified may have an unknown function, just a totally new paradigm. But if coherence field theory is accurate, all of this will prove amenable to empiricism, and it's simply a matter of investigating the binding and modulation that occurs among atoms and light. Might be a conduit from current physics to more potent models of entanglement and nonlocality, as aspects of the matter field we could detect by measuring anomalies in EM radiation phenomena that can't be explained using atomic theory.

You can't come from the perspective of an observer and analyze what consciousness is unless you make the bold, glaring, and stupid assumption that your awareness is adept at that. — neonspectraltoast

A proactive, typical and intelligent assumption that neuroscience uses every day to make huge progress in modeling what mind is. We take for granted how much more we know about consciousness than those who lived prior to brain research. Sure, that doesn't mean we see reality for exactly what it is, but the mind's eye coupled with the concept of physiology as mechanism can get you a long ways. However, I would agree neuroscience makes humans prone to some fallacies that even premoderns weren't subject to, but in general we've progressed.

It's that binding force that I have difficulty understanding. Philosophically, I can see how energy (physical causation) could be related to human intention (cultural causation). But the mechanics of that transformation from physics to percepts are beyond my comprehension. — Gnomon

The way I think of it, percepts are the emergent property of an energy field which we currently define electromagnetically, as density maxima or atomic structure enveloped in density minima, the electromagnetic field with undulations we know as electromagnetic radiation or light. The energy field of a brain is equal in its integration to the energy field of a visual scene for instance: components of matter are the components of perception, with quantum segregations shrouded even at the microscale, but perhaps not at the subatomic scale.

So change in electromagnetic energy is quantized at the subatomic scale, whatever that looks like physically, but this energy flows smoothly through space (though rate transitions are nonlinear), more like a fluid, at the microscale and larger. From this perspective, the concept of an atom is somewhat arbitrary, for electromagnetism is really a bending and morphing of the aether field by the fields of nuclei.
Heat, color, vibrational texture, etc. are an intrinsic signature of perception and energy, from both inside and outside. Awareness is simply an emergent byproduct of this energy field's organization.

It seems that in organic consciousness at least, logic or the "meaning" of awareness is closely linked to the circuitry of neural connections, like what @Benj96 was getting at, and I think gods can play the human mind's logical forms like a fiddle, though they're supralogical themselves. (Thought I'd throw some philosophy of religion into the mix to irk the atheists)

This space-wave theory of the structure of physical reality might be genius, merely eccentric, or possibly crackpot. It's based on a mathematical reinterpretation of quantum theory – by Geoff Haselhurst et al -- proposing A> the Wave Structure of Matter, and B> that the “fluid medium” for those waves is the Aristotelian Substance we call “Space”. — Gnomon

When you get into phenomenology of physics the vast possibility is hard to get a grip on and concepts haven't progressed far at this point. I read a book by a Nobel laureate who imagined aether as a multicolored, multilayered superconductor, with electromagnetic matter an impurity in the aether. The wave-medium model makes intuitive sense, as a concept of flow somewhat like electricity, but the fine structure of how it moves and transitions at the quantum scale is difficult to determine by thought experiment alone, and the structural properties beyond electromagnetism almost inconceivable. Perhaps instruments will be developed eventually that can reveal exactly what a quantum wave looks like and how it behaves, along with whether nonelectromagnetic matter has similar properties.

I'd specifically like to know how Consciousness could arise from wave interactions in fluid space. — Gnomon

In the OP I could get a long ways with a couple basic premises: electromagnetic matter consists of density maxima/minima, while electromagnetic energy can travel and accelerate through regions of relative minima at a faster rate. These premises lead to a comprehensive explanation for neural anatomy, including node location and structure, ion channel distribution, speed of signal transmission as electron current, etc. The root cause of electric field oscillation and at least one of the mechanistic routes to percept generation might also be explained.

In my theory, atoms and EM radiation form expanses of contiguous energy I call coherence fields, containing contours of density minima and maxima. Motions of electrons perturb the field such that local variations in superpositioned light spectra occur near-instantaneously to bind matter into a percept insofar as it arises from electromagnetism. So percepts such as sights, sounds, textures, thoughts, feelings etc. are at least partially the vibrational and/or additive properties of electromagnetic waves.

I has been my understanding that different interpretations of quantum mechanics cannot be differentiated using empirical methods. If you have information otherwise, I would be interested in seeing it. — T Clark

You might look into Sean Carroll's involvements in researching the many worlds interpretation (he's kind of the spokesman). Apparently physicists are coming up with models of relative phase in matter that have started to integrate practical applications of wave function math with the many worlds concept. Physicists continue to refine the mathematical parameters of spontaneous localization models for accuracy. An experiment reputedly ruled out pilot wave theory a few years ago, and I think this may have been discredited afterwards but you can do some searching around for information.

Electromagnetic Radiation as a Binding Agent for the Physiological Substance of Perception

All EM fields are filled by a vast array of undulations which readily superposition while flowing between and in synchrony with atoms, what we know as electromagnetic radiation or light. EM radiation can conceivably constitute the interstitial texture of perception’s substance, so the question then is how to characterize properties of this light energy. Electrons as electromagnetic constituents of massive atoms, the density maximums, and light as textural substantiality between atoms, the density minimum, evince a counterintuitive property known as entanglement. Entanglement is a process by which particle states such as spin in electrons or phase in photons correlate across distances at faster than light speed. It occurs via relatively nonlocal forces that are still poorly understood, which underlie coherence in all its forms, more fundamental than electromagnetism. In relatively diffuse, minimally entropic, or relatively homogeneous material structures such as gases of more or less minimized temperature and simple chemical composition, faster than light entanglement can readily take effect, but very exacting conditions must be generated for the phenomenon to presently be observed in the lab. Under more common circumstances such as the flow of electric current through a compact structure such as a metal, or through an entropic substance such as aqueous solution, or through heterogeneous matter such as an organic body, the nonlocality of coherence is dissipated by the medium’s baseline decoherent state so that rates slower than the speed of light obtain. Coherence among electromagnetic particles of substantial mass thus tends to be mitigated in various degrees by density, a sort of rate bottleneck effect more pronounced the greater the complexity of density contour.

EM radiation, by contrast, is much less massive and does not have nearly the same constraints as electrons or atoms. Congregates of photons can evince statistically significant entanglement correlations across distances of at least 15 km. Light has further properties unique for electromagnetic matter, filling nonvacuum spaces populated by atomic structure as a wave, and much more readily superpositioning into additive structures than atoms, put on full display by the wide range of wavelength combinations associated with the visible spectrum. EM fields are made to undulate as EM radiation when electrons in atoms or electric currents accelerate or decelerate, and most electromagnetic matter does to some extent, so nature is saturated with light. This light interacts with atoms in complex ways that are still rudimentarily understood, but we know for sure that its wavelengths can blend into atoms when energy is complementary. Many photons scatter as they collide with atoms, a phenomenon known as the Compton effect, but light also forms vibrational complexes of atomic nodes within photonic fields. Radiative/molecular superpositions as synchronously vibrating arrays of electromagnetic matter are an excellent candidate for the substance of percepts, and research into the connection between photonics and awareness is showing promise.

In initial analysis of light’s interaction with biological systems, it was discovered that photosynthetic reaction center complexes achieve 100% energy yield from UV radiation because light waves take multiple routes or flow through numerous chlorophyll molecules as they are translated into chemical energy, fully absorbed by a reaction center hub without fail. Chlorophyll arrays are such that EM radiation blends into them like they are a pool of water and photons a bead of this water, conjoining as a coherent energy field. Early research into the response of neurons to light exposed them to the visible and UV spectrum. It was found that this relatively high energy EM radiation affects neural function, but primarily due to the degradation of ion channels and additional structures, reducing synaptic efficiency. Subsequent examination has proved more auspicious, however.

A long-standing hypothesis about the source of consciousness, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s Orch-Or (orchestrated-objective reduction) theory, proposes that microtubules are compact enough in the brain to produce a wide array of pulsing superpositions responsible for awareness. The model has faced criticisms from scientists who claim the brain is too hot and wet to support coherence of this kind, but recent experiments have aimed to assess whether light induces a coherent energy field in microtubules where molecular structure alone cannot.

Microtubules contain light-sensitive amino acids such as tryptophan, and the absorption of UV light was recently tested. A solution of microtubule fragments exposed to UV light was proven conducive to remote energy transfer between component tryptophan molecules. Anesthetics inhibited the phenomenon, hinting at a link with consciousness. Combining this data with a model of tryptophan positioning inside intact microtubules suggested that the amino acid can mediate a coherent energy field spanning the microtubule’s entire length, ranging to 50 micrometers. The only source of UV light in a typical cell was hypothesized as perhaps the oxidation reactions of mitochondria, so it is doubtful these wavelengths have much of a functional role in the brain, but it becomes increasingly apparent that light superpositions and entangles among relatively large molecular structures to produce coherent energy fields in a wide range of circumstances. So the question is whether some alternative light source exists within the brain to cause an expansive energy coherence.

An obvious option for endogenous light in the brain is infrared radiation, which saturates physiological structures while constantly absorbed and emitted by rotating and vibrating atomic bonds. The capacity of the infrared spectrum to transmit through aqueous solution quickly diminishes as this radiation’s wavelength increases from 1-10 micrometers, but plenty of circumstantial evidence ties the thermal energy of molecular motion instigated by infrared radiation, better known as temperature, to brain function. Brain tissue temperatures have been measured to exceed those of the blood by 0.5-0.6 degrees Celsius in various mammals. In rats, temperature of the hippocampus increases 1.5-38 degrees Celsius when actively exploring. In male finches, temperature of brain tissue increases during variance in song tempo. Feeding and social interaction produce rapid, unique, and relatively long-lasting brain temperature elevations, occurring faster and with greater magnitude than those of the arterial blood supply. In humans, somatosensory cortex temperature increases during nerve stimulation, and likewise for motor cortex and bodily movement. Many brain regions such as the substantia nigra alter their activity when temperature is varied. Rise in temperature of neuronal pathways is generally associated with sensory stimuli, and correlations between temperature and data obtained on resting potential, action potential, nerve conduction velocity and synaptic transmission are well-established. Anesthesia lowers brain temperature, a sign that infrared radiation may be linked to conscious awareness. The total brain varies in temperature by 1-3 degrees Celsius in some animal models. The correlation is obvious, but whether temperature contributes some function or is merely a byproduct remains uncertain. Indications exist, however, that neurons may be tailored for the purpose of sustaining the brain’s infrared spectrum at robust levels. A rapid spike in temperature of two degrees microCelsius occurs during action potentials, hinting at general connection between nerve firing and a boost to the infrared spectrum. So if we hypothesize that neurons are designed to expand the quantity of infrared light while regulating its local behavior, how might this mechanism work?

Assuming the coherence flow model is accurate, as it certainly seems to be, lengthwise signals are transmitted through a neuron as electric currents which attain a relativistically significant percentage of light speed, so the mass of this rapidly moving matter increases. Experiments in the first half of the 20th century suggested that relativistic mass has an underlying physical cause, while many modern approaches incline to view relativistic mass as a conceptual tool to be dispensed with at will. Debate rages, but regardless of the real source for theoretical mass increase when transitioning to high velocity states, some empirically based conclusions of a rather simple nature can be drawn insofar as light emission correlates with relativistic momentum in electrons. We know from technological applications that matter moving at relativistic speeds emits higher energy (frequency), shorter wavelength EM radiation while it decelerates, and lower energy, longer wavelength radiation while it accelerates. For instance, when a beam of electrons traveling at half the speed of light collides with a metal plate in an x-ray machine, it emits high energy braking radiation in the x-ray portion of the spectrum, and accelerating current in a radio antenna emits low energy radio waves. Essentially, if an accelerating coherence current is almost instantaneously compressed as it alternates, EM waves will be emitted proportional to speed, total size, and perhaps lesser overall density of the current (in addition to waves at further spectral ranges), and if a decelerating coherence current is likewise compressed, EM waves are emitted in proportion to speed, size, and perhaps greater density of the current segment that is decelerating. So if current acceleration is sustained in a neuron, the spectrum of EM radiation will be prone to lengthen, and the reverse is true for decelerating current, with the quantity of radiation increasing in both cases.

During an action potential, electric current accelerates between a node of Ranvier and adjacent juxtaparanodes, while gradually decelerating as it traverses internodal space. If this current alternates multiple times between juxtaparanodes following an action potential while changing velocity it might be possible to generate a photonic field. But it is unclear how sustained this field would be between action potentials or whether biochemistry is diverse enough in the axon, a structure probably tailored for long-range signaling at the expense of complex intracellular machinery, to generate a photonic/molecular field comprised of rich assortments of wavelength. Additionally, myelin encasing the axon would likely tend to reflect this radiation, preventing it from exacting multicellular effects.

At the synaptic junction, current accelerates from single positive ion concentrations (Na+ and K+) at the last node in the action potential chain to lesser electron density of Ca2+ concentrations near the axon terminal. Current would also accelerate from the first node in a dendrite to its upstream tip, on the opposite side of a synapse. In order for acceleration to be sustained, Ca2+ would have to cycle into and out of a neuron at rapid rates, continuously drawing energy away from nodes with a replenishing supply of lower electron density ions. Indications are that ions travel through ion channels via quantum mechanisms, again at approximately 90% light speed, so the cycle might be near-instantaneous enough to hold acceleration stable. But at present, more research into neuron anatomy near the synaptic junction is necessary before this hypothesis can be corroborated or refuted.

It seems more feasible at this stage to postulate a model for current acceleration in
the soma. A tapering from more to less positive ion concentration is maintained between the largest quantity of Na+ channels and ions in a neuron at the axon hillock and relatively expansive space of the soma with its lesser rate of Na+ and K+ reuptake. This tapering ranges all the way to cellular space near the dendrite/soma junctions, where Cl- channels and ions maintain a much higher electron density. Cl- influx during an IPSP blocks EPSPs from propagating into the soma, followed by some Cl- reuptake and an accompanying diminution of the IPSP. When the IPSP wanes, the ebb effect of EPSPs can draw greater electron density around the base of dendrites out of more interior regions of the soma. This is likely combined with a renewal of Cl- influx such that electron density increases slightly while simultaneously breaching the positive ion gradient. Once this greater electron density reaches the axon hillock’s sphere of influence, extending well into the soma, it accelerates rapidly towards the axon hillock. Upon reaching the axon hillock, a companion EM field fluctuation triggers large quantities of Na+ to rush in, sustaining acceleration from the opposite side due to greatly reduced electron density even as the relatively negative charge initiated at the dendrite/soma junction reaches a minimum due to dilution. As Na+ ions again diffuse into the soma, the gradient of positive charge is replenished, and though the overall strength and influence of positive charge lessens in the soma, Cl- concentrations increase and regain a maximum, driving acceleration from the opposite side.

To summarize:

At the dendrite/soma junctions:
1.Cl- influx, concentration and electron density maximum
2.Cl- concentration and electron density attenuation
3.The ebb effect force of dendritic potentials followed by resumption of Cl- influx
4.Electron density from Cl- concentration at a minimum, with continued influx

Instigated by the axon hillock:
1.Na+ concentration attenuation
2.Greater Na+ concentration attenuation
3.Na+ concentration minimum
4.Na+ influx and concentration maximum

Thus, a flux of Cl- concentration maximum to minimum coupled with Na+ concentration minimum to maximum conceivably maintains a constant acceleration of electric current through the soma. As in the case of possible current acceleration around the synaptic junction, this model needs empirical verification.

So if current continuously accelerates at the synaptic junction and within the soma, what would be the properties of emitted EM radiation? Applying the nascent but plausible concept of relativistic current presented in this paper, neural currents have no circuit to stabilize their velocity as in electrical wiring, so if charge is constant they would probably initiate at the same rate as baseline agitation from decoherence and decelerate due to the ebb effect. EM wavelengths produced then hover at around 1 micrometer, slightly longer than the boundary between visible and near-infrared portions of the spectrum. This correlates to the electromagnetic domain just beyond the level of emergence associated with an individual atom’s valence shell and the roughly 400-700 nm range of EM wavelengths, in essence multiatomic vibration while a robustly decoherent state prevails. In this theory, if electric current does indeed accelerate at the synapse and through the soma, this would add slightly longer wavelengths to the spectrum. It seems reasonable as a very approximate hypothesis that the spectrum could range from at least 1-10 micrometers in wavelength. This spectrum is capable of traveling through aqueous solution at distances of roughly 100 millimeters to 10 micrometers, with range shrinking considerably as wavelength increases. The soma is about 12 cubic micrometers and the synaptic space 1 cubic micrometer, with the currents themselves probably equivalent in volume, so it seems plausible that a persistent field of photonic waves can inundate both. Boosted by maximal reflection from white matter, grey matter may be filled with a substantive light spectrum capable of interacting with molecular arrays and biochemical pathways to form a diversely superpositioned photonic field studded with a wide range of atomic and multiatomic nodes.

Where atoms and molecules involved in the generation of percepts might be most concentrated remains unknown, but protoplasmic astrocytes which are commonly adjacent to the soma and thus have access to hypothesized light fields, with a cytoplasm relatively uncluttered by organelles such as the nucleus, are a good candidate, of course in addition to grey matter itself, the soma as well as junctions at which axons and dendrites form synaptic connections. Mounting evidence from studies with paramecia, yeast, onion roots, even crustaceans substantiates the hypothesis that biophotons of low intensity travel through cell membranes, affecting functions such as energy production and growth in populations of cells, even when separated by a sizable barrier such as the walls of a glass cuvette. A range of wavelengths seem to interact with biochemistry, and all kinds of cellular structures including those of neurons could be built around biophotonic mechanisms.

An exception to the general link between brain hyperthermia and awareness is the visual cortex, where it has been observed with fMRI that tissue temperature decreases by 0.2 degrees Celsius during activation of the neural processing involved. Some uncertainty exists as to the accuracy of these results, but if valid this suggests molecular structures may exist in some parts of the brain to shift the EM radiation spectrum towards shorter wavelengths such as visible light that are less likely to dissipate as the heat of vibrating and rotating chemical bonds. It is intriguing to consider that centers of vision in the brain, probably correlated with the phenomenality of image perception, might generate a light field comparable to the one upon which vertebrate optical mechanisms are based.

Some further categories of mechanism in addition to basic current acceleration seem likely for how spectrums of EM radiation may thicken and assume functional form in the nervous system and brain. Visible, near-infrared, mid-infrared radiation and perhaps beyond of course must interact with molecules in such a way that wavelengths are modified into a wide variety of vibrational signatures, with all of this dispersing into the sink of somewhat increased temperature during activation as baseline decoherence continually reasserts itself. The electric currents themselves may also rapidly decelerate upon contact with molecular structures to cause braking radiation, shortened EM wavelengths of relatively low intensity. Whether these processes occur in non-neuronal cells as a result of ion channel activity and additional mechanisms is an interesting topic, barely broached. So how then might this basic substrate of structural integration in the brain, nervous system and perhaps the wider body give rise to awareness’s percepts, the substance of perception?

Implications of the Coherence Field Concept for Understanding Percepts as a Physical Phenomenon

In the coherence field model we have thus far formulated, a supervenient EM field drives and orchestrates the behavior of biochemical pathways in the brain, but EM radiation within this material framework is the binding agent which flows around with effective instantaneity to integrate molecular arrays, cells and tissues at trillions of locations as the vibrational structure of perception. Details of how percepts would form in this manner are undoubtedly complex and, if upheld by further evidence, probably warrant decades of research. But if these theories are accurate, it could provide for some very simple ways to define features of mind in terms of matter.

This model views percepts, to the extent they arise from electromagnetic properties of tissue, as the emergent organization of atomic nodes within photonic fields, numerous and diverse regions of coherent energy most fundamentally characterized by vibration. The brain is unique because electric currents likely found in all cells are so strong and compact in this organ that a robust EM field is generated which can coordinate the magnetic particles in large swaths of tissue as an individual unit. The brain is thus much more synchronized than the rest of the body. If the hypothesis proves valid, this mechanistic chassis of electrical energy is saturated by EM radiation of a primarily infrared spectral range which interacts with molecules to produce the structural components of mind, insofar as they arise from the brain, as a variably dense physical field.

Most of our basic sentience - sound, touch, taste, smell, visceral sensations, in essence feel - would essentially be vibrational textures in matter with their shapes, rates of oscillation and locations determining the quality of experience. Input from specialized sensory apparatuses in eye, ear, olfactory, gustatory and tactile cells superimposes on fundamentally cognitive textures to render our environment a crisp perceptual world.

Image sensation might be a modification of EM wavelengths within the textural field such that light in the visible range is produced, so that optical inspection and image imagination coevolved into complementary forms. This would explain how we visualize much of what our eyesight takes in without optical stimulation. Visual stream of consciousness is then a complex of visible light and specially adapted cellular structures, while the verbal stream would probably be infrared light and still different biomolecules and cells, together a range of emergent textures induced by the brain and perhaps the wider body. All of this sentience and stream of consciousness converges to constitute the foundational substrate of emotion and thought.

Memory would derive from interaction of this coherent energy field with neural architecture, accounting for how recall cannot be easily pinpointed to any particular process in the brain or body, for it is linked to the interface between field and circuitry at an intracellular level we have not yet penetrated in theory. The relative role of circuitry versus intracellular biochemistry in memory, synaptic as opposed to intrinsic plasticity, is still the subject of contention, but some form of amalgamation is undoubtedly in play, and the brain’s matter is as photonic and fieldlike as it is molecular. Neural circuitry is built into intricately emergent structures so that synthetic and logiclike insights are possible, the environment “making sense” via a background of more or less abstract interrelationships rather than just starkly presenting. The self can be defined as a collection of functions that monitor one’s own circuitry and coherence field of radiative/molecular percepts.

The question of how a coherence field of awareness projects beyond the body can be raised. It must be remembered that coherence is not fundamentally electromagnetic, physiological, or local in the Newtonian sense, and under suitable conditions causality can propagate faster than light. It might be possible for similar mechanisms to those which manifest within the brain and body to conjure beyond physiology, as a hybrid of standing and traveling waves within a medium of infrared light, visible light and perhaps more energy sources, all interspersed by atomic and molecular nodes with which this energy more or less synchronously vibrates. If an experiment can entangle photons at 3 trillion m/s across a distance of 15 km, any material structure which manipulates the underlying coherence responsible for such entanglement should be capable of similar influence, and the brain could be such a material structure. The coherence field concept may eventually explain why we do not perceive the field of awareness as entirely within our own heads or bodies despite the fact that neural and cellular architecture is required to comprise an organic mind.

Though an EM radiation hypothesis for how matter binds into the substance of perception hangs together well based on what we currently know of physics, it has also been proposed that LFP-based fine structure of the electric field may be the source of percepts. Any region of this field is of course composed of numerous superpositioned frequencies which can be decomposed by a Fourier transform in similarity to EM radiation, producing the familiar EEG readouts. The question is whether this reaches enough complexity to be a sole seat of perception.

As an example, we can estimate the maximum intricacy of an electric field consciousness. If we assume percepts are superpositions delimited by phase-locking, of which the basic unit is some constitutive portion of an LFP, the most complex and differentiated consciousness possible for a human would plausibly consist in neural networks of on average a hundred phase-locked neurons each, blending into both a background of slower waves and some kind of roving, semi-stable density of relatively homogeneous frequency that temporarily immingles with a variety of more local oscillations to produce experiential awareness. If phase-locking determines the boundaries of a percept, and the brain contains approximately 80 billion neurons making 100 trillion connections, each neuron would contribute to on average around 1,250 different percepts at most. This hypothetical consciousness would support 800 million simultaneous percepts and 1 trillion percepts total. But human olfaction detects more than a trillion scents, and this is one of our least acute sensory modalities, in addition to being localized within small portions of the brain. The range of variation in sounds and images far exceeds olfaction. Overall oscillation patterns within one of these minimum phase-locked assemblies may involve a continuum of relativities rather than simply being a steady state, on or off phenomenon, doing double duty in the formation of multiple percepts, so within any particular neural network the spectrum of percepts might be much greater, though level of differentiation must at some point prove discrete, constrained by an LFP’s degrees of freedom. We must also consider that much of the brain may not be sufficiently phased for producing emergent organization conducive to percepts of this type, so the possible quantity of percepts would likely be much less than maximum. Of course pending further research, room for doubt exists as to whether an LFP-based model alone is capable of accounting for the full gamut of percepts.

It is also uncertain how an LFP-based model can explain the nonlocality of consciousness. At this point remote perception is fairly well-established, since it has been demonstrated scientifically that humans can communicate, locate archaeological sites etc. through extrasensory observation. Science is making rapid progress in its capacity to model faster than light entanglement between photonic fields, an action at a distance which is canonical to quantum physics. We presently have no reason to suspect remote perception is mediated by LFPs and emergent flow shapes induced in the brain’s electric field beyond the entanglement dynamics of EM radiation they contain.

If we add EM radiation to the electric field model, this massively increases the diversity available to perceptual mechanisms, from maximums of roughly a few trillion superpositioning LFP subunits to at least hundreds of trillions of possible locations where photonic fields, variously superpositioned on scales resembling spectra in the external environment, can cohere with atoms and molecules to assume functional form. These photonic fields which would radiate with effective instantaneity in the brain may get locked in as emergent structure during neural activation, with the signature of this light modulation mechanism being temperature variation. To the extent that a region of the brain is especially saturated by synchronizing mechanisms such as phase-locking, as seems to be the case in processes of experiential awareness, the effects of photonic fields would simultaneously become more pervading. The LFP-based model and photonics model are thus complementary, for if research proves that EM radiation plays a functional role, this is simply an intrinsic aspect of the electric field’s fine structure as it oscillates and flows.

The mechanism by which brain matter contributes to forming the substance of percepts is proposed by this paper as starting with a sustained acceleration of electric current between centers of ion concentration, modifying the spectrum of EM radiation (primarily infrared and more rarely visible light) while increasing its quantity. This proceeds to modulation via a cascade of light/molecular interactions, ending in temperature increase when decoherence thermally dissipates the additional energy as biochemical vibration and infrared radiation. If current acceleration is steady enough, the electromagnetic energy that results can maintain intracellular coherence fields, and likely also intercellular coherence fields due to transmission of EM radiation through cell membranes. But this mechanism might preclude coherence fields spread through complexes of axons because myelin reflects any infrared or visible radiation from intracellular currents back into the neuron.

An alternate mechanism not discussed with much depth in this paper is the manipulating of molecular arrays through EM field permutations that can originate from electric and ionic currents. Modified vibration of molecules might then induce a separate route to cascades of modulated light/molecular interaction, also thermally dissipating as biochemical vibration and infrared radiation due to decoherence. The range at which this mechanism can modulate a coherence field depends on the density and location of affected atoms and molecules, but could conceivably transcend limitation that myelin imposes on axons and adjacent extracellular space because of transmembrane influence, perhaps expanding the perceptual field to brain matter in its entirety. Further effects along these lines are probably transmitted at approximately light speed via emergent electric wave oscillations and flows spread through macroscopic portions of the brain, synchronously morphing LFP/neural complexes, current-field patterns and the coherence fields of cellular structure in a top-down way to enact larger scale perceptual integration.

A third possibility is that so-called nonlocal properties of the brain’s coherence field facilitate entanglements via EM radiation and through this route modulate cascades of light/molecular interaction. Mechanisms of this type could pervade the brain, exacting an extremely holistic effect upon electromagnetism, with the vibrational and radiative consequences being at this stage unknown and fairly unpredictable. We cannot rule out the potential for modification of EM radiation and molecular vibrations into much different forms than would be predicted in association with electric currents or LFPs.

I see I have been summoned away from wooing the gaps to talk quantum mechanics sans mechanics! I'm in the process of authoring a paper on consciousness, one entry in the photonics movement that may initiate a revolutionary synthesis of physics, neuroscience and psychology. Wisely minimizing my use of the term ''quantum'' so as to not disillusion the quants from my ultrarealist panprotopsychism.

Anatomy of the neuron suggests that these cells are fundamentally structured around electrical coherence, call it quantum if you want, but the role of light as binding agent for percepts insofar as they arise from electromagnetic matter is more uncertain and requires further research, though showing much promise so far. I hypothesize that modulation of infrared radiation produced by electric currents within neurons is root source of the functional spectrum, interacting with atoms to constitute the brain's participation in forming the perceptual field. Anyone interested can read the first draft of my paper on the topic as OPs of my thread Uniting CEMI and Coherence Field Theories of Consciousness, The Sequel .

Feel welcome to criticize, that's the entire purpose of this forum as far as I'm concerned!

The problem as I see it, is that our understanding of electrical flow, as human beings, is extremely limited to the way that we use electrical flow, and that is as DC and AC. These modes of usage are represented as a modeling of the movement of particle, electrons. However, we also know that "the real" electrical flow does not occur through the movement of electrons, the energy is transmitted through the fields which are associated. So the modeling is not an accurate representation, only a useful one. And we will never properly understand the activity of the fields without the proper modeling of them, which would be without a dependence on a flow of electrons. — Metaphysician Undercover

The idea of electrical energy existing within an atom as an electron is problematic, I agree. It would be more accurate to refer to the EM field as containing density maximums induced by nuclei, and electromagnetic energy's signal velocity a flow through these density maximums at rates typically less than the speed of light, such as 90% light speed in a copper wire, or 50% light speed in an x-ray machine. Electrical conductance in aqueous solution is probably somewhere in between. I'm not familiar with the properties of superconductors, which might be capable of reaching even faster speeds. Density minimums of the EM field, occupying most of its space and projecting well beyond the domain of density maximums, propagate at the speed of light. What we really need is an entirely reworked model of the atom and the substance of electromagnetism.

There is no discussion of the cause of such phase-locking, therefore no support to such speculation.

Instead of saying that electric currents generate an EM field (as if a current of electrons creates the field), we should say that the EM field causes what is observed as an electric current. Then we do not have the dual level of causation you describe, electric current causes EM field which causes ordered particle patterns. That dual level of causation creates undue complexity. Instead, we could say that the EM field causes coordinated particle patterns, some of which can be observed as electric current. — Metaphysician Undercover

McFadden's papers describe phase-locking in depth. With regard to synchronization, the LFP-phase-locking-feedback loop emergence picture seems convincing to me, but a lot more research is necessary to determine how exactly this might work on a macroscopic scale. Electric currents (density maximums) could flow through neurons to perturb an EM field (density minimum) as an LFP with effective instantaneity relative to the currents. EM fields of individual electric currents phase-lock with multiple neurons, perhaps via ion channels, making the LFPs of neural networks tightly integrated, in-phase units. Feedback loops between brain regions as mediated by axon-dendrite connections then cause electrical energy to flow in a more or less orchestrated (but noninstantaneous) way through congregates of neural networks. This supervenient electric field may magnetically coordinate biochemical pathways in thousands of neurons, somewhat like a wind flowing through the leaves of a tree to create a flurry of simultaneous activity, except in this case with a functional role. Still speculative I admit, but CEMI-related research seems to support it so far.

This I believe is another premature conclusion, so it should be looked at as an unsound premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

Initial experiments that put a 15 km distance between photons streams and then measured suggested the speed of entanglement between respective destinations was 3 trillion m/s, so evidence seems to suggest entanglement occurs at least one order of magnitude faster than light, but perhaps this result has received a challenge from some source. I'd like to learn more about the experimental design and whether the result has been replicated.

Electric Coherence Currents and Electromagnetic Fields Within the Brain

It is well-established that neural signaling is modulated by diffusion of ions through channels in a neuron’s membrane, but ion collisions cannot explain some features of signal transmission. Researchers have discovered that each node of Ranvier, where voltage-gated Na+ channels let Na+ into an axon, is flanked by paranodes, where the myelin sheath attaches to the outer membrane, and these are flanked by juxtaparanodes, where voltage-gated K+ channels are located that let K+ flow out of the cell when open. Ion diffusion provides no reason for voltage-gated K+ channels to be strategically placed at the juxtaparanodes. In theory, larger diameter axons involve less axial (lengthwise) resistance due to greater volume and more dilute ion concentrations. This would allow slightly more rapid axial diffusion rates, necessitating that nodes of Ranvier be farther apart so as to keep signal strength the same, but nodes of Ranvier are actually spaced closer together in larger diameter neurons. Computer simulations demonstrate that widening nodes of Ranvier slightly to significantly increase the quantity of voltage-gated Na+ channels does not increase rate of signal transmission with more ion diffusion. And a neuron’s signal can travel meters in milliseconds, far exceeding the rate of diffusion. Where a description based on ion diffusion alone falls short, applying the idea of electrical coherence current succeeds. The coherence model has not at this stage surpassed the status of gedanken experiment, but it ties all we know about the chemistry and anatomy of neurons into a complete picture, so is the most probable candidate to this point and deserving of concerted empirical investigation.

The solution internal to a neuron is made up primarily of water molecules and positive ions. H2O is of course a polar molecule, its hydrogen atoms being the positive poles and the oxygen atom a negative pole, bent at the fulcrum. A nanoscale solvation shell forms around each positive ion, with negative poles facing inward and positive poles outward. Thus, cellular solution contains a complex contour of positive and negative charge. Since positive ions lack an electron, the electromagnetic density of aqueous solution at their locations is reduced. The baseline state is for asymmetries in electron density to perpetually shift positive ions and water molecules around in pursuit of equilibrium, a nanoscale agitation which causes the solution to on average be maximally decoherent as its baseline condition.

When Na+ floods into the axon at a node of Ranvier during an action potential, electron density decreases in that region. This creates a positive terminal that induces an electric current to flow towards the node, but the current begins adjacent to the node and cascades outward into successively distant regions. Because propagation slows due to electron mass inertia when charge is constant, I have named this the “ebb effect”.

The electron density of atoms is enveloped in an electromagnetic field that acts remotely, perturbing at the speed of light as atoms move. When the current of electrical coherence starts to flow due to positive ion influx, initialization of the current is accompanied by an electromagnetic field fluctuation called an LFP (local field potential). LFPs are almost certainly the trigger by which depolarization activates voltage-gated ion channels, probably via a temporary nanoscale magnetism caused by synchrony of electric current flow. The quantity of atoms involved in generating the electric current is sizable, so electromagnetic field perturbations associated with an action potential extend through the outer membrane to multiple cells. The EM fields linked to coherence currents in an axon thus overlap, phase-locked with ion channels or closely related structures in multiple neurons to form an integrated grid within neural networks, enhancing the synchronization of separate depolarizations.

Electric current initialization decelerates through the paranodal region, and upon reaching the juxtaparanode its LFP perturbation triggers voltage-gated K+ channels to open and let this ion rush out of the axon. This rapidly increases disparity in charge between the juxtaparanode and continued influx of Na+ at the node of Ranvier, a spike in voltage which accelerates current initialization enough to propel it through internodal space at a significant fraction of light speed despite resumed slowing. An LFP triggers the next juxtaparanode to depolarize, while the subsequent node of Ranvier has usually not been completely repolarized, renewing a charge differential that accelerates current towards the next node of Ranvier. The LFP then stimulates voltage-gated Na+ channels to let this ion flow into the axon, a chain reaction that continues to the axon terminal where a synapse occurs.

Dendrites also have clustered Na+ channels, so an EPSP (excitatory postsynaptic potential) takes place via the same ebb effect mechanism. Cl- channels are located at the dendrite/soma junctions to halt EPSPs with a Cl- influx that initiates current traveling upstream into a dendrite, from greater, negative electron density to lesser, positive electron density. This current is called an IPSP (inhibitory postsynaptic potential). When Cl- influx and IPSPs cease, with EPSPs cumulatively strong enough to breach the soma via the ebb effect, a threshold is crossed, probably abetted by subsequent resumption of Cl- influx, and this relatively large electron density accelerates rapidly towards the greatest quantity of voltage-gated Na+ channels and Na+ ions in a neuron at the axon hillock. K+ leakage channels are present throughout the outer membrane to sustain positive ion concentrations at a sufficient level for the ebb effect to happen. Sodium-potassium pumps help maintain diffusion gradients across the membrane by a constant ferrying of two K+ ions into the cell accompanied by three Na+ ions out of the cell.

Microscopic platinum sensors have been inserted into individual neurons, revealing a crystalline structure located just beneath the axon’s outer membrane, wrapped around a core support framework of microtubules. This probably assists in holding ion concentrations at levels provisional of the ebb effect. It is likely that larger diameter axons have more volume surrounding this structure, perhaps necessitating that nodes be closer together so as to compensate for some dilution.

The ebb effect has not been verified by experiment, but should be observable within any aqueous solution that contains regions of both charge differential and uniform average charge. Phase-locking of coherence currents and companion LFPs would create emergent flow shapes in the brain’s electric field that magnetically orchestrate atom and molecule synchronization, just as electric currents drive the operation of appliances by exacting organized magnetic effects upon their structure. Actually, the living cell may be more akin to an ecosystem, with its components fluxing in holistic ways partially under their own power as a response to variable EM field stimulation, a cross between mechanism, food chain and mass migration. In any event, electromagnetic brain waves are almost certainly more than an epiphenomenon, flowing through neural tissue to participate in morphing swaths of molecular structure into simultaneity. The more phase-locked neurons are within a macroscopic EM field oscillation or flow, the more integrated, serial in shape, and self-directed their functioning, a synchrony which is likely the root of volition. The coherence flow model seems to put comprehension of the mind’s motive force insofar as it connects to the brain and perhaps the rest of the body within reach, but we still lack the total picture, for this does not in itself necessitate that consciousness look or feel like anything, that it be an awareness as opposed to machinery, more than mere magnetism within a framework of circuitry. How do percepts arise in conjunction with physiology of the brain and body?

Electromagnetic Radiation as a Binding Agent for the Physiological Substance of Perception

Entanglement is a process by which particle states such as spin in electrons and atoms or phase in photons correlate across distances at faster than light speed. It occurs via nonlocal forces that are still poorly understood, which underlie coherence in all its forms, more fundamental than electromagnetism. In relatively diffuse, minimally entropic, or relatively homogeneous material structures such as gases of more or less minimized temperature and simple chemical composition, faster than light entanglement can readily take effect, but very exacting conditions must be generated for the phenomenon to be observed in the lab. Under more common circumstances such as the flow of electric current through a compact structure such as a metal, or through an entropic substance such as aqueous solution, or through heterogeneous matter such as an organic body, the nonlocality of coherence is dissipated by the medium’s baseline decoherent state so that rates slower than the speed of light obtain. Coherence among electromagnetic particles of substantial mass thus tends to be mitigated in various degrees by density, a sort of rate bottleneck effect more pronounced the greater the complexity of density contour.

But electromagnetic radiation is much less massive and does not have nearly the same constraints as electrons or atoms. Congregates of photons can evince statistically significant correlations across distances of at least 15 km. Light has further properties unique for electromagnetic matter, filling nonvacuum spaces populated by atomic structure as a wave, and much more readily superpositioning into additive structures than atoms, put on full display by the wide range of wavelength combinations associated with the visible spectrum. EM radiation is emitted when electrons in atoms or electric currents accelerate or decelerate, and most electromagnetic matter does to some extent, so nature is saturated with light. This light interacts with atoms in complex ways that are still rudimentarily understood, but we know for sure that its wavelengths can blend into atoms when energy is complementary. Many photons scatter as they collide with atoms, a phenomenon known as the Compton effect, but light can also form vibrational complexes of atomic nodes within photonic fields. Radiative/molecular superpositions as synchronously vibrating arrays of electromagnetic matter are an excellent candidate for the substance of percepts, and research into the connection between photonics and awareness is showing promise.

In initial analysis of light’s interaction with biological systems, it was discovered that photosynthetic reaction center complexes achieve 100% energy yield from UV radiation because light waves take multiple routes or flow through numerous chlorophyll molecules as they are translated into chemical energy, fully absorbed by a reaction center hub without fail. Chlorophyll arrays are such that EM radiation blends into them like they are a pool of water and photons a bead of this water, conjoining as a coherent energy field. Early research into the response of neurons to light exposed them to the visible and UV spectrum. It was found that this relatively high energy EM radiation affects neural function, but primarily due to the degradation of ion channels and additional structures, reducing synaptic efficiency. Subsequent examination has proved more auspicious, however.

A long-standing hypothesis about the source of consciousness, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s Orch-Or (orchestrated-objective reduction) theory, proposes that microtubules are compact enough in the brain to produce a sort of integrated pulse responsible for awareness. The model has faced criticisms from scientists who claim the brain is too hot and wet to support large-scale coherence of this kind, but recent experiments have aimed to assess whether light induces a coherent energy field in microtubules where molecular structure alone cannot.

Microtubules contain light-sensitive amino acids such as tryptophan, and absorption properties in response to UV light were recently tested. A solution of microtubule fragments exposed to UV light was proven conducive to remote energy transfer between component tryptophan molecules. Anesthetics inhibited the phenomenon, hinting at a link with consciousness. Combining this data with a model of tryptophan positioning inside intact microtubules suggested that the amino acid can mediate a coherent energy field spanning the microtubule’s entire length, ranging to 50 micrometers. The only source of UV light in a typical cell was hypothesized as perhaps the oxidation reactions of mitochondria, so it is doubtful these wavelengths have much of a functional role in the brain, but it becomes increasingly apparent that light superpositions and entangles among relatively large molecular structures to produce coherent energy fields in a wide range of circumstances. So the question is whether some alternative light source exists within the brain to cause an expansive energy coherence.

An obvious option for endogenous light in the brain is infrared radiation, which saturates physiological structures while constantly absorbed and emitted by rotating and vibrating atomic bonds. The capacity of the infrared spectrum to transmit through aqueous solution quickly diminishes as this radiation’s wavelength increases from 1-10 micrometers, but plenty of circumstantial evidence ties the thermal energy of molecular motion instigated by infrared radiation, better known as temperature, to brain function. Brain tissue temperatures have been measured to exceed those of the blood by 0.5-0.6 degrees Celsius in various mammals. In rats, temperature of the hippocampus increases 1.5-38 degrees Celsius when actively exploring. In male finches, temperature of brain tissue increases during variance in song tempo. Feeding and social interaction produce rapid, unique, and relatively long-lasting brain temperature elevations, occurring faster and with greater magnitude than those of the arterial blood supply. In humans, somatosensory cortex temperature increases during nerve stimulation, and likewise for motor cortex and bodily movement. Many brain regions such as the substantia nigra alter their activity when temperature is varied. Rise in temperature of neuronal pathways is generally associated with sensory stimuli, and similar correlations between temperature and data obtained on resting potential, action potential, nerve conduction velocity and synaptic transmission are well-established. Anesthesia lowers brain temperature, a sign that infrared radiation may be linked to conscious awareness. The total brain varies in temperature by 1-3 degrees Celsius in some animal models. The correlation is obvious, but whether temperature contributes some function or is merely an insignificant byproduct remains uncertain. Indications exist, however, that neurons may be tailored for the purpose of sustaining the brain’s infrared spectrum at robust levels. A rapid spike in temperature of two degrees microCelsius occurs during action potentials, hinting at connection between nerve firing and a boost to the infrared spectrum. So if we hypothesize that neurons are designed to expand the quantity of infrared light while regulating its local behavior, how might this mechanism work?

Assuming the coherence flow model is accurate, as it certainly seems to be, lengthwise signals are transmitted through a neuron as electric currents which attain a relativistically significant percentage of light speed, so the mass/energy of this rapidly moving matter increases. We know from technological applications that matter moving at relativistic speeds emits higher energy (frequency), shorter wavelength EM radiation while it decelerates, and lower energy, longer wavelength radiation while it accelerates, both a byproduct of extra mass. For instance, when a beam of electrons traveling at half the speed of light collides with a metal plate in an x-ray machine, it emits high energy braking radiation in the x-ray portion of the spectrum, and accelerating current in a radio antenna emits low energy radio waves. Essentially, if an accelerating coherence current is almost instantaneously compressed as it alternates, EM waves will be emitted proportional to total breadth, speed, and perhaps lesser overall energy density of the current (in addition to waves at further spectral ranges), and if a decelerating coherence current is likewise compressed, EM waves are emitted in proportion to size, speed and perhaps greater energy density of the current segment that is decelerating. So if current acceleration is sustained in a neuron, the spectrum of EM waves will be prone to lengthen, and the reverse is true for decelerating current.

During an action potential, electric current accelerates between a node of Ranvier and adjacent juxtaparanodes, while gradually decelerating as it traverses internodal space. However, this current flow is momentary, halted by reverse propagation of the ebb effect upstream of each node of Ranvier upon Na+ influx, so is probably not capable of generating a sustained photonic field.

At the synaptic junction, current accelerates from single positive ion concentrations (Na+ and K+) at the last node of Ranvier in the action potential chain to lesser electron density of Ca2+ concentrations near the axon terminal. Current would also accelerate from the first node of Na+ channels in a dendrite to its upstream tip, on the opposite side of a synapse. In order for acceleration to be sustained, Ca2+ would have to cycle into and out of a neuron at rapid rates, continuously drawing energy away from nodes with a replenishing supply of lower electron density ions. Indications are that ions travel through ion channels via quantum mechanisms, so the cycle might be near-instantaneous enough to hold acceleration stable. But at present, more research into neuron anatomy near the synaptic junction is necessary before this hypothesis can be corroborated or refuted.

It seems more feasible at this stage to postulate a model for current acceleration in
the soma. A tapering from more to less positive ion concentration is maintained between the largest quantity of Na+ channels and ions in a neuron at the axon hillock and relatively expansive space of the soma with its lesser rate of Na+ and K+ reuptake. This tapering ranges all the way to cellular space near the dendrite/soma junctions, where Cl- channels and ions maintain a much higher electron density. Cl- influx during an IPSP blocks EPSPs from propagating into the soma, followed by some Cl- reuptake and an accompanying cessation of the IPSP. In the absence of an IPSP, the ebb effect of EPSPs can draw greater electron density around the base of dendrites out of successively more interior regions of the soma. This is likely combined with a renewal of Cl- influx such that electron density increases slightly while simultaneously breaching the positive ion gradient. Once this greater electron density reaches the axon hillock’s sphere of influence, extending well into the soma, it accelerates rapidly towards the axon hillock. Upon reaching the axon hillock, a companion LFP triggers large quantities of Na+ to rush in, sustaining acceleration from the opposite side due to greatly reduced electron density even as the relatively negative charge initiated at the dendrite/soma junction reaches a minimum due to dilution. As Na+ ions again diffuse into the soma, the gradient of positive charge is replenished, and though the overall strength and influence of positive charge lessens in the soma, Cl- concentrations increase and regain a maximum, driving acceleration from the opposite side.
To summarize:

At the dendrite/soma junctions:
1.Cl- influx, concentration and electron density maximum
2.Cl- concentration and electron density attenuation
3.The ebb effect force of dendritic potentials followed by resumption of Cl- influx
4.Electron density from Cl- concentration at a minimum, with continued influx

Instigated by the axon hillock:
1.Na+ concentration attenuation
2.Greater Na+ concentration attenuation
3.Na+ concentration minimum
4.Na+ influx and concentration maximum

Thus, a flux of Cl- concentration maximum to minimum coupled with Na+ concentration minimum to maximum conceivably maintains a constant acceleration of electric current through the soma. As in the case of possible current acceleration around the synaptic junction, this model needs empirical verification.

So if current continuously accelerates at the synaptic junction and within the soma, what would be the properties of emitted EM radiation? These currents have no circuit to stabilize their velocity as in electrical wiring, so if charge is constant they would initiate at the same rate as baseline agitation from decoherence and gradually decelerate due to the ebb effect. EM wavelengths produced probably hover at around 1 micrometer, slightly longer than the boundary between visible and near-infrared portions of the spectrum. If electric current does indeed accelerate at the synapse and through the soma, this would add slightly longer wavelengths to the spectrum. It seems reasonable as a very approximate hypothesis that the spectrum could range from 1-10 micrometers in wavelength. This spectrum is capable of traveling through aqueous solution at distances of 100 millimeters to 10 micrometers, with range shrinking considerably as wavelength increases. The soma is about 12 cubic micrometers and the synaptic space 1 cubic micrometer, with the currents themselves probably equivalent in volume, so it seems plausible that a persistent field of photonic waves can inundate both. Boosted by maximal reflection from white matter, grey matter may be filled with a substantive light spectrum capable of interacting with molecular arrays and biochemical pathways to form an integrated photonic field studded with a wide range of atomic and multiatomic nodes.

An exception to the general link between brain hyperthermia and awareness is the visual cortex, where it has been observed with fMRI that tissue temperature decreases by 0.2 degrees Celsius during activation of the neural processing involved. Some uncertainty exists as to the accuracy of these results, but if valid this suggests molecular structures may exist in some parts of the brain to shift the EM radiation spectrum towards shorter wavelengths such as visible light that are less likely to dissipate as the heat of vibrating and rotating chemical bonds. It is intriguing to consider that centers of vision in the brain, probably correlated with the phenomenality of image perception, might generate a light field roughly comparable to the one upon which vertebrate optical mechanisms are based.

A couple further categories of mechanism in addition to basic current acceleration seem likely for how spectrums of EM radiation may thicken and assume functional form in the nervous system and brain. Visible, near-infrared, mid-infrared radiation and perhaps beyond of course must interact with molecules in such a way that wavelengths are modified into a wide variety of vibrational signatures, with all of this essentially dissipating into the sink of slightly increased temperature during activation as baseline decoherence continually reasserts itself. The electric currents themselves may also rapidly decelerate upon contact with molecular structures to cause braking radiation, shortened EM wavelengths of relatively low intensity. Whether these processes can also occur in non-neuronal cells via ion channel mechanisms is an interesting topic, barely broached. So how then might this basic substrate of structural integration in the brain, nervous system and perhaps the wider body give rise to awareness’s percepts, the substance of perception?

Implications of CEMI and Coherence Field Theory for Modeling Experience

In this model, sizable particles such as biomolecules in the brain are synchronized somewhat remotely via a supervenient EM field, but EM radiation within this material framework is the binding agent which flows around with effective instantaneity to integrate biochemical arrays, cells and tissues at trillions of locations as the vibrational structure of perception. The details of how percepts would form and be orchestrated in this manner are undoubtedly complex and, if justified by the evidence, probably warrant decades of research. But if these theories are accurate, it could provide for some very simple ways to define features of mind in terms of matter.

This model views percepts, to the extent they arise from electromagnetic properties of tissue, as the emergent organization of atomic nodes within photonic fields, regions of coherent energy most fundamentally characterized by vibration. The brain is unique because electric currents likely found in all cells are so strong and compact in this organ that a robust EM field is generated which can coordinate the magnetic particles in large swaths of tissue as an individual unit. The brain is thus much more synchronized than the rest of the body. If the hypothesis proves valid, this mechanistic chassis of electrical energy is saturated by EM radiation of a primarily infrared spectral range which interacts with molecules to produce the structural components of mind, insofar as they reside within the brain, as oscillating patterns of vibration and rotation in constituent matter.

Most of our basic sentience - sound, touch, taste, smell, visceral sensations, in essence feel - would essentially be vibrational textures in matter with their shapes, rates of oscillation and locations determining the quality of experience. Input from specialized sensory apparatuses in eye, ear, olfactory, gustatory and tactile cells superimposes on fundamentally cognitive textures to render our environment a crisp perceptual world.

Image sensation might be a modification of EM wavelengths within the textural field such that light in the visible range is produced, so that optical inspection and image imagination coevolved into complementary forms. We thus visualize much of what our eyesight takes in without optical stimulation. Visual stream of consciousness is then a complex of visible light and specially adapted cellular structures, while the verbal stream would probably be infrared light and still different biomolecules and cells, together a range of emergent textures induced by the brain and perhaps the wider body. All of this sentience and stream of consciousness converges to constitute the foundational substrate of emotion and thought.

Memory would derive from interaction of this coherent energy field with neural architecture, accounting for how recall cannot be easily pinpointed to any particular region of the brain or body, for it is linked to the field/circuitry complex at fundamental, intracellular levels. Synesthesias build neural circuitry into intricately emergent structures so that logical insights are possible, the environment “making sense” via a background of more or less abstract interrelationships rather than just starkly presenting. The self can be defined as a collection of functions that monitor one’s own coherence field of radiative/molecular percepts.

The question of how a coherence field of awareness projects beyond the body can be raised. It must be remembered that coherence is not fundamentally electromagnetic, physiological, or local in the Newtonian sense, and under suitable conditions causality can propagate faster than light. It might be possible for similar mechanisms to those which manifest within the brain and body to conjure beyond physiology, as a hybrid of standing and traveling waves within a medium of infrared light, visible light and perhaps more energy sources, all interspersed by atomic and molecular nodes with which this energy more or less synchronously vibrates. If an experiment can entangle photons at 3 trillion m/s across a distance of 15 km, any material structure which manipulates the underlying coherence responsible for such entanglement should be capable of similar influence, and the brain could be such a material structure. The coherence field concept may eventually explain why we do not perceive the field of awareness as entirely within our own heads or bodies despite the fact that neural and cellular architecture is required to comprise an organic mind.

CEMI theory is a probable model for how matter is synchronized in the brain, and by adding a gedanken experiment based on what we know of neural anatomy and the physics of electrical energy it is possible to describe this synchronization at the subatomic scale. If EM radiation and atoms within coherence fields behave in the way proposed, an entirely realist, mechanistic model of mind could be within reach. If we can open a textbook and simply glance at the inner workings of consciousness as we do with diagrams of a neuron or brain this would be a monumental improvement in our picture of the world with a great unifying effect upon academia and society. It seems well worth the effort to pursue an elaboration of CEMI theory into what holds the potential to become a comprehensive coherence field theory of conscious matter.

The concept that some fundamental physical entities have mental states is a derivative of what line of logic? How do fundamental physical entities place into memory the various changes in state? And the view that fundamental entities have a proto-conscious state is distinguished by what type of marker (a change in the pulse repetition rate), center frequency, a change in bandwidth or - what? I have a hard enough time determining how my Apple Magic Keyboard retains memory or changes that memory. — Rocco Rosano

I'll summarize the main points of my OP as they relate to your comments.

A well-established signature of conscious awareness is oscillation in the brain's electromagnetic field (brain waves). We know these brain waves are produced by phase-locking within neural networks as well as larger scale feedback loops, together synchronizing neural tissues and brain regions into macroscopic functional units that work in tandem.

The most comprehensive account of neural anatomy indicates that electrical "coherence" currents in cellular solution, flowing through electron density contours or roughly "orbitals" of adjacent atoms in similarity to a copper wire, are what is at base being synchronized. These currents are accelerated by periodic increases in charge differential (voltage) due to fluctuations in ion concentration, and probably travel at very roughly 50% the speed of light. Coherence currents decelerate when charge is constant as it is in internodal space, so the flow of ions into and out of the cell at nodes repeatedly boosts the coherence current signal as I described in the OP, allowing it to in principle travel any distance. Fluctuations in ion concentration are the limiting factor in how fast a neuron can transmit its electrical signal, why milliseconds rather than near-instantaneous.

Electric current transmission in cellular solution is accompanied by an electromagnetic field fluctuation called an LFP (local field potential) that propagates at the speed of magnetism, which is also the speed of light. This EM field blip is probably the trigger for ion channels to open or close as a coherence current initiates past a particular location in the neuron. Each coherence current's LFP perturbation extends near-instantaneously to multiple cells, thus forming a synchronous neural grid integrated by EM field overlap. This seems to be the basic physical unit of a brain wave.

My hypothesis is that, due to the mass/energy dynamics of moderately relativistic speeds, steady acceleration of electric currents, especially in the soma (cell body) and around the synapse (perhaps also in nonneuronal cells to some extent), modifies the spectrum of EM radiation emission to somewhat longer infrared wavelengths, perhaps 1-10 micrometers. This broadened infrared spectrum interacts with and binds molecules to produce a host of varying vibration signatures (frequencies), and these are the substance of most percepts: sound, touch, taste, smell, interoception, in all their more or less subjective incarnations (insofar as they arise from the body). Interactions with molecules may shift the EM wavelength spectrum somewhat in certain tissues, perhaps into the visible range, and resultant light fields might be the cause of image perception insofar as it arises from the body. Influence of EM radiation in the brain is effectively instantaneous, as light can circle the planet nine times per second.

I have called this entire complex of coherence currents, EM field integration, EM radiation as produced by accelerating coherence currents, vibration induced by infrared radiation, and visible light fields a "coherence field", and it is almost fundamentally perceptual.

More "nonlocal", nonelectromagnetic coherence also occurs, and this is even less well-understood scientifically. Quantum coherence seems to be the form a coherence field adopts within physiological contexts, but coherence in general exceeds boundaries of the body and fluctuates faster than the speed of light. This can perhaps eventually account for more paranormal aspects of consciousness.

Memory is simply the inducement of a particular type of coherence field in conjunction with neural architecture. As @Gnomon and I were beginning to discuss, the high level of organization is what causes the form of experience to "make sense" as it unfolds in physiological time and space.

Assuming this model will be proven generally accurate, the local properties of a perceptual coherence field at any given point are an untapped area of research.

Perhaps no more complex in principle than your Apple Magic Keyboard.

I have toyed with the notion that the human brain comes equipped with "templates", abstract images, that we apply to percepts in order to "make sense" of them. For example, the male of our species may not be aware of how they came to be aroused, but somehow certain percepts (e.g. curvy shapes) are interpreted as a possible instance of the typical female form. Those templates may not be physically embedded in the brain architecture. But neural processes seem to direct conscious attention to those hypothetical templates, which may be mathematical instead of material. — Gnomon

I completely support this idea, a hybrid of Platonic form, Kantian category of the understanding and Jungian archetype. Reason can be aesthetic, I infer that my female templates should be material/real and not merely mathematical/virtual. Not even curvy shapes arouse but simply the fractionally-formed thought, amazing how humans are preprogrammed in some ways. I like how you put that, the perceiving mind wants to reproduce, duplicate the ideal image. This could be related to what I think is perhaps the most basic function of cognition, to prime an organism for future experiences.

You can comment more on that or whatever else you regard as interesting, but I was thinking we've addressed the physics of consciousness issue as specifically as possible at the current stage of science, so unless anyone else at this site has something to add (which they don't seem particularly inclined to), let's move on to delusions of grandeur, a comprehensive philosophy of cognition! What do you think, @Gnomon, of the following categorical organization of cognitive function?

Universal faculties of basic intelligence:

Perception, the qualitative endowment of sensation (exteroception), qualia, proprioception and affect, a general profile which humanity shares with the majority of species, but of course our own incarnation has its modicum of uniqueness.

Structural protologicality, intuitive notions of particularized form that allow numerous species to more potently harness perceptual states for utility’s means and ends, with our genus achieving a sophisticated level as it grew more technology-oriented.

Linear protologicality grants all kinds of organisms the proficiency to execute reasoning sequences, enriched in humans by ties with evolving vocal communication into an autobiographical, self-defining introspectiveness and bent for analytically inferencing at length.

The human synesthesias that integrate these domains are no doubt complicated, but quite subjected to the self’s intentional thinking, which in turn organizes and directs disparate cognitive processes towards particular goals streamlined by behavioral traditionalizing in consort with environments. The pragmatisms of studious observation and thought as born upon by evolutionary circumstance tend to exert selection pressures on parsing and recombining physiological centers of perception, structural protologicality and linear protologicality towards three gravitational poles of functional synthesis parameterizing the spectrum of intentional thought, altogether the three main types of conception.

Categories of civilized intelligence as modern human conception:

Perception and structural protologicality conjoin in structural conception, the mentality that envisions how phenomena fit together for humanity’s elementary technological purposes.

Perceptual and linear protologicality conjoin in expressive conception, the employment of phenomenal content to convey intentions as a sort of narrative generated or embedded in the world around us. Its human form originated from out of spoken communication’s nonliteral facets, language’s multiple layers of meaning contained in imagery, metaphor, and symbolism of expression generally.

Structural and linear protologicality conjoin in iterative conception, the means by which humans inference extrapolatively and interpolatively, reasoning from particulars towards generality that is not affixed to the particulars themselves as their latticed discreteness makes its appearance in nature or otherwise manifests to the mind, a cognitive process we commonly call ‘abstraction’. This is a kind of thinking that deduces within the realm of infinite possible form, permitting us to manipulate concretions far beyond the constraints of immediate perception, a cognition-centric palpability of pure ideas and their instantiations in hypothesizing.

The most eminent human feats employ structural, expressive and iterative thinking all at once, but usually with more emphasis on one or two of these three types of conception.

Categories of formal reasoning:

Intrastructural reasoning: visual/spatial thinking
Inferential reasoning: logical/symbolic thinking

Categories of formal knowledge:

Substance as matter/energy fields
Experience as immediate awareness
Information as quantifiable data-forms

Categories of applied knowledge:

Compositional material
Evolutionary ecosystem
Psychological mind


And of course the most profound inquiry of all: why do my categories tend to come in groups of three?

I parse "panprotopsychist" as : all + before + mind. But "proto" could also mean "earliest or most primitive form". If so, are you proposing some element of reality that is even more fundamental than Energy & Natural Laws? — Gnomon

What I mean by panprotopsychism is that fundamental matter is not conscious, but percept constituents that compose consciousness are material and form at very basic levels of emergence, the quantum scale of molecular interactions with EM radiation. Biomolecules interact with light to form integrated energy fields complex enough to produce all of the image and feel percepts we experience insofar as they arise from the brain and body.

Infrared radiation is plentiful in the body and this portion of the spectrum might be broadened by accelerating electric currents which fluctuating ion concentrations around membranes modulate and sustain. So the ion channel anatomy of neurons and additional cells suggests that many percepts may be closely related to heat and consequent vibrational properties of molecules. Brain temperature generally increases while involved in the experience of awareness and decreases upon habituation (relative unconsciousness) in relation to a stimulus, so more macrolevel data seems to support this hypothesis as well.

The visual cortex is an exception, for it actually reduces in temperature during activation and corresponding focused awareness, implying that the infrared field could be somewhat shifted into an EM wavelength range less prone to cause vibrations in molecules, possibly transformed by interactions with neural structure into constituting a complex field of visible light. At least some color in the mind might be a visible light field of the brain, for the visible spectrum is much more prone to transmit through the aqueous solution of cells than infrared, so its capacity to integrate is much larger.

Anyway, that's not proven at this point, but plausible.

Although the Information in your mind is abstract, in the sense of leaving behind the material flesh, it is metaphorically concrete, in that your mental images are skeletal representations of physical objects, as perceived by the physical senses. The abstract image in your mind is like the logical bones of a physical object. They can only be "seen" by Reason, not by the eyes. — Gnomon

This is an introspective insight that fits well with my model. The image "seen" by reason could be at least partly a coherent and vibrational light/molecular field that the brain participates in generating, and the logicality or "abstract" nature of the image might be a product of neural architecture coordinated with this energy field, so that the experience "makes sense".

So, the "important aspect" of Information that you are not grasping is the Meta-Physical element. I use the term "metaphysical" in the Aristotelian sense of "non-physical" : meaning "mental", "imaginary", "psychological", "philosophical". These aspects of our world are not subject to cyclotron splitting by physicists, or laboratory dissection by biologists. They must be experienced as conscious feelings or impressions. — Gnomon

Perhaps my model of light/molecular percepts can explain these metaphysical properties in terms of matter, so that mind itself will have a triune nature, with each facet equally valid and comprehensive: the matter/energy field it is composed of, the way it is directly experienced, and its quantifiable data-form. Substance, experience and information.

Alright, if you want to blow off experts who are trying to clarify and bs instead that's not gonna be my problem. Proceed with your stuff.

As far as I could see, you do not provide any specific scientific references for the information you provided in the posts you linked. — T Clark

I omitted the 25 source reference list as it was kind of much for a message board.

I am highly skeptical of your hypotheses and I don't see how they apply to the subject of this discussion. Also, as I expressed strongly in the OP, this is not a discussion about consciousness. — T Clark

I don't think I'm beyond the scope of this thread, participants raised a specific issue and I addressed it directly.

Please don't continue discussion of your theories here. — T Clark

I'm just talkin about what you guys talk about. We all gotta theorize, or what are we gonna talk about? I'm as interested in reading what you have to say as contributing myself, but it's all very vague at this point, we need facts and I provided some.

The OPs of my The Physics of Consciousness thread which I might as well link to again are part of the rough draft for a scientific paper I'm publishing in September. It's a specific scientific source, and you get a sneak preview! That thread contains all the material about infrared radiation and molecular vibration.

Is there a relationship between rates of change of physiological processes and the mind/self? — Daniel

Greater rates of oscillation in the brain's electric field generally correlate with higher arousal: delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma waves, from least to most rapid.

Slight increase in thermal energy (temperature) of brain tissue correlates with most kinds of awareness, involving changes to both wavelength of light radiation within the EM field and vibrational properties of molecules. I've hypothesized that molecular vibrations are induced by and bound into emergent, multiscaled structures by infrared light fluctuations resulting from electrical currents produced by ion concentration differentials within the aqueous solution of neurons, and these arrays are at least a major component of the percept itself. So if you hear a symphony in your mind, it might be in part molecular vibrations modulated within an infrared field. This could be the case for most sensory experiences, differing based on which molecules and cells are involved. Interestingly, habituation reduces temperature, suggesting that relatively unconscious neglect of a stimulus or conversely less focused awareness of a percept are associated with alterations to the infrared spectrum. In visual cortex, temperature so far appears to reduce when focused awareness on a stimulus is happening, so perhaps the infrared field is modulated to a different, less vibration-inducing wavelength such as visible light in this case. Rate of light oscillation as generated by neuron firing, interacting with molecules, could be tied to sensation, perception, imagination, the substance of emotion and thought. This remains to be conclusively proven of course.

So that is one certain and one speculative instance where rate variations appear to correlate with mind.

So - contra Pinker - language may not create "thought", but it does transform it quite radically. It allows the animal mind to become structured by sociocultural habit. Humans are "self consciously aware" as social programming exists to make us include a model of the self as part of the world we are functionally engaged with. A higher level viewpoint is created where we can see ourselves as social actors. Animals just act, their selfhood being an implicit, rather than explicit, aspect of their world model. — apokrisis

Neanderthals possessed considerable technology in stone, wood, and bone; knowledge of the natural world necessary for finding and killing food; preparing clothing; and possibly an aesthetic sense. Injuries to bones that crippled individuals healed and the individual lived--with help--for years afterward, If they didn't have a spoken language like ours, how did they transmit information? Could we transmit information without a spoken language? Could we innovate (anything) without language? — Bitter Crank

A couple years ago I gave human cognition's evolution a lot of thought and published a paper on the topic in an anthropology journal, so I have some decent insight into this area. Most of these points can be challenged, but the general outline seems plausible to me.

I don't think language initially arose to fulfill explicit social purposes, as a technology of culture, for various reasons. This is not how mutations happen, to provide a holistic benefit, a function. Reliance on language makes it harder to deceive and less efficient to engage in basic perception: hunting, rudimentary toolmaking etc. either are mostly silent or must be silent. But language is key to the development of a self: personality, aesthetic experiencing of the world, connection with the spiritual dimension of existence, self-expression, essentially life's meaning are all enhanced by language.

I suspect some kind of auditory stream of consciousness as a primitive "mentalese" was present in the vertebrate mind prior to extinction of the dinosaurs, but reasoning was not developed enough in most lineages to make this more than a novelty that may have slightly improved memory and provided some scaffolding for self-aware thought. This was enough to keep the trait near universal despite minimal selection pressure from the environment. Auditory stream of consciousness was a luxury that allowed organisms to better identify as a self, more richly perceiving and possessing the thought process as a will.

At first, the only selection pressure for humanlike language was libido - internal to the organism - and some relatively compulsive self-expressions of libido. This is manifest by how most vertebrates in the wild vocalize to discharge or express states of arousal rather than to analyze in detail. Thinking in sounds has universal benefit for evolutionary development of the mind, though to a very limited degree, but vocalizing those sounds immediately tends to vestigialize and gravitate towards baseline functionality in most lineages whenever a mutation conferring more advanced ability occurs, with some rare, modest exceptions which usually coincide with idleness and opportunity for recreational thinking.

From various causes, hominid reasoning ability, complexity of intention, and opportunity for recreational creativity advanced to the point where these species began deliberately resolving auditory stream of consciousness into a logiclike form. This is when thought and social behavior began to select for aesthetic superiority, so that by the time hominins such as the Neanderthals had evolved, joking, basic narrative, and perhaps singing had developed as a recreational luxury. Whenever a mutation produced superior ability, strong social selection pressure caused linguistic memes to spread through hominin communities, resulting in a steady ascent of facility with vocal expression.

Far moreso than with dinosaur remains, most of the evidence for hominin lifestyle was geologically shallow and effaced by dense human populations, but we do know that a huge decline in biodiversity paralleled hominin assent, probably due to nonsustainable hunting and overpopulation. Early Homo sapiens were just one lineage among many hominins, most likely with comparable linguistic abilities to begin with. What I strongly suspect, but which of course hasn't been conclusively proven, is that a string of rather dramatic mutations took place in prehistoric humans that induced synesthesia between auditory, visual and especially logical stream of consciousness, what @Gnomon refers to when he talks of nonphysical ideas. This greatly increased our capacity to conceive the world technologically and think symbolically, one of multiple factors allowing human culture to master almost every ecological niche on Earth, regardless of which species were already present, and embark upon civilization. This analytical kind of thinking, first selected mostly as a superfluity by personal relationships, was then coopted for engineering, writing, economy, institutions, etc.

I doubt it's language or any specific set of selective conditions so much as underlying synesthesias that make human thought different while uncommonly effective for civilizing, and a broad spectrum exists in the degree and type of synesthesia due to ongoing development in relatively flexible societies, though with a fairly universal basic template.

The idea that thought is the same thing as language is an example of what can be called a conventional absurdity: a statement that goes against all common sense but that everyone believes because they dimly recall having heard it somewhere and because it is so pregnant with implications...etc. — T Clark

The claim that thought in general does not require verbalization seems undoubtedly accurate to me, and I essentially agree with all you've written in the post. But even though language doesn't necessarily determine what an organism thinks, the verbal stream can be involuntary enough that some thoughts can't be had without it, especially if language was involved in acquiring the informational content of that thought to begin with.

Thoughts might tend to resemble the cognitive form in which their content was assimilated to memory, but that is merely intuition and of course needs to be verified by studies. Anyways, you can comment on that if you want or we can proceed to more research-based insights.

So you want experimentally verified mechanisms of nervous system function? Plenty of material online to boost your comprehension. I'll start, the amygdala regulates response to novel stimuli. Yay! lol

You guys are hopeless lol Matter resides on a spectrum from relatively coherent to decoherent states, of which standard issue superposition, entanglement, chemical bonding and classical dynamics are all instances, listed from most to least coherent. Electric currents are relatively coherent electromagnetic states. Electric currents are modulated in neurons by fluctuations in ion concentration. Signal transmission within neurons is a phenomenon of coherence current operative upon the medium of electrons or more accurately quantum orbital energy density contours, a sort of perturbation in what can be described as an electromagnetic sea. This model explains all we have discovered about neuron anatomy. But you're certainly welcome to disagree based on the facts, and I'll probably be able to convince you of the contrary.

That's so compact as to almost be incomprehensible, so if you want the details, read the OP posts of my The Physics of Consciousness thread. Then we'll have some actual biochemistry and cellular anatomy to talk about instead of the usual epithets.

As I've noted many times, Enrique's posts on scientific subjects are pseudo-science - incomprehensible mashups of buzzwords and jargon that don't really mean anything. — T Clark

If you don't bother to think about a model of the chemistry and anatomy of neuroscience until you comprehend it, what YOU'RE doing is pseudoscience. I talk about the properties of ion channels, electric currents in aqueous solution, EM fields and radiation in a way that is based on scientific papers. If you need a diagram that hasn't been drawn yet I can understand, the concepts are very visual. I gather you want to think about mind at a higher level of emergence than biochemistry and cellular anatomy. Sometimes it makes sense to deconstruct scientific models into more manageable fragments of the total picture, and I can try to accomplish that if it becomes relevant to your discussion.

Anyways, enough of defending myself from baseless attacks lol I'll try to make a pertinent contribution: can you describe in more detail what exactly Pinker means by "mentalese"? This seems key to his concept of the thought/language interface.

it definitely involves a physical process, but it also seems to require a mental action, such as Intention (goal-setting ; aiming ; direction ; purpose). — Gnomon

If as a thought experiment I view intention as core or fundamental from my panprotopsychist perspective, what does that entail? Subatomic particles, especially photons and electrons, would be like bits of information, fragments of libido. These are organized by the emergent structure of matter into kilobytes of quantum machinery that probably start to play a role in awareness at the level of biomolecular interactions with light. Light/biomolecular arrays coordinate to form percepts, megabytes in the field of awareness insofar as it arises from the body and brain, which are synchronized magnetically via phase-locking with an electric field in feedback loops. This quantum/electrical coherence field characteristic of physiological structure is then differentiated into gigabyte regions and terabyte systems with complementary functions that integrate to produce a conceptualizing mind.

So it is possible to define mind as bits of information in a computerlike structure. But as I've described, more than just quantum/electrical properties are involved in the dynamics of awareness, for a nonelectromagnetic nonlocality participates, which we do not yet effectively model and which appears not to obey the principles of even quantum mechanics. Experiments that determine the principles of this nonelectromagnetic realm will probably subvert current physics, causing my hypothetical computation-based model to become obsolete. In order for the information paradigm to work, we will have to redefine what a bit is on multiple occasions. Maybe I'm not grasping an important aspect of the paradigm at this point, but information theory almost seems to me like materialism reified, with empirical content abstracted away from the episteme's foundation - experimental results - such that new developments will seem extremely unintuitive upon further discovery. For information theory to work as a lasting epistemic paradigm, we need to transition between models of what computation fundamentally is.

This is not prohibitive to information theory, but I think the paradigm needs a conceptual mechanism filling the primordial and somewhat ineffectual role literary deconstruction attempted to achieve, an explicit critical method built in to assure that revision is possible so our image of the cosmos does not rigidify into a framework that can only be rationally modified (as opposed to radically dismantled) by a computer scientist. If a revisionary method is not included in the philosophy of information theory, it will go the way of psychologism, behaviorism etc., mostly rejected by a new generation that is set adrift philosophically. At some point the pace of intellectual advancement is going to become so rapid and seismic that we can't have a philosophical revolution every generation. Information theory or whatever philosophical movement comes to prominence needs a critical, revisionary facet to parallel and mitigate the tendency to reify. I think science is beginning to realize this with the increasing emphasis on historicity in its literature for a mainstream audience. Maybe the new movement can be a permanent one, as a sort of deconstructive empiricism that incorporates information theory as one of its dimensions.

I can't think of any argument to pose against what you wrote. Unless the human mind evolves away from the need to translate experience into informational forms of the Shannon kind, computational models will be crucial for understanding nature.

One kind of undivided system is a Quantum Field of Superposition. Only when you pop the bubble with a measurement, does a detached particle appear, as-if from nowhere.

Are quantum fields real or merely a mathematical tool used to describe elementary particles? — Gnomon

As for the way measurement collapses superpositions into a particulate state, I think this must involve some kind of physical process roughly analogous to how a water droplet adheres to the tip of a pipette when it is dipped into a beaker and essentially separates from the solution. The universe is like the total water content of the beaker, indiscernibly disturbed, but locally a mathematically significant event has happened. I'm not sure that QFT really models the physical process at this point, and because intermediate steps are not observed, physicist's "collapse of the the wave function" math is more wild idealization than reality. But theorists are working to develop models of localization, and perhaps an experiment will soon be designed to adjudicate between various QFT collapse models.

I wish I understood the math in more depth, but until I do I'm sticking to the "quantification as useful fiction" doctrine! This is the view that most physicists seem to promote. We have not yet bridged the gap between the Copenhagen interpretation and reality. But I think neuronal structure is solid proof of the coherence/decoherence spectrum and how intrinsic charge disequilibrations within a coherence field imbue electromagnetic matter with an essentially dynamic, perpetual motion mechanism.

"Rhizome of reality" seems like apt imagery. How can humans explain all of this with pictures a grade schooler can comprehend and yet the world is such a s***show?

Perhaps an even bolder proposal is the new information-based paradigm by physicist/complexity-theorist James Glattfelder — Gnomon

Coherence field theory isn't holistic or reductionistic so much as staunchly realist. I think it should be possible to integrate with information theory as an emergent level of conceptualization, but at this stage that would deviate from an essential facet of my realist approach, which is to be firmly rooted in the "atomic facts" of material processes. CFT's primary support so far comes simply from bare empirical facts of neural anatomy that can only be comprehensively explained by coherence operative at the quantum scale, with some preliminary reasoning about the way quantum theory is realist, specifically the concept of density contours within an EM field. Organisms are physical machines consisting in a rare blend of classical, quantum and so-called "nonlocal" coherence phenomena that makes them extraordinarily functional. The internal differentiation of coherence into such a richness of form is responsible for life's distinctiveness compared to matter as such. Maybe when the empirical facets are fully grasped and proven in a physiological context, I can read some much different stuff and think about how to make it work with information theory. I'm looking forward to scientific experiments that will prove or disprove my hypotheses, that's the next step.

So, the Brain/Mind Paradox is a problem only because they are intimately connected at the root, while displaying different qualities at the crown. — Gnomon

The way I look at it, substance of perception, even to the extent that we might regard it as subjective, arises from material building blocks such as atoms, EM radiation and further palpabilities, the outcome of interactions finely grained as the subatomic scale. So it is nearly the essence of physical matter to be a protoperceptual substrate or "coherence field". Philosophically this is panprotopsychism. The kinds of minds characteristic of organic life as we know it on Earth are emergent orchestrations of these material building blocks, an extremely functional (perceptive) coherence field. But physical/perceptual matter is diverse, vastly transcending biochemical form and even electromagnetism. Coherence fields can become conscious in a huge host of ways, many of which are mostly invisible to current scientific instruments. So it's possible to have cosmic, terrestrial, simple, complex, spiritual etc. consciousness, all as different forms of coherence field. Consciousness is almost common as substance itself, and coherence field theory is as much an account of perception as mechanism.

I can't think of a reason why information theory wouldn't be compatible with this besides the caveat that an abstract concept of complexity doesn't tell you very much about nature without reference to the idiosyncrasies of empirical observation.

a reductive microscopic view will not yield the secret to Sentient Matter. Hence, Consciousness must be studied in vivo, not in vitro. Neuroscientists have "profoundly reduced" Consciousness to physical neural processes (physiology, not psychology), but have not yet reached the foundation of a knowing Mind. — Gnomon

Conceptually, CFT is both holistic and reductionistic. Reducing brains to subatomic constituents allows us to comprehend how the interaction between body and environment transcends physiological structure with its classical and thermodynamic constraints, dissolving the boundary between physics and biology in a more inclusive, comprehensive view. Reducing matter to basic electromagnetic properties enables us to contextualize electromagnetism such that we will eventually be able to distiguish light and atoms from related forms of energy with more instantaneous momentums.

I think the heterogeneity of organic structure acts as a sort of rate bottleneck for coherence. The nonelectromagnetic, relatively "nonlocal" flow which permeates the environment is more or less agitated and broken up by momentum differentiations in the body. This localizes organic motion to quantum scales, causing physiological matter to involve more "decoherence" - a phenomenon comparable to pilot wave interferences - than holistic flow. But internal structure of the atmosphere for instance is relatively simple and homogeneous by comparison, so coherence currents can travel at entanglement rates that span macroscopic distances rather than being confined to the quantum scale.

In my opinion, standard atomic theory is an illusion because it defines everything in terms of nuclear and electromagnetic forces, as if all matter revolves around particles with properties determined in relationship to a form of momentum which has localizing effects analogous to organic structure. It is perhaps more accurate to consider light and atoms as part of a larger energy field that is fundamentally nonelectromagnetic, through which coherent energy can in many cases flow without being restricted to electromagnetism's speed limits and characteristic shieldings of force. Phenomena of consciousness seem to necessitate that this is the case, but macroscopic coherence among electromagnetically homogeneous systems has not been effectively modeled to this point.

So to model consciousness we will need an entirely new model of matter, but it's still a physical process, only its composition is significantly nonelectromagnetic. We have to scientifically observe matter in a different way, conceptually "reducing" it to a more comprehensive form with greater explanatory power. Understanding the system in a more unified sense by synthesizing or "reducing" its properties to the form of an individual model. A mechanistic account effective enough to make mind objectively comprehensible in vivo.

Can we claim to understand something that cannot be reduced? This is really a comment about the interplay of science and epistemology. But if consciousness cannot be reduced then it cannot be explained (in the scientific sense) and so perhaps we should consider this. — Sherlock Holmes

I think it's apparent that consciousness can be profoundly reduced to physical processes, but what these processes are at base, presuming a foundation even exists, is not known. I think a comprehensive physical system obviously obtains, but what this consists in is also not known. These are opposite poles of the uncertainty spectrum, and human perspectives are currently constrained somewhere in the middle, but this uncertainty is not incapable of being resolved simply on principle. The discourse between philosophical speculating, theoretical modeling and empirical verification must continue to work on the problem and perhaps someday we will grasp our boundaries.

While the act of reduction is intrinsic to human thought regardless of nature's structure, being no more than simplification for the purpose of integrating concepts, this is not the same as replacement. Even if we arrive at a model of the brain that explains its workings entirely in terms of electrons, EM fields, EM radiation etc., enabling a synthesis of physics with neuroscience, this won't make it any less necessary for many to gossip about everyone else's business lol Though I think reduction can on occasion run into issues when reification happens.

But if you list the particular ingredients of the red pill, at least you can know that you are getting some nutrients, and not just a sugar pill. — Gnomon

I want the spice pill a la Dune, and maybe coherence field theory can deliver.

Genes that made the entire 400-700 nm spectrum visible evolved in primates about 30 million years ago. As I described in the OP, this portion of the spectrum is maximally transparent to water, enabling an efficient form of distance vision.

According to coherence field theory, very low intensities of visible light might be generated at the soma/axon and soma/dendrite junctions (perhaps elsewhere?) by decelerating electric currents in aqueous solution and certain kinds of infrared/molecular interactions, possibly inducing integrated and more or less sustained visible light fields.

Could color vision and this internal visible light have coevolved via large-scale mechanisms of image recall so that visualization capacity in connection with tangible objects became much greater, more vivid, refined and accurate in our lineage than most vertebrates, selecting for spatial imagination to increase along with expanding facility in logical thinking? Perhaps color vision is partly the essence which made evolution of technologically able thinking possible for vertebrate brains, by way of optimizing object-imagination's fidelity.

I recently learned that a significant percentage of those who die in hospitals have a huge burst of brainwave activity subsequent to being pronounced dead, which then gradually subsides, unless of course they come back from the brink and commonly report a near death experience. Libido's last ditch effort, spiritual motivation from those who do revive, soul leaving the body? Who knows?