Physics of Consciousness Re-Engineering the Cosmos

Physics of Consciousness

Re-Engineering the Cosmos

Infant Universe and

Basic Building Blocks

Visible Universe and Dark Matter

Decaying Universe

Vishy Karri, PhD

Contents

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

Search for Consciousness

Ubiquitous Phenomenon

THE BIG BANG BUNGLE

Re-Engineering the Cosmos

Conscious Space: Dark matter

REFERENCES

Copyright © 2020 by Dr Vishy Karri

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Karri started his academic career as Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne in 1991, having completed a doctorate from the same university. He joined University of Tasmania in 1993 and grew his career holding various senior roles and honorary positions. Dr Karri worked in the fields of multi-disciplinary applied neural networks (IT) and renewable technologies in the last 25 years. His work involved trans-disciplinary engineering resulting in over 200 peer reviewed papers and graduated 36 research higher degrees (PhD and MEngSci) as principal supervisor and 50 research honours students in his career.

Dr Karri was visiting professor for universities in Japan, Germany, USA and India over the years, conferred guest professorship at the Shandong University, Jinan, China in 2005 and Villum foundation fellow at Aalborg University, Denmark in 2016. Dr Karri is also university professorial fellow at the Charles Darwin University in Australia.

Some of his accolades include, winner of Australian Award for University Teaching in physical sciences and related studies in 2001; winner of two prestigious Engineering Excellence awards organized by the Engineers Australia of Tasmania in 2003 and 2005; Finalist, National Achiever, organized by the National Industry Awards in 2004,2005; Conferred Doctorate of Letters (h.c) by the Cape Breton University in Australia in 2013; Awarded Australian most innovative engineer, organized by the Engineers Australia in utilities in 2017;

Dr Karri has several patents to his name, based on which an Australian company Expert365 Pty Ltd., was established in 2015. It is an IoT company that helps to build and install drinking water purification and on-line water quality monitoring for needy rural areas. The technology established currently is helping 300,000 people with fresh water, per day. Dr Karri continues to push this humanitarian work around the world. This book is result of Dr Karri’s personal memoirs of answers to big questions. These are results of discussions mainly with his father, Laxman, along with several other teachers and mentors over the last three decades.

All income from sale of his books will be used for provision of potable drinking water for rural areas of the developing countries.

www.vishykarri.world

PREFACE

There have been numerous debates on the nature of consciousness and its role in natural causality. There are speculations that our quest for understanding the universe, in its entirety, can never complete without understanding the role of consciousness in the natural order. If a theory is proposed to accommodate consciousness and its evolution along with other energies, it has to be entirely different from the current big bang model of cosmic evolution. The big bang theory proposes an abrupt start to the universe and does not address an ingredient as important as consciousness. Any credible theory should address the critical questions as below:

What is the origin, constitution and role of consciousness in the physical world?

From where do the energies acquire their intrinsic qualities such as flow (electricity), resistance (magnetism), capacity to hold (gravity) and capacity to bind (weak and strong nuclear forces)?

Can the cosmic evolution be engineered analogously to the biological evolution; adhering to cycle of birth, transformation and death?

If consciousness can be argued to be a ‘ubiquitous phenomenon’, from where does it inherit that ability in natural order?

How did the universe emerge; What was its modest infant start?

How did the basic building blocks that manufacture the energies and subsequent particles evolve in a systematic manner?

How did the ‘Space’, that accommodated the subsequent production of particles, form in the evolutionary process and the rationale behind its highly flexible capability to accommodate all known energies of the universe?

How can the process of ‘The Grand Unification of Energies,’ in the presence of consciousness as physical propensity, be achieved?

What is the constitution of dark matter and dark energy?

How do the laws of thermodynamics influence the evolution of the universe?

What is the rationale behind the ‘red shift’ of distant galaxies? Why are they hurtling away and where are they going?

What is the role of ‘heat energy’ in the universe and how does it play a role in eventual, and inevitable, heat death of the Universe?

The theory proposed in this book addresses these questions in a logical and systematic manner. The re-engineering of the cosmos will detail sequential production processes involved in cosmic evolution addressing the above big questions.

On a personal note, I decided to release my memoirs of answers to big questions, now in a book form, having been constantly fine-tuned, on a weekly basis, over the last few years. This work is my own research, in discussions with my friend and father, Mr Laxman, along with other teachers and mentors spanning over three decades. This book is written to satisfy my own curiosity of the cosmic evolution and the role of consciousness in natural order.

I also hope to raise money for provision of fresh drinking water in what appears to be increasingly challenging times for rural areas of the third world countries. All income from sale of my books will be used for provision of potable drinking water for rural areas.

Vishy Karri

Author

CHAPTER 1

Search for Consciousness

Consciousness is perhaps the least understood, yet most conspicuous phenomenon in nature. There have been significant attempts throughout history to understand the effects and nature of consciousness--attempts that have encompassed various disciplines. Several attempts have been made under different branches of natural science, philosophy, cognitive sciences, and psychological investigations to understand consciousness. Most of them have concentrated on studying the effects of consciousness; based on these effects, there have been numerous speculations on the nature of this supposedly capacious phenomenon. The complexity involved ranges from the study of consciousness from a philosopher’s point of view to the cognitive and neural scientists’ interpretation. The well-known mind-body problem has generated more diverse questions than possible answers in its journey towards understanding consciousness.

The term pan-psychism is composed of the Greek words pan meaning all and psyche meaning soul. This philosophical doctrine explained that a plurality of separate and distinct psyche beings or minds constitute reality. It suggests that minds are equivalent to psyche beings, since either of them constitutes reality. Leibniz, a metaphysicist of 17th century, stated that the world is composed of atoms and energy that are psychic. As atoms are responsible for the formation of all matter, then all matter, according to Leibniz, should also be psychic. This assumption that all matter is psychic is purely based on speculation without any substantiation. In other words, atoms and energy as envisaged under the panpsychic theory emerged out of a process and phenomena that did not cohere with the then accepted physical or natural laws. In addition, that which could not be explained was wrongly attributed to God. This indicates that consciousness by and large in the ancient and medieval philosophical thought remained as a phenomenon that seems to remain outside the physical domain of the universe. Leibniz’s theory interpreted consciousness as some sort of unsubstantiated psychic concept. Just like any theory proposed on illogical grounds, panpsychism has also been shelved without much thought for generations.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1) defines panpsychism as: A doctrine that mind (awareness) is a fundamental feature of the world that exists through the universe. This definition highlights that against the backdrop of our immense scientific knowledge of the physical world, and the corresponding widespread desire to explain everything ultimately in physical terms, panpsychism seems implausible. While the nature of mind or consciousness was believed to be distinct from physical nature, physicalism, as it is termed in philosophy, is a form of materialism that attempts to explain reality, including perceptual and intellectual processes, in terms of its physical nature. Principled separation of mind and matter avoided integration of the mind (or minding process) with the fundamental causality and its place in the physical world. Panpsychists are those who believe that the mind is a fundamental feature of the world, which exists throughout the universe. They are of the opinion that the mental (minding process or stimulation) is a ubiquitous phenomenon.

By contrast, Emergentists, as they are called in philosophy, are those who believe that the most fundamental physical entities are completely devoid of any mental attributes. There is not one satisfactory theory that comprehensively explains the emergence of consciousness from physical nature and how it is intrinsically entwined with all the other existing energies in the universe. In spite of these conflicting views, we are aware of consciousness far more surely than other complex phenomena in the world, yet we can explain the allied phenomenon better than we explain consciousness. The object of the neurosurgeon’s daily endeavor, the human brain, is less well understood in its organization than any other organ only because of consciousness. Although there is a better understanding of human behavior and processes that are attributed to it, we do not understand how it arises, its constitution, or why it exists in the first place.

If consciousness is a constituent, which plays an important role in the universe, as argued by several scholars, it is reasonable to assume and explain its relationship with other energies in the cosmic evolutionary chain of activity. Some scientists have attempted the Theory of Everything, an ambitious, grand unification explanation that comprehensively attempts to iterate everything about the world. As Penrose rightly questions, (Nature, 433 257-259, 2005), Must a theory of everything include consciousness? He suggests that the theory of everything should at least contain an explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness. He argues that this phenomenon is fundamental, and it cannot be an accidental concomitant of the complexity of brain action. Consciousness must be of such sophistication that the brain is enabled to investigate the fundamental workings of the universe that are more commonplace physical systems. On this premise, Penrose rightly concludes that we are farther from a proper understanding of the laws of nature than most physicists believe. He further argues, Irrespective of the consciousness issue, in my opinion, we are nowhere close to an accurate, purely physical theory of everything. I find it remarkable how many physicists will express the view that, despite some missing details and unifying concepts, we know virtually all we need to know to describe the fully detailed physical behavior of systems – at least in principle. Yet, there is at least one glaring omission in present physical theory. This is how small-scale quantum processes can add up, for large and complicated systems, to the almost classical behavior of macroscopic bodies, Indeed, it is not just an omission but an actual fundamental inconsistency.

There are several investigations, evident in the available literature that attempt to link consciousness to life, introspection, qualia, intentionality and space. There are speculations that the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe relies on our understanding of consciousness. While the proposed theories are independently plausible, they raise a question as to why one unified theory cannot explain these independent phenomena. If consciousness is a phenomenon, as commonly understood, why should philosophers, neural, and cognitive scientists conceive it differently? These are only a few of many questions about consciousness that highlight its complexity.

The term consciousness has a notional inference that conveys a state where an individual is aware or alert. For example, a conscious worker is one who is alert and aware of his performance. Similarly a person in an unconscious state is not aware of his surroundings. When the subject of consciousness is tabled for scientific understanding, to comprehend as to what its origin and constitution are, it is understood as a propensity related to mind. In short, the complications have further exasperated when consciousness has been interpreted as soul, mind and a form of possession. The arrogance of certain physicists to build a grand unification theory or Theory of Everything, without considering consciousness, stands out like a sore thumb. The physics of consciousness must have a place alongside evolution and other energies. This rationale establishes the relationship of consciousness to other constituents in the universe merely because everything is related to everything else in the universe, according to the Theory of Relativity.

In the field of psychology, the complexity of consciousness has been discussed over the past few decades in an attempt to explain introspection and behavior. There are plenty of speculations in psychological research that consciousness arises from physical system, such as the brain, and based on the experimentation of several degrees of consciousness. In modern terms, How exactly do neuro-biological processes in the brain cause consciousness? Can consciousness exist independent of neural systems? This cognitive approach has gained popularity in recent years. Behaviorists avoided any attempts to explain consciousness in the first half of this century; while cognitive psychologists debated the process-centered approach rather than how consciousness systematically emerges. Ironically, all psychological findings and related research involve conscious experience taken for granted without probing into the origin, constitution and growth" of consciousness.

The first obstacle in dealing with consciousness as a serious scientific issue comes in trying to make sense of the conflicting ideas between scientists and philosophers. There is no doubt that both scientists and philosophers are working to understand this complex problem/phenomenon. Ironically what was originally a