The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave

[ec1968]

Speculation Alert - measures high on the "out on a limb meter"

I would speculate that there are rules in the realm of the mind like there are rules in the realm of matter. The mechanistic model of matter works well in the macroscopic world, but the model breaks when things start moving too fast or become too small or too big. That brings us to relativity and quantum mechanics. "Newtonian" reality can be extrapolated from QM but not vice versa. Newtonian reality is deterministic, governed by differential equations. Having knowledge of present state and initial conditions, the equations can theoretically be solved. There are places where serious non-linearity or chaotic dynamics creep in - like the famous 3-body problem and a host of other examples. Also, from a practical standpoint, the determinism holds for aggregates and ensembles rather than individual elements. A cheesy example - when we heat a pot of water, we can predict how much heat and how long it would take to turn the entire mass of water to vapor. If we heat it for less time, there will be water left in the pot. We can predict how much water will be left. However, if we go down to level of individual water molecules, what would determine whether an individual water molecule would be turned to vapor within that time or stay as water? The fate of individual water molecules is difficult (if not impossible) to predict with absolute certainty.

We know much less about the rules in the realm of the mind. Jung pioneered the field and brought archetypes back into public awareness. He also came up with the principle of complementarity - not unlike what QM talks about. Similarly, Jung's synchronicity concept - which he called "acausal orderedness" has an interesting parallel in non-local quantum entanglements.

When we say "reality", we implicitly assume space-time-mass structure and study changes there. Another cheesy example - this time from math - take real numbers. We can try mapping reality with real numbers. Yet, mathematicians would tell us, real numbers are not enough. The field of real numbers is "not closed" since you can do operations with real numbers which have no solution within the field of real numbers. Enter complex numbers - where an "imaginary" component is added to the real number field. This complex number field is "closed" - adding the imaginary component means you can do any (algebraic) operation with complex numbers and the result will still remain within the field of complex numbers.

The basic wave function of QM is described with complex numbers. The "reality", as in measurable physical parameters, obtained from "collapsing the wave function", afaik ultimately involves computing what is considered the "real" part of the complex wave function - using conjugation. ( link - hyperphysics.edu ). Conjugation is a way of combining (multiplying) the complex number with its mirror image wrt to the imaginary axis such that the result does not contain an imaginary part anymore but contains only the real - "measurable" or "observable" part. Thus we get "reality" from physics. We can wonder what happened to the imaginary part that we threw out so cleverly - we use it but then ignore it when it comes down to so-called "objective-as-in-measurable/observable" reality.

Why ramble on this point, especially as I am not a mathematician or a physicist or a psychologist ? Not justifying the rambling entirely but I think there is a parallel in the field of psychology. What we observe in reality is what we do or say within the space-time-mass structure. However, it is easy to see that different people can do or say the same thing in a given situation for entirely different reasons (just as results obtained from reduction of complex wave functions to real numbers do not provide complete information about the original complex numbers and we can arrive at the same "real" results from the combination of different complex numbers). Sometimes, we can give a reason but as books like "Strangers to Ourselves - The Adaptive Unconscious" tell us, we can be completely wrong. What I am getting at is that there could be a correspondence between the complex (real+imaginary) numbers, complex conjugation operation to arrive at "real" numbers and the unconscious and what we do/say in "real" life. What can seem deterministic (or the opposite) from the "real number/measurable-observable reality" perspective may not be cut and dry from the "complex number/unconscious" perspective. As with Newtonian/materialistic world view, we may be right a lot of the time - but in certain limits, our rightness will break down, especially if we are married (another word for conjugation btw) to only the measurable/observable reality (real) part of the overall equation.

If the above reads obtuse or nonsense-like, I am sorry. I decided to go back to add the "speculation alert" as a mitigation effort.

Obyvatel

Your words may well be speculative, but your argument is very well made and makes sense to me. Thank-you.

 

[John G]

What I am getting at is that there could be a correspondence between the complex (real+imaginary) numbers, complex conjugation operation to arrive at "real" numbers and the unconscious and what we do/say in "real" life.

What Ark's conformal gravity literally does that the other 4 forces can't do is to access a complex space. This could certainly allow unusual things like time travel and psychic abilities. Could I would think help with getting to a more free, free will state too. More generally I do think the math of physics relates to the math of personality models including Jung's as well as Gurdjieff's Enneagram used as a personality model.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=ec1968]
Obyvatel

Your words may well be speculative, but your argument is very well made and makes sense to me. Thank-you.
[/quote]

Appreciate your response and encouragement, ec1968. Let me try and put a little more clarifying perspective on the physics-psychology boundary.

I read a book some time ago - "Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind" by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer. The book contains a pretty comprehensive survey of scientific ESP research done in recent decades - some of which have been discussed in the forum. Mayer was a clinical psychologist by training and profession and collaborated with physicists as well as people with ESP powers. In a cross-disciplinary approach towards understanding how to model or express these anomalous "psychic" events, she presented a picture which I have attached below.

In the picture, the top right quadrant is matter in its tangible aspect - the Newtonian universe in other words - that is well studied and understood. The bottom right quadrant is the intangible aspect of matter - the QM universe in other words - where anomalous events occur. These two quadrants and interface between them is under the purview of physical science research. On the top left quadrant, there is the conscious aspect of mind. On the bottom left quadrant is the unconscious aspect of mind. Psychologists and neuroscientists deal with these two left quadrants along with the interface between the 2 quadrants (conscious-unconscious mind) as well as the interface between the top left (conscious mind) and the top right (tangible matter) quadrants.

The quadrants and the interfaces that are under scientific study show that the divisions between conscious-unconscious on the mental side or the tangible-intangible on the matter side are not very sharp and clear-cut but gradual and fuzzy. As we know in the matter side, when we reach subatomic particle level, we are mostly on the
quantum side.

The least studied and understood interface is between the two bottom quadrants - the unconscious mind and the intangible matter. Mayer suggests that this interface is likely the source of anomalous psychic as well as material phenomena "materialized" above the horizontal axis in the conscious-tangible area. While Mayer does not go there, traditional shamanism operates in this area.

[quote author=Bluelamp]
More generally I do think the math of physics relates to the math of personality models including Jung's as well as Gurdjieff's Enneagram used as a personality model.
[/quote]

I think it is unfortunate that of all the pioneering efforts of Jung, the personality theory happens to be the most popular. I hope that some day mathematical models describing physics and psychology would go far beyond "personality psychology" and get into the realm of more complex and advanced manifestations of consciousness.

 

[John G]

I think it is unfortunate that of all the pioneering efforts of Jung, the personality theory happens to be the most popular. I hope that some day mathematical models describing physics and psychology would go far beyond "personality psychology" and get into the realm of more complex and advanced manifestations of consciousness.

Jung at his mystical best was into mandalas and the Enneagram is a mandala as well as a personality model that places its vertices in the space of Jung's 4 axes. Things as you say get fuzzy and speculative if you try to go from there to the mandala aspect but people have attempted to do that.

http://tap3x.net/EMBTI/j6greene.html

I was invited to give a talk this past July at an interdisciplinary meeting in the beautiful smokey mountains of Tennessee. I chose to speak on the subject of the 'structure of consciousness'. The event was attended by a small group of individuals from various fields - including philosophy, psychology, and physics. Brian Greene, a renowned physicist and a specialist in quantum field theory, made a presentation on current cutting-edge work in 'string theory' - a subject which happens also to be the topic of his new book, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. 1 After his talk, I engaged Brian in a conversation on what appeared to me to be an interesting resemblence between how he seemed to be approaching the structure of reality and what some of us want to say about the structure of consciousness.

It is on this conversation that I wish to report in this piece.

Section One - Liminocentric Structures

In our recent series Pat and I discussed the role that the mandala, as symbol of a profound organizing principle, plays in personality typologies. This required us to articulate our views on the structure of consciousness itself. If the mandala is structured in such a way that its 'outermost' rim must be conceived as identical to its 'innermost' center, we argued, this is because consciousness is similarly structured.

If conceived as a series of ever-wider experiential contexts, nested one within the other like a set of Chinese boxes, consciousness can be thought of as wrapping back around on itself in such a way that the outermost 'context' is indistinguishable from the innermost 'content' - a structure for which we coined the term 'liminocentric'. As attention expands its focus to include more and more of the margin or 'fringe' of consciousness, awareness becomes increasingly diffuse and undifferentiated. This is identical to what happens when, moving in the opposite direction, the scope of attention is progressively concentrated toward an innermost limit or 'center', which must ultimately be recognized as 'empty' - ie, also undifferentiated, or 'without object'. 2 The same mental state, which occurs at both extremes, is a highly significant state in meditation practice, repeatedly singled out for special consideration by mystics in various traditions.

As it turns out, string theory may conceive of the structure of physical reality in a remarkably similar way.

There's no doubt that physics has torus-like structures and you can get complex spaces with these structures.