Vision, Audition, and Quantum Reality

Copyright © 2001 C.J. Lofting

ABSTRACT

A simple graph reflecting the law of the excluded middle, so fundamental to vision and audition, is found to be abstracted and used to express the ‘complexities’ of quantum mechanics showing us that no matter how abstract our Minds can be, the patterns used to express reality have their roots in the concrete realm of our senses and the ‘mindless’ Brain.

Basics

We accept as a given that the strong emphasis on visual processing in the human brain favours an over emphasis of ‘IS-ness’ where vision focuses on EITHER/OR-ness. This EITHER/OR-ness enables clear, precise identification of ‘things’, avoiding uncertainties in perceptions.

If the visual system is presented with an uncertainty, where two distinct objects are encoded in the same space, it will treat this complex pattern as a ‘paradox’ and oscillate between the elements that make-up the complex pattern. We see this in the Necker Cube visual paradox etc. The oscillation serves as attempts to ‘best fit’ the complex pattern within the EITHER/OR requirements such that we see A and then NOT-A and then A and then NOT-A etc etc

The audition system seems to have developed after the visual system and in doing so has recruited elements of the visual system to process data. This includes recruitment of the oscillation process in dealing with complex auditory patterns.

The A/NOT-A emphasis of the visual system seems to be a good candidate for identifying a fundamental notion in the abstract area of Logic. This notion is that of the Law of the Excluded Middle, a law that emphasises the concepts of A and NOT-A as fundamentals  - there is nothing ‘inbetween’.

We can graph the notion of the excluded middle thus:

Figure 1 - Extraction of A and NOT-A from a complex pattern

 

In figure 1 the diagonal symbolises the complex pattern or ‘reality’ and the Brain extracts A/NOT A from this pattern where the diagonal, in the form of a vector, will shift to map onto the A or NOT A axis.

This shift reflects the act of perception where we focus on ‘something’ and in doing so instinctively bring into force the A/NOT-A methodology.

If the pattern is complex where we perceive two objects sharing the same space then the extraction process treats this as a paradox and so starts to oscillate ‘mindlessly’.

 

Basic Complexities

Analysis of the neurocognitive/affective processes of the Brain suggest the feasibility of introducing the notion of Mind as a term applicable to Brain behavioural patterns recruited and abstracted to serve as sources of analogy for describing abstract reality.

One notion that is important here is that of superpositions, where more than one ‘thing’ occupies the same space as another; above we have identified this as a potential ‘paradox’ to the senses but refinement of the process seems to identify it as a core method in communicating information.

The visual system can be made to deal with complex patterns through the use of harmonics processing – colours. Thus the RGB elements when summed create a colour rather than the perception of R, G, & B ‘dots’. To see the dots we need to zoom-in very closely.

The audition system is a little more precise in that we can create complex patterns also through the use of harmonics but our ear is capable of detecting each pitch within the complex pattern without too much aid in doing so. This reflects the refined degree of precision possible through use of the audition system.

If each harmonic is associated with the behaviour described by figure 1 then a superposition consists of the overlaying of each graph for each harmonic, call it an X-graph, to give us a ‘system’ graph representing the perception of the whole chord (e.g. the perceptions of the chord is a ‘discord’ or not)

Abstracting these sensory processes means we can create complex patterns though summing X-graphs of any A/NOT-A distinctions as well as decode X-graphs into particular X-graphs of A/NOT-A distinctions for a particular property of the complex pattern. As such the analogy of the abstract X-graph summing is to the creation of chords and colours.

Complex Complexities

Since the Mind deals with abstractions when compared to the Brain so we can create whole universes at the Mind level that seem to bare no relation to the Brain level – we cannot see ‘words’ floating around the Brain, but what we DO see are oscillations in audition processing that IMPLY words. In other words we see the complex patterns of the Mind reflected at the Brain level but as oscillations, we cannot localise Mind IN Brain, only imply it. (see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/light.hml for more on this)

Over the last century or so a fundamental concern has been the mapping of the physical universe. This concern has led to the development of two fundamental models, Relativity, that deals more with the macro level of reality, and Quantum Mechanics that deals more with the micro level of reality.

Of particular interest here is the concept used in Quantum Mechanics (QM)  of the State Vector (SV). This concept is fundamental to understanding QM and many Minds have been involved in working on QM and the SV as we attempt to map ‘out there’ as well as ‘in here’.

The graphic format of the SV is shown in figure 2. It is obvious that this graph is an abstraction of the ‘concrete’ graph associated with the excluded middle concept sourced in our sense of vision. In the SV the diagonal of the X-graph is now identified as the wave equation, symbolised as Psi, y, and the A/NOT-A axis reflect such notions as ‘spin-up’ / ‘spin-down’, in other words A and NOT-A.

The point here is that we can identify the root of complex notions of reality in the recruitment and abstraction of simple notions of reality derived in the Brain where reality is broken-down into A/NOT-A distinctions whenever we focus (be it vision or audition etc).

Since vision and audition dominate our worlds so adaptations to our world are rooted in the vision and audition sense as being ‘fundamental’. Furthermore, since we utilise self-reference to get details so any discipline developed using self-reference will have as its roots Brain patterns of vision and audition.

These patterns become abstracted by the Mind and in doing so can lose contact with their roots in that local, paradox processing of the Brain is now incorporated in complex, abstract mappings of the universe.

As such, the X-graph can be symbolised thus:

 

A = *

NOT A = ~

Complex Pattern = / (aka * + ~) [captures the notion of * + ~ = 0 where 0 = ‘all potentials in this position, no actuals’]

Superpositions of X-graphs are: / + / + / = /

Figure 2 - The State Vector

 

The ‘strange’ notion in quantum mechanics about nothing existing until you look at it is here identified as an expression of the X-graph where the act of focusing on something, and so encapsulating a pattern, objectifying it,  will force the making of an A/NOT-A distinction, the complex pattern is broken-down into its basics. There is nothing ‘strange’ in this in that you are witnessing the mindless Brain at work and that pattern has been abstracted and included to aid in describing reality but in doing so we have lost contact with the source of that pattern.

At the level of the Brain/Mind we can in fact identify the concrete ‘presence’ of Psi, y, in that complex patterns can be identified as such by the right hemisphere of the brain. The patterns are ‘seen’ as elements all linked together. This part of the brain seems to be more receptive to ‘AS-IS’ states of reality. It is the left hemisphere of the Brain/Mind that the ‘collapse’ of the complex pattern occurs where the ‘dot’ precision of that part of the Brain/Mind acts to, at time mindlessly, zoom-in for details and so elicits the A/NOT-A distinctions.

This part of the Brain is biased more to ‘AS-INTERPRETED’ states of reality in that it serves as a source of ‘maps’ we use to gain precise details of reality but in doing so ‘cut off’ the more thermodynamic elements of reality ever present in the ‘complex pattern’ symbolised by Psi. (This is covered in other essays at http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb )

Truly complex patterns are those that no matter how much we attempt to ‘reduce’ them to A or NOT A all we perceive are oscillations where these oscillations reflect states irreducible either because we lack the sensory systems to reduce, or we have our categories ‘wrong’ and so filter reality incorrectly, or there is a true, mindless paradox present – as in the Necker Cube.

The apparent complexities of QM can be identified as recruitments of Brain level processes to serve as analogies/metaphors for Mind level abstractions. The success of QM can be identified as the use of core Brain level patterns as fundamentals, where our adaptations to light and sound are directly mapped to reality but at an abstract level.

Superpositions

By understanding the summation of X-graphs into a ‘Super’ X-graph,  so the SV concept emerges in QM. We can develop an understanding of multi-dimensional representations where complex patterns are ‘chords’ or ‘colours’ to our senses and as such have an aire of ‘linkage’ richer than the more ‘single’ context of a single X-graph.

Symbolically we can take graph data and sum it thus:

* + *  + ~ + * + ~ + ~

and from that derive some sense of meaning in that the whole sequence equals /, another X-graph but as a potential. That potential will have an identity in a feeling of a chord or colour and as such a potential can be ‘felt’.

In Chinese philosophy the vector, Psi, is symbolised by the concept of T’ai Chi and the concepts of A and NOT-A by those of Yang and Yin. As the story goes, the identification of a pattern ‘out there’ leads to encapsulation, we give the pattern ‘life’ in the form of ‘breath’ (T’ai Chi – grand breath). If we hold this object in our minds long enough it will ‘suddenly’ break-down into yin/yang components – in other words the A/NOT-A distinctions we see performed by the ‘mindless’ Brain.

The refinement of these yin/yang distinctions have led to the development of symbolisms reflecting the SV where ‘hexagrams’ are formed out of six lines made-up of yin/yang distinctions and these AS A WHOLE are then interpreted as meaningful – as chords or colours expressing ‘the moment’; in other words the hexagram reflects the superposition of six X-graphs.

The fact that many seem to see QM in the I Ching, the book of changes, an ancient Chinese divination/philosophy  system, is simply due to the dependency of BOTH systems on A/NOT-A distinction making and the recognition of reality as being a ‘complex pattern’ that requires decoding and well as serving as a medium to encode and transmit information.

In both the Chinese perspective as well as the quantum mechanics perspective what is recognised is the step-up/step-down mechanism used by our senses to decode/encode reality for communication to others.

The root of roots is our Brain’s bias to vision/audition processing and the abstraction of those ‘local’ processes to become sources of analogy/metaphor for very ‘non-local’ thoughts. We need to keep our selves grounded by recognising these roots.