Right brain exploration of life

So much of the discussion of modern philosophers and yogins via internet is so formal and empty that it reminds me of a scene in Disney's Coco (a really great depiction of serious beliefs in Mexico) where a guy just dissolves away into powder, like a dry book decomposing in the wind.

I try to straighten out some of that, but ultimately it depends on whether people are open to direct experience (and serious about trying to understand it). The last three months, almost all travel, were a great break. But: I learned so much that I will not try to write it all down in analytic form.

Instead, let me note that I sent the following email today to a friend involved in the esoteric side of life, giving links to public albums of pictures in Facebook, with text appended to each picture:

=====================

I am sorry that I have been out of touch for so long. This was mainly due to about three months of travel: two months for a cruise my wife set up (her money, paying about 1/4 of the usual cost for a lower cost kind of option), and a couple of weeks in Mexico on a kind of lecture tour.

But I have not been neglecting the kind of exercises we discuss, One of my lectures got very deep into one theory of what is going on, how to reconcile science with the other side of life. (Last one-third of the attached pdf.) But I have also done some experimenting hinted at in the text which goes with pictures I have posted at facebook.

Best regards,

    Paul

TzinTzunTzan

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2166981613332244

Morelia

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2166306983399707

Tahiti

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2160216160675456

Making waves in Ragniroa

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2158910714139334

Just one

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2153301254700280&set=a.1579272745436470&type=3&theater

Easter Island

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2135006653196407

Summary of first two months of travel

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2132014906828915

One earlier example

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/1761952417168501

How could we explain ESP? Three possible explanations, one new.

On a Facebook discussion group, the moderator asked everyone the simple question: How could we explain ESP (assuming it is real)?

My reply:

Thank you for reminding us of a really important question which I have thought about for a long time.

 "Explanation" really has to connect to our assumptions about how the cosmos works in general, the ultimate laws of physics. Because we do not KNOW the ultimate laws of physics, those of us who are truly sane and honest need to focus hard on a few POSSIBILITIES, as I discuss in general in my paper in press for the festschrifft to Henry Stapp at Activitas Nervosa Superior (Springer). I personally feel it is 70% likely that the ultimate laws of physics are exactly what many physicists have assumed, a dynamical system defined over curved Minkowski space or Fock space or somehting similar. IN THAT CASE, I can find only one possible explanation for ESP which makes real sense to me, which has the added benefit that I can relate it in detail to a huge volume of first and second person experience: my "noosphere species" theory, https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/.../response-to-question... -- a major revision to the theory of de Chardin and Verdansky, with some similarity in what it implies. But lately I have thought a bit more about formal "Great Mind" alternative theories, many of which are empty words, but could be improved; the movies "What Dreams May Come" and "Inception" make more sense to me than what I usually here from philosophers.

But exactly as I typed that, I thought of a third possibility, not in conflict with noosphere species theory, but in principle an alternative in its own right. If the cosmos is governed by an exact cross-time optimization, like the Bellman equation without noise, that implies it behaves like an RLADP intelligent control system with perfect knowledge. People often assumed that a "simple" Einstein/Lagrange kind of system would not behave in weird ways and result in uncanny synchronities, but decades ago they underestimated the chaos which simple ODE can yield. Could weird "unlikely" ESP phenomena be due to the cosmos behaving like a great mind (noise-free cosmic RLADP) all within the limits of what a conservative guy like Einstein would imagine? Hey, this is the first time I proposed that.

Does present science prohibit FTL communication except via entanglement?

A leading scientist asked us that, in a discussion group on brain and consciousness. My reply:

Because I have deep respect for what you have been doing, I will try to add a bit more precision to this discussion.

Under the most mainstream, solid versions of QED (which I do not believe in), it is simply impossible to send actual information FTL (let alone backtime, which is more or less equivalent ) WITH OR WITHOUT ENTANGLEMENT. 

X.. previously asked what we can learn about time from the classic work of Scully, Shih and others on quantum delay eraser, published in January 2000 in PRL. Shih himself, who did the experiment, had an intuitive feeling that it should be possible to send bits back through time, based on his work, and we funded him to try: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0084447 .  But it would not work that way. Lots of us reviewed the math in great detail, and agreed that this would not work. More generally, the book by J.S. Bell really is the definitive story here, explaining how what "feels" like a backwards time influence is not. 

But what happens when gravity and QED are accounted for together? Bottom line: no one has any right to say they know. The proper unified theory to unify gravity and QED has been much debated and much studied, but certainly not resolved. Lots of strong opinions, just opinions. 

But what happens when we go for a different theory of quantum measurement than the usual Heisenberg version? This is about what Henry Stapp quotes Von Neumann as calling "Process I." If Process I is a classical Markov process, as in what has been used in all successful predictions of experiments to date by quantum physics (not counting some of the recent quantum optics stuff not yet in journals), then it does not allow FTL, or BTT, or anything like a vehicle through which mind would express itself. (Maybe some upgrading of the lower-level hardware of the brain and such, as important as other key bits of lower level hardware, but no more.).

What motivations would justify anyone to look for alternative models of process I? 

One is the HOPE that mind really does express itself somehow specially through collapse events. But saying that gravity causes collapse does not help, unless it is further assumed that gravity represents mind. Dean Radin has tried to show an effect of mind on collapse, by buying an SPDC kit and doing a PK kind of experiment, but on quick reading, the results seem no different in nature from earlier work on more mundane PK experiments from places like Princeton PEAR long ago and George Weissman. 

My motivation in wanting to change the model of measurement is very different. It started out as "Bohmian," wanting to test the hypothesis that local realistic models are still allowed empirically (as DeBroglie and Bohm and Einstein all argued for), which logically means revisiting the so-called "causality" assumption in the CHSH theorem, the real basis for all the Bell's Theorem arguments against the DeBroglie/Bohm/Einstein view. 

My fundamental paper on this, an open access paper in a leading physics journal,

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10773-008-9719-9.pdf,

has a higher citation count than anything Sarfatti has ever published, none of which was in any of the core journals of basic physics. 

But exactly when I wrote that paper, I realized that the problems with the usual model of Process I go far beyond the concerns of "Bohmians." 

In fact... EITHER the experiments which can test my version of time-symmetric physics do favor my version, OR ELSE Process I CANNOT BE DERIVED as the outcome of Process II (the dynamics). That would imply that there really is a kind of magic in quantum measurement (from Magic Schoolbus to Magic Sunglasses? Really?) which defies the physics which applies to more mundane physical objects (Process 2, Boltzmann, etc.). If it really did come out that way, we really need to know, because it forcibly sends us back to the weirdisms of Deepak Chopra, of Swedenborg (real "What Dreams May Come" by Matheson), or implicitly the movie Inception (which I recommend very highly to anyone interested in taking weirdism seriously, not just as a matter of academic posturing). Would Shiva really choose the sleeping Vishnu over Deutsch and Einstein/Bohm both? 

There are of course lots of precognition data showing FTL sending of signals. The problem with that data is that for reasons I don't understand the folks doing those experiments seem reluctant to involve friendly skeptics like me in helping with the design and implementation of the experiments. 

Radin says they tried that kind of thing, but when the skeptic is convinced, he then becomes "just another believer" to the quasi-gestapo of Randi-ites. 

I was a very strong skeptic myself before 1967. I do wonder how George is doing lately. Seriously. Maybe we both should have paid more attention to his invitations. 

Best regards,

From Obama and Zuckerberg to Oumuamua and ZuckerBorg

Did you know that this image is "fake news"? Until last week, I unconsciously assumed that images like this in the press of the strange object Oumuamua which recently passed through our solar system were "real" pictures, as real as the carefully constructed map of dark matter in the cosmos which I have used many times lately. But no, they are all a kind of artist's imagination. (My thanks to the artist who did label HIS version as what it is.) I woke up to this this past week, when I finally listened to google constantly asking me to click on a new piece from Scientific American:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/6-strange-facts-about-the-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua/. From that piece, I saw that we don't even know the SIZE of the object within a factor of two, let alone the details of its shape. And so, it is not so impossible that it MIGHT have been an alien starship after all. (I certainly know to filter out all the  nonsense placebo propaganda out there, trying to keep everyone on earth calm about everything except for whatever wars are desired by local apparatchiks.)

Real science demands that we find it easy to engage in "what if?" thinking, even though it also demands that we not get too committed to any of the possibilities. (There is a great little new book, Out of The Maze by Johnson, which is really clear in explaining some things I wish that everyone knew. Levitin's book, The Organized Mind, is more balanced but also more complicated, and not as clear on these particular basic points.)

And so, by reflex, I asked myself "What IF this were a spacecraft? What might it be doing?"
More precisely, when a friend far away asked me that question, I replied:

**IF** Oumaumau was a spacecraft, I could make up three stories...

First: mission: search for intelligent life and make contact if so. After six months of seeing CNN, Fox News, RT and CCTV, it decides there is no intelligent life on earth. Due diligence almost complete. Open notice to potential developers that the land is clear. 

(Later she raised the question: why did you leave out the possibility of a big alien invasion, which even Hawkings and Cixin Liu and Orson Scott Card warn about?  Would the new censors at Facebook, still quite active, allow Ronald Reagn to post his views of this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reagan-and-gorbachev-agreed-pause-cold-war-case-alien-invasion-180957402/. She said "I suppose a high culture galaxy might have rules about such things?" That's my point. Human developers sometimes need a permit from surveyers, who come and verify that the land is not already occupied. If there is nothing more conscious or intelligent than a rabbit, they may give notice that developers can do anything they want, rabbits or no rabbits. If the gap between human adults and a true sapient is greater than the gap between humans and rabbits...  who knows?)

Second story: like Three Body Problem and Dark Forrest, which Obama and Zuckerberg strongly urged us all to read. (I did after my wife concurred.)

Mission: detect possible threats or competition to wipe out. Outcome: leave them alone, they are no threat to anyone else. They possess the core technologies and science to be a real force, but their lack of affective evolution makes them threats only to themselves, not to anyone else.

Third story: left for the imagination, albeit more plausible.

At the end of the day, I would lean towards a different story, even assuming in the "what if" context of assuming that it really was an alien spacecraft. I would tend to expect a level of intelligence and complex thinking beyond either story one and story two, including even some knowledge of quantum mechanics and macroscopic Schrodinger cats and noospheres (plural). But it would be closer to story one than story two. After all, there is no law against surprise either in physics or in human history. 

Related to story one, I was deeply disappointed when facebook refused to allow me to link to my prior blog post, written in a hurry, responding to the really scary urgent drumbeat to side with Erdogan over Prince Mohammed, in the prince's struggle to stay alive and in powder despite really scary pressure from people responsible for more than one murder. (I even got invited somehow a few months back to an out-of-the-office meeting organized by a key figure in US intelligence, where we learned a lot about Erdogan's own crimes and attempted crimes. I know not to say TOO much more,  but I gave citations.) I was very much relieved when the Financial Times explained a bit more:

https://www.ft.com/content/041d9b1c-e994-11e8-885c-e64da4c0f981

(Hey, guys, why try to censor THAT link? More folks read FT than read even my Facebook page, no?) Definers Public Affairs, a conservative group... but what kind of conservative group would outlaw posts agreeing with Trump, and sharing one of his key concerns? What kind of conservative group wants a war between US and Israel versus Russia and Iran? And how did Zuckerberg let that happen?

Well, I have a pretty good idea how that happened. I saw his face in front of Congressional grilling. (I have learned a whole lot simply by watching faces at Congressional hearings, which I did attend a whole lot in 2009 when I was a staffer sitting behind senators.)  The same kind of pressure was applied in past years to a number of government agency heads.

The pressure reminded me of the Borg in Star Trek. "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." So he let them install wires into... not his head, but his organization, as did certain agency heads I could actually name. NOT Joe Bordogna; they really hated him for having the spine to say "no." One of our last true patriots? Story one MIGHT  change if they brought him back and, more important, brought in surgeons and forensics fully able to burn out all those Borg wires, trace them to their source, and burn them out of other agencies as well. Anyone who truly supports freedom in America, and the basic principles of John Stuart Mills, would agree. But will Facebook allow me to link to THOSE sentiments? Are THESE IDEAS prohibited? A rather interesting "what if" question, perhaps more actionable than the first one in this post. Though FT already has taken some action...

By the way, the woman I mentioned raised an important if awkward question: 

"As a Quaker, you would naturally be suspicious of folks who want an immediate gung ho war between US and Israel versus Russia and Iran. OK, you agree with Trump about Russia and Prince Mohammed, but what about Iran?"

My reply: yes, that's an important complication here. Years ago, I was struck by some amazing similarities between US and Iran (though we don't quite have a fundamentalist theocracy installed in our legal system YET... close enough). Very spiritually attuned, good people, with a tradition of very high culture and free thought, and social strength. But both oppressed by really grotesque gestapos which pose a problem for the entire world, themselves included. Both "headed" by presidents who, despite differences in personalities, mean well but have problems in controlling their respective gestapos. On balance, the Iranian guy may have a better idea of what is really going on; if HIS gestapo let HIM have a deep conversation with Prince Mohammed, in a secure place without fear of what Brezhnev did to Khrushchev (see the movie "grey wolves"), maybe there would be some hope for sanity and even self-rule on this planet. 

Also: an important clarification. I do NOT hold that the "wires" are controlled by civil servants, by the deep state. Rather, from observing what goes on in many US government agencies, I know that there are many new "wires" which are controlled from outside the agencies themselves. 

response to a question about how body and soul are connected

A writer on a neuro discussion list with a heavy emphasis on physics asked: 
You also talk about the importance of the soul but I am not sure exactly
how you model the connection between consciousness and the material body -
Is it in one of your articles?
==========================================
Thanks .. for asking a very good question.

First, I do not believe that any of us justified in proclaiming
certainty, in giving 100% commitment to any one model of this
connection. I explain that preliminary aspect in more detail in:
================
P.Werbos (2018), Quantum Measurement, Consciousness and the Soul: A
New, Alternative Position, submitted by invitation to S. Klein and C.
Cochran, eds, Festschrift for Henry Stapp. Draft preprint at
http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20636.39043
Accepted for publication in Activitas Nervosa Superior, in special issue
Festschrift for Heny Stapp.

=================

Second, it does depend on what we assume about the ultimate laws of
physics. My personal subjective view is that there is about 1/3
probability that we do ultimately live in some kind of Fock space, as
mainstream quantum physics basically assumes. But about 1/3
probability also that Einstein and deBroglie were right in claiming we
can explain those complex things as a kind of emergent statistical
outcome of "classical field theory," of dynamics over curved Minkowski
space (possibly adding just a few more dimensions, though I see no use
for that extension right now). I also assume about 1/3 probability
that "weirdism" (like what Deepak talks about in terms too vague for
me to use much) will ultimately prove to be true. Unlike Jack, I am
unable to have a strong conviction that all three are true at the same
time, though I also understand how a model which is not ultimately
true might have some practical use in describing life in a cosmos
governed by another.

Based on personal experience and observing others, I rarely pay
serious attention (<1 and="" idea="" probability="" psychic="" soul="" span="" that="" the="" to="">
experience do not exist.

And so: **IF** everything which exists is governed by hard core laws
of physics (as in Fock OR Einstein theories), HOW COULD SOUL AND
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA EXIST?

In that case, I really can think of only one explanation, included in
the slides I delivered two weeks ago, attached, the keynote talk which
introduced the conference http://la-cci.org/(which paid for the trip).
It is what I now call the noosphere species theory. I also discussed
it in two papers which are citeable but not widely indexed:
http://www.werbos.com/Mind_in_Time.pdf (published in Russia)
and
P. Werbos, 2017, Unification of Objective Realism and Spiritual
Development, http://scsiscs.org/conference/index.php/scienceandscientist/2017/paper/view/166/53
If you go to https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/ and search on
"noosphere," you will see many many posts giving more details of the
noosphere species theory and how it works out.

The key idea is that we humans (those of us who are not spiritual
zombies) are a SYMBIOTIC life form, similar to Dante's phrase "half
beast half angel." Both alive, and both conscious to a certain level.
The "angel" part is a true life form, composed of dark matter and dark
energy. Further, the main "angel" part is not really a personal soul,
but a "noosphere", a connected biological entity spanning the entire
earth or even the entire solar system, the product of more or less
Darwinian evolution across the vast ocean of dark energy and dark
matter. Jack might logically complain that I do not explain the
physical details of how an image across the earth actually propagates,
meter by meter, from its source to a remote viewer; a totally complete
understanding would do that, but Jack does not do that either. For
now, it is already an advance to understand a bit more clearly what
goes on at the noosphere brain level, as the neural networks of the
noosphere operate in a way which is more intelligible after one
understands neural networks (which Jack doesn't).

All humans are conscious to some degree (with a small population of exceptions
in comas and such), but the nature and degree of connection to
personal soul (a local lobe or cell of noosphere) and to noosphere in
general varies a lot, as we can see if we open our eyes. Just as the
level of mundane sanity varies a lot across humans, the quality and
intensity of connection to soul also varies. In my view, "second
order" sanity is basically what the Rosicrucians call "Alchemical
marriage", an effective Pareto optimal symbiosis.
The effective physical principle of interaction underlying this is NOT
any kind of collapse of wave functions or gravitic effect or even
pilot wave; rather, it is evolved biological capability of noospheres
to exploit the interaction of dark matter and ordinary matter in order
to establish an input/output channel with our bodies, most notably
with neurons.

It may sounds strange at first, but it works. None of the others do.
It also fits a whole lot better with millennia of experience, and
sheds light on it in ways that fuzzy noncausal explanations do not.

Enough for now. Again, thanks for asking. Best regards,

    Paul

=======================

Of course, if the Copenhagen model of measurement is truly,
objectively and decisively vindicated, that really proves "weirdism"
to an incredible degree. I have thought recently about what they
really would imply...

=================
It is not a complete mathematical theory like MQED. Actually, QFT
itself is not complete, insofar as it gives us a choice of possible
Hamiltonians. In the same way, the noosphere species theory allows for
many variations. I suppose I give 70% probability or so to the idea
that the noosphere species theory does explain the "soul" and the
GENERAL details of interface between soul and brain/body.

The noosphere species theory does not give us the Hamiltonian of the
cosmos, as Jack claims he does. I agree with Jack that this makes it
incomplete as a theory of physics. But it is not a theory of physics.
It ASSUMES the existence of cdark matter and dark energy

What do you get when you cross a marine with a cannibal? Bora Bora.

What do you get when you cross a marine with a cannibal?
Quick reaction: you don’t want to find out, Run!
Actual outcome: a real estate developer.

Yesterday (Oct 21 as I wrote this), our boat tour guide, Aro, proud to be 100% native of Bora Bora, told us that in 1942 2,000 cannibals lived on the island, and 6,000 marines. So now it is 12,000 people, 30% of mixed origin. (Reminds me of Trier/Salsburg area where Werbos family came from, but Roman Republic legionnaires weren’t exactly marines. I think.) The row of modernized tikis which you see to the left is one of many modern hotels; I think the right is Matira beach.

He pointed at another island "There they grow pineapples." To another: "There they grow breadfruit." (Or was it something else? ) "Here we grow resorts. All those little beaches and motus (small islands) which used to be public, where all the people would come, now they are all private, verboten, mainly hotels. There is still one public motu left, however, and there we will have lunch."

It was a great lunch, much better than any lunch on the cruise ship in two months. Simple and natural but tasty and healthy. Best was a dish standard in the area; one of the other tourists said "that’s the usual poisson cru, their version of ceviche." Fresh raw tuna marinated with special sauce and just the right amount of live-feeling salad type ingredients, which we spooned onto a leaf "plate" they put together on site. (They made a little show of how to do it, along with the usual coconut show. ) There was also an interesting desert no one explained, two varieties of coconut bread, and maybe 6 more boring choices for tourists who prefer boring. (I did try a little grilled local fish, but just a little, skipped chicken and beef.)

In fact, the whole motu itself seemed simple and natural, rustic, with buildings and bathroom huts which seemed all natural (except for discrete, clean plumbing), rather different from real rustic bathrooms I have seen anywhere. Our guide admitted that this motu was not really public, public only for us, as the tour company rented the use of it at times.

As he circumnavigated the entire island, he told us that there are just three population centers -- the harbor, the airport and his village, a small part of a large calm lagoon which looked circular to us from the boat. In all directions, the shoreline was covered with a kind of standard issue thatched hut, typically renting for $2000 per night (many with transparent floors to see the water). "That one is the Intercontinental, that is St. Regis, the top one.." I recognized all the names, but forget them now. "They choose this area because it is protected from cyclones by my tower (a rocky mountain)," but we also saw them all around the rest of the island -- EXCEPT for Matira Beach, a true public beach, the most exciting point for me in my one and only previous visit to Bora Bora two weeks ago.

The safe lagoon was also dense with coral reefs. The snorkeling was far better than anything I have ever experienced elsewhere, except for St. John’s in the Caribbean, where I remembered even more color and biodiversity. That fits with what other people tell me on the cruise ship who have been all around the world.

At the motu, even without a snorkel mask, I could walk into shallow clear lagoon water from the motu with my water shoes, go reasonably far out and still see lots of fish and coral very clearly. Of course I had to look closely to watch where I was stepping, and not touch the coral. Feeling and watching little currents and waves, as I stopped and as I perturbed things, was part of the exercise. (I saw no coral or even fish at Matira beach; all soft white sand, but stronger currents. Like a big baby toy in its way.)

The boat trip yesterday started with a drive beyond the coral reef surrounding Bora Bora, to the Pacific, snorkeling with sharks. All I saw were moderate sized blackfin sharks, cousins to the bigger ones I had seen two weeks ago snorkeling around Mo’orea,  my first really competent snorkeling. (I had real problems on three snorkeling days before that, due to sea sickness. Some combination of ginger candy, sea bands and experience got rid of the main problem, but I still never lasted as long as I did at St. John’s years ago.

Luda stayed out just a little longer than me in the Pacific snorkel. She says she also saw a much bigger shark, a lemon shark, far below us.

After the Pacific snorkel, the boat took us to a standard tourist delight, a shallow place with a little coral where sting rays and small blackfin sharks abound. Sting rays approach people. Guides show how they can handle them, and sometimes feed them, as sharks hope for scraps. We have photos of Luda encircled by sharks, and holding up a sting ray the safe way. But as we left, I feel sad about missing a really great photo image: three pure white birds (terns? tropic birds) suddenly emerging over my head, with green, red and blue light shining out from them reflecting the green water and some blue and red nearby. I did get some white/green bird photos after that, but nothing like the original.

The third snorkel, near a hotel, was to a swarm of about 50 eagle rays deep below us. Luda and half the boat went out, but this time I didn’t. Through a patch of clear water by the boat, I could see them as clearly as I could have through a snorkel mask. Beyond that patch, reflected sunlight modified the image, but it was interesting to see the same creatures from different angles.

After that, we went past Matira beach to the fourth and final snorkel, the classic coral reef snorkel I mentioned already. Many types of coral and fish. Currents strong enough to be interesting, and make me glad I used fins, but not seriously distracting. Reef large enough to let me avoid the human overcrowding in some places. Then to lunch.

After lunch, the boat returned to the harbour and it started to rain. Luda asked me to stand in the long line to get into a tender boat back to our ship, the Maasdam. Did a bit of space politics by email/smartphone as I stood there, finished just in time to board the tender.

We had a similar all-day boat trip in Bora Bora two weeks before, led by Alfonso. Aro and Alfonso were both energetic and entertaining folks, outgoing and engaging. (And no, I have yet to do web checks to follow up what they said.) There were a couple of times when Aro worried he might have been just a bit too engaging with females, and said “Oh don’t worry, ladies, I am gay..” That didn't relax me, after I read the story about the gay (rae rae) on Nuku Hiva who served as a guide to a German tourist, and ate him, circa 2010. But that story was about a guy full of unique inner tensions, with a militant Catholic father versus old mahu (lgtb) traditions on the islands, great cultivation of sexual energy in general (one version of “mana"), and huge frustrations of that energy in his specific case.

Many more pictures are coming. This is the best I took that day.