The Missing Piece?

As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts, I consider the last big "missing piece" of the quantum information model of magick to be a unified theory that combines contagion and similarity - that is, entanglement and morphic resonance. As magicians, it is clear that both contagion and similarity links work. Contagion links can be modeled relatively easily by quantum entanglement, bolstered by recent findings related to quantum events scaling up to the macroscopic level and new records being set for the number of entangled particles within a single quantum field.

Similarity links are fuzzier. They seem to be based on a mechanism akin to the morphic resonance hypothesis proposed by biologist Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake has spent years compiling data and published numerous books supporting morphic resonance, and it is clear that what he is talking about is basically how similarity links seem to work. But finding the mechanism by which similar things can connect with each other has remained out of reach.

At least, that is, until maybe now. I recently came across an article on something called the resonance theory of consciousness could close the gap. I have yet to dig into this further, but if it proves plausible it means that I am finally at the point where a "1.0" version of the quantum information model of magick can be laid out that should cover all magical operations and processes. As longtime readers of Augoeides know, I've been working on this idea for many years now.

 

All things in our universe are constantly in motion, vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies. Resonance is a type of motion, characterized by oscillation between two states. And ultimately all matter is just vibrations of various underlying fields. As such, at every scale, all of nature vibrates.

Something interesting happens when different vibrating things come together: They will often start, after a little while, to vibrate together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization.

The "coming together" is the trick for objects at the quantum level. The resonance model of consciousness depends on the panpsychism hypothesis, which isn't really a problem for me because much of what I have already laid out in my model does as well. Panpsychism is basically a more scientifically rigorous version of animism that treats consciousness as a fundamental property of quantum information and therefore matter and energy. The difference is that the complexity of the object or system determines how much consciousness it has.

Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, to bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and on, we suggest that all things may be viewed as at least a little conscious. This sounds strange at first blush, but “panpsychism” – the view that all matter has some associated consciousness – is an increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness.

The panpsychist argues that consciousness did not emerge at some point during evolution. Rather, it’s always associated with matter and vice versa – they’re two sides of the same coin. But the large majority of the mind associated with the various types of matter in our universe is extremely rudimentary. An electron or an atom, for example, enjoys just a tiny amount of consciousness. But as matter becomes more interconnected and rich, so does the mind, and vice versa, according to this way of thinking.

Biological organisms can quickly exchange information through various biophysical pathways, both electrical and electrochemical. Non-biological structures can only exchange information internally using heat/thermal pathways – much slower and far less rich in information in comparison. Living things leverage their speedier information flows into larger-scale consciousness than what would occur in similar-size things like boulders or piles of sand, for example. There’s much greater internal connection and thus far more “going on” in biological structures than in a boulder or a pile of sand.

So living systems, due to their high complexity, have more consciousness than, say, a stone or even a crystal - though the stone and the crystal both have some. This extends throughout living systems as well. Simple organisms have more consciousness than nonliving objects, and only highly complex organisms have the sort of self-aware consciousness that humans do. Self-aware consciousness has so far been identified using an experiment called the mirror test in great apes, dolphins and orcas, elephants, magpies, and oddest of all, the cleaner wrasse - the only fish on the list.

It seems reasonable to suggest that dolphins and orcas may not be the only cetaceans that pass the test, since research on most whale species is difficult even under the best conditions. In addition to the magpie, other corvids might also possess some level of self-aware consciousness. Crows are capable of complex tool use and problem solving, for example, which has been studies extensively with some surprising results.

Under our approach, boulders and piles of sand are “mere aggregates,” just collections of highly rudimentary conscious entities at the atomic or molecular level only. That’s in contrast to what happens in biological life forms where the combinations of these micro-conscious entities together create a higher level macro-conscious entity. For us, this combination process is the hallmark of biological life.

Seems to me that the "mere" there implies a value judgment that isn't present in my model. More or less consciousness can't imply "better" or "worse" in any meaningful sense.

The central thesis of our approach is this: the particular linkages that allow for large-scale consciousness – like those humans and other mammals enjoy – result from a shared resonance among many smaller constituents. The speed of the resonant waves that are present is the limiting factor that determines the size of each conscious entity in each moment.

As a particular shared resonance expands to more and more constituents, the new conscious entity that results from this resonance and combination grows larger and more complex. So the shared resonance in a human brain that achieves gamma synchrony, for example, includes a far larger number of neurons and neuronal connections than is the case for beta or theta rhythms alone.

What I am imagining is incorporating this resonance idea into the already-panpsychist quantum information model in the following way: with a contagion link, the magical effect and the target are connected by entanglement and occupy the same complex quantum wave or wavefunction, depending on your favored interpretation of quantum mechanics. This whole system can be modeled as a vibrating multidimensional quantum field.

A similarity link is a case where two of these vibrating multidimensional quantum fields resonate at the same frequency, or a similar enough frequency that the resonance between the two can stabilize and synchronize. The frequency determines the resonance, and the intensity of the vibration determines the degree to which the magical effect can imprint itself upon the shape of the target. This follows the basic rules of information theory, with the resonance frequency acting as the carrier and the multidimensional shape determining the information transmitted to the target's quantum information field.

And that's really just a sketch of the idea. There are implications that I need to look at in other models of consciousness such as Penrose-Hameroff that I think has a lot going for it. The resonance idea feels like it will work to fill the last gap, though, and if I can do that in a reasonable way I will finally have a full, complete model that should apply to all magical and paranormal phenomena. Here's hoping!