October 14 2024
Very recently a good colleague Chris Wickman published a blog summarizing saliant points in my treatise On Being and Creation. A follower of this podcast brought my intention to a work I was not familiar with, The Consciousness Field Theory by Paul B. Macombe. This article of Macombe’s lends a more contemporary perspective on the physical processes of reality creation and how they work. I will describe these here, indicate how this perspective contributes to what I have written in that treatise and in the associated more-recent writings that I have published in my On Being and Creation blog. In the process I embrace Macombe’s approach as well as suggest how it might be significantly expanded to include all living biological entities.
The main point of Macombe’s writings is that there is a Field of Consciousness, a very basis physical reality in the same sense that there are only four basic Fields in physics. There are a few other basic fields in physics. Field theory was developed as an extension of quantum theory and I start here by summarizing its essence.
n physics, field theory describes the concept that forces between objects are mediated through “fields” which permeate space, with the key features being: a field is a property assigned to every point in space and time, representing the influence of a force at that location, and the interaction between objects is explained by how they affect and are affected by the field they are situated in; this includes the idea that fields can be either scalar (magnitude only) or vector (magnitude and direction), and that the strength of the field diminishes with distance from its source.
Key points about field theory:
Field as a property of space and time, which are presumed to be fundemental:
Unlike the traditional view of forces acting directly between objects, field theory describes forces as arising from a field that exists throughout space. The Field is real and physical
There are only Four fundamental fields in physics, refered to as Forces; they are
Weak Force– “The weak force is one of the four fundamental forces in nature, primarily responsible for radioactive decay at the subatomic level by allowing quarks to change types, essentially converting protons into neutrons and vice versa; it operates only at very short distances and is considered “weak” because its influence rapidly diminishes with distance, making it only noticeable within the nucleus of an atom. — This force is mediated by the exchange of heavy W and Z bosons, which are particles responsible for carrying the weak force. (ref)
Strong Force – “The strong force is a fundamental force in physics that acts at the subatomic level, primarily responsible for binding quarks together to form protons and neutrons, and subsequently holding these protons and neutrons together within an atomic nucleus, making it the strongest known force in nature; it is carried by particles called gluons.” (ref)
Electromagnetic Force – The electromagnetic force is a fundamental force of nature that acts between electrically charged particles, essentially combining the electric force (acting between stationary charges) and the magnetic force (acting between moving charges), meaning it’s the force responsible for attractions and repulsions between charged particles, holding atoms together, and driving phenomena like electricity and magnetism; in simple terms, opposite charges attract and like charges repel each other, with the strength of the force depending on the magnitude of the charges involved. – The electromagnetic force is a type of physical interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. It acts between charged particles and is the combination of all magnetic and electrical forces.” (ref)
Gravitational Force – “The Gravitational force is a natural force that attracts any two objects with mass towards each other, meaning every object in the universe exerts a gravitational pull on every other object; the strength of this pull depends on the mass of the objects and the distance between them, with larger masses and closer distances resulting in a stronger gravitational force; essentially, it’s the force that pulls objects “down” towards the center of a larger mass, like how we are pulled towards the Earth’s center due to its gravity. – T he gravitational force is responsible for the motion of falling objects, the motion of the planets around the sun, and even the motions of stars and galaxies through space.” – The hypothetical particle graviton- is thought to be the carrier of the gravitational field. It is analogous to the well-established photon of the electromagnetic field. Gravitons, like photons, would be massless, electrically uncharged particles traveling at the speed of light.” (ref)
Consciousness Force – Macombe declares in his paper that there is a fifth fundamental field associated with a Force of all consciousness.
Citing that paper: “This work contrasts Paul C. Mocombe’s consciousness field theory (CFT) of phenomenological structuralism (PS) with conscious electromagnetic information theory (CEMI). The author posits a cognitive developmental psychology that is tied to PS’s emergent logico-metaphysical materialist account regarding the constitution and perpetuation of the multiverse, consciousness, society, and the individual. Against CEMI, the author concludes that consciousness is an emergent force of the universe that is received by the brain and integrated by its electromagnetic field.”
I will comment om Macombe’s Consciouness field hypothesis and suggest several extensions of it based on my own published writings. But first a comment on the nature and power of Field theory. Every description of a scientific phenomenon proposes a model of reality. This model may be very useful, but is limited to being a model. – Not the actual thing but the best we can create to foster our human understanding. The history of science has been one of proposing more and better models, and using these models to improve our conditions as human beings. In this sense, there are serious limitations to the Field-force models. Most fundamentally, they relate to properties of space and time which itself is seen as fundamental. Many researchers today believe that space and time are themselves derived constructs, emerging as we know them from more fundamental underlying processes. Looking at the gravitational field for example, The General Theory of Relativity suggests that gravity is an emergent property of the four dimensional geometric structure of space and time itself. Nonetheless, it appears to me that Macomb’s proposal is very useful in extending our practical understanding of the process of Intentional Reality Creation, lending plausibility to my own writings on the subject. It can be extended to all living biological entities and be seen as a driver of evolution, Ias point out below.
Humans have no direct since of the presence or working of these fields and we know of their presence only through measurements by tools or observation results. If I were to tell people 125 years ago that we are bathed by multiplicity of invisible signals that convey rich sounds, images and ideas, it would be hard to get anybody to pay attention to that and that probably would be viewed as slightly nuts. As biological creatures we have no direct mechanism to monitor the operations of these fields, except possibly gravity. On the other hand the results of these fields are most profound. Without the gravitational force we would have nothing to anchor us to earth, nor would there be any atmosphere. Without the strong and weak forces, matter as we know it would not exist. Without the electromagnetic force, we would not only have no radio, television, electronics and television, our bodies could not function as they do. I believe without the Consciousness force we would not have evolution, nor conditions on this planet conducive to biological life. More on that later.
Here is the introduction to his treatise: “Paul C. Mocombe’s (2019) structurationist theory of phenomenological structuralism, building on and synthesizing a form of M-theory with, mathematical elements of univon multiverse hypothesis, the quantum computation of ORCH-OR theory, Black Hole Big Bang Theory (BHBBT), structurationism, and the multiverse ideas of Haitian ontology/epistemology and quantum mechanics abductively posits that spacetime is fundamental; and consciousness is an emergent fifth force of nature, a field of consciousness (the consciousness field—CF) composed of a quantum material substance/energy, psychion, the phenomenal property, qualia or informational content, of which is recycled/ replicated/entangled/superimposed throughout the multiverse and becomes embodied via the microtubules of neurons of brains and aggregate matter of multiple worlds to constitute mind (see Figures 1 and 2). Mind (composed of the personal and collective unconscious, and the sense-experience of the emerging ego held together by the brain’s electromagnetic field generated by the periodic discharge of neurons), in turn, is manifested in simultaneous, entangled, superimposed, and interconnecting material resource frameworks, multiple worlds, as praxis or practical consciousness of organic life, the content of which in-turn becomes the phenomenal properties, qualia, of material (subatomic particle energy, psychion) consciousness that is recycled/replicated/ entangled/superimposed via the consciousness field throughout the multiverses upon matter disaggregation (see Figure 3). In other words, existence precedes essence; but essence is emergent and eternal, and comes to constitute a fifth force of nature, a field of consciousness for Being production (the consciousness field), through the phenomenal properties, qualia (personal and collective unconscious), of neuronal subatomic particles, psychion, which are recycled/replicated/superimposed/ entangled throughout the multiverse and give human actors their initial (essential) practical consciousness that they organize and reproduce in replicated, entangled, and superimposed material resource frameworks (see Figures 3 and 4).” (ref)
Macombe‘s writings are dense and I have trouble following the jargon in them. Here are important aspects of his proposal as I find them.
- He is adopting the ORCH-OR theory of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff. This is the theory that microtubules, the structural element in biological cells, are extremely tiny quantum computers that exist in very large numbers. These participate in quantum correlations and communications, and collectively create consciousness in brains. Wikepedia has a fairly comprensive essay on that theory. Although the theory remain highly controversial, Penrose is a highy respected winner of a Nobel Prize for his thinkingabout basic physics.
- There are constant communications going on in brains between the microtubular quantum computation level and the neural network level, that are invisible to us. The postulated particle that conveys the force is the psychion. See the figure1.
- The psychions communicate across the multiverse “and give human actors their initial (essential) practical consciousness that they organize and reproduce in replicated, entangled, and superimposed material resource frameworks.”
- Macombe’s paper contains diagrams suggesting how this may all take place, like Fig. 1.
My suggested enhancements entries In my On Being and Creation blog series , I suggest that:
- The Field process works for all known entities of biology on every level, all successful forms of life, not just for animals that have significant brains. The issue is whether the biological entity has microtubular constituents within the cells of its DNA.
- Rather than regard consciousness as the primary characteristic of this field the key factor is intention, intention for the well-being of a species., the basic characteristic of the force particle is expression of such intention.
- Otherwise we are confronted with a question of consciousness. Here there is a problem. According to the paper “Consciousness here refers to subjecve awareness of phenomenal experiences, qualia, (ideology, language, self, feelings, choice, control of voluntary behavior, thoughts,
- etc.) of internal and external worlds.” Does a monkey, dog, bear or wolf or evena whale have consciousness akin to those of ours? There is reason to think defitely so, but how can we knowfor sure ? A fruit fly or ant? A virus particle? A mold? We have to draw the line somewhere.
- Not only are the brain cells of the individual involved, but essentially all body cells where their DNA embodies microtubules. ll of these have a vested interest in the well-being of their species and DNA containing microtubules, and I believe participate In the Consciouness/Intention field. Regardless of the consciousness status of a species members.
- The field of intention operates through retrocausality, that is causality in the past which entangles particles, As time passes a rich network of correlation exists that may propagate over long distances.
My own personal more-recent writings in my On Being and Creations blog are highly relevant to these points.
The blog entry WHAT’S ALREADY DONE ISN’T NECESSARILY DONE YET deals with the fact that time is not an immutable one way progression from past to present to future. “According to one quantum physics interpretation applied to IRC (Cramer’s), at time of creation of an IRC, a quantum wave goes out forward in time and a conjugate wave propagates backwards in time, both of which are seeking to line up circumstances to be compatible with the creation. The backwards-traveling wave finds all kinds of things and events in the past that the formulator of the IRC may or may not know about that will eventually contribute to a causal chain that makes the creation inevitable. When a backwards-traveling wave encounters an event or circumstance that can further the creation, a forward-traveling confirmation wave is generated. Similarly, a forward-traveling wave, moving at the speed of light seeks out future events that will further the creation, and sends confirming waves backwards in time. All those waves combine at the instant of creation, saying that the creation is a done deal. The deal is done though may require some time, even years, for full existence of the intended creation to be manifest.” This blog entry goes on to many personal expressions of my reality creation have intimately caused creations and entaglement in my life.
The blog entry THE ARROW OF TIME POINTS BOTH WAYS — MORE ON RETROCAUSALITY AND RETROCREATION says in its introduction “Can present or future events affect the past? A phenomenon known as retrocausality. I have argued definitely YES, retrocausality exists in the quantum world and is also an important aspect of what I have called Intentional Reality Creation (IRC). If you want a sample of what other “yes” voices say before going further here, you can check out the videos on this list.” – “Actually, The equations of all of the fundamental laws of classical as well as quantum physics appear to work perfectly fine going backwards in time as well is forward. Just substitute (-t) for (t). That is, they display symmetry regard to time.” – “In terms of the physics and mathematics of the situation, having quantum waves go backwards in time is no problem. Again this makes no sense to us in terms of the sensory and nervous system processing capabilities provided to us as animals. Virtually everything that we read in science texts make no cognitive sense whatsoever to a worm, caterpillar, mouse or deer in a forest. As biological creatures they as well as we humans have been evolved so as to have direct perception only of the matters most in the interest of their survival. But we know there is much that is very real that we cannot directly perceive, like radio and TV waves, and virus and bacteria that can make us sick. What we perceive to be real is a function of history and culture and technology of the times. – We are fundamentally in a quantum world and trying to see it through our biological filters of normal sensory reality simply doesn’t work. We need to grow up and give that up if we want to understand what is really going on.”
Chat GPT comments “The comment about the equations of physics being time-symmetric is crucial. Many fundamental laws, such as those governing electromagnetic and gravitational forces, indeed exhibit this symmetry. The idea of substituting (-t) for (t) emphasizes that, mathematically, these equations don’t inherently favor a direction of time, which invites deeper reflection on the nature of reality.” Time is not fundamental in underlying reality; it is thought to be a function of entropy. – “does not require such noticing and further, such noticing would confuse us endlessly.”
Also from entry THE ARROW OF TIME POINTS BOTH WAYS — MORE ON RETROCAUSALITY AND RETROCREATION “As explained below, sending macroscopic messages backwards in time is impossible, because of thermodynamic/information considerations. However, creating events and situations in the past may be going on all the time due to retrocaustion. The suggestion is that we cannot send messages into the past but can to a significant extend dictate to the past to have been as how we want it to have been! Holly bananas! Why do we not notice this? Probably because evolutionary biology does not require such noticing and further, such noticing would confuse us endlessly.”
In the classical interpretation of quantum mechanics, the act of measuremet, “collapses the wave function” so as to create a stable normal reality situation that triggers retrocausation. – “This is very relevant for IRC where the formulation of an unbounded intention IS the act of measurement. In my treatise, retrocausation is discussed in the Cramer interpretation as due to a “quantum query wave moving backward in time looking for possible past conditions that would lead to satisfaction of the intention.” And retrocausation was discussed there in the multiple-worlds interpretation in terms of “a successful intention shifting the intender into a submanifold of universes where past and future conditions are favorable to satisfaction of the intention.”
To clarify what retrocausality is and isn’t: It does not mean that signals can be communicated from the future to the past—such signaling would be forbidden even in a retrocausal theory due to thermodynamic reasons. Instead, retrocausality means that, when an experimenter chooses the measurement setting with which to measure a particle, that decision can influence the properties of that particle (or another particle) in the past, even before the experimenter made their choice. In other words, a decision made in the present can influence something in the past. Instantly.
“In the case of IRC, where an unbounded intention corresponds to an Operator in classical QM, specifying an intention where the intention itself makes clear what must be observed for it to be satisfied, can influence past events or conditions so as to lead to satisfaction of the intention. The disquieting implication is that the past is not manifest but exists as complex quantum wave functions of what could have existed. The past mostly consists of wave functions of possibilities. Note that the past also consist of “collapsed” wave functions of believed past realities, things that make it “real” such as in memories, historical records, geological artifacts, photographs and astronomical and terrestrial observations.) In my treatise and in past blog entries, in particular in WHAT’S ALREADY DONE ISN’T NECESSARILY DONE YET, I explain the same situation by saying the past is vastly undetermined and is fixed only insofar experience records are concerned.”
“The case for embracing retrocausality seems stronger to me for the following reasons,” Leifer said. “First, having retrocausality potentially allows us to resolve the issues raised by other no-go theorems, i.e., it enables us to have Bell correlations without action-at-a-distance. So, although we still have to explain why there is no signaling into the past, it seems that we can collapse several puzzles into just one. That would not be the case if we abandon time symmetry instead.”
My blog entry On consciousness and intentionality in biological species is highly revant to the ediscussion of this blog. In the blog entry The Field of Intentionality I characterized intentionality as a physical field, propagated by quantum wave effects. “In my treatise On Being and Creation I describe how Stuart Hameroff and Siir Roger Penrose believe that such quantum effects leading to consciousness are generated by microtubles, structural elements in every biological cell that also function as very tiny quantum computers. This current blog entry lays out the hypothesis that intentionality does not require consciousness and that all biological entities that have cells can and do manifest intentionality. Further, this intentionality profoundly affects what goes on in the universe through the mechanism of Intentional Reality Creation. This hypothesis is the basis for another hypothesis of great relevance to the question of why we have a life-supporting world despite the overwhelming probability that any slight variation of countless physical parameters of our universe and earth in particular would have made life as we know it impossible. That hypothesis is that All lifeforms on earth, starting with the most primitive shaped those physical parameters via intentional reality creation (IRC) and retrocausality so as to enable life.This process started wth the first bacteria that existed in super-hot ocean vents, or perhaps even earlier.”
Further, “Herein, I define consciousness as a property of biological organisms, such as a human, to sense properties of its environment, process the information thus derived, perhaps in conjunction with information already stored, and act to enhance its individual and/or its species well-being or survival based on the properties of that information. For a human being, knowing where you want to go while in a bus station, consulting a printed schedule of bus departures, consulting a display of departures and times showing delays, and buying a ticket for a bus ride and walking to the appropriate gate and getting on the bus would be an example of conscious actions derived from an intention to get somewhere.
Intentionality is a closely related property, having to do with a desired outcome possibly but not necessarily associated with an act or acts of consciousness. In the bus station example for humans, the intentionality could be to get home.
“For a squirrel by my house, the conscious actions of seeking food in response to internal sgnals of hunger could include scampering on my deck to see if there is food there, and if there are seeds that have fallen down on the deck from my birdfeeder, finding and eating those seeds. For a caterpillar on a tree next to my house in the Fall, conscious actions could follow from sensing internal signals that it is time for it to prepare for transformation into a moth. The caterpillar responds by seeking a safe location to spin a cocoon web, spinning the web, and locating itself safely in the cocoon where it can undergo the transformation process – all this while avoiding predatory birds.” It is a bit of a stretch, though, to view. Caterpillars. As having anything like human consciousness.
“For a weed in my backyard that I have just cut back with my lawnmower, sensing its injury the response normally is to grow new leaf tendrils rapidly. For a virus particle, the actions pursuant to an intention to reproduce could be to identify a cell and where it can attach itself to the cell membrane, penetrate the cell and reproduce itself there.” I don’t think that weeds or virus particles have consciousness in the sense we think about it.
For the squirrel intentionality to eat is in the interest of biological survival. For the caterpillar, the intentionality is to propagate the species by the step of transformation into a butterfly. For the weed, the intentionality is to restore its capability for photosynthesis by creating new leaves. For the virus particle, the intentionality is to utilize the machinery of the cell it is penetrating to create large numbers of new virus particles. — I assert that intentionality is expressed over the entire spectrum of biological entities. Further, given that intentionality is so expressed, the arguments in my treatise On Being and Creation, I suggest that this intentionality can directly impact of what exists through the process of rerocausality,”
“So, I am clearly identifying intentionality as being manifest throughout the entire domain of biology. And arguably to other domains as well. Can a rock in my back yard exhibit intentionality or consciousness? Not by this definition because it cannot act in response to information, at least in any way we know of.”
”Note that as I have defined it, intentionality does not require brains or the kinds of awareness we think we have associated with being awake and the use of language and media. Instructions related to Intentions can be coded and built into DNA, such as instructions for generating a new pussy cat or human being. Executing those instruction is instinctive as we well know, and does and not require anything at all like human consciousness.”
“I need here to draw another distinction which is that between consciousness and human awareness, the latter is only a property human beings insofar as we know. Human awareness is a subset of human consciousness where we can symbolically represent situations and states of being and communicate them via language and mathematics. And store and communicate these symbolic representations to other humans. What we know about science falls in the domain of human awareness. When we talk about understanding, we are usually talking about human awareness. And for me personally sitting here and writing this. I am experiencing an incredible array of visual, auditory and sensual experiences, ranging from words showing up on my computer screen as I type or dictate them, to my hearing birds in the yard, my feeling like what it is to sit on old uncomfortable office chair in front of my computer, to the experiences of thinking through the words I am writing. I think other human beings have similar experiences, although I could never know this as a proven fact.”
Many other species communicate via quorum sensing mechanisms to form biofilm colonies or take other actions to survive, and trees can communicate via their roots and released vapors. I don’t’ think this involves consciousness. But it does involve a form of intentionality.
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