I Think, Therefore You Are

Lovely late start to the day today - something leisurely in the air for me today. List not made, dishes piled up in the sink, and it's all OK. Tonight a cookbook tasting event at the home of one of the Women's Club members. This is a two year project that will culminate in a very fancy, coffee table recipe book that will be timed for release on the anniversary of Evanston's founding - the 150th anniversary. For the cookbook, women submit favorite recipes for consideration and then other women volunteer to make the recipes from the given directions with no coaching from the author. Tonight, some of the entries will be tasted and voted upon.

And arg! I volunteered to make my friend Adrienne's grandmother's almond torte. I haven't even started it and I'm already frustrated!  Just reviewed the recipe only to realize I don't have three 8" cake pans (will have run out for some), as well as almond meal (whatever that is) and chocolate ice cream wafers that are crushed and patted on the top (I have no clue what ice cream wafers are- clearly they don't have ice cream in them, right?)  Also cringing that this little cake has a full pound of butter in it - no cake for Sarah!

So let's finish up the discussion about reality. I've been contemplating which of the articles I wanted to discuss next (there are six articles I considered) and I think what I'll do is just pluck information from some of them in no particular order - concepts/paragraphs/thoughts that can stand on their own, that I think you will find intriguing and thought provoking. It's really no substitute for reading the articles in their entirety. And presenting the info this way may make the concepts seem bizarre and far fetched, but nevertheless, here goes.

Article entitled, "Does Consciousness Create Reality" starts with an expanded thought. Descartes famously said, "I think, therefore I am." But what if he had said, "I think, therefore YOU ARE."  In this article a case is built for the idea that human consciousness actually creates reality.

..there is something special about consciousness, especially human consciousness. Von neumann argued that everything in the universe that is subject to the laws of quantum physics creates one vast quantum superposition. But the conscious mind is somehow different...we are participating observers whose minds collapse the superpositions. 

The idea of superpositions is strange to us. Get your head around the fact that it's an accepted fact that particles like electrons and photons exist in multiple places at the same time (wave function). When the wave (that includes all the places or possibilities) is measured it's the measuring that chooses JUST one of the possibilities. If we are the measurer we see (or choose) only one possibility of many.

Before human consciousness appeared, there existed a multiverse of potential universes....the emergence of a conscious mind in one of these potential universes, ours, gives it a special status: reality.

There is another interpretation - the one of "many minds"

This idea - related to the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory, which has each outcome of a quantum decision happen in a different universe - argues that an individual observing a quantum state sees ALL the many states, but each in a different mind. These minds all arise from the physical substance of the brain, and share a past and a future but cannot communicate with each other about the present.

I'm reminded of the book Incognito in which the author describes our brains as something almost unworldly with potential that we've only scratched the surface of. I'm starting to think that brain matter is some really advanced supercomputing raw material that exists the universe over. Forget silicone or other earthly metals for computation. The gray slimy stuff in our heads is the material of advanced computing and I suspect something that is foundational and ubiquitiously found in all the universes. I wonder if you're as amazed as I am by this concept. This theory - that human consciousness creates reality and that, what you experience as reality, is just one of many many simultaneous realities that exist in our brains. You know what that means right? There are many more of YOU living all the other possibilities with alternate realities, all sharing the same brain!

OK, this is getting long so I'll pluck a few more thoughts for you to consider.

• From the article, "Reality: A Universe of Information" the opening paragraph. "Whatever kind of reality you think you're living in, you're probably wrong. The universe is a computer, and everything that goes on in it can be explained in terms of information processing.
• From the article, "Reality: the Future," asks us to consider whether we might be living in someone else's simulation. "Flicking the switch on such a world simulation could have fundamental ramifications for our concept of reality...If we can do it, that makes it likely it has been done before. In fact, given the amount of computing power advanced civilizations are likely to have at their fingertips, it will probably have been done a vast number of times..so switching on our own simulation will tell us that we are almost undoubtedly in someone else's already. "We would have to think we are one of the simulated people, rather than one of the rare, exceptional non-simulated people. ... Who's to say video games are the lesser reality.

My brain is burning. Enough about reality for now! What I hope you've gotten from this is curiosity to explore this subject on your own. When I sit with these thoughts I'm finding I get a bit numb, certainly humbled by the thought that all that I'm so attached to is simply a churning in my brain, a chemical swirl that lights up something -  flicks a switch, compels me to behave in a certain way (loving, angry, etc).

Challenge today for me and maybe you is embracing the role of participant observer. If our consciousness creates reality, if we're simulations, if our brains are part of a universe superconsciousness,  it reduces our daily concerns and feelings to background noise. How adorable to think that what we think matters, really does. Those silly humans!

Peace,

Sarah