A working hippopotamus

In his outstanding new book Science and the Afterlife Experience, Chris Carter includes a tidbit about famed medium Gladys Osborne Leonard. It seems that Mrs. Leonard's control, Feda, sometimes had trouble relaying messages from discarnate communicators. On some of these occasions, a sitter would report hearing another voice in the room – a disembodied voice, apparently belonging to a frustrated spirit intent on correcting Feda's mistake.

Feda: He says you must have good – What? Hippopotamuses?

Direct voice: Hypotheses.

Feda (more loudly): Hippopotamuses.

Direct voice: Hypotheses – and don't shout!

Feda: I'm not shouting. I'm only speaking plainly.

In the spirit (so to speak) of Feda, I'd like to suggest a working hippopotamus of my own.

In the comments thread of my post "An end to hedging," Matt Rouge offered up a very interesting idea. He wrote:

I've got your mechanism of survival and a pretty crushing argument against super-psi — all in one.

Yes, this is the thing I harp on from time to time, but I think it's the paradigm shift that will make a lot of things click. I also don't claim much originality. Viz. Plato and friends.

Here we go:

1. Information is indestructible (feel free to call it "form" per Plato et al. The concept should be fairly clear).

2. Human beings have an information content. Our thoughts. Our actions. The positions of every molecule in our bodies. Everything.

3. The information content of each human being is indestructible. It is not an "object" that can cease to be. Moreover, our information is not a static thing that is merely "written down" somewhere but, reflecting the life that it mirrors, is itself living.

Our information content, or form, is what survives death. There's your mechanism — pretty simple.

Now, as for super-psi. What is psi but accessing information? So accessing the information content of the deceased and accessing the deceased him/herself is the same thing. Thus, the concept of super-psi presents no problem whatsoever for survival. In fact, it merely ends up reinforcing it.

This paradigm also solves the issue of dualism. There is no need to explain how spirit interacts with matter, since spirit is simply living information.

Anyhow, there ya go. 

I've had a long-standing interest in the idea of information as the ultimate reality. In the past I've linked to the website The Bottom Layer, which argues that the paradoxes of quantum mechanics can be resolved if we look at subatomic entities (photons, electrons etc.) as bits of data rather than as physical objects. I've also linked to some technical articles exploring the idea that the entire universe can be understood as a virtual reality simulation. Matt's comment got me thinking along those lines again.

But what does it mean to say that information is the ultimate reality? What is information, anyway? The definition can be tricky, and there is a whole field – information theory – devoted to the study of this arcane topic. I don't pretend to be an expert in it. I approach the question in simple terms. When I think of information, I think of an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia, after all, is chock-full of information.

And what is that information? Words, mostly, as well as some graphs, charts, and photographs. In short – symbols. And each symbol can be reduced to a binary code. The entire contents of the encyclopedia can be digitized in this way, with all the information presented in terms of ones and zeros. 

In fact, it is possible to reduce any physical object — a table, a car, a tree — to binary code. It would require mapping the object in point-by-point detail and digitizing those coordinates. In theory, at least, every object can be represented by ones and zeros.

How about thought itself? We think in terms of words and pictures – i.e., symbols. And we already know that symbols can be expressed in binary code.

Now, it's an open question whether or not the key feature of human thought – self-awareness – can be reduced to binary form. Can information become self-aware? Or is awareness, as such, fundamentally different from the content of consciousness? It might be argued that thoughts are the object of our awareness, and that the relationship between thought and awareness is the basis of self-awareness.

But let's leave that aside. Let's assume, for the sake of of our working hippopotamus, that everything we know of as consciousness can ultimately be reduced to symbols, which in turn can be reduced to binary code: ones and zeroes, on and off, yes and no, true and false. 

In that case, it would appear that everything in the physical world – all physical objects and all thought – could ultimately be nothing but binary code.

Picture a vast sea of ones and zeros, an almost limitless expanse of code. This information is not stored in any physical matrix. It is, instead, an information matrix that underlies the physical world.

This awesome expanse of pure information would include both a database and a program. The database would be all of the code that relates to specific items – physical objects, individual minds. The program would be that part of the code relating to universal laws, ratios, and principles – cosmic constants like the speed of light, basic relationships like e = mc², everything we know as the laws of nature, and perhaps also universal laws of other kinds (karma, say).

A program implies a programmer – some mind responsible for writing the code. But perhaps in this case we might look at things differently. We might say that the program is the programmer. If smaller bits of code can stand for individual minds, perhaps this ocean of binary code in its entirety is a Cosmic Mind. When the program crunches the numbers in its database, it is the Cosmic Mind in action. The program and the database are the Cosmic Mind working things out.

At this point, the analogy with a computer has broken down, because the programs that run the computer are distinguishable from the programmers who wrote them. The analogy breaks down in a different way also. A computer is, of course, a physical thing. The data stored in its hard drive consist of electrons in certain patterns. To be useful, the computer must be capable of projecting pixels onto a display, which requires still more electrons interacting with a screen.

But the information matrix that (we are speculating) underlies all physical reality is not made of electrons and is not projected onto any sort of physical screen. The information does not have to be converted into reality; the information is reality. If we perceive tangible, physical objects, it's only because the information-processing capabilities of the system are designed to create this persistent illusion.

I realize there are many ambiguities, gaps, and problems with this hippopotamus of mine. Still, it's interesting to consider how this approach might relate to various anomalous phenomena and other mysteries. Here's a short list.

Remote viewing. One of the oddest things about remote viewing is that the viewer can obtain information about a distant target if he is merely given the geographical coordinates – the latitude and longitude. It seems strange, at least to me, that these numbers, which are essentially meaningless to the person receiving them, can nevertheless allow him to tune in to the target location. But if everything is ultimately information, and if the remote viewer is somehow tapping into this information matrix directly, then those geographical coordinates may be all he needs to direct his search.

Psychic healing. The database contains everything that exists in reality, which means that a state of optimal health for any given individual is at least potentially available. There may be an enormous number of pathways that an ill person's life can take, only a small fraction of which will lead him to health. But suppose it is possible for the psychic healer to tune in to the information matrix and scan the range of possible paths in order to select one that leads to the desired outcome with minimal obstruction and delay. The idea is to find the path of least resistance to a healthy state. By analogy, we might think of a chess-playing computer that runs through the whole range of possible responses to an opponent's move, then chooses the optimal response.

The goal-directed nature of psi. Many researchers have remarked that psychic abilities seem to be goal-directed. The psychic may not have any idea of the mechanism, but simply by focusing on a desired result, he can make it happen. This perhaps is explicable in terms of the chess-playing analogy. Out of hundreds or even thousands of possible pathways, the psychic is able to select one that will lead to the desired goal in the most efficient and direct manner. I'm not saying the psychic is consciously aware of choosing among these various paths — only that, at the level at which his mind tunes in to the information matrix, he is able to perform an overview of the available options and home in on the best one.

Morphic fields. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has argued that there may be such things as morphic fields, which control the development of the embryo, the repair of damaged tissue, the migratory patterns of birds, the social activities of insects, etc. Conceivably these fields could be understood as information already available in the cosmic database, which is simply applied by the program to each new instance (embryo, wound, flock of birds, hive of bees, etc.) as it crops up.

Apparitions. There has been a long-standing debate about whether apparitions are physical phenomena or purely psychic manifestations. But if the individual essentially is information, then an apparition simply results from one or more observers tuning in to that information. This could explain why apparitions are sometimes seen by certain people in a room and not by others (a fact that suggests they are psychic phenomena), yet also often behave as though they possess physical reality (because, being information, they are as real as any other part of reality — which is all information). 

Synchronicities. There may be a very large number of possible paths that an individual's life can take in the course of a day, only one of which will lead to a meaningful confluence of events — a synchronicity. But suppose there is a pressing need for the individual to experience this synchronicity and receive whatever message or meaning it holds for him. If so, it may be possible to choose the one path in particular that will point to that outcome. The individual may be unconsciously accessing the information matrix and selecting the path of least resistance to a synchronicity. Or perhaps the path is arranged by some other mind, even that of a discarnate individual serving as a kind of guardian angel or spirit guide.

Abiogenesis. The origin of life remains deeply mysterious. Statisticians argue that random combinations of molecules cannot explain the origin even of individual proteins, let alone the complex machinery of a living cell, with its detailed instructions encoded in RNA or DNA. This has encouraged some people to believe that the hand of God essentially reached down and formed the first cell from scratch. But perhaps the view of reality as ultimately an information matrix gives us another option. Out of the trillions of possible pathways that those molecules in the prebiotic soup could take, let's say there was one path — statistically implausible in the extreme — that would lead to a functioning cell. That path might still require thousands of years of painstaking assembly, but it would be the only path to the desired outcome. If some mind – the Cosmic Mind, or some other – were able to select this path to the exclusion of the others, then the first living cell would eventually and inevitably come about, despite the very heavy odds against it, because the deck would be stacked in its favor.

Forteana. The term Forteana covers a variety of bizarre, anomalistic reports, such as dead fish raining from the sky, or encounters with supernatural creatures (werewolves, the Mothman, etc.), or UFO sightings. Many of these episodes are probably hoaxes, urban legends, or simple mistakes, but some of them probably do have a basis in fact. But how can things like this happen? Perhaps they can be seen as glitches in the system – data-processing errors that crop up unpredictably and are usually corrected before long. Such glitches would imply that the system is not perfect, but why should we assume that it is? In fact, it seems clear that the system does not always run optimally. "Miracles" of all kinds are unusual precisely because they represent an optimal outcome attained in the briefest possible time. Most outcomes are not optimal, at least in terms of our conscious goals and intentions. 

Given the pain and suffering of life, the frequency of natural disasters and debilitating illnesses, "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" – given all that, it may be reasonable to assume that the system, though unimaginably more complex then any human undertaking, is far from flawless.

This would further imply that the Cosmic Mind, however exalted, is not omniscient or infallible. Perhaps it is still learning from its own mistakes.

Comments

[Bruce Siegel]

Michael, you've mentioned before your fascination with the notion of information as the ultimate reality. I've gotta be honest, I don't get it at all.

It seems to be that such a theory suffers from the same fatal weakness as materialism: it has no way of accounting for qualia, feeling, love--everything that makes existence worthwhile.

Materialists can't even begin to explain how conscious *experience* arises from matter. And if you substitute information for matter, don't you run into exactly the same problem?

[Juan]

Michael, I think the information paradigm should be supplemented by the holographic paradigm, which we find in books like The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot: if the universe has a holographic structure, then each of its parts contains information on whole universe. We are part of the universe, so that we contain the information of the whole universe. So someone might know that your partner has an accident, even if hundreds of miles away, because that information was already in that person, without there being any material or energy transfer between the two individuals.

Hence the peculiarities of psi abilities: Regardless of the distance, because nothing is transferred between subject and object, regardless of physical barriers, because the information does not have to cross the space, the information is already present in the subject. But there is a problem: how to select a specific target among the infinity of possible targets? I think the key of psi abilities is the meaning, not the information, because we observed that psi abilities successively set their goals semantically: dowser locates the water acting on the terrain map, not on the terrain, because the map represents the terrain, the psychometrist captures information about a particular person by touching an object because that object is representative of such person, a remote viewer captures a place just by its coordinates because the coordinates represent the location, etc.

So before you say that information is the fundamental reality, I think the psi abilities happen because the universe has a holographic structure and that structure is based on the laws of semantics or meaning, not the laws of mechanics or movement. I do not think the meaning is the same as the information, because the information may be manipulating symbols without meaning. And I do not claim that everything is meaning, but it seems that there are two ways of relating to the world: do things mechanically, using the senses and motor apparatus, and do things through pure meanings, originated psi abilities. Or stated another way: if we see, we are on the surface of the hologram, under mechanical laws, but if we catch psychically, we are at the bottom of the hologram, acting from its foundation, under semantics laws. One could say that the psychic functioning is to hack reality from its root, but the root is not pure information but pure meaning.

[GregL]

"It seems to be that such a theory suffers from the same fatal weakness as materialism: it has no way of accounting for qualia, feeling, love--everything that makes existence worthwhile."

Not if we go a step further and say that the binary bits Michael speaks of are the projection components of a virtual reality. Assume that consiousness is timeless and spaceless and, in order to evolve further,uses binary information to project the illusion of a timespace reality, to small versions (us)of itself. This theory also holds that a single primitive consciousness has been evolving by becoming binary, or segmented if you will,and relating to itself. The qualia is now there. If you get a chance see Tom Campbell's works.

GregL

[Barbara]

I kind of agree with Bruce rather than GregL. For one thing, computer scientists are starting to see the limitations of digital computing (ones and zeroes), and are thinking of analog for the future. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/upside/

We should beware of thinking what we do or know now has any resemblance to ultimate reality.

I’m not sure why Juan makes a special case for “meaning”. I thought Michael covered that by his reference to “intention” – choosing a future brings meaning, doesn’t it?

I like Michael's idea of information being continuously created by the underlying structure or laws of the universe –that makes sense. But I don’t understand the idea of indestructibility. A hard drive can be wiped, we can die, our memories can be lost, so if here, why not up there. OK, a psychic pattern may be retained for a while – but I kinda doubt the universal database hangs on to every time I went to the bathroom.

[W Vogt]

Would it be appropriate for a Hegelian in responding to your thesis to put forward a rhinoceros as an antithesis?

[no one]

"It seems to be that such a theory suffers from the same fatal weakness as materialism: it has no way of accounting for qualia, feeling, love--everything that makes existence worthwhile."

I agree Bruce. I am hung up on the same thing.

Also, I don't see how pure information has intent.

We like to talk about souls learning, advancing, progressing, etc - how does information do that? It seems some other aspect more intrisic, more basic, something other than just information - like a life force - must be be involved.

[no one]

"in order to evolve further,uses binary information to project the illusion of a timespace reality, to small versions (us)of itself."

And this seems to me to have problems as well. How does the hologram hippo account for individuality or the divirsity we see in nature?

[Ulysses]

Besides the holographic nature of information, another attribute of information at the quantum level relevant to the survival of consciousness hypothesis is that information in the quantum states cannot be destroyed --although it can be scrambled or encoded beyond recognition:

http://phys.org/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

[Juan]

Barbara, if I give importance to the meaning, is because most of psi abilities have in common that the relationship between the subject and the objective is semantic, not mechanical, as we read in this article by Michael Levin:

http://es.scribd.com/doc/2684683/Michael-Levin-What-is-the-Fundamental-Nature-of-Consciousness

I think psi abilities are authentic manifestation of magic, because magical thinking is the claim to have the symbol of a thing gives us power over that thing. If by "power" also understand knowledge, psi abilities are examples of magic, because through these abilities we are knowing things which are only semantically connected. Hence, it requires the existence of a plane governed by laws of semantics, which would be the holographic field.

[Michael Prescott]

'it has no way of accounting for qualia, feeling, love--everything that makes existence worthwhile. Materialists can't even begin to explain how conscious *experience* arises from matter. And if you substitute information for matter, don't you run into exactly the same problem?'

I agree that this is the biggest stumbling block, besides the fact that the whole idea is speculative and probably not testable. But we can't say how conscious experience arises from anything - whether matter or information or something else. So we are left with saying either that we don't know how it arises, or that it never arises at all and is simply a metaphysical given.

'Would it be appropriate for a Hegelian in responding to your thesis to put forward a rhinoceros as an antithesis?'

Hmm. Is a rhino an anti-hippo? I would think you'd need something skinny to serve as an antithesis. A giraffe, maybe.

[Bruce Siegel]

"But we can't say how conscious experience arises from anything - whether matter or information or something else. So we are left with saying either that we don't know how it arises, or that it never arises at all and is simply a metaphysical given."

I agree--we're left with an abiding mystery. But if I have to choose between consciousness or information as the ultimate reality, I'll choose consciousness, because I'd rather be faced with explaining how Mind (with its capacity to love) generates information, than vice-versa.

[Roger Knights]

I'm glad MP mentioned Sheldrake's morphic fields. I think those must be related to ESP and psi--and to the "all is one" experience of mysticism.

[Matt Rouge]

I'm flattered, Michael, thanks! And needless to say, we are on the same page, literally and metaphorically.

I'd also like to say that this blog is more than just some nice ideas and people chattering about them. I think we are doing genuine philosophy and advancing the conversation here. Our agora is not so very different from Aristotle's, albeit virtual in nature. Try to think of a funny pun using "peripatetic"; I couldn't think of one.

I think I can clear up some of the pertinent and interesting points raised by Bruce and no one (including no one's question raised in the preceding blog post).

Consider this:

||(From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moving_Finger#Explanation_of_the_novel.27s_title)

Verse 51 of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The poem, in turn, refers to Belshazzar's feast as related in the Book of Daniel, where the expression the writing on the wall originated.||

So think of a past event. Your birthday party from years back. It happened. You remember it. You may have a present sitting around your house.

As Fitzgerald/Khayyam wrote, the past is the past and nothing can change it. We intuit this to be the case. Now, here's the question: What makes the past the past forever, indelible? Is that there is a physical *object* somewhere which, if destroyed, the past would cease to exist? We intuit that this is not the case. Is it that there is information written down or encoded in some medium, without which the past would cease to exist or would never have existed in the first place? IOW, is some sort of non-physical object required?

We intuit that this is not the case as well. And there is an insurmountable argument against it in any case: If, for example, the past requires mediation by some code in order to be the past, then how does the code itself exist in an unmediated state?

So we see that the past does not require any object or medium to exist qua the past. And this is what I mean by "information": the unmediated *content* of something; its "form" per Plato; the "fact of the matter" pertaining to it.

"Information" is a misnomer, and I'm careful to point that out, but no word that we have is adequate; we can only point to the concept and "get it."

Michael used a sea of 1s and 0s as a metaphor, but ultimately reality does not have a medium, substrate, or scaffold. Here again, the argument applies. If reality were a virtual reality program, not just metaphorically but actually, then we would still have to explain the functioning of hardware, software, and the data storage medium. IOW, we would be no closer to explaining ultimate reality.

Getting a bit closer to what is meant, then, about "information" already starts to clear things up a bit, but let's take a look at Bruce's and no one's points:

Bruce wrote,

||It seems to be that such a theory suffers from the same fatal weakness as materialism: it has no way of accounting for qualia, feeling, love--everything that makes existence worthwhile.||

First of all, it's not a scientific theory; it's a philosophical framework. Thus, it is not testable by experiment. It is purely the product of reason. Materialism is also not a theory.

Second, the part of the framework that Michael and I are talking about does *not* explain how qualia, feeling, and love exist; for these, separate explanations are required. I don't see why that's a big deal. It would only be a big deal if it was *incompatible* with explanations of these things. For that matter, I don't think materialism is incompatible with these things either (at least on the surface). We here reject materialism as a framework because its proponents reject phenomena we perceive as clearly existing.

no one wrote (on the other page),

||When I think of pure "information" I don't necessarily think of "life". I see something more like a data dump from a computer's hard drive to, say, an internet storage; a static set of data compiled while the computer was being used, but still available now that the computer is "dead".

When I think of learning, developing, advancing, etc, I think of a living entity that is interacting with other living entities and environments and making choices and actively processing information and, perhaps most importantly, exercising intent.

In other words, your idea of the surviving entity as "information" seems, to me, to lack "life".||

Maybe the explanation above makes things a little clearer. But when I talk about the "fact of the matter" of the person, it's not like static information written down or a bunch of photographs. For example, it would include the person's entire state at any given time during life, including thoughts, feelings, intentions *in full living motion*. It is each and every aspect of you, all living and interrelated.

Thus, when we die, this full content *is* us, and it's *alive.*

||Also, I don't see how pure information has intent.||

This is similar to asking about qualia. How do we have intent as human beings right now? If you can explain that, then the same explanation applies to how we have intent at any given time, including after death.

I mean, what if I asked, "How did I have intent in the past, when the past has no material forming it?" In actuality, I have intent in the past because the "fact of the matter" of myself that *now* is the past had/has intent qua myself in the past.

||We like to talk about souls learning, advancing, progressing, etc - how does information do that? It seems some other aspect more intrisic, more basic, something other than just information - like a life force - must be be involved.||

By way of explanation (to some degree), I think things like love, quality, feeling, life force, meaning, etc., are emergent *properties* of the Universe and not in themselves "things." E.g., roundness is a property of a sphere, not a thing that can be removed from the sphere. Similarly, consciousness is a property of a system and not a thing or a substance that could be spread on toast.

[Bruce Siegel]

"the part of the framework that Michael and I are talking about does *not* explain how qualia, feeling, and love exist; for these, separate explanations are required. I don't see why that's a big deal."

Matt, I wasn't objecting to the fact that Michael didn't give specifics as to how information gives rise to qualia. But he was hypothesizing that information is the "ultimate reality," which would mean that it's more basic than consciousness, that it somehow precedes or gives rise to it. And I don't see how that's possible.

Unless you broaden the definition of information, as you do here:

"And this is what I mean by "information": the unmediated *content* of something . . . the "fact of the matter" pertaining to it."

But how can anyone argue with that? How can I refute the premise that the ultimate reality of the universe is its "unmediated content" or the "fact of the matter pertaining to it"?

"I think things like love, quality, feeling, life force, meaning, etc., are emergent *properties* of the Universe and not in themselves "things." E.g., roundness is a property of a sphere, not a thing that can be removed from the sphere. Similarly, consciousness is a property of a system and not a thing or a substance that could be spread on toast."

Excellent! Except for one thing--the word "emergent." Would you be willing to change that to "fundamental"?

[Matt Rouge]

Bruce,

You also wrote,

||I agree--we're left with an abiding mystery. But if I have to choose between consciousness or information as the ultimate reality, I'll choose consciousness, because I'd rather be faced with explaining how Mind (with its capacity to love) generates information, than vice-versa.||

I think the ultimate reality comes down to the absolute facts of logic, mathematics, pattern, etc. I think these are the rails on which everything else must run. For example, consciousness does not decide that 2 + 2 = 4 or the value of pi.

This is also an argument I use against monotheism. God could not make 2 + 2 = 5; therefore, God must be subordinate to these facts or truths as well, if God exists at all.

[no one]

Matt, well, which comes first, the consciousness or the information?

A question, which I recognize, is another way of restating Bruces, "I agree--we're left with an abiding mystery. But if I have to choose between consciousness or information as the ultimate reality, I'll choose consciousness, because I'd rather be faced with explaining how Mind (with its capacity to love) generates information, than vice-versa. "

I can pretty much understand your explanation as it relates to *the past*. Where I am unable to find usefullness in your explanation - and it's probably just me being dense - is when thinking about on going life; particularly in the afterlife.

When a medium has contacted a deceased spirit and begins a dialogue, the spirit often enough engages in a discussion concerning it's *ongoing* activities and perceptions. It isn't just echoes and vibrations of information accumulated over a lifetime on earth. There is still some creative life force within the spirit.

Something is binding information bytes into a distinct entity and that entity has a functioning will.

Without that binding force, one would truly permanently merge into the oneness of all things and would cease to exist.

My crude mental image is something like an infinite number of informational point or units. These "dots" could be assembled any way you want. If there were no form, no outline, encompassing and delineating the points within the outline as being the late good old Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe as a distinct unit, would be lost to us forever as far as a living spirit is concerned. Uncle Joe could never tell us, describing veridical details, that he was pleased to observe (from an otherwordly seat) our wedding, or to beware that Aunt sally would be succumbing to an illness in a few months or that sort of thing (as spirits often do).

I guess I am interested in the force and/or form that binds the information into distinct entities. And I guess I am also giving it - the form - primacy over the informational content encased within and therefore see it is a different thing. Why? I don't don't. It just seems really important to me (I'm also an obessive sometimes).

Hopefully, at least some of that makes a modicum of sense.

[no one]

"And this is what I mean by "information": the unmediated *content* of something . . . the "fact of the matter" pertaining to it."

"But how can anyone argue with that?"

LOL.

'It is that which it is' - does seem like a catch-all definition. Indeed hard to counter ;-)

[Matt Rouge]

Bruce, no one,

||"And this is what I mean by "information": the unmediated *content* of something . . . the "fact of the matter" pertaining to it."

"But how can anyone argue with that?"

LOL.

'It is that which it is' - does seem like a catch-all definition. Indeed hard to counter ;-)||

Actually, it's not catch-all. This concept covers that which has form or defining characteristics. There are other things which do *not* have such characteristics. For example, eternal truths such as 2 + 2 = 4. This is unmediated also, but it requires no form in order to be true. IOW, 2 + 2 = 4 requires no qualia or medium or even a consciousness recognizing its truth in order to be true. It would be true even in a void. It is not an object, and it doesn't have a separate existence, but it is a fact about reality that we can intuit.

Whereas the fact that you ate a roast beef sandwich *does* require the entire arbitrary situation with its qualia and causes and effects.

Moreover, saying that such content is unmediated says that it is *not mediated.* The distinction is similar to saying that electromagnetic radiation does not aether in order to propagate. There is no medium--this is an important philosophical distinction.

[no one]

Where does qualia come from? For that matter, where does information come from?

I confess. I am lost in this discussion. I really don't understand. I better sit back and see what others offer up.

[RabbitDawg]

I have to agree with Bruce and Barbara, if we are information composed of some etheric digitized information, what is the data composed of? Where's the qualia?

I believe humans have a habit of couching our explanations of the spiritual world into our current trend of thought. Ancient people explained the world via magic, industrial age folks saw the Universe as a machine, and now we find the idea of seeing creation as a giant computer. These are the the "myths" of our eras.

We can't seem to escape our materialist experience and worldview. Even worlds like "spirit" and "energy" have a materialist edge. Spirit conjures up images of a filmy, floating entity, and energy implies something quantifiable, and therefore measurable. The information that we seek when we study spirituality simply is beyond our ability do explain - our senses are limited. All we can do is experience it.
After all, near death experiencers are constantly stressing that their experience was ineffable, there are no worlds in any language to describe them, yet we proceed to push them to describe The Other Side anyway. The problem is, it is hopeless to try to form a science in a material world based on the ineffable.
Of course, we can always have fun trying. :-)

[Matt Rouge]

no one,

||Matt, well, which comes first, the consciousness or the information?||

I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of the "I-thought." I think the "I-thought" is emergent, but it could be fairly primary.

As far as human-like consciousness, that requires a heck of a lot of emergence, and it's not very primary at all. I mean, we can have a world of dinosaurs clawing at each other and no consciousness at all. Sentience, sure, but not self-aware and self-modulating consciousness. And if you take the human mind and give it no content at all, I don't think you have consciousness, either, so I think the content is primary.

||A question, which I recognize, is another way of restating Bruces, "I agree--we're left with an abiding mystery. But if I have to choose between consciousness or information as the ultimate reality, I'll choose consciousness, because I'd rather be faced with explaining how Mind (with its capacity to love) generates information, than vice-versa."||

To me this sounds like painting a pretty picture and doing real philosophy. Consciousness and love are NICE! Sure they are. But the kind of consciousness and love we experience are the produce of billions of years of evolution. If we think of these things as primary, then we're back to proposing an omniscient, all-loving God, and perhaps we're made in his image. That's not absurd, but I don't think it's congruent with the facts on the ground.

||I can pretty much understand your explanation as it relates to *the past*. Where I am unable to find usefullness in your explanation - and it's probably just me being dense - is when thinking about on going life; particularly in the afterlife.||

I am arguing this in two directions. One, I think it makes sense in its own right, but, two, I think nothing else makes sense.

To me, philosophy is the practice of more correct and easier thinking. When one thinks correctly, things "click." When we started thinking of the earth as revolving around the sun, everything fell into place.

Similarly, Michael gave an excellent list of things that "click" when you see spirit as information/form. I plan to add to that list in a bit here. But one thing that instantly clicks, IMV, is that indestructibility of facts/information/forms jibes with our intuition that we are spiritually indestructible. It also clicks with our intuition that survival of death is universal. Everyone and everything has content/form, so everything survives insofar as it has these things. E.g., a power tool "survives" as a power tool. In the Afterlife, you could "summon" a favorite power tool, but it would just be... a power tool. Whereas a beloved pet would *be* your living pet.

OTOH, if we say that spirit requires an object--i.e., spirit is a thing--then the question remains why that thing will not eventually be destroyed as all things are? IOW, why is spirit qua object not subject to entropy?

The traditional answer for this is, "Because God makes it so!" God makes your soul and then makes sure that it continues to exist. God will put your soul in heaven and make sure things are dandy. The extreme form of this would be as in those Christian sects that believe that there is no soul separate from the body, and you will be dead after you die and only exist later on because God resurrects you on Judgment Day.

Again, none of this is absurd on the surface, but I don't believe it, and that's a separate argument.

||When a medium has contacted a deceased spirit and begins a dialogue, the spirit often enough engages in a discussion concerning it's *ongoing* activities and perceptions. It isn't just echoes and vibrations of information accumulated over a lifetime on earth. There is still some creative life force within the spirit.||

Correct.

||Something is binding information bytes into a distinct entity and that entity has a functioning will.||

I think the "information" metaphor is doing harm. It's not actual bytes, etc.

||Without that binding force, one would truly permanently merge into the oneness of all things and would cease to exist.||

No, because information/form is indestructible.

||My crude mental image is something like an infinite number of informational point or units. These "dots" could be assembled any way you want. If there were no form, no outline, encompassing and delineating the points within the outline as being the late good old Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe as a distinct unit, would be lost to us forever as far as a living spirit is concerned.||

That is true, each of us has arbitrary content. This is why unmediated content is necessary. If a "thing" were required to *be* Uncle Joe or *contain* Uncle Joe, then eventually that thing would fail and Uncle Joe would cease to exist.

||Uncle Joe could never tell us, describing veridical details, that he was pleased to observe (from an otherwordly seat) our wedding, or to beware that Aunt sally would be succumbing to an illness in a few months or that sort of thing (as spirits often do).||

Actually, I thought of another thing for Michael's "Click List," if I may call it that. We know that time is much different in the Afterlife than it is here, if it can be said to be time at all. So how can Uncle Joe and Aunt Sally observe the wedding at all? Yet, if Uncle Joe and Aunt Sally *are* "information," then it would make sense that they could connect with the event on the level of "information." There would be no need to synchronize the two clocks, so to speak.

||I guess I am interested in the force and/or form that binds the information into distinct entities. And I guess I am also giving it - the form - primacy over the informational content encased within and therefore see it is a different thing. Why? I don't don't. It just seems really important to me (I'm also an obessive sometimes).||

Well the form *is* the information is the form. The forces that bind it are analogous to what binds them here on Earth, although they are much more malleable. For example, in the Afterlife, you have hands, and those hands have atoms in them. Yet you can put one of your hands through another without damage, you can teleport to another location, etc. Why? Because it's really just the idea of your hand. That idea is indestructible, and it's now only limited by how you think of it. This is why people report seeing their relatives as young and healthy. Those relatives are able to be any version of themselves they wish.

||Hopefully, at least some of that makes a modicum of sense.|| A modicum of it made some sense. j/k!

[RabbitDawg]

One quick defense of trying to use words to describe the unexplainable - at least the act of trying does bring us closer to the experience and the ineffable Truth that we are inexplicably compelled to seek. If there was nothing there, why do we feel the urge to seek it? What are we being drawn to?
No matter how we may disagree on the details, every mentally stable human being on this planet has a sense of right and wrong. Why?

[Bruce Siegel]

"I think the ultimate reality comes down to the absolute facts of logic, mathematics, pattern, etc. I think these are the rails on which everything else must run."

I think we're waiting for different trains. :o)

My experience, my readings, everything I know points to the fact that NOTHING is more fundamental than consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no logic, no pattern, no 2 + 2---not even the concept of 2 itself (or 1 for that matter).

Not even the laws of physics.

That's why NDErs keep referring to the light as Source. I think they mean it literally and absolutely, and I take them at their word because it jibes with my own experience.

[Matt Rouge]

RabbitDawg wrote,

||I have to agree with Bruce and Barbara, if we are information composed of some etheric digitized information, what is the data composed of? Where's the qualia?||

I'm gonna cry here. I've just spent a bunch of time trying to explain how it's *not* digital information and it's *not* mediated. "Information" is a metaphor, a signpost only.

||I believe humans have a habit of couching our explanations of the spiritual world into our current trend of thought. Ancient people explained the world via magic, industrial age folks saw the Universe as a machine, and now we find the idea of seeing creation as a giant computer. These are the the "myths" of our eras.||

See above. I don't claim to have all the answers. And I'm not saying it's easy to grasp. Its implications really twist the mind like a pretzel. It's not easy philosophy.

||We can't seem to escape our materialist experience and worldview. Even worlds like "spirit" and "energy" have a materialist edge. Spirit conjures up images of a filmy, floating entity, and energy implies something quantifiable, and therefore measurable. The information that we seek when we study spirituality simply is beyond our ability do explain - our senses are limited. All we can do is experience it.
After all, near death experiencers are constantly stressing that their experience was ineffable, there are no worlds in any language to describe them, yet we proceed to push them to describe The Other Side anyway. The problem is, it is hopeless to try to form a science in a material world based on the ineffable.
Of course, we can always have fun trying. :-)||

If it were totally ineffable, we simply wouldn't have any evidence of survival. Plus, the ineffable may slowly but surely become effable as we develop the tools (I don't think it all will). We have to just do our best.

[Bruce Siegel]

"God could not make 2 + 2 = 5"

Not if he wants to remain consistent with the rest of the mathematics he has devised. :o)

[Bruce Siegel]

"I believe humans have a habit of couching our explanations of the spiritual world into our current trend of thought. Ancient people explained the world via magic, industrial age folks saw the Universe as a machine, and now we find the idea of seeing creation as a giant computer. These are the the "myths" of our eras."

I was thinking the same thing, RabbitDawg. They call this the Information Age, right? I think Matt and Michael have allowed themselves to be seduced by it. :o)

[RabbitDawg]

" They call this the Information Age, right? I think Matt and Michael have allowed themselves to be seduced by it. :o)"

Bruce,
Matt and Michael have a way of explaining the world that is comfortable to them, and in their defense, it makes sense (up to a point). And Matt points out that he doesn't take his digital universe literally. They're trying, so there's hope. :-)

When I use the word "myth", I mean it in the truest sense of the word, not the way it is normally used in our society as a pejorative. A myth is a way of breaking the unexplainable down into a comprehensible style of thinking. It's not so much a right/wrong thing, as a way of getting a grip on the inexplicable. The universe is magical when you think about it. It also seems like a machine. Information recorded on the Akashic Sky isn't a bad explanation, it's just incomplete.

[no one]

Huh. Well, I always just thought that the spirit is a being made of light (the light of consciousness) that becomes attached to a physical body and informs that body while the attachment is strong. As the attachment weakens the body become sick, perhaps the mentality becomes demented. Then, when the light being completely detaches the physical body dies. It's processes stop and decay sets in.

The light body/consciousness body actually is a thing. It can't be seen, normally, by human eyes because it is out of that spectrum that physical eyes can perceive. Sometimes it can be seen by spiritual "eyes" (or senses) - another's own light being. That is to say that there is a form of light that is conscious (or vice versa). So when this light being is out there away from the phsyical body it can still perceive, is still alive, can think and can feel. It is the person freed from physical restraints and the associated brain based mental restraints and it can interact with other realms and beings that are built of the same stuff.

N need for the informational theory because this theory just skips right past that. The light being *is* Uncle Joe. It's just Uncle Joe without a physical body. Much simpler, IMO.

I think this theory can cover all of Michael's "click list (nice term, btw).

Which means, Matt, we have arrived at a rare juncture where you and I actually don't agree.

[Matt Rouge]

no one,

I think your body is currently possessed by a being of light called Bruce Siegel. What happened, man?!

;)

||Huh. Well, I always just thought||

Is this how you do philosophy?! Hey, I always just thought this way, so... yup! This is it! Immanuel Kant is clawing at his casket lid right this moment.

I'm totally just yankin' yer chain, by they way!

|| that the spirit is a being made of light (the light of consciousness) that becomes attached to a physical body and informs that body while the attachment is strong.||

OK, now I'm serious. What is the origin of the being of light? Is it created for each incarnation? Also, what is the "light of consciousness"? Isn't that just a fancy term for "spirit"? How does this term provide information beyond "spirit"?

||As the attachment weakens the body become sick, perhaps the mentality becomes demented. Then, when the light being completely detaches the physical body dies. It's processes stop and decay sets in.

The light body/consciousness body actually is a thing.||

If it's a thing, then how is it indestructible? Or is it?

||It can't be seen, normally, by human eyes because it is out of that spectrum that physical eyes can perceive. Sometimes it can be seen by spiritual "eyes" (or senses) - another's own light being. That is to say that there is a form of light that is conscious (or vice versa). So when this light being is out there away from the phsyical body it can still perceive, is still alive, can think and can feel. It is the person freed from physical restraints and the associated brain based mental restraints and it can interact with other realms and beings that are built of the same stuff.||

I agree with this in that it recognizes the actual phenomena we hear about from NDEs, mediums, etc. But simply listing the phenomena in conjunction with the term "being of light" doesn't really explain anything further.

||N need for the informational theory because this theory just skips right past that. The light being *is* Uncle Joe. It's just Uncle Joe without a physical body. Much simpler, IMO.||

Well, it's simple because it doesn't actually explain anything. We already have a generic idea of non-physical spirits that *are* the essence of the person. What is new here?

||I think this theory can cover all of Michael's "click list (nice term, btw).||

I don't. The whole point of a click list :) is that a new concept, framework, etc., makes a bunch of stuff "easier to think about." You would need to go back through the list and explain how your "being of light" theory makes all these things "click."

||Which means, Matt, we have arrived at a rare juncture where you and I actually don't agree.||

Give it a few more minutes. You'll come around. ;)

[Bruce Siegel]

"no one,
I think your body is currently possessed by a being of light called Bruce Siegel."

Not a chance. I'm finding all the challenges I need inhabiting the body I'm already in. :o)

[Michael Prescott]

Interesting comments from everyone. Let me pursue this a little further by looking at some of the objections that have cropped up.

Objection: If a person is just information, then upon dying he will merge with the infinite sea of information and lose his individuality.

Response: Why? An avatar in a computer game is just information, but it is still clearly distinguishable from the other avatars, as well as from the general environment of the game. It does not lose its individuality as it moves from one level to another in the game.

Objection: Consciousness does not emerge from information.

Response: I agree that it does not *necessarily* emerge from information. An encyclopedia is full of information, but it is not conscious. It does not sit on the shelf thinking to itself, “Gosh, I'm so much smarter than that James Patterson book next to me. That thing is an imbecile!”

Nevertheless, it is at least arguable that at a certain level of complexity, information can give rise to consciousness. In other words, consciousness may be an emergent property of information once the information is sufficiently complex. It is at least possible that if human beings were able to build a robot with an electronic nervous system that matched the human nervous system in complexity, the robot would exhibit consciousness.

Incidentally, this could be an argument for a kind of group consciousness as well as individual consciousness. For example, an individual honeybee may exhibit little or nothing that we would recognize as consciousness, but a colony of honeybees exhibits many traits consistent with consciousness; the colony undertakes large-scale engineering projects, segregates its members into different castes with different duties, and engages in communication by means of elaborate “dances” that point to where to find pollen. Maybe the level of complexity of an individual honeybee mind is not adequate to produce consciousness in any measurable way, but the sum total of many honeybee minds is sufficiently complex to allow a group consciousness to emerge.

Objection: It's silly to think that the essence of reality is a bunch of ones and zeros.

Response: The ones and zeros are only a convenient way of describing information in its simplest form. I do think that some kind of binary scheme is necessary for information. The division could be one/zero, yes/no, true/false, black/white, heads/tails, up/down, good/bad, right/wrong, plus/minus, or any other pair of opposites. it seems to me that all information can be reduced to such binary terms; the specific symbols – whether ones and zeros or something else – are not important. Without a binary scheme (or something more elaborate), I don't see how any information could be stored or expressed. I could be wrong, because I am not an information theorist.

Objection: This kind of hypothesis merely reflects our current technological capabilities.

Response: That's true up to a point, but the hypothesis has its roots in long-standing philosophical and mystical traditions, even if it couches those traditions in more modern-sounding language. Also, it does seem as if viewing quantum entities as bits of data rather than as physical things helps to resolve otherwise inexplicable paradoxes. See the Bottom Layer website or look at the essay by Brian Whitworth (both linked in the main post). If the view of the universe as essentially a vast data-processing exercise helps to explain the conundrums of quantum mechanics, perhaps it can be helpful in explaining other things.

Objection: This viewpoint is too much like materialism. It is reductionist – only instead of reducing everything to matter, it reduces everything to data.

Response: Presumably we have to start somewhere. I think there are basically 3 options – matter (and energy), consciousness, and information. Starting with matter gives us materialism. Starting with consciousness gives us philosophical idealism. Starting with information gives us something else. I don't know exactly what the name for it is ( it's a form of neutral monism, I guess), but it's at least possible that information can give rise to both consciousness and what we call matter, and can bypass the considerable problems associated with both materialism and idealism.

[Matt Rouge]

Michael, you wrote,

||The ones and zeros are only a convenient way of describing information in its simplest form. I do think that some kind of binary scheme is necessary for information. The division could be one/zero, yes/no, true/false, black/white, heads/tails, up/down, good/bad, right/wrong, plus/minus, or any other pair of opposites. it seems to me that all information can be reduced to such binary terms; the specific symbols – whether ones and zeros or something else – are not important.||

I would say that this is provably false. A transcendental number like pi can never be reduced to a binary scheme. In your mind, you can easily understand that pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, but you can't hold in your head pi to an infinite number of digits, binary or decimal or anything else.

As another example, I don't think that the *understanding* that an operation like modus ponens is necessarily true is held in the mind in binary code.

||Without a binary scheme (or something more elaborate), I don't see how any information could be stored or expressed. I could be wrong, because I am not an information theorist.||

If such information is to be stored, what is the storage medium? And if all is information, then isn't the storage medium also information requiring storage? We get an infinite regress.

That's why I push for unmediated information/form/etc.

[Michael Prescott]

"A transcendental number like pi can never be reduced to a binary scheme. In your mind, you can easily understand that pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, but you can't hold in your head pi to an infinite number of digits, binary or decimal or anything else."

I would say that pi can be calculated by the program to as many decimal places as necessary in any given situation. The *formula* can be stored as binary code, and the calculation can be done (by the information processor) as needed. The formula is what matters.

I think this kind of calculation may be going on all the time. See the Bottom Layer site for examples of how the double-slit experiments can be understood as the results of different calculations performed not by the scientists but by the "universe." The cosmic CPU, so to speak, is constantly crunching numbers, and the results of any given calculation (particle or wave?) depend on the context.

Also, I doubt that anything truly infinite can exist, since there are severe logical problems with the idea of infinity. Infinity seems to be a potential, not an actuality. It is a mathematical concept, not an empirical reality. The same is probably true of imaginary numbers (e.g., the square root of a negative number) - useful concepts for certain mathematical operations, but not something you can point to in reality.

Remember, I suggested that the Cosmic Mind is not omniscient, so it need not hold infinite information - just a very, very large amount.

Regarding an understanding of modus ponens, I'd say it falls under the category of consciousness, which I'm speculating is an emergent property of complex information systems. The emergent property perhaps cannot be reduced to code, but the same is not true of the information that gives rise to it. The same is true of other secondary or emergent properties. It may not be possible to quantify the beauty of a sunset, but it is possible to quantify the sunset's colors.

I wrote: "Without a binary scheme (or something more elaborate), I don't see how any information could be stored or expressed." But I should have written: "...I don't see how any information could exist." It's not really a question of storage, but of whether or not there can be information at all. It seems to me that an alternative between true and false, or yes and no, is crucial to the possibility of there being any information in the first place - but again, I'm not an information theorist, so I could be wrong.

[Bruce Siegel]

Michael said:

"Nevertheless, it is at least arguable that at a certain level of complexity, information can give rise to consciousness."

As you all know (and are probably tired of hearing me say), my primary approach to answering questions like this is that of the mystic. I look to my own experiences in deeply altered states, and also to the experiences of others whom I trust, such as some NDErs.

And from that perspective, I simply don't see evidence for the notion that consciousness is achieved through an *additive* process. I don't see that it results from assembling tiny bits of information, or matter, or anything else, until the crowning moment when consciousness has at last been achieved.

I have yet to hear of an NDEr who returned to his body with insights into the origin of his own consciousness as being bits of information. Or to speak of a moment when consciousness first comes into being.

Actually, I see evidence for the opposite. Time and again, NDErs report that during their experience, they remembered their true identity as a much LARGER being than they had previously suspected. They make comments like, "I can't believe that I was tricked into thinking I was just a human, when I am actually so much more than that."

They speak of returning to the Source, and use that word to refer to an entity that is infinite in scope and capacity.

Always, the emphasis is on consciousness as eternal, limitless, and without beginning or end.

Likewise, my own experiences have given me no inklings that consciousness is cobbled together from bits of information.

Bottom line: I believe, as most human beings seem to have believed for almost all of our history, that we descend from the sacred and the whole, rather than ascend from the mundane and the small.

[GregL]

"Response: Presumably we have to start somewhere. I think there are basically 3 options – matter (and energy), consciousness, and information"

"Bottom line: I believe, as most human beings seem to have believed for almost all of our history, that we descend from the sacred and the whole, rather than ascend from the mundane and the small."

There is also the possibility that binary information emerged from a primary overall consciousness. Wheeler said "it from bit" but possibly we have "bit from it." Our universe may be a binary VR with us as the avatars emerging from one mind trying to evolve. Life after "death" would equate to different game levels. Under this scenario both Michaels veiwpoint and Bruce's would contain truths.

GregL

[Juan]

I think there is a way to reconcile the positions of Matt and not one. I agree with no one in that spirit is a being of light, the astral body, which is a physical thing, material, but made of a material unknown to modern science. With the astral body remains materialist intuition that experiences are instantiated in something that can not be in a vacuum. The astral body is normally invisible but under certain unusual circumstances may be visible by anyone and there are certain people, the mediums, able to perceive more than others. The astral body is the vehicle of consciousness and uses the organic body as an instrument. With the death of the organic body, the astral body continues his adventure in other planes of existence.

This theory explains almost all the phenomena described by the SPR in a very elegant: the apparitions of the living are apparitions of astral body that has been temporarily separated from the organic body. The apparitions of the dead are apparitions of astral body that is permanently separated from the organic body. The extracorporeal experiences are experiences of astral body temporarily separating the organic body. Then within the apparitions of the living have reciprocal apparitions, which joins the extracorporeal experience with the apparition of someone alive. Mediumship is the use of the organic body of an individual by the astral body of a deceased person. Children who remember past lives seem to assume that the astral body of a deceased partner again with an organic body that is forming and that for some reason the astral body does not forget his past memories.

However, as Matt has written, if the spirit is a physical object, will not destructible? Not necessarily, due to the following. Astral body theory seems to have difficulty explaining telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.., But not because considering these abilities we admit that the astral body is non-local at least on occasions. So, usually the astral body is located in the organic body, but if there is a clairvoyant or psychokinetic experience, the astral body is de-localized, leaving to have a precise position in space. It's like the wave-particle duality: usually our mind has a precise location (particle), but sometimes occur psi experiences and our mind ceases to have a precise location (wave). But what does it mean that the astral body is essentially nonlocal? It means that the astral body is everywhere and nowhere at once, so it is not an object but as a stone, that if you destroy the stone completely destroy it, it is an object spread throughout the universe, so should be destroyed it to destroy the entire universe, and as it seems that the universe is indestructible, the astral body is also indestructible.

Hence we end up with a very similar idea to the Matt´s idea that the information is indestructible. But the same can be argued from the holographic paradigm: if the universe is like a hologram, then the destruction of a part is not its destruction, but still resides in the whole.

And I have a question for Michael: if the information is the fundamental reality, what then is algorithmic whole universe? I ask this because I have my doubts that all phenomena are simulated using algorithms. Roger Penrose has argued that aspects of the mind that are not algorithmic, and although I'm not sure he is right, it seems plausible that in creativity, create new theories in opposition to implement theories already given, there is an element non-algorithmic.

[no one]

"....But if everything is ultimately information, and if the remote viewer is somehow tapping into this information matrix directly, then those geographical coordinates may be all he needs to direct his search....."

I figured out part of my problem with Michael's "clicks". Take the one above. Now, my team, at work, builds analytical databases from raw data and financial data so people like me can easily create reports with meaningful metrics. I know how relational databases are designed. I participate in that part of the development process.

There has to be a key field that two or more tables have in common in order to accurately draw information from more than one table in an orderly and accurate way. Without the key field, the tables wouldn't join at all. You could merge the table, but then you'd just have a random jumble of information lacking in meaningful relationships.

To illustrate, if you want to understand the medical claims experience for a given region and how that relates to, say premiums (claims and premium information being stored in two separate tables) then you need something in common to bring the tables together, like say a region code in both tables (professional pride impels me to mention that this is a waaaaay oversimplified example). It is the region code that allows the correct premium data to be aligned with the correct region data.

So, if we are information and that fact explains how remote viewing can occur from simple coordinates, that implication is that we have coordinates data inside us which we use as a key field to join to the "table" of an actual location and then, using that join, we can draw correct information from the correct location.

The problem is I am pretty sure that we don't have map coordinates built into our internal database.

For any of the phenomena to work via the information model, much of the information, those key joins, would have to be existant in our being. If a key join wasn't there, then informastion of that nature in that table would be unavailable in a meanignful, relational way.

[no one]

Juan, yes. The astral body. I am way old school in most of my thinking on these topics.

[Matt Rouge]

no one and Juan,

Juan wrote,

||It's like the wave-particle duality: usually our mind has a precise location (particle), but sometimes occur psi experiences and our mind ceases to have a precise location (wave). But what does it mean that the astral body is essentially nonlocal? It means that the astral body is everywhere and nowhere at once, so it is not an object but as a stone, that if you destroy the stone completely destroy it, it is an object spread throughout the universe, so should be destroyed it to destroy the entire universe, and as it seems that the universe is indestructible, the astral body is also indestructible.||

This is ingenious and jibes with my own ponderings.

BTW, I don't deny no one's thoughts on the astral body. I think there *is* one! And I think this not only for philosophical reasons but because it matches the phenomena from NDEs, crisis apparitions, etc.

But my thought is that the astral body is the form of the body, the information content of the body, the "fact of the matter" of the body.

Note, however, that this is different than a "being of light." I think "light" could be a metaphorical aspect of this; I certain use "light" a lot in my own healing work, etc. But in NDEs, do we hear of people saying, "Suddenly I was a being of light"? No. I think the astral body or spirit body is a "copy" of the person's actual body.

[no one]

"But in NDEs, do we hear of people saying, "Suddenly I was a being of light"?"

Well there is Nanci Danison ;-)

Actually, there are many descriptions of beings of light and realms of light in NDEs and even OBEs.

But here's where I will surprise you a little. I do think that the light I am referring, as in the aura and astral body, does contain information. Or a better term, IMO, would be 'awareness', but I think there is a very fine line between information and awareness.

In NDEs 'information' is imparted to the experience from beings encountered via telepathy. So information must be contained in and travel through this light.

I don't believe the astral body can be *everywhere* at once. I think there are limitations based on human potential encased within the astral body, even if that potential were to be maximized.

[Juan]

no one, I'm too old school in these fields.

Matt, thanks for the comment. And yes, I agree that the being of light is a metaphor for the astral body. But I would not claim that the astral body is pure information but a material vehicle contains all information about a living being. Information to be updated, because the death of an elder his astral body would contain the information as a baby, as a child, as an adult, etc. And under certain quantum/holographic properties, the astral body is as indestructible as the universe.

[KK]

"Michael used a sea of 1s and 0s as a metaphor, but ultimately reality does not have a medium, substrate, or scaffold."

Yes it does.

Energy events...in specific geometric arrangements.
The "information" "packets" *are* specific energy events. Combine them in specific ways and you can build a hippopotamus, galaxy...or anything else.

Read "A Fuller Explanation" by Amy Edmonson. She was an assistant to Buckminster Fuller:

A Fuller Explanation by Amy Edmondson (Paperback) - Lulu - http://bit.ly/VyfYhx

This page has related info:
http://www.earth360.com/math-naturesnumbers.html

Bruce said:
"My experience, my readings, everything I know points to the fact that NOTHING is more fundamental than consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no logic, no pattern, no 2 + 2---not even the concept of 2 itself (or 1 for that matter).

Not even the laws of physics.

That's why NDErs keep referring to the light as Source. I think they mean it literally and absolutely, and I take them at their word because it jibes with my own experience."

Geometry is a clue. Then in 2nd part of this video he talks consciousness:

Sacred Geometry 101E: Metatron's Cube - YouTube - http://youtu.be/ZOqg5bPZ0HE

Energy events (information) can be directly affected by consciousness. How specifically? Unknown....to some of us. I'm sure others have discovered how to manipulate "the program" accidentally or otherwise.

Consciousness (spirit?) exists "outside" (?) the single energy events/info packets.

You gotta dig deep here. We do have a "two level" reality I believe. It's not just some "one or the other" deal. It's two things. The "source" can manipulate energy events to create anything physical (or what might appear to be "spirit" or otherworldly to our senses). There is energy, and then there is something else that can manipulate it.

The "gnostic" thoughts/beliefs creeps in here. They said humans had a "spark" embedded somehow. I'm sure it's something completely unmeasurable with our physical devices.

The "physical", when broken down is just made from individual, single energy events arranged together. Bits of Information.

Learn how to move these energy packets together in specific geometric formations and you create the periodic elements. Stick these elements together in specific geometric forms and you can make a hippo, a flower, a battleship, a continent...etc.

But what comes first? Something has to *imagine* these energy events being put together like legos.
A human with a tiny bit of this consciousness can only do so much.
A pure consciousness (source) could imagine anything.

I think it might be beyond what we can even possibly imagine (obviously).

I gotta stop here. This post was just meant to drop some stream of thought out quickly ;) It might trigger some idea in the discussion though.

[no one]

"But I would not claim that the astral body is pure information but a material vehicle contains all information about a living being."

Agreed, Juan.

Psi happens because that's how astral bodies communicate. We all have astral bodies. Some living people are better at shifting their attention away from the physical body and onto the astral. Once focussed on the astral they can communicate with other astral bodies, connected or not connected to living organic bodies.

I say the astral body is a "light" body because it has been described that way and once or twice I saw a strong aura and looked like light. maybe the astral body is more an elctro- magnetic thing. Or maybe, as Juam says, it is some material that is currently unknown to our scientific instruments. Like Juan I don't think it is an information body.

I still can't grasp this whole being as information (or vice versa) thing. I'm sure trying though. The image of my databases keeps preventing me from getting very far.

[KK]

"In NDEs 'information' is imparted to the experience from beings encountered via telepathy. So information must be contained in and travel through this light."

The light *is* the information itself.

Individual packets of energy (events in themselves) that are unassigned to a specific geometric pattern.
Pure information flowing from consciousness to consciousness.

The pink beam mentioned by Phillip Dick in a different "widebeam" format?

[Barbara]

Juan; your nonlocal idea for the astral body might just mean it inhabits a dimension that sees and contains all information about the dimensions below it (as we see the whole of a Flatland canvas at once). Then when that's outgrown, the information is contained in the mental body above that -a higher dimension. The Spiritualists talked of successive spheres which could be the same as dimensions.

I would think information from lower dimensions informs higher dimensions but isn't retained in a computer-like way. Consider how we remember a book or a film or a life experience - we recall the useful lessons or ideas or essence rather than the full detail. Details are just details and have no meaning per se, as you would probably agree, until "processed" by a higher entity (in a higher dimension).

[Matt Rouge]

||"I think the ultimate reality comes down to the absolute facts of logic, mathematics, pattern, etc. I think these are the rails on which everything else must run."

I think we're waiting for different trains. :o)||

I've got a ticket to ride, Bruce. You?

||My experience, my readings, everything I know points to the fact that NOTHING is more fundamental than consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no logic, no pattern, no 2 + 2---not even the concept of 2 itself (or 1 for that matter).||

Are you saying that consciousness *determines* the fact that 2 + 2 = 4? If so, I would strenuously disagree. I would agree that, if consciousness were not to exist, then there would be no mind to recognize that 2 + 2 = 4.

||Not even the laws of physics.||

I would not say "not even," as surely the laws of psychic are subordinate to the laws of math and logic.

||That's why NDErs keep referring to the light as Source. I think they mean it literally and absolutely, and I take them at their word because it jibes with my own experience.||

Does Source make 2 + 2 = 4 in your view?

[no one]

"The light *is* the information itself."

yeah. OK. I'll buy that.

"Details are just details and have no meaning per se, as you would probably agree, until "processed" by a higher entity..."

I agree with that too. There has to be a processer and that processer has to have intent or purpose.

Information, by itself is, as you say Barbara, just meaningless details.

[no one]

"Are you saying that consciousness *determines* the fact that 2 + 2 = 4? If so, I would strenuously disagree. "

I can't speak for Bruce, but I dunno. It might be the case that consciousness *does* determine that.

Our Sandy can apparently violate the laws of physics with her spinning wheel. Certainly there is excellent evidence that poltergeists defy all sorts of known physical laws.

So maybe consciousness + intent is what is creating the laws and, sometimes, breaking them.

[Cora]

"I would not say "not even," as surely the laws of psychic are subordinate to the laws of math and logic."

Yes but which math and which logic. Mathematicians have invented all kinds of different branches which bear no relation to the laws of our (current) universe but seem to have internal consistency.

[KK]

"Information, by itself is, as you say Barbara, just meaningless details."

Well, "information" just *is*....it can just "be" (out there floating around).
Light vs. dark. Something vs. nothing. On vs. off.

Information does not have to "do" anything.
It can just exist...till it's told to form into something useful.

Reminds me of what the Tao says in a vague way:
"When nothing is done, nothing is left undone."

"So maybe consciousness + intent is what is creating the laws and, sometimes, breaking them."

Yes. Consciousness could have laid the laws and set things in motion. Then decided to mess with them on a whim once in a while. Imagine the whims of something non-physical and eternal. Anomalies could be caused at different points of a LONG "timescale". This is why things don't change radically minute to minute.
Maybe humans and their embedded bit of consciousness accidentally change things?

Lots of questions. The oldest ones.

I think you need to read this:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html

Things like:

(17) Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind."

(24) His disciples said to him, "Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it."
He said to them, "Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness."

(29) Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty."

Think of Jesus in #29 as a scientist type asking the same questions we are now.

Or...let's go sci-fi. Look at it from the point of view of a godlike being/spirit inserted into a human body through some process. He is not the ultimate power that made this happen. So he is basically semi-disgusted/amazed at being "trapped" in a human body. He knows it was done to him of course, but is just talking aloud to his followers. Somebody wrote it down not understanding entirely what he was talking about.

And of course there is:

(77) Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

And this science lesson in energy/matter:

(11) Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"

About the consciousness "field" everywhere and finding out you are part of it. If you don't you will dwell in the "poverty" of a merely physical body:

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

Lots of heavy stuff in there. Read it not as a "religious" document, but as a bunch of science lessons for an ancient audience.
See what you find in it. Many other ancient texts are like this.