[MD] Emergent Consciousness

[Gene M]

> > And it's been shown that the act of observation alters the state of a >
> subatomic particle.
>
> Are you sure it's the act of observation that's causing the alteration? If
> I observe a rock, I don't alter it.  But if I shine a flashlight on it, I
> do.


This is serious science actually. In quantum physics it has been shown that
observation of a particle changes the state of the particle. The observation
actually determines the property of the particle! If you want to know where
a single photon is, you check. However the weird thing is that befire you
check, the photon is nowhere and everywhere at the same time, exists in all
the states it can exist in, and when observed all other states retroactively
collapse and a single state remains, the one which it is. It's absolutely
fascinating stuff!

It's also the basis for quantum computing, in which the bit no longer holds
only 2 states, but has 4. An on, and off and 2 indeterminate states(I
believe). Basically you enter in a problem, and the particles will occupy
every single possible solution to it, true and false, and then when you
check, they'll all collapse into a single answer, the correct one.
Theoretically you could fact enormous numbers almost instantaneously with
it. It's being avidly researched for encryption and code-breaking uses
mostly.

Observation is not passive. It does in fact alter reality at a very basic
level.

> Would I exist if I did not observe myself? Honest question.
>
> Yes, but you'd be different.


Very true. But I think it's interesting that I would still exist at all!
Even if I were all alone, with no one to observe me, and I could not observe
myself, then I would still exist.
My intellectual and social patterns of value would be nil, having never
formed any. But my biological and inorganic patterns would still be going
strong.

Interesting stuff.

Platt:

> Not unless you can explain interactions of what to what, how things
> magically "emerge," and why.


As I understand it, it's interactions between patterns of value. Any
patterns of value. Any two patterns, from any levels, that interact, do so
through the intermediary of Quality, and thus Reality emerges.

Or so I believe, personally.

-Gene