Add quantum mechanics into the mixture ie things at the atomic level are not deterministic but probabilistic and the mind boggles on the mind, if you catch my drift.attofishpi wrote:I do to!Blaggard wrote:I personally find the whole consciousness debate fascinating, and any insight is always appreciated.
The fact that a certain arrangement of atoms results in 'ME'....well, the mind boggles.
Did you know that recent research has found DNA enzymes use quantum mechanics principles, rather than deterministic rules to more quickly locate chemicals. Which means even memory which involves DNA methylisation is somewhat probabilistic. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
The research was done by a Nobel prize winning biologist at NASA, so it is not so easily overlooked, true or not it is very interesting.
Recent psychobiology experiments have shown the mind often goes into a sort of cascade mode where it suddenly and randomly has a burst of activity, which might explain inspiration. The odd behaviour resembles an epileptic fit but as yet it cannot be modelled by any chaotic (determined classical)
theory. If one applies probability mathematics though the resultant model exactly matches the brains flurry of activity, as to why it happens is anyone's guess but it does seem to precede periods where the brain is dreaming or day dreaming...
In the classic apocryphal story of the apple falling on Newtons head, hence it triggered a cascade that lead to the invention of calculus to model physics.
Also in the 17th century some bright spark came up with imaginary numbers on an axis, numbers at 90 degrees to the 3 common dimensions, and that in addition to calculus lead ultimately to quantum mechanics, and more precisely Einstein's general and special relativity theories which used 4d calculus aka Minkowski space to model space/time.
It is one of the most interesting times to be alive in science and thought, if you'll pardon the pun.
