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delta-orionis · 6 months ago

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Not exactly the same idea, but this post reminded me about the concept of the Anthropic Principle:

…the underlying principles can be divided into "weak" and "strong" forms, depending on the types of cosmological claims they entail. The weak anthropic principle (WAP), as defined by Brandon Carter, states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias (specifically survivorship bias). Most such arguments draw upon some notion of the multiverse for there to be a statistical population of universes from which to select. However, a single vast universe is sufficient for most forms of the WAP that do not specifically deal with fine tuning. Carter distinguished the WAP from the strong anthropic principle (SAP), which considers the universe in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. A form of the latter known as the participatory anthropic principle, articulated by John Archibald Wheeler, suggests on the basis of quantum mechanics that the universe, as a condition of its existence, must be observed, thus implying one or more observers. Stronger yet is the final anthropic principle (FAP), proposed by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler, which views the universe's structure as expressible by bits of information in such a way that information processing is inevitable and eternal. (Wikipedia)

Rain World’s cosmology is very vague, but I do believe perception plays a big part in it. Dreams, memories, and alternate realities are all real things that are important to the Cycle.

Some disjointed thoughts on the Void Sea and the subconcious

I really just wanted to write something quickly on this, it’s not so much a theory as it is just a small analysis on the general mood of the ending, with a little contextualizing with in game dialogue.

So the subconscious is such a mysterious yet integral part to understanding the more spiritual/alien parts of Rain World. This isn’t a world in which the eldritch and unknowable lurk in the far reaches of space, but rather appear through our own minds and subconscious.

Echos appear in dream like sequences, where all other life except scavengers (in vanilla) fall asleep.

Karma flowers allow us to contact imagined worlds, other selves, dreams, and memories.

Eating a neuron of an iterator allows us to perceive voidspawn.

Our karma is raised through the mark of communication, which is linked to the brain in some way judging by Five Pebbles’s slideshow.

And, beyond that, plenty of cerebral/brainy imagery and concepts are present.

“Cabinet beasts” (the organ-like worms found in Memory Crypts) are likely some sort or mutated brain tissue, I talk about it more in this post.

Void worms also have a neural texture that covers their skin.

There’s the cut brain tree, which made it back in the game (though pretty unceremoniously) in Downpour.

And then of course there’s iterators, massive brains that are the last long-standing remnant of the benefactors’ civilization, and serve as the main driving forces of the game’s side plot.

I bring all this up just to show how cerebral and subconscious elements are pretty prevalent throughout the game, and it provides some context to my thoughts on the Void Sea.

That being said, I think the Void Sea acts as a collective unconscious, a place where the many worlds and selves of the subconscious coalesce into one, dream-like existence.

Echos appear in dream-like sequences, but are still experienced by nearby scavs. They even have different personalities and reactions to it, some being curious, while others are afraid.

Continuing on this, benefactors experienced the same dreams we do in Subterranean, shown through white pearl dialogue.

“Oh, interesting. This is a diary entry of a pre-Iterator era laborer during the construction of the subterranean transit system south of here. In it they describe restless nights filled with disturbing dreams, where millions glowing stars move menacingly in the distance”

These go towards the idea of the Void Sea and other void related phenomena existing as a sort of collective unconsciousness, experienced through hazy dreams and hallucinogenic plants by many.

But then there’s the “egg” sequence, where you swim in unison with others just like yourself. I think these are the “selves of other planes” mentioned by Moon in the Karma Flower dialogue, and I think that same dialogue is indicative on what the nature of the Void is. It’s detaching yourself from your carnal body and coming in contact with your own subconscious, and possibly the subconscious of others. Think of it like a big mind soup.

Anyway this really resonated with me because I distinctly remember the feeling I had the first time I went through Depths. As the caves around me started melting, it felt like I was descending deeper and deeper into a dream I couldn’t wake up from. That packed with the genuine horror of seeing the worms, and the dreamy ending, it really left a lasting impression.

Halfway through writing this, I realized it’s a bit longer than I was initially expecting, but I hope I managed to convey the general vibe I got.

#lovely lore post as always op. and very good commentary #sorry if this seems like a non sequitur lol I’m very tired atm #rw lore #rain world

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timespanner · 5 years ago

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The late physicist John Wheeler concluded that the apparent oddity of quantum mechanics was built on an even grander and odder truth: that the universe as a whole festers in a state of uncertainty and snaps into clear, actual being when observed by a conscious being — that is, us.

“We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago,” Wheeler said in 2006. He calls his interpretation the “participatory anthropic principle.” If he is correct, the universe is conscious, but in almost the opposite of the way that Matloff pictures it: Only through the acts of conscious minds does it truly exist at all.

#universe #'proto-consciousness field'#panpsychism #consciousness #participatory anthropic principle #the universe does not necessarily speak your language

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years ago

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A Great Catch: The 153 Fish

“I welcome you on the eve of a great battle.” So began General Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 15, 1944, solemnly addressing the admirals and generals and officers of the Allied Expeditionary Force, announcing the proposed strategy for Operation Overlord, codename for the Normandy invasion. Underestimated as an orator, Eisenhower’s speech riveted the attention of all in the tense atmosphere. The location was an unlikely one: a lecture hall of Saint Paul’s School in London. The boys had already been evacuated to Berkshire during the Blitz. The top brass, who had arrived from the advance command post of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces at Southwick House in Hampshire, were seated on school chairs, with two armchairs occupied by King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. General Bernard Montgomery, the future Field Marshall, brought out his maps to show the British and American positions. The school served as headquarters of the XXI Army Group under Montgomery, and he felt at home there because he was an Old Pauline. Planning took place in the office of his old Headmaster, or High Master, which was the title used from the day of the school’s foundation in 1509 by John Colet.

As a close friend of Erasmus, and an even closer spiritual advisor to Thomas More, Colet was the epitome of a Renaissance humanist, laden with learning he had brought back from France and Italy for lectures in his own university at Oxford. More lured him back to his birthplace of London where his father had been a rich merchant and twice Lord Mayor. As Dean of Saint Paul’s cathedral, Colet put his reforming principles to work with eloquent imprecations against the pride, concupiscence, covetousness, and worldly absorptions that had tainted the priesthood. Archbishop Warham of Canterbury dismissed frivolous charges of heresy brought against Colet by offended clerics. Colet’s combination of charm and audacity engendered the respect even of Henry VIII, despite his bold preaching against the king’s French wars. As a priest with no children of his own, and no nieces or nephews because all twenty-two of his siblings had died in childhood, Colet devoted much of his inherited fortune to founding Saint Paul’s school for teaching 153 boys literature, manners, and, with Renaissance flair, Greek on a par with Latin. Erasmus said that when Colet lectured he thought he was hearing a second Plato. If so, his Platonism was Christian. He wanted a great catch, similar to the 153 fish that the apostles had hauled in at the command of the Risen Christ. The boys would be welcome “from all nations and countries indifferently.”

The catch was great indeed, and since then the school has turned out graduates including, just for starters: John Milton, Samuel Pepys, John Churchill, G.K. Chesterton, three holders of the Victoria Cross, and the astronomer for whom Halley’s comet is named — all rising from the first 153.

Exegetes, sometimes with too much time on their hands, and even earnest saints, have teased 153 and other numbers into signifying possibly more than their meaning. Jerome tried to find some significance in the fact that the second-century Greco-Roman poet Oppian listed 153 species of fish in his 3,500 verses about fishing, the “Halieutica,” dedicated rather sycophantically to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. Of course, Oppian was wrong in his counting; besides, he wrote after the compilation of the Gospel. Augustine found that 153 is the sum if the first seventeen integers, which may reveal nothing more than his skill at arithmetic. In his devotion to the Rosary, Louis de Montfort found something prophetic between the catch of Galilean fish and the sum of fifteen decades of Hail Mary’s plus the first three beads.

There may be no end to such agile mental exercises, and I once wrote a book — Coincidentally — rather whimsically illustrating how it is possible to detect endless matrices if you try hard enough. For example, faddish New Age fascination with the esoteric numerology of Kabbalah cultism can strain minds. It may not have been a helpful influence on the popular singer who gave millions of dollars to a Kabbalah institute and recently was confined to a mental health facility purportedly against her will. Carl Jung wrote at some length about what he termed “synchronicity” and warned that an obsession with “acausal principles” could unbalance reason. Yet even a detached observer might pause at the fact that the Sacred Tetragrammaton appears 153 times in Genesis.

The point here is that there are many levels of meaning in divine revelation that may be clues to the operation of Divine Providence. ��For I know the plans that I have for you, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11). Even our limited mathematics may articulate something of the symmetry by which the pulse of Creation may be taken: “‘To whom then will you compare Me, or who is My equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, who brings out their host by number” (Is. 40:25). Perception of this saves the saints from madness and inspires them to awe.

Contemplation of the unity of the True God and True Man encounters layers of reality beyond the comprehension of human intelligence. Nonetheless, we can perceive the existence of those dimensions. A “Participatory Anthropic Principle,” first forwarded by John A. Wheeler, suggests that the universe is structured with a set of physical constants or “cosmic coincidences” without which there would be no intelligent life on Earth, and that it is only by participating in that structure by rational perception that the constants or coincidences have their potency. So there may be in those 153 fish the Voice saying: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

It would be a mistake to suppose that the apostles went back to fishing in disobedience to the Master’s command years before that they drop their nets and follow him. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, meaning that he is able to know everything from start to finish at the same time. Before the Resurrection, Jesus told the apostles that they would meet a man in Jerusalem carrying a pitcher of water, from whom they would rent an Upper Room: “So they went and found it just as Jesus had told them (Luke 22:13).” Thus he was also able to “set up” his men, ordering them to go to the Sea of Tiberius, knowing what he had prepared for them there, in order to instruct them.

In his humanity he did a domestic thing in cooking breakfast. In his divinity he predicted what the apostles would become. Whatever else may be encoded in the number 153, the fact is that this event happened, for had it been an oriental myth there would have been a million fish. This number was a detail never to be forgotten. Even when the youngest of them, the cadet of the Twelve, was the last to survive and his mind was weary with age, he said with a thrill like that of a youth: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

There is one thing we know that prevents miniaturizing Christ as the best of men but only a man: “For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (I Col. 16-17). In him was an urgent appeal to the intellect, which for the Jew was a function of love and not confined to the brain, as is clear in the Resurrection appearance to Cleopas and his companion on the Emmaus road: “O foolish ones, how slow are your hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Here was the culmination of his earlier rabbinical catechesis: “‘Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (Mark 8: 18–21).

The unseen calculus that fascinated Oppian when counting fish in coastal Cilicia much more amazed William Blake when describing an imagined “Tyger” which certainly was not rampant in London: “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” If there is substance to some anthropic principle in the play of numbers, it is found in the fact that after the 153 fish had been dragged to shore, a small fire was burning as Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. And Peter wept in remembering that by another small fire in Jerusalem he had said three times that he never knew the Man.

BY: FR. GEORGE W. RUTLER

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

#a great catch the 153 fish

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wonders-of-the-cosmos · 6 years ago

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can u explain to me the anthropic principle pls? I tried to understand but i cant

I had even forgotten about it, I had to research to remember, it's a bit complicated to understand. In cosmology the anthropic Principle states that any theory or observation of the universe must be compatible with the conscious life (for example, we human beings). This would explain the characteristics of our universe, the physical laws, their age, etc., necessary to accommodate the conscious life (of a physical consciousness or not!), and to propitiate the "poissibility" of having an observer. The anthropic principle is divided into some properties:

Strong Anthropic Principle: The Universe must be such that it can contain observers, at some stage in its evolution.

Weak Anthropic Principle: The Universe behaved in such a way that it could contain us. In other words, the physical and cosmological quantities we observe need to assume values consistent with the emergence of carbon-based life.

Final Anthropic Principle: The Universe aims to produce living beings, or humans.

Participatory Anthropic Principle: The existence of observers gives existence to the Universe.

It's complicated enteder, I read a few things, but I did not completely understand, I suggest you research this on reliable sites. Maybe I may not have explained it right, but I hope I have helped in something.

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chrisengel · 6 years ago

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Why is it that conditions were just right for your survival? Cosmologists often apply this question to life on Earth with the Goldilocks principle, which ponders why Earth is "just right" for life. The anthropic principle tackles an even greater question: Why is the universe itself just right for life? For instance, when you compare the electromagnetic force to gravity, we find that electromagnetism is 39 times stronger, according to physicist and author Victor J. Stenger. And that's handy because if the two powers were more evenly matched, stars wouldn't burn long enough for life to develop on an orbiting planet. Scientists refer to this as an anthropic coincidence, or a coincidence related to mankind's very existence. ... Cosmologists have devised more than 30 additional takes on the anthropic principle [source: Stenger]. They include the quantum physics-flavored participatory anthropic principle, which states that no universe can be real until it is observed, and the final anthropic principle, which holds that intelligence is a necessary property of the universe; once created it can never be destroyed.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/anthropic-principle1.htm

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corkybugger · 7 years ago

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Is the Universe Conscious?

Some of the world's most renowned scientists are questioning whether the cosmos has an inner life similar to our own.

- by Corey S. Powell, NBC News

- Physicist Gregory Matloff argues that a “proto-consciousness field” could extend through all of space | NASA via Reuters

For centuries, modern science has been shrinking the gap between humans and the rest of the universe, from Isaac Newton showing that one set of laws applies equally to falling apples and orbiting moons to Carl Sagan intoning that “we are made of star stuff” — that the atoms of our bodies were literally forged in the nuclear furnaces of other stars.

Even in that context, Gregory Matloff’s ideas are shocking. The veteran physicist at New York City College of Technology recently published a paper arguing that humans may be like the rest of the universe in substance and in spirit. A “proto-consciousness field” could extend through all of space, he argues. Stars may be thinking entities that deliberately control their paths. Put more bluntly, the entire cosmos may be self-aware.

The notion of a conscious universe sounds more like the stuff of late night TV than academic journals. Called by its formal academic name, though, “panpsychism” turns out to have prominent supporters in a variety of fields. New York University philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers is a proponent. So too, in different ways, are neuroscientist Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose, renowned for his work on gravity and black holes. The bottom line, Matloff argues, is that panpsychism is too important to ignore.

“It’s all very speculative, but it’s something we can check and either validate or falsify,” he says.

Three decades ago, Penrose introduced a key element of panpsychism with his theory that consciousness is rooted in the statistical rules of quantum physics as they apply in the microscopic spaces between neurons in the brain.

In 2006, German physicist Bernard Haisch, known both for his studies of active stars and his openness to unorthodox science, took Penrose’s idea a big step further. Haisch proposed that the quantum fields that permeate all of empty space (the so-called "quantum vacuum") produce and transmit consciousness, which then emerges in any sufficiently complex system with energy flowing through it. And not just a brain, but potentially any physical structure. Intrigued, Matloff wondered if there was a way to take these squishy arguments and put them to an observational test.

One of the hallmarks of life is its ability to adjust its behavior in response to stimulus. Matloff began searching for astronomical objects that unexpectedly exhibit this behavior. Recently, he zeroed in on a little-studied anomaly in stellar motion known as Paranego’s Discontinuity. On average, cooler stars orbit our galaxy more quickly than do hotter ones. Most astronomers attribute the effect to interactions between stars and gas clouds throughout the galaxy. Matloff considered a different explanation. He noted that the anomaly appears in stars that are cool enough to have molecules in their atmospheres, which greatly increases their chemical complexity.

Matloff noted further that some stars appear to emit jets that point in only one direction, an unbalanced process that could cause a star to alter its motion. He wondered: Could this actually be a willful process? Is there any way to tell?

If Paranego’s Discontinuity is caused by specific conditions within the galaxy, it should vary from location to location. But if it is something intrinsic to the stars — as consciousness would be — it should be the same everywhere. Data from existing stellar catalogs seems to support the latter view, Matloff claims. Detailed results from the Gaia star-mapping space telescope, due in 2018, will provide a more stringent test.

Matloff is under no illusion that his colleagues will be convinced, but he remains upbeat: “Shouldn’t we at least be checking? Maybe we can move panpsychism from philosophy to observational astrophysics.”

“In princpile, some purely physical systems that are not biological or oganic may also be conscious.”

Mind Out of Matter

While Matloff looks out to the stars to verify panpsychism, Christof Koch looks at humans. In his view, the existence of widespread, ubiquitous consciousness is strongly tied to scientists’ current understanding of the neurological origins of the mind.

“The only dominant theory we have of consciousness says that it is associated with complexity — with a system’s ability to act upon its own state and determine its own fate,” Koch says. “Theory states that it could go down to very simple systems. In principle, some purely physical systems that are not biological or organic may also be conscious.”

Koch is inspired by integrated information theory, a hot topic among modern neuroscientists, which holds that consciousness is defined by the ability of a system to be influenced by its previous state and to influence its next state.

The human brain is just an extreme example of that process, Koch explains: “We are more complex, we have more self-awareness — well, some of us do — but other systems have awareness, too. We may share this property of experience, and that is what consciousness is: the ability to experience anything, from the most mundane to the most refined religious experience.

Like Matloff, Koch and his colleagues are actively engaged in experimental tests of these ideas. One approach is to study brain-impaired patients to see if their information responses align with biological measures of their consciousness. Another approach, further off, is to wire the brains of two mice together and see how the integrated consciousness of the animals changes as the amount of information flowing between them is increased. At some point, according to integrated information theory, the two should merge into a single, larger information system. Eventually, it should be possible to run such experiments with humans, wiring their brains together to see if a new type of consciousness emerges.

Despite their seeming similarities, Koch is dubious of Matloff’s volitional stars. What is distinctive about living things, according to his theory, is not that they are alive but that they are complex. Although the sun is vastly bigger than a bacterium, from a mathematical perspective it is also vastly simpler. Koch allows that a star may have an internal life that allows it to “feel,” but whatever that feeling is, it is much less than the feeling of being an E. coli.

On the other hand, “even systems that we don’t consider animate could have a little bit of consciousness,” Koch says. “It is part and parcel of the physical.” From this perspective, the universe may not exactly be thinking, but it still has an internal experience intimately tied to our own.

A Participatory Cosmos

Which brings us to Roger Penrose and his theories linking consciousness and quantum mechanics. He does not overtly identify himself as a panpsychist, but his argument that self-awareness and free will begin with quantum events in the brain inevitably links our minds with the cosmos. Penrose sums up this connection beautifully in his opus "The Road to Reality":

“The laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.”

Despite his towering stature as a physicist, Penrose has encountered resistance to his theory of consciousness. Oddly, his colleagues have been more accepting of the exotic, cosmic-consciousness implications of quantum mechanics. Ever since the 1920s, physicists have puzzled over the strangely privileged role of the observer in quantum theory. A particle exists in a fuzzy state of uncertainty…but only until it is observed. As soon as someone looks at it and takes its measurements, the particle seems to collapse into a definite location.

It is hard to imagine how a scientist could put the participatory anthropic principle to an empirical test. There are no stars to monitor, and no brains to measure, to understand whether reality depends on the presence of consciousness. Even if it cannot be proven, the participatory anthropic principle extends the unifying agenda of modern science, powerfully evoking the sense of connectedness that Albert Einstein called the cosmic religious feeling.

“In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it,” Einstein wrote in a 1930 New York Times editorial. Explorers like Matloff are routinely dismissed as fringe thinkers, but it is hard to think of any greater expression of that feeling than continuing the quest to find out if our human minds are just tiny components of a much greater cosmic brain.

- original article [x]

#consciousness #universe #cosmos #astronomy #astrophysics #one #multiverse

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khaos520-blog · 6 years ago

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John wheelers virtual reality model

John wheeler created the famous thought experiment in 1979 known as wheelers delayed choice quantum eraser experiment and with it a prediction, he said if this experiment works the way it does ite evidence reality is information based and we live in a virtual construct. A few years ago it was finally done and it worked just as he stated. He coined the terms black hole, it from bit, quantum foam, and worm hole, he pioneered nuclear fission with niels bohr, and helped formulate quantum theory, helped pioneer information theory and mentor to several of the best minds in science including richard Feynman. He worked on the Manhattan project, and made foundational contributions to quantum physics. Hes one of the most productive and successful physicist of the 20th century. He proposed the participatory anthropic principle which poses the question would the universe still exist if consciousness wasnt around to observe it? He is considered one of the greatest physicist of the 20th century and he has experiments proving this world is not even real! Energy=matter=information. He said we are not just observers but Participators. "The universe does not exist ‘out there,’ independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself." - john wheeler "No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." - john wheeler "It from bit symbolises the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe. - john wheeler "We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago." John wheeler Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. Niels bohr "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." “[while a number of philosophic ideas] may be logically consistent, with present quantum mechanics,…materialism is not.” -Eugene Wigner So according to every quantum experiment going back a century proves the materialist worldview is incorrect and science shows consciousness to be fundamental, not matter. The only known thing to collapse a wave function effecting the wave/particle duality creating seemingly solid matter from immaterial wave forms is the observer, a conscious being and consciousness is the mechanism for collapse soley from observation or measurement. Measurement is everything. Matter does not exist in a physical state when not being observed by a conscious being. No consciousness, no observer, no physical reality, one of the greatest minds in science has evidence we live in a virtual reality.

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santandreas · 8 years ago

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Buddha-Direct 4517: FW: DoA#55: The Participatory Anthropic Principle

Friends:

The Participatory Anthropic Principle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKl1YzsnCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKl1YzsnCI

Lotus-offering-4 @ 3:55

Simile of the Cow’s Hide @ 12:04

Question 177: Are the Devas interested in humans? @ 29:39

Question 178: What is causing unusually repulsive, invasive, and unintentional thoughts?

Can this be Mara attacking? @ 39:27

Question 179: Was the…

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finding-gnosis · 9 years ago

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A Theory for the Participatory Anthropic Principle

In this essay I shall give a brief outline of the participatory anthropic principle (PAP) and how it relates to self-organized criticality (SOC) in Section I, present my theory of the universe invoking these principles of PAP and SOC in Section II, state some problems of the theory and attempt to address those problems in Section III, and provide a short conclusion to the paper in Section IV. The central objective of this paper is to motivate my PAP theory for how the universe came to be; to meet this end, I shall focus on the physics-related concept of self-organized criticality, the phenomenon of pink noise, and the implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity as sources of profound evidence supporting the theory.

I. The participatory anthropic principle, as proposed by theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler, is a theory of the universe that can be reduced to the statement “Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being,” that is, the observer participated in the universe’s creation and permits there to be observers. In a manner similar to quantum systems, the primordial state of the universe existed in superposition (according to the PAP) and was in a constant flux of potential states. Another way of thinking about this would be to imagine the “primordial superposition” as a form of multiverse in which a plurality of superpositions had many possible values/parameters that followed a set “path” of potential existence. At some point, one of the many possible superpositions developed a reality with conscious beings that could observe the surrounding universe; this very act of observation collapsed the universal superposition into the universe we now reside in. The other superpositions with “paths” that did not yield conscious observers and thus could not be observed stayed in an uncollapsed state.

So you may now be asking yourself: “How exactly did the universe collapse around this specific reality? What motivated the superposition to collapse in the first place?” In order to answer these questions, we must first familiarize ourselves with a property of dynamical systems known as self-organized criticality. SOC is a property of dynamical systems that have a critical point as an attractor whereby the macroscopic behavior of such a dynamical system displays a spatial/temporal scale-invariant characteristic of the critical point of a phase transition without the need for setting control parameters to precise values. While highly technical-sounding, the general gist of this verbiage can be summed up as “Given a random or otherwise chaotic system with an attractor, the system will eventually reach a ‘critical point’ of organization without the need for ‘fine tuning’ specific values.” Even more simply put, it’s the inevitable “order” that arises out of “chaos” spontaneously or otherwise independent of agency.

II. My theory for how the universe was formed is essentially a combination of these two concepts: the PAP for the foundation of the universe and SOC as the motivation for how the universe collapsed into this critical point of existence. The theory proceeds as follows: The universe began as a swirling “Root” of probability that “generates” various potential universes that each follow a set “path” of possible existence. A universe can only become actualized when its “path” yields a conscious observer that can collapse the superposition. Another way of conceptualizing this aspect of the theory is by using the behavior of lightning as an analogy: Prior to lightning striking the ground or an object on the ground, a negatively charged “leader” of partially ionized gas makes its way towards the location of the upcoming strike. The presence of opposite (positive) charges on the ground enhances the electric field as the leader approaches and, when the field becomes strong enough, a positively charged “streamer” starts to rise upward in the direction of the leader. Once the leader and the streamer meet – a process known as “attachment” – a low-resistance path is formed and a discharge occurs, which is the bright flash of electricity that we see during a lightning strike. Referring back to my theory, it’s much easier to see the process of universe actualization if one thinks about a possible universe’s “path” of potential existence as a leader, the “observer” component as a streamer, and the observation/collapse of the superposition into reality as the attachment/discharge.

In regards to SOC, human beings (more specifically, their status as conscious beings) could be considered the critical point for attracting the collapse and subsequent organization of the primordial superposition. An aspect of nature that helps reinforce this notion is that of the “pink noise” signal.

Noise signals generally fall under three categories: brown noise, white noise, and pink noise. Brown noise is the type of noise produced by Brownian motion (random motion of particles suspended in a fluid) and can be visually represented on a frequency spectrum as the arbitrary yet sequentially dependent oscillation of a mountain range’s peaks and troughs; this is why brown noise is commonly referred to as “random walk noise.” Furthermore, it is the primary noise signal observed in the formation of natural earth structures and is more or less predictable in its fluctuations (despite being based around a principle of random particle motion). White noise, however, can be considered the signal of “real” randomness in the sense that its fluctuations are sequentially independent. To elaborate on this, the frequency of a prior white noise state has no correlation with the frequency of a subsequent white noise state; the system is entirely erratic. The pitter patter of rain and the digital rendering of an electric signal based on an algorithm of random numbers are both examples of white noise. Pink noise – also known as 1/f noise – is a bit more peculiar than the other two; it’s not as predictable as brown noise’s “random walk” nor is it as haphazard as white noise. Instead, one could view it as a happy medium between predictability and randomness, perhaps even as the harmonic boundary between order and chaos. The most striking thing about pink noise, however, is just how ubiquitous it is in complex systems: quasar light emissions, the fluctuations of tide and river heights, and the bioelectric signals produced by both humans and animals (such as heartbeat and single neuron firings). This prevalence of pink noise and its connection to complex systems such as life seems to imply that the universe is “self-organized” around the critical point of 1/f noise and, by extension, conscious observers.

You may now be thinking, “Ok, so this all sort of makes sense…but since conscious observers didn’t arise in the universe until millions of years after its inception, then how could the future act of observation collapse the primordial superposition that existed in the past?” This inquiry actually brings up a good point which can be reworded as: How can a “future” effect have an influence on its “past” cause? In order to answer this question, I will invoke Einstein’s theory of relativity and its implications for my proposed theory.

Einstein’s theory of relativity basically asserts that measurements of quantities are relative to the velocity of the observer in question (a reference frame) and that space and time should be considered together and in relation to one another as “spacetime.” Given these propositions and the fact that spacetime can be measured, it must follow that spacetime’s measurements are seemingly not absolute and wholly depend on the reference frame of the observer. A cause can be said to empirically occur in spacetime prior to a subsequent effect, but since this is a measurement of spacetime (specifically the time component), cause and effect are merely relative and only have their perceived sequentiality within a particular frame of reference. Going off of this, it doesn’t seem like such a stretch of the imagination to believe that there is an “ultimate frame of reference” from which the entirety of cause and effect can be perceived as one and the same or perhaps even an inversion where effects precede their causes. It may even be the case that we as human beings can only experience cause and effect, past and future, beginning and end as sequential occurrences and not as an ontological whole.

Coming back to my theory, Einstein’s relativity plays a crucial role in how an observer can observe a state that seemingly precedes them: Given the “ultimate frame of reference” through which a hypothetical, omnipotent or otherwise higher-dimensional being could potentially discern the actualized “path” of the known universe, everything that has happened, is happening, and ever will happen (from our perspective) occur simultaneously so that the primordial superposition’s collapse is concurrent with its observation.

III. This theory does have its fair share of problems, however. First and foremost, it’s almost entirely speculative; while the evidence I proposed in defense of it is substantial enough to make the theory somewhat tenable, the instances which I draw from are either theoretical in nature or have various interpretations across several academic fields.

The other problem with this theory can be said about pretty much any other theory invoking a form of the strong anthropic principle: It may answer certain questions of “how” we are here, but it doesn’t address the “why” and even some of the “what” questions. Why us? Why are we here in the first place? What is our ultimate purpose? What is the origin of consciousness? Is it in the Root? What put the Root into place? If the Root is essentially the “Absolute,” why does it even need to generate collapsible superpositions in the first place?

The short answer to all of these questions is simply that I don’t know, and as of yet I have no conceivable way of knowing. I have considered the idea that perhaps a “god” or “omnipotent being” put the Root in place, but then even more questions arise concerning whether or not that particular god had a being/process that created it for the purpose of placing the Root; this line of thinking leads me to an infinite regress and so far, the only solution I have come up with is just stating that the Root can be conceived of as a form of Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover” that precedes everything and succeeds nothing.

IV. Despite being based almost entirely on conjecture, I feel that this participatory anthropic principle theory of the universe holds some water in terms of how well it correlates with self-organized criticality, the prevalence of pink noise, and the consequences of Einstein’s theory of relativity. And even if this theory was never meant to be, I have a feeling that one day, we’ll be able to – hopefully – develop a “theory of everything” that encompasses not just the totality of reason and existence, but beyond those outer limits as well.

#anthropic principle #participatory anthropic principle #philosophy #writings

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