Hoe is het om… ?

Posted on 28 april 2024 by Jeppe Kleijngeld

De Amerikaanse filosoof Thomas Nagel (1937) werd bekend met zijn artikel What is it like to be a bat? (1974). Het is een kritiek op het reductionisme, de opvatting dat alles – inclusief onze geest – terug te voeren is tot fundamentele elementen. We kunnen een vleermuis volledig binnenstebuiten keren en alles over zijn fysisch-biologische eigenschappen leren, maar we zullen dan nog steeds niet weten hoe het voelt om een vleermuis te zijn; hoe het is om ondersteboven te hangen in een grot of blind in de nacht op insecten te jagen via echolocatie.

Nagel heeft gelijk. We kunnen onmogelijk weten hoe het is om een vleermuis te zijn of een ander levend organisme. Bewustzijn voelt uniek voor iedereen. Wij zijn allemaal het middelpunt van ons eigen universum. In een biocentrisch universum voelt dat niet alleen zo, maar is dat ook letterlijk wat er aan de hand is. We dragen het universum immers met ons mee waar we ook heengaan. Een vleermuis is, net zoals jij dat bent, een tijdelijke lokalisering van het superbewustzijn in onze spatiotemporale wereld. Zolang jouw lokalisering plaatsvindt, krijg je exclusief toegang tot unieke mentale content. Deze gedachtestromen en persoonlijke ervaringen zijn van ‘jou’ alleen en voor niemand anders beschikbaar. Dit geldt voor alle levende wezens. Zolang de lokalisering duurt, kun je niet weten hoe het is om je in een andere lokalisering te begeven. Een golf in een oceaan kan ook niet gelijktijdig in een andere golf zitten. Pas na de dood komt die mogelijkheid weer beschikbaar via mentale reïncarnatie.

Tot die tijd moeten we genoegen nemen met ervaringen in virtuele realiteit. Of we kunnen in een lucide droom transfiguratie toepassen en een mentale voorstelling maken van hoe het is om een tijger of een slang te zijn. Dit zijn beide echter slechts simulaties en dus geen volledig betrouwbare weergave van de werkelijke ervaring die de ego-geest overstijgt. Maar het is wel het dichtste bij dat we ooit kunnen komen bij de ervaring hoe het voelt om een ander levend wezen te zijn.

PS: Voor nu althans. In het boek ‘Ready Player Two’ is een technologie uitgevonden die het mogelijk maakt ervaringen op te nemen en deze via een machine-brein interface af te spelen.

Review Observer (2023, Robert Lanza, Nancy Kress)

Posted on 10 mei 2023 by Jeppe Kleijngeld

“You are the observer. You create the universe every day, every hour, every nano-second. Everything that can exist, will exist, somewhere, including your beloved dead. They can once again be alive, walking around, solid as the chair you sit in now, solid as this book you hold in your hand.”

In the new science fiction novel ‘Observer’ – written by an actual scientist and a sci-fi writer – the mindblowing implications of quantum mechanics are taken to the next level.

The scientist is Robert Lanza, who in 2009 published his masterpiece ‘Biocentrism’, a non-fiction book about his theory based solely on science that concludes that life and consciousness create the universe, not the other way around. The writer is American science fiction author Nancy Kress, who won several awards for her work, which includes ‘After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall’ and ‘Fountain of Age’.

In ‘Biocentrism’, and its sequels ‘Beyond Biocentrism’ and ‘The Grand Biocentric Design’, Lanza explained how observers (humans and other animals) create physical reality. Without observers, the universe (spacetime and matter) would remain in a state of superposition. Being alive means you are collapsing wavefunctions and you are transforming a cloud of probabilities into one manifest reality.

The premise of ‘Observer’ is that this is indeed how reality works, and a group of scientists has developed new technology which changes the algorithms by which the brain processes information. This enables the characters to create alternative branches of the universe in which their deceased loved ones can once again be alive.

It happens often that new scientific views are communicated to the general public through popular culture. ‘Biocentrism’ has not yet transformed the mainstream scientific view that sees the universe as a huge space filled with marbles that accidentally also contains life and consciousness. ‘Observer’ is a solid attempt to translate the ideas of ‘Biocentrism’ into a compelling science fiction story. It was a smart move to team up with a writer because it has believable characters and reads like a bullet train.

One of the characters is physicist George Weigert who is basically a fictionalized version of Lanza himself. It is he who has developed the biocentric theory which he calls ‘the primacy of the observer’. His main motivation to do it is to see his dead wife Rose again. The main character is surgeon Caroline Soames-Walkins who joins the team on Cayman Brac to perform the operations needed to install the brain-chips that participants need in order to create other branches of the universe. She remains in doubt the whole time about the project and suspects that what the participants see is just an elaborate hallucination. What could convince her of the truth?

The book contains many of the same explanations that ‘Biocentrism’ first pioneered about the true nature of space, time and reality. Sometimes, they have characters explain these concepts in a way that’s not entirely believable. It is obviously Lanza talking. But this is a minor critique. What ‘Observer’ does very well is explaining real, revolutionary science in an understandable way. This doesn’t mean it becomes easy, because as Lanza has pointed out many times; language is a limited tool when it comes to explaining fundamental truths like the illusion of time.

Luckily, you don’t have to fully understand all the science to enjoy the story. If observers indeed create reality, this opens up many staggering possibilities. Some of these are explored in this book, but the writers didn’t overdo it. There is definitely a sequel suspended in superposition in which the future possibilities are explored further. Perhaps ‘Creator’ is a suitable title for this sequel?

Sunday Morning, 9 A.M.; Dialogues on Reality (2)

Posted on 15 augustus 2021 by Jeppe Kleijngeld

By J.H. Kash

Sort of a follow-up to: Thinking, Fast & Slow; Dialogues on Reality (1)

The sky was cloudy and the wind was high. I had trouble keeping my old green Opel Corsa steady as it drifted towards Brussels for what could very well be the most important event of my generation. I was driving on the A27 highway between Amsterdam and Antwerp listening to Business Radio, when reality dawned on me once again. Me driving there was only what it appeared like to me. According to the esteemed scientist Dr. Lanza, who I had the honor of meeting later that day, I was not really driving there at all. I only thought I did in my mind.

The universe is not what we think it is, according to this rebellious thinker. We consider it as a place of sorts, but it is not. Science has revealed that it really is an information system. Within this unimaginable vast system, sentient beings like us are processing information into the appearance of a physical environment. According to Lanza, this environment has no independent existence. We basically create it by observing. Ultimately, the universe resides in our consciousness. Everything does.

To most people this sounds like a bunch of flakey, mumbo jumbo, new age bullcrap. Especially to the crowd Lanza was about to face: physicists. Brilliant people surely, but they were also completely and utterly stuck within an old paradigm. I had seen it before. No matter how much experimental proof you would throw at them, they would refuse to accept it if it didn’t fit within their belief system. This time would be no different.

The event I was heading to was already legendary. Solvay 2027. The International Conference on Quantum Mechanics and the Nature of Reality. Every physicist that really mattered in the world, would be there (once again: or so it would appear). It was legendary for two reasons. One, it would take place exactly hundred years after the most famous Solvay Conference of 1927, where the world’s leading physicists at the time, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger amongst others, met to discuss the newly formulated theory of quantum mechanics, which was groundbreaking in every way. Secondly, the conference would address the most controversial unsolved problem of quantum theory. Namely, what the theory actually tells us about the reality we (seem to) inhabit.

I don’t know the first thing about physics. Let’s get that straight from the beginning. But I do have a head for the philosophical implications of the physical sciences. That is how I got to convince the chief editor of the Scientific Observer magazine to send me to cover this event in the first place. Normally I only write about finance, so I had to bluff my way into this gig. Showed him some philosophical essays, and voila, here I was. I did have to lower my fee considerably. I would even be paying for my own hotel room and expenses. But I figured it would be worth it. If these damn physicists would finally start listening.

Quantum mechanics deals with the very very small: atoms and subatomic particles. And when I say small, I really mean unfathomable tiny. A human cell, which can only be perceived under a microscope, consists of 100.000 billion atoms. Our minds cannot grasp how small that is, just like we can’t imagine how incredibly impossibly huge the universe is. And the structure of atoms is weird as hell. They consist almost completely of empty space. Matter is made up of 99,9999999 percent of empty space with tiny charged particles floating around in the void. The world only seems solid, but at a quantum level there is only energy. Therefore, our senses must be deceiving us: there is nothing solid around us at all.

Quantum physics has been weird from the get-go. To those new to the subject, I always explained the concept of the quantum leap. Take an object, like the car I was driving, and let’s say that I could instantaneously leap with my vehicle from one side of the guard rail to the other without crossing it in any way. So to be clear: not under it, above it or through it. Just like that, I’m driving on the other halfway without having traveled through the space in between. This is the quantum leap: impossible for an object this size, but not for an electron. In nature on the quantum scale, this behaviour is standard operating procedure. Objects can just pop in and out of existence without it being clear where they came from.

And that is only one of the mind blowing features of quantum theory. Another element that is nearly impossible to intuit is what has become known as the measurement problem, which would be one of the main problems discussed at the conference. When we talk about an atom, we imagine something like an extremely small grain of sand, or a stone. But it turns out that it is only like that after it has been measured by a scientist. Before it is measured, it merely exists as a statistical probability. We know it will appear somewhere after measurement – and we can even say with certainty that it will appear here or there. But we cannot know the exact location before measurement. Quantum mechanics is very clear on that. Why is this so? 100 years after the theory was formalized, physicists still don’t know. But Lanza does. Reality only exists when you observe it. Either that, or the universe branches out every time you press the ‘one cup’ button on your espresso machine. There’s no getting around it: the universe is way weirder than we think.

I picked up my jester hat on the passenger chair beside me. It read ‘Brugse Zot’, a beer brand which means something like ‘court jester from Bruges’. I took it from my special collection of funny hats because it was Belgian and I was going to Belgium. I put the thing on my head. The trick to wear a hat like this in the right way is to wear it with a completely serious face. You’re not wearing it as a joke, you’re wearing it because you mean it. Even when people give you a funny look, you smile at them, but not as a joker. Just give them a friendly smile, but never break the poker face. That way you’re sending out the right message: that you are really the real thing. You completely own something that others could never own. You’re the King of the Jokers. And that’s nothing to be sneezed at.

And I felt like a King, because I knew – thanks To Lanza – the secret of the universe. Most people couldn’t see it. Even those who understood physics. Quantum mechanics – the study of matter and energy at atomic scale – gave us since its first discovery one of the greatest revelations ever about the universe. It tells us that the world is not actually made of stuff, but is a mental construction. What we call matter is not composed of steady material, but of statistical probabilities. Indeed, that doesn’t make any sense at all. A statistical probability – let’s say; the chance that you win a million dollars in the lottery next week – is not something concrete. It consists not even of air. It is nothing. And yet, this is exactly what quantum mechanics tells us. Reality is built from nothing tangible. That chair you’re sitting on, that coffee you’re drinking, even that person you are having sex with at night, all these things are not made of anything substantial. Like the chance of winning a lottery. It is composed of atoms, which are nothing more than statistical probabilities. So why do we experience them as steady? Here Dr. Lanza’s theory of biocentrism comes in. He says that reality is not really out there as it appears, but it is actually rendered realtime in our minds. Space, time and the physical world are forms of animal perception.

I took an exit to a McDonalds Drive Thru restaurant nearby the city of Breda. I didn’t have a real breakfast yet, and this holy mission I was on required loads of energy to burn. First I needed a shot. After I parked, I took a grapefruit from my travel backpack and sliced it in half with my kitchen knife. Then I took a bite and pulled out a bottle of vodka from the satchel. I poured some within one half and sucked it dry. I knew I needed something to stay sharp the next three days, and alcohol was then my drug of choice. By using the grapefruits, I would also get my necessary vitamins.

Now it was time for solid food (although this also happens to consist for 99.9999999% of empty space). The only problem was, I’m a vegetarian. And the offer of vegetarian food along the highway is still completely non-existent in this wicked year 2027. Still, in this free will information system we’re in, ordering meat was no option. I learned that from another weird scientist named Thomas Campbell. According to this guy, the consciousness system we are part of operates on free will. It creates physical realities like ours in which sentient beings are supposed to learn and evolve. If the system functions well, the physical world and the creatures in it will slowly evolve and get better. The crucial element here is free will. Without it, we would not be able to make profitable choices and evolve…

So a little later I exited the McDonalds with a goddamn veggie burger in my hands. Not the best possible choice, but still better than the meat. Soon after, I was back on the road with a chocolate muffin and cappuccino for the ride. I figured I had earned that muffin for not going with the meat. I thought excitedly about what I was about to experience. Three days of passionate discussion on reality. I loved it. And finally meeting the man who had changed my perspective on the world so radically. I started to mentally prepare for the interview with Lanza. There really was no question I could think of that I didn’t know the answer to already. ‘So reality is not there when no one is looking?’ That is what other journalists often ask him (those who somewhat understood his theory). This is indeed close to what Lanza is saying. His theory predicts that reality is an active process that always involves a conscious observer. That raised some questions. But I figured, we’ll get there once I get my ass in Brussels. First, I put my focus on the… “Oh shit!”.

I blinked and right in front of me, three cars were coming to a real sudden halt. A fucking pile-up was happening. Time slowed down. Something that I normally call ‘I’ acted all by itself and hit the brakes and gave a major jank at the steering wheel. I flew past the three, four, five crashed cars. Then I laughed like a maniac for evading this heap of crushed metal! But too fast it turned out. Because of the heavy breaking and radical steering, the car made a 180 turn and my car smashed into the guardrail. I was dazed for just a second, then I looked up. Cars were coming at me. Fast like fuck! Several crashes took place before everything, just like that, came to a final standstill. A total of twenty cars had been involved in the pile-up. I got out of my car and started to inspect the damage. The entire side of my car was completely wrecked. Fuck! I realised the implications right away. I was gonna miss my appointment with Dr. Lanza.

END OF CHAPTER 1

Chapter from what might one day become a novel called ObserverWorld. Right now it merely exists in the ocean of possibilities we call the quantum realm. But it might be in the future manifested by a number of conscious agents, including me, Lanza and you dear readers.

Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay

Review ‘The Grand Biocentric Design’

Posted on 10 januari 2021 by Jeppe Kleijngeld

In 2017 I read the most important book of my lifetime: Biocentrism (2009) by renowned scientists Robert Lanza and Bob Berman. It deserves to have an impact at least as great as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in the 17th century. And the main message is very similar: space and time are tools of the animal mind. Only how the authors reach their conclusions is different. Kant by brilliant philosophical reasoning. Lanza by backing up these insights by evidence from modern physics and astronomy.

In this third entry in the Biocentrism series (after Biocentrism and Beyond Biocentrism), Lanza wisely added a physicist to his writing team: Matej Pavšič. Also, there is no longer a reference from Deepak Chopra on the cover like there was on the previous books. This ‘name-dropping’ was understandable from the publisher’s position: Chopra can definitely add to the commercial success of any book that challenges the materialistic paradigm. But the science minded crowd is already extremely skeptical of any reference made to consciousness in relation to physics. So, the authors will have to be as credible as they can be to persuade the ones that may be persuaded.

I was already convinced by the first book. Not because of the credentials of the authors – that are extremely impressive – but because of the arguments presented. In the years after reading the mind blowing revelations of the first Biocentrism book, I tried to find counter arguments, but never found them. At least not arguments that cannot be easily refuted (which in this book, the authors do in one of the appendixes). Lanza and his co-authors successfully make their scientific perspective totally compatible with the findings of quantum mechanics and other unsolved mysteries of science.

The core of biocentrism is that consciousness is equivalent to reality itself. It is absolutely fundamental and cannot be reduced. If we accept this fact, everything falls into place. Quantum mechanics reveals that the physical world arises not from interactions, but the awareness of interactions. The mind computes the where and the when objects appear in relation to the observer. An observer with a functioning brain and memory is therefore crucial for the universe to be there. These authors make the case completely obvious.

The first two books were an exploration of how science in the past hundred years has been steadily moving towards this paradigm shattering realization. That conscious life and the cosmos are one and the same and cannot be separated. In the third book Lanza and his co-authors go further to explain how the mind manages the impressive feat of creating reality. The subject matter is complex, but through lucid writing the authors manage to make these ideas understandable for a wide audience.

Also some previously unexplored scientific topics are looked at through biocentric glasses, like Libet’s famous free will experiments that get a completely different interpretation than the usual ‘we are our brains’. They also offer fascinating insights on topics like animal consciousness and dreams. It is really great stuff.

Towards the end, Lanza and co give the readers a good sense of how this new perspective may impact science and what spectacular possibilities it offers for future science. Time travel is just one of them. Lanza and his co-authors did it again. They further improved my understanding of this ’mental thing’ that we’re all a part of. But no matter how much one reads about it or meditates on it, it remains mind-bending stuff. If you want to learn why the exploration of the universe must start within ourselves, this is your definitive guide.