Eywa...

[Niri Te]

 I believe that Eywa is either "A" GOD, or "THE" GOD of the Universe. In either case, "GOD" knows ALL things, from ALL places, at All times. "GOD" created time and space, therefore "GOD" stands outside of time and space.
Because of that, "GOD" has NO need of a Tree to be aware of situations or needs, so Eywa does not need the trees as links to the Na'vi, but THEY use the trees as direct links to Eywa, even though as a GOD, SHE would not need them.
A "GOD" would NOT need data to be "moved" to THEIR mind, a "GOD" could just read and copy the thoughts, desires, and motives of EVERYONE at the same time, otherwise, they are NOT "GOD" and the term "Deity" would not apply.
The tie in's to the trees, may be required for rank and file Na'vi to access the "Will of Eywa", and definitely
for them to access the "voices" and memories of their ancestors, but the Tsahik DON'T need to do that. When Moat was praying over the bodies of Grace, and later Jake, she was NOT in Tsaheylu with the Tree of Souls.
Niri Te

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

I don't think Eywa is a god or God. The Na'vi think it is God, but not me.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

@Seze
I never said Eywa was just a memory dump. I said that it acts like a memory dump for people who connect to it while they are still living.

As for avatars, I don't think that consciousness transfer is involved. The human body is simply paralyzed while the link machine takes over sensory input to the brain. The link machine then gets super-HD video from the avatar eyes, detailed touch senses from the skin, signals from the nose etc and then translates it into a form acceptable to the human brain and then feeds it into the avatar driver's brain. When the avatar driver reacts to something, it is actually reacting to a transmitted stimuli from the avatar. But since all I/O in the driver brain is redirected through the link machine, the avatar moves, not the person. Basically only I/O is completely taken over by the link machine, and the avatar driver's brain, not the dummy brain of the avatar, does all of the thinking. If consciousness were to be truly transferred, it would be okay to smash the link machine and the avatar would remain alive.

By the way, why didn't Quaritch develop a machine that intercepted avatar signals? Killing Jake would be as easy as turning his avatar's vision off and waiting until he falls of from his Toruk towards his death.

[Carborundum]

However, it is still a COPY that flows to ToS during tsaheylu. People's physical brains don't die when they connect to ToS. Unless you mean to say that people turn into unthinking zombies after connection to ToS and the "true" consciousness goes to Eywa, it is still a cached copy. Augustine said that it was "memories, data", which are by definition static and cached.

I think the problem is that I work too much with computers and put things in a way that you might not actually understand. For example, a "brain dump" is an analogue to a "dump" in a computer, which is basically copying the computer's memory and whatever it is currently thinking about into a file. The computer is not dumped, only what it is thinking about and its memory. The brain dump can't actually think.

The brain-dump would be able to think if the computer it is dumped to is able to perfectly simulate the brain it was dumped from.

As for avatars, I don't think that consciousness transfer is involved. The human body is simply paralyzed while the link machine takes over sensory input to the brain. The link machine then gets super-HD video from the avatar eyes, detailed touch senses from the skin, signals from the nose etc and then translates it into a form acceptable to the human brain and then feeds it into the avatar driver's brain. When the avatar driver reacts to something, it is actually reacting to a transmitted stimuli from the avatar. But since all I/O in the driver brain is redirected through the link machine, the avatar moves, not the person. Basically only I/O is completely taken over by the link machine, and the avatar driver's brain, not the dummy brain of the avatar, does all of the thinking. If consciousness were to be truly transferred, it would be okay to smash the link machine and the avatar would remain alive.

If this is the case, then Eywa is evidently capable of performing complete consciousness-transfers, not just brain-dumps (see: ending scene).

Also:

Everyone is familiar with stories of parents or spouses suddenly 'knowing' that their loved one is in danger or dead.  I have had similar experiences, so I know this is real.

Telepathy is not an actual thing. It might be on Pandora (although I doubt it), but it is not on Earth.

[Seze Mune]

@Seze
I never said Eywa was just a memory dump. I said that it acts like a memory dump for people who connect to it while they are still living.

As for avatars, I don't think that consciousness transfer is involved. The human body is simply paralyzed while the link machine takes over sensory input to the brain. The link machine then gets super-HD video from the avatar eyes, detailed touch senses from the skin, signals from the nose etc and then translates it into a form acceptable to the human brain and then feeds it into the avatar driver's brain. When the avatar driver reacts to something, it is actually reacting to a transmitted stimuli from the avatar. But since all I/O in the driver brain is redirected through the link machine, the avatar moves, not the person. Basically only I/O is completely taken over by the link machine, and the avatar driver's brain, not the dummy brain of the avatar, does all of the thinking. If consciousness were to be truly transferred, it would be okay to smash the link machine and the avatar would remain alive.

By the way, why didn't Quaritch develop a machine that intercepted avatar signals? Killing Jake would be as easy as turning his avatar's vision off and waiting until he falls of from his Toruk towards his death.

The reason I believe you have misinterpreted the linkup event, is because of the final scene.  You state that you don't believe consciousness transfer is involved, but if that were true then there would be no possibility of transferring Jake to his avatar body permanently.  Obviously, that is not the case. The consciousness which is transferred to Jake's avatar body from his human one in the final scene is no more and no less than what is always transferred every time an avatar driver inhabits his or her avatar body.  

Mo'at's words and the set up of the scenes with either Grace or Jake under the Tree, awaiting the transfer, suggests that the Na'vi have done this before and are familiar with the ability to transfer consciousness from one body to another.  In effect, they can - and have - created their own avatars. That would suggest to a scientist that more than memory dumps are involved in a linkup with the Tree and a true scientist would want to investigate the phenomenon rather than foreclose on the option of getting a complete understanding of the event, imo.

Quaritch didn't bother developing a machine to intercept any signals because the Quaritch mentality is not scientific.  It is about power and control through physical prowess - even his physique reveals his bias.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Before the final scene no consciousness was transferred. It is of course possible to transfer a consciousness to the avatar, but that would require different equipment (like ToS) and would make the human body die. My theory is based on the fact that there is a big red button to stop the link. Why should a machine be able to remotely control a consciousness? Obviously the button just stops the link machine. The consciousness is just hypervised in the link machine. Quaritch would also not attempt to kill Jake's human body in the final battle - if the consciousness is transferred, killing human Jake wouldn't do anything to avatar Jake sicne human jake is a souless zombie, no?

[Seze Mune]

Also:

Everyone is familiar with stories of parents or spouses suddenly 'knowing' that their loved one is in danger or dead.  I have had similar experiences, so I know this is real.

Telepathy is not an actual thing. It might be on Pandora (although I doubt it), but it is not on Earth.

This is not about telepathy per se if by that you mean deliberate mental communication with another entity.  This is about perception of an event in a way considered not possible by the average ego-consciousness.  

This has to do with nonlocality, and the background for this concept is very cogently explained in this treatise by F. David Peat, entitled Non-locality in Nature and Cognition.

Hal Puthoff, a scientist with Stanford University, had an amusing nonlocal incident involving the CIA and the NSA, although I doubt he found it very amusing at the time.  The CIA had learned of his work and wanted to see if there was any way remote viewing could be used against the Russians.  They gave Puthoff a set of coordinates and Hal had one of his main subjects 'view' the target and report. Now I'll quote:

"A few days later, Puthoff received a phone call from Pat Price, a building contractor from Lake Tahoe, who also raised Christmas trees.  Price, who considered himself a psychic, had met Puthoff at a lecture and was calling now to offer his services in their experiments. A florid, wise-cracking Irishman in his early fifties, Price said he'd been using his own version of remote viewing successfully for many years, even to catch criminals. He'd served briefly as police commissioner in Burbank, a suburb of Los Angeles.  Price would be in the dispatch room and as soon as a crime had been reported, he'd scan the city mentally.  Once he settled on a place, he'd immediately send a car to the location in his mind.  Invariably, he claimed, he'd caught his man, just at the spot he'd visualized.

"On a whim, Puthoff gave Price the coordinates given to him by the CIA.  Three days later, Hal received a package Price had posted the day after they'd spoken, containing pages of descriptions and sketches.  It was obvious to Puthoff that Price was describing the same place as [his original subject], but in far more detail.  He offered a highly precise description of the mountains, the location of the place, and its proximity to roads and a town.  He even described the weather.  But it was the interior of one peak area that interested Price.  He wrote that he thought he saw an 'underground storage area' of some variety which had been well concealed, perhaps 'deliberately so'.

'Looks like former missile site - bases for launchers still there, but area now houses record storage area, microfilm, file cabinets,' he wrote.  He was able to describe the aluminum sliding doors, the size of the rooms and what they contained, even the large maps pinned on the wall.

"Puthoff phoned Price and asked him to look again, to pick up any specific information, such as code names or the names of officers.  He wanted to take this to [his CIA contact] and needed details to dispel any lingering disbelief.  Price returned with details from one specific office: files named 'Flytrap' and 'Minerva', the names on labels on folders inside filing cabinets, the names of the colonel and majors who sat at the steel desks.

"[The CIA contact] brought the information to [his boss].  [His boss] read their reports and shook his head.  The psychics were totally off beam, he said.  All he'd given him were the coordinates of the location of his summer cabin.

"[The CIA contact] went away, puzzled by the fact that both [the original subject] and Price had described so similar a place.  That weekend, he drove out to the site with his wife.  A few miles from the coordinates, down a dirt road, he found a government 'No Trespassing' sign.  The site seemed to match the descriptions of both psychics.

"[The CIA contact] began inquiring about the site.  Immediately he got embroiled in a heated investigation of a security breach.  What [the original subject] and Price had correctly described was a vast secret Pentagon underground facility in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia, manned by National Security Agency code breakers, whose main job was to intercept international telephone communications and control US spy satellites.  It was as though their psychic antennae had picked up nothing of note with the original coordinates and so scanned the area until they got on the wavelength of something more relevant to the military.

"For months, the NSA was convinced that Puthoff and Targ, and even [the CIA contact] himself, were being provided this information from some source within the facility.  Puthoff and Targ were checked out as security risks and their friends and associates questioned as to their communist leanings.  Price only managed to calm down the agency by throwing it a bone: detailed information about the Russian counterpart to the NSA's secret site, operated by the Soviets in the northern Ural Mountains."

There are many interesting stories about nonlocality and the nature of consciousness in this book: The Field by Lynne McTaggart.  If you're at all interested in the science of it, it's worth the read.

[Seze Mune]

Before the final scene no consciousness was transferred. It is of course possible to transfer a consciousness to the avatar, but that would require different equipment (like ToS) and would make the human body die. My theory is based on the fact that there is a big red button to stop the link. Why should a machine be able to remotely control a consciousness? Obviously the button just stops the link machine. The consciousness is just hypervised in the link machine. Quaritch would also not attempt to kill Jake's human body in the final battle - if the consciousness is transferred, killing human Jake wouldn't do anything to avatar Jake sicne human jake is a souless zombie, no?

I understand what you are saying, but I'm not convinced the big red button STOPS the link so much as it reverses the process.

Of course we are just speculating here, but the machine may just mechanically provide the same kind of electromagnetic linkage which is provided naturally by the long tendrils of the ToS.  And we know by the end of the film that consciousness is transferred that way because that's how Jake obtains his second 'birth day'.

But you do bring up an interesting point.  How do you explain the seeming discrepancy between the scene where Quaritch damages the VLink Pod, causing Jake's avatar body to go into syncope while his human body gasps for air and fades, contrasted with the scene where Jake's naked human body 'dies' while his consciousness is transferred into his avatar body?  It would seem the mechanism should be the same for both, right?  In the first case, the human body goes into distress causing the avatar body to go into syncope.  In the second case, the human body appears to die and the avatar body awakens fully conscious.

My first thought is that this is very analogous to the sleep and death states.  The science behind consciousness is far less developed than the science behind computers (talk about missing the REAL frontier!), so again this is speculation.

Are you really UNconscious when you sleep, or is your consciousness just located elsewhere?  I believe it's located elsewhere.  Have you ever been awakened suddenly from a sound sleep because something alarmed you?  I have.  The consciousness that you call 'you' is not present in the body until it is abruptly pulled back by the exigency of the moment. I think that describes the sudden transfer of consciousness from Jake's avatar to his human body when Quaritch damages the air seal on the VLink pod.  He was startled into it.

On the other hand, when Jake's human body is lying under the ToS clad only in an exomask so that he doesn't go into distress and startle his consciousness, the transfer is achieved and then made permanent by Neytiri removing the exomask from the human body.  There is no going back after that point.

Of course, given the nature of the movie and our woeful lack of scientific knowledge behind it, all of our statements are just speculations.

Which reminds me - James Cameron, if you are reading this, how about we sit down over a vanilla latte and discuss the phenomena of love and consciousness within Avatar just for fun some day?  We need to talk about The Field.    

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

No. Your consciousness neither ends nor does it go anywhere else. Instead, it, as in the avatar thingy, virtualizes its own I/O, causing you to dream of things you imagine. Of couse, sometimes it does end, as in NREM sleep, where you literally need to fall off of the bed and get smashed by a chair to awake (and slowly do so like a computer cold booting). In NREM only an extremely small portion of the brain - and that doesn't include the consciousness - is active, like the ACPI system in computer hardware that is always on simply to ensure that the computer responds when you press the power button. When the rudimentary brain hardware that's still active detects stimulus above a certain threshold, it slowly boots the consciousness. However, in REM sleep you only virtualize the I/O, redirecting it to a hyperviser process that does all of the dreaming. When you awake, the hyperviser is turned off and you can instantly get up and do whatever you need to do.

As for analogizing with computers, I see no indication whatsoever that human brains' thought processes are anything less than or more than Turing-complete. Therefore, I don't think that making analogies with Turing machines (computers) is anything wrong.

As for nonlocality, IMO that is usually because of the random monkey theorem. Most of the times when our hunches or "telepathic" feeling are wrong we forget about it. When it is right, which it will be because of the R.M.T., we remember it for the rest of our lives. For example, take "feeling uneasy and having bad dreams the same day a relative dies." Think about how many times you felt uneasy and had bad dreams but nobody died. Usually we just forget about those incident.

By the way, the term "avatar drivers" convinces me that no transfer is involved, they DRIVE the avatars and they talk about a LINK, which clearly means a sensory link between the avatar and the person. And since Jake loves his avatar body so much, why not simply get Trudy to destroy the link bed in one shot with like 20 missiles while he is in link? Such a quick death would not "make his consciousness fly back" and would be much less risky than depending on the reliability of something as little-understood as ToS!

[Seze Mune]

Ma Uniltìrantokx, we shall have to agree to cordially disagree. 

I will agree that your consciousness doesn't end, although to be fair I believe you meant that in a different context.  And I completely disagree that human consciousness is anything more than tangentially similar to computer processes.  There is no room for emotion in a computer.  There is no room for intention.  There is no basic personality or individuality in a computer.

There are however people who prefer to see things like that mechanistically because it appears to be the cleanest and most particularized way to describe it.  I would hate to be in a relationship with such an individual - if a relationship were even possible.  By reducing personality down to simply mechanics, it avoids having to deal with an actual being which is far more like an unfolding event than like a machine.  It's like forcing Cinderella's shoe on Drucella's foot; it'll only fit if it's distorted out of all recognition.

As for nonlocality, that has been scientifically proven any number of different ways at many prestigious universities and laboratories.  Also, I've also experienced it myself, so the concept is acceptable and works fine for me.  Anyone is perfectly within their rights to disregard current science, and religious fundamentalists do that all the time.

And as for avatar 'drivers', I regard you and me as avatar drivers ourselves.  I don't think our consciousness is limited to our physical bodies and I am convinced that I will survive, body or no body.  That is to say, I don't think that being an avatar driver is limited to being in a Na'vi body.  You are also an avatar driver when you are in a human body.  The 'avatar' part of it is only relative to the cultural or scientific group you are relating to at the time.

The comment about Trudy doesn't make sense in terms of the film. It made more sense to have Neytiri be the one to release the physical body in an appropriately tender way than it would for someone like Norm to shoot Jake deliberately in the head.  When Jake killed Tsu'tey at Tsu'tey's request, he did it without a egregious display of violence, and with a loving respect.  Remember, there was also the exhortation and the expectation that Tsu'tey would be with Eywa regardless of his inability to tsaheyl si.  It would be pretty easy for the Na'vi to link with ToS and find out if Tsu'tey's spirit actually made it into Eywa.  This expectation was global for all the Na'vi present, most likely on the basis that previous experience had already proved this to their satisfaction.

Then again, as I said above, it appears we have reached an impasse.  We both see things differently regardless of our explanations to each other, and that's okay.  It appears that further discussion won't add much.  I think these fundamental differences will remain and I am content to have exchanged views with you, and to retain my views and accept that you will retain your own.    Thanks for the enjoyable discussion.  Eywa ngahu, ma Uniltìrantokx.   

[Carborundum]

As for nonlocality, that has been scientifically proven any number of different ways at many prestigious universities and laboratories.  Also, I've also experienced it myself, so the concept is acceptable and works fine for me.  Anyone is perfectly within their rights to disregard current science, and religious fundamentalists do that all the time.

Nonlocality is a thing. The problem is, what you're describing is not nonlocality. As the name suggests, quantum nonlocality is only relevant on a quantum scale. It cannot explain the supposed existence of phenomena such as telepathy (the induction of mental states from one mind to another, which is what you claim to have experienced) or remote viewing (the obtaining of information from a distant and/or unseen object by means of extra-sensory perception, which is what Puthoff claims to have observed).

Puthoff, by the way, was involved with the church of scientology when he made those claims, which automatically causes him to lose any semblance of credibility. He has since severed all ties with scientology, although it is not clear whether or not he has also rescinded his claims about remote viewing. It doesn't really matter whether he did or not however, as RV has been thoroughly examined and refuted by other people on multiple occasions (as has telepathy, together with a plethora of other paranormal abilities).

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Unless of course, you can change Planck's constant to something like one. 

[Seze Mune]

All right, ma Carborundum and ma Uniltìrantokx, I present here for your TL;DR pleasure the following:

As for nonlocality, that has been scientifically proven any number of different ways at many prestigious universities and laboratories.  Also, I've also experienced it myself, so the concept is acceptable and works fine for me.  Anyone is perfectly within their rights to disregard current science, and religious fundamentalists do that all the time.

Nonlocality is a thing. The problem is, what you're describing is not nonlocality.

Then define for me your definition of nonlocality.  I do not see it here.

As the name suggests, quantum nonlocality is only relevant on a quantum scale. It cannot explain the supposed existence of phenomena such as telepathy (the induction of mental states from one mind to another, which is what you claim to have experienced) or remote viewing (the obtaining of information from a distant and/or unseen object by means of extra-sensory perception, which is what Puthoff claims to have observed).

In the first place, you are wrong about my claim.  I have never claimed to have had telepathic communication with any person.  I have experienced the foreknowledge of events of which I should have had no knowledge.  That is NOT telepathy, although you insist that it is.  You are incorrect. It is called precognition and IF it does not exist, then I could not have had multiple such experiences. But I have, and I am not the only one.

Karl Pribram of Yale and Stanford, Walter Schempp - professor from the University of Siegen in Germany, British physicist Peter Marcer all proved that perception (even yours) occurs on the level of the quantum particle.  That is to say we don't actually see an object, we construct it out of quantum information obtained from what they call the Zero Point Field.  Pribram studied the biology of it and through experimentation and information provided by Sir John Eccles on imagination and brain microwaves was convinced that the brain groks information by morphing images into wave interference patterns and then like a laser hologram, transforms them into virtual images.  This would mean that memory would be distributed everywhere, each part containing the whole.  He teamed up with physicist Denis Gabor and using Fourier transforms they worked out how perception occurs by transformation of information at a different level of reality.  Pribram used Gabor's mathematical application of Heisenberg's theories in which he figured out the maximum amount of compression a telephone message could take over the Atlantic cable,  to describe the function of the human brain in a quantum field.

Pribram's theories were stridently rejected by the dogmatists.  After more than 700 experiments by one of his main detractors, the theory was upheld and gained more cred.  A married team of neurophysiologists at UC Berkley discovered that the brain cells of monkeys and cats responded not only to visual images but to the interference patterns of their component waves.  Other studies at Cambridge University as well as other labs showed that the human cerebral cortex may be tuned to specific and various frequency patterns.  These would be encountered, of course, in the quantum field.

Work in Russia showed that as human movement progressed in a series of dance steps, it mimicked Fournier trigonometric sums to the extent that the scientist could predict the dancers' next movements to within millimeters.  This suggests that the brain communicates with the body in the form of waves and patterns rather than images.  There is so much more research and experimentation along these lines that time doesn't permit me to present it here.

All of which is to suggest that perception occurs in a way and a state where time and space do not exist - the quantum field.  It tends to lend credence to the concept of precognition.

Puthoff, by the way, was involved with the church of scientology when he made those claims, which automatically causes him to lose any semblance of credibility. He has since severed all ties with scientology, although it is not clear whether or not he has also rescinded his claims about remote viewing.

Interesting that you can justify throwing out the baby with the bathwater. With that scientific rationale, you might as well throw out the science developed by anyone who is Catholic or Jewish or Muslim, since apparently you believe that one's religious mindset has an undue influence on one's science.  Science itself, by the way, is a cultist religion for many in that field and they are often blind to its prejudicial effects.  Legitimate scientists who think out-of-that-box are often hammered for stepping outside the current scientific dogma.

All science is based on theory.  Theory is supposed to be plastic and mutable, but it often ossifies into dogma. Quantum physics is a developing field, and I understand there are those scientists who - like people who insist that the world is flat - do not give credence to it.  That's hard to understand when the computer itself is based upon quantum physics.

The pioneers in this field - Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Bohr and Pauli all realized that there were metaphysical implications to the theory.  Part of the theory is that all electrons everywhere are connected all the time. These physicists all turned to various metaphysical studies for understanding - Heisenberg turned to the Platonic theory of ancient Greece, Schroedinger to the Hindu philosophy, Bohr to the Tao and Chinese philosophy and Pauli poured over psychoanalysis and archetypes and the Qabbalah.

If you are going to debunk the science upon which this emerging field is based, then you're going to have to debunk Mae Wan-Ho, Elisabeth and Russell Targ, Basil Hiley, Alfonso Rueda, Walter Schempp, Peter Marcer, Bernhard Haisch, Jacques Benveniste, Charles Tart, Dean Radin, Marilyn Schlitze, Roger Nelson, Karl Pribram, Fritz-Albert Popp, William Braud, Helmut Schmidt, David Bohm, Brenda Dunne, Andrei Apostol, Marcel Odier, Dennis Stillings, William Tiller, Hans Wendt, AMaro Bischof as well as Puthoff, among many others.

Science by its own definition is not the ultimate truth, it is 'a story told in installments', and the best science is always open to correction and revision. Some of these revisions are hard to swallow, even by the people who create them.  Einstein didn't like the implications of his own collaborative paper on quantum entanglement and called it "spooky action at a distance", even though entanglement has been proven multiple times and is being used to develop quantum computers which you may end up using some day.

As this layperson understands it, quantum physics has parsed matter into its most elemental beingness, which is an energetic charge and not a chemical process.  The field of energy in which matter exists is without boundaries in its most basic state.  The physical universe is one vast sea of energetic charges, detectable at vast distances as far as current scientific instruments can reach - from your little finger to the chair upon which you sit, into galaxies, black holes, pulsars and beyond.  No one has found an end to it yet, there is only an end to the ability of our instruments to assess it.  You can call these energetic charges subatomic particles or subatomic waves.  You yourself are both a wave and a particle, a thing and an unending event at the same time.  It all depends on how you decide to view yourself.  Which is interesting because by this quantum physics suggests that you literally create your own reality by focusing on it and 'collapsing' it from an undifferentiated state of probabilities to that which you've focused on.

Most of the science you are familiar with is quantum physics as applied to inanimate objects.  I doubt you are familiar with much of the advancing theories, experimentation and testing as applied to consciousness and the state of being.  For all its vaunted application to technology, classical physics and current applied quantum mechanics can't even answer the most basic question of when life begins.  The originators of the quantum concept recognized its implications, as I stated above, but they refused to do the research on it. They rationalized that there was one truth for small things and another truth for things that weren't small, and contradictions be damned.  Just take the contradictions at face value because, after all, the math works.

Ha! Well, one reason the math works is because the equations begin with a complete distortion - they force Cinderella's slipper on Drucella's foot by always subtracting out the equation which stands for the Zero Point Field. THAT's the only way the math works.

The Zero Point Field, as I understand it, implies that we exist in a vast sea of energy. IF this is true, then everything is connected to everything else. Uh oh.  Like all life on Pandora is connected to Eywa, only even moreso because in this case we have to include inanimate objects and all space inbetween.  Damn.  There goes the neighborhood!  With all the mathematical noise in the equation, nothing was getting done.  Excise the ZPF and everything works! Voila!

The quantum searchlight only recently began to focus on consciousness itself, though even Schroedinger and Bohr et al knew the implications as I said.  At the quantum level, we're all packets of quanta entangled (and therefore exchanging information) with everything else in this vast sea of energy.

All your cognitive functions, and your biological processing, involve quantum information processing.  There is the phenomenon of entrainment, where the individual with more coherent brain frequencies entrains and orders the less coherent frequencies of the person with whom they've been experimentally paired.  There is the well-known phenomenon of entrainment of biological function - e.g. women who share a lot of time with each other will begin to harmonize their menstrual cycles.  How else can this exchange of information and subsequent reordering happen except through quantum processes?

I would be willing to cite this information for days, if you feel interested and so inclined.  But again, if you are standing on fundamentalist dogma, then it's more a waste of bandwidth and I'd rather not spend the time.

It doesn't really matter whether he did or not however, as RV has been thoroughly examined and refuted by other people on multiple occasions (as has telepathy, together with a plethora of other paranormal abilities).

Again you are mistaken.  Science cannot refute anything.  In other words, it cannot conclusively, definitively and with ultimate authority prove a negative. That goes against its own definition.  Of course, to say otherwise is to be as authoritarian, dogmatic and fundamentalist as any religious practitioner.  All science can do is prove that something appears to be correct or incorrect for the time being. To remain true science, it has to be open-ended.

I make no pretense of being a scientist, ma Carborundum.  I am a curious layperson at best who sets a great deal of stock by empiricism.  And for me, it works.

[Carborundum]

My reply.

[Seze Mune]

Alright.  Fair enough. I will provide various citations, adding Puthoff only where he has collaborators to mitigate his influence since you have a bias against him without evidence that it has affected his work.   While you have made the point of noting the absence of citations in my previous post, will you really make it worth my while by actually looking these up?  I could make a prediction here, but I won't claim precognition.    I don't think you will.

For the philosophical interest of the quantum theorists, See W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (Harmondsworth: Penguin,2000), N. Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge , (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1958), and R. John and B. Dunne, Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World (New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1987) 58-9.

Nonlocality, for whatever it's worth, was considered to be proven by experiments conducted by Alain Aspect and his colleagues in Paris in 1982.

H = Σ_ih*Ω_i(n_i + ½) <--- This is supposed to be a simple equation showing energy for harmonic oscillators.  The  ½ stood for the zero-point energy.  When renormalizing, scientists would just drop the  ½.  The Zero Point Field is included in stochastic electrodynamics, whatever that is.  In ordinary classical physics, it is usually just 'renormalized' away.  You don't have to accept my word for it here, and I'm sure you won't.  I think you could probably find a physics professor at your local university to confirm this.  For additional reference, you might wish to visit this site.

B. Haisch, 'Brilliant disguise: light, matter and the Zero Point Field', Science and Spirit, 1999; 10: 30-I

B. Haisch, A. Rueda and H.E. Puthoff, 'Beyond E=mc²: A first glimpse of a universe without mass', The Sciences, November/December 1994: 26-31.

B.Haisch, A. Rueda and H.E. Puthoff, 'Inertia as a zero-point-field Lorentz force', Physical Review A, 1994; 49⁽²⁾: 678-94

K. Pribram, 'Autobiography in anecdote: the founding of experimental neuropsychology', in Robert Bilder, (ed.), The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography, (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1998): 306-49.

K.S. Lashley, 'In search of the engram', in Society for Experimental Biology, Physiological Mechanisms in Animal Behavior, (New York: Academic Press, 1950): 501, as quoted in K. Pribram, Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neurobiology (New York: Brandon House, 1971): 26

K. Pribram, Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991): 9

R. Penrose, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (New York: Vintage, 1994): 367

S. R. Hameroff, Ultimate Computing: Biomolecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1987)

E.Laszlo, The Interconnected Universe: Conceptual Foundations of Transdisciplinary Unified Theory (Singapore: World Scientific, 1995): 41

M. Jibu and K. Yasue, 'A physical picture of Umezawa's quantum brain dynamics', in R. Trappl (ed.) Cybernetics and Systems Research, '92 (Singapore: World Scientific, 1992); 'The basics of quantum brain dynamics', in K. H. Pribram (ed.) Proceedings of the First Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics (Radford: Center for Brain Research and Informational Sciences, Radford University, September 17-20, 19920; 'Intracellular quantum signal transfer in Umezawa's quantum brain dynamics', Cybernetics Systems International, 1993; I (24): 1-7; 'Introduction to quantum brain dynamics', in E. Carvallo (ed.) Nature, Cognition and System III (London: Kluwer Academic, 1993)

C.D.Laughlin, 'Archetypes, neurognosis and the quantum sea', Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1996; 10:375-400.

M. Jibu, S. Hagan, S.Hameroff et al., 'Quantum optical coherence in cytoskeletal microtubules: implications for brain function', BioSystems, 1994; 32: 95-209

E. Del Guidice et al., 'Electromagnetic field and spontaneous symmetry breaking in biological matter', Nuclear Physics, 1983; B275(FS17); 185-99.

D. Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, (London: Routledge, 1983).

M. Jibu and K. Yasue, 'The basis of quantum brain dynamics', in K. H. Pribram (ed.) Rethinking neural Networks: Quantum Fields and Biological Data(Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993): 121-45

PRECOGNITION

For studies on this, read  D. Radin, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (New York: HarperEdge, 1996: 113-4

D.J. Bierman and D. I. Radin, 'Anomalous anticipatory response on randomized future conditions', Perceptual and Motor Skills,  1997; 84: 689-90

D. . Bierman, 'Anomalous aspects of intuition', paper presented at the Fourth Biennial European meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Valencia, October 9-11, 1998

D.I. Radin and E. C. May, 'Testing the intuitive data sorting model with pseudorandom number generators: a proposed method', in D. H. Weiner and R. G. Nelson (eds.), Research in Parapsychology 1986 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1987): 109-11

R. G. Jahn et al., 'Correlations of random binary sequences with pre-stated operator intention: a review of a12-year program', Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1997; 11(3): 345-67

Alright.  I think that's probably enough reading material for now.  If you get through this and would like more, I will be pleased to provide it.

By the way, I agree with you that no one's sensory system is infallible.  In fact, no two are actually alike.  We only have a consensus of similarities in that regard.  In point of fact, if you take 10 witnesses to an event and ask them what happened, you will get 10 responses with some similarities and many differences.  Even if you have a film of the event, who's to say whose interpretation is correct?  Courtroom experts will take the same set of data and draw dramatically different conclusions.  Add beliefs and biases into the mix and you have a reason that even scientific data is skewed in its interpretation, no matter how well the study is designed.  

As for your comment that "...the honest thing to do in the face of things we do not understand is to either tentatively accept the consensus position (paranormal abilities do not exist), or refrain from taking any stance whatsoever," I will make several comments.  In the first place, your use of the word 'honest' is a slap in the face.  Honesty is admitting one's own actual experiences regardless of whether they dovetail neatly with the credo espoused by Newtonian priests.  Further, the consensus opinion on the ground and in the trenches is not the same one held by the priests of Newtonian sciences.  That does not make it automatically wrong. It may make it cause for further study.

And it is another slap in the face to say, "Science is not concerned with personal experiences, so do not try to pass your beliefs off as legitimate science."  I said that my experience was enough proof for me, and at no time whatsoever did I try to pass off my personal experience as global proof of anything for anyone else.  I said only that it works for me.  I reiterate that: it works for me.  If it doesn't work for you on a personal level, I not only accept that but I am content with it.

On top of that, you are plain wrong.  Science IS concerned with personal experiences, and that is exactly what psychology, neuropsychology, psychoneuroimmunology and psychoneuroendocrinology, psychoneuromuscular theory and others are all about.  Some of it is considered 'soft' science because it deals with things that aren't easily quantifiable with mathematics, but some of it is hard science and a large economic driver in today's world.

So let's try to treat one another respectfully in this discussion if you insist on carrying it forward.  If not, as I said before, thank you for your thoughts and Eywa ngahu.  

*(there is supposed to be a line over this 'h'.  I have no idea what it means and no means to produce it on this computer. Sorry.)

[Carborundum]

See my response here.  It doesn't belong under 'Pseudoscience'.

As long as we are discussing subjects that are generally considered to be pseudoscience (such as precognition) the topic does belong under "pseudoscience", certainly more so than it belongs under "Eywa". Feel free to suggest an alternative topic title.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

H = Σih*Ωi(ni + ½)

So you say that the ½ is so important. Basic math tells you that this term simply multiplies the entire expression after the equal sign by (½ni). Renormalizing the ½ or not does NOT affect Planck's constant or anythign important.

NOBODY is arguing that nonlocality doesn't exist. I am only arguing that nonlocality has nothing to do and cannot explain paranormal phenomena.

By the way, could you please stop talking like a postmodernist philosopher, i.e. say "for me" over and over? Postmodernism is THE enemy of thinking rationally or having meaningful discussions. You could as well say "One plus one equals THREE because that's the way it works FOR ME." We are talking about an EMPIRICAL conclusion, not a conclusion drawn about you. Nobody is supposing that YOU don't have paranormal experiences or that you are lying. We are only trying to say that nonlocality and quantum physics do not allow precognition &c any more than classical physics does.

How to quantify the amount of time into the future precognition can predict - SCIENTIFICALLY

As for which equation really shows whether or not quantum physics plays a role in precognition/telepathy, let me throw out the famous Heisenberg uncertainty equation:



Since we are talking about precognition, the only possible way quantum physics can have anything to do with precognition is as follows - if the time arrow can be reversed, if quantum physics hold in the time dimension, and if transversing the time dimension in the opposite direction with in the same universe is possible (three extremely big ifs), then the Heisenburg uncertainty principle says that the spacetime location of an event has a certain fuzziness that extends to the time domain. This means that events in the future and in the present are all "partially" extant in the present. This of course, means that precognition would be possible.

However, as the equation says, delta x times delta p is h-bar over two. Delta-x is the uncertainty in position, which we also extend to uncertainty in time as per Einstein. H-bar over two is an extremely small number, around (5.27 10^-35). Our objective is to make delta-x as big as possible, so that it extends more into the past. This would mean that delta-p needs to be REALLY small. You'll need to know the EXACT weight and EXACT moving speed of the person you're predicting to something like 35 digits after the decimal point. Which would defeat the whole purpose of prediction anyway, since you're not supposed to know this beforehand.

[Seze Mune]

See my response here.  It doesn't belong under 'Pseudoscience'.

As long as we are discussing subjects that are generally considered to be pseudoscience (such as precognition) the topic does belong under "pseudoscience", certainly more so than it belongs under "Eywa". Feel free to suggest an alternative topic title.

We are discussing the characteristics and variables of consciousness.  I believe that relates directly to the Eywa concept, therefore I disagree with you that it should be moved from this thread.

I gave you citations on some of the science behind it.  If you are not willing to read the material you asked for, then you have no standing to tell me it's 'pseudoscience'.  That is only a bias of yours. Besides, the label of 'pseudoscience' is a third slap in the face and I believe you deliberately meant it that way.  I don't mind a civil discussion, but when you do things like that you cause the so-called discussion to degenerate into something not worthy of LN and I will refuse to participate.

[Seze Mune]

H = Σih*Ωi(ni + ½)

So you say that the ½ is so important. Basic math tells you that this term simply multiplies the entire expression after the equal sign by (½ni). Renormalizing the ½ or not does NOT affect Planck's constant or anythign important.

NOBODY is arguing that nonlocality doesn't exist. I am only arguing that nonlocality has nothing to do and cannot explain paranormal phenomena.

By the way, could you please stop talking like a postmodernist philosopher, i.e. say "for me" over and over? Postmodernism is THE enemy of thinking rationally or having meaningful discussions. You could as well say "One plus one equals THREE because that's the way it works FOR ME." We are talking about an EMPIRICAL conclusion, not a conclusion drawn about you. Nobody is supposing that YOU don't have paranormal experiences or that you are lying. We are only trying to say that nonlocality and quantum physics do not allow precognition &c any more than classical physics does.

I am talking about personal experience.  This is important when we are talking about the Eywa concept because it is all about personal experience on one level.  At that level, my personal experience is valid. As for there being any evidence of the relationship for quantum physics lending validity to the idea of precognition, etc., globally, I suggest you read the research yourself rather than argue it with an admitted layperson.  Frankly, I think the science will suggest credence for the idea moreso than not.  Argue the validity or relability of the studies mentioned rather than jumping on me and my personal experience.

How to quantify the amount of time into the future precognition can predict - SCIENTIFICALLY

As for which equation really shows whether or not quantum physics plays a role in precognition/telepathy, let me throw out the famous Heisenberg uncertainty equation:



Since we are talking about precognition, the only possible way quantum physics can have anything to do with precognition is as follows - if the time arrow can be reversed, if quantum physics hold in the time dimension, and if transversing the time dimension in the opposite direction with in the same universe is possible (three extremely big ifs), then the Heisenburg uncertainty principle says that the spacetime location of an event has a certain fuzziness that extends to the time domain. This means that events in the future and in the present are all "partially" extant in the present. This of course, means that precognition would be possible.

However, as the equation says, delta x times delta p is h-bar over two. Delta-x is the uncertainty in position, which we also extend to uncertainty in time as per Einstein. H-bar over two is an extremely small number, around (5.27 10^-35). Our objective is to make delta-x as big as possible, so that it extends more into the past. This would mean that delta-p needs to be REALLY small. You'll need to know the EXACT weight and EXACT moving speed of the person you're predicting to something like 35 digits after the decimal point. Which would defeat the whole purpose of prediction anyway, since you're not supposed to know this beforehand.

I don't have the physics background to debate that with you, so it's a bit of an exercise in futility.  The only reason I mentioned the other equation is to give an illustration of the bit that is subtracted from certain equations to make classical physics fit. 

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

If you don't understand the equation, don't draw conclusions from modifications to it. Basically, the one-half term gets really really small when things get really really big. Which basically means that as things get big, classical physics and quantum physics are equal. Ask any scientist at CERN and they will laugh at the idea of trying to make things fit with classical physics when things are small. The simple reason why quantum physics was invented is to replace classical physics at atomic scales. Only perhaps over-enthusiastic first-year high-schools students would try to apply F=ma to an atom!

In a nutshell, nobody is trying to fine tune quantum physics and make it turn into classical physics. Example, if you're computer was designed with that one-half term thrown away, it wouldn't even work.