Rational Scientific Theories from Theism

Footprints of the Mind in Nature

Speculations concerning possible means

Preliminary Points

 Since
  1. The 3.1 degree is the means of influx into the natural,
  2. This degree appears to be related to 'quantum gravity' for reasons given previously,
  3. I have read E. Roy John's observations of correlations between evoked potentials and patterns in the (spatio?)temporal density of neural events (see John, E. Roy, Mechanisms of memory, Academic Press, 1967),
  4. I read Stuart Hameroff's comments on John's recent observations of 'zero phase lag coherence across widely distributed areas of the brain during consciousness', 
  5. I read John's recent speculations on 'quantum-like fields'.
 

I ask:

Are spacetime modulations the footprint of mind?

The speculation occurs that mental influx directly influences the patterns of events, by changing their probabilities. This is (perhaps!) accomplished by one (or more?) of the following means:
  1. directly modulating the local spacetime metric: in particular causing localised fluctuations in the temporal rate. This will affect all physical processes, so should be easily observable experimentally eg by measuring the rate of local embedded clock-devices in animal and/or human brains. 
  2. modulating virtual processes (3.2), so e.g. couplings constants in the Lagrangian (3.21) have local spatiotemporal variations. This will effect most local clocks in the same way as above.
  3. modulating the rate of actual events (3.33) , namely the quantum 'measurement events'  whatever they are, along the lines suggested by Henry Stapp.
It might be asked whether the first two effects would not have shown up already in NMR/MRI measurements of resonance frequencies, but the modulations suggested here have the same frequencies as EEG and evoked potential waves, and are spatially localised, and present MRI techniques have not sufficient resolutions for this purpose.

Of course, from the physicalist or materialist point of view, the observation of any spatiotemporal correlations with brain waves would lead to the suggestion that 'brain waves are equal to vibrations in spacetime', and then maybe the epiphenomalist view that 'mind is equal to vibrations in spacetime. But we know where mind really comes from, and how.

This speculation, however, does not satisfy all the requirements given previously. For example, it is not clear how spatiotemporal event patterns could (a) have the three dynamical steps 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, (b) have permanent effects, (c) 'attract' particular patterns of influx for perception. We need a more precise idea of the processes and orders involved here.

Modulating the spacetime metric is not something easily done, and, if done, would have very dramatic physical effects. The biggest effect is gravity. A first-order analysis of the effect of variations in the spacetime metric guv shows that the gravitational potential V directly depends just on g00 (where x0 = time). This means that any variation in temporal rate g00 that is in a confined space necessarily induces gravitational forces on a mass m as F = mc2 grad g00 . These do not appear to be present in animal brains, so rendering unlikely the simplest account above (1.) for spacetime modulations.

www.TheisticScience.org Author: Ian J. Thompson, Email: IanT at TheisticScience.org