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Journal of Cosmology, 2009, Vol 3, pages 540-547. Cosmology, November 11, 2009 Yair Neuman, Ph.D.1 and Boaz Tamir, Ph.D., 2 1Office for Interdisciplinary Research Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; 2Israel Institute for Advanced Research Rehovot, Israel. The Mind is a machine that computes "difference of similarities" and "similarity of differences". In this context, the basic unit of the Mind is a "difference that makes a difference", a sign, a unit of meaning. We argue that as a Machine of Interaction and under the constraint imposed by the Principle of Least Efforts, the mind must compute signs that exist in a superposition. Self-consciousness is explained through this conceptualization and the paper concludes by introducing the idea of the Mind as a hybrid machine that combines classical and quantum computations. Key Words: consciousness, meaning, quantum physics/computation, semiotics, interdisciplinary research
1. "WHY THERE IS SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING"?
Philosophers have bothering questions that cannot be easily addressed. For example, Leibniz (1646-1716) has asked the famous question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Surprisingly an experiment conducted by the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) provides an answer, albeit to a slightly different question. This low tech experiment (described in Luria, 1976) involved a hen, grains and two sheets of paper. The hen was presented with grains on the two sheets of paper, one light gray and the other dark gray. On the light gray sheet, the grains simply rested on the surface of the paper, so that the chicken could peck at them, whereas those on the dark gray sheet of paper were glued in place so that the chicken could not peck at them. After being exposed to the sheets at several trials, the chicken learned the trick. It pecked at the light gray sheet and avoided the dark gray sheet. At this phase, Köhler turned to the crucial phase of the experiment and presented the hen with a new pair of sheets, one of which was the same light gray sheet and the other a new white sheet. Now the interesting question was how would the chicken behave in this case and to which of the sheets would she positively react. In most of the cases, the chicken … approached the new white sheet! Köhler’s explanation is that the hen had been directed not to the absolute darkness or lightness but to the relative darkness. In other words, what triggered the hen's response was a difference.
In this context, we may amuse ourselves by imagining Köhler’s hen answering Leibniz by explaining to him that only an intelligent being can ask a question such as: "Why is there something …", and for such a creature the nature of the world cannot be artificially demarcated from the nature of his contemplating mind. In this context, the "Why" question should be replaced by a "How" question: How Mind comes into being? The hen could have also answered this question by explaining that the basic
unit of the mind, whether the mind of a chicken, the mind of the immune system or the mind of a human being, is a "difference that makes a difference" (Bateson 1979/2000). The chicken could have also advised Leibniz to study quantum physics in order to better understand the mind and self-consciousness. Following the hen's advice we may turn to the next section.
2. A DIFFERENCE THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
The hen's response has been triggered by a difference. However, in itself a difference (or a bit of information) is meaningless. As proposed by David Bohm (1998), order appears as the interplay of "similarity of differences" and "difference of similarities". The difference turns into a difference that makes a difference (i.e. a unit of meaning) if it is mapped, for instance, into another difference. The difference between the light gray sheet and the dark gray sheet is mapped into the difference between the pleasure of eating the grains and the "pain" of pecking the glued grains. See next figure 1.
 Figure 1. A similarity of differences. What we see is that the mapping function between the differences involves a similarity of differences that establishes a correspondence between two different realms: the physical realms of colors and the mental realm of pleasure and pain. In this context, the difference between the two sheets functions as a sign, "something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity" (CP 2.228, c. 1897). This generic definition of the sign has been introduced by C. S. Peirce and it is applicable to different systems from natural language to the immune system (Neuman, 2008a). A sign, whether in the human mind or in the immune system, establishes a semantic unit, a unit of meaning, which is always about something whether it is a sign in natural language that corresponds to a concept or an antigen that signals 'danger' to the immune system. This "aboutness" is the source of some difficulties presented in the next section. 3. THE HAPTIC DANCE OF LIVING SYSTEMS The Principal of Least Efforts (PLE) suggests that the minimization of energy expenditure is a force motivating the behavior of living systems. The PLE is the parallel of the well-known principle of least action known in classical and quantum physics (Feynman, 1964). In the behavioral sciences, the principle has been intensively discussed by Zipf (1949) and in order to illustrate it, we will use Zipf's example that concerns a verbal interaction. A verbal interaction between two people involves the exchange of linguistic signs (i.e. words). The PLE may motivate the speaker to use only a single word in order to denote all possible objects in the world. In other words, the speaker's interest is to minimize his/her efforts and therefore s/he may use a single word vocabulary. The speaker's selfish strategy would put enormous cognitive load on the listener who would have to decide in a specific context what the meaning of the word is. On the other hand, the listener has a contrasting interest that the speaker will use a different word for each different object in the world. This interest may lead to an absurd situation in which each different object in the world, whether the external or the internal, has a distinct sign. For instance, instead of regarding myself as an object with permanence, I may use different signs to denote each different experience of the self such as "I" at the age of 3, "I" at this particular moment etc. The listener's interest will overload the speaker in a way that would probably seize any form of interaction. The situation is much more complex as verbal interaction is reciprocal and at this game, the roles of speaker and listener are changed by turn-taking. Therefore, the conflicting interests exist both between and within the subjects. Each person as a selfish Turing machine would fail to maintain sign mediated interactions under the constraints imposed by the PLE. However, a living system is a Machine of Interaction (Bassingthwaighte et al., 2009; Neuman, 2008a) that like a dancer performing haptic dance must coordinate its behavior under certain constraints. How is it possible to coordinate a sign mediated interaction under the constraint of the PLE? Here Quantum physics gets into the picture. We would like to argue that the only economical solution for managing this coordination-under-constraints is that the signs exist in a superposition and that the listener determines their meaning by quantum measurement. One should notice that the act of measurement is usually regarded as external to the theory of quantum physics. However, the act of measurement which is an act of "meaning making" (Neuman, 2008a) must be an internal part of any theory of the mind. Many superpositions of signs may interfere with each other to cancel some of the interpretations and to enhance the others. The interferences are done by some apparatus that we cannot yet specify. Its Hamiltonian (time evolution rule) checks every possible path (option of interpretation) leaving only the minimal action path. Therefore using superpositions (with complex amplitudes) enable them to interfere with each other. In this way the PLE of behavioral science is being realized through the principle of least action in physics. It's not the superposition itself that is motivated by the PLE but the interference of superpositions. Therefore, we can use the same signs in different context and get different meanings. Let us illustrate this idea by using a simple example. The sign 'Cat' is polysemous; has several potential senses. It can be used to denote 'Guy' or to denote 'Feline mammal'. The sign 'Bass' can be used to denote 'Musical instrument' or a kind of fish (sea bass). Suppose now we treat both signs as superpositions: so
Bass = c ·Musical instrument + d· Fish By the sign + we mean 'a superposition of' in the quantum sense. Therefore, 'Cat' may sometimes collapses into 'Guy' and sometime into 'Feline mammal' with amplitudes a and b respectively. The same is true for 'Bass'. Now consider the sentence: "The Cat played the Bass". First, looking at the tensor of both 'Cat' and 'Bass' we get the following superposition of four possible options: Cat x Bass = {a · Guy + b · Feline mammal} {c ·Musical instrument + d · Fish} = a · c {Guy · Musical instrument} + a · d {Guy · Fish} + b · c {Feline mammal · Musical instrument} + b · d{Feline mammal· Fish} Clearly when considering the meaning of the sentence "The Cat played the Bass" some of the options are peculiar and some are reasonable. In building the sentence, some of the above options are stressed and others are discarded. In a sense, we 'compute' the meaning of the sentence. Suppose we are left now with only two possible options:
We can say that these two options constitute an entanglement in the following sense: If 'Cat' is a 'Guy' then 'Bass' is a musical instrument, and if 'Cat' is a mammal then 'Bass' is a fish. If you know one of the senses you know the other because they are entangled. When the reader "measures" the above sentence, the superposition collapses into a single value; It is probably a sentence about a guy who played a musical instrument. Excavating the meaning out of a tensor of signs may be easily described in terms of quantum computation. A quantum computer starts with a simple tensor and ends up with a superposition that constitutes the answer to a computational problem. In fact the construction of the superposition or the entanglement is in itself a computation. In a sense we (quantum) compute part of the context of the sentence by building the possible entanglements between the different signs. This operation is conducted by reducing the amplitudes of all absurd interpretations and enhancing all amplitudes of reasonable interpretations. All interpretations get interfered in this process of computation leaving only paths that has 'least action' (Feynman, 1964). Those 'least action' paths constitute the reasonable interpretations. This process is done immediately when introducing such a sentence such as "The Cat played the Bass". Still, some part of the context is revealed by the last stage of the computation which is the measurement process, when the receiver collapses the computed entanglement into one of its branches. The idea that linguistic signs exist in a superposition before a measurement takes place is the only economical solution to the need to coordinate the use of signs under the constraint imposed by the PLE. Any assumption that the communicated unit (i.e. the word) has only one definite value before being observed would result in the impossibility of interaction as the sign would have to either signify all of the objects in a given universe (i.e., the speaker's interest) or will have to correspond to a unique singular object (i.e., the listener's interest). In other words, our novel explanation why signs have to exist in a superposition is that in a mental world constituted by communicated signs under the constraint of the PLE, this is the only reasonable option that may support an interaction between two interactive systems with conflicting interests. The quantum leap we have made is in using a concept that describes the behavior of physical particles at the micro-scale of analysis for describing the behavior of signs at a higher level of analysis. This move is theoretically justified at least as it presents a novel explanation for old problems (Neuman, 2008b). Moreover, we are sensitive to the fact that formalism such as the one of Quantum Physics cannot by itself be a substitute for a theory of the mind. The theory of the mind as an interactive machine that is constituted through differences/similarities under the constraints imposed by the PLE, bridges the gap between the use of quantum physics and the mental phenomenal world. 4. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness is a term covering a scope of seemingly unrelated phenomena from a sense of being to the process of reflecting on one's thoughts (Shanon, 1990). As argued by Brentano (1995), a defining characteristic of consciousness is intentionality, the fact that it is always about some object in the world whether the external world or the internal world. For instance, the taste of an apple constitutes the subjective experience – the quale – of tasting an apple. When we are self-conscious, our "self" whatever it is, is the "intentional object" of our consciousness. However, the phenomenon of self-consciousness is different from other forms of conscious experience that have an intentional object. When we look inside and introspect our attention floats as if there is no object. This phenomenon has been well-documented and the explanation we may provide, based on the above theorization is as follows. The mind as a measuring device is trying to measure itself. It extends its own boundaries. To recall, the Mind is a machine constituted by similarity of differences and difference of similarities. In this context, a difference that makes a difference, the basic unit of the mind, is actually a sign. Each sign is in a sense "floating" and has no defined meaning before a measurement takes place. Under the constraint imposed by the PLE a sign is in a superposition before it is measured. Therefore, the measurement of the "self" is possible only through the use of signs that function as both our measurement device and as the object we attempt to measure. This idea resonates with the finding that self-consciousness is heavily mediated by inner-speech – the internalized use of natural language – and that inner-speech is crucial for overcoming difficulties in self-consciousness (Neuman & Nave, 2009). By measuring itself through signs the mind is collapsing the same particles responsible for the measurement process i.e. the signs. This is the place where uncertainty gets into the picture. The mind, cannot measure and being measured at the same time. This is probably the reason why self-observation or self-consciousness results in two common insights. First, that the self is "No-thing", a vanishing point (Neuman, 2009) or the blind spot of our Mind. Second, that the "self" emerging from self-observation is not a monolithic object but an artifact constituted through inner speech and the use of signs. In other words, it is an invention that through symbolic processes and memory integrates the fragmented pieces of our experience. According to this interpretation the self is the vertex of knowledge, but self-knowledge in its ultimate form is impossible. 5. "WE ARE TWO LOST SOULS SWIMMING IN A FISH BOWL" The Turing Machine exists "in and for itself" as it does not include any feature which is specifically attunes to interaction with other machines under real world constraints. It is an information-processing device rather than a "meaning-making" device (Neuman, 2008a). If this machine aims to serve as a model of the human mind then we can describe it, by paraphrasing Pink Floyd's poem, as a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl. It is doubtful whether such a lost soul may know itself and the world outside the fishing bowl. However, the world is imbues with interactions that shape the emergence of the mind and the mind is a fascinating device that observes itself and extends its limit line. Indeed, in itself each of us is a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl and as such it is hard to imagine the possibility of extending the limit line of our mind beyond the "bowl" in which we live. However, when we add the idea of sign-mediated interaction, the way in which we extend the limit line of our mind seems more comprehensible. Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl can know better as a second person perspective is introduced into the game, and three lost souls swimming in a fish bowl know even more as a third person perspective is introduced. We know the world and ourselves through sign-mediated interactions with other minds. These interactions seem to involve some characteristics of quantum physics such as superposition, quantum entanglement and quantum measurements. However, this analogy between the human mind and quantum computer should be qualified. The human mind involves irreversible computation while a quantum computer is necessarily reversible, besides the measurement process, which is usually regarded as alien to the quantum theory. Moreover, living systems are constantly involved in self-measurement, where there is no such thing in quantum mechanics. It is possible to imagine a hybrid model of the mind that integrates classical Turing and quantum machine processes. However, such a hybrid model would have to take into account the unique characteristics of the mind. Can we explain the way consciousness emerges from the interaction between minds working along such a hybrid model? We chose to close this paper by introducing this challenge. Therefore, the paper concludes by inviting other "souls" to swim with us in the same fish bowl with the aim of addressing this grand challenge.
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