Tal, a conversation with an alien (16 page)

I think you are confusing what your paradigm would like your actions to be like
and what they really are like. In your modern industrialized world, humans strive for perfect repetition and the removal of as much randomness as possible. They have developed artificial life forms, computers and robots; machines to create identical products for mass consumption. They also desire consistency and repeatability in their research and experiments. Living in a paradigm that puts great value on consistency and predictability leads the people of that paradigm to think the same way about themselves, when the reality is the exact opposite. Conscious living things, by nature, are much more chaotic than non-conscious things. Living things actually have a tendency towards randomness; it is built into their very structure. For instance in observing many types of animals, you will see that they perform very many random actions even when there is no reason to do so. Their reaction to stimuli is very chaotic. In the case of a non-living object, laws of motion will tend to send an object in the shortest and most energy conserved manner to its destination. There could be some slight quantum variation, but it is tiny. Yet life doesn't work that way, even though logically it would seem conserving energy is helpful for survival. Even with a clear path to food, you will see that animals don't always take the shortest route. They will take various random paths, often less efficient than a direct path. And when they do decide to move this way or that, living things do not tend to move anywhere in continuous motion like a non-living object. Their motion is interrupted by accelerations, decelerations and pauses. When there is a similar stimulus to many animals, like fruit to a group of fruit flies, they will all act in many different and random ways. Eventually most will go to the fruit, but all in their own time and by their own unique path. The actions of living beings are generally, inherently, random. This randomness is manifested by the design of the brain and the sensitivity of its structure to quantum effects. This is the root physical generator of their chaotic and random behavior.

Why would there be this extra inherent randomness in living things?

Well if you think about it, if there is no randomness, there is predictability. Once you are predictable as prey, you are much easier to catch. Once you are predictable as predator you are easy to avoid. If you are predictable in a fight, you will most likely lose. In a constantly changing environment, if you lack variety as a species you are in major trouble. Any calamity or change will wipe you out, as one goes, so do the others. In human groups, even in the most socially controlled environments, the strictest governments or societies, there are always outliers. These outliers are necessary for the survival of the species, and from them come many of the most interesting and novel ideas. Random action in animals increases their chance of survival and their group's chance of survival.

But as humans, we have some conscious control over these random processes.

Let me give you an example from recent scientific research that shows how random action is generated in humans. The brain is constantly working. If you are engaged in some activity or thought, certain parts of the brain will be more active than others. However, there is neuronal activity in all parts of the brain. There are many types of neurons in the brain and they fire randomly at different rates. A recent study attempted to observe the random firings of neurons within the brain and their effect on decision-making. While monitored, test subjects were asked to make a simple fifty-fifty choice between performing two tasks, such as performing addition or subtraction. These tasks use two different parts of the brain. The results showed that, depending on where there was more random neuronal firing, one could predict which action would be chosen, again up to seven seconds in advance. Which part of your brain is more randomly lit up before a decision, will influence the decisions you make, even though to you, it seems to be a completely free willed conscious decision. So the brain chooses and your conscious mind follows with a nice feeling of intention. The state of your brain is the state of your mind.

Ok, I can understand how actions of animals or our subconscious actions are random. Perhaps even ve
ry simple decisions we make, like going left or right, or adding and subtracting have random qualities to them. But what about the conscious, thought out choices that I make? If I actually take some time to make a complicated decision, would I not make the same decision every time? 

Since your brain is a quantum physical
system, it will follow mathematical probability rules. You could think of the brain as having its own Schrödinger brain equation. Each time your mind encounters a stimulus, depending on the state of your brain, and how it processes that stimulus, different reactions will have a probability of occurring. Some reactions more likely, and some less likely. You may not feel that long thought out decisions can be influenced by quantum effects, but that decision is going to depend on many subconscious processes and associations you are not aware of. A very popular current research field in psychology is known as priming. Research in this field points to the fact that subconscious symbols and associations have a dramatic effect on your conscious thoughts and actions. Researchers prime their subjects with certain ideas and observe if this affects subsequent unrelated thoughts and actions. In one well-known experiment, students in two groups were told to perform simple manipulations of certain words. One group had to make sentences with words that seemed to refer, though did not mention, old age. Words like Florida, forgetful, bald, and gray. After manipulating these words, those students were then told to walk to another room down the hall for further testing. The researchers then measured the students' rate of movement. The students who manipulated the old words walked down the hall significantly slower than the control group, which did not manipulate words dealing with old age. There have been many such studies. Other interesting studies primed subjects with thoughts or images of money. Later the subjects were asked to perform various tasks measuring generosity, initiative and helpfulness. For instance how many students, after being exposed to symbols or ideas related to money, would help someone who happened to drop their belongings as they were walking by. Those groups who were primed in advance by thinking about money were more selfish, less helpful and more driven in their decision-making.

This seems similar to repetit
ive or subliminal programming. I know that just hearing something repeated many times programs our minds to believe it is true, this is why I hate TV. But I would think I could consciously control some of these influences on my behavior.

Of course every in
dividual is aware of these influences, but still thinks they personally are not affected by them. Yet even small things you would never notice can have a dramatic effect on your thoughts and feelings. For instance, researchers have shown that holding a warm drink or a cold drink in your hand will change the way you think about the people around you. Physical warmth associates with emotional warmth. So the fact that you are holding a warm cup of tea in your hand right now actually makes you feel greater positive feelings towards me; amplifying associated feelings of warmth and comfort and trust.

--
This made me quite self-conscious of the tea I was holding and I had a brief flicker of doubt about my guest's intentions. For a moment, I felt like a puppet. 

There is one final interesting idea I would like to mention. All of your thinking and considering when making a decision takes time, and th
e chance of making one decision or another changes depending on how long you think. Usually various factors put pressure on any time-based decision. Thus when you actually make the choice to stop considering and finally make a decision can vary greatly. In the context of the multiverse, as you sit there thinking, various you's will separate into their own universes; some where you have made a quick decision and move on, some where you take a few minutes and consider many options, and some where you finally run out of time and put the decision off until later. In the end, every decision has some random nature to it. People of this paradigm tend to think and feel that their mind is some separate entity from their body, from the world around them. Yet most scientific research points to a much more symbiotic relationship. Scientists call this embodied cognition. You do not have perfect control of your external environment or your internal environment. Quantum effects are everywhere. The world is a fluctuating field of possibility, and your mind is part of that world.

The Magic Bus

--He stopped for a moment.  Took another bottle from the now near empty crate, and continued.

The reason I wanted to explain this link between quantum effects and consciousness is
that the quantum nature of living things allows me greater freedom in choosing which variations of the universe I can observe.

What do you mean?

In a dead world, things behave more consistently, more predictably than in a living one. For most objects, their likely path is a very predictable one, where small and likely quantum changes do not make much difference. However, in organic systems, quantum variations can lead to very different worlds. Though there are many worlds created on a dead planet, they are generally pretty similar. However on living dynamic worlds, things are far more interesting. Think back to the bus scenario, in which you saw that in the future, a bus would hit you if you crossed the street. In that situation, you saw the future, realized you would be crushed, and therefore decided not to cross the street. You went into a building and up to the 50th floor instead. Now you observed a universe where you were safe. This time, imagine you still want to cross the street, so you ask me if I could see a scenario, another variation in the multiverse, in which you cross the road, but the bus does not hit you. 

So
I want to experience a world where I still cross the road. I don't change my motion, the bus must change its motion.

Yes.
If that bus, instead of being a bus, was a giant boulder rolling down the street, though it is possible, it would be very difficult for me to see a variation where you will not be hit; since small changes at the quantum level won't alter a boulders trajectory that much. But with a real bus, being driven by and interacting with humans, it is very easy to see likely possibilities where the bus will be nowhere near you when you cross the street. For instance, the bus driver could press on the break just a little heavier or lighter approaching a bus stop. A passenger could slip walking up the stairs into the bus. The bus driver could decide to change the radio station or daydream for a few extra seconds before starting off again. Now, delayed for millions of possible reasons, all relatively likely, the bus is a few seconds behind schedule. More passengers have time to make it to the bus stop and the bus misses a green light slowing it even further. Outside influences also have a huge effect on the bus. A driver of another car cuts the bus off when he happens to see a pizza shop, which reminds him that he is hungry. A stray dog decides to run across the road, or the bus driver decides to avoid running over a dead cat in the street. Just about anything can affect the buses trajectory, from within and without. You can see that because of its interactions with so many life forms, there are millions of possible scenarios where the bus would be nowhere near you when you cross the street.  Small subconscious decisions like which way to look, or how to move, lead to huge differences in the many worlds.

It seems to me you need
time to affect the trajectory of the bus, you cannot simply change its motion at the very last second.

Yes, it is
physically possible for the bus to instantly teleport to some other part of the universe, but it is highly unlikely. It is through time that subtle quantum effects manifest very different possibilities. Generally, coordinates in space-time that are near each other are more similar than coordinates that are distant. The moment you arrive at a fork in the road, you can make a choice that will lead to change, but the change only becomes dramatic after you have walked down that path for a while.

--I stopped to pour myself some more tea.
While I remember clearly all of the words spoken in our conversation, I do not remember clearly how I felt much of the time. Possibly because emotions and feelings do not occupy spatial positions in my mind the way facts do. I now know that the actual memories and impressions of past events can change over time, so I do not even know for certain how I actually felt. But I believe, from what I said next that I was making a genuine attempt to understand.

All this talk of forks and paths remind
s me of the famous Robert Frost poem 'The Road Not Taken'. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth."  He then finishes with the famous lines, "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

It is very telling that one of the most popular poems by one of the most
beloved American poets discusses the different possibilities that your life can take. Those possibilities are dimensionally separated from each other in the multiverse, like paths in a forest. At the beginning, since you are one traveler, you choose one path, and at first, not much has changed. Taking one step down one path or the other, things generally look the same around you. You need time to follow these paths, before significant differences in the many worlds can be observed.  A few minutes walk down either path and you will indeed be looking at very different environments. Even if both paths just continue into the forest, you will be observing completely different trees and animals down each path.  Though you generally only think of diverging paths when you see dramatic choices or events in your life, these forks in the road happen all the time. They are all around you, every moment things are changing, both internally and externally.