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The Beginning of Infinity

By Gregon

A hit and run ontological attack in this “performance philosophy” piece from Jason Silva, inspired by some of the ideas explored in physicist David Deutsch’s new book The Beginning of Infinity, and accompanied by one of the great musical pieces, Death is the Road to Awe by Clint Mansell. The message, in short:

That’s what we do, we bring our imaginings into existence… The topography of Manhattan today is no longer shaped by mere geology, it’s shaped by the human mind…

The idea that Silva enunciates immediately reminded me of two other quotes that I like. The first, from Terence McKenna:

Some time in the last fifty thousand years, with the invention of culture, the biological evolution of humans ceased and evolution became an epigenetic, cultural phenomenon… technology is the real skin of our species. Humanity, correctly seen in the context of the last five hundred years, is an extruder of technological material. We take in matter that has a low degree of organization; we put it through mental filters, and we extrude jewelry, gospels, space shuttles. This is what we do. We are like coral animals embedded in a technological reef of extruded psychic objects.

The other, from Freeman Dyson:

To me the most astounding fact in the universe is the power of mind which drives my fingers as I write these words. Somehow, by natural processes still totally mysterious a million butterfly brains working together in a human skull have the power to dream, to calculate, to see and to hear, to speak and to listen, to translate thoughts and feelings into marks on paper which other brains can interpret. Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.

The cosmos is waking, and beginning to reimagine itself…

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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8 Comments

  1. Anthropocene Park
    The idea in the Manhattan comment is something I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m working on a degree in ecology and the forests I live around in the eastern United States are all human impacted. Most of them are secondary growth as the original trees were cut down by settlers, and even before that Amerindians did controlled burns to create habitat for the understory plants white tail deer feed on, thus increasing the number of game animals. Streams at my field site are at the bottom of deep ravines caused by erosion when the site was last logged, and there are grooves in the ground from where logs were transported. Everything that looks like natural habitat has marks of human history on it.

    The newest issue of Trends in Ecology & Evolution has a series of articles discussing relocating wildlife to save species threatened by climate change, and one article is entitled “Anthropocene Park? No alternative” (there’s another article with “Jurassic Park” in the title). In addition to translocations it discusses problems with the idea of reintroducing frozen plants and animals to future ecosystems. While a city is clearly the product of the human mind, all of the “wild” around us is subtly shaped by us as well.

    We are like coral, living on a surface entirely of our own creation. That McKenna quote is fantastic.

  2. Quote:
    The topography of
    [quote]The topography of Manhattan today is no longer shaped by mere geology, it’s shaped by the human mind[/quote]

    and

    [quote]with the invention of culture, the biological evolution of humans ceased and evolution became an epigenetic, cultural phenomenon[/quote]

    Obviously it’s pretty difficult to not love humanity. Sure there’s bits that wind us all up, and we make plenty of mistakes, but we love to clap ourselves on the back and remind ourselves of just how great and special we all really are.

    I don’t mind that. I happen to think my children are about the most wonderful thing in the entire universe.

    There is a good amount of romance in all this though.

    [quote] It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.[/quote]

    It occurs to me that a rewording of this would be ‘it appears to me that the tenancy of organised matter to affect disorganised matter is a law of nature’.

      1. Perhaps. I think that often
        Perhaps. I think that often what evolution has tailored our intuitive instinct to feel is harmonious does not reflect what our knowledge and understanding of complex systems actually tells us harmonious behaviour should be.

        Then of course there is the moral question of whether harmony is necessarily the best goal. For example, there is no reason to think that harmony with a granite batholith should be placed as a higher goal than feeding a child.

        There are no doubt many things in the complex system we call ‘nature’ that we need to be in better equilibrium with. There are many that we cannot be in equilibrium with, such as many viruses that are not evolved to be in harmonious equilibrium with us.

        I guess we are each trying to be in harmony with it in our own personal way. This doesn’t mean it is achievable in our own personal way though. In general though I think our species’s overall attempt to survive constitutes a rough, democratic, attempt to reach consensus on survival.

        This is where things like global warming really kick in. I consider private meditation to be closer to stroking oneself and creating the sensation of harmony. However the sensation is arrived at an applied understanding of what the limits of nature are, and how to avoid crossing them, is what is really needed to approach, or even claim, that we are attempting to strive for real harmony.

  3. Jason Silva’s almost euphoric
    Jason Silva’s almost euphoric spasticity is infectious until one steps back and actually looks at where we’ve come as the human civilization. Yes we’ve reshaped the world and our technology is progressing exponentially, but so is the degradation of our environment, the demands on our natural resources, and most alarming our population growth. The US and EU are on the verge of economic collapse, the gap between rich and poor is ever widening and our climate is changing in ways we cannot foresee.

    I’m actually an optimist at heart, but only as it applies to my personal actions and life. I’m really quite the pessimist when looking at human nature, its actions in groups ala mob mentality, and the lack of responsible application of innovation – like the proliferation of genetically modified foods with little to know responsible long term studies. Sorry to be a downer but the guy was really an over-the-top romantic in his monologue… I hope he’s right and I’m wrong…

    1. The Power of Mind: Source of Consciousness
      To me the most astounding fact in the universe
      is the power of mind which drives my fingers
      as I write these words.
      / Freeman Dyson /
      ===.
      The Power of Mind:
      Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe: Source of Consciousness
      =.
      Does evolution begin on big bang level?
      Does evolution begin on the quarks level?
      In our earthly world there is only one fundamental
      particle – electron
      Does evolution begin on the electron’s level?
      Can an electron evolve?
      Does an electron have consciousness ?
      Energy is electromagnetic waves (em).
      Lorentz proved: there isn’t em waves without Electron
      It means the source of these em waves must be an Electron
      The electron and the em waves they are physical reality
      Can evolution of life begin on electron’s level?
      =.
      Molecular biology & molecular evolution
      Cosmology & cosmic evolution
      If Universe evolve can electron evolve too ?
      Does evolution of life begin on electron level ?
      Origin of life is a result of physical laws that govern Universe
      Electron takes important part in this work
      Question:
      Why does the simplest particle – electron have six formulas:
      E=h*f e = +ah*c e = -ah*c +E=Mc^2 -E=Mc^2 E= ∞ ?
      Nobody knows
      Question:
      Why does electron obey five ( 5) Laws ?
      a) Law of conservation and transformation energy/ mass
      b) Maxwell’s equations
      c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle / Law
      d) Pauli Exclusion Principle/ Law
      e) Fermi-Dirac statistics
      Nobody knows.
      ====.
      Quote by Heinrich Hertz on Maxwell’s equations:

      “One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae
      have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own,
      that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers,
      that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.”
      ====.
      Ladies and Gentlemen !
      Friends !
      Electron is not as simple as we think and, maybe, he is wiser than we are.
      ==========.
      Israel Sadovnik Socratus
      ========.
      P.S.
      But maybe these electrons are World,
      where there are five continents:
      the art,
      knowledge,
      wars,
      thrones
      and the memory of forty centuries.
      / Valery Brusov. /
      ===.

      1. Was this a question or a statement? I know I shouldn’t, but….
        [quote]Does evolution begin on big bang level?[/quote]

        I’m guessing that any answer to this that feels emotionally uplifting is not based around what evolution means in the sense of biology or cosmology – but I read it in the sense of biological evolution since thats what the term means nowadays. In the sense that everything we know began at the big bang then yes, it precluded biological evolution, but computers and microwave meals also began on ‘big bang level’ by that definition.

        [quote]Does evolution begin on the quarks level?[/quote]

        Quarks are seen to group into stable configurations that create protons and neutrons. These in turn group into configurations of different numbers, which we call atoms. Since every atoms of hydrogen is like every other atom of hydrogen, or every atom of carbon 13 like every other atom of carbon 13 it is difficult to see any change occurring over time. Atoms can fuse together, or fall apart, but this is just the numbers of protons and neutrons (+ electrons) changing. No change to the quarks occurs other than total number.

        [quote]In our earthly world there is only one fundamental
        particle – electron[/quote]

        Then why ask about quarks?

        Actually there are quite a few fundamental particles that are known, and as people in these parts like to point out there can always be lots out there we do not know. It seems fair to say that at a minimum there are the following:

        Up Quark
        Down Quark
        Charm Quark
        Strange Quark
        Top Quark
        Bottom Quark
        Electron Neutrino
        Muon Neutrino
        Tau Neutrino
        Electron
        Muon
        Tau
        Photon
        Gluon
        W Boson
        Z Boson

        However a unified theory might unify all of the above into one type, such as strings, but it is worth noting that electrons would also be unified in this instance and so the claim that electrons are fundamental (and especially that they are the only fundamental) would still be wrong

        [quote]Does evolution begin on the electron’s level?[/quote]

        Again, every electron ever seen has looked exactly the same as all the others. From ones trapped in the atoms of rocks billions of years old, to ones created today during the process of creating a TV image in your living room (if you have an old telly). This has even led to the idea that there is only 1 electron in the whole universe and that it, and its antimatter relative (the positron) are just one particle going forwards and backwards in time and interacting with itself across the ages.

        Either way, there seems no reason to suggest that anything like the level of complexity and information required by evolution is occurring at the level of the electron as opposed to the level of molecules where there is a great level of complexity and information.

        Electrons also lack any of the features required by evolution.

        [quote]Can an electron evolve?[/quote]

        Again see above. Energy can change, for example the energy of an electron being released from an atom as a photon. This is a direct transfer and a change though, not an evolution. The electrons energy is gone and the photon zip’s off across the universe.

        [quote]Does an electron have consciousness ?[/quote]

        You will need to define conciousness and then set about looking for it to test this idea.

        [quote]Energy is electromagnetic waves (em).[/quote]

        Not all energy is EM. There are many different types of energy capable of creating work.

        [quote]Lorentz proved: there isn’t em waves without Electron
        It means the source of these em waves must be an Electron
        The electron and the em waves they are physical reality
        Can evolution of life begin on electron’s level?[/quote]

        The particle that transmits the electromagnetic force is the photon, not the electron.

        Whereas some of your points are outside of current understanding we can say something about whether life here could have begun on the electrons level and the answer is no, it couldn’t. It has already been reduced to some sort of replicating/self reproducing molecule with imperfect heritability. Though the electron is obviously a component of this protons and neutrons (and their composite up and down quarks) are literally exactly as important.

        =.
        [quote]Molecular biology & molecular evolution
        Cosmology & cosmic evolution
        If Universe evolve can electron evolve too ?[/quote]

        Change within structures from molecules to entire galaxies is observed on a daily basis. See above for electrons never changing per-se.

        [quote]
        Does evolution of life begin on electron level ?
        Origin of life is a result of physical laws that govern Universe
        Electron takes important part in this work
        Question:
        Why does the simplest particle – electron have six formulas:
        E=h*f e = +ah*c e = -ah*c +E=Mc^2 -E=Mc^2 E= ∞ ?
        Nobody knows
        Question:
        Why does electron obey five ( 5) Laws ?
        a) Law of conservation and transformation energy/ mass
        b) Maxwell’s equations
        c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle / Law
        d) Pauli Exclusion Principle/ Law
        e) Fermi-Dirac statistics
        Nobody knows.
        ====.[/quote]

        I think that posting the question on a physics forum might be a better place for an educated discussion. My gut instinct is that many of the formula and laws you quote are explained mathematically within the context of each other, within the same mathematical constructs, so you don’t really need to break them up as if they are different questions. Maths is maths and 3+2=5 because 2+3=5.

        The deeper question remains, why are the rules set up like they are? Like you say – no one knows. This isn’t the same as not having suggestions though. Differing expansional pockets during inflation may be one reason, but at this stage it is as useful to use this lack of understanding to provide an underpinning to another idea as it is to build a chocolate fireguard – or to put it more politely as useful as it has proven throughout history to build your ideas on unknowns.

        [quote]Quote by Heinrich Hertz on Maxwell’s equations:

        “One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae
        have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own,
        that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers,
        that we get more out of them than was originally put into them.”
        ====.[/quote]

        Clearly the relationships within the universe have an existence external to human thought. The fossil record and geological records as well as astronomy and physics show this very easily and clearly. For an idealists reading this far ( 😉 ) this doesn’t mean they have an existence outside of a possible universal consciousness, just one prior to the evolution of human beings – well, and the planet Earth too.
        I don’t know about them having their own intelligence. We would have to define intelligence in this context first.
        My personal feeling is that this is a quote of a scientist professing poetry, not of a scientist professing science and as such is the fallacy of scientific authority.

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