Matti Pitkanen (matpitka@pcu.helsinki.fi)
Sun, 18 Jul 1999 14:02:27 +0300 (EET DST)
Below ponderings about waking up and falling asleep
assuming that self is subsystem able to keep itself p-adically
entangled under informational time evolution U.
Real entanglement is generated but it is below pinary cutoff
so that staying wake-up asleep can both be critical phenomena.
Best,
MP
*******************************************************
\subsection{Waking-up and falling-asleep}
Waking-up means formation of self. This process seems to take
place gradually: subselves of self wake up one by one. Even subselves
with different temporal cm coordinats could participate in
wake-up process. This could perhaps explain the experiences
of several subsequent wake-ups: for instance, a wake up
in say childhood home could be followed by a wake-up
in own bed. Similarly the process of falling asleep could occur
in several steps.
\vm
Wake-up could occur by quantum jump or spontaneously so that
time development operat $U$ creates p-adically unentangled
state. It seems that spontaneous wake-up is consistent
with what we know about wake-up experience whereas
quantum jump alternative leads to difficulties. The arguments
supporting spontaneus wake-up are following.
a) No experience of free will or selection is involved with wake-up
process and the process is experienced as completely spontaneous.
b) If wake-up process corresponds to quantum jump, the
quantum jump in question should reduce entanglement between two
matter-mind subsystem pairs. This is not however allowed
if one requires in the scheme based on the
generalization of von Neumann's intuitions.
c) Wake-up by quantum jump would require that subsystem
is able to generate very large entanglement in order to
win entanglement entropy maximization race and wake up.
On the other hand, sleep state is unstable: small perturbation
leads to wake-up. It is however difficult to imagine how small
perturbation could generate development of large entanglement of required
type. It seems that we would be fighting every morning
for priviledge to wake-up and to get to our daily jobs!
\vm
d) On the other hand, if wake-up occurs when informational time
development operator $U$
begins to generate p-adically un-entangled subsystem,
situation changes. In real context this means that real
entanglement generated by $U$ falls below the pinary cutoff.
The criticality of the sleep state is in accordance with the assumption
that during sleep the real entanglement generated
by $U$ in each quantum jump is slightly above the threshold
so that small perturbations can lead to the wake-up process.
When person sleeps sufficiently long time, the entanglement generated
by $U$ lowers down to the critical value and wake-up occurs eventually.
One the other hand, when person becomes dormant, $U$ fails to generate
unentangled state except for small periods of time and eventually person
falls asleep. For persons suffering from insomnia
the entanglement during sleep must be pathologically near to threshold.
\vm
It is not at all clear whether the wake-up state is continuous
even in wake-up state: it might
well be that self exists only a fraction of time. Also during
sleep self or some subselves probably exist some small fraction of time:
dreams are of course good example of this.
In highly alert state this wakeup fraction would be near unity while
in drowsy state it become small. If the number of quantum
jumps performed per unit of psychological time
measures the exprerienced duration of time, this picture
explain why geometric time runs slowly in highly alert states
(for instance, experienced when person is in traffic car accident).
This would however suggest that the opposite occurs when person
is bored and this seems not to be the case: perhaps the very process
of getting bored is related to the state of alertness without action.
If the total fraction of geometric time spend by the person
in wake-up state decreases when person gets older, one can understand
why the time is experienced to run faster at the older
age. That time indeed runs is not a mere metaphor: the inverse
for quantum jumps
per psychological time measures the rate of running!
\vm
Sceptics certainly do not take seriously
the claims that trained yogis can lower there metabolism to
very low level. They must however accept the claims that bears
sleep over the winter and that their metabolism is reduced to a very low
level during this period.
Metabolism is presumably basically dissipation and an ideal
mechanism of lowered metabolism is entanglement of the entire
self with larger self preventing quantum jumping inside self
totally. One must however notice that in reality subselves of self
can wake up during sleep so that some dissipation and metabolism
occurs.
\subsection{Ageing and death}
In death the entanglement generated by $U$ should increase so much
above the critical value that wake-up process becomes impossible.
For instance, the effect of electric shocks on patients
who have suffered heart attack and lost consciousness could be understood
as a large enougt perturbation able to bring
p-adic entanglement below the threshold.
This would mean that self indeed entangles with some larger
self in death.
\vm
The process of ageing would
be a process analogous the process of getting drowsy and
falling asleep but in much longer time scales. The process
would involve generation of temporal entanglement of subsystems
of self with larger selves and periods of consciousness
extended outside the physical body. Perhaps
the process of ageing could be
a process of personal growth (in rather concrete sense!).
The temporal entanglements
generated with larger selves would give rise to
larger temporal selves and the term wakening would thus be much more than
a mere metaphor since person would spend more and more time
in extended state of consciousnesss and in death leave
the self bounded to the physical body. This would make possible
the evolution of selves continuing after death to higher
levels of conscious existence.
This picture is rather optimistic. One must also consider
the possibility that self does not grow always.
\vm
Universe is full of selves and one cannot say anything definite
about the fate of self after death unless one can decide which self can
be regarded as the continuation of self before death. Since self has
temporal extension it has memories about its
earlier history and one could identify the continuation
of self after the death as that self which has the memories of self
before death. Thus the law of Karma
could perhaps be realized: the nature of the self carrying my memories
as my subself after death defines my reincarnation. This self can be
either lower or higher in the hierarchy of selves than the self before
death. If one accepts that there is infinite hierarchy of selves with
free will, one cannot exclude the possibility that the selves at the
same or higher levels of hierarchy can affect about our fate after death
(however unpleasant this possibility might sound in the ears of
hedonistic
modern man).
\vm
Some support for the extension of self in death is provided by
near death experiences. For instance, looking one's body from outside
could mean that self is entangled with a larger self formed by
the personnel of hospital in the hospital room and sees his body
with the eyes of the personnel. Meeting one's relatives and elders
could mean entanglement with a larger self formed by the selves
of dead and also living relatives. This could really occur
since selves can have temporal extension.
Best, MP
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