This essay attempts an explanation of a counter intuitive approach of the role of randomness involved in the formation of both memory and an intuitive understanding of reality. As such it is drafted in the first person singular, rather than the usual more impersonal passive sense adopted by most academic approaches to major unresolved unknowns, to appear objective rather inevitably conjectural. That a substantial part of our understanding of reality via consciousness has to be founded on the intake of visual information, later processed into rational thought, memory, and volition, is an initial crucial element of the following rationale. 

I have also based my proposals on a few assumptions, the most pivotal of which is concerned with the two opposites of perfect order and perfect chaos. Quite some years ago I had concluded that perfect disorder, also described as randomness, could never be achieved in reality. Wikipedia defines randomness as “the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events” and it further states that “According to Ramsey theory, pure randomness is impossible, especially for large structures.”

Reinforced by this and other statements, I placed perfect randomness into a category I defined as a singularity state. By both definition and in actuality, a singularity state can never be achieved. There are many examples in nature of singularity states but amongst the most obvious and prominent are light speed, absolute zero of temperature, physical dimensions at quantum levels of time and space.

However, it is always possible to make increasingly close approaches to such singularity states, and when that happens, usually when technology advances far enough, then the result is that the laws of nature as they were formerly familiar, have to be amended to accommodate observed and unanticipated effects that then become manifestly obvious.  This has been very evidently demonstrated by Einstein’s theories of Special and General Relativity, and the singular effects produced by close approaches to absolute zero of temperature such as perfect conductivity, being also well known.

From these and other similar observational evidence, I concluded that such circumstances can be summarised as a sequence of events as follows: When close approaches are made to those mentioned above together with other unachievable singularity states, the laws of nature and physics as they were formerly accepted and familiar, then always start to have to be amended to concur with the observed new behaviour patterns. In my subjective experience of such conditions and instances, since there seem to be no exceptions as far as I can divine, I have come to regard it almost as a general rule applicable to all similar circumstances.

When I first understood quite some time later that prefect randomness was unachievable, and particularly so in connection with quantum entanglement experimental work, it occurred to me if perfect randomness was unachievable then perhaps if close approaches were made thereto, then we might not unreasonably anticipate that some extraordinary effects might be made manifest. I have also read in accounts of experimental work carried out by Anton Zeilinger, that it is crucial that both the transmitting and receiving ends of the equipment involved have to be capable of generating flows of vast numbers identical photons as close as possible to perfect randomness.

From this I have concluded that the receiving end presumably has to have the ability to detect whenever there was a fault or break in the receipt of the random flow of photons, presumably by some increase in a semblance of order and or repetition of the rate of flow. I have not read anywhere that this is a valid conclusion of what is involved in such circumstances, but it seems a straightforward and indeed almost obvious conclusion. If so, then at once it seems that a disruption in the continuous regularity, and indeed ordered structure of the random flow of identical photons, is the characteristic that has become capable of detection here.

This at once suggests to me that it is the break in the near perfect disorder of the photon flow that provides the ability for some form of information to be transmitted from A to B, and which would of course be limited by the speed of light at which the photons travel. But such a result would not represent an event of quantum entanglement such as those carried out by Zeilinger and others, the whole point of which was to show that an event at the transmitting end caused an identical event at the receiving end at precisely the same time. In other words, such experiments demonstrated that the it was possible for two separate entangled events to occur simultaneously whilst not being not limited by light speed. This is what has been registered to have occurred over many kilometres about 20 years ago between observatories located on Las Palmas and Tenerife. I assume that these and other results by Zeilinger were partly responsible for his award of the Nobel in 2022 for his research work on the simultaneity of results achieved by entanglement.

In mid-2022 I drafted a paper titled Contextuality and Entanglement which was an attempt to show how it might be possible to transfer information across space simultaneously, which is not currently regarded as possible since such transmission is currently understood to be only possible by correlation, although this is impossible for the actual transfer of information. This was accompanied by a separate but directly connected paper based on the premise as mentioned above, showing that perfect randomness as an unachievable singularity state, is directly equivalent, and effectively the same, as perfect order.

Counter intuitive as this latter assertion may seem, if portrayed as an illustration of increasing states of particles in disorder, it can at once be registered that the higher the quantity of free-flowing particles (say hydrogen molecules in a confined space) the more limited the volume in which a particle can exercise its random motion, the degrees of possible motion become diminished. The more packed into a confined space particles in motion are, the more ordered their otherwise arbitrary movements have to become (see diagram attached). It should be noted that the stricture of being limited within a specific confined area, is also a necessary condition to produce such a result, and which might appear self-evident after inspection of the diagram.

In other words, as increasing amounts of identical particles get pressed into one specific volume, they will each have less freedom of motion, until a stage is reached whereby the motion of each is curtailed to the extent that its free motion will tend to become increasingly similar to that of its neighbour, and indeed all the other surrounding particles. This will act to diminish the randomness of each particle’s motion, and instead rather to increase the semblance of order. The overall effect of such a process will be that decreasing randomness by limitation in such conditions, will result in a corresponding increase in the order and structure of the formation of the still free moving but increasingly constrained particles.

To conclude, in these circumstances, with the complexity provided by increasing numbers, the overall structure of the system involved and the motion of its components in that one overall location, will become more ordered and necessarily less random. Now if this is applied to the firing of the cognitive synapses and/or neurons in the brain, then if the individual concerned attempts to empty his mind of any structured activity, in other words thought and volition, this will also result in some corresponding ordering process, as described above. How this might manifest itself in terms of, for instance the brain’s operation, is a subject open to conjecture, but that is what I now propose. This will be by the assumption of the process whereby the ordered firings of brain’s synapses and neurons will tend to project interference fringes holographically to reproduce duplicate the structures of external observed reality, mainly but not exclusively, visually.

The random firings of brain synapses and/or neurons considered as a mass of particles interspersed very closely will, given the appropriate instigation, have the capability of projecting intricately complex holographic mental patterns in the form of ordered spatial structures, together with their motion over time as memory. If so, then the following rationale might be considered as a possible explanation in principle of how and why perfect disorder might possibly inculcate an accurate perfect mental representation of external reality.

When an individual is perhaps in a daze of absentmindedness, thinking of nothing much in particular at all, then it seems not unreasonable to consider that the cognitive synapses of his brain might be firing pretty much randomly with a lack of specific structure. Or as another alternative instance, if such an individual is instead practising transcendental meditation (TM) or some other trance inducing discipline, which involved emptying the mind of any specific constructive or intentional thoughts, then likewise, the synapses of the brain could reasonably consider to be firing randomly. Then, if he was a much-practised follower of Vedic /mystic religious disciplines, this would be as close as possible to a perfect random and formless state of thought.

But the Vedic and other Eastern and/or mystic religious beliefs have for many centuries/millennia been teaching that insight, wisdom, perfect understanding and mental peace can be derived from such mental practices. The problem here for Western science’s lack of sympathy, understanding and explanation of the benefits of what can be described as the trance state, seems to be based on the disinclination of the western mind state to consider the possibility that logical and useful thought might have anything to do with voiding the mind of highly ordered constructive mental processes producing logical thought and understanding. From years of personal experience, the task of trying to persuade academics, practical scientists and engineers that the best way forward to resolve problems, might be to empty the mind and think of nothing, is almost a hopeless task. Having said that, those who have practised meditation seriously will be very aware of just how near impossible it is to render the mind perfectly empty to induce the wellbeing derived from the trance state.

In 2020 I drafted a few papers on the operation of intuitive ability in terms of my main theme to describe the basic mechanism behind mind and memory which I describe under the general description of Duplication theory. This has many similar characteristics as the morphic resonance of Rupert Sheldrake, but that is too complex to attempt description here, although Sheldrake’s thesis has no mention of singularity states and entanglement. But in order to enter into a state of sudden and instant comprehension of a particular bothersome problem, from personal experience it often proves necessary for this to be prompted by an initial momentary pause of blank, and formless thought which I now assume is achieved via random synapse and neuronal firing action. Arthur Koestler wrote a series of books in the 1960s on intuitive ability being achieved by initially stilling the mind, and which later encouraged me to pursue this possibility further.

But not only is it possible to achieve instant intuitive comprehension via voiding the mind to achieve momentarily a state of perfect mental randomness, it is also a crucial element of my explanation for memory’s operation being prompted by an initial near approach to this condition as a singularity state. The latter shows how experiences from one’s past are capable of being re-invoked, if necessary (albeit very rarely), in perfect detail as eidetic memory. More generally, these are curtailed into short sequences of every day working memory, which can be run through very rapidly, rather than waiting for the whole original sequence to be experienced again at length. The latter is always the problem with eidetic memory as the purest form of faithful recall.

To summarise, everyday working memory is brought about by a process of quantum entanglement over time of vestigial images from the past, duplicated holographically and projected from the interference patterns created by the complex firings of synapses and neurons. Without going into more detail here on more detail of memory’s operation, but see my paper on Consciousness (2021) on my website: it is very much dependant on the role of randomness as a quantum effect, without which perfect recall and eidetic memory would be impossible. It is this ability of the regular flow of huge numbers of identical entities from A to B as the novel and formerly inexplicable element of quantum mechanics: this allows two identical events to be experienced at the same time over any amount of distance, which exemplifies the difference between the classical and quantum worlds of physics. However, there is currently a major problem here in that as far as quantum entanglement is currently understood, information can only be transferred at the maximum rate dictated by light speed and not instantaneously. Therein lies the heart of the problem.

If some means of rationalisation could be achieved so that the limiting factor of light speed could be supervened, to instead permit instantaneous transmission, then this might also provide an improved appreciation of our current lack of explanation of the way in which we experience the passage of time, without which we are still fumbling in the dark about so many facets of our existence.  If, as I maintain, perfect recall in the form of eidetic memory can and does exist, then it must also be possible for an individual’s mental experience or recollection of an earlier sequence of events to be perfectly duplicated in the form of a precise copy of the original structure of synapse firings that were caused by the circumstances observed at the earlier time. Most of such registered and later reproduced information is principally in the form of visual images.

Of course, if eidetic memory or perfect recall does not exist, then a major part of this my developed belief structure falls down. But if it is possible and has been experienced by a number of individuals, which is the case, then there has to be a rational explanation for this exact duplication process of perfect recall. The latter function can of course be provided by digital computers, but whose operation is certainly restricted to light speed.

It has been shown beyond doubt that instant correlation of similar events over distance definitely takes place, not limited by light speed, and my impetus is now to show how information might also be transferred instantaneously. This has not yet been achieved experimentally, and is considered by many impossible. However, such an explanation to explain a mechanism for the instantaneous transfer of information, would resolve how an earlier observed structure of past events might also be recreated in the present via this entanglement process: in other words, memory. If so, it would also presumably enhance our grasp of the function and nature of the passage of time, in that it should then be possible to provide more definite and indisputable resolution to the problem of the passage of time, about which so little is yet understood, or so it smees to me.

To summarise the various circumstances and the various possible conclusions that might be derived from the above conjectures thus far, one of the most trenchant is the observation that perfect randomness is equivalent to and ultimately the same entity as perfect order. It is acknowledged that quantum processes are capable of initiating identical effects across any amount of distance, and in line with the same rationale, presumably over time as well. In the latter respect, Eli Megedish in 2013 carried out experimental work to demonstrate that ‘Entanglement swapping between photons that have never coexisted’ had been achieved to show that transmission over time as a quantum effect was possible. Both of these conclusions are hard to accommodate for current understanding based on existing classical belief structures, as any physicist should be aware from the current inability to fully reconcile the fundamental differences between classical and quantum physics to understand existence.

The classical world is governed by the fact and existence of light speed being a singularity state, in that it can never be achieved. However, when close approaches are made by mass to that limiting velocity, the laws of nature as they were once familiar before 1900 had to be amended, following the advent of Max Planck’s quantum theory. This then led to a very different interpretation of reality by quantum mechanics, still not yet well understood, later to be advanced and confirmed by Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. Not having been competent in the interpretation of algebraic symbols of mathematics, never the less it occurred to me that since we can never be sure on the macroscale if any particular star still is even in existence by the time its light reaches observers on Earth, the same rationale applies. The relative scale of distances between particles at molecular and atomic levels compared to their distances apart, I have assumed render it impossible at that scale, to ever be quite certain of the exact location of a neighbouring microparticle, which will unavoidably have an element of motion about it.

Thus, the uncertainty on the astral macroscale brought about by the limitation of light speed will also hold good on the microscale for identical reasons, as a problem dictated by questions of scale. This would also equate to the Hermetic axiom “As above, so below”, although I dare say the ancients had not anticipated its relevance to the Uncertainty principle. But nevertheless, it is the limitations of any singularity state that once recognised as such, should start to bring about increased understanding of existence. Specifically, it is due to the absolute limitation of light speed, that it is never possible to be certain on the precise location of anything in terms of classical measurements. Why this velocity should exist at this one particular quantity, or even exist at all in the first place we have no inkling as yet. However there has to be a basis of explanation yet to be ascertained, before we are able to increase our comprehension of our existence and/or consciousness, or so it seems to me. Unless we manage to ascertain more about the dictates and conditions of quantum effects, not to mention in passing gravitation (why mass attracts other mass just for starters), we might start to understand far more about how and why we exist, and maybe even make a start to grasp the mechanism behind consciousness. 

But first, it would be a step forward if we might ascertain more about the mechanism behind memory and whether or not it is quantum based and holographic, or whether it is based on some system whereby connection and signals between dendritic trees and other neuronal structures might somehow enable memory and/or thought. There are many such hypotheses for mind and memory which are not involved with the concept of holographically projected images as proposed originally by Karl Pribram. However, subjectively none appear quite so simple in essence to visualise and grasp as his proposals, which is also well accommodated in quantum terms as described in the Bohm/Pribram holonomic Brain theory.

The fact that when we open our eyes, what we experience is effectively a 3D representation of everything in our line of vision as if it were on a screen, this would seem to be a pretty fair example of what Pribram’s holographic projection from activities of the brain might suggest. If so, then it has occurred to me that, ex hypothesi from above, the brain’s occipital lobe should have a remarkable ability for its synapses and neurons to fire randomly at all times at all times, to automatically duplicate the structure of observed external reality in great holographic 3D detail as a direct resonance effect as vision.

With eyes shut, this ability at once disappears. It occurs to me that expert analysis of the activities of the actions of the neurons/synapse/dendritic clusters involved with the incoming visual information might be very instructive as to the difference between the two states of eyes shut and open: the one being highly structured and the other a complete blank resulting in no created information flow to the brain. Visual information via open eyes is constantly streaming in to the brain to be instantly converted to very accurate 3D images as sight. It is hardly a stretch of great imagination to assume these are experienced as a form of holographic projection, at least not until someone else manages to produce a more feasible and more straightforward and feasibly obvious alternative to explain currently observed external reality.  

The moment eyes are closed this process of duplication of observed reality ceases, as presumably does this instant order forming process. It occurs to me that it might be enlightening to ascertain the difference in the activity of the neurons and/or dendritic fringes in the occipital lobe concerned with vision, with eyes shut and open. When open there must exist this automatic process to instantly duplicate observed external reality without cease. When closed, I assume that the relevant neuronal activity would then have to be a formless random activity lacking any external stimulus to which It might respond. From this I conclude that this close approach to near the singularity state of perfect randomness is very much a crucial element of the operation of sight.

In turn this would form a major part of the mechanism behind memory’s operation. Perhaps some clinically inclined neuro researchers might be able to assess the degree of randomness possibly existing in the occipital lobe of the brain on different occasions. I assume that the occipital lobe will have a remarkable ability in excess of other areas concerned with cognition, to maintain a constant rate of close to perfect randomness, although I have no idea whether this has ever been specifically investigated.

My explanation in principle for memory’s operation is that if visual observed live images are then combined with somewhat vestigial holographical images evoked from similar past observed events, this would render an individual able to avoid similar risk fraught circumstances in future. By thus enhancing chances of survival, memory forms a major aspect of consciousness, which is in turn directly connected with the ability of the brain to set itself momentarily into a state of random motion, which might then instigate experience of similar earlier sequences of observed events.

To summarise a major difference between classical and quantum physics, the following appear to be crucial. Classical mainstream physics tends to deal with the location and dimensions of particles and the way in which they combine with others in novel arrangements to form different structures with new characteristics of behaviour. Quantum physics deals instead with the motion of huge numbers of identical particles/wave forms and the way in which similar separate events occur over distance, and in doing so are able also to describe how over time this will bring about change to formerly static circumstances. It is the essence of motion that quantum mechanics seems predominantly involved with rather than the more static arrangements with which classical physics is concerned. In short, the quantum world deals more with intervals in time (EM radiation and entanglement, both involving connection over distance), whereas the classical world concerns itself more with intervals in space (geometric structures whose complex differences affect their behaviour). However, both categories can be regarded as a resonance effect based on observation and discernment of similarities.

Motion can only be described, quantified and measured against the passage of time, whereas dimension and structure are much more the concern of classical physics.  Indeed, it would seem that the quantum world can effectively only operate, if all the entities involved are indecipherably the same. This is not the case when dealing with descriptions of structure, although it seems that the notion of structure does involve the duplications of similar lengths and dimensions, or fractions of them, in order to present complex varying arrangements to present different physical characteristics which can then be classified, understood, isolated and utilised to advantage.

Quantum effects seem to be instead more involved with actions and structural variations in structure of the passage of time. It seems we know much less about the nature of the passage of time than we do about the measurement of intervals in space, and hence the resulting inability for the two to be better reconciled together than they currently are. Furthermore, the above brief general description of memory depends on the understanding that perfect random motion is effectively the same entity as perfect order, both being unachievable singularity states.

15/02/23

References

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Greaves, N.G. Duplication theory,  ResearchGate 2016

Greaves, N.G. Similarities between quantum entanglement & Duplication theory, ResearchGate 2016

Greaves, N.G. The Significance of singularity states,  ResearchGate,   2017

Greaves, N.G. Transfer of information across space & time to explain memory via quantum entanglement,   Research Gate 2018

Greaves, N.G. Intuition,    ResearchGate   2020

Koestler, A. The Ghost in the Machine, Hutchison  1967

Koestler, A. The Act of Creation,  Hutchinson  1965

Megedish, E. et al. Entanglement swapping between photons that have never co-existed,   Physics  Letters review 110 May  2013

Pribram, K.M. Languages of the Brain, Globus et all: eds. P 56 Plenum, New York  1971

Sheldrake R. A New Science of Life,  Blond & Briggs, 1981

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