Journal of Nonlocality and Remote Mental Interactions
ISSN 1539-6576
a member of ICAAP
Volume II, Number 3
November 2003
Memes, Societies and the Functional Architecture
of the Collective Unconscious
CONTENTS
INTERVIEW
Participants: Roger Nelson, Stanley Krippner, Jim Tucker, Gerry Zeitlin, Matti Pitkanen, Chris King, Mark Germine
THEORETICAL PAPERS
Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing
Duane Elgin
Semitrance, Language and the Development of Civilization
Matti Pitkänen
Abstract: Jaynes' book "The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind" provides a highly original vision about the evolution of modern consciousness from the consciousness of the bicameral stone age man. The TGD version about the cosmology of human consciousness relies on the notion of semitrance. During semitrance parts of the brain entangle with some higher level ( say the self associated with the social group) and are in trance - therefore unconscious. The remaining parts of the brain are however conscious and receive communications from the collective consciousness via the entangled region of the brain as sensory hallucinations, emotions and thoughts. Semitrance is absolutely essential for self narrative and establishment of long term goals: without semitrance our consciousness would consist of memory fragments lasting only a few seconds: higher- level- selves tell us where we come from and where we are going.
The basic differences between Jaynes and the TGD- based version of the evolution of civilization relate to the interpretation of bicamerality and what has really happened in the evolution of the individual.
a) In the TGD framework one could see the bicameral man as a cognitive and emotional child characterized by the effective cognitive and emotional ages at which the cognitive and emotional self-organizations of her left brain hemisphere stopped in the absence of external stimuli necessary for self-organization (it would be impossible to learn to write if civilization had not discovered written language). Of course, there are several parameters differentiating modern man from the bicameral man (sensitivity for semitrance, profile of semitrance, time fraction spent in semitrance, right-left brain inhibition,...) and the identification of the bicameral individual as a cognitive and emotional child is unnecessarily strong.
b) The ability to fall into semitrance was not lost during evolution but was transformed to a new form. Not only linguistic but also sensory regions of the right brain hemisphere of bicameral man entangled with higher level selves and the communications from right to left brain hemisphere were not inhibited as they are in the brain of modern man. As the left brain hemisphere differentiated and the memetic code gradually established itself, the guiding voice of God was transformed to internal speech and emotions. Higher- level- selves began to express their will via emotions, moods, planning and long term goals.
c) The differences between the EEG of a normal person and that of a schizophrenic suggest that the fraction of time spent by the average modern man in semitrance is much shorter. A more general criterion of bicamerality might be based on the fraction of time spent in semitrance state, be it sensory, cognitive or emotional. It is plausible that thoughts (not all of course!) are communicated to modern man via left brain hemisphere. If this is indeed the case, some regions of left brain hemisphere of modern man should allow standing EEG waves.
The development of language is an absolutely essential part in the development of civilization. The syntactic structures of language emerged in parallel with the development of civilization. In TGD framework the development of language can be seen as a gradual establishment of genetic and memetic codes at a new level and the emergence of symbol function. This could be also seen as an establishment of a symbiosis between two life-forms: biological life and 'culture' having as a physical correlate electromagnetic life represented as topological quanta of em ELF fields and providing realization of the memetic code.
Semitrance mechanism provides an extremely general communication mechanism between the levels of the self hierarchy and could explain why ant nests, beehives, flocks of birds, packs of wolves, cell societies, nuclei of brain, etc.. can behave as a single organism and still consist of apparently randomly behaving individuals. Indeed, relevant biological structures (DNA double strand, double lipid layer forming cell membrane, epithelial sheets) have binary structure analogous to two brain lobes and are ideal candidates for 'bicameral' structures.
The vision about the development of civilization generalizes to cell level. p-Adic fractality plus the fact that the number of quantum jumps performed by selves is huge even at the cellular and elementary particle levels, inspires the hypothesis that various societies ranging from human civilization to cell societies and protein-DNA societies are characterized by universal asymptotic self-organization patterns. This provides important insights in to the structure of the biological self-hierarchy and its relation to the structure and functioning of the organism and also into how semitrance might allow bio-systems to control and coordinate their behavior. Cell as a protein-DNA society together with the parallel between memetic and genetic codes provides a predictive vision about how genetic code might have established itself and semitrance suggests that new kind of control and communication mechanisms based on semitrance mechanism are at work.
Matti Pitkänen
Abstract: In this article basic TGD-inspired ideas about the genetic code are discussed.
1. Genetic and memetic codes from the model of abstraction process
The basic numbers of the genetic code are probably not accidental. This led, more than ten years ago, to an attempt to construct a model for abstraction process reproducing the basic numbers of the genetic code. The simplest model for an abstraction process is based on a repeated formation of statements about statements starting from two basic statements. If one drops at each step of the construction the statement corresponding to the empty set in the set theoretic realization of Boolean algebra, one obtains a hierarchy allowing to understand the basic numbers of genetic code, including the number of amino-acids. What one obtains is a so-called Combinatorial Hierarchy consisting of the Mersenne numbers 2,M(1)=3, 7 ,127, 2^{127}-1,.. constructed using the rule M(n+1)=M_{M(n)}=2^{M(n)}-1. The explicitly listed ones are known to be primes. Combinatorial Hierarchy emerges from a model of abstraction process as subsequent transitions from level to meta level by forming Boolean statements about Boolean statements of level n and dropping one statement away.
The infinite hierarchy of possible genetic codes suggests the possibility of an infinite hierarchy of increasingly complex life-forms. The natural question is whether a counterpart of the genetic code could make sense for our ideas ("memes"). Combinatorial Hierarchy model for abstraction process predicts that memetic code should correspond to the level M_{127} of the hierarchy. This leads to a precise realization of the memetic code in terms of binary sequences. Codewords, counterparts of mRNA, correspond to 126-bit sequences. Also almost-127-bit code with 2^{127}-1 codons is possible.
2. Frequency and pulse representations of codes
p-Adic length scale hypothesis and identification of codes as special cases of a hierarchy of p-adic cognitive codes allows quantitative predictions. The most general assumption assigns to any prime p=about 2^k, k integer, a hierarchy of cognitive codes with codeword having a duration equal to n-ary p-adic time scale T_p(n) such that the number of bits is factor k_1 of k. Codewords could be realized either as k_1 harmonics of the fundamental frequency f_p(n)= 1/T_p(n) or as temporal sequences of bits of duration tau=T_p(n)/k_1 represented as pulses of maximal duration tau. Pulse-frequency dichotomy corresponds to dichotomies like particle-wave, nerve pulse-EEG, and talking left brain-singing right brain.
Genetic code would correspond to k=2^7-1=127 and have 6 bits (64 DNA triplets). These codewords could be realized dynamically as temporal field patterns. For genetic code primes p=about 2^k, k=6x n define candidates for the duration of the genetic code word if all factors of k are assumed to define a possible number of bits of the code word. The time scales come as powers of 8 so that they cover the entire range of biologically relevant time scales down to CP_2 length scale, and genetic code could appear as fractally scaled versions unlike memetic code and perhaps also outside the biological context. k=2x126=2x6x21=252 allows the representation of both 126-bit memetic codeword, 6-bit genetic codeword, and almost-7-bit genetic code word. For pulse representation genetic codon would have a duration of 50 ms whereas the bit would have duration of 8.3 ms so that the realization using nerve pulse patterns is in principle possible. Frequency representation would be realized as 6 first harmonics of the fundamental frequency f_1 =2^n x20 Hz, where f_1=20 Hz defines the lower end of audible frequency range and also the rate for the translation of mRNA triplets to amino-acids. 126-bit memetic code allows a representation as sequence of 21 nerve pulses of duration 2.4 ms each of them accompanied by 6-bit genetic codon realized at the microtubular level (this representation of genetic code has been suggested by Koruga).
The secondary p-adic time scale associated with M_{127} is .1 seconds and defines the duration of the almost 127-bit memetic codeword. For frequency representation is realized as 127 first harmonics of f_1=10 Hz and the duration of the bit for pulse representation is .8 ms which is shorter than the duration of nerve pulse. The duration .1 seconds of code word might be identified as the minimal duration of cortical mental images, and the so called features introduced by Walter Freeman could define pulse representation of memetic code words of 127 bits. The highest frequency in the frequency representation is 1270 Hz and could define the frequency responsible for synchronous neuronal firing known to be about 1 kHz. Various numerical coincidences suggest that language corresponds to a particular realization of memetic and genetic codes closely related to their realization at the DNA level.
3. Model for the evolution of genetic code from the symmetries of the code
TGD leads to a model for the evolution of the genetic code motivated by the observation that the genetic code possesses an exact A-G and almost exact T-C permutation symmetry with respect to the third nucleotide of the DNA triplet. This leads to the hypothesis that genetic code has evolved as a fusion of doublet and singlet codes accompanied by a small breaking of the product symmetry. The hypothesis is highly predictive, and it is possible to reproduce genetic code and its variants by this mechanism in a natural manner. The mechanism has deep implications for the models of the biochemical evolution before the genetic code: in particular a detailed model for the evolution of genetic code and pre-biotic evolution emerges.
4. Mapping memetic code to 169-bit micro-tubular code
169-bit micro-tubular code words is excellent candidate for a representation of long term memories as a temporal list of activated memes. The model for the mapping of memetic code to 169-bit microtubular code is dictated by the general ideas about realization of intentions and p-adic cognitive codes. When combined with general number theoretical arguments and physical considerations the model becomes highly unique. The prediction for the intronic representation of the memetic codon involving 9 DNA triplets as parity bits is readily testable, and also the prediction for the microtubular electric field pattern is in principle testable.
5. Genes, memes and universal language
Also static representations of the memetic code are possible and intronic DNA could provide representation of memetic codewords as sequences of 21 DNA triplets. At DNA level memes and genes should relate like computer software and hardware. In the case of language the rules producing a given linguistic expression can be seen as the high level software, main programs, whereas words can be seen as hardware-like lower level subprograms. This leads to the idea that memetic codewords define the basic program modules producing linguistic expressions by activating genes which express themselves in terms of field patterns generating nerve pulse patterns generating words or word sequences very much analogous to proteins.
Time mirror mechanism and the structure of the computer language LISP inspire a concrete model for memes as intronic programs initiated from magnetic body and calling genes as subprograms in turn calling other genes as subprograms and generating at the lowest level field patterns generating nerve pulses patterns giving rise to the motor action producing speech. Phonemes could directly correspond to DNA triplets and define the basic building blocks of language having as such no meaning. If this view is correct, the development of spoken and written language would mean basically the emergence of a higher level of intentionality, which utilizes an already existing repertoire of memes expressed in many other manners. This would in turn suggest that animals and even plants possess some kind of languages realized at cellular level, and that even inter-species communications using common memetic grammar and genetic vocabulary.
Bill Stroud
Duane Elgin
EXPERIMENTAL PAPERS AND PROPOSALS
MindLab03: An Open Project for the RV Community
Sponsored by JNLRMI and the Hawaii Remote Viewers' Guild
Migrations into the Future Present during Remote Viewing, Part I
Sita Seery
Migrations into the Future Present during Remote Viewing, Part II
Sita Seery
Making a Stray Cat Prolific: Thesaural Imaging and Remote Viewing
Bill Stroud
The Essential Overlap Matrix: an Extension for a Remote Viewing Tool
Bill Stroud
Data Integration in RV: Abstraction Levels and Context
Lian Sidorov
Next Issue
Remote Mental Interactions: Vocabulary and Syntax