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Physics From Consciousness. Don Hoffman Thanks to Bruce Bennett, Jon Merzel, Chetan Prakash, Phat Vu. Plan. Consciousness fundamental Conscious observer, agent Fundamental postulates Dynamics of agents: 1D, 2D, 3D Agents -> Physics: Symmetries Relativistic spin half particles
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Physics From Consciousness Don Hoffman Thanks to Bruce Bennett, Jon Merzel, Chetan Prakash, Phat Vu
Plan • Consciousness fundamental • Conscious observer, agent • Fundamental postulates • Dynamics of agents: 1D, 2D, 3D • Agents -> Physics: Symmetries • Relativistic spin half particles • Discrete space-time
ScienceTop Open Questions • What is the universe made of? • What is the biological basis of consciousness?
McGinnMind We know that brains are the de facto causal basis of consciousness, but we have, it seems, no understanding whatever of how this can be so.
Postulate 1Ontological Postulate All that exists is consciousness and its contents.
Mind-Body Problem • Physicalist: Describe precisely how consciousness arises from, or is identical to, certain types of physical systems. • Conscious Realist: Describe precisely how conscious agents construct physical objects and their properties.
Shape From Motion • Input: 2D motions of dots • Output: 3D cylinder in rigid motion • Ullman: 3 views of 4 points
Ullman’s SFM Theorem Given 3 orthographic views of 4 non-coplanar points • The views almost surely have no rigid 3D interpretations. • If the views have any rigid interpretations, then they almost surely have precisely 2.
Conscious Observer X, Y measurable spaces E, S events p measurable map q markovian kernel
Observer Thesis Every synchronic perceptual capacity, regardless of modality, can be described as an instance of a conscious observer.
Fundamental Conscious Act: Create new conscious experiences. NEW GIVEN
Postulate 2Experience Postulate Conscious observers create new experiences.
Conscious Observers & Macroscopic Physical Objects • Objects • Color • Motion • Shape
Multimodal User InterfaceMUI The conscious perceptual experiences of an agent are a multimodal user interface between that agent and an objective world.
PinkerHow the Mind Works We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness.
Postulate 3Action Postulate Conscious agents act by moving on a state space of conscious observers.
Postulate 4Physics Postulate Physics represents stabilities of the dynamics of conscious agents.
Dynamics In One Dimension • Approach: Stable: Invariant measure • Depart: Unstable: No invariant measure
Look Probability • Nearer Agent --> Higher probability • Agent Distances --> No-Look probability
Postulate 5Unity Postulate Conscious agents in stable dynamics create a new unified consciousness.
Lorentz Invariance Jonathan Doolin
Spin Theorem 1 Every spin transformation corresponds to a unique restricted Lorentz transformation; conversely every restricted Lorentz transformation corresponds to two spin transformations, one being the negative of the other.
Spin Theorem 2 Every unitary spin transformation corresponds to a unique proper rotation of S+; conversely every proper rotation of S+ corresponds to two unitary spin transformations, one being the negative of the other.
