The Shapes of SpaceTIme
Reflexive monism (RM) is a sophisticated idea about the physical cosmos developed in the first decade of this century by Max Velmans at UC Berkeley and the University of London. RM postulates an early divergence in the cosmos from an undifferentiated physical state into two distinguishable domains, both physical, with consciousness possible in one domain but not in the other. Experience in this second domain is characterized by certain limitations, which a physiological study at the University of California, San Francisco in the early 1980s may have begun to describe.
The Benjamin Libet experiment appeared to verify a readiness potential in the brain voltages that build 300 milliseconds before consciousness of the intention to act takes place. The readiness potential endures into the time window occupied by this consciousness. In this way evidence suggests a distinct separation between behavior and consciousness, with consciousness merely riding on top of intelligent decisions taking place in the mechanics of the brain. High speed decisions by ping pong and tennis players suggest analogous evidence for a physiological separation between consciousness and behavior.
Roger Penrose is one of the most influential physicists today, with innovative work in the mathematics of tessellations, notable in the arts of ancient Sumeria, Ancient Rome, classical Islam and the hyperbolic spaces of MC Escher. Tessellations are also important in the theory of crystals, and were explored by Johannes Kepler, who was intrigued by snowflakes. Roger Penrose appears to be interested both in very small curvatures, such as those purported to exist in electron orbitals and black holes and the large ones known to exist in parallel starlight.
Sir Roger now wants us to redo the Libet experiments to decide something about consciousness. He appears to want to know in what sort of physics conscious experience exists. We think information gleaned from our conversational methodology, which may amount to something we could call biological interferometry, could use behavioral engineering to help science to extend Sir Roger’s suggestions about quantum reality and consciousness.
