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An Introduction to

The Physics of Thought

Orishanimi K N Brown

Introduction

THOUGHT IS REAL: Everything MAN MADE came from someone’s mind and you cannot get something real from something that is not real. However, you would not know that thought is real by studying Physics anywhere in the world in 2004. This publication is changing that. The Physics of Thought opens the door to a multifaceted aspect of our Universe previously ignored as "meta-physics" thought to be associated with an isolated cosmological accident we call LIFE. The Nature of Thought, one student named “First Principles of THOUGHT”, provides advanced Theoretical Physics and Cosmology with the tools to begin to understand, measure and analyze a Universe that includes THOUGHT as a fundamental component. As in the case of giving “First Principles”, I show the Nature of Thought at a very elementary level. I have made it understandable in simplistic terms for the non-scientist: We have another dimension called Thought Space. These same simplistic terms challenge physicists with the complexity of a topology of Thought Spaces intersecting (interacting), and thereby creating, space-time Reality.

When I received my BA in physics, I decided one of my hobbies would be “figuring out” what this Universe is all about. I thought it would be a worthy lifetime endeavor as well as a fun hobby. It was, and is, great fun, but there was a surprise in it. I was two or three years into postgraduate employment in advanced research as a scientific programmer (of automated weapons systems and simulation), when it hit me: As far as Physics is concerned, Thought does not exist. They taught us about hard things (matter; mechanics) and fuzzy things (quanta; atomic, nuclear, molecular); about fields (static: electric, magnetic, gravitation, and dynamic: heat, light, sound, electronics, radiation, etc., interacting via 1^st and 2^nd rank tensors); about relativity, astronomy and the cosmos; about the science of measurement and philosophy. But THOUGHT itself was omitted.

As a computer automation expert (systems analyst, systems design and programming of advanced automation systems), I played with thoughts everyday. I used to ask my programming students the “heavy” philosophical question of the early days of computers: “Do computers think?” This usually led to animated discussions. After a while, I would tell them that “A computer thinks, like a record plays music.” i.e. A computer plays back recorded thought. This implies the existence of thought as a provable (to other Physicists) part of this Universe.

As an automation expert, my job was to take a large complex human thought (dreams of automated missile control, spaceship automation, etc.) and synthesize a thought (write computer programs) that a computer can playback. I must test it and prove it works repeatedly (missile hits the target every time, flies the spaceship, etc.). These programs are synthetic thoughts in that they are human thoughts modified to function in a computer. These systems of interacting programs (synthesized human thought) are very real. They are large, complex and very expensive to develop and maintain. The continued growth of a multibillion-dollar software industry makes clear the fact that synthesized thoughts are real. Therefore human thoughts are real because you can’t get something real from something that is not itself real.

So what? I still had nothing to put into physics texts to fill the gaping hole (THOUGHT) we have left in our cosmological musings.

Then I got another idea while teaching numerical methods and simulation programming. I wanted the students to think they could simulate anything. As a project we simulated the Universe to show how/when/if it would run down (“heat death”) due the entropy put out by stars, as predicted by classical thermodynamics. The results were startling. We were left with: “If the Universe was running down due to entropy, it would have run down eons ago”!!?? If this is correct, it means there is an entropy balance or balancing factor (force?) of stellar magnitude that has kept the Universe from running down eons ago. If this is correct, how could we have missed such a big thing as an entropy balancing function of cosmic proportions?

I decided to review entropy from the beginning. I pulled out my old undergraduate thermodynamics text to reexamine this entropy concept before rereading modern books. I found a note I had written in that old text. A note to ask the professor about the meaning of negative entropy. That page of my elementary (Kaplan) thermodynamics text contained an entropy balancing equation:

1... S = - I; Entropy = Negative Information;

where S = integral over region R of dQ / T.

My old text also gave:

2... I = - S; Information = Negative Entropy (the text even used the

term “negentropy”).

The entropy balancing equation has been there right under our noses in undergraduate classical thermodynamics texts. I remembered questioning, as an undergraduate, the validity of equation 2 above. “Is that a real additive inverse or just another mathematical gimmick” (as I thought entropy was in my sophomore year)? Yes, it is as real as entropy. Yes, we can add this negative entropy (-S) to our “positive” entropy (S) and produce results that are real entropy (positive or negative).

What kind or amount of information are we talking about that could balance the entropy put out by the Sun? The problem turned out to be our old nemesis: “thinking inside a box”. Here is a look outside the box.

I asked my students to name a real, live, non-ethereal entity that has a mind “much, much” larger (greater than 10⁹⁹ larger) than the mind of a human being. For simplicity’s sake, use a single “mind size” factor: The ability to store information (I) and retrieve it for use. The first response from most is “God” and I have to remind them that this is a NON-ETHEREAL, REAL, LIVE entity living here on earth. Some said dolphins but most are stuck for an answer. Finally, I would say the zygote is one: A living cell.

This microscopic cell (the zygote) has enough information (I) stored in it, or accessible by it, to recreate a human being, right down to the minute details of hair and eye color, internal organs, sucking and crying programs (called instinct), operating system, etc. We humans do not have that much information (I) in our heads. We do not have that much information (I) in all the books and computer databases, medical or biological in the entire world, hence the “much, much” larger aspect. We (humanity) do not know how to recreate a human being and we cannot do it other than by assisting the cell in “doing ITS thing”.

We tend to discount the living cell as a non-thinking “biological machine”. Yet each of us is an “extremely large automated city” of such cells grown by and from a single cell (zygote) with information from our parents' cells. That one cell built the ”computerized city” from a blueprint (internally stored information): a genetic program. The cells installed the software (operational programs and instincts) too.

Remember, we humans woke up 10 to 20 thousand years ago and started trying to “figure out” what’s going on. The cells, of which we are composed, have been “doing their thing” for at least a billion years. Each of us comes from one microscopic cell like every other living thing. We, humans, are like the most advanced automated biological machine the cells have made/evolved to see and experience/modify their macrocosm; As we are exploring and building things to enter our macrocosm (Space, the Universe).

Looking back, it appears obvious. Every living thing gathers information (I2) on food locations and mating sources at the very least. Every living thing on earth has a vast genetic memory of information (I3) to recreate itself. The sum of all these very large bodies of information (I) from every living thing on earth is a large enough (I) in equation 2 to produce/create enough negative entropy to possibly balance the positive entropy output of the Sun.

The tenacity of life is another obvious clue that life is something fundamental to the universe rather than a local freak accident. Our attempts to kill certain infectious bacteria shows us how rapidly adapting these microscopic life forms can be. Many are already immune to our antibiotics while others plague our hospitals with impunity. We keep forgetting that LIFE was here first, “doing its thing”. It survived to change things such that it could evolve us. We, “Johnny come lately”, are still not sure “what’s going on” in several areas. The nature of thought is one of those areas and this publication opens the door a crack to give us a peek at this aspect of our Universe. My use of the term "Introduction to" is to remind us all that I have opened the door only a crack. The "Physics of Thought" is vast and I will point out many areas requiring further research.

The simulation (of the Universe) results further imply that there is entropy balance everywhere in this Universe. Consequently there should be life (or some other information gathering and storing things) associated with every star as a consequence of the star’s existence and required for the continued (entropy balanced) existence of a star.

This fits well with Statistical Thermodynamics where entropy is shown to be a measure of chaos. Therefore negative entropy must be a measure of order. Living things create repeatable order from chromosomes to anthills to skyscrapers, computers and spaceships. Furthermore, order is created even if the event-recorded (I) is “chaotic”. The relationship of entropy to information in classical thermodynamics can be demonstrated as follows:

Consider a box of arbitrary size filed with a gas. When the temperature of the box is very low (approaching absolute zero), we can obtain a large amount of information (I) about the position and velocity of every particle in the box. At absolute zero the particles would not be moving. This is the low Entropy State.

Now if we raise the temperature of the box to stellar temperatures, we will be able to obtain very little information about the position and velocity of any particle in the box. At high temperatures the particles are moving very fast and colliding frequently. This is the high Entropy State.

This is all very nice and fits with equations 1 and 2, but what if I can find a way to take "more pictures” per unit “time”. Does this mean that if I manage to get more information out of the box in the high Entropy State, I will reduce the Entropy State of the box?

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There is another clue to the nature of the Thought Space and Information Space. Thoughts entering the heads of human beings are not in any of the human languages. A THOUGHT (idea, problem solution, etc.) "HITS US" (like a flash, light bulb, big thrill), THEN WE PUT IT INTO WORDS in our minds. It arrives like a compressed video that we "see" all at once (Subjective Time). Then we have this compulsion (O/S from our genes) to TELL EVERYONE or at least someone(s). Information has played a major part of our survival and hence our evolution. We are driven to circulate the new information. And Information is negative entropy.

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Chapter 1. A Report on a Preliminary Investigation of the Nature of Thought

(The NOT -> The NOT NOT -> Is NOT NOTHING).

By this time I was deeply involved in what I called a “Preliminary Investigation of the Nature of Thought”. I wanted to know and to show the what, where, how, and maybe the why of Thought. I drew diagrams on blackboards while I lectured friends, colleagues and small groups on my progress. I called this 20-minute lecture “A Report on a Preliminary Investigation of Thought”.

The results of my preliminary investigation of the nature of thought are also presented in chapter 1. I present some results that, although highly theoretical, answer questions we could not answer before, provide a framework for addressing aspects of thought and brings THOUGHT into the realm of physics: The Cosmos. I show “the where” of THOUGHT SPACE and some of “the what” of thought.

Chapter 2. Infinite Capacity Memory

The miracle of the conception, gestation and birth of every animal on Earth is a much larger miracle than we initially perceived. The equivalent hardware, the biological machine, AND the equivalent software, to run the biological machine (the autonomic systems, fear programs, the “find food” and “reproduce” programs, etc.), and additional information storage (for learning) are all reproduced by this microscopic fertilized egg. How can so much information be stored in microscopic DNA strings called chromosomes? I use a computer analogy to show how information can be “folded” into the part of our new dimension I call Information Space.

3. A DREAM of The Multi-level city

4. Information Types

4.1. Information type zero (I₀): stored static information stored in a computer.

4.2. Information type one (I₁): computer programs "running" (executing).

4.3. Information type two (I₂): programs "running" (executing) in living neural systems.

4.4. Information type three (I₃): genetic programs and memory.

5. Chapter 3. Thought is NOTHING with “The POWER and The GLORY FOREVER”

5.1. Giant Bodies of Thought that control us. E.g. Culture, Religion (external), Fear, Procreation drives, etc., (internal).

5.2. We called these Giant Bodies of Thought gods and described their functions via myths.

5.2.1. Ancient Egyptian – no hell at all

5.2.2. Greeks and Romans – Hades was not a place where souls were sadistically tortured.

5.2.3. Christianity – Hell is where souls were sadistically tortured.

6. The Pyramid Connection

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