Dyadic Model of Consciousness - Part 3
Norbert Weiner of M.I.T. provided a numerical definition of information as the negative of entropy, circa 1942. James Shannon of Bell laboratories provided the seminal paper developing information theory six years later. A tacit assumption of information theory is that the meaning of information is carried in the signal. It can be easily shown that this assumption can pertain on to “intended” information, but is in general false. The meaning of information is assigned by the percipient. Even if the originator of information intended a meaning for the signal, there is no assurance that that any percipient will recognize the intended meaning. Information is just a pattern of energy that requires perception to utilize and an information base (experience) from which to assign meaning. “Meaning” is internally created information which connects the perceived information to the information base residing in memory. To assign meaning is a fundamental function of “mentality”, the evolutionary component of consciousness. At very simple levels of living matter, behaviors such as the search for food, mating opportunities, predator avoidance, etc. require that information from the environment be perceived and given meaning. And since information does not carry within the signal, but is just a pattern of energy to be interpreted, assigning a meaning is an evolved, learned behavior. Learning is precisely the activity of giving meaning to information and retaining the meaning for future use. Non-local resonance allows experience to be shared.
If nature’s primordial information management process is non-locality, it would seem that evolution rather quickly availed itself of other information produced by the environment as the environment became more complex. Acoustic, tactile, olfactory, visual and taste senses undoubtedly evolved rather early in the planetary environment once mobile organisms existed. Multi-sensory information requires an information management process within the organism. The dyadic theory suggests that information in the environment caused “mentality” to begin its own organizing process. Thus the antecedents to human consciousness find their roots in the primitive processing of environmental information, but the most primitive of the processes is centered around non-locality.
Prior to the evolution of Homo sapiens, which means prior to brains developing self-reflective awareness, before linguistic capabilities, before reasoning and other high level mental functions, animals were solving problems, creating tools and otherwise being quite intelligent. This activity should be characterized as subconscious or unconscious activity (as compared to anthropic type self-reflective conscious awareness). Wolf packs likely discovered by accident that splitting forces and encircling prey was an effective hunting strategy. But the successful experience connected with other information in the brain, and “meaning” was established and remembered. It is likely the same for beavers learning to construct dams of stick and mud, and bees learning to communicate through the waggle dance. Nature's creatures likely learned through trial and error, thus nature itself must be said to learn through trial and error. We say that animals obey “instinct”, but how did they acquire the instinct – most likely by learning it through trial and error in the process of evolutionary development. Non local resonance undoubtedly played a significant role in communication of “instinctual” behaviors. Non-local resonance as used in the dyadic model is similar to the morphic resonance as proposed by Sheldrake.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to interpret natural learning processes in this manner is the fractal evidence from chaos theory; nature repeats patterns at different scale sizes. Recursive evaluation of simpler nonlinear equations has been discovered to simulate exotic forms in nature, at different scale sizes. This suggests, not that nature knows mathematics, but that nature uses multiple feedback loops of energy and molecules to produce form. Together these phenomena are highly suggestive of learning behaviors and non-local resonance.
The dyadic model suggests that the anthropic consciousness experienced by humans must be viewed in an evolutionary sense as having emerged from antecedent conditions that can be traced back to origins before the Big Bang in the sea of zero point energy. The elemental components of perception and intentionality seem to be irreducible attributes, and must be considered “hidden” or at least unobserved attributes of elemental matter. If intentionality exists at all, it must be fundamental. Intentionality cannot arise from a deterministic nature. Physicists have only looked for and verified nonlocality for basic correlations of polarization, momentum, etc. – the most basic wave/particle measures. But given that evidence, reason suggests that a most fundamental behavior of matter resides in the property of nonlocality and that nonlocality operates at all levels of complex matter. We do no more injustice to reason to say that particles “instinctively” maintain correlation than to say that photons “know” that they are undergoing a double split experiment. It is language and our knowing that is incomplete, not the properties of matter.
In the dyadic model, waves/particles are coupled, perception/intentionality are coupled, existence/knowing, internal/external, subject/object, life/death, success/failure, and so fourth. They are coupled because in our universe, at least, they always seem to be found together when we attempt to describe process. The subjective experience of an entity undergoing process may encounter but one aspect of a dyadic pair at a time, however. For example, in a learning, trial and error universe, the limits to the outcome of any process may be labeled as success or failure, but an aware entity will only experience one or the other. Both cannot be experienced together simultaneously. However from a broader perspective both aspects exist and they are connected as one implies the other.
The question immediately arises, by what means does nature indicate successful and unsuccessful behaviors, below the level of self reflective awareness. The subjective “feeling sense” and emotional responses certainly provide a clue. Animals clearly display fight and flight behaviors. Isn’t this of necessity stimulated by an internal sensation like anger or fear? And the hunger response or the mating instinct; aren’t these motivated by internal sensations and rewarded in the same way – by pain/pleasure. I believe the evidence is quite clear but long neglected or denied. The internal, subjective experiences of animals are likely little different from our own – except for the wonderfully evolutionary addition of language and self reflective awareness. Most certainly, higher organisms possess self aware consciousness even if not processing a high level of mentality by anthropic standards. By considering self reflection, reasoning and intellect an evolved “add on” to nature’s information management process, we gain additional clues to the evolution of mentality by observing mental processes other than intellect and reasoning, specifically by observing the intuitive and pattern recognition functions of the right brain and the emotional processes.