What's Happening?

This is a progress update, to let you know how I am moving the book forward.

I am going through the text from cover to cover, not changing concepts, but improving the wording and adding reader touchpoints.  I will be getting help with this.

Soon there will be a new and crisper title, a better blurb, a professionally designed cover, and an interior layout that is in all aspects classy.

I am starting to plan the marketing campaign, using Guy Kawasaki's APE * Author Publisher, Entrepreneur as my guide.

Thanks for your support, and I hope that before very long, you will be able to delight your friends by telling them you were one of the first to spot the Conscious Patterns shift coming.

Provability

Early Sunday morning, and after days of feeling I had lost the ability to think straight (body fighting some infection), there is a grain of insight to add to the pile.

How would one go about taking the Conscious Patterns idea from hypothesis to proven? 

This picture tells the story (click to expand).

Introduction

This post is the first in a a serialization of the book.

Of course, if you find this drip-feed a bit slow, the book is available on Amazon.

Or, if you prefer, email ConsciousPatterns@gmail.com to receive a free .pdf version.

1.     Introduction

                                                                                                                                    

Consciousness, the mind, is without question the greatest unsolved problem in science. Everyone has a mind, but no one can say for sure what exactly it is. Great strides are being made in understanding how the brain works, but remarkable as these are, there remains a chasm between what we know about the brain and consciousness itself.

Here is a thought experiment. Try to explain what is going on when you think, and observe what happens. Stop reading now and do it.   

When I first tried this what I observed was a void in science: there wasn’t even any language to begin to attack the problem. An idea doesn’t seem to be formed of atoms or energy, so what is it?

What is actually going on, in physical terms, as one “wrestles with ideas”? This is the problem of consciousness. Something real and very important is happening in the world, for which we have no good explanation. We don’t have a “Physics of Mind”.

This book proposes a solution: a new, facts-based, testable theory of consciousness, with practical implications that are important.

You can understand it, easily. When you are done, you will have a better way to see yourself, others, and the world around you. Doors will open.  

Here is why this is so important.

Book Cover

Why the Pattern?

The assertion that it is the pattern that is conscious, and not the brain, is radical, to say the least. This blog is about how I reached that conclusion.

Before I start, I should mention progress on making a hardcopy version available.  This is my first time through this routine, and I've been astonished at how many passes it has taken to get to the point where I am ready to order a physical proof.  I just did that this morning, and it is scheduled to arrive on 16th May. Patience, friends.  In the meantime, if anyone would like the pdf file, please just ask.  You can have one if you promise to read it, and if it's intriguing, share it with your friends under the same caveat.  Maybe we can go viral.

So why the pattern?
There has been a philosophical knot almost from the beginning, about how something intangible, like an idea, can affect something tangible like one's body,.  This is the famous "mind-body problem".  It would be quite something to have solved it, and maybe my thinking is flawed. But let's at least give the idea a look.

There needs to be something linking the two.

The thing linking the two has to have aspects of each.

Think of a pattern on the water. Is the pattern itself a physical thing? The waves that make it up are, but the pattern itself is something that is perceived by a mind. The pattern moves, and it's the motion that we mean by the pattern. 

Now patterns on water have a completely physical cause. They result in more than just a direct sense-impression, like one would get from putting one's hand in the water or tasting it. They may, assuming someone cares to observe them, result in the impression of an idea, a changing form, which is the shape and motion of the pattern itself. 

So we have 

The symmetry of our problem suggests trying putting "patterns in mind" on the other side.

And this leads us to explore pattern-based computing, and the realization that this could do the job, as explained in the book.

Why the Conscious Patterns Idea is Important

Conscious Patterns Dancing in the Field - the Physics of Mind

Why This Is So Important

Our world is broken; every day we see atrocities: war, financial irresponsibility, deprivation, starvation; all the result of human stupidity. Other creatures don’t cause these things, so why do we?

Perhaps it stems from an inadequate concept of what it means to be human. We simply don't know what we are any more.  The old answers seem incompatible with our knowledge of science, and the answers science offers are unhelpful.

Are we (a) a more intelligent animal (b) a neurobiological illusion, (c) an economic agent, (d) a magical combination of spirit and flesh, or (e) none of the above? These are the answers on offer today.

We have decisions to make, and to make them, we need to know what we are and why we are here. Without good answers, we are free to do whatever feels right at the time - including hurting one another in various ways.

At the root of the problem is a disconnect between the world of science and the world of the mind, the spirit.

This book shows that there is a way, a coherent way, a physical way, to understand what a mind is doing when it thinks; to understand what minds are doing when they communicate (as you and I are doing right now); and to understand what our purpose is in the universe.

It involves recognizing that there are two complementary aspects of reality: the physical and the conceptual.  And that minds exist and operate on the interface between the two.

  

The bold new idea this book develops is that mind, consciousness, actually is the dynamic information pattern that dances on the surface of the brain as it manipulates concepts and shares them with others.

 

The thing that is conscious is the pattern itself.

This is a new way of understanding ourselves, others, and our place in reality. It answers the questions of what we are and why we are here, showing that humanity has a clear and significant role in the cosmos. For some readers, it may even open access to the transformative resources of scripture.