How do the colors, sounds, feels, etc come from the color-less, soundless, feel-less matter? — Marchesk

I already told you, an intrinsic aspect of quantum superposition in matter is the qualia constituents that contribute to colors, sounds and feels, conjoined in specific and relatively rare ways to generate qualitative experience in brains and elsewhere. The basic scientific framework is resolved, that is what we are going to find. Human qualia are not action potentials alone, they're wave interferences between quantum resonances in cells and the global quantum field of the brain that is exuded by trillions of simultaneous action potentials, producing along with additional factors an extremely complex array of superpositions.

You give an incisive critique. I'm going to try to tinker with my graph model, but keep in mind these are ideas in progress, not a finished product. It might require a professional physicist to refute or refine it but I'm sure you guys can give me some ideas!


Maybe the picture I'm presenting can be clarified by breaking it down into discrete variables (you won't have to analyze these equations to the last detail to get my point). Energy is correlated with mass and motion (E=mc2). Energy has a frequency (E=f) and also a rate of change or velocity in some sense correlated with wavelength (E=v/w). Velocity has mass correlated with wavelength and the velocity of light (v=mc2/w), and mass is conversely correlated with wavelength and velocity (m=vw/c2). Wavelength is correlated with velocity, mass and energy (w=v/E, w=v/mc2). The question then is the way these variables interrelate, what is directly or inversely proportional to what and how, as well as the way units align or integrate. I've got a qualitative impression of how it works, but could be in error as I'm not familiar with all the mathematical nuts and bolts. I'm not sure at this stage if it can be implemented quantitatively.


The graph I described in my previous post is an image of relativity in the square of the wave function. Each point in the two dimensional plane has an energy associated with it, correlated with its mass, frequency, wavelength and velocity. Each point in the vertical plane corresponds to the velocity in space of that quantity relative to the energy at its horizontal position.

There is no intrinsically fundamental unit, so the whole structure is approximately like a fractal, as is the universe. The further away the wave function is from the peak of a particular wave, the lower its position in the vertical plane and the higher its velocity, just as energy traveling between mass is moving at a faster rate than that contained in for instance chemical bonds. When mass combines as in a chemical bond, the peaks merge to create a single peak with a single energy (relative internal motion) and velocity (relative external motion).

The peaks, though relatively stable, oscillate in some way that is representative of their internal frequencies and wavelengths, the fluctuating contours of energy within hybridized or "superposed" quantum fields that we know as particularization, which can be as small as the subatomic scale or as large as the known universe, and expand as rapidly as light or as negligibly as an atom. So superposition is a special case of entanglement that can occur between relatively similar waves or wavicles, and the laws of superposition at different scales would have to be determined in association with experimental data, if there are in fact fundamental disjunctions.

A quantum field wave such as electromagnetic radiation propagates much faster than say a macromolecule wavicle, and this more rapid rate is represented as flowing through the graph at lower elevation, changing the structure or diffracting around many peaks to relatively large or small degrees, as if they are like partial barriers, though the system altogether responds to perturbation in an equal and opposite way, as per conservation of energy and momentum (this is at least to be expected within the frames of reference we have thus far observed in nature).

The lower the elevation, the faster the quantum field is moving relative to a given energy position. The graph can be calibrated so lower elevations, which are like cross sections of speed, move many orders of magnitude faster than peaks, approximating the concept of a real wave oscillating in effectively infinite dimensions. This means that electromagnetic radiation could be like a particle compared to kinds of waves we might discover. Relative speed on some scales, which amounts to the apparent causality within energy waves and amongst wavicle peaks, would look completely different than relative speed on differing scales, like light ricocheting around relatively stationary objects.

My hypothesis is that synchronicity is created by quantum fields that move faster than the speed of light when either perturbed or generated by some kinds of wavicles. The wavicle peaks are all producing various kinds of fields as a product of superposition oscillations, and when these fields propagate at relatively more rapid speeds than an ensemble of peaks, wavicles can affect surrounding wavicles by a flow, independent of direct contact such as we model with classical physics, and independent of peak blending as takes place with the superposition phenomena of chemical bonding for instance.

The whole structure is in perpetual flowing motion, with waves diffracting, interfering (as diverse kinds of relatively brief or prolonged superpositions with internally oscillating energies), and separating at various rates, the whole structure entangled in a way that transcends apparent causality of space and time on the scale of human bodies. Relative to the universe, our galaxy is like a tiny wave peak. Earth is like a tiny wave peak relative to the galaxy. A macromolecule is a tiny wave peak relative to the Earth. And a proton is like a small wave peak relative to a macromolecule.

It would have to be figured out how to model the peaks, and the natural laws or parameters of the graph at various speeds and scales need to be determined. We already know a lot of this from physics and chemistry. Deficiencies in the graph's ability to describe phenomena might point to causal effects we have not observed and modeled yet, like a puzzle with missing pieces.


Acceleration amongst waves and wavicles of energy is flow and change in the contours of this wave function as its peaks change, giving the entire structure an amorphous, constantly fluctuating density, hence acceleration density.

et al

Pardon my interjection, but could you guys briefly outline the properties of wave motion? How does the velocity or oscillation of an electron in an atom vary from one traveling in a beam or current, and how does this compare to electromagnetic radiation in various contexts? Could kinds of waves exist that travel faster or slower than what we have thus far measured? Why is the speed of light considered a top velocity in popular physics? Seems to me that wave mechanics are at the core of quantum foundations, so I want to get a summary handle on what waves do.

The problem is that an explanation for everything is an explanation for nothing. If you can equally explain every outcome, you have zero knowledge. If you look at things from the perspective of evolutionary biology, everything has some kind of evolutionary reasoning. But this only provides you with a plausible explanation given the framing. It doesn't tell you what actually happened. — Echarmion

All I mean by the concept of evolution in my quote

In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what had to obtain in order for it to be possible.

is a convergence of causal vectors we classify as biological. Didn't intend to introduce the baggage of any particular psychological, pious or godless form of that theory.

Wouldn't that be a form of panpsychism? — Marchesk

I'd call it transpsychism in a sense because consciousness or qualitative experience can inhere in more types of matter than organic brains, but qualia are not intrinsically experiential in a way analogous to human phenomenality. The idea is that psychical experience, to the extent we define it as such, is intrinsic to matter, infused into the structure of objects, not generated as a supervenient illusion, abolishing substance duality and the mind/body problem. This does not mean that existence is more animate than inanimate.

My opinion is that qualia are a basic property of matter, like shape, size, weight, etc., and they arise from complex combinations of superposition in systems of entanglements within entanglements I called coherence fields. This means that colors of the visible spectrum are analogous to the phenomena within our minds: its all extremely complex superposition, hybridized waves or wavicles producing intricate quantum resonances that are images, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings. The following will give you a basic sense for what the model consists in.

In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what had to obtain in order for it to be possible. Initially, electrical properties in aggregates of tissue such as the brain needed to be robust enough that a stable supervenience of electromagnetic field (EMF) was created by systematic electron fluxing. Quantum effects in molecules of the body are sensitive to trace EMF energy sources, creating a structural complex of relatively thermodynamic mass containing pockets of relatively quantum biochemistry integrated by sustained radiation. EMF/quantum hybridization is likely responsible for our synthetic experience of qualia, how we perceive unfathomably minute and diverse fluctuating in environments as a perpetualized substrate, perturbed by its surroundings but never vanishing while we are awake and lucid, the essence of perceptual “stream of consciousness”. Nonlocal phenomena are ever underlying the macroscopic substance of qualitative consciousness, its EMF properties as well as bulked matter in which nonlocality is partially dampened, and quantum processes in cells interface perception instantiated in bodies with nonlocality of the natural world which is still enigmatic to scientific knowledge. Quantum features of biochemistry have likely been refined evolutionarily so that mechanisms by which relative nonlocality affects organisms, mechanisms of EMF/matter interfacing, mechanisms targeting particular environmental stimuli via functionally tailored pigments along with further classes of molecules and cellular tissues, and mechanisms for translation of stimulus into representational memory all became increasingly coordinated until an arrangement involving what we call ‘intentionality’ emerged, a mind with executive functions of deliberative interpretation and strategizing, beyond mere reflex-centric memory conjoined to stimulus/response. Qualitative consciousness precedes the degree of unification we experience as humanlike awareness, for qualia can exist and perform a functional role in consort with quantum effects and additional gradations of nonlocal reality while an organism is almost entirely lacking the centralized control we would classify as intention.

So basically in this account the brain is a complex cluster of waves that interfere, and these interferences adopt the form of shape, size, mass, weight...and "qualia" or superpositions. If the theory is accurate, qualia aren't an illusion, they're basic to the material world. If any of these concepts are difficult to grasp, I'll be happy to clarify. This has actually been discussed at length already at this forum. The following threads I posted might give you some ideas.

Qualia and Quantum Mechanics
Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, The Sequel
Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, the Reality Possibly

...To show a certain sequence converges one needs to show it is bounded, but the prove it is bounded reflects back to its convergence behavior. It looks like a step-by-step argument alternating between the two will be the ticket.) — jgill

That's exactly what experiment-based theorizing in science accomplishes. To see how it figures into my account of relative superposition amongst wavelengths and wavicles, give my most recent post in the "Anatomy of a Wave and Quantum Physics" thread a look. (Trying to get some more commentary on those ideas, which might associate in many ways with your guys' thread, though I haven't read much of this).

Instead of "spaceacceleration" the fifth dimension should be called acceleration density as I said. Thinking of how to graph it and the level of physical meaning this graph has. I'm going to run this by you guys, curious to get input, hopefully it will make some sense.


All mass basically consists in superposed wavelengths, for that's what gives its characteristic structure. As wavelengths flow through a region of mass, the value of the superposition changes and the rate and pattern of the wavelengths' motions change. A given region of wavelength values corresponds to mass and can be given as a two dimensional quantity or horizontal position, so an atom for instance would be like a small circular pattern on the horizontal plane, representing the superposed wavelengths oscillating and flowing in orbitals, and a light wave like a linear flow that can diffract around and travel through these relatively small or large superpositions of mass or merge with them to change their values. Different combinations of wavelengths have differing superposition effects, a phenomenon with parameters that would have to be derived from experiment.

Vertical position on the graph gives the relative velocity of mass in three dimensional space rather than the value of hybrid superpositions between wavelengths that compose the mass, and lesser velocity corresponds to higher vertical position, so that particles such as atoms are like small peaks with tiny valleys between them, a means of representing their wavicle nature, essentially amounting to the square of the wave function. As they move independently or in unison, and in response to perturbing wavelengths such as electromagnetic radiation, mass in the horizontal plane bobs up and down slightly.

The greater the speed at which superposed wavelengths move, the more the wave function drops in value, so the entire system is constantly flowing, swirling, bobbing in three dimensions like a body of water, with rate of motion corresponding to vertical depth, and relative plateaus in the horizontal plane corresponding to equilibrated matter (objects) at various scales.

What the graph does not represent is static shape, which is interpreted as an epiphenomenon of sense-perception rather than an intrinsic property of substance. So the graph portrays wavelength motion as fundamental to matter, and superpositions amongst wavelengths as equivalent to mass, while vertical change fractally represents the motion within and between objects, from subatomic wavicles to gravity waves at the galactic scale. It models how entanglement transcends Newtonian space and time, for wavelength motions in the valleys may be deep enough to rapidly flow back and forth while peaks such as particles and objects as traditionally construed are standing comparatively still or moving in different overall orientations, as a variant apparent causality.

Basically, its a topography of fluctuating rates of change in spacetime, which is what wavelength motion or "acceleration density" is, with spacetime itself represented as three dimensional.

In what measure does my explanation make sense or not make sense to you all?

What do you think of the idea that gravity isn't a force pulling mass towards the surface of the planet, but rather consists in gravitational wave interferences slightly compressing, in combination with many additional wave fields, the huge variety of interferences amongst what we consider massive substances into particular orientations within the global field, a process measured by us in terms of three dimensionality?

Topographical map, perhaps? If it is topological, what are the open sets? — jgill

I was confusing myself at this point, but think I'm finally getting my imagery figured out.

...perhaps quantum theory fails to synthesise with general relativity due to a lack of qualitative information in QM — Possibility

Think of a topographical map with waves flowing as peaks and valleys. This is the wavicle architecture of our spacetime universe, the mutating square of the wave function. As waves travel around and contours morph, masses and velocities change in complex patterns, with mass represented as horizontal position and velocity represented as vertical position.

Then imagine that the change in velocity is not linearly proportional to the change in vertical position, but some kind of exponential proportionality, so waves flowing in the valleys move many orders of magnitude faster than waves at the peaks. The peaks at some scales are like grains of sand, three dimensional particles, with some peaks changing at such a slow rate that they are like dry sand on the beach, and slightly lower peaks like sand being tossed by ocean waves. This is the portion of the image that corresponds to objects on the scale of the human body.

Then imagine waves deep in the valleys traveling at such a rapid rate, though this rate is fluctuating with contour (hence acceleration), that they interact thousands upon thousands of times before waves at the peaks have moved enough to even discern a causal relationship at that scale. This is entanglement, where the cause and effect from past to future in the quantum field valleys is so rapid that it transcends past to future in the particle peaks, amounting to synchronicity.

Then imagine that wavicles at the peaks can generate the effects in the valley by the way they move: this is what consciousness in organic matter does.

Then imagine that the spectrum of accelerating and decelerating velocity and wavelength is so vast that some of it operates upon the whole galaxy, while some of it operates only at the nanoscale. This is approximation to the infinitude of the wave, an almost fractal totality ranging from gravity waves to subatomic wavicles and perhaps much more.

Then imagine that when wavicles are close enough according to the criteria of mass (horizontal position), velocity (vertical position) and wavelength, they can spontaneously blend like visible colors, tonal harmonics, or the shapes of electron arrangements in molecules. This is superposition amongst entanglement, and it is responsible for chemistry, qualia, more rarely emergent qualitative experiencing, and rarer still a complex intentionality such as humans possess. But phenomenal experience and even intelligence can be produced in a plethora of ways besides brains, for the range of possible superpositions is gigantic.

Then imagine that mechanistic models based on this concept of acceleration density can allow wavicles at the peaks to move closer to the velocity of valleys at various scales than they would naturally, which might enable near instantaneous motion of many kinds of objects through space via technology.

That's what the acceleration density model allows us to visualize logically in the data, systematize and implement.

It already exists, it's called the Dirac equation, and he did get the Nobel prize (so you're right about that). It's general relativity that's proving a hassle. — Kenosha Kid

I explained general relativity as a quantum phenomenon of wavicle interactions in my quote. So I should get a Nobel prize!

As long as we're talking about credentials or lack thereof, what's your area of expertise? Curious who's lambasting me! It appears you're a mathematician, that's awesome!

Busting my balls because I'm not a specialist. Haven't you figured out that philosophers know everything? lol I'm going to be expecting that Nobel prize in the mail.

Did you even read it? It explains why planets and quantum fields appear to be spheres, and the observations of relativity from a quantum perspective of wavicle interactions. Put me in the history books! I didn't get trained in philosophy for nothing.

I have a quantum theory of relativity based on the concept of acceleration density (the spaceacceleration dimension lol), but its a thought experiment, not yet quantified and testable, though the amount of accurate and possible predictions that can be made with it proliferates exponentially. It synthesizes quantum mechanics, relativity theory and thermodynamics.

Since you're too lazy to do more than laugh, I'll point you towards the light.

The concept of acceleration density allows a simple qualitative synthesis of quantum mechanics with general relativity. All matter is made up of wavicle ensembles that interfere, which amounts to quantum fields within quantum fields, mixed and matched supradimensionally, with a fraction of these ensembles salient in various ways to human perception. The quantum field of the earth consists in a gargantuan range of ensembles and frequencies, some of which extend far beyond its surface. In general, the closer these ensembles are to the earth’s core, the more compact their acceleration densities and the stronger the force they exert on each other and their immediate surroundings, an outward thrust which is however partially resisted by a sort of surface tension that the greater amount of matter in outer regions of the spreading field reciprocally exerts, which does not constrain all of the wave but is sufficient to maintain Earth’s structural integrity in the atomic range of the spectrum. A portion of the quantum field that does apparently escape is gravity, and it exerts a force on objects within its range in proportion to how close to the core they are and thus subjected to higher acceleration density. A clock runs slower at lower altitude because the gravitational wave ensembles it is emulsed in have a higher acceleration density and thus are slightly more compact, causing a minuscule quantity of substance inertia due to permeating compression. — Enrique

The equations are drawn from a book by physicist Lee Smolin, he knows what he's talking about lol

Challenging to put what is essentially a five dimensional image into words, but its not just a meaningful theory, its the equivalent of Einstein's thought experiments into spacetime, making the next step to acceleration density. You may have been befuddled because I begin with talk of reality as if it is parameterized by perception, not always the easiest topic for someone who deals exclusively in the architecture of models, but I'm surprised it didn't make sense to you. I have an unorthodox writing style, maybe you got lost in the verbiage without getting a sense for the structure it is attempting to convey. You probably didn't read far enough or think deeply enough. These aren't all easily intuited ideas, and a substantial amount of philosophy is implicit in the background. Visualize asymmetric topology that flows at different rates within different locations in the system, with any particular location surrounded by variability, and the peaks moving many orders of magnitude slower than the valleys. Its relativity theory for wavicle mechanics. If you're familiar with pilot wave theory and collapse models, that might help to give the gist.

The theory I presented views nonlocality as approximated by the concept of an infinite wave, but the mathematical/structural cross section that interprets the causality into a particular frame of reference is five dimensional. Instead of spacetime, its a sort of spaceacceleration, which I call acceleration density. This accounts for the contours of rate that allow a single event to effect both the past and the future, also the emergence of order from chaos, the quantum foundations of general relativity's observings, and the compatibility of quantum mechanics with thermodynamics.

I don't characterize "will" or intrinsic motivity as fundamentally intentional, but it is psychoactive in a sense because qualia and emergent qualitative experience originate at the nanoscale, from superposed wavicle ensembles.

Could you please demonstrate this by jumping around and walking in dangerous places as cats do. I think that while cats do not have the ability to tell you about dimensionality, probably because of your lack of understanding their communication methods, they are certainly better adapted to spacial perception than humans.

Spatial reasoning? How does that help with the development of tools? — Sir2u

lol Jumping around and walking in dangerous places is made possible by phenomenal perception of dimensionality, not dimensional reasoning, different beasts. Cats have a body/mind awareness that rivals or surpasses humans in many respects, but their ability to scrutinize and figure out connections between technological objects as interrelationships of particulars is inferior. They don't have as well-developed a sense for how spatial details fit into a generalized conceptual picture, and that's what hominin and human reasoning accomplishes, allowing us to fashion technological items as hybrid structures and functions such that we can decimate animal populations with nonsustainable hunting and gathering while our populations grow unless we reflectively come up with better methods as per the origins of selective breeding and civilization.

Most of speech is not in the facial physique but in the throat, a person can still speak even without the lips and teeth. Monkeys have similar facial physique, but I have not heard many of them speaking. — Sir2u

The brain of a chimpanzee, one of our closest extant relatives, has its vocalization centers deep in the limbic system, so their reasoning is unintegrated with utterance. They don't have the synesthesia that in humans allows us to reason verbally. Hominins must have been somewhere in between as human language couldn't have assumed its modern form instantaneously, and similarity between the hominin and human throat supports this.

How are you using the word ecology here? I am not sure exactly how the first evidence of it could appear. — Sir2u

Evidence exists that prehistoric humans altered the Amazon River's course and cultivated the rainforest. That's ecological behavior, modifying nature to suit our purposes. I'm not familiar with the details, but you can research it.

Are you implying that historically mutated syntactical and semantic architectures were what engendered metaphysical thought? If that's the case, then you're developing an anthropological argument that re-traces the nascent birthplace of philosophy in the human mind. — Aryamoy Mitra

I think metaphysics is the outcome of schematic thinking, but why exactly those architectures that are generated by distinctly human reasoning were commonly reified as transcendental essence at the beginning of philosophy, whereas this takes place much less in contemporary reasoning, is a ponderable. It probably has something to do with the theory that languagelike expressions are approximating representations rather than direct correspondence, like in Ockhamism and scientific modeling. Maybe the transition from unconditional truth in metaphysics to conditional truth in epistemology was simply brought about by cognizance of historical transition, proving the mutability of these architectures and leading to methodologies of skepticism.

These are very cogently put forth thoughts on the metamorphosis of human imagination and expression, but what are their philosophical underpinnings? — Aryamoy Mitra

I think metaphysics is a reifying of schematic architecture as transcendental essence. Kantian Idealism located this architecture in the nature of the mind, identifying the schematization of reality as resulting from the essential structure of reason and perception, his conditions of the possibility of experience. 19th century philosophy of will contra being criticized the concept of essence as failing to reference anything actual, a la Nietzsche. The logical positivists sought a universal system and technical language for making valid propositions as we construct theories, an essential method for architecting fact-based inference, and like many of the Romantics they denied the validity of metaphysical propositions. As far as implications for philosophy, that's a start. I'd be curious to know what you guys think the contemporary situation in philosophy is with this interpretation of the discipline's history in mind.

I think the following addresses all these objections, but of course debate is welcome, that's the whole idea!

A housecat, regardless of what it hears or how well it understands what you're saying to it, can only think in such a way that it vocalizes in short phrases such as "meow". It also perceives dimensionality, but this is not as capable as in humans, for cats commonly can't tell that your hand or an object you are holding is attached to you.

Hominins were obviously much more able than housecats in both of these areas, dimensional awareness and linguistic expressiveness, but excelled most with dimensionality. Their spatial reasoning could craft effective tools of many kinds, they could figure out how to catch most available prey and adapt clothing to varying climates, essentially utilizing wilderness environments technologically such that a correlated decline in biodiversity throughout the hominin range is revealed by paleontology. Their phrases and maybe sentences, while probably not a humanlike train of thought that can spout fluent and complex verbal reasoning for hours, must have been more detailed in its expressiveness than housecats and somewhat syntactical, for they had the facial physique for humanlike speech.

The hominin ability to express and think verbally must have been far inferior to Homo sapiens because they left no archaeological evidence of intricate symbolism. Hominin clans were not artistic like human cultures, and I assert the evolution of symbolic language was a bridge to symbolic expressiveness generally, the missing link between technological creativity and technological artistry. By some kind of incremental process, narrative meaning led all of reality to become saturated with suprafunctional meaning, evidenced by the arrival of myth and decorative symbolism. Symbolic culture went from nonexistent in hominins to the core of social life in humans, and narrative thinking is fundamental to this expressiveness.

Facility with expressive thought gradually increased as early humans spent much of their time engaging in speech acts, a social selection pressure for language. This kind of thinking, the symbolic sequentiality I talked of, integrated to a modest degree with the rest of the brain as it progressed evolutionarily, but a huge leap forward occurred no earlier than fifty thousand years ago when some major synesthesias with object dimensionality developed. This is the synthetic abstraction I was talking about. Before these mutational events, the genus thought in syntax and reasoned about spatial proportionality, but afterwards, cognitively modern humans did much more than intuit the nature of simple causes and uses for objects. They could trace the shape of purely imagined form to a limitless degree while speaking, as if object-concept expressions interconnect within huge schematic architectures, what some philosophers have called conceptual frameworks. It is subsequent to this that the first evidence of ecology appeared, particularly cultivation of the Amazon rainforest, and eventually civilization.

Schematic form is still the foundation for managing logistics of civilization today, vastly improved by way of cumulative culture. Once the mutations took effect, humans weren't even on the same spectrum as housecats or hominins anymore. As far as I know, its impossible so far to place these events on a precise timeline, but this was the likely sequence. Kind of a Jungian-Darwinian theory of human origins.

turgid prose... — Banno

True, glad you pointed that out, I improved the phrasing. Still all a work in progress.

How do you parameterize how chronological short term memory is? — Aryamoy Mitra

I replaced "chronologicality" with "consecution", I think that better captures what I'm getting at: the monologue.

I think the condition for complex language is detailed perception of the interface between body and environment, also the opportunity to think recreationally. Animals have no need to express what is already within their minds in a finely tuned way if they are merely feeding, mating, herding, flocking, fleeing etc., and no inclination to linguistically express what is in the external environment unless they are engaging in reflection while interacting with it. Reflectiveness only emerges when recreation is such that a species has the opportunity to think for prolonged stretches, and reflection only becomes linguistic when synesthesia synchronizes numerous physiological processes, such as conceptualizing, those responsible for basic self and socializing, coordination of the tongue, mouth and throat, nuanced recognition of features in the external environment, the bodily structures which allow an organism to interact with the environment, and inducement of pleasurable affect by all of this, a rare convergence of factors. The only species for which this confluence has in some measure emerged are probably songbirds, dolphins and humans.

For many millions of years, songbirds have had recreational time to stretch their ability to sing, an intricate sense for the structure of objects due to nest-building, grasping, flitting around in trees and navigating long distances, also a social lifestyle, so their small brains were gradually reconfigured for expressing simple concepts of what surrounds them with a complex, rapid fire syntax.

Dolphins move with a fast coordination that is somewhat inferior to birds, are highly recreational and social, and have a capable awareness of external objects due to echolocation, so their much larger brains mutated over many millions of years towards more complex expressing, giving each other names and such with a better than average syntax that is not quite on the level of songbirds or humans.

Brains of the primate lineage have been naturally selected to carry out complex maneuvering amongst objects and fine grasping for fifty million years. Hominids somehow mutated towards bipedalism, probably allowing them to carry loads, and this constant interaction between the body and objects, combined with opposable thumbs and a relatively intelligent brain, led to extremely perceptive awareness of details in the external environment. Hominids were highly social, and hominins probably became more recreational than any other species as their improving reason mastered the immediate demands of environments, which among additional factors drove the lineage towards expressing a huge range of technological object-concepts, the largest vocabulary of any organisms by far, together with a self and socially stimulating facility in syntactical inventiveness comparable to songbirds. For humans, expressive socializing ascended towards a mimetic culture that seems to far exceed any known species.

This is where the synesthesias of abstraction I was talking about come into the picture: prehistoric humans eventually did not participate in expressive reflection and object reflection separately, but instead hybridized these abilities in a system-building reflection of infinitely generative form, allowing them to integrate vast amounts of knowledge into an episteme, which gave rise to mimetically technological culture sufficient for civilization. Humans became philosophically introspective like you and me, dreaming up metaphysical and then epistemological systems. And then we manufactured AI and got eaten.

THE END lol

Yeah, it might be hard to read on a mobile device, but if you decide to go for it, we should discuss!

You can still read selections at the website philosophyofhumanism.com without a download if you want an alternative, its got almost all the same material as blog postings.

Well I guess the next question becomes, what have been some of your inventive insights? — Yodaondoda

A good start is the application of quantum mechanics to consciousness theory, in particular an explanation of qualia, the basic elements of qualitative experience. I posted a brief chapter from my book (all at wordpress.com), The Nature and Human Impact of Qualia, as OP of the "Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, the Reality Possibly" thread at this forum, followed by some elaborating discussion with a few folks. The chapters Quantum Biology (descriptions of some recent research), Orthodoxies and Revolutions in the Science of Human Perception (gets into some interesting epistemology towards the end), and The Origins and Evolution of Perception in Organic Matter (narrative outline of the nervous system's evolutionary development) provide the neuroscience fundamentals.


As for the evolution of reasoning or "conception", a few chapters of my book give a comprehensive theory.

The Basic Epistemology and Origins of Rational Conception is an intro to the topic. Some of the material is mundane preliminaries, but towards the middle and end I get into more interesting stuff. If you're already well-versed in philosophy, it can probably be browsed or skipped altogether.

Then the following chapters give the details:

1. Humanity and the Evolutionary Phenomenology of Preanthromorphic Cognition

2. Phylogenetic Factors and Evolutionary Origins of Humanity's Language and Conception

3. The Evolution from Precivilized to Civilized Human Conception

4. The Evolution of Intellectualized Conception and Discourse in Western Civilization

I know some of those titles are a mouthful, but its not especially difficult to follow.


That's some of the inventive stuff. Basically the book is a holistic synthesis of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, etc.

I find the topics of discussion you bring up to be fairly interesting in themselves, but despite several attempts I just can’t be bothered wading through your writing to find your point. If this OP is you being succinct, then I’m afraid it’s as clear as mud. — Possibility

Many of the posts I make at this forum are short excerpts from my book or summaries to get some entertaining informal discussion going. They're presented outside of the full context, so don't really stand alone, but a decent conversation prompt for casual purposes. Usually looking for a debate, and raising more uncertainty than I resolve is a great way of getting unexpected insights from you guys.

Anyone who would like to read my book, its not quite finished, and a couple sections of the almost final copy are only available at wordpress.com . Clicking on the link in the OP of this thread, then the link in my "Book Excerpt" blog post, then the "save" icon in the window that comes up will get you a large portion of the book as a PDF file for FREE.

You've given us a history yes, but I guess what I want to know is why I should read your book rather than any other historical account. After all, what is the purpose of a discussion on something all of us agree on? — Yodaondoda

I'm usually trying to assemble cohesive narratives of historical development, so when all the subject matter is put in sequence some of it is simply common sense and some highly unintuitive. Universal and unusual insights are grouped together into a single chronology, and parts are meant to merely provide a foundation of common knowledge, stuff most of us know on some level, upon which the novel material is built. I imagine that when reading the book, it will seem to be stating the obvious at moments, but with plenty of inventive insights along the way as well.

So what does your book give us? If you could sum up why we should read your book, what new insights can we glean? Is there an overall message? A theme that courses through the book to the end? — Philosophim

The book is a comprehensive account of consciousness theory, social theory, and the theory of evolution, a synthesis of the sciences and the humanities. It welds all of academia into a single theoretical paradigm with suggestions for new interdisciplinary areas of research and strategies for cultural development. I'm not a professional author, I confess, so it might be slightly rough around the edges at times (though really not difficult to follow I think), but no one has written anything quite like it before. The subsections addressing the evolutionary development of cognition are completely original to my knowledge: "Advanced Theory of Perception" and "Advanced Theory of Conception".

Just get me a damn escort, if its got to be a dominatrix I can live with that lol

Subjectivity does not equal freedom. Further, where did you get this idea of "willpower" being the agent of renovation? Your conclusion is mistaken. If humans progress it will be because they figured out how to produce quality (healthy humans) at the level of individual development. The good news is, we have done this and are continuing to do it. — JerseyFlight

Isn't optimizing willpower, the range of opportunity available to human selves, the means to produce healthy individuals capable of quality, actualized thinking and living? Seems to me that figuring out how to improve society requires competency in managing one's agency, not entirely or even primarily personal, granted, but certainly a matter of promoting freedom and independence. A reductionistic philosophical outlook toxically bolstered by rhetorical encouragement to reify seems like a driving force behind division and ossification into noncollaborative ideological camps, and this obstinacy of viewpoint is perhaps one of the biggest stumbling blocks to reasoned progress. Have we overcome this in the contemporary era, with any disagreements of doctrine or paradigm a superficiality and civilized improvement inhibited more by some alternate dynamic?

A nest-building bird that followed a procedure mechanically -- add a piece to what we have so far by entwining it in a certain way, leaving ways to use it for the next bit, and preserving a local curvature of such-and-such -- could consistently produce nests with no knowledge of the overall shape its procedure leads to — Srap Tasmaner

The fact is that birds are subjectively experiencing in relatively intention-rich ways - anyone who has closely observed nature absolutely can't deny this (that's why birdwatching is an entertaining hobby) - and a bird has experienced living in a nest its whole life. So not just biochemical and physiological drive predispose a bird for nest construction, but also years of perceiving what a nest's structure and function is. A bird has got to be as familiar with its nest as we are with our houses, a hybrid of memories, proprioception, exteroception and qualia in general.

Natural selection is a partial cause in the origins and development of a behavior, so it holds explanational weight, but experience is also an integral cause regardless of how we manage to explain it. Natural selection has to act on something more immediate than phenotypic evolution over thousands of generations or missing links for complex brains/behaviors wouldn't exist, and that entity is the perpetually sustained modularity of consciousness. I find it impossible that a bird has no sense for how the properties of what it is doing fit together, that is the implausible perspective, or else why would it independently choose to build its nest in a particular location, at a particular time of year, according to an extremely selective template of materials, etc. - in conjunction with such diverse contexts? Doesn't mean its awareness and motivation are precisely analogous to the human variety, but seems to me that independent, spontaneous, complex choice is an unmistakable sign of basic logic or 'protologic', the perceived/intuited bifurcation of substance, which admittedly is somewhat anthrocentrically expressed when calling it 'part/whole' dichotomy, as if humanlike generalization. But every idea is at least slightly anthrocentric, and in this case I think negligibly so.

The biological boundary between the logic of hardwired perceptual awareness, extremely widespread, and the somewhat more rarified logic of conceptual plasticity is interesting to consider. At what point or in what contexts is qualitative consciousness present but almost completely reflexive? I think it is obvious that the dividing line resides far below cognitive faculties of birds.

Exactly how does wisdom develop in a society focused on technology but not wisdom? — Athena

I'll break up this little shindig and say that I've come to think the solution lies in an analysis of the past, giving objectivity a cogent historical dimension. I think this is what can disrupt the toxic inclination of instrumentalist culture to neglect its influence upon human nature. The deconstructionists were probably pioneers in this regard, but the analyticity of it all got diluted by wishywashy extreme relativism arising from unphilosophical science, as in history from my distinct personal perspective as a b.s. elective, unintegrated with an accounting of technical causality. Some great books about the history of science have come out recently that describe its social context, and that I think is the best approach, factually showing the motivational dynamics associated with modern knowledge's development and how actualizing responsible humanism and paradigmal consciousness-raising can be, a kind of positivistic cultural narrative.

I side more with Harry Hindu regarding the basics of logic. I think a chimpanzee's ability to make logiclike differentiations amongst perceptions isn't fundamentally different from human beings, but the sphere of qualitative phenomena its logical or "protological" mind is molded to focus on and intuit about differs, and attention span as partially driven by intentionality may also be somewhat inferior. My post is probably way too long for this forum, but perhaps it decisively resolves the issue, so why not? You guys dig philosophy, maybe you'll read it. And its not really THAT long. If any of the terminology is mystifying, the OP of my Categories of Human Thought thread probably clarifies. Go ahead and critique any of it you want!


Like humans, songbirds have facility with structure concepts, for they erect nests that are intricate masses of sticks and brush, clearly envisioning how parts fit together as a whole. Beavers display a similar behavioral repertoire when they build dams, squirrels as they construct their abodes, and even though many of the more highly cognitive mammals have much different ways of obtaining shelter, perhaps merely digging and adorning a hole in the ground, the modest adaptability each of these organisms have to differing times and places over the span of their lives and ranges entails at least rudimentary protomechanistic reasoning from novel cause to imagined effect. In what measure this springs from linkages between cognitive centers of structural and linear protologicality in other species besides humans is unknown, but if there is any analogizability it is obvious that humans are far superior in this regard. Our species adapts protologically structural thinking to vastly more and larger scale material contexts, and humanity’s abstract (extrapolative and interpolative) inferencing in the domains of both sign and image symbolism is much more capable. Even children of average intelligence catch on to the infinitely recursive nature of numeral systems after exposure to sequences of only a few numbers, and have no trouble incorporating these linguisticlike concepts as quantitative labels for the proportions and additional basic properties of shapes. Chimpanzees, our closest hereditary relatives, can do a biologically respectable job of object manipulation as adults if utility for behaviors such as food-acquisition becomes apparent, but applying abstract signs to figures, then deriving mathematical principles according to which these figures are systematically permuted in infinitely variable ways, a purely conceptual language of objects, is completely beyond them.

Expressive intentionality of the human psyche has its evolutionary roots in ancestral species’ aptitude for symbolic recognitions, evinced by thousands of additional biological lineages as well. Even moderately advanced cognition can experience numerous phenomenal attributes as symbolic of causal properties in the environment, learning, predicting, putting two and two together by inspection of indirect evidence. Organisms pick up on each other’s scents, tracks, sounds and so on, from which is constructed a mental model of behavioral tendencies, whether for hunting, eluding predation, or seeking an intraspecies social opportunity. Likewise, weather and the body’s own homeostatic states signal seasonal exigency, inducing activities such as migration and hibernation that are carried out with greater survival-related efficiency and success when an animal’s thinking is more capable. To illustrate this, we can simply compare a Monarch butterfly to a grizzly bear: these butterflies manage to migrate thousands of miles, completely beyond the capacity of a bear species that, for analogous purposes, can do no more than hole up in the vicinity, but the ascendance of grizzly intelligence was such that this animal became almost impervious to death by either starvation or violence, its food-finding and danger avoidance being rather cunning and resourceful, while thousands upon thousands of Monarchs die each year from a relative absence of foresight. In general, an individual mammal’s prospects prove better than an insect’s with its much smaller brain, for implications of relevant environmental patterns and perception generally are in the former case more interpretable.

The primary precondition for graduating from recognition of attributes as symbols to symbolic expression is of course robust intentionality. Intention evolved as mode selecting awareness for internal control of brain states, empowering the mind to align with environments in more context-sensitive ways while also starting to place further checks on the reflexivity of stimulus/response, beyond simple sensitization and habituation, so that delayed gratification in service of more causally efficacious outcomes became possible along with diversification in the repertory of behaviors, altogether increasing adaptability of individual organisms to variabilities and nuances of circumstance. Attention span and improvisational thought advanced in some species until a sort of primordial introspection arose, which assessed cause and effect entirely absent environmental cuing, by self-directed conception conjoined to perceptual stream of consciousness.

In most natural settings, strong selection pressures are exerted on the introspectively problem-solving self to target particular practical objectives, whether of feeding, mating, sheltering, safety, etc., limiting the creativity of most organisms. This is clear from observation of how vocalizing bird species have a more economical range of calls when their lives are spent in the wilderness, deprived of the ample food and relative security usually afforded by close contact with humans. Cognition in these cases is honed for a lifecycle of overriding material requisites, with libido canalized almost exclusively towards particular functional needs. When introduced to captivity, provided that basic essentials are readily accessible and stressors as well as other preoccupations minimized, many of these birds start to sing more inventively, as if entertaining themselves during idle stretches by novel riffing. We of course see the same phenomenon in our pets, albeit often less related to conceptualization: when certain dog breeds are left to their own devices, they incessantly chew for no purpose but recreation; some cats will paw a toy mouse around the room and repeatedly pounce to mimic the pleasure of hunting; a hamster has great fun mock scurrying on its wheel. Offering pets diversions that have no problem-solving stipulations places little strain on their cognition, so that domesticated recreating does not perforce incline towards extraordinary intelligence, but in order for a wild animal to come upon the same level of open-ended idle time, it must be smart enough to have mastered its environment. There is much besides an organism’s wits that figures into this type of behavioral supremacy, such as sparsities of both threat and deprivation due to size, speed or group congregation, but when some or all of these factors happen to intersect with substantive introspection potential, the devotion of libido to self-amusement of peak imaginativeness along with physiological dynamics such as neoteny can select for evolution of an identity-complex in the organism’s mind, a self-awareness constructed from keenly observing and reflecting upon its own experience.

The Homo genus was quite sophisticated in this respect, harnessing nature in biologically unprecedented ways with a commanding technological insightfulness. Consciousness in these species was becoming able to discriminate more obscure relationships between many kinds of phenomena by introspection-informed observation of immediate patterns in perceptual content within an expanding framework of structural protologicality. Hominin minds simultaneously moved ever closer to conceptually resolving linear protologicality into the narrative thought process of explicit expressiveness we know as logical inferencing, which would one day interface written symbolism and structural abstraction within a culture of rationalist empiricism in order to disseminate high technology worldwide, thus far the apex of humanity’s self-aware competency for analyzing and utilizing environments. But before all of this possibility could be realized, the human race had to evolve its archetypical language faculties.

The key physiological factor was evolution of brain regions that interface cognition with vocalizing for the sake of articulated utterance, what we know as speech. This mental scaffolding that fine-tuned unconscious processing, intentional thinking, the forms and modes of meaningful statements, and facial coordination to complement each other during acts of verbalizing is of course exceptionally versatile, adopting a plethora of different configurations depending on expressive context, the heterogeneous reality of which formal grammar and analysis of logical argument do not even begin to capture. At base, this structural parameterization is made up of an intuitive grammar roughly divided into conventional parts of speech with very flexible attachment to meaning in many cases, and a sort of expression-centric formulating of protologicality, distantly approximated by the basics of formal logic. A satisfactory theorizing of these underlying structures calls for punctilious research on a level that linguists have probably not yet even dabbled in, a task for science of the future.

Individual and relationship psychology most likely contributed to the evolution of language in multiple ways. First, basic desire to vocalize is of course necessary, a characteristic shared with thousands upon thousands of nonhuman species. The Homo genus must have begun reflecting on its own vocal behavior as it became more thoughtful and introspective, resulting in primordial cognizance of utterance’s structure and eventually an implicit awareness of expressive sound as involving something like technicalities, which caused the patterns of utterance to grow more consistent. Conceptualizing of utterances as a sort of phenomenal object and then a construction took hold, so that articulation acquired greater aesthetic impact, with more pleasurable, skillful, difficult and beautiful expression held in higher esteem, impressions no doubt stimulating much mimesis in prehistoric clans and tribes. At this point, two simultaneous threads of evolutionary development must have been in effect: the most functionally and aesthetically popular of these species’ expressive tendencies unfolded in a train of progressive social conventions, advancing language as technological and artistic protoculture, while any mutations conferring superior expressive ability would have quickly and dramatically improved language via behavioral mimesis. Thus, reflective observation, aesthetic sensibility, cognitive mutation, imitation and protocultural traditionalizing moved the Homo genus towards linguistic communication, a behavioral trait that is crucial to anatomically modern Homo sapiens’ higher cultures and which likely played a primary role in bridging the gap to our much more expressively symbolic ways of life.

The first semblance of human language was probably short declarative statements, then rudimentary conversation which hominins and early Homo sapiens took part in primarily as recreational diversion. With humans at least, expression became elaborate enough in its structure to permit storytelling, and the constructing of narrative is of course a core feature of not just casual but more ceremonious forms of socializing, with many prehistoric and historic tales alike serving as culture-defining myths, ritualistically retold, reenacted, shared for millennia as part of basic public consciousness. At the same time as intention to express oneself and the values of one’s culture molded verbalization, speech acts likewise selected for the structure of thought. Linear protologicality of the introspective mind grew increasingly organized while it interacted with linguistic behavior, perceived more and more as chains of discrete syntagma within definite yet infinitely generative meaning. The open-ended iterativity of narrational sound thus coevolved with a cognitively internalized knack for complementary iterative conceptualizing, the abstractional apprehension of languagelike symbolic sequences and further distributional arrangements of symbols in the form of more habile inferencelike extensionalizing and eventually infinite schemas. This affinity for the abstract ultimately prompted humans to invent infinitely generative writing systems, a seminal technical method of civilization.

One of the most significant benefits accrued from linguistic behavior was greater flexibility in the boundaries of social relationships. Full-bodied language made thinking of almost any complexity or novelty provisional of being expressed with explicitness, while simultaneously generating conditions under which unprecedented thoughts and behaviors are admissible. Human bonding does not merely rally around collective recognition of psychologically obvious means by which to satiate basic drives, such as in hunting, self-defense, mating, familial caretaking or additional relatively compulsion-based activities, in essence crude practical need, but conveys concepts and reflects upon the insights of fellow individuals via the medium of language in a cerebrality and tolerance for comprehensional difficulty or obscurity that is unparalleled by organic life on our planet. Even the most arcane experiencing can diffuse into the general cultural milieu as humans attempt to express entirely unconventionalized and even nonfunctional ideations, with brute negative feedback attenuated by the more intellectualized prerogative of linguistic discoursing, so that groundrules of mutuality do not inhibit independence and diversity necessary for the highest level reasoning. Humans are highly innovative while nonetheless managing to subsist in extremely normalized, eons-old communities.

Convening the whole of human cognizing towards collective purposes succeeded in tightly binding individuals of prehistoric clans and tribes on numerous experiential planes: members of our species were not only drawn together by feeding, reproduction and protection, but also from out of more conceptual communality such as shared beliefs, spiritual and symbolic rites, gods, technological methods and inventiveness, rituals of many kinds, conversational fraternizing, context-variant manners and mores, all inculcated by way of teaching, learning and reflecting over the span of decades and centuries. This arranging of human life by biologically precocious cognition kept tribes close-knit even as languages and traditions underwent evolutionary drift, which was a huge boon to in-group solidarity, but also a driving force for rapid divergence of separate cultures, so that when human communities lost contact, they could arrive at discrepancies in conceptualizing, expression and practice bordering on incompatibility within only several generations. This was a blessing and a curse, for human decision making and behavior are massively adaptable, but we can tend towards misunderstanding, obstinacy and confrontation during the preliminary stages of intergroup interactions.


I think this explains in a general way the evolutionary period between pre-Homo sapiens protologicality and the uniquely linguistic, creative protological capacities of anatomically modern, prehistoric humans. Agree?

Are you aware of the New Left’s criticism of the Enlightenment under the heading of ‘the dialectics of the enlightenment’? It’s well worth being acquainted with. There’s a useful encyclopaedia entry on it here, particularly the criticism of the instrumentalisation of reason. — Wayfarer

I wrote an essay which touched upon what basically amounts to instrumentalization in the medical field, something I have all too much familiarity with. I think a reductionism vaguely related to both mechanistic materialism and the oversimplifications of social contract theory is instrumentalist reason's go to means of clandestine ideological manipulation, and in psychiatry it can be almost malicious by effacing the real experiences of patients with pathologizing labels that amount to delusional rationalizing. If you don't make an appropriate first impression, have adequate social supports, or as in my case major shit goes down, the superficial mechanistic materialist/social contract delusion can creep into place as the parameters of discourse and your actual reality becomes the alleged delusion.


Analysis of brain function by neurology provides much firmer foundation for unveiling certain unintuitive aspects of human cognition, in particular those that manifest as nearly reflexive. This is a more narrowly focused objectivity viewing the psyche primarily in the context of biochemically salient causes and unmistakable behaviors. Unfortunately, neuroscience often fails to acknowledge many of the relative deviancies in human consciousness, restricting its subordinate analysis of qualitative experience to models that are extremely neutral or mainstream culturally. It tends to neglect politically controversial fact-gathering and fall victim to paradigmal fads, often generating or reinforcing prejudices in relation to gender, sexuality, intelligence and sanity among additional domains. Emphasis in psychology shifted from investigating and relieving the sufferings of those with neurosis to talk therapy assistance in coping with ordinary life stressors such as divorces or temporary trauma on the one hand and treating supposed underlying physical causes on the other.

The psyche itself was downplayed in favor of physiological and biochemical interventions, with counseling becoming a normative influence to more or less snap patients out of it into typical behavior or superficially mitigate their troubled minds, and everything extraordinarily difficult assigned to medicine. Diagnostic categories steadily multiplied, with psychology becoming a rather careless, experimental social engineering project as opposed to an empirical pursuit for enriching theory and truth, more about defining what is or is not wrong with patients in bulk than developing better accounts of what is going on in particular minds, though the field still has a sizable remainder of something to contribute.

With both good and bad outcomes, many individuals rely on the mental health field, if only to lend relatively rare mental traits or traumatic experiential backgrounds a legitimized social niche so these patients can be in good standing and participate culturally, working, forming relationships, generally having resources to combat adriftedness and discrimination. Physically reductionistic theorizing has been revealing and its applications to treatment consistently improve, but is also constricting or even dangerous when its materialistic approximations prove broadly invasive to or dismissive of cultural construction and unfathomed depth of the psyche, an ongoing struggle for balance within the institution of healthcare.


The danger is always that healthy reasoning will veer into the domain of socially destructive rationalizing, and I think this is obviously rampant in most cultural settings, a possibility for harm which instrumentalist positivism chronically neglects, exploits or even foments. It seems that humans sometimes have this weird compulsion to displace the interpretation of what is happening to them into fallacy, and these delusional rationalizations can achieve almost total memetic and psychological conquest in the absence of critical theory of the kind that the humanities concern themselves with. Its almost like the European Enlightenment became an ideological delusion to shield unmitigated power-seeking, based in an outlook on human nature that is good as an idealistic starting point but horrific as a disingenuous constraint on discourse, and our species is essentially in the process of reacting to Enlightenment ideals as if a psychosocial allergy (undoubtedly in consort with many additional factors).

That's one possible interpretation, it could certainly be argued against.

Even at the secondary school level, core competencies are deteriorating. — Pantagruel

I know, intellectuality in mainstream culture these days is battle rapping with multiple accents. Nothing at all wrong with that, just sayin' everyone should also be allowed to read a book.

I've reflected some more since then, and came up with a theory that I posted as the OP of this thread: Categories of Human Thought. It's not the full deal, only an excerpt, but I'd be interested to see you guys discuss the terminology etc. How convincing do you find it? Any obvious flaws?

Was Friedrich Nietzsche for or against Nihilism? — hallaellerenna

The way I see it, Nietzsche essentially viewed nihilism as a naturalistic phenomenon, not inherently good, evil, or bad, merely a fact of the modern world. He analyzed the implications of this psychosocial trait for the course of culture as a philologist who wasn't meek about making radical assertions. The problem is that his philosophical approach adopts highly incendiary interpretive postures, kind of like a will to values, which perhaps were meant to induce decisive confrontation with truth in readers or even just entertain himself, and these are frequently in contradiction. He went so far as to say from out of his extreme relativism that "these are my truths". His literary style is emotionally charged, and its often not a healthy emotion. He had some amazing and deep insights, but amusing oneself by totally confusing the casual reader and making his audience want to get up and run around on the ceiling isn't probably the best strategy. His theories are notorious for being abused because of shallow comprehension and in some cases almost malicious indecipherability.

So the question is, "relative" to what? Let's say that from a specific frame of reference, a particular state appears to be an equilibrate state. How would such a judgement be made, the state would appear to be equilibrate in relation to what? — Metaphysician Undercover

In this schema, matter is equilibrated or not relative to what surrounds it, and the structural context of substance as such is essentially nonlocal in some way, with Earth's aggregate "thermodynamic" mass being a special case of what we partially intuit in association with proprioception, affect, etc. as relative locality. But thermodynamic decoherence is not absolute, with all matter probably having a degree of coherence, somewhat analogous to gap junctions that connect the body's cells, so that nonlocality "flows" supradimensionally in a multitude of extremely diverse ways that transcend Newtonian physics, inducing quantumlike weirdness varying at least slightly for each instantiation of substance.

We have tapped into quantum tunnelling/entanglement in a big way with our technology. So it has certainly been delved into deeply. — apokrisis

The wave nature of electrical conductance such as takes place in a copper wire is one type of quite local nonlocality, kind of a borderline case. A pebble sitting on the ground is extraordinarily local relative to most matter. And the human body is a complex hybrid of all sorts of relative locality and nonlocality, with the distinctively "quantum" dynamics which participate in nanoscale biochemistry being exceedingly nonlocal in contrast to many organic mechanisms, though highly constrained by surrounding relative locality compared to a substance instantiation such as perhaps the Earth's atmosphere.

By what principle could we judge that there is any such thing as matter? Or is matter simply imaginary? — Metaphysician Undercover

The common sense definition of matter is probably "sense-perceptual substance", with heavy influence from the scientific materialist paradigm. As quantum phenomena and nonlocality increasingly contribute to our theoretical models of reality, the concept of matter will change.

The difference with biosemiosis is that instead of assuming that the substrate of nature is this mechanically definite stuff - stable substantial atoms of matter - the ground of being is instead a fundamental uncertainty or chaos. A quantum potential. So machinery is something that has to be built on wobbly foundations. Machinery in fact exists only if it can constrain or stabilise its own foundations. — apokrisis

The biosemiosis perspective is similar to mine because it is based on the same empirical evidence. The slight difference is that I view this underlying substrate as not unformed, homogeneous chaos, but a substance with complex patterns of supradimensional flux we have not yet even approached modeling, a theoretical enigma that probably operates according to alternate principles as richly heterogeneous as those of ecosystems.

Decoherence properties of the body's aggregate thermodynamic mass constrain this more fundamental mystery stratum of substance so that it interfaces with molecular machinery primarily at the nanoscale, but that amounts to trillions and trillions of pockets of quantum causality in a terrestrial lifeform, which make nonlocality the predominant ingredient in many facets of the organic world, a reality we have not yet deeply tapped into scientifically and technologically.

I think of the distinctly thermodynamic realm for which the planet's biology has partially adapted as highly specific to our Newtonian spatiotemporal frame of reference, exaggerated as a cultural construct in line with its crucial importance for the multibillion year hereditary persistence of our lineage in the presence of wilderness catastrophes: starvation, inclement weather, predator/prey interactions, illness, etc. But in relation to the entirety, spatiotemporality is almost like a film of algae on an ocean of nonlocality, and quantum mechanics is only beginning to gain naturalistic access via investigating some of the so-called quantum pockets, in enzyme catalysis, photosynthesis, perception and elsewhere.

Quantum biology is the initial stage of a scientific revolution as huge as the Renaissance!

In a good conductor like copper, the electrons themselves move a short distance at a drift speed of 1% the speed of light and the resulting wave or pulse at about 90% the speed of light. — apokrisis

I get the impression from a small amount I've read about semiconductors that the mechanism of "wave" propagation might amount to quantum tunneling/entanglement. Electrical wiring of course isn't pure metal but also includes constituent oxide binding agents at the tips (or something like that), and it has been suggested that conductance quantum tunnels through the oxide films.