The observer holds a very important role for science since observation is key to the successful predictions of science. Yet there exists a dichotomy in science between the reality for two different observers; reality for a classical observer versus reality for a quantum observer. This conundrum is very deeply embedded into science today and is the reason that there is no common basis for gravity and charge, which is called the hierarchy problem in science.
A fundamental difference between gravity and charge is that while there is always an exactly knowable cause for every effect of classical gravity, there are not always exactly knowable causes for any quantum effects. Quantum states can exist as superpositions of amplitude and phase while amplitude and phase have no meaning for classical states. As a result, a classical observer sees a different reality from a quantum observer. Below is an example of the two different observers who intend to wander through one of two doors and bond to a source on the other side. The classical observer’s goal is never really precise because footsteps are not precise but the classical observer does end up bonded to a source in one place or the other and also remembers which door they came through.
The quantum observer has many more possible futures and yet may still not be able to remember the actions of exactly which door they actually took or even why they chose the door they chose.
An observer wanders toward the goal of bonding to a source by using two fundamentally different math laws to predict the future of that source. A classical observer predicts a determinate albeit somewhat chaotic path for a goal with the science of general relativity. In contrast, a quantum observer predicts many possible entangled paths and goals for quantum bonding to the same source. Each footstep involves quantum and gravity bonding and debonding until the final step bonds to the goal. The noise of classical chaos for macroscopic action usually masks the decoherence of quantum phase noise and so a classical observer can argue endlessly with a quantum observer about the uncertainty of determinate macroscopic action like a footstep. However, microscopic action can often show very little classical noise and therefore it is in the microscopic domain that quantum observers wander toward the mysteries of many possible quantum goals.
For any macroscopic person, quantum phase noise is a very small fraction of classical chaos noise and so a person’s quantum interference pattern given two possible futures is very short range. This just means that the quantum observer’s goal is nearly as imprecise as the classical observer even though a quantum observer still includes many more possible futures due to the coherence of quantum phase noise. For a pure quantum observer, phase noise dominates over classical chaos and as a result, a quantum observer may not remember which door exactly, just which door was most likely. In fact, quantum phase noise is still what makes the nature of neural choice a mystery.
It is very ironic that given classical cause and effect, it is the classic observer that points the arrow of time with the determinate paths of GR geodesics sources where choice is no mystery. The quantum observer wanders toward many more possible quantum goals along indeterminate paths and some quantum paths actually go back in classical time and exactly reverse the classical action of a source. This confuses a quantum observer about the arrow of time while a classical observer is never confused about cause and effect and the arrow of time.
Entropy is a measure of randomness and points a classical arrow of time since a classical observer calculates just one entropy as the straightforward logarithm of all possible future states, S = ln w. There is only one classical entropy and classical entropy always increases and therefore reliably points the arrow of time. Classical entropy is the same for both matter and action and since there are always more possible futures in the constant mass of an expanding universe, the increasing entropy of an expanding universe action points the arrow of time.
Classical entropy does still confuse classical observers, though, since the universe actually seems to evolve into more organized and lower entropy states despite an overall increase in entropy with the arrow of time. Stars by a large form from the chaos of hydrogen gas, galaxies form from the chaos of stars, and life forms from the chaos of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water.
A broken egg never reassembles itself into a whole egg and that is a statement of the inexorable increase of classical entropy. The chicken that produced the egg, though, continues to evolve as a species and so the futures of chickens and eggs are all affected by any one egg that has broken. Since the broken egg did not result in a new chicken, it is the eggs that hatch into chickens that drive a decrease in classical entropy that we call life's evolution.
In contrast to a classical egg, which is always either whole or broken, a quantum egg also exists for some very short time as a superposition of unbroken and broken states. A classical observer really calculates two different and opposite entropies since there is an increasing entropy for a breaking egg along with a decreasing entropy for evolving chicken species and their eggs. This means that the increasing entropy of shrinking mass complements the decreasing entropy of increasing action and so the classical entropy Suniverse = ln waction + ln wmass= ln (waction / wmass), ~ 0.
Since classical mass is constant and does not show quantum phase decoherence, there is no classical meaning for a mass entropy different from an action entropy. For quantum gravity, though, the entropy of discrete aether flows from action to mass and that entropy and aether flow are what drive the universe into more organized states with lower entropy and so the classical universe entropy is as expected near zero. Just like the flow of classical entropy, it is the flow of quantum information that determines the arrow of time in a collapsing mass and expanding action universe.
This means that the universe mass actually collapses even while the universe action grows and it is the increasing entropy of growing action that drives the decrease of entropy for the universe of collapsing matter into ever more organized states. Despite the chaos of classical noise and the breaking of an egg, it is actually the ever present decoherence of quantum phase noise that actually keeps clocks ticking in the right direction and keeps eggs breaking and not unbreaking themselves.
Unlike the reversibility of classical time, it is the time of quantum phase decoherence that is what keeps the quantum ∆Suniverse > 0 and so classical entropy does not actually point the arrow of time after all. Two quantum clocks that begin ticking in phase will eventually dephase even without the chaos of classical noise and it is the quantum decoherence of past matter that is then what makes for more coherent future action of increased order.
The mindless noise of classical chaos contrasts with mindful coherence of quantum phase noise. Ironically, quantum phase noise leads both to indeterminate futures as well as to the flow of decreasing matter entropy into the increasing entropy of action. Although both thermodynamic and quantum laws both depend on increasing classical action entropy driven by chaos, quantum laws also show a fundamental coherence between matter and action that is the quantum phase noise of decreasing entropy.
While there is always a classical cause for the chaos of classical noise, there is no classical cause for any quantum phase noise. Quantum phase noise means that an observer phase in one part of the universe is coherent with a source phase located across the universe, which is a decrease in entropy. The action of decoherence means that these two events will eventually dephase due to quantum phase noise even in the absence of any classical noise of chaos. This means that while classical actions all have knowable causes because the classical noise of chaos is in principle knowable, there are only just mostly knowable causes for quantum action and never a completely knowable cause due to quantum phase noise.
Chemical crystallization is a very common process that occurs when a seed of matter nucleates from solution and a crystal grows from that nucleated seed by progressive bonding as a crystal replicates itself from the dissolved species. This happens in many different solutions in many different ways but it is from the aqueous solutions of a primordial goo that life has crystallized. A recursive cycle of chemical concentration as a result of evaporation of water, seeding, crystallization, and redissolution by rehydration, occurs for example, in ancient seas whose memories are now in the layers of rather pure salt deeply buried on land.
Given the free energy of evaporation and recondensation, crystals naturally and recursively seed, grow, and redissolve just as life recursively seeds, grows, and dies. In the cosmos, stars likewise recursively seed hydrogen, grow by fusing some hydrogen into heavy elements, and then redissolve back into the cosmic dust of future stars. Galaxies also seed matter, grow by fusing that matter into the spin of black holes, and then decohere or redissolve back into the actions of a future universe.
Thus chemical replication is a natural process driven by free energy that occurs with the actions of nucleation or seeding along with replication or growth followed by redissolution in recursive cycles of dissolution, seeding, growth, and redissolution. This recursion moves matter from the chaos of quantum solutions into the order of quantum bonds. The emergence of life is then simply a consequence of just such a recursion that involves the seeding, growth, and dissolution of the phosphate esters of a natural chemical called adenosine. Adenosine is a natural molecule with a five carbon sugar (ribose is made from five CO2's and five waters) bonded to a nitro-aromatic ring (adenine is made from five hydrogen cyanides) and all these species exist in the primordial goo of creations ocean. Science often sees these precursors of life in the spectra of starlight and so these species exist in the condensed oceans of planets as well.
Given free energy, adenosine with plenty of phosphate around is then the seed that replicates itself and forms naturally occurring phosphate polymers of ATP to ADP to AMP (adenosine triphosphate, diphosphate, and monophosphate) that harvest and store large amounts of chemical energy from available free energy of phosphate food and water evaporation. The chemical energy of the phosphate bond is sufficient to not only replicate itself, but also to fix CO2 and nitrate by deoxygenating water into polymers from other goo that replicates with repeated cycles of reoxidation into the highly organized goo that we call life. The chemical energy of ATP is also sufficient to evaporate and condense its own water as well.
The sun drives much of life on earth’s surface and life converts the solar energy of photons into ATP and then uses ATP to fix CO2 and nitrates into the polymers of life by deoxygenation of water. However, hydrogen sulfide, H2S, from the primordial thermal energy of earth also drives life in deep sea vents and thermal ponds where ATP forms from the chemical energy of H2S as well. In the deep sea just as on the surface, life uses ATP from H2S to fix and distill carbonate and nitrate polymers with the same deoxygenation of water that distills life on earth’s surface.
Thus science has found that certain mindless mathematical laws and chemical reactions of the inanimate universe have distilled and continue to distill life from the primordial goo of creation...all by quite natural processes. Another product of that distillation is the neural actions that allow life’s observers to wander toward a goal with the aim and intent of the mindful choices of quantum bonding and replication.
Since gravity is so very weak compared to charge, there are a very large number of quantum gravity action states that represent a huge source of information or entropy. Quantum gravity results in a complementary huge decrease in entropy by matter flowing to matter’s action. As the order of sources increase and the entropy of matter decreases, information or entropy flows as mindful quantum aether distills or fractionates matter order from the increasing entropy of the growing aether action that science calls the mindless universe. The mindful action of decreasing matter entropy and increasing source order ironically emerges from the increasing entropy of mindless action.
The neural action of memory is an inevitable consequence of the carbon-nitrogen-water replicates that we call life. A very large number of gravity quantum states provides the increasing quantum entropy of action that drives the decreasing quantum entropy of matter. The large number of neural states of life likewise provides a tremendous reservoir of information and entropy of action for the organization with decreasing entropy that we call cooperative civilization.
We call the intent and aim of neural action mindful while we call the intent and aim of classical action mindless because classical action lacks neural choice and therefore mindful consciousness. The mystery of consciousness is still too hard for science because the free choice of quantum consciousness makes no classical sense. A determinate classical universe drives all classical choice from the knowable chaos of classical noise and so it is classical chaos that provides the classical illusion of free will and free choice. An indeterminate quantum universe with both knowable classical chaos as well as unknowable quantum phase noise has no completely determinate future and there is quantum free will and free choice even without chaos.
Whether you believe in the determinate illusion of free will or in the actual mystery of quantum free will, you still have a personal responsibility for any choice that you make. Determinate intention is just the belief that there are no unknowable mysteries in the universe and all knowledge that exists is in principle knowable, just some knowledge is not yet known. Knowledge is a neural memory of events and classical knowledge therefore has no limits. However, quantum knowledge has limits and quantum intention is the belief that even though we can know much about the universe, there are inexplicable mysteries that are beyond knowing. A certain quantum knowledge does exist but science can never fundamentally know without uncertainty which means that no one can have a neural memory of such quantum knowledge.
In other words, there are some things in which we must simply believe since some knowledge is beyond measurement.
For example, we can ask the three whys; why we are here, why we are here right now, and why it is us who are here right now and not someone else. However, there are no answers for the three why’s because that is knowledge that is unknowable. We simply have to believe that we are here, that we are here right now, and that it is us and not someone else who is here right now. We also must simply believe in the duality of matter and action (or some other conjugate pair) and from believing this simple duality, we can then understand what is possible to know.
In conclusion, matter and action represent a fundamental duality of the universe and a neural mind makes up of both the matter of neuron memories as well as the action of neural potentials. Instead of the overly simplistic duality of just mind and body or spirit and material, the universal duality of matter and action is true for all observers and sources and even for the mindless mathematical laws of neural memory and action. There is no sense in separating the universe into mindless mathematical laws for the actions of sources versus mindful observer aims and intentions. We can only know that the decreasing entropy of increasing source order flows to the increasing entropy of decreasing observer action, but we must simply believe in the mystery of that action.
<essay entered into FQXi contest...but has since evolved into a lower entropy state>
