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IT'S A STRANGE WORLD: THE HUMAN AS LIVING TIME MACHINE
NOVEMBER 17, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS (STARpod.org) --
"It's a strange world."
It's not hard to find well educated persons who believe they have
experienced a premonition of a future event.
Perhaps no one has a greater burden to bear than Chris Robinson, who
claims to be a "dream detective": a man who has learned to use his
prescient talent for predicting future events, by understanding coded
messages revealed in dreams.
Robinson reported dreaming of airplanes crashing into buildings just
prior to the events of September 11th, 2001.
Robinson's premonitions were the subject of tests conducted by Gary E.R.
Schwartz, at the University of Arizona, in the summer of 2001.
I was first introduced to Dr. Schwartz a year earlier, in a private
email discussion involving San Francisco physicist Dr. Jack Sarfatti,
and his concept of a post-quantum theory of consciousness. Several years
passed before I heard of the "Arizona Experiments" Schwartz had
conducted with Mr. Robinson, a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Schwartz, a Professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and
surgery at the University of Arizona and Director of the Human Energy
Systems Laboratory, had expressed an interest in how the mind could
access information "beyond space and time," something Sarfatti knew
required going outside of accepted theory. Sarfatti had proposed a
post-quantum theory based upon the work of the late Professor David Bohm,
and noted physicist Anthony Valentini had devised a theory which allowed
signals to travel faster than the speed of light.
Valentini's work, which is based on the pilot-wave interpretation of
quantum theory championed by the late David Bohm, predicted a new kind
of non-quantum matter, offering unique and almost magical properties.
Sarfatti proposed that the human mind -- the essence of the
consciousness experience -- operated "beyond space and time" in a way
similar to Valentini's non-quantum matter.
Dr. David Deutsch, at Oxford's Clarendon Laboratory, is a world-renowned
expert in quantum information theory. Deutsch is also one of the most
vocal and respected proponents of the Many Worlds Interpretation of
Quantum Theory: our world is just one of a countless number of parallel
universes. The idea sounds like science fiction, but over time the Many
Worlds emerged as one of the most self-consistent explanations of what
Quantum Theory tells us about the nature of the world in which we exist.
Quantum experiments produce effects that some physicists interpret as
interference from particles in the parallel worlds. Many cosmologists,
like Dr. Max Tegmark, who studies the relationship between the vastness
of the entire universe and the physics of the smallest scales where
Quantum Theory rules, also find the idea of Many Worlds of Parallel
Universes compelling.
Different interpretations of Quantum Theory compete with each other in
the minds of great thinkers. The idea of parallel universes does not
require new physics: the Many Worlds of Parallel Universes fall out of
currently accepted theory and experiment. Valentini's ideas are
theoretical: they predict the possibility of new physics, beyond the
current models. Sarfatti, and other proponents of "quantum mind"
explanations, claim that the experience of the human mind is evidence of
the need for new physics.
Chris Robinson claims the future comes to him at night, while he is
asleep. He has developed a system of recalling and interpreting his
nocturnal visions and records them as evidence that his mind is
accessing future events.
If Mr. Robinson's mind truly does reach out and grasp the future, what
are the implications for the nature of the human mind? More importantly,
is it possible to imagine a human time machine without appealing to new
physics?
 Dr. Paul Werbos is a Program Director at the National Science
Foundation. One of Werbos' personal interests is the possibility that
Quantum Theory might allow for information to flow both forward and
backward in time. Werbos imagines a realistic single universe theory.
Dr. David Deutsch holds fast to the parallel universes idea: his view is
that pilot-wave theories, like David Bohm's interpretation which forms
the basis of both Valentini and Sarfatti's ideas, is merely "Many Worlds
in denial." According to Deutsch, the idea of information moving
backwards in time also requires parallel universes, which he describes
in his book, "The Fabric of Reality."
I recently wrote to David Deutsch and asked about the Many Worlds
interpretation of loops in time forming time machines, as opposed to
other ideas like Valentini and Sarfatti have proposed. The Valentini and
Sarfatti ideas require violation of a major cornerstone of Quantum
Theory: the special non-quantum matter of Valentini and the post-quantum
mind-stuff of Sarfatti do not obey the Born Rule that determines quantum
probabilities.
Deutsch wrote, "With or without such loops [in time], distributions
deviating from the Born Rule are not compatible with Everett quantum
theory [named for Hugh Everett, who first proposed the idea behind the
Many Worlds of Parallel Universes in 1957] . If such distributions were
observed, they would refute Everett and strongly suggest that something
like the Bohm theory can be made to work."
Imagine, if you will, that Chris Robinson's claims were shown to provide
evidence of a time machine. Our human time machine is not a vehicle like
the modified De Lorean of Doc Brown in the fictional "Back to the Future
Series," -- although it could be -- but is formed of an information loop
in time.
The human as living time machine would be the essence of the conscious
experience: it proposes to answer the question of why we awaken to an
experience of our senses, thoughts, memories, and existence.
In the Many Worlds interpretation of Parallel Universes, other times,
including future events, are viewed as special cases of different
parallel universes.
For the human experience, the living time machine moves between
different worlds by the action of the perception of those worlds.
Typically, human consciousness demonstrates both a rate and a threshold
of perception. Generally, it is accepted that we are typically aware of
events to about 1/10 of a second. If the human mind is a time machine,
threaded by loops in time, we would expect those loops to correspond to
the rate of our perception. The Many Worlds of Parallel Universes
interpretation tells us that information moves backwards in time by
connecting different parallel universes together.
The magical property of a time machine is an exotic sleight of hand.
Information is processed in a different universe, which we call the
future. All of the ordinary laws of physics apply. The work required to
produce information, like tomorrow's newspaper, actually takes place in
that other universe. News events occur, reporters research the day's
events, editors assemble the daily news reports; all of the activity and
energy required to produce the information occurs, but from the point of
view of the present moment, everything required to assemble tomorrow's
newspaper has taken place in a different world than the one in which we
live.
The magic of the human time machine happens when our universe, the one
we call the present moment, is connected to that other universe we call
the future. All of the work required -- all of the day's events -- all
of the energy and processes required -- took place in an alternative
universe. The connection allows information about that other world to
enter the world of the present moment. From our point of view, where our
perception is focused on the present world, something truly magical
takes place. A rabbit is pulled from an empty hat: the time machine
transfers information from another universe to our own.
For the human as living time machine, self-perception emerges from the
loops in time. The human mind passes from world to world as it loops
through the Many Worlds of the Multiverse of Parallel Universes.
This is a radical interpretation of the nature of consciousness: the
human mind exists as a trans-universe process, literally beyond space
and time. Although the loops in time would typically last less than a
second, rapid enough to thwart conventional attempts to detect
information transfer from the future world, under special circumstances
one might imagine that loops might appear connecting alternative futures
from tomorrow, next month, next year, and beyond.
For Chris Robinson, the man who dreams about the future, there is no
question in his mind about the human time machine. Somewhere, in a
distant alternative future universe, Gary E.R. Schwartz passed the
information about planes crashing into buildings in New York City to the
authorities, and they took action, preventing the 9/11 attacks.
In this world the warning failed to elicit a response. Tomorrow's news
emerged as today's destiny.
Never forget, in 2001 we lost a chance and a choice to make a change.
"It is happening, again."
Copyright (c) 2007 Gary S Bekkum / STARstream Research / STARpod.org.
All rights reserved.
Quotes taken from the motion pictures Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks
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IT'S A STRANGE WORLD
