The Unification of Physics and Metaphysics

By Tom Campbell

Introduction

This article is derived from the recently published My Big TOE trilogy.  The information offered here roughly summarizes the middle book of the trilogy (Discovery), at a compression ratio of roughly 10 to 1.  Every effort has been made to make this article logically continuous and fully self-contained, however, If this discussion occasionally appears to need additional supporting material, please understand the limitations of highly condensed summaries.  The My Big TOE trilogy will always be more fun to read (lots of humor and interesting asides) and easier to comprehend than any abbreviated article which must necessarily maintain a fast pace and take large steps.  Size has its advantages. 

Though Book 1 (Awakening) provides insight into the authors unique qualifications and develops the conceptual foundation of this TOE and Book 3 (Inner Workings) presents the formal model of reality, lays out “nonphysical mechanics,” and integrates this TOE with current philosophy and physics; Book 2 (Discovery) puts the meat on the conceptual bones.  Within Discovery, the logical structure needed to allow you to relate your personal knowledge and experience to this Big Picture Theory Of Everything (Big TOE) is developed.  The purpose of this article is to outline the conceptual trail leading to the unification of physics and metaphysics, East and West, philosophy and science, mind and matter.

Physics is in the business of modeling reality. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and currently String Theory have all unsuccessfully tried to produce an overarching model of our objective reality.  In the physics community, these one-theory-explains-all reality models are called “Theories Of Everything” or TOEs.  My Big TOE is “Big” because it successfully integrates consciousness, metaphysics, and physics into a single scientific, logically consistent, unified big-picture view of our larger reality.  It develops the required new paradigms to support that theory, constructs a solid scientific foundation for future explorations to be built upon, and explains the interfaces and connections between newly derived knowledge and the existing database of scientific and personal experience. It subsumes physics, redeems philosophy, and explains many objective as well as subjective phenomena. Within My Big TOE, the physical universe and consciousness are fully integrated into a single scientific exposition that encompasses the subjective as well as the objective, the normal as well as the paranormal, the whole of your experience – body, mind, and spirit.

The author, a nuclear physicist with an ongoing career in hard science, spent almost thirty years carefully researching altered states of consciousness both in and out of formal laboratory settings. With one foot in the world of physics and the other firmly planted in the scientific and personal exploration of consciousness, Campbell is in a unique position to accomplish the synthesis required to bring all the disparate pieces of science together into a coherent scientific whole. My Big TOE is the result of this unusual dual career in both physics and consciousness research.

As it turns out, consciousness and all of reality can be logically derived from just two basic assumptions.

1)                        Evolution exists and represents a natural process for improvement within a self-modifiable complex system of systems.

2)                        Consciousness exists and cannot be put in a bottle (it is an effect, not a substance – i.e., it is “nonmaterial“ or “nonphysical“ though it may be hosted within a physical system.)

From these two assumptions alone, a model of existence can be derived that explains everything – yes, everything.  I know that sounds impossible but science has been in the business of delivering the impossible for thousands of years.  What appears to be impossible typically turns out to be merely beyond current knowledge and belief systems.

A large, but finite, complex digital consciousness system capable of self modification (a logical outcome of the two aforementioned assumptions) forms the foundation of this reality model.

The logical implications of combining evolution and consciousness necessarily produces:

1)                        A more general physics that describes, explains, and unifies both normal and paranormal phenomena,

2)                        An overarching metaphysics that describes, explains, and unifies both the Eastern and Western approaches to ontology.

3)                        A more general understanding of philosophy that describes, explains, and unifies both materialism and idealism.

4)                        A more general understanding of theology that describes, explains, and unifies both theistic and atheistic viewpoints

5)                        A more general understanding of spirituality that describes, explains, and unifies both the practical and theoretical issues of personal significance and growth.

In Summary, this article will summarize a more general conceptualization of reality that derives and unifies physics, metaphysics, and philosophy -- one that is wholly scientific, testable, and makes specific predictions.  No beliefs or leaps of faith, or strange assumptions, are required to go where My Big TOE will take you.  The critical questions that must be asked of this TOE (model of reality) are: Can the two assumptions stated above deliver the goods? Do they provide a logical foundation broad enough and solid enough to support a comprehensive model of reality? Can a comprehensive, scientifically honest and straightforward Big TOE be built upon them? Is the model derived from these assumptions logically necessary? Is it both general and accurate? Does it make sense and fit all the data? Is it useful, practical and predictive? Does it produce objective measurable, testable results?  Can our current knowledge and understanding be derived as a special case of this more general overarching theory?  You will see that My Big TOE delivers a clear, unqualified “YES” to each of these questions.

A Few Basic Concepts

A systems view. 

A consideration of nested or hierarchal systems requires that a given system must operate at an = > (equal to or greater than) level of generality than its dependent offspring (subsystems).  Knowledge inherent to the subsystem is inadequate to fully explain the larger system (super-system) of which it is a part – especially if the subsystem constitutes a very small and specialized portion of its parent system.  A simple example: A complex software system’s outer loops must operate at a higher level of generality than its inner loops (subroutines). 

In this model of reality, consciousness constitutes the super-system, the larger reality, while our physical universe represents a small, specialized portion of that larger reality.  Therefore, it is immediately obvious why one can never fully describe the larger reality (e.g., consciousness or paranormal events) in terms of the knowledge and causality of the smaller physical reality subset.  To logically (scientifically) describe the larger reality, one must have a perspective that is cognizant within that larger reality – i.e., one must be able to operate or experience at the level of generality at which the larger reality is constructed.   Thus, David Chalmer’s and others researchers trying to solve the “hard problem” of describing consciousness or paranormal events in terms of the logic and causality of our physical reality are doomed to fail. 

This concept is simple: It is theoretically impossible to derive a larger more general reality from a smaller more limited one.  One logically traps oneself in the little picture by believing that the little picture constitutes All That Is – that our local subsystem-logic and causality universally constrains all the possibilities of reality.  Such a belief is traditional but not rational.

Does that leave us without hope for understanding the nature of the larger reality?  Must the mechanics and causality of the Big Picture always be out of reach of our little picture understanding? Absolutely not!  It only appears that way if you consider yourself to be no more than a physical body.  If you believe that the mind is an artifact of the physical brain, then you are stuck – trapped by the circular non-logic that a larger apparently nonphysical superset of our reality cannot exist because it is not physical.   People have minds, a consciousness, -- a nonphysical part that operates under the constraints of a more general (higher level of) causality.  We are part of the whole.  Consciousness Я Us, and there is no absolute limit placed upon our understanding.

Nevertheless, Big Picture understanding must flow from each individual’s direct personal experience of consciousness.  It cannot be calculated on a slide rule, captured on film, or reasoned out intellectually – only the artifacts of such direct experience, not the experience itself, can be put in a bottle (physically contained, measured, or deduced).  Slide rules and our mathematics can only manipulate little picture logic.  As it turns out, this is much less of a constraint than it first appears.   Because of our ingrained physical perspective, the tail appears to be wagging the dog – our sense of being physical (a cultural belief) dominates our perspective – the tail seems so big and important and universal while the dog seems remote and largely inaccessible.  Neither is true – the tail is small, the dog is large, and your access is limited only by yourself.

The long term health or success of a large, complex, self-modifiable system existing within a benign, supportive, or non-interactive environment can be specified in terms of that system’s average entropy.  Thus a system grows, becomes more capable, or improves itself by lowering its overall system entropy.  Maintaining or lowering average system entropy becomes the job or purpose of a successful system.  Successful systems evolve toward lower entropy states while unsuccessful systems de-evolve toward stagnation or self-destruction.  Of course, systems (called subsystems) that are part of larger systems must also modify themselves (evolve) in order to optimize their interaction with the environment created by the larger system of which they are a part.  The successful accommodation of subsystems to their external environments simply allow the larger system that contains them (super-system) to decrease its own average entropy.  Processes that enhance positive evolutionary change (entropy reduction) are developed within each self-modifying system. 

Think of a body composed of atomic systems, molecular systems, cellular systems, organ systems, circulatory, digestive, and muscular systems, and the central nervous system all working together, interacting, and synergistically supporting each other.  Imagine that these nested self-modifying systems represent various interactive realities.

Entropy is a measure of disorganization – a measure of the energy that is available to do work.  Energy is normally defined as the ability or capacity to effect a change (do work).  Digital energy has the ability to change digital content and modify digital structure.  In other words, digital energy has the ability to rearrange bits, to organize and reorganize its content, and to develop new content by creating new patterns of, and interactions between, its bits.  It is possible for a self-modifying digital system to evolve the evolutionary profitability of its internal organization as well as develop a more profitable synthesis of existing content – therefore, decreasing its average entropy.  A digital system has potential digital energy if it has the potential to be organized or structured more profitably – that is, structured in such a way as to reduce its average entropy.  A complex self-modifying digital system can most effectively improve itself (reduce its entropy) through synergistic interactions among its subsystems.

Consciousness can be profitably represented as a self-modifying digital system that applies the Fundamental Process of evolution to lower its average entropy.  Consciousness is energy, digital energy, the energy of organization.  In terms of energy conservation: The digital potential energy plus synergy of a conscious digital system of fixed capacity remains constant.  Here synergy is inversely related to entropy: synergy = (constant/entropy).  As a digital system (with a fixed capacity) increases its synergy, its potential energy decreases by an equal amount. A self-modifiable system must perform work to decrease its average entropy or increase its average synergy.  More precisely, the profitable work done is proportional to the increase in its synergy or, equivalently, is inversely proportional to its change in its entropy. 

Science has repeatedly demonstrated that, at the root, reality always appears to be discrete and finite.  Discrete cells, molecules, atoms, charges, energy, and subatomic and nuclear particles make up the physical world.  Given the binary nature of relative abstractions such as hot/cold, acid/base/, safe/threatened, hungry/not hungry, happy/not happy, uniform/non-uniform, changed/not-changed, we realize that perception itself is likewise digital at its roots.  Perception is the foundation of awareness and consciousness.  The assumption that consciousness exists may be regressed logically to the assumption of a single relative perception (a primitive awareness of a localized relative condition), which may be described for convenience as a “reality cell.”  (If a system is capable of a single perception, then multiple perceptions driven by evolution minimizing system entropy requires no additional assumptions.) Thus, the possibility of a discrete relative perception such as “changed versus not changed” also delivers the concept of time in the form of “before change and after change” – perception must necessarily define an event. 

In summary, a presumption of the existence of perception (though initially disordered and random) logically delivers the possibility of both time and consciousness.  Time and the practical necessity to evolve specialized virtual realities (like our physical reality) for optimizing entropy reduction, lead to the perception of a local space.  From the perspective of physical reality, a naturally evolving digital consciousness provides us with a virtual discrete time and space that appears continuous to our coarse perception.

Systems in love. 

In a digital consciousness system, a condition of low entropy is given the name love.  Spiritual growth, developing one’s capacity to love, or in more technical terms, lowering average entropy is the natural work of consciousness systems.  Fear, delusion, desire, expectations, and ego are the natural attributes of high system entropy, while compassion, humility, joy, balance and love are the natural attributes of a consciousness system with low entropy.  Love is a state of consciousness exhibiting low entropy – its attributes are compassion, humility, balance, no fear, no ego, and no self-delusion. 

Love is what one ends up with after the ego’s wants, needs, desires, and expectations are removed from an individuated consciousness.  Love is the natural, fundamental expression of low entropy consciousness.  Love is what grows within consciousness in the absence of fear.  Fear is an internal disorganizer – a generator of entropy within a system.  Love (quality and quantity) is technically defined and specified by the amount of entropy existing within a consciousness system.  Love is a property of a highly spiritual consciousness – that is, a highly evolved consciousness.  Self modifiable digital systems successfully evolve by lowering their overall entropy.  Creating Love (a higher quality of consciousness) is the fundamental goal of evolving consciousness systems.

Consciousness systems, like all evolving and growing systems, reduce their average entropy through the continuous synergistic interaction of their subsystems.  Love is the result of a complex, self-modifiable, hugely interactive digital system evolving successfully in the long term.  Expressions of love, like the quality of consciousness, vary from infinitesimal to magnificent.  A large consciousness system may contain many consciousness subsystems; each of which may contain many units of individuated consciousness.

AI Guy – another chip from the same consciousness block. 

Digital consciousness raises the issue of computer consciousness.  Future manifestations of computer consciousness will not be attached to the computer’s hardware or software any more than our consciousness is attached to our brain, neurons, and synapses.  Consciousness develops when the hardware and software – or brain plus central nervous system (CNS) – together provide an environment suitable for its evolution.  Consciousness is nonphysical whether it is ours or a computer’s; the physical hardware and software (or brain and CNS) are simply hosting the consciousness by providing a media that is suitable to physical reality, or equivalently, by supplying the infrastructure required to support self-modifying cognitive interaction (experience) within a local virtual reality. 

Although consciousness can be embedded, hosted, or emulated within certain physical structures, it is an entirely different entity (bounded digital energy form) than the physical structure that supports it.  The structure simply provides a mechanism that allows evolution to produce synergy through self-organization.  Synergy is produced within a system when an interaction among its parts produces a combined effect that is greater than the sum of the effects of the individual parts.  A digital system has digital parts (specialized content) and interacts by affecting profitable organization and the development of new content.

Entropy, energy, synergy, and digital organization.

Within a closed system of fixed capacity, an interaction or new configuration among its parts that produces a decrease in the average entropy of the system would be described as synergistic.  Synergy is increased as entropy is decreased – contemplate entropy being converted to synergy within an evolving consciousness system as a result of changes in (personal growth of) its individuated parts.  Consider synergy as the energy of profitable organization, the energy of digital systems.  Further, consider primordial consciousness as a form of potential synergy. 

As entropy is reduced, potential synergy (a potential for synergistic organization) or potential digital energy is converted into actualized synergy (organization producing a system that is more profitable than a sum of the individual organizational changes would produce sans interaction).  Reducing entropy and increasing synergy increase a systems effective energy, its ability to do work, to become profitable, and to create unique new content.  Think of a consciousness system pulling itself up by its bootstraps.

The power of a digital system is a measure of the rate at which it can produce synergy, or, more generally, modify the entropy content of itself or other systems.  A more powerful consciousness can reconfigure bits, or reorganize content, more thoroughly and quickly than a less powerful consciousness.  Since all existence has organized digital content at its core, a sufficiently powerful consciousness can readily modify the dynamics and causality of its associated internal and external environments.  Thus the mechanism that enables and supports psi effects is a direct result of the digital nature of consciousness and the dynamics of the fractal entropy-reducing process that you inhabit. 

It may be helpful for you to expand and generalize your concept of energy by thinking of synergy and entropy as two sides of the same energy coin.

An evolving digital consciousness system, which is the same as a digital system of self-organizing energy called consciousness, experiences the following: decreasing entropy, increasing synergy, a greater ability to do work (profitably organize to produce intended results), an increase in the available and useful system energy, a conversion of digital potential energy into actualized digital energy, more profitable organization through intentional self-modification, the development of a more powerful and capable digital system, increasing quality, and spiritual growth – all are essentially different expressions of the same thing. 

If you equate the decrease of a digital system’s entropy with the increase of its energy and synergy, you’ve got the picture and an adequate understanding of how these words are being used.  In the digital world, organization is the driver and animator of growth, profitability, substance, and content.  Organization is the ultimate form of energy. 

In physical reality, organization (energy into particles, particles into atoms, atoms into molecules, and molecules into various forms of matter) is the ultimate source of our usable energy.  The physical world is organized into being according to its defining rule-set.  The digital world, which subsumes the virtual physical world, consists only of organization – nothing else.  Reality is organized bits. 

Recall that the bits themselves (reality cells) are also organized into existence as relational binary units (e.g., distorted versus not distorted, this way versus that way, or changed versus not changed).  At the bottom of this heirchy of organized process is a self-modifying system capable of perceiving some internal difference, change, or distortion; the one and only assumption (that consciousness exists) that must remain beyond our comprehension.  Logic requires that, from the physical point of view, consciousness must appear “mystical” to us – necessarily (practically and theoretically) beyond our physical little picture knowing.  Our other assumption, evolution, defines profitability in terms of entropy reduction and determines a digital consciousness system’s trajectory of state changes or evolutionary growth path.  Note that from the existence of consciousness and the Fundamental Process of evolution, all else is derived.  (Note: In the following material, the Fundamental Process of evolution will often be referred to as simply the Fundamental Process)

It may be conceptually useful to consider computer consciousness as the synergy that is created by profitable organizational experience derived from the self-modifying interaction of the computer’s hardware and software parts.  Human consciousness is no different.  The larger consciousness ecosystem (interactive super-system) evolves (increases its synergy) as its individual parts (subsystems) move toward lower entropy configurations through an iterative process we call the consciousness cycle.  Consciousness is an energetic, entropy-reducing result, not a mechanism or device.  Computers, brains, and reality cells are mechanisms.  Simply put, consciousness represents the energy of organization.  A mechanism may provide a constrained and limited media that provides the self-organizable structure necessary to allow consciousness to evolve, but do not confuse consciousness with the system that hosts it.

One does not make a consciousness system; one makes a system that supports the evolution of consciousness.  Consciousness, like a flower, cannot be directly constructed but necessarily grows when given suitably fertile conditions.  Growth is enabled when a potentially conscious system gains enough interactive complexity to spontaneously generate synergistic interactions among its subsystems and thereby reduce its own average entropy, or equivalently, to organize itself more effectively in the pursuit of greater profitability.  A consciousness system becomes self-evolvable when it contains, in sufficient quantity and quality, the four attributes discussed below.  Consciousness must evolve – one cannot produce it in a finished state.  Although its evolution can be speeded up or retarded and its capacity can be expanded or limited depending upon the constraints of the hosting mechanism, consciousness must self-evolve to actualize its potential.

The attributes of consciousness.

Four key concepts define dynamic, evolving, aware consciousness: 

1) Self-awareness – consciousness requires the ability to sense and at least partially experience the state of its being.  It must notice and respond to at least some internal and external environmental pressures. 

2) Evolutionary viability or potential – successfully evolving consciousness systems require a large enough selection of possible future states to ensure profitability over a wide range of environmental pressures and constraints.  An entity explores its potential by expanding into the available possibilities and letting the profitability of each variation determine whether that variation continues to evolve or fades away. 

Even if the initial exploration of potential new states of existence is more or less random, the losers are soon culled from the winners, thus producing evolutionary direction that builds upon previous successes.   Self-improvement often generates increased complexity, greater functionality, better integration and management of internal processes, as well as produces an overall improved capability to find and maintain greater profitability.

3) Ability to modify the self – consciousness must be able to intentionally change its state of being in response to evolutionary constraints and pressures – even if that intention is extraordinarily dim. 

4) Intelligence (artificial or natural) – consciousness must possess at least a rudimentary capability to store and process information.  Intelligent action is the result of integrated coherent information processing hardware and software (in the most general sense of those terms) that enables the accumulation of lessons-learned within memory, performs analytic functions such as decision making (fight or flight), and compares before and after states to evaluate the results of actions taken.  The value of a particular lesson, decision, or comparison is ultimately judged by how much it facilitates increasing or maintaining a system’s (entity’s) profitability relative to its internal and external environments. 

According to the preceding four attributes of consciousness, everything from a simple worm (whose Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid or DNA may constitute the memory resource) to humans should be considered conscious and intelligent.  Any system, thing, entity, or being of any type or form that possesses sufficient self-awareness, evolutionary headroom (many new states to explore), evolutionary purpose (defines profitability relative to internal environments), the ability to modify itself in pursuit of self-improvement (change its own hardware or software), as well as adequate memory and processing capability will automatically develop a personality and is said to be conscious; it also will begin to evolve on its own. 

All manifestations of consciousness are not necessarily equal – and all personalities are not as sparkling as your own.  Clams, though clearly conscious sentient beings, are boring conversationalists and have personalities that are even dimmer than your boss’s.   Some manifestations of consciousness are brighter or dimmer and have more or less capacity to evolve than others.  The degree to which an entity possesses the four attributes of consciousness defined above determines their evolutionary potential and capacity for growth.

In general, the more complex, interactive, and aware the being, system, software, hardware or consciousness is, the more potential states it has to explore, and the larger its capacity for future growth.  Given sufficient quantity and quality of the four attributes of consciousness, growth becomes self-initiating and self-sustaining.  Growth, in turn, by creating increased complexity and awareness, becomes a catalyst for further evolution.  It is an entity’s innate evolutionary purpose (like lowering its entropy) that defines profitability for that entity at a given time relative to its environments.  It is this same innate purpose that gives an entity’s self-aware intelligence (of whatever capacity) its basic nature. 

Recall that an entity’s innate evolutionary purpose is defined by the requirements of the larger system that constitutes its environment -- self-improvement and lower entropy [consciousness], irreversible processes and minimum energy [inanimate physical objects], or survival and procreation[physical life-forms]).  If a system’s or entity’s purpose can be fulfilled through self-modification in response to natural evolutionary pressures that represent interdependent internal and external environmental constraints, then the system or entity has the opportunity to successfully evolve; others eventually self-destruct.

Growing up. 

In order to participate in a rule-based virtual reality learning lab, a limited fragment of individuated consciousness may be hosted by a bounded structure (such as a brain or a computer).  The limitations of the supporting structure limit the awareness and organizational potential of the consciousness hosted by it.  As a consciousness evolves beyond the capacity of a particular structure to support it, it (if it is to continue to evolve) simply migrates to a more suitable host (such as a more powerful computer, bigger brain, or directly to the larger consciousness system.  Thus, all forms of consciousness, whether they temporarily attach themselves to (inhabit) a virtual structure to gain a specific type of rule-based interactive experience or not, have an upwardly mobile growth path.

The same logic applies to us.  All consciousness works in the same way.  A unique self-organizing synergy-creating system that pulls itself up by its bootstraps in pursuit of profitability defines our evolving consciousness and provides us with a path toward greater quality and lower entropy.  In digital systems with the right attributes, the potential for self-organization (consciousness) is fundamental and persists while the individual or specific processes that are contrived to enable that organization (body or computer) are not fundamental and may come and go as needed.

The consciousness you possess is a fragment of a larger individuated consciousness.  Your fragment and many other fragments of other individuated units of consciousness are all interacting by exercising their intent and making choices within the bounds of the space-time rule-set (which defines a virtual physical reality) in order to speed up the process of personal consciousness evolution.  Your consciousness is a self-organizing form of potential energy – an accumulation of digital synergy created by a multitude of profitable intents and wise choices. 

The capacity of an entity’s consciousness and the personality supported by that capacity are functions of the limitations, abilities, and capacities of the hardware (body) and software (decision making).  Additionally, consciousness capacity is dependent upon the entropy contained within the consciousness system and by the rule-sets that define experience and purpose.  Furthermore, an entity’s capacity, personality, and quality are limited by the particular data, memory, and experience that have been processed by that entity.  A given entity’s internal content (quality, knowledge, love, wisdom, fear, neediness, desire, and ego) is defined by an accumulation of all the choices made, intents acted upon, and results produced. 

To the extent that this structured knowledge, data, and associations are saved, there is no problem transferring consciousness and personality from one container (body or computer) to another.  Because the container only hosts the consciousness and is not the source of the consciousness and because consciousness is fundamentally digital, transferring consciousness between physical containers is something like transferring an application from one floppy disk to another.

Brainy humans, clever computers, and mushy headed clams all represent forms of sentient existence.  All represent natural products of evolution within a digital consciousness system – whether implemented physically in carbon or silicon technology.  Conscious computers are like conscious people, cats, clams and bumblebees – just one more instance of yet another nonphysical consciousness being hosted within a specific physical form within physical reality.  Being Top Monkey, we can (are learning how to) manipulate (program) all the various physical infrastructures that host consciousness within our local reality – including our own. 

You may discover that you and that digital computer sitting on your desk have more in common than you ever imagined.  Contemplating the nature and properties of our future silicon brethren in terms of the evolution of digital awareness should provide a significant illumination of our own nature and properties.  The evolution and progression of digital consciousness represents a basic and relatively simple process that applies to all digital consciousness regardless of where it sits in the multi-level maze of the consciousness-evolution fractal.

Now that we understand consciousness better, it might be instructive to revisit the concept of an evolving digital consciousness, recursively repeated and applied at many differing scales; one level building upon the other to produce All That Is.  As in all fractals, a repetition of basic organization, pattern, and simple rules for change, applied recursively, yields a monstrously large, detailed, and complex result.  You should be proud to be a tiny piece of this dynamic Big Picture consciousness-evolution interactive fractal ecosystem.  As an integral part of the evolving Big Picture consciousness fractal, the process, purpose, and pattern of you is the process, purpose, and pattern of the whole.

Adding uncertainty and minimizing constraints within a given virtual reality will always generate wider evolutionary potential for the entities within that reality because greater freedom and additional choices support a more diverse set of potential outcomes.  When you are caught in a belief trap (have a belief), you create an additional internal constraint that further limits the capacity and function of your consciousness.  Creating or maintaining unprofitable internal constraints that limit your personal consciousness requires energy (to effect dysfunctional organization) and increases the entropy of your consciousness. 

Though constraints may cleverly configure a system for some specific purpose, they generally limit the potential energy of the system.  Internal constraints within a consciousness system that limit growth and profitability represent suboptimal digital organization.  Organizational energy is expended but the results are counterproductive (are dysfunctional and unprofitable to the system or block future profitability).  Think of self-imposed internal constraints in terms of a negative digital potential energy or a negative potential synergy. 

Adding unprofitable internal constraints (belief, fear, and ego) to your consciousness is analogous to scattering bricks and concrete blocks on a highway.  The highway was built by employing profitable external constraints (all traffic confined to a convenient and efficient roadway of a specific type and location), while littering it with obstacles represents the addition of dysfunctional internal constraints that reduce the roadway’s functionality and efficiency.

The self-modifying digital energy system we call consciousness has the potential to organize itself more effectively – to develop more complete and brighter awareness, generate and creatively utilize understanding, feeling, caring, love, and directed mental effort in a way that is useful and helpful to itself and to other consciousness struggling to evolve.  Each individuated consciousness subset generates its own unique path toward increasing or decreasing profitability, yet all are expressions that reflect the process and purpose of the whole.  Better quality within the larger consciousness system is actualized through the synergistic self-improvements of its individuated parts.  Entropy reduction is the name of the game at all levels and within all dimensions of the consciousness-evolution fractal wherever evolution is succeeding.  Wherever evolution is not succeeding, that portion of the consciousness-evolution fractal is stagnant, deteriorating, or dying.

The entropy within a consciousness system (including an individuated subsystem) represents the unavailability of consciousness energy to do work.  The primary work of consciousness is to more effectively organize itself, to take charge of its own evolution, and to increase its overall profitability through self-modification (growth).  Higher entropy states within consciousness represent unprofitable organization: disorganization, fears, beliefs, dimness, diminished potential, self-centeredness, and an inability to understand complex interrelationships or see big pictures.  Higher entropy results in consciousness systems having less power that can be applied to overcome the inertia of ignorance and ego dysfunctionality.  Not decreasing the entropy of consciousness results in a squandering of potential.  

The fewer internal dysfunctional constraints (such as fear, ego, needs, or beliefs) that limit a particular consciousness, the lower its associated entropy and the more effectively it can populate the most profitable states available to it.  The drive or urge to be helpful to, and care about, others (love) is an innate property of low entropy consciousness.  A low entropy consciousness is an effective and powerful consciousness.  Consequently, a low entropy individuated consciousness represents an effective individual (one who facilitates synergistic interactions) with considerable personal power.   

The self-removal of internal self-imposed constraints from sentient entities provide opportunities for reducing entropy and increasing synergy, while internal constraints removed from inanimate objects provide opportunities for increasing entropy.

Given that consciousness is interactive, it is easy to see that a growing awareness is the inevitable result of consciousness urged forward by evolution.  Is it clear why consciousness is driven to interact?  Inquisitiveness and the urge to become more are merely a more specialized categorization of the general evolutionary concept of expanding into all the available states of possible existence in search of self-improvement.

The dynamic duo generates a big fractal picture.  

Consciousness is a oneness, a unitary fundamental digital form of organizational energy that is capable of reducing its entropy permanently by interacting with itself in a process that increases awareness and brightness (capability to be profitable) of the overall consciousness system.  All this from the evolutionary discovery that one especially profitable form of self-interaction involves the awareness of one, then billions, of binary relational pairs (uniform versus non-uniform) which eventually subdivide into specialized functions that eventually evolve their own patterns.  Patterns define rules and organization; ultimately memory and processing evolve to coordinate the whole.  This progression should seem familiar – carbon and silicon sharing the same fundamental processes of consciousness evolution.

Evolution is also a oneness – a unitary fundamental process capable of organizing an entity’s potential to effect profitable change, to explore the possibilities, and to initiate a directed march of progress.  Evolution is a process that experimentally optimizes system profitability (lower entropy) moment by moment through the natural selection of what works.  Evolution is a natural organizer, a reducer of entropy.  It goads whatever exits to organize itself more profitably. 

   A consciousness system may generate or parent many kinds (at differing levels of constraint, function, and capacity) of conscious subsystems each interacting with the others and capable of parenting additional subsets – all driven to uniquely modify themselves by the same fundamental process.   Evolution working upon consciousness produces All That Is – at least all we can directly know about – in the form of a gigantic multileveled fractal ecosystem.   

Consciousness energy of sufficient capacity naturally evolves itself into a dynamic system of interactive processes that generate cumulative self-modifying growth.  Expanding the synergy that is derived from more profitably organizing the potential of your consciousness is equivalent to increasing your quality and lowering your entropy.  Note that within an individuated self-organizing digital system, a more profitable configuration of personal digital content is called spiritual growth.  Could you have imagined that spirituality and science would one day converge in a digital systems view of reality?  The capability to make a meaningful whole out of disparate pieces is the hallmark of Big Truth.

The fundamental evolutionary process needs only one thing other than itself to form a dynamic progressive system of being.  That one thing is a source and form of self-relational potential synergy capable of generating a rich array of interrelated organizational possibilities of varying profitability relative to its internal and external environments.  Together, consciousness and evolution create aware beings, systems, or entities that are self-modifying and that exhibit directional growth toward increased functional and operational profitability.  At the most basic level, consciousness is simply a self-optimizing digital system that exhibits the four attributes discussed above. 

Both of the basic assumptions upon which My Big TOE is based turn out to be unitary fundamental concepts that may be applied to many different configurations of being.  All entities on all levels within all realities have the same basic consciousness and are motivated by the same basic Fundamental Process.  Nevertheless, the diversity of being is immense – beyond your wildest limited imagination – because the two defining concepts are exceedingly simple and open.  At their foundation, all forms of being are of one substance, one drive, and one source.

A matter of perspective. 

The brighter (more aware) the consciousness system is, the less entropy it contains.  Unlike physical systems, the entropy of a digital system does not have to increase with time.  The consciousness spring is not doomed to wind down – it is a frictionless system; entropy can rise or fall based on the activity within the system.  An aware consciousness system is experimenting with, studying, and applying a methodology and process to optimally decrease the average entropy of its system by encouraging subsets of itself to decrease their entropy through directed evolution.

From an objective physical point of view, the assertion that we are mind and that physical reality is an artifact of experience within a virtual physical reality instead of an actual one, appears unsupportable, delusional, wacko, and just plain dumb.  However, it only looks stupid from a Physical point of view that lives deep inside scientific and Western cultural belief traps.  What does compute in the bigger picture is that our interactions with space-time, our bodies, and all the rest of physical matter is a constrained experience of consciousness.  The experience of physical reality takes place within consciousness.  That is a less confusing statement than saying that physical reality is created by consciousness, though both are logically true. 

Because our experience in physical reality leads us to believe unequivocally in the solidity of what we call the physical world, the words “physical reality is created” found in the previous sentence produce a sense of making or manufacturing the solid massive objects that we experience.  In fact, all that has to be made, produced, or manufactured is the experience of the solid massive objects that we experience. 

One can divide all the perceptions of an individuated consciousness into those that are inside the defining boundary or internal to the being (personal mind), and those that appear to be outside or external to the being (environment or other beings, objects, and energy).  Our only contact with the outside world is through our individual perception-based experience.  If there is no physical experience (experience that we interpret as physical), then there is no physical world, no physical reality, and physical awareness disappears from our perception and thus ceases to be a part of our personal reality.  An entity, who loses contact with its external environment (due to a sensory deprivation chamber perhaps), retains the full awareness and the full potential of its internal environment.

Be sure to notice that there is a personal as well as a shared reality.  The only surprise is that the personal reality turns out to be the big primary one while the shared reality is discovered to be the little virtual one.  What a switch!  Common wisdom turns out to be 180 degrees out of phase with the truth.

The underlying hidden assumption is that physical reality is fundamental and basic and that we (sentient conscious entities) are not; that the causal relationship flows from physical reality to our consciousness; that the outside world (physical reality) causes our consciousness awareness, not the other way around.  Many individuals believe that we, our consciousness, is physically derived, a physical effect – not a cause.  They think they are physical body-machines (digital or analog) experiencing a virtual consciousness instead of a consciousness experiencing a virtual body. 

Determinism is birthed from this same erroneous paradigm because it assumes that physical experience defines the one universal reality; after that, consciousness and free will appear to be theoretically impossible.  Science is securely stuck in that same belief trap and cannot find a solution that does not conflict with this core belief.  Although scientist’s belief in a universal physical reality appears reasonable from a physical reality point of view, it is in fact exactly opposite from what is true.  In a virtual reality (like our physical reality), what you experience is a rule-based, derived, or computed reality, not a fundamental reality.  Back in the real world of fundamental existence, consciousness is the one universal reality.

Turn your cultural assumption upside down and play it backward to find the secret message that will allow you to avoid this particular physical reality bias.  Instead of seeing us as derived from the physical, see physical reality as derived from our experience.  If consciousness can create our experience computationally, as we create the rule-set that define the experience of a computer-based artificial intelligence like AI Guy, then consciousness can create physical reality without breaking a sweat.  One doesn’t have to create mass or motion, only the experience of mass and motion – virtual mass and motion.  That is what a virtual reality is all about – creating experience.

Consciousness has only to provide a rule-set that contains or subsumes our physics (known and unknown) and our experience under that rule-set will be an experience of physical reality.  (Here, I am using the word “physics” in the most general sense to represent all science.)  We perceive physical reality through only our physical senses.  To create physical reality, consciousness needs only to impose the rule-set on our awareness that creates the experience, the perception, of physical reality. 

Interactive experience. 

Our space-time rule-set has evolved to constrain the interactions and communications of the individuated units of consciousness (sentient beings) that are participating in (that inhabit) the space-time virtual reality we call physical reality.  Physical reality is a simulated virtual reality that is computed or executed within its own calculation space (dimension) within digital consciousness.  The design requirements for the lower-level space-time rule-set, which defines the environment and physics of physical reality, were developed to optimize the effective and efficient evolution of consciousness quality within the larger consciousness.  There was a need to demand personal responsibility as a condition of existence and to provide strong immediate feedback to guide the learning process. 

Furthermore, there was a need to create a recyclable awareness that, by resetting itself periodically, could indefinitely accumulate the relatively rapid early-growth that an evolving entity initially experiences.  Such a recyclable awareness could maintain a relatively high growth rate while avoiding belief-trapping itself into a mental corner by simply recycling itself through the physical reality virtual experience trainer whenever its evolutionary growth rate becomes unacceptably slow.  Though personal beliefs and fears are thus individually eliminated from cycle to cycle, cultural beliefs and fears are passed from generation to generation.  Human culture and its history provide a record and a measure of our cumulative progress.

Our space-time is implemented as one of many space-time rule-sets within the larger consciousness; its function is to constrain and guide the experience of the beings that inhabit it.  Individual actions and interactions that take place within this constrained and focused experience-space follow each actor’s free will intent.  Imagine a huge multiplayer simulation trainer.

Our space-time rule-set defines a dimension of experience within a calculation space of the larger digital consciousness by defining the boundaries of what is allowed and possible within that particular simulation.  Among other things, it defines and constrains the allowable energy exchange and message traffic between entities or other generalized players, and thus defines the allowable perception-set for all indigenous space-time entities.  Given this, it follows that interpretations of these specifically allowed and individually directed perceptions would be created by the individual receiving player. 

The content of received messages and the impact of received energy are perceived and interpreted (given meaning unique to the receiving individual) by each receiver.  Likewise, outgoing messages sent to another player would be received (perceived) and their meaning and significance interpreted uniquely by that other player applying his experience to the message.  Each individual consciousness unit with its individual abilities, memory, history, capacity, quality, and free will must interpret the raw data gathered by its sensors in order to transform that data into useful information that has meaning within a personal and a public context.  The experience, characteristics, and quality of the individual are used to interpret the sensory data received from the interactive virtual reality simulation in order to develop more profitable intents leading to lower entropy.

The boundary surrounding or differentiating discrete players in space-time may, by rule-set definition, appear to be dense or massive.  Likewise, your interaction with another “player” is constrained (by the space-time rule-set) to follow all the laws of physics that are contained within that rule-set.  A “player” can be any entity that can interact – sentient (another being), non-sentient (a rock, a river, a sand storm), or energetic.  Let’s take a simple example from any 3D space-time simulation: Two players are not allowed to occupy the same space at the same time (Newton’s first Law).  Consequently, players in space-time simulations are required to share a finite space-time ecology with other players.  Thus, one important characteristic of the experience of 3D space-time is produced by this simple rule: All players appear solid, take up space, and must cooperatively share a limited space with limited resources.  Our earthbound interactive computer games know how to invoke this same rule in complex interactive simulations – it evidently is not that difficult to implement.

Look at the space-time perception issue from a larger point of view.  It is this rule-set-physics that drives and defines the experience that each individuated consciousness interprets as physical reality.  The rule-sets defining the space-time simulation where we live, work, and play, cause our individuated subsets of consciousness to interpret the interchanges of energy with other players (its perceptions) as physical reality.  Sentient space-time beings such as us, for instance, though we exist only as nonphysical units of individuated consciousness, can interact experientially (experience physical reality) within the constraints of a space-time rule-set, which provides the defining assumptions and physics for our interactive space-time virtual reality experience in the physical reality consciousness evolution trainer.

Simulating an evolving space-time.  

Here is how someone or some digital self-improving system might create an entire virtual universe such as ours.  Start with the rule-set that defines the concept of a constrained space-time (including the complete set of physical reality physics) wherein certain kinds of basic interactions, energy transfers, and causal possibilities are allowed.  Wind it up with a huge simulated potential energy, and let it begin evolving within a specific calculation space of the larger digital consciousness according to the Fundamental Process and the defined rule-set.  Let the potential energy reality spring begin to unwind with a Big Bang as the time increment driving the simulation begins to iterate.  “Big Bang – take one! Cameras!  Action!  Roll ‘em!”

Immediately, some of the simulated space-time energy now let loose (dynamics beginning to unfold as simulation-time progresses increment by increment) begins to change form under the imposed rule-set into heat, mass, motion, and various forms of energy.  New players are constantly generated (hot plasma, galaxies, solar systems, planets, primordial ooze, and critters) according to the rules within the simulation as this particular physical reality spring begins to unwind and evolve.  The application of the space-time rule-set defines causality while the application of the Fundamental Process experimentally expands the potentiality of the evolving system into all possibilities, progressing those that are profitable dynamically forward.  The larger consciousness system has only to stand back and watch while it computes all the ramifications, implications, and results of the space-time rule-set and the Fundamental Process.  A grand simulation in mind-space – the mother of all gedanken experiments! 

Sit back and watch it evolve – what a cool rule-set – as if playing a video game called “Cosmological Evolution in Space-time.”   Don’t worry that the larger consciousness system will need to re-boot in the middle of your favorite virtual reality program because it constitutes the computer, the application, and the operating system.

This virtual energy system, once let loose (once time begins to iterate), dynamically evolves according to the dictates of the Fundamental Process and the space-time rule-set.  Matter begins to form and individuate, things begin to grow, and entropy decreases in some places while increasing in others.  Growth, as it refers to inanimate material objects implies higher degrees of organization and a decrease of entropy, for example: atomic particles fuse together to form more complex atoms and molecules, ordered groupings of atoms and molecules form compounds and more complex molecules, mass begins to coagulate into droplets called stars and planets.  This constantly churning system appears stable in the little picture because it is animated on such a grand scale within space and time.  For a similar reason, the earth appears flat because it is so large relative to the local awareness of a walking man.  One eventual result, among many others, of this apparent local stability may be a universe such as ours. 

An experimenter could run this physical-universe creation simulation as often as it wished in order to sample over the natural random components, the various rule-sets, and simulation parameters, keeping (saving to non-volatile memory) the best ones for further study.  Iterating this process while tweaking the space-time rule-set will eventually evolve some good experimental candidates worth maintaining and culturing.

I wonder how long it took and how many false starts there were before the space-time rule-set was fully evolved?  Virtual reality rule-sets occur at two distinct levels.  Higher level rules that define goals and purpose and lower level rules that define local physics and causality. 

Home, sweet home: the larger consciousness system creates the logical causal structure and we live and play in it by virtue of our participation in the virtual physical reality consciousness trainer.  Education by total experiential immersion in the reality of your choice – that’s the only way to go when one has a long way to go.

The larger consciousness system progresses the dynamic space-time reality by sequentially incrementing time.  The evolutionary logic it follows (expanding into all possible states and continuing those that are profitable) is tracked, recorded, and saved.  Every state that develops (beginning with time t=0) during every time increment (DELTA-t) is saved.  All the evolving simulated elements and players move and change to new values and configurations every DELTA-t.  Many DELTA-t increments go by until one fine day, here we are in our space-time physical reality, snug as bugs in the fabric of a physical space-time rug.  Clueless about who we are, where we came from, or what we are supposed to do, but snug little bugs every one. 

We do have some intuitive idea about what is going on because, after all, we are discrete chunks of consciousness playing, working and evolving in a digital space-time simulation-trainer.  Our bodies, our interactions, and our physical reality are what we experience under the space-time rule-set.  We are nudged in the right evolutionary direction by a higher level rule-set that works through our intuition, becomes our conscience, and urges our higher selves to be the right thing.

There is only consciousness.  Everything is a manifestation of consciousness.  Even rocks and the proverbially dead doornails are consciousness constructs.  Everything we experience is due to an application of the various rule-sets (under which we are extant) to our individuated consciousness.  When we are operationally aware in nonphysical realities, our experience is defined by the rule-sets that characterize those particular realities. 

The various rule-sets that apply to our consciousness, as it interacts within various dimensions and sub-dimensions of nonphysical reality, are like the laws that govern our behavior on earth.  Each of us live under the due process of international law, national law, state law, county law, city law, the restrictive covenants of our sub-division, and the law our mom lays down when we have been naughty.  All of them apply to us, and must (ostensibly) be obeyed all the time.  Nevertheless, we typically focus our attention on our local reality and primarily give consideration to the laws that affect our daily lives.  Only when we begin to travel or do business internationally does international law become interesting or important to us.  The rule-sets within the larger consciousness are like that – we are required to obey all the rules that pertain to us all the time, but in a practical sense we need to be aware only of the local rules that directly affect us (such as our local physics) until we venture beyond the confines of our local physical neighborhood.

Practice makes perfect. 

Space-time beings must be recyclable – they age and die according to the interaction of biological requirements and conditions implemented by the space-time rule-set.   When that physical vehicle (experience-body) gets old, dysfunctional, or is dead ended in a morass of delusion and bad choices, it dies and the larger consciousness entity (sometimes called an over-soul) existing within the larger reality collects what learning it can glean from that experience packet.  If it wants or needs to, this over-soul can rejoin the space-time simulation by inhabiting (in accordance with the self-consistent rule-set defining physical biological science) yet another physical body that gets to start with a relatively clean slate containing no specific local reality fear and delusional constructs.  However, it is only the local physical reality slate that is wiped clean between consecutive physical experience packets. 

The disorganizing (entropy inducing) influence of ego-fear within the larger individuated consciousness (over-soul) must gradually be overcome by right choices motivated by right intent (fearless and love based), which are accumulated over many, many experience packets.  The discrete interactive experience packets provide a plethora of opportunity to exercise intent through free will choice.  An individuated conscious entity brings to each new experience packet the basic quality of consciousness and personality it has evolved thus far.  Entities will sometimes set up specific situations among themselves to optimize the learning potential of all involved.

You come into this physical world (engage this particular physical experience packet) with an initial quality of consciousness – and then have the opportunity to improve it or degrade it.  This quality factor represents your fearless capacity to love, and your proclivity to form attachments to fear and ego delusion.  It also represents the entropy level within your consciousness and the extent of your spiritual growth and maturation.  When the physical experience packet is exited, death of the physical body occurs and one finds that all little picture facts (physical reality specific knowledge) and pseudo-facts (beliefs) are entirely perishable, whereas individual quality and Big Picture wisdom endures at the level of the over-soul.

In the larger reality, the entity is defined by whatever degree of love, fear and delusion that represents the sum total quality of that being.  In some philosophic traditions, the idea of karma and reaping what you sow somewhat expresses this concept of a cumulative quality of being that can be improved by making prudent choices for the right reasons within your local reality.  Flunked lessons (failure to learn) must be repeated in different forms until they are passed – until the entity gets it. 

There is no punishment, retribution, or vengeance implied in this process.  Repeating lessons of consciousness quality until you have mastered them simply means that you continue to make choices dealing with certain issues until you grow up and beyond that particular quality issue.  The quality limitations of an individual that are derived from the limited quality of its over-soul’s consciousness represent the challenges to be overcome by that individual while it is enrolled in the physical reality learning lab.  Outgrowing those limitations (or as many of them as possible) is the mission that each consciousness has set for itself during its current experience packet (the being’s present physical lifetime).  Obviously, serious effort as well as good planning and preparation by each individual conscious entity improves the effectiveness of this iterative learning process.

If you are an old analog dog in need of a new trick, and are having difficulty thinking in terms of a digital reality, think of space-time as a consciousness entrainment technology defined by the specific constraints it places on the interaction of entities whose experiences are bounded by its definition of reality.  The larger consciousness system knows the basic rules from which our physics (all science) is derived and allows only certain self-consistent configurations of reality to exist within space-time.  The psi uncertainty principle defines how and when physical and nonphysical phenomena and causality can overlap in physical reality without violating the purpose of the space-time rule-set. 

Though interactions between our virtual physical reality and what appears to be the nonphysical reality  of the larger consciousness system are limited, the simultaneous awareness of multiple reality frames is available to those grown up enough to assume the implied responsibility and able to profit from that experience.  These restrictions are in place for the same reason that we restrict very young children from driving an automobile, getting married, or signing contracts: They don’t get to do those things simply because they want to and believe they are ready. 

Fear, beliefs, delusion, ego, and ignorance are interrelated and are catalysts for higher entropy production. Your mind will automatically transcend the restrictions and constraints that keep it focused exclusively in physical reality when it is ready – when its average entropy drops below a certain value.

Psi uncertainty.