A new book about sentience

I'm not sure if sci.astro.seti is fully the right group for this post,
but a few may find it of interest.


"The Soul and the Fabric of the Universe," by R. A. Elschlager, is a
new book about sentience.



Back Cover of Book



In spite of the title, this is a book about sentience looked at from
the perspective of science. It is not about specific functional
correlates in the brain, but rather about the deeper issue of the
nature of things. Ordinarily we make assumptions about the limitations
of how far science can see. But actually, it can see much farther.

The word "soul" is used in its ancient meaning, which included some
elements of a religious aspect but also meant consciousness or
awareness or sentience. Indeed, the words "soul", "sentience",
"consciousness", "mind", "awareness", "I-ness", "being" are words
that have different nuances, and more, but they all swirl around the
underlying mystery that this book approaches.


As an adult the author always had a deep interest in the intellectual
framework of science. In addition to this there were questions that
went far back into childhood: why are some things sentient and others
not?

The author's education is an undergraduate minor in physics, and
master's degrees, along with doctoral work, from Berkeley in
mathematical logic and from Stanford in artificial intelligence. Areas
of specialization were computational complexity, machine theory, and
the investigation of the formalization of natural language for the
purpose of specifying computer programs (automatic programming). This
was a while ago. But the questions remained. And so this book is a
journey of exploration to list some of the characteristics of this
strange phenomenon of sentience. It is also an exploration that delves
into understanding, for the mystery of sentience leads out into the
universe itself.




Preface



I like to think that this work provides a series of sign posts for
others, a series that has rarely been put together all in one place, a
series grounded from the approach that has occurred in the past when
what we call science has moved into new areas of explanation.
Sentience is a new kind of subject matter for science, but it is still
amenable to elements of that approach.



The book is written for the general public who are interested in the
issue of sentience. I hope that people from a number of different
interest groups can find value in this book no matter whether they are
or are not specialists, are or are not scientists, mathematicians,
believers, theologians, or philosophers. Though the book invokes the
kind of thinking that science has used in history as it struggled into
new areas, I hope that the writing nevertheless reaches outside
science. Still, a few notes about the language are in order.

Different people have different preferences for words. For instance,
if you do not prefer the word "creation" in this book, then wherever
you see it, replace it with, perhaps, "universe". And replace
"universe" with "creation", if you prefer that. This can be done with
other words too. Pounds, ounces, feet, and miles can be replaced with
kilograms, meters, and kilometers; and vice versa. A.D. and B.C.
(after and before year 0) can be replaced by C.E. and B.C.E, and the
currency sign "$" may be replaced by another.

Sometimes the book says "external world" when in our regular everyday
language we would just say "world" or "physical reality" or "reality".
All these words or phrases emphasize the same thing: the difference
between what is in the mind as distinct from the world about us.

Sometimes in this book, terminology from one region of science is
modified to make it understandable over several regions or outside
that region. As one example, the term "spike train," a term from
neurobiology, might be referred to as "electrical spike train," solely
for the purpose of reminding a larger audience that these are trains
of electrical spikes – spikes of voltage – signals – traveling along
nerve fibers through the nervous system.

Sometimes parentheses or smaller font indicates more technical
material.

In a few places, the book presents assistance on the terminology found
in books on neurobiology, in case the non-neurobiologist reader should
want to go directly to such publications.

Numbers may be written in a variety of ways in order to express on the
emotional level the size involved. For instance, "23,000,000,000"
might also be written as "twenty-three billion," or "23 billion," or
"23 thousand million," or even, "twenty-three thousand, thousand,
thousand." These convey the almost mystical size of the material
world.

. . .

This book uses something like the phrase "metaphysics and ontology of
the universe" to indicate all that is in any way. The fabric of the
universe. Generally, ontology refers to issues of what exists;
metaphysics refers to the essence of things, or first principles, or
the deepest underlying nature of things and of the universe.

Philosophers would not use the word "thing" as freely as in this book.
I hope that in most cases such sections can be translated or rephrased
so that the word does not appear.

. . .

Similarly, we will use a variety of phrases all to get at a certain
same something, a something which is hard to define. Such phrases will
include "awareness," "the innermost experience itself," "awareness
itself," "the inner quality itself of awareness," "the sensation
itself," "the experience," "the experience itself," "what it is like
for a human to experience such and such," "the feeling associated with
such and such," or "the very awareness of the experience itself" – all
these phrases will hark back to that same innermost, underlying
experience itself.


It should be obvious that two or so sections are fiction, but even
they contain possibly valid, speculative thought.

Running through this work is some of the spirit of math and science, a
spirit that today much of the population is unacquainted with, but it
is a spirit that people in a democracy need.

Finally, what book is not improved by a picture or two, even if it is
a book on science, philosophy and spirit? Thus are included a few
sketches by the author.



The subject matter of our book is a journey about an individual who is
trying to understand being or sentience. We, along with the
individual, will roam into issues of form and meaning and evolution.
We will roam into abstraction but at one point look at the notion
itself of abstraction. The book starts with some background.

Then, as befits the way of science, we turn our attention to the
physical, real world, and we look very hard at locations that are
intimately bound up with sentience. Such locations are, or include,
animals and their brains. This is how scientists become acquainted
with something new. They look at it very hard as it occurs in the real
world.

Since the going on of logics in the brain is abstract, you must expect
that our journey will concern itself with getting a handle on this
going-on. The third part of the book moves fully into this, with a
basic statement about the I, with a future history of how our science,
technology, and machines will be used to figure out sentience, and
with how long it will take. There are several chapters on this
going-on.

The fourth part moves into sentience in its totality, and finally does
the same with the going-on. This is a long book. There are many
interesting sections and they need not all be read in order, though
the development of some ideas may then be missing. All the sections
can be found in the detailed table of contents.

Many things can be seen just by looking at the world, for it is full
of marvels.


General Table of Contents


Contents v
Detailed Contents vii
List of Figures xvi
Preface xvii
Part 1 Background 1
Chapter
32 All Souls are Waiting Right Now 5
1 The Desert 17
2 The Soul 37
3 Science: Introduction 49
4 Science: Non-sentient Origins 51
5 Science: Chart of the Physical Universe 59
6 Science: Fizeau and Light 77
7 Science: Newton, Gravity, and the Laws of Motion 81
8 What is Science 89
9 Our Universe 91
Part 2 Animals and Brains 93
10 Discussion with the God 95
11 Waves 101
12 Euglena 113
13 Volcanoes, Euglenas, and Logic 117
14 The Leech (Also, the Neuron and its Signals) 121
15 Magnetism and Polarization in Ants and Bees 139
16 Zero Crossings 141
17 Electric Fish 145
18 Closing Points 163
Part 3 Onwards 171
19 The I 173
20 Devices to See Logic 189
21 Machines 205
22 Initial Notes on Logic 235
23 Logic and Space 239
24 All is Logic: Things 241
25 All is Logic: Vinegar Bog 263
26 All is Logic: Abstract Objects 271
27 All is Logic: Close 281
28 Logic to Physical 283
29 Definition of Evolution. Omega 287
30 Deep Physics, Newton, Some Religion 297
31 Astounding Sentience Logic 303
Part 4 Onwards Some More 315
32 All Souls are Waiting Right Now 317
33 Teletransportation and Evolution of the I 321
34 Standard I, Non-standard I 351
35 Brain Mirror Theory 355
36 Pillars of Judgment 363
37 Judgment: Does What We See Exist 367
38 Judgment: Logic 379
39 Relation to Other Work 425
40 Final Flight 439
41 End 447
Appendix: Numbers, Computations, Internet Sites 451
Endnotes 457
Bibliography 477
Name Index 485
Subject Index 487



The website

http://soul.mav.net

contains the above information along with excerpts as well as the
detailed table of contents.