Biophysical theory of mind and brain

FYI: On the Biophysical Development and Evolution of Consciousness L. Frederick Zaman III Neural Engineering Research & Development, Hill AFB frederick.zaman(a)hill.af.mil The repulsive forces arising when charges of like sign are placed in proximity are an anomaly in electrostatic field theory, because field theory itself (vis-à-vis Coulomb's law considered separately) simply doesn't predict these forces. The resolution of this anomaly, wherein these forces are properly understood in terms of electrostatic fields, requires electric forces that are internally impressed within charges or charged bodies, rather than being externally impressed; so that the electric fields of charges, rather than being force, are instead information dynamically inscribed in space. And the forces of repulsion experienced by like charges placed in proximity are then fully explained, by electrostatic field theory thus modified. Based on this finding, a paradigm of "informatic fields emergent in self-organizing systems" can be proposed, wherein: (1) the interactions of self-organizing systems in biology and elsewhere, both internally between the system components and externally with the environment, are based on the transmission of information, (2) the dynamics of emergent forces in these systems do not require a vocabulary that is fundamentally different than what is required to explain the component dynamics, and (3) the physical understanding of the system components is in accordance with electrostatic field theory as modified above. In an application of this paradigm to developmental biology, the morphogenetic "vector field" of a cell assembly becomes a morphogenetic "force field," which self-organizes through the forces within cells whose internal dynamics are determined globally by supporting informatic fields. What is the evolution of life from this point of view? It is the emergence and self-organization of forces internal to living organisms that, through electrostatic, magnetostatic, and electromagnetic fields that are information rather than force, direct evolution toward ever increasing complexity. Biological evolution in effect then becomes a physical dynamics expressed in terms of informatic fields whose functionality in complex systems is far greater than classical Newtonian theory allows, and which operate at much at higher levels of system organization even up to and including organism consciousness.