ooh another thing that occurred to me, the only act of the non-physical free-willed mind (they say) is the changing of quality and focus of attention. this reminds me of the buddhist metaphor of the past determining all the seeds of karma but the present volition determining which is watered. also, it might inform practice, all you can do is shift attention.
to clarify, you can focus on a specific intent... a specific sensation... anything in the field of experience, what the field of experience is is determined by the past, your focusing is your present choice, the future is determined by the past and present choice.
and you arahants... aren't your karmic seeds burned? (in the buddha's words) can't you not focus on stuff? like body scanning or haietmoba?
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"the mere act of rapidly asking questions of a quantum system freezes it in a particular state, preventing it from evolving as it would if we weren't peeking"
the moments leading up to a fruition?
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a little taste:
One of the most important, and understandable, quantum processes in the human brain is the migration of calcium ions from the channels through which they enter neuron terminals to the sites where they trigger the release of neurotransmitter from a vesicle. This is a probabilistic process: the ions might or might not trigger that release, with the result that the postsynaptic neuron might or might not fire.
[ ] Part of this lack of certainty is something even a physicist of the nineteenth century would have understood, it arises from factors like thermal fluctuations and other "noise." But there is, in addition to that lak of certainty, one arising from quantum effects, in particular from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. According to the rules of quatum mechanics, therefore, you get a quantum splitting of the brain into different branches [1]. This occurs in the following manner: since the channel through which the calcium ion must pass to get inside the neuron terminal is extremely narrow (less than one nanometer), it is necessary to apply the Uncertainty Principle. Specifically, since the position in the channel is extremely restricted, the uncertainty in its velocity must be very large.
[ ] What this means is that the area in which the ion might land balloons out as it passes from the channel exit to the potential triggering site. Because of this, when the calcium ion gets to the area where it might trigger release of neurotransmitter, it will exist in a superposition of hitting.missing the critical release inducing site. These quantum effects will generate a superposition of two states: the state in which the neurotransmitter in a vesicle is released, and the state in which the neurotransmitter is not released. Due to this quantum splitting, the brain will tend to contain components that specify alternative possible courses of action. That is, the evolution of the state of the brain in accordance Shrodinger equation will normally cause the brain to evolve into a growing ensemble of alternative branches, each representing the neural correlate of some possible conscious experience. Each of these neural correlates has an associated probability of occuring, (that is, a probability of being turned from potentiality into actuality by a quantum collapse).
Which possible conscious experience will in fact occur? As noted in Chapter 8, the founders of quantum theory recognized that the mind of the experimenter or observer plays a crucial role in determining which facet of nature will reveal. The experimenter plays that role simply by choosing which aspect of nature he wants to probe; which question he wants to ask about the physical world; what he wants to attend to. In this model the brain does practically everything. But mind, by consenting to the rapid re-posing of the question already constructed and briefly presented by brain, can influence brain activity by causing this activity to stay focused on a particular course of action.
sorry about any typos i couldn't find the text on line in anyway so had to type out. I added some paragraph breaks because that whole thing was separated into one giant paragraph and a small one of four sentences.
[1] possible physical realities that simultaneously exist until an observer views the quantum particle in question (the power of attention to alter physical reality)
for me at least, this stuff is unbelievably freeing and empowering. i am aware of what degree i create the present moment, this is amazing, it's just to what and how i pay attention, but i have that.
