Programmable Consciousness

   The most common assessment of human consciousness among scientists is that it has spawned from the unique complexity of the human mind.  That within our DNA lays a design for a being capable of dreams, hopes, and fears.  Yes, these seemingly intangible qualities are thought to be simply manifestations of a complex physical structure.  It is ironic that the concept of consciousness being the product of complex bio-chemistry is hard for that same consciousness to accept.  That mechanical processes, quantum effects, chemical interactions and biological machines can generate such a seemingly unique, self-aware, and sentient being.

   But if it is only a matter of complexity then it could be replicated.  Imagine a computer program code generating a virtual reality.  The video games and computer programs we have today are not nearly complex enough but with enough man hours and enough time we could theoretically generate a world as complex as ours.  After all, many scientists are finding that our world has characteristics of a computer code.  The question then is...if this world has equally complex features and equally complex people within it, will this then incite consciousness? (and will they then create another equally complex reality!?)  Will these people within this program have our same thoughts and dreams?  This question is very crucial because if the answer is in fact yes; then what would prevent us from living in a similar program.  Who is to say that we too are not apart of a program and an eventual product of complex code?  Matter seems to scream intangibility, quarks could be our pixels and  mathematics shows us a set of absolute rules, all characteristics suggesting a programmable reality.  But would it even matter if we were?  Why does this idea so shake the souls of men?   Without a doubt it is the ego of mankind that causes their discomfort.  Their belief in a higher power that causes them to stumble over an equally high calling.  But as for me, if the world is a product of code.  It is quite a beautiful code....

-By: Brett Vollert

DNA's Cat in the Bag

   

    Maurice Wilkins was a chatty Cathy.  Steeped in a war of secrecy he handed the opposition his most precious intel and watched them claim victory.  Some may think him the fool who let the cat out of the bag, but he just may be the hero science needed. 

   At a time when life was thought to have some immaterial quality, three opposing factions were racing to be the first to give the essence of life a physical explanation.  It was a race to see the structure of DNA, the “life molecule”.  Maurice Wilkins was working with Roslyn Franklin at Kings College in London, the two time Nobel Prize winning Linus Pauling worked independently in the US and James Watson and Thomas Crick were working at Cambridge University.  However, Wilkins and Franklin were the only ones doing any real experimental or physical science.   Their opposing teams were simply building models or trying to figure out the structure in their head based on some chemical analysis of chromosomes.  This was widely viewed as the lazy approach to the problem.  The difficult approach founded by Wilkins was using x-rays to determine the shape of DNA in a crystalline form.  Essentially, they were bombarding the DNA with X-rays and then looking at its shadow. Originally this was the sole mission of Maurice Wilkins, but due to the importance of the task, he was assigned a partner in Roslyn Franklin.  She was a talented scientist who quickly stole the spotlight along with the hearts of many young geeky scientists.  However, the much less intoxicating, Maurice was the backbone of the operation.  So with a shy temperament and determination for the advancement of science, Wilkins tirelessly widened the peephole viewing DNA’s structure.  On the other side of the door he found that his data indicated a helix shape for DNA.  He was mere steps away from determining the entire structure along with Roslyn Franklin, but in their midst a spy lurked.
   Jim Watson was infamous for his nosy antics and questionable intel gathering methods, he could often be found at events gathering info and interrogating external scientists.  This noisy nature lead him into the office on Roslyn Franklin, where he claims to have been waiting to meet with her but when she entered he was snooping around her laboratory and she instantly became furious.  Kicked out of the office, Jim Watson was quickly sheltered by Maurice Watson.  Perhaps Maurice was bitter that they let Roslyn take over the project or perhaps he was simply to excited to contain himself, but in a moment of reckless abandon he reached into his drawer and pulled out his diffraction images that indicated DNA's helix structure.  Jim Watson was handed the single biggest piece of evidence for DNA's structure.  After all his prying and prodding for information, it was the willing hands of Maurice Wilkins that let the cat out of the bag.  Now Watson and Crick only had to put the pieces together.  Soon after this meeting, the Cambridge duo released their model for the structure of DNA, and soon after they all received Nobel Prizes, including Maurice Wilkins for his contribution of the X-ray diffraction images.  But the names Watson and Crick are the ones that echo through the halls of Universities and stain the pages of textbooks.
  Maurice Wilkins faded back into the shadows, forgotten and disregarded.   But his timid temperament was not one for the spotlight, his persona does not jump off the pages of history.  Instead he was a servant of science.  In a age that was optimized by harsh rivalries and scientific non-cooperation, he was the only hand reaching across the aisle.  Wilkins saw no enemies in fellow scientists, and he felt no remorse.  The science of DNA excited Wilkins, and he felt that his contribution was meant to be shared with the entire world.  In fact when asked if he had let the cat out of the bag he simply stated, "I guess that is perfectly true, but i don't believe science should be kept in bags...any more than cats."

-By: Brett Vollert

Your Science is Flawed!

       In philosophy, it's name is in-determinism but in science it is referred to as the burden of proof.  Yes, fact is the foundation that science rests upon.  In fact, the search for quantifiable and observable proof may just be the defining quality of science.  Science searches for truth and its compass is proof.  But much like the real thing, could this compass also not always point north?  Could this absolute dedication to observable validation lead us astray?
    As children we are confronted with the harsh reality that absolute certainty is realistically unattainable.  When children observe their favorite play toy covered by a box or a blanket, at first they are distraught that it has disappeared forever.  It is not until later that they realize that, out of sight does not mean our of reach and their toy is simply obstructed from view.  This is a very important lesson for man to learn as he grows to accept this seemingly observer independent universe.  A idea so ingrained in humanity that it leads most men to truly believe that the world keeps on spinning even with their eyes closed, a belief supported by a myriad of data from when his eyes are open but none from when they are actually closed.  The truth is, that there is no way to have absolute proof in that dark moment but instead we base our thoughts on the experience we gain from opening our eyes.  And so, man has grown to ignore this uncertainty of the unobservable as a logical loophole.
    Science has not done the same.  Perhaps, its foundation in observation is too deep to be uprooted by common sense.  But there has seemed to be a recent disconnect between scientific theory and common sense with the advent of quantum theory, most specifically the Copenhagen interpretation.  This interpretation essentially states that the world is instead observer dependent and it is our observation of the universe that brings it into existence.  The idea is that it is our observation that causes the world to go from a realm of infinite possibilities to actually one of these possibilities being reality.  More technically, anything can happen and is happening as a wave function of the quantum world but when it is observed by a conscious being; the wave function collapses to one possibility.  We call this collapsed wave, reality.

 

   The best example of this disconnect is the mind experiment of Schrodinger's Cat.  In this experiment, a cat is placed in a box with a container holding poisonous gas.  This gas is rigged to have a random %50 chance to go off using the decay of radioactive particles.  Once the cat is put in the box we have no way to observe it if has survived of died.  Its survival is based on random chance.  The Copenhagen interpretation would state that the cat actually exists in both states, that it is both alive and dead.  And that it is only until the box is opened that we force the possibilities to become one reality.
   While this may seem ridiculous, there is in fact a large population of the scientific community that has thrown away their childhood lesson of a observer independent reality and put themselves back at the focal point of reality.  So steeped in the scientific method of observation that the black moment of doubt caused them to derive an extravagant explanation.  Might the scientific method have failed them?  Like children we are so determined to bring the darkness to light.  But instead, we might have to grow up to realize that the room has remained in tact during the obscured walk from the light switch back to our beds and no monsters lurk in the shadows.

-By: Brett Vollert