Further Evidence for 'The Psychon Theory'
In this site I intend to present additional arguments against orthodox
Darwinism and in favor of the alternative Psychon Theory
in a not very systematic way. I'll continuously try to
improve this site, also by replacing arguments by better ones. As a first step
I present extracts of emails I have written [from Dec. 1998 to Feb. 1999] in
this context.
Last relevant update: 16-Jan-2001 (last update: 27-Feb-2008); Being revised, 2016
Posts to talk.origins:
Darwinism refuted by adverse selection experiments
Relevant extracts from my posts of March 1999
Relevant extracts from my posts of April 1999
Relevant extracts from my posts of May 1999
Relevant extracts from my posts of June 1999
Relevant extracts from my posts of July 1999
Relevant extracts from my posts of August 1999
My 'final' posting (1999/09/03)
The Psychon Theory has many
effects on mankind. For example it will be necessary to educate persons instead
of trying to improve their genetic code. And the death has a very different
impact because it is not only an end but it also makes possible a new start.
If only a little part of the information necessary for a human being can
be stored in the genetic code (that is in principle a provable or refutable
fact) and panpsychism and reincarnation correspond
better to reality than reductionism, then it would be absurd in the context of
a continuous evolution to assume that the current chess world champion was an
uneducated coal miner in his last life.
The genetic code of W. A. Mozart is quite similar to the one of a
chimpanzee. If musical talent or a gift for chess is stored in the soul, also
the capacity to coordinate the (psychons of the)
neurons of the brain and many other information should be stored in the soul.
Because the brain structure of a human is quite different from the one of a
horse, the brain of a horse and the soul of a human cannot work together. (The
coordination capacity of the soul is also the main reason why split-brain
patients have no major defects.)
The soul is located where it is active. If you look consciously to a
picture, certain regions of your brain are active. In at least some of these
regions also your soul is active. If you move your arm, your soul has an effect
on certain brain regions which can be made visible by modern techniques.
So there are connections between the soul and the brain. It is analogous
to the simplest case which constitutes the photon: the photon needs mass-energy
in order to come into being, but it has no mass-energy (as an organizing unit, psychon); so it is rather something analogous to
information, because it is responsible for the way a quantum of mass-energy
behaves.
Look around! The amount of information, you are aware of, is incredible.
A human brain with a volume of more than 1 liter can have innumerable states we
can be aware of. For instance our brain is influenced in a very complex way by
photons entering our eyes.
Atoms and molecules in living cells are influenced by their
surroundings. In the same way as humans can be connected by molecules (smell),
photons and sound waves, atoms and molecules can be connected by their
electromagnetic effects. The psychon of a molecule is
influenced by e.g. electrostatic effects from outside on (a part of) the
molecule in a much more direct and simple way than we are influenced by the
effects of e.g. sound waves on our ears.
I cannot see why primitive consciousness should depend on 'electrical
impulses', because I do not assume that our souls and consciousness are nothing
more than side effects of complex electrical impulses or of similar things.
By purposeful behavior I don't mean that molecules consciously construct
crystals. They know as much about the crystal as plant cells about the plant.
But they are able to 'recognize' the electromagnetic effects of places where
they have to go, so that crystals grow.
The concept 'psychon' is in many respects very
similar to the philosophical concept 'soul' of Baruch Spinoza. The two aspects
(inside and outside) of the psychons are straight
from Spinoza. In order to understand better the concept 'psychon'
maybe the philosophical space and time concepts of Immanuel Kant could be
useful. According to Kant space is something 'created' by our consciousness to
bring order in our experiences. So it is not necessary to assume apriori that souls behave in space in the same way as
particles. If we can locate a soul only by its effects, it is clear that a soul
which is not active cannot be located in space. Psychons
have spatial extension insofar as they affect spatially extended matter (e.g.
the whole brain). They can be active at the same time at different places.
How much information can the brain store and in what form? Do you know
it? In any case, the storage capacity of the soul should be bigger than the one
of the brain. All subjective experiences and feelings have a basis in the soul.
Absolutely nothing of instinctive behavior, intelligence and similar things is
stored in the genetic code. Some human behavior patterns may be stored in the psychons of the brain. In the same way as orchestras can
play without a conductor pieces they have played many times, maybe some
instinctive behavior patterns such as the sucking instinct of babies can be
performed by brain psychons without the help of the
main psychon (soul).
You may think "that we are
genetically programmed to want to help an injured child", and that the
'flight or fight' response "is programmed into the head genetically".
Have you an idea of how much information represents such a behavior
pattern? Have you an idea of how many base pairs are needed in order store such
a behavior pattern? Do you know one single example where an instinctive
behavior can be explained by certain DNA sequences? There seem to be cases
where a single mutation leads to a different behavior, but it would be absurd
to claim that the different behavior is stored in one mutation.
Do you know any mechanism which could explain that information stored in
the DNA can be transformed into information stored in the brain? There is a
very long and complicated way from the genetic code to the final brain
architecture. It seems to me completely absurd (especially within the
reductionist framework) to assume that a higher or a lower concentration of
certain enzymes or a change in the amino acid sequence of enzymes can lead to a
brain architecture in which a different behavior pattern is stored.
One cannot doubt that an innate behavior pattern cannot be stored
directly in the DNA. So all the (certainly complex) principles by which DNA
sequences are transformed into (read only) memory of the brain must also be
coded in the DNA (and are subject to negative mutations). And there cannot be a
miraculous mechanism increasing the amount of information during the
transformation from the original DNA information to the final read only
information. There should rather be an information loss.
Some scientists assume that there is such an information gain in the
case of protein folding. They are right insofar as the information
corresponding to the protein behavior is much larger than the information
corresponding to the amino acid sequence. I, however, would prefer as a last
resort the hypothesis 'God' to such a mysterious information increase violating
common sense and logical reasoning.
Four base pairs can store only 1 byte! Because at least several bytes
would be necessary to code a behavior pattern in the DNA (think about the bytes
which would be needed for simulating such a behavior in a robot), the
probability that behavior patterns could evolve would be rather low. For macroevolution
to work many enzyme types, many cell types and other structures must evolve at
the same time together with behavior patterns. Because it is generally accepted
that negative mutations are more likely than positive ones, macroevolution
would be impossible.
Recent research has shown that intelligence of animals does not always
correspond to their place in the evolutionary hierarchy. Invertebrates such as
octopuses have been revealed to be much more intelligent and dolphins less than
assumed. A lot of research is done in these fields. The use of the free hands
was very important for the development of the human intelligence. Because
octopuses have a lot of 'hands', it seems obvious that they have developed some
intelligence. (Maybe somewhere in the universe exist self-conscious beings who resemble our octopuses.)
Intelligence is primarily stored in the soul. Patients who lost memories
and capacities because of brain injuries learn much more quickly things they
knew before than things they have never known. In the same way, we learn much
more easily things we knew in former lives than things we have never known
before.
If all instincts were genetically coded (in which way?) there should be
mutations with e.g. the result of babies spit on the nipples instead of
sucking.
Also the existence of homosexuality is rather strong evidence against
Darwinism.
Birth control has no influence on the final world
population at all. Compare the population pyramid (US Census) of China with the
one of India for example. The strange form of the Chinese pyramid is also a
result of birth control.
India was the first Third World government to endorse
the principle of an active population policy. Countries with almost no birth
control at all like for example North Korea have had a bigger decrease in birth
rates! If the richer populations of a country which could give good conditions
to children have birth control, more children are born by the populations
having no birth control.
There are more and more countries where people would
like to have (more) children but don't get them. Twenty years ago, population
explosion seemed to be a problem. Nowadays the problem seems to be infertility
and population aging! But I'm sure that it will not happen. Instead, fertility
rates in countries with current below-replacement fertility will increase again
to higher than replacement level. So even in the case that the current low
variant projection of the UN 1998 Revision (7.3 billion in 2050) should become
reality, there will be a totally different population and age distribution than
projected.
In 'Fertility Decline in East Asia', Science, Vol.
266, 1994, page 1521 you can read: "... and there is no obvious reason why
families should adjust their behavior to achieve long-term population
replacement. It might be considered remarkable that total fertility in
developed countries has remained as close to replacement level as it has."
During the last four years this effect has become even
more puzzling. In Greece there have been 98,700 deaths and 98,200 births in
1997. You should look at the figures of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and
Poland (also Japan) during the last years. See for instance:
http://vki3.vki.hu/eurostat/eu1997/6305697a.html
As late as in 1992 UN projected a world population
between 6.093 and 6.420 billion for the year 2000. In the meanwhile (only six
years later!) it's almost sure that it will be less than 6.093 billion.
In its 1998 Revision the United Nations projects the
world's population at between 7.3 billion and 10.7 billion in the year 2050.
The so-called "medium variant projection" places the world's
population at 8.9 billion in 2050, once more roughly half a billion lower than
had been projected in 1996.
(http://www.populationaction.org/politics/newsviews1198.htm#three)
Demographers try to maintain the constant growth rate
(80 billion per year) of world population by attributing a part of the missing
growth to smaller populations in the past than estimated previously. By that
means they can save their hypotheses for another few years, but then it will be
obvious that modern demography is based on untenable premises (Malthusianism).
---------------------------------------------
The only way to verify a theory is to look at its
verifiable consequences and predictions! And it is one of the predictions of
the psychon theory that under normal conditions birth
rates must be close to death rates, after a population has reached saturation.
If the year 2000 world population will be
substantially less than the most 'optimistic' (or 'pessimistic'?) UN estimates of 1992 (no major unexpected catastrophic events have
taken place), this is strong evidence against the
concepts of Malthusian demography and in favor of my reincarnation theory!
Your example about Iran is very interesting. Normally
demographers must be very silent on Iran, because I could find no information
in the material I have. In the US Census data there is no data on past birth,
death and fertility rates. But I'm very surprised that total fertility rate
this year (1998) is only 2.6 and that more persons are in the age group 10-14
(8.9 million) than in the groups 5-9 (8.3 million) and 0-4 (6.7 million). That
past education of women [under the Shah regime] should be the reason seems to
me not very reasonable. Even in the case of contraception one single error can
be enough for a child to be born! But the religious government did not care
about birth control.
You suspect that in the case of North Korea I am
"confusing birth rate with survival rate". If the explanation of
evolution given by Darwin and modern demography were correct, your suspicion
would be a logical consequence. But judge yourself:
Here the fertility rates in India from 1960-65 to
1990-95:
5.81, 5.69, 5.43, 4.83, 4.47, 4.07, 3.97
The figures for North Korea:
5.75, 7.00, 5,70, 3,46, 2.77, 2.50, 2.37
The government interventions are not the (main) reason
of the decline in fertility rates in China. You can see it, if you look at the
figures of China, Singapore and Hong Kong:
5.61, 5.94, 4.76, 3.26, 2.50, 2.41, 1.95 [China]
4.93, 3.46, 2.62, 1.87, 1.69, 1.71, 1.73 [Singapore]
5.31, 4.02, 2.89, 2.32, 1.80, 1.31, 1.21 [Hong Kong]
(Data from 'The Future Population of the Word', IIASA,
1996)
There always have been baby booms after wars and other
catastrophic events with many deaths. A very convincing example is Japan.
All this is not only consistent with my reincarnation
theory but it is even its prediction. Before 1988 I didn't take reincarnation
seriously. But when in 1988 I got convinced of reincarnation by much concrete
evidence, the demographic evolution of mankind seemed to me the strongest
evidence against it. But in the meanwhile orthodox demography has reached an
impasse and the demographic evidence is very much in favor of my theory.
Why should I search a hypothesis such as "some
environmental factor" to explain "these curious variations in
fertility rates", if I have a very simple and elegant explanation of all
this? There are already too many demographic ad-hoc-hypotheses.
---------------------------------------------
Malthusian demography cannot explain why couples behave in such a way that total population remains constant (without migration). So it should be only by chance, that many European countries for many years have exactly the fertility rate which is necessary for a constant population! Calculate the odds!
There must be a lot of evidence for animal
reincarnation in the history of domesticating animals. The souls of the
domesticated animals are the souls of the former wild populations and these
populations must have declined. The populations of wild horses should have
increased in recent times (if there is enough space and food for them), because
domesticated horses have been replaced by machines.
The limitation of animal souls is the main reason why
aquaculture did not work as well as it was expected. For example there have
been many collapses of bred stocks and wild populations of salmon. The
one-egg-one-fish-hypothesis does not work because fishes are animals with souls
which evolved over billions of years.
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"The population of wild horses has, indeed,
increased a great deal in the United States in recent decades. That is why the
government began an adoption program some years ago, allowing qualified people
to adopt wild horses and donkeys that were rounded up because they were
over-populating grazing land in some of our western states."
(see http://www.adoptahorse.blm.gov :
"Wild horses and burros ... reproduce at a rate of about 18 percent a
year")
Imagine: Wild horses can be adopted and behave like
domesticated animals. But there are also unadoptable animals. The adoptable
animals must have been domesticated animals for many lives.
It cannot be denied that the populations of wild forms
of almost all domesticated animals and plants have declined!
Nobody can decide by metaphysical claims (e.g. about
the soul) whether something is scientific or not. The only method which has
always been scientific is an unbiased analysis of facts and theories. This
analysis can lead to verifiable hypotheses which can be in contradiction with
well-established theories.
We must judge hypotheses and theories only by
verifiable consequences and predictions and never by metaphysical claims such
as for example 'actions at a distance are impossible'.
---------------------------------------------
A general law is nothing more than a common expression
for many (infinite) concrete cases or relations (Occam). The only way to prove
such a thing as reincarnation consists in giving (by induction) many examples
or concrete facts which suggest reincarnation. Therefore the existence of
reincarnation depends on concrete cases such as reincarnated horses.
There are two principles I really do believe in:
-
Entia non
sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (Occam's
razor)
-
Veritas filia temporis (Truth is the daughter of time)
So in any case future will show what is right!
---------------------------------------------
Remember, the problem we now call gravity was the main
obstacle for persons to accept that the earth is a sphere and (later) that the
earth orbits the sun.
---------------------------------------------
You think that the main obstacle to accepting that the
earth is a sphere was the established view. That seems wrong to me. At least in
the beginning there was no established view at all. A flat earth would have
entailed infinity. People could not accept a spherical earth because they were
(unconsciously) accustomed to think that all bodies fall downwards. If the
earth is a sphere, things fall upwards on the other side. This problem could be
resolved 'relatively' easily by the assumption that the bodies fall to the
center of the universe. Since the times of Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570 - ca.
490 BC) a little minority has always known that the earth is sphere.
Already Aristarchus of Samos (ca. 310 - ca. 230 BC)
had discovered the heliocentric explanation. But only in the 17th century it
became generally accepted by scientists. Why? When Galilei started his famous
conflict with the church, the heliocentric view was already spreading. The
heliocentric theory had been proposed many times before Galilei. (The books of
Copernicus were forbidden by the church only as a consequence of Galilei's
behavior.) What made it so difficult to accept the heliocentric view was the
following: the simple fact that objects fall downwards became a big problem.
You ask me whether I can devise an experiment that
could disprove my theory. In a former email I mentioned a simple experiment by
which we can test whether electrostatic effects propagate at speed of light (as
assumed by orthodox physics) or instantaneously (as assumed by me). When I
wrote that "I'm able to prove all my physical claims and I can propose
some experiments which show that modern physics is completely wrong", it
was perfectly natural for me that these experiments must have the power to
decide between the orthodox theories and mine.
I'm convinced that the psychon
theory is a real scientific theory, much more scientific indeed than well-known
theories such as the big bang theory, Darwinism and many others.
---------------------------------------------
My physics is based on Kepler's physics at least
insofar as Kepler assumed instantaneous effects. Kepler invoked physical laws
in order to explain the planetary system and panpsychism
in order to explain life. That "the panpsychic
stuff was dropped" depended rather on scientific power politics than on
science itself.
It is quite normal in discussions that everybody
remains where he was at the beginning. But I would be glad if I had shown you
that also the currently accepted view depends on premises that are not
self-evident or apriori valid. You believe in the
same way in Darwinism as I believe in my psychon
theory. Maybe an important difference is that I believe in a theory I have not
learned from others and in which I did not believe some years ago.
Your counter-arguments are all based on your basic
premise that only matter or particles with mass can exist. You ignore or simply
judge absurd the whole philosophical tradition which always has opposed the
concept 'soul' to the concept 'matter'.
Your example of Galilei and Newton is so evident that
future generations will wonder why it took so long to recognize that it must
have been the same soul. Intellectual abilities, character and personality are
so similar that it would be an extremely improbable coincidence in a Darwinian
framework. Newton continued the work of Galilei in the same way as Kepler
continued the work of Copernicus. Even the behavior (of Galilei and Newton)
towards Kepler is the same. Here a quotation of 'Thematic origins of scientific
thought' by Gerald Holton, Harvard U.Press, 1973,
p.76:
"Galilei introduces Kepler's work into his
discussion on the world systems only to scoff at Kepler's notion that the moon
affects the tides, even though Tycho Brahe's data and
Kepler's work based on them had shown that the Copernican scheme which Galileo
was so ardently upholding did not correspond to the experimental facts of
planetary motion. And Newton manages to remain strangely silent about Kepler
throughout Book I and II of the PRINCIPIA, by introducing the Third Law
anonymously as "the phenomenon of 3/2th power" and the First and Second
Laws as "the Copernican hypothesis". Kepler' three laws have come to
be treated as essentially empirical rules. How far removed this achievement was
from his original ambition!"
This passage also shows that modern science believing
in the primacy of empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance
or on lies.
---------------------------------------------
Maybe you are right that I'm avoiding your questions
concerning the mass and the storage capacity of the soul (a possible answer: an
average human soul weighs about x grams, contains y Gigabyte and normally
resides in heaven between incarnations). But if yes, then the reasons are
totally different from what you suggest. I never run away from problems which
have to be resolved.
It is difficult for me to respond to your questions
without giving you the impression of arrogance. I actually thought that your
questions are answered by what I have written until now.
See also: http://members.lol.li/twostone/E/psychon.html#a08
According to my epistemological view your questions do
not make sense. Here a quotation of my talks.origin
discussion:
"Almost all modern scientists lack an adequate understanding of
epistemology. If you think that one cannot take seriously a theory which
introduces the concepts 'soul' and even 'reincarnation', then you should study
epistemology, especially the one of Occam or of Einstein: the only way to judge
a theory is to look at its number of concepts (the less the better) and at its
testable consequences and predictions. And one must never demand of the
concepts of a new theory to be explainable by the concepts of the old
theory!"
No paradigm change at all would be possible in human
science, if every new theory had to be explainable by the old one. And that's
exactly what you want me to do: to explain the concept 'psychon'
by the concepts of the prevailing reductionist world view. It is much easier to
explain 'psychon' by the concepts of Kepler's and
Spinoza's science than by the current. You think that the modern concepts your
reasoning is based on are self-evident, but that's a big error! You are not
aware that your thinking and understanding depends on
many questionable pre-assumptions you are not aware of. Here a 'translation' of
your objection:
<< My arguments are based on the fact that
matter falls downwards. If the earth is a sphere, something must push bodies
upwards on the underside of the earth. A body cannot fall upwards without a
material cause. My suspicion is that you have no scientifically plausible
answer. If your theory is to stand you must address the questions of how and by
what kind of material cause bodies can be pushed upwards. Without answers to
these questions your sphere theory cannot possibly be taken seriously. I'm
sorry to put it so bluntly, but that is the simple truth. >>
Not even relativity theory can be explained in such a
way by classical physics!
>> This passage also shows that modern science
believing in the primacy of
>> empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance or on
lies.
> What is the alternative? Gut feelings? Hunches? Or is it enough simply to
> make a suggestion to have it taken seriously?
The alternative is sound reasoning and trying to create better concepts
than the existing ones in an unprejudiced way. The evolution of the
heliocentric world view can be summed up in this way:
1) The heliocentric view was
created as a hypothesis (at least by Aristarchus, Occam, Cusanus
and Copernicus)
2) Scientists got more and more
accustomed to the corresponding concepts (it took hundreds of years)
3) Scientists declared the heliocentric view as a result of their recent
experiments
Only after the new concepts had been created and
assimilated, it was possible to interpret empirical data as a proof of the new
theory!
Problems of Natural
Selection from Humans to Bacteria (2000-11-20 – 2000-12-06)
Probabilities of Abiogenesis and
Evolution Debated
Immanuel Kant and
Evolution ("creation or rather development")
(2007-09-14 – 2007-09-18)
00/12/09 The mutation theory of
the HIV protease
00/12/11 Re: The mutation
theory of the HIV protease
00/12/14 Re: The mutation
theory of the HIV protease
00/12/18 Re: Darwinism refuted
by adverse selection experiments
00/12/18 Re: Darwinism refuted
by adverse selection experiments
00/12/19 Re: Darwinism refuted
by adverse selection experiments
00/12/21 Informal application
to "The Origin-of-Life Prize"
00/12/23 The Nature of Life
(was: The Universe is Alive)
01/01/07 Medieval superstition
in modern society ***
01/01/09 Re: Medieval
superstition in modern society
01/01/11 Re: talk.origins probability-abiogenesis FAQ criticized
01/01/12 Pannaturalism (was: talk.origins probability-abiogenesis FAQ criticized) ***
01/01/14 Kant &
counterrevolution & Einstein