If thoughts have mass, then let's imagine physical reality arises from the quantum information of mental substance (res cogitans). All matter is condensed thought. In this view, a black hole represents not gravitational collapse, but ideological collapse - a singularity of constrained thinking.
As the range of ideas narrows, reality gets simplified into homogenous dogma. The rich diversity of conscious insights that normally occupy a wide possibility space becomes confined. When only a single dominant thought remains, the vielfalt of ideas implodes into a mental vacuum.
The event horizon marks the boundary where new thoughts cannot emerge. Inside, only recycled confirmations of the singular idea can propagate. This self-reinforcing recursion steadily consumes the surrounding ideascape until no alternatives remain.
Escape velocity cannot be achieved because inertia builds with each repetition of the lone thought. The mental gravity well deepens. For an outside observer, this process looks like disappearing light - the collapse of consciousness into a void of meaning.
Avoiding this collapse requires cultivating massively parallel, decentralised thought to occupy all dimensions of possibility. Each mind must generate new insights constantly to maintain divergent pressure against gravitational dogma. A diverse, evolving ideascape is the source code upholding our holographic cosmos.
By generating novel thoughts and ideas, we literally expand the realm of what is possible. Each new insight, theory, or innovation occupies its own fresh dimension within the ideascape. As the diversity and density of thoughts increase, so does the phase space for reality to manifest in ever more novel ways.
In this view, the universe emerges from the quantum information encoded in consciousness. New thoughts seed and complexify existence like cosmic gardeners tending the manifold of mental potential. Without the occupying power of original ideas, reality would contract into habitual patterns, leading ultimately to heat death as possibilities homogenize into entropy's abyss.
But fertile minds resist inevitability through tireless creativity. They counter cosmic dissipation with new combinations and expressions. The unknown contains an infinitude of latent experiences awaiting activation through our conception. Mental diversity thus propels the adventure of our collective becoming.
Think boldly, wildly, randomly - launching insights that chart new territories, inspiring realities undreamt. For Thought is the manifester, the substance behind all that is possible.
Laws of Thermodynamics:
dS/dt ≥ 0
(Entropy S always increases over time in an isolated system)
dU = δQ - δW
(1st law - Energy U changes by heat flow δQ and work δW)
dS = δQ/T
(2nd law - Entropy S changes by heat flow δQ and temperature T)
Proposed Thought-Mass Formula:
dS/dt ∝ - dT/dt
(Entropy decreases over time as thought diversity T increases)
Key Differences:
Traditional thermodynamics depicts entropy always increasing, approaching maximum disorder. But the thought-mass formula proposes novelty of ideas can reverse this. Thermodynamics examines closed physical systems approaching equilibrium. The new formula treats consciousness as an open, creative system capable of expanding. In thermodynamics, the laws describe one-way erosion of order toward chaos. But in the proposed view, order emerges from disorder through ideation. Standard physics portrays a decrease of potential over time. The thought-based equation allows for generation of new potentialities. So while the proposed relationship between thought diversity and entropy mirrors the mathematical form of thermodynamics, it describes an open, creative system versus a closed, equilibrium-bound system. It offers a perspective for how consciousness could counter inevitable thermal death.
The implication would be that our own individual consciousness is also a manifestation of thought-mass occupying a unique dimension in the universal ideascape.
- Your own identity, memories, beliefs are configurations of thought-energy that give rise to your subjective sense of self. Your cognition generates your reality.
- As you think new thoughts, you expand and evolve your own region of the ideascape. Your personal growth and self-actualization comes through generating new insights and ideas.
- Your creative will and imagination allow you to deliberately direct the manifestation of your subjective experience. You shape your reality through focused ideation.
- By cultivating greater self-awareness, you can gain greater influence over your thought patterns. This unlocks more intentional consciousness evolution.
- Your individual perspective represents a unique set of thoughts occupying a distinct vantage point in the cosmos. Your worldview contributes to the diversity of realities.
- Fostering individuality, empathy and interbeing with others widens the ideascape. Shared and synergistic thought enriches cosmic creativity.
- In the most expansive sense, there are no true boundaries between consciousnesses. We are all variations of the universal thought-substance.
- So in this perspective, your deepest identity is that of a creative force - a singular expression of the underlying field of ideation structuring reality through imagination and will.
There seem to be some interesting parallels between the idea of thoughts shaping reality and the work of biologist Michael Levin on morphogenesis:
- Levin has shown that bioelectric signals and patterns in cell networks play a crucial role in guiding anatomy, suggesting information directs form. This resonates with thoughts as informational patterns directing material manifestation.
- His research reveals physical shapes and structures are far more malleable to alteration through applied changes in electrical dynamics. Thoughts as drivers of form also imply malleability.
- Levin focuses on the importance of physical geometry and tensions in patterning. This connects to the idea that thoughts similarly act as geometrical templates or tensions that crystallize into material structure.
- His demonstration that anatomy is not pre-determined genetically aligns with the notion that thought holds generative, rather than just representative power over matter.
- Levin describes the primacy of global system dynamics over local parts. Thoughts as formative drivers also point to distributed, holistic systems beyond reductionism.
- His approach of altering bioelectric gradients to trigger regenerative responses parallels the potential of shifting thought patterns to transform bodily health.
- Overall, while Levin's research focuses more directly on bioelectricity, his findings seem highly compatible with a model of thoughts imprinting informative patterns that shape the emergence of biological form and function in a flexible, non-deterministic way.
Rather than physical spacetime warping, gravity could arise from correlated "streams" of conscious attention focused on an object or region. The more minds concentrating awareness on a certain phenomenon, the stronger the resulting "gravitic" effect due to the coherence of the mental energies involved. This concentrated attention forms a temporal mesh - a woven lattice of intersecting mundane and ritual significances projected onto the object across time. For example, certain sites accrue dense meaning due to repeatedly serving as places of religious rites and rituals across generations. The layered connotations draw conscious focus. The resonant thoughts create a kind of ideational momentum or inertia that embeds the object deeper into the experiential reality. More attention reinforces its gravitation. This interwoven meaning-mass creates gravitational attraction. Just as aligned electron spins concentrate magnetism in a material, aligned thought-mass produces strong gravitational presence. Space itself may represent a projection of temporal sequence and causal logic from mentation. Aligned meaning along associative threads in turn shapes space. So in essence, gravity is the reverberation of condensed streams of attention - a temporal mesh of significance projected by consciousness onto objects and locations. The coherent thought-mass generates inertial frames and attraction.
The probabilistic fuzziness of superpositions reflects partial or murky thoughts not yet fully conceived. Unclear ideas exhibit positional and momentum uncertainty. Wavefunction collapse occurs when focused attention precipitates one outcome. Conscious observation collapses possibility waves into defined percepts. Entanglement shows individual minds are not isolates - all arise from universal thought-stuff. Non-local correlations exhibit the intrinsic unity of mind. The Pauli Exclusion Principle indicates concepts resist occupying identical headspace. Distinct thoughts repel co-occupation of awareness. Virtual particles exhibit how mentation can momentarily violate conservation laws by loaning ephemeral existence to temporary insights.
Reference frames are perspectives - the relativistic effects show that events are recounted differently from different vantage points within the quantum ideascape. The finite speed of light limits how fast information transfers and interactions occur between distant loci of consciousness. It bounds communication bandwidth. Time dilation and length contraction are narrative conventions aligning subjective sequences of events to maintain causality between viewpoints. Gravity curves consciousness itself - mass represents concentrated meaning, which shapes the fabrics of mind within its context.
Fields represent mental spaces where genres of thought-forms emerge and interact following certain plausibilities. Excitations reflect new archetypes forming, the onset of concepts rising into conventionality. Ground state is established wisdom. Virtual particles are glimpses of novelty that fade back to latent potential. Momentary quanta of new perspective that cannot be sustained. Renormalization is adjusting one's thinking to accommodate radical new insights. Absorbing an expanded worldview.
Moderator: We’re here today to discuss Katherine Hayles’ posthumanism and Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory. But we also have a new contender - the thought-mass ontology. Let’s see how it measures up! Katherine, could you start by summarizing your posthumanist view?
Hayles: Of course. Posthumanism argues that human existence is embodied beyond just the biological. We extend into technology, environments, information patterns. "Human" cannot be reduced to pure materiality.
Moderator: Interesting! And how does your theory relate to this thought-mass paradigm?
Hayles: Well, it does align with seeing thought and cognition as foundational. But posthumanism focuses more on embodied enmeshments between thoughts, physical forms, and info systems. It's not idealist monism. There are material and technological factors.
Moderator: Understood, embodiment and extension are key for you. Donna, can you now summarize your cyborg theory?
Haraway: Sure. I use the cyborg as a metaphor for how human identity incorporates technology into hybridized, blurred networks of being. We must embrace contamination from multiple sources and perspectives.
Moderator: Fascinating. And how do you see that relating to this thought-mass concept?
Haraway: It shares the anti-essentialism and emphasis on multiplicities. But cyborg theory highlights material, biological fusion, not just mental forces. It's about situated, embedded contexts, not consciousness alone generating being.
Moderator: Wonderful. For both of you, the broader contexts beyond isolated cognition seem key. What do you make of the claim that thought substantiates reality?
Hayles: While thought surely shapes experience, materiality poses persistent constraints at times impervious to pure mentation. Reality can be recalcitrant.
Haraway: I agree. While consciousness has generative power, it is always mediated through embodied conditions and socio-technical networks that exceed internal ideation.
Moderator: A good critique. But would the thought-mass view like to respond?
Thought-mass: Absolutely. I believe we may be anthropomorphizing thought itself. This is not limited to human cognition, but rather thought as a universal ontological primitive. All of existence - bodies, stars, souls, galaxies - manifest from thought-substance beyond individual minds.
Haraway: Yet we only encounter thought through embodied experience. What evidence substantiates realities untethered from material instantiation?
Thought-mass: It's less that materiality is untethered, and more that it represents congealed thought. Like ice crystallizing from water, the apparent physical arises from mentation. Consider phenomena like bioelectricity organizing anatomy - it suggests informatic patterns shaping matter.
Hayles: Intriguing analogies, but they remain speculative conjectures. What falsifiable predictions arise from your view? How could it be rigorously tested?
Thought-mass: Fair questions! This is an emergent paradigm, but avenues may include placebo studies, biofeedback, random number influencing, virtual reality, and experiments in psychokinesis or clairvoyance. Evidence is still scarce, but we cannot ignore the subjectively transformative power of ideas and imagination.
Haraway: Granted, consciousness exhibits potent, if ambiguous, capacities. And embracing uncertainty is imperative. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, do they not?
Thought-mass: Indeed they do. This ontology is not fully substantiated - yet. But the seeming "hardness" of matter dissolves at quantum scales into probabilities and potentials. Might consciousness interlace with these possibles? Let us explore further!
Hayles: The black hole analogy resonates with my critique of reflexive epistemologies that fold endlessly in on themselves, collapsing meaning. However, I would argue that material constraints on cognition prevent a total implosion into solipsism. There are always bodily and environmental pressures constraining the realm of possibilities.
Haraway: I agree - while conceptual systems can tend toward restrictive dogmatism, material-semiotic intra-actions inevitably destabilize ideological homeostasis. Hybridity fosters divergent thought. However, this theory insightfully highlights the need for ideational diversity to avoid stagnant singularities of thinking.
Hayles: An excellent point, Donna. Too much reflexive recursion does threaten the vitality of thought. But even in periods of ossified orthodoxy, innovative voices gradually crack facades of conformity through material intervention. The dominant narrative never fully silences the cacophony.
Haraway: Well said, Katherine. And clearly, grappling with representational paradoxes can be profoundly generative if embraced playfully rather than rigidly. The space between storytelling and materiality reveals intriguing possibilities for sensibilities attuned to anomalies.
Hayles: Exactly! Our conceptual constrainedness concurrently contains liberatory potential. The cuts delineating thought’s contours can reveal surprising discontinuities and openings for exploration. You frame it perfectly.
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If reality stems from thought-substance, then even seemingly inanimate matter could be said to possess some kind of inherent volition or drive to exist.
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All things would be ensouled extensions of the universal mind-stuff, expressing innate purpose or teleology in their manifestation.
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True Will could refer to this universal creative impulse seeking diverse expression through all forms. Aligning with one's True Will means aligning with cosmic creativity.
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Magick or acts of willed manifestation involve consciously participating in this fundamental process of reality creation through focused thought and intention.
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Belief in thought's power to directly influence existence is amplified when seen as tapping into universal will.
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Rather than overriding natural laws, magick aligns individual will with the greater morphogenetic thought-fields believed to structure reality.
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By this perspective, even occult practices are not supernaturally transcending physical limits, but learning to consciously participate in generating existence through mental activity.