Information in a Brain is Due to Tachyon Waves

Abstract: A computer does not know what it is doing while a human brain does. It is not possible to simulate self-awareness in a computer because the WRITE operation cannot be performed in a computer with infinite speed. Therefore it is suggested here that self-awareness in a living brain is due to the presence of tachyon waves. A tachyon is a wave packet associated with an imaginary mass value. The point of view which treats these waves strictly as nonlocal phenomena in a dispersive medium produced and absorbed instantaneously and nonlocally by detectors acting in a coherent and cooperative way is best suited to describe information production and propagation in the brain by systems of neurons. A tachyon is localized in time and nonlocalized in space, thus its wave function does not propagate faster than light but appears everywhere because it is created everywhere. Some intuitive concepts are presented here in support of the proposition that information in our brains is at least partly due to tachyon energy.

Computers versus Brains

One common characteristic of a computer and a living brain is that they both have memory, i.e., they both store information. A digital computer's memory consists of a bunch of cells each of which can exist in either of two states denoted by '0' and '1'. Writing information into computer memory is to drive these cells into the '0' and '1' states by sending electrical signals to them. Reading information from computer memory is to sense these cells and find out in which states they are. What information is represented by any given sequence of '0's and '1's is decided by the programmer but not by the computer. The machine does not really know the meaning of any of its memory contents. Hence the computer carries only a representation but does not know what the information really is. What about a brain? Does it know the meaning of its memory contents? Or does the brain also carry merely a representation of information? Is there anything at all in a living brain that is basically different from what is in a computer memory? Actually, modern brain science can explain all activities of life: biological behaviors such as eating, sleeping, and reproducing; emotional behaviors such as joy, anger, and jealousy; creative activities such as art, music, and poetry even development of cultures as results of carrying out the associated programs by the "information carrying" substances in the brain. The DNA is equipped with sets of rules just like a computer and interprets electrical signals generated in the nerve cells according to these rules. Some biologists do believe thatthe brain's overall behavior is not fundamentally different from that of a computer though there is still a lot to learn about the details of how a livibg brain works. On the other hand, there are scientists and engineers who believe that there is some "real information' in a brain besides electrical signals because the same signal when produced does not convey any meaning to anybody and unlike the computer, nobody from outside assigns meaning to these signals.

Information is different from its representation

The same meaning may be conveyed by different words in different languages. Sometimes language is not even used to communicate information. For example, a right signal flashing from a car is an indication to others that it is about to make a right turn. Animals also convey some feelings by making sounds or movement of their bodies. Thus information can be conveyed in many ways and the means of communication always uses a representation. The representation may be in the form of words, sounds, electrical signals, and so on, but it is always a mapping of information to matter or material energy. A language is a mapping of information into words (symbols) which become sound energy when pronounced, and particals of matter when written on a paper, and become electrical energy when transmitted over a telephone line. Yet information is different from the language or energy signals that are used for its communication just like water is different from its container without which it cannot betaken from place to place.

Self-awareness

One difference between a computer and a human being is that a human being knows what he/she is doing whereas a computer does not. What does it mean to know oneself or even to know something mean? Nowadays, we are very much used to expressions like "the computer knows", "it understands", "it thinks", etc. In fact, we can precisely define what it means to "know" an object. A digital computer knows an object (a data item or a program instruction), when a representation of that object as bytes of '0's and '1's, i.e., as a set of memory cells exists in its memory. Once such a representation is contained in its memory, the computer can perform any number of operations with it (when the operations are also supplied to it of course). The computer can compare the object with another object also known to it, add, subtract, compute functions of it, draw a picture of it, and so on. The computer can do almost anything that a person can do with it and behave as though it "knows" the object. In fact, computers do so many miraculous things that we often wonder whether they are more intelligent than we human beings! But does a computer "really know" the object? Of course not. A paper on which a few sentences are written, does not know the meaning of these sentences. The person that wrote them knows their meaning. A person who utters a word knows its meaning. The sound does not. Computer is similar. It does not know the meaning of its memory contents. We can see at least that according to our definition of a computer's knowing, it cannot know what it is doing (call it self-awareness for brevity) Let us try to simulate self-awareness and see what happens. Suppose that a computer knows an object A; hence a representation of A as a sequence of '0's and '1's is already written into its memory. To be self-aware, the computer must know that it knows A, so it must also contain in its memory the sentence "I know A" and for the same reason, it must also have the sentence "I know that I know A" and "I know that I know that I know A", and so on. So, the computer must be equipped with a mechanism which would write all the sentences in this infinite sequence, once a representation of A is written into its memory. The machine then, enters into an infinite loop and write, and write and write until it runs out of all its memory space. Also, writing each sentence in the loop takes some time however small it may be. Thus the computer with a finite (not infinite)storage space and a finite (not infinitesimal) writing time cannot complete the infinite loop. So, it cannot be self-aware. It can write a finite number of sentences in the loop but clearly, it does not know what it is doing even then. What about a quantum computer? Does it know what it is doing? A quantum computer does have the potential to be millions of times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers and many times larger storage capacity. Can it complete the infinite loop? According to maths, it cannot complete an infinite loop no matter how big a memory and how fast its Write operation may be because they are still finite. Unlike in a computer, there is constant observation going on in a human brain at least when awake. When I observe an object I remember the object and also the act of observation. For example, while reading a book I am aware that I am reading, and what I am reading every instant. In other words, in a brain, there is a computer-like but continuous reading and writing taking place in such a way that the read and write operations take infinitesimal times for completion. Also, the information being recorded does not require a lot of memory space, otherwise how can a small brain can hold so many memories! This situation suggests to me that it is possible that a brain's self-awareness and consciousness is due to processes taking place at faster than speed of light and due to the presence of tachyons in the brain.
According to the Relativity theory, no material particle nor material energy can travel faster than light. So, the maximum speed of WRITE that we can achieve in our computers is that of light. Besides not being to complete the self-awareness loop, the computer cannot carry any "real information" that comes from the brain. It can only store sequences of '0's and '1's to which the programmes has to assign meaning. On the other hand, there is some "real information" in the brains of living beings. Though the DNA interprets signals generated in nerve cells according to rules already coded into DNA just like a computer, the same signals if produced outside the brain do not mean anything unless we assign some meaning to them.At the time of birth, the DNA already has programs coded into it. It already knows how to interpret signals. We do not supply this information to the DNA. In his book, Programs of the Brain, J.Z. Young says that we do not know where from the information came into the DNA. If this initial information consists of tachyon energy, then it is quite possible according to tachyon theory that interaction of tachyons with ordinary matter leads to further production of tachyons. So our picture of a living brain is as follows: It is a computer that has some contents in its memory to start with; these contents are not a material representation of information but some "real information" and our guess is that this real information, at least partially, consists of tachyon energy. As life continues, this computer receives inputs in the form of material energy and processes it according to the programs stored in its memory in the form of tachyons. This processing therefore, involves interaction of tachyon energy with matter. In this process, the computer acquires more information, which is produced again in the form of tachyons, and that is how it is stored in the brain's memory. My guess is that just like heat is sensed by touch, light by eyes, and sound by ears, tachyon energy is probably recognized by us as thought. Needless to say that such a guess becomes meaningful only when verified by experiments. I believe psychokinesis may be an are for experimental verification of the existence of tachyons because in that phenomenon, people produce kinetic energy merely by concentration. Actually psychokinesis is taking place in our brains all the time. For example, first I want to move my hand and then I move it, and this involves production of kinetic energy from the will to do the act.

Possibility of Tachyon Production in the Brain

In brain science, models of the cortex as a spatiotemporal filter which is driven by inputs from midbrain structures are sometimes used to explain spectral peaks observed in EEG records in various physical conditions [4]. In this paper, we similarly use a model in which the brain acts as a spatiotemporal filter that takes as input electrical signals generated in nerve cells by sensory inputs, and produces output which is recorded in its memory (whose structure is not yet fully understood). An important property of this filter is that it has an instantaneous feedback from the memory to satisfy our postulate of self-awareness (we know what we are doing). Denoting this filter as L and assuming that it generates some wave phenomena in the brain, we will take the causal Green's function associated with the wave equation

(delta)square U/(delta t)squre minus (del)square U = 0 (1)

as the Green's function of the filter L [10]. U(x, y, z, t) specifies the value of the wave at the space point (x, y, z) and time t. The Green's function G= G(x, y, z, t /x0. y0, z0, t0) of equation (1) represents the effect of the filter L due to a an impulsive excitation at the point X0=(x0, y0, z0) and at time t0. Denoting the general input to L at the space point X0 and time t0 by f(X0, t0) and the output of L at the space point X and time t by U(X, t), we have

U(X,t) = Integral from minus infinity to plus infinity dt0 (Integral over X0-space G(X,t/ X0,t0)f(X0,t0)d-cubeX0 )
= Integral from minus infinity to t dt0 Integral over X0-space G(X, t / X0, t0)f(X0, t0)d-cubeX0 (2)

because G is causal, that is, G(X, t / X0, t0) = 0 for t < t0.
In (2), note that the right hand side summarises the effect of all inputs received by L until time the t. Hence the output U(X, t) produced at time t depends not only on the input f(X, t) at time t but also on the entire past history of L, which determines the internal state of L (analogous to a computer). It can be easily verified that U(X, t) in (2) satisfies the inhomopgeneous wave equation:
(delta)square U/(delta t)squre minus (del)square U = f(X,t) (3)
because in equation (2) G is the Green's function of equation (1). Since our filter L also has an instantaneous feedback of the output U(X,t) (to meet the postulate of self-awareness), the output U(X,t) of L should satisfy the following equation instead of equation (3):
(delta)square U/(delta t)squre minus (del)square U = lamda*U +
f(X,t) (4)
In (4), we have included a real numerical multiple lamda*U which has the same shape as U. The homogeneous part of (4) describes the infinite loop of reading from and writing into the brain's memory.
(delta)square U/(delta t)squre minus(del)square U=lamda*U (5)
This has plane wave solutions with real frequencies and the dispersion relation:
(w)squre = (k)square minus lamda
where w is the frequency and k is the wavenumber and
lambda <= (k)square. Hence lamda can be positive or negative.
For lambda= minus (m)square, where m is real, the equation (5) is the Klein Gordon equation of a particle of real mass m. For lambda = (m) square, (5) is the Klein Gordon equation of a tachyon with imaginary mass im. Tachyon dynamics was discussed in [5], [6],[7] and in other papers. I feel that the point of view which treats tachyons as strictly non-local phenomena produced and absorbed nonlocally by detectors acting in a coherent and cooperative way is best suited to describe generation and detection of signals by systems of neurons in a brain. When the mass parameter has imaginary values, the group velocity of the Klein Gordon wave is greater than its phase velocity and the wave is an example of anomalous dispersion. If a tachyon pulse or train with well defined edge can be created, then the front edge will propagate at or below the speed of light and there is no causality problem. On the other hand, because of the non-localizability of tachyon waves, one cannot talk about causal or noncausal propagation of tachyon waves because a tachyon cannot be created in one position to be later absorbed in another position. Hence one cannot talk about the time of its flight from one position to another. In contrast to an ordinary particle which is created at a point in space with a finite lifetime and so distributed in time, a tachyon is localized in time and nonlocalized in space so that it can be created instantaneously but distributed through space. Therefore tachyons do not cause causality violations but appear to be noncausal because they are created nonlocally. The nonlocal process should be traceable to a single point of time but not to a single observer who could create it at his own position without involving other points in space. Since a point of space at which a tachyon is created cannot be defined, its wave function does not propagate faster than light. It appears everywhere because it is created everywhere [1] not because it moves fast!
I think that the brain has the environment required for the production of tachyons. Systems of neurons act collectively and each bit of information in the brain is carried collectively but never carried by a single neuron. Brain researchers associate the synchronicity of neurons with awareness. Just like heat is recognized by us by the sense of touch, sound by the ears, and light perceived by the eyes, it is possible that tachyon energy in the brain is what we recgnize as thought.
One possible method of experimental detection of tachyon waves in a brain would be to verify the existence of the dispersion relation of the form (w)square = (k)squre minus (m)square for electromagnetic waves in the brain's memory (cortex, neocortex, etc.). At present, EEG is the primary means by which electric and electromagnetic fields in the brain are measured and their features infered by brain scientists. So, I feel that once suitable techniques of analyzing the observed EEG and associating it with the detailed features of brain's electromagnetic fields are developed, the well known alpha, beta, theta and delta rythms should reveal the presence of tachyons in the brain.

References:
S. Vishnubhatla, Proceedings of IEEE SMC, 1985
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[2] P.L. Nunez, IEEE. Trans. Biomedical Eng., BME-28, 271, 1981
[3] P.L. Nunez, IEEE. Trans. Biomedical Eng., BME-28, 281, 1981
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[9] N. Wiener, Cybernetics, John Wiley&Sons,p. 155, 1948
[10] J.Z. Young, Memory Systems of the Brain, Univ. of California Press Berkley and Los Angeles, p 11, 21, 1966