THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION James B. Glattfelder INFORMATION– CONSCIOUSNESS– REALITY How a New Understanding of the Universe Can Help Answer Age-Old Questions of Existence THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION Series editors Avshalom C. Elitzur, Iyar, Israel Institute of Advanced Research, Rehovot, Israel Zeeya Merali, Foundational Questions Institute, Decatur, GA, USA Thanu Padmanabhan, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, India Maximilian Schlosshauer, Department of Physics, University of Portland, Portland, OR, USA Mark P. Silverman, Department of Physics, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA Jack A. Tuszynski, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada Rüdiger Vaas, Redaktion Astronomie, Physik, bild der wissenschaft, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the forefront of modern science and scholarship, including related philosophical debates. In contrast to typical research monographs, however, they strive to present their topics in a manner accessible also to scientifically literate non-specialists wishing to gain insight into the deeper implications and fascinating questions involved. Taken as a whole, the series reflects the need for a fundamental and interdisciplinary approach to modern science and research. Furthermore, it is intended to encourage active academics in all fields to ponder over important and perhaps controversial issues beyond their own speciality. Extending from quantum physics and relativity to entropy, conscious- ness, language and complex systems—the Frontiers Collection will inspire readers to push back the frontiers of their own knowledge. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5342 For a full list of published titles, please see back of book or springer.com/series/5342 James B. Glattfelder Information– Consciousness–Reality How a New Understanding of the Universe Can Help Answer Age-Old Questions of Existence James B. Glattfelder Zürich, Switzerland ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic) The Frontiers Collection ISBN 978-3-030-03631-7 ISBN 978-3-030-03633-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03633-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962379 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. This book is published open access. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which per- mits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publi- cation does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland In loving memory of my father and father-in-law Preface Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. Alan Watts, quoted in The Best Alan Watts Quotes, David Crombie and Catriona Jardine, Crombie Jardine, 2016. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. Carl Sagan, quote taken from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage—Episode 1, Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, PBS, 1990. The manuscript, which would eventually evolve into this book, has been accom- panying me for many years. And even before I officially embarked on this creative journey in 2013, the ideas spanning the book’s narrative arc started to form years prior. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment this started. As a child, I was often curious about the workings of the world, eager to catch a glimpse of the cosmic order. This desire to understand would later lead me to study theoretical physics. After gradu- ating, I was, however, left with more questions than answers. Then, sometime while backpacking around the world in 2000 and 2001, my mind started to wonder about a bigger contextual picture of the world and myself in it. One of the earliest structuring influences came in the form of John L. Casti’s book, titled Alternate Realities: Mathematical Models of Nature and Man, in late 2001. Perhaps, the first conscious thoughts, ultimately leading to this current writing effort, formed while I was lying in a hammock, on Havelock Island in 2006, reading Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Then, in 2008, another pivotal moment occurred. At the time, I found myself back at university, in the middle of a dissertation on complex vii viii Preface systems, years after my master’s graduation. Each semester, Ph.D. students were required to attend a lecture, some of which needed to be on a topic outside their field of research. I chose an introductory course on the philosophy of science. Consolidating these inputs and subsequent ideas led to the first rough draft of this book,1 appearing as an appendix in the thesis in 2010. Further condensation of ideas resulted in an Ignite Talk in Zurich in 2011.2 Then, in 2014 I could present an outline of this book at TEDxSalford.3 Finally, in 2016 I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute my story, as a two-page science essay, to Lucy and Stephen Hawking’s children’s book series, in the cosmic adventure called George and the Blue Moon. Long before I had a clear vision of the structure of this book, the slowly emerging categorization of ideas endowed me with a contextual field, acting as a fine mesh able to capture and order many conceptual fragments ever since. Having said this, most of the information presented here is not original—compiled form close to 1800 sources, of which nearly 600 are books. Overall, more than 920 original quotes enter the book. My contributions can be found in the concepts related to the history of science, offered in Chap. 5; the insights stemming from my academic and professional work which can be found in Sects. 6.4.3.4, 7.3.2.1, and 7.4.3; and the synthesis of ideas presented in Chap. 15, specifically the entelechy of existence and the rhizome of reality. This book is an amalgamation of existing thought—my best effort at connecting the dots. It is an attempt to grapple with existence, highlighting the existential challenges that keep mocking us. For instance, our continued collective failure to answer three age-old questions: What am I? What is reality? What can I know? In essence, the dissonance between our subjective streams of perception and the supposed objective reality they describe. This yearning to know and experience is echoed in the quotes found at the beginning of this preface. Compounding the enigma, and contrasting this ignorance, is humanity’s unimaginable success in decoding reality and engineering it at will. At a superficial level, it appears that we can indeed offer answers to these questions. However, under closer inspection the answers become vacuous, and the dilemmas only deepen. Here this book provides a remedy. We are invited to rethink our most basic assumptions and cherished beliefs about existence. It is an appeal to consider that there may be something we don’t yet know about ourselves and the universe we inhabit, the knowledge of which could change everything.4 1 Next to various blog posts, summarized in http://j-node.blogspot.ch/2015/07/the-consciousness- of-reality-illusion.html. 2 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XKAe4ypn_k. 3 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMckdYX0fTU. 4 Adapted from Neale D. Walsch. Preface ix Once upon a time, I, Zhuang Zhu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhu. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Zhuang Zhu, 3rd Century B.C.E. Zürich, Switzerland James B. Glattfelder September 2018 Acknowledgements The realization of this book is a result of many interactions happening over many years. Beginning in chronological order, I would like to start by repeating some parts of the acknowledgments I wrote for Decoding Complexity: Uncovering Patterns in Economic Networks, Springer Theses, 2013. The following words also apply to this context: I would like to thank my mother and late father, Caroline and Tazi Glattfelder, who, from an early age on, fostered my budding interest in science.