The Logical Leap from 'vast pool of energy' to 'consciousness' is not one simple step but begins with some kind of understanding that the universe holds many unknowns left for science to discover. If on the contrary you were to believe that science already knows and understands everything worth knowing and there is nothing left to discover, then you might be pretty flustered by consciousness conflicting with that worldview. It seems a safe assumption that most people interested in consciousness do hold the first view that there is much science does not know yet, otherwise they could already explain consciousness and their explanations could be demonstrated scientifically. On the basis of the assumption that the universe must hold many unknowns left for science to discover it is possible to continue associating the 'vast pool of energy' with 'consciousness': 1. SOMETHING has to explain consciousness, unless one takes the view that consciousness does not exist or that it is unexplainable but since those would simply be opinions argued from ignorance and against the evidence they can be dismissed as unscientific. So we start looking at the physical phenomena we know and the historical record of human knowledge gained so far to try to make sense of it. 2. The universe IS filled with a vast web of crisscrossing light, obvious on any starry night. 3. Experiments with the Cassini Effect do show that there is 'zero-point' (or whatever it may be called) energy popping in and out of our existence constantly but without staying long. This would suggest an existence outside our own where the zero point energy resides when it isn't briefly in ours, unless you believe in energy arising from nothing. Physicists I've read seem to be in agreement that the zero point energy not only exists but in its own frame of reference its energy is immense, energies in empty space far exceeding the nuclear energies available in equal volumes of any kind of matter. 4. Einstein showed that as the speed of an object increases times slows down for it, and this has been proven by experiment. At the speed of light however time falls to zero, so light experiences zero time regardless of how many billions of light years of empty space it may appear to us to cross. In light's frame of reference no time passes and there is no such thing as distance, the universe is a point source as far as the light is concerned. Matter however can never reach the speed of light because its mass also increases with speed and at the speed of light its mass would become infinite, and that is a physical impossibility or the universe would have been destroyed by now. Matter is therefore always time-bound, including us as creatures made of matter. Light is all happening at once in its frame of reference, and that applies to every photon in the universe. It may be difficult for us to comprehend but it's true. 5. Every major religion of the world holds holy some reference to God as Light and every prophet and yogi and other enlightened soul in history from Jesus to Yogananda has in one way or another spoken of God as Light, the Light within us, et cetera. You can discount religion all you want and while they mostly deserve it when they do all have something in common it is worth considering; not any particular religion's special superstitions but that which they all have in common, God or Allah or Cosmic Consciousness or Divinity or Father Son Spirit or Greater Intelligence or whatever it's called it doesn't matter, what does matter is that they all reference some higher consciousness than our own that is associated with light. While there is no objective scientific proof of any such higher consciousness yet, there is sometimes subjective proof presented to people that later tell about it, and from this we do have evidence that there might be such a thing. It cannot be disproven and atheistic arguments are just as faith-driven as the most evangelical ones, the only completely rational hardcore position to hold in the absence of any personal experience with higher consciousness is simple agnosticism: you just don't know one way or the other. That's okay you don't know what the very center of the earth really looks like either. So the common element that is in all religions should be considered with at least the level of respect that is generally given scientific speculation about other unknowables like the origin of the universe (e.g. Big Bang) and the interiors of black holes for example, as those are completely unprovable areas of potential knowledge as compared to many first-person accounts of encounters with higher consciousness. 6. Light interference patterns can form holograms and holograms can hold information and programs even with just our present knowledge and technologies, consequently that 'vast pool of energy' commonly called zero-point energy must be undergoing interference of its own and forming an interference pattern or patterns of some kind filling the entire universe at very high energy densities. And somehow doing so all at once in its own frame of reference. The safest assumption would be that our present understanding of light interference and holography falls far short of fully explaining all of the potential interactions there must be in the zero-point energy, wide as the universe and spanning not only all of space but all of time as well. We may be like ants trying to understand the workings of a nuclear reactor, a little humility is required. It is not unreasonable to consider that the higher consciousness which every religion and enlightened being has referred to as Light exists in the 'vast pool of energy' which has been identified by science and called zero-point energy. So that's the Logical Leap from the 'vast pool of energy' to a higher consciousness, then follows individual consciousness: 1. There are endogenous photons emitted from all cells tested so far. 2. There exist mechanisms for those endogenous photons to be conducted between cells and to form dynamically resonant interference patterns in the brain's ventricular spaces and possibly in some surrounding tissues. Those patterns would be dynamically resonant with the brain's electrical events, being shaped by the electrical events and in turn able to influence them. 3. Interference patterns formed by endogenous light in the brain would be time-bound to the brain's electrical events but being light, like all other light in the universe it would also exist outside of our time-bound frame of reference in its own timeless frame of reference and able to interact with the interfering light in the zero-point energy. Our own endogenous light then in this model is a "nexus" or connection point for a bit of the higher consciousness in the zero-point energy to inhabit our brains and bodies.

I was just wondering, how is the logical leap from 'vast pool of energy' to 'consciousness' made? It seems to me that there is very little connection between the two, and yet this is the crux of the argument behind this camp insofar as the camp statement has permitted me to see. Many consciousness theories seem to use similar nonsensical leaps from one confusing and/or mysterious physically known 'structure' to 'an explaination for the consciousness (which is also mysterious)' with no intermediate premises to justify said leap. While I wouldn't say I expect the argument to be laid out in a perfectly formed valid and sound syllogism, I find the fact that it is impossible to do so rather worrying.

Richard asks "Can you say how your theory accounts for sleep?". Well there are different stages of sleep, some of which seem to be absent of any kind of consciousness, and there is REM sleep during which dreaming presents us with what seem to be certain limited aspects of consciousness. I would guess that non-REM sleep is a time of nearly purely autonomic functioning with no ELN being formed in the ventricles, but I would not be surprised if I turned out to be wrong about that. Dreaming in REM sleep however clearly involves a kind of self-aware experience that we would probably call consciousness if we were having the same experiences while awake, so the logical inference in terms of ELN theory would be that a nexus of some kind is formed during dreaming and the main question to be asked would be 'how is a dream nexus different from an awake one?'. First we know that sensory inputs during dreaming are not the same as during the awake state, though there can be overlap between them. Somehow there exist internal sources of dream inputs for the visual, auditory, proprioceptive, and other sensory stimuli perceived during dreaming. We also know that these internal sources of sensory stimuli are turned off upon awakening and switched over to external sources (for the most part, perhaps this is a problem for schizophrenics). Please see http://sleepsurfing.com to learn how to observe this switchover from internal to external sensory inputs upon awakening. The most parsimonious assumption would be that the same spatial regions used in the cerebral ventricles to process vision for example during the awake state using external inputs would also be the same regions used to process vision during dreaming with internal inputs, but that does not absolutely have to be the case. An alternative explanation might be that the dreaming nexus forms primarily in the fourth ventricle instead of the third ventricle as in the awake state. In either case the nexus itself probably varies significantly between waking and dreaming states, certainly in terms of the structures of the interference patterns formed and possibly in terms of nexus photon density, dominant wavelengths, polarization, and subsets of the zero point energy interacted with. Perhaps the ventricular cilia beat in the opposite direction during dreaming than they do in the waking state, many other physiologic differences might exist too. For the time being this is all speculation but fortunately it is also accessible to scientific investigation if ELN theory proves to be true. If you really meant by your question "How does ELN theory explain why we need to sleep?", the answer is it doesn't. But it is possible that scientific investigation may eventually be able to answer that question if ELN theory is true.

Hi Can you say how your theory accounts for sleep? cheers Richard

Hi Brent, I think the "zero-point consciousness" of that theory is indeed a similar way to express that consciousness in its essence is something that resides in zero point energy. Rather than all the handwaving about unknowables like spin momentum and fractals and singularities and noumenal aetheric sources however (sounding very much like Leon Maurer's Hoovered-up ABC Theory -- Aggregated Buzzword Concepts) I prefer to keep centered upon what is known and approach the topic scientifically. That theory's scattered vagueness (e.g. "ubiquitous aether centered entanglement", "brain's overall neural field") as buzzword-filled as it sounds still omits exactly how consciousness in the zero point field might interact with a brain to bring into it some of that consciousness. But it's a nice try and correct I think in identifying the source of consciousness as residing in zero point energy. "What is is the difference from Endogenous light?" Photons emitted from mitochondria at any given wavelength ought to be the same as photons emitted from non-endogenous sources, unless there are phenomena going on like pair-produced entanglement that we can only guess at presently. Endogenous photons will be emitted in synchrony with the brain's electrical events in such a way as to contribute to the formation of the nexus though, whereas non-endogenous light that somehow impinged on the cerebral ventricles would only be a noise source. However it is not difficult to imagine a machine-driven system of photon emission tied to computational mechanisms like endogenous photons are tied to the brain's mechanics in such a way as to produce a synthetic nexus and hence a synthetic consciousness. Note the difference between 'artificial' and 'synthetic' in this context would be the same as the difference in diamonds. I don't know what frequencies of light are output by the mitochondria but if I was designing such a system I would make them multispectral with a number of major peaks and having some ability to shift the frequency, phase, and rotation of any single photon that is output. "how would you consider perception to work?" The raw neural data coming in from all sensory sources converges at the thalamus causing stimulated photon emissions to be conducted very quickly to the ventricles and nexus so that the consciousness that is looking through the nexus from the zero point side perceives it in almost real time and a short term feedback loop is established to maintain at least some of the data in a waiting state for possible further attention. The raw data fed to thalamic inputs also continues on to cortex where it is analyzed and representational data about it is returned to the thalamus whereupon it is overlain upon the raw perception in its waiting state to bring meaning into the perception. Benjamin Libet's perplexing experiments become understandable in this model. Very young children and some unfortunate adults like Terry Schiavo only get the raw data and lack sufficient cortical feedback to supply meaning to the nexus.

Hi ELN Theory, I've only just started to study this theory, but I have some initial questions if you don't mind. # You have a doctrine of "zero point energy" in your theory and I'm trying to better understand what this is. Is it similar to the "zero-point consciousness" mentioned in the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/3 Absolute space is the noumenal source of phenomenal consciousness] theory? # What is is the difference from "Endogenous light" and say regular light say at these frequencies: 700nm (red) and 500nm (green)? Are you saying that the cell mitochondria are producing regular light, of say 700nm light in the brain? # Within this theory, how would you consider perception to work? Is it a representational process or something more like direct perception? Thanks, Brent Allsop