Bits and Dots

Think of the number of subatomic particles in a grain of sand, of the billions of electrons, neutrons, protons, and all their myriad variants and constituents that make up such a small thing. Now think of something larger, like the entire beach where you found the grain of sand. Think of how many more subatomic particles there are in something so large - a truly vast number. Keep going though, through all the beaches that there are, the oceans, all the land, the entire planet, out through all the planets, the Sun, and then roam even more. Think of all the particles that constitute all of the 400 billion stars in this average galaxy, and of all the particles in the billions of of galaxies that exist throughout the entire universe. Keep that thought.

Your brain, that three pound lump of meat between your ears, consists of about 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. Very large numbers indeed but small compared to the number of subatomic particles that make it up, and vanishingly tiny when compared to the scales above. Yet it is not the sheer number of neurons and synapses that should take your breath away, that should boggle your mind, because the magic strong enough to do that is in the number of possible interconnections; the combinations and permutations that underpin everything that makes you, well, YOU. The number of neuronal/synaptic combinations and permutations in your brain, the thing thinking of these words, exceeds the total number of subatomic particles in the entire universe by three orders of magnitude!

It is within this extravagant excess that you brain contains something even more wondrous than the universe itself; your brain is the physical seat of what you are, and is the springboard and reservoir for mind, for consciousness, for spirit, for soul, for you.

And something else. Are you the collection of subatomic particles that make you up? If this is so, how is it that you remember anything from even a year ago? During the last twelve months all the subatomic particles that make up your entire body, every one of them including those in your brain, have been replaced. Not one meson, quark, electron, particles on and on, that constitutes your physical self has been part of your body for more that several months. Not one! You are constantly renewed. Are you then simply the pattens impressed on this physical substrate? I can represent any pattern, by definition, as an algorithm, albeit a complex one in the case of representing you, but it is possible in principle. I don't think I could represent 'you' with an algorithm, no matter how complex. Do you? Think about this.

And lastly, at least for now, a question: Have you ever heard of quantum entanglement? There is a process whereby pairs of subatomic particles become entangled in that they exist in a state where they always exhibit identical behavior regardless of the distance between them and they do this instantaneously. Every bit that makes you up is potentially related by this process to an exactly equal number of particles that could be, and are, anywhere in the universe and any time a particle in you undergoes a quantum change so does the paired particle, at exactly the same time, even if that particle is on the other side of the universe.

There is so much more. In due time........