1.
Mathematical Principles of
Brain, Mind and Intelligence
This slide is what I used when I was at NSF, and led the team of program directors who created a new funding opportunity to learn how brains really learn to solve higher-order problems in life, and how we can build AI with similar capabilities. That funding effort was what led to the “new AI, deep learning” revolution ; so far as I know, none of the more recent brain research initiatives has probed so deep into these key questions. The resulting breakthroughs have led to a radical new understanding of how mammal brains actually work, based on data from the best brain data in the US: see this 2021 youtube talk.
In
all of my work, I was influenced deeply by John Von Neumann, one of the two
greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century , and
one of the two real original founders of the neural network field. Von Neumann
argued that mathematics can provide deep new, unified answers to the three most
important questions in basic science, one of them being “What is Mind?”. This new universal mathematics of intelligent systems
unifies our understanding of the intelligence in brains, in true machine
intelligence, and even in souls for those of us who do believe that souls do
exist. (I thought that the soul part was crazy until March 1967 when personal
experience overwhelmed even my own fierce skepticism). See this 2021 youtube
for the best understanding of how brains actually work, based on these
breakthroughs in mathematics and on empirical data from the world’s best source
on brain data.
2.
Mathematical Principles to
Unify the Bigger Picture up to Real Soul?
Is it possible to reconcile (1) the
hardest core realism in physics, versus (2) the modern best quantum field
theories, versus (3) our new mathematical understanding of brains and minds and
the evolution of life; versus (4) the most powerful first person experience of
soul and spirit, and of our connections to a serious and real higher level of
intelligence? In truth, it took me more than 50 years to see a solid
mathematical way to reconcile all this. But now – after exploring thousands of
other views and cultures, I now see no credible evidence against the new
unification I posted on youtube this year (see the slide below). For a more intuitive picture of what this means, see this
recent interview discussion in Canada.
From
1967 to 1972, I
gradually paid attention to a larger issue: if the reality of soul is
inescapable (for some of us), how can we fully unify our understanding of
intelligent systems and hard physics with the full range of the most verified
spiritual or psi experience? The blog posts here on brain and soul, and on
soul, go very far into those questions, building on papers I published in 2019
linked to at Werbos.com/religions.htm.
BRAIN
2020
December
Saving the World: How do genes and hormones like gender affect the brain? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2016
November
Saving the World: cracking the neural code (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: a very large technical issue people have missed (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: parallel processing of quantum optics and Donald Trump (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: Creativity and Inborn Personality Factors (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
January
2015
February
2014
February
Saving the World: mirror, mirror -- who's the smartest one of all? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2013
July
Saving the World: what autism tells us about humans in general (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
March – the levels of brain on earth
Saving the World: children's guide to intelligent life on earth (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2012
2011
January
2010
July
Saving the World: fly stories and understanding the brain and mind (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
Saving the World: misconceptions about backpropagation and
brain (drpauljohn.blogspot.com) (and SII)
BRAIN AND SOUL
2021
Saving the World: Scientific Holistic Healing and Who You
Are (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2020
August
June
Saving the World: Major yogin asks "Are you people materialists or not? " (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
April
Saving the World: Healing the war between science and spirit (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
March
Saving the World: In defense of science -- and my view of
what it is (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
January
Saving the World: what is qi? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2019
December
August
Saving the World: Debate on God with an Irish scientist friend (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Synthesis of hard core science and spiritual reality (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
May
Saving the World: stability, criticality, trust and soul (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2018
August
Saving the World: How can your energy levels rise or fall? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
Saving the World: One page obituary of my mother (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
Saving the World: Which ideas or feelings "reach consciousness"? NONE!!! (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2017
October
Saving the World: Can a Computer (or Robot) Have a Soul? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: Trusting Experience or Data: Brains to IT to Souls (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2016
June
Saving the World: New Struggle Between Good and Evil in US and EU (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2015
November
Saving the World: Dreams, revelations and how they work in the brain (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: the physics of consciousness and google
(drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
Saving the World: musings about where we all are (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)}
(But note: in 2020, analyzing Macro Schrodinger cats more closely using tools I had developed for quantum optics,
I returned to >50% belief in Einstein realism).
February
Saving the World: where is mind and where is the future (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Is your soul like a piece of paper? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
Saving the World: Coming to terms with a radical possible new view of life (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2014
November
Saving the World: review of "Map of Heaven" (drpauljohn.blogspot.com) (afterlife, …)
May
February
2012
November
SOUL
May
Saving the World: For folks over 70: realities of our coming afterlife (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
April
January
Saving the World: Scientific Holistic Healing and Who You Are
(drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: How music has aided my spiritual
development (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2020
December
October
Saving the World (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: Classifying My First Person Spiritual States (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Quakers ask what to do about racism (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2020/07/first-i-thank-alfredo-of-cosmic-realism.html
June
Saving the World: My middle way response to a debate about what happens when we die (drpauljohn.blogspot.com) Saving the World: Carl Jung and Karl Schroder on the Crisis of World Civilization today (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
April
March
February
Saving the World: When Thing Are So Scary Why Not Give Up? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
2019
May
Saving the World: What does God* want**? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: A simple meditation which is more than it seems (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
March
Saving the World: Will YOU and I become Coco or Sian Kaan? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
Saving the World: Mental dualism: what it is and a Platonic variation (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2018
December
Saving the World: Comments on Zen Buddhism (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
November
Saving the World: Right brain exploration of life (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Moslem Brotherhood wipes out Pope and Trump (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
October
August
Saving the World: My reply to a physicist warning us not to attack Trump (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: building computers which really have real souls (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
Saving the World: A reply to Deepak Chopra (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
April
March
Saving the World: Can anyone explain ESP, or psychic phenomena in general? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: miracles just for saints or rishis or for all of us? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
Saving the World: explanation and scientific replication of astral travel (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
Saving the World: How and why to explain and enhance psi (aka “soul”) (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: To Vedanta folks about events and deep spirit in Iran (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2017
November
Saving the World: international debate on "What is God" and What is Trump (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: halloween day after day after (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: The physics of who we are, like Plato, Zelazny, Willis (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: more debate in Vedanta group about astral travel (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
August
Saving the World: Where we really come from (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
Saving the World: What happens to you and me when we die? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
Saving the World: Vedanta, brains, Qatar and threats to the President (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: post to vedanta society on planes of existence (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Spirit lessons from Tlingits and quantum physics (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
Saving the World: Does God want us to learn to drink from a firehose? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
April
March
Saving the World: Discussing our future with the deer in the back yard (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Message from above (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
January
Saving the World: Sports Medicine for Brain, Soul and Effective Management (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2016
November
Saving the World: Secrets of the Soul Mark 3 (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
October
Saving the World: Adventures in high mountains seeking enlightenment (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: minor election watch -- please forgive gross informality (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Musing about muses and the election (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: deep esoterica and Donald Trump (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: reactions to a unified field theory (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
August
http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-mathematician-got-turned-into-mystic_32.html
Saving the World: Doing justice to the past in the realm of spirit (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Tense, relax and dream about Brexit? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: IT and social contracts -- message to Yeshua ben David (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
Saving the World: Do cats and deer have "souls"?
(drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
Saving the World: What do you do if asked to cast out a demon? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
April
Saving the World: Last Day as a Normal Person Before RP Surgery (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
More April (first person during travel)
Saving the World: Finding the Real Jesus in Agrigento, Sicily??!! (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Highs and Lows of Life on Norwegian Epic (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Positano: From Misty Spirit to Comedy/Surgery (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
March
Saving the World: Cruising, Madrid and Rome and Beyond (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
Saving the World: A Dream From South Carolina (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
Saving the World: Assorted reports from the Day Watch (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2015
December
November
Saving the World: Purpose of Life In a High Buddhist Viewpoint (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
October
Saving the World: Nature’s Totem Pole Behind the House Between the Worlds (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: Deepest Spiritual Truths in Catholicism and Hell (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
August
Saving the World: The Middle Way – Living Between Fire and Ice (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
June
Saving the World: Meeting my wife Luda -- from mundane to esoteric (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
May
Saving the World: email to that Jesus guy (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2013
December
Saving the World: message to India about chakras (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: What happens to the souls of spiritual couch potatoes? (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
November
October
Saving the World: songs of the heart (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: the struggle of life in higher Indian mysticism (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
Saving the World: "shadows" and how I came to learn about them (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
(I expande my use of the word later when I learned more, even in 2020).
Saving the World: Utter weirdness in everyday life (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
June
Saving the World: some praxis of assumption (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2012
September
Saving the World: memories of some dreams (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: How to Do More Justice to the Spiritual Side of Life (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
July
Saving the World: Philip Dick and the frontier of Soul (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: kung fu style mind discipline (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
February
Saving the World: fundamental truth in Buddhism (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
January
Saving the World: An old dream about science fiction writers and Jesus (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2011
December
Saving the World: why I think cats and dogs have souls (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: Breakfast recipe and the soul of a cat (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: Conversations with God About the Republican Nomination (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: levels of enlightenment (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
2010
October
Saving the World: Mystical (and Physical) Visit to Byzantium (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
Saving the World: theories of uncertainty and reality and Sufis (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
September
Saving the World: sanity as a first step towards enlightenment (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)
August
April
Saving the World: A true ghost story (drpauljohn.blogspot.com)