So many things it hurts

So it's been a while. I'm playing hooky from church today. It's a combined service with no religious ed for Sophie, which means 40 minutes struggling to keep her from exploding or making me explode... =] No fun for anyone to be had in that - no good either.

Again, it's been a long while since I've posted. No one seems to know this exists. Of course, I've told no one. So how would they? I still feel I'm missing something about this whole blogging thing.

I've been bursting with ideas lately. Nothing new - meaning the ideas are ones I've mostly has before. I've never written them down. I hope to do some of that here. But I have not yet. Time, time, time, time is always slipping away.

So many things pulse through my mind - mostly about mind. It started when I was reading about Roger Penrose's thoughts on the role quantum mechanics may have in the mind. It makes so much sense to me. The basic idea, which is a result of a wider statement about the role gravity has in the quantum process, says that the scale human thought plays out at may be exactly the range where quantum effects mingle with the macroscopic universe. His idea is that something at small scales can play the quantum games (being in more than one place at once, popping into and out of existence, etc.) because gravity holds no sway at those tiny mass levels. But, it is said, as soon as gravity can hold sway, the multitude of possibilities coalesce into one actuality. I think this would have made Einstein smile. It's so simple. It feels true to me. Penrose goes on to say that this does not rule out quantum effects in things larger than we usually expect. Hence, perhaps quantum probability and hijinks can help explain the mechanics of choice - perchance even free will.

It's a massively appealing idea. Google it and you'll see how many people are buzzing with it. I can't say I've dug into it too much, but it simply feels true. It echos the emergence and multi-layered ideas of mind I've always thought would lead to truth. It also appeals to me because it gives me joy to see that my materialism - materialism that never looked like what most materialists say theirs does - could indeed be right. I've always thought there could be a physics based explanation of mind. I've always believed mind was material - as I believe everything is material. But I have never thought we held all the cards in material's deck before. I still don't think we do. But we have great minds getting closer.