Reality Unbound - The Digital Mind (and the nature of reality)

By E. Hughes

Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize finalist (2025)

Is the mind digita

• Language: English
• Publisher: Love-LovePublishing
• Release date: Nov 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781961823273

E. Hughes

E. Hughes (1974) is the author of Time and Multi-Universe: A philosophy of time and time travel (2022) and Sixth Iteration, a science-fiction novel (2021). E. Hughes is a novelist and writer of more than twenty-five years and has over twenty published works in multiple genres from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children's books to date. Her latest offering is Digital Smiles, her final work of poetry, a chapbook released in February 2024. Hughes is also scheduled to release Reality Unbound, a nonfiction, and Kissing Henry, a YA graphic novel in 2024. In addition to Sixth Iteration and Time and the Multi-Universe, Hughes is also the author of Starting Your First Patio Garden: A Coffee Table Book, the Penelope children's books series, Disappear, Love, A Mediterranean Romance, Business as Usual, Infatuation, The Sapphire Chronicles, Hello (a screenplay), Beyond the Plain, Pearls..., and other works (not including pseudonymous works). E. Hughes is a metaphysics philosopher, avid gardener, painter, and hobbyist jewelry designer. She is also an observer of cultural and societal idiosyncrasies.

Book preview

Reality Unbound:

The Digital Mind

and the nature of reality

E. Hughes

Copyright © 2024 E. Hughes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Love-LovePublishing, Madison, WI

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-961823-28-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-961823-27-3

Reality Unbound: The Digital Mind and the nature of reality

Author: E. Hughes

Available formats: eBook | Paperback distribution

Published in the United States by Love-LovePublishing

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

― Max Planck (Where Is Science Going?)

Cogito ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)

—René Descartes

All of life is a delusion. There is no reality.

- E. Hughes

* * * * * *

In E. Hughes’ follow-up to Time and the Multi-Universe: A philosophy of time and time travel, Hughes explores the nature of reality, natural and artificial intelligence, and the existence of life in the universe.

Contents

Reality Unbound:

Introduction

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

About the Author

Errata

Introduction

T

he word digital is a form of technology in which information or data is processed, stored, generated or expressed via an electronic medium. In computer technology, digital specifically refers to information expressed in positive and negative states of 1s and 0s and is commonly referred to individually as a bit, or [as a group] a byte.

While the word digital can loosely refer to something virtual and electronic in nature, analog is a different type of technology that is similarly abstract, but unlike digital technology, analog is a signal.

As a signal, analog is physical and can appear as a sound wave, radio wave, light, or an image. Nerve impulses and electrical signals in the human body (muscles, heart, and central nervous system) are also analog signals that produce continuous currents of electricity. Brain waves are analog and can be scanned using complex machinery like MRIs and EEGs. Electrical signals in the human body that travel to the brain via analog transmission are also physical; however, the conscious mind and thoughts are immaterial.

Digital computer programs process information as 1s and 0s, (and in AI a range between 0 and 1) may also use analog to convey data on devices.

The purpose of this information is to establish the meaning of the word digital and its function in technology and society, for the purpose of this book. It is also meant to establish equivalence—symmetry, or perhaps a symbolic relationship between biology and technology.

When we think of the word digital in casual everyday language, we think not of positive or negative bytes of information like 1s and 0s, but of the abstract nature of the digital world in our day-to-day interactions. Often the words virtual, electronic,computerized, and digital are sometimes interchangeable in meaning without meaning the same thing. We interact digitally on our computers, digitally on our cell or mobile phones, digitally on social media, or phone apps, we watch digital videos and digital televisions.

Digital is not a physical thing but can convey information on physical devices.

In technology, digital transmissions are converted to analog before they reach your TVs and phones, and analog is regularly converted into digital formats. Eventually, artificially intelligent deep learning large language models (LLMs) may switch from digital to analog chips if it becomes more efficient and uses fewer environmental resources. In technology, digital and analog formats serve a particular function, which is to efficiently transmit information using minimal energy.  

Energy and waves are all around us, shifting from one form to another. If you are watching a video or chatting on your phone, it begins with sound waves and images that are attached to radio waves that are then transmitted across long distances in a short amount of time to the receiving device. The radio wave is then converted back into sound waves and analog images that you can view on your device.

In humans and other high-functioning animals, the mind stores, sends, receives, and processes information mentally. Transduction of sensory neurons is when sensory input is converted into electrical signals that travel through the central nervous system where the information is disseminated, processed by the brain, and communicated internally as an unconscious biological process or as a conscious thought expressed in the form of inner-speech using natural language. Inner-speech may be visual, auditory, or tactile.

The brain is a soft-organic computer responsible for the computational activity that forms the emergence of consciousness. When sensory input is transmitted to the mind, it allows us to mentally simulate a perception of the world around us—a simulation of reality—that belongs to the subjective mind. The mind is fundamentally non-physical and representational.

We often do not think about how our sense of reality is triggered by impulses and signals in the human body, and how the meaning of the word perception, implies subjectivity. If the world we experience is not an objective representation, but a perception of the world as interpreted by our individual brains, then the basis for reality lies within our perception of reality, which then begs the question—is reality real?

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) uses connectors to transmit information from one artificial neuron to another, somewhat similar to sensory neurons in the brain that convert and transmit information into the central nervous system in human beings. Except, instead of electrical signals, each node passes along a numerical value based on the strength of the data. The architecture of generative AI mimics neural pathways in human beings, using a complex mathematical system that measures the value and weight of information, allowing it to recognize patterns and learn. If the sum of the brain’s computational activity produces the conscious mind, it is probable that given the computational activity involved in processes that form deep learning artificial intelligence and reasoning, then AI may also possess some form of a mind or virtual consciousness.

Let’s explore the possibilities.

Preface

I

s the mind digital (virtual)? Is the existence of the mind or consciousness a cosmic accident or did nature design the first software program and central processing center... the human brain, thus designing