Josephson’s Psi-Informed Models

Nobel laureate physicist Brian Josephson approaches consciousness from the dual perspectives of fundamental science and psi phenomena. He posits understanding the brain by “implementing the demands of an appropriate collection of models, each concerned with some aspect of brain and behaviour”—in particular, explaining “higher-level properties [e.g., phenomenology] in terms of lower-level ones by means of a series of inferences based on these models” (Josephson, 2004).

Psi and Consciousness

Josephson says that many scientists believe that psi is real but don't come out and say so due to social pressures and career concerns. He considers the immense implications if, say, telepathy exists. “All sorts of things would change if we accepted that paranormal things happen and that we have such connections.” One simple example is playing music in an ensemble, where, using telepathy, “they somehow lock into a single state and perform better” (Josephson, 2012a).

As for how psi could work, Josephson posits quantum physics—Einstein's “spooky actions at a distance”—but also recognizes that “we probably need to include new dimensions of reality.” He points to biology, the emergence of life, as a “strange phenomenon” that “changes the whole game.” Biology, he says, “involves principles that we don't have in physics, and these principles might be able to unfold in quite dramatic ways, extending our understanding of the cosmos, perhaps because biological principles lead to minds and minds can do things.”

Josephson sees biology and consciousness as fundamentally linked because “organisms deal with information in a certain way and consciousness could fit into that.” There could be some kind of “biological field,” analogous to the electric field, he says. The assumption that you can get to some ultimate level, though, “may be incorrect.”

Toward a Psi-Informed Physics

Josephson's “theory of everything” paradigm, informed by psi and based on “parallels between spontaneously fluctuating equilibrium states and life processes,” envisions “an evolving ensemble of experts [modules], each with its own goals but nevertheless acting in harmony with each other.” How such an ensemble might function and evolve, he says, can affect fundamental physics such as symmetry and symmetry breaking. Josephson says, “This picture differs from that of regular physics in that goal-directedness has an important role to play, contrasting with that of the conventional view which implies a meaningless universe” (Josephson, 2021).

Moreover, advancing John Wheeler's proposal that “repeated acts of observation give rise to the reality that we observe,” Josephson suggests that “nature has a deep technological aspect that evolves as a result of selection processes that act upon observers making use of the technologies.” He concludes that “our universe is the product of agencies that use these evolved technologies to suit particular purposes” (Josephson, 2015). Going for ultimates, Josephson proposes that “something is happening behind the universe on a larger, possibly infinite scale, that has this organization and is doing things—like bringing a universe into being, setting up its laws, and perhaps directing its evolution” (Josephson, 2012b).