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The book

F Ederico Faggin is the father of the microprocessor and other inventions that

have revolutionized technology and the world we live in. With this

book once again changes our way of seeing computers, life

and ourselves. After years of advanced studies and research he concluded that there is something

something irreducible in the human being, something that no machine can ever do

replace us completely.

“For years I have tried in vain to understand how consciousness could arise from

electrical or biochemical signals, and I have found that, invariably, the signals

electrical can only produce other electrical signals or other physical consequences
as force or movement, but never sensations and feelings, which are

qualitatively different It is the conscience that understands the situation and that makes the
difference between a robot and a human In a machine there is none

'pause for reflection' between the symbols and the action, because the meaning of the symbols, the
doubt, and free will exist only in the consciousness of a self, but not in a
mechanism."

The pioneer of the computer revolution thus comes to radically put in place

discussion the theory that describes us as biological machines analogous to

computer and which neglects to consider all those aspects that do not respect the

mechanistic and reductionist paradigms: “If we let ourselves be convinced by those who tell us that

we are only our mortal body, we will end up thinking that all that

exists originates only in the physical world. What sense would the taste of wine have,

the scent of a rose and the color orange?”. We would end up thinking that the

computers, and those who govern them, are worth more than us.

Irriducibile is an exciting essay, capable of holding together rigor

scientific, technological visionary and spiritual inspiration, which suggests a

indispensable and unprecedented physics of the inner world. Crystalline in its parts

popular science (quantum mechanics, consciousness, information theory),

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enlightening in the new connections it proposes and, finally, exhilarating in the idea that
promotes how to be truly, deeply human.
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The author

Federico Faggin is an Italian physicist, inventor and entrepreneur. Born in Vicenza in

1941, has lived in the United States since 1968. He was a project manager and designer at Intel
4004, the world's first microprocessor, and the developer of MOS technology
with silicon gate, which allowed the manufacturing of the first microprocessors,
of dynamic EPROM and RAM memories and CCD sensors, the essential elements
for the digitalization of information. In 1974 he founded Zilog, with which he
gave birth to the famous Z80 microprocessor, still in production. In 1986 he co-
founded Synaptics, a company with which he developed the first Touchpads and
Touchscreen. On October 19, 2010 he received the National Medal for
Technology and Innovation from President Obama, for the invention of the
microprocessor. In 2019 he was awarded the title of
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2011
founded the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation, a non-profit organization
dedicated to the scientific study of consciousness, with which it sponsors programs of
theoretical and experimental research at US universities and research institutes and
Italians. With Mondadori in 2019 he published Silicio.
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Federico Faggin

IRREDUCIBLE
Consciousness, Life, Computers and Our Nature
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Irreducible

To Elvia, to our children Marzia, Marc and Eric and to Viviana, Irene, Cecilia and Daniela
Sardei for their example of love and collaboration
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Preface

This book is a sequel to my previous one, Silicon: From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New
Science of Consciousness (Mondadori, 2019), and aims to explain more deeply my thinking on the nature
of consciousness and include the latest developments.

In Silicio I had used the term “consapevolezza” as a translation of the English words awareness and
consciousness, terms that can also be used for animals and plants, while I had used the word “coscienza”
(in English conscience) in relation to human consciousness. However, I realized that in the Italian language
consapevolezza has a much wider range of meaning than the corresponding English terms. In fact, it is
also used to indicate a greater awareness of oneself. Therefore, in these pages I preferred to use the word
coscienza.

Since 2010 I have continued to deepen the study of consciousness as a fundamental phenomenon and
to develop the conceptual framework CIF (acronym formed from the initials of Consciousness, Information
and Physical, in English CIP, because "physical" is written physical)

[13]. In my view, the nature of reality is constituted by two complementary and irreducible aspects: the
semantic space of consciousness, called C-space, and the informational space, called I-space. I-space is
constituted by the symbolic forms created by the units of consciousness that communicate with each other
to know each other more and more. The physical space, called F-space, is a virtual space experienced by

the consciousness that controls the living organism. The organism is a symbolic structure that interacts with
the symbols of I-space and generates within it another symbolic representation of I-space, which is

perceived by the consciousness as “reality”. In this framework, consciousness exists only in C-space.
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In March 2017, I received this email from Prof. Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano:

We met briefly in Vieques Island in January 2014 at the fourth FQXi conference
on “Physics of Information”. I gave a very short talk of only five minutes on the
derivation of the Dirac equation from information theory principles. She paid me
a very nice compliment. Unfortunately, I did not know her and did not have the
opportunity to respond.

An invitation to meet followed.

In April 2017 I responded by email as follows:

Dear Giacomo, sorry for the delay in replying to your welcome email (let's use informal
terms, please). My dream is to derive physics from cognitive principles rather than materialistic
ones. Of course, you are taking the first step, that of demonstrating that quantum mechanics is
information, therefore syntax. For me, syntax is evidence that semantics must exist .

somewhere.
What is the point of there being a hierarchy of languages (the physical world),
without anyone using them? In my opinion there is a semantic reality that

consists of a parallel hierarchy of conscious entities that use particles, atoms,

molecules, cells, animals, etc. as symbols for their communications.
The materialist sees only the symbolic aspect, and does not realize that behind
the scenes there are “puppet masters”.
This is why information theory is essentially isomorphic with the
quantum mechanics! That's why quantum mechanics must use probabilistic
language! The meaning of a book is free even if the symbols obey deterministic
laws (in terms of probability). That's why physics can only guarantee that the next
book that will be written will obey the laws of symbols, but it can never predict the
semantic content of a book that has not yet been written. But I think that semantics is
the real ontology. So semantics is free, even if the syntax is deterministic.

These are the issues that fascinate me. And I think this is the right way to give
meaning back to a universe that has been declared “pointless” by those who have
forgotten that the meaning of existence lies
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within matter. Today I would say: “It exists in a deeper reality than what
manifests itself in space-time”. Internal which is denied by a zealous fiat
materialistic.
I would be happy to discuss these topics with you, if you are interested.
I will be in Italy in Milan around July 21st, where I will be one of the presenters of
an event called Campus Party. It would be a great opportunity to
see us.
Thank you for expressing your gratitude for a heartfelt comment, and
congratulations on your progress in completing Wheeler's dream. Kind regards
and best wishes, Federico.

A few days later, D'Ariano replied to me saying that he would be very pleased to meet us to discuss
For without hardware”, “which is perhaps
“the ontology of information”, characterized by the phrase “software
very close to what you call 'ontology of semantics', which I understand also involves the 'observer', or the
'puppet master'”.

This was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration, which a couple of years ago
allowed us to understand that the pure state of a quantum system can represent
the state of consciousness of the system, since it has all the crucial characteristics
of a conscious experience made of qualia. This important step brought into focus
the “core” of the matter, which allowed us to connect the philosophical notions of
the CIF framework with the OPT (Operational Probabilistic Theory), the theory
that D'Ariano and his collaborators had developed to demonstrate that quantum
physics can be derived from entirely computer-based postulates.

This new postulate now allows us to affirm that consciousness is a quantum

phenomenon because it has all the characteristics of the pure quantum state, that
is, it is a well-defined state, it is a private state because the pure state is not
cloneable, and therefore the state is knowable only by the system that is in that
state. This reflects exactly the phenomenology of our inner experience.

If the current idea that consciousness emerges from the brain as a classical
computer system were valid, a computer could also be conscious, and then
consciousness would be copyable like information is.
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classical that all programs are made of. But we know perfectly well that our experience is a private and
ever-evolving whole, impossible to describe completely with classical symbols (our words), because it
is beyond any description.

Consciousness is the ability to know through an experience made of qualia, that is, through
sensations and feelings that carry with them the meaning of what is known. The ability to know must
therefore exist before knowledge, and knowledge brings into existence what is known for the first time.
Knowing then becomes synonymous with existing, and this “miracle” cannot be explained in simpler
terms than this. If we accept this principle, the fundamental entities from which everything that exists
emerges must be conscious entities similar to Leibniz's monads.

This is the vision that I have expounded in more detail in Irreducible, a title that refers to a way of
conceiving physical reality in which the evolution of the universe starts from conscious entities endowed
with free will that emerge from the One.

One is a Whole, both potentially and actually, irreducibly dynamic and holistic, that wants to know
itself in order to self-realize. One is made of inseparable and ever-evolving parts-wholes that emerge
from Him and that communicate with each other in order to know themselves. In knowing themselves,
they realize the common intention and purpose. Therefore there is a becoming in the universe, and the
future is absolutely not predictable, not even by One.

This vision is in agreement with what quantum physics has revealed to us. This is why the idea of
arriving at a Theory of Everything (ToE) that can predict the future of the universe is opposed to the
idea of an open universe. This does not mean that the search for a theory that reconciles quantum
physics with general relativity is not desirable, on the contrary. The new vision indicates to us, however,
that the most reasonable ToE is a theory in which consciousness and free will have always existed and
in which the universe – that is, One – has an open becoming, because its evolution is the evolution of
the knowledge of One's Self. The ToE

must therefore explain the characteristics of the external world as a symbolic correlate of the internal
world of knowledge.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that unconscious matter cannot produce

consciousness, while conscious entities can produce phenomena that behave
like unconscious matter, many of whose properties we know.

If consciousness and free will are fundamental properties of nature, the

evolution of the universe is no longer the work of a "blind watchmaker", but of
conscious entities that have always existed and participate cooperatively in its
eternal becoming.
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Introduction

The search for truth must be the ultimate goal of all science.

AUGUSTIN-LOUIS CAUCHY, Seven lectures on general physics. Opening speech

I am a physicist, an inventor and an entrepreneur. I was born in Vicenza during the

Second World War in a Catholic family and I obtained a degree in physics from the
University of Padua in 1965, with honors.
In 1968, I moved to Silicon Valley, California, to work at Fairchild Semiconductor,
where I developed silicon-gate MOS technology that made possible the microprocessor,
dynamic random-access memory, nonvolatile memory, and CCD image sensors— the
key components of the computing revolution. In 1970, I went to work at Intel, where I
designed the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, and for five years led the team
that worked on these components that revolutionized computing.

In 1974, I founded Zilog, the world’s first company dedicated entirely to the
microprocessor market, beginning an entrepreneurial journey that occupied the rest of
my professional life. Zilog’s first microprocessor, the Z80-CPU, quickly became a
bestseller and is still in production.

During the second half of the 1980s, I became interested in artificial neural networks
and founded Synaptics to develop analog chips that could emulate neural networks
using floating-gate transistors.
At the time, neural networks were considered a bad idea by AI experts. Two decades
later, they had become the only practical solution to complex pattern recognition
problems.
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Until I was forty, I had lived doing what most of us do: I had sought happiness outside myself,
convinced that to obtain it I would have to fulfill everything the world prescribes for that purpose. I had
thrown myself headlong into my work and had deeply suppressed any interference that could distract me
from my goals, thinking that the more difficult they were, the more happiness they should bring me.

I had been busy checking off every box on my imaginary “happiness list,” erasing any inner turmoil
from my mind. I didn’t want to be distracted from my goals for any reason.

I told myself that in order to be happy, I had to get to the end of the list first.

I was hostage to a kind of hypnotic trance: I was looking for happiness outside of myself and I had
embraced the competitive and consumerist vision that dominates our society. So I had lost the connection
with my inner reality. I had fallen into the trap that most of us fall into.

Now I'm sure that if I hadn't gotten to the bottom of the list, I would have continued to struggle until I
died, never realizing that I was confusing imaginary happiness with real happiness.

It was only because I crossed the finish line, and was able to take a break from the rat race, that I was
able to look inside myself.
What I found was a deep suffering that I pretended not to feel. My first reaction was: what's wrong? How
can I not be happy when I have achieved everything that should make me so?

As Simone Weil says: “Suffering is a door that we can choose to pass through, and then we learn
something, or refuse to open, and then nothing is added, but rather everything is taken away from us.”

In search of the truth

While studying neuroscience, I wondered if it was possible to build a computer with consciousness. If the
materialist scientists were right, as I had always thought, the answer must be
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yes. I then explored various ways to achieve this goal, finding myself reflecting deeply
on the attributes of consciousness.
It didn't take me long to run into the biggest obstacle: a complete lack of
understanding of the nature of feelings and emotions, what philosophers call qualia.
Try as I might, I couldn't convert electrical signals from a computer into qualia, because
qualia seemed to be a different kind of reality. It was like trying to convert an engine
into an amoeba, or the feeling of love you have for your child into a computer program.

As I pondered, I realized that the cause of my despair was connected to the mystery
of consciousness, and that I absolutely had to work hard to solve it. This search placed
this riddle at the center of my midlife crisis and led to an unexpected, unsought, and
spontaneous awakening experience that made me realize that consciousness is
fundamental.

From that moment on, I embarked on a new path of search for truth, which led me
to investigate all aspects of reality, even those that I took for granted and that, before,
I would never have thought of taking into consideration. Just as I had believed
uncritically in religious dogmas as a child, in the same way I had accepted those of
science.
I had basically replaced some dogmas with others.
I have already recounted this experience in my autobiography, entitled Silicon.
From the invention of the microprocessor to the new science of awareness and
published in Italy in 2019 by Mondadori. For the convenience of the reader, I repeat it
here with minimal changes.

The awakening

In December 1990, while at Lake Tahoe with my family for the Christmas holidays, I
awoke around midnight to get a drink. I poured myself a glass of water from the kitchen
refrigerator and, sipping, moved into the adjacent living room to gaze out at the now
dark and mysterious lake.
Back in bed, while I was waiting to fall asleep again, I suddenly felt a very strong
energy emerging from my chest: it was not only an experience I had never felt before,
but such an extraordinary phenomenon that
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I could never have imagined. This living energy was love, but a love so intense and so incredibly
fulfilling that it surpassed every feeling and notion I had about the nature of love. Even more incredible
was the fact that the source of this love was me.

It manifested as a large beam of white, sparkling light, alive and blissful, that flowed from my heart
with incredible force. Then suddenly that light exploded. It filled the room and expanded to embrace the
entire universe with the same white splendor. I understood then, without a shadow of a doubt, that this
is the substance of which everything that exists is made. It is what created the universe from itself.

Then, to my immense surprise, I recognized that light as me! The whole experience lasted perhaps a
minute, but it changed me irreversibly.
My relationship to the world had always been that of an observer who perceived it outside of myself,
that is, separate. Instead, now I was both the experiencer and the experience: a mind-blowing and
impossible-to-imagine perspective that can only be understood if one has experienced it firsthand.

I was simultaneously the observer of the world and the world. I was the world observing itself! And
at the same time I understood that the world is made of a substance that tastes of love and that I am
that same substance!
In other words, the essence of reality is a substance that knows itself in its self-reflection, and its
self-knowledge is experienced as an irrepressible, dynamic love full of joy and peace.

This experience contained an unprecedented sense of truth, because it was true on every level of
my being. On the physical level, my body felt alive and vibrant as I had never felt it before. On the
emotional level, I felt like a powerful source of love, and on the mental level, I knew with certainty that
everything is “made” of love. For the first time in my life, I had experienced the existence of another
dimension of reality, a dimension that before could only be known intellectually but not experienced: the
spiritual level, where a person is one with the world.

It was a direct knowledge, stronger even than the certainty offered by logic; a knowledge from
within rather than from without, which had simultaneously involved all aspects of my consciousness:
physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
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I like to think that I experienced my nature as both a particle and a wave, to use an
analogy from quantum physics that is impossible to understand with ordinary logic. The
particle aspect was the ability to maintain my identity despite experiencing myself as the
world (the wave aspect). But my identity was also part of the world, because I felt “world”
with “my” point of view. So now I sense that my identity is like one of the infinite points of
view with which One – the Whole, the totality of what exists – observes and

he knows himself.
In other words, each of us is a point of view of One, a part of One indivisible from One
and, as such, eternal.
That experience made me understand that, as the famous Lebanese poet and aphorist
Khalil Gibran said, “Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man’s life, it is the only
purpose of existence.” It changed my life completely and has retained its original intensity
and clarity over the years. It continues to have a powerful impact on me even today.

Key questions

Live the questions now.

Maybe in the future / gradually / without noticing,

one day far away / you will experience the answers.

RAINER MARIA RILKE, Be Patient

The encounter with my spiritual nature began a journey of personal investigation into the
nature of my consciousness, the only one I can experience and know. Driven by the desire
to understand and reconcile the ineffable unitive experience of awakening with my usual
reality, I worked intensely on myself for the next twenty years, during which I continued to
carry out my professional activity first as CEO and then as President of Synaptics.

During that period I explored in depth my inner reality, which had been neglected until
then, and tried to integrate it with the external reality, living
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simultaneously inside and outside the world, so to speak. I also understood that the experience of the
external world is based on the reproducibility of shared events, while that of the internal world is strictly
private and can be known by others only to the extent that we communicate it.

This inner work was the source of many intuitions and spontaneous transformations of thoughts
and attitudes, which gradually led me to an integration and harmonization of the two worlds, changing
me profoundly. The most evident aspect was the almost complete disappearance of a certain
restlessness and mental anxiety, which had always accompanied me.

I then began to question the theory that describes us as biological machines analogous to
computers, because, based on known physical laws, we should be completely unconscious, just like
computers are.

The taste of wine, the scent of a rose, and the color orange should not exist, because no scientist
can explain to us how the electrical or biochemical signals in the brain produce these qualia. The fact
that each of us is conscious of them is indisputable, and this falsifies the idea that current physical
theories are complete, that is, that they describe all of reality.

We are repeatedly told that we are biological robots, while my own investigation, punctuated by
many other extraordinary experiences of consciousness that have occurred since, has revealed to me
that it is more likely that we are spiritual beings temporarily imprisoned in a physical, machine-like
body. But if we allow ourselves to be convinced that we are only our mortal body, we will end up
thinking that everything that exists originates only in the physical world. In that case, we will not even
ask ourselves the questions about the nature and purpose of our creative impulses and emotions, and
in doing so, we will also ignore the meaning of our life, which I now understand to be the most
important part of our human experience and existence.

In short, if we believe that inanimate matter can explain all of reality, we are supporting an
assumption that is already falsified by the fact that we are conscious.
As I progressed in my study, I gradually realized that if we assumed that consciousness and free
will are properties
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irreducible elements of nature, the scientific vision of reality would change radically and legitimize a
profound spirituality, with unexpected consequences for both science and spirituality. But how could
such a drastic change be implemented?

In my opinion, science should try to find answers to all the fundamental questions, not eliminate
from reality what it cannot explain. I therefore decided to dedicate myself full time to the scientific study
of consciousness, and in 2011 I created, together with my wife, the Federico and Elvia Faggin
Foundation, to support basic research on consciousness starting from the premise that it is fundamental
and irreducible.

The stakes are too high not to seriously consider the hypothesis that consciousness comes before
matter, or simultaneously with it.

The new science of consciousness

If we start from consciousness, free will and creativity as irreducible properties of nature, the entire
scientific conception of reality is turned upside down, and in this new vision the emotional part of life –
ignored by materialism – returns to have a central role.

Aristotle said: “To educate the mind without educating the heart is to not educate at all.” We cannot let
physicalism and reductionism define human nature and the deepest nature of the universe, leaving
out consciousness.

Physicalist and reductionist premises are perfect for describing the mechanical and symbolic-
informational aspects of reality, but they are inadequate for explaining its semantic aspects. If we insist
on maintaining that these premises describe all of reality, we eliminate a priori what distinguishes us
from machines and we erase from the face of the universe our consciousness, our freedom and, above
all, our humanity.

If, however, we take our inner world seriously and begin to investigate it with love, we will discover
a new Weltanschauung, which promises a creative and cooperative future full of deep satisfaction. Life
cannot be defined by mere aspects alone.
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biological, but also and above all by the triumph of the spiritual nature of the universe, which silently
guides us.
Quantum physics already tells us that the universe is holistic and creative, and new developments
in quantum information theory justify, as we will see later, a new theory of consciousness and free will.

In my view, the only possible way to explain how the universe can create life and consciousness is
that the universe itself is conscious and alive from the very beginning. If this hypothesis is taken
seriously, and accepted, the entire conception of reality is transformed, with enormous positive
consequences that point to a fantastic future.

Creativity, ethics, free will, and joyful love can only come from consciousness. The immense
mechanical intelligence beyond the reach of the human brain can instead come from the machines we
create. And their union will truly make the force!
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PART ONE

If this science which will bring great benefits to man will not serve man for
understand himself, will end up turning against man.

GIORDANO BRUNO, On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds

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1
The nature of physical reality

In science, everything is always different from what common sense would suggest.

BERTOLT BRECHT, Life of Galileo

What is the world like?

Even today we are still grappling with this question, which man has always asked himself.

For centuries it was believed that the world was made up of land, water,
air and fire in various proportions.
Only in the last hundred years, with the advent of quantum physics, have we made
great strides in understanding the nature of reality. We have discovered that matter, which
seems solid and compact, is actually made of vibratory energy!

In the last twenty years we have also understood that everything is made of quantum
information. However, we still lack a theory that can give us a vision of the world that is
consistent with both general relativity and quantum mechanics.

In this book I advance the hypothesis that the universe has consciousness and free will.
arbitrary since always.
So, nothing is as it seems. Not only is the world not as it seems,
we had imagined, but the reality is even more incredible.

At the dawn of science

Homo sapiens lived a nomadic existence for millennia. Then, about ten thousand years
ago, with a flash of intuition, he learned to “domesticate” the
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vegetation. This led to the birth of agriculture and caused humans to settle in
increasingly larger communities, giving rise to different professions and
specializations.
At a certain point, the need to permanently document fleeting verbal agreements fostered a very
important invention: writing.

The first Sumerian cuneiform writing dates back to about five thousand years
ago and the first religious-spiritual-philosophical text, the ÿgveda, is about three
thousand five hundred years old.
Writing also allowed us to record thoughts and ideas so that we could later
reflect on them and develop them, a task that would otherwise be nearly
impossible, given the dynamism and limited memory capacity of our mind.
Furthermore, thoughts put down in writing could be copied and shared with
many other thinkers, and thus spread beyond the random confines of words,
which last only for a few seconds and do not go beyond the space in which
they are uttered.
Writing was certainly an obligatory step to develop and
perfect cooperative thinking, logic and rationality.
About two thousand five hundred years ago, Greek philosophers developed
rational thought to a level never achieved before. Pythagoras's philosophical-
mathematical ideas provided the basis for physics and mathematics, which
two centuries later would result in Euclid's Elements, the text that founded
axiomatic mathematics. However, it took almost two thousand years for the
birth of science, which, thanks to the awakening of humanity during the
Renaissance, brought about a new consciousness and determination. Science
is what allowed us to regain freedom of thought, after a long period in which it
was not permitted to question the religious dogmas that dominated every act
of daily life.

The scientific method began with the innovative and bold ideas of
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and many others. Using observations,
mathematical reasoning, and carefully designed experiments to validate
hypotheses, the scientific method allowed for unprecedented progress in our
understanding of the world.
Just as the matter transformed by writing could faithfully return our ideas to
us, the same matter could also reveal the
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its own functioning to a curious and shrewd mind, which knew what questions to ask
and what experiments to invent. Mathematics then allowed us to express with precision
the abstract patterns followed by matter.
Over the course of its four centuries of existence, physics has excelled in clarifying
our ideas about how the physical world works, and has also provided the intellectual
foundation for the development of many other scientific disciplines and technologies
that have profoundly changed our lives.

Physics is rooted in the experimental proof of the predictions made by its

mathematical theories, which must be verified or falsified by experiments before they
can be accepted. Over the years, the physical world has revealed ever greater
complexity and has required the use of ever more sophisticated mathematical theories,
to the point that physics today resembles applied mathematics more than the
experimental physics of the 19th century.
Nevertheless, it is the experiment that has the final say, no matter how elegant or
rational the mathematical model used. If the experiment fails, the beautiful theory must
be changed or abandoned. In fact, Einstein said: “No amount of experiments can prove
me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

This pragmatism allowed for constant progress, especially when new experiments
showed anomalies that could not be explained by existing theories. In a sense, the
process is similar to that of natural variation and selection, because the theory that
survives the selection made by experiments is the winning one.

Until the end of the 19th century, classical physics fueled the basic concepts that
led to the Industrial Revolution. It also gave rise, during the 1930s and 1940s, to the
information age, based on the extraordinarily fertile idea of the computer. Computer
science then flourished with the solid-state microelectronics that emerged from quantum
physics, the physics of the 20th century. Each age “stands on the shoulders” of the
previous ones, and the new one is transforming our way of life even more than the
Industrial Revolution that preceded it.

The Worldview of Classical Physics

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In the early 17th century, Copernicus's heliocentric system found direct experimental
confirmation in the work of Galileo Galilei, who turned his newly invented telescope to
the heavens and discovered four satellites orbiting Jupiter and the phases of the planet
Venus. His experiments provided incontrovertible evidence that not all celestial bodies
revolve around the Earth, as was believed by the Ptolemaic system.

Galileo gave us the first clear demonstration of the scientific method, stating that
the physical world follows natural laws that can be expressed in the language of
mathematics, an idea that went back to Pythagoras. He also stated that mathematical
theory must be verified experimentally, and that the final verdict must be based on the
supreme authority of repeatable experiments. He was also the first scientist to postulate
the invariance of physical laws in any frame of reference that moves with uniform
motion (called an inertial frame). Galileo also experimentally derived F = ma, the
empirical mathematical law that describes the accelerated motion of terrestrial objects.

Isaac Newton, born the same year Galileo died, conceived the idea that the physical
laws that apply on Earth must also apply throughout the universe. This bold concept
allowed him to formulate the law of universal gravitation and to extend Galileo's
principles of mechanics with precise definitions of space, time, mass, force, and energy.

Starting from a purely mathematical theory, Newton then proved Kepler's empirical laws, which
described the motion of the planets around the Sun. To this end, Newton also invented a new field of
mathematics: differential calculus.

His work provided the first example of how to do theoretical physics, that is, how to
do science starting from a general mathematical theory, from which any particular case
could be derived by specifying some parameters and initial conditions: an exceptional
paradigm.
The success of Newton's mechanics provided the theoretical elements for a
technology that was no longer just empirical, but also based on solid foundations, which
then led to the industrial revolution. The scientific method became the new methodology
for investigating nature, and changed the traditional way of thinking. With it, rationality
moved to the forefront, ahead of speculative thinking based on intuition and respect for
authority. Scientific positivism then became the new creed, founded
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on reductionism and absolute faith in mathematical logic, considered to be free of internal contradictions.
This vision allowed us to study mathematically and with great success many complex systems, reducing
them to the sum of their parts.

A new way of thinking

The intellectual euphoria that characterized the beginning of the 19th century can be concisely described
by Pierre-Simon Laplace's famous statement in the Introduction to his Essai philosophique sur les
probabilités of 1814: "We may consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the
cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment knew all the forces that set nature in motion
and

the positions of all the elements of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to
submit these data to analysis, it could embrace in a single formula the movements of the largest bodies
in the universe and those of the smallest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and
the future as well as the past would be present before its eyes”.

This position of extreme determinism and reductionism was called “Laplace’s demon” and was
also used to argue that free will is an illusion. This view is still considered essentially valid by most
scientists and many philosophers today, despite the indeterminism and holism of quantum physics.

I will return to these crucial points later.

The 19th century marked the maturation of classical physics with the development of
thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and electromagnetism; the latter was a completely new field of
physics about which, only a century earlier, almost nothing was known.

The discovery of electromagnetic waves as oscillations of an energy field marked the triumph of
classical theoretical physics. The unsuspected existence of these waves was first predicted by James
Clerk Maxwell's equations in 1865, and experimentally verified by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in 1887.
Electromagnetism changed our fundamental ideas about the nature of the physical world, previously
considered
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essentially mechanical, and heralded a new world full of unsuspected technological and applicative
possibilities.
At the end of the 19th century classical physics dominated the view

scientific world, which can be summarized as follows:

1. The physical world is all that exists (naturalism) and its existence
it is independent of the observer (realism).
2. Physical reality is created by the interactions of “particles” of matter in space and time
(atomism). Particles are imagined as Democritus’ atoms: irreducible, indestructible, hard,
microscopic, and separate objects.

3. Space and time are independent and absolute. They are the stage on which particles of
mass and electricity interact. Mass particles move through space and time following
gravitational and other mechanical forces, while the movements of electric
particles follow Maxwell's equations and produce an electromagnetic field that affects
and is affected by all electric particles.

4. The behavior of a complex system can be completely described as the sum of the behaviors of
all its parts (reductionism).

5. If we know the initial conditions of all particles in a system, we can, at least in principle,
predict all past and future evolution of the system (determinism).

6. We live in a static, closed universe in which entropy (disorder)

is constantly increasing.

7. You can observe the world without disturbing it.

8. Mathematics can give us a true and complete description of the
reality.

9. The evolution of all living species follows the Darwinian principle

of random variation and natural selection.
10. The nature of mind and matter is debated. Dualism
Cartesian states that mind and matter are “substances”

completely different, while materialism holds that only matter exists (monism). For the
materialist, the mind is simply a function of the brain.
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The materialist mentality was convinced that classical physics would be

succeeded in fully explaining the nature of life and consciousness, using the same methods and
assumptions that had produced the enormous amount of knowledge and progress witnessed in the
previous two centuries.

The End of Classical Physics

In his splendid book, Thornton Wilder recounted that the San Luis Rey bridge – an ancient, airy,
beautiful bridge, the most beautiful in all of Peru – was apparently part of the things that last forever: it
was unthinkable that it would break. Instead, one Friday at noon, suddenly, that bridge broke.

By the end of the nineteenth century, even the fundamental assumptions of classical physics about
the nature of reality seemed to be universal, solid, and unassailable truths. The remarkable successes
of science and technology had brought with them the false impression that much more was known than
was actually known, along with the belief that the fundamental ideas and principles of classical physics
were a reliable guide to the future.

At the turn of the 20th century, the famous physicist Lord William Thompson Kelvin had declared:
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics; all that remains to be done is more and more precise
measurements.” And this confidence (some would say arrogance) was expressed despite the presence
of some anomalies that classical physics could not explain, and that would soon cause the entire
edifice to collapse.

It took a quarter of a century to understand the cause of these anomalies, and to do so required
overturning almost all the fundamental assumptions of classical physics. This profound revision led us
to the discovery of special (or special) relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics: a new
physics that replaced determinism and reductionism with indeterminism and holism.

Yet the change in perspective proved so difficult to accept that, a century later, we are still trying to
come to terms with the conceptual revolution brought about by these new ideas. In particular
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we have difficulty with the indeterminism of quantum physics, which has eliminated the possibility of
knowing the whole truth about the physical world: not only in practice, but also in principle.

The interpretation of reality of classical physics could not be more wrong!

In 1899 there were three major phenomena that could not be explained by classical physics: black-
body radiation, the photoelectric effect, and the Lorentz transformations.

Blackbody radiation is the frequency spectrum of light emitted by a hot object as a function of its
temperature. The anomalous behavior of this radiation was explained by Max Planck in 1900 using a
2
mathematical trick that at first seemed unjustified. Planck found that if the exchange of energy between
matter and radiation occurred only in integer multiples of a discrete value of energy – called an energy
quantum – then the mystery would be solved. In other words, Planck assumed that there must be a
minimum energy exchange, different from 0 and proportional to the frequency of the radiation, and that
all exchanges must occur in integer multiples of this minimum. Fractional quanta were not allowed.

In 1905, a young Albert Einstein was able to explain the photoelectric effect by assuming that the
3
interaction between light and matter that produces electrons is caused by “light particles” with energy
quanta given by the Planck relation. Einstein hypothesized that light, when interacting with atoms of
matter, behaves like many particles, and not like a wave, as Thomas Young had demonstrated almost
a hundred years earlier.

4
Einstein's explanation contradicted the established principles of classical physics
and earned him the Nobel Prize. The quantum of light was later called a photon and its implications
were astonishing. Hence the discovery that photons have a dual personality, because they act both as
particles and as waves: an almost contradictory and also quite disturbing behavior.

In 1905 Albert Einstein also explained the mysterious Lorentz transformation, that is, the fact that
objects described by Maxwell's equations violate the simple Galilean inertial transformation when they
move at a speed close to that of light. This anomaly was solved
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elegantly assuming that the speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames, that is, systems
moving at speeds
constant.

The consequences of this simple assumption were devastating, because it was discovered that time
and space, until then considered independent and absolute, depended on the relative velocity between the
observer and the observed. As the relative velocity approached that of light c, the time marked by a clock
that was part of the observed system slowed down and a meter aligned in the direction of motion

he was shortening!

This theory was called special relativity. According to this theory, no material object of mass m greater
than 0 can accelerate to a velocity equal to c, because its mass would increase without limit as the object
approaches c.

Einstein also discovered that the notion of simultaneity of events was not absolute as previously
thought, but relative to the motion of the observer. For example, when an observer A sees event 1 happen
before event 2, a second observer B, moving relative to A, might see event 1 happen after event 2! But
then what about causality?

Finally, Einstein discovered that the rest mass of an object is its . The
2
energy E are proportional, according to the famous relation E = mc mass of a particle at rest is
therefore energy confined in a microscopic portion of space. Incredible!

After 1905, physics was never the same.

The revelation of a new world

In 1911, Lord Ernest Rutherford discovered that the atom, considered a particle of solid and indivisible
matter since the time of Democritus, was instead almost empty and divisible, composed of a tiny nucleus
surrounded by electrons, similar to a miniature solar system. Two years later, Niels Bohr was able to explain
the discrete spectrum of light emitted or absorbed by a hydrogen atom by combining Maxwell's equations,

Rutherford's discoveries, and Einstein's photon in a semiclassical theory.

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Once again, the incredible fecundity of Planck's quantum of action was confirmed, revealing a further
quantum aspect of the real world, in contrast to the continuum described by classical physics.

In 1915, Einstein completed his theory of general relativity (GR), showing that gravitational force
could be explained as a geometric effect on space-time due to the mass of objects. Consequently,
when a planet orbits a star, it actually moves in a “straight line,” but because the surrounding space is
“curved” by the enormous mass of the star, the planet ends up moving in an elliptical orbit around it.
The physics community was astonished!

GR can be succinctly described in the words of physicist John Archibald Wheeler: “Spacetime tells
matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.” In other words, the global distribution of
matter affects the local properties of spacetime, and the local properties of spacetime determine how
matter moves. When matter moves locally, its global distribution changes, which in turn changes the
previous local properties of spacetime.

It almost seems like a “snake chasing its tail,” yet the same analogy can also illustrate how
electromagnetic waves propagate, because a change in the electric field causes a change in the
magnetic field, and a change in the magnetic field causes a change in the electric field. These reciprocal
changes that occur within the immaterial but real electromagnetic field cause a wave to propagate in
space-time without the need for a physical medium.

GR expresses the existence of feedback from the whole to the parts and the existence of
feedforward from the parts to the whole. Feedback is a top-down influence, in which the global
distribution of matter (the whole) determines the local properties of spacetime that inform the local
behavior of matter (the parts). Feedforward is a bottom-up influence, in which the local behavior of
matter determines the future global distribution of matter that constitutes the whole.
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GR contradicts the principles of classical physics, in which space and time are
absolute and the behavior of the whole is determined solely by the behavior of its
parts, that is, where only feedforward exists.
But the story doesn’t end here, because the first decades of the 20th century had
many other big surprises in store.

Quantum mechanics
6 at the
In 1926 Erwin Schrödinger extended the principle of least action to the gradually
emerging quantum reality. His wave equation marked the birth of quantum wave
mechanics. The discrete solutions of Schrödinger's wave equation are called wave
functions, and they represent the temporal evolution of the state of a system, for
example of a particle. Furthermore, the square of the absolute value of a wave function
defines the probability of finding that particle in a certain region of space.

We owe this probabilistic interpretation of the wave function to Max Born, who
formulated it in the same year (1926). Interestingly, Max Born and Werner Heisenberg
had developed in 1925 matrix mechanics, a different formulation of quantum physics,
which was later shown to be equivalent to Schrödinger's wave mechanics.

Two years later, Heisenberg postulated the “uncertainty principle”.

This is a mathematical relationship that shows the impossibility of measuring with
arbitrary precision two conjugate variables, such as the position and momentum of a
particle, or the energy and
7
time of the same.
The precious determinism of classical physics was falsified precisely at the most
critical point, because the nature of the elementary particles that determine everything
else turned out to be indeterminable. Furthermore, the theory does not tell us at all
which and how the state that manifests itself is chosen, but only its probability. There
is therefore an irreducible gap between the quantum evolution of the system and its
measurement. This is another type of indeterminism compared to that expressed by
Heisenberg's principle. This is the measurement problem of quantum physics, which
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requires the so-called collapse of the wave function that must occur between

the measuring apparatus and the quantum system, but it is not clear how. It is a very delicate problem
8
that created great confusion among physicists and that has not yet been solved.

In 1928 Paul Dirac combined the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation with Heisenberg-Born matrix
mechanics and extended it to the relativistic case, thus creating the first quantum field theory of
electrons. His equation predicted the existence of anti-electrons (positrons), which were later discovered
experimentally.

Physical reality was gradually revealing a completely unsuspected nature.

The End of Certainty

In conjunction with the many earth-shattering discoveries in physics, extraordinary developments were
also taking place in the field of mathematics. It was the mathematician Kurt Gödel who in 1931 delivered
the final blow to the logical positivism that dominated philosophical and scientific thought at the end of
the 19th century. Gödel demonstrated the incompleteness of mathematics, proving that classical logic
was insufficient to establish the truth of all possible statements that obeyed the rules of an axiomatic
system complex enough to contain arithmetic.

By showing that there are undecidable statements, that is, statements that cannot be formally
proved without introducing new axioms, Gödel's theorem eliminated the completeness and absolute
certainty that mathematics was thought to have.

Another important aspect of mathematics, which is often overlooked, is that the truth of its
statements is relative only to that of the set of non-provable axioms on which there is agreement. These
axioms are in fact considered self-evident truths, accepted as such by convention because they are
non-provable.

The supposed objectivity of mathematics is therefore based on the subjective acceptance of what
is considered self-evident. It is therefore legitimate to have some doubts about the absolute certainty
that we can
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attribute to mathematical statements, especially when they are applied to the real world.

With quantum physics, the world has ceased to behave in a self-evident manner. How, then, can
we choose the postulates of quantum physics when we do not yet know how to solve the measurement
problem? Self-evidence has lost its supposed universal validity. The fact is that, as physicist Leon Max
Lederman said: “It is not the uncertainty of measurement that hides reality; on the contrary, it is reality
itself that never provides certainty in the classical-Galilean sense of the term, when one examines
phenomena at the atomic scale.”

In the 1960s, mathematicians rediscovered and formalized another great surprise: chaotic systems.
A chaotic system is a system whose behavior depends so sensitively on its initial conditions that it
diverges exponentially when infinitesimal variations in those conditions occur. In other words, to predict
the future behavior of a chaotic system, one must know the initial conditions with such precision that it
is beyond what is possible to know even in principle, given the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

This means that even simple classical systems, such as three-body systems in mechanics, can
9
behave chaotically.
Before the discovery of chaotic systems, determinism was considered synonymous with predictability.
Classical physics is deterministic, but now we know that determinism is necessary but not sufficient to
guarantee predictability, because chaotic systems stop being predictable after a while.

Laplace's characterization of reality was wrongly based on the idea that predictability and
determinism were synonymous. Laplace's demon, the powerful intellect that could in principle have
known everything, turned out to be an illusion.

The bottom line is that any mathematical theory of physical reality is only a model that is valid
within certain limits, and therefore is not completely reliable. The real world defies any attempt at a
complete description of it.
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The nature of quantum reality

The universe is not made of things, but of networks of vibratory energy that emerge from
something even deeper and more subtle.

WERNER-KARL HEISENBERG

Between 1928 and the late 1960s, Dirac's quantum field theory was extended to interactions between
electrons and photons (quantum electrodynamics, or QED theory) and to nuclear interactions involving
the strong and electroweak forces (quantum chromodynamics, or QCD theory). Finally, in 1975, the
standard model of quantum physics emerged, according to which there are six quarks for the strong
force and six leptons for the weak. Each quark and lepton has an antiparticle, and interactions between
particles are mediated by gauge bosons - carriers of the strong, electroweak, and electromagnetic
forces - and the Higgs boson.

Therefore, all that exists is spacetime, described by the theory of general relativity, and seventeen
quantum fields, described by quantum field theory (QFT). Each elementary particle is an excited state
of the field of the same name. Within QFT, particles are no longer objects, and ontology resides in the
fields, not in the particles of classical physics.

Quantum field theory and general relativity

According to TQC, elementary particles, atoms, molecules, proteins, cells, organs and living organisms
constitute hierarchical organizations of
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states belonging to quantum fields, with an ever-expanding complexity. These

fields have space and time in common and are the fundamental entities that,
by interacting with each other, create everything that physically exists. For
example, all the electrons in our bodies, along with all those in the rest of the
universe, are quantum waves or states of the same quantum field of electrons.
Each quantum wave describes the superposition of the possible states of an
electron with probabilities specified by the square of the amplitude of the
component waves representing each state.

I know this explanation seems far-fetched, however for now

There is no simpler way to express it.
The vision of the universe that emerges from the description of quantum
states (particles) is very strange, because the variables take on a definite value
only when two particles interact, but none of the variables are defined before
the interaction. Furthermore, the basis of reality is indeterminacy and granularity
instead of continuity. A particle behaves like a probability wave that can take all
possible paths and can be found at various points in space.

But the probability wave has little in common with the waves of classical
physics, which are collective phenomena produced by a huge number of
classical particles. But since particles do not exist as we have imagined them,
they can only be described as probability waves that allow us to predict the
probabilities of all possible states in which a particle could be detected. The
state that will manifest itself is not predictable.

Today, quantum field theory (QFT) and general relativity (GR) are the two mainstays of theoretical
physics. However, GR describes a continuous, classical field rather than a discrete quantum field, in
contrast to the quantization of the other three fundamental forces of nature.

The theoretical physics community has been trying to unify QCT with GR for
over seventy years , but so far without success despite enormous efforts. If it
were to happen, the unification would describe space-time, gravitational force,
and all superposition quantum fields as a single unified field.
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Particles and Quantum Entanglement

When physicists say that “a particle interferes with itself,” they mean that the
probability waves that describe the possible states of a particle interfere when
they can split into two or more regions of space. This is the case of the famous
and baffling double-slit experiment.
1
Interference produces a
probability of finding an electron in a large region of space and tells us that the
electron cannot exist as a classical particle moving along a well-defined trajectory,
but instead behaves as a “probability cloud” described by the wave function.

When a quantum particle is not observed, it cannot be localized in space like

a classical particle, otherwise it could not pass through both slits at the same
time. What “passes” through both slits is a “probability wave,” a representation of
the particle, not the particle as a wave.

In other words, we know almost nothing about what a particle is when it is not
measured. The probability wave does not describe the particle, but what we can
know about it when we measure it.
The wave only gives us the probability of detecting the particle at any point on the screen: knowing the
probability, however, does not tell us where it will manifest itself.

To demonstrate that a particle behaves like a wave, we need to repeat the

experiment with many particles all prepared in the same way.
So, each particle will appear at a different point on the screen, and collectively they will show us the
interference pattern calculated by the theory.

Quantum theory thus allows us to calculate very well the interference pattern
produced by a large number of particles, but it cannot tell us where each particle
will manifest itself.
A quantum particle behaves like an extremely complex system, not like a
classical particle, and quantum physics cannot describe the trajectory of a single
particle; not so much because of a deficiency in the theory, but for the simple
reason that quantum particles are not classical particles.
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We don't actually know what a particle really is.

Classical physics believed it was describing physical reality, ontology, while in fact it was describing a
mendacious model of reality created by our senses.

Quantum physics does not describe reality, but only what we can know about a deeper “wave” reality of
which we know only a small part, the one that always appears as “particles” in our measurements. This
also includes electromagnetic waves that manifest in space-time only as photons, that is, once again as
particles.

So, the probability wave does not describe reality, but only what
we can measure reality.
It is astonishing to discover that a classical object that we thought was real is instead the collective
behavior of billions upon billions of invisible, interacting wave systems (particles), which cannot exist as
such in our world until they manifest themselves in the

space-time. Where and how, then, do particles exist when we do not observe them?

Quantum particles have another big surprise in store for us, because they can do something that no
classical particle can do: entanglement. This phenomenon consists in the existence of particles that
have joint properties. For example, two electrons can have their spins entangled in such a way that the
sum of the two spins must be 0. Therefore, if you measure the spin of electron A and find that it is +½,
the spin of electron B will simultaneously be ÿ½, and vice versa. These are called entangled states.

The strange thing is that, when you measure the spin of A, this measurement disturbs the state of
A in an unpredictable way so that it presents itself with the same probability of obtaining both +½ and
ÿ½, that is, with pure randomness, like when you toss a coin. So how does B know instantly that the
measurement of A gave +½ when it could also have been ÿ½, and this independently of the distance of
the two particles? If A does not know what result he will have when he makes a measurement on his
spin, he will never be able to communicate with B, even if he knows that B will obtain the result correlated
to his. To communicate, A must have control over the message he sends to B and this is not possible
given the behavior
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probabilistic of particles. Since we cannot communicate faster than the speed of light, why is the correlation
between particles instantaneous?

No one can explain why the spin of the distant particle is always correlated with that of the measured
particle, regardless of their distance, and without particle A having been able to communicate with B.

This property of quantum systems is called non-locality, because it is as if the two particles were a
single system that manifests itself in two different spatial positions, as if space did not exist. Inside the
system, communication is instantaneous, but the state is knowable only "from within", while what manifests
itself "from outside" must respect the speed of light. When you measure a particle, it is as if the other

simultaneously assumes the correlated value, as if they were next to each other.

In other words, a possible hypothesis to explain entanglement is that the result of the measurement
can only propagate at the speed of light, while the knowledge by the system made up of the two particles
of what will manifest is instantaneous.

In its own way, entanglement is telling us that spacetime may not be what we generally imagine it to
be, since these nonlocal properties are inexplicable.

The Quantum Physics Worldview

The world as we have created it is the result of our thinking. We cannot

change it without changing our way of thinking.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

The changes to our worldview brought about by a century of scientific discoveries have been as
numerous as they are astonishing, so much so that their implications have not yet been fully appreciated.
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metabolized. In summary, the physical world described by contemporary physics has the
following extraordinary properties:

1. Nature is not continuous, but discrete. There is a limit to the divisibility of space,
time, and matter. All properties, whether of fields or states (particles), are discrete.
The fundamental nature of physical reality is quantum.

2. Elementary particles appear in space-time only when the

fields are excited or interact with other fields. Particles do not exist as objects, but only as excited
states of the homonymous field.

3. When an interaction occurs between two quantum systems, the states of both will
change with the creation of an “entangled state”, having new properties that are
not the sum of the properties of the component states. For example, when the
electron field interacts with the proton field, the result could be a hydrogen
atom, a structure with completely different properties.

new.
4. Indeterminism is an irreducible property of nature. We cannot measure two
non-commuting variables at the same time, and we cannot even
predict where a particle will be, not even in principle. We can only predict the
probability of finding it in a certain region of space.

5. A measurement device that interacts with a quantum system is a quantum-classical

system that amplifies the result of a quantum interaction to the point
of producing a classical signal that can be shared. The many states that are
possible in the quantum world will “collapse” into a single reality in our
physical world. And the specific state that will manifest cannot be predicted
before the measurement.

6. Particles are not subject to “forces” as classical physics tells us. Quantum particles
interact by exchanging other particles. In this way they behave as if there were
a force acting between them.

7. Physical reality is described by a set of fields subject to the laws of quantum field
theory (QFT) and general relativity.
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(RG). Everything else comes from the action of the camp laws.
8. The union of TQC and GR into a single coherent theory promises to reduce physical reality
to a single unified quantum field.
However, this theory does not exist yet.
9. Nonlocality reveals the existence of a totality that cannot be divided into separable parts.
Such a totality eludes any human description or representation, because it
cannot be described by the properties of its separate parts. A composite quantum
system has properties that are incompatible with any property of its parts. This
type of holism does not exist in classical systems, where the properties of the system are
compatible with the properties of its parts [1].

The impact of non-locality, quantum indeterminacy and

of the incompleteness of mathematics is enormous:

1. There is no longer a one-to-one correspondence between an element of the

theory and an element of reality. Determinism and reductionism

they do not exist, not even in principle.

2. Reality is a whole and its existence manifests itself in its

interactions with “observers” who are “indivisible parts” of the same reality. Furthermore, the
idea that reality exists whether we observe it or not (realism) is false. The local realism that
Albert Einstein believed in has been proven false.
3
In the words of John Archibald Wheeler,
“No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a phenomenon.
observed”.

3. Reality is continuously created by the interactions that occur between its “parts” (parts that are
not, however, separable). And each observation changes both the observer and
the observed. There is no

privileged position: in an interaction of two “parties”, the positions of the observer and the
observed are symmetrical.

As Werner Heisenberg said: “The idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist
objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether we observe them or
not, is impossible.”
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According to Wheeler, “The term ‘observer’ should be replaced by the term ‘participant.’ This
replacement may indicate the radically new role of consciousness in physics: subjective and objective
reality in a sense create each other.” And it is legitimate, on the basis of his reflections, to ask whether

“Is it possible that the universe in a strange sense is ‘brought into being’ by the participation of those
who participate?”

Non-locality implies that the Whole cannot be the object of scientific investigation, even in principle.
There is an “epistemic event horizon,” which precludes the Whole from being entirely derivable from
the properties of its parts. The Whole is more than the sum of its parts. By decomposing the Whole
into parts (reductionism), we create a model of it that differs from the Whole depending on how we
have it.

divided.

A monistic conception of the universe

Cartesian dualism proposed a vision of reality in which mind and matter are essentially separate.
Materialism is a monism based on classical physics, which identifies reality with matter from which
mind also derives. However, mind is epiphenomenal because only matter can influence reality.

Idealism, on the other hand, is a philosophical monism which maintains that the mind
is fundamental and that matter derives from mind. Therefore, mind “commands” matter.

There is another position in which mind-and-matter are two irreducible aspects of the same reality,
that is, they are like two sides of the same coin that cannot be separated. This is a form of panpsychism
that I will talk about a lot in the second part of the book. This is a monism that recalls the particle-wave
of quantum physics, that is, the two complementary and irreducible aspects of the same entity. I think
that the universe, in its essence, must contain the seeds of both mind and matter. Mind and matter are
like the internal and external surfaces of a sphere, and ontology belongs to the entire sphere and not
just to what can be observed from the outside.
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The whole of physics corresponds to the unified field that combines TQC
with GR to describe external physical reality: what we call matter, but which
also includes energy, space and time.
My position is that to the whole of physics we must add the interiority of reality that we call mind,
which includes consciousness, free will and life.

How do we know?

The sole task of science is to light the way.

MICHAEL BAKUNIN

What proof do we have that we can perceive reality as it is?

How do we decide that something exists and has certain properties that are
worth exploring? How do we decide that a particular search makes sense?

We always start from our conscious experience of the world and our natural
desire to understand, using our innate ability to conceptualize and imagine
together with our ability to reason.
This allows us to make hypotheses about what the “objects of reality” are and
how they interact. We do this by replacing physical objects with mental
abstractions, and then building a theory that attempts to explain our experience
by making predictions that may or may not be verified. If the predictions do not
match the experience, we need to go back to where we went wrong and
change something. Often, discovering and fixing anomalies is what allows us
to make progress.
Over the past millennia, reasoning has been formalized starting from the
concept of an axiomatic system exemplified by Euclidean geometry.
This method allows one to logically prove the truth of a statement on the basis
of the presumed truth of a small number of axioms or postulates. In
mathematics, the objects of study and the axioms come from intuition, which
has an inexplicable origin. The axioms are statements
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assumed to be true without proof, because they are thought to be self-evident.

But would an axiom be self-evident to a monkey or a computer? When we
believe that something is self-evident, we assume that the way we imagine or
perceive it corresponds to reality. This is an understandable position, but it
could also be wrong.

We create mathematical axioms, but the physical world is not our work, so
it may be very different from what we think is self-evident. Quantum theory has
amply demonstrated that the classical nature of the physical world, thought
almost universally self-evident a century ago, has instead revealed itself to be
a great self-deception. So deceptive, in fact, that many scientists today still
refuse to accept the disturbing philosophical or interpretative implications of
phenomena such as superposition, entanglement, and quantum indeterminism.

A hundred years ago, most scholars were confident that classical physics
faithfully represented the ontology of the universe, then experimental evidence
that falsified the postulates of classical physics required new axioms that barely
make sense to insiders.
How do we know that the new axioms are correct? The only way to know is to falsify the predictions
of the theory based on the chosen axioms. But how do we choose the new axioms to replace the
falsified ones? What is it that makes us know? Does a robot know?

Semantic knowledge and symbolic knowledge

I know that I exist because I am conscious of knowing what I claim to know,

that is, that I exist. This is Descartes' cogito ergo sum: I know that I exist
because "I have the experience of existing." I call this kind of knowledge direct
semantic knowledge, because it refers to myself: it is a reflection of my
consciousness on itself and produces qualia whose meaning is: "I exist."

I call indirect semantic knowledge that which refers to knowledge of the

external world. For example, I can say that I saw a dog because I experienced
it in my consciousness. Indirect semantic knowledge does not assure us,
however, that what we know is
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completely true. It is only a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for knowing the truth.

A machine, on the other hand, “knows” without knowing that it knows and without
even knowing what it means to know. Its knowledge is unconscious and mechanical
and cannot be called knowledge: it is simply information made up of meaningless
symbols, which can be mechanically linked to some deterministic action. Therefore,
the actions of the robot do not imply free and conscious choices.

I would like to point out that in certain situations we also have the same type of
automatic behavior as robots: for example, when we drive a car. In this case, together
with the symbolic information that the robot also has, we also have the conscious
experience of the landscape, the road and the situation. Consciousness acts as a
supervisor of the mechanical processes of our body. It does not contribute to driving,
unless it is necessary to intervene, in which case it regains control over the body's
automatism.

It is the conscience that understands the situation and that makes the difference between a
robot and a human.
In a robot there is no conscious self-reflection that is independent of the program
and can change decisions hardwired into parts of the program. In a robot there is no
“self” and no witness to itself.
In a machine there is no “thought pause” between symbols and action, because the
meaning of symbols, doubt, and free will exist only in the consciousness of a self, but
not in a mechanism.
There is a clear distinction between the symbolic “knowledge” of the
machine, which is not true knowledge, and human semantic knowledge.
The first is objective information that can be copied and shared, the second is a
subjective and private experience that occurs in the intimacy of a conscious entity. As
such, semantic knowledge is a dynamic state of consciousness that contains within
itself the sense of its own reliability, that is, the sense of how much one can trust such
knowledge.
I know that I know, I know that I do not know, I also know when I think I know and I
know when I pretend to know. Semantic knowledge is a property of a conscious entity,
it is not a property of a machine.
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What is the purpose of conscience?

It is our consciousness that makes us human. Without it we would act like robots, and life would not
it would make no sense.

DAVID CHALMERS

Someone might ask: “What is the point of consciousness if a robot can drive a car better than us?”
This is a typical question based on the assumption that we are biological machines existing in a world
governed by the laws of classical physics and the survival of the fittest. If we believe in this interpretation
of reality, any subjective value will appear illusory to us.

From this perspective, our inner experience, our emotions, dreams and aspirations, joys and
sorrows, curiosity, music and art, love of life, and our rare but exhilarating sense of oneness with the
universe and all life are merely illusions.

How can we compare ourselves to a mechanism when a living cell is not a mechanism? Have you
ever seen a computer give birth to another computer, hardware and software included? Have those who
promote the idea that computers might one day become conscious ever given you a convincing
explanation of how this might happen?

Are you willing to throw away everything that gives meaning to your life for a wishful thinking idea
of people who believe that when complexity becomes large enough, consciousness will “somehow”
emerge? Complexity is at best a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for creating a conscious
organism!

Do you believe that large computers containing millions of

microprocessors and consume megawatts of energy are conscious?
Each of us can say, “I am conscious,” not because we repeat a meaningless sentence from
memory as a computer would, but because meaning is at the origin of the words we pronounce, and it
is also the reason why the words we hear exist. It is consciousness that
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allows us to know the meaning of the symbols that our senses reveal to us and that inform our free
choices. It is the conscience that gives us

that freedom of choice that many scientists and philosophers consider illusory because it is excluded
by the axioms of classical physics that they have chosen to
accept.

If the only reality we admit is the external one that we can measure with rulers and clocks, we
have already liquidated the internal reality that makes us love life and enjoy the great gift of human
existence.
By doing so we accept the judgment of those who consider real only that which is repeatable and
measurable in a laboratory, and who eliminate a priori the value of consciousness in order to support
unproven assumptions about reality.
The evidence that we are not machines exists in each of us! It exists

in our thoughts, emotions, sensations and feelings; phenomena that no machine possesses.

Mahatma Gandhi loved to say: “I need not go far to

“I look for the sacred cave, I carry it inside me”.
Why do we want to give credence to those who want to convince us otherwise? We need to wake
up from this sort of trance and trust instead our inner voice, which whispers to us the words of Richard
Bach: “Intuition does not lie when it whispers to us: 'You are not dust, you are magic!'”

(A Bridge to Eternity). You are not a machine! You are consciousness! And, as Gautama Buddha said:
“When you discover who you are, you will laugh at what you thought you were.”

I am convinced that a rationality informed solely by the principles of materialism, reductionism and
survival of the fittest can only lead to unbridled competition, racism and war. Precisely what has
characterized much of human history.

The unconsciousness of robots and the discoveries of quantum physics are, however, telling us
that materialism and reductionism are only approximations of a deeper and more mysterious reality,
which we have yet to recognize and understand.
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3
The nature of machines

One day machines will be able to solve all problems, but never any of them.

they will be able to ask one.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

I remember that when I was a kid I was fascinated by cars, so much so that I would run
to the balcony of my house to watch the steam locomotives pass by, announcing with
a whistle their approach to the railway bridge, not far from my house. Cars, and
especially airplanes, have always had a special fascination for me.

As I grew older, my interest gradually shifted to computers, which then filled huge
rooms and displayed panels of mysterious lights that flashed on and off at high speed.
By the late 1950s, I wanted to understand how they worked. Little did I know that just
twelve years later, I would be designing the world's first microprocessors, which would
make computers smaller and increase their performance to the point of creating the
smart phones we carry everywhere.

Computers and robots are among the most complex systems we can imagine and
build today, and they embody all the principles used in even the most basic machines.

These are classical deterministic machines, in contrast to living organisms, which

are both quantum and classical systems. We will see later that the latter are much more
than microchips, because they can "host" the consciousness and free will that make us
human. In other words, the widespread view today that living organisms are machines
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classical theories based on biology rather than silicon – and therefore, in effect,
equivalent to the latter – could not be more wrong.

The evolution of machines

Today's technology was unthinkable fifty/sixty years ago. But the technique of

One vision alone is not enough, a broader vision is needed.

RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

Before the discovery of electricity, all machines were mechanical and relied on
levers, wheels, pulleys, gears, springs, and so on. For millennia, the source of motive
power came from wind, water, or animal muscle. At the end of the 17th century, the
invention of the coal-fired steam engine was the spark that started the industrial
revolution. About 150 years later, a more efficient and compact heat engine was
invented: the gasoline engine, which is still widely used today.

The discovery of electromagnetism in the early 19th century brought a new form of
energy to the world, one that acts without any apparent physical movement. Just think
of an electrical signal propagating inside a telegraph or telephone wire. Physicists
assure us that there are electrons moving inside that wire, but who has ever seen
these electrons?

With electromagnetism, matter also began to reveal “internal movements” never observed before,
which could be exploited in various ways. For example, an electric generator could convert mechanical
movement into electricity and vice versa: a transformation

reversible cheaper than heat engines. And electric cables could carry electricity from a
distant generator to any home, to do any kind of work without physically moving
anything.
In 1844 the telegraph was invented, which with a single cable could "transport"
information instead of energy by assigning to each letter
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of the alphabet and each number a unique binary code, which was represented by a
sequence of electrical impulses of two different durations (the Morse code).

Thirty-two years later, the telephone was invented, which with a continuously
variable electrical signal – called an analog signal – could connect people even very
far from each other. Soon a dense network of cables covered the cities, to distribute
energy and information without anything moving but electrical signals. In more recent
years, electromagnetic waves – a form of energy unknown one hundred and sixty
years ago – have allowed us to obtain “wirelessly” the same computing tasks that were
previously entrusted to electrical cables.

Today we take smartphones for granted, and carry them everywhere: they allow us
not only to video call almost anyone in every corner of the planet, but also to take
photographs, videos and audio recordings, and finally to compose messages similar to
the telegrams of the past, but this time entrusted to microwaves. We can also store
and play books, photos, music, and videos, whereas only forty years ago we would
have had to use a separate and cumbersome device for each function. Smartphones
also give us access, inside and outside the home, to services such as GPS, maps and
thousands of other applications simply unthinkable forty years ago.

We are discovering that a large part of what matters in our lives has to do with
information: creating, transforming, moving and “consuming” information represents a
growing portion of what interests us. If we think about it, even a lot of the physical
movement we did in the past was connected with information. For example, two
hundred years ago what we solve today with a phone call or downloading data to the
computer would have required a journey of several days on horseback.

And forty years ago we would have had to physically go to the library, a record store,
or the cinema to perform the same operations that we can now easily do from home.

And let's not forget that in the past, to transmit information, one could even lose
one's life, as happened in 490 BC to Philippides, who, to bring the Athenians the news
of the Greek victory over the Persians, had to run breathlessly for over forty miles.
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kilometers, from the plain of Marathon to Athens. When he reached his destination, he managed to
utter only one word, “Victory,” before collapsing due to the effort made. In that case, the cost of that
information was truly very high!

Today, computer technology allows us to create and manipulate information at such a low cost
that our innovative capabilities have increased exponentially compared to just fifty years ago.

Before the computer revolution

The second industrial revolution does not present itself like the first with images
crushing like rolling mill presses or steel castings, but like bits of a flow
of information that runs on circuits in the form of electronic impulses. The machines of
iron is always there, but it obeys the weightless bits.

ITALO CALVINO, American Lessons

Even before the computer revolution, there were simple tools for writing, measuring and calculating:
the abacus, for example, has been used for millennia and is still in use in some developing countries.

All early computing machines processed information through physical motion and used rudimentary
mechanical calculation.

analog and digital. Even the abacus, which primarily serves a memory function, requires movements
controlled by our fingers.
The first mechanical calculator with four functions – the arithmètre – was invented by the
Frenchman Thomas de Colmar in 1820 and marketed

in 1851. This machine could finally make calculations much faster than the abacus – an important
difference for a banker or an engineer!

A hundred years later, electromechanical calculators had about a thousand moving parts, were
manually controlled, and could operate at a speed one hundred times faster than a person armed only
with a
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paper and pen. They were calculating machines in which levers and gears, driven by
an electric motor, did all the work.
Created by Joseph Henry in 1835, the relay was an electrically activated switch: a hybrid device –
electrical and mechanical – in which an electrical signal could operate a mechanical switch that would
either touch or separate two electrical wires. A relay would allow a relatively weak signal to activate a
switch that could then pass a much stronger signal, thus powering many other relays. This enabled a
basic form of signal processing and amplification, which in turn enabled the first automatic telephone
switchboards and even the first programmable digital computer – the Z3 – which was conceived and
built in 1941 in Germany by Konrad Zuse.

Henry's relay was the bridge that allowed the passage from mechanical to
electromechanical processing and from special purpose to general purpose. However,
there remained a major problem to solve, because a relay computer was so slow as
to be almost useless. It fell to electronics to speed up the calculation.

Electronics began with the invention of the triode, a thermionic valve, conceived
by Lee De Forest in 1906. It was a device that modulated the current flowing between
two electrodes (cathode and anode) with a small voltage applied to a third electrode,
called a grid, placed between the two. The electrodes were located inside a glass
bulb in which a vacuum had been created. The triode was the bulky precursor of the
MOS transistor, in which the current between two electrodes – called source and
drain – is modulated by the voltage applied to a third electrode called the gate.

Invented in 1959, MOS transistors are solid-state devices used in nearly all
computer chips manufactured today. Thanks to astonishing advances in semiconductor
technology, the space occupied by a single 1906 triode could now contain an entire
computer system made up of more than ten trillion MOS transistors (10 including all
13
their interconnections!). Interestingly, the volume occupied by the interconnects far ),
exceeds that occupied by the transistors, just as neurons and their connections do.
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Today, a single microchip contains up to a trillion transistors (a flash memory chip), and can speed
up human calculations more than a trillion times, without anything moving. Furthermore, a chip is
“monolithic,” meaning that all its parts are made and assembled at the same time. What moves in a
chip are only “electrical signals,” but that movement is much more like the propagation of light than the
motion of objects. In a chip, the electromagnetic energy that carries information flows through a maze
of streets and doors at nearly the speed of light, following paths set by a program, and thus transforming
the information according to human desires.

Computers are universal machines

Almost all computer systems before computers were special purpose, meaning they could only perform
a small set of specific functions defined by the designer before the machine was built. Computers, on
the other hand, are general purpose, because the same machine can perform an almost infinite number
of different functions, often beyond the wildest imagination of the designer!

This prodigious result is due to the separation of the physical machine – the hardware – from the
software. The software is the non-physical part of the computer, which specifies its function. What is
astonishing is that the same organization of relatively simple matter can execute an infinity of
algorithms, provided that it has enough memory and speed.

It was Alan Turing who conceived of such a “universal machine” in 1936 with a thought experiment
aimed at demonstrating that the so-called decision problem posed by the mathematician David Hilbert
in 1928 was unsolvable. The Turing machine gave us an abstract model of a class of universal
2
machines capable of executing any general algorithm. This invention gave birth to information science
and showed the deep and inspiring connections between mathematics, information and intelligence.

It should be emphasized that in computers the hardware cannot do anything without the software,
that is, the collection of programs. A program is a
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sequence of commands that the hardware will mechanically execute down to the smallest details. The
vocabulary of the computer (called instruction set) is the set of instructions. Each of them defines a
transformation

deterministic to be performed on the data. And here another important distinction emerges: information
can take two basic forms, namely data and instructions, both stored in memory in binary form. Data is the
“raw material,” which can be molded into any shape by the instructions. It should be emphasized that
instructions and data mean nothing to the computer, which is not conscious. Only human consciousness
can understand what the computer is doing.

Computer hardware is physical, reductive, and deterministic, as is software. The latter, however, is
not strictly physical: the computer represents the first step in a process in which the human mind has
learned to command inanimate matter to make it act in the desired way. The invention and improvement
of the computer represent a decisive step in human evolution, and also mark a delicate transition for
humanity, as we will see better in the course of the book.

The nature of computers

A program is a sequence of commands conceived by a human mind and written in “boolean”, a language
that can be executed by a machine at a speed approaching that of light, the same speed at which
electrical signals travel inside microchips. This speed is millions of times greater than that achievable by
any mechanical structure.

Boolean language uses an alphabet of only two “letters”, “0” and “1”, and is therefore binary, that is,
made up of bits. Each word is therefore a sequence composed of a finite number of bits.

A bit is the smallest possible amount of information, that is, the amount needed to make a single
distinction: “0” or “1,” this or that, exists or does not exist, true or false, and so on. It is an extremely
efficient language, because the hardware only has to recognize the two possible states.
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The part of the hardware that executes instructions is called the central processing unit (CPU ). The
CPU also controls the flow of input and output (I/O) data that the computer uses to communicate with
the outside world. Memory is like a chessboard, a matrix of cells, each cell containing a “binary word”
with a fixed number of bits, typically 8 to 64 bits in multiples of 8 bits. The CPU, memory, and I/O are
the three building blocks of a computer.

Note that the only crucial recognition required of the hardware is to reliably distinguish the “0” state

from the “1” state. This recognition does not produce any meaning, but it must be foolproof, because
even a single error could lead to disaster. The meanings of the two states are known only to the
programmer, not to the computer. The bit is typically represented by two ranges of voltage values of an
electrical signal.

The state of the bits in memory can be simply read or written, changing it as desired. The bits in
memory are organized into words that the CPU reads or writes in parallel. The longer the word, the
faster the computer, because access time to external memory takes much longer than accessing data
that exists inside the CPU.

To access each word in memory, the program must provide the address, that is, the cell coordinates
that correspond to the row number and column number that define the cell in the matrix. The program
instructions also prescribe where to find the next instruction, the data, and what to do with it.

The programmer is the creator, while the hardware is the blind executor of the program. The latter
is expressed by the configuration of states in a “field of possible states,” which is the computer’s
memory. Note that the field of states can be understood as the interface between mind and matter.
Here for the first time is a machine that goes beyond physics. I say “beyond” because the meaning of
both the program and the result of the processing does not reside inside the computer. The field of
states that contains the program and the data acts on itself and on the external environment through the
unconscious and stereotyped actions of the CPU.
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With computers we are faced with a physical structure in which an energy pattern created by the
human mind can be concretized in such a form that matter is forced to do what this pattern requires.
Inside a computer, the subjective intention and meaning of the programmer have been entirely
objectified in the program. The result of the mechanical processing performed by the computer is finally
returned to the human mind for subjective interpretation. In this way, the human being can simulate
with extreme precision the consequences of his thoughts and fantasies.

The functioning of the computer, however, is extremely fragile, because just one wrong bit would
be enough to transform a seemingly intelligent machine into a completely useless box of metal, plastic
and silicon.
Thus, without constant human supervision, computers could easily stop working due to a simple glitch
or software bug.

Inside a deterministic machine there is no free will, although a decision independent of the program
can be caused by or come from the environment or from the program itself.
4
from an “interrupt”
requires the outside world to provide input. In this case, non-algorithmic decisions can arise from the
free will of human beings or from quantum random events, which allow the computer to go beyond the
limits of algorithms.
5
Meaning, understanding, and free decisions do not exist in a computer,
because these are capabilities connected to the nature of consciousness, which we will begin to explore in
Chapter 7.

Computers are reductionists

The typical machine is a reductionist system built entirely of separable parts that can be dismantled
and then reassembled to restore full functionality. The physical removability of parts can be replaced
by the concept of “parts separable in principle” because it may be impractical to build machines made

6
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entirely with removable parts. This is the case with today's computers, which are monolithic microchips.

A microchip can contain many billions of transistors all interconnected.

7
Each transistor is electrically isolated from all the others and functions only as an
on-off switch. Thus, each transistor is a separable part because we can imagine removing it completely
and ideally replacing it with an identical transistor without affecting the operation of the system.
Transistors are built

exploiting the quantum properties of crystals, which allow for better characteristics than the classical
properties of matter. The smallest parts that make up a transistor are sets of many thousands of atoms
and molecules in crystalline, polycrystalline or amorphous form. Note that, once the computer is built, its
matter always remains the same, unlike living beings, in which matter continually enters and exits the
organism.

A computer is made of a very large but finite number of separable parts, and each of them, while
autonomous and independent, interacts in a well-defined way with the others. To perform a useful
function, each part must interact with at least one other part, otherwise it would be superfluous. Each
interaction necessarily requires an exchange of energy between the parts and the surrounding
environment. Therefore, no part can be considered strictly a closed thermodynamic system. Finally, each
has an identifiable boundary, beyond which its function ceases. However, dissipative exchanges with
the environment cannot be eliminated. They are an irreducible consequence of the holistic nature of
physical reality, a clear demonstration that a reductionist system is an idealization of a holistic system.

A reductionist system is, therefore, a holistic system in which the inevitable dissipative interactions
have been reduced to a minimum so as not to compromise its intended function. Such a system is a
simplified mental model of reality, a theory valid only in environmental conditions in which dissipative
effects do not alter the function of the system. If one considers that the elementary parts of which
anything is made are quantum particles that behave like probability waves and that can be influenced by
the fluctuations of the quantum vacuum (see Glossary), true reductionism cannot exist.
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Even classical physics is a theory that is valid only within a

range of environmental conditions in which quantum and relativistic effects are negligible. However, since
they can never be completely eliminated, any attempt to describe reality classically can produce incorrect
predictions.

Many forget that a theory of reality is not reality. As

Heisenberg states, “Physics is not a representation of reality, but of our way of thinking about it.” This
forgetfulness leads to a priori denial of the existence of those phenomena that the theory cannot explain.
For example, the idea that a human body is a classical machine is falsified by the existence of
consciousness and free will, which cannot emerge from a reductionist and deterministic classical physics.

I will discuss this topic in depth later.

Computers are deterministic

Like reductionism, determinism is a theory. It is an idealization of the world, a rough description based on
a mathematical theory invented by us. It cannot necessarily describe all aspects of the world, and
therefore, sooner or later, some real phenomenon will falsify it. Machines are designed to perform specific
functions reliably. They are deterministic because they were intended to be that way. If they were
unpredictable, they would not be useful. They are particularly advantageous precisely because they never
tire of repeating the same stereotyped behavior, unlike humans who can easily get bored and distracted,
and therefore make mistakes.

A computer program is strictly deterministic even when we would like it not to be. For example, an
algorithm for generating images of snowflakes can have a set of parameters with which to create an
almost infinite variety of them. However, these parameters must be inserted into the computer from
outside or be generated by the same algorithm that creates the snowflakes. A non-deterministic behavior
should instead derive from random information.

8
originated from a quantum system outside the computer. There
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The bottom line is that a computer that operates entirely on its own program and
without any outside input is a completely deterministic and predictable system,
provided that all the details of the program and how the computer works are
known.
The latter requirement can be satisfied because the bits of the computer can
always be copied without being disturbed, so the internal state of the computer is
objective and can be known and shared by many observers. Note that the same
requirement is not satisfied by quantum systems, because the state of a qubit
9
cannot be known (unless its state has been prepared in advance) and cannot be
measured without disturbing it and therefore changing it in an unpredictable way.

Classical physics is deterministic, while quantum physics is both deterministic

and indeterministic. This is a subtle but crucial point, because quantum physics
is a probabilistic theory that can only predict the probabilities of events. However,
when it predicts that the probability of a given event is 1 or 0, it is deterministic,
while when it predicts probabilities other than 1 or 0, it is indeterministic.

To be falsifiable, a theory must predict some events that always happen and
some that never happen, because then only one experiment can falsify the
theory. Quantum physics satisfies this crucial criterion of falsifiability, because it
predicts events with probability 1 or 0 that can therefore be falsified.
10

Classical physics is a theory in which variables can take on a continuum of values expressed by
real numbers. Computers, however, have finite precision, and this difference has important implications.
For example, two identical computers running the same software will produce exactly the same results,
even if they simulate a chaotic system whose behavior depends critically on the initial conditions. But
two identical real chaotic physical systems will never behave in the same way, because it is impossible
to set their initial conditions with sufficient precision. Therefore, after some time, their behaviors will
gradually diverge from each other and end up being completely different. Thus, the simulation of a
chaotic system after a period of time may not match the real physical system.
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This analysis highlights a fundamental difference between the determinism of a computer and
that of theoretical classical physics, which is deterministic but not necessarily predictable, because it
is described with real numbers and not with numbers of finite precision. Thus, even if the theory were
one hundred percent correct, the simulation of the theory might not be. Consequently, computers
represent a subset of classical physics, in which the precision of the calculation is finite.

In turn, classical physics is a special case of quantum physics applied to macroscopic systems.
Therefore, its predictions are, at best, deterministic approximations of the probabilistic description of
reality made by quantum physics. The idea that reality is deterministic has already been disproved by
quantum physics, but it is still held by many who believe that objects at our scale are adequately
described by classical physics, while in fact this is not the case, especially for complex systems. Just
think of weather forecasting or the behavior of living beings.

Determinism is another idealization of reality that is valid only

in the computer world. It is a good approximation for many classical systems, much less good for
macroscopic quantum systems such as living organisms.

Computers can be unpredictable

With the advent of robotics and neural network-based AI, computers are increasingly operating with
real-world data, which may include information from quantum events and human decisions. This
forces the computer to operate outside the bounds of a classical deterministic system. This presents
challenges and opportunities that are not fully understood, even by those in the field.

Complex patterns, such as faces, words or urban traffic situations, have astonishing variability, to
the point that the recognition rate cannot be perfect, especially in adverse environmental conditions.

Therefore, the performance of a robot or computer cannot be guaranteed, unlike situations where the
computer runs a
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11
deterministic algorithm. With artificial neural networks, the unpredictability of the
real world is brought into the computer, especially if the neural networks
determine key parameters of the program. Therefore, if the computer were
allowed to make important decisions based on the presumed validity of its
pattern recognition, the consequences could be catastrophic. This is a very
serious problem, since the computer has no understanding of the situations in
which it finds itself. And the ethical choice cannot be made by an algorithm!

Can we trust a robot if its behavior can be unpredictable? If a robot operates entirely on the
production line of a factory where it simply repeats the same series of operations in a controlled
environment, the answer is yes. However, even in this case, if a failure or an unforeseen event were to
occur, human intervention would still be necessary. If, on the other hand, we are talking about building
a self-driving car, the situation changes completely, given the enormous amount of imponderable
variables to control that would increase dramatically depending on whether the route involves a highway
or the center of a large city like New York or Rome.

The fact is that the complexity and cost of a computerized system capable of
covering all possible driving conditions are enormous and many problems can
never be completely solved. If we then add to the mix the possibility of deliberate
deception, that is, hostile agents who could purposely create situations aimed
at confusing the robot, the performance could collapse in unpredictable ways.
12

The existence and spread of cybercrime, even without the ambiguities of

artificial intelligence, is a preview of what could happen. Cybercrime should
serve as a warning of the dangers and unexpected events associated with
giving full autonomy to robots.
There is an unbridgeable gap between artificial intelligence and human
intelligence, which is characterized by understanding: a property of consciousness
that is often underestimated and inaccessible to computers, as we will see
throughout this book.
So far I have not made any distinction between computers and robots, as if
they had the same level of complexity, but this is not the case. Robots add to
computers the ability to perceive the world through sensors, act in the world,
measure their performance and compare it.
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with internal standards and the ability to modify your own programs.
All of this represents an important step forward towards the creation of autonomous machines.

A robot operating in a factory can only act locally, and in general cannot change itself. It has no
real autonomy, and its interactions with living beings and other robots are typically nonexistent or
minimal. But if we allowed it to change its program significantly, it would no longer be predictable and
its reliability would no longer be guaranteed.

The complexity of a self-learning robot is many orders of magnitude greater than that of a normal
robot. I expect that, with the development of self-driving vehicles, we will understand a lot about how
robots learn, and I predict that this knowledge will also improve the efficiency of human learning. As
Professor of Cognitive Science Margaret Boden says: “The most important lesson that AI has taught
us is to appreciate and recognize for the first time the enormous power and subtlety of the human
mind.”

Robots have properties that complement those of humans. It is up to us to use them wisely to
improve our condition and that of the ecosystem.

Robots “vs” living organisms

Computers are wonderful tools for making our dreams come true, but no machine can replace the

human spark of spirit, compassion, love and

comprehension.

LOU GERSTNER

The fundamental differences between robots and living organisms are astonishing and little
understood. While computers and robots are classical machines, living organisms are not, because
they process
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information using all the phenomena available in the physical world: quantum, classical,
discrete and continuous.
Inside a living cell, individual atoms are used to process information, which makes
it extremely difficult to understand how it works. The quantum behavior of individual
atoms and molecules inside a living cell gives rise to an incredibly complex dynamic
order, which cannot be described by the statistical quantum laws that govern the
behavior of objects made of millions of atoms. A cell is much more than a jumble of
atoms and organic molecules moving around in a tiny drop of water. Its dynamic order
must be orchestrated from the whole to the parts and back again in a wonderful and
still poorly understood way.

We know that in a computer, even a single bit in the wrong place can make a
fundamental difference. The same is true for the cell, as the presence or absence of a
single proton (hydrogen ion) in the wrong place at the wrong time can have serious
consequences.
This fact highlights another fundamental difference between a cell and a computer,
because while a bit is just abstract information, a proton or an atom is also matter and
energy, which can be used to build more complex molecules or for other purposes.

A living cell is not a purely reductionist machine. Instead, it is a quantum-classical

dynamical system that is closer to quantum reality than to classical reality. For
example, if we could dismantle all the “parts” that compose it, could we then reassemble
them and recreate the same living cell? No one knows how to do that. To do so, we
would need to know the state of every atom, molecule, and elementary particle,
including the molecules in the cytoplasm. These properties would have to be measured
while the cell is alive, but in this case, any observation would disturb the system and
change it. Furthermore, since the cell is in constant motion, we would find it different
at every instant, and this would make any attempt to measure its state impossible.
Furthermore, according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it is impossible to know
the position, velocity, and angular momentum of a proton or an atom simultaneously.
So, in short, there is no way to reconstruct a cell. As physicist Richard Feynman put it:
“What
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I can't build it, I can't understand it", in fact we can build a computer, but no one has ever managed to
build a cell.
Another interesting difference is that a machine, in order to function, must first be built in its entirety,
and only then can it be turned on and off at will. Surprisingly, a living organism is built alive and will only
turn off once, when it dies, that is, when an irreversible change occurs that can no longer be self-
repaired. To live, a multicellular organism must have a critical mass of living cells, to which new ones
are added as the old ones die. Then, when the death of the entire organism occurs, it can no longer be
turned on. Also note that, when a multicellular organism self-assembles, every new cell that is added to
it is alive, so the organism, being built alive, never needs to be turned on.

Another important aspect that has a precise meaning for a machine, but not for a living organism,
is expressed in the concept of “completion”. When a machine leaves the factory it is completed, and
once finished it remains essentially the same. Living organisms, on the other hand, continually change,
transform and evolve. They are never complete, because they are always in a state of becoming. For
example, an unfertilized human egg (gamete) is a suspended life that immediately after fertilization
becomes dynamic, transforming into a fetus, a child, an adolescent, an adult and so on. A living
organism never remains the same physical and psychological entity from one moment to the next.

Computer hardware, on the other hand, remains the same physical structure from the moment it leaves
the factory until it stops working or is disposed of.

The dynamism of a living organism is irreducible and prodigious, whether it manifests itself as a
bacterium or as a human being. Life is like a

flame that produces other flames by dividing. This is why, to create a new life, one must always start
from life. As the seventeenth-century biologist Francesco Redi summarized: “Omne vivum ex vivo”, that
is, everything that is alive derives from something alive. The only way to “build” life is always and only
life.

After the first cell, all living organisms were formed “alive”
within another organism.
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But then how was the first cell born?

This question is similar to “How did the universe come into being?” No one knows
the answer. In fact, the more we know about cells and the universe, the less we can
13
explain their origin. To use the words of Margherita Hack:
“Certainly, the greatest and most extraordinary enigma, even more than the universe,
is our mind, about which we still know so little, much less than what it has understood
about the universe” (My Infinity).
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4
The nature of information

Information is a conceptual labyrinth.

LUCIANO FLORIDI, The information revolution

As kids, information was also part of our games.

I remember how much fun we had exchanging our secrets with the “alphabet
mute”, which allowed us not to be heard by adults.
As for the “telephone game”, it was very funny to discover how the sentence that the first player
whispered in the ear of the second player was completely different from the initial one.

But information is not a game, it is a very serious thing, so much so that this period of rapid
technological and social changes has been called the "information revolution".

Begun in the mid-20th century, thanks to the development of digital technologies, it is having a
gigantic impact on society, greater than that of the industrial revolution. Microchips, information
processing and the web are now part of our vocabulary, just as engine, production line and industry
were the new words that characterized the industrial revolution.

But what is information? What explains the exponential growth of information technologies that we
are witnessing? What makes information so transformative that it has enabled us to develop artificial
intelligence, robots, and self-driving cars?

A brief history of information

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Information began with gestures, sounds, the birth of words, followed by simple pictorial and graphic
signs, cuneiform writing, alphabets, the brush, the abacus, papyrus, pen and ink, paper, books and
printing. Then came a turning point with the invention of the telegraph and the telephone, which
exploited the discovery of electricity. Decades later, the discovery of electromagnetic waves made
possible long-distance wireless communications and radio transmissions, previously unimaginable.

The need to amplify weak radio signals led to the invention of the vacuum tube, giving birth to the
field of electronics. Vacuum tubes could manipulate high-frequency electrical signals for the first time,
and were soon used in many other applications not originally envisioned, such as radar, microwave
transmission, electronic control, and television.

The desire to accelerate the speed of electromechanical calculators

and to automatically calculate arbitrary sequences of arithmetic operations led to the invention of the
programmable computer.
The first electronic stored-program digital computer was the EDSAC, built in 1949 at the University
of Cambridge, England.
It implemented John von Neumann's idea of storing programs and data in the same memory, while in
previous computers, such as the famous ENIAC, the program consisted of panels with switches and
plugs that had to be operated manually in a long and laborious process.

All early computers were research machines designed to perform numerical calculations, and only
one of each was built.
The first general-purpose commercial electronic computer, the UNIVAC I, was introduced in 1951,
exactly one hundred years after the arithmometer described in the previous chapter began production.
UNIVAC I was a stored-program computer suitable for a variety of applications, such as sorting and
analyzing financial and administrative data. It had

a 12-bit serial main memory of 1024 words and used magnetic tape for the first time as secondary
memory to increase its overall memory. This machine used 5200 valves dissipating 125 kW and could
perform five hundred multiplications per
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second. Forty-six units were sold, at a cost of over a million dollars each, and thus
the existence of a market for computers was demonstrated for the first time.

Twenty years later, the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, a 4-bit
processor, was born, which I designed in 1970-1971. The following year, a computer
with performance comparable to the UNIVAC I could be built on a 30 × 30 cm2
printed circuit board using the first 8-bit microprocessor (Intel 8008). This computer
dissipated 10 W and cost a few hundred dollars. Ten years later, with smaller and
faster transistors, the same computer could be integrated into a single chip, running
ten times faster, consuming less than a watt, and costing about ten dollars. This was
the miracle of semiconductor microelectronics, the technology that made it possible
to reduce a computer the size of an apartment to the smartphone we carry in our
pockets, powered by a small battery.

Microelectronics began with the germanium transistor invented in 1947, followed

by bipolar diffusion transistors, which gradually replaced vacuum tubes starting in
1953. Ten years later we had the first monolithic bipolar integrated circuits with about
ten transistors, and by the mid-1970s an entire computer could be integrated on a
chip with silicon-gate MOS transistors . This integration was made possible by silicon
gate technology, which I developed in 1968 at Fairchild Semiconductor [2].

Twenty years later, almost all integrated circuits produced in the world were made
using silicon-gate MOS technology , rather than bipolar technology.

With microelectronics the part became the whole, as the tens of thousands of
transistors used to build a computer were replaced by a small piece of silicon the size
of a fingernail.
Semiconductor-based microelectronics gave birth to the personal computer, the
cell phone, fast digital communications, and the creation of the Internet, with services
of power and utility unimaginable even to the most daring science fiction writer. The
smartphone, which today is owned by about two billion people, summarizes much of
the progress made in computing and telematics in the last fifty years.
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The COVID-19 pandemic could have destroyed global economies if it were not for the availability
of essentially free communications and internet services that allowed most businesses, schools, and
other activities to continue operating even as people were confined to their homes.

What is information?
The word information comes from the Latin in-formare, meaning to give shape to something. It is one
of those words, like “time” or “energy,” that we think we know the meaning of until we are asked to
define them precisely. The fact is that the term “information” has many meanings, which vary depending
on the context in which they are used. It can mean data, facts, news, instructions, knowledge,
intelligence, relevance, meaning, what is represented by a particular arrangement of signs or symbols,
the amount of information carried by a particular symbol, and so on.

Information remains one of the concepts that creates the most perplexity even for those who work
in the field. For the French mathematician René Thom, "the term 'information', too loaded with all its
intentional and anthropocentric connotations, should be banished from science" (From Morphogenesis
to Structure). Yet information, which we do not yet know how to define, can be processed and
transformed by a computer.

The central concept of information has to do with a particular relationship between an “observer”
and an “event” that conveys “information” to the observer. The event is a sign that carries with it

information, that is, new knowledge for the observer.

Note that if the observer knew in advance what event would occur, this would not convey any
information, but only confirmation of what he already knew. If, on the other hand, the event had
increased his knowledge, it would have conveyed information.

Therefore, the information transferred by an event or a signal is relative to the state of knowledge of
the observer himself.

Information is not something physical that we can easily measure, such as the mass of an object.
So, it is
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It is generally impossible to speak in absolute terms about the information

conveyed by an event, since it depends not only on the event, but also on the
observer. In fact, the same event can convey different meanings to different
observers. Furthermore, even for the same observer, the meaning can vary
depending on the circumstances.
For example, suppose my brother comes toward me on the street raising his
hand in the thumbs-up sign, and two other people besides me witness the same
event. Person A does not know what the thumbs-up sign means, so he has not
received any objective information, although he has seen the sign and may have
wondered what it meant. Person B knows that the sign means “Something good
has happened,” so he has received some objective information, but he does not
know who the sign is for or what it is, so he has only received a little information.
To me, the sign means that my sister-in-law’s surgery went well, and so I am very
happy about that. So I have received the same amount of objective information
as B, and on top of that, a great deal of subjective meaning, as my uncertainty
and emotional state have been dramatically improved.

If we assume that the same sign had concerned a $10 bet won by my brother, its impact for me would
have been much less.

This example illustrates the purely subjective nature of meaning derived from
objective events, and also highlights two types of meaning: objective and
subjective. Objective meaning is the formal meaning of a sign, that is, the one
conventionally shared, by agreement, by a community. Subjective meaning, on
the other hand, is the meaning that objective information has for a particular
observer, and is conditioned by the perception and recognition of the conventional
meaning of the sign.

Note that the perception of a sign as something that “could have” meaning is
independent of knowledge of its objective meaning. This is the situation for
observer A who perceived the sign: he understood that perhaps it meant
something, but he did not know what it meant.
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The recognition of the objective meaning of a sign can only occur if the meaning
was previously known through an explicit or implicit agreement. Therefore, what we
call information is always based on a prior agreement, which raises doubts about the
universality of what is meant by “objective”.

It should be noted that even the “absence of an event” can carry information and
meaning. For example, suppose I tell a friend that, if he doesn’t see me in the main
square at 6 pm, he can find me at the Bellavista bar. In this case I am using my
presence or absence in space and time (main square at 6 pm) as a sign to convey a
specific piece of information. My presence or absence corresponds to a “bit” of
information having the previously agreed objective meaning: “1” if I am present, “0” if
I am not.

Presence and absence can therefore convey two very different subjective meanings.

Note that all the other observers present in the main square at 6 pm could not
know that my absence is information for someone! Even in the empty space, therefore,
there could be a lot of information for observers who know where and when to observe.

Shannon's information
Now suppose we want to examine objective information that is valid for both machines
and humans. In this case, the signs or events that carry information have agreed-
upon meanings, but not all signs convey the same amount of meaning. For example,
a danger sign that appears infrequently may contain much more information than
signs that occur frequently.

This is what Claude Shannon theorized in 1948 with the publication of a

fundamental article entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication [12]. In it,
Shannon considered the problem of information communication with the aim of
quantifying it. He extracted only the objective aspects and built an effective
mathematical theory that has been fundamental in optimizing the use of communication
channels.
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communication, to reduce errors and improve code efficiency, as well as enabling many other
achievements.
The concept of “amount of information” is based on the following hypothetical problem: Suppose
you know that someone, a sender, is going to tell you a letter of the English alphabet. When it arrives,
how much information have you received? This depends on your expectation of receiving that letter. If
the sender had chosen a card at random from a well-shuffled deck of twenty-six cards in which each
card corresponds to a different letter of the alphabet, each letter would have an equal probability of
being chosen. The probability of choosing any symbol is therefore equal to 1/26 = 0.0385. If, on the
other hand, the sender had chosen a letter at random from a page of an English text, the probability
of choosing a particular letter would depend on how often that letter is used in English.

1
The relative frequency of the various letters of the English alphabet varies greatly: from 12.702%
for the letter “e”, the most frequent, to 0.074% for the letter “z”, the least used. Therefore, the letter “e”
is 172 times more likely to be chosen than the letter “z”. Note that, if the text used to randomly choose
the letters was written in Italian, the distribution of relative frequencies would have been very different,
even though the alphabet is essentially the same. Therefore, the mathematical theory

of information must assume that one knows, or can know, the alphabet of symbols and their statistics.

Without these preliminary clarifications, it is not possible to understand the narrow meaning of the
word “information” used in Shannon’s theory. Note also that knowing the letters and their probability
of appearing is very different from knowing the order in which those letters are distributed in the
sequence. It only means that if you count the number of letters of a certain type in a million letters all
coming from an English text, you can expect to find about 127,020 “e”s and 740 “z”s, but without
knowing their order.

In the case of transmission of information to general recipients, as in telegraphy or telephony, the

transmission of each letter is presumed to have taken place successfully when the agreed signal
reaches the recipient in conditions such that it is recognizable.
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So here is the context in which we can calculate the “quantity

of information” carried by a signal or any sign. transmitted by a signal
Shannon defined the amount of information I s as s

the negative of the logarithm to the base 2 of the probability ps of receiving that signal,
that is: I = ÿ log2 ps (the snegative of the logarithm is called the cologarithm and is often
used when taking the logarithm of a value between 0 and 1).

Since probability is a number between 0 and 1, the amount of information is a

positive number between 0 and ÿ. This definition implies that a signal that has a small
probability of appearing carries a large amount of information. If the probability were 1,
we would know exactly which signal will appear, and in that case the amount of
information carried by that signal would be 0.

I would like to point out that Shannon never defined what information is, but only defined the amount

of information carried by a signal under certain conditions.

The base 2 of the logarithm was chosen so that, if the alphabet is composed of
only two symbols, for example “0” and “1”, with equal probability of appearing, the
amount of information carried by each symbol is 1 “bit” of information (since log2 0.5
= ÿ1). This situation occurs when we toss a coin in which the two possible outcomes
have the same probability of coming up. Therefore, the above definition conveniently
measures the amount of information in units of bits.

However, the concept of “bit” as a “unit of measurement” should not be confused

with the bit used to indicate the value of a digit in a binary number. The value of a bit
in a binary number is only “0” or “1”, while the amount of information carried by a signal
can be a real number, such as 2.34 or ÿ2.

Some scholars explain Shannon's concept of information by saying that it is

proportional to the degree of surprise that it arouses in the recipient when he receives
the message: the greater the surprise, the greater the quantity of information received.
Other people, in a more abstract way, affirm that information is the resolution of
uncertainty, which means that, the greater the uncertainty existing before transmission,
the greater the quantity
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of information needed to solve it. Others like to describe information as a measure of the freedom of
choice available to the person selecting a message.

Note, however, that surprise, uncertainty, and freedom of choice only make sense to conscious
entities and not to a machine. A machine has neither uncertainty nor surprise, much less freedom of
choice.
Shannon called information entropy the average of the amount of information carried by a sequence
of symbols. Surprisingly, changing the sign of the formula for information entropy gives the formula for
thermodynamic entropy, a fundamental concept in physics. This strange “coincidence” brought the
concept of information into physics, where it continues to play a relevant role. Note, however, that
Shannon's definition of the amount of information covers only a small part of the concept of information,
because it excludes a priori its subjective meaning, which is ultimately all that interests us.

Shannon information is equivalent to having a machine measure the symbols that pass by, and
after collecting their statistics tell us how much objective information is contained in each symbol. This
is perfectly adequate for a machine that cannot understand the subjective meaning of any symbol. A
machine can only associate a specific preprogrammed action with any symbol or sequence of symbols.

Shannon's concept of information requires only the correct

detection and recognition of a sign or signal as a symbol of an agreed alphabet whose statistics are
known. The information is

tied only to the objective meaning of a sign. The use of the word symbol in information theory should
imply meaning, and this may lead one to believe that Shannon's information is what we are interested
in, but this is not the case. The words "sign" or "signal" would have been more appropriate, since their
connection with meaning is weaker, although still present. But perhaps "event" would have been the
best word of all, because all that is required of an observer is the perception and recognition of the
event as such. And "information" is then only the cologarithm of the probability of observing that event.
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For a human, the recognition of an event is often unconscious and is only a prerequisite for
accessing the rich subjective and conscious meaning associated with it. The subjective meaning of a
text does not depend on the probability of using letters, but on their specific order in forming words
and sentences, and this meaning is explicitly excluded in Shannon's theory. Nevertheless, this theory
has been fundamental in describing some important aspects of the behavior of communication
systems and computers.

What is a bit?
Almost everyone has heard of bits nowadays, although for many the concept remains nebulous. Bit is
the name of an abstract entity that

can only manifest itself in one of two possible states, like “heads” or “tails” on a coin. A bit can therefore
be used to represent the simplest possible distinction. For example, it can mean yes or no, true or
false, on or off, left or right, present or absent, or the numbers “0” and “1” in a base-2 number system.

I have listed various quasi-objective meanings that can be conventionally associated with the two
states represented by a bit.
Note that the numbers we commonly use are written

using a base 10 number system. However, any number can also be written in a base 2 system called
the “number system”.

binary”, which uses only two states (“0” and “1”) instead of the ten states (“0”, “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, “5”, “6”, “7”, “8”,
2
“9”) of the decimal number system. It is therefore possible to convert any integer expressed with a base 10
system into a binary number containing a finite sequence of “1”s and “0”s and vice versa.

Surprisingly, many rational numbers that can be written with a finite number of decimal places can
require an infinite number of binary digits after the decimal point.

In a computer, the two values of a bit are represented by a convention that must be strictly
respected in all its electronic circuits. For example, if the voltage at a node of a circuit is between 0.6
and 1.0 volts, the state of that node corresponds to the value
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“1” of the bit. If the voltage is between 0.0 and 0.4 volts, the node state is “0”. If the voltage is between
0.4 and 0.6 volts, the state is indeterminate and may cause errors. Therefore, if the input to a circuit
were between 0.4 and 0.6 volts, that value would be ambiguous and could be recognized as “1” by
one circuit and as “0” by another, clearly causing errors. This can happen due to a temporary
disturbance or a fault.

In short, the bit is the name of an abstract entity that carries with it two possible recognizable states
without any additional meaning. The bit is an idea, a theory, and its physical representation requires a
robust method to ensure the correct recognition of the two states even in the worst environmental
conditions. It is a precise agreement that must be rigorously respected by the builders of the computer
system.

An observer who knew nothing about binary computer systems and whose task it was to understand
how a microchip works by measuring what is physically accessible inside it would think that the
important information is the rapidly changing dynamic signals. Instead, the information that matters is
the stable but fleeting states during which, by convention, the signals have meaning. By looking only at
the constantly changing dynamic tensions at various points in the system, it would be difficult to
understand what is going on, because the logical description is firmly but elusively anchored in an
agreement that is not obvious to the ordinary observer.

The bit level is considered the “semantic” level of the computer: “semantic” in quotation marks,
because it is semantic only for us, but not for the computer, which knows nothing about signals,
symbols, and meaning. Furthermore, nowhere inside the chip is there a “0” or a “1”.

In short, a bit is the basic “quantum” of classical information.

It is not a physical object, but it must be represented by a physical variable. The binary logic of a digital
system allows for precise and repeatable representations, which are much less sensitive to electrical
noise and circuit tolerances due to both environmental and

manufacturing.
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Information from conscious entities

The words they are not identical to things. Knowing some words relating to facts does not
in any way equate to a direct and immediate understanding of the facts themselves.

MASTER ECKHART

Shannon's information is what matters to unconscious machines, but it is not what interests us! It is
essential to clarify this point, because the ambiguity of the words used to describe robots and artificial
intelligence (AI) systems tends to eliminate the abyss that separates humans from so-called intelligent
machines. The information that matters most to us is not the symbolic one, but the semantic one, and
here consciousness is indispensable. The recognition of symbols that, when speaking of AI, is passed
off as understanding, is actually just a mechanical function that we also perform automatically. Using
the same terms that refer to the capabilities of human consciousness to describe machines is therefore
a serious and dangerous disservice to humanity.

When we speak, the symbols we use serve to convey the subjective meaning we experience, unlike
the objective symbols used by machines. For example, to choose the words needed to communicate
with Luca, I must first convert my subjective meaning into mental words, and then verbalize them. In this
way I create a sound wave that carries the meaning conveyed by the language we both know. The
sound waves are perceived by Luca's auditory system and unconsciously recognized as the symbolic
words I intended to express. Up to this point, the recognition process is similar to what machines do.
Immediately afterwards, however, Luca experiences in his consciousness, in addition to the sound
sensation of the recognized words, also their subjective meaning, which could be different from mine.

In short, the recognition of a word as a sign occurs in us automatically, as in robots, but in our
consciousness a further step is taken, because the symbol is converted into sound qualia and
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in the meaning associated with them. The latter comes mainly from emotions and thoughts connected
to the long-term memory of our life experiences. The meaning to be communicated is then automatically
translated into sound waves, through the processing of symbols done by the brain, and transformed
into vibrations by the muscles of the body. In this way we communicate subjective meaning to the
people around us.

Note that conscious meaning processing is very different from automatic symbol processing.
Although little is known about it, it seems to be based primarily on associative and analogical operations
between qualia, along with the logical and linear processes of the rational mind. For example, the
reasoning done with pen and paper when we solve a mathematical problem is a combination of
conscious and unconscious, i.e. semantic and symbolic, processing, which includes thought reified in
mental and material symbols, automatic procedures, intuitions, emotions and motivations, with the
supervision of consciousness.

The processing of information that we process also includes

the processing of meaning that underlies our lived experience. This processing goes well beyond the
symbolic and algorithmic processing that computers can do, and that can be acquired through Shannon
information. This is a crucial distinction, which is not generally well understood because science and
technology tend to emphasize only the symbolic and mechanical aspect of reality.

Even when a computer uses artificial neural networks, its behavior is still mechanical, and therefore
limited, because understanding and creativity are beyond what a machine can do.

The fact that computers can far surpass human performance in mechanical tasks should not surprise
us, because there is a fundamental complementarity between human and artificial intelligence.

In short, computers are physical structures to which we have transferred a part of our mind in the
form of programs, creating a bridge between matter and the symbolic and semantic mind. Programs
reveal to us only the symbolic aspect of the mind, because they do not possess the semantic level and
free will that distinguish us.
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Computers are our creations equipped only with the algorithmic part
of our essence. This is why we are not computers, but creators of
computer. Consciousness is our true wealth, because it is what
allows us to understand. In the words of philosopher Michael Polanyi,
we
“
can know more than we can say” (Knowledge
unexpressed).
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5
The concept of information expanded

How come we have so much information, but know so little?

NOAM CHOMSKY

Not so long ago – but it seems like centuries ago – information was much scarcer than what we have
access to today, and the latest news was shouted out in the street by newspaper vendors, hence the
name “newsboys,” and then discussed by men during their meetings in the café for the usual card
game.

Personal news was instead spread through women's gossip. Passing from mouth to mouth, it
transformed from a breeze into a hurricane that "Finally overflows, and bursts / It spreads, it doubles /
And produces an explosion / Like a cannon shot" (Gioachino Rossini, The Barber of Seville).

Then with the advent of radio, TV, the Internet and cell phones, information has multiplied to such

an extent that we are now literally submerged by it. Not only that: we have become so accustomed to
this continuous bombardment of news that we have ended up becoming dependent on it, so much so
that we can no longer do without it.

But more information does not mean more knowledge.

When there are too many, we are no longer able to assimilate them. So today the old saying is more
relevant than ever: “Est modus in rebus”, or “too much is too much”.

We have seen that the concept of quantity of information theorized by Shannon requires the
existence of an alphabet of symbols whose objective meaning and probability distribution are known.

This is true for communication systems and computers, but when the information is
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among living organisms the situation is very different. To correctly understand the functioning of a cell,
since the organism lives in symbiosis with the environment, we must also consider its interactions

with it.

In this chapter I introduce the concept of living information, a new concept suited to the kind of
transformations that occur inside cells, where matter, energy, information and meaning are inseparable. I
am convinced that the study of this new type of information, in which the semantic aspect is not separable
from the symbolic and from matter-energy, will play a fundamental role in the understanding of life and
will lead us to a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and consciousness.

The essence of life is about experience, and consciousness is what allows the organism to have a
first-person experience of itself and the world.

Living organisms as information processors

We know little about how cells process information, especially at the global level. Currently, we know
mostly about the function of coding DNA , which is about 1.5% of total human DNA , and specifies the
structure of about 21,000 proteins. The rest, or 98.5% of it, was called “junk DNA ” until recently, because
it seemed to serve no useful function. How could life have been so wasteful and unintelligent as to keep
such a cumbersome and useless legacy in every cell?

Fortunately, some scientists have not been fooled by this prejudice, they have understood that it was
only an expression of our ignorance and today they are discovering real jewels in the “garbage”.

I think that there are levels of global information processing in cells that use both classical and
quantum properties, connected to non-coding DNA , that are currently unknown.
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A cell is a dynamic system in which matter, information and energy are continually
exchanged with the environment, so it is never the same. The fact that each cell
contains the genome of the entire organism tells us that in life the design of the whole
is contained in each of its parts: this is a holographic principle of profound significance.
If a computer were also holographic, each of its transistors would contain all the crucial
information, including the software, that defines the entire computer!

Of course, life is a whole other thing than computers!

Computers are made of transistors – simple on-off switches, each permanently
–, interconnected with only a few other transistors to form logic gates. Each logic
gate computes a deterministic binary function of its input signals, which then appears
in the output signal, which is then fed to the inputs of one or more logic gates. The
entire physical structure of the computer is static.

The algorithms that we create and load into a computer's memory reflect the operational
part of our mind, but they are far from containing the complete expression of a human
being.
In a cell, any electron, ion, atom or molecule is not only a carrier of a particular type
of information or energy, but is also the quantum part from which the cell's hardware is
built. That's why we can't expect living organisms to use the same kind of information
processing as our computers. I think there may be many other computer principles at
the interface between quantum and classical behavior of matter that we don't know
about

Still.

Quantum “objects” have no boundaries and are not separable, unlike classical
particles and computer bits.
Individual ions, atoms and molecules “move” within the cytoplasm under the
influence of local electromagnetic fields, and their interactions are governed primarily
by quantum physics. This fact can allow the local environment, which includes
fluctuations in the quantum vacuum, to manipulate probabilities so as to favor the
necessary transformation in each particular region of the cell. This may explain, for
example, why photon capture in chloroplasts achieves an incredible energy efficiency
of 98% [3].
Machine Translated by Google

It is reasonable to assume that the physical movement of atoms and molecules has to do with the
physical construction and dismantling of

biochemical components of a cell represents the slowest form of information processing. Inside the
cell, other faster and more powerful forms can be hypothesized, about which we currently know almost
nothing: for example, methods that use electronic and nuclear spins, as well as sound waves (phonons)
and electromagnetic waves (photons) that propagate in the cytoplasm.

2
Therefore, the mechanical movements we observe
in a cell could be the end result of much faster and more sophisticated invisible processing.

Each type of atom or molecule carries specific information when it interacts with other atoms and
molecules. However, they are not like the mechanical levers and gears of classical machines, because
they are quantum systems, and therefore it is difficult to imagine the type of interactions and computer
processing that they perform. We must also consider the existence of quantum interference, which
certainly exists inside every cell.

In living organisms, matter, energy and information flow from the environment to the organism and
vice versa. Since the organism lives in symbiosis with the environment, the two systems must be
studied together. A cell is essentially an open, far-from-thermal-equilibrium quantum-classical system
that not only processes information, but also transforms matter and energy, and here the distinction
between matter, energy and information is subtle. Based on the above considerations, the nature of
information in living organisms cannot be the same as that in communication systems and computers
where hardware and software are separate and the hardware does not change.

The wonderful structure of cells

In all things of nature there is something wonderful.

ARISTOTLE, De partibus animalium

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It is surprising to observe the complexity of the structure of certain proteins that should perform rather
simple functions, such as those that are embedded in the cell membrane and that control the passage of
sodium ions (Na) inside the cell. Why do they have such a complicated structure if they have to perform
+
such a simple function? I think that the complexity that seems ) from the external environment
excessive to us serves to perform those important roles of communication and control necessary for the
general coordination of the cell, as I have hypothesized that also happens with " junk DNA".

Unfortunately, while we have considerable knowledge of local processes, we know almost nothing about
the global functioning of cells as a system.

I imagine that the biochemical level described by molecular biologists is the equivalent of the
electromechanical movements of a robot, which represent the visible and slow aspects of its behavior.
These are in turn controlled by chips, the “brain” of the robot, whose complex and fast functioning is
invisible “from the outside”. I therefore expect that inside a cell there are many complex computer
processes to control the whole, of which we are currently unaware.

It should also be emphasized that the clear separation (reductionism) between software (information),
power (energy) and hardware (matter, or rather building material) that applies to a computer does not
exist in a cell. Consider for example a glucose molecule: its presence within the hierarchical organization
of a cell can be information for a certain level of the organization, energy for another and building material
for some other level still. Note also that a living cell does not limit itself to managing information as a
to be mainly computer does, becauserepair
it must alsoavoid
itself, obtain energy to function,
predators
and obtain material to build a copy of itself; and above all it must know how to manage it all.

Through reproduction, the organism creates its own “duplicate”, including hardware and software,
ensuring the continuity of its species.
This task is truly prodigious, but since it happens all the time around us we end up not noticing it anymore.
Omnipresent however not
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means easy, so much so that no computer can accomplish such a feat. To

do so, computers would have to be built using the principles of life, not those
of industrial manufacturing and Shannon information-based computing. To
reproduce like a living organism, the material of the new computer would
have to be taken from the environment and deeply rearranged within it to
produce a copy of the entire computer, not just the software.

There is more to information than information

It is not the circumstance that counts, but the lesson learned.

Not the symbol, but its meaning.
Not what is outside, but what happens inside.

RICHARD BACH, Biplane

I believe that it is crucial for any living organism, from cells to humans, to
be able to predict what the next event will be that will be experienced. This
requires that a large part of the computer processing be dedicated to the
prediction of future events. It is a learning process in which the differences
between the predicted and the experienced event produce the signals
necessary to gradually create a model of reality that is as accurate as possible.

In a computer, the next event is already in memory, except for inputs from
the environment that are unknown. Since deterministic events have a
probability of 1 (since the event is certain), the concept of information does
not make much sense for a computer that operates as a deterministic system.
It does make sense when the computer tries to predict the inputs it will
receive from the environment based on its past history.

This is an essential task for artificial intelligence and robotics, which allows
the development of adaptive models that can predict the most likely evolution.
For example, the evolution of the stock market for an automatic “stock trader”
or the next road event for a self-driving car.
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However, knowing the probabilities with which possible future events might occur
is necessary but not sufficient. One must be able to correctly assess what the next
actual event will be. This very important task can only be performed by understanding,
a fundamental non-algorithmic property of consciousness that exists in living
organisms but not in computers.

Note also that a truly creative event could not be part of the alphabet of events to
which a probability can be assigned, since it had never existed before.

An important consideration is that the observer in physics typically corresponds

to a reference system in which a measurement of an objective event is made, without
worrying about the meaning of what is measured. Therefore, it is assumed that the
same event carries the same amount of information to all observers. However, this is
not the case for living organisms, since the same event conveys different meanings
depending on the individual. Consequently, the reductionist concept of information,
which is appropriate for computers and classical observers, is totally inadequate to
describe the reality of living organisms.

A computer only has to correctly recognize the state “0” and “1” in each of its
information nodes, and that’s it, because there are no other symbols in its repertoire.
A computer has no consciousness, while living organisms are conscious. A computer
is only the sum of its parts and has no “self,” whereas a living organism is integrated
with a conscious self that is more than the sum of its parts and can change the action
of its parts.

For example, when an event is not understood by a conscious being, he wonders

why, and in him the curiosity to explore the why arises. Understanding, as well as
curiosity, are non-algorithmic properties that emerge within consciousness and can
control the mechanical aspect of the body; they are neither part of the program nor
of the hardware. This is not the case for a computer, because everything that
happens in it is part of its program, or comes from an agent external to it.

I have mentioned here another fundamental aspect of consciousness, which

allows a living organism to "know that it does not know" and therefore to
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mobilize as an organism to understand the “anomaly,” and thereby arrive at new

understandings.
In the computer there are only local processes without the global and unitive
perspective of a conscious self, which to exist must be more than the sum of its parts
and must be able to influence the parts independently of them. We will see later that
consciousness and free will are quantum properties of nature that cannot exist in a
classical computer system, because they emerge from quantum entanglement that
cannot exist in classical systems.

Attributing consciousness, understanding, and free will to robots and AI systems is

therefore misleading and dangerous. In a computer, the presence of a single bit in the
“1” state can, for example, mean “launch a missile with a nuclear bomb,” or it can
represent the least significant digit in a decimal number, a trivial value. What that means
depends on where and when that bit is read and interpreted within the program.

Information Meets Consciousness

In this regard, I would like to recall that on September 26, 1983, in the midst of the Cold
War, the world was saved from nuclear disaster thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav
Petrov, who did not trust the data sent by satellites announcing the imminent attack of
atomic missiles launched by the USA against the Soviet Union. “I was an analyst, I was
sure that it was a mistake, my intuition told me so.” Convinced that it was a failure,
Petrov did not inform his superiors that an attack was underway, and saved the planet.
“Perhaps I decided this because I was the only one with a civilian background, while all
the other personnel were military personnel accustomed to giving and carrying out
orders.”

It was a stroke of luck that he was the one on duty guarding the computers that
night. What if it had been a soldier trained to obey without question? Or, worse yet, a
robot?

When a human being behaves unconsciously, he appears to act like an automaton,

but with one fundamental difference: the presence of a
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subconscious level that can intervene and involve its full consciousness when it recognizes that the
mechanism is about to make an important decision. Even a protozoan, although it is only a single-celled
organism, is autonomous and conscious just as a human being is. And its consciousness must make
those fundamental decisions related to its survival based on its limited understanding of the situation. It
is the consciousness that learns and, through the organism, has a first-hand experience of itself and
the world. The physical changes of the organism therefore follow the understanding of consciousness.

Live information

Language is the home of being and man lives in its abode.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time

Based on the above considerations, the nature of information in living organisms cannot be the
same as that in communication systems and computers. As mentioned, in a cell there is no clear
separation between hardware, software, and power supply that there is in computers. A particular
molecule inside a cell can be building material (hardware), energy (power), or information (software)
depending on the circumstances. In other words, matter, energy, and information form a unit that I call
living information to distinguish it from Shannon information, which is not adequate to describe the
functioning of a cell.

Furthermore, the constant flow of living information, that is, matter-information-energy in and out
of the cell, is an indication of its existence both inside and outside the membrane that we imagine to be
its boundary. The physical structure of the cell is not only dynamic, but also in continuous evolution,
because the matter that enters is not the same as that which exits.
Machine Translated by Google

But there is more, because we must also take into account the intentional
behavior that comes, in the model I will discuss, from the conscious entity that
communicates with the organism. This is another important difference that
distinguishes organisms from computers, in which the whole is simply the sum of its
3
parts. In fact, the behavior of a computer is entirely
determined by that of its parts, and thus causality proceeds only from the parts to
the whole (feedforward).
In a living organism, however, there also exists a conscious entity that is a whole
independent of the parts, which can therefore influence its coherent behavior through
feedback mechanisms (from the whole to the parts), about which almost nothing is
known at the moment.
Living information is the information, energy and material aspect of living
organisms that can only be explained by quantum information. The matter that
moves inside the cell, interacting and combining with other matter, generates and
consumes energy, processes and communicates information, transports material,
disassembles and assembles molecular structures. These functions are not
separable from the elementary particles and atoms that make up the physical world.

But the concept of a particle as an object does not exist in quantum physics, and therefore the
idea we have of how life works starting from the concepts of classical physics is completely inadequate.
Life has been studied as if it were the result of interactions of molecules

biochemicals imagined as classical objects, while there is evidence that even

molecules composed of hundreds of atoms can interfere with themselves [5].

Reductionism has allowed us to build machines that are remarkably complex, but
they are far from being similar to living organisms. In a computer, the hardware is
fixed and separate from the software. In a cell, the hardware is constantly changing
and the software does not exist separately from it. The only area where there is
similarity to a computer is in the coding DNA , but this only represents 1.5% of all
human DNA .
Everything is dynamic and interacting through living information, not only within the cell itself but also
in its interactions with

the environment. Therefore, distinctions that apply to computers do not apply to

living cells, much less to the brain.
Machine Translated by Google

The matter, energy and information of an elementary particle are not separable. For example,
photons are mainly information and action. However, when their energy is very high, they can also
Reality is
4
spontaneously become matter, and vice versa. irreducibly holistic and
dynamic, everything is interconnected and constantly evolving. The concepts of separation and
independence, which are adequate to describe classical objects, cannot portray quantum reality
because of the superposition and entanglement of states that exist in quantum systems.

Cells process information by combining analog, digital, classical, and quantum computational
principles. To try to understand life, we must study its activity at three levels: informational, structural,
and energetic, but these are not separable aspects as in a computer. In living organisms, each aspect
also contains a part of the other two, and their proportions change depending on the circumstances.

This integration reflects the physical unity of the organism, to which are added its intentional actions
guided by consciousness and free will.

We cannot study living organisms as if they were merely classical physical objects, because
consciousness is fundamental, and if we do not accept its existence we will never be able to understand
life. Life is an expression of consciousness and not of inanimate matter. Living information and meaning
represent respectively the symbolic and semantic face of an indivisible dynamic reality.

The nature of languages

That there are different languages is the most mysterious fact in the world. It means that for the

same things have different names; and this should make us doubt that they are not the same
same things.

ELIAS CANETTI, The Province of Man

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A language is a system of symbols necessary to enable communication between conscious entities. Such
communication occurs through

a dialogue, that is, through phases of sending and receiving, repeated several times, of symbols that carry
5
meaning.
Words were among the first symbols humans used to communicate when facial expressions and hand
gestures became inadequate to encode more complex meanings.
6

The next step was to convert the fleeting words into written symbols, to create a permanent record. This
step required a lot of abstraction and time to accomplish.

In early cultures, translation from sound (word) to symbol was straightforward, using a symbol for each
sound (ideogram), and thus required learning many symbols. Other cultures realized that spoken words used
various combinations of a small number of stereotyped sounds called phonemes, so a simpler representation
could be implemented by associating a symbol with each phoneme.

A further abstraction was the creation of our phonetic alphabets.

common. The sound of a word spoken in isolation could then be converted into a sequence of letters of the
alphabet with an (almost) one-to-one correspondence between sound and symbol. But the sound of a word
spoken in normal speech also depends on the particular emphasis with which it is modulated to express
emotion, and called prosody, this influences many phonemes at the same time and cannot be easily translated
into written symbols, although it can be partially duplicated by a good reader who understands what he is
7
part of the sound, reading.

Therefore, when switching from spoken words to written text, some important contextual information is lost.

In some languages, especially English, there is ambiguity even in sound-to-text conversion for single words
because different spellings can correspond to the same sound, and the same spelling can have different
sounds. As a result, additional contextual information is needed to correctly translate sounds into the correct
text and vice versa.
Machine Translated by Google

Any list of symbols can be easily mechanically converted into another list of symbols,
as long as there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two lists.

For example, converting a list of decimal numbers into a corresponding list of binary
numbers requires a trivial algorithm (although many people would find this process
laborious and error-prone). However, when symbol and meaning have a one-to-many
correspondence, the ambiguity can only be resolved by broadening the interpretive
context. This is the main reason why human speech and handwriting recognition are
such difficult problems to solve in AI.

However, we are still discussing the conversion from one set of symbols to another
set of symbols. The conversion of meaning into symbols and symbols into meaning is
much more problematic and is at the heart of human communication and understanding.
This is a crucial problem because it shows that our verbal communications cannot be
entirely classical, as is normally assumed. Only understanding due to consciousness
allows us to communicate without too many problems.

Furthermore, it is curious that the probability of the letters of the alphabet (symbols)
coming out is not related to the subjective meaning they express. And it is also
surprising that a small set of phonemes (symbols) forms the entire vocabulary. Each
word is a short sequence of the same set of symbols that follows a specific order and
therefore, for any sufficiently long communication, the same probability distribution of
phonemes will be found regardless of the order of the words that specifies its meaning.
This is why the meaning leaves no visible traces in the probability distribution of the
symbols used to represent it. But this does not authorize us to say that the meaning
does not exist.

If we now consider the atoms and molecules of living organisms as symbols that
express their meaning, the same independence of the probabilities of the symbols from
their meaning also exists for two different unicellular organisms, such as for example
an amoeba and a paramecium.

In other words, the relative frequencies of the atoms that compose them (hydrogen,
oxygen, carbon, etc.) are the same, while their
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behaviors, which are the correlates of meaning, are different. In this analogy, the atoms that make up
cells are like the letters of the alphabet with which we write our books. Every living organism is therefore
like a book that contains from 10 characters for the simplest bacterium to about 10 characters for a
10
blue whale.
31

Note that 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six different atoms (hydrogen, oxygen,
carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus) and only seventeen elements are essential for its survival.

It seems incredible, but the maximum number of elements necessary for the life of any terrestrial
organism is less than forty-one different atoms. Therefore, the number of “characters” necessary to
“write” any organism is commensurate with the number of characters in phonetic alphabets. And the
probabilities of manifestation of the elementary symbols of life remain essentially the same for all
organisms of the same class.

But the analogy ends there, because books are static and produced by printing, while life is
incredibly dynamic, self-reproducing and evolving.

Is there meaning in the universe?

Only open eyes can discover that the universe is the book of the highest Truth.

JALAL AL-DIN RUMÿ

A few centuries ago, many scholars had embraced Cartesian dualism, which drew a clear division
between mind and matter.
However, recent advances in physics have shown that reality is holistic and therefore there can be no
separation between them. Consequently, the mind-matter dualism must be abandoned: consciousness

must be brought into the realm of physics and can no longer be ignored.
But how can a physics based entirely on objective information explain the existence of consciousness
when signs are meaningless?
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can they be transformed into just other meaningless signs? How can we bring into physics the meaning
that each of us knows exists in our own consciousness?

Panpsychism postulated the existence of consciousness throughout the universe, but then ran into
trouble when it ran into the problem of combination.
8
In physics, the idea that information might be more fundamental than matter was
put forward by John Wheeler in 1995 with the catchy phrase “it from bits,” the idea that anything (it) is
made only of bits, i.e. information. Recently, theoretical physicist Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano and his
collaborators have demonstrated that

quantum mechanics and quantum free field theory are entirely derivable from six purely computer-based
postulates [6], validating Wheeler's intuition. Quantum physics, then, could be interpreted as follows:
matter-energy is simply “made” of organizations of quantum bits, or qubits, which manifest as classical
bits in our space-time when they are observed.
9

The superposition with complex coefficients of the two complementary quantum states, |upÿ and |
downÿ, in Hilbert space generates an infinity of states, which can be represented by all the points on
the surface of a sphere of radius 1, called the Bloch sphere. When the qubit is observed in space-time,
it can only manifest itself as a Boolean bit with two classical states: up or down, “1” or “0”.

In nature we have a clear example of a qubit in the direction of the magnetic spin of an electron.
When the spin is measured in our space-time, we will inevitably find it either “up” or “down” along the
direction, or in the opposite direction, of the magnetic field of the measuring instrument. Qubits can also
be entangled, that is, they can have correlated states regardless of the probabilistic outcome of the
measurement. Quantum superposition of states and entanglement (see Glossary) give us information
processing capabilities that have no counterpart in the classical world. Ultimately, the quantum world is
a much larger reality than the classical one.
of representation and of

I also believe that information is an aspect of reality even more basic than matter, provided that it is
living information inseparable from its meaning, since meaning cannot emerge from
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information that is devoid of it. It must be an integral part of that same “substance” that manifests itself
10
as living information.

For true communication to take place, the meaning must already exist in both communicating
entities, otherwise the symbol cannot be understood.

Quantum computers, for example, cannot exist entirely in our physical world; only the program
setup, initial conditions, and recording of the computation result can be done in the classical world.
Quantum information processing cannot be done in space-time, because qubits and their entanglement
are not properties of space-time. But where does quantum computing take place? This question has
puzzled physicists since the inception of this technology, but there is still no adequate answer.

Quantum computers, as currently conceived, are deterministic and therefore cannot make free-
will decisions.
Therefore, the algorithms that can be processed by quantum computers could also be processed by
a classical computer, but at a much slower speed. However, no quantum or classical computer could
compute the states determined by free-will choices that are creative, since they cannot be described
or predicted by any algorithm.

To have both free will and consciousness requires a system

quantum more general than a deterministic quantum computer.

The quantum information of the OPT (Operational Probabilistic Theory) developed by D'Ariano and
collaborators [7] can explain the existence of such systems, as we will see later.
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6
The nature of life

When you get up in the morning, remember what a precious privilege it is to be alive: to breathe,
to think, to feel joy and to love.

MARCUS AURELIUS

The more we become aware, the more we appreciate life. This life so fascinating, unpredictable,
simple and complicated, ancient and new, full of light and shadow, and mystery.

This life that you don't know "if it is a journey, if it is a dream, if it is waiting, if it is a plan that
unfolds day after day and you don't notice it unless you look back" (Jorge Luis Borges).

This life that is “too beautiful to be insignificant” (Charlie Chaplin).

This life is strong and fragile, just and unjust, positive and negative, and
so indecipherable

This life that “asks you, takes you away, cuts you, breaks you, disappoints you,
breaks until only love remains in you” (Bert Hellinger).

The incredible complexity of a paramecium

Nature is great in great things, but it is very great in small things.

PLINY THE ELDER

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Many years ago, I saw a short documentary about a paramecium

swimming inside a drop of water. A paramecium is a protozoan, a small,
single-celled animal about a tenth of a millimeter long, whose body is covered
with thousands of villi: microscopic “whiskers” that beat in unison to propel
itself forward. Well, this tiny creature could swim quickly, avoid obstacles,
search for food, and recognize another paramecium to mate with. It behaved
intelligently and purposefully, just like a small fish.

But how is it possible that a single cell, devoid of a nervous system, can
process information so exquisitely and is capable of reproducing by building
a copy of itself inside itself?
No engineer has ever managed to build a computer that can assemble a
copy of itself inside itself – hardware and software included – and then split
into two complete computers! To date, artificial intelligence is far from
surpassing not only human creative intelligence, but even that of the simplest
unicellular organism, such as paramecium.

These are unparalleled feats. There must be something fundamental to

life that we do not yet understand. In fact, living organisms have unique and
special properties compared to inanimate objects, as our ancestors also
understood. And, as the British neuroscientist Francis Crick says: “The
development of biology will destroy our traditional beliefs and it is not easy to
see what it will put in their place.”
In my opinion, life cannot be explained by biochemistry alone, but requires
the new concept of living information, which is inseparable from the
consciousness and free will of quantum entities.

A Brief History of Biology

Many scholars believe that biology as a science began around 1670, when
Antoni van Leeuwenhoeck, using a microscope, first saw that living tissues
are composed of cells. He also discovered the first unicellular organisms,
until then unimagined, which he called animalcula.
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By the mid-19th century, the cell theory of life proposed in 1839 by Matthias
Schleiden and Theodor Schwann had become generally accepted by the scientific
community. This theory postulates that the basic unit of life is the cell, that cells are
produced by other
1
cells and that each cell has all the characteristics of life.
The next major impact came with the idea of evolution by natural selection, which gained traction in
1859 with the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and was the subject of criticism and
debate for more than a century. Darwin himself wrote in a letter in 1844 that for him, discovering that
species were not immutable was like "confessing a crime." This text provided compelling evidence for
evolution and was called by biologist Thomas Henry Huxley "the most powerful instrument which men
have at their disposal, since the publication of Newton's Principia, for enlarging the field of natural
knowledge."

In the 1930s and 1940s, thanks to the contribution of many scientists, the integration
of various theories of genetics, evolution and paleontology took place, resulting in a
widely accepted evolutionary theory called the Modern Synthesis of Evolution or also
Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, which explains how new species emerge. However, some
principles of the Neo-Darwinian theory, such as the impossibility of an organism to
transmit to its offspring traits acquired during its life, are currently being challenged by
new discoveries in epigenetics.

Recognition of the existence of a unit of heredity, later called the gene, began with
the work of the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel, published in 1866, but ignored until
1900, the same year that Planck advanced the idea of the quantum of action, another
fundamental “unit.”
In the 1930s, DNA was suspected to be the biomolecule responsible for heredity, but it
was not known how it worked until the discovery of the helical structure of DNA in 1953
by James Watson and
Francis Crick.
Several years later, the genetic code was understood and unraveled, and finally the
entire human genome was decoded in a massive cooperative program that spanned
from 1990 to 2003.
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DNA is truly amazing. As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse says

Tyson: “There are as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy.
We are, each of us, a little universe.”

In the early days of biology, it was thought that only living organisms could create biomolecules. In
1828, Friedrich Wöhler succeeded in synthesizing urea, demonstrating that there was no difference
between that produced by living organisms and the organic compound of the same name synthesized
in the laboratory. One could say that the beginning of biochemistry took place from that date, although
most historians prefer to consider the “dawn of biochemistry” to be 1833, the year in which Anselme
Payen discovered amylase, the first enzyme.

From that point on, life began to be increasingly identified with biochemical processes. With the
discovery in 1961 of the genetic code embedded in DNA, life became connected with the nascent
science of information.

The notion of a biochemical basis for life was developed by many biochemists and biophysicists
during much of the 20th century, thanks to the new and deeper understanding of atomic and molecular
structures provided by quantum physics. Let us not forget the help of many new and powerful tools,
including the electron microscope, which for the first time made it possible to examine what was too
small to be seen by light microscopes.

In fact, quantum physics has completely transformed chemistry, providing a solid theoretical basis
to what was previously a purely empirical science, and giving birth to quantum chemistry.

For much of the past century, living organisms have been studied primarily as biochemical systems.
Only in the past two decades has the idea begun to gain traction that biology might be more about
information than biochemistry. But this conversion is slow, because the problems molecular biologists
are called upon to solve are incredibly difficult and require familiarity with information science, quantum
physics, computers, and artificial intelligence.

3
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Life is dynamic

Panta rei (Everything flows)

HERACLITUS

All living organisms, from bacteria to the entire ecosystem, are open,
dynamic and far from equilibrium systems that exchange matter, energy and
information with the environment and are in continuous evolution. We can say
with Heraclitus that "There is no permanent reality except the reality of change:
permanence is an illusion of the senses".
Undoubtedly one of the essential properties of life is the ability of any living
organism to create one or more “copies” of itself (reproduction), and thus give
life to a new independent and autonomous organism. This is a truly astonishing
feat.
With all our scientific and technological prowess, could we build a computer that could do the
same? Absolutely not! A computer could only copy the programs in its memory, creating the
appearance of life – artificial –, but it cannot generate another computer inside itself. No artificial
machine has ever reached this level of dynamism and openness to the environment.

Theoretically, in a hundred or two hundred years it could happen that robots

go to a 3D printing center, connect their “artificial genome” to the printer and
from it emerges a child robot, identical to them.
In that case, would the life and existence of robots be the same as ours?
No, because robots would still be built from the outside, and not “from the
inside out”, as is the case with living organisms. Only with “quantum
components” is it possible to build living and autonomous organisms in this
way. And, despite their sophistication, those future “printed” robots would be
purely classical machines made of inert parts, rather than living cells. As such,
they could neither be conscious nor have free will, as I have already mentioned
and will clearly explain throughout the book.
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Life is holistic

You are made of a hundred trillion cells. Each of us is a multitude.

CARL SAGAN

Life is a holistic system in which everything is interconnected, and therefore it cannot be explained
as if it were a reductionist system. Every living organism is in symbiosis with the environment and
continuously interacts with other members of its own and other species, such as those it predators,
those it preys on, and those it cooperates with.

Because of this strong interdependence with the environment, an organism

cannot be studied alone without losing crucial information. Life works best when
there is a dynamic balance of give and take between each organism and its
habitat that, if not respected, can have serious consequences.

To explain the autonomy and the intentional and intelligent behavior of every
living organism, we must assume that each of them is “connected” to a conscious
entity endowed with free will. Consciousness is the capacity to self-experience
and know oneself, while free will is the capacity to choose how to act in the world.

Free will action has a subjective and an objective side like living information.
The subjective side expresses the intention and purpose of the organism and
connects its internal state to external reality. The objective side is due to the
learning process controlled by consciousness and free will, which leads to the
creation of certain stereotyped behaviors. These become part of an organism's
autonomous repertoire and will occur with a certain probability that is predictable
by an external observer.

However, if necessary, the presence of consciousness and free will will allow
the organism to change these behaviors in an unpredictable manner and in the
most effective way possible; an impossible feat for robots.
4
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Considering that life is a holistic reality, the essence of the whole must be contained
in each of its parts. Therefore, no part can be completely separated from the whole,
and this in turn means that
5
Nowhere has any insurmountable borders.
I envision consciousness as a holistic property supported by an infinity of invisible
connections that are overlooked when simple systems are studied reductively. For
example, a eukaryotic cell is a complex system made up of more than 10 atoms, and
14
each atom can interact with many other neighbors. So the number of possible
interactions is much greater than the number of particles that make up the cell. Each
interaction is an exchange of information, a connection between the parts that
contributes to the consciousness of the whole. I think that a conscious entity with free
will cannot operate in the physical world with a structure simpler than the simplest
bacterium. Such atoms interact in sophisticated ways to produce a robust homeostatic
metabolic system that self-replicates and behaves essentially like the paramecium
10
known, which amounts to about 10 atoms. 6 described above.

Each of us is a conscious organism and every cell of our being has its own consciousness.
7
body contains the genome of the entire organism, a
multicellular organism must be present and active in all its essential parts, namely the
cells, which are also conscious. However, the consciousness of the entity is not a
simple sum of the consciousnesses of its parts, but is much more. The unity of the
organism comes from consciousness. And consciousness is therefore the whole that is
more than the sum of the parts, as we will see later.

In summary, to fully understand living organisms, we must imagine them as dynamic

energy that simultaneously transforms into its three objective dimensions of matter,
information, and energy, mediated by the deeper inner subjective properties of
consciousness and free will, which are properties that can only exist in quantum reality.

The strategies of life

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And everything surprises me. Life is an inexplicable magic.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The strategies that life uses are truly astonishing. Let's start, for example, with the first and simplest
living organisms: cyanobacteria. They are unicellular prokaryotes (cells without a nucleus) that use
sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO2 ) to synthesize glucose and discard the excess oxygen (O2 )
produced by the chemical reaction promoted by light. Thanks to this process, called photosynthesis,
the atmosphere of the primordial Earth rich in CO2 was transformed into one rich in O2 . The large
amount of O2 discarded by the cyanobacteria then allowed the emergence of a new energy pathway in
which the chemical energy of glucose was exploited by using oxygen and discarding carbon dioxide. In
this way, a new equilibrium was created in the atmosphere, in which the food of one part of the
ecosystem was made up of what was discarded by the other, and vice versa.

This is the basic homeostatic pathway between the ecosystem and the inanimate environment,
which allows the optimal proportions of CO2 and O2 to be maintained throughout the Earth's atmosphere.

The cyanobacteria, feeding on sunlight, CO2 , water and various minerals in the soil, multiplied
exponentially and colonized the Earth, forming a second layer of biomolecules that evolved, in turn
producing changes in the planet's inorganic matter – the first layer – from which they had emerged.

Using the biomolecules left by the dead bacteria and the same basic metabolism, new species of

cyanobacteria subsequently emerged, and from the first two layers a third was formed, capable of using
the waste products of the second layer, O2 , and glucose from the dead cells, through a new
metabolism. These new species of aerobic bacteria (bacteria that breathe O2 ) also provided new
organic molecules that could be used to create new species of anaerobic cyanobacteria (bacteria that
breathe CO2 ), as well as new species of aerobic bacteria. The survival of the third layer became
dependent
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from the existence of the other two, and the long-term existence of the second layer was ensured by
the waste products of the third layer.
The creativity and cooperation shown by the organisms of the third layer in replenishing CO2 and
using new biomolecules left by their decomposing bodies proved to be a winning strategy. In fact, the
anaerobic organisms, consuming all the CO2 present in the atmosphere, would have ended up extinct.
Finally, when the glucose contained in the dead cyanobacteria was no longer sufficient, new species
of organisms emerged, capable of feeding on the living ones as well.

Life always finds valid strategies to expand, including that of "consuming". Sometimes, a species
survives at the expense of a
8
a certain percentage of its individuals. In other words, mors tua, vita mea.
We can see in fact that even death is life, because the food of one life form is the waste, or the dead or
living body, of another life form.

It is amazing how living organisms have found a way to create a dense network of interactions
giving rise to an ecosystem of a

of astonishing complexity and beauty, transforming only inorganic matter and sunlight.

Life as an ecosystem

Let us treat well the land on which we live: it was not given to us by our fathers,
but it was lent to us by our children.

MASAI PROVERB

We can imagine the ecosystem as a system of systems, in which many species interact with each
other and with the environment. Each species is composed of many individuals, and each individual is
composed of one or more cells.

The cells that combine to form multicellular organisms are nucleated cells called eukaryotes, and
these in turn contain
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simpler cells without a nucleus, prokaryotes, also called bacteria.

We can imagine that prokaryotes are the building blocks of life, which combine to
produce atoms, i.e. eukaryotes. They in turn combine to form molecules and
macromolecules, which correspond to multicellular organisms.

To live and reproduce, an organism requires the ability to self-regulate and obtain
food, that is, an input of matter, energy, and information from the environment. The
ability to self-regulate, called homeostasis, allows organisms to maintain their internal
stability through many interoperating dynamic processes that use negative feedback.

9
Homeostasis occurs at all levels: within a single cell, between cells of an
organ, between organs of an organism, between individuals of the same species, in
interspecies dynamics, and finally in the relationship of the entire ecosystem with the
inorganic environment, as we have already seen with the O2 -CO2 cycle .

The Gaia hypothesis, advanced by James Lovelock and developed with Lynn
Margulis in the 1970s, holds that the Earth is a single living organism. Life as an
ecosystem regulates the physical conditions for the survival of the planet as an
organism, even in the event of severe environmental disturbances caused by
extraordinary terrestrial and extraterrestrial events, such as volcanic eruptions,
meteorites and solar flares.
The dependence of each animal on the common environment creates a system of
unthinkable complexity, because the environment depends to some extent on the
actions of each organism, of the Earth itself and of the solar system. Everything is
interconnected. “We are part of nature, the trees are our brothers, the mountains think
and feel. All this is part of our wisdom, of the memory of the creation of the world” (Ailton
Krenak). In this homeostatic and dynamic ecosystem, the survival of any species
depends on a give and take, on a continuous cooperation that must find its balance.

10

The species Homo sapiens, which has so far taken without ever worrying about the consequences,
must urgently give back to the ecosystem what it has taken from it, or it risks its own extinction and that
of many other species. The delicate balance of nature must be maintained. There are no shortcuts.
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The industrial revolution, while on the one hand it allowed human society to progress enormously,
on the other hand it caused environmental changes faster than the response time of the planet's
homeostatic mechanisms.

Global warming, deforestation, ocean acidification, ongoing wars and the specter of nuclear war are
endangering the entire ecosystem on which all life on the planet depends.

“In the name of progress, man is transforming the world into a place to the point that it is legitimate
stinking and poisonous to ask whether, in a hundred years, it will still be possible to live on Earth”
(Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness).

And at the 76th United Nations General Assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared:
“We see warning signs in every continent and region, high temperatures; it is shocking the biodiversity
that is being lost, air and water are polluted, climate-related disasters are evident. We are on the brink
of the abyss.”

It is essential that human beings become protectors and custodians of the environment. In the
encyclical Laudato si', Pope Francis writes that “to protect means to protect, to care for, to preserve, to
conserve, to watch over.
This implies a relationship of responsible reciprocity between human beings and nature”. We must be
aware “that we are not separated from other creatures, but that we form a wonderful universal
communion with the other beings of the universe”. Otherwise, the ecosystem can be destroyed and
humanity may not survive.

As Italian ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano says, “It is man who is at risk, not the Earth.” In fact, “life
continues well beyond the damage we are doing, because the universe is designed for life. Life is
perfectly aligned with the principles of physics, so it will continue to exist.”

The Earth will then rebuild a new ecosystem, as it has done many times in the past when catastrophic
events have dramatically upset the delicate balance of life, but it is not a given that there will be humans
in this new system.

Quoting Polish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer in Old Love:

“The only hope of mankind is love in its various forms and
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manifestations, whose only source is the love of life”.

The boundary between animate and inanimate matter

Each species within the gigantic Earth ecosystem, itself imagined as a single living organism, can exist
only if the majority of the homeostatic network that supports it continues to exist.

This is obvious for living organisms, but it is also true for inanimate matter, as we have seen with the
basic CO2 -O2 cycle . There is no sharp and impassable dividing line between animate and inanimate
matter, just as there is no impassable boundary between classical and quantum systems.

An electron cannot exist without the quantum field from which it emerges. And the quantum field of
the electron cannot exist without the whole from which quantum fields emerged. The electron is a
manifestation—a visible state—of the quantum field of electrons.

And “electrons are neither particles nor waves: they are something else, completely new. They are
quantum states” (Leon Max Lederman).
We often imagine the electron as a particle or a wave separated from the field, while in fact it is a
set of properties of the field from which it emerges without detaching itself. The electron is a “conserved
form” that the field takes, inseparable from the field. It is a piece of the field that retains all its
characteristics because it never separates itself from it, just as a bacterium is an organism that emerges
from the complex field of fields that is the environment formed by the Sun-Earth-Moon system, from
which it never separates itself.

When we focus our attention only on the bacterium, we only consider the “particle” or “form” aspect
and completely lose sight of its “wave” aspect, which is what connects the bacterium to the whole. The
whole is not only the inanimate background in which the part – the bacterium – exists, but it is also
“inside” the bacterium: it is an integral and irreducible part of what we call the bacterium, without which

it could not exist. And the bacterium does not exist only inside its membrane, because one moment a
part of what is inside is outside, and vice versa. The bacterium exists inside and outside its membrane
in
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a dynamism that we often do not appreciate, in our need to separate, to set boundaries that do not
exist in reality, but only in our limited mind.

A bacterium is a part-whole because it is not separable from the whole, nor is the whole separable
from the part. And an electron is also a part-whole, molecules are part-whole, and a human being is a
part-whole. A part-whole is a concept that does not exist in classical physics, where particles are limited
“objects” that collide against the inanimate background and therefore can only act locally on reality.
Reductionism creates boundaries that do not exist in nature.

The “wave-like” behavior of particles and the existence of entanglement in quantum physics tell us
that a particle is not an object and that its impact can be far-reaching.

A local interaction of a particle can have non-local consequences that are impossible to know, justifying
its name part-whole.

Life is both quantum and classical

There are only two ways to live your life: one as if nothing happened and one as if nothing happened.
miracle; the other as if everything were a miracle.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

If we look critically at eukaryotic cells – the building blocks of our

body –, we can notice that their functioning is completely different from that of machines, including
computers.
Inside the cytoplasm of each cell are electrons and protons (hydrogen ions); ions of simple atoms
such as sodium, potassium, phosphorus and so on; simple molecules such as glucose and amino
acids; complex molecules such as messenger RNA and proteins; organelles such as ribosomes and
DNA; and finally mitochondria, which are bacteria, i.e. cells.

without a nucleus that can live inside a cell with a nucleus.

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A multicellular organism thus contains many hierarchical levels of incredible complexity, working
cooperatively toward a single purpose determined locally by the consciousness and free will of each cell,
and globally by the consciousness and free will of the entire organism.

When we manipulate life, we always start with a living cell, not its parts, and it is only because of its
incredible robustness that we can perform invasive manipulations without killing it.

Everything that happens in a living organism is not fully understandable in the reductionist framework
of classical physics. There are crucial properties that can only be explained by quantum physics, many
others that we consider classical are instead approximations of quantum properties. What we cannot
explain classically, however, is the global behavior that gives the organism autonomy, intelligence and
the ability to evolve and reproduce. This is the invisible level of the whole that connects the parts and
that we typically ignore.

11

According to our physical theories, particles emerged from the unified field that composed the whole,
but they are not separable from the whole and do not precede it. In a holographic and holistic universe,
the parts that self-assemble must contain the essence of the whole, and therefore cannot be separated
from it, because the whole must still be able to influence the parts.

I think this is the reason why the elementary particles that make up a living cell are open systems
like living cells.

In a reductionist system, however, each part is a statistical set of closed systems that collectively
behave as a closed system, and so the quantum coherence that allows to maintain the unity necessary
to create a whole that is more than the sum of the parts is missing. This is the fundamental reason why
classical machines such as computers cannot be conscious and have free will.

Living organisms as information processors

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Reductionism has succeeded because science has mostly studied inanimate objects
or the functioning of small subsystems within living organisms, without fully
understanding their connection to the whole. But to understand how cells process
information with quantum “parts,” we need to move beyond our reductionist biases.

Every machine conceived by man is imagined by the designer as a mechanism

suitable for performing a certain function. It is its inventor who decides which parts are
necessary, their arrangement and their functioning to obtain the “whole” he has in
mind. In other words, the whole is not in the machine, but in the mind of its inventor.
The parts simply do what they are forced to do by the physical laws skillfully applied
by the designer. The whole seems to “emerge” from the parts, but in the machine there
is no whole, there is only the sum of the parts. A computer program does exactly the
same thing.

A cell is a microscopic quantum-classical system, while a human is a macroscopic quantum-

classical system made of trillions of cells. These systems have both probabilistic and deterministic
behavior. At the current state of knowledge, the way in which information is represented and processed
by a cell is essentially unknown, with the exception of the genetics of proteins and the mechanical
interactions of some of them, which are considered the basic level of cellular information processing.

12

The success of molecular biology has led us to think that we can study cells in a
reductive way, as if they were classical machines.
But cells are holistic systems, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, so I
expect that only when we begin to study life as a holistic quantum-classical system will
it begin to reveal its deepest secrets.

The fundamental differences between The information processing principles

of computers and living systems can be clearly seen when we reduce the size of the
transistors inside a microchip. As the size decreases, the holistic nature of atoms and
molecules increasingly interferes with the deterministic function of transistors, which
relies on the statistical properties of sets of thousands or more atoms and molecules.
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In a cell, however, the quantum properties of individual atoms that would compromise
the functionality of computers are used to process information and matter in ways that
remain largely unknown. Furthermore, when we deal with electrons, protons, and atoms,
the concepts of size and separation lose their meaning because of the wave properties
of matter. As I explained in the second chapter in relation to the double-slit experiment,
an electron can “interfere with itself” and manifest itself over a very large volume of
space.

This has profound consequences because, in a quantum system, the influence of

an ion on its surroundings goes far beyond its physical volume and the details depend
on the nature of the electromagnetic field created by nearby atoms and molecules.
Consequently, the nature of possible interactions depends strongly on the contributions
of many particles. This makes rigorous study of living systems extremely difficult, since
self-interference effects have important consequences for information processing. In
other words, the function performed by an ion in a cell depends on the electric field
created by its many constantly moving neighbors; information that is difficult to measure.

13

I think that life is a dynamic system of both quantum and classical information
processing, where living information not only has both aspects, but is also connected
with the subjective meaning of the organism that comes from its consciousness.
Therefore, to understand life, one must study it in terms that go far beyond that of a
reductive biochemical machine, since life is frighteningly complex and ingenious.

14

The fundamental differences between a cell and a computer

The most notable difference between a computer and a cell is that a computer is made
of permanent classical matter, while a cell is made of dynamic quantum matter. Almost
all the atoms and molecules inside a microchip are the same as those present when
the chip was first fabricated. These atoms form the physical structures
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stable that carry information in the form of electrical signals, such as traffic lights that control the
movement of motor vehicles.

Inside a cell, however, the atoms and molecules that enter it flow and transform, so that those that
exit are no longer the same as those that entered, and this is essential to carry out the metabolic and
reproductive functions of the cell. These atoms simultaneously transport information, energy and matter
to create the static and dynamic structures that allow the cell to

live experiencing his existence.

Wanting to explain the holism exhibited by cells through reductionism, many researchers have
attributed miraculous powers to the modest self-organization observed in nature in so-called emergent
natural phenomena.
15
The latter are no match for the self-organization of a cell, just as a quantum computer
with a billion entangled qubits (which does not yet exist, but could be realized in the distant future)
cannot compete with a computer with a billion transistors.

If we compare the behavior of a paramecium with that of a tiny robot equipped with a microchip for
a brain, we can immediately recognize at least seven monumental differences:

1. A robot is a classical, reductionist, permanent organization, made of separate parts

assembled by external agents. A cell is a quantum and classical, holistic, dynamic, and self-
reproducing organization, made of matter that passes in and out of its porous and
dynamic membrane. A cell is never the same, moment after moment. This difference is
enormous, because the components of a cell are elementary particles, atoms and
molecules that behave individually in an ordered manner.

Therefore, information processing can be either quantum or classical.

16

2. Robots are deterministic, except for input signals that may come from the free will of
conscious agents interacting with them. A cell is both deterministic and
indeterministic. Indeterminism arises from the quantum nature of
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its basic components and the creative nature of consciousness and free will that direct the cell
as a unit.
3. Robots are not autonomous and require constant supervision unless they perform simple
functions. Cells are autonomous, capable of dealing with unpredictable situations even in
hostile environments.

4. Each cell of a multicellular organism contains the entire “blueprint” of the whole. This
does not exist in a robot.
5. In a robot, information processing and communications are

essentially digital with some analog input-output functions, while in a cell living
information is used.
6. Robots are classical objective systems without consciousness and free will. Cells are both
objective and subjective and have consciousness and free will, although they are
strongly constrained by physical laws.

7. A cell has all the classical mechanical characteristics of a

machine, and in addition it has the quantum characteristics that come from living information,
consciousness and free will. In a robot there is no whole, but only the sum of its classical
parts.
A cell is connected to a quantum whole, which is more than the sum of its quantum and
classical parts.

In short, the crucial properties that differentiate living organisms from AI robots stem from
consciousness and free will, which can communicate with the quantum part of the cell, determining its
overall behavior through living information.
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7
The nature of consciousness

Consciousness cannot be explained in physical terms and in terms of any other

What.

ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER

The first time I heard about conscience was as a child, during preparation for my first communion. To
take communion, you had to confess first, after having made an examination of conscience. I didn’t
understand what “conscience” meant, but the word “examination” sounded vaguely threatening,
evocative of severe teachers.

However, that first examination was quite easy, because it was actually done by the priest for us. It
was he who suggested to us the sins to confess, even those that we did not know were sins.

Then, as I grew up, I began to become aware of my conscience. But I never imagined that I would
end up dedicating most of my life to examining it!

How does consciousness work?

My first scientific encounter with consciousness occurred in 1987, while I was working with artificial
neural networks at Synaptics. At the time, I was studying biology and neuroscience to better understand
how the brain works. All the neuroscience books described how it worked by reducing it to pure
electrochemical activity, with the never explicitly stated assumption that this activity was identical to

sentient perception. So I asked a neuroscience professor who was on our scientific advisory board to
explain to me how it does it.
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the electrochemical activity of the brain to manifest itself in the form of

sensations and feelings, since, in my opinion, they could not be the

same thing.

He replied, “Are you talking about consciousness?”

At the time I didn’t know that “consciousness” was the right word for what I was struggling to express,
but it sounded right. “Yes,” I replied, “how does consciousness work and why is that word never
mentioned?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s something that happens in the brain somehow—obviously—and we’ll figure
it out someday,” he replied. And that was the gist of the explanation.

The neuroscientist's position was entirely consistent with the materialist assumption that everything
that exists must somehow be produced by the interactions of atoms and molecules. And, since I too
had embraced materialism, his "explanation" seemed obvious to me.

But how does it work? It wasn’t enough to say that consciousness “somehow” emerges from brain
activity. I needed a real explanation, a mechanism. So I thought that if consciousness arises from a
complex information-processing system, a computer could also be conscious, at least in principle.
Intrigued, I began to consider how I could make a conscious computer. This led me to think deeply
about the properties of consciousness, and soon I encountered the great obstacle: the total lack of
understanding of the nature of sensations and feelings, or what philosophers call qualia.

The qualia

Our consciousness is the internal semantic space where signals coming from the physical world inside
and outside the body and processed by the brain take the form of feelings, sensations and meanings,
or “qualia”.
1

Consider, for example, how a rose is recognized by its scent. A rose emits particular molecules
with unique three-dimensional structures. They can enter like “keys” into the
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“locks” of some receptor molecules embedded in the membranes of the olfactory

cells of the nasal epithelium. When this happens, the receptor cells produce
macroscopic electrical signals. They constitute the input to the neural networks
of the olfactory cortex, whose output signals correspond to the name of the
identified object: rose.
Even a machine can recognize a rose by its molecular “emissions,” emulating
the natural process I just described.
However, this recognition is qualitatively very different from ours: a machine does not sense anything, and
the name of the recognized object is just another signal. It has no conscious experience of the fragrance
of the rose, and the various ways in which the machine can respond to the signal “rose” depend solely on
how it has been programmed. For us, however, the scent of the rose is not a signal, it is a quale,
something completely different from the electrical signals generated by neural networks. It is related to
them, of course, but it is not identical, nor can it be produced directly by them, since it has a completely
different quality from the electrical or mechanical activity that characterizes classical signals. It is a quality
that poets have tried in a thousand ways to express, without ever succeeding.

The scent of a rose, just like the taste of cherry jam, the sound of a violin or
the feeling of love, is a sensation that makes the one who experiences it aware
of the symbolic data. It is an experience that occurs in our consciousness and
that can mark us deeply. Even "There are moments in which a rose is more
important than a piece of bread" (Rainer Maria Rilke).

The computer, on the other hand, cannot be aware of anything, nor can it
consciously reason about its experience. Therefore, the understanding brought
by consciousness is not accessible to a computer. And herein lies the fundamental
limitation, and danger, of artificial intelligence.

The Difficult Problem of Consciousness

The problem of consciousness represents the most disconcerting problem for the science of
mind. There is nothing that is not known more intimately than conscious experience, and
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but nothing that is more difficult to explain. In recent times all phenomena

mental states have allowed themselves to be analyzed, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many

They have tried to provide explanations, but they always seem to fall short

of the objective.

DAVID CHALMERS

This conversion from an electrical symbol to its scent is an example of the so-
called “hard problem of consciousness,” as philosopher David Chalmers called it in
1995 [8]. This problem can be expressed as follows: what phenomenon is responsible
for our sensory, bodily, emotional, and mental experience characterized by qualia?
Chalmers asks: “Why doesn’t all this information processing happen ‘in the dark,’
devoid of any internal sensation?” Scientists say that qualia emerge from the
workings of a complex system, but no one has been able to offer a convincing
explanation of how this might happen. That’s why Chalmers called it “the hard
problem of consciousness.”

It is surprising that many researchers believe that there is not much to explain. We are so used to
being conscious that we generally do not recognize that consciousness cannot emerge from unconscious
matter. Only those who have thought about it seriously have realized that the

consciousness is an unsolved problem, with enormous ontological and epistemological

consequences.
For years I have tried in vain to understand how consciousness could arise from
electrical or biochemical signals, and I have found that, invariably, electrical signals
can only produce other electrical signals or other physical consequences such as
force or movement, but never sensations and feelings, which are qualitatively different.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that consciousness must be a fundamental

property, just as electricity cannot arise from elementary particles without electric
charge and magnetic spin. I believe that consciousness must also be an irreducible
property of the "elementary particles" of which everything is made, just as the charge
is
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electric, a property that does not follow from simpler properties. If this is so, then everything in the universe
must be conscious.
This idea is thousands of years old and is called panpsychism.
Panpsychism, however, has never been taken seriously by science, because it is considered a
hypothesis that offers very little opportunity for falsification. In fact, there does not seem to be any
connection between what

we feel and the external world. In short, if for every physical action there is an explanation that does not
require consciousness, what is the purpose of consciousness? This is why it is considered epiphenomenal,
that is, a phenomenon that accompanies another phenomenon, but is not the true cause of what we
observe.

The alternative is to consider that physical laws may be emergent properties of consciousness, an
assumption that many scientists find hard to accept. That would mean that the objective world derives
from the subjective world! And that is asking too much of them.

Accepting panpsychism implies that inner reality has a direct impact on outer reality, a possibility that
the determinism of classical physics denies. No free will is possible in a deterministic universe and,
consequently, according to classical physics, our inner reality cannot have any causal power. This
amounts to saying that: the inner world is completely illusory; inner reality can only be influenced by outer
reality, but not vice versa; meaning cannot be ontological either in computers or in humans.

We know, however, that the external world is brought into us through the processing of sensory
information and becomes

an inner experience. If consciousness did not exist, we would have no experience, and therefore we could
not consciously learn anything. Consciousness is necessary for knowing even the most trivial things.

Furthermore, if there is a fundamental influence from outside to inside, why shouldn't there be one in the
other direction as well?

I know deep down that I am conscious, but I cannot prove it because my inner world is private and
cannot be observed from the outside.
3
I could be a zombie who claims to be conscious, and no measurement could prove otherwise.
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In fact, I can know the feelings that another person has only if he or she reveals
them to me, but even then my knowledge cannot be certain, because that person
could be wrong or lie.
The problem is that a measurement of brain signals can reveal only some
physical correlates of our conscious experience, but not the qualia that a person
actually experiences. Qualia are what carry meaning, yet they are in no way directly
measurable from the outside. And, if I can't objectively prove that I am conscious
when I know I am, I can't prove if someone else is.

What is consciousness?

I consider consciousness as fundamental, and matter as a derivative of

consciousness. We cannot go beyond consciousness. Everything we talk about, everything

what we consider as existing requires a consciousness.

MAX PLANCK

Consciousness is that part of us “that lives and feels and turns itself in itself” as
Dante wrote. It allows us to perceive and understand the meaning of physical
reality, emotions and thoughts. It does so through a sentient experience that
transcends a blind translation of meaningless signals into other signals of the same
nature.
In the previous example, where a rose was recognized by the type of molecules
emitted, both the computer and the brain could unconsciously translate the complex
electrical signals of an olfactory sensor into the symbol corresponding to the name
“rose.” But a human being goes a step further, because he transforms the objective
meaning of recognition into the subjective meaning carried by the scent of the rose,
which thus becomes a conscious experience that emotionally, cognitively and
associatively connects the person to his entire life experience.

This transformation takes place within consciousness and has not been
never explained by science.
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Qualia and consciousness

How it happens that something so remarkable as a state of consciousness is the result of

the stimulation of nervous tissue is as inexplicable as the appearance of the Genie in the
fable, when Aladdin rubs the lamp.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, The Elements of Physiology and Hygiene

We experience and know the physical world around us and our inner world through
qualia. Without them we would be unconscious, like sleepwalkers or robots. We could
still move, but we would have no experience and would not even know that we exist.

If we examine our inner world, we can recognize four distinct classes of qualia:
physical sensations and feelings; emotions; thoughts; and spiritual feelings.

The first category concerns sensations and feelings that arise from the perception
of the physical world, both inside and outside the body.
For example, the taste of food, the scent of a flower, the sensations of touch, the
sound of music, or the sense of color and shape of an object.
This category also includes sensations of physical well-being or pain coming from our
internal organs.
The second category is emotions such as curiosity, friendship, compassion, joy,
trust, fear, anger, sadness, pride, stubbornness, shame, envy, greed, confusion, and
so on. Emotions are very different from physical sensations, and seemingly come
from a level of reality independent of the physical world.

The third category is thoughts, although most scholars do not consider thoughts
to be qualia. However, if you ask yourself, “How do I know I have had a thought?”
you will immediately recognize that you have perceived a faint image of the thought
before you have even put it into words.

For most of us, the translation of that fleeting, multidimensional image into mental
or spoken words is so rapid that we believe we are thinking directly in verbal form,
unaware of its existence.
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of the image-quale. That is, we are so accustomed to the automatic reification of thoughts into symbols
that we fail to notice the “quale” which is the sentient experience of thought.
4

Finally, the fourth category contains spiritual feelings, which include the feeling of intense and
selfless love, the feeling of oneness with the universe or with a transcendent presence greater than
ourselves, and the ineffable mystical experiences that have been reported throughout the ages. Spiritual
qualia allow us to feel a profound union with what we experience.

Normally we do not pay attention to the fact that the electrochemical signals produced by our
nervous system are manifestations distinct from sensations and feelings, while it is the latter that allow
us to "experience those signals" in the form of sentient experience, and to "know the meaning" of that
symbolic information.

Qualia and understanding are produced in our consciousness and suggest the existence of a reality
larger than the unconscious physical reality. Consciousness defines the inner world of our

experience, which is clearly different from the physical world of signals that we can measure with our
senses and instruments.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to emphasize that the inner reality is not the physical
reality that is inside the human body. We perceive our experience as our “inner reality”, although inside
the body we can only find physical organs and electrochemical signals. Our inner reality is not physical
in the same sense in

which are the internal organs of our body. We imagine that the “interior” is inside our body because we
believe that only the physical world of objects in space-time exists. But this can only be true because
the sensory system of our body cannot capture the kind of information that our consciousness perceives
and understands. The physical reality inside the human body is still part of the external reality, even if it
is not visible from the outside, and defines only the symbolic aspect of reality.

Inner reality instead defines the semantic aspect of reality: what gives meaning to our life. Semantic
reality does not exist in the same space-time as physical reality, but in a different space and time.
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experiential closer to the space and time of our dreams or that of computer-generated virtual reality.
5

Learning, perception, understanding and recognition

In our brain there are sophisticated neural networks that are active even

before birth. They allow us to automatically organize and recognize sensory stimuli related to taste,
smell, touch, sound and sight as “unconscious objects”. Self-consciousness that perceives, knows,
explores and interacts with the physical world through the body arises when consciousness begins to
recognize the “phenomena” to which it must pay attention in its experiential field.

I think that in a child, neural networks automatically organize sensory information into data-objects
that, once recognized unconsciously, can then be recognized consciously even without knowing their
names and functions. This can happen when the child discovers that he can manipulate certain objects,
while others do not respond to his will. This essential distinction creates the sense of self and the
sense of the world as non-self. Later, the child will be able to associate a name with common objects
because he hears them called with a particular sound. He will also be able to understand their function
by observing who uses them.

I think basic pattern recognition must be an automatic property of the brain that is independent of
consciousness. It is a function similar to machine learning, which we have recently begun to master
using computer-simulated artificial neural networks. My hypothesis is that this process occurs
simultaneously with the organization of the ego during the first year of life. When the ego is fully
formed, the child understands that he is a physical body that exists together with other objects and
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people separate from himself that constitute the world in which he can act.

When consciousness is involved in learning, it allows us to achieve levels of expertise in perception,

recognition, and understanding that immeasurably exceed the capabilities of machines.
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The failure to recognize the fundamental contributions that consciousness

contributes to human intelligence is responsible for attributing intelligence to machines.

Computers are just great amplifiers of our mechanical mental capabilities, while the
intelligence attributed to machines is essentially the intelligence of their programmer.

When it comes to true intelligence, it is conscious understanding that makes the

difference! And understanding is an exclusive, non-algorithmic property of consciousness.
7

When we say that we are conscious, we mean that we have an internal experience
based on sensations and feelings. In this case, the automatic and unconscious
detection of physical signals, followed by the mechanical processing and recognition of
them, becomes a conscious experience based on qualia. Conscious perception is
therefore the process of converting the autonomic electromagnetic and electrochemical
activities of the nervous system and the body into qualia. The process of “extracting”
meaning from qualia is called understanding. We know that we understand because
we “understand” the meaning contained in the perception “made” of qualia.

For example, suppose there is the smell of burning tires in the air. The first level of
meaning you experience in your consciousness is: “There is something nearby.”
Overlaid on this is a more precise level: the thing is “burning.” The third level carries an
additional meaning: the burning thing is “rubber,” and finally the burning rubber is:
“probably a tire.” This understanding is then enriched by your experience of possible
situations in which there were burning tires. This pyramidal structure is characteristic
not only of understanding, but possibly also of the neural symbols used to represent it,
although in general we perceive their meaning as a whole, a “holistic quale.”

Note that the same which can provide varying amounts of meaning, depending on
the subject's previous experience and understanding.
Understanding is therefore a property independent of perception and strongly connected
to the memory of previous experiences.
Another example is the feeling of love: a holistic one, because its meaning can only
be understood as a single whole that does not
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can be divided into distinct parts. This is also why love cannot be described verbally without always
leaving something out, because the feeling has a depth and a dynamism that words cannot capture.

For example, Edgar Lee Masters asks: “What use is language for profound things?” (I have known
silence). And the philosopher and journalist Umberto Galimberti states that: “It is in fact in the nature of
feeling

not to be exhausted by the words that name it and, thanks to the expressive insufficiency of words, the
feeling can let what is its own shine through: the inexpressible. The feeling, in fact, lives precisely in
never being able to say itself completely, therefore in its preservation as a source reserve of a
furtherness of meanings” (in “D - la Repubblica delle donne”).

Understanding means discovering new meanings within a sentient experience, that is, being able
to grasp the internal structure of meanings, from the simplest to the deepest. It involves a conscious
field of qualia that defines semantic space.
8

Unlike machine learning, which is about the correlations of symbols that exist in symbolic space
and leads to new symbol structures that are not necessarily conscious, understanding is about the
discovery “from within” of new “connections” between meanings that exist in semantic space and leads
to new conscious meaning structures that require new symbols to be communicated.

This type of conscious recognition goes far beyond the capabilities of machines, which are limited
to recognizing symbolic patterns that do not require understanding. This machine learning based on
9
artificial neural networks is in fact unconscious. Machines can learn, but they do not perceive and
understand anything because they are not conscious.

Pattern Recognition “vs” Understanding

Learning is the process of acquiring behaviors necessary to achieve or improve adaptation to the
environment. It can be automatic or conscious. An example of automatic learning is when we teach a
computer to recognize a cup from
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from its image. To achieve this, you need a representative sample of similar
images, called a training set, and a program (neural network) that automatically
finds a hierarchy of common traits (correlations) in all the cups in the training
set. When the program has learned the correlations between the images that
are given the name “cup,” it can also recognize a new one that was not part of
the training set. At this point, it seems that the neural network “understands”
what a cup is, even if for the program “cup” is another symbol, not a conscious
quale as it is for us.

This is the ability to generalize that a neural network possesses.

But the program has no understanding of the meaning of “cup,” and an expert
could even create many synthetic images that look nothing like a cup, but which
the computer would mistakenly recognize as cups. We, on the other hand,
would never be wrong.

As I have suggested previously, the ability to automatically form and recognize basic patterns must
exist in an infant before conscious perception and understanding can develop to contribute to learning.
For example, an infant will be able to consciously recognize an object as a visual “what” only after his
visual system has automatically learned the correlations of data needed to distinguish “figures” from
“grounds.” At this point, the infant may even try to grasp the object without necessarily knowing its
name and function.

Thus, even when the child hears the mother say “cup” while she is holding
it, he consciously learns to associate the sound “cup” with the visual and tactile
qualia of the object. These elementary forms of understanding, based on
intuition, which is an essential aspect, require a much greater capacity for
generalization than is possible with machine learning.

Now suppose that the child sees the mother pouring milk into the cup. In
that case he might spontaneously understand that the function of the cup is to
contain the milk. This is a further understanding, which requires more intuition
than that used in the previous examples.
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With the new understanding, the child adds another unexpected meaning to associate
with the which-object. From then on, when he sees a cup, he will also recognize all the
meanings attached to it. This is precisely where the mystery of understanding lies, since
the intuitive leaps it requires go far beyond the scope of machine learning.

While artificial neural networks require many examples before they can generalize, we can learn
to recognize and understand consciously with just one or a few examples, because the intuitive side
of understanding is always operating. Understanding guides us effortlessly with such naturalness and
ease that we have underestimated its profound power. It is like an invention, since it allows us to
understand something new and unexpected, creating new “common sense” connections within a
semantic structure.

complex and dynamic.

Understanding also requires the ability to discriminate, that is, to discover subtle
differences between experiences that previously seemed identical. It allows us to create
two related meanings from a single one. For example, the child can learn that there are
two different types of cups, those with handles and those without, whereas before he had
not noticed it because his mother called them both with the same name.

name.
Now, this conscious distinction could justify two symbols
different (names) for cups with and without handles.
Understanding is a process that begins with perception, followed by logical reasoning
and the desire to understand. And it continues with increasingly subtle generalizations and
differentiations. It is the result of our intuitive ability to know, which goes far beyond what
logic and algorithms can do.

In a machine, such as a computer circuit, the correct detection of binary signals at its
input mechanically produces the desired effect at its output. In this case, the detection and
recognition of input signals and their transformation into the output signal are hardwired
into the permanent structure of that circuit and are taken as a given by the engineer who
created that mechanical relationship between input and output.
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In a human, signal detection is unconscious, while pattern recognition and action can be both
unconscious in symbolic space-time and conscious in semantic space. The recognition of many
patterns and most of the actions we perform are automatic, even if they can be part of a conscious
experience, where however consciousness and free will do not intervene to modify them. In a computer
system, pattern recognition and pattern. action are instead only unconscious and automatic.

10

It is due to the lack of understanding of the nature of consciousness that the semantic space has
been confused with the symbolic one, thus downgrading the role played by consciousness and free
will.

consequently, man has been mistakenly equated to classical machines. But there is an unbridgeable
difference between man and computer. And this difference lies precisely in free will and consciousness,
which are our wealth because they are what allow us to understand.

In summary, automatic pattern recognition is about classical information in space-time that must
exist prior to conscious perception in semantic space. Conscious perception can then disambiguate
difficult situations that exceed the capabilities of automatic recognition. Understanding is about making
new semantic connections between qualia in semantic space, with new meanings being formed and
added to existing ones. Each new understanding creates a new superposition of meanings, which are
perceived as a well-defined whole in the semantic space of a conscious entity. Free-will actions are
conscious choices and not automatic behaviors.

Is intelligence without conscience true intelligence?

It takes more than intelligence to act intelligently.

FYDOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

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Many researchers believe that consciousness is not necessary to achieve intelligent behavior. For
them, a machine can be as intelligent or even more intelligent than any human, with or without
consciousness.

This view is based on an inadequate definition of intelligence.

True intelligence, in fact, does not consist only in the ability to calculate and process data, which in many
cases machines can do much better than us, but it is much more. True intelligence is not algorithmic, but
is the ability to understand, that is, to intus-legere, or to “read inside”, to understand in depth and to find
unsuspected connections between different knowledge. After all, we are the ones who invented
computers capable of executing algorithms billions of times faster than our brain.

Our intelligence goes far beyond the limitations of the nervous system because, as I will justify later,
it originates in a reality larger than the physical reality we know.

True intelligence is intuition, imagination, creativity, ingenuity and inventiveness.

It is foresight, vision and wisdom. It is empathy,

compassion, ethics and love. It is integration of mind,
heart and courageous actions.
In other words, true intelligence is not separable from the other properties that make us human and
that require consciousness and free will, that is, the ability to understand and to make unexpected,
creative and ethical decisions. Machines will never be able to do these things because, if they were free
like we are, they would be more dangerous than useful. They work, but they do not understand. And
understanding cannot be reduced to an algorithm.

On the other hand, when a human being's consciousness is completely identified with the body and
the logical mind, his creative potential may remain largely untapped and his behavior may become as
mechanical as that of a computer. For example, one may perform a religious ritual mechanically, without
understanding it, or with a deep understanding of it. The outward behavior is the same, but the difference
in the two cases is enormous.
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An example of true intelligence is given by creative people who have original

and constructive ideas and are able to transform them into new symbolic forms
to communicate to others. Once a new idea has been translated into appropriate
symbols, other people can understand it through intuition. Intuition is what
allows us to easily grasp new concepts, and it is a typically human faculty.
Instead, computers can only “learn” new mechanical correlations, lacking as
they are the “common sense” that comes from conscious understanding.

In our experience, perception, understanding, and meaning are so intertwined

in the holistic experience that we are normally unable to distinguish their roles.
Therefore, when we understand something new for the first time, we often
experience a flash of insight that makes us say, “Ah! Now I get it.” And the new
meaning suddenly appears clearly to us, superimposed on the same experience
as before, with “new connections” between qualia that radically transform the
entire experience.

Understanding is therefore the process of adding new meanings to our

experience and integrating them with previous ones. When this happens, we
distinctly feel that we have acquired a much greater degree of understanding
than before.
The new meaning must then be translated into symbolic form with a
combination of words and/or a physical organization of matter that are also
new. For example, the inventor may create a diagram or a physical model to
make the meaning more understandable than could be achieved with a verbal
11
description.
When a computer learns using “unsupervised” learning, and the programmer insists that the
computer “did it all by itself,” this is a gross exaggeration, because the architecture of the “self-learning”
program was designed by humans.

If a computer or robot were left to operate completely on its own, the results
would be very different and probably catastrophic.
We must be especially alert to the dangers posed by human abuse of computer
technology, which, as mathematical physicist Roger Penrose warns, “will bring
to the fore new dangers that are difficult to predict and difficult to avoid.” There
is no doubt that the greatest danger is posed
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from the lust for power, domination, possession and superiority that dulls the conscience.

Unfortunately, the words contained in the final speech of the film The Great Dictator by Charlie
Chaplin are still extremely relevant today, in which he states that in this world there is room for everyone
and that life can be happy and magnificent. Chaplin denounces human greed as the cause of the hatred
that has made us hard and bad and that has stopped the machine

of abundance. “We think too much and feel too little,” he says, and without humanity, goodness, and
kindness, life is violence.
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PART TWO

If you take away conscience, everything else is nothing to man.

CICERO, De natura deorum, 3, 35

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8
A new vision

Consider your seed:

you were not made to live like brutes,

but to follow virtue and knowledge.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXVI, verses 118-120

In the first part of this book I outlined the vision of the world based on the interpretation of contemporary
physics, which has mainly concerned itself with understanding how the inanimate world works and has
provided the basis for all other scientific disciplines. This rapid overview has allowed me to highlight a
certain number of unsolved problems linked above all to the nature of life, consciousness and free will.
These are subjects that theoretical physics has not yet addressed with the logical-mathematical rigor
that distinguishes it, because they have always been considered more philosophical than scientific
problems.

Such neglect has led to the belief that the materialist and computer vision of reality describes all of
reality, while it excludes its most precious and unknown aspects. In particular, it denies or questions the
existence of free will and considers consciousness as a mere epiphenomenon. I have also highlighted
how the advent of AI highlights even more the danger of confusing reality with a theory of reality that
eliminates consciousness, which is what makes the difference between reality and the imitation of reality.

The second part of the book addresses the materialist view that justifies selfishness, unbridled
competition and the idea that the universe is devoid of meaning and purpose, and shows that the most
advanced quantum physics absolutely does not support this dystopian view.
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I think that the existence of interiority can be explained without invalidating the
experimental evidence of physics, since materialism is caused by a misinterpretation of
reality based on classical physics, an interpretation that has already been falsified by
quantum physics.
The new interpretation I will present explains that the difficulty in understanding the
message of quantum physics is mainly due to the fact that it describes the characteristics
not of the external world, but of the internal one.

This new perspective will allow us to understand how reality is an intertwining of an

internal semantic reality and an external symbolic one, which behave like two interacting
sides of the same coin.

Existential questions

I remember the starry skies of the past, when light pollution had not yet veiled and
darkened them. Then, when night fell, you could clearly see Ursa Major with Alcor,
Mizar's fainter twin, barely visible to the naked eye, and Ursa Minor. And, when the sky
was particularly clear, even the entire Milky Way.

As a child, that vastness gave me a sense of mystery, and I felt pervaded by a strong
emotion, a wonder that filled my soul, but which I could not verbalize.

Then, as I grew up, I began to ask myself the same existential questions that men
have always asked themselves, and that many have tried to resolve through religion,
philosophy, and science.

The unsolved problems

We can summarize the fundamental problems that are still unanswered as follows:

1. The problem of creation: why does something exist and not nothing?
Where did this universe come from? Or has it always existed? And what is
its purpose?
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2. The problem of order: why there is order instead of chaos

in the universe? And how did the universe evolve?
3. The problem of life: how did life emerge and evolve?
4. The problem of consciousness: How did consciousness arise in living
beings, and what purpose does it serve?
5. The problem of free will: Does free will exist in conscious organisms? If
so, how does it fit with physical laws, and what is its purpose?

To solve them, science starts from the assumption that there is a unified
Field with all the properties necessary to transform into matter-energy and
space-time by virtue of fundamental laws considered immutable, also
postulated, which describe the interactions between the parts of the Field.

The Field is ontological, because it represents the dynamic “substance” that constitutes everything
that exists and everything that will exist. It must therefore contain all the potentialities that will produce
the properties of the universe that we know in the course of its evolution.

In this process, four nested levels can be observed, governed by physical

laws that are considered immutable. The first level is the creation of the
inanimate world. The second level is within the first and consists of living
organisms. The third level is conscious intelligence.
1
Free will is the fourth.
I believe that of the five problems I have listed, the only one that can never
be solved is the problem of creation. The beginning of the universe is something
that is beyond the scope of our mind. It is a miracle that cannot be eliminated.
2
I believe instead that
the other four problems can and must be explained as logical consequences
of the sole miracle of creation that must be
accept.

As for the second problem, that of order, physics believes it can resolve it
by affirming that the inanimate universe has evolved according to immutable
laws that describe what happens.
So laws are a second miracle that is even more problematic than the first,
because the nature of laws is completely external to what they regulate.
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In reality, these laws “command” because nothing can happen that is not “described”
or “predicted” by them. And mathematics, although a product of human thought,
becomes in fact that which commands and dictates the law.
3

So the laws are a second miracle that is even more problematic than the first
because the nature of the laws is completely external to what they regulate.

But why do these laws exist and not others? How are they
emerged? And, above all, why are they immutable?
Physics cannot yet answer these questions.
I also note that to this day quantum field theory and general relativity have yet to
be unified into a single Field and a universal Law from which the fields and laws we
know derive. And, in any case, the existence and properties of the Field and the Law
are postulates, that is, plausible hypotheses, valid if the predictions that emerge from
them are not falsified experimentally.

Thus, not only has the problem of creation not been solved by contemporary
physics, but neither has that of order.
As for the problem of life, it actually consists of two problems: How did inanimate
matter self-organize to form the first living cell (LUCA), from which the entire ecosystem
emerged? How did cells self-organize into a variety of multicellular organisms of
incredible complexity?

I note that, in both cases, life has gone in strong contrast to the disorder of the
inanimate world, enshrined in the second law of thermodynamics.
4

As for the first point, it must be said that so far no one has ever been able to explain
how the first cell was created by natural processes. In fact, to affirm that the first living
cell self-organized following the action of physical laws on inert matter is equivalent to
saying that life emerged from non-life! The proponents of the self-assembly of the first
cells have only demonstrated that natural phenomena can produce simple organic
molecules. These molecules are infinitesimal in complexity compared to the
exponentially larger one of the simplest bacterium, so the emergence
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of the first cell as a self-reproducing system requires a third miracle!

The second point has been partially resolved by neo-Darwinism, although many gaps remain and
not everyone agrees on the details of this theory.

Neo-Darwinism asserts that the principle of survival of the fittest, based on random variation and
natural selection of the genome, can explain all ecosystem evolution, starting from the existence of the
first cell.
5

The fourth and fifth problems, those of consciousness and free will, are normally “solved” by
asserting that at a certain point these qualities emerge in organisms that possess a sufficiently evolved
brain, resorting to a principle similar to the neo-Darwinian one.

While I believe that neo-Darwinism is plausible to explain the evolution of species starting from the
existence of the first cell, I find it inconsistent to think that consciousness can emerge from organisms
that do not have it. Between unconsciousness and consciousness, in fact, there is a qualitative leap so
gigantic that it cannot be filled by the gradualism of neo-Darwinism, especially in a world that is
fundamentally quantum.

For example, the electric charge of an electron is a granular property because it has a certain fixed
value that cannot change. An electron with an arbitrarily smaller fraction of its charge does not exist.
The charge is either there or it is not, and if it is there, it must be that value for all the electrons in the
universe! Similarly, to emerge from inanimate matter, a minimal quantum of consciousness would have
to exist from the beginning of the universe in at least one of the elementary particles that life is also
made of. If this hypothesis is not accepted, the leap from unconsciousness to consciousness requires
a fourth miracle.

As for free will, it seems to oppose existence

of immutable laws – the starting point of any physical theory so much so that most physicists –,
believe it does not exist. And this makes the fifth problem particularly thorny. Moreover, if free will were
not necessary for the evolution of life and consciousness, why should it exist in humans?
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However, all this clashes with the profound sense that we feel of
its existence, even if heavily constrained by physical laws.

The need for a new paradigm

A very great vision is necessary and the man who experiences it must follow it as
the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.

CRAZY HORSE, Sioux chief

We have said that physics solves the problem of creation by postulating the existence of a Field
with all the properties necessary to transform itself into matter-energy by the effect of fundamental
laws, also postulated, which describe the interactions between the parts of the Field. In this way, the
problem of order is solved by means of Laws, which are the second miracle.

According to quantum physics, the Field is ontological, because it represents the dynamic
“substance” of which everything that exists is made and which

will exist, and must therefore contain all the properties observable in its evolution. The Laws are
considered immutable and describe the dynamism inherent in the interacting parts. They therefore
regulate the four nested levels that I described earlier, namely the level of inanimate matter, which
contains the level of living organisms, which contains the level of conscious organisms, which in turn
contains the level of conscious organisms with free will.

So, despite all the recent scientific advances, we have not been able to eliminate the need for the
four miracles described above.

I think that, in order to unify physics, we must abandon the current approach and open ourselves
to a new vision. We need new concepts that can only arise from a conception of Field and Law that is
fundamentally different from the materialist one. If we started with
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consciousness and free will as part of the Field, one could postulate only the miracle
of creation, eliminating the other four.
From a logical point of view, in fact, how can free will, consciousness and life be subsets nested in
inanimate matter?

It seems obvious to me that freedom cannot emerge as a special case of non-

freedom, consciousness cannot emerge from non-consciousness, and life from non-
life. It is illogical to think that a more general property can emerge from a particular
property that does not contain it.
For example, how does free behavior emerge from constrained behavior? If
instead the most general behavior were free, one could explain constrained behavior
as a special case of free behavior.

The same reasoning applies to consciousness, which cannot emerge from

something that is devoid of it.
How can a Field with properties and laws incompatible with free will, consciousness and life generate
what does not exist in it?

In trying to explain life and consciousness as classical phenomena, we have

entered a dead end. We must backtrack and consider that there may be a deeper
and hitherto unsuspected reality from which the physical reality we know emerges.
Otherwise, it will never be possible to get out of the impasse.

I repeat: in my opinion, the only way to eliminate the four miracles is to assume
that consciousness and free will must be properties of the original Field, i.e. parts of
7
the first miracle.
If you really want to understand how the universe works, you have to stop calling
what distinguishes us from inanimate matter “illusory properties.” This is a crime
against humanity, which must be recognized, addressed, and resolved, because it
leads to the elimination of human values, not because we have demonstrated their
absence, but because
8
we decided dogmatically.
Failure to admit the fundamental existence of these properties is a psychological
problem, not a logical one, especially since the properties of atoms and molecules
require quantum physics to be explained.
In other words, the atoms we know can only exist if they are
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describable by probabilistic laws and quantum states that are not knowable!

These are the pure states of quantum physics that cannot be cloned, nor known “from the outside”,
because every attempt to know them by making a measurement changes them.
9
This property does not exist in the classical world, but
it continues to inspire our vision of the world.

QIP Theory : Consciousness is a Quantum Phenomenon

As I have already told in Silicon, the experience that I called the “awakening” has irreversibly changed
my perspectives and determined the course of my new scientific research, focused on consciousness.
However, finding collaborators interested in developing this new field of study was not easy. My
various extraordinary experiences of consciousness told me that reality must have a deep semantic
face and an informational face, that is, symbolic, related to meaning. I also had the feeling that
quantum physics held the key to solving the “hard problem of consciousness”. Therefore, I began to
look for whether, in the field of quantum information, there was a physicist who had developed a
theory in which physical reality derived from quantum information. I thus came across the OPT theory
developed over the last twenty years by Professor D'Ariano and his collaborators, a theory that
demonstrates that quantum physics derives from quantum information.

This was exactly the piece I was looking for and was missing.
But this information was analyzed as if it were meaningless. In my opinion, however, information
without meaning could not have meaning because consciousness must be fundamental.

This was what was missing from D'Ariano's theory. When he finally realized that qualia can be
interpreted as “the experience of a quantum system being in a pure state”, the connection between
my intuitive model based on experiences of consciousness and the quantum information he is an
expert on was found. This theory, called QIP (Quantum Information-based Panpsychism), has recently
been published [9]. A pure state is a well-defined state, but
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unclonable. It therefore has all the extraordinary characteristics of a conscious experience, which is
private and therefore knowable only by the system that is in that state. “From outside”, that is, in the
space-time of physics, one can only observe a classical event when the quantum system interacts with
a measuring device, while its is the space of knowledge, a space made of qualia that can be described
abstractly as a complex and multidimensional Hilbert space.

We will see later that consciousness and free will require the extraordinary and puzzling properties
10
of quantum entanglement to be properly described with adequate symbols. Classical systems, such as
computers, use statistical properties of atoms and molecules that are deterministic, and therefore
cannot be conscious or have free will. In fact, if classical information were adequate to describe a
11
conscious experience, our experience could be copied into a computer's memory and would no longer
be private.

It is important to note that the description of a conscious experience as a pure state is not the same
as the experience itself. The description of the love I feel for my son and which I can partially express
with words (classic symbols) cannot be confused with the love I feel inside myself. The description of
the same love with

a pure quantum state is also different from the love I feel, even if the quantum state has mathematical
properties more homomorphic to the qualia I feel inside me. So a quantum state is the mathematical
entity best suited to represent an experience, but it cannot replace it. The experience is not comparable
to its description, even if its quantum description is infinitely better than the classical one.

Written and spoken words provide a good analogy to better understand the difference between
classical and quantum symbols.
Spoken symbols are dynamic and can be described with waves. Written symbols are static and are
12 sound. used to store dynamic symbols in a book or in the memory of a computer. Written symbols
also contain much less information than spoken symbols because they lack aspects, such as prosody,
capable of describing much more.
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better what you feel. In spite of this, personal experience is infinitely richer than the
spoken sentence that describes it.

A new term: seity

We have seen that semantic reality can be described with quantum symbols (pure states) that are more homomorphic to experience than classical symbols. Pure quantum states

cannot be duplicated, unlike spoken words, which, although wave-like, can be copied by a tape recorder. Every attempt to copy a pure state changes it and reduces it to classical

information. The best that can be done is to convert each qubit of the symbol representing the pure state into a classical 13- bit.

This is why a theory of consciousness must use quantum

information to describe conscious experience. But a theory of experience should
not be confused with experience, any more than a photograph should be confused
14
with the person it represents.
If a computer repeated the same words I used to describe the love I feel, it
would have the same external behavior as me, but without having any internal
experience. This is the fundamental difference between a classical computer and
a conscious quantum entity.
Such an entity can be described as a quantum system, but it cannot physically
15
exist in space-time. Only the ontological quantum entity
can know its state “from within”, but it can communicate classically only a part of its
experience. It can do this using living information that interacts with a special “tool”
that transforms it into classical information. This tool is the living organism.

A conscious entity is therefore represented by a quantum system that is in a

pure state. If such an entity can transform its state while maintaining its purity and
can create a classical memory of its experience, we have defined a special
quantum system that I call seity.
16

Seity is a rarely used English word meaning “having individuality.” In the context
of QIP, a seity is defined as a conscious entity who knows it, who can act with free
will, and who has a permanent identity like we do.
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Knowing that you are conscious is a step ahead of entities that are conscious but do not know
they are, and therefore do not have their own identity. I call these quantum entities thoughtforms,
which, not having a sense of self, cannot guide their experience with the free will they do not know
they have.

A seity is a “field” in a pure state that exists in a reality larger than the physical world that contains
our body. A seity exists even without the physical body, and this is a crucial statement, because it
implies that our existence is not dependent on the body. The body allows the seity to perceive and
operate in a physical world that is only a small portion of the larger reality in which it exists.

A similar situation could be that of a mining robot that transmits to us all the visual and auditory
information of the mine in which it is working.
it is located and we control it from our home.

The robot is described by a classical theory, while the human body is described by both a quantum
and classical theory. Seity, on the other hand, requires a purely quantum theory.

While the body is represented by matter-energy that exists in space-time, seity transcends this
type of matter. The physical world represents a 3+1 dimensional projection of quantum reality, which
has many more dimensions than space and time.

Physical reality is a bit like a movie, which is a 2+1 projection

dimensions of a 3+1 dimensional reality.

A seity cannot exist in the space-time where our body exists. However, it can communicate with
the body using living information, just as we can communicate with a robot or an avatar in a virtual
reality using classical information.

Seity is quantum
In principle, a seity could be described with a set of quantum equations, but these could not represent
its internal experience, which is made of qualia and can only be known from within.
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Therefore, a mathematical theory of reality can never fully describe it, because free will implies
creative choices from within that cannot be determined by mathematics, but only represented a
posteriori. Experience is not like a mathematical formula, and even less like a simulation of the
mathematical formula. It can only be known by “living” it firsthand!

In quantum reality, which is larger than the classical one, there is not just one point of view, and
therefore each seity has a different experience. This is also true for describing the reality of the
classical world, because first of all you have to establish a reference system, and if this changes, the
description of reality also changes.

17
Special and general relativity clearly demonstrate this. a privileged point of view It doesn't exist

that can describe all reality “from outside” in an objective way, because each observer is also part of
what is observed and can have only one point of view.

In the context of QIP we say that a system in a pure state is in an ontic state, which can only be
known “from within” in the form of qualia. The state of an external observer of such a system is instead
in an epistemic state, because “from outside” the observer can only deduce all the states that could
manifest. The epistemic state is described by quantum physics as a mixed state, as opposed to the
pure state (see Glossary). However, the state that will manifest is not knowable by the external
observer: it is possible to know only its probability.

The measurement made by the observer provides only a small part of the knowable information of the quantum state of seity. One might think of making many measurements

to know the entire state, but each measurement would change the state, and in any case one would only obtain classical information, which cannot describe the entire sentient

experience .

The existence of free will

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Life is like a card game: the hand you are dealt represents the
determinism; how you play the game is free will.

SRI JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

In conclusion: to answer the questions posed at the beginning of the chapter, we must start from
a new postulate, namely the hypothesis that there is a holistic Whole that contains not only the
fundamental properties that allow the evolution of the inanimate universe, but also the seeds of free
will, consciousness and life. This is the first miracle that we must accept and, in my interpretative
framework, it is also the only one.

I call this All One to distinguish it from the Field of physics, because from One emerge the
conscious fields with free will (the elementary seity that I call UC, consciousness units) and not the
inanimate fields of the elementary particles of physics, which interact according to pre-established
laws.

In this new conception, elementary seities (UC) are conscious fields with free will that communicate
with each other, and from their interactions emerge both the laws of physics and new combinations
of seities. This is a substantial difference from the description of contemporary physics.

In the current view of reality, the emergence of consciousness and free will has been placed at
the end of evolution rather than at its beginning.
Cause and effect have been reversed, and in doing so the nature of our humanity has been trivialized.

As co-creators of the life-universe we have been relegated to the meaningless effects of some
classical algorithm soon forgotten with the death of our bodies.

I believe instead that we are seity temporarily inhabiting our bodies. We are eternal, conscious
beings, not perishable bodies. And we are here to learn crucial aspects of ourselves by interacting
with each other in the physical universe we have created for this very purpose.

Everything we see in the universe was initially created in the

consciousness of seity because physical reality follows quantum reality, which

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quantum information follows, which in turn follows seity thinking.

This starting point also serves to solve the problem of order (the second
miracle of physics), because the laws of physics must emerge only from the
properties of One, which include consciousness and free will, and thus we can
eliminate all other miracles from physics.

The existence of free will is necessary to demonstrate that physical laws can emerge from
agreements between seity to communicate with each other. This is possible because the existence of
consciousness and free will in QIP theory is already part of quantum theory which is necessary to
describe the inanimate world!

In this new interpretation, physical laws can be conceived as the syntactic

laws of the languages that the seities have spontaneously developed in their
communications.
The analogy with human languages that define symbols and symbols of
symbols starting from phonemes, that is, from elementary vibrations that are
analogous to elementary particles, is surprising!
The communicating seities therefore “obey” the syntactic laws not because
they are forced to do so, but because they want to communicate, and to
communicate they must follow the rules of common language, which they have
adhered to and helped create. These laws become a constraint on free will, but
their presence does not contradict its existence, without which it would not have
been possible to make the agreements that gave birth to the laws.
19

Note also that the existence of free will requires the extraordinary

property of quantum entanglement (see Glossary), which allows us to have a

universe whose becoming is not determined a priori by laws, but by the free will
and creativity of the seity.
In QIP theory , irreversible probabilistic quantum transformations occur, and
the transformation that actually occurs depends on the free will of the conscious
entity. These transformations are also pure and maintain the purity of the state.

The kind of indeterminism that exists in quantum physics tells us clearly that
the state that will manifest is not determined in advance.
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of transformation: the nature of quantum probability is very different from that of classical probability,
because the latter only represents the lack of knowledge of a classical state, which however already
exists. Quantum probability, on the other hand, describes the probability that a state will manifest itself
that does not yet exist before the measurement. This is why no law and no algorithm can determine
which state will manifest itself. This is the true quantum randomness.

Not even “One” can know such a state, unless it has probability 1 of manifesting itself. Only the
laws agreed upon by the entities can in fact predict that certain events will occur with certainty. It is
precisely entanglement that gives us the conclusive proof that physical reality
cannot exist before the quantum transformation that manifests it. Therefore the universe described
by quantum physics must be

20
open and not determined a priori by inescapable laws.
Quantum systems that are entangled exhibit non-local correlations.
21

This is exactly the necessary condition for the existence of free will!

A classical machine cannot, therefore, have free will because it is described by a theory in which
entanglement does not exist. If a machine is controlled by a seity, it can manifest the seity's free will,
but not "its" free will, because the machine, as a classical machine, does not have consciousness as
22
such. Consciousness and free will are properties that require entanglement. And free will involves
choices that can only be known by the seity, and not by an external observer before the seity manifests
them.
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9
A new model of reality

Science progresses through the refutation of propositions and theories.

currents, and not through the stubborn defense of them.

RALF DAHRENDORF

When materialism claims that physical reality is all there is and that consciousness is
secondary, it not only does a disservice to humanity, but the real problem is that it is
wrong! It is necessary for authoritative men of science to raise their voices to counter
such erroneous theses.
Already a growing number of scientists are beginning to question the “anomalies” that we
prefer to gloss over, but which are instead deep cracks in what seemed to be an
unassailable principle.
Through these anomalies filters the light of a reality very different from that proposed
by current physics.
Nevertheless, even today, many are fascinated by the atomism of classical physics,
that is, by the idea that matter is composed of indivisible elementary units, and that these
are objects. With this conception, physics believed it could explain the general with the
particular, but in reality it was absolutely unable to clarify even the extraordinary chemical
properties of matter.

It took quantum physics to explain chemistry, and that was only possible because
elementary particles are not objects as they had been imagined in classical thought. As I
have said many times, particles are states of quantum fields that can be entangled. And
entanglement is a property so counterintuitive and so “impossible” that even the most
adventurous physicists could not believe it existed.
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Only in the last twenty years have we obtained experimental evidence that
has silenced all the objections that the most incredulous physicists had raised
about the existence of entanglement.
As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman observed: “From the
standpoint of common sense, quantum electrodynamics is a nonsensical theory.
Yet it agrees perfectly with experimental data. I hope you will accept Nature for
what it is: nonsensical” (QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter).

In my opinion, however, the correct theory must obviously be in perfect

agreement with experimental data, but Nature cannot be absurd.
We are the ones who still do not understand the deeper reason for such strange
behavior. How could an absurd Nature create living organisms like us?

Materialists consider the laws of classical physics reasonable, but they do

not contemplate that Nature has the consciousness and free will that distinguish
us. If Nature is conscious and has free will, as I suppose, the fundamental laws
of physics must be indeterministic and probabilistic, just as the laws of quantum
physics are. The absurdity therefore does not come from Nature, but from the
human prejudice that the laws must be deterministic.

It is quantum fields that have the extraordinary properties that explain

chemistry, not Democritus' atoms that inspired classical physics. And it was
classical physics that gave us the materialism and determinism that still dominate
our Weltanschauung today.
It is precisely on the basis of these prejudices that many thinkers believe that
computers may be conscious in the future. Their prediction is based on two
assumptions: that consciousness emerges from the brain and that life is a
classical phenomenon that can be reproduced by a computer.
Furthermore, many people rarely take free will into consideration, because
they consider it to be epiphenomenal, just as they consider consciousness to be.
So, according to their theories, we would simply be the body, that is, a classical
machine. And, when the body dies, everything inevitably ends.
If reality were like this, our future would be hopeless.
This dystopian vision is the inevitable consequence of materialist thinking,
which starts from erroneous assumptions. We must therefore start from
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other hypotheses, which can be reconciled with the new discoveries of quantum physics.
We need, in the words of Roger Penrose, “new and powerful ideas that will take us in significantly
different directions from those we are currently following” (The Road to Reality).

In the model I propose, as I have already said, consciousness, free will and life exist from the
beginning, as seeds within a holistic Whole that also contains the fundamental properties that allow
the evolution of the inanimate universe.

According to this model, living organisms are both quantum and classical phenomena, while
consciousness and free will are purely quantum phenomena: which is why the classical computer can
never be conscious. As for death, it concerns only the body, not the seity, which is our quantum
essence.

I truly hope that science will be able to cure the errors of science, and that those who have
remained trapped in materialism will be able to reconsider their beliefs. I also hope that non-experts,
who had adhered to classical thought trusting qualified scientists, will carefully consider this new vision
that, moreover, unlike the classical one, restores meaning and purpose to the universe.

I am convinced that when we realize that quantum physics does not describe external reality, but
internal reality, it will cease to be absurd!

A new perspective

All things are in the universe and the universe is in all things in this way all
things come together in perfect harmony.

GIORDANO BRUNO, Of the cause, principle and one

According to the current view of quantum physics, the physical universe is the result of the collapse
of the wave function that describes the universe in

a complex N-dimensional Hilbert space, where N can be

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infinite. Hilbert space has so far been considered an abstract space, a theoretical
1
idealization devoid of physical reality.
In the new model, Hilbert space represents the mathematical description of a
larger reality, in which seity and other conscious entities exist, from which the
physical reality in which our body exists emerges. What is measurable in space-
time is only a part of the larger reality in which the living symbols used by seity
also exist.
Before proceeding further, I must point out another difference.
fundamental between the concepts of Field and One.
In the universe described by physics, there can be no purpose and no meaning,
since its fields are inanimate. If instead we assume that consciousness and free
will have existed from the beginning, such properties must also belong to the
seities, since they emerged from One as the quantum fields emerged from the
inanimate Field.
There must be a reason for the existence of seity, and the most sensible one I
can imagine is that One wants to know Himself.
But to know also means to come into existence. That is, to know is ontological.
2

So every act of self-knowledge of One gives existence to that part of himself

that One has known, and this new entity, which I have called seity, will have the
same desire to know itself as One, and also the freedom to be able to do so.

Just as One wants to give existence to himself through the

self-knowledge, similarly, as Erich Fromm said: “The main task in everyone's life
3
is to give birth to himself.” Which can
only happen by knowing yourself.

Creation is therefore the One's continuous search to know himself more and more. It is important to
emphasize that to know is to love, and to love is to know. "The greater knowledge is inextricably linked to
love" (Paracelsus). Therefore, the more knowledge increases - true conscious knowledge -, the more love
increases. One can therefore say with the poet Alfred Tennyson that "complete knowledge is complete
love".

The Creative Principle

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In our existence and in our life experiences there is a great mystery, not
explainable in materialistic terms. Our feeling of freedom is not an illusion
and the cosmos is not something that spins perpetually without sense. Our knowledge
they cannot go beyond the fact that we are all part of some great
drawing.

JOHN CAREW ECCLES, The Origin of Life

To explain the reality that contains consciousness and free will from the beginning,
there must be a creative Principle that gives purpose, meaning and direction to the
Universe. I think that Principle could be this: One wants to know oneself in order to self-
realize, and therefore to enjoy one's existence and love it.
5

Therefore, consciousness, free will and life represent the necessary means, or
properties that One must possess, to know itself. The holism and dynamism of the
6
Field, with the addition of the creative Principle, are therefore the fundamental and
irreducible properties of One.
It follows that there is teleology in the universe, an idea considered unacceptable by
many physicists, even though the principle of least action, which underlies the equations
of quantum physics, is a teleological principle.
7

As astrophysicist Allan Sandage says, “Materialist reductionist scientists will never

admit a mystery in the things they see, always postponing from time to time, waiting for
a reductionist explanation for what is still unknown. But to carry this reductionist belief
to the deepest level and to an indefinite time in the future (and indefinite it will always
remain), when 'science will know everything,' is itself an act of faith, denying that there
can be anything unknown to science, at least in principle.”

In his image and likeness

In a drop of water there is the secret of all the boundless oceans.

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KHALIL GIBRAN

The only “image and likeness” of One that we know is ourselves. If One is the totality of what exists,
both actually and potentially, One is both the creator and the creation and the beneficiary of its own
creation and becoming. And man is one of the innumerable conscious perspectives through which One
knows and realizes itself.

We carry within us the same “genome” of One, just as each cell in our body carries
within itself the symbolic knowledge of the entire body.

We are parts-wholes of One, and that means that One is within us and we are within
One. As the poet Jalÿl al-Dÿn Rÿmÿ says: “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are
the whole ocean in a drop.” And Rÿmaÿa Mahÿrÿi: “Everyone knows that the drop is
lost in the ocean, but few know that the ocean is lost in the drop.”
8

How does One fit into every part of Him? This is a puzzle that we find reflected in
the mathematics of fractals and the properties of holograms, where every part of the
9
hologram contains the whole. In this new
theory, the self-knowledge of each seity is described by a pure quantum state that is
knowable only by the seity. One has a knowledge of Self given by the superposition of
the knowledge of the seity that is knowable only by Him. “The One is found in the many,
and the many are infinite facets of the One” (Friedrich WJ Schelling).

Another way to understand the logical necessity of the creation of seity is to

recognize that the holism of One requires that any new knowledge of Self must be a
whole inseparable from Self. Seity can therefore neither be parts separable from One,
nor be made of parts.
This requires the concept of part-whole, a quantum that must contain the essence
of One and have that particular perspective with which One has known itself at that
instant.
The self-knowledge that One acquires gives birth to an entity with the same
characteristics and a unique identity, which represents the perspective or point of view
with which One has known himself.
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The new entity can then in turn know itself and give
existence to other entities capable of doing the same.
This is why reproduction, which is the crucial property of life, is
a constitutive property of One.
Reproduction creates generations of seity who, by expanding their knowledge, expand the knowledge
of One, since One is not separate from its emanations. One is the interiority of all that exists; it is that
which connects “from within” all its creations.

Reproduction can be explained as the fundamental strategy by which One, and all entities emanating
from Him, can know themselves, each with a different and unique perspective. In this way, an exponential
growth of parts-wholes is created that can never end because, even if it tends to infinity, it can never
reach it.

Communication between seity

The elemental seities that emerge from One are conscious fields with free will and identity that
communicate with each other to deepen their self-knowledge.

Because we communicate all the time, communication seems like such a simple task that we fail to
realize how complex it actually is.

A UC must have the ability to feel and recognize the presence and identity of other UCs, that is, to
notice that something unique that characterizes them and that must be observable "from the outside".
This something is a symbol that must be automatically perceived and understood from the beginning. I
call the "identity symbol" the unique symbol that identifies

each UC when it is recognized by another UC. The identity symbol can be understood as the name of
the UC. I imagine that each identity symbol produces within the consciousness of each UC a “sense of
the other” similar to, yet different from, the “sense of self” that each UC automatically perceives within
itself.

I further assume that these basic symbols, innately perceived and recognized by all UCs , must form
the letters of the alphabet from which more complex symbols can be constructed.
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All these are qualia that form the initial inner palette of feelings that each UC experiences and
desires to understand. Her sense of self evolves and includes the desire to know herself and other UCs
by communicating with them.

The creation of the symbol must be automatic, promoted by the desire to communicate followed
by the free selection of the meaning that the UC wants to express.

To be able to communicate without there being a pre-existing common language, we must assume
that there is the same symbol-meaning correspondence for all UCs and seities.

However, the qualia produced by the perception of a particular symbol vary for each entity, and
the meaning revealed by those qualia depends on the understanding achieved by the entity. With
greater understanding, the meaning of a symbol may gradually converge toward the same for all UCs .

Understanding allows not only to recognize the meaning carried by qualia, but also to detect the
“semantic distance” between the recognized meaning and the meaning automatically encoded in the
conversion from symbol to qualia. What is not yet understood therefore produces the sensation that
there is more to know than what is recognized.

Through repeated cycles of communication and the creation of new seities, meaning organizes
into successive hierarchical “layers,” each guided by new seities that are more than the sum of the
seities that have combined.

However, every seity also recognizes the presence of some misunderstood meaning. It is this
consciousness of “knowing that you don’t know” that provides each seity with the impetus to seek ever
deeper understandings in an endless process.

In summary, the UCs that emerge from One are conscious fields with free will and identity that,
communicating with each other with living symbols, deepen their self-knowledge and, by combining,
increasingly increase their complexity. Knowledge refers to the interiority of existence and complexity
refers to the exteriority, that is, to living symbols.

In other words, self-knowledge and the living symbols that represent it coevolve and create what
we recognize as
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elementary particles, nucleons, atoms, molecules, macromolecules and so on.

The natural evolution of laws

The truth did not come into the world naked, but came in symbols and images.

PHILIP, Apocryphal Gospel, v. 67

The laws that govern the interactions of symbols are syntactic laws that
emerge spontaneously from the communications of the seities and partly reflect
10
the structure of the meaning that the seities exchange.
The fundamental distinction between the cosmology of physics and my own is
that in the former the laws of physics are established a priori and describe the
behavior of inanimate entities, while in the model I propose the laws emerge
gradually from the communication of seity as symbols and their meaning coevolve.

Once consolidated, these syntactic laws describe the behavior of symbols and
reflect the fundamental characteristics of the self-knowledge acquired by the
seities. Therefore, the laws of physics that we discover are the equivalent of the
syntactic laws of symbols that the seities have developed and consolidated.

An essential consequence is that the inanimate universe emerges from the conscious and free
interactions of seity. This is exactly the opposite of the current interpretation, in which life and conscious
entities emerged from the interactions of inanimate matter. What we thought was the effect is instead
the cause!

In other words, the physical universe is merely the dance of symbols used by the seity to
communicate. To me, matter is the ink with which consciousness writes its self-knowledge. It is what it
uses

can form and even store long-term symbols that represent self-knowledge.

Living organisms must therefore be interpreted as extremely complex

organizations of living symbols that represent the ever-present
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growing self-knowledge of seity. A living organism is both quantum and classical, and
can “host” the consciousness and free will of a seity because its quantum part can
communicate directly with the seity through living information.
11

The semantic world is represented by quantum information, and the latter represents
the physical world, which is both quantum and classical. The world of living organisms
is contained in the physical world, which also contains the world of computers and
robots, which is only classical. Living organisms therefore act as a bridge between the
quantum world of seity and the classical world, and can in turn control robots using
classical information and experience the classical information produced by robots.
Robots can therefore act in a non-algorithmic manner, that is, as if they had
consciousness and free will, only if they are controlled by classical information by
living organisms, which in turn are controlled by seity.

Information is not ontology

The computerized world we live in has severely accentuated the confusion between
inner reality, outer reality, theory of reality and simulation of a theory of reality, to the
point that the simulation of a theory of reality is even equated with conscious experience.
12

Thinking that AI is truly intelligent, while instead, being devoid of interiority, it is only
an imitation of human behavior, is a misunderstanding similar to that which occurs
when the theory of reality is confused with reality. Reality is alive, but it does not live in
matter, but rather in experiential self-knowledge. It is the idea of matter that we have
that is wrong, because scholars have given the
value of reality to abstract information without meaning and have taken it away
from self-knowledge, which in this new conception is the deepest reality.

In my opinion, the living information of living organisms is that representation of

reality that conscious entities have chosen to manifest, and of which only that part that
appears to us as elementary particles, atoms or molecules can be measured in space-
time.
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individuals that interact in an orderly fashion as occurs within a living cell.

We must keep in mind, however, that particles, atoms, and molecules do not exist
as we imagine them. In fact, we cannot have a precise idea of how to describe a
particle, since we are not yet able to understand how the phenomenon of entanglement
can exist. In fact, the idea of space and time that is given to us by general relativity
(GR) cannot explain entanglement.

GR can only accurately explain certain macroscopic phenomena, but it does so

using approximations to deeper quantum concepts that currently elude us and that
physicists are currently developing in various theories of quantum gravity .

Living information is precisely the symbolic representation of meaning that becomes

objective, that is, shareable, when it appears to us in space-time, but what should be
objective is not completely knowable even in classical reality, because there are
complementary properties that cannot be measured simultaneously with arbitrary
precision.

For example, if I want to know the precise position of a particle, I cannot

simultaneously know its velocity, and vice versa. Some of the possible objective
knowledge of the particle must remain hidden. This means that we can never know the
full impact of that particle on physical reality. If we could know all aspects of it, physical
reality would be predictable, and this would make free will impossible.

13

What really exists, however, is knowledge, but the only knowledge possible is that
which each seity has of its state. For example, Alice can know her state perfectly, but
of Bob she can only know that part which he chooses to express through living
information. This information must then be received and translated into meaning by
Alice as a seity, not by Alice as a physical body.

Knowledge is communicated through living information, which contains more

information than can be measured in space-time.
I am referring to the so-called virtual particles, which represent fluctuations in the
quantum vacuum that cannot be measured.
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directly, but which have an effect on our reality. In other words, what we call “matter in space-time,” and
which we can measure, is only a part of what I call living information.

The latter can also be unknowably entangled with other living information, that which has not manifested
itself in space-time but which can nevertheless have an objective, but unknowable, impact on physical
reality.

Information is not knowledge

In the Italian language there is a notable difference in meaning between sapere even if in common usage
14
and know, the two words are often used as synonyms.

Knowing refers to information, while knowing refers to the meaning of information, which can only
come from conscious experience.

The computer can know, but it cannot understand. We can know and understand. Therefore
information is not knowledge, just as the symbol is not the meaning that it can reveal to a conscious entity.

When I tell my son “I love you with all my heart,” I am expressing a real feeling. The love I feel inside
me is alive and exists.

When a robot says “I love you with all my heart” imitating what I say, it simply copies the information that
I manifest outside of me, without feeling anything because it has no “inside”.

Ontology is present not in meaningless information, but

in the knowledge that lives itself.

The robot automatically repeats what its programmer makes it say, because it has no life, even if it
moves and appears alive. We are the ones who are alive even when our body is dead. We exist in a
larger reality, which also contains physical reality. It follows that, when our bodies die, we do not die.
“Death is the next rebirth that is given to us as a gift in the spiritual universe” (Bert Hellinger, Natural
Mysticism. The Path of Knowledge).

We, as seity, are eternal.

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When the designer of a robot claims that the feeling is the same thing as the feeling-symbol, if he is
not acting in bad faith, it means that he is not aware of what he is affirming.

A robot has no feelings. And each of us, when we disconnect from our feelings, finds ourselves
acting like a robot, with the difference that we, compared to robots, have the privilege of being able to
behave both as sentient beings and as robots. The choice is ours.

It is true that feelings often make us suffer, but choosing not to feel anything in order not to suffer
makes no sense. As the German writer Eckhart Tolle says: “If you had not suffered as you have suffered,
you would not have the depth, humility and compassion of the human being”.

And we must not confuse words with the ideas and feelings they represent. If we do not realize the
insurmountable difference between symbol and meaning, we confuse the imitation of reality with reality.

15

In the study of reality we have fallen into a trap because we have mistaken the symbol for the
meaning! We have given the value of reality to the symbol and denied reality to the meaning. This
happens because we have filled ourselves with more information than knowledge.

This misunderstanding must be remedied as soon as possible, because it is leading us astray. We

are conscious and luminous fields, we are not machines! And I hope that the time will soon come when,
as Goethe said: "The inner light will come out of us, so that we will no longer need any other light."

A new interpretation of quantum information

We have seen that the description of knowledge is information, but information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is a lived phenomenon, a conscious experience of seity, whose mathematical representation
is a pure quantum state that can be described as an organization of entangled qubits. This qubit
structure cannot, however, replace true knowledge, which is ontological, because the seity that knows
becomes what

he knows.
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Knowledge is related to existence as the two sides of the same thing.

medal, because to exist is to know, and to know is to exist.
The pure quantum state is an abstract symbol, which serves to represent the personal knowledge
of the seity which becomes what
he knows.

The interesting thing about quantum information is that it has similar characteristics to what it
represents, because it is not copyable, just like the knowledge of seity, which is private.

In this sense, quantum information represents the interiority of the universe!

While classical information is public and copyable, quantum information is private and knowable
only by the “system” that is in that state, i.e. by seity.

In the interpretation offered by QIP, what can be known from the outside is only the classical
information that the seity decides to make public.

You can only know from within. And when we know something new, we create new existence and
become more than we were before: we grow and are fulfilled by our growth.
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New knowledge must first occur internally and then it can be communicated through symbols, just
as happens with a book, whose content can only be written after the author has thought about it and
known it in his consciousness.

The meaning precedes the symbols that describe it, just as the whole comes before its parts.

If we want to represent a seity as a “quantum system”, we will find that the quantum state
represents its personal experience.
Instead, what will classically manifest will be only what the seity has chosen to share.

I point out, however, that the state that will manifest could also be a creative state that has never
existed before, to which an external observer could therefore assign no probability.
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Creativity requires the existence of irreversible transformations, not contrary to what is stated by
18
the theory the postulate of unitarity, unitary, which has been widely adopted by physicists since
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mathematics developed by von Neumann in the mid-1930s. This postulate implies that the possible
states that will manifest must be known or knowable before their manifestation. This means eliminating
creativity from the universe entirely, since a creative state, before its first occurrence, cannot be known
even by its creator.

Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano has recently published a paper showing that the unitarity postulate is not
falsifiable [10], and therefore a more general quantum theory, such as his OPT, does not require
unitarity and also avoids the problem of wave function collapse, which arises from accepting this
postulate.

There are no laws that can describe the open evolution, the becoming of One, which is based on
the free exploration of self-knowledge. Only the behavior of symbols that follow established syntactic
laws can be predicted, and only probabilistically, as is the case with the letters of the alphabet.

The Universe as an Exploration of Knowledge

I open the skylight at night and gaze upon the systems scattered across the sky, / and what I see is

but the edge of the most remote systems. / Beyond, ever beyond they range, ever expanding, / beyond,

ever further, ever further.

WALT WHITMAN, Song of Myself

In summary, I believe that from the Creative Principle follows the logical necessity that from One
there must emerge entities whose purpose is to know themselves, and thus increase the knowledge of
One.
I hypothesize that there are various levels of seity: the first is constituted by the elementary seity
that I have called consciousness units (CUs). CUs have consciousness, free will and identity, and are
“perspectives”, points of view or “frames of reference” with which One knows himself. They are similar

19
to the monads introduced by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.
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The UCs interact spontaneously, following their nature that reflects the nature of One. In their
interactions, which are symbolic communications, symbols emerge that combine following rules that
emerge gradually, and are increasingly articulated until they create a first level of syntactic laws and a
second level of symbols and stable seity. For example, when the UC that corresponds to the field of “up”
quarks communicates with the UC that corresponds to the field of “down” quarks, a seity-proton and the
relative symbol-proton are gradually formed, which will be part of the second level made up of two up
quarks and one down.

The new seity are also conscious fields, with identities and agency based on free will, and the new
symbols are quantum combinations of the original symbols, but having very different properties from them.

This process repeats itself and creates a hierarchy of levels of seity and symbols. For example, the
seity proton communicates with the seity electron and ends up creating a second level of syntactic laws
and a third level of seity and symbols, which correspond to the hydrogen atom. I am describing a process
similar to that of the Lambda-CDM cosmological model, but with the fundamental difference that the first
entities that emerge from One are the UCs, and not the inanimate fields of elementary particles that follow
20
pre-established laws.

Elementary seity (UC) exist in a reality larger than physical reality, and correspond to what physicists
call the fields of elementary particles, but in this case conscious and with free will, whose living symbols
correspond to the states of the homonymous fields.
21

For example, the symbols manifested by the free will of the seity whose counterpart is the electron
field are the states, entangled or not, that manifest in the electron field. The configuration of the states
therefore represents the meaning that this field communicates to other fields.

If we could simultaneously perceive the enormous number of states of the electron field and interpret their
meaning, we could understand exactly what the electron-seity communicates to other seitys.

I would like to point out that what we do when we speak is not very different from what the seity
electron does: the vibrations that
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we emit are symbols that represent the meaning we intend to communicate.

The physical laws that describe the behavior of air vibrations have little to do
with the meaning we communicate, which is what matters.

Vibrations are related to the meaning they represent, but

I am not the meaning.
In this model, the syntactic laws that emerge from the communications of the seities are the
physical laws that describe the behavior of the states of quantum fields. These laws must be
probabilistic, since the states of each field are controlled by the free will of the seity, which corresponds
to what physicists call a field.

These symbols behave with statistical laws similar to those of the letters of
the alphabet of a human language. It is
surprising to note that the pure states of quantum physics do not describe
external reality, but internal reality. This is why the pure states are not cloneable.
They are unknowable, just as the internal experiences of seity are. In my
opinion, the main reason why no one understands quantum physics is because
it describes the world of private experience and free will.

We believed that the physics describes the objective world of shared

information, when instead quantum formalism shows us that interiority is the
source of exteriority. With this simple, new interpretation, quantum physics can
finally become understandable.
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10
The nature of seity

Each of us is a god with the belief that we are contingency, a shadow of a

dream.

EMANUELE SEVERINO, A German handed me his machine gun and ran away, in “Corriere della Sera”

Evening”, December 31, 2018

As Giordano Bruno hoped: “A day will come when man will wake up from oblivion and finally
understand who he really is.”
We all have a divine nature. This is our true essence, and our task is to try “to bring the divine
within us back to the divine in the universe” (Plotinus).

We are potentially infinite beings, who cannot be enclosed in any definition, because defining is
placing rigid boundaries around us; it is attributing certain properties to ourselves, excluding all
others. “Man has no limits and when he realizes it he will be free even here, in this world” (Giordano
Bruno).

Yet many would like a reality in which everything – including us – can

1
to be catalogued, classified, defined. all digital, and That is, they would like reality to be
2
that everything could be reduced to being either true or false. But this
does not work even within arithmetic, as we have already noted.
3

We are not digital. We are vastness, because we are beyond all beyond. I know this within me
with certainty, because I have experienced it and described it in the Introduction of this book, and
more precisely in the paragraph entitled “The Awakening”. But the description of a pure state with
words can never capture the richness of the meaning brought by the sentient experience. This is
what quantum physics already tells us.
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This new model is still incomplete and imperfect, and I hope that those who
read me will try to understand the vision as a whole and not dwell on the details.
The effort required to see reality with new eyes is what will lead us to free
ourselves from a conceptual prison that in the past has clipped our wings.

“You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with a gift. You were born with wings.
You are not meant to crawl, so do not do so. You have wings, learn to use them
and fly” (Jalÿl al-Dÿn Rÿmÿ).

A seity is beyond

To define is to limit.

OSCAR WILDE

In my model, a seity is a reality that goes beyond all

categories and of any definition.
You cannot define a seity in the same way you describe a machine, since
its properties, namely consciousness, identity, agency, and creativity, are not
4
separable.
We have already discovered with quantum physics that reality goes far
beyond that described by classical physics, and we are still struggling to
metabolize the fact that “nobody understands quantum mechanics”.
5

Quantum reality is probabilistic, indeterministic and contains entanglement, which connects the
“particles” from within regardless of the distance that separates them. This implies a holistic reality
made of parts that are not totally separable. Therefore, quantum nature is already telling us that the
determinism and reductionism of classical physics are not

exist and that free will is possible from the most basic level of reality, that is,
from that of the elementary particles from which everything is made! It is
surprising to me to note that, instead of embracing the freedom that quantum
physics has shown to be a crucial feature of
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In fact, most scientists seem to prefer a deterministic, controllable world, in which all
the properties of reality can be precisely defined.

I believe that we are all an integral part of a cooperative and magnificent adventure
of consciousness, whose goal is to discover that each of us has One within himself and
also has a special gift that makes him unique and irreplaceable: that particular point of
view with which One has known himself when he gave us existence. “Each person is a
new experiment in God's laboratory” (Isaac Bashevis Singer).

And, as Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass: “Each of us is inevitable, / Each

of us is unlimited / Each of us with his rights in this earth, / Each of us a sharer in the
earth's final ends, / Each of us here with divine right as any other.”

Furthermore, those who appreciate and develop their uniqueness experience deep
joy, love and satisfaction in knowing themselves. “Loving yourself means fighting to
rediscover and maintain your uniqueness” (Leo Buscaglia).

The creation of many worlds

Let the soul remain proud and composed in front of a million universes.

WALT WHITMAN, Song of Myself

Seity can create different worlds but they are all interconnected,
and they also exist within each other.

Their fundamental connection is determined by the universal language created by

the first level seity, the uc.
This is the world that contains all other worlds, and from which have emerged all
other languages through which One can explore every possibility of knowing oneself.

6
For example, whenever seities discover undecidable hypotheses based on the
“axioms” valid in their world, they can create two new worlds in addition to the existing
one: the first is formed by the seities
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who choose the undecidable hypothesis as if it were true, and add it as a new axiom to
the pre-existing ones; the second world contains the seity who choose the undecidable
hypothesis as a new axiom as if it were false. Thus, a part of the seity decides not to
accept the new axiom, while two other groups of seity choose to explore new and logically
insecure worlds.

The seities who have decided not to accept the new axiom continue to explore their
world ignoring the new situations, which are instead explored by the more adventurous
seities, who have accepted as valid one of the two possible forms for the undecidable
axiom.
Repeating this process, with the addition of new undecidable hypotheses, can lead to
incommunicability between the seities who have created logically incompatible worlds.

But seities that have not accepted any undecidable axioms could benefit from the new
knowledge gained from others. And the latter could always communicate with each other
and understand each other using the basic language common to all, which continues to
exist and evolve through the work of the less enterprising seities. It is important to
recognize that, starting from any level, the entities and laws
of the next level are not completely predictable on the basis of the knowledge acquired
by the entities and laws of the previous levels.

The creative nature of the universe manifests itself in the repetition of the same
process, which subsequently creates a hierarchy of levels and syntactic laws that
describe an endless becoming.
The universe is open and its future is not determined. This is a consequence of free
will, which is also manifested in the probabilistic laws and indeterminism of symbolic
reality.
At the same time it must be recognized that free will must coexist with the laws of
symbols, and thus, as new levels of laws are created, freedom becomes more and more
constrained, and this can lead to increasingly mechanical worlds even in the type of
knowledge that is explored.

Classical physics describes precisely those worlds that are apparently mechanical,
because their7 objects are statistical combinations of numerous quantum states. In these
worlds, with their classical symbols
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increasingly mechanical, the danger of confusing symbols and meaning becomes more serious. It is
important
to note that seities who explore these worlds may lose their connection with the world of
fundamental and incontestable values, because they do not realize how many undecidable axioms
they have taken as true or false.

How does the world of seity work?

To get an idea of how such a world might work, let's imagine a large square with hundreds of people
and animals emitting vibrations that can be perceived as sounds. Vibrations are abstract symbols and
sounds are the qualia that bring meaning to each entity.

The vibrations produced by the various conversations propagate throughout the square and can
be perceived by all those present. This creates a “sphere of vibrations”, an objective and shared
physical reality, in which all the information produced by the various entities is accessible to each of
them.
For example, if we observe Bob and Alice conversing, we can see that the goal of their
communication is to exchange meanings using symbols. Symbols are the vibrations of the air produced
by the larynx and captured by hearing. Hearing is extremely sophisticated, because it allows us to
select certain frequencies and convert them into the symbols that interest us, and to ignore the other
vibrations. The selection made is perceived as qualia and translated into meaning by the listener.

The choice of meaning to be converted into symbols is made by the free will of the sender through
the vibrations that correspond to the meaning to be transmitted.
8
The symbols that Alice and Bob transmit to each other become

a portion of the sphere of objective and shared vibrations, from which Alice and Bob's subjective
experiences emerge.
In this example, each entity constantly repeats communication cycles consisting of observation,
experience and action, and it can be clearly seen that the semantic inner reality influences the reality

symbolic exterior and vice versa.

It is also evident that the emitted vibrations represent an influence from the whole to the parts on
physical reality, contrary to the vision
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classical materialist, in which the behavior of the whole is entirely derivable from the behavior of the
parts.
In other words, the movement of the air molecules in the square is determined by the free will
choices of the communicating seities, not by the elementary particles of their bodies.

Note also that the influences from the inner world to the outer world

are denied by classical physics, which does not admit the existence of consciousness as a possible
cause of physical phenomena.
In each communication cycle, each entity observes only a small portion of the sphere of vibrations,
ignoring the rest which is considered background noise. This means that signal and noise are
determined by the conscious choices of each observer. For example, my experience of the sphere of
vibrations while I talk to Francesco will be very different from the experience of my neighbors who are
conversing among themselves. The sounds emitted by my neighbors are part of my background
noise, while for them mine are. For the dog nearby who pays attention only to the barking of other
dogs, all other sounds are background noise.

So the experience of each observer is different and depends on his decisions, even if the objective
vibrational reality of the square is the same for everyone!

The reality is therefore even more complicated than we have been told.
According to materialists, everything that happens in the physical world should be “objective.”
The idea that there is only one objective reality is a prejudice that should have been abandoned long
ago.
In fact, quantum physics describes a very different world, which is also consistent with the existence
of consciousness and free will.

There is no objective reality independent of consciousness and free will. Instead, there are many
subjective-objective realities in overlap that interact with each other. However, one could say that at
each instant there is only one objective reality, because each seity chooses which portion of the same
reality it wants to observe. But the decision made by each seity about what to observe changes reality,
and the decision about which symbol to emit changes reality once again, so at each instant reality can
9
change not only due to the effect of the laws of symbols, but also due to the effect of the subjective
and free decisions of the seity, which are not predictable by any law.
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Consequently, the evolution of the “objective” physical universe must be interpreted as the symbolic
correlate of the evolution of the self-knowledge of all interacting seities.

The universe that we can objectively observe is only a symbolic portion of a much larger semantic-
symbolic reality, controlled by the free will of an enormous number of seity that communicate with each
other. Each seity can observe reality only from its particular point of view.

10

In summary, we clearly see that the internal semantic reality influences the external symbolic
reality, and vice versa. We also see that the vibrations emitted or observed in response to the semantic
experience represent an influence from the whole (the seity) to the parts (the atoms and molecules of
the air), through free will choices of quantum entities mediated by living organisms controlled by the
seity.

This can only happen because seity are not classical systems, and therefore have interiority and
are a whole that is more than the sum of its physical parts.

A classical system like a robot is instead made up of parts that are statistical aggregates of living
symbols, controllable only with classical symbols. Note that classical symbols can also be produced
and exchanged by living organisms, which are quantum and classical systems controllable by seity
with living symbols.

Possessing no “inner experience,” the statistical parts of the classical physical world cannot create
a whole that is more than their sum. In other words, there is no “robot” independent of its parts that
can control its parts “from within,” even though the robot could be controlled “from without” if its
designer had so arranged.

The situation I have described is similar to that of a pilot controlling a drone that flies thousands of
kilometers away. Information about the outside world and the internal state of the drone is detected
and processed by the drone and communicated to the pilot. The pilot experiences in his consciousness
the situation in which the drone finds itself and decides

freely what move to make, by sending him high-level commands. Note however that the commands
are based on the pilot's intention and purpose, not
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of the drone, as the drone is not conscious and could never see and understand
them.
Clearly the drone is the analogue of our body, as the pilot is of the seity. The body, however, is
quantum and classical, and is infinitely more sophisticated than the classical drone.

Seity can only exist in the larger reality of One, which contains both the
inner world of knowledge and meaning, and the symbolic world of living
information that can communicate with quantum and classical organisms
interacting in physical reality.

The Vibrational Universe

Even what appears to be as inert as a stone has a certain frequency of

vibrations.

PYTHAGORAS

We can now imagine generalizing the example of the square to the entire
universe, which thus becomes a set of communicating seity. The vibrations
that they emit and observe, however, are no longer describable as the classical
atoms and molecules of the square, but as quantum vibrations that add up and
create a vibrational space similar to that formed by electromagnetic waves and
the quantum waves of other elementary particles. This is the space of living
information.
Let us now imagine that, even before the appearance of living organisms,
there were many seitys communicating with each other in the way I described
earlier, but this time using living symbols directly, without the intermediation of
the body.
Each seity decides which portion of the vibrational space to observe, and
which living information to emit and add to that space to express itself. The
repetition of communication cycles therefore leads to the co-evolution of the
symbolic and objective vibrational space and the semantic and subjective
space of self-knowledge.
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Since we expect correlations and correspondences between the two realities, the hierarchical
structure we observe in symbolic physical reality suggests that the seity self-organize into a corresponding
hierarchy, starting from the elementary seity that we have called consciousness units (CUs).

UCs are the seity that cannot be further simplified.

They are similar to the fields of elementary particles (quarks, gluons, photons and electrons) described
by physicists, whose states describe the living symbols used by UCs.

The concept of field is the only concept we have to describe entities that have no boundaries and
that exist in superposition. However, to also represent the interiority of the seity, it must be integrated
with the concepts of consciousness and free will.

As already mentioned, seity is a conscious entity that can also “incarnate” in a “body” that is
responsible for its control. The body is a quasi-autonomous, quantum-classical physical structure that is
distinct from seity. The ego is the part of a seity’s consciousness that has identified with the body.

The “incarnation process” is necessary for seity to operate effectively within physical reality and
achieve the cognitive goals they have set out to achieve with that incarnation.

The identification of the ego with the body is not a coincidence, but is desired by the seity in order to be
able to make true, authentic, deeply felt choices, which would not happen if they thought they were part
of a simulation.
Such identification varies and, in the worst cases, when the ego pays attention only to the living
symbols produced by the body, it can even isolate itself from seity.

Normally there is some communication between the ego and the seity, which manifests itself in the
form of intuitions, ideas, impulses, emotions, thoughts and imagination. The less the ego identifies with
the body, the deeper the communication between the two.

The ego perceives as “objects” what in the larger reality of seity are extremely complex combinations
of more or less ordered living symbols.
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When the ego identifies itself totally with the body, it believes that the only reality is that perceived
by the body, a belief that will lead it to censor a part of the living symbols that come from seity. As a
result, the ego is led to see only what it is willing to accept, and thus obscures its ability to understand
the nature of its inner reality.

Seity and ego are not directly measurable by instruments in space-time and can interact with
physical objects only through a living quantum and classical organism.

Experience is quantum

All living beings are different phenomena of a single universal substance;

they draw from the same metaphysical root, and their difference is quantitative, not
qualitative.

JORDAN BRUNO

I realize that these new ideas may encounter strong resistance from those who have embraced the
materialist and reductionist view of reality. However, as Lord Byron said: “Opinions are made to be
changed, otherwise how can one arrive at the truth?”.

Quantum physics has also created a profound confusion among physicists indoctrinated in classical
physics, to the point that most of them have not yet accepted its profound message. Albert Einstein
himself observed that “The more successful quantum theory becomes, the more nonsense it seems.”

But, if one really takes seriously what quantum physics says,

11
we come to have to take into consideration the vision that I support.
If we consider that reality has two faces, an internal one and an external one, just like we do, we
can overcome the interpretative difficulties and objections that prevent us from understanding physics.
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quantum. And “That’s how things become clear, all of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious
they’ve been all along” (Madeleine L’Engle).
This model is consistent with both the experimental results of physics and the experiences of
consciousness lived by those who have explored their inner reality deeply. Only in our intimacy can we
discover that the universe and life have meaning and purpose. The study of mathematical symbols alone
can never reveal this truth.

Mathematics and physical experiments have already said all that can be said when they revealed
that: the “waves” of quantum physics are probability waves; there are correlations independent of
distance that we have called entanglement and quantum information is not clonable. It is up to us to
interpret these mathematical symbols correctly.

If we accept that quantum physics describes primarily the characteristics of inner reality, it should
not be so surprising to take the next step, namely to accept the idea that we are seity interacting with
the physical world through our bodies. This can be compared to a semi-autonomous drone or an
avatar operating in a virtual reality.

The computer revolution allows us to understand this new way of interacting with virtual realities,
and consequently to delve into the deepest characteristics of information and the conscious experience
of the seity that we are.

Furthermore, the same reasoning that led us to create computers and virtual reality makes us
understand that life must be both quantum and classical, to allow seity to operate in a 3+1 dimensional
physical world.
12

In early childhood our consciousness was conditioned to perceive the symbols produced by the
body as "reality", making us gradually forget the symbols of the original reality, until we identified with
the body and created the ego. The ego, paying most of its attention to the living symbols produced by
the body, ends up believing that intentions, emotions and thoughts also originate in the body, and does
not realize that they are part of a larger reality.
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Qualia do not exist in the body, even if they have physical correlates in it, and we have incarnated
in this physical reality to know ourselves more deeply and to discover the wonder that we are. And
instead "men go to contemplate the peaks of the mountains, and the vast waves of the sea, the broad
currents of the rivers, the immensity of the ocean, the course of the stars, and they pass by themselves
without wonder" (St. Augustine, The Confessions, X, 8, 15).

Consciousness, Identity and Agency

Seity are similar to fields and share with One the same dynamism, holism and Creative Principle. Their
properties do not have defined boundaries, as do classical objects or the mathematical sets that we
invent.

The defining properties of seity are consciousness, identity, and agency. These are inseparable
and coemergent properties. This means that identity could not exist without consciousness and agency,
and the same goes for the other two. These are three indivisible aspects that are an integral part of
every seity, and I will try to describe them without trying to define them, as they are not separable.

13

Consciousness is the ability of seity to have an internal cognitive experience made of qualia and to
recognize it as its own personal experience. The notion of identity is implicit in this description, since
identity is the point of view that allows seity to know itself as the “owner” of its own experience. Identity
is what gives unity to seity, allowing it to distinguish itself from others within its own experience. Seity
also knows that it exists and knows that “its” experience is private and inviolable.

Finally, agency is the ability of seity to act with free will.

Clearly, free will implies the existence of identity and also of intention and purpose. Intention expresses
the ultimate goal of the seity, while purpose is the immediate goal. And the two are generally aligned
and consistent with each other.

At this point it is necessary to describe what an action is, since this happens before there are living
organisms in the
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physical world.

The elementary action of a seity is the free choice of which meaning to convert into living
information to add to the vibrational space and which portion of the vibrational space to observe and
translate into meaning. Therefore, living information refers to the state of the field, that is, the
symbols, forms, vibrations of that “substance” that we call the field. The objective physical universe
is therefore created by the set of these “vibrations”. As political activist Muriel Rukeyser said: “The
universe is made of stories, not atoms”.
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11
The evolution of seity

Birth and death are just a door through which we enter and exit. Birth
and death are just a game of hide and seek.

THÍCH NHÉT HÉNH

The question of the nature of life and consciousness, especially in connection with the
death of the body, has occupied human minds since time immemorial. “What happens
when we die? Is it the end of everything, or is there something of us that survives?”
The various theories that have been advanced range from one extreme, “when the
body dies it is the end,” to the other, “our consciousness survives death.”

Clearly, the body, when it dies, dissolves. If anything survives, it must be part of
“consciousness,” and so it is inevitable to ask: “What is consciousness and where does
it come from? What is the relationship between matter and consciousness?” Among
the various theories, panpsychism stands out.

Panpsychism is an ancient philosophical theory, according to which consciousness

must have been part of the ontology of the universe since the beginning of time.
Therefore, everything that exists, such as a grain of sand, a stone, a plant, an animal,
a planet and so on, must be conscious.
As scientific discoveries have shed more and more light on the
nature of reality, various forms of panpsychism have followed one another.
The more recent version, based on the atomism of classical physics, has been
discredited because of the “combination problem,” which has proven unsolvable. David
Chalmers expressed the problem this way: “How can microphenomenal properties
combine to form macrophenomenal properties?”
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It is the same kind of criticism that, at the beginning of the 20th century, the American psychologist
William James made to panpsychism, when he asked: “How do the minds of a hundred individuals
come to agglomerate into a single composite mind, when no one has ever observed such a
phenomenon?”.

The problem of combination

Panpsychism based on classical physics requires that every atom has its own individual consciousness.
When two atoms combine and create a molecule, what then happens to consciousness?

There are two possibilities: the consciousness of the molecule is simply the sum of the
consciousnesses of the two atoms; the consciousness of the two atoms combines and forms the
consciousness of the molecule. But what happens to the

consciousness of the two atoms that have combined? Here too there are two possibilities: the atoms
lose their consciousness in the combination, or the atoms retain their consciousness.

Now let's consider the various cases. In the very first case, the consciousnesses of the two atoms do
not combine at all, and therefore it is impossible to explain the existence of any consciousness higher than
that of the atoms. In the first variant of the second case, the existence of a higher consciousness could be
explained, but how do the two atoms lose their consciousness if this was a constitutive property of theirs?
In the second variant of the second case there are three consciousnesses starting from two. Where does
the third one come from?

I will stop here, because otherwise I would have to spend the rest of the book explaining in more
detail why the combination problem is not solvable in the context of classical physics. I will only add
that it is precisely because of this impossibility that consciousness cannot emerge from a computer
or a brain as a classical structure.

We have already seen that a classical system is deterministic and reductionistic, and therefore its
behavior is the sum of the behaviors of its parts, and there cannot exist a whole that is independent
of the sum of the parts. This is the reason why a classical system could be conscious only if its atoms
were conscious. But in this case there could not exist any combination
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higher level of consciousness, exactly as in the very first case I just described.
1

There remains one last idea to solve the combination problem, and that is
that consciousness could be a quantum phenomenon. This hypothesis was
advanced already in the 1930s by John von Neumann, when he argued that the
consciousness of the observer could be the cause of the collapse of the wave
function. However, this hypothesis has remained fruitless, because no one has
ever been able to find a significant connection between the properties of
consciousness and those of quantum theory.

The solution to the combination problem

As far as I know, QIP theory is the first quantum theory that clearly recognizes
the relationship between consciousness and a pure quantum state. QIP is a form
of panpsychism, because it identifies a pure quantum state as the mathematical
representation of a conscious experience by the “system” that is in that state.

To better understand how QIP solves the combination problem, let's take a
sodium chloride (NaCl) molecule as an example. It is the quantum combination
of a sodium (Na) atom and a chlorine (Cl) atom. The NaCl molecule resulting
from this combination is a new entity with properties completely different from
those of the two constituent atoms, so that the interaction of many NaCl
molecules forms a hard crystal, while that of only sodium atoms forms a soft
solid, and that of only chlorine atoms forms a gas.

I repeat that the transformation of the properties of a single sodium atom and
a single chlorine atom into the completely new properties of a sodium chloride
molecule is a quantum phenomenon that classical physics cannot explain.

In classical physics, the state of a system composed of a Na atom and a Cl atom elastically bouncing
against each other would be equivalent to the sum of the two. Instead, their quantum combination, or

integration, manifests itself with entirely new properties, because it creates an entity in which the two
atoms have lost their previous identity.
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If every atom were conscious, the quantum combination of two atoms into a molecule would lead to
the elimination of the consciousness of the atoms that combined. And if the molecule were then divided
into its two atoms, the consciousness of the molecule would have to return to the two atoms.

This makes the idea that atoms are individually conscious incoherent.
We already know that the elementary particles that atoms are “made of” are indivisible states of the
corresponding fields. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that conscious entities are the fields, and
2
not their separate states.
The problem of combination arises only when we fail to recognize that consciousness is a quantum
property of a field, and not a property of a state or combination of states.
3

When the seity “sodium” found a way to combine with the seity “chlorine” for the first time, the two
seity gave birth to the seity “sodium chloride”, which is a new field with semantic and symbolic properties
completely different from the properties of the components. The sodium chloride molecule is also a state
of the seity NaCl, and therefore is not conscious.

When a NaCl molecule is split into its parts, the consciousness of the NaCl field does not undergo
any change, just like our consciousness, which would not be destroyed if our body were.

The combination of two seities into a higher-order seity can be explained as a quantum phenomenon
due to the superposition and entanglement of the two fields. This leads to the formation of a new, higher-
dimensional field, whose living symbol is the quantum combination of the living symbols of the
component fields, with new and unexpected properties (see the example of the NaCl molecule).

In other words, two seitys are two distinct fields that can give birth to a new field, without ceasing to
exist. We must not confuse the composite living symbol with the composite seity.

The combination problem can be solved in the context of QIP theory, since consciousness is a
quantum phenomenon and the superposition of two pure states creates a new pure state, with
characteristics very different from the components, which would not be possible if consciousness were
a classical phenomenon.
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Consciousness and free will are quantum

The attribution of consciousness and free will to quantum systems that are in a pure
state, with the conversion from quantum to classical information and vice versa, has
enormous consequences, both scientific and philosophical and spiritual.

In this approach, free will and consciousness coexist and allow the existence of
systems capable of transforming knowledge, i.e. quantum information, into classical
information, and vice versa, on the basis of conscious experience.

In this theory, ontology resides in the meaning of knowledge that results from the
conscious experience of a seity. The latter is represented mathematically by the
evolution of a pure state of a field.
Since the pure state is not knowable from the outside and would not be knowable
from the inside either, if we did not accept the QIP theory, it would not correspond to
any reality.
Understanding that the pure quantum state can be known by the “system” that is in that state leads
us to a new interpretation of the nature of reality.

Semantic space and symbolic space

Assuming that the larger reality is made up of seities communicating symbolically, the
physical universe represents only the symbolic aspect of the seities' communications.
In this case, the concept of space-time could be linked to the fact that our representation
of reality depends on the particular information structure of the body with which we
observe symbolic reality. It is therefore necessary to introduce two new concepts that
help to imagine the reality of seities before the existence of space-time, whose nature
is most likely less fundamental than it is considered today in physics.

I call the semantic space that contains the conscious fields of the seities that
collectively constitute the subjective inner world of experience the space of
consciousness, or C-space .
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I call information space, or I-space, the symbolic and objective space of living
information that represents the vibrational space described above.

C-space and I-space are indivisible and represent the two subjective-objective,
semantic-symbolic, interior-exterior faces of the fundamental reality of the
communicating seities.
In the communication of each seity there is first an observation phase, during which
the seity chooses the objective symbols to observe in I-space, followed by the
experience phase, in which the seity translates the observed symbols into subjective
meaning in C-space. This is followed by the action phase, in which the seity chooses
which private meaning to translate into objective and public symbols and emits such
4
symbols to communicate.
As the seity come to know themselves, the living symbols evolve and transform,
creating increasingly sophisticated languages to represent the ever-increasing self-
knowledge of the seity. This evolution is a process similar to that of human languages,
which have spontaneously co-evolved with our knowledge.

The symbols and symbolic laws that gave birth to the inanimate universe represent
the first stage of the coevolution of symbols and seity knowledge.

5
The second stage then created life. By studying living symbols, the
seity realized that they had properties that could help them deepen their self-knowledge.
This study led little by little, through a highly cooperative process, to the creation of
increasingly complex symbolic structures, which culminated in the creation of the first
living cells, semi-autonomous symbols that self-reproduce and that allow the seity to
explore "from within" their objective symbolic world.

The invention-development-evolution of organic life has allowed seity to deepen

their knowledge of themselves through the exploration of I-space, a symbolic space
that reflects in its syntactic laws the internal structure of knowledge. And so the study
of such space can help seity to know themselves, just as the study of our languages
can help us to know human nature.
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Life therefore represents the need of the seity to recreate, even at the level of symbols, the
semantic structure that they recognize in their direct knowledge of themselves.

It is an extraordinary cognitive opportunity, which derives from the necessary homomorphism

between symbols and meaning that is spontaneously created in the coevolution of the two.

It is just like us, who use poetry to find in the world of ordinary symbols a deeper expressive
capacity, which allows us to better express what we feel. “Every poem is mysterious.

“No one knows entirely what he has been given to write” (Jorge Luis Borges). And the poet Alfred
Tennyson observes that “Words, as does Nature, reveal / and at the same time conceal the interior of
the Soul”.
I think that the creation of life represents the culmination of a collective cognitive process, with
which the seity have also discovered in symbolic laws the ability to create self-reproducing symbols!
7

As I have already said, reproduction is that fundamental property with which One created the UCs
in his image and likeness, a property inherited by the seity who can create other seity starting from
8
themselves.
With the evolution of the first living cell, the ability to create a variety of virtual worlds in which
seities can “incarnate” in different forms (symbols) to explore said worlds within I-space, forms that
obey the symbolic laws of each virtual world. And each virtual world serves to deepen particular
aspects of the self-knowledge of the seities that “incarnate”.

I call F-space the “physical world” experienced by the seity who believes herself to be the organism
9
in which she has incarnated.

There is not only the physical space

A seity's experience in C-space is a completely natural process, in which the transformations from
living symbols to meaning and vice versa are automatic, and the seity knows only its conscious
experience based on qualia, and knows nothing of the “mechanisms” by which it interacts with the
living symbols of I-space.
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We could compare this experience to that of a child who lives without knowing
anything about how the world he finds himself in works.
He follows his inclinations and impulses and chooses the things he wants to pay
attention to and the actions he wants to take.
I believe that even the seity, initially, knew nothing about the living information they
emitted and observed. The rational aspect of the seity was probably a later conquest
that allowed them to examine "from the outside" the internal structure of their
knowledge, reflected in the symbols of their language.

I think this achievement is a direct consequence of their incarnation in symbolic structures, which
allowed them to develop a form of metacognition that led to the evolution of rationality. I also think this
was possible when the evolutionary process created new physical structures – such as the brain –
that allowed seity to examine the “functioning” of the body in which they were incarnated from the
point of view of the body, that is, from the point of view of another symbol.

This new intellectual development then led the seity incarnated in human bodies to
invent technologies and symbolic structures capable of reflecting the rational aspect,
exemplified in the brain in the form of computers and artificial intelligence.

The creation of the first living cell was therefore a fundamental step, which allowed
the seity to have a conscious experience of the symbolic world, “filtered” by the
“senses” and by the processing of living information made by cells and, gradually, by
increasingly complex multicellular living organisms.

Seity understands the living symbols within the cell, interpreting them from the
cell's point of view through its original qualia. Furthermore, it can manipulate these
living symbols both inside and outside the cell, respecting its rules. Seity therefore
controls the cell as if it were a drone belonging to the I-space.

This situation is similar to that of the first video games, where the screen represents
virtual reality with the avatar (which is equivalent to a drone) "seen from outside". The
player (the seity) controls the avatar perceiving both the avatar and the virtual reality,
and also perceives the physical reality.
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where the screen and the computer exist. By manipulating the remote controls, the player moves the
avatar, observes the virtual reality and acts in it, knowing full well that the virtual reality is part of a larger
reality that contains it.

The next step in the evolution of video games is represented by “immersive” virtual realities in which
the player wears goggles ( 3D glasses) and a costume that allows him to observe virtual reality from the
point of view of the avatar. The player, by moving, controls the avatar spontaneously and does not
perceive any other signal that does not come from virtual reality. In these conditions, the player could
completely identify with it, ending up paying attention only to the symbols produced by the avatar and
forgetting – even if only for a short period of time – that he exists in the larger physical reality.

He might only notice this if the signals from virtual reality suddenly stopped (the “death” of the
avatar), and for him this would be like waking up from a vivid dream.

The same situation also applies to a seity incarnated in a living organism that has identified with the
symbolic reality perceived by the organism. The seity can then believe that it is the organism through
which it operates, and therefore pay attention only to the symbols that are part of it. Only upon the death
of the organism can the seity realize that it had stopped paying attention to the symbols of the larger
reality to which it had always had access (the I-space), but which it had forgotten.

The physical space experienced by the seity during its incarnation is F-space, which is a hybrid
consisting of the symbolic representation of I-space made by the organism and “colored” by the native
qualia of the seity that pays attention to such symbols.

In other words, the seity that has identified with the organism ends up interacting only with the living
symbols that form the representation of the I-space created by the organism, forgetting that that world
is a secondary and narrow reality contained within the fundamental reality.
10

With the death of the organism, the seity loses its identification with the F-space and realizes that it
exists in another reality, where it enjoys a different and much broader freedom, of which we can have
an intuition.
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thanks to the evocative power of Giordano Bruno's verses (De l'infinito, universo e mondi): “Then I
extend my safe wings to the air / nor do I fear any obstacle of crystal or glass: / but I split the heavens,
and I rise to the infinite”.
Dying is nothing more than waking up from a “vivid dream” in which the
seity was convinced that she existed, and an opening to “another consciousness”.
If this is the case, then the day of death truly becomes a dies natalis, as Lucius Annaeus Seneca
writes (Moral Letters to Lucilius, 102): “This day that you fear as your last is the day of birth into eternity.
The day will come when the mysteries of nature will be revealed to you, the fog that surrounds us will
dissipate and a brightness that sums up and merges the light of the stars will strike us from every side.

No shadow will disturb that serenity and the sky will shine with the same light: day and night alternate
only in this lowest part of the cosmos. We will become aware of the darkness of this mortal life when,
with our whole being, we gaze upon all the splendor that now barely reaches us, and only in minimal
part, through the too narrow channel of our eyes. What will that light seem to you, when we see it in its
source?”

Precisely because we all dream, we can all understand how our conscience can identify or
empathize with different realities to the point of making us believe that we exist only in those realities.

Incarnation limits the free will of the seity who are incarnated, since the body is a symbol subject
to the laws of the virtual reality in which it exists and operates; laws that can be much more restrictive
than the native reality.

F-space exists only for incarnated seity, and depends on the particular physical structure of the
organism with which the seity identifies.
The objectivity of F-space is only apparent, and is common to all seity who have incarnated in an
organism of the same type. Organisms of different types, such as a fish, an eagle, a lion and a tree,
allow one to explore an enormous range of different F-spaces .

When the organism dies, the seity “returns” to the larger reality, from where it had never actually
11
“moved”.

In short, F-space is the physical space perceived by the embodied seity, who believes that what
he experiences is the true reality, when in fact it is a
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virtual symbolic reality created by the organism, even if the qualia with which
this reality is perceived are those native to seity.
A living organism is, therefore, a symbolic structure that imitates the
semantic structure of seity.
The crucial difference between the native reality of seity and the reality of
embodied seity is that the former has only an experience of itself that comes
from its direct interaction with I-space, while the embodied experience is based
on the representation of I-space made by the living organism.
In the book Silicon [11] I have already spoken about this conceptual framework which in
English I called CIP framework.
Finally, I note that, if we start from the hypothesis that UCs exist before physical reality, the
concepts of space, time, matter and energy, which are considered primitive in physics, must be
reconceptualized as deriving directly from the nature of UC interactions . This new vision requires a
complete rethinking of what we have accepted so far as fundamental axioms.

The result will be a new science in which internal and external realities
they will be able to find union in an immensely significant relationship, an
essential step forward at this critical moment in human history that will unite
science and spirituality.
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12
Knowledge, life and information

Knowledge is a light of the soul.

MASTER EKHART

The dream of modern physicists is to be able to find a theory of everything that explains
all phenomena starting from a unified Field and a universal Law. It is not very different
from the dream of classical physicists, who tried to explain everything starting from
elementary particles that were thought to be the simplest possible objects. The materialist
assumption is in fact the same, and that is that the world is a machine made of parts that
go from the simple to the complex.

In my opinion, we are still too influenced by classical physics, which makes us think
that there are separate parts and comforts us by telling us that on a macroscopic scale
the world works perfectly as it describes, when this is only partly true.
1

Indeed, it is true that, as the American physicist Leon Max Lederman said: “When
enormous quantities of atoms join together to form macroscopic objects (airplanes,
bridges and robots), the disturbing and counterintuitive quantum phenomena, with their
load of uncertainty, seem to cancel each other out and bring the phenomena back into
the fold of the precise predictability of Newtonian physics”. However, quantum physics,
from which classical physics emerges as a subset, tells us that there are no separate
parts, nor do particles exist as objects, nor does probability exist as we have imagined it
in classical physics, and that the universe is in a state of becoming. And becoming cannot
be predicted by any equation or algorithm, because it depends on the free will of
conscious entities that have always existed, a concept not yet accepted by physics.
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Finally, I note that the union of quantum physics with an adequate quantum theory of gravitational
force would not explain the origin of life, consciousness, and free will – and therefore would not be a
theory of everything – unless such properties were

2
incorporated into the Field properties.
I am convinced that mathematics, not consciousness, emerges from the brain, because mathematics
cannot give birth to a brain, while consciousness can.
3

In the previous chapters I have described a reality very different from the one described starting from
the materialist assumption. This reality seems to function instead as a living being that is made of parts-
wholes like the seity, that is, “parts” that contain the whole.

Since elementary particles are entangled states of homonymous fields (i.e. states connected “from
within” in an unknowable way), “from the outside” they appear separate and infinitely simpler than the
whole, but in reality they are not, because the field is the part-whole and not the particle.

In the previous chapter we saw that, as the invisible connections between the parts of knowledge
become known “from within”, they become visible and objective through the complexity of the symbols
needed to represent it “from outside”. Thus, the symbols also take on a structure that is similar to the
internal structure of the

knowledge. I add that the most complex quantum and classical symbol we know is the ecosystem of our
planet, which consists of about 10
41
atoms that interact strongly with each other!

The world of knowledge

In the last twenty years we have realized that quantum information is not clonable, and therefore represents
a world that is unknowable from the outside. But what sense would there be in the concept of "information
that is

“unknowable” if it didn’t make sense at least for the system that is in that state?

In the new interpretation, the pure state represents "the state of knowledge" of an entity that is in that
particular condition. This state represents knowledge and not information, since the meaning
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of experience is an internal property unknowable from the outside.

The information that is knowable from the outside is instead that which the seity decides to express
4
in order to communicate a part of its meaning.
Note that the existence of pure quantum states has been imposed on us by Hilbert space, the
only mathematical model that we have found adequate to explain the behavior of quantum systems.
Therefore, to describe these systems, we must resort to the concept of unclonable information, which
would be meaningless if it did not represent something significant for these systems.

It is therefore perfectly fitting to attribute consciousness to the system which is in a pure state – a
well-defined state even if this attribution carries with it the admission that in–,physical reality there
exists interiority, a property never before seriously considered in physics.

On the other hand, how can we explain the consciousness we all experience if we do not admit
the existence of interiority? As philosopher Joseph Levine states, “No explanation given entirely in
physical terms can ever account for conscious experience.”

We are made of quantum particles and atoms and we have an “inside”.

It seems obvious to me that the “inside” must also exist for the whole-parts of which we are made!
This simple admission explains what is otherwise inexplicable, namely consciousness, the existence
of which would require a miracle if there were no “inside” ab initio.

With the QIP theory according to which a pure state is a state knowable from within as “qualia” only
by the system that is in that state, we have the mathematical representation of internal knowledge, or
meaning. Therefore, this theory explains for the first time the existence of information that is unknowable
from the outside, because it belongs to conscious entities with a completely private self-knowledge,
exactly like ours.

This changes the entire conception of physics, because the existence of an “inside” implies that
there is a purpose and meaning to reality, a position that physics has never accepted as valid.

This presents new and unexpected possibilities for answering the many questions that have
accumulated up to now, and it is finally possible to solve the measurement problem, which has baffled
physicists since the beginning.
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of quantum physics. The “collapse” of the wave function, which occurs with an irreversible atomic
transformation due to the passage from a quantum state to a classical one, can now be interpreted as a
free decision taken by a conscious entity that creates a mathematically unpredictable state.

The world of life

As we have already seen, life is the other unsolved problem of science.
If the universe were as described by the laws of physics, it should be inanimate, just as all the other
planets in the solar system appear to be. The existence of life is a huge “anomaly” that has not been

never explained. Not only that, but the more we understand about quantum physics, the more impossible
it seems that life could have self-organized through natural phenomena.

Molecular biologists have always considered life as a phenomenon that can be explained by classical
physics, and only in the last twenty years has a small vanguard begun to study it as a quantum
phenomenon.

I think that life is both a quantum and classical phenomenon, with new aspects that will allow a deeper
understanding of the nature of reality.

For me, life is the fundamental strategy by which One can know himself. Self-knowledge, in fact, must
be a “lived” experience, and life is therefore the process through which each seity gradually understands
the meaning of his own experience and knows himself.

Each seity gradually makes explicit, inside and outside itself, its own self-knowledge through a
symbolic construction made of classical information.
5

I would point out that we also use a similar process. For example, when we want to clarify an idea,
we take a piece of paper to represent it, or we build a physical model, or we write a computer program
that makes a dynamic simulation of it.

The marks made on the piece of paper, computer memory or physical model represent long-term
memory, made with
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classical information, of the “symbolic construction” that represents our understanding.

When the construction “works”, it means that we have understood, and this understanding is valid
not only for us, but also for many other people who would not have been able to understand it by
themselves. They can do this by observing the working model, which is shareable because it is made
of classical information and works as a “mental enzyme” that lowers

the “barrier” that prevents understanding.

This is for me the essence of the creative process by which lived experience leads to the
coevolution of quantum information (meaning), living information (life) and classical information (matter).
6

This is also a plausible reason to justify the existence of classical physics, since it allows for the
creation of dynamical models and long-term memory of the knowledge acquired by seities.

As a result, seity do not forget this knowledge and can continue to deepen it, maintaining the
continuity of their identity.
The lived experience is that obtained through classical information, which, transformed by the
living organism into living information, is experienced and reworked by the seity as a reality that
illuminates and accelerates its process of self-knowledge.

As can be seen, this process requires three distinct but interconnected realities: the quantum
reality of perception-knowledge-understanding that communicates with a living organism, whose
symbolic-semantic reality is constituted by living information, and this latter communicates with the
inanimate reality of classical information, which is purely symbolic and represents the material world
that has so far been considered “all that exists” by science.

The world of classical information

The classical physical world is made of classical information, that is, disordered sets composed of very
many quantum states. These states, which behave deterministically when their probabilistic behaviors
are averaged, are the macroscopic objects that obey the deterministic laws of classical physics.
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Starting from the complete knowledge of the current state and the forces at play, each subsequent
state is predictable. Therefore, within a classical system, the concept of information makes no sense
since the subsequent state is always determined by the previous state, and therefore always has
probability 1 of occurring.
7

If we analyze the information brought by the computer for example – we will find that the evolution
classical deterministic system –, of its state
It is predictable by those who know the program.
So, the amount of information carried by each of its states is 0 for
who knows how it works.

For those who know nothing, the next state is unpredictable, and therefore carries with it a lot of
information. For those who have partial knowledge, the amount of information has a value between 0
and the maximum value recorded by ignorant observers.

So, to consider the quantity of information objective, as is generally done, one would have to be in
a situation where all observers are equally ignorant, or even absent.

But how can we talk about classical information without considering

the observer? What is the point of information without observers?

I also recall that the amount of information carried by a symbol (state) is defined as the cologarithm
of the probability of observing that state. But is probability objective? At this point it is necessary to
examine the concept of probability before proceeding.

The concept of probability

Probability is the expectation based on partial knowledge. A perfect

knowledge of all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event

would change expectation into certainty, and leave no room or questions for
a theory of probability.

GEORGE BOOLE
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The concept of probability, which physicists consider objective and which is the basis not only of
classical statistical physics, but even more subtly of quantum physics, has never been satisfactorily
resolved. According to the famous statistical mathematician Bruno de Finetti,

there is no such thing as a probability, and I completely agree with him.

I think that probability is a human concept, inextricably linked to the degree of
knowledge and the need to know of the conscious observer, who wants to act
without unforeseen events based on his prediction.
This concept makes no sense for an unconscious mechanical system, which has
no need to know the probability of its future state.
Giving probability the value of objectivity and above all considering it
independent of the consciousness and free will of the observer, as if it were an
objective physical variable, is, in my opinion, another big mistake that I believe
has largely contributed to the misunderstanding of quantum physics, in which
instead the concept of probability is central.
Probability cannot be objective, because it is strictly connected to the expectations of the conscious
observer with free will, because knowing without being able to act on the basis of the new knowledge
is meaningless.

In other words, probability is largely subjective.

The concept of probability, essential in quantum physics, tells us precisely
how much it has to do with the knowledge of conscious entities for which
subjective probability is fundamental.
An unconscious robot can calculate probability, but only if such a calculation is built into its program.
This fact does not give objectivity to probability. For the robot, that calculation means nothing. The
robot did not make a prediction based on its judgment, it simply blindly obeyed its program. We made
the estimate, and we are the ones who call the result of the calculation we made it do a probability.

Incidentally, the robot is totally irresponsible. For the consequences

8
for his actions, the responsibility is only ours.
In short, probability is associated with the observer's estimate of the future
state of a system. And what is true for probability is also true for information,
since the two are essentially equivalent in the definition of information.
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Furthermore, probability only makes sense if it implies the existence of consciousness and free will.
So the problem of consciousness, thrown out the door, has come back through the window. In quantum
physics the problem of probability is central, and this becomes understandable only if we recognize that
quantum information concerns the knowledge of a conscious observer.

In classical statistical physics, since systems are deterministic, the concept of probability refers to
the lack of knowledge of information that already exists. In this case, the probability of a certain state
occurring can be calculated by the theoretical physicist to create another deterministic law (such as,
for example, the classical theory of gases) in which probability does not exist.

In the case of quantum physics, however, probability is fundamental and cannot be eliminated,
because it refers to information that does not yet exist, since the state that will manifest is determined
only at the moment and as a result of the measurement, and is absolutely not knowable before it
because it does not follow any law.

Therefore, even the theoretical physicist cannot estimate the state he will find when making the
measurement, because the quantum laws predict only the probabilities of possible states, but not the
order in which classical states manifest themselves.

Classical Probability “vs” Quantum Probability

The main difference between the laws of classical physics and those of quantum physics is that the
former predict exactly the next classical state, while the latter predict the probabilities of occurrence of
all possible subsequent quantum states.

The observer of a complex classical system can therefore calculate the probabilities of the states
of the components of a system based on knowledge of the deterministic laws and evaluate their
collective statistical properties, which are deterministic as are the laws.

The observer of an individual quantum system can, however, directly calculate the probabilities
based on knowledge of the probabilistic laws, but cannot predict the classical state that will manifest
itself. It is
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It is possible, however, to calculate the statistical properties of macroscopic objects

composed of very many atoms if these are perfectly ordered, as in a crystal, or
completely disordered, as in a stone.
On the other hand, it is almost impossible to calculate the behavior of ordered and
dynamic quantum systems composed of a very large number of atoms, such as a
protein or a living cell, because their behavior depends on very complicated quantum
interactions. The same difficulty applies when one wants to calculate in detail the
behavior of many interacting elementary particles.

For example, consider an electron. If the electron were classical, it would

correspond to a very small ball with a precise position and velocity along a trajectory
that could be calculated using the equations of classical physics. If we knew its initial
conditions and the electromagnetic field in which it was located, using Maxwell's
equations we could know its position and velocity at every subsequent instant.

In other words, the equations of classical physics would predict the state of the
electron (position and velocity) at each point on its trajectory.
The electron, however, is not a classical object and instead behaves like a probability
wave that propagates through space-time, and which can also “interfere with itself”, as
in the case of the double slit described in note 1 of chapter 2.

The quantum electron therefore has no precise position and velocity along a
trajectory, and could manifest itself in a volume of space much larger than its
dimensions. The equations of quantum physics can only calculate the evolution of the
probability wave that represents it, so they can only tell us the probability of measuring
it at each point in space where the probability wave has propagated, but not at which
point in space-time it will manifest itself.
9

The meaning of quantum probability, which allows us to calculate the amount of

information associated with each of the measurable classical states, is therefore
10
fundamentally different from that of classical probability. It refers to a state that is not
knowable even in principle before the measurement, unlike classical probability in
which the state is deterministic and therefore knowable.
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According to the interpretation based on the QIP theory, the pure state represents the knowledge

acquired by a seity and this, by free choice, can decide to manifest a part of it in the form of a living symbol.

The state that manifests itself may not be measurable (for example, it may be what physicists call a
virtual particle), and yet it may have an impact on quantum structures such as living organisms. Such states
are symbols of what I have called living information, in which energy, matter, and information are
indistinguishable.

11
In quantum physics there is also the mixed state, which in the context of QIP theory represents the
epistemic state of the external observer of a quantum system that is in a pure (ontic) state. One could say

that the epistemic state represents the “potential information”, because it describes all the possible states
that could manifest themselves (symbols) and their probabilities, from which one can calculate the amount
of information carried by each symbol.

The mixed state becomes living information when one of the possible states (symbols) of the epistemic
state manifests itself through the free action of the system that is in the ontic state, and not through the
action of the observer.
Note that the ontic state of a seity is not knowable from the outside, and therefore the idea that a mixed
state can represent all the possibilities of manifestation of a seity is valid only for those particularly simple
systems that can be prepared in the laboratory under repeatable conditions.

Information only makes sense if consciousness exists

We have seen that within a deterministic system the concept of

information is meaningless, because every action is perfectly predictable. Furthermore, if the universe were deterministic, even the notion of observer and the notion of probability would

be meaningless. In fact, there cannot exist an observer external to the Whole, because the Whole must obviously include him.
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By now it should be clear that the concepts of observer, consciousness, knowledge, meaning,
probability, information and symbols are intimately interconnected, and would make no sense if the
Whole were deterministic.

Treating all these concepts as if they were separate from each other is logically inconsistent. For
example, the probability that defines classical information would only make sense if there were a

conscious observer of a deterministic universe, but such an observer could not be part of the universe!
In fact, to contain a conscious observer the universe would have to be indeterministic, and only in this
case could the conscious observer discriminate the deterministic part (assuming it exists) from the
indeterministic part.

The concept of information only makes sense in connection with the

concept of an open, never complete knowledge, which concerns one or more conscious observers.
Omniscience would determine the end of consciousness, because there would be nothing left to know!

Furthermore the existence of a universal consciousness without the existence of other

observers, each with his own individual consciousness, it would make no sense, because in this case
there would be only One observing himself and there would be no one else. But it cannot be so,
because there are us. And each of us is a part-whole of One, and One is also “inside” each of us.

Consciousness only makes sense if it belongs to observers who wish to increase their knowledge.
This requires the existence of new states, that is, new symbols, and therefore new information. One
can say that the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of information is the existence of
consciousness!

But consciousness would be meaningless without an observer who wants and

can always know more, and this is the reason why free will and the open becoming of the universe must
also exist.
Consciousness and information are, therefore, two sides of the same coin!

Consciousness, observer, knowledge and meaning are an integral part of the face I have called
interiority, while information, probability and symbols are part of the other face I have called exteriority.
But the two faces must be indivisible, because consciousness and information,
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that is, meaning and symbol, only make sense if both exist together.

Without conscious observers, each having their own particular point of view and capable of
communicating symbolically with each other, there would be nothing to know, nothing to discover,
nothing to rejoice in and nothing to
love.

This is why the universe cannot be classical.

If it were, we could not exist, because consciousness and free will cannot exist in a classical
universe.
The existence of entanglement assures us that the parts of the universe are all interconnected,
that there is a becoming, and that free will allows us to explore the world of knowledge and transform
new knowledge into new symbols.

This is the essence of our individual and collective creativity.

This is why the knowledge of an evolved seity can only be adequately expressed with a living
symbol as complex as a human being, that is, an organization of 10 atoms. And this is why an even
28
more evolved seity, whose knowledge is much wider than ours, could express itself using the
ecosystem of our planet, an atom symbol. The complexity of these symbols makes us understand
how deep the knowledge of the seity is that communicate with each other!
41
I live that uses 10

Living knowledge and information

We have seen that knowledge can only come through lived experience, which causes the seity to
become that which it knows.
Life exists to enable seity to have new experiences through living organisms which, in this view,
are creations of seity that coevolve alongside their self-knowledge.

This creates a virtuous circle, where each new knowledge leads to more complex symbols that
allow for new knowledge, a process that is never-ending because it tends toward an infinity that can
never be reached.

From a computer science perspective, a living organism is a living symbol, a vehicle that allows a
seity to experience the world.
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of classical information. This symbol represents a small fraction of the knowledge of seity, which is
instead represented by a pure quantum state that evolves.

Live symbols with the complexity of 10

28
or 10 41 atoms are astonishing, yet they
are a small fraction of the number of entangled qubits that would be needed to describe the pure state
that corresponds to the experience of the seity expressed with such symbols! According to QIP, it
takes many entangled qubits to describe an elementary particle, and so atoms and molecules are
extremely complex computer structures.

If we take seriously what QIP theory tells us, we have before us a world yet to be discovered, and
one of such complexity and wonder that, by comparison, the recent achievements of artificial
intelligence are little more than toys.

Once we have accepted that consciousness and free will

exist as fundamental properties of nature, our vision of the world changes irreversibly and enriches us
immensely.

In this new vision, the purpose and meaning of the universe, which had been denied by classical
physics, become central. This vision is also deeply aligned with the thinking of perennial philosophy,
which has always recognized the inestimable value of consciousness and

knowledge.

This new interpretation, which involves consciousness from the beginning, which is much larger
than the rational mind, allows us to glimpse a world that is still to be explored and discovered
scientifically.
It was the rational mind that told us that we are machines, because it can only understand how
things “work.” Knowing how things work allows us to design complicated machines, but we are infinitely
more than a “work”!

We are a part-whole that wants to know the whole that we carry within us!
13

Meaning is the essence of knowledge

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I have a naive faith in the universe that at some level everything makes sense, and
we can get glimpses of that sense, if we try.

MIHÁLY CISKSZENTMIHÁLYI

Meaning is the essence of the seity's self-knowledge, and it is

represented in the living symbols they use to communicate with each other.
We have seen that the coevolution of knowledge and living symbols

occurs through the repetition of communication cycles. This process also produces new seity and new
combinations of seity, as well as new symbols and new combinations of symbols.

The laws by which symbols manifest and combine are probabilistic, and the meaning conveyed by
them is generally specified by the order in which the symbols appear. This order is determined by the
free choices of the seity. This method is typical of any language, and is also the profound reason why
quantum laws are probabilistic and indeterministic.
14

The “objects” described by quantum physics are the symbols of a universal language that manifest
themselves in space-time and that represent the “words” and “sentences” – the living symbols – of
conscious entities that communicate with each other.

In this context, everything written on paper or in the memory of a computer is made up of classical
symbols that represent only the memory of an ever-evolving knowledge characterized by a profound
and irreducible dynamism.

Before symbols there is meaning, and this has more depth of breadth than any symbolic expression,
especially that connected to emotions and creative thoughts.

We are holistic: this is also why our words have more than one meaning per symbol. When we
combine many words in a sentence, the number of possible meanings grows exponentially with the
number of words in it.
15
Deciding

which of the many meanings is the correct one therefore requires an understanding without which
verbal communication would be impossible.
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We understand even poorly worded sentences, because meaning comes first to us. Understanding
is also responsible for the creativity that allowed us to invent computers and the algorithms that make
them useful.

Computers cannot understand ambiguous sentences nor can they program themselves because
they do not understand the limitation of algorithms. There is no path from meaningless symbols to
meaning, for the same reason that electrical signals cannot be translated into qualia without
consciousness. Furthermore, each new meaning must be expressed with a new combination of
symbols that has never existed before. Syntactic laws permit such combinations, but they cannot
prescribe them because their cause is outside the domain of symbols.

The popular idea that the laws of physics can predict all of physical reality is wrong, because it
would be like saying that the syntactic laws of English can predict all new ideas that will be written
down in the future. The laws can only predict that the symbolic expression of new ideas will conform
to them.

The driving force behind each new meaningful “symbol combination” is not their syntax, but the
ontological reality of the consciousness that creates such combinations. True understanding of
symbols is part of consciousness. Symbols alone cannot create new meanings.

Yet we often place value on symbols and ignore their meaning.

Physical reality without new creations would be like having books written

from a computer: the syntax would be perfect, but there would be no new meaning. The computer
cannot have new ideas beyond those we have put into its algorithms. If an idea produced by a
computer seems new to us, it is only because we have not completely “unrolled” the algorithm we
have put into its memory. For example, if we developed an algorithm to generate various images of
snowflakes by assigning random parameters to the program, the computer could generate a snowflake
so beautiful that we would believe it was an artist! In reality, the artist was the programmer together
with the person who recognized that the “snowflake,” produced by chance by the computer, was a
work of art. The computer simply did not know what it was doing.
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David Hume said: “The beauty of things exists in the mind which sees them

contemplate” and that’s exactly it. It’s time to stop attributing human qualities to what doesn’t have them!

When the ontology of the universe is thought to reside in symbols, the universe becomes meaningless.
Physics can only grasp the objective meaning of symbols, just as Shannon information does, but it cannot
do more. Seities, on the other hand, construct symbolic realities from the inside out, from meaning to
symbols, and vice versa. But there is no way to go from symbol to meaning without consciousness.

Information needs to be redefined

I therefore believe that meaning cannot exist in a physical reality that is supposed to be described entirely
by laws independent of meaning, which is why physics describes only the symbolic aspect of reality, in
which consciousness, life and free will are nothing but epiphenomena.

In the new model, however, before symbols there is meaning, which is the essence of knowledge.
And information serves to communicate meaning, which is the reason for its existence. Without meaning
there is no information.

I believe that quantum information describes knowledge, that is, the

16
meaning, which in the original definition of information was excluded.
The symbolic laws of quantum physics admit the existence of an extraordinary dynamic symbol such
as a living cell, however it was not “written” by the laws of physics, but by the seity. They have discovered
little by little the “secret of life”, and have “written” it with the same symbols with which they were able to
know it, and have “obeyed” the “laws of physics” in its construction.

Likewise, the “syntactic laws” allowed the writing of the Divine Comedy, but they did not write it! And it
was not even the physical body of Dante Alighieri that wrote this sublime work.

It was the seity incarnated in his body that chose the most appropriate symbols (words) and order to
express his thought, obeying in the
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same time to syntactic laws.

So, to express a complex thought, the choice of words and their order is
determined neither by chance nor by the laws of symbols, but by the meaning
that the seity want to express. In fact, symbolic laws can only predict the
probability of symbols coming out, which has nothing to do with meaning.
17

Symbols are the classical structures with which the meaning of the seity is
collectively explored and with which increasingly complex symbols are
constructed to express the new meanings that emerge from the C-space, not
the I-space. It is the
new meaning that “instructs” the seity on how to construct the
new symbol, so that it can be shared.
Only the intention, understanding, love and care of the seity can intuit the
potential of an idea not yet fully visualized, which must express itself with a
creative process that will gradually bring it to completion.

In this creative process chance has no significant role to play, which is why it differs greatly from
the idea that natural evolution has entrusted chance (randomness) with the source of creativity that
manifests itself in life.
18
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13
Lived knowledge

Beauty is life when life reveals itself. Beauty is eternity that reveals itself.
look in the mirror, and we are eternity and the mirror.

KHALIL GIBRAN

The initial goal of science was to explain natural phenomena, not life and consciousness.
When scientists became convinced that mathematics alone could give us a detailed
description of reality and that our sense-based intuition was flawed, the idea spread that life
is mechanical, that consciousness is epiphenomenal, that free will does not exist, and that
therefore the universe is without purpose and meaning.

We have even reached the point of absurdity of believing that the description of reality is
reality, and that mathematics also has its own ontological reality, although it is a creation of
1
human minds. It is good to remember that Galileo said that mathematics
is the language of nature, not that the language of nature is nature. However, today
there is an increasing tendency to believe that reality is made of meaningless symbols.

But the symbol cannot replace the lived experience!

For example, the word “compassion” cannot replace the experience of compassion. True
compassion is the “descent into shared suffering” (Pope Gregory the Great). The meaning
is in the lived experience, and the experience belongs only to the one who lives it.

Rationality is not enough

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Reason is nothing without imagination.

Descartes

The need for increasingly complex mathematics to describe our world has distanced us further and
further from lived experience, the only true source of knowledge, and has led us to consider rationality
the only mindset to be used in the study of reality.

For example, we have tried to understand quantum physics using only the rational mind without the
creative input of intuition, emotions and imagination, while I believe that quantum physics mainly describes
the interiority of reality, an aspect that mathematics alone can never lead us to.

Interiority is represented by a pure state that is knowable by its possessor only “from within”, in the
form of qualia. Experience, being subjective, can never be completely transmitted objectively. Its
description in classical form will always be an approximation, since the internal structure of meaning
contains a part that will remain ambiguous and undecidable even in conscious experience.

I am convinced that if we have an intuitive mind and we feel emotions, these have a fundamental
meaning and, if guided and combined creatively with our other abilities, they can lead us to the truth all
together.

If it is true that One wants to know himself, it would be inconsistent

to think that we, as seity, were devoid of the ability to do so.
The fact is that we do not trust our intuition, and to know we tend to use mainly rationality. But our
knowing, as long as it remains only at the symbolic level, cannot be complete.

When we say “It is so because mathematics says it is so,” without going beyond the literal
understanding of what it tells us, it means that we have stopped at the surface. The facts are only the first
step, absolutely necessary, but not sufficient for understanding.
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By saying that the universe is open, we mean that any algorithmic description of reality can only be
approximate and incomplete, and that it will never be possible to know the entire future.

Thinking that the future can be described by calculating the limit at infinity of an algorithm is wrong,
in my opinion, because, if everything is interconnected, there can be no separate algorithms describing
separate parts.

This is also the lesson we learn from chaotic systems, where an infinitesimal difference in the initial
conditions leads in the long run to a macroscopic and unpredictable difference.

In this case, an infinitesimal connection between the algorithms, which may be initially neglected, may
later produce a completely different behavior than that predicted by each of them.

Infinity is unthinkable, because the part that remains outside any finite part – no matter how large it
may be – is infinitely larger than the finite part.

In mathematics, many of our most important results have been achieved by calculating the limit at
infinity of a series (an algorithm). Since reality is all interconnected, the parts of mathematics that we
should use to describe it should also all be interconnected, that is, each part should be able to influence
the others, even if very weakly.

Our total reliance on mathematics as a tool for describing reality, especially when it comes to
mathematical extrapolations to infinity, must be reconsidered in light of the holistic reality revealed by
quantum physics.

How is it possible that the mathematics we invented tells us the absolute truth about how the
universe works? Mathematics is

a very valid mental construction, however it is made of separate parts, so how exactly can it be the
mathematics of physics?
The very fact that pure quantum states are not knowable “from the outside” is an extraordinary
result, which indicates secret connections of mathematics with an open and unknowable universe.

The mathematics of physics cannot erase the mystery of a universe in the making. It is only our
need for control that keeps us
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it pushes you to want to know the whole future.

Beyond rationality

As André Weil observed in his Recollections of Apprenticeship, “Mathematics is only

one of the many mirrors in which truth is reflected, although perhaps more purely than
in other mirrors.”
Mathematics did not create our world, and so there must be deeper reasons why
the world is so well reflected in the mathematical models we have invented, reasons
that can only be explained by studying ourselves and investigating who we, the
inventors of these models, really are.

To understand our true nature, we need more than the computational and
mechanical models that are rapidly taking over the sciences, or even logic alone. We
also need other aspects of our nature, such as emotions, imagination, creative thinking,
reason, courage, empathy, free will, and the incredible capacity we have to know
through experience.

If it is true that each of us reflects the whole, our knowledge must also include
these non-algorithmic properties, which go far beyond the purely rational knowledge
that we increasingly rely on today. I am convinced that, if we disconnect from these
fundamental aspects that distinguish us from machines, we run the great risk of
becoming machines ourselves, not by nature, but by choice.

We have also seen that there is no trace of meaning in the symbolic laws of our
languages, nor even in the language of matter, that is, the language of classical
symbols. However, the existence of meaning is evident to each of us in our conscious
experience, and is reflected in the subjective nature of quantum probability and in the
nature of the pure states we have discussed.

The expression of meaning is not governed by physical laws, and therefore they
cannot describe lived experience, which is what matters most.
2
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As Albert Einstein says, “It is possible that everything could be described scientifically, but it would
be meaningless, it would be like describing a Beethoven symphony as a variation in the

wave pressures”.
A piece of music is not just the musical score and the frequency spectrum of its sound: “Music is
not in the notes, music is between the notes” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).

Music is also the subtle meaning made of emotions and fun that it brings, not to mention the
pleasure of reproducing it with the voice or with an instrument, when you are so lucky to be able to do
so. The objective structure and characteristics of a piece of music are not enough to describe the
experience lived, which is immensely enriched when you also play with other musicians with whom
you love

to stay.
Music as physical sound is only its symbolic dimension.

The experience of music is its semantic dimension, and the two can be conceived as inseparable and
related sides of the same coin. Music, perhaps even more than speech, provides us with a striking
example of the close connection that exists between the interior and exterior worlds. “Where words
fail, music speak” (Ludwig van Beethoven).

And also: “Music is perhaps the unique example of what could have been – if there had not been
the invention of language, the formation of words, the analysis of ideas – the communication of souls”
(Marcel Proust, The Prisoner).

A new interpretation of physical reality

I think that a complete theory of information must start from the general principle that the purpose of
information is to communicate meaning, even if this was not thought so seventy-five years ago, when
Shannon wrote his famous article [12].

The inclusion of meaning fundamentally changes the interpretation of quantum physics, and thus
our ideas about the nature of reality. What we have imagined as blind evolution
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based on chance, it has instead been guided since the beginning of the universe also “from within”.

It was not physical laws that formed the universe, for these are instead the effect of the progressive
self-knowledge of the seity reflected in the syntactic laws of the symbols used by them to explore and
memorize the ever-increasing self-knowledge. These laws are the fruit of the cooperation of the seity
and the dynamic order inherent in the nature of One.

In vain have attempts been made to explain consciousness as an emergent property of matter. QIP
now fully supports my conclusion that it is matter that can be explained as an emergent property of
consciousness.
3

In my model, matter is the symbolic aspect of conscious entities that communicate, that is, transmit
meaning between them. In this model, symbols and meaning are the two irreducible faces of a holistic
reality, while in the past the place of honor that should have been given to meaning was given only to
symbols.

In this light, the idea that the laws of physics must predict all of reality is profoundly flawed, because
they can never predict the evolution of knowledge, which, being open and creative, does not follow laws.

The laws of physics can only predict that the symbolic expression of new knowledge will not
contradict them.

If anything, new knowledge creates new laws. And the complex symbols needed to represent it will
be equally creative and unknowable before it happens.

For example, the laws of physics did not predict the invention of the computer. The computer is
simply a human creation, permitted by the laws of physics, and the fruit of imagination, creativity, love
of knowledge, and the commitment that inspires and guides us from within.

Meaning, live information and classical information

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The discoveries of quantum physics, which have overturned the classical vision,
are difficult to interpret correctly, however they are essential to give us a
different and deeper vision of reality.
According to QIP theory , a pure state describes the private and subjective meaning of the conscious
entity that is in that state, while Shannon information describes the classical symbols that can be used to
represent and store that meaning. But such symbols only make sense if there are conscious observers!

QIP theory represents the first step towards a valid explanation of quantum
physics, because it connects, with precise mathematical concepts, interiority
with exteriority, that is, consciousness with matter and private experience with
its shareable description.
QIP represents a significant innovation . It radically changes the interpretation
of reality, because it tells us that consciousness and free will have always
existed, and at the same time it maintains the credibility of physics rooted in the
experimental results obtained, which now find a much more satisfactory
explanation.
When most physicists tell us that the probabilities with which quantum
symbols appear are objective, and therefore that reality has no meaning, it is
as if they told us that a language has no meaning because the probabilities of
using its symbols are objective, and therefore are respected in all books written
in that language, regardless of their meaning.

They are only superficially right, however language exists to allow conscious
entities to communicate with each other, that is, to convey meaning using
symbols (words). For the same reason, matter exists because it represents the
symbols that seity (conscious fields) use to communicate with each other.

As for quantum information, according to QIP theory, it does not describe

symbols, but represents the meaning of a deeper reality; meaning that is
revealed to seities as they deepen their self-knowledge.

The actors of quantum physics are therefore the seities, that is, the fields,
whose private knowledge can be represented by the evolution of their pure
quantum states.
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Seity can communicate meaning with living organisms using living symbols, and organisms are
themselves organizations of ordered living symbols.

Organisms can, in turn, transform living symbols into classical symbols to communicate with the
macroscopic objects of classical physics, which are also classical symbols. And the transformation in
the other direction, from classical symbols to living symbols, is also done by living organisms to
communicate to seity the reality of the classical world.

Classical symbols are “written” with disordered sets of many symbols

alive, such as the ink droplets that print books, or the computer bits that “write” programs. But the reason
books and computers exist is to allow conscious entities, living an experience in a classical world, to
communicate “meaning” to each other through living organisms.

Without consciousness, classical information would have no reason to exist, because it makes no
sense within the classical world, just as a virtual reality makes no sense for an object that is part of it.

The classical physical universe exists for the same reason we create virtual realities with computers:
to learn more about ourselves.

The idea comes before the symbols

The vase may break, but its model will continue to exist in the mind.

TIBETAN PROVERB

To complete an invention, you have to start with an idea, but that alone is not enough. Only if this is
sufficiently articulated can you begin to construct the object of the invention. The construction of the
object then allows you to perfect the idea, and the latter allows you to perfect its construction (another
example of the “snake biting its tail”).
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It took millennia to invent computers, which we use today

we can also interact with virtual realities of our own creation.
The computer was not born by chance, but through a conscious process of exploration,
understanding and realization, starting from an idea that already existed in embryonic form in our
consciousness long before its realization.

Likewise, any creation must always start from a general idea before being able to arrive at its
particular realization, and not vice versa.
4

And the idea often comes from a desire. For example, the desire to fly must have emerged in
human consciousness already at the time of hominids, presumably by observing birds and imagining
the joy of being able to fly like them.

It took hundreds of thousands of years before we developed the technologies and knowledge
necessary to build a
airplane.

The first flight on a fragile device occurred in 1903. In 1947 the

the sound barrier was broken, and in 1969 man landed on the moon.
However, the airplane that exists today is not the result of random combinations of matter
aggregated “from outside” without any idea of the whole, but is instead due to the desire, intention,
imagination, courage and tenacity – inner qualities – of generations of human beings who gradually
achieved the goal they had set for themselves.
5

To make these ideas more understandable, let's consider a concrete example: in England in 1690
there were many flooded coal mines and a large supply of coal. Clearing them of water by animal
power alone was a long and tiring job. There was a need to solve that problem and the technology to
do the job also existed. It was known that steam could be used as a propulsive force and this led
Thomas Savery to invent and sell the first commercial steam-powered pump in 1698.

This was the spark that ignited the industrial revolution.

The invention of the steam pump, which may seem trivial today, first had to be conceived in its entirety
to guide from top to bottom the visualization of the parts, their interactions and finally its realization.
overall meaning was contained
The
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in Savery's imagination from the moment he first conceived of it.

He then had to translate a holistic image into appropriate mental symbols, visualizing the entire
functioning of the machine.
This process of analysis and synthesis may have developed gradually in his consciousness as it was
repeated from the initial spark of intuition. This process of mental simulation, aided by symbolic
elaboration on paper, typically ends with a work plan that is then translated into a physical structure
that works.

This plan, even if it did not physically exist, should still

exist in the inventor's consciousness.

From the outside, the whole appears to emerge from the bottom up, as the parts are formed and
assembled. But the whole had to exist as a design before the parts existed and were finally assembled.

The same process also applies to life. It is absurd to think that simple organic molecules, which
represent an infinitesimal fraction of the complexity of the simplest known bacterium, could have
transformed and self-assembled to form an organism capable of

6
self-reproduce without any guidance.
How can we expect life to have emerged by chance, without the prior existence of a conscious
and intentional design? How can a hierarchy of precise subsystems have self-assembled, forming a
living organism of incredible complexity, through natural and random events that have a natural
tendency towards disorder?

This would be a truly miraculous event! Even more miraculous than a computer spontaneously
self-assembling, since a computer is a system of insignificant complexity compared to a bacterium.

We are creators by nature, just as the universe that created us is, yet our science expects nature
to use a method opposite to ours.

I think that every creation starts from a general idea motivated by a desire, combined with the will
and the means to pursue its realization. No true creativity is possible without a conscious intuition of
what one wants. And so, how could a
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Can a living cell self-assemble through natural processes if it is not preceded

by an idea of what it is intended to achieve?
In my opinion, and in line with the principles of QIP theory, the first living
cell did not self-assemble by chance, but is the result of the enormous
creativity and growth of knowledge of the seity. They, driven by the need to
understand the existence of reproduction with which they themselves were
created, were able to cooperatively manipulate living symbols to the point of
gradually creating a symbol capable of self-reproduction.

In short, the seity used the same method that we used to create airplanes
and microchips. We do as they do for the simple reason that we are them!

What is the purpose of life?

We are all visitors to this time and place. We are just passing through.

Our job here is to observe, learn, grow and love. Then we return.
At home.

ABORIGINAL PROVERB

We have seen that consciousness allows us to tune into the “vibrations” of

the reality we want to experience and know, and that, as I explained previously,
direct knowledge involves “becoming” what one experiences.

During our first year of life, when the rational mind is not yet functional, we
are tuned into the signals produced by the body.
Through this process the ego emerged, that part of our larger consciousness
that believes itself to be the body, and therefore protects and guides it.

The ego oversees the body and allows us to understand situations, thus
guiding the automatic learning of our brain, so
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we can learn to recognize new situations, often with just one example.
7

The immeasurable and unbridgeable difference between human and artificial intelligence lies in
the ability to understand the ego and the seity.
Human intelligence does not only rely on the information processing done by the “head”, but also
makes use of the creativity, motivation and courageous action that metaphorically come from the
“heart” and the “belly”, which collaborate with the head, because human intelligence is the combination

of head, heart and belly.

8

We are embodied seity, a mysterious combination of seity and body, which complicates the
understanding of both our algorithmic and non-algorithmic aspects. Much of what we do can be
explained by the “mechanicalness” of the body, even though the body is quantum and classical, and
therefore immeasurably more sophisticated than a computer. Sometimes we behave like seity,
sometimes like machines, and almost always like a combination of the two.

Distinguishing between the two aspects is therefore very difficult in the current state of our
understanding of reality, given the materialist prejudice that is still dominant.

In the previous chapter, I mentioned that our body is like a quantum and classical “drone” controlled
by the ego. The ego in turn can control, through the body, a real classical drone, or an avatar that is
part of a virtual reality. We therefore have an example of a symbolic reality formed by classical symbols
that exists within

another, larger symbolic reality, composed of living symbols, and this suggests the possibility that there
are other levels of nested reality. Our psychological masks, at various levels, are another example of
nested reality. With them we conceal our deepest intentions, often even from ourselves.

I think the purpose of life is to know ourselves, and that also involves knowing our dark areas: I'm
talking about hatred, racism, violence, and above all the need to be superior to others.

To be consistent with the proposed model, I believe that shadow zones should also exist in Uno,
albeit in a much more abstract form.
Such shadows represent an inevitable distortion in the process of One's self-knowledge, which occurs
through the seity created by Him.
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I imagine that distortions occur because the process of self-knowledge must rely on symbols that
cannot capture the full meaning of experience. This can lead to misunderstandings, the result of which
is what we call “evil.”

One of the main purposes of life, then, might be to try to understand the origin of the distortion that
exists in each of us, and to eliminate it.

In other words, evil does not exist as a fundamental reality, but only as a distortion of reality, a
misunderstanding of reality that is not reality. Once the misunderstanding is eliminated, there remains
reality that does not contain evil.

Part of this purification process could take place through experiences lived in virtual reality, which
allow us to discover what misunderstandings we carry within us and their origin.

According to this interpretation, our earthly life would correspond to a “session in a simulator”. In it,
the ego impersonates a “character” with characteristics that allow the seity (the broader identity) to
clearly see what the problem is and, having identified it, to realize the deeper intentions that determine
the choices made by the ego that controls the character. This allows the seity to go back and remove
the cause that is at the base of its misunderstanding.

This process of “amplification of distortions” is fundamental, because it makes them visible through
the consequences they cause in human society. In fact, we all know that to solve a problem you must
first recognize it, and this is often the most difficult part.

But “The moment we accept our problems, the doors of solutions open wide” (Jalÿl al-Dÿn Rÿmÿ).

Thus, little by little, the ego realizes that the reality in which it exists is not the deepest reality, and it
understands, through experience, that it is more than the body. This experience is necessary to free it
from the self-induced trance of being the body. That is why intellectual understanding alone is not
enough.

The opportunity to experience that there is a reality that is larger than what appears to our eyes can
also be offered by a dream
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9
particularly vivid lucidity, as or from extraordinary experiences of consciousness,
long as you have an open mind and are willing to take them seriously.

The Evolution of Scientific Thought

Every new theory is first attacked as absurd; later it is recognized

as true, but obvious and insignificant; finally, it is considered so important that the
His opponents claim to have discovered it.

WILLIAM JAMES

After having analyzed for a very long time almost all the fundamental parts
that make up physical reality, a small fraction of humanity is ready to move
from the materialism of classical physics to the new holistic vision, which
recognizes that profound spiritual dimension of reality that in the past has
fueled myths and religions.
In fact, we are realizing that the behavior of the whole cannot be explained
by the behavior of the separate parts, because reality, unlike how we had
imagined it, is not made up of separate parts and is not objective like a
machine.
It has been found that the smaller the parts, the more inseparable they
become from the whole, and that therefore the whole must be invisibly present
in each of its parts.
Nothing is closed and isolated from the whole, and even the most abstract
symbol of quantum reality – the smallest of which we have called a qubit – is
information of a special kind, because it remains intimately connected
(entangled) with the other qubits with which it interacts.
This is also the crucial property of semantic reality, which however cannot
abstractly explain what meaning is, because it can only be known by those
who experience it, living it in their deepest “subjective” interiority. A reality
that has so far been neglected by science, in the belief that everything that
exists must be objective.
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To understand and appreciate who we are, we must embrace and integrate the
physical, emotional, intuitive and spiritual aspects in a lived whole.

Three fundamental centers

Everyone says that the brain is the most complex organ in the human body, as a doctor
I could even agree. But as a woman I assure you that there is nothing more
heart complex, even today not all of its mechanisms are known. If in
In the reasonings of the brain there is logic, in the reasonings of the heart there are emotions.

RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

The metaphor “We are a combination of heart, head and belly” serves to
describe the concept of union that I experienced in the awakening experience
described in the Introduction. It is necessary to integrate and harmonize the “head”
with the “heart” and with the “belly”, that is, the level of intuitive and rational thought
with that of the deepest feelings and with that of right and courageous action.

These three centers are metaphorical and are neither separate nor separable,
because each of them also contains a part of the other two.
Therefore, an intellectual who lives with his head cannot be completely
disconnected from his heart and his stomach.
If we examine the head, we can recognize that in it the intuitive and creative
power are the highest mental capacities.
We also possess a rational mind, that is, the ability to reason logically on the basis of the presumed
validity of assumptions, both explicit and implicit, which we choose based primarily on conscious
understanding.

Finally, we also have a mechanical aspect: the ability to recognize patterns, to

learn and follow procedures, as computers using artificial neural networks (which
we copied from the mammalian brain) can do. For example, after learning with the
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ego supervision, we drive a car using mainly these quasi-autonomous and automatic capabilities.

As for the heart, it is the center of feelings, desires, intentions, empathy, love, joy, passion, honesty,
self-realization. Its highest expression is unitive, because in itcuriosity,
there is no longer a ethics And

distinction between observer and observed. At the level of ordinary experience, however, our feelings,
while not being too strong or particularly vivid, are nevertheless aware and present.

Finally, there is the “mechanical” aspect of the heart, represented by quasi-automatic emotions and
feelings that have limited awareness and depth, and also include the usual sensations of shape, color,
sound, smell, and taste associated with the physical world. The experience of the heart thus ranges from
the habitual semi-automatic level to more or less felt ordinary feelings, occasionally illuminated by unitive
intelligence.

The belly is the center of physical action, but the least analyzed and understood. Its mechanical
aspect is expressed by those actions that we perform almost unconsciously, for example when we walk
or ride a bicycle. The next level contains ordinary, intentional and freely chosen actions. Finally, the
highest level includes actions guided by conscience, ethics, love and courage.

Such actions have within them the understanding of what is right, the love that comes from the heart
and the courage and determination of the belly.
The union of the heart and head with the belly manifests itself in conscious, just and courageous actions.
Sometimes they can go against one's own interests, so much so that one risks property, reputation or
even life, in order to honor the universal values that are deeply felt.

Head, heart and gut also refer to three different types of knowledge, because we can learn mentally,
emotionally and interactively.

Interactive knowledge is based on action. We learn “from outside” by interacting with objects and
observing the actions of others, just as an apprentice learns by observing and imitating his master and a
scientist understands by doing experiments.
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Emotional knowing is knowing primarily “from within,” based on the qualia, sensations, and feelings
we experience when observing the world and ourselves.

At the ordinary level, this experiential and empathic knowledge can lead us to superficial judgments,
while at the highest level, when knowledge is direct, it makes us what we know. This knowledge also
relies on mental knowledge, and inspires right and courageous action.

Mental knowledge is knowing “both from within and from without.”

We get it from outside by reading and studying books, listening to parents, teachers and the media.
We get it from inside by reasoning and memory, and also by creativity, which is based on intuition and
imagination.

Symbolic knowledge from outside and semantic knowledge from inside

represent the ordinary aspect of mental knowledge, while the “inner” knowledge based on creativity is
instead its higher aspect.

So we actually know through a combination of

10
all three ways of knowing, because it is impossible to separate them.
A robot possesses only the mechanical aspect of both “mental” and interactive knowledge, and
completely lacks the knowledge that comes from the heart, that is, from the conscious experience of
ego and seity that represents the essence of the non-algorithmic and unitive aspects that distinguish us
from robots.

If we only possessed the mechanical aspects, we too would be machines. Instead, our ordinary
mind integrates the mechanical aspect with the understanding, with the ideation and with the creativity
that come from the higher mind with the love, joy, passion that come from the heart and with the
courage and initiative that come from the belly.

Those who live a unitive experience open themselves much more to the higher level knowledge
and creativity of the seity of which they are a part, and this leads to a notable enhancement of their
creative abilities and a deeper union of the head and belly with the heart.

The heart is the deepest source of human non-algorithmic capabilities. And “He who goes to the
end of his heart knows the nature
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”
of man. Knowing one's own nature means knowing the sky (Mencio).
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Conclusion

If the stars are unattainable / this is no reason not to want them How sad the

paths / if it weren't for the magical presence of the stars.

MÁRIO QUINTANA, Dreamers of a New Humanity

How sad and dark are the paths of life if they are not illuminated by

magical presence of consciousness! Using metaphorical language, we can say that consciousness is
the North Star that guides us through the paths of life.

Unfortunately, nowadays the consciousness of much of humanity is immersed in a self-induced

trance that obscures Love, which is the only Law that governs and connects all the parts-wholes of the
universe.
This is the universal love that I felt in the experience of awakening, "the love that moves the sun
and the other stars" (Dante Alighieri), the love that revealed to me the existence of a direct knowledge
and that gave me

open the heart. It is

the heart (the symbolic center of emotions and intuitions) that informs and unites the head
(rationality) and the belly (the drive to action) to allow us to achieve “virtue and knowledge”.

Only the heart makes possible the union between the inner and outer worlds in which being and
knowing become one; a world in which science and consciousness can finally integrate and where
man will understand that love is "The meaning last of all that surrounds us is joy which is the source of
all creation” (Rabindranath Tagore).

And that's what really matters.

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Knowledge must be lived

Discursive knowledge does not help us to go beyond the illusions of the world, just as
darkness does not cease to exist by merely mentioning a lamp.

KULARÿAVA TANTRA

Scientific knowledge, which has as its object only the external world knowable
through mathematical relations and measurements of events, is absolutely necessary,
but it is not enough to lead us to lived knowledge. In my opinion, the final goal of
knowledge – to which science brings a fundamental contribution – is achieved only
when the observer lives the experience of himself and the world in an integral way,
because true knowledge goes far beyond the symbolic aspect of reality.

At the height of lived knowledge, seity becomes one with its experience, just as
when we were children we became so immersed in the game that we became the
game. It is important to emphasize that the nature
of the “scientific” observer – who limits himself to making accurate measurements,
remaining detached and dispassionate from what he observes, since he assumes that
the world is a machine that obeys mathematical laws – is completely different from the
nature of the actor-observer who “knows by living”. The former does not feel part of the
observed phenomenon, while the latter participates – belly, heart and head – in the
creation of the reality he observes and lives. And, as such, he knows he is responsible
for his experience.
1

Becoming aware of our responsibility is fundamental,

2
because our awakening depends on this awareness.
Scientific knowledge can only tell us what is factual and possible; however, in order
to make the right decisions, we cannot rely only on science, but we must add the
understanding and values that only the heart can offer us. Values whose inner presence
filled Immanuel Kant with emotion and wonder, who used to repeat: "Two things fill the
soul with admiration and veneration.
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ever new and growing the starry sky above me, and the moral law within me.”

Without these values, man counts for nothing.

Rita Levi-Montalcini said that “The absolute evil of our time is not believing in values. It doesn’t
matter whether they are religious or secular. Young people must believe in something positive and
life is worth living only if we believe in values, because these remain even after our death”.

The greatest obstacle to unity is the need for superiority

There is nothing noble in being superior to another man. True nobility lies
in being superior to the person we were until yesterday.

HINDU PROVERB

The world can only be known when it is both observed and experienced, because we are an
integral part of it and it is also within us.

The reason why we limit ourselves to observing the world only from the outside, as if we were not
part of it, may be due to the fact that we feel superior to the world.

The need to be superior is codified in the principle of survival of the fittest, which allows us to
blame nature for our lack of love and respect for others.

I actually think this is mostly due to the fact that we feel and want to be superior.

I consider this “wanting to be first” the most difficult obstacle to overcome in order to achieve
unity, especially since in our society competition is considered a desirable thing. In fact, the entire
economy, public education, sports and most institutions are based primarily on competition. Even the
evolution of the species is attributed to competition, exemplified by the principle of
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“survival of the fittest,” which provides a natural justification for selfishness and aggression.

At the root of competition is the need to feel “special,” which almost every human being feels. Each
of us is special—it’s true—because we are unique and unrepeatable, that is, we are a particular point
of view or perspective of the One. The problem arises when we want to be more special or more
unique than others. This need for superiority is the great distortion of the legitimate desire to be unique,
which is what we are.

“We are divine, and we must live not on the basis of survival of the fittest, but in a way that supports
everyone and everything on this planet” (Bruce H. Lipton, The Biology of Belief).

The competitive mindset is an ever-present threat that prevents us from being spontaneous,
creative, and at ease with others and the world.

While competition divides, cooperation unites. By cooperation I do not mean do-goodism, but a
meritocracy that recognizes the value of those who make an effort, making available to those who
cannot keep up what is necessary to be an active part of society. Competition, the natural daughter of
superiority, is what hinders the movement towards unity, which alone can bring physical, emotional
and mental health.

And the time has come to use our powerful technologies for the good of all, rather than for the
delusional good of the self-styled fittest.
The idea of separation, which finds its expression in reductionism, must be replaced by the
experience of union and inclusion already evident in the holism of life. “There is not a single isolated
fragment in the whole

nature, each fragment is part of a harmonious and complete unity” (John Muir). Only by recognizing
this crucial interdependence can humanity move beyond repeating the same dysfunctional patterns
that have caused so much needless suffering to our species and ecosystem.

Many sages throughout history have suggested that we are beings of light, that we will not die with
the death of the body, because we are here to learn and grow. We are here to learn how to collectively
create new worlds in which we can operate at a much higher level of cooperation, creativity and
fulfillment than we know how to do at this stage in our spiritual evolution.
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If we make room within ourselves for a narrative that is already supported

by the enlightened personal experiences of millions of people across the
planet and by the countless “anecdotal” facts and events that current science
is hesitant to investigate, we may soon perceive an unsuspected unity in the
universe, a harbinger of humanity’s awakening to its true power and purpose.

Unity is in the heart

Follow the advice of your heart, because no one will be more faithful to you than it.

Sirach, 37,13

I think that the positive forces that will create our future will not be the
forces and laws of matter, but those of conscious cooperation, understanding
and love for others, which all conscious beings will have to manifest sooner
or later because it is the essence of our deepest nature.

I also believe that the most effective way to achieve unity is through a
process of collective and cooperative, rather than competitive, creation of a
just, empathetic and loving society, through righteous actions informed by
the heart and intuitive mind.
And as experience and knowledge grow in the hearts of participants, they
will guide individual actions through an ever-higher level of consciousness.

Unfortunately, today there is a danger of being seduced by the rampant

culture of digital consumerism and of replacing true and profound relationships
with virtual and superficial ones, thus arresting our spiritual development.
Social networks, programmed to bombard people with suggestive messages
often based on false information or conspiracy theories, generate groups that
live alienated from reality in isolated worlds. Nikola Tesla said that "progress
must serve to improve the human race, if not it is only a perversion".
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Technology must be used to help us discover our true nature, not to further imprison us in a
meaningless virtual world. It has reached the point where it can truly unite us, or it can keep us divided
into warring factions with ever-increasing destructive potential.

Only when we understand that the choice between these options is ours alone and that we are
responsible for our experiences can we begin to truly know ourselves and the world. And, to know more
and more, we need a new empathic science that can convert scientific knowledge into deep lived
knowledge and from it generate new scientific knowledge.

Likewise, we need another consciousness that can convert lived knowledge into new scientific
knowledge, from which to generate new lived knowledge, and so on, in an endless crescendo. This is
the essence of the Creative Principle of One. And in this vision science and consciousness,
complementing each other, will increasingly increase our union with the Whole.
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Glossary

Agency. It is the ability of each seity to interact with others with free will, for
deepen self-knowledge and mutual understanding.

Axioms and Dogmas. In mathematics, axioms are self-evident statements whose truth is presumed. In
physics and science, axioms are statements typically derived from observations and experiments. Axioms
must be falsifiable to verify their predictions. Religious, political, or philosophical dogmas are unprovable
beliefs that are accepted without question. Dogmas are rarely falsifiable, and thus create a belief structure
that cannot be improved.

Bit. The bit is an abstract mathematical entity that can be used to represent two situations
different by convention. It represents a variable that can have only two states, "1" or "0",
“true” or “false”, “up” or “down”. In other words, the meaning of the two states of the bit is not inherent in the
bit, but it is agreed upon and may depend on the context in which the bit is found. For example, a bit can
represent: the state of truth of a hypothesis (true or false); the simplest possible distinction,
for example right or left, there is or there isn't etc.; the digit 0 or 1 of the binary number system (see
also note 2 of chapter 4).
The information processed by computers generally consists of a sequence or string of bits,
whose length is typically made up of multiples of four bits (4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 64). A
4
a four-bit string is called a nibble and can indicate sixteen (2 ) possible states. A sequence of 8
8
bit is called byte and can represent 256 (2 ) different states.

The bit can be represented by a physical device that has two stable states, for
example an electronic flip-flop, or two bands of electrical voltages at the input or output of
an electronic circuit, as explained in chapter 4.

Randomness. It is the total lack of predictability. A sequence of events that does not exhibit any predictability
is called random. However, when the same events are repeated, the frequency of certain patterns may be
predictable, even if the individual events do not.
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are. For example, when two dice are thrown simultaneously, the probability of getting 7 as

sum of the two is three times that of getting 2. In this sense, randomness does not imply complete

indeterminacy or lack of pattern. This is particularly relevant in the context of

quantum physics, in which the theory only predicts possible events and their probabilities,

while every macroscopic object is made up of a very large number of quantum events.

Wave function collapse. In quantum physics, the evolution of the state of an isolated system is represented by the

evolution of a unit vector in a complex N-dimensional Hilbert space whose direction changes with time. When a

measurement is made, the quantum system interacts with the measurement system and produces a classical

observable in space-time; for example, it activates a sensor in a certain region of space-time that we attribute to the

presence of a particle (but no one has ever seen a particle). This process is called “wave function collapse”, or state

vector collapse, and constitutes the

measurement problem, which is still debated today.

The mathematical theory of quantum physics only predicts the probability of possible states.

that can be measured, but does not predict the state that will manifest.

Quantum computer. It is a physical system that behaves quantum mechanically and that

exploits quantum entanglement as a computational resource. This allows for operations

much faster than is possible with a classical computer.

Knowledge. True knowledge is only possible through a lived experience, which allows us to “become” what we know.

This is because the description of reality is not sufficient to know reality. According to Emilio Del Giudice, reality can

be known when all the

levels of our being (mental, emotional and physical) resonate with each other.

Dualism. A term referring to the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter, in which everything that exists

is considered to be composed of two different “substances”: “mind” and “matter”. Philosophical dualism is in

opposition to monism, which asserts that everything comes from a single “substance,” for example

matter (materialism) or mind (idealism).

Quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement, or quantum correlation, is a phenomenon that does not exist in

classical physics. When an interaction occurs between two quantum systems, a larger system is created whose state

can no longer be described as the simple sum of the states of the systems that have interacted. This means that the

interacting systems are no longer independent, and therefore the measurement of an observable of one of the two

determines simultaneously
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the value of the same observable also for the other system, regardless of what is the
their physical distance.

Since the measurement result is probabilistic, if the same measurement were repeated on
many entangled systems prepared in the same way, the percentage of correlations could not
exceed a certain maximum value, determined by Bell's theorem. While the correlations of the
classical systems remain below this limit, the correlations of quantum systems exceed it.
The only way to explain this phenomenon is that the state that will be measured cannot exist.
before measurement, but must be created simultaneously for both systems during the
measurement process.
How this could happen is still a mystery, because it would require communication
superluminal between the two distant systems. This would violate special relativity, which is based on the
principle of locality.
Despite the presence of an instantaneous correlation, the probabilistic nature of the measurement
However, it does not allow communication at a speed greater than the speed of light, because the person sending the message

message should be able to decide its state before its measurement, but this is impossible.
The presence of quantum entanglement is the non-local property that distinguishes a system
quantum from a classical one.

Conscious entity. A term that refers to any “system” that has an internal experience made of qualia. The words
thoughtform, consciousness unit (CU), and seity are used in the text to refer to
indicate particular cases of conscious entities (see the relevant definitions).

Entropy. The concept of entropy refers to a measurable property of a physical system that is
associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term “entropy” was used for the
first time in classical thermodynamics. The concept was later extended to statistical physics and
information theory. A closed system out of thermal equilibrium evolves naturally and
irreversibly towards a thermal equilibrium, that is, towards a stable state of maximum entropy, or
maximum disorder, in which the transformations are reversible. Any closed physical system that does not

has reached thermal equilibrium and is in a state where the entropy is less than the entropy
maximum (maximum disorder) and will evolve spontaneously and naturally until it reaches the
maximum entropy.

Epistemic. Refers to what can be known about reality. In the context of QIP theory, a quantum system that is in
a pure state is in an “ontic state,” that is, a well-defined state, knowable only as conscious experience (qualia)
by the system that is in that state. An observer of such a system is instead in an “epistemic state.” In such a
state,
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the observer can only know the probability that observable states have of manifesting themselves,
but not the ontic state, which is private.

Classical physics vs quantum physics. According to the OPT (Operational Probabilistic Theory) theory
developed by Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano and his collaborators, quantum physics and classical physics can be
derived from six entirely computer-based postulates. Five of these postulates are in common. The sixth
postulate prescribes entanglement, which exists in quantum physics, but not
in classical physics.

Quantum vacuum fluctuations. These are random variations in the state of the quantum vacuum, which
can occur at any point in space. These fluctuations always appear as
virtual particles, which are created spontaneously as particle-antiparticle pairs and
annihilate within a time shorter than that established by the uncertainty principle of
Heisenberg. These fluctuations are a consequence of the uncertainty principle and are not
directly observable, although their collective presence is the cause of many phenomena
observable.

Identity. It is the property of a conscious entity that knows that the experience it is experiencing is its own and
identifies with it. It is a form of “double reflection”, in the sense that the entity that experiences its state
understands that it is “its state” and can therefore observe its experience “from within”, knowing that it is its
experience. Having identity is a necessary condition for having free will and autonomy, that is, the capacity for
self-determination. UCs and seities have identity, which allows them to choose what they want to know.

Classical information. This is the amount of information contained in the state of a system.
classical physics. It is typically expressed using the “bit” as a unit of measurement. It is not necessary
confusing, however, the bit intended as a unit of measurement (a real number) with the bit as a variable
binary (two values only).

Quantum information. It is the amount of information contained in the state of a quantum system. Quantum
information can be manipulated using special processing techniques, which make the state of a quantum
system evolve while maintaining its purity. This allows for calculation speeds that are higher than those
possible with a classical computer, because such transformations, made on the quantum state, occur “in
parallel” rather than “in
series".
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Living information. By “living information” I mean the quantum interactions that

occur between elementary particles, atoms and molecules, as happens for example in the formation
of a protein or in the functioning of a living cell. Systems made of living information
They are ordered quantum and classical systems, describable as organizations of entangled qubits that
interact quantum-wise as in the case of living cells. These types of interactions are
for the moment little known, since living organisms have been studied as if they were
classical biochemical systems and not both quantum and classical computing systems.

Free Will. Free will is the ability of a system to decide which state to manifest.
A classical system is deterministic, and therefore cannot have free will. The indeterminism of quantum physics
makes free will possible, although many current interpretations of quantum physics do not allow for it.

We have seen that quantum entanglement is incompatible with the idea that the state that
will manifest exist before the measurement, and this makes it possible for the quantum system to decide such a
state, as proposed in the QIP theory. In this case, the state is known to the deciding system before its
manifestation, while for the external observer it is only a probability.
Free will requires that the state cannot be known by an external observer, even in principle.

Locality. The principle of locality states that an object can only be influenced
from the immediate surrounding environment. This principle requires that any action at a distance be
mediated by waves or particles, whose maximum speed is that of light. The principle of
locality applied to objects that behave probabilistically leads to statistical limitations
established by Bell's theorem. Non-locality implies the existence of correlations that violate the limit
classical established by Bell's theorem. This happens with quantum entanglement. The world
quantum mechanics therefore has non-local properties that do not exist in the classical world.

Materialism. It is a philosophical concept that states that matter is the substance from which everything is made.

fact, including mental states. According to materialism, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter. Materialism
is often called physicalism to indicate that everything that exists is physical, thus recognizing that in quantum
physics matter has become increasingly abstract and ontology has shifted from elementary particles to the
quantum fields of which particles are states. Materialism is a monism that is opposed to idealism. Idealism is also
a
monism, which states that reality is a mental construction, that is, that matter is a

phenomenon produced by the mind.

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Quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics refers to the physics of systems described

from the Schrödinger equation or from Heisenberg's matrix mechanics; two formalisms

which have been found to be equivalent. Quantum mechanics is not relativistic and has been superseded

from quantum physics represented by the relativistic Dirac equation, which is the basis of the

quantum field theory. In Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano's OPT theory , quantum physics

supervenes on quantum information, and classical physics supervenes on quantum physics.

Monism. It is a philosophical conception which states that at the basis of reality there is a single

fundamental principle. Monism is opposed to dualism and pluralism.

Morphism. Indicates the existence of a map between one structure and another of the same type or type.

different. For example, in set theory, functions are morphisms. In the theory of

categories, objects do not necessarily have to be sets and their relationships do not have to

be just maps. In mathematics there are various forms of morphism with different properties, for

example homomorphism, isomorphism, automorphism, epimorphism etc.

Quantum nonlocality. This refers to the violation of the principle of local realism, which states that an object can be

directly influenced only by what exists in its immediate vicinity. The statistics of measurements made on entangled

quantum particles demonstrate nonlocality, because it violates the classical limit established by Bell's theorem.

Thus, physical reality is nonlocal, although it is not possible to communicate faster than the speed of light (since the

outcome of a measurement is probabilistic). Therefore, quantum nonlocality is compatible with special relativity.

The only interpretation compatible with entanglement is that the state being measured is not pre-existent, but is

instead created at the very moment of its measurement. In the context of QIP theory, the creation of the state being

measured corresponds to an act of free will of the conscious quantum system that transforms quantum information

into classical information.

Ontic. It refers to what is real, that is, what truly exists. In the context of the theory

QIP, a quantum system that is in a pure state is in an “ontic state”, that is, in a

well-defined state knowable as conscious experience (qualia) by the system that is in that

state. The inability to clone (copy) a quantum state ensures that that state is private,

knowable only “from within” by its possessor. A seity can be described as a system

quantum that is in an ontic state that evolves while maintaining the purity of its state, and

which can transform classical information into quantum information, and vice versa, using its
free will.
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Observable. In physics, an observable is a quantity that can be measured. If the system is

governed by classical physics, the state of the system can be known directly, because it is
describable by a real-valued function, at least in principle.
If the system is quantum, the state of the system is not directly knowable. What is
observable is obtained, instead, by transforming the state of the system with a mathematical operator
associated with the observable. This transformation produces a probability distribution of measuring
each of the possible values of the observable.
Note that there is a fundamental difference between the quantum and classical states: the
the first is private, while the second is shareable.

Panpsychism. It is the idea that the mind or some other mental aspect – consciousness, for example – has
always been an integral part of reality. Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, already
proposed by the Vedas, Thales, Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza, Leibniz, Russell and many others.
QIP theory states that a quantum system in a pure state has an experience of its state, and thus panpsychism
becomes for the first time a falsifiable physical theory.
According to QIP theory , panpsychism cannot exist in a classical system.

Conceptual framework cif. The initials of the words Consciousness, Information and Physical form
the acronym CIF, where the C indicates the space of consciousness (C-space), the I that of information
(I-space) and the F stands for physical space. The CIF framework [13] postulates that the fundamental nature
of reality is constituted by a field that has a semantic aspect (C-space) and a spatial aspect
symbolic (space-I) irreducible. In this framework:

1. C-space is the subjective semantic space of consciousness. It is a space and a time

extra-physical experiential space – not the space-time of physics – that contains the inner
world of all conscious entities. C-space is inseparable from symbolic space (I-space).
Together they form the ontology of One. Every entity that emerges from One possesses both
aspects. The pure state of a quantum system represents the experience of a conscious entity and
refers to C-space.
2. Space-i is the objective symbolic space-time that contains the living information in which
a part of the meaning has been translated by the seity to be communicated symbolically to the other
seity. The I-space contains both disordered and ordered living symbols. The former
form the classical symbols that behave deterministically, while the latter form
atoms, molecules and macromolecules that follow the laws of quantum physics.
In I-space there are also very complex symbols, both quantum and classical, which
can elaborate the ordered and disordered living symbols of I-space and create others that
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represent the surrounding environment inside them. Two examples of complex symbols are:
the electronic brain of a self-driving car, or a living organism that
creates a symbolic representation of the external world within its interior.
3. Space-f is the physical world experienced in the consciousness of the seity that believes itself to be
the living organism in which it is “embodied”. The nature of the F-space therefore depends on
crucially from the species of living organism and the qualia of seity. The organism
controlled by the seity selects a part of the I-space information to be perceived with
the set of senses with which it is equipped. This information is processed by the organism and
transformed into living information, which the seity perceives and “colors” with the qualia that
distinguish.
In turn, the seity transforms a part of its meaning and intentions into
living information within the living organism that interacts with living information
in I-space. A living organism is then controlled by a seity (a system
quantum with special properties) with living symbols and acts as an intermediary between the
quantum C-space of experience and the I-space of living symbols. The information space
classical is a subset of I-space, whose symbols behave deterministically
for relatively very long times.

In the English language the CIF framework is called CIP framework, where “P” stands for the word
physical.

Qualia. The term qualia refers to the sensations and feelings that emerge in the consciousness of an entity
following the perception of a particular living information or a new endogenous understanding. Living information
is found in I-space and can be perceived directly by the conscious entity without the need for a physical body.
The long-term memory of a conscious experience must, however, use classical information [9]. There are
transformations from quantum information (private experience) to classical information (shareable symbols) and
vice versa, which allow for the communication of meanings between conscious entities.

Qubit. Short for quantum bit. The qubit is the elementary unit of quantum information, that is, it is the quantum
version of the classical bit. While a classical bit can only exist in one of two possible states, the qubit represents
the quantum superposition of two state vectors in a two-dimensional Hilbert space: |1ÿ and |0ÿ. This superposition
creates an infinity of possible states, which can be represented as points on the surface of a unit sphere (called
the Bloch sphere). Examples of qubits are the spin of an electron, whose two states are |upÿ and |downÿ,
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and the polarization of a photon, whose two states are the vertical polarization and the

horizontal polarization.

Quantum bits can be entangled – a property not accessible to classical systems –, and this

allows you to do certain calculations much faster than you can achieve with the

classical computer. Over the past decade, the race to build quantum computers has seen a great
acceleration.

General relativity. It is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915. This theory generalises

special relativity and replaces the law of universal gravitation.

of Newton, which requires action at a distance, with a local theory. This is a theory

mathematics that links four-dimensional spacetime with the distribution and flow of mass, energy and momentum, using

a system of partial differential equations. In

In this way, the gravitational force becomes an apparent force observed in non-inertial reference frames.

General relativity is the basis of all contemporary cosmological models, and predicts the

generation and propagation of gravitational waves that have recently been detected experimentally.

Seity. Seity is a quantum entity with three fundamental irreducible and indivisible properties:

consciousness, agency and identity. The elementary seities, which I have called consciousness units (CUs),

emanate directly from One. The combination of communicating seity, each with its own

consciousness, identity and free will, gives rise to hierarchies of seity, meanings, symbols, rules

syntactic and language. Communicating with each other, the seity create, layer after layer, various

organizations in which to experiment with oneself and increase one's self-knowledge.

Semantics. Semantics (from the Greek sema, meaning “sign”) is that part of linguistics that studies the meaning of

words and their various combinations.

Meaning. Refers to the meaning carried by qualia in conscious experience or by symbols.

classics in conventional knowledge. Meaning is based on implicit or explicit agreements about what

represent both the symbol and its meaning. For example, a stone can represent if

itself, or an intuitive meaning related to its usefulness (for example, a defensive weapon, or

a building material), or an agreed meaning (“if you see a stone in front of my

front door, it means I'm in the square”).

Most of the meanings of the objects around us have been learned intuitively by

children and then refined through instruction, both at home and at school.

However, the meaning of physical objects is very different from the meaning of feelings and

thoughts. For example, the meaning of an idea or the meaning of the love I feel for my
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son come entirely “from within”, and cannot be agreed upon from outside.
In a machine, the meaning of a symbol does not come from consciousness, since the
machine is not conscious, but is another symbol determined either by the program or by a
statistical learning similar to that of biological neural networks, achieved with algorithms.
Therefore a machine has no knowledge, but only a form of mechanical knowledge, which is
implicit in its mechanisms and in the algorithms of its program.
Direct knowledge refers to a seity's understanding of the meaning of qualia from
it perceived and understood. It is an entirely quantum phenomenon, which does not exist in a
classical system like a computer. Afterwards, the seity can generate a living symbol for
communicate a portion of that meaning.
Indirect knowledge is the type of knowledge obtained by a seity from a symbol.
alive created by another seity to express his knowledge. Understanding this symbol is
related to the meaning that already exists in the seity that interprets it, since the meaning is
before the symbol.
Conventional knowledge is that animals behave almost mechanically,
if it were not for a weak supervision of their conscience, which can intervene with a minimum
of understanding. This is a type of learning similar to the “supervised training” of networks
artificial neural networks, in which the programmer's consciousness plays the role of supervisor of the
process. Without the ability to understand, which comes only from consciousness, this type of
knowledge would be equivalent to the mechanical knowledge obtained through learning
unsupervised automatic, which represents a fourth type of purely “knowledge”
statistics in which conscious meaning does not exist (so the word knowledge would be improper).
There is a fifth level of “knowledge”, which is even lower than mechanical knowledge and which
I call it opinion. Opinion is not even based on facts or logic, it has little to do with
with knowledge and nothing to do with knowledge. Unfortunately many make their decisions
based on opinion, rather than on mechanical knowledge or knowledge.
I also point out that what we typically call meaning is another symbol used
to “explain” the meaning. This can only work to the extent that the meaning
the other symbol is already known.
Note that the meaning of scientific terms is an entirely operational “relational knowledge”,
which does not explain the true meaning of the terms themselves and produces circularity. For example, energy is
what produces motion and motion is what energy produces, but nobody can explain what it is
really energy or motion. Furthermore, most of our reasoning and thoughts
involves the manipulation of symbols and not meanings. This process produces
mechanical “understandings” instead of true understandings. In other words, we often also
we behave like machines.
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Symbol. The term symbol indicates any element (sign, gesture, object, animal, person) that
may represent a meaning other than that offered by its immediate sensitive aspect. The
meaning associated with a symbol can be agreed upon or understood intuitively. To communicate,
It is essential that the symbol is recognizable without making mistakes.

An object can represent more than one symbol if the number of states that can be
discriminated is greater than two. For example, a coin can represent two states (one bit
of information), one die can represent six states (2.59 bits of information), two dice
indistinguishable can represent twenty-seven different states (4.77 bits).
Ordered quantum and classical organizations of living symbols create macromolecules, proteins,
viruses, bacteria, protozoa and multicellular living organisms of astonishing complexity, which can
also mix living symbols with classical symbols. The computer is an orderly organization of
classical symbols, which in turn are disordered organizations of living symbols, which form the
material from which computer hardware is built.

Hilbert space. A complex Hilbert space is a vector space that generalizes the notion of an N-dimensional
Euclidean space, using complex dimensions instead of real ones. A complex number is the sum of a real
number and an imaginary number (a + ib, where ae
b are real numbers and i = ).
Introduced by the famous mathematician David Hilbert at the beginning of the 20th century, this space
has made an enormous contribution to the development of functional and harmonic analysis. Thanks to the
definition of Hilbert space, it has been possible to formalize the theory of Fourier series and generalize it
using arbitrary bases. The properties of Hilbert spaces are often counterintuitive and
extraordinary.

State of a system. The state of a classical system is formed by the position and the moment
(velocity multiplied by mass) of each particle that forms the system. This state can
be known precisely and requires six degrees of freedom for each particle (6N degrees of
freedom for a system composed of N particles).
The state of a quantum system is described by a vector in a Hilbert space
N-dimensional complex, and its size disturbs it in an unpredictable way. A system
quantum can be described by a well-defined state, called the pure state, or by a mixture
of states, called mixed state.
The pure state (ontic state) is represented by a ray in the complex Hilbert space at
N dimensions, or even a unit vector in such a space. The entropy of a quantum state
pure is zero. The mixed state describes a system that has been prepared as a mixture of states
of which the probabilities are known.
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QIP (Quantum Information-based Panpsychism) theory . It is a quantum panpsychist theory

developed by Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano and Federico Faggin [9], which defines consciousness as the
ability that a quantum system that is in a pure state has to experience
aware of its state in the form of qualia. Part of the theory also states that a system
conscious can transform quantum information into classical information with free will and
vice versa, and therefore communicate with the classical world.

In QIP theory, a system that is in a pure state has the experience of its state. Such
postulate is plausible, since a pure state is a well-defined state and cannot be cloned.
So it can properly represent a private state knowable only by the system
which is in such a state (ontic state). The mixed state, instead, describes the state of knowledge
(epistemic state) of an observer of a system that is in an ontic state (pure state).
The outside observer can only know the observables and their probabilities of manifesting themselves.

Thoughtform. A thoughtform is a quantum system that exists in a pure state, and therefore has an experience of
qualia. However, such a system has neither agency nor identity, and therefore is not aware of being conscious.
Therefore, a thoughtform has no sense of self (identity), that is, it is not aware of its existence, and cannot direct
its actions with free will (agency).

A thoughtform is like a cloud that “goes where the wind takes it,” so to speak: it gathers, disperses, and
combines with other clouds. It follows the laws of clouds, but cannot direct its behavior. The quantum computer
is an example of a thoughtform, because it performs a series of deterministic unitary transformations that
maintain a pure state during the execution of the program, but it has neither agency (free will) nor consciousness.

of oneself (identity).

A seity is instead similar to a quantum field with identity, agency and consciousness. A
once created, it exists and evolves as a part-whole of One.

Unity of consciousness. According to the CIF conceptual framework [13], every new self-knowledge that One
obtains creates a unity of consciousness (UC). Similar to Leibniz's monads, UCs are elementary seity
which represent a point of view, or perspective, with which One can know himself. To them
time, the UCs can know themselves and create other seities capable of doing the same. Furthermore, they
can combine with each other and create a hierarchy of composite seities. Each seity, elementary or
composite, is a part-whole of One that possesses all the fundamental properties of One.

One. One is the totality of what exists, both potentially and actually. One is irreducibly holistic.
and dynamic. One is the interiority that connects “from within” all his creations. One desires
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know himself and wants to self-realize. From One emerge units of consciousness that communicate
among themselves and combine, thus creating all reality both internal and external. What

we call matter is the external aspect of reality, made of symbolic forms that represent
the meaning that the seity exchange to know each other more and more.

Vedas. They are religious and philosophical texts that originated in India more than three thousand five hundred
years ago. Written in Vedic Sanskrit, they are the basis of Hinduism. There are four Vedas: Rgveda,
Yajurveda, Sÿmaveda and Atharvaveda. The word veda means knowledge, understanding or wisdom.

Truth. In my opinion everything that One knows about oneself defines the truth. Given the holistic nature and

dynamics of One reflected in the nature of the physical universe we already know, the truth cannot
be made of separable and static parts, but must also be constituted of whole parts
connected from within, which evolve into a never-ending deepening of self-knowledge
never. That's why even the mathematical theories we create to represent the physical world
show unexpected “connections” between them.

Quantum vacuum. This is the state of minimum energy of empty space. However, this energy cannot be zero,
due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This causes fluctuations in the energy of the vacuum with measurable
collective consequences, even if the individual fluctuations are not measurable. For example, the Casimir effect is
an attractive force between two plates, very close to each other, due to fluctuations in the quantum vacuum.
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Notes

1. The nature of physical reality

1. Galileo did a series of experiments with an inclined plane on which a ball was made
roll at different inclinations, thus varying the propulsive force acting on it. In
In this way, Galileo proved that the motion was accelerated, with the acceleration proportional to the
Force.

2. According to classical physics, electromagnetic radiation emitted by a body in equilibrium

thermal contact with the environment (called “black body”) had to increase without limit with the increase
of the frequency of the emitted radiation, while the measured behavior tended instead to 0.
This was such a dramatic discrepancy that it was called the “ultraviolet catastrophe.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, this major problem was a thorn in the side of physics.
3. The photoelectric effect is produced by a beam of intense light that illuminates matter and
produces electrons. The puzzling and unexplained effect was this: when the frequency of the
light was below a certain value, no electron emission occurred, even

when the light intensity was very high, the opposite of what the equations predict
Maxwell.

4. Einstein explained this anomalous behavior by stating that the energy E, necessary for
to extract an electron from an atom, it had to come from a single collision with a
“particle of light”, whose energy quantum had to be equal to or greater than E. Furthermore,
that energy could not originate from a sum of quanta with energy less than E; it had to
be a unique process. This insight explained why the photoelectric effect had a
threshold that depended only on the frequency of the light and not on its intensity. The impact
The profound purpose of Einstein's explanation was to show that light could be understood as
the set of many individual photons, which however did not lose their individuality once
added together.

5. In the late 19th century, it was thought that waves required a medium such as air or water.
to propagate. Sound waves, for example, cannot propagate in a vacuum. Therefore,
He thought that empty space was filled with a “luminiferous ether,” a physical medium capable
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to vibrate to carry light waves. A famous experiment in 1887 by Albert

Michelson and Edward Morley instead proved that the ether did not exist. The theory of relativity
Einstein's narrow view had in fact been motivated by the desire to understand the consequences of the absence

experimental ether.
6. The principle of least action is central to physics and has been applied to mechanics,
thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and string theory. It's quite technical and
difficult to explain properly without high level mathematics. To give a
intuitive but imprecise understanding, imagine a mechanical system that undergoes a
change from an initial to a final configuration. The principle of least action
states that the trajectory followed by the system will be the one that minimizes the action. In
in other words, of all the possible paths a system could follow, the path taken
is what minimizes the action, that is, the path integral of the system's energy over time,
that is, the quantity which is called action.
7. A detailed explanation of the key concepts and terms used in quantum physics
can be found in the Glossary at the end of the book.

8. Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Prize winner for Physics, during the speech given on December 13, 1946
He said: “I was not spared the shock that every physicist accustomed to the classical way of thinking experiences.

suffered when he first heard about the fundamental postulate of the theory
Bohr's quantum theory”. And, in 1950, in a letter to A. Pais, Pauli wrote: “It is my opinion
personal that for the science of the future reality will be neither psychic nor physical: in some way
way, it will be both and neither of them.”

9. The three-body problem in classical physics is as follows: when three bodies interact
gravitationally, their behavior is not linear, and therefore there exist regimes of
initial conditions (the position and the linear and angular momentum of each body) for
where behavior can be stable, unstable or chaotic. Behavior is chaotic because
most of the initial conditions.

2. The nature of quantum reality

1. In this experiment, particles are sent one at a time through a barrier with
two slits and are detected on a screen placed on the other side of the barrier. If the
particle was classical, it would always pass through one of the two slits and would be
detected in a small portion of the screen corresponding to each of the slits. A
quantum particle, on the other hand, behaves like a probability wave that passes through both
the slits at the same time and splits into two waves. The two branches combine
producing an interference pattern, a bit like when we throw two stones into one
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pond. The square of the amplitude of the resulting wave represents the probability of detecting the
particle at various points on the screen. Surprisingly, even an atom or a
macromolecule can interfere with themselves! This experiment clearly tells us that the
particle cannot exist as a small ball, although when detected it will manifest itself
always as such. In other words, when not being looked at, the particle can be
represented as a cloud of probabilities, but that does not mean that it is a cloud.
When it is finally observed, the particle still behaves like a ball, but that
It doesn't mean it's a ball.
2. Since the measurement result is probabilistic, if the correlated states existed before the
measure, repeating it on many entangled systems prepared in the same way, the percentage of the
correlations could not exceed a certain maximum value determined by Bell's theorem.
correlations of classical systems are below the limit set by Bell's theorem, while the

correlations of quantum systems exceed this limit. The only way to explain this
phenomenon is that the state of the two systems cannot exist before the measurement but must be
created, together with their correlation, during the measurement process. Despite the presence
of an instantaneous correlation, the probabilistic nature of the measurement does not allow
communicate at the speed of light because the person sending the message would have to
know what the state of the system is before measuring it, but this is impossible. How can they
whether there are correlations that violate Bell's theorem is still a mystery. See also the entry

Quantum Entanglement in the Glossary.

3. In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published a paper arguing
that quantum physics was incomplete because it violated the principle of locality. The argument was
based on a thought experiment (later called the EPR Paradox, from the authors' initials)
which produced a contradiction. It took almost fifty years to be able to make the first
experiment that could confirm or falsify Einstein's statement. That experiment and
all subsequent ones have shown that quantum physics is correct and that the objections of
Einstein are not valid. The implications of non-locality are staggering and have not been
still fully understood.

3. The nature of machines

1. The Z3 computer ran at a frequency of 5 Hz (cycles per second), very slow in comparison
to the first electronic computer completed in 1945 – the ENIAC – which operated at a frequency of
5000 Hz. A factor of a thousand of speed makes a big difference! Today's most advanced microprocessors
advanced ones operate at a frequency of 5,000,000,000 Hz.
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2. David Hilbert's “decision problem” was the following: given a statement within
an axiomatic system, is there an algorithm capable of establishing whether it is true or false?
Turing showed that there are sentences for which such an algorithm does not exist, because
the algorithm would go on forever without ever being able to make a decision. The result of
Turing's incompleteness theorem is similar to Gödel's incompleteness theorem and places a limit on what is computable.

with an algorithm. Note that, at the height of logical positivism, Hilbert believed that no
there were unprovable statements.

3. A 16-bit CPU , for example, takes data from external memory 16 bits at a time. A word
16
of 16 bits can represent 2 = 65,536 different states. The world's first microprocessor, the Intel
4004, was a 4-bit CPU made in a single chip that operated directly on 4 bits at a time
time. To operate on 16 bits the CPU had to draw on memory four times.
4. An interrupt allows an external real-time event to suspend execution of the
main program, to command the computer to run another program and then
return to the main program after the hack is complete.
5. The randomness of classical physics has a fundamentally different nature from the randomness

quantum. The first corresponds to the lack of knowledge of what is already determined
from the equations of classical physics, for example the exact position of an artificial satellite in
a certain day and time. In fact, this position can be calculated with extreme precision
precision from a fast computer that can do the math in a few minutes. The second one is
represented for example by the measurement of the spin of an electron, which cannot be
known before the measurement because there is no law that can determine it. In
In other words, the randomness of quantum physics does not correspond to the ignorance of a reality
which is however predictable, but to a reality that has not yet been determined and therefore is
fundamentally unknowable and creative. No algorithm can predict whether I will measure “on” or
“down” when I will measure the spin. A computer that accesses this information
“from outside” therefore ceases to be completely deterministic.
6. The notion of separable part is in principle necessary because it could be
impossible to physically remove a part without destroying the rest of the system or the part
same. For example, in a microchip the individual transistors and their interconnections are integrated
so that it is impossible to remove any of them without destroying them and thus
compromise the system. A microchip is constructed entirely of non-removable parts,
because transistors need to be as small as possible to increase their speed and reduce their
power dissipation and cost. However, whenever we can imagine removing
a part without affecting the functionality of the other parts, then that part is separable.
7. A transistor is a three-terminal device (source, drain, and gate) in which a voltage
applied to the gate allows you to control the current that passes between source and drain. When the
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gate voltage is higher than the threshold voltage, the transistor is on. When it is lower
at the threshold voltage, the transistor is off. A computer can be built entirely
by connecting together transistors with positive and negative threshold voltages. This technology is
called CMOS, or “ complementary MOS”, and it has the important property that every logic circuit
dissipates power only when the circuit changes state (i.e. makes a transition from “1” to “0” or
vice versa), but not when it is in steady state.
8. To be completely random, a parameter should be an actual act of creation
accomplished at the moment of its creation. It cannot be due to lack of knowledge
of a reality that already exists or that will be calculated with an already established algorithm. Only the
quantum systems have this kind of randomness. A true random number cannot be known
to anyone in the universe before its creation. A similar definition can be applied
even to free will. See also note 5 of this chapter.
9. The qubit can be represented by the direction of the magnetic spin of a particle or by
other quantum phenomena with similar characteristics. Spin can be oriented anywhere in
a complex two-dimensional Hilbert space (see Glossary). Therefore, the qubit can have
an infinity of possible directions or states that can be represented by all points on the surface of a
sphere of radius one. To measure the spin, the particle must pass through a magnetic field
non-uniform with arbitrary direction with respect to the spin orientation, which is not
generally known. When measuring, the spin will always be found either aligned with the
direction of the instrument's magnetic field or in the opposite direction. The qubit is then
reduced to a bit of classical information. An infinity of possible states “collapses” into one of the two
states when spin is measured.
10. I owe this clear distinction to Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano, professor of theoretical physics
at the University of Pavia.

11. Artificial neural networks are programs that mimic some of the important functions performed
from the biological neural networks in our brain. Artificial neural networks learn
automatically the correlations present in the data of the examples used to train them. The networks
they thus learn to recognize complex patterns (patterns of patterns of patterns). When a
network correctly recognizes patterns never seen before, that is, patterns that were not part of
examples used for training, the network is said to be able to generalize. Neural networks are
responsible for recent major advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.
12. In my opinion the problem of self-driving will eventually be solved in a
satisfactory, but long after the optimistic forecasts we read. The advantages
economic and social implications of self-driving are too great to abandon its development,
despite the difficulties. Furthermore, since road accidents are almost always caused by
drunk, inattentive, or reckless drivers, if combined with their poor driving skills
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the reliability of a robot that doesn't drink, follows the rules and never gets tired, should be
still be able to reduce road mortality.
10
13. The simplest bacterium contains 10 atoms that function dynamically in a

exquisite. How did the atoms and molecules that formed the first cell
assembled by natural processes? No one has ever been able to imagine how this is
occurred, despite our considerable scientific knowledge.

4. The nature of information

1. The relative frequency of a letter in an English text sequence of length N that is
statistically significant, is the number of letters of the same type, m, that are found in the
string, divided by N. m/N is a number between 0 and 1 and represents the probability of
find that letter by choosing a random letter in a string of letters. The frequency
relative can also be expressed as a percentage. To obtain the probability from a
percentage, simply divide the percentage by 100.
2 ÿ1
2. The decimal number 725.625 can be written like this: 7 10 1 + 2 · 10 0 + 5 · 10 + 6 · 10 +2·
ÿ2 ÿ3
10 + 5 · 10 , or 700 + 20 + 5 + 0.6 + 0.02 + 0.005 = 725,625. More generally, any

number N can be written with a base B number system, in which there are B different states,
3 2 1 0 ÿ1 ÿ2 ÿ3
as follows: + s 3B + s 2B + s1B + s 0B + s ÿ1B + s ÿ2B + s ÿ3B + , where sk is one

any of the states of B in position k. Positive k-indexes refer to the integer part
of the number, while the negative ones refer to the fractional part. The same number,
725,625, can be written in a binary number system with B = 2, as follows: 1011010101,101
9 4
corresponding to the following expansion: 1 · 2 8+0·2 7+1·2 6+1·2 5+0·2 +1·2
ÿ1 ÿ2 ÿ3
3+0·2 2+1·2 1+0·2 0+1·2 +1·2 +0·2 +1·2 , that is, 512 + 128 + 64 +
16 + 4 + 1 + 0.5 + 0.125 = 725.625.

3. The sensations and feelings we experience in our consciousness are called qualia (the
singular is quale). Qualia refers to what we feel in our internal experience. We
we know through qualia and symbols, for us, are only the carriers of qualia. For a
computer, the symbol only carries its recognition as a sign and that's it, because the qualia
produced by symbols and the subjective meaning carried by qualia are properties of the
consciousness.

5. The expanded concept of information

1. One example is the recent discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, a tiny fragment of non-
coding that is revolutionizing genetic engineering, because it has allowed us for the first time
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time to modify the DNA of eukaryotic cells. I also point out that viruses are not

nothing but versions of fundamental mechanisms without which life could not exist.
2. There is evidence, although still disputed, that water inside cells forms “domains”
of coherence” of about 100 nm. In each of these regions an oscillation can be created
electromagnetic coherent in resonance with the vibrations of other molecules present in the same
region. Molecules that resonate with the frequency present in the coherence domain
attract and can react chemically. According to physicist Emilio Del Giudice, these domains
create the fundamental mechanism for regulating the specificity of chemical reactions that
occur inside cells, a major unsolved problem in biology [4].
3. The computer behavior that is usually attributed to the “computer as a whole” is
an incorrect attribution. In fact the computer is not an independent whole, but only the sum
of its parts. So there is nothing that can change the behavior of the parts that do not
be another part.
4. A photon with an energy of 1.02 MeV (known as a gamma ray) can decay into a pair
electron-positron collision by converting its entire energy into the rest masses of an electron and a
a positron (the latter is an electron with a positive rather than negative charge). Since the
The rest masses of the electron and positron are 0.51 MeV each, the energy of the photon in
excess to 1.02 MeV is converted into the kinetic energy of the electron and positron. This
process is reversible, meaning that if an electron and a positron meet
produce a photon with energy equal to the sum of their rest masses plus their
kinetic energies.
5. It has been demonstrated that the statistical properties of the elementary sounds (phonemes) that make up the
words have similar regularities in all human languages. The same is true for the letters of the various
phonetic alphabets (a different set of symbols) that are used to translate phonemes into
written words. It is significant that, in any sufficiently long text, each letter appears
with the same relative frequency (probability) regardless of the meaning expressed by the
text. This invariance of the probability distribution of symbols from the meaning is found in
all human languages.
6. According to anthropologist Gregory Bateson: “We must assume that a language is first of all
a system of gestures. After all, animals only have gestures and tones of voice and words
were invented later. Much later” (The Excitement of the French).
7. Prosody describes the intonation, rhythm, and stress of spoken language. It is
“wave” phenomena that change the waves of the “normal” phonemes used in the words of a
sentence. Prosody is not present in the symbols of written language. Only the understanding of
a good actor reading a sentence can partially make up for the lack of information
prosodic in the text.
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8. Panpsychism is the idea that mind or consciousness is fundamental and pervades the entire
universe. This idea is found in various forms in the Vedas, in the philosophy of Thales, Plato,

Leibniz and many others. The main problem of panpsychism is the problem of

combination, that is, how does the consciousness of particles combine into the consciousness of

atoms, molecules and so on. This problem could not be solved if consciousness

was a phenomenon of classical physics, but it can be solved if consciousness is considered a

quantum phenomenon, as we will see later.

9. The qubit is the generalization of the Boolean bit used in classical computers. The qubit

represents all possible quantum states obtained by the superposition of two complementary quantum states: |

upÿ and |downÿ, which are represented by two unit vectors in

an abstract two-dimensional space of complex numbers (Hilbert space).

10. I emphasize again that the measurable matter of our physical world can only give us

Boolean information describable with bits. The classical bit cannot represent information

quantum physics that require entangled and superpositioned qubits. Entangled qubits are

currently represented by vectors in a complex multidimensional Hilbert space. In

in other words, the quantum world has a much larger number of states than the number of states

present in the classical world. This already exists at the level of a single qubit which represents

an infinity of states, but which in our space-time always reduces to a single classical bit.

6. The nature of life

1. Today it is also believed that there is a common ancestor to all domains of life (Archaea,

Bacteria and Eukarya), an ancestor that existed 3.5 billion years ago and which has been called
LUCA, acronym for Last Universal Common Ancestor.

2. Epigenetics is the study of dynamic alterations in the transcriptional potential of a cell

caused by environmental factors, both external and internal to the organism.

3. Let's try to imagine what would have happened if a hundred years ago a team of the best

scientists had been given one of the most sophisticated system-on-a-chips built today, with the task

to understand how it works. Without electron microscopes, oscilloscopes and other instruments

essential, and without knowing anything about microelectronics, computers and software, their work would be

It was absolutely hopeless.

4. It is important to recognize the irreducible existence of an individual consciousness in every organism

living. For example, it is impossible to explain the coherent and intelligent behavior of a

paramecium in a largely unpredictable environment, without there being a central function that

coordinate the actions of the organism as a unit. Just as we have consciousness and free

arbitrariness, so every cell in our body must share the same properties. I remember
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also that the DNA of the fertilized egg from which our life originated is present in

each of our cells. This means that the essence of the whole is present in each of the

parts. It is nonsense to claim that consciousness and free will emerge from particles

elementary and from atoms that do not have the same properties. It would be like trying to explain that

electromagnetism emerges from elementary particles without electric charge and spin

magnetic.

5. As I have previously stated, reductionism is a theory that simplifies reality

neglecting the weak connections each part has with the whole. Often, this is done

to predict the local functioning of a limited number of parts that have strong interactions
among themselves. The success achieved using mechanical systems under controlled conditions does not

but it justifies the claim that the universe is reductionist, especially if we consider

the enormous dynamic range of natural forces that influence matter. For example, the force
39
electromagnetic force that binds electrons to the nuclei of atoms is 2.2×10 times stronger than the

gravitational force between the same atoms. That's 39 orders of magnitude! Nevertheless, this force

extremely weak gravitational pull is what allowed the formation of the stars that have

synthesized within them all the nuclei of the chemical elements (except hydrogen, a small

part of the helium and traces of lithium). We exist on this planet thanks to the actions of the force

weakest that exists! It is worth noting that this force is generally neglected in

most experiments in electromagnetism and quantum physics.

6. The smallest bacteria are part of the genus Mycoplasma. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is among the

smaller species. It has an elongated shape of 1000-2000 nm and a width of 100-200 nm.

7. This is really amazing, it's as if in a computer every transistor contained the blueprint

of the entire computer, hardware and software included!

8. This serves to maintain the balance of the ecosystem. When this balance is unbalanced

too quickly, the ecosystem cannot rebalance in time and environmental conditions

can change drastically, to the point that "mors tua, mors mea". And it is

which is unfortunately happening in this period of climate upheaval.

9. Stability is achieved through dynamic equilibrium around some pre-established values (set

points), just like a thermostat that automatically adjusts the temperature in

a house. Of course, inside a cell there are homeostatic cycles inside other cycles

homeostatic on many levels, creating a system of bewildering complexity, even if the

The basic operating principle of each cycle is always the same. It is about measuring the

value of the variable to be controlled, compare it with a preset value, and then drive the

process until the difference between the two becomes negligible.

10. According to a 2018 study, the first known mass extinction, 445 million years ago,

It could have been caused by very voracious algae that consumed CO2 too quickly
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to be managed by the existing homeostatic cycle. The effect of their greed was a
complete glaciation of the Earth. It seems that we are not the first species to cause a
change on a planetary scale.
11. I believe that it is impossible to explain life without the concepts of consciousness and free will,
because the two are inextricably linked to the quantum-classical aspects of physical reality in
ways that we have yet to investigate and understand. A living organism can act as
a unit endowed with free will, intention, purpose and meaning, properties that cannot
derive from a bag of unconscious atoms and molecules that interact probabilistically with each other
of them. Consciousness is what gives perception and understanding to the organism, while free
free will is what allows it to act as a unified entity with its own intention and
based on the understanding of consciousness.
12. The functioning of DNA is inextricably linked with the quantum properties of
elementary particles, atoms and molecules in a complex dynamic system in which they are present
both dynamical order and quantum randomness. As discussed in the previous chapter, only
1.5% of the human genome codes for proteins. Since we have fewer genes than some plants,
flower, it is difficult to argue that the secrets of human intelligence are contained in DNA
coding. Most likely they are contained in the rest of the DNA, the so-called “DNA
“garbage” which we discussed earlier.
13. The presence or absence of a single proton (hydrogen ion) at a particular point
inside a cell it could be irrelevant or important, depending on where it ends up, and
the effect may appear immediately or years later. Sickle cell anemia, which can cause
death, is due to the difference of just one nucleobase (a simple molecule) in the gene
of hemoglobin.
14. We can be almost certain that life has found a way to use the
quantum properties of nature to perform sophisticated information processing in ways
that we have yet to imagine. All the machines we build, including computers, are
made by assembling separate parts. A living cell, on the other hand, cannot be assembled
starting from its atomic and molecular components. A cell is a dynamic system of a
order of complexity much greater than the machines we know, because it uses
quantum components that have no definable boundaries.
15. Self-organization is a spontaneous process in which an initially disordered system creates
order starting from local interactions, as long as there is sufficient energy available. Examples of
self-organization are snowflakes (crystallization of water), certain oscillations
chemicals and heat convection cells in a fluid.

16. This type of behavior occurs, for example, in a protein or in a living cell
and must be described as quantum information interacting with classical information, and
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vice versa. These types of interactions are difficult to simulate and for the moment little
known, since living organisms have been studied so far as if they were only
classical systems.

7. The nature of consciousness

1. The nature of feelings is completely different from that of physical phenomena. A phenomenon
physical is what happens in space-time and is accessible from the outside through our senses
and tools. This gives rise to a so-called “third-person experience” common to all
observers. A feeling, on the other hand, is a completely private first-person experience,
accessible only from the “inside”, from the owner of consciousness. And the “inside” I am talking about is what
which I call interiority and is not a physical dimension. Qualia refers to “what is
“try” when a feeling emerges into consciousness.
2. “Throw away / every work in verse or prose. / No one has ever managed to say / what it is,
in its essence, a rose.” Giorgio Caproni, In Praise of the Rose.
3. As David Chalmers says: “A zombie is simply something identical to me, but
has no conscious experiences – everything is silent within it.”
4. In order to be able to grasp the evanescent image which is what characterizes thought, it is
It is often necessary to calm the mind with some form of meditation.
5. Interestingly, virtual reality created by a computer exists only as signals
electrical in physical space-time inside a computer. We are the ones who give meaning to the
our consciousness to what exists in the computer only as symbols. The same happens when
we translate the printed words of a book into experience.
6. The ego is that part of the human consciousness that learns to manipulate its own body and
objects of the world mediate the distinction between what can be controlled volitionally from what
does not respond to his will. When the ego identifies itself with the body, distinct from the world that
it's not his body, the process is completed.
7. Just as they can perform mathematical operations billions of times faster than
we, computers are able to discover correlations within vast fields of data in
very little time and with much more precision than us. This is a huge contribution that
AI can give to society, but conceptually it does not represent anything new. Guided by
honesty and ethics, AI will allow us to greatly increase our understanding of the
world and to control phenomena beyond the reach of the mechanical capabilities of the brain. But
must be used wisely for the “common good” and not for purposes of domination, because in
in this case it could become the "common evil". This should not be underestimated. I remember that
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “The leader in artificial intelligence
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will dominate the world”. But, as Buddha says: “Better than dominion over all the worlds is
take the first step on the path to awakening.”
8. Later we will see that the semantic space can be described by a Hilbert space
multidimensional, of which space-time is a projection. It is important to underline that a
physical pattern is part of a field of signals or symbols that exists in space-time. Therefore
space-time with the matter-energy it contains is a symbolic space.
9. Machine learning is about finding a stable set of correlations that are
present in the “training set” data. When this task has been completed,
the machine will be able to unconsciously and mechanically “recognize” the same pattern
of correlations present even in a set of data never seen before (at this point it is said
that the network can generalize). Automatic recognition does not imply the perception of qualia
and their understanding, which can only take place in the semantic space of consciousness.
10. For example, when we scratch ourselves without realizing it because we feel itchy, the pattern is
mechanically recognized and immediately followed by an automatic action learned in
precedence. In this case, the conscious perception of what we have done can occur after
the action. However, the subjective meaning of the pattern and the decision to act
mechanically they could already exist in the “subconscious” before the action. If the situation
had instead required conscious intervention, the perception of the pattern would have emerged earlier
of automatic decision. The subconscious, in this context, is a state of consciousness in which
we are barely aware of what is happening in certain portions of our semantic space,
that we don't pay attention to because we are focused on something else. The important point
is that consciousness can act as a watchful supervisor, keeping an eye on everything
which happens and intervenes only when it understands that the automatic processes could be
inadequate to the situation.
11. This translation from meaning to symbols, however, is neither automatic nor immediate, and
generally requires the intervention of another human faculty: conscious reasoning, which is
a logical-symbolic process rooted in understanding. And, when a new
understanding, we can then automatically recognize a similar meaning as well
without the explicit intervention of consciousness. Once the “meaning of the invention” has been
well expressed in symbols, it can be understood intuitively even by people who do not
would have been able to make the same invention by themselves. Therefore, the new symbols
function as “mental enzymes” that lower the barrier to understanding that exists in
others.

8. A new vision
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1. This nested structure requires that life emerge from inanimate matter, that consciousness
emerges from living organisms, and that free will emerges from consciousness. In other words,
the field of living organisms would emerge as a subset of the Field that initially
manifests only its inanimate aspects. The field of conscious organisms would emerge from the
field of living organisms and the field of organisms with free will would emerge from
field of conscious organisms. And the same structure applies to laws as well.
2. As the British philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead states: “It is impossible
reflect on the time and mystery of the creation of the world without an overwhelming grip of
awareness of the limits of human intelligence”.
On this topic, I report below the interesting considerations of some scholars:
Physicist Fabiola Gianotti: “We would be too ambitious and too arrogant if we could
think of explaining the origin of the world. What we scientists can do is go
forward step by step, and accumulate knowledge”.
Mathematician Alfio Quarteroni: “We have almost reached the point of reconstructing a theory
consistent and credible of the entire evolution of the universe, but for the Big Bang there is still a lack of
infinitesimal piece, an unknown time, the real mystery. You explain the universe and then you remain
astonished: how did the Big Bang happen? Who conceived the initial design so perfect that
in millions of years the order has not been spoiled? Science is rigorous but the mystery persists. And
I, the mathematician, remain attentive, curious, intrigued, debated. And moved”.
“I think science is starting to stumble when it comes to what we call the
first cause. The scientist who is sincere and who wants to get to the bottom of his rationality
he knows that there is a moment when he cannot go further. This is the moment of intertwining between
science, philosophy and therefore theology” (Carlos Chagas Filho, doctor, biologist and scientist).
3. Albert Einstein asked himself: “How is it possible that mathematics, being fundamentally a
product of human thought independent of experience, you explain so admirably the
real things?”. And Eugene Wigner observed that: “The enormous utility of mathematics in the sciences
natural is something bordering on the mysterious for which there is no rational explanation”.
4. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system cannot
decrease. It remains the same if the transformation is reversible and increases if the transformation is

irreversible. An increase in entropy is generally interpreted as an increase in

disorder of the system. So we can conclude that an isolated system out of equilibrium
thermal evolves by increasing its disorder until reaching thermal equilibrium, after which
that the entropy of the system does not change.

5. Neo-Darwinism requires that there are organisms that reproduce and that their ability to
survival and reproduction depends on traits, called genes, that vary randomly.
Through such a “blind” process, the fittest members survive and can pass on to the
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progeny their most advantageous genes. This leads to both the natural evolution of members of a
any species, or the appearance of new species.
6. As Isaac Bashevis Singer observes: “Materialistic thinkers have attributed to the blind
mechanism of evolution more miracles, unlikely coincidences and wonders than there are
all the theologians in the world could ever attribute to God”.
7. If I often repeat myself, it is because I realize that these new ideas are difficult to
assimilate and require a radical change in the way of thinking. And, as the former said
First Minister of Scotland, Donald Dewar, “Trying to change people's habits and the
their way of thinking is like writing in the snow during a blizzard. Every twenty minutes
you have to start all over again. Only with constant repetition will you be able to create the
change".

8. In a March 16, 2011 interview in “New Scientist” entitled The Mathematics of

Being Nice, Martin Nowak observes that: “When you look at mathematical models
of the evolution of cooperation, we find that the winning strategies must be generosity,
hope and forgiveness. Now, for the first time, we can see these ideas in terms
mathematicians. Who would have ever thought that it could be mathematically demonstrated that, in a
world where everyone thinks of themselves, the winning strategy is to be lenient and that
"He who cannot forgive will never win?" And Emilio Del Giudice in the conference
“Quantum Physics - The Concept of Resonance” (June 11, 2012) states that: “Physics
modern quantum physics provides an objective model for understanding what humanity has
had been clear since the beginning and that modern 'civilization', founded on competition, on
the will of each one to dominate all the others, on the incessant effort to see
recognized his own 'merit', he tries to suppress. Life is based on coherence, on
resonance of the different, on the desire of each to resonate with the greatest possible number of
others".

9. A pure state is a state that cannot arise from a mixture of other states (mixed state). It is
a defined state corresponding to a unit vector in a complex Hilbert space.
A pure state can also be obtained by quantum superposition (with coefficients
which are complex numbers) and from the entanglement of other pure states. A mixed state is instead
a state that can be written as a mixture of two or more states, where each state is
multiplied by the probability of its preparation.
10. Quantum entanglement has brought to light the existence of a phenomenon at the limit of logic
human, without however producing contradictions. It took ninety years of theoretical and
experimental to understand it and it still remains suspended between understanding and incomprehension, a bit
as an undecidable hypothesis in mathematics.
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11. The determinism of a computer is valid as a first approximation, that is, as long as its
circuits can recognize the two states of a bit. If the temperature is too high, for
for example, the computer would stop working. Physical reality is both classical and quantum, and
therefore purely classical phenomena and quantum phenomena coexist, such as the properties
chemistry of matter.

12. It is no coincidence that quantum states are represented by mathematical waves in a non-
physicist. Mathematical waves have properties homomorphic to the characteristics of experience
interior that is based on qualia.
13. The state of a quantum system is not copyable (non-cloning theorem) and is not
knowable except by the one who prepared it. To affirm that the state is experienced by the system
which supports it also gives us a reason to explain the existence of the quantum state. It is
It is possible, however, to obtain a certain amount of classical information through a measurement.
The maximum information obtainable is one classical bit for each qubit of the quantum state.
(Holevo's theorem).
14. There is a painting by Magritte that represents a very realistic image of a pipe under the
which the author wrote: “This is not a pipe”. So, if it is not a pipe, what is it? The
Magritte himself gave the answer: “It's just a representation. If I had written under my
painting: 'This is a pipe' I would have lied”. Once explained, the thing seems obvious.
15. It is possible that space-time does not exist as we imagine it, but instead corresponds to how
our consciousness perceives the larger reality in which it exists, a reality that is described
mathematically from states in Hilbert space. In this interpretation, spacetime
would be a projection into a subspace of the Hilbert space of the conscious experience of the
living symbols produced by the living organism.
16. “Finding a name for something is a way of evoking its existence, or of allowing the
people to see a pattern where they previously saw nothing” (Howard Rheingold).
17. According to special relativity, two observers, Alice and Bob, moving with speed
relatively uniform and comparable to that of light, have contradictory experiences because
In their frame of reference everything works as before, but Bob discovers that time is flowing
more slowly in Alice's world than in her own. In turn, Alice discovers that time passes
slower in Bob's world than in his. Who is right? Welcome to the world of
relativity!

18. As an analogy, imagine that the experience of the entity is the color turquoise. The color turquoise is
representable by mixing precise quantities of the colors red, blue and green. An observer
of the entity could only know what probability it has of measuring one of the three states that
correspond to the colors red, blue and green. To find out what the percentages of the three colors are
you would have to do a lot of measurements on the same entity, but when you do a measurement it
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it is disturbed in an unpredictable way and then a moment later the entity will find itself in a new
state. This behavior is essential to ensure the privacy of the experience.
Quantum physics thus describes the properties of the interiority of the world. It is strange only
because we thought it described the outside world. I think when we realize
of this fundamental fact it will cease to be incomprehensible!
19. According to this conceptual framework, laws emerge spontaneously, as when from
As children, we invented a game and then had to abide by the rules we had established.
The need to obey the rules does not contradict the presence of free will, since
each child subjects his freedom of choice to the rules established by common agreement and
in the common interest.

20. If we take seriously what quantum information physics tells us, the universe is
a continuous creative and unpredictable becoming, contrary to what classical physics
he claims. In other words, the laws of physics are not as ironclad as they have been presented to us, and the
the future is not predictable in the long term even for classical systems, thanks to the existence of
chaotic systems in which a small change in the initial conditions can lead to a future
unpredictable, as already described in chapter 1.
21. Non-local correlations between two distant systems are instantaneous correlations that no

signal traveling at the speed of light could cause. Such correlations are not causal
and their existence demonstrates that before measurement we cannot assign values
objectives pre-existing to the measurement of the entangled variables. It is as if the two systems were
connected “from within”. And this happens regardless of their distance. There is no
“realistic” explanation for this phenomenon.
22. A classical machine has no interiority, because consciousness and free will are
quantum properties. In a machine there is therefore no entity independent from its parts
physical that has authority over the parts. A living organism, on the other hand, can be controlled with
living information from a quantum seity.

9. A new model of reality

1. If there were no reality larger than that which is manifested in space-time, there would be no
it would be possible to explain how the quantum computer could work. Such a computer
It operates at a temperature approaching absolute 0 (ÿ273.15 °C), which is a condition
necessary to maintain the entangled state of the qubits. Parallel computing is possible with the
unitary transformations of qubits, however, go beyond the possibilities of the matter that has manifested itself
in space-time. This shows that there must be a larger physical reality, namely one that
is currently represented mathematically by the Hilbert space. In this conception,
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space-time would correspond to the projection of a multidimensional reality into a

3+1 dimensional space-time. This projection could be due to the limitations of the
human brain in information processing.

2. To exist is to be known and vice versa. Such self-knowledge can never be erased,
otherwise the One would fail in its purpose. Therefore, the memory of meaning must in
somehow exist forever, since self-knowledge is the ultimate ontology.
3. The idea that knowing oneself is one of the deepest needs of the human spirit has
a very ancient origin. Already in the frontispiece of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, 2500 years ago, they were
engraved the words “O Man, know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and the gods.” Since we
we are an emanation of One, I believe that the deep impulse that pushes man to know himself
it is the same longing that the One has to know itself. It is a longing to know

which will never run out, because, as Nietzsche said: “The more one already knows, the more
you still have to learn. With knowledge grows to the same degree the lack of knowledge, or rather the
knowing about not knowing”.

4. An etymological interpretation derives the word “love” from the Latin a-mors, not death.
That is, love is immortal. As the American engineer Rossiter W. Raymond states: “Life
is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing,

except the limit of our gaze”. And for Emily Dickinson: “ love is immortality / or
better, it is divine substance. / He who loves knows no death, / because love makes life reborn /
in divinity”.

5. “All creation exists for the 'pure joy' of God. The work of creation was a work of joy,
whose purpose was to infuse more joy into existence” (Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work).
6. We know that holism is part of both the fields of quantum physics and space-time.
described by the general theory of relativity. Therefore, the unification of physics will have to
necessarily describe a holistic Field. The dynamism of the Field is instead the
direct consequence of the expansion of the universe that we observe. This requires that the moment
the initial linear momentum of the universe is capable of counteracting the gravitational force, which otherwise
would have reduced the universe to a black hole.

7. As we saw in chapter 1, the principle of least action leads to minimization

of the action along the trajectory of an object moving from an initial position A to a
final position B. But how does the object in position A know that it will end up
in position B so as to minimize the action during its motion? Furthermore, even the idea of
a first cause, as well as the idea of a perfectly objective reality, are
basically “religious” concepts.
8. Each of us is born from a fertilized egg, a single cell containing the entire
genome of the future organism. Through successive reproductions and specializations of the cell
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Initially, within nine months, the entire organism self-assembled and was born. The organism

continued to grow and develop for another fifteen years until reaching, with the

maturity, about 50 trillion cells. Each cell contains a copy of the egg's genome

fertilized, even if only a small part of it has expressed itself in each particular

cell. So, the “knowledge” of the entire organism is contained in each cell! By analogy,

If we call the complete organism One, all Its parts contain Its knowledge, even if

each part expresses only a portion of it.

9. A fractal is a geometric object that appears similar on different scales, in the sense that

by enlarging a portion of the object, the same shape is found. These objects can be

obtain with simple recursive algorithms. A hologram is a two-dimensional image of a

three-dimensional object that, once illuminated with coherent light, can reproduce in three

dimensions of a virtual object. A remarkable aspect of a hologram is that, by illuminating

only a portion of it, the same virtual object is reproduced with less details. A

hologram is obtained by dividing a beam of monochromatic light into two. The first beam is used

to illuminate the object, and its reflected light is made to interfere with the second beam on a

photographic plate. By illuminating the photographic plate with the same monochromatic light, we obtain

a virtual image of the object in three dimensions!

10. This “similarity”, or homomorphism, between symbols and meaning reminds us of onomatopoeia, which

refers to those words (symbols) whose sound resembles the sound produced by objects that

describe (meaning).
11. In the context of OPT, the collapse of the wave function does not exist. Instead, there are

irreversible atomic transformations that transform quantum information (entangled qubits)

in classical information (bit) [9]. This is the mechanism by which I believe a seity can

communicate with a living organism. Living information is that part of the information

quantum that manifests itself in space-time following the decided atomic transformation

from seity.

12. In the proposed model, the deepest reality of the seity is the inner reality of knowledge,
which contains the external reality of living information, that is, of the fundamental symbols used by

seity to communicate their meaning. Living information exists in the larger reality of

seity and includes that portion that manifests itself in space-time with which the seity communicate

with living organisms. A theory of reality, however, is only a mathematical model of the
measurable external reality. The simulation of a theory of reality is based on bits

representable by statistical aggregates of matter, which are describable by deterministic laws

and has limited accuracy. So, even a classical system (which is generally non-

linear and therefore chaotic) will have a different behavior, for long periods, from its

simulation, due to the uncontrollable impact of the initial conditions. The inner reality of the
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knowledge, which is the deepest reality, is therefore “three degrees of separation” from its
simulation.

13. There are three aspects of quantum physics that prevent us from knowing all the information: the

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle; the fact that one cannot duplicate the state

quantum state of a system; entanglement, which is not generally known. So the state of the

system we measure can change without our knowledge because it is entangled with another

system that may have interacted with a third system.

14. In the English language, however, there is only the verb to know, and it is difficult to discriminate between knowledge

computer science (knowledge) from experiential knowledge (knowing), because the root of the two

words are the same.

15. As engineer, philosopher and mathematician Alfred Korzybski states: “The map is not the

territory” and “the word is not the thing Maps and words, small geographical maps of the

our psyche, they serve to move in reality, but if they are too vast they become cumbersome

and dangerous”. In fact, a representation of reality, however detailed, cannot

never be reality.

16. The drive to grow belongs to life. “Life is growth. If we stop growing,

technically and spiritually, we are theoretically dead” (Morihei Ueshiba, founder

of Aikido).

17. And this could only happen if the postulate of unity were not valid.

consequently, the collapse of the state would not have been caused by the measurement system, but

from the free will of the seity. The observer would simply record the state

chosen by the seity. Measuring a quantum system is like setting a series of traps for
an “animal”, where the “measurement” occurs at the instant the animal triggers one of the

traps. The “trap” is the form in which a question is asked to the seity, and this

will respond with his free choice. The instant of measurement, that is when the

trap and what state will manifest, can only be known after the information is

was chosen by the seity “from within”.

18. Unitary transformations are reversible, maintain the purity of the quantum state and, for

to produce measurable phenomena in space-time, require the collapse of the wave function.

The transformations performed by quantum computers, for example, are rigorously unitary.

However, there are irreversible transformations that maintain the purity of the quantum state.
and create classical information. These are called atomic transformations, described in

precedence.

19. Leibniz proposed that the universe is created by the interactions of monads in a famous book

entitled Lehrsätse über die Monadologie published in 1720. Leibniz understood that consciousness

had to be at the basis of reality and did not approve, on purely philosophical grounds, that the
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reality was controlled by mechanical and coercive laws, as Newton, his

contemporary.

20. In the Lambda-CDM model, the universe contains three components: a cosmological constant

associated with dark matter (lambda); dark matter called CDM (Cold Dark Matter); the

ordinary matter. This is the simplest model that accounts for the following phenomena:

the cosmic microwave background; the distribution of galaxies; the relative abundances of

hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and lithium; the accelerated expansion of the universe.

21. In physics the laws that describe the manifestations and interactions of the states of the fields are

independent from the Field, and represent the solution to the problem of order that is imposed

“from outside”. This is the second “miracle” that has never been explained. In the new model, the

laws emerge from One through the spontaneous communications of the UCs and represent the

syntactic rules of the symbols that they have spontaneously negotiated to communicate with each other
They.

10. The nature of the seity

1. One would like to enclose even God in a definition. But, as Don Angelo Casati said,

May 3, 2017 during a speech held at the Cultural Center of Milan entitled “Che

what is God”: “We need an open way of thinking about God and his mystery. Absoluteness makes us closed

in thought, in preaching, it makes us arrogant. Definitions kill God. De-fine

is 'to bring an end' to God, it is to decree his death. This awareness makes us use a

small word that we never, or almost never, find in documents, in declarations

ecclesiastical, the little word 'perhaps'. Not the either/or, but the both/and: it is this, but also something else.

More than our thoughts. Say the name 'God' softly. The scream closes, the softly opens. It is not
it's about indoctrinating but also fascinating."

2. There are many thinkers who want us to believe that we are just machines and that it will be

possible to create machines that are more intelligent than us. In order to become aware of our

greatness, however, we must reconnect with our deepest feelings, which are the source

of our personal power. And then we will understand that if we can create digital machines that

perform certain mechanical tasks much faster than we do, and without making mistakes, it is

just because we are infinitely “more” than them.

3. We encountered undecidability in axiomatic systems in Chapter 1, when we

Gödel's theorem was briefly discussed.

4. Wanting to precisely define all the properties of reality as if it were reductionist and

mechanical, that is, made of separable parts, is wrong because it ignores that reality is not made
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of inanimate matter, but instead has two irreducible faces: the semantic face and the
symbolic, which continue to co-evolve endlessly.

5. This is a famous quote by Richard Feynman, expressing the strangeness of

quantum mechanics and included himself in that statement. Quantum mechanics
contradicts our idea of how the world works, because its principles are
counterintuitive and contrary to the behavior of classical macroscopic objects on which the
our phenomenal understanding of reality. A corollary to the above statement is: “If you believe
to understand quantum mechanics, it's because you don't understand it." I suspect that you don't
We understand quantum physics mainly because we don't want to accept what we are told.
he is saying and we want to continue to believe that the real world is the one described by physics
classic.

6. A striking example of an undecidable hypothesis is found in Euclidean geometry, where it is

discovered that the parallel axiom was independent of the other five, that is, it was impossible
falsify it on the basis of the other axioms. This means that one could create non-geometries
Euclidean geometry in which the parallel postulate was false. In Riemann's elliptic geometry parallels converge,
while in Lobachevsky's hyperbolic geometry parallels diverge.
Clearly, certain theorems that are valid in Euclidean geometry do not hold in mathematical geometry either.
elliptic nor in the hyperbolic one, even if all the theorems that do not depend on the postulate of the
parallels are valid in all three geometries.
7. With the expression “apparently mechanical” I also refer to the fact that the determinism of
classical physics does not imply long-term predictability, given the chaotic behavior of
any sufficiently complex classical system.
8. Simple actions like Bob talking to Alice involve a sequence of events
extremely complex. Bob and Alice are seities that emit and receive living symbols through the
their bodies. When Bob is the sender, he chooses the meaning to convey and creates symbols
live to communicate it to the cells of his body. From that moment on his body converts
automatically live symbols into classical symbols, which are the vibrations of the air produced by the
complex system of lungs, larynx, throat, tongue, mouth and controlled muscular system
from the brain. These vibrations are the classical symbols that Bob's body adds to the sphere of
vibrations. Alice acts as a receiver and chooses to listen to the vibrations produced by Bob by sending
living symbols appropriate to the cells of his body, so that his sophisticated hearing system
automatically selects those frequencies that correspond to the vibrations emitted by the body
of Bob. These vibrations are then converted into classical symbols by the auditory system and the networks
Alice's brain and into living symbols in Alice's cells, which her consciousness translates

in the qualia that correspond to the meaning of Bob's words. The roles of Alice and Bob are
then reversed, and Alice becomes the sender while Bob is the receiver in the next phase of the cycle
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of communication. The whole cycle then repeats itself many times, until the end of their
communication, when the two say goodbye.
9. Remember that, in quantum reality, an observation is like a measurement that changes
unpredictably the state of what is measured. Therefore, the free decision of which state
observing changes the external reality based on the internal reality of the observer.

10. No seity can observe the “objective” reality described by the laws of physics, because the
equations used to describe this reality are solvable only when the axes are specified
of reference and the initial conditions. This means that the equations must be solved on the
based on the choices and point of view of each observer, and will therefore describe realities
different. There is no privileged point of view from which one can observe this presumed "reality
objective”. Furthermore, each observation changes the observable reality in an unpredictable way,
based on the semantic reality of each observer.

11. “If the book we are reading does not wake us up like a fist hammering on our skull,
why do we read it? what we need are those books that disturb us
deeply a book must be like an ice axe that breaks the sea of ice that is
within us” (Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak, January 27, 1904).
12. The disordered statistical organizations of many living symbols form the physical support of
classical symbols such as bits and logic gates of computer hardware. A living cell is
instead a quantum and classical structure made of ordered living symbols that can communicate
directly with a seity with living symbols and with the classical world with classical symbols. The
presence of living information in a cell can be amplified and transformed into
classical information, as occurs in elementary particle detectors.
13. Insist that we must define the concepts that belong to the inner reality at the
The same way we define mathematical objects changes the nature of what we should
understand. When we impose our vision of reality on reality we no longer study
reality, but a simplified model of it, which is not reality.

11. The evolution of seity

1. In classical physics the problem of combination does not even exist, because atoms do not
are conscious and even combining they cannot create consciousness. This is also why for the
physicists it becomes a problem to be able to explain why we are conscious if the matter we
we are made it is not.

2. For example, if the system were a coin, its two faces would be its two states. If for
absurd if money were conscious, consciousness would be a property of the entire money, and not
of its states.
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3. It is our “embodied” consciousness that attributes ontology to “classical objects”. They are
instead incoherent combinations of living symbols perceived and represented by an organism
living with living information, which in turn is perceived as the “physical reality” by the seity
incarnate.

4. The communication cycle of each seity then describes the transformations from I-space to
space-C, and vice versa, controlled by his free will. Therefore, I believe that the interactions between
inner and outer reality must play a fundamental role in the evolution of One.
Free will, along with the identity and agency of the seity, expresses the intention and
ability of each seity to guide his or her own experience and pursue self-knowledge.
Simultaneously, each seity also contributes to the self-knowledge of the other seities, in a
deeply cooperative enterprise. The self-knowledge of One is the superposition of all
self-knowledge of the seity that emerged from it.
5. Life as biological life. Life in the broad sense is and remains a mystery.
6. Similarly, man has learned to use matter to create the technologies that enable him
not only to build semi-autonomous aerial drones, but also immersive virtual realities
which will be the basis of the metaverse, an extension of the Internet that includes virtual worlds

accessible with the use of headphones and special glasses. In this way a person will be able to explore
“from within” these new objective symbolic worlds.
7. The creation of the first living cell represents an achievement equivalent to that which
humanity will do when scientific progress allows it to integrate information technology with
biology.
8. We can imagine a UC as a single living cell, a seity as an organism
multicellular and the One as the environment that contains and sustains all entities. In this
analogy, living organisms are part of the environment and yet they are inseparable
from the environment because they are open and dependent on it. Such organisms are models of
interactivity within the environment where their boundaries are wide open. Yet, each
organism is conscious, has a unique identity and can act with a certain amount of free will
will to pursue one's own experience by interacting with the environment that contains many
other organisms. Note, however, that the identity, consciousness and free will of organisms
do not exist in the physical environment in which organisms exist. Every organism is just a
dynamic model of quantum and classical information that exchanges information to create
qualia and meaning within seity. The organism's experience and its crucial decisions,
which have been taken during life, are only representable as information
quantum (C-space).
9. Since quantum physics supervenes on quantum information and classical physics
supervenes on quantum physics, physical reality, what I call F-space, mirrors reality
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informational of the I-space, which in turn derives from the actions that originate in the
C-space. Therefore the real causes of events that occur in F-space cannot be
found neither there nor in I-space. The real causes are the free will decisions of the UCs and
of the seity that occur in C-space. It is important to emphasize that the One does not have a
its own exteriority and cannot be found anywhere in I-space or F-space.
10. This interpretation leads to the hypothesis that physical reality, which we believe to be reality
fundamental, is instead a more limited reality produced by the physical body. The body, however,
It could be a symbolic structure itself that is part of another symbolic structure
most fundamental that exists in I-space. The evidence of the dream world and the worlds
explored by those who “leave the body” through OBE (Out of Body Experience) could be
explained by the idea that the physical body could be part of an “astral” body that exists in a
larger reality, but which is not yet the fundamental reality. The astral reality would therefore be
contained in the I-space. In this case there would be three different types of living symbols: physical, astral
and mental, which respectively produce the physical, emotional and mental qualia experienced by the seity.
physical symbols would be combinations of astral symbols, and the astral symbols would be

combinations of mental symbols, which are the symbols of I-space. The evidence of OBE and
lucid dreams, in which the dreamer's ego knows he is dreaming and partially controls the course of the dream
dream, could be explained with this type of hypothesis.
11. In the CIP framework, C stands for Consciousness Space, I stands for Information Space and P stands for
Physical Space.

12. Knowledge, life and information

1. In note 9 of chapter 1 we saw that the equations of classical physics describe

nonlinear systems that are chaotic, that is, they are deterministic but not predictable, because their
behavior is very sensitive to the initial conditions. This makes it impossible to calculate its
trajectory for long times. Furthermore any disturbance, impossible to predict in a system
open and interconnected as the universe is, it would add other sources of interaction as it goes along
that the system evolves.

2. In current scientific methodology, we have replaced the understanding of reality with

understanding of the mathematical theory of reality, as if the two were equal. Therefore, the
understanding reality today is exhausted by saying: “It is like this because mathematics says so”.
This attitude would be almost correct, if we were sure that the mathematical theory of reality
accurately describes reality, but we know that current theories leave out the
life, consciousness and free will. Mathematics can only describe the symbolic aspect of
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reality, not the semantic one. Mathematics is only descriptive, not prescriptive, as
it is widely believed.

3. To create a model of reality you need a body capable of interacting with that reality and
equipped with a brain controlled by a conscious entity sufficiently evolved to create

valid concepts starting from observations and interactions. Only consciousness and free will

can produce the brain which, properly supervised by them, can then create the

mathematics that explains the symbolic reality they have created. Mathematics can describe

the self-consistency of observed reality for the simple fact that, for a universe to exist, it

must be logically self-consistent. But mathematics cannot bring into existence either
the universe nor itself.

4. This exactly reflects the behavior of our consciousness, whose state of knowledge is
knowable from within but not from without, unless we describe it. However, even if

we describe it, we can only do so in part, as we have already discussed at length.

5. The classical symbolic construction is copyable, and therefore leads to a proliferation of

knowledge which was originally the private knowledge of a single seity. Such knowledge

fuels the collective cognitive process and accelerates the self-knowledge of One. The great

mystic poet Jalÿl al-Dÿn Rÿmÿ: “Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. /

You are a mirror that reflects a noble face. / This universe is not outside of you. /

Look inside yourself, everything you desire is already there.”

6. Remember that ordered (coherent) combinations of living information create other information

alive, while classical information is created with disordered (incoherent) combinations of

living symbols.

7. I recall that the amount of information carried by a state that has probability 1 of occurring is

0, because the logarithm of 1 is 0.

8. I note that Shannon's definition of information, which refers to a system

classical, it would be inconsistent if it did not make secret reference to a conscious observer who

is not part of the observed system and knows nothing about that system except the alphabet of its

symbols and their statistics. This pact requires that all observers be essentially

equal, and therefore describes only a part of reality, that is, an ideal objective world that

It is a subset of the real world, just as a computer is a subset of the

physical world.

9. If it were possible to repeat the same experiment many times, the number of electrons detectable

at each point in space would correspond to the probability of measuring an electron at that point

point multiplied by the total number of electrons sent. Be careful though, because you can't

measure a fraction of an electron, and so there will always be uncertainty about where it will manifest itself

each electron; and, even more importantly, the order in which the electrons will manifest themselves
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in space is absolutely unpredictable. If we imagine repeating the same thing ten times
experiment where we send a million electrons, one electron at a time, we will find that at
end of the experiment the final patterns are similar, but the order of arrival of the electrons with which
Each pattern formed was completely different in each of the ten experiments.
According to QIP theory , the state that will manifest represents a free will decision.
of the conscious field of electrons – which is a seity – and is unpredictable.
10. Measurable classical states are like symbols in information theory that are known

the probability of manifestation.

11. Recall that the mixed state is represented by the sum of all possible quantum states in
which the system could be, where each state is multiplied by its probability.
12. There is an ontological interpretation of reality called Block Universe, subscribed to by
physicists who consider the general theory of relativity as fundamental. In this
interpretation, the universe has always existed as a sequence of three-dimensional “frames”
in a four-dimensional space, where the fourth dimension represents time. Time
so it does not exist, which is why this interpretation is also called eternalism. According to
the interpretation of the Block Universe, our experience of existing in a space
three-dimensional and moving through time with free will is therefore an illusion. That is, we
we don't even exist. So the one who thought of the idea shouldn't exist either
of the Block Universe! The Block Universe eliminates the existence of consciousness from reality and

of human experience, the only part of us that knows it exists and that knows that there is Existence! In
In other words, the fact that we are conscious falsifies the hypothesis that the Block Universe exists.

13. I point out that the seity who communicates with other similar ones does not necessarily have to know that
what is quantum information in Hilbert spaces, just as we don't have to
know the Fourier transforms when we converse. In other words, with the same
naturalness with which we automatically transform the vibrations of the air into a sound and in the

its meaning, a seity directly perceives the I-space as an experience, without having to
knowing that this space is made up of living symbols.
14. I have pointed out several times that, even in our communications, the meaning expressed by the
our languages depends only on the order of the symbols in the particular sequence that has been
used to express it. The probability of using symbols is instead independent of the meaning
expressed. For example, in the NANO symbol sequence , the probabilities of each symbol coming out
letter are perfectly predicted by the symbolic laws. If the sequence had instead been N-
ONA, the same syntactic rules would have been valid, but the meaning of “nano” is not the same
same as “nona”. What matters for the communicator is the meaning, which is expressed in the order
of symbols and not in their probability. Quantum physics in fact predicts the probability
of the symbols' output, but not their order! The fact that the meaning is not manifested in the
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symbolic laws does not mean, however, that reality is devoid of them. I maintain that what
what matters is the meaning, as well as the ability to express and explore it freely. All that matters is
quantum physics can only describe the necessary probabilistic syntactic rules, but not
sufficient, to express and explore the meaning.
15. If we have a sentence of m words in which each word has n meanings, the number of possible
meanings is n m. For example, a 12-word sentence in which each word has 10 meanings has a
12 12
trillion possible meanings (10 ), against a single meaning (1 ) if each word has only
a meaning (n=1). When n > 1, understanding the sentence requires a non-
algorithmic impossible for a computer.
16. I reiterate that the syntactic laws of symbols obey probabilistic laws which are
independent of the expressed meaning. For example, whatever the meaning of the book that
I will write in the future, we can be sure that the letters of the alphabet that I will use to write it
will obey the syntactic laws of the language in which such a book will be written. The laws
probabilistic theories of quantum physics, which describe how elementary particles can
combine, they are exactly like the syntactic laws of human languages that describe
probabilistically how the letters of the alphabet combine. The meaning of a book depends
but from the order of the symbols, which is not specified by the syntactic laws. Similarly, the laws
quantum mechanics do not determine the order of the particles and atoms that combine, but only
their probability, so the meaning of an atomic construction is open and undetermined
from such laws.

17. The idea of life and the idea of the computer could not have emerged from a chance combination.
of symbols, but from the deeper reality of meaning from which the seity emerged with the
their semantic space (the C-space). The physical universe, which represents the symbolic space (the
space-I) with which the meaning of seity is publicly expressed, has therefore emerged from the
semantic space. We must not confuse symbols with their meaning! And the meaning
must exist before the symbols we use to express it. Information is meant to
communicate meaning, and can only exist if meaning exists, which is the essence of
knowledge.

18. According to the biologist Jacques Monod: “Chance alone is at the origin of all novelty, of all
creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, the only chance, absolute but blind freedom, at the very root
of the prodigious edifice of evolution”. Instead Oscar Wilde stated that “Chance is
simply a synonym of our ignorance!”. Often the artist sees deeper
of the scientist

13. Lived knowledge

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1. “The fundamental assumption on which all natural philosophies have been based for three centuries

focused on mechanism and determinism in the Laplacian sense has been an assumption that the

positivism has extended far beyond the realm of physics to include social phenomena,

economic and political. By adhering to this conception, not only is it argued that the world is

mathematical but also – more subtly – that it is so in a unique and complete way” (from the speech of

Claudio Bartocci at the Varenna Congress, October 2004).

2. In my opinion, this is also the reason why quantum laws have to be expressed with that

special type of probability that does not allow us to predict the order of the symbols.

3. The fact that classical physics emerged from quantum physics, and that in QIP theory the state

pure has all the characteristics of conscious experience, it implies that consciousness does not have

need to be explained with simpler concepts, because it must have been part of reality
since its inception.

4. “A project, at the beginning, is a simple fantasy, a dream. To realize it, we must

to reconstruct in our minds all the facets of reality, all the possible alternatives.

Foresee all the possible pitfalls that each action may encounter, all the possible 'tests'

that the world, at every stage, will inevitably impose on us” (Francesco Alberoni).

5. In the physical world, where the tendency towards disorder is codified in the second law of

thermodynamics, the principle of random variation and natural selection is the only principle

creative that explains the evolution of complex systems. This is certainly a principle

valid, but only if among the random variations there is one more suitable than the original. In

in other words, to obtain a more suitable organism it is necessary that the percentage of
favorable variations created randomly is sufficiently high, otherwise there will be nothing

better to select. Suppose, for example, that we randomly change the state of a bit

in a computer program. What is the probability of improving the program? Almost 0.

It would be a lot if the computer continued to function properly. Suppose that, for

to significantly improve a program, it is necessary to change a hundred bits in the right place. If

we randomly change one hundred bits and the probability that each bit can contribute to a

improvement is one in a hundred, an extremely optimistic value if the program has more than
100
10,000 bits, the final probability would be (0.01) , a value so small that it produces a

improvement by chance would be practically impossible. Certainly we also come to

bring about improvements through a process of variation and selection, and that is why the principle

it is valid, but in our case every variation, even if only in thought, is not casual, but is

the best idea we have, already knowing the function we want to achieve and what it is

need to improve. And despite this, the selection made by the "market of ideas", which plays the
same role of the ecosystem, discards many of our ideas that we thought were good. Here

because we have been able to create and improve both airplanes and computers over time.
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6. If simple organic molecules were like the transistors in our computers, the most
simple it would be like a microscopic robot made with ten billion transistors, including the
“software” needed to function autonomously and reproduce. But how did they all do it?
these atoms and molecules to link together by chance and function so exquisitely?
I would like to point out that, despite having all the necessary parts and the most suitable tools available,
advanced, and even knowing what result to obtain, no bioengineer would be able to
assemble a functioning bacterium. Despite this, the idea that nature made this
miracle with closed eyes and without knowing what he wanted to achieve is presented to us as
credible.

7. The ability to learn and then recognize a new complex situation with one or
few examples is one of the striking differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence
(IA). Consciousness, through understanding, can intuitively understand new connections,
while a machine can find them only by mechanically examining very many examples of the
same situation. The problem is that, in ordinary reality, many situations are unique, but a
AI program cannot learn with just one example. So its versatility is very
inferior to that of humans. Nevertheless, in many repetitive problems, the machine can do
much better than us. AI is complementary to human capabilities. If used well it will be a great
benefit to humanity, while if used badly it could even create existential problems.
8. The head is the mental aspect, the heart is the emotional aspect and the belly is the physical aspect
of action. This metaphor will be elaborated later.
9. A lucid dream is a dream in which the ego “wakes up” within the dream and realizes that
is dreaming. In some cases, the ego can even direct the dream as it would in the
ordinary life, with the difference that in the dream there are generally fewer physical constraints. For
for example, one could fly simply by wishing to.
10. Incidentally, our education system also uses mainly knowledge
ordinary mental confusion of facts, rather than promoting deep understanding, which requires
the careful integration of the three modes of knowledge.

Conclusion
1. Blaming others for what ails us is how we prevent ourselves from recognizing the
our responsibility in creating our own experience and that of others. It is what prevents us
to recognize the special way in which each of us feels superior to Nature, which in
Our mind almost always includes everything except us. We must wake up from this sleep of
consciousness and understanding that we are Nature and that Nature is within us. Feeling
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superior to Nature is the fundamental source of our distortion, and is the primary cause
of our suffering.

2. There is a story from Jewish tradition that says that the world stands on the shoulders of thirty-six
righteous, and it is only thanks to them that humanity is not destroyed. The point is that no one knows who
are and they don't even know it. The fate of humanity can depend on us!
“One good man is enough for there to be hope” (Pope Francis, Laudato si').
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Bibliography

[1] D'Ariano, GM, Quantum Holism, arXiv:2102.01438, 2021, forthcoming in The Quantum-Like
Revolution: A Festschrift for Andrei Khrennikov.

[2] Faggin, F., Klein T., Vadasz, L., Insulated Gate Field Effect Transistor
Integrated Circuits with Silicon Gates, in “International Electron Devices
Meeting”, Washington, October 1968, p. 22.
[3] Engel, GS, Calhoun, TR, Read, EL et al., Evidence for Wavelike Energy
Transfer through Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Systems, in
“Nature”, n. 446(7137), April 2007, pp. 782-786.
[4] Del Giudice, E., Memories in the water?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=0MAPKRB8qno&t=26s.
[5] Arndt, M., Nairz, O., Voss-Andreae, J. et al., Wave-Particle Duality of C60
Molecules, in “Nature”, n. 401, 14 October 1999, pp. 680-682.
[6] D'Ariano, GM, Physics Without Physics: The Power of Information-
theoretical Principles, in “International Journal of Theoretical Physics”, n.
56, 2016, pp. 97-128.
[7] D'Ariano, GM, Perinotti, P., Derivation of the Dirac Equation from Principles
of Information Processing, in “Physical Review A”, 062106, 2 December
2014, p. 90.
[8] Chalmers, D., Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, in “Journal of
Consciousness Studies”, n. 2(3), 1995, pp. 200-219.
[9] D'Ariano, G.M., Faggin, F., Hard Problem and Free Will: An information-
theoretical approach, in Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence,
Springer, New York 2022, pp. 145-192.
[10] D'Ariano, GM, No Purification Ontology, No quantum Paradoxes, in
“Foundations of Physics”, 50, 2020, pp. 1921-1933.
[11] Faggin, F., Silicon: From the invention of the microprocessor to the new
science of consciousness, Mondadori, Milan 2019.
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[12] Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communications, in “Bell System

Technical Journal”, vol. 27, 1948, pp. 379-423 and 623-656.
[13] Faggin, F., Consciousness Comes First, in Consciousness Unbound,
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham (MD) 2021, pp. 283-322.
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Thanks

I started writing this book in English. When I got to the second part I realized that writing in
Italian made it easier for me to express my thoughts, especially because of the existence of two verbs,
“know” and “sapere”, which allowed me to express the fundamental difference much better
between the world of conscious experience and the symbolic world of computer knowledge. In English
there is only the verb to know for both meanings, and this can lead to misinterpretations
when it is necessary to distinguish between lived knowledge and symbolic knowledge.
I thank my wife Elvia who did the translation from English to Italian, my son Eric and
Andrea DiBlas who read and commented on the first English version of the book, and my sisters-in-law
Viviana and Irene Sardei who edited the Italian text.

The subject of the book is particularly difficult, considering the many preconceptions, both religious
both scientific, which exist on the nature of consciousness and the nature of reality. The work of

Viviana and Irene definitely helped improve the exposition and clarity of my
thought and the fluency of the text. Viviana then contributed to most of the rich
quotes that show how my ideas, born mainly from direct experience and not from a
comparative study of the thoughts of others, are also reflected in those of many other thinkers and
experimenters from the most ancient times to the present day. There is no doubt that the fundamental values
unite all humanity.

I would like to thank Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano, professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of
Pavia, for the many discussions that allowed me to understand physics more deeply
of quantum information of which he is a world expert. The interest in the study of
conscience, which now unites us, and its scientific rigor have allowed me to remain with the
feet on the ground, so to speak, in the scientific exploration of such an arduous subject.
Finally, I would like to thank Enrica Bortolazzi, my book agent, and Guido Meardi, CEO of V-Nova, for the
their appreciated comments, and Sabrina Parisi and Matteo Stroppa, editors on behalf of Mondadori,
for the finishing touch.
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www.librimondadori.it

Irreducible by

Federico Faggin © 2022

Mondadori Libri SpA, Milan Ebook ISBN 9788835720355

COVER || COVER DESIGN: MARA SCANAVINO PROJECT | IMAGE PROCESSING © BUNTOON

RODSENG/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Index

Cover
The image
The book
The author

Frontispiece
Irreducible
Preface
Introduction
In search of the truth

The awakening
Key questions
The new science of consciousness
PART ONE
1. The nature of physical reality
What is the world like?

At the dawn of science The

worldview of classical physics A new way of thinking The

end of classical physics

The revelation of a new world

Quantum mechanics
The End of Certainty

2. The nature of quantum reality

Quantum field theory and general relativity
Particles and Quantum Entanglement
We don't actually know what a particle really is.
The Quantum Physics Worldview
A monistic conception of the universe
How do we know?
Semantic knowledge and symbolic knowledge
What is the purpose of conscience?
3. The nature of machines
The evolution of machines
Before the computer revolution

Computers are universal machines

The nature of computers
Computers are reductionists
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Computers are deterministic

Computers can be unpredictable
Robots “vs” living organisms
4. The nature of information
A brief history of information
What is information?
Shannon's information
What is a bit?
Information from conscious entities
5. The expanded concept of information Living
organisms as information processors The marvelous structure of cells
There is more to information than information
Information meets consciousness

Living Information The

Nature of Languages Is There

Meaning in the Universe?
6. The nature of life

The incredible complexity of a paramecium

A Brief History of Biology
Life is dynamic
Life is holistic

The strategies of life

Life as an ecosystem
The boundary between animate and inanimate matter Life

is both quantum and classical Living organisms as

information processors The fundamental differences between a cell and a
computer 7. The nature of consciousness

How does consciousness work?

Qualia
The Hard Problem of Consciousness What is
consciousness?
Qualia and Consciousness
Learning, Perception, Understanding, and Recognition Pattern Recognition “vs”
Understanding Is Intelligence Without Consciousness Real
Intelligence?
PART TWO
8. A new vision
Existential questions

The unsolved problems

The need for a new paradigm
QIP Theory: Consciousness is a Quantum Phenomenon
A new term: seity
Seity is quantum
The existence of free will
9. A new model of reality

A new perspective
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The Creative Principle

In his image and likeness
Communication between seity
The natural evolution of laws
Information is not ontology
Information is not knowledge

A New Interpretation of Quantum Information The Universe as an Exploration

of Knowledge 10. The Nature of Seity A Seity is Beyond The
Creation of Many Worlds How
does the world of seity
work?

The Vibrational Universe

Experience is Quantum
Consciousness, Identity and Agency 11.
The Evolution of Seity The
Combination Problem The Solution to the
Combination Problem Consciousness and Free Will are Quantum
Semantic Space and Symbolic Space There is Not Only Physical
Space 12. Knowledge, Life and Information The
World of Knowledge

The world of life

The world of classical information

The concept of probability

Classical Probability “vs” Quantum Probability
Information only makes sense if consciousness exists
Living knowledge and information

Meaning is the essence of knowledge

Information needs to be redefined
13. Lived knowledge
Rationality is not enough
Beyond rationality

A New Interpretation of Physical Reality Meaning, Living

Information, and Classical Information The Idea Comes Before Symbols
What is the Purpose of Life?

The Evolution of Scientific Thought Three

Fundamental Centers
Conclusion
Knowledge must be lived

The greatest obstacle to unity is the need for superiority

Unity is in the heart
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Thanks
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Copyright