isocosm: The full spectrum of levels of organization in the universe, ranging from the smallest spatial or temporal scales (the microcosm) to the largest (the macrocosm), viewed without prejudice as to their possible or potential ability to harness or synergize with the capacity of the universe around them in conscious experience and behavior. Although the conscious systems of the isocosm are interactive with and informed by internal and external systems and phenomena at many scales, their imaginative, emotive, cognitive, and executive functions (or analogous functions in primitive conscious systems) may enable them to evaluate options, construct patterns and initiate causal series in potentially creative and effective responses to considered aspects of their environment and history.

The Problem

When the comparative study of conscious systems matures into an established area of science, what philosophers of science call the "empirical domain" of the science will identify just which kinds of systems qualify as conscious. Today we really don't know for sure:

• Is consciousness limited to mammals or vertebrates?

• If so, is their consciousness associated with all the information processing inherent in their bodies or associated more directly with their nervous systems, brains, the computational sophistication of their brains, certain brain structures, or certain patterns of brain activity, such as coherently firing neurons?

• Do plants and fungi have their own forms of consciousness?

• Are single cells such as unicellular eukaryotes, bacteria, colonial cells, or cells within multicellular organisms conscious?

• What about the fundamental particles, atoms and ions, molecules and macromolecules, electrical and magnetic fields, electromagnetic radiation, electric currents, and other constituents of conscious systems? Are they conscious?

• Do the superpositions of the states of certain bodily components that are described by wavefunctions, such as the alternative states of allosteric proteins and microtubules, constitute conscious systems?

• Is the universe or multiverse, considered as a system, conscious in its own right, over and above the consciousness of any of its subsystems?

• Are there any systems or phenomena which don't have spatially manifest bodies and, if so, could they be conscious?

• Do lovers, families, businesses, interest groups, communities, societies, or civilization enjoy a form of shared consciousness?

• Can special states of mind couple people or people and environments in extended systems that are in some sense conscious?

• Are ecosystems or the biosphere conscious?

• Can sophisticated robots be conscious?

One of the reasons, of course, that we can't yet specify the scope of the future science of conscious systems is that we don't have agreed-upon criteria for distinguishing between conscious and non-conscious systems. In our own case, humans have direct access to their own consciousness and unless they are too young, handicapped by disease or age, or abdicate claims to consciousness in favor of materialistic philosophies or skeptical commitments, they have no trouble including other humans, who presumably are like themselves, in the set of conscious systems. Our knowledge of other conscious animals is less direct, but there is enough behavioral and cognitive similarity to suggest the likelihood that we share consciousness, at some level of sophistication, with many other species. Behavioral criteria are less helpful, however, as we consider systems that diverge in structure and behavior from that of our own species. Other criteria that have been considered are based on composition, component structures, computational complexity, thermodynamic self-organization, cognitive evolution and learning, and electromagnetic coherence.

Electromagnetic Structures as Emergent from Interactions with their Surrounding Virtual Environment

From the point of view of this institute, scientists will not be able to identify adequate criteria for distinguishing between conscious and non-conscious systems if they neglect the nature of the relationship between the electromagnetic structures and processes in the system and the vast sea of quantum field phenomena with which they continually interact. Physicists have known for decades that so-called empty space is not empty at all. It is filled with four sources of virtual (temporary) particles: spontaneous emissions from particles, empty space, and electromagnetic fields all associated with the Uncertainty Principle and induced emissions from "charged" particles when they interact. Emissions from empty space are called "vacuum fluctuations," although the term is often used loosely to refer to fluctuating virtual particles from all four sources. The induced emissions that mediate electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions are called "exchange particles." The virtual particles from all these sources continually interact with one another.

Virtual photons, for example, are continually adsorbed as well as emitted by virtual electrons and protons; and virtual photons continually split into virtual particle-antiparticle pairs which, in turn, continually annihilate one another to produce virtual photons. Virtual particles also interact continually with "real" particles and fields through their continual emission and adsorption of virtual particles. Virtual exchange particles in particular (such as photons that mediate the electromagnetic force) are not only continually emitted and adsorbed by interacting pairs of charged "real" particles (such as electrons, protons, or electrons and protons), but may split into particle-antiparticle pairs and are subject to adsorption and "reemission" by charged particles in the intervening (or surrounding) space. The strength of the electromagnetic and color forces, according to quantum electrodynamics (QED) and quantum chromodynamics (QCD), each vary as a function of distance from the source charge as a result of the myriad induced interactions and spontaneous activities in a system of real and virtual particles.

Electrons, for example, attract virtual particles of the opposite charge, such as the antiparticle of electrons, called "positrons," while repelling virtual particles of the same charge. Outside the ring of virtual positrons that electrons attract around themselves, the electromagnetic force falls off with the square of distance from the electron. Inside the ring of antiparticles, however, the strength of the electromagnetic force is much greater. Likewise, interactions between the electrons of atoms and virtual particles determine the strength of the electron's magnetic moment. Atomic structure, as well as the forces that respectively hold atoms and their nuclei together, are all believed to be emergent properties of the spontaneously uncertain behavior and continually induced interactions among real particles and the virtual particles that surround them. Indeed, mathematically, the identity of real and surrounding virtual particles cannot be distinguished, as a real particle is just as likely to get annihilated by an antiparticle as a virtual particle is and real particles and their virtual counterparts are too close to one another to allow certainty as to which is which. It is best, therefore, to view the atom itself, so often imagined to be the "building-block" of nature, to be a relatively stable steady state that emerges from continual spontaneous behavior and induced interactions in a super-dense sea of virtual particles.

Nuclear Structures as Emergent from Interactions with their Surrounding Virtual Environment

Even more dramatically, atomic nuclei are best not thought of as being "made" of protons and neutrons, as neutrons and protons continually exchange identity as they adsorb or emit quark-antiquark pairs (called "pi mesons") which mediate their "strong" interaction. The oscillating transformation of protons into neutrons and neutrons into protons is mediated not only by the exchange of pi-mesons, but by the myriad interactions among and spontaneous behavior of a system of real and virtual "color" charges, including quarks and anti-quarks and their gluon exchange particles. Quarks and anti-quarks exchange gluons in their "color" interactions and spontaneously emit and adsorb gluons due to uncertainty. To make things more complicated, gluons, as well as quarks and anti-quarks, carry "color" charge, so gluons also exchange gluons with other color charges. The steady-state patterns that emerge include protons and neutrons (each composed of three quarks exchanging gluons in the strong nuclear force), pi-mesons (quark-antiquark pairs exchanging gluons), and protons and neutrons exchanging pi-mesons (and identities).

As Below, So Above

Remarkably, quantum electrodynamics (which treats the photon-mediated electromagnetic force interactions of electrically charged particles such as electrons, protons, positrons, and anti-protons) and quantum chromodynamics (which treats the gluon-mediated strong nuclear force interactions among quarks and anti-quarks and their gluon exchange particles) imply that the nuclear and atomic constituents of matter are not closed systems, but emerge from and are sustained by continual interactions with their virtual environment. If the stability of atoms is explained by their relationship with the vacuum, the variability of atomic structure and behavior evidenced in the chemical interactions of atoms and ions must also be understood in the context of the continual interactions of molecules, as well as their atomic and ionic constituents, with their virtual environment. Molecules emerge through chemical interaction when their structure is favored by the virtual environment (or when the reagents successfully negotiate their union or exchange of components with the virtual environment). At the larger scale of macromolecules, the alternative conformations of allosteric proteins (such as enzymes, membrane receptors, and antibodies), for example, may be toggled by binding or detachment at their active sites, but their potential stability is made possible by interactions with virtual particles as well as with the surrounding biological medium. The same may be said, at a still larger scale, of certain nanoscale biological structures (such as microtubules and microfilaments) that are known to have variable states associated with different biological functions.

Considering the dramatically larger scale of brains, the coherent firing of many neurons together in association with some forms of conscious experience may also have to find favor with the surrounding pattern of virtual particle activity. Generally, when multiple quantum states are "superposed" as described by a wavefunction, such as the alternative energy levels of electrons in atoms or molecules, possible chemical interactions, alternative protein conformations, alternative states of certain intracellular or intercellular structures, or (speculatively) alternative patterns of neuronal firing, the changing probability distribution of possible outcome states explored by those wavefunctions over time are made possible by the associated patterns of virtual particle activity. The so-called collapse of the wavefunction that selects a particular state at particular time is permitted by the surrounding virtual particle environment, but not determined by it. The collapse may be random, but it may reflect awareness of the possibilities represented by the wavefunction and conscious choice of preferred outcomes.

A central premise of this institute is that living systems, in virtue of their coherent electromagnetic activity, mutually interact with virtual particles in a way that constrains and enables at least some of their self-organizing capabilities. In the special case of conscious systems, we ask whether the electromagnetic patterns that accompany some forms of computational complexity are interactively coupled with patterns of vacuum fluctuations in a way that induces the system's access to consciousness and provides a virtual gateway for the bidirectional transfer of information between consciousness and the system's self-organizing processes. Could it be, for example, that brain states and even cellular states, to the extent they are electromagnetically coherent, entrain coherent patterns of vacuum fluctuations, thereby enabling the emergence of certain wavefunctions that describe the evolution of possible physical outcomes in that virtual environment, while consciousness somehow detects, by some optimizing criteria, the "best" possibilities explored by those wavefunctions (or the behaviorally or functionally significant outcomes implied by them) and constrains or determines the selection of the otherwise indeterminate brain state or cellular state at the moment of wavefunction collapse (or decoherence)?  The assumption here is that consciousness, in its awareness of the environmental and/or historical significance of behavior mediated by an internal state, can unconsciously select the internal state required to bring about the behavior or outcome that is consciously chosen. This is one example, at least, of the preliminary outline of a general theory of conscious systems that provides a basis for distinguishing between complex systems that are conscious from those complex systems that are not. Those systems that are conscious are capable of inducing large-scale changes in the surrounding patterns of virtual particle activity, over and above the independent abilities of their atomic, molecular or cellular constituents to do so, thereby enabling the emergence of wavefunctions that provide the context of possibilities for conscious choice. The primary research goal of the institute is to identify, generate, evaluate, and promote the development of testable general theories of (1) what makes some systems, as distinguished from others, conscious and (2) what enables different systems to have different degrees and kinds of conscious experience.

The Institute

The institute has a number of objectives that arise from its premise that conscious systems, whether fundamental or evolved, are distinguished by the interactions between between their self-organizing electromagnetic structures, patterns, and processes and the virtual world (often called the "plenum" to contrast it with the emptiness connoted by the "vacuum") in which they are immersed. We plan to:

1. review existing hypotheses and develop new hypotheses of how conscious systems might be related to the virtual world.

2. suggest how such hypotheses might be tested scientifically.

3. explore ways of extending the methodology of cognitive science to include quantum mechanics and energy medicine.

4. consider the worldview implications of theories of consciousness that take it to be at home in the universe, emerging naturally in relationship with the evolving ability of complex systems to couple with the surrounding plenum.

5. contribute to the planning of interdisciplinary research and education programs that focus on conscious systems.

6. offer workshops and lectures on conscious systems that facilitate collaborative research and education and stimulate public interest.

7. organize conferences that bring together experts from many fields to share their results and brainstorm on the potential of new theories, methods, and collaborative relationships that could further the science of conscious systems.

8. offer consulting services to collaborative groups or communities interested in consciousness research or in applications of consciousness theory to loving relationships, medical diagnosis and the practice of healing arts, collaborative group attunement, conflict resolution, environmental responsibility, and the reformulation of principles of faith and spiritual practice.

9. distribute institute reports and multimedia recordings and presentations on conscious systems, their study and worldview implications.

10. promote collaboration between scientifically and spiritually oriented communities in the human quest to understand the basis for our gift of conscious experience.

11. offer advanced training in interfield communication and research.