Energy
The ontology of Emergent Aspect Dualism is a philosophical approach that starts from the assumption that the primary “material” of the universe is energy, which of course can be manifested as kinetic energy, potential energy, or matter. It is important to stress, moreover, that energy is not a “substance” in the general static use of this term, but an irreducibly dynamic flux or force forming the inherently active basis of reality. The flow of such energy throughout the universe may be considered to be of the regenerative form described by the full elaboration of the Schrödinger Equation, which specifies the instantaneous change of energy in terms of the current state of its kinetic and potential energy components, and of Einstein’s mass-energy equation, which specifies the relation between total energy and matter. Although there are many quantum ontologies, they all postulate the existence of quantized particles of some kind to carry the energy through space. Mine is the only one to propose that the energy is not quantized in transmission, only at the point of absorption, and that the fundamental variables described by the equations are not probabilistic but continuous. There is no quantum realm in the probabilistic sense. The Schrödinger Equation is, indeed, essentially a continuous energy equation that states that the instantaneous flow of energy at a point in space is a direct function of the sum of the kinetic and potential energies impinging on that point. In particular, the equation is regenerative in the sense that the flow of energy determined by that function feeds back to change the controlling energy levels. As such, it is subject to positive feedback loops and fractal solutions under certain conditions.

Time
Time has long been considered one of the fundamental quantities of Physics. It is treated as something that exists externally to the observer and that can be measured by a variety of devices called ‘clocks’. The present analysis takes a radically different view, that time is a conceptual construct derived from the local energy flows of the physical world, a construct that is specific to each individual process and that is only derivable from such processes. As far as I can determine, this is a novel viewpoint that has never been articulated in its full implications in the history of philosophy. It is the only theory of time that is grounded in the Schrödinger equation of Quantum Physics as the core definition of the nature of the energy process. Rather than being a uniform dimension within which everything flows, the concept is that each process, fast, slow or irregular, generates its own ’time’ as the cumulation of its successive states. We can search for a very stable process, such as the Cesium Clock, against which to compare other processes, but it is just an arbitrary choice of reference frame – it is not measuring any abstract external dimension of time, but generating it according to particular conceptual criteria by the choice of a particularly stable process. Seen in the way, time is inherently directional because every process moves forward by virtue of its process dynamics. The physical concept of direction symmetry on an infinite time axis is just a theoretical overlay on the inherently directional array of functions generated by the multiplicity of processes in the universe.

Emergence
So far, this is an inherently monistic position, but in order to account for the hierarchy of levels of organization of the realities with which we are familiar, we need to invoke the concept of functional emergence, under which the operating principles of each level of organization of this energy are entirely absent from the lower levels. (Thus, for example, the principles of organization of crystalline matter into the six families of crystalline symmetry are entirely absent from the laws of the flow of electromagnetic energy through space, as defined by the Schrödinger Equation, although it is these energy flows that ultimately make up the crystals.) This is not any kind of mystical emergence, like the vital spirit of early philosophers, but rigorous physical emergence, in the way that a cloud of purely airborne water vapour generates the emergent result of rain condensing out of the cloud (or a nuclear reactor goes critical), simply by virtue of an increase in density. Just as this emergence accounts for the various states of matter (plasma, molecular gas, liquid, solid) as condensed forms of the pure underlying energy flows, so it can account for the various states of living organisms (life, consciousness, society, cybernetic intelligence) as novel states of organization of the same energy at a more complex level.

Evolution
The multiple levels of emergence from simple energy flow to complex organisms constitute evolution, but I emphasize the self-organising aspect of evolution. It is not simply Darwinian adaptation of living entities to the external environmental constraints, or the next level of interactive adaptations to the environment among organisms forming the ecological network of mutual adaptations. Beyond this is a third conceptual level of the self-organizing evolution of species according to mate preference mediated by positive feedback within neural excitability structures. Much of the variety of species, such as the 20,000 species of butterflies with maximally different wing coloration patterns that signal their species and gender to each other, derives from the neural recognition processes of the butterflies looking at each other. Their structured diversity seems to have evolved by the neural differentiation of selective signaling with no purpose other than being a self-reinforcing group of organisms that becomes a distinct species. Thus, this positive feedback gives evolution a kind of expansive fractal nature that channels its energy to explore the infinite dimensionality of biological possibilities as diverse as the whale’s siren song and the peacock’s tail. This inherent differentiation is mediated both by low-level biochemical and high-level neural recognition processes. It constitutes a natural art form that is divorced from the utilitarian biological goals of mere survival to form a garden of delights to its denizens.

Consciousness
Just as Einstein developed his theory of relativity by imagining himself from the viewpoint of riding on a beam of light, every process has an internal in addition to its external viewpoint. The structure of the internal relationships of the process are inherently different from the external ones; from its internal viewpoint, the light beam is stationary and the world is flashing by in a radially symmetric form, while to an outside observer the beam is taking a linear trajectory in a stationary world. For a more complex process that develops encoding and memory of its internal processes to provide the elements of consciousness, this internal/external distinction remains a fundamental dichotomy in its representation of information about the surrounding world that constitutes a functional dualism. This neural process can only be conscious of the information available internally, while external observers can only see its external aspect. Only the process “knows what it is like to be” that process, and an external process cannot access that knowledge (except by inference, if it happens to be a similar process itself).

In terms of our own consciousness, it has many experiential properties that seem contradictory with the properties of the neural spiking activity of the brain that houses it, such as the experience of colour, the smooth flow of emotions, the visual structure of memories, and so on. These are the internal viewpoints of brain processes, what it feels like to be brain activity, forming a reality that is unbridgeably distinct from the recordable activity of the brain. It is this dichotomy of viewpoints that forms an emergent philosophical dualism when it comes to our personal reality. We, as experiencers, are the final arbiters of what we experience and how we live our lives. We can never know for sure what other people, or other species, experience because it is philosophically private, although common language and neuroscientific advances can go a long way to providing reassurance of the similarities. Thus, this is not the traditional dualism of two separate domains of mental and material processes somehow coexisting, but of the internal and external aspects of the unitary process diverging due to their inherently different viewpoints.

Science
Circling back, this exposition leads to the analysis that science, the cumulative cultural knowledge of the universe, is an enterprise that consists of formulating questions and developing methods to provide the answers to those questions in a principled manner (logical, mathematical, computational, and so on). It is the position of the Emergent Aspect Dualism philosophy that a core function of consciousness is the formulation of the questions, since questions require an analytic framework to provide an overview on the episodic sequence of events to which a simple organism merely reacts. Science, therefore, consists of providing the answers to questions in that analytic framework. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that consciousness becomes entangled with quantum physics. The world of energy flows continues on its merry way until the (conscious) physicists set up a lab to answer what is the nature of these energy flows. In doing so, they find that they can only do so by means of discrete, quantized levels of energy absorption, such that the energy absorption events are probabilistic (in the human eye as well as the physics apparatus). Now, probability as a conscious construct embeds the concept of the superposition of states (absorption and non-absorption, with complementary probabilities), as was expressed by Schrödinger in his famous question of whether the cat in his gedanken experiment was dead or alive, or in a superposition of the two states simultaneously. In the mind of the investigator, it is alive with some probability, and dead with some (complementary) probability, and remains in this logical superposition until the investigator opens the box. At that point the mental probability construct collapses, and the truth is known. This is a homomorphic description of the standard analysis of Quantum Physics, except that it has all taken place in the mind of the investigator. So Emergent Aspect Dualism rejects the Feynman-esque view that the quantum wave function is a “probability wave”, instead treating it as a continuous energy wave that has probabilistic interaction in the (collective) mind of the physicist who writes the equations for the observable probabilities, and which functionally collapses into the actuality of an interference pattern in the film grain when observations are made. Thus, it is not that Quantum Physics explains the nature of consciousness, but that the theoretical constructs of consciousness provide the explanation for the enigmatic intricacies of Quantum Physics.

Limitations
Where this worldview remains incomplete is, in common with all other scientific accounts of the universe, in accounting for its origin. The principle of Conservation of Energy, first enunciated in the 19th century, is now under pressure from the astrophysical analysis that the universe consists predominantly of Dark Energy. While the origins and nature of this energy remain completely obscure, its existence could resolve the issue of how the universe arose, since it provides an energy source for the known energy that arose in the Big Bang to become our present universe. If such energy can expand the universe while maintaining local conservation of energy, there must be some source of new energy entering the scene. The implication is, therefore, that the inflationary universe of continuously increasing energy, like life, has an expanding fractal essence that is the physical manifestation of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this way, (unless the current astrophysics is a theoretical mirage) humanity may be on the path to answering the ultimate question: ‘Where did it all come from?’.

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We are grateful to Christopher for spending time contributing to OurNarratives. It is our sincerest hope that this exposition aroused your curiosity on any number of interesting topics concerning philosophy, mind, physics, time, evolution, and the origin of everything.

Please contact Dr. Tyler at cwtyler2020@gmail.com for discussion of these concepts