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The world we experience is the product of biochemical interpretation acting on fundamentally abstract information. What follows explores how this interpretive process operates, and how deeply it shapes what we take to be reality itself
Chains of entangled bits shape the DNA of the universe. Just like the ones and the zeros, the binary information in the cloud does not mean anything in itself, but needs software to be translated, so the qubits, the quantum information that makes up the universe, do not signify anything concrete, but are transformed by biochemistry and projection into apparent reality.
Reality, the physical world as we perceive it, is a neural interpretation of perceived information. The brain holds a mask in front of reality, behind which the real world, that of information and quanta, lies concealed—”the varnish layer”, Erik Verlinde says, “that we discern through our telescopes”. Markus Muller: “A reality emerging from subjective experiences”.
Colours do not exist
Everyone is convinced that we see colours. But what is a colour? In exact terms, it is electromagnetic radiation between roughly 380 and 800 nanometres. That precisely these wavelengths made it possible for sight to evolve is not surprising—they are the wavelengths at which electromagnetism can ‘play’ with electrons, wavelengths that can be absorbed and emitted by electrons. They are also the wavelengths of the photochemical process on which all life depends.
Via photochemical processes and photoisomerisation, ‘visible light’ can alter the spatial arrangement of the atoms in the retinal molecule and, via opsins, trigger the optic nerve. Smaller, higher-energy wavelengths knock out electrons to produce ions. Longer, lower-energy wavelengths do not interact with electrons. Infrared radiation interacts with the vibrational state of atoms and their bonds in a molecule, causing a warm body to emit it and a cool body to absorb it and become warmer. Microwaves interact with the rotational state of an atomic bond—its absorption likewise causing a rise in temperature.
It is in itself amazing that life has been able to organise itself in this way, that it is even able to detect and perceive one of the fundamental natural forces, electromagnetism, and, above all, to measure it with the utmost precision. Life is capable of very accurately measuring wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that vary by less than a nanometre, and electromagnetism, as such, can be defined as information. In interacting with electrons, the ejected photon provides information on the interaction that has taken place. Thus, electromagnetic radiation is the transfer of information.
The eye is a measuring instrument. It observes, measures, differentiates and sends information via action potentials to the thalamus and via the corpus callosum and the prefrontal cortex to the visual centre in the cerebral cortex, which is able to process and especially interpret the information it receives. For complex organisms, this was a great evolutionary advantage and of vital importance.
How were photons (electromagnetism) containing information on the living environment to be interpreted in order to use them to interact with that environment? The solution was simple but ingenious. Give each wavelength a ‘colour’, and it allows every object in the environment to be clearly distinguished. It is possible that when vision first developed, it was based on the brightness or contrast of electromagnetic radiation, but this was selected out because colours were superior for the perception of the environment and for survival.
Colours are universal, even for animals. Conspicuous colours mean ‘keep away, danger’. Camouflage colours are interpreted as edible. Life forms other than humans have the same colour perception without having learned it. The work of Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi on the mechanisms of autophagy has shown that the simplest yeast cell uses exactly the same mechanisms for this process, and exactly the same genes, as the much more complex and organised cells of higher organisms—including human beings. When autophagy developed in evolution, it turned out to be so useful that all subsequent life forms acquired it.
The development of sight was also so successful that all later life forms able to acquire this attribute did so. The biochemical interpretation of electromagnetic radiation in colour is therefore universal. But electromagnetic radiation has no colour—interpretation by intricate nerve cell complexes gives the colour. We can assert that if there was nothing to perceive and interpret electromagnetic radiation as colour, colour would not exist. Colours are an interpretation of observed information.
The deceptive brain
Information is interpreted in specialised structures of the brain as a ‘reality vital to life’. The senses serve as measuring instruments; they perceive, observe, detect and measure and send the information to the brain to be processed and interpreted. But just as electromagnetic radiation has no colour, so too are smell, taste, sound and feeling in the sense of touch, proprioception and our position in space a product of the brain, with the senses as biochemical measuring instruments. Touch and proprioception place a living organism in a specific spatial position in its environment. Touch also led to the perception of pain, important for promptly interpreting and moving away from harmful stimuli.
Hearing permitted direct interaction with the environment at a distance. It can also provide information when seeing is no longer possible—in darkness and at night. The same applies to smells—interaction at a distance. So much information floats in the air—the dangerous smell of an enemy, the pheromones of a potential partner, the attractive smell of something edible. Even flowers invest a lot of energy in their fragrances to attract bees and ensure their diversity.
Flavours, too, were developed not to provide us with culinary pleasure but as an absolute necessity and a factor that enables us to distinguish between edible and harmful. But just as sight and colours are a by-product of neural interpretation, touch, proprioception, sound, smell and taste have no physical identity but are the product of an apparent world that is vital to life, created by the brain to enable it to interact appropriately with the environment.
Take capsaicin, a product of spicy peppers. The mouth contains temperature sensors, which are cells with temperature-sensitive ion channels, TRPA1 and TRPV1, in their cell membrane. These structures prevent tissue damage from hot food, and the ion channels are only opened or activated at temperatures of 43°C or more—temperatures at which protein denaturation and tissue damage occur. Capsaicin has the property that it also activates these channels, but in a manner completely independent of temperature. As it is the TRPA1 and TRPV1 receptors that transmit the signal, the brain interprets this as ‘danger, be careful, too hot’. We react even in a cool environment as if we were sitting in a sauna. We perspire and activate all the other body mechanisms that reduce our body temperature. And yet none of this has anything to do with temperature, heat or the vibrational energy of atoms and molecules. Capsaicin triggers a well-defined interpretation by the brain without the underlying physical mechanism.
Smell appears to depend on the molecular structure of odorous molecules. However, molecules with a completely different structure can trigger the same smell sensations, while almost identical structures can smell completely different. Recent research has made it clear that the vibration frequency of an odorous molecule is also a determining factor in neural interpretation.
Fruit flies easily follow specific odour cues in a maze, but if they encounter a molecule with a bond that has a characteristic vibration of around 66 terahertz, they turn away disgusted and choose another route. So far, the only proposed explanation for this is that at the appropriate vibration frequency, an electron in the smell receptor jumps across by quantum tunnelling and activates a biochemical mechanism that triggers a smell sensation in the brain. The molecular vibration is interpreted in the brain as smell.
Scientific research has advanced to the point where it is even possible to individually stimulate various parts of a specific zone of the brain with optogenetics. Light-sensitive proteins in combination with integrated fibre-optic-coupled diode/LED technology can stimulate the brain very precisely and specifically.
The taste centre contains a separate zone for sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami. Studies show that these tastes do not have any physical basis but are a product of neural activity and biochemical interpretation. When laboratory animals are given a very unpleasant, bitter-tasting substance to drink, but at the same time the sweet zone of their brain is stimulated, they drink to their heart’s content. When they receive an extremely pleasant, sweet-tasting drink and at the same time the bitter zone is activated, they begin to shiver violently and immediately stop drinking.
Neural interpretation of incoming information, therefore, does not appear to be based on an objective reality. The brain seems to do its best to interact as successfully as possible with the environment. That this approach pays off can be seen from how successful our species is and how diverse life on Earth is.
Nothing is what it seems, and nothing seems like what it is.
Sci 2021, 3,35. https://doi.org/10.3390/sci3040035