A sketch of a proposal
Ian Thompson.

Version 1: March 29, 2020
Version 2, March 30, 2020
Version 3, April 20, 2020

Needs:
To explain how the sensory mind recognizes visual objects and actions in the 2.3 degree, based largely on training by previous objects, but allowing for most kinds of geometric and appearance transformations in local circumstances.

(This addresses only the spiritual kingdom (cognitive domain) side of the 2.3 degree).

Approach:
Start with a superposition of schema in the sensory mind, and then select from this according to what sensory data is available and clear.

This corresponds to the method of quantum mechanics in the 3.3 degree, but with some differences because (a) 2.3 is in the mind, not in physics, so (b) the substance in 2.3 is mental, not physical in 3.3. (c) the space is in 2.3 is the space of ideas and images, not physical space. And (d) the time in 2.3 is of changes of state, not the continuous metric time of 3.3.

Benefits:
This scheme fits within the overall enneads for the mental and physical.
It does not use continuous back-propagation (as we propose within the 3.2 degree).
It should be fast enough for daily operation of our senses.

Competition:
(a) The Predictive Processing methods of Friston et al. when implemented in the brain: these methods do not specify what fast process is used for model generation.
(b) Neural networks in general (in the brain, or artificial): these do not have general field transformations.
(c) Copying quantum mechanics exactly: that would only give continuous transformations not macroscopic change-of-state-transformations.
(d) QBism (to be investigated)
(e) This proposal is quite demanding on the capacity for quantum-like superpositions in some mental subdegrees.

I assume that the bodily senses (and the connected sensory cortex areas in the brain) automatically produce mental images in 2.3.3 from the neural impulses from the senses. (Later in this document I give again a scheme for how this could be done with 3 colors).

The ability to recognize an object must still function if the object is moved around, or rotated, some of many possible transformations. We can make a list of many of the needed transformations that should not block recognition:

There are so many possible sets of all these transformations, that high demands are placed on any visual recognition system if it is to generate a stable world view when the observer is (say) continually moving his body and eyes and eyelids. (See e.g. introduction in DiCarlo, 2012). To generate a stable view, the visual recognition system must be able to internally process all the above transformations in order compensate for their effects on the visual field. There has, therefore, to be some built-in generative model in the infant’s mind, for all the above transformations.

Note: Most of these transformations are exactly those that the graphics processing unit (GPU) in a computer needs to calculate, in order to produce on screen an image the appearance of all the necessary objects in a computer game or design program.

1. 3.3.1: Set of transformations of how wave functions will change with time
2. 3.3.2: The results how the wave functions do change with time.
   The spread of the wave function is the range in where selections will occur later (uncertainty is the spread of the wave function).
3. 3.3.3: Selections (localizing into small spatial regions without quantum entanglements) of what actually happens.
   After a selection, the uncertainty spread is reduced (the ‘collapse of the wave packet’).

The new idea is to start with a superposition of schema in the external mind, and then select from this according to what sensory data is available and clear.

• By a ‘schema’, I mean the set of possible objects along with the possible transformations of them needed to produce their appearance in the visual field.
• A ‘selected’ schema is the one that produces a field that agrees with what the senses currently produce, and the mind therefore takes the objects of that schema as ‘what it sees’.

In order for this to work, there has to be

1. A retention (in some automatic part of the mind) of previous objects (objects seen/manipulated/?described) – 2.3.1
2. A set of superpositions of remembered objects in - 2.3.2
3. Then: a set of superpositions of all transformations of these remembered objects - 2.3.2
4. A way selecting, from all these transformations of all these objects, according to what is being seen right now - 2.3.3

Some of these functions come naturally because of the functions in various parts of the ennead:

1. The recognition (i) of previously seen/manipulated/described objects comes about because all actions are done by means of establishing targets in the 3.1 physical degree. Some aspects of the mental causes of those actions then preserved because the targets still remain after the function (this is because the 3.1.3 targets may function like the limbus that enables generalized memory of all actions). Since in 2.3.1 there are the mental concepts that generated the images of the objects, these are also preserved in memories by the historical targets. By ‘mental concepts’ I mean a set of intrinsic properties of an object, along with the of the typical transformations of its shape that lead to its appearance.
2. A infant’s mind contains as a whole, therefore, the set of all the ‘mental concepts’ that could produce images of objects from the past. This set is not like a set of written notes of each thing, but, as (ii), is more like a quantum superposition with some amplitude or magnitude or activation level for the mental concepts of each remembered object.
3. And within this superposition of objects, when this combination is in someone’s mind, each mental concept is generating (iii) further superpositions of many of the possible transformations of that each object. These transformations can be discrete or continuous, and not only continuous as they are in QM.
   I am going to assume that the ability to generate all the transformations of object appearances is not learned by an infant, but is part of the basic infrastructure of enneads that comes from direct influx into 2.3.2 from the Divine source. It is (presumably) already part of the very general mechanism that maps loves and uses in the spiritual world onto specific physical locations, orientations, and appearances, etc.
4. And then the selection (iv) is done in a way that closely corresponds to the way quantum physics measurements occur in degree 3.3.3: the fact that some things have actually occurred is used to readjust the magnitude of options of wave-function-propensities in the future. It is different from 3.3.3 because here the actual occurences already exist in the sensory cortex, but there the actual occurences themselves have to be produced in the very degree.

The process of (iv) is similar to an ‘associate recall’ method for memory: if the current visual field has segments that are similar to that a previously-seen object-concept could generate, then the magnitude/amplitude/likelihood of that object-concept is increased, and appears in consciousness (if large enough) as a recognition of another instance of that object.

The generation of possible object-concepts in (ii) and of possible transformations in (iii) may have already been done before any actual object is seen with the eyes. That means that recognition is very fast, and it solves a problem of how object recognition is so difficult in machine vision.

It is also possible that not all possible transformations exist all the time in a superposition, but only those have been recently seen or thought of, or related to other objects remembered recently, or those attended to recently. More detail investigations are needed in sensory psychology to test various ways of optimizing the mental demands of this whole proposal.

A scheme for how the visual field in the sensory mind could arise from a scheme of influx.

This scheme requires

1. that whenever any influx occurs, the upper source degree gains some awareness of how successful that influx was in achieving the desire that produced the influx.
2. So: the sensory mind starts of as a combination of all colors red, green, blue (RGB), as in white light from which all can be produced by modifications.
3. the sensory mind generates influx into the visual system (e.g. visual cortex) for each of the 3 colors: R, G and B.
4. the visual cortex accepts that influx according to its input from the color-sensitive cones in the retina. If red is being viewed, then influx of the R-kind is more successful, and so on.
5. So the sensory spiritual gets a whole lot of information about what combinations of R-influx, G-influx, and B-influx are successful, everywhere in the visual field to which attention is directed.
6. From that information of various 'success rates', the sensory spiritual generates in itself a mental image of the visual field.
7. From that image, the mind learns to recognize objects no matter variations of distances and of rotations and of light intensities (we have not yet talked about this).

           Second round: repeated influx from 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3 all together into 3.2.1,3.2.2,3.2.3, until target achieved:

         3.3  Propensity for actual events as final selections.

What is the substance of the 3.1 degree?

1. The .1 is the propensity or substance which makes everything in that degree.
2. The .2 is the forms or structure of this propensity, as spread over the options available.
3. The .3 is the choice or selection of a particular option

Applying in the case of 3.1, we have:

1. The ‘propensity to make targets’ is the stuff of which all 3.1 things are made.
2. The fields of options for targets define the shapes of things. And if multiple targets are being made simultaneously we would have a whole biological structure of the things.
3. The choice of a particular target is the ‘firming up’ of making targets, to focus on one (or some specific ones).