[Fis] Emotional Contagion? -The Irreality of materialism and dark matter
Eric Werner
eric.werner at oarf.org
Wed Mar 12 15:19:12 CET 2025
Oh Karl, please not the books again!
I am out of messages for the week. But fantasy is the bedrock of
developing new concepts and theories. Perhaps we need fantasy to get
out of the Procrustean bed of 12 books? Let's bake something more than
small rolls.
-Eric
On 3/12/25 3:06 PM, Karl Javorszky wrote:
> Eric, you have a flowering phantasy. Let us bake smaller rolls. Let us
> begin with 12 books to bring in order. Talk in terms of order.
>
>
>
> Dr. Eric Werner <evwerner at gmail.com> schrieb am Mi., 12. März 2025, 15:02:
>
> Dear Karl and all materials ,
>
> But numbers are neutral without any implications. Perhaps you are
> just projecting meaning onto numbers.
>
> Numbers don’t necessarily imply that we know what we’re talking about.
>
> By the way, my hypothesis about possibilities generating matter
> may actually explain dark matter. Since possibilities vastly out
> number the reality of matter.
>
> The only problem is that possibilities vastly outnumber even dark
> matter. So it may be that a higher dimensional possibility space
> is interacting with our lower dimensional space time. in such a
> case, only some of the possibilities interact with manifest matter.
>
> Interesting thoughts aren’t
> they?
>
> Eric
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Mar 12, 2025, at 13:24, Karl Javorszky
>> <karl.javorszky at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> And a very good second message, Gordana.
>>
>> Indeed, the idea of reality is hard to understand without taking
>> reference to numbers. At least, with numbers we know what we are
>> talking about.
>>
>> Consider the whole setup under the perspective of order. Then we
>> have amounts with properties and places where the amounts can be
>> during periodic changes.
>>
>> We quickly arrive at logistics, seeing that a reorder is a task
>> expressed in [mkg].
>>
>> Which part of the composition of distances and amounts one uses
>> as the explanation of the interplay, is culture dependent. We
>> usually find distances more objective than amounts. So our
>> explanation will show amounts as a form of agglomeration of
>> distances. We can also explain that the properties of amounts
>> necessarily implicate the existence of distances between them.
>>
>> Reality is a subset of possibilities. The rules that filter out
>> the alternatives that may, and such that can and such that
>> probably will come into existence (aka 'reality') are numeric by
>> Nature.
>>
>> I will spare you the details, but be assured, there is a rational
>> way to classify diverse types and degrees of reality.
>>
>> The numbers support your material concepts
>>
>> Respectfully
>> Karl
>>
>>
>> Gordana Dodig Crnkovic <gordana.dodig-crnkovic at chalmers.se>
>> schrieb am Mi., 12. März 2025, 12:27:
>>
>> **
>>
>> **
>>
>> *Dear Dualists/Platonists/Spiritualists/Immaterialists,***
>>
>> **
>>
>> At the very bottom of all the mentioned phenomena lies matter.
>> Yet, at the bottom of matter itself—when you open those boxes
>> of elementary particles, each containing yet more boxes of
>> more elementary particles, and so forth—at the very bottom
>> lies nothingness (for us).
>> Thus, the opposition between materiality and immateriality is
>> less definitive than it might seem.
>>
>> Crucially, everything depends on the "observer" (actor):
>> possibilities (potential information), quantum mechanics,
>> consciousness, including “soul” in its various disguises. For
>> Aristotle “soul” was synonymous with life which is a very
>> reasonable view.
>>
>> *Without “materiality” there is no “reality”*for an
>> observer/actor/agent in the world.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Gordana
>>
>> My second message this week.
>>
>> *From: *Eric Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org>
>> *Organisation: *OARF.org
>> *Date: *Wednesday, 12 March 2025 at 11:58
>> *To: *Peter Erdi <Peter.Erdi at kzoo.edu>, Gordana CHALMERS
>> <gordana.dodig-crnkovic at chalmers.se>, Katherine Peil
>> <ktpeil at outlook.com>, Howard Bloom <howlbloom at aol.com>,
>> "fis at listas.unizar.es" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject: *Re: [Fis] Emotional Contagion? -The Irreality of
>> materialism
>>
>> Dear Materialists,
>>
>>
>> Reality of possibilities far exceeds material reality
>>
>> * There are more possibilities in most situations than
>> there is space in the universe to contain them,
>> * Possibilities are real.
>> * Therefore, not all reality is physical or in physical
>> space time.
>> * In quantum mechanics there are more possibilities than
>> space in the universe to contain them.
>> * Therefore, there must be one or more extra dimensions to
>> contain them.
>> * The consciousness and cloning problem shows the
>> consciousness must be in another dimension beyond our
>> four dimensional space time
>> * The soul if it exists may be partly in our four
>> dimensional space-time and partly in other dimensions of
>> reality.
>> * Materialism is just one aspect of reality.
>> * Reality is not just material it also contains the
>> immaterial which by far exceeds the material.
>>
>> At least those are my thoughts this morning on a rainy day.
>>
>> -Eric
>>
>> On 3/11/25 8:35 PM, Peter Erdi wrote:
>>
>> I am supporting Gordana's arguments and suggest this
>> well-cited paper
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://psu-psychology.github.io/psy-511-scan-fdns-2018/lectures/pdf/The_neural_bases_of_emotion_re.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UJWcxtGMdyZp4pY7grEKU2ZaNhRH8l6PoDtjph6uztlu1nTdMgJCuEHN_6yoA5qr694LKeVeWocET38bjxsOw7k$
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/psu-psychology.github.io/psy-511-scan-fdns-2018/lectures/pdf/The_neural_bases_of_emotion_re.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!X8l0cGXYnCDoWwpQdAKdeXofWqb9cy_mWyKiqDJK2ExjYcnj70EhtVRKY6IcHZLG6A96uAXbqawoFIm68LZD_HH9$>
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>
>> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of
>> Gordana Dodig Crnkovic
>> <gordana.dodig-crnkovic at chalmers.se>
>> <mailto:gordana.dodig-crnkovic at chalmers.se>
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 11, 2025 1:41 PM
>> *To:* Eric Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org>
>> <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org>; Katherine Peil
>> <ktpeil at outlook.com> <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>; Howard
>> Bloom <howlbloom at aol.com> <mailto:howlbloom at aol.com>;
>> fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Emotional Contagion?
>>
>> Dear Eric, Kate, Howard, and All,
>>
>> Being a physicist, and reading recent discussions, I
>> would like to argue that there is no such thing as
>> immaterial emotions.
>>
>> At the core, emotions are material phenomena.
>>
>> Likewise, /relations/ are fundamentally material. There
>> is no information without physical implementation, as
>> Landauer famously argued.
>>
>> Below are my five arguments on embodyment of emotional
>> contagion.
>>
>> *1. Emotional Contagion is a Biological Process*
>>
>> Emotional contagion occurs through bodily
>> interactions—facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice,
>> posture, and even subtle physiological signals (heart
>> rate, breathing patterns). When one person smiles, it
>> activates mirror neurons in the observer’s brain,
>> prompting similar facial muscles to contract, causing
>> measurable physical changes and subsequent shifts in
>> emotional state.
>>
>> *2. Emotional Contagion is Chemically Mediated*
>>
>> Emotional states are directly connected to biochemical
>> substances like oxytocin, cortisol, dopamine, and
>> serotonin. When emotional contagion happens, it does so
>> through these material biochemical mediators.
>>
>> *3. Emotional Contagion Based on Embodiment of Emotion*
>>
>> Emotions are not "floating" entities—they are
>> communicated via bodily presence. The presence of a
>> physical body expressing emotion is essential for
>> contagion. Without physical embodiment (special facial
>> expressions, sound, rhythm, smell, touch, posture,
>> movements), emotional contagion does not occur. Emotions
>> transmitted through screens (video calls) are weaker
>> compared to face-to-face interactions precisely because
>> physical embodiment.
>>
>> *4. Manipulability of Emotional Contagion*
>>
>> Emotional contagion can be modified or dampened
>> pharmacologically (e.g., through anxiety-reducing drugs).
>> If emotions were immaterial, medications wouldn't alter
>> emotional responses. Beta-blockers reduce physical
>> symptoms of anxiety (heartbeat, shaking), weakening
>> emotional contagion (e.g., stage fright contagion).
>> Antidepressants directly alter emotional contagion by
>> stabilizing neurotransmitters.
>>
>> *5. Neuroscientific Evidence of Embodied Resonance*
>>
>> Neuroimaging clearly demonstrates activation of specific
>> physical brain areas (mirror neuron systems, limbic
>> system, amygdala) during emotional reactions. This direct
>> neural activity is material. Seeing someone in pain
>> activates similar pain circuits in the observer's
>> brain—physically embodying the emotion in neural tissue.
>>
>> **
>>
>> *How this counters the immaterial perspective?*
>>
>> Those who argue emotions are "immaterial" claim emotions
>> are disconnected from the body. However, emotional
>> contagion’s dependence on observable, biological,
>> chemical, and neurological mechanisms refute this
>> clearly. If emotions were immaterial, contagion wouldn’t
>> require physical presence with related physiological
>> processes involving chemical, or neuronal pathways.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Gordana
>>
>> PS
>>
>> My arguments are the result of a long discussion with
>> GPT-4.5, which produced 20 pages of text. These were the
>> prompts I used:
>>
>> 1. Can you please explain emotional contagion to me?
>> 2. Do you see a connection to the resonance phenomena in
>> physics?*
>> 3. What are the main differences between physical
>> resonance and emotional contagion?
>> (At this point, GPT-4.5 began to explain the view
>> that emotions, like consciousness, are subjective and
>> therefore immaterial, while physical resonance is a
>> material phenomenon. I argued that it confused
>> "subjective" with "immaterial." Subjective experience
>> is necessarily embodied and thus has a material
>> substrate. GPT-4.5 accepted my arguments.)
>> 4. Can you summarize this discussion?
>>
>> Finally, I edited the summary, shortening it.
>>
>> I wrote this mail and asked GPT-4.5 to check my English.
>>
>> What was my contribution?
>> A physicist's view on emotional contagion.
>>
>> * Resonance occurs when an external force or /driving
>> frequency matches the natural frequency of a system/,
>> causing the system to oscillate with greatly increased
>> amplitude.
>>
>> *From: *Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>
>> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Eric
>> Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org> <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org>
>> *Organisation: *OARF.org
>> *Date: *Tuesday, 11 March 2025 at 16:24
>> *To: *Howard Bloom <howlbloom at aol.com>
>> <mailto:howlbloom at aol.com>, "fis at listas.unizar.es"
>> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es> <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>, Katherine Peil
>> <ktpeil at outlook.com> <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>
>> *Subject: *Re: [Fis] Emotional Contagion?
>>
>> Dear Kate, Howard and All,
>>
>> I have had highs in concerts and deep experiences with
>> the Aborigines in the heart of Australia. These
>> experiences seem to have little to do with each other.
>>
>> The insight given to me by my experience in Australia
>> evoked the thought "They are crazy over there". Where
>> "over there" was European and American industrialized
>> societies, their wrong path and lack of genuine meaning.
>>
>> The insight given to me while blowing up balloons
>> backstage at a Rolling Stones concert was, well, seeing
>> Mick Jagger from the back while he elicited the highs in
>> his frontal audience. (My girlfriend and I didn't have
>> tickets and tried to get in and lucked out being asked if
>> we wanted to help backstage.) So I, the Ph.D.
>> -logician-philosopher-computer AI scientist-developmental
>> biologist-cancer theorist-(back at you Howard😉), worked
>> for a time for Mick Jagger!
>>
>> What is the point?: I learned more from my interaction
>> with a 50,000 year old mind in Australia than from all
>> the science and even Mick Jagger! It was emotion but it
>> was more. Certainly not material.
>>
>> As for the Beethoven sequence (of creating, encoding,
>> interpreting and executing the encoding, hearing the
>> execution, encoding and experiencing}, has interesting
>> relations to embryonic development. Such transformations
>> are at the heart of development and communication.
>>
>> -Eric
>>
>> On 3/11/25 5:48 AM, Howard Bloom wrote:
>>
>> kate, your question about emotional contagion and
>> what we can call "the cloud effect" is a good one.
>>
>> about this statement, with which i deeply agree:
>>
>> science is remiss if it fails to interrogate the
>> nature and power of “faith”, given our embodied
>> capacities for anomalous or “spiritual" experiences
>>
>> i'm an atheist. when science first grabbed hold of
>> my soul when i was ten years old, its aspiration to
>> me seemed to be omniscience.
>>
>> spiritual experiences are real. they may not be
>> manifestations of god, especially to folks like me to
>> whom there is no god. so what the hell are they?
>> where do they come from? how did they evolve? what
>> do they mean? what do they tell us about the nature
>> of the cosmos that has birthed them?
>>
>> in my fieldwork in mass behavior, working with people
>> like michael jackson and prince for 20 years, i saw
>> collective ecstasies, what emil durkheim called
>> "collective effervescence," ecstatic experiences at
>> work in audiences all over north america.
>>
>> in fact, one of the jobs of my entertainers was to
>> reliably evoke these transcendent experiences. and in
>> building the careers of people like Prince, it was my
>> job to help deliver these ecstasies. they are real.
>>
>> if science can't address the question of these
>> experiences, it abandons the aspiration to
>> omniscience. and it's not science.
>>
>> with warmth and oomph--howard
>>
>> On Monday, March 10, 2025 at 07:49:34 PM EDT,
>> Katherine Peil _<ktpeil at outlook.com>
>> <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>_ wrote:
>>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> The discussion about “nothing" or “something" being
>> exchanged between speakers and listeners prompts this
>> question: What about the phenomenon of "emotional
>> contagion”? Do Mike Levin’s
>> revelation about bioelectricity bear upon the concept
>> of “subtle energy”?
>>
>> Also, science is remiss if it fails to
>> interrogate the nature and power of “faith”, given
>> our embodied capacities for anomalous or
>> “spiritual" experiences. Pre-emptive pejoratives are
>> not good science, but they abound.
>>
>> Kate Kauffman
>>
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>> --
>> /Dr. Eric Werner, FLS
>> Oxford Advanced Research Foundation
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>> --
>> /Dr. Eric Werner, FLS
>> Oxford Advanced Research Foundation
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Oxford Advanced Research Foundation
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