I have long thought that consciousness is powered by the universe moving from hot to cold. That seems to me to be the one condition that is really universal. There is a lot of circular reasoning in what follows, (I hope) and this is just a second draft so I expect to have a fair amount of error, hopefully though, any truth will shine through.
We perceive as individuals but most consider themselves to be part of a greater whole. Part of a Complex System. Systems evolve toward attractor states. Attractors can be fixed point attractors or periodic or quasi periodic attractors.
So that reminded me of the various realms or mental states that the deceased are drawn towards. If they go towards the light, that is obviously a fixed point attractor. Other mental states like addiction or self centeredness would be on the order of periodic or quasiperiodic and result in a lower realm of heaven or hell depending on the given attractor.
Each realm or basin attractor would act as an order parameter limiting the degrees of freedom which the individual consciousness could be aware of as part of the complex system. Hence the entrapment is Samsara. I think at anytime one caught in a basin attractor could become focused upon the fixed point attractor but because the degrees of freedom are so limited it is hard to recognize or break the cycle. So the probabilities associated with the overall complex system is dependent on the behavior of the individual components. Thus the importance of each and every individual to the over all battle between good and evil. (so to speak)
Entropy may be described many ways: A measure of internal randomness or chaos. As chaos increases, entrophy increases. Another way of describing entrophy is that it means the universe's need for sustaining energy is increasing as the sustaining energy decreases. Boltzman showed that the universe's need for sustaining energy will always tend towards a state of maximum probability. Imho, tending towards a state of maximum probability is the same as following the path of least resistance which is again imho a trait of consciousness.
As a measure of chaos, which is ignorance, the probability of accessible states for a complex system is a measure of the complex systems uncertainty. So ignorance or chaos is a measure of uncertainty and the measure of our individual ignorance determines the probabilities of the overall complex system. An ignorant attractor is unpredictable and is called a basin which is the uncertainty of the system.
A basin is an unstable collective mode which serves as an ordering parameter. So if the deceased get caught up in any ordering parameter other than the fixed point attractor, well....you have read about the conditions thereof.
The measure of ignorance (entropy) can be described as the universe's need for sustaining energy and the measure of ignorance follows the path of least resistance which is a tendancy towards a state of maximum probability.
Information is the number of possiblitites. So entropy or the measure of ignorance which is consciousness because consciousness is the only thing in the universe measuring ignorance, follows the path of least resistance.
When the brain exchanges energy and matter with the environment the measure of ignorance or entropy is locally reduced. So when ignorance is reduced the universe's need for sustaining energy is decreasing which leads to increasing complexity of possible behavior.
Entropy is a fundemental condition of the universe and consciousness is entrophy so consciousness is fundemental.
--Clifford White on WEDconscious
