Electrical Impulses

Brain Wave, 2.

"Electromagnetic phenomena were changed.

"...the supposedly eternal constants of nature had shifted..." (p. 24)

I am a philosopher, not a physicist.

Natural constants are fundamental quantities like G, the gravitational force, or c, the speed of light in a vacuum, that have to be measured empirically because they cannot be deduced from theory. In Brain Wave, it must be the electric constant or the elementary charge that has shifted. (See Physical constant.)

"There are no absolutes in this universe, everything exists in relation to everything else,..." (ibid.)

My comment: If the relative is that which exists in relation to something else and if the absolute is that which is independent of external relationships, then the absolute can only be the cosmic totality, the sum total of all the relatives. This statement has to be true of any possible universe.

The second half of the quoted sentence is the fictional premise of Brain Wave:

"...and it was the fact that certain data had altered relatively to others which was significant." (ibid.)

Insulators have become better conductors. Within and between cerebral neurons, the electrical impulses have accelerated and intensified. The text states that these impulses represent functions including sense awareness and thought.

And here is the unfathomable philosophical mind-body problem. How do objectively detectable impulses "represent" subjective awareness and thought? They are qualitatively entirely different.

When both a cause and its effect are objective, then we can observe both. Thus, we observe both a quantitative increase in the temperature of a volume of water (cause) and the qualitative transformation of the water into steam (effect). However, when the effect is subjective, then we cannot observe it. I observe another person eating a meal (cause) but I cannot observe his experience of it (effect): how it tastes to him, how he feels about it, what he thinks about it, what it reminds him of etc. To detect his electrical impulses is not to observe his experiences.

Poul Anderson did not write a novel about the mind-body problem. I highlight this problem because I am an sf reader who is also a philosophy graduate.