From claytonp@SONOMA.EDU Thu Dec  2 12:23:27 2004
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 09:47:42 -0700
From: Philip Clayton <claytonp@SONOMA.EDU>
To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
Subject: Re: Emergence and Free Will

Henry,

This is a remarkably clear presentation of your views.  Your distinction
between trivial and (let's call it) genuine emergence, and your list of
criteria for genuine emergence, are very helpful.  I believe that your
position on the emergence of mind, drawing from the resources of vN QT,
represents the currently best justified position on the mind/body
problem.

Philip

At 10:23 AM 4/19/01 -0700, you wrote:
      >From searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu Thu Apr 19 10:17:42 2001
      Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:45:42 -0700
      From: John R. Searle <searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
      To: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
      Subject: Many Thanks

      Dear Henry,
      You did a great job presenting your ideas, and everybody was
      grateful,
      especially me.  I think we are going to have more
      conversations about this.
      Best wishes and thanks again,
      John

      >From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Thu Apr 19 10:18:20 2001
      Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:17:03 -0700 (PDT)
      From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
      Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
      To: John R. Searle <searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
      Subject: Primitive, Emergent, and Free.

      Dear John,

      I greatly enjoyed talking to you and your group,

      There were a few unresolved points between us, which
      I would like to comment upon here.

      I said mind was "primitive" in Copenhagen QT, because
      according to that approach, science is a human endeavour:
      physical theories are  "tools" that we scientists use to make
      prediction about what we will observe under certain kinds
      of conditions. Thus the experiencing minds of the human
      beings
      are the BASIC REALITIES in this approach, and the description
      of the `physical world' that the theory offers is regarded as
      merely part of the scientist's toolkit, rather than any
      accurate image of nature herself.

      I also stressed that in Copenhagen QT the
      minds of the  observers stood "outside" the physical
      system that was described in the mathematical language
      of QT: the observer (and thus his mind) was not part
      of the physical system that was being described quantum
      mechanically. And the minds of the observers continued
      to be left out when von Neumann brought the bodies and brains
      of the human beings into the quantum physical universe
      described by the quantum mathematics. I continued  to use
      the word "primitive" to characterize mind even in
      von Neumann QT.

      You resisted calling mind "primitive" when we got into
      the question of the universe BEFORE (HUMAN) LIFE.
      Indeed, the position that I took might better be called
      "EMERGENTIST": I adopted the idea that
      (proto) consciousness [or proto-mind] comes into being
      in conjunction with the coming into being of a physical
      system whose development can be sustained by the action
      of mind on matter that vN QT allows.

      I  sharply distinguish this kind of emergence in QT
      in which a new kind of element appears that:
      1) Is NOT just a conglomeration of the previously existing
         micro elements, and
      2) Is, as a whole, an essential element of a causal process
         that was not previously operating within the associated
         physical  system, 

      to the `trivial emergence' that occurs within classical
      mechanics,  where the `new causal process' is in principle
      just a consequence of the old micro-physical laws acting
      within a new physical context.

      The other point of discussion between us concerned
      "freedom": I identified the freedom of choice that I
      was talking about as a choice that is not determined by
      the  laws of quantum mechanics, as they are NOW KNOWN:
      i.e. the laws formulated by vN.

      Quantum theory has a TWO choices of this kind:
      1) Nature's choice of which of the two "outcomes" will
         appear. [This choice is subject to statistical rules,
         and in that sense is NOT `completely free'.]
      2) the choice of which question to put to Nature.

      It is the second choice that is connected to "Free Will".


      If NOTHING AT ALL fixes such a free choice,
      I would call this choice a "whimsical"
      choice. But that is not the only possibility.
      For the *known* laws of QT may be only part of the
      story: there may other laws that fill the dynamical gap.

      The nature of these further possible laws is still unknown.
      They might tie the "free will" choice to the brain in some
      nonlocal way. Even the possibility of some  "spiritual"
      influence cannot be logically ruled out.

      I believe that a rational moral philosophy cannot allow
      one's "free will" to be controlled by any of the following
      three possibilities:
      1) local mechanical micro-process,
      2) random statistical choices,
      3) pure whimsy,

      The importance of vN QT is that this framework
      encompasses what science knows about Nature, but
      leaves open, as as rational possibility,
      that our moral free choices are determined by none
      of the three processes listed above, but are the
      outcomes of, for example, a nonlocal process of
      self examination and evaluation.


      Henry