Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 11:22:02 -0800 (PST) From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov To: Jack Subject: Re: Stapp's Theory of Quantum Mind Dear Jack, Contrary to my resolve to stay focussed (on the task of developing further the technical aspects of my theory, and preparing for the three talks that I will be giving to physicists and scientists at Cambridge(UK)) I offer here a few comments on the goings-on in your forum. The central problem is to distinguish what the brain does from what conscious experience does. Wm James already saw that the brain seems to do almost all of what we do, and present-day studies of brain functioning are making huge strides in understanding the details of the complex processing that brains do. Given these huge strides, most brain scientist are fairly confident that the entire behavioural story is basically a story of causal physical effects in the brain. Both my theory and Jack's would agree that the first-level process is basically the creation, via the Schroedinger equation, of a state of the brain that is a superposition of a set of basins of attraction that correspond to possible courses of action appropriate to the person's (or creature's) situation or plight. This first rough process is controlled by a brain honed by evolution to work out, initiate, and direct appropriate actions. How does consciousness then enter? If the conscious "feel" is *exactly representable* by the various physically describable parameters then one is faced with the "identity theory" dilemma: you must either grant that the conscious feel could be, identically the very same thing as a physical structure that exactly represents it, or claim that the feel is cannot be identical to the physical structure. [I define the "physical structure" to be the aspect of reality (or the theory) that is described in terms of mathematical quantities localizable in spacetime. In classical physical theory this means the atomic constituents and the electromagnetic and gravitational fields, and in quantum theory it means the quantum mechanical state, per se, and any similarly described quantities.] If you admit that the conscious feel could be the very same thing as a physical structure in spacetime that represents it, then there seems no very good reason to reject the classical identity-theory claim that classical physical theory (with some atomic-scale adjustments to account for quantum effects at the MICROSCOPIC (atomic) scale) is completely capable of qiving a FULL account of consciousness: i.e., admitting that consciousness is nothing at all but [an `emergent' aspect of] (essentially) the classically describable brain activity. I believe that a "conscious feel" cannot be identically the very same thing as an aspect of the behavior of a world of atomic particles (plus EM and Grav fields), as that world is conceived of in classical physical theory. I believe that the arguments of philosophers that defend the thesis that these two apparently different things can be identically the very same thing are logically flawed. The reason is basically that a "conscious feel" cannot be identified with something characterized in non-psychological terms without stripping it of its defining qualities. But that is a story too long to be told here. I believe the same conclusion holds true of a quantum mechanical state evolving in a accordance with the Schroedinger equation, and that the same conclusion holds true for also for Bohm's model, which combines these two models. I think Jack and I agree on that. It is only when something like a collapse occurs that we could have an opening for something essentially different to appear. I think Jack and I (and also Penrose) agree on this: our differences are on the details of this "collapse". Jack speaks of "back reaction", rather than "collapse" or reduction. But the essential point is that something is happening whose cause can lie outside the spacetime structure that is called "physical reality". The basic question is then: how can something that is essentially and fundamentally a "feel" enter into the causal structure. How can it influence the dynamical evolution of the spacetime structure ? If the theory says that the "conscious feel" is completely representable in terms of the physical parameters that describe the quantum state and the classical world of the Bohmian model then I think one is in trouble. There is then no rational need for anything else to exist: the physical structure alone is sufficient to do everything that is done. To make the theory rationally coherent, and without superfluous parts, one needs, I believe, to have "feels" be elements of the theory that are not equatable to aspects of the the physical structure, but that can nevertheless influence the evolution of the physical structure. This is not "mysticism", as some contributors to this forum have charged. It is, rather, not falling into the trap of believing that the *only* realities are realities of the kind that physicists think that the physical world is built out of. But the issue then comes down to the question of how can a "feel" that is not expressible as an aspect of the physical structure possibly influence the evolution of the physical structure? This has been the big question at least since the development of "modern" physics during the times of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Jack wrote: > [Jack] > > Indeed, it is Stapp who is hanging on to uncontrollable absolute local > quantum > randomness i.e. signal-locality, no backward causation. I did show in my paper in PRA how these stipulations could be broken, if the facts warrant it. But I have a uneasy feeling about the experiments, and prefer to stick for the present to "orthodox" physics. > Therefore, it is hard to see > exactly how a large scale quantum mind can output non-random symbol > strings like this > sentence. Note the self-reference. There is no strange-loop possible in > Stapp's > orthodoxy. There is no way that the Dirac answer can co-evolve with the > Heisenberg > question in spontaneous self-organization tweaked by environmental > pressures within > orthodox quantum theory. ........> Is backward causation really needed in order for a large-scale quantum mind to produce non random outputs? I see no reason at all why this need be true. Real quantum brains are complex structures that have evolved in a way that promotes survival. That historical background would tend to create a brain that produces non random behaviour. There are lots of artificial classical learning systems in which weedings out by survival criteria do produce survivors with highly non random behaviours. These classical systems are really quantum systems--all physical systems are. But even if somewhat larger quantum effects were introduce, that would not necessarily totally obliterate the fitness-induced non random behaviour. So I see no rational basis for claiming that backward causation is needed to produce such nonrandom sequences as the words on this page. Moreover, I have described in my book, and my recent JCS article, how large-scale quantum mind should be able to produce more appropriate behaviour than a classical brain. There is no backward causation in my model, and it should, in principle, out-perform its classical counterpart. You will recall, Jack, that my theory is built on James's conception of the character of the conscious event, and on his ideomotor theory of intentional acts, and on the concept of the body-world schema. All of this structure can be naturally implemented in the evolving brain. Each individual conscious event is, according to James, divided into an ordered sequence of components, with features that came first into the stream of conscious placed in "earlier" components, etc. so that a whole sweep of time is present in each conscious event. This gives consciousness an access to the developing brain-body process, and the ability to control future acts via the projected body-world schema, in accordance with James's ideo-motor theory of intentional acts. This control is via the quantum Zeno effect, which directly allows a "feel" to influence brain dynamics WITHIN the framework of orthodox von Neuman-Wigner quantum mechanics. This scheme seems obviously quite capable of accounting for non random consciously controlled behaviour, with the control exercised by consciousness being in line with our feeling of the capacity of our consciously felt "effort" to influence behaviour. > I do agree with Stapp that classical machines are fundamentally not > capable of "feel". I > disagree with Stapp that quantum non-machines with signal-locality are > capable of > "feel". I say only post-quantum non-machines with signal-nonlocality > have "feel". You do say this, Jack. But can you give some rational reason why an objective von Neumnn_wigner collapse could not have a "feel"? Why, exactly, is backward causation necessary for "feeling". I believe that I have presented in the published literature an alternative model that is completely concordant with orthodox (vN/W) quantum theory, and that does not involve backward causation or faster-than-light SIGNALLING, but that does allow felt "effort" to influence behaviour. > > Dan Smith wrote: > > > Jack, > > > > OK, Henry can accept the randomness of the Dirac answers to the Heisenberg > > questions. Mind influences reality purely by the questions it poses. > > > > I would not accept this unnecessary limitation on how the mind operates, > > but > > Henry is following Occam. > Yes, and I am staying within orthodox (von Neumann-Wigner) quantum theory. > In that case, Jack is also applying Occam's razor since he claims he has no > need of a mysterious metaphysical black box called "Self". I have no mysterious metaphysical black box called "Self". I have described my theory in some detail, particularly in Ch. 6 of my book and my article in JCS. My website is loaded with papers about these matters. > > Henry's answer without the loop begs the real question which is how > > "Mind influences reality purely by the questions it poses." > > All the Q Zeno effect says is that if you apply a fixed P to a system fast > enough you > prevent it from changing from P's eigenstate. Since when do we rapid fire > like a Gatling gun > the same question in our minds? Now if you adiabatically change P to P(t) > you can force a > given Feynman path (Aharonov), but so what? That is a kind of pinning of > wings, it does not explain the self-organizing intelligence choosing > the P(t) function based > on feedback from the world. > > > The mental Zeno effect operates in the sense of the watched pot never > > boiling, or the watched rabbit never reaching the finish line. That such > > effects can be enforced in the quantum world by the persistent questioning > > of observers is uncontroversial. > > > > You seem terminally upset that this does not explain the existence of the > > observer. Yes, the existence of an observer is a necessary presupposition > > of standard quantum theory. > > [Jack] > > It's an axiom. It is not good enough for me. > Every theory needs some basic premises. Consciousness must come into the theory from SOME principle. I do accept the great discovery of the founders of quantum theory that the mathematical structure of the theory allows `knowing' and `being' to be naturally conjoined. I am building on that solid foundation, as it was exploited and developed into an objective ontology already by von Neumann and Wigner. The work of these giants may not be good enough for you, but it good enough to do the job of unifying mind and matter in a way that fits intuition and the psychological analysis of James. It seems to me to be quite in line with the results or contemporary experimental research, though that is a long story. The basic question is: What is the correct way to bring consciousness into physical theory? I take the view that consciousness is a primitive that cannot and should not be taken to be described or represented by physical aspects of reality. If consciousness were representable in terms of physical features then there would be no need for it to exist: the physical aspect could do whatever job consciousness does. Moreover, the physical description, if it is in non psychological terms, does not suffice to describe the experiential feel: it leaves out the defining characteristics of the experiential feel. Of course, if one does not provide a physical description of consciousness, yet gives it causal power, then the theory is in grave danger of having no firm structure, and hence no explanatory power. To give the theory maximal structure I give to mind only what it needs to do its job. All that vN/W QT allows mind to DO is pose questions. But I let the brain even do most of that and take the promordial nonphysical thing to be ``effort''. The effort is merely the strenghth of the attention directed at the "best" offering of the brain [as measured by Tr(-b) P S(t)/Tr(-b) S(t)]. Effort merely controls the rate at which this best question is posed. Thus the equations of physics [i.e., of von Neumann-Wigner quantum theory] control almost everything. The things left unspecified are: (1) What makes a system a quantum information processor b, (2) What is the set of "possible" P's. (3) How the "effort" (= rapidity of posing) is determined. (i.e., When are the questions posed), and (4) How does Nature make the (random) Dirac choice. This leaves a great amount still to be specified. But at least the general picture is fixed, and it is fixed in a way that is in general accord with both the physical and pschological data that is now available: one does not have any huge mystery or counterintuitive claim, or need to renounce our capacity to comprehend nature. Important details need to be filled in, but there is no basic conceptual problem. Wm James, in Pschology: A Briefer Course, begins his section "Volutional effort is effort of attention" of his final chapter, "Will", with the words: "We thus find that *we reach the heart of our inquiry into volition when we ask by what process it is that the thought of any given action comes to prevail stably in the mind*" A little later, he says: "*The essential achievment of the will, in short, when most `voluntary', is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind*" This is just what is achieved by "effort" in my theory, via the quantum Zeno effect. James says later (*xxx* indicates italics): "* Effort of attention is thus the essential phenomenon of will.*" Thus the ancient question of how a feeling can influence physical behaviour seems resolved by vN/W QT in a very satisfactory manner. Or at least a rational framework for a solution is provided. Henry