From: SMTP%"PSYCHE-D@LISTSERV.UH.EDU" 23-AUG-1997 15:02:18.50 To: STAPP CC: Subj: QM and Consciousness (was References and causal linkage) Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 23:02:26 -0500 From: "William S. Robinson" Subject: QM and Consciousness (was References and causal linkage) Sender: "PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Theoretical emphasis)" To: PSYCHE-D@LISTSERV.UH.EDU Reply-to: "PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Theoretical emphasis)" Message-id: <9708220402.AA16237@las2a.iastate.edu> Approved-By: metacom@MINDSPRING.COM Henry Stapp (10:17pm, 8/19/97) gave a very helpful answer to a previous question of mine. It leads to some further questions. These again may lose their sense in a new framework; but they at least appear to make sense, so I'll ask them. First, however, the key part of Stapp's reply to my question about what, in a QM view, would take the place of a neural activity theorist's patterns of neural activity (as causes of conscious experience of, e.g., red). "These same patterns of neural activity would again be causes. However, there would be at the earlier time, just before the experience of red occurred, a quantum superposition of many slightly different brain states . . . . But the supra-physical process acts to resolve the issue of *which* response actually occurs, so that only one single possibility becomes actual. . . . . The memory tracks corresponding to the actualized possibility are etched into the brain structure." ". . . . In order to make the theory concordant with the quantum mechanical rules, which are explicitly about our experiences, we MUST assume that the supra-physical process generates the experience of red that we experience: that connection is what ties the ontological theory into the epistemological realities that are the basis of the verifications of the theory." The first part of this response suggests that (1) neural activity patterns are the (proximate) causes of conscious experiences. This claim would have the consequence that *if* those same patterns could be brought about without the supra-physical processes, conscious experiences would occur. But (this first view continues) in fact the neural activity patterns that (proximately) cause conscious experiences *cannot* themselves be brought about without being preceded by supra-physical processes. A natural question for this view (1) is, Just why can the requisite neural activity patterns not occur without being preceded by the supra-physical processes? The second part of Henry Stapp's response suggests instead that (2) the supra-physical processes *themselves* are the proximate causes of conscious experiences. (They "generate" them.) The neural activity patterns are merely after-the-fact mechanisms for carrying out appropriate actions, and recording the right memory traces. One natural question here is: Which of the two views is the better interpretation of the response? -- Of course, the answer could be "They're both misinterpretations." Or, the answer could be that they are both right, and not incompatible, as they appear. But what follows suggests that they are not really compatible -- or, at least, explains why they appear incompatible. View (2) seems to lead naturally to some questions that view (1) does not seem to raise at all. Namely: (A) Can a superposition cause a conscious experience? It seems not. Why? Because it might get "resolved" into one or another of *different*, and therefore incompatible, states. Since Stapp emphasizes "slightly" different, let's not think of red or blue; let us think of one shade of red or a close but different shade of red. Still, I couldn't be experiencing *both* in the same part of my visual field at the same time. But (if I follow the response) once the resolution has taken place, it might be either of two memory traces that occurs, and would be correct. It would seem that whatever generates a conscious experience has to be something that occurs either after a superposition has been resolved (as in view (1)) or *during* a resolution of a superposition -- a resolution that is destined to have one result rather than another. And this last alternative raises a further question, (B) What is the time course of a "resolution"? and how does it fit with the time course of conscious experiences? One might have a pain that lasts with only very minor change for, let us say, three seconds. Or one might have an afterimage that lasts almost unchanged for a comparable period. Neural activation pattern theorists have an easy account of the causes here; i.e., they can say that the same pattern of neural activity continues over a stretch of several seconds (or, of course, longer in some cases and shorter in others). (That is, one instance of a pattern takes some time, and then it can be repeated as many times as necessary to account for the duration of experience of the kind that that pattern causese.) Is it possible to assign a finite time for a resolution of a superposition to occur? If such a time is in the tens of ms range, is it possible to have a series of such resolutions? Is it physically plausible that such a series could occur in a brain? Bill Robinson Philosophy Dept. 402 Catt Hall Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011