Future Visions Conference Paper (State of the World Summit, NYC, Sept. 2000) Societal ramifications of the new scientific conception of human beings. Henry Stapp A major revolution occurred in science during the twentieth century. This change leads to a profound transformation of the scientific conception of human beings. Whereas the former conception of man undermines rational moral philosophy, the new one can buttress it. I intend to explain here this tectonic shift in science, and its relevance to our lives. I begin by listing three huge turnabouts in science that occurred during the past four centuries. I shall describe how each of them radically transformed our scientific understanding of human beings, and will then spotlight the moral, social, and philosophical significance of these developments. I then conclude by describing practical measures for promoting a rapprochement of science and moral philosophy. The first of the three great shifts was the creation of what is called "classical physics". This development was initiated during the seventeenth century by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, and was completed early in the twentieth century by the inclusion of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. The second major shift was the creation of quantum theory. This revision began at the outset of the twentieth century with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum of action, and was completed in the years 1925 to 1927, principally by Heisenberg, Bohr, Pauli, Dirac, Schroedinger, and Max Born. The third crucial shift was the integration of the mental and physical aspects of nature. It was begun in the early 1930's by John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner, and has developed rapidly during the past decade. Each of these three development has a main theme. The main theme of classical physics is that we live in a clocklike universe, and that even our bodies and brains are mechanical systems. The theory asserts that nature has a "material" part that consists of tiny localized bits of matter, and that every motion of each of these minute material elements is COMPLETELY DETERMINED BY CONTACT INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ADJACENT MATERIAL ELEMENTS. This material part of nature includes our bodies and our brains. Hence, according to classical physics, each of our bodily actions is completely fixed by mechanical processes occurring at atomic or subatomic levels. Classical physics accommodates the existence also of another part of nature, which consists of our human thoughts, ideas, feelings, and sensations. However, the existence these experiential aspects of nature is not entailed by the principles that govern the behavior of material parts. The classical-physics framework, which purports to specify completely the motion of every bit of matter, contains no requirement for any experiential aspect of nature to exist at all: the principles of classical physics fail to entail the existence of the defining characteristics of experiences, namely the way that they FEEL. Since, within the classical framework, our experiences need not even exist, they cannot, within that framework, be the causes of any physical action: our thoughts are reduced to at most passive bystanders. They are NOT elements of the chain of events that are, within that theory, the necessary and sufficient causes of every material motion, and hence of every bodily action. This causal irrelevance of our thoughts within classical physics constitutes a serious deficiency of that theory, construed as a description of reality. Such an inertness of thoughts, if it were actually true, would mean that reality has experiential parts that are not logically or dynamically linked to the physical world that the theory describes: nature would be split into two effectively independent parts. Such a separation is philosophically repugnant. But, besides that, it fails to explain your direct knowledge that you can, by your willful effort, cause your thumb to move. No such effect of mind on matter is explained by the supposedly causally complete classical physics: the felt effectiveness of your thoughts in influencing your bodily actions becomes merely a strange illusion. But how can a rationally coherent moral philosophy be based on a conception of nature in which the thoughts of a normal human being have no effect upon what he does? This difficulty has, quite rightly, been the topic of intense philosophical interest and effort for over three hundred years, but no satisfactory explanation has been found. A second problem with this classical-physics conception of man is the difficulty in understanding the close correlation between brain process and conscious process in the context of the evolution of our species: if there were no causal feed-back from conscious process to brain process then creatures with normal mind-brain correlations would be no better off than organisms with totally disconnected minds and brains. Natural selection would not favor creatures whose ideas about where food is located are correlated to where food is actually located over creatures that always think food is behind them. During the twentieth century this classical theory of nature was found to be incompatible with the emerging empirical data pertaining to the detailed properties matter. A new approach, called quantum theory, was devised. It explains both all the empirical facts that are explained by classical physics, plus all of the newer experimental data in which the classical predictions fail. The new theory differs profoundly from its predecessor. Classical physics was a deterministic theory about postulated localized bits of matter, whereas quantum theory is a probabilistic theory about nonlocalized bits of information. This great step forward was initially bought at a heavy price: scientists had to renounce, in principle, their traditional goal of seeking the "truth" about what was going on in the physical world. They were forced to retreat to the position of being satisfied with a set of practical rules that allowed them to make statistical predictions about connections between their empirical observations, renouncing all claims to any understanding of what was actually going on. This essentially subjective approach to physical theory was devised and promulgated by Niels Bohr, and the physicists that he gathered about him in Copenhagen. Hence it is known as the "Copenhagen Interpretation". It works exceedingly well in actual practice. In spite of the unparelleled practical success of the restricted program, some scientist have been unwilling to abandon the ideal that science should strive to find a rationally coherent conception of the reality that lies behind the empirical facts. The only successful effort in this direction that I know of is the one initiated by John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner. It accepts as real the subjective elements of experience that are the basic elements of Copenhagen quantum theory, and relates them to an equally real, but nonmaterial, objective physical universe. Under the impetuous of the rapidly growing scientific interest in the connection between the objective and subjective aspects of nature the von Neuman-Wigner approach has been developed over the past decade into a post-Copenhagen quantum theory that explains a great deal of the detailed structure of the emerging data in this field. This development allows quantum theory to be elevated from a set of practically successful---but mysterious---rules, to a rationally coherent conception of man and nature. The basic theme of both Copenhagen and post-Copenhagen quantum theory is that the physical world must be understood in terms of INFORMATION: the "tiny bits of matter" that classical physics had assumed the world to be built out of are replaced by spread-out nonmaterial structures that combine to form a new kind of physical reality. It consists of an objective carrier of a growing collection of `non-localized bits of information' that are dynamically related to experiential-type realities. Each subjective experience injects one bit of information into this objective store of information, which then specifies, via known mathematical laws, the relative probabilities for various possible future subjective experiences to occur. The physical world thus becomes an evolving structure of information, and of propensities for experiences to occur, rather than an mechanically evolving mindless material structure. The new conception essentially fulfills the age-old philosophical idea that nature should be made out of a kind of stuff that combines in an integrated and natural way certain mind-like and matter-like qualities, without being reduced either to classically conceived mind or classically conceived matter. This new quantum structure entails the validity of all the scientifically validated empirical data, while at the same time explaining how our thoughts can influence our actions in a way concordant with our normal experience of that connection. Another pertinent property of the new theory concerns "locality." Classical dynamics is "local" in the sense that all causation is via contact interaction between neighboring bits of matter. Von Neumann-Wigner quantum theory violates that condition in two different ways. The first pertains to the mechanism by which a person's thoughts influence his actions. That process is not a local process in which tiny elements act upon their neighbors. It is a process involving bits of information that reside in space-time structures that can extend over large portions of the person's brain or body, and that are associated with whole experiences. Von Neumann has given a name to this important nonlocal process: he calls it Process I. There is also a second way in which the action of subjective experiences upon the physical world turns out to be "nonlocal": what a person decides to do in one place can instantly influence what is true in distant places. That feature seems, on the face of it, to contradict the theory of relativity, which forbids sending signals faster than light. However, quantum theory is exquisitely constructed so that all of the EMPIRICALLY TESTABLE consequences of the theory of relativity are preserved. But, in spite of comforting restriction, the picture of nature that emerges is one in which the evolution of the universe is controlled in part by choices made by localized agents, such as human beings. The causal roots, or origins, of these choices is not specified by any laws that we yet know or understand. In that very specific sense these choices are "free." However, they can effect the behaviour of the agent himself, and necessarily have, moreover, effects on faraway physical events. What are the moral, social, and philosophical implications of this profound revision of our scientific understanding of man and nature. There has been a long-standing conflict between classical physics and rational moral philosophy: according to the precepts of classical physics each man is a machine ruled by local material processes alone, whereas rational moral philosophy is based on the presumption that what a normal human being knows and understands can make make a difference in how he behaves. Jurisprudence is, accordingly, based on the premise that insofar as a person was able to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or to know he was doing what was wrong, then he is responsible for that act. This rule is based on the premise that knowing and understanding can influence behavior. But classical physics, by claiming all behavior to be completely determined by atomic or subatomic processes that do not entail the existence of knowings or understanding, undermines that premise. It would make no sense to make responsibility hinge on knowing and understanding if knowing and understanding cannot influence action. One must place responsibility where power lies. Quantum theory, unlike classical physics, allows a person's mental process to make a difference in how his body behaves. von Neumann quantum theory injects human thoughts into the causal structure of nature in an irreducible way that allows a person's mental effort to influence his bodily actions. This influence of mind is not just a redundant re-expression of other known or postulated laws, but is an effect that has no other known cause. The situation is this: Quantum theory dynamics is like "twenty questions". First some definite question with a Yes 0r No answer is chosen. Then nature delivers an answer, Yes or No. The relative probalities of the two possible answers, Yes and No, are specified by the theory, and are therefore not controllable by human beings. But both Copenhagen and Post-Copenhagen quantum theory allow an "agent" to choose which QUESTION will be asked. These choices are, in general, not specified by any known laws of physics. They are in this very specific sense "free choices." But these choices can, according to the known laws of quantum theory, influence the physical behavior of the agent. Thus twenty-first century science, unlike nineteenth century science, does not reduce human beings to mechanical automata, deluded by the scientifically unsupportable belief that their thoughts can make a difference in how they behave. Rather it elevates human beings to agents whose "free choices" can, according to the known laws, actually influence their behavior. The problem with classical physics is not just some airy philosophical abstraction. The philosophical dilemma has trickled down into the workings of our society. The Australian supreme court justice, David Hodgson, has written a book, "Mind Matters", that documents the pervasive and pernicious effect that the idea that `Mind Does Not Matter' is having upon our legal system. An example occurred in San Francisco: Dan White walked into the office of Mayor George Moscone and shot him dead, and then walk down the hall and shot dead Supervisor Harvey Milk. White got off with five years, on the basis of the infamous "Twinkie Defense" that he was not responsible for his actions, due to derangement caused by junk foods. One of the most influential philosophers of the present time, Daniel Dennett, argues in his book "Conscious Explained", and elsewhere, that our conscious thoughts, as we normally understand them, do not exist, and ought to be drummed out of our scientific understanding of human beings. He explained his basic motivation: "...a brain is always going to do what it is caused to do by local mechanical disturbances." If this claim were indeed true then Dennett's conclusions might be valid. But the clear message of the quantum theory is that Dennett's assumption is not valid: what a person's brain does can, according to the quantum theory, be strongly influenced by a nonlocal local process connected to the person's conscious choices and mental efforts. Consciousness can play a non-redundant causal role in the determination of our actions: it can play the very role that we intuitively feel that it plays. Quantum theory allows your mind and your brain to co-author your physical actions. A central moral issue concerns "values". What a person values depends, basically, on what he believes himself to be. If he believes that he is an isolated hunk of protoplasm, struggling to survive in a hostile world, or a physical organism constructed by genes to promote their own survival, then his values will tend to be very different from those of a person who regards himself as a being with a mind-like aspect that makes conscious choices that control in part his own future, and are also integral parts of the global process that generates the unfolding of the universe. The second half of the twentieth century featured the rise of post-modernism. It denies the relationship between discourse and reality, and claims that `what we think we know' is just `what we have been discursively disciplined to believe'. This abandonment of the idea of objective truth leads directly to moral relativism. It draws support both from theory of relativity, which proclaims that what is true about nature depends upon the observer, and from the Copenhagen philosophy that renounces, even in science, the search for objective truth. But post-Copenhagen quantum theory sees the Copenhagen rejection of all inquiry about the nature of reality as merely a transitory phase between the old classical conception of reality to a more unified contemporary conception of nature. But this profound shift in what science says about the nature of the physical world, and of human beings, has yet to sink into the public consciousness. One thing that needs to be done to resuscitate moral philosophy is to infuse into the intellectual milieu an awareness of the important relevant changes wrought by quantum theory in our understanding of the nature of man. This initiative would involve the introduction into curricula, at all levels, of the contemporary quantum conception of nature in terms of INFORMATION. False mechanistic ideas inculcated into tender minds at an early age are hard to dislodge later. If our children are taught that the world is a machine built out of tiny material parts then both science and philosophy are damaged. The progress of science is inhibited by imbuing young minds with an incorrect idea of the nature of reality, and the pernicious philosophical idea that man is made of classically conceived matter is not exposed as being incompatible with the empirical facts. One might think that the ideas of quantum physics are too counterintuitive for young minds to grasp. Yet students have no trouble comprehending the even more counterintuitive classical idea that the solid chairs upon which they sit are mostly empty space. Children and students who, through their computers, deal all the time with the physical world conceived of as a repository and transmitter of information should grasp far more easily the the quantum concept of the physical world as a storehouse and conveyor of information than the classical concept of the physical reality as a horde of unseen particles that can somehow be human experience. A thoroughly rational concept into which one's everyday experiences fit neatly should be easier to comprehend than a seventeenth century concoction that has no place for one's own being as an active agent with efficacious thoughts, a concoction that has consequently confounded philosophers from the day it was invented, and which has now pushed some philosophers to the extremity of trying to convince us that consciousness, as we intuitively understand it, does not exist, or is an illusion, and other philosophers to the point of making truth a purely social construct. In order to free human beings from the false materialist mind-set that still infects the world of rational discourse, a serious effort is needed to move people's understanding of what science says out the seventeenth century and into the twenty-first, One problem stands in the way of pursuing this updating of the curricula. Most quantum physicists are interested more in applications of quantum theory than in its ontological implications. Hence they often endorse the `Copenhagen' philosophy of renouncing the quest to understand reality, and settling, instead, for practical rules that work. This forsaking by physicist of their traditional goal of trying to understand the physical world means that there is now no official statement as to the nature of reality, or of man's the place within it. Still, I believe that there will be near-unanimous agreement among quantum physicists that, to the extent that a rationally coherent conception of physical reality is possible, this reality will be informational in character, not material. For the whole language of the quantum physicist, when he is dealing with the meaning of his symbols, is in terms of information, which an agent may or may not choose to acquire, and in terms of Yes-or-No answers that constitute BITS OF INFORMATION. Just getting that ONE IDEA across could make a significant inroad into the corruptive materialist outlook that, more than three-quarters of a century after it official demise as a basic truth about nature, still infects so many minds.