Future Visions Talk [NYC, Sept 5, 2000] ----------------------------------------- Science has acquired tremendous power to change the world. But how that power is used depends on what people value. It is often claimed that science can tell us how to achieve what we value, but cannot determine values. That claim is quite wrong: science can determine values. For science has the power to change what people believe: What they believe about themselves. What they believe about nature. What they believe about their connection to nature. And a person's beliefs about WHAT he is and HOW he is connected to the rest of nature is the source of his core values. They can generate motives even stronger than his will to survive, Holy wars and religious martyrs illustrate this point. --------------------------------------------------- \newpage But what does science actually say about these basic question concerning the nature of human beings and their connection to the rest of reality? Today most people, and even most scientists, tend to think that what science says about these basic matters is what `classical physics' says. But that is not true! Classical physics says that the physical world is built out of tiny bits of matter, and that every motion of every part is caused, and completely determined, by contact interactions between neighboring parts. It says that the physical universe is basically a giant machine, and that our bodies and our brains are just parts of that machine. ---------------------------------------------------------- \newpage This mechanical view of nature creates a problem that has confounded philosophers for more than three centuries. This problem stems from the following fact: The postulates of classical physics do not demand the existence of the ``psychological'' properties that characterize our conscious experiences. These experiential properties could be left out without disturbing the space-time classical laws that do however entail ---in conjunction with the initial conditions--- the complete causal microscopic structure that fixes every motion of every bit of matter. But this means that the experiential properties/realities are not part of the causal chain of events that determines all physical motions. That conclusion contradicts everyone's direct personal experience that our thoughts DO influence our actions: I can, for example, by wilfull effort, cause my arm to rise. ------------------------------------------ \newpage The fact that philosophers have wrestled with this problem for more than three hundred years without reaching agreement, suggests that assumptions that underlie classical premises might be wrong. That is actually the case: the precepts of classical physicsis are now known to be irreconcilable with the empirical facts. Classical physics has been replaced by quantum theory, at the fundamental level. ------------------------------------------------------- \newpage This failure of the mechanical idea of nature leads naturally to the following question: If the mechanical idea is wrong, then what idea is right, or at least possibly right? To answer this question one must speak about objective reality. But that is ruled out by orthodox quantum thinking, which says that we must focus on relations between experiences, and never speak about the objective reality that lies behind these experiences. This tunnel-vision focussing on experience alone was perhaps a necessary `mind-clearing' phase in the development of physics. But we are now in the third millenium, and the time has come to shed our blinders, and get on with the task of describing BOTH the subjective and the objective aspects of nature, and the connection between them. ----------------------------------------------------- \newpage In my opinion, the only successful completion of quantum theory , at least to date, is the one initiated in the 1930's by John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner. This approach accepts the basic premise of Copenhagen quantum theory: it recognizes our subjective human experiences to be the basic realities of human science. But, unlike Copenhagen, it imbeds these realities in an equally real objective physical universe. This approach been developed over the past decade into a comprehensive theory of mind and brain that explains a lot of formerly unexplained empirical data. This development elevates quantum theory from a set of mysterious rules about connections between experiences to a rationally coherent conception of man and of nature. ---------------------------------------------------- \newpage The BASIC MESSAGE of both this new quantum theory of nature, and of the earlier Copenhagen quantum theory, is that the physical world must be understood in terms of INFORMATION: The "tiny bits of matter" postulated by classical physics are transmuted into diffused spread-out nonmaterial structures that combine to form a new kind of physical reality. This reality acts as a carrier of a growing collection of `BITS OF INFORMATION''. Each subjective experience injects one bit of information into this objective storehouse of information. This evolving COMPENDIUM OF INFORMATION has an active side: it determines via known mathematical laws, the ``propensities'', or (objective) probabilities, for new subjective experiences to occur. Thus the ``objective physical world'' of classical physics been converted from `an evolving structure of matter' into an evolving structure of information, and propensities for new information to arise. -------------------------------------------------- \newpage A key consequence of this quantum theory of nature concerns the power of our thoughts. The theory explains in some detail how our thoughts are able to influence our brains in a way that makes our bodies act in accordance with our intentions. Thus the new theory actually explains how our thoughts influence our actions. --------------------------------------------- This feature has important moral ramifications. One cannot rationally hold a machine responsible for its actions. Hence the whole notion of personal responsibility makes no sense in a world where classical physics reigns. Quantum theory resolves this moral dilemma by allowing our conscious efforts to influence our physical actions. --------------------------------------------- Quantum theory has an important NONLOCAL aspect that I have no time to discuss here, except to say that it makes man a much more integral part of nature than classical physics permits. ---------------------------------------- \newpage Quantum theory is important for religion for the following reasons. According to classical physics, all motion of matter is determined by matter alone, and hence `spirit', can make no difference in any human act: Thus `Spirit' ,if it exists at all, is irrelevant to human life. Quantum theory, on the other hand, is built upon what Dirac called "choices on the part of nature." The theory imposes statistical conditions on these choices, but they are otherwise unconstrained by the theory. These choices are extremely important, because they DETERMINE WHAT ACTUALLY happens in the world. But their origins are shrouded in mystery, from the perspective of science. These "choices" provide a natural opening for the entry of `spirit' into the workings of the world. ---------------------------------- \newpage A rational social and moral philosophy needs a rationally coherent foundation. Neither the mechanical philosophy that omits subjective mind, nor the Copenhagen philosophy that omits objective truth, provides a rationally coherent understanding of human beings, and their relationship to the rest of nature. In order to confront, and rise above, both the `narrowness' of the materialist mind set and the `looseness' entailed by the "abandonment of truth" our best weapon is possession of a concrete alternative that puts the two sick parts together to make a healthy whole. ---------------------------------------------------- \newpage Our purpose at this meeting is to make concrete proposals that will promote a life-enhancing future. Nothing is more important for the achievement of this end than opening up, on a large scale, the human understanding of human beings. This means piercing the veil of darkness ---formed by mistaking parts for wholes--- by illuminating the public mind with an awareness of the profound shift in the understanding of man and nature wrought by quantum theory. Achieving this can open the door to a rational approach to moral issues and social agendas that rests on a scientific conception of human beings that is both concordant with the concept of personal responsibility, and consonant with the possibility of a spiritual dimension. ---------------------------------------------------------- \newpage This initiative would involve the introduction into curricula, at all levels, of not, for example, creationist ideas that run counter to scientific opinion, but rather the quantum theoretical 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 religion are damaged. The progress of science is inhibited by imbuing young minds with a false idea of nature, and the religious view that `man is NOT ruled by matter alone' is unfairly maligned by teaching as scientific truth a mechanical conception of nature that is incompatible with the empirical facts. --------------------------------------------- \newpage 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 quantum concept that the physical world is a store of information than the classical concept that physical reality is a horde of unseen particles that can somehow become a human experience. ------------------------------------------------ \newpage A thoroughly rational concept into which one's own experiences fit neatly should be easier to comprehend than a mechanical scheme that has no natural place for one's own efficacious thoughts, and which has therefore 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 know it, does not exist, or is an illusion, and other philosophers to the point of making truth a social construct. In order to provide a rational and universal foundation for dealing with the moral, social, and philosophical problems of the third millenium, a serious effort is now needed to move everyone's understanding of what science says out of the seventeenth century and into the twenty-first. \newpage The point, here, is that in today's world that is dominated by democratic states and massive information transfer, the power REALLY IS shifting to the people, who are therefore beset on all sides by conflicting exhortations arising from disparate premises. Only science has the universality and neutrality needed to provide a common ground for rational dialog. But science has heretofore either proclained a false mechanistic conception of man and nature, or has declared its own incompetence in these matters. Yet it is able to do more! By providing a coherent understanding of human beings, with their many facets, and of their connections to the rest of nature, science can provide the core common foundation needed for the commencement of a rational discourse about the future of man.