From hpstapp@lbl.gov Tue Sep 4 08:46:44 2007 Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 08:46:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Henry P. Stapp To: richard sliwka Subject: Re: paris lecture On Mon, 3 Sep 2007, richard sliwka wrote: > Dear Professor Stapp, > > I am a friend of Shirley Herbert and have written to you previously. > Shirley is presently here in Riverside > and your Paris lecture came up in conversation.This prompts me to ask; Is > consciousness immaterial?; In the grand scheme of origins, does > consciousness precede matter?; > Does it in some sense create the material world?;. > > Rich Sliwka > Dear Richard, The evidence that I rely upon comes from the form of quantum theory, which is our way of using mathematics to organize our human sense experiences. Extrapolation to the birth of the physical universe is neither unigue nor reliable. What science says about how the world operates *now* is itself of interest and importance to us. On the other hand, even in seventeenth century thinkers had difficulty with the idea that the material world---as the successors of Isaac Newton conceived it--- which mindlessly *obeyed the laws that governed what was already present/fixed* could perform the quite different task of fixing the physical laws themselves, along with the initial physical conditions. Some extension of the classically conceived properties of matter are evidently needed to allow the issues of the initial conditions and the structure of the physical laws to be tackled. It seem safe to say that matter *as classicaly conceived* cannot fix the physical laws or the initial physical conditions. Our minds are therefore naturally led to idea that some idea-like aspects of nature existed before human consciousness came into being, and even before biological life came into being. Even the idea that all mathematically possible worlds do actually exist seems to demand some sort of idea-like aspect of nature. For how does one understand the mathematical conditions. And what decrees that certain (or all) mathematically consistent constructions should be "actual"? These are super-deep questions! I do not pretend to solve them. But I do consider what the structure of our contemporary laws of physics seem to be telling us about the nature of ourselves as aspects of the currently existing reality in which we are imbedded. Rational thought can be applied to this limited issue, which already, by itself, has important philosophical ramifications. I hope this brief note clarifies my aims and claims. Best wishes, Henry