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  \large { {\bf                  KNOWINGS                            }}\\  
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{\bf                              Henry P Stapp                           }\\ 
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{\bf                          Shifting the Paradigm                    } \\
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How is mind related to matter? This ancient problem in philosophy is rapidly  
becoming a core problem in science, perhaps the most important of 
all because it probes the essential nature of man himself. Because our beliefs 
about how thought is connected to action shape our idea of what we are, 
and how we fit into nature, this mind-body question transcends mere 
scientific practice and philosophic musing: it impacts on the intellectual and 
moral foundations of human life.

This problem has attracted the diligent attention of distinguished 
philosophers, but their opinions on the matter are wildly divergent. 
However, two related developments of great potential importance are now 
occurring. First, on the experimental side, there is an explosive 
proliferation of empirical studies of the relations between a subject's 
brain process --- as revealed by instrumental probes of diverse kinds --- 
and the experiences he reports. Second, on the theoretical side, there is a 
growing number of physicists who believe almost all academic thinking on this 
issue during the past century to be logically unsound, because it is based 
implicitly on the precepts of classical physical theory, which are now  
known to be fundamentally incorrect. Contemporary physical theory differs
profoundly from classical physical theory precisely on the nature of 
the dynamical linkage between minds and physical states.

The core of the mind-matter problem, as traditionally viewed, is a  
clash between two different conceptions of what a human 
being is. Your common sense idea of what you are has two parts that do not sit
well together. First, there is the idea of yourself as a bundle of ideas, 
thoughts, feelings, aspirations, intentions, and other experiences, which act 
upon the world through your body. Second, there is the idea of yourself as a 
material system composed of parts that persist even when the experiential 
realities are absent: you remain yourself even during dreamless sleep. 

The conflict between these two ideas was recognized in antiquity. But 
it became far more acute with the rise, during the seventeeth century, of 
what is called `modern science'. The ideas of Galileo Galilei, 
Ren\^{e} Descartes, and Isaac Newton created a magnificent edifice known 
as classical physical theory, which was completed by the work of James 
Clerk Maxwell. The main idea of this theory is that all motion of matter 
is completely determined, at the microscopic level, by matter alone: 
that your thoughts and willful intentions are naught but impotent witnesses 
to your bodily actions. This exclusion of mind from any determinitive role 
in the course of bodily events has come to be seen by many as the
{\it qua sine non} of scientific respectibility, even though it 
contradicts our most basic intuition about ourselves, which informs us that 
a person's willed intentions can cause his body to move in response to his 
conscious intent. 

The enormous empirical success of classical physical theory during the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has lead many twentieth century thinkers 
to believe that the problem is to explain the existence of our false
intuitions. The proposed answers are diverse. The influential philosopher 
Daniel Dennett (1994, p.237) claims that our normal intuition 
about consciousness is ``like a benign user illusion'' or ``a metaphorical 
by-product of the way our brains do their approximating work''. Eliminative 
materialists such as Richard Rorty (1979) hold that mental phenomena, such 
as conscious experiences, simply do not exist. Proponents of the 
`Identity Theory of Mind' grant that conscious experiences do exist, but claim 
each experience to be {\it identical} to some brain process. Epiphenomenal 
dualists hold that our conscious experiences do exist, and are not
identical to material processes, but have no effect on anything we do.

Dennett (1994, p.237)  described the recurring idea that pushed him to his
counter-intuitive conclusion: ``a brain was always going to do what it was 
caused to do by local mechanical disturbances.'' This passage lays bare  
the underlying presumption behind his own theorizing, and undoubtedly behind
the theorizing of most non-physicists who ponder this matter, namely 
the presumptive essential correctness of the idea of the physical world 
foisted upon us by the assumptions of classical physical theory. According 
to this now-superceded theory, we human beings are essentially robots, in 
the sense that, (1), every motion of every person is the consequence of the 
motions of the billions of tiny particles that make up his body, and that, 
(2), each of these particles follows the rigid dictates of an impersonal 
myopic law that specifies the behaviour of this particle exclusively in terms 
of physical properties located in its immediate microscopic neighborhood.

It has become now widely appreciated that assimilation by the general public
of this ``scientific'' view, according to which each human being is basically 
a mechanical robot, is likely to have a significant and corrosive impact on 
the moral fabric of society. Dennett speaks of the Spectre of Creeping 
Exculpation: recognition of the growing tendency of people to exonerate 
themselves by arguing that it is not ``I'' who is at fault, but some 
mechanical process within: ``my genes made me do it'';  or ``my high 
blood-sugar content made me do it.'' [Recall the infamous ``Twinkie Defense'' 
that got Dan White off with five years for murdering San Francisco Mayor 
George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.] 

Steven Pinker (1997, p.55) also defends a classical-type conception
of the brain, and, like Dennett, recognizes the important need to 
reconcile the science-based idea of causation with a rational conception 
of personal responsibility. His solution is to regard science and ethics 
as two self-contained systems: ``Science and morality are separate spheres
of reasoning. Only by recognizing them as separate can we have them both.'' 
And ``The cloistering of scientific and moral reasoning also lies behind my 
recurring metaphor of the mind as machine, of people as robots.'' But he then 
decries ``the doctrines of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and 
deconstructionism, according to which objectivity is impossible, meaning is 
self-contradictory, and reality is socially constructed.'' Yet are not the 
ideas he decries a product of the contradiction he embraces? 
Self-contradiction is a bad seed that bears relativism as its evil fruit.  

The current welter of conflicting opinion about the mind-brain connection
suggests that a paradigm shift is looming. But it will require a major 
foundational shift. For acute thinkers have, for three centuries, been 
attacking this problem  from every angle within the limits defined by the 
precepts of classical physical theory, and no consensus has emerged.

William James (1893, p.486),  writing  at the end of the nineteenth century,
said of the scientists who would one day illuminate this problem:

``the best way in which we can facilitate their advent is to understand how 
great is the darkness in which we grope, and never forget that the 
natural-science assumptions with which we started are provisional and 
revisable things.''

How wonderfully prescient!

It is now well known that the precepts of classical physical theory are 
fundamentally incorrect. That earlier theory has now been superceded by 
quantum theory, which produces all of the empirical successes of classical 
physical theory, and succeeds also in every  known case where the predictions 
of classical physical theory fail. Yet even though quantum theory yields all 
the correct predictions of classical physical theory, its representation of 
the physical aspects of nature is profoundly different from that of 
classical physical theory. And the most essential difference 
concerns precisely the connection between physical states and consciousness. 

My thesis here is that the difficulty with the traditional attempts to
understand the mind-brain system lies primarily with the physics 
assumptions, and only secondarily with the philosophy:  once the physics 
assumptions are rectified the philosophy will take care of itself. A correct 
understanding of the mind/matter connection cannot be based on a 
conception of the material aspects of nature that are profoundly mistaken 
precisely the critical point, namely the role of consciousness in the 
constitution and dynamical workings of the physical world.

Contemporary science, rationally pursued, provides an essentially new 
understanding of the mind/brain system. This revised understanding is in 
close accord with our intuitive  understanding of that system: no idea of 
a ``benign user illusion'' arises,  nor any counter-intuitive idea that a 
conscious thought is identical to a collection of tiny objects moving about 
in some some special kind of way. 

Let it be said, immediately, that this solution lies not in the invocation 
of quantum randomness: a significant dependence of human action on random 
chance would be far more destructive of any rational notion a personal 
responsibility than microlocal causation ever was. 

The solution hinges not on quantum randomness, but rather on the dynamical
effects within quantum theory of the intention and attention of the observer.

But how did physicists ever manage to bring conscious thoughts into 
the dynamical structure of physical theory? That is an interesting tale.

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                    {\bf  The World as Knowings}
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In his book ``The creation of quantum mechanics and the Bohr- Pauli
dialogue" the historian John Hendry (1984) gives a detailed
account of the fierce struggles, during the first quarter of this
century, by such eminent thinkers as Hilbert, Jordan, Weyl, von Neumann,
Born, Einstein, Sommerfeld, Pauli, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac,
Bohr and others, to come up with a rational way of comprehending the
data from atomic experiments.  Each man had his own bias and
intuitions, but in spite of intense effort no rational comprehension
was forthcoming.  Finally, at the 1927 Solvay conference a group
including Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Dirac, and Born come into
concordance on a solution that came to be called ``The Copenhagen
Interpretation".  Hendry says: ``Dirac, in discussion, insisted on the
restriction of the theory's application to our knowledge of a system,
and on its lack of ontological content."  Hendry summarized the
concordance by saying: ``On this interpretation it was agreed that, as
Dirac explained, the wave function represented our knowledge of the
system, and the reduced wave packets our more precise knowledge after
measurement."

Let there be no doubt about this key point, namely that the
mathematical theory was asserted to be directly about our knowledge
itself, not about some imagined-to-exist world of particles and
fields.

Heisenberg (1958a): ``The conception of objective reality of the
elementary particles has thus evaporated not into the cloud of some
obscure new reality concept but into the transparent clarity of a
mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but
rather our knowledge of this behavior."

Heisenberg (1958b): ``...the act of registration of the result in the
mind of the observer.  The discontinuous change in the probability
function...takes place with the act of registration, because it is the
discontinuous change in our knowledge in the instant of registration
that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability
function."

Heisenberg (1958b:) ``When old adage `Natura non facit saltus' is used
as a basis of a criticism of quantum theory, we can reply that
certainly our knowledge can change suddenly, and that this fact
justifies the use of the term `quantum jump'. "  

Wigner (1961): ``the laws of quantum mechanics cannot be
formulated ... without recourse to the concept of consciousness."


Bohr (1934): ``In our description of nature the purpose is not to
disclose the real essence of phenomena but only to track down as far
as possible relations between the multifold aspects of our
experience."

Certainly this profound shift in physicists' conception of the basic
nature of their endeavor, and the meanings of their formulas, was not
a frivolous move: it was a last resort.  The very idea that in order
to comprehend atomic phenomena one must abandon ontology, and construe
the mathematical formulas to be directly about the knowledge of human
observers, rather than about the external real events themselves, is
so seemingly preposterous that no group of eminent and renowned
scientists would ever embrace it except as an extreme last measure.
Consequently, it would be frivolous of us simply to ignore a
conclusion so hard won and profound, and of such apparent direct
bearing on our effort to understand the connection of our knowings to
our bodies.

This monumental shift in the thinking of scientists was an epic event
in the history of human thought.  Since the time of the ancient Greeks
the central problem in understanding the nature of reality, and our
role in it, has been the puzzling separation of nature into two
seemingly very different parts, mind and matter.  This has led to the
divergent approaches of Idealism and Materialism.  According to the
precepts of Idealism our ideas, thoughts, sensations, feelings, and
other experiential realities, are the only realities whose existence
is certain, and they should be taken as basic.  But then the enduring
external structure normally imagined to be carried by matter is
difficult to fathom.  Materialism, on the other hand, claims that
matter is basic.  But if one starts with matter then it is difficult
to understand how something like your experience of the redness of a
red apple can be constructed out of it, or why the experiential aspect
of reality should exist at all if, as classical mechanics avers, the
material aspect is causally complete by itself.  There seems to be no
rationally coherent way to comprehend the relationship between our
thoughts and the thoughtless atoms that external reality was imagined
to consist of.

Einstein never accepted the Copenhagen interpretation. He said: 

``What does not satisfy me, from the standpoint of principle, is its
attitude toward what seems to me to be the programmatic aim of all
physics: the complete description of any (individual) real situation
(as it supposedly exists irrespective of any act of observation or
substantiation)." (Einstein, 1951, p.667)

and 

``What I dislike in this kind of argumentation is the basic
positivistic attitude, which from my view is untenable, and which
seems to me to come to the same thing as Berkeley's principle, esse
est percipi."  (Einstein, 1951, p.  669).[Translation: To be is to be
perceived]

Einstein struggled until the end of his life to get the observer's
knowledge back out of physics.  But he did not succeed!  Rather he
admitted that: 

``It is my opinion that the contemporary quantum
theory...constitutes an optimum formulation of the [statistical]
connections."  (ibid.  p. 87).  

He referred to: 

``the most successful physical theory of our period, viz., the
statistical quantum theory which, about twenty-five years ago took on
a logically consistent form.  ... This is the only theory at present
which permits a unitary grasp of experiences concerning the quantum
character of micro-mechanical events." (ibid p. 81).  

One can adopt the cavalier attitude that these profound difficulties
with the classical conception of nature are just some temporary
retrograde aberration in the forward march of science. Or one can
imagine that there is simply some strange confusion that has
confounded our best minds for seven decades, and that their absurd
findings should be ignored because they do not fit our intuitions. Or one
can try to say that these problems concern only atoms and molecules,
and not things built out of them.  In this connection Einstein said:

``But the `macroscopic' and `microscopic' are so inter-related that it
appears impracticable to give up this program [of basing physics on
the `real'] in the `microscopic' alone." (ibid, p.674).

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{\bf                    What Is Really Happening?     } 
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Orthodox quantum theory is pragmatic: it is a practical tool based on
human knowings.  It takes our experiences as basic, and judges theories 
on the basis of how well they work {\it for us}, without trying to attribute 
any reality to the entities of the theory, beyond the reality {\it for us} 
that they acquire from their success in allowing us to find rational order 
in the structure of our past experiences, and to form sound expectations about 
the consequences of our possible future actions.

But the opinion of many physicists, including Einstein, is that the proper 
task of scientists is to try to construct a rational theory of nature that is 
not based on so small a part of the natural world as human knowledge.

The question thus arises as to what is `really happening'.

Heisenberg (1958) answered this question in the following way: 

``Since through the observation our knowledge of the system has 
changed discontinuously, its mathematical representation also has 
undergone the discontinuous change, and we speak of a `quantum jump'."  

``A real difficulty in understanding the interpretation occurs when one asks 
the famous question: But what happens `really' in an atomic event?"  

``If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize 
that the word `happens' can apply only to the observation, not to the state
of affairs between the two observations.  It [ the word `happens' ]
applies to the physical, not the psychical act of observation, and we
may say that the transition from the `possible' to the `actual' takes
place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring
device, and therefore with the rest of the world, has come into play;
it is not connected with the act of registration of the result in the
mind of the observer.  The discontinuous change in the probability
function, however, occurs with the act of registration, because it is
the discontinuous change in our knowledge in the instant of
recognition that has its image in the discontinuous change in the
probability function."

This explanation uses two distinct modes of description. One is a pragmatic
knowledge-based description in terms of the Copenhagen concept of the 
discontinuous change of the quantum-theoretic probability function at the 
registration of new knowledge in the mind of the observer. The other is 
an ontological description in terms of `possible' and `actual',
and `interaction of object with the measuring device'.  The latter 
description is an informal supplement to the strict Copenhagen interpretation.
I say `informal supplement' because this ontological part it is not tied 
into quantum theoretical formalism in any precise way. It assuages the
physicists' need for an intuitive understanding of what could be going on 
behind the scenes, without actually interfering with the workings of the 
pragmatic set of rules.

This independence of the ontological and pragmatic descriptions is
emphasized by von Neumann's analysis of the measurement process in 
quantum theory (von Neumann, 1932, Chapter VI). I shall discuss that
work later, but note here only the key conclusion: introducing the measuring 
instruments and the human observers into the quantum state allows 
one to show that the predictions of the theory do not depend on whether
or not there is `a transition from possible to actual' at the measuring 
device, except that any such transition would certainly disrupt the validity
of the predictions of quantum theory if it were not correctly aligned
to the eventual experiences of the observers. The most direct way to secure 
the exact validity of the predictions of quantum theory is to disallow any 
disruptive actual process at the measuring device, even though it is 
comforting to imagine that there is a some sort of ``actual happening''
occurring there, and it is useful to identify what sort of instrumental 
responses we should be describing to ourselves and our colleagues.

Bohr (1951, p. 222) says something similar to what Heisenberg said, though 
in a more subtle and epistemological manner. Bohr's words are always carefully 
chosen, and must be read with great care and sensitivity. In Bohr's 
contribution `Discussion with Einstein' to the Schilpp volume he says:

``In particular, it must be realized that---besides in the account of
the placing and timing on the instruments forming the experimental
arrangement---all unambiguous use of space-time concepts in the
description of atomic phenomena is confined to the recording of
observations which refer to marks on a photographic plate or similar
practically irreversible amplification effects like the building of a
water drop around an ion in a cloud-chamber."

Later (Bohr, 1958, p.73) he says:

``On the lines of objective description, it is indeed more appropriate
to use the word phenomenon to refer only to observations obtained
under circumstances whose description includes an account of the whole
experimental arrangement.  In such terminology, the observational
problem in quantum physics is deprived of any special intricacy and we
are, moreover, directly reminded that every atomic phenomena is closed
in the sense that its observation is based on registrations obtained
by means of suitable amplification devices with irreversible
functioning such as, for example, permanent marks on a photographic
plate, caused by the penetration of electrons into the emulsion.  In
this connection, it is important to realize that the quantum
mechanical formalism permits well-defined applications referring only
to such closed phenomena."

These are carefully crafted statements.  If read carefully they conform
to the thesis of the strict Copenhagen interpretation that the quantum 
formalism is about our observations, which are described in plain language 
that allows us to "tell others what we have done and what we have learned." 
Bohr's words adhere to the thesis that the mathematical structure of quantum 
theory is about our knowledge. Yet it assuages the intuitions of physicists 
by speaking of processes `out there at the device' that presumably are not 
controlled by human observers or observations, but upon which, rather, these 
observations are based. However, the mathematical structure of the theory 
fails to give --- and as a matter of principle makes no effort to give --- 
any description of how the irreversible amplification process, or the 
interaction between the measured object and measuring device, can produce 
a change that violates the basic dynamical equation of motion, namely the 
Schroedinger equation. The essential glory of the Copenhagen interpretation 
is that it allows the practical physicist, and the theorist, to {\it avoid} 
giving any detailed description of how some possible happening `out there' 
manages, seemingly, to pick out some single one of the many possibilities that 
Schroedinger equation asserts to co-exist together, while still allowing the 
physicist to make useful predictions about what he will observe. 
 
My purpose in what follows is to reconcile the insight of the founders 
of quantum theory that the mathematical formalism of quantum theory is 
about our knowledge with the demand of Einstein that basic physical theory 
be about nature herself. I shall achieve this reconciliation by incorporating 
human beings, including their conscious experiences, into the quantum 
mechanical description of nature.

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{\bf        Mind/Brain Dynamics: Why Quantum Theory Is Needed    }
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A first question confronting a classically biased mind-brain researcher 
is this: How can two things so differently described and conceived as 
substantive matter and conscious thoughts interact in any rationally 
controlled and scientifically acceptable way. Within the classical framework 
this seems impossible. Thus the usual tack has been to abandon or modify 
the classical conception of mind while clinging tenaciously to the 
``scientifically established'' classical idea of matter,
even in the face of knowledge that the classical idea of matter is 
now known by scientists to be profoundly and fundamentally mistaken, and  
mistaken not only on the microscopic scale, but on the scale of 
meters and kilometers as well (Tittel, 1998). Experiments show that
our experiences of instruments simply cannot possibly be just the 
passive witnessing of macroscopic physical realities that exist and behave 
in the way that the ideas of classical physical theory say that macroscopic 
physical realities ought to exist and behave. [See part 2]

Scientists and philosophers intent on clinging to familiar classical 
concepts normally argue at this point that whereas long-range quantum 
effects can be exhibited under rigorous conditions of isolation and 
control, all quantum effects will be wiped out in warm wet brains on a 
very small scale, and hence classical concepts will be completely adequate 
to deal with the question of the relationship between our conscious 
thoughts and the large-scale brain activities with which they are almost 
certainly associated. 
 
That argument is incorrect. The emergence of classical-type relationships 
arise from interactions between a system and its environment. These 
interactions induce correlations between a subsystem and its environment
that make certain typical quantum interference effects difficult to observe 
{\it in practice}, and that allow certain practical computations to be  
simplified by substituting a classical system for a quantum one.
However, these correlation (decoherence) effects definitely do not entail 
the true emergence --- even approximately --- of a single classically 
describable system. (Zurek, 1986, p.89 and Joos, 1986, p.12). 
In particular, if the subsystem of interest is a brain  then interactions 
between its parts produce a gigantic jumble of partially interfering 
classical-type states: no single approximately classical reality emerges. 
Yet if no --- even-approximate --- single classical reality emerges at any 
macroscopic scale, but only a jumble of partially interfering quantum states, 
then the investigation of an issue as basic as the nature of the mind-brain
connection ought {\it in principle} to be pursued within an exact framework,
rather than crippling the investigation from the outset by replacing correct 
principles by concepts known to be fundamentally and grossly false, just 
because they allow certain {\it practical} computations to be simplified.

This general argument is augmented by a more detailed examination of the
present case. The usual argument for the approximate {\it pragmatic} validity 
of a classical conceptualization of a system is based on assumptions about 
the nature of the empirical question to be asked. The  assumption
in the usual case is that the empirical question will be about something 
like the position of a visible object. Then one has a clear separation of 
the world into its pertinent parts: the unobservable atomic subsystem, the 
observable features of the instrument, and unobserved features of the 
environment, including unobserved micro-features of the instrument. 
The empirical question is about the observable features of the instrument. 
These features are essentially just the overall position and orientation of 
a visible object. But a central issue in the present context is precisely 
the character of the  brain states that are associated with conscious 
experiences. It is quite possible that these states could be 
very complex quantum states of the brain that are not really logically
equivalent to positions of visible objects. Consequently,  one ought not 
impose prejudicial assumptions, based on pragmatic utility in cases in which 
the quantum system and measuring instrument are two distinct 
systems both external to the human observer, in this vastly different 
present case, in which an infinite regress is halted by taking the quantum 
system being measured, the observing instrument, and ``the observer'' to 
be one and the same system observing itself. 

In short, the practical utility of classical concepts in certain special 
situations arises from the very special forms of the empirical questions that 
are to be asked in those situations. Consequently, one must go back to basics
in this case where these special conditions of separation fail and the 
nature of the empirical questions is different.

The issue here is not whether distinct objects that we observe via our senses
can be treated as classical objects. It is whether in the description of 
the complex inner workings of a thinking human brain it is justifiable to 
assume --- not just for certain simple practical purposes, but as a matter 
of principle --- that this brain is made up of tiny interacting parts of 
a kind known not to exist. 

The only rational way to proceed in this case of a mind/brain observing 
itself is to start from a sound basic quantum theory, not from a theory
that is profoundly different, and profoundly incorrect.

The vonNeumann/Wigner ``orthodox'' quantum formalism that I employ 
automatically and neatly encompasses all quantum and classical predictions, 
including the transition domains between them. It automatically incorporates 
all decoherence effects, and the partial ``classicalization'' 
effects that they engender. 


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{\bf              vonNeumann/Wigner Quantum Theory       }
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The orthodox vN/W quantum theory employed here is a partial
ontologicalization of its predecessor, Copenhagen quantum theory. 

The central concept of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory,
as  set forth by the founders at the seminal Solvay conference of
1927, is that the basic mathematical entity of the theory, the quantum state
of a system, represents ``our knowledge'' of the system, and the reduced
state represents our more precise knowledge after measurement. 

In the strict Copenhagen view, the quantum state
is always the state of a limited system that does not
include the instruments that we use to {\it prepare} that system or later
to {\it measure} it. Our relevant experiences are those that we 
described as being our observations of the observable features of these 
instruments. 

To use the theory one needs relationships between the mathematical quantities 
of the theory and linguistic specifications on the observable features of the 
instruments. These specifications are couched in the  language that we
use to communicate to our technically trained associates what we have done
(how we have constructed our instruments, and put them in place) and what we 
have learned (which outcomes have appeared to us). Thus pragmatic quantum 
theory makes sense only when regarded as a part of a larger enveloping 
language that allows us describe to each other the dispositions of the 
instruments and ordinary objects that are relevant to the application we 
make. The connections between these linguistic specifications and the 
mathematical quantities of the theory are fixed, fundamentally, by the 
empirical calibrations of our instruments. 

These calibration procedures do not, however, fully exploit all that we 
know about the atomic properties of the instruments. 

Bohr was sensitive to this deficiency, as the following passage shows:

``On closer consideration, the present formulation of quantum mechanics,
in spite of its great fruitfulness, would yet seem no more than a first
step in the necessary generalization of the classical mode of description,
justified only by the possibility of disregarding in its domain of application
the atomic structure of the measuring instruments. For a correlation of still
deeper lying laws of nature ... this last assumption can no longer be 
maintained and we must be prepared for a ... still more radical renunciation
of the usual claims of so-called visualization. (Bohr, 1936, p,293-4)''

Bohr was aware of the work in this direction by John von Neumann (1932), but
believed von Neumann's work to be on a wrong track. Yet the opinion of 
many other physicists is that von Neumann made the right moves: he brought 
first the measuring instruments, and eventually the entire physical 
universe, including the human observers themselves, into the physical system 
represented by the quantum state. The mathematical theory allows one to
do this, and it unnatural and problematic to do otherwise: any other
choice would be an artefact, and would create problems associated
with an artificial separation of the unified physical system into differently 
described parts. 

I call this theory in which the quantum state S represents the entire 
physical universe the vonNeumann/Wigner (vN/W) formulation.
 
Most efforts to improve upon the original Copenhagen quantum theory
are based on von Neumann's formulation. That includes the present work. 
However, almost every other effort to modify the Copenhagen formulation aims 
to improve it by {\it removing} the consciousness of the observer from quantum 
theory: they seek to bring quantum theory in line with the basic philosophy 
of the superceded classical theory, in which consciousness is 
imagined to be a disconnected passive witness. 

I see no rationale for this retrograde move. Why should we impose on our
understanding of nature the condition that consciousness is not an integral
part of it, or an unrealistic stricture of impotence that is belied by the 
deepest testimony of human experience, and is justified only by a theory 
now known to be fundamentally false, when the natural form of the 
superceding theory makes experience efficacious?

In the vN/W formulation the entire world is represented by the quantum state 
S. We human beings are part of the quantum world. Each thinking human 
being is a body/brain/mind subsystem whose state S' is defined, 
technically, by `tracing over the other degrees of freedom'. A human 
being is a sequence of conscious events bound together by the `propensities' 
that are represented by the state S' of the subsystem that is his body/brain.

This makes each human conscious experience an integral part of the dynamical 
system that is the universe. Yet the basic idea of  Copenhagen quantum 
theory is retained: the quantum state continues to represent knowledge, and 
each experiential increment in knowledge is accompanied by a reduction of the 
quantum state to a form compatible with that increase in knowledge. By keeping
this connection intact one retains both the close practical link between the 
theory and empirical knowledge, and also the dynamical efficacy of 
conscious experiences.

My aim now is to show in more detail how the conscious intentions of a human 
being can influence the activities of his brain. To do this I must first 
explain the two important roles of the quantum observer.

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{\bf              The Two Roles of the Quantum Observer          }
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Most readers will have heard of the Schroedinger equation: it is the 
quantum analog of Newton's and Maxwell's equations 
of motion of classical mechanics. The Schroedinger equation,
like Newton's and Maxwell's equations, is deterministic: given the motion of 
the quantum state for all times prior to the present, the motion for all 
future time is fixed, insofar as the Schroedinger equation is satisfied for 
all times. 

However, the Schroedinger equation fails when an increment of knowledge 
occurs: then there is a sudden jump to a `reduced' state, which represents the 
new state of knowledge. This jump involves the well-known element of
quantum randomness. 

A superficial understanding of quantum theory might easily lead one to conclude
that the entire dynamics is controlled by just the combination of the
local-deterministic Schroedinger equation and the elements of quantum
randomness. If that were true then our conscious experiences would again 
become epiphenomenal side-shows.


To see beyond this superficial appearance one must look more closely at
the two roles of the observer in quantum theory. 

Niels Bohr (1951, p.223), in recounting the important events at the 
Solvay Conference of 1927, says:

``On that occasion an interesting discussion arose also about how to speak 
of the appearance of phenomena for which only predictions of a statistical 
nature can be made. The question was whether, as regards the occurrence of
individual events, we should adopt the terminology proposed by Dirac,
that we have to do with a choice on the part of `nature' or, as suggested 
by Heisenberg, we should say that we have to do with a choice on the part
of the `observer' constructing the measuring instruments and reading their
recording.''

Bohr stressed this choice on part of the observer:

``...our possibility of handling the measuring instruments allow us only
to make a choice between the different complementary types of phenomena
we want to study.''

The observer in quantum theory does more than just read the recordings. 
He also chooses which question will be put to Nature: which aspect of nature 
his inquiry will probe. I call this important function of the observer 
`The Heisenberg Choice', to contrast it with the `Dirac Choice', which is 
the random choice on the part of Nature that Dirac emphasized. 

According to quantum theory, the Dirac Choice is a choice between alternatives
that are specified by the Heisenberg Choice: the observer must first specify 
what aspect of the system he intends to measure or probe, and then put in 
place an instrument that will probe that aspect. 

In  quantum theory it is the observer who both poses the question, and 
recognizes the answer. Without some way of specifying what the question is, 
the quantum rules will not work: the quantum process grinds to a halt.

Nature does not answer, willy-nilly, all questions: it answers only properly 
posed questions.

A question put to Nature must be one with a Yes-or-No answer, or a sequence 
of such questions. The question is never of the form ``Where will object O 
turn out to be?'',  where the possibilities range in a smooth way over a 
continuum of values. The question is rather of a form such as: ``Will the 
center of object O --- perhaps the pointer on some instrument --- be found by 
the observer to lie in the interval between 6 and 7 on some specified `dial'?''

The human observer poses such a question, which must be such that the 
answer Yes is experientially recognizable. Nature then delivers the answer, 
Yes or No. Nature's answers are asserted by quantum theory to conform to 
certain statistical conditions, which are determined jointly by the question 
posed and the form of the prior state (of the body/brain of the 
observer.) The observer can  examine the answers that Nature gives, in a 
long sequence of trials with similar initial conditions, and check 
the statistical prediction of the theory.

This all works well at the pragmatic Copenhagen level, where the observer
stands outside the quantum system, and is simply accepted for what he
empirically is and does. But what happens when we pass to the vN/W ontology?
The observer then no longer stands outside the quantum system: he becomes a 
dynamical body/brain/mind system that is an integral dynamical part of the 
quantum universe. 

This bringing of the human observer into the quantum system creates a 
gap in the causal chain: the Heisenberg Choice. In the Copenhagen formulation 
this gap was filled by the mind of the external human observer. The choice of 
which question to ask/pose was not determined by the combination of the 
Schroedinger equation and the Dirac random choice of whether the answer is
Yes or No. 

In the vN/W formulation this choice can still be made by an action
in the mental realm; by an action that is not completely controlled by the 
local mechanical laws expressed by the Schroedinger equation in conjunction 
with the random Dirac choices. This Heisenberg Choice, uncontrolled by the
Schroedinger equation and the Dirac choice, constitutes a third irreducuble
element in the causal structure. But in the vN/W ontologicalization, as 
opposed to Copenhagen approach, this element is no longer external to the 
quantum system. It is a part of the quantum system, and, more specifically, 
part of a body/brain/mind subsystem that constitutes a human being. Thus we 
have an intrinsically more complex dynamical situation.

Having thus identified this logical opening for efficacious human mental 
action, we can now proceed to fill in the details of how it might work.

\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf         How Conscious Thoughts Could Influence Brain Process   }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

I have described in my book (Stapp, 1993, Ch 6) my conception of how the
quantum mind/brain works. It rests on some ideas/findings of William James.
 
 
William James(1910, p.1062) says that:

 ``a discrete composition is what actually obtains
in our perceptual experience. We either perceive nothing, or something that 
is there in sensible amount. This fact is what in psychology is known as the
law of the `threshold'. Either your experience is of no content, of no change,
or it is of a perceptual amount of content or change. Your acquaintance with
reality grows literally by buds or drops of perception. Intellectually and on 
reflection you can divide these into components, but as immediately given they
come totally or not at all.'' 

This wholeness of each perceptual experience is a main conclusion, and theme,
of Jamesian psychology. It fits neatly with the quantum ontology.

Given a well posed question about the world to which one's attention is 
directed quantum theory says that nature either gives the affirmative 
answer, in which case there occurs an experience describable as ``Yes, I 
perceive it!'' or, alternatively,  no experience occurs in connection with 
that question.

In  vN/W theory the `Yes' answer is represented by a projection
operator P that acts on the degrees of freedom of the brain of the observer, 
and reduces the state of this brain --- and also the state S of the universe
--- to one compatible with that answer `Yes':  S \longrightarrow PSP. If the 
answer is not `Yes', then the projection operator (1-P) is applied to the 
state  S:\\
S \longrightarrow (1-P)S(1-P). [See Stapp (1998b) for technical 
details.]

James (1890, p.257) asserts that each conscious experience, though it comes 
to us whole, has a sequence of temporal components ordered in accordance 
with the ordering in which they have entered into one's stream  of 
conscious experiences. These components are like the columns in a marching 
band: at each viewing only a subset of the columns is in front of the viewing 
stand. At a later viewing a new column has appeared on one end, and one has
disappeared at the other. (cf. Stapp, 1993, p. 158.) It is this possibility 
of having a sequence of different components present in a single thought that 
allows conscious analysis and comparisons to be made.

Infants soon grasp the concept of their bodies in interaction with a world
of persisting objects about them. This suggests that the brain of an
alert person normally contains a ``neural'' representation of the current 
state of his body and the world about him. I assume that such a representation
exists, and call it the body-world schema. (Stapp, 1993, Ch. 6)

Consciously directed action is achieved, according to this theory,
by means of a `projected' (into the future) temporal component of the 
thought, and of the body-world schema actualized by the thought: the 
intended action is represented in this projected component as a mental image 
of the intended action, and as a corresponding representation in the brain, 
(i.e., in a body-world schema)  of that intended action. The neural activities
that automatically flow from the associated body-world schema tend to bring 
the intended bodily action into being.

The coherence and directedness of a person's  stream of consciousness
is maintained, according to this theory, because the instructions effectively
issued to the unconscious processes of the brain by the natural dynamical
unfolding that issues from the actualized body-world schema include not only 
the instructions for the initiation or continuation of motor actions but also 
instructions for the initiation or continuation of mental processing. This 
means that the actualization associated with one thought leads physically to 
the emergence of the propensities for the occurrence of the next thought, 
or of later thoughts. (Stapp, 1993, Ch. 6) 

The idea here is that the action --- on the state S --- of the projection 
operator P that is associated with a thought T will actualize a pattern of 
brain activity that will dynamically evolve in such a way as to tend to 
create a subsequent state that is likely to achieve the intention of the 
thought T. The natural cause of this  positive correlation between 
the experiential intention of the thought T and the matching confirmatory
experience of a succeeding thought T' is presumably set in place during the 
formation of brain structure, in the course of the person's  interaction
with his environment, by the reinforcement of brain structures that result in
empirically successful pairings between experienced intentions and subsequently
experienced perceptions. These can be physically compared because both are 
expressed physically by similar body-world schemas.

As noted previously,
the patterns of brain activity that are actualized by an event unfold not 
only into instructions to the motor cortex to institute intended
motor actions. They unfold also into instructions for the creation of the 
conditions for the next experiential event. But the Heisenberg uncertainties
in, for example, the locations of the atomic and ionic constituents of the 
nerve terminals, and more generally of the entire brain, necessarily engender 
a quantum diffusion in the evolving state of the brain. Thus the dynamically 
generated state that is the pre-condition for the next event will not 
correspond exacty to a well defined unique question: some `scatter' will
invariably creep in. However, a specific question must be posed in order for 
the next quantum event to occur!

This problem of how to specify ``the next question'' is the central problem
in most attempts to `improve' the Copenhagen interpretation by 
excluding ``the observer''. If one eliminates the observer, then something
else must be brought in to fix the next question: i.e., to make the Heisenberg 
choice.

The main idea here is to continue to allow the question to be posed by the 
`observer', who is now an integral part of the quantum system: the observer is
a body/brain/mind subsystem. The Heisenberg Choice, which is the choice
of an operator P that acts macroscopically, as a unit, on the observing 
system, is not fixed by the Schroedinger equation, or by the Dirac Choice, 
so it is most naturally fixed by the experiential part of that system, which 
seems to pertain to  macroscopic aspects of brain activity taken as units.


Each experience is asserted to have
an intentional aspect, which is its experiential goal or aim, and an 
attentional aspect, which is an experiential focussing on an updating of 
the current status of the person's idea of his body, mind, and environment.

When an action is initiated by some thought, part of the instruction
is normally to monitor, by attention, the ensuing action, in order to check 
it against the intended action.

In order for the appropriate experiential check to occur, the appropriate 
question must be asked. The intended action is formulated in experiential 
terms, and the appropriate monitoring question is whether this intended 
experience matches the subsequently occurring experience. Thus this 
connection has the form of the transference of an experience defined by 
the {\it intentional} aspect of an earlier experience into the experiential 
question {\it attended to} by a later experience.

This way of closing the causal gap associated with the Heisenberg Choice
introduces two parallel lines of causal connection in the body/brain/mind 
system. On the one hand, there is the physical line that unfolds --- under the
control of the local deterministic Schroedinger equation --- from a prior 
event, and that generates the physical {\it potentialities} for a succeeding 
possible event. Acting in parallel to this physical line of causation, there 
is a mental line of causation that transfers the experiential intention of 
an earlier event into an experiential attention of a later event. These two 
causal strands chains, one physical and one mental, join to form 
the physical and mental poles of a succeeding quantum event.

In this model there are three intertwined factors in the causal structure:
(1), the local causal structure generated by the Schroedinger equation; 
(2), the Heisenberg Choices, which is based on the experiential aspects of 
the body/brain/mind subsystem that constitutes a person; and
(3), the Dirac Choices on the part of nature.

The point of all this is that there is within the vN/W ontology a logical 
necessity, in order for the quantum process proceed,  for some 
process to fix the Heisenberg Choice of the operator P, which acts
over extended portion of the body/brain of the person. Neither the 
Schroedinger evolution nor the Dirac stochastic choice can do the job. The
other aspect of the system is our conscious experience. It is possible, 
and natural, to use the mind part of body/brain/mind system that constitutes 
the person to accomplish the needed choice.

The mere logical possibility of a mind-matter interaction such as this,
within the vN/W formulation, indicates that quantum theory has the 
potential of permitting the experiential aspects of reality to enter into 
the causal structure of body/brain/mind dynamics in a way that is not fully 
reducible to a combination of local mechanical causation specified by the
Schroedinger equation and the random quantum choices.

What has been achieved here is, of course, just a working out, in a more 
explicit form, of Wigner's idea that quantum theory, in the von Neumann form,
allows for mind --- pure conscious experience ---
to {\it interact}  with matter, as matter is represented in quantum theory.
What permits this interaction is the fact that the ``material'' aspect of 
nature, as it is represented in quantum theory, is not the substantive stuff
of classical mechanics. The material or physical aspect of nature is 
represented by the quantum state S evolving in accordance with the local
deterministic Schroedinger equation. But the sudden global jumps of this 
state associated with increments of knowledge, means that this state 
represents a knowledge-type of reality, not the material stuff of classical
physical theory. Because the increments in knowledge act directly upon
the state (S \longrightarrow PSP) there is, right from the outset, 
an action of mind on matter. I have just worked out a possible
scenario in more detail, and in particular have pointed out how the
causal gap associated with the Heisenberg Choice allows mind to enter
into the dynamics a way that is quite in line with our intuitions
about the efficacy of our thoughts. It is therefore simply wrong
to believe that the validity of the precepts of contemporary 
science entails that our intuitions about the nature of our thoughts are 
necessarily illusory or false: according to quantum theory our thoughts 
can be efficacious yet neither identical to, nor reducible to, nor expressible 
in terms of, any aspects of the contemporaneous physical state. 

\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf                   Idealism and Materialism          }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}


I have stressed just now the idea-like character of the physical state
of the universe, within vN/W quantum theory. This suggests that the theory
may conform to the tenets of idealism. This is partially true. The quantum
state undergoes, when a fact become fixed in a local region, a sudden jump
that extends over vast reaches of space. This gives the physical state the
character of a representation of knowledge rather than a representation
of substantive matter. When not jumping the state represents 
potentialities or probabilities for actual events to occur.  
Potentialities and probabilities are normally conceived to be idea-like
qualities, not material realities. So as regards the intuitive conception
of the intrinsic nature of what is represented within the theory
by the physical state it certainly is correct to say that it is idea-like. 

On the other hand, the physical state has a mathematical structure, 
and a behaviour that is governed by the mathematical properies.
It evolves much of the time in accordance with local deterministic laws
that are direct quantum counterparts of the local deterministic laws of
classical mechanics. Thus as regards various structural and causal 
properties the physical state certainly has aspects that we normally 
associate with matter.

So this vN/W quantum conception of nature ends up having both idea-like and 
matter-like qualities. The causal law involves two complementary modes of 
evolution that, at least at the present level theoretical development, are 
quite distinct. One of these modes involves a gradual change that is governed
by local deterministic laws, and hence is matter-like in character. The other 
mode is abrupt, and is idea-like in {\it two} respects. 

The first of these idea-like features is that each abrupt change involves a 
Heisenberg Choice that is, in the way I have explained, naturally expressed 
in terms of experiences, per se. In Copenhagen quantum theory the Heisenberg
choice is made by the mind of the human experimenter/observer. In the 
vN/W theory, as developed here, that choice continues to be made by the mind of 
the human observer, i.e., by the experiential aspect of the mind/brain/body 
subsystem that constitutes the observing human being. This Heisenberg Choice 
is represented within the formalism by what von Neumann called Process I:
the Heisenberg Choice is represented by the transformation 
S \longrightarrow [PSP + (1-P)S(1-P)]. 

The second idea-like feature of the abrupt change is the Dirac Choice, which 
picks out either PSP or (1-P)S(1-P). It corresponds to a reduction of 
the state to one compatible with the experiential increment in knowledge 
associated with P, or to a reduction to the alternative associated with 
(1-P).

A key consequance of all this is that the idea-like aspects of nature do 
not lie outside the physical state. Rather the physical state of the theory
represents in mathematical terms the structural properties of an 
intrinsically idea-like reality. Thus the vN/W ontology, as I am interpreting 
it, does not push human experience out of the quantum state when it places 
the entire physical universe on the physical side of the von Neumann cut. 
Rather it eliminates the von Neumann cut altogether, by bringing the part of 
the physical universe that represents (the structure of) our human experiences
into the quantum state of the theory. This is in line with the principle
of psycho-physical parallelism that von Neumann invokes: ``it must be 
possible to describe the extra-physical process of the subjective perception
as if it were in reality in the physical world -- i.e., to assign to its parts
equivalent physical processes in the objective environment, in ordinary 
space.''


This quantum parallelism is also in line with the ``Identity theory of Mind'', 
if the physical world in identity theory is understood to be the physical 
world as it is represented in quantum theory, rather than the physical 
world that was imagined to exist in classical physical theory.  The identity 
theory, which asserts that each thought, or other mental reality, is 
identical to some aspect of the physical universe, is puzzling and 
unreasonable if the physical world is what classical-physics assumed it to be.
Classical physical theory is ontologically and dynamically micro-local: the 
physical reality is defined in terms of simple microscopic realities, each of 
which evolves in a manner that is controlled exclusively  by the prior 
properties of its immediate neighbors. But a thought is a reality that 
grasps as a unit certain aspects of a macroscopic collection of these 
micro-realities that have a future-directed intentional aspect that the 
individual micro-realities lack. Since, according to classical
physical theory  microscopic causal connections from the past are sufficient 
by themselves to determine the causal evolution there is no dynamical or 
ontological need for any realities that grasp macroscopic aspects as wholes: 
the central thrust of classical physical theory was precisely to eradicate any 
logical need for realities of that kind.


The situation is completely altered if the physical world is taken 
to be what vN/W quantum theory asserts it to be. Then the basic reality is 
idea-like to begin with, by virtue of the way it behaves, and the 
future-directed thoughts play an essential dynamical role.  In this theory
the evolving idea-like reality can be represented naturally also within the 
parallel description in terms of the physical state S, which represents, 
at least within the theory, the structural properties of the intrinsically 
idea-like reality.

\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf             Quantum Zeno Effect and The Efficacy of Mind       }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

In the model described above the specifically mental effects are
expressed solely through the choice and the timings of the questions posed. 
These questions are simply about whether experiences of specified kinds occur. 
In classical physics the {\it answers} to such questions will depend upon the 
evolving state S of the physical universe, but the evolution of this state 
will not be influenced, or disturbed, either by which questions are 
asked or by when they are asked. Thus in a classical model the mental 
actions of the kind being discussed here will have no physical effects.

Quantum dynamics, although it generates classical-type  effects under 
certain special conditions, is fundamentally different:  the evolution of the 
physical state can be greatly influenced by the choices and 
timings of the questions put to nature.

The most striking example of this is the Quantum Zeno Effect. 
(Chui, Sudarshan, and Misra, 1977, and Itano, et al. 1990). In quantum theory
if one poses repeatedly, in very rapid succession, the same Yes-or-No
question, and the answer to the first of these posings is Yes, then in the 
limit of very rapid-fire posings the evolution will be confined to the
subspace in which the answer is Yes: the effective Hamiltonian will change
from H to PHP, where P is the projection operator onto the Yes states.
This means that evolution, of the system is effectively ``boxed in''
in the subspace where the answer continues to be Yes, if the question is posed
suffiently rapidly, even if it would run away from that region otherwise.

This fact that the Hamiltonian is effectively changed in this macroscopic way, 
shows that the choices and timings of which questions are asked can affect 
observable properties.


\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf                       Free Will and Causation            }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

Personal responsibility is not reconciled with the quantum understanding of
causation by making our thoughts {\it free}, in the sense of being 
completely unconstrained by anything at all. It is solved, 
rather, by making our thoughts  {\it part} of the causal structure of the 
body/brain/mind system, but a part that is not under the complete dominion 
of myopic ({\it i.e., microlocal}) causation and random chance. Our thoughts 
then become aspects of the causal structure that are {\it entwined} with 
the micro-physical and random elements, yet are not completely reducible to 
them, or replaceable by them. 



\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf              Pragmatic Theory of the Mind/Brain          }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

This vN/W theory gives a conceivable ontology. However, for practical 
purposes it can be viewed as a pragmatic theory of the human psycho-physical 
structure. It is deeper and more realistic than the Copenhagen version 
because it links our thoughts not directly to objects (instruments) in the 
external world, but rather to patterns of brain activity. It provides a 
theoretical structure based explicitly on the two kinds of data at our 
disposal, namely the experiences of the subject, as he describes these 
experiences to himself and his colleagues, and the experiences of the 
observers of that subject, as they describe their experiences to themselves 
and their colleagues. These two kinds of descriptions are linked together 
by a theoretical structure that neatly, precisely, and automatically accounts,
in a single uniform and practical way, for all known quantum and classical 
effects. But, in contrast to the classical-physics based model, it has a 
ready-made place for an efficacious mind, and gives a rational  understanding 
of how such a mind could be causally enmeshed with brain, yet be not be 
reducible to any classical conception of a brain process. 

If one adopts this pragmatic view then one need never consider 
the question of nonhuman minds. The theory then covers by definition 
human science: a science that we human beings create to account 
for the structure of our human experiences. 

This pragmatic theory might become a quite satisfactory theory of human 
mind/brains. However, it cannot be expected to be exactly true, for it would 
have collapse events associated with increments in human knowledge, but no 
analogous events associated with non-humans. One cannot expect our 
species to play such a special role in nature.


\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf       Future Developments: Representation and Replication        }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

The primary purpose of this paper has been to describe the general features 
of a pragmatic theory of the human mind/brain that allows our thoughts to be 
causally efficacious yet not controlled by local-mechanistic laws combined 
with random chance. Eventually, however, one would like to expand this 
pragmatic version into a satisfactory ontology theory. 

Human experiences are closely connected to human brains. Hence 
events similar to human experiences would presumably not exist either in 
primitive life forms, or before life began. Hence a more general theory that 
could deal with the {\it evolution of consciousness} would presumably have to 
be based on something other than the ``experiential increments in  knowledge'' 
that were the basis of the pragmatic version described above.

Dennett (1994, p.236) identified intentionality (aboutness) as a phenomenon 
more fundamental than consciousness, upon which he would build his theory
of consciousness. `Aboutness' pertains to representation:
the representation of one thing in another. 

The body-world schema is the brain's representation of the body and its
environment. Thus it constitutes, in the theory of consciousness described 
above, an element of ``aboutness'' that could be seized upon as the basis 
of a more general theory that could encompass the precusors to 
human consciousness. 


However, there lies at the base of the quantum model described above an 
even more rudimentary element: self-replication. The basic process in the
model is the creation of events that create likenesses of themselves.  
This tendency of thoughts to create likenesses of themselves,
helps to keep a train of thought on track.

Abstracting from our specific model of human consciousness one sees
the skeleton of a general process of self-replication. 

Fundamentally, the theory described above is a theory of events, where
each event has an {\it attentional} aspect and an {\it intentional} aspect.
The attentional aspect of an event specifies an item of
information that fixes the operator P associated with that event.
The intentional aspect of the event specifies the functional property injected
into the dynamics by the action of P on S. This functional property is a
tendency of the Schroedinger-directed dynamics to produce a future event 
whose attentional aspect is the same as that of the event that is producing
this tendency. The effect of these interlocking processes is to inject 
into the dynamics a directional tendency, based on approximate 
self-replication, that acts against the chaotic diffusive tendency 
generated by the Schroedinger equation. Such a  process could occur  
before the advent of our species, and of life itself, and it could
contribute to their emergence.


\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf                              Conflation and Identity         }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

A person's thoughts and ideas appear --- to that person himself --- to be able
to do things:  a person's mental states seem to be able cause his body to move 
about in intended ways. Thus thoughts  seem to have functional power. Indeed, 
the idea of {\it functionalism} is that what makes thoughts and other mental 
states what they  are is precisely their functional power: e.g., my pain 
is a pain by virtue of its functional or causal relationship 
to other aspects of the body/brain/mind system. Of course, this would be merely
a formal definition of the term ``mental state'' if it did not correspond 
to the occurrence of an associated element in a person's stream of 
consciousness: in the context of the present study --- of the connection 
between our brains and our inner experiential lives --- the occurrence of a 
mental state in a person's mind  is supposed to mean the occurrence of a 
corresponding element in his stream of consciousness.

The identity theory of mind claims that each mental state is {\it identical} 
to some process in a brain. But combining this idea with the classical-physics 
conception of the physical universe leads to problems. 
They stem from the fact that the precepts of classical physical 
theory entail that the entire causal structure of any complex physical system 
is completely determined by its microscopic physical structure alone. 
Alternative high-level descriptions of certain complex physical systems 
might be far more useful to us in practice, but they are in principle 
redundant and unnecessary if the principles of classical physics hold. Thus 
it is accurate to say that the heat of the flame caused the paper to 
ignite, or that the tornado ripped the roofs off of the houses and left a 
path of destruction. But according to the precepts of classical physical 
theory the high-level causes are mere mathematical reorganizations of 
microscopic causes that are completely explainable micro-locally 
within classical physical theory. Nothing is needed beyond mathematical 
reorganization and --- in order for us to be able to apply the theory --- the 
assumption that we can empirically know, through observations via our senses, 
the approximate relative locations and shapes of sufficiently large 
macroscopically localized assemblies of the microscopic physical elements 
that the theory posits. 

In the examples just described our experiences themselves are not the causes
of the ignition or destruction: our experiences merely help us to identify 
the causes. In fact, the idea behind classical physical theory is that the 
local physical variables of the theory represent a collection of 
ontologically distinct physical realities each of whose ontological status is 
(1), intrinsically microlocal, (2), ontologically independent of our 
experiences, and (3), dynamical non-dependent upon experiences. That is why 
quantum theory was such a radical break with tradition: in quantum theory the 
physical description became enmeshed with our experiential knowledge, and the 
physical state became causally dependent upon our mental states. 

Quantum theory is, in this respect, somewhat similar to the identity
theory of mind: both entangle mind and physical process already at the 
ontological level. But the idea of the classical identity theory of the mind 
is to hang onto the classical conception of physical reality, and aver that
a correct understanding of the true nature of a conscious thought would reveal
it to be none other than a classically describable physical process that tends
to brings about what the thought intends.

That idea is, in fact, what would naturally emerge from  quantum theory in the 
classical limit where the difference between Planck's constant and zero can be 
ignored, and the positions of particles and their conjugate momentum can both 
be regarded as well defined, relative to any question that is posed. In that 
limit there is no effective quantum dispersion caused by the Heisenberg 
uncertainty principle, and hence no indeterminism, and the only Heisenberg 
Choices of questions about a future state that can get an answer `Yes' are 
those that are in accord with the functional properties of the present state. 
So there would be a collapse of the two lines of causation, the physical and 
the mental, into a single one that is fixed by the local classical 
deterministic rules. The mental process would then be doing nothing beyond 
what the classical physical process is already doing, and the two process 
might seem to be the same process. But the introduction of quantum effects  
separates the two lines of causation, and allows their different causal 
roles to be distinguished. 

The identity theory of mind raises puzzles. Why, in a world composed 
primarily of ontologically independent micro-realities, each able to access
or know only things in its immediate microscopic environment, and each 
completely determined by micro-causal connections from its past, should 
there be ontological realities such as conscious thoughts that can grasp 
or know, as wholes, aspects of huge macroscopic collections of these 
micro-realities, and that can have intentions pertaining to the future 
development of these macroscopic aspects, when that future development is 
already completely fixed, micro-locally, by micro-realities in the past?

The quantum treatment discloses that these puzzles arise from the conflation 
in the classical limit of two very different but interlocked causal processes,
one micro-causal, bound by the past, and blind to the future, 
the other macro-causal, probing the present, and projecting to the future.


\vspace{.2in}
\begin{center}
{\bf              Mental Force and the Volitional Brain        }
\end{center}
\vspace{.1in}

The psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz has 
described a clinically successful technique for treating patients with
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The treatment is based on a program
that trains the patient to believe that his own {\it willful redirection} 
of his attention away from intense urges of a kind associated with activity 
of the basal ganglia, and toward higher level mentation of a kind associated 
with pre-frontal cortical activity, can, with sufficient effort, shift the 
brain's processing to the higher level. This treatment is in line with the 
quantum mechanical understanding of mind/brain dynamics developed above, 
in which the mental/experiential component of the causal structure enters 
brain dynamics via intentions that govern attentions that influence brain 
activity.

According to classical physical theory ``a brain was always going to do what 
it was caused to do by local mechanical disturbances.''  Our conflicting 
intuition that our ``will'',  is actually able to cause anything at all is 
``a benign user illusion''. Thus Schwartz's treatment is, according to this 
classical conceptualization, based on deluding the patient into believing a 
lie.

The presumption about the mind/brain that is the basis of Schwartz's 
successful clinical treatment, and the training  of his patients,  
is that willful redirection of attention is efficacious. His success does not 
prove that `will' is efficacious, but it is prima facie evidence that it is. 
In fact, the belief that our thoughts can influence our actions is so 
essential to our entire idea of ourselves, and of our place in nature and human
society, and is so essential to our actual functioning in this world, that 
any suggestion that it is false would become plausible only under extreme 
provocation, such as its incompatibility with basic physics. But the vN/W 
model developed above shows that contemporary physical theory permits 
our experiences, per se, to be truly efficacious and non-redundant: 
they are elements of the causal structure that do necessary things that 
nothing else in the theory can do, and they do them by being experiences, 
not by being physical states.

In terms of research programs and strategies it is surely advantageous
to use a model that is compatible with our intuitions about 
ourselves, with our ways of communicating with each other, and  with the 
physical properties of the system of ionic solutions, membranes, and 
molecular gating channels that constitute our brains. Scientific
practice compatible with the unity of science is superior to
science that is not, because research in neighboring disciplines can
then support each other, and the natural cohesion of the parts supports the
whole. The vN/W quantum model allows this clinical practice to accord with 
basic physical theory: there is no need to cloister disciplines, or to 
explain the pervasive occurrence of grossly misleading illusions.

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\begin{center}
 {\bf References}
\end{center}


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Henry P. Stapp (1998a), Pragmatic approach to consciousness, in
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Or at www-physics.lbl.gov/(tilde)stapp/stappfiles.html
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Henry P. Stapp (1998b), at www-physics.lbl.gov/\~{}stapp/stappfiles.html\\
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W. Zurek (1986) {\it Annals, NY Acad. Sci. Vol 480, 89-97.}
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