From ggglobus@UCI.EDU Thu Mar 4 07:31:57 1999 Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 23:32:53 -0800 From: gordon g globus Subject: [q-mind] On Sarfatti's "refutation" of Stapp--Henry Stapp From: Henry Stapp Subject: Re; [q-mind] Refutation of Stapp's Orthodox QM Theory of Consciousness Stapp replies to Sarfatti [Jack] On second reading I find that Henry's position above is logically inconsistent within the explanatory framework, or paradigm, of my heuristic formulation of post-quantum physics. [Stapp] Inconsistency with your position is not a "refutation"of mine. But in any case, I think you have missed some essential points, and that clarifications might be useful. [Jack] Henry is correct in this sense that the notion of consciousness is built into Copenhagen from the git-go. But, it is built in as a primitive axiom that cannot be explained in any sense within the Copenhagen Interpretation. [Stapp] Any theory must start somewhere. The postulate that conscious experiences exist is reasonable primitive postulate: denying it seems nonsensical. [Jack] The Copenhagen Interpretation is simply the approximation that "the wave function has no sources" (Bohm and Hiley, p.30 & 14.6). [Stapp] It is indeed true, as Bohm & Hiley point out, that a wave function evolving in accordance with the Schroedinger equation has no source. But is that trivial fact the same thing as the Copenhagen Interpretation that has been expounded and debated by philosophers and scientists for seventy years, and that Einstein claimed he could not understand? I think Einstein, after thirty years of pondering, been able to understand the trivial fact that the Schroedinger equation has no source term. Where is there in the absence of the source term, the crucial assertion that that the whole theory has no ontological content and is about ``our knowledge''. I stress this point because it lies right at the heart of the difference between my Copenhagen/vonN/W orthodox approach and your more mechanical approach, and any attempt to trivialize it will miss a profound aspect of the orthodox position. [Jack] So there are two levels. One, setting up the Heisenberg Choice. That is, selection of the relevant physical basis of eigenfunctions dictated by "the total experimental arrangement". Two, setting up the Dirac Choice. That is, selection of the particular set of complex coefficients in the coherent superposition over the Heisenberg Choice (aka implicate frame of reference in the Hilbert space). [Stapp] This misses my main point. In idealized Bohm theory, for example, one assumes that a good measurement condition has come into being and that this causes the wave function in configuration space to divide into disjoint "branches" that correspond to different experiences. But it is a rigorous consequence of the Schroedinger equation that Psi (t, x_1, ...x_n) cannot vanish on any open set in 3n+1 space. So their cannot be any exact separation into branches with disjoint supports. So what happens in the brain to define the distinct branches associated with distinct possible experiences? The Schroedinger dynamics alone seems inadequate. In your theory one could say that the "back-action" adds an extra force that separates the wave function into distinct branches that correspond to distinct experiences. Would this bring `experience' in in some way, or would the experiences be a by-product of forces that are defined without reference to "experience"? Is the correspondence between disjoint branches and distinct experiences something that needs to refer to the possible experiences? So there seems to be a very real possibility that the brain state would not just divide, by virtue of the Schroedinger equation, into disjoint branches that correspond to different experiences. You have your back action that might come to the rescue. But I need something that specifies the separation of the brain state into different possibilities corresponding different possible experiences. In my terminology, I need a process that poses a question that corresponds on the one hand to a possible experience, and on the other hand to a projection operator P that projects onto brain states in which the neural correlate of that experience is excited. [Jack] "Probability" is used in the "ensemble" sense as a frequency. Given N identical simple systems completely independent of each other, e.g. no entanglements among members of the ensemble are permitted. ..... But the point here is that this whole explanatory framework, at the foundation of Stapp's attempt at an orthodox theory of consciousness, is totally inappropriate to explaining the consciousness in a unique living human brain with a unique complex personality, set of memories etc. Henry is over-extrapolating a limiting case of a more general theory. [Stapp] The orthodox stance as regard the objective probabilities that occur in quantum theory is that they refer to the individual quantum system: in Heisenberg's language they are objective tendencies, or potentia: in Popper's language they propensities. Predictions involving these statistical weights are TESTED by looking, for example, at similarly prepared systems. But they are supposed to be a property of the individual system, specifying how it is likely to respond to a question put to nature. I believe that the individual answer in an individual case must be determined by some aspect of the entire universe, but that our lack of knowledge about, say, distant parts of the universe, renders a statistical answer the only one currently --- and perhaps ever --- achievable by us. The issue here is: what exactly is it that determines what actually happens in the individual case. Bohm's idea is that this answer is determined by some microscopic classical world that lies behind the phenomena, whereas the orthodox position is that the important thing is the structure that determines what we can predict or know, and that this is contained in the quantum mechanical description: that the many conceivable more detailed models that reproduce these predictions may be less real than an objective structure that specifies all we can ever know. [Jack] In post-quantum theory, the Heisenberg Choices correspond to the shape of the landscape of basins of attractors for the paths of the Bohm points through their configuration space. [Stapp] Are different basins connected to different experiences? How is such a connection ensured? [Jack] The Dirac Choice is simply the movement of a single Bohm point into this or that attractive basin. It's as simple as that. [Stapp} Not quite so simple: If all that is involved is a Bohm point moving into a basin, in accordance to specific equations then why is there any need for an experience to occur? [Jack] The landscape is from the quantum potential Q in the nonrelativistic limit of Galilean relativity. Q is built from the modulus of the total complex-valued wave function. Henry never formulates his theory using either special or general relativity. [Stapp] Orthodox theory rests on relativistic quantum field theory: that is the foundation, and it encompassed special relativity. Physicists [ e.g., D. Duerr, F. Faisal] have not succeeded in making Bohmian mechanics compatible with special relativity. {Jack] First, ....[a long description involving a micro-scopic model follows involving many features but no equations] [Stapp] Is this physics or poetry? Are you evading the contention of quantum theory that all testable predictions are imbedded in the variables of usual quantum description? ] [Jack] Conservation of total quantum probability will be violated in the presence of back-action. ... This means that the notion of quantum probability itself is breaking down. In fact, the notion of an ensemble is totally inappropriate to explaining conscious experience in a single complex living brain. This is the basic reason that Henry's strictly orthodox attempt is wrong-headed IMHO. Consciousness is there in his model, but as a primitive axiom. [Stapp] Probability enters orthodox QM as propensity [potentia, objective tendency] in the individual case. Reduction in the orthodox theory involves a break in the probability-conserving unitary evolution. Your back=action is doing the same thing. Orthodox theory does put conscious experience in as basic. I do not see how it come into your theory at all. A trajectory falling into a basin does not logically entail the existence of a corresponding experience. That stipulation must be added. But if it is not put in as a basic reality then how can it be deduced from mechanics.? [Jack} The real beauty and power of Bohm's ontology is that it is a theory of individuals not ensembles. {Stapp] Bohr and Heisenberg repeatedly stress that the quantum state S is the description of the individual system, and the vN/W state is the state of the whole individual actual universe. [Jack] So imagine a single Bohm point of the complexity of the human brain. Forget ensembles of simple systems prepared in an initial Born probability distribution. That is totally irrelevant. [Stapp] But then the Bohmian world W could be on a extremely unlikely trajectory such that motion in accordance with your rules (supposed now to be actually specified in some way) would not give the usual statistical results of quantum theory. [Jack] Back-action is the generator of conscious experiences. Why? Because of Wigner's definition of consciousness. Consciousness, according to Wigner, is the reaction of matter on mind. [Stapp} What is Mind? [Jack] Intent is the action of mind on matter. [Stapp] Sounds suspiciously like you may be bringing in "Mind" as a primitive. [Jack} Post-quantum theory stipulates in its axioms that "mind" = quantum information landscape and "matter" = Bohm point attached to that mental quantum landscape. [Stapp] Formal definitions can never get you to the consciousness experiences that we actually have if these things are not part of the basic framework. My formulation is that the vN/W state of the universe represents objective properties of a reality that includes our conscious experiences, and that the rules of orthodox quantum theory give sound predictions about correlations between our conscious experiences. [Jack] This is natural if you read Bohm and Hiley or http://hia.com/pcr/vigier/slides/Vigier.HTM Remember, in the orthodox case, the evolution of the shape of the landscape is strictly deteministic. Determinism breaks down in post-quantum theory. Determinism is replaced by "self-determination" i.e., the "two-way relation between wave and particle (Bohm and Hiley) is a mutual co-evolution of mind and brain "tweaked" (Stuart Kauffman) by the sources of environmental decoherence (including Penrose's "OR"). That is, the shape of the mental landscape, its portrait of basins of attractors, aka Heisenberg Choices and its sequence of Dirac Choices, i.e. path of the one unique complex adaptive material brain configuration, the Bohm point, mutually co-determine each other tweaked by environmental decoherence. There is no more vagueness in exactly what is making the Heisenberg Choice. The Dirac Choice makes the Heisenberg Choice and vice-versa, both ways in time, forming a globally trans-temporal self-consistent self-determining nonunitary post-quantum "creative evolution" (Henri Bergson). Viewed from the outside, we have a sentient self-organizing complex individual adapting to Darwinian natural selection pressures (environmental decoherence). Probability is irrelevant at this high complexity level of coherent undivided wholeness. I have the whole shmear. [Stapp] Wow, Jack.