From:	SMTP%"LeonMaurer@aol.com" 26-AUG-1997 22:13:27.45
To:	STAPP
CC:	
Subj:	Re:  Re: QM and Consciousness

Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 01:10:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: LeonMaurer@aol.com
Message-ID: <970827011003_-1771115522@emout15.mail.aol.com>
To: PSYCHE-D@listserv.uh.edu
Subject: Re:  Re: QM and Consciousness


In a message dated 8/25/97 1:40:55 PM, you wrote:

>William Robinson has asked some detailed and pertinent questions
>that probe essential features of the quantum mind-matter synthesis I
>proposed. They demand detailed answers, which I shall give here. These
>answers rest on technical properties of quantum theory. But I believed
>I can describe the points in a way will be clear to non-physicist.
>
>There have been many attempt by physicists to `get mind back out of
>physics': i.e., to reverse the contamination of physics brought in by
>Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauli and company in 1927. I believe
>those decontamination efforts have failed, even though I myself
>have worked hard to achieve it. So I am taking now the other tack,
>and trying to build a coherent ontology around the orthodox ideas.
>In particular, I am accepting as basic the idea of real events
>that collapse the wave function (or ARE collapses of the wave
>function). I assume that these events are ubiquitous in nature.
>Certain events of particular interest to human beings are events
>associated with human body/brains and our conscious experiences.
>
>A key point is that the evolution of the state of the universe
>between the collapse events is mathematically very different
>from the evolution of this state associated with the collapses:
>the former are "local" and "unitary", whereas the latter are neither.
>
>The "unitarity" property means several things. One the one hand, it
>means that the evolution is in some sense no change at all: the
>internal or intrinsic structure of the state is unaltered. One can
>imagine that only the way the state is being describe is changed.
>It also means that the transformation operator that changes
>the state at an earlier time to the state at a later time does not depend on
>that initial (or final) state: there is in this sense NO SELF-REFERENCE!
>
>According to the model I am proposing there is, in accordance with the
>orthodox ideas, no experiential reality associated with the unitary
>part of the evolution: there is no essential change and no self
>reference, and hence, reasonably enough, no experience.
>
>Experiences are associated only with the nonunitary parts of the evolution,
>where there is essential change, and the dynamics involves self reference.
>
>In the classical limit only the unitary evolution survives. So from a
>quantum mechanical point of view it is absurd to look for mind in
>classical physics, for that is an approximation from which the
>experience-producing part of the dynamical process has been removed.
>
>Let me apply this understanding to Robinson's questions
>
>Robinson writes (in regard to my response of 8/19/97):
>-----
>The first part of this response suggests that (1) neural activity
>patterns are the (proximate) causes of conscious experiences. This claim
>would have the consequence that *if* those same patterns could be brought
>about without the supra-physical processes, conscious experiences would
>occur. But (this first view continues) in fact the neural activity
>patterns that (proximately) cause conscious experiences *cannot*
>themselves be brought about without being preceded by supra-physical
>processes.
>
>A natural question for this view (1) is, Just why can the requisite
>neural activity patterns not occur without being preceded by the
>supra-physical processes?
>-----
>
>The answer is that each actual conscious experience is created, according
>to this model, by the nonunitary process of actualizing the state whose
>actualization is that experience: it is the actualization of the
>state that is the experience, not the continuing (via unitary evolution)
>existence of that state.
>
>The patterns of neural activity that are present before the nonunitary
>process sets in are causes of what will transpire because they are---in
>accord with Heisenberg's idea that the state represents a "potentia"
>for the upcoming event---the raw material for the nonunitary
>process. This raw material consists of a superposition of different
>(unitarily evolving) states that correspond to different
>mutually exclusive possible experiences, in the sense that the
>actualizing of one of the states by the supra-physical nonunitary process
>would create the corresponding experience.
>
>Robinson then writes:
>-----
>The second part of Henry Stapp's response suggests instead that (2) the
>supra-physical processes *themselves* are the proximate causes of
>conscious experiences. (They "generate" them.) The neural activity
>patterns are merely after-the-fact mechanisms for carrying out
>appropriate actions, and recording the right memory traces.
>
>One natural question here is: Which of the two views is the better
>interpretation of the response? -- Of course, the answer could be "They're
>both misinterpretations."
>_____
>
>As I have explained, the pre-existing (superposed) patterns are causes
>of the eventual experience in that they are the physical foundation of the
>supra-physical nonunitary process that creates that experience
>by actualizing the state whose actualization is that experience.
>
>Notice that the mathematical entities that we deal with in physics
>are supposed to represent, ideally, real things that enjoy the requisite
>mathematical properties. The mathematical entities in quantum theory,
>the states, should not be conflated with the real things that they
>represent. But what is the nature of these real things? According to
>my proposal, the real things that are represented by the state vectors
>in quantum theory are not experiences themselves, but things whose
>actualizations are experiences. It is quite common in physics to
>introduce things whose changes are more real than the things themselves.
>Energy in nonrelativistic physics is one example. The gradient of
>phase is significant in quantum mechanics but the phase is not:
>the gradient of the vector potential can be significant, but the value
>itself is not. Here it is the actualization of the state that
>IS the experience: the state itself is mere "potentia" for experience.
>[The term "experience" must be interpreted broadly here: for certain
>events in body/brains of human beings it means human conscious
>experience. But events in other physical systems will have their own
>kinds of "experiences", which can be very different from human
>experience.]
>
>Since the reality represented by the mathematical desciption is
>essentially experiential we do not have the awkward mind-matter
>duality that arises from classical mechanics. But the mathematical
>structure secures the connection to spacetime and to classical
>physics in appropriate limits.
>
>Robinson continues:
>-----
>Or, the answer could be that they are both right, and not incompatible,
>as they appear. But what follows suggests that they are not really
>compatible -- or, at least, explains why they appear incompatible.
>
>View (2) seems to lead naturally to some questions that view (1) does
>not seem to raise at all. Namely: (A) Can a superposition cause a
>conscious experience? It seems not. Why? Because it might get "resolved"
>into one or another of *different*, and therefore incompatible, states.
>Since Stapp emphasizes "slightly" different, let's not think of red or
>blue; let us think of one shade of red or a close but different shade of
>red. Still, I couldn't be experiencing *both* in the same part of my
>visual field at the same time. But (if I follow the response) once the
>resolution has taken place, it might be either of two memory traces that
>occurs, and would be correct. It would seem that whatever generates a
>conscious experience has to be something that occurs either after a
>superposition has been resolved (as in view (1)) or *during* a
>resolution of a superposition -- a resolution that is destined to have
>one result rather than another.
>----
>I think what I have said clears up this confusion.
>
>-----
>
>Robinson continues:
>-----
>And this last alternative raises a further question,
>-----
>
>But that is not the alternative that I use.
>
>Robinson continues:
>_____
>(B) What is the
>time course of a "resolution"? and how does it fit with the time course
>of conscious experiences? One might have a pain that lasts with only
>very minor change for, let us say, three seconds. Or one might have an
>afterimage that lasts almost unchanged for a comparable period. Neural
>activation pattern theorists have an easy account of the causes here;
>i.e., they can say that the same pattern of neural activity continues
>over a stretch of several seconds (or, of course, longer in some cases
>and shorter in others). (That is, one instance of a pattern takes some
>time, and then it can be repeated as many times as necessary to account
>for the duration of experience of the kind that that pattern causese.)
>Is it possible to assign a finite time for a resolution of a
>superposition to occur? If such a time is in the tens of ms range, is it
>possible to have a series of such resolutions? Is it physically
>plausible that such a series could occur in a brain?
>-----
>
>In a quantum theory with real collapses there are two times:
>physical time and collapse-process time.  The collapse events are
>instantaneous in physical time, and there is supposed to be a rapid
>succession of these in physical time. One can imagine the evolution
>as occurring in a complex-time space, where the real axis represents
>physical time and the imaginary axis represents collapse-process time.
>The nth state of the universe lies at collapse-process time= Im t= n.
>Thus the evolution proceeds along the line Im t = n, then moves
>at fixed Re t up to Im t = n+1, etc.
>
>I have given an extended description of the situation in physical
>time in my book, in Ch 6, which can be accessed through my
>Home Page, under "Quantum Theory of the Mind-Brain Interface".
>All of that work carries over to the elaboration being descibed here.
>
>Quantum physicist will understand the origin of the two times
>by considering the representation of collapses in the Heisenberg
>picture. I can explain it in another posting if there is interest.
>
>Henry P. Stapp