From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Wed Oct 14 13:50:25 1998 Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:33:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Henry Stapp To: quantum-mind Cc: kleinlist , bdj10@cam.ac.uk, brings@rpi.edu, brucero@cats.ucsc.edu, chalmers@paradox.ucsc.edu, ghrosenb@ai.uga.edu, hameroff@u.arizona.edu, hpstapp@lbl.gov, "jeffery m. schwartz" , keith@imprint.co.uk, stan klein , patrickw@monash.edu.au, phayes@nuts.coginst.uwf.edu Subject: Stapp in a nutshell Outline of Talk at Institute for Noetic Sciences (October 14, 1998) I. Subject: Mind-Matter Connection, Free Will, & Mental Force. A. Philosophically Controversial B. Cause of the Controversy: 1. The seeming irreconcilability between the "experiential" and "physical" aspects of nature stems from a false idea of the nature of physical reality. 2. The physical world is fundamentally different from the classical-physics conceptualization of it. C. Resolution of the controversy: 1. Neither materialism nor idealism nor dualism as classically conceived. 2. Quantum Monism [A specific kind Neutral Monism] (Pauli) II. Quantum Monism. A. *Macroscopic* failure of local realism is entailed by Bell's Theorem. B. Pragmatic Copenhagen Interpretation (Solvay 1927) 1. Science is based on Knowledge 2. Our theoretical representation of nature is a representation of certain causal connections between "increments in knowledge". 3. QT is merely a useful tool for calculating predictions pertaining to future experiential increments in knowledge on the basis of knowledge gained from past experiential increments in knowledge. C. Ontological formulation (von Neumann/Wigner) 1. My philosophical stance: One should accept Occam's razor, and take the conception of nature to fit as closely as possible to the conception needed to implement the practically successful algoriths, without adding extra elements on the basis of our intuitions. The validity of the predictions of quantum theory entails that our normal intuitions are profoundly mistaken. 2. Then the "physical universe" as represented in quantum theory is a representation of an evolving state of "universal knowledge", and of *certain particular kinds of* causal relationships between increments in this universal knowledge. 3, Experiential increments in knowledge are associated in a specific way with brain-like physical systems: e-->[S-->(P_e S P_e)] and [S_b--> (P_e S_b P_e)]. {S=State of Universe; S_b=State of brain. Read _b as subsript b} 4. Functionally similar "reductions" should correspond to similar experiences. (cf. Functionalism) 5. Mind "supervenes" on physical. III. Causality A. Deterministic Schroedinger Evolution. B. The Quantum Jumps 1. The "Heisenberg choice" on the part of the experimenter/observer of which question is put to nature: "Will experience `e' occur next or not?" This choice belongs to the "observing system" 2. The "Dirac choice" on the part of nature: Yes, `e' will occur next! or No, `e' will not occur next! This choice belongs to "nature". IV. Free-Will A. The Dirac choice is "globally fixed" and "random". This is not like free-will. B. The Heisenberg choice is personal [associated with the specific (body/brain) system b], and is not determined by any known basic principle. This is more like free-will. Yet our free will is guided by our thoughts: it is not helter-skelter! V. Attention as a Cause. A. The dynamical effects of experience `e'. 1. The immediate effect of experience `e' is the reduction of the state S_b of the associated brain b to the state (P_e S_b P_e), which is the part of S_b that is compatible with the experiential increment of knowledge `e'. 2. This new state will evolve (via the local deterministic Schroedinger equation) to a brain state that gives the "potentialities" for the next increment in knowledge. 3. But the quantum process stalls until a Heisenberg choice is made: What fixes e~ in "Will experience e~ occur next?" 4. New Postulate: The intention within an earlier `e' to attend to a possible experience e~ is what fixes the e~ that occurs in the Heisenberg choice of the question put to nature. 5. This gives a causal strand that acts directly in the realm of knowledge and experience, without descending into the realm of those causal connections that are represented by the Schroedinger-directed evolution of the state vector. VI. Mental Force and Quantum Zeno Effect. A. But how does controlled direction of "attention" control brain activity? 1. Quantum Zeno Effect: Rapid-fire repeated posing of the question: "Will the next experience be the same as this one?" "freezes" the state: the normal evolution of average or mean values in accordance with the Schroedinger equation is stopped! 2. A similar quantum effect can produce a migration of the brain state in a direction determined by attention, rather than the direction determined by the normal mechanical physical forces. VII. Proposed Experimental Test A. Suppose a subject is exerting strong mental effort (say to inhibit a tic or an obsessive compulsive behavior). Suppose at a suitably randomized time he is given a signal to stop the effort. Classically, any measurable characteristic brain behavior that is correlated to the time of this signal must occur AFTER the signal is received. And this is what normally is expected also in quantum theory. However, if attention is controlling behaviour in the way described in the preceding section then there could be precursive effects. This is because according to the general principles of quantum theory the evolving state acts essentially as potentialities for various possible experientially recognizable actualizations, one of which will be picked. The resulting reduction of the state, which brings the state into conformity with the new experience, causes all readings on measuring devices to conform to the particular course of events that *leads to* the experience that actually occurs: the experience acts effectively, via the reduction, on the superposition of states present prior to the experience, and eliminates all possibilities not compatible with that experience. Normally, this picking out by the experience of one part of what was present before the experience is not detectable as a causal anomaly, because of the normal statistical distribution of the actualized experiences in accordance with the statistical rules of quantum theory. But if the course of brain events is biased away from the normal statistical distribution by the effects of attention, as the model described above predicts, then precursive effects would become in principle detectable. I stress again that the biasing that I am talking about is NOT a biasing of the basic statistical rules of quantum theory: those rules are strictly maintained.