From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Thu Aug 27 08:43:00 1998 Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 08:41:50 -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, klein@adage.berkeley.edu, patrickw@monash.edu.au, phayes@ai.uwf.edu, Mark Germine , sarfatti@well.com, tsmith@innerx.net Subject: Pragmatic approach to Mind-Brain Pragmatic Approach to Mind-Brain. Perhaps an explanation of this approach would be helpful. The basic idea is that we human beings need ways to deal in practically useful ways with whatever it is that we are a part of, and which acts back on our experience in response to our conscious acts upon it. To deal practically with such matters we need a practically useful theoretical model of how our experiences are connected to whatever it is that our experiences are part of. An excellent model was provided by classical physics. But it suffers two defects: (1) it does not work at the atomic level, although it is based essentially on the idea that the physical world is built of atomic particles that obey the laws it specifies; and (2), the connection between that `physical' world and "our experiences" is unclear: originally it was proposed that the two kinds of things interact inside our pineal glands, but that idea did not mesh well with the principles of classical physics, which if taken seriously seemed to say that there is no two-way interaction, but only a one-way cause from the physical. So the basic idea of the pragmatic approach---namely that we need a model for predicting how our conscious choices of how to act will affect our subsequent experiences---seems to make no sense. But quantum theory, as formulated by its founders, is exactly in line with the pragmatic ideal: it is exactly about making predictions about what our future experience are likely to be, under various options pertaining to how we will now choose to act. How does this apply to the mind-brain system? To give a concrete example, I consider the following exchange between Mark Germine and Jack Sarfatti: [Mark} > > The connection between the focus of attention and consciousness is a very > robust phenomenon with lots of evidence behind it. What happens is that a > particular focus in the brain becomes activated, and remains the stable focus > of activation for a period of time ranging roughly from 0.1 to 1 second, after > which the focus rapidly shifts to another location. [Jack]: What is the operational meaning of "focus of attention". This shifting of focus in my theory is simply the movement of X(t) from one basin of attraction on the landscape to another. This movement is actually a co-evolution in which the movement of the brain state X(t) is co-evolving with the morphing of the active basin of the Q* field that the brain state X(t) is occupying. So this focus stuff is trivial to picture in my post-quantum theory with BIASED Dirac choices fused with the Heisenberg choices in the creative strange loop of conscious intent. The psychiatrist, Mark, speaks of something experiential: "focus of attention". The physicist, Jack, regards this as too vague: he says that focus of attention is *simply* [something described terms of brain structure, and an information field]. I compare three approaches to this situation: the simple Bohm model, the pragmatic theory, and Sarfatti's theory, In the simple Bohm model there would probably be these basins of attraction, as I have described in some of my works, and fatigue effects in neurons that would cause each such temporary basin to lose its basin status: Bohm's world line would soon be pushed out of any basin that it is in, and forced it to find some other basin. Each of these basins in an alert brain could be supposed to correspond to a certain state of consciousness, which would be a "feeling" of some sort, and which could perhaps initiate some activity that would eventuate in a verbal or other kind of report of some feature of this state of consciousness. Thus one has a satisfactory-to-a-physicist picture of what is going on, and how the brain states corresponding to conscious states generate brain/bodily behaviour appropriate to the so-called "state of consciousness". The model is basically a classical model, tweaked by Bohm's quantum force to make it compatible with quantum theory. The model is completely deterministic in principle, but in practice it would be statistical, because there is, in the Bohm scenario, no way for us to know exactly where the actual Bohm world line is, so we are, in practice, due to the presence of critical bifurcation points, forced to fall back onto the statistical predictions of quantum theory, which make no use of the notion of classical world lines that Bohm's theory is based on. The weaknesses in the model from a practical point of view are: (1) It places the classical world line at the center of the ontology, but gives that world line no role in the practical predictions, which are done using only the part of theory recognized by orthodox quantum theory; (2) It places the experiential aspects of the mind-brain system probably beyond the effective reach of the model: one might try to contend that "someday" the in-principle-account that it provides for behaviour at the marco and micro levels will account for all experiential qualities, but that is debatable in principle [How can the greeness of a greenness experience be deduced?] and certainly is, at best, far in the future. But we know that experiences occur in conjunction with human bodies: and they are the primary things of ultimate interest to us. The pragmatic approach is to accept them as real elements, right from the outset, and to build up our theory of the mind-body around them. This is not to say that they are left dangling, outside the physical world. They are conceived of as integral aspects of mind-body systems, closely linked to contemporary physical theory in its most accurate, complete, and lean form. The psychiatrist is able to use his language, and the results of his research, expressed in the language that human beings use to describe their experiences, to describe the experiential aspects of mind-body systems without waiting for the day that a complete understanding of their connection into the physical representation of the body has given these descriptions scientific respectability. For they are the primary realities, and the physical theory MUST account for them if it is to be adequate for its assigned task. It is the job of the physical scientists to figure out how this is to be achieved, not to banish our experiences to some limbo outside of science because the needed understanding has not yet been attained. Rather, the empirical data pertaining to the progressions of our conscious states, in the flow of consciousness, are key inputs into the developement of an adequate theory: theory development can proceed from top down as well as from bottom up. The key question in connection with Sarfatti's theory is whether it will actually be useful to introduce, relative to the structures needed to do the practical calculations that give the usual predictions of quantum theory, two additional ontological elements, namely the Bohm actual world line and the "warping" of the quantum wave function that he calls experience, or whether, alternatively it will be possible to stay within the austere framework of orthodox quantum theory, in which experiences, described in the language we normally use to describe our experiences, are taken as a basic realities in their own right, linked to one another via the physical world as it is represented in quantum theory, namely as a matrix of relationships between possible experiences: is it enough to use just quantum theory itself in the way provided by the vonNeumann/Wigner ontologicalization of the Copenhagen pragmatic formulation of quantum theory. At this point I introduce a message recently sent to me by T. Smith, with my interleafed reply: From: Henry Stapp To: Tony Smith Subject: Re: pragmatic-idealist route On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, Tony Smith wrote: > Henry, you said: > "... the pragmatic-idealist route ... starts with the idea > that universe is basically idea-like, > and > that the basic realities idea-like events > that are connected to each other > by the mathematical rules > specified by the vonNeumann/Wigner ontologicalization > of the pragmatic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. ..." > > Can you identify > "basic realities idea-like events" with specific mathematical objects, Suppose you are walking in the jungle and a shadowy figure jumps out at you, and you must decide whether to `fight'or `flee'. Your brain will take the clues, and a lot of other information comming from previous experiences, and start computing what you should do. If its a close call, then quantum uncertainties will lead to a superposition of, let us say, two brain states, each corresponding to the wave function being localized in a basin of attraction, where the first state corresponds to the experience "I shall fight!", and the the other corresponds to the experience "I shall flee!". According to the theory, a question will be asked of nature: "Will experience e occur?" where e will be either "I shall fight!" or "I shall flee!". I assume that each of possible experiences, e, being a possible real thing that can actually occur in nature, will have a mathematical description, and be a possible mathematical object: it will be a `functional property of an entire possible quantum state of the brain' that has the property that it will become an "actual experience" if the associated brain state is actualized by a YES response from nature. > > and > > can you identify > "the mathematical rules" with specific mathematical relations among > those objects? The experience e is associated with a projection operator P_e in the Hilbert space associated with your body/brain: the transformation S-->(P_e S P_e)=S_e eliminates from the state S the parts of the superposition of possibilities other than the one specified by e. If the (Heisenberg Choice) question put to nature is: "Will experience e occur?", then the probability in state S that the answer is YES is Trace S_e/Tr S. > > If you combine the objects and their relations, > do they form a specific mathematical structure, > > for example, > can they be regarded as the elements and the sum-and-product rules > of division algebras (real, complex, quaternion, or octonion)? > > If not division algebras, perhaps Clifford algebras? > > If not those, then what, specifically, are they? > > They are the rules of quantum theory, which are formulated as relationships between the operators in Hilbert space that represent possible increments in our knowledge. [End of message to Tony Smith] The fact that each possible experience is assumed to be a definite mathematical object does NOT mean that our recollections of such fleeting things in subsequent experiences are veridical. As William James emphasized, "Introspection is difficult and fallible: and ... the difficulty is simply that of all observation of whatever kind." I reiterate, here, what I said in my recent reply to Stan Klein, namely that in situations in which the various possiblities for the "next experience" in a sequence are represented by "overlapping states", so that the Heisenberg Choice is important, then I posit this Heisenberg Choice will be determined by the direction of attention specified by the preceding experience(s). This gives attention a causal power that is outside what is specified by the deterministic causal process specified by the Schroedinger/Heisenberg equations of motion in combination with the random (Dirac Choice) choices on the part of nature. This development gives my answer to Chalmers' objection to my theory, which was that consciousness, per se, was not in the causal loop: this attentional effect does put consciousness per se into the causal mind-body loop, as explained in the target article (Whiteheadian Process and Quantum Theory of Mind) I emphasize that even possible experiences are not something disconnected from the associated body/brain: they are functional attributes of various superposed components of body/brain states that, if actualized, become actual causal agents. These words are not just poetry: they describe features of the causal structure specified by the quantum rules. Note that "possibility" is now represented within the physical description itself: it is not some abstract nonreality. No Platonic realm is called for.