From ggglobus@UCI.EDU Wed Mar 3 10:27:26 1999 Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 08:05:24 -0800 From: gordon g globus Subject: [q-mind] Theory of Presponse--Henry Stapp From: Henry Stapp Subject: Theory of Presponse This is a reply to some recent queries from Stan Klein and Chris Nunn about my way of providing a theoretical framework for understanding the presponse effects of the kind reported by Bierman. I have been reluctant to post much about my theory of presponse because I do not want my theory to be regarded as an unorthodox theory, or a theory of paranormal phenomena. I believe it to be a rational carrying forward of the ideas of the Copenhagen interpretation in the ontological direction developed by von Neumann and Wigner. My theory is design to be an orthodox theory of the mind/body system, in this Copenhagen/vonNeumann/Wigner sense, and it predicts no presponse, (assuming, of course, that the selection of the picture is indeed isolated in such a way as to have no direct forward causal influence on the brain of the subject prior to the presentation of the picture to the subject.) But there is great interest on this forum [q-mind] in the Bierman presponse experiments. Whether or not the claims will be borne out, the experiments do have enough of the trappings of good science to be not dismissable out of hand. If the presponse effects of the kind reported by Bierman turn out to be a real feature of nature, then, as Stan says, we are at the dawn of a new age in science. There is, then, a question of how the claimed effects could be reconciled with contemporary orthodox science: What is the simplest and most parsimonious modification of orthodox theory that could accommodate them? Must the orthodox ideas of Copenhagen and von Neumann/Wigner be rejected in favor of a radically different foundation? I shall describe here how the addition of small non-hermitian contributions to the Hamiltonian of the brain of the conscious subject can lead to presponse effects of the kind Bierman reports. Let P represent a projection operator that acts on the degrees of freedom of the subject, and projects onto the neural correlates of a strong possible experiential response to a wild picture. Let Q represent a projection operator that act on the degrees of freedom of the brain of the experimenter, and projects onto the neural correlates of the experimenter's experiencing of an instrumental reading that indicates a presponse in the body/brain of the subject. In accordance with the orthodox approach, the theory is about correlations of experiences of observers, and about the computable predictions of quantum theory pertaining to these correlations. The interaction of the body/brain of the subject with the instruments that probe this body/brain induces a correlation between this body/brain and the brain of the experimenter who observes the instruments. For definiteness let me take the state of the full system to be the correlated state S = QP + (1-Q)(1-P). This says that the experience associated with Q occurs if and only if the experience associated with P occurs. It expresses the correlation between subject and experimenter brought about by the experimenters witnessing is the results of the instumental probing of the subjects body/brain. This simplest form is an idealization designed to allow me to bring out in a simple way the essential logical points. The projection operators P and Q act on different degrees of freedom and hence commute: PQ = QP. Both P and Q are projection operators: PP=P, and QQ=Q. The expectation value of Q is, according to orthodox QM, = Trace QS/Trace S = Trace QP / [Trace QP + Trace (1-P)(1-Q)], where the second form follows immediately from two applications of QQ = Q. The orthodox theory allows the brain of the subject to undergo a local unitary evolution after the interaction with the instruments: S --> USV where V is the complex conjugate transpose of U. The unitarity requirement is UV = VU = 1. If the subject's brain state has evolved in this way then the expectation value of Q would be ' = Trace QUSV /Trace USV. U and Q act in different independent subspsaces and hence U commutes with Q: QU = UQ. And for any (bounded) X and Y, Trace XY = Trace YX. But then one can deduce immediately from the rules I have just stated that = ': the unitary evolution of the subject's brain state after the probing does not effect the value of the observable : the statistical properties of the observations by the experimenter are independent of what happens in the brain/body of the subject after the probing of that brain/body that is completed. This is exactly what normal ideas about causal connections demand: the above calculation, which should be understandable to any high school graduate, shows immediately how this `normal' prediction about causal connections comes automatically and easily out of the orthodox theory. But what happens if an experience associated with either P or 1-P occurs in the stream of consciousness of the subject. If the outcome of Nature's Choice between the experience associated with P and the experience associated with 1-P is not known then the orthodox theory says that you must add the contributions to from the two possibilities. Hence the theory predicts '' = Trace Q[PSP + (1-P)S(1-P)/Trace [PSP+ (1-P)S(1-P)]. A trivial calculation then shows that '' = Hint: P(1-P) = 0 is another version of the definition (PP = P) of a projection operator, and so is (1-P)(1-P) = (1-P). The fact the the subject has had an experience DOES change the state, even if one does not know which of the two possible experiences has actually occurred. But if no information is included about which experience occurs then the expectation value of Q will be just the same as if the subject has had no experience. This means that the statistical properties of the experimenter's experiences will not reveal anything about what is happening in the brain/mind of the subject: orthodox theory predicts that there will be no presponse of the kind reported by Bierman. The reader should be able to actually understand the quantum mechanical calculation that leads to this conclusion. To accommodate the Bierman data let us depart from the orthodox demand that the evolution between reduction events be unitary. Physicists have conducted test designed to check unitarity in various physical systems and have detected no violations of unitarity in the systems studied, to the accuracy measured. So it is recognized that the unitarity property, although very basic to orthodox theory, is something that conceivably could fail, and that should therefore be tested. The existence of a precursive effect would, if the other aspects of the experiment are as represented, be a test of unitarity. Suppose after the probing is completed the brain of the subject evolves via a transformation that is non-unitary, say: S --> [fP + (1-P)]S[Pf + (1-P)], where f is a number not equal to 1. (This could be the consequence of a small non-hermitian term in the Hamiltonian that acts in the part of configuration space that is associated with the neural correlates picked out by P.) Then the expectation value of Q is (f) = Trace Q [fP + (1-P)]S[Pf + (1-P)]/Trace [fP + (1-P)]S[Pf + (1-P)] = ff Trace QP/[ff Trace QP + Trace (1-Q)(1-P)] This depends upon f, and hence upon what is happening in the brain of the subject after the probing is completed. If the subject has an experience corresponding to P or to (1-P) but it is not known whether it is P or (1-P) then the expectation value of Q is (f)' = Trace Q [fPSPf + (1-P)S(1-P)]/ Trace [fPSPf + (1-P)S(1-P)]. The rules defined above allow one easily to deduce that (f) = (f)'; Assume that if the picture shown to the subject is `mild', rather than `wild', then none of the possible responses of the subject will lie in the very special part of configuration space where the non-hermitian part of the Hamiltion is coming into play, so that f is effectively 1 for the mild pictures. This would account for an effect of the kind reported by Bierman. On the other hand, if the experimenter does his witnessing before the the body/brain of the subject receives any information about the picture, and hence before the brain evolves into the part of configuration space where the non-hermitian term comes into play then b = Trace Q[QSQ +(1-Q)S(1-Q)]/Trace [QSQ +(1-Q)S(1-Q)] = Trace QS /Trace S = Trace QP/ Trace [QP + (1-Q)(1-P)] = . The Bierman presponse disappears under this early-viewing condition. The point is that the calculation is to be carried out at the time the observations of the experimenter are made, and if this time is prior to the time that non-hermitian interaction comes into play the the state S before that aberation occurs should be used. Before turning to the queries of Stan and Chris, I use this example to illustrate the main points of the orthodox interpretation. 1. Notice that the theory is explicity about our experiences. This dependence on our experiences does not put the theory into some abstract never-never land. Exactly the opposite! Making the theory about our experiences takes the theory OUT of a realm of abstract ideas, related to what we know only via some external (to the theory) metaphysical postulate of mysterious origin --- i.e., the mysterious occurrence of conscious experience in a world defined in terms that seems to provide no dynamical need or role for this other kind of stuff --- and puts what we know explicitly into the formalism in a practical way. It ties the theory securely to what we know, which is, on the one hand, what we can describe to our colleagues about what we have done (how we have set up the instruments) and what we have learned (how the instruments have reponded), and, on the other hand, the subject's description of his feelings associated with his witnessing of the picture. 2. The first kind of description relies on Kantian categories of thought, such as spacetime, and more specifically about our ideas of objects located in spacetime. These categories of thought enter only as an underpinning of the experimenter's description, in ordinary language, refined by the concepts of classical physical theory, what he is doing with instruments and what he is learning from them. There is no description of any thing-in-itself beyond our experiences, and the quantum theoretical description that allows us to compute correlations among our experiences. This quantum description can be viewed as an objective representation of certain properties of a total reality that includes our conscious thoughts. >From klein@spectacle.Berkeley.EDU Sat Feb 27 11:41:30 1999 To: hpstapp@lbl.gov Subject: a question Hi Henry, I am most intrigued by your ESP mechanism. I sent the following to q-mind: [Wed. 24 Feb] Henry Stapp says that his non-Hermitian Hamiltonian could account for the Bierman-Radin finding even with a pseudorandom number generator. I need Henry to clarify between the following two altarnatives to help me to understand his mechanism better: 1) Does the brain get coupled with the predetermined outcome before the GSR response. This would not violate causality, but the coupling mechanism (brain to random number generator) would be quite strange. Or 2) Does your non-Hermitian Hamiltonian actually couple an action in the future (the shock of a picture) to an action in the past (the GSR)? This would violate causality. Stan Dear Stan, I am assuming that the whole mechanism for choosing the picture and eventually presenting it to the subject has been shielded from the subject prior to the presentation, so that there is no systemmatic correlation between choice of picture and the subjects brain state existing prior to the presentation. If the experimenter experiences the result of the instrumental probe before the picture is presented, then, according to this assumption, there would be no correlation of the kind Bierman reports. This assumption presumes that the experiment has been set up so as to exclude any normal direct influence. Of course, there could conceivably be an `I-Ching' type of kind of mystical wholeness that make such a correlation exist even when none could be expected within Western Science. I am assuming that there is no such I-Ching type of connection: I am adhering to the precepts of Western Science. My theory is an alternative to that super-wholism type of connection, in which Bierman's attempt to isolate the picture selecting mechanism is systematically defeat by some I-Ching type of wholeness property. I get the presponse result from straightforwardly applying `almost-orthodox' quantum theory: orthodox theory but with a small non-hermitian contribution to the Hamiltonian function that controls the evolution of the brain of the subject after the picture is presented to him. So my answer, Stan, is that my theory is of type 2. It does indeed violate causality: a deviation from strict unitarity can lead to a violation of normal forward causal propagation in quantum theory. That is why unitarity is so important in orthodox QM: violations do tend to give acausal effects, which, according to conservative thinking, have never been reliably observed. But the present endeavour is to account, in a most conservative and parsimonious way, for a purported violation of normal causality.. chrisnunn@compuserve.com Sat Feb 27 11:42:09 1999 To: Stan Klein Cc: Dick J Bierman , Jack Sarfatti , Henry Stapp Subject: Bierman again Dear Stan, I've never understood where consciousness comes into Henry Stapp's picture. Do you? As far as I can see any measuring apparatus or pattern recogniser can fulfil the same function as conscious mind in his scheme. Am I missing something here, or does this imply that he should expect any Bierman effect (if robust) to occur in relation to unconscious perception of targets (in contrast to Jack who predicts pre-sponses only in relation to conscious perception)? Yours, Chris Dear Chris, Good question. In the calculation given above an interesting thing appears: Even in the case where the nonunitary evolution is introduced one finds that (f) = (f)'. This says that the occurrence of the experience of the subject does not affect the predictions about what the experimenter will experience: the non-hermitian term alone is enough to induce the presponse! So my (non-orthodox) theory predicts, most directly, an effect that is independent of whether or not the subject has an experience. On other hand, if one coordinates this effect with my orthodox theory then a higher-order effect comes in, which would tend to enhance the precursive effect in case the subject has experiences. The point is that experiences can be (and, I believe, normally are) connected to the quantum zeno effect. This effect tends to replace the entire Hamiltonian H by PHP: it tends to keep the system in the subspace singled out by P for an abnormally long time. But the effect of keeping the system in this subspace would be to increase the effect of the non-hermitian Hamiltonian: f would tend to be replaced by some higher power of f. So the effect would, I believe, tend to be stronger if consciousness is involved. This suggests a variation of the experiment in which the subject tries to `freeze' his reaction to the picture: to hold his emotional reaction in place in order to magnify the effect of the non-hermitian term. This matter can be looked at from a broader perspective. Eccles suggested an enhancement of the quantum probabilities that is somewhat similar to the non-unitary effect described here. I have resisted that suggestion on the grounds that once we depart from the orthodox realm the possibilities become boundless, and no violations of the predictions of orthodox quantum theory have been reliably established. But some experiments are needed to limit the possibilities. On the other hand, if violations are reliably established, and the effects of changing conditions upon these violations can be reliably established then the whole situation changes: one can start to use the empirical data to discriminate between different theories that were empirically equivalent before, and were all without empirical support. If there really are non-hermitian contributions that enhance the probablities associated with certain types of physical activities, then it is to be expected that biological systems would exploit these aberations, and link them to survival-enhancing activities. So we might expect to find such aberations easier to find in biological systems than in nonbiological ones, and to be playing a role in the evolution of consciousness. [Jack] Why are rocks not conscious in Henry's orthodox theory? I think he does have an answer, but I forget what it is. So he should remind us. [Stapp] My theory is designed to be a theory of the human mind/brain/body system. I think that phenomena must be understood first, before moving on to the topic of its precursors. But I did indicate in my paper the direction that I expect this further developments to take. It involves approximately self-replicating systems. From: Chris Nunn Subject: Pre-sponse in the Radin-Bierman experiments [Stan Klein wrote] 'Paranormal experiments, if proven, will overthrow the present fundamental laws of physics.' [Chris Nunn] Good dramatic stuff, to be sure, but what does 'paranormal' mean and what does 'overthrow' imply? Dowsing, telepathy, psycho-kinesis, clairvoyance, psychic surgery and many other purported phenomena all come under the heading of paranormal. Do all of them pose equal threats to the laws of physics? If dowsing does, the cause of such laws is lost already so the market place has judged (dowsers earn good livings by telling companies where to drill for water). Telepathy, if consciousness is assumed to be based on large scale quantum objects of one sort or another, would not necessarily seem to be any more remarkable a phenomenon than Aspect-type entanglements which also acausally alter the probabilities in relation to particular, local objects. [Stapp] What is incompatible with orthodox quantum theory is a dependence of the statistical predictions of the theory pertaining to observations in one space-time region R upon `free' choices made by experimenters in regions that lie outside the union of the backward light-cones from all the points in R. This is the basic causality property of orthodox quantum theory, and it follows from the basic microlocality property that the operators corresponding to observations performed in localized spacelike separated regions commute, and an initial boundary condition. This is a strict mathematical property of the theory. But the basic philosophical thesis, long debated by Bohr and Einstein, and eventually admitted by Einstein, is that it is logically consistent to assume that all predictions about results of experiments performed on external systems by external intruments that we humans that we human beings can manipulate and observe are deducible from the quantum formalism. This was the point in question, and it appears that this assumption is self-consistent. Einstein thought that something deeper would nevertheless be possible. But the stance of orthodox of quantum theory is that no verifiable predictions for this kind experiment beyond those provided in principle by quantum theory are in fact achievable by human beings, and hence any deeper theory takes one outside of science, and into metaphysics and philosophy, and would have no practical use within science. Othodox quantum theory predicts the absence of all faster-than-light and backward-in-time causal effects, But the Bierman presponse effect is precisely such an effect, provided the choices (of pictures) effectively made by the experimenter are properly shielded from the body of the subject prior to the feeding of the pictures to the subjects. This condition is meant to entail no clueing. [Chris Nunn] Henry Stapp has told us that pre-sponses cannot be accomodated within orthodox physics. A problem with this stance is that elementary relativistic considerations indicate that backward causation must be the other side of the coin of non-locality. [Stapp] Orthodox theory says that the causality connection between choices made by experimenters and results observered by human subjects runs forward in time, not backward. [Chris Nunn] Non-locality is compatible with orthodoxy, so there must be something wrong with orthodoxy's treatment of time (remember position in time is not a quantum observable). [Stapp] Backward in time causal connections of human choices on human observations is not compatible with orthodox quantum theory. So nothing is obviously wrong with orthodox theory, on this score, unless such connections exist.