From: SMTP%"PSYCHE-D@rfmh.org" 7-OCT-1996 05:46:23.06 To: STAPP CC: Subj: Physics and Philosophy Approved-By: PATRICKW@CS.MONASH.EDU.AU Approved-By: STAPP@THEORM.LBL.GOV Message-Id: <961007023817.22204235@theorm.lbl.gov> Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 02:38:17 -0700 Reply-To: PSYCHE Discussion Forum Sender: PSYCHE Discussion Forum From: Henry Stapp Subject: Physics and Philosophy To: Multiple recipients of list PSYCHE-D This is a response to Hayes(Sept25) and McKee(Sept29). Since there was some crossing of postings let me quickly review my positions as described in my posting of Sept 25. The issue here is this: What is the logical structure of a physical (or psycho-physical) theory that will adequately accommodate both 1) the "physical" aspects of nature that physicists have been able to codify in certain equations of motion formulated in terms of structures mathematically imbedded in spacetime, and also 2) the phenomenal/experietial aspect that is the "flow of consciousness" that I experience, and the analogous flows that I believe other normal human beings experience. Early in this century Einstein convinced physicists that we must not assume that the picture of nature provided by classical mechanics (CM) was a faithful image of nature itself: all we know is that it allows us to describe certain features of our experience to within certain limits of empirical accuracy. Around 1925 Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, and the other founders of quantum mechanics carried this idea beyond what Einstein thought was right: they formulated quantum theory as basically a theory of predictions about what certain kinds of experiences would be under certain kinds of experientially described conditions. Our thoughts thereby became the basic reality of the basic physical theory. Later, through the efforts of Heisenberg, von Neumann, Wigner, and others, these thoughts were integrated into an "objective" quantum mechanical description of nature, which, however, although objective, had no "matter" or "substance" of the kind that had occurred in classical mechanics: the "matter" of CM was replaced by "objective tendencies" for events to occur, and certain of these events were the occurrences of the thoughts that Bohr and Co. had made the basis of the original version of the theory. This enabled basic physical theory to be viewed once again as a theory of a universe, but now one that integrated the physical and phenomenal aspects of nature into a unified whole. On the other hand, Bell's theorem showed that the concepts of (relativistic) CM that Einstein had championed were definitely incompatible with some very basic predictions of QM *pertaining to visible behaviours of macroscopic devices*, and these predictions have, by now, been essentially confirmed by experiment. In his analysis of the distinction between the "physical" aspects of nature and "our thoughts" Einstein said that in his opinion: "Physics is an attempt conceptually to grasp reality as it is thought independently of its being observed. In this sense one speaks of `physical reality'. In pre-quantum theory there was no doubt as to how this was to be understood. In Newton's theory reality was determined by a material point in space and time; in Maxwell's theory, by the field in space and time. In quantum theory it is not so easily seen. ...." It is this "Physical Reality" that is "Reality as it is thought independently of its being observed. " that classical mechanics deals with: it consists of what can be pictured in the thoughts of an abstract observer that can somehow know things from afar without actually being part of the real physical universe, or interacting with it. On the other hand, the subjective/conscious/phenomenal reality is what can be pictured, known, or ortherwise experienced by a real embodied (say human) observer by virtue of its prolonged causal interaction with its environment. The Einstein-Bohr debate was a controversy about whether the theoretical concept of "the objective", defined in this way that physicists know and understand, is a satisfactory basis for an adequate physical theory, or whether a physical theory able to accommodate the empirical evidence needs to be formulated partly in subjective terms, i.e., partly in terms of the thoughts arising in real embodied observers from real physical acts of observation. The present discussion with Pat Hayes---of which this posting is a part--- originated with Hayes's challenge to my claim that "one cannot *deduce* the existence of the phenomenal aspect of reality from the principles of classical mechanics alone": classical mechanics may be adequate as a foundation for a psycho-physical theory in the sense that perhaps one could use a classical description of the brain at the neural level and then *postulate*---perhaps on the basis of empirical evidence---a "correspondence" between certain brain events and *associated* phenomenal events. But I claim that one cannot *deduce* the existence of the phenomenal component of reality from the principles of classical mechanics. The principles of CM say things about "reality as it is thought independently of its being observed": there is no principle of CM that allows any logical foothold for a jump outside this conception of a reality as it could be known in the thoughts of the disembodied abstract observer of classical mechanics to the thought of a real human observer. A physicist totally conversant with all the principles of CM, and having an infinitely powerful computer that could deduce from these principles the behaviour of any physical system---i.e., the motions of all the particles, and values over all of space-time of all the local physical fields of the theory---could never be able to *deduce*, strictly from the principles of CM alone---and the initial physical conditions on the system---that this behaviour was accompanied by a conscious thought in a human being. The existence of such thoughts is certainly true in some cases, but the austere principles of CM themselves simply give no way of getting beyond "reality as it is thought independently of its being observed". About this argument George McKee says: "But what I claim (and Pat Hayes appears to be claiming) is that this argument is invalid. Namely, that a suitably sophisticated reading of the structure of classical physics (strictly, observer-free QM) does not forbid, but permits the appearance of structures that behave exactly like observers, including having introspective contents that have both the form and content of any reasonable definition of subjectivity. And that it is appropriate to drop the "behave exactly like observers" and substitute "are observers with unqualified subjectivity". But this claim changes the terms of the debate. Behaviour was not the issue. Nor was what was "permitted". The issue was what was "demanded" by the principles of CM (plus physical boundary conditions), not what was "permitted". And what does it mean to says that: "it is appropriate to drop the `behave exactly like observers' and substitute `are observers with unqualified subjectivity'." Does `unqualified subjectivity' mean that their is a real `flow of consciousness'? The pertinent question is not whether the jump from one phrase to the other is `appropriate', or even whether it is `true'. The question is whether it is possible to deduce, in addition to "behaviour", also the existence of an actual flow of consciousness. How, pray tell, can one pass *rigorously* from "behaviour" to "actual flow of consciousness" using nothing but the principles of CM? McKee says: "That is, that subjectivity enters classical physics far down the road from the primitive terms, rather than being present from the beginning as it is in quantum physics. This is admittedly an advance in the structure of classical theory beyond the stage at which it was abandoned for other reasons, but not an advance which is forbidden." Suppose I grant that it is not forbidden. The question remains: Is it logically demanded by the principles of CM alone? I move on now to Pat Hayes's posting of Sept 25. To pick up the string of the argument, recall that I first argued (essentially as above) that CM does not *entail* consciousness. Pat then asserted that I had not proved this. He supported his claim by introducing an "argument by analogy" that compared my present claim that "CM does not entail consciousness" to 19th century vitalists claim that "CM did not entail life.": He says: " The analogy is exact, which is what makes it rather persuasive. In both cases, there as some property (subjectivity/life) which, all agree, is shared by one category of thing but not by others, and for which no physical explanation account has been given, and for which it seems mysterious how any such account could be given (now/19th century). Moreover, it (is/was) argued that even if a complete physical or functional account were ever given, that would not really address what it is that made the things have *that* mysterious property." I responded that: "... analogies can be misleading: one must examine the actual case." Pat responded: "Henry misses my point, which is not to plead for the validity of argument by analogy, but to observe that *his* argument concerning subjectivity applies with equal force to the old notion of vitality. The point is not merely that subjectivity and vitality are analogous, but that his argument fails completely to distinguish them: if one word is substituted for the other, it applies with equal force to yield a conclusion which seemed convincing in the 19th century but now seems silly. There can't be anything, therefore, in the *form* of his argument which is a convincing support for his conclusion, unless it is somehow embedded in the meaning of 'subjective' in a way that he has not articulated. ..." *My* argument concerning the subjective was that CM mechanics is about "physical reality" characterized as "reality as it is thought independently of its being observed": rather than about "physical reality" as it is thought by virtue of its being observed by embodied creatures. The distinction is between two kinds thoughts, thoughts of the objective and subjective kinds, in connection to the logical structure of CM. There is no analogous valid argument that shows that CM is about dead matter, not living matter. Noticing that mistaken arguments have been given in the past can usefully alert us to the possibility of our making mistakes even now. But it cannot be used to refute an argument. My argument was based on the particulars of the logical structure of CM as it pertains to thoughts of different kinds. The question of the validity of any argument about what the logical principles of CM *entail* must rest upon an examination of these principles themselves, not upon historical antecdotes. Later on Pat quoted me: I had said: >I gave an argument why knowledge of the "flow of experience that constitutes >an embodied physical observer" is not part of the knowledge entailed in >principle by the principles of classical mechanics, plus boundary conditions. Pat objected: "This is precisely what Henry has not yet established; or, more properly, he has established it only if 'boundary conditions' are entirely stated in the language of subatomic physics, and if 'knowledge entailed in principle' is also entirely phrased in physical language. With these assumptions, he is of course right; but these assumptions are ridiculously strong; and with them, the argument doesnt just establish that information about 'flows of experience' is missing, but also information about leaves, political parties, gas pressures, kitchen utensils, etc. : in fact, almost all of human knowledge outside of particle physics. So this conclusion, while correct, has no particular significance for a science of the mind. If the terms are understood more loosely to allow for what are often called 'bridging laws', then the conclusion no longer follows, since the resulting sciences are no longer dynamically complete (examples include gases and computer software). Either way, Stapp's conclusion is unwarranted." Pat continued: "I don't plan to repeat this point again, since Stapp has not yet responded to it. I would be interested to see his reply, if he has one." It seems to me that Pat has now granted the truth of my claim: I have been talking all along exclusively about what could be *deduced* from the principles of CM. My whole claim and argument was formulated within the logical framework provided by CM. The boundary condition were boundary conditions of the kind recognized and formulatable within the framework provided by CM, as were the conclusions derived. Recall that the context of my claim pertained to causal efficacy. The behaviour of a classically described hurricane is fixed in principle by the principles of CM, given the initial conitions. The hurricanee is just the name we give to a complex arrangement of particles and fields, in the classical mechanics idealization, and it has the causal efficacy of this complex structure. The hurricane is, within the CM idealization, nothing but this complex physical structure: it is the name we give to this structure, in this CM theoretical image of "physical reality". Given the initial conditions we can in principle *deduce* the subsequent behaviour of the hurricane, and the havoc it will wreak. But a "flow of consciousness" is basically different: one cannot *deduce* its existence just from the principles of CM because it is not part of the "physical reality" that is "reality as it is thought independently of its being observed". This situation is summarized by the assertion: "Within the CM idealization zombies become possible". This analysis was part of my larger discussion of the relationship between consciousness and survival in my contribution to the Tucson II conference (The Evolution of Consciousness) [http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html], which was the place were I made my claim. Pat said (above): "he has established it only if 'boundary conditions' are entirely stated in the language of subatomic physics, and if 'knowledge entailed in principle' isalso entirely phrased in physical language. With these assumptions, he is of course right; but these assumptions are ridiculously strong; and with them, the argument doesnt just establish that information about 'flows of experience' is missing, but also information about leaves, political parties, gas pressures, kitchen utensils, etc. : in fact, almost all of human knowledge outside of particle physics. So this conclusion, while correct, has no particular significance for a science of the mind." The principles of CM certainly allow one to say things about gas pressure. This is part of what is taught in physics courses. Isaac Newton taught us how to discuss tides and cannon-ball trajectories within the framework of classical mechanics, and the principles of CM have subsequently been applied to a host of physical problems. Of course, QM is needed for describing in detail the properties of solids and liquids, including biological systems. Of course, the principles of CM separate an idealization of the physical world off from the world of our thoughts. So when we talk of "political parties" and "the rules of chess" and "someone's conception of a software program" and "someone's conception of a kitchen utensil", as distinguished from the physical object called "the babies spoon" itself, then we understand that within the CM framework of thinking these thoughtlike things do not belong to the idealization called "physical reality": they belong rather to the other realm of this idealization of nature, the realm of thoughts and ideas. The basic problem---of which the present discussion is a part---is precisely the awkwardness and unsatifactoriness of separating nature in this way into two disconnected parts which must then be bonded together by some ad hoc `bridging laws'. The whole point of my effort here is to point out that within the QM conception (Bohr/Heisenberg/vonN/Wigner) these two aspects of reality are bound naturally together. So it seems to me, as I said, that Pat is now accepting the truth of the claim of mine that has been the issue between us in these discussions. Pat goes on to say: "There seems to be a basic flaw in Henry's logic throughout this discussion. One must distinguish two rather differnt claims. One is that something (an account of consciousness, in our case, but the logical point is independent of that, in fact) P *follows from* or can be derived from another theory (CM in this case), ie the claim that CM implies P. Henry claims to be attacking this, and if thats all, then I will happily concur with him. CM doesnt *entail* P, of course, ..." So! We have reach agreement precisely on the point at issue! That "CM does not entail P" is exactly and precisely what I have have been claiming in these present discussions. Nothing more! This result does have consequences: Zombies *can* exist in the CM idealization! Pat says: "This negative claim - that CM doesnt entail P - is trivially true and not worth even discussing." But this is all that I have been saying! It is pivotal to my arguments, so I am glad that Pat no longer challenges it. Pat goes on: "The arguments he gives, however, are in fact opposed to a much weaker claim, that P *is consistent with* CM, ie that no account of P can be given which can even be made compatible with CM. This is what Stapp has written books attacking and what his arguments are posed against." That is definitely not what my arguments in the current debate have been posed against! I have steadfastly defined my claim here as the claim that the existence of consciousness cannot be *deduced* from the principles of CM, plus boundary conditions. That is all. My arguments for the actual inadequacy of classical mechanics are very different from, and much more difficult than, those that I have given in this current debate to justify the very much weaker claim that "CM does not entail P" I think this is the place to end these exchanges: comnplete agreement has been reached on the issue under discussion. But I need to correct two misimpressions created in the final parts of Pat's paper. Pat says: "Henry wants human consciousness to be somehow manifested at the very basis of the physical universe, something as fundamental as mass and energy. I find this so wildly implausible as to almost be comical." That is not at all what I have suggested. I have suggested that human consciousness is associated with human brains, and that experience in general has developed in line with the developing complexity of physical systems. Pat gives a description of my account of "free-will" that is not at all in line with what I have said. [See my recent JCS paper: The Hard Problem: A Quantum Approach.] He finds some problem and says: "Henry has an ingenious way out of this straightjacket, which is, as far as I can tell, to simply *deny* that QM's prediction will be empirically verified when free agents are acting freely according to their thoughts. One has to admire the sheer intellectual bravado involved here, but it does make his next claim rather hollow:" I have never suggested, or intimated, in these works that the predictions of QM will fail! [In quite another context, in order to provide a possible theoretical framework *for explaining the results of some actual experiments* that purport to reveal a failure of the predictions of quantum theory, I have, on the basis of these experiments, contemplated a possible failure of the predictions of quantum theory. But I think such suggestions should be resisted until the empirical evidence in favor of such violations becomes much stronger than it now is.] Henry P. Stapp