From stapp
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:38:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Consciousness and Natural Selection [Was: Henry and hard problem]

On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Stanley Klein wrote:

> I think the heart of this dialog is the issue we have with
> epiphenomenalism. So let me directly ask Henry about it.
> First here
> are some snippets from the previous exchange:
>
>
> >  > [Stan previous]
> >  > Could you remind me why there is a problem with
> evolutionary biology.
>
> [Henry]
> >Unless the thoughts have effects on brains there is no mechanism
> >that could keep our thoughts, percepts, and feelings properly in line
> >with the physical  situation: the consciousness could become
> >altogether misaligned with physical reality because no corrective
> >feed-back could occur to keep it in line.
>
> >I draw a distinction between conscious feelings, thoughts, ideas
> >or perceptions, which are described in psychological language,
> >and brain processes, which are descibed in the language
> >of physics, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, chemistry etc.
> >
> >Until one draws the terminological/categorical distinction there
> >is no mind-brain problem.
> >
> >Evolutionary biology cannot account for the evolution of
> >consciousness if consciousness cannot affect the brain.
> >So this problem involves the hard problem, namely the causal
> >connection between mind and brain.
> >
> [Stan]
> Let me review the epiphenomenal position again. First we have the
> 'easy problems' that connect the neural circuitry of feelings,
> thoughts, ideas and perceptions to action. Evolution acts on
> those circuits because they affect behavior. As I said earlier
> my research area is perception. I study mind and try to figure
> out the circuits that produce lots of weird illusions. There
> are evolutionary reasons that we come up with that explain why the
> circuitry of perception evolved as it did.
>
> Then we have the 'hard problem' (the mind/body problem): how does the
> neural circuitry produce subjective feels.

That is the "easy" part of the hard problem, and it is not the
part that I am concerned about. One can simply postulate that
that certain patterns of brain activity generate, or cause, certain
experiences. The "hard" part of the hard problem is:  How do subjective
feels influence brain activities that are already circumscribed by
physical laws. How can subjective feels have any effect at all if the
deterministic laws of classical physical theory hold. Those laws
would exactly determine all brain activity completely in terms of
"physical" variables, leaving no room for "subjective feels" to make
any difference at all: brain activity is completely  specified without
acknowledging the existence of any conscious experience: any
feeling, thought, idea, or percept.


> I don't understand the
> notion that evolution needs to work on the subjective part since the
> subjective is so tightly connected with the circuitry. Because of the
> tight epiphenomenal coupling consciousness can be thought of as being
> efficacious through the neural circuits of consciousness. Free will
> would be understood as occurring when decisions are made with heavy
> input from the NCC (I actually like having Henry's quantum ontology
> for metaphysical reasons when dealing with free will). Now for the
> question: Henry, what is the argument against this epiphenomenal
> view? It is not an identity theory in that it acknowledges that there
> may still be that hard problem.
>

My answer given above is a compact one-sentence bullet that the
wonderfully clear writer  Wm. James took two paragraphs to explain.
Since this  point is so crucial, let me give here James's exposition,
of my point,  and then also John Searles's.

"There is yet another set of facts which seem explicable on the
supposition that consciousness has causal efficacy.
{ital: It is a well-known fact that pleasures are generally associated
with benificial, pains with detrimental, experiences.} All the fundamental
vital  processes illustrate this law. Starvation, suffocation, privation
of food, drink and sleep, work when exhausted, burns, wounds,
inflammation, the effects of poison, are as disagreeable as filling the
hungry stomach, enjoying rest and sleep after fatigue, exercise after
rest, and a sound skin and unbroken bones at all times, are pleasant.
Mr. Spencer and others have suggested  that these  coincidences are due,
not to any pre-established harmony, but to the mere action of natural
selection which would certainly kill off in the long-run any breed of
creatures to whom  the fundamentally noxious experiences seemed enjoyable.
An anamal that should take pleasure in a feeling of suffocation would,
if that pleasure were efficacious enough to make him immerse  his  head in
water, enjoy a longgevity of four or five minutes. But if pleasure and
pain have no efficacy, one does not see (without some such
{ital: a priori} rational harmony as would be scouted by the `scientific'
champions of the automaton-theory) why the most noxious acts such as
burning, might not give  thrills of delight, and the most necessary ones,
such as breathing,  cause agony.  The exceptions to the law are, it is
true, numerous,, but related to experiences that are  either not vitalor
not universal. Drunkenness, for instance, which though noxious, is to many
person's delightful, is a very exceptional experience. But, as the
excellentphysiologist Fick remarks, if all rivers and springs ran alcohol
instead of water, either all men would now be born to hate it or our
nerves would have been selected to drink it with impunity. The only
considerable attempt, in fact, that has been made to explain the
{ital: distribution} of our feelings is that of Mr. Grant Allen in his
suggestive little book {ital: Pschological Aesthetics}: and his reasoning
is based exclusively on that causal efficacy of pleasures and pains
which the `double aspect' partisans so strenuously deny.

"Thus, then, from every point of view the circumstantial evidence against
that theory is strong. {ital: A priori} analysis of both brain-action
and conscious action shows us  that if the latter were efficaious it
would, by its selective emphasis, make amends for the indeterminateness of
the former; whilst the study {ital a posteriori} of the
{ital: distribution} of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we
might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system
grown too complex to regulate itself. The conclusion that it is useful
is, after all  this, quite justifiable. But, if it is useful, it must
be so through its causal efficaciousness, and the auto-maton theory must
succumb to the theory of common-sense."

Wm. James, "Principles of Psycholgy", end of Ch. `Automaton theory'.

Searle Considers Hypothesis I: Psychological Libertarianism and
Neurological Determinism.
....

" is intellectually unsatisfying ...epiphenomenalism ---psychological
process ...do mot really matter ... systematic illusion...we experience
the process as making a causal difference to out behaviour, but they do
not in fact make any difference. The bodily movements would be exactly the
same regardless of how these processes occurred.

"Maybe that is how it will turn out,  but if so, the hypothesis seems to
me to rum against everything we know about evolution. It would have the
consequence that the incredibly elaborate,  complex, sensitive and ---
above all  --- biologically expensive human and animal conscious rational
decision-making would actually make no  difference whatever to the life
and survival of the organisms."

JCS (7/10) 2000. p.15-16.

These passages spell out in some detail the problem with Evolutionary
Biology that arises if one accepts the idea that deterministic
classical physical theory rules the brain.

Both James and Searle recognize the obvious conclusion:
the causal closure of brain dynamics entailed by classical
physical theory does not hold. James suggests that future
physical theories would lead to indeterminism, and Searle
cites QT. It is a long road from recogizing that classical
determinism must fail to showing how QT can fix the problem.
But I believe we now have a model of how it could work

I do not grasp the meaning of your key assertion:

> Because of the
> tight epiphenomenal coupling consciousness can be thought of as being
> efficacious through the neural circuits of consciousness.

Hence I cannot address your question:

> Henry, what is the argument against this epiphenomenal
> view?

But I  hope this elaboration of my argument, through the
words of James and Searle, will have either answered your
question, or will allow you to explain more clearly
your counter-proposal.

Henry



Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:42:59 -0800 (PST)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: Stanley Klein <klein@spectacle.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Consciousness and Natural Selection [Was: Henry and hard
    problem]


On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Stanley Klein wrote:

> I prefer to focus on Searle since he is nearby and can clarify any
> misconceptions.
>
> [Searle]
> >Searle Considers Hypothesis I: Psychological Libertarianism and
> >Neurological Determinism.
> >....
> >
> >" is intellectually unsatisfying ...epiphenomenalism ---psychological
> >process ...do mot really matter ... systematic illusion...we experience
> >the process as making a causal difference to our behaviour, but they do
> >not in fact make any difference. The bodily movements would be exactly the
> >same regardless of how these processes occurred.
> >
> >"Maybe that is how it will turn out,  but if so, the hypothesis seems to
> >me to rum against everything we know about evolution. It would have the
> >consequence that the incredibly elaborate,  complex, sensitive and ---
> >above all  --- biologically expensive human and animal conscious rational
> >decision-making would actually make no  difference whatever to the life
> >and survival of the organisms."
> >
> >JCS (7/10) 2000. p.15-16.
>
> [Stan]
> The biologically expensive neural circuitry of consciousness evolved to
> produce the type of decision making that is critical for the survival of
> humans and other animals. It was expensive to make circuitry that
> produced consciousness but it was worthwhile.  Researchers like Baars
> with his global workspace ideas point to special features of the
> consciousness circuits that facilitate decision-making.
>
> [Henry]
> >These passages spell out in some detail the problem with Evolutionary
> >Biology that arises if one accepts the idea that deterministic
> >classical physical theory rules the brain.
> >
> >Both James and Searle recognize the obvious conclusion:
> >the causal closure of brain dynamics entailed by classical
> >physical theory does not hold. James suggests that future
> >physical theories would lead to indeterminism, and Searle
> >cites QT. It is a long road from recogizing that classical
> >determinism must fail to showing how QT can fix the problem.
> >But I believe we now have a model of how it could work
> >
> >I do not grasp the meaning of your key assertion:
> >
> >  > Because of the
> >  > tight epiphenomenal coupling consciousness can be thought of as being
> >  > efficacious through the neural circuits of consciousness.
> >
> >Hence I cannot address your question:
> >
> [Stan]
> I see a very tight coupling between consciousness and the circuits that
> produce the feels of consciousness. So it is easy for me to see how
> consciousness is efficacious through the circuits that produce the Cs.
>

You do not seem to be recognizing  the key point,  which is that
once one rejects the identity-theory position, and hence can speak
of two different items, the experiences and their neural correlates
(i.e., the associated neural circuitry), then one can inquire about the
nature of the relationship between them.

Searle says that consciousness is CAUSED by brain process:
he suggest that there is a CAUSAL connection between the
two. This is in line with scientific thought, because the alternative
of "pre-established harmony" smacks of a God-creator, who adjusts
the two parts to be harmonious by lordly fiat. The scientific approach
requires that we have some `scientific' way of understanding how the
details of the existing connection came into being: e.g., why
pleasureful feelings are associated--in the crucial cases--with brain
activities that are beneficial to health and life, and painful feelings
are associated--in the crucial cases--with activities that are detrimental
to the person's health and life.

The most natural way to explain these existing alignments is the common-
sense notion that pleasureful feelings THEMSELVES have causal action
back onto the brain, and that painful feelings THEMSELVES have a
different sort of causal action back on the brain. Both James and
Searle are careful to say that this idea---that the experiential qualities
actually influence  brain activities---may not be the ONLY
rational way to explain the fact that the activities in our brains and
minds are so well coordinated. And indeed they MUST be careful,  because
this idea that experiences THEMSELVES are "causally efficacious" with
respect to brain activity, in the sense that they are *necessary elements*
in the determination of brain activity, contradicts the claim of
classical physical theory that all brain activities are completely
determined by local causal mechanisms that involve only local
physical elements.

Searle's usual assertion that brain activity CAUSES experiences, i.e.,
that there is a causal connection FROM brain TO mind is completely
in accord with the strict validity of the classical laws. It could
account for a "correlation" between mind and matter. But it does not
entail any "influence" of experiences on the brain. However,
the point that James, Searle, and I are making is that, within that
scientific approach, the specific details of which brain activity is
connected to which conscious experience needs to be fixed by some natural
process, and that the most likely natural process would be natural selection.
But natural selection could lead to a "correct" alignment only if the
experiences actually enter into the chain of causation as both effects of
brain activities AND ALSO GENUINE CAUSES OF BRAIN ACTIVITIES. If they
enter merely as causally inert witnesses, or merely as consequences of
brain activity, then a general emergence within a species of an
association of, for example, pleasure with self-destructive activities
could have no detrimental effects, because feelings of pleasure and pain
could not THEMSELVES have any effects at all on the physical body-brain.
The neural correlates of pleasure and pain would, of course, as you say,
have appropriate causal connections but the feelings that are
associated with those brain correlates have no effects, and hence
those experiences THEMSELVES could be anything at all.

But if pleasureful and painful feelings enter into the evaluative
process that controls when "effort" will be applied to activate
the Quantum Zeno Effect, and thereby hold attention fixed on some
plan of action, then Natural Selection can explain why pleasure and
pain are associated, generally, with activities beneficial and
harmful, respectively, to good health.



> You know, the problem we are having might be because of a misunderstanding
> on my part of how you envision mind doing the question asking. About
> 6 months ago in one of your emails you entertained the possibility that
> mind was actually an aspect of the physical world, controlled by the
> same unitary operator as the rest of us. If you acknowledge that as a
> possibility then I think I have been arguing against an improper target
> since you and I would be in agreement. The place where I have problems is
> when it sounds like you mean that mind is something outside that unitary
> operator and then it becomes like a hidden variable outside the fundamental
> Lagrangian, able to do mysterious things.
>
> Stan
>

What I am arguing for is the fact that quantum theory encompasses
classical phenomena, and is the more general theory, and hence should
in principle be used, But when one does this one finds that
there is a causal gap in the quantum dynamics of the brain.
This gap arises from  the fact that a question must be posed,
and some mechanism is needed to specify which question is posed, and
when it is posed. These things are not specified by the state evolving
only under the action of the Schroedinger equation.  Some further
dynamics needs to be added. But I have repeatedly emphasized that I
postulate no entities besides the objective evolving state of the
universe, and the "mental" events, which include only human experiences,
and analogous events associated with other physical systems. These
physical systems,  together with the events associated with them, might
be called "creatures" or "players". But I  postulate no "psychic
entities", such as `souls', who are `possessors'  of experiences:
I consider each experience, or analogous `mental' event, to belong to
a physical system, not to a psychic entity. But the dynamical equations
that connect these realities must be nonlocal, and hence different
in some essential ways from the Lagrangian dynamics that governs the
evolution between event/jumps. But there are no "hidden-variable":
the only new variables are experiential/mental events, which are not
"hidden", in the usual sense of that word. So there are no mysterious
new variables or entitities. But there are some new laws: the laws that
govern the process that fills the above-mentioned causal gap in the
contemporary laws of physics.

Henry

****



Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 19:57:28 -0800 (PST)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: kleinlist
     klein@adage.berkeley.edu,
Subject: Answers

Let me answer all together the recent messages from Aaron,
Stan, Kathy, and Pat.

>From A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk Tue Feb  6 12:21:45 2001
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 13:07:16 GMT
Subject: Re: Experiential and nonexperiential thoughts (a Chinese  
    argument?)

[Henry]
> But, Stan, the pleasure circuits would do this just fine
> without the pleasure feels. The pleasure feel could be
> totally absent without affecting procreation at all,

[Aaron]
Remember the need to do conceptual analysis as well as doing scientific
theorising and arguing.

What does the concept of "pleasure feel" amount to?
...
Meanwhile we need to be cautious about pronouncements regarding when
"pleasure feels" would or would not be present, since it is not
at all clear what sort of concept is being used here.

Even if its use is accompanied by "clear feels", as a result of
the operation of our partially deluded meta-management systems.

Cheers.

Aaron

[Henry]
But what science needs to explain are connections between our
experiences. The next time you burn yourself ask whether the
accompanying experience can be written off as a "delusion".
And even if is a delusion, in some sense, it is this painful experience,
as it is experienced, that is part of what we are trying to tie into our 
theory of nature. And how is the actual feeling of "effort", itself,
related to subsequent activities of our bodies and brains. "Seemings" 
are what they seem to be, by definition. What really is a delusion is the 
idea that the conception of the nature of physical reality called 
classical physics is basically correct, and that the best theory 
of reality that man can create must regard our direct experiences 
as delusions. 

>From klein@spectacle.berkeley.edu Tue Feb  6 12:23:06 2001
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 06:35:59 -0800
Subject: Experiential and nonexperiential thoughts (why wN/W feels)

>[Stan previous]
>In the epiphenomenal view I'm advocating the neural circuitry of 
>pleasure produces pleasureful feels. That's what evolution has 
>achieved. There is lots of physical back-action of the Darwinian 
>sort. The circuits that didn't activate the pleasure circuits when 
>appropriate would not procreate sufficiently.

[Henry]
>But, Stan, the pleasure circuits would do this just fine
>without the pleasure feels. The pleasure feel could be
>totally absent without affecting procreation at all, or the
>pleasureful feelings associated with procreation
>could be replaced by the most excruciating pain, and it would
>not matter a bit to the survival of the species. So what is
>this great achievement of evolution, which creates this
>vast array of feels that make not one whit of difference to
>survival?

[Stan]
I see an error in what I wrote. My sentence "That's what evolution 
has achieved." was misplaced. It should have been put at the very end.

Your comment about the pleasure circuits being able to do it without 
the feels is precisely the mind/body problem. It is an aspect of the 
hard problem. Yes, everything we know from the neurosciences does 
indicate that the circuitry is able to do it without the feels. And 
evolution can act on the circuitry. The big mystery is why is there 
that epiphenomenal feel. 

[Henry]
Exactly!

[Stan]

Or in the vN/W ontology, why is there the 
need for that extra postulate associating collapses with feels.

Henry, wouldn't the vN/W ontology have worked just fine without the feels?

[Henry]
The Orthodox and Copenhagen quantum theories bring in the experiences of
the experimenter/observers: they are basically about these experiences.
There IS no existing theory of brain activity that is compatible with
quantum theory and with the empirical structure of human experience
aside from vN/W QT, and this theory ties brain activity to
experiences, i.e., to feels. 

[Stan]
While I am writing, let me ask again a question that I asked before:
If Mind operates by QT, then we need to ask how Mind decides on which 
question (projection operator, P) to ask (von Neumann process 1):

S -> PSP + (1-P)S(1-P)

This is half of the collapse. I'm not asking how the cross terms got 
eliminated. I'm asking how Mind decided on the P direction.  Do we 
need to add new particles and fields to the Lagrangian to specify how 
Mind determines P, or does it operate using the same Lagrangian that 
specifies the quarks and gluons (or superstrings or whatever the 
future Lagrangian of physical world will be)?


[Henry]
I can formulate a version of vN/W QT that adds no explicit new 
ontological structure to existing theory, but merely adds
deterministic rules  for specifying P, and the instant at which
P is applied, in terms of the evolving quantum state of the brain
itself.  This model,  as a model of the mind/brain, would be
incomplete, because there is no mention of mind, i.e., no mention
of consciousness  or experience, or feel.  But I  could imagine
some  further rule that asserts that certain brain activities
are accompanied by corresponding (epiphenomenal) experiences:
a passive witness could added on, ad hoc. 

I would regard such a theory as unsatisfactory because it adds
a whole new ontological dimension that has no effect on anything in 
the physical world.  We should search for a conception of nature
that makes sense, and I believe the existence of a useless
whole new dimation of reality does not make sense.

[Stan]
One way to answer this question is to say that we don't yet know how 
Mind operates and this is a question for future generations. I submit 
that this is precisely my response to the "hard problem". 

[Henry]
Why future generations? Why not start now? 
Kathy and I are starting now! Theoretical ideas and empirical
data are already at hand!

[Stan]
In fact the 
issue of how Mind selects P, may be the same "hard problem" when cast 
in the vN/W ontology.

[Henry]
Yes, this question of how mind selects P is a key part of the
"hard problem" when  cast in the vN/W framework.


>From klaskey@gmu.edu Tue Feb  6 12:23:53 2001
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 16:46:31 -0700
Subject: Re: Experiential and nonexperiential thoughts (why wN/W feels)

Stan et al,

>If Mind operates by QT, then we need to ask how Mind decides on 
>which question (projection operator, P) to ask (von Neumann process 
>1):
>
>S -> PSP + (1-P)S(1-P)
>
>This is half of the collapse. I'm not asking how the cross terms got 
>eliminated. I'm asking how Mind decided on the P direction.  Do we 
>need to add new particles and fields to the Lagrangian to specify 
>how Mind determines P, or does it operate using the same Lagrangian 
>that specifies the quarks and gluons (or superstrings or whatever 
>the future Lagrangian of physical world will be)?

[Kathy]
The first question is what P's and question-asking rates are 
possible?  After that we ask how Mind selects.

Henry, are you hypothesizing some heretofore unknown force?

K.

[Henry]
Orthodox theory has not been developed to the point 
of specifying how P is  selected. or how the time of
application is fixed.  So we are on our own at this point!

vN/W QT provides a natural framework for linking  mind to
matter in a way that is completely compatible with
the known laws, but it does not specify the nature of the
needed added laws/rules, or the machinery that implements
these laws/rules. 


>From klein@spectacle.berkeley.edu Tue Feb  6 12:25:18 2001
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 15:47:47 -0800
Subject: Re: Experiential and nonexperiential thoughts (why wN/W feels)

...
[Kathy]
>The first question is what P's and question-asking rates are 
>possible?  After that we ask how Mind selects.
>
>Henry, are you hypothesizing some heretofore unknown force?
>

[Stan]
To keep things simple the P's I have in mind are the angle of 
polarization of light. 


[Henry]
The P's that I  have  in mind are projections upon states
of the coulomb part of the electromagnetic field in the brain
in the frequency range of 1 to 40 Hertz,  with the rates of
application of  these P about a hundred times faster, so that
the QZE effect would be strong.

[Stan]
I'm not sure about rates. I recall that the 
mind can scan a scene at around an object every 20-50 msec. But 
consciousness moments are slower, maybe one feel per 200 msec. But 
for the QZE a sustained consciousness might have multiple high level 
collapses within one conscious moment. Henry will have to answer that 
one.

[Henry]
I discussed this at the Whitehead conference we both attended,
and in the associated paper on my website.

[Stan]
I am not really concerned with the QZE since I've always believed 
that when one does the calculation carefully the QZE will be much too 
small to account for the many experiments on the efficaciousness of 
consciousness.

[Henry]
The above-mentioned factor of  100 should make QZE strong.


[Stan]
What I am concerned with, however, is how to account for the apparent 
'back-action' of mind on neurons to account for the very strong 
effects of consciousness and free will that occur in my own 
experience and also to account for the evolution of consciousness. 
Having the feels be epiphenomenal and evolution working on the neural 
circuits of Cs seems to be a good working hypothesis.

[Henry]
Being  concerned about this back-action of mind on brain 
does  not jibe having `mind being epiphenomenal' being a good working
hypothesis 



>From phayes@ai.uwf.edu Tue Feb  6 12:26:14 2001
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:46:48 -0600
Subject: Re: Henry and hard problem (and some perception research)

>On Sat, 27 Jan 2001, Stanley Klein wrote:
>
> > [Henry]
> > >In keeping with Descartes, James, Searle, and I thought
> > >everyone who talks about these matters, I consider
> > >thoughts, feelings, ideas, perceptions, and
> > >consciousness to all belong to the realm of `mind'
> > >(res cogitans). And all things that classical
> > >physical theory would classify as "matter",
> > >or "parts of the physical universe", or "things built out of
> > >physical particles (eg electrons, protons) and physical
> > >fields (specifically the electromagnetic and gravitational
> > fields)" as belonging to the `material' part of the universe.
> >
> > [Stan]
> > One way to clarify this is for the two of us to make an
> > appointment to see Searle. I suspect he would agree that
> > thoughts, perceptions, etc are in the realm of mind. But
> > then he would say that mind is what brains do, just like
> > digestion is what stomachs do. That is my recollection
> > of his words.
>
>I was talking strictly about "categorization": about the
>what things are to be *called* elements of consciousness.
>That is quite a different matter from what one then goes onto say
>about those things.

[Pat]
Unless he has had a recent epiphany, I think you will find that John 
Searle is a resolute materialist, as Stan suggests. 

[Henry]
Searle's article begins with a chapter entitled:
"The Unified Field of Consciousness and Brain Process",
and the  first paragraph end with the words:

"This conception of consciousness is becoming more commonly accepted,
but remains controversial precisely because it rejects both
materialism and dualism."

He immediately explains that:
"Consciousness ... consists of inner, qualitative, subjective, unified
states of sentience, awareness, thoughts and feelings."

This *categorization* seems to agree with mine. I was
emphasizing precisely this "naming" aspect,  separating
that aspect from the subsequent ontological one. 

....

>[Henry]  I draw a distinction between conscious feelings, thoughts, ideas
>or perceptions, which are described in psychological language,
>and brain processes, which are descibed in the language
>of physics, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, chemistry etc.
>
>Until one draws the terminological/categorical distinction there
>is no mind-brain problem.

[Pat]
Quite, although it would be better phrased as "If one does not 
draw...." So don't draw it, and there isn't.  In retrospect it seems 
like a silly scientific distinction to draw in any case, based as it 
is merely upon terminology.

[Henry]
Science, and any sort of meaningful discussion,  depends
on establishing conventions about the meanings of the terms, and
this must be based on experientially distinguishable features.
Most workers in this area can distinguish their experiences,
as immediately present realities, from certain concepts, which to be sure
are immediately experienced from time to time, but are ideas
about a "physical" world that can be imagined to exists even when 
no experience about it exists.

[Pat]
Congratulations. It is unusual for someone to so succinctly and 
clearly state their own error, and to so clearly see why it has been 
causing them so much trouble.

[Henry]
The trouble comes when one tries to understand the relationship
between these experientially distinguishable features of the known
reality and a putative `physical' reality.

>From phayes@ai.uwf.edu Tue Feb  6 12:26:28 2001
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:55:44 -0600
Subject: Re: Consciousness and Natural Selection [Was: Henry and hard
    problem]

>Searle Considers Hypothesis I: Psychological Libertarianism and
>Neurological Determinism.
>....
>
>" is intellectually unsatisfying ...epiphenomenalism ---psychological
>process ...do mot really matter ... systematic illusion...we experience
>the process as making a causal difference to out behaviour, but they do
>not in fact make any difference. The bodily movements would be exactly the
>same regardless of how these processes occurred.
>
>"Maybe that is how it will turn out,  but if so, the hypothesis seems to
>me to rum against everything we know about evolution. It would have the
>consequence that the incredibly elaborate,  complex, sensitive and ---
>above all  --- biologically expensive human and animal conscious rational
>decision-making would actually make no  difference whatever to the life
>and survival of the organisms."
>
>JCS (7/10) 2000. p.15-16.
>
>These passages spell out in some detail the problem with Evolutionary
>Biology that arises if one accepts the idea that deterministic
>classical physical theory rules the brain.

[Pat]
I think you misunderstand Searle.  He is arguing against 
epiphenomenalism, not against materialism.

[Henry]
He is arguing against his Hypothesis I 
(Psychological Libertarianism and Neurological Determinisn)
and in favor of his Hypothesis II
(System Causation with Causation and Indeterminism)
So he is not arguing against "materialism" in some broad
sense, but is arguing against neurobiological determinism,
which is what would follow in principle from classical
physical theory.

He speaks of Sperry's example of `top down'  causation, 
but says that:

"If hypothsesis 2 is right we have to suppose that the consciousness 
of the system has effects on elements of the system....
but the analogy between the system causation  of the wheel and the
system causation  of the conscious brain breaks down at this point.
The behavior of the wheel is totally determined but the behavior of the
conscious brain, on Hypothesis 2, is not."
... 

"How are we to think  of the relationship between the microelements
and the system feature of consciousness?"

"when we insist that  the system features  must be uniguely fixed by
the elements of the system we are  not thereby giving up on free  will,
because the gap is across time. The gap is not between the state of my 
neurons now and my conscious state now; the gap is between what is 
happening now in the conscious volitional component of the whole
thalamocortical system and what is going to happen next."

Searle's view  seems quite in line with my own, and with my
long-term reluctance to postulate fundamentally new ontological entities,
but to allow conscious thoughts to be "emergent" realities built out 
of the micro elements of the brain, and to exploit the causal gaps that
exist in quantum theory, in order to allow the macroscopic
physical structures that constitute our (conscious) experiences
to actually influence activities in our brains.

[Pat]
 I would agree with him: I 
don't think mental phenomena are epiphenomenal either. 

[Henry]
We all agree that epiphenomenalism is not a good solution.

[Pat]
But I don't 
see any reason why anyone would come to such a ridiculous conclusion, 
unless they had the odd belief that mental states weren't also 
physical states. You and Descartes think so, but I don't think Searle 
does. (Notice that this epiphenomenal stuff is *biologically* 
expensive, in his view.). But by all means go and ask him, he's only 
a few hundred yards away from you.

[Henry]
My  objection has always been to trying to understand the mind/brain
connection within the confines of deterministic classical physical
theory. Within that framework the notion that the "emergent"
consciousness exerts `top down' control could be true only in a trivial
sense: everything is completely determined by microlaws acting
on microelements.  As in  the action of a hurricane, the top-down
causation is merely a re-expression of the mutual effects of the
microelements on their immediate neighbors. But the existence
in quantum theory of the causal gaps allows large-scale structures,
themselves, as unified entities, to influence the course of physical
events

I think Searle spelled that out very clearly and convincingly.


>From phayes@ai.uwf.edu Tue Feb  6 12:26:49 2001
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 13:07:22 -0600
Subject: Re: Consciousness and Natural Selection [Was: Henry and hard
    problem]

>[Henry, to Stan]
>You do not seem to be recognizing  the key point,  which is that
>once one rejects the identity-theory position, and hence can speak
>of two different items, the experiences and their neural correlates
>(i.e., the associated neural circuitry), then one can inquire about the
>nature of the relationship between them.
>
>Searle says that consciousness is CAUSED by brain process:
>he suggest that there is a CAUSAL connection between the
>two. This is in line with scientific thought, because the alternative
>of "pre-established harmony" smacks of a God-creator, who adjusts
>the two parts to be harmonious by lordly fiat. The scientific approach
>requires that we have some `scientific' way of understanding how the
>details of the existing connection came into being: e.g., why
>pleasureful feelings are associated--in the crucial cases--with brain
>activities that are beneficial to health and life, and painful feelings
>are associated--in the crucial cases--with activities that are detrimental
>to the person's health and life.
>
>The most natural way to explain these existing alignments is the common-
>sense notion that pleasureful feelings THEMSELVES have causal action
>back onto the brain, and that painful feelings THEMSELVES have a
>different sort of causal action back on the brain.

[Pat]
Well, the MOST natural way to explain it is to say that these 
'connected' things are actually the same thing, or at least the same 
*kind* of thing. That makes the 'connection' for you automatically. 
One can speak of a relation even if the related things are in the 
same ontological category.

[Henry]
Maybe Searle's contribution offers the clarifying bridge.
His approach says that the thoughts and feelings ARE
special unified kinds of brain activity,  but also says
that the causation is not just the microlocal bottom-up
causation of classical  physical theory: the high-level
entities add extra causative input into the evolving structure
of the microelements, which in quantum theory is represented
by the evolving state of the brain, and, eventually,
the universe?

Do we have some basis here for a reconciliation of our
differences?


>Both James and
>Searle are careful to say that this idea---that the experiential qualities
>actually influence  brain activities---may not be the ONLY
>rational way to explain the fact that the activities in our brains and
>minds are so well coordinated. And indeed they MUST be careful,  because
>this idea that experiences THEMSELVES are "causally efficacious" with
>respect to brain activity, in the sense that they are *necessary elements*
>in the determination of brain activity, contradicts the claim of
>classical physical theory that all brain activities are completely
>determined by local causal mechanisms that involve only local
>physical elements.

[Pat]
Nah, now you must be careful. The contradiction arises only if the 
feelings themselves are not supervenient on the physical state. If 
you reject physicalism then indeed you have effectively split off the 
soul (we might as well call it that) from the body, and God alone 
knows how anyone is going to put them back together. The mistake was 
to split it off in the first place. Your 'two realms' are two ways of 
TALKING , but two ways of talking about something don't entail that 
there are two different things being talked about.

[Henry]
Searle stresses the unity of the "field of consciousness", suggesting
that something is somehow making our thoughts "individuals", even 
though "they are themselves features of the system of neurons that
constitute the human brain." So in some sense it is justified to
speak of both brains and thoughts. We do speak of both bricks and
brick houses. Again, the important thing is how the different
parts enter  into the dynamics.


>
>Searle's usual assertion that brain activity CAUSES experiences, i.e.,
>that there is a causal connection FROM brain TO mind is completely
>in accord with the strict validity of the classical laws. It could
>account for a "correlation" between mind and matter. But it does not
>entail any "influence" of experiences on the brain. However,
>the point that James, Searle, and I are making is that, within that
>scientific approach, the specific details of which brain activity is
>connected to which conscious experience needs to be fixed by some natural
>process, and that the most likely natural process would be natural selection.
>But natural selection could lead to a "correct" alignment only if the
>experiences actually enter into the chain of causation as both effects of
>brain activities AND ALSO GENUINE CAUSES OF BRAIN ACTIVITIES. If they
>enter merely as causally inert witnesses, or merely as consequences of
>brain activity, then the general emergence within a species of the
>association of, for example, pleasure with self-destructive activities
>could have no detrimental effects, because feelings of pleasure and pain
>could not THEMSELVES have any effects at all on the physical body-brain.
>The neural correlates of pleasure and pain would, of course, as you say,
>have appropriate causal connections but the feelings that are
>associated with those brain correlates have no effects, and hence
>those experiences THEMSELVES could be anything at all.

[Pat]
They would be if they WERE the brain 'correlates'. Which would be 
entirely consistent with all of the preceding paragraph, of course.

[Henry]
Yes. But I do have trouble with the claim that  the  particular
feature of the brain IS the "feel", within a classical physics
framework, because the felt quality of the feel is not
in any way incipient in the classical concept of a collection
of classically conceived particles. But if one goes over to a 
quantum-theoretical conception of the brain, with its basically
imformational character, and "jumps", then the conceptual distance
between mind and brain is greatly diminished.



Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 11:35:50 -0800 (PST)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: Stanley Klein <klein@spectacle.berkeley.edu>
Cc: hpstapp@lbl.gov, A.sloman@bham.ac.uk, bdj10@cam.ac.uk,
     brucero@cats.ucsc.edu, hameroff@u.arizona.edu, jmschwar@ucla.edu,
     klaskey@gmu.edu, phayes@ai.uwf.edu
Subject: Re: Answers

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Stanley Klein wrote:

> >[Stan previous]
> >In the vN/W ontology, why is there the need for that extra postulate 
> >associating collapses with feels.
> >
> >Henry, wouldn't the vN/W ontology have worked just fine without the feels?
> >
> >[Henry]
> >The Orthodox and Copenhagen quantum theories bring in the experiences of
> >the experimenter/observers: they are basically about these experiences.
> >There IS no existing theory of brain activity that is compatible with
> >quantum theory and with the empirical structure of human experience
> >aside from vN/W QT, and this theory ties brain activity to
> >experiences, i.e., to feels.
> 
> [Stan]
> I think we are getting three items mixed up.
> 
> 1) the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. I have always 
> agreed with Henry that the duality of QT solves many metaphysical 
> aspects of the Cartesian and Kantian mind/brain dualities.

I am interested primarily in dynamical issues within science, not
metaphysical ones. Let me explain my answer in more detail. You
asked:

> >Henry, wouldn't the vN/W ontology have worked just fine without the feels?

My answer, spelled out in more detail, was this:
The Copenhagen interpretation is basically about "feels", in the
broad sense that all human experiences are, in this broad sense,
feelings. And science is really, in the final analysis, about
relationships between human experiences. So in order to maintain
the connection to science von Neumann had to construct a theory
that maintained the relationship between "feels" that the Copenhagen
interpretation predicted. Hence it is an absolutely essential part 
of the vN/W interpretation, in my opinion, that once vN made the
move of including all atoms and ions, etc. in the quantum system,
and hence of including the brains of human beings, he had to tie brain
activity to mind. This is a scientific requirement. 

So my answer is NO, the vN/W ontology would NOT have worked just fine
without "feels", because leaving out "feels" 
(i.e., consciousness/experience) would have cut the connection to 
science.  

> 
> 2) the issue of whether mind acts on brain through mechanisms other 
> than the neural circuits of consciousness. 

I do not think there is any question about that:
Of course mind acts on brains through the the NCC. That is a basic
feature of vN/W theory. But I believe that classical physical theory
has a real problem in this connection,  unless one goes to
identity theory, because if mind is not the SAME as features
of the brain, then within CPT mind is epiphenomenal: it makes not 
one whit of difference whether mind is present or not. My reasons for
rejecting the identity theory have been explained at length on this
forum.

> Standard QT does not say 
> anything about that as far as I know. 

The "most standard" QT is Copenhagen QT, which leaves brains out.
But the core idea of the von Neuman account of the
connection between mind and brain is directly via a projection
operator P that acts on the brain to effectively actualize the neural
correlates of the conscious experience,  and eliminate neural
activities that are inconsistent with the conscious experience.

>  A convincing quantitative 
> calculation of whether the Zeno effect is strong enough to be 
> efficacious hasn't yet been given as far as I have seen. The neural 
> circuits seem plenty strong to account for all the behavioral data 
> I've ever heard of. 

But what are the laws that govern the neural circuits, when
the person is exerting conscious mental effort? Obviously
no strictly CPT calculation is possible in the whole of the brain
that is involved in these cases. So nothing but unsupported prejudice
backs the claim that CPT is  adequate, when basic physical principles
prove conclusively that CPT CANNOT be adequate. ( I am referring to the 
uncertainties induced by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in the
determination of whether or not the contents of a vesicle of
neurotransmitter will be released.) No CPT computation can be accurate
enough to determine the neural activity in cases involving
deep moral dilemmas: the quantum noise would be too great, even if the 
classical noise were not. And certainly nothing even approaching
such a confirmation of CPT exists today! As far as empirical
evidence is concerned the question of how  important MACROSCOPIC
quantum  are is unresolved, but general principles say  that
quantum principles should be used unless the adequacy of classical
physics is established.

> 
> 3) the extra postulate which was the topic of my question. Let me 
> frame my question more precisely since this is an important point: 
> wouldn't the ontology von Neumann presents in his book (unitary 
> evolution (Process 2) followed by collapse (Process 1)) have worked 
> just fine without the feels. I had presumed your answer was yes since 
> last week I thought you agreed that the presence of feels had to be 
> added as an extra postulate.

As I explained above, the connection to "feels" forms the essential link
between theory and experience, and hence is crucial to the connection
to science.

However, let me strongly reinforce my position that although "emergence"
is a trivial concept within CPT, because everything is determined 
bottom-up, and all other descriptions are just alternative ways of
describing the consequences of the contact interactions between
microelements, "emergence" can be highly nontrivial within QT, because 
of the causal gaps, which allow emergent constructs/entities to act as
wholes, and exert influences on the conglomerates of which they are 
formed. These influences are not specified or determined by the laws
governing the micro-elements. QT provides naturally for this possibility.
It provides the mathematical machinery for describing how *nonlocal*
process can enter into the physical dynamics in ways that *truly
augment* the dynamics in a way compatible with basic science, and in
particular with relativistic local quantum field theory.

The conscious aspect of our human beingness is a high-level
manifestation of this exploitation by nature of this generally
available process. But our consciousness cannot be the only 
manifestation, because it surely evolved from simpler applications. 
So one must see human consciousness as just one special case. In this way
"feels", as we know them, are not a necessary part of the general 
ontological theory, but human knowings are an essential
part of that aspect of the general ontology that connects it to
human science.

So my answer to your question is the "feels", and in fact human
knowings, are an essential aspect of QT, as a part of science,
but "feels" as we know them, are not an essential part of QT
as the basis of an ontological conception of nature.


> This postulate bears some similarity to 
> the epiphenomenal postulate that the consciousness circuits are 
> associated with feels. (As I said in point 1 above this postulate is 
> more natural in QT than in CT, but the epiphenomenal postulate could 
> be added to CT just as well as you can add the postulate to QT).
> 
> 

No one doubts that feels are associated with brain activity.
Within CPT the feels, if they are not *identical* to "consciousness
circuits" are necessarily epiphenomenal, and practically everyone
agrees that epiphenomenal consciousness is a non-starter.

So it makes little sense to consider epiphenomenal consciousness
in a QT context: the virtue of QT in this connection is precisely
that it allows consciousness to be efficacious without being
identical to a classically conceived brain.

> >[Stan previous]
> >While I am writing, let me ask again a question that I asked before:
> >If Mind operates by QT, then we need to ask how Mind decides on which
> >question (projection operator, P) to ask (von Neumann process 1):
> >
> >S -> PSP + (1-P)S(1-P)
> >
> >This is half of the collapse. I'm not asking how the cross terms got 
> >eliminated. I'm asking how Mind decided on the P direction.  Do we 
> >need to add new particles and fields to the Lagrangian to specify 
> >how Mind determines P, or does it operate using the same Lagrangian 
> >that specifies the quarks and gluons (or superstrings or whatever 
> >the future Lagrangian of physical world will be)?
> >

No! The Lagrangian governs the unitarity evolution, the continuous
development-in-time governed by the Schroedinger equation. And the
quarks etc. specify the physical foundation (the mathematical
degrees of freedom) of the objective aspect of reality. The 
projection-operator-controlled instantaneous jumps are, at the present
stage of theory development, a second and different part of the dynamics,
not controlled by the Lagrangian. 

I have given one conjecture about how this second process works: each
emergent nonlocal system/entity defines a set {P_i} of projection
operators that acts on the set of local degrees of freedom that 
characterize that system, and the P_i with the largest value of 
Tr P_i S(t) P_i = Tr P_i S(t) is singled out for "evaluation". This
"evaluation" is made in accordance with an Evaluation Operator E 
defined over the degrees of freedom of the system": 
E(P_i, t)= Tr E P_i S(t) P_i/ Tr P_i S(t) P_i. 
The existence of such an evaluation function is the prerequisite 
for a system to be able to enter into the dynamics. This evaluation
function assesses the entire subjective physical system. 

There must also be a "choice", or "decision" function that acts on the
P_i  corresponding to the E(P_i,t) with maximum value, and determines
whether of not to put to nature the question of whether this P_i
will be actualized.

This decision can be based on a "quality" of P_i S(t) P_i, which
needs to be characterized.

The different ways of filling in the details must be conceptualized
and tested, much as Newton and Maxwell and Einstein and Heisenberg
and Schroedinger did for the physical aspect of the dynamics.
Dennett's idea of the "intentional stance", in which one postulates
that the process is "maximally rational" (or some such phrase---
I do not have his text before me) would be a good starting point,
since the process of Natural Selection would tend to favor the systems
that make decisions on the basis of the rationally best evaluative
process. I see the theoretical working out of the details, and
the empirical testing of various proposals, and hopefully the
extensive confirmation of the predictions of one such theoretical 
scheme, as the fundamental scientific task of the century we have just
entered---it took about two millenia to get from Aristotle to Newton. 

The contribution of von Neumann was to show how the mathematical
foundation of this psycho-physical program is provided by a rational
analysis of our basic physical theory, QT.
 
> >
> >[Kathy, asking a similar question]
> >The first question is what P's and question-asking rates are
> >possible?  After that we ask how Mind selects.
> >
> >Henry, are you hypothesizing some heretofore unknown force?
> >
> >[Henry]
> >Orthodox theory has not been developed to the point
> >of specifying how P is  selected. or how the time of
> >application is fixed.  So we are on our own at this point!
> >
> >vN/W QT provides a natural framework for linking  mind to
> >matter in a way that is completely compatible with
> >the known laws, but it does not specify the nature of the
> >needed added laws/rules, or the machinery that implements
> >these laws/rules.
> >
> >[Stan]
> Thanks, I think this is one of the clearest statements of what you 
> have in mind. You are saying that QT does not specify the nature of 
> the needed added laws/rules. By that statement it seems you are 
> saying that there are needed added laws/rules that govern how Mind 
> chooses the projection operator. So now I come back to my original 
> question:
> 
> Do you think those needed added laws/rules would be additional terms 
> in the future Lagrangian  (in addition to the terms governing quarks, 
> gluons or whatever the future Lagrangian of the physical world will 
> be)?

No!

> 
> Or do you think the operation of Mind will require an entirely 
> different type of physics not specifiable by a Lagrangian?
> 

Yes! Nontrivially emergent macrosystems systems with evaluative
decision-making capacities are needed.

But it will take careful analysis and experimental work to 
empirically distinguish between the various possibilities
that are compatible with the general vN/W framework.



> Or do you think the needed added laws/rules will forever be outside 
> the realm of physics?

I think physics and psychology will become melded: the theory
of the mind-brain interaction must include both fields, and neuroscience
as well. Cosmology may also come in, because quantum process is closely
entwined with the evolution of the universe. 

But the basic dynamical issues here are scientific ones, 
although their ramifications extend beyond science.

Henry