From searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu Thu Apr 19 10:17:42 2001
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:45:42 -0700
From: John R. Searle <searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
To: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Subject: Many Thanks

Dear Henry,
You did a great job presenting your ideas, and everybody was grateful, 
especially me.  I think we are going to have more conversations about this.
Best wishes and thanks again,
John

From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Thu Apr 19 10:18:20 2001
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:17:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: John R. Searle <searle@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Primitive, Emergent, and Free.

Dear John,

I greatly enjoyed talking to you and your group,

There were a few unresolved points between us, which
I would like to comment upon here..

I said mind was "primitive" in Copenhagen QT, because 
according to that approach, science is a human endeavour:
physical theories are  "tools" that we scientists use to make 
prediction about what we will observe under certain kinds
of conditions. Thus the experiencing minds of the human beings
are the BASIC REALITIES in this approach, and the description 
of the `physical world' that the theory offers is regarded as 
merely part of the scientist's toolkit, rather than any
accurate image of nature herself.

I also stressed that in Copenhagen QT the 
minds of the  observers stood "outside" the physical
system that was described in the mathematical language
of QT: the observer (and thus his mind) was not part 
of the physical system that was being described quantum 
mechanically. And the minds of the observers continued
to be left out when von Neumann brought the bodies and brains
of the human beings into the quantum physical universe
described by the quantum mathematics. I continued  to use
the word "primitive" to characterize mind even in
von Neumann QT.

You resisted calling mind "primitive" when we got into
the question of the universe BEFORE (HUMAN) LIFE.
Indeed, the position that I took might better be called 
"EMERGENTIST": I adopted the idea that 
(proto) consciousness [or proto-mind] comes into being 
in conjunction with the coming into being of a physical 
system whose development can be sustained by the action 
of mind on matter that vN QT allows.

I  sharply distinguish this kind of emergence in QT
in which a new kind of element appears that:
1) Is NOT just a conglomeration of the previously existing
   micro elements, and
2) Is, as a whole, an essential element of a causal process
   that was not previously operating within the associated
   physical  system,  

to the `trivial emergence' that occurs within classical 
mechanics,  where the `new causal process' is in principle
just a consequence is the old micro-physical laws acting 
within a new physical context.

The other point of discussion between us concerned 
"freedom": I identified the freedom of choice that I 
was talking about as a choice that is not determined by 
the  laws of quantum mechanics, as they are NOW KNOWN: 
i.e. the laws formulated by vN.

Quantum theory has a TWO choices of this kind:
1) Nature's choice of which of the two "outcomes" will
   appear. [This choice is subject to statistical rules,
   and in that sense is NOT `completely free'.]
2) the choice of which question to put to Nature.

It is the second choice that is connected to "Free Will".


If NOTHING AT ALL fixes such a free choice,
I would call this choice a "whimsical"
choice. But that is not the only possibility.
For the *known* laws of QT may be only part of the
story: there may other laws that fill the dynamical gap.

The nature of these further possible laws is still unknown.
They might tie the "free will" choice to the brain in some 
nonlocal way. Even the possibility of some  "spiritual" 
influence cannot be logically ruled out. 

I believe that a rational moral philosophy cannot allow
one's "free will" to be controlled by any of the following 
three possibilities:
1) local mechanical micro-process,
2) random statistical choices,
3) pure whimsy,

The importance of vN QT is that this framework
encompasses what science knows about Nature, but
leaves open, as as rational possibility, 
that our moral free choices are determined by none
of the three processes listed above, but are the 
outcomes of, for example, a nonlocal process of 
self examination and evaluation.


Henry