Dear Walter, My article ``Whiteheadian Process and Quantum Theory of Mind'' was the first `Target Article' on the e-Forum . Archived at: [http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/quantum-mind.html] I excerpt here parts of my replies pertaining to your question on how a freedom from the physical can enter, in view of the rooting of experience in the physical brain. [Dimi] (Chakalov) Please correct me if I'm wrong: it seems to me that we need a quantum demon (similar to Maxwell demon) that ALREADY has all the features of consciousness, ab initio. ... So, do we need a quantum demon? If yes, why not call Him simply God (John 1:1-4)? With best regards, Dimi ************************************************************ Dear Dimi, There is already in quantum theory the huge *fact* of the apparent nonlocal (faster-than-light) connections: if one rejects the many-worlds notion that all things happen [and I believe that that idea must be rejected for technical reasons---but that is a whole long argument itself] then there is an absolute need for some sort of FTL transfer of information. There simply must be a strong interconnectedness of the universe: FTL influence is unavoidable in quantum theory, if many-worlds is rejected. But there is the possibility, which is the basis of my proposal, of having a `division of labor', associated with the separation of the two choices that I talk about. The Dirac Choice (choice on the part of nature between the answers `Yes' and `No' to each properly posed question) I regard as some global process that still remains completely shrouded in mystery [although I do show why our ignorance of the details of this process would be expressed exactly by the quantum mechanical statistical rules]. You may wish to call this choice on the part of nature `God's Choice' if you wish, but Bohr rejected that phraseolgy, saying `it is hardly reasonable to endow nature with volition in the ordinary sense'. [See Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, pg.64]. I take the view that this choice is made by some global nonlocal process that operates in accord with some impersonal rules that we still know nothing about, apart from the statistical aspect identified in quantum theory. However, the Heisenberg choice is naturally associated with a localized system such as a human body/brain. It will be nonlocal in the restricted sense that it can access the whole brain/body of the observing system: the projection operator P_e associated with possible experience e acts as a unit on the degrees of freedom that are associated with this brain/body. I have suggested that this process acts within the realm of possible experiences associated with this body/brain as an evaluative procedure that selects a possible next experience e' on the basis of maximal compatibility with values determined by the present experience e. Of course, it will be difficult, at first, to distinguish this essentially experience-based process from a purely local-mechanistic one, except on the basis of subjective reports, which will quite properly be regarded as lacking probative value. But I believe/hope that over time the need for this higher-level process that seems to be called for by the basic physics, or at least is very naturally accommodated by it, will become ever more evident in the data pertaining to the mind-brain connection. Henry P. Stapp ******************************************************* Subject: Henry Stapp replies to Chris Nunn. Subject: [quantum-mind] Questioning nature - Chris Nunn Henry Stapp, in his fascinating paper, proposed that free will operates on the basis of choosing 'what questions to put to nature.'. This sounds like another way of describing pattern recognition. After all, in order to delineate a pattern you have to select some features and ignore others; you have to 'choose' some system of, often dichotomous, classification. But you don't need a brain to do it. Many pre-biotic systems can recognize simple patterns, though the appearance of life brought with it ever more subtle capacities in this respect. So if Stapp agrees that his choice of question could boil down to a process of pattern recognition he has a ready-made way to account for the evolution of ever more sophisticated forms of 'free-will' that could be pictured as progressing from proto-consciousness to ultimately full consciousness. He also has potentially nice links with many aspects of neuroscience. Chris Nunn ****************************************************************** Dear Chris, That is essentially the point that I have been making in many recent papers [http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html]. I do tie this pattern recognition into a physical process that has a repetitive structure: quantum actualization of a physical structure that has a tendency to produce a subsequent very similar structure, with however some quantum freedom that can be exploited to enhance the chances of "survival" of the physical structure. Henry P. Stapp ***************************************************************** From: Stan Klein On Stapp's use of the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) as a way of getting the observer to affect action. The QZE is the "watched pot doesn't boil" effect whereby observations can effect time evolution. Nick Herbert interprets Henry's use of QZE as placing 'experience' in the mind's decision of which experiment to perform. I don't think that's what Henry had in mind. I thought Henry still has the collapse as the conscious event, but the mind's choosing which experiment to perform is the way of getting the mind to be efficacious. Henry, is that right? I'd also like clarification from Henry about how the mind goes about making its choice of which experiment to do. Isn't the mind closely connected with the neural correlates of consciousness? If so then in what sense is it free to choose? Or is the mind somehow independent of the neurons (like Whitehead's mind that is in the 'interstices' between the neurons - a quite unusual notion). Stan Klein ******************** Dear Stan, I have answered this question very briefly in some earlier replies. But I shall answer it again again here, in the way you pose it, and in greater detail. The collapse is the representation of the experiential "occasion" in the quantum mechanical representation of the physical universe. It changes the `quantum state of the universe' by bringing it into conformity with the information about the physical universe contained in the corresponding experience. I assume that all experiences are imbedded in a repetitive structure, and have a ``projective'' or ``intentional'' aspect that anticipates an aspect of its successor. [ I link this to the body/world schema, which is the brains representation of the body and its environment: the experience actualizes a brain state, and the experience is essentially an experienced picture of the body and world specified by the body/world schema imbedded in the actualized brain state. (See Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics pp. 150-1 The intentional aspect is imbedded in a ``projected'' BW schema, which is the brains representation of an anticipated future experience. The actualization of the brain state by experience e, with intentional structure i will, through the evolution of potentialities governed by the Schroedinger equation, tend to produce a successor experience e' that will have i represented as present state, rather than projected state. All this depends on the Jamesian idea of the ``marching band'' described in my book on pg. 157-160]. The description I have alluded to above refers only to a direct causal chain of events that evolves via a sequences of collapses of the wave functions> It would allow the experiential quality e to be epiphenomenal: the quantum laws could produce the chain of collapse events, and the experiential events could be merely ``sideshows'' controlled by the combination of the Schroedinger deterministic law of evolution and the statistical law governing nature's choices. But how do the needed Heisenberg choices get made? My suggestion is that in the sequence of repetitous experiences, each nearly the same as its successor, the Heisenberg choice of what the next question will be is governed by a "subjective" evaluation of the possible projected possibilities. In more detail, the point is this. James ``marching band'' concept asserts that each momentary experience is decomposable into a sequences of "temporal slices": although all these "temporal slices" are simultaneously present in the single unit of experience, they do correspond to fragments that entered the "sequences of experiences" at different times. Thus each experience, though instantaneous, has a content that represents a flow of temporally displaced slices. Thus experiences of trends, and conparisions of aspects, are possible. Experiential evaluations within a developing context become possible. Whereas previously I had presumed that the selection of the projected BW schema was governed by the combination of the deterministic evolution via the Schroedinger equation, muddied up by the quantum randomness, I now suggest that the subjective evaluation controls which of the slightly differing next questions ``Will experience e occur?'' is put to nature, and that this evaluation can thereby tend, via the quantum mechanisms that I have identified, to make the most highly valued possibility actualize. In this way an evaluation based on the experiential qualities of the ongoing sequance of experiences, acting as experiences, could influence the course of brain/body events via a causal route that is not fully controlled by the combination of the locally deterministic Schroedinger equation and the quantum randomness associated with the Dirac choices (nature's choices). Henry P. Stapp