Whiteheadian Process and Quantum Theory Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Abstract There are deep similarities between Whitehead's idea of the process by which nature unfolds, and the ideas of quantum theory. Whitehead says that the world is made of `actual occasions', each of which arises from potentialities created by prior actual occasions. These actual occasions are discrete `happenings'. Originally modeled on experiential events, each one comes into being and then perishes, only to be replaced by a successor. According to Whitehead, it is these experience-like `happenings' that are the basic realities of nature, not the persisting physical particles that Newtonian physics took be the basis of physical reality. In a similar vein, Heisenberg says that what is really happening in quantum process is the emergence of an `actual' from potentialities created by prior actualities. In the original Copenhagen quantum theory the discrete actual things that the theory is about are "knowings": they are experiential increments in `our knowledge'. Thus, just as in Whiteheadian theory, the particles that had formerly been imagined to be the material foundation of objective physical reality lose their fundamental status: in quantum theory they dissolve into diffuse clouds of potentialities for the occurrence of experiential happenings. I shall show here how the mathematical structure of quantum theory allows our thoughts to guide our actions: how the dynamical structure of quantum theory has a logical gap that certainly needs to be filled by something, and that is quite naturally filled by our stream of conscious thoughts. Thus quantum theory, when examined in detail, provides a natural alternative to the two horns of the ancient dilemma: mechanical determinism or random chance. Neither of these two options allow conscious human thought to play any meaningful role in the quidance of human action. But quantum theory provides a third way that does. 1. Introduction Quantum theory has been formulated in several different ways. The original version was "Copenhagen" quantum theory, which was formulated as a practical set of rules for making predictions about what we human observers would observe under certain well defined sets of conditions. However, the human observers themselves were excluded from the system, in much the same way that Descartes excluded human beings from the part of the world governed by the natural physical laws. This exclusion of human beings from the world governed by the the physical laws is an awkward feature of Copenhagen quantum theory that is fixed by "Orthodox" quantum theory, which is the form devised by von Neumann and Wigner. This orthodox form treats the entire world as a quantum system, including the brains and bodies of human beings. Some more recent formulation of quantum theory seek to exclude from the theory all reference to the experiences of human observers, but I do not consider them, both because of their technical deficiencies, and because they are constituionally unequipped to deal adequately with the causal efficacy of our conscious thoughts (Stapp, 1999). The observer plays a central role in both Copenhagen and Orthodox quantum theory. In this connection, Bohr, describing the 1927 Solvay conference, noted that: "an interesting discussion arose about how to speak of the appearance of phenomena for which only statistical predictions can be made. The question was whether, as to the occurrence of such individual events, we should adopt the terminology proposed by Dirac, that we were concerned with a choice on the part of `nature,' or as suggested by Heisenberg, we should say we have to do with a choice on the part of the `observer' constructing the measuring instruments and reading their recording." The point here is that two very different kinds of choices enter into the determination of what happens. (1) First some particular question must be posed. (2) Then nature gives an answer to that particular question. The second kind of choice is described by Dirac as a choice on the part of ``nature'' as to what the outcome of a given observation will be. For this kind of choice quantum theory gives a statistical prediction: it specifies, for each possible outcome of the observation, the probability for that outcome to appear. This is the famous statistical element in quantum theory. But that choice of outcome is out of human hands, and it is not the focus of this study. The first kind of choice is also essential to the quantum process. It is the choice by the experimenter of which aspect of nature he is going to probe. In the context of an experiment being performed by a scientist on some external physical system, this choice by this experimenter of which experiment he will perform is decided by some process going on in the experimenter's mind/brain. In the Copenhagen interpretation that mind/brain process is placed definitely outside the system being investigated. But if, following von Neumann, we take the view that quantum theory ought to cover all physical systems, including human brains, then the system that is determining which question will be put to nature becomes part of the system being studied. 2. Posing the question The starting point of this study is the fact that contemporary quantum theory is ontologically incomplete. Two fundamental questions remain unanswered. The theory requires that a sequence of specific questions with `Yes or No' answers be put to nature, whereupon nature promptly delivers an answer, The relative statistical weights of the two possible answers, `Yes' or `No', are then specified by quantum theory. But what is not specified by contemporary quantum theory is: (1), what determines which questions are put to nature, and (2) what determines whether the individual answer to a posed question is Yes or No? The objective here is to begin to answer these questions, adhering to the naturalistic principle that the actually occurring experiences "supervene on" the entire history of the physical universe, which is the full history of the evolving quantum state of the universe. However, that condition of supervenience---although it means that given that given the full physical history, the full experiential history is fixed---does not determine whether our experiences enter as causes, or effects; or as both or neither. To make the following discussion of these issues clear to physicists I shall use the language and symbols of quantum theory. However, I shall try to explain things in a way that others can understand, if they merely regard the symbols I use as pictorial abbreviations of the ideas that I describe. The (physical) state (of the universe) is represented by the (density operator) S. A possible experience is labeled by the letter e. The connection of this experience to the mathematical formalism is via the correspondence; e <--> Pe where Pe is the projection operator Pe = Sum-e |i>Pe S Pe selects out from S, and retains, only those states of the brain that are compatible with the knowledge that constitutes experience e. This procedure allows one to recover, in principle, all the predictions of the techically simpler, but ontologically unsatifactory, Copenhagen theory. It provides a conception of the universe that is in accord with all the predictions of quantum theory, and is in general accord with the classical idea that there is a causal chain in the physical universe that links the observed event in the external world to the brain of the observer of that event, and that this connection leads - under appropriate conditions of alertness and attention, etc.- to a corresponding mind-brain event of the kind we know. The only ``reductions of wave packets'' that are needed in the von Neumann picture, in order to reproduce the predictions of the pragmatic Copenhagen interpretation, are reductions associated with human experiences: these give the increments in ``our knowledge''. Of course, it is unacceptably anthropocentric to single out our particular species in a general ontological approach. So I assume that this process in human brains is just a special case of a general natural process. However, I focus here on that special case, because we have direct access to the subjective aspects in that case. Von Neumann builds into his formulation the demand that a specific question must be posed by invoking his famous "Process 1." To understand this note that, for any P, the following identity follows from simple algebra: S= PSP + (1-P) S (1-P) + PS (1-P) + (1-P) SP. "Posing of the question" is represented by the von Neumann reduction (i.e., by the von Neumann Process 1): For some possible experience e, S--> Pe S Pe + (1-Pe) S (1-Pe). The two "interference" terms, which involve both P and (1-P), are dropped. The first term (after the arrow) is the part of the state S that corresponds to the definite outcome "Yes, Experience e occurs now!" the second term corresponds to the definite outcome "No, Experience e does not occur now." The other two terms are stripped away by the Von Neumann Process 1. This action on S defines which question is put to Nature. Nature will then give the answer `Yes' with probability Trace Pe S/Trace S = Sum-e / Sum . Here the Sum-e is defined as before, and Sum is the sum over all members of the basis set.. Quantum theory makes this definite statistical prediction about which outcome will appear, after the definite question is posed. But it does not specify what the question will be, beyond the requirement that answer `Yes' must correspond to some identifiable experience. Which question is posed is in the hands of "the observer". This freedom places in the hands of the observer great power to control the course of physical events in his brain, without in any way conflicting with the constraints imposed by the known laws of nature. The argument for this follows. 3. Light as foundation of being There are many theoretical reasons for believing that our experiences are correlated mainly to the electromagnetic properties of our brains. Our experiences have a classical character, and the closest connection of quantum mechanics to classical mechanics is probably via the so-called `coherent states' of the electromagnetic (EM) field. [J.Klauder and E.C.G. Sudarshan(1968), R. Glauber(1970), H. Stapp(1983), T. Kawai and H.P. Stapp(1995)] These coherent states integrate a vast amount information about the motions of individual atomic nucleii and electrons, motions that cannot be expected to affect our thoughts except via their integrated activity. These coherent states are pobably the most robust feature of brain dynamics, with respect to perturbations caused by thermal andi other noise. [O. Kuebler and H.D. Zeh(1973), H.P. Stapp(1993), W.L. Zurek et al. (1993)] I shall not go here in more detail, except to say that the coherent low-frequency part of EM field in the brain can be decomposed approximately into mesoscopic modes each of which behaves like a simple harmonic oscillator. The coherent state description is in terms of this collection of mesoscopic harmonic oscillators. For each such oscillator the ground state is a certain gaussian state in both of its internal variables p and q: exp -qq/2 or exp -pp/2, This gaussian ``cloud of possibilities'' is centered at the origin q=0 and p=0 in both q and p. If one shifts this state so that it is centered at some other point (Q, P), then this center point will move around a circle of fixed radius with constant velocity, which is just the motion in these variables that a classical particle would follow for the simple harmonic oscillator case. I shall assume that the mind-brain connection is via these coherent states of the EM field, and will examine the effects on the brain of mental action by considering the effects of mental action on these low-frequency mesoscopic coherent states of the EM field in the brain. 4. Effects of mental action on brain behavior I first show that, within the framework of quantum theory, the mere choice of which question is asked, can influence the behavior of a system, even when an average is made over the possible answers to the question. This demonstration is intended for physicists and is quite short. Other readers can perhaps get the jist. The issue is this: Can X = Tr [QPSP + Q(1-P)S(1-P)] depend on P ? Take Q = sz, S=(1 + sz) [With sx, sy, and sz the Pauli sigma matrices] If P = S/2 then X = 2. If P= (1 + sy)/2 then X=0. This just confirms, as a matter of principle, that it matters which question is posed---and answered---even if one averages over the possible answers. Thus the gross behavior of a system can depend in principle upon which questions the system is asking, internally, where the gross behaviour is obtained by averaging over the answers that nature gives to these questions. I give two example of how one's behavior could be influenced in this way, simply by controlling, via one's attention, which question is posed. The first example is an application of the Quantum Zeno Effect. This effect is well understood, theoretically, and has, at least in a certain sense, been confirmed experimentally [Itano et al. (1990)]. The point is that according to quantum theory a very rapid sequence of posings of the same question "freezes" the anwser: if the answer to the first question is `Yes', then the answer `Yes' will, according to the quantum principles, keep on occurring. Thus the mere fact that the question is asked repeatedly in rapid succesion keeps the system in the subspace where the answer is `Yes', even in the face of strong mechanical forces that would quickly take it out of that subspace if the questions were not being asked. This effect might be connected to the psychological experience that intense concentration on an idea tends to hold that idea in place. For example, if one is holding up some heavy object then intense mental `focus of attention' on an experience e of willful effort could produce a very rapid sequence of such experiences e, each resulting in a collapse of the wave function associated with the brain to a state compatible with this experience e. The effect would be guide the evolution of the brain state, holding this idea in place, in spite of strong purely physical forces that would tend move the brain away from this state. A second example is this. Suppose we are representing the brain, insofar as its interface with consciousness is concerned, by coherent states of the EM field. This state is a Gaussian state represented by N exp -[(q-Q)(q-Q)/2], where N is a normalization constant. Suppose I ask the question: Will I find the state to be N exp -[(q-Q')(q-Q')/2]. The probability that the answer is `Yes' is the square of: N-squared Intergal dq exp -[(q-Q)(q-Q)/2] exp -[(q-Q')(q-Q')/2] = exp -[(Q-Q')(Q-Q')/2]. For small Q the probability is (1-(Q-Q')(Q-Q')). Suppose one has a large distance L in Q space, but breaks the distance into n small intervals, for which the above approximation is adequate, and asks the succession of questions: Is the state the Gaussian centered at the end of each of the succession of intervals. Then the probability, at the end of this process, of finding the state to be the Gaussian centered at L is (1-(L/n)(L/n)n). In the limit of large n this is unity: the mental effort of focusing attention in this way will, with high probability, according to the statistical rules of quantum theory, have changed the state of the brain to this other state in spite of the absence of any tendency for this to happen via action of the Schroedinger equation. These effects may seem strange. But the point is that there is a loose connection in quantum theory: the physical principles themselves do not specify which question is posed. This opens up the logical possibility that, stricty within the bounds of orthodox quantum theory, our conscious thoughts PER SE could be entering into the mind-brain dynamics in a way reducible neither to purely mechanical effects governed by the Schroedinger equation of motion nor to the random effects of Nature's choices of outcomes, nor to any combination of these two effects. There is a rigorous need for some third process, which I call the "Heisenberg process", and which selects which question is put to nature. This process is not reducible to the "Schroedinger process" of evolution between jumps via the Schroedinger equation, or to the "Dirac process" that selects an answer once the question is posed. Thus in orthodox (vN/W) quantum theory there must be these three process entering into mind-brain dynamics: mind-brain dynamics has a "triparite causal structure", one component of which is naturally mental or experiential, since it must choose a question that has an experientially recognizable answer. 5. What determines which question is posed? What sort of process might one imagine to be filling this logical gap in contemporary quantum theory? There is the possibility of creating some purely physical rule that would be added to quantum theory in order to determine from the form of the evolving wave function itself just when a question would be posed, and exactly what the form of that question would be. But one requirement must be satisfied, in order for the theory to meet the general demand that the theory allow the von Neumann theory to recover the Copenhagen rules, the collapses that occur on human brains must correlate properly with our human experiences: the reductions must represent fully just our knowings. This brings one to the crucial question of what is determining what: Does the brain state causally determine every aspect of the conscious state, so that consciousness becomes epiphenomenal in essentially the same way as in classical physical theory, or does the causal connection run in the other direction in regard to this open question of how the questions put to nature are selected? Do our conscious exeriences have a reality in their own right that could allow them to become integral parts of the causal structure of mind-brain dynamics, yet not be fully reducible to brain process alone? The ideas of Whitehead certainly suggest that our conscious thoughts could enter into the dynamics in this nonreducible way. Once one becomes open to the notion that maybe our conscious thoughts have a reality in their own right, and are more than just some aspect of the physical brain, fully reducible to the physical brain as far causal connections among brain actions are concerned, it becomes apparent that there is a natural causally efficacious place for them in quantum mind-brain dynamics. The point is that, according to the basic quantum precepts, the occurrence of a conscious thought associated with a quantum system is supposed to cause a reduction of the state of that system to the reduced state that incorporates the increment in knowledge that constitutes that conscious knowing. In vN/W quantum theory this reduction will be a reduction in the brain state of the person who has the thought. This newly actualized brain state must tend to actualize the functional properties implicit in the conscious thought: it must initiate the brain activities that the thought feels are being initiated. Thus the evolution of this brain state must generate messages going out to various motor centers, if the thought is about generating actions. But, in any case, the Schroedinger evolution must also be generating instructions for the creation of a brain state corresponding to a succeeding thought. However, the natural diffusion caused by the Heisenberg uncertainty will entail that of the quantum state actually generated by the brain process will be somewhat fuzzy: a host of possibilities will be created. But this diffusion can be counteracted in part, and the process kept on a focussed and intended track, by asking- i.e., attending to - the right questions. We know that often, when we have a thought that initiates an action, we also initiate a monitoring that will test to see whether the action is proceeding as intended. That command to monitor is an instruction to "attend" to some question at some later time. I propose that in general our thoughts issue, as part of their intentional aspect, commands to "attend" in the future to certain questions, and that these directives supply the missing component of the quantum dynamics: THEY pose the particular questions that are put to nature. Then the necessary posings of the questions becomes an aspect of quantum mind-brain dynamics that proceeds via the mental realm, even though this process is causally entwined with the physical aspects. Since the question to be posed is supposed to be of the form "is an experience of such-and-such a kind occurring" it would appear that the question really ought to be part of the mental, rather than physical, side of the mind-brain dynamics. The aspect that makes the mental side essentially different from the physical aspect governed by the Schroedinger equation is that the latter process is mechanical: it is governed by LOCAL causal connections. But conscious thoughts correspond to global properties of brains: they grasp as wholes various connections between different mesoscopic components of brain activity. The essential point here is that quantum theory has a lacuna that can very naturally be filled in such a way as to allow our thoughts to exercise real, though not absolute, control over the mechanical aspects of mind-brain dynamics. This bringing of the experiential aspect of nature into the causal structure is very much in line with the ideas of Alfred North Whitehead. References R.J. Glauber (1970), in Quantum Optics, S.M. Kay and A Maitland, eds. Academic Press, London, New York. W. Itano, D. Heinzen, J. Bollinger, D. Wineland (1990), Phys. Rev. 41A, 2295-2300. T. Kawai and H. Stapp (1995), Phys. Rev. 52D, 2484-2532. J.R. Klauder and E.C.G. Sudarshan (1968), Quantum Optics, Benjamin, New York. O. Kuebler and H.D. Zeh (1973), Annals of Physics 76, 405-418. H.P. Stapp (1993), Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, New York. p. 130. H.P. Stapp (1983), Phys. Rev. 28D, 1386-1418. H.P. Stapp (1999) "My Flagstaff talks", http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html W.L. Zurek, S. Habib, and J.P. Paz (1993), Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1187-1190. _______________________________________________________________________ DIALOGUE portions with Henry Stapp: A6 Stapp - At the beginning of your talk, you mentioned "increase in order" whereas the normal idea is that entropy increases and that, on the whole, order decreases. In your opinion, is there any evidence against the normal idea that entropy increases, hence order decreases on the whole. Jungerman - The laws of thermodynamics still apply so far as I know. On the other hand, we in this room are all evidence of order, a particular order that goes against the second law. We use the low entropy from the Sun and the plants and animals that we consume to create order in our bodies. We are indebted to those low entropy sources for our own existence. You can ask where that came from and for that you'll have to go back ultimately to the big bang which itself must have been a low entropy source so that we could exist and be in accord with the second law of thermodynamics. I am certainly not proposing to abolish that 'sacred' law of physics. On the other hand, we do see elements of order and we ourselves are examples of that; it's what Gregory Bateson called the 'sacremental' or what Schrodinger called 'negative entropy.' A7Stapp - Do you then see evidence for a process which works against disorder? Jungerman - It seems to me that self-organizing systems create order against the second law, but that doesn't mean that overall the second law is violated but locally it is in these systems. If you look at it globally the second law works but if you look at it locally there is order being created so it depends on your perspective. B30Jungerman - I would like to address to Henry Stapp the same question: Is there anything in your work that illuminates the idea of emergent order against the second law of thermodynamics? B30Stapp - Von Neumann points out that a quantum system, represented by a density matrix, and evolving according to the Schrodinger equation, doesn't change its entropy: the order doesn't degrade. He is not doing any fine graining or anything like that. You just look at the whole Schrodinger state. Basically the system doesn't change. It is just a unitary evolution and thus the entropy does not change. On the other hand, if you have a collapse of the wave function, the entropy does change: the collapse jacks up the negentropy. ('Negentropy' denotes negative entropy which is a measure of order.) This effect gives you the potential of injecting order into the universe: each collapse picks out of a host of possibilities something that's very special. This puts negentropy into the universe: every time a collapse occurs there is this apparent pumping up of the negentropy of the universe. I find this a very attractive idea because then the universe could start in a very uniform state, without this tremendous neg-entropy (hence great order) that ordinary thermodynamics would require. The order could be put in bit by bit as these collapses occur. So there's a possibility that these collapses, if they really occur, are what is responsible for the fact that negentropy can run downhill all the time: its because it's being jacked up all the time by the collapses. _________________________________________ Tanaka - For two events E1, E2, E3 and E4 at locations l1, l2, l3 and l4, if all events lie in a well-ordered sequence of occurrence as Professor Stapp assumes, there must be an unambiguous temporaral order between events E1 and E2. One of the two events must be prior to the other. A difficulty of the above picture is that there does not seem to be any experimental apparatus to really determine which event is prior, E1 or E2. Stapp - It is precisely because there is no empirical way to determine the order in which the actualizations located in spacelike separated regions occur that there is freedom to make the ordering at the ontological level go either one way or the other. The basic ontology goes beyond what the empirical tests reveal. C13Tanaka - So your full theory operates at the ontological level and not just the physical level. Your model is very welcome to Hartshorne's type of process metaphysics so I try to give another version more faithful to a Whiteheadian, ontological framework. Stapp - Hartshorne certainly liked the idea that occasions occur in a well defined order. I think that the Whiteheadian idea of an actual occasion is that an actual occasion, in its coming into being, fixes where it is. In my understanding of Whitehead, he talks about this actual world for an event, which I interpret as being the events that have already occurred in the backward light cone of that event, and that are fixed and settled. This is fine if you have a well defined idea of coming into being in which the spacetime location of the actual occassion is already fixed. Then you know its backward light cone, and its actual world, the world upon which the occasion can draw causally, in the Whiteheadian point of view. But if you have two possible events and you're not saying which event comes into being first, then you don't know enough. This event might decide to locate itself in the backward lightcone of the other one. So you seem to arrive at some sort of logical problem in making the Whiteheadian idea work, if you don't say that they occur in certain a sequential order. What is fixed and settled if the order of coming into being is not definite? That is just reading Whitehead literally. Now I heard you say something about each event being immanent in the other, and that that was going to get you out of this difficulty, but I did not understand that notion well enough to comment upon it. C14Eastman - Jorge Nobo has referred to a certain range, width or duration, so that these space-like separated regions other than ones in the backward light cone, space-like separated regions that give rise to this dilemma that we're now referring to. Perhaps there is some duration that is necessarily part of this. Does the concept of duration help in this discussion? Stapp - Whitehead, in order to deal with this sort of problem, gets into the idea of 'presentational immediacy.' That is, when you experience some distant event it has the appearance of happening 'now' even if you have access only to your past, and are causally influenced only by the past. Nonetheless, you perceive the faraway event as happening 'now' , even though you don't really have causal access to the region where it seems to be happening, You have an indirect access because of your access to the past of that faraway event, and that past will propagate into the location of that event. This is somewhat like how the human brain works: you have processes in the brain that automatically account for delays and that create a nice picture as though the things are all happening 'now'. But that picture is constructed from verious things that actually happened in the past. So it's some sort of an illusion that experience is in the 'now.' But I don't think that this sort of shuffling, which can be accounted by classical processing, can account for causal influence of the type that Bell's theorem seems to require. If you have another idea of Whitehead accordiong to which two events can be immanent in each other, within an evolving universe, then I will be glad to listen. But there certainly is a problem reconciling the correlation data of quantum theory with any theory that allows causal effects only in the forward light cone of their causes. _____________________________________ C22Klein - We have a proposal. I don't know whether Henry or David are into this enterprise. One of the big problems, and this is what Geoffrey is pointing at, one of the critiques of quantum mechanics is that every single quantum mechanician has his or her own interpretation of what the meaning of it is and that's going to be confusing if you want to talk to the outside world, philosophers, theologians and the public, so there's a lot of discussion about what do we mean by measurement, etc. I think that it is possible to all sit down and come up with the basic elements, some very simple things. A few of us had lunch together and we kind of agreed upon the first two pages of Dirac or something like that as what is necessary. Let's make it very simple what I'm talking about. We would like to provide some substrate to process thinking and, if you look at the first chapter of David's book, I suspect that you'll find some agreement. We're not going to answer some subtle questions like where's the measurement made but it's going to be a hell of a lot better than what's in Whitehead's writings. It might be a little ^ÑCopenhageny' but maybe not; we're kind of agreeing on the Heisenberg picture. But anyway we don't know the answers to your question. I sure hope that we don't need more than one time. You'll have to convince me why you need more than one. I'm presuming that one time is plenty good. C23Stapp - I'll not expand upon it, but only ask a question. The outline that I gave of quantum mechanics in my talk left open two questions, and I took it right out of Bohr's discussion of Dirac's idea that nature chooses the answers, and Heisenberg's idea that we choose the questions. This means that quantum mechanics in its present form is incomplete. So let's say the project is to start with present quantum mechanics, then use Whiteheadian ideas to add whatever more is needed. By beginning in this way you have at least a solid foundation that is based on scientific evidence: You will start with a coherent, logical structure grounded on scientific evidence, and then to use Whitehead to enrich it to the extent that's needed to bring it up to Whiteheadian standards of completeness. Let's say that's the project as I would understand it. What I see what's missing at the moment in the quantum description is how do these two questions get answered. How does nature answer the question of what's actually going to happen, and how does the sequence of questions put to nature get selected. Whitehead is basically suggesting, at least the way I read him, that the processes by which those questions get answered are basically psychological in nature: not local mechanistic. So I think there will something essential missing from quantum mechanics until the basically psychological process is added. But apparently Stanley disagrees. _________________________________ C27Chew - This question is unfair because I can see that you three have not really agreed yet. But do you all share the belief that the observer has to be recognized explicitly in any statement of what quantum mechanics amounts to? Stapp - Certainly at the practical level that's what quantum theory is. C28Chew - Now do you agree that that condemns this formulation to be approximate? Finkelstein - Yes, definitely - as any other. Any statement usually is stated by somebody. Usually there's a speaker and a speaker isn't able ever to have maximum information about the speaker and so since all the little details about where my left toe is right now have some impact on distant stars, there's no way that I can make an exact statement about the world. The bigger the speaker and the smaller the system, the more chance there is of making reasonable statements about the system but as the world gets bigger, eventually I get to look pretty small, and the idea that I can make a perfectly accurate statement about the rest of it is lunacy, it's futile. ____________________________________ C39Eastman - I might note that some physicists might wish to entirely avoid real potentialities and one example of this would be to take the many worlds interpretation that the collapse of the wave function and its possible alternatives is all actualized in a multiple of realized worlds so that there is no real potentiality whereas Whitehead would say that there is real potentiality where things may become either A versus B. Stapp - I think that's the sort of quantum mechanics we're talking about - with real potentialities. David said the other day that the other one is nonsense. Didn't you say something to that effect? Finkelstein - I probably did - I get carried away. __________________________________ C41Nobo - When you talk about virtual photons be kind to them. I've been a virtual panelist today and it's been hell with many virtual comments that nobody can listen to (much laughter) and have not been actualized. I have enjoyed this tremendously. (Request to make his comment now before leaving to give presentation in conflicting session) Very quickly, on the issue of an actual entity deciding where it comes to be, that may be Hartshorne but it's not Whitehead. It's determined by the past and specifically by at least one actual entity in the immediate past. (Stapp - Some entity in the past decides where this entity is going to be? (Nobo-right) so what's the past?) Whitehead as I interpret him has a cumulative theory of actuality. Once a region of this continuum becomes determinate it remains determinate. Because of that it can function in later occasions where this wholistic process projects the information of that entity into later entities. It's a very redundant system because the information that has been accumulated is constantly being projected into every new eventity or actual occasion which then ? But part of its process of becoming involves a structural determination that has a causal effect on where in extension, as far as where in a supersessional order, it's the next. Stapp - So an event itself has no input into where it's going to be; it's already fixed where it's going to be? Nobo - That is correct. The event is begotten by the universe with a partial determination and a complete succession and, in the act of completing itself, it anticipates at least one successor but it can anticipate more than one so you can have splitting of world lines and you can also have coalescences of world lines. I would like you to consider the possibility that there is such a thing as a metaphysical double cone of which the light cone is a subset and that, until quantum physics, the metaphysical cone has been irrelevant. But when you have to deal with quantum physics there's a possibility that now the metaphysical cone becomes important? It's just like the light cone. It's got a past, a future, and an elsewhere region for contemporaries. There has to be a frame of reference. Relative to that frame of reference there will be events such that one is earlier than the other but they are all contemporaries with the frame of reference. You have the same thing but it doesn't depend on light which is a special case depending on local causation. I do agree with what you said about modifying Whitehead and this is one of the modifications that we need to make. There's a difference between causal objectification and conformation that tends to be ignored in the interpretation of Whitehead but going beyond that I think Whitehead goofed when he said that an actual entity has to conform to every entity in the past. If it only conforms to some, then that conformation relation is what is going to give you local causality requiring contiguity and so forth. But the relational causal objectification is going to give you what appears to be, what is in a sense, instantaneous communication. And there is a way in which we can have some information about contemporaries metaphysically because they are anticipated by their antecedent events. I'm very excited about this but now I have to formalize that. ____________________________________ Nobo - My interpretation is based on Whitehead's but we disagree as to whether he means determinate actuality or their potentialities, their extensive ? C45Stapp - You're saying that the regions are predetermined though. Right? Where the event is going to occur. Nobo - No, they're not predetermined until an actual event determines where a successor is going to be. Stapp - No, but once a bunch of things have occurred, they're going to determine, for example, where the next events are going to occur, though not necessarily what's going to happen, but definitely where they're going to occur, at least in a projective sense (Nobo - yes) ____________________________________ (following lengthy comment by Ian Barbour) C48Stapp - Well, first let me talk about things in physics before getting to God. I realize that your emphasis is on God but, first, there is a small point, but maybe an important one. You said no physicist would prefer a special frame. But you must remember that the basic thing about the theory of relativity is that the LAWS are supposed to be invariant under certain transformations: the general laws are supposed to be frame independent. That statement is very different from saying that the world itself is frame independent: the world itself is definitely not frame independent. The world itself has one particular structure, which is not invariant under Lorentz transformations So a big distinction has to be drawn between the nature of the world and the nature of the general laws. As far as the world itself is concerned, there was a big bang, apparently, and our experiments are done in our one world that was created with a particular structure. Amazingly enough, if you look back in all directions it seems that there was a preferred frame. The parts moved out from the big bang in all directions with various velocities, and by looking at the light coming from these various parts it looks like there was a preferred rest frame in which the big bang occurred. This is the rest frame of the background radiation, and it is measured with great accuracy - 1 in 10 to the 5th power That is, when you look out in all directions you find that there's a common rest frame of the background electromagnetic radiation. So in the actual world in which we live there IS a preferred frame. There's another result along the same lines. In the Schilpp volume "Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist", there is a chapter by Kurt Godel, of Godel's Theorem fame. He points out (I don't know if it's still true but it probably still is true.) that in every known cosmological model there is, in fact, a natural sequence of 'nows': a natural sequence of preferred instantaneous `nows' is built into each of the cosmological models. Thus there are two reasons for saying that we don't necessarily have to think the order of coming into being has to be relativistically invariant. We have two good reason for saying that maybe it's not that way: that maybe there is a preferred order for coming into being. There's nothing really contrary to relativity theory about that. Relativity theory says two things: (1), the general laws that control causal evolution are invariant under relativistic transformation; and (2), no `signal' can be transmitted faster than light. Those requirements are both satisfied in quantum theory: there's no problem with either of them. That's the very point made here at the board. If the laws are correct, there's no possibility of sending a signal faster than light, and the laws of evolution of the (Heisenberg picture) operators are relativistically invariant. But the boundary conditions are not relativistically invariant! The actual evolution of the actual world itself depends on the actual world itself, so the actual unfolding process itself is certainly not relativistically invariant. There's no real logical contradiction between the principles of relativity and the possibility that in the actual process of unfolding of the actual world there is a preferred rest frame: the actual world apparently started out with a preferred frame, and this frame will certainly be preserved by general laws that are relativistically invariant. The actual process of unfolding of the actual world must necessarily depend on the actual world, and hence on any preferred frame defined by that world. The effort to make the process of the unfolding of the actual world relativistically invariant is irrational. Bell's theorem, on the other hand, says that if you believe that the experimenters have a free choice [and you can't get anywhere unless you are willing at least to imagine that the experimenters have a choice to do this experiment or that one] then you cannot impose the condition that their choices can have no affects outside the future light cone of the region where the choice is implemented. If you try to impose that condition, then a logical contradiction ensues. This result seems to be telling us that there are faster-than-light "influences", in spite of the fact that there can no faster-than-light "signals". This is what quantum theory seems to be saying. So, if you want to say this is God's doing, then you can say that God has his own view of the universe, and that he has no problem with having faster-than-light influences but no faster-than-light signals. He merely needs to work in the preferred frame of the universe, and allow influences to act only into the future, and follow the quantum rules. _____________________________________ C50Tanaka - I would like to give some comment about theological implications of Bell's theorem so I think the difference between Whitehead and Hartshorne is that for Hartshorne God is a society of divine occasions with personal order so Harshorne needs the cosmological now. So Hartshorne is annoyed very much by the general theory of relativity, in the usual understanding of the general theory of relativity where we always must say 'here-now' - not a cosmological now which does not have an objective counterpart in the general theory of relativity. We can accept Professor Stapp's model and say that there is something like a cosmological now in the causal structure without violating relativity theory, and its idea of space-time. In my Whiteheadian model, the theoretical relation between God and the world is something like this. Max Jammer, the Hebrew historian of science, wrote ^ÑConcepts of Space' and pointed out that the Newtonian concept of absolute space has an origin in the Hebrew idea of God as a person So Newton says that absolute space is an sensorum dei, sense organ of God, so absolute space is something like the space we experience. So I think that one possible reading of Whitehead is that the extensive continuum is something like an absolute space in the Newtonian sense so God is omnipresent with everything in the extensive continuum. _____________________________________ C75Stapp - Our experience here is an EVENT, in the Adventures of Ideas. Specifically I think that all of us here are, in our own way, trying to advance human understanding of this world that we're living in, and it's obviously a meeting of different currents, of different ways of understanding this world. This cross filtration of ideas is a very good thing to happen. We physicists come here concerned with a certain part of human experience about the world, But as physicists trying to push the frontier a little bit we are always coming up against philosophical questions of one sort or another. So I think it's very good for us to have an opportunity to come in contact with, and exchange ideas with, people who are working in a philosophical tradition that is close enough so that we can really exchange ideas. Because the ideas from the two sides are close enough, I would hope that maybe some of the ideas coming from physics could help supply what is needed to advance Whiteheadian metaphysics, and vice versa. This cross-fertilization of ideas could be a significant event in the advancement of our ideas about how the world works. _________________________