**Quantum Interactive Dualism:** **The** **Libet and
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Causal Anomalies**

#  Henry P. Stapp

**Abstract**: Replacing faulty nineteenth century physics by its
orthodox quantum successor converts the earlier materialist conception
of nature to a structure that does not enforce the principle of the
causal closure of the physical. The quantum laws possess causal gaps,
and these gaps are filled in actual scientific practice by inputs from
our streams of consciousness. The form of the quantum laws permits and
suggests the existence of an underlying reality that is built not on
substances, but on psychophysical events, and on objective tendencies
for these events to occur. These events constitute intrinsic mind-brain
connections. They are fundamental links between brain processes
described in physical terms and events in our streams of consciousness.
This quantum ontology confers upon our conscious intentions the causal
efficacy assigned to them in actual scientific practice, and creates a
substance-free interactive dualism. This putative quantum ontology has
previously been shown to have impressive explanatory power in both
psychology and neuroscience. Here it is used to reconcile the existence
of physically efficacious conscious free will with causal anomalies of
both the Libet and Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky types.

**1. Introduction**

We all feel that certain of our conscious thoughts can *cause* our
voluntary bodily actions to occur. Our lives, our institutions, and our
moral codes are largely based on that intuition. The whole notion of
"cause" probably originates in that deep-seated feeling.

The strongest argument against this basic intuition\-\--that our
thoughts *cause* our voluntary bodily actions\-\--stems from an
experiment performed by Benjamin Libet (1985, 2003). In this experiment
a subject is instructed to perform, voluntarily, during a certain time
interval, a simple physical action, such as raising a finger. Libet
found that a measurable precursor of the physical action, known as the
"readiness potential", occurs in the brain about one-third of a second
prior to the occurrence of the psychologically described act of willing
that action to occur.

This empirical result appears to show, on the face of it, that the
conscious act of *willing* must be a *consequence* of this associated
brain activity, not the *cause* of it, for, according to the normal idea
of cause, nothing can cause a prior happening to occur.

This example is just one instance of a general feature of mind-brain
phenomena, namely the fact that conscious experiences always seem to
occur after a lot of preparatory work has already been done by the
brain. This feature accords with the classical-physics precept of the
causal closure of the physical, and it leads plausibly to the conclusion
that the felt causal efficacy of our conscious thoughts is an illusion.

One of the most intensely studied aspects of quantum mechanics is the
occurrence of correlations in which a "voluntary" choice made at one
time appears to affect events that occurred earlier than this choice, or
simultaneously with it yet faraway. These correlations were the basis of
a famous paper published in 1935 by Albert Einstein and two younger
colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen. The existence of certain
puzzles associated with these correlations is called the EPR paradox.
These correlations are correctly predicted by quantum mechanics, but
they cannot be comprehended within the conception of the physical world
postulated by classical mechanics.

In both the Libet and EPR cases the existence of these apparent causal
anomalies suggests that what seems to us to be "voluntary" free choices
are actually mechanically determined by the physically described aspects
of nature, in keeping with the precepts of classical physics. However,
the founders of quantum theory were driven, in their search for a
rationally coherent understanding of various twentieth century data, to
a theory that consistently treats our voluntary choices as "free
choices". They are free in the sense that they are not determined by any
currently known laws, even though they have, according to the laws of
quantum mechanics, specified physical consequences, This article
describes how orthodox quantum mechanics reconciles this idea of
physically effective voluntary "free choices" with the Libet and EPR
data

**2. From Classical Mechanics to Orthodox Quantum Mechanics**

During the seventeenth century Isaac Newton created the foundations for
what developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into what
is now called classical physics, or classical mechanics. Classical
mechanics conceives the physical world to be composed of classically
conceived particles and classically conceived fields. Classically
conceived particles are like miniature planets that move though space
under the influence of fields of force generated by the other particles.
This entire physical structure develops in time in a way fixed by
mechanical laws that *entail the causal closure of the physical*: the
whole physically described structure is determined for all time by these
mechanical laws\-\--which refer only to these physically described
elements themselves\-\--together with initial conditions on these
physically described parts.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century it was discovered that
this classical-mechanical conception of the physical world was
incompatible with the behaviors of large (visible) systems whose
activities depended sensitively upon the behaviors of their atomic
constituents. The classical conception of physical reality was therefore
abandoned by physicists, at the fundamental level, and was replaced by a
vastly different conceptual arrangement.

The logical basis of this conceptual change is a curious mathematical
change. To pass from a classically conceived physical system to its
quantum generalization the *numbers* that described the classically
conceived physical properties are replaced by *mathematical actions*,
called *operators*.

A principal difference between numbers and mathematical
actions/operators is that the order in which one multiplies numbers does
not matter\-\--2 times 3 is equal to 3 times 2\-\--but the order in
which one applies actions does matter: for two actions A and B, the
action of A followed by the action of B, which, for historical reasons,
physicists represent as BA is not equal, in general, to AB.

The paradigmatic example is this.

An important number in classical physics is the number *x* that
represents how far some object has been displaced, in some direction,
from an initial point x=0. An equally important number is the number *p*
that represents the momentum *p = mv* of the object, where *m* is the
mass of the object, and *v* is its velocity in the direction associated
with x. In classical physics *x* and *p* are *numbers*, and hence *xp --
px = 0,* but in the quantum counterpart of the classical system *xp-px=
iħ,* where *ħ* is a number discovered and measured by Max Planck in
1900, and *i* is a number that multiplied by itself gives minus one.

This difference between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics might
seem to be a mere mathematical technicality, having no deep conceptual
import. Indeed, the smallness on the scale of human activities of the
effective difference between numbers and the corresponding mathematical
actions, might naturally lead one to expect that the *conceptual*
changes needed to cope with this mathematical change would be
unimportant at the level of human beings and their actions. But this is
apparently not the case. The founders of quantum theory, in order to
secure a rationally coherent and consistent way of dealing, in a
scientifically satisfactory manner, with the technical problems
introduced by the replacement of numbers by actions were forced to
formulate their theory in terms of *actions*, and in particular the
actions of human investigators. Specifically, their theory is formulated
in terms of predictions about the observable responses to actions that
are chosen *by human agents,* with the intent to probe certain
properties of systems described in the mathematical language of quantum
mechanics. But this means that the basic physical theory deals *no
longer with intrinsic properties of physically described systems*, but,
fundamentally, with the interplay between observed and observing
systems. And these observing systems are, paradigmatically, conscious
human participants. Here the word "conscious" highlights the fact that
the theory involves, basically, not solely the physical language of the
quantum mathematics, but, equally importantly, also the concepts and
language that we human beings use to communicate to our colleagues "what
we have done and we have learned". Moreover, the theory involves, in a
fundamental way, also the so-called "free choices on the part of the
experimenter", which are experienced by experimenters as conscious
choices.

Any physical theory, to be relevant to our lives, must link certain
mathematical features of the theory to the streams of consciousness of
human beings. Quantum theory is built squarely upon the recognition of
this fact

To see how this works, consider the mathematical action x discussed
above. As already mentioned, this mathematical action *x* replaces the
number *x* that in classical mechanics specifies where (along a straight
line) the (center of an) object is located. The postulated
correspondence between the quantum mathematics and experienced
perceptions ties the *mathematical action* x *to the empirical probing
action that would yield, as its perceived outcome, the number x that
would specify the location of the object being probed, insofar as that
object has a well defined location.* Similarly, the mathematical action
*p* is tied to a physical probing action that would yield as its
perceived outcome the number *p* that specifies the momentum of the
observed object, insofar as that momentum is well defined.

Not every possible mathematical action has a perceptual counterpart. But
the basic interpretive assumption in orthodox contemporary physics is
that every possible probing action with a perceivable outcome has, in
the quantum mathematics, an action counterpart: an associated operator.
*Thus an intrinsic mind-matter connection is built directly into the
fabric of our basic physical theory*.

This profound difference between contemporary physical theory and the
classical physical theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
would appear, prima facie, to be relevant to issues pertaining to the
relationship between mind and matter. The earlier theories are
approximations to the newer theory, and these approximations
systematically exorcize, in a rationally coherent but physically
inaccurate way, dynamical connections between mind and matter that the
newer theory incorporates.

The connection between mind and matter occurring in the original
*pragmatic* formulation of quantum mechanics, which is known as the
Copenhagen interpretation, was converted to a connection between mind
and brain by an elaboration upon the Copenhagen interpretation developed
by the renowned logician and mathematician John von Neumann. This
developed form was named "the orthodox interpretation" by von Neumann's
close colleague Eugene Wigner, and it is the starting point of most, if
not all, investigations into the nature of the reality that lies behind
the pragmatically successful rules of quantum mechanics.

In spite of this seemingly relevant twentieth century development in
physics, contemporary neuroscience and philosophy of mind continue to
base their quests to understand consciousness on an essentially
nineteenth century conceptualization of the human brain, ignoring the
facts that the older conception of reality has been known to be false
for almost a century, and that, in stark contrast to the nineteenth
century conceptualization, contemporary orthodox physics has specified
dynamical connections between brains and minds built intrinsically into
it.

Planck's constant is a very tiny number on the scale of human
activities. Consequently, the replacement of a classical system by its
quantum counterpart turns out to be unimportant for predictions
pertaining to the observable properties of physical systems whose
behaviors are insensitive to the behaviors of their atomic-sized
constituents. But the behaviors of brains are understood in terms the
behaviors of the ions flowing into and out of neurons. So it is not
clear, a priori, that the behavior of a conscious brain will, in every
case, be essentially non-dependent upon how its atomic-sized
constituents behave. Indeed, quantum calculations (Stapp, 2004a)
pertaining to the release of neurotransmitter molecules into the
synaptic clefts separating communicating neurons show that quantum
effects are important in principle. According to the principles of
contemporary physics the behavior of a living brain must *in principle*
be treated as a quantum mechanical system, with classical concepts
applied only when justified by special circumstances.

No computations have ever shown that a conscious human brain can be
validly treated in the classical approximation. On the other hand, the
three-century-old effort to understand the connection between mind and
brain within the conceptual framework of materialist classical physics
has led to profound conceptual difficulties. These difficulties have
provided fertile ground for philosophical disputes that have enlivened
the fields of philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy without producing
much consensus. But one point of near unanimity is the conclusion that
materialism is surely the adequate and appropriate theoretical
foundation: for the scientific study of consciousness: that the
injection by twentieth century physics of the effects of conscious
choices made by observer-participants into the basic dynamics of
physical systems can safely be ignored. Still, however, a rationally
coherent conceptualization that has *specified* mind-brain dynamical
connections\-\--that arise from the basic precepts of empirically valid
physics\-\--could conceivably provide a more adequate foundation for the
scientific study of the behavior of actually existing mind-brain systems
than a nineteenth century approximation that is inadequate in principle
for systems whose behaviors depend significantly upon the dynamics of
their atomic constituents, and that systematically exorcises the
quantum-physics-mandated dynamical effects of conscious choices made by
conscious agents.

Over the past few years, I have been engaged in an effort to introduce
into the scientific studies of consciousness certain basic results
pertaining to the dynamics of the mind-brain system that are entailed by
orthodox contemporary physics. Numerous application have been made in
the domains of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. (Stapp, 2004a,
2005, 2006a-d); Schwartz, Stapp, and Beauregard, 2005) I shall give here
first a brief summary of some of the key elements of this quantum
approach, and then use the theory to give a unified treatment of the
Libet and the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky data.

Classical physics is nominally about the *internal properties* of
physical systems, but is known to be fundamentally false. It has been
replaced by quantum physics, which is about the *interplay* between
*observed systems, described in terms of mathematical quantities
attached to space-time points (\~* res extensa*), and observing systems,
described in terms of elements of streams of consciousness (\~* res
cogitans)*.*

Although the various *effects* of a probing action made by a probing
system upon a probed system are specified by quantum theory, the *cause*
of the probing action is not specified by the theory. There is,
therefore, a causal gap! The quantum-theoretic laws determine neither
when a probing action will occur, nor which aspects of the observed
system will be probed. Niels Bohr emphasizes this key feature of quantum
mechanics when he says:

> \"The freedom of experimentation, presupposed in classical physics, is
> of course retained and corresponds to the free choice of experimental
> arrangement for which the mathematical structure of the quantum
> mechanical formalism offers the appropriate latitude.\" (Bohr, 1958,
> p.73)
>
> "To my mind there is no other alternative than to admit in this field
> of experience, we are dealing with individual phenomena and that our
> possibilities of handling the measuring instruments allow us only to
> make a choice between the different complementary types of phenomena
> that we want to study. (Bohr, 1958, p. 51)

In practical applications, in both classical and quantum mechanics,
physicists treat the human experimenter as an agent who sets up
experiments on the basis of his reasons. In neither classical nor
quantum theory does anyone actually use the dynamical equations to
determine what a real experimenter will actually do. The brain is too
complex and too inaccessible to non-disturbing observations at the
needed level of accuracy to permit this. In classical physics there is
the *presumption* that the physical laws determine *in principle* what
an experimenter will do. But this presumption goes far beyond what has
been scientifically tested and confirmed. In the more accurate
contemporary orthodox quantum theory the conclusion is just the
opposite: *in principle the known laws definitely do not determine how
the experimenter will act, or even place statistical conditions on these
choices*. To fill this lacuna the founders of quantum mechanics brought
into the theory certain inputs from conscious human beings, namely their
choices of their own actions. This introduction of physically
efficacious conscious choices into the physical theory in a fundamental
way was the most radical of the breaks with precedent introduced by the
founders of quantum theory, and is the one most vigorously opposed by
physicists seeking a closer-to-tradition alternative to the Copenhagen
and orthodox (von Neumann) approaches. However, none of the proposed
alternatives appears to be satisfactory, as yet, even to its supporters.
(See Appendix A of Schwartz, et al., and the references cited there,
most particularly Stapp 2002, and also Stapp 2006a-d)

Specifically, quantum theory brings into the causal description, in
addition to the (sometimes-violated) deterministic continuous evolution
in accordance with the quantum generalization of the deterministic
classical process of evolution, also *choices of two kinds,* both of
which are implemented, or represented, by abrupt "quantum jumps" in the
continuous deterministic evolution. One of the two kinds of choices
determines the familiar collapse of the wave function (or reduction of
the wave packet). It is called by Dirac a "choice on the part of
nature", and it is a choice\-\--from among the several alternative
possible outcomes of a probing action performed upon an observed/probed
system\-\--of *one particular outcome*. These choices "on the part of
nature" are "random": they are asserted by the theory to conform to
certain statistical conditions. These "choices on the part of nature"
are precisely where the randomness enters (irreducibly) into
contemporary physics.

But, according to the orthodox precepts, this statistically governed
"choice on the part of nature" *must be preceded* by another choice: a
choice of which (probing) experiment is to be performed, and when it
will be performed. No known laws constrain *this choice of the probing
action*, and it is consistently treated in orthodox quantum theory as "a
free choice on the part of the experimenter" This "choice on the part of
the experimenter" fixes the form of the physically/mathematically
described probing action. The representation *within the quantum
mathematics* of this probing action is called by von Neumann "Process
1".

The *logical* need for this choice*, which is* *not specified by any
known law,* persists, even when the quantum-mathematically described
part of the universe\-\--which in the original Copenhagen interpretation
does *not* include either the body or the brain of the observer, or even
his or her measuring devices\-\--is expanded (by von Neumann) to include
the entire physical universe, *including* the bodies and brains of the
observers. The essential point is that the inclusion of the body and
brain of the human agent/participant into the quantum-mechanically
described universe *still* *leaves* *undetermined* the choices made by
that human person

This logically needed choice is relegated, in von Neumann's words, to
the experimenter's "abstract ego". But no matter what words are used,
the fact remains that the inclusion of the body and brain of the
observer into the physically described quantum world leaves undetermined
the *logically needed choice* of which physical Process1 probing action
actually occurs. No known law, statistical or otherwise, specifies which
probing action, Process 1 action, actually occurs.

The choosing process, whatever it is, that specifies this choice of the
actually occurring Process 1 is called Process 4. Process 2, so-named by
von Neumann, is the continuous deterministic evolution via the
Schroedinger equation, whereas Process 3 is the choice on the part of
nature of which outcome/feedback from the probing action actually
occurs, Process 2 reigns only during the intervals *between* the various
abrupt Process 1 and Process 3 quantum jumps.

This need for the occurrence of physically efficacious Process 4 choices
that are not determined by any known law, statistical or otherwise,
constitutes a prima facie breakdown, within orthodox quantum mechanics,
of the doctrine of the causal closure of the physical. Quantum theory,
as it is taught to physicists in their university courses, is presented
as a set of rules that allow scientists to form expectations about the
feedbacks they will receive by performing any *one* of many possible
probing actions, between which they are free to choose. This practical
format is the basis of the conceptual structure of quantum theory.

To prepare the way for the analysis to follow I need to spell out in
slightly more detail the structure compactly summarized above.

The conversion of the classically conceived universe to its quantum
generalization\-\--obtained by replacing numbers by actions\-\--is
called *quantization*. It converts the classical deterministic equation
of motion into its quantum counterpart, called "Process 2" by Von
Neumann. Like its classical counterpart, this quantum law of evolution
is deterministic: left alone, it would determine the quantum state of
the universe for all times from its primordial form. The relativistic
(quantum field theoretic) form of this law is moreover *local*: the
changes in the quantum state associated with any region are determined
by the properties associated with very nearby regions, and no influence
propagates faster than the speed of light.

This Process 2 evolution, by itself, is dynamically insufficient. Given
some initial conditions it produces at a later time not the mathematical
counterpart of *one single perceptual probing action*, but rather the
counterparts of a *continuous smear* of alternative possible probing
actions. Orthodox quantum theory resolves this difficulty by
supplementing the Process 2 evolution by certain abrupt changes, which
von Neumann calls "Process 1 interventions". Each such mathematical
intervention is tied by the quantum laws to a particular perceivable
probing action performed upon the observed system by an observing system
external to it.

Neither the property of the observed system that is probed by this
intervention, nor the time when this probing action occurs, is fixed by
the mechanical Process 2. These two features are considered to be fixed
by the observing system. This assignment of responsibility, or of causal
origin, accords with the fact that in actual scientific practice it is
the human experimenter that selects, by conscious choice, which
particular probing action will be performed upon the system he or she is
observing, and when that probing action will be performed. Of course, an
agent's conscious choices are not independent of what is going on in his
brain, but *orthodox contemporary physics does not determine* how the
psychic and physical components of reality combine to *cause* the
Process 1 events to be what they turn out to be.

The *effect* of the Process 1 intervention upon the observed system *is*
specified by the quantum laws. This intervention selects from the smear
of possible probing actions some particular one. The effect of this
singled-out probing action upon the mathematically described state of
the observed system is this: it separates this state into a set of
disjoint (i.e., non-overlapping) components in a way such that: (1), the
statistical weights assigned by the theory to these individual
components adds to unity; and (2), each component corresponds to a
*phenomenologically distinct* outcome of that probing action.

After this Process 1 separation has been made, nature picks out, and
saves, *one* of the possible psychophysical outcomes of the chosen
probing action, and eradicates the rest. *Nature's* selection of
outcomes\-\--called Process 3 in my terminology\-\--is asserted by the
theory to respect the statistical weights assigned to the alternative
possible outcomes. The quantum mathematical structure becomes tied in
this way to phenomenology, and the theory generates practical rules that
allow statistical predictions pertaining to experiences to be deduced
from the postulated mathematical structure.

This injection of human volitional choices into the physical dynamics
*at a basic level* is completely contrary to the precepts of classical
physics. But this change accommodates the fact that we human beings do
in fact inject our conscious intentions into the physically described
world whenever we act intentionally. Accepting quantum mechanics opens
the door to the possibility of a more detailed, *and more useful,*
putative understanding of this effect of conscious intent than classical
mechanics can provide.

**3. The Libet Causal Anomalies**

In the Libet experiment the initial intentional act is to choose
willfully to perform, at some future time within, say within the next
minute, the act of raising a finger. We often make such resolves to act
in some specified way at some future time, and these commitments are
often met with great precision. However, in the Libet case the resolve
is rather imprecise as regards the exact time of the specified action.
It is doubtful that any person, informed even by a multitude of probing
devices about the state of the subject's brain at the beginning of the
specified interval, could predict with good accuracy just when the
choice to move the finger will occur. And even if every
neurophysiological-level feature of the brain were given at the outset,
it is still questionable whether, even in a world that obeyed the
deterministic laws of classical physics, this macroscopic data would fix
the time at which the conscious choice occurs. There is just too much
latitude for initially small-scale variations to develop over the course
of time into significant macroscopic effects. Even within deterministic
classical physics the best one could do with actual macroscopic data
would be to make a statistical model based on that data and the known
general properties of the brain.

In the case of the dynamics of a warm wet living human brain,
interacting with its environment, almost all quantum interference
effects *connecting appreciably different locations* will (almost
certainly) be washed out, and the quantum model will become similar to a
classical *statistical* model that features a collection of parallel
classically conceived worlds, each with some statistical weight.
However, in the classical case one can imagine that exactly one of the
statistically weighted alternative classically conceived possibilities
is the "real" one, and that the statistical smearing represents a mere
lack of knowledge as to which of the weighted possibilities represents
the "actual real world".

This "lack of knowledge" interpretation cannot be carried over to
quantum theory. However, to a good approximation, the various weighted
classically conceived worlds of classical statistical theory can be
understood to represent *simultaneously existing* *potentialities*, some
subset of which will eventually be selected by some Process 1 probing
event. This Process 1 action will be followed by a Process 3 choice (on
the part of nature) that specifies which of the alternative possible
outcomes of the chosen probing action actually occurs. *All
potentialities that do not lead to the outcome that actually occurs are
eradicated by these collapse or reduction events, leaving only those
that lead to the psychophysical event that actually does occur.*

In the Libet experiment, the mind-brain "set" fixed by the initial
conscious intention to raise the finger within the next minute should
cause the quantum mechanically described brain to generate classically
describable potentialities corresponding to the various alternative
times at which the specified conscious act could occur. Thus the
following scenario is compatible with quantum mechanics, and is
suggested by it.

The initial intent (to raise the finger within the next minute) will
lead to the production of a collection of parallel potentialities, each
corresponding to a possible time at which the readiness potential can
start its build up. Shortly after some of the classically described
potentialities have developed to the point of specifying a certain
possible perceivable probing action the question will pop into the
stream of consciousness: "Shall I perform this action?" If the answer is
'No', as it is likely to be right at the beginning, then the
potentialities *leading up to the performance of that action at that
time* will be eradicated. A short time later a similar Process 1
question will be posed. The outcome is again likely to be 'No', and the
batch of potentialities leading to the 'Yes' option will again be
erased. Eventually, in accordance with the statistical rules, a 'Yes'
outcome will be selected by nature, and the set of potentialities
leading to the 'No' outcome will be wiped out. Only the (essentially
classically described) potentialities *leading to* this 'Yes' outcome
will remain.

The "Yes" event is a psychophysical event that is felt or experienced as
the feeling or knowledge "I shall now raise my finger", and it is
represented in the physically described world as the actualization, at
that moment, of the neurological activity that constitutes the template
for the action of raising the finger. (This template is a neural/brain
activity that, if held in place for a sufficiently long interval, will
tend to cause the finger to rise.) All brain activities\-\--*which have
the ontological character of potentialities*\-\--that are incompatible
with this intent are *eliminated* *by this event* from the quantum
mechanical state of the brain. Hence they are eliminated from the
statistical mixture of classically described states that approximately
represents this quantum state. ithatiblent on page 9 is cleasrage 9 is
cleasrbe more useful, but evidently not.ier to graspead of by ule of QM,
statistical or

Now suppose there is in place some measuring device that can, in the
approximately correct classical description of what is (possibly) going
on, detect the time at which the readiness potential starts its build
up. This time of the inception of the build up is long (one-third of a
second) before the psychophysical event that will, *only later,*
actualize this particular classically described world. Now suppose,
furthermore, that the classically described measuring device activates a
classically described timer that records the time of the beginning of
the build up of the readiness potential. This classically described
*record* of the time of the start of the build up of the readiness
potential will continue to exist along side the increasing readiness
potential. When some person, at some later time, after the occurrence of
the psychophysical event that determines which of the classically
described worlds survives\-\--and hence that determines also the time at
which the build-up of the readiness potential began\-\--reads the timer
he will find out that the start of the build up of the readiness
potential occurred *before the occurrence of the psychophysical event
that selected the classical world that specifies the time when that
build up began.*

The key point here is that the *record* of the time of the start of the
build up of the readiness potential is *a causal off shoot* of this
build up, and this record will be actualized along with the
actualization of the potentiality *represented (to a good approximation)
by* the classically described process that the actualization event
selects. Thus the recorded time of the beginning of the build up of the
readiness potential will be earlier than the time of the event that
actually determined (according to this quantum ontology) the time of the
beginning of this build up: the recorded time of the beginning of the
build up will be fixed by an event that occurs only later.

Such seeming causal anomalies have been a prime point of attack on
orthodox quantum theory, and they continue to fascinate physicists even
today, under the names "quantum nonlocality", or "Bell's theorem", or
"EPR paradox." Although this quantum ontological way of understanding
the quantum correlation tends to upset people accustomed to thinking
about the world in classical mechanical terms, no logical inconsistency
or conflict with empirical data has ever been established. One can be
quite confident in accepting that all of the known empirical evidence is
compatible with this non-classical but logically consistent "quantum
ontological" conception of how the world works.

On the other hand, one can certainly adhere, alternatively, to the
*pragmatic* point of view, which holds that, even though this quantum
ontology accords with all of the empirically verified relationships
between human experiences, and seems to provide a coherent putative
"understanding" of what is going on, this success by no means implies
that this understanding is veridical. For one can express the empirical
predictions in compact ways that avoid any commitment concerning what is
"really happening". Thus many\-\--and probably most\-\--quantum
physicists hold that, as scientists, the pragmatic option is all they
need to commit to. On the other hand, for those who seek something more
than merely "a set of rules that work" the quantum ontological model is
a viable (i.e., not yet disproven) and logically coherent conception of
the way that Nature actually works. The same cannot be said of local
deterministic materialism.

Human agents play a very special role in this quantum ontology. This
feature is a hold-over from the pragmatic stance of the original
Copenhagen formulation of the theory, which was concerned principally
with establishing a rationally coherent basis for practical
applications. However, von Neumann's analysis shows that there is no
empirical evidence that *every* occurring collapse event is associated
with an event in a human stream of consciousness. It is certainly more
plausible, from a scientific perspective, to assume that there are
similar events associated with other biological organisms, and there is
no empirical evidence that confutes that position. Indeed, von Neumann's
analysis reveals, more generally, that collapse events that act
*macroscopically* on physical systems that are interacting strongly with
their environments would be virtually impossible to detect. There is
presently no evidence that rules out the possibility that enormous
numbers of macroscopic collapse events are occurring all the time in
large systems that are strongly connected to their environments. Hence
the special role originally assigned to human beings is no part of the
general quantum ontological model being described here.

The main cause of reservations about the actual truth of this quantum
ontology is that it entails faster-than-light transfer of information.
These faster-than-light issues are essentially those that arise in the
much-discussed EPR paradox.

4\. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Causal Anomalies

Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, published in 1935 what
is perhaps the most discussed scientific paper of the twentieth century.
Entitled "*Can quantum mechanical description of physical reality be
considered complete?*" the paper argues that Copenhagen quantum theory
does not give a complete description of physical reality. The argument
depends on a specific way of identifying what is meant by "physical
reality". This identification depends on an assumption about the absence
of influences that act backward in time or faster than the speed of
light. Niels Bohr (1935) wrote a rebuttal that essentially admitted that
the strong notion of no-faster-than-light influence used in
classical-physics does indeed fail in quantum theory, but claimed that
an adequate replacement holds within the epistemological framework of
quantum mechanics.

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument is based on an examination of the
predictions of quantum theory pertaining to certain correlations between
*macroscopic* observable events that occur at essentially the same time
in laboratories that lie far apart

A simple classical example of a correlation between events occurring at
essentially the same time in far-apart laboratories is this. Suppose one
has a pair of balls, one red, the other green. Suppose one loads them
into two rifles, and fires them in opposite directions into two
far-apart laboratories, in which the balls will be caught and examined
at essentially the same time. The colors found in the two regions will
obviously be correlated: if red is found in one lab then green will be
found in the other, and vice versa. There is nothing strange or peculiar
about a correlation of this kind.

The simplest quantum example is similar, and is again not in itself a
problem. We can set up a *certain experimental arrangement of the
macroscopic preparing and measuring devices* that will produce a
situation analogous to the one with the two colored balls. Quantum
mechanics predicts, and empirical evidence confirms, that, under these
*macroscopically specified* experimental conditions, if a red light
flashes on the detector in one laboratory, then a green light will flash
at essentially the same time on the detector in the other laboratory,
and vice versa.

Einstein and his colleagues (henceforth EPR) considered a slightly more
complex situation in which there are two alternative possible settings
of the measuring device in the first lab and two alternative possible
settings of the device in the second lab. If the *first* setting is
chosen in *both* labs then, as before, green in either lab entails red
in the other, and vice versa. Moreover, if the *second* setting is
chosen in *both* labs then, as before, green in either lab entails red
in the other, and vice versa

A basic feature of quantum theory is this: the theory is mathematically
incompatible with the idea that there exists *both* a property P1 that
fixes which outcome will occur if the measurement in, say, the second
lab specified by the *first* possible setting of the device in that
(second) lab is performed, *and also, simultaneously,* a property P2
that fixes which outcome will occur if the measurement in the second lab
specified by the *second* possible setting of the device in that
(second) lab is performed. Quantum theory regards two such properties,
P1 and P2, as *complementary* properties that cannot both exist
simultaneously.

EPR devised an argument that seemed to show that these two properties P1
and P2 do exist simultaneously. Their argument produced consternation in
Copenhagen. Bohr's close colleague, Leon Rosenfeld (1967) described the
situation as follows:

> This onslaught came down upon us like a bolt from the blue. Its effect
> on Bohr was remarkable. We were then in the midst of groping attempts
> at exploring ... \[another problem\] .... A new worry could not come
> at a less propitious time. Yet as soon as Bohr had heard my report of
> Einstein's argument, everything else was abandoned: we had to clear up
> such a misunderstanding at once. We should reply by taking up the same
> example and showing the right way to speak about it. Bohr immediately
> started dictating to me the outline of such a reply. Very soon,
> however, he became hesitant: "No, this will not do, we must try all
> over again ... we must make it quite clear..." So it went on for a
> while with growing wonder at the unexpected subtlety of the argument.
> ... Eventually he broke off with the familiar remark that he "must
> sleep on it." The next morning he at once took up the dictation again,
> ... the real work now began in earnest: day after day, week after
> week, the whole argument was patiently scrutinized ... .

What is the argument that set off this huge commotion, which
reverberates even to this day?

Einstein and his colleagues introduced the following "criterion of
physical reality":

> If, without in any way disturbing a system, we can predict with
> certainty (i.e., with probability equal to unity) a physical property
> of a system then there exists an element of physical reality
> corresponding to that property.

This criterion seems completely reasonable, and completely in line with
the Copenhagen philosophy, which is built upon the idea of predictions
of properties of systems as revealed by the observed outcomes of
experiments performed upon those systems.

In the experimental situation just mentioned the setting of each device
can be chosen and fixed *just before* the outcome at that device
appears. The distance between the two labs can then be made so large
that there is no time (according to the claim of the theory of
relativity that *nothing* can travel faster than the speed of light) for
*a choice of setting* in either lab to have any effect at all on *the
faraway outcome*, red or green.

However, the experimenter in the first lab *can predict with certainty*
the *property P1 that is measured by using the* *first setting in the
(faraway) second lab.* He can do this simply by choosing the *first
setting in his own (first) lab* and observing the outcome, red or green,
and then inferring that P1 must be, respectively, green or red. The
assumed\-\--by EPR\-\--impossibility of any faster-than-light or
backward-in-time influence entails that this *action and act of
observation in the first lab* cannot disturb in any way this property P1
measurable in the second lab. Thus, according to the EPR criterion,
there is an element of physical reality P1 corresponding to the property
that is measured in the second lab when one uses there the *first*
setting.

By choosing the *second* setting in the first lab one finds that a
property P2 corresponding to the *second setting* in the second lab is,
likewise, an element of physical reality. But\-\--for inescapable
mathematical reasons\-\--quantum theory cannot accommodate the
simultaneous existence of these two elements, P1 and P2, of physical
reality. Hence, as a description of physical reality, quantum theory
must, according to EPR, be incomplete

EPR finish off their argument with the following crucial remark:

> One could object to this conclusion on the grounds that our criterion
> or reality is not sufficiently restrictive. Indeed, one would not
> arrive at our conclusion if one insisted that two or more physical
> quantities can be regarded as simultaneous elements of reality only
> when they can be simultaneously measured or predicted. On this point
> of view, since either one or the other, but not both simultaneously of
> the quantities P and Q can be predicted they are not simultaneously
> real. This makes the reality of P and Q depend upon the process of
> measurement carried out on the first system, which does not disturb
> the second system in any way. No reasonable definition of reality
> could be expected to permit this.
>
> \[ EPR's P and Q are essentially equivalent to our P1 and P2\]

Bohr accepts that the orthodox principles of quantum theory demand that
P and Q cannot, within that theory, both be assigned well defined
values. How does he reconcile this fact with the EPR argument that both
are elements or physical reality?

The essence of Bohr's reply (Bohr, 1935) is the following passage:

> From our point of view we now see that the wording of the
> above-mentioned criterion of physical reality proposed by Einstein,
> Podolsky, and Rosen contains an ambiguity as regards the meaning of
> the expression "without in any way disturbing the system." Of course
> there is in a case like that just considered no question of a
> mechanical disturbance of the system under investigation during the
> last critical stage of the measuring procedure. But even at this stage
> there is essentially the question of *an influence on the very
> conditions which describe the possible types of predictions regarding
> the future behaviour of the system.* (Bohr's italics.) Since these
> conditions constitute an inherent element of any phenomenon to which
> the term "physical reality" can be properly attached, we see that the
> argumentation of the above-named authors does not justify their
> conclusion that quantum-mechanical description is essentially
> incomplete.

If Bohr's argument strikes you as obscure, then you are not alone. Many
philosophers and physicists have judged Bohr's reply to be insufficient,
and have concluded that Einstein won the debate. Bohr himself says, in
his contribution to the Einstein volume (Einstein, 1951, p. 234),
"Reading these passages, I am deeply aware of the inefficiency of
expression which must have made it very difficult to appreciate the
trend of the argumentation...."

That is an accurate statement. Yet his later arguments do not seem to
help.

One feature of Bohr's answer does come across clearly: his reply
rejects, *at some level*, Einstein's idea of "without in any way
disturbing the system": Bohr rejects, at some level, Einstein's
assumption that the freely chosen measurement process performed in the
nearby lab *does not disturb* *in any way* the system in the faraway
lab, even though any such disturbance would have to act essentially
instantaneously. That is, in order to rationally counter the Einstein
argument Bohr found himself forced to reject Einstein's principle that
*all* causal actions act only forward in time, and no faster than the
speed of light. If that principle fails, the EPR argument collapses.

Bohr's point, in essence, is that once the experimenter in the first lab
chooses to do one of the two possible measurements in his lab, for
example the one specified by the first (resp. second) setting in his own
lab, he loses the capacity to make any prediction about the outcome of a
measurement in the other lab associated with the second (resp. first)
setting in that faraway lab. Thus the experimenter's choice of what to
do here has changed *what he can* *know* about events in the faraway
region. In an essentially epistemological theory in which the basic
reality is "our knowledge", a *reality* associated with the faraway lab
can therefore *be said* to depend upon a one's choice made here about
what one will freely choose to do here. But then the EPR claim that no
reality "there" can depend upon what one can freely choose to do "here"
fails: the EPR argument goes down the drain.

Of course, an epistemologically based conception of reality goes against
Einstein's more traditional idea of reality. But this issue of the need
of the basic physical theory to deal with non-epistemologically-based
realities is the core issue in the Bohr-Einstein dispute. Hence,
Einstein cannot simply assert, without in some way begging the central
question, that "reality" must be defined non-epistemologically.

Bohr's argumentation is basically philosophical, and about what we can
know. It dodges the ontological issues usually associated with the
phrase "physical reality", which is normally *contrasted* to what we
know, or can know. But the von Neumann-based quantum ontology described
above explains the workings of this "action at a distance" in
"ontological" terms. This ontology incorporates Heisenberg's idea of
"potentia" as an objective tendency for a physically describable event
to occur in association with an increment in human knowledge. This
ontology that is based not on *substances* but rather on psychophysical
*events* and mathematically described "*objective tendencies"* for such
events to occur. These tendencies are non-substantive because they can
change abruptly whenever a new psychophysical event occurs, perhaps
faraway. It is, basically, the acceptance of such "*tendencies* as
*objective realities"* that differentiates this Heisenberg-type quantum
ontology from substance-based ontologies.

The quantum ontological explanation of the EPR-type correlations is
similar to the explanation of the Libet back action. In the EPR case the
actualization in one region of some particular probing action and its
outcome actualizes also the particular causal chain that leads up to
that outcome, *along with its causal off shoots*, and it eliminates the
*potentialities* that would have produced the possible outcomes that
were not actualized. But then a conscious choice of probing action made
at one time and place can have ontological consequences in faraway
regions. These faraway consequences are effects of *causal off shoots of
possible processes that are actualized by events in the nearby region
that depend on choices freely made in the nearby region.*

These words are more than verbal hand waving. They are descriptions in
ordinary words of exactly what the von Neumann mathematical
representation of the evolving state is doing. Insofar as one accepts
the idea that the reality is represented by the mathematics, and that
our words and concepts should conform to what the mathematics is saying,
this quantum ontology follows. It is an accurate description of what the
quantum mathematics is saying.

This ontology accords with the orthodox quantum principle that the
properties P1 and P2, discussed above, do not exist simultaneously, and
that the existence or nonexistence of such a property in one region can
depend upon what a faraway experimenter does in a region that is
space-like separated from the first. That is, this ontological
conceptualization is in accord with the orthodox quantum principles, and
it rejects, in agreement with Bohr's answer to EPR, the strong version
of the principle of no faster-than-light effect *of any kind*. Bohr's
rejection was, as already mentioned, essentially epistemological, and
the quantum ontology translates this into a non-classical
non-substantive ontological conceptualization that does bring into the
dynamics effects of our "free" choices of how we will act.

One essential point needs to be emphasized. Von Neumann's formulation of
quantum theory, which provides the mathematical foundation for this
ontology, was first published in 1932, and it is non-relativistic. A
state of the universe is given for each "instant of time". However, this
formalism was generalized by Tomonaga (1946) and by Schwinger (1951)
around the middle of the twentieth century to *relativistic quantum
field theory*, with the quantum states now defined not on fixed-time
surfaces but on space-like surfaces. (Every point of a fixed-time
surface lies at the same time, whereas points on a space-like surface
can lie at different times, but every point of a space-like surface is
separated by a space-like interval from every other point on that
surface.)

In this relativistic generalization, a Process 1 event, freely chosen
and acting on a local (nearby) portion of a space-like surface, followed
by some local (nearby) Process 3 outcome can "instantly" affect the part
of the state associated with a distant (faraway) portion of that
space-like surface. And this "faraway" effect can depend upon which
Process 1 event was locally chosen. Thus Einstein's demand that such
choices of probing actions can have *no faster-than-light influence of
any kind* is violated, in accord with Bohr's denial of the validity of
that condition. However, the relativistic formulation *does satisfy* the
basic requirement of the theory of relativity that no "signal" can be
transmitted faster than light. (A *signal* is a message such that the
decipherable content received is influenced by the sender.) Thus in the
robust practical sense of communicating what one knows (here) to distant
receivers, there are no faster-than-light actions, even though the
(Tomonaga-Schwinger) quantum ontology does explicitly exhibit
faster-than-light transfers to faraway regions of information that is
influenced by nearby free choices.. The reason that this explicit
faster-than-light transfer of information cannot carry a message
intended by the local experimenter is that the faraway effects of the
nearby choice depends *jointly* upon the experimenter's choice of the
local experiment and nature's choice of the local outcome in such a way
that if the faraway receiver knows nothing about nature's local (nearby)
choice then he cannot acquire from his observations any information
about the experimenter's local (nearby) choice. This result is a direct
consequence of the quantum rules.

The relativistic (Tomonaga-Schwinger) von Neumann ontology satisfies the
demands of the theory of relativity, yet explicitly exhibits the sort of
faster-than light effects alluded to in Bohr's answer to EPR. This
rationally coherent conception of nature resolves the mysteries of the
seeming causal anomalies by setting forth a new "quantum-theoretic" way
of understanding nature; an understanding based not on substances but on
psychophysical events and objective tendencies for such events to occur.

The fact that this particular orthodox ontology involves
faster-than-light effects does not imply that *no* rationally coherent
theory can agree with the quantum predictions unless it allows transfer
of information about a free choice made in one region to a space-like
separated region. But that strong result can be proved.

Certain theories entail the validity of certain statements of the form:

If experiment 1 is performed and the outcome is A, then if, instead,
experiment 2 had been performed the outcome would necessarily be B.

For example, according to classical physics, if we shoot a charged
particle into a region with, say, uniform magnetic field H and it
follows a semi circle of radius R then if we had chosen magnetic field
2H, with every other relevant thing unchanged, then the particle would
have followed a semi-circle of radius R/2.

To establish the unavoidable need in any adequate theory of nature for
some sort of faster-than-light transfer we may consider an experiment of
the kind first investigated by Julian Hardy. As in the EPR case, there
are two space-time regions situated so that nothing can get from either
region to the other one without traveling either faster than light or
backward in time. In each region either one or the other of two
alternative possible probing actions can be chosen and performed. And,
for each performed experiment, one or the other of two alternative
possible outcomes of that experiment will appear in the region in which
that measurement is performed.

Let one of the two regions be called R and the other be called L, and
let the space-time region R lie *later* than the space-time region L (in
some specified coordinate frame.) The first needed assumption is this:

> The choices of which of two possible experiments will be performed in
> regions R and L *can be treated* as independent free variables.

This does not mean that in the total scheme of things each of these two
choices is undetermined until it actually occurs, but only that the
choice of which experiment to perform can be fixed in so many
alternative possible ways by systems so disconnected, prior to the
probing action, from the system being probed, that the choice of which
probing action is performed *can be treated* as a free variable in the
context of the analysis of this experiment. This free choice assumption
is endorsed by Bohr, and is used by EPR.

The second assumption is this:

> No matter which experiment is chosen and performed in the earlier
> region L, whatever outcome *appears and is recorded there* is
> independent of which probing action will be chosen and performed later
> in the faraway region R.

These two assumptions, along with the assumed validity of four simple
predictions of quantum theory for a Hardy-type experiment allow one to
*prove* some interesting properties of the following statement, which I
have named SR, because it is a statement that refers to possible
happenings in region R:

> SR:: If the first of the two alternative possible probing actions in
> region R gives the first of the two possible outcomes, then the second
> of the two alternative possible probing actions in region R, if it had
> been performed instead of the first one, would necessarily have given
> the first possible outcome of that second probing action.

This statement does not involve two co-existing incompatible properties:
the two incompatible properties in R exist only under incompatible
conditions in R

Statement SR is *logically entailed by the two assumptions described
above and the validity of four predictions of quantum theory* to be true
or false according to whether the experimenter in region L chooses to
perform in L one or the other of the two alternative possible actions
available to him or her. (Stapp, 2004b)

The conditions that logically determine whether this statement SR is
true or false are conditions on outcomes appearing in region R under the
alternative possible conditions that can be freely chosen in that region
R. But this statement is required by the laws of quantum mechanics to be
true or false according to which choice is freely made by the
experimenter in region L, which is space-like separated from region R.
This demand cannot be met by a theory that allows no information about
the free choice made in L to get to the region R.

A rationally coherent understanding of natural phenomena that allows our
choices of which experiments we perform to be treated as free variables
is logically possible, but any such theory that strictly enforces the
principle of no faster-than-light or backward in time transfer of
information appears to be excluded by this argument, which thereby
removes an important barrier to the acceptance of the quantum ontology
described above.

**5. Application to Libet**

Numerous applications of this quantum ontology to the understanding of
phenomena in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience related to the
connection of mind to brain have been described in Schwartz (2005). The
central idea is to begin to fill the lacuna in the causal structure
associated with Process 4\-\--the process of choosing *which* Process 1
will occur, and *when* it will occur\-\--by distinguishing two kinds of
Process 4 choices: passive choices and active choices. The passive
choices are entailed by brain activity alone: for these passive choices
the Process 1 action occurs when an associated threshold in brain
activity is reached. The expression of this physically described
threshold remains to be specified. (cf. Stapp, 1999) Once this initial
psycho-physical event occurs, and the follow-up Process 3 outcome has
produced a 'Yes' response, there can be a felt evaluation. The key
assumption is that if this felt evaluation is sufficiently positive then
there may be an *active* effort to attend to this idea, which, if
sufficiently strong, will produce an almost immediate repeat of the
original psychophysical event associated with Process 1. If the
repetitions are sufficiently rapid then a well-known quantum effect, the
quantum Zeno effect, will cause a long string of essential identical
Process 1-Process 3 pairs to occur. This rapid sequence of events will,
by virtue of the known quantum rules, tend to hold in place the
associated template for action, and this will tend to cause the intended
action to occur. Thus conscious intentions motivated by felt valuations
become injected into the brain dynamics in a way that tends to cause
consciously intended actions to occur. (See Stapp 2004a, Chapt. 12 for
the mathematical details.)

This conception of what is going on is in close accord with William
James's assertions (James, 1892)

> I have spoken as if our attention were wholly determined by neural
> conditions. I believe that the array of things we can attend to is so
> determined. No object can catch our attention except by the neural
> machinery. But the amount of the attention which an object receives
> after it has caught our attention is another question. It often takes
> effort to keep mind upon it. We feel that we can make more or less of
> the effort as we choose. If this feeling be not deceptive, if our
> effort be a spiritual force, and an indeterminate one, then of course
> it contributes coequally with the cerebral conditions to the result.
> Though it *introduce* no new idea, it will deepen and prolong the stay
> in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more
> quickly away. The delay thus gained might not be more than a second in
> duration\-\--but that second may be critical; for in the rising and
> falling considerations in the mind, where two associated systems of
> them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second
> more or less of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain
> force to occupy the field and develop itself and exclude the other, or
> be excluded itself by the other. When developed it may make us act,
> and that act may seal our doom. When we come to the chapter on the
> Will we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on
> the attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas
> may receive. \...
>
> Consent to the idea's undivided presence, this is efforts sole
> achievement

This understanding is in line also with James's assertion (James, 1911):

> your acquaintance with reality grows literally by buds or drops of
> perception. Intellectually and on reflection you can divide them into
> components, but as immediately given they come totally or not at all.

Turning to the Libet situation, we see that there is an important
difference between it and the EPR situation. In the Libet case the
initial action that initiates the agent's later actions, namely the
agent's commitment to raise the finger sometime during the next minute,
occurs *before* the development of the causal offshoot, and it generates
the chain of events associated with both the creation of the causal
offshoots (namely the creation of the *records* of the beginnings of the
various parallel build-ups of the readiness potential) and also the
subsequent conscious probing actions, one of which will eventually lead
to the actualization of *one* of these records. This causal linkage
breaks, in the Libet case, the control of the *active* conscious choice
(to raise the finger now) upon the causal off shoot (the record). In the
Libet case these *active* conscious choices act only to hold the
template for action in place long enough to cause the finger to rise,
or, by failing to so act, to effectively *veto* that physical action.
Thus the *active* conscious choices do not influence the causal off
shoots in the efficacious way that they do in the EPR case. They act
only either to consent to the process of raising the finger, caused by
the initial commitment to do so and nature's subsequent "Yes", or to
veto this physical action by refusing to initiate the repetitions needed
to produce the action. (See e.g, Schwartz et. al.) However, in the
generation of correlations between two phenomena occurring different
regions, the key role of an actualization of a potentiality having a
causal off shoot is the same in both the Libet and EPR cases, as is the
explanation of the capacity of a person's conscious choices,
unconstrained by any yet-known laws, to influence his physical actions.

**6. Conclusion**

The quantum mechanical understanding of the mind-brain dynamical system
explained and defended in Schwartz (2005), and further elaborated in
Stapp (2005) and Stapp (2006), accommodates, and putatively explains,
the ability of our conscious intentions to influence our physical
behavior. This theory covers in a natural way also the Libet data. It
reconciles Libet's empirical findings with the capacity of our conscious
intentions to influence our actions, without these intentions being
themselves determined by the physically described aspects of the theory.
This separation is achieved by exploiting a causal gap in the
mathematically expressed laws of quantum mechanics. This gap is filled
in actual scientific practice by invoking the conscious intentions of
the human participants. This practical and intuitively felt role of
conscious intentions is elevated, within the proposed quantum ontology,
to the status of an ontological reality coherently and consistently
integrated into quantum laws.

**Acknowledgements**

I thank the editor, Wolfram Hinzen, for helpful suggestions pertaining
to the presentation of this material, and to Jeff Barrett, Peter
Molenaar and one anonymous referee for their comments on this article.

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