TUCSON 2003

**["The Observer" in Physics and Neuroscience.]{.underline}**

*1. Introduction.*

Neuroscience is an important component of the scientific attack on the
problem of consciousness. However, most neuroscientists, viewing our
discussions, see only conflict and discord, and no reason why quantum
theory has any great relevance the dynamics of the conscious brain. It
is therefore worthwhile, in this first plenary talk of the 2003 Tucson
conference on "Quantum Approaches to the Understanding of
Consciousness," to focus on the central issue, which is the crucial role
of "The Observer," and specifically, "The Mind of The Observer" in
contemporary physical theory. I shall therefore review here this radical
departure of present-day basic physics from the principles of classical
physics, and then spell out some of its ramifications for neuroscience.

My talk is divided into nine sections:

1\. Introduction.

2\. The problem of the interaction between mind and matter.

3\. The *passive* role of "The Observer" in classical physics.

4\. The *active* role of "The Observer" Copenhagen quantum

theory.

5\. Process I: A dynamical psycho-physical bridge.

6\. The *active role of the mind* of the "The Observer" in von

Neumann quantum theory.

7\. The Quantum Zeno Effect and the causal efficacy mental effort.

8\. Ramifications in psychology.

9\. Ramification in neuroscience.

*2. The problem of the interaction between mind and brain.*

First, the meanings of the terms "mind" and "brain" must be
distinguished.

Your *mind* is your stream of consciousness. It consists of your
thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and is described in *psychological* or
*mental* terms.

Your *brain* is an organ in your body consisting of nerve cells and
other tissues, and is described in *physical* terms - in terms of
*properties assigned to tiny space-time regions inside your skull.*

Your mind and your brain are obviously related. Your conscious intention
can cause your arm to rise. What happens is this: Your thought causes
nerve pulses to emanate from your brain, and these pulses cause muscles
in your arm to contract, and those contractions cause your arm to rise.

But *how*, according to the basic principles of science, does your
conscious thought initiate that chain of bodily events? How does a
*mental* action cause *physical* events?

*3. The* passive *role of "The Observer" in classical physics.*

To get the answer given by science one might turn to *classical
physics.* This is a theory of nature that originated with the work of
Isaac Newton in the seventeenth and was advanced by the contributions of
James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein.

Newton based his theory on the work of the astronomer Johannes Kepler,
who found that the planets appeared to move in accordance with simple
mathematical laws, in a way determined wholly by their spatial
relationships to other objects. Their motions were apparently
*independent of our human observations of them*. Newton assumed that all
physical objects were made of tiny miniaturized versions of the planets,
which, like the planets, moved in accordance with simple mathematical
laws, independently of whether we observed them of not.

According to classical physics, the physical world is built out of tiny
bits of matter/energy, and the motion of each tiny part is completely
determined by its contact interactions with neighboring parts. These
interactions are such that the state of the physical world at any time
is completely determined by the state at any earlier time. Consequently,
according to classical theory, the complete history of the physical
world *for all time* is mechanically fixed by contact interactions
between its tiny component parts\-\--along with the initial condition of
the primordial universe.

But this means that, according to classical physics, *you are a
mechanical automaton*: your every physical action was pre-determined
before you were born solely by local interactions between tiny mindless
entities.

That makes your mental side *causally redundant*: everything you do is
completely determined by mechanical conditions alone, without reference
to your thoughts, ideas, feelings, or intentions. Your intuitive feeling
that your thoughts make a difference in what you do would be an
illusion.

Many scientists, philosophers, writers, intellectuals, teachers, and
policy makers claim to believe this mechanical conception of human
beings, and base policies upon it. They believe that this is what
science says, and hence that this is what you must believe.

But this is *not what science says*! It is what *classical physics*
says!

Classical physics is merely *an approximation* to a more accurate
theory\-\--called quantum mechanics\-\--and quantum mechanics says just
the opposite. *Quantum mechanics describes the effects of mental actions
upon physical systems.* It *explains* how your mental effort can cause
your arm to rise. Quantum theory thus converts science's picture of you
from that of a mechanical automaton to that of a mindful person. And
quantum theory shows explicitly how the *approximation* that gives
classical physics also *completely eliminates* all the effects of mind
upon matter.

*4. The* active *role "The Observer" in Copenhagen quantum theory.*

Quantum mechanics arose during the twentieth century. Scientists
discovered, empirically, that the principles of classical physics were
not correct. Moreover, they were wrong in ways that no minor tinkering
could ever fix. The *basic principles* of classical physics were thus
replaced by *new basic principles*, and these new basic principles
appear to work perfectly.

This revision was profound. The whole *conception of what science is*
was turned inside out. Classical physics is about the "world out there,"
with no explicit reference to "our thoughts in here." But quantum
mechanics is about *our actions as knowledge-acquiring and
knowledge-using agents*. Thus quantum theory is *fundamentally* about
what is "in here," namely *our knowledge*.

A key feature of quantum theory is that, in the words of Niels Bohr: "in
the great drama of existence we ourselves are both actors and
spectators." (Bohr,1963:15 & 1958: 81) The emphasis is on "actors": in
the earlier classical physics we were idle spectators.

The original formulation of quantum theory is called The Copenhagen
Interpretation because it was created mainly at the Institute in
Copenhagen run by Bohr.

Copenhagen quantum theory is about the relationships between human
agents (called participants by Wheeler) and the systems that they act
upon and observe. Each agent is a human person together with his (or
her) measuring devices. This agent is described in the language that he
uses to communicate to himself and to his colleagues what he doing - or
wants them to do - and what he is experiencing. I call this language
*mentalistic* or *psychological*. The "system" that the agents are
acting upon is described in *physical* terms -- that is, in terms of
(un-experiencable) local properties assigned to very tiny space-time
regions.

But why were the founder's of quantum theory driven to this idea of
breaking nature into two parts, described in two very different
languages.

Von Neumann, analyzing Copenhagen quantum theory, identified two very
different processes that enter into the structure of the quantum
description. He called them Process I and Process II.

Process II is the analog in quantum theory of the process in classical
physics that takes the state of a system at one time to its state at a
later time. However, Process II by itself is not sufficient: it
generates mathematical structures that do not agree with human
experience. For example, if only Process II were present then the state
of, say, the moon would be a structure smeared out over large parts of
the sky! And the state of the brain of each observer would be a
continuously smeared out structure that would correspond to a blur of
experiences of the kind we know.

To tie the mathematical theory to human experience another process is
needed. It is called Process I. It is a *selection.* But that selection
is *not determined* by the mechanical process II. From a practical
standpoint, each needed selection is made by a human person: it is a
*choice* about of how he or she will act.

[The agent's choices are "free choices."]{.underline}

According to Bohr (1958: 73)

"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 appropriate latitude."

This "freedom of choice" follows, in the Copenhagen approach, from the
fact that the agent is not part of the physical system that is described
by the quantum mathematics: the agent stands outside the system that is
governed by the known laws.

Thus this "freedom" means simply "not determined by the *known* laws!"
There certainly could be other factors that could supplement the *known*
laws of orthodox quantum theory and determine these "free choices."

Here is how the orthodox theory works.

If the letter S represents the state of the system being acted upon by
the agent then Process I can be represented by the following equation:

SPSP + (1-P)S(1-P)

It exhibits the key fact that this Process I action changes the state S
of the system being acted upon into a *sum* *of two parts*.

[The first part, PSP, represents the possibility in which an intended
experiential feedback called "Yes" appears, and the second part,
(1-P)S(1-P), represents the possibility that this feedback does not
appear.]{.underline}

[The symbol P is important: it represents the fact that the Process I
depends on *the intention of the action of the agent*: for example his
intention to place the Geiger counter here, not elsewhere, or his
intention to "attend to" whether this Geiger counter "fires" or
not.]{.underline}

Notice that Process I produces the *sum* of the two alternative possible
feedbacks, not just one or the other.

Since the feedback must either be "Yes" or "Not-Yes," one might think
that Process I, which *keeps* both "Yes" and "Not Yes" (= "No"), would
do nothing. But that is not correct! This point is made clear by
considering the identity

S = PSP + (1-P)S(1-P) + PS(1-P) + (1-P)SP

This identity shows that the state

[S is a sum of four parts, two of which are eliminated by Process
I.]{.underline}

This means that:

The Process I action, before any choice between "Yes" and "Not-Yes",
already affects the state being acted upon. And this action depends upon
P, which is determined by the intention of the agent.

That is the *key point*:

[Process I, specifies the effect upon a physical system of a *freely
chosen intentional action* described in psychological
terms.]{.underline}

*5. Process I: A dynamical psycho-physical bridge.*

Any scientific theory must specify connections between its theoretical
concepts and other experiences of the scientists who use it. In
classical physics this connection is part of a *metaphysical*
superstructure: it is not part of the core dynamical description. But in
quantum theory the Process I injects the effects of a psychologically
described action directly into the physically described theory, thereby
creating a *dynamical psycho-physical bridge.*

But the question arises: How can the effect of a psychologically
described action be injected into the dynamics of a physically described
system without upsetting causal structure of the latter.

The answer is this: Physicists have discovered an important and
unexpected property of nature. It pertains to observable phenomena that
depend upon microscopic properties that are *in principle inaccessible
to observation.* In such a situation we are *in principle* unable, due
to the lack of crucial micro-data, to give a complete causal description
of the observable phenomena. However, our principled inability to give a
complete causal account of the psychologically described phenomena, due
to this inherent gap in the micro-data, can be partially offset by
introducing into the theory, *instead of the inaccessible micro-data,*
the *psychologically described selection* *of an action* made upon the
system by an agent.

[That is, a (statistical) causal account can be achieved by replacing
the inaccessible micro-data by empirically available and controllable
data about human selections of actions!]{.underline}

*6. The active role of the mind of "The Observer" in Von Neumann quantum
theory.*

The Copenhagen procedure works very well in practice. However, the
bodies and brains of the human agents, and their devices, are parts of
the physical universe, and thus ought to be describable in physical
terms.

[The great mathematician and logician John von Neumann showed that the
bodies and brains of the agents, along with their measuring devices, can
be shifted into the physically described world, without disturbing
significantly the successes of quantum theory, *provided the
essential-to-the-theory mentalistically described free choices made by
the human agents are ascribed to the minds of these agents*, and the
mind of each agent is taken to act on the physically described brain of
that agent.]{.underline}

[(von Neumann, 1955: 421)]{.underline}

*In von Neumann quantum theory the psychologically described agent is
the mind of the participant, and what is acted upon is his or her
physically described brain.*

To summarize:

In Copenhagen quantum theory "The Observer" is taken to be the mind and
body of the human agent plus his measuring devices. The *system being
acted upon* is the system being probed by those devices. This has the
unphysical feature of leaving the bodies and brains of the human
participants, and their devices, out of the physically described
universe.

Von Neumann shifts the devices, and the bodies and brains of the human
agents, into the physically described universe, leaving only the *minds
of the participant-observers* on the psychologically described side.

*This shift does not eliminate the need to bring in the selections*:
these choices associated with Process I are still required in order to
bring the theoretical structure into practical accord with human
experience.

Thus von Neumann quantum theory *shifts* *the psychologically
described - and dynamically essential - selection process from the
agent, considered to be the total human person plus his measuring
devices, to the mind* *of the agent,* which acts on his brain.

[But this means that von Neumann quantum theory is, precisely, a
psycho-physical theory of the conscious brain.]{.underline}

*[It is this consequence of quantum theory that makes it profoundly
relevant to neuroscience, and that drives this conference!]{.underline}*

*Von Neumann's work carries the concepts and the mathematics developed
by quantum physicists to cope with the inaccessible-in-principle
micro-processing that bears upon the experimental data available to
atomic scientists over to the similar situation of neuroscientists
endeavoring to account causally for empirical phenomena pertaining to
mind-brain states involving inaccessible-in-principle micro-processing.*

[In regard to the inaccessibility of micro-data, and the availability
and controllability of data about the choices made by active human
agents, there is a close parallel between atomic physics and
neuroscience: Atomic scientists and neuroscientists are in the same
boat.]{.underline}

*7. The Quantum Zeno Effect and the causal efficacy of mental effort.*

The agent makes a choice that is intended to bring a certain experience
into his stream of consciousness. For example, his intention may be to
create the feedback of experiencing his arm rising, or experiencing a
Geiger counter set in a certain particular place.

I have emphasized that the orthodox theory gives no microcausal
explanation of the origin of the free choice associated with Process I.
However, one does have the feeling that one can, by willful effort, put
more or less consciousness onto one's mental processing. To capture this
intuition I make the assumption that the rapidity at which the Process I
actions occur can be increase by mental effort.

This assumption entails, by virtue of the quantum dynamical formulas,
that a person can, in principle, by increasing his mental effort, hold
an intention in place longer. This follows from the formula for the
transition from the state PSP at time t=0 to the state (1-P)S(t)(1-P) at
time t:

(1-P) exp --iHt PSP exp iHt (1-P) = Order t squared.

The point is that the terms of zeroth and first order in t are both zero
due to the von Neumann condition P=PP on the projection operator P.

This result entails that by increasing sufficiently the rapidity of the
Process I actions associated with a constant (or even slowly changing)
operator P, an agent can keep the state S of his or her brain in the
"Yes" subspace associated with states of the form PS(t)P.

This "holding-in-place" effect of rapidly repeated observation is known
as the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE). (Misra, 1977) It is a quantum effect,
which is not diminished by the very strong interaction of the brain with
its environment.

*8. Ramifications in Psychology.*

William James, in his chapter on Will, in the section entitled
\`\`Volitional effort is effort of attention,\'\' writes:

> \`\`Thus we find that we reach the heart of our inquiry into volition
> when we ask by what process is it that the thought of any given action
> comes to prevail stably in the mind.\'\' (James, 1892: 417)
>
> \`\`The essential achievement of the will, in short, when it is most
> \`voluntary,\' is to attend to a difficult object and hold it
> fast before the mind. \... Effort of attention is thus the essential
> phenomenon of will.\'\' (James 1892: 417)
>
> \`\`Everywhere, then, the function of effort is the same: to keep
> affirming and adopting the thought which, if left to itself, would
> slip away.\'\' (James 1892: 421)

Von Neumann quantum theory gives a dynamical explanation of how
psychologically described mental effort can hold in place the brain
state corresponding to an intentional action. *It
[explains]{.underline}*, *in terms of Process I and QZ*E, *the causal
efficacy of volition.*

Much has happened in psychology since the time of William James. I have
described in Stapp (2001) the non-trivial concordance of the quantum
predictions with the findings described by Harold Pashler (1998) in his
book *The psychology of attention.*

*9. Ramifications in Neuroscience.*

The situations in neuroscience and atomic science are essentially the
same. Due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, micro-properties such
as the velocities of the ions emerging from narrow ion channels, are in
principle unknowable. Thus the computation of the causal behavior of a
conscious brain is in principle impossible. Thus just as in atomic
physics, and indeed as a direct consequence of the basic principle of
atomic physics, there is both room for, and , at least at the practical
level, a rational need for, the input of psychologically described data
that can according to quantum theory be rationally treated as
replacements of the accessible-in-principle micro-properties. According
to orthodox quantum theory, the micro-properties postulated by classical
physical theory simply do not exist, or at least play no practically
useful role in science, but this dynamical gap can be partially filled
by accepting the psychologically describable and partially controllable
data pertaining to conscious human choices about how to act as primary
data describing pragmatically independent realities.

The breakdown in principle of the possibility a complete bottom-up
micro-local causal description opens the door to the quantum
psycho-physical description, which consistently combines the bottom-up
micro-local Process II with the top-down mentally controlled Process I.

Francis Crick and Christoff Koch have published recently in Nature
*neuroscience* a Commentary entitled "A framework for consciousness."
(Crick, 2003), They explain that their framework will "not have rigid
laws as physics does." But they put forth a ten-fold "point of view for
an attack on" the scientific problem of consciousness. Much of their
proposal focuses on neuro-anatomical details. But the general features
of their framework are in very good agreement with the quantum
psycho-physical framework described in Stapp (1993).

C&K explain that they are, in this initial phase of their program,
restricting themselves to "attempting to find the neural correlates of
consciousness (NCN), in the hope that when we can explain the NCC in
causal terms, this will make the problem of qualia clearer." But what
does a causal account dealing only with the neural correlates of
consciousness say about the causal properties of the conscious realities
themselves?

1.  *The (unconscious?) homunculus*. C&K speak of the "overwhelming
    illusion" of the existence of a consciousness homunculus, and
    suggest that this illusion may "reflect in some way the general
    organization of the brain." But how do they conclude that the
    overwhelming intuition that our thoughts can influence our actions
    is an illusion? The only basis for that allegation is the
    known-to-be-false classical physical theory. What is the rational
    basis for denying the validity of this overwhelming intuition,
    rather than denying the validity of that provably false theory, and
    accepting, instead, the relevance of the validated physical theory
    that validates this overwhelming intuition?

2.  *Zombie modes and consciousness*. C&K say "Consciousness deals more
    slowly with ... and takes time to decide on appropriate thoughts and
    actions." But how can conscious, or conscious decisions, *deal* with
    anything if only their neural correlates are considered. *Some*
    property beyond mere correlation is needed for consciousness to be
    able to deal with anything, or to decide on actions. The quantum
    psycho-physical theory justifies this causal language.

3.  *Coalitions of neurons.* C&K say that the winning coalition
    "embodies what we are conscious of" and "produces consciousness."
    But how does a coalition "produce" consciousness, within the
    framework of classical physics? All that can ever be derived or
    deduced from the principles of classical physics are combinations of
    simple mathematical properties imbedded in space-time, and
    functional properties deducible from them. The concept of "producing
    consciousness" is not part of classical physics. If one wants to
    argue that this "production of consciousness" property is an
    ontological aspect of the classical world that is not captured by
    the classical principles, there is the difficulty that there can be
    no ontological reality that is even *compatible* with the classical
    principles, and that ties into experience in a natural way. Is it,
    therefore, not more rational to accept the theory that quantum
    theorists have already discovered, and extensively studied and
    verified, which, in its orthodox formulation, brings consciousness
    into the theory in a rationally coherent and practically useful
    manner?

*4. (7)Snapshots.* C&K say, "We propose that conscious awareness (for
vision) is a series of static snapshots, with 'motion' painted onto
them." "Perception occurs in discrete epochs." This refers to
"awareness" and "perception", but presumably it must be the NCC that has
these discrete epochs. But dynamical discreteness is incompatible with
classical physics. However, a series of discrete conscious events is
exactly what quantum theory gives. (Stapp, 1993: 158)

*5. (8)Attention and binding.* C&K say "Attention can usefully be

divided into two forms: either rapid, saliency driven and

bottom-up or slower volitionally controlled and top-down." The quantum
approach *explains* the occurrence of these two kinds of attention, and
also binding, as a consequence of the basic laws of physics. The
micro-causal Process II is high-speed, saliency-driven, and parallel,
whereas the nonlocal, integrative, and effortfully deliberative Process
I consists of a *series* of similar actions held in place by the Quantum
Zeno Effect. The extensive body of work in the book by Pashler (1998)
that focuses on these questions has been examined (Stapp, 2001), and
shown to be in good accord with quantum theory.

The quantum psycho-physical theory of the conscious brain is, like
quantum theory in general, a *pragmatic* theory. It is set within the
framework of communicable descriptions of our intentional actions, and
the experiential feedbacks that result from these actions. It justifies
*dynamically* our intuition that our psychologically described mental
efforts are able to influence our mental and physical behavior in the
way that we feel they do. Thus science becomes intelligible: our
physical communications are allowed to convey the real knowledge,
information, instructions, and meanings that they do in fact carry. They
do the job of communicating physically efficacious ideas, rather than
being physical vibrations that encode instructions passing between
complex biological computers that mysteriously produce, in some
presently (and surely eternally) incomprehensible mechanical way, the
*illusion* that our thoughts themselves are doing what we think they are
doing.

But why should neuroscience bind itself to this essentially seventeenth
century approach based on logically inadequate principles and
known-to-be-non-existent entities when contemporary physical theory
provides a rationally coherent alternative that accords with all the new
and old physics data, and that brings consciousness into the theory at
the foundational level, in close mathematically controlled coordination
with the physically described brain.

Shifting to the quantum psycho-physical approach to the mind-brain
problem means switching to a new research posture. The objective is no
longer to explain how a classically conceived brain can "produce" or
"be" psychologically experienced consciousness. It is rather to
elucidate the respective roles of the physically described brain and
psychologically described mind in the determination of the content and
timings of the stream of conscious Process I actions.

**[References.]{.underline}**

Bohr, Niels (1958). *Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge*. New

York: Wiley.

Bohr, Niels (1963). *Essays 1958/1962 on* *Atomic Physics and*

*Human Knowledge*. New York: Wiley.

Crick, Francis and Christoff Koch (2003). A framework for

consciousness. *Nature* *neuroscience,* 6, 119-126.

James, William (1892). Psychology: The briefer course. In *William*

*James: Writings 1879-1899*. New York: Library of America (1992).

Misra, B & E.C.G. Sudarshan (1977). The Zeno's paradox in

quantum theory. *J. Math Phys*. 18, 756-763.

Pashler, Harold (1998). The psychology of attention. Cambridge:

MIT Press.

Stapp, Henry P. (2001). Quantum theory and the role of mind in

nature. *Found. of P*hys., 11, 1465-1499.

Stapp, Henry P. (1993). *Mind, matter, and quantum mechanics*.

New York: Springer-Verlag.

Von Neumann, John (1955). *Mathematical foundations of quantum*

*mechanics*. Princeton: Princeton University Press.