**Minds and Values in the Quantum Universe.**

**The role of mind in nature.**

Copenhagen is truly the perfect setting for our endeavour. We have been
charged "to explore the current concept of matter from scientific,
philosophical, and theological perspectives." The essential foundation
for this work is the output of the intense intellectual struggles that
took place here in Copenhagen during the twenties, principally between
Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli. Those struggles
replaced the then-prevailing Newtonian idea of matter as "solid, massy,
hard, impenetrable, moveable particles" with a new concept that allowed,
and in fact demanded, the entry into the laws governing the motion of
matter of the consequences of decisions made by human subjects. This
change in the laws swept away the meaningless billiard-ball universe,
and replaced it with a universe in which we human beings, by means of
our intentional effort, can make a difference in how the "matter" in our
bodies behaves.

Unfortunately, most of the prevailing descriptions of quantum theory
tend to emphasize puzzles and paradoxes in a way that makes
philosophers, theologians, and even non-physicist scientists, leery of
actually using in any deep away the profound changes in our
understanding of man and nature wrought by the quantum revolution. Yet,
properly presented, quantum mechanics is thoroughly in line with our
deep human intuitions. It is the three hundred years of indoctrination
with basically false ideas about how nature works that now makes
puzzling a process that is completely in line with normal human
intuition. As my initial contribution to our work here I begin with a
non-paradox-laden description of the quantum universe and the place of
our minds within it.

The founders of quantum mechanics presented this theory to their
colleagues as essentially a set of rules about how to make predictions
pertaining to what we human observers will see, or other-wise
experience, under certain specified kinds of conditions. Classical
mechanics can, of course, be viewed in exactly the same way, but the two
theories differ profoundly in the natures of the predictions they make.

In classical mechanics the state of any system\-\--at some fixed time
t\-\-- is defined by giving the location and the velocity of every
particle in that system, and by giving also the analogous information
about the fields. All observers and their acts of observation are simply
parts of the evolving fully pre-determined physically described
universe. Within that framework the most complete prediction pertaining
to any specified time is simply the complete description of the state
the universe at that time. This complete description is in principle
predictable in terms of the laws of motion and the complete description
of the state of the universe at any other time.

Viewed from this classical perspective, even the *form* of the
predictions of quantum mechanics seems absurd. The basic prediction of
quantum theory is an answer to a question of the following kind: "If the
state of some system immediately before time t is the completely
specified state #1, then what is the probability of obtaining the answer
"Yes" if we perform at time t an experiment that will reveal to us
whether or not the system is in state #2"

Classical physics gives a simple answer to this question: the predicted
probability is unity or zero according to whether or not state #2 is the
same as state #1. But quantum theory gives an answer that generally is
neither unity nor zero, but some number in between.

The quantum structure is easily understood if we follow Heisenberg's
idea of introducing the Aristotelian idea of "potentia". A "*potentia*",
in Heisenberg's words, is an "objective tendency" for some event to
happen. Everything falls neatly in place if we assert\-\--or simply
recognize\-\--that the quantum state of a system specifies the
"objective tendency" for a quantum event to happen, where a *quantum
event* is the occurrence of some particular outcome of some particular
action performed upon the system. In short, the quantum state is best
conceived *in principle* exactly as it is conceived *in actual
practice*, namely as a compendium of the objective tendencies for the
appearances of the various physically possible outcomes of the various
physically possible probing actions. Once the action to be performed
upon the system is selected, the objective tendencies are expressed as
probabilities assigned to the various alternative possible outcomes of
that chosen action.

If one accepts as fundamental this Aristotelian idea of
"potentia"\-\--of objective tendencies\-\--then the whole scheme of
things becomes intuitively understandable. There is nothing
intrinsically incomprehensible about the idea of "tendencies". Indeed,
we build our lives upon this concept. However, three centuries of false
thinking has brought many physicists and philosophers to expect and
desire an understanding of nature in which everything is completely
predetermined in terms of the physically described aspects of nature
*alone*. Contemporary physics violates that classical ideal. Bowing
partially to advances in physics, these thinkers have accepted the entry
of "randomness"\-\--of mathematically controlled chance\-\--as something
they can abide, and even embrace. However, there remains something
deeply galling to minds attuned to the conception of nature that reigned
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the possibility
that our human minds can introduce elements of definiteness into the
description of nature that the physically described processes of nature,
acting alone, leave unspecified.

The causal incompleteness of the physically described aspects of nature
entailed by this possibility is something that many physicists,
philosophers, and neuroscientists will go to extreme lengths to try to
circumvent. Yet such attempts all boil down, at present, to "promissory
materialism", for no one has yet shown how the interventions of our
minds\-\--or some surrogates\-\--required by contemporary orthodox
quantum theory can consistently be eliminated.

This seemingly unavoidable entry of mental realities into the laws of
physics arises in connection with the choice of which (probing) action
will be performed on a system being observed. Quantum theory places no
conditions, statistical or otherwise, on these choices. Consequently,
there is a "causal gap" in orthodox contemporary physics. This gap is
not in the choice of an *outcome*, which is mathematically controlled,
at least statistically. It is rather in the choice of which of the
physically possible probing action will be undertaken. But the choices
of which actions a person will make are exactly the choices that are
important to religion, and more generally to moral philosophy. Thus
orthodox contemporary physical theory offers a conception of nature that
enforces, in a rationally coherent and massively confirmed way,
everything that physics says about the structure of human experience,
while leaving open the vitally important question of how we choose our
actions from among the possibilities proffered by the causally
incomplete physical laws.

**The large and the small.**

A main source of confusion in the popular conception of quantum
mechanics is a profound misunderstanding of the connection between the
large and the small. One repeatedly hears the mantra "quantum mechanics
concerns very small things whereas consciousness is related to large
scale activities in the brain. Therefore quantum mechanics is not
relevant to the problem of the connection between mind and brain".

Actually, the basic problem resolved by orthodox quantum theory is
precisely the problem of the connection between invisible small-scale
activities and the large-scale activities that are more directly
connected to conscious experience. The atomic-scale aspects of nature
considered alone are unproblematic: they are governed by local
deterministic laws that are well understood and logically manageable. It
is only when the consequences of the atomic-level processes are extended
to the macro-level (e.g., to Schroedinger's cat, or to Geiger counters,
or to human brains) that the radically new quantum features come into
play. It is only *then* that one encounters the seismic shift from a
continuous deterministic process to the Heisenberg/Aristotelian notion
of the "potentia" for psycho-physical events to occur.

The deeper aspects of quantum theory concern precisely the fact that the
purely physical laws of motion that work so well on the atomic scale
fail to account for the *observed* *properties* of large conglomerations
of atoms. It is *exactly* this problem of the connection between
physically described small-scale properties and directly experienced
large-scale properties that orthodox quantum theory successfully
resolves. To ignore this solution, and cling to the false precepts of
classical mechanics that leave mind and consciousness completely out of
the causal loop seems to be totally irrational. What fascination with
the weird and the incredible impels philosophers to adhere, on the one
hand, a known-to-be-false physical theory that implies that *all* of our
experiences of our thoughts influencing our actions are *illusions*, and
to reject, on the other hand, the offerings of its successor, which
naturally produces an image of ourselves that is fully concordant with
our normal intuitions, and can explain how bodily behaviour can be
influenced by *felt evaluations* that emerge from an aspect of reality
that is not adequately conceptualized in terms of the mechanistic notion
of bouncing billiard balls.

**Decoherence**

Decoherence effects are often cited as another reason why quantum
effects cannot be relevant to an understanding of the mind-brain
connection. Actually, however, decoherence effects are the basis both of
the mechanism whereby our thoughts can affect our actions, and of the
reconciliation of quantum theory with our basic intuitions.

The interaction of the various parts of the brain with their
environments has the effect of reducing an extremely complex
conceptualization of the state of the brain to something everybody can
readily understand. The quantum state of the brain is reduced by these
interactions to a collection of *parallel potentialities*, each of which
is essentially a classically conceivable possible state of the brain.
The word "essentially" highlights the fact that each of the classical
possibilities must be slightly smeared out to bring it into accord with
Heisenberg's uncertainly principle: the potential location and velocity
of the center of each particle is smeared out over a small region. This
conception of the quantum brain is intuitively accessible, and it is
made possible by (environment-induced) decoherence. This picture of the
brain captures very well the essence of the underlying mathematical
structure, and it can be used with confidence.

According to this picture, your physically described brain is an
evolving cloud of essentially classically conceivable potentialities.
Due to the uncertainty principle smearing, this cloud of potentialities
quickly expands to include the neural correlates of many mutually
exclusive possible experiences. Each human experience is an aspect of a
psycho-physical event whose psychologically described aspect is that
experience itself, and whose physically described aspect is the
reduction of the cloud of potentialities to those that contain the
neural correlate of that experience.

These psycho-physical actions/events are of two kinds. An action of the
first kind is a choice of how the observed system is to be probed. Each
such action decomposes the continuous cloud of potentialities into a set
of mutually exclusive but collectively exhaustive separate components.
An action of the second kind is a choice "on the part of nature" of
which of these alternative possible potentialities will be "actualized."
The actions of the second kind are predicted to conform to certain
quantum probably rules. An action of the first kind is called by Bohr "a
free choice on the part of the experimenter". It is controlled by no
known law or rule, statistical or otherwise.

Decoherence plays also another crucial role. The rules of quantum theory
allow a person to pose the question "Is my current state the same as a
certain one that I previously experienced." In the important cases where
a person wants to perform a certain action, the freedom of choice
allowed by quantum theory permits that person to ask the question "Is my
current state the one that on previous occasions usually lead to a
feedback that indicated the successful performance of that action?". The
answer may or may not be "Yes". If the answer is "Yes", then the neural
correlate of "Yes" will be actualized. It is reasonable to assume that
this neural correlate will be a large-scale pattern of brain activity
that, if actualized, will tend to cause the intended action to occur.

This tendency can be reinforced by exploiting the person's
capacity\-\--within the framework of the quantum laws\-\--*to* *pose a
question of his or her own* *choosing at any time of his or her own
choosing.* This freedom can be used to activate a decoherence effect
called the quantum Zeno effect. This effect can cause the neural
correlate of the "Yes" outcome to be held in place for longer than would
otherwise be the case, provided the intentional effort to perform the
action causes the same question to be posed repeatedly in sufficiently
rapid succession The freedom to do this is allowed by the quantum rules.
The quantum Zeno effect is a decoherence effect, and it is not
diminished by the environment-induced decoherence: it survives intact in
a large, warm, wet brain.

The upshot of all this is that the arguments that were supposed to show
why quantum mechanics is not relevant to the mind-body problem all
backfire, and end up supporting the viability of a quantum mechanical
solution that is completely in line with our normal intuitions. One need
only accept what orthodox quantum mechanics insists upon\-\--to the
extent that it goes beyond an agnostic or pragmatic stance\-\--namely
that the physically described world is a not world of material
substances, as normally conceived, but is rather a world of
potentialities for future experiences.

Given this new playing field we may commence dialogs pertaining to the
remaining, and vitally key, issue, namely the origin and significance of
the felt evaluations that seem to guide our actions. These evaluations
appear to come from an experiential or spiritual realm, and are
certainly allowed by quantum theory to have the effects that they seem
to have. But before turning to these core questions it may be useful
first to elaborate upon some aspects of the preceding remarks, written
prior to knowing what the other conferees would say, in ways that
respond to their remarks.

**The intuitive character of quantum theory.**

I claimed above that quantum mechanics, properly presented, and more
specifically the quantum mechanical conception of nature, was in line
with intuition. It is rather classical physics that is non-intuitive. It
is only the viewing the quantum understanding of nature from the
classical perspective, generated by three centuries of indoctrination,
that makes the quantum conception appear non-intuitive

Some other speakers, following common opinion, have said just the
opposite.

Ernan McMullin has given here a brief account of the history, in
philosophy and in physics, of the meaning of "matter". Aristotle
introduced essentially this term in connection with the notion of
"materials for making", such as timber. The Neo-Platonists used it in
contrast to the "spiritual" aspects of reality. In the 17th ,18th, &
19th centuries it became used to denote the carrier of the small set of
properties that, according to the then-ascendant "mechanical
philosophy", were the only properties that were needed to account for
all changes in the visible world. These properties, called "physical
properties" were considered to be "objective", in contrast to the
"subjective" properties", which are "dependent in one way or another on
the perceiver."

McMullin described the two millennia of philosophical wanderings and
wonderings about the "stuff" out of which nature was built that occurred
between the time of the Ionian philosophers and the invention of the
classical conception by Isaac Newton.. This account make clear the fact
that the classical conception of nature not the direct product of innate
human intuition. School children need to be *taught* that the
solid-looking table is "really" mostly empty space, in which tiny atomic
particles are buzzing around. And this conception leave
unanswered\-\--and unanswerable in any way that builds rationally upon
that classical conception\-\--the question: "How do our subjective
experiences of the visible properties emerge from this conceptually and
causally self-sufficient classically conceived reality?"

The really deepest human intuition is not the immediate grasping of the
classical-physics-type character of the external world. It is rather
that ones' own conscious subjective efforts can influence the
experiences that follow. Any conception of nature that makes this deep
intuition an illusion is counter-intuitive. Any conception of reality
that cannot explain how our conscious efforts influence our bodily
actions is problematic. What is actually deeply intuitive is the
continually reconfirmed fact that our conscious efforts can influence
certain kinds of experiential feedback. A putatively rational scientific
theory needs at the very least to explain this connection in a rational
way to be in line with intuition.

As regards the quantum mechanical conception, McMullin calls it
"problematic" and "counter-intuitive." Seth Lloyd calls it
"counter-intuitive" and "weird". Let me explain why the opposite is
true. Why contemporary opinion to the contrary is the product of a
distorted viewpoint that is itself counter-intuitive, but has, in spite
of its serious technical failings and inadequacies, been pounded into
"informed" human thinking by three hundred years of intense
indoctrination.

The original (Copenhagen) interpretation of quantum theory was pragmatic
and epistemological : it eschewed ontology. It avoided all commitments
about what really exists! Von Neumann retained and rigorized the
essential mathematical precepts of the Coponhagen interpretation but, by
developing the mind-matter parallelism of the Copenhagen conception,
brought the bodies and brains of the human observer/experimenter into
the world understood to be made of atoms, molecules and the like. Von
Neumann's formulation (called "the orthodox interpretation " by Wigner)
prepared the way for an imbedding ontology. This extension made by von
Neumann is the basis of all attempts by physicists to go beyond the
epistemological/pragmatic Copenhagen stance, and give an account of the
reality that lies behind the phenomena.

Bohr sought to provide an adequate understanding of quantum theory, and
our place within that understanding, that stayed strictly within the
epistemological framework. Heisenberg, however, was willing to opine
about "what was really happening".

Reality, according to Heisenberg, is built out not out of matter, as
matter was conceived of in classical physics, but out of psycho-physical
*events*\-\--events with certain aspects that are described in the
language of psychology and with other aspects that are described in the
mathematical language of physics\-\--and out of *objective tendencies*
for such events to occur. "The probability function ...represents a
tendency for events and our knowledge of events. " (Heisenberg, 1958.
p.46) "The observation... enforces the description in space and time but
breaks the determined continuity by changing our knowledge." (ibid, p.
49-50) "The transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place
during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens ...we
have to realize that the word 'happens' can apply only to the
observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations."
(ibid, p. 54) "The probability function combines objective and
subjective elements. It contains statements about possibilities or
better tendencies ('potentia' in Aristotelian philosopy), and these
statements are completely objective, they do not depend on any observer;
and it contain statements about our knowledge of the system, which of
course are subjective, in so far as they may be different for different
observers. (ibid, p, 53).

Perhaps the most important change in the theory, vis-à-vis classical
physics, was its injection of the thoughts and intentions of the human
experimenter/observer into the physical dynamics; "As Bohr put it...in
the drama of existence we ourselves are both players and spectators.
...our own activity becomes very important..." (ibid, p. 58) "The
probability function can be connected to reality only if one essential
condition is fulfilled: if a new measurement is made to determine a
*certain* property of the system. (ibid, p. 48, my italics). Bohr: "The
freedom of experimentation ...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)

This "choice on the part of the 'observer' " is represented in the
mathematical formalism by von Neumann's "process 1" intervention (von
Neumann, 1932/1952, p. 351, 418) It is the first\-\--and absolutely
essential\-\--part of the process leading up to the final actualization
of a new "reduced" state of the system being probed by the human agent..
This "process 1" action partitions the existing state, which represents
a continuous smear of potentially experiencible possibilities into a
(countable) set of experientially distinct possibilities. There is
nothing known in the mathematical description that determines the
specifics of this *logically needed* reduction of a continuum to a
collection of distinct possibilities, each associated with a different
possible increment of knowledge. Also the *moment at which* a particular
process 1 action occurs is not specified by the orthodox quantum
mathematical formalism. This choice of *timing* it is part of what seems
to be, and in actual practice is, determined by the observer's free
choice". These basic features of quantum mechanics provide the basis for
a rational and natural quantum dynamical explanation of how a person's
conscious effortful intents can affect his or her bodily actions.

Many of our conscious experiences are associated with a certain element
of intent and effort, and it may be that *every* conscious experience,
no matter how spontaneous or passive it seems to be, has *some* degree
of focusing of attention associated with it. An increase in the
effortful intention associated with a thought intensifies the associated
experience. Hence it is reasonable to assume that an application of
effort increases the repetition rate a sequence of essentially
equivalent events.

If the rapidity of the process 1 events associated with a given intent
is great enough then, as a direct consequence of the quantum laws of
change, the neural correlate of that intent will become almost frozen in
place. This well known and much studied effect is called the "quantum
Zeno effect".

The neural correlate of an intent to act in a certain way would
naturally be a pattern of neural activity that tends to cause the
intended action to occur. Holding this pattern in place for an extended
period ought strongly to tend to make that action occur. Thus a
prominent and deeply appreciated gap in the dynamical completeness of
orthodox quantum mechanics can be filled in a very natural way that
renders our conscious efforts causally efficacious.

By virtue of this filling of the causal gap, the most important demand
of intuition, namely that one's conscious efforts have the capacity to
affect one's own bodily actions, is beautifully met by the quantum
ontology. And in this age of computers, and information, and flashing
pixels there is nothing counterintuitive about the ontological idea that
nature is built\-\--not out of ponderous classically conceived matter
but\-\--out of events, and out of informational waves and signals that
create tendencies for these events to occur.

Whitehead deals with the undesirable anthropocentric character of the
Copenhagen epistemological position by making the associated
human-brain-based quantum objective/subjective events into special cases
of a non-anthropocentric general ontology.

Perhaps the main basis for the claim that quantum mechanics is *weird*
is the existence of what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance".
These effects are not only "spooky" but are also absolutely impossible
to achieve within the framework of classical physics. On the other hand,
if the conception of the physical world is changed from one made out of
tiny rock-like entities to a holistic global informational structure
that represents tendencies to real events to occur, and in which the
choice of which potentiality will be actualized in various places is in
the hands of human agents, there is no spookiness about the occurring
transfers of information. The postulated global informational structure
called the quantum state of the universe is the "spook" that does the
job. But it does so in a completely specified and understandable way,
and this renders it basically non spooky.

In short, the quantum conceptualization is not *intrinsically*
counterintuitive, problematic our weird. It becomes these things only
when viewed from a classical perspective that *is* *counterintuitive*
because it denies the causal efficacy of our intentional efforts, is
*problematic* because it provides no logical foundation upon which build
a rational understanding of the occurrence of subjective experience, and
is *weird* because leaves out the mental aspects of nature and chops the
body of nature into microscopic ontologically separate parts that can
communicate and interact only with immediate neighbors, thereby robbing
both conglomerates and the whole of any possibility of fundamental
wholeness or meaningfulness. It is the von Neuman process-1 actions that
inject the elements of wholeness and meaning into the quantum universe:
without these acts there is nothing but a continuous smear of
meaningless un-actualized possibilities.

**Information, God, and Values.**

Information, from the quantum theoretic perspective, is carried by the
physical structure that communicates the potentialities created by
earlier psycho-physical events to the later ones. This communication of
potentialities is an essential part of the process that creates the
unfolding and actualization in space and time of the growing sequence of
events that constitutes the history of the actual universe. Information
resides also in the psychologically described and physically described
aspects of these events themselves, and is created by these events.

The information that is created in a *computational process* imbedded in
nature resides in the bits that become actualized in this process. This
growing collection of bits depends upon the *partitionings* of the
quantum smear of possibilities that constitute the universe at some
instant (on some spacelike surface in the relativistic quantum field
theory description) into a set of discrete yes-no possibilities with
assigned probabilities. The actualized bits specify the tendencies for
future creations of bits. The partitionings specified by the process 1
actions thus lie at the base of the computational notion of information.

But how can these process-1 actions be understood. The partitioning of a
continuum into a particular (countable) set of discrete subsets requires
a prodigiously powerful choice. This motivates the assumption that the
descriptions that *appear to be* continuous within contemporary quantum
theory must really be discrete at some underlying level, provided
mathematical ideas hold at all at the underlying level.

These processes of choosing are in some ways analogous to the process of
choosing the initial boundary conditions and laws of the universe. That
is, the free choices made by the human players can be seen as miniature
versions of the choices that appear to be needed at the creation of the
universe. Quantum theory opens the door to, and indeed demands, the
making of these later free choices.

This situation is concordant with the idea of a powerful God that
creates the universe and its laws to get things started, but then
bequeaths part of this power to beings created in his own image, as
least with regard to their power to make physically efficacious
decisions on the basis of reasons and evaluations.

I see no way for contemporary science to disprove, or even render highly
unlikely, this religious interpretation of quantum theory, or to provide
strong evidence in support of an alternative picture of the nature of
these "free choices". These choices *seem to be* rooted in reasons that
are rooted in feelings pertaining to value or worth. Thus it can be
argued that quantum theory provides an opening for an idea of nature and
of our role within it that are in general accord with certain religious
concepts, which, on the other hand, are quite incompatible with the
precepts mechanistic deterministic classical physics. Thus the
replacement of classical mechanics by quantum mechanics opens the door
to religious possibilities that formerly were rationally excluded.

This conception of nature in which the consequences of our choices enter
not only directly in our immediate neighborhood but also *indirectly and
immediately* in far-flung places, alters image of the human being,
relative to the one spawned by classical physics. It changes the image
of the human being in a way that must tend to reduce a sense of
powerlessness, separateness, and isolation, and to enhance the sense of
responsibility and of *belonging*. Each person who understands him or
herself in this way, as a spark of the divine, with some small part of
the divine power, integrally interwoven into the process of the creation
of the psycho-physical universe, will be encouraged to participate in
the process of plumbing the potentialities of, and shaping the form of,
the unfolding quantum reality that it is his birthright to help create.

**References:
\[**http://www-physics.lbl.gov/\~stapp/stappfiles.html**\]**

> Quantum Physics in Neuroscience and Psychology: a Neurophysical Model
> of Mind-Brain Interaction (with Jeffrey Schwartz and Mario Beauregard)
>
> Philos. Trans. Royal Society B (2005) 360, 1309-1327.

Quantum Interactive Dualism: An Alternative to Materialism.

J. Consciousness Studies, 12 no. 11 43-59 (2005).

Basis Problem in Many-Worlds Theories

Can, J. Phys. 80 1042-53 (2002)

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

Anomalies. LBNL-59906. Invited contribution to special issue of
ERKENNTNIS

To be published in 2006.

> Quantum Approaches to Consciousness. LBNL-56279. May 13 2003.
>
> Entry in "Cambridge Handbook for Consciousness" To appear in 2006.
>
> Quantum Mechanical Theories of Consciousness. LBNL-56281
>
> Entry in "A Companion to Consciousness" Blackwell Publ.
>
> To appear in 2006.