**Appendix F. Science, Free Will, and Morality.**

The title of this appendix identifies the central topic of the entire
book. But it may be useful, now, to distill out the essence of the
argument by contrasting it with the principal contemporary alternative
approach to the issue.

Advances in the scientific understanding of the connection between our
minds and our brains can be expected to have important applications in
the treatment of medical and psychological aliments. But an issue of far
greater ultimate importance is the impact of the new developments in
science on the foundations of moral philosophy. For at the present stage
of technological development it is human values that largely control
human destiny.

For the past few centuries the main impact of science on moral issues
has stemmed from the fact that the concepts of classical physics entail
a materialist conception of nature, in which each human being is reduced
to a set of cogs in a giant machine. Each of us becomes, according to
that view, a mere puppet whose every act is controlled by mindless
microscopic entities, which are themselves completely controlled by
simple mechanistic laws or rules. By *mechanistic* I specifically mean
"local deterministic": each elementary entity, at each instant of time,
is located essentially at a point in space, and its immediate future is
completely fixed by the physical states of its immediate neighbors. Thus
the entire course of world history, from big bang to big crunch (or
forever, if the universe lives forever), is fixed already at the
"beginning of time", or at some early primordial time. Such a
mechanistic universe is, according the way most people use the words
"free will", quite devoid of that property. Thus, just as we normally
say that a mechanical robot lacks free will, so must we say the same of
ourselves, insofar as this mechanistic/materialistic world view is
accepted. But how can one reconcile this "scientific" conclusion with
the notion of personal responsibility that normally underlies our moral
precepts. That is the formidable problem raised by adoption of the world
view of classical physics.

Some philosophers have resolutely set themselves the task of reconciling
mechanistic materialism of classical physics with the concepts of free
will and personal responsibility that underlie our usual precepts of
morality. None has tried harder than Daniel Dennett. In his recent book
*Freedom Evolves* he views much of his 30-year output of books, from his
1984 book *Elbow Room*, through *Consciousness Explained* and *Darwin's
Dangerous Idea* as the erection of the foundations for his attack on
this difficult problem. But, hard as he has tried, people have seemed
incapable of properly understanding his main points, namely that "Our
minds are just what our brains non-miraculously do,..."(p.xi) and that
this premise is compatible with conscious "free will".

Dennett's main premise is a simple one, namely the "identity theory"
thesis that each conscious thought is the very same thing as some brain
activity, and, moreover, that brain activities can be regarded as
being\-\--insofar as they bear on these issues\-\--governed by the
mechanistic-deterministic laws of nineteenth century classical physics.
But an understanding of his approach seem to be eluding even his most
sympathetic readers. He is frustrated (p. 20) with the defection of
Steve Pinker, who he had classified as one of the "responsible, cautious
naturalists" like himself, but who continues to dally with what Dennett
describes as the "mysterian doctrine of consciousness", and with the
fact that Robert Wright, who he says gives a fine presentation of most
of the ideas that he will be presenting, is unable to fully support his
"uncompromising materialism". This "mysterian doctrine of consiousness"
appears to be the notion that our conscious thoughts and
feelings\-\--those elements of our the streams of consciousness that are
the only true realities that we actually know\-\--are not identical to
the mental inventions of that great alchemist, Isaac Newton, and that
any deviation from nineteenth century classical mechanistic determinism
means "defying the laws of physics" (p.1), in spite of the quite
contrary findings of twentieth-century physics.

He mentions a book by Richard Dooling that includes an "insightful and
accurate" précis of his theory of conscious, but then "gets the part
about free will dead wrong, *just the way that some neuroscientists have
done*." (Dennett's italics.) Thus Dennett, in spite of his intensive
long-term effort to explain and defend his ideas, seem to be unable to
get some very serious like-minded people to correctly understand him, or
agree with him.

So what is going on here? The people he cites seem to be sympathetic
with his ideas, but then, in the end, cannot understand him, and even
get key points dead wrong. Why are his ideas so hard to communicate?

Dennett (p. 224) quotes Tom Wolfe as noting that he (along with E. O.
Wilson and Richard Dawkings) are "presenting elegant arguments" as to
why mechanistic materialism does not diminish our self-image, but that
the message "is not rippling out to the public. ...The conclusion people
out beyond the laboratory are drawing is: *The fix is in! We are all
hardwired!* That, and: *Don't blame me! I'm wired wrong!"*

Dennett notes (p. 226) that he has already discussed this matter of the
status of free will and morality in *Consciousness Explained*, "but that
discussion was obscure and difficult and needs refreshing." But the
extreme difficulty with Dennett's position, testified to by the fact
that he was written books and books about it and yet smart people still
don't get it, suggests that maybe he is trying, with great cleverness,
to prove true a false idea, namely the compatibility of (1), the idea
that each of us is a mechanically controlled automaton, with (2), the
claim that each of us has a free will that adequately undergirds
personal responsibility and our ability to act morally. Dennett says (p.
223) that "I've finally come to the conclusion that some people like the
confusion." But the people involved here include intelligent
philosophers and scientist who are diligently striving to root out
confusion. Why are thirty years of books insufficient to get across his
thesis to people such as these?

Dennett's view stems from a basic commitment to the mechanistic
determinism of classical physics, coupled with the idea that
consciousness is not an idle bystander. These commitments lead naturally
to "identity theory", to the idea that consciousness is not a *partner*
with matter, but *is, itself,* mechanistically deterministic
brain-matter in action. His efforts to reconcile this highly restricted
ontology with rational moral philosophy seem almost self contradictory.
Thus he extols Daniel Wegner's book *The Illusion of Conscious Will* by
saying (p. 224): "I think Wegner's account of conscious will is the best
I have ever seen." But then he rejects Wegner's basic claim, and asserts
the exact opposite, in a move that he downplays as a mere *tactical*
difference. He says that "Wegner thinks it is less misleading, more
effective, to say that conscious will is an illusion" but that he,
Dennett, thinks it the better 'tactic' is "to make *the same points* by
saying that no, free will is not an illusion."

In order to construct a rational moral philosophy concordant with
classical physics Dennett wants to say that we are mechanistically
deterministic beings that enjoy free will. This position requires a
twisting of the usual meanings of words that does not seems to fly: even
those who generally agree with him seem unable to go along with these
tamperings with normal meanings attached to the words he uses.

This commentary on Dennett's efforts to reconcile mechanistic
determinism with rational moral philosophy is meant to emphasize that
this is not a problem that can be justifiably claimed to have now been
well resolved by philosophers. Books and books have been written, it is
true, but great volumes of argumentation and re-argumentation alone is
insufficient, and indeed is a cause for serious doubt.

Dennett claims (p. 14) that his "fundamental perspective is naturalism,
the idea that philosophical investigations are not superior to, or prior
to, investigations of the natural sciences, but in partnership with
those truth-seeking enterprises, and that the proper job for
philosophers here is to clarify and unify the often warring perspectives
into a single vision of the universe. That means welcoming the bounty of
well-won scientific discoveries and theories..." Accordingly, he
welcomes the nineteenth century offering of Darwinism. But he
effectively rejects, or rather grossly misunderstands, the equally
important (in this context) twentieth-century offerings of quantum
theory.

In his chapter 4, Dennett considers the idea that the indeterminism of
quantum theory might open the door to the entry of a free will that can
be useful in the construction of a rational moral philosophy. He poses
the key question: "How can the indeterminism of quantum physics be
harnessed to give us a clear, coherent picture of a human agent
exercising this wonderful free will?" But he then poses the question in
a completely different way: "How, exactly, could subatomic indeterminism
yield free will?" Then, rather than considering quantum theory itself,
he goes on at great length to discredit a model constructed by Robert
Kane, who introduces a *random element* of indeterminism to break the
absolute determinism of classical physics in the hope of thereby
exploiting quantum theory to open the way for a satisfactory free will.
However, the reduction of free-willed choice to an ultimately whimsical
choice certainly cannot provide a rational basis for morality. What is
needed is not the injection into human behavior of whimsy. It is rather
what quantum theory so neatly provides, namely the *suppression* *of
chance and randomness* by choices stemming from a process arising not
from either the mindless motions atoms or meaningless bits of noise, but
rather from the wholeness, the meanings, and the physical efficacy of
our conscious thoughts.

Later on (p. 223) Dennett asserts that he believes there is a morally
important non-supernatural free will, but that it is "just not what you
probably thought it was." But what does the scientifically knowledgeable
reader think non-supernatural free will is?

Nature indeed contains thoughts and feelings: they are *real* parts of
the natural world. Both Dennett and physics agree that they are causally
efficacious, and are in some sense "free". But it is his own
*pre-judgment*, not science, that insists that these components of our
streams of consciousness are *identical* to mechanical material
processes. It is that rigid commitment to the ideology of classical
physics is the basic source of the difficulties he faces: it foists upon
him the impossible task of showing that mechanically deterministic
automata possess conscious free wills that can underlie rational moral
philosophy.

The bounty offered by quantum theory is not the introduction of
meaningless whimsy. It is the introduction of immaterial causes. The
indeterminism introduce by quantum theory comes in two forms. One
consists of the random "choices on the part of nature". These conform to
certain statistical laws linked the quantum theoretic mathematical
structure that *replaces* the "material" structure postulated by
classical physics. The other form of indeterminism stems from a
physically efficacious consciousness that is "free" in the sense that it
is not fixed by any *yet*-*known, or mechanical,* laws These
consciousness-based choices are perhaps the most *real* elements in
quantum theory: the whole theory is built around these conscious "free"
choices on the part of human agents. They are the *least supernatural*
element in science. Mathematical representations, formed in our
endlessly creative imaginations, of some assumed-to-exist objective
world 'out there' can come and go, and can morph in strange ways. But
our choices about we act will probably remain a stable element of
science, because we can discover more useful features of nature by
acting in diverse ways and observing the feedback than by a mere passive
witnessing. Our consciously experienced probing actions are fundaments
of human life, and of both science in general and quantum theory in
particular.

Dennett correctly poses the key question: "How can the indeterminism of
quantum physics be harnessed to give us a clear, coherent picture of a
human agent exercising this wonderful free will?" The basic thrust of
this book has been to give a specific answer to this question, together
with the background needed to understand that answer. In brief, the
answer is that the quantum Zeno effect provides a nonlocal
consciousness-driven mechanism that permits a person's conscious choices
to exercise significant effective control over his or her own brain
activities.

Left unaddressed, however, was the task of specifying the causal origin
of these conscious choices.

Pursuit of this important question takes us beyond the realm of
contemporary physical theory. I have taken great pains to keep the
content of this book securely in line with orthodox contemporary
physics, by which I mean the main-line Copenhagen interpretation, extend
by the work of John von Neumann to cover human brains.

But now, with a strong warning that I am venturing into a realm of
speculative philosophy where contemporary physics provides no orthodoxy,
I shall tackle this remaining issue in a way that appeals to my own
personal intuitions. No claim is made that these speculations represent
the best thinking of physicists or of philosophers. They are simply my
own best guesses, for what they are worth, unsupported by any data.
Educated guesses, compatible with what is already known, are a
preliminary part of science.

The issue here is the causes of the conscious choices made by the human
agents about how they will act. My own prejudice is that nothing happens
without a cause: that there is no pure whimsy, and that the next step in
basic science will embrace the idea of a process of a "coming into
being" that converts "potentialities" into "actualities", as suggested
by Heisenberg. But nothing definite can come into being simply "out of
the blue". So these choices must have some reason to be what they turn
out to be, instead of something else. Indeed, we seem to be at least
dimly aware of some of our reasons for making the choices that we make,
and psychiatrists, and more recently neuroscientists, have made claims
about such cause that are not completely at odds with empirical
evidence. How can such causes be understood in a way concordant with
quantum theory?

I begin with the supposition that the "free choices on the part of the
human agents" that quantum orthodoxy is built upon do exist (or at least
that a rationally coherent science-based understanding of the structure
of human experience is possible in which these choices do exist) and
that these "free" choices do have necessary and sufficient causes, i.e.,
reasons to be what they turn out to be, instead of something else. In
other words, I am starting with orthodox contemporary quantum theory,
and trying to complete it in a way that makes it part of an ontology
that explains the nature of the factors that determine the "free
choices" of orthodox contemporary physics.

I assume that our choices do not pop out of nothingness, and are in fact
influenced by our prior experiences. This influence, or correlation,
must be accounted for by a complete theory of nature. Quantum theory is
not a complete theory of nature, because it does not explain the causes
of our "free" choices.

The mathematical structure of quantum field theory asserts that whereas
the evolution of the quantum (i.e., physical) state of a system in
accordance with von Neumann's Process 2 is essentially mechanistic
(i.e., locally deterministic), the interventions of Process 1 are
essentially non-mechanistic (i.e., nonlocal): the effects of these
interventions act instantaneously over extended spatial regions and
have, moreover, instantaneous (i.e., faster than light) effects far
away. The Process 1 interventions represent "observations" or
"actualizations of particular potentialities from amongst those
specified by the prior quantum state".

The simplest way to impose a modicum of regularity on this structure is
to suppose that there are a huge variety of possible *qualities* that
can be combined in a great variety of ways in a Process 1 event. Each
such event "occurs" at some instant of time and covers some fixed region
of three-dimensional space. Some of these "qualities" are
proto-experiential, whereas others, such as the experiential quality of
greenness, or the sorrow at the death of a beloved companion, are
conceptualized in psychological or experiential terms.

The simpler qualities can combine to give experiences of the kind that
populate our streams of conscious experiences. Each Process 1 event, or
happening, or actual occasion, is a gathering together, or prehension,
of a generally large number of these (proto) experiential qualities, in
some fixed region of space at some instant of time. There are rules that
specify which sorts of qualities can be prehended in unison to form an
actual Process 1 event. Each actually occurring event creates
potentialities for future events, which re-manifest, in newly combined
and created ways, the qualities of various earlier events.

The qualities of earlier events are conveyed to later ones along paths
in space-time that are associated also with the conveyance of
energy-momentum. The consequence is a dynamics of a sequence of
psychophysical events that from a space-time perspective look and behave
like possible scattering events in quantum field theory, with
energy-momentum flowing along space-time trajectories that connect the
space-time regions of earlier events to those later ones, but with each
such event associated also with the coming into being of an experience
that can serve as an input component of a subsequent psychophysical
event. Each such event is associated with reduction of the prior quantum
state (of the universe) to a new quantum state, in accordance with von
Neumann's dynamical rules of quantum theory. The event is associated
also with a creative integration and re-manifestation of experiences
drawn from the same events from which it draws its momentum-energy. The
structures of the experiences transported along the space-time
trajectories are asserted to be isomorphic to the physical structures
carried along these same trajectories in accordance with the rule of
quantum theory.

This model looks something like a quantum version of the identity
theory. At least there is an *isomorphism* of a certain set of
experientially described properties to an associated set of physically
described ones. But there are two big differences. The first is
nonlocality. The Process 1 reduction event is nonlocal, in the sense
that it happens instantaneously over an extended region. Process 2 is
the local process, but it generates only the "potentialities", not the
actual events themselves. *Potentialities*, like their classical
counterparts, evolve according to local laws, but *actualities* are
generated by the nonlocal Process 1. This process is *not* locally
deterministic: it is not "mechanical", in my terminology.

The second big difference is this distinction between (1), the
*potentialities*, which are governed\-\--between the interventions of
the Process 1 actions\-\--by purely physical laws, and (2), the
*actualities* which are created by the Process 1 interventions, which
are governed by psychological laws. The physically described features
governed by Process 2 specify only the *necessary* conditions for a
possible event, whereas the experiential aspects determine the
*sufficient* conditions for some particular one of the many a physically
allowed event to occur. In the classical theory the necessary and
sufficient conditions for an actual event to occur are not separated in
this way.

This model is in overall general agreement with the basic ideas of
Alfred North Whitehead (1929/1978). Many physicists, including Abner
Shimony (1993), Rudolf Haag (1996) and myself (Stapp, 1975,1977, 1979),
have noted the suitability of Whitehead's ideas as a foundation for a
completion of quantum theory. But a serious pursuit of this idea awaits
the arrival of secure data that is able to tie such speculations into
science.

However, even the mere sketch of this quantum model makes it apparent
that this ontology, because of the dynamical gap pertaining to the
causes of our choices of how we shall act, avoids the difficulty that
plagues Dennett, namely the problem how to ascribe "free will" to a
mechanistic automaton whose every act is controlled by the myopic
mindless determinism asserted to exist by classical physics. The Process
1 "free" choices of quantum are essential elements of the dynamics that
can give causal physical efficacy, acting within the confines imposed by
the purely mechanical processes, to the evaluative feelings residing in
our streams of conscious experiences.

Dennett is right to insist that conscious will is both natural and
non-illusory, but his frustrated endeavor to reconcile that claim with
mechanistic determinism is misguided, because the mechanistic
determinism of human behavior that he ascribes to science, is not
entailed by orthodox contemporary physics, which, on the other hand,
naturally accommodates the physical efficaciousness of conscious
volition.

This revision of the science has a profound impact upon moral issues.
The universe need no longer be viewed as the mechanical grinding out of
the consequences of simplistic microscopic laws and conditions, all
fixed at the beginning of time. It is rather, in ways we have yet to
fully understand, an arena for a play of ideas merely influenced, but
not fully determined, by local mechanisms. We are no longer reduced to
robotic caricatures of ourselves, but are seen to be creatures whose
volitional choices can be fixed in the end by the conscious
consideration of physically allowed actions.