**APPENDIX G: Comments on Searles' New Book.**

After the foregoing parts of this book were completed I chanced upon,
and read, John Searles' new book *MiND, a brief introduction*. In it he
describes briefly, in his usual lucid way, the chief topics of the
philosophy of mind, namely the Mind-Brain Connection, Consciousness,
Intentionality, Mental Causation, Free Will, Perception, and The Self.
He sketches out his reasons for believing that the views of most other
philosophers on these subjects are terribly mistaken, and then presents
his own views. By and large, Searle's answers lead in the direction of
the quantum approach described in this book. However, he develops his
approach while adhering to the classical-physics conception of what
basic science says. He admits that quantum theory may provide a way of
dealing with the unresolved problems, and cites this book in that
connection, but says he will ignore the quantum approach because he does
not understand it. (p. 46)

Generally, one cannot understand a fundamentally new idea until one sees
how to reconcile it with one's understandings of closely related topics.
Thus Searle's new summary of the whole field of philosophy of mind from
a viewpoint close to the quantum view provides me with a basis for
expanding the reader's understanding of the quantum approach by
explaining how the transition from quantum physics to classical physics
impacts upon the entire array of mind-related issues.

I have focused in this book upon the key technical point, namely the
fact that quantum theory does not merely introduce elements of
randomness and uncertainty into physics. More importantly, in the
present context, it entails the existence of human conscious choices
that are not themselves fixed by any yet-known laws, but that strongly
influence human behavior. The aim of this appendix is to explain the
impact of this critical change in basic physics upon the various
arguments put forth by Searle. Overall, the effect of this shift in
physics is to support Searle's ideas by showing how they work in
contemporary physical theory, and indicating how the remaining problems
are resolved by replacing the known-to-be-false precepts of classical
physics by the at-least-possibly-valid precepts of orthodox quantum
physics.

In the first one-third of his book Searle gives a quick survey of the
main ideas and arguments in contemporary philosophy of mind. He then
notes that

> In most philosophical subjects there is no sharp division between what
> the professionals believe and the opinions of the educated public. But
> on the issues discussed in this book there is an enormous difference
> between what most people believe and what the professional experts
> believe. I suppose most people in the Western world believe in some
> form of dualism. ...\[but\] Almost without exception, the professional
> experts in the field accept some version of materialism. (p.12)

The reason for this disparity is easy to see. Science and religion are
the twin foundations of the beliefs of the educated Western public.
Western science was erected upon René Descartes' separation of the human
mind from the human brain, i.e., on a dualistic conception of human
agents that is not incompatible with Christianity. Thus Western science,
at least at its inception, and Western religion were united in their
support of the dualistic idea that there are two differently described
aspects of nature, the mental and the physical, which interact within
human brains. On the other hand, professional philosophers, while
essentially unified in their opposition to dualistic ideas, have been
unable to arrive at a rationally coherent materialistic account of
nature. Instead of collectively presenting to the public a clearly
formulated materialistic theory of the world, they are incessantly
demolishing each other's attempts to do so.

Searle has moved slightly beyond this obsession of philosophers with
trying to explain how materialism can be true and dualism false. At the
end of the survey mentioned above Searle concludes that "we know
independently that both what dualism is trying to say and what
materialism is trying to say are true. Materialism is trying to say that
the world consists of physical particles in a field of force. Dualism is
trying to say that there are irreducible ineliminable mental features of
the world, consciousness and intentionality, in particular" (p. 106)

Searle's solution of the mind-brain problem is essentially to assert
that nature is causally materialistic and ontologically dualistic. The
dualistic aspect inheres in the fact that consciousness has a
"first-person ontology" whereas its neural substrate has a "third-person
ontology." Thus conscious activities and neural activities are
ontologically different. Both are real, but the former cannot be
eliminated or reduced to the latter because the two are ontologically
different.

Searle's claim that nature is causally materialistic rests essentially
on his recitation of "known facts": "We know for a fact that all of our
mental processes are caused by neurobiological process" (p. 114): "We
know for a fact that they \[my feelings of thirst\] are caused by neural
processes" (p.115).

> But what are these feelings of thirst exactly? Where and how do they
> exist? They are conscious processes going on in the brain, and in that
> sense they are features of the brain. ... Just so this does not sound
> like I am vaguely talking about how things might be as opposed to how
> they actually are in fact, let me nail the whole issue down to reality
> by summarizing some of what we know about how brain processes cause
> feelings of thirst. Suppose an animal gets a shortage of water in his
> system. The shortage of water will cause 'saline imbalances' in the
> system, because the ratio of salt to water is excessive in favor of
> salt. This triggers certain activities in the kidney. The kidneys
> secrete rennin, and the rennin synthesizes a substance called
> angiotensin 2. This substance gets inside the hypothalamus and affects
> the rate of neuron firings. As far as we know the differential rates
> of neuron firings cause the animal to feel thirst. ... All conscious
> states are caused by lower-level neuronal processes in the brain
> ...and they exist as biological features of the brain system. (p.
> 112/113)

Most of this scenario is presented as completely known and certain. But
one step is curiously different from the others. All the causal steps
from molecules up and including neuron behavior, but not including the
appearance of the *feeling* (of thirst), are described in terms of
physical substances, composed of physical particles, and are presented
as known certainties, presumably because such particles, and hence the
structures built out of them, are controlled by the laws of physics,
whereas the fact that the changed rates of neural firings "cause the
animal to feel thirst" is qualified by "as far as we know". Indeed,
there is, according to the precepts of classical physics, a big
difference between the claim that one physically described process
*causes* another physically described process and the claim that a
physically described process *causes* a psychologically described
feeling to occur. The laws of classical physics directly specify causal
connections between different physically described processes, but do not
directly specify any causal connection between the physically described
aspects of nature, as described in physics text books, and the
psychologically described "feelings" that occur in our streams of
consciousness. Indeed, the universally recognized great virtue of
classical physical theory was precisely that its physical laws avoided
any mention of psychologically described entities. But the claim that
saline imbalances cause feelings of thirst seems, on the face of it, to
suggest the need for causal laws of a different kind, laws that connect
ontologically different kinds of things. Searle tries to dodge that
conclusion, and get effective psychophysical causation from purely
physical causation, by denying the idea (attributed to Descartes) that
no reality can be both physical and experiential. I shall argue that
this dodge fails: psycho-physical causation is needed, and quantum
theory provides it.

Searle states his ideas about consciousness as four theses (p. 113):

> 1 Conscious states, with their subjective, first-person ontology are
> real phenomena in the real world. We cannot do an eliminative
> reduction of consciousness showing that it is just an illusion. Nor
> can we reduce consciousness to its neurological basis, because such a
> third-person reduction would leave out the first-person ontology of
> consciousness.
>
> 2\. Conscious states are entirely caused by lower level
> neurobiological processes in the brain. Conscious states are thus
> *causally reducible* to neurobiological processes. They have
> absolutely no life of their own, independent of neurobiology. Causally
> speaking, they are not something "over and above" neurobiological
> process.
>
> 3\. Conscious states are realized in the brain as features of the
> brain system, and thus exist at a level higher than that of neurons
> and synapses. Individual neurons are not conscious but portions of the
> brain system composed of neurons are conscious.
>
> 4\. Because conscious states are real features of the real world they
> function causally. My thirst causes me to drink water for example. I
> will explain in detail how this works in chapter 7, Mental Causation.

Searle claims that "we know" all of these things to be true, but then
asks: "Why then does this apparently obvious solution encounter so much
resistence?" (p. 114). He answers that the difficulty is with "the
traditional categories": He claims, essentially, that the problem is
with our language and the associated concepts. I shall argue that the
error is rather than with the uncritical acceptance of the
known-to-be-false concepts of classical physics.

One problem with Searle's scheme is to understand why there is not
"causal over-determination." If the materialistic level of description
is already, by itself, causally complete, yet "My \[ontologically
different\] conscious thirst causes me to drink water" then the second
set of causes must be redundant. In Searle's words the problem is this:
"supposing... that the mind did play a causal role in producing our
bodily behavior, ... seems to get us out of the frying pan into the
fire, because now it looks like we have too many causes. It looks like
we have what philosophers call 'causal overdetermination.' It looks like
there would be two separate sets of causes making my arm go up, one
having to do with neurons the other having to do with conscious
intentionality."(p. 206)

Searle addresses this crucial issue in chapter 7, Mental Causation. He
lists four propositions (p.207):

1.  The mind-body distinction: the mental and the physical form distinct
    realms.

> 2\. The causal closure of the physical: the physical realm is causally
> closed

in the sense that nothing nonphysical can enter into it and act as a

cause \[in the physical realm\].

> 3\. The causal exclusion principle: where the physical causes are
> sufficient
>
> for an event, there cannot be any other types of causes of that event.
>
> 4\. Causal efficacy of the mental: mental states really do function
> causally
>
> \[in the physical realm.\]

I have added the bracketed phrases \[in the physical realm\], because an
action of mental states in the mental realm would not be pertinent in
this context.

The final three propositions are set forth as essentially known or
"accepted" truths. Proposition 2, the causal closure of the physical, is
supposed to be what is known from (classical) physics. Proposition 3
denies causal over-completeness. And Searle accepts Proposition 4 on the
basis of his direct impression of the causal efficacy of his conscious
efforts to, say, raise his arm. (p. 203), buttressed by the evolutionary
argument (p.233) that mental processes would have no natural tendency to
develop\-\--as they evidently have done during the evolution of our
species\-\--if they were causally inert in the physical world.

Searle notes that these four propositions are inconsistent, and claims
that "The mistake is expressed in proposition 1, the traditional
mind-body distinction." Thus he uses the inconsistency of the four
propositions to discredit Descartes' idea that the mental and physical
form ontologically distinct realms. This allows him to conclude that the
traditional vocabularies, categories, and meanings must be redefined and
restructured, in order to maintain the three "accepted" truths, which he
finds more secure and defensible than the metaphysical proposals of
Descartes.

Actually, Propositions 1,2, and 4, by themselves, are already
inconsistent. If, in accordance with Proposition 2, nothing nonphysical
can act as a cause in the physical realm, and, as asserted by
Proposition 4, mental states do function causally in the physical realm,
then mental states must be physical, and proposition 1 must be false.
Thus Descartes is proved wrong, and we must, Searle concludes, abandon
the traditional metaphysical categories.

However, Proposition 2, as stated, is unsatisfactory. The concept of
something nonphysical "entering into" the physical realm is obscure. How
can a nonphysical thing enter the distinct realm of physical things.
That is a contradiction. The apparently intended meaning of Proposition
2 is simply that "nothing nonphysical can act causally in the physical
realm." This form of proposition would still allow the contradiction to
follow. But, like the earlier one, it renders Proposition 3 superfluous:
Yet the argument was supposed to address the problem of causal
over-determination. Hence Proposition 3 needs to enter.

Another problem with Proposition 2 is that it does not express the usual
classical meaning of the "causal completeness of the physical," which is
simply that the physical description is causally complete by itself This
is what is usually meant by the causal completeness of the physical. No
explicit mention is made of nonphysical realities.

A rational argument that does use Proposition 3 is obtained if, in
accordance with Searle's overall stance, one accepts classical physics,
and simply takes the "causal closure of the physical" to mean what it
means in classical physics:

2'. The causal closure of the physical: the physical world is

causally closed, in the sense that all physical events

are entirely determined (from earlier physical conditions)

by physically described causes,

This proposition, taken from classical physics, combines with the other
*three* to give a contradiction.

But why is Proposition 1 the mistake, as Searle claims? The
neurobiological and mental aspects are asserted by Searle to be
realities that are *ontologically* different. But then they belong to
different *ontological* realms, and hence to different (distinct)
realms, in agreement with Proposition 1. That is, Proposition 1
apparently follows directly from Searle's main thesis that mind and
brain are ontologically different. Searle wants to maintain also
Proposition 3, that there is no causal over-determination, and
Proposition 4, that our conscious intentional thoughts really do affect
our actions. On the other hand, Propositions 2 and 2', although true in
the classical-physics approximation are both *false* in contemporary
physics. Thus Searle's argument backfires; it leads not to the drastic
conclusion that our basic categories of thought must be abandoned, but
rather to the simple conclusion that the classical-physics
approximation, which renders all psychologically described realities
causally inert, is not adequate in the treatment of a conscious brain.
Thus the solution to the problem of causal over-determination is very
simple: stop using the inapplicable classical approximation!

As regards Searle's tactics, the point is this. Even supposing, with
Searle, that consciously experienced feelings exist only as real
attributes of certain special kinds of high-level neurological
processes, and are entirely inseparable from those biological processes,
being features of them, and supposing also that the physically described
properties are themselves causally complete, then it is not proper to
say that these special real features of the biological process *cause*
the physically described action. If the causal processes are indeed
entirely specified by the physically described aspects alone, without
any acknowledgement of the existence of the attached special features,
and the characteristics of these special properties enter in no way into
the complete causal account, then it conflicts with the normal
theoretical idea of "causation" to say that those unmentioned realities
are *causing* the physical effect The mind-body problem is not solved by
merely altering the normal meaning of the word "cause" in this way.

It is useful to compare Searle's position to the "identity theory" of
the mind-brain connection. According to the Oxford Companion to
Philosophy (1995) "The contemporary mind-brain theory, developed in the
late 1950's, is that mental events are (that is, are identical with)
physical biological processes in the brain. Pain, for example, is
nothing over and above a neural state in the central nervous system."
Searle quotes Grover Maxwell, who calls his view the identity theory, as
saying, "the way is entirely open for speculating that some brain events
are just our joys, sorrows, pains, thoughts, etc., in all their
qualitative, and mentalistic richness." (p. 58). Searle then says that
"This is quite similar to what I think is the correct view and will
explain in Chapter 4. But it is not the typical view among identity
theorists."

Let this idea that each mental occurrence is (identical to) a physical
occurrence in the brain be called "Naïve identity theory" to distinguish
it from others that Searle refers to. Then Searle's view is *similar*,
he says, to naïve identity theory. This naïve theory neatly "solves" the
problems of the apparent redundancy of mental causation\-\--which arises
from the claims that mental causation (in the physical) is real and that
material causation (in the physical) is also real and moreover
deterministically complete\-\--by saying that the two causes, mental and
physical, are *the very same thing*. However, two things cannot be
absolutely identical if they are ontologically different, namely if one
exists as a "feeling" and the other exists as a pattern of motion of
physical particles, assumed to be accurately represented by the concepts
of classical physics. Thus Searle cannot fully accept "naïve identity
theory" and hence cannot use its simple solution to the problem of
causal over-determinism.

Searle mentions that "many\-\--maybe most\-\--of my colleagues are
strongly in disagreement with my claim to have a ready solution to
Descartes' problem." (p. 17) I have described here some possible reasons
for these doubts. However, replacement of the known-to-be-false precepts
of classical physics with their quantum counterparts eliminates the
problem of causal over-determination by eliminating the claim of the
causal completeness of the physical. This switch provides a secure
foundation in basic science for most of the rest of Searle's arguments.

Searle enunciates later on what he takes to be conclusive arguments
against dualism (p. 132):

1.  No one has ever given an intelligible account of the relationship
    between these two realms.

2.  The postulation is unnecessary. It is possible to account for all of
    the

> first-person facts and all the third-person facts without the
> postulation of separate realms.

3.  The postulation creates intolerable difficulties. It becomes
    impossible to explain how mental states and events can cause
    physical states and events. In short, it is impossible to avoid
    epiphenomenalism.

Point 2 is falsified by the fact that, in order to account for the
third-person empirical facts of atomic physics, physicists found it
necessary to introduce into the internally complete and deterministic
third-person dynamics the (Process 1) interventions of the effects of
conscious intentional first-person choices. These interventions were
needed to secure empirical predictions that matched the data. Point 3 is
falsified by the detailed account given in this book of how Process 1
allows epiphenomenalism to be avoided. Point 1 will be falsified in this
appendix. What has been blocking progress in understanding the
mind-brain relationship is not the impossibility of figuring out the
relationship between these two interacting aspects of nature, but rather
the impossibility of understanding this relationship within a
classical-physics approximation that completely eliminates the effects
of mind on matter that the full theory mandates.

Heisenberg's uncertainty relations destroyed the sort of certainty that
classical physics was based upon. In order to recover predictive power,
the founders of quantum theory formulated their theory pragmatically,
not solely in terms of theoretically postulated minute particles and
local fields, but rather in terms of an interplay between a physically
described world and a community of active agents who probe nature in
ways of their own choosing. In particular, contemporary atomic physics
requires\-\--in order that it be able to produce empirically verifiable
predictions\-\--the existence of observing agents that can make
nontrivial *choices* from among the array of possible probing actions
allowed by the physically described laws. These probing actions, made
always *within* the physical latitude opened up by the Heisenberg
uncertainty relations, partially close the causal gap engendered by
those relations. But the predictions are dependent upon these choices,
which are not fixed by the known laws. This intrusion into the dynamics
of observed physically described systems of the effects of uncontrolled
conscious choices destroys the causal closure of the physical. However,
the form of the psychophysical laws ensures that the causal effects of
mind on matter never lead to causal over-determinism.

Searle recognizes that dualism and materialism, as classically
conceived, are mutually incompatible. In order to retain the elements of
truths he sees in both he claims that "we have to abandon the
assumptions behind the traditional vocabulary." (p.106) He says he wants
"to suggest that we should not accept the traditional terminology and
the assumptions that go with the terminology. Expressions like 'mind'
and 'body', 'mental' and 'material' or 'physical' as well as reduction,'
'causation,' and 'identity,' as they are used in discussions of the
mind-body problem are the source of our difficulty and not the tools for
its resolution." (p. 108)

This linguistic approach is in line with the notion of "philosophy as
linguistic analysis" that dominated philosophy during much of the
twentieth century. However, the source of the vexing problems in
philosophy of mind is not the language. It is rather that most
philosophers of mind are committed to trying to build an understanding
of nature upon a conception of the physical world that is known to be
false, and false particularly with respect to the central issues they
are considering, namely the essential characters of the physical and
mental aspects of nature, and of their connections to each other. The
old words can be used in a normal way with normal meanings, without
contradictions or difficulties, provided that nature is understood in
the way specified by von Neumann quantum ontology.

What is von Neumann quantum ontology? I mean by this ontology the
conception of nature obtained by considering the physical state of the
universe, and also the mental realities described by quantum theory, to
be not just tools invented by quantum physicists to help them form
expectations about their future experiences on the basis of their past
experiences, but instead an accurate representation of the physical and
mental *aspects* of nature herself, assumed to evolve in accordance with
the psychophysical dynamical rules of quantum theory formulated by von
Neumann. These rules include rules that connect the evolving physical
state of the universe with the streams of consciousness of observing
agents. The most radical break of quantum theory with classical physics
is the occurrence of the Process-1 physical effects of our conscious
choices upon the physical state of the universe. These choices are our
conscious choices about how we probe the physical universe, and they are
essential elements of orthodox quantum theory.

The quantum state of the universe is connected in a specific way to the
physical states of the universe that occur in classical physics. In
classical physics one can contemplate, in principle, at each moment of
time, the set of all the *possible* classical physical worlds that could
exist at that time. Only one of these worlds is considered to be real.
The rest are regarded as unrealized possibilities, at least as far as
one's own personal stream of consciousness is concerned. But the quantum
state takes *all* of the possible classical states to be simultaneously
"real", in a certain sense. Specifically, *each possible classical
state* is assigned a pair of (real) numbers, *a* and *b*, such that the
square of *a* plus the square of *b* is a statistical weight associated
with that classical possibility, and *a* divided by *b* is the tangent
of a certain angle called a *phase* angle. In quantum theory the numbers
*a* and *b* associated with *each* of the classical possibilities *are
equally real*, because, in principle, all of these numbers enter in
complex ways into the determination of the relationships between various
experiences in the streams of consciousness of the agents.

The question, now, is this: How does the change from the classical
materialist conception of reality to the psychophysical conception of
reality just described affect the arguments about the relationship
between mind and matter presented in Searle's book?

Viewed from the quantum perspective most of the general problems
mentioned in Searle's book simply disappear, or are directly answered by
the features of the quantum ontology already described. However, some
problems arise from the details of the history of Western philosophy
such as Descartes' search for *certainty*. The attitude of the founders
of contemporary physics (e.g., Einstein and Bohr) is that our physical
theories are free inventions of the human mind, which we evaluate in
terms of their capacities to supply predictions, explanations, and
understandings that work well for us. Fully adequate theories should
conform to the demand for unity of science, which requires the different
disciplines to be coherent components of a rational whole. A rationally
coherent theory that explains a potentially unlimited set of
regularities in terms of a small number of causal laws is more useful to
scientists than a compendium of \[Humean\] regularities. Thus the
concept of physical *causation* is scientifically useful, and hence
scientifically acceptable. The shift from a pragmatic stance to an
ontological one represents a tentative trial of the idea that our
currently best theoretical invention provides a faithful picture of
reality itself.

Searle raises early on (p.18) the questions "How can brain processes
cause mental phenomena at all?" and conversely "How can minds influence
physical events?"

The quantum rules specify how*,* according to the theory, minds *do*
influence physical events. But the question of "*how*" minds *can* do
what these rules say they do is a question that physicists normally do
not consider. They generally focus on the rules that specify *how
certain descriptions of aspects of nature* *seem to be related*, rather
than on the question of how it is possible that these rules could hold:
i.e., on the question of what is the nature the underlying basic reality
that *makes* these rules hold. The great quantum physicist Wolfgang
Pauli was perhaps looking for such a reality in his attempt to find a
"neutral language" that would encompass both the mental and material
aspects of nature, but very few physicists engage in such endeavors

A hint as to the nature of such an underlying reality is obtained by
examining the character of the physical state in the von Neumann
ontology: This state represents the probabilities or tendencies
(potentialities) for mental events to occur, and also *our knowledge*
derived from the occurrence of such events. All of these aspects are
often viewed as essentially "subjective" in character. Yet the state is
described also in terms of a collection of numbers attached to
space-time points. Thus insofar as the character of our descriptions is
a guide to the character of some underlying reality, that reality would
appear to be intrinsically psycho-physical.

To summarize: Because of the raging controversies in philosophy of mind
about how to avoid dualism and make materialism work Searle takes the
point of view that he can start afresh with what he thinks he knows, and
then let theory and language conform to these "known facts". The first
problem with this strategy is that one of his "known facts", namely the
causal completeness of the physical, contradicts contemporary science.
The second problem is that his materialistic conception of the physical
world is also contradicted by contemporary science.

Searle bases his inquiry into "free will" on an examination of the
conscious process of deciding to act in a certain way on the basis of
"reasons." (p. 212) He emphasizes that the results of our human
deliberations involving reasons are not conclusive, in the way that the
conclusions that follow from the precepts of classical physics are
conclusive. He notes that "It is essential to see that the functioning
of human intentionality requires rationality as a structural
constitutive organizing principle of the entire system." (p. 213)

The classical-physics (materialist) answer to the problem of free will
is simple: all physical actions are entirely determined at the
microlevel by the motions of mindless particles being mindlessly pushed
around by other microscopic mindless entities. Hence any notion that we
are "free", in the sense that reasons or feelings can *intervene* and
*influence* the course of physical events is pure fantasy: the notion
that mind can influence what matter does is simply an *illusion:*

Quantum theory gives an altogether different answer. The Heisenberg
uncertainty principle injects uncertainty into the proceedings. This is
countered by bringing human agents into the dynamics not as passive
observers, but as conscious choosers that inject certain fixed elements
into the dynamical system, and hence control the unfettered explosion of
rampant uncertainty. These choices are not themselves determined by any
yet-known laws, statistical or otherwise, and hence are called "free".
But this opens up the key question: how are these choices to be
understood? Where do they come from? What controls them? I shall answer
these questions later. But I need first to dispel some possible
misconceptions about the nature of the quantum world by commenting on
Searle's analysis of free will.

Searle admits at the outset of his discussion of the problem of the
nature of free will that he has no solution.(p. 215) But he tries to
delve into this basic question in order to clarify it.

.

Searle begins by saying:

> There is a special problem about free will because we have two
> absolutely irreconcilable convictions, each of which seems to be
> completely correct and, indeed, inescapable. The first is that every
> event that occurs in the world has an antecedently sufficient cause.
> Our second conviction, that we do in fact have free will, is based on
> certain experiences of human freedom. We have the experience of making
> up our mind to do something and then doing it. It is part of our
> conscious experiences that we experience the causes of our decisions
> and actions, in the form of reasons for those decisions and actions,
> as not sufficient to force the actual decisions and actions. (p. 216)

The origin of the "conviction" that each definite happening has an
antecedently sufficient cause is evidently some metaphysical idea, such
as the idea that classical physics is true, or the idea that no definite
happening can just simply pop into being without there being some
"reason" why this particular thing happens instead of something else.

The origin of the conviction that we have free will is directly
experiential. Searle notes that an experienced reason to act in a
certain way *may or may not* be followed by a decision to act on the
basis of that reason. Moreover, there is, within the stream of
consciousness, also *the experience of a causal gap*: the antecedent
reason is not experienced as being coercive or sufficient with respect
to the choice that follows That is, *within the realm of experience*
there is no determinism: there are causal gaps. The actual making of the
decision seems to be infected by an element of indeterminateness: we
feel uncompelled to decide in accordance with the dictates of the
antecedent reasons Searle presents an analysis that ties this
indeterminateness, *regarded as a bona fide reality*, to the randomness
in quantum theory

According to Searle, "Our experience of the gap \[in strict causation\]
is the basis of our conviction that we have free will" (p. 218) i.e., it
is the basis of our conviction that our willful conscious choices are in
fact "free". Of course, a natural explanation of our experiencing of a
causal gap is that our stream of consciousness grasps only certain
high-level features of the fundamental causal process, and that these
features alone will be insufficient to specify completely the causal
progression, which, however, is (or can be) strictly determined at the
basic level So the causal linkages that we directly experience must be
expected to be non-coercive, even if the fundamental causal process is
fully coercive. This simple causal explanation of "our experiencing of a
causal gap" would seem to render the whole matter unworthy of further
serious attention.

Of course, this mechanistic explanation *could* be wrong. It cannot be
ruled out that the indeterminateness we feel is veridical. The
physically described brain just conceivably might not completely
determine our every thought and action. But *"If freedom is real then
the \[causal\] gap has to go all the way down to the level of
neurobiology."* (p.228)

Searle argues, in effect, that this possibility needs to be seriously
explored for the following reason: our real lives are based on the
presumption that our choices are "free" in the sense of not being mere
products of mindless mechanical processes churned out by unkwowable and
unknowing tiny bits of matter.

> Whenever we decide to act voluntarily, which we do throughout the day,
> we have to decide or act on the presumption of our own freedom. Our
> deciding and acting are unintelligible to us otherwise. (p. 219)

Arguing on the basis of the need for the intelligibility of our lives is
not completely unreasonable. In the end a theory of nature is more
useful to us if makes things intelligible. There is a certain
unintelligibility and irrationality about adopting, in our real lives,
as opposed to our philosophical posturings, a conception of nature that
asserts that we are mechanical robots, completely at the mercy of
automatic mindless neuronal processing, and yet acting as if the
conscious choices that we struggle so hard to make are made by *us*,
instead of by unthinking atoms. Hence a theory that is based securely on
contemporary science and that allows us to understand how our decisions
are made by us, as we know and understand ourselves, rather than by
mindless atoms, would be a worthwhile improvement upon the turmoil that
has engulfed philosophy since the invention by Isaac Newton of classical
physics, the blind acceptance of which renders our lives unintelligible.

Motivated by this consideration Searle is led to consider, in contrast
to the following favored hypothesis, the more radical, in his view,
second one.

**Hypothesis 1: Determinism and the Mechanical Brain**

> On the first hypothesis we have to assume that the brain is a machine
> in the traditional old-fashioned sense of car engines, steam engines,
> and electric generators. It is a completely deterministic system, and
> any appearance of free will is an illusion based on our ignorance, so
> that this hypothesis fits well with what we tend to believe about
> nature and biology in general. The brain is an organ like any other,
> and it has no more free will than do the heart or the liver or the
> left thumb. (p.229/30)

**Hypothesis 2: Indeterminism and the Quantum Brain**

> Hypothesis 1 is comforting in that the brain turns out to be a machine
> like any other. But on hypothesis 2 it is not at all clear what kind
> of mechanism the brain will have to be for the system to be
> nondeterministic in the right way. But what exactly is the right way?
> We have to suppose that consciousness plays a causal role in
> determining our decisions and our free actions, but we also have to
> suppose that that causal role is not deterministic. That is, it is not
> a matter of sufficient conditions. Now the creation of consciousness
> at any instant of time is a matter of sufficient conditions, so what
> we are supposing is that the left-right movements of neurobiological
> processes through time are not causally sufficient, That is, each
> stage of the neurobiological process is not sufficient by itself to
> determine the next stage by way of causally sufficient conditions.
> Suppose that the explanation of each stage by the preceding stage
> depends on the fact that the whole system is conscious and has the
> particular type of consciousness that manifests a gap, that is
> voluntary consciousness. But what would such a system look like? We
> are assuming that the brain is, at its most basic level,
> nondeterministic; that is, the (causal) gap that is real at the top
> level goes, so to speak, all the way down, down to the level of the
> neurons and subneuronal processes. Is there anything in nature that
> suggests even the possibility of such a non deterministic system? The
> only part of nature that we know for a fact today, at the time that I
> write this, is the quantum mechanical part. However, it is a bit
> misleading to call that a part because it is the most fundamental
> level of physics, the most basic level of the physical particles. At
> the quantum level the state of the system at t~1~ is only causally
> responsible for the state of the system at t~2~ in a statistical,
> nondeterministic manner. Predictions made at the quantum level are
> statistical because there is a random element.(p. 230/31)

I have included this long passage because it indicates how, in Searle's
thinking, the demand that life be intelligible leads to the need to
bring quantum effects into the understanding of mind. Most
neuroscientists and philosophers of mind fiercely resist the idea that
quantum effects, which seem so remote from their fields as they are
practiced today, could really be essential to the solution of the
mind-brain problem. But this passage is Searle's step-by-step reasoning,
starting from philosophy of mind considerations, and the demand for the
intelligibility of our real lives, that leads him *reluctantly but*
*rationally* to the conclusion that quantum effects may be important to
an understanding of the connection between mind and brain.

Searle then goes on to to say: "It has always seemed to me in the past
that the introduction of quantum mechanics into the discussion of free
will was totally irrelevant for the following reason: free will is not
the same as randomness. Quantum mechanics gives us randomness but not
freedom. That argument used to seem convincing to me, but now it seems
to me that it commits the fallacy of composition." The fact that there
is randomness at some atomic level does not entail that the entailed
lack of determinism is manifested at high-levels also as randomness. "In
a word, the randomness at the microlevel...does not imply that the
\[resulting indeterminate\] conscious phenomena are random." (p. 232)
Then, after summarizing the input assumptions, Searle says "we have to
suppose there is a quantum mechanical component in the explanation of
consciousness. I see no way to avoid this conclusion." (p. 232)

However, then he says, immediately "Of course, Hypothesis 2, the
hypothesis that the random indeterminacy at the quantum level leads us
to an indeterminacy of a nonrandom kind at the conscious level, seems
very unlikely and implausible ... given all we know about nature
Hypothesis 1 seems much more plausible."

It is not clear who the "we" are that know all about nature, and to whom
the application of the classical-physics approximation to the dynamics
of a conscious brain seems much more plausible. Physicists undoubtedly
are not included. What his arguments do suggest is that there is a
conflict between what most philosophers of mind believe and the demand
for a rational intelligible understanding of our real-life actions, and
that the latter seems to lead to the conclusion that quantum mechanical
effects are important to an understanding of the mental side of our
being.

Of course, quantum theory is constructed to be a rationally coherent
theory\-\--compatible with all empirical data, and highly explanatory
and predictive\-\--of conscious agents acting in the way we actually do
act in an imbedding physically described world. So it is surely to be
expected that quantum mechanics will do the better job of representing
us, as we actually are, than a theory based on an approximation that
completely eliminates the capacity of our conscious choices to affect in
any way our own bodily actions.

Searle goes on to say that Hypothesis 1 "fits in with the way that the
brain is described in standard text books of neurobiology." However,
quantum theory reduces to classical physics under the conditions
considered in those books, insofar as they do not deal with the effects
of our conscious choices upon the behavior of our neurons. So that "fit"
with Hypothesis 1 probably carries no weight at all.

Searle does emphasize one important argument in favor of Hypothesis 2:
"An enormous amount of the biological economy is devoted to conscious
rational decision making." Hence these decisions must surely, for
evolutionary reasons, make a behavioral difference: causally inert
consciousness would have no impact on survival, and would not be worth
the huge biological costs.

I now move toward my own account of what fixes our conscious choices by
first returning to Searle's main objections to Hypothesis 2. He said "Of
course, Hypothesis 2, the hypothesis that the random indeterminacy at
the quantum level leads us to an indeterminacy of a nonrandom kind at
the conscious level, seems very unlikely and implausible. "

*That* scenario would indeed be unlikely and implausible. But it is
based on a serious and extremely common misunderstanding of quantum
mechanics. It assumes that the randomness of quantum mechanics comes in
at the atomic level. That is not correct! In quantum theory the dynamics
at the atomic level is deterministic and nonrandom, as it is at all the
levels that are described exclusively in purely physical terms, The
randomness enters in principle only in connection with outcomes of
observations. An observation is described in a different kind of
language, and involves either a measuring device, whose physical
response can be "sensed" by an agent, or a brain, whose physical
response can be "sensed" by the agent to whom the brain belongs. On the
other hand, the "element of freedom" in quantum theory concerns the
agent's choice of which observation to make. This freedom of choice is
not conceived to be built out of the random elements associated with the
*outcomes* of the "freely chosen observation". Within the framework of
the laws of contemporary quantum theory this freedom of the agent to
choose what his probing action will be is a simple lacuna: the quantum
rules simply say nothing about it.

The possibility of there being such choices is a consequence of
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but the free choice on the part of
the agent and the random choice on the part of nature are two reductions
of the Heisenberg uncertainty that operate *in tandem:* the former does
not arise out of the later.

But, then, the core free-will question is: From what considerations, or
reasons, or causes, do these free choices arise? Before giving an answer
I must describe a quantum theory of perception that is an essential
component of the von Neumann ontology, as I understand it.

Searle has a chapter on perception in which he first describes the huge
disparities in the views of other philosophers on the nature of
perception, and then presents his own opposing (perhaps idiosyncratic)
view. No progress on the quantum theory of free-will is possible until
those multifarious issues are cleared up, and a quantum theory of
perception is pinned down.

Searle emphasizes that certain events in the brain that are described in
physical terms\-\--that is, in terms of mathematical properties tied to
points in space-time\-\--are associated *also* with realities that have
the ontological character of feelings. Following William James, I use
the term "feelings" broadly to cover thoughts, ideas, impressions, and
perceptions, as well as pains, joys, sorrows, efforts, etc.. The
differences between these different kinds of feelings have to do with
their quality, texture, and complexity.

In the von Neumann ontology there are, from time to time, events that
intervene in the orderly deterministic dynamics of the physically
described brain. These events have two kinds of description: a
description of the abrupt change in the physical state of the brain; and
a description of an associated feeling. One might say that the one event
has two aspects, a physical aspect and a mental aspect. Certain aspects
of the abrupt physically described change in the brain of an agent are
supposed to be felt in the psychologically described stream of
consciousness of that agent. Thus the event might be deemed to be both
physical and mental, in accordance with Searle's idea that it should not
be assumed that all natural occurrences must be either mental *or*
physical but never both.

In the von Neumann *ontology* the physically described aspect and the
psychologically described aspect are both real. The event involves the
occurrence of a real change in the physical state and the occurrence of
a real feeling.

Causal connections between the physical world and the physical state of
the brain of an observer are used during the agent's growth and
development, in association with his recognition of correlations between
his *feelings of effort* and his *feelings of the feedbacks* *that
follow* these efforts. Each intentional conscious event in the stream of
consciousness of the agent will be accompanied by an associated event in
his brain, which, in a well developed brain, will single out a pattern
of neural (brain) activity P that will, through the causal laws, tend to
bring the intended feedback into being. The psychologically described
aspect of the psychophysical event is a feeling, or grasping, of the
functional significance of the pattern of brain activity P. This pattern
P exists in the state of his brain just before the event and also just
after the event, and is delineated in the brain event by the elimination
from the new state of the brain of all features of the prior state of
the brain that conflict with that pattern P. \[I am trying to describe
in ordinary words what Von Neumann says in the mathematical language
that he is using.\] In perception, this grasping of the functional
significance of the brain pattern P constitutes an effective grasping of
the features of the external world that are part of the causal loop that
cycles from (attentional) conscious event to brain event to external
physical property to brain event to conscious event.

This understanding of perception is in line with von Neumann's theory of
measurement, described in his book *Mathematical Foundations of Quantum
Mechanics.* This quantum theory of perception makes perceptions the
mental grasping of (observed) features of the external world.
Intentionality, in the sense of "aboutness" is thereby accommodated and
explained directly in terms the basic dynamical laws of quantum theory,
which include both causal connections between the brain and the rest of
the physically described world, and developed correlations between the
felt and physical aspects of the causally efficacious psychophysical
events.

The underlying idea is that the complex feeling of an agent grasps the
functional significance of the pattern of brain activity that is
specified by the physical side of the psychophysical event, which
eliminates the conflicting physical possibilities. This connection is
naturalistically understood to be a consequence of trial and error
honing, over both the evolution of the species and the life of the
agent, of the agent's capacity to deal successfully with the world. The
natural development of this linkage between minds and brains, and thence
the world, is based crucially on the fact that there is, according to
the dynamical psychophysical laws of quantum theory, a *two-way causal
connection* between the psychologically described feelings in the
agent's stream of consciousness and the physically described behavior of
agent. That is, there are not only *perceptions*, there are also
*influences of feelings upon physical actions*. The central content of
this book has been an explanation of the second of these two causal
linkages, namely how the dynamical laws of quantum theory can account
for the influences of the agent's conscious choices upon his brain, and
thereby upon his body.

With the general structure of the quantum model of mind-brain dynamics
now in place I can finally turn to the question of how the agent's free
choice of which action to take comes to be what it comes to be.

Following Searle I take the example of election day. Knowing that I must
go and cast my vote I decide to review my options, my reasons for voting
one way or the other. I recall that Bush is firm and resolute on the war
on terror, but Kerry flip-flops. Yet Kerry can eloquently expound on
every side of every issue, and sees all the dangers in every possible
action, whereas Bush can hardly speak at all, and is a brash and cocky
Texan who can get us into a lot of trouble. Kerry will help the
down-trodden masses, and make the rich pay for it, and is a war hero to
boot, unless the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are telling the truth, in
which case he's a scoundrel.

My feeling about what is happening, as I review these thoughts, in order
to make my choice, is that I can feel a weight for each idea, and am
able to make an evaluation based on the net weight of all of them
together. This evaluation causes a choice to be made about how to act in
the polling booth. Later, at the polling booth, I will act in accordance
with that choice unless I decide to reconsider, and the re-evaluation
causes me to decide to act differently.

The conclusion seems clear. The function of our feelings is to allow
complex collections of ideas to be evaluated in unison, in order to
trigger a definite choice of how to behave. Thus, according to the
quantum model, the free choice about how to act in a given situation is
not indeterminate, as Searle seemed to be suggesting. But it is
determined by *evaluations based on feelings*, rather than on local
mechanical processes. In quantum mechanics the local mechanical
processes generate only the *range of possibilities for actions*, not
the choices of which actions will actually occur, or of when they will
occur. Those choices, if they are determined at all, are determined by a
process that is not described contemporary physical theory. Quantum
theory makes room for such a process, by virtue of its essential
difference from its classical approximation, namely the fact that in
quantum theory the physically described aspects are not causally
complete. This causal incompleteness of the physical makes room for
causally efficacious inputs from the psychophysical events..

These events are, on their physical sides, nonlocal: each one naturally
singles out an entire large-scale pattern of brain activity, whose
functional meaning is grasped by the associated psychologically
described feeling. Such a structure allows for the causal intervention
of an evaluative process that is based, at least partially, on
psychologically described realities rather than entirely on the
physically described variables. Such a process would give these
psychologically described realities a causally efficacious role in the
unfolding of our lives. That would allow us to evade the
incomprehensibility of our lives that Searle described, together with
the irrationality of acting as if we, as we know ourselves, are choosing
the courses of our lives while believing that mindless atoms determine
everything.

The presence in a logical system of two inconsistent premises renders
the whole system nonsensical: anything can be proved, along with its
converse. That may explain the roots of the malaise, or even crisis,
that grips Western culture. The voices of our intellectual leaders
proclaim a message that makes our lives unintelligible and our actions
irrational. Hope for the future lies in the fact that respect for
science may move these thinkers beyond known-to-be-false nineteenth
century materialism, which is the source of the problem, to the verities
of third millennium science.