**Quantum Theory of the Human Person.**

**1. Introduction.**

This work has five closely related themes.

1\. The most important development in science in the twenty-first
century will be a deepening of our understanding of the nature of human
beings.

2\. The key unsolved question, there, is the nature of the connection
between the mind and the brain.

3\. Von Neumann's Processes I and II, applied to the human person,
constitute genuine causal top-down and bottom-up mind-brain connections,
respectively

4\. Process I involves \"Free Choices.\"

5\. These \"Free Choices\" Can Influence Brain-Body Behavior.

Theme 1 pertains to \"importance.\" By \`most important\' I mean most
important to human beings. Physicists have generally shied away from the
problems of human beings, and the role of our minds in nature, because
they are so complex: these problems have been set aside for a later
time. But that time has now arrived. The needed technologies, funding,
and interest are all at hand. Moreover, the advances in technology now
allow scores of laboratories to participate, and the number will soon
grow to hundreds: the data will come from many diverse sources, not just
a few billion dollar facilities.

A second reason why physicists have shunned the problem of human beings
is that physicists are interested in basic problems, whereas human
beings seem at first to be just complicated physical systems the study
of which would not appear to illuminate any basic issue. However, there
is a very basic dynamical question that arises first in the study of
human beings.

Theme 2 is that this basic problem is the nature of the connection
between the experiential (phenomenal) aspects of nature and the physical
(geometrical) aspects .

Theme 3 is the core point: Von Neumann\'s rigorous formulation of
quantum theory has two distinct processes. This contrasts with the
single dynamical process that governs everything in classical physics.
These two quantum processes, von Neumann\'s Processes I and II,
constitute, in the context of the study of human beings, genuine \"top
down\" and \"bottom up\" causal connections, respectively.

The terms \"top down\" and \"bottom up\" are often used in discussions
of the causal structure of a system. A \`bottom up\' connection is one
in which macroscopic processes are controlled by microscopic processes,
whereas a \`top down\' process is one in which macroscopic processes, or
high level mental processes, control aspects of the microscopic
processes.

Roger Sperry (1991) uses the motion of a wheel to illustrate the idea of
a top down causal connection: the overall large-scale motion of the
wheel controls certain aspects of the motions of the atoms that make up
the wheel. However, in classical physics this top down causal connection
is a redundant re-expression of the bottom up causal connections: it is
just a large-scale integrated consequence of the combined effects of
bottom up connections. On the other hand, von Neumann\'s Process I is a
top down process that is not a logical consequence of the bottom up
process II: Process I is neither determined, controlled, nor governed by
Process II.

Theme 4 is the claim that Process I involves \"free choices.\"

I must make clear here the nature of this \`freedom\', which is closely
connected to "volition."

Theme 5 is the claim that these 'voluntary free choices\' can influence
physical behavior. Thus the laws of quantum physics naturally
accommodate an influence of human "will" on human behavior. In sharp
contrast to the situation in classical physics this quantum top down
influence is not entailed by the bottom up process.

The actual mechanism of this influence will be described: it does not

involve any biasing of the quantum statistical rules, but follows from
strict adherence to all the laws and rules of von Neumann quantum
theory.

**2. The Most Important Question.**

Human Beings Are More Important To Human Beings Than Quarks or the Big
Bang

In an era of shrinking budgets funding will probably be channeled
increasingly to research fields that are perceived to be vital to human
needs. Already one sixth of the US GNP goes to the health industry, as
contrasted to 2.8% to education and research. So that is a big pot from
which to fund research into the nature of human beings.

But perhaps even more important than these issues of mental and physical
health are the cultural ramifications. We live immersed in a world of
ideas, and the nature of these ideas is, today, at least as important to
human destiny as our immediate physical conditions. These ideas are
based upon our conception of what we ourselves are, and how we are
connected to the rules that govern the world.

The main contributors to the development of this world of ideas are
science, philosophy, and religion. The voice of science is strong in the
construction of this intellectual milieu, but the message of science is
undercut by the fact that it is based mainly on classical physics, which
proclaims us to be mechanical automata. That verdict conflicts with a
deep intuitive idea that is the basis of our lives: the idea, based on
experience, that ones own willful mental efforts can make a difference
in how one behaves. This apparent contradiction between science and the
foundational principle of our real lives tends to obstruct the voice of
science-based reason.

**3. The key unsolved question: the nature of the connection between the
mind and the brain.**

This question of the mind-brain connection is becoming increasingly
important in science.

Antonio Damasio (2002) begins his lead article in the recent special
issue of Scientific American devoted to the mind-brain problem with the
words:

\"At the start of the new millennium, it is apparent that one question

towers above all others in the life sciences: How does the set of

processes we call mind emerge from the activity of the organ we

call brain?

The article by Francis Crick and Christoph Koch (Crick 2002) begins with
the similar assessment:

\"The overwhelming question in neurobiology today is the

relationship between the mind and the brain.\"

Some neuroscientists (Crick, 2003:124) appear to believe that classical
physical theory is the appropriate physical theory for understanding the
mind-brain connection even though it is known to be both fundamentally
false, and also empirically incorrect in domains of phenomena that
depend sensitively\-\--as brains appear to do\-\--on the motions of
ions, or on the effects of intentional choices.

According to the principles of classical physics, the change over the
course of time of the physical world , including our bodies and brains,
is completely determined by laws that represent essentially contact
interactions between tiny material elements.

Of course, no theory can be a scientific theory unless it specifies the
relationship between certain of the quantities and properties described
in the theory and human experience. But nothing in the conceptual
structure of classical physics mandates or demands the existence of the
kinds of qualities that characterize our conscious thoughts, ideas, and
feelings, namely the way that they "feel." Classical physical theory is
thus conceptually cut off from its scientific roots in
empirical/phenomenal facts. This defect has been the cause of huge a
philosophical industry.

This deficiency of classical physical theory was remedied by the
founders of quantum theory, who formulated their theory as a set of
practical rules specifying how knowledge-acquiring human agents should
go about their tasks of first acquiring knowledge, and then representing
that knowledge in a form that permits them to make predictions about the
outcomes of their subsequent knowledge-acquiring activities. Thus their
theory, quantum theory, is directly about connections between human
experiences, and the fatal philosophical flaw of classical physics is
avoided.

**4. Von Neumann's Processes 1 and 2.**

Quantum theory was generalized by John von Neumann (1955: 418), who
identified two distinct processes, Process I and Process II.

Process II is the quantum analog of the classical process of motion and,
like it, is governed by laws that are both local and deterministic.

Process II is constructed from its classical counterpart by
\"quantization,\" which replaces \'values\' by \'actions.\' The effect
of this change is to smear out values: it turns the physical state into
a smeared out collection of overlapping possibilities. (This feature is
not undone by the much-studied environmental decoherence effect, which
effectively wipes out certain off-diagonal interference terms of the
density matrix but does not restrict the evolution of the important
diagonal elements.)

However, Process II is not the whole story. It generates a continuum of
overlapping physical possibilities that extend over a range of
incompatible experiential possibilities. Thus, for example, if Process
II were the only process, then the physical structure representing the
moon would extend over a large portion of the sky. Some other process is
needed to bring the physical state S of an observed system into
conformity with human experience.

A key innovation of the founders of quantum theory was to bring human
agents into basic physical theory in a fundamental way. This was a
radical move because the successes of the earlier classical theory were
due in large measure to the policy of keeping human agents out. But in
orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory the mentally directed actions of
agents are crucial elements of the theory. In von Neumann\'s rigorous
reformulation of the theory, each such action is called a Process I
intervention.

In order to tie this smeared out mathematical state S to probabilities
for various alternative possible experiences to occur an experimenter
must act. By virtue of his efforts some particular experimental
situation will be created: e.g., a Geiger counter will be set in some
particular place. This action causes the state S to jump to the state

S\' = PSP + (I-P)S(I-P),

where the first term corresponds to the possibility that the feedback
from nature will be a human experience of seeing the Geiger Counter

fire, whereas the second term corresponds to the failure of that
experiential feedback to occur.

**5. Process 1 represents a "free" choice.**

This Process I action by the agent involves a selection of a projection
operator P from a continuum of alternative possibilities. This selection
is construed, by Bohr and the other founders of quantum theory,

to be a free choice on the part of the experimenter/agent.

This freedom of choice is emphasized by Bohr in statements such as

\"The freedom of experimentation, presupposed in classical physics,

is of course retained and corresponds to the free choice of

experimental arrangement for which the mathematical structure of

the quantum mechanical formalism offers the appropriate latitude\"

(Bohr, 1958).

This notion that the experimenter\'s choice is \"free\" is connected to
Bohr\'s idea that the state contains information about all of the
\*complementary\* possible experiments that the agent might choose to
perform on the system being examined.

The reason why, in Copenhagen QT, the agent\'s choice must be regarded
as \"free,\" in the specific sense that it is controlled by no \*known\*
law, is that in the Copenhagen formulation the experimenter stands
outside the system that is being examined. But the only known exact laws
are the quantum laws that govern the system that is being examined. Thus
in the Copenhagen formulation the actions of the human experimenters are
not controlled by the known laws of nature.

Copenhagen quantum theory separates the dynamically unified physical
world into two systems, the physical system S that is being examined,
and the agent who is doing the examination. This works well in practice,
but it means that the theory cannot be viewed as a possible description
of nature: it must be viewed as merely a set of rules for computing
predictions pertaining to relationships between human experiences.

Von Neumann\'s approach is to treat the entire physical world, including
our own bodies and brains as belonging to the dynamically unified world
described by the quantum laws. This tack circumvents the need to
separate the dynamically unified physical world into two differently
described subsystems.

The Process I intervention of the agent involves an effort on the part
of the agent to, say, put the Geiger Counter in some particular place.
He expects his effort to produce, first, the experiential feedback of
seeing his arms and hands placing the device in the chosen spot,

and he may expect a later possible experiencing of \"the counter
firing.\"

But this scenario carries over to our normal activity in life.

I may make an effort to reach out toward the stove, and I expect that
effort to cause me to see and feel my hand moving toward the stove, and
I may also expect to feel a certain sensation of hotness when my finger
touches the stove.

Thus Process I intervention need not be restricted to the actions of
scientists in pursuit of scientific knowledge.

We all learn by trial and error, starting as infants, which feelings of
effort will normally produce which sorts of experiences pertaining to
bodily movement, and also which possible responses a certain kind of
effort might elicit from the world external to our bodies.

This sort of connection between experienced effort and experienced
feedback is a basic feature of human life.

Von Neumann\'s Process I fits naturally into a general Quantum
Psycho-Physical framework.

Each possible course of action that is conceivable to\-\--and

executable by\-\--an agent is represented in the brain of the agent by a

pattern of brain activity.

This pattern is specified by a projection operator P, which is therefore

associated with the idea of an action. Each Process I intervention is

instantaneous in von Neumann\'s theory.

However, attention lasts! So let it be assumed that effortful attention
to this idea of an intended action causes a rapid repetition of the
Process I intervention associated with this operator P.

This proposal ties naturally into William James\'s ideo-motor theory of
the connection between Volition and Action (James, 1890). According to
that theory, willful action is associated with prolonged attention to
the idea of the intended action.

Given this plausible rudiment of a psycho-physical theory we can ask:

Can such a freely chosen sequence of Process I interventions have any
effect on bodily action?

The answer in von Neumann quantum theory is a resounding Yes! Such a
sustained focus of attention can exert a huge effect on brain activity,
and thence on the bodily behavior of the person. This effect is an
automatic consequence of:

**6. The Quantum Zeno Effect.**

Suppose S describes slowly changing degrees of freedom of the brain.
Suppose a sequence of \"freely chosen\" Process I events consist of a
rapid repetition of events with the same P.

Then quantum theory ensures that S' is trapped in the subspace of states
of the form PXP if the original state has this form: transitions to the
other possibility (I-P)Y(I-P) are suppressed:

(I-P)exp-iHt(PXP)expiHt(I-P)=O(t squared)

Suppose the \"free choices\" associated with Process I activate a

rapid repetition of Process I events all associated with the same P.

If the first event has landed you in the subspace PSP then if the
repetition rate is sufficiently fast there will be hardly any
transitions to the \"No\" states of the form (I-P)Y(I-P).

One verifies this by noting that the relevant transitions are of order

t squared. This result follows from the fact that a replacement of
either of the two exponentials by the zeroth order term \"unity\" gives
a null contribution to the transition probability, due to the constraint

P(I-P)=(I-P)P=0,

which is imposed on all projection operators P.

The lowest order term is therefore of second order in t. This means that
Willful Effort can influence physical action: The rapid repetition of
Process I with the same P (or slowly changing P) holds the state in the
form PXP! This conforms to, and gives an explanation of, James's
assertions

\"The essential achievement of the will, in short, when it is most

\`voluntary', is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before

the mind." (James, 1890: )

\"Everywhere, then, the function of effort is the same: to keep

affirming and adopting the thought which, if left to itself would slip

away.\" (James, 1890: )

This is the key point: Quantum theory explains how the focusing of
attention modulates the activity of the brain. It can hold the state of
the brain in the associated subspace PXP, in spite of perhaps very
strong ordinary forces that would otherwise quickly the move the state
out of that small subspace.

This situation is totally different from what happens in classical
physics, where there is no second process that is controlled by mental
\"free choices,\" and that is both needed to tie the mathematical
structure to human experience, and also able to causally influence via
the basic dynamical laws the course of brain/body events.

William James clearly recognized the difficulty within classical physics

of allowing mental effort to make a physical difference, and he seems to
have sensed that therefore classical physics must be wrong. The
prescient final words of his book \"Psychology: The Briefer Course\"
are:

\"\...understand how great is the darkness in which we grope, and never
forget that the natural-science assumptions with which we started are
provisional and revisable things.\" (James, 1892)

References.

Bohr, Niels (1958). Atomic physics and human knowledge. New York: Wiley

Crick, Francis, & Christoff Koch (2002). *Scientific American: Special
Issue: The Hidden Mind.*

Crick, Francis, & Christoff Koch (2003). A framework for consciousness.
*Nature neuroscience*, 6, 119-126.

Damasio, Antonio (2002). *Scientific American:* *Special Issue: The*

James, William (1890). *The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I.* New York:
Dover.

James, William (1892). Psychology: The briefer course. In *William
James: Writings 1879-1899*. New York: Library of America (1992).

Sperry, Roger (1991). In defense of mentalism and emergent interaction.
*J. of Mind and Behavior*, 12, 221-245.

Von Neumann (1955). *Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics*.
Princeton: Princeton U.P. \[Translation by Robert T. Beyer of
*Mathematiche grundlagen der quantum mechanik*. Berlin: Springer. 1932\]