[13. Libet's Data, Causal Anamolies, and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen
Paradox]{.underline}

We all feel that certain of our conscious thoughts *cause* our voluntary
bodily actions to occur. Our lives, our institutions, and our moral
codes are largely based on that intuition, and the whole notion of
"cause" probably originates in that deep-seated feeling.

The strongest argument against this basic intuition\-\--that our
thoughts cause our voluntary bodily actions\-\--stems from an experiment
performed by Benjamin Libet. In this experiment a subject is instructed
to perform, voluntarily, during a certain time interval, a simple
physical action, such as raising a finger. Libet found that a measurable
precursor of the physical action, known as the "readiness potential",
occurs in the brain about one-third of a second prior to the occurrence
of the experienced volitional act of willing that action to occur.

This empirical result appears to show, on the face of it, that the
conscious act of willing must be a consequence of this associated brain
activity, not the cause of it, for nothing can cause a prior happening
to occur.

This example is just one instance of a general feature of mind-brain
phenomena, namely the fact that conscious experiences always seem to
occur after a lot of preparatory work has already been done by the
brain. This feature accords with the classical-physics precept of the
causal closure of the physical, and it leads plausibly to the conclusion
that the felt causal efficacy of our conscious thoughts is an illusion.

One of the most intensively studied aspects of quantum mechanics is the
occurrence of causal anomalies in which "voluntary" choices made at one
time apparently affect earlier events. These causal anomalies were the
basis of a famous paper published in 1935 by Albert Einstein and two
young colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rose. The existence in
quantum mechanics of such causal anomalies is called the EPR paradox.
These anomalies cannot be comprehended within the conception of the
physical world postulated by classical physics, but they are automatic
consequences of the von Neumann quantum ontology. Quantum mechanics
neatly reconciles the causal efficacy of our voluntary choices with the
fact that certain consequences of these "free" choices often seem to
happen before these choices occur. This chapter describes how that comes
about.

A recent target article in the Journal for Conscious Studies is entitled
*How could conscious experiences affect brains.* In this article the
author, Max Velmans, notes that there is a great deal of clinical data
that supports the thesis that conscious thoughts do affect brain
activity. Reductionist theories of nature, which claim the causal
completeness of the physical, do not readily accommodate such data.
Velmans rejects, for reasons to be examined presently, also
dual-interactionists theories, whose prime contemporary exemplar is the
von Neumann quantum ontology. Velmans offers an alternative theory that
is neither reductive nor dual interactive, but that accounts for\-\--he
claims\-\--the empirically supported causal efficacy of mind. He
associates his model with Bohr's idea of complementarity, but avoids
endorsing any real use of quantum mechanics. Indeed, he opens his
account with the question: "How can one reconcile the evidence that
conscious experiences are causally effective with the principle that the
physical world is causally closed?"

An immediate problem with this question is that: the principle that "the
physical world is causally closed" is, according to orthodox
contemporary physics, a false premise. That notion holds to a high
degree of accuracy for the motions of planets, cannon balls, billiard
balls, and certain other large objects. And, according to the principles
of classical physics, which assumes that atomic particles are
essentially like miniature planets, the idea holds also in general. But,
as will be discussed in detail later, it fails both in theory and in
practice for a system, such as a conscious brain, whose macroscopic
behavior depends sensitively upon the behavior of its atomic
constituents.

But it is not a false premise (as far as I know) at the macrocosmic
scales where classical physics serves as a good approximation --

I WILL ARGUE LATER ON THAT THIS PREMISE IS FALSE FOR BRAINS AT THE
MACROSCOPIC LEVEL RELEVANT TO YOUR ARGUMENT

it is at these scales that psychological effects in the sense that we
normally understand them operate (that is certainly true for the
conscious choices that determine whether we carry out one experiment
rather than another. Neuroscience certainly operates on this premise --
so if you want to make your argument stick you would have to *show* that
there is non-closure at the neural level of scale -- not just at the
quantum level YES!!

Thus Velmans' whole approach begins on a questionable note. But it is
nevertheless instructive to examine it as a specimen of a sophisticated
contemporary effort to deal with mental causation. .

Velmans proposes a solution that he calls *Ontological Monism Combined
with Epistemological Dualism*. The duality part is the pair consisting
of first-person knowledge and third-person knowledge. These two kinds of
knowledge are considered to be just two views of one single reality,
hence the label "ontological monism".

First-person conscious experiences are, however, realities in their own
right. And the third-person knowledge is quickly replaced in Velmans'
account by the neural correlates of the subject's first-person conscious
experiences. But the neurons in a thinking subject's brain are hardly
ever, if ever, seen, or directly experienced, by any third person. Even
a huge array of probing devices would not come close to providing enough
third-person knowledge for a causally complete macroscopic description
of a thinking subject's brain.

Neuroscience does not require a complete description of everything going
on in the brain at the time a subject is having a given conscious
experience, only of the activities that relate directly to that
experience.

BUT ARE THESE MACROSCOPIC ACTIVITIES CAUSALLY COMPLETE WITHIN
THEMSELVES.

There is a large literature devoted to this (the search for the NCC).

So your criticism would, again, be of standard neuroscience

YES I AM CRITICISING STANDARD NEUROSCIENCE

as I am simply adopting standard assumptions about the search for the
NCC being a useful one here

USEFUL YES, BUT ARE THE NCC CAUSALLY COMPLETE? YOU YOURSELF EMPHASIZE
THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS AND PRECONSCIOUS!

Brain dynamics involves ion fluxes and electromagnetic pulses etc. that
are both invisible and also very poorly specified by feasible
measurements. One must go down to the microscopic atomic level of
classical physics to get anything like causal completeness of the
physical.

But this is a bit like saying one can't understand what the programme of
a computer

VON NEUMANN EMPHASIZES THAT BRAINS OPERATE ON DIFFERENT PRINCIPLES FROM
DIGITAL COMPUTERS. WE ARE CONSIDERING HERE WHETHER MACROSCOPIC
DESCRIPTION IS "CAUSALLY COMPLETE" IN THE LIBET EXPERIMENT. IN THAT
EXPERIMENT IN INPUT INSTRUCTION ABOUT THE TIMING OF THE CONSCIOUS EFFORT
IS IMPRECISE: NO PARTICULAR TIME IS SINGLED OUT AS THE "BEST ONE". IN
SUCH A CASE, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HIGHLY NONLINEAR BRAIN DYNAMICS,
UNCONTROLLED MICROSCOPIC VARIATIONS CAN QUICKLY BECOME MAGNIFIED INTO
MACROSCOPIC EFFECTS. THUS PREDICTING, AT THE START OF THE CITED
INTERVAL, ON THE BASIS OF MACROSCOPIC DATA ALONE, WHEN THE CONSCIOUS
EFFORT WILL OCCUR CANNOT BE RELIABLE

is doing (functionally) unless one knows all about what is happening at
the atomic level in circuits -- that might be true of quantum computers
but not as far as I know of conventional ones.

Going to quantum theory just makes matters worse.

But then one has moved from "ontological monism".back to an ontological
dualism. The first of the two realms consists of psychologically
described knowledge (of both the first- and second- person kinds), and
second consists of the "physical world" of the unseen, unknown, and
unknowable ionic fluxes and electromagnetic currents in the thinking
brain.

In RM there is a kind of dualism involved in the distinction between the
thing-itself and its real-isation in subjective experience (where the
latter is your "psychologically described knowledge" -- but note that
one can also have psychologically described or classical third-person
knowledge e.g of the macrostructure of the brains of others.

YES INDEED, BUT I CLAIM THAT [THAT]{.underline} SORT OF KNOWLEDGE CANNOT
GIVE A CAUSALLY COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF LIBET"S SUBJECT'S BRAIN: ONE
CANNOT RELIABLY DEDUCE FROM INITIAL KNOWLEDGE OF THIS KIND WHEN THE
CONSCIOUS CHOICE WILL OCCUR?

I don't think that neuroscientists necessarily expect to be able to make
precise predictions about when the conscious choice will occur or when
the ERP starts to become manifest. But that lack of predictability may
have more to do with the brain being a complex system on the edge of
stability (the behaviour of complex systems can't be precisely predicted
because multiplier effects in small perturbations in initial conditions
makes this a practical impossibility -- or so the standard story goes)

BUT THE ISSUE WAS/IS THE APPLICABILITY OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CAUSAL
CLOSURE OF THE PHYSICAL. AT WHAT LEVEL IS THIS SUPPOSED TO HOLD? ONE
CANNOT EXPECT IT TO HOLD AT THE LEVEL OF THIRD-PERSON
"[KNOWLEDGE]{.underline}", OR EVEN AT THE NEURONAL LEVEL IF SMALL
PERTURBATIONS CAN GET MAGNIFIED TO LARGE-SCALE EFFECTS. NOR CAN YOU SAY
IT APPLIES AT THE MICROLEVEL, BECAUSE THAT CONFLICTS WITH PHYSICS. SO
WHAT, EXACTLY, IS THIS PRINCIPLE OF THE CAUSAL CLOSURE OF THE PHYSICAL
THAT YOU ARE INSISTING UPON, OR MAINTAINING?

Direct observations of phenomena detectable with electron microscopes
still count as "psychological" in my book (to the extent that we can see
microphenomena we can real-ise what they are like in our observations or
experience).

BUT HOW MUCH THIRD PERSON KNOWLEDGE IS AVAILABLE VIA INSTRUMENTS AND
DEVICES? THIS IS THE QUESTION THAT QM SERIOUSLY ADDRESSED. IT WAS THIS
QUESTION, AND ITS ANSWER THAT LED TO THE COPENHAGEN INTERP. THE WHOLE
POINT OF THAT INVESTIGATION WAS THAT THE ACCESSIBLE THIRD-PERSON DATA
WAS INSUFFICIENT IN PRINCIPLE TO SUPPORT A CAUSALLY COMPLETE
DESCRIPTION!!

It is only when one gets beyond what is observable

BUT MY POINT IS THAT ONE GOES BEYOND WHAT IS OBSERVABLE TO GET CAUSAL
COMPLETENESS EVEN IN A CLASSICALLY CONCEIVED WORLD.

e.g to the descriptions of QM based on inference (from observables) that
one moves beyond or behind the "psychological". Properly understood,
this dualism is not at all the one proposed by Descartes

QM GIVES A NON-DESCARTES DUALISM, BECAUSE THE PHYSICAL PART, THOUGH IN
SPACETIME IS NONSUBSTANTIVE: IT IS "POTENTIA-LIKE".

Nineteenth century physics claims that the latter "physical" realm is
causally complete. But that assumption brings us right back to the
age-old problem of explaining why the *psy* part of that ontological
dualism exists at all\-\--and seems to be making such a huge difference
in cases in which someone, by dint of an intense effort, succeeds in
producing some difficult-to-achieve physical effect\-\--when the whole
course of physical events was already completely determined by
mechanically moved mindless atoms.

To get beyond this ancient problem what needs to be acknowledged in this
field is that our scientific understanding of both nature and our role
in nature has undergone a profound change since 1900. According to
orthodox contemporary physics the *phy* part of nature is not causally
complete. Instead, the *psy* and *phy* parts of nature causally
[interact]{.smallcaps}. Thus the problem that was posed is a
pseudo-problem. It is a relic of the failed notion that atomic physics
is like planetary physics on a small scale. The failure of that idea,
and its replacement by the validated quantum rules, dissolves the
supposed problem by disenfranchising the principle of the causal
completeness of the physical.

Velmans' argument that interactive dualism is untenable is given in his
book Understanding Consciousness (Velmams, 2000, Ch 2). But the
interactive dualisms he considers are those of Descartes and Eccles, not
the interactive dualism of the von Neumann quantum ontology. The latter
is based on a workable and empirically tested set of rules that causally
connect the two realms, and each mind is tied by these causal
connections to an associated brain.

The problems with dualist interactionism cited by Velmans are:

1.  Dualism tells us little about the nature of consciousness.

2\. Consciousness is not the same as mind or soul.

3\. Thought does not exemplify the whole of conscious experience.

4\. The problem of causation.

5\. The problem of function.

6\. Dual-interactionist explanations do not provide a genuine
alternative to

physical explanations.

Velmans describes each of these problem in some detail, but it will
suffice here to give the answers:

1\. Consciousness is the aspect of reality that is directly experienced.
It is the basis of all knowledge and all science. As Searle says: "the
appearance is the reality", This experiential reality enters into
science as the basic object whose structure we seek to understand, and
also as the carrier of our theories, and as the basis of our
communications with each other.

I completely agree with this bit -- and have argued for it extensively
myself -- but I'm not sure which of my problems of classical dualism
this is a solution for.

YOU ASK ABOUT THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. I AM ANSWERING WHAT IT IS IN
QM DUALISM

In RM it is indeed the case that "experiential reality enters into
science as its basic object". However, in classical dualism
conscious/mind/soul is made up of thinking stuff

I AM ANSWERING YOUR OBJECTIONS TO INTERACTIVE DUALISM. BY ANSWERING IN
THE CONTEXT OF QM INTERACTIVE DUALISM

that has no location or extension in space, while it is res extensa (not
consciousness) that forms the subject matter of science

IN QM DUALISM IT IS THE PSY PART THAT FORMS THE OBJECT OF SCIENCE. I AM
TRYING TO SHOW THAT YOUR OBJECTIONS TO INTERACTIVE DUALISM DO NOT APPLY
TO QM INTERACTIVE DUALISM.

The main residual problem that I see with all this is that your
interpretation places the conscious choice (as interpreted in QM) in a
central role (taking over the batting from Descartes). The reason this
is a problem for psychologists, is that while we recognize that people
believe that they have "conscious choices" -- our study of choice and
indeed of phenomenal consciousness STARTS there; it does not end there.
In short, we don't take conscious choices as givens that appear so to
speak "out of nowhere" -- but as part of a developing set of mental
process. Once the factors determining a given choice are unpacked they
can be conceptualized as features of an information processing system --
and once that happens you are in a different ball game to both Descartes
and QM (as far as I can tell)

YES! THIS IS GETTING TO THE REAL ROOTS OF THE IMPORTANT ISSUES.

CONTEMPORARY QM SPECIFIES *EFFECTS* OF OUR CONSCIOUS CHOICES, BUT NOT
THEIR CAUSES. THIS *ALLOWS* OUR CHOICES TO BE "FREE". THEY ARE NOT FIXED
BY THE LOCAL CAUSAL PHYSICALLY DESCRIBED BY PROCESS (PROCESS 2) THAT
COMES FROM THE "QUANTIZATION" OF THE CLASSICAL LAWS OF MOTION. ON THE
OTHER HAND THEY DO NOT JUST "POP OUT OF NOWHERE". THEY MUST (FOR A
SATISFACTORY UNDERSTANDING) HAVE CAUSAL ROOTS IN SOMETHING. I CALL THE
(PRESUMED) PROCESS THAT SELECTS THE PROCESS 1 ACTION "PROCESS 4". IT IS
NOT SPECIFIED IN CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS, OR BY THE LOCAL DETERMINISTIC
PROCESS 2. SO WE HAVE A HUGE, AND HUGELY CRITICAL, PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO
BE SOLVED. THE RELATIVE ROLES OF THE PSY AMD PHY PARTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC
DESCRIPTION REMAIN OPEN. PSYCHOLOGY HAS BEEN WRESTLING WITH THIS
PROBLEM, BUT GENERALLY WITHIN THE BOX DEFINED BY THE PRINCIPLE OF THE
CAUSAL CLOSURE OF THE PHYSICAL. QM RELAXES THAT CONDITION. EXPERIENTIAL
REALITIES ARE RECOGNIZED AS REALITIES THAT ARE "KNOWN" TO HAVE CERTAIN
SPECIFICALLY DEFINED EFFECTS IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. BUT AN IMPORTANT
QUESTION IS WHAT ROLE, IF ANY, DO THEY PLAY IN THE CHOICE OF PROCESS 1,
AND MORE GENRALLY, HOW IS PROCESS 1 CHOSEN?

2\. Soul does not enter the von Neumann ontology, and mind enters
precisely as streams of conscious experiences.

3\. In the von Neumann ontology the basic data consists of our streams
of consciousness; the flow of our thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Our
theories, our perceptions, and our feelings of effort, are all parts of
our streams of conscious experiences. The functional counterparts of
these elements differ, as do their qualitative feels. But the physical
realm also contains elements of diverse functionalities and forms.

4\. Some of the causal connections between mind and matter are specified
by well tested laws or rules of quantum physics and these laws have
important empirically testable consequences in mind-brain phenomena. Is
it mind and matter or consciousness and matter (the difference is
crucial once one takes on board the facts of preconscious and
unconscious mental processing)

IN QM ONTOLOGY MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS ARE THE SAME, AND THE PRECONSCIOUS
AND UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING IS DONE BY THE BRAIN.

In psychology, preconscious and unconscious processes in the brain can
also be thought of as mental processes (they are brain processes that
are functionally defined in terms of the "mental" role that they play)

I AGREE.THAT THERE ARE BRAIN PROCESS WHOSE EFFECTS CAN BE FUNCTIONALLY
DEFINED IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS (E.G., A PATTERN OF NEUROLOGICAL ACTIVITY
THAT, IF SUSTAINED, WILL TEND TO LEAD TO MY EXPERIENCE OF SEEING AND
FEELING MY ARM RISE.) HOW ONE AGREES TO USE THE TERM "MENTAL" CAN OF
COURSE BE ALTERED BY CONVENTION AMONG PRACTITIONERS IN A FIELD. I THINK
IT CAN CONFUSING TO ALLOW THE WORD "MENTAL" TO BE USED TO DESCRIBE A
BRAIN PROCESS. I THINK THAT SHIFT IN MEANING IS PROBABLY A CARRY-OVER
FROM THE BEHAVIOURIST APPROACH THAT IS BEST REJECTED., SO THAT THE
DISTINCTION BETWEEN MIND-MENTAL-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PHYSICALLY
DESCRIBED BRAIN IS NOT BLURRED.AND OBSCURED BY THE LANGUAGE BEING
EMPLOYED.

5\. The function of the mind in quantum mechanics is to make
*evaluations* of conflicting parallel possibilities generated by a
brain, in order to guide choices about injecting interventions into the
physically controlled mechanical part of the dynamical laws. These
interventions are needed in order to link the physically described
aspects of nature to our streams of conscious experiences. Again -- does
mind make the evaluations or consciousness. If it's the former you are
in a different ball game (closer to my own).THE SELECTION OF WHICH
PSYCHOPHYSICAL: EVENTS WILL OCCUR, AND WHEN THEY WILL OCCUR ARE ALLOWED
TO BE (AND ARE ASSUMED TO BE) INFLUENCED BY THE PRIOR CONTENTS OF THE
PERSON'S STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, OR PERHAPS BY THE PSY PART OF THE
POTENTIAL EVENT.ITSELF.

This is starting to introduce disembodied influences from the past
(prior streams of consciousness)

THERE ARE SEVERAL POSSIBILITIES FOR PROCESS 4 CURRENTLY BEING
CONSIDERED. THE SIMPLEST IS THAT EACH OF THE UPCOMING POTENTIAL EVENTS
HAS AN ASSOCIATED POTENTIAL FEEL, THAT ENTERS INTO AN EVALUATION PROCESS
THAT DETERMINES WHICH OF THESE POTENTIAL EVENTS WILL BE ACTUALIZED. THUS
SUBJECTIVE QUALITATIVE FEEL WOULD BE ENTERING, *AS SUCH*, INTO NATURAL
PROCESS. ACCORDING TO QM THE LOCAL DETERMINISTIC PHYSICAL PROCESS
(PROCESS 2) DOES NOT ACHIEVE OR PERFORM THIS SELECTION. WHAT A
POSSIBILITY FEELS LIKE (OR WILL FEEL LIKE IF IT IS ACTUALIZED) IS
SUPPOSED TO HAVE BECOME CORRELATED TO ITS EXPECTED FUNCTIONAL
CONSEQUENCES, INCLUDING THE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE EVALUATION ASSIGNED TO
THIS EXPECTED CONSEQUENCE DURING THE LIFE OF THE SUBJECT. THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THIS QM MODEL AND A CLASSICAL ONE IS THAT IN THE QM MODEL MANY
POSSIBILITY ARE PRESENTED IN PRINCIPLE AND EVALUATIVE PROCESS BASED ON
SUBJECTIVE FEEL DECIDES WHICH OPTION (FOR PROCESS 1) IS SELECTED, AND
WHEN IT IS SELECTED,

THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MODELS IS THAT IN THE CLASSICAL
MODEL THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ACCOUNT IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT
OF A PROCESS THAT IN PRINCIPLE IS DETERMINDED AT THE PURELY PHYSICAL
LEVEL, WHEREAS THE QM MODEL CLAIMS THAT THE ACCOUNT AT THE PHYSICAL
LEVEL IS *INCOMPLETE IN PRINCIPLE*; THAT THERE IS NO LEVEL OF
DESCRIPTION IN WHICH PURELY PHYSICAL RULES CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE FLOW OF
CONSCIOUS EVENTS IN COMPLEX SITUATIONS IN WHICH THE INPUT BOUNDARY
CONDITION ARE NOT RESTRICTIVE ENOUGH TO FORCE THE RESPONSE OF THE
ORGANISM TO BE ESSENTIALLY UNIGUE. IN SUCH SITUATIONS THE UNCERTAINTIES
AT THE IONIC LEVEL WILL LEAD

TO UNCERTAINTIES AT THE MACROSCOPIC LEVEL THAT ARE NOT RESOLVED
COMPLETELY AT THE PHYSICAL LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION. IN THESE SITUATIONS THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITIES ARE MORE THAN MERE ALTERNATIVE KNOWINGS OF A
PROCESS COMPLETELY DETERMINED BY PHYSICALLY DESCRIBED CONDITIONS.

6\. QM interactive dualism does offer a genuine alternative to purely
physical explanations because the quantum rules specify certain
definite, tested, dynamical links between the *psy* and *phy* realities
that allow the concept of physically efficacious conscious free choices
to be dynamically reconciled with the known mathematical laws of
physics. This dynamical linkage acts to close the causal gap introduced
into the physical realm by the uncertainty principle. *The QM
psychophysical dynamical process allows our conscious experiences to
actually do, by virtue of specified dynamical interactions, what they
seem to us to be doing.*

Velmans suggests that the mental physical causal account can be
understood by performing a "perspectival switching", a shifting from a
first-person viewpoint to a third-person viewpoint. But asserting that
the two descriptions represent two kinds of knowledge about one
underlying reality does not explain a causal connection between them. It
explains only a correlation between them. To say that these two
realities are "inner" and "outer" views of one reality leaves open the
original question of why my inner experience should exist at all, and
feel like it is forcing my body to move in some special way, when
another view reveals that the sufficient causes of all my bodily actions
are expressible without any acknowledgement of the existence of my
thoughts.

But that is precisely what the 2002 and earlier suggestions do address
and resolve: both views are correct because they are correct,
alternative views of the same underlying set of processes that are
actually taking place.

I DO REALIZE THAT THAT WAS YOUR INTENT. BUT YOUR SUGGESTION DOES NOT
SEEM TO REALLY DO THE JOB. IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE
THIRD PERSON KNOWLEDGE CAN BE CAUSALLY COMPLETE IN THE LIBET CASE. BUT
IF ONE GRANTS THIS CAUSAL COMPLETENESS, AND IF THIS THIRD-PERSON
VIEWPOINT ALLOWS THE VIEWED PROCESS TO BE CONCORDANT WITH A CAUSALLY
COMPLETE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION, WITH NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE EXISTENCE
OF ANY "FEELINGS"

Of course I acknowledge feelings and other conscious qualia (I have
defended a non reductionist position throughout)

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THE EXISTENCE OF FEELINGS. BUT THE
PRINCIPLE OF THE CAUSAL COMPLETENESS OF THE PHYSICAL CLAIMS THAT THERE
IS A CAUSAL ACCOUNT THAT USES ONLY THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES: THIS
PHYSICAL ACCOUNT DOES NOT "ACKNOWLEDGE THE EXISTENCE OF FEELINGS".

THEN THE OTHER VIEW THAT "FEELINGS OF EFFORT" ARE WHAT IS CAUSING THE
PROCESS TO GO THE WAY IT IS GOING CAN ONLY ALSO BE VERIDICAL IF THE PSY
VIEW IS FULLY IN CONDORDANCE WITH THE CAUSALLY COMPLETE PHYSICAL
DESCRIPTION. BUT THEN THE PROCESS IS DETERMINISTIC WITHIN THE
MECHANICAL/PHYSICAL REALM. THUS FREEDOM IS AN ILLUSION: EVERYTHING IS
MECHANICALLY FIXED. THUS THE SOLUTION REDUCES EFFECTIVELY TO THE
PHYSICALIST MODEL, WITH AN EPIPHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS WITNESSING WHAT
IS ALREADY FIXED BY MECHANICAL RULES.

No -- this isn't the only alternative -- the whole "mechanical" idea
that works for classical physics is inappropriate to describe
psychological functioning. An adequate "systems" account would have to
exhibit the same degree of freedom to make choices according to our
wishes and the available options that we feel we really do have -- or
its not an adequate model (see my 2003 paper on preconscious free will)
-- see also my forthcoming commentary on Wegner in the next issue (I
think) of BBS "Why free will both is and isn't an illusion")

YOU REPEAT IN YOUR 2003 PAPER (p.51) WHAT YOU SAID IN YOUR 2002 TARGET
ARTICLE, "the processes giving rise to conscious experience follow
deterministic physical laws." THIS SEEMS TO BE CONFIRMING YOUR
COMITTMENT TO THE FUNDAMENTAL "MECHANICAL" IDEA OF THE CAUSAL CLOSURE OF
THE PHYSICAL. YOUR IDEA OF "FREE WILL" IS THAT THE DETERMINISTIC
MECHANISTIC PHYSICAL PROCESS THAT IS CONTROLLING BRAIN ACTIVITY IS NOT
COERSIVELY CONTROLLED BY OUTSIDE (OF THE BRAIN) CONSTRAINTS, AND THAT
THE "FEELING OF FREEDOM" THAT WE OFTEN EXPERIENCE IS OFTEN AN ACCURATE
INDICATOR OF [THAT]{.underline} KIND OF "FREE WILL". BUT, ACCORDING TO
YOUR IDEAS, THE NOTION THAT THE IMPULSIVE FEELING WE CALL "EFFORT" IS
ACTUALLY, ITSELF, CAUSING WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE CAUSING, IS AN ILLUSION:
THE PHYSICALLY DESCRIBED BRAIN IS DOING IT, AND THE ACCOMPANYING
FEELINGS/EXPERIENCES ARE IMPOTENT WITNESSES TO FAIT ACCOMPLI. ALL
PHYSICAL EVENTS WOULD BE EXACT THE SAME IF THIS ACCOMPANYING SIDE
EFFECT, WHOSE EXISTENCE IS NOT ENTAILED BY THE PHYSICAL LAWS, WERE
STRIPPED AWAY. CONSCIOUS IS RENDERED EPIPHENOMENAL. IN QM THE EFFORT
CAUSES THE BRAIN TO BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY.

See also the 2003 paper on "Preconscious free will " which goes more
deeply into the issue of what is "free" about the operations of mind
viewed from either perspective.

THIS IDEA THAT FREE WILL ACTS PRIOR TO CONSCIOUSNESS SUCKS YOU EVEN
DEEPER INTO A MORASS. THE CAUSAL ANOMALIES OF QM IS THE DIRECT WAY OUT.

What morass? (its actually quite simple)

THE CLAIM THAT THOSE IMPULSIVE FEELINGS CALLED EFFORTS, WHICH WE CALL UP
WHEN FACED WITH A DIFFICULT TASK THAT REQUIRES A GREAT AMOUNT OF
REDIRECTION OF THE NATURAL FLOWS OF ENERGY IN THE BRAIN IS A
LATE-ARRIVING ANNOUNCEMENT OF WHAT THE BRAIN HAS ALREADY DONE, ON ITS
OWN, WITHOUT ANY NEED FOR THIS DECEIVING IMPOSTER THAT CLAIMS CREDIT FOR
THE WORK DONE BY ANOTHER, WITHOUT ANY BENEFIT TO ANYONE, IS SO
IMPLAUSIBLE A SCENATIO THAT IT WILL SURELY BE BUT A FIRST STEP DOWN A
SLIPPERY SLOPE, PARTICULARLY WHEN IT VIOLATES BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
PHYSICS THAT, WHEN ENFORCED, ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR ANY SUCH DECEPTION.

Given the apparent failure of the principle of the completeness of the
physical, and the existence of the causally efficacious role of
conscious experiences in contemporary physics,

again -- is it conscious experiences or mind (within contemporary
understanding there are many reasons to distinguish between these in
spite of their close interrelationship)

BUT IN QM ONTOLOGY THAT AWKWARD SEPARATION OF MIND (OR MENTAL) FROM
CONSCIOUSNESS IS REVERSED: BRAIN DOES WHAT THE PSYCHOPHYSICAL
INTERVENTIONS DO NOT DO.

The separation is pretty well unavoidable given the evidence -- how
about memories? (aren't they "mental"? and aren't they unconscious
unless one happens to be recalling them)

EACH CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE OCCURS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OCCURRENCE OF A
SUSTAINED PATTERN OF BRAIN ACTIVITY, WHICH LEAVES PHYSICAL TRACES IN THE
BRAIN, WHICH "FACILITATES" THE RE-OCCURRENCE OF THIS PATTERN AT A LATER
TIME, WHEN PARTS OF THIS PATTERN ARE ACTIVATED (ASSOCIATION). THE LATER
ACTIVATION CAN BE PARTS OF A LARGER PATTERN OF BRAIN ACTIVITY THAT CAN
BE ACTUALIZED BY A LATER PSYCHPHYSICAL EVENT, WHOSE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT
WILL CONTAIN ASPECTS OF THAT EARLIER PSYCHOPHYSICAL EVENT. (THIS IS NOT
PARTICULARLY PROBLEMATIC, AND WAS DISCUSSED IN MM&QM)

surely the far more reasonable explanation for the existence of this
mysterious first-person viewpoint, and of its content, is that the
first-person conscious effort is doing what contemporary physical theory
is so beautifully equipped to allow it to do, namely to *causally
influence* the activities of my brain, and thereby my physical actions.

The existence of Velmans' proposal provides an indication of the
desperate situation caused by the reluctance of many scientists and
philosophers to come to grips with the profound twentieth century
revolution in our understanding of nature, and of our role in nature.

I don't feel desperate (once you get into the epistemological
dualism/ontological monism approach it makes perfect sense -- to me at
any rate)

After describing his proposed solution, Velmans goes on to consider two
puzzles. Their consideration reveals even more clearly than before, the
need to recognize the profound revision of our conception of nature, and
of ourselves, wrought by the twentieth century advances in physics.

The two puzzles posed by Velmans are these:

(1) How can our conscous experiences be causally effective if they come
    too late to affect the mind/brain process to which they most
    obviously relate?

(2) How can the contents of consciousness affect brain and body states
    when one is not conscious of the biological processes that govern
    those states?

The Libet experiment exemplifies the problem associated with question
(1).The conscious choice to initiate "now" the physical act of raising
the finger occurs about one-third of a second after the brain has
apparently already initiated that action.

In this experiment the initial intentional act is to willfully choose to
perform, at some future time within, say, the next minute, the action of
raising the finger. We often make such resolves to act in some specified
way at some future time, and these commitments are often met with great
precision. In the Libet case the resolve is rather imprecise as regards
the exact time of the voluntary action. It is doubtful that any person,
informed even by a multitude of probing devices about the state of the
subject's brain at the beginning of the specified interval, could
predict with good accuracy just when the choice to move the finger will
occur. And even if every large-scale feature of the brain were given at
the outset, it is still questionable whether, even in a world that
obeyed the deterministic laws of classical physics, this macroscopic
data would fix the time at which the conscious choice would occur. There
is just too much latitude for initially small scale variations to
develop over the course of time into significant macroscopic effects.
Even within classical physics the best one could do with the macroscopic
data would be to make a statistical model based on that data and the
known general properties of the brain.

The quantum model is essentially like the classical statistical model in
this case. However, in the classical case one imagines that exactly one
of the alternative weighted possibilities is the "real" one, and that
the statistical smearing represents a mere lack of knowledge as to which
of the weighted possibilities corresponds to the "actual real world".
But various interference phenomena, and other considerations, block this
"lack of knowledge" interpretation of the quantum state. The various
weighted classical worlds must be conceived of, insofar as one opts for
an ontological construal of von Neumann's quantum theory, as
possibiliies or potentialities, some subset of which can eventually be
actualized by some measurement or psychophysical event.

In the Libet experiment, the various weighted classically conceived
worlds (or brains) correspond to the various possible times of choosing
to raise the finger. All of these possibilities exist in parallel, until
one of them (or more precisely one subset of them) is actualized by a
psychophysical event. This event is felt as a choice to initiate "now"
the specified physical action, and is physically expressed as the
*reduction* of the prior set of classically conceived possibilities to
the subset compatible with that feeling. The existence of these
reduction, or collapse, events is a fundamental premise of the
interpretive machinery of orthodox quantum theory. It produces a
rationally coherent framework that accounts for all of the successful
predictions of classical physics, and also for the many additional
successful predictions that are not understandable within the framework
defined by the precepts of classical physics.

As time advances, from the beginning of the specified interval, the
classically described brains associated with the different possible
times for the conscious choice to occur will begin coming onto being, in
the evolving quantum state of the brain. They come into being only as
weighted potentialities. The weight associated with any tiny time
interval will be tiny. That means that the probability that any
particular classical possibility will be actualized is tiny. But the
fact that the original intent was to make the choice sometime during the
interval means that the probabilities should add to unity. Thus for some
initial period of time the various arising potentialities will not be
actualized: the "No" option will be chosen by nature. But eventually the
"Yes" option will be picked, and the corresponding small set of
classically described brains will be actualized. The key point is this:

*The rules of quantum theory ensure that all later experiences will be
compatible with the condition that this reduced set of classical worlds
is what existed prior to, and led up to, the choice that actually
occurred. All future experiences will be as if the other classically
described possibilities never existed. These conditions are ensured by
the mathematical form of the psychophysical event that reduces the state
of the brain, and consequently the entire physical universe, to its new
form.*

To appreciate the significance of this condition note that a given
classically described process in the brain may have causal off shoots: a
certain classical conceived brain activity may cause some other related
things to happen. For example, the build up of the readiness potential
in this classically conceived brain process may cause an electrical
pulse to occur that is detected by some measuring device, and recorded.
The quantum laws ensure that all later experiences will correspond to
the classical world that is actualized and experienced by the subject*:
the eliminated classical potentialities leave no trace.*

These conditions are what are needed to make the theory work nicely. So
it is not too surprising that quantum theory imposes them. But it is
quite amazing that such a strange arrangement of ideas can really be
made to work consistently and coherently. Einstein, and many others,
tried very hard to find an inconsistency or logical flaw in the scheme,
but they failed.

This effective backward-in-time action has been a prime point of attack
on orthodox quantum theory, and it continues to fascinate physicists
even today, under the names "quantum nonlocality", and "Bell's theorem".
But although this effect may seem weird to people accustomed to thinking
about the world in classical terms, no logical inconsistency or conflict
with empirical data has ever been established. One can be quite
confident in accepting, as most physicists do, that this nonlocality
feature is just a brute-fact part of how the world works.

The upshot of all this is that quantum theory is able to reconcile the
idea that physically effective choices can be free, in the sense of not
being *fixed* by the physically described part of the evolving universe
that exists prior to that choice, and yet be dependent on features of
that prior physically described world that are prerequisites for its
existence. The prior physical world can contain the classically
conceived physical prerequisites for many possible perceptions only some
coherent subset of which will ever occur. *But the unused potentialities
vanish without a trace, according to the quantum mathematical rules.*

A key feature of orthodox quantum mechanics is its reconciliation of
human freedom with the laws of physics. It might be prudent for
scientist and philosophers interested in this issue to consult the
highly nontrivial way in which physicists have been able to achieve
this. *This reconciliation of physically efficacious human freedom with
the laws of physics is the prime reason for turning to quantum mechanics
in our search for an adequate understanding of the mind-brain system.*

Henry -- we have discussed the above in our earlier emails so I won't
take issue with it here; although I think you will find it hard to
convince the neuroscientists, you have at least had a shot at this
vexing problem.

NEUROSCIENTISTS MAY BE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK.

The second puzzle posed by Velmans is: How can the contents of
consciousness affect brain and body states when one is not conscious of
the biological processes that govern those states?

The answer is that the dynamical process involves psychophysical events
each of which has both a feel and a physical action in the brain. Trial
and error learning allows us to associate the psychological feel of
useful kinds of events with the effective function of the associated
physical action. Then high-level processing can be guided by evaluations
that are based on the felt qualities of the possible psychophysical
actions. These felt qualities can enter into the decisions concerning
which psychophysical actions will intervene in the physically described
evolution, and when these actions will intervene. This possibility is
developed in the following two chapters

Hmm

PROFESSOR VELMANS TOLD ME, WHEN HE SENT HIS LAST REPLIES, THAT, TO BRING
CLOSURE TO THIS DIALOG, HE WOULD REFRAIN FROM COMMENTING FURTHER, GIVING
ME THE LAST WORD HERE. SO DO NOT INTERPRETE THE ABSENCE OF A REBUTTAL BY
HIM AS EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING BUT THAT COMMITMENT.