Date:    Sun, 18 Oct 1998 05:53:47 -0700
From:    gordon g globus <ggglobus@UCI.EDU>
Subject: Reply to Sarfatti on "Stapp's Breakthrough?"--Henry Stapp
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From: Henry Stapp

Subject: Stapp's Breakthrough? Jack Sarfatti (Oct 14)

    [Stapp-prev2]
But the proper way of science is first to see whether the
data can be accommodated within the most orthodox
framework, without allowing violations of the *predictions*
of the theory, which is something that "all" quantum
physicists agree about, no matter which ontological or
interpretive framework they may favor.

[Jack - prev]
Correct, but evidence on precognitive remote viewing
violates the passion-at-a-distance of orthodox quantum
theory.

     {Stapp-prev1]
I have repeatedly pointed out that the Eberhard theorem of
"orthodox quantum theory" is based on the extra assumption
of "good measurements"; my vN/W theory is completely
orthodox, but it relaxes the requirement that every
experience corresponds to a "good measurement" in the sense
of von Neumann's theory of measurement. Consequently, it
can, if certain assumptions about the absence of relevant
proto-experiences (and hence reductions) are made,
automatically accommodate the purported evidence.

[Jack]
This is a very pleasant surprise. I have completely missed
this most important part of your theory.

[Stapp]
This should not be a surprise to you: I have strongly emphasized it
in I think every (or certainly almost every) reply to you on this forum.

[Jack]
Can you collect
everything you have written on this particular point and put
it here on the list so we can all conveniently examine it?

[Stapp]
There is too much of it to do that. Let me list some places;
Tucson II, p. 604-607.
Target article: (Whiteheadian approach... q/mind  Aug3-4 sect.4]
In J. of Mind and Behavior /H. Stapp/ Science of Consc. and the Hard Prob.
          p. 182[80] -183[81]
Chance, Choice, and Consciousness (Tucson II before cutting to fit space
demands] http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html
or http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/37944mod.tex     section 6.

The point of the target article was precisely to explain this point.

[Jack]
I don't recall you saying anything like this in your book, for
example. I had no idea that you had a way to get around
Eberhard's theorem in an orthodox setting. You need to
explain your above paragraph in much more detail. I predict
that when your expanded notion of "measurement" is examined
in detail in Bohmian terms that it will correspond exactly
to the post-quantum notion of the feedback-control loop
between the explicate and the first implicate order.

[Stapp]
As regards the connection to Bohmian mechanics, the key point is that *I*
am starting from the Solvay 1927 point of view, where our conscious
experiences, as we actually experience them, and more specifically the
experienced increments of knowledge that we can describe in an appropriate
language to ourselves and to our technically trained colleagues,
are already identified as the basic realities that quantum theory is about;
and from the fact that the relationship of these experiences, described in
this way, to the mathematical structure of quantum theory, is just what was
resolved in a practically useful and logically satisfactory way at the
1927 Solvay conference. This basically epistemological connection, which is
the essential element of the Copenhagen interpretation, is integrated and
into vonNeumann/Wigner interpretation, which is closer to an ontological
interpretation of quantum theory. On the other hand,  the central purpose
of Bohm's model, with its classical world line weaving through
3n-dimensional configuration space, was to get consciousness out of physics:
to bring physics back to a geometrically visualizable (in 3-dimensional
configuration space, to be sure) form not involving the consciousness of
observers in a way that is basically different from the way they enter into
classical physical theory, namely as passive observers of processes in brains
that somehow represent information about the world received by the senses.
Using a theory designed to get consciousness out of physics in order to get
consciousness back in leads to logical problems that I will describe below.

My approach is to recognize, among other things, that quantum theory probably
gives only a partial description of the causal connections between
our experiences. I show how a certain looseness in the vN/W theory allows
there to be another causal strand that is entangled with the
physical, but is not causally determined by physical. It acts through
conscious experiences that  "supervene" on the physical, but that are not
causally determined by the physical.

As explained in the Tucson II passage, and as I explained also in previous
answers to you on this forum, the connection of Bohmian mechanics
to experience is via the idea that the evolution of the wave function (of
the world) in a "good measurement" situation is such that this function will
break up into a superposition of terms that are nonzero over essentially
disjoint pockets in the 3n-dimensional configuration space (because of a
disjointness in some "pointer variable"), and Bohm's rules then give, for each
such pocket, the correct  "probability" that the world line will be in that
pocket. But in the non-good-measurement case there is no separation
onto such disjoint pockets: there is one big conglomeration of superposed
overlapping states, but no clear way to pick out from this conglomerate some
particular projector P_e  that corrsponds to the question "Will experience e
occur next?" And, in sharp contrast to the "good measurement" situation, the
actual course of physical events can strongly depend now on which questions
are asked in which order! Thus the looseness mentioned above allows---in
ways that I have explicitly modelled, and explained in detail in the
cited references---there to be a dependence of the flow of physical events
upon choices of which experience e occurs in the question:
"Will e occur next?"

In your model there is a "back action" of the world line on the wave function,
and this back action eradicates the components of the wave function
corresponding all of the OTHER pockets, in case the separation into pockets
is well defined. This back-action will be accompanied  by the occurrence
of the experience corresponding to that pocket, if the pocket, and the
relationship of the pocket to an experience, is well defined.

Your back action produces, in effect, a collapse of the wave function,
which you associate with a conscious experience.

Your logic is different from the one I employ: I say, in line with the
pragmatic approach, that IF an experience occurs, THEN the wave function
(i.e., state) of the universe, which represents knowledge, reduces to the
part compatible with the new added bit of knowledge. But you start with the
geometric Bohmian description, and assert that there will be experientail
qualities associated with certain changes in the physical description in
terms of the evolving wave function and world line. Thus the causal direction
appears, at least superfically, to be opposite in the two theories: it *seems*
that in your theory the physical description in terms of the world line
and collapsing wave  could in principle be causally described (at least
statistically) without explicitly bringing in the explicitly experiential
aspects per se: the experiential qualities themselves do not appear to be
a key part of the causal process.

The collapse/reduction,  regardless of whether it is a consequence of the
experience or is a cause of it, will have the usual FORMAL precursive effects:
the quantum rules themselves ensures that the actualization occurring at time
t of a particular state S will pull out of the state existing prior to t
just the part of that prior state that is compatible with what was learned
at t: the prior (quantum) state of (universal) knowledge, which gives some
statistical information about the upcoming increment in knowledge, becomes
reduced by the actual occurrence this increment in knowledge e to the part
compatible with this knowledge. But the instantaneous action S-->(P_e S P_e)
entails that expectations regarding *future* increments in knowledge will
be affected by this formal back-action of the present increment in knowledge
upon the state existing prior to the present increment in knowledge.

A simple example is the spin version of the EPR experiment. Suppose the
preparatiom occurs at clock time t = 0 and the measurement occurs at clock
time t=T. Suppose the prepared Heisenberg state (which determines *formal*
expectation values over ALL space-time) is the spin-singlet state. Then
the formal expectation values in the interval 0<t<0 in the prepared state
is the singlet state, which is a superposition of possibilities. After the
outcome of the measurement (which fixes, say, the spin of the particle in
the right-hand-region to be spin up) becomes known the new Heisenberg state
will specify that, in the entire time interval 0<t<T, the formal expectation
values will fix the spin to be up on the right and down on the left:
the increment in knowledge at time t causes the *formal* expectation values
prior to t to be compatible with that increment in knowledge.

One may
choose to introduce words like "handshake" and "transaction" and "advanced
potential" to provide a classical-mechanical type "picture" of this formal
property of quantum theory. But the direct way to understand it is simply to
say that the state represents knowledge, and that when an increment in
knowledge occurs, the state of the universe changes, and this change does
refine our knowledge about what was happening just prior to the increment.
Expectations about future increments in knowledge will reflect
this universe-wide change in the state of the universal knowledge.

The quantum rules determine all of these things without adding words that
change nothing. What is really important is not formal properties about the
past, but predictions about future observations. All subsequent increments
in knowledge (for example via a subsequent observation of some read-out that
provides effective knowledge about what was happening  before t) will
be compatible with what we learned at time t. For example, an observation
of the "other particle" will reveal that it has spin down.  In the Libet
experiment the real action e at time t causes the superposition of
potentialities that were present prior to the experience e at to become
reduced to just those potentialities that lead to that experience e. Then all
observations of *future* read-outs will conform to what became fixed at
the time t, when the subject had the experience e.

All this is straight-forward basic quantum theory. I stressed this
in my book MM&QM (p.23-28): it was the key property of quantum theory
that was the basis of my book.

These issues of how to comprehend the nature of the quantum state and
its connection to experience feed directly into the problem at hand.

This problem is the situation with the big conglomeration of overlapping
superposed states, each corresponding to an experience. What, in the Bohm
model, determines which experience will occur if the world line is
in many overlapping "pockets" simultaneosly? What chooses which one of
the many possible experiences will be actualized? If the effect is going to be
like a mental force that can override the more automatic "mechanical-type"
forces on the basis of a conscious forcing of attention, then how does this
dependence on experiential  attention get put into the Bohmian
dynamics? Or in the Quantum-Zeno-Effect case,  how does the Bohmian system
know that there is to be rapid-fire succession of collapses? According to my
theory the psychologically describe states of mind are the basic realities,
and they can therefore  enter directly into the dynamics.

It appears to me that your theory suffers from the deficiency that Dave
Chalmers claimed for the theory developed in MM&QM.

He said that one could simply keep the physical evolution of the wave
function exactly as in my theory, but leave out consciousness, and that the
physical evolution would be unchanged: the experiential aspect seems to be a
logically disconnect piece, not a rationally integral part of a logically
unified structure. I claimed that the increments in knowledge were the
realities, and the reductions of the wave function were representation of
the effects of the changing reality, as specified in the Copenhagen
interpretation, and that the experiential aspect could therefore not be
stripped away without eliminating the reality itself. Still, it was
disconcertingly true, in the theory as developed in my book, that the
physical part DID SEEM TO BE ABLE to stand alone: the experiential aspect
did not seem to be dynamically necessary.

My present theory does make experience, per se, dynamically
necessary: one cannot strip it away without stopping the dynamical development.

But it seems to me, Jack, that in theory the experiential qualities per se,
are not dynamically or logically or dynamically necessary, in the sense
that Chalmers is talking about. It seems that conscious experiences are
just grafted onto a physical dynamical system that could function
in exactly the same way if one left the *explicitly experiential* aspect out,
but simply allowed all of the geometrically describable features to evolve in
the way you, without bringing in any non-geometric concepts in conjunction
with the collapses of the wave function.
...
[Jack]
Can you say what you mean [about the Libet]
more clearly? In particular, Penrose and Wolf, and now Judy
Arnel, all seem to agree that Libet's data, for a certain
kind of experiment, shows the following non-metrical
topological partial ordering in time of three events

t1 < t < t2

onset of brain activation at time t1

experiential quality of making a choice at time t to do the
voluntary movement

executing the voluntary movement at time t2

where ordinary brain science sees a direct mechanical
past-cause/future-effect link from the event at t1 and the
event at t2.

The problem then is how to properly understand the
experiential quality at time t. So, I ask you, in Bohr's
"plain language" how, on the basis of your expanded theory,
do you understand the function of the experiential quality
at time t in the above scenario?

1. Is it merely a passive epiphenomenon? That is, is it a
future effect whose past cause is the unconscious onset of
brain activity at time t1? That is, is the event at t1 the
real cause of both events at t and t2?

Or:

2. Is the conscious experience at time t the active cause of
the entire process?  That is, the conscious experiential
quality at time t is the future cause whose past effect is
the mechanical onset of brain activation at the earlier time
t1?

Which is it for your theory? My theory says it is 2. My
previous understanding of your theory led me to believe that
you will choose 1.

[Stapp]
My whole position has steadfastly been that Quantum Theory
allows our thoughts to be efficatious, whereas classical physics
renders them removable and epiphenomenal. I do not see how you
could have been wrong on such a basic point. Your theory, on the other
hand, in spite of your wishes and intentions and efforts,
probably does render our thoughts epiphenomenal. The point is that I make
experiences the basic reality, whereas you start from Bohm. Bohm's theory
was designed to get rid of any need or role for consciousness: the choice
between the various alternative possible physical worlds that quantum theory
generates was determine not by adding a unitary consciousness, which
picks out a single experienced actuality, but a classical world line that
mechanically picks out a single outcome of any good measurement, because
it ends up in one of the disjoint alternative possible pockets, each of which
corresponds to a different possible outcome. Insofar as the quantum predictions
are satisfied you presumeably want to leave the wave function prior to an
experience unaffected by that experience, in order preserve the essential
point of Bohm's theory, namely its ability to explain the quantum statistical
rules. If the back-action (of world line on wave function) affects the wave
function only later, then the consciousness that you associate with that
back-action does not influence the choice of that outcome:
the outcome was already fixed by Bohm's rules.
But even in a more general case you seem subject to Chalmer's objection
that you have not explained why the *explicitly experiential* aspects that you
say are associated with the back-action-reduction of the wave function, really
enter into the process in some essential way. Since the underlying Bohmian
structure is in terms of wave functions and trajectories in configuration space
how do you bring something so seemingly disparate as an experiental "pain"
or "intention" into this mathematical structure. The point here is that
whereas there is no problem in giving mathematical structure to aspects of
experiences that are defined in some appropriately restrictive language,
it seems impossible to ascribe to a purely geometric structure any
necessarily experiential quality.  But if the quality is not present by
logical or mathematical necessity then it can be stripped away, leaving all
the geometric features intact, or so it would seem. So although thoughts can
be truly efficacious in an experience-based ontology, they would appear
to be necessarily epiphenomenal in an ontology that is based on geometric
description.

[Jack]
Please give us here a clear unambiguous
answer to this crucial matter.[about the efficacy of the thought at t]

[Stapp]
The choice at t is a real active effective choice. The entire theory is
strictly forward causal in the usual quantum mechanical sense: in the
Schroedinger picture the state S(t) evolves forward in time in a way controlled
by the immediate past, except at a sequence of times at which there is a
jump S-->(P_e S P_e) corresponding to an increase in knowledge. This jump has
*real* consequences only in the future. But of course the quantum formalism
automatically ensures, as explained above, and without any talk about
"handshakes" or "transactions" or "backward causation" or "advanced
potentials",  that the past is "refined", in the sense that only those
components of the potentialities  present before the reduction
that are compatible with the choice made at t will be contributing to
what will be observed later. This is just pure straightforward ordinary
quantum theory.

[Jack]
If you also choose 2, rather than 1, then there is no
essential functional difference between our two theories at
this time.

[Stapp]
My theory is essentially different from yours.
You would have to define "essential functional difference"
in order to prove your claim.

....
[Jack]
Here is the problem. I, for one, do not understand what you
mean here.

For example, what is the "intentional-attentional aspect of
an experience e" in the context of your theory? I do have a
clear picture of that in my theory, but I do not understand
it in your theory. ... .The
CONSCIOUS experiential quality "e", or "attention" that is
associated with that unconscious Wigner action is the direct
equal and opposite-in-time Wigner self-reaction of that
brain material back on that mind.

[Stapp]
An experiential quality IS actually experienced quality: it is not
something else. That does not mean that our recollections of it
are infallible. But an experience IS that felt experience. In science we
try to describe mathematically certain relationships between  our
experiences, as we describe these experiences to ourselves and to others in
appropiate languages. This is the pragmatic conception
of science that was adopted by the founders of quantum theory for dealing
with physics in a way that encompassed in a uniform and coherent way all
the results of classical and quantum theory. Since this mode of description
encompasses classical and quantum theoretical description of the brain and
includes also the descriptions the associated experiences am suggesting that
it is the natural framework to use also in the scientific study of the
brain/mind system.

[Jack]
So, for example, in our
toy Libet model above, the "intention" is the really
physical retroactive action of mind on brain from time t
back to earlier time t1.

[Stapp]
An "intention" is *really* an aspect of an experience: it is the aspect that
we describe as a willfulness to do or act in some particular
way, or to make something happen.

[Jack]
The "attention" is then the direct
back-action (self-reaction) from t1 to t of the brain
material on the mind.

[Stapp]
In the flow of experience there is a momentary focussing of each
thought on some feature that we say is "being attended to"

[Jack]
So I have a clear picture of what I mean. In contrast, I
doubt that anyone, other than you, has a clear picture of
what you mean.

[Stapp]
Tomes have been written about "intention" and "attention".
I doubt that anyone (psychologist, psychiatrist, philosopher of
mind) would understand your meaning of these terms, or agree that your
definition corresponds to what they mean. But I think most educated people
would have a pretty good idea of what I mean by these words: they are I think
at least roughly what most people mean, although a somewhat different
technical meaning has been given to "intention". But my dictionary defines
"intent" as "The state of mind active at the time of an action; volition."
It is basically about mind, not brain.

[Jack]
So let's try to make it clearer what you
mean. If anyone else can explain clearly what you mean, let
them do so for all of us to see.

[Stapp]
The addition is this: the experienced intention in `e' to
attend to a possible experience e~ is assumed to identify
the experience e that occurs in the question to be put to
nature "Will e occur next?" Quantum dynamics stalls unless
some definite question like this is is put to nature, but
there is nothing else within vN/W quantum theory that fixes
what the experience e in the question put to nature is.

Note that in the Copenhagen interpretation the experimenter
makes this choice by choosing, earlier, to set up some experimental
procedure such that if his subsequent experience of the outcome is e
then the state S will be reduced to (P_e S P_e).

[Jack]
Again this is not as clear as it should be. I have a clear
notion of exactly how the question is "put to nature" is a
self-determined way. My theory has no ambiguity on this
point. In ordinary QM the "question put to nature" is the
basis of eigenfunctions in Hilbert space of the measured
Hermitian observable. This basis translates into a landscape
of basins of attractors for the Bohm worldline in
configuration space. The above intentional-attentional
action-reaction loops in time I have described shows how
this landscape, hence the questions put to nature, co-evolve
with the answers to these questions. The "answer" is the
active occupied basin of attraction.

[Stapp]
The issue is how the psychologically defined realities, "willful intent", and
the feature of experience that is "being attended to" enter into the dynamical
process when there is no disjunction of basins, but rather one big basin that
encompasses many overlapping possibilities.

In my book MM&QQ I considered only the good measurement situation, and in
that case the Heisenberg choice (of which question to pose) makes no
difference, after doing the appropriate averagings.

But in the general case it can make a big difference. So in order to
bring experiential qualities per se directly into the causal process
I have turned to the general case. Then the model I have described in
my target article shows how---by allowing the willful action in an earlier
experience e' of "attending to a possible experience e~" to answer
the otherwise unresolved Heisenberg question of what e to put into
the question put to nature "Will e occur"---one introduces into the causal
brain/mind process a direct causal  role for experience per se, and one
that allows willful intent to control in large measure brain behaviour without
this intent being causally determined by the state of the brain together with
outcomes of the random Dirac choices: another strand of causation runs
through the experiential realm, closely tied to, but not causally
determined by, brain process + random process.