Anthony Freeman (Editor of the Journal of Conscious Studies) has written
a new book "Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates." In it he has a section on 
"Consciousness and Quantum Science" that gives a very nice summary
of my approach. He has kindly consented to allow me to post that
section on this website. No quotation from it should be given without
his permission. 

---------------------------
"Extracted from  "Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates" by Anthony Freeman, 
to be published by ABC-Clio  (2003)."
anthony@imprint.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Consciousness and Quantum Science

We have already seen what happens in a typical experiment in quantum 
physics. When an observation is recorded-say on a phosphor screen or 
photographic plate-quantum entities (like photons or electrons) will 
appear as particles in precise positions. But their observed 
distribution is predicted by Schroedinger's wave function, and in 
appropriate conditions they exhibit Airy's wave-associated ring pattern. 
This suggests that while unobserved they were behaving as waves-which 
can spread out in more than one direction at once-but once they are 
observed, they have just a single position, a characteristic of a 
particle. The act of observation "collapses the wave function" and an 
actual state precipitates, as it were, out of the cloud of previously 
possible states. This is what scandalized Einstein: that the chance 
event of an observation should not merely uncover but actually create 
the reality of the universe. But the question arises: what is so special 
about a device such as a light-sensitive plate, that its interception of 
a quantum entity should count as an observation and so "create" 
actuality in this way?

The person who pushed this question to the limit was John von Neumann 
(1903-1957), one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century 
and the mathematical genius behind the modern computer. He asked us to 
imagine what has become known as "von Neumann's chain," i.e. a whole 
series of steps from the moment a quantum entity-such as a photon from 
an experimenter's light source-sets out on its way, to the point when 
its eventual position on the light-sensitive screen is noted in the 
experimenter's notebook. Where, he asks, in that whole chain of events, 
is the vital step that counts as the observation that collapses the wave 
function and turns potentiality into actuality? Is it when the photon 
does or doesn't go through the mirror? Is it when it hits the screen? Is 
it when the experimenter looks at the screen? Or writes down the 
position? What is the unique moment? Von Neumann's own answer was that 
every stage simply involved atoms and molecules interacting with each 
other-the light source, the photon itself, the half-reflecting mirror, 
the light-sensitive screen, the retina of the experimenter's eyes, his 
hands writing with his pencil in his notebook-all of this was simply 
molecules interacting. Except for one unique step. That, said von 
Neumann, was the point in the chain when the physical signal reaching 
the experimenter's brain became a conscious experience in the 
experimenter's mind.

Von Neumann thus concluded that, if there was indeed a collapse of the 
wave function-by which we mean a point at which the quantum wave of 
possibility became an actual fact in the world of classical objects-then 
that collapse had to be identified with the moment of conscious 
observation. The mere moment of a photon striking a screen and causing a 
blip could not be the vital reality-creating moment, because without a 
conscious observer to interpret it, that blip was not an observation or 
a measurement, but just another meaningless collision of subatomic 
particles. Only the moment of conscious observation could qualify as the 
"magic" moment. And if that turned out to be true, then a revolution had 
indeed occurred in science.

Von Neumann, and those physicists such as Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) and 
Henry Stapp, who followed his lead, drew the inference that there is no 
logical end to the chain of events in a quantum experiment until the 
point of recognition of a measurement in a conscious observer's mind. He 
therefore amended the standard Copenhagen interpretation-which says, 
remember, that the quantum world can only be understood in relation to 
the classical world of measuring instruments-to say that not just any 
recorded measurement but only conscious observation could precipitate 
physical actuality out of quantum possibility. There had long been 
philosophers (called idealists) who claimed that mind was prior to 
matter, that the physical world was somehow the creation of 
consciousness. But that was mere speculation. Here you had the 
unbelievable spectacle of physicists of all people, hard-nosed 
scientists whose whole life and work turned on the objective study of 
the physical world, coming up with their own suggestion that maybe the 
physical world was not so objective after all. This is the fundamental 
reason for the importance of quantum physics to consciousness studies.

The name most often associated with these ideas today is that of Henry 
Stapp, at the University of California, Berkeley. Like many others, he 
finds the core of the mind-brain problem in the gulf between, on the one 
hand, the intuitive sense that our thoughts cause our bodily actions, 
and, on the other, our theory of mind and matter-inherited from 
classical physics-that make any real causal effect of our thoughts on 
our bodily actions unthinkable and impossible. That classical theory was 
based on the notion that only matter can affect the activity of matter. 
The physical world was taken to consist in a vast number of tiny 
components, each of which would change or stay the same entirely 
according to the influence of its immediate neighbors. There were no 
causal connections other than those attributable to these local 
interactions. To be sure, these microscopic particles accumulate and are 
perceived by us to be large objects, such as rods or pistons, or large 
systems, such as oceans or hurricanes. And these large objects and 
systems can be considered to exert causal influences on surrounding 
objects and systems. But, according to the principles of classical 
physics, these influences are completely reducible to local mechanical 
interactions between microscopic neighbors. This is the essence of 
physicalist reductionism, and there is no room in this scheme for any 
entity that can actually grasp large complex structures-such as human 
bodies-as whole units, and guide our physical actions on that basis, in 
the way that our thoughts appear to do. However, as we have seen, 
quantum mechanics constitutes a radical conceptual departure from that 
classical ideal, because the thinking human observer is brought into the 
actual dynamic development of the world. In Stapp's view, the role of 
the conscious human observer in quantum dynamics provides the basis 
within contemporary physical theory for the actual control of actions by 
thoughts. This is a kind of influence that is not reducible to matter 
alone, and for which there was no place in classical physics.

In 1990 Stapp wrote an article, later published in his book, Mind, 
Matter, and Quantum Mechanics (1993), in which he took the widely 
canvassed but rather vague notion that quantum theory and consciousness 
were somehow linked, and nailed it down to a specific quantum 
interpretation of the mind-brain relation. In this description he adopts 
the generally accepted view among neuroscientists that a person's body 
in its environment is somehow represented within the brain by certain 
patterns of neural activity, known as the body-world schema. There are 
also patterns of brain activity associated with every conscious thought 
(see the chapter on the neural correlates of consciousness). Each time a 
particular pattern is activated it changes the physical structure 
slightly, so that next time the brain is stimulated in a similar way, 
that same pattern is more likely to be activated again than a different 
pattern that has not occurred before. This facilitates the recall of 
earlier thoughts and experiences and contributes to memory and a sense 
of personal continuity (see chapter on memory). Stapp treats the 
activity of an alert brain as essentially a search process: the brain, 
conditioned by earlier experience, searches for a satisfactory response 
to each new situation that the organism faces. By a "response" he means 
a carefully tuned pattern of firings of some collection of neurons. This 
pattern he calls a "template for action", or an executive-level 
template, and it is based on the brain's current body-world schema. A 
"satisfactory response" will be one where the executive-level template 
initiates an action that improves the organism's well-being. Stapp 
suggests that there are two kinds of templated actions: one he calls 
"attentions," the other "intentions." An attention, or attentional 
event, is backward-directed and updates the schema in the light of 
recent changes to the body or its environment; it is clearly important 
that the body-world schema, on which all templates for action rely, 
should be as accurate and up-to-date as possible. An intentional event 
is future-oriented and it causes one particular body-world schema to be 
selected from a range of possible ones to become the actual one. In 
Stapp's terminology, an intention actualizes a body-world schema. It is 
important to be clear that this does not in itself constitute a bodily 
action in the environment. An actualized schema is an image within the 
brain, and its production is a brain process confined within the brain. 
But it is an image within the brain of a particular intended state of 
the body-world, and its selection from all the possible intended states 
is the precursor to the bodily action in the environment that will bring 
about that state.

We are now at the point to which the last few paragraphs have been 
leading. I have said that an intention, that is an intentional event, is 
the selection of one outcome from among a range of possibilities; this 
sounds very like the description in quantum theory of what happens when 
the wave function collapses, and it is Stapp's belief that each 
actualized body-world schema is indeed the outcome of what he calls a 
phenomenal quantum event. This, in his view, is the key to the causal 
interaction between thoughts and actions. Let's run over the causal 
links again, tracing them backwards from the final action: the body's 
ultimate action in its environment is caused in a straightforward 
automatic physical way by the brain's actualized body-world schema; the 
actualized body-world schema in its turn is caused in a straightforward 
automatic physical way by the brain's intentional event; the intentional 
event in its own turn is caused in a straightforward automatic physical 
way by the "template for action"; and it is that executive-level 
template for action where Stapp postulates the collapse of the wave 
function occurs, selecting one response to some new situation faced by 
the organism from among the many possibilities. Remember that the wave 
function does not represent actuality itself, but only probabilities or 
"objective tendencies" for the next actual event. So the collapse of the 
wave function is necessary to bring about an actual situation that 
corresponds with human experience. But what causes the wave function to 
collapse in the way it does? This is the crucial question, because 
whatever causes that, according to the causal chain just outline, causes 
the ultimate bodily action in the environment.

On the standard Copenhagen view of the collapse, one of the alternative 
possibilities generated by the wave equation is selected and made 
actual, and that selection is down to chance. But Stapp is no happier 
with the idea of chance governing everything than Einstein was. He 
concedes that the chance element was acceptable for Bohr and company, 
because they made no claim to describe in any detail what was "really 
happening." It was enough for them that the mathematics worked. But he 
himself is made of sterner stuff and wants to make an assault on a 
description of reality itself, especially the reality underlying our 
experience of mental causation. This follows from his desire to 
understand how thoughts control actions. He turned to quantum theory in 
the first place because classical physics fails to provide an answer to 
this question. Now he does not regard Copenhagen's "pure chance" as a 
satisfactory answer either. This way of speaking, he says, is merely a 
mask for ignorance of the true cause. So he looks instead to von 
Neumann's version of the quantum story, which does offer a candidate for 
the cause of the collapse of the wave function: conscious observation.

There is however an important difference between the original 
context of von Neumann's proposal and the way the idea is applied by 
Stapp. Von Neumann's imagined "chain" consisted of a large system, 
including the quantum entity to be measured, a device to measure some 
property, a human observer's eye, and finally a human brain. In that 
context the observer's consciousness determined the outcome of the 
earlier distant experiment on the atomic system. But Stapp focuses on 
the mind-brain system itself, and the outcome determined by the person's 
conscious observation is not the position of some distant photon, but 
the selection of a particular template for action in the person's own 
brain, for instance the intention to raise an arm. He postulates that 
the critical "observation" is the conscious event that is experienced as 
the decision to raise one's arm, and that the physical brain event 
(neural correlate) that corresponds to it is none other than the 
collapse of the wave function, the same collapse that excludes all the 
other superposed possibilities to bring about this particular template 
for action, "raise the arm." That is, he is saying that a conscious 
event - the occurrence of the psychological decision "raise the arm" - 
is represented in the physical description of nature by the same neural 
event - the collapse of the wave function - that sets off the 
straightforward automatic physical chain of events that results in the 
raising of the arm. This is in line with what seems, intuitively, to be 
the role of consciousness, but Stapp is not home and dry yet. It is one 
thing to propose a correlation between the psychological decision to act 
and the brain event that initiates that action; it is quite another to 
show a real causal connection. 

To see how Stapp does this, we need to take a step back and look 
carefully at how experience fits into his quantum model of the 
mind-brain that we have been considering. Everyone agrees that 
much-probably most-of the brain's activity is automatic and 
non-conscious. In Stapp's proposal this ongoing automatic activity is 
punctuated by a series of conscious events, each of which actualizes a 
template for action. By means of the automatic spread of neural activity 
that it initiates, this newly created executive-level template 
automatically controls three kinds of process: motor action, the 
collection of new information (including monitoring the ongoing 
processes it has initiated), and-most significantly for our purposes-the 
formation of the next template for action. Classical physics was 
deterministic and said there would be only one possible "next template" 
leading to a single possible outcome. Quantum physics says there will be 
many superposed possible "next templates" each with its own superposed 
possible outcome, but universal human experience says that there is only 
ever a single outcome, and that such outcomes are always classically 
describable. It was in order to bring the quantum process into accord 
with this human experience that the Copenhagen school stipulated that 
only one of the many possibilities would be actualized (by the chance 
event of the collapse of the wave function), and that only the 
actualized possibility was capable of being experienced. Stapp says that 
it was the "great and essential move" of the Copenhagen theorists to 
realize that their theory was not really about the hidden subatomic 
world of possibilities at all, but about the actual experienced world, 
the observable and classical aspect of nature. Von Neumann and Wigner 
tightened up still further the connection of the actual to experience, 
by proposing that no quantum possibility could be actualized except by 
being experienced (i.e. the wave function could only be collapsed by the 
act of conscious observation). Stapp builds on both these traditions, 
emphasizing the surprising facts that even the classical aspect of 
nature does not come from the physical side but from the experiential 
side, and that the experiential aspect of the actualization events is 
the cause of their classical character.

This is not to deny the physical side of nature, but to understand it in 
a new way. Being physical no longer means being "material," but being a 
structure in space and time that somehow holds ("encodes") knowledge or 
information created by earlier events. Although it contrasts with the 
old view that equated "physical" with so-called "dead matter," this 
approach is not totally novel, and Stapp sees it as essentially orthodox 
quantum theory. He accepts and builds on the Copenhagen view that the 
"state" specified by quantum theory represents knowledge, and 
acknowledges Werner Heisenberg, a leading figure in the Copenhagen 
school, as the source of his idea that this space-time structure is 
active, in the sense that its encoded information creates tendencies for 
future events to occur. These are themselves experiential-type events, 
so they create more knowledge or information that is, in turn, encoded 
in the physical structure in the way specified by the quantum equations. 
This dynamic understanding of what it means to be physical is the key to 
the question of causation. We began with the "interaction problem," the 
inherited idea that matter can only be influenced by other neighboring 
matter, and therefore thoughts cannot cause physical actions. By 
abandoning this picture of nature, in which the physical is implicitly 
equated with the material, in favor of one where the physical is 
understood as an active structure balancing the experiential aspects of 
nature, Stapp removes the interaction problem at a stroke. It enables 
him to say both that large-scale classical things like 
human-bodies-in-action derive their essential character from the fact 
that they are experienced, and also that this is not in spite of their 
being physical, but is rather an aspect of what it means for them to be 
physical. So when he says that conscious thoughts cause bodily actions, 
he is not claiming that something non-material is influencing matter; he 
is giving an example of natural dynamic events unfolding in a world that 
is coherently and inherently both physical and experiential.

======================================================================
From Anthony@imprint.co.uk Tue Aug 20 12:37:09 2002
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:55:20 +0100
From: Anthony Freeman <Anthony@imprint.co.uk>
To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
Subject: Re: Not JCS - personal request

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.0208191420390.28614-100000@thsrv.lbl.gov>, 
stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov writes
>I have inserted a few proposed changes, but do not
>feel in any way obliged to accept them. I shall be
>happy to post whatever you decide to settle upon.
>The differences are not large: I mainly wanted to
>make it clear that "Stapp's proposed space-time
>structure" is essentially what orthodox quantum
>theory is saying, not some wild idiosyncratic
>idea of mine.

Dear Henry,

Thank you for the care you have taken over this. I have made yet a 
further slight modification to the sentence you changed, chiefly to 
split an unwieldy sentence and to explain who Heisenberg is. (Amazingly 
I find that my introduction to QM earlier in the chapter manages not to 
name him!)

My original sentence:

In contrast to the traditional understanding, which equates "physical" 
with so-called "dead matter," Stapp's proposed space-time structure is 
active, in the sense that its encoded information creates tendencies for 
future events to occur.

Your rewrite:

In contrast to the traditional understanding, which equates "physical" 
with so-called "dead matter," Stapp's approach identifies the physical 
aspect of nature with the state specified by quantum theory, and accepts 
the Copenhagen view that this state represents knowledge, and also 
Heisenberg's idea that this space-time structure is active, in the sense 
that its encoded information creates tendencies for future events to 
occur.

My final version:

Although it contrasts with the old view that equated "physical" with 
so-called "dead matter," this approach is not totally novel, and Stapp 
sees it as essentially orthodox quantum theory. He accepts and builds on 
the Copenhagen view that the "state" specified by quantum theory 
represents knowledge, and acknowledges Werner Heisenberg, a leading 
figure in the Copenhagen school, as the source of his idea that this 
space-time structure is active, in the sense that its encoded 
information creates tendencies for future events to occur.

Here is the full final paragraph incorporating this final amendment:

This is not to deny the physical side of nature, but to understand it in 
a new way. Being physical no longer means being "material," but being a 
structure in space and time that somehow holds ("encodes") knowledge or 
information created by earlier events. Although it contrasts with the 
old view that equated "physical" with so-called "dead matter," this 
approach is not totally novel, and Stapp sees it as essentially orthodox 
quantum theory. He accepts and builds on the Copenhagen view that the 
"state" specified by quantum theory represents knowledge, and 
acknowledges Werner Heisenberg, a leading figure in the Copenhagen 
school, as the source of his idea that this space-time structure is 
active, in the sense that its encoded information creates tendencies for 
future events to occur. These are themselves experiential-type events, 
so they create more knowledge or information that is, in turn, encoded 
in the physical structure in the way specified by the quantum equations. 
This dynamic understanding of what it means to be physical is the key to 
the question of causation. We began with the "interaction problem," the 
inherited idea that matter can only be influenced by other neighboring 
matter, and therefore thoughts cannot cause physical actions. By 
abandoning this picture of nature, in which the physical is implicitly 
equated with the material, in favor of one where the physical is 
understood as an active structure balancing the experiential aspects of 
nature, Stapp removes the interaction problem at a stroke. It enables 
him to say both that large-scale classical things like 
human-bodies-in-action derive their essential character from the fact 
that they are experienced, and also that this is not in spite of their 
being physical, but is rather an aspect of what it means for them to be 
physical. So when he says that conscious thoughts cause bodily actions, 
he is not claiming that something non-material is influencing matter; he 
is giving an example of natural dynamic events unfolding in a world that 
is coherently and inherently both physical and experiential.

Please go ahead and post this on your website, with the introduction as 
drafted in your email.

Thanks again,

Anthony.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anthony Freeman (Managing Editor, Journal of Consciousness Studies)
Imprint Academic, The Old Post Office, Robin's Nest, Chapel Lane
Brampford Speke, Exeter EX5 5HE, UK
Tel.   +44 (0)1392 841600
Fax.   +44 (0)1392 841478
Email: anthony@imprint.co.uk
======================================================================
From Mszlazak@aol.com Fri Aug 23 16:24:33 2002
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 18:38:44 EDT
From: Mszlazak@aol.com
To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
Subject: Re: Freemans version of yours seems confusing!

Hello Dr. Stapp:

It appears that you do not have an accurate understanding of my position.
Your phrase "because it's so restricted to the consciousness of
physicists
doing physics experiments" reveals a significant misapprehension. One
reason that I switched from Copenhagen QT to von Neumann QT was to obtain
an ontology that could be generalized in a way that was not restricted to
human observers, and that was therefore objective and could be applied to
the evolution of species.

No, no Dr. Stapp, I have a good feel for your version, it's Freeman's
exposition that's the problem. He does say things at the end that imply
what's said below but other part's either sound dualistic and others like
some mixed up cryto-materialism. His expositions initially sounds nice in
terms of writing style and all, but on more scrutiny becomes incoherent
or can be read that way.

      My theory is based squarely on physics, and is therefore
      dualistic in the
      sense that it has a mathematically represented state of the
      physical
      universe (which is the state specified by relativistic
      quantum field
      theory) and has also experiential realities (whic are
      "feelings",
      with all thoughts, ideas, and knowings understood to be
      `feelings' with different qualitative characteristics.)

      The theory is similar to Whitehead's in that there are
      "events", and each
      event has both physical and experiential aspects. The
      physical
      aspects are specified by physics (the physical state is
      specified as in
      relativistic quantum field theory), and the experiential
      aspects are
      feelings of one kind our another. Neither aspect is reducible
      to the
      other, but they are dynamically related to each other by von
      Neumann's
      equations.

I don't believe Whitehead's process panpsychist view is considered to be
dual-aspect theory. The stuff I've recently read on this says no to dual
aspect, at least that's what one Whiteheadian is saying.

      The quantum state is "quintessential", in the sense that it
      has five
      essential features:
      (1) It is `physical' in the sense that it is a mathematical
      structure
      imbedded in space-time, and evolves according to rules.
      (2) It is `informational' in the sense that it is an encoding
      within
      the mathematical structure imbedded in space time of the
      information
      injected into it by the sequence of Process I projection
      operators P
      and (I-P) leading up to it.

OK, as a point of clarification. Do any of these infomational processes
exist outside (our concept of) space (geometrical relations based on
extension and the like)? If time isn't different from spacial concepts
then the same question applies to time. If time is different then what is
time?

      (3) It represents `our knowledge' in the sense that it
      encodes the
      `knowings' injected into it by the sequence of projection
      operators P and (I-P) leading up to it.
      (4) It creates `tendencies' for events to occur.
      (5) It is `influenced' in its evolution by the mental effort
      of agents.

      All these feature arise from von Neumann's equations, and
      from orthodox
      assumptions about the connection of the evolving quantum
      state vector to
      "our knowledge" and "tendencies for events to occur."

      This solution is both Whiteheadian and dualistic.
      It might be classified as a "Non-materialistic Dualism."
      But the physical and experietial aspects of the quantum state
      are
      so intertwined as to make it also a "Neutral Monism" in the
      sense
      that the basic stuff is neither idealistic nor materialistic,
      but are
      just the elements of contemporary physical theory, which
      inextricably
      mix the experiential aspects of nature with a mathematical
      structure
      imbedded in spacetime. Traditional "Neutral Monisims"
      (Russell),
      do not bring in the physical description forged by
      scientists,
      whereas this ontology is just a slight elaboration
      of the scientific description.

      Freeman does not imply that the brain is a "material entity."
      On the other hand, the brain is a "physical entity." And due
      to
      "environmental decoherence effects" it does tend to
      effectively
      decompose into a conglogeration of "quasi-classical" states,
      each
      of which is a slightly smeared out classical state that tends
      to
      spread out into a collection of such states. So a
      classical-language
      description of the state of the brain is not inappropriate:
      one must
      only remember that the classical picture is only
      approximately correct,
      and that multiple quasi-classical options grow out of each
      quasi-classical component, when no "events" are occurring.

Believe me brain is not understood this way at all. It's understood as a
classical entity by many if not all neuroscientists, neurologists and
neurosurgeons.
I've got Kendell and Schwartz's book on neuroscience as well as many
neurological differential diagnosis books and it's all "sand and sparks
in flux."

      Freeman's words are a nice summary of my more detailed
      description given
      in the Chapter "A quantum theory of the mind/brain
      interface", which
      is Chapter 6 of my book Mind, Matter, and QuantumMechanics.
      
      (Available also on my website)

I think it's nicely written but I also think it's confusing. Anyway, your
the original so I always refer to your works not Freeman's

Best. Mark Szlazak.

From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Mon Aug 26 08:51:05 2002
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 08:50:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: Mszlazak@aol.com
Subject: Re: Freemans version of yours seems confusing!

On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 Mszlazak@aol.com wrote:

> 
HPS
> > > My theory is based squarely on physics, and is therefore dualistic in the 
> 
> > > sense that it has a mathematically represented state of the physical 
> > > universe (which is the state specified by relativistic quantum field 
> > > theory) and has also experiential realities (which are "feelings", 
> > > with all thoughts, ideas, and knowings understood to be 
> > > `feelings' with different qualitative characteristics.) 
> > > 
> > > The theory is similar to Whitehead's in that there are "events", and each
> > > event has both physical and experiential aspects. The physical 
> > > aspects are specified by physics (the physical state is specified as in 
> > > relativistic quantum field theory), and the experiential aspects are 
> > > feelings of one kind our another. Neither aspect is reducible to the
> > > other, but they are dynamically related to each other by von Neumann's
> > > equations. 
> > > 
> > 

MS
> > I don't believe Whitehead's process panpsychist view is considered to be 
> > dual-aspect theory. The stuff I've recently read on this says no to dual 
> > aspect, at least that's what one Whiteheadian is saying.
> > 
> 

HPS
> Well, Whitehead does talk about "the extensive continuum," which is his 
> way of bringing in the spatial continuum. So he is certainly trying to lay 
> a foundation for the approximate validity of the descriptions provided by
> science. It is probably true that he wants to base spacetime on some 
> deeper reality, and his approach is therefore more "monistic" than mine.
> I think some evential move in that direction would be nice, but am trying 
> to build on contemporary science, and therefore take the state vector of 
> quantum field, imbedded in an existing spacetime to be basic rather than
> derived in any way that I try to describe from something profoundly 
> deeper.   
> 
> 

MS
> I think dual-aspect is a "substance" view where mind-like and matter-like 
> properties are aspects of this underlying something and they are both always 
> present. In Whitehead these are phases of the same underlying process 
> "subjective" -> "objective" -> "subjective" ... I guess they want to emphasis 
> this time related / process related view form what traditionally dual-aspect 
> is taken to be. Does that sound right?
> 

HPS
It seems to me that "dual aspect" is by definition a view in which one
reality has two aspects: it is not a dual substance point of view. My view
is a "process" view in which the full process involves two intertwined 
sub-processes, a `subjective one' consisting of `feelings' and an 
objective one specified by a quantum state that evolves via a unitary 
transformation punctuated by abrupt feeling-related Process I events.
 
HPS
> > > > The quantum state is "quintessential", in the sense that it has five
> > > > essential features:
> > > > (1) It is `physical' in the sense that it is a mathematical structure
> > > > imbedded in space-time, and evolves according to rules.
> > > > (2) It is `informational' in the sense that it is an encoding within
> > > > the mathematical structure imbedded in space time of the information
> > > > injected into it by the sequence of Process I projection operators P 
> > > > and (I-P) leading up to it.

MS
> > > 
> > > OK, as a point of clarification. Do any of these infomational processes 
> > exist 
> > > outside (our concept of) space (geometrical relations based on extension 
> > and 
> > > the like)? If time isn't different from spacial concepts then the same 
> > > question applies to time. If time is different then what is time?
> > > 
> > The 'informational' structure that I am talking about here is exactly what
> > is encoded in the evolving-in-time quantum state, and can be decoded.
> > Time is room for (the dimension that allows for) change.
> > 

HPS
> > > > (3) It represents `our knowledge' in the sense that it encodes the 
> > > > `knowings' injected into it by the sequence of projection 
> > > > operators P and (I-P) leading up to it.
> > > > (4) It creates `tendencies' for events to occur. 
> > > > (5) It is `influenced' in its evolution by the mental effort of agents.
> > > > 
> > > > All these feature arise from von Neumann's equations, and from orthodox
> > > > assumptions about the connection of the evolving quantum state vector 
> > to
> > > > "our knowledge" and "tendencies for events to occur."
> > > > 
> > 
> 

MS
> So, projection operators are a theory of "information" or a theory of the 
> "transformation of information" into the (quasi) classical realm. If 
> "information" is another term for meaning, feelings, or even qualia, then I 
> just don't "see" how von Neuman's process nudges the probability weighting of 
> these possibilities one way or the other.
> 

HPS
I have repeatedly stressed that my theory does NOT nudge the quantum 
probabilities at all, but uses the standard quantum probability rules in 
conjunction with von Neumann's Process I to achieve, via a Quantum Zeno
Effect, an influence of feelings on the evolution of the quantum state.

HPS
 
> Mark