The Cookie-Dough Analogy

1. The Human Person has both physical and experiential aspects.
   How does the internal dynamics of that system work?

2. Classical physical theory covers phenomena in which the observer
   can be considered to be a  passive witness who has no influence
   on the physical causes of his experiences.
   
   Descartes assumed that mind was not passive, but acted 
   back on the brain, but

   Twentieth-century  philosophers have generally accepted the
   classical physics motion that mind does not DISRUPT
   the physical micro-determinism entailed by classical physics.
   Then mind becomes either: 

     1) A (perhaps emergent) nonefficacious supernumerary,
   or 
     2) An ASPECT of the classical physical world.  

        [The existence, or identification, of this aspect does not 
        disrupt the classical  micro-physical determinism, but provides 
        the basis for an alternative higher-level of description that is 
        compatible with classical micro-determinism.]   

3. Quantum theory covers the general case where the observation 
   does significantly affect the observed system.
   
4. For the case of a real physical observer engaged in introspection
   it is prejudicial to assume that we have the special case covered by
   the classical theory.

   Using the general theory immediately alleviates the main
   philosophical problems that arise from using the special
   theory: mind  is not required to be either 

   causally INERT (%) or
  
   IDENTICAL with something of a different ontological or logical type (#)

5. The special (i.e., classical) theory IS IN PRINCIPLE NOT APPLICABLE
   to the study of the mind-brain system. 

      According to the special theory the system is micro-deterministic: 
      the classical microphysical laws determine the evolution of the system.
      But  an analysis of the consequences of the uncertainty principle in 
      the flow of calcium ions in cortical nerve terminals from ion-channel 
      exits to trigger sites for release in vesicles of neurotransmitter 
      shows that quantum effects MUST significantly disrupt the 
      micro-determinism entailed by classical theory. 

      Thus there is, in principle, no possibility  that classical
      micro-determinism could prevail. If one tries to pursue  the notion
      that classical determinism prevails one MUST IN PRINCIPLE eventually
      reach a point where the uncertainty principle limitations prevent
      one from going further. One MUST IN PRINCIPLE turn to the general
      theory (or some new and even better theory) to go further.

6. The cookie-dough analogy.
  
   I'll explain the essence of the difference between the special (classical)
   theory and general (quantum) theory by talking about cookie dough rather 
   than mathematical formulas. 

   Imagine a chunk of cookie dough spread out thinly on a cookie tray.
   Each point on the tray corresponds to a classical state of the entire
   brain of a person (or perhaps an entire organism or a biological cell):
   the point is imagined to determine the position and velocity  of
   every particle in that system (and also the values of the EM and
   GRAV fields at each point in the system.

   In  the special (classical) theory the changing state of the system
   is represented by the motion of that point on the cookie tray.

   But in the general theory the changing state of the system is 
   represented by the entire chunk of dough, whose parts are flowing 
   about on the tray.
 
   An "observation" of the system corresponds to taking a cookie
   cutter, of some specified shape and location, and plunging it 
   into the dough, thus separating the chunch of dough into two parts: 
   the part inside the cutter and the part outside the cutter. The
   basic statistical rule of quantum theory says that if this 
   "observation" is performed  then either all the dough outide
   the cutter will disappear or all the dough inside the cutter
   will disappear. The is the famous "reduction of the wave packet"
   or "collapse of the wave function". The relative probabilities that
   inside or outside parts will survive is directly proportional to
   the amount of dough inside or outside, respectively.

   The big essential questions are these:
   
   1) What determines the SHAPE of the cookie cutter?
   2) What determines the LOCATION where it is applied?   
   3) What determines WHEN it is applied?

7. The mind-blowing answer give by the founder's
   of quantum theory is this:
 
   The shape of the cookie cutter and the location where it is applied
   is such that every point on the cookie tray what lies inside the
   applied cookie cutter corresponds to the same EXPERIENCE OF THE
   OBSERVER!

   And the TIME  of the application is at the moment when the 
   observer ATTENDS to the question.

   This brings the EXPERIENCE OF THE OBSERVER into the dynamics in
   an essential way.

8. There was tremendous opposition to bringing the observer's
   experience into the dynamics in this way: 

   physicist's were accustomed to the notion that the observer's 
   experience's play no role in the dynamics.

   But the idea WORKED BEAUTIFULLY, and practical-minded physicist's
   soon accepted it, in practice.
 
9. von Neuman and Wigner reformulated the theory so that this
   dynamical interaction between experience and the physical world
   occurred in the BRAINS of the observers.
 
   This allowed the theory to be understood as a desciption
   on what was actually happening, rather than just a set of 
   mysterious rules connecting our experiences. 

10. The central idea is that the quantum uncertainties cause the
    cookie dough to spread out so that it moves into regions of the
    cookie tray corresponding to different possible experiences:
    a given external stimulus can thus  lead to a set of alternative
    possible experiences, depending on internal set and other factors,

    or to different possible intended courses of action.  

11. Working out the details shows that if "mental effort"
    can speed up the RATE at which the questions  are
    put to nature ( i.e., the rate at which the cookie-cutter
    cuts cookies) then mental effort can influence behaviour
    by keeping the dough from spreading as fast as it would
    if the rate were slower. 

12. If there is a maximum rate at which the cookies can be cut
    then this constitutes a "mental capacity" or "mental
    resource", which can be divided among different tasks.
    A large amount of detailed empirical data pertaining to the
    processing "bottle neck" has been collected by
    psychologists, and the details appear to be naturally
    explained by this theory of how mental effort can influence
    behaviour.[http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/vnr.txt  Last section]

13. I am not claiming that the mental processing is fundamentally
    nondeterministic, but only that the general (quantum) theory
    puts experiences, per se, explicitly into the mind-brain dynamics
    in a way that the special (classical) physics does not.
    The special theory is supposed to cover only cases where experiences
    of the observer do not alter the dynamics, whereas the general 
    (quantum) theory is able to cover in a natural way the possibility
    that our experiences do alter the physical behavior in  the way
    that introspection seems to reveal (James) and that explains a mass
    of empirical data (Pashler).
    
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(%) Problems with causally Inert experience:
 
     It involves action without reaction. (Wigner)

     It seems unnatural that nature would create this whole ontological
     category that has no function.
 
     It creates the problem of how, in the evolution of the brain, does 
     the mind stay closely aligned with the brain if there is no 
     back-action that keeps it in check. (James)
  

(#) Problem with Identity theory
  
   The characteristics that define "hurricanes, oak leaves,
   physical temperature, physical light,  a computer running
   a certain program/software, a biological cell, etc. can
   be expressed, according to the ideas of classical physics,
   by regarding these things as entities or properties  or
   activities that are built out of classical micro-elements 
   that obey the classical laws.

   All physical properties are, according to the ideas of classical
   physical theory, defined in terms of spacetime  locations and shapes 
   of collections of micro-elements  that  have no properties
   other than those spelled out in classical physics.  

   But the defining characteristic of a painful experience, namely
   that it is an experience of the painful kind, is not entailed by
   considering it to be built out of classical micro-elements
   that obey the rules of classical physics: there is a
   logical (i.e., definitional) gap.