Dear Mark,                                          Dec. 8, 1997 
I am sorry that I have been so busy that I have not had time to look at the
things you have been sending. But I just looked at the abstract of your
note of 7 DEC, and realized that your proposal involves a seriously incorrect
understanding of quantum theory. The recorded em activity from the brain
associated with the collapse and from the other brain should be essentially 
the same! This is part of the difficulty that I have so often referred to, that
there is FAPP (for all practical purposes) no empirical way of determining 
when or where the collapse occurs: the macroscopically recorded data will be 
the same FAPP. This is part of the consequence of von Neumann's analysis of 
the process of measurement.

The easiest way to understand this, perhaps, is from the point of view of
Feymann's sum over all paths formalism, in which one imagines the full wave
function to be composed of contributions from all possible classical paths.
The total set of paths contributing to a world compatible with a given set of
classical specifications (e.g., the pointer is pointing to the number 10, to a
very good approximation) will single out the same set of classical worlds
independently of who observers this classically describable property: 
the set of possible worlds compatible with this classically
describable condition will be essentially the same no matter whether it is
effected by a collapse that occurs already at the device, or when that
information is recognized by observer 1 or observer 2. That is why in quantum
theory one can speak of ``our knowledge'': the knowledge reduces the wave
function to the same collection of classical possibilities no matter when or
where one imagines the collapse (to possiblities compatible with a classically
describable condition) to be implemented. 

Reading on I find in your point 1 the idea that events contribute to
uncertainty. At least in my terminology events reduce uncertainty.
The uncertainty is inherent in the quantum description and it tends to
increase due to the evolution in accord with the Schroedinger equation, but
is decreased by an event, which eliminates all possible contributions
that are incompatible with the new information/knowing.

I find your point 8 unclear: what is this `one mind'? Universally or
invividual?

According to my model, there will be collapse events in the brains of both
observers, because each observation is to some extent personal: it involves
a lot of contextual structure coming from the individual's history and momentary
state of attention, but the classically describable component (the pointer is
very close to 10 on the dial) will represent a common bit of information about
the state of the world. This latter part will be fixed by some earliest event
that fixes it, but all later events will be constrained so as to confirm to
this condition, and will look like they could have been responsible for
imposing it. 

It is true that the collapse is supposed to occur all at once, across the whole
brain. But this collapse effectively pulls out a collection a entire
classically evolving spacetime trajectories: it is as if the other possible
worlds incompatible with the classically describable condition simply never
came into being. So one will not see any sudden signal from different parts of
the brain.

But there is, in connection with the Libet thing, a possible experiment.
According to my model, at least, the collapse occurs after the full template
for action has been formed, and it "might" have the property of pulling out
brain states that are more temporally correlated over large distances than what
a purely classical model would yield. This suggests that if one did controlled
experiments of the Libet type, but sometime after the build-up began, yet before
the conscious thought occurred, injected some disturbing influence that
prevented the thought from occurring, then the build up BEFORE THE DISTURBANCE
would be less coordinated across the brain than it would typically be if the
disturbance were not injected. If this effect were to occur it would be an
effective action of future on past: a clear indication of the failure of
classical ideas. Presumeably one could do this experiment on momkeys.

Best regards, Henry