Presenting a look at the human mind's capacity while criticizing artificial intelligence, the author makes suggestions about classical and quantum physics and ..

In this paper we defend the view that the ordinary notions of cause and effect have a direct and essential connection with our ability to intervene in the world as agents.1 This is a well known but rather unpopular philosophical approach to causation, often called the manipulability theory. In the interests of brevity and accuracy, we prefer to call it the agency theory.2 Thus the central thesis of an agency account of causation is something like this: an event A is (...) a cause of a distinct event B just in case bringing about the occurrence of A would be an effective means by which a free agent could bring about the occurrence of B. In our view the unpopularity of the agency approach to causation may be traced to two factors. The first is a failure to appreciate certain distinctive advantages that this approach has over its various rivals. We have drawn attention to some of these advantages elsewhere, and we summarize below. However, the second and more important factor is the influence of a number of stock objections, objections that seem to have persuaded many philosophers that agency accounts face insuperable obstacles. In this paper we want to show that these objections have been vastly overrated. There are four main objections. (shrink)

The book explores philosophical issues such as idealism and free will and speculates on the relationship of consciousness to quantum mechanics.

By questioning the validity of some of our basic concepts, such as space, object, and causality, quantum physics contributes quite decisively to the dramatic changes now taking place in our world picture. Veiled Reality provides a detailed view of the reasons why such a questioning arises, a survey of the corresponding conceptual and theoretical problems, and a comprehensive, up-to-date account, useful to scientists and epistemologists alike, of the various ways present-day physicists tackle these problems.The book deals with the E.P.R. reality (...) criterion, local causality, and quantum measurement including relativistic quantum collapse, decoherence theories, consistent histories approaches, and ontologically interpretable theories. Questions bearing on the connection between counterfactuality and realism, intersubjective agreement, and limits of the bearing of the verbs “to have” and “to be,” follow naturally from the analysis and are thoroughly examined. Finally, distinguishing between empirical reality and a veiled independent reality whose only knowable features are structural yields a clue to a plausible interpretation of current physics.Accessible to readers with only very elementary background in modern physics, Veiled Reality offers nonspecialists, including students in physics and philosophy, easy access to basic problems in the foundation of physics. (shrink)

An attempt is made to give a coherent account of the logical essence of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. The central point is that quantum theory is fundamentally pragmatic, but nonetheless complete. The principal difficulty in understanding quantum theory lies in the fact that its completeness is incompatible with external existence of the space—time continuum of classical physics.

The paper begins with a general introduction to the nature of human consciousness and outlines several different philosophical approaches. A critique of traditional reductionist and dualist positions is offered and it is suggested that consciousness should be viewed as an emergent property of physical systems. However, although consciousness has its origin in distributed brain processes it has macroscopic properties - most notably the `unitary sense of self', non-deterministic free will, and non-algorithmic `intuitive' processing - which can best be described by (...) quantum-mechanical principles. (shrink)

Orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory renounces the quest to understand the reality in which we are imbedded, and settles for practical rules describing connections between our observations. Many physicist have regarded this renunciation of our effort describe nature herself as premature, and John von Neumann reformulated quantum theory as a theory of an evolving objective universe interacting with human consciousness. This interaction is associated both in Copenhagen quantum theory and in von Neumann quantum theory with a sudden change that brings the (...) objective physical state of a system in line with a subjectively felt psychical reality. The objective physical state is thereby converted from a material substrate to an informational and dispositional substrate that carries both the information incorporated into it by the psychical realities, and certain dispositions for the occurrence of future psychical realities. The present work examines and proposes solutions to two problems that have appeared to block the development of this conception of nature. The first problem is how to reconcile this theory with the principles of relativistic quantum field theory; the second problem is to understand whether, strictly within quantum theory, a person's mind can affect the activities of his brain, and if so how. Solving the first problem involves resolving a certain non-locality question. The proposed solution to the second problem is based on a postulated connection between effort, attention, and the quantum Zeno effect. This solution explains on the basic of quantum physics a large amount of heretofore unexplained data amassed by psychologists. (shrink)

The metaphysical commitments of quantum field theory are examined. A thesis of underdetermination as between field and particle approaches to the "elementary particles" is argued for but only if a disputed notion of transcendental individuality is admitted. The superiority of the field approach is further emphasized in the context of heuristics.

“To be” or “to be found”? Some contributions relative to this modern variant of Hamlet's question are presented here. They aim at better apprehending the differences between the points of view of the physicists who consider that present-day quantum measurement theories do reach their objective and those who deny they do. It is pointed out that these two groups have different interpretations of the verbs “to be” and “to have” and of the criterion for truth. These differences are made explicit. (...) A notion of “empirical reality” is constructed within the representation of which the physicists of the first named group can consistently uphold their claim. A detailed way of sharpening this definition so as to make empirical reality free of nonlocal actions at a distance is also described. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics may be formulated as Sensible Quantum Mechanics (SQM) so that it contains nothing probabilistic except conscious perceptions. Sets of these perceptions can be deterministically realized with measures given by expectation values of positive-operator-valued awareness operators. Ratios of the measures for these sets of perceptions can be interpreted as frequency- type probabilities for many actually existing sets. These probabilities gener- ally cannot be given by the ordinary quantum “probabilities” for a single set of alternatives. Probabilism, or ascribing probabilities to (...) unconscious aspects of the world, may be seen to be an aesthemamorphic myth. (shrink)

If the brain has a level of quantum functioning that permits superposition of possibilities and nonlocal control of states, then new answers to the problem of the consciousness/brain relation become available. My discussion is based on Yasue and co-workers’ account of a quantum field theory of brain functioning, called ‘quantum brain dynamics’. In the framework developed each person can properly state: ‘I am nonlocal control and my meanings are control variables.’ Cognition is identified with a conjugate reality and perception is (...) where quantum cognition, quantum memory and the quantum re-presentation of quantum reality meet and make a conjugate match. A new problem arises with regard to the world, however, since on this interpretation the one world-in-common is relinquished in favour of multiple parallel world-thrownnesses. But since quantum physics remains to this day deeply uncommonsensical, we should not hope to provide quantum solutions in consciousness studies without overturning the deepest convictions of common sense. (shrink)

It is stressed that any theory of which it is claimed that it is compatible both with standard realism and with the experimental data is subject to severe constraints. One is that it must either incorporate superluminal influences or negate the free will of the experimentalist. The other one is that, in it. it is only at the price of accepting “backward causality” that a measurement can he interpreted as revealing the value the measured quantity had, just before, rather than (...) just after, the measurement look place. (shrink)

There is another hard problem, in addition to the problem of how anything material can have the subjective, first-person phenomenology of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995). It is the problem of how anything material can have freedom. By ‘freedom’ I mean a person’s ability to behave in a purposive, non-random fashion that is not determined by neurophysiological structure and physical law.

The law of energy conservation is either analytic and not threatened by psychophysical interactionism or contingent upon the causal closure of the physical world which interactionism denies. In either case, interactionism implies departures from the laws of physics, despite attempts to demonstrate the contrary by exploiting the loophole of quantum mechanical indeterminism. These departures are best formulated in terms of modifications, by the conscious self, of the electromagnetic interactions between particles. The electromagnetic vector potential is essentially a summary representation of (...) effects on the motion of particles; these effects can be caused by mental events just as well as by physical events. The interactionist hypothesis implies that the modifications caused by the self cannot be described by mathematical laws. Therefore the interactions between particles that are modified by a self cannot take place in strict accordance with any physical law. Interactionism, finally, is not irrevocably committed to dualism: it can be incorporated into a panpsychism which permits the self and the particles constituting the body to be thought of as different aspects of the same causal agent. (shrink)

What makes it so hard to make sense of quantum mechanics (the theory at the heart of contemporary physics) is the cookie cutter paradigm (a fallacy that is both rooted in our neurophysiological make-up and inherent in the nature of mental consciousness) according to which the world's synchronic multiplicity derives from surfaces that carve up space in the manner of three-dimensional cookie cutters. When liberated from this fallacy, quantum mechanics not only describes the physical world as a manifestation of something (...) very much like the Vedantic Brahman but also describes the process by which this manifestation is effected. It implies that the creative principle to which the physical world owes its existence is supramental rather than mental, in agreement with Sri Aurobindo’s ontology. (shrink)

What has so far prevented us from decrypting quantum mechanics is the Cookie Cutter Paradigm, according to which the world’s synchronic multiplicity derives from surfaces that carve up space in the manner of three-dimensional cookie cutters. This insidious notion is shown to be rooted in our neurophysiological make-up. An effort is made to liberate the physical world from this innate fallacy.