Quantum Interactive Dualism: An Alternative to Materialism

Journal Article · Wed Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2005 · Journal of Consciousness Studies

OSTI ID:889633

Stapp, Henry P

Materialism rest implicitly upon the general conception of nature promoted by Galileo and Newton during the seventeenth century. It features the causal closure of the physical: The course of physically described events for all time is fixed by laws that refer exclusively to the physically describeable features of nature, and initial conditions on these feature. No reference to subjective thoughts or feeling of human beings enter. That simple conception of nature was found during the first quarter of the twentieth century to be apparently incompatible with the empirical facts. The founders of quantum theory created a new fundamental physical theory, quantum theory, which introduced crucially into the causal structure certain conscious choices made by human agents about how they will act. These conscious human choices are ''free'' in the sense that they are not fixed by the known laws. But they can influence the course of physically described events. Thus the principle of the causal closure of the physical fails. Applications in psycho-neuro-dynamics are described.

• Research Organization: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Director. Office of Science. Office of High EnergyPhysics
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 889633
• Report Number(s): LBNL--59905
• Journal Information: Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal Name: Journal of Consciousness Studies Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 12
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BEHAVIOR
HUMAN FACTORS
MATERIALS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
mind consciousness materialism quantum theory