Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics
How is mind related to matter? This ancient question inphilosophy is rapidly becoming a core problem in science, perhaps themost important of all because it probes the essential nature of manhimself. The origin of the problem is a conflict between the mechanicalconception of human beings that arises from the precepts of classicalphysical theory and the very different idea that arises from ourintuition: the former reduces each of us to an automaton, while thelatter allows our thoughts to guide our actions. The dominantcontemporary approaches to the problem attempt to resolve this conflictby clinging to the classical concepts, and trying to explain away ourmisleading intuition. But a detailed argument given here shows why, in ascientific approach to this problem, it is necessary to use the morebasic principles of quantum physics, which bring the observer into thedynamics, rather than to accept classical precepts that are profoundlyincorrect precisely at the crucial point of the role of humanconsciousness in the dynamics of human brains. Adherence to the quantumprinciples yields a dynamical theory of the mind/brain/body system thatis in close accord with our intuitive idea of what we are. In particular,the need for a self-observing quantum system to pose certain questionscreates a causal opening that allowsmind/brain dynamics to have threedistinguishable but interlocked causal processes, one micro-local, onestochastic, and the third experiential. Passing to the classical limit inwhich the critical difference between zero and the finite actual value ofPlanck's constant is ignored not only eliminates the chemical processesthat are absolutely crucial to the functioning of actual brains, itsimultaneously blinds the resulting theoretical construct to the physicalfine structure wherein the effect of mind on matter lies: the use of thislimit in this context is totally unjustified from a physicsperspective.
- Research Organization:
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Director, Office of Science. Office of High Energy andNuclear Physics; National Science Foundation
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 903110
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--42650
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal Name: Journal of Consciousness Studies Journal Issue: 8-9 Vol. 6
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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