Reply 2 to Ludwig
From Henry P. Stapp <hpstapp@lbl.gov>
Ludwig's reply of Nov 19 brings the essential ontological issues
forward in a useful way.
In his original paper Ludwig proposed four propositions:
(1) Some objects have mental properties.
(2) The fundamental constituents of objects (i.e., the objects to be
listed in the catalog of particle physics) do not have mental
properties.
(3) Mental Properties are not conceptually or definitionally
reducible to non-mental properties.
(4) Every feature of every object is deducible from a complete
description in terms of its fundamental constituents and their
properties and relations.
In his original paper Ludwig took the `fundamental constitients' in
(2) to be the `fundamental physical particles'. I replied that,
according to rather orthodox quantum views, the fundamental constituents
of objects are not (only) the fundamental particles, which constitute
mere potentialities for events, but (also) these events themselves.
These events are unlike classical events, which are merely swift
changes in a local-deterministic and continuously evolving world of matter.
The quantum events are ontologically fundamental elements that are
actualizations of definite, complex, spatially extended structures
in the realm of matter, structures that until the instant of that
actualization were mere potentialities for such an event. These nonlocal
events are needed to extract definite experienced realities from the
amorphous background of quantum potentialities. Since these events,
when they occur in human brains, can do just what our thoughts feel
that they do, it is possible, logically, to identify these actualizations,
which are ontologically utterly different from anything in classical
mechanics, as efficacious conscious human thoughts.
Proposition (2) then becomes problematic because, according to this
ontology, human brains have fundamental constituents, namely these
actualizations, that are human thoughts. This is possible within
quantum mechanics, but not in classical mechanics, because quantum
dynamics has among its fundamental constituents actualizations
of potentialities, whereas classical mechanics has no comparable
fundamental ontological entities.
In his original paper Ludwig motivated his proposition (2) by saying that
no basically new kinds of things have come into existence since the big
bang. But in the quantum ontology described here the `actualizations'
have been occurring ever since the big bang, so in that sense no basically
new kind of thing has come into existence. But it is only the actualizations
occurring in brains that have the feel that we experience as consciousness.
So consciousness has gradually evolved along with brains.
In his second reply Ludwig suggests that his original arguments hold if he
just allows `events' to be included among his `fundamental elements'. He
claims that there is nothing pertaining to `events' that distinguishes
quantum mechanics from classical mechanics: events occur also in classical
mechanics. But the `events' are fundamentally different in the two
theories. In classical mechanics the entire dynamics reduces,
fundamentally, to a gradual local-deterministic evolution of matter, with
no need to speak of events, whereas in quantum mechanics that sort of
evolution is only half of the dynamical story: the other half is the
`second quantum process' consisting of sudden actualizations of spatially
extended definite structures closely aligned with the definiteness of our
[missing material] g suggests that the difference that I am talking about is
purely
a logical one. But the logical difference is important precisely because
it is the basis of a fundamental dynamical difference that allows
nonlocal structural entities of a kind unknown in classical
mechanics to enter as bona fide causes of behavior of conscious
organisms, thereby slaying the dragon of epiphenomenal consciousness
that has block every access to a satisfactory classical theory of
consciousness.
Ludwig asks for clarification as regards my ontology. I have described
it in great detail in my book, and so can be brief here. Following
Heisenberg I take the world to be composed of (1) `objective tendencies
for events to occur', and (2) these events themselves. I take the
`objective tendencies' to be represented precisely by the objective
wave function (or state) of the universe, which normally evolves
according to local deterministic equations, and is therefore construed
as the quantum analog of classical `matter'. But this evolution
generates an amorphous structure that does not have the classical kind
of structure and definiteness that characterizes each human experience.
This the local-deterministic evolution is entwined with events that are
actualizations of definite spatially extended classical-type
structures. At each actualization the wave function `collapses' to a
new form compatible with the actualized structure, in accordance with
nonlocal dynamical laws.
For the special case of actualization of definite structure in human
brains the actualizations are identified as human experiences, for the
reasons given in my book, and in the way described there.
Mountains and chairs, etc., are also entwined combinations of the
matter-like evolutions, punctuated by occasional actualizations, but the
actualizations associated with inanimate natural objects are not assumed
to have a feel anything like that of a human conscious experience:
the quality of actualizations is presumably as varied as the kinds of
things in the universe.
References
Henry P. Stapp, Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, 1993
Henry P. Stapp, The Hard Problem: A Quantum Approach, LBL 37163rev
fttp://theor1.lbl.gov/www/theorygroup/papers/37163rev.ps
Henry P. Stapp, Chance, Choice, and Conscious: The Role of Mind in the
Quantum Brain, LBL 37944
fttp://theor1.lbl.gov/www/theorygroup/papers/37944.ps