INTRODUCTION

There is something fundamentally disturbing about contemporary philosophy of mind and philosophical cognitive science. Almost without exception (exceptions such as Lockwood [1989] and Chalmers [1996, see esp. p. 349]), the philosophical theories are logically inconsistent with the most well-confirmed theory ever developed by humans, namely, quantum mechanics. Why do philosophers develop theories of the mind/brain as if quantum mechanics does not exist, or as if it is utterly irrelevant to theories of the mind/brain?

I believe this epistemic situation has arisen due to a series of questionable philosophical arguments about the role of philosophy of mind/cognitive science and quantum mechanics in our over-all theoretical framework. In Part One I explain some of these arguments and argue they are unsound.

A second factor is that the most epistemically warranted resolution of the conflict between philosophical theories of the mind/brain and quantum mechanics, namely, that current cognitive science and philosophies of mind be replaced by a quantum cognitive science, involves such a radical violation of the theory-forming criterion of "conservativeness" (roughly "change your old, most central beliefs to the minimal degree required by the new evidence or arguments"), that philosophers might think it is more reasonable to retain standard, nonquantum cognitive science and wait until a "new science" is developed that allows the criterion of theoretical conservativeness to be more nearly met than would be the case if we made the transition from nonquantum to quantum cognitive science. This second factor is typically expressed in noting the "bizarreness" (relative to our nonquantum background beliefs) of the various ontologies with which we are faced if we have to accept any of the presently known interpretations of quantum mechanics and their implications for cognitive science.

In fact, there may be an even more basic (and perhaps unique) problem that arises due to the highly non-conservative shift in thinking that a transition to quantum cognitive science would require. It may be that the quantum ontologies are so "strange" that many, most or virtually all philosophers find them psychologically impossible to believe. This may be a genetic problem, rather than merely a problem in the lack of intellectual acculturation in quantum ontology. For example, one of the ontological interpretations of quantum mechanics requires us to believe that each of our minds (conceived in terms of substance dualism) is regularly splitting into an infinite (continuum-many) number of distinct minds, each with the same body (so there is just one body or brain for all the minds), such that each of the minds is unaware of the other minds (e.g., a version of Albert's and Loewer's "many-minds" interpretation of quantum mechanics). Suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. It could be that many, most or all of us are not psychologically capable of actually and sincerely believing this ontology. Varying on McGinn, it could be that we are not cognitively closed to understanding the mind/brain relation (for example), but that we can understand the true theory of this relation but are cognitively closed to believing it. This should not be surprising. Why should we expect that homo sapiens sapiens are genetically capable of finding epistemically plausible the ontology implied by the true cognitive science, especially if this ontology differs radically from both folk psychology and what Stich [1996: 11] calls "our folk physics" (common sense beliefs, predictions, explanations, etc., about the nature of physical reality)? Believing such an ontology appears to confer no increase in our survival value; it may even decrease our "fitness" to survive and reproduce. Would we still want to undertake the difficult task of raising offspring if we all knew and emotionally appreciated the significance of the fact that infinite sets of varying copies of ourselves were continually coming into existence? Admittedly, many of our beliefs have no firm explanatory link with enhanced reproductive success, but in the case of quantum mechanical beliefs the decrease in our “fitness” seems much greater than with other beliefs.

Quantum cognitive science (insofar as it is presently developed) requires the rejection of both folk psychology and folk physics, but not in the name of eliminative materialism, reductive physicalism, or what the Churchlands call "neuroscience" or “neurophilosophy”. For these ontologies (e.g., Patricia and Paul Churchland's versions of eliminative materialism) are nonquantum ontologies and will have to be rejected for the same reasons that require the rejection of folk psychology and folk physics.

There will remain two positive aspects of nonquantum cognitive science or philosophy of mind (if my arguments for quantum cognitive science are sound).    

One positive aspect is that nonquantum cognitive sciences, if interpreted instrumentally (and anti-realistically) can still have the theoretical virtue of being successful at predicting approximately accurate macroscopic observations. Although nonquantum theories are false if interpreted in terms of ontological realism, they are nonetheless highly useful for instrumentalist purposes.

The second positive aspect is that the nonquantum theories or theses can in some cases be "quantized" and made consistent with quantum cognitive science and in these cases their quantized versions can be interpreted realistically and thereby can have the truth value of true (in the sense of "correspondence" to reality).

These theses are argued for in Part One of this paper. In Part Two I outline a new version of quantum cognitive science that is capable of explaining the only available experimental, macroscopic evidence for quantum cognitive science, the Nunn-Clarke-Blott experiments. Note that the widely discussed Hammeroff-Penrose quantum theory of the physical basis of consciousness (they do not develop a theory of the nature of consciousness) is not put forward by Hammeroff and Penrose as an experimentally confirmed theory, but as a testable proposal that is not yet confirmed. Much of the criticism of their theory is based on the false assumption that they put forward their theory as a confirmed hypothesis.

PART ONE: A RESPONSE TO THE STANDARD OBJECTIONS TO QUANTUM COGNITIVE SCIENCE

1. Fallacious Reasoning about Prior and Posterior Probabilities of Nonquantum Cognitive Science and Quantum Cognitive Science

Just as David Lewis's theory of possible worlds was once met with what Lewis called "the incredulous stare" (which I take to be an informal logical fallacy, one species of the ad hominem fallacy), so quantum consciousness theories are "dismissed with a hand wave" by most philosophers, even by some who know quantum mechanics. In this part, I argue that this informal logical fallacy, "the hand wave dismissal", (a species of the ignori elenchi fallacy) is based on a tacit (because not explicitly formulated), formal logical failure to distinguish the prior probability of quantum cognitive science from the probability of quantum cognitive science based on macroscopically observable evidence. The kind of probability I am talking about is epistemic probability (see Smith, 2001) and the probability of quantum cognitive science is the probability that some cognitive science is true by virtue of, and only by virtue of, the quantum mechanical ideas it contains. This quantum cognitive science need not yet exist in a completely developed (or even incompletely developed) form.

 Let the hypothesis h be some quantum cognitive science (such that the hypothesis entails that some quantum cognitive science is true, where "entails" is used in the sense of relevance logic). Let k be our background knowledge of the verification of quantum mechanics in microscopic physical experiments (about electrons, etc.). Let p stand for probability. The prior probability of some quantum cognitive science h may thus be represented as p(h/k), i.e., the probability of h, given k.

The posterior probability adds the evidence e, where e is our observational evidence at the macroscopic level, such that e is evidence about people's behavior, the "subjective, first person experiences" that you or I experience at each moment we are awake or are dreaming, EEG pen positions that are correlated to a brain, and other items that are discussed in cognitive psychology, neurophysiology and related disciplines (e.g. descriptions of effects of anesthetics, blindsight experiments, etc.). The posterior probability that some cognitive quantum science is true is thus p(h/e + k).

My claim is that many philosophers have committed the "hand wave dismissal" fallacy because they have implicitly failed to distinguish the posterior probability p(h/e + k) from the probability of h given only e, that is, p(h/e). Since p(h/e) is very low, quantum cognitive science poses no large threat to nonquantum cognitive scientists or philosophers if p(h/e) is the only relevant probability.

 But p(h/e) is not a significantly relevant probability, let alone the only or the most relevant probability. The probability with which we should be concerned is p(h/e + k). Since p(h/k), which is the prior probability that some quantum cognitive science is true, is much higher than the posterior probability of some nonquantum cognitive science (as I shall argue), the prior probability of some quantum cognitive science is the most important factor in the assessment. In Part One, I concentrate on arguing that p(h/k) is considerably higher than nonquantum cognitive scientists or philosophers of mind believe. Further, I make the case that these arguments for the strength of p(h/k) defeat the standardly offered justifiers for the belief in the superior plausibility of nonquantum cognitive science or nonquantum philosophy of mind. If my arguments are sound, then virtually every scientist or philosopher who works on consciousness and its relation to the brain, ranging from the eliminative materialists, e.g., the Churchlands, to the substance dualists, e.g., Richard Swinburne, hold unjustified beliefs about consciousness and the brain. Albert and Loewer, Bohm and Hiley, Chalmers, Eccles, Lockwood, Page, Squires, Stapp, and Wigner on the other hand, are quantum consciousness theorists (at least in some of their writings, e.g., Loewer’s co-authored work with Albert) and they hold the justified belief h.

I address a different but closely related subject in Part Two. In Part Two, I argue that the prevailing opinion among philosophers that p(h/e) = 0 is false, since there is some macroscopic observational evidence e for h that gives p(h/e) a significant, nonzero value, even though it may be less than 0.5.

 

2. The Objection that Quantum Cognitive Science is "Mere Speculation"

There is a common belief among philosophers that quantum cognitive science is mere speculation and thus can be safely ignored. This objection to the relevance of quantum mechanics to cognitive science is implicitly based on a fallacy, since in conflates particular claims (made by Penrose and Hammeroff, or Eccles, etc.) about certain brain-consciousness relations with the different hypothesis that the brain and consciousness are governed by quantum mechanical laws. Are quantum wave-field collapses in tubulins the source of consciousness (Hammeroff and Penrose)? This is a speculative hypothesis; it is not confirmed, at least not yet. But it is not a speculative hypothesis that quantum mechanics is very highly confirmed and applies to all physical realities, including the brain. This is as "hard" a "hard fact" as one can get; no theory has been confirmed to a greater degree than quantum mechanics. And since most interpretations of quantum mechanics essentially involve theories of consciousness, we may add that (on most interpretations of quantum mechanics) it is a scientific fact (appearing even in undergraduate and graduate textbooks on quantum mechanics) that quantum mechanics has implications for the nature of consciousness.

 It is invalid to infer from "it is speculative that consciousness is due to quantum field collapses in tubulins" to "it is speculative that the brain/mind relation (and the nature of consciousness) is quantum mechanical rather than nonquantum mechanical". This is obviously invalid and thus should be considered as a tacitly assumed belief that influences the "hand wave dismissal" fallacy.  A more accurate statement of this tacit belief would imply that it is assumed in a more exhaustive manner (where "exhaustive" has the sense it does in the phrase "the exhaustive and mutually exclusive class of Fs")), such that the assumption or practice takes the following form:

The more general practice is to take a presently advocated, particular version of quantum cognitive science, such as Hammeroff-Penrose's (h1), Eccles’s(h2) or Stapp's (h3), and produce arguments like the one I will construct shortly. In this argument, h = some quantum cognitive science is true, n = some nonquantum cognitive science is true, e = all macroscopic evidence relevant to cognitive science, and k = the background knowledge that all microscopic evidence highly confirms quantum mechanics (as distinct from Einstein’s relatively theory and Newtonism). The general argument tacitly used by nonquantum cognitive scientists or philosophers is typified by the following argument

(1) p(h1/e & k) << p(n/e & k)

(2) p(h2/e & k) << p(n/e & k)

(3) Etc., for each other presently advocated, particular version of quantum cognitive sciences, h3, h4, and so on.

Therefore,

(3) p(h/k & e) << p(n/e & k).

The symbol “<” means less than and the symbol “<<” means considerably less than. There are at least two errors in the argument I just presented. First, the probability of a presently advocated, particular version of quantum cognitive science, such as h1 or h2, is compared with the probability of some nonquantum cognitive quantum science n, rather than with some particular, presently advocated version of nonquantum cognitive science, such as Fodor's n1 or Dretkse's n2.

The second error is that the argument is based on the false assumption that it is not true that p(h/k) >> p(n/e + k) The critics of quantum cognitive science do not realize that, by virtue of k, the prior probability that some quantum cognitive science is true is significantly greater than the posterior probability that some nonquantum cognitive science is true (as I shall argue in the next sections). Even if some presently advocated, particular version of quantum cognitive science is so badly flawed that it is more likely that quantum mechanics is false than this version is true, it still is the case that the truth of some quantum cognitive science, be it currently existent in some form or not yet formulated at all, is much more probable than the truth of some nonquantum cognitive science.

3. The Objection that Cognitive Science is an Autonomous Science

The "received view" is that psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, etc., have their own laws and they are not quantum laws. The various versions of non-reductivist physicalism, the predominant view today among philosophers of mind and philosophers of science in general, are associated with the belief that each distinct domain of science has non-reducible laws. A main contemporary way to conceive the autonomy of the psychological sciences is along the general lines of the "unity of science" theory, presented as early as 1958 in Oppenheim and Putnam [1958], and given an especially clear formulation by Kim [1993: 337]. This widely accepted kind of argument (which allows cognitive scientists to justifiably ignore quantum mechanics) goes as follows: At the bottom level there are electrons, quarks and other microscopic entities described by quantum mechanics (and its extensions in quantum field theories). The bottom level entities have certain kinds of properties, such as spin, energy, mass, etc., and whatever else we need to posit on some given interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is physics. We go up one level to chemistry and find at this higher level new kinds of property that emerge when we consider large wholes made up of the entities posited by physics. Kim gives the example of "lumps of H₂0 molecules, with [such] properties as transparency, power to dissolve sugar and salt, and their characteristic density and viscosity, and so on" [Kim 1993: 337]. At a still higher level, biology, we find wholes composed of carbon, water, oxygen, etc., and these wholes have new kinds of properties, such as photosynthesis, digestion, reproduction, and the like. Eventually we come to psychology or cognitive science, with its characteristic kinds of properties or relations, such as propositional attitudes and sensory qualia, or perhaps neural nets, nodes and the like (if cognitive science is connectionism, as some hold).

The entities at each level are composed of entities on the immediately lower level, but have emergent properties that are different in kind than the properties at the lower level. The properties at each level are related to properties at a lower level by supervening upon them. These supervening properties enable cognitive science, for example, to form an autonomous domain, with laws connecting the supervenient properties that are distinctive to that domain. Therefore, the argument goes, quantum mechanical cognitive science is a contradiction in terms, or a "domain fallacy" (to coin a phrase), or at least is empirically false since there is no macroscopic evidence e that the kinds of properties belonging to the autonomous domain of cognitive science are quantum mechanical in nature. The probability of quantum cognitive science, p(h/e), is the only relevant one, for e, macroscopic evidence about human behavior, EEG machines, etc., is the only evidence relevant to the autonomous cognitive science domain. The background knowledge k about the behavior of electrons and photons, etc., is relevant only to lower level kinds of properties, the kinds of properties possessed by electrons, photons and the like. There are cognitive science or psychological causal laws (some, like Davidson, deny this, but not for reasons pertinent to my argument), and these laws are different in kind than quantum mechanical laws.

This objection to quantum cognitive science is unsound since the kinds of properties at every level or domain are kinds of quantum mechanical properties, regardless of whether the domain is physics, biology, or psychology. According to quantum mechanics, each and every item that exists obeys the laws of quantum mechanics, not just "electrons, photons" and the like. Each kind of domain-property is a subkind of the general kind of property, Quantum Mechanical Property. If you say "mechanics by definition is about matter and motion, not consciousness!", I respond "this may be true for the nonquantum mechanics, be it Newton's or Einstein's, but not for quantum mechanics. Indeed, according to some prevalent interpretations of quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as matter and motion!"

Exactly how this "universal application" of quantum mechanics is explained depends on the interpretation of quantum mechanics one is using. On some versions of the Copenhagen Interpretation (say of Stapp, perhaps the leading contemporary quantum cognitive scientist who belongs to the Copenhagen tradition), the emergent, psychological property of being a conscious state is an actualization of a potential conscious state that exists in a quantum mechanical configuration space. There is no need to understand the technical notions of quantum mechanics to understand my point; one need merely know that "configuration space", "state vectors", "wave functions", "eigenvalues", etc. refer to very different kinds of abstract or concrete entities or properties than those posited by nonquantum cognitive science. On the Copenhagen Interpretation (usually called "the standard interpretation") that I am discussing here, in the context of Stapp's formulation, we have a specific theory of the nature of a conscious state. The nature of a conscious state is to be the actualization of a "Hilbert space state vector" [Stapp, 1996b: 205]. "In this conception, the experienced reality is the coming into being of a psychologically felt command: Do X!" This experiential reality, in its potential form, is represented (or embodied) in Hilbert space" [1996: 205]. "Each actualization event has its physical side, which is just the 'collapse' of the wave function itself, and also its experiential side. In a rational causal theory collapse must have a cause. . .  What is consciousness? It is the part of nature that . . . causes the physical state to collapse (my italics)" [1996b: 208-209]. This is the fundamental principle of cognitive science, if this interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct. There is no reductionism to a lower level, since quantum mechanical properties are the only properties that are exemplified at each level in the hierarchy of the sciences, ranging from physics to cognitive science. Again, there is no need to understand quantum mechanics to understand my point; merely note that in the above quotation consciousness is defined (without being reduced to anything physical) in terms of quantum mechanical notions. We need to accept some interpretation of quantum mechanics, and on the standard (Copenhagen) interpretation Stapp correctly notes, I believe, that consciousness causes the physical state to collapse. Wigner in 1961 also realized, I believe, that the standard interpretation is led by the logic of its interpretation to the thesis that consciousness is the cause of the wave function collapse.

A very different interpretation of quantum mechanics is the Everett-interpretation, which originally was formulated (by deWitt) as a "many worlds" theory, which has more recently and correctly been superceded by the "many minds" (Albert and Loewer) or "many perceptions" (Lockwood, Page) theory. Michael Lockwood [1989] and Don Page [1995; 1996;] have developed the "many perceptions" Interpretation to the fullest degree. Consider how Lockwood explains the universal applicability of quantum mechanics (to every entity and state, including brain states and conscious states). Again it is not necessary to understand the complicated technical terms in this quotation to grasp my point. Lockwood writes: ". . . there will, at any given time, be some unique vector, in the cosmic Hilbert space, which represents the current state of the entire universe. . . . This state, in conjunction with a given designated state of the brain system, allows one to assign to any physical subsystem a unique state--represented by a vector in its own Hilbert space--which is its state relative to the designated state. Suppose I observe, say, the golf ball to be in the hole, or Schrödinger’s cat to be alive and purring. Then what that really amounts to is the following. A particular state of my brain (or, more accurately, subsystem of my brain) is designated in the relevant act of awareness. And the perceived state of the system being observed--the nineteenth hole, or Schrödinger’s cat—- [is] its unique state, given the overall state of things as represented by the cosmic state vector, relative to that designated brain state." [1989: 214]

 

If the reader prefers an Everett-interpretation to the Copenhagen interpretation, she will still end up with consciousness as the basis of the theory. The readers unfamiliar with quantum mechanics and Lockwood's theory will not understand what this passage exactly means, but they will understand that it implies that the familiar "autonomy of the sciences" and "emergent nonquantum properties" argument for nonquantum cognitive science is in conflict with this (and other) interpretations of quantum mechanics.

The familiar "autonomy of the sciences argument" against quantum cognitive science is based on a misunderstanding of quantum mechanics as being only about "electrons and quarks" and the like. On no interpretation does quantum mechanics have implications merely about electrons and other microscopic entities. It is not about only electrons, quarks, photons, etc.; it is about your consciousness, your brain, and everything else that exists. This applies, as I will later argue, even to anti-realist interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Other interpretations of quantum mechanics also imply that the "autonomy of the sciences argument" fails because the background knowledge k in p(h/e + k) entails that each level of kinds of properties in the hierarchy of the sciences contains only quantum mechanical kinds of properties. We recall that k = our background knowledge of the verification of quantum mechanics in microphysical experiments, e = our relevant evidence at the macroscopic level and p(h) is the probability that a cognitive science has to include a substantial amount of quantum mechanical ideas in order to correctly describe its subject matter. Kim's idea that "spin", but not "consciousness", is a quantum mechanical property, is based on the false, tacit assumption that k does not entail that each level of kinds of properties in the hierarchy of the sciences contains only quantum mechanical kinds of properties.

Note that I am not denying that cognitive science is autonomous; it is not reducible to the quantum mechanics of electrons and quarks. I am saying that the cognitive science properties (the kind of properties that are distinctive to the autonomous level of cognitive science) are subkinds of quantum mechanical properties.

Fodor's position on this sort of situation has been one of the most influential. Fodor writes: " . . . the (putative) generalizations of the (putative) completed physics would apply to the motions of organisms qua motions, but not qua organismic. Physics presumably has as little use for the categories of macrobiology as it does for the categories of commonsense psychology. . .  What's left is atoms in the void." [1987: 9]. He also presents another influential argument: Fodor [1987: 6] "If the world is described as a closed causal system at all, it is so only in the vocabulary of our most basic science. From this nothing follows that a psychologist (or a geologist) needs to worry about." If Fodor is talking about nonquantum physics, he is right. But he is wrong if he is talking about quantum physics, for this physics makes use of the categories of commonsense psychology, such as consciousness, experience, perception, observation, etc. These categories are borrowed from commonsense psychology and are "regimented" (in Quine's sense) for use (to talk technically for a moment) in locating dimensions in configuration space or for specifying certain kinds of state vectors, observables, etc. Even on the most widely used formulation of the "standard" (i.e., Copenhagen) Interpretation of quantum mechanics, namely, von Neumann’s, conscious experiences enter the basic axioms, for Von Neumann’s formulation essentially refers to consciousness. One of basic axioms of "standard" interpretation (von Neumann’s "projection postulate")) is that the collapse of the wave function occurs at some time in a measuring instrument, sense organ or brain BEFORE A MIND BECOMES CONSCIOUS OF THE MEASURED RESULT. (Here consciousness does not collapse the wave function, but is defined as one of the temporal limits within which the collapse occurs.) On this standard interpretation "No consciousness" implies "no collapse" which implies "quantum physics is false". A basic axiom of physics ("the projection postulate") essentially includes psychological vocabulary. Fodor's theory of how the sciences related to each is more appropriate to a Newtonian or Einsteinian world-view.

There is a more fundamental sense in which everything IS quantum mechanical AND IS NOTHING BUT QUANTUM MECHANICAL. I am making an unusual but non-reductivist claim. How is everything nothing but quantum mechanical reality? Reality itself is nothing but configuration space, the wave function [quantum wave-field] of the universe, and/or some other PURELY quantum reality. This is nicely summarized by Albert [1996] and his remarks deserve to be quoted:

".  . . it has been essential to the project of quantum-mechanical realism (in whatever particular form it takes--Bohm's theory, or modal theories, or Everettish theories, or theories of spontaneous localizations), to learn to think of wave functions as physical objects in and of themselves." [Albert, 1996: 277] For example, "on the GRW theory (or for that matter on any theory of collapse), the world will consist of exactly one physical object--the universal wave function" [Albert, 1996: 278]. And "on Bohm's theory, for example, the world will consist of exactly two physical objects. One of those is the universal wave function and the other is the universal particle. And the story of the world consists, in its entirety, of a continuous succession of changes of shape of the former and of a continuous succession of changes in the position of the latter [278]. . . . The individuals of which it [the world] consists on Modal theories are two fields like that [where the fields are wave-function fields at all points in configuration space]; and pinning the conditions of all those individuals down, on any of those theories, pins down everything." [278; 282, n. 7]. . . "And of course the space those sorts of objects live in, and therefore the space we live in, the space in which any realist understanding of quantum mechanics is necessarily going to depict the history of the world as playing itself out (if space is the right name for it--of which more later) is configuration-space. And whatever impression we have to the contrary (whatever impression we have, say, of living in a three-dimensional space, or in a four-dimensional space-time) is somehow flatly illusory." [Albert, 1996: 277, my emphases].

 

This passage indicates how distant nonquantum cognitive science is from the quantum nature of reality. The brain, consciousness, and objects of perceptions are in reality very different from how they are represented in nonquantum cognitive science. Thought experiments like "the twin earth" experiment make sense on the assumption that nonquantum physics is true, but are logically incoherent if placed in a quantum framework. Phase-entanglement alone (combined with a quantum big bang cosmology) would falsify a necessary assumption of the "twin earth" experiment, namely that the two twins are numerically distinguishable individuals. (At the big bang, everything is phase entangled.) Furthermore, on the Bohmian Particle Interpretation mentioned by Albert, it would not be logically possible for two particles to exist, let alone two planets; the thought experiment would be an explicit logical contradiction. There are even broader worries. The supervenience of the mental on the physical, the wide content/narrow content distinction (and the related debate between Externalism and Internalism), the Representationalism versus Nonrepresentationalism debate, the functionalism versus connectionism debate, and similar debates have yet to be shown to have any application or relevance to the nature of reality. For example, what could "the representational theory of the mind" possibly mean if consciousness is what causes the wave function to collapse (Wigner, Stapp)? There would be no conceivable representations and no conceivable items that could be represented. "The representational theory of the mind" would be a syntactic string without semantic content (or at least without empirical, semantic content). And what possible meaning could be attached to "wide content" and "Externalism" if an Everett-Squires one-mind interpretation of quantum mechanics is true? None. Functionalism and connectionism are false by definition if the many-perceptions interpretation or the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, not to mention other interpretations that would imply the same. Functionalism and connectionism are formulated within a Newtonian theoretical framework. The notion of "the supervenience of the mental on the physical" could not even be coherently formulated, let alone be true, if these or other (e.g., the many-minds or Everett-Squires one-mind interpretations) are true. On the so-called "standard interpretation of quantum mechanics", the Copenhagen Interpretation, the current theories of the physical supervenience basis would be literally meaningless, without semantic content. According to the standard interpretation, it is meaningless to say that "right now several billion humans have electrons traveling down the axons of their neurons"; to produce a syntactic string with semantic content, we need to say something such as "there is an observation of an electron occupying a certain position", which would pertain only to the very few people whose pertinent neurons are currently being observed. Proceeding to another item, the coherency of the notion of "narrow content" is no less endangered than the coherency of the notion of "wide content"; for example, the notion of "narrow content" would be a self-contradictory notion if a Bohm-Hiley interpretation of quantum mechanics is true (see [Bohm and Hiley, 1993: 386]. Indeed, phase-entanglement (on most interpretations of quantum mechanics) would do away with "narrow content" altogether. These sound like radical ideas, but they are less radical than they seem, for nonquantum cognitive sciences still serves useful functions.

The point is not that nonquantum cognitive sciences are without value (certainly an absurd suggestion); rather, I am trying to emphasis how much work needs to be done. The above-mentioned distinctions and debates that form the subject-matter of contemporary philosophical and scientific theories need to be quantized. However, if they still do not make realistic sense after being quantized and if, in addition, they are interpreted noninstrumentally (and realistically) then we have no choice but to "cast them to the flames" (Hume). This is not an absurd suggestion. For we have the other option of developing an anti-realist and instrumentalist interpretation of nonquantum cognitive sciences and this interpretation would have significant value and usefulness, just as Newtonism does in guiding rockets and most other large technological projects.

Alternatively, one could hope that one day quantum mechanics will be falsified, as tends to be the case with scientific theories (this hope would be a logically self-consistent position for a realist, nonquantum cognitive scientist to adopt). However there is no prospect of such a falsification in sight; the Vilenkin and Hartle-Hawking new quantum gravity theories, Penrose’s twistor theory, the many different string or superstring theories, M-brane theories (e.g. Ed Witten’s), etc., that are being developed incorporate quantum mechanical ideas.

 

4. The Objection that Quantum Mechanics is Unnecessary for Predictive Success in Cognitive Science

More objections to quantum cognitive science need to be answered before my above-stated theses can be adequately justified. I will here point out that the widely held (and true) claim that "quantum mechanics is unnecessary for predictive success in cognitive science" is mis-used in the equally widespread but invalid inference from "Nonquantum Predictive Success" to Nonquantum Reality". Consider this argument:

 

 (1) We can predict (approximately) the processes of neural networks, the occurrence of states of consciousness, behaviors of organisms, etc., using the assumption that neural nets, neurons, the brain, objects of external perception, as well as beliefs, desires, sensory qualia, etc. obey nonquantum laws of nature.

Therefore,

(2) The neural nets, sensory qualia, beliefs, etc. obey nonquantum physical laws, or nonquantum psychophysical laws, or nonquantum psychological laws.

 

This is invalid, since a theory T's approximate predictive success in some limited domain does not entail T's truth.      Richard Grush and Patricia Churchland are some of the most severe critics of quantum cognitive science and quantum theories of the brain and they make this invalid inference; they think realistic neuroscience should be a nonquantum neuroscience since "quantum-level effects are generally agreed to be washed out at the neuronal level" [Grush and Churchland: 206]. What this means is that the significant difference between a quantum behavior and a nonquantum behavior of entities does not APPEAR at the neuronal level, and thus that a DESCRIPTION OF THE APPEARANCES, AND PREDICTIONS OF FUTURE APPEARANCES, need not mention QM properties. The problem is that Grush and Churchland, like many other nonquantum cognitive scientists, bypass the next step their theory ought to take; they fail to realize that the nonquantum appearances are DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES, THAT THE NEURONS (and consciousness) APPEAR TO BE SOMETHING THEY REALLY ARE NOT, namely, nonquantum realities. And thus they are led to construct a theory of the mind/brain based on the misleading appearances, giving us at best an instrumentalist theory of the mind/brain that, if quantized, may give us some true propositions.

Put another way, how is it even possible that communications among neurons or mind/brain relations, do not involve QM (quantum mechanical) features such as collapses or pilot waves or splitting universes or many-minds or nonlocality or the "observations of eigenvalues", etc.? For example, to stay on the neural level, a neuron is governed by QM laws and its communication with other neurons is a QM communication. At best, the standard cognitive scientists can say: "I can falsely describe neurons (and the associated conscious states) in nonquantum terms since I am making such vague, albeit useful, predictions that the falsity of my descriptions does not affect the approximate predicted answer for which I am looking". But how is this different from using Ptolemy to describe the solar system? Ptolemy's theory has a significant degree of predictive success in a certain limited domain.

The problem is not confined to philosophers. For example, another manifestation of this invalid inference is present in the mathematician Alwyn C. Scott's [1998] remark that "there is no theoretical need for" quantum coherence in explaining the physical basis of conscious thought. "We can't even construct Schrödinger’s equation for a nerve impulse that is traveling along an axon. A nerve impulse is a completely classical [nonquantum] phenomenon". {1998: 637] Here the argument is:

 

(3) Humans lack the intelligence (intellectual complexity) to construct Schrödinger’s equation for a nerve impulse.

Therefore,

(4) The description of a nerve impulse in terms of Schrödinger’s equation cannot be used in our theories of the movements of a nerve impulse.

Therefore

(5) The nerve impulse is nonquantum in nature (and is instead completely classical).

 

This is invalid, since all that follows is that we do not use Schrödinger’s equation to predict the future behavior of what appears to us as nerve impulses, since it is to complex for us (not very intelligent homo sapiens sapiens) to construct QM equations for these impulses. Our predictive theories about nerve impulses do not include Schrödinger’s equation. But it does not follow that the nerve impulse is a nonquantum entity obeying nonquantum Newtonian laws, nonquantum neurophysiological laws, etc. Predictive success in some limited domain does not entail truth. And our inability to construct a QM equation for a nerve impulse because the equation is too complex for our not very intelligent minds to construct does not in the least imply that the nerve impulse does not obey Schrödinger’s equation. Indeed, it does obey Schrödinger’s equation, and every real particle obeys it, regardless of whether or not we, with our limited mental abilities, can construct the relevant equation. Consciousness also obeys it, at least on such interpretations of QM as Lockwood's, Albert and Loewer's, Squires, Page's, etc.

 

5. The Objection that Quantum Mechanics can Interpreted Instrumentally, in which case Nonquantum Cognitive Science can be Realistic

Perhaps the nonquantum cognitive scientist can adopt the instrumentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics associated with the founders of the Copenhagen Interpretation, such as Bohr. Instrumentalism about quantum mechanics is associated with the Copenhagen Interpretation. But it is a mistaken to think that this instrumentalist interpretation is consistent with holding that all of reality is nonquantum in nature; or that it is consistent with dividing the universe into nonquantum (macroscopic) realities like brains and quantum realities like electrons. In fact, the Copenhagen interpretation holds that the macroscopic measuring instrument (including the brain of the observer) is, in reality, a quantum mechanic system. Such an instrument is made up of quantum mechanical entities and is itself such an entity; but that its quantum mechanical nature can be bracketed (not described) for purposes of convenience and ease of description, since macroscopic systems appear similar enough to nonquantum entities that their quantum nature can be treated (for instrumentalist purposes) as if it were nonquantum. (Bohr, 1934: 85; 1945). On this interpretation, the laws of quantum mechanics imply that the macroscopic measuring instrument and the microscopic entity being measured themselves form a new more complex quantum mechanical reality (represented by another "state vector in Hilbert space"), such that this macroscopic reality (the measuring instrument M) and the system S being measured constitute the quantum mechanical reality represented ψM + S (the state vector or wave function that represents the a single quantum mechanical state, one that can in turn be measured by another measuring instrument M'). In short, each microscopic or macroscopic subsystem of the universe, on the Copenhagen instrumentalist Interpretation, is a measurable quantum mechanical reality relative to some distinct macroscopic subsystem M' that is regarded instrumentally as a macroscopic instrument that measures a quantum system. "The universe as a whole" is a meaningless expression on the instrumentalist interpretation (since nothing outside the universe can measure it), and there is no part of the universe that is not a quantum mechanical reality. What's "the catch"? The "catch" is that the instrumentalist, anti-realist interpretation of quantum mechanics (even if not of other theories) implies something about the nature of reality.

But the instrumentalist interpretation has even more drastic consequences for nonquantum cognitive science. On the instrumentalist interpretation, QM merely predicts certain perceptions (e.g. perceptions of point readings) and regards as meaningless sentences about an observation-independent reality. Thus, von Neumann talks of "experimental propositions" to emphasize that meaningful talk is only about observations, and that it is meaningless to talk about whether propositions are (to quote Putnam's apt summation) "true or false in some realist sense when we aren't looking" [Putnam, 1983: 255]. This anti-realism entails subjective idealism, which is just as far from contemporary nonquantum cognitive science as any realist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Even the most elementary introductions to quantum mechanics note this point; for instance, Robert Pine points out that this instrumentalism is in fact a version of metaphysical idealism: "If an electron is not a thing until it is observed by [us, using] some instrument, does not this imply that reality depends on our observations and hence, ultimately, the thoughts we use to frame the world? Does this not imply that reality is created by human thought?" [Pine, 1989: 228]

Instrumentalism is the dominant belief among quantum physicists, except for those who are working out new interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as Gell-Mann and Hartle, Page, Albert and Loewer, Lockwood, Healey, Bohm and Hiley, Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber. Instrumentalism is the view assumed in both undergraduate and graduate textbooks on quantum mechanics. But the emphasis is on QM enabling us merely to "predict observations"; the "metaphysical idealism" implied is "left for philosophers to discuss".)

 The reason for this instrumentalism is that the "standard" or Copenhagen interpretation, if physically interpreted, seems logically incoherent. (But Wigner, Stapp and other developers of this interpretation produce logically coherent noninstrumentalist versions of the Copenhagen Interpretation, since they avowedly embrace a metaphysical view about the nature of reality, namely, that it is "created by the human mind" in some technical sense.) Regarding the standard Copenhagen Interpretation, the logical problem that results is that one would have to describe mind-independent reality in such sentences as "The electrons move from place x to place x' and P1 and P2 are the only paths from x to x'; the electrons do not take path P1 and they do not take path P2 and they do not take both of these paths and they do not take neither of these paths. However these four possibilities are all the conceivable possibilities or logical possibilities." Richard Feynman reportedly replied to a question, about why a graduate student in quantum physics dropped out of school and took up a non-intellectual vocation, by saying that the student made the mistake of trying to figure out what mind-independent reality must be like if quantum mechanics is true. Faced with such conundrums, most physicists agreed that it was not false, but "meaningless" to talk about paths of electrons or any other mind-independent state of affairs; all we can talk about is the sensory observations or perceptual experiences we predict.

The consequence for cognitive science is that if talk about microscopic motions of particles, etc, is "meaningless", then we cannot assert meaningfully that (or make true assertions that) there exist electrons traveling on paths among potassium and sodium ions in nerve cells and similar ontological claims essential to virtually all cognitive sciences today. Consciousness cannot supervene on brain states or any other physical states, and there cannot be physically realized functionalist or connectionist systems, since (given QM instrumentalism) such theses cannot have a truth value since they lack semantic content. The instrumentalist interpretation of QM leads ineluctably to a subjective idealism or phenomenalism, where all that exists are states of consciousness-- "experiences", "observations", etc. Stapp, a physicist, captures the situation in a pithy manner: "Thus the founders of quantum mechanics [who were instrumentalists] constructed the new physics as a theory of statistical correlations between experiences. . . The basic kinds realities of the new physical science became . . . experiences. . "[Stapp, TOWARDS II, p. 599, my emphasis]. Compare this with Fodor's very widely accepted view that psychology, but not physics, is about experiences.

This indicates that nonquantum cognitive scientists cannot preserve their theories by adopting the standard instrumentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Virtually every single philosopher of mind or cognitive scientist today is a realist about the physical world; they believe stones, tables and neural firings exist while they are not being looked at by somebody. They do not believe that neural firings are created by human consciousness and cease to exist when they are not being observed. The crucial point is that the instrumentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics does imply an ontology, by virtue of saying there are true statements about perceptual experiences but no meaningful statements about something that is not, in fact, being experienced. This is an ontology of subjective idealism or phenomenalism, or some other form of strong anti-realism about the physical world.

Consequently, the contemporary, realist, nonquantum cognitive sciences cannot be held consistently with an instrumentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics. This should complete the trap for nonquantum cognitive science. Quantum mechanics is the most highly confirmed theory ever developed and it implies nonquantum cognitive science is false regardless of whether quantum mechanics is interpreted realistically or anti-realistically.

 

6. Do Philosophers of Mind Need a Graduate Degree in Physics?

Philosophers ought not to give up work on nonquantum theories of the mind. Nor need they stop their work for ten years in order to learn quantum mechanics. The successful results of their nonquantum work will eventually be used as input to a "quantizing box", which quantizes whatever of their results can be quantized, and the output of this box will be theories or theses in quantum cognitive science.

At present, one of the major reasons that nonquantum philosophers should keep working on the input side of the box is that the box quantizes the input in terms of some particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, and there are many different interpretations of quantum mechanics, with little prospect that one interpretation above others will be demonstrated to be the right one at any time in the near future. The input can be built up until the correct interpretation is determined, and then we can go to work into quantizing the input in terms of this correct interpretation, giving us a true (approximately true or highly confirmed) quantum cognitive science as the output. A change in behavior or in research programs is not being advocated in this essay. Rather, merely a change in belief. Nonquantum philosophers of mind or cognitive scientists ought to realize that their theories, on pain of being evaluated as highly disconfirmed, must be interpreted anti-realistically and instrumentally.

PART TWO: Macroscopic Evidence for the Quantum Basis and the Quantum Nature of Consciousness

 

1. A New De Broglie/Bohm Quantum Consciousness Hypothesis

First, I will formulate, in outline form, a hypothesis about the nature of consciousness that I believe to have significant prior probability and to be testable. Second, I will argue that this hypothesis is significantly confirmed (but not to a degree greater than 0.5) by a series of experiments, the Nunn-Clarke-Blott experiments.

One goal of this part of the paper is to show that the prevalent view that there is no macroscopic evidence for quantum consciousness is a mistaken view. A second goal is to sketch in outline form a new quantum cognitive science theory, one that is different from, but influenced by, David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics and Roger Penrose's quantum cognitive science. The phenomenological theory of consciousness I use is presented in my earlier work [Smith, 1986] and here I will use only some of its elementary ideas that can be generally expressed in the current jargon ("qualia", "propositional attitudes", etc.)

Before I go into the physical aspect of the theory (the theory of the quantum functioning of the brain), I will present my ideas about the nature of consciousness that belong to the hypothesis h' I use to explain the macroscopic evidence.

I distinguish between acts (events or states) of being conscious ("intentional acts" in the Brentano tradition), which I divide into (a) sensings and propositional attitudes and the (b) immediate contents of consciousness, which are phenomena with which I am immediately acquainted through my sensings and my propositional attitudes. Sensings are sensings of sensory qualia and propositional attitudes are attitudes to propositions (which I shall call "thoughts" to emphasis that they are mental realities, not platonic realities). The folk psychological interpretation of sensory qualia (e.g., as the pink surface of a cloud or as a pain in my toe) is a propositional attitude in which I grasp a singular or de re proposition (thought) that includes the sensory quale as a part, and includes the quale qua attributed the property of being the pink surface of the cloud, such that the proposition (thought) is the singular thought or proposition <*, being the pink surface of the cloud>, where the star, "*", is the sensory quale itself. The admittance of such singular propositions enables us to bypass the objection that some sensings of our qualia are non-propositional and merely involve applying a concept to the quale. Applying a concept to a quale is equivalent (on my account) to attributing a property to the quale, where the quale is the subject-constituent of the resultant singular proposition. The singular proposition, <*, being a pain> is an example of such a proposition.

      A corresponding quantum mechanical interpretation would be the grasping of a thought such as <*, having the amplitude n and phase n' in the such-and-such dimension of configuration space>. For example, "Pink clouds" are mere mental constructions produced by folk psychological and folk physical interpretations of the sensory qualia that exist in the mental dimensions of configuration space. The mental dimensions of configuration space neither are minds nor constitute a single "Supermind" but instead are proper classes (in Menzel's sense [Menzel, 1986]) that include acts of consciousness, sensed qualia, thoughts, and possible (but unactualized) acts of consciousness, merely possible sensed qualia and merely possible thoughts. These possibilia are universals (properties or relations) that are "not actualized" by a given human or minded-organism at a given time in the sense that the organism does not (at the time mentioned) instantiate the universal. This way of conceiving configuration space arguably carries the ontological commitment of a Tooleyian [1987] realism about universals, and a rejection of the Barcan formula [1946] and acceptance of a quantified modal logic, in the tradition stemming from Hintikka [1961], that implies that some possible worlds have domains including members that do not exist in the actual world].

A crucial part of my quantum consciousness hypothesis is the rejection of physical reductionism, since configuration space contains some physical dimensions and some non-reducible mental dimensions, such that conscious acts and the immediate contents of consciousness (qualia and thoughts) exist in the mental dimensions of configuration space.

Should we use the technical term "configuration space"? Bohm and Hiley [1993] sometimes talk instead of "information space" (but they conceive its mental dimensions differently, and also too ambiguously and vaguely to be usable in a testable hypothesis). The reason Bohm and Hiley use "information space" is that many physicists use "configuration space" to refer either to an abstract mathematical object (containing only numbers or classes) or else to a certain type of wholly physical reality.¹ But I shall use "configuration space" since I wish to make the argumentative point that some physicists' narrower or different conception of configuration space should be reconceived in the way I am conceiving it.

The acts or states of being consciousness (or, more strictly and technically, what I called "feeling-awarenesses" [Smith, 1986]) are wave-forms whose metaphorical "flowing through configuration space" is literally a temporal succession of states of being conscious. The contents of consciousness (sensory qualia and thoughts) are the existents that are directed by the wave-forms. What does this mean? The wave (by virtue of its form) pilots or guides the existents, and thus is often called by quantum physicists "the pilot wave" of the existent it is directing. In fact, the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics is often called "the pilot wave theory"; see Valentini [1992; 1996] for a history-based justification of this name for the interpretation. Wave-forms, and the directing relation are basic ontological notions in Bohm and Hiley [1993] that I am borrowing and developing to apply to the mental dimensions of configuration space. Intentionality, I want to say, or "intentional directedness" as Brentano, Husserl, etc., call it, is a forming of the immediate contents of consciousness in such a way as to make them appearances of a humanly constructed "objective world" (the constructed common sense "physical world" in case of perception and, in the case of abstract thinking, the constructed "nonphysical world" of numbers, truths, and the like). This "objective world" is a human construction, and it is constructed out of folk-psychological and folk-physical concepts that are applied to our sensory qualia. This constructed "objective world", which we instinctively interpret our sensory qualia and propositions to be appearances of², is in fact not a mind-independent world but a mental construction and it exists in the mental dimensions of configuration space. Reality, i.e., configuration space and its occupants, is NOT what we interpret our sensory qualia to be appearances of. And the propositional thoughts we immediately grasp (in common sense thinking) are not propositions about the amplitudes and phases of the field wave in configuration space. Rather, our sensory qualia are interpreted to be appearances of an "objective folk-physical world" that is supposed to be a mind-independent physical reality, but in fact it is not real but a mere folk psychological and folk physical construction. Reality is configuration space and its occupants, and it contains as parts our conscious acts, our sensory qualia and propositional thoughts; the constructed "objective world" does not exist except in the sense that the illusion of this "objective folk-physical world" exists. The sense in which the illusion of "the objective folk-physical world" exists is the sense in which our folk psychological and folk physical thoughts, and sensory qualia, exist. The existence of an illusion is the existence of certain thoughts and qualia and these thoughts and qualia exist as occupants of the mental dimensions of configuration space.

Configuration space (or, more simply, Reality) includes many dimensions, such as position, momentum, energy and spin dimensions, but also includes many dimensions containing the different possible kinds of conscious acts (propositional attitudes and sensings) and conscious contents (sensory qualia and propositions). For example, a suitable reformulation of the Munsell color tree and Land's color solid (see [Paul Churchland, 1985; 1986]; [Lockwood, 1989] would enable us to add to configuration space at least three dimensions of hue, luminance and saturation (Munsell). Each possible hue, luminance, and saturation in the visual qualia dimensions of configuration space occupies a point in configuration space. As unactualized possibilities, these points and hues, etc., should be understood as abstract entities (unexemplified properties), but when they are actualized by a wave-form, they become concrete mental existents. (This is a major difference from Everett-type views, such as Page's, Lockwood's, and Albert's and Loewer's, where each possibility is actualized.)

Speaking in general terms, my hypothesis is that the pilot wave of my consciousness directs my consciousness through configuration space in the sense of actualizing these possibilities; e.g., a possible hue becomes an actual content of my visual awareness by virtue of being actualized by a mental wave-form, in particular, an intentional act. More exactly, as we shall see below, it is the more complex wave-form produced by the entanglement of my brain's pilot wave with the pilot wave of my consciousness that simultaneously actualizes the sensory quale and a set of nerve cell firings. De Broglie-Bohm quantum mechanics requires absolute simultaneity and we can say that our temporal sense of the "continuing presentness of everything" is our experience of the pilot wave of the universe's enduring in absolute time as it "flows" through configuration space. The vague sense of an all-encompassing and enduring temporal presence is perhaps the nearest our instinctive folk physical and psychological interpretations allow us to get to a perceptual grasp of Reality. On the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation, there is only one wave-field, the pilot wave of the universe, and the pilot wave of my consciousness and the pilot wave of my brain are inseparable parts of the pilot wave of the universe that can be considered only in abstraction from the other parts of the universe’s pilot wave. Although Durr, Goldstein and Zanghi [1996] develop a different version of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation that I do, I agree with them when they write: "Which systems should be governed by Bohmian mechanics? The systems which we normally consider are subsystems of a larger system--for example, the universe--whose behavior (the behavior of the whole) determines the behavior of its subsystems (the behavior of the parts). Thus for a Bohmian universe, it is only the universe itself which a priori [sic]--i.e., without further analysis, can be said to be governed by Bohmian mechanics.... Fix an initial wave function Ψ₀ of this universe. Then since the Bohmian evolution is completely deterministic, once the initial configuration Q of this universe is also specified, all future events, including of course the results of measurements, are determined." [1996: 37] The "universe" here is of course not "the universe" of folk physics or Newtonian or Einsteinian classical mechanics; it exists in a de Broglie-Bohm configuration space. The phrase "a priori--i.e., without further analysis" in the quoted passage is best replaced by "without being considered in abstraction as a subsystem".

How does this quantum consciousness hypothesis I am outlining relate to the quantum mechanics of physical reality, specifically to physical subsystems of the universe, e.g., particles? A physical particle is not mechanically caused to move by a pilot wave, but is instantaneously directed from a distance by the form of the particle's pilot wave. The wave-form directs the particle by instantaneously imparting to it a form, a form similar to the wave-form itself. A nonquantum or classical wave, by contrast, acts mechanically (transfers energy or momentum to push an object, for example) and produces effects that are proportional to the intensity of the wave. But the quantum wave is different. It has a "quantum potential", which depends on the form of the wave, and not on its strength or intensity [Bohm and Hiley, 1993: 31]. Instead of giving their equation, I will give an intuitive example they provide. "For example we may consider a ship on automatic pilot being guided by radio waves. Here, too, the effect of the radio waves is independent of their intensity and depends only on their form. The essential point is that this ship is moving with its own energy, and that the form of the radio wave is taken up to direct the much greater energy of the ship. We may therefore propose that an electron too moves under its own energy, and that the form of the quantum wave directs the energy of the electron." [Bohm and Hiley, 1993: 31-32]. "Thus in the example of the ship guided by the radio waves, one may say that these waves carry information about what is in the environment of the ship and that this information enters into the movements of the ship through its being taken up in the mechanism of the automatic pilot. Similarly we explain the interference properties by saying that the quantum field contains information, for example about the slits, and that this information is taken up in the movements of the particle. In effect we have in this way introduced a concept that is new in the context of physics--a concept that we shall call active information. The basic idea of active information is that a form having very little energy enters into and directs a much greater energy. The activity of the latter is in this way given a form similar to that of the smaller energy. . . . What is crucial here is that we are calling attention to the literal meaning of the word, to in-form, which is actively to put form into something or to imbue something with form." [1993: 35] "The fact that the particle is moving under its own energy, but being guided by the information in the quantum field [the wave-form], suggests that an electron or any other elementary particle has a complex and subtle inner structure (e.g. perhaps even comparable to a radio)" [1993: 37].

Since the wave-form of the electron's pilot wave has this sort of nonmechanical, noncontactive, instantaneous, in-forming relation to the electron, we see that the "physical" and "mental" may be much closer together than they are in nonquantum physics.

Conscious acts do not direct or in-form across spatial distances, but actively inform sensory qualia by interpreting them in terms of the conceptual forms, the concepts, that are parts of propositional thoughts. For example, a sensory pinkness is in-formed (ascribed the property) of being the pink surface of a cloud by the conscious act of interpreting the sensory quale as this surface. The interpretation is the propositional attitude, in this case a perceptual judgment that ascribes to the quale the property of being a pink surface of the cloud. The act of perceptually judging (the conscious act that is the wave-form) in-forms the sensory quale by ascribing this property to it. Bohm and Hiley have a theory of the mental dimensions of configuration space [1993: Ch. 15], but it is not based on a sufficiently precise phenomenological theory of consciousness (see [Smith, 1986]) and thus I follow them "in principle" here but not in details (they don't have details)

The basic, unique relation in the Bohm-Hiley theory is actively in-forming, which is a wave-form imparting a form to an existent, and by means of this in-forming relation instantaneously and noncontactively directs the existent that the wave-form is piloting. They take this as a primitive notion, but I analyze it into more basic notions: I define active in-forming as an act, either an act of consciousness or of a quantum potential, instantaneously, and without physical contact, of ascribing a property or relation to an existent (or bringing about the instantiation of a property or relation in the existent) This, among other things, is what is common to "mind" and "matter". There is the question of how the same mathematics apply to both. For example, how can conscious acts be numerically described in terms of Schrödinger’s wave equation and the guidance condition (the quantum potential, or with de Broglie, Bell, Valentini and others, a trajectory equation without the quantum potential), which pertains to a generalized gradient of the phase of the wave? I respond that Schrödinger’s equation has already been applied to conscious experiences or conscious observations, in various ways, by Page, Lockwood, Albert and Loewer, Squires, Stapp, Wigner, and in effect by Bohr himself. Indeed, are not "observations" precisely the subject-matter of the "standard" or Copenhagen Interpretation physicists have adopted since the late 1920s?

The mindlikeness of "matter" (already mentioned), and the matterlikeness of "mind" (existing in and obeying the quantum mechanical rules of configuration space) suggests a new way to outline the "mind-brain" relation, a way not recognized by Bohm and Hiley in their discussions of consciousness. My suggestion is that the pilot wave of the brain is phase-entangled with the pilot wave of consciousness in such a way that the new, combined, more complex wave-form simultaneity directs both the correlated neural firings and the contents of consciousness. There is no causal interaction between the mind and brain (interactionism and epiphenomenalism are thus ruled out), but there is a wave-form noncontactively and simultaneously in-forming both the mental contents and the neural firings, so parallels (where there is no influential between the two) is ruled out. Further supervenience and emergentism are ruled out, since the mental does not supervene upon the physical but instead is directed simultaneously with the physical by the entangled pilot waves of both the mental and physical, such that they have equal status (i.e., one does not supervene upon the other). Further, there is no eliminative or reductive materialism, for the mind both exists and is neither reducible to nor identical with the physical. If we want a name for this theory of consciousness, we may call it “the wave entanglement theory of consciousness” and the new mind-brain relation it implies is an entangled wave-form simultaneously in-forming both the mental contents and the brain processes. For example, the entangled wave-form simultaneously, instantaneously, and without physical contact, in-forms pinkness by ascribing to it the property of being the sensory surface of the sensed cloud that is present in my visual field) and in-forms the spiking frequencies in area V4 of the cortical system (by ascribing to them the properties and relations constitutive of a 95 Hz/80 Hz/80 Hz/ chord).

 The pink surface of the sensory cloud in my visual field is a part of my common sense constructed “objective physical world”. On the view I am proposing, the sensory cloud neither is, nor represents, nor is caused by, a material thing in an “objective physical world” composed of distinct material things. Very roughly and only in part, we have something like Sellars’ “manifest image/scientific image” distinction, or, even more roughly, Eddington’s “two tables” theory of the sensory field of consciousness and the physical field of scientific entities. But their theories are only distantly approximated, since their theories must be drastically altered to conform to both de Broglie/Bohm quantum mechanics and the wave entanglement theory of consciousness where, for example, the relation between the physical scientific world and the sensory field of consciousness is not a causal or one-to-one representative relation but is instead is a simultaneous, mutually in-forming relation based on the entanglement of the wave-forms of physical events and conscious acts. The pink cloud I am visually sensing exists, but it exists only as a part of some mental dimensions of configuration space and it may said to be an “illusion” inasmuch as I mis-interpret what I am sensing to be a separable, non-abstracted, physical thing that is a part of a mind-independent “objective physical world”. What I am mis-interpreting would be correctly interpreted as an inseparable abstraction from the one and only system, the universe, which occupies configuration space. The sensory pink cloud that is present in my visual field is in reality a mind-dependent construction based on folk physics concepts. The sensory pink cloud occupies certain mental-content dimensions in configuration space, and occupies them only while I am mentally constructing it. On the view I am proposing, the common sense (commonly sensed) “objective physical world of separate things” is an illusion that we learned to perceive after the decline of the animistic world-interpretation and the infiltration of the Galilean and Newtonian mechanical world-view into common sense beliefs. But just as humans learned how to perceptually reinterpret the world, from the animistic world-view to the 16^th and 17^th century mechanical world-view of separate, causally contactive things, they can relearn to perceive a de Broglie/Bohm world that includes entangled wave-forms that consciously construct the illusion of the common sense mechanical world. If we accomplished this relearning, what would we perceive? What would really exist? If my version of the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation is correct, what really exists is configuration space, the universe that occupies configuration space, and the universal pilot wave that directs the universe. Since configuration space includes mental dimensions, the constructed illusions that everyday common sense takes to be “separate parts of the objective, mind-independent physical world” also exist in configuration space; if there are illusions, then illusions exist, and these existents are in reality inseparable and abstracted parts of the universe that is directed by the universal pilot wave. These illusions neither represent nor are caused by separate mechanical parts of a physical world. Rather, they are delusive ways of appearing of certain inseparable, abstractions of an existent that is neither a subsystem nor an abstraction, namely, the universe, the complete system that is piloted through configuration space by the pilot wave of the universe. The specific kinds of illusions that we are piloted or directed to perceive or think about in common sense thinking are the kinds of illusions that are in large part sufficient to enable the abstracted subsystem, the human species, to survive and reproduce in the complete system, the universe. If each apparently separate thing is really an inseparable abstraction from the one “thing” that is not itself an abstraction, the universe, this is too definite to be known through a mystical experience but requires mathematical knowledge of the wave function of the universe and the associated guidance equation.

My goal here is not to present a theory of consciousness or an ontology, which would require at least a book, but to sketch a theory that whose detailed working out could be used to ”quantize” everything, i.e., not only nonquantum cognitive sciences, but all nonquantum theories and our folk physics and folk psychology. This sketch furthers the de Broglie/Bohm program, since it provides a more precise, fleshed out and detailed theory of consciousness than that provided by Bohm and Hiley [1993]. It should be added that Don Page [1996] outlines a de Broglie/Bohm theory of consciousness, which is also more precise than Bohm’s and Hiley’s, but it is different than the one I presented here; Page’s outline is in part modeled on his “sensible quantum mechanics”. One possible task in developing the phase-entanglement theory of consciousness I have outlined here is to compare it with Page’s articulation of a “Bohmian sensible quantum mechanics” and to explain the considerations that show one or the other of the two theories to be more justified. Page is not a Bohmian (Page belongs to the Everett tradition) and in his [1996] his goal is to explain how his own “sensible quantum mechanics” can be reformulated as a Bohmian sensible quantum mechanics.

The theory I am proposing consists of more than just the sketch I have offered here. A theory of the objects of singular and general propositional attitudes, viz., singular propositions and general propositions, is developed in [Smith, 1993] (see [Nerlich, 1998] for a clear summary and interesting critique). In addition, a phenomenology of consciousness (intentional conscious acts are argued to be feeling-awarenesses in an expanded sense of “feeling”) and a phenomenology of the various kinds of contents of consciousness (every content is argued to be either a feeling-sensation, a feeling-tonality, and/or a way of being important in an expanded sense of “important”) is developed in [Smith, 1986]. The major, remaining task is to integrate these ideas into a version of the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics and to argue that this interpretation, in my version, is preferable to other interpretations of quantum mechanics. Some further ideas for a de Broglie/Bohm theory of consciousness and the brain will emerge in the next section as I explain the Nunn-Clarke-Blott experiments.

 

2. A Quantum-Brain Hypothesis

We recall that part of the aim of the second half of this essay is to discuss p(h/e), that is,, the probability of a quantum cognitive science being true given only some macroscopic evidence e, evidence of a general sort that is often used by nonquantum cognitive scientists in justifying their theories. Given the scarcity of such macroscopic evidence for quantum cognitive science, and the fact that the main evidence for quantum mechanics is k = the background knowledge of the evidence for the universal scope of quantum mechanics in general, we should expect that p(h/e) is not only much lower than p(h/e & k) but also much lower than p(h/k). Nonetheless, p(h/e & k) is higher than p(h/k). Philosophers seem unaware that there is any macroscopic quantum mechanical evidence e, even though scientists who are interested in quantum cognitive science frequently refer to this evidence e as partial support for their theories. Accordingly, I aim to explain to philosophers of mind and philosophical cognitive scientists the quantum mechanical nature of this evidence e, and I aim to explain to quantum scientists a new way to interpret this evidence that is preferable to the other interpretations that are currently being discussed in the scientific literature. I must emphasis, however, that this evidence e is weak, since no one has attempted to replicate the experiment apart from the original experimenters themselves [Nunn-Clarke-Blott, 1994; 1996], and there has been only silence from nonquantum cognitive scientists about whether the experiments admit of a nonquantum interpretation. The original, pilot experiment and the replications are reported in the [1994] paper; the [1996] paper is a non-technical summary of the [1994] paper.

A specific aim of the Nunn-Clarke-Blott [1994; 1996] experiments is to confirm or disconfirm whether increasing the gravitational force of a brain state (specifically, a state dependent on different ion shifts across cell membranes) can affect brain activity associated with consciousness. The quantum cognitive science hypothesis I am putting forward implies that a brain area involved in a conscious decision making task should be altered by the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity of an EEG instrument. The EEG activities, the pen positions, record an activity from the relevant brain area. I claim that by increasing the gravitational field of that brain area, the brain activity should increase and the conscious decision making should be more accurate or be more rapid. Of course,, there would no point in discussing the Nunn-Clarke-Blott experiments unless they confirmed the hypothesis I am advancing, so I can note at the outset that their experiments show that increased gravity alters brain activity in a way that is explicable (I argue) only by quantum cognitive science. Nunn-Clarke-Blott write: "taking an EEG from the area [of the brain] should modify the gravitational prerequisite for [effective] collapse, so affecting task performance. There are no non-quantum theories which could lead one to expect that taking an EEG could directly affect task performance by subjects. The results of both pilot and main experiments indicated that task performance was indeed influenced by taking an EEG from relevant brain areas. Control experiments suggest that the influence was quantum mechanical in origin . . ." [1994: 127] Nunn-Clarke-Blott do not assume a de Broglie/Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics, so they do not talk about “effective collapses”; I am inserting the word “effective” in the relevant passages, Collapses are merely “effective” (can be treated as real collapses for predictive purposes) on the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation. Nunn-Clarke-Blott assume a quantum cognitive science hypothesis proposed by Penrose [1989], which they believe [1994] is the only quantum cognitive science hypothesis that can explain the experiments. But I will show shortly that Penrose’s quantum cognitive science is in principle flawed and needs to be replaced by a unique version of de Broglie/Bohm quantum cognitive science.

My explanation of the experiments begins by noting fact that the superposition of EEG pen positions is significant since the pens are heavy relative to the ions shifting across nerve cell membranes. Given the general background knowledge k of the evidence for quantum mechanics, we know there will be a phase entanglement between the pen positions and the measured brain regions; by means of this phase entanglement, I predict, the pen positions will gravitationally influence the brain regions with which they are correlated. Since there is no complete or widely agreed upon approach to quantum gravity theory, I will use only the most elemental notions about quantum gravity, specifically, the notion of a graviton which arises when we apply quantum field theory to gravity. A graviton is the smallest unit in quantum gravity theory and is roughly "the smallest allowable force of gravity", which is defined in terms of Planck scales. The mathematics need not be rehearsed here. I predict that the effective collapse of a wave field occurs when there is a difference of one graviton or more between the alternatives in a superposition. The “collapse due to a one graviton difference” is a notion common to several scientists in the field of quantum gravity theory. For example, Penrose [1989] and others used this “one graviton criterion” as a part of their various, different quantum gravity theories. But now we are applying this criterion to develop a testable prediction about the brain and consciousness. The prediction is that the effective collapse criterion (viz., when there is a difference of one graviton or more between the alternatives in a superposition) will be exceeded sooner than usual in the measured brain regions, with consequences for the speed or accuracy of the consciously performed button pressing. Subjects whose EEG measurements are made from the relevant, active part of the brain, the right motor cortex, should have quicker or more accurate results on the button pushing tasks. This is because the correlated EEG pen position will increase (at least) the gravitational field of the various, alternative temporally initial parts of the entire process in a nerve cell, and these parts are the elements that are in superposition. Superpositions of tubulin states or complete states of a nerve cell belong to Hammeroff’s and Penrose’s different hypotheses, which I shall criticize below. The gravitational increase will induce the temporally initial parts in superposition to effectively collapse onto one alternative or the other, allowing the "chosen" alternative to evolve into part of an entire brain state that is accompanied by a decision to push (or not push) the button. (My hypothesis about “the superposed initial phases of neural states” will be clarified below.) These predictions are confirmed by the Nunn-Clarke-Blott experiments. (Confirmation is not in general symmetrical to explanation, but in this particular case there is symmetry.) The pilot experiment was to involve the left side of the brain in a task; subjects press a button with their right thumb when 2, 5, or 8 appear in a series of numbers (0-9) flashed at random on the screen. The right brain was kept busy by playing music to their left ear only. 28 subjects were used in experiment. EEGs were taken in random sequence from the left or right sides of the brain. There were fewer misses when the EEG was taken from the right motor cortex (which was responsible for task performance) but more misses when it was taken from other areas on the right. My hypothesis is that the EEG pen positions increase the neural activity in the right motor cortex--increase the rate of effective collapses of the superposed initial temporal parts of possible neural processes. The initial temporal parts in superposition effectively collapse onto just one alternative, increasing the decision-making activity (e.g., the evolution of the process of certain nerve signals being transmitted down axons) and this alternative evolves into a part of a macroscopic brain state that underlies a conscious decision.

The experiments showed that the misses/nonmisses proportions were significant only when the EEG frequencies were set at the EEG alpha rhythm (alpha activity is traditionally associated with changes in awareness). There were no effects in the 35 to 45 Hz range, suggesting that the 40Hz activity important to perception is relevant to unconscious functions only. (cf. [Baranaga, 1990]).

     Nonquantum theories are ultimately physically based on the ontology of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (Newtonism is disconfirmed and thus can only be used instrumentally at speeds slow compared to the velocity of light). There is a reason why an Einsteinian-based theory cannot explain this experiment, although this is not mentioned by Nunn-Clarke-Blott. According to the General Theory of Relativity, where gravity = curvature of spacetime, the curvature increase in the relevant brain parts, due to the pen’s relations to the brain region, is much too small or insignificant to cause the observed alterations in the brain states. A much more massive body than a pen or pen tip would be needed to induce a suitably high degree of curvature in the brain regions where the recorded activities take place.

   An even more basic reason why nonquantum theories cannot explain these results is that a significant increase in curvature would reduce (due to the effects of the curvature) the activity of the ions and electrons involved in nerve signaling, e.g., movements of ions and electrons would be slowed down relative to the reference frames of the pen positions and the buttons the subject presses. This conflicts with the recorded evidence, namely, that there is an increase in the activities of ions and electrons in the measured brain area, relative to the reference frames of the buttons and pen positions. This sheds further doubt on the possibility of providing a nonquantum cognitive science explanation of these experiments. Further, we have a reason given by Nunn-Clark-Blott, namely, that there is no known or conceivable nonquantum cognitive science that leads to the predictions that are confirmed in the experiments.

    There are additional, but similar, data that can be explained by my quantum cognitive science proposal. A second and more sophisticated experiment by Nunn-Clarke-Blott involving 42 subjects showed similar results. "In our second experiment . . .  we conducted control observations which showed that the experimental effect did not depend on programming errors or any electrical or acoustical feedback to the subjects, while the fact that the experiment was fully automated eliminated any possibility that the experimenter might have influenced the subject's performance. The over-all probability that these findings may be due to chance is around 1 in 500, small enough to be very suggestive but not conclusive" [1994: 130]. Further experiments were done whose details I shall not recount, leading to Nunn-Clarke-Blott's conclusion that: "In the absence of any alternative [nonquantum} explanation of the results, we are left with the conclusion that a quantum-mechanical effect was observed during these experiments and that it depended on the ability of the EEG pens to move". [139].

      One problem with some of Nunn-Clarke-Blott’s theoretical interpretations of their own results is that they used Penrose’s ideas about quantum cognitive science [Penrose, 1989]. However, Penrose [1994: 355] correctly came to reject his 1989 theory since his assumption that the elements in superposition, an entire nerve cell that simultaneously exists in two spatially separated states, one of these states being a state of firing and a second state being a state of not firing, are too large to be consistent with the conjunction of the observational evidence and background knowledge about quantum theory. A nerve cell superposed in two spatially distant states, one of firing and one of not firing, are macroscopic entities [Penrose, 1994: 355]. Penrose does not elaborate upon his reasons for rejecting the [1989] theory, but I think there are several reasons. First, his [1989] theory ill comports with observation; we can observe nerve cells and we do not observe their states to be superposed; Penrose’s realist interpretation of quantum mechanics requires the superposition of nerve cell states to be observable.

I agree that this [1989] theory should be rejected, but I do not think Penrose's [1994] solution is required, which is to identify the superposed elements as tubulin states in the microtubular filaments in nerve cells. The study of tubulins is most closely associated with Hammeroff and so this new theory is known as the Hammeroff-Penrose theory [1996]. There is a widely pursued Marshall [1989] program in quantum cognitive science, namely, to develop the idea that coherent quantum states (Bose-Einstein condensates) are involved in brain activity and perhaps even underlie, synchronize or determine in some way the firings of nerve cells, but this added assumption makes the theory have less prior probability among competing quantum cognitive sciences. Why? Because now two independent theses, each controversial by themselves, need to be confirmed for the quantum cognitive science to be confirmed. First, we need to confirm that (real or effective) collapses of superpositions of brain parts underlie conscious states, and, second, we need to confirm the idea that tubulin states (rather than nerve cell firings) are the primary brain events underlying conscious awareness, in face of the massive data that nerve cell firings are the primary brain events underlying conscious awareness.

Thus, I suggest that we retain the standard idea that nerve cell firings are the basic physical processes associated with the occurrence of conscious experiences. States of entire nerve cells are too large to be in superposition (for the reasons given above), but I suggest that we now identify the superposed entities with spatial, neural parts that exist during the temporally initial slices of a nerve cell firing or not firing. Specifically, the superposed elements are the different possible states of the initial movements of the electrons in certain potassium ions, the ions that begin to be released through a potassium pump when neurotransmitters attach to synaptic clefts. If we identify the superposed components with positions of electrons, then the "anti-quantum-cognitive-science arguments" I endeavored to counter in Part One can effectively be silenced, for even the severest critics would not deny that electrons are governed by quantum mechanical laws.

The next step is to replace Penrose's real or "Objective Collapse" or "Objective Reduction" interpretation of quantum mechanics with the "effective collapse" postulated by the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation. On a de Broglie/Bohm theory, there is no collapse of a wave field. But there is a "measurement-like" interaction that "effectively" (the standard technical term) appears partly similar to a collapse and can be treated like a real collapse (for instrumentalist or conveniently "effective" predictive purposes) and this is technically called an "effective collapse". Collapse is, intuitively, when a wave field that is about to undergo a change, with several different possible outcomes of the change, each with a certain probability, collapses onto just one of the possible outcomes, making it the only actual outcome (so it has probability one). Bohm's and Hiley's idea is that there are wave packets which are real, existent "channels", intuitively, possible paths a particle may take, in the case of particle motion. In transition periods, of which a measurement-like interaction is one type, "each of the possibilities [possible paths] . . . constitutes a kind of a channel . . . such that the apparatus particles initially on trajectories leading to one side of these points enter, for example, the m^th channel, while others do not." [Bohm and Hiley, 1993: 99] This unstable period ends quickly and the apparatus enters just one channel and the others are empty. (See also page 257 and chapters 5 and 6.] Callender and Weingard sum things up in the most pithy manner: "Bohmian measurement theory then guarantees that when the wave function of a system evolves into a superposition of macroscopically distinct states, the particles will always be forced into one component of the superposition ["one channel"] or the other." [Callender and Weingard, 1996: 26]. I think I would slightly rephrase this: when the quantum field wave (described by the mathematical wave function) evolves into a superposition of microscopically distinct states, then, any further evolution into a superposition of macroscopically distinct states is always prevented by the particles being directed into one component (channel) of the superposition". One respect in which the collapse is effective rather than real is that the other components in the superposition remain in existence, even if empty. Aharnov and Vaidman offered experimental evidence for the continued existence of these empty channels [1996].

      How do the subjects’ decision-making conscious experiences arise through such active in-forming relations? My hypothesis is as follows: Some spatial parts of a nerve cell, parts that occur during the initial temporal parts of the cell’s firing or not firing, are in an effective superposition, and when the difference in gravitational strength, the difference in the gravitational field [g1-g2]) between the elements in the superposition reach the one graviton threshold, there is an effective collapse and the nerve cell fires or does not fire. When such an effective collapse occurs in the requisite number of superposed subneural states, which stand in the requisite synchronization or order, then a conscious state occurs. The complex wave-form that directs the relevant, large aggregate of firing (or not firing) neurons is not only an entanglement of the many wave-forms of these neurons, but is also entangled with the wave-form of consciousness. In this case, the wave-form of consciousness is (identically) a decision-making propositional attitude or intentional act whose intentional content is the decision. This more complex, entangled, wave-form simultaneously directs the neuronal firings and directs (by actualizing) certain conscious contents, namely, certain sensory qualia and the decision, which is the propositional thought press the button. Is this really a proposition? As I earlier mentioned, it is usually thought that we consciously have nonpropositional acts of consciousness. My theory can accommodate them in part by taking into account the illocutionary force of certain singular propositions, e.g., <B, Press!>, which may be understood as a singular proposition that includes the button B as the target of what is mentally commanded.

Note that the absolute simultaneity of the various in-formings performed wave-form, an anti-Einsteinian absolute simultaneity, is not something I am "adding on" to the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics, but is entailed by it. If the de Broglie/Bohm interpretation is true, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is false and some neo-Lorentz theory is true (e.g., see Craig [2000]).

There are more details about the experiments that make more plain the observable quantum gravity features. One graviton is the smallest unit allowed in (the proposed) quantum gravitational field theory. Based on some mathematical results by Abhay Ashekar, Penrose suggests [1989] the one-graviton criterion is reached at about one hundredths of the Planck mass m_p = 10^-5 grams (1/100,000 of a gram). The graviton level threshold would be reached at one ten-millionth of a gram. This estimate is partly speculative, and other estimates have been made, but we do not need the exactly right figure for the experiment, due to the great numerical differences that will appear and swamp any difference in the various estimates.

    By measuring the right motor cortex's, which governs task performance, EEG activity, the superpositions of its nerve signal states are induced to effectively collapse sooner. In each pertinent superposition in the right motor cortex, the gravitational difference field (g1-g2) reaches the one graviton threshold due to the increase in gravity from the massive EEG pen. The resulting nerve signals then evolve and lead to a brain state that is associated (via phase entanglement) with the conscious experience of perceiving the number flashed in the experiment and, later, to a brain state that is associated with deciding to press or not press the button. Since the measured subject will have more time and more brain activity involved in the button-pressing decision, she will be more likely to be accurate. The test results show this increased accuracy in the subjects' performance.

We can see now why the speculative hypotheses about the exact numerical figure of the graviton criterion or the gravitational difference field do not affect the result or implications of the experiments. The EEG is attached to the decision-making part of the brain, such that there is a phase entanglement of the effective wave for the decision-making part of the brain with the effective wave of the EEG pen tip positions. This implies that if one of these effective waves undergoes an effective collapse the other undergoes an instantaneous effective collapse. The EEG pen mass of at least 4 gm. undergoes an excursion through 0.5 cm at its tip; the dipole moment change of at least 0.5 gm.cm. is associated with this change in the EEG pen. This figure is considerably larger than the dipole moment of the brain region required for an effective collapse and the occurrence of the conscious decision when it is not connected to the EEG. Assume a 1% w/w concentration of sodium ions in the intercellular fluid. Assume also a shift of the center of gravity of these sodium ions (at the decision-making event), in relation to potassium ions, amounting to 10% of their concentration with a length-scale of 0.5 cm., maintained homogeneously over a volume of 50 ml. The resulting dipole moment is 5 x 10^-2gm.cm. Obviously 5 x 10^-2gm.cm. (the figure without an EEG attachment) is much less than 0.5 gm.cm. (due to the pen movement). The decision-making brain activity associated with the dipole moment of 0.5 gm.cm. is thus measurably greater than the decision-making brain activity associated with the dipole moment of 5 x 10^-2gm.cm., which correlates to the increase in accuracy of the conscious decisions. The greater dipole moment measurement and the increased conscious decision-making accuracy, due to the EEG pen movement of 0.5 cm., are "macroscopic observational evidence" and this evidence (as I have indicated) has not been explained by nonquantum theories of cognitive science that are based on nonquantum theories of gravity (general relativity), but this evidence is both explained and predicted by an effective collapse of phase-entangled effective quantum field waves.

We can see this in terms We can see this in terms of some relevant equations. We begin with the wave function of the universe at a time t = 0, written merely schematically (for example, we ignore the role of quantum statistics in requiring states not to be simple tensor products). On the de Broglie/Bohm theory, there is only the wave function of the universe, and a wave function representing some subsystem is an abstraction of an inseparable component of the wave function of the universe, an abstraction that enables us to examine the subcomponent. The wave function of the universe will be written as:

 

ψ(0) = ψB(0) Ä ψC(0) Ä ψg(0)Ä ψE(0) Ä R(0)                   Equation 1.

 

Here B = the brain; C = the relevant conscious state; g = the gravitational field; E = the EEG apparatus, and R = the rest of the universe. I use "wave function" to refer to an equation and "wave" to a quantum field described by the wave function. In the course of conscious decision making, the wave for the brain state ψB(0) is expected (during the experiment) to evolve into a wave with varying, significant amplitudes at different parts of the wave, e.g., into ψB1 + ψB2.  The gravitational field g is coupled to the brain state and (instantaneously) to all other matter, and the part of the wave function of the universe describing the brain and the gravity field g will be written (at some later time t > 0) as:

 

ψB1(t) Ä ψg1(t) + ψB2(t) Ä  g2(t)                       Equation 2.

 

At time t, the gravitational parts differ sufficiently for the effective collapse to take place, and the conscious-decision making state is realized. An EEG is connected to the decision-making part of the appropriate hemisphere so that it is correlated with the brain in such a way that ψB1(t) and ψB2(t) realize significantly different EEG pen traces. We need note that the initial state ψB(0) Ä ψE(0) Ä ψg(0) "evolves to" or will be written at the later time as: