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Quantum Approoches to Consciousness. The UNED MASTER THESIS LOGIC, HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (code 30001361) QUANTUM APPROACHES TO CONSCIOUSNESS. THE HYPOTHESIS OF HENRY STAPP Author: Letizia Unzain Tarantino Director: Julio C. Armero San Jose May 2013 CONTENTS: CONTENTS: ................................................... ................................................... .................................. 2 I. INTRODUCTION. CONSCIOUSNESS: CAUSALITY AND CORRELATIONS. ........................ 3 II. INTEGRATED CONSCIOUSNESS AND SUPERVENING CONSCIOUSNESS. ALVA NOË AND DAVID CHALMERS. ................................................... ................................................... .......... 4 III. THE NEW PHYSICS. ................................................... ................................................... .............. 6 IV. INTERPRETATIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS. THE PILOT-WAVE OF DAVID BOHM. ................................................... ................................................... ........................................... 9 IV.1 Bohm’s pilot-wave model ................................................... ................................................... 11 V. QUANTUM MECHANICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS. ................................................... ............ 13 V.1.Henry Stapp: consciousness as a dimension of reality. ................................................... ......... 13 V.1.1 The two physics: two descriptions ................................................... ................................. 13 V.1.2 The measurement postulate. ................................................... ........................................... 16 V.1.3 The epistemologically perspective. ................................................... ................................ 18 V.1.4 The ontological perspective. Whiteheadian Ontology. ................................................... .. 19 V.1.5 The Quantum Zeno effect. ................................................... ............................................. 22 V.1.6 Author's Conclusions ................................................... ................................................... .. 24 V.2 Other models. ................................................... ................................................... ..................... 25 V.2.1 The Everett interpretation (seen by Chalmers). ................................................... ............. 25 V.2.2 The Penrose-Hameroff model. ................................................... ....................................... 27 V.2.3 Model of consciousness based on the double solution of the wave function. ................... 30 VI. CONCLUSIONS. ................................................... ................................................... ................... 33 REFERENCES: ................................................... ................................................... ............................ 34 I. INTRODUCTION. CONSCIOUSNESS: CAUSALITY AND CORRELATIONS. Several approaches can lead us to the core of the issue, which ultimately consists in being able to explain the correlations between mental phenomena, specifically and what most interests the subject of this paper, the phenomenon of consciousness and the bodily processes which are associated and temporarily coincident with them. However, according to Chalmers, neuroscience offers such correlations, but it is not able to explain them. According to Nicolas Gisin "Correlations claim an explanation" 1, as "once a correlation has been identified, the new task for science is to develop a theoretical model to explain it. This model takes the form of a story whose supports are mathematical equations. " This means, as Gisin explains later in his paper, that any correlation of physical events described by science, should be explained in mathematical formalism and equations, namely causal models using both direct cause and common cause. This causation is broken both in explanations of correlations of quantum mechanics, which Gisin deals with in his article, as in consciousness, as observed by Chalmers, on the premise that consciousness is a fact of nature, but as the author says, runs "uncomfortably" along the border between science and philosophy. Therefore awareness also would require a theoretical model. According to Hawking and Mlodinov 2, an accurate model must satisfy the following requirements: - be elegant - contain few or adjustable arbitrary elements - be consistent with existing observations or provide their explanation - be able to make detailed predictions about future observations that allow refuting or falsifying the model, in case thy could not be confirmed. In this paper we analyze the causal model of Henry Stapp, that even if it fails in fully complying with all these requirements, is based on the version of a model that entails empirical and demonstrable results as well as the possibility of a causal link between the two types of events or phenomena, being Stapp’s hypothesis an hypothesis of consciousness based on quantum mechanics, which from the point of view of philosophy adopts a dualistic view of reality. Also dualistic is the vision of Noë, which I will point out briefly, that contemplates consciousness as an entity that integrates the biological entity that perceives the world with the world itself. Given that Chalmers also opts for a naturalistic dualism, I will stop briefly in the proposal that he carried out in 1996 about the causality of consciousness, that seeks to refute the physicalist reductionism or eliminativism “in any case” of consciousness as an existing entity, to then make an approach to other of the hypotheses of consciousness related to quantum theory. 1Nicolas GISIN , Quantum correlations in Newtonian space and time: arbitrarily fast c ommunications or non locality 2012. 2Stephen HAWKING and Leonard MLODINOV , The Grand Design 2011 (p.68). II. INTEGRATED CONSCIOUSNESS AND SUPERVENING CONSCIOUSNESS. ALVA NOË AND DAVID CHALMERS. Alva Noë 2010 3 believes that those who underline that brain constructs an internal image of the world and that what we experience is an internal image and not the world itself, what they would evince is that the world, at least the world which the brain determines and not determined by the visual experiences, is a great illusion and what they bring (those who emphasize that the brain is an internal image of the world) to the stream of thought, is a new skepticism that insists that we can see just what it is given to us to see, although we believe otherwise. The hypothesis of the "great illusion" for Noë is bad philosophy and cognitive science according to it is bad science. Proponents of the new skepticism, including Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore, committed in fact, according to Noë, a serious mistake by not taking into account that it does not seem to us as direct perceivers, that the brain builds an internal model of the world, but what appears to us is that the world is there and that we are not only in it but that the world is at our disposal. Not everything is psychology or neuroscience, as Frege said 4, because if so, they would contain all the sciences and would proclaim themselves the measure of all sciences. "We are not bearers of thoughts as we are bearers of our ideas". Like Noë, Frege maintains an anti-reductionist perspective and considers that visual impressions are certainly necessary to see things, but not sufficient5. "So since the answer lies in the non-sensible, perhaps something non-sensible could also lead us out of the inner world and enable us to grasp thoughts where non sense-impressions were involved"6. "The apprehension of a thought presupposes someone who apprehends it, who thinks. He is the bearer of the thinking but not of the thought" 7. Like Noë, Frege is also dualistic, as he discriminates between the thinking subject and the world (where the thoughts are). Therefore, also in Frege we find out what it might be called dual capacity, the intrinsic and functional thinking and that that is able to capture the world. According to Noë the phenomenon of consciousness is inclusive and interacts with the environment, necessarily, as the environment is an ontologically entity different than consciousness, but at the same time an "accessible" extension of it. That the world is at my disposal means that “what guarantees its availability is, first of all, its actually being here, and second, my possessing the skills needed to gain access to it. (..) although I do not represent all the details at once, I have access to all the detail" 8. And this does not mean for Noë that we are victim of a great illusion. He does not even locate the mind in the brain, privileging the position of the environment in any act 3 Alva NOË, Out of our heads 2010 (p. 140). 4 Gottlob FREGE, The Thought: a Logical Inquiry ,1956 (p.307). 5 Ib. (p.308-309). 6 Ib. (p. 309) 7 Ib. (p. 308) 8 Alva NOË, Out of our heads 2010 (p.140-141). of perception, but he integrates the perceiving being in the environment. Our "perceptual awareness of the world as a predictable place depends on how the world actually works" and on the other hand, our perceptual skills have evolved to be able to give up life on earth based on evolution. The world, Noë declares, is not a mental construct, and our conscious mind operates in active consonance with the world. All around us determines the nature of our experience and it is not only our perceptual system, even though many scientists assume this premise and although
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