Referee-artikkeli
Paavo Pylkkänen
Cognition, the implicate order and rainforest realism
It is my proposal that future cognitive science needs to be developed in the context of a general scientific world-view that is based upon contemporary physics. It is within such a general world- view that the special sciences studying the mind (psychology, AI, neuroscience etc.) need to find their proper place, and will hopefully find new avenues for progress when doing so. One research programme which has attempted to articulate such a new worldview is due to the physicists David Bohm and Basil Hiley. They have developed both a general “implicate order” framework as well as a more specific “ontological interpretation” of quantum theory. Both schemes involve radically new ideas and concepts, which also promise to open up new possibilities for understanding the place of cognition and consciousness in nature.
Introduction science. In particular, and as already hinted One question that has been underlying my above, one needs to ask to what extent cogni- research is what kinds of assumptions about tive science presupposes the worldview of the nature of the physical world there are in classical physics, and how this may influence cognitive science and how such assumptions its theories. Further, one can ask whether it is might reveal themselves in the theories pro- justified to rely on classical physics assump- posed in cognitive science. For example, the tions as fundamental, given that physics itself traditional view of cognition as mechanical has given up classical physics as fundamen- symbol manipulation is very much in har- tal and sees it instead as a limiting case or mony with the spirit of classical physics, for as a framework that only works in a given manipulable symbols are typical things of domain. And finally, the interesting question the macro world. Also, connectionism and is whether we might be able to explain and dynamical systems theory often employ mod- understand the features of the mind – and els relying on differential equations that are especially its relation to matter - better in a deterministic and are in this sense developed framework that is based upon the new, more in the spirit of classical physics. However, accurate developments in physics. it is not at all obvious that central aspects of It is my proposal that the future cognitive human cognition – such as creative insight or science needs to be developed in the context conscious experience – are phenomena which of a general scientific worldview that is based can be explained in terms of mechanistic upon contemporary physics. It is within computation or dynamic evolution embedded such a general worldview that the special in a classical physics framework. sciences studying the mind (psychology, AI, Physics has changed radically in the course neuroscience etc.) need to find their proper of the 20th century, and these changes imply place, and will hopefully find new avenues the need to change our overall scientific for progress when doing so. One research worldview. Such changes in the general programme which has attempted to articulate worldview in turn usually imply the need to such a new worldview is due to the physicists rethink the nature and status of more specific David Bohm and Basil Hiley. They have theories, such as those central in cognitive developed both a general “implicate order” 74 2/12 framework as well as a more specific “on- Einstein who felt that a fuller and possibly tological interpretation” of quantum theory. more deterministic description should be Both schemes involve radically new ideas possible. A significant suggestion to this and concepts, which also promise to open up direction was made by Louis deBroglie in new possibilities for understanding the place 1925 and especially by David Bohm, who of cognition and consciousness in nature. in 1952-inspired by his many discussions Within philosophy, a particularly intense with Einstein-re-discovered independently attempt to develop a new worldview has in deBroglie’s earlier approach and gave a fuller recent years been made by James Ladyman and more coherent presentation of it. and Don Ross in their 2007 book Every Although initially almost ignored, the Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. deBroglie-Bohm approach has received in- In this article I will briefly describe some key creasing attention and approval in recent features of these research programmes and decades, due to the efforts of such leading sketch tentatively how they might change our physicists and philosophers as John Bell, picture of cognition in the future. David Albert, Sheldon Goldstein, Antony Valentini, James Cushing, Arthur Fine, and Getting clear about quantum Hilary Putnam (see Goldstein 2009, which theory: the ontological includes a historical discussion and also con- interpretation siders the criticisms against the approach). Let us first see what cognitive science might What is potentially particularly important learn from Bohm and Hiley’s ontological for the future of cognitive science is Bohm’s interpretation of the quantum theory (for an and his long-time colleague Basil Hiley’s extensive presentation see, Bohm & Hiley extension of Bohm’s original 1952 onto- 1993). For our present purposes what is par- logical interpretation. According to the usual ticularly interesting about this interpretation interpretation of the quantum theory the wave is that it suggests that something analogous to function is often said to describe not a quan- information plays an active role at the level of tum system directly but rather our knowledge fundamental quantum processes. Bohm him- of the quantum system to be observed (typi- self felt that this idea of active information is cally in terms of probabilities). In contrast, relevant to broader philosophical issues, such Bohm and Hiley were suggesting that the as the relationship between mind and matter wave function describes an objectively real (Bohm 1990). To understand this suggestion field, guiding a particle such as an electron. better let us briefly consider the ontological As a new development, they were drawing interpretation of quantum theory. attention to the striking fact that according When quantum theory was first interpreted to the mathematical description favored by in the 1920s, it was typically assumed that Bohm, this field does not push and pull the individual quantum processes (e.g. the de- particle mechanically, but rather it is only the cay of a radioactive atom) are inherently form (second spatial derivative) of the field indeterministic, and that it is not possible that determines its effect on the particle. They to provide an unambiguous model of a suggested that what is going on is that the single quantum system, such as an electron. quantum field encodes information about the Instead, it was either said that we must not whole environment of the particle (e.g. slits) try to picture the electron at all, or else that – the field literally in-forms or puts form into we in some situations may describe it as a the motion of the particle. wave, and in others as a particle (this is the The proposal is radical, for they are in ef- mysterious “wave-particle duality”). Since fect suggesting that this type of information the 1920s, there were also critics such as ought to be acknowledged as a fundamental
75 2/12 – perhaps the fundamental – category of multidimensionality of the many-body wave physics. Indeed, they wrote in 1983: “The function. (It is characteristic of quantum notion of a particle responding actively to theory that every interpretation needs to make information in the [quantum] field is … far some strange assumption(s), and then tries to more subtle and dynamic than any others that avoid some even more unsatisfactory features have hitherto been supposed to be fundamen- with the help of this assumption. This is one tal in physics” (Bohm & Hiley 1983). way of trying to make sense of something In my view Bohm and Hiley’s proposal very weird.) Information is here seen as an is potentially very important to cognitive objective commodity that actively guides the science which likewise sees information, particle - it is information for the electron and information processing, as its central rather than information for human beings. notions. Bohm himself pointed out that the Fred Dretske had similarly emphasized in way information acts at the quantum level is 1981 that information should be seen as an at least closely analogous to the way infor- objective commodity, although his notion of mation acts in human subjective experience. information is in some key ways different When I see something that means “danger” from Bohm and Hiley’s. (e.g. a snake), the information content acts I should note that Bohm and Hiley’s pro- within the brain, not only via electric action posal about the quantum theoretical active potentials, but also via various neurochemical information is controversial and still mostly processes to prepare the body for an appropri- ignored within the physics community. There ate response (cf. Thagard 2002). are some technical issues with the proposal, Bohm and Hiley’s approach opens up but in my view a major reason is that it goes a whole new way of understanding such so much against the prevalent mechanistic “psycho-somatic” processes. The idea here way of thinking in physics. However, some is that abstract information content is some- leading thinkers do take it seriously, for thing intrinsically active and intrinsically example Quentin Smith (2003). able to cause changes in the more concrete Bohm and Hiley see the existence and underlying physical aspects of the system role of information at the quantum level as in question. This differs in interesting ways an instance of a more general principle of from the more standard, passive notions of active information that prevails in various information typically used in the standard ac- levels of nature. For example, it is commonly counts currently on offer in cognitive science accepted that the DNA molecule encodes (i.e. symbolic processing, neural networks, information that guides the growth of an and dynamical systems). In my view, Bohm organism; likewise information in a com- and Hiley’s notion of active information puter can guide a wide range of activities; can capture more adequately what is taking and also, as we already mentioned above, place in actual cognitive processes that the information in human subjective experience standard accounts. (for example when we interpret some form Bohm and Hiley suggest that information to mean “danger”) can give rise to powerful plays an active role at various levels, psy- psychosomatic activities. chological, biological and even the quantum. Bohm was keen to point out the potential What are the reasons for assuming that the relevance of the active information idea to notion of active information applies all the traditional puzzles about the place of mean- way to the quantum level? Importantly, this ing and mind in nature. In these traditional assumption enables one to understand such puzzles it is typically presupposed that the otherwise paradoxical quantum features as physical world is different from phenomena wave-particle duality, non-locality, and the such as meaning and mental properties, thus
76 2/12 giving rise to a dualism. By extending a kind of significance acts on the next more of meaning (as active information) all the manifestly somatic level and so on, while way to the (currently) fundamental laws of perception carries the meaning of the quantum theory, Bohm saw a possibility of action back in the other direction. transcending the dualism prevalent in much Such two-way traffic between the mental of Western philosophy and culture more and the physical is what we need for mental generally. causation. Bohm assumes that each level has In Bohm’s proposal we have a more subtle both a physical and mental aspect, and hopes aspect (information in the quantum field) this way to avoid the problem of dualism (i.e. guiding the behaviour of a more manifest the problem of explaining how a non-physical aspect (the particle). We could generalize level could possibly interact with a physical this to a principle that applies whenever level). The idea is that mental processes are meaning influences matter in other contexts. carried by subtle physical processes, perhaps Bohm proposed such a principle and called fields that are analogous to, but more complex it “soma-significance”. In this terminology a than the quantum field. But how could such process in which meaning acts somatically to a “very subtle” field carrying information organize the more manifest levels of matter possibly be able to act upon the more mani- is called a “signa-somatic” process. The term fest processes e.g. in the motor cortex? One “soma-significant” refers to the inverse proc- possibility is that it would act via the quantum ess, where a physical pattern is significant to field. Indeed, Bohm (1990) writes: a higher or more subtle level (e.g. when one …that which we experience as mind, in is reading a text, the information is carried its movement through various levels of by different physical processes (ink, light subtlety, will, in a natural way ultima- waves, neural processes) to higher levels of tely move the body by reaching to the physical organization where its meaning is level of the quantum potential and of apprehended). Bohm (2003) characterizes the ‘dance’ of the particles. There is no our existence as a “two-way movement” as unbridgeable gap or barrier between follows: any of these levels. Rather, at each We emphasize here that nothing exists stage some kind of information is the in this process of soma-significance, bridge. This implies that the quantum except as a two-way movement between potential acting on atomic particles, the aspects of soma and significance, as for example, represents only one stage well as between levels that are relati- in the process. vely subtle and those that are relatively manifest. It is this over-all structure of It seems to me that Bohm assumes that the meaning … that is grasped in every more subtle aspects of mind and conscious experience. experience involve more subtle levels of information, which have not yet been dis- He (2003) further illustrates the same point: covered by the “3rd person” methods of From each level of somatic unfoldment cognitive neuroscience (although we are of meaning, there is … a further move- aware of at least some of them via our “1st ment leading to activity on to a yet more person” introspection). The discovery of manifestly somatic level, until the action the quantum potential is very important as finally emerges as a physical movement a first guide (prototype) to what the nature of the body that affects the environment. of such more subtle levels could be from the So one can say that there is a two-way physical side. Indeed, Bohm suggested that movement of energy, in which each level by extending the ontological interpretation
77 2/12 in a natural way, we could include the subtle of quantum theory, briefly described above, mental aspects into the theory. But how can provides some insights that may be useful such an extension be done? in this endeavour (for example, it is temp- … one could begin by supposing, for ting to interpret Bohmian trajectories at the example, that as the quantum poten- quantum level as geodesics, in some ways tial constitutes active information that analogous to general relativistic concepts). can give form to the movements of the However, one could also argue that the particles, so there is a superquantum ontological interpretation, especially with potential that can give form to the unfold- its emphasis on non-locality, helps to bring ment and development of this first order the tension between quantum theory and quantum potential. This latter would no general relativity into a sharper focus, rather longer satisfy the laws of the current than resolving it. Many physicists agree that quantum theory, which latter would then something radically new is needed in physics be an approximation, working only when if that tension is to be resolved (string theory the action of the superquantum potential and quantum loop gravity are well-known can be neglected. Of course, there is no contemporary attempts to do this). Bohm reason to stop here. One could go on to started to develop his own general sche- suppose a series of orders of superquan- me–known as the “implicate order”–in the tum potentials, with each order consti- early 1960s, and was soon joined by Basil tuting information that gives form to the Hiley in this project. activity of the next lower order (which Adopting this more general approach does is less subtle) (Bohm 1990). not mean that one discards the ontological interpretation of quantum theory as useless. Bohm’s radical suggestion thus is that a The ontological interpretation can still be natural extension of his ontological inter- seen to provide insight into an important pretation of the quantum theory can include though limited domain of fundamental phys- mental processes and even conscious ex- ics, (non-relativistic) quantum theory. But if perience into a single coherent view. From one wants a more general scheme new ideas the point of view of the question about the are needed. causal powers of mental properties Bohm’s When seeking such a more general scheme, view is particularly promising, for it makes Bohm first gave attention to the fact that the it-at least in principle–possible to understand basic concepts of quantum theory and rela- how mental properties, via their effects upon tivity seem to be in complete contradiction. information at lower levels, could make a dif- While relativity requires continuity, deter- ference to physical process. If we can provide minism and locality, the usual interpretation an intelligible theory about how mental prop- of quantum theory points to discontinuity, erties can make a difference to information indeterminism and non-locality. This being at lower levels, Bohm’s scheme provides a the case, how could we ever hope to unite view of how such informational differences these two theories? Bohm’s strategy was to can then affect manifest physical processes ask whether there is anything these theories (see also Hiley & Pylkkänen 2005). have in common. His answer to this question Toward a more general worldview: was: undivided wholeness. Relativity points the implicate order to this by giving up the notion of particle as fundamental, while quantum phenomena It is commonly agreed that the hardest prob- such as wave-particle duality and non-locality lem in contemporary physics is the unification clearly underline the status and role of the of quantum theory and general relativity. whole over the autonomy of the parts. Bohm Bohm and Hiley’s ontological interpretation
78 2/12 felt, however, that our entire scientific and cially the problem of explaining conscious philosophical tradition is dominated by what experience. he called “mechanistic order”, and this makes Discussions about the potential relevance it difficult to even think about the undivided of the “New Physics” (quantum theory and wholeness of quantum and relativistic phe- relativity) to explaining consciousness tend nomena. A new “notion of order” is needed, to focus on the possible role of quantum and his suggestion was the “implicate” order. effects in the neural/physical correlate of While in the mechanistic (or “explicate”) consciousness (see Atmanspacher 2006. order things exist outside each other and However, there is another “quantum route” interact mechanically, in the implicate order to consciousness, which relies on the new the whole is typically enfolded into each part, scientific worldview that the New Physics and each part is enfolded into the whole. demands. Exactly what that new worldview This is illustrated by light (electromagnetic is has been subject to a long debate. As we waves). At each point of a room, light waves saw above, Bohm and Hiley proposed that coming from all the other parts of the room New Physics requires above all a new notion interfere – in this sense information of the of order. We need to give up as fundamen- whole is enfolded into each region. This tal the “Cartesian order”, exemplified by means also that information about each part the Cartesian co-ordinates. Translated into (e.g. the clock on my table) is present in each physical ontology, this means giving up the region of the room, and in this sense each part 3+1-D space-time as fundamental. Bohm’s is enfolded in the whole. Similar considera- proposed new notion is that of the “implicate tions apply in quantum field theory, which order”. It gives rise to the “Cartesian order” describes particles such as electrons in terms as a special case, but also allows a natural of fields. We are thus invited to think that the description of such quantum phenomena as implicate order is the fundamental order of non-locality, discontinuity of motion and the universe, while the explicate, mechanistic wave-particle duality. order arises from this under suitable condi- Most of contemporary cognitive science tions. The implicate order framework thus and consciousness studies (cognitive neuro- enables us to think of our usual every-day science, philosophy of mind, etc.) proceeds physical world as something that constantly as if there had not been any revolution in unfolds from a deeper implicate ground. physics. Many of these researchers agree Bohm’s hope was that as the mathematical that conscious experience typically involves description of the implicate order focuses on a “virtual reality” or “world simulation” the common ground of quantum theory and (consider dreams), but tacitly this world is relativity (undivided wholeness) it should be understood in terms of Newtonian notions able to derive these theories as limiting cases of space and time, and thus the “Cartesian and approximations without contradictions. order”. But what is the order that actually This research programme was developed by prevails in conscious experience? Bohm Bohm, Hiley, and their research students. It proposed that the notion of implicate order has given rise to some promising results, but that seems necessary to deal with quantum needs further development. phenomena, also captures some essential Bohm was keen to point out that something features of conscious experience. The basic like the implicate order prevails in other phe- idea is that the usual “Cartesian world simu- nomena, such as biological, psychological lation” we typically encounter in conscious (phenomenological, linguistic) and social. experience can be seen as a special case of Let us next consider briefly what relevance a more fundamental implicate order that it might have to cognitive science, espe- prevails in conscious experience.
79 2/12 Let me say a little more about how we make it particularly suitable to explain some might be able to explain aspects of conscious- puzzling features of conscious experience, ness in the implicate order framework. One such as its phenomenal structure, unity and of the central features of conscious experi- dynamic flow. First of all, it is possible to ence is its spatio-temporal, phenomenal give a description of how physical space- structure (van Gulick 2011). Connected with time arises in terms of the implicate order. As this is the metaphor that consciousness is a we already mentioned, it might be possible, kind of “virtual reality” associated with the analogously, to provide an explanation of brain (e.g. Velmans, Revonsuo, Metzinger, the phenomenal, especially spatio-temporal, Lehar). An adequate theory of consciousness structure of conscious experience in terms of thus has to tell a story about how the virtual the implicate order. Secondly, the implicate reality of consciousness is created. One place order captures the undivided wholeness of to look for inspiration in this endeavour is quantum phenomena, and this feature might contemporary physics and algebraic geom- well prove a useful analogue when trying to etry. For some physicists such as Wheeler explain the unity of consciousness. Thirdly, and Bohm & Hiley have been led to consider the implicate order takes movement (as op- how space-time emerges from some deeper posed to things that move) as fundamental, structure they often call “pre-space”. The and in this way it is likely to be useful when interesting question is whether the work in trying to explain the dynamic flow of con- physics, which describes the ground of the sciousness. Further, given the possibility that “real spatio-temporal reality,” could be use- the implicate order prevails in both matter and ful also when trying to describe the ground in conscious experience, it might also throw of the “virtual, phenomenal spatio-temporal new light upon the perennial puzzle about the reality” of consciousness. relation of matter and consciousness. In my Bohm and Hiley (1984) generalized the 2007 book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Penrose twistor theory to a Clifford algebra, Order, I have discussed the prospects of the paving the way for a description which al- implicate order as an explanatory framework lows continuous space-time to emerge from a in consciousness studies. In particular, I fo- deeper pre-space they call an implicate order. cussed upon explaining the temporal structure Bohm (1986) further proposed that the “ex- of our conscious experience of listening to plicate” space and time that we consciously music (or ”time consciousness”) in terms of experience is likewise projected from its the implicate order constituted of the indi- enfoldment in deeper implicate orders. In vidual notes (Pylkkänen 2007, ch5). neural terms what becomes interesting here is Pribram’s (1991) holographic theory of Ladyman and Ross’s rainforest neural memory, for the hologram (where realism information about the whole is stored in I have above indicated briefly how the vari- each part) is a paradigmatic example of an ous ideas emerging from Bohm and Hiley’s implicate order (of course, similar ideas have research programme, primarily developed been explored in connection with artificial in the context of physics, might also prove neural networks). One of the challenges for useful in areas such as cognitive science future research is to develop a more detailed and consciousness studies. This research account of the spatio-temporal, phenomenal programme invites us to rethink many of structure of consciousness in the implicate our basic categories, such as space, time, order framework. matter, causality and information. These cat- To summarize, the notion of implicate egories are also central in cognitive science, order has a number of features that seem to and thus new ways of thinking about them
80 2/12 open at least potentially new avenues for their metaphysics aims for is ‘weak’ because theorizing in cognitive science. At the same it is not reductionist. Because fundamental time my own feeling is that development physics by definition applies in all contexts in this respect can be slow and speculative, it constrains all special sciences (including as one often needs to proceed by analogies. the parts of physics that are not fundamen- Also, attempts to develop general schemes tal). However, trying to describe the world of naturalistic metaphysics that are based in terms of fundamental physics will not upon contemporary physics have been fairly get us very far. Ontology is scale relative rare in recent philosophy, leaving Bohm and in the sense that the “real patterns” that the Hiley’s research programme fairly isolated special sciences are trying to capture are not from other research. A refreshing exception to detectable at, say, the quantum scale. This such tendencies in contemporary philosophy is why there is no point in trying to reduce is James Ladyman and Don Ross’s ambitious the patterns studied by chemistry, biology, “rainforest realism”, proposed in their 2007 geology, economics etc. into the patterns that book Every Thing Must Go. fundamental physics describes. Ladyman Ladyman and Ross (2007) launch an attack and Ross’s view allows for the existence of against contemporary analytic metaphysics a wide range of things, as long as things are or ‘neo-scholastic’ metaphysics as they call understood as real patterns. Their view is it. According to them, it “contributes nothing thus an ontologically rich “rainforest real- to human knowledge and, where it has any ism”, as opposed to the “desert ontology” impact at all, systematically misrepresents the favoured by Quine. relative significance of what we do know on One of the interesting metaphysical hy- the basis of science” (p. vii). Their view is no potheses of Ladyman and Ross proposes that doubt an extreme one, but if they are correct, there is no fundamental level: this would have important implications for …we … have a … basic problem with consciousness studies. For example, ‘neo- the idea of a fundamental level, namely, scholastic’ philosophers of mind typically rely its presupposition that reality is struc- on their intuitions when reasoning about the tured into levels in the first place. The place of consciousness in nature, but Lady- standard way in which these levels are man and Ross remind us that intuitions are distinguished is according to size. So, “the basis for ... everyday practical heuristics for example, the domains of different ... they are not cognitive gadgets designed to special sciences are identified with dif- produce systematically worthwhile guidance ferent scales, the atomic for physics, the in either science or metaphysics” (p. 10). molecular for chemistry, the cellular for Ladyman and Ross present a naturalized biology, and so on. A moment’s reflection metaphysics which aims to unify weakly the makes the limitations of this obvious special sciences by reference to fundamental since economics can be applied to an physics. So, for them the key point is uni- ant colony or the world economy, and fication, and fundamental physics plays an evolutionary theory can be applied to important role in this. Fundamental phys- entities of any size (even, according to ics is fundamental not because it describes Smolin … , to the whole universe). Furt- some putative fundamental level of reality, hermore, in accordance with physics, but because of its generality. Ladyman and we regard the structure of space and Ross see it as that part of physics that is the metric used to measure length as implicitly tested by every measurement that themselves emergent structures. Hence could be taken at any scale of reality and in we can hardly treat them as a fundamen- any region of the universe. The unification tal framework within which to describe
81 2/12 the levels against which everything else develop a world-view implied by contem- exists. (2007: 179) porary physics and the special sciences. Note how Ladyman and Ross, like Bohm But for those whose intuitions suggest that and Hiley, take seriously the idea that physical conscious experience is a real their project space is an emergent structure, rather than is frustrating. Of course, as we saw above, a fundamental framework that can just be they remind us that our intuitions may lead presupposed. These ideas are truly radical us astray in science or metaphysics. But for in relation to traditional Western metaphys- many researchers conscious experience is real ics, where individual things in space-time phenomenon, not merely an illusion created are typically assumed to be ontologically by old-fashioned intuitions. This leads us fundamental. to ask whether there are other schemes of What is the fate of cognition and con- naturalistic metaphysics that are more con- sciousness in Ladyman and Ross’s natural- sciousness-friendly. I suggest that one such istic metaphysics? Some hints are provided scheme is Bohm and Hiley’s implicate order by the following quotes: framework, complemented by the more nar- row and specific “ontological interpetation” Peter Unger … argues that our know- of quantum theory that includes the idea of ledge of the world is purely structural active information. and that qualia are the unknowable There are many important similarities non-structural components of reality. between the research programmes of Lady- On our view, things in themselves and man & Ross (LR) and Bohm & Hiley (BH). qualia are idle wheels in metaphysics… Neither considers separate objects as funda- (p.154) … If cognitive science concludes mental, but see structures (LR) or movement that mental concepts do not track any and order (BH) as primary. Neither assumes real patterns then the theory of mind that there is a fundamental level, and there will have to go. (p. 254) is a similarity between LR’s scale relativity However, Ladyman and Ross do not at of ontology and Bohm’s idea that ontology present think that behavioral and cognitive is always relative to context. Further, in both sciences are tending in this direction, though schemes causality can be understood in a they think that the folk theory of mind is false radically new way. The fact that both schemes in all sorts of important ways. They want to are based upon contemporary physics and leave the question open, however, and refer that they make similar suggestions is a sign to Dennett’s work: that they may well be on the right track. (I In any given instance, it may be that am grateful to Ilkka Pättiniemi (2011) for our concepts and intuitions about the drawing my attention to some similarities real patterns we are tracking may be between LR and BH.) widely mistaken, as with intuitions about When it comes to understanding cognition qualia and phenomenal conscious sta- and consciousness, it seems to me that Bohm tes. (p.254) and Hiley’s framework is a more liberal one. I think history teaches that the study of So it seems that their universe is not very cognition and consciousness has suffered consciousness-friendly, even though cogni- from overly verificationist attitudes, as dur- tion and mind in some weaker sense may ing behaviorism. This is why I favor Bohm find a place there. and Hiley’s scheme as a more promising one Conclusion in which to develop specific theories about In summary we can note that Ladyman cognition and consciousness in the future. and Ross’s project is a refreshing attempt But this is not to deny the potential value of
82 2/12 Ladyman and Ross’s rainforest realism to necessary dialectical power needed to push cognitive science. Perhaps the creative ten- theories of cognition and consciousness into sion between these similar but yet different new domains. schemes is just what is needed to give the
Bibliography Atmanspacher, H. (2011): Quantum Approaches to Con- Hiley, B.J. & Pylkkänen, P. (2005): Can mind affect mat- sciousness, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ter via active information?, Mind and Matter 3 (2), s. (Summer 2011 Edition), E. N. Zalta (ed.), URL = 7-26. URL����������������������������������������� =
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