In this paper, I propose a framework that supports both free will and anomalous mind-matter interaction (psychokinesis). I begin by considering the argument by the physicist Sean Carroll that the laws of physics as we understand them rule out psychokinesis (and other modes of psi). I find Carroll’s claims problematic, in part due to what I believe are misunderstandings of arguments borrowed from David Hume. I proceed to consider a more dispositional notion of causality (in contrast to one characterized (...) by universal and necessary laws) which I argue is more hospitable to both psychokinesis and free will. I then incorporate recent work from the philosophy of mind and science to arrive at a framework that supports both real volition and psychokinesis, which I argue are intimately linked. This approach is fundamentally dispositional, but grounded in an ontologically prior field of awareness and potentiality. I also consider that the regularities (or causal natures) we observe in our physical world are ultimately supported by what we might term teleological “intentions” within a nonlocal, mind-like quantum ground. (shrink)

This edited volume examines aspects of the mind/consciousness that are relevant to the interpretations of quantum mechanics. In it, an international group of contributors focus on the possible connections between quantum mechanics and consciousness. They look at how consciousness can help us with quantum mechanics as well as how quantum mechanics can contribute to our understanding of consciousness. For example, what do different interpretations aimed at solving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics tell us about (...) the nature of consciousness, such as von Neumann's interpretation? Each interpretation has, associated to it, a corresponding metaphysical framework that helps us think about possible “models” of consciousness. Alternatively, what does the nature of consciousness tell us about the role of the observer and time reversibility in the measurement process? The book features 20 papers on contemporary approaches to quanta and mind. It brings together the work of scholars from different disciplines with diverse views on the connections between quanta and mind, ranging from those who are supportive of a link between consciousness and quantum physics to those who are very skeptical of such link. Coverage includes such topics as free will in a quantum world, contextuality and causality, mind and matter interaction, quantum panpsychism, the quantum and quantum-like brain, and the role of time in brain-mind dynamics. (shrink)

Arguments pertaining to the mind-brain connection and to the physical effectiveness of our conscious choices have been presented in two recent books, one by John Searle, the other by Jaegwon Kim. These arguments are examined, and it is explained how the encountered difficulties arise from a defective understanding and application of a pertinent part of contemporary science, namely quantum mechanics. The principled quantum uncertainties entering at the microscopic levels of brain processing cannot be confined to the micro level, (...) but percolate up to the macroscopic regime. To cope with the conflict between the resulting macroscopic indefiniteness and the definiteness of our conscious experiences, orthodox quantum mechanics introduces the idea of agent-generated probing actions, each of which specifies a definite set of alternative possible empirically/experientially distinguishable outcomes. Quantum theory then introduces the mathematical concept of randomness to describe the probabilities of the various alternative possible outcomes of the chosen probing action. But the agent-generated choice of which probing action to perform is not governed by any known law or rule, statistical or otherwise. This causal gap provides a logical opening, and indeed a logical need, for the entry into the dynamical structure of nature of a process that goes beyond the currently understood quantum mechanical statistical generalization of the deterministic laws of classical physics. The well-known quantum Zeno effect can then be exploited to provide a natural process that establishes a causal psychophysical link within the complex structure consisting of a stream of conscious experiences and certain macroscopic classical features of a quantum mechanically described brain. This naturally created causal link effectively allows consciously felt intentions to affect brain activity in a way that tends to produce the intended feedback. This quantum mechanism provides an eminently satisfactory alternative to the classical physics conclusion that the physical present is 1 completely determined by the physical past, and hence provides a physicsbased way out of the dilemma that Searle and Kim tried to resolve by philosophical analysis.. (shrink)

This paper shows that several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" (...) that physical information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers. Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will. First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs). Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames. Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality. -/- I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true. It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does. (shrink)

This article examines three aspects of the problem of understanding Benjamin Libet’s idea of conscious will causally interacting with certain neural activities involved in generating overt bodily movements. The first is to grasp the notion of cause involved, and we suggest a definition. The second is to form an idea of by what neural structure(s) and mechanism(s) a conscious will may control the motor activation. We discuss the possibility that the acts of control have to do with levels of supplementary (...) motor area activity and with the activation of populations of excitatory and inhibitory interneurons. The third aspect is to conceive of the main features of Libet’s proposed conscious mental field (CMF). We consider both an ontological and an epistemological interpretation of the CMF being nonphysical. In an attempt to refute the idea that Libet’s dualist mind–brain interactionism would violate the law of conservation of energy, we suggest that a CMF may alter the probability of the ion-channel gating by influencing structures of a size to which quantum mechanics needs to be applied. We argue that given the suggested definition of cause, and given the epistemological interpretation of the CMF being nonphysical, nothing would necessarily rule out that an element of a CMF, conscious will, may causally interact with neural activities in the brain. This defense of the idea of conscious will being causally efficacious has a bearing not only on the understanding of the mind–brain relation but also on the free will debate. (shrink)

b>: Replacing faulty nineteenth century physics by its orthodox quantum successor converts the earlier materialist conception of nature to a structure that does not enforce the principle of the causal closure of the physical. The quantum laws possess causal gaps, and these gaps are filled in actual scientific practice by inputs from our streams of consciousness. The form of the quantum laws permits and suggests the existence of an underlying reality that is built not on substances, but (...) on psychophysical events, and on objective tendencies for these events to occur. These events constitute intrinsic mind-brain connections. They are fundamental links between brain processes described in physical terms and events in our streams of consciousness. This quantum ontology confers upon our conscious intentions the causal efficacy assigned to them in actual scientific practice, and creates a substance- free interactive dualism. This putative quantum ontology has previously been shown to have impressive explanatory power in both psychology and neuroscience. Here it is used to reconcile the existence of physically efficacious conscious free will with causal anomalies of both the Libet and Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky types. (shrink)

A criterion for the existence of human free will is specified: a human action is asserted to be a manifestations of human free-will if this action is a specific physical action that is experienced as being consciously chosen and willed to occur by a human agent, and is not determined within physical theory either in terms of the physically described aspects of nature or by any non-human agency. This criterion is tied to the structure of a physical theory. (...) It is noted that the orthodox quantum mechanics that flows from John von Neumann’s analysis of the process of measurement in quantum theory is described in terms of three processes that are effectively based on a three-level conception of reality. Von Neumann’s “Process 2” is the deterministic evolution, via the Schroedinger equation, of a physically described aspect of reality, the quantum state. His “Process 1” is the physically described aspect of a psychophysical probing action whose psychologically described aspect is an increment in the knowledge of a probing agent/observer. Process 3, in Dirac’s words, is “a choice on the part of nature” of the response to such a probing action. It is argued here that all three levels of this quantum structure, the physically described quantum state, the probing knowledge-acquiring agents, and the response-choosing nature, are all best conceived as idea-like in character. Quantum mechanics, though puzzling when viewed from the inappropriate perspective of the mechanistic classical physics, becomes rationally coherent when the underlying reality is conceived to be not a physically described classical monism, but rather an ideabased quantum triality. This idea-based conception of reality evades the pitfalls of nonphysics-based idealism by being erected directly upon the basic concepts of pragmatic empirically validated quantum mechanics. However, the dynamical structure of quantum theory contains certain causal gaps.. (shrink)

It has been claimed that quantum mechanics, unlike classical mechanics, allows for free will. In this paper I articulate that claim and explain how a complex physical system possessing fractal-like self similarity could exhibitboth self consciousness and self determination. I use complexity theory to show how quantum mechanical indeterminacies at the neural level could “percolate up” to the levels of scale within the brain at which sensory-motor information transformations occur. Finally, I explain how macro level indeterminacy could (...) be coupled with self determination to provide a physical system with the capacity for radically free willing. (shrink)

If the concept of “free will” is reduced to that of “choice” all physical world share the latter quality. Anyway the “free will” can be distinguished from the “choice”: The “free will” involves implicitly certain preliminary goal, and the choice is only the mean, by which it can be achieved or not by the one who determines the goal. Thus, for example, an electron has always a choice but not free will unlike a human possessing both. (...) Consequently, and paradoxically, the determinism of classical physics is more subjective and more anthropomorphic than the indeterminism of quantum mechanics for the former presupposes certain deterministic goal implicitly following the model of human freewill behavior. The choice is usually linked to very complicated systems such as human brain or society and even often associated with consciousness. In its background, the material world is deterministic and absolutely devoid of choice. However, quantum mechanics introduces the choice in the fundament of physical world, in the only way, in which it can exist: All exists in the “phase transition” of the present between the uncertain future and the well-ordered past. Thus the present is forced to choose in order to be able to transform the coherent state of future into the well-ordering of past. The concept of choice as if suggests that there is one who chooses. However quantum mechanics involves a generalized case of choice, which can be called “subjectless”: There is certain choice, which originates from the transition of the future into the past. Thus that kind of choice is shared of all existing and does not need any subject: It can be considered as a low of nature. There are a few theorems in quantum mechanics directly relevant to the topic: two of them are called “free will theorems” by their authors, Conway and Kochen, and according to them: “Do we really have free will, or, as a few determined folk maintain, is it all an illusion? We don’t know, but will prove in this paper that if indeed there exist any experimenters with a modicum of free will, then elementary particles must have their own share of this valuable commodity” “The import of the free will theorem is that it is not only current quantum theory, but the world itself that is non-deterministic, so that no future theory can return us to a clockwork universe”. Those theorems can be considered as a continuation of the so-called theorems about the absence of “hidden variables” in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

I wish to discuss a large, interwoven set of topics pointed at in the title above. Much of what I say is highly speculative, some is testable, some is, at present, surely not. It is, I hope, useful, to set these ideas forth for our consideration. What I shall say assumes quantum measurement is real, and that Bohm's interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is not true. The Stalemate: In our contemporary neurobiology and much of the philosophy of mind post (...) Descartes we are classical physics machines and either mindless, or mind is at best epiphenomenal and can have no consequences for the physical world. The first main point of this paper is that we are not forced to this conclusion, but must give up total reliance on classical physics. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}. (shrink)

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; (...) the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness. (shrink)

The principles of classical physics, including deterministic dynamics and observability of physical states, are incompatible with the existence of unobservable conscious minds that possess free will. Attempts to directly accommodate consciousness in a classical world lead to philosophical paradoxes such as causally ineffective consciousness and possibility of alternate worlds in which functional brain isomorphs behave identically but lack conscious experiences. Here, we show that because Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance is based on a deficient nineteenth century classical physics, it (...) is inherently flawed and implies evolutionary inexplicable epiphenomenal consciousness. Consequently, if consciousness is a fundamental ingredient of physical reality, no psychophysical laws such as Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance are needed to establish correspondence between conscious experiences and brain function. Quantum mechanics is the most successful and only modern physical theory capable of naturally accommodating consciousness without violation of physical laws. (shrink)

Determinism, causality, chance, free will and divine providence form a class of interlaced problems lying in three domains: philosophy, theology, and physics. Recent article by Dariusz Łukasiewicz in Roczniki Filozoficzne (no. 3, 2020) is a great example. Classical physics, that of Newton and Laplace, may lead to deism: God created the world, but then it goes like a mechanical clock. Quantum mechanics brought some “hope” for a rather naïve theology: God acts in gaps between quanta of indetermination. Obviously, (...) any strict determinism jeopardizes the existence of free will. Yes, but only if human mind follows the laws of physics and only if nothing exists outside the physical limits of space and time. We argue that human action lies in-between two worlds: “earth” and “heavens” using the language of Genesis. In that immaterial world, outside time and space constraints, there is no place for the chain of deterministic events. We discuss, in turn, that the principle of causality, a superior law even in physics, reigns also in the non-material world. Though, determinism in the material universe and causality in both worlds seem to be sufficient conditions, to eliminate “chaotic”, or probabilistic causes from human (and divine) action. (shrink)

Although quantum mechanics can accurately predict the probability distribution of outcomes in an ensemble of identical systems, it cannot predict the result of an individual system. All the local and global hidden variable theories attempting to explain individual behavior have been proved invalid by experiments (violation of Bell’s inequality) and theory. As an alternative, Schrodinger and others have hypothesized existence of free will in every particle which causes randomness in individual results. However, these free will theories have (...) failed to quantitatively explain the quantum mechanical results. In this paper, we take the clue from quantum biology to get the explanation of quantum mechanical distribution. Recently it was reported that mutations (which are quantum processes) in DNA of E. coli bacteria instead of being random were biased in a direction such that the chance of survival of the bacteria is increased. Extrapolating it, we assume that all the particles including inanimate fundamental particles have a will and that is biased to satisfy the collective goals of the ensemble. Using this postulate, we mathematically derive the correct spin probability distribution without using quantum mechanical formalism (operators and Born’s rule) and exactly reproduce the quantum mechanical spin correlation in entangled pairs. Using our concept, we also mathematically derive the form of quantum mechanical wave function of free particle which is conventionally a postulate of quantum mechanics. Thus, we prove that the origin of quantum mechanical results lies in the will (or consciousness) of the objects biased by the collective goal of ensemble or universe. This biasing by the group on individuals can be called as “coherence” which directly represents the extent of life present in the ensemble. So, we can say that life originates out of establishment of coherence in a group of inanimate particles. (shrink)

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; (...) the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: In his keynote paper David Chalmers defines ‘the hard problem’ by posing certain ‘Why’ questions about consciousness? Such questions must be posed within an appropriate setting. The way of science is to try to deduce the answer to many such questions from a few well defined assumptions. Much about nature can be explained in terms of the principles of classical mechanics. The assumptions, in this explanatory scheme, are that the world is composed exclusively of particles and fields governed (...) by specified mathematical laws that refer neither to any individual person, nor to anyone’s experiences. These physical laws are supposed to be such that particles and fields, acting in concert, can form causally efficacious real functional entities such as driveshafts and propellers. Similarly, surges of electrical and mechanical activity in appropriately designed material substrates, composed of particles and fields acting in concert, could implement, in the world of matter, complex functional structures and long sequences of logical operations. Thus it is conceivable that all of our behaviour, and all of the internal processing that occurs in our bodies and brains could be deduced, at least in principle, from the principles of classical mechanics and appropriate boundary conditions. -/- Contents: 1. Introduction: Philosophical Setting 2. Quantum Model of the Mind/Brain 3. Person and Self 4. Meeting Baars's Criteria for Consciousness 5. Qualia 6. Free-Will. (shrink)

Goswami proposes to replace the current scientific paradigm of physical realism with that of a quantum-based monistic idealism and, in the process, accomplish the following goals: establish a basis for explaining consciousness, reintegrate spirituality, mysticism, morality, a sense that the universe is meaningful, etc., with scientific discoveries and the scientific enterprise, and support the assumption that humans possess free will - i.e., that they are not controlled by the apparently inexorable causality of the physical laws that govern the (...) functioning of their brains. Here, we critically examine this approach, from an artificial intelligence and neural network perspective, and point out what appear to be some inherent weaknesses in Goswami's arguments. (shrink)

We discuss the ‘Consciousness Causes Collapse Hypothesis’ (CCCH), the interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which consciousness solves the measurement problem. At first, it seems that the very hypothesis that consciousness causally acts over matter counts as a reductio of CCCH. However, CCCH won’t go so easily. In this paper we attempt to bring new light to the discussion. We distinguish the ontology of the interpretation (the positing of a causally efficacious consciousness as part of the furniture of reality) (...) from metaphysics (the metaphysical character of that consciousness). That distinction allows us to map the philosophical theories of consciousness compatible with quantum mechanics under the tenets of CCCH. Also, it indicates that the problem will have to be discussed at a metaphysical level rather than at the physical level. Our analysis corroborates recent arguments to the effect that this interpretation is not ruled out so easily. (shrink)

"Clear and coherent... One of the most exciting aspects of the book is the author's account of how the consequences and implications of the breakthroughs in quantum mechanics challenged the mechanistic, deterministic philosophy fostered by classical science."-- The Science Teacher. Written by a respected Harvard physicist, this introductory account of the evolution of quantum physics also explores the subject's philosophical implications. The opening chapters trace the development of physics from antiquity onward, chronicling the origins of quantum mechanics (...) and the ways in which quantum theory was used to address previously unsolved problems and to interpret observable atomic phenomena. Succeeding chapters are devoted to matters at the forefront of research pertaining to elementary particles, and the text concludes with a look at the old and new concepts of physical science and their relationship to issues of philosophy and religion--including considerations of causality, determinism, and free will. 1968 ed. 36 black-and-white figures. 12 halftones. (shrink)

The evolution of the human mind through natural selection mandates that our conscious experiences are causally potent in order to leave a tangible impact upon the surrounding physical world. Any attempt to construct a functional theory of the conscious mind within the framework of classical physics, however, inevitably leads to causally impotent conscious experiences in direct contradiction to evolution theory. Here, we derive several rigorous theorems that identify the origin of the latter impasse in the mathematical properties of ordinary differential (...) equations employed in combination with the alleged functional production of the mind by the brain. Then, we demonstrate that a mind--brain theory consistent with causally potent conscious experiences is provided by modern quantum physics, in which the unobservable conscious mind is reductively identified with the quantum state of the brain and the observable brain is constructed by the physical measurement of quantum brain observables. The resulting quantum stochastic dynamics obtained from sequential quantum measurements of the brain is governed by stochastic differential equations, which permit genuine free will exercised through sequential conscious choices of future courses of action. Thus, quantum reductionism provides a solid theoretical foundation for the causal potency of consciousness, free will and cultural transmission. (shrink)

In the last few decades, the relevance of quantum mechanics to the free-will debate has been discussed at length, especially in relation to the prospects of libertarianism. Basing his interpretation on Anscombe’s seminal work, Putnam argued in 1979 that, given that quantum mechanical indeterminacy is holistic at the macrolevel—i.e., it is not traceable to atomistic events such as quantum jumps of single atoms—it can provide libertarians with the kind of freedom they seek. As shown in this (...) article, however, Putnam ultimately reached the conclusion—together with the other author of this article—that his argument was wrong due to problems with the way it appealed to the Uncertainty Principle.**. (shrink)

A view that emancipates free will by means of quantum indeterminism is frequently rejected based on arguments pointing out its incompatibility with what we know about quantum physics. However, if one carefully examines what classical physical causal determinism and quantum indeterminism are according to physics, it becomes clear what they really imply–and, especially, what they do not imply–for agent-causation theories. Here, we will make necessary conceptual clarifications on some aspects of physical determinism and indeterminism, review some (...) of the major objections against libertarian conjectures, and show that there is no conceptual incompatibility preventing us from taking a ‘quantum-libertarian’ approach to the problem of free will. In particular, we will illustrate the possible role of self-causation (causa sui) as a potential solution to otherwise apparently incompatible or even paradoxical statements concerning free will and quantum indeterminism. (shrink)

Following the lead of von Neumann and Wigner, Goswami has developed a paradox-free interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idealistic notion that consciousness collapes the quantum wave function. This solution of quantum measurement theory sheds a considerable amount of light on the nature of consciousness. Quantum theory is applied to the mind-brain problem and a solution is proposed for the paradox of the causal potency of the conscious mind and of self-reference. Cognitive and neurophysiological (...) data in support of the present theory are also reviewed. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Conway and Kochen’s Free Will Theorem (1,2) to the conclusion that quantum mechanics and relativity entail freedom for the particles, does not change the situation in favor of a libertarian position as they would like. In fact, the theorem more or less implicitly assumes that people are free, and thus it begs the question. Moreover, it does not prove neither that if people are free, so are particles, nor that the (...) property people possess when they are said to be free is the same as the one particles possess when they are claimed to be free. I then analyze the Free State Theorem (2), which generalizes the Free Will Theorem without the assumption that people are free, and I show that it does not prove anything about free will, since the notion of freedom for particles is either inconsistent, or it does not concern our common understanding of freedom. In both cases, the Free Will Theorem and the Free State Theorem do not provide any enlightenment on the constraints physics can pose on free will. (shrink)

This introduction to quantum mechanics requires little previous knowledge of physics. The book consists of three separate projects completed with varying degrees of success. The first chapters discuss classical physics with special attention to the concepts of matter and light. The middle chapters are devoted to quantum physics itself and how it developed from, and accounted for, problematic phenomena of earlier physics. Detailed, although not heavily mathematical, attention is given to the key experiments of quantum physics. These (...) chapters go on to discuss the so-called elementary particles, conservation laws, "strangeness," spin, various field theories, and other topics of current research. The final chapters are devoted to the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. This section, focused mainly on causality and free will, is superficial and disappointing--of more interest to ethics and theology than to the philosophy of science. The philosophical remarks which were made parenthetically in the first two sections of the book were more provocative and might well have been expanded in this section. If this last section were eliminated, the first section abbreviated, and the book released in paperback, the book would be a better buy as informative introduction to quantum mechanics. There are many diagrams, tables, illustrations, and photographs, as well as a glossary of technical terms and a critical bibliography.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The mainstream view today in neuroscience, biology, psychology, and philosophy, is that your conscious will has no effect upon your bodily actions beyond what is already caused by purely mechanical processes acting alone. Thus you are claimed to be, in essence, a mechanical automaton, with perhaps some elements of pure chance thrown in. Your natural belief that your willful efforts can have physical effects is called, accordingly, “The Illusion of Conscious Will”.

This book explains, in simple but accurate terms, how orthodox quantum mechanics works. The author, a distinguished theoretical physicist, shows how this theory, realistically interpreted, assigns an important role to our conscious free choices. Stapp claims that mainstream biology and neuroscience, despite nearly a century of quantum physics, still stick essentially to failed classical precepts in which mental intentions have no effect upon our bodily actions. He shows how quantum mechanics provides a rational basis for a (...) better understanding of this connection, even allowing an explanation of certain phenomena currently held to be "paranormal". These ideas have major implications for our understanding of ourselves and our mental processes, and thus also for the meaningfulness of our lives. (shrink)

Our conscious minds exist in the Universe, therefore they should be identified with physical states that are subject to physical laws. In classical theories of mind, the mental states are identified with brain states that satisfy the deterministic laws of classical mechanics. This approach, however, leads to insurmountable paradoxes such as epiphenomenal minds and illusionary free will. Alternatively, one may identify mental states with quantum states realized within the brain and try to resolve the above paradoxes using the (...) standard Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics. In this essay, we first show that identification of mind states with quantum states within the brain is biologically feasible, and then elaborating on the mathematical proofs of two quantum mechanical no-go theorems, we explain why quantum theory might have profound implications for the scientific understanding of one's mental states, self identity, beliefs and free will. (shrink)

The term action of consciousness is used to refer to an influence, such as psychokinesis or free will, that produces an effect on matter that is correlated to mental intention, but not completely determined by physical conditions. Such an action could not conserve energy. But in that case, one wonders why, when highly accurate measurements are done, occasions of non-conserved energy (generated perhaps by unconscious PK) are not detected. A possible explanation is that actions of consciousness take place within (...) the limits of the uncertainty principle. Two models are reviewed that, using the latter assumption, propose that consciousness can originate an action potential in the brain. One (that of Eccles) uses the latter assumption only, and the other (that of Burns) additionally assumes that consciousness acts, within those limits, by ordering quantum fluctuations. (shrink)

This paper briefly discusses some of David Bohm’s views on mind and matter and suggests that they allow for a stronger possibility for conscious free will to influence quantum dynamics than Henry Stapp’s approach.

Which way does causation proceed? The pattern in the material world seems to be upward: particles to molecules to organisms to brains to mental processes. In contrast, the principles of quantum mechanics allow us to see a pattern of downward causation. These new ideas describe sets of multiple levels in which each level influences the levels below it through generation and selection. Top-down causation makes exciting sense of the world: we can find analogies in psychology, in the formation of (...) our minds, in locating the source of consciousness, and even in the possible logic of belief in God. (shrink)

The mind-body problem is the ultimate intractable enigma. How can we - being complex physical systems - have multicoloured experiences, and make conscious choices? This book proposes that all fundamental constituents of the universe are agents, which perceive one another, and freely act according to their percepts. Contemporary science can be explained in entirely mentalistic terms. This is consistent with many interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as GRW and Roger Penrose’s OR theory.

The problem of free will arises because of the conflict between two inconsistent impulses, the experience of freedom and the conviction of determinism. Perhaps we can resolve these by examining neurobiological correlates of the experience of freedom. If free will is not to be an illusion, it must have a corresponding neurobiological reality. An explanation of this issue leads us to an account of rationality and the self, as well as how consciousness can move bodies at all. I (...) explore two hypotheses. On the first, freedom is a complete illusion. On the second, it is not an illusion, and there is a corresponding indeterminism at the neurobiological level. This can only occur if there is in fact a quantum mechanical element in the fundamental neurobiology of consciousness. (shrink)

An intricate quantum statistical effect guides us to a deterministic, non-causal quantum universe with a given fixed initial and final state density matrix. A concept is developed on how and where something like macroscopic physics can emerge. However, the concept does not allow philosophically crucial free will decisions. The quantum world and its conjugate evolve independently, and one can replace fixed final states on each side just with a common matching one. This change allows for external (...) manipulations done in the quantum world and its conjugate, which do not otherwise alter the basic quantum dynamics. In a big bang/big crunch universe, the expanding part can be attributed to the quantum world and the contracting one to the conjugate one. The obtained bi-linear picture has several noteworthy consequences. (shrink)

The paper begins with a general introduction to the nature of human consciousness and outlines several different philosophical approaches. A critique of traditional reductionist and dualist positions is offered and it is suggested that consciousness should be viewed as an emergent property of physical systems. However, although consciousness has its origin in distributed brain processes it has macroscopic properties - most notably the `unitary sense of self', non-deterministic free will, and non-algorithmic `intuitive' processing - which can best be described (...) by quantum-mechanical principles. (shrink)

According to a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, the causal role of human consciousness in the measuring process is called upon to solve a foundational problem called the “measurement problem.” Traditionally, this interpretation is tied up with the metaphysics of substance dualism. As such, this interpretation of quantum mechanics inherits the dualist’s mind-body problem. Our working hypothesis is that a process-based approach to the consciousness causes collapse interpretation (CCCI) ---leaning on Whitehead’s solution to the mind-body problem--- offers a (...) better metaphysical understanding of consciousness and its role in interpreting quantum mechanics. This article is the kickoff for such a research program in the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories. Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. (...) class='Hi'>Quantum Enigma explores what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrodinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrodinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves. (shrink)

I discuss the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered by Stapp (1993, 1995, 2000, 2004). First I show that decoherence-based arguments do not work against this theory. Then discuss a number of problems with the theory: Stapp's separate accounts of consciousness and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism of measurement (...) in QM is not a good explanation of the unity of consciousness for essentially the same reason that local interactions may seem incapable of accounting for it. (shrink)

Tranquillity’s Secret Presents A New Understanding Of The World And Ourselves, And A Forgotten Meditation Technique That Protects You From Traumatic Harm. There Is A Way Of Seeing The World Different. -/- My goal in this book is two-fold: to introduce a revolutionary paradigm for understanding ourselves and the world; and to explain an ancient meditation technique that brought me to the insights upon which it is founded. This technique appears in different forms in the extant spiritual and religious traditions (...) over millennia which have used it — and in which it has been acknowledged as the most efficacious way to reach a direct experience of mind, or the most direct path to a union with God. Unfortunately, the proper way to use it has been largely lost over the last few centuries along with a clear understanding of why it was claimed to be so highly efficient. The primary reason for this loss is the mechanical materialism that frames all our scientific knowledge today. Lady Anne Conway, an English philosopher and a contemporary of René Déscartes, the French Metaphysician of the Seventeenth Century, was the first to characterize his philosophy as the “Mechanical philosophy.” It was Déscartes’ fascination with garden automata (moving statues) that he saw throughout Paris during his time, that led to his idea that the bodies of animals are nothing more than machines of varying complexity – which could be replaced by metal cogs, axles, and wheels. This very contemporary idea is in fact his legacy to humanity — along with the mind-body split that it entails — as mechanism became the standard to which Nature and all life was compared, and still is. This was the genesis of the modern reductive scientific understanding of life as discovered mechanisms made up of dead matter. -/- Although Déscartes’ philosophy was not materialism proper, as he held mind to not be material in nature, his was the most significant move to a cognitive framing of all phenomena as the result of mechanical interactions, and he went so far as placing all non-human animals into the machine-only category, because, he argued, they didn’t have minds. While a full account of Déscartes’ thought is not useful in this work, I want to use Lady Conway’s term to make a distinction between a mechanical materialism, which materialism has evolved into, and a less severe understanding that is not so destructive of the primacy of two aspects of being alive — mind and cognizance — which today are asserted to be by-products or epiphenomena of material processes in the brain by strict adherents to the mechanical philosophy. -/- This frame allows nothing but dead matter, and all that is comprised of dead matter, to be entertained as real. Anything beyond that is either ignored, or considered to be nothing more than figments of someone’s imagination — and this both limits and structures our thoughts about everything. Even those who believe they have moved on from this limiting understanding continue to be fenced in by language, which is structured by it — so that there is no escaping its limitations via a simple substitution or redefinition of concepts. Rather, it will take a truly revolutionary new paradigm and a concomitant reframing of our understanding of ourselves, this world, and reality, and how they come together in the new paradigm. I characterize the difficulty of this change as being like that of meeting an alien race and trying to work out how they see reality before communication can begin — which is very difficult to do when one’s own view is so limited. -/- I call this revolutionary paradigm Responsive Naturing. -/- Responsive Naturing replaces the current paradigm and its concomitant idea of deterministic causality which is foundational in scientific practice today. It can do this because, as you will see, it better accounts for all categories of phenomena, and thus includes all the most important human experiences, such as that of being alive, of beauty, of love, and the ultimate unity of all things. Responsive Naturing provides a sound foundation for the sciences, without the imposed limitation of mechanical materialist explanations, so that both science and spirituality can be founded upon this single common understanding of how things work. -/- This novel paradigmatic understanding of reality intrinsically applies to all dimensions of mental phenomena — be it of perceptions, sensations, or thoughts — and from the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics to the stochastic nature of most physical phenomena, to the often accidental, sometimes fortunate, but never sure, character of all human activities. This makes this new paradigm immediately productive in a practical way — it simply works, as I will show. It empowers us in ways that our disjointed and parochial schools of thought lock us out of completely, opening up new possible methods of looking at problems and finding solutions across disciplines. However, understanding the repercussions of the new paradigm upon one’s cognitive frame and the concomitant structure of language is difficult to comprehend simply because it is alien to the existing frame and paradigm. The impetus to make the effort is becoming quite clear: -/- Today, the sciences are ruled by the limiting cognitive framing of mechanical materialism, and over the last century, the limitations of that frame and its associated scientific paradigm of physical causality have become obvious: science has become schizophrenic. On one hand, some scientists say everything is strictly determined by the laws of nature, and neither free will nor conscious intent have any involvement in what happens; but others say that the state of the underlying quanta that make-up everything is indeterminate until consciously observed with the intent to measure it. Mechanical materialism is why scientists say you have no free will, while you obviously experience that you do — and you are held responsible for your actions by society because you do. It is also why scientists cannot find a non-speculative explanation of consciousness on an evolutionary or biological level, even though being conscious is the most obvious aspect of being alive. And these contradictions have infected every aspect of our lives, and our world, by limiting our ability to see the world any other way. Even the formulation of spiritual doctrines is constrained today by this cognitive frame’s presence in our language. This is not an academic matter, as we see clearly in our failure, so-far, to change the path that has brought us to a global environmental collapse and the ecocide of life on Earth. -/- What is unique about the book’s approach is that it does not speculate about what might be the case, like so much of philosophy does. Instead, it relies upon meditative and contemplative insights that were gleaned directly from a dedicated advanced meditation practice over 60+ years of the author’s life. These insights were then confirmed by subsequent research into similar forms of this advanced meditation technique found across the world and throughout human history. In conjunction with my meditation practice, I have doctoral-level education in Philosophy and a 30-year career in Software Engineering. The latter was in part focused on automated software development, during which I was confronted with the unsolvable enigma — within the mechanical materialist understanding that I was enculturated into, and inculcated with — of Human Creativity. An enigma that set me on my path of discovery. -/- I have discovered, and continue to discover, just how productive this novel paradigm is in understanding ourselves and our world, by its ability to explain — in detail — so many of our experiences that are today either inexplicable, paradoxical, or ignored “for the present” by scientists until some hoped for mechanical description can be found. For the most part, scientists constrain themselves to describing mechanisms, but describing how is not explaining why — and that is why so much of our modern knowledge has a best-used-by-date. On the other side, seemingly all spiritual traditions accept this modern characterization of the world, ourselves, and reality that is manifest in our language, so that even spiritual phenomena and ideas are necessarily structured by it. We accept the ideas of separate beings, intentional entities, levels of consciousness, and attainment of enlightenment or unification with God, all of which are necessary because dead matter, and unconsciousness, are considered to be the starting point. It isn’t. Rather than just present this novel paradigm as a fait accompli, the book’s five sections bring the reader through stages of reconfiguration of our understanding: -/- Volume 1. The Way of Unsaying — The need for the articles in the first volume is not to tell the reader how things are, but to unsay the things that they have heard throughout their lives and have taken to heart. This is accomplished by exposing the logical and explanatory limitations of those ideas that usually go unnoticed. This is necessary to do in order to open the reader’s mind to other ways of accounting for phenomena, and navigating life, so that the reader will understand: first, why the meditation technique I will present is so effective; and second, why the novel paradigm that I propose will truly advance human knowledge and enable us to change our way of being in the world. In order to liberate oneself from seeing the world in a particular way I use skillful means to unseat all the understandings that we have all been inculcated with. This can be destabilizing, and you might find yourself getting annoyed, or even frightened. To paraphrase a Buddhist proverb: Better not to start; but if started, better to finish: -/- Volume 2. The Way of Contemplation — In this volume, the paradigm of Responsive Naturing is developed, building upon the dialogs in volume 1. This volume challenges the reader, since breaking free of one’s existing cognitive frame and paradigmatic understanding is not a trivial exercise, and neither is restructuring one’s thoughts to fit into a new paradigm. This section explains what Responsive Naturing means, how it works in both spiritual and scientific senses, my specific arguments for why it is the answer to our need for a better way to account for phenomena and experience, and how our way of being in the world can change because of it. I attempt to show, via a myriad of independent fields of study, just how powerful this paradigm is in explaining the various phenomena that until now, either had no scientific explanation, or had an incoherent and never proven one. -/- Volume 3. The Way of Tradition — This volume provides the reader with traditional descriptions of similar types of meditation to that which I am presenting. These techniques are related by the unusual support for meditation that they use: that of Inner Spontaneous Sound. This information is provided for two reasons: 1) to validate the technique I present in volume 4, The Way of Meditation, by showing the high esteem that these techniques have been held in by all spiritual traditions, and 2) to present a rational explanation for the technique’s effectiveness, based upon responsive naturing. Volume 4. The Way of Meditation — This volume describes the practice that I call “Great Responsiveness Meditation” which will allow the reader to: 1) engage in a long-term meditative and contemplative practice in order to attain the insights that are the foundation for the novel paradigm that I am presenting; and 2) to benefit from two unique side-effects of using inner spontaneous sound: one which protects the meditator during traumatic and extreme emotional experiences, especially of the kind now expected because of the current global environmental and societal crises; and the other — which is widely attested to — is an alchemical-like change in the meditator, who quickly displays compassion without self-centered concern. In Buddhism, this is known by the Sanskrit word “Mahākaruṇā,” which is the type of responsive compassion displayed by all enlightened beings. It is a permanent change in how we live our life, and it enables each of us to overcome our worst inculcated selfish behaviors. 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continent. 1.3 (2011): 149-155. The world is teeming. Anything can happen. John Cage, “Silence” 1 Autonomy means that although something is part of something else, or related to it in some way, it has its own “law” or “tendency” (Greek, nomos ). In their book on life sciences, Medawar and Medawar state, “Organs and tissues…are composed of cells which…have a high measure of autonomy.”2 Autonomy also has ethical and political valences. De Grazia writes, “In Kant's enormously influential moral philosophy, autonomy (...) , or freedom from the causal determinism of nature, became prominent in justifying the human use of animals.”3 One of the oldest uses of autonomy in English is a description of the French civil war from the late sixteenth century: “Others of the…rebellion entred in counsell, whether they ought to admit the King vpon reasonable conditions, specially hauing their autonomy.”4 Life, and in particular human life, and in particular human politics, is well served by the usages of autonomy . What about the rest of reality, however? Should it be thought of, if it's even considered real and mind-independent, as pure stuff for the manipulation or decorative tastes of truly autonomous beings? We tend to think of things such as paperweights and iPhones as mere tools of human design and human use. To use them is to cause them to exist as fully and properly as they can. But according to Martin Heidegger, when a tool such as a paperweight is used, it disappears, or withdraws ( Entzug ). We are preoccupied with copying the page that the paperweight is holding down. We are concerned with an essay deadline, and the paperweight simply disappears into this general project. If the paperweight slips, or if the iPhone freezes, we might notice it. All of a sudden it becomes vorhanden (present-at-hand) rather than zuhanden (ready-to-hand).5 Yet Heidegger is unable to draw a meaningful distinction between what happens to a paperweight when it slips from the book I'm copying from and what happens to the paperweight when it presses on the still resilient pages of the thick paperback itself. Further still and related to this point, even when I am using the paperweight as part of some general task, I am not using the entirety of the paperweight as such. My project itself selects a thin slice of paperweight-being for the purposes of holding down a book. Even when it is zuhanden the paperweight is withdrawn. Graham Harman is the architect of this way of thinking.6 Harman discovered a gigantic coral reef of withdrawn entities beneath the Heideggerian submarine of Da-sein, which itself is operating at an ontological depth way below the choppy surface of philosophy, beset by the winds of epistemology, and infested with the sharks of materialism, idealism, empiricism and most of the other isms that have defined what is and what isn't for the last several hundred years. At a moment when the term ontology was left alone like a piece of well chewed old chewing gum that no one wants to have anything to do with, object-oriented ontology (OOO) has put it back on the table. The coral reef isn't going anywhere and once you have discovered it, you can't un-discover it. And it seems to be teeming with strange facts. The first fact is that the entities in the reef—we call them “objects” somewhat provocatively—constitute all there is: from doughnuts to dogfish to the Dog Star to Dobermans to Snoop Dogg. People, plastic clothes pegs, piranhas and particles are all objects. And they are all pretty much the same, at this depth. There is not much of a distinction between life and non-life (as there isn't in contemporary life science). And there is not much of a distinction between intelligence and non-intelligence (as there is in contemporary artificial intelligence theory). A lot of these distinctions are made by humans, for humans (anthropocentrism). And the concept autonomy has come into play in policing such distinctions. In this essay I shall to try to liberate autonomy for the sake of nonhumans. I shall do so by parsing carefully the title, which is taken from Hakim Bey's work The Temporary Autonomous Zone .8 First we shall explore the term autonomous . Then we shall explore what the full meaning of zone is. Finally, we shall investigate what temporary means. Each of these terms is of great value. An object withdraws from access. This means that its very own parts can't access it. Since an object's parts can't fully express the object, the object is not reducible to its parts. OOO is anti-reductionist. But OOO is also anti-holist. An object can't be reduced to its “whole” either, “reduced upwards” as it were. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. So we have a strange irreductionist situation in which an object is reducible neither to its parts nor to its whole. A coral reef is made of coral, fish, seaweed, plankton and so on. But one of these things on its own doesn't embody part of a reef. Yet the reef just is an assemblage of these particular parts. You can't find a coral reef in a parking lot. In this way, the vibrant realness of a reef is kept safe both from its parts and from its whole. Moreover, the reef is safe from being mistaken for a parking lot. Objects can't be reduced to tiny Lego bricks such as atoms that can be reused in other things. Nor can be reduced upwards into instantiations of a global process. A coral reef is an expression of the biosphere or of evolution, yes; but so is this sentence, and we ought to be able to distinguish between coral reefs and sentences in English. The preceding facts go under the heading of undermining . Any attempt to undermine an object—in thought, or with a gun, or with heat, or with the ravages of time or global warming—will not get at the withdrawn essence of the object. By essence is meant something very different from essentialism . This is because essentialism depends upon some aspect of an object that OOO holds to be a mere appearance of that object, an appearance-for some object. This reduction to appearance holds even if that object for which the appearance occurs is the object itself! Even a coral reef can't grasp its essential coral reefness. In essentialism, a superficial appearance is taken for the essence of a thing, or of things in general. In thinking essentialism we may be able to discern another way of avoiding OOO. This is what Harman has christened overmining .? The overminer decides that some things are more real than others: say for example human perception. Then the overminer decides that other things are only granted realness status by somehow coming into the purview of the more real entity. When I measure a photon, when I see a coral reef, it becomes what it is. But when I measure a photon, I never measure the actual photon. Indeed, since at the quantum scale to measure means “to hit with a photon or an electron beam” (or whatever), measurement, perception ( aisthesis ), and doing become the same. What I “see” are deflections, tracks in a diffusion cloud chamber or interference patterns. Far from underwriting a world of pure illusion where the mind is king, quantum theory is one of the very first truly rigorous realisms, thinking its objects as irreducibly resistant to full comprehension, by anything.9 So far we have made objects safe from being swallowed up by larger objects and broken down into smaller objects—undermining. And so far we have made objects safe from being mere projections or reflections of some supervenient entity—overmining. That's quite a degree of autonomy. Everything in the coral reef, from the fish to a single coral lifeform to a tiny plankton, is autonomous. But so is the coral reef itself. So are the heads of the coral, a community of tiny polyps. So is each individual head. Each object is like one of Leibniz's monads, in that each one contains a potentially infinite regress of other objects; and around each object, there is a potentially infinite progress of objects, as numerous multiverse theories are now also arguing. But the infinity, the uncountability, is more radical than Leibniz, since there is nothing stopping a group of objects from being an object, just as a coral reef is something like a society of corals. Each object is “a little world made cunningly” (John Donne).10 We are indeed approaching something like the political valance of autonomy . The existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. Objects contain other objects, and are contained “in” other objects. Let us, however, explore further the ramifications of the autonomy of objects. We will see that this mereological approach (based on the study of parts) only gets at part of the astonishing autonomy of things. Yet there are some more things to be said about mereology before we move on. Consider the fact that since objects can't be undermined or overmined, it means that there is strictly no bottom object . There is no object to which all other objects can be reduced, so that we can say everything we want to say about them, hypothetically at least, based on the behavior of the bottom object. The idea that we could is roughly E.O Wilson's theory of consilience .11 Likewise, there is no object from which all things can be produced, no top object . Objects are not emanations from some primordial One or from a prime mover. There might be a god, or gods. Suppose there were. In an OOO universe even a god would not know the essential ins and outs of a piece of coral. Unlike even some forms of atheism, the existence of god (or nonexistence) doesn't matter very much for OOO. If you really want to be an atheist, you might consider giving OOO a spin. If there is no top object and no bottom object, neither is there a middle object . That is, there is no such thing as a space, or time, “in” which objects float. There is no environment distinct from objects. There is no Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality). There is no world, if by world we mean a kind of “rope” that connects things together.12 All such connections must be emergent properties of objects themselves. And this of course is well in line with post-Einsteinian physics, in which spacetime just is the product of objects, and which may even be an emergent property of a certain scale of object larger than 10?¹?cm).13 Objects don't sit in a box of space or time. It's the other way around: space and time emanate from objects. How does this happen? OOO tries to produce an explanation from objects themselves. Indeed, the ideal situation would be to rely on just one single object. Otherwise we are stuck with a reality in which objects require other entities to function, which would result in some kind of undermining or overmining. We shall see that we have all the fuel we need “inside” one object to have time and space, and even causality. We shall discover that rather than being some kind of machinery or operating system that underlies objects, causality itself is a phenomenon that floats ontologically “in front of” them. In so doing, we will move from the notion of autonomy and begin approaching a full exploration of the notion of zone , which was promised at the outset of this essay. Since an object is withdrawn, even “from itself,” it is a self-contradictory being. It is itself and not-itself, or in a slightly more expanded version, there is a rift between essence and appearance within an object (as well as “between” them). This rift can't be the same as the clichéd split between substance and accidents , which is the default ontology. On this view, things are like somewhat boring cupcakes with somewhat less boring sugar sprinkles on them of different colors and shapes. But on the OOO view, what is called substance is just another limited slice of an object, a way of apprehending something that is ontologically fathoms deeper. What is called substance and what is called accidence are just on the side of what this essay calls appearance. The rift (Greek, chorismos ) between essence and appearance means that an object presents us with something like what in logic is known as the Liar: some version of the sentence “This sentence is false.” The sentence is true, which means that it is a lie, which means that it is false. Or the sentence is false, which means that it is telling the truth, which means that it is true. Now logic since Aristotle has tried desperately to quarantine such beasts in small backwaters and side streets so that they don't act too provocatively.14 But if OOO holds, then at least one very significant thing in the universe is both itself and not-itself: the object. An object is p ? ¬p. To cope with this fact, we shall need some kind of paraconsistent or even fully dialetheic logic, one that is not allergic to dialetheias (double-truthed things). Yet if we accept that objects are dialetheic, p ? ¬p, we can derive all kinds of things easily from objects. Consider the fact of motion. If objects only occupy one location “in” space at any “one” time, then Zeno's paradoxes will apply to trying to think how an object moves. Yet motion seems like a basic, simple fact of our world. Either everything is just an illusion and nothing really moves at all (Parmenides). Or objects are here and not-here “at the same time.”15 This latter possibility provides the basic setup for all the motion we could wish for. Objects are not “in” time and space. Rather, they “time” (a verb) and “space.” They produce time and space. It would be better to think these verbs as intransitive rather than transitive, in the manner of dance or revolt . They emanate from objects, yet they are not the object. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (Yeats).16 The point being, that for there to be a question, there must be a distinction—or there must not be (p ? ¬p).17 It becomes impossible to tell: “What constitutes pretense is that, in the end, you don't know whether it's pretense or not.”18 In this notion of the emergence of time and space from an object we can begin to understand the term zone . Zone can mean belt , something that winds around something else. We talk of temperate zones and war zones. A zone is a place where a certain action is taking place: the zone winds around, it radiates heat, bullets fly, armies are defeated. To speak of an autonomous zone is to speak of a place that a certain political act has carved out of some other entity. Cynically, Tibet is called TAR, the Tibetan Autonomous Region, for this very reason. In this phrase, Region tries to emulate zone : it sounds as if the place has its own rules, but of course, it is very much under the control of China. What action is taking place? “[N]ot something that just is what it is, here and now, without mystery, but something like a quest…a tone on its way calling forth echoes and responses…water seeking its liquidity in the sunlight rippling across the cypresses in the back of the garden.”19 If as suggested earlier there is no functional difference between substance and accidence; if there is no difference between perceiving and doing; if there is no real difference between sentience and non-sentience—then causality itself is a strange, ultimately nonlocal aesthetic phenomenon. A phenomenon, moreover, that emanates from objects themselves, wavering in front of them like the astonishingly beautiful real illusion conjured in this quotation of Alphonso Lingis. Lingis's sentence does what it says, casting a compelling, mysterious spell, the spell of causality, like a demonic force field. A real illusion: if we knew it was an illusion, if it were just an illusion, it would cease to waver. It would not be an illusion at all. We would be in the real of noncontradiction. Since it is like an illusion, we can never be sure: “What constitutes pretense…” A zone is what Lingis calls a level . A zone is not entirely a matter of “free will”: this concept has already beaten down most objects into abject submission. Objects are far more threateningly autonomous, and sensually autonomous, than the Kantian version of autonomy cited in the first paragraph of this essay. A zone is not studiously decided upon by an earnest committee before it goes into action. One of its predominant features is that it is already happening . We find ourselves in it, all of a sudden, in the late afternoon as the shadows lengthen around a city square, giving rise to an uncanny sensation of having been here before. Objects emit zones. Wherever I find myself a zone is already happening, an autonomous zone. It is the nonautonomous zones that are impositions on what is already the case. Or rather, these zones are autonomous zones that exclude and police. They are brittle. Every object is autonomous, but some objects try to maintain themselves through rigidity and brittleness, like (and such as) a police state. Paradoxically, the more rigidly one tries to exclude contradiction, the more virulent become the dialetheias that are possible. I can get around “This sentence is false” by imagining that there are metalanguages that explain what counts as a sentence. Then I can decide that this isn't a real sentence. This is basically Alfred Tarski's strategy, since he invented the notion of metalanguage specifically to cope with dialetheias.20 For example we might claim that sentences such as “This sentence is false” are neither true nor false. But then you can imagine a strengthened version of the Liar such as: “This sentence is not true”; or “This sentence is neither true nor false.” And we can go on adding to the strengthened Liar if the counter-attack tries to build immunity by specifying some fourth thing that a sentence can be besides true, false, and neither true nor false: “This sentence is false, or neither true nor false, or the fourth thing.” And so on.21 It seems as if language becomes more brittle the more it tries to police the Liars of this world. Why? I believe that this increasing brittleness is a symptom of a deep fact about reality. What is this deep fact? Simply that there are objects, that these objects are withdrawn, and that they are walking contradictions. This means indeed that (as Lacan put it) “there is no metalanguage,” since a metalanguage would function as a “middle object” that gave coherency and evenness to the others.22 Since there is no metalanguage, there is no rising above the disturbing illusory play of causality. This may even have political implications: no global critique is therefore possible, and attempts to smooth out or totalize are doomed to fail. To think the zone is to think the notion of temporary , which we shall now begin to discuss in greater detail. The zone is not in time: rather it “times.” But because a zone is an emanation of an object, it is based on a wavering fragility, since objects are p ? ¬p. When an object is born, that means that it has broken free of some other object. An object can be born because it and other objects are fragile. If not, no movement would be possible. Objects contain the seeds of their own destruction, a dialetheic sentence that says something like “This sentence cannot be proved.” Kurt Gödel argues that every true system of propositions contains at least one sentence that the system cannot prove. In order to be true, the system must have a minimum incoherence. To be real, it has to be fragile. Imagine a record player. Now imagine a record called I Cannot Be Played on This Record Player . When you play it on this record player, it produces sympathetic vibrations that cause the record player to shudder apart. No matter how many defense mechanisms you build in, there will always be the possibility of at least one record that destroys the record player.23 That is what being physical is. An object is inherently fragile because it is both itself and not-itself. When the rift between appearance and essence collapses, that is called destruction, ending, death. When an object breaks, several new objects are born. An opera singer sings a loud note in tune with the resonant frequency of a wine glass. (See the movie included below.) The singing is a zone, an autonomous level of intensity, opening a rift between appearance and essence. The glass ripples—for a moment it is nakedly a glass and a not-glass—almost as if it were having an orgasm, a little death. It is caught in the rift of the singing. Then its structure can't handle the coherence of the sound waves, and it breaks. It is incoherence and inconsistency that is the mark of existence, not consistency and noncontradiction. When things break or die, they become coherent. Essence disappears into appearance. I become the memories of friends. A glass becomes a dancing wave. Instantly, there are glass fragments, new temporary autonomous zones. The fragments have broken free from the glass. They are no longer its parts, but emanate their own time and space, becoming perhaps accidental weapons as they bury themselves in my flesh. Thus Hakim Bey's instructions on creating temporary autonomous zones oscillate disturbingly between performance art and politics, circus clowning and revolution. To play with the aesthetic is to play with causality, to rip from the sensual ether emanating from things new regions, new zones. Anarchist politics is the creation of fresh objects in a reality without a top or a bottom object, or for that matter a middle object: Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard. … There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin—your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.24 Bey imagines that this is because chaos is a primordial “undifferentiated oneness-of-being.” A Parmenides or a Spinoza or a Laruelle would read this a certain way. Individual objects, or decisions to talk about this rather than that, are just maggot-like things crawling around on the surface of the giant cheese of oneness.25 Yet he also describes chaos as “Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultraviolet than any mythology.” This image is of an inconsistent object, not of an undifferentiated field. An object, indeed, that can be distinguished from other things. If not, then the first part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , subtitled “The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism,” is a kind of onto-theology. Onto-theology proclaims that some things are more real than others. Bey, however, is writing poetically, and thus ambiguously. We are at liberty to read “undifferentiated oneness-of-being” as something like the irreducibility of a thing to its parts and so forth (undermining and overmining). This certainly seems closer to the language in the following paragraph: “There is no becoming … already you're the monarch of your own skin.”26 On this view, there is no difference between art and politics: “When ugliness, poor design & stupid waste are forced upon you, turn Luddite, throw your shoe in the works, retaliate.” Since Romanticism this has been the war cry of the vanguard artist.27 To say to is to fall prey to the tired axioms of the avant-garde, and we think we know how the game goes. But OOO is not simply a way to advocate “new and improved” versions of this shock-the-bourgeoisie boredom. Bey's text is certainly full enough of that. Rather, since causality as such is aesthetic, and since nonhumans are not that different from humans, the new approach would be to form aesthetic–causal alliances with nonhumans. These alliances would have to resist becoming brittle, whether that brittleness is right wing (authoritarianism) or left wing (the endless maze of critique). No “ism,” especially not the ultimate forms, nihilism and cynicism, is in any sense effective at this point. All forms of brittleness are based on the mistaken assumption that there is a metalanguage and that therefore “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” I will not be listing any approaches here, as Bey does. Such lists and manifestos belong to the vanguardism that no longer works. Why? Not because of some marvelous revolution in human consciousness, but because nonhumans have so successfully impinged upon human social, psychic and aesthetic space. It is the time after the end of the world. That happened in 1945, when a thin layer of radioactive materials was deposited in Earth's crust. Geology now calls it this era the Anthropocene . Ironically, this period, named after humans, is the moment at which even the most thick headed of us make decisive contact with nonhumans, from mercury in our blood to manta rays to magnesium. Richard Dawkins, Pat Robertson and Lady Gaga all have to deal with global warming and mass extinction, somehow. We now live in an Age of Asymmetry marked by a skewed, spiraling relationship between vast knowledge and vast nonhuman things—both become vaster and vaster because of one another and for the same reasons.28 This means that coming up with the perfect attitude or the perfect aesthetic prescription just won't work any more. Even the most hardened anthropocentrist now has to pay through the nose for basic food supplies, and has to use more sunscreen. Whether he knows it or acknowledges it, he is already acting with regard towards nonhumans. There is nothing special to think, no special critique that will get rid of the stains of coexistence. The problem won't fit into the well-established modern boxes, which is why the “mystical,” “spiritual” quality of Bey's prose is welcome. Of course, when I put it this way, you may immediately close off and decide that I am talking about perfect attitudes after all, or something outside of politics, or other ways that the radical left marshals to police its thinking of the nonhuman. Because that is what is really at stake in all this: the nonhuman in its coexistence with the human—bosons, gods, clouds, spirits, lifeforms, experiences, the sunlight rippling across the cypresses. Bey begins to get at this in a Latour litany in the second part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , “The Assassins”: Pomegranate, mulberry, persimmon, the erotic melancholy of cypresses, membrane-pink shirazi roses, braziers of meccan aloes & benzoin, stiff shafts of ottoman tulips, carpets spread like make-believe gardens on actual lawns—a pavilion set with a mosaic of calligrammes—a willow, a stream with watercress—a fountain crystalled underneath with geometry— the metaphysical scandal of bathing odalisques, of wet brown cupbearers hide-&-seeking in the foliage—“water, greenery, beautiful faces.”29 This will be conveniently dismissed as orientalism. If we're never allowed to escape the crumbling prison of modernity for fear of imperialism there is truly no hope. In a similar way, the fear of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism is very often staged from a place that just is anthropocentrism .30 Critique turns into ressentiment . An object radiates a zone that is aesthetic and therefore causal. Because objects “time” they are temporary. Not because they exist “in” time that eventually gets the better of them. Their very existence implies the possibility of their non-existence. Since objects are not consistent, they can cease to exist. But nothing, no one, will ever be able to insert a blade between appearance and existence, even thought there is a rift there. Now that's what I call autonomy. NOTES 1. John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), 96. 2. P. B. Medawar and J. S. Medawar, The Life Science: Current Ideas in Biology (London: Wildwood House, 1977), 8. 3. David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 5. 4. Antony Colynet, A True History of the Civil Warres in France (London, 1591), 480. 5. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1996) 62–71. 6. Graham Harman, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (Peru, IL: Open Court, 2002). 7. Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991). 8. Graham Harman, The Quadruple Object (Ripley: Zero Books, 2011), 7–18. 9. This is not the place to get into an argument about quantum theory, but I have argued that quanta also do not endorse a world that I can't speak about because it is only real when measured. This world is that of the reigning Standard Model proposed by Niels Bohr and challenged by De Broglie and Bohm (and now the cosmologist Valentini, among others). See Timothy Morton, “Here Comes Everything: The Promise of Object-Oriented Ontology,” Qui Parle 19.2 (Spring–Summer, 2011), 163–190. 10. John Donne, Holy Sonnets 15, in The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons , ed. John Carey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 11. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998). 12. Martin Heidegger, What Is a Thing? (Washington: Regnery, 1968), 243. 13. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (London: Penguin, 2006); Petr Horava, “Quantum Gravity at a Lifshitz Point,” arXiv:0901.3775v2 [hep-th]. 14. Graham Priest, In Contradiction (Oxford University Press, 2006), passim: the most notable recent quarantine officers have been Tarski, Russell, and Frege. 15. Priest, In Contradiction , 172–181. 16. William Butler Yeats, “Among School Children,” Collected Poems , ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1996). 17. Paul de Man, “Semiology and Rhetoric,” Diacritics 3.3 (Autumn, 1973), 27–33 (30). 18. Jacques Lacan, Le seminaire, Livre III: Les psychoses (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1981), 48. See Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 206. 19. Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 29. 20. Priest, In Contradiction , 9–27. 21. See Graham Priest and Francesco Berto, “ Dialetheism ,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. 22. Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection , tr. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1977), 311. 23. The analogy can be found at length in Douglas Hofstadter, “Contracrostipunctus,” Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 75–81. 24. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 25. This is closest to the language of François Laruelle in Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-Philosophy (New York: Continuum, 2011) 179. 26. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 27. Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 28. For further discussion see Timothy Morton, “From Modernity to the Anthropocene: Ecology and Art in the Age of Asymmetry,” The International Social Science Journal 209 (forthcoming). 29. Bey, “ The Assassins ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 30. Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 75–76. (shrink)

The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum (...) more suitable for formal analysis. It is argued that the mind is an ontologically open system; a causal high-level system, the future of which cannot be reduced to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, not even if it is rendered physically closed. A positive answer to the question of free will is subsequently outlined. (shrink)

The natural evolution of consciousness in different animal species mandates that conscious experiences are causally potent in order to confer any advantage in the struggle for survival. Any endeavor to construct a physical theory of consciousness based on emergence within the framework of classical physics, however, leads to causally impotent conscious experiences in direct contradiction to evolutionary theory since epiphenomenal consciousness cannot evolve through natural selection. Here, we review recent theoretical advances in describing sentience and free will as fundamental (...) aspects of reality granted by quantum physical laws. Modern quantum information theory considers quantum states as a physical resource that endows quantum systems with the capacity to perform physical tasks that are classically impossible. Reductive identification of conscious experiences with the quantum information comprised in quantum brain states allows for causally potent consciousness that is capable of performing genuine choices for future courses of physical action. The consequent evolution of brain cortical networks contributes to increased computational power, memory capacity, and cognitive intelligence of the living organisms. (shrink)

(I) John Searle's conception of consciousness in the 'Mind the Gap' issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies remains short on content, no advance on either materialism or traditional dualism. Still, it is sufficiently contentful to be self-contradictory. And so his Biological Subjectivity on Two Levels, like materialism and dualism, needs replacing by a radically different conception of consciousness -- such as Consciousness as Existence. (II) From his idea that we can discover 'gaps', seeming absences of causal circumstances, in our (...) experience of deciding and acting, Searle is led to the positing of a self and to mysterious causing. (III) In fact philosophers of determinism and freedom over three centuries have concerned themselves with what are now termed 'gaps'. Searle's advance is a useful terminological one. Compatibilist philosophers of freedom, contrary to what is said, have not missed any point at all. A successor to both Compatibilism and Incompatibilism is needed. (IV) Searle's previous account of deciding and acting in Biological Subjectivity on Two Levels does indeed fail because of its epiphenomenalism. (V) The culmination of his paper, his preferred hypothesis now about deciding and acting, is that down-up causation is true of it but not left-right causation. Quantum Theory as often interpreted doesn't work down-up but does work left-right. The hypothesis is entirely in the tradition of the Incompatibilist and Libertarian philosophers of determinism and freedom, whom Searle has joined, but is factually incredible. (shrink)

This study puts forward a theory of human behaviour in which consciousness plays a role in the production of behaviour. The assumption that behaviour is to be explained solely by reference to causal process is rejected, and instead it is supposed that human beings adaptively exercise free will.

Quantum mechanical theories of consciousness are contrasted to classical ones. A key difference is that the quantum laws are fundamentally psychophysical and provide an explanation of the causal effect of conscious effort on neural processes, while the laws of classical physics, being purely physical, cannot. The quantum approach provides causal explanations, deduced from the laws of physics, of correlations found in psychology and in neuropsychology.

The first priority of this response is to address Libet's rebuttal of my reinterpretation of his data. Then, because many authors have commented on various aspects of the debate, the rest of the response is organized in terms of subject matter, not as replies to each individual commentator. First, I reply to an objection expressed by two separate commentators to part of my reinterpretation of those of Libet's data supposedly supporting backward referral. This leads to a brief discussion of the (...) whole concept of backward referral. The relevance of the flash-lag illusion to possible measurement errors in the Libet/Trevena and Miller paradigm is addressed next. Finally, I have a few words to say on the relationship between quantum mechanical ontology and free will. (shrink)

The book explores philosophical issues such as idealism and free will and speculates on the relationship of consciousness to quantum mechanics.