Off-campus access
Using PhilPapers from home?
Click here to configure this browser for off-campus access.
- David Bourget (2004). Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (12):17--42.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 to account for it.In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
| Export citation | Scholar
Discussion of David Bourget, Quantum leaps in philosophy of mind
Nothing in this forum yet.
Similar books and articles
David Bourget has raised some conceptual and technical objections to my development of von Neumann’s treatment of the Copenhagen idea that the purely physical process described by the Schrödinger equation must be supplemented by a psychophysical process called the choice of the experiment by Bohr and Process 1 by von Neumann. I answer here each of Bourget’s objections.
In my reading list
| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: sts.lbl.gov repositories.cdlib.org osti.gov ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: sts.lbl.gov repositories.cdlib.org osti.gov ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. Replies are given to arguments advanced in this journal that claim to show that it is to nonlinear classical mechanics rather than quantum mechanics that one must look for the physical underpinnings of conscious ness..
In my reading list
| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: citeseer.ist.psu.edu lbl.gov arxiv.org adsabs.harvard.edu au.af.mil | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: citeseer.ist.psu.edu lbl.gov arxiv.org adsabs.harvard.edu au.af.mil | Scholar | More.. Quantum approaches to consciousness are sometimes said to be motivated simply by the idea that quantum theory is a mystery and consciousness is a mystery, so perhaps the two are related. That opinion betrays a profound misunderstanding of the nature of quantum mechanics, which consists fundamentally of a pragmatic scientific solution to the problem of the connection between mind and matter.
In this book, which contains several of his key papers as well as new material, he focuses on the problem of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics...
In my reading list
| Discuss this book | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: link.aip.org adsabs.harvard.edu iop.org osti.gov springerlink.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: link.aip.org adsabs.harvard.edu iop.org osti.gov springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. A simple exactly solvable model is given of the dynamical coupling between a person’s classically described perceptions and that person’s quantum mechanically described brain. The model is based jointly upon von Neumann’s theory of measurements and the empirical findings of close connections between conscious intentions and synchronous oscillations in well separated parts of the brain. A quantum-Zeno-effect-based mechanism is described that allows conscious intentions to influence brain activity in a functionally appropriate way. The robustness of this mechanism in the face (...)
For many years, Henry Stapp and I have been working separately and independently on mind-centered interpretations of quantum theory. In this review, I discuss his work and contrast it with my own. There is much that we agree on, both in the broad problems we have addressed and in some of the specific details of our analyses of neural physics, but ultimately we disagree fundamentally in our views on mind, matter, and quantum mechanics. In particular, I discuss our contrasting opinions (...)
No categories
I argue that the logical difference between classical and quantum mechanics that Stapp (1995) claims shows quantum mechanics is more amenable to an account of consciousness than is classical mechanics is irrelevant to the problem.
Quantum mechanics unites epistemology and ontology: it brings human knowledge explicitly into physical theory, and ties this knowledge into brain dynamics in a causally efficacious way. This development in science provides the basis for a natural resolution of the dualist functionalist controversy, which arises within the classical approach to the mind brain system from the fact that the phenomenal aspects are not derivable from the principles of classical mechanics. A conceptually simple causal quantum mechanical theory of the mind/brain is described, (...)
The aim of this talk is to provide a rationally coherent physics-based understanding of the manner in which our conscious thoughts can influence our physical actions. An incidental aim is to expose the profoundly illinformed understanding behind the quip that “The claim of quantum physicists that consciousness is related to quantum mechanics comes from the idea that because quantum mechanics is a mystery and consciousness is a mystery, maybe the two are related.”.
No categories
When I look at the scale of the apparatus I know what it reads. Those absurdly delicate, hopelessly inaccessible, global correlations obviously vanish when they connect up with me. Whether this is because consciousness is beyond the range of phenomena that quantum mechanics is capable of dealing with, or because it has infinitely many degrees of freedom or special super selection rules of its own, I would not presume to guess. But this is a puzzle about consciousness that should not (...)
