just something to get this board started (this is from http://www.msu.edu/user/hacheema/lecture9.htm ):


Four Objections to Cartesian Dualism
• (1) Philosophical Objection: Where does interaction occur?

– Two substances must causally interact. But where?
– Spatial vs. Nonspatial interaction
– Contradiction? -- Dualism both requires that interaction must take place, but denies that mental events occur anywhere.




Four Objections cont.

• (2) Philosophical Objection: How does interaction occur?

– Descartes: ‘animal spirits’ convey mind’s influence to body.

– Response: Still leaves same problem. How does nonspatial substance interact with ‘animal spirits’?
Material causation: force is exerted. But force is a product of mass + acceleration. But nothing mental has mass and nothing mental is capable of acceleration. Therefore, if dualism is true, interaction appears impossible.




Four forms of Cartesian causation

• (1) physical-to-mental
• (2) mental-to-mental
• (3) mental-to-physical
• (4) physical-to-physical
• We can understand (4), but Descartes (and other dualists) owe us an explanation for each of (1), (2), and (3).




Four Objections cont.

• (3) Scientific Objection: Occam’s (‘Okham’s) Razor.

– All things being equal, the simpler hypothesis should be preferred.

• (i) Materialist posits 1 substance (1 type of causation)
• (ii) Dualist posits 2 substances (four types of causation)

– Dualist can tell us nothing of the internal constitution of mind-stuff, or of different types of causation.



Four Objections cont.

• (4) Scientific Objection: the Principle of the Conservation of Energy and the ‘causal closure of the empirical world’

The amount of energy in a closed physical system remains constant at all times (energy is neither created nor destroyed). Therefore, there can be no physical events without physical causes.

– mental-->physical / physical-->mental = gain and loss of energy.




One historical attempt to save dualism: Deny that mental-to-physical causation occurs
• Epiphenomenalism

ok..perhaps I've just leaped right into the fire here with my first post...

But after reading this.. I feel my 'mental' was just drained completely of all energy!

I think maybe I need a definition of Cartesian Dualism before I can really contribute anything worthwile here..

umm...so what was the question?? ..*fluffs her blonde hair...while looking extremely daft!*

this argument seems to pit Monism against Dualism, but how legitimate is this? In terms of Mind-Brain interactions, aren't we limiting ourselves conceptually by being tied down to such notions as monist vs. dualist? Maybe the mind-brain interaction is not adequately described by either monistic or dualistic notions.

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=1]Or perhaps, it is much likened to the Spinozian belief of one substance acting in two completely different ways. You can look at it in terms of a lens. Coming from one side of the lens, it appears to be convex, from the other side, concave, yet it is still the same lens. This is much like Spinoza's thought on the mind-body problem. For he thought there was only one substance, but being that it had infinite attributes, it could act in infinitely different ways. I agree with the first post's objections to Cartesian dualism, but there are many more arguements that you could expose. For instance, how can my mind be free if my body is determined. Descartes said that bodies are determined by the world they come into, but that the minds are completely free. This would have to be true if one proposed a complete separation of the body and mind. But it brings about a fundamental problem. If they must interact, which they do, how can it be possible for my mind to be totally free? How is it free when it is forced to interact with the corporeal body, which is destined to die, whereas the mind is destined for immortality.

What evidence is there for the immortality of the mind?

PS If you add a new bottom line to your last post [click on edit while viewing the post] as:-

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you will achieve your desires.
All the best Bill.

I can propose a mechanism for "mental->physical" interaction. Quantum mechanics postulates that an "unobserved" system evolves in a 100% deterministic fashion, and that during this evolution it exists as a "superposition" of all possible experimental outcomes. Only when we make a measurement on the system (i.e., observe it) does its state "collapse" to provide a specific numerical value for the measurement.

Decades of experimental work have confirmed this behavior, but quantum mechanics itself does not postuate a specific cause of the collapse process. Everyone feels it has something to do with "measurement" or "observation", but the theory as it stands today allows the division between the "system" and the "observer" to be placed anywhere; the results are the same.

I believe that our minds cause quantum collapse. In other words, prior to the action of our minds a system exists as a superposition of all outcomes that are compatible with the laws of physics. Our mind exercises free will by choosing one of the potential outcomes.

Because all of the possible outcomes are compatible with the (mind-free) laws of physics, no experimental test will reveal the actions of the mind. Quantum uncertainty produces pure randomness in non-living systems and apparent free will in living systems.

This point of view is 100% compatible with all existing laws of physics and every scientific measurement that's ever been made. I must point out that my proposal is not a scientific hypothesis because it can't be subjected to experiment test (at least not one that I've thought of). But it explains a great many things very nicely.

Regarding mental->mental and physical->mental, I believe that our minds lie outside of scientific theory, so we will probably never make a dent in these items. My proposal above doesn't explain how our minds "work", it merely offers a mechanism via which the mind can influence the physical world.

I've made a couple of posts on this topic on my own website (Kip Ingram Online).

I believe this is referred to as the 'multiverse' interpretation

Actually, not quite. The "multiverse" interpretation of quantum mechanics asserts that there is no collapse at all and that *everything*, including conscious minds, branches out into a never-ending superposition. In other words, everything that could possibly happen does happen, in some parallel universe.

Experimental evidence supporting the notion of superposition in an unobserved physical system is more or less irrefutable. But I believe that collapse does occur and that the action of our conscious minds triggers it. The relevant system may lie deep within our brains, but that's enough to give free will a "window of opportunity."

The multiverse interpretation certainly solves the measurement problem, but with a lot of baggage. Think about what "anything that could possibly happen does happen" means.

That last post (7:01 pm) was Kip Ingram again, by the way.

Yeah, "multiverse until observed" seems like an accurate way to describe the situation. I won't enter into a debate with you as to whether superposition "really" occurs or not, but I think denying that it occurs would put you even further out of the mainstream of physics than I am. This is precisely the aspect of quantum theory that has been subjected to exhaustive experimental test over the last few decades, and the theory has never failed to make correct predictions.

Feynman's Lectures on Physics has a good introduction to the experimental history, as does one of the early chapters of David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality. Both treatments more or less grab you by the nose and drag you, kicking and screaming if necessary, into acceptance of "quantum wierdness." You might also want to do some web research on Bell's Theorem and the Aspect experiment.

Also, I don't really like the notion of thinking that an entire universe exists around all of the quantum possibilities. A quantum system's state is described by a unit vector in a Hilbert space of possibly infinite dimensionality. It's just one vector, and that vector evolves deterministically. Any observation that you can make on that system has an associated "operator", and the possible results of the operation are the eigenvalues of that operator. If you get eigenvalue X as your result, the quantum theory asserts that the state of the system will then be the eigenvector that goes with X. The "multiple possibilities" just reflects that fact that the vector might jump to any of the operator's eigenvectors. There's never more than one vector.

You could think of making an observation as laying a template down on the system; the template forces the system (randomly) into one of a fixed set of conditions. Each possible observation has its own unique template.

although all that stuff sounds very reasonable insofar as it is the current dogma of Physics, although I cannot understand how any reasonable person cannot admit that 'collapse' smacks of absurdity in a strong way. More sensibly, this 'collapse' makes sense not as a real phenomenon but as a mathematical 'bootstrap' which forces the theory of quantum mechanics to fit observation

Well, the paradigm that we're all familiar with from a "common sense" perspective involves systems that change with time according to a first or second order differential equation. For example, Newton's law that the second time derivative of position is equal to "force/mass."

The first discovery in the quantum arena had nothing to do with collapse. It was the simple fact that physical quantities don't change smoothly with time but rather in distinct lumps called quanta. In other words, there is a "smallest possible change", and changes smaller than that can't occur.

That means that time derivatives aren't really well-behaved; they're either zero (in between quantum jump) or infinite (at the instant of the jump). That calls the entire differential equation based paradigm into question. Since time derivatives don't really exist in a well-behaved way if you look with sufficient resolution, you can't equate them to anything and expect to get something that makes sense.

Classical physics emerges from the statistics of quantum physics.

We know what the half-life of uranium is, but there's no way to know when a single atom of uranium will decay. It's random. When an electron falls from an elevated energy state to its ground state it happens randomly as well. Even those simple phenomena are sufficient to tell us that our classical picture of reality isn't all there is to the story.

I really think you should do some reading on all of this. My ideas regarding how quantum theory may relate to the mind-body problem are definitely outside of the conventional scientific view, but the notions that you're questioning are some of the most well-proven scientific principles that we have. They're fundamental.

So, to summarize: mainstream, thoroughly accepted physics acknowledges that quantum events occur in a significantly random fashion, and my notion is that said randomness provides a "window of opportunity" for mental->physical influence.

I certainly wouldn't try to claim credit for having had an original idea here. I was just referring to the statements I'd made earlier in the discussion. I also don't think that the concepts I'm advocating represent a scientific hypothesis in any way, since I can't propose a way to test them. So this is really a philosophical position, not a scientific position.

Regarding "what evidence is there that free will determines which outcome occurs..." From a physical perspective, there's none. Since all of the possible outcomes are equally compatible with the laws of physics, you can't really look at one and see how "free will" caused it in some dynamic fashion.

I should point out that I don't think "free will" is the nub of the issue at all. I don't think there's any test you can run on the external behavior of a person to prove he or she is conscious; I can certainly imagine a sufficiently sophisticated android giving a perfectly good impression of consciousness. On the other hand, if the android is governed completely by deterministic processes, I wouldn't consider the android to be "conscious." I think that what is the nub of the issue is self-awareness. All of us have self-awareness, and we perfectly well know it. But none of us can prove that another person has self-awareness. We assume that they do because we know that we do, they look and act an awful lot like we do, and we know that they're made of flesh and blood the way that we are too.

I really didn't mean to get into a big debate here. I merely pointed out that quantum randomness offers an "inlet" into physics for the "mental" to influence the "physical." That's a perfectly tenable position, but it could also be perfectly wrong. I personally find the idea to be the most likely that I've considered (certainly more likely than the notion that self-awareness just "switches on" when a brain becomes sufficiently complex). However, my official position is that all of this is possible.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

a quantum 'aether', with the nodes spatially related by phase, thus generating a 'pilot-phase-wave' background

If he has an advanced Collegiate degree then he just did use that silly terminology.
You might want to rephrase that statement to "no one that you have known" would use that terminology.
As long as people are making accusations of psychosis we might as well determine the basis of reference.
It seems there is more than one person who posts on this board who would fit another persons ideas of being deluded.
It would seem to be a personal point of reference.

I agree with the last entry; I'd far rather continue our technical/philosophical discussion than start taking swipes at one another.

Dan, my reading of your reply is that in the two-slit experiment a "pilot wave" guides the particles. When both slits are open each particle goes through only one slit, but the pilot wave goes through both and that gives rise to the interference pattern. Is that essentially correct?

You would concur, then, that Bell's Theorem and experiments like Aspect's have shown that the "pilot wave" travels faster than light?

The pilot wave seems to be an entity that makes the electrons "behave as if" they're going through both slits at the same time. But if we explicitly look to see which slit an electron passes through we alter the pilot wave; electrons then "behave as if" they're going through one slit or the other.

Or to put it another way: when we don't look at which slit electrons pass through, the pilot wave causes the system to behave as if it's a superposition of the "slit A possibility" and the "slit B possibility." When we do look, it causes the system to behave as if it "collapses" into either the "slit A possibility" or the "slit B possibility" on an electron-by-electron basis.

My next question is: what's the difference in your description and mine? I'm saying that quantum superpositions exist and observation causes collapse to a single possibility. You're saying that the universe "behaves as if" quantum superpositions exist and observation causes collapse to a single possibility.

Well, hey. Every experiment ever done has produced results that compatible with the hypothesis that systems exist as a quantum superposition prior to observation and that observation singles out one of the possibilities. So if that's not what's "really" happening, what is "really" happening? If your aether manifests itself only by "faking up" superposition/collapse behavior, what's the difference as far as we're concerned? It looks to me like you're merely proposing an implementation of the superposition/collapse process. In the context of my original post that would mean "mental" could affect "physical" by influencing the pilot wave.

If the pilot wave produces some other effect as well then it's a whole different ball game. Do you believe that it does?

the 'pilot' wave is not a real wave, but a 'phase' wave in a background quantum aether with each node relating to all other nodes via phase position. To say that because both ideas logically satisfy a particular observation, both ideas are equivalent in terms of physical plausibility, I disagree with. the 'collapse' idea requires me to believe that the world is making massive instantaneous transformations of state, dependent simply on my observation of it. This sounds extremely egocentric, and I can't believe that my simple observation can have such a constant universe-shattering impact

Solid State Physicists like Dr Don Robbins and Teller of Stanford would appreciate the node thought - besides which who cares if conventional a*s-kissers would like the term - works for me.

Well, if the pilot wave isn't real then how does it produce any kind of effect at all? If it does produce an effect then it must be "real."

I'm going to reiterate what the purpose of my original post was: to suggest a mechanism via which the "mental" could affect the "physical." It seems to me that a condition of even thinking about such a thing is to consider that the "mental" actually exists, at least for purposes of the discussion. If one doesn't think that "mental" exists separate from "physical," then there's no point discussing the "mental->physical" conduit.

*If* we assume, at least for the sake of argument, that the materialists have it wrong and "mental" exists, then it's *possible* that mental affects physical by influencing the otherwise random outcome of quantum dynamics. If you go for the Copenhagen interpreation, then this would occur by directing the collapse process. If you go for Dan's "pilot wave" thingie, then mental could affect the pilot wave. Let's not get sidetracked into a discussion of quantum theory interpretations.

The possibility that mental affects physical by influencing quantum processes cannot be ruled out given current experimental data, because noone has ever studied the quantum dynamics of system deep inside living brains. I don't think it's even possible to do that, because you couldn't collect an ensemble of results from identically prepared systems, which is how you normally check outcome probabilities experimentally.

Philosophically, I don't have to offer proof of my position since I'm claiming a possibility. Someone who takes the position that it's not possible for things to work this way have the burden of proof. It would be different if I claimed that this *is* how things are; then I'd have to offer proof. :-)

Obviously if you assume materialism is valid then "mental" is just an emergent property of physical processes, and would affect other physical processes by the familiar laws of physics. This is a very boring discussion from that angle.

I'm not saying the pilot wave isn't real, I'm saying it's an emergent spatial effect of local oscillators. That's why I'm calling it a phase wave

This thread started with objections to dualism and I would like to return to that topic, if I may. A quantum mechanical explanation of free will is interesting, but may not be necessary. A deterministic system is not necessarily predictable by 1) chaos theory and by 2) Turing undecidability. We are free, and a deterministic explanation of consciousness cannot chain us.

Epiphenominalism eliminates dualism, but renders consciousness useless (acausal) in the functioning of the brain, and there is strong evidence that consciousness is important in the way our minds work. First, consciousness focuses our attention. Consider a motorist talking on his cell phone. His consciousness and attention are on his conversation, so he's driving like a zombie, and presents a documented hazard to other drivers and pedestrians. Second, consciousness is important in memory formation. When our cell phone-using motorist strikes a pedestrian, he will have no memory of driving-related events leading up to the accident, but will probably remember what he was talking about on the phone. So we can rule out epiphenominalism as an explanation based on evidence from consensual reality.

Identity theory is superficially attractive but leaves open the question of unconscious mental activity. Sigmund Freud was so wrong about so many things, but his great contribution was his recognition of the role of the unconsious. Many times I have awakened in the morning with a ready-formed solution to a hard problem I had been pondering the day before. A good explanation is that unconscious mental processes are spun off to go work on problems, either in the background during waking, or during sleep. If identity theory is correct, then why aren't all mental processes conscious? Consciousness seems to move around, illuminating those things that have the attention of the ego. Identity theory might be modified to say that consciousness is identical with only those mental processes that happen to be conscious, but that leaves the question of how it is decided which mental processes are identical to consciousness and which are not.

Finally, identity theory doesn't seem to address the so-called hard problem of consciousness that asks "why?" (after Chalmers): Why should it be that there is something that it is like to be a person?

To add to my last post:

Pain feels terrible because, in relation to the rest of the body it *is* terrible. You may ask: "Why is it terrible?". The answer in this case is that it is terrible to the survival, reproduction or basically the natural selection of the genes of the body.

However, there are certain kinds of feelings related to synthetic ideas - ideas created by humans which are "independent" of our bodies. I spoke above about memes, which are communicable ideas which evolve over time, giving rise to cultural and moral evolution, and society itself. I need to make a distinction, now, between the "firmware" and the "software" of the brain. Obviously, everyone feels physical pain and everyone can taste food (well, almost everyone). This I would call "firmware". "Software" should probably be reserved for more complex ideas that can be communicated. Lets call these ideas 'memes' from now on.

Memes are expressed in each individual by sets of instructions (algorithms). Somehow your brain knows how to run memes on its animal machinery - somehow *you* know how to think. With practice you can express ideas in your mind with ease - basically you have implemented or installed many ideas into your mind through thought and communication.

Lets go back to our original example of pain. Pain from "firmware", for example getting burned, is terrible in relation to the genes of our bodies. With pain resulting from "software" (memes), it may be different. Pain from loss of a game of chess is probably terrible in the context of many different systems. It is a different matter for each instance of pain. In some cases pain may actually be a learned response, not good for our genes at all, but useful for society. Society itself is exapted indirectly from the genetics of humans, but it need not be slave to these genes - it often works for the good of itself, just as multi-cellular organisms often work for the good of themselves instead of their individual cells, although the individual cells have their own genes. You may think still think that social ideas must be slave to biology, but just consider social ideas to be *new* genes, and now you can see that these new social "genes" (actually they are memes) can be as selfish as can be - perhaps acting with no regard to some biological genes. Here, game theoretic accounts of biological and cultural evolution can give the best explanations. I won't go any further into it right now.

I want, right now, to say that we should forget about Descartes mind-first assumption. Descartes *assumed* there was a self, then went on from there. He believed he was being really cautious, but I think he assumed too much. I am more of an existentialist, so I don't even assume that there is a self. Instead I surmise that things exist (thoughts, feelings, etc.), and that somehow a "self" surrounds many of these observations. It should not be assumed that this "self" is any more valid than observations of things outside of the "self", or that this "self" is anything special or native to the universe, until it is determined otherwise.

One more short post for me, then I need to run.

All of these ideas from quantum mechanics change nothing with regards to consciousness. There is no moral or metaphysical significance to some randomness coming from "beyond" the brain. Even if it is true that quantum mechanics adds "true" randomness, it doesn't matter. We already have "selves" implemented by our brains (and possible quantum randomness, if you want to make that claim), and we already have pseudo-randomness from chaos theory.

So, if you think quantum mechanics adds randomness, fine. Maybe it even affects the way the physical brain operates in some unique ways. It doesn't matter, philosophically.

Here is where people will begin claiming there is an ultimate "I" that exists beyond the shield of quantum mechanics. However, we can already explain what "I" is using biology, psychology and memetics, so such a claim is just an unwarranted but understandable last grasp at dualism.

I don't mean to say that quantum mechanics doesn't affect the brain. But unless the mythical "I" behind quantum mechanics can be explained in terms of evolution, then it is just an assumption (assumptions can be correct, but in this case it doesn't seem likely).

If you get confused about determinism and free-will here, read up on some recent writers on free-will. Determinism can co-exist with free will. There is no conflict between these two ideas when they are defined coherently.

"Many brain researchers believe that lower animals are unconscious, that consciousness is somehow related to only the very highest brain (neocortex) functions found in humans and primates."

Check out the writings of Dr. Maurice Bucke.

Thank you for the reference, dear Mr. Unknown. I hadn't realized the connection with the poet, Walt Whitman.

Cosmic Consciousness



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A consciousness of the cosmos, knowing the life and order of the universe. It is considered a higher, yet at present an exceptional peak in human evolution which the race is expected to reach in a distant future.

According to Dr. Richard M. Bucke (1837-1902), a friend of Walt Whitman, some individuals, mostly of the male sex, between 30 and 40, and who are highly developed with good intellect, high morals, a superior physique, and an earnest religious feeling can acquire this consciousness.

Dr. Bucke considered thirteen individuals to have possessed such a consciousness: Gautama, Jesus, Paul, Platinus, Mohammed, Dante, Las Casas, John Ypes, Francis Bacon, Jacob Behmen, William Blake, Balzac and Walt Whitman.

The experience comes suddenly without warning with a sensation of being immersed in a flame or rose-colored cloud and is accompanied by a feeling of ecstasy, moral and intellectual illumination in which, like a flash, a clear conception in outline is presented to the mind of the meaning and drift of the universe.

The man or woman going through this experience knows that the universe is a living presence, that life is eternal, the soul of man is immortal, the foundation principle of life is love, and the happiness of every individual in the long run is absolutely certain. All fear of death, all sense of sin is lost, and the personality gains added charm and is transfigured. In a few moments of the experience the individual will learn more than in years or months of study and will learn much that no study will teach.

Walt Whitman described cosmic consciousness as "ineffable light, light rare, untellable, light beyond all signs, descriptions and languages."

Dr. Bucke, whose conclusions was presented in his remarkable book Cosmic Consciousness, was a descendent of Sir Richard Walpole, and was in the position of superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane at London, Onterio, Canada, for 25 years.

Distinctly there are many degrees of higher consciousness from the elementary awareness of shared consciousness with other individuals to the perception of profound scientific insight, and the transcendental experience of the mystic. These represent the varying degrees of creative intelligence of the cosmos, the infinite divine principle represented in the anthropomorphic symbolism of "God" in the many religions of the world. A.G.H.

In Richard Maurice Bucke's magnum opus, "Cosmic Consciousness", he explains it this way:

It is, in my opinion, that there exists in Whitman a function, faculty, sense, or whatever it may be called that does not exist in ordinary people, and it is from this faculty or sense that the charm and influence of the man and his words flow...

.....It may be that Walt Whitman is the first man who, having Cosmic Consciousness very fully developed, has deliberately set himself against being thus mastered by it, determining, on the contrary, to subdue it, and make it the servant along with simple consciousness, self consciousness and the rest and the united, individual Self. He saw, what neither Gautama nor Paul saw, what Jesus saw, thought not so clearly as he, that though this faculty is truly Godlike, yet it is no more supernatural or preternatural than sight, hearing, taste, feeling, or any other, and he consequently refused to give it unlimited sway, and would not allow it to tyrannize over the rest. He believes in it, but he says the other self, the old self, must not abase itself to the new; neither must the new be encroached upon or limited by the old; he will see that they live as friendly co-workers together. And it may be here said that whoever does not realize this last clause will never fully understand the "Leaves".

.....To the Buddhist Nirvana (the Cosmic Sense) is all in all; the body is nothing or less than nothing. It is against this most natural view (for the glory of Cosmic Sense is well calculated to throw into deep shade all the rest of life) that Whitman from first to last set himself. He saw with the eye of a true seer – with the eye of absolute sobriety and common sense – that the self consious life was as great in its way as was that of the new sense – let that be as divine as it would; saw that nothing ever was or could be greater than simple seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, knowing – and on that he took his stand. "The other I am," he says (the old self) "must not be abased to you" (the new sense) "and you must not be abased to the other."

.....Whitman has, and always will have, the eternal glory of being the first man who was so great that even the Cosmic Sense could not master him."

I was called The Cosmic Kid by the older brother of a friend who heard me prattle on about Whitman and Bucke. This man spent a night ridiculing me as we drank and played shuffleboard. He had just finished his Master's in History and I was 19 and visiting my old haunts for the last time I was there for years. I heard that he went to Thailand and joined a lamasery where he spent seven years shortly after that night.

I think "Platinus" in the above is a typo and should be "Plotinus," the neo-Platonist.