Quantum Conception of the Mind-Brain Connection

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Quantum Conception of theMind-Brain Connection
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• Our Scientific Understandings of Nature Have Two
  Different Kinds Of Elements
• Empirical/Mental/Subjective
• Realities
• Theoretical/Physical/Objective
• Properties

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Each mental aspect is embedded in the mind, or
stream of conscious experiences, of some
observing subject.
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Each physical aspect is specified by ascribing
mathematical properties to space-time points.

• The physical aspects are
• considered to be
• Objective
• i.e., to exist independently of being
• witnessed by observers.

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There Are Two Different Scientific Physical
Theories

• Classical Mechanics (CM)
• Quantum Mechanics (QM)

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• The Aim Of This Talk Is To
• Contrast
• The Conception Of The Mind/Brain Connection
  That Underlies Classical Mechanics
• With
• The Conception That Underlies Quantum
  Mechanics!

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The Core Precept of CM

• Only physically described properties enter
  into the causal dynamics!

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Fact

• Classical Mechanics (CM) was believed to be
  correct from the time of Isaac Newton (Principia,
  1687) until 1900.

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Fact

• During the first half of the twentieth century
  Classical Mechanics was found to be incompatible
  with vast amounts of empirical data, and it was
  replaced by Quantum Mechanics as our basic
  physical theory!

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The Most Radical Change Wrought By The Switch
From CM To Orthodox QM Is This

• Mental realities enter into the quantum dynamics!
  

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Question Why did the founders of quantum
mechanics introduce mental realities into the
physical dynamics?
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Answer!

• The evolving quantum state of a system consists
  almost always of a mixture of many alternative
  components corresponding to many alternative
  possible human experiences---not to some single
  human experience!

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• Within classical mechanics,
• in which only physically described
  properties appear,
• one can rationally maintain that
• mentally described things are just physically
  described things described in a different
  language!

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But within quantum mechanics the huge disparity
between the evolving physical state and any
actual human experiences rules out the
possibility of identifying mental states with
evolving physical statesMental realities must
be conceptually distinct from the physical, yet
causally related to the physical!

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Reconciling Theory with ExperienceIntroduce
Quantum Jumps!

• Allow the continuous evolution of the quantum
  state, governed by the Schroedinger Equation to
  be interrupted by abrupt changes called Quantum
  Jumps!
• Each subjective experience occurs in conjunction
  with a Jump of the quantum state to a state, S,
  that is compatible with that experience!

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Each conscious human experience is associated
with a PAIR of choices !

• Initially the quantum state of the system being
  examined is incompatible with any experience of
  the observing subject.
• Next the subject chooses a quantum state S that
  is compatible with such a possible experience.
• Then nature chooses either that state S, or some
  state S that is perpendicular to S.
• If nature chooses S, then the associated
  experience appears in the subjects stream of
  consciousness

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Simplification

• I shall, for didactic reasons, now simplify the
  description, relative to the full quantum
  mechanical machinery.
• This simplification retains the essence of
  quantum mechanics.
• In this vastly oversimplified model, the observed
  evolving macroscopic state is represented by a
  single point moving continuously on a circle of
  radius r1.

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S V

T
S'

• Fig.1 Diagram indicating the evolution of the
  unit-length state vector that represents an
  evolving macroscopic physical state that is being
  observed by a subject. The vertical and
  horizontal lines from the center of the circle
  are S and S, respectively, and the sloping line
  from the center of the circle is the state vector
  when it is rotated by an angle ? away from
  vertical. The vector V represents the velocity at
  ? 0 of the tip of the state vector.

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• In this model there is only one state that
• corresponds to a possible experience in the
  stream of consciousness of the subject.
• That state is the one represented by the vertical
  vector S, specified by the angle
• ? 0.
• The only freedom of choice on the part of the
  subject is the time, hence the ?, of the jump.
  This jump must be to either S or S.

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The Quantum Rules.

• The subjects choice of the vector S, and of the
  time of the jump, is not governed by, or
  contrained by, any known rule, either
  deterministic or statistical.
• In this very specific sense, the subjects
  choices can be called free choices.
• But natures choice IS conditioned by a
  statistical rule if the position of the vector
  before the jump is specified by ?, then the
  probability that it will jump to S is the square
  of Cosine ?.

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Repeated Probing Action.

• Suppose a probing action is made, and the state
  jumps to the state S. The tip of the vector in
  Fig. 1 will then immediately start moving, say to
  the right, around the circle of radius one ?
  will begin to increase, say at a constant rate.
  Suppose when the tip reaches the point specified
  by the value ? the same probing action is again
  made. Then the vector will jump either back to
  position S with probability equal to the square
  of cosine ?, or to S with probability 1 minus
  the square of cosine ?.

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Quantum Zeno Effect

• Given those statistical rules, it is easy to show
  that if repeated probing actions corresponding to
  S occur at a constant rate of n per second, then
  the probability that, after one second, every one
  of the n jumps will be to S, hence none to S ,
  tends to unity as n tends to infinity.
• Thus both the subjects experiences of the
  observed physical system, and that physical
  system itself, will tend to be held in place by
  the subjects rapid sequence of observations of
  that system.

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Connection to Attention.

• Assuming that intensity of attention to an
  experience correlates with the repetition rate of
  observations associated with that experience,
  the QZE entails that
• If a human observer/actor, by his free choice,
  focuses sufficient attention on a possible
  experience, then the physical correlate of that
  experience will tend to be held in place.

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Mind-Brain Connection

• The physical correlate of a thought can be a
  macroscopic pattern of neurological activity in
  the observers own brain. (von Neumann)
• Then the patients free choice of what thoughts
  to attend to, and the intensity of those
  attentions, can affect the longevity of the
  neural correlates of those thoughts.

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A Prevalent Misunderstanding.

• It is often asserted that Quantum Mechanics is
  not relevant to consciousness, because the
  neural correlates of our conscious thoughts are
  macroscopic brain processes, and macroscopic
  processes are said to be described by Classical
  Mechanics.

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The Correct Understanding

• In both classical and quantum mechanics big
  things are built out of smaller things. The
  underlying dynamics is therefore the quantum
  dynamics, which governs the evolution of the
  microscopic aspects, and consequently also the
  macroscopic aspects, except at the quantum jumps.
  

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A Placebo Experiment.

• Price et.al. (Pain 127,63-72,2007) conducted a
  placebo experiment in which the patients were
  subjected to a procedure that produced a
  heightened level of pain
• In a first session the patients were told that
  they would receive no treatment.
• In a subsequent second (placebo) session, which
  adhered to the same physical procedures, the
  doctor told the patient The agent you have just
  received is known to powerfully reduce pain in
  some patients.

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Empirical Results

• The reported pain in the second session was
  significantly less than in the first.
• An fMRI study showed that the neural activity in
  identified pain centers in the thalamus,
  somatosensory cortices, and insula, is
  significantly less in session two than in session
  one.
• Thus the spoken words influence not just the
  subsequent verbal reports, but also basic pain
  centers in the brain.

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How Can A Physician Or Neuroscientist Best
Understand The Effect Of The Spoken Words On The
Pain Centers In The Brain?

• Is an Understanding Based on Classical Mechanics
  or on Quantum Mechanics likely to be more useful?

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• Given that classical mechanics
• Is inapplicable to the mind-body problem, because
  it does not correctly describe the underlying
  micro-causal brain dynamics,
• and
• Fails to incorporate the complex interplay
  between mind and body that is a crucial to the
  switch from false classical mechanics to
  never-known-to fail orthodox quantum mechanics,
• and

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• 3. Demands, a priori, that any scientific
  explanation of behavior be exclusively in terms
  of physically described properties alone, which,
• A. Precludes, a priori, the possibility
  that the patients conscious understanding of
  spoken words can influence his behavior.
• but,
• B. Requires that the causal effects of
  the spoken words be deduced purely from the
  mechanical effects of the physical vibrations
  that constitute the physical description of the
  spoken words.

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One may ask

• Is there any good reason for a rational scientist
  or physician to restrict his theorizing, a
  priori, about mind-brain connection by imposing
  these highly restrictive conditions imposed by
  the known-to-be-false classical physics,
• Instead of basing his theorizing on the
  empirically validated quantum psycho-physical
  dynamics, which allows a persons mental
  processes to influence his neural processes in a
  rationally coherent and understandable way?

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Conclusion

• The ultimate origin of the observers free
  choice of what to attend to does remain a
  mystery.
• But from a practical scientific standpoint the
  ultimate origin of the observers free choice
  is irrelevant, because in practice the observers
  choices of what to attend to are under the
  effective control of his volitions, which depend
  on his expectations, his interests, and his
  understandings of the meaning of words. These are
  all described in mental terms, and are
  incorporated in QM.