Physics Within Nondual Consciousness Amit Goswami Introduction A basic problem of philosophy is to establish monism underlying all the apparent dualisms that exist around and about us. Some of these dualisms are consciousness/matter transcendent/immanent conscious/unconscious subject/object life/nonlife mind/brain exteriority/inferiority subject/person The straightforward approach, of course, is to consider all these as real dualities—this is the philosophy of dualism. However, the philosophy of dualism is not considered tenable if we take a scientific, explanatory, and verifiable approach. Take the dualism of consciousness and matter, for example. If consciousness and matter are truly dualistic, that is, made of two entirely different substances, then how do they interact? Their interaction requires a mediator. The obvious absence of a mediator speaks in favor of a monism. According to many physicists, scientists, and philosophers, physics must be carried out on the basis of the philosophy of material or scientific realism—the philosophy that only matter is real; all else, including consciousness, is an epiphenomenon of matter. It is assumed that such an approach serves to establish monism, based on material supremacy, over dualism. But material monism is a pseudomonism. In truth, material-realistic models of consciousness are unable to explain the hard questions of consciousness such as the subject/object split nature of experience (Chalmers 1995). Similarly, there are holistic approaches within the basic materialist ontology (Capra 1996) that try to resolve the consciousness/matter and transcendent/immanent dualisms by regarding consciousness as a holistic aspect of matter (the whole is greater than the parts), but this completely ignores the transcendent aspect of consciousness (Wilber 1996). The philosopher Daniel Dennet (1991) agrees that materialist cognitive-science models of consciousness in the brain do succumb to an underlying dualism, the implicit idea that a homunculus is looking at the computer output that the brain [End Page 535] generates. Dennet's own answer is operationalism (also called logical positivism). Consciousness is a purely operational concept; there is no substance to it and no causal efficacy, and thus no explanation is needed for the hard questions of consciousness. Operationalism does not work because consciousness does have causal efficacy as exhibited in such phenomena as creativity, ethics, and spirituality. But how does one include a causally potent consciousness in material-realist science, in which there is only upward causation—cause rising upwards in the hierarchical structures of matter? Elementary particles and their interactions cause all phenomena of the atoms; atoms and their interactions cause all phenomena of the molecules; molecules and their interactions cause all phenomena of the neurons; neurons are responsible for all phenomena of the brain; and the brain is the causal basis for consciousness. The physicist Henry Stapp (1995) has shown that in classical physics there are only two ways that consciousness can be treated: epiphenomenalism and dualism. But quantum physics has opened a way to introduce a causally efficacious consciousness in physics, and thus in all science (Goswami 1993; Herbert 1993; Stapp 1993; Eccles 1994). In particular, I have shown (Goswami 1989, 1990, 1993) that if quantum physics is interpreted on the basis of the primacy of consciousness as according to the philosophy of monistic idealism, then all the well-known paradoxes of quantum physics can be resolved satisfactorily. Like material realism, the philosophy of monistic idealism is also very old. The oldest known version is probably the Indian Vedānta, but the esoteric traditions behind all great religions are based on this philosophy. In the Western academy, Plato is perhaps the most easily identified monistic idealist. In monistic idealism, consciousness is the ground of all being and is transcendent. What we see as the immanent reality lies transcendent within consciousness until consciousness creates it by a power that Easterners call maya and that Plato identified as projection. The transcendent and the immanent are complementary aspects of one and the same thing; nama (name) and rupa (form) in Vedānta, yang and yin in Taoism, heaven and earth in Christianity, and the archetypes and the shadow show in the allegory of Plato's cave (Plato 1980) are some examples of such complementary pairs. This pair, along with consciousness (which transcends them both), makes up the trinity...
Physics Within Nondual Consciousness Amit Goswami Introduction A basic problem of philosophy is to establish monism underlying all the apparent dualisms that exist around and about us. Some of these dualisms are consciousness/matter transcendent/immanent conscious/unconscious subject/object life/nonlife mind/brain exteriority/inferiority subject/person The straightforward approach, of course, is to consider all these as real dualities—this is the philosophy of dualism. However, the philosophy of dualism is not considered tenable if we take a scientific, explanatory, and verifiable approach. Take the dualism of consciousness and matter, for example. If consciousness and matter are truly dualistic, that is, made of two entirely different substances, then how do they interact? Their interaction requires a mediator. The obvious absence of a mediator speaks in favor of a monism. According to many physicists, scientists, and philosophers, physics must be carried out on the basis of the philosophy of material or scientific realism—the philosophy that only matter is real; all else, including consciousness, is an epiphenomenon of matter. It is assumed that such an approach serves to establish monism, based on material supremacy, over dualism. But material monism is a pseudomonism. In truth, material-realistic models of consciousness are unable to explain the hard questions of consciousness such as the subject/object split nature of experience (Chalmers 1995). Similarly, there are holistic approaches within the basic materialist ontology (Capra 1996) that try to resolve the consciousness/matter and transcendent/immanent dualisms by regarding consciousness as a holistic aspect of matter (the whole is greater than the parts), but this completely ignores the transcendent aspect of consciousness (Wilber 1996). The philosopher Daniel Dennet (1991) agrees that materialist cognitive-science models of consciousness in the brain do succumb to an underlying dualism, the implicit idea that a homunculus is looking at the computer output that the brain [End Page 535] generates. Dennet's own answer is operationalism (also called logical positivism). Consciousness is a purely operational concept; there is no substance to it and no causal efficacy, and thus no explanation is needed for the hard questions of consciousness. Operationalism does not work because consciousness does have causal efficacy as exhibited in such phenomena as creativity, ethics, and spirituality. But how does one include a causally potent consciousness in material-realist science, in which there is only upward causation—cause rising upwards in the hierarchical structures of matter? Elementary particles and their interactions cause all phenomena of the atoms; atoms and their interactions cause all phenomena of the molecules; molecules and their interactions cause all phenomena of the neurons; neurons are responsible for all phenomena of the brain; and the brain is the causal basis for consciousness. The physicist Henry Stapp (1995) has shown that in classical physics there are only two ways that consciousness can be treated: epiphenomenalism and dualism. But quantum physics has opened a way to introduce a causally efficacious consciousness in physics, and thus in all science (Goswami 1993; Herbert 1993; Stapp 1993; Eccles 1994). In particular, I have shown (Goswami 1989, 1990, 1993) that if quantum physics is interpreted on the basis of the primacy of consciousness as according to the philosophy of monistic idealism, then all the well-known paradoxes of quantum physics can be resolved satisfactorily. Like material realism, the philosophy of monistic idealism is also very old. The oldest known version is probably the Indian Vedānta, but the esoteric traditions behind all great religions are based on this philosophy. In the Western academy, Plato is perhaps the most easily identified monistic idealist. In monistic idealism, consciousness is the ground of all being and is transcendent. What we see as the immanent reality lies transcendent within consciousness until consciousness creates it by a power that Easterners call maya and that Plato identified as projection. The transcendent and the immanent are complementary aspects of one and the same thing; nama (name) and rupa (form) in Vedānta, yang and yin in Taoism, heaven and earth in Christianity, and the archetypes and the shadow show in the allegory of Plato's cave (Plato 1980) are some examples of such complementary pairs. This pair, along with consciousness (which transcends them both), makes up the trinity...
Contemporary physics finds itself pondering questions about mind and consciousness, an uncomfortable area for theorists. But historically, key figures at the founding of quantum theory assumed that reality was composed of two parts, mind and matter, which interacted with each other according to some new laws that they specified. This departure from the prior (classical-physicalist) assumption that mind was a mere side effect of brain activity was such a startling proposal that it basically split physics in two, with one camp insisting that mind will ultimately be explained via physical processes in the brain and the other camp embracing mind as innate in creation and the key to understanding reality in its completeness. Henry Stapp made important contributions toward a coherent explanation by advocating John von Neumann’s orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics. von Neumann postulated that at its basis, quantum mechanics requires both a psychological and physical component. He was left, however, with a dualist view in which the psychological and physical aspects of QM remained unresolved. In this article, the relevant issues are laid out with the aim of finding a nondual explanation that allows mind and matter to exist as features of the same universal consciousness, in the hope that the critical insights of Planck, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, von Neumann, and Stapp will be recognized and valued, with the aim of an expanded physics that goes beyond physicalist dogma.
Natural science is founded on materialism. We treat the independent relationship between inner experience and outer physical entities as an axiom. This cognitive paradigm has successfully explained many natural phenomena; however, certain phenomena, such as those in quantum mechanics and psychological experiments, challenge this view, suggesting the inseparability of the inner and outer. Yet, the inner and outer appear to be distinct categories of existence, and experimental models demonstrating their transformative relationship remain lacking. This has led to issues like the explanatory gap. We propose that adopting holism is a potential solution to reconcile this dilemma: the inner experience can be objectively described and possesses objective causal efficacy. According to holism, objective reality and a causal relationship are not absolute but inseparable from the cognitive perspective. Materialism's view that the inner and outer exist as independent relations is an underlying assumption based on the third-person perspective rather than an axiom. From the third-person perspective, the physical properties of things are described, and we establish a causal relationship confined to spacetime, where things interact through physical medium. This cognitive perspective excels at describing the laws of motion governing simple systems but simultaneously introduces limitations, such as the explanatory gap. From the first-person perspective, the holistic attributes of things can also be objectively described. "Inner" and "outer" can be seen as two different states of experience, and things here interact holistically without a physical medium, forming causality unrestricted by spacetime. This perspective excels at revealing the laws governing complex systems/phenomena and can reconcile the explanatory gap. These two cognitive perspectives, although superficially opposed, are functionally complementary. Therefore, the generalized complementarity principle based on holism provides a falsifiable research approach for the "subjective" interpretation of quantum theory, potentially reconciling the contradictions between quantum theory and relativity. Holism also offers a solution for reconciling divergent viewpoints among consciousness theories, enabling phenomena related to consciousness across multiple disciplines to be explained within a unified theoretical framework. To test these hypotheses, we propose an experimental model to demonstrate that, similar to the role of force that we revealed in the third-person perspective, holistic interaction without a physical medium from the first-person perspective is also an objective way of interaction between things. Under holistic interaction, the inner experience, as a holistic attributes of things, can also produce observable and objective causal efficacy.
This book is a treat, a collection of essays about the relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics that is guaranteed to move the needle: serious, original, and relatively accessible. The essays develop cutting-edge views by thought-leading authors on questions that matter for the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of mind, and while to follow along you need to know what supervenience is and what an eigenstate is, the majority of essays should be accessible to advanced undergraduates (i.e., those who have taken a rigorous introductory course in quantum mechanics as well as a course or two in the philosophy of mind).Why care about the relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics? If you are coming from physics, your point of entry is probably the measurement problem. When you let quantum systems evolve according to the Schrödinger equation, they enter into superpositions of mutually incompatible states. How can this be reconciled with the testimony of our senses that such systems are always in one state or the other when we measure them (with a probability distribution given by the Born rule)? This is the measurement problem, and it concerns consciousness because it draws from the testimony of our senses.If you are coming from the philosophy of mind, your primary concern is probably the mind-body problem: the task of accounting for how consciousness arises out of or fits into physical reality. If consciousness is reducible, how might the details of quantum mechanics make it harder, or easier, to establish that reduction? If consciousness is irreducible, how might the details of quantum mechanics make it harder, or easier, to explain why consciousness exists, or to find some work for it to do in the world? You may also be concerned with the structure and function of consciousness: for example, you may hold that minds can do things that classical digital computers cannot, and take it that we must look to the quantum realm to discover how.If you are not already entrenched, you might just wonder what kind of world we live in. The mechanistic philosophy of centuries past seemed to disenchant the world, rendering it a place of barren corpuscles banging into one another, leaving no room for mind or meaning, except perhaps as patterns in the collisions, or useless epiphenomena. But quantum mechanics and its relativistic generalizations force a rethinking of the mechanistic picture from the ground up. Once the dust has settled—if it ever does—we may find reasons to relegate consciousness once again to the shadows. But we may also find reasons to give it pride of place. If you are after scientific reasons to reenchant the world, this is a good place to look.The entries in this volume address these questions and others besides. The volume is organized into three parts. The first part contains four essays about the idea that consciousness causes (or constrains) quantum collapse. The second part contains eight essays discussing other ways that consciousness might contribute to theories of quantum mechanics. The third part contains five essays about how quantum mechanics might contribute to an ultimate theory of consciousness. I’ll follow the book’s order.In chapter 1, David Chalmers and Kelvin McQueen develop a new consciousness-triggered collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics. On their approach, consciousness has a strict physical correlate (perhaps given by quantum integrated information theory), it is approximately superposition-resistant, and collapse dynamics are continuous (à la Philip Pearle). They respond to the standard objections that a consciousness-collapse link makes the collapse mechanism imprecise and requires dualism, as well as to worries about Quantum Zeno, among others. Crucially, their approach allows that superpositions of consciousness are possible: their motivation is to give the view a run for its money and to find work for consciousness to do in the universe, not to rid the world of all traces of superposed consciousness. One question: In taking consciousness itself to be superposition-resistant (rather than the environmental systems it asks questions about, as Henry Stapp suggests), we appear to favor internalism over externalism. What would an externalist variant look like? Another question: How exactly would experimental results—for example, that simple enough systems with maximal Φ remain in coherent superposition—constrain our theoretical options? If to accommodate this we have to impose an experimentally determined threshold for the minimal absolute Φ for consciousness, will that mean that on the physicalist version of the view, the property we privilege for superposition-resistance is just an arbitrary collection of atoms?In chapter 2, Elias Okon and Miguel Angel Sebastian defend a consciousness-collapse theory that they call the Subjective-Objective collapse model. Like Chalmers and McQueen, Okon and Sebastian invoke a Pearle-style continuous collapse dynamics and think of consciousness as only weakly superposition-resistant. A key contribution is the treatment of a worry about multiple realizability (i.e., the way that some property of biological neurons and some other property of artificial neurons might both realize the state of being in pain). The problem is that it is not straightforward to define Hermitian operators whose eigenstates are disjunctions of the eigenstates of other Hermitian operators: you must ensure orthogonality (“being red or being a circle” is not orthogonal to “being red or being square”). In answer, the authors point out that we don’t need each multiply realizable phenomenal state to be an eigenstate of our collapse operator; it suffices that each way of realizing each phenomenal state is an eigenstate. One question is whether this problematizes the dancing qualia argument. A second worry is that we still must find a suitable basis for Hilbert space. But theories of consciousness may constrain both position and momentum: for example, both distances between neurons and how energy is transferred. We can talk about wave packets, but these will not get us eigenstates of a Hermitian operator.In chapter 3, J. Acacio de Barros and Carlos Montemayor suggest that if a mentality-triggered collapse theory is what you want, you should opt for intentionality rather than phenomenality. This is because, first, we have evidence from psychophysics that there is unconscious perception. Second, the first-personal data that motivate collapse theory concern intentionality: we remember only recording definite values; our decisions about what to measure affect the outcomes we see. First question: Can the reasons we have for thinking that there is unconscious intentionality extend into a case for unconscious primitive intentionality? Another question is how the proposal here would differ from Stapp’s treatment of what questions a mind asks of the universe. A third is how we contend with Quantum Zeno, the effect that forces both Chalmers-McQueen and Okon-Angel Sebastian to say that consciousness is only weakly superposition-resistant. Those authors note the possibility that the relevant superposed states of consciousness might overflow access consciousness (in Ned Block’s sense). We may have an easier time ensuring that access conscious states only rarely enter into superposition, if we set them back from our front line of superposition-resistant states.In chapter 4, Adrian Kent explores objective collapse theories—mass-dependent continuous spontaneous localization models. Consciousness may not be in the spotlight on these theories, but they should at least ensure that collapse happens faster than the time it takes for a stimulus (e.g., a system of several photons) to make it from a retinal impact to consciousness. Angelo Bassi, Dirk-André Deckert, and Luca Ferialdi (2010) argue that for a range of theories this constraint is respected, with collapse for a system of several photos happening at around 100 ms. Kent problematizes their argument, showing that their estimation may be off by an order of magnitude or more. Kent’s point is compelling: more work is needed to refine the estimate and to conceptually clarify the import of the constraints from perception.Part 2 consists of eight essays on various ways that consciousness might figure in or constrain quantum theories. In chapter 5, Phillip Goff argues that 3N-dimensional wave function monism cannot accommodate ground truths about consciousness, pressing on worries that the view imposes too few structural constraints to allow for the unambiguous recovery of ordinary 3D reality. While I agree that wave function monistic accounts of ordinary reality (e.g., Albert’s functionalism or Ney’s priority monism) yield an explanatory gap (even given the 3D-ish structure of GRW jumps), I was puzzled here. All type-B physicalists confront an explanatory gap where consciousness is concerned. Isn’t this a point in support of wave function monism, since it amounts to a companions-in-guilt argument against opposition from other type-B materialists?In chapter 6, Peter Lewis raises some sensible worries about the use of phenomenal consciousness as an unanalyzed primitive or special case in quantum theory. He objects to the suggestion made by some Bohmians that we can be directly aware of the particles in our brains. Another target is John von Neumann, who appeals to intuitions about psychophysical connections to justify a collapse hypothesis. These are nice points: I would be curious to know whether Lewis thinks they apply to the justifications for mentalistic collapse theories from part 1.In chapter 7, Jenann Ismael first argues that the hard problem of consciousness is of no concern to physics per se: “If consciousness enters the problem space of physics, it does so by making a difference to the behavior of physical objects.” She then offers some clarifying remarks about how we might reconcile Van Gelder-style dynamicist conceptions of mentality with (virtual) machine functionalism. I find much to agree with here, though I do wonder how strictly to take Ismael’s claims about the irrelevance of the hard problem. If there is a tie between two theories of physics over predictive accuracy, elegance, and naturalness, but one yields a more satisfying analysis of consciousness than the other, are we not even allowed to treat that as a tie-breaker?In chapter 8, Shan Gao defends a mentalistic characterization of the measurement problem in reply to Andrea Oldofredi (2019). The question is whether the key premise of the measurement problem should be that measurements take on definite values or only that we (definitely) experience them as taking on definite values. Of course, our reasons for thinking that they do arise from our seeing or remembering that they do, but we can distinguish between the claim and our evidence for it. Gao argues that the underlying mentalistic claims are more inextricable from the dilemma than that. Many dilemmas involve premises for which the evidence is perceptual, though they make no mention of perception. Here, however, solutions to the problem require special attention to the nature of that evidence.In chapter 9, Paul Skokowski illustrates one reason that we must pay special attention to the nature of that evidence. Jeffrey A. Barrett’s (1999) bare theory is a minimalistic reading of Everett on which measurement outcomes are only definite if they obtain on all branches. One question is whether this means that observers have blatantly false disjunctive beliefs: let someone measure an electron’s spin and then ask, Do you believe that you got a definite measurement outcome, either “UP” or “DOWN”? The observer will say yes, because on each branch they saw one and not the other. However, by the lights of the theory, this disjunctive belief is false. Skokowski’s insight is that while the observer definitely says yes, it does not follow (by the lights of the bare theory) that the observer has a (definite) false belief, since the neural realizer for the disjunctive belief will be different on each branch and therefore not correspond to a common eigenstate (compare the worry from chapter 2 about multiple realizability). But isn’t this just to move from the frying pan to the fire, as it seems now that our observer has no (definite) beliefs at all?In chapter 10, Michael Silberstein and W. M. Stuckey advocate for a psi-epistemicist perspective that vindicates many phenomenological intuitions, including the one that experimental outcomes are definite (and intersubjectively consistent). The approach requires that we rethink naïve realism about the wave function and that we rethink mind-body duality, in favor of a neutral monist ontology governed by constraints. This is an exciting approach, though I’m not fully clear on how to differentiate neutral monism from its idealist, dual aspect, or panpsychist cousins.In chapter 11, Michael Bitbol suggests a phenomenology-first approach to interpreting quantum mechanics. Bitbol favors a QBist participatory realism, tempered by phenomenology, that could perhaps also be described as neutral monist. He notes that the phenomenology of embodiment (à la Merleau-Ponty) acquaints us with how something can be both active and passive, both minded and incarnate, and he traces the error of believing in a separate, physical world (an error participatory realism corrects) to the tendency of self-separation: the tendency to try to project ourselves beyond ourselves, discussed in Heidegger, Sartre, and Michel Henry. These phenomenological insights are enlightening, though I am still not quite clear on how the underlying (neutral?) ontology works. Who, precisely, are the observers? Do electrons have feelings, or are they just fictions we use to cope with ours?In chapter 12, Lucien Hardy describes an experiment in which humans might be used to determine the settings in a Bell experiment. Hardy suggests that the outcome may be a violation of quantum theory consistent with the Bell inequality. He argues that this result would support (superdeterministic) mind-body dualism and also could serve as a new more objective Turing test. This is a fascinating proposal: it remains only to do the experiment.This brings us to part 3: accounts that move from quantum mechanics to consciousness, rather than conversely. In chapters 13 and 14, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff give a comprehensive account of the current state of their ORCH-OR theory of quantum collapse and consciousness. Among other things we find here a nice presentation of Goodstein’s theorem as an example of a theorem that is noncomputable but easy enough for humans to understand, and a nice discussion of how retroactivity might equip us with something to say to Benjamin Libet about the role of consciousness in action selection. I’ll note, though, that I asked ChatGPT to explain Goodstein to me and it did a fairly good job, suggesting something like understanding. On Libet, I’m not sure what exactly we need retrocausality for: Why not just content ourselves that awareness of the action plan leaves time for a veto, as Libet and others have suggested?In chapter 15, Basil J. Hiley and Paavo Pylkkänen explore another route to a comprehensive theory of consciousness, drawing from the materials of a theory of quantum reality. Here, that theory is the Bohmian implicate order picture, with special attention to the notion of active information that arises there. This is another approach with neutral monist overtones, but here the wave function of a system behaves something like a customized hylomorphic form for the system while at the same time imbuing it with intentionality. There are interesting claims here about the continuity between life and mind, the unity of consciousness, and protopanpsychism, as well as some speculation of how the theory might align with the various scientific theories of consciousness inspired by psychophysics, like higher-order or global workspace theories.In chapter 16, William Seager offers a helpful discussion of the kinds of intelligibility at issue in these debates, distinguishing between mundane, mathematical, and metaphysical intelligibility, weaving together insights from Leibniz and others to argue that a Bohmian approach offers the best bet for a metaphysically intelligible world view. I sympathize with the positive aspects of his argument, though I think that other papers in this volume showcase the metaphysical intelligibility of rival approaches.Finally, in chapter 17, Lee Smolin describes a completion of quantum mechanics, also echoing Leibniz, which could support a theory of quantum gravity and which offers a new conception of consciousness: the causal theory of views, alongside the principle of precedence. This yields a novel sort of protopanpsychism in which the world is a collection of (background-independent) causal views, where views are conscious when they have a few extra features, including being unprecedented and being maximal. This is an exciting approach. One question is how we reconcile the claim that experiential states are maximal with the (mental) problem of the many, the problem that there are ties between composites (that differ over a stray ion or two) over which has best claim to be me.In closing, this is a fantastic volume. I commend Shan Gao for his editorial work: he would make a wonderful DJ. There are subtle symmetries in the way that each entry segues to the next, and the collection has a remarkable coherence.
Herein we are not interested in merely using dynamical systems theory, graph theory, information theory, etc., to model the relationship between brain dynamics and networks, and various states and degrees of conscious processes. We are interested in the question of how phenomenal conscious experience and fundamental physics are most deeply related. Any attempt to mathematically and formally model conscious experience and its relationship to physics must begin with some metaphysical assumption in mind about the nature of conscious experience, the nature of matter and the nature of the relationship between them. These days the most prominent metaphysical fixed points are strong emergence or some variant of panpsychism. In this paper we will detail another distinct metaphysical starting point known as neutral monism. In particular, we will focus on a variant of the neutral monism of William James and Bertrand Russell. Rather than starting with physics as fundamental, as both strong emergence and panpsychism do in their own way, our goal is to suggest how one might derive fundamental physics from neutral monism. Thus, starting with two axioms grounded in our characterization of neutral monism, we will sketch out a derivation of and explanation for some key features of relativity and quantum mechanics that suggest a unity between those two theories that is generally unappreciated. Our mode of explanation throughout will be of the principle as opposed to constructive variety in something like Einstein's sense of those terms. We will argue throughout that a bias towards property dualism and a bias toward reductive dynamical and constructive explanation lead to the hard problem and the explanatory gap in consciousness studies, and lead to serious unresolved problems in fundamental physics, such as the measurement problem and the mystery of entanglement in quantum mechanics and lack of progress in producing an empirically well-grounded theory of quantum gravity. We hope to show that given our take on neutral monism and all that follows from it, the aforementioned problems can be satisfactorily resolved leaving us with a far more intuitive and commonsense model of the relationship between conscious experience and physics.
The mind–matter relationship remained in the domain of philosophers for aeons. However, the inquisitiveness of the scientific minds has always been trying to understand the science behind its various functions. The scientific temper ushered in by the Renaissance about the 15th century saw the scientists exploring this problem from a science point of view. Technological advances during the later part of the 20th century enabled neuroscientists to explore and localise functions of the brain. However, the most difficult has been understanding the origin of a conscious experience scientifically or materialistically. Despite the delineation of many functions of the brain, the origin of conscious experience, the qualia, in the material brain remains elusive, so much so it came to be called the holy grail of neuroscience. Heisenberg wrote: ‘Physics entered the domain of philosophy with the emergence of consciousness in quantum observation, which incidentally opened the door for reconciliation of science and philosophy’,[1] an event which enabled the predictions of Snow of the merging of arts and sciences.[2,3] Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics relating to very small particles – subatomic particles – electrons, photons, and everything in the submolecular realm, being the smallest units in matter. Quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter available at present. Some basic concepts of quantum physics need to be understood. These include “superposition”, where in subatomic particles exist either as waves or particles in a dual nature, never simultaneously. They exist as waves in more than one place at a time and once an observer observes or interferes with (such as measuring) their superposition state collapses to particle state. Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles which are generated, interact with or share special proximity such that they remain connected even when separated by vast distances. Consciousness is a manifestation of quantum process. Q mind or Q consciousness comprises a group of hypotheses proposing that quantum mechanical phenomena such as entanglement and superposition may play an important part in the functions of the brain and could thus explain the origin of consciousness. Several theories of quantum consciousness have been proposed. Wigner proposed the idea that quantum mechanics has something to do with the workings of the mind and proposed that the wave function collapse in the interaction with conscious observation creates consciousness.[4] Vitiello and Freeman[5] proposed quantum field theory (QFT) of brain states. This theory deals with systems and provides formal elements from which a standard description of brain activity can be inferred. According to QFT, particles are only excited states or simply manifestations of a field. Every particle has its own field that covers all of the universe, which means that, according to QFT, all of the electrons of the universe belong to the same field and could be regarded as one. Bohm formulated the QFT as a deeper theory of quantum theory plus relativity.[6] He viewed mind and matter as projections into our explicate order underlying the implicate order. Quantum brain dynamics (QBD) hypothesis explains the function of the brain within the framework of QFT.[7] It is not yet known exactly how quantum superpositions and their collapse result in the genesis of the raw feels of consciousness, the qualia. Feynman stated ‘if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you do not!’[8] Pribram proposed the holonomic brain theory (quantum holography). He invoked quantum mechanics to explain the higher-order processing by the mind. Pribram provided evidence on how much of the processes in the brain take place in a distributed fashion.[9,10] The composite model of Pribram-Bohm of holoflux hypothesis addresses observed phenomenon of non-locality both spacially and temporally. Bose and Einstein, who first predicted Bose Einstein condensate proposed that water at dendritic membrane surfaces might operate by structuring condensation,[11] supporting QBD. Penrose and Hamoreff proposed the orchestrated-objective reduction (ORCH-OR) in 1989 through 2013. According to them, the microtubules in the neurons (neurotubules), the tubulin protein polymer at the site of quantum collapse, leads to conscious experience. The quantum superposed states which develop in the tubulins remain coherent and recruit more superposed tubulins until a mass-time-energy threshold is reached. At this point, self-collapse or objective reduction occurs, which is equated to a discrete conscious event. Cascades of ORCH-OR events give rise to the stream of consciousness.[12,13] Penrose suggested that objective reduction represents neither randomness nor algorithmic processing but instead a non-computable influence in spacetime geometry from which mathematical understanding and, by later extension, consciousness derives.[14] Quantum vibrations in the microtubules proposed by Bandyopadhyay[15] have been shown to be source of conscious experience by corroborating the Penrose-Hemeroff’s ORCH-OR hypothesis.[13,16] In April 2022, the results of two related experiments at the University of Alberta and Princeton University, announced at The Science of Consciousness conference, provided further evidence to support quantum processes operating within microtubules. However, in another experiment, Gregory D. Scholes and Aarat Kalra of Princeton University used lasers to excite molecules within tubulins, causing a prolonged excitation to diffuse through microtubules further than expected, which did not occur when repeated under anaesthesia.[17,18] Beck and Eccles considered quantum mechanics at the synaptic level. If Orchestrated objective reduction (ORCH-OR) theory is applicable, a similar phenomenon in the microtubules at the presynaptic level, the axon terminal could be invoked for the genesis of consciousness.[19] A recent study by scientists at Trinity College, Dublin, in October 2022,[20] suggests that quantum processes underlie the cognitive and conscious brain functions. The brain–mind operational architectonics is the boundary between and integration point of quantum physics and eastern metaphysics and that it may inspire building a richer and more inclusive paradigm of the brain–mind relation, where quantum physics and eastern metaphysics are inherently intertwined. A body of empirical evidence[21-24] supports these possibilities, strengthening the proposal that the mind–brain relationship may be partially quantum. Quantum information theory clarifies the distinction between the unobservable mind and the observable brain and supports a solid physical foundation for consciousness research. With all these theories trying to explain and understand the theoretical/hypothetical framework for consciousness to explain the subjective experience of consciousness, the experts of this field feel it is still a long way to bridge the gap between current neurobiological and physical–mathematical concepts with their associated quantum–mind theories. Though there is still a long way to go for explaining conscious experience scientifically, when ever this happens, it will become one of the benchmarks in science. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest. Use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology for manuscript preparation The authors confirm that there was no use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology for assisting in the preparation of the manuscript and no images were manipulated using AI.
Based on a material view and reductionism, science has achieved great success. These cognitive paradigms treat the external as an objective existence and ignore internal consciousness. However, this cognitive paradigm, which we take for granted, has also led to some dilemmas related to consciousness in biology and physics. Together, these phenomena reveal the interaction and inseparable side of matter and consciousness (or body and mind) rather than the absolute opposition. However, a material view that describes matter and consciousness in opposition cannot explain the underlying principle, which causes a gap in interpretation. For example, consciousness is believed to be the key to influencing wave function collapse (reality), but there is a lack of a scientific model to study how this happens. In this study, we reveal that the theory of scientific cognition exhibits a paradigm shift in terms of perception. This tendency implies that reconciling the relationship between matter and consciousness requires an abstract theoretical model that is not based on physical forms. We propose that the holistic cognitive paradigm offers a potential solution to reconcile the dilemmas and can be scientifically proven. In contrast to the material view, the holistic cognitive paradigm is based on the objective contradictory nature of perception rather than the external physical characteristics. This cognitive paradigm relies on perception and experience (not observation) and summarizes all existence into two abstract contradictory perceptual states (Yin-Yang). Matter and consciousness can be seen as two different statesof perception, unified in perception rather than in opposition. This abstract perspective offers a distinction from the material view, which is also the key to falsification, and the occurrence of an event is inseparable from the irrational state of the observer’s conscious perception. Alternatively, from the material view, the event is random and has nothing to do with perception. We hope that this study can provide some new enlightenment for the scientific coordination of the opposing relationship between matter and consciousness.