Margins Of Reality: The Role Of Consciousness In The Physical World

R. G. Jahn, Brenda J. Dunne

R. G. Jahn, Brenda J. Dunne

R. G. Jahn

Карпенко Иван Александрович

The article analyzes the problem of the relationship between consciousness and physical reality in the context of some multi-world models. It is shown that the adoption of many- worlds models imposes certain restrictions on the criteria of scientific theory, as well as on the concept of what is considered a “theory of everything”. Based on the original criticism of solipsism and the properties of the second law of thermodynamics, it is proved that consciousness can be considered as a derivative of the fundamental principles (laws of nature) of the physical reality in which it operates. From this follows the conclusion, considering the adoption of the many-worlds hypothesis, that different types of consciousness should correspond to different worlds (with different sets of basic principles). Conclusions are also made about the role and status of mathematics in the considered hypothetical conditions, and the possibility of creating a “theory of everything” is questioned.

Stephen Priest

Interpretations of quantum physics are shown to presuppose the reality of consciousness. But if a minimal realism about the external world is true, then the consciousness presupposed by quantum reality cannot be only that of the scientific observer, cannot be only ‘local’ but must be ‘global’. Global consciousness is argued to have all and only the essential properties of God. Quantum reality depends on God’s consciousness and the physical world depends on quantum reality. Therefore, the physical world depends on God’s consciousness.

Paavo Pylkkänen

Western philosophy and science have a strongly dualistic tradition regarding the mental and physical aspects of reality, which makes it difficult to understand their possible causal relations. In recent debates in cognitive neuroscience it has been common to claim on the basis of neural experiments that conscious experiences are causally inefficacious. At the same time there is much evidence that consciousness does play an important role in guiding behavior. The author explores whether a new way of understanding the causal role of mental states and consciousness could be provided by the ontological interpretation of the quantum theory (Bohm and Hiley, Phys. Rep. 144:323–348, 1987; Bohm and Hiley, The undivided universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory. Routledge: London, 1993). This interpretation radically changes our notion of matter by suggesting that a new type of active information plays a causal role at the quantum level of reality. The author thus considers to what extent the alleged causal powers of consciousness involve information, and then moves on to consider whether information in (conscious) mental states can be connected to the information at the level of quantum physics. In this way he sketches how quantum theory might help to throw light upon one of the grand challenges facing the social sciences and the humanities, namely the question of whether consciousness plays any genuine causal role in the physical world.