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WITHDRAWN

Douglas Michael Snyder

Published Jun 25, 2024• 0 citations
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Abstract

The essay is a non-technical argument for a link between the mind and the physical world in modern physics. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and other areas of physics are explored. Each area is found to support the existence of a link between the mind and the physical world. Research from psychology is also presented indicating that there is a role for the discipline of psychology in delineating the nature of this link.

DOI
10.31234/osf.io/fvxyw

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A non-technical argument is presented that there is a link between the mind and the physical world in modern physics. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and other areas of physics are explored. Each area is found to support the existence of a link between the mind and the physical world. Research from psychology is also presented indicating that there is a role for the discipline of psychology in delineating the nature of this link.

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It is possible that discussion of the perennial mind-body problem has been vitiated by a misunderstanding, not of the philosophy or psychology involved, but of the physics? Michael Lockwood thinks so. 'In the preface to mind, Brain and the Quantum he writes' 'In reflecting on the relation of consciousness to the matter of the brain, philosophers have been apt to take matter for granted, assuming that it is mind rather than matter that is philosophicallly problematic.' However,(p178) 'quantum mechanics is not to be regarded as just another scientific theory... it demands a complete revolution in our way of looking at the world.' His thesis, then, is that a proper re-orientation of our view of the physical world in the light of quantum mechanics (or, more precisely, of his preferred view of the interpretation of the quantum formalism) will go at least a long way towards resolving the problem of the nature of 'mental' phenomena and processes.

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The essay is a non-technical argument for a link between the mind and the physical world in modern physics. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and other areas of physics are explored. Each area is found to support the existence of a link between the mind and the physical world. Research from psychology is also presented indicating that there is a role for the discipline of psychology in delineating the nature of this link.
The mind of man is central to the structure and functioning of the physical world. Modern physical theory indicates that the mind stands in a relationship of equals to the physical world. Both are fundamental, neither can be reduced to the other, and both require each other for their full understanding. This thesis is at odds with the view of the universe found in Newtonian mechanics as well as the generally held view among contemporary physicists of modern physical theory. Since the Renaissance, people have come to understand a great deal about the physical world, and they have gained significant control over it. This increased power over the physical world has occurred hand in hand with the assumption that the structure and functioning of the physical world is essentially independent from human cognition. According to this assumption, if a person’s cognitive capacity did not exist, the functioning of the physical world would not be fundamentally altered. This last statement is not in fact correct, and modern physical theory, and even fundamentals underlying Newtonian mechanics, provide evidence to attest to this. Nonetheless, contemporary physicists for the most part do not see that the relationship of human cognition to the physical world is radically altered in their own modern theory, theory that is supported by a great deal of empirical data. Instead, attempting to preserve the thesis that the structure and functioning of the physical world is independent of the mind while on a practical level relying on modern theory that contradicts this thesis, physicists have placed themselves in the position of wondering at times exactly what is the nature of the physical world at the same time they obtain experimental results concerning the physical world that can only be labeled astonishing in their precision and the scope of their implications. Modern physical theory consists of three main components: 1) the special and general theories of relativity; 2) quantum mechanics; and 3) statistical mechanics. There are very successful theories that have been developed on the basis of these three bedrock areas. An example is quantum electrodynamics. But these theories owe their conceptual foundation to the three components mentioned. The basic issues at the core of these three components also are expressed in these later theories. In addition, there are new unresolved issues of a fundamental nature concerning the conceptual integrity of these later theories that do not apply to quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and statistical mechanics. Quantum mechanics and relativity theory are areas I have written about for over twelve years. The nature of statistical mechanics has also been of interest to me during this time. But when I took a serious look in 1993 at Tolman’s (1938) The Principles of Statistical Mechanics, it became clear that the mind is linked to the physical world in statistical mechanics, a relationship I had found earlier in both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. It was after reading Tolman’s justification of the method of statistical mechanics in the original that I decided to write this book. When I found that the three components of modern physical theory all pointed to the same relationship between mind and the physical world, it became clear that the fundamental isolation of the mind from the physical world that has characterized our experience since the development of Newtonian mechanics is unfounded. Based on empirically supported principles of modern physical theory, I determined that the appropriate assumption for one’s experience, that the mind is linked to the physical world, could be stated with confidence. The impact of this change in assumption concerning the relationship of man to the cosmos in modern physical theory will find its way into our everyday experience. It will perhaps have no greater effect than in reducing the sense of isolation of man from the world that has characterized modern existence.
A straightforward explanation of fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics concerning the wave function results in the thesis that the quantum mechanical wave function is a link between human cognition and the physical world. The reticence on the part of physicists to adopt this thesis is discussed. A comparison is made to the behaviorists’ consideration of mind, and the historical roots of how the problem concerning the quantum mechanical wave function arose are discussed. The basis for an empirical demonstration that the wave function is a link between human cognition and the physical world is provided through developing an experiment using methodology from psychology and physics. Based on research in psychology and physics that relied on this methodology, it is likely that Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen’s theoretical result that mutually exclusive wave functions can simultaneously apply to the same concrete physical circumstances can be implemented on an empirical level. Original article in The Journal of Mind and Behavior is on JSTOR at https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43853678.pdf?seq=1 . Preprint on CERN preprint server at https://cds.cern.ch/record/569426 .
Epistemic interpretations of quantum mechanics fail to address the puzzle posed by the occurrence of probabilities in a fundamental physical theory. This is a puzzle about the physical world, not a puzzle about our relation to the physical world. Its solution requires a new concept of physical space, presented in this article. An examination of how the mind and the brain construct the phenomenal world reveals the psychological and neurobiological reasons why we think about space in ways that are inadequate to the physical world. The resulting notion that space is an intrinsically partitioned expanse has up to now stood in the way of a consistent ontological interpretation.
Abstract Physics has a somewhat uneasy relationship to the mind. On the one hand, minds are part of the natural universe and although much of physics is concerned with the non-minded parts of reality, recently a set of problems has emerged in physics that has placed a special focus on observers. In quantum mechanics, the contrast between what the deterministic dynamics yields and what the observer sees is at the forefront of the theory’s difficulties. In the controversies surrounding time, questions about whether the relativistic image of time can account for the subjective experience of passage and flow have been central. In general, reconciling the manifest image of the world with the image presented by science requires at least some tacit understanding of how minds work. And because the evidence for our theories ultimately comes from experience, eventually we have to be able to bring the mind itself firmly under the scope of our physical theories. On the other hand, there is a set of philosophical controversies about the relationship between the mental and the physical that many people believe physics would do well to steer clear of. This chapter argues for a division between the aspects of the mind that physics must cope with and those that it can ignore. I argue the most difficult unresolved questions about the mind can be ignored without affecting progress in physics.
It is possible that discussion of the perennial mind-body problem has been vitiated by a misunderstanding, not of the philosophy or psychology involved, but of the physics? Michael Lockwood thinks so. 'In the preface to mind, Brain and the Quantum he writes' 'In reflecting on the relation of consciousness to the matter of the brain, philosophers have been apt to take matter for granted, assuming that it is mind rather than matter that is philosophicallly problematic.' However,(p178) 'quantum mechanics is not to be regarded as just another scientific theory... it demands a complete revolution in our way of looking at the world.' His thesis, then, is that a proper re-orientation of our view of the physical world in the light of quantum mechanics (or, more precisely, of his preferred view of the interpretation of the quantum formalism) will go at least a long way towards resolving the problem of the nature of 'mental' phenomena and processes.