Piero Scaruffi

These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"

�The Mental State Of Particles David Bohm�s quantum field contains "active information": the form of the field determines the energy and momentum of a particle. Active information is information that is relevant to determining the movement of a particle. This information is not an opinion: it is the objective aspect of reality. Bohm�interpreted this kind of information as the "mental� property of particles. Thus matter has "mental" properties as well as physical properties. A quantum level mediates between an underlying mental level and the physical level that we observe. Bohm�turns the table on supervenience: it is not the mental that supervenes upon the physical, it is the brain states that are dependent on mental states. On top of Bohm's theory, the Finnish philosopher Paavo Pylkkanen�offered a semiotic theory of the particle: the quantum field of the particle can be regarded as containing information about the environment surrounding the particle. The form of the wave function reflects the form of the environment. This form, in turn, determines the trajectory of the particle. The quantum field is a form of representation. Semiotically speaking (and using Peirce's terminology), the quantum field is the sign, the environment is the object and the trajectory is the �interpretant�.   Back to the beginning of the chapter "A Physics Of Consciousness" | Back to the index of all chapters