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These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
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Tripartite Idealism The US physicist Henry Stappelaborated on ideas already
advanced in previous decades by John Von Neumannand Eugene Wignerthat, basically, consciousness
creates reality. Stapps theory of
consciousness is grounded in Heisenberg's interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, that reality is a sequence of
collapses of wave functions, i.e. of quantum discontinuities. Of all
interpretations of Quantum Theory, this is also the closest to William James's view of the mental life as "experienced sense objects". Stapps view harks back to
the heydays of Quantum Theory, when it was clear to its founders that
"science is what we know". Science specifies rules that connect bits
of knowledge. Each of us is a "knower" and our joint knowledge of the
universe is the subject of Science. Quantum Theory is therefore a
"knowledge-based" discipline. This view was "pragmatic"
because it prescribed how to perform experiments, and it separated the system
to be observed from the observer and from the instrument. Von Neumannintroduced an
"ontological" approach to this knowledge-based discipline, which
brought the observer and the instrument into the state of the system. Stapp
describes Von Neumann's view of Quantum Theory through a simple definition:
"the state of the universe is an objective compendium of subjective
knowings". This statement describes the fact that the state of the
universe is represented by a wave function which is a compendium of all the
wave functions that each of us can cause to collapse with our observations.
That is why it is a collection of subjective acts, although an objective one. Stapp basically achieves a
new form of idealism: all that exists is that subjective knowledge. Therefore
the universe is not about matter: it is about subjective experience. Quantum
Theory does not talk about matter, it talks about our act of perceiving matter.
Stapprediscovers George Berkeley's idealism: we only know our perceptions (observations). Stapp's model of consciousness
is tripartite. Reality is a sequence of discrete events in the brain. Each
event translates into an increase of knowledge. That knowledge comes from
observing "systems". Each event is driven by three processes that
operate together: The "Schroedingerprocess" is a mechanical,
deterministic, process that predicts the state of the system in a fashion
similar to Newton's Physics: given its state
at a given time, we can use equations to calculate its state at a different
time. The only difference is that Schroedinger's equations describe the state
of a system as a set of possibilities, whereas Newtons equations described it
as just one certainty. The "Heisenbergprocess" is a conscious
choice that we make when we decide to perform an observation. The formalism of
Quantum Theory implies that we can know something only when we ask Nature a
question. This implies, in turn, that we have a degree of control over Nature.
Depending on which question we ask or not ask, we can affect the state of the
universe. Stapp mentions the Zeno effect as a well known process in which we
can alter the course of the universe by asking questions (it is the phenomenon
by which a system is "frozen" if we keep observing the same
observable very rapidly). We have to make a conscious decision about which
question to ask Nature (which observable to observe). Otherwise nothing is
going to happen. The "Diracprocess" gives the answer
to our question. Nature replies with an observed quantity, and, as far as we
can tell, the answer is totally random. Once Nature has replied, we have
learned something: we have increased our knowledge. This is a change in the
state of the universe, which directly corresponds to a change in the state of
our brain. Technically, there occurs a reduction of the wave function
compatible with the fact that has been learned. Stapp's interpretation of
Quantum Theory is that there are many knowers. Each knower's act of knowledge
(each individual increment of knowledge) results in a new state of the
universe. One person's increment of knowledge changes the state of the entire
universe, and, of course, it changes it for everybody else too. Quantum Theory is not about
the behavior of matter, but about our knowledge of such behavior. "Thinking" is a
sequence of events of knowing, driven by those three processes. Instead of dualism or
materialism, one is faced with a sort of interactive "trialism", all
aspects of which are actually mind-like. First, the physical aspect of Nature
(the Schroedingerequation) is a compendium of subjective knowledge. Second, the
conscious act of asking a question is what drives the actual transition from
one state to another, i.e. the evolution of the universe. And, finally, there
is a choice made from the outside, the reply of Nature, which, as far as we can
tell, is random. Stapp revives idealism by
showing that Quantum Theory is about knowledge, not matter. The universe is a
repository of knowledge, that we have access to and upon which our
consciousness has control. Back to the beginning of the chapter "A Physics Of Consciousness" | Back to the index of all chapters |
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